In this audio message, Scott Brown discusses the importance of self examination and the Lord's Supper. During this time, we draw near to Lord. It is a healthy practice that we each should regularly engage in.

2 Corinthians 13:5 (NKJV) - "Examine yourselves as to whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not know yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you are disqualified."

Well, it's been a pleasure to walk through this whole section on the Lord's Supper over at Hope. I gave a number of messages on the Lord's Supper, you know, focusing on the Passover, then focusing on the bread, then on the blood. And so I'm very grateful to be able to come back and just continue to deal with this really important matter. And today, I'd like to focus on a critical part of the Lord's Supper, and that is self-examination, where, as the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11, we are chastened by the Lord, but we're not condemned. And that's really important to understand.

So with this whole subject of self-examination, we're brought to just another way that the Lord blesses His people in worship. And in the Lord's Supper, We turn to the Lord, we draw near to Him, and then He comes and He continues to perform acts of healing by His grace toward us as we come to Him. And so self-examination is not a morose, depressing kind of thing at all. It should never be. It's a healthy thing.

And that self-examination reveals patterns of thinking, ways of living, habits of behavior, blind spots that are all meant to be a blessing to his people. So it is the cup of blessing in every possible way even in this matter of self-examination. I think it was Socrates who said that the unexamined life is not worth living but for the Christian the unexamined life is not even an option at all. We have to examine ourselves. It's just part of what we have done by turning to the Lord Jesus Christ to have our imperfect lives laid before him.

That the sword of the Spirit would come in and pierce and as it would wound and make us bleed it heals at the same time. And that's a big part of self-examination. It really is just another blessing from heaven. We're going to talk in some detail about this whole matter of the chastening of the Lord that is in this passage of scripture. And it's interesting to know what word that the Lord uses when he speaks of being judged by the Lord's Supper.

It's the word chastened. It's the word that really has to do with a father chastening his son because he loves him. So I'd like to, first of all, just sort of review the meaning of the Lord's Supper before we move into this whole matter of focusing on self-examination. And what is the meaning of the Lord's Supper? Well, Here's the meaning.

Taste and see that the Lord is good. That's really the overall meaning of the Lord's Supper. And there are various ways that God brings His goodness to His people so that they can taste it. And there are several pictures. First of all, there's the blood of the covenant, the old covenant Passover lamb, and then through the bread, and then through the cup, which symbolizes the blood, and then through this matter of chastening, of self-examination.

So these are the basic elements of it. First of all, the Old Testament type of the Passover is important. It takes us back to bondage in Egypt where the children of Israel are under the abusive headship of Pharaoh and they're delivered from Pharaoh. It's a picture of being delivered from bondage. That's what the whole Passover element is and it helps us it helps us to understand the mercies of God as the death angel passes over the families of Israel and it helps us to see the kindness of God in this picture, in this New Covenant picture of the Lord's Supper.

The sacrificial lamb is slain, the blood is spread over the doorposts, which is symbolic of your whole life, your goings in, your comings out. The doorposts symbolize everything that you are, everything that you have, everything that you've ever done, everything that you ever will be. All the ins and outs of your life are what's wrapped up in the symbolism of those doorposts. And what happens? Blood is smeared on the doorposts and the death angel passes over.

So you have this first picture of the Passover, which is the type of the New Covenant celebration of the Lord's Supper. And then the Lord Jesus, he distributes bread. So bread is the next really critical element to understand when you consider the Lord's Supper. You know, food... What is food?

What's up with food? Well, food is really about dependence. It means that you need something outside of you to sustain you. And so that's the whole imagery. But the Bible is full of instruction about bread.

Bread shows up all over the Bible in ways that God desires to bless his people. So whenever you take the bread, just recognize there's an enormous meaning that's loaded into that taking of the bread. In the Bible, bread is used for worship like it was in the days of Melchizedek in Genesis 14. It was used for hospitality in the days of Lot, who practiced hospitality with the two angels in Genesis 19. It's symbolic of the abundance of the promised land in Deuteronomy 8 verse 9 and Deuteronomy 16 verse 16.

It's about a celebration, a national celebration. All the people of God coming together, being sustained by God, eating the bread of God. So that's what's up with bread. So when Jesus takes bread, it means something for the believer. Every time you take that bread, you can go from Genesis to Revelation and take the meaning of bread and you can inject it into your whole thinking, your whole worship of God.

That God desires to nourish you, He desires to take care of you, your body, your soul, every part of you. You take that bread and you just think of God's care for you to keep you alive. He's done it every day of your life. I think everybody here is alive today. Well, there's a reason.

God has brought you bread. Did you deserve all the bread that you've eaten? No, I don't think so. But God is. Mercy and His grace has brought all of us bread.

And then there's the cup. It's called the cup of blessing. And it's symbolic of the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ and the washing away of all of our impurities. It's the remedy for our miseries. It's the destruction of our greatest enemy, which is sin.

