Guardrails: Essential Boundaries for Spiritual Safety

1. "We don't like limits. We don't like people telling us you can do this or you can't do that because of our despicable me. And if you don't want to mean by that, maybe you haven't been in a couple of weeks. It's your first time. We've been in the series with despicable me. And what we've said is we are bent. You and I both. We have a natural inclination to bend towards selfishness. Theologians call that our sin nature. The Bible teaches it. That left to my own will, I might be selfless. For a time. But I'll ultimately make decisions that are for me, myself, and I. I will move towards selfishness at the expense of other people." [03:07] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "If you're a parent, though, like, you know all about guardrails. Like, if you're a parent and you've got, like, if you had little kids, like babies, you put them in a playpen. It was four guardrails, like, all the way around because you didn't want them crawling around and playing with outlets and things like that. If you have younger kids, like elementary, you might probably, you probably have some guardrails on screen time. Some boundaries, some limits. If you've got teenagers, they probably have a curfew. It's a guardrail. Like, we tell them things like nothing good happens after midnight. Midnight's the guardrail. 12.30, 1 a.m. is off of the cliff. Everything else is in the safe zone." [05:10] (38 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "What I want you to understand today is that I need you, I need you to be guardrails in my life to keep me from Despicable Me. You need you, you need each other. You need people to be the guardrails that, that when you start to move towards selfishness, you take your eyes off of Jesus, you take your eyes off of other people and you start putting them on yourself and you start to, to go off the cliff, that you have other people around you that are guardrails for you to keep you in the right spot." [08:41] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Two people are better off than one for they can help each other succeed. If one person falls, the other can reach out and help. But someone who falls alone is in real trouble. two people lying close together can keep each other warm. But how can one be warm alone? A person standing alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. Three are even better, for a triple braided cord is not easily broken." [10:52] (27 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "If one person falls, the other can reach out and help but someone who falls alone's in real trouble. But we read stories all the time like Ian Snyder this Ian Snyder December 4th 2023 there's just this last year in Hawaii on his own I read stories like this all the time he's on his own hiking he's a dad father of two great shape something happens to this day he doesn't know what happened he does not remember he goes off the trail and falls a thousand feet to the base of the mountain not like a like straight down like rolls down the mountain gets to the bottom he says later when he woke up he said I don't even remember if it was day or night when I woke up I knew I had broken my arm I drug myself towards a stream and started praying that something would happen so I made my peace with God they searched for him for three days before they found him and they found him he survived made it but man that's the Hawaii rescue said the Honolulu rescue said it was he was lucky really like he went hiking alone fell off the mountain now take that physical mountain and turn it to a spiritual mountain an emotional mountain a relational mountain something happens and you go off the side and you're all alone there's no guardrails there to keep you on the mountain you go off the side and you're laying in the at the base of the mountain broken hungry thirsty and you may not be found." [15:03] (89 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "I hear people all the time say you're not the way you're not the way you're not the way you're not my relationship with Jesus is personal sure it is so is mine but what they're saying is I don't need other people I don't need to go to church I don't need these things because I have a personal relationship with God that's nowhere in the bible nowhere in fact the old testament that like the relationship that's highlighted is God and the nation of Israel his entire people they had a whole nation and they had tribes within the nations and families when the tribes they did their spiritual journey together every day and they did their spiritual journey together every day and they where they went. There was no this just me and God. In the New Testament, Jesus, Jesus, God himself puts disciples around him. He's got 12 guys that he's doing life with. When bad things come up on the mountain, they're supposed to be praying together. His friends are sleeping, but they were supposed to be there for him, right? Like, like Jesus had people. You and I, we need people to be guardrails in our life that when we fall, reach out a hand and go, hey, let me help you back up and back on the path." [17:51] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "You can't survive the spiritually frigid times. You can't survive the difficult times on your own. You have to have people. I need you. You need me. We need each other to be guardrails in our life, to help us stay on the path. And when we start to veer off and be selfish, you go, hey, that's not the way we do it. He closes with this. He says, a person alone can be attacked and defeated, but two can stand back to back and conquer. Three are even better for a triple braided cord is not easily broken." [20:06] (34 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "There is a spiritual war going on right now. We don't talk about it a lot. The Bible talks about angels and demons and they're around. There's a spiritual war going. The enemy, the devil himself, who is real, hates you. Wants you destroyed. Wants you off the side of the cliff. There's a spiritual war and Solomon says, hey, go back to back. How do you go back to back? You have to have other people. And he says, three are even better. Two people go back, back three are even better. For a triple braided cord is not easily broken." [22:32] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "You need to be in a small group of people. That's what this is. Like in the early service, I took 12 dowel rods because I was like a small group, maybe like 10 to 12 people. And the guy like twisted it and broke it. So I had to go to 15. Uh, but small, 10 or 12 people in your life that, that, that, that gather around, that are, that you're praying with, you're studying the Bible, you're doing life together. You're hopefully developing what we call 2 a.m. friends. Then when the bottom of your life falls out at two o'clock in the morning, you make a phone call. They're there. Like you need a small group." [23:49] (29 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "There's someone around you that's a single parent or maybe somebody that's single. Maybe they don't have kids, but they're single. Could you reach out to them? Could you just say, hey, maybe you're married. You've got kids and hey, here's a person that's single or a single mom or a single dad. We're going to invite them in to do things with us as a family. We want them to have community. I said earlier, that may be one of the most profound, ministries you ever find. To love somebody, to bring community to somebody that doesn't have it like you do." [27:05] (30 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)