James Meehan - The Key to Consistency in Spiritual Growth

Watch
Audio
Get involved

Today we’re gonna talk about the one ingredient that is missing for most people’s goal setting plans. And it is the one ingredient that has the potential to make you 10 times, I’m not exaggerating, 10 times more likely to actually accomplish the goals that you set. But before we get to that, we’re gonna do a little bit of recap of where we have been so far in this series. We are talking about a letter to young leaders like you because we believe that you are not the leaders of tomorrow, but you are the leaders of today.

Now, at the same time, we recognize that who you are today is not who you will always be, that you’re going to continue to grow, and change, and develop, and mature, even more into who God has created you to be. That’s why throughout this series we’ve been talking about this big idea that the choices you make today determine the person that you become tomorrow. The choices you make today matter immensely because of the difference that you can make today, and because of the influence that God wants you to have in the future. The choices you make today determine the person you become tomorrow.

Now a kind of silly example. Going into my freshman year of high school, I started training Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and I loved it, and I made choices every week to go to practice, to bring my best, to get good sleep, to eat well, to train, to rest, to train, to rest, to compete. And over the course of those four years of high school, I got promoted until I got a purple belt, and I was pretty bad to the bone at jiu-jitsu. And over the course of those four years, all of those choices made me into a pretty capable jiu-jitsu fighter. And then I decided to stop training, and I took 11 years off. And over the course of those 11 years, I was making choices to not get better at jiu-jitsu.

So then a few months ago, after turning 30, when I got back into the game of jiu-jitsu, I wasn’t just at the same level I was 11 years ago. I’d actually gotten worse. I regressed. But the reason why I tell you this is because had I stayed consistent, I would’ve gotten my black belt years ago. But I made different choices. And so the person I became was not a black belt in jiu-jitsu. Now, thankfully, the person that I became, by the grace of God, is a husband to my wife, Mandy, a father to two amazing kids, Jace and Micah Rose. I became a pastor at a church that changed my life, and I have seen God used to change the lives of so many people. But I say this to say I was making choices then that determined the direction of my future.

And when I started making different choices, my life took a different direction, and the same is true for you. There are some of you who need to keep making the right choices because you are moving in an amazing direction. And there are others of you. Let’s just call it what it is. You are making terrible choices. It’s time to start making better ones. So we’re gonna look at God’s word in 1 Timothy chapter four. This is the passage of scripture we’ve been looking at where the apostle Paul wrote a letter to his apprentice Timothy, and he said some really, really powerful words to him. In verse seven and eight, the apostle Paul says this. He says, train yourself to be godly. Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I loved training jiu-jitsu. Physical training is good. It helped me to stay in shape. I developed self-control and discipline. I learned how to work really hard and how to learn things in different ways, and that was all good. But when I devoted my life to following Jesus, the things that came from that were so much better because during my years of doing jiu-jitsu, that never brought my broken family back together, that did not fill the void in my soul that was longing for meaning, that was longing for more. When I did jiu-jitsu, I had friends, but I didn’t have the deep and godly relationships that are found when you choose to chase after Jesus alongside His people. Training for physical things is good, but training for godliness is so much better.

The greatest calling in your life is to believe in Jesus and do everything you can to become like Jesus. So then how do we train to become godly? According to the Apostle Paul, one of the things that we’ve gotta do is we got to build godly habits. Now, this shows up all throughout this letter to Timothy. And even what we just read, this idea of training reveals the importance of building godly habits. Because when somebody is training for something, they change their habits. Like if you know a friend that is training for some type of an event, it could be like a sporting event. Maybe they’re training for a marathon. They’re training for state. They’re training for whatever that thing is. They don’t just do it every once in a while. Consistently, regularly. They make their habits work for them to bring them closer to the goal that they have set.

If you see somebody who is just trying to get better at a thing, then they only do the stuff when it’s convenient. But as soon as it gets difficult, that’s when they give up. If you actually want to train to become godly, one of the best things you can do is make reading your Bible as normal to you as brushing your teeth. Hopefully every single one of you brushed your teeth this morning and didn’t even think about it because it’s just a part of what you do. If you wanna grow in your faith and become the person that God has created you to be. Then things like reading the Bible, things like prayer, things like sharing your faith, things like worshiping God at church need to become as natural and regular as brushing your teeth. This is how we train to become godly. We make godly things a part of our habits and our routines.

So a question that you might ask yourself is, what bad habit do you currently have that you need to replace with a better habit? The Apostle Paul goes on, he says, in a few verses later, verse 12, to not let anyone think less of you because you are young. You may be young, but God can still use you in really big ways. So be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. If you wanna train to become godly, start by building godly habits. And secondly, choose to become a godly example. And what’s really important about that verbiage becoming a godly example is that when you become an example, that means you become the kind of person that others look up to. You become the kind of person who lives in such a way that you inspire others to be more than they think they can on their own.