And so the Lord Jesus takes the fruit of the vine, the cup, the wine, And he establishes a new covenant. No longer are we killing bulls and goats. No longer do we have gigantic fires burning all the time in order to consume our sacrifices. He gives us a drink. Something so much better, so much more wonderful.

It is a new covenant. It is a better covenant. There are better promises. It's better than the blood of bullions and goats, absolutely, in every possible way. So, he's making a new covenant through this ordinance with these new substances.

Instead of the old things, it's bread and it's the fruit of the vine. And when the Lord Jesus takes the bread and the cup and gives it to his disciples, he's wiping out the whole Jewish sacrificial system. It's gone. The shadows are now being fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. And there's so much that speaks about the blood in Scripture.

You know, We've been purchased by his blood in Acts 20. We have propitiation by his blood in Romans chapter 3. We've been justified by his blood in Romans 5. We have redemption through his blood in Ephesians 1 verse 7. We have peace through his blood in Colossians 1 20.

We who are far off had been brought near by the blood in Ephesians 2 13. Our consciences have been cleansed by his blood in Hebrews 9, 13, and 14. We were sanctified by his blood in Hebrews 13 verse 2. We were ransomed by his blood in 1 Peter and we were washed in his blood in Revelation 1.5. So the blood of Christ as we drink it in the Lord's Supper has all that meaning packed into it.

When you take that cup, that's what you have got to remember. And then what the Lord does is he gives us not blood, but he gives us a symbol of blood. He gives us a new substance. He gives us the fruit of the vine. He gives us the cup.

And in the Old Testament, you know, the cup, the wine has enormous significance. Jason has already spoken to you clearly about the various uses of wine in the Old Testament. There are particular warnings for the abuses of it, but there are also enormous blessings associated with it. Somehow, we have to learn how to think biblically about everything that is in the world. Wine is a symbol of so many things in the Old Testament that relate directly to the blood of Jesus Christ.

Wine and blood are connected. If you don't like wine, you can't like the blood. It's really that simple. And so it speaks of the abundant provision of God in Psalm 104, verses 14 through 15. It's a drink for the worship of God and victory of war in Genesis 14 and 18.

It's a sign of rejoicing in Jeremiah 31 verse 12. It's a drink of sacrifice in Exodus 29 verse 40 and Leviticus 23 and 13. It's a drink for celebrating at feasts in Deuteronomy 14.26. It's a tithe for sustaining the Levites as a reward for their service at the Tabernacle in Numbers 18 verse 30, Deuteronomy 12 verse 17, and Deuteronomy 18 verse 4 and several other places. It is also a drink for a freed slave in Deuteronomy 15 verse 14.

It is Madison for the sick in Luke 10 verse 34 and 1 Timothy 5 23. It's a symbol for rejoicing in Ecclesiastes 9 verses 7 through 10. It's a symbol of wisdom in Proverbs 9 verses 2 and verse 5. It's a sign of the cleansing sacrifice in Genesis 49 and Revelation 19, 11 through 13. And it's a reward for obedience in Deuteronomy 11.13.

So there's so much significance in the wine in the Old Testament that connects with the blood. What does the wine say about the blood? What does the blood say about the wine? Well, they speak to one another. They're connected.

They're intertwined together. So when You take that cup, recognize what you're doing. You're a free slave. You've got medicine. That's what you have in the Lord's Supper.

And so this whole symbol of the fruit of the vine is for medicine, for food, for happiness, for freedom, for cleansing, for provision. In the Old Covenant ordinance of the Passover, he makes the death angel pass over you. And so here in the Lord's Supper, He gives you bread from heaven. He refreshes you with the cup of blessing. He provides for you.

This is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is explained in these types and in these images. He is so good. He not only gives you the cup of blessing, but he comes and he takes the log out of your eye. He takes the millstone off your neck.

He takes the punishment for your sin. And guess what else he does? He takes the Lord's Supper in a perfectly worthy manner. And so can you because of his sacrifice on the cross. So that's just a summary of the whole content of the Lord's Supper.

Now, self-examination. This is another aspect of it. We've talked about the Passover. We've talked about the bread. We've talked about the blood.

Now we talk about the chastening. We talk about the self-examination of the chastening. And what we find in 1 Corinthians 11 is the sweetness of it. It's a certain kind of chastening. It's the yoke of the Lord.

It's not a heavy yoke, but it's a yoke that blesses. It's an examination that's necessary, however, for that blessing. And so that brings us to 1 Corinthians 11, and I would just like to focus in on this passage that we read, particularly in verses 26 through 34. And what we see in 1 Corinthians 11 and all the other texts about the Lord's Supper, but particularly here, God calls you to have a conversation with yourself. He calls you to examine yourself in the form of a kind of conversation that you have with yourself.

And so he is also calling us to identify ourselves as well. Because in the Lord's Supper is a declaration of who you are, that you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, that you not only have been eating his bread, you not only have been drinking of his cup of blessing, but you also are one who's being chastened by him. You're also under the sweet hand of chastening of the Lord. Not only do you have his medicine, not only do you have his food, But you also have something that helps you so much in your life. And you identify yourself as belonging to him.

