A chapel talk delivered at Little Lambs
Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you. – 2 Corinthians 13:5-8
What does that mean to examine? If you go to the doctor he might listen to your heart, check your eyes, he might check your ears.
In our bible passage for today Paul encourages Christians to examine themselves. How can you examine yourself? Most of us don’t have those fancy doctor tools at our house. But what kind of things do we have at home that we can use to examine ourselves, to look at ourselves closely.
Maybe you can use a mirror to see what you look like. Maybe you can see a scale to see how much you weigh. Maybe you can use a ruler to see how tall you have grown. These are ways that we can examine our bodies and our health.
Paul didn’t want the Corinthians to check to see how tall they were, he didn’t want them to examine themselves by stepping on a scale. But he wanted them to check their spiritual health. 5 Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith; test yourselves. Do you not realize that Christ Jesus is in you.
How do we do that? Will stepping on a scale tell me how close I am to Jesus or if Jesus is in my heart? No, but we can look at our lives and see if the things that we do are making it known that Jesus lives in my heart. We can look at our lives and see if we are acting in faith.
Sometimes we do nice things. We are kind to our teachers. We are glad to come hear about Jesus. We are excited and we smile when we get to sing songs about God. And that is great because it shows that Jesus lives in our hearts. But other times, when we examine ourselves in this way, we see that aren’t always living out our faith like we should, are we? We aren’t always showing others that Jesus is in our heart. When we examine ourselves honestly we see that we are very sinful. Instead of being loving and kind we are mean. We push and hit when things don’t go our way. We whine and moan and pout and stomp our feet and grumble and complain when we don’t get what we want.
When the Israelites were wandering in the desert they were grumbling and complaining a lot. They were not showing others that they believed in God, but instead they were showing that they doubted God and that they were upset with him. They weren’t very spiritually healthy, even though God had given them all that they needed. God wanted them to examine themselves too. He wanted them to see how foolishly they were acting, to say sorry to God, and to show him love by the ways that they lived. Because God loved them very much.
And because God loved them so much he took care of them. Do you remember some of the things that God did for the Israelites, that showed his love for them. God had delivered them from Egypt. He had supplied them with food in the desert. Do you remember what it was called? God gave them manna (flaky yummy bread) and quail (he gave them meat to eat). When they were thirsty and they needed water, what special thing did God do for them? He brought forth water from the rock. There was also something else that was truly amazing that he did for them. Their clothes and their sandals never wore out even after all their wandering in the desert for 40 years, their clothes never wore out.
God did this all out of his great love for his people. Even though they grumbled and complained so much God was patient with them because God loved them. He loved them so much and cared for them and he wanted them to show love for him too.
God loves you and he is patient with you and he takes care of you too. Even though we grumble and complain and we don’t listen to him and we sin he still loves us and takes care of us. What kinds of things has he given you? Parents who give you food and water and a house to live in. God gives us many wonderful things and the greatest gift he gives to us is Jesus. He gave Jesus to live a perfect life. He never grumbled or complained, even when he had to die for us. But he did this all because God loved us. He died to forgive us. He rose again to show us that God wants us to be with him forever in heaven. And now Jesus lives in our hearts through that gift of faith. Look at all this that God has done for us. Let us give God the glory for all that he has done by making it known to others that Jesus lives in us, by living good lives and doing nice things, as we say thank you to God.
God loves us and he wants us to love him. And so when we look at our lives and we see that we haven’t always shown that Jesus lives in us. Let’s say sorry to God. Let’s remember how much God loves us. Let’s live our lives to God’s Glory. Amen.