Kingdom Living: Embracing Accountability as a Core Value
Kingdom Living Accountability • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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ac·count·a·bil·i·ty/əˌkoun(t)əˈbilədē/noun
the fact or condition of being accountable; responsibility.
A Person who is completely responsible for what they do and must be able to give a satisfactory reason for it.
Answerable to God
Matt Farmer encouraged Cameron that it would be helpful to have a list of things that we as a church body want to hold each other accountable on.
I think this list is helpful. (Insert Sin Chart)
A few comments on Galatians 6:1 as we get started this morning.
1 Brothers, if someone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual should restore such a person with a gentle spirit, watching out for yourselves so you also won’t be tempted.
You who are Spiritual
Remember last week Pastor Chambers said The right words with the wrong delivery is the wrong message.
You who are Spiritual
That is you who are walking in the Spirit.
What does it mean to walk in the Spirit?
Produce the fruits of the Spirit
That is when you hold someone accountable you must deal with your own heart first.
Make sure you are walking in the spirit
That is Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control will be present.
How do you do this?
You pray and ask God to empower you with the fruits of the Spirit in your conversations. Lord empower me with Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and self-control.
Watch yourselves
I would say early in my Christian walk I felt that this verse meant that when we hold someone accountable that we might fall into the sin that they are in.
If they are struggling with being drunk, then we hold them accountable to anger that we might join them in drunk.
This is not really the case.
On a deeper level, when you go to hold someone accountable about being drunk and they respond with anger then you must watch yourself that you don’t respond with bitterness towards their anger.
Another example
If I fight for justice on behalf of the poor, then I must watch myself that my heart does not become bitter towards those who have wealth.
We are talking that at Bridge of Faith we want Biblical accountability to be a part of our culture. We want it to be a part of our lives daily.
I believe a healthy culture of accountability has the potential to accelerate Spiritual growth in our community.
Think about it. If everyone is committed to being held accountable and holding others accountable, then I believe we won’t be able to stop spiritual growth in our lives as individuals and as a group.
Today I want to work on how to Biblically deliver an accountable conversation.
Question
Who taught you to communicate with others?
How many had a class on this in high school?
Some might have had speech class but that helps but not exactly what we are talking about.
So where do we learn how to talk with each other?
Home
Group up in a home where mom and dad modeled communication
School
Playground you learn how to communicate but this may not be positive
Work
May not be the most healthy environment but you might have had a manager or leader who modeled good communication skills.
In His book Supercommunicators Charles Duhigg says
The right conversation in the right moment as the ability to change everything.
I am convinced that not many of us get trained in communication.
So let’s get better at communication. Let’s improve. Let’s deliver the right message with the right delivery and produce right results.
I want to get better. I want to communicate better. I want to learn how to hold people accountable in the right manner. I want to know what it is like to be held accountable with the right heart and delivery.
Communication
A few verses to get us started
13 The one who gives an answer before he listens— this is foolishness and disgrace for him.
19 When there are many words, sin is unavoidable, but the one who controls his lips is wise.
27 The intelligent person restrains his words, and one who keeps a cool head is a man of understanding.
28 Even a fool is considered wise when he keeps silent, discerning when he seals his lips.
10 For the one who wants to love life and to see good days must keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking deceit,
11 and he must turn away from evil and do what is good. He must seek peace and pursue it,
Today I want to show you the typical conversation. Gary Smalley has named this the fear cycle and I see this play out in most conversations.
Conversations that start and end in conflict are typically rooted in the “Fear Cycle”
So let me show you what this is today and then next week. I will work to teach how we communicate better and break the fear cycle.
This will be my first attempt at teaching this on a Sunday morning so bear with me as we walk through this and this works best when you start to apply it to your life personally.
Goal: Identify your own feelings and your reactions in a conversation
Work to understand others feelings and their reactions.
Think back to a recent conversation of accountability or conversation or argument that you had with someone. Get that situation in your head.
How did that conversation, conflict or argument make you feel about yourself? What did the conflict say about you? What was the self message that it sent to you?
Rejected, abandoned, alone, failed, felt like a failure, helpless, powerless, unloved, defective, invalidated, inadequate, inferior, cheated, devalued, unimportant, worthless, degraded humiliated
What did you do when you felt (Insert those from the previous question)? How do you cope or what do you do when someone makes you feel this way?
Verbally defend myself, withdraw, escalate, belittle, develop negative beliefs, Blame others, passive-aggressive, care-taking, act out, eating disorder, over function (do everyones job), feel responsible for others, solve it or fix it mode, spend or shop, addictions, complain, aggression or abuse, manipulate, anger or rage, numb out, humor, minimize, self -depreciation
Fear cycle
Top: Husband Feeling (first question) Failed, worthless
Right: Husband reaction (Second question) Withdraw, fix it
Bottom: Wife feeling (First Question) Unloved, rejected
Left: Wife reaction (Second question) Escalate, complain
Next week we will work our way out of this fear cycle in conversations and learn ways to break this fear cycle so you have to come back next week.
but
Today I can’t totally leave you here so let me get you started by breaking this fear cycle. The first thing you can do to break this is. Don’t focus on reactions. Focus on feelings!
33 When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.
34 [Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.” ] And they divided His clothes and cast lots.
