The Boasting Christian

This week I started with a clip from the children’s video Frog and Toad. I played a portion of a story entitled “The Dream.” Here is a transcript:

Toad was asleep, and he was having a dream. He was on a stage, and he was wearing a costume. Toad looked out into the dark. Frog was sitting in the theater. A strange voice from far away said, “PRESENTING THE GREATEST TOAD IN ALL THE WORLD!” Toad took a deep bow. Frog looked smaller as he shouted, “Hooray for Toad!”

“TOAD WILL NOW PLAY THE PIANO VERY WELL,” said the strange voice. Toad played the piano, and he did not miss a note. “Frog,” cried Toad, “can you play the piano like this?” “No,” said Frog. It seemed to Toad that Frog looked even smaller.

“TOAD WILL NOW WALK ON A HIGH WIRE, AND HE WILL NOT FALL DOWN,” said the voice. Toad walked on the high wire. “Frog,” cried Toad, “can you do tricks like this?” “No,” peeped Frog, who looked very, very small.


“TOAD WILL NOW DANCE, AND HE WILL BE WONDERFUL,” said the voice. “Frog can you be as wonderful as this?” said Toad as he danced all over the stage. There was no answer. Toad looked out into the theater. Frog was so small that he could not be seen or heard.

“Frog,” said Toad, “where are you?” There was still no answer. “Frog, what have I done?” cried Toad. Then the voice said, “THE GREATEST TOAD WILL NOW…” “Shut up!” screamed Toad. “Frog, Frog, where have you gone?” Toad was spinning in the dark. “Come back, Frog,” he shouted. “I will be lonely!”

We laugh at this story because the boasting is so blatant and so ridiculous. Surely we don’t boast like this, do we? Last week’s message was entitled “The Humble Christian,” and we talked about how humility is an essential attitude and quality for a Christian to have.

I love this story because of how it portrays Frog, the one who gets to listen to all of Toad’s boasting. It makes him shrink and shrink, eventually disappearing altogether. Certainly excessive boasting will make everyone who has to listen to it leave the room!

And yet my message title this week is “The Boasting Christian!” Surely there must be some mistake! Christians boast? It cannot be! Well, in fact, there is a place for Christian boasting, and this is what I want to talk about today. We will start with this passage from Jeremiah:

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

Notice that the passage doesn’t deny that some people may be unusually wise, or that others may be especially strong, or that still others may be exceptionally rich. We know this is true. For example, none of us are able to invest like Warren Buffett, invent like Bill Gates, or jump like Michael Jordan. What the passage does say is that these are not things to boast about.

Why not? Hey, if Toad can really play the piano like that, why can’t he boast about it? What’s wrong with Michael Jordan doing a little “trash talking?”

I think part of the answer is that it reveals a great misunderstanding. Although it is true that Michael Jordan’s years and years of hard work have contributed to his abilities, a necessary component to his success is his physical structure, his reflexes, and other things that he had nothing to do with. If I practice ten times as long as Michael Jordan, it won’t make any difference – I will never be able to do the things he could do.

And so for this reason, the Lord says we should not boast in our abilities because they aren’t really ours. You may have heard the phrase, “He’s a self-made man.” Well, there are no self-made men! There are only God-made men!

The passage says instead to boast in the fact that he understands and knows God, and in particular to boast in God’s kindness, justice, and righteousness. “Listen! I know that God is kind! I know He is just! I know He is righteous!” It says that God delights in people who say this!

I find it interesting that these qualities of God are given here in the Old Testament. In fact, this is an opportunity for God to reveal what He wants to be known for. It’s not that He is a lawgiver!

Instead, it says He is kind. Here in the midst of Jeremiah, a book that is so much about God’s judgment on the rebellious tribes of Israel, God chooses in His supernatural revelation to Jeremiah to say that He is kind. Kindness, caring, showing mercy – this is and has always been an essential characteristic of God. He loves His creation; He cares for it. We should be ones to boast in this aspect of God.

