Navigate Podcast
Welcome to Navigate. We got tired of the same ole answers when we started looking for help when it came to our walks with God. So together we go deeper than most would on topics that most people have heard or were taught but never fully understood. It is our way of simplifying concepts that we may have over complicated throughout our lives. Bringing theology and life experience into each episode. It is our hope and desire to help you Navigate your Christian walk.
Navigate Podcast
Accountability Beyond Therapy
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Tired of “accountability” that feels like a soft therapy session or a harsh scolding that changes nothing? We dig into a better way: covenantal community where discipleship, not policing, drives real transformation. Drawing from Scripture and lived experience, we make the case that growth thrives in small, trusted groups—think the three, the twelve, and then the wider body—where honest friendship, shared rhythms, and the word of God create both visibility and courage.
We unpack why one-on-one check-ins often stall out and how an abundance of counselors strengthens wisdom and follow-through. You’ll hear practical examples of encouragement in action: rerouting risky nights before they start, showing up to walk someone through temptation, and trading “don’t” lists for habits that produce good fruit. We also address the hard moments—when someone says they want help but won’t act. With a clear, pastoral approach, we outline steps for loving confrontation, the heart of repentance, and when to widen the circle for real accountability that restores rather than shames.
Marriage gets special focus, because hiding sin from a spouse fractures trust at the one-flesh level. We talk about bringing struggles into the light at home, involving wise friends when needed, and replacing secrecy with rhythms of confession, forgiveness, and shared growth. If your week is filled with doom-scroll and shallow ties, consider this your nudge to swap isolation for a circle that calls you higher and walks with you to harbor. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs a stronger team around them, and leave a review telling us where you’ve seen real accountability bring life.
What's up, everybody? Welcome to Navigate Podcast. I'm here with Justin again. Justin, how are you?
SPEAKER_01:What's up, Casey? How you doing, man?
SPEAKER_00:I'm doing well. I'm doing well. You uh you enjoying the freezing cold weather? You know, this this horrible, horrible cold weather that is a normal winter for Colorado, if not a little warmer.
SPEAKER_01:I'm with you. I made people like pulling out the Bible, flipping a revelation, and like, look, it's about to go down. Power's gonna go out. Hora Babylon's gonna reveal herself. We're all we're all toast. Yeah. I guess like the power grid thing in Texas is a whole nother level. Like they don't have uh power grids that can sustain some of the difficulty. They don't have like snow trucks and stuff to go out of it actually, and it doesn't happen often.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, I get it. If you don't have to account for that, you don't account for it, which means it can be a lot worse. And Colorado has that infrastructure, but it's just kind of hilarious because I've got you know, text like, oh, how is it down there? Winter storm warning, and I look out my window and I'm like, it's kind of raining.
SPEAKER_01:I think I just felt like the pre-meal people for a second, you know what I mean? It was like we're we're reading the signs, you know what I mean? And I got a I got a chart set up, and the day comes and goes, and and God didn't come back. And so now I'll just get you know start over my way forward again. Sorry, it was right there. No, you're all your pre-meals, I forg I forgive you. It's fine. Uh I don't, but it's fine. What are we talking about today?
SPEAKER_00:Um, so I wanted to talk about one that I uh know you uh have some thoughts on, and it's um how to be and have accountability partners. Yeah, so yeah, you have thoughts on it.
