Examine Yourselves by God’s Standard

Greetings, brethren. I hope you are enjoying a wonderful and profitable Sabbath day. It’s a transition, I think, between spring and winter, or winter and spring, however you look at it here at Headquarters. Hopefully, we’re starting to see the weather shift once and for all.

But it is the springtime of year, and there’s a lot of things on everyone’s mind, return of Christ, preparation, so many elements that you’re thinking about. Some are serious, some are less, but I want to paint a picture for you before we shift into the subject at hand today.

All sorts of situations you get yourself in or people are in, you can classify them as either very serious, serious, light, playful, there’s a whole variety of things. But if you’re doing something very serious, you generally, all of us generally, try to not have or make assumptions. We inspect and verify. If you’re buying a new car, you get it checked out, you want to make sure it’s right, you’re buying a house, you bring in a home inspector, you go through all the details of that process because you want to do it carefully.

But there’s a particular field that almost seems routine that we run into all the time. You ever flown in an airplane, especially commercial airlines, there’s all these procedures that you go through once you get past security, once you get into the airplane, not speaking of that part, but you’re sitting on the tarmac in your chair. There are checks happening that you don’t even realize in the cockpit around the airplane. Everyone’s checking the instruments, and the fuel, and the systems.

And you wouldn’t feel very confident if you heard the pilot come over the... [krrshh…], talking to the audience, [krrshh…] “This is your pilot speaking,” and he said, “You know what? Everyone, we just skipped over our checks this week. The plane flew great two weeks ago. We’re going to kind of assume it’s going to be good today.” Once you heard that, I think you’d grab onto your seat a little bit, wouldn’t you? You’d think, “Oh, why did I pick this airline? It was cheap, but...”

And then what if it continued and one of the flight attendants walked to the front and she looked or he looked and said, “Well, you all know the stuff, so don’t sweat it. Planes don’t crash. Enjoy your flight.” At that point, you’d be looking at the exit door, like, “Did they close it?” Because just because something is familiar, and you could probably recount in your mind exactly what they check and the seat belts, and you put the mask on your face first before the... All that stuff is something that’s almost routine, even if you’re the one flying, never mind the flight attendant or the pilots and etcetera.

But because it’s familiar, doesn’t mean we don’t need or they don’t need to prepare. All of those things are familiar. It’s a checklist. If you do anything on a routine basis, you have a checklist, it can become familiar, but you still have to go through the checks. You still have to know what you’re doing in those situations, even if they are somewhat routine. And because it’s routine, because it’s done so many times, tens of thousands of flights per day in the US and around the world, doesn’t make it any less important, any less crucial to go through those steps.

In fact, when something’s familiar, it can get to the point where we get sloppy and don’t focus on the checks and the preparation and all the details that need to go into it. The more we do and go through a process, the easier it is to assume you and I, the flight attendant or the doctor, or whatever area it is where the process or the procedure is incredibly important, it’s easier to assume we don’t have to go through the checks. We don’t have to do the digging. That’s human nature.

It causes us to relax when things seem familiar. Put yourself back on that plane. Sometimes you listen, sometimes you zone it out, but there is a quiet confidence when you hear them going through the motions because you know they’ve checked it all out. Serious things do not become less serious just because they are familiar. Spiritually, you and I, we have the same danger. We see Passover coming. If this is your first Passover, this message will help you in a different way because it’s about preparation, getting into the subject and being ready for it.

If this is your hundred and first or fiftieth or twentieth or whatever it may be Passover, it can be a lot more dangerous because we’ve gone through it so many times. You know the season, you know the details, you know the meaning of the symbols, you know all the aspects that we’re supposed to examine ourselves, you know how serious it is, and even still, what can happen is you and I can let it become routine, let it get to a point where we’re not putting in the due diligence that’s expected.

We can assume we are ready to take the Passover even if we haven’t done the work of being prepared to take it. God clearly tells us to not assume. He tells us to examine ourselves. So before we take the Passover, we can’t rely on habit or memory or familiarity. We’re commanded to stop, look at ourselves, look at our present spiritual condition carefully and honestly before God. So again, before we do, we must examine ourselves by God’s standard so we can see our condition and respond with real and specific repentance in areas where we find that we come short.

Okay, our first point here, you can turn to Second Corinthians, chapter thirteen. Second Corinthians, thirteen. Once you get there, Second Corinthians, thirteen, our first point is we must examine ourselves by God’s measure, not human comparison. That’s really easy to do. So again, I’ll say it again if you’re wanting to write it down. We must examine ourselves by God’s measure, not human comparison. So we don’t start into the Passover... start into our Passover prep and think, “How am I doing compared to Joe?”

Maybe Joe’s your friend, you get along well, and you think, “Well, he’s got some spiritual issues I know about.” No, that’s not the approach. It’s not how do I compare against Joe or Sally or anyone around us. It’s how do I measure up to what God expects of me on my Christian walk with my weaknesses and my strengths and my overcoming and all the things that I need to do. Again, Second Corinthians, thirteen, start in verse three.

Verse three reads, “Since you seek a proof of Christ speaking in me, which to you-ward, is not weak, but is mighty in you. For though he was crucified through weakness, yet he lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, that we shall live with him by the power of God toward you.” Verse five, “Examine yourselves, whether you be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know you not your own selves, how Jesus Christ is in you, except you be reprobates.”

