Examine Yourself

Examining Ourselves in Light of 2 Corinthians 13:5

I invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and hold your place at verse 5. As most of you know, we have been over the last several months, almost a year now, going verse by verse through the book of 2 Corinthians.

And I have said for the last two weeks, I've preached around this text, but I have not yet really dug down into this text because I said that there was a sense in which while all passages have a context, some passages have so much weight and depth that they deserve a sermon all to themselves.

And that's not something that we should really be surprised about. Every passage of Scripture fits within a context, and if you preach it out of its context, meaning if you go against what the context is saying, then oftentimes you are wrong, and that's the danger when we teach hermeneutics.

We teach people to always stay within the context of a passage when seeking to understand what it means. But then, and I'll give you an example of why that's important. Last week I preached on the discipline of the church, and I posted a little video where I called people to participation in the local church.

And wouldn't you know it, someone, well where two or three are gathered, that is not an excuse to not be part of a church that's actually misusing that text, ripping it from its context, and creating a misunderstanding of that whole passage.

So yes, we should understand all passages within their context. But as I was saying, some passages also rise above and stand in a way that they can be preached as unique passages. And we know these passages of Scripture.

John 3 .16 is a powerful summation of the gospel. 2 Corinthians 5 .21, God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, that we could become the righteousness of God in him. If you can't preach that, you don't need to be a preacher.

And it rises above and says this text can stand on its own. There are many others as well. John 1 .1, I'm looking forward to going from 2 Corinthians into the gospel of John, which I hope to do by Christmas Sunday, the Sunday before Christmas, and preach John 1 .1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. What a powerful passage, and a passage that really does rise above and is able to stand on its own. Well today we come to a passage like that.

We come to a passage that while it is within the context of 2 Corinthians, it's in the context of Paul. We've talked about this context for a year now. Paul is defending his ministry against those who would call into question the integrity of the apostle, who would call into question the validity and accuracy of his message, and he is calling them to repent of their sin.

He's calling them to turn from the false teachers who have brought them this false message. He's calling them to recognize who he is as the one who God has appointed, as the one who has been appointed to not only plant their church, but to have a special relationship with them in Corinth, and not to reject his ministry, but to accept it wholeheartedly, to come underneath the authority of the Word of God, which is being preached by Paul.

And toward the end of the book, he says, examine yourselves. Examine yourselves, and as I said, the last two weeks I have preached around this text, but today I'm going to preach this text. We're going to look at it closely, and we're going to see that Paul is in this command, and it is a command.

It's in an imperative voice, meaning it's telling us to do something. It's saying, examine yourself to see if you are actually in the faith. So, let's stand together. Again, reading only this verse, it says in the ESV, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.

Test yourselves, or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you, unless indeed you fail to meet the test. Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Today as I come to you, Lord, I have many prayers on my heart, but the greatest among them, Lord, as I always pray, but today, maybe just a little more, I pray, oh God, that you would keep me from error.

I know the ditches that come in a message like this, the ditch of legalism is very easy to fall into, but also, Lord, the ditch of licentiousness is very easy to fall into as we come to a passage like this that must be understood and must be applied, for it is a command from the word of God, Lord, keep me from failure.

Keep me from falsehood. Keep me from pride and arrogance, to think I know better than you. Keep me from foolishness. Lord, I pray that you would open up the hearts of your people to understand your word, for only you can do that.

I pray your spirit be among us. I pray as I give instruction in the word, that the spirit would be the one who does the teaching, that he would take the word through the ear, even through the mind and implant it in our hearts, and Lord, if there are those who are here who are believers, I pray that this would be a time where they, through self-examination, reach an even greater sense of assurance, but Lord, if there are those here, and I am confident that there are those here who do not know the Lord, I pray, Lord, that this passage would be to them a wake-up call for their spirit, and Lord, that you, by your spirit, would give them the gift of regeneration, which would open their heart to believe, and that they would come under the blessing of trusting the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord, most of all, I pray for the person who's lying to himself or herself, the person who does not examine themselves, but rather sits with confidence and a false hope. Your word calls those pseudo-brethren, false brethren.

