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If you would please open your Bibles and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 13. 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5 will be our passage for today. Let us pray. Father God, we come to You now, submitting ourselves to Your Word and to Your Spirit.
Guide us, Father. Give us boldness. Give us truth. Give us courage. In Your name I pray, Amen. Alright, let us read. 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 5. Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith.
Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourself? That Jesus Christ is in you. Unless, indeed, you fail to meet the test. This is our passage for today. This is a difficult passage. This is a challenging passage.
Not just to preach, but it challenges the heart. It challenges you and me. There is no qualification here of who He is speaking to. He does not say, you young believer who are just now in the faith one year, two year.
You need to make sure you test yourself. It doesn't say, you old seasoned Christian. He is telling us all. Regardless of distinction. Regardless of years. Regardless of maturity. We must all examine ourselves.
We, I, have the responsibility to test myself. You have the responsibility for your own examination. The burden is on your back. The burden is on your head. And the condemnation will come on your head.
If it has not already come on Christ. I am not here today to judge your soul. That is what scripture is here to do. We are constantly analyzing, criticizing what we read, what we hear. But when I come to the good book, it's the only thing I read that turns around and criticizes me.
Read. And I analyze and say, I don't think that's right. I agree with that part, but not this one. I don't do that with this one. That's not an option with this book. It's doing the criticizing on me.
I am here today to talk to you about your souls. Not anyone else's, but yours. And I ask that you think not of those who need to be here today. That you don't think of who really needs to hear this message.
But we reject such pride and distraction and dart of the devil. And we all, without distinction, submit ourselves under the hand and the word of God. You're not here to judge a sermon. It's not what you're here to do.
You are here to submit yourself under the word of God. Today we are here to check the sobriety of our conscience. Of whether we rest in the hands of God. If you do not examine and test yourself, you will become drunk with the delusion of your own morality and religion.
Many people refuse to check their finances. They don't want to check the balance at the end of the month. Because they don't want to find out they're broke. They'd rather push it off. Pretend like it's not a problem.
And even though they're dead broke, at least it's not validated. It's not on the forefront of their mind. And in the same way, that is what we do with our heart. We refuse to truly examine the affections of our heart.
Out of the fear that the voice in the back of your head saying that you know you're not a Christian will be validated. It will be validated. It forces you to take the mask off. Do we remember what the word hypocrite means?
It means an actor. And during the Greek age, actors would put on masks. That was the costume. And so the analogy when Paul says you hypocrite, he's saying you got the mask on. You refuse to examine yourself because it would force you to recognize that you're full of crap.
That you are lying to everybody, including yourself. My first order of business today is to address the issue of eternal security. This is a clear and defined doctrine found throughout all of Scripture.
It has less to do with our understanding of God, and more to do with our own self-condemnation, and our self-guilt, and the burden we put on our own back. It does not have to do with your theology, and your understanding of God.
Scripture is quite clear on this. The reason we struggle, and the reason we doubt, as we all do, it has to do with us. When we doubt our faith, is the focus on God, or is the focus on me? Where's the focus at?
The focus is always on me, and my sin, and my troubles. But when Scripture speaks of it, it does not point to man, it points to God. My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, they follow me. I give them eternal life, we didn't earn it, and they will never perish.
No one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my hand, or out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one.
I thought that was really strange when I read that. That Christ is connecting His own deity with our security. Our security is tied to Jesus being God Himself. I and the Father are one, period. It is a complete thought.
We are tied to God, and God is tied to Christ. It has less to do with God, and more to do with your own self-condemnation. Doubt is an external force that works its way into our minds, and when we allow it to go further into our hearts.
But faith is implanted within us by the Spirit of God to battle such doubts. So the conclusion, so the remedy to the doubt of our faith, is faith. Faith is the cure of the doubting of our faith. We must dig deeper into our knowledge of God, and our love of Christ.
This is where we find our assurance. Stop looking to yourself. Do not put the chains that Christ took off of you back on. Stop doing this. It is not righteous. It does not allow you to live a holier life.
