Establishing Spiritual Guardrails for a Stronger Faith

Bible Reading:
1) Romans 3:23 - "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." [01:06:05 <6WG75N7RYwQ>]

Observation Questions:
1) What does Romans 3:23 mean when it says "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God"?
2) How does the concept of sin relate to the idea of guardrails mentioned in the discussion?

Interpretation Questions:
1) How does the concept of sin in Romans 3:23 relate to our need for guardrails in our lives?
2) What does "falling short of the glory of God" mean in the context of our daily lives and decisions?

Application Questions:
1) Can you identify a time when you "fell short of the glory of God" and how it impacted your life?
2) What are some "guardrails" you have or could put in place to help you avoid sin and live a life that glorifies God?
3) How can you apply the concept of repentance and correction in your life when you fall into sin?
4) Can you think of a specific situation where you could have used a "guardrail" to avoid sin? What would that guardrail look like?
5) How can you encourage and hold each other accountable in your small group to establish and maintain these guardrails?

Well, good morning, Father's House! Good morning! My name is Pastor Tim, and I'm honored to serve as the Freedom and Care Pastor. Today, I'm honored to be on the platform as Pastor Terry and Pastor Anita are away getting refreshed.

Father's House, let's welcome our online church today! Can't wait for you guys to come join us in the house today.

Hey, before we get into the word, I want to give you just a couple of different updates today, if I could.

First thing I'd like to do is this: This is called Healthy Living. It's Lake County magazine, and it's associated with the Style magazine. So, it's the October one. Pick it up! Our own Jimmy Straser, my brother, my friend, is in there. You want to read it; it is great! Pastor Isaac, a lot of you know Pastor Isaac, his story is in there also, along with others. It's all about well-being this month.

I would also like to let the congregation know that our board member and beloved friend, Beverly Lemon, has been transferred to Health Central in Ocoee under hospice care. So, if you could please keep her in your prayers, that God keeps His hand upon her and their family. Thank you.

So, this morning, before church, we have a group of intercessory prayer warriors back there, and they were drawn to this rock that's back there. The vision and the word that they got was this: that God is bigger than any giant in your life. They thought that maybe today, sometimes a beautiful day, take a walk and symbolically pick up a rock today to symbolize that you believe that your Heavenly Father is greater than any giant that you're battling in your life today. If you believe that today, give the Lord a hand clap!

So today, I just want to talk to you for a few moments, and I'd like to invite you into my mind. Yeah, that could be a scary place! I would just like to talk to you about some things that God’s been talking to me about, and I really hope that it inspires you today.

So, let me ask you this question: Do you ever wake up? I do. Do you ever wake up in the middle of the night just thinking random thoughts? Just boom! Okay, here's one for you: Did Noah include termites on the ark? Let that one sink in for a minute.

Now, that's not actually what God woke me up with, but He did, a couple of months ago, wake me up with a portion of this teaching rolling around in my mind, and He's been dealing with me on this subject for the last probably two to three months. I just want to share some of those thoughts with you today, and that subject is guard rails.

See, I believe as Christians, we all need to understand and establish guard rails in our life. Simply defined, guard rails are this: they are a system designed to keep vehicles from straying into dangerous and off-limit areas. You've all been on the highway; you've all seen guard rails along the side of the road. When they are properly placed, they're in the safety zone, not the danger zone. If you're going on a highway that's got a cliff, the guard rail is not on the edge of the cliff; it's back from the cliff, designed to keep us safe.

So really, we can say it maybe a little bit better like this: Guard rails direct and protect us. I want you to check this picture out. Now, I don't know about you, but I need them when I bowl! So really, the reason I chose that was because these guard rails keep us out of the gutter of life.

Okay, we need that! So highways and bowling alleys aren't the only places that we need guard rails. Most of us could agree that some of our biggest regrets could have been avoided if we had guard rails in our lives.

Again, I don't know about you; I'm talking about me today. I told you I'm inviting you inside of my mind today. Guard rails could keep us from making financial decisions. Think about especially maybe when you were younger and made some financial decisions that weren't the best that you could have ever made.

Moral decisions—we all need a guard rail to help us with the moral decisions of life. Relational decisions—going out with that person just because they look so cute maybe didn't turn out to be the best decision that you ever made in your life. And of course, spiritually, we need spiritual guard rails in place so that we are making the decisions that the Holy Spirit leads us to that move us forward in our spiritual life, that help us grow our spiritual life. And then through that growth, we can share that with the circle of influence that God has placed you in.

