You know what's worse than never coming to the Lord's table? Coming to the Lord's table when you don't deserve to be there.
That's worse. Because to do that is to eat and drink unworthily and be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. And so verse 28 says, let a man examine himself. How can you really know that you're saved? Can you be a Christian if you struggle with selfishness or integrity or purity or some other sin? If you have doubts that your salvation is genuine, what should you do?
What's the first step? Those are questions you need to be able to answer, and they're questions that John MacArthur will help you with in a study he begins today on grace to you. He calls it, Examine Yourself. John, the lesson we're going to hear today comes from one of my favorite sermons that you ever preached. But I think for a lot of listeners, it's going to sound unusual because they've been taught that once you've said the sinner's prayer, there's no point in ever examining the reality of your conversion. So what is your goal behind encouraging our listeners to examine themselves? Well, I'm following the injunction of the apostle Paul to examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith.
Self-examination should be going on all the time. Look, if nothing else, every time you come to the Lord's table, every time you come to a communion service, what does the apostle Paul say you're to do? You're to examine yourself to see if there's any sin there, anything standing between you and the Lord, and you're to confess that and deal with that. Self-examination for the believer is a way of life.
Why? Because repentance is a way of life. If you think you shouldn't examine yourself, then you think you don't need to repent. You think you can just go on blithely through your life and not come to grips with the reality of your sin.
That's totally wrong. You cannot be indifferent to sin. You cannot be indifferent particularly to your own sin. And self-examination is critical for us to be honest. Again, how could you come to the Lord's table without examining yourself?
In fact, Paul says, if you come to the Lord's table without examining yourself, you could bring judgment on yourself. Self-examination—am I thinking correctly? Am I thinking to the honor of God? Is my speech pure?
Are my actions right? Is my worship honoring to the Lord? Is my giving what it should be, the way I work in the world, the way I live in the world, my friendships, my relationships? Constant self-examination is essential to the life of any and every believer. The idea that you would think for a moment that self-examination is some kind of an act of doubt, some kind of way to discount your confidence in the Lord or express distrust of his salvation, is just not acceptable. Even when you know your salvation is real, even when you're confident of your love for the Lord and of your salvation because you see the fruit of it in your life, you still need to examine yourself. To be certain that you're a Christian, that's where it starts. And to maintain that dedication to Christ that is honorable for a believer, self-examination is essential. With that in mind, we're going to do the series on examine yourself. Don't miss a day.
That's right. There are few questions more critical than the one John MacArthur will be exploring in this study. What are the marks of saving faith?
Make sure you know how to answer that question. Follow along now on Grace to You as John begins his series, Examine Yourself. The Lord's Supper, I believe, is the most wonderful, the most sacred, the most unique act of worship that the blood-bought church of Jesus Christ can ever experience. It is sacred in many ways. It is sacred because it is a sacred memory of the cross. The bread speaks of His body and the cup speaks of His blood and they point to the cross where His body was crucified and His blood was shed, and so it's sacred because of its memory. But more than that, the table of the Lord is sacred because it is a present communion with the living Christ.
He meets us here. The Apostle Paul says, "'The cup which we drink and the bread which we break, is it not the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ?'" We literally commune with Him here. And thirdly, it is sacred, I believe, because Jesus said in Luke 22, 19 and 20, do this. And so it is sacred because it is an act of obedience. And obedience is a sacred and holy thing. And so the Lord's table is special.
I come to the Lord's table as often as I possibly can, and very often in my own life I take the most common things in my hand and in my heart, they become symbols of the body and blood of Jesus Christ, because this is so meaningful to me. And yet as I think about it, there are many Christians who rarely or never, for long periods of time, come to the Lord's table, even as there are many who are never obedient in baptism. And I guess my approach was always, well, maybe they're just ignorant. They don't understand the importance of the Lord's table, or they don't understand the importance of baptism. They don't know what it is. They don't know what it is. They don't know what it is to make a public testimony in obedience to the act of baptism. They don't know what it is to commune with Jesus Christ and the body and to celebrate the cross. They're just ignorant. And I guess I've told myself too, maybe they're just disobedient. Maybe they just are acting morally. I've been thinking lately that if someone has no desire for testimony in baptism, and if someone has no fellowship at the Lord's table, maybe it isn't that they're a weak Christian, maybe it's that they're not a Christian at all.
They may think they are, but they're not. What about you? Are you a Christian? You say, well, I'm a Christian. I believe. I made a decision for Christ, and believe me, there are a lot of people who point to the past to verify Christianity or to verify salvation, and the Bible never points to the past.
The Bible never talks about a decision in the past. Are you really a Christian? You say, well, I came to Jesus. I invited Jesus into my life.