It doesn't do anything. Putting the chains back on does nothing but slow the run in the marathon. That's all it's doing. Do not think yourself self-righteous because you whip yourself in the back more than somebody else.
All it's doing is slowing you down in this marathon we call life. Getting to the text says we must examine yourself. This is to scrutinize or to test the genuineness. That's what it means. This examination comes through the mind.
This is through reason, knowledge, and wisdom. But not based off your understanding, but based off the understanding of Scripture. So when we do our examination, it must not be comparing yourself to somebody else, or to society, or to who you were back then.
It must be on what Jesus says today. Off of Scripture. The Word of God. The only thing that holds true. Think of a military officer. He's coming to do his routine checks on the regiment. He calls the troop into a formation.
He looks to make sure every line is straight. Every shoulder back, chin up, eyes looking right. That every uniform is clean. Every medal in its proper place. Scrutinizing examination. If he doesn't find a reason to punish them there, he then kicks the door down and goes into the barracks.
Checks every bunk, every bed, every bathroom. That the floors get swept. Scrutinizing examination. Leaving nothing left unchecked. Should we be any less diligent in our own examination of our souls? Should we allow ourselves a pass in the verification of our love for Christ?
I would argue not, my friends. I would argue not. Note that this examination is routine. The officer of the military or the police force. It's not a one-time thing. But as 1 Corinthians 12, as we prepare for the Lord's Supper, every time Pastor Jeff, Pastor Josiah gets up here and gives the word, examine yourself before you come to the table.
Do you have any problems with a fellow believer? Is there any disagreement? They're charging us, as our shepherds, to examine ourselves. So this level of examination is not a one-time thing. But as often as you do it in remembrance of me.
The officer doing this examination can easily spot miscues. Because he himself knows the protocol perfectly. How well do you know scripture? How well do you know the voice of Christ? Do you know how he walks?
Do you know what God hates and what God loves? Our society and our culture, and not just ours, every society, there is a myriad of ethical questions. A myriad. What about this? What about that? What about this?
What about that? Well, scripture doesn't answer this one. Scripture doesn't talk about this problem. But if you know the heart of God, if you know righteousness, as God said to Cain before the law was even given, will I not uphold what is good and punish what is evil?
Is the law of God not written on the heart of man? Does the Holy Spirit, was he not sent into the world to convict the world of sin? That's a quote in a Bible verse, if you didn't catch that. The Holy Spirit's job, part of the reason he was sent, was to convict the world of sin.
Know your scripture. Know the heart of God. And you will not be tripped up by any little thing. And, going back to the officer, you will be able to recognize your own failures more. It is often said throughout all of church history, throughout all of the experience of our life, those who are most scrutinizing of themselves are the most godly.
It is said that those who as they grow in their sanctification, as you grow in holiness, you will learn your own sins more deeply. The little ones won't get past. King David says in Psalms, Lord, reveal to me my secret sins.
David's saying, God, I know that I'm sinning in ways that I don't even understand. Like, I didn't realize I was rude to that person. I didn't realize how much I gossiped. I didn't realize saying that was slander.
The tongue is a fire that can set a whole forest ablaze. It says in James, a man who can control his tongue can control his whole body. Do not think yourself so mature that you don't have a problem with your tongue.
Well, I don't struggle with that. I don't gossip. I don't curse. Careful now. You should pray to God, reveal to me my secret sins. We dare not. Listen to this. Forgive us. We dare not hold one another to clear standards and accountability.
Because by holding you to the clear standard of Scripture, means that I would have to be held to the clear standard of Scripture. So I'll just let you slide by, Miss Vicki. I won't confront you on your sin, because then I'll be a hypocrite.
So we pass over the examination. I don't have to examine her. I won't hold her to the clear standings of Scripture, because that means I have to be held. And we all do this. We all do. Because we don't want to be a hypocrite.
Not in our own mind, nor called by those around us. Think of a lawyer who is cross-examining the criminal. But the criminal is clever and crafty. He knows not to say quite too much. He knows not to self-incriminate.
