Sat Test

Good afternoon, everyone. It's good to be with you today. Thanks for having us. It is an honor and privilege to come and visit with you all. It's good to see some familiar faces, and we're certainly looking forward to spending some more time with you for the rest of the afternoon, and maybe looking forward to the food as well.

So that's already starting to smell pretty good. I see they're stirring up the pots here, so we're looking forward to that, and getting to know you a little bit better as well. Thanks for the opportunity to be here and bring the ABC students and give them the opportunity to serve you as well. I was thinking about the time that I might have left as we came to the conclusion of services, and after hearing Mr.

Stiver's split sermon about teaching, now that you've been taught, I was wondering if you're ready for the test. You've probably all heard of the SAT test. For the SAT test, of course, the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Still one of those tests that they give students that are going to be going to college as an entrance-type exam.

They give this test to get a little bit of a gauge of where they're at, what is their knowledge, what's their understanding of various subjects as they're going to be entering college. And it seems to be a pretty good indication of where they're at. Of course, not for everybody. Some of us are a little panicky when it comes to taking a test, and we get a little bit nervous.

Have your as your mind ever gone blank when you had to take a test. I know when I give one at ABC, they tell me that all the time. And all I do is say, I knew that, but it just kind of went blank. But tests don't have to always be a bad thing. Sometimes we think that, oh, tests are scary and they're difficult, and they're going to show me all the things that I don't know.

But it's not supposed to be that way, I don't think. I think tests should also be an indication of what we do know. It should also show us the things that we do have a pretty good handle on. And hopefully, in fact, I think some of us actually enjoy taking tests. Anybody enjoy taking tests here? Oh, look at all the hundreds of hands go up. Oh, no. Well, maybe not so much. But they can be a very good thing.

And in fact, I think at this time of the year, it is the time that we should take the SAT, not the scholastic aptitude test, but we do have to take the spiritual aptitude test at this time of the year, don't we? The SAT. Let's think about that for just a little bit, because it is that time that we're supposed to take the test.

We're supposed to look at our spiritual aptitudes and remind us of where exactly we're at. So if you'll keep in mind the SAT, keep those letters in mind for just a moment, because at this time of the year, we do take the SAT. There's a section of Scripture that reminds us of that. You've probably already rehearsed it. It's over in 1 Corinthians 11, 27. If you'd like to turn there, it tells us as we come to the time of the Passover and the days of unleavened bread that we should take the test.

So let's think about that for just a moment. Look at 1 Corinthians 11, 27. It says, therefore, whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. Then it says in verse 26, it says, let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. And so that's talking about the SAT.

Let a man examine himself. In fact, that's the first letter of our SAT. That examination literally means to scrutinize ourselves. So for our letter S, you can write down scrutinize yourself, because that's the word in Greek, dokemazo. And it means to scrutinize or examine or approve or test or try. So this is the time that we test ourselves. We try ourselves. And it is interesting that there's also this connection to approval that's in there. So when you take a test, it's always nice when you get a good grade, isn't it? And so we don't have to be fearful when we examine ourselves, when we test ourselves, when we really get down to it.

Because as we come into this time of the year, it's not just a ritual that we go through at the Passover time. This isn't just a series of events that we go through without thinking. In fact, that was the problem with the Corinthians. They had come to the point that they went into the Passover without really thinking. They went through this ritual and didn't really consider the deep meaning that was behind the ceremony, the deep meaning that was behind the Passover, the deep meaning that was involved in coming into the days of Unleavened Bread.

And think about this deep meaning. This is recognizing the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

This is not a trivial thing. This sacrifice has deep-seated meaning for us. In fact, if we don't take the Passover, we are not of Christ. And so we seriously come to the Passover time recognizing who we are. We are God's people. And the Passover ceremony is a recognition of the fact that Christ died for me. Without his death, I have no hope. I have no recognition with the body of Christ.

