Wednesday, November 5, 2008

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Beautiful Boasting

Webster says that boasting is to praise oneself or to mention or assert something with excessive pride.  Do you know anyone like this?  Are we sometimes like that?  That person who wants to be noticed by everyone around them or who seems always to want everything to be about them?  That one who has to be the center of attention or the life of the party?  We may put up with them for a while and we may even accommodate their need at times, but these people are not often anyone's choice for a best friend.  They are apparently not God's kind of people either.  Proud.  Boastful.  Egocentric.

"This is what the LORD says:  'Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this:  that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,' declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 9:23-24).

The question is not whether or not the wise man is wise or the strong man is strong or the rich man is weak.  They are those things.  However, they should not be cause for boasting.  We may be any and all of those things but they are not cause for pride.  Anything and everything that we might have or possess is something that we have received from the Lord.  To choose not recognize that is to fail to walk in the humility to which God calls each of us.  True wisdom comes from heaven (James 3:17) and is given by the Lord (Proverbs 2:6).  Strength comes from God (Psalm 121:2) and in fact, God's weakness is stronger than men's strength (1 Corinthians 1:25).  It is God who gives you the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 8:18).  And, it would not matter, what other thing we could boast about, God would most certainly have something to say about it that would put us in our place!

Is it that we are not supposed to boast at all?  No, we are told that we should.  We are supposed to boast!  But we are supposed to do it correctly.  Not about us.  About him. 

"Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" (1 Corinthians 1:31, 2 Corinthians 10:17).

"Let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth, for in these I delight."  When we understand and know the Lord, we have much to boast about.  When we recognize him as the I AM, the First and Last, the beginning and the end, the everlasting and all-powerful and all-everything-else God, we have much to boast about.  This amazing God, has enabled and privileged us to know him and to be in a relationship with him.  He desires us and wants to spend time with us and wants to be known by us (Jeremiah 29:12-14).

When we say, "God is good," or "Praise the Lord for this or that thing," or any number of these phrases, we are really boasting in the Lord as we have been instructed to do.  We certainly should acknowledge the good that we have received or the wonderful things that we have been enabled to accomplish.  Paul did this and actually carries on some rather lengthy "boasting" in 2 Corinthians 10:7-18 and 11:16-12:10.  At the same time, Paul recognized that "I can do everything through him who gives me strength" (Philippians 4:13) means equally that I can do nothing without him!

False humility says that we have nothing or that we are really not that great.  That is not the truth.  We have everything that we need and we are glorious in him.  But the important thing is that the focus is on him and what he has done, not us.  There is a kind of boasting that is beautiful.  It is when we boast in the Lord.  When we celebrate who he is and what he has done and is doing.  It is the language of praise and adoration and worship that is addressed directly to the Lord.

We have such an advantage in the church today in that God has given us so many wonderful songs of worship with which to praise him.  In worship, we adjust our focus away from ourselves and our stuff to the things of God and who and what he is like.  "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" is just another way of saying, worship the Lord!  He deserves our beautiful boasting!  He is the only one that is worthy of such acclaim!

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