This is episode 9 fireside chat and the title is How do I add
accountability and wise counsel into my life?
Hey res Pastor Daniel here with the fireside chat.
We're in an ongoing discussion over the last many fireside
chats about Christian friendship, Christian community,
and how that pertains to the Christian life inside our church
and how it shapes our culture in our church.
How do I answer this question today and maybe give you a
couple examples? And that is, how do I add
accountability and wise counsel into my life?
How do I add accountability and wise counsel into my life?
We know from previous episodes that both of those are extremely
important if we want to grow in Christ.
And we also know they're difficult.
They're difficult to Foster and grow and on.
So I want to talk about the process of adding them and I
want to give you some examples of where maybe that doesn't go
well, where it could go well. And I had a a few weeks ago, I
had a guy come up to me. He hadn't been in church in in
quite a while, months at least, maybe maybe years.
And came to me after a particularly, I think,
convicting sermon in which he'd been really the Holy Spirit
really worked, worked on him. And he catches me in the lobby
and he says, Pastor Daniel, I need your help.
I want you to hold me accountable for a series of
things. And I, I, I paused it for a
second. I don't want to chuckle, but I
just, you know, I want to say, hey, hold on, hold on, right?
This is not the way that you we go about it because I don't have
access to your life. I don't even know you.
I, I don't have a frequency of access to see you enough to be
able to hold you accountable. You haven't, you haven't been
here months, right? Let's talk about how that works.
And so I wanted to talk to you about how that works.
So what's the first step? If I'm looking at my life, maybe
doing a little inventory and I think, man, I don't really have
any close accountability and I don't have any wise counsel in
my life. What's the first step?
OK, this could sound a little bit counterintuitive, but it's
going to make sense. The first step, if you realize I
don't have any accountability and I don't have any wise
counsel in my life, is to start by investing in other people.
Yep, that's that's where you start.
I know that sounds weird. You find people to serve.
The first step is to serve others before you start
consuming and taking. So even though what you
recognized in your life and and by the way, admirable that the
the work of the spirit in your life has is is showing you that
you you lack that accountability.
You lack that wise counsel. That's awesome.
But the first step is always to serve others, because that's how
Jesus modeled this to us. Even though you see needs in
your life, we start by serving other people.
Mark 1044 through 45. And Jesus said it.
Whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and
to give his life as ransom for many.
So we have a servant mentality. We serve before we consume.
Galatians 513 says, for you were called the freedom brothers.
Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh,
but through love serve one another.
So how do I go about serving others?
And how would serving others lead me to actually getting this
accountability and wise counsel in my life?
Well, you're going to need to foster relationships with other
people in order to build enough rapport with them and, and
enough relational equity with them that they can hold you
accountable and, and, and that you can trust their wise
counsel. And that's going to take time.
And the way you start is not by asking them to do a bunch of
things for you, the way you start building that
relationship. And by the way, some of our
previous fireside chats have talked a lot about building
Christian relationships. So if you may miss some of
those, it may be it, it may be edifying to go back and, and
listen to a couple of those. But we, we start by serving
others, by being a good listener.
So what you're looking for in, in that relationship is someone
that's going to listen well and pay attention to kind of what's
going on in your life. So you start by modeling that by
becoming a good listener to someone else, right.
If I want to be teachable, I don't want to.
I want to be able to actually listen and receive
accountability. I want to be able to listen and
receive wise counsel. I've got to become a good
listener. And so I start by investing in
people's lives and listening. I, I build those relationships
in the small group. Maybe it's in a ministry that I
serve in, maybe I've gone out the coffee with some, some
people in any of these avenues or methods.
However this works, I become a good listener.
I, I start actively listening to what's going on in their life,
paying attention to what's going on in their life and, and, and
speaking back into their life. I just want to listen, I want to
hear what's going on And, and, and it's probably one of the
fastest ways that you're going to build relationship is, is
really paying attention to another individual.
And then as you listen, finding ways to serve them, right,
you're investing in them. And so you spend enough time
listening what's going on in someone's life in the context.
Again, you need some sort of frequency of access, right?
I got AI need a small group, I need a mentorship, I need a
ministry I'm serving in. I need, I kind of see those
people, right? And, and look, we have previous
episodes on kind of choosing the right friends.
I mean, these people need to love Jesus.
