How often during our day as we're
going about our business and about our life and the normalities
of this world, do we come across people who actually say things
to us and they don't even know us? Have you noticed that there's
some odd, weird anomaly about the South that people ride down
the highway? They they are. not even able
to obey the law of window tinting. So you can't even see that there's
people in there. But what you see is just knuckles on a steering
wheel. And when you pass them, they
go. Just waves, you see these white
hands just wave all the time, waving, waving, waving, you don't
know them. And that that that translates
also into the marketplace, as you see, if you pass them out
in the grocery store and they wait, how you doing? They don't
know you from Adam. They know the cart they're pushing
more than they know you. They go, how are you doing? How's
it going? How are you feeling? How's it been? What's up? And yet sometimes when you're
in line at the checkout or you're at a restaurant or whatever,
you get in a conversation with some of the, not as a patron, but
some of the employees there. And how's it going? Oh, it's
going great. Man, it's really hot happening. Man, it's nice
to have some coolness happening. Boy, it really needs some rain.
Man, we really need to see the rain subside. It's really been
cold. Man, it was windy. Did y'all
get some weather? Did y'all see those storms? Have you seen the
news? Have you seen the price of gas? I mean, everywhere you
go, there's always these comments and questions, this interaction,
this dialogue, this discourse, this conversation. And it's meaningless. It's absolutely meaningless.
It's just it's ridiculous. Test it. Next time someone sees
you and say, hey, how are you? You should stop and say, do you
have a moment? And I would share with them the most horrific thing
that you're experiencing. And if you could have someone else
in the bushes somewhere videotaping this, it would be an interesting
social experiment because people don't really care how you're
doing. They don't really care what's up. They don't really
care about your politics. They don't really care about
the weather. They just don't know what else to do. So I would
say if you want to keep this silly little light superficial
dialogue going on in our society, we should change it up. I'm tired
of talking about the weather. I'm tired of hearing about politics.
I'm tired of hearing about gas prices, the economy, and everything
in between. I'm tired of being asked, how
am I? I'm well. And people say, good, I'm good
too. And it's not even correct grammar. So when I say I'm well,
they say, have you been sick? Do you really care? You want
me to go into this? I think we should just make it as absurd
as it really is. When we see someone say, yo,
my shoe. And just start pointing to stuff that's absolutely ridiculous.
Say, how do you like these glasses? Check out my ring. Say, hey,
what's happening? Check out my ring. I mean, what? You'll probably be labeled a
town idiot, the town fool, the guy that needs to be in the straight
bracket, going down there, 10-13, Georgia Regional. So something
is going to have to change in our culture. if we want to see
real intimacy. Now, the sad thing is, is it's
probably not going to. The world and its ways are not going to
change. And manipulating the way the world thinks and does
is probably not going to make any type of fruitful outcome
to the betterment of society anyway. Because if everybody
did stand around and talk about everything all the time, there'd
be nothing done. People would be fired. I mean, the Department
of Transportation employees already do that. You know, you got one
digging and six standing talking about the weather and things
that don't matter. And that's a joke. I'm not really indicting
them, but the shoe fits where the shovel fits. Hold it up.
So and if it fits even better, lean upon it. But the problem
I see with this is that it's invaded the church. It's invaded
the church. Hey, brother. Hey, sister, how
you doing? Really good. Good to see you. Glad to have
you. And there's this obscurity amongst intimacy. Nobody knows
what's going on with anybody else. Nobody really is concerned
with what's happening. We say pray for brother so and
so, pray for sister so and so. And the most intimate thing about
that is the fact we call each other brother and sister. Because
there's this raw, earthly, wicked thorn in the flesh of our humanity
that does not like the idea of being subject or accountable
to somebody else. I'll tell you now that that is
one of the lies of the devil. That you are your own person,
and that what you do in life doesn't matter to anybody else,
and that your business is your business. Well, that's good for
the world, and it's a lie even then, but it's an impossibility
for the church. And we've gotten so used to it
that we are actually able to constitute calling churches that
which is not a church. Even if it's made up of believers,
if it is not a family, if it is not an intimate people of
God, plurally and distinctively, individually growing in the knowledge
of grace and in the intimacy and the affection toward each
other, there is no church. It's a lie. So we can even say
that the focus here is going to be even that the lie of the
devil is that, hey, you're a church and you're not a church. That's
why it's so easy to go to church, ask people what their church
does, tell me what's unique about your church, tell me what's cool
about your church. Well, isn't it sad that what's
unique and special and sets some true churches apart is that they
exposit scripture? Is that sad? Isn't it sad where
some people be going to a particular congregation and what makes that
congregation so unique to them is that they're actually loved
there amongst them? Why is that the rarity? Why is that not the norm? Because
the norm is that there's so many people assembled in the name
of Jesus Christ who do a lot of Christian stuff, but they're
not filled with the Holy Spirit of God. They've not been born
again and they're not regenerated. They haven't, by faith, received
the fullest of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face
of Jesus Christ. God has not breathed into their dead flesh
life. And so they sit with a moralistic
idealism that they are indeed saved because of something that
they've done when fully and absolutely they are not the children of
God. In Ephesians chapter five, we're
not going to be there, I'm just going to refer to it. We see that we see that. The scriptures teach us, we see
Paul teach us that we should be careful. There's a warning,
there's an exhortation there, be careful what how you walk
as wise, not as unwise. Do not be foolish. Understand
what the will of the Lord is. Walk wisely, not foolishly, understanding
what the will of the Lord is. Be filled with the Holy Spirit,
he says. Not be drunk with wine. And then
sing hymns and songs and spiritual songs to each other and to the
Lord in your heart with thanksgiving, submitting to one another. How
does he say that? Verse 21. Ephesians 5, submitting
to one another out of reverence for Christ. And then verse 22,
every man knows it, wives submit to your husbands. And they don't
know verse 25, husbands, just as Christ loved the church and
gave himself up for her, you die. But we get to a place in our
culture where submission is a forced issue. Do you know that submission
is not forced? It's forced in martial arts.
