10/18/17 What do you see here? The Architecture of Community 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:7 Are You in the Courtroom Today? What’s Going On? • Every day we are on trial. • Some days we are winning. • And others we are losing. • Regardless, we are always on trial, always obsessed with the verdict given by ourselves or by others. 1 Corinthians 3:21-4:3 1 Corinthians 4:4-7 21 So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, 4 For I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not 22 whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or thereby acquitted. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore life or death or the present or the future--all are yours, do not pronounce judgment before the time, before the Lord comes, who will bring to light the things now hidden in 23 and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's. darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each 1 This is how one should regard us, as servants one will receive his commendation from God. of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. 2 6 I have applied all these things to myself and Apollos Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found for your benefit, brothers, that you may learn by us not to go trustworthy. 3 But with me it is a very small thing that beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in I should be judged by you or by any human court. In favor of one against another. 7 For who sees anything different fact, I do not even judge myself. in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it? 1 10/18/17 Paul says, “Not pride, nor Context boasting, but humility.” • Paul shows that the root • That means we are once again cause for the division in the talking about self-esteem. church is pride and boasting. • Up until the 20th century, traditional cultures believed • It is the same reason that we that too high a view of oneself cannot get along today—in was the root cause of evil, the world or church. Take a crime, abuse, and cruelty. look: • 3:21: “let no one boast…” • Why do people do bad things? • Hubris • 4:7: “why do you boast…?” • Which is a Greek word that • 4:6: do not “take pride in means either pride or too one man over against high a view of oneself. another.” In Our Modern Western Psychologist Lauren Slater Culture However… • We have developed an • There is no evidence that low opposite cultural self-esteem is a big problem in consensus. society. • Today, we believe that • She cites 3 studies that all people misbehave due conclude: to a lack of self-esteem • “People with high self- and because they have esteem pose a greater threat too low a view of to those around them than themselves. people with low self-esteem, • This is the cause behind and feeling bad about yourself is not the source of husbands beating wives, our country's biggest crime, and other problems.” misbehavior. So which is it? Outline • Are our social ills a result of our low 1. The Natural Condition of the self-esteem (modern view)? Human Ego. • Or as a result of too high a view of ourselves (traditional view)? 2. The Transformed Sense of Self. • Paul takes a completely different tact and reveals the true source behind our misbehavior. 3. How to Get that Transformed Sense of Self. 2 10/18/17 Physioo Means Overinflated, Swollen, & 1) The Natural Condition of the Human Ego. Distended Beyond its Proper Size • In 4:6, Paul urges the • It is related to the word for Corinthians to have no more bellows. pride in one person over • It brings to mind a rather another. painful image of an organ in • The Greek word Paul uses is not the human body that is the normal hubris word for distended because so much air pride, but physioo. has been pumped into it. • Paul uses it 5 times in this book, • It’s ready to burst. It’s swollen, and only one other time in inflamed, and extended past Colossians 2. its proper size. • By using this particular word, • That, Paul says, is the Paul is trying to teach us condition of the natural something about the human ego. human ego. This Image Shows us 4 Things Firstly, Empty The natural • There is emptiness condition of the at the center of the human ego is: human ego. 1. Empty • It is puffed up 2. Painful and overinflated 3. Busy with nothing in 4. Fragile the middle. What Foundation are We to Build Secondly, it is also Painful Our Life Upon? • In his book Sickness Unto Death, • Have you ever thought about Soren Kierkegaard says, it is the the fact that you do not normal state of the human heart to notice your body until there try to build its identity around is something wrong with it? something besides God. • The normal human ego searches for • When we are walking something that will give it a sense of around, we are not usually worth, specialness, and purpose and thinking how fantastic our builds itself on that. toes are feeling. • Of course, we quickly find out that if • That’s because the parts of we try to replace the God-Sized hole our body only draw in side of us, with something else, it attention to themselves if is going to be too small! • It will leave us feeling empty. there is something wrong with them. 3 10/18/17 The Ego Hurts All the Time! Thirdly, it is Busy • That is because it has • Busy trying to fill the something incredibly wrong emptiness, and with it. constantly comparing • It is always drawing attention and boasting. to itself. • The way the ego tries • It is always making us think about how we look and how to fill its emptiness we are treated. and deal with its • People sometimes say their discomfort is by feeling’s hurt. comparing itself to • But our feelings can’t be other people. hurt! It is the ego that hurts; • And it does so all the namely, our sense of identity. time! C.S. Lewis: Competitiveness is at Fourthly, the Ego is Fragile the Very Heart of Pride • “Pride gets no pleasure out of having something only out of having more of it than • Because anything that is the next person. We say that people are overinflated is in imminent proud of being rich, or clever, or good- danger of being deflated— looking, but they are not. They are proud of like an overinflated balloon. being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally • If we are filled up by air and rich, or clever, or good-looking there would not filled up by something be nothing to be proud about.” solid, then to be overinflated • In other words, we are only proud of being or deflated comes down to more successful, more intelligent, or more the same thing. good-looking than the next person. • And when we come into the presence of • A superiority complex and someone who is more anything than we an inferiority complex are are, we lose all pleasure in what we had. basically the same. Superiority vs. Inferiority Complex Here’s A Good Example • They are both the results • Madonna in Vogue Magazine: of being overinflated. “My drive in life comes from a • The person with the fear of being mediocre. That is superiority complex is always pushing me. I push past one spell of it and discover myself overinflated and in as a special human being but danger of being deflated; then I feel I am still mediocre and the person with an uninteresting unless I do inferiority complex is something else. Because even deflated already. though I have become somebody, • I still have to prove that I am Being deflated or the somebody. My struggle has never threat of being deflated ended and I guess it never will.” make the ego fragile. 4 10/18/17 Madonna Knows Herself This is the Normal State of Better than Most of Us the Human Heart • This is what Paul is talking about to the Corinthians. • Every time she accomplishes • All these people who are fighting over him and claiming a special something, she has these relationship are showing thoughts: ‘Now I have the tremendous amounts of pride. verdict that I am • They are unable to enjoy the fact somebody. But the next that they know Paul. day, I realize that unless I • They have to use their relationship keep going, I am not. My with him to one-up others in the ego cannot be satisfied.’ church. • It’s like a black hole. • Paul goes on to show them how the Gospel can transform them though. 2) The Transformed View of Self How do We Get to Where Paul is? • In regard’s to Paul’s role as a • Any counselor will tell minister, he tells the Corinthians you not to worry about that he cares very little if he is what other’s think of judged by them or anyone. you. • • Or try to live by their The word translated ‘judge’ here standards. has the same meaning as the word ‘verdict’.