They need to love the church. They need to love you.
We've talked about some of these things, but but I really need to
listen now as I'm trying to be a better listener.
One of the things I'm really paying attention to as I'm
developing this relationship in order to really bake
accountability and good counsel into my life is I'm really going
to take a self-assessment of how well I do when I get corrected.
I think that's a big deal, right?
So when someone tells you something you don't agree with
esecially about you, am I good at listening to that?
Do I actually receive something from it?
Am I good at asking clarifying questions?
Hey, what do you mean by that, right?
Those are, those are important things that you need to learn if
you want to get accountability and wise counsel in your life.
Otherwise, it's wasted on you, right?
And, and, and it won't last. If you're terrible at receiving
feedback, it will not take very long for people to stop giving
you feedback. If you're terrible at receiving
correction, it will not take very long for people to stop
correcting you. If you're horrible at receiving
wise counsel, it's not going to take very long before people
don't give you their wisdom. Not casting pearls among the
swine, right? We're not giving wise counsel
where it's not even received, where it's not warranted, where
it's not wanted. And so you're proving you want
wise counsel. You're proving that you want
accountability by being a good listener.
I demand that I learn something from every conversation.
So someone is ripping me a new one.
I mean, just tearing me up, but with criticism, I'm going to
find some nugget in there that I can grow from.
We would call that eating the meat and spitting out the bones.
Right? Now, here's the thing.
Let's say you're building this a relationship with someone or a
group of guys or gals or a small group or ministry partners and
that you volunteer with whatever these contexts, right?
You're building this and you've been really practicing on
listening and kind of investing in their life, finding ways to
serve those people. And you, you think you got to
the point where man, I, I think I've, I've earned enough.
This relationship's deep enough. It's safe enough that I can, I,
I would really like accountability and wise counsel
in this relationship. OK, here's the next step.
Ready. This is, this is the shocker.
You ask for it. Yeah, that's right.
You ask for. So in the context of the
relationship, now that you've built by listening, by serving
others, you then ask for it. Now that doesn't come a week
into the relationship, right? That, that it's going to take
some time. It takes time to fall in love.
It takes time to build relationships.
It could take time for you to listen.
It's going to take time for you to find opportunities to serve
someone. But, but in time, when you built
that relationship, you're going to ask for the accountability.
You're going to say, Hey, would you be willing to hold me
accountable to something in my life?
And, and, and you're, you're going to accept the answer
because the answer may be no. The answer may be a very polite
way of saying no, and that's OK, but you can ask for it.
You can be clear on what you want out of that accountability.
So if it's that you're really struggling with a specific sin
in your life or a specific thing that is morally neutral but has
begin to have too much maybe of, of, of an influence on you,
you're going to say, hey, here's what it is.
Here are the ways that I often succumb to this sin or this
area. And here's what I here are the
markers I need you to look out for.
I mean, you're laying it all out out there and you're saying what
I'd love for you to do is hold me accountable in this way.
I'd love you to text me once a week.
I'd love you to ask me these questions.
I'd like, I mean, you're be clear, be articulate, don't be
vague. Ask for it.
If you want accountability wise counsel in your life, number
one, you're going to earn it by serving other people, becoming a
good listener and investing in their life and then giving that
some time and space to develop. And then when appropriate, And
you're going to have to feel that out a little bit based on
the the growth in the relationship, you're going to
ask for it and you're going to be specific about what you're
looking for and you're going to walk through that.
And then again, if you get good at accepting the wise counsel,
if you get good at accepting the correction and show that you
actually treasure it, what what will happen is you, you will
have shown the other party or, or people in that context that
you really do value it. And you'll find that that
they're willing to invest their time and their energy in that
with you because you value it. I hope that's helpful for you
guys. I know each of these situations
sometimes a little bit different.
So I talk a little bit in generalities around some of
this, but I will, just from personal experience, I will tell
you that close accountability and good wise counsel in your
life is so invaluable. There's not really a parallel to
it. And we were designed for it.
We need it. It will help us grow and we can
earn it. And we can earn it through our
own willingness to serve others. Be humble in in our listening,
particularly around correction and things we disagree with.
And in time that will actually pay off as a phenomenal
relational investment in our life to help us love Jesus more,
but to look more and more like Jesus Christ.
I love you, Rez. Until next time, Pastor Daniel.