SPEAKER_01:Uh yeah, okay. Well, where to start? Um okay, so accountability partner, I think today has become um it's gotten caught up with the psychological revolution. All right. I think what we mean by accountability partner now is closer to you need a uh like a therapist buddy, and you guys can do therapy on each other. And either this looks like a watering down of the word to help somebody feel more comfortable and okay with where they're at, but at least I'm being open and honest about something, or it is my job to crush you every time you make a mistake in your life, and I will be your personal PO officer for the next, you know, however long. There's this there's this mentality, I think, that gets caught up in like the whole accountability um sphere. All right. And I think there's a there's an importance here when we distinguish between like covenant and contract, even like when I I talk to um people that are gonna get married, we talk about covenant and contract a lot, which is like, okay, contract is here's a list of things that I'm doing going to accomplish, here's a list of things that you're going to accomplish. And if you stop start dropping the ball over here, I start holding it over your head, you know what I mean, and punishing you because you're not holding up your end of the deal. Covenant is we're both under the forgiveness and grace of God, and we're walking towards perfection together, and that's really messy, and neither of us have arrived. But my goal is not to punish you um or destroy you. My goal is also not to act like everything's fine and it's totally cool. It's it's somewhere in the middle of those two things, and it's incredibly difficult to do. But would you agree that our culture has fallen in love with therapy?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, a hundred percent. Okay. Um, and I think of the two you've two extremes there, obviously our world leans much more towards the caudal and and there, there, it's okay. Let's make you feel better about you know, looking at porn again or doing your thing. Versus I I don't see as much of the PO officer nailing people to the wall on it because people leave that relationship.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. Well, or or it's done in a way where they can because we have a marketplace of churches now. Or it's like if somebody calls me out for my sin, I'll just go to a different church and I'll slander those people and make it seem like it was their fault the entire time. And it was spiritual malpractice, and so I had to leave, which we get into like the whole church discipline conversation around this. Here, here's where I wanted to go. Accountability partner is not a biblical term, a biblical concept, I would even say. Um, there's accountability before God, there's accountability before the congregation. Uh, there's um accountability is a naturally occurring thing when you're living your life in a way that is open and honest before other people and before the face of the Lord. Okay. Martin Luther said he wanted to live his life quorum deo, which is to say before the face of God, which is like this terrifying thing. Now he took it like too far, like pretty sure that guy had like seven other people watch him consummate his marriage. I think so for accountability. You know what I mean? Like, like, was there some doubt that he wasn't gonna get it done? I don't, I don't know. I don't know. That's for free. You can think about that or not think about it in in your own time, I guess. But accountability um has kind of become um, and not in word, but in deed, synonymous with discipleship. Like we walk together, we share our hearts with each other, and we try to keep each other in a place where we're walking in purity and clarity and the things that we're doing. And I already have a problem with that. All right. And I had a I had a long conversation with a guy about this the other day. His thought process, God bless him, this is totally fine. And if you land here, we can talk about it. But like, um, I don't think discipleship happens one-on-one. Okay. All right. So talk about that. So when we look at the Bible, one-on-one interactions seem to happen with evangelism, not discipleship. All right. So you got Jesus talking to the woman at the well, you got him talking to Nicodemus. You got, you know, you have these conversations where it's like these one on one-on-one interactions are happening, or even Paul with certain people, it's it's like it's evangelism, but it seems like when discipleship is happening, it was happening in groups. There was always several other other people involved. Now, crowds is a different story, right? Crowds is going to be more like covenant community. We're all coming together. This is uh this is a church service, you know what I mean? If we want to think it that way. Can you do accountability in those kind of environments only if you're practicing church discipline? Or if you're a pastor and you're bringing up relevant sins that the, you know, that the congregation is struggling with, but even that is less accountability and more visibility. Okay. Um, but I would say every time we think about accountability, when we think about um discipleship, we're kind of talking about the same kinds of things. Like even in James, where it says confess your sins, you know, to each other so that you can find healing. I don't think it's saying find the one person that you can confess to, or find the one priest that you can confess to. I think the point is that no, I have people that I'm walking with, not person. And and you know, some people say, okay, but what about Timothy and Paul? I'm like, well, they were almost always traveling with other people who were also listed in those groups. And when it was one-on-one stuff, it was like a letter you were sending to that person about the circumstance they were in and how to navigate that. It was less like a Timothy, how's your heart? Are you doing okay? How many times have you lusted after a woman this week? Or how many times have, you know, have you cheated on this or that, or like that wasn't that to me is more therapy. Yeah. That to me is more like counseling. I'm gonna put you on a couch, I'm gonna ask a bunch of questions, and and like my goal is to mother you. And I think discipling is is much different than that.
SPEAKER_00:So let's let's walk through some of that then. So um it sounds like one of the things you're talking about that a discipleship would happen in in something like a small group setting.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, how would that look in a healthy church environment where they've got small groups that are designed for that, that are designed to um talk about maybe those sin patterns that people are dealing with? Totally.
SPEAKER_01:Um, I I think the first thing that's really important is legitimate friendships. Like you actually have to walk with the people, and if you just meet with them uh at church once a week and you don't really see each other, it's just in passing. And then we all get together at our house so that we can, you know, immediately try to go deep with somebody that I'm not deep with on any other level, that sucks. Like it's very and the only people that thrive in that kind of environment are an oversharer. Have you met an oversharer before? I mean, it's like everybody who's been to a small group has has had an overshare. And if this person is like, let me tell you all the things that are wrong with me for the next 30 minutes, and it's gonna be built out in such a way that it's a story, so you can't actually interrupt, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's a story, and also it's a series of connected prayer requests.
