Expanding Self-Examination, Part 6

On Communion Sunday last month, we began looking at self-examination. Why? Because we're about to partake of the Lord's table. And Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11 that before you eat and drink of the Lord's table, you are to examine yourself. And so we began that examination process last Lord's Day when we celebrated Communion in September by looking at the reality of our faith, because do you understand what faith really is? So when a man examines himself, he asks himself, am I of the faith? Do I believe what the Bible says about who Christ is and what He's done?

Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So we began by looking at the reality of our faith, but we move from there because there's so much about self-examination that goes way beyond that. Now, so many times we just take it for granted. Most of us don't do any self-examination except for maybe on the Lord's Day in which we celebrate Communion. And then it goes to maybe the reality of my faith, but it goes way beyond that from the reality of my faith to the destiny of my soul. Where will I spend eternity?

Will I spend it with the living God or will I spend it away from the living God and burn in hell forever? So I must examine the destiny of my soul, but it goes way beyond that to the authenticity of my heart. Am I genuine? Am I sincere? Am I one of those people that comes and honors God with my lips, but my heart is far from Him? We know the heart's deceitful and desperately wicked, but when you come and partake of the Lord's table, do you look at the condition of your heart?

Is it sincere? Is it genuine? Do you live the same life at home that you live at church, so that when you come to church, your family recognizes you as the same person they live with at home every day? The authenticity of my heart needs to be examined along with the destiny of my soul and along with, of course, the reality of my faith. But it goes way beyond that to the purity of my mind. As a man thinks within his heart, so is he. Is my mind pure? Is my mind holy? Is my mind clean? Do I think in the things that are pure and true and holy and lovely, or do I think about those things that are going to bring a detriment to my soul and to my life?

Do I have a pure mind, a clean heart? Those things need to be examined. And why they are all so intertwined together, we're breaking them down for you so you realize how important the discipline of self-examination is to your spiritual development. We move from the purity of my mind to the integrity of my life. Does my life match my lips? Am I a person that can be trusted? Am I a person that is faithful and true? Do I live a life of integrity? In a world where there is no integrity to be found, do we in the church live that way so people will know the reality of our lives and how it lines up with the truth of Scripture?

And we move from the integrity of my life to the quality of my walk. Do I walk with the Lord? Do I trust in the Lord? Do I depend upon the Lord? Is my daily conduct one in which I live a life that's bright, that's lovely, that's wise? 1 John 2.6, I know Him, and if I say I abide in Him, I have to walk even as He walked. Do I walk like Christ walked? So when I examine the quality of my walk, is it like Christ's life? Do I walk as He walked? All those things are intricately involved in self-examination.

We come to partake of the Lord's table, and so I must look at my life and say, does my life measure to the standard of God's holy Word?

That's the standard we measure it by. God's Word is the unalterable standard. And so when I examine the quality of my walk, when I examine the integrity of my life, or I examine the purity of my mind, or the authenticity of my heart, or I examine the reality of my faith, the destiny of my soul, all that's important, but it goes beyond that. How about this one? Have you ever examined the intimacy of your marriage? Do you examine the intimacy of your marriage? When you come to partake of the Lord's table, how many people who are married come and partake having difficulty with their spouse?

They're at odds one with another, yet they want to partake of the Lord's table as if there's nothing wrong. Is there true intimacy in your marriage? Is there this one-fleshedness that permeates your marriage? Because for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. A phrase repeated four times in the Scripture. It's the only phrase about marriage in the Bible. For this cause, what cause? It's not good for man to be alone. A man shall leave his mother and father and cleave to his wife, and the two shall become one.

That is the message of marriage. But it speaks about the intimacy in that marriage. I'm not talking sexual intimacy. I'm talking emotional intimacy. I'm talking about relational intimacy. I'm talking about conversational intimacy. I'm talking about being one flesh in every area of your life. So crucial. You can't come and partake of the Lord's table with an unforgiving spirit toward your spouse. The God who's forgiven you everything, you ought to at least be able to forgive your spouse for whatever it is they've done toward you, and be willing to forgive them, and to live a life that truly exemplifies intimacy in your marriage.

