63 Sermon Illustrations on Self-Examination

John the Baptist said of Christ, “He must increase but I must decrease.” Scott’s attitude toward Byron was similar.

It is characteristic of Scott that he knew perfectly well when Byron began to write his day was over. He quietly said Byron had “bet him,” and he never sang again. Without a touch of jealousy, with simple manliness, Scott admitted that a greater poet than himself had come, and instead of waging a losing battle for his lost supremacy, he praised his rival, and then left the arena with all the honors of war. There are few men who could have done this. That Scott did it, and did it easily, is at once a proof of the sturdy manliness of his nature, and of the robust common sense and generosity which marked his character.--W. J. DAWSON, “The Makers of English Poetry.”

Several Bible passages give lists of sins for Christians to use in examining themselves. (Used at Hillside Lutheran Church of Succasunna, New Jersey, for discipleship training.)

In the verses below, specific sins are listed. Which sins do I need to confess, repent of, and be cleansed by the Lord?

===================

ROMANS 1:28-32 - "Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to

retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do

what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of

wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder,

strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanders, God-haters,

insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they

disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things

deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also

approve of those who practice them." (NIV)

GREED (MATERIALISM) -- Do I always desire more? Have I put my pursuit of

things, my job, before Christ?

DEPRAVITY -- Literally -- To lead into bad habits. Am I leading others into

sin?

ENVY -- Have I fallen into an attitude of envy toward someone else?

STRIFE -- Do I tend to cause strife, conflict, competition among other

people or in groups?

DECEIT -- Have I lied even in subtle ways such as exaggeration or

withholding truth?

MALICE -- Do I have an active desire to do someone else harm?

GOSSIP -- Have I shared a negative report with those who are neither part of

the problem nor part of the solution?

SLANDER -- -- Have I hurt another person's reputation by what I said?

GOD HATERS -- Have I given too much time or attention to the things that

compete with my love for God?

INSOLENT -- Have I been boldly disrespectful in speech or behavior?

ARROGANT -- Am I full of pride and self-importance?

BOASTFUL -- Do I talk often about myself and my accomplishments?

CREATIVELY EVIL -- Have I tried to creatively explain away in my mind what I

know in my heart is wrong?

DISOBEDIENT TO PARENTS -- Not subject or loyal to authority. Am I subject

to the governing authorities?

SENSELESS -- Have I not thought about the consequences of some of my

actions?

FAITHLESS -- Do I truly believe God's promises? All of them?

HEARTLESS -- Do I have a heartfelt concern for unbelievers?

RUTHLESS -- Have I been cruel to others?

APPROVED SIN IN OTHERS -- Have I watched violence and immorality and cruelty

and other sins in people I knew - and yet, said nothing?

====================

1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-10 - "Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the

kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor

idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor

thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanders nor swindlers will

inherit the kingdom of God." (NIV)

SEXUAL IMMORALITY -- Have I repented of any sexual relations outside of the

bonds of marriage?

IDOLATRY -- Have I put anything before my relationship with God?

ADULTERY -- Have I been completely faithful to my marriage partner in

thoughts, in words and in actions?

PERVERSION -- Have I repented of any unnatural sexual activity? Is there

any pornography in my life?

HOMOSEXUALITY -- Have I repented of any and all homosexual relationships?

STEALING -- Have I allowed any form of stealing to enter my life?

DRUNKEN - Do I drink too much? Have I repented of the use of mind-altering

drugs?

SWINDLING (CHEATING) -- Have I cheated anyone in any way?

=================

GALATIANS 5:12-21 "The acts of the sinful, nature are obvious: sexual

immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred,

discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, factions and

envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that

those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God." (NIV)

IMPURITY -- How pure are my thoughts and actions? Do I always select

movies, music, reading material, or television programs that

are pure?

INDULGENCE -– Literally, excessive indulgence in one's appetites. Have I

overindulged in any way?

WITCHCRAFT -- Have I used materials which used to be called "witchcraft",

but which are now being called "New Age" (i.e. -- new age

books, Ouija boards, tarot cards, palm reading, crystals,

dungeons and dragons)?

HATRED -- Have I held onto hatred, bitterness, or unforgiveness toward

someone?

DISCORD -- Have I caused disunity or disharmony or conflict among the Body

of Christ?

JEALOUSY -- Am I suspicious or resentful of others when they have a lot or

when they succeed?

FITS OF ANGER -- Do I have frequent outbursts of anger or temper?

SELFISH AMBITION -- Have I desired to advance myself above others by putting

them down?

DISSENSION -- Have I been overly forceful in my disagreements with others?

FACTIONS -- Do I tend to cause splits among people or groups?

ORGIES -- Are the parties I go to the kind that Christ would not go with me

or be happy with?

==================

2 TIMOTHY 3:1-5 - "But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last

days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful,

proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without

love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of

the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than

lovers of God-having a form of godliness buy denying its power. Have

nothing to do with them." (NIV)

LOVERS OF SELF -- Do I think about myself and my rights first, rather than

my responsibilities?