It's forced in jujitsu. It's forced in wrestling. Either
you and actually then it's not even forced. You know what a
submission hold is? That's when you feel the point
of tension right before one of your ligaments breaks and you
decide I quit. That's what a submission is.
But nobody makes you. You willfully quit. Joyce Gracie,
one of the founders of What we would know now is the whatever
that MMA group is, I can't think, has many times wrenched his ligaments
out of joint because he will not tap out. He will not quit.
He will not submit because it is failure to submit. And so
the only way he loses is when someone breaks something and
the referee, by the rules of engagement, has to stop the fight. No submission. Isn't that the
culture that we live in? I'm not going to submit the authorities.
I'm not going to submit to the law. I'm not going to submit
to the Lord. I'm not going to submit to the word. I'm not going to submit to my
neighbor. I'm not going to submit to my mom. I'm not going to submit to my dad.
I'm surely not going to submit to the people in the church. Submission. But
submission is not a forced issue. It's a gift of God. It's a gift
that God gives to those who are born again. And so a haughtiness,
a lack of submissiveness, a lack of humility is an actual fruit
of the flesh, not a fruit of the spirit of God. And so I was contemplating actually
how to really flow into this. I want you to understand that
the main crux of this message is that the church actually does
live with a mutual accountability. That is a gift of God. That is
something that we do out of honor for Jesus Christ. For our good,
but I'll tell you that when we hear the word being accountable
to someone, we actually have really misconstrued The premise
of it is sort of like discipline. We think of the word discipline
as always punitive, don't we? Well, you're punishing me. There's
no punishment for the Christian. There's no punishment in that
regard. Discipline for the main purpose
of which it is even defined for the main purpose of which it
is employed. It's so that the good of restoration and reconciliation
comes out of discipline. You think of church discipline,
which is part of our part of our church Documents, if you
will. Why do we have church documents
when we have the Bible? Will you tell me what first John 5 is
talking about? See, we can discuss it. But what
do we as a church decide that it has said and we believe in
it? That's why confessions are necessary, because everybody
believes the Bible and everybody believes everything in it. But
how is it that we have five thousand opinions with five people on
one issue? So we stand rested on what we
say we believe the Scripture teaches on these issues. So that's
why we write it all down. That's why we preach. So we say
this is what we believe the Bible says. And when we start to disagree,
we start to think, well, are these essential things that we
disagree on? Then maybe this isn't the congregation for me.
That's why the membership process is not something you just stand
up here and go, yay, what's your name again? Yay, you're a member.
What's your last name? Yay, let's get it right on the
name card. I mean, As great as that sounds, that's not the way
it works. And accountability is something that we look at
in our society as completely negative. I don't want people
to know my business. I don't people know what's going on.
And I think there's some wisdom in that. We need to have wisdom.
If I, especially as a teaching pastor in this church, am having
some difficulties in my marriage, which I have. I don't need to get up from the
church every day that we assemble and start talking about it. That's
not the platform. This is for the teaching of the church, not
for me to air out my irritations. And matter of fact, if I've got
irritations toward my wife, I need to be held accountable for that.
Because it's a sin before God, it's not dying to myself. But
at the same time, does not the church family need to know, hey,
you need to pray for our pastor. There's some problems there.
Don't need to know the specifics that can become gossip. But even
then, What happens? Something happens in our spirit
and we start feeling and look differently toward people. We
start thinking, oh, yeah, well, preacher's marriage is a little
on the rocks, you know, him and his wife aren't getting along
or brother so and so is having some problems, sister so and
so is having an attitude problem. Well, maybe they'll repent and
get right. And we'll just we'll see. But we start looking down
on them, not purposely. It just happens, doesn't it?
It just happens. And it's not even a continual
thing. It may just be like a tenth of a second. It may just be a
fleeting thought. Every now and then we think, man, if they could
just, you know, and that's the lie of the devil. If you could
just, if you could just stop, if you could just change, if
you could just be happy, that's the worst counsel in the world.
Just be happy. Just lose weight. Just get in shape, just get rid
of the cancer, just just well, we're not 90s. We don't just
do it. We don't just get along. It doesn't
just happen, but it's a it's a process in which we in our
flesh in this world that's corrupt and going to nothing. Who have
been renewed eternally by the gospel of Jesus Christ, we are
at war with this. And Jesus did not die for the
one. He died for the whole. He did
not die for the one person. He died for the whole church.
Jesus did not come to just save a particular people group out
of a nation. He came to die for a particular
people group of all nations. The church. And so there is not
going to be this established, wow, look at that church and
his name is Bob. No. There's the child of God,
whose name is Bob, who is one small, significant piece of the
church for whom Christ died. See, this is this and this isn't
new to you. And then because we are collectively
one, So that's oxymoronic. We are diversely unique. Accountability has a basic understanding,
a foundation of one of the primary things that happens in the church
and among the church. This just happens when our lungs
take in air at birth, they breathe from then on out until we die
or have to put a machine in to breathe for us. They work, the
church works, and one of the ways in which it works is accountability.
