I have to admit that I get a little nervous when I travel alone. It's not because I'm planning on doing something I shouldn't. It's because I know the historical evidence of pastors and missionaries and church leaders who travel alone. They're faced with spiritual attacks and temptation. So I'm far more comfortable when I'm traveling with my wife or one of our ministry leaders, a friend, someone that I know, because I know that there's a protection that comes with accountability and having someone with us. Billy Graham, as an example, one of the most respected evangelists of our time, shared this concern as well. He never traveled alone, nor with another woman apart from his wife. Some would criticize his practice, calling it old-fashioned or maybe even sexist. And yet, Billy Graham's legacy stands out, especially when compared to the many pastors, missionaries, and evangelists who fell.
Those who didn't place similar parameters into their practices and procedures in travel fell into temptation. Far too many of them committed moral failures, and it cost them their ministries and caused deep damage into their marriages and families. It's a sad tale. Or think about Pastor Rick Warren. After his Christian bestseller, The Purpose Driven Life, hit the world, he received all sorts of invitations to conferences. They traveled a lot. And he learned to take some deliberate steps to guard his integrity when he was traveling alone. When he couldn't bring his wife or a ministry partner, Warren had all the movie channels disconnected in his hotel room right upon check-in. Then he would place a framed picture of his family on the nightstand and immediately call his wife as soon as it was placed. These practices weren't just about avoiding temptation. Warren had set up accountability practices that reinforced his commitment to his ministry and his family. These weren't just random habits.
Both of these pastoral leaders understood that they weren't immune to temptation. In fact, because of their massive platforms, they knew they had larger spiritual targets on their backs. So they built security fences, fences of accountability around themselves because they knew what was at stake. Today, as part of our current series, The Battle, How to Master Temptation, we'll explore the importance of that thing, accountability. We'll unpack accountability partners, practices, and provisions that we need to protect ourselves and the ones we love.
Welcome to Mountain View Church. If you haven't done so already, please consider completing a Connect card either online at mountainview.church slash connect. You can text connect to the number on the screen. And if you're in-house, please complete a Connect card found under the seats in front of you and hand it into the welcome desk. If you have children, we offer an in-house or online program called Base Camp. Visit mountainview.church slash children or text children to the number on the screen. Lastly, if you're a teen or have teens, we'll be relaunching our youth program in September.
We have a dedicated group of volunteers, but we're looking for two ministry leaders to oversee and direct our junior youth, which is our middle school students, and our senior high, which is our high school students. So if you're interested, please drop us a DM or email me, jeremy at mountainview.church. Now let's jump back into today's content. We're going to start with our series intro and then scripture reading. Now I want you to remember this. Temptation is not a sin. You can be tempted, but that's not a sin. Satan does the tempting. God never tempts anybody. All of us are tempted. The Bible says that Jesus was tempted in every point. You say, do you think that Jesus was tempted along this line?
The Bible says he was tempted in every point, like as we are, yet without sin. He showed us how it's possible to resist these temptations. Now, when temptation comes, don't get discouraged and say, well, I've already failed. No, you haven't. The temptation itself is not the sin. The thing that is the sin is when you yield to the temptation. Hi, I'm Katarina, and I'm going to be reading from the book of Galatians, chapter 6. Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.
bear one another's burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ. Notice the components of the Apostle Paul's instruction of the Galatian church. He writes, if anyone is caught in sin, we should restore them in a spirit of gentleness. We should keep watch on ourselves lest we too be tempted and we should be bearing one another's burdens. These are core elements in the second strategy in the battle against temptation. The A in our master acrostic reminds us to account for your struggles with a mature believer. This means a mentor or an accountability partner. Last week, we learned from James, Jesus' younger brother, that each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then, desire, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.
Every single person is tempted. Every single person is lured in and enticed towards sin. Accountability is an excellent defense strategy in our battle to resist temptation. Accountability builds a strong wall of defense reinforced with honesty, vulnerability, and integrity. The strategy of accounting for our struggles has three key building blocks. Accountability partners, accountability practices, and accountability provisions. And we're going to go through those. Let's start by discussing partners or mentors.
In Ecclesiastes 4, we read, two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up. This passage emphasizes the strength and support that comes with partnership. It underscores the importance of having an accountability partner in your life. Based on this biblical principle, it's no coincidence that when we see Jesus sending out the disciples, he sent them out in pairs, two by two. In Mark 6, we read, and he called the 12 and began to send them out, two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits.
