Lighthouse Church Durban

Accountability

Accountability helps us to grow mature and fruitful. Jesus modelled accountability as Son to his Father.

Accountability is built on submission - to God's authority and to godly authority.

Shame and fear make us avoid accountability. A selfish heart and a "seared" conscience can make us blind to our guilt and our responsibility for it.

Helpful ways forward are:

-to grow a habit of prayerful reflection and self-examination and

-to make ourselves accountable to trusted leaders.

Hebrews 10:5-9, Hebrews 5:7-8, Ephesians 5:21, James 4:7-10, Romans 14:12, Luke 9:1-2,10, Genesis 3:8-10, Genesis 4:11-14, 1 Timothy 4:2, 1 John 1:8-10

Broadcast on:: 26 Oct 2024
Audio Format:: other

Good morning friends, this is once again a blessing for me to be speaking God's word. You are most welcome to the light I was changed, someone broadcast. Today we will be discussing accountability. I pray that as I share these words, I will be blessed myself. Because these words have been in my heart for quite some time now. The word accountability as I was checking in the dictionary, it might mean "answerability". It also might mean "responsibility". Responsibility, the simplest word of defining responsibility, is people checking ownership. Responsibility means we put ourselves in a position, using the word we put ourselves deliberately, we put ourselves in a position where we allow people to question us. It could be about decisions that we make in life. It could be about things that we are doing, so we are answerable to someone. Now as you will see in scripture, God put a mechanism called accountability, there are main mechanisms in the Bible, but one of them I believe is accountability, to keep us in check, to also keep us grounded, to help us to be productive, to be fruitful and to keep us strong. Because then we surround with people that are able to speak into our lives, and that could be deliberate. We deliberately allow that in our lives, and as you will see in the Bible, we account to one another, we also account to God. Now Jesus himself was accountable to God, and as you read in the book of Hebrews chapter 10, the 6th to 9, the 6th says with bent offerings and sin offerings. You were not pleased. Then I said, "Here I am, it is written about me in this scroll. I have come to do your will, my God." So this is Jesus to the Father, he says, "I am here, I have come here to do your will." In other words, I answer to you, because I am here by your will, and I am here for you, and I answer to you. So from the onset we see that even Jesus, the Son of God, he was answerable to the Father, and he was very much aware that he was here for the Father, and he was here because of the Father, reading that together with Hebrews chapter 5, verse 7 to 8, and verse 7 in the Bible says, "During the days of Jesus, life on earth, he offered a prayer and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the One who could save him from death, and was heard because of his reverence of mission." So Jesus submitted to the Father. Now these words, submission, they will mean a lot as we go, because friends you begin to realize that you can't actually be accountable or account if you can submit. So submission creates the environment for one to be accountable. So what comes first is submission, and then you can account. If you can't submit, you can't account. In verse 8 the Bible says, "Son, though he was, he laid obedience from what he suffered." And friends those are keywords, submission and obedience, because if you're not obedient, then you cannot account, because accountability, responsibility, answerability means people or God might say things that you might not like, and if you do not have the ability to be obedient or to submit, you will not account. You will find whatever it takes to fight accountability, because of the inability to be obedient, the inability to submit. So the Bible says, "Jesus submitted to the Father. He was obedient, and he was aware that he was here for the Father." That's very important, friends. That's very important. And I'm learning that also, friends, to learn, to acknowledge that this life that we have, it actually belongs to God. And that should go without saying. And the moment would begin to learn and to realize that, you know, it's something that should sink deep where we begin to realize every day, every morning when we work up in our devotion, God, I give this life back to you, because this life that we have, friends, it belongs to him. And the moment you begin to realize that, we can be obedient to the Father, and we can submit. And when we submit to the Father, it makes it easy for us to account to the Father, to account to the people that God brings into our lives. The name of God, friends, we are accountable to God, and we are accountable to one another. In Ephesians chapter 5, there's 21. The Bible says, "Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ." So this thing of submission, friends, it's not designed by mine, designed by God. So much so that when we volunteer to submit to one another, it gives owner to Jesus, because then we are operating according to the will of the Father. Submit to