Realizing Whose You Are
1 Corinthians 3:18-23

Christian, don’t you know whose you are? Do you know who you belong to? Do you know that you are of God? Do you know that you belong to Jesus Christ?

Last week we talked about how all of us together are the temple of the Holy Spirit –– the place where God dwells. We are the church of the living God where he makes his presence and power known. Therefore, it is vital that you have an understanding of who you are. You are the temple where the Holy one dwells. And we, as the church, when we gather together, enjoy that special presence of the living God as he comes and abides in our midst. I’m not speaking of this building here, but the corporate gathering of God’s people. The church is not the building where we meet. The church is us gathered together here.

Jesus promises us that where two or three are gathered together in his name, there he will be in our midst. I am not talking about the indwelling presence of God in every individual Christian. He’s with every one of us at all times, no matter where we go, even when we are alone. But he indicates that there is a special sense of his presence when we gather as the church. "Where two or three of you are gathered together in my name, there I am." It can mean nothing else but that. It doesn’t make sense unless it means that. It’s not just the abiding and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit; it’s a special manifestation of his presence reserved for the gathering of the church. God does some things when we come together as a church that are special and that I don’t think we can get anywhere else.

For instance, we could all go home and pray alone, but when we pray corporately, God seems to move in special ways to accomplish his work. When Peter was imprisoned, the church gathered together to pray and God shook the place and turned him loose. When God’s people gather together to pray, God begins to work. That’s what we’re experiencing here, and we need to stay that course as we see God continue to work in our midst. If we do, we will experience the special abiding presence of God.

But as I’ve said before, when God begins to work in a place, the Devil will rear his ugly head. And when he does, you can be sure that he is trying to intimidate you. He is trying to scare us. The Bible says that the devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. But for us, as Christians, he’s a defeated lion. He has been to the vet and has been de-clawed. He has had his teeth pulled out. He can still roar and terrify people. To hear that awesome roar is terrifying. Have you ever heard a lion roar, up close? You can feel a lion roar. It is the loudest, lowest thing I believe I have ever heard. A lion’s roar will frighten anybody. But this lion is toothless and clawless. He can’t kill us spiritually, so he plays a game of intimidation, hoping that we will forget that he is powerless. He wants us to fear him and consequently refrain from boldly proclaiming the truth concerning Jesus Christ. But the Bible says that we are not to fear him, we are to resist him and he will flee from us.

Paul says, in verse 18 –– Do not deceive yourselves. Sometimes it so easy to be deceived even as Christians. Don’t think that you’re exempt. It’s so easy to deceive even yourself, to be self-deceived. Remember, we see things from our perspective. But what we need to do is concentrate on the perspective of God’s Word, even if we don’t see it with our human eyes and understand it with our human minds. It’s so easy for us to be led astray. That’s why we need one another. That’s why we need the teaching ministry of the church. That’s why we need to focus on the Word of God –– so that we’re not deceived. We need to see, not just what appears to be the truth, but what really is the truth.

Do not deceive yourselves. If any one of you thinks he is wise by the standards of this age, he should become a "fool" so that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God’s sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness"; and again, "The Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile." So then, no more boasting about men! (1 Corinthians 3:18-21a NIV)

What’s he saying here? He’s saying there’s two ways of thinking for the Christian. One is the thinking predominant in the culture in which we live. Worldly thinking. It is called the wisdom of the world. It is the common rationalistic logic of our culture that passes for wisdom. That’s one way of thinking.

Now, you must understand something important about this way of thinking. It is human centered. Some people have called it humanism. Simply put, it means that we focus on ourselves. Human beings are the center of this universe. This way of thinking excludes God. If we have problems, we seek to find a solution to those problems without God. It may include a "spiritual" element, God as we perceive him or her to be, but certainly not a Christian element–– not the God of the Bible. And so what you end up with is a decidedly anti-supernatural, rationalistic, human centered approach to life and to the problems of life.