He's like a snake. So what does the lawyer do? The lawyer has to set a trap. He has to shine the light to expose the lie. But what criminal is more crafty than your own heart? We're here examining ourselves, right?
Testing ourselves. What is it that you're examining? The craftiness and cleverness and wickedness of your own heart? This is why we have to be so scrutinous. Because what lies to me more, more than me?
What is more untrustworthy than my own heart? Do not trust your heart, my friends. For it is desperately wicked. There's a desperation to its sin. And Romans 1, when it's listing out the sins of man, the one that always gets me, it says, Inventors of evil.
Our hearts seek ways to be evil. Our hearts find different ways to pervert and twist what God created. We need to recognize the lies of our own heart. Do you recognize when your heart's trying to trick you and tempt you?
The voice of temptation? That same cadence? That same trickery? That same image? Do you recognize it? Or through your lack of examination and your lack of knowing the word of God, you don't even notice?
You confuse your own conscience and the temptation of your heart as if they're the same. It's the same voice. No, it's not! If you're a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit within you. And I'm going to speak for myself here.
The past couple of years, it's become way more distinct. I hear that voice of jealousy. And it's so clear. No, I hear you. I recognize you. That voice of pride. Why didn't He talk to you? Why didn't He come to you?
They don't want to hear what you have to say? I recognize that. I hear it. It's there. But if you're not scrutinizing your examination, you'll just think that's you thinking. It's not. That's temptation.
That's the wickedness and evil that's deep within. As He said to Cain, Sin, it's crouching at your door, waiting to ambush you! That's what your heart is! Setting a trap in the hole, covering it with leaves!
You don't see it! It's crouching at your door, waiting for you to open it, and then it attacks. Recognize your own heart's sin. And realize, Christians, we don't fall. We slide into sin. There are plenty of opportunities to grab a tree branch.
You're not falling from a bridge. Nothing to grab. No help. Just completely... No, no, no. That's what we would like to think. You don't fall. You slide. It's slower than that. There are a thousand signs leading up to it.
It doesn't catch you by surprise. If it catches you by surprise, yes, you fall to this. Guess who wasn't paying attention? Be stern in your examination. Look at the fruit of the Spirit. And my friends, regardless of your answer, praise God.
You examine yourself. You find yourself to be in the faith. Hallelujah! You examine yourself and find yourself not to be in the faith. Hallelujah! You're no longer deceived. You're no longer deceived.
Test yourself. While the examination was of the mind, the testing is of the heart and of action. I am not speaking of emotion. This is not about being stirred up in tears or not being stirred up in tears.
That's not what this is about. This is about your affections, your desires, your love. This is what we must test. This is speaking of whether the Holy Spirit, as prophesied in the book of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, has the heart of stone been taken out and the heart of flesh put in.
Do you have a heart of flesh? Are you sensitive to sin? Or are you not? You must test yourself. Think of the officer again. You may pass the examination. You may pass. You cleaned your bunk up. You got everything right.
You're doing what you're supposed to do. But can you run the 20 miles with a 70-pound backpack on you? When your brother falls, are you able to pick him up and keep running? Are you able to keep your peace of mind when everything's yelling and hurting and in pain?
Or do you crumble? If you cannot pass the test that is intentional, we're testing ourself, structured, then you will not pass the chaos of combat. Are you able to persevere through little trials in your life?
Or do they always trip you up and cause your whole day to be ruined? My whole day is just ruined. Are you able to encourage your brothers and sisters when they're down and not tell them what you want to tell them, but what they need to hear?
Can I have an amen? What your brother needs to hear and what you want to tell them are not always the same. Watch your pride. Watch my pride. Are you able to reject the it's not fair mentality and overcome your own fears and insecurities in order to serve the kingdom of God?
If you're not, more pain, more persecution, more trials will come, and you will fail. By the way, persecution never comes to the church first through our life. It always comes first through our livelihood.
What am I trying to say? I'm trying to say when persecution really comes to America, it will hit your bank account first. It will hit you economically. That is how the road gets tougher. They're not going to come for our lives and try and kill us at first.