My wife and I went to go pick up some students yesterday. They were going to Knott's Berry Farm with our youth ministry, and my daughter happened to invite six of them. And so we didn't have a car big enough to take everybody, so we had to take two cars to Knott's Berry Farm. And so we went to go pick up the friends that she was taking with her to Knott's, right? And so we're out there just conversing with the students, and this lady pulls up and she drops off her boys for us to take. And we're just there doing what we do, and then I get in the car, get ready to leave, and she looks at my wife and she says, it's so obvious that you and your husband are so in love with one another.

You are so close to one another. It's so obvious that you are absolutely enamored with one another. How does she know that? We didn't go there and be all, you know, kissy face and huggy huggy, all that kind of stuff, you know, so that she would think that we were loving one another. That's not what we did. We just lived life as normal. We didn't do anything out of the ordinary that we would not automatically do anyway. So how did she pick up on that? How did she know that? Simply because when there's intimacy in your marriage, it's obvious to everybody.

It just is. People know you're in love with one another. People know you're enthralled with one another, you're enamored with one another. They know the essence of one fleshedness because they're looking at your life and saying, wow, those two truly are in love with one another. That is just so important. That's not the first time that's happened.

My wife and I were walking to the mailbox one day in our previous neighborhood, and the lady yelled out the window, hey, hey, I want to talk to you guys. She goes, how is it you guys do it? We're like, do what? We're going to the mailbox to pick up our mail. You put one foot in front of the other and take the key and open the door. She says, no, how do you guys do it? How is it you guys are so in love with one another? Never met a lady before in my life. How does she know that? I'm not trying to say anything that's out of the ordinary.

I'm not trying to try to puff myself up and say, look at my wife and I's marriage because we have our problems.

We have our issues and we have to deal with those issues on a regular basis, just like you do. But our love for one another is unconditional, and we want to have a marriage that really pictures Christ's relationship to the church, right? It's so important that a husband is to love his wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, Ephesians chapter five. And as a woman submits herself to her husband's leadership and follows his leadership, it's just so important. I'm afraid that sometimes we come to partake of the Lord's table, but we don't look at our marriage as that great pictorial union of Christ's love for the church.

And we miss the boat on the intimacy that's supposed to be there. The whole union that's a purposeful union, the whole union that is a pictorial union, that union that's a pleasurable union, that union that is unsurpassed by any other union this side of eternity and outside of the relationship we can have with the living God. That marriage, that wife that God gave you, right? Rejoice with the wife of your youth, the Bible says.

He who finds a wife finds a good thing. This is a great testimony for the living God. In a world where marriages are falling apart, in a world where people are having a hard time demonstrating the intimacy of their love one for another, we as Christians need to be able to do that. So I want to challenge you, like I challenge myself, that when we come to partake of the Lord's table, if you're here today and you're married, what does your marriage look like? Do others who see you know that you are truly committed to one another, that you are committed to the Lord first and to one another, that you are intimate one with another in terms of being one flesh, being in union together, one mind as two individuals become one and functioning as such?

Do people know that? Can you honestly sit here and partake of the Lord's table with a clear conscience saying, I have forgiven my wife everything, I have forgiven my husband, I love my spouse unconditionally, I will give myself up for him or give myself up for her because I love the Lord so much that I want my marriage to exemplify Christ's love for the church. The intimacy of my marriage needs to be examined. Next comes the priority of my family. Do we ever examine that? That's self-examination.

Is my family a priority or is something else a priority? Is my family that which is so important to me that I want to invest into the life of my children and the life of my wife, that this is my lasting legacy and therefore I want to leave a legacy of truth through my children, through my wife so it's passed down from generation to generation. Psalm 112, Psalm 128, Deuteronomy chapter 6, Psalm 78, all those verses speak about the legacy of the family and how the godly man is the one who fears God and loves his commandments and loves his wife and loves his children.