LOVERS OF MONEY -- Do I find it hard to part with my money when need arises?

PROUD -- Do I think more of my physical appearance than the state of my

soul?

ABUSIVE -- Have I been coarse or insulting in my speech or actions? Do I

curse from the same mouth in which I pray?

UNGRATEFUL -- Have I received rich blessings from God -- and yet spend more

time talking about what I don't have, or what may have been

taken away?

UNHOLY -- Have I neglected an honest pursuit of a more holy life?

UNFORGIVING -- Are there relationships in the body of Christ in which I need

to forgive and work toward reconciliation?

WITHOUT SELF CONTROL -- Am I undisciplined in certain aspects of my life?

BRUTAL -- Have I been cruel and unfeeling?

HATERS OF GOOD -- Do I desire something that is not good?

TREACHEROUS -- Have I betrayed trust, faith, or allegiance? Have I been

disloyal to others?

RECKLESS -- Have I been hasty or incautious in action or speech?

CONCEITED -- Do I have an exaggerated opinion of myself?

LOVERS OF PLEASURE RATHER THAN LOVERS OF GOD -- Do I ask, "Will this help me

love God more?", -- or do I ask, "Is it fun, is it

pleasurable?" -- in all things?

HAVING THE FORM OF GODLINESS, BUT DENYING ITS POWER -- Am I concerned about

form rather than substance in my spiritual/worship life?

==============================================================================

MY COVENANT

Knowing that God supplies both the desire and the power to do His will

(Philippians 2:13), I commit to the following:

--To hate all sin, as God hates it and to strive with all my heart, to turn

from any sins which God reveals in my life;

--To make it my first priority to seek God every day (Matthew 6:33) and to

practice my disciplines which cause me to grow in Him (such as Bible

reading, prayer, fellowship, etc.);

--To love all the brothers and sisters in the faith with all my heart, to

seek their best interests, to speak well of them and continually to live

in a relationship of reconciliation and love with them (Matthew 5:23-24).

Signed ______________________________________________________ Date

A number of intimate friends being at dinner together, on the Lord's day, one of the company, in order to prevent improper discourse, said, "It is a question whether we shall all go to heaven or not." This plain hint occasioned a general seriousness and self-examination. One thought, "If any of this company go to hell, it must be myself;" and so thought another, and another; even the servants, who waited at table, were affected in the same manner. In short, it was afterwards found, that this one sentence proved, by the special blessing of God upon it, instrumental to their conversion. What an encouragement is this to Christians, to give a serious turn to conversation, when in company! It should be observed, however, that the Lord's day was not instituted for the visiting and entertainment even of Christians. How is their conduct, who make a point of meeting and feasting on the Sabbath, to be distinguished from the Sunday parties of the profane? Our place of meeting, on that day, is the house of God; and our feast, the rich provisions of the everlasting gospel.

A traveller in Venezuela illustrates the readiness of men to lay their faults on the locality, or on anything rather than themselves, by the story of a hard drinker who came home one night in such a condition that he could not for some time find his hammock. When this feat was accomplished, he tried in vain to get off his big riding-boots. After many fruitless efforts he lay down in his hammock, and soliloquised aloud, "Well, I have travelled all the world over; I lived five years in Cuba, four in Jamaica, five in Brazil, I have travelled through Spain and Portugal, and been in Africa, but I never yet was in such an abominable country as this, where a man is obliged to go to bed with his boots on."

We are all of us susceptible to the good opinions of others, and sometimes we are apt to fall into the bad habit of lauding ourselves. An illustration of this is seen in the following:

Once when Moltke heard himself compared to Cæsar, Turenne, Marlborough, Wellington, and others, he remarked: “No; I have no right to rank with such great captains, for I have never commanded a retreat”--which at the same time conveyed a subtle compliment to himself. Bismarck was equally subtle when he was asked whom he thought to have been the ablest plenipotentiary at the Congress of Berlin. “I don’t know about the ablest,” he replied with a grim smile, “but the next ablest was certainly Lord Beaconsfield.” (Text.)

My wife and I were traveling with our daughter and son-in-law and our two dynamite little grandsons. We were in adjoining motel rooms for a couple of days - and that's what occasioned our son-in-law's amusing comparison of our rooms. See, our rooms were basically identical - when we each moved in. We moved our stuff into our room, and they moved in themselves, their children, their children's world, and some "office on the road" stuff. Well, on our second day, our son-in-law plopped down in a chair in our room and he made this bemused observation - "You know, your room is three times bigger than our room!" Not true. See, our room was the same size. It was just one-third as crowded!

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "Making Space In A Crowded Life."

Some of us have lives like our kids' motel room - so crowded that we are running out of space! Actually, we all have the same amount of "space" in our life - the same seven days, the same 186 hours in a week. But some of us have packed so much into our lives - maybe too much. There's no room left for an emergency, a crisis, a breakdown, an illness - or even to give God and the people we love the time they should have.