Let me give you some basic seeing, I want you to see some things
basically about this issue of accountability. And so this isn't
even a doctrine. Yes, it is. First Thessalonians
chapter four, I want you to go there. And then I want you to
listen. Finally, then, brothers. We ask
and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us
how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing,
that you do so more and more. And that's the only text I'm
going to preach today, but I want to read through the end of verse
12. Listen. For you know that what instructions
we gave you through the Lord Jesus, for this is the will of
God, your sanctification. And he starts a list of things
that you abstain from sexual immorality, that each one of
you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not
in the passions of lust of the Gentiles who do not know God.
That no one transgressed and wronged his brother in this matter,
because the Lord is an avenger in all these things, as we told
you beforehand and solemnly warned you. See that? For God has not
called us for impurity, but in holiness. Therefore, whoever
disregards this, disregards not man, but disregards God, who
gives his Holy Spirit to you. Now, I want to pause there. I
want to say something. When we disregard being accountable as
a body to each other, we disregard God. Not each other. When we reject
the counsel of Scripture, we disregard God, not the teacher. Now concerning brotherly love,
you have no need, listen to this, no need for anyone to write to
you For you yourselves have been taught by God to love one another,
for that indeed is what you were doing to all the brothers throughout
Macedonia. But we urge you, brothers, to
do this more and more and to aspire to live quietly. I should have used that text
last week. And to mind your own business.
and to work with your hands as we instructed you so that you
may walk properly before outsiders and be dependent on no one. I
see you might think, well, there's a contradiction there. No, there's
not. There's not a contradiction there
in the instructions that they had already received and that
they were doing. So I want you to see some basic
things about accountability. I think there are four things
that I thought of. First, accountability is enveloped in exhortation.
In other words, it's inside the envelope of exhortation inside
that is accountability. And we know that we're to exhort
one another to what we see Hebrews saying that as a command, it's
not acting, it's teaching us to this exhort one another to
what love and good deeds. Is that not what Paul's doing
here to the Thessalonians? So exhortation is the envelope in
which accountability is contained. So we see that is wrapped up
there. And what does it look like? Let
me just give you just a paraphrase, a whole bunch of things in a
list. And they're all throughout the New Testament. It's encouraged,
encouraged one another as long as it is called today, helping
one another, building up one another in love, loving one another,
bearing each other's burdens, lifting our drooping hands, walking
with each other. Pushing each other toward the
prize, rebuking and teaching and correcting each other, warning
each other. You see that these are these
are texts that are all throughout the New Testament that are commands
the apostles to the local church that they do. So this first thing
I want you to see that accountability is enveloped in exhortation.
Exhortation looks like that. Secondly, I want you to understand
that accountability is rooted in community. You cannot be accountable
to yourself. You cannot be accountable to
your own consciousness, though you are and you should be. It
can't stop there because we can talk ourselves into anything.
We can justify our feelings. We can justify our thoughts.
We can justify our actions. We can justify our anger. We
can justify everything if we're by ourselves. So accountability
is rooted in community. What do you mean? Well, what
does it teach us all throughout Scripture? We see it in Peter.
We see it in Hebrews. We see it in other places. There
are elders who begin the responsibility to teach, and they're not authoritative
because they want to be. They're authoritative because
of the call of God in their lives. And what gives them the authority
is the Word of God alone that gives the authority, because
it is the Word of God that is the authority. You can't want to be an elder,
and that gives you the authority. It's God calling you, which makes
you want to be an elder. There's a lot of things that
could be done. So there's a community that there's
people who I will use the term rule over the church through
the word of God, and they are the overseers for what overseeing,
caring and teaching and protecting and equipping the saints to do
the work of the ministry. But they're not governors, they're
not dictators. We have even an accountability
of how God has established that is clear in the scripture. We
have this negative connotation about it. Why? Because there's
charlatans and power-hungry bigots who feel like the sheep are lesser
than they are because they're the pastor. Had a man tell me
years ago, a very wise man, said the minute you say you have to
say you're the pastor is the moment you stop being that. And another wise man who taught
me a lot said a leader is not someone It's not well here, because
if you're a man and nobody's following you, you're not a leader,
you're just a man taking a walk. So there's a community there,
there's accountability, there's a there's a preaching accountability, there's
a teaching accountability, there's an exhortation that comes through
the elders of the church to the flock. There's an exhortation
that comes from the word of God to the elders. There's an exhortation
that comes from the flock to the church, the elders and together.
And then we've got this correctiveness, this correcting, this church
discipline, Matthew chapter 18. If that's not accountability,
what is? And you know what it's to? You know, he's talking to
not the elders of the church. He's talking to the members of
the church. If your brother sins against you, if the brother comes
against you, go to him. Why do we go to him? Because
we love him. And I guess the first discernment
is, you know, if we're going to hold our brother or sister
accountable to the faith, Are we the one sinning because we've
been discouraged by something that wasn't intentionally meant
to be sin toward us? Just because somebody hurts my
feelings doesn't mean it's sin. If you tell me that I'm in sin and
it hurts my feelings, you've not sinned against me. That's
conviction. If you rebuke me and it makes
me angry, you haven't sinned against me. If I say something that you just
don't quite agree with and I've done it in a kind way and it
makes you mad, you're the sinner, not me. And vice versa. I hate
to say me and you and you and me, you're going to personalize
it, but you know what I'm saying. Accountability is rooted in community. Church
discipline says put people out. And in community in that context,
what does it say? That God has created a people
for his own glory. And so if this is the case, there's
a people there, there's a community there. What is the will of God
for you? Verse three, your sanctification.
This is collective. It doesn't say in chapter one
of this letter, it does not say to Bob of Thessalonians. He's not talking to a person.