But see, society encourages painted dotted lines that are okay to pass on. Society doesn't encourage guard rails. We've all seen it—the broken dotted line where you can pass, right? But how many of you have ever passed on that double solid line? Come on, come on, come on! Alright, alright, a couple of you out there.

So, we were just up in the mountains, and it was actually a passing lane, but we still have to be careful in that. We're coming to a curve, and there are a lot of switchbacks, and this car just took off from about four cars back to go around. We were just praying that it would make it around before the rest of the traffic came. That wasn't the wisest of decisions.

Again, society says that it's okay to pass on things. Society says it's okay to bend the rules just a little bit. "Oh, if it feels good, it's okay for you to do it."

Let me give you just a couple of examples. The first one is this: When we talk about sex, we say, "Wait until you're ready." Now, that sounds like pretty decent advice. However, if you ask or tell that to any teenage boy, he will tell you, "I wake up ready every morning!"

Again, this is not your Grandmom's church. If you have children in here that you don't think that's appropriate, we have an excellent children's ministry next door that we would encourage you to check your children into.

Another piece of advice that people often say is this: "Hey, listen to your heart." Right? "Listen to your heart; that'll tell you what to do." However, if we look to the scripture, Jeremiah 17:9 tells us this: "The human heart is the most deceitful of all things and desperately wicked. Who knows how bad it really is?"

So apparently, we just can't listen to our heart. We need some other guidance in our lives so that we make better decisions. Society does not encourage guard rails but then looks down on us when we end up in the ditch of our lives.

Nobody plans to wreck their life. Nobody plans to wreck their marriage. Nobody plans to wreck their health or their career any more than none of us plan to wreck our car today on the way home. The problem is this: We just don't plan not to. And guard rails are how we plan not to wreck our lives.

I've got a quote for you here, and I want this to sink in: "Stepping away from what harms you is a step toward the one who loves you." Think about that for a moment.

Think about it in the context of relationships. As I step away from what can possibly harm my marriage, I step towards my wife, who loves me. In the spiritual context, when we step away from things that we know will harm us, we are stepping closer to our Holy Heavenly Father, who we know loves us—loves us so much He sent His Son to die for us and then sent His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us.

Ephesians 5:15-16 puts it like this: "Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil." Paul wrote that over 2,000 years ago. The days are evil—kind of sounds like today, right? Everywhere we look, we see that the days are evil. You turn on the news every night; it's 30 minutes minus the commercials or minus the weather of this bad story of this person getting hurt, of this, of that. You turn on the world news; there is evil all the way around.

So as we step away from that, again, we step towards the one who loves us. However, let me kind of add this: That doesn't mean that as Christians we are to live in a void or we're to bury our head in the sand and not know what is going on around us. Just the opposite! I think we have to have a good grasp of what is going on around us because as Christians, we are tasked to pray for those that are in those situations. And so we can also pray that if God gives us the opportunity, we can then minister to someone else.

Again, I don't know about you—again, inviting you into my mind today—making decisions between right and wrong, sometimes the lines can get blurred. That's right; your pastor does not always make the right decisions. I don't always say the right things. I would love to tell you that every time I have a conversation with my wife, I say and do the right things, but that isn't true. I need the help of the Holy Spirit as much as anyone else out here.

And sometimes those lines get blurred between what's the right thing to do and what is the wrong thing to do. So instead, maybe we should ask this of ourselves: What is the wise thing to do?

You may want to take a picture of this next slide. This is a quote from Andy Stanley, and I think it sums this principle up really, really well. When we think about wisdom, we ask the question: "In light of my past experiences, my current circumstances, or my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?"

I love that because he's not saying, "Hey, in the moment, what's the right thing to do?" Because I don't know about you—again, we're inside my mind for a moment—I don't always make the right decisions in the heat of the moment. When those emotions are flowing, sometimes I say and do the wrong thing.

But instead of trying to figure out what's right and what's wrong—because my mind will play tricks on me—I need to step back, put this principle into play, and make a wise decision.

