Sermon: Examine Yourself
#1755A
James Beaubelle
Given 06-Apr-24; 38 minutes
description: The entire creation can be viewed as one gigantic classroom, a venue in which Almighty God is preparing His people to complete their transfer from the kingdom of men into the Kingdom of God, a process which extends far beyond the calling of the First Fruits, who have been presently placed on the fast track. Our time has almost expired (I Peter 4:17) allowing no latter day to catch up. As we train for our priestly positions in God's Kingdom, we must avail ourselves of the tools God has provided for us to overcome, build character, and prepare to assume the role of the betrothed Bride of Christ, our spiritual companion, sharing His likeness, always looking to Him for our best direction. Our Lord, Savior, and Bridegroom kept the two Great Commandments flawlessly, providing us an example to follow Him, loving God and our fellow humans by tangible works of compassion and service. These two great commandments are where most of our self-examination should revolve. Christ lived the way of give, providing a shining example of where we can look at ourselves. As we learn in Matthew 25:34, we serve Jesus Christ as we serve our spiritual siblings.
transcript:
I do not know if you have ever thought of it this way, but the whole earth—and maybe the whole universe—in one sense can be looked upon as one huge classroom, or as I like to think of it myself, as one large nursery created by God as the place He is preparing and raising His people to complete their transfer from the kingdom of men into the Kingdom of God. I also do not believe this classroom or nursery is limited to just a place for raising His firstfruits; that all of mankind is going through their life's experiences, though it be on the broad road they travel, in a type of preparations for the second resurrection and to one day come to either know the Lord or to be judged beyond hope of entering into the salvation process.
You, and hopefully I, are those being fast tracked in preparation for an amazing future, working closely with Christ to help bring many sons and daughters into the presence of and into the God Family. This is serious business, this is very serious work we are involved with. We have much to do and very little time to accomplish all we need to do in our preparations. One lifetime is actually very short. And so for us, we must say as our Lord did at the age of 12 when questioned by his parents of why He was separated from them. And He said, "Why did you seek Me? Did you not know that I must be about My Father's business?" It is an answer we need to keep in our mind for ourselves when we find so many things competing for our time that we must also be getting about our Father's business, for our time is now. There is no later day for doing catch up, as spoken by Peter in,
I Peter 4:17 For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God.
That means our judgment is going on right now. Every day our actions are under review.
But let us not be dismayed. There is for us much help that we do get as we work to accomplish what God has set before us. No one sends a worker into the field to plow and then withholds the tools used for plowing. That makes no sense. But we must yield to His guidance for there are many changes for us to make just to get hold of the basic tools we will need in preparation to inherit an office and a position, as spoken of in Revelation 5:10 where it says we will be kings and priests and that we shall reign with Christ on the earth. We need to keep this and other goals in mind as we navigate ourselves in this troubled world and avoid being partakers of its sinful ways. As our Lord was not of this world, so we too must separate ourselves and come out from her.
Unlike many today who are working to change society but not so much themselves, they believe at the time of their death they will automatically transfer into the presence of God and be rewarded for their efforts. And beyond that have no real good idea what they will be doing, unlike the called of God.
The firstfruits have been given enough (not a lot but enough) to know that just as the Father and Son have been working until now, they also will be working. Specific jobs we may not know, but let us all in faith be assured they are all good and they are all very important activities within God's government. That also, it seems, includes a certain amount of traveling. I glean this from the fact that the Bride follows the Lord wherever He goes.
This knowing a little bit of our future should, and I believe does, put structure into our preparations. Having a well-defined goal gives us direction to where we need to put our personal efforts to accomplish what is required of us. And these goals can show us where we need to examine ourselves in what and in how we are progressing. This helps us to separate what is important from what is trivial. We must be very discerning and seek the Lord's guidance in this so our efforts produce the good fruit in our lives that He seeks to find within us.
