Most of us have heard the story of David and Bathsheba. We know that David slept with Bathsheba, another man’s wife and she got pregnant. To cover up his sin David then had the man killed. He then took Bathsheba to be his wife. Now David, who was then king of Israel, did not repent of his sin right away so God sent Nathan the prophet to him to draw him to repentance. When Nathan tells him this story about the rich man, the poor man and the lamb, David gets furious. It is often so easy to see another person’s wrong and so difficult to face our own. But this story was not really about poor men and lambs. It was about David and his sin. With this story David was forced to take a good look at himself. The title of today’s message is TAKE A GOOD LOOK. Take a good look not at David, not at others but at yourself. Take a long hard look at yourself. Now the purpose of taking this good look at yourself is not so that you can see the importance of not judging others, but rather so that you can understand your own state.

Most of the time we can clearly see the faults in others, but see little wrong with ourselves. In fact Matt. 3:3-5 clearly speaks about this when it says “Why can you see the mote (twig or straw) in your brothers eye, but does not consider the beam in your own eye”. In other words why are you concentrating on the splinter that is in someone elses eye, but cannot see the log that is in your own eye. Why is it so easy to find fault in others; because it is easier and less painful to focus on others than it is to take a good honest look at ourselves.

This scripture is about communion and pastor normally reads each time before we take communion. Verse 27 says that if you take communion when you have no right to do so, you are considered to be as the one who killed Christ. But am I to determine if you are worthy or not. No verse 28 says let a man examine himself. Verses 29 and 30 talk about the consequences of taking communion when you are not worthy of doing so. Though we are told to look at ourselves, God knows how we are. If God left it up to us we would not be judged, so he judges us.

By not closely examining ourselves, we run the risk of thinking of ourselves more highly than we ought to. We have this tendency to compare ourselves to others and to rank ourselves based on others. This is dangerous because you are viewing yourself through the wrong mirror and beside the wrong standard. When you do that you, you will most certainly assign the wrong grade to yourself. Paul warns us in Romans 12:3 not to think of ourselves more highly than we ought to.

We are quick to look at others but when someone points out a flow in us, we boldly say man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart. This is certainly true. For in

I Sam. 16:7 God says “for the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart”. So we will boldly throw this scripture around as if it somehow justifies us. But since God looks at the heart, let’s take a good look at what he sees when he looks.

We don’t have time to do an in dept study of all of these terms this morning, but let’s just highlight a few of them.

We generally think of adultery and fornication as flesh problems, but here it says that they too flow out of the heart. You see when your heart is not focused on God your flesh will act out its desires.

Covetousness is an intense desire to possess something or someone that belongs to another person. It springs from greedy self-centeredness. She got something you want to have and you don’t. So we start to compare ourselves with her, trying to justify to God that we are just as good and upright as she is, but she has it and you don’t. We are lining us an argument at that point to show God that he is acting unfairly; showing favortism. Our focus in on self, not on God’s will or the rightness of God’s actions.

Deceit is plotting an planning so that you can have your own way. This would include lying, cheating, being manipulative, scheming, all those thing that the world says we should use to assure that our goal is met. Any form of deceit is a lack of honesty, and any lack of honesty is a form of deceit. II Peter 2:12 says that we should have a lifestyle that shows honesty.

Lasciviousness is undisciplined and unrestrained behavior, esp. a flagrant disregard of sexual restraint. This goes beyond fornication, to sexual lewdness and immorality.

An evil eye is looks or attitudes stemming from jealousy, envy or ill-will directed towards another.

Blasphemy is showing contempt or lack of reverence for God.

Foolishness is participating in senseless acts. In the Bible a fool denotes a person who is morally and spiritually deficient. In verses 24-27 of Mark a wise man is described as keeping the saying of Jesus, while a foolish man is described as not keeping them. Ps. 14:1 says a fool says in his heart there is no God.

Pride is an attitude of self-exaltation. It describes the man who ignores the sovereignty of God by attempting to control his own life and to shape his own future. It describes the man who exalts himself above others, not os much in actions, but in inward attitude of the heart. He erects an altar to himself in his heart and worships there. It is that attitude in man that drives him to think, act or feel that he is his own god. This is why it is hard for a prideful person to ask for help; a god needs no help. We have been taught to be prideful as if it is a good thing, especially men. But the Bible list it among evil things. Verse 23 says all these evil things come out of the heart.