one another, submit to one another. That's what the Bible is saying, out of reverence for Christ, out of reverence for Christ. So friends, submitting, as I said earlier, it makes room for accountability. When we submit to one another, we actually honor Christ. That's what the Bible is saying. Just by submitting to one another, we honor Christ. And friends, to submit, to be accountable, to be answerable, it's a voluntary thing. To be obedient, it's a voluntary thing. Praise God. And in James chapter 4, verse 7, to 10, the Bible says the following. Submit yourselves, say voluntary thing, then to God. So we submit ourselves to one another, then to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Now friends, these are powerful ways, because people that don't submit, they actually are aware of running away from the people that they are supposed to account to. But here, James chapter 4, in verse 8, the Bible says, come near to God, and he will come near to you, wash your hands, your sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. This night, grieve, mourn, and will change your laughter to money and your joy to groom. Humble yourself before the Lord, and you will live to you. So another word, friends, humbleness also creates an atmosphere for people to submit. People that are proud, they never account, because it's about me, I am right, I always like it like this, it's about the Bible says, humble yourselves. Come near to God, do not run away, come, come and account. Do not run away from one another, let's come, the Bible says, come, come near to God. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will live to you, because when you come near to the Father, you can have conversations. You can look at your heart, look at God's holiness, and say, but this God, please help me. That in itself is accounting to God, praise the Lord. So friends, submit, come near, grieve, in other words, where you're supposed to come to the Father, and before the Father said this, it's troubling me, Lord, and the Father will live to you out, that's a promise from the Bible. In Romans 14, the Bible says, so then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God. Friends, we give an account to God every day in our devotion, in our times of prayer. We come to Him and say, sometimes you become to God and say, I actually don't feel like praying because there's something that is condemning me, but please help me. We give account now, we give account every day, we will give an account when we go to heaven, praise God. The other way, friends, we also account for ministry, because each of us are called to save God in our own special way, these work mapped out for all of us. And friends, God wants us to account. In Luke chapter 9, verse 1 to 2 and 10, the Bible says, when Jesus had called the 12 together, He gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, invest to and send them out to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. When the apostles retained, they reported to Jesus what they had done, then He took them with Him and they withdraw by themselves to a town called the Cider. So friends, in Matthew, all of us have been commissioned to go. We have been commissioned to go and proclaim the message of the Kingdom. And friends, we do that in our own corners at work, at the market. But friends, this mandate, sometimes we can take it so lightly. But this mandate is so important to our Father. And the Bible says all authority has been given to us. It's so important to the Father that He has given us the tools to fulfill the mission that He has sent us on. But friends, it's not an open saint out. From time to time, we're going to have to come to the Father, we're going to have to come to one another and see how are we doing, how are we saving the Father. When you come to church, you hear the preacher is preaching, the teacher is teaching. Sometimes it's God relashing that commission, it's rescinding us. Every day we hear God's word, we get empowered so that we can go and impact the nations and the people around us. And friends, we have to come back and we have to give the report. How are we doing? How are you doing in that area of going to the nations? In your workplace, at the market place, in your neighborhood, what are you doing? Because God has commissioned us. How are you impacting lives? What is hindering you? Who do you account to? Submit yourselves to one another, submit yourself to God so that we can hold one another accountable, praise God. Now friends, there are certain things that hinder us from accounting. And one of them is fear and shame. In Genesis 3, verse 8 to 10, the Bible says, "Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the call of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to them, 'Where are you?' He answered. 