If I don't recognize it, if I don't take the Passover, I don't recognize that sacrifice on my behalf. I don't recommit myself to that baptism covenant that I agreed to when God first called me. And so we recognize that sacrifice. And we recognize the fact that that life is in the blood. My spiritual life is in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And so I am to scrutinize myself. I am to evaluate myself. I'm supposed to take time before I come to the Passover to recognize, am I walking with God?

Have I grown in this last year? Am I putting that sacrifice to practice in my life? And letting Christ live his life in me and through me. And so as we recognize that, we acknowledge the need for forgiveness because we are sinners.

And we need that sacrifice. Now, the Passover doesn't forgive us. We do that anytime we come before God and repent and change and put our life into his hands. But certainly this is the time that we step back and look at our overall progress. And we search ourselves. We do our yearly checkup to consider, where am I as far as growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ? This is the time that we do that. And so we reflect on that. We think about that. And we realize that we need Jesus Christ.

It's an acknowledgement of that need. There's an amazing passage over in Psalm 119, verse 57, if you'd like to turn over there. Psalm 119.57, here's the longest song in the Bible. And it reflects on this part of the SAT, this examination process. And it's interesting in the direction that Psalm 119, verse 57, points us. Notice what it says here in Psalm 119.57. It says, You are my portion, O Lord. I have said that I would keep Your word. That's what we did, didn't we? When we entered into baptism, we said, God, I promise to follow You.

I promise to let Jesus Christ live His life in me and through me. You are my portion. You are mine, in other words. You are in me. I promise to obey Your words. He says in verse 58, I am treated Your favor with my whole heart. Be merciful to me according to Your word. I thought about my ways. And I didn't meet the test. I couldn't pass the test. Of my own, it wasn't possible. I turned my feet to Your testimony. There's where our strength is. There's where our hope is. That's how we can pass the test by allowing Christ to live His life in us and through us.

So I thought about the direction of my feet. So every year we do this. We think about where have we been walking? Where have we been going? And I turned, David says, to follow Your statutes. In fact, verse 60 is great. I made haste and didn't delay to keep Your commandments. You know, I recognize the fact that on my own, I can't make it. I'm walking the wrong way.

I'm going the wrong direction. And I've been lagging in the diligence that I need. And here when we consider God and what He means to us and how much our spiritual life depends on Him, I can't wait to get right with God. I have to make haste. I've got to hurry to be right with God.

And so this is the time of the year that we do that. That we make haste. We get on our toes and we go toward God's way. We don't delay a bit. Yeah, we've been challenged this year, haven't we? We face difficulties this year. Verse 61, the cords of the wicked have bound me. But you know, in God, with God on our side, we can accomplish all things. I haven't forgotten your law. And I rise at midnight to give thanks to you because your righteous judgment. I'm a companion of all who fear you and those who keep your precepts.

And so the earth, O Lord, is full of your mercy. Teach me your statutes. And so we recognize that at this time of the year. We scrutinize ourselves. How well have I been keeping on the path that God would have me go on? And so we examine that time. We look at God's presence in our lives and we rededicate ourselves to more fully follow in those paths. And so we examine and scrutinize ourselves.

This also brings in another aspect of the SAT test that we have to be aware of as well.

And that is where our help really comes from. Sometimes at this time of the year, I know we recognize the sacrifice of Christ. We recognize what He has done for us, what that means for us.

But there's also an aspect that the Father alone fills. And part of this SAT is that we have to access the Father because the Father plays a role at this time of the year in the Passover in the days of Unleavened Bread as well. Back in the book of Acts, we see a glimpse of this. Acts 17.

Here, just as the New Testament Church is beginning, there's an interesting situation that comes to life here in Acts 27 that we can take note of.