Let me give you an example. True story here: Downtown at Bikefest a few years ago, Brendan and I are down there, and somebody bumps into us and spills their beer and then gets in my face. Now, Tim in the past, the not-too-distant past, would be like, for all you '80s rockers, the Stray Cats said, "Rock this town!" You look at me once, you look at me twice, you look at me again, and there's going to be a fight. And that's just the way I'm wired. I'm sorry; that's just the way I'm wired.

So part of me says the right thing to do is to crash this guy first, right? Take the initiative. Part of me says, "No, that's the wrong thing to do. Just turn around and walk away." But then I'm putting myself at possible danger, getting hit from behind.

So as I'm processing all this, I can apply the wisdom role, and very quickly, I might add. So my past experience tells me this: Get into a fight; the evening is ruined, the police are called, and I'm missing hearing Vanilla Ice. Don't judge! Don't judge! A lot of you out there wanted to hear him too!

So my current circumstance says this: I'm not 32 anymore, so I probably escalate the violence way too much for the circumstance. And I do represent Jesus Christ, and I do represent the Father's House. My future hopes and dreams say this: I want to live a long, peaceful life at home with my wife, not one behind bars.

So the wise decision comes out to this: "Bro, my bad! Let me buy you two beers to make up for the one that I spilled." But then we had a BFF following us around for the rest of the night!

But why is the decision? Situation diffused; the night was fantastic!

So sometimes the bottom line is this: I'm going to tell you this a couple of times; I want this to sink in. Think about what you're thinking about before you think about doing what you're getting ready to do.

Say that one more time: Think about what you're thinking about before you think about doing what you're getting ready to do.

But you say, "Tim, hey, how do we do this?" I can tell you this: As we learned in our last teaching series, pray first! Pastor Terry did a great job. If you missed any of those, please go back in our archives and look at the Pray First series.

Again, inviting you in here—no, your pastor does not always pray first when a crisis or a situation comes up. Matter of fact, I'm a fixer. I'm wired to fix things, take control. So I'm trying to figure out how can I fix this? What can I do to make this situation better? And then when I can't figure it out, the Holy Spirit's steady: "Uh, pray first, Tim!"

I thank Pastor Terry, and I thank God for giving him that because I learned and relearned so much that, you know what? When a crisis hits, pray first! Let's figure that one out.

And the reason we want to pray first is because we don't want to end up at the right of bang, okay? We want to stay left of bang.

For a better kind of explanation of that, let me just give you the quick explanation: Right of bang is you find yourself in the crisis, all freaked out, not knowing what to do. For a much better explanation of that, I'd like for you to go back into the archives on July 2nd, where Jimmy taught about left of bang. It will change your life! Please go back and do that.

So as we establish guard rails in our life, again, it helps us to make that wise decision.

Okay, now we all know as Christians that sin is sin, but still in society's mind and sometimes in our minds also, we categorize sin. We say, "Oh, this one is bigger; this one is worse than another."

And this is actually what God woke me up with a few months ago. He said, "Tim, the bigger the sin—although you know there's no bigger versus smaller sins—the bigger the sin, the easier it is for you," He was speaking to me, "to get close to it but not cross the line."

So I was like, "Okay, God, well, what are you really saying? What are you trying to tell me here?" He said, "Let me give you some examples from my word."

Excuse me, murder. Now again, myself, nobody out here today is going to go out and just flat murder somebody today. However, Jesus said, "Do not be angry." I was like, "Wow, okay, I got to really think about that one."

So He's trying to teach us to put the guard rail way back here, not up here. The next example that He gave me was this: Adultery. Again, as Christians, we are not going to go out and commit adultery, but Jesus said in the New Testament, "Don't look and lust. If you look and lust, it's the same as committing adultery."

So He was giving me these examples to say, "Look, we need to set these guard rails in place so that we don't get to that point."

See, sin is rarely an instant action, right? For most of us, it's not instantaneous. Feelings become thoughts, thoughts become plans, and plans become actions. But if we build on this, our guard rails need to be way back to keep us from the triggers that cause the thoughts to creep in and grow in our minds.

Okay, secular psychiatry and spiritual wisdom agree on this point: We all need to know and understand the triggers in our lives—those triggers that get us angry, those triggers that create those emotions that well up in us that we just churn on and churn on and churn on. Because if you know those triggers, you can begin to set guard rails in place to avoid those triggers and avoid hitting that right of bang altogether.

