Restoring Warriors Core Values | Accountability

Restoring Warriors | Core Value: Accountability

Accountability is where real transformation begins. In Restoring Warriors, men refuse to fight their battles alone. Through brotherhood and biblical truth, we create bonds with other men who are facing the same struggles—and we hold each other to the standard we say we want to live by.

Accountability means telling the truth about our lives. It means refusing to hide sin, excuses, or compromise. It means giving another man permission to challenge us when we drift from the life God has called us to.

In this teaching, we look at the story of King David, whose fall began when isolation replaced accountability. When confronted by the prophet Nathan, David was forced to face the truth of his actions. His repentance in Psalm 51 shows us that restoration begins when a man stops hiding and starts taking responsibility.

Men cannot serve two masters. As Jesus Christ teaches in Gospel of Matthew 6:24, we must choose who we truly serve.

This message challenges men to step into the light, break the silence, and build real brotherhood through honesty and accountability.

Transcript

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All right, men, welcome to Restoring Warriors. And tonight we're diving into the core value series, and we're beginning with our first and most foundational value, accountability. Now, restoring warriors accountability means this: through ministry, we're able to create bonds with other men who are struggling in the same area as we are. We hold each other accountable. We don't let each other off the hook when we mess up and we call each other out when we aren't living up to the life we say we want. We don't shy away from tough subjects. We use biblical truth as our moral compass. So before we dive into this, let's set the tone for the meeting of the the for the night. Let's pray. Hey, Father, thank you so much for your word and your presence. And tonight I pray, Lord, that you speak directly to all the men that are watching this video. I pray your words become a mirror for them, showing us where we need to grow. I pray that anything that I speak, Lord, that's not from you gets set aside. But the words that are from you, Lord, that they take root and produce fruit in our lives. We love you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. All right, man. So back in 2024 and parts of 2025, I was going through just a really stressful, painful child support battle with my ex-wife. And from the outside looking in, it's easy to tell the story like she's the villain. Okay. I can really tell that story well. Man, she's she's unreasonable. She was way too emotional. She was just out to get me the entire time. And I think that we can all make the other person look like the bad guy in a breakup. But the truth is, is I helped create the situation too. And for such a long time, I couldn't, or wouldn't really, is probably the better way to put that, is take I wouldn't take full accountability for that. So back in 2018, I got sober, and then two months later is when I met Chandra, and we got pregnant really fast. I'm talking like 10 days after I met her. She she was pregnant with our with our firstborn. And we were married within six months. We truly rushed everything. And our relationship wasn't built on any sort of deep understanding. But I do believe it was it was built on good intentions. Um, in my my case, I think it was built on fear and probably some pressure to do the right thing, um, knowing that the kid was on the way. I had a baby on the way. I wanted to provide, I wanted to protect, I wanted to lead. You know, I wanted to do all the man stuff. And and I was so desperately seeking my identity. So the previous 15 years of being party sean came to an end, and I had to find my value. So I dove into my work. I was headfirst into my work. I built businesses, I scaled a team, I won awards. I was going to prove to anyone, everyone who said that I couldn't get clean, those who said I wouldn't amount to anything. Um, if I'm honest, I wanted to prove this to my father that I can do this. Right. I'm not a loser, I'm not an addict. I am a success. Man, from the outside, it looked a lot like success, but but I wasn't present. I wasn't present in my household. My kids would come up to me asking me to play, and I would say things like, Man, just just a just a minute, buddy. Yeah, I'll be right over there. Just one more text, one more email. I would tell myself, man, I'm just doing this for my family. I'm doing this to provide a better life for my family, but but I was missing my entire family in the process. All right, and at work I had all these systems. Okay, I had I had a team, I had these real estate agents who were doing all my showings for me, but I was still stuck in every single aspect of the business. I was juggling, I was stressing, I was always one step behind. And I wasn't showing up as a husband, and I definitely wasn't showing up as a father. So then we get divorced. I mean, uh a lot of other things contributed to this, but if I'm honest and if I acknowledge my biggest faults