Acts 17, in verse 27, just as we pass through this section of Scripture, this is that famous section where Paul was addressing the unknown God as he stood in the middle of Athens and addressed the people there. And he makes an interesting point here in verse 27. He says, they should seek the Lord. They should seek the Lord that these things would come about. This was His purpose. In the hope they might grow for Him and find Him, though He's not far from each of us. It was God's purpose that the nations should seek after Him and grow for Him. Verse 28, For in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, for we are also His offspring. You see, we know that God is creating a family, and we can be a part of the family of God. And all of our existence is dependent on the Father, isn't it? The Father. And we know that He has done some awesome things. Verse 29, Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, here interesting what the family plan is all about.

He says, we ought not think of the divine nature as like silver or gold or stone or something shaped by the art of man's devising. Truly these times of ignorance God overlooked. But now, commands all men everywhere to repent, to turn, to change, to look to Him, to change our way of thinking. He's appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the man He ordained, by Jesus Christ, in other words. And He's given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead. And so here we see the Father must be in this process. As we're taking this spiritual SAT, the Father is the one who has planned this awesome thing with Jesus Christ. We are His offspring. We're dependent on Him for our life. And so we look to Him. We lean on Him. We have our life in Him. Our very being is dependent on Him. And so we certainly don't want to leave the Father out of this process. He's got to be there with us. In fact, it reminded me of a story I heard of a logic course that was given at a major university. They were coming to the end of the semester and the professor made an unusual suggestion to the students. He said, all right, for your final, I'm going to give you an opportunity to get an A. Every one of you should be able to get an A. I'm going to allow you to bring one eight and a half by eleven sheet of paper with you. And as much information as you can put on that piece of paper, you can use in class.

So you can imagine what the students did, right? They took that eight and a half. They were writing everything possible. Most of the students' papers looked just like black because they had written so many things so they could score a good grade on that particular exam.

But one of the students didn't do that. One of the students brought a blank piece of paper, brought it to class, and as the exam began, he set the paper down on the floor, and he had the other logic professor come and stand on the piece of paper so that he could ask him all the answers that were on the test. He got an A on the exam!

Because everything was on that piece of paper.

So I thought, oh, I got to remember that. I wish I would be smart enough to think of something like that. And I think it's a good illustration. Do we stand alone? Or do we stand with God the Father? If our very being, you know, our every movement is by Him and through Him, and He is standing there with us. You think we can get an A on this test?

I think if that is where our being is, we certainly can. So we don't have to come to this time of the year and be overly worried, be anxious about this, because God the Father is standing with us. And He's called us. And we've responded to that calling. And He wants us to succeed. And boy, we stand there on our own? We're going to flunk. We're going to flunk that test.

And yet, we have someone that will stand with us, is standing with us. And He tells us, rely on me. So no wonder David could say, examine me, Lord. Prove my mind. Test my heart. That's Psalm 26. Test my heart. Isn't it the time of the year that we can ask God to help us? Ask God to test us? Ask God to examine us? So it's not just that we're examining ourselves. We're not just scrutinizing ourselves, but we're also asking God to examine us. Because who is more merciful than God? Sometimes we can be overly hard on ourselves. Certainly we know others that are hard on us. But the Father is the God of mercy. And so while we ask ourselves, have I been too lax? Am I negligent? Where have I fallen short? Certainly those are questions that are on our personal SAT. But we also want to ask the Father. He flipped back a few pages. Psalm 17, verse 3, should have had you hold your place there in the Psalms.

In Psalm 17, verse 3, we find something interesting here in this particular song. I think we can find it encouraging. Let's notice this part of the exam that was given out in Psalm 17. We'll begin in verse 3.

And here David says, You have tested my heart. You visited me in the night. You've tried me and found nothing.

Now we read that in English and it sounds like, wow, this guy is empty. He's a void. There's nothing there. He's in trouble. But in actuality, what it's saying here is you haven't found anything wrong. Here we find God testing David, checking him out, examining, evaluating him, and he hasn't found anything wrong. He hasn't found anything wrong in that sense. So we see a very positive kind of testing. You visited me in the night. I purposed in my mouth. I shall not transgress. And so we have purpose to follow God in all these things. And God says, I'm with you.