In Proverbs 24, 3 and 4, which speaks about how the house is built and how it's founded, how it's grounded in wisdom, knowledge, and understanding. All those things play a huge part in the priority of the family. So many times there are things outside of a family that take a priority. I'm not saying you should minimize your work. I'm not saying you should minimize your efforts outside the family. I'm just saying you can't minimize your family to maximize something else. Your family is a priority and therefore the priority of my family needs to be examined.

Can you honestly sit here and partake at the Lord's table and say, you know what? My wife, my children, my grandchildren, they are a priority. They're a priority because I want them to know the truth of the living God. That's how you know your family is a priority. Truth reigns supreme. You want truth to be lived, truth to be taught, truth to be explained, right? All throughout your family. You see, you can exist together and be around one another, but never deal with the truth at hand. Truth is most important because truth speaks volumes to everything and so we need to be able to exemplify that.

So we come to partake at the Lord's table and I want to examine my life and I want to go way beyond the reality of my faith, way beyond the destiny of my soul, way beyond the authenticity of my heart and the integrity of my life and the quality of my walk to the intimacy of my marriage and the priority of my family. I want to examine those things. See, this is important because we play at examination. We don't really want to test the inside of ourselves and say, where do I stand with the Lord in these areas that really, truly define my walk with the Lord?

How about this? How about this? The ministry in my church, have you examined your soul and asked about the ministry you have in your church? You see, you are a steward. You are a steward of your family as a father, right? But you're also a steward of the gifts God gives you in the church and so I have to examine my life as a good steward, as a good household manager of the things that God has entrusted into my possession, right? God entrusts you with money. Are you a good steward with your money?

God entrusts you with a wife and children. Are you a good steward with those things? But God has also entrusted you with a gift, a spiritual gift that's defined all throughout Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4 and 1 Peter chapter 4 to help you understand that you are gifted to be used by God within the body of Christ. Can you sit here today, partake of the Lord's table, examine your life and say, you know what, I'm using my gift in the ministry of the church. Or can you sit here and say, you know what, I got a gift but I'm not going to use it for the Lord.

But let me partake of the Lord's table anyway. Christ died for you to put you into the family of God so that you would be gifted specifically for the church to grow the church, to help the church in its ministry. Peter says it this way, 1 Peter chapter 4, I love this. He says, as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength which God supplies so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever.

Amen. In other words, in order for you to glorify God in your life, you must exercise your giftedness. If you have a speaking gift, you speak the utterances of God. If you have a serving gift, you employ it under the supernatural power of the living God. Do you even know what your gift is? Do you even know where the gifts are located in Scripture? Can you define them? That's why Paul says, 1 Corinthians chapter 11, do not be ignorant brethren concerning spiritual gifts. That's 1 Corinthians 12, I'm sorry.

Don't be ignorant concerning spiritual gifts, but we are. We don't even know where they're at in Scripture and there are so many needs in the church. We have needs in our children's ministry, so many gaps that need to be filled. We have needs in our ushering ministry, in our prayer ministry, in our parking lot ministry. We have so many needs in our church, yet there are so many people that are not stepping into those gaps, exercising their spiritual gifts for the glory of God, and yet, and yet they want to partake at the Lord's table with a clear conscience, as if Christ died for one.

That is so important. I'm not here to rag on you, I'm not here to bang on you, I'm just here to tell you what the Scriptures say, and this is part of self-examination. God has gifted you. Do you know what your gift is? You should examine your life to say, you know what, my spiritual gift is this. Someone comes to you and says, hey, what's your spiritual gift? You can't say, I'm a plumber, okay? Because plumbing's not a spiritual gift, but do you have the gift of mercy, do you have the gift of helps, do you have the gift of teaching, do you have the gift of exhortation, do you have the gift of discernment, the gift of hospitality?