That's just naturally not how things go. You're going to struggle to get a job. Business owners, you're going to struggle to get business. You're going to struggle financially, which is why we need to stay together.
If you cannot pass these tests now, then you are in danger and crumbling. You are unable to receive, listen to this, the blessing of responsibility. He cannot give you anyone to disciple. He cannot give you ministry.
You taking on ministering disciples and constantly dropping the ball is doing nothing but put further burden on the church. Be faithful, my friends, in the little things, and God will give you greater things.
But the little things God gives you, the challenges in your life, the little things, be faithful, my friends. Be faithful in them. Be consistent. Be enduring. Have long-suffering. Be able to take pain and still go.
That's what long-suffering is. The words are different for a reason. They don't all mean the same thing. Long-suffering is being able to take one on the chin and still move forward. Not having to sit there and lick your wounds for a week.
That's what long-suffering is. This changing from the heart of stone to a heart of flesh is the necessity of sensitivity to sin. You cannot sit and sin and just not care. Something inside of you must stir.
It must burn. The Spirit demands conformity to the Son. The Spirit demands conformity to the Son. Oh, but thanks be to God that He is so gentle with me. He is so merciful to me. Christian who's lived this life for years, have you ever felt God spank you but He did it so mercifully?
He spanked you and He said, alright, either learn it this time or I'm going to hit you a second. I'm like, God, thank you. How arrogant. How short-sighted I was. And He dealt gently with me. Thank you, my Lord.
But the Spirit demands conformity. This past week, I said a cross word to somebody. They wronged me. But I said something back. Two seconds stirred within my heart. I could not not go back and apologize.
I lasted a whole of pride of about seven seconds. And I said, I'm sorry, man. There has to be a stirring within you. Now, I will say that grows in your sanctification. That grows. It changes. It becomes more violent as you mature in Christ.
It becomes more violent and more serious. There's a burning in the bones for the mature Christian, of which I'm not claiming to be. I heard a man say, you're only a man of God after 65. I'm just a boy of God.
I'm no man of God. Men of God are only 65 and up. If you want to check yourself spiritually today, listen, you go read 1 John. And it is full of litmus test of your salvation. It says, I've written these things so you can know that you have eternal life.
There's an assurance there. And there's a way to that assurance. Let me read a couple. By this we know that we have come to know Him if we keep His commands. Again, whoever says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same way he walked.
You will see all through 1 John, abiding and practicing. We're talking about lifestyles here. I didn't say you sinned one time, oh, I'm just done so, and I'm not going to heaven anymore. That's not what this is talking about.
Stop taking your self-condemnation and amplifying it to say something God didn't say. This is abiding, practicing. No one born of God makes a practice of sinning. For God's seed abides in Him and He cannot keep on sinning because He has been born of God.
You take that up with Scripture. That ain't me. You can't keep doing it. You live in that lifestyle, call me crazy, based off that, I'm going to say you ain't a Christian. You're not saved. You're not saved.
You are as Matthew 7, you're the man, you're the woman that's going to come up to God and say, but I did all these things, God. And He said, but I never knew you. What about those who do leave the faith?
Did they lose their salvation? Not at all. 2 Timothy 4, 10 and 11. This is Paul writing his last words. The last time his pen will ever touch paper. He knows he is about to die. It's not a secret. The trial is done with or ongoing.
He had a friend named Demas. Demas was one of his co-workers. We hear about Demas in two other passages of Scripture. Paul had high standards of who he would work with. He had high standards. John Mark kind of got scared one day and bailed.
Paul said, you never come with me again. He said, no, man, dude, be cool, man. Let him come. No. He's not coming with me. He's a quitter. But Demas, Demas was right there with Paul, man. He ain't scared of nothing.
He was right there. In the last days, let's see what happened to Demas. 2 Timothy 4, 10 and 11. For Demas, this is the important part, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica.
Cretans has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. We don't think they left the faith. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, for he is very useful to me in the ministry. Do you hear the heart cry of Paul?
