Stage Three: Walls
Renovate • Sermon • Submitted
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· 4 viewsGodly boundaries are a good and necessary part of living to be all that God wants you to be.
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Opening
Opening
Stage Three: Walls
OPENING:
SCRIPTURE: (1) , ; ;
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ILLUSTRATIONS:
(G) Streets & Alleys Game
(O) Walls from construction at home
(2) Sin Video (Vibe Volume 10)
OPENING:
We’ve talked about having a plan and doing demolition.
The next step in renovation is to build walls.
Show pictures
Discuss how walls are put together:
2x4’s, 16” apart at center (studs) anchored to floor and adjoining wall
Sheet rock (drywall) screwed into studs
Insulation between studs and sheetrock
Tape & mud over joints, mud over screws
Sand and more mud (2 more times)
Spray texture
What do walls do? (Protect, hide, enclose, guide, limit, hold up ceiling, mark boundaries)
Walls are a necessary part of any house. They create the boundaries of our homes. Walls are also a necessary part of our lives. Godly boundaries create protection, safety, and ultimately, freedom.
Teaching
Teaching
POINT 1: Walls limit us, but also protect us.
POINT 1: Walls limit us, but also protect us.
Walls make it so that we have fewer choices.
Once we were finished with the remodel, we couldn’t just look into the back room at our house. We had to open the door.
Because of walls, kids can’t just run out of the house in any direction they choose at any time – walls force them to use pathways – they create limits.
However, walls also protect us: from weather, others’ eyes, criminals, noise.
The two go together: for walls to protect us, they MUST ALSO limit us. Without the limits, we lose the protection.
So it is in our lives with God.
We need walls for our protection, but those walls will limit us. If we want the protection, we have to accept the limits.
Israel was told this:
50 The Lord spoke to Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan across from Jericho, 51 “Tell the Israelites: When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, 52 you must drive out all the inhabitants of the land before you, destroy all their stone images and cast images, and demolish all their high places. 53 You are to take possession of the land and settle in it because I have given you the land to possess. 54 You are to receive the land as an inheritance by lot according to your clans. Increase the inheritance for a large clan and decrease it for a small one. Whatever place the lot indicates for someone will be his. You will receive an inheritance according to your ancestral tribes.
· – God will give the land to them: PROTECTION
God will give the land to them: PROTECTION
55 But if you don’t drive out the inhabitants of the land before you, those you allow to remain will become barbs for your eyes and thorns for your sides; they will harass you in the land where you will live. 56 And what I had planned to do to them, I will do to you.”
· – If they do not do his will, they are punished: LIMITS
If they do not do his will, they are punished: LIMITS
18 The one who lives with integrity will be helped, but one who distorts right and wrong will suddenly fall.
· – walk is blameless: LIMITS. Is kept safe: PROTECTION
Live with integrity: LIMITS. Is helped: PROTECTION
23 Jesus answered, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.
· – Obey: LIMITS. Love: PROTECTION.
Keeping His word: LIMITS. Love and making their home with us: PROTECTION.
POINT 2: Walls constrain us, but also free us.
POINT 2: Walls constrain us, but also free us.
Walls trap us, it’s true. If there is a fire in a house, every direction is not an avenue of escape.
But walls also free us: we can escape to our rooms because of walls; we can shower in privacy because of them; we can rest and be alone and focus because of walls.
Freedom in Christ does not mean give us the right to do as we please, but the power and ability to do as we ought.
So it is with God:
His rules and desires for us constrain us from our desire to sin…
But it is in being constrained from sin that we experience what true freedom really is!
If we were truly free to do whatever we wanted to do whenever you wanted to do it, with no possible negative repercussions, how much of what we did would be to choose to pursue sin? We would like to say, “none.” But look at what Paul said to the Romans about who they were before they came to faith in Christ:
Is this what we want to be free to do? You want to be free to do all of the dead, vicious, hideous, destructive stuff you can?