I can help you to succeed if you rely on me. So in verse 6, the lines that follow to me in pleasant places. Yes, I have a good inheritance. God, you're my portion. Verse 7, I bless the Lord who has given me counsel. My heart also instructs me in the night seasons. I've set the Lord always before me. And so this time of the year, we realize how much more fully do we have to have God in the forefront of our minds, in the forefront of our thinking, in the forefront of our actions, even more so than in the past. And as we do that, where is God in all of it?

He's standing right there on that piece of paper with us, isn't he? He is right there. He is not willing for us to fail. You see, by His power, we can stand. So this is a powerful time of the year for all of us, as we rededicate our lives to serving Him even that much more fully.

And so as we do that, we also have the tea portion of the test. And that's testing the fruit.

As we scrutinize ourselves and as we evaluate ourselves and we rely on God, we access the Father and His wisdom and knowledge and understanding and God's Spirit, we look at ourselves and should test the fruit. How much are we producing the fruit of the Spirit? Have we examined that? Have we looked at that? Have we inspected that? You know, Galatians 5.22 lays out the fruit of the Spirit. So how is that fruit growing? Is it fully developed or still has a way to go?

As we look at that fruit, I think we can begin to see that it should be that much more fully developed now than it was in the past. So is that fruit of faithfulness more fully growing? That fruit of gentleness, long suffering, love, joy, peace, all of those aspects. Are they showing themselves in our life? It should be showing in our attitudes. You know, as that fruit is developing and we test that out, it should be showing in our attitude. There's an interesting passage in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17. Because in our attitudes, that's not like a piece of fruit that you can grab and hold and look at it and see, well, is it ripe? These are to tell us that macintosh apple is turned red and it's juicy and it's ready to go. Oh, it's ripe. It's done. It's developed. But an attitude isn't something that you can grab onto and hold onto. It's unseen.

How is that developed in us? Notice Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17.

In the NIV it says this, I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord. What is the apostle Paul insisting on? That you no longer live as the gentiles do in the futility of their thinking.

People that aren't a part of God's way, there's something missing in the way they think. Verse 18, they're darkened in their understanding, separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that's in them due to their hardening of their hearts. Now, this better not be a description of us and our attitudes and our way of thinking. He says they've lost sensitivity. Boy, today, that's an easy thing to do. We live in a world that is insensitive. Do we take on that world or do we reject that world? We have to be sensitive to God's spirit, don't we?

He says at the end of verse 19, they indulge in every kind of impurity. Verse 20, you, however, did not come to know Christ that way. We need to be sensitive to the way of God. Verse 21, surely you've heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance to the truth that's in Jesus. And of course, that same section in verse 22, that we put off the old man, which is being corrupted by deceitful desires, and we turn to the new man. We're a new creation in Christ. Verse 24, put on the new man, the new self created to be like God in righteousness and holiness. And so that's our perspective. When it comes to our attitude, how much are we that new creation in Christ? That's part of the test that we have, that we examine that fruit, which then helps us to realize what is our thinking like. He identifies thinking because as we think so we are. In fact, I heard an interesting story about the way that we think. It really struck me. I'm not sure it's a true story, but I kind of hope that it is. It was a story about Colonel Sanders. Everybody's heard of the Kentucky Fried Chicken guy, right? Yeah, I've heard of him. All right, supposedly, the story goes he was on a flight going somewhere for a business meeting. And you know how it is when you get on a flight, it always seems that the family with the tiniest, littlest baby sits right in front of you or right next to you or right next to you. And of course, as soon as that plane takes off, the pressure changes and the little babies start to get affected by the pressure. And what do they do? They laugh and giggle and... No, they don't. They immediately start screaming and crying and, oh, the pain, I can't stand it. And of course, the flight attendants trying to help with the parents and comfort the baby and they don't know what to do. And they're just going crying and crying. Finally, Colonel Sanders, I guess, volunteers and takes up this little baby in his arms and just begins to rock this little baby. Of course, you could imagine this grandfatherly image with the gray and sure enough, if that baby doesn't go to sleep.

