The Dangers of Self-Deception and Boasting in Others

Self-deception leads individuals to falsely believe they are righteous and self-sufficient, neglecting the need for God's guidance.

### The Dangers of Self-Deception and the Call to Humility in Christ
* 🧠 Self-deception is a natural tendency in humans, where individuals convince themselves of falsehoods, such as a **drunk believing they are sober** or a **smoker thinking they can quit anytime**.
* 🔍 Benjamin Franklin aptly noted, “Who has deceived thee so often as thyself?” highlighting the **pervasive nature of self-deception** that often shields us from recognizing our flaws.
* 📖 The Bible warns against this deception, with verses like **1 John 1:8** reminding us that claiming to be **without sin is self-deception**, and James 1:22 urging us to **act on the word of God** rather than merely listening.
* 💔 Paul addresses the Corinthians' divisions by encouraging them to avoid boasting in human leaders and instead recognize that "**all things are yours**," including life and death, as they belong to Christ.
* ⚖ The true wisdom lies in **embracing humility and rejecting worldly wisdom**, which Paul emphasizes by stating that “**the wisdom of this world is folly with God**.”
* 💪 To combat self-deception and boasting, one must align their identity and values with Christ, recognizing that they **belong to God and are part of a greater purpose** beyond personal achievements.
* 🕊 Ultimately, the message is clear: to overcome divisions and foster unity, individuals must first be transformed by the gospel, understanding that **“you all are of Christ,”** which transcends all earthly affiliations.
* 🙏 As we reflect on our identities, let us commit to living out this truth, resisting **self-deception and boasting**, and instead finding our **worth and purpose in our relationship with Christ**.

Today we talk about self-deception. Self-deception comes naturally to humans. The drunk tells himself he's not drunk. The sick tells himself he's not so ill. The smoker tells himself that he can stop anytime. The miser tells himself that I will invest the money now so that

I can give more later. And when things turn out well, we credit ourselves. When things turn out badly, it's always other people's fault. And when we do something wrong, we have good reasons. And others do something wrong, they are unjustified. And the student blames the teacher when he

fails his exams. And the parent is in denial when the child is delinquent. So Benjamin Franklin said this: 'Who has deceived thee so often as thyself?' And Plato said this: 'For the worst of all deceptions is self-deception.' How can it help being

terrible when a deceiver is always present and never from the spot? So self-deception is dangerous. So while we are sometimes able to detect the lies of others, but we can't detect the lies that we tell ourselves because we can detect the lies

of others by analyzing the facts and judging a person's trustworthiness, but there's practically nothing that can help us to detect the lies we tell ourselves because we are the ones who choose the facts to analyze and we naturally trust ourselves. So what people

today call 'delusion' is actually a new way of talking about self-deception. The word 'delusion' may be new, but the idea of delusion is not new. So in the Old Testament we like to quote this verse: Jeremiah 19:7, 'The heart is deceitful above all

things and is desperately sick, who can understand it? Among all the self-deception, the biggest self-deception is to believe that we are without sin, and we believe that we do not need God to save us, to help us. Today we also deceive ourselves, we think that we are already mature

in Christ, and there's nothing more from the word of God that we need to hear, or we deceive ourselves that we are already loved, we are justified by faith, so there's no need for godliness in our lives. So the Bible tells us in 1 John 1:8,

if we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. In James 1:22, do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. Galatians 3 says, for if anyone thinks he's something when he's nothing,

he deceives himself. One thing the word of God is supposed to do is to wake us up from our self-deception. We should not be reading and hearing the word of God expecting it to always be soothing and comforting, that we fall asleep, okay, very

often we can only escape our self-deception when we hear or experience something shocking that challenges our own assumptions. You know, I've been thinking to myself, actually I'm still quite young, until earlier this week I was at the Hawker Centre, and the store owner who I

would readily call an uncle, calls me 'ter'. Okay, that's the moment my self-deception totally disappeared, okay? And so sometimes, to help me, to help us, hear the word of God comes in the midst of a shock, in a test, or in a trial. So for the