We usually hear much about the topic of examining yourself during the Passover season as we consider the incredible sacrifice our Lord made on our behalf. Of course, we tend to consider our sins and how we are doing in overcoming our shortcomings. But I want to move our thoughts into another direction today. Getting out of sin is very important. But because those called of God are quick to repent of their mistakes and because God tells us in,
I John 1:9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Sin is not the only thing to consider as we search our own hearts. Examining ourselves is just as much of finding places we may be out of alignment with God's will for us. And so it is as much about what you are doing in your preparations and what you are not doing as well.
If we are to emulate Jesus Christ, to look to Him as our example, to grow into His likeness, then examining all facets of our lives comes into play. As John Ritenbaugh would often say in his messages, everything matters.
One of the major themes we get from the Bible about the church, and each one individually, is we are to be the Bride of Christ. Certainly, we are under the watchful care of the Father, who has selected each one of us to be in a marriage covenant with His Son.
I remember a man in my old Anaheim days who had a difficult time with this concept of being a bride. But if we consider the first Adam prior to the arrival of Eve, God knew that he needed a companion comparable to himself. Will we not be that spiritual companion with Christ conforming to His likeness? We will not be Him, but we will be very much like Him much as Eve was very much like Adam. We will be that new spiritual creation that follows Him wherever He goes.
And so, as we are told in Revelation 19:7 by John, that the marriage of the Lamb has come and the Bride has made herself ready. She has put on the white linen, or the white garments, a symbol for the righteousness of her Bridegroom. This putting on, I see then, requires us to continually look to Christ to see where we need to change and adopt His likeness and to share the same goals that He has. This is something the Bride does out of her love for the Bridegroom. Always looking to Him for her best direction.
If we think back here to the Parable of the Ten Virgins in Matthew 25, we get a big clue concerning preparation for being with the Bridegroom. Five of the women we are told were wise and we see that they looked ahead and planned out their preparations prior to the Bridegroom's arrival. They waited, not knowing the exact time that He would arrive. Sounds a bit like us. They put in the effort to have more oil for their lamps and would be ready to go when called to meet up with the Bridegroom.
The five foolish women just guessed that what they had would be sufficient. Obviously, they were not expecting any delays in the Groom's arrival. And so they were called foolish in their preparations, for they failed to look and determine what was needed when they did have the time to be prepared. They also did not consider or ask what the wise women had done in their preparations and likely considered it is the Groom's job to get them ready and to arrive when they expected He should arrive.
This is a mindset that very many in the world have adopted to their own hurt. We follow His lead. We conform to His timing, not the other way around.
This lamp oil had been referenced as the amount of God's Spirit within us. And in a broad sense, it does meet this application. His Spirit and gifts He supplies is something we must certainly pray for and acquire as He sees best for us. But we can also see the oil representing how much one is prepared for entering into a relationship with the Groom. And so it is in this sense an accumulation of righteousness of the Bride and how much she is in the image of her Betrothed. Does she have the wisdom and the character to be ready to stand at Christ's side and follow Him wherever He goes? Five in this parable did and five were left out in the cold. A 50% failure rate is never good. And this number should motivate us to be very diligent in our preparations.
II Corinthians 13:5 Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves.
This is no easy task. Paul puts it right in our face of what we need to do. This statement to examine yourself expects an answer. A simple yes or no will suffice. Are we or are we not being diligent in doing God's will and getting ready to inherit a place within the Kingdom of God? Are we being faithful to the duties we know we each have? Are we motivated by our faith in applying the teaching God gives to each one of us and instilling them in our daily living?
I do not think we all see this need to examine oneself the same way. What we look at and how we look at it can end up being very subjective. One thing I think we can all agree on: That it is not a time or a task of comparing ourselves to others. That idea will just come to a dead end. One flawed person comparing themselves to another flawed individual is pointless. It will not be of any best help for us.
We may all be on the same narrow road, but everyone's path is not exactly like your own. One person's hurdles to overcome you may never see, whereas your own hurdles, you see them every day. The scripture certainly does not say, examine yourself and others to see if you are in the faith. And it does not say when. What it does say is to look to Christ to fulfill your needs in growing into His likeness, for He is our salvation and He is our strength.
