“31 But eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way. 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast.”
My high school graduating class had a ten-year reunion. My most memorable interaction of that reunion involved a business card. A classmate walked up to me, handed me his business card, waited for me to read it, nodded at me once I had read it, and then moved on to keep handing out business cards. His card made clear that he had earned his doctorate in psychology and was practicing in either Arizona or Texas. I don’t remember which. Now I can’t imagine anyone took that card as an act of love. I can’t imagine any classmate interpreted that handing of the business card with a smile before moving on as an attempt to benefit them.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that, that young man was attempting to prop up his self-worth by boasting. Perhaps he had a difficult time in high school and now was back with a doctorate to apparently prove his self-worth. I don’t think that is a far-fetched interpretation because high school reunions so easily devolve into clumsy attempts to impress one another. I know that temptation. “Many of us have been socialized enough not to brag in obvious ways that are sure to alienate others,” said Rick Philipps, “but ours is a whole way of life based upon self-glory and pride and vanity of spirit.”
It could easily be argued that our age is peculiarly prone to boasting. We have more opportunities than previous ages to boast thanks to social media. We have more exposure to boasting thanks to mass media and incessant entertainment. Boasting might be more prevalent today but it is by no means new. Men and women were boasting in Corinth and it had an impact on their church. Any boasting within this church will have an impact on us much like the impact of that business card. That card had a very different impact than that of love because you can’t boast and love at the same time. My classmate couldn’t. You can’t. You can’t boast and love at the same time. Make your choice. That is the claim of this sermon: you can’t boast and love at the same time.
We will see this in two points. First: love does not boast. Second: love is humble.
First: love does not boast. Boasting is, in many ways, the other side of the envy. When you envy a woman, you interpret whatever she has as an assault on your self-worth. When you boast to a woman, you want her to interpret what you have as a statement about your self-worth. Boasting is an attempt to prove your self-worth. It is a forcing of a particular view of yourself upon others. ‘You must see me as a Doctor of Psychology who is worthy of your respect.’
Boasting is, “an inordinate desire to call attention to oneself,” as Gordon Fee puts it. A boaster is uncomfortable if the attention is not fixed on her. A boaster, although she will never say it aloud, wants you to admit that she is better than you. She doesn’t want you to merely admit that she is better than you in terms of grades or income. She wants you to admit that her grades or income make her a better person than you.
Boasting is so endemic that the situation in which we find ourselves is really quite grave. By nature, every man wants to prove his superiority to every other man. He wants to be acknowledged as the best by everyone else, but, of course, no one will acknowledge it because everyone else is too busy trying to convince the rest of his own superiority. Paul explained this situation to Titus. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another.”
Now all this boasting is rarely blatant like my classmate’s business card. It is usually quite subtle. It is the dropping of a name here. It is the subtle reminder of an enviable circumstance there. The Pharisees excelled at this subtle boasting. As Jesus put it, “Everything they do is done for people to see.” The Pharisees did what they did as a quiet beast in their moral superiority. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men.”
Some examples of boasting are tragic. Consider Peter’s words to Jesus. “Even if all fall away on account of you, I never will.” ‘Jesus, I can see that these other guys will bolt when the pressure is on, but not me. I’m no fair-weather friend.’ Jesus was not impressed. “ [Peter] truly I tell you, this very night, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times.”
Perhaps you have boasted in your own faithfulness like Peter. Perhaps you have subtly built yourself up in the eyes of others like the Pharisees. Perhaps you boasted blatantly like my classmate. Perhaps you have boasted in your own spirituality like the Corinthians. It is likely that Paul had the Corinthians who spoke in tongues in mind when he wrote that, “love does not boast.” The Corinthian Christians prided themselves on these charismatic gifts and genuinely thought that possessing them made them better than others. Paul made clear that to think in such terms was opposed to the Holy Spirit because the mark of the Spirit is love and love does not boast.
Beware of boasting of your spirituality or your righteousness. It is a besetting temptation for the children of God. Beware of considering yourself indispensable to this church or any church. There is no love in such an attitude. Boasting of what you have done or can do in and for this church is no act of love. It will have an impact upon this church and upon your relationships within the church and that impact will be quite different from the impact of love. Love does not boast.
Now if we can even boast in our spirituality, we can boast in anything. Rebecca DeYoung is right, “people glory in the more mundane matters: the greenest lawn, the flattering cut of a new dress or suit, the cleanliness of a kitchen, a successful diet, the ability to namedrop impressively at social gatherings, the right car corresponding to our desired social status, the appearance of worldly success.”