He's talking to the whole of the city, every saint. Everything
collectively. You means all y'all see, you
need to write it in redneck and we'd understand it. All y'all
need, you know, to all y'all in Claxton, to all y'all in Georgia,
to all y'all. That's terrible. I hate to even
hear myself say that. I give a cowboy boots next week. To you, church, the body collectively. See how selfish we are? See how
egotistical we are? We hear you and we always think,
me. It must be me. I got to do it. I got to get
it. I got to make it. That's a lie. It's a lie from
the flesh. It's a lie from the enemy. It's a temptation that
the devil puts into us continually, unknown to us, hangs before us. And the reason we catch it like
it's just the next sundae on the menu, it's because it's what
we really want. We want it to be about us. You. You. You, church, we, the church,
we are a family. And so when I say it's rooted
in community, that the family of God expressly and perfectly
are displaying what Christ has made them to be. Well, we're not perfect. I didn't
say imperfection. I said perfectly displayed. We
perfectly display that which we have been created to be and
that when there is sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous. When there is strife, the gospel brings
it back together. When there is pain, we weep together. When there's rejoicing, we rejoice
together. Perfectly expressing the power
of Christ is not some stupid, myopic, utopia-type idealism. That's not going to exist ever,
anywhere, period, except eternity. Ever. But we think it's supposed
to be. Well, the Lord's calling me out
because there's problems. Hey, buddy, if the Lord's calling
you out because there's problems, you've never known the will of
God. And you never will. If you follow
the will of the Lord by the sweet opening doors of the rosy smell
and the flowers growing, you are following Satan. You want to see pain, suffering,
strife, frustration, aggravation, physical sickness, financial
sickness, issues with people? Then you follow the will of God.
You want to be happy, healthy and whatever? Then you just do
your own thing. You do your own thing and you'll
have the world and you'll go exactly where it's going to hell. Accountability. Verse one. Finally, then, brothers,
we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from
us how you ought to walk and to please God, Just as you are
doing that, you do so more and more. So the third thing is accountability
is natural and holy affection toward each other. It's natural.
What do we do? Our infant has started crawling
and she eats everything. I'm going to start calling her
Roomba because she just walks along the hair dirt, Cheerio
that got under the couch, just whatever she finds, she just
eats it all. So she I have to be very determined to hold her
accountable because she doesn't know that that's bad. It's what
she does. She's a baby. So I have to look
after her. And I also have to be accountable
to make sure that we're going to have to sweep every day, three
or four times a day with a dust mop. If that doesn't work, I've
got an electric fan. We'll just see. But the accountability
is natural out of a holy affection for each other. We want to do
something for each other. Accountability is rooted. In
community, it's enveloped in in in exhortation, and it's foundationally
seen. In a natural sense, because of
affection for one another. So when we care for each other,
just it's accountability. It's care, if we're concerned
about one another, there's accountability there. It's concern, and sometimes
there's critique, sometimes there's what we like to call an old good
old U.S.A. constructive criticism. Friends,
criticism is not constructive. It's destructive. And that's
not what accountability is. Everybody knows they're wrong
when they're wrong. Everybody knows they're confused
when they're confused. Well, except those who God has
turned over to reprobate mine. But they still know they're liars
because they suppress the knowledge of the truth. They know you don't
have to tell people they're sinners. God has already done it. You
don't have to tell people that there is a God. He's already
done that. And there is no excuse. The accountability is not just
a negative, but at all times. See, there's the misnomer accountability,
we think we've got to see something that's wrong and fix it. No,
accountability is not what Paul is, what Paul is doing here.
I asked you and urge you to do this, which you are doing all
the more. What was the problem with the
Thessalonians? What sin had they committed? What error was being
taught? What frustration was happening?
None. Paul has heard of their what?
Their faith and their love. We give thanks to God always
for you, for all of you, constantly mentioning you in our prayers,
remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and
labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ,
for we know, brothers, Love by God that he has chosen you because
our gospel came to you not in word, but in power and in the
Holy Spirit with full conviction. You know what kind of men we
proved to be among you for your sake and you became imitators
of us and of the Lord and you received the word in much affliction
with the joy of the Holy Spirit so that you became an example
to all believers in Macedonia and and Achaia, and not only
has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and
Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so
that we need not say anything, for they themselves report to
us the kind of reception we had among you and how you turned
to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait
for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, Jesus,
who delivers us from the wrath to come." I want that letter
to me. I don't want the letter, I heard
from Chloe, and you're liars. I don't want that letter. I don't
want the letter, who has bewitched you? How have you so quickly
turned from the truth? I don't want that letter. I don't
want the letter that Jesus wrote. Turn and do the things you did
before. See the heights from which you have fallen. Forsaken
me. I'm going to take out your lampstand. Do you want this letter? I want
the letter. To simulate Christ as the apostles,
as the Thessalonians did. By the power of the gospel. And
though you receive it in much suffering, what? You have the
joy of the Holy Spirit. There's the answer of a million
dollar question. How do I have joy in the midst of pain? It's
the joy of God who is self joyful. Accountability is not negative.
It's never negative. Finally, in the instance of things,
I want you to seek foundation in accountability. Accountability
is not morality. Accountability is not living
godly instead of worldly. Here, Paul did not say, stop
doing this and do this. Paul said, do what you're doing
and do it all the more. And keep on. Don't you want to
be accountable like that? So what's the point there? Paul's accountability. Paul's
placing the Thessalonian Christians under his accountability comes
because of their great success in the faith. They're doing it
right. They're doing it right. There's
no complaint. There's no nothing complaint, no complaint. at all.
