Family Traits Week 3 • Accountability

Show Notes

Sunday, August 30th • Beau Bradberry

"Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another." — Ephesians 4:25

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Host

Beau Bradberry

Senior Pastor

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Well, good morning.

Glad that you guys are here with us here in person and joining us online.

If you've got your Bibles, go ahead and open them up to Acts chapter 2.

Now, we've been looking at Acts 2 and Acts 4 the last couple weeks.

We're just going to look at Acts 2 this morning and a couple of other passages in Scripture.

What we are looking at, what this series is about, is understanding these family traits

that we have.

And what our video pointed to for our kids this morning, but the truth that we're seeing

in Scripture is as we look at Acts chapter 2, there's this thing that begins to happen.

The telling of the Messiah, of the upcoming Messiah that we see in the Old Testament, to the fulfillment

of Scripture where Jesus comes at the New Testament.

He has died on a cross.

He resurrected.

He walks around and continues to interact with his followers.

And before he ascends to heaven, he lets them know that the Holy Spirit is going to come.

And then he ascends.

And what we see in Acts chapter 2 is the formation of the church.

And we see this miraculous work that happens where Jesus and the story of the gospel had been regulated to this area of the Middle East that we see throughout the book of Acts that the gospel begins to spread in a way that the gospel has not spread since.

And we see different tribes and tongues and nations come to faith in Jesus Christ.

And so what we're doing is we're looking at that and saying, okay, I know this was 2,000 years ago, but this family of God is still this family of God.

And so what are those traits in the family?

What are those traits that we see from the formation of the church in the book of Acts that should still ring true in the church today?

And what is remarkable when we think about going and being a part of the body of Christ and other parts of the world is that we can go into other churches and other cultures and other contexts with other languages,

and we can still see the embodiment of the traits of the family of God lived out, regardless of culture, regardless of language.

And we see how God works and God moves.

And so what we've been doing is we've been looking at this and drawing from this and saying, okay, God, is this what we've embodied?

Is this what we've embraced?

And you and I, we have to walk this road kind of twofold, right?

As the body of Christ together of Willow Ridge Church at the local level, have we embraced this?

But then also at an individual level, like it's not just about us, it's about the parts of the body as well.

And so we're working through and pushing through with that.

So in week one, we looked at the truth of God's word and begin to understand and talk about that the Bible is not only the foundation,

but the means and the guidelines and the changing power by which we live our life.

And so we talked about that the Bible is true, that every single word, every single promise,

that the Bible is historical and scientific and that everything in this word is true.

But not only is it true, it's different than like a history book.

It's authoritative, which means this, that what it sets for me in my life,

whether I like it or not, does not mean that it is not authoritative.

And so I'm supposed to live out through the power of the Holy Spirit in me,

the truth of God's word, to be obedient to what God calls me to,

for one very important reason that is different than any other literature that's ever been written.

Because the Bible is inspired.

It's God's word.

It's not a group of people coming together and figuring out what's the right to put this together,

but it is God through the power of God speaking to people that then record God's word so that we may have it.

The wonderful truth of God's word.

Then we also talked last week about missions and tried to understand both the spiritual aspect of what God does in missions

and the obedience that God is calling you and I to.

And we walked out of here in agreeance that we all are missionaries.

Whether that means you go to another country or go across the street or maybe even for some of you across the hall at your home.

That you begin to view your homes, your neighborhoods, the places you work, the places you go,

as the mission field which God has ordained for you to be in.

And so we have to be missionally minded.

And we defined missions last week.

We said the missions is the work of God.

It is spiritual work done by the people of God so that those who do not know God may come to know him.

The important aspects of what's there.

Missions is the work of God.

It's what God is doing as he is calling men and women back to himself.

It's the work of God.

But it's done by us.

God sends us on to the mission field with a very important reason that makes the church of Christ different than every other organization.

That we have a specific goal in what we are there to do.

We're not just there to be kind and to do works.

We do all of those things.

But we do them with a purpose and a reason that those who do not know Jesus may come to know him.

It's why we do what we do.

And this morning what I want us to look at in Acts 2 and begin to look at in Scripture of a trait that we see developed in the family of God is authentic accountability.

So let's start reading Acts 2 starting in verse 42.

Scripture says,

And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship and to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

In awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

In all who believed were together and had all things in common.

And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need.

And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts.

Praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Well, we're going to draw from this passage of Scripture and looking at Scripture as a whole, this concept of authentic accountability.

But as we do that, here's something that we're going to look at today, but also over the next couple of weeks together.

It's this concept of unity that we see in the early church.

Now, as you read through, if you were looking at the screen, there were some words that were underlined.

If you were just reading your Bible, I hope you noticed these as we went through.

But I raise the question to you today.