That’s a pretty intense statement. We started out heavy-hitting here right at the very beginning of the message. God says, “Examine yourselves, dig in.” And the meaning of the word is intense as well. And we have to look, and examine, and see whether something is basic. You would think that whether or not you or I are in the faith, you would need to examine yourself for. Well, I go to services, I pay my tithes, I don’t eat ham sandwiches. You may think, and I may think, that it’s automatic to know we’re in the faith, but God says, no, we have to examine ourselves, and then we have to prove it.

Not to Joe or Sally or anyone else, but to each other and to our own selves before God. We have to know we’ve proven it, and God expects it. It’s a personal command. It’s not examine someone else, and it’s not, do you feel comfortable in your Christianity? That’d be a different thing. Anytime you do something over a period of time, work a muscle, do an exercise, learn a hobby, when you do it long enough, you eventually get comfortable in it.

If you’re someone trying to do more pull-ups and you can get to the point, “You know what? I want to do ten of them or twenty,” or whatever the case may be. At a certain point, you reach that goal, and if you keep practicing, it becomes easier and more comfortable. Anything, running a distance, learning how to play an instrument, learning a language doesn’t make... you get more comfortable over time. That’s not what Christianity is about. You can get comfortable living this way of life because you’re used to it.

There’s no point, and especially if you’ve done it for years, that you think, “You know what? It’s such a hard thing to not go and get some ham sandwich,” or “You know what? That pork chop would really go down...” No. It’s routine. You don’t even think about those sort of things. We have to prove it. We have to dig and test and truly, deeply examine ourselves in ways that we generally don’t throughout the rest of the year.

You may do it a couple of times a year when you really start to focus, but when coming into the Passover, it’s crucially important to really understand where you and I are spiritually and then be able to make any course corrections before we take those symbols. That’s important. Stay in Second Corinthians but go back to chapter ten. A few chapters back. Second Corinthians, chapter ten, we’ll start in verse seven. Starting in verse seven of Second Corinthians, ten, “Do you look on the things after the outward appearance?” That’s a question for all of us.

“If any man trusts to himself that he is Christ’s, let him of himself think this again, that, as he is Christ’s, even so we’re Christ’s.” We all belong to Christ. “For though I should boast somewhat more of our authority, which the Lord has given us for edification, not for your destruction, I should not be ashamed: That I may not seem as if I would terrify you by letters.” Paul was a strong writer. “For his letters, they say, are weighty and powerful; but his bodily presence is weak, and his speech contemptible.”

So his strength was when he put a pen to paper, not when he stood behind the lectern. You wouldn’t think that when you think of the power of this man and what he did and taught and how he lived. “Let such a one think this, that, such as we are in words by letters when we are absent, but also in deed when we are present.” Don’t be hypocrites. “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves.”

We can’t compare ourselves with those who are doing well and feel like, “Ah, I’m falling short. Look at Johnny over there. Johnny’s doing so well. He just gave comment or he just did this extra thing.” No, we don’t compare ourselves on that side, nor do we do it the other direction. “Oh, I know Bill, he’s got some problems. I’m doing great, Christian... I’m a great Christian because you know what? I’m doing better than Bill.” Sorry, any Bills, I’m not comparing you. I don’t think I have any in the audience, at least today.

Compare ourselves, continuing here, “For they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” It’s not a wise thing to do. We can’t use outward appearance or what other people are doing or not doing, it’s both sides, to be the measurement stick, the gauge to determine whether we’re living Christianity effectively, or as we’ll see later, worthily, properly. Before we can take the Passover, we have to make sure we don’t let seniority in the Church, rank, office, knowledge, stability, trials, visible conduct, age, none of those factors matter when you’re examining yourself.

What other people do does not matter. I love the expression, I’ve always meant to look it up, but every tub sits on its own bottom. As a Christian, that is as true as true can be. We have to live and work with each other, and that’s how you become more effective as a Christian, but ultimately, the gauge in which we measure ourselves, especially this time of year, depends completely internally between us and our creator. We can’t let anything else blur that one-on-one situation where we take the Word of God in prayer and study and fasting, and learn to understand how God sees us, taking away the outside distractions.

Let’s go to Galatians, chapter six. Galatians six. Keep driving this home for this point. Remember, we’re not looking at others, we’re looking at ourselves. We have to use God’s measure. So Galatians six and verse three, we’ll start in verse three, “For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself.” I think all of us could say we know at least one or two or three people who think themselves of something when they’re maybe not there. Hopefully, they’re not Christians, or they’re not converted, but you run into those people all the time.

Verse four, “But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another.” If we prove we’re doing the right thing, if we’re finding the areas and then correcting them, oh, we should be excited, joyful, because God’s showing us areas to prove and then we’re taking the initiative to then go ahead and improve them. Verse five of that same passage, “For every man shall bear his own burden.” For every tub shall rest upon its own bottom. We have to prove our own work.

Passover preparation, Passover examination is a deeply personal pursuit. I can’t examine you and you can’t examine me to make sure each of us are ready. I can give a sermon to talk about the subject, but I could drill into this, and we will, all different aspects of how important it is, what we should do, but I and you have to then go do it. That’s the key. Not just hearing it, but actually doing it, because otherwise we’re not examining ourselves. We’re into the routine. We’re comfortable in the pattern.

We’re assuming that we’re in a place that we can take the symbols. That’s a dangerous place to be. We can never assume with our own Christian walk. Go to James chapter one. James chapter one, start in verse twenty-one. Verse twenty-one reads, “Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity,” I love that word, “Of naughtiness, and receive the meekness and grafted word, which is able to save your souls.” Verse twenty-two, “But be you also doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves.”