Lord, make it clear to us today, as we examine not our neighbor, as we examine not our friends, but we examine ourselves. In Jesus' name, amen. When we come to this passage, we notice in the English that it begins, in the English standard version, with the word examine.

However, if you look into the original language of this particular passage, you will notice a rhetorical construction that I believe the audience to understand, because there are two imperatives in this passage, the word paretsete, which is the word examine, and the word dakamatsete, which means to test or to prove, and we're going to talk about those definitions in a moment.

We're going to talk about what we are supposed to do and how those commands work out, but three times in this passage, the word yourselves is emphasized. It's the very first word in the Greek. If you look at the original language, the first word is hutus, is yourselves, examine.

And then just after the next clause, which is whether or not you are in the faith, it says hutus, dakamatsete, yourselves, test. And then later, it says, do you not recognize yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you if you have not failed the test?

So the word, the rhetorical device that Paul is emphasizing in the use of language here, not only through repetition, but by the placement of the words in the sentence is yourselves. It is easy to examine others, and we do it all the time.

Whether or not we are in church doesn't matter. We have a tendency through the eyes of the eye of judgment to level our own thoughts and opinions about people in our mind all the time. If this passage said, test your neighbor, every one of us would say, praise the Lord.

I do that in spades. I have no problem testing the person to my right or to my left. I have no problem examining my spouse. I have no problem examining my friends. I have no problem examining my parents and certainly have no problem examining my kids.

It's easy to examine others. In fact, it's so common that we would examine others that one of the admonitions of Jesus Christ in his great sermon on the mount, the longest sermon we have in scripture, from the words of Jesus, he emphasizes the idea of not judging one another.

Now this doesn't mean we never ever get to exercise any discernment, and I think that's a wrong way of applying that passage where people think judge not means never have discernment, just accept anything, tolerate anything, never come to any conclusions.

That's not the case. But there is a sense in which the reason why Jesus says judge not lest you be judged is because it is the very nature of our hearts to judge one another and oftentimes very unfairly, very critically, and without grace.

As one, and I don't remember who said it, but as one commentator said, we all want to be objects of grace, but none of us want to be distributors of grace. I noticed I didn't get an amen, so I'm going to assume by your silence that you agree.

Aren't we though? Aren't we good at judging one another? Aren't we good at assigning motives? Always the worst of motives to others and always the purest motives to ourselves. When someone else does something we don't like, well it must just be because they're an awful, no good, lousy person.

But when we do something others don't like, well don't they know my heart? Don't they know I'm a good person? See this is the way we live. We live in a state, often a constant state of criticism against others.

But how often are we willing to be critical of ourselves? Brother Mike preached this text five years ago. How long ago was it? About that. I listened to his sermon twice this week. Figured I'd listen to a good preacher and then maybe I'll do better.

No, I listened to his message twice just thinking about what he had said and thinking about what I had already prepared and seeing if there were some things that maybe he drew out of the text that I didn't.

And as I was thinking about that he talked about how much, and he uses that phrase, Sin Sniffers Association. We want to be Sin Sniffers. We want to be the president of the Sin Sniffers Association, be willing to look into other people's lives.

And we all want to apply the scripture to ourselves. Doesn't everybody say, what does this text mean to me? Except this one. This is the one text that when you're in a small group Bible study and everybody's like, what is this text?

Nobody wants to say, this one is about me. When actually this is the one that is totally about you. Three times it's about you and me. Yourselves. Examine. Yourselves. Test. Or do you not recognize yourselves?

That Christ is in you unless you indeed fail the test. This is directly pointed at our heart. And I want to tell you something, that makes it absolutely unpopular. Because what most people want me to preach about or any other preacher is to preach about somebody else.

If I walked in today, abortion's bad. Woo! Abortion's bad. We all agree. Transgender bathrooms is crazy. Woo! We all agree. But what if I said, look at your heart and examine yourself. Now it's personal.

It's easy to look at the craziness of the world and have an opinion about that. But are you willing to look at the weaknesses and brokenness of your own heart and have an honest opinion about that? That's not fun.

