Let me invite you to turn to James chapter four, please, James chapter four. What I'd like to do tonight is actually somewhat of a practical follow-up to the subject from this morning of spiritual discipline that the Apostle Paul calls us to put away self-indulgence and follow his example of self-discipline and that that that passage in 1 Corinthians 9 should be one that helps frame our thinking about sanctification. How do we grow in Christ? And so I think At times, we need to just zero in on it because of the tendency for us to drift, the tendency for us at times to have good intention that doesn't get translated into reality. We're nine days into February. It's possible that you had some resolutions for this year that are now in your rearview mirror. And that's a part of, unfortunately, the pattern of life. We're well-intentioned. We have good ideas about what we'd like to do, but then we don't actually follow through on those. And that's a part of living in a sin-cursed world as people who still battle with sin. So one of the things that I think we can be helped with is by thinking about God's gift to us so that we're not on our own. And so I'm really gonna try and go very quickly, that's why I gave you the outline, across the top of a bunch of things, zero in on a couple spots to try and help us. But if you notice the title at the top of it is Viewing Accountability as God's Gift, that one of the ways in which God, has designed life as a believer within the congregation of his people is for us to have accountability, that we can be helped to grow and to follow through on the things that God is doing in our lives. The first bullet point there is three gifts from God for our sanctification, his spirit, his word, and his people. We, I think, readily accept the first two. Apart from the Spirit, we cannot grow in Christ's likeness. We need the Spirit's work to transform us. He is given to us so that we might grow in Christ. He's the down payment of our ultimate glorification. He is the one that is at work in us to do that. And I think we'd all join that to his word, I hope we would, we wouldn't see the spirit as operating, certainly not contrary to the word, and I think not apart from the word. He actually is working through the Word to transform us. 2 Corinthians 3.18 tells us that we, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. And the glass or mirror there is the Word of God because that's verse 18, 14, 15, and 16 talks about when Moses is read, A veil remains, but when the veil is lifted, and then you go right from chapter three into chapter four, and it talks about the ministry of the gospel and the word. So the thing that the spirit uses to change us is the word of God. So God's given us his spirit and the word. And I think it's important, at least in my mind, that we think in that way, because without the spirit, you can't understand the word. Unless the Spirit illumined your mind, lifted the veil, you cannot receive the things of God because in your natural state, 1 Corinthians 2.14 says that you consider it to be foolishness. So you must have the work of the Spirit in order to understand the Word and then to see its significance for your life. How do you take the Word of God and then press it into the daily living of life? but he's also given us his people. We are put into an assembly of God's people where the gifts of Christ through the Spirit are operative so that we can be built up into Christ. Ephesians 4 talks about that. So God's plan for my spiritual growth is not ever to be viewed as a Lone Ranger kind of thing. I actually need the body. I need the gifts of the body. I need the grace that God has for me through that. If I dislocate myself from the body, then I've cut myself off from God's ordinary means of my growth. It's within the body of believers that the parts function so that the body can be built up in love. And we spent most of last year in the evening talking about how God gave the congregation for our perseverance, that it is actually within the congregation that we're to exhort and encourage one another while it's called today, lest any of us be hardened through deceitfulness of sin. Because there are things that I can't see that I need someone else to see, right? Sin deceives, sin hardens. I may not be feeling the conviction I ought to feel because I've allowed my conscience to become callous. And I need a brother or sister in Christ to say, Hey, you need to think about what you're doing here. Does that line up with what God says? Are you actually yielding obedience to the word of God? If I think I don't need that, then I think I'm smarter than God. Because that's the way God designed it. And so if you think that you can grow to Christlikeness all on your own, apart from the function of the body, then you think God's wrong. I mean, you just need to own that. You need to look it right in the mirror and say, I really don't need what God says I need. I can do this by myself. The smarter path would be to say, boy, God's given me this gift. I should enjoy it and benefit and use it to its greatest advantage. How can it work in my life? And that would lead me then to the recognition that that's a part of us belonging to a body, and when we belong to the body, it brings some accountability. All right, so here comes some rapid fire stuff, because some of this we've covered before in other places, and I know you guys just remember everything I say, so I don't have to unpack it all again. We're just gonna go boom, boom, boom, all right? James chapter four, first principle of accountability. Believers should do what they know to be right. In other words, we are accountable to God for what we know. James 4.17, therefore, the one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin. All right, so if you know what God requires of you, you are accountable to God to do it. And so we need to live there and recognize that God's word to us, it's not just an opinion column. It's not just advice. It's the will of God for the followers of Jesus Christ. And when I know what God says, I'm obligated to do what God says. If I don't do what I know to be right, it's