So the Lord's Supper, it actually separates the visible church into the believers and the unbelievers. And as we celebrate the Lord's Supper every week, that's what we're doing. Now we don't know, we can't know for certain who are the members of the true church and who are not. But in the Lord's Supper there's a symbol of the division that exists in the visible church of those who are in and those who are out. And so in one sense the Lord's Supper is internally disciplining in that it shows who are His and who are not.

Now there will be in every church, there will be children and some who are not taking the Lord's Supper because they've not been baptized. And they really are saved. So it certainly is not a perfect test. But it does, in that sense, divide the visible church in a particular way. And so there's a body of people that are categorized as the people of God, those who have eaten, those who have drunk of his cup of blessing, those who have had the death angel pass over them.

That's what this symbol implies. And the people in Corinth were treated as the people of God. They were treated as the Church of God. They were admitted to the Lord's Supper. Now, of course, this was not a perfect church.

There were divisions in this church. There were struggles with immorality in this church, but it was a true church. And God was constantly calling this church to greater purity. And the partaking of the Lord's Supper is part of their process of sanctification as they enter into self-examination, as they begin to have this conversation with themselves about the state of their soul and the way that they're living. And so it's appropriate for the people of God to come together for the Lord's Supper to have a personal conversation between you and the Lord.

It's a blessing, isn't it? You can have conversations with one another about how you're doing with the Lord, but you also ought to have conversations with yourself as to how you're doing with the Lord. So there's a problem here in the Corinthian Church that's revealed in verse 27. If you have an outline in front of you, you'll see where we are in the outline. The problem was they were eating and drinking in an unworthy manner.

And so the Apostle Paul is attacking this problem in this church. So he says, therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and the blood of the Lord. So there's actual guilt in the Corinthian church because of the way that they were approaching the Lord's Supper. It was in an unworthy manner. The term that the Apostle Paul uses has to do with being ill-equipped, being not ready.

They were not ready. Their hearts were not ready. It was not a worthy way that they were coming to the Lord's Supper. And the same word the Apostle Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 6 verses 2 through 3 where he says, Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters?

Are you unworthy? He's saying, are you even equipped to judge the smallest matters? And what Paul is saying about the Corinthian church is they're so immature, they've so not studied the word of God, they've so not fed on the food from heaven that they don't even know how to judge simple matters. They just don't know how to judge because they're babes in Christ. And so their unworthiness in that context has to do with they're just not ready.

They're just not ready to judge. Have any of you ever served on jury duty? And have you ever seen the process of choosing judges? And has it ever terrified you, the kind of judges they put in front of people to judge? It's terrifying what they do.

They eliminate almost everybody that has experience with any kind of authority, or if you believe particular things, you're automatically restricted from serving. And the people that judge us today in our courts, they're not ready. They are unworthy in that sense in the way that the Apostle Paul is using it. So he's saying they're coming in an unworthy manner. They're coming not ready.

They're just not ready for it. And they're coming, we know they're coming in lack of self-control, we know that they're coming in contempt of one another because they're divisions, there's a kind of frivolity, there's a nonchalance, they're not recognizing the seriousness and the beauty of the moment and they were diminishing the meaning of it. They just weren't in their unreadiness, they just weren't really grasping the meaning, the depth of it, the beauty of it. And so that's what it means that they were coming not in a worthy manner. They just were not ready.

They weren't ready to examine themselves. So it's wrong to come to the table that way and that has to do with part of this self-examination. In self-examination we ask ourselves how bad we are. That's what we have to do. And this is a hard thing.

How bad am I? Because we're naturally self-congratulatory by nature. We naturally have a different view of ourselves than other people have of us. I know this is true of myself. We tend to think more highly of ourselves than we are.

We think ourselves more wholly than we are. And people around us don't see us exactly as holy as we might think we are. And this is one of our problems. We are so self-flattering, we think more highly of ourselves. And this was one of the issues in the Corinthian Church.

This is a really big problem. And it's the cause of many broken relationships because we think our memory patterns, the way we remember events and things, people say they're self-congratulatory. They put us as the wise one in the room. And because of that, we often have broken relationships because we're so self-congratulatory and we interpret every event in our favor. Now in the Corinthian church, they were so nonchalant, they would just come in completely unready.

Their hearts were not ready because they were just so filled with themselves. And so, In the same way that our hearts are often so self-deceiving and so self-flattering, so it was with the Corinthians. They came in thinking they were ready, but they weren't ready at all. They were coming in an unworthy manner. When in fact God was actually calling them into an experience where they would not only eat of the bread and drink of the cup of blessing, but they also would be entering into a time of chastisement, a time of self-examination that leads to chastisement.

And they were not recognizing the blessing of that chastisement, so they were coming in an unworthy manner. They didn't understand, my son do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him, for whom the Lord loves he chastens and scourges every son whom he receives." So the problem was they were coming in an unworthy manner. But the remedy is self-examination. In verse 28, he says, but let a man examine himself. And of course, he's not talking about just males.