in this marriage, this would be it. And then suddenly I have three kids under the age of three. I've got no buffer, I've got no help. It's just me. Okay, that's when this mirror of accountability went up for me. I had to learn in real time how to be a real dad. All right, I had to change diapers, I had to clean up messes, I had to put down my phone, I had to learn how to be present. And let me tell you that the growth that I resisted in my marriage came really fast when I was alone with three toddlers. And that's when I saw it, man. I wasn't just busy. I was hiding behind busyness. I was using work as a weapon against intimacy. And if I hadn't been forced to look in that mirror, I'd still be blaming her. I'd still be justifying, I'd still be living in denial. Okay, but but accountability woke me up, and God woke me up at the same time. God humbled me and took what I thought was my identity at that point, which was my success. And he forced me to knock it down a couple of pegs. And there was this realization that financial success doesn't mean familial success or personal success. Matthew 6, 24 says, no one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. So during this period, I downsized my business. I simplified everything, and I took a major financial hit. And I don't regret it because now I'm a present dad. Okay, my boys know me. My kids know Jesus. My kids know what it looks like to worship the Lord by volunteering at church, by tithing, by singing, by praying, by living a life conducive of Christ. My kids now see a father who's sacrificing parts of himself, himself, to pour into them and to pour into God. I don't say, hey, just a minute, buddy. I don't say that anymore. I put my phone down. Okay, and the most important thing I have outside of my relationship with Christ is them. It's those three boys. And here's the truth is this group exists right now, today, because I want to be the kind of man that my kids can look up to. I want to surround myself with other warriors, men who are willing to ask the hard questions, men who are willing to kill their ego and say, I'm not living up to the standard right now, but I'm willing to fight for it. And that's what accountability has done for me. And I'm, and it's still doing it every single day. Okay, the parts of ourselves that we don't want others to see, or the parts of ourselves that that we're lying to ourselves about, these are sins that are a slow drip. And here's the thing about a slow drip: it starts as a small drip in the cabinet. It's a loose pipe that that at first doesn't seem like it's a big deal, but it then it continues to drip and it drips and it drips. And it's not enough to notice much at first or bad enough to put attention to, but it continues to drip. And the next thing you know, you're you're smelling something funky whenever a breeze is flowing just right in the house. And it's so you add a candle in the kitchen, or you put one of those glade plug-ins at the kitchen countertop, but but the leak it keeps dripping and it keeps dripping. And finally the day comes who you open up the sink and you see a puddle of water just sitting in the back, and and your supplies are all drenched, and that slow drip is now a sizable leak that pours out water every time the faucet's turned on. And as you investigate further, you notice that the drywall has started to discolor, and the and the water has spread a few feet to either side, and you see you start to see mold, and you can't seem to find where it ends. So, so at this point, you start removing parts of the wall and you see that it extends farther than you could have seen or ever even thought. And then the next thing you realize is, oh man, the cabinets are wet, and mold's growing on them too. And in order to take care of this, you have to accept the fact that the job is outside of your scope. All right, it's outside of your ability, and you need to call in a plumber, you need to call in a cabinet contractor and a mold mitigation company to make sure there's no lingering effects of this slow drip. And men, this is how our sin shows up. It slowly manifests from being something minimal to something completely out of control, requiring a team of experts to mitigate the collateral damage that's left behind. And David knows this all too well, right? 2 Samuel 11, verses 1 through 4, it says, It happened late one afternoon when David arose from his couch and was walking on the roof of the king's house, and he saw from the roof a woman bathing. And the woman was very beautiful, and David sent and inquired about the woman, and one said, Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite? So David sent messengers and took her, and she came to him, and he lay with her. All right, so listen, David was the king. This guy had all the power, he had all the status, all right? But on the day that kings go to war, David stayed home and he was idle, and his idleness became a breeding ground for temptation. So I want to ask you something. How often do you skip something? Or do you not show up where you're supposed to be? All right, that happened to David. He saw something, he inquired, he