Humility and Conceit
1 Corinthians 4:6-13
Now we believe that the handbook for life and time and eternity is the word of God and so we want to look at it and see what it is that God has to say to us. The writers of the Bible were inspired by God and what they wrote is the very word of God. And so we study it verse by verse. And we find ourselves in this wonderful letter to the Corinthians written by the apostle Paul. The Corinthian church which he himself had been so very much a part of. He wrote back to them dealing with the man problems that had developed. The Corinthians had fallen into sin. That sin had manifested itself in many, many ways and as a result of that there were problems all throughout the church. And the letter is written to deal with those problems.
Notice would you Chapter 4, verses 6-13. I'm going to read it to you. Follow as I read. "And these things brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written. That no one of you be puffed up for one against another. For who maketh thee to differ from another and what hast thou that thou didst not receive. Now if thou didst receive it why dost thou glory as if thou hast not received it. Now you're full. Now you're rich. You've reigned as kings without us. I wish you did reign that we also might reign with you. For I think that God has set forth us the apostles last as it were appointed to death for we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ's sake, but you are wise in Christ. We are weak, but you are strong. You are honorable, but we are despised. Even unto this present hour we both hunger and thirst and are naked and are buffeted and have no certain dwelling place and labor working with our own hands. Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure it, being defamed we entreat. We are made as the filth of the world and are the offscouring of all things unto this day."
Now in this most poignant text of scripture. The apostle Paul is dealing with one theme. And that one theme is humility. It isn't easy at first to look at the passage and understand it, but I trust when we're done, you'll understand it thoroughly. Paul is talking about humility. As a servant of God and as a teacher of the church he recognized that humility was a necessary and vital part of his own life as it was a necessary and vital part of the life of every Christian. And so humility is really the essence of this text. By way of introduction just this thought throughout history, God's redemptive history, God's choicest leaders have always been humble men.
You can go as far back as Abraham, for example, in Genesis Chapter 18, in verse 27 and it says Abraham answered and said, "Now I behold have ventured to speak to the Lord although I am but dust and ashes." A recognition of his own humility in comparison with God. Jacob in Genesis 32:10 says, "I am unworthy of all the loving kindness and of all the faithfulness which thou hast shown to thy servant." A sense of unworthiness. Moses in Exodus 3:11 said, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt." Gideon given the command of the armies of Israel at a strategic time in Judges 6:15, said "Oh Lord, how shall I deliver Israel. Behold my family is the least in Manasseh and I am the youngest in my house."
John the Baptist, in Matthew Chapter 3, in verse 14, was invited by our Lord Jesus Christ to baptize the Lord and John said, "I have need to be baptized of thee and thou comest to me?" In John 1:27, He said, "He it is who comes after me who is preferred before me who is shoe latchet I am not worthy to loose." Tremendous sense of humility. Peter, it says in Luke 5:8, fell at Jesus' knees and said, "depart from me for I am sinful man oh Lord." The apostle Paul said the Ephesian elders in Acts 20, "you know the manner of my ministry among you. Serving the Lord with all humility of mind, many tears and trials."
In 2 Corinthians Chapter 3 in verse 5, Paul says not as though we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God. In Ephesians 3:8, Paul that marvelous servant of God said, "unto me who am the least of all saints is the grace given that I should preach." Always God's choicest people have known humility. Pride and fruitfulness are incompatible. The supreme example of humility in the scriptures and in all of history is our Lord Jesus Christ. We don't often think of Him in that way, but I remember the words of our Lord in Matthew 11:29 when He said, "for I am meek and lowly in heart."
And I remember the definition of His incarnation given by the apostle Paul in Chapter 2 of Philippians in verse 7 where he says, "He humbled himself." For the very God of the universe to allow himself to come to the level of human life that he did and to be spit upon and mocked and scourged and beaten and rejected and crucified is indeed humiliation. You can see the humility of Jesus Christ in the fact that He took on human nature. In the fact that He was born in a stable. In the fact that He had nothing life. That He was homeless, poor, dependent, partaking in our weaknesses, submitting to the law that He became a servant. That He was associated with sinners and despised people. That He refused honor from men. That He wouldn't be a king when they wanted to make Him one. That He washed feet. That He obeyed the Father. That He submitted to suffering reproach, mockery and even death.