In this way of approaching life, if there is something called truth, no one can know really for sure what that is, so the best we can do is to find what’s true for us and to live by our own understanding of truth. So we try to discover what’s good for us, what works for us. At best we say truth is a relative thing. It’s different for me than it is for you, or for someone living in China or a third world country. There can’t possibly be any absolutes, because to admit that there are absolutes in terms of the truth and morality is to come perilously close to taking that next step and admitting that there is a Truth Giver. We don’t want to mess around and get too close to this God thing. So we steer clear of it in morality, in ethics, and in science. So we don’t want to talk about an intelligent design model for the universe, even if we don’t mention God, because we know that we might just by "chance" trip over him one day. Evolution is our way. Naturalistic teaching is our way. A relative truth scenario is our way.

This is our culture. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist or a Ph.D. in cultural history to figure this out. All you need to do is watch TV for a week. Watch the news programs, or nature programs, and certainly watch those ubiquitous talk shows where the collective ignorance of the assembled guests is passed off as wisdom. This is the so-called wisdom of the world. This is the way an increasing number of people in our contemporary culture think, if you can generously call it thinking.

The other way of thinking is totally different. And as Christians we need to come to understand the difference. I don’t think we do many times. The way of thinking we are called to employ in our lives is so radically different from the way of thinking of the world that the world looks at our kind of thinking and says that it’s foolishness. That’s what Paul says here in our text. The world regards the way Christians ought to think as foolishness. And we are regarded as the fools who believe it. But God in turn regards their "wisdom" as foolishness and tells us we must be willing to be regarded as a "fool" in order to become wise. He says you should not be enamored by the wisdom of this world. The wisdom of the world is coming to nothing. It, in fact, is futile. If you think you’re wise, you need to become a fool. He is saying that you need to think like a Christian should think even if they think you’re a fool for thinking that way.

Are you willing to be a fool for Christ? This doesn’t mean that you should act foolish. It means that you are willing to be regarded as a fool because of your commitment to Christ. Are you willing to say there is absolute truth and follow the one who gives this truth? Will you live righteously even when everyone else is not, and people say you are a fool for doing so?

Today, there is great pressure to follow the cultural crowd. You may be considered a fool not to engage in this sin. Don’t you know that you only go around once and you’ve got to get all the gusto you can get? It was cute commercial, but it really summarizes the thinking of our age. "Live it up. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die." This is the spirit of the age, isn’t it? Get it all while you can. It doesn’t matter if you cheat and steal and are unfaithful. It doesn’t matter, get what you can get and have a good time along the way. Enjoy yourself. You deserve it.

That’s the thinking of the world. Righteous thinking, however, appears foolish to them. "What do you mean you’re not going to go out and drink and do drugs and sleep around? Why, you’re wasting your life! You’re denying yourself a pleasure that you could have–– for what–– a God you can’t see?" This is the way some think. It is the way of the world.

There are two ways that we can think–– the way of the world or the way that leads us to the mind of Christ. Don’t be deceived. Don’t think that the wisdom of this world really has the answers to the deepest questions of life, because it doesn’t. With all of our technological understanding, the increase in knowledge, the amassed wisdom of human kind, we still have not solved the basic issues of life, like disease, poverty, racism and hatred. The fundamental problems of life are still with us because, for all our accumulated wisdom, we don’t have any real answers to those questions. We can make a better computer screen and better computer games but we can’t solve these issues. Be careful, all that glitters is not gold. All that seems to be wise is not true wisdom.

Where is the wisdom of God to be found? Right here in the Bible! You need to make this book so much a part of your thinking that it begins to control your mind. I’m all for mind control! What most people do not realize is that their minds are already controlled. We have spent many years training our minds in a particular way of thinking. Now God is calling you as a Christian to retrain yourself to think a new way.

