Kingdom Living: Embracing Accountability as a Core Value (3)
Kingdom Living Accountability • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 6 viewsNotes
Transcript
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
We just finished two weeks of communication when it comes to accountability. We worked through the fear cycle and worked to establish some ways to break down the fear cycle.
I could keep going for weeks on communication. I love teaching people how to communicate with each other.
So if you want more of that then let me know and I will get something set up to make that happen.
Today we look at one of the most popular passages of scripture when it comes to accountability.
Matthew 18
Two things about Matthew 18. This passage is not lived out well. Churches don’t typically carry this scripture out.
I was talking with a friend a year or so ago about being a mason. He said in his trade you have two years of training and accountability before you can actually start laying brick. So you have two years of mixing mud, setting up, and carrying block before you will ever start to lay a brick.
That got me to thinking about how in the church we often lower our standards when it comes to training and accountability. Individuals give their lives to Jesus one week and the next week they want to be speaking in front of a group of people.
The sad part about this is that in my past I have allowed some of that to happen. It has not always ended well.
My intentions were that I didn’t want to tell someone no and hurt their feelings or hurt their walk.
Or
If you tell someone no then they just go to the next church down the street and start to serve there. For a while, I was pretty good at increasing church growth in churches around us. It broke my heart but it was true.
Which is greater?
The care of the human soul?
or
Laying brick on a building?
Absolutely the care of a human soul. If it takes two years of study to lay brick then may we take even greater care when it comes to training and accountability for handling of human souls.
I mentioned the first week we started accountability was that one way we are seeking to live out accountability as a core value was encouraging all to serve and all who serve to be plugged in to a small group. If you are serving, then we want you in a small group.
Small groups are the way we want to promote service opportunities.
Another thing that we keep doing as a church is offering more training opportunities to serve. We have small group leaders training, Reach volunteer training, Summers at the Beach training and other ministry teams trainings.
The second thing on Matthew 18 is that when churches have tried to live this out it has been done in a very Biblical manner.
When it is attempted, it has been done in a way that is not about restoring a brother or sister in Christ.
Rather the goal has been to be right and prove the brother or sister wrong.
This is not the goal of Matthew 18. The goal of Matthew 18 is all about restoration.
Two stories of me growing up and me trying to hold adults accountable
One was when I was 6 or 7 years old. Yes I did just say 6 7.
Anyway
I overheard my parents talking about a neighbor who would go to an old abandoned junk yard that was behind our house. I would climb to the top of a tree in our backyard and I would watch him go back there. He would get parts he needed an leave.
My parents did not think he had permission to be in the junk yard.
so
The next time I saw his parents and this guy was 20 years old. I told them that he was stealing from the junk yard. I tried to hold him accountable and I thought my parents were right and he was wrong.
We did not have all the facts and for sure me as a 7 year old didn’t know the truth of all this. My mother was so embarrassed and worked to play it off.
Open mouth and insert foot.
The other instance was my brother who is 4 years older than me was being bullied on the school bus. so when I got off the school bus then I had had enough of it.
So I was friends with his younger brother that was my age. So I called their house and told his mom what her son was doing to my brother on the school bus.
I was probably 9 or 10 at this time. The mother listened to me but she did not believe me that much.
My brother was not happy that I had told on his friends that were on the school bus. haha
So not all Matthew 18 conversations have went that well.
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.
Some important manuscripts don’t have the words against you. They simply say if your brother sins.
(Sin Slides)
There is a chance that your brother or sister in Christ may not even realize that what they are doing is sin.
We have more new people attending church than many churches meaning that we are not gaining a lot of people that know the scriptures in and out.
Don’t believe me then attend on a Wednesday night and you will see that many of the students that come on Wednesdays have not been raised in church or know their scriptures. We are gaining on this because of years of busing kids in but probably 95% of kids who attend on Wednesdays their parents don’t attend church.
So when it comes to holding people accountable to sin then they may not even know what they are doing is sin.
