Accountability to each other

Transcript (Auto-generated)

Good morning church. So good to see you. Welcome if you're joining us online as well. Welcome if you're here in person. If it's your first morning here this morning, maybe you're visiting, maybe you're looking for a church, please come say hi to one of me or the team. We'd love to get to know you. Don't just run away, come come join us for a coffee afterwards. It would be wonderful to build that relationship, build that connection. I want to start this morning by asking a question that's often used to provoke Christian thought. The question is this. If you knew without shadow of a doubt, if you knew 100% this was going to happen, if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would change in your life? If we knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, let's say 1 p.m. Between now and 1 p.m. tomorrow, how would your life change? Would it change? If Jesus' return was imminent, what would that mean for you and how you live? This morning, if you got your bubbles there, I'll invite you to open up to James chapter 5. This is our final week in our series going through the letter of James, and I think it's helpful being the final week, week 5, that we'll begin with a little bit of a recap. Doug introduced in the first week of this series that as we journey through James, we'd be looking at it through a lens of biblical accountability. And when we talk about biblical accountability, there's three key aspects that we need to recognize. We need to understand as we move through this. Firstly, that there is a direct relationship with God. That means that for you and I, every individual person stands directly responsible before God. When Jesus comes again, each of us will have to give a full account of our lives. We're responsible to God. The second key aspect is that there are consequences for our choices. This is a part of biblical accountability. The decisions that you and I make in our lives have spiritual and practical ramifications. And the third key factor of this idea of biblical accountability is that it offers an opportunity for redemption. See, accountability isn't just about condemnation. It's not, tell me what's going wrong and let me condemn you. It's no. Let's confess this and give an opportunity for restoration, being made right with God, our Father, through the sacrifice of Jesus and the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And as we've developed this idea of biblical accountability, as we've worked our way through the letter of James, we've seen very truly unpacked that each and every one of us here have an accountability to God's Word. That is the Bible, Scripture. We're accountable to God's Word. We're accountable to active works. We can't just be, here is of the good news, here is of how we're created and meant to live. We actually have to do something about that. We have an accountability for our words, what we choose to say and choose not to say. That's important. Last week we looked at an accountability to transforming worship. And this morning as we look at James chapter five and the last part of James chapter four, we're going to see that you and I have an accountability to each other. And yet I wonder, if we knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would change in your life? Would there be a difference in priorities, in how we acted, in how we left this place and lived our lives for the next 24 hours? Would you join me as we pray? Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are God. We thank You that You've revealed yourself to us through Scripture. Lord, thank You that You give us direction and wisdom and guidance for how we are to live here on this side of eternity, here on this earth. Lord, I pray for each and every one of us. Lord, that You would soften our hearts. Lord, that by Your Holy Spirit You would speak to us and lead us in a response that will be worshiped to You. We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. If you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would be different? How would life change? Would it change? As we point to that question, I'm just going to throw out some hypotheticals. Let's see if they resonate. Because as I reflected, I suspect that myself and for many of us here, if very truly we knew that Jesus was coming back at one o'clock tomorrow, p.m., let's give us some time, then very truly there would be a renewed attention that we gave to our faith, that we gave to our relationship with Jesus. It would no longer be, okay, after church I'm going to this lunch and doing this and doing this. Jesus is coming. I need to make sure this is squared away. I need to make sure that this is done properly. But not only would there be a renewed attention, but I think there would be a sense of increased importance to make sure that our relationship with Jesus was solid. There'd be a fresh desire to confess our sins, to right any wrongs that we've committed to brothers and sisters in Christ. I suspect that there would be an increased burden to ensure that in the next 24 or so hours, we shared the good news of Jesus fervently, with our family, with our friends, with complete strangers, so that they too could make the decision to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, so they too could look with expectant hope rather than condemning fear when Jesus returned. I suspect that suddenly all the things in life that take up so much of our time, so much of our effort, so much of our headspace would suddenly fall to the wayside. They'd become unimportant hindrances. They wouldn't matter as much. They'd be distractions from Jesus and the work that he's called us to do. They'd be distractions from our relationship with him. They'd be distractions from encouraging one another in Christ and making sure we were ready for him to come back. They're just some of my thoughts, but if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, how would your life be different? Would it be different? I