Corinthians, the letter from Paul came in the midst of their quarreling, and it will be timely and relevant to them and hopefully speaking to their hearts. So far in First Corinthians, we see that Paul has been speaking against the divisions in the church, and I was, so I

was going to say thank God we do not have the problem of divisions in my church, but then I checked myself. Am I deceiving myself? I don't know. Okay, while I do not see clear factions forming that supporting different leaders, but we must

not underestimate that there could be seeds of divisions that are being sown in our hearts right now. We should not skip these chapters because, you know, just because we don't see divisions in our church the way the Corinthians church are, these are still very important

words from God to help us to prevent divisions in the church, and in some ways it can also be useful for us to promote unity in our family, in other communities that we serve. Going through the word of God can help us to identify the blind spots that we have, so let us not deceive

ourselves and think that this can never happen in our church, but truly understand the word of God. So let's do a very quick recap, okay? From chapter 1 and 2, right, we see Paul has been rebuking the Corinthians on exalting human wisdom

and in chapter 3 and next week in chapter 4, we will see how he's focusing, their focusing on their wrong perspective of human leaders. So we see him starting to talk about human wisdom first, and then now he's talking about human leaders, wrong perspective of human

leaders and behind all these wrong perspectives, Paul hinted at their worldliness and carnality. They were spiritual infants, remember, and they were still worldly in their mindset and they are of the flesh. Now, many of us think, what does 'spiritual' mean? You go sometimes

we see, oh, being spiritual means I fast and pray, I serve in church, I have strong Bible knowledge, I can quote the Bible verse in my conversation every few sentences. But do you know that there could be some Corinthians doing all these things I've said mentioned, but

they still say, 'I follow Cephas, I follow Apollos.' And some believers out there could be doing this in our church today. And on top of that, they even watch many videos on YouTube and then, but they say, 'I follow Pastor Vincent, I follow'

preacher, Hin.' Let me ask you, are this preacher, are this preacher not in Paul's eyes? I need to be clear here because preacher emphasized that Paul called them spiritual people earlier in the sense that they are born of the spirit and they are saved, okay?

Now, now I'm asking you if these people are spiritual, right? It is in the sense of whether we describe them as spiritual as an adjective to describe a person's behavior, not his identity. Okay? You can be a person but you are behaving like an animal, like a beast. You can be a man, but

not behaving manly in a manly way. You can be a spiritual person, but not behaving spiritually. So to this Corinthians, for this Corinthians, Paul calls them 'of the flesh.' You're not spiritual at all. I call you a spiritual person, you're not spiritual at all.

basically that's what he says NIV it says worldly some translations say carnal they are nothing but spiritual yet they are not spiritual if they have jealousy and strife so even if you fast and pray you serve in church you counsel people in church you have a lot of Bible

knowledge but if you are embroiled in jealousy and strife Paul considers you of the flesh and perhaps you are truly a spiritual person your identity but you're not behaving spiritually and that's what he says in chapter 3:3 for you are still of the flesh for while

there's jealousy and strife among you are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way and from that we can quickly recap chapter 3 chapter 3 verse 1-4 when you exalt human leaders you are immature you are worldly you are not

spiritual and 5 to 9 tells us all human leaders are actually servants of God and everything depends on God not humans and 10 to 15 tells us there's reward for those who faithfully give their best and build on the foundation that is Christ

and finally 16-17 they say they are Paul says they are all God's temple God will destroy those who uh destroy his temple and that leads us to our text today from verse 18 to 23 which will take us to the end of chapter

three let me just read let no one deceive himself if anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age let him become a fool so that he may become wise for the wisdom of this world is folly with God for it is written he

catches the wise in their craftiness and again the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are futile, so let no one boast in men, for 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 your Christ and Christ is God's. So if you look at the verse passage very carefully, you'll notice that Paul has two imperatives or instructions to them, in other words, there are two things he's asking them to do. In the earlier part of chapter 3, he