sin. and so I've got an accountability before God. I just quoted to you Hebrews 3.13, so let's look at Romans 15.14, all right? These are what I used to, we used to jokingly call these, Dr. Townes, who's with the Lord, he would preach these sermons, and Hal Selstad and I used to call them flipper sermons, because you were like, you were flipping all through your Bible, because he had you going to reference after reference after reference. So we're gonna do a little bit of a flipper sermon here tonight, all right? So stick with me. Romans chapter 15 and verse 14. Paul says, in concerning you, my brethren, I myself also am convinced that you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able also to admonish one another. So he's confident, right, of what God has done in them through the gospel to transform their character, full of goodness, to fill them with knowledge, they have the content that's necessary to admonish, or they have the character and the content, and in fact some level of competency, able also to admonish one another. And he doesn't say this to just a subset. He's saying it to the congregation. This is the work of God in you as his people to give you the qualifications that are necessary to be able to admonish one another. And so that's a part of the life in the body, that there is this kind of mutual admonishment happening. There's exhortation. and encouragement. There is the responsibility we'll see in a moment when a brother or sister is in sin for someone to go to them and challenge them about that. That's something that God lays out in terms of the mutual accountability in the body of believers. Jump, if you would, to, let's go 1 Thessalonians 5.12, all right? And you can look at the others later if you'd like to. Hebrews 13.17 is a very familiar text about obeying, submitting to those that have watch over your souls. And 1 Thessalonians 5.12, and part of the reason I wanted to look at this one is just to remind us again that Paul says the church at Thessalonica is a model church and a model work of God. Paul was there a very short period of time, and people were converted to Christ, formed into a congregation, and then look at what verse 12 of chapter five says. But we request of you, brethren, that you appreciate those who diligently labor among you, and have charge over you in the Lord, and give you instruction, that you esteem them very highly and love because of their work. Live in peace with one another. So believers are accountable to God. Believers are to hold one another accountable within the local congregation. Believers within the congregation are also accountable to their spiritual leaders. Description in 512 is they have charge over you in the Lord and give you instructions. So there's leading and feeding that's supposed to happen in the context of the assembly. And my point about the quickness of the establishing of the church at Thessalonica is that in God's grace, they already had spiritual leaders. Right, so a very, very, almost we could say rapid work of God to call people from their lost condition to Christ, form them into a congregation with spiritual leadership in place that could be described as having charge over you in the Lord and giving you instruction. and that having charge over you is the kind of language that's used in Hebrews 13, 17. They are over you and watch for your souls. In 1 Timothy 3, it talks about managing the church of God. All right, there's that kind of responsibility there. 1 Timothy 5, 17 talks about those who are elders who are ruling well. So there's an establishment of leadership to which the congregation has some accountability. Right, so I actually took it out of the handout so I could get it all on one page, but there was a diagram in there that had pastors and then believers, so mutual accountability, and then the accountability of the congregation to the spiritual leaders. And then look at the fourth truth in 1 Timothy 5. There's also accountability for the pastors to God's word by the congregation. 1 Timothy chapter five, verses 19 and 20. Do not receive an accusation against an elder except on the basis of two or three witnesses. Those who continue in sin rebuke in the presence of all so that the rest also will be fearful of sinning. So here's the responsibility of the congregation toward those who are in spiritual leadership. There should not be baseless accusations made against them. Reference in 19, except on the basis of two or three witnesses, is rooted in Old Testament due process. Someone couldn't be convicted of a crime under the Mosaic law except for on the basis of two or three witnesses. And that's what Jesus picks up in Matthew 18 in the issue of church discipline. And here it's in the discipline of those who are pastors. So you can't just randomly accuse somebody in the church of something. You can't randomly accuse pastors. But the point is there's accountability that runs between believers, and there's accountability that runs from pastoral leadership to the congregation. They watch for your soul, have charge over you in the Lord. And then there's accountability upward so that pastors, if they're sinning, are to be dealt with and brought to repentance. And if they don't repent, they're to be rebuked before all. So there's no one in the assembly that escapes accountability to God's word. Let me repeat that. There's no one within the congregation that escapes accountability to God's word. We are all under the authority of God through his word. That's how Christ leads the church is through the word. And he's given us an assembly so that we can apply the word to one another and help hold each other accountable for doing what we know to be right. Because our accountability before God is the one who knows the right thing to do and doesn't do it, it's sin. So we're trying to help each other do the thing we know we ought to do. And spiritual leaders are trying to help the congregation do the things God's given us to do. And the congregation has a stewardship as well of the body that they would not allow leaders to go against the word of God. And that's a real threat if you read