God has a thought-provoking challenge for us over-busy folks in 1 Timothy 4:11-12. It's our word for today from the Word of God. Here's the challenge: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands ... so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders." God is calling us to a life that is characterized by simplicity ... by clear priorities that act as a filtering system for what we say yes to and what we say no to ... by peace and focus.

And all of us need to take a giant step back and see if we've stuffed our life so full that it's actually shrunk our life rather than expanded it. This would be a great time to reprioritize - to set some boundaries -to make some space in our overcrowded life. I liken a lot of our lives to a glass that is full to the brim - it only takes a drop to make it spill. We need to be emptying out our glass a little so we've got room for all those unexpected things, those emergencies, those surprises that life constantly throws at us.

Now, there are some practical steps you can take to get more control of your life. One is to sort out your over-commitments - to begin to limit yourself to the things that only you can do. No, you don't just start bailing out of commitments that you've made, but you start making new commitments - and renewing old commitments with new priorities. Another step is to control intrusions - to return your calls at a scheduled time, to protect your time with God and with your family - non-negotiables. It also helps to deliberate commitments before you make them - take time to pray over them, to seek the counsel of the important people in your life. Also, build in some "Murphy" time - you know, time for things to go wrong! Don't schedule wall-to-wall. And remember to put your timeouts and your family times in your calendar like you do all your other important commitments.

Opening up room in your life won't just happen. It takes some candid evaluation, some corrective action, and some courageous discipline. But it's worth it. And you don't have to keep tripping over things in that room called Your Life - there will finally be room to move around and enjoy it!

________________

Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. 'Practical Answers to Real Life Issues'

*

Once, when the people of God had become careless in their relationship with Him, the Lord rebuked them through the prophet Haggai. “Consider your ways!” (Haggai 1:5) he declared, urging them to reflect on some of the things happening to them and to evaluate their slipshod spirituality in light of what God had told them.

Even those most faithful to God occasionally need to pause and think about the direction of their lives. It's so easy to bump along from one busy week to another without ever stopping to ponder where we're going and where we should be going.

The beginning of a new year is an ideal time to stop, look up and get our bearings. For starters, here are 10 questions to ask prayerfully in the presence of God:

1. What's one thing you could do this year to increase your enjoyment of God?

2. What's the most humanly impossible thing you will ask God to do this year?

3. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your family life this year?

4. In which spiritual discipline do you most want to make progress this year, and what will you do about it?

5. What is the single biggest time-waster in your life, and what will you do about it this year?

6. What is the most helpful new way you could strengthen your church?

7. For whose salvation will you pray most fervently this year?

8. What's the most important way you will, by God's grace, try to make this year different from last year?

9. What one thing could you do to improve your prayer life this year?

10. What single thing that you plan to do this year will matter most in 10 years? In eternity?

In addition to these questions, here are 21 more to help you “Consider your ways.” Think on the entire list at one sitting, or answer one question each day for a month.

11. What's the most important decision you need to make this year?

12. What area of your life most needs simplifying, and what's one way you could simplify in that area?

13. What's the most important need you feel burdened to meet this year?

14. What habit would you most like to establish this year?

15. Who do you most want to encourage this year?

16. What is your most important financial goal this year, and what is the most important step you can take toward achieving it?

17. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your work life this year?

18. What's one new way you could be a blessing to your pastor (or to another who ministers to you) this year?

19. What's one thing you could do this year to enrich the spiritual legacy you will leave to your children and grandchildren?

20. What book, in addition to the Bible, do you most want to read this year?

21. What one thing do you most regret about last year, and what will you do about it this year?

22. What single blessing from God do you want to seek most earnestly this year?

23. In what area of your life do you most need growth, and what will you do about it this year?

24. What's the most important trip you want to take this year?

25. What skill do you most want to learn or improve this year?

26. To what need or ministry will you try to give an unprecedented amount this year?

27. What's the single most important thing you could do to improve the quality of your commute this year?

28. What one biblical doctrine do you most want to understand better this year, and what will you do about it?

29. If those who know you best gave you one piece of advice, what would they say? Would they be right? What will you do about it?

30. What's the most important new item you want to buy this year?

31. In what area of your life do you most need change, and what will you do about it this year?

The value of many of these questions is not in their profundity, but in the simple fact that they bring an issue or commitment into focus. For example, just by articulating which person you most want to encourage this year, you will be more likely to remember to encourage that person than if you hadn't considered the question.

If you've found these questions helpful, you might want to put them someplace -- in a day planner, PDA, calendar, bulletin board, etc. -- where you can review them more frequently than once a year.

So let's evaluate our lives, make plans and goals, and live this new year with biblical diligence, remembering that, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage” (Proverbs 21:5). But in all things let's also remember our dependence on our King who said, “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5).

__________

Don Whitney is associate professor of spiritual formation at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

*