This practice continued through the Acts of the Apostles and became a crucial component to missionary journeys and church planting throughout the early church. Going one step further, biblical and historical evidence suggests that apostles traveled in kind of a mentorship apprentice pair. Paul paired with Barnabas, Timothy, Titus, and Silas at different times in his ministry. Peter partnered with Mark and Silas. Barnabas and John Mark.
or John with Polycarp and Ignatius. The two-by-two partnership initiated by Jesus became the norm for ministry travel. Unfortunately, this practice has diminished over the centuries. In our modern Western context, pastors, missionaries, and other ministry leaders, they faced moral failures while traveling. The decisions of solo travel have often been financially motivated, but there's been an ultimate cost in far too many situations.
It's important to note that accountability partners aren't just for traveling, by the way. They should be a way of life, in our life, through our life, a key part of it. In Proverbs 27, we read, iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. There's a pressure that's exerted when we're sharpening a tool. It's a process that requires work, and just as iron sharpens iron, accountability partners sharpen and strengthen one another. That extra effort that's placed...
It might be a hassle, but it's always worth it in the end. This can happen in gender-specific community groups, for example. These are men-only and women-only settings that provide a safe space for group members to share their struggles, receive encouragement, and hold each other accountable. Alternatively, it might be a brother or sister in Christ whom you specifically partner with as an accountability partner, meeting weekly or biweekly, perhaps like the apostles. It's a mentorship agreement when you're held accountable by a mature believer who you trust. As a caveat, evidence shows that the best accountability happens when men meet with men and women meet with women. Moreover, although you should be honest with your spouse as an accountability partner, it often results in resentment. So best to choose a trusted friend or mentor instead. But the obvious next question is, how do you hold someone accountable? The simple answer is to be honest with your partner.
But our sinful nature, let's face it, gets in the way. We are prone to sin. We're prone to high details. And to break through that possibility, here are three potential questions for you to ask your accountability partner and for them to ask you. Now, feel free to screenshot this next slide or drop me a message and I'll send you the information if you need it. All right, here's the questions. The first one is, how have you been faithful or unfaithful in your relationships, content consumption, substance abuse, and circumstances this week? Second question you might ask is, how have you been honest or dishonest in your relationships, conversations, and commitments this week?
A third question might be, how have you prioritized or neglected Jesus, your spouse, your children, or your local church this week? Again, feel free to screenshot these questions or drop me a message and I'll send them. And maybe you have other options out there. Send them. I love these ideas. Love the resources. Now, the benefit of these questions is they address a broad range of potential sinful, addictive, and destructive behaviors. They encourage partners to keep each other accountable for the most crucial aspects of the morality, relationships, spiritual well-being. It's kind of a full package. You want to hit everything and help them be honest. Find lies if they're there. It's accountability after all.
Now, let's move on to accountability practices, though. In 1 Thessalonians 5, the Apostle Paul advises the church to test everything. Hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil. This verse serves as a guiding principle for establishing strong accountability practices. It encourages us to test our actions and behaviors, to seek out what's beneficial, and to avoid what's destructive. Accountability practices are like security fences, like we've talked about before, and we build them around things that we care most about. For example, I care deeply about my marriage, and my ministry, and the people I meet with, their marriages, and the legacy that I'm leaving for my three sons. So these things push me to build these fences of accountability and practice these things. If you care about any of what I've just mentioned in your life, then these practices can help you protect them.
The first practice is to establish a routine of regular meetings and check-ins with that accountability partner or mentor. This becomes a way of life, a meeting or video call that becomes a solid appointment in your calendar. During high-stress times of life, the added practice of checking in more frequently with a quick call or maybe even a text message can help you manage your temptations better. Again, the practice is based on scheduling it into your calendar and setting up check-in reminders. It's got to be constant. Secondly, let's come back to that work trip or a solo trip for that matter. Do you have a plan for when temptation increases?
In our introduction, we touched on the high risk of temptation when we're traveling alone, especially for work. The combination of stress and anxiety and loneliness can be a significant contributor to poor decision-making, to giving in to temptation. So this all happens when we're alone. The best defense is to travel with a companion. Whenever possible, seek out the financial resources to travel with your spouse or coworker or friend. This practice, it'll reduce boredom and loneliness and isolation, which are all triggers for temptation. Secondary defense is related to your arrival. Like we heard with Rick Warren, be aware of the risks and implement a few check-in procedures.
Be like him. Request that all the movie channels are disconnected as soon as you check in the hotel. Reducing temptation to watch something inappropriate. You can place that family picture on the nightstand as a visual reminder of what you cherish, those relationships, and then immediately call your spouse, accountability partner, or a mentor. Be upfront about the situation that you're in and the potential risks, which will reinforce your commitment that, I want to be honest. I want to have integrity. Okay? Now, let's go a little bit deeper. When was the last time you confessed to someone? Confession was a core accountability practice in the early church, but it's been minimized as of late, lost in many modern church settings.