the New Testament. Paul says to the elders of the church at Ephesus in Acts chapter 20, that after his departure, there'll be wolves dressed in sheep's clothing who will come in And also there will rise up from your midst people who will try to lead away disciples. So here's Paul talking to a group of pastors from the congregation at Ephesus, and he's warning them about the danger. So you know what he starts that passage with? Take heed to yourselves and all the flock. Pay attention. because the threats are real, right? Satan is sinister and sin is deceptive. So keep your eyes open, guard the flock and encourage the flock to guard itself through the practice and exercise of accountability. All right, go if you would to Matthew chapter 18. So those four truths, I think, have to govern the way we think about this issue. And what I hope, and I think the danger always is, is that we view it negatively. Because we live in a culture that prizes independence above all else. We want maximum freedom. We're always trying to navigate the angles so that we can keep open our possibilities so that we can do the thing we want to do. We want to be as unencumbered as we possibly can so that we have as many options available to us. And we just have to, I think, be honest about how that can actually weave into our view of the Christian life and of the church. that we really want to be able to make our own choices and not have people speaking into them at all. And we actually sort of create suspicion of it. We basically are inclined to think that it's none of your business is a legitimate line. And anybody that's trying to consider how to provoke us to love and good works is actually a snoop. The Bible says to do it, and when somebody tries to do it, we think they're snooping. And again, I'd say, so who's out of line, the Bible or us? Now, do people abuse it? Yes, there are people who are sinful. But I think all of us know that the best approach to life is not to throw away good things because somebody abuses them. We shouldn't discard God's gift because some people are excessive in it. So let me take those four principles and weave them into what Jesus teaches us about the practice of this accountability in Matthew 18. And really, I'm trying to draw out a narrow portion of this, all right, to get us to consider rather than like an exhaustive thing on what's going on here. I'm gonna be dealing with it accurately, but in a narrow way. All right, look at verses 15 to 18. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother. But if he does not listen to you, take one or two more with you so that by the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact may be confirmed. If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the congregation. And if he refuses to listen even to the congregation, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. So here's Jesus' instructions for how you deal with sin in the assembly. And what it does do is, and it was the first time I ever had this brought to my attention was by a man named Jay Adams. He talks about three levels of discipline, and I think they fit this. And so you've got some blanks, and then you'll just be, you won't even be able to enjoy anything the rest of the evening unless you get those blanks filled in, all right? So let me just give them to you quickly. Self, that's one, self, two, mutual, three, church. self, mutual, and church, right? So the self-discipline is actually sort of below the surface of this one. Remember that James 4, 17? The one who knows to do right and doesn't do it, it's sin. All right, so the individual, when they know what's right, is responsible to do the thing that's right, to not do it as sin. So there's a breakdown of self-discipline that's introduced in verse 15, if your brother sins. There was something that was right that needed to be done, or something that was wrong that should not have been done, and that person didn't do it or did do it, depending on whether it's right or wrong. So this person sins, and so that's clearly something of a violation of the will of God. And again, this is where people sometimes get very concerned because they're like, you know, how do you define that? Is it anytime somebody disagrees with you? And the answer, if it's sin, then it's clearly coming short of God's revealed standard. So it's not a personal preference kind of a thing. It's not just an opinion about stuff. It's actually God has revealed what his will is, right? The one who knows to do right and does not do it, it's sin. So it's the violation of the revealed will of God. Every believer ought to do that. And yet, at times we don't. So there is at least the potential trigger at that point for someone to come and speak to us about it. It doesn't, more time than we have tonight, but I've talked about this many times. We have to balance verse 15 with 1 Peter 4 about love covering a multitude of sins. So my simple way of always saying it is, is this something that is harming them or harming others or harming the testimony of Christ? If it's something that's causing spiritual harm for them or for other people or for the testimony of Christ, then you can't cover it. You need to confront it. So that's the simple, simple way. It doesn't answer all the questions for you, but if there's a sin that's happened that is actually harmful to their spiritual life or harmful to other people's spiritual life or harmful to the testimony of Christ, then your disposition ought to be, I need to move to try and restore this person that's overtaken in a fault. So if there's a breakdown of self-discipline, then that leads to mutual discipline. And there's two kinds of it in this passage. There's the private confrontation. If your brother sins, go and show him his fault in private. All right, so you would approach this person to try to show them that in fact, what they've done is in violation of God's will, which again, helps make it a little more objective. It's not just my personal opinion. I should be able to go, like, here's what the word says right here, and here's what you did. Can you see that those don't line up? Right, I can