Sermon for Sunday April 13th, 2008
BE CAREFUL THEN, WHAT
YOU SAY by Bruce Ball
Matthew 12:36-12:37
America has evolved into something that does not reflect its beginnings. In the
beginning, our nation honored respect; today we don’t. In the beginning, our
nation helped those who helped themselves. Today, we give handouts to those who
refuse to help themselves. In the beginning, we worshiped God. Today, we worship
our own desires.
Christianity has also evolved from its beginning. In the beginning, Jesus was
the center of our worship. Today, we cannot wait to kick Him out of our nation.
In the beginning, we were hungry for the word of God. Today, we want to hear
that which will make us comfortable with ourselves.
That is called cheap grace, and that cheap grace is killing us spiritually. It
is the desire to be comfortable that inhibits our hearing the Holy Spirit
convict us of our sins in this day and age. Cheap grace is stealing us away from
God.
It is cheap grace that tells us it is okay to be rude and disrespectful to our
fellow man. After all, if we want to be comfortable in who we are and what we
are doing, we have every right to be angry with those who don’t want us to do
that. They disturb our comfort, and that takes our focus off us and puts it
elsewhere. And then we get angry.
Now, the Bible does not say to never get angry. What it does say is found in –
PSALM 4:4
‘In your anger, do not sin.’
Jesus gave us a command to love one another, even our enemies. If you love
somebody, you will not use your words to hurt them or to destroy them, will you?
If you love somebody, you will be willing to cut them more slack than you cut
someone you do not care about.
When we use harsh words either towards someone else, or in talking about them to
other people, we are sinning in our anger. God says, “DON’T DO THAT!”
And it is for that reason; we need to be very careful what we say.
· We need to watch our thoughts because they become our words.
· We need to watch our words because they become our actions.
· We need to watch our actions because they become our habits.
· We need to watch our habits because they become our character.
· And we need to watch our character because it will become our eternity.
There is a verse that says it plainly. It is where Jesus is talking to those who
do not believe, and He says in -
LUKE 6:45
‘The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the
evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of
the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.’
We think of ourselves as being good people, don’t we? But we must realize that
our nature is inherently evil and wicked. It is only by the grace of God, and
the covering of Jesus Christ that we are seen as good through the eyes of God.
Yet, too many of us continue to harbor ill thoughts in our hearts.
Jesus is reminding us that our speech and actions will reveal what is in our
hearts. And whether our thoughts that are in our hearts are good or bad, they
roll off our tongues with ease. Do you remember what your mom used to tell you?
“If you can’t say something nice about someone ……” Your mother had some Godly
advice.
So, if our thoughts are on ourselves, they cannot be concerned with anything
else but our own personal comfort. And that causes us to sin because it keeps us
from focusing on other people. And we cannot love others if we don’t care enough
about them to focus on their needs and desires, too.
So, if our sinful nature demands that we focus on ourselves at the expense of
others, what can we do about it? Paul summed it up perfectly when he said in –
PHILIPPIANS 4:8 [NIV]
"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is
excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."
Have you ever heard the expression; ‘We are what we think?’ Or, what might be a
better description of today’s society would be; ‘Garbage in – garbage out.’
What is in our hearts will always find a way to come out of our mouths.
There are two verses in the book of MATTHEW that should scare every human alive!
Those two verses tell us what we can expect, considering the way in which we
have talked to others during our lives. These two verses are the base of our
sermon today. Please turn with me to -
MATTHEW 12:36-37
‘But I tell you that men will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for
every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted,
and by your words you will be condemned.’
In 1995, the oldest bank in England announced it was seeking bankruptcy. It lost
nearly one billion dollars in a stock gamble. At the time it went under, it held
over $100 million in assets for Queen Elizabeth.
It seems the 28-year old chief trader at their Singapore office started betting
some very big money on Japan’s stock market. He made a lot of money for the
company, but then an earthquake hit Japan the stock market took a nose dive,
causing him to lose almost everything.
Thinking it was a temporary loss, the trader doubled up on his gambling, hoping
to make even more money when the market rebounded. Instead of the bank cutting
its losses, it just kept pouring money into the Singapore exchange and their
employee would just use it to bet more on the market. They sent nearly $900
million dollars to this man, and he ended up losing it all.