God's choice people have always been humble. Humility is the channel to fruitfulness. Paul said in 2 Corinthians Chapter 12 "When I am weak, then I am," what, "strong." What he meant was when I recognized that in myself I can do nothing it is just then that "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Now the reason I introduced this with the subject of pride is because that is precisely the problems the Corinthians had manifest. They had a pride problem. They were boasters. In fact, throughout 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, these two letters, their pride is mentioned again and again. They gloried, they were puffed up, they boasted, they were vain. This is a real problem.
Now if you know anything about the Bible and you've studied it for any time at all, you know that really the basis of all sin is pride, isn't it? Because all sin is rebellion against God and rebellion against God amounts to me setting my will against His will, and that's a proud act. The Corinthians were proud. Their pride had manifested itself in first of all their love of human wisdom. Remember the first problem they had was the problem of division. And the reason the church was divided and didn't know unity, didn't know the blessed kind of unity that even we know, the reason was because they were polarized over philosophical issues.
And one group would say well, we're the ones that believe this politically or philosophically. And the other one, we're the ones that believe this politically and philosophically even though they agreed on the tenants of the Christian faith, they so disagreed philosophically that it became a splitting and a factioning element. And it also became a basis for pride because as soon as they would identify with one little group and they would say this is my group and this is what I agree with and we're better than you, and so pride was a factor.
In addition to exalting human wisdom, they had exalted human teachers, remember? They had taken good men, godly men, Paul, Apollos, Peter, and they said we are of Paul. And another group, we are of Apollos. Another group we're of Peter. And they were identifying around these men. And of course, the thing that resulted from that was pride. We're the Paul group and we're better than Apollos and Paul's better than Peter and Peter's group we're better than the Apollos group and so forth. The apostles didn't feel this way, but the people had come to be very proud about the group it had identified with in terms of the teacher.
So pride was manifesting itself terribly in these exaltations of human wisdom and human leadership and it needed sternly to be dealt with. And Paul deals with pride in Chapter 4, verses 6-13. They were exalting human leaders and it became an issue of pride. You know, you can see how that can happen can't you? Maybe you have a class and you say well, you know, the teacher of class is so and so. And boy he's the best teacher. And you go to such and such a class, not in the same league. And pretty soon what happens, you rally around that teacher and you get to the place where your honoring of that teacher goes beyond what it ought to be and pretty soon it becomes a basis for looking down or criticizing another. That can happen in the church. I imagine it can happen here. Somebody could say I go to Grace Community Church.
You go to Grace Community Church? Oh too bad. Guess everybody can't win, got to have some losers. My pastor is John MacArthur. And then, you know, you can become boastful and proud about that and then has ceased to be loyalty and it has started to be sin. There's no place for that. That just fractions the body of Christ. We're not here trying to set ourselves up as the only church. We praise God for every other godly man and every other godly ministry in this country and in this world where Jesus Christ is lifted up and exalted.
We're not to be set one against the other and we're least of all to make that an issue of pride. But you know Satan can take even a good thing and so perverted, isn't that what he does with things, pervert them? And so pervert it that what really would be loyalty to a good thing can turn into a pride issue and conceit and arrogance result. That's what he's dealing with here. And what happens when people begin to get proud is everything starts falling apart, because humility is the basis of God's operation. Now in this passage, I'm going to show you two points.
Paul simply contrasts two things. You have a little outline to follow if you'd like. He contrasts the Corinthians conceit with the apostles humility or abasement. He says you Corinthians are proud and that is wrong. And then he sets up the apostles as examples of humility to show them what really should be their attitude. And he uses some words to kind of help us get through his argument a little bit. And I gave you some numbers you can jot the words down, the key words, as we go.