show him or her the fault Here's what God says, here's what you did or said or didn't do, right? So that you can show that to them. And if they listen, you've gained your brother. If they hear you and say, you know, you're right, and they acknowledge that sin and confess and forsake it, as Proverbs would talk about, then you've gained your brother. That's what you're supposed to be doing. You're not on some sin SWAT mission to kill people. You're trying to rescue and restore. So you're going to show them their fault so that they'll repent and be restored. If they won't listen, then you need to take one or two more with you who are aware of the sin. And I think that's crucial to understand because it's saying in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact will be confirmed. That's the language in verse 16. If he does not listen to you, take one or two more. So for the math challenged, you went, and you take one more, so that's mouth of two witnesses, or if you take two more, that's the mouth of two or three witnesses, right? So you take one or two more in order for in the mouth of two or three witnesses, every fact can be confirmed. And again, I've talked about this before, but it's probably good to remind us, this is not, I went to this person and I confronted them and they didn't listen, so now I get one or two people to come and watch me confront them again. Right, because that doesn't confirm any facts, right? I'm just logging the accusation again. Just like in 1 Timothy chapter five, it has to be people who have information about this so that they can actually say, hey, what you're doing is out of line with the word of God. A solo accusation doesn't mean it's wrong. It's just biblical due process. It can't go forward. There's no ground by which it could take the next step, and that is to tell it to the church. And we've seen horrific examples of this in our politics of solo accusers. that can just tear somebody's reputation to shreds, and it's basically one person's word against the other person's word, and there's no way to adjudicate it. There's no way to work it out. That's because it's contrary to the system of due process that God incorporated into both Testaments. And there's more to it than we're gonna talk about tonight. So it's not, there is actually in the Old Testament demonstration that you can provide evidence that serves as a witness as well. So it's more complex than it. But the point would be that if this person remains steadfast in sin, then it goes from private confrontation to a private conference about the need to repent of that. That's mutual discipline. It's happening, right? So remember, pastors, congregation, believers, that's at this level right here. This person's sinning. and a caring believer going in a spirit of gentleness, like Galatians chapter six and verse one says, trying to restore the person, goes to that person to show him or her his fault, and hopefully they will listen so that you've gained your brother, you've gained your sister. But if not, then you have to bring others into it who can also confront them so that they can be restored. Right? So think about in terms of these three things, the breakdown was self-discipline. So the antidote from God is mutual discipline. And if mutual discipline works, then it's the restoration of self-discipline, that you've gained your brother. Yes, you're right. That's sinful. I need to turn away from that. So now they have a fresh resolve to do the thing that's right. And there's no church discipline at that point. Church discipline comes in the next step. If he won't listen, right, look at verse 17, if he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church or to the assembly, the congregation. And then the whole congregation speaks to this. If he refuses to listen even to the congregation, then they're to be removed. Let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. So that's the process that Jesus designed inside of these principles of accountability. So that leads to two commitments that I always try to encourage us about, right? The first is, we should be ready to receive level two, mutual discipline. We should just flat out pre-commit in our heart that if somebody comes to me to show me my fault, I should be ready to listen and receive it. Doesn't mean I have to agree with it, because they could be wrong. They could maybe not have all of the information. There could be a misunderstanding on their part. I mean, probably everybody in this room has had somebody think you did something that you didn't actually do. All right, but would you, if you're honest, I hope, you would rather have them come and talk with you about it and be able to resolve that than just keep walking around thinking that you did something wrong. All right, because what you really want is there to be a good relationship between brothers and sisters in Christ and sin is an obstacle to those good relationships. So sin needs to be removed. as well as a kind of false judgment of people needs to be removed. So nothing is lost by having this conversation, right? Nothing is lost. And in fact, things are gained if we're pursuing it as we ought to. And I think, I mean, if I could just do the encourage us kind of thing, I mean, you should ask yourself, why would I not be ready to receive mutual discipline? I mean, if someone came to me to say, hey, I'm concerned about something, And they're coming with Bible in hand, even if that's metaphorically, because they might be quoting it from memory, but they're coming with the Bible to say, hey, I'm concerned because here's what I see God's word says, and I think I saw this. Why would that bother me? I don't think we can find good answers for that. Most likely it's because I'm insecure, and I care too much about what people think of me, and that clearly obviously reveals that they were thinking badly of me, and now I'm all offended and upset because they had a bad thought about me. Or, and insecurity's a form of it, but I'm just arrogant and unapproachable. And I don't see how it's possible that I could be wrong or that you have the right to say this about me. I'd