God's Boundaries for Abundant Living - No Gods But God, Part 1

Are you working too many hours, even neglecting your family?

Do you allow others to take advantage of you? Well, would you like some help getting boundaries set that will restore your joy, your peace, and your priorities? Well, today we're going to begin a journey together to discover 10 boundaries God has established for you to enjoy life at its best.

Stay with me. Welcome to this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. The mission of these daily programs is to intentionally disciple Christians through the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. Thanks for joining us as we begin our series, God's Boundaries for Abundant Living. For the next several programs, Chip carefully walks through Exodus chapter 20 and gives us a fresh look at the 10 commandments. We'll learn why God put up these guardrails in the first place and how they can lead us to a more fulfilling life.

So if you're ready, let's join Chip now as he kicks off this series with his message, No Gods But God. Have you ever had anyone walk up to you that you didn't know very well and get about three inches from your face and started talking, and then you unconsciously start backing up and they just keep moving forward? And the result was discomfort. They invaded your space. It was just kind of weird.

Question number two, have you ever gone to a family picnic or a corporate picnic and played volleyball with a group of people you didn't know and had one person on your team that no matter where the ball went, like it's coming right to you and they knock you out of the way as they actually take the entire side and they hit everybody's ball? And on good days, it's a little irritating. On bad days, you start to get mad. Question number three, have you ever been driving a little more serious down the road and you don't know whether the person was drunk or whether they dropped a CD or something and looked down or they were answering a phone call, but as you're driving, a car goes left of center and you at the last second have to jerk and go off the road and then jerk back on and your heart's going like this and you're thinking, oh my lands. And it went from fearful to danger to outright anger as your response. That ever happen to you? Fourth question, have you ever had a parent or a child or a boss or a close friend ask you to do something and you knew you didn't want to do it? It wasn't a moral issue. You didn't have to do it. You knew in your heart it wasn't the right thing for you, but they kept pushing and pushing and talking and talking and made you feel guilty enough until you said yes. And then afterwards, while you were doing it, you're going, boy, I hate this.

This makes me, anyone ever that. All four of those things have one thing in common. There was a violation of boundaries. Each one of us has boundaries or space and that boundaries or space is what we need in order to have healthy growing relationships and your space on the volleyball court. We all have personal space and boundaries. You have your side of the road and they have their side of the road and when they cross into your side of the road and whether it's the relational road or the physical road, when someone violates your boundaries, it produces anything from a mild irritation to discomfort to anger to fear toward breaking off a relationship. A boundary quite simply put is this. It's where one person stops and another person starts.

It's where one thing stops and another thing starts and where the one stops and the other starts is called a boundary. And boundaries are often given by markers or verbally boundaries are created by the word no. No, you can't stand that close to me. No, you can't hit the ball in my space. No, you can't drive your car on my side of the road.

And no, you can't make me do your agenda if it's not God's will for my life no matter how guilty you try to make me feel. Boundaries are essential for all of us. Boundaries are essential for health. Boundaries are essential for relationships. Boundaries are essential for you to do life in a way that honors God.

And are you ready for this? God has boundaries. You know, there's a book. I had a chance to be at a conference with about 10 pastors of large churches and we all had similar pressures and we all got away in a little cabin for about three days and Henry Cloud came who wrote the book on boundaries. And we had a good time just talking about how hard it is as a senior pastor to keep boundaries to protect your family and your personal life and boundaries where you work out and keep your health because there's so many pools and so many demands. As I talked with Henry Cloud, I was amazed. I said, where did you get all this stuff? And he had some theological training.

He said, you know where I got it? He said, I did about a three-year internship and I did it in a mental health ward. And I just watched people after people after people after people try and live their life to please everyone and all the psychological damage that it did. And as I kept reading through, it was a time in my life, a real struggling time, and he said, often I would go away for five, six hours a day and do nothing but read the Bible, read the Bible, read the Bible, read the Bible. And I saw how clearly God outlined boundaries. And one of the most important times God lays out boundaries is in the Old Testament when he wants to take a people and make them distinct and help them understand, help them understand who he is, where he stops, and how they need to stop in relationship with one another and where you give room for other people to start. And the title of the series is called God's Boundaries. It's a fresh look at the Ten Commandments.

If you'll go ahead and pull out your little study guide, teaching handout, I want to dig in with you and take a fresh look at the Ten Commandments, but look at them through the perspective of boundaries. When boundaries are broken, relationships falter. Ruben Shelley in a book called Written in Stone, Ethics from the Heart, writes this when looking back at the 60s experiment and then the 70s and the 80s. And at the heart of all that he's going to say is that boundaries were destroyed. He says the theme of the 60s was anti-establishment.

