Paul calls for an examination in another passage and I want you to notice this. It's the last chapter of II Corinthians, Chapter 13, and verse 5, I want you to note what it says, Il 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 anybodies 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 se whether you are in the faith prove yourself. You say John' how do 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 Matthew Chapter 5 and let's find out. When Jesus had 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 cu and dried and pretty well laid out that this is 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 criterion by which you evaluate whether you are redeemed or not. I want to ell you how a citizen of the kingdom really lives. You want to prove yourself, ere is the proof, you take your life this morning 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 he end result will be whether you are a Christian or not. Here is the standard, an 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 is a Christian, and ever since she has been a Christian she has been living with a man who is not her husband. And I 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 that 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 every day, the 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 sinequanon, 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 Hebrews 12:14, there's a verse that haunts me constantly when I meet people who claim to be Christians but whose lives don't agree with that, and the verse says this, it says, "holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord." Did you hear that? Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord! In II Timothy 2:19 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 1:16, it says 11 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 II Corinthians 5:17 it's well summed up, "if any man be in Christ h is a (what) new creation, old thing pass away and all things have become new." I John Chapter 1, verse 9, says Christians are constantly confessing their sins. Being righteous in that sense, practical righteousness, does not mean that never sin it means that you deal with it when you do, you confess 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 will 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 until now. Further on he says, "If any man loves the world, the love ofthe Father is not in him," AndJames 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 John Chapter 3 he says "He that is born of God does not continue to commit sin, he can't because a new seed is in him and he can not continue to commit sin."
Now what am I saying? I'm saying this, God says if you are really saved there will 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 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 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 are really saved. You can't say 'well I'm a Christian and just go right waltzing down the same old path you've been on, prove it, You say your a Christian prove it. I guess maybe I'm not content any more 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 isle or you went into an inquiry room or somebody took you through a little book, or what ever, you're ok, I don't think that that's ever the Biblical criterion for salvation. The Biblical criterion for salvation is right now, what is your life like right now, and if it isn't what it aught to be, oh yes, maybe you are a Christian living in carnality, but there's an equal possibility that you are not a Christian at all, you just think you are, and believe beloved, and I say this with an ache in my heart, I'm sure there are many people, and I say that, many people in Grace Church who are not Christians. We don't know that and maybe they don't even face up to it. You say what are the standards.
Let's look at Matthew 5 to 7, Sermon on the Mount. We are going verse by verse through this on Sunday nights, if you are missing this you are missing something that is life changing. But I want you to see the criterion, 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, There's only. There's 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. 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 along inherit tie earth, they alone are kingdom citizens, and the upshot of all of that when you are 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 your are not even a Christian. That's the criterion our Lord gives.
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Poster Comment:
The above is an excerpt. I highly encourage all to either listen to the sermon at the link or read it at the link (both available at gty.org).