And perhaps just as importantly, when you become an example, the stuff that you do doesn’t just benefit you, it benefits others. And this is so important because when you make your goals selfish or when you make your faith in Jesus selfish, then as soon as it gets hard, chances are really good that you will give up. You’ll throw in the towel. Because the only person who suffers when you give up is you. And if you’re the one who doesn’t wanna do it, then you just decide to stop doing it. I’ve said it before, but one of the greatest things to accelerate my growth when it comes to following Jesus was choosing to be a small group leader in the church. Because then my faith and becoming more of who God’s created me to be, learning more of what his word says didn’t just help me. It also helped the younger people I was leading.

And there are some of you who have made the decision to serve in your church, whether on Host Team or in LifeKids. And you have experienced the power of choosing to become a godly example by wearing that shirt that says student leader. And when you put that shirt on, you carry yourself differently. Why? Because church isn’t just about you getting what you want. It is about you bringing your best and serving others so that they can experience the goodness that God has in store for them. If you wanna train to become godly, build godly habits, become a godly example.

Another thing that we’re gonna dig more into this week, that missing ingredient shows up in the last few verses of chapter four. In verses 14 through 16, Paul writes, do not neglect the spiritual gift you received. Every single one of you have been gifted by God in really special ways, that He wants you to be able to use to make a difference. So give your complete attention to these matters, to the things that God has gifted you for. The things that God has asked you to do, give your complete attention to those. Throw yourself into your task so that everyone will see your progress. Keep a close watch on how you live and on your teaching. Stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you.

The thing that is so important here in this paragraph is our focus. It is our attention. Because there is nothing that will throw you off track faster than being distracted. As soon as your attention shifts, you actually start moving in a different direction. I don’t know if you have been through driver’s ed, and I don’t know if this activity was a part of your driver’s ed, but it was a part of mine however many years ago. But they set up these cones in the parking lot, and they asked us to drive through the cones. Seems pretty simple. Here was the trick. We had to drive through those cones while looking out the side window. And you might be thinking to yourself, it’s probably not easy to drive straight if you’re looking left, and you are 100% right.

What happened with almost every single person was the car started to drift the direction that we were looking because your attention has a dramatic influence on the direction of your thoughts, your actions, and your words. And the reason why so many people give up on their goals, the reason so many people don’t make progress in their faith journey is because they are giving their attention to everything except for God. They are giving their attention to every pretty little distraction that pops up in their notifications. They’re constantly thinking about things that are fun and might be good, but are not godly. This is why the Apostle Paul tells us to keep a close watch, to give our complete attention to these things, because our attention determines our direction. So if you wanna train to become godly, first, you gotta build godly habits. Second, you have to become a godly example. And third, this is the key ingredient. You have to create godly accountability. You have to create godly accountability.

Now, lots of people are familiar with the word accountability. Many people have attempted accountability, but almost everybody I’ve ever met who has attempted accountability has gone about it in some of the least effective ways possible. Because almost every time we’re asking for accountability, for somebody to help us stick to our goals, what we’re doing, whether we realize it or not, is asking them to be disciplined for us because we don’t have enough discipline for ourselves. And so the thing that we are trying to accomplish that we don’t have enough discipline to do, we’re asking somebody else to provide the discipline that is missing. But guess what? Most of them also don’t have enough discipline for themselves.

So you’re asking them to give you something that they don’t even have. And this is why oftentimes you will see people ask somebody, «Hey, will you hold me accountable to this thing»? And that person will say yes, and they will mean it sincerely. But then a week or two goes by and they’ve never actually checked, or you’ve never reminded them about the thing that you need to be held accountable to because you’ve also forgotten. And so what we need to do if we’re creating effective accountability, godly accountability, is we have to incentivize the person holding us accountable. If you want them to do a service for you, you gotta make it worth their while.

So last week I shared the story of the dude who dropped $5 into a urinal and then he threw $50 into the urinal, and then he reached in and grabbed $55 out of the urinal. Do you guys remember? Good, I hope that’s a hard to forget story. But the point of the story was that doing hard things is much less painful if you know the reward is worth it. Reaching into a toilet for $5 probably isn’t worth it. But reaching into a toilet for $55, much more appealing. So if you want somebody to hold you accountable, what is gonna make it worth their while? So I’ll tell you what I did when I early on became a Christian. I realized that reading my bible was a good thing, but if I didn’t do it, it didn’t really cost me.