It's not just the males in the church that are supposed to be examining themselves. This is for males and females. By the way, in the Passover it was only for males, not true in the New Covenant. The New Covenant believer is both male and female. And the Old Covenant believer is male and female.

But there were separations of duties in the Old Covenant that don't exist in the new. So there's this command for self-examination. And this is where the conversation with ourselves comes in to Paul's instruction here. And It's a self-examination that's designed to keep us from self-deception, to enter us into what is called the chastening of the Lord so that you would not be condemned. It's a chastening not into condemnation.

It's a chastening like a father. It's a chastening that's designed for the blessing of God. Now this passage is so full of Greek words about judgment that it's not even funny. And if you look at it in verse 28, the word examine is one of those words. In verse 29, there's a different word, drinks judgment.

In verse 29, again the word appears. In verse 31, it appears twice. In verse 32, it appears twice again. So this whole idea of judgment is really one of the central focal points of Paul's instruction here. It's about judgment, it really is.

And so in any part of the Lord's Supper you don't want to lose any aspect of it. You don't want to lose the eating of the bread, you don't want to lose the freedom of bondage from Israel in the Passover, you don't want to lose the blessing of the cup, but you also don't want to lose the chastening from the Lord because it has the same purpose. Now I want to give you a number of points of guidance about this self-examination. I'm going to give you six points. First of all, this is an act of kindness.

Here this is an element of Christ drawing you near to himself to preserve you from trouble. It's an early step of discipline where you discipline yourself so that you are relieving the poisons of your own soul. It's an act of kindness. God in his kindness calls us to do things that we wouldn't normally do with ourselves or for ourselves. He is so good to us that he actually causes us to do something that almost no one else is going to cause us to do for ourselves.

So, he calls us to himself to preserve us from trouble by helping us with our sins. And the second thing that he does is that He gives us ways to judge ourselves. He has given us scripture. And so our examination should always be according to scripture. It's so easy to examine yourself out of your own feelings.

It's so easy to examine yourself about what you think people say about you. It's so easy to examine yourself just out of your hurts, your wounds, and things like that. And just the ways that you've always talked to yourself. It's so easy to do that. But don't do that.

Examine yourself according to scripture. Use the biblical categories. Go to the words of life. Go to the sword that heals you, not your own psycho babble that ruins you. We are so full of the wrong language of the way we describe our sins.

We use terms that are not only not helpful, they are actually destructive. As we examine ourselves, we have to somehow cleanse our minds and learn how to think the thoughts of God after him so that our examination arises out of scripture and that we connect in that way. The Self-examination should be 100% grounded in the Word of God. And if there is going to be self-condemnation, it should never be exalted over whatever kind of correction you might receive from the Word of God. Let the Word of God be the one that would correct you.

It is true that God gives us humans to speak to us about various things and Sometimes they use the wrong language in describing our faults. And so we're always having to try to learn what's pleasing to the Lord. Sometimes people come to us with corrections that are, they come out of anger. And as a result of that, we often respond wrongly because we're not connecting those things to the word of God. Whenever there's a correction from another human being you've always got to ask, what does the Bible say about my sins?

And usually when someone corrects you, there is an element of truth of it. Even in the most hateful corrector, there's some element of truth in it. I just want to say, Here's some guidance. It should be based on Scripture, this self-examination. Thirdly, it should avoid the two extremes.

On one extreme there's just presumption. Everything is beautiful with me. There's nothing wrong with me at all. You know, I am beautiful, I am good, I am successful, I am nice, you know, I'm compassionate. This is what we like to say for ourselves and we like people to affirm these things in us.

But it should avoid presumption on the one hand and despair on the other hand of, you know, I'm worthless, I am nothing. These are two extremes that we often fall into in the Lord's Supper. In my years of being a pastor, there have always been people in both of these camps, some who tend to just fall into great despair in the Lord's Supper. And it grieves me when that happens. And also, when there's just a flagrant lack of recognition of any kind of reality about their lives.

And they just eat and drink as if there's nothing to be done. There's no chastising from the Lord that's necessary. There's not a Christian alive who doesn't need some kind of chastising. And God your Father treats you like a son and chastises you because he loves you. It's a sign of sonship.

So both of the extremes are inappropriate. Robert Murray McShane, though I think, helps us to come to the point of balance. And that is to consider the Lord Jesus Christ. Here's what he says, For every look at yourself take ten looks at Christ. He is altogether lovely, such infinite majesty, and yet such meekness and grace, and all for sinners, even the chief of sinners.

Live much in the smiles of God, bask in his beams, feel his all-seeing eye settled on you in love, and repose in his almighty arms. Cry after divine knowledge. Lift up your voice for understanding. Seek her as silver, and search for her as treasure according to the word. See that it be fulfilled in you.