Let's look first of all at the Corinthians conceit. And here is the issue of pride. The first word that he uses to speak of it is puffed up. Puffed up, verse 6, "And these things brethren," and referring back when he says these things, to everything he said since Chapter 3, verse 5, when he began to discuss himself and Apollos. "These things brethren I have in a figure transferred to myself and Apollos." In other words, I've been giving you principles. I've been giving you principles of behavior in the church. Principles of not over-exalting your leaders. Principles of realizing that your preacher isn't somebody to be lifted up and exalted and given all kinds of honor to. He's just a slave. He's just a third level under-rower in a galley. Remember how we went into that last time?
Not somebody to be exalted, so keep your perspective. There's no since in exalting one over the other. They're all just servants of God and there's no sense in pitting one against the other, he said in Chapter 3, verse 22. They're all yours anyway. Why not enjoy all of them? All of the godly men, all of the godly teachers. And so he's been dealing with this issue all the way through. I've been giving you principles, but all the way through you'll notice that he has made those principles very concrete because he has used himself and Apollos as examples. Back in Chapter 3, verse 5 he talks about Paul and Apollos. Those were his examples.
He comes to verse 22, Paul, Apollos, and Cephus. He continues to use a human concrete, substantial example so they'll understand the principle. Verse 6 then says this, "All the things that I've been saying to you, I have used an illustration of myself and Apollos to make them clear. Now we all know about teaching that if you're going to teach effectively it helps to have a concrete objective illustration. And so he says I have used myself and Apollos as examples to teach you many principles. And this is what I have done. I have used these illustrations of myself and Apollos for your sakes that you might learn in us not to think above that which is written. "That no one of you be puffed up for one against the other." There's our term puffed up.
Now the Corinthians had a problem with being puffed up. Paul says now all the way long, I've been using myself and Apollos as illustrations of the fact that ministers are simply slaves. Ministers are simply servants. Ministers are simply stewards. They're not anybody to be elevated. They're not anybody to be honored. They're not anybody to be lifted up. They're just servants of God. If they serve totally and completely in absolute obedience that's just doing what they should have done. There's no honor for that, but if they don't serve that way, they will be chastised.
That's why James 3:1 says "stop being so many teachers for theirs is the greater condemnation." And so Paul says, We have used ourselves as illustrations of what a servant is, of what a minister is so you'll quit exalting ministers. So that you notice this phrase in verse 6, so that you will learn from us not to exceed what is written. In other words, don't go further than scripture allows you to go in esteeming men of God. Now we know that the Bible says that we are to esteem those who teach us and who rule over us greatly for their work sake. And we know the Bible says that a faithful elder who labors in the word and doctrine is to be doubly honored. And we know that we are to love those who have the rule over us and to honor them for their ministry. We know all of these things, but only within the bounds of scripture. We are to only honor them as faithful slaves, as faithful servants, as trustworthy stewards. Nothing more.
And he says, I don't want you to go beyond what scripture allows in esteeming these men. You've turned it into a cult where instead of people identifying with Christ and with the body of Christ, everybody is polarized to an individual. Believe me people, Satan would love to do this. One of the great tools that Satan could use to just fraction even the church that's committed to the word of God is to get all the Christians to identify with certain teaching. He needs to take the best of all. That's the way God intended it. So he says don't go beyond what is written.
Scripture has a lot to say about humility. Has a lot to say about pride and it has a lot to say about estimating ministers. Don't go passed what scripture says. Incidentally people, there's a very, very solid principle to be used in application plenty of times. Here is the rule of faith in life right here. Don't go beyond it. This is it. What the Bible allows and permits that honors God. And especially in the area of pride and esteem. Look at Romans 12, verse 3.
It says there, "For I say," Romans 12:3, "through the grace given to me, to every man that is among you," he's talking to everybody. Now what am I saying? Not to think more highly than you ought to think. In other words, God has set certain limits on esteem. Just leave it there and here he has reference to ourselves. I look at John MacArthur and the Bible says don't think more of you than you ought to think. Well, that really leaves it down there. Because as Paul said, I'm the chief of sinners. Don't think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.