If we only hear, if you take in, and I listen to my own self speaking, if we only take it in and hear it, and don’t actually go do it, God says we’re deceiving ourselves. We’re in effect lying to ourselves, even though you are sitting at Sabbath services, you are paying your tithe, you’re doing all the other things, but if we don’t take this self-examination process seriously, God says, “That’s great. You are an unprofitable servant.” Because we haven’t gone beyond and actually examined and prepared ourselves. It’s so critical.

Verse twenty-three, “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a glass” or looking at a mirror. “For he beholds himself, and goes away, and straightway forgets what manner of man he was. But whoso looks into the perfect law of liberty,” the Word of God, the Bible, “And continues therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work.” Not just the word, doer of the work. It takes work to examine ourselves. “This man shall be blessed in his deed.”

God’s word is a mirror to help us see the areas where, you know what? You’re having a good hair day. You hold that mirror up. Men, ladies, everyone knows this. You can look in the mirror because... just how it is. If you’re a man, it’s a little easier. My wife and I laugh about this often, as most men can walk up to a mirror and be like, “oh, look at that. I got some spot there. That’s funny,” and then walk away. Ladies go up to the mirror, and they go, “Oh, how did my skin get so bad all of a sudden? What have I eaten?”

Yes, it’s a power of testosterone, I suppose. But we can have the same problem, though, men women, everyone. You go up to that mirror and you think, “Okay, that looks good,” or this looks bad,” or that... whatever the case may be, and you can walk away from the mirror and then not think about it again. You may think, “Oh, I got to brush my hair,” but something distracts you, and you walk away from the mirror and then forget that you look a mess.

But God’s word becomes that spiritual mirror so we can look and say, “Okay, wow, I’m doing good here. I need to work in this area. You know what? Sometimes I get too angry. I have covetousness. But you know what? I’ve been serving a lot.” It’s not just find the bad things, because that’s just depressing. If we just look at, “This is where I failed, this is where I failed, this is where I failed,” then we start to feel like failures, not just having failings. But if we examine the whole composite picture of our Christian walk, and you think, “You know what? I’m doing great here. I’m doing great here. This needs a little work.”

But then you get into the areas we need to change more, and then it’s more balanced. It’s just like a Spokesman’s Club evaluation. When we evaluate speakers, we give them points of correction and ways to change and improve, but also what they did well, and your spiritual examination should mirror that approach. But again, it’s not those around you. It’s not our own personal feelings. It’s not the memories. It’s not comparisons or even how people see you publicly.

The standard in which we measure ourselves, not just this time of year, but particularly this time of year, is the Word of God, the perfect law of liberty. And once we get the right measure, once that’s established and in place, the next question comes to mind is a natural one. What did that measure expose? Because God doesn’t stop at just our outward conduct. You may being a little loose on the Sabbath or what... No, he continues. He wants us to go deeper and look at the inner man, not just that outside concept.

Because once we have the measure right, once we start to measure, then we start to see areas that we need to improve. We start to see aspects of our character that may have slid a little bit over the last year from the last time we took the Passover. So number two, God examines the heart, not just the record. God examines the heart, not just the record. What do I mean by that? If you have been a Christian for five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty, fifty years, you have a record.

That record matters, but that record means nothing if you give up this way of life. So it’s a sad thing. I’ve watched throughout the years people who have lived their entire lives as Christians, even they’ve gotten older in their fifties and sixties, and were maybe called when they’re late teens, or they were raised in the Church, so they were baptized when they were in their early or late teens or early twenties. And they served, and they served, and they did things, and they had a record. And at some point, in time, they gave up and walked away.

That record means nothing if our hearts are not right. Because that’s what determines the right Christian attitude, the focus, what we’re working on, how we’re growing, what we’re developing. It’s what’s going on in our hearts and in our minds, because that’s where sin begins. It begins in the heart and in the mind, and then it works its way out. God wants to know what’s our motives, what’s our intentions, our fears, what do we love. What’s driving our outward conduct becomes what He wants to measure.

Let’s go to the Old Testament now, to First Samuel sixteen. First Samuel. First Samuel sixteen verse six, we’ll start. First Samuel sixteen, ‘And it came to pass, when they were come, and he looked on Eliab, and said, Surely the Lord’s anointed is before him.” You know, this account, looking to see who the next king is, bringing out all the sons. Verse seven, “But the Lord said unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature; because I have refused him.”

It’s not about how tall he is or how good looking it is or how well put together he is, what his outward appearance is, what people see, “For I have refused him: for the Lord sees not as a man sees; for a man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.” God goes in deeper. He sees where the motives and the intentions and the desires are. Because you know what you and I can do? And this is easy to do. We can fool people. If we really want to pretend this way of life, if we want to have secret sins or live a dual life or whatever the case may be, we can fool people.

We can fool the ministry. We can fool friends. We can fool just about anyone around us if we want to put on that game. Can’t fool God. We can’t get it by Him because He’s not looking at the outward appearance. He’s not looking at what could be a fake, duplicitous appearance. No, He looks at the heart. He sees what’s going on in the inside, the true desires, the motives. Samuel made the mistake. He said, “Look at this. It’s got to be this one. Look how great he looks.” And God said, “No, that’s not what I’m going for.”

We have to remember that we can appear strong and still be wrong inside of us. We still can have problems inside of us where God is trying to look. Let’s go to Proverbs chapter twenty-one, continue here, Proverbs twenty-one. Again, remember God examines the heart, not just our record. Proverbs twenty-one. The record’s important. The record is what you’ve put in place to know how many jewels your crown has, your acts of service, your willingness to grow, your helping and serving, and doing all of the things that we do as Christians. That’s important.

