Self-Examination

Lawrence tables a number of things for the people of God.

It's according to our text this evening.

It is a time of remembrance. It's the ordinance that was given to the church by the Lord Jesus Christ, by which we are to remember him where to remember him and we are to remember his work. His cross work and we will do that this evening. The Lord's table is also a time of self-examination and that's the focus of our message this evening, but a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Verse 28 self-examination. This is the only place that we find this emphasis in the Scriptures. Paul in his second letter to the church in Corinth said this in second and things chapter 13 in verse five he said examine your selves as to whether you are in the faith test your selves. So as we consider the subject tonight. It's pretty straightforward that there is more than meets the eye. The command is simple enough but there are some nuances as well that make it quite challenging.

So let's approach this this evening. In this way I want to fight and use the word examine. Let's examine the text and again the text is verse 28 of chapter 11 of first Corinthians, but let a man examine himself and so led him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. So going to examine the text itself, and then secondarily were going to look at a number of reasons for heating. This admonition so think with me about what it means for man or woman to examine themselves.

Don't think too hard initially here were all familiar with the exams.

If we been well with.

We've all been through school, various levels of school and an exam is something that is administered by the teacher is a tool of evaluation is to measure our progress. It's too ascertain our mastery of the subject that we have been studying on the challenge here is to submit ourselves to a thorough and a stern examination you leave our house leaves the door we go in and out of all the time. There is a mirror and I find myself frequently taking a quick glance in the mirror to make sure everything that's left is still in order yeah that's not what is in view here were not looking when I'm taking a quick cursory look were not the most of our cars you get in your car and you flip down the sun visor and there's a little light there and there's a little mirror there right before we get out of our car to go wherever were gone. We often pull it down to just take a quick glance look to see if were presentable and again that's not what's in view here know this is I've never been in the military, but I've seen this portrayed. This is the idea of a soldier who standing at attention alongside other soldiers as the platoon sergeant walks up to you with that scrutinizing meticulous gazes if he's going to stay a hole through you. That's what's in view here.

A careful scrutiny. A careful examination. What is that platoon sergeant. He's looking for any imperfection anything that's out of place now we need to be careful on the front end here because if we are children of God. We know ourselves to be sinners into the glory of God and to his praise alone.

We are redeemed center's and yet they're still the remnants of sin in us, so I'm not suggesting that we should be looking for a performance of perfection and that that's what qualifies us at the Lord's table I please understand, don't misunderstand me here, but that being said, the tech still says let a man examine himself. I want to borrow from Charles Spurgeon at this point is, he makes the point that I'm trying to make an a for more eloquent way.

He says quote self-examination is not the simple thing which at first sight it might appear.

No Christian who is ever really practiced it has found it easy. Is there any exercise of the soul which anyone of us is found so unsatisfactory, so almost impossible as self-examination. The fact is this, that the heart is so exceedingly complicated and intricate and it is so very near the eye, which has to investigate it and both it and the eye are so restless and so shifting that its deep anatomy baffles our research, just a few things here and there brought an open and floating upon the surface. A man discovers, but there are chambers receding within chambers in that deepest of all the things a sinners heart which no mere human investigation ever will read. It is the prerogative of God alone to search the human heart. Quote so as I said, it's simple and straightforward enough. The subject were considering, but it has a great deal of complexity to it, examine yourself. That is, don't be content. Don't be content with your public persona.

Don't be content with what others perceive you to be.

But in only but as you know yourself to be before God. This is a challenge to examine to scrutinize our actions, our behavior, our motives, our thoughts, our ambitions are struggles with temptations and with sin. That's the challenge so there's this schoolroom idea in language, there's this military idea as well.

And yet there's 1/3 idea that's nuanced here that I think is helpful. Paul therein. Second Corinthians 13.

He says examine yourself and then he says prove yourself and what's the what's the the nuance there. What's the difference between those two ideas I think at least for me, this I think is what he's driving at work to test ourselves were to prove ourselves and part of that careful examination includes if I can cite this way a test drive. How how is our professed faith working in real life you go to the car dealership with the idea of purchasing the car and you scrutinize the car you look at the car you lift the hood, you look inside you you you you look at everything that you know look at what part of that experience is taken the car for a test drive.

Want to see how it performs and see how it handles. We want to see what kind of acceleration it has on a hill. We must want to see those things and I think that this that that analogy is helpful here. In particular helpful for children and parents of children.

We encourage our children to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as early as possible.

We we don't want our children to be saved from sin. We want to see our children saved saved out of sin with your children safe from sin so the earlier they can be saved by the grace of God, the better for them and for us as their parents. But we need to be careful with childhood professions. They need to be tested. They need to be test drove as it were, and it is in the heat of life and the challenges of life that professions of faith are tested to see if they're real to see if there genuine soul wise parent understands this because Jesus said many on that day was saying to me Lord, Lord, we this didn't way that and I will say unto the depart from me, ye worker of iniquity. I never knew you.