I have read an author's opinion on the topic of self-examination where the author, Anna Smith, said,
The idea of looking at the self for anything was pointless and it only creates in the followers of Jesus Christ an abundance of despondency and a sense of failure. And this should be avoided for the danger and the damage it can do to the self.
I pulled one of her arguments against doing any self-examination one might try to attempt. Here is your out key:
The only way to treat all forms of self-reflective acts of whatever kind is simply to give them up. They always do harm and never do good. They are bound to result in one of two things. Either they fill us full of self-praise and self-satisfaction, or they plunge us into the depths of discouragement and despair. And whichever it may be, the soul is in this way, inevitably shut out from any sight of God and His salvation.
And she adds in another place that, there are only two scriptures in her Bible that say examine. The first one we read, II Corinthians 13:5 and the second one is found in I Corinthians 11:28 where Paul admonishes those in the church who were keeping the Passover in an unworthy manner that they were bringing judgment upon themselves for not discerning the Lord's body. She adds that these comments from Paul were never intended to be understood as individually needed for making any course corrections by them, and by us today I am sure she infers, but were intended for the Corinthian church as a whole to correct only where Paul saw where they were going astray.
If this is true, that they only applied then, then those opposed to any self-evaluation would be more right than wrong.
But I disagree. You probably knew that. Human nature is innately self-centered and is prone to false judgments every day. The apostle Paul, I am sure, spoke many times and had many words with this congregation that were never recorded for us to read. Yet, God did leave in these admonishments to self-exam for a reason. Certainly we are to see they were for us as well.
Our author seems to have missed the words of Paul in Galatians 6 that narrows it directly to a review of the self. Turn over to Galatians 6 and we will read his words that most certainly are meant for all of us.
Galatians 6:3-5 For if anyone thinks himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. But let each one examine his own work [think our actions and our behavior here], and then he will have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. For each one shall bear his own load.
I read this as a good lesson in being humble and not getting yourself puffed up over your success in overcoming, to keep your self-exam on a personal level between you and your Lord and know you have the responsibility for the many decisions you make. If we are looking at the goodness of our Lord and inviting His teachings and taking a view of His life that we all are working to emulate, if He is our standard of measurement for any self-evaluation we do, then we are on the right track. Then we would see that all the searching we do to find the standard we aspire to is not for crushing one's spirit into a state of despondency and a fearful waiting for judgment, but an opportunity for producing more and more good fruit to help us find the joy and the peace that comes from being in a healthy relationship with Christ. It is Christ in us that works with us for producing this fruit.
We know John 15:5 where we are told by our Savior that without Him we can do nothing. He is the vine that supports the branches and He is the one that can make any self-examination we do with Him bear much fruit, for His help will be at the proper time and in the proper amount and it is done by One that loves us dearly. He is most assuredly the only foundation we will ever need to grow from. And when we ask Him for help with a humble heart of contrition, He will help us see what needs to be seen.
And when we see and when we know, then we must take what has been given and get to it. I say this because I have seen in myself my own laziness in implementing change. The old W.C. Fields attitude of: "Don't do today which you can put off until tomorrow to do" is a recipe for failure in the realm of religion. Slothful servants, as shown in several parables, do get punished. It is a trip into outer darkness, a place of weeping and a place you will not find your Lord nearby to comfort you. The five foolish virgins also ended up in the dark because they let their lamps run out of oil.
Those who know their master's will and hide from it need to change as quickly as possible. We will break into the middle of the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25, where we see the punishment handed out to the servant entrusted with one talent who failed to follow through on what was certainly within his capability of doing.
Matthew 25:25-30 "And I was afraid and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours." But his lord answered and said to him, "You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reaped where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest. Therefore take the talent from him and give it to him who has ten0 talents. For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. [verse 30 should make us a little nervous] And cast that unprofitable servant into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
Hebrews 10:31 comes to mind when we read such things. "It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands [and judgment here] of the living God."