Is that enough? Let me show you something. We all know 1 Corinthians chapter 11 talks about communion. Now let me just remind you briefly of it. First Corinthians chapter 11 and verse 27, "'Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.'"
Now that's pretty strong. I'll tell you something. You know what's worse than never coming to the Lord's table? Coming to the Lord's table when you don't deserve to be there.
That's worse. Because to do that is to eat and drink unworthily and be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. And so verse 28 says, "'Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily eateth and drinketh judgment to himself.'" It's very serious to come to the Lord's table. It is serious for a believer to come to the Lord's table while entertaining sin in his life. It is serious for a Christian to come to the Lord's table where he does not repent of everything and desire above all things righteousness and holiness and turning from any known sin.
Serious. But what is even more serious is to come to the Lord's table and drink unworthily because you're not a Christian at all. Paul called for an examination in another passage, and I want you to notice this. It's the last chapter of 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5. I want you to note what it says.
2 Corinthians 13, 5, just the first sentence. Examine yourselves whether you are in the faith. Prove it, is what he's saying. Prove yourselves. You say to someone, are you a Christian?
Yes. What do you base that on? Well, so many years ago I made a decision. That means nothing. The Bible never verifies anybody's salvation on the basis of the past.
It's always on the basis of the present. And if you don't have the evident proof of real salvation in your life now, there's a very real possibility you're not a Christian at all, no matter what happened in the past. So, examine yourself to see whether you're in the faith. Prove yourself.
Say, John, how do I do that? How do I know if I'm really a Christian? I believe. Maybe you've even been baptized.
I go to church, I think I'm a Christian. Look with me at Matthew chapter 5 and let's find out. When Jesus arrived on the scene, the Jews had already decided what right living was all about. They had already built their own code. They had already developed their own system. And they had it pretty cut and dried and pretty well laid out that this was what it was to be holy.
And it was all external. It was all self-righteousness and works. And Jesus came and shattered that thing and He said, I want to give you a new standard for living. I want to give you a new criteria by which you evaluate whether you're redeemed or not. I want to tell you how a citizen of the kingdom really lives. You want to prove yourself? Here is the proof. You take your life and let the Spirit of God compare it with the facts of the Sermon on the Mount and the result will be an examination and the end result will be whether you're a Christian or not. Here is the standard and the key to it all is one word.
Now watch this. It is the word righteousness. That's the key. Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount, if you are a child of the King, if you are really converted, if you really belong to God, if you've really been redeemed, the characteristic of your life will be righteousness. And there are a lot of people who claim to be Christians and you look a long time to find any righteousness in their lives. Somebody said to me last week, there's a lady in our church who says she's a Christian and ever since she's been a Christian, she has been living with a man who is not her husband. And 1 Corinthians 6 says, fornicators do not inherit the kingdom of heaven.
Why? Because that is a constant state of unrighteousness and conversion is characterized by righteousness. Look at it in verse 20. This is the key verse to the whole sermon, chapter 5, verse 20.
Jesus says, I say unto you, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Listen, they went to the temple to the temple every day. They paid tithes. They fasted. They prayed.
They were religious freaks, if you will. And He says, I don't care about all of that unless your righteousness, this is minimum requirement, exceeds that you will in no case enter My kingdom. You see, righteousness is the sine qua non. Righteousness is the issue. Righteousness is that which sets us apart as converted. And righteousness is simply a long word for living right, living under God's standards, living by God's definition. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 19 it says, The Lord knows them that are His, and who are they? They are those that name the name of Christ and depart from iniquity. In Titus chapter 1 and verse 16 He says, Certain ones profess that they know God, but in works they deny Him because they are abominable and disobedient. In other words, the profession means nothing unless there is obedience there, unless there is righteousness, unless there is holiness, unless there is a departing from iniquity. God has every right to expect that. And I heard a fellow say the other day and he was preaching and he said, Isn't it wonderful that you can come to Jesus Christ and you don't have to change anything on the inside or the outside? That's a lie right out of hell.
There better be a transformation. In 2 Corinthians 5 17 it's well summed up, If any man be in Christ, he is a what? New creation, old things passed away, and all things have become new. 1 John chapter 1 verse 9 says, Christians are constantly confessing their sin. Being righteous in that sense, practical righteousness, does not mean that you never sin. It means that you deal with it when you do. You confess it and you turn from it and you repent of it and you despise it and you hate it.
You don't love it. It means in chapter 2 John says, If you really love Me, you'll keep My commandments. And by this we know that we know Him when we do what He commands us. Further in chapter 2 He says, A true believer will be one who will love his brother.