This shift has much to do with the evangelical pushback against the Catholic confession practice. And yet, evidence suggests that evangelicals may have swung too far in the opposite direction. As a result, confession has become a lost spiritual discipline in far too many churches. It doesn't have to be a pastor, a minister, or a priest. The better option is your accountability partner or mentor. They know you best and can see through any potential deflection or deception. As you begin to confess to them, they're the ones who have earned that trust to dig deeper and root out the bigger issues, maybe even potentially addictive sinful behaviors.
Perhaps it's time you reclaimed the power of confession as part of your spiritual growth. Remember that incorporating any of these practices in your life isn't just about avoiding temptation. They reinforce your commitment to who and what you love most. These are security fences surrounding what you cherish in your life, your family, community. All right, finally, our last moment is to talk about accountability provisions. These are tangible additions to life that can provide accountability. Remember that proverb, 2717, said, iron sharpens iron and one man sharpens another.
To reemphasize the metaphor, this verse is pointing us to the mutual sharpening and strengthening that comes from accountability. Sharpening requires pressure and movement. We can introduce certain provisions into our lives that will add pressure. It might even be a big hassle to implement. You might not like it, but the added pressure ultimately strengthens our defenses. The first provision is related to our home environments. In last week's message, we talked about cell phones in bedrooms late at night. They're a problem. It's one of the nouns that people, places, or things that drag us down. There's a highly addictive behavior that happens when cell phones go to bed with you.
Certain physical spaces can become a provision in that battle against temptation. As one, in your home, look at your kitchen. Place a charging station somewhere in your kitchen for all devices. It can be a huge accountability building block. Why? Because kitchens are the highest traffic area for your family members or roommates in your home. You know this. The practice of every member of the household placing their phones on that charger before they go to their bedroom can be a great accountability tool.
If a phone is missing in the morning, you know where it is. You know whose it is. And this is an entry point for an honest conversation. Ask them, how are you doing? Did you make any mistakes last night? Did you do, see, say something you regret? If a family member really pushes back against this environmental shift, there's going to be a deeper reason why. Ask them. Remember, like a drug addict defending and deflecting.
Late night cell phone addicts kind of do the same thing. It's a similar behavior. This is because the dopamine hits of the brain that they need to fall asleep have already been built in. They become essential for them. And they likely realize if they're honest, if they put that phone on the charging station, they have to enter into a digital detox time frame, which is going to be hard.
Now, let's come back to work life for a moment. The accountability provisions are available by simply adjusting your physical environment to reduce risks at work. For example, private meetings can be high risk moments for temptation. One temporary adjustment is to simply leave the door open. Or a permanent solution is to have glass windows or a window in the door cut out so that you have clear sight lines. Pastor Max Lucado, who just turned 70 years old and is the author of more than 40 Christian books, many of them bestsellers, he refused to have any closed door meetings with women.
The door always remained open or the meeting was taken to a public place. If privacy was required, his wife or another female staff member was invited into the process, into that meeting and discussion. Now, over the years, some women have felt that this was a sexist move and haven't liked his decision to do this. And yet, Lucado's had a 50-year ministry without a moral failure. So it provides some compelling evidence that this was an excellent accountability provision that he had placed as a security fence in his ministry. Here at Mountain View, we have a similar provision. For all our staff, you have to keep the door open when you're meeting with the opposite sex. And we have windows cut into all our doors with...
clear sight lines that anyone could walk up and see in. We also have a lot of regular meetings in coffee shops and restaurants, mainly because it's a public space. And if we're not talking about anything really private, it's just getting through the details of ministry. It could even be a great witness and great opportunity for people to see us and ask questions. So it's a good thing all around. Now, let's talk about digital accountability provision. Our family uses something called Covenant Eyes. It's a screen accountability software. We use it on all our devices. This software is designed to help you and those you love live free from unhealthy and destructive content, especially pornography.
The web address is covenanteyes.com if you're interested. Now, like everything else, there's a subscription cost, but it's worth the sacrifice. It's worth sacrificing one of your other streaming services to get this software. Covenant Eyes sends a weekly summary with screenshots and content reports to your designated accountability partners if you've viewed anything suspicious or explicit. I currently have Covenant Eyes on my phone, on my iPad, MacBook, and if I were to look at pornography at any time, a semi-blurred screenshot of that content would be sent to my wife, Nicole, to my mentor, and my accountability partner.
That has become a huge accountability provision in my life. I just don't want to. I don't want to be caught doing that. I don't want to do it. I know it's destructive. So even when I'm weak, I know the accountability is built in my devices. Also, let's face it, I'm raising three sons. Two of them are already teenagers. So we carry this protection in all our devices in our home.
These are just a handful of accountability building blocks, of course. There may be others. Please let me know if you have them. But I'm certain that the key is inviting that Proverbs 27 pressure into our lives, understanding that we're sharpening one another through the process. You have to place these difficult things into your life. You're kind of making it hard on purpose for a benefit. Now, as we move forward to our conclusion, let's center in on the relational component of accountability. Specifically, how do you get started? If you don't have a trusted friend or mentor to hold you accountable, how do you find someone?