Just going back to my topic of self-examination, we should also take notice as in the Parable of the Talents that we just read, that the Bible is abundantly clear that judgment comes as much or more from what we do not do as it does from what we have done in error. All of us have and do repent for the sins we have committed against God and His holy law. Yet have we seen the need to repent for what we have not done, opportunities that came to us to do good but we let them pass? What we should have known to do but we stood silent as the train left the station?
Part of one's self-examination should, I feel, include this as well, what has been called the sins of omission. I think these can be more easily forgotten by us because they are not always right before our eyes. Yet—you knew I would find a scripture here—James 4, verse 17 is clear for all of us to see.
James 4:17 To him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin.
This cannot mean we spend all of our waking hours of doing good for others. But it can mean when certain opportunities come before us and we know we can be and should be helpful, we do not sit it out. We cannot give all of our money away nor give all of our money away to the needy. The poor will always be with us but not giving all does not mean none.
I also think many of these opportunities we find have been purposely put before us, something we should give some serious thought to. We would be amiss to think that God does not test His people. If there is a clear message, we can pick up in the book of James it is this: that true religion has both our faith and our works fused together like two sides of the same coin. And that much of what Christ taught and showed by His works, His own works, was His abundant concern for men's physical condition as well as their spiritual. He always had concern for their infirmities, their sickness, and their hunger.
Others' well being was the primary focus of the 3½ year ministry. From the first to the last, He showed His outgoing concern for others. Even when it was changing water into wine or as serious as casting out demons, He gave Himself over to their physical needs.
Unlike some who believe the purpose of religion belongs in the spiritual realm, only Christ saw both as being necessary. He said so when He outlined the direction His Father had sent Him in Luke 4.
Luke 4:18 To preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."
Freeing men out of captivity is both a spiritual and physical activity. No one who is fighting every day for their physical survival has much time to be concerned about their spiritual condition in this world. Christ came to work both of these needs of men into the fabric of His ministry as He proclaimed the gospel.
Much of what He taught was how one was to live in this world with each other as we prepare for the next. He taught us how we should not only love God but our brothers and our neighbors as well. These are the two Great Commandments we can always hold up before ourselves and ask, "How am I doing? How am I doing? How should I be doing?" Our Lord certainly fulfilled both of these commandments perfectly. He had compassion as a constant guide in His dealings with most everyone. There were a few exclusions, aka the scribes and Pharisees.
Mark 1, verses 40-41 is a good example of this, when He cleansed the leper of his affliction.
Mark 1:40-41 Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If you are willing, You can make me clean." Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed."
People will argue until the cows come home over doctrine saying you need to believe this way or that way to worship God and have a shot at living with Him for eternity. There will always be those who get into hair-splitting arguments over the science of religion, aka theology. I am not discounting the need for correct doctrine. They are very necessary in correct worship of the Holy God. What I am driving to is, I never see anyone argue over the two Great Commandments to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor. Even if you consider your neighbor to be an enemy against you, you must still have concern for Him. Most people, I think, will not do this, but they do not ever seem to argue against it like they do over the clear truths revealed in our Bibles.
These two commandments, I feel, is where most of our self-examination should revolve around. Sin, of course, is always lurking in the background. But if we have turned away from it, we need not dwell on it too much. Leave it in the past where it belongs seems to be the right thing to do. When we are forgiven, it is done. When Christ told the paralytic in Luke 5 that his sins were forgiven and to take up his bed and walk to his house, that chapter of the man's life was done, and he took up his bed and he walked to his home.
Sometimes I wonder, if God is so willing to forget our transgressions why we so often dig them up again? But I digress.
Looking to see that we are in alignment with God's will is my focus today. And loving God is best done when we are keeping His commandments. John 14:5 is very encouraging for us about this when Christ said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments." It is expanded in verse 21 when He adds,
John 14:21 "He who has My commandments and keeps them, is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him."
Very powerful words for us!
How awesome is the love He has for each one of us. It requires faith on our part to do this, to believe who He is and that what He requires of us is seen by us as our reasonable duty for all that He has done and revealed to each one of us. And so it is with our faith, that we should strive to apprehend all the benefits He wants us to have. And so Paul simply says, "Examine yourself to see if you are in the faith."