SPEAKER_01:Oh my gosh, if if that, you know, and there's usually some gossip bound up in there and some other stuff going on. But I think a godly way to do this is to frame everything in the Bible the same way that you should be preaching on a Sunday morning, is we're bringing the word, and the word is going to expose our sins, the word is going to expose our problems, and then we're gonna try to walk through those things with grace and truth, walking together and and a combination of those things and how we navigate it. But ultimately, if I don't have a good relationship or enough visibility with my own life with the people that I'm walking with, accountability is a farce. Like it's it's not gonna be a real thing. Like you can pretend really well that you're struggling with something that you're not struggling with, that you're just so other people don't actually ask the question about the thing you are struggling with and now have to deal with the facade of the thing that you're struggling with. This is like a for those of you that haven't been in small groups for very long, this is like a the type of inception that happens, how people hide sin and try not to bring stuff up. But it's if it's in the text and you know each other, yeah, it's a lot easier to try to like pull stuff out, bring encouragement. And again, uh like if I was gonna say accountability partner to me is more like an encouragement buddy. You know what I mean? An accountability partner is more like an encouragement partner. This person is gonna call you to more and help you actually try to accomplish that thing. Not as the legalistic, I'm bringing the law and I'm gonna kill you with it and tell you why you're doing it wrong. But like Jesus did, actually try to help you accomplish those things. Like the the eight woes that Jesus brings in the gospels, or two of the gospels. Um, he brings before them and he's like, you guys try to do this and you're not doing it yourself. You're trying to accomplish this. And and let's be honest, this you're twisting the Bible to make this happen. Or he's telling them the maybe more appropriate for this setting, you uh lay a heavy burden on people's shoulders that you're not willing to lift a pinky to help with yourself. And you'll go and you'll make a proselyte of somebody out there, and then when he comes back, he's twice the son of hell that you are. Like he's worse than you are because of the things that you're doing. The goal should ultimately be um to help encourage someone by identifying the sin that's there biblically, or identifying the place where that person is just struggling or having a hard time and not just bringing knowledge, but personally going the extra mile and trying to help walk with that person yourself. Okay. Fathering, brothering, mothering, you know, it's it's a family kind of environment.
SPEAKER_00:And uh, let's let's look at that in action then. So something like I've got like, let's say I've got somebody who comes to me and says, or or comes into a small group and says, um, I am really struggling with alcohol addiction. Great. I want help.
SPEAKER_01:What does that look like? I mean, again, helping know the person helps a lot. Because if somebody just says that, now I have about 15 extra questions that I want to ask to get context. How did this happen? Is this in your family? Has this been going on for a bunch of years? Is it a recent problem you've discovered? Have you tried to kick this before? What are some of the things that you did to try to kick it before? I mean, my my goal is to get to the heart of where is this person feeding the problem that they have? And how do I step in front of that and bring in something healthy in that place instead? Okay. I've been um, I've been trying to stick with like uh like a uh carnivore for the last month. All right. Okay. I've gotten to the point where I got a couple of friends and they'll be over. And uh I literally cracked open a Dr. Pepper the other day and was pouring it into a glass with ice, and I looked up and my buddy looked at me and just shook his head. He's like, like this. And I just take it and I just hand it to him, and he's like, Good job. You did it. Like, thank you. He just he just wanted your Dr. Pepper. Yeah, he got it. He got it. And it saved my butt, right? I didn't do it. I was like, I didn't cave. I was this close to caving and then I didn't cave. But it's that kind of interaction where I'm close enough with the person, I'm in relationship with them enough to be able to check in, be able to know what's happening without a word being said, and try to help. Um so if somebody's dealing with alcoholism, I want to try to, I'm gonna check in on that person. Um if they're planning on going somewhere where I know that they're serving alcohol or something, I'm gonna give them a heads up and I'm gonna say, hey, how about we do this tonight instead? You want to come hang out? I'll set something else up so that you don't have to go be a part of that kind of thing, or I'll go with you to make sure that you don't screw this thing up or do something really stupid that you don't want to do. But it's it's a lot like um the the paraclete, right? The Holy Spirit is called the paraclete in scripture. Yeah, like it's literally a picture of a large boat coming alongside of a small boat that can't get back to the harbor in a storm. Okay, it's like this boat is too small. This boat is gonna come alongside them and help them get back to where they need to be. And this is a beautiful thing, this is a good thing. So when we think about uh discipleship, accountability, again, I I like I don't even like using the word because I feel like it's so filled with therapy kind of thinking. The goal is how do I call somebody to more and then help be there with them to get them there in the process and not just heap tons of biblical answers on top of somebody? And what I've seen a lot is the people with the most biblical answers for helping somebody get there tend to be the most caught up in sin themselves. Okay. And they're really good at helping them self feel good about giving good answers because they know they're the right answers, but have no ability to apply those things themselves because they're terrified that if uh if people find out that the right answers that I have aren't actually solving stuff in my own life, then I am gonna be put on the chopping block myself. And it's that kind of um we all pretend mentality that keeps people in sin.
