Galen Call's Sermon Library
"Taking Inventory" - April 25, 1985
Thank you, Chef. Thank you, Chef. Out of my bondage, sorrow, and night, Jesus, I come, Jesus, I come, Into thy freedom, gladness, and light, Jesus, I come to thee. Out of my sickness, into thy health, Out of my wanting to thy wealth. Out of my sin, and into thyself, Jesus, I come to thee. Let's bow together. Lord Jesus, we come to you this morning because we need you. Out of the busy days of this past week, we come together for this time of worship and ask that you will meet us in a very personal way. And I pray that you'll use the service this morning to speak to us deeply and to enable us by your spirit working in us to walk more closely with you. To that end, we invoke your blessing on what we're going to do today. We thank you for the way that you've brought us together. And now we pray that you will enable us to enter in fully into what you've prepared for us in this time of worship. Amen. Would you open your Bible, please, to Revelation 1? As I have already stated, and will state again for those of you that just come in, this is going to be one of the most unusual services that we'll probably ever have at Grace Church Roseville. I feel sorry for those of you who've come for the first time today because we're going to do it so differently that you're going to think it is quite weird and it may be. Just don't think this is the normal. But I have been pressed of the Spirit of God to arrange the service today in a different manner to accomplish what I trust will be a specific purpose in our lives. From time to time, it's wise for us to stop and to take stock of our lives, to see who we are and where we're heading. In Revelation 1, we see that the work of the Lord Jesus Christ involves that of inspecting us to find out those very things. In chapter 1, verse 12, John turns to see the voice that was speaking with him. And he writes these words, "Having turned, I saw seven golden lampstands and in the middle of the lampstands one like the son of man clothed in a robe reaching to the feet and girded across his breast with a golden girdle." And we know from the rest of the verses that the one that he sees is none other than the Lord Jesus Christ in his resurrection glory. He sees the Lord Jesus in the midst of seven golden lampstands. What are those lampstands? Well, we find from verse 20 that the lampstands are the seven churches to which he will now address seven letters. And those letters are found in chapters 2 and 3. And so the picture that we have in this last book of the New Testament is that of the glorified Christ in the midst of his churches. In his present ministry, the Lord Jesus is preparing a place for us who are his disciples. And one day he's going to come and receive us to himself. That where he is there we may be also. In addition at the present time he is interceding on our behalf as our great high priest and advocate before the Father. But there is a third present ministry of the Lord Jesus that often we overlook. And that is the ministry of his inspecting his churches. For that is what he was doing as John saw him in the midst of these seven churches that are named. He was examining them to see what their true condition really was. And then he wrote a letter to each of those churches based upon what he found in that examination. I'd like you to turn to chapter 3 as we look at the final letter to the church at Laodicea. It is interesting to notice that in each of the seven letters there are two words that are found. Each of the letters begins with a personal introduction of the author, the Lord Jesus Christ. There is a word said about him. And then in the letter to the people themselves there are two words that begin every letter. I know. You can trace that through and find it so. But look in verse 15. Jesus says I know your deeds that you are neither cold nor hot. I would that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm and neither hot nor cold I will spit you out of my mouth. Because you say I am rich and have become wealthy and have need of nothing and you do not know. Notice the contrast. Jesus said to them I know you do not know. Now it wasn't that they couldn't know but it was that they did not know. They did not know what. They did not know their true spiritual condition. They looked upon themselves as rich, wealthy and in need of nothing. But Jesus said you do not know that your true condition is that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked. The Lord Jesus then concludes the letter by showing himself outside the church in verse 20. Behold I stand at the door and I knock. If any man opens the door here is my voice and opens the door I will come into him and will dine with him and he with me. This hymn that we have sung have you any room for Jesus would be an appropriate hymn for the church at Laodicea for Jesus was outside the church seeking entrance but they didn't really understand that. They did not know it. I am sure that when they got this letter they must have been surprised. They must have been shocked to understand their true spiritual condition. My application is this dear people. I believe it is important for each of us to honestly evaluate his spiritual condition regularly. We can easily deceive ourselves and not really know what the Lord Jesus knows about us. As we look into the New Testament there are four areas of our lives that are mentioned as in need of examination. I would like you to follow along with me as we look at these four areas that need to be examined in all of us. The first one is mentioned in 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 5. In the last part of this epistle Paul finds it necessary to defend himself to the Corinthian believers. There were false teachers who had entered in undermining his authority as an apostle. They said he is not a genuine apostle of Christ. So Paul proves to them indisputably that in fact he is a true apostle. But in verse 5 he says to them, "Examine yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves," he says. The first area that I believe the New Testament tells us to examine is the area of our faith. The most important thing about us is our relationship to God. And thus we need to examine the question, "Am I genuinely a child of God?" In whom or in what am I truly trusting for my salvation? What evidence is there to prove that I am a child of God? As we think this morning about self-examination, I believe the first area that each of us needs to look at in light of what the New Testament says is this very basic one, the area of our faith. I think we need to examine that not to create doubt but to determine certainty. There is a second area of life that we need to look at. This one is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 11, verse 28. 