be in a position of pride or, and those are not good things, but perhaps even worse, I'm hiding. I don't want people to lift the lid on my heart. So I wanna keep it nice and covered. so that people can't see. Because if I keep them at arm's length, then I can preserve my comfort, and I can do the thing I want to do. Because that's, I mean, I hope you understand, if you're sinning, it's because you are choosing to sin. People do what they want to do. And not wanting somebody to confront you about it means you want to keep on doing it. You may be coming up with all kinds of sophisticated ways to explain yourself out of that, but when you don't want to be confronted by your sin, it's because you want to hang on to your sin. That's why we hide. That's why we don't want it. So we need to recognize that the very receptivity of our heart to the idea of what Jesus instructs the church to do is crucial to our growth. It's a gift. It's a gift if somebody comes to me and says, I'm concerned about what I see. It's a gift. It'd be nice if it was wrapped in a bow and it looked pretty and it came all comfortably. but it is a gift, and it's a gift from God to keep us from sinning. And we should all be ready, number two, to provide level two. And again, why don't we do that? I think sometimes it's our own insecurity. What are they gonna think about me? I mean, who am I to go talk to this person? I'm not sinless. And Jesus has an answer for that in Matthew 7, right? Okay, take care of the sin in your eye, then you'll be able to see to help. Jesus doesn't say, don't go help them. He says, take care of your sin first, then go help them. Because if you're only concerned about their sin, not yours, you're a hypocrite. That's what he's saying. But if you really care about sin, the first thing you'll do is look in the mirror and then you'll go, okay, now I need to go try and help my brother or sister. And it's our insecurity at times that keeps us from doing that. Sometimes it's, and I think it's often, it's a lack of love. I mean, Proverbs ties discipline to love and the lack of discipline to hate. And it's because you choose. If I know this person is headed towards spiritual trouble and I don't do anything about it, then I'm making a choice for my comfort over their good. And I need to come to grips with that. I need to wrestle with that. And sometimes it's because we're naive about sin. And I do not ever want to create a culture in our church where we are suspicious of people. I think, and I've said this before, we need to have a culture that's confident in the work of the spirit, but suspicious of the flesh. Right, we have a tendency to be all or nothing. And this just constantly hurts the church of Christ. Right, someone seems like they're doing well, and so we're just like, oh, they're all good. And the reality of it is none of us actually are all good. I mean, you realize that, right? We're all sinners. We all still have a struggle with the flesh. that our view of human depravity ought to be realistic enough to know that all of us are to some degree a mixed bag. Nobody in this room has perfect obedience and therefore it shouldn't surprise us when people need encouragement or exhortation about sin. because we have a healthy view of the fallenness of humanity and the wickedness of the world and the sinister nature of the devil. So we need to have that kind of concern. And maybe it's because I'm getting older, all right? But it just, at times, just concerns me about this. I mean, You know, there was a guy, a man serving the Lord with whom I was close, and actually at times had had conversations about, hey, if you ever see anything, I mean, I initiated, if you ever see anything in my life that you think is a problem, you have an open door to say something about. And he affirmed the same thing. And then I get the phone call that he has to step out of ministry because he's sinned horribly and I've tried to encourage him. But then I find out after the fact that this man is traveling internationally with a woman who is not his wife and showing up to ministries and nobody said anything. I'm like, are you people idiots? At the very low level, it looks horrible to go traveling around the globe with someone who's not your wife and show up to places and nobody goes, hey, what's going on here? Like, don't you realize that this is not a good testimony at the very least, but boy, don't you realize that you're opening the door to temptation when you develop that level of a relationship with somebody who's other than your wife and you're engaged in all of this stuff? How could people look at that and not say something? But it's easy to criticize other people. I think I've been guilty at times of starting to see things that concern me and go, I don't want to jump the gun. I got to figure out what to do about this. And then the tendency is just sit back. And all of a sudden, the crash happens. And probably many of us have watched that happen and thought, I hope somebody says something. When in fact, the person who sees it, Matthew 18, should say something. We need to get over that hurdle of our individualistic culture and recognize that we're a body and the health of the body, it's like looking down at your foot and seeing gangrene and going, boy, I hope my other foot takes care of this. You're actually sinning against yourself and the Lord. So we can't do that. All right, look at, I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna land the plane because this will take me a while to unpack. So hang on to that, all right? And Lord willing, we'll come back to it next Sunday night. All right, let me pray. Father, thank you that we have your word. Help us to be shaped by it and recognize that your word was given for our transformation. And while There are times when people bypass the content and information to make applications. It is also possible for us to come up short of the applications we ought to be making. So help us to think of these things in ways that would bring honor and glory to you and health to our congregation. so that the head of the church, Christ, is pleased. We ask it in his name. Amen.