We can even brag about our griefs and sorrows and painful pasts in order to show ourselves superior to others who haven’t been through what we’ve been through.
We find all sorts of reasons to boast, but, in the end, no one is nearlyt as impressed as we are with ourselves. Imagine that you have the all-time scoring record for your high school’s basketball program; your parents are rightly proud and others in this church would certainly celebrate with you. The fact of the matter, however, is that beyond that, no one thinks much of it just like no one would think much of the various victories in which I am tempted to boast. When any reasonable man hears another man boast, he listens, thinks, ‘okay,’ and then goes on about his life. No one is as anywhere near as interested in your boasts as you are. They are interested in their own lives. They might truly care about you, but they don’t care much about whatever it is you boast in. You find yourself self-worth in that boast. They do not.
It is actually quite a relief that others don’t find your self-worth in whatever it is that you boast in because if your self-worth can be reduced to a scoring record, or a doctorate, or an income, or a child’s achievements, that is insufficient. You were made for far more than whatever is that you boast in.
We are so quick to puff ourselves up because we do recognize that there is something insufficient in ourselves and that before God. Rick Phillips is right, “We are so busy trumpeting our virtues and strengths, when in fact we are covered in shame because of sin and are daily shown to be weak, needy creatures.”
You were made for far more than whatever it is that you are tempted to boast about. You were made for God. You were made to love like God, and Gordon Fee is right to say that, “it is not possible to boast and love at the same time.”
“If we have real love”, says Wayne Mack, “we won’t try to impress people with our power, knowledge, education, material possessions, beauty, skills, importance, position, background, list of associates, or family background.”
If you want to make the impact that love makes, don’t boast in any of that because your boasting cancels out any impact that love could make. Wouldn’t it be tragic if one day you found out that so much of what you thought you did for God was ultimately fruitless because you did it without love? Wouldn’t it be tragic if you found that you really did it to prove your self-worth to others and so it amounted to nothing.
Beware of boasting. It has nothing to do with love and will, therefore, never do what only love can do. This is not to say that boasting has no impact, however. Boasting certainly has an impact. It keeps you from connecting with others and with God. Rebecca DeYoung is right, “Relationships cannot flourish when we dupe or use others—as sources of flattery, as a dull background against which we can shine, or as tools in our reputation-building program… like other sins, this vice isolates us, rather than bringing us into loving fellowship with other people and with God.”
If you have come under conviction of boasting this morning, please recognize that at best, at absolute best, all you are gaining is the possibility that someone might think about your achievement for a fleeting second and then move on with her own life. You are losing any hope of relationship because just like you don’t want to be close to anyone who only uses you to prop up his own ego so others won’t want to be close to you if you are only using them to prop up your ego.
We must be clear that boasting is not merely a bad habit. It is a sin. Nebuchadnezzar suffered grievously for this sin. Jesus of Nazareth suffered grievously for this sin. He suffered grievously for all the boasting his people would ever do. Your boasting has an impact. Jesus still bears the marks of this impact.
If you are tempted to boast, consider Jesus. By any meaningful way of measuring, he is our better. He is superior to us, and yet he never boasted in any of it. You and I are tempted to boast in what doesn’t matter. We find ways to tell ourselves that we are better than one another. Jesus is God and he never boasted in that. God have mercy on us.
Love does not boast. Rather, love is humble. That is our second point: love is humble. Love, by definition, lifts others up. Boasting, by definition, lifts itself up. Boasting and love cannot coexist. For you to love, you must put boasting to death, which means you must be humbled. You must be humbled before God.
Now, you might have a low opinion of yourself because of depression. That is not humility. That is depression. You might have a low opinion of yourself by way of temperament or personality or your upbringing. That is not humility. Humility is a recognition of your proper position before God.
When you put yourself before God, you recognize that you have nothing to boast in. The very idea of a man standing in the presence of God and boasting in himself is ludicrous. By contrast, the account of Isaiah standing in the presence of God is sensible, “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”
Now perhaps you have never been humbled before God in a saving way. You must. You must recognize that not only do you have nothing to boast in before God, but you are so unworthy of boasting in that you must die to yourself and be born again. You cannot stand before God as you are. You need a new you.
God will give it to you. He makes it available by way of His Son. You get Christ’s righteousness; he takes your sin. You start living his life. That is the life of 1 Corinthians 13. When you are born again, you see that you have no reason for boasting because it is all of grace. You have every reason to be humble and it is a joy to be humbled before the love of God.