1 Corinthians 11, 28. It is the area of our walk. The context again of verse 28 is important. The Corinthian believers were abusing the love feast or the agape dinner. It was a dinner which they all shared together and which concluded with the observance of communion, the Lord's Supper. The tragic thing about the people was this. They were so gluttonous in food and wine that by the time they got to the Lord's Supper, to the communion part of their feasts, many of them would be drunk. And so the apostle says you are abusing what the Lord has intended to remind you of his own death. And because of that, there are some of you who are sick and some of you have died prematurely. Some of you sleep, he says. And he warns in verse 28, "Let a man examine himself and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup." He says to them, "Examine your walk. Test your walk to see if it's what it ought to be, how you live. Does your talk and your walk match?" It's what Paul is suggesting. Of course, the New Testament says a great deal about the walk of the Christian life. The Christian life is a quality of life. It is above and beyond that which is natural. Just consider with me some of the commands of the New Testament relating to our walk. For example, in the book of Galatians, it says, "Walk by the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh." He goes on to see a few verses later, "In the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering," and so on. And so in Galatians, he says, "Walk, conduct yourselves, live your lives by the Spirit, and thus the fruit of the Spirit will be evidenced." In Ephesians, he says, "Walk in a manner worthy of your calling as he begins chapter 4. Walk worthy of your calling." What does that mean, Paul? Well, he goes on in chapters 4 and 5 to mention these kinds of things. Humility, gentleness, patience, forbearance, unity, purity, honesty, kindness, wisdom, submission, and forgiveness. Those things are part of what it is to walk worthy of our calling. And Colossians, he puts it a little differently, he says, "Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord." And he goes on to say, "As you have received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk ye in Him." And so there's a lot said about our walk. We need to examine our walk. By asking kinds of questions like this, is my lifestyle distinctively different? By that I don't mean peculiar, zany, or weird, or holier than thou either. But is my lifestyle, in contrast to the evil society around me? Am I truly light in darkness? We're to examine our faith, we're to examine our walk. A third area is found in Galatians chapter 6, verse 4. Where the Word of God says, "But let each one examine his own work." By the way, if you notice the emphasis on doing it for ourselves, not for our husband or wife, or for the person sitting next to us, or for someone else in the church. But he says, "Let each examine himself." That's something we need to keep in mind. But each one examine his own work, and then he will have reason for boasting in regard to himself alone and not in regard to another. Essentially what he's saying here is that we need to examine our works. I need to examine what I do. What am I doing that will count forever? What am I doing that will give me reason for genuine boasting in the presence of the Lord? All of us have one thing in common, not many things. All of us are not created equal in most respects. But there is one thing that we share in common, and that is that we are given 24 hours a day. And it's likewise as certain that we will take a record of the use of that 24 hours each day into eternity with us. And I believe that what we're called upon to examine here is what we're doing that's going to make a difference 100 years from now. It's easy for us to be involved in even good things and neglect the best. So we need to examine our works. What am I doing that will count forever? And then a final area, the New Testament commands us to examine is suggested by 1 Thessalonians 5-21. He says, "But examine everything carefully, hold fast to that which is good." Again, the context is important here. The New Testament had not been completed, of course, when Paul wrote this epistle which was early in his ministry. There were many prophesies being delivered by prophets of that day called of God. And what the apostle exhorts is that they be selective in listening to the prophets. He says, "Examine what you hear. Don't buy into everything you hear. Make sure that what you hear is of God, examine your doctrine." That's the fourth area. We are exposed today to a broader variety of thought, belief, and teaching than any people in history. We are constantly bombarded by ideas, philosophies, religions, propaganda, experiences through television and radio and the printed media, through books and personal contexts. And we must examine these in the light of the Word of God. We must examine what we say we believe. Do you know what you believe? Or are you an easy target for some false teacher? The Lord Jesus Christ is pictured in Revelation as during this age examining His churches. Now remember when we talk about the church, we're not talking about an entity out there somewhere, but we're talking about you and me. We're the church. The Lord Jesus is examining us, and I believe that we're commanded in the New Testament on our part to examine ourselves. We need to be inspectors. The job of an inspector is to determine