Self Examination

Intro

vs. self-esteem, vs. create yourself, vs. change the world, vs. strong outward Christian identity masking inward weakness

Vs. spiritual instability

Insensibly almost to themselves, they take up a kind of hysterical, sensational, sentimental Christianity, until they are never content with the "old paths" and, like the Athenians, are always running after something new. To see a calm-minded young believer, who is not stuck up, self confident, self-conceited, and more ready to teach than learn, but content with a daily steady effort to grow up into Christ's likeness, and to do Christ's work quietly and unostentatiously, at home, is really becoming almost a rarity! Too many young professors, alas, behave like young recruits who have not spent all their bounty money. They show how little deep root they have, and how little knowledge of their hearts, by noise, forwardness, readiness to contradict and set down old Christians, and over-weaning trust in their own fancied soundness and wisdom! Well will it be for many young professors of this age if they do not end, after being tossed about for a while, and "carried to and fro by every wind of doctrine," by joining some petty, narrow-minded, censorious sect, or embracing some senseless, unreasoning crotchety heresy. Surely, in times like these there is great need for self-examination. When we look around us, we may well ask, "How do we do about our souls?"

in a world obsessed with a self idolizing self-examination (how can I be my best self today), how can we in the church respond to Paul's exhortation to work out our own salvation in fear and trembling in an appropriate gospel-centered way?

We are not to be self-absorbed and looking inward to see how we feel about ourselves or how we compare to other people. - Joe Carter

Knowledge of God and Self

2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!

Psalm 139! = God’s glory seen, then ‘search me’ then ‘lead me’

Ways God communicates if there be any wrong way in us: friends (Prov. 27:6),

Bible (2 Tim. 3:16)

Wrong Ways

Alone = morbid introspection or delusion

Under the frown of God // for your own glory

Refusing to stop for confession + thanksgiving

The Goal: How Does God See Me?

Example of the tax collector + gospel

Seeing your flaws without fear or being trapped in guilt

Knowledge of God may utterly humble you + grind your pride into dust… but cannot leave you hopeless: jn17 24

Questions for Self-Examination

Ryle: Do we ever think about our souls at all?

“ From the beginning of the year to the end they are absorbed in the pursuit of business, pleasure, politics, money, or self-indulgence of some kind or another. Death, and judgment, and eternity, and heaven, and hell, and a world to come, are never calmly looked at and considered.” - Ryle (1878)

What has to go from our lives for us to spend regular time in self-examination?

Ryle: Are we trying to satisfy our consciences with a mere ‘formal’ religion?

“Like the Pharisees of old, they make much ado about the outward part of Christianity, while the inward and spiritual part is totally neglected. They are careful to attend all the services of their place of worship, and regular in using all its forms and ordinances. They are never absent from Communion when the Lord's Supper is administered… They are often keen partisans of their own Church, or sect, or congregation, and ready to contend with any one who does not agree with them. Yet all this time there is no heart in their religion. Anyone who knows them intimately can see with half an eye that their affections are set on things below, and not on things above; and that they are trying to make up for the want of inward Christianity by an excessive quantity of outward form.” - Ryle

Ryle: Have we received the forgiveness of sins?

“Now it is the glory of the Christian religion that it provides for us the very forgiveness that we need--full, free, perfect, eternal, and complete. It is a leading article in that well-known creed which most Englishmen learn when they are children. They are taught to say, "I believe in the forgiveness of sins." This forgiveness of sins has been purchased for us by the eternal Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. He has purchased it for us by coming into the world to be our Savior, and by living, dying, and rising again, as our Substitute, in our behalf. He has bought it for us at the price of His own most precious blood, by suffering in our place on the cross, and making satisfaction for our sins. But this forgiveness, great, and full, and glorious as it is, does not become the property of every man and woman as a matter of course. It is not a privilege which every member of a Church possesses, merely because he is a Churchman. It is a thing which each individual must receive for himself by his own personal faith, lay hold on by faith, appropriate by faith, and make his own by faith; or else, so far as he is concerned, Christ will have died in vain. It is only faith that is required; and faith is nothing more than the humble, heartfelt trust of the soul which desires to be saved. Jesus is able and willing to save; but man must come to Jesus and believe. All that believe are at once justified and forgiven: but without believing there is no forgiveness at all.” Ryle

Ryle: Do we know anything of practical Christian Holiness?

Genuine Scriptural holiness will make a man do his duty at home and by the fireside, and adorn his doctrine in the little trials of daily life. It will exhibit itself in passive graces as well as in active. It will make a man humble, kind, gentle, unselfish, good-tempered, considerate of others, loving, meek, and forgiving

Ryle: Do we know anything of enjoying the means of grace?

Principally: reading the Word; prayer; public worship

They are means which God has graciously appointed in order to convey grace to man's heart by the Holy Spirit, or to keep up the spiritual life after it has begun. As long as the world stands, the state of a man's soul will always depend greatly on the manner and spirit in which he uses means of grace

Ryle: Do we ever try to do any good in the world?

Ryle: Do we know the habit of communion with Christ?

Let it be distinctly understood that union with Christ is one thing, and communion is another. There can be no communion with the Lord Jesus without union first; but unhappily there may be union with the Lord Jesus, and afterwards little or no communion at all… Communion with Christ is the privilege of those who are continually striving to grow in grace, and faith, and knowledge, and conformity to the mind of Christ in all things...”

Are we aware of our sin-struggles, and have we thought enough about them to understand them?

“They would have said continually, "The remembrance of our sins is grievous to us; the burden of them is intolerable." But they were ever looking unto Jesus, and in Him they were ever able to rejoice.” - Ryle

I do this in a quick way most days… may be missing the benefit of the power of scripture for it sometimes?

Practical: how to bake this into quiet time…?