In the working toward the unity of the mission of God, there's a very distinct thing that we must draw out from the early church.

And it is the concept of they or some.

That very early on, when we read through Scripture, what we see is an entirety of the movement of God's people.

Now, trust me, they mess up stuff.

We're going to see some things within the church that people get wrong and they work toward to correct.

But when God in His sovereignty spoke the Word and had it recorded, what we begin to see is not aspects of the body, but the wholeness of the body.

It was the they, not the some.

It says they were devoted to the apostles' teaching.

They were selling their possessions.

They attended the temple.

They opened their homes.

They fellowshiped.

The depth of unity that we see in the church.

And I think it's the battle as you and I face as we come together as a unique body,

just like every other local body that gathers together.

But there's this understanding that if we're going to press forward into what God has us to do,

that it is the accepting of all of us.

That it's the they.

That it's not the some, that they take care of those things, that they do these things,

but it's the we.

It's the unity within the body.

And so over the next several weeks, as we press forward into this concept, into this notion of Scripture,

we begin to challenge ourselves with this.

Are we fully embracing this?

Or is it the expectation of some?

And so we want to begin this by talking about accountability.

So as we've been doing, I want to define accountability for us.

And it is this.

Investing in my sanctification and others' sanctification through authentic relationships.

All right?

So we're going to define these relationships here in just a second.

But that accountability is the willingness on you and I to invest in our sanctification together.

That we are battling sin, not as individuals, but we are battling individual sin with each other.

This past week at our staff meeting, I was talking to our staff about accountability.

And I said, hey guys, help me understand, because I know that I have struggles with accountability.

Let me start off.

Let me be vulnerable and accountable to you guys.

I struggle with it.

And so we had about a 30-minute discussion in the room about the struggles that we face.

And there was kind of two aspects that kind of came up of why we as a staff and others around us, right,

why we battle and why we struggle sometimes with accountability.

One of the struggles that I think is common amongst people is this, that we want to stay on the surface, right?

In order to truly be accountable, I can't go into surface-level relationships, right?

The second thing that we notice that we struggle with accountability is this, there's no follow-up.

That when God does work in my heart and I do begin to share and I let you in on this aspect of my life,

or you let me in on this aspect of your life, then what do we do with it, right?

Hey, pray for me.

I'm struggling with this.

Hey, could you help me?

Because this is the battle that I'm facing.

And we kind of give that courteous, all right, but knowing that we're never going to really dive into it.

But if we're going to go through the process of sanctification, becoming more and more like Christ,

through the power of the Holy Spirit, but also in the accountability with each other, we have to press into that.

So I want us to look at this morning, what is biblical accountability?

And the first is this, accountability involves others, right?

That's a no-brainer.

But let's really begin to understand what that means.

The greatest gift outside of your relationship with Christ,

the greatest gift other than the Holy Spirit that God has given us as the church,

is each other, is each other.

God gave us to each other so that we can go through this together,

that we do not have to face this alone.

Paul writes in Galatians 6-2, he said,

bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ.

Four times in Galatians, Paul uses this word, bear.

And when he's talking about bearing with someone,

I think oftentimes when we use that phrase, what we really mean is tolerate, right?

I got to bear with somebody at work who gets on my nerves, but I got to work with them anyways, right?

What we mean is tolerate.

That's not this word.

That's not what Paul's saying.

What Paul means is that when we bear with one another,

it means that we share with the burden.

The battles and the sins and the struggles that you and I face on a day-to-day basis,

we were never intended to face them on our own.

And in fact, we're incapable.

We're incapable of facing them alone.

We're incapable of seeing victory as we press through this by ourself.

We need each other.

It's a burden that we can't carry by ourselves.

A few years ago, we were at our old house and there was this slope on the driveway.

And I had to move something out of the house.

It was a piece of furniture.

And so I'd gotten the piece of furniture.

Someone had helped me get it out into the driveway.

And I thought, well, this will be easy to kind of get up into the back of my truck by myself.

And so they had left and sat out there.

And it was now my turn to get this by myself.

And as I got the first part of it up into the truck, it was a piece of furniture that was heavy,

but I didn't realize how awkward it would be to do this by myself.

And so I reached down and I grabbed one side and I grabbed the other side.

And if you've ever been in this predicament before, you realize like right now, I'm too

much into this, right, to give up, but I can't go any farther, right?

And so you're just kind of stuck.

And so it's like, all right, as hard as I can, I'm going to try to get some leverage and

press the rest of this up so that I can get it in the back of my truck.

And right as I go to strain, to get what I need, my son, who's about in third grade at

the time, he comes walking up and kind of gets on one side, like, we got this, right?

Like, we got this.

He's nodding his head right now, right?

And so on three, we pressed up and we pushed it into the back and it was there.

And that's what this looks like.