the worth or the propriety of whatever it is he's inspecting. And that's what we need to inspect about ourselves and our lives. Thus I want to invite you this morning to take an inventory, to use a tool which may be used of God to help you evaluate your life in these four areas where the New Testament commands us to examine ourselves. Now before we do that, I'd like for you to take your worship folder and look on page three on the inside. There are five stanzas to a hymn we're going to sing to a familiar tune. I'd like for us simply to remain seated and to read or to sing through these five stanzas of O for a closer walk with God. I'm going to ask the ushers to begin passing out to each of you a copy of an inventory that we have prepared for our personal use this morning. As they're doing that, there's also someone coming with some pencils. If you don't have a writing instrument of some kind, pen, pencil, crayon or whatever, these gentlemen have a pencil they'd be glad to hand to you and then you can turn them back in when you leave this morning. The pencils, that is. I don't want you to begin writing at all on the inventory yet. Please listen to what I'm saying as these men complete the work. I want to encourage you not to be intimidated by the inventory because only you will ever see the answers that are written on it. This is not to be passed back into anyone. It is simply a matter between you and the Lord. And I want to tell you that probably none of us will feel very good about this exercise. It is not going to be one of those comfy mornings in church when we all go away feeling stroked and comfortable. As you read through the inventory and answer the questions, don't become angry about anything or get hung up on a question. If there's a question that you particularly don't like for some reason, ignore it and go on and make the most positive use of this tool. Don't linger over any answer. Go on and return to that question later if you want to give it more thought before the Lord. Remember that this inventory is man-made. It is therefore not perfect in the way that it asks some of the questions. It may be too heavy in some areas or too superficial in others. It does not cover every area equally. As you go through the inventory, don't be overwhelmed by it, but make it a positive experience to help you fulfill what the New Testament tells us to do in examining ourselves. Above all, I want you to be honest in answering the questions. Don't answer the questions as you would like to be able to answer them. Or as you want to someday, but answer the questions honestly as it applies this morning to your life. The question there is for everybody. It's for me on the platform. It's for ushers. It's for each of us seated here. We will all go through this together. In just a moment, we're going to scatter out in the auditorium. Some of you will need perhaps to even come up into the choir if you're congested and there are some areas where you're kind of tightly packed. I want you to feel free to scatter out and sit at least with one chair between you and everybody else. That way you'll have some privacy in answering the questions. In doing that, I want you to pull the door shut on yourself and enter into a closet of at least imaginary creation and answer your questions honestly before God. For after all, there's no purpose in being less than truthful in an examination like this. First, let me lead us all in prayer. I'll tell you what. Go ahead and scatter out. Let's do that first. Just scatter out so that there's some space between you and others around you. I know some of you hate to part. It's sweet sorrow. But if you could just manage that for a few minutes, I think it would be helpful. We can use the choir area. If you want to sit in the middle of the aisle, you can do that. That makes you feel comfortable. I would encourage you not to sit beside somebody else just so that you feel free to answer the questions. Now, you may be a husband and wife and you feel like you know what the other person is going to put down anyway. Well, that may be true. We would encourage you to do that. All right, I think we're getting that pretty well taken care of. Let's bow together now in prayer. Would you join me? Dear Lord Jesus, I pray that as we take an inventory this morning that you will make this a profitable spiritual exercise for us. I pray that you would expose our hearts where you see things about us that we've not been able or willing to take a good look at. I pray that as we go through this exercise that you will speak to us tenderly and quietly because you love us and bring us to a point of making some changes. But I pray that as we get alone with you in these quiet minutes that we might sense your spirit speaking in that loving and quiet voice to our inner man, amen. And we'll take 15 or 20 minutes probably. There is not a prize for getting through this first. We just want to take some time to do this and then we will continue on with some other things. [ Pause ] [ Pause ] I'm not sure how you feel after an experience like this. Perhaps you feel rather exposed or naked in the sight of God or uncomfortable. You may feel like a failure, like you're defeated or a loser of a Christian. I'm glad that the Lord Jesus Christ understands our feelings and that we can come to Him with those and talk to Him about them. I like for us to bow in prayer. You've been talking to the Lord right along, but let's bow together now in prayer. And you quietly write, we are seated. Talk to the Lord. Renee is going to come and sing for us and you listen to the words and let them minister to your heart as she sings. [ Pause ] [ Music ] Out of my shameful failure and loss, Jesus I come, Jesus I come into the glorious gain of the cross. Jesus I come to be out of earth so rose into thy bow, out of life's storms and into thy come. Out of distress to jubilant sound, Jesus I come to be out of unrest and arrogant form. Jesus I come into thy blessed will to abide. Jesus I come to be out of myself to dwell in thy love, out of despair into raptures above. Upward for alien wings like a dove, Jesus I come to thee. Our