Let wisdom enter into your hearts and knowledge be pleasant to your soul, so you will be delivered from the snares. Let your soul be filled with the heart of the sense of the sweetness and excellency of Christ and all that is in him. And let the Holy Spirit fill every chamber of your heart, and so there will be no room for folly or the world or Satan or the flesh. I much now commend you all to God and to the word of His grace." Great words, I think, a balance from Robert Murray McShane. He speaks of both the examination but also the trusting, the resting in the work of Jesus Christ.

That's the right balance. We've got to avoid these two extremes. We have to remember that there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 persons who need no repentance. This is one aspect of the Lord's Supper. And so the Lord's Supper should never be a morose, depressing examination.

The purpose is not to bring you into despair. The purpose is that the chastening of the Lord will be upon you. That his fatherhood, his love for you, his carrying you through your time of even disobedience ought to be in your mind. Remember in the upper room, the Lord Jesus is telling his disciples that they are all going to betray him. Now if you go to John chapter 13 through 17, you'll see the whole context of what was said to his disciples, and he's constantly giving them words of love.

He's constantly saying, you know, he's going to send his helper to help them. He's saying, you're going to fall, but I'm going to pray for you. I'm going to pray for you through your falling. While you are denying me I am going to be praying for you. You know it's so wrong for us to fall into a morose sense of self-flagellation that we're just beating ourselves you know and getting ourselves bloody in some way to try to make our repentance known to God, when really that's not necessary at all.

I would just say if the Lord's Supper is a morose, depressing time for you, then you're just thinking about it wrong. Think about the bread. Think about the wine. Think about the death angel passing over. Think about those things.

Get balanced out a little bit more if it's that way with you. Hey, here's the truth. A faithful experience in the Lord's Supper is not this. It's not coming to the conclusion that at this precise moment I've confessed every known sin that everything is absolutely right now. That will never happen.

So It's not that somehow absolutely everything is right. We only can confess sins that God gives us knowledge of. I guarantee you there's much about you and I that we've not confessed yet because we don't know it. The depth of our depravity is greater than we can even imagine. You can't get to the bottom of your sins.

You cannot confess all of your sins. It's impossible. If you knew the filthiness and the poison in your heart, it would be such a spew of ugliness that you probably couldn't survive. But God is so kind, doesn't show you everything. And so be satisfied with what he gives you.

Give thanks, have peace in what he has shown you to repent of, if there is anything. And make sure that you're not falling into a morose, depressing experience. You're here to proclaim the body and the blood of Jesus Christ, not the greatness of your ugliness, but the greatness of his beauty and how he's helped you, how his mercy is so enormous. And that's why we can say my son do not despise the chastening of the Lord nor be discouraged when you're rebuked by him. For whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and he scourges every son whom he receives." Now, the fourth thing I want to say about, and just by way of guidance, is I want to give you some perspectives of Christians from a past era.

I had the joy of reading what some of the saints of old said about this whole thing. Spurgeon says that the Lord's Supper should give you four pictures when it comes to self-examination. These are about the self-examination aspect of it. He said you should think of it as a schoolmaster where the annual examination comes to see if there's progress in your understanding. You should ask yourself, has there been progress in my understanding?

He says you should think of it as being before a sergeant major who lines up his soldiers And he paces back and forth, up and down the line, looking at every detail, the shoes, the belt. Everything must be in order. Is there anything out of order? He says you should think of it as standing before a lawyer. You're on the witness stand.

And the who, the what, the where, the when, and the why is before you. You're asking that question. Spurgeon says it's also like a traveler who travels the by roads and he explores the valleys and the hidden coves where he's traveling and he takes maps And he's checking the maps and his own position as well. So he says, think of the examination like that. Here's Matthew Henry.

Matthew Henry gives a number of what he calls similitudes, comparisons. He says think of it this way. Think of it like as if you are a medal and you're being examined on a touchstone. Is it showing baser medals that are in you? Is it showing impurities that are in the metal of your character?

Begin there. He says, think of it as if you are a criminal before the civil magistrate and he's examining you for what you have done wrong. He says we are all criminals, we've all fallen short of the glory of God. He says think of it as a copy being compared to the original where you have a copyist and he's trying to make an exact duplicate of the original. And he said, think of it that way, where you're comparing what the copyist has written with the original.

In other words, take the word of God And compare yourself with the original and see how you stack up there. He says, compare it as a wife who enters into a covenant. Does she enter into it with joy and happiness or does she enter into it with drudgery? Because she sees it as advantageous and a beautiful and a happy thing to be married to that man. Ask yourself, is it like that for you?

Are you like that happy bride who just cannot wait to get married? Are you like that in your heart? He says, think of yourself as a traveling businessman who comes into a community. And a traveling businessman is always viewed with more suspicion than one who's been around for a while, because you know the one who's been around for a while. But a traveling businessman has to test him, has to prove himself.

He says, think of yourself like that. Think of yourself like a traveling businessman, and you're coming into a new community, and nobody knows you, and you're knocking on their door, and they don't know why they should trust you and they wonder if they ever ought to. Think of yourself like that as that man with no reputation at all before God. And then Matthew Henry, he continues to wrote, he wrote a book called The Communicant's Companion. It's about this thick.