But if our heart goes dark, the record is lost. It’s almost like you have this long record that you’re carrying with you. It’s light. It’s great. You’re walking with it. But if our heart goes dark, it just evaporates away like it never existed, just disintegrates that record. We don’t want that. We want to be able to be right inside. So all of the work we’ve put into living properly, living this way of life, matters when we stand before the judgment seat and say, “This is my record, and this is my heart because I’ve been examining it.”

Proverbs twenty-one, you’re probably there. Verse one, “The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of the water: he turns it whithersoever he will.” Verse two, “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes: but the Lord ponders the hearts.” Verse three, “To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice. A high look, and a proud heart, and the plowing of the wicked, is sin.” There is a difference between how we assess ourselves and how God assesses us.

That’s why we have to look at the perfect law of liberty, look into God’s word to examine ourselves, because if we didn’t, if we just said, “You know what? I’m going to think about who I am and where I would do,” and we would all do this in different ways, but you would find something... I would do the same thing, something that I think I’m not as good at, and I’d pick an easy one and be like, “Oh yeah, I got to work on that thing. You know what? Instead of thirty minutes of prayer, I really should be doing thirty-three minutes of prayer in the morning. Yes. You know, just kind of, it’s been twenty-nine lately. I really got to get it up to thirty-two.”

And then, “There we go. Got it examined out. I’m ready to take the Passover?” Because every way of a man is right in his own eyes. That’s our natural inclination to assume we’re right. So we have to stop, pause, examine by using God’s word to determine it, to examine our hearts, if you will, using that measuring stick. Because by nature, we have a proud heart. By human nature, our heart is proud, and there will... It lies to us where we need to be better.

And we can’t let that start to happen, no matter what the case is in our lives. Because if we let it lie to us, we will downplay, and then we get into a position, and this is where it becomes dangerous, is if we simply give it a quick once-over, just like our deleavening. If you just walk through the house and it’s a normal vacuum, just, “Oh, I vacuumed it up. All the leaven’s gone. All the sin is out of my life. This Christianity thing is simple.” If we do that, we come into the Passover, we take those symbols, and we do it unworthily. We do it not thinking about the sacrifice Jesus Christ made.

We take them not appreciating all that we’ve been given. And then we do it unworthily. And then, as we’ll read later, the Bible says some die because they don’t honor the physical sacrifice of Jesus Christ. That’s serious. It’s a serious matter. Jeremiah seventeen. Jeremiah seventeen, start in verse five. Jeremiah seventeen, five. “Thus says the Lord; Cursed be the man that trusts in man, and makes flesh his arm, and whose heart departs from the Lord.”

If we trust in man, ourselves, or others, our heart can get away from the Lord. It doesn’t say, “Cursed be the man that trusts his brothers and sisters in Christ.” In certain ways, you can trust each other. You work with each other. But it becomes a curse when our hearts depart from the Lord. Verse six, “For he shall be like a hearth in the desert, and shall not see when good comes; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not be inhabited.”

Verse seven, “Blessed is the man that trusts in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.” Not just trusting in God, but God is where our hope is because that’s ultimately the path to salvation, path to being part of the family of God. That’s where our hope is. Christ’s sacrifice, God the Father directing and guiding all that is happening around us. We have to trust in that. Verse eight, “For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreads out her roots by the river, and shall not see when the heat comes,” because it doesn’t affect because you have water.

“But her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit,” because it’s a constant water source. We have God’s spirit keeping us nourished and full and prepped. And then that’s the big setup to the verse everyone knows. Verse nine, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” I always enjoy reading that full section when I look at Jeremiah seventeen, nine, because you know that verse.

People say there’s memory verses. There are memory verses, and then there are memory verses that are in your bones. And Jeremiah seventeen, nine is one of those that are in our bones, which means sometimes it’s so familiar, we forget the setup of what that verse is. It’s about trusting God, not ourselves, because our heart is deceitful above all things, desperately wicked. In verse ten, “I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings,” or the work that he does.

This is why self-examination is difficult, because our natural inclination is to dismiss something we’re doing wrong or downplay it. More often downplay it than dismiss. As a Christian, you’re not going to go, “Well, I murdered someone. I know that’s a sin, but oh, well.” No, maybe murder’s a little too strong because it’s hard to even downplay that one. But let’s say whatever it is, Sabbath breaking, or you take God’s name in vain, something along those lines. And you say, “Oh, it was just one time, it was an accident, or a few times, but it’s not something that’s in my heart.”

That’s where we have to be careful when we’re examining ourselves, finding those areas, that leaven that’s deep inside of all of us, and getting it out. Not saying, “It’s really just crumbs. I already vacuumed this area before. You know what? I don’t need to go over it again. You can’t even see it.” That’s what we can do spiritually to ourselves, to our hearts, to our intents, our intentions.

It’s critical that we allow God through His word to search out our hearts, search out our feelings, our intentions, our drives, all of those elements that are things and items and character attributes that you and I will simply dismiss. Because that’s what we’ll do, we’ll dismiss it, or downplay it, or minimize it. And that’s not what we do this time of year. We route it out. The best example of getting leaven or sin out of our lives is when you clean your car. And it used to be...

Well, now that I’ve got an eight-year-old, I have someone to go underneath the seats for me and dig in. And he just thinks it’s the greatest thing in the world, and I’m happy to delegate that. Because the number of times throughout the years where I finish cleaning out the car and you’re in these weird positions because you’re trying to get this or whatever, as you vacuum it out, and you walk away and think, “That one’s going to hurt tomorrow.” But that contortions and digging and trying to get that leaven out, we do it in a balanced way.