has been largely giving us the facts: Who We Are, Who God is, what has been done, what he thinks of the Corinthians, what will happen if you destroy the temple of God. These are facts, opinions, and projections. So there are two imperatives or instructions here, can you see? So it's

first it is in verse 18: let no one deceive himself. The second instruction that he wants them to do, okay, let no one boast in men, okay. And these are not things that he wants them to stop doing for the particular time, okay. No, no one

deceive himself, okay, but he wants them to do continuously. Stop, stop deceiving yourself, stop boasting in men, okay. Constantly practicing this. So let's look at the first instruction: let no man, let no one deceive himself. And we already see in the Bible

that the Bible frequently warns against, um, self-deception, and of course, Paul is more than aware of the tendency of people to think of themselves as something they are not, okay. In fact, the Corinthians, he believes the Corinthians are currently deceiving themselves, and they should stop. And he

wants them not just here but repeatedly in the rest of the letter as well 82 says those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know okay verse 10 to 12 uh chapter 10 verse 2 so if you think you are standing firm be

careful that you don't fall and if anyone thinks they are a prophet or otherwise gifted by the spirit let them acknowledge that what I'm think what I'm writing to you is the Lord's command as Paul is calling us not to deceive ourselves he again reminds us to reject

the wisdom of the world because it's foolishness in God's sight in verse 19 as we see here and this echoes what he already established in chapter one okay you might find this a bit repetitive because we have already covered this in

chapter one very quickly for the word of for the for the word of the Cross is folly to those who are perishing but to for us who are being saved it is the power of God and has God has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world and

for since in the wisdom of God of God the world did not know God through wisdom it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe and in verse 27 God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the

wise so he's pointing back to chapter one again and we already learned that the way to become truly wise is to become a fool in the eyes of the world to be a fool in this age it is calling us to embrace the cross not not just as

an object of our faith and for salvation but as a whole value system, a way of thinking and behaving so that it transforms us holistically. And following that, he actually, we come back to our passage today, we see verse 19 and 20 and Paul quotes two verses from the Old

Testament. Okay, and it is actually referring back to Job 5:13 and Psalms 94, okay. It is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness." And again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, for they are futile" in Job. God is like the hunter

catching Job like a prey, as God caught, just caught the wise in their craftiness. How was Job caught? If you think about it, Job was caught when he depended on his own reasoning rather than seeking the wisdom of God. And in the next verse, Paul

paraphrases Psalm 94:11. Psalm 94, if you read the whole Psalm right, it's a prayer for God to overthrow the wicked people and vindicate the righteous. It mocks those who think that they are safe when they rebel against God, whose thoughts are

futile. The Psalm emphasizes that in spite of the wickedness of those in authority, the schemes of all these people fail because their thoughts are futile. The Psalm also promises that blessings will await those who depend on God. In using this Psalm, Paul could be warning the

Corinthians that their reliance on human wisdom is not only foolish but also wicked and rebellious and will bring them under God's judgment. From this, these two references, Paul wants to bring his comparison on human wisdom and God's wisdom to a climax, okay, exalting the

sovereignty and supremacy of God it is not only God despised human wisdom and considers them weak and foolish and rebellious compared to the all-powerful all-knowing all-encompassing God's wisdom okay some commentators pointed out that through these verses Paul is

expressing that by God's plan and design human wisdom of the wise will be their undoing in the Hebrew the word know right here it say the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise in Hebrew right the word knows often means more than just recognizing a person's thought okay

sometimes it means God's ordained or God's direct a person or course of action so when God says only Israel I have known is it just because he knows the people in Israel okay it it actually means only Israel I have chosen so it is said in

Proverbs 69 in their hearts humans plan their cause but the Lord establishes their steps so it is God who not only knows their thoughts but allows or even enables so-called all these wise people to succeed for a while so that he can use

the foolish in the world to shame the wise later God ordained those who trust in their own wisdom and plans will be caught and the things they do will be foiled and this is not actually too different from what he actually said in chapter one about human wisdom and God's

wisdom but Paul is really digging deeper into our inclinations for self-deception it is not always that we do not know it's not that Eve did not know that what God said about the tree that she's not supposed to eat from think about it yes