It then says He is just. What does this mean? It means that God treats people appropriately to how they behave, to what they do. It means that God treats people fairly. He does not play favorites. He does not take bribes. We can boast that God is just. Now God’s justice is a good thing, but it should also make us uncomfortable, because although we might want others to be treated based on what they do, we generally do not want God to treat us based on what we do, because we know we are sinners. The justice of God meant that Jesus had to die if we were to be reconciled to God. He satisfied God’s perfect justice, taking the penalty that we deserved.

And He is righteous. He does the right thing. He is good. There is no hint of unrighteousness in Him. He does not sometimes do the right thing and sometimes give in to unrighteousness. We can boast in God’s righteousness.

If you look at the various false gods that people have worshipped throughout the ages, they tend to fail in these qualities. Most false gods do not show mercy – they are unkind. For this reason they should be feared – who knows what they might do? And they are unjust. This is why you sacrifice to them, so that they might take your “bribe” and be satisfied. If the current sacrifice is unacceptable you up the ante. This is why you had people even sacrificing their children. And they are unrighteous. Think of the Greek gods and goddesses – they quarrel with one another, are jealous with one another, and so on. We are just pawns in the whims of the gods. Thank the true God that He is not at all like this! Let us boast in Him!

Now, it is fascinating to me how well the themes of these verses from Jeremiah dovetail with I Corinthians:

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate." Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? – I Cor. 1:18-20

Do you believe that the intelligent, without God, are fools? It is so easy to assume that someone who is an expert in one thing must be an expert in all things, but this is false. The most brilliant scientist may not know how to do his own laundry. He may be clueless about women. And if he is clueless about God, this verse says he is just plain clueless! I used to be one of these fools. I remember thinking this focus on a dead crucified man was ridiculous. As an undergrad, I remember walking around on campus actually feeling sorry for the stupid Christians. “If only someone could set them straight,” I thought. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But to those of us being saved it is everything.

I know I shouldn’t say this, but the academic community can often be a lot like Toad. “TOAD WILL NOW PUBLISH A VERY IMPORTANT ARTICLE!” “Frog, can you publish as many articles as I can?” Of course, it’s not just academia. It’s the whole world. “TOAD WILL NOW PURCHASE A VERY EXPENSIVE CAR!” “Frog, can you go from zero to 60 in 6 seconds like I can?” If you don’t think this type of boasting is important, when you go to your next high-school reunion say you work at McDonalds. See what kind of response you get. “TOAD HAS NOW BEEN PROMOTED, AGAIN.” “Frog, what do you do? Frog? I can’t hear you!”

For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know Him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. – I Cor. 1:21-25

Would you like to become astoundingly wise? I know how you can do it. Read your Bible every day. Read through the whole Bible, and when you finish, do it again, and again, and again. You will become infused with the “foolishness of God,” and you will become wiser than kings and CEOs.

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord." – I Cor. 1:26-31

Isn’t this encouraging? Remember the disciples – a bunch of fishermen! You don’t need a Ph.D. or a seminary degree to be a fisherman. And yet they stood before kings and princes and astounded them with their wisdom and knowledge of God.

And it is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus. We can’t even boast in our salvation, in our decision to accept His offer of salvation. He caused that too. And Jesus has become for us wisdom from God. He is our righteousness. He is our holiness. He is our redemption. These three are quite close to the three in Jeremiah: righteousness, justice (close to holiness) and kindness (fits with redemption). We can’t boast in our righteousness, our holiness, or our redemption, because we aren’t righteous, apart from Him, we aren’t holy, apart from Him, and we certainly don’t have any redemption apart from what He did on the cross. And then Paul paraphrases the Jeremiah passage: Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.

Another important passage that speaks of boasting is found in Galatians. I will read several verses to give the context:

Those who want to make a good impression outwardly are trying to compel you to be circumcised. The only reason they do this is to avoid being persecuted for the cross of Christ. Not even those who are circumcised obey the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your flesh. May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. – Gal. 6:12-14

“Those who want to make a good impression outwardly” – what are these? They are people who want to boast. What do they want to boast about? They want to boast about the people who have joined their “church” – they want to boast in numbers. To make them “count,” they want them to be circumcised. They say they want them to be circumcised to obey the law, but that is a pretense, because they don’t really obey the law themselves. They want to boast about “their flesh.”