SPEAKER_00:It's almost exactly the problem with modern therapy is you go and you talk about your problems as a solution to them without actually getting solutions to the problems. Yeah. And being that that smaller boat, having somebody come alongside you to get you to harbor, yeah, you've got to want it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. And and to to bring this back to the point that I was making before, you yourself don't have the ability to save somebody. I am not Jesus. Casey, you are not Jesus. I love you. Yeah, yeah. Fred is closer than both of us, but he's not there. Um, the the thing that's worth noting here is that it's gonna take several people that know what's going on to help walk alongside that person. And that person is then helping watch your back too with stuff that you have going on that you're battling with. So when you confide each other in each other with trust, because the word has brought forth some things that we're working on together, now we're encouraging each other, not beating each other. Now we're actually helping show up and support each other, not just telling each other. It it has to be a relational covenant community of people walking together that can help each other get there. And there's gonna be a lot of um mess in that process because it turns out that the the people are the people that are helping in one situation can also be broken and not do things perfectly. And that's okay. Like forgiveness has to reign in those areas. But I think um I think it's Proverbs I think it's Proverbs 11, where he talks about this mentality of like in oh, let me just go there.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, please do. While you're while you're going there, one of the other things looking at this is talking about I I mentioned having having somebody having to want it. Um I'd like to like to after after we finish this thought process, kind of get to the idea of what what to do if somebody professes to want help and doesn't act that out.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's it's good. This says here um Proverbs 11. I think it's 14. Yeah, yeah. Where there is no guidance, the people fail. Okay, so you need guidance, but in an abundance of counselors, there is victory. Okay. So I would just say for the person thinking the one-on-ones are really important, that's where they grow the most. I would say actually you're probably best in a maybe if it's really uh important or difficult information, uh, one, two, three people, you know, think like Jesus, right? He had his three and then he had his 12, and then it was everybody else. Yeah. That's probably the way that you need to think. Because the goal is not to invite everybody into everything that you're struggling with. Sure. But the goal is you should have a community of people walk in the same direction who have different wisdom. And even when people are thinking about how do I get better at my job, how do I get better with my family? Um, you're not gonna be able to lean on one person to be good at everything. You're gonna look at people who are part of the body who are exceptional in this area, ask that guy about how to do that. Well, why? Because he's good at it. Yeah. Come with them with some questions. Does that mean that I'm gonna have somebody who can answer, you know, uh every question? No, but I can find somebody who is exceptional at this one thing and probably grlean quite a bit. This is why in um what is it, Mark chapter 10 in the story of the rich young ruler, it talks about inheriting um people who have given up land and and family and all the stuff will actually inherit more family. Like, and well, how how does that work? Well, the church, you just you you have more brothers and more sisters and more fathers and anything else than you ever had before. You're invited into a really big family. I bet there's somebody here who's got to solve for the thing that you're walking through, or at least the availability to help you walk through some of those things. But you wanted to you wanted to talk about lying. Yes. Go ahead and help me uh lead me into what what you're thinking.
