Stop Bragging - Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

Isn't that interesting? When Paul came to Christ, he said, you know, before I came I could brag about almost everything about me. People admired me.

But I found Christ. You know what? I don't brag about any of those things. I count them but loss.

They're rubbish to me. He said, oh by the way, I do brag about one thing. I have the privilege of knowing Him.

I know Christ. He said, I am willing to brag about that. By the way, in the scripture when you brag about God, do you know what the word is used? Praise. Every time we say praise the Lord, you're bragging with God. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. Today we find ourselves right in the middle of our two national political conventions. Much of the conduct of a political convention as I saw this past week is bizarre.

Some of it virtually incoherent. But if you watch any of a political convention, one conclusion is obvious. There's a lot of bragging going on.

I mean that's what it is. The first three days you have person after person come up and brag about the nominee. And they brag about what kind of person the nominee is and then they brag about the past of the nominee and then they brag about what the future is going to be with the nominee.

And then at the end of sort of the crescendo, the nominee gets up and repeats the process. But you know history has taught us something that when it comes to the future the candidate may have overstated their potential. Bragging is part of the American fiber. It's sort of a popular social sport in our country. We brag. I brag. You brag. And on the surface it may not seem like it's that important or it's sort of innocent, isn't it?

And the answer categorically without a doubt if you're a child of God is absolutely not. Bragging is simply the tongue putting into words a distorted view of ourselves that flows from a deceitful heart and an inflated ego. I read this week that an inflated ego is a disease that makes everyone sick but the person that has it. You see I think too often instead of listening to the word of God what we do as God's children is we listen to the culture.

We sort of pick up on the cliches of the culture. You know if you got it, flaunt it. But I'm afraid that there's even a deeper reason why many of us brag and that is simply that I think many of us feel that if I don't praise myself nobody else will.

And so we brag. The word of God is quite explicit when it comes to the children of God and this whole subject of bragging. Would you open your Bibles to Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians chapter 2 and we're going to look at verses 3 and 4. We're in the middle of a series called The Weight of Your Words and the very first time we got together and talked about this series we're in the book of James and James gave us six reasons why we have to control our tongue. One is he says that God will judge our words.

They will bring judgment from God. Our words also reveal our spiritual maturity. Your tongue is tied directly to your soul or to your heart. Our tongue desires to control us and our tongue can be used to corrupt us. James also said our tongue on our own is virtually untamable and our words are so often hypocritical.

And then we talked about last time the message was simple. It was we need to stop lying. We need to stop lying and there were several reasons but the two most important reasons we need to stop lying is one God hates lying. There are not a lot of things in the Bible that says explicitly that God hates but lying is one of them. And also the Bible says God delights in the truth. And then we also know from the last time that what we have is that each and every one of us because we are indwelt by the Spirit of God we have the capacity to speak the truth in love to one another and to stop lying.

So today the message is pretty clear. We need to stop bragging. We're commanded here at least by inference to stop lying. Notice what verse three says. He says do nothing for selfishness or empty conceit but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves. Do nothing from selfishness. What's amazing to me when you look at the text that word do isn't in the text. There's no verb in the text. There's no do. It simply says in the Greek text nothing selfish.

Now that covers a lot doesn't it? How many things can I be selfish about according to this text? Nothing. Nothing selfish. And that word selfish erotia is an interesting word it's the advancement of self.

Do nothing to advance yourself. And then he says do nothing from selfishness and then regrettably translated in English or empty conceit. The translators I think I think the translators there didn't want to really use the word because of how important the word is in other context but the NIV says vain conceit.

It's compound word two words. The word empty is a great translation. It's kino and it means empty but the second word translated conceit is doxia and doxia is glory.

In fact every time in New Testament you talk about the glory of God it's doxia. He says do nothing from selfishness or empty glory. In other words when you and I are selfish or when you and I brag you're doing it from empty glory.

There isn't any there. In fact the way you could translate it is obviously the glorification of emptiness. My take on it is my paraphrase the bill paraphrase on this is simply this the promotion of your zeroness okay that's what you do when you brag you are promoting your zeroness when you brag. He calls it empty glory or empty conceit. That's hard for us.