He does, he does help them in some issues about the resurrection
or the second coming. He helps them, but they weren't
falling in line. They were just being frustrated by some of that
teaching. The accountability comes to continue to do the good
things that has been done. Why is it that we love being
beat up? Why do we need to be pounded on to feel like we're
walking with God? Why do we have to come to the
place where we want to be accountable to get away from the negative
when the accountability that we see in Scripture is not about
the don't do's, but it's about these things which we have taught
to you, you do. It's like political ads. I saw four political ads yesterday
on television. In a row. I don't know who they
were supporting. And I don't know what they supported.
But I know who they didn't support and why. Don't vote for Bob. Bob's in bad shape today. He's
all over the place because he hates you and he hates America
and he stinks and doesn't bathe. Not even, but John bathes. Not even that. It's just Bob
stinks and he hates you. Wouldn't you think that if you're
going to run a campaign ad, you'd say, Bob hates you, but I love
you. Bob stinks, but I don't. Bob is a, I can't say this anymore,
but Bob is a communist and I'm in America. I mean, no, it's
just Bob, Bob, Bob, negative, negative, negative. And another
ad came on and it was something else. You have a right to these
things, America, and these things have been taken from you. You
are losing your rights in your sleep. Kick this man out of our
country because he's taken your rights away, so let's take his
away. That's not the way the Scripture works. That's not the
way accountability works. Accountability is not the spiritual
police who walk around in the church going, I caught you! I
saw you! I knew you were smiling, but
deep down you're hurting. Admit it! Confess it! Here it
is! Sit right here in front of God
and everybody. That's heartbroken. You know
what they used to call that before they caught up the altar? The
mourner's bench. the mourners bench. And they
would ask you to come and confess your sins, and you sit there
and you tell everybody about how wicked you were, and because
you did that, God was faithful and just to forgive you your
sins. That's how it started. That's some of the fruit of the
second great awakening right there. And then it became not
the mourners bench, but the altar, thanks to Charles Finney. Maybe that sermon will come in
a few weeks. accountability here in the scriptures
because of the great success in the faith. Let's look at this
verse one in closing. Brothers, finally, then, brothers. What do you mean? We use that
term like it's like it's just, you know, what's up, chief? I
mean, it's just it's just a word. You know who your brothers are,
you know who your sisters are. These are people who, within
their body, carry the DNA of your parents. You are of like
substance. OK? So to be brothers in Christ means
we're of like substance. What is that substance? Holiness. Righteousness. one day glory. No, we're not going to be little
Jesuses, little Christ, little God, little nothing, not have
our own kingdoms. But we're the body of our King. Brothers, sisters, the scene
of godly walking is for believers. I'm going to step on some stuff
here, and I don't have time to talk about it. Quit holding unbelievers
and the world to Christian living. It's stupid, isn't it? But we want it. We're all silly. I want this microphone to serve
God. I want the corpses in Bruton
Cemetery to walk with the Lord. Too bad. That's God's business. And the only time we exhort people
to walk in Christ is when they're in Christ. This is not evangelistic
message, but it is. You don't walk as the Gentiles
do, who are alienated who are gone, who are blind, who are
dead, and the wrath of God is to come. That's what we read
there, what I referred to in Ephesians 5. Ephesians 2 says
the same thing. Paul is so repetitive. Thank
God. Brothers, you walk with Christ. Keep walking with Christ. Friends,
stop applying Christian morality to a people who are not the church
of Jesus. If you see wickedness in the
world, why would you be surprised or appalled? If your neighbor
lives for themselves, don't go tell him to start living for
Jesus, because he might actually pull
it off. And then one day you'll have to go to him and say, I
know you're walking with Christ, but you're a Pharisee. And you're
not in Him. You're not born again. You're
just doing good stuff. I'm so sorry I misled you. How
many thousands of people I've preached that message to? Don't
go there. Brothers, continue to walk. Because if they don't continue
to walk, they reject the very faith that they say has bought
them. And so there's another phrase I want to look at. Brothers,
we ask and urge you, I'm going to go to the end with that, in
the Lord Jesus, that as you receive from us how you ought to walk
and to please God. Just as you are doing that, you
do so more and more now. Interesting. We told you how
you should walk to please God. What does it teach us in Hebrews?
Without faith, no one pleases God. What I'm not saying here
is I'm not bringing in this legalistic moralism. Get it out of your
mind. And the more I walk with Jesus,
the more pleased God is with me. If you're in Christ, He's
fully pleased. But that doesn't mean that when
we sin... You see, some people say, well,
you can't sin as a Christian. Yes, you can. But that sin does
not create, this does not lead to death. What is 1 John 5? I'm not saying pray for the sin
that leads to death, but pray for your brother who is in sin
that does not lead to death. What's that mean? That means
that as Christians we sin, but we have an abdomen. The Father
Jesus Christ is righteous. And that in those sins, though we
are justified and pleasing to God in His sight, those actions
are not pleasing to God, nor are they pleasing to the body,
nor are they beneficial to the church. They're detrimental to
the church. Our sin is not our personal problem. Our sin is a problem because
we bring all of our brothers and sisters into the reproach
of our wickedness and we say, look world, I'm in Christ and
they're in Christ, so therefore what I do and the world sees
me do, you are a part of, body. I've never heard of a left arm
getting locked up for murder. They throw your whole rear end
in there. I've never seen them put a pinky in an electric chair
because it poked out an eyeball. They fry your behind, too. And
your brain, your feet, and your toes. You see that? See how messed up we are in our
thinking? And specifically, even if it's
not an issue of testimony, it's an issue of the same Spirit.