See, future regrets and sin can be avoided if we're just willing to establish some personal guard rails in our lives. But guard rails cost to install.

As I was kind of researching just guard rails in general, I found some highways where there were no guard rails literally because the cost of installing them was too much.

Spiritually speaking for us, guard rails may cost us some friends. They may cost us some media that we take in, some pleasures that we have. And I'm not talking about sin here; I'm talking about things that take us away from God—things that we know aren't super healthy for us and can put us in a sketchy state of mind.

But they also require that the edge of the road be strong enough that if the guard rail is hit, it doesn't simply fail. You've seen this on the very edge of the road; the water can begin to wash away the road. The guard rail doesn't sit there; it sits back a little ways where they can sink the posts in just a little bit deeper.

So one of the ways, a few ways, on how we can make the edge of our road stronger: The first one is this: Read the Bible with a receptive heart.

So I said to God, "I read the Bible." Now again, welcome to my mind. Know your pastor does not get up and read the Bible every single day of his life. There are some days that I just don't get to it, okay? But He was telling me, "Tim, instead of just reading and checking that off, I want you to begin to read with a receptive heart."

Your heart needs to be in the position of receiving the truth of the Bible. See, if you're never confronted with your sinfulness or your sin nature when reading the Bible, you've got a fall coming. Think about that!

How can we read His word and never be confronted with sin or the sinful nature that lies in us? The next thing is pay attention to see what God is saying to you through His word. In other words, just don't read it and say, "Okay, checked off Romans, what was it? Um, 3, 4, and 5, 5, 6, and 7 even this morning? Checked that off." No! We want to just not read the word; we want to live the word. We want to be the word. We have to be a part of that word today.

Next thing that we have to do is pray with an open heart. So we have to go to God in prayer with all of you on the table. Regular prayer that is authentic, transparent, is raw and vital for your walk with God.

And here's the key right here: He already knows what's in the depths of my heart. He knows what I'm thinking. He knows what I've turned on all night. He knows those thoughts that I'm feeling. So I might as well open my heart up to Him, lay everything out on the table so He and I can deal honestly with the growth that needs to happen in me so that I can be, first, a better man of God, next, a better shepherd, and then a better family man to those that He has placed in my care and in my circle.

So we have to do that. We have to pray with an open heart.

So once we get the edge of our road strong enough, we can then install the guard rails. And here at TFH, we know this, and we strive to help you. We want you to realize that community is needed. You have heard this said from this platform many, many times: Life is done better in circles than in rows.

We've got to get together with one another, and the ways that we do that here at the Father's House are regular church attendance, life groups. If you're not in a life group, please get yourself signed up for a life group. It's where you can have community on a different basis than just on Sunday morning. And also serving—we get into a serve group; we get to meet people.

But see, sometimes it's still easy to hide in a group, right? You ever been to a new group? Maybe the first day of class, or you're involved in a group, a work group at work, or maybe even a life group here? It's still kind of easy to hide, right? I sat right back there in that wedge, and I hid for the first six months I attended church here. Bam! Right out that side door! Did not want to get involved or have anyone be involved with me.

So it is easy to hide in a group. So the next step that we all have to do is this: We need to develop accountability with one or two others. And this accountability needs to be weekly, and it has to have transparency.

Okay, I got three or four guys here that I can call, and I can talk to. I can go to lunch with. But if all we do is talk about the game, I mean, it's fun, and we should be able to do that. But if we're not getting real and raw with each other, if they're not asking me, "Tim, how are you loving your wife? Man, you doing the right things? You staying off what you shouldn't be looking at?" All these kinds of things. Are you listening to music that you shouldn't be listening to?

Again, maybe not sinful in nature, but that is not building you up. I have such great relationships with these guys that I can literally call them in the middle of the bang, which I'm sure Brendan wishes I would do a little bit more often, and they give me great prayer and great advice.

I have a prayer that was texted to me by one of my brothers that I would never ever delete from my phone. I go back and read that prayer over and over and over, and I declare that in my life.

See, guard rails, when properly placed, stop us from going over the cliff, but they also stop other things—boulders. You know when the falling rocks come down?

Okay, let me just stop right here and say this: Being in the mountains, you've seen that sign that says, "Watch out for falling rocks." What am I supposed to do with that? I just have, since a little kid, never been able to figure out what you're supposed to do. Do you speed up? Slow down? Stop? Ah, here it comes! I don't know! Watch out for falling rocks!