Now even Christ humbled himself before the Father; being in “very nature God, he did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!”
Jesus didn’t boast in his divinity. He served humanity. You are to have the same mindset. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus.”
People say, “it’s not boasting if you are the best,” but that is clearly not true. Jesus is the best and he never boasted. He loved. He put the interests of others in front of his own. The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve yet how often we who are infinitely less than Jesus come to be served and not to serve. It would be pathetic if it wasn’t so wicked, and yet Christ took this wickedness upon himself and died for this sin. Where your boasting abounds, his grace abounds all the more.
When you are what you should be, in other words when you are in the new creation, you will no longer boast. Thinking of those who have been made perfect, Jonathan Edwards writes, “humility is perfect in them; though they are pure, spotless, and glorious beings.” It is rather strange. I am far more prone to boast now than I will be in heaven although I am far less now than I will be in heaven. Boasting is not about excellence. It is about sin within the heart.
If you have the Holy Spirit, you can and must stop boasting in yourself. “By the grace given me,” writes Paul, “I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment.” I am tempted to think I am either remarkably special or remarkably deficient. I imagine you are like me in that. On some days, you really think you are quite the model human being and on other days you wonder if you are the most defective of human beings. Neither of those errors is a way of considering yourself soberly. Neither of those is humility before God. Neither of those will motivate you to any form of love. Humility motivates you to love.
You must humble yourself. You must humble yourself by boasting in the Lord. You boast in the Lord by recognizing that He is your better and not simply your better but infinitely your better. You are a mere beginner in the ways of love and He is the consummate expert. Your long-suffering lasts a mere millisecond compared with his patience. Your most creative act of kindness is far less than His least creative act of kindness. Don’t boast in yourself. Boast in the Lord. “When God is truly loved,” said Edwards, “He is loved as an infinite superior.” This is the spirit of the Psalmist who wrote, “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory.”
That is an excellent prayer for you to pray because you, like me, want the glory. You will be tempted to boast in your wisdom. You will be tempted to boast in your strength. You will be tempted to boast in your riches. But, “let not the wise man boast in his wisdom or the strong man boast in his strength or the rich man boast in his riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.’
The humble man does boast, but not in himself. He boasts in the Lord. This is sensible because what am I? What are you? You are sixty percent water. Dust you are and to dust you will return. Choosing to boast in yourself rather than in God is foolishness of the highest degree. “Jesus, who had everything to boast of, never boasted,” as one pastor put it. “In total contrast, we who have nothing to boast of are prone to boast. Only the love that comes from Jesus Christ can save us from flaunting our knowledge, our abilities, our gifts, or our accomplishments, real or imagined.”
You need to find your identity in Christ in order to stop boasting in yourself. Your boasting in yourself has an impact. It has an impact on your relationships. It has an impact on your impact for Christ. It is not a good impact. By contrast, boasting in the Lord is one of the most loving actions you can do. You will do no friend of yours any good by convincing her that you are more merciful than her. You will do this friend a great deal of good by convincing her that God is more merciful than her. You love others by making much of God. You love others by boasting in the Lord because what greater act of love could there be than pointing others to God?
Now perhaps you are here this morning and you have become convicted that boasting has become your way of life. You can’t imagine stopping because you are afraid of what you would think of yourself and what others would think of you if you no longer boasted. If you aren’t the smartest, who are you? If you aren’t the best, what are you? Well, you are what we all are. You are a sinner, but “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” You don’t need to prove your self-worth to God. You can’t. You must find your self-worth in His grace.
If you have found your self-worth in God’s grace, you are free to stop boasting and start loving. You can love the people before whom you used to boast. You can love those who do boast because you are no longer in competition with them. The choice between boasting and loving is yours to make. Your choice will make an impact on your relationships. Your choice will make an impact on this church. The greatest impact for the good that hs ever been made ws made by a man who never boasted. He was wiser than anyone he ever met but he didn’t draw attention to that fact. He was always the most merciful person in the room and the most thoughtful but he never ranked himself against others the way we do. He could have been anything and done anything but he never brought that fact up. He is the only one who ever had reason to say that he was better and that never seemed to cross his mind. It was so far from his mind that he was happy to die on your behalf. Jesus of Nazareth has made the greatest impact on the world and the greatest impact on His church. Boasting will not give you impact. Love will. Amen.