Lord we thank you that yours is a throne of grace. We may come to you and find their mercy and forgiveness for our shortcomings. We confess to you that we have not been able to come through this self-examination unscathed. But in fact there have been areas of our lives where we have failed you. There have been areas where we have weaknesses, possibly even some matters of disobedience have been uncovered. My prayer is that you will so work effectively in each of us that we will be able to look at those areas of our lives and honestly confess them to you and still know that you with open outstretched arms welcome us to your self, Lord Jesus we do come to you. Out of our failure, our shame, our pride, we come to you. We would lift our eyes from ourselves where we find very little to take heart in and we would place our eyes upon you, for we know that you love us unconditionally and that you receive us and that it is your desire to work in our lives to make us like yourself. I am so grateful, Lord, that you will not fail in that promise and that what you have begun in each of us you will complete on that day when we see you face to face. Our prayer is that even now, day by day, we might be taking some little steps in that direction and that you would conform us to the image of yourself, amen. I suppose if we were to leave at this point most of us would go away feeling rather depressed, not real excited. Therefore I would like for you to right now in your mind look over the landscape of your inventory. In fact you may even want to look through it literally. I would like you to find one or two maybe three areas which you feel are most important for you to work on and then circle that area or check it off do something to signal the fact that this is an area of priority where you want to do some work. One, two, or maybe three at the most which are of greatest concern to you and you think to the Lord. And when you've decided on those I'd like you to turn to that fourth page there's about a half of a blank page and I'd like you to write at the top of that space my commitments. Once again these are between you and God. You say it, write it like you want to for his eyes and your eyes only, my commitments and then something like this in light of my self-examination. I will by the grace of God and then list a goal to correspond with those areas of concerns that you have that you've marked. In light of my self-examination I will by the grace of God do this or that. For example if you've found that memorization has been slipping in your life perhaps you would like to say I by the grace of God will memorize a verse a week or three verses a week or whatever. For it's an area of doctrine I will by the grace of God learn more about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit or whatever it may be and then after you've done that below it put steps one, two, three however many you need and list the steps that you believe would help you achieve that goal. What do you need to do so that you can accomplish memorizing a verse a week? Well you need to select the verses maybe you need to decide on a time that you're going to do it. I don't know what the steps may be but write some steps there that you think will help you to keep those goals that you've established. Let's take just a couple of minutes to do that. Now I'd like you to consider doing one more thing there at the bottom of the page would you consider writing down the name of a person who can be your encourager with whom you could share your goals and your steps. Someone who's close enough to you to pray for you and to encourage you to help you accomplish your goals write down the name of someone to be your encourager. The word of God has these potent verses in the book of James. Prove yourselves doers of the word, doers of the word and not merely hearers who delude themselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror for once he has looked at himself and gone away he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. The one who looks intently at the perfect law, the law of liberty and abides by it not having become a forgetful hearer but an effectual doer. This man shall be blessed in what he does. He looked in the mirror of sorts this morning. It does us no profit if we go away and do nothing about it. In fact we are worse often when we came in if that's what we do rather by God's grace let's press toward these goals. We can't correct everything in our lives all at once the Lord doesn't expect us to but we can make some steps in the right direction and that should be our hearts desires we depart from here this morning knowing that our Lord is going to continue his work in our lives. He has called us to a destiny which is far greater than any of us can possibly imagine at this point. He desires to work in our lives powerfully to glorify himself and through this process today we have looked at ourselves and we've seen areas where we are not living perhaps as we would like to or he wants us to and now we've isolated some things in our lives we're going to begin working on by his power and so I hope as we go we can sing with meaning number 536 to God be the glory my tribute how can I say thanks is how it begins I'd like for us to turn there and to sing together with confidence because God is working and will continue to work in us and I think we should probably stand together as we sing and then we'll be seated for the final selection from the choir but let's stand together as you can see how can I say thanks for the same to have gone for me thanks on this earth that is saved and brought your love for me the voices of the angels in the looks of the earth that I ever want to be I will not be the glory to God be the glory to God be the glory for the things he has done with his blood he has saved me with his glory has saved me to God be the glory for the things he has done just let me live my life let it be crazy and should I gain any praise let it go to come with his blood he has saved me with his glory has raised me to God be the glory for the things he has done thank you be seated please for just a moment [BLANK_AUDIO]