What kind of gift do you have that God has outlined in the Scripture for you to follow so that the church is built up? Because once you stop exercising your giftedness, all of us suffers. Think about that. I don't care where you're at, who you are, if you're here in the church and not exercising your giftedness, you hurt everybody in the room. But if you exercise your gift, you help everybody in the room and in the next service that comes after that. See that? You help everybody just by utilizing your gift for the glory of God.

That's why we examine our lives. That's why we put ourselves under the microscope of God's Word. What does God's Word say about how I aim to live, what I aim to do, how do I glorify the Lord with my life? When I glorify the Lord by exercising my giftedness, am I doing so? That's called self-examination. Where do I stand with the Lord? How about this? I think this is number nine. If you're counting, if you're writing these things down like Lindsay is down here in the front, this is number nine, right?

And that is my responsibility to preach the gospel. My responsibility to preach the gospel. Not only are you a steward of your family, not only are you a steward of your ministry, but you're a steward of the gospel of truth, right? You're a household manager of the ministry of reconciliation. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians chapter five. He says, now all these things are from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. So God gives you a ministry.

What is it? The ministry of reconciliation, the opportunity to show man who's an enemy of God, how he can become a friend of God, be reconciled to God. It says this, namely that God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. And he has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Wow. God has committed to us the word of reconciliation. This is so important. So when you examine your life, you come to partake of the Lord's table, the Lord said we're to go into all the world and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that he's commanded us in low and with you always, even to the end of the age.

God says, you want to experience my presence at an unbelievable degree? Do what I've called you to do. Make disciples. Preach the gospel. Paul says, preach the word in season and out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all unsuffering and patience, 2 Timothy four, verse number two.

That's our life. That's what we do. And listen, there is no better season in all the world that you and I have lived in, in our short time or long time, however old or however young you are, than the season we're living in right now.

This season where there is so much fear in our country and around the world. There is fear everywhere. And their fear is of COVID. It's not of Christ. But we who fear Christ don't fear COVID because we don't fear anything on the outside. We only fear God on the inside and we fear him tremendously. And so as the angel in Revelation says in Revelation 14, it goes around preaching the gospel, the eternal gospel, which says what? Fear God, fear God. That's the gospel. And so we had this wonderful opportunity to help people understand how no longer to live in fear.

We live in a day and age where drug abuse is up, where physical abuse is up, alcohol abuse is up because everybody's down. So what do we do? We preach the gospel because within that gospel, what does Peter say? First Peter two, verse number six, quoting from Isaiah 28, verse number 16, which says he who believes in him will never be disappointed or will never be disturbed or will never be in a hurry.

He who believes in this Christ will be so enamored with him, they will never be in a hurry to leave him because they're never disappointed. We live in a world where everyone's disappointed because no one speaks the truth anymore. We need to fight for the truth. We live in a world where in Congress this past week, there were women who testified that not just women can have babies, but men can have them too. And Congress sits there and goes, oh yeah, uh-huh, yeah, uh-huh. I'm like, what are you guys smoking in there?

These are the same people, these are the same people who want you to get a vaccine for your health and tell you it's science, but at the same time tell you that it's science that a man can have a baby. Who do you believe? How can you believe that? In 650 locations yesterday, in 50 different cities, women marched, even some men marched for their abortion rights, abortion justice for all. So upset about the ruling that took place in Texas on a 5-4 vote by the Supreme Court about you can't have an abortion after six weeks.

And they're upset with that. And they want to have their freedom to kill their child. These are the same people who tell you, take a vaccine because you'll save your life, but it will take the life of 62 million children without even batting an eye. Who do you believe? Are they really promoters of health? Are they really promoters of life? I don't think so. They're promoters of death. And they don't really care about your life because it's a world of untruth. It's a world of hypocrisy. So what do you do?