But in our lives, those falling rocks are sin, and that sin will destroy us if we don't have guard rails in place. It can be things like images that pop up on our screens—hit delete!

How about this one? This is an old churchy one here: Gossip in the form of a prayer request. "I want to share with you what brother and sister so-and-so are doing, but I just want you to pray for them." Right? Just pray for them! Stop it! Don't pass it on, and don't repeat it!

How about this one? The single buddy that tries to get you to hang out on Friday night. The guard rail is this: Plan a date night with your wife instead!

Ladies, all the single ladies that are trying to get you to hang out with them on Friday night—again, the guard rail is plan a date night with your husband instead!

The next step, though, that we have to do is this: We have to be willing to hit the reset button. See, we will sin at some point. The Bible tells us that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's only one man that ever walked on the face of this Earth that didn't sin, and that was Jesus Christ—not Paul, not Abraham, not David, not you, not me.

We will all sin at some point in time. A lot of us, again welcoming you inside my mind today, will flirt with old habits that can become destructive to us. It's real easy to do. You think you've got that one beat, so just listen to this a little bit, or I can just do this a little bit.

But see, the key here that God wants to teach us is this: The key is to hit the reset button of repentance and then make correction. We have to be willing to come to our Heavenly Father in repentance. It's real easy just to say, "Oh, He knows I didn't mean that." I mean, we do that with each other, right? "Oh, she knows I didn't mean to say that." "Oh, God knows I didn't mean that." "Oh, He knows I won't do that again."

No! He wants us to come in repentance! But then the next thing that we need to do is to make the correction. We need to take a next step.

That's probably the biggest thing that drew me and kept me here at the Father's House when we first came was the fact that Pastor Terry always leaves us with the next step.

Now, for me, that was kind of a new concept in the church world of having a next step instead of just taking in the teaching or the preaching. No! He wants to give us a next step that we can put into action in our life to help us grow in our spiritual life.

I would tell this to my friends: I said, "Hey, I found this new church, and I want you to come with me and just put God aside, knowing that they're going to experience the presence of God, and just put into practice one thing that this man is teaching you, and then let me know in a week whether your week wasn't a little bit better."

So we have to make correction. Parents, right? You want your children to not only say, "I'm sorry," but to correct their behavior. Our Heavenly Father wants the same thing from us. This is how He keeps us from future hurt and harm.

See, Pastor Paula, a few weeks ago, did the greatest job I think I've ever heard in saying how sometimes we have to go through something that might hurt in the moment but won't harm us in the long run. And I did not do that justice, so again, please go back to the archives and see the picture of Pastor Paula there and learn the principles that she was teaching us.

Our Heavenly Father, as He brings correction to us, does not want us to fall into harm.

So these are just some of the guard rails that we can put in place. I'm sure that you can think of many, many more for yourself.

As we kind of bring this thing and wrap it up today, I'd like for you just to kind of bow your head and close your eyes with me.

1. "We need to develop accountability with one or two others and this accountability needs to be weekly and it has to have transparency. If we're not getting real and raw with each other, if they're not asking me, 'Tim, how you loving your wife, man? You doing the right things? You staying off what you shouldn't be looking at?' then we're not truly accountable." - 01:02:39

2. "Guard rails, when properly placed, stop us from going over the cliff. But they also stop other things. Boulders, you know when the Falling Rocks come down. In our lives, those Falling Rocks are sin and that sin will destroy us if we don't have guard rails in place." - 01:04:55

3. "Stepping away from what harms you is a step toward the one who loves you. Think about that for a moment. Think about it in the context of relationships. As I step away from what can possibly harm my marriage, I step towards my wife who loves me. In the spiritual context, when we step away from things that we know will harm us, we are stepping closer to our holy heavenly father who we know loves us." - 48:43

4. "Be very careful then how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity because the days are evil. Everywhere we look we see that the days are evil. So as we step away from that, again we step towards the one who loves us." - 49:26

5. "When we think about wisdom, we ask the question, 'In light of my past experiences, my current circumstances, or my future hopes and dreams, what is the wise thing for me to do?' Instead of trying to figure out what's right and what's wrong, because my mind will play tricks on me, I need to step back, put this principle into play, and make a wise decision." - 51:23