He that hates his brother is in darkness even till now. Further on He says, If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. And James put it this way, don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity against God, you adulterers and adulteresses?
You can't be the friend of the world and the friend of God. Further on in chapter 3 He says, He that is born of God does not commit, continue to commit sin. He can't because a new seed is in Him and He cannot continue to commit sin.
Now what am I saying? I'm saying this, God says if you're really saved there'll be righteousness, there will be holiness, there will be a whole new approach to life. You will have sin, yes, but you will see a decreasing frequency of sin and when sin appears you will despise it and you will hate it as Paul in Romans 7 did and you will confess it and you will turn from it and you will repent of it and you will hunger and you will thirst for that which is right.
And you will obey and you will love your brother and you will hate the evil system of the world. That's the way it is if you're really saved. You can't say, well I'm a Christian and just go right on waltzing down the same old path you've been on.
Prove it. You say you're a Christian, prove it. I guess maybe I'm not content anymore with just saying if you claim to be a Christian you must be and if you made a decision somewhere at a meeting or a conference or you walked an aisle or you went in an inquiry room or somebody took you through a little book or whatever or whatever, you're okay. I don't think that that's ever the biblical criteria for salvation. The biblical criteria for salvation is right now, what is your life like right now? Say, what are the standards? Let's look at Matthew 5 to 7. And I want you to see the criteria. Jesus sits down and teaches us the principles of living in His kingdom.
And here's where it starts. Blessed are the poor in spirit, verse 3, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven and the emphatic Greek is indicated here, theirs only, theirs alone, nobody else but them. In other words, the only people who ever enter the kingdom are those who are broken in their spirit, those who face their spiritual bankruptcy, those who see themselves as sinners, those who know inside that they can bring nothing to God. They are poverty-stricken in terms of their own spirit.
They have nothing on which they can count. They have no hope for themselves. Poor in spirit. And the result is in verse 4, they mourn. And again, emphatically, and only they shall be comforted. The only people who ever receive salvation, He says, the only people who ever come into His kingdom are people who are broken over their sin and who mourn over their sin. And then in verse 5, they are people who are crushed into meekness. They alone inherit the earth.
They alone are kingdom citizens. And the upshot of all of that when you're broken in spirit, mournful and crushed to meekness is, verse 6, you will hunger and thirst after righteousness and only they will be filled. Listen, if you didn't come to Jesus Christ broken over your sin, if you haven't come to Jesus Christ literally shattered to the very depths of your being over your sinfulness, if you haven't mourned over your sinfulness, if you don't hunger and thirst after righteousness more than anything else, there is a good probability that you're not even a Christian. That's the criteria our Lord gives. First of all, He says, there will be the proper entrance into the kingdom. That's where He begins the Sermon on the Mount. A kingdom citizen can be determined by his own selflessness, his own self-despising, his own sense of inadequacy and bankruptcy and nothingness. There are a lot of people who come to Jesus because they think He'd like to get in on what they have.
We handle that that way too. You say, wouldn't it be great if such and such a big famous thing became a Christian because, boy, the Lord, He doesn't need that. What makes you think He needs their ability in addition to His power?
It's absurd. If you don't come to Jesus on His terms, then you don't come at all. And His terms are brokenness, mourning, meekness, and hunger and thirst for righteousness. And who are these citizens of the kingdom? Verse 7, they are merciful, they are pure in heart, they are peacemakers, they are persecuted, they are reviled.
You want to know something? If you come to Christ broken, contrite, mourning, hungering, and thirsting after righteousness, by the way, that's the only way to come. I don't believe anybody's ever a Christian who doesn't repent of sin. You know, you may have made a decision years ago, that wasn't your salvation if it didn't involve this. And years later, maybe you came back to the Lord broken over your sin. That's the moment it became real.
That's the moment you entered the kingdom. And you'll live that way the rest of your life, loving righteousness and hating sin. One of the characteristics of a Christian is when he sins, he despises that thing. He hates it. It's not what he wants. It's the sin that is in him that does that.
He hates it. And when you come on those terms, the Lord makes you merciful. And He makes you pure in heart and a peacemaker.
And you try to live like that in the world and they'll never be able to stand you. So what happens in verse 10? You get persecuted. Verse 11, you get reviled.
You get all kinds of things set against you falsely. But that's all right, be happy. Why?
Because you're a kingdom citizen. Now, the first thing I want you to see then is if you're really a Christian, you come on these terms, mourning over sin. Now, the second thing about it, examine yourself. If you're a Christian, not only will the entrance to the kingdom be on this condition, but your testimony will be different too. And that's what he goes into in verse 13. You're the salt of the earth. And then in verse 14, you're the light of the world. Now listen what I'm going to say.
