This is a summary post of the Wednesday Evening Sermon from August 27, 2025 – listen to the sermon here: The Follow of a Boastful Christian
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the Lord.”
— Jeremiah 9:23–24 (NKJV)
The temptation to boast has haunted humanity from the very beginning. In the garden, Eve reached for the forbidden fruit because of the serpent’s whispered promise: “You will be like God.” Pride is not merely one sin among many; it is the soil in which all other sins grow. It blinds us, deceives us, and slowly convinces us that we are something when in truth we are nothing apart from God’s grace.
While we often condemn the boastfulness of the world — the arrogance of the powerful, the vanity of the wealthy, the pride of the influential — the Scriptures compel us to look inward. Pride does not merely live out there; it dwells within us. And perhaps its most dangerous form is not worldly arrogance, but spiritual boasting. For when pride dons religious garments, it becomes harder to recognize, yet all the more deadly.
Jesus warned of this in His parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee strutted into the temple with a prayer on his lips but pride in his heart. He thanked God that he was not like other men. He recited his fasting and his tithing as if the Almighty should be impressed. Yet in all his piety, he went home unjustified. The tax collector, broken and contrite, beat his chest and whispered, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” He, and not the Pharisee, received mercy.
Spiritual boasting blinds us to our sin. It convinces us that we are strong when we are weak, righteous when we are guilty, rich when we are poor. A Christian who boasts in his own goodness is like a beggar bragging about bread he did not earn, forgetting that every crumb was placed in his hand by the kindness of Another.
The folly of boasting is not only that it deceives us, but that it robs God of His glory. Paul asked in 1 Corinthians 4:7, “What do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” Every breath we take, every blessing we enjoy, every grace we experience — all of it is gift. To boast in ourselves is to act as if grace were wages, as if salvation were a prize we earned, rather than mercy freely given through Christ.
The cure for boasting is humility, and humility is learned at the foot of the cross. There, all pretense dies. There, we see the true measure of our sin and the true cost of our redemption. There, we discover that the only safe boast is in the blood of the Lamb who was slain. As Paul declared, “But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Galatians 6:14, NKJV).
This humility is not weakness; it is strength. For in bowing low, we are lifted up. In confessing our emptiness, we are filled. In denying our own glory, we are clothed with Christ’s. The Spirit does not produce arrogance in God’s people but meekness. And the church, when it walks in humility, becomes a powerful witness to the world — not a museum for the self-righteous, but a hospital for sinners in need of the Great Physician.
The call of the gospel is clear. To the boastful, it says: repent, lay down your pride, and stop trusting in yourself. To the broken, it says: come, take refuge in the Savior, for His strength is made perfect in weakness. To the church, it says: be a people who glory not in wisdom, might, or riches, but in the knowledge of the Lord who delights in steadfast love, justice, and righteousness.
In the end, the measure of our lives will not be how much we achieved, how strong we appeared, or how good we seemed. It will be whether we knew the Lord — truly, humbly, dependently, and gratefully. For in this, and in this alone, does the Lord delight.
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