Demas, my friend, left me. During his trial, he was alone. Guess who else was alone in his trial? Jesus. How many abandoned Him? Have you ever had someone abandon you? Betray you? Maybe those who even trained you up in the faith.
How about for the people who were converted under the ministry of Judas? Under the preaching of Demas? They were your youth pastor. They were your senior pastor, your deacon, your friend. But they loved this world too much.
It's the exact same thing Jesus says in the parable of the soils. The one that is choked, it sprouted, it even gained roots, but was choked out. Why? He cares of this world. When the persecution comes and it hits your wallet, it hits your wallet, will you stay faithful then?
Oh, I'll die for Christ. Will you be broke for Him? Will you give up your cars, your houses, your money, your nice dinners, your vacations? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's all cool with the idea of dying, but what about the idea of living?
Demas loved this world. The pride of life, the lust of eyes. We love it. Nobody that I have ever heard or read of, caveat that, nobody I have ever heard or read of left the faith because of an intellectual problem.
They didn't study and say, hmm, I don't think this adds up right, I'm not gonna be a Christian. No, it's a heart problem. It's a heart thing. It's an affections thing, a love thing. Do you love Christ or do you love your sin?
Most of the time, you love your sin and Jesus is just in the way. So it doesn't matter what you have to say, Jesus, get about my way because I love my sin too much. How do you know that you are a Christian here today?
I'm wrapping up guys, I'm done. My last thing. How do you know that you're a Christian here today? Some may say, well, I just know that I know. Solomon says, there's a way that seems right to a man, but it leads to death.
You may say, well, I can trust my heart. I know in my heart that I'm a Christian. We're here to address that. Your heart is wicked. You may say, well, I remember how close I was to God in my youth, in my early days, in my whatever.
I felt God, I felt the Holy Spirit move. I was so close to God. Oh, you Judas. How close was Judas? He obeyed Jesus, didn't he? Followed in his steps, obeyed the words of Christ, but never submitted the heart.
Do not judge yourself, my friend, on where you were, but examine now where you are. And I know you think, well, what will my husband think? Or my wife or my children? They think I'm a Christian. And to that I say, to death with your pride.
To death with your pride. You will hold on to your pride and your image all the way into hell? That's your strategy? Well, what about how embarrassing it will be after all these years? Have they all been a waste?
Has it all been in vain? And again I say, to death with your pride. To death with your shame. Oh, the shame of Christ that he despised, as Hebrews tells us in chapter 12, for the joy that laid before him, he endured or crossed and despised the shame.
Can you think of the shame of being unjustly murdered, bullied, rejected by people who in every way are beneath you? Your children, your subjects, every way are beneath you. And they're the ones persecuting you.
And Jesus, to that shame of nakedness, the same shame that we see in the garden, the shame of Adam and Eve, the vulnerability of sin, being exposed before God naked, or Jesus felt. And what did he do?
He despised it. Rejected that shame. And so to you, my friend, today, I say, reject the shame. Come now, come repent. If you're a Christian after examination, amen, hallelujah, repent for the secret sin.
You don't got to wait for me to finish. You don't got to wait for the music to start. Come now and repent before God. Come today. Now is the day of salvation. Now is the time. Music people, you can please come up.
One man butchered and murdered for the faith. The other forsaking, waking up to come to church because he loves to sleep too much. I love my sleep so much that I can't make it to church while my cousin of the faith just got drugged across gravel and killed.
But we think that the same Spirit of God is in both men. It's the same Spirit of God. The dude who loves to sleep so much in his lazy and apathy sits in bed and thinks YouTube is a substitution for the fellowship of God and the sister taking in the missionary, risking her life.
Same Spirit of God. Call me crazy, I think not. I think not. I do not think that that same fire of God resides within them both. You may be thinking that if you repent now and come to Christ, it will validate that your whole life has been in vain and meaningless.
Again and again I say to death with your pride, do not waste today, but seize the day for Christ. Examine yourself, test yourself to see if you are in the faith, knowing that the power of Christ is in you if you pass the test.
With that, thank you very much.