Does this go on today? Unfortunately, yes. People, even Christians, like to count. How many came to church today? How many are “members”? Although membership can have good uses, it also can be used like circumcision, so as to boast. May we never think this way! May we forever remain small if the alternative is that we lose our identity and become boasters in the numbers in our “flock”!

This is the context in which Paul gives this astounding cry: May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ… The Greek word for “boast” also includes the idea of “rejoicing in” and “exulting in.” Paul says he intends to only boast or exult in the cross.

This is actually a pretty shocking thing to say. What you think if I said, “May I never boast except in the electric chair”? Or “May I never boast except in the hangman’s noose?” If you have seen the movie The Passion, think about it. You are going to boast in this?

And boast in nothing else? Nothing? The discerning student of the Scriptures should step in here and say, “Wait a minute, Paul! I know you have boasted in other things before! You are not being consistent here!”

What else has Paul boasted in?

And we rejoice (same word as boast) in the hope of the glory of God. – Rom. 5:2b

Not only so, but we also rejoice (boast) in our sufferings. – Rom. 5:3a

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses. – 2 Cor. 12:9a

For what is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory (boast) in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes? Is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory (boast) and joy. – 1 Thess. 2:19-20

There are a few more, but they repeat the ideas here. There is also the matter of Paul’s “boasting spree” in the second half of 2 Corinthians, but Paul himself says he is acting like a fool as he does it, so we can discount that. But what about these four instances of boasting – in the hope of the glory of God, in sufferings, about weaknesses, and in others? Have we caught Paul? Was Gal. 6:14 just empty words?

No, I don’t think so. I think the answer is that we are not to boast apart from boasting in the cross. We can boast in the hope of the glory of God because God’s glory is most fully displayed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We can boast in our sufferings, because in our sufferings we come to know Christ better; we identify with His sufferings and we simply draw nearer to God in suffering. We boast about our weaknesses, because it is when we are weak that He is strong. Our weaknesses display the reality of Christ crucified in us. And we can certainly boast about others if the boasting is about what God is doing in their lives. Then we are again boasting in the cross, for apart from the cross, there would be nothing worth boasting about in these people.

This goes beyond this even to how we celebrate Christmas. Our culture, when it thinks about the real meaning of Christmas at all (as opposed to shopping, or Santa Claus, or Christmas trees, or other outward things), focuses on the manger scene. The manger scene is meaningless apart from the cross. That is why the gifts of the magi are so powerful – they speak of the cross. Burial spices and gold for the King of Kings. This is why the message of the angel is so powerful – it speaks of the Baby being the Christ, or Messiah, the suffering messiah as foretold in Isaiah 53. This is why what Simeon said is so powerful – “My eyes have seen Your Salvation.” It was through the cross that Jesus became our salvation. We don’t know exactly what the prophetess Anna said, but it looked forward to the redemption of Jerusalem. This redemption only came to be because of the cross. Christmas without the cross is nothing but a Hallmark card – a pretty picture.

Apart from the cross of Christ, we have nothing to boast or rejoice in. We would remain dead in our sins, headed towards eternal judgment and condemnation. Even boasting in our abilities, even acknowledging that they are God-given, is meaningless apart from the cross, because they would soon be gone. The depression of Solomon in Ecclesiastes is quite appropriate, apart from the cross of Christ.

Now, I need to come back to the Galatians verse, because I have not talked about the last part of verse 14.