How could one young employee in Singapore lose nearly a billion dollars and ruin
the oldest and most influential bank in England? It all boiled down to a lack of
supervision. A lack of accountability. Against his company’s own instructions,
nobody gave this man any supervision. He was the only one who handled money and
he kept his own books. That mixture is like a schoolboy getting to grade all of
his own tests.
Accountability protects us from ourselves. And today, I want to talk about
accountability. Specifically, accountability for Christians.
1. WE ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO OUR GOD
A school was having a problem with one of its students. Seem there was a
ten-year-old boy would interrupt his teachers, fight with classmates, and just
create all kinds of havoc in general. They would try to discipline him, but it
would never do any good. Finally, they referred him to a psychiatrist to see
what type of problem he had. It was not long before they found out.
Everyone had reacted to this boy by disciplining him and getting mad at him, but
nobody, including the parents ever spelled out the limits or guidelines he was
supposed to be meet. They had never taught the boy where the line between
acceptable and unacceptable was drawn. Yet they held him to the standards as if
they had.
The psychiatrist took the time to teach the boy where the lines were drawn, and
how to act reasonable. He taught the boy that reasonable actions reap rewards
and unreasonable actions suffer punishment. Once the boy understood, he behaved
like any other normal child. For the first time in his young life, he began to
have and to enjoy relationships with other children and to know what it felt
like to be smiled at by adults rather than yelled at by them.
The psychiatrist relayed this information to the school and told them that the
an individual’s greatest need is to realize they are personally accountable for
what they do.
The report I read did not specify this, but I think we all know the psychiatrist
must have gotten his information from the Bible, don’t we? Why? Because that
sounds exactly like the limits and accountability factors that God has placed
upon the lives of Christians. We obey Him; we get rewarded with His mighty
blessings. We disobey Him and we get punished.
Many people ignore God, apparently thinking either He doesn’t exist, or He has
no power. They are sadly mistaken. We will be held accountable to God for He is
the judge and He is all-powerful.
ROMANS 14:11 informs us,
‘It is written: “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “every knee will bow
before me; every tongue will confess to God.”
As we go through our daily lives, we can sometimes pull one over on those around
us. We know they cannot be everywhere, so we can do and say some things and get
away with it, right? Wrong! Our God sees every thing we do, even before we do
it; He knows every thought we have, before we have it; and our God hears every
word we speak before we speak it. God knows everything about us, and to just
think; we will be held to His accountability, not anyone else’s.
Yes, we might be able to pull the wool over the eyes of our loved ones, but we
shall never be able to keep anything from God.
PSALM 139:7-10 reads,
‘Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence? If I go
up to the Heavens, You are there; if I make my beds in the depth, You are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even
there Your hand will guide me – Your right hand will hold me fast.’
And in addition to being fully accountable to God, we are …
2. WE ARE ACCOUNTABLE TO EACH OTHER
Some denominations accept some parts of the Bible while throwing the other parts
away. Some of the things that the Lord teaches makes us uncomfortable, so we
tend to ignore those parts. For instance, the notion that we are accountable to
another - - why, that is just too much for some people!
We might not like accountability in God’s kingdom or within the church, but we
are actually quite used to being accountable. When we were kids, we were held
accountable by our parents and by our teachers. If you have ever been in the
military, you really know what accountability is, don’t you? We are held
accountable on our jobs and in the different organizations we belong to. If you
are married, each of you are accountable to each other, and the list goes on and
on.
All that is okay with us. We are used to it. It is only in the areas of our
spiritual character and spiritual development do we always seem to fight being
accountable. We tend to think, “Why – it’s just not anybody else’s business,”
when in fact, it really is somebody else’s business.
The Bible teaches us that Christians are to be accountable to one another. Early
Christians in Africa had a very unique way of holding each other accountable for
their prayer life. Each Christian had a small little place all to their self
that was cut out of the tall grass on the African desert. They would go to their
spot to pray and meditate. The paths leading to these places had no grass
because of their daily traffic.
When those men of God noticed another man was not keeping up with his prayer
life, they would simply tell him, “Grass grows on your path, Brother.” And in so
doing, they would keep that brother accountable.
LUKE 17:3 says,
‘So watch yourselves. ‘If your brother sins, rebuke him; and if he repents,
forgive him.’
