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 any time, 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 dulu, right, is actually a new way of talking about self-deception.

The word dulu may be new, but the idea of dulu 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 when 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 Center and the store owner who I would readily call an uncle calls me sir.

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, and 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, they're 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 means, you know, 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 sentence, 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, in Paul's eyes, I need to be clear here, because preacher emphasized that Paul called them spiritual person 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 spiritual person, you're not spiritual at all. Basically, that's what he says. NIV it says worldly.

Some translation says 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 embroided in jealousy and strife, Paul considers you of 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 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 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 rest of the letter as well.

8:2 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 12, 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 catch 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 paraphrase Psalm 94:1. 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 wickedness of those in authority, the schemes of all these people fail because their thoughts are fallible.

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, 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 says, 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 cause 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 16:9, 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 futile 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 know the truth, and they deceive themselves when they choose 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 boasting. Okay, the word boast keep 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 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 themselves, and we want to lift them up. So because I belong to this celebrity, so whatever glory or fame that she has, I also feel, I get a sense of it as well.

So here he has a very strange, very, very powerful reason not to boast in men.

The next line begins with 'for' in ESV, okay, and it's tells us is leading us to the reason, let no one boast in man, for, and what's the reason?

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 the—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.

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 JUnit, is the world.

And then we have life, death, present, future, the four 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 yours.

Death in 2 Corinthians is described 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.

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.

Self-deception is a natural human tendency that can be overcome by embracing the truth and loving God above all else.

Christians should avoid boasting in human leaders or worldly wisdom, recognizing that all things belong to them through Christ, who belongs to God.

True unity and holiness in the church require individual transformation through the gospel, correcting wrong perspectives and centering on Christ rather than superficial solutions.

Self-deception is a common human trait, manifesting in various ways. **People often rationalize their actions and shortcomings**, like a drunk denying intoxication or someone blaming others for their failures. This tendency makes it difficult to recognize our own lies because we naturally trust ourselves.

The concept of self-deception isn't new; it's been recognized throughout history. As Jeremiah 17:9 states, **"the heart is deceitful above all things."** The biggest self-deception is believing we are without sin and don't need God.

The word of God should awaken us from self-deception, not just soothe us. **Shocking experiences can challenge our assumptions** and help us see the truth. This can come through trials, tests, or even unexpected encounters.

Reading and understanding God's word helps us identify our blind spots. **We shouldn't assume that certain problems can never happen in our church**. It's crucial to understand the word of God to prevent divisions and promote unity.

Many equate spirituality with practices like fasting, praying, and having Bible knowledge. However, **even those engaged in these activities can still be worldly if they harbor jealousy and strife**. True spirituality isn't just about identity, but about behavior.

Exalting human leaders indicates immaturity and worldliness. **All human leaders are servants of God**, and everything ultimately depends on God, not humans. Those who faithfully build on the foundation of Christ will be rewarded.

🛑 Two Imperatives: Avoid Self-Deception and Boasting

Paul gives two instructions: **"Let no one deceive himself"** and **"Let no one boast in men."** These aren't one-time actions, but continuous practices.  The Bible frequently warns against self-deception, and Paul wants the Corinthians to stop deceiving themselves.

True wisdom comes from embracing the cross, not just as a symbol of salvation, but as a whole value system.  **This transforms our thinking and behavior holistically**, contrasting sharply with the wisdom of the world.

Paul argues against boasting in men because **"all things are yours."** This includes Paul, Apollos, Cephas, the world, life, death, the present, and the future. There's no need to boast about one when you have all.

Even death is yours, **defeated by Jesus and now serving as a doorman to eternal life**. Enemies like exams, anxieties, and disappointments become teachers, secretaries, and gym trainers, helping us grow closer to God.

💔 Roots of Self-Deception and Boasting

Self-love, a disordered love that seeks value outside of God, leads to self-deception. **We refuse to see the truth because we love ourselves more than God**.  To be free, we must love God above all else.

Human pride also contributes, leading to the belief that we can handle our problems alone or that our problems are too big for even God to handle. **This denies the sovereignty and power of Christ**.  It also leads to boasting.

A lack of true belonging drives us to seek identity and purpose from external sources. **Believing we are our own is a modern lie**, leading to a loss of meaning and purpose. True belonging is found in Christ.

The Heidelberg Catechism states, **"I am not my own, but belong with body and soul... to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ."** This truth provides ultimate security. We deceive ourselves because we're insecure, needing to live for something greater than ourselves.

To overcome divisions, we must be transformed by the gospel individually. Paul corrected wrong perspectives on wisdom and leaders, indirectly teaching against boasting and self-deception. **The gospel must reach and transform our hearts individually** before unity can be built.

✝️ Centering on Christ, Not Superficial Solutions

Paul's approach to divisions was positive and expansive, always pointing back to the gospel. He didn't rely on human-level solutions or excessively praise individuals. **The core problem is our sinful nature, and the solution is the gospel**.

Superficial solutions may create a facade of unity, but without Christ at the center, true transformation is impossible. **We must not replace the word with works or prayer with practice**. The goal is for people to understand the gospel more deeply and experience its transformative power.

Paul's ultimate message is, **"You all are of Christ."** In the church, all differences and divisions are dissolved by this truth. While the world defines us by various factors, in Christ, we all belong to Him.