In 1 Corinthians 1:26-31 Paul's message is that God won't tolerate human pride, so he chooses people who have nothing to brag about. Paul tells us first about The People God Chooses. In verse 26 we learn that not many of the Corinthians came from the educated or upper classes of society. Paul, in a sense, holds up a mirror and says, "Take a good look. What do you see?" If they were honest, they didn't see many impressive people. They saw ordinary men and women, from undistinguished backgrounds, whose lives had been radically changed by Jesus Christ.
We should not get the idea that God intends to take equal numbers from every social class in the world. Nor that God populates the church from the upper classes but sprinkles in a few from the lower classes. The opposite is closer to the truth. God fills his church with the rejects of the world and then sprinkles in a few wealthy and powerful people.
In verses 27-28 Paul clarifies. God chooses "weak things" and "lowly things" and "despised things" and even "things that are not." These "things" are actually people--weak people, lowly people, despised people, and people who are invisible to the world. In short, God makes a choice, and the choice he makes is to choose the people the world would never choose.
Secondly, this passage (verses 27-29) tells us The Plan God Uses. His plan is to use what the world refuses and to nullify what the world chooses. He nullifies the mighty by using the weak instead. He nullifies the proud by using the humble. He nullifies the wise by using the simple. He nullifies the professional by using the blue-collar worker. He nullifies the Ph.D. by using the high school dropout. God's "nullification" demonstrates how fundamentally different he is from us.
Our God stands alone. He does not bind himself to do what we think he ought to do. He is holy and he is sovereign and he is absolutely free to do whatever he pleases to do. He can humble the proud any time he chooses. His Plan is to use what the world refuses, and to nullify what the world chooses so that human pride is put down, so that no one can boast, and so that all would be equal in God's family.
Finally this text reveals The Purpose God Has. Verses 30-31 tell us that God does what he does to demonstrate that he alone is the source of our salvation. It's not your wisdom or your intellect or your memorized Bible verses that brought you to Jesus. And you are not a Christian because you are a good person or a church member or because your father was a preacher and your mother was a Sunday School teacher.
Verse 30 says, "But of Him are ye in Christ." That is very clear. It is because of him. Salvation is of the Lord. God wants us to know that he is the reason we came to Christ. And in Christ we find wisdom, righteousness, holiness and redemption. If we believe this, then our boast will be in the Lord alone. When it comes to salvation, we contribute nothing but the sin that makes it necessary to be saved. God does the rest. If we believe what this passage teaches, it will change the way we look at ourselves, and it will change the way we talk about ourselves. God bless you and remember that God loves you and so does First Baptist Church.