Last week I preached on church discipline. That wasn't fun. This week is less fun. Because you know what? Church discipline is the job of the church to bring the weight of discipline to bear on those who are living in unrepentant sin and to call them to repentance.

And if necessary, restrain their participation in the table and maybe even participation in the body. We understand what discipline is and why it serves a purpose in the church. But all of that is preceded by self-examination.

Self-examination is the reason why we come to the table every week. Not the only reason, but one of the reasons. Does not the very text that tell us how to take the table say, examine yourself then? Does not.

Isn't that what 1 Corinthians 11 says? When you come to the table, examine yourself. By the way, same word. To examine yourself. Paul says, yourself, examine yourself test. And I want you to understand something.

This is not unique. This is not the only passage in scripture that calls us to self-examination. I just mentioned 1 Corinthians 11, but let's just look at a few other quick passages. You don't have to turn there.

Just in your mind, I'm sure some of these will come to your mind. The Gospel of Matthew has a very important passage in Matthew chapter 7, where Jesus is finishing the Sermon on the Mount, and he starts talking about those who say, Lord, Lord.

Remember them? What does he say? He says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. And then he says what?

Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness. So what's the heart behind the passage? Are we true believers or are we ones who are faking it? Are we genuine or are we ones who will hear the Lord say, depart from me, I know you're not?

Isn't that the most frightening thing to consider? Isn't that the most fearful thing that any of us could ever imagine? To face the Lord and hear him say, depart from me, I never knew you. 1 John, I remember years ago hearing a preacher say, 1 John is the no book.

You ever heard that? Meaning, it's how you know if you're a believer. Because it says over and over, by this you will know. But what does 1 John say over and over? It tells us that we know these things because of changes that have occurred in our life.

1 John chapter 5, verse 13, I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. So the whole book has been about that. And then go back to chapter 3, verse 10, he says, by this it is evident who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil.

Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother. These are examinations, self-examinations that the scripture gives us. And they're not alone. 2 Peter, therefore my brothers be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure.

For if you practice these qualities you will never fail. You know what bothers me is I hear preachers who say you should never question. You should never examine. And if you think I'm exaggerating, I'm not.

There are those who would say if you question your salvation, if you examine your salvation, you're calling God into question. Well then what are all these passages about? Philippians chapter 2, therefore my beloved as you have always obeyed, so now not only in my presence but also in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

What does that mean? Have you ever worked out your salvation? Have you ever mentally, spiritually thought through your salvation and examined yourself, asked questions to yourself? Have you ever done that?

James chapter 2, almost the whole chapter but particularly beginning at verse 14, what good is it my brothers if someone says he has faith and does not have works? Can that faith save him? And he goes on to say that faith without works is what?

Dead. What does that mean? Some people say that's just a different type of saving faith. There are people who say dead faith is saving faith. If you can get that out of James 2, you are a magician because you are pulling a rabbit out of a hat because it just ain't there.

The problem with the subject of self-examination is like with almost any subject, you find yourself in two ditches. And you know, I think it was Andy who introduced the idea of the two ditches but I've done what I often do and that is I've made, I've absconded with it and made it something I use now but it's Andy's, two ditches.

The two ditches are how so often and it's like this with almost any doctrine. If I take you through systematic theology, I can show you where almost every doctrine has two ditches. One that goes too far one way, one that goes too far the other way.

I'm going to be tonight starting in our academy, I'm going to be talking about the first four ecumenical councils of the church which were the first four times that the church as a worldwide organization gathered together to solve a problem.

The very first one was the Council of Nicaea in 325 and it was about the question of is Jesus created or not? They came to the conclusion He is not. He is of the same substance with the Father, eternal, not created, right?

But then the next question comes up, okay well is He human or not? Does He have one nature or two? And then you have the monophysite controversy and the diophysite controversy, does He have one nature, does He have two natures?

So you have to come to that conclusion. You have the Nestorians who come up and the Eutychianism and all these different things that come up, all these different issues arise because questions arise, there's ditches on both sides.

