Pattern of Sanctification: Self-Examination

2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5, where Paul says, Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves. Now this is a very, very important call to test your spiritual authenticity. In his first letter to the Corinthians chapter 11 of 1 Corinthians, he said in verse 28, But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. There couldn’t be a more appropriate time for self-examination than right before you partake of the Lord’s table, the bread and the cup. The Lord, in his wonderful providence, has brought us to this moment, a communion service planned long ago, at strategically the point at which we’re looking at this passage about self-examination.

And that is fitting, because we are to do that before we come to the Lord’s table. Examine yourselves to see if you’re in the faith. Test yourselves to see if you’re a genuine believer. And the question that we posed this morning and gave you a brief answer to is, during that test, what am I looking for? What is the evidence that I am genuinely a Christian? What are the marks of true salvation? What do I look for? And I reminded you that you don’t look for an event in the past, a past prayer, walking an aisle, responding to an invitation, being baptised, attending church, having good feelings about Jesus Christ.

It has nothing to do with past events. It has nothing to do with feelings. It has nothing to do with church ordinances or attendance. If you want to truly take a spiritual inventory and find out whether you’re genuinely and authentically a Christian, I want to suggest five marks that you look for. Number one is penitence. Penitence. And we have been studying the Beatitudes, and so it’s familiar to us to be reminded of Matthew chapter 5 and verse 3. “‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ People in the kingdom of heaven are poor in spirit, and we remember that that basically means they have a sense of their own bankruptcy, a sense of their own spiritual poverty, a sense of their own overwhelming sinfulness.

It causes them, according to the second beatitude, to mourn, and according to the third beatitude of Matthew 5, to be meek or humble. There is then, in the heart of a true believer, a humility, a certain grief about sin, an attitude of penitence, a desire to confess sin. In 1 John chapter 1, that same matter is discussed by the Apostle John when he says, “‘If we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.’ If we say we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” In other words, it is characteristic of a Christian to acknowledge sin and confess sin. That is evidence that he is one being forgiven and being cleansed. One who doesn’t deal with the sin in his life is evidently not a transformed individual. The first thing that occurs in the transformation of salvation is a recognition of one’s one’s separateness from God, one’s spiritual bankruptcy. And that really never goes away. In fact, in Romans 7, Paul says it lingered right on through his spiritual life, in which he could see sin in his flesh, and he hated it to the degree that he called himself a wretched man.

If you want to come to grips with your true spiritual condition, you start by doing an inventory on your attitude towards sin, and most notably, your attitude towards your own sin. A lot of people get upset about social sin. A lot of people are outraged when they see crimes, devastating social sin, venereal disease, etc. etc. And it’s easy to get upset about the sins of other people that somehow negatively affect you. That’s not the issue. The issue is your own personal iniquity. True believers have a true recognition of their spiritual condition, and they recognise that their problem is not a lack of self-esteem.

Their problem is not the fact that they are mistreated by other people, or they’ve been somehow wounded in their childhood. They recognise their problem to be sin, their own sin, which has put them in that bankrupt situation, and they have come to cast themselves on the grace and mercy of God and beg for his forgiveness. And that doesn’t change. As a true believer, there will be an ongoing resentment of sin in your own life, as well as other sins that dishonour the God whom you love. Look for an attitude of penitence. Secondly, righteousness.

In those same beatitudes, in verse 6, Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. In the true believer, there is not only an aversion to sin, but there is an attraction to righteousness. And you not only are attracted to what is right in the world around you, whenever there are things are right. You’re not only attracted to what is noble and good and God-honouring in people around you, but you pursue it in your own heart. You love righteousness, and your righteousness is inside, not outside.

That’s what Jesus meant when he said in Matthew 5.20, You must have a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees. Theirs was external. They wouldn’t kill somebody, but they would hate them venomously. They wouldn’t outwardly commit adultery, but they would have lustful, wicked, adulterous thoughts in their mind. They wouldn’t violate some statement with regard to God outwardly, but they violated it in their hearts. They would say they worshipped God, but in their hearts, they were far from him. The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, the righteousness of superficially religious people, is external, and your righteousness must exceed that.

2 Timothy 2, 19 says, Nevertheless, the firm foundation of God stands having this seal, the Lord knows those who are his, and who are they? Let everyone who names the name of the Lord abstain from wickedness. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of the pattern of sanctification, self-examination. Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong, and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye, and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].