And when the Spirit is grieved, you know how we grieve the Holy
Spirit? We burden Him. Because we live in Him. We live
with Him and He lives with us. And when we look at things that
are godless, when we listen to things that are godless, when
we go places that are godless, we're making God do them. We're
making God hear them. We're making God see them. We're
dragging Jesus into sin. That's why in Hebrews 6, it's
so clear. We bring Him again up to public
shame. The reproach of the cross. Crucifying
Him once more. So our sin isn't personal, though
it is personally ours. Brothers continue to walk in
the way. So accountability starts and finishes with this is the
way we walk. This is the way we go. This is
the way we live. This is the way because this
is the way. Here's the way. Follow Christ. Not don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that.
And as a parent, for those of you who are parents, you know
full and well that sometimes at the end of the day, you feel
like you have turned to the don't do guy. Stop, don't, stop, don't,
stop, don't. I think it'd be easier just to
get me tattoos on one hand. Stop, don't, no, quit. Both sides. Stop, no, no, quit. Go to bed. I mean. Go to bed. Because that's all we do. We
just don't, don't, don't, don't. That's not accountability. Now,
it's intertwined in there. But accountability is walking
together in such a way that we're encouraging each other and exhorting
one another and growing each other in the faith. Because I'll
tell you what, guys, pagans can live a moral life. Jesus saved
us from morality because morality falsely tells us that we can
be right with God by doing good things, falsely tells us that
we can actually be in favor with God if we're if we're if we're
not living in sin. And it falsely gives us a sense
of security when we look back at the last few years of our
life and say, man, look where I've come from. So there is a way that is pleasing
to God in our walking. But in no way am I talking about
justification. We are talking about, in some
sense, a sanctification, though we are justified fully and one
day we'll be fully holy. And even in a wholeness of a
hundred years, that sanctification won't get us anywhere close to
perfection or holiness being right before God. But it doesn't
mean that we're not to strive to please him in our actions
as a body and individually thereof. There's a true life that is lived,
that results in true living. And if Jesus Christ is truly
the life within us, then it results in a true living. Accountability
helps us not walk in unpleasantries before a father. The Reformers
had a phrase, Coram Deo, in the face of God. That everything
we do and think and say, everywhere we are, we're doing it in the
face of God. What does God see? Are we living,
Romans 12.1, in the power of the Gospel? Romans 1.16. Are
we living in the Romans 12.1 that our lives should be a spiritual
act of worship? That our minds should be continually
being renewed by the power of the Word? What does it say? You can walk
as pleasing to God? He says, and you received that
from us. You received that from us. That means you've already
gotten it. We're holding you accountable to stay in it. Hold
fast to the hope of Christ. This is the gospel truth that
you received in suffering, but you have the joy of the Holy
Spirit. This is the gospel truth that you received in power. So now there's the gospel power
that results in a gospel grace. And if you skip over to verse
9, now concerning brotherly love, you have no need for anyone to
write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love
one another. And that's what you're doing,
he says. Keep it up. Do it all the more. So this grace
is evident in the people of God, in the church, that results in
a holy affection to God that results in a secure understanding
of that which pleases God, that results in the expression of
that in our lives together, that we preach to each other, that
we pray for one another, that we hold each other, that we lift
each other, that we care for one another, that we meet each
other's needs. Sin is clear in us because grace
is great in us. God has written the law on our
hearts. We know we should love each other. If we love each other,
we will be in an accountable relationship with each other. My thoughts are that God's new
creation reveals the covenant he made. Think about. God's creation,
his new creation in us, reveals the covenant he made with us,
a covenant of holiness and a covenant of affection. But it also includes a warning,
I don't want to take the warnings off the table. Accountability
is warning, you're standing too close to the edge. Christ saved
us from that, he's our hope. He's the greatest gift. He's
the treasure. The gospel is this. This is who he is. This is what
God has done. And the more we encourage and hold accountable
to the truths of the gospel, the further away we get from
the edge of death. But what we have a tendency to
do and what I meant to tell you when I got off on that little
stupid thing about those political ads is nobody knows what to do
when you hear that. OK, now I know what not to do,
now what? So we stand dead in our tracks
and we go, I'm scared. What do we do when we're scared?
Grace, when she was younger and she used to get scared in the
middle of the night, she'd find a corner to hide in in the house
and just stand there like some ghost. And you'll notice somebody's
up or you'll hear something, you'll get up and you'll go in
there and then she'll just be standing in the back of the den like this.
OK, that was creepy. You scared the junk out of me.
Because she was fearful and she didn't know where to go, what
to do, didn't want to move. That's what happens. So when
we warn without accountability, all we're doing is saying, you're
about to die. It's like the old comedy show that I don't even
know who it was years ago when they showed this silliness of
broadcasting on the news anchors. They said, there's a deadly disease
or there's something deadly. It could be killing you and you
might be having it for supper tonight at 11. I mean, you know,
you could be eating it right now. Stay tuned tomorrow. So
you're starved to death because you don't want to eat anything
because you don't know. The bread, the peas, the coke. What's killing me? Do you see
the point? If we just continue to push and
yell warning, warning, warning, wolf, wolf, wolf, skies fall
on skies, and it may be. Where are we leading people to?
Accountability leads people into the graciousness of God. We walk
together there. What do we see in the exhortation
scripture? Be careful when bringing someone else into correction,
lest you fall into the same temptation. So how do we do it? What is accountability
in the church? Verse one again. Finally, then,
brothers, we ask and urge you. Do so more and more. We ask you to do more of what
you're doing and we urge you to do more of what you're doing.