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. – Gal. 6:14

“Through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world” – what does that mean? It says the world is dead (to me) and I am dead (to the world). The world is crucified (to me) and I am crucified (to the world). This brings to mind an earlier verse in Galatians:

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. – Gal. 2:20

Sometimes it is good to hear an old verse in a new translation. Here it is in The Message:

I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Gal. 2:20, The Message

I love this paraphrase, because it says it is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. In other words, I don’t need to do any boasting before men or before God. If we really embrace what Gal. 2:20 is saying, we won’t feel the need to act like Toad the show-off. We will instead be like Toad when he tells the announcer (symbolic of our “ego”) to “shut up.”

Galatians 2:20 is so deep! I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live (OK, so I am dead) but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body (OK, so I am alive, but the “me” that is alive isn’t the old “me”; it is the new “me”) I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Galatians 6:14 says that this death we died on the cross with Christ has the effect of crucifying us with regards to the world and of crucifying the world with regards to us. Again, this means that if we really embrace the reality of our crucifixion with Christ, our death with Him, if we boast in the cross, our desire to boast in ourselves will go away.

Then we will be free to be boasting Christians as God wants us to be. We will boast in Christ crucified, in the hope of the glory of God, in our sufferings, about our weaknesses, and in others.

Let me say a bit more about two of these. First, boasting in our sufferings. There is a right way and a wrong way to do this. On campus I hear people boasting in their sufferings all the time. But the purpose of it is to gain sympathy, not to boast in the cross. It is so easy to fall into this trap. If I can’t boast in how great I am, then I’ll get you to feel sorry for me! No. This is not what boasting in the cross entails. Paul condemns this kind of boasting in the second half of 2 Corinthians, even as he is doing it. (He is being absurd to illustrate the absurd.) So how do we boast in our sufferings in such a way as it is a form of boasting in the cross? I think the question implies the answer. To the degree that our sufferings drive us to know Jesus better, to trust Him more, to understand His sacrifice, that is what we can boast about.

Here is an example. When I was about 10 years old I once experienced some very nasty anti-semitic name calling by some other boys. I still remember the experience quite well. It is now something I can exult in because I learned what it really feels like to be mocked and scorned. If I had not experienced this I would not have a clue of what it feels like. This helps me to understand the human emotional pain and suffering Jesus felt when He was mocked repeatedly in the events leading to and including the crucifixion.

Apart from experiences like this, however, we need to be quite careful about boasting in our sufferings. No pity parties allowed!

And we should also be careful in boasting in our weaknesses. In school environments, people boast in being dumb so as to be “cool.” We can also boast in our weaknesses as an excuse for laziness or doing a poor job. This is not at all what Paul means. Again, we have to ask how we can boast in our weaknesses in such a way that it is a form of boasting in the cross.

One example from my past is more than 15 years ago when I volunteered at a Salvation Army men’s homeless shelter in Illinois. I was young and inexperienced, and at first I simply did whatever someone else told me to do, things like putting towels in the wash. Each evening when the shelter would open they would do “intake,” a fairly complicated process of letting people in, checking several lists to see if they were allowed in, and marking them off as they were admitted. If anyone was new, then when intake was over they would go through orientation. On this particular evening, there was a big meeting between the director and other people, and so I was asked to do intake. Alone. I had never done it at all, but now I had to do it alone. Somehow I got through it, and there was one new person. The meeting was still going on so I was asked to do orientation. I had never even seen orientation before, let alone done it, but there was a book of directions explaining what to do. Feeling way beyond stretched, I followed the book as best as I could, but it was obvious to me and it had to be obvious to the new person that I didn’t know what I was doing. Then the book said to ask the person something about Christ – I don’t remember the details. But the next thing I know, the new guy is sobbing, pouring out his life to me and begging me to tell him how to be saved. I share some things and he prays right there to have Christ come into his life. It was so totally a God thing that I felt like Jonah – just say a few measly words and a whole city goes crazy – well it felt like that. I can easily boast in my weaknesses here because I got to see God’s Spirit work in a powerful way that I could not have seen any other way.

To conclude – I again encourage you to boast in the cross, and through it, to boast in the hope of the glory of God, to boast in our sufferings, to boast about our weaknesses, and to boast in others that God is growing and working through. Let us not boast like that other guy, Toad.