But that’s what we’re really needing to do in our hearts, just digging and looking and finding and going through our lives and helping... with God’s spirit and God’s word, helping us see those areas that we just would rather miss or may miss. Can be both. And ask God to expose those areas. Show us where we need to do better. Show us what we’re missing. Show us what we’re downplaying in our Christian walk. Brethren, self-examination is not supposed to be easy.

A God being came to earth, never sinned, never did anything wrong, and He was beaten brutally. He was hung on a cross. He was mocked and ridiculed, suffered pain and agony, and went through all of that so you and I could have a chance at eternal life, that you and I could be healed because of His physical suffering. That you and I can be justified to God the Father. That wasn’t easy. When we take those symbols, and we hear that bread break, and we drink the wine and hear the scriptures read, it’s not easy, and our preparation shouldn’t be either.

Our examination should be difficult and hard, and really make us think about aspects of ourselves that need to be more like Christ. That’s what this is about. This is about being like our brother in Christ, our big brother, Jesus Christ, becoming more like Him. Each time of year, we should get closer to that, not more casual about it. Hebrews chapter four. Hebrews four. We’ll start at verse eleven. Hebrews four, verse eleven. “Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. For the Word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of the soul and spirit, of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”

Verse thirteen, “Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and open unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.” We can’t hide sin from God. We can hide it from ourselves. We can hide it from other human beings, but we can’t hide it from God. And if we want to become better, if we want to become more effective, if we want to be more like Christ, if we want to be in the family of God, we have to ask our Creator to show us areas where our intent and thoughts of our hearts is wrong, and how to fix it, how to correct it.

And it’s not a switch. When you and I find something wrong with ourselves, it’s not a switch. There may be some... Some items that are easier to change, but there are often... All of us, we carry a cross, we carry a burden. There are proclivities in our lives that are harder to overcome, and we may struggle for years and years with them. We may hide them from ourselves for years and years. So when they come to the surface, when God shows us that defect, or that part of us that needs to be improved, it’s not as simple as, like, “Oh, that’s good. Okay, I’m going to turn the light on. Turn the light off, switch, [dit dit dit…] done.”

No. It’s about repenting, changing our course, going a different direction, and walking that path. It takes time. Overcoming takes time. It’s not an instant. Being good at anything takes time. Right examination is asking God, “Why do I do these things? What is in me, God, that I make this mistake? What are you seeing that I don’t see?” All questions you can ask God in prayer and study. Getting into the nuts and the bolts, the meat of it, not just, “I have this particular problem. Why do I have this problem? What’s the intent of my heart that’s wrong, that’s causing this to reoccur?” That’s the crucial difference.

And if we allow God to help us examine our heart this deeply, oh, then we go beyond obvious sins. It’s easy to say, “You know what? My weakness is ham sandwiches.” I don’t actually have a weakness of ham sandwiches. I brought it up three times, so I need a better bad example. I don’t think I’ve had ham... Wow, it’s been a very long time. I would say probably when I was about my son’s age would have been the last time. But it also stinks, too. Have you ever smelled cooking bacon now?

You get... Oh, after some time in the Church, you eat clean foods, and you go back to the others, you can walk past a... Okay, never mind, I digress. I’ll find something else besides ham sandwiches. Lobster. So next time I mention it, it’s going to be lobster. Okay, continuing here. Point number three. Point number three. So if we get beyond our obvious sins, because God’s helped us, we’ve looked into our heart, it allows us to start looking more deeply at the quieter sins, the more hidden sins, the ones that, again, we excuse, or we overlook.

So point number three, we must examine sins we excuse, not only the sins we notice. Again, number three is, we must examine the sins we excuse or overlook, not the sins we notice. It’s one of the greatest dangers, is if we check off some obvious sins, we feel like we’re done. We’ve done... “Okay, you know what? I get angry too often. I got to focus on that. I’m going to not be angry as often. I got to be more trusting of people and not...” You hit those obvious ones.

“You know what? I eat too much, it’s a gluttony problem. So I’ve got to work on my diet. I don’t exercise, I’m not taking care of the physical temple. So I’m going to get on a routine so I can be healthier, so I can do better this, that, or the other thing.” If we hit a couple of those high-level physical, outward, obvious sins, then the danger is we stop at those sins. We don’t continue digging and going and examining further. We have to dig out, again, the hidden leaven in our lives, not just the loaf of bread sitting on the counter that’s easy to pick up and throw into the garbage.

It’s the ones in the hidden items that are more difficult. Let’s go to the book of Psalms. Psalm nineteen. Psalm chapter... or not chapter, but the nineteenth Psalm. I’ll let you turn there. Psalm nineteen, verse eleven. Psalm nineteen, verse eleven, “Moreover by them is your servant warned: and keeping of them there’s a great reward.” Verse twelve, “Who can understand his errors? Clean you me from secret faults.” So, Psalm of David.

Verse thirteen, “Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then I shall be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression. Let the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my strength, my redeemer.” David wanted to be cleansed of his secret faults. Secret to those around him? Yes, probably. Secret also to him. Because remember, God wants to understand the intents of our heart.

He wants us to know about them because those intents will lead to secret sins that are happening in our lives that we allow because we don’t understand the root cause. That’s what examination is about. It’s not about putting band-aids on problems in our lives. It’s about getting to the root cause and saying, “That’s the problem. That secret sin, that secret attitude going on in my life, is what’s causing all of these other things.” That’s real change. That’s not just a band-aid on the surface and talking about how we need to get better with ourselves.