Don't think more highly of somebody else than you ought to think. Remember we're all simply sinners. Paul says "I am what I am by," what, "the grace of God." I deserve nothing. I earn nothing. I have no merit on my own, if I'm anything. Even here he says in 12:3, "What I say, I say through the grace given to me and I need to remember that." No place for pride. No place for lifting up others. But he says, I'm the least of all the apostles. And you may say now wait a minute, the least of all the apostles? Yes, he says who before persecuted the church, was a blasphemer, persecutor, injurious, but I obtained mercy, he said. God was gracious. God put me in the ministry enabling me to preach, but I'm the least of all. I am the chief of sinners, he says.
That's a humble estimate. Contrast that with the attitude of the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians Chapter 4. He says, "Stop going beyond what scripture allows. No one of you should be being puffed up one against the other." And it's a present tense. Stop being puffed up. The whole idea is to be set aside. The present tense emphasizes that the Corinthians are never at any time to act in this fashion. Stop being puffed up. The word puffed up is very vivid. It's like a frog just before it croaks, you know. It just kind of swells up. Don't be puffed up. The followers of Apollos were exalting themselves over the followers of Paul and the ones of Peter over Paul and Apollos and on and on it was going.
And you know what happens people? This is interesting, what starts out as love for a teacher, and that's going to happen, and loyalty to a teacher and gratitude to a teacher can turn to hostility to other teachers. So that you can't accept anyone else. I met some people on one occasion who started to study with a certain person and they said "Well, he's the only person that we listen to." And I said, "Did you realize that that's wrong?" And of course, they were very critical of everybody else. The results were very disastrous when they got into a certain ministry situation. They destroyed that whole thing. Very, very disastrous when what is love and gratitude and loyalty to somebody who really helped you becomes pride, conceit and you result in knocking other people.
Let me give you an illustration of how this could happen. In the 11th Chapter of Numbers in the Old Testament, and this is very vivid. To put it mildly at the time that Israel was being led out of Egypt to the promised land, the great hero of Israel was Moses. And what a great man he was. And, of course, everybody identified with Moses. I mean, you know, Moses was the leader and there wasn't anybody like Moses. Moses was where it was at, beginning, end, and middle. Incidentally, the 11th Chapter of Numbers is an interesting chapter. I remember when I was a kid being told that this was one of the Chapters in the Bible where baseball was mentioned. The other one is Genesis 1 in the big inning.
But Numbers 11...Numbers 11 if you'll notice in verse 32 it talks about somebody who had ten homers. But anyway, Numbers 11:26...heard a lot of groaning there. Numbers 11:26 talks about a situation that occurred when the children of Israel were in the wilderness. Two of the people in the camp, one was named Eldad and the other Medad and the spirit rested on them. And they began to prophesy. The end of verse 26 says "they prophesied in the camp." Well, there ran a young man and he told Moses. He runs to Moses and he said, "Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua the son of Nun the servant of Moses, one of his young men, answered and said my Lord Moses forbid them. Stop them from doing that." "Moses said unto them, enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put His spirit upon them?"
Do you see the point? Don't be jealous for me. I wish everybody was a prophet. Well, what happened here was a great illustration of loyalty to one man becoming hostility to another one. This happens in the church. It's a tragic thing. The Corinthians had a problem. They were puffed up. They had frog throats, gloating, boasting, arrogant. In fact, he speaks about this in repeated terms in 1 Corinthians. In Chapter 4, verse 18 he says some of you are puffed up. In Chapter 4, verse 19, he says, "I'll come to you shortly if the Lord will and will know not the speech of them who are puffed up, but the power."
In Chapter 5, verse 2, "you are puffed up." Verse 6, "your glorying is not good." Chapter 8, verse 1, "knowledge puffs up," they had a lot of knowledge and knowledge makes conceited where there is no love to temper it. 1 Corinthians 13:4, "love suffers long and is kind, envies not, loves vaunteth not itself is not puffed up." And they were accused in 2 Corinthians 12:20 of being conceited. They had a problem and pride is always destructive. Pride splits, tears a congregation's unity because pride means I'm for me and that is destructive. As long as we love and share and minister to one another there will be blessing.