The crafty serpent in the garden can tell all kinds of lies, but Adam and Eve actually knew the truth. They deceived themselves when they chose to believe their own judgment to take in the light. So let's look at the second instruction in the passage: let no one

boast in men. And I already preached two sermons on both boasting, okay? The word boast keeps appearing when it's my turn to preach, okay? Nevertheless, I am amazed by the depth and the richness of God's word, and for today's passage, there are more

things to learn about boasting, okay? Paul gives us a slightly different angle to look at boasting, okay? Let no one boast in men. It is a call to humility and to stop lining up behind our heroes, as I mentioned in the last sermon. In my last sermon, sometimes we boast by association.

We like, we like to live our lives vicariously through our heroes. That's why people follow celebrities. They represent an ideal or dream that we cannot live for ourselves, and we want to live them up. So because I belong to this, this, this celebrity, so whatever

glory or fame that she has, I also feel I, I get a sense of it as well. So here Paul has a very strange, very, very powerful reason not to boast in men. The next line begins with 'for' in the ESV, okay, and it's telling us, it's leading us to the reason: let

no one boast in man, for. And what's the reason? What does it say the next line? 'All things are yours.' And what do you mean by 'all things'? Is it, um, is he trying to exaggerate? Okay, when I think 'all things,' I think you own all things.

Are yours, you own the universe, you possess the cosmos, you share in God's rule of all creation. And we can recall the state of things before the fall, man, mankind was created to rule over all creation and subdue the Earth. If that's the case, why boast in man, which is one

small part of creation, and one man, one of so many of the created beings? And then it gives us the specifics, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, it is not one of them. You have all of them. There's no need to boast about one of them. You

should be boasting in the Lord, who is empowering all of them. And this is actually a very interesting reverse from their culture, you know, where the students belong to the teacher, here the teachers collectively belong to the student, the Corinthians. And this is the same idea of servanthood of Christian

leaders. So we are betraying and undermining our inheritance and what we have if we just choose one of them. Then it's not just persons. So I did not exaggerate. All things, Paul himself later said that the world is yours. It's not

just Asia, not just Singapore, not just our unit, it's the world. And then we have Life, Death, present, future, the four and all-encompassing spheres which Christ rules, they are yours. Can you imagine Life, Death, present, future, they are yours. Life and death is yours. Life

is a gift. You are free to enjoy it in the way that honors the life-giver, our God. And death is death yours. Death in 2 Corinthians is described as as our last enemy. He's now also yours according to Paul because he has been defeated by

Jesus, he bows before you as though he's a defeated, uh, defeated King who has to bow towards the King who is victorious. He bows before you. Death is now your servant. He can do nothing except to usher you into the presence of God to

your eternal home. Can you imagine your worst and last enemy becomes the doorman who says, 'Welcome, and this way please to eternal life'? This is what it means: death is yours. Then what about our other enemies? Exams, nasty people, you know, anxieties, disasters, disappointments, and

sickness? How are they ours? They are our teachers. They teach us true wisdom and joy from God. They are our secretaries. They remind us of God and help us to book appointments with God when we are desperate. They are our gym trainers. They take us out of our

comfort zone and help us to build up our muscles and our, our faith in God. And there are surgeons who operate on us to remove our spiritual tumor of idolatry. And we are not just waiting for heaven. There's present help, present delight, and present peace, though it will

be fully experienced and consummated in the future, but present and future are also yours. They are all yours in Christ. Ultimately, all things are ours because we are Christ and Christ is God's. And when all things are ours, to boast in one particular thing is clearly foolish. It's

like Esau giving up his birthright for a bowl of stew. You do not know your true wealth, true possession, and you boast in a single inferior thing. And through Christ, we are reconciled to God, who is the sovereign Creator and sustainer of all. And that's why true Christ who has