he he took, and then he laid with her. He made that mistake. And this wasn't a one-time mistake, all right? This was a series of unaccountable decisions. How many of us know this pattern, all right? We we say things like, oh, I'm just looking, right, as we're scrolling Instagram on profiles we shouldn't be on, or oh, it's really not a big deal, right? It's not really hurting anybody what I'm doing here. That's that slow drip. Sometimes we say things like, ah, well, nobody else is gonna find out, right? But but the fall doesn't start with a crash. Oftentimes it just starts with a slow drip, right? And then you see David go into cover-up mode, 2 Samuel 11, verses 6 through 9, and said, So David sent word to Joab, send me Uriah the Hittite. Then David said to Uriah, go down to your house and wash your feet. But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his Lord, and he did not go down to his house. Right? All right, so this is where things get really dark. David's now trying to cover up his tracks because he got Bathsheba pregnant. And instead of being a man and owning up to his sim, he starts manipulating other people. All right, and look at the contrast here. Uriah was a man of integrity. He could have gone home, he got the king's permission. He could have slept with his wife, but he refused to enjoy comfort while his men were still at war. Uriah was accountable to the people that he served. But David, on the other hand, this guy, he's spiraling, right? And he's using his authority to hide rather than to lead. It's like he's spraying a breeze at the stench of mold coming from under the sink. Okay, and then Shane oftentimes, as it does, comes full circle. In 2 Samuel 11, verses 14 and 15, it says, In the morning, David wrote a letter to Joab, send, set Uriah in the forefront of the hardest fighting, and then draw back from him, that he may be struck down and die. And now it's not just adultery. Now this is full-blown murder. And that's what unconfessed sin does. It grows, it demands more cover up, it demands more lies, it demands more victims. Sin that is hidden will always demand blood. The question is, is who's blood? If David would have just confessed, he would have found grace earlier instead. His shame drove him to destroy a good man just to preserve his image. All right, things take a turn here. 2 Samuel 12, verses 1 through 7. The Lord sent Nathan to David. When he came to him, he said, There were two men in the certain town, one rich, one poor. The rich man had a very large number of sheep and cattle, but the poor man had nothing except one little ewam that he had bought. He raised it. And it grew up with him and his children, shared his food, drank from his cup, and even slept in his arms. It was like a daughter to him. Now a traveler came to the rich man, but the rich man refrained from taking one of his own sheep or cattle to prepare a meal for the traveler who had come to him. Instead, he took that ewamb that belonged to the poor man and prepared it for the one who had come to him. David burned with anger against the man, and he said to Nathan, As surely as the Lord lives, the man who did this must die. He must pay for that lamb four times over, because he did such a thing and had no pity. Then Nathan said to David, You are the man. Man, this is the turning point. David needed somebody to hold up a mirror, right? And David, uh Nathan didn't show up to shame him. He showed up to bring the king back to his God. Every man in this room, every man watching this needs a Nathan. Someone who will call out what others ignore, someone who's not impressed by your status, someone who cares more about your soul than your feelings. You are the man. Those words cut. But man, they also free David. Psalm 51. Okay. David says, Have mercy on me, O God. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and uphold me with a willing spirit. David finally confesses, man, this is the model. He doesn't make excuses. He doesn't say, Well, I didn't really mean to, and it was her fault too. Or no, man, I was just stressed, I was tempted. No, he owns it. It took him long enough, but he finally owns it. This is the moment, man, where warriors are made. When they drop the excuses, they drop the image, and they say, God, this was me. I broke it, and I need you to fix it. And here's the key is God did forgive David. God did restore David, but the consequences still remained. Okay, that's what accountability is. It doesn't erase your past, but it does rewrite your future. Okay, so I want I want you to take a couple minutes here. I'm gonna ask you some questions. Take a couple moments to think about it. Who's your Nathan? Who's your Nathan? Who are you allowing to call you out when you start sliding? Who's holding you accountable? Where are you still trying to cover up something that God is calling you to bring into the light? Who are you and Nathan too? Right? As warriors, we're called to also be the knife that cuts your brother. And as warriors, we cut each other in the front, not in the back. We address men face to face. Alright, so let's not rush past this, right? We've we heard the story of David, a