So Christians may rejoice in their leaders, love them, be loyal to them, be grateful to them, but when it gets to the place where you find that love and that gratitude and that loyalty becoming the reason to criticize other godly men, then it has ceased being loyalty and it has become pride. There's a second word, 1 Corinthians 4 in our list and that is the word glorying. Verse 7, and here Paul directs three questions to them, three with very self-evident answers to try to nail their pride. "For who makes thee to differ from another?" That's the first question.
Literally it means, who made you better than anyone else? The verb deikronoa, to regard someone as superior. So who made you superior? Who made you better than anybody? The obvious answer is nobody. Who makes you superior? What makes you think you're better than anybody else? What right do you have to say well, I'm in this group. I'm better than somebody in that group. That whole thing is strictly conceit and it only involves your own imagination. You invented it. You're not any better than anybody else.
Just because your teacher happens to be so and so doesn't mean you're better than someone else. Just because you happen to have a certain ministry doesn't mean you're better than someone else. Who made you any superior? Second question, "and what hast thou that thou didst not receive?" That's a good question. Think about this, what do you have that you didn't get from somebody else? Nothing, absolutely nothing. You were born. You had nothing to do with that. You were a gift. You didn't even choose to whom you were born. You had nothing to say about it. You say but once I got here man, I had a lot to say about where I am now. I'm a self-made man. Spontaneous, generated robot. You're not a self-made man.
Well, I've made my own success. Well, listen, what happens if you with all your intellect and your abilities were born in the middle of an aboriginal tribe in New Guinea? You'd be making mud pies like everybody else. Who decided you'd be here? Who put you here? And who made sure that your faculties were maintained till you get to the university and become something? Or who gave you the opportunity? Or who lifted you up? The Bible says it is "God that gives thee power to get wealth." The Bible says "every good and perfect gift cometh down from the Father of lights."
Whatever you have friends, you've received it from somewhere else. And spiritually speaking I think is the issue with the Corinthians. What do you have that you didn't get? Salvation? Did you earn that? Can you earn salvation? Can anybody earn salvation? "By the deeds of the law shall," what, "no flesh be justified. You're saved by faith, grace, that not of works. It is not of yourself. It is a what? Gift of God. You didn't get that. You say well, look at my talents and abilities. Where'd you get those? Where'd you get your spiritual gifts Corinthians? "You come behind in no gift," Chapter 1, verse 7 says. You are enriched by Him in all things so that you have all knowledge and all honor. Where'd you get that? It's the Spirit that gives severally to every man as He wills, right? You didn't earn that.
One day the Lord threw me out of a car, skidded me down a highway, I went 110 yards on my southern hemisphere. I came out of that thing, stood up, walked off the highway, and the Lord spoke to my heart and said I want you in the ministry. It was kind of like the Damascus Road. It's kind of like what Paul was saying here. In 1 Corinthians 9, he says, "If I had chosen to be a minister it might be something, but I didn't have a thing to say about it." God gave me the abilities, the gifts to do it.
What do I have that I didn't receive? I don't have anything. So whatever God may use of me is because He gave it to me. And even further, do you know that even the teachers that you have are gifts of God to you? How could you be proud about a gift you didn't earn? Ephesians Chapter 4 and verse 8 he says, "And He gave gifts unto men." And then in verse 11 it says what those gifts were. He gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some teaching pastors. All those were gifted men given to the church. I'm a gift given to you. Jerry's a gift given to you. Fred, Jimmy, we're all just gifts given to you. All the elders, teachers, all the people who teach your children, they're gifts of God given to you. No reason for boasting. You didn't deserve any of us.
And we didn't deserve to be called, that's God's plan. All of us should respond with loyalty not pride. In 1 Peter he tells us, all of us, that God has given us all the things we have and all we need to do is take care of it. "Every man has received the gift, so minister the same one to another as good stewards." You're just a steward of what God has given you. So he says to the Corinthians, what do you have that you didn't get? And the answer is nothing. Well, if you're not any different and you're not superior and you don't have anything that you didn't get, question 3, if you did receive it, if it was a gift, why do you glory as if you didn't receive it?