SPEAKER_00:So going back to our example of somebody who says, Hey, I have this problem with alcohol, I want help with it, and then doesn't want help with it, they just want to be able to say to their wife or their their friend group, you know, I'm I'm trying to get help with this. Right. But they continue to profess that. Um you could even take that example and flip it to something a little bit more supercharged and say a pornography addiction. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:What does it look like when somebody who's in the church, in these small groups, professes these desires to fix a problem, but won't actually take action on it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Man, and again, knowing the person helps immensely because uh so if like you're watching this or listening to this right now, and your thought is like, okay, I've said I've wanted to quit this a bunch of times in my flesh, I have no desire to quit this at all. There's a battle there. I mean, Romans 8 makes it very clear that the flesh and the spirit are set against each other, so that I think the the framing there is like the words are um, so that you cannot do that which you wish, which is hilarious to me. So when you crack that Dr. Pepper, you know, just think about that. But the the reality of this is to your point, Casey, not everybody wants to get free. Or not everybody is willing to take the necessary steps to get free, but they still want to feel like um they're putting work in. So I've found that people who have bad addictions or problems uh know a lot about it. You know what I mean? And oh, I've been doing this. See, they can come up with reasons for why they've studied this or why it's happening and or why it's their cross to bear. Right. Yeah. If I hear one more person say pornography is my cross to bear, I'm gonna lose it. Um, we don't call sin the cross you're called to bear. That is that is not it. Uh Christ did not bear a real cross with your sin and your brokenness and your sin nature on it, so that you could walk around saying sin is the thing that God has given me to carry. That is not the case at all. However, all right, if somebody is in a place where they're just not done with sin, to me, there's not a lot you can do for that person. To me, I mean, I think that's when you get into church discipline and you're getting into, you know, the Matthew 18 model, and it's like, man, I'm gonna confront this person, and if it's not changing, I'm gonna bring some other people, we're gonna talk to them together. They're still not changing and doing what they want. I'm gonna bring that before the elders of the church. And then at some point we're supposed to treat that person like a non-believer because what they're saying with their life is yes, uh, I I know these things are true. I don't actually believe that God is serious about this. I don't believe that he's actually set me free. I don't know that he's actually given me the power to be able to walk through this. I I'm actually not done sinning yet. And if that's the case, I mean, you have strong language from Paul like I've handed these people over to Satan to be taught not to blaspheme. You know what I mean? Which is some crazy stuff. And look, if you're like, oh my gosh, that might be me. I mean, there's some crazy sin in the church in the, you know, in the in the first century. You have Paul, you know, you have some guy sleeping with his stepmom, maybe his mom, but like his stepmom theoretically. And uh Paul is calling that out and saying, cut that crap out. You guys need to deal with that right now. This is a serious issue. He doesn't say this person has already lost his soul and he's definitely going to hell. He's making the point that people that practice these things on a continual basis have this problem. What I'm looking for in somebody is legitimate repentance, right? Yeah. Which is this um this idea of like changing not just your mind, but the direction that you're walking in general. I want to see actual brokenness. And I've I brought this up before, but I've met a lot of people who can simulate brokenness, but they're more sad about being caught than actually being in sin. Yeah. They're more sad about like, oh man, now everybody knows that I have this going on, not I hate the sin so much, I don't want to be stuck in this anymore. Those are two very different sets of tears.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. If you're I think you've brought this up before, but if you're more upset about somebody knowing that you're you have this problem, it's not repentance versus if you're um, if you don't care who knows, as long as you're getting the help to get rid of it, yeah. That's more of a repentance.
SPEAKER_01:Well, a great example of this, right, is David. Yeah. He sleeps with Bathsheba, she gets pregnant, it's a mess. Nathan goes in and tells a story, right? And I don't think it was uh like hidden knowledge. I think probably more people knew what was going on in the palace guard and everywhere else than than people think. People are like, oh, it's a totally secret sin. He's the king. Yeah, I was like, you think nobody knew, you know, nobody else was aware of what was going on. Like literally, King David invites a girl into his house. You know what I mean? Stuff goes down, Uriah comes back later, won't go home. David, you know what I mean? Like, clearly there's something serious going on here, but yeah, he brings this before him, calls him out for it, and David is legitimately repentant. He's a mess. I mean, read Psalm 51. Clearly, there is a heart that wants to go to God and says, Before you and you alone I have sinned, I'll deal with whatever punishment I need to. Uh, I want to get through this, not this. What's the easiest way for me to get out of this? Yeah. And a lot of um, a lot of BS comes up from people who really want an easy way to get out of something, but aren't actually grieved by the sin or um grieved by the reality that they've found themselves back in chains. They they just want to get through it as quickly as they can. And I think a lot of people, because of this, choose therapy. Yeah. They'll choose a they'll choose a counselor, they'll go to somebody who's not part of the church because it's a lot easier to go talk to somebody who's not gonna hold me to a biblical standard and will hear the things that are going on in my life and just listen and give you some helpful encouragement that's gonna make you feel like you're getting through on something when you're not. Now, I will say this there's some church environments where um I can completely understand why somebody would go to therapy instead of that particular church, right? Sure. Because you might be eating people alive, but this is the point. This is why the fellowship is so much more important with other people, uh, like actual relational equity so that you can walk with each other and call each other to more, not just trite Sunday, you know what I mean? When like a politician says someone is my friend, they don't mean they're friends with that person, they mean they know them. Yeah, you know what I mean? It drives me crazy. Don't call that person your friend if you if you're not actually like at some level walking with or have a relationship with this person, not I met them twice and we seem to get along well. And it feels like sometimes relationships that are in the church are a little bit more like that.