And then a number of people were thanking the Colonel. Oh, we are so thankful what you did for us. You saved us from the agony. And it was just amazing what you did for us.

And supposedly, Colonel Sanders replied, I didn't do it for you. I did it for the baby.

And I thought, wow, that is an amazing story. He did it for the baby!

Isn't it funny the way we think sometimes? Oh, I can't stand this. This is awesome. Who's going to shut that kid up? I don't have a tendency to think that way. What a selfish way to think.

And I'm very guilty of that kind of thinking. And yet the Colonel got it right.

Not only with the chicken, but with the baby.

The baby was the one that was hurting. The baby was the one that was in pain. The baby was the one that needed help. The baby needed to be served. And so how often do we end up thinking backwards sometimes? We think in reverse of what we really should be thinking. And so as we begin to think about that, I think our thoughts come so much into mind at this time of the year that we've got to change the way we think. Change the way we think. That we're more concerned about how would Jesus Christ think rather than, boy, this is really bothering me. I wish somebody would do something about it. Well, it comes back to us. In my way of thinking, in the things that I do, in the way that I approach situations. So I think that's one way to think about the fruit of the Spirit. Has the fruit changed my way of thinking? That I am thinking lovingly. Am I thinking peacefully? Am I really thinking in a patient way? And I think if we begin to consider it in that sense, that puts it in a different frame of reference, doesn't it? Is my thinking gentle? Is my thinking self-controlled? See, I think that puts a different light on it, rather than just thinking of, okay, am I patient? Am I, well, is my thinking reflective of God's way?

Because that's where it starts. Because when we repent, we change our thinking. And so God wants us to change that way and make sure we're taking care of the baby and not so worried about ourselves. And when we change that thinking, that's going to result in a change in our actions. And that's part of the the tea, the testing, the scrutinizing that we need to do. Because we know faith without works is dead, right, in James 2 17. And so that's got to be reflected in what we do. Hebrews 6 9 is one passage that comes to mind in that regard. Hebrews chapter 6 and verse 9, it's one of those passages that I think it's a good one to consider at this time of the year.

Because for some of us, this isn't the first Passover we're coming to. This isn't the first 11 read. It might be the 30th or the 40th or maybe even more. And you know, we realize it doesn't stop here just because we've been around for quite a while. And Hebrews 6 9, I think, reflects that. It says, "...the love we are confident of better things concerning you. Yes, things that accompany salvation." He says, "...for God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, which you've shown toward His name." And so as we step back at this time of the year and take the exam, it's not just to find the faults and the shortcomings. This is the time of the year that we can step back and say, you know, we have made progress. I am more Christ-like at this time than I was in the past. And so he says here, "...for God is not unjust to forget that." God is not waiting with that lightning bolt to strike us down because we haven't reached full, perfect perfection at this time yet. And so he says, "...you have ministered to the saints and do minister." You're continuing to serve and to give. And so he says, "...we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end." Until the end. In other words, he's saying, you've done all right. As you stay close to God, He always stays close to you. And now keep it up. Keep moving forward. I'm not going to forget what you've done. And now let's take it to the next level. Let's allow Christ to live His life in us even that much more fully. And let's go on to perfection. Let's continue on. In fact, in the new century in verse 11, it says, "...we want each of you to go on with the same hard work all your lives, so you will surely receive what you've hoped for." And so that's what we do at this time of year.

We take the test and we go on. We rededicate ourselves to that much more fully, allowing Jesus Christ to live His life in us. So as we come upon that time of examination, let's remember those things. Let's go to God and ask Him, pray to Him. Think about some of these things and ask Him to guide us as we search our hearts. Ask Him to help us. Ask Him to continue to stand with us. And as we look at ourselves and as we take that inventory this time of the year, let's remember that spiritual aptitude test as we scrutinize, as we access the Father, and as we test the fruit. Of course, as we do that, we know that with God's help, we'll pass the test.