We need each other.

I don't know how much that piece of furniture weighed.

I don't know what I could have done by myself.

I don't know pound for pound what Grayson brought to the table.

But what I know is this, as much as I'm stronger than him, as much as I was more capable than

him, it took him coming alongside of me in order to overcome the situation in which I was, in

which I found myself.

And that applies so much to our spiritual life.

When it comes to defeating sin, getting close on your own isn't enough when others can come

alongside us as we battle toward the finish line.

But accountability has to involve others.

Next thing we begin to understand about accountability is that accountability requires mutual vulnerability.

If we're going to bring others into our walk, if we're going to bring others into the battles

that we face so that we can bear one another's burdens together, it has to require not just that

you're vulnerable, not just that I'm vulnerable, but that we are vulnerable with each other.

James 5 16 says,

Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.

The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.

When we talk about confession in Scripture, here's what confession's not.

Confession is not sitting down with someone else and you confessing all that you've done

and they sit there on the other side and nodding their head as you open up yourself for the battles

that you've gone through.

But it's very clear in Scripture, confess your sins to one another.

It goes back to God intended this, that you and I, we need each other.

Confess, not to you.

Confess, not to me, but you and I are called to confess to each other.

We've got to be vulnerable.

You know, the depth of a relationship.

People have been talking to me a lot lately.

It's like I feel like I hear this quite often.

I just want to go deeper.

I want to go deeper in my walk with the Lord.

I want to go deeper into Bible study.

I want to go deeper into my prayer life.

Well, I've been really thinking about that a lot lately.

And here's what I begin to believe is the steps that we can take when our desire of our heart is to go deeper.

Deeper is not an intellectual discussion of Scripture.

Deeper is the willingness on the part of the believer to be vulnerable in their own life and to allow others to go vulnerable in their life so that we can work together in order to see God glorified.

That's what it means to go deeper.

And God's Word is very clear when this begins to happen.

When you confess to me and I confess to you and we pray for each other, what do we find?

Healing.

Healing.

And why does that bring healing?

Because in the secrets of sin is where shame and guilt grows.

And it is not until you and I are willing to be vulnerable with one another, to confess what we've done to one another, that in that what we begin to find is healing.

Why?

Because the secrets are out of the dark and Satan can't hold them over our heads anymore.

And in that we find healing.

Also within accountability, we begin to understand that accountability accepts conflict.

Now, a little quick poll for everybody who's here today.

I'm going to ask you to be vulnerable with me, all right?

All right.

I'm a people pleaser.

All right.

I'm going to confess that.

How many of you in here would define yourself as a people pleaser?

Right?

All right.

We've got some hands raised.

Appreciate that.

Appreciate it.

Thank you.

All right.

This one's going to be hard for us, all right?

Some of you, you don't mind conflict, and even like right now, just talking about it, it's making my stomach hurt, okay?

But if accountability is going to be more than confession, there must be confrontation when sin happens.

If accountability is going to be more than, hey, here's what I've done, here's what I'm struggling with, if we're going to follow back up with that and press into that relationship,

then we have to understand that confrontation and conflict can come from this.

Proverbs 27, 17, as iron sharpens iron, one man sharpens another.

So let's talk about this.

How does iron sharpen iron?

If you take two pieces of iron and you hold them in your hands and you keep them away from each other, they're never going to get sharp.

If you take two pieces of iron and you set them down on the table and you put them side by side so that they're touching and you walk away from it, they're never going to get sharp.

If you take iron, two pieces, and you put one on top of the other and you very lightly begin to move them, they'll never get sharpened.

Iron only sharpens iron when there is not only just friction but violent contact.

That we are willing to dive into the depth of our relationship with each other, that we are okay with conflict because we're using conflict for the glory of God.

We're using conflict to make each other better for the glory of God.

Now, this type of conflict can be sinful.

If we do it out of a heart that is belittling or judgmental, this type of conflict is sinful when it's not mutual.

But conflict for sanctification purposes is necessary and is godly when it's done by the people of God in order to set people free from the sins that they face and to see God glorified.

We see that accountability is based in scripture.

Accountability is based in scripture.

We must approach each other in being accountable, not based in our opinion or our perspective, but in the truth of God's word.

Very, very important.

You and I, we have different experiences.

You and I, we have different perspectives.

And when I come to you or you come to me through the context of our opinion and our perspective, things can be skewed.

Things can be off.

Things can be seen in a very narrow format.

But when we come together by the premise and the understanding of God's word, of scripture, that's what we can base accountability off of.

2 Timothy 3 says this, all scripture, all scripture is breathed out by God.

Part of what we talked about, about God's word being inspired.

And here's what believers can use it for.

And it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

That what you and I can do within the context of our relationships with each other is that we can take God's word.