SPEAKER_00:Well, and and I guess that's kind of the point you're driving at here is listener. If you're going to a church, yeah, and you are not interacting with some of those people Monday through Saturday, yeah, uh hanging out, spending time together, spending time in fellowship, spending time in the word, breaking bread together. Yeah, you're not building up those relationships that will ultimately allow you to see freedom from those sin patterns. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And and a pastor is supposed to be the personification of this at some level. Like my life is kind of a fishbowl. Everybody gets to see how I raise my kids, everybody gets to see, you know, how I deal with the church, everybody gets to see how I do in relationships and what the what the media is that I'm taking in, what music I'm listening to. Like there's a there's a a reality where the pastor is supposed to model for everybody what it looks like to be involved with everybody and give everybody a view in at some level of what's doing and uh what I'm doing. And a lot of pastors, I think, are trying to avoid that at all costs, but it's actually really good to invite people into your home. Yeah. It's really good for other people to invite you into their home. It's really good for us to learn each other's patterns, to learn how we do things in our life, and to walk with each other in an encouraging way where we want each other to succeed and not to be not to be doing church as normal where I'm checking a box, I'm going to something to talk about the Bible, I'll flex about how much I know about this verse. But if I'm being honest, that has nothing to do with what's actually going on in my life. And if something does come up, like I said, that's actually going on in my life, I'll pretend it's something else. You know what I mean? I just I really have a I just have a pride problem, brother. You know, I'm just a prideful person. Yeah, so do we all. What's your sin? Yeah, exactly. Great. Thanks. What what are we doing here? Yeah. You know, there has to be more than that. I do think in the abundance of people, you have that kind of environment where we can walk together and grow together. And it doesn't have to be this shallow mess where I check a box on a Sunday morning, or this absolute mess where I'm caught in sin, but I don't feel like I can tell anybody about it. What's the remedy? Having enough good people in your life to be able to make that happen, which means this, Christian, you might have to change who your friends are. You might have to change the circle that you're hanging out with. And if you're way more comfortable with non-believers or people who are shallow in their faith, you're not going to have the kind of relationship that you want that's going to help you to grow. And be honest with yourself. Maybe you don't want that. Maybe you're not interested in growing right now. Maybe you're just more comfortable with shallow people because you yourself are kind of a shallow person. And I would say the boot fits, take it off. Change what you're doing, change who you're spending time with and take more seriously. Like, am I walking with these people that I'm saying I want to become like and grow with, or am I avoiding those people because they're just not as much fun to hang out with?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, it if you're more concerned about, oh, I can't hang out with those people because you know they'll they'll stop me from uh drinking that fifth beer, or they'll uh they'll give me side eyes when I'm swearing too much or whatever, you're you're not progressing.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um, I wanted to touch on another thing. You uh you talked about discipleship not necessarily being one-on-one. Yeah. Um but one of the one of the things I want to point to that we see a lot of success in is freedom ministry, which is typically done one-on-one. How do you square those things together? It's funny you say that.