We have come to the part I think is crucial for any self-examination. We do like the first Great Commandment. The second Great Commandment requires of us an active role in supporting each other in both the spiritual needs we all have and in each other's physical needs as well. The first responsibility, of course, is to those in the household of God. But it is clearly illustrated in the Parable of the Good Samaritan to include those we call our neighbor.
Christ's answer to the lawyer who was trying to test Him shows us how important this second commandment is to our future well being.
Let us turn to Luke 10 and I will read verses 25 to 28. I like reading as many as we can because it comes to us both ways, by the ear and the eyes.
Luke 10:25-28 And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him [not good], saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And He said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?" So he answered and said, "'You shall love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbor as well as yourself.'" And He said to him, "You have answered rightly; do this and you will live."
Sounds like something we should be paying attention to here. We can see clearly here the importance of our care for our neighbor God intends for us. We are to conduct ourselves with their best interest in our mind as well as we do when we are looking out for ourselves. How often did our Lord assist those He had never met before? I would assume almost all of the healings that were done by Him and later by the apostles were for those who crossed his path and their path, the apostles, for the first time in their pursuit of preaching the gospel.
These two commandments are why I think they should be the springboard of any self-examination we look to do and to show us where we need to shore up any effort needed to stay in alignment with loving God and in loving our brethren and neighbors. Christ was and is all about helping those who seek after Him, and very much so for those who are to become His Bride. That is us.
I just I listed a few of our Lord's examples of the help He gave to men to heal and to relieve the physical problems they faced while fulfilling His time in the flesh. This list of healings I have written down are just from chapters 7 and 8 of Luke, just by reading the headers of what was going to be in those scriptures that were put in the New King James version. Certainly we cannot read them all right now. But the headings we can and they are enough to show how active our Lord was in the physical needs of men and women that He healed. I am certain there are many more that were never written down for our learning.
1. Jesus heals a centurion servant.
2. Jesus raises the son of the widow of Nain.
3. A sinful woman forgiven.
4. A demon possessed man healed.
5. A girl returned to life and a woman healed.
6. Feeding the 5,000.
This was just two chapters. He was very busy helping men. And what He was teaching us was that the Kingdom of God was ever going to start for men here in this nursery I call it, was the place and now was the time. And as it is this day with us, now, today, we must hear because it is our time to learn the lessons of loving God and loving our fellow man.
It is obvious we do not have the necessary gifts to heal others or to raise the dead. Those gifts were for a different time and a different place as the gospel was being established in the early days. Men and women are still sick and are still in pain. Many will often go hungry and thirsty, a lot more than we probably realize. They have had the gift and knowledge of the Sabbath either lost by negligence or taken away by the craftiness of Satan, and they are tired and they can find no real rest being so far away from their Creator. Many have their economy in poor condition and have a lot of stress in their lives as they struggle to survive day after day.
And these needs are where we can try to help wherever we can in our own small way to do as our Lord has shown us and how He was ready to help those in need. The field is large and the workers are few. Christ lived the way of give and is a shining example of where we can look at ourselves. He lived the way of giving and so must we.
It takes faith to follow in His steps to trust that He has pointed us in the right direction as we struggle with our own selves within the flesh that wants to keep all good things for the self. So we should, as needed, continue to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith.
I have spoken my mind on this topic, but I do want to close on something, words of our Savior concerning what I think how we express our love for others. Please turn to Matthew again back in the 25th chapter and we will close on these words, words that are well known by us. Christ has made sure we have read these or heard of these before. They are certainly an area or topic we should seriously consider when we examine our walk with God. We will start down in verse 34.
Matthew 25:34-46 Then the king will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed me; I was sick and you visited me; I was in prison and you came and visited Me.' Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty or give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take you in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick or in prison and come to You?'
And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, You did it to Me.' Then He will say to those on the left, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty and You gave me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in; naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.' And they will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' Then He will answer them [I know we know this answer], 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."
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