The same thing is for this question, the question of self-examination. Because on one side you have the desperate heresy of legalism. And the desperate heresy of legalism is that for you to be saved you have to meet these qualifications and there's this list of qualifications, these laws you must keep and if you don't keep these laws perfectly you cannot be saved.

And that is a dangerous false teaching that you are saved by what you do. We call that work salvation and it is heresy. But on the other side, the other ditch is the ditch of licentiousness. You know me, I love alliteration so it's legalism and licentiousness.

Legalism says you must do this to be saved, you must accomplish this to be saved and licentiousness says that your life in Christ can be devoid of any change. You can continue to live in sin, meaning license for sin or sin abounding with no life change and still be saved.

Years ago there was a doctrine called the doctrine of the carnal Christian. And the carnal Christian doctrine was taken from 1 Corinthians chapter 3 where the apostle Paul says that he cannot speak to the Corinthians as spiritual but he has to speak to them as carnal, as people in the flesh.

And there was a person who grabbed a hold of that and said, oh there's two types of Christians. There's the spiritual Christian and there's the carnal Christian. And so you can be a spiritual Christian and you can be a carnal Christian.

Well what do you think that opened the door for? It opened the door for this idea that I can be a Christian and have no life change at all. And it opened the door for all kinds of attitudes towards the subject of obedience as being absolutely outside the bonds of the gospel.

That the gospel doesn't call for obedience. I've been told that. I've been told the gospel does not call us to obedience. You know the Bible actually says we're to obey the gospel. Isn't that an interesting thought?

We don't just believe it but we obey it. So the two ditches, the ditch of licentiousness over here, the ditch of legalism over there, must have a right understanding. Paul is calling the Corinthians to self-examination.

He is not calling them to legalism and he is not leaving them to licentiousness. He is calling them to a right evaluation of themselves. Years ago I was invited to come and speak to a Christian school.

I didn't get invited back. But it was a group of young people, high school age. And up until the day of I didn't know exactly what I was going to preach. I was the guest of a friend and so I knew in my mind what I wanted to say but I didn't know exactly how I wanted to say it.

I ended up preaching a portion of Matthew chapter 7 specifically focusing on the passage I just read a little while ago. Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. And my focus and my reasoning in that message was to say to the young people, most of you have grown up in church.

The reason why you are in a Christian school is your parents wanted you to have a Christian education and that's a blessing. Christian education is a blessing and I'm not against Christian schools. Don't think that's what I'm saying.

But I said there are some of you, I am confident, who say the right things but have not had a change of heart. You have learned the vernacular of Christianity. You have grown up with the language of faith but your heart has not been changed.

The teachers were not happy with me. I could tell by the countenance on their face. They looked almost visceral and angry because I didn't come in and affirm the kids as believers but I actually said examine yourself to see if you are in the faith.

How dare you do that? We've told these kids every day that they are good Christian children. How dare you come in and cast doubt into their heart? Because the Bible tells us to. The Bible tells us to examine ourselves, to make our calling and election sure, to work out our salvation with fear and trembling so that we not be the one who on that day faces the Lord and hears you have never been known by me.

I never knew you. Never. Not I knew you for a time and you fell away but I never knew you. By the way that's one of my verses I go to when people talk about losing your salvation. Jesus said you didn't lose it, you never had it.

I never knew you. Never. But what of all the things I did? Did I not do many miracles in your name? Did I not cast out demons in your name and do mighty works in your name? Yeah but you never departed lawlessness.

How amazing are the false teachers with all of the things they can do? Stir a crowd, gain a following, raise millions and yet they have not departed lawlessness. Examine yourselves. The word examine the first time you hear it.

The first time. There's two words as I said one is the word examine the second is the word test. They are two different Greek words and they are in this context they are functioning somewhat synonymously but they are also as it were almost like a crescendo.

If you're not familiar with what a crescendo is in music sometimes things start low and they build. So we'll be singing a song and like we sang earlier we drop down low and then we build. Well the idea here it starts with the idea of examine and then it comes to the idea of test.

So there is a building here. The first word examine is often used in the negative sense. If you read through where it's used in other places in the New Testament it's almost always used. The word tempted is used.