So, how does accountability work for people like us, within the church? Let’s
start with me. I am human, and as such, I am going to be making mistakes. And
since I cannot see myself as well as you can see me, I needed someone who could
be trustworthy enough to hold me accountable.
So I have asked the elders to hold me accountable for the things I might do or
say. That holds me accountable for you sakes, and it holds me accountable for
God’s sake.
As far as it pertains to you, get someone you really care about and ask them to
do the same thing for you. Tell them to let you know when they see you falter.
They will do it in love and it will help you more than you can imagine. And if
you see somebody else falter, with as much love in your hearts as you can have,
you need to tell them. Don’t tell them for any other purpose, however, than to
let them know how they can better themselves in God’s realm. We all need to be
held accountable, especially in God’s kingdom.
PROVERBS 9:8 tells us,
‘ … rebuke a wise man and he will love you.’
That should be very easy for all of us to do, right? After all, we are all wise
men here, aren’t we? And if somebody should come to you in love and mention
something that is meant to keep you focused, don’t take it offensively – hug
them and tell them you love them for doing so! That will take the pressure off
everyone and put the focus back in everyone.
Everyone needs an accountability partner, no matter who they are. And when
somebody confides something in you, be accountable to them in a Godly way. Do
not share that information with anyone else, or somebody might hold you
accountable!
3. YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR BEING TRUTHFUL
Do you know what an excuse is? It is a lie that we make up to keep from being
accountable for what really happened, or a story we make up to keep us from
doing what we do not want to do.
A man went to his neighbor and asked if he could borrow the lawn mower. The
neighbor said he couldn’t lend his mower out because all the flights out of the
airport had been canceled that day.
The first man asked what in the world that had to do with his borrowing the
lawnmower, and the neighbor said, “Nothing, but if I don’t want to let you
borrow it, one excuse is as good as another.”
The man was right. If we are going to tell a lie, or embellish a truth, just to
keep from doing something, isn’t one just as good as another?
We have all made excuses for something we did, or didn’t do – or didn’t want to
do. Some might be legitimate, but most are not. A teen-aged boy in Washington
D.C. was acquitted on the grounds of murder. The defense was that he was
“morally handicapped”. The judge said it wasn’t his fault, that he shot and
killed a fellow student because he didn’t have any morals. So, with that excuse,
they let the boy go.
Now, I will tell you something. My heart bleeds for that teenager, but not
enough to let him walk around free where he could do it again. Too many people
say their actions are nothing more than a by-product of their past. They say
they aren’t guilty of this or that because their mother made them eat spinach as
a kid, or some such nonsense. That is nothing more than excuses to keep from
being accountable for their actions.
Just as a teenager might try to write a note excusing him from class and signing
his parent’s name to it, we try to come up with excuses to justify our sinful
nature and to keep us from being accountable for what we do wrong.
If Jesus had never come into this world, we would have legitimate excuses for
being “morally handicapped” and for our sins. But that is not the case at all.
Jesus did come into the world, and when He came, He brought the truth of God
with Him. And with that truth of God, He brought a choice for each one of us.
And with that choice comes accountability. And with that accountability, Jesus
took away all the excuses.
In JOHN 15:22, He said,
‘If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now,
however, they have no excuse for their sin.’
Jesus is our only excuse for sin. He is the note that allows us to be absent
from sin, and as His disciples, we have been given something else: An
accountability factor. And we are supposed to use that accountability factor to
help other Christians stay accountable to the word of God.
Remember I said we all need an accountability partner? I will be yours. I want
you to come up and pray with me. You don’t have to tell me what you did that has
caused you burden because God already knows. It’s between you and Him, not you
and me. But as your partner, I will go with you to the Throne of forgiveness and
intercede for you. I will go as your partner before God Almighty and stand with
you. I will pray that whatever is on your heart will be released, and again –
you don’t have to confess anything to me but that you are a sinner. I am not
able to cleanse your heart, but our wonderful Jesus can.
As we go into invitation, won’t you trust me enough to just come up here and
pray with me? As Christians, we need to help each other rid ourselves of guilt
and burdens, and this is the perfect way to do it – helping each other be more
accountable to living a more Godly and happier life.
As we stand to sing, step out into the aisle and come to me.