You preach truth. You preach to Christ. In a world that says, this is my truth, we never say that because we don't have a truth. There's only a God who is truth and he speaks the truth. There's no me truth, it's just the truth. And the truth is God's truth and we preach that truth. And when you preach that truth, that truth is all about life, not death. And we are the biggest promoters of life there is. But we live in this world that's unlike anything we've ever seen. Did you see last week the songs at the Tony Awards that dealt with wearing a mask and taking a vaccine?

There are actually songs about it now. And then on late night television, they have people dressed up like syringes coming out and singing songs about vaccines. It's unprecedented in our country. It's the cult of COVID that's overtaken our country. You can buy a Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus masked on Amazon in the nativity. Can you believe that? You can buy necklaces and jewelry, Pandora sells a bracelet that says, I am vaxxed. You can actually buy jewelry in this category. It's the most ridiculous thing.

It's the most unbelievable thing that's ever happened in our day and age. People are enamored with COVID. It's the cult of COVID that swept our country, but it's all based on untruths. So who speaks the truth? Who tells them the truth? People need the gospel. Those people marching for abortion rights, they need to hear the truth. It doesn't mean we go out and make signs and we go out and march in pro-life marches. I mean, you can do that, but that's not the answer. People need to hear the gospel about Christ who is the life, who is the truth, who is the way, and we are ministers of reconciliation.

We've been entrusted. We are stewards of the gospel, and we have to preach that gospel to an unbelieving world. How will they ever hear unless there's a preacher to tell them? That's what we do, right? And if we don't do it, who will? And we must preach that truth to everybody we come in contact with. They must know that we are believers in the truth of the gospel and will not stand for anything that's in error against the gospel. It's unbelievable. New York had a governor named Cuomo who thought he was God, and they replaced him with another governor who now speaks for God, Kathy Hochul, and she speaks for God, and she speaks and says that God has said that everybody should be vaccinated, and everybody says amen to that.

God never said that, but you see how easy it is to just put untruth out there, and people just buy it hook, line, and sinker? Where are the discerning people? Where's the wise person? Where's the person who keeps his finger in the text and lives by truth and really knows what God says?

See? You can't speak for God unless you know what God's Word says, and then you actually quote what God's Word says so people see it, understand it, and they believe it because it's the truth. My friends, this is so important. We live in a world of untruth. We live in a world of idolatry. We live in a world of hypocrisy. We live in a world, we live in a country that's Romans 1 that's been abandoned by God. And so we have to go out with all that we have to share the gospel of Christ with people who truly need to know the truth that Jesus saves.

We are ministers of reconciliation. We have to be able to do that in a day and age where you can define yourself with your own pronouns, right? So we think, forget about what DNA says, because DNA is really science, see? But forget about DNA. You can be a he or a she or they or them. So the pronoun police are coming after everybody in school, but now the pronoun police is coming after the church. Have you read what Mark Silk has said, the Jewish writer for the religious news service, who says that God is to be renamed as a they and a them instead of a he.

And that's now being permeated worldwide. In fact, this is how he interprets Exodus 15, verse number two, it says, the Lord is my strength and my song, and he has become my salvation.

This is my God, and I will praise him, my Father's God, and I will extol him. He says it should be said this way, the Lord is my strength and my song, and they have become my salvation, and they are my God, and I will praise them, my Father's God, and I will extol them. That's heresy. That's not what it says. But you see, if you don't believe the word of God is authoritative and inspired by God, you can change it to read any way you want it to read. But because we believe that the inspired word of God, we can't change what God says.

Moses didn't say, hey, God, I'm going to name you God. No, Moses said, what is your name, God? And God says, I am that I am.

This is my name. This is how you call me. This is how you refer to me. We can't rename God unless we believe that God's word is not inspired, and we can make it read any way we want it to read. We can't do that. See where our world's going? It's going there fast. In 18 months, just think of where our world's gone, just that quick. And we hold the truth in our hands. We hide the truth in our hearts, and we herald forth that truth as we speak, because we are guarders, guardians, that's a better word, guardians of the truth, protectors of the truth.