So before you say God looks at the heart, ask yourself what He is seeing when he looks at your heart. Take a good hard look at yourself. What do you see? What do you think God sees? Sometimes we can deceive ourselves into believing that all is okay with God. We will refuse to examine ourselves and see what is in our heart, and in fact we will deny that there is any evil in our hearts. We all but call God a lie and say that his word is not true. But if you don’t believe that these things are in your heart, then pay close attention to your actions, behaviors and communications. Matt. 12:34 says that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. In other words what is in your heart will eventually come out of your mouth or be displayed in your actions.

Now some of you that are born again believers already are probably saying to yourselves, “are you listening sinners; you better take a good look at yourself and see where you stand with God”. I told you that this was a day to look at yourself and not to focus on others.

2 John 8 says “look to yourselves so that you lose not the things for which you have worked”. In other words, examine yourselves Christians so that you will not lose the rewards for which you have worked.

Paul says here that he keeps under his own body. Paul the great minister to others, stops to focus on himself; to assure that he was still in line with God. He did not want to preach others into the kingdom and then he himself be left behind. Since everone must stand before God for themselves then everyone should stop to examine to do self examination. Everyone in here, for one moment stop considering your neighbor, your friend, or anyone else, and for a moment take a good long, hard look at yourself. Where do you stand with God? Are you in jeopardy of being a cast away?

Everyone should examine yourself. See if you are saved. If you are then Rom 8:16 says that the Holy Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are a child of God. If you are not saved or a member of God’s family, unless you are reprobate, the Holy Spirit should be whispering to you right about now that you need to get saved; to give your heart to Jesus. If you are reprobate, completely hardened to God, you don’t hear anything the spirit says.

I said before that we find it hard to take a good hard look at ourselves because often what we see is painful. We want to see ourselves as good people; as acceptable in the sight of God.

But it is important to take a good look at ourselves. The only way that we can ever get a good understanding of God’s love for us, is to look with honest eyes at ourselves and understand that with all of the kunk and filth that is there God has still chosen to love us. (ROM 5:7-8)

Though we don’t always like what we see when we look at ourselves, we must still take a good look. The good things is that God in his mercy looked at mankind, saw the mess we were in and said I will help. Praise God that after taking a good look at ourselves, He has left us somewhere else and someone else to whom we can look for help. Jesus was lifted up on the cross so that we could look to Him for salvation.

Whatever state we see ourselves in, we can look to Jesus, who in cooperation with God masterminded at great plan to redeem man from his sinful state and offer him the opportunity to be deemed righteous and just in the sight of God. The song says amazing grace; how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. When we look to Jesus the wretch can be changed into the righteous. No matter what you see when you take a good look at yourself, you can not find anything that Jesus has not already paid for. What we see when we look at ourselves may be a lot of trash. But God has proven himself though out the ages to be a trash collector with a recycling process that is suitable for all. You don’t have any trash that he cannot recycle and use for His good. When you don’t like what you see inside of yourself, look to Jesus who can change garbage into pure gold.

Where else can we look. We can look into the Word of God. 2 Tim. 3:16 says that the scriptures are profitable to us for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteous. As we look into the Word of God, the Spirit of God will begin to work in us pruning away those things that are not like Jesus and developing in us the character of Jesus. Understand that, saved or unsaved, what you see when you look closely at yourself today, does not have to be what you see next year, next week or even tomorrow. God is in the recycling business. Here in James, he that looks into the Word and stand fast in what he see there, not forgetting what the Spirit speaks to him through the word, but doing the work that the Spirit directs him to do; this man shall be blessed.

When we have looked inside of ourselves and understood our need for a savior. When we have looked to Jesus for salvation and into God’s Word that we might be changed into the image of Christ, then we can, with confidence and assurance, look for Jesus who will appear at his second coming not as a suffering savior, but as judge of the world.

Many know that they are not good enough as they are to deserve heaven, but hope that they have been good enough so that God will let them slide in. But there will be no sliding into heaven. I told you earlier that we have a tendency to compare ourselves to others and to rank ourselves based on others. When you do this, you are viewing yourself through the wrong mirror and beside the wrong standard. The mirror you should be viewing yourself through is the eyes of God and the standard of comparison is Jesus Christ the righteous one. If you use the wrong mirror and the wrong standard you will most certainly assign the wrong grade to yourself. This is one time where you can not afford to be wrong. Once you stand before God in judgment, you will not get to repeat the course without penalty. You will be standing there to receive your penalty. The grade or the penalty is permanent. There is no option to drop the course, to get a retroactive withdrawal or to repeat the class to improve your grade. Look closely at yourself, assess yourself through the eyes of God and against the standard of Jesus Christ. What grade would you give to yourself. What grade would God give to you. Now, today God in his grace offers you a chance to improve your grade. Will you accept the opportunity while it is still offered to you?

9/22/96