So there's a big difference between a profession and having the real possession of converting grace and believing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So we need to take our profession of faith and prove it and tested 10 as we do. What have we learned. I think one of the things most of us have learned that it's a whole lot easier to profess it here than it is to live it out there right yes see what makes this business of self-examination so difficult is the nature of the human heart that God would entrust converted people believing people with such a momentous exercise let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Jeremiah tells us what the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it when we quote Jeremiah 17 verse nine we sometimes stop there and don't consider what verse 10 says, but this is verse 10.

I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind even to give every man according to his ways. According to the fruit of his doing, and am happy about that. I'm glad about that because something so important. I don't want to leave to my own heart that is prone to deception the Lord to search my heart and we need to have that prayer in our lips search me oh God and try me and test me see if there be any wicked way, and lead me in the way everlasting.

When my favorite books and is not necessarily because of the content of the entirety of the book my one of my favorite books because of a particular chapter in that book in his chapter 2 of that book in its loop real. His book the complete husband searching searching searching chapter so helpful in the counseling context. But I want you to hear what he has to say on page 21, 22 on this matter. He says quote the sin of pride carries with it God's swiftest and most severe judgment. It blinds you to other sins in your life and hinders you from repenting of them.

Pride is the AIDS or the acquired immune deficiency syndrome of the soul. When a person dies as a result of acquiring AIDS, he doesn't really die of AIDS. He dies of an AIDS complicated illness and ammonia, tuberculosis, meningitis, etc. the AIDS virus somehow blinds the eyes of its victims. Bodily defense system. This prevents the autoimmune system from saying, and consequently destroying those deadly viruses and bacteria that ultimately kill him and like AIDS pride blinds. You not only to itself but to every other sin tucked away in the recesses of your heart and life. It causes you to hate correction and reproof. It hides your sin from you it justifies your sin, it excuses your sin and it keeps you from repenting of your sin.

It deceives you into thinking that you're spiritually well when in fact you have you have deadly cancer and are in desperate need of the great physicians ball and of quote. That's why this is such a serious matter so is considered very briefly the text itself. Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. Now let's consider some reasons for heating. This admonition is I thought of the reasons to consider, of why we should take this seriously and heed this and obey this. The first thought that came to my mind is because it is a matter of the highest import of all the things that we could have on our minds tonight of all the things we could be considering I don't know anything more important were talking about our souls were talking about your own soul were talking about your never dying soul can be any more important than that's the first reason you don't want to be wrong about this.

There is no chance to correct your error after you die. Given propensity for deception and to be misled and to excuse our sins and the make all kinds of rationales were prone to error here and we can afford to be wrong because eternity is a very very very long time so reasons number one for considering and heating.

This admonition is because it is a matter of highest importance, number two, I think were wise to consider this tonight for righteousness sake, for righteousness sake. I believe it's in the heart of every blood bought child of God. We want to live for him who died for us it's a matter of stewardship. We only have one life and we want to what's left of it. We want to be good stewards of it and for righteousness sake, we want to examine ourselves. Heed this admonition want you to listen to some very searching words. Peter is writing this is in first Peter chapter 4 is talking about the one who is been joined to Christ, the one who is in union with Jesus Christ and he says this that that one no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh for the lusts of men, but for the will of God, and now this verse, verse three. For we have spent enough of our past time in doing the will of the Gentiles. When we walked in lewdness loss, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties and abominable idolatries.

We've wasted enough time. We have enough regret not to have any more regret. So we want to heed this admonition for righteousness sake for stewardship sake. I don't know how much time the Lord is allotted to me whatever time I have left I want to maximize it. I want to waste time on one of give myself and my energies in my time to sinful passions and sinful pursuits that are to be verse highlighted in our Bibles for we spent enough of our past life doing the will of the Gentiles.

When we walked in these various lusts of the flesh, so reasons for heating. This admonition number one because it is a matter of highest importance, number two for righteousness sake number three because we do not want to be ignorant of Satan's devices. We don't want to be ignorant of his devices. We want to know our hearts and know our band to know our propensity to sin and we want to safeguard that I enjoy sports I enjoy participating in some sports I will enjoy watching sports more and it's become professional sports is become very complex. Used to be the was the head coach when others, the offensive coordinator in the defensive coordinator in the linebackers coach in the kicking could it be there's all the specialists teams football usually play a Sunday to Sunday so they play a team on Sunday and they spent all this week reviewing film and scouting their opponent and what are they doing their looking for weaknesses that they can exploit where is this team vulnerable. How should we attack this team. What gives us our best chance of winning this game and as a coaching staff is assessing their opponent.

Other assessing strengths and weaknesses of their opponent. Well, it's foolish to devise a game plan that attacks the opponent's strengths, you devise a game plan that exploits your opponent's weaknesses, and that's the way our adversaries. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He's been around a long, long time. He knows human nature. He knows our propensity to sin, and he knows where were vulnerable. He knows where our defenses are down. And if you were the devil and he found success coming at you many many times this way, and he comes back the next time and sees there's been no fortification. There's been no strengthening of that area you're still weak in that area.