You see I think that's really difficult for us to do. Our flesh wants to brag just as it wants to lie just as it wants to gossip it wants to brag but I want you to see something here it's all a matter of how you see yourself as a child of God. Look over to chapter three and verse four this is the apostle Paul and his context here is going to be bragging and Paul says this in verse four although I myself might have confidence in the flesh. Let me paraphrase Paul says look if anyone really could brag it'd be me. If anybody had the kind of things that they could brag about it would be me. Now you got to understand in the day in which he lived in and the culture he lived in a Jewish culture you didn't brag about your favorite team okay there weren't any teams you didn't brag you didn't brag about necessarily even what you owned or didn't own. What you bragged about well it's what Paul brags about listen to what he says.

If anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh I far more. He said let me start my bragging circumcised on the eighth day. Now that doesn't mean a lot to us but it meant a lot to a Jewish boy. Jewish boys are circumcised on the eighth day. Immediately that sets them apart as part of the covenant of Abraham. Gentiles were not circumcised. The Jews could brag about that in fact remember what David called Goliath you uncircumcised Philistine you see he said I was circumcised on the eighth day and then he says of the nation Israel I'm part of the covenant.

I'm not like you Gentiles. I have a relationship a heritage it goes back to Abraham and then he says of the tribe of Benjamin that's bragging of all the tribes of Israel at the time of Paul the tribe that's held in the highest esteem is Benjamin. Benjamin is the tribe that was always said to lead Israel in the battle.

Benjamin had a much better history than many of the other tribes had when it came to the issue of sin in the tribe. He said I was a Hebrew of Hebrews. Now that's interesting I was a Jew of the Jews. If you got a bunch of Jews together and said who's the most Jewish person here it's a it's Paul Saul of Tarsus. He's a Jews Jew. He said that's what I am I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews and then he says and as to the law I was a Pharisee. Wow now see for you and I point of view you never brag about that because you know it's sort of like the Pharisees wore black hats you know and they were the kind of people with the music changes in the movie and they really look devious you know because we're looking on the other side as Christ exposed them but I've said this over all the years if you were parents of a young girl in Israel you would pray that your daughter would marry a Pharisee.

They're the most respected people in the culture. You see they took the law seriously more serious than anybody else took it they added laws to the law and notice what Paul says as to the righteousness which you can find in the law blameless. What a statement. Now watch the perspective change but whatever things were gained to me those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. He says for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and I count them but kind word in English rubbish it's the word dung. He said I count them all but dung so that I may gain Christ.

Isn't that interesting? When Paul came to Christ he said you know before I came I could brag about almost everything about me. People admired me but I found Christ.

You know what I don't brag about any of those things I count them but loss they're rubbish to me. He said oh by the way I do brag about one thing I have the privilege of knowing him. I know Christ. He said I am willing to brag about that. By the way in the scripture when you brag about God you know what the word is used? Praise. Every time we say praise the Lord you're bragging on God. You see you're giving praise to God and that's what Paul said. He doesn't just say it here in Romans 7 Paul said I know that nothing good dwells in me. See Paul came to a different conclusion.

I am who I am because of Jesus Christ. I don't brag anymore. Christians often we brag about all kinds of things sort of what Paul was. Christians will brag about their spirituality. Christians brag about their service. You may have heard some bragging today.

You might have done some bragging today. Whenever you're going to do something like that hey I you know you're sitting there thinking I think I'd like to go with those notes of encouragement and go into those into those assisted living areas and sing for people but it's not enough for me just to go. I need to tell someone I'm going to do that.

You see if I can go up to someone say I think I'm going to do that. You see what are we doing? You see what happens when we do things like that? Why are we doing this? We can brag about our spirituality or our service but think about it this way. Think of both of those categories and Jesus said this to believers in John 15 and apart from me you can do nothing.