So I made it costly. I literally had a friend and I said, «Hey, here’s what I wanna do. For the next 30 days, we’re gonna read our Bibles every single day, and we’re gonna text each other every day after we’ve done it to say that we did it. And if I don’t read my Bible or text you to tell you that I did, I will pay you $5. And if you don’t read your Bible or text me to tell me that you did, you will pay me $5».

Now, some of you might feel uncomfortable about monetizing spiritual disciplines. I felt great about it at the time, and I still feel okay about it. But what this did is it made it doing the right thing, far more enjoyable in the moment, and doing the wrong thing far more painful in the moment. Because not only did I have to admit to my buddy that I didn’t read my Bible, but I had to pay him, and I felt it, and so did he. And it did not take long before both of us were far more disciplined in the things that we knew we needed to do. And it made both of us far more consistent at actually reaching out to one another and holding each other accountable because don’t get me wrong, I wanted him to read his Bible. But if he didn’t and I got five bucks, I wasn’t too upset.

Now, this got way outta hand for me to the point where I at one point legitimately had 20 different people that I was texting every single day. And if I failed, I would have had to spend $200. But because it would’ve cost me $200, you better believe I never missed a day. And most everybody would miss like three or four days. And so almost everybody that I did this with, I’d make about 20 bucks off of. Once again, I’m not saying that you should try to monetize spiritual growth in that way, but what it did is it made our accountability effective.

So here’s the question for you. What is it gonna look like for you to create godly accountability? There’s a couple of big pieces to it. The first thing is you’ve gotta know who are you going to be accountable to. If there’s not actually a person that’s gonna hold you accountable, then it’s not effective. Then you’ve gotta clearly define what action you are going to take. I am going to read my Bible and I’m going to text you after I’ve done it. And then you gotta figure out what is the reward when you do the right thing and the consequence when you don’t. The reason why most bad behaviors are so easy to keep doing is because they’re enjoyable in the moment and the pain doesn’t show up until the future.

The reason that good behaviors are so difficult to start doing is because they are painful in the moment and they don’t become enjoyable until the future. Choosing to continue watching that show on Netflix, instead of doing your homework, much more enjoyable until you do that for an entire school year, get to the end of the school year and realize, «Oh gosh, I am so far behind that the only way that I’m moving on to the next grade is by going to summer school». The enjoyment showed up in the present. The pain didn’t come until the future. So with effective and godly accountability, you’ve gotta game the system a little bit to help bring the reward into the present and also the consequence into the present, and that’s gonna help you be much more consistent in doing the right things.

And so when we go to our switch groups, we’re gonna fill in this statement. There’s a few blanks. It is blank. That’s the person’s name. will hold me accountable to blank. The action that you will take. If I do it, the reward is blank. If I don’t, the consequence is blank. What I realized for me is that I far too often pull out my phone in the middle of conversations just because it’s a habit to pull out my phone and look at it. And so today I asked some people on our staff team that I work with. If I pull out my phone in a conversation with you or in a meeting and you call me on it, I will pay you $1 every single time. And I kid you not, as I am telling two of my team members that that is what I will do, I pulled my phone out without even realizing it, and the person said, «You’re doing it right now».

Oh gosh. Okay. Here’s a dollar. Three minutes later in the same conversation, the same person called me out again. I paid them a second dollar. I brought the pain into the present because I need effective accountability, and I made them calling me out worth their while 'cause they’re making money and they’re helping me become who God has created me to be. This is what it looks like to create godly accountability. This is what is gonna help you stay focused on doing what is right, giving your complete attention to good and godly things.

As we close out this message, I wanna reread verse 16. The Apostle Paul ends this paragraph by saying, stay true to what is right for the sake of your own salvation and the salvation of those who hear you. Stay true for the sake of your own salvation. There is nothing more rewarding than devoting your entire life to Jesus because Jesus is better than anything and following him as the power to change everything. And there is nothing more dangerous to your soul than pretending to be a follower of Jesus without actually following Jesus. Stay true for the sake of your own salvation and for the salvation of those who hear you. There is nothing more attractive than people whose lives have been radically changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. And there is nothing more unattractive than Christians who talk the talk but don’t walk the walk. This is why it matters that we train to become godly because us living into the calling that we have been given doesn’t just change our lives for the better. It has the power to bring those who are far from God into the light of his love. So train to become godly by building godly habits, becoming a godly example, and creating godly accountability.

Lord Jesus, we come before you right now. So grateful for all that you have done to show your love for us. I pray that every single one of us would take seriously the calling that you have given us to become like you, to become the kind of people who love, and live, and walk and talk, and think, and act like you do. Help us to take it seriously. Give us the wisdom, the courage, and the discipline to do what we know we need to do, even when we don’t feel like it. And help us to find the people today who will hold us accountable to what is right so that we can stay true to what you have called us to do. For all this, in your name, amen, and amen, and amen.