That's why we fight this war, because it's a war against the truth that God has spoken. You need to be able to do that with a clear conscience, right? So when you examine your heart and the responsibility and opportunity you have to preach the gospel, can you sit here and partake of the Lord's table, have you examined yourself and said, Lord, you have given me this ministry because somebody told me the truth. Somebody spoke to me the truth of God's holy word, and it convicted me, and I gave my life to Christ, and now I am a minister of reconciliation.

I need to make sure that others in my family, those who are my friends, those, the people I work with, they know the truth, and you should stop at nothing until they reject you completely because of that truth. Just keep giving it, just keep giving it over and over and over again, so they know that truth reigns supreme in your life. And number 10, here's number 10, the urgency by which I fulfill the previous nine, the urgency by which I fulfill the previous nine. There needs to be a sense of urgency about our soul, our life.

There needs to be the sense of tenacity about our lives. I can't sit here and say, yeah, you know, I got to have a pure mind. Yeah, you know, I got to, I got to love my wife as Christ loved the church. Yeah, you know, I know I should be looking at my heart and looking at the authenticity of my heart. I know, I know my soul is out there somewhere. It's destiny, I do not know, and let it pass, and partake at the Lord's table. You got to examine your life, look at it in light of God's holy Word.

What does God's Word say? Where do I stand with that? There needs to be an urgency in our lives. Diligence, that's why diligence is man's most prized possession, Proverbs 12, 27. It's the most important possession you'll ever have. What? Your diligence, your urgency, your tenacity in getting done what needs to be done. You're not a sluggard, you're not a slacker, you're not a lazy person, but you, with tenacity, work to do what God's called you to do. So important. What did Solomon say in Ecclesiastes 9?

He said, whatever your hand finds to do, do with all your might. Do the work of the ministry with all of your might. Whether to do the will of God from the heart, Ephesians 6, verse number 6 says. There needs to be a heartfelt drive and passion about our lives. Oh, my friends, we spent, I think, five weeks on this, and we could spend 55 weeks on this, because we need to look at the inside of our lives and say, does the inside match exactly what I believe on the outside?

Is everything true about my life? Am I living a life of truth? Am I living how God wants me to live for the glory of His kingdom? Because you're about to partake of the Lord's table this morning, and you gave your life away to obtain His life. And if Christ's life is in you, you long to live His life and will do whatever it takes to get there because you love Him so. Let's pray together. Father, we thank You for today, the opportunity You give us to study Your Word. Our prayer, Lord, is that You'd lead us and guide us in the way that we should go.

Oh, God, please go before us. May our lives be true and pure before You. May we not partake in an unworthy manner, for You have said in Your Word that many are sick and some have even died among You because they did not examine themselves. They did not look at their life in light of Your Word and say, where do I stand with the true and living God?

Our prayer, God, is that You do a mighty work in every single one of us for the glory of Your name until You come again, as You most surely will. In Jesus' name, amen. This morning, we're going to partake of the Lord's table. We're going to ask that You hold on to the elements until all have been served. If you're visiting with us, you are more than welcome to partake of the Lord's table. The only requirement is that you know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. And on top of that, you truly have examined your life.

This is not, you know, we're really into health here at the church. We're into your health, not just your physical health, but your spiritual health. So we don't want you to eat and drink in an unworthy manner, because Paul made it very clear that those in Corinth, some of them even died because they blasphemed the Lord's table by eating and drinking in an unworthy manner. Some weren't even saved. Some were saved but refused to examine their lives. We're really into your health spiritually and physically.

We want you to examine your heart. Where do you stand with the Christ? That's the most important thing, right? My heart's desire is that every one of us in this room stands before the Lord, true and pure before Him, having forgiven those who have offended us, being willing to ask for forgiveness if we've offended somebody, being willing to deal with whatever issues in our own life, in our heart and mind, that we regard our heart, because out of that flows all the issues of life.