That's accountability. We ask, we ask each other to
remember the gospel. Pain. Torture. Frustration. Can't get a control. It doesn't
matter. It really doesn't matter. These are serious issues. They're
killing us. They're hurting us. We're in angst. It doesn't matter.
We can't fix them. Let's quit trying to be insane
and do that which is impossible. But what can we do? Nothing.
Christ has done it all. You have a hope. You have a future. You have an affectionate God
towards you who suffered for your sake that you may be the
righteousness of God. And so in the joy the Holy Spirit,
as you look to what you have to look forward to, forgetting
what's behind you, press on to the prize. And if you die, celebrate. If you lose it all, celebrate. I hate that. Are you celebrating
your pain? Are you pressing? Are you hoping? Are you holding? Are you drawing
close to God? Are you eating the bread of life?
Are you drinking the living water? Are you jumping and diving into
the depths of the knowledge of His ineffable glory? Are you
seeing all that cannot be seen in the face of Christ about the
glorious majesty of our God, who breathed and spoke in all
that is immutable? And He one day will speak, and
all that seems to be eternal will shake. And the only thing
that remains is that which cannot be shaken, a kingdom that cannot
die. Now, that doesn't help me pay
my light bill. No. By God, when you sit in the dark,
you've got something to behold. Because there's no promise your
light bill will get paid here. None. But if we have it, we say, oh,
brethren, We give it. So we ask and we urge. It's all in the same breath,
isn't it? This accountability, this asking
and urging is a beautiful example of care and comfort. It's a resting place for the
weary soul. It's hope and reassurance for
those who are downtrodden and they see no light. It's a reminder
of redemption when they seem like they're dead. And when they have fallen away
into sin. It's a beautiful gift of restoration. Bring them back
to forgiveness as if they never stepped away. Accountability. is love, and
love keeps no records of wrongs. What's that mean? It means if
I sin against you today, the same way I sinned against you
yesterday, be surprised like you've never seen it. That's hard for us. Accountability
brings peace in one's own soul, knowing that these who love me
are not going to condemn me. The problem is we have an error
when we begin to ask and to urge in the bad times. See, this is
the problem. We don't really think about it,
but everybody's good. It's just back to the beginning.
How are you doing? How are you? How's the weather?
You're feeling better. And that's it. Pat, hug, sideways
hug, whatever. High five, bump. It's just so
superficial. You can't even pray. for each
other like that. I pray for so-and-so, they're
well. I pray for so-and-so, they're well. I pray for so-and-so, they're
concerned about the heat. I mean, that's how we have to
pray for each other. So it is a two-way street in
that we need to begin now as we're walking with the Lord.
And I have a feeling that if we did this, we would walk closer,
more continuously, than waiting until we saw people at the edge
of death. But in the very core of it all,
we do two things. We check our hearts. We check our hearts. Because God does not need to.
We don't need us to teach each other to love one another. God's
taught us that. But we need each other to be
accountable to continue in that. As we're doing it already. We check our hearts, we check
our hearts to make sure we're not pompous or intrinsically
pious or self-righteous. We check our hearts to make sure
our motivation is to protect one another. Because not everything
needs to come out to everybody. Especially things that are sensitive
or sinful. The scope of our accountability
for our sins needs to be as broad as its reach. If you hit me and
apologize, that's the end of it. I don't need to tell ten
other people, Jesse punched me. I probably wouldn't be able to
talk for a few days if he did. But he's forgiven and we're cool
when everybody else is upset. And we can pray for people without
knowing why. Would you pray for Bob? Why? Man, people say some crap about
him on TV. He hates you. We check our hearts. To make
sure what we really want and being accountable and holding
others accountable is to walk in Christ together, knowing full
well that the grace that's measured to us, we need to measure to
someone else. Secondly. We need to realize that Christ
alone grows the individual. We can preach, teach, guide,
counsel, snap, snatch, tie, duct tape, push, tip, shoot, whatever
we want to do in the right direction. But until the Lord Jesus Christ
changes a man's heart, they're not going to change. Don't be so ridiculously prideful
that you think if you could just talk to somebody, you could help
them. Oh, how pastors fall prey to that. Man, if I could just
talk with them. If I could just talk. And you know what? That might
be the case, but you better be talking to him about reading
the Bible. You know, some of the helpless, most helpless counsel
cases in the world are those who come for years at a time
and never trust in the hope of Christ through his word. I feel
like dying, what am I to do? Why don't you go read John? Yeah, but what else? What else? I just told you to go to God,
walk into the throne room and say, hey, Dad, let me see your
face because I'm feeling alone and scared and hopeless and I
need a lot. And you promised to give it all
to me that I should have no fear or hope or hopelessness. I should
not worry about what I'm going to eat or wear or say. And you've
got it all. Why in the world would we need
anything else? See, that's a philosophical debate
for the world, but they can't see it. Just as you are now doing that,
you do so more and more. And what we take from that is
I hear Paul in Ephesians when he's when he prays that prayer
to them. to end. Chapter three. For this reason,
about my knees before the father. From whom every family in heaven
and on earth is named. That according to his riches
of his glory that he may grant you to be strengthened with power
through his spirit in your inner being. so that Christ may dwell
in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded
in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints
what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to
know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able
to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think according
to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church
and glory in Christ Jesus throughout all generations forever and ever. Amen. So what do we see from
that? There's more and more and more
that God can do that we cannot. How is that supernatural abundant
over the flow, overflowing more happen through accountability?
Because God is able and he alone is able and we cannot do it. But we who are filled with the
fullness of God continue to ask and urge each other in the faith. It doesn't happen through osmosis.
