There's not a person in this room, not one who doesn't fear life.

There's not a person in this room who is not insecure.

There's not a person in this room who is not vulnerable, threatened, and who has his life out of his own control.

We all do. It comes with finiteness and it's compounded by sinfulness.

So how does Paul address our profound sense of insecurity as fallen human beings?

That's one of the two big issues that John Piper considers from 1 Corinthians 3, 18 to 23 in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on March 13, 1988.

One of the many things that continually deepens my confidence in the Bible as God's Word is the ability of Scripture to lay bare the complexities of my heart.

The psychological wisdom of the Word of God is inexhaustible.

Today's text is an example of Paul's insight. I hope you'll see before we're done into the complex seemingly contradictory workings of the human heart, mine and yours.

Power to give you a quiz right now and say, fill in the blank. The main problem at current that Paul has been struggling to conquer or overcome, you would say blank.

I think we would all say, I hope, boasting or pride, boasting in men in particular in people.

We saw it first in chapter 1, verse 12, I belong to Paul. I belong to a Paulist. I belong to Cephas.

These people lining up behind their favorite teachers and boasting as though that teacher were the best teacher.

So here's this boasting at Corinth, boasting that is ruining the soul of the boasters.

It's rending the fabric of the community and it's robbing God of His glory.

So here at the end of the chapter, he says, one more time, let no one boast of men.

And he surrounds this exhortation, this command with reasons for why we shouldn't boast in men.

And he's got reasons in front of the exhortation and he's got reasons behind the exhortation and they're very different.

And those reasons point to root causes of boasting that are very different.

And if we can get a handle on the two kinds of reasons, the two underlying roots and how those two roots really merge into one root,

we will have a profound insight into the working of our own heart and the working of everybody's heart.

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