It all, all things are ours, and that's why Romans 8:16-17 says, 'The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.' That is what it means to be children of God. And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. So we will ponder more about the significance of belonging to Christ later. For now, we have seen Paul giving two instructions to the Corinthians in the midst of their divisions. First is to

first is to, first is to, uh, um, let no one deceive himself. The second one is, let no one boast in men. So we have, although he's addressing the church, which is a corporate problem, it's a problem of the church, but the instruction he has given

is to, given to each individual in the church, not to be deceived and not to boast in others before the culture of unity and holiness can be built up in the church. The gospel truth has first got to reach and speak and to transform

our hearts individually. Okay. So with that, we must ask this question: Why do we deceive ourselves and boast in others so often? Why? When I was pondering about this question and thinking of examples of self-deception and boasting, you know, I cannot help but think of many things

that happened during the COVID pandemic. You know, crisis can bring out the best and worst of people. You know, we see irrational behaviors like panic buying of toilet paper. You know, clearly it's a self-deception. I don't see how they think toilet paper can give them a

better chance of surviving COVID and then there are people boasting all the time boasting of not taking the vaccine boasting of taking a particular vaccine boasting of some alternative drugs and there's one guy in Germany who took 2117 COVID shots I'm not sure what he's

boasting about is it the vaccine or himself but he's clearly boasting and what lies in the root of our self-deception and boasting let me suggest a few reasons for this inclination first it is self-love self-love is a disordered love where we

do not derive our value and feel love from our true Source okay of love God but from some other source we love and we desire to glory in ourselves rather than to glory in God we love our faith we love our reputation we love our judgment we love our merits so much that

we refuse to see the truth leading to self-deception if we deceive ourselves like Adam and Eve we know it but we reject the truth they love to be like God and they love to have their own wisdom that's what the serpent tempted them with more than they love God and

truth so to be free from self-deception we must love the truth which means we must love God above all other things more than we love ourselves but most of the time we refuse to confront our own sinful desires and centeredness and so we are blind to God and we deny the need

for repentance and a new life in Christ and when our loves are properly ordered towards God we become our true selves free from self-deception the second thing is human pride it is very similar to self-love okay a person may not readily be admit

that he loves himself but he very strongly believes in himself and his abilities and this leads to two kinds of deception. First is, "I can handle my own problem, okay? I can handle my own problem." The second is, "Nobody can handle my problem, not even God." Because if I cannot

handle my problem, nobody else can handle it. Even God cannot, even God can handle my problem. And then he just resigns himself to self-pity. And both people are deceived, both dishonor Jesus and his Sovereign Grace. The first has no need for him. "I can handle my own problem, I

have no need for Jesus." The other feels that his need is so great that Jesus cannot meet it. And that's when we start to do drastic things that may be out of God's will to deal with our problems and to meet our needs. Human Pride also assumes that we are already

spiritual and we do not need to be corrected by the word of God. And we deceive ourselves to think that it's always the other party who needs to change. This is also denying the sovereignty and the power of Christ. And human Pride also leads to boasting. 

Sometimes, some, sometimes I ask myself, "I really don't like to boast, but when the person beside me, right, talking to me and keep boasting, right? I cannot help but I need to boast back, or I need to refute his boasting. You know, you cannot stand for anyone to be putting themselves above

you." So this is, as I reflect, this is also a form of Pride. So this is human Pride at work. The third thing that we need to look at is the lack of true belonging. The reason why we deceive ourselves and we boast is because we

lack true belonging and this is also related to human pride. Due to human pride, we believe we are our own, we believe we are our own, we own ourselves. We are getting our meaning, our identity, our purpose from everything else except God because we want to shape our own

identity and our purpose. A few years ago there was an interesting Christian book called "You Are Not Your Own: Belonging to God in the Inhuman World" and the book suggests that to believe that you are your own is the biggest lie in modern life. To believe that everything