Is he going to attack you some other place was he going to keep attacking you where he's finding success and it's amazing to me how people can be ignorant of Satan's devices take no precautions to shore up those areas of weakness to thwart the enemy and his schemes and his attacks. He comes back to Sony ask it any comes to you busy find your defenses shored up this he find woe.

He was vulnerable there, but he's not anymore or is not near as vulnerable as he used to be, or does he find absolutely no no activity on your part to shore up protect fortify your heart and life is one of the reasons why we need to examine ourselves we need to know where were vulnerable. Where were weak where the evil one is most likely going to exploit us and take advantage of us. So one of the reasons for this admonition of examining ourselves because we don't want to be ignorant of Satan's devices and we don't want him to be successful in his exploits. We want to grow in grace we want to make progress. Another reason closely associated with the previous one is that we want to run the race that set before us fully aware of those besetting sins and the entanglements that retard and hinder our progress want to know where there is excess weight. We want to know where were prone to stumbling. We want to know these things and we learn these things by examining ourselves as I say there is only one race to run and there's a time when you will not run any longer.

We want to make as much progress in this course that God has for us as we possibly can been fascinated by reading of the incredible discipline that some people will put their bodies through in order to be a long-distance runner.

I recently read this book. His last names escapes me right now.

His first name is Stephen and the man runs ultramarathon's when I say ultramarathon see what he doesn't run 26 miles. He runs hundred and 10 miles hundred and 30 miles an what that man put his body through to prepare himself for these ultramarathon's is astounding to me as I read the book. One of the races that he leased enjoyed was running on a track mom have to mount track and just repetitively does run around this track he liked to run long distance runs. Sin through all kinds of different terrain for the variety, but this particular race.

He despised it, but toward the end. He's had such a competitive spirit. He wanted to see how far he could run in the in in you want running against anyone else that the goal of the races to see how many miles you can log in a 24 hour period of time. This man ran for 24 hours and he ran 167 miles in 24 hours and not because I desire to do anything like that right but just it interested me, and I thought, you know, here's a man who's disciplining himself for for what for. He's exercising himself and what is the Bible say exercise bodily exercise profits a little but I want to take that same kind of determination and discipline and translate that into the spiritual realm and I wonder if we had that same determination and drive how much more we could accomplish for the Lord Jesus Christ in the life that he's given to us.

We want to run this race and minimize these besetting sins that entangle in retard and hinder our progress. Another reason for repeating this admonition and that is because God himself will examine us.himself will judge test and prove us in our entrance into heaven, will not be based upon what we merely profess to be, but it will be based on what we truly are, by the grace of God. Our text tells us what a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup later on and says if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. So God cares far more about our progress. Any times and we do, and God is going to judge us. God is going to prove us. God is going to test us because her so much at stake again. So God himself will examine the judge and test and prove us but he says if you'll do it with a helping with the help of the Spirit of God, then I won't have to judge you. I will have to chasten you it's a way it's a way that God has given for us to monitor and look after our Christian life make progress in our Christian life. So again were considering reasons for repeating this admonition to examine ourselves number one because it is a matter of highest importance, number two for righteousness sake for stewardship sake number three because we don't want to be ignorant of Satan's devices before because we want to run this race without the besetting sins that are all entangle us in retard and hinder our progress and because God himself will examine us and judge us and test us and prove us.

Here's a positive reason, reasons to heed this admonition because of the joyful assurance that the self and self inject examination bring all how good it is to be able to say with an assurance with a profession that has been tested, I know in whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I committed unto him against that day. There's joy in that folks joy in that the wind God spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are indeed children of his. There is no happiness in this world can bring to the table that compares with that kind of deep-seated joy of the heart and of the soul, and one final reason for heeding this admonition and it is obvious in the text, let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.

Reason number seven for heeding this admonition to prepare us for the Lord's table, to prepare us for communion with the Lord and his people around the table that's been prepared prepare for God's people so simple tonight, but I believe very hard searching text that we've examined 10 reasons why we need to heed this admonition. Let's pray father tonight.

We thank you for this ordinance that you've given the sacrament of the Lord's table and Lord, we we want to do it in obedience to your command. We want to remember our Savior.

In this way, we thank you for his atoning work. We want to thank you for his sacrifice for sinners that was fully acceptable to you how grateful we are tonight that there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, we rejoice in our privilege position in our Savior and we long to live a life that honors him and pleases him. So we thank you for the instructions you've given to your church concerning self-examination.

We pray that we would be aided by your spirit that we would not be deceived by our own hearts that we would know ourselves as you know us to be. So we pray our God to search us, and to try and send to prove us and delete us in the way everlasting for our good and your glory. A man