SPEAKER_01:So my my favorite thing with, and you're you're referring to like the steps to freedom. Yeah. Okay. So uh this is like an intensive, this is a Neil Anderson um freedom in Christ uh kind of method where you're walking somebody through the process of helping identify lies, helping insert the truth in those places and helping confront sin patterns and open doors we have to darkness that oftentimes we're not paying attention to or realizing, or taking us to the consequences that we're currently dealing with. Yeah. I like to invite other people into those things. Okay. So my my favorite thing to do is have at least one person with me who I'm training in this process and maybe two advocates, if you want to call it that, for that person who are walking with them, who are aware of what's going on, and oftentimes in the room while we're walking through those things, praying for that person, encouraging that person, who then become aware of what's happening so that there can be greater freedom in a lot of those areas. So even in even in those kinds of scenarios, um, I like to invite other people into that process and not not necessarily do it one-on-one. Um, no, I I get that there's some stuff that's going to be you and your pastor need to work through this before we're airing it out with anybody else because this could blow everything up. Sure. I'm not saying that there's not circumstances. Nathan and David is a good one, right? Where he's going and he's saying, dude, you you are this guy. And what well, the effects kind of affect everybody, right? And um, I can uh I would say this David, I doubt when this happened was alone. You know what I mean? Uh a king usually has people around him, whether he's you know sitting on his throne or whatever room he's in, there's still servants, there's still people. And um historically, prophets don't ever do anything to anyone just one-on-one. Usually it's uh they're kind of it's kind of a it's kind of a statement piece. Yeah. Yeah. Uh it's more of a uh uh an outgoing, you know, outfacing kind of thing that's going on. But yeah, even even when I'm helping counsel somebody through difficult things, I like to invite other people into that process so that they're aware. And usually I ask them to bring somebody, who's your friend, that's gonna help you walk through this, and I'm gonna talk to this person about their role in it and how they're gonna help this person get freedom in it. But um, I think the point that I want to hammer home a little bit with this is that it shouldn't be here's the problem child, and everybody else has just got to figure this stuff out. It's no, we're all walking together through this. And where I have strengths and you're weak, we're gonna come around you and try to help you with that. But I will tell you right now, if you have an area where you're strong and you're not helping other people, we're failing because we need you as part of the body too. You're not a you're not some random, you know, vestigial appendage or something that's that's just there and and making everybody bad. No, you should also be pouring into the church, helping other people where you have a strength, part of the community, because one, that helps you grow with the people that are there, blesses other people, strengthens the body, but it also grows your own personal confidence so that you can continue to do the things that you need to do. No, nothing feels worse than being able to contribute absolutely nothing except for your own sin. Right. That only time you should feel that way is between you and God, because the only thing you contributed to your salvation is the sin that made it necessary in the first place, right? I don't know. It's a great quote. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I think we've both used it before. Yeah, yeah, I'm sure. Um let's let's take this to a a sort of side topic here. Okay. Um accountability in marriage.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um obviously that's going to look a little bit different because there are certain things that are by necessity going to be very one-on-one.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um like with your wife. Correct. Sure.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Um, how does that look in the greater context of being accountable in your sin with your spouse versus when you need to involve other people or other couples?
SPEAKER_01:So I tend to think about the husband and wife dynamic is one flesh. Okay. Like you're you're literally the Bible says you're kind of one person. So if you're hiding something from your spouse, you're literally hurting yourself and the one person that you're supposed to be. Um, I have a good friend, Andrew, uh, I love this. He said, uh, people need to quit telling their accountability partners what they struggle with porn. They need to tell their wife when they screw up. And I bet the problem gets better a heck of a lot faster. Because there's more on the line. You're actually like, oh yeah, I actually have to confront this and do something about it because I'm not just going to go get a pat on the bat, uh pat on the back. That the problem becomes evident very quickly. Now I would say this: you should have some guys that are walking with you in that process. But if your spouse doesn't know the thing that you're struggling with, dude, you're in massive trouble. You're in a really difficult spot where not only are you lying to other people because you're one flush with your spouse, you're lying to yourself, right? Um, and and I think first John makes it pretty clear, uh man, I I should I want to like go and just read it. Can I read it real quick? Please do. Let me see if I can find it.
SPEAKER_00:Once you're once you're finding that kind of where I want to drive with this too, is um if you find yourself in this circumstance where you've been keeping things from your wife or your husband, um how do you get right and how do you dig out of that hole? And more than just the obvious answer of, well, go tell your spouse, but um I'd like to get to that next.