depends on you and to believe that you need to define everything in your own terms and you need to find and discover your own meaning is a disaster for all people. And the author of the book pointed out that compared to our ancestors, we are less worried about war, starvation

and famine, but by believing we are our own, we struggle with new problems. Okay, we struggle with the loss of meaning, loss of identity, and the loss of purpose. Everyone is charting their own journey of self-discovery and self-expression and they are never at rest, they never

found it. In his book he says the modern life feels like a billion people in the same room shouting their name so that everyone else knows they exist and who they are. Nobody cares to listen, everyone just wants to shout louder than the person around them so that their name can be

heard. And everyone is thinking, "I don't need to know your name, I need you to know my name." But brothers and sisters, God knows us. We have a purpose, we have a meaning, we have identity in Christ. God knows our name already, and isn't this a

Picture a billion people in a room shouting their name. Isn't this a picture of social media? When everyone is competing for attention and glory, looking to be our own, we find meaning, purpose, and identity from other things: boasting in our race, in our personality,

in our accomplishments, our affiliations so that we have more things to shout in this world. In this world, if we operate in this way, there is surely no peace and no unity. And we also deceive ourselves when we think that these things can give us lasting and true meaning and purpose. So,

you might be wondering where he gets his inspiration for the title of his book. Okay, it is in the answer to the first question of the Heidelberg Catechism. I believe this is divine wisdom for all modern-day people who are lost, trying to find

themselves. So this is what it says: "What is your only comfort in life and death?" Shall we read the answer to this question together? And I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.

Deceive Not Yourself, Boast Not In Others (1 Corinthians 3:18-23)

The Life Church and Missions

Self-deception is common; examples include denial of illness, addiction, or wrongdoing.

We often credit ourselves for successes and blame others for failures.

Benjamin Franklin and Plato highlighted the dangers of self-deception.

We can detect lies in others but not our own due to self-trust and biased fact selection.

The Old Testament describes the heart as deceitful and prone to self-deception.

Major self-deception includes believing we are sinless and don't need God's help.

1 John 1:8 warns against claiming to be without sin.

James 1:22 and Galatians 3:3 address self-deception related to hearing and acting on God's word.

Shocking experiences can sometimes break through self-deception.

A personal anecdote illustrates overcoming self-deception through a surprising event.

Paul's letter to the Corinthians addresses divisions within the church.

The speaker questions whether their own church is free from seeds of division.

The importance of studying 1 Corinthians to prevent divisions is emphasized.

The need to avoid self-deception about the possibility of divisions is stressed.

Paul rebukes the Corinthians for exalting human wisdom (Chapters 1-2).

Chapters 3-4 focus on their wrong perspective of human leaders.

The Corinthians' worldliness and carnality are highlighted; their spiritual immaturity is discussed.

External religious practices don't necessarily equate to spiritual maturity.

Examples of believers following specific leaders are given.

Paul instructs against self-deception and boasting in men.

The Bible frequently warns against self-deception.

Paul reminds them to reject worldly wisdom, echoing Chapter 1.

The path to true wisdom is to become a fool in the world's eyes, embracing the cross.

Paul quotes Job 5:13 and Psalm 94 to illustrate the futility of human wisdom.

Self-love, where value isn't derived from God, leads to self-deception.

Human pride fosters deception: believing one can handle problems alone or that no one, including God, can.

Lack of true belonging, related to pride, causes insecurity leading to self-deception and boasting.

The book "You Are Not Your Own" highlights the lie of self-ownership.

The Heidelberg Catechism's answer to the comfort in life and death question is cited.

The gospel's transformative power is key to overcoming divisions.

Paul's approach in 1 Corinthians 1-3 focuses on God, not human-level solutions.

Paul avoids superficial solutions like personality tests or bonding activities.

Boasting in human methods, like charismatic leaders or fun activities, is deceptive.

Without Christ at the center, superficial unity masks deeper divisions and distrust.

The importance of gently reminding others of Christ's centrality is emphasized.