How will you find someone who cares that deeply about accountability and spiritual growth? It might be hard. So a great starting point is to join or start a men's only or women's only community group. If you want to do that, please contact Pastor Aaron at aaron at mountainview.church if you're interested at all, and he will get you started. Now, these groups provide a safe, gender-specific environment where you can share your struggles, find encouragement, and build accountability relationships. Within that environment, a mutual support of spiritual growth has a higher potential of relationships growing into mutual accountability.
And there's a desire to support each other in those groups, especially when they're men only and women only. Now, next is a more direct approach, seeking out a follower of Jesus who has spiritual maturity. And you're going to do it. You're going to bite the bullet and ask them directly to be your accountability partner. Depending on their age, this may even transform into a mentorship relationship, which is amazing. But selection is crucial. It's a given that they should be of the same sex. It's just helpful for obvious reasons. They should be emotionally healthy and trustworthy as well. They should have a passion for Jesus and his gospel message. Now, I get it. That first conversation, it's going to be uncomfortable because they might be shocked that you asked or they might even decline the request. It's a possibility. But it's an important first step. And it might be a beneficial one by inviting someone into your life and opening yourself up to them.
in ways that you might not have done to anyone else. There's huge strength in that. It's a vulnerability, but it's strength. And in the end, I promise you that the defense of accountability and spiritual growth that will come out of that will be so worth it. Now, maybe you're thinking, this whole situation feels a little bit intrusive, Jeremy. If you're thinking that, if you feel that way, it's fitting. It's actually a very fitting response within our Western, very independent culture. But remember what we learned last week from Jesus, that although our spirit is willing, our flesh is weak. Everyone's flesh is weak.
Without an accountability partner, you are vulnerable to falling into the same patterns of sin and temptation as many before you, maybe even before this moment in your own life. But by having someone to walk with you and hold you accountable, you don't have to struggle alone. And you'll have someone to lift you up if and when you do fall. Giving an account for your struggles isn't only about protection. You're also paving the way for a deeper relationship with God and with others. You're leading a life of true transformation.
Let's come back one last time to that starting point of today's message, Paul's letter to the Galatian church. If anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. We're not called to walk this path of life alone. When we bear one another's burdens, we fulfill the law of Christ, which is rooted in love, restoration, and community. If you're struggling today,
know that this is not the end of your story. Bring your struggles to Jesus in confession and seek out a trusted brother or sister in Christ who can walk alongside of you. Accountability is about building a fortress of support, not judgment. Whether through an accountability partner or mentor, joining a community group, or using some of the methods that we've provided in this message, it's time to strengthen your spiritual defenses. Please, please take at least one actionable step this week toward greater accountability. And if you're unsure,
what the next step is, reach out to us. Consider completing that Connect card either online at mountainview.church slash connect or text connect to the number on the screen. And if you're in-house, please complete that Connect card found in the seats and hand in the welcome desk. Someone will get in touch with you. Please don't let this moment pass without committing to a change that could transform your life. With that being said, let's take a moment, pray this prayer with me. Dear God, thank you for reminding us that we are not meant to journey alone. Help us seek accountability, confess our struggles, and support one another in love.
Give us the strength to resist temptation and the courage to be honest with ourselves and others. Guide us and help us grow closer to you and each other. In Jesus' name, amen. Let's shift our focus to the heart of today's message, our discussion and prayer for you to seek guidance and strengthen your faith journey this week. All right. First, our discussion question is, what steps can you take this week to establish or strengthen accountability relationship that will help you resist temptation? In the comment stream or with someone you are with right now, ask this question. What steps can you take this week to establish or strengthen accountability relationship that will help you resist temptation?
Now, our prayer focus. Pray for the courage to seek out accountability in your life, the wisdom to choose the right accountability partner or mentor, and the strength to be transparent in your struggles. Once again, pray for the courage to seek out accountability, the wisdom to choose the right partner, and the strength to be transparent. Thank you for being a part of today's message and for your commitment to growing in accountability. Please come back next week as we dive into the next step in our master series, Strengthening Your Spirit. We'll explore how to strengthen ourselves with spiritual disciplines, equipping us to stand firm in our faith and deepen our relationship with God. So have a great week and we'll see you then.
If you pray to receive Jesus today or would like to connect with our church community, visit mountainview.church and click the connect link. If this podcast and radio ministry has been a blessing to you, please consider partnering with us or making a tax-deductible donation at mountainview.church. Thanks for listening to Mountain View Church Audio. Join us next week for more Christ-centered teaching from the Wilderness City of Whitehorse UConn.