What does the scripture say? Romans 12:2 gives us a challenge to retrain our minds.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (NIV)

That’s how you’re transformed, by having your mind renewed. I love the way this verse is translated in the New Living Translation.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. (NLT)

The way you have your mind renewed or changed is to begin to read, meditate upon, and think on the Word of Truth, the Bible. Now, there is only one way to do that. Here’s the secret. Every night, take your Bible and put it under your pillow and you sleep on it! Through a supernatural, miraculous process of spiritual osmosis God will cause the truth to be transferred through the pillow into your brain! What? Don’t you buy that? Well, I hope not! It does not work that way. You can buy every Bible available but if you don’t read it, you don’t get it. It’s not being in close proximity to the Bible that matters. A lot of Christians think that. "Oh, if I come to church every week I’ll be all right. I’ll sit in church. I’ll be close to God. I’ll be all right." But coming to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than standing in the frozen food section of the supermarket makes you a can of orange juice.

Being close to the Bible doesn’t transform your mind. Reading the Bible, meditating on the Bible is what changes you. If you’re a Christian, begin to read it. Read it every day. Do you know that you can read the entire Bible in a year, in about fifteen minutes a day? That’s all it takes. If the Old Testament is too hard for you, begin to read the New Testament first. Many people suggest that if you’re a brand new Christian, the first book you ought to read is the Gospel of John. Read the New Testament all the way through. Then begin to read the whole Bible.

There are helps for you to have a daily time in the Word of God. One that I recommend for people because I use it myself is something called the One Year Bible. It comes in a number of translations and what the One Year Bible does for you is to divide up your daily reading into an Old Testament passage, a New Testament passage, a passage from the Psalms and a passage from the Proverbs. It breaks up your reading and makes it easier. But whatever method you use, read something every day. Think about it. Meditate on it. Ask yourself questions that God might ask you, like what does this passage mean for living my life. God will speak to you. And you’ll be getting the Word of God into your head so that God can begin the renewing process to enable you to begin to think like God.

You need to have your mind renewed because you need to know whose you are. And part of knowing whose you are is knowing who you are and who you’re not. In other words, we need to understand our own limitations. We don’t have the solutions for every problem. We don’t know everything there is to know. We need to get off our high horse and start being humble, open and teachable if we’re going to be what God wants us to be.

Know who you are not. Don’t have an opinion of yourself that puts you up on a pedestal with everybody else down below. If you think you’re better than, wiser than, or smarter than other people, you cut yourself off from being blessed. The Bible says that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). Remember, we’re sharing the Gospel with people just like us. We’re just one beggar showing another beggar where we found the bread. We’re not looking down from our high mountaintop and saying, "Oh you lowly sinful, sorry, good for nothing people, listen to what the high and mighty have to say." No. We’re saying, "Hey, (or as we say in Philly–– Yo!) I’ve found the bread. Let’s go eat."

God has already blessed each of us. No more boasting about men! All things are yours. The implication here is that God has already given you everything, so don’t boast about what you have. It was a gift from God.

All things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are of Christ, and Christ is of God. (1 Corinthians 3:21b-23 NIV)

Remember whose you are. God has blessed you with a life. He’s blessed you with a future. You don’t need to grasp for anything. It’s already been given to you. Just relax and enjoy it. Share it. Be thankful for it. What a liberating message. The spirit of humility should dominate everything we do and we should understand that all we have is from God.

Don’t be deceived. Don’t think like the world. Renew your mind through meditating upon God’s Word. Make it the controlling philosophy of your mind. Put it into practice in your life. Live by it. And thank God for giving you all you need. You are a child of God. You belong to him. Realize whose you are!

Copyright © 2002 J. David Hoke. This data file is the sole property of the copyright holder and may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice.

Except for the use mentioned above, this data file may not be copied (except for small quotations used with citation of source), edited, revised, copied for resale or incorporated in any commercial publications, recordings, broadcasts, performances, displays or other products offered for sale, or made available on the Internet without the written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be made in writing and e-mailed to J. David Hoke, at David@JDavidHoke.com.

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