Examine Yourself

In preparing my latest sermon on Philippians Chapter 3 I have been challenged. I have to wonder if God allows my thinking and weaknesses to come to fruition so that the message he wants to reach others with also moves me. I have been thinking about what circumcision of the heart means. It was all God wanted in the old testament and Paul reinforces that in the new testament.

Then I was given a Charles Spurgeon sermon "Self-Examination" (I have linked to Spurgeon's entire sermon if you want to read it). He uses the following scripture:

"Examine yourselves, whether ye be in the faith; prove your own selves. Know ye not your own selves, how that Jesus Christ is in you, except ye be reprobates."

2 Corinthians 13:5

Spurgeon's focus is on "examine yourselves" and "prove your own selves."

Examine yourselves and prove your own selves.

He goes into various examples on what "examine" means including "Christian, catechize your heart; question it, to see whether it has been growing in grace; question it, to see if it knows anything of vital godliness or not." He calls the Christian out. We should not be scared of this introspection. It may end up a time to rejoice, or a time to repent, and then a time to rejoice.

In my sermon in Philippians Chapter 3, Paul speaks of the true believers in Christ as being those who are circumcised of the heart. This means that the things of this world have been separated from Christians and what is left is spirit. Paul isn't presenting anything new. Deuteronomy 30:6 states "And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live." This isn't something new with Christ, although he reinforces this idea, this is what God has wanted all along.

When you let God circumcise your heart you want to please God.

Jesus is quoted in Matthew 22: 37-40, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” When you let God circumcise your heart (because only God can change you, you can't do this by works see my sermon on James 2) you want to please God.

This self-examination has been pretty intense for me. I have thought of the 2 Timothy 2:20-21 where Paul talks two kinds of vessels, "Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work." What I keep thinking is that in the house both kinds of vessels are needed. I want God to think of me as someone ready for every good work.

I want to be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy.

I think about the things I need to repent of, the sinful habits that keep me from reading my Bible. My big one has always been Proverbs 13:4, "The soul of the sluggard craves and gets nothing, while the soul of the diligent is richly supplied." I don't want my life to have nothing, I want to be an honorable use vessel. What keeps you from being an honorable vessel?

There is more involved than wanting to be the honorable vessel. Another part of Spurgeon's sermon that stood out to me was:

"The question now is not whether you believe the truth—but whether you are in the truth? Just to give you an illustration of what I mean. There is the ark; and a number of men around it. 'Ah!' says one, I believe that ark will swim.' 'Oh!' says another, 'I believe that ark is made of gopher-wood, and is strong from stem to stern; I am quite sure that ark will float, come what may; I am a firm believer in that ark.' Ay, but when the rain descended, and the flood came, it was not believing the ark as a matter of fact—it was being in the ark that saved men, and only those that were in it escaped in that dread day of deluge. So there may be some of you that say of the gospel of Christ, 'I believe it to be of a particular character,' and you may be quite correct in your judgment; you may say, 'I think it to be that which honors God, and casts down the pride of man;' herein too you may think quite right; but mark, it is not having an orthodox faith, but it is being in the faith, being in Christ, taking refuge in Him as in the ark; for he that only has the faith as a thing ab extra (information gained from external sources), and without being in the faith, shall perish in the day of God's anger; but he that lives by faith, he who feels that faith operates upon him, and is to him a living principle; he who realizes that faith is his dwelling place, that there he can abide, that it is the very atmosphere he breathes and the very girdle of his loins to strengthen him,—such a man is in the faith."

What keeps you from being an honorable vessel?

We need to let the ways of God fill us. Christ lost several followers with the hard teaching paraphrased "eat my flesh and drink my blood." What this represents is that the things of God must become a part of us, a part of our very being. We can't be doing the things vessels of wood and clay do, but must change our behaviors to be that of gold and silver cleansed vessels. I so want to be ready for every good work and honor God with my life.

I hope this has blessed you, and that you have been as challenged as I have.

Keep praying for discernment and reading your Bible!