It doesn't happen through TV preaching. It doesn't happen
through listening to the sermon that I preached last year. It
happens through intimate interaction and aggravation and burden with
the people of God whom you have covenanted together as your church
family. So let's put some shoes on. And
let's walk through our covenant. How does this work for us? How
does it work for what we have said we would do? We say we agree
that the Scripture teaches that we are to be about certain things,
and our covenant talks about those things. The covenant together is one
body with many parts and desire to and agree to pursue, not perfect,
Christian affection. Love toward each other as we
walk together for glory, for the glory of Christ and the power
of the Holy Spirit. Is that not what Ephesians 4
is talking about? I mean, 1st Thessalonians 4 and Ephesians,
the whole letter. We desire and agree to pursue
the reliance upon God evidenced by prayer personally as we pray
for each other and prayer corporately as we petition God for his will
to be done in our lives and in our church and in our world.
We commit to praying for each other for God's purpose for grace
through church. We desire and agree to pursue
worship through service to one another, to our world, to our
community, through submission, to the Lord, to the Word, to
each other, through action, not just saying, but doing, through
knowledge, study of the Word of God, through affections, through
study to holy God, through Jesus Christ. We desire and agree to
pursue meeting together regularly. and weekly in corporate worship
in our homes and our communities as we are able for the purpose
of encouragement, growth, mutual concern and accountability. Who
are you to say that's what we should do? Because it came from
Scripture. Came from Scripture. We just
want to make it easier for you to find in one place. Like Paul's
teaching to Timothy about the qualifications for elders, those
are found throughout all the letters for every Christian who's
ever been born again. He just wanted to list them there
to show that those who are indeed in the pastorate should exemplify
those things that are required of all Christians. It's not a
higher standard, it's the same standard. He just wanted to list
them, that's what we do with our covenant, we list them. We
desire and agree to pursue Accountability to God. Through the local church,
through her elders, through her members and submit to the discipline
of the word of God is prescribed for the sanctity of the church.
This accountability includes white living. pure testimony,
holy pursuits, church attendance, encouragement, direction, discipleship
and other means by which we will obey Christ in the spirit of
worship. Now, see, everybody reads that sometimes they go,
that's just tell me what I can and cannot do. That is not what
that means. That's why this sermon is so
key to understanding when we say accountability, it is a mutual
growing together into the core, into the head, who is Jesus Christ. We agree to pursue and desire
to pursue holiness in the power of grace through the Holy Spirit
made possible through the word of God. We understand that Christians
are no longer slaves to sin, but free to willingly pursue
righteousness. We agree and desire to pursue
cooperation together to see grace through church flourish as a
community of faith. We agree with the doctrines of
grace and the purposes of the church as outlined in scripture.
We agree that the world's ways are not to infiltrate the actions
of the body, but the proper doctrine produces proper actions and methods. This is what we say. So let's
do it. Let's do that which we are doing
more and more and gooder and gooder, as we like to say around
here, more better than we've ever done before, because God
is doing the work in us. We need to print that out, put
it up somewhere. Because in the end, what happens
is that we, as the people of God. Either we display the reality
of God's covenant with us, or we don't. And if we don't, if
we say there is no hope for us, then we're saying that we don't
believe the gospel, which is good news that Jesus has provided
for us and established for us and perfected for us righteousness. Now, we could talk for hours
and hours and hours about how in certain circumstances But
see, this is where the body of Christ as it lives together and
talks together and loves together and learns together. This is
where we talk about this. Because we can get we can get
bogged down in this pragmatism from the pulpit to where we just
we'll find out what to do next week. Let's just work through
it as we do. How do I handle this circumstance? How do I grow? And sometimes
accountability is when we need it, we ask questions to each
other. So when one asks, we urge. Sometimes when someone urges,
we ask. But either way, we do it together.
And this is not, it's not popular. It's not found. And it's why
some people would say that we are not of like faith and order.
Because we do not adhere to the Americanized institution and
call it the church. We want to be the spiritual,
physical body of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Lord, your grace is enough. We
hear it in the scriptures. We read it. We've heard it preached.
We sing songs about it. We tell each other that. Father, though it is true and
powerful, for some reason in your wisdom, you have equipped
us to continue to press into that truth. It's not just easy
to say it and go, oh, yeah, everything's fine. And thanks for saying the
magic word. Lord, you know, it is hard for us. And, you know, sometimes we can
become so simplistic with the power that you hold, though it's
really that simple that you are doing it all. Father, the means
to which you grow us and draw us and hold us to each other.
In purity and holiness. It is a natural war. To help us to see it's not going
to be easy all the time. Lord, we do know that it is going
to come out for our good and our favor. So that you would
be praised for your glorious grace. Father, would you give faith
to where it needs to be given? Would you let grace abound in
the crevices of darkness where it seems to be gone? Would you
fill us all with your fullness that we could stand righteously,
that we could stand guiltless, clean, pure as if we've never
sinned? Let us look at each other as
you see us. Let us hold each other as Christ
holds us. Let us hold fast to our confession
of hope in Christ together as we walk through the drudgery
of this world. Help us to pray for each other.
Help us to be reminded to be careful, to seek each other out
and be concerned as we pray and sometimes prod and help us to
set boundaries where we're trying to be you. Lord, we want You to be great.
Your name to be praised. Your face to be upheld. Your
Word to be preached. And Your Son to be seen. And
to do that, we have to decrease in our efforts and in our ability
and in our castles and kingdoms that
we try to build. Keep us from idols, Lord. Lead
us away from the temptation of them all. Thank you for saving
us and Jesus.