The word test is used. The word try is used. In fact one of the most famous passages where when James 1 says let no one say when he is tempted I'm tempted by God. That's this word. That's the word. Same word here.

Paul is saying examine yourself test yourself. It's in the active imperative which means it is a command it's not a suggestion and the test means to ascertain the quality of something. That's the idea.

To see what quality it is. Remember throughout this entire book Paul has been defending himself against false accusations. They have been saying the quality of his ministry is lacking and Paul has proven that it is absolutely not lacking but in fact it has stood the test and now he's pointing it back at them.

Test yourselves. Examine yourselves. And it's a command as I said. Not a suggestion. So what are we to test according to this passage? Examine yourself. Test yourselves. What? What do I test? Whether you are in the faith.

In the faith. This is an important prepositional phrase. In the faith. When the Bible talks about the faith and when the Bible talks about what we believe and why we believe it. It talks about us entering into something.

Not just that we acquiesce to it. Not just that we assent to it. But that we actually enter into it. Test yourself to see if you are in the faith. Perhaps a good illustration would be if you are in the faith.

If you are in the faith. If we thought just for a moment about Noah. Was he in the ark? Well if he wasn't, what would be the result? Destruction. Paul doesn't say test yourself whether you believe it.

Test yourself whether you are in it. Are you in the faith? Have you entered into this holy faith? This body of belief that is the faith? The Bible uses that phrase faith with the definite article the faith throughout the New Testament to indicate this thing that we call the faith.

Are you in the faith? And then he says, test yourself. Prove yourself. The word test here, documatete in this construction, it literally means to discern or prove whether or not you are in fact in the faith.

The idea here is the idea of testing metal. It has the idea of applying heat to test something. And it is in the same exact tense, the command tense, the tense of the imperative verb. Do this. Test yourself.

Prove yourself. How do we do that? What are the proofs? What's the examination? Is it a multiple choice? Is it an essay? Am I going to get a link in an email like we send out in the academy? I want to give you four ways that I think we can examine ourselves.

Four ways that I believe when Paul says examine yourself, I think there are four things we need to examine. Four specific examinations that need to be made in our life to see whether we are in the faith.

Oh, and by the way, there's actually two things that you need to examine. Are we in the faith and is Christ in us? Because notice what he says. He says, test yourselves to see whether you're in the faith or do you not recognize yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you if you fail not to meet the test or if you don't fail the test.

Ultimately, he says this, are you in the faith and is Christ in you? Are you in the faith and is Christ in you? By the way, both of those must be true if you're a believer. You must be in the faith and Christ must be in you through the person of the Holy Spirit who lives and makes his home in your heart.

What are the four things? Number one, what you believe. What you believe. Do you understand that what you believe determines first and foremost if you're in the faith? It's often been said, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere.

Well, I got news for you. The guys who flew those buildings, who flew the planes into the buildings on 9 -11, they were sincere, but they were sincerely wrong. Sincerity is not the test of truth. You can be sincere and be wrong.

So when someone says, it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere, you can tell them there's a Greek word for that and it's baloney. What we believe is a test of whether or not we are believers.

I wrote that sentence. Isn't that the simplest thing? What we believe is a test of whether or not we're believers. You cannot deny the fundamentals of Christianity and call yourself a Christian. You cannot affirm heresy and call yourself a Christian.

This is where having a grasp of the fundamentals is necessary. I didn't bring my whiteboard today and I didn't put it on the screen, but most of you, I think, I know we have guests here so I say there may be some who never have, but I do this thing where I put the three circles up and I say there's a middle circle, which we say is definitional, and then there's a second circle that we say is denominational, and then there's a third circle that I say is what we call adiaphora, which is simply a fancy word for things that are doubtful or things that are still questioned and we don't have a certain answer on, maybe things that can be differed among brothers.

The things in the center circle, we call them definitional because if you deny them you are no longer a Christian. What would some of those things be? Well, we can make it simple. The Bible tells us if we deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we're not a Christian.

You know that happens every year at Easter time. Some egghead from some seminary will come out and announce why it's not necessary to believe in a physical resurrection of Christ. If you don't believe in the physical resurrection of Christ, you are not a Christian.