And David was a converted man. This was a converted man understanding that he could have things inside him that were secret even to him, that they can grow into presumptuous sins if they’re left unaddressed. They start to rule your life because they’re given time to root and become more of what and who we are. When we’re examining ourselves, we have to ask, “God, show me what I do not see in myself,” or read the psalm and quote David and say, “God, show me my secret sins.”

All of us are going to have something because we’re human, we’re flesh. There are elements of ourselves, all of us, that we simply don’t want to look at, because maybe it’s hard, it’s long-standing, whatever the case may be. This is the time of year to be able to have it reset, because if we go into the Passover and we’ve been working at ourselves, we’re not perfect. Because even in the Passover service, we talk about the fact that this is a yearly reset. When we take the symbols, we’re reset physically, spiritually.

Our slates are wiped clean, which means we went into the Passover service with sin. We had it. Otherwise, our slates were cleaned before we sat down in the chair that evening. But it’s all about the work we’re doing as we’re getting there, what we’re trying to improve and overcome and examine and remove. Let’s go to Proverbs twenty-eight. Over to the book of Proverbs. Proverbs twenty-eight, right near the end. Proverbs twenty-eight and verse twelve.

Verse twelve, “When the righteous men do rejoice, there is great glory: but when the wicked rise, a man is hidden. He that covers his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesses and forsakes them shall have mercy.” Not to other people, but to God in prayer. Accepting mistake, accepting that we have sin in our lives. And then He’ll extend mercy. Verse fourteen, “Happy is the man that fears always: but he that hardens his heart shall fall into mischief.” If we tell ourselves we don’t have secret sins, if we don’t have these intents or desires that we need to correct, address, and improve, we’ll fall into mischief.

We’re lying to ourselves. Excused sin is covered sin. We’re just not letting it... We’re just not being honest with ourselves, and we won’t prosper. We can harden our heart to the point where we may look like we have it all together, but inside, we are failing at our Christian walk. Not because we are failures or because someone around us looks better than what we are. You and I, I don’t care how long you’ve been in the Church, how old you are, young you are, you are a sinner. Plain and simple.

You try not to be, but you do it anyway, because we have flesh. Which is why we have to examine ourselves, and we come before God, and we take the Passover, and cleanse the slate every year. So, don’t compare yourself to anyone around you. Compare yourself to the Word of God, and look at ourselves. Find the areas to fix. And if you look inside, you think, “Wow, there was a lot more there than I expected.” Don’t let that overwhelm you. Say, “No, God, I’ve examined more deeply this year. I see several areas I need to work on.” You’re not going to fix them all at once.

No, pick an area, or two, or three, or whatever it is, depending on the extent, and say, “You know what? I’m going to focus on that. I’m going to do Bible study about that subject.” Maybe it’s anger. You realize you get angry easily. You know what? I’m going to focus on that, and really work at it.” And God understands your intents. So, if He sees you doing that, that’s right with Him, because it’s the attitude. It’s the desire. It’s the wanting to improve that allows you or I to come to the Passover service worthily, if you will, in the right attitude.

Verse twelve... or sorry, Hebrews twelve. Hebrews chapter twelve. Because if we don’t, we can run into a different problem. Hebrews chapter twelve, and verse fourteen, “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: Looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; Lest there be fornicators, or profane person, or Esau, for one morsel of meat sold his birthright.”

If we don’t look diligently, if we don’t examine properly, then that root of bitterness, when we try to suppress or cover up our sins, will start to form. Because you know what happens over time? When we don’t want to admit that we sin, or what that sin is to ourselves and God, not to other people. Again, when I say admit, I’m talking about to God. Maybe you talk with a minister or counsel about it as well, but not generally. We start to find justification why it’s okay.

And that justification will always turn to someone else did something wrong, or the Church is wrong, or that teaching is wrong, or that person is wrong. Whatever it is, we let bitterness or something else draw our attention away. And that is exactly what Satan wants. He wants you to focus on attitudes of others, or how you interact, and let bitterness set in, so you don’t work on sin. Because he wants you to sin. God doesn’t. Satan does. And it’s dangerous, because the passage even says, “Many be defiled,” because it sets in. Okay, let’s go to First Corinthians chapter five, so we continue.

First Corinthians five. First Corinthians chapter five, and start in the very beginning of the chapter, verse one, “It is reported commonly that there are fornications among you, and such fornication is not so much named among the Gentiles, that one should have his father’s wife.” Corinth wasn’t exactly the model congregation of the Christian walk. And then worse, so there’s someone sleeping with the stepmother. Okay, that’s not your normal, everyday congregation.

I have not heard, in the twenty-first century, any minister report that this is a problem in their congregation. So let that be a good sign. Verse two, “And you’re puffed up,” so you’re kind of proud of it. Like, what is going on here? Rather not, you should have mourned. Jumping down to verse five, “To deliver such an one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.” Verse six, “Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?”

A little bit of that sin gets in. A little bit of that leaven, and it starts to spread, just like yeast spreads in dough. “Purge out therefore the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For even Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.” So, therefore, as we could say as we approach this time, “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”

Because we’ve dug through ourselves, we’ve looked deeply, we’ve tried to figure out the areas we’ve come short, the areas where we’ve done well, and what we need to change when we walk this path. But even if all of those things are present, brethren, examination can still fail if we’re not fully honest with ourselves before God. This is... You can see it kind of throughout the whole message.