It's a really neat book. That's where I got these. So I'm going to give you a number of other ways that Matthew Henry says you ought to examine yourself. He says you should ask, am I a true child of God or am I a fake? Is there a sincere longing for God in my heart?

Number two, what changes have I experienced in my life? Has the work of God been in motion in my life? Number three, what is the bent of my affections? Because a tree is known by its fruits. Number four, what have I done and what have I omitted?

Number five, How have I governed my passions, my anger, my resentment, my greed? Number six, how have I preserved my purity? Number seven, how have I governed my time? Number eight, how have I spent my time? Number nine, How have I managed my work or my worldly calling?

How have I received my daily food in thankfulness or in lack of self-control, in gluttony, in luxury or sensuality or obsession? Have I done my duty to my family? Have I been a good husband? Have I been a good wife? As a child, have I done my duty?

Have I treated my superiors properly? Number 12, have I performed my secret worship? Number 13, Have I been a good or a bad steward? 14. Have I improved the Lord's day?

How have I profited from the preaching and the singing and the reading and the praying and the ordinances and the fellowship of the Sabbath day? 16. Do I find the duties of the Christian life a burden or a joy? 17. Is my heart weaned from the world?

18. What do I want most? 19. What comfort do I desire most? Now, does this sound like too much inspection?

I mean, you might think this would just throw me into despair. Don't let it do that. Don't let that happen. This is the chastening of the Lord. This is the kind hand of a father saying, take another step toward goodness.

Take another step toward my ways, which are always pleasant ways. Whenever you obey the Lord, you're taking a step to more pleasantness and more happiness. This is why the law of God is so good for the believer, because each step of obedience leads to another step of a pleasant way that God has for you. It doesn't save you. Not one single act of obedience can save you.

But it can bless you, it definitely can. I heard Joel Beakey say one time that a few occasional doubts that have promoted self-examination have never damned anyone to hell, but self-presumption has. So it's important that we examine ourselves carefully. Ask yourself these questions, and lay them before your Lord, who loves you. Who is your father?

Who cares for you? Who's caring for you? Who carries you like a father carries his son, who is praying for you while you're denying him. Think of him that way. This is the Lord and Savior that is being spoken of here in this passage.

And then another point of counsel, a fifth point, what's the goal of elders in matters like this? And it's exactly what Paul does in 1 Corinthians 11. The prayer, the objective of a pastor is on the one hand to convict the hard-hearted and on the other hand to bind up the broken-hearted. To let the rod and the staff do their work to the flock. You want to terrify those who are running towards sin and you want to comfort those who've been broken by it.

That's the hope of elders in a whole matter like this and God does have it that elders preside over the taking of the Lord's Supper. So we have to do both of these things as we engage in our time with the Lord's Supper. What do you do with a person who has an overburdened conscience? There are some believers who are so overburdened, they do fall into self-condemnation. They do fall into a depressive, morose state when they enter into the Lord's Supper.

What is a pastor supposed to do with that kind of believer? And he should he should bring him to the fountain of living waters. He should remind him of the bread. He should remind him of the refreshing, happy, fine drink that God gives. He should remind me of God's mercy.

That there's nothing that He can do to earn His salvation. That He is safe in God's hands. And a pastor should say to that person the same thing that Jesus Christ said to his disciples. Take, eat, take, take it. They were just arguing about who is the greatest and he says take, eat.

They're going to deny him. They're going to all flee. He says, take, eat. So to the sensitive conscience, you have to say no, take and eat. There have been many times in my life as a pastor where I've stood at the communion line.

I've wanted to pass that thing right back to that guy and say, take, eat. Jesus Christ's blood is greater than the dinky sin that you just think is so overburdening. On the other hand, you don't want the person with an insensitive conscious to just flagrantly, licentiously not care about his sin and continue to drink at the pig slop and continue to run into every form of thing that's hurting them. It's a balance that you're always having to span And I'm confident we have both of those kinds of people here today. Some who some who are who tend to over overbearing inspection and some who could care less and that never fazes them.

They think they're so good. These are the problems that the church has when they come together in the Lord's Supper. So a pastor should bring the sensitive conscious to the font of blessing, and he should terrify those who have an insensitive conscience so that they would all come to Christ and Christ alone. I love what Psalm 139 says. This is a great comfort for anyone who's in the process of taking the Lord's Supper or preparing for it.

And that is that God knows your heart. David said in Psalm 139, Oh Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me in behind and before and laid Your hand upon me. Where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?" This is a great comfort in the taking of the Lord's Supper that God knows? God knows your heart.

He knows every thought. And It's for us to say, search me, O God, and know my heart and recognize His omniscience and His love that exist together as His people come together to celebrate the Lord's table. This is the whole matter of self-examination, but there's a great danger in neglecting self-examination. And it's found in verse 29. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.

So an inadequate judgment has terrible consequences. So There is seriousness about the way that we engage in this self-examination. First of all, he says that he drinks judgment to himself. Judgment. So there's this hand of judgment and then he identifies three maladies that come from the judgment.