In other words, why are you boasting as if you earned it. The answer to that is don't know. Guess there isn't a whole lot of reasons. There's only one reason for boasting, that's all. Just one reason, pride. You have no ground to think you're better than anybody else. You have no ground to think that because of what you can do you're superior. No ground to think you earned anything, it's all a gift of God. What is there to boast about? What Paul does is he just...he strips all the excuses bare and he leaves them with a whole problem of facing their pride. There is no other alternative. By the time they're through with verse 7, they've got to admit it. They aren't any better than anyone else so there's no basis for pride there. They don't have anything that they deserve to earn, so there's nothing there. And they're only boasting out of their own mind and that's sin. They're finished.
But by this time, the steam's coming out of his ears and he's starting to get hot. Paul could get hot, you know that. We've seen him many times in his letters when he's really fuming. When we get to verse 8, he gets sarcastic. And you know what sarcasm is. That's saying the opposite of what you mean. That's when your wife comes out in the morning and she looks like she just, you know, like an explosion in a mattress factory with coils and this and she walks out and you take one look at her and you say boy are you beautiful. You see, that's sarcasm. You mean the very opposite of what you said. Or when you're at your office or your work or something and somebody's really messing up and you say oh you're really doing a great job on that. That's saying the opposite of what you mean, that's sarcasm.
So Paul here says the opposite of what he means in verse 8. He is sarcastic. "Now you are full. You are rich. You have reigned as kings. Boy aren't you something." Boy that's really hard. That's really, you know, scathing. And the first word he uses is full. He said, they're puffed up glorying and now to unmask their conceit he starts to use sarcasm. He says, "you're full." The word is used of food. It is a word that means to be satiated. It means to be satisfied. Oh you're satisfied. What do you need? You've got it all. Man, you've knocked it all off. You win. You have no wants, no lacks, just the opposite of Matthew 5:6 where our Lord said, "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled."
Here were some people who didn't hunger and thirst after righteousness, they already had it. They thought. You are full, what do you need? And notice the word at the beginning of verse 8, now. Already, you've arrived folks, you're in the millennium already and without us. You went right on in. You got it all. Everything has come to pass. Isn't it wonderful. You've already been glorified and perfected and you went right on by us, how nice. Philippians 3:12, Paul says, "Not as though I have attained, but I still press toward the mark. Or the prize of the high calling of God in Christ."
The second word he uses is rich. You are rich. Plouteo in the Greek. It's an errisen. It means to become rich. And the implication is you become rich on your own. You've become rich on your own. Isn't that wonderful. You're loaded. You've got everything you need. You don't need me. You don't need anybody. You're right there. You've got it all. You're full, everything is great. Well, that's sarcastic. That's like Revelation 3, remember the message to the church at Laodicea when our Lord said this, "you say I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing and know not that you're wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked." There's nobody as destitute as the man who thinks he has it all, did you know that?
They were full. They were rich. And then this one is too much, "you have reigned as kings, you're already in the millennium." You're on your thrones. How nice. Sarcastic "and you did it," look at verse 8, "without us." You didn't need us. You went right on into kingdom without us. Here we are struggling around, suffering, being abused, beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and you've just gone right on in reigning as kinds. Sarcasm. You left your teachers far behind. And then he stops the sarcasm in the middle of verse 8 and you notice it says, "I would to God," in the King James. The word ophelon in the Greek is probably not that strong. It probably should say I wish. I wish you did reign and that we also might reign with you.
I wish you did reign. You know why? Because if you were reigning, we'd be reigning and the kingdom would be here and that'd be great. I wish it was the millennium he says. I wish we all were there. The facts aren't that way. Corinthians' conceit really despicable isn't it? Suffering Paul, bleeding for the cause of Christ, enduring pain and mockery and persecution and here were these conceited Corinthians, they had it all licked. Paul turns then to the apostles humility in verse 9. This is very simple to understand now that you understand the flow of the passage.
The apostles abasement, humility in verses 9-13. Notice what he says. There are four terms that he uses to describe. We'll just pull four out. First of all, the term is spectacle. He says "we're spectacles for I think that God has set forth us the apostles last it were appointed to death for we are made a spectacle unto the world and to angels and to me