think often when we hear this question, we go, ah, that's right. I need to take this seriously. Jesus is coming back. That's a promise. Man, I should really renewed focus. I'm going to go out from this place. I'm going to do this really well. But sadly, I think it's a part of our human nature, a part of our sinfulness. We're quick to forget that very truly Jesus' promise is he will return and that until he does, we have work to do. If we hadn't pondered this question, I suspect, myself included, that many of us would probably spend more time tomorrow thinking, talking and working to ensure our own comforts, security, position and future on this earth. Then we would spend time thinking, talking and working to establish our hearts, to participate in the work that God's called us to do for an eternal future with him. It's easy to be distracted by the things in this world. There's pressures, there's pulls and pushes of life that drag us away from this reality that Jesus is coming back. And it's all too easy for our calendar to become busy, for our focus to shift and for us to start making sure that we're comfortable and settled and luxurious here on this earth, rather than working towards being a part of God's kingdom. If you've got your Bibles there, open up. We're going to read James 4 13 to 5, 6. Because there's a warning against this church. James 4 13 says, Come now. You who say today or tomorrow, we will go into such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit. Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin. Come now, you rich weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields which you kept back by fraud are crying out against you. And the cries of the harvesters have reached the years of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you. Now I need to be clear about this one because I don't want you to misinterpret it. James is not saying that we cannot have big plans for the future. He's also not saying that it's wrong or sinful to have wealth and riches. The Bible tells us that God will give to those who have. And so what is the warning if money and riches in and of themselves aren't bad and evil and sinful? If big plans for the future aren't in and of themselves bad and sinful, what is the warning here? I think regardless of our bank account, regardless of where we live, what's going on in life, this warning applies to each and every one of us. The warning is this. It says we cannot become so consumed in making future plans. We cannot become so focused on making future plans for our own benefit with selfish ambition and desire for our benefit that we then become unavailable, unattentive and inactive in the plans that God has for us here on this earth. The tension there is our plans cannot become more important than God's plans in our life. In the same way, we cannot become so consumed in gaining riches and wealth for our own luxury, for our own self-indulgent, for our own security that we then neglect to faithfully steward the good gifts that God has given to us, the wealth, the riches, the giftings, for his honor and his glory according to his leading and will. And that's the warning. And so I ask again, if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would change in your life? Would anything change? Church, we don't have to look far around us to see that the world is full of distractions. There's so many things through advertising, through needs of people, through whatever it may be. There's so many things in any given day that fight for our attention, fight for our time, fight for our focus. There's so many distractions that tempt us into pursuing our own selfish plans and desires. You deserve this, you need this, you need this job promotion, you want this bigger house, you need this security. Think of how much better life would be if you had this product, this thing, this stuff. There's so many distractions that draw us away from participating in the work that God has for us. Why would you go out and evangelize like God's told you when you can just stay here and be comfortable and do the things that you like doing? There's so many distractions and things. Why would you go and do that thing God's calling you to do? There's good things to do over here, but they're not what God called you to do. But they're still good. There's so many things that fight for our attention and make small the need to confess our sins. Oh, that's just the way that the world is now. You don't have to, it's a lie church. And there's so many things that make small the very big promise of Jesus that he will return. He's coming back and we have work to do before he does. James 5, 7 to 20 gives us an idea of what we're supposed to be doing in this space. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit from the earth, being patient about it until he receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Do not grumble against one another, brothers, so that you may not be judged. Behold, the judge is standing at the door as an example of suffering and patience. Brothers, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job. If you haven't read it, it's in the Bible. It's fantastic. And you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful. But above all, my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath, but let your yes be yes and your no be no, so that you may not fall under condemnation. Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 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. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain. And the earth bore its fruit. My brothers, if anyone among you wonders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. Jesus is coming back. He promises to return. James 5, 7 and 8. Let's read that again. Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it until it receives the early and late rains. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. I'm not a farmer. I kill most plants that I've ever touched. Zali has a great garden going. I try to keep a distance because I will probably kill it accidentally. And yet even I know that when the farmer plants the seed, it doesn't magically all of a sudden turn into the fruit. There's a process. There's time. And some of the things are outside of his control, like the rains. Farmers can't just be like, cool, let's go. We've got irrigation systems now, which make it a bit easier. But he can't just go, yep, rain now. There's things that are outside of his control. And yet all the time, whilst waiting, the farmer is actively at work to ensure that everything that is in his control to look after what is planted is done. You also be patient. Establish your hearts for the coming of the Lord is at hand. Church, we must actively wait. It's not just let's pull up a chair and see if Jesus comes back. We must actively wait in hopeful and patient expectation of this reality. And the thing about patience is it's often far easier to say it, go, yeah, that's a good idea. We'll do that than it is to actually live it out. But here's the good news of what we see in James, chapter five. You and I are not alone. We have an accountability to each other in this period of active, patient waiting. See, James tells us that we're accountable to one another as we wait. He highlights that we must actively point one another back to Christ's return. We must actively encourage each other on to strive forth to grow in our faith, waiting and knowing that the promise of Jesus is he's coming back. But the thing about accountability, we're going to unpack it in a moment. The thing about accountability is it requires us to be vulnerable. Don't know whether you heard it when I read it before. Confess your sins to one another. That takes vulnerability, church. But so too, we have to do this for others. And so we have to be trustworthy. We have to be of good character. Yes has to be, yes or no has to be, no. See, often when we talk about the topic of accountability, we like to go, oh, yeah, I'll keep others accountable. That's great. As long as it doesn't require me to share and be open with my feelings, I'll put up the wall. You tell me all your problems and I'll pray for you. We're all sinners. The Bible tells us that. And it's a two-way street. We have to be vulnerable as much as we are trustworthy and committed to walking alongside others. We mustn't grumble against one another. Rather, we should join the journey together. And so verse 12 of chapter five, above all my brothers, do not swear either by heaven or by earth or by any other oath. But that your yes be yes and your no be no so that you may not fall under condemnation. Church, if we're going to provide accountability for each other, then we have to be trustworthy in character. It shouldn't take a full contract and terms and conditions and sign three times here for me to live up to my word that if I say I'm going to pray for you, I'm going to pray for you. If I say that I'm going to journey with you through the ups and downs of life, I'm not just going to abandon you when the downs come. Our yes needs to be yes. Our no needs to be no. We need to be trustworthy as we're actively seeking God together, doing life together, pointing each other to Christ. See, we're accountable to actively seek God and to point one another as disciples of Jesus back to Christ coming because there's so many distractions. It's easy to forget. It's easy to get caught up here and lose focus. That Jesus is coming again. And so what does this look like practically? Verse 13, if anyone among you is, sorry, is anyone among you suffering? I'd ask for a show of hands, but I'm just going to safely assume that there's people in the congregation this morning who are suffering. Is there anyone among you suffering? Well, yeah. James doesn't say, well, lay your burdens on one another, wallow in pity, complain and just have conversations about how terrible and sinful the world is. He says, let him pray. And so very truly, there's been times when I'm suffering and I just want to have a pity party. It's just like, OK, who's got near? Let's just talk about how trash this situation is. And I'm so thankful that in times like that, I've had brothers and sisters in Christ go, hey, Dylan, you're telling me how sucky life is at the moment. You're telling me all this stuff that's going on. But have you prayed about that? Have you actually given this grievance to God? Or are you just happy complaining? I needed that accountability. We all need that accountability. Is someone among you suffering? Yes. Let him pray. Don't just rebuke him and say, hey, you need to pray. Get alongside him and go, yeah, this is a sucky situation. This is trash. We live in a sinful, fallen world. But hey, let's give this to God, who's defeated sin, who promises that Jesus is coming again to make all things right. Let's give this to God together. Let's carry this burden before the cross. Is anyone cheerful? I hope so. Is anyone cheerful? Doesn't say wonderful. Go out, congratulate yourself and others. Just go live your best life while things are good because you've done well. Says, is anyone cheerful? Let him praise. So often when the good things happen in life, we can be like, man, I am so good. Did you see what I just did? I smashed that. I'm kicking goals. And once again, the loving accountability of brothers and sisters in Christ is so important. It's humbling when they come up alongside you and go, yeah, this is really good. But hey, Dylan, you didn't do that all by yourself, did you? That was God's strength. That was God at work. Maybe we should praise him for allowing us to partner in what he's done here. And all of a sudden, the focus shifts from, hear me now, comfortability to Jesus is coming again. We have work to do. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of the faith will save him. The Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. Each and every one of us, the Bible tells us we're sick. Each and every one of us, we're sinful. Even if we've accepted Jesus Christ, this side of eternity, we're fully righteous, fully saved, fully redeemed, and yet fully sinful too. We still struggle with it. Jesus is coming again. There will be a time when we are made completely perfect, completely whole. Sin will be dealt with once and for all. That struggle will be done. And yet this side of eternity, we're accountable to one another. We're called not only to journey through life together, but to confess when we mess up, confess when we rebel against God. To seek forgiveness from the ones that we've wronged. To seek forgiveness from God, our Father. And so church, very truly each and every one of us, if you're a Christian here this morning, we need fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, who we give the permission, who we give the authority to speak into our lives to keep us accountable, who we can very truly be vulnerable with. By the same token, we need to be trustworthy and loving to get alongside those around us. Do life with them, very truly walk each step with them. And support them, give accountability to them. We need those in our lives who we can share the temptation trials with, the sin struggles with. We need those in our lives who will lovingly rebuke us when we get caught up in the worldly distractions. And when we lose focus on our primary mission, this side of eternity, which is to establish our hearts in patient expectation of Christ's return and to share the good news of Jesus with those who haven't heard it. And so how do we do this? Where does this happen? I want to encourage you, if you're here this morning, if you're here at church, this is a fantastic place to start. As we gather together as brothers and sisters, we're prompted to sing praise to God. Depending on whether our week's been good or bad, we all gather together, we sing praise to God because he is worthy. We unpack scripture together, we pray for one another, we spend time in fellowship with one another. But it can also be difficult on a Sunday to go that little bit deeper, there's lots that goes on. And so I want to encourage you, in term three, we've got our integrated study. And in the integrated study, it's all setting the foundation for Edmund Chan coming. He's going to be preaching through sessions on whole life discipleship. And so in preparation, our integrated study is going to be a case study of discipleship. In other words, we're going to be looking at the twelve disciples, their relations, their interactions with Jesus, and unpacking what that means for us here today. How is it that we as disciples of Jesus are supposed to live this side of eternity? And it's a great opportunity in term three. If you're not involved in a discipleship group, can I encourage you to get involved? Very simply, it's a group of eight to ten other Christians in the church who will commit to journeying through life with you. The ups and downs, the goods and bad, week after week, you'll meet together. You'll update each other on how the week's going. You'll pray together, you'll spend time in the Word together. You'll unpack it, you'll build those relationships, those trustworthy relationships, to ensure that you're able to be vulnerable, to ensure that you're actually able, where appropriate, to confess your sins. And to seek God together, to point one another to the reality that amidst the distractions of this world, Jesus is coming again. Beyond that, one-on-one mentoring. Find someone a little bit further along in the faith than you are, or a lot further along. Learn from their lessons. Ask them to pray for you, to walk alongside you, to help you in your journey. So it begs the question, if we're accountable to each other, to spur one another on in faith, to remind each other that Jesus is coming again. The stuff, the things, the distractions in this world are purely that distractions. Then who do you have in your life right now that you can genuinely be vulnerable with? That you can go to and say, man, I'm struggling with this temptation. I'm struggling with this or that. I need you to pray with me. I need you to check in with me. I need you just to help me through this time. I need you to point me back to Jesus when the world looks all too appealing. Who do you have in your life right now that you could have those conversations with? It's possible that Jesus could come back at 1 p.m. tomorrow. It's also possible, probable, that that won't be the case. We don't know. But the promise of Jesus doesn't change. Jesus is coming again. And in the midst of all the distractions, that is our focus. He has given us work, a mission to do. Here, on this side of eternity. And He calls each of us to be accountable to one another. Brothers and sisters in Christ who journey alongside one another, who encourage each other in the faith, who point each other back to Jesus. And so if you knew that Jesus was coming back tomorrow, what would change? And what's stopping you right now from making those changes? Would you join me in prayer? Heavenly Father, we thank You that You are God. We thank You very truly. We thank You that You are God. We thank You very truly. That You are not only our Creator. Not only our sustainer, but our Savior as well. Lord, thank You that even while we were in rebellion against You, You loved us so much that You sent Your one and only Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the full price of our sin, to offer us salvation, should we choose to accept. Lord, thank You that You don't call us to do this discipleship journey, this Christian life here on earth alone. But Lord, You call us as brothers and sisters in Christ to join together to encourage one another, to spur one another on in faith and in the very true reality that Jesus is coming again. Lord, we pray that from this space You would lead us in guidance, help us to respond, let these words not fall on empty ears and hard hearts. Lord, by Your Holy Spirit, lead us in how we're to respond to You this morning. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.