SPEAKER_01:So go ahead and read it. So it says this is the message we have heard from him and announced to you that God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all our sin. If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. Um, this text is incredibly important to me because it's making the point. If confession is not a regular part of your life, you'll just lie about everything. You'll just be full of it. You can either be a hypocrite or you can be a Christian, right? Like maybe a better way to say that is you can either acknowledge your hypocrisy or you can pretend that it's fine. Yeah. Right? But but if you're going to be a Christian, if you're going to walk with Christ, what we're saying is there is no darkness in the Lord. And He sees everything that is going on in my life. And if it's me knowing that God knows everything, but me not inviting anybody else into that problem, or me knowing that God knows all this stuff, and I'm just not really gonna bring it up. I'm just gonna kind of skim over it. What the Bible is saying, you're walking in darkness, and you should seriously consider am I even saved in the first place? Am I am I even am I even serious about this? Like you can either make confession and repentance a regular part of your life, or your diet is going to be darkness and you're going to reap more darkness for that. And again, accountability does not just mean we're helping people with sin. It means we're helping people to walk in the good things that they're called to do. If accountability for you means I help people not sin, that's not accountability. That's one facet of accountability. Accountability is we're helping each other grow in good deeds. This is why in Ephesians um chapter four, the end of it is like he who is stealing, steal no longer, but labor with your hands so that you have something good to give to other people. He who's saying a bunch of crap that he shouldn't say, stop saying those things and say things that are good to build other people up and edify them. Uh, you people who are doing this, stop doing this and do this instead. All of it is not just don't do these things, it's do good things. Actually produce fruit in your life, be productive and walk towards the light together, which means calling somebody, walking with somebody, doing those things is not simply I'm helping you not sin. It's we have got to get better and grow in our own abilities together. And that could be with your job. If you're at a dead end job, your buddy telling, is it sin to be at a dead end job? Not necessarily, but it might be your buddy saying, get out of there, dude. Do something, do something better. If it's if it's your housing, you know, situation, you're just lazy and your house is dirty all the time. Might be your buddy being like, dude, you want me to come over and help you get that cleaned up? Or or or whatever it might be, but it's not just don't sin. It's let's grow together and become the fullness of what Christ has called us to be. But you you wanted to take it somewhere with with uh marriage stuff a little bit farther, to do what you were thinking.
SPEAKER_00:But before we do kind of the touch on that, what you're driving at here is is the whole point of being an encourager in that in that partnership, in that discipleship, yeah, is recognizing that the fruit that comes from doing good brings so much more joy than the sins of the world and the desires of the flesh ever could.
SPEAKER_01:Well, and and doing it together with other brothers. Do it, you know, creating something together with other brothers who actually are like in the process of walking with you in that. And it again doesn't mean I see you at church and I see you at our small group study that I randomly come to. It ultimately means like this is uh this is something we're walking together. We enjoy fellowship and we know that God has placed us together to help make these things happen. You know, so this fellowship and community that we want, the direction that we want to go, so much of it is contingent on this community, the the church, the the those who are called out and are walking in faith. And so just getting this idea through to people, accountability is not counseling, right? Uh accountability ultimately happens in the process of discipleship. And discipleship is not just calling out sin, it's education, it's camaraderie, it's relationship, it's fellowship, it's relationship, it's ministry together, it's participating in the body of Christ. And I would say your lack of participation with the actual body of Christ from a time frame as opposed to the amount of time you spend with other things, other people, death scroll, whatever it is, is directly affecting what's going on in your life. And I would say if you're really struggling with sin, cut out a bunch of crap that doesn't need to be there and add in a bunch of people or things that maybe before you wouldn't have done might be the way to get home. Might be the way to get more healthy in the stuff that you're working on. So uh I hope that makes sense a little bit. And we can get into more about church discipline and how the church is doing that, but ultimately the church, those who were called out, are supposed to walk with each other. And in first century, they knew this. They were breaking bread, sharing fellowship in each other's houses, doing the stuff that they were supposed to be doing together, and they had everything in common. That only happens when you're spending enough time with other people that it begins to be the this is my community. These are my people, these are my friends. Why? Because I'm dead and the person that I used to be, the stuff that I used to pursue is not there. And the less time you spend with the called out community, the more you're gonna spend getting called out for the wrong reasons. You know what I mean? Instead of the reasons that Christ has called you uh in the first place. So I hope that makes sense. I hope that helps with uh some of this particular topic that is frustrating for me, but I think there's some good nuggets in there for people. And and uh we can always go deeper if people want to send in questions.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. Yeah, please do send in those questions. We'll uh we'll dig into more of that as uh as they come in. All right, man.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you guys. Have an amazing week and talk to you soon.