If you're really a Christian, your testimony will be clearly, decisively, and easily distinguishable from the rest of the world. That's what he's saying. You see, the world is like decaying meat. It's rotting.
And you know salt is a preservative. And we are here in the world to preserve the decadence and the destruction of the world. That's why the Tribulation is so horrible. When the church is gone, the salt is out. And we are here to preserve this thing, and we are distinguished from the world.
We are a preserving agency in the midst of a decadent, decaying civilization. And we are to be a light set on a hill, and we are to be salt that has its savor. In other words, he's saying, not only if you're a Christian do you come in the right way, but you're going to have a testimony that is easily and clearly distinguishable from the rest of the world. What about your testimony? Is it very evident to everybody around you that you're different? Or do you do what everybody else does?
Are you right in the flow of life with everybody else? When you became a Christian, did it change things about your life? If it didn't, then it didn't happen.
It didn't happen. Our Lord goes further. He says, another thing that will characterize one who's a child of the kingdom is obedience. Verse 17, do you think I came to destroy the law? Do you think I came to set aside the prophets?
No, to fulfill it. In fact, not one jot or one tittle shall ever pass from this law. And I say to you, whoever therefore shall break one of the least commandments and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. But whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And then he goes on to say, your righteousness better exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisee. The point is this, if you're truly saved, you'll be obedient. You'll be obedient.
There'll be acts of obedience. The law of God will be something you long for. Again, Romans 7, Paul longed to do the law of God. He hungered to do the law of God. He delighted in the law of God.
He loved the law of God, he loved the law of God, even though sin was always tugging at him. So examine yourself. Are you really saved? Did you come in mourning over your sin? Did you come in broken over your evil heart? Examine yourself.
Are you clearly distinguishable from the rest of the world? Examine yourself. Are you obeying God as the great hunger of your heart to do that which is His will?
He goes further. If you've really been converted, you'll think different. That's right. He talks about right thinking in verse 21 and following. You see, the Jews would do the outside stuff, they just couldn't handle the inner things. And so the Lord says to them, you heard you shouldn't kill, and whoever would kill would be in danger of judgment. But He says, I want to go a step further and take it inside and say you shouldn't even have bad thoughts in your heart against somebody. In other words, a child of My kingdom is not somebody who's a non-murderer, it's somebody who inside his heart doesn't even desire to hurt anybody.
And He pushes the whole thing inside. If you're really a child of the kingdom, you're going to have a different heart. Ezekiel 36, the Lord says, when you become redeemed, He takes out the stony heart, the heart of obstinance, and He puts in a heart of flesh, a new heart. And further He says in verse 27, you heard it said you should not commit adultery, but let me take it inside. You shouldn't even want to. You shouldn't even look at anybody that way.
You shouldn't even think that thought. In other words, a citizen of the kingdom is different. And when somebody says, well, I'm a Christian, I just have problems in that area, and they continue to be an adulterer, or continue to be a fornicator, or continue to be a homosexual, or continue in some kind of thing like that, I always go to 1 Corinthians 6 and say those kind of people do not inherit the kingdom of heaven. You didn't come to Christ on His terms, you came on yours and they don't make it. Until you're broken and shattered over those things, until you weep yourself to tears and crawl into His kingdom mourning for righteousness, you'll never know what true redemption is. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.
Thanks for being with us. Today John looked at the marks of genuine salvation, meekness, brokenness over sin, and a hunger and thirst for righteousness. The title of John's current study is, Examine Yourself. And now, friend, to cultivate that hunger and thirst for righteousness that John talked about today, you are going to need a steady diet of God's Word. And one practical way to encourage that constant feeding on biblical truth is to use the MacArthur Daily Bible.
It makes it easy to read through the Bible in a year. You can order your copy today. Call toll-free 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. Each day the MacArthur Daily Bible gives you a portion of Scripture to read from the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Psalms, and the Proverbs.
It also includes notes from John to help you understand what you're reading. Again, to order the Daily Bible, call 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And friend, wherever you're listening from today, know that you're not alone.
This broadcast is being heard in almost every major city around the nation. People are tuning in to Grace to You, listening, learning, and growing. That's the very personal ministry you help sustain when you give. To express your support, write to Grace to You, Box 4000, Panorama City, California, 91412. Or you can call our toll-free number, 800-55-GRACE. You can even donate online at gty.org. Thanks for helping us reach communities around the world with biblical truth that changes lives. And now for John MacArthur and the entire Grace to You staff, I'm Phil Johnson, encouraging you to join us tomorrow when John continues his series, Examine Yourself, with another 30 minutes of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace to You.
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