He said nothing. So if I'm going to brag who am I bragging about? I'm bragging about the Lord. You see in my spirituality and in my service and his grace and his mercy I'm bragging about the Lord.

There's no place for us to do this. We're commanded not to brag. Secondly though when we do brag we embezzle God's glory.

That's what's so wrong about bragging. Go with me to James chapter 4. The book of James chapter 4 and verse 13.

I love the first two words of verse 13. Come now. Now let's put it in our vernacular. Come on man. I mean that's what he's saying.

Come on man. And he's going to use this context. He says come now you who say today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit. He says you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.

You're just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. This is interesting. When I first read this passage and was looking at it I thought I wouldn't even recognize this as bragging. You're going to see God recognizes it as bragging bragging. But I wouldn't recognize it as bragging. I mean I've heard people brag. I've even heard some of you brag. And it's a lot more obvious to me than this. All this guy said is tomorrow the next day I'm going to go to another place and I'm going to be there a year and I'm going to do business. I'm going to make some money. Does that sound like bragging to you?

See it's interesting. Bragging always assumes things. And there are some assumptions going on here. He says you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You know you're just a vapor that appears for a little while and then you vanish away. None of us are promised tomorrow.

Certainly not next year. You see you're presuming things. When you brag you always presume things.

And he said I'm going to do this. Notice he then says instead you ought to say if the Lord wills we will live and also do this or that. I can't presume one anything with the Lord. My life, my direction, my success belongs to the Lord. It doesn't belong to me. But whenever I brag and tell you what I'm going to do I'm embezzling the Lord's glory. Notice what James then says. But as it is he says you boast in your arrogance.

Wow. You boast in your arrogance. That word boast cocks oh my. Only time in an entire New Testament you see that word boast there.

Cocks oh my. Literally it means a wandering quack. That's what it means.

Put it in American West. A snake oil salesman. Somebody that goes around saying something will be able to deliver something that never really does. That's what he says here about bragging. But as it is you boast in your arrogance now watch all such boasting is evil. Wouldn't you rather have seen the word misguided?

A mistake. Evil. I mean ISIS is evil. Yes ISIS is evil. Bragging is evil. That's not my opinion. That's what the word says. Bragging is evil. Wow.

Why? Because it embezzles the glory of God. You see what does belong to God is something you embezzle and try to own for yourself. He says therefore to the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it to him it is sin. You see no bragging. There's no place for it.

Now are you sure? Why is God so uptight about this? Why is this so important to him? Go with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 19. And here Paul explains it in a little bit different way. In verse 19 of chapter 6 of 1 Corinthians Paul says or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you whom you have from God and that you are not your own for you have been bought with a price therefore glorify God in your body. The dokes that goes to God glorify God.

He gives four reasons here. One God has taken up residency in each and every one of us who are child of God. When you put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ you are indwelled by the Spirit of God. Two, therefore you are not your own. You're not your own anymore. You belong to God. You've been born again into the family of God. Three, you were bought with a price. You were redeemed. You were purchased with a price. Not gold and silver Peter says but with the precious blood of Christ.

You have been bought with a price. Therefore he says you need to glorify God, not the empty vessel. You see if my tongue is going to brag, if my tongue is going to give praise it better not be for me. It better be for the Lord who saved me. The God who created me.

You see that's what he is saying. This is really serious stuff to God. I want to illustrate that. I want you to go with me to the book of Acts chapter 12. The book of Acts chapter 12 in verse 20. I could have gone to a lot of places. For example you could have gone to the Old Testament with Nebuchadnezzar. Remember Nebuchadnezzar was this great king of Babylon and he made a statue of himself and it was 90 feet high. And the only reason it wasn't taller is probably that's all they could do. He got a 90 foot statue and he asked everyone to come and worship him. Now if that's not bragging, I don't know what is. And how did that turn out for him?

Didn't he end up like a cow chewing the cud, eating grass? What was the message there? You see what is God saying? I don't share my glory.

I don't care if you're king of Babylon. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for you can listen online or if you prefer you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember you can do all this absolutely free of charge. Once again our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.