The goal is not to win an argument but to win a brother or sister. Many people win the argument and lose the brother or sister in Christ.
Warren Wiersbe
15 “If your brother sins against you, go and rebuke him in private. If he listens to you, you have won your brother.
Go and rebuke him
Rebuke: to admonish someone strongly; likely using argumentation to convince and refute.
This is where communication comes in and the power of communication. When rebuking, it is done with the fruits of the spirit. It comes with joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness, love, faithfulness, and self-control.
Emotional communication in the process.
Ask questions. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to reveal sin. In Biblical counseling, we work to ask enough questions to where the person understand where the sin is. We then continue to ask questions until they believe that that is their sin problem or that they are convinced that it is the problem.
This first step is to do this in private. You go to them one on one.
Notice the first step is to go to them. Matthew 18 does not say that the first step is to post online a passive aggressive post and hope they see it.
It also does not say that you tell everyone what they have done.
It says you go to the brother who has sinned first. You may choose to use a mentor to help you shape the conversation or make sure you are correct in rebuking them but this conversation is more about you then it is about them.
You go to them.
If he listens to you then you have won your brother.
Remember to escalate sin appropriately. That is if the sin occurs in your heart then confess it in your heart, if it happens with one other then deal with them or if it takes place in a group then it is appropriate to speak before the group.
Lessons in leadership:
I have noticed that the closer you are to a person the better this goes. If the person at the top of the church or organization is the one going around keeping people accountable then it does not go well.
So if you are a friend in small group with an individual it goes further then if someone from a distance holds them accountable.
16 But if he won’t listen, take one or two more with you, so that by the testimony of two or three witnesses every fact may be established.
If the one who sins does not listen, then take one or two more with you.
This is the sharing of the burden with others. Those who go with can assist with prayer and persuasion to win the brother or sister back. They can also be a witness to the church that this conversation is handled properly.
Sin always spreads. What was first a sin between two people is now starting to involve more people
Again, think about small group individuals going with you to talk with someone in the small group.
17 If he pays no attention to them, tell the church. But if he doesn’t pay attention even to the church, let him be like an unbeliever and a tax collector to you.
Ask the church for help.
The goal is not to with the case but to with the brother or sister in Christ.
The church is a local assembly of believers.
The goal here is discipline for restoration. Discipline should always be about restoration.
We need accountability to grow in the Lord. We need the opportunity to be better.
If you are seeking to restore a brother or sister and they refuse, then discipline for the sake of restoration. We want to restore the brother or sister in Christ.
He is treated as one outside the church, not hated, but not held in close fellowship. The goal of this is restoration.
The challenge is that when this is carried out the typical western response is for the person to move down the road to a new church. The new church will often hear how the individual was “treated” in the church before that will then place them in leadership or let them continue.
If you are not careful, then you will start to believe that the problem is the church but every church you attend there is a problem.
The problem may not be the church but individuals not wanting to deal with sin.
18 I assure you: Whatever you bind on earth is already bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth is already loosed in heaven.
It is important that the local assembly be at its best spiritually before it seeks to discipline a member. When a church disciplines a member, it is actually examining itself and disciplining itself. This is why our Lord added these words about authority, prayer, and fellowship. We cannot discipline others if we ourselves are not disciplined. Whatever we loose (permit) in the assembly must first have been permitted by God
Warren W. Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary, vol. 1 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996), 66.
We must strive to function as a church under the authority of the word of God. We should as a body of believers seek the Will of God as a group.
We want God’s children to be restored and we as a body must hold ourselves to the standard of His word in doing this.
19 Again, I assure you: If two of you on earth agree about any matter that you pray for, it will be done for you by My Father in heaven.
The power of coming together in unity in prayer.
A house divided against itself can not stand.
There is so much that can be accomplished in restoring a brother or sister if we are in unity together.
20 For where two or three are gathered together in My name, I am there among them.”
When God holds me accountable.
36 The one who believes in the Son has eternal life, but the one who refuses to believe in the Son will not see life; instead, the wrath of God remains on him.