As we talk, and as I explain these things, you can see throughout it has to do a lot with us seeing ourselves as we need to be seen, as God sees us, and not trying to sugarcoat, or downplay, or minimize, or cover up, or run from, however you want to say it, things in our character that need to be addressed. So, point four, we must examine whether we are being faithfully and fully honest with ourselves. Point number four, we must examine whether we are being fully honest with ourselves.

We can have the right standards in place. We can have self-examination. But it can fail if we’re not truthful with ourselves. Our mind softens the past. That’s why people can go through incredibly terrible things and come out on the other side, or see terrible things and be able to disappear. It fades. That’s the way our minds are built. But if we allow that to happen over time with sin, we’ll start to draw different conclusions or draw different analogies.

Back to Psalms one thirty-nine. Psalm one thirty-nine, and verse twenty-three. I’ll take a drink while you’re turning. Verse twenty-three of Psalm one thirty-nine, “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts.” Verse twenty-four, “And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” This is not only important, but also inspiring, brethren. God can try us, and test us, and show us the problems in ourselves. But at the same time, if He finds and shows us there are wicked ways in us and secret sins in us, He can lead us in the way everlasting.

God can show us the way out of sin. He can show us the path to take to overcome. He can give us the strength we need to overcome and get through those trials, those tests, those hard moments when we see, “Oh, that is something in my character.” He can show us the path out, but only if we let Him do it, only if we’re honest with ourselves. Honest examination is being willing and seeking correction, allowing to be exposed and led, and let God make those moments in our lives where we turn a direction and do things properly. Let’s go to First John. First John chapter one.

First John one, start in verse five. First John one, five, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” That’s pure light. Six, “And if we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth.” So any darkness... God is pure light. So if we have any darkness in us and walk in that darkness... So there’s going to be some level of darkness in flesh because we’re flesh.

But if we walk in darkness, practice it, we’re not doing the truth. We’re not obeying God. “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” If you and I ever... most wouldn’t with words. We wouldn’t say, “You know what? There’s no sin in me.” I have no idols. I’m perfect. People don’t say that.

It’s what they do that demonstrates that’s how they feel. If we act like and we behave as if there is no sin in our lives, we are lying to ourselves. We are minimizing sin. We are trying to downplay the time of year that we’re in, the examination period. Verse nine, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.”

Again, not by our words, by our actions. If we don’t self-examine, if we don’t allow ourselves to be completely open with what God is showing us, we’re saying you don’t have sin. That’s what we’re saying, by our actions. On a self-examination, name sin plainly, cleanly, clearly, and brings it to light, and then trust that God will help us walk out of it, be able to do and change the things that need to change, so you and I can live correctly because we can deceive ourselves. It’s easy to do.

Remember, Jeremiah seventeen, nine, “Our heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? First Corinthians eleven. First Corinthians chapter eleven, verse twenty-seven. First Corinthians eleven, twenty-seven. “Wherefore, whoso eats this bread and drinks this cup--” Jumping right into the Passover service. We’ll hear this at night. “And drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily,” or without reverence, is what it truly means, “shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.”

But verse twenty-eight says, “But let a man examine himself.” That is the difference between taking the Passover correctly and incorrectly. So you can think much of this message. We were setting up to what this is the basic verse that we’re talking about. “But let a man examine himself, so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For if he eats and drinks unworthily, or without reverence, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body for this cause, many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep or die.” So physical ailments and death, because people choose to not examine themselves.

“For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world.” Because we’ve done the things that we need to do to be able to see the problems in ourselves and make definite changes to improve, to grow, to develop. Brethren, that’s the walk. That’s the Christian path. That’s the life we live. That’s what it means to live Christianity, to see fault in ourselves, change that fault, and become more like the Savior we have who sacrificed himself to give us access to the Father and God’s Spirit.

That’s what we have to live and do. That’s the work we’ve been given personally. We have to judge ourselves, because once we’re honest with God about what He shows us, once we accept what He shows us, we don’t hide it, minimize it, or downplay it. We can’t stop. Can’t stop. One more step. We have to then take that and move to repentance. So point five, right examination must produce specific repentance. Right examination must produce specific repentance.

We’re not done when we figure out we have problems. That’s nice. It’s a big step, but accepting that we have problems, that’s huge. Can’t improve until you’ve diagnosed what the issue is. Can’t fix the car until you understand what the clunk sound is. If it’s a loose something in the car, or a child’s rattle, or whatever it is, until we diagnose the problem, we can’t address the problem or fix the problem. But right examination must produce specific repentance.

It’s the next step on actually going and changing and showing the whole process had a point. Examination is not about discovering the problem. It’s about discovering a problem to fix, to repent of. Second Corinthians, we’re right near there, chapter seven. Second Corinthians chapter seven. We’ll start in verse eight. Second Corinthians seven, eight. “For though I made you sorry with a letter, I do not repent, though I did repent: for I perceive that that same epistle has made you sorry, though it was but for a season, and a reason.”

Verse nine. “Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that you sorrowed to repentance.” So that moment when His letter stung them, it made them want to change. Remember, we read in First Corinthians that there was a boy sleeping with a stepmother, and the congregation was kind of proud of it. And He was hard on them. And they were sorrowful, but that sorrowfulness, that correction, led to repentance. Continuing here. “For you were made sorry after a godly manner that you might receive damage by us in nothing. For godly sorrow works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world works death.”

So if those in the world have sorrow because they’re caught, that leads to death. It doesn’t lead to change. Most of the time, you get people who are in prison, or who are drug addicts, or whose lives are a mess, they struggle to get out of that because without God’s spirit, they can’t change. They fall back in the same patterns. But with God’s spirit, they can change. We can change. You can change. I can change.