warrior who got lost. A warrior who got found again. But now it's your story that matters. So now we're gonna do something that might feel a little bit different, but we're gonna take accountability for things in our life. And we're going to start that by acknowledging them to ourselves and to God. So I want you to take a couple deep breaths. Deep breath in. Hold it for a moment and then a deep breath out. Do that a couple times. I'm gonna ask you these questions. Number one, where in your life are you avoiding accountability right now? Be completely honest, put it all on the table. Is it in your work? Is it in your marriage? Is it in your fatherhood? Is it in your walk with God? Where are you avoiding accountability right now? Next is what sin what struggle or habit are you trying to manage in the dark? Is there something that's lingering that you haven't confessed because of fear or shame? What is it? Put a name to it. Next question is who is your Nathan? Who's that person in your life with full permission to call you out? Do you have that person? And if not, why not? Why don't you have that person? Next is what excuses are you still holding on to? What are the phrases you tell yourself to justify avoiding change? And last, what are the consequences you're already experiencing by not addressing this? Alright, is it broken relationships? Is it internal internal torment? Is it a divided mind? So this next week in your groups, fellas, men, I leave you with a challenge. Alright? I want you to find your Nathan. Before you meet next week, every man in this room, in your room, must reach out to another man in the group. Someone they trust, someone you're building trust with. And you're gonna do three things with this man, okay? Number one is you're gonna share one area of your life where you're struggling or you feel out of alignment. Be open, be vulnerable, go deep. Don't just stay at the surface level. Number two, you're gonna ask that man to check in with you once this week. To check in with you once this week to see how you're doing in that area. And number three, you will give him permission to speak truth to you, even when it's uncomfortable. And then as a bonus step, for just five minutes each night this week, I want you to journal for five minutes. Okay? Where did I avoid responsibility today and how can I own it tomorrow? Take accountability for where you fell short and put a plan in place to overcome it tomorrow. And so, men, this group doesn't exist so we can have good talks and go home the exact same as we showed up. It exists to create better men. Men who show up for their kids, men who lead their homes, men who honor God in the quiet places. And you're not here by accident. God's putting his finger on something in your life. Okay, not to shame you, but to free you. And it starts with owning your part. Okay, just like David. Just like I had to, just like every man in this room will have to if he wants to rise up as a warrior. So tonight we've talked about ownership, we've talked about sin, we've talked about accountability. And it's it's it's heavy. That's because the truth is usually pretty heavy. But here's what separates the kingdom of God from every other system in the world. In the kingdom of God, grace follows confession. Restoration follows repentance. David messed up bad, but he wasn't discarded. He wasn't labeled by his sin forever. David was fully restored by the same man who failed and became the same man who wrote the Lord is my shepherd. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. That's what grace does. It turns broken men into bold leaders. And you get to experience grace when you become accountable for where you've fallen short. So let's be clear, fellas, is accountability without Jesus is just behavior modification. But with Jesus, it becomes transformation. Right? Jesus didn't just come to forgive your sins, he came to free you from them. He took the weight, he bore all the shame. And when you confess your sin, you're not met with condemnation. You're met with a cross. And from that cross came these words. It is finished. That means your guilt is finished. Your past doesn't own you. You're not who you used to be. You're a man of God, a son of the king. You are a restoring warrior. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your truth, even when it's uncomfortable. Thank you that you love us enough to confront what we'd rather ignore. Thank you, Lord, that every time we confess, you don't turn away from us. You run towards us. God, make us men of integrity, men of boldness, men of grace and grit. Give us the strength to tell the truth and the humility to receive it. And thank you, Jesus. Thank you for your sacrifice, for your mercy, and for the freedom that we now have to be real and to be restored. Jesus, it's in your glorious name that we pray. Amen. Now your group leaders are going to take over. They're going to go over our small group ground rules. Start with a check in and bring Break into your small groups. I pray that God speaks to you through your small groups and the Holy Spirit enters this room. Love you, men. We'll see you next time.