20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free with regard to righteousness.
This is what we want to be free to do? You want to be free to do all of the dead, vicious, hideous, destructive stuff you can?
He didn’t say they were free to be righteous. He said they were free from righteousness. God gives us walls so that we have a standard to compare ourselves to, and an objective to strive for, not in order to save us, but so that we will not be trapped by very different walls: walls of sin and destruction.
13 For you were called to be free, brothers and sisters; only don’t use this freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but serve one another through love.
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Our freedom in Christ isn’t just for us: it’s for others as well. When we are free from the control of the flesh because we are in Christ, then we are truly free to serve others.
11 Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul.
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16 Submit as free people, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but as God’s slaves.
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16 I say then, walk by the Spirit and you will certainly not carry out the desire of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh; these are opposed to each other, so that you don’t do what you want. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar. I am warning you about these things—as I warned you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. The law is not against such things. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
· Freedom must have constraints to be freedom, or our “freedom” would merely enslave us to the consequences of our poor choices.
Freedom must have constraints to be freedom, or our “freedom” would merely enslave us to the consequences of our poor choices.
POINT 3: Godly walls must be built in our lives.
POINT 3: Godly walls must be built in our lives.
I had to build the big wall in my back room for Linda to have her own space.
I had to build the closet wall for her to have a closet.
God is constantly at work building walls in our lives. He does this by His Word convicting us by His Spirit, through our church family, maybe through the government, or through us learning from our earlier consequences. He is doing this so that our lives will honor Him.
19 So then you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, 20 built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. 21 In him the whole building, being put together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. 22 In him you are also being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit.
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4 As you come to him, a living stone—rejected by people but chosen and honored by God—5 you yourselves, as living stones, a spiritual house, are being built to be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 11 Dear friends, I urge you as strangers and exiles to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against the soul.
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28 A person who does not control his temper is like a city whose wall is broken down.
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· Your parents have a responsibility to provide walls around your life – whether you like it or not. And they are held accountable to God for whether or not you have and follow those walls.
You have a responsibility to submit to the walls in your life, based upon God’s Word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
You have a responsibility to build walls in your life, based upon God’s Word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit.
But you don’t have to do it alone.
POINT 4: We need others to stand in the gaps in our walls.
POINT 4: We need others to stand in the gaps in our walls.
Talk about Nehemiah.
6 So we rebuilt the wall until the entire wall was joined together up to half its height, for the people had the will to keep working. 7 When Sanballat, Tobiah, and the Arabs, Ammonites, and Ashdodites heard that the repair to the walls of Jerusalem was progressing and that the gaps were being closed, they became furious. 8 They all plotted together to come and fight against Jerusalem and throw it into confusion. 9 So we prayed to our God and stationed a guard because of them day and night. 10 In Judah, it was said: The strength of the laborer fails, since there is so much rubble. We will never be able to rebuild the wall. 11 And our enemies said, “They won’t realize it until we’re among them and can kill them and stop the work.” 12 When the Jews who lived nearby arrived, they said to us time and again, “Everywhere you turn, they attack us.” 13 So I stationed people behind the lowest sections of the wall, at the vulnerable areas. I stationed them by families with their swords, spears, and bows.
– Standing in the gaps
Standing in the gaps
We need our brothers and sisters to stand with us.
We need to stand with them.
16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect.
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19 My brothers and sisters, if any among you strays from the truth, and someone turns him back, 20 let that person know that whoever turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.
· We need to form real, honest relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ who will hold us accountable for the walls we have built, and stand with us in the areas that we are weak in.
We need to form real, honest relationships with brothers and sisters in Christ who will hold us accountable for the walls we have built, and stand with us in the areas that we are weak in.
Closing
Closing
Walls are good and useful.
Build walls to protect your walk and give yourself true freedom.
Read the Bible
Obey your parents
Read the Bible
Have friends keep you in check