Continuing on. “For the same self-thing, you sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, what clearing of yourselves, yes, what indignation, you get mad when you see sin in your life, and yes, what fear because of what could happen. What vehement desire, what zeal, what revenge, if we have repented and changed. And all these things, you have proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” When we see where we have fault, we take that mistake and apply, through God’s direction and guidance, maybe the ministry, whatever the case may be, to then change elements of our life, and we repent, we turn. That’s what repentance is. It’s turning and going a different path.

Then the examination process bears fruit. It allows us to make a difference in our own lives. It allows us to get closer to being ready to be part of the family of God. That’s why this time of year is so important. The preparation for the Passover is so important because it makes you and I more like God. Removing the things that distract us and pull us down and stop us or give us doubt, or whatever the case may be, when we look inside deeply and know that, and then apply a change, some of those things will just disappear from our lives.

The amazing thing about Christianity, some elements you may not even know about, God reveals it to you. And you work at it for a while, and you solve it. It’s one of the most wonderful and rewarding elements of being a minister, of working with someone. They come to you and counsel with you because they’re trying to overcome whatever element it is in their lives, and then they do. That you’ve got to be part of that process, where they had something, they found it, they wanted advice on how to overcome, and then they overcome. To be able to be part of that process with tens or thousands or whatever numbers of people, that’s one of the greatest honors about being a minister.

Let’s go to Isaiah fifty-five as we start to wrap up here. Isaiah fifty-five. Isaiah chapter fifty-five, verse six. Fifty-five, six. “Seek you the Lord while He may be found. Call you upon Him while He is near. Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. And let him return unto the Lord. And He will have mercy on him. And to our God, He will abundantly pardon.” It is never too late to repent, at least for our lives and our walk.

There’s a time in the future where people should have. But as we’ve learned throughout this series and understanding, God is so much more merciful than we ever knew. All the things that He allows, the mistakes He looks over, if we choose to change more than we could ever imagine, because it says in verse eight, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts. Neither are my ways your ways,” says the Lord. God approaches situations very differently than we do. He sees things very differently than we do. He thinks about them in ways that we don’t understand.

So, we need Him to help us not only see the problems in our lives, but then to have the strength and the path to overcome them. And if we do and we prepare, God will forgive us. He doesn’t want us to sin. He doesn’t want us to feel down and troubled, and burdened. This is Christianity. This is the abundant life we’re given. We’re given opportunity to grow and change. That’s not normal in the world. Every self-help video and pull yourself up by your bootstraps approach doesn’t work universally. This does. When people live this way of life, trust God, allow His spirit to change them, it always works.

Back to the New Testament, James chapter four. James chapter four and verse six. James four, six, kind of picking up in the middle here. “But He gives more grace. Therefore, He said, God resists the proud, but gives grace unto the humble. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Resist the devil, and he’ll flee you. Satan will depart if you submit yourselves to God. Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be afflicted and mourn.”

And some things may be big enough that you find in yourself that you say, “You know what? I need to be afflicted. I need to fast about this, to draw closer to God.” “Mourn and weep. Let your laughter return to mourning and your joy to heaviness.” Verse ten, “Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He shall lift you up.” He shall strengthen you, give you what you need to overcome. Do all the things that you and I need to be able to go to a place where we can look at that sin that’s now behind us because we did our examination. We dug in, we thought through everything that needed to be done, and ensure that we’re ready.

Ensure that when we sit down, and we take that bread, and we take that wine, we’ve examined ourselves in ways that left us better than when we started. Not perfect, but heading in the right direction in a renewed way, in a new fashion. Okay. Finally, let’s go back to Ezekiel chapter eighteen. The final verse here. Ezekiel eighteen, verse thirty. Ezekiel eighteen, thirty. “Therefore I will judge you, O house of Israel, everyone according to his ways, says the Lord God. Repent, turn from all your transgressions, so iniquity shall not be your ruin.” Verse thirty-one, “Cast away from you all your transgressions. Thereby you have transgressed and make you a new heart and a new spirit, for why will you die, O house of Israel?” Or we could say all of us.

“For I have no pleasure of him that dies, says God. Therefore, turn yourselves and live.” Brethren, you and I have been given the opportunity to examine ourselves, having God’s spirit in us, guiding, directing, helping us come out of sin to repent, change, become better, more effective, and then go into the Passover service and have our slate cleaned.

Now we just have to do it. Dig into it, examine, study, figure out the areas we need to improve. Just like that pilot or the crew of those flights, they check and again, check and again, check and again. So many times, you probably haven’t memorized tray tables up, where the card is that you look at, where the exit rows are, all of that, because it’s drilled in, but they always do it. What is ahead of you and I in the Passover is very, very serious, it’s very personal.

The sacrifice of Christ, what our sins cost, a God being, that we’re coming before God, and none of us can rely on the fact that we’ve done it before, even if we’ve done it for decades. We have to examine ourselves honestly before God. We have to know that He’s going to look in our hearts and hope that He does, and expect that He does. Our preparation has to be personal. We have to help and ask God to show us what we need to change, and then give us the strength to move on to repent.

So let’s be able to focus on the Passover with sincerity and truth. As it approaches, He’s giving you and me an opportunity to stop, to examine, to judge ourselves, to repent, and to come before Him in the right spirit. The time to examine has come. The work of repentance for you and I cannot wait. So let’s prepare now so we take the Passover worthily and in the right attitude and the right spirit and in a way that honors the being who sacrificed Himself for us.