Cpr For A Healthy Walk Part 18 Series

“CPR for a Healthy Walk “Request and Respond to Accountability”

Review

I. Cleave to Christ and continually cultivate a dynamic relationship with Him.

A. Surrender to Christ

B. Present our members to His service

C. Renew our mind

D. Draw near to God

E. Walk in the Spirit daily

II. Pursue, develop and maintain meaningful community within the body of Christ.

A. Fervently pray for one another

B. Preserve the unity of the body

C. Continually build up the body in love

D. Gently restore the fallen

E. Readily Bear one another’s burdens

III. Resist the world the flesh and the devil

A. Renew and purify Your heart

B. Renounce the flesh

C. Refuse conformity with and love for the world

D. Resist the Devil

E. Request and Respond to accountability

These 15 practices are not necessarily chronological.

A better approach to them would be to view them as simultaneous or continuous life-style practices.

These three main areas are intricately interwoven all through Scripture and interdependent.

Nearly all the principles of Scripture may be organized under these three categories.

Today I want to finish exploring the biblical instructions regarding accountability, the last of our fifteen practices.

Resisting evil is not a Lone Ranger activity any more than the other practices.

God designed us to live CPR in the context of meaningful community.

We have already examined the Scriptures which instruct us to relate to each other through the love of Christ and our need for each other.

A healthy relationship with others is essential if we are to effectively resist evil.

We have seen the practice of confessing to one another when struggling.

Calling for the elders.

We have seen the importance of praying for one another in the context of spiritual warfare.

Besides purifying our heart, renouncing conformity with the world, denying the flesh, resisting the devil, there is one more essential element in the area of resisting evil; accountability.

To many, spiritual and personal “accountability” is a foreign concept at least in practice.

We endure and even invite accountability in most other spheres of life.

Occupational accountability -- boss, supervisor

Educational accountability -- teachers and tests

Social accountability--government, police

Accountability in these areas is not only tolerated but expected.

Why not in the Spiritual realm?

Accountability is not just some modern concept.

It is thoroughly Biblical.

I. Why Is Accountability Necessary?

I observe at least four reasons.

A. God designed us for dependence

God designed us to need each other.

The need for others only increased after the fall.

By the sheer number of one another passages, contained in the New Testament it is clear that we cannot properly grow without input and encouragement from others.

God has even gifted individuals to teach and a exhort and prophesy to keep us on track.

He gives gifted individuals to the church in order they not be tossed back and forth by every false teaching that comes along.

If we didn’t need these things, why are they in Scripture?

B. Natural tendency toward self-deception

But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. Heb 3:13

God established the practice of accountability and encouragement because we have a natural tendency to drift.

There is a way that seems right to a man (to desensitized senses) but whose end is destruction.

Every man did that which was right in "his own eyes."

We need the input of others who are tuned in to God's unchangeable truth to help us see and keep us on the right path.

C. Conduct Checked is Conduct Corrected and Continued

D. The Second Law of Spiritual Dynamics

II. What is accountability?

The Biblical instruction regarding accountability unfortunately seldom resembles the contemporary practice of accountability,

It is not the role of a policeman in the life of another.

Our perception of a policeman is often negative

How does it feel when a policeman pulls up behind you?

Unfortunately we feel like his only role is to look for what we are doing wrong.

Wouldn’t it be great to be pulled over and praised for safe driving?

Not to discount the role of policeman but societies perception of a policeman is generally negative until you need one for protection.

Biblical accountability should feel more like our perception of a fireman.

The fireman warns of danger and instructs regarding the proper handling of dangerous materials and the principles of keeping away from harmful things.

A fireman often risks his own life and health to rescue those suffering from the consequences of violating those principles.

The fireman doesn’t just shout instructions from the sidelines.

He faces personal danger in order to get close to the one actually in danger.

sometimes the danger stems from violating rules of safety.