And the first is weakness. Verse 30, for this reason many are weak. And he uses a word that has to do with impotence, physical weakness. It's used in the same meaning of when the Apostle Paul speaks of the woman being the weaker vessel, meaning she's not able to do certain things. Women are not as strong as men, that's obvious.

This is one of the great challenges of having women in the military. You have a 210 man who has to get dragged off the battlefield by a woman who weighs 120 pounds and has one third the muscle content in her body. She's just weaker. She's built weaker that way. Well, Paul says, for this reason, many are weak.

And He's just talking about the ability to live life. So when we don't examine ourselves, we get weak. You might ask yourself, is any of the weakness in my life because I'm not examining myself, I'm not confessing my sins, I'm not accepting the chastening of the Lord. His chastening comes in a lot of different ways. There are many different kinds of judgments that God brings to his people.

And if you're weak today, ask yourself, am I weak because I'm not listening to the chastening of the Lord? For this reason, Many are weak. You can often trace the weakness of an individual believer or an individual church to their ability to understand the body and the blood of Jesus Christ. That is how important the Gospel is. That is how important the body and the blood of Jesus Christ is.

That is how important the Lord's Supper is. That is how important it is when we gather together to take the Lord's Supper. Because if it's not right, you will be weak as a result. Why are you weak? Is it possible that you can trace it to this?

Secondly, sickness and sick among you. Weak and sick among you. He's speaking about illnesses, real live illnesses. You know, this word is used of Jesus' activities in Matthew 14, 14, where we read, and he healed their sick. And you have to ask, is any of my sickness because of an unfaithful examination, an unfaithful receiving of the chastisement of the Lord in the Lord's Supper.

Here's a possibility. Some of you have always rushed to the medicine cabinet and to the doctor when you should have gone to the great physician? When you should have confessed your sins? Is it possible that some of you are sick because you've been ignoring your sins? And you know, Some of you have received very little out of the Sabbath worship because you have not examined yourselves rightly.

You know, in James chapter 5 we read, If anyone is sick among you, call the elders of the church. And what are the elders supposed to do? The elders, well everybody thinks about the anointing of oil. That's only a very small part. What the elders are primarily supposed to do is to see if the sickness is related to sin.

That's actually the heart of that passage of scripture. Because there's unconfessed sin, there's sickness. And so when you go and lay hands on someone and anoint them with oil, you always have to ask them about their sins. And you have to ask them, is this sickness because of sin? Is it possible?

All sickness is not because of some particular sin that you've committed. All sickness is a result of the fall, but all sickness is not always the result of a specific sin. But often enough it is. It's more often than we think. We live in a naturalistic world Where the medicine cabinet is God and the doctor is God.

And we neglect spiritual matters that have effect on our bodies and the sicknesses that we have. And it's very important that we understand that. That some of our sicknesses are because we're not discerning the body and the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And then thirdly, not only sickness, but also death. Some have actually died in the Corinthian church.

There are weak people and sick people and dead people in the Corinthian church because of this. So we ought to take this very, very seriously. When he says, and many sleep, this is a euphemism for death. It means death. And then we come to the blessings of self-examination in verse 31.

For, if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world." And so here is this whole matter of chastisement. We are being chastened by the Lord. And it's a great blessing to be chastened by the Lord. He sets us right through his discipline.

And he uses a word here for chastened. It's the word paideia. And it's a word that has to do with a father's instruction to his children. It's a word of learning. It's a word of instruction, bringing your children up in the training and instruction of the Lord.

This word, chastening, has the whole content of a father who is teaching his children, who cares for his children, who loves his children. It's that kind of chastening. It's not a rod that's meant to kill you. It's a rod that's meant to heal you. And This is the kind of chastening it is.

It's the kind of chastening that is spoken of in Hebrews chapter 12, which reads, For consider him who endured such hostility from sinners against himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as sons, my son. Do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him." Now, the people that the writer of Hebrews was speaking to had forgotten something. They had forgotten the exhortation about chastening. Have you forgotten that?

Have you forgotten this whole matter? It's key to the celebration of the Lord's Supper. And what is so easy to forget? It's so easy to forget that whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It's so easy to forget that and fall into despair.

And we think our sins are so great, but actually God is taking chastenings in order to cleanse us. He loves us. And He is carrying us like a father carries a son. And He is praying for us while we're struggling with our sins. That's the kind of chastening it is.

It's an amazing, wonderful thing. He says, For whom the Lord loves, He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives. If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom a father does not chasten? But if you are without chastening, of which you have all become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.

Furthermore, we had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of Spirits and live? No chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful. Nevertheless, afterward, it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed." So this chastening, this self-examination, has to do with the kindness of the hand of God upon His children.

That we would be a chastened people, that we would put ourselves under His chastening hand and we would see His love in it. We would come to the Lord's table and we would see the healthfulness of the bread, the happiness of the fruit of the vine, and we would see how good it is to be chastened. There's a song that I've been singing to my daughter at night called Begone Unbelief by John Newton. I love the words of this song. He says this in the song, since all that I meet shall work for my good, the bitterest sweet, the medicine food.