If we're afraid to say that, we have lost any sense of the wherewithal and the intestinal fortitude that was required for maintaining the faith. Because we have to maintain the faith, we have to stand on the truth.

And if you can't say, if you deny the resurrection of Jesus Christ, you are not a Christian. But it goes deeper than that. I mean, I don't want to go through the whole list because of time, but if you want to talk about what the fundamentals are, here's just a few.

Number one, you cannot deny that God exists. That seems like a very simple one, but there are pastors now who call themselves atheist pastors. An atheist pastor, nothing. What a fool. But they're out there.

God exists. God exists in three persons. That's not optional. I got a young man right now. He's reached out to me. He's a sweet young man, but he denies the Trinity. He's what's known as oneness, which is a historic heresy.

It's also called modalism or sabellianism, and it was a heresy from the third century, and it continues to today. It's a very common false teaching about the nature of God. And while I think this is a very sweet young man, I have told him, I do not believe that you are in the faith because you are denying Christian truth.

I love you. I don't want you to go to hell. I want you to repent and believe. The Trinity necessary. The Trinity has always been recognized as necessary. If you want proof of that, come tonight. In the academy, I'm going to be looking at the first four ecumenical councils of the church.

It was not something that was optional. It was recognized if you don't believe this, you are simply not a Christian because this is what the Bible teaches. There are other things, other fundamental things.

Justification by faith alone, I think, is fundamental, which is why we have issues with Rome specifically. And when you ask about the gospel, justification by faith alone, but also the word of God as our authority.

These are fundamental things. We can debate all day about baptism and whether or not we should be baptizing our infants, which is a debate within the reformed community. Obviously, we are Baptists and we don't believe that.

But I don't look at my Presbyterian friends and say, you are outside of the faith because of that, because that goes in that second circle. I can look at my non-Calvinist friends and say, shame on you.

No, I can look at my Calvinist friends and I can say to them, hey, I disagree with you, but I believe you love the Lord. Because that is not a fundamental thing. But there are fundamental things we must believe if we are Christians.

So when Paul says examine yourself, the very first thing we must examine to see if we are in the faith is do we believe the faith? That's number one. What we believe. Number two, how we believe. Has believing the truths of the Christian faith changed your life?

It's one thing to intellectually assent to the truth of the scripture. It is another thing for those truths to change your life. And it is a major distinction. I really believe this is what James 2 is all about.

A lot of people don't like James 2 because they think that James somehow mixes faith and works to a point that it denies the gospel. Obviously I don't believe that because I believe James is writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

I don't believe James got it wrong. But there needs to be an understanding of the balance. Faith produces works. The fruit of faith is works. The works do not contribute to justification but they are a demonstration of our faith.

They are the fruit of imputed righteousness. You cannot, hear this, this is so important, you cannot affirm genuine faith if there is no fruit in your life. Now the fruit may be of differing amount but it will not be absolutely absent.

Jesus said this, he said the seed was sown among the different soils. The first soil was so hard that it couldn't even penetrate and the birds came and ate it because it was the pathway. The second soil was a soil which absorbed it for a little bit and it sprung up for a time but it died because what?

It had no root. The third it sprung up but it was choked out by the weeds. The last was in the good soil and it bore fruit, some 30, some 60, some 90 fold. I may be getting those numbers wrong because I'm just, is it 30, 60, 90 or something 100?

It doesn't matter, I don't know either. It's a number and it gets bigger. The idea is it might be different. The idea of the fruit might be different. The fruit of my life might be different than the fruit of your life but Jesus did tell us that we will know our brothers and sisters by what?

By our fruit. Now the danger of this is it can be subjective. One may think he's bearing much fruit and another think the same person is bearing very little fruit. So it is important that we do not rest our hope upon our fruit but rather we look to the fruit as the evidence of the hope that we have in Christ.

I've often used this illustration and I know I'm kind of going over time but I don't care because I have a lot to say. This is important. Y 'all get all six other days but you know the illustration of, I still think the illustration of the parachute is still the best one.