cocky, self-sufficient braggards have deceived themselves.

About what?

About their true insecurity.

The fact that their life is out of their own control, the fact that there

really are menacing circumstances, the fact that they don't have it all together.

People all over this world manage to deceive themselves into thinking that they've got it all together.

Does your confidence rest in yourself or in Christ?

In this episode of Light and Truth,

John Piper turns to 1st Corinthians 3, 18 to 23

to show how pride and fear trap us and how resting in Christ

frees us to embrace all that is ours in him. This sermon was originally delivered 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.

And 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.

If I were to give you a quiz right now and say, fill in the blank, the main problem at Corinth

that Paul has been struggling to conquer or overcome, you would say blank. And 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 Apollos, I belong to Seifus. 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.

...