It is so true about the Lord's Supper. All of the medicines of the Lord's Supper are food for the soul, even the chastening. So that it is like this, I acknowledge my sin to you, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord, and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. For this cause everyone who is godly shall pray to you in time when you may be found.

Surely in a great flood of waters they shall not come near him. You are my hiding place. You preserve me from trouble. You will surround me with songs of deliverance." So the chastening is a wonderful thing. It's medicine, it's food, it's help from heaven, it's comfort, it's progress for the soul.

Now, I want to leave you with some final questions and then we'll be done. First of all, do you have faith in Christ? Are you a Christian? Eating worthily is not the same thing as being worthy. Nobody was ever worthy to take the Lord's Supper.

But you can come worthily with a proper respect and love for Jesus Christ. Now the question I think that should be asked is if you're taking the Lord's Supper and you're not a believer, you know, what should you do? You should stop. If you're not a Christian and you've been taking the Lord's Supper, maybe even for years, and maybe you're even saying, you know, nothing's happened to me, you know, I'm not sick, I'm not weak, I haven't died yet, you know, You may be thinking that in your own heart, but don't be presumptuous that nothing has happened. You don't know that things aren't already happening to you.

But stop. Stop and seek the Lord. Stop and recognize your state. Stop and recognize how desperate it is for you to turn to the Lord and repent of your sins and to come to Him and to be justified by faith. That you would have a new heart, that you'd be born again.

Remember Nadab and Abihu. They violated the worship of God. And then God said, I hate your feasts, and he killed them. God does kill those who do not worship Him in the way that He is prescribed. Secondly, do you understand the meaning of the Lord's Supper?

The Corinthians were not discerning the Lord's body. There were many who were coming to the table. They were believers, but they were insensible. They weren't discerning the body and the blood, they didn't see for what it really was. They were treating it just like a regular old meal instead of a separate thing.

And have you taken it lightly at all? And Today, can you take it more carefully, more happily, more sincerely, more soberly, more freely than you ever have? This is a wonderful opportunity for that. And to recognize the heart of the matter on chastisement. While there is the chastisement of the Lord's Supper, what else do we know about chastisement?

Isaiah 53 says, our chastisement was laid on him. Isn't that amazing? You may be thinking that you're the only one to whom chastisement applies, but no, Jesus Christ was chastised for all of your chastisement. When you recognize your sin, recognize that Jesus Christ carried the punishment for that chastisement that you sense that you need from the Lord. He's carrying it for you.

The third question is Who are you judging? On any given Sunday morning there are a lot of people you can judge. You can judge your brother's children, you can judge the elders, you can judge the other brothers here, but you ought to be judging yourselves. This says to examine yourselves, to take scholarship over your own life and to examine the details of your life. You know, how much better is it to enter into self-chastisement than it is to engage in others' chastisement.

Let me just close with two final things. These are the things that self-examination accomplishes. First, the confessions from self-examination. They really do a beautiful thing in the church. They make a humble people who are aware of their sins.

It destroys their pride. It gives them the ability to be a humble people. And then secondly, the humility of the self-examination revives the heart. Isaiah 57 says it this way, For thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity whose name is holy. I dwell in the high and holy place with Him who has a contrite and humble spirit to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

This is the beauty of self-examination. It makes a humble church. It makes a happy church. And that's why for the Christian it is not an option to have an unexamined life. And that's why we can say with all of our hearts in the Lord's Supper, my son, do not despise the chastening of the Lord, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him.

For whom The Lord loves, He chastens, and He scourges every son whom He receives. Isn't that a blessed meal? Isn't it a wonderful thing to come under the chasing of the Lord? To see the self-examination and the health that it brings, the happiness that it brings, the humility that it brings in the soul, and how it sets you free. What a blessing it is.

And so now we're going to enter into that time of the celebration of the Lord's Supper. And in many ways this sermon has been the preparation for the Lord's Supper. I don't really see any need to have a special particular message to be given on the Lord's Supper. I think that you've you've had one that covers a lot of the details. And so now as we enter into this time, let's enter in with all of our hearts the cup of blessing.

Be relieved. Be freed. Be forgiven. Be helped. Do you know the mercy of Jesus Christ?

Well this supper has been designed for that. Let's now enter into that time. I'd like to pray first of all and give thanks for the bread. Oh Lord, I thank you for this bread from heaven that you are. The manna that came down in days of old now has come down in the Spirit to feed, to nourish our souls.

Oh Lord, I thank you for this bread. I pray, Father, that you would keep anyone who is coming to the table in an unworthy manner. But I pray that you would make them know how to be worthy today. We know that none of us are worthy of your grace. But Lord, that we would come now with a recognition of the body and blood of Jesus which makes us worthy.

Lord, we thank you for this bread. What good food. What nourishment. Thank you for nourishing us, Lord, and pushing us through your bread.