'I hate you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.' Now the Bible is talking about Adam and Eve. In the book of Genesis, God gave them a command. You will do this, you can do that. And then they did not listen to God. They did what the serpent said they should do. And when God came down, the Bible says they were running away from God. And they said, 'What did they say?' I was naked, and because friend nakedness is symbolic of shame, suddenly these people that had fellowshiped with God from time to time, now that they have done something wrong. They are now ashamed and they are running away from God. Friends, shame can cause us from running away from God. Remember the Bible says come near, because if you come near, you can account. You run away, there is no room for you to account. But shame sometimes causes us to run away. Fear, when you do something wrong, it causes us to run away. And the moment we run away, friends, we are not taking responsibility. We are avoiding to be answerable. And that's what Adam and Eve were doing. They did not want to answer to the straightforward questions, 'What did I tell you?' So they were running away. But God is so gracious and God is so good, because in the book of Romans, the Bible says there is now no condemnation. So friends, when you have done something wrong, do not run away from the Father, come near to God, moan, grieve, and the Father is gracious and He forgives us. Back of conscience, in the book of Genesis chapter 4, verse 11 to 14, 'Now you are under a kiss and driven from the ground which opened its mark to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it will no longer heal its crops for you, you will be. The restless wonder on the earth can say to the Lord, 'My punishment is more than I can bear.' 'Today you are driving me from the land, and I will be hidden from your presence. I will be arrested this one on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.' So this is a guy that has killed his brother, and God comes to him and pronounces a punishment. This guy does not grieve over his sin, it does not mourn. The face thing that he complains about, the punishment is too big. Lack of conscience, lack of responsibility, is not saying to God, 'I now realize that I have committed the sin, I have done something wrong, I have killed an innocent soul, know he mourns and works about the punishment. Friends we need to ask God, the Holy Spirit, to give us that conscience. It is like Ubuntu, in the Bayes or to our feelings. When you have done something wrong, the feelings are feeling bad, that you have done something wrong, and when you do something wrong, the Bible says, 'Come near, grieve, mourn, and the Father forgives us.' So check your conscience. When you do something wrong, do you have the ability to come to the Father and say, 'Please forgive me.' In two months after, four festivals after two days before, the Bible says such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciousness have been seared us with the whole aisle. So friends, the repeated sin, when we do something that we know that it's wrong and we keep on doing it, we keep on doing it, our conscious dies until we come to a place where we do something wrong and we don't feel nothing. Because then our conscious have been seared as with the whole aisle, we don't want to get their friends, we want to be in a place where if we do something that is wrong, if we know that we are hovering, grudges and forgiveness, we are able to come to the Father and say, 'I am ashamed, there is something that is here, please help me.' It means we are become anxious. You know, this morning in my devotion, I struggled to have devotion because I knew something was not right. But then I reminded myself that this is actually the right time for me to have devotion and in my devotion, I actually spoke to God about it and I said, 'This is how I am feeling and this is how it is, please help me Lord, come near, mourn and grieve, our Father is gracious, He will help you.' Praise the name of God, come and be answerable, come and talk to the Father, take responsibility of your actions and whatever is happening in your life, take responsibility. In summary, friends, in John 1, chapter 1, verse 8 to 10, the Bible says, 'If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unforgiveness, if we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word is not in us.' So friends, come to the Father, confess your sins, talk to Him, His faith and He forgives us. So friends, confession to God and to one another leads us to a place of accountability. We find forgiveness when we account for our sins and I want to end with this encouragement, growing the habit of prayerful reflection, confession, it makes us to grow in accountability to God, account to God in prayer, friends, let's lend to account to God in prayer in our devotion, identifying a person who some people you can hold yourself accountable to, find people that we can trust, it could be your pastor, it could be your friend, people that we can, people that we can chat with, you can talk to them what you're going through, your feelings and the things that are happening and allow them to speak into your lives. People need to be, I mean such people need to be people we are strong enough relationship with to be vulnerable and you can do that in your small groups and you can do that with your best friends. God bless you and pray that we all in to be accountable, to be answerable to one another to God and to take responsibility, may you have a blessed week and God bless you. [BLANK_AUDIO]