It can be the foundation, the means by which we live our life.

And then we can apply it in our relationship in this way that we can teach it to each other.

That you and I, that we are charged, we are responsible to teach it to each other.

So that we understand where sin comes.

We come at the baseline of understanding, of saying this is what God's word says.

This is what God's word means.

But then it also calls us to bring reproof.

All right?

And here's what reproof is.

It is bringing conviction.

It's having the conversation.

It's pointing out the error that's there.

So that it can move from that to the status of correction.

So you're like, Beau, is reproof and correction the same thing?

No.

Reproof is bringing conviction.

Correction is bringing to right standing.

All right?

Very important.

So often you and I want to bring the argument of what each other have done wrong without working through the process of how do we restore one another.

And that's what God's word does.

God's word always restores God's people.

And so when you and I, we come together in this, it's not just enough to point out where each other are wrong.

But it's the understanding of grace, repentance, and how we move forward.

So that Paul says that we are training in righteousness, that we are raising so that it doesn't happen again.

The training of what's there.

That we're willing to come alongside in investing.

So we say this is what this means.

We say this is how you've gotten off path.

We say this is how we're going to get on path with this and how we're going to train as we continue to move forward.

That's the hardest part with this.

It's the hardest part with accountability.

Because when I press into your life or you press into my life or we press into the lives of others,

what we're saying as we bear through this with each other is that I'm on the battle with you.

I'm training you.

I'm coming along.

You're not on this by yourself.

And lastly, we say, well, what's the purpose of this, Beau?

Why does accountability matter?

Because accountability strengthens the body.

Accountability strengthens the body.

Church, strength doesn't happen in comfort.

Strength is not built in relaxation, but it is built and it is found in the fight.

All right?

This past week I was on social media and an ad popped up on my Facebook page.

And it said, how to build your abs while sitting on the couch and watching TV.

It's like, yes, please, right?

So click on that and here's the deal.

Here's what I know.

There was a glimmer of hope that maybe someone had figured this thing out, right?

How can I do nothing and get stronger?

But it doesn't work.

I read the reviews of the product.

Everybody who had purchased it was like, this is terrible.

Don't waste your money on it.

Because they're selling something that's impossible.

That strength does not come.

Strength does not happen in comfort, but in the fight.

Ephesians 4.25.

Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor.

For we are members of one another.

Strength doesn't happen in the comfort.

It's easy to say, nope, I'm not engaging in that.

It's easy to say, nope, I'm not revealing that.

And that's where we think we're staying comfortable.

But the strength of the body doesn't happen in the comfort, but it happens in the fight.

And that you and I, what we see from Scripture, that we are members of one body.

And so it's our calling.

It's what God has set before us.

That when there's a part of the body that is weak, when there's a part of the body that's fallen apart,

we don't cut it off.

We don't remove it.

But what do we do?

We work together to fight, to build, to strengthen it.

So that for what?

So that the body can be complete.

So that the body can be whole.

So that the body can do what God's called it to do.

We can't show up week to week.

We can't show up at our small group.

We can't show up at our Bible study and sit down and just talk about a whole bunch of facts

if we're not willing to dive in, to go through the discomfort,

to hold each other accountable, and to be vulnerable

so that we may be equipped and prepared and ready for every work that God has for us.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you so much for this opportunity and for this time.

Lord, what you're asking from Scripture is it's so important for us to be able to understand

that we are called to grow in our relationship with God.

We are called to grow in our relationship with you

and to do so in a corporate relationship with each other.

That we're willing to be open about our struggles.

That we're willing to be open where sin still rings true.

Not as a manner or as a system of confession that once we say it, we're good,

but so that we can hold each other accountable.

That we can work through this together.

That as brothers and sisters of Christ,

we see the battle that's before us.

And we embrace it and we press through it.

So God, as we go from here,

as we dive into, in the next coming weeks,

our different Bible studies that we're going to have,

as we continue on in our CR step studies.

As we gather back together as small groups.

As we sit down at the table as husband and wife and family.

Lord, may we understand that we're in this battle,

but we're in it together.

Would we be willing to bear with one another?

Would we be willing to be vulnerable?

Would we be okay with conflict that's used for the glory of God?

Would we be okay with holding each other accountable for Scripture

and what you've called us to?

So that the body can be strong for the mission and the purpose of God.

Jesus, we love you.

We praise you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

In just a moment, we're going to stand and respond in worship.

We're going to make the choice to go from here.

And here's what I want to ask you.

Do you have somebody?

Do you have somebody?

Somebody that you can be open with?

That can be open with you?

That you can press in to relationships,

to share, to strengthen, to confront,

so that God will be glorified.

Would you stand as we worship Him?

Amen.

Amen.

Thanks again for listening to the Willow Ridge Church weekly podcast.

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