In the protest against government, family, church, people who assumed that God was dead sank into self-destructive air of drugs, uninhabited sex, and moral anarchy. Next we moved into the self-absorbed decade of the 70s. Tom Wolfe dubbed it the decade of me and its best sellers were looking out for number one and winning through intimidation. We endured then the golden age of greed, the decade of the 80s.

Athletes gambled on sporting events. Wall Street kingpins were jailed for insider training. Individuals and government were caught in sex, drug, and influence peddling scandals. Now and later, the 90s and the early 21st century were faced with a crisis of ethics. Once what we took for granted is common decency is now uncommon. The utterly outrageous has become ordinary.

Boy, you believe that, don't you? The obscene is commonplace. Our code of ethics has eroded in such a massive scale that we've become cynical about morality and we sense that something is terribly, terribly wrong with the spiritual fabric of our world. Crime is so prevalent in America that Americans have altered their lifestyles out of fear. Whole sections of major cities are considered unsafe. I've been where policemen have said, don't drive in that area of town.

We can't guarantee any protection. More and more people are carrying guns and newspapers and talk shows document the fact that crime is the most important subject on people's hearts. He wrote that before terrorism began to occur. What I want to suggest is that we did experiments in the 60s where we cast off restraint or boundaries. We did our own thing and now our own thing is doing it to us. No one can agree on what is right and what is wrong. As Francis Schaeffer said, when you remove absolutes and there is no right and there is no wrong, then people will begin to erode all kind of boundaries. We've eroded boundaries about marriage. We've eroded boundaries about right and wrong. We've eroded boundaries about what is life and what is death. And things that were unthinkable 30 or 40 years ago, now we have live babies in the 8th or 8th to half month that are perfectly healthy being aborted because the boundary has been shifted and we say that's not a real person until they come out of the womb.

Now we say if people aren't useful to society, we kill them prematurely and we give it a fancy name because the boundary between what is life and what's of value has been changed. And here's the deal, unless we get clear on the boundaries that God has set, we're in trouble. As you turn the page, what I'd like to do with you is look at God's boundaries for abundant living. So often when we think of the 10 Commandments, we've been informed far more by Charlton Heston and a movie than we are scripture. And we have a picture of a very angry God with lightning bolts coming out of a mountain, steaming down on people and putting something on some stone tablets in order to make people do what they're supposed to do. And what I want to tell you is that is an unbiblical position of what the scripture has to teach. Is that just as there is a double yellow line on a curved road that is at a boundary that says do not pass so that you can be protected, God gave the 10 Commandments. Just as there is a boundary that says that when people get so close, you need enough space for your own protection, let alone the germs, God set out boundaries like guard rails that go around a winding road to protect and provide grace and direction and help. And what I want to do in the next 10 sessions together is I want to look at God's boundaries whose purposes for abundant living, who's rooted in grace, who longs for you to have the best in relationships, who longs for you to know him, who longs for you not only to have a vertical relationship with him but a horizontal relationship with one another that is deeper and better than you could ever dream.

And so on one tablet, he put boundaries or commands about your relationship with him and on another tablet, he put boundaries about your relationship with other people. And so let's look at boundary number one or literally it's called the 10 words. It's referred to as the 10 Commandments and in other places it talks about the law, but literally it's the 10 words. And as we dig in together, you'll notice on the inside of your notes, there's three things you need to understand to understand what's going on in the 10 Commandments. First is who gave us the 10 Commandments, second, when and to whom did he give them, and third, why did he give them.

So let's start with the who. We've got Exodus chapter 20 verses one and two and I put them on your notes. And God spoke all these words and he said, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

Notice they didn't come from a summit or a seminar of worldwide leaders. They came from God. Notice secondly, the who that gave him is the capital L-O-R-D, that is Yahweh or Jehovah. It is four letters with no vowels in Hebrew.

It was too holy or too sacred. And the best that the theologians can come up with, it's the core Hebrew word of the verb to be. I am that I am, the everlasting one. So first what we learn is who gave him, there is an eternal one. And second, you'll notice I, the Lord God gave you, personal pronouns. God is eternal. He's outside of time.

But he's also personal and intimate. He says I, Yahweh, the Lord your God. And third, notice, it's in the context of grace. The Ten Commandments didn't come out of some blank slate where God said, I am God, do this. It came after he had delivered Israel. The Israelites lived in a world of Egypt for 400 years. They were over 1,500 gods. Their kids grew up with 1,500 competing gods saying, this is true. And at the top of all the gods was Pharaoh. If you study carefully, you'll learn that those 10 plagues, those were the 10 top gods in Egypt. And when Moses was given power by God to defeat each one of those plagues, and finally Pharaoh and Pharaoh's son, it was a way where God was letting his people know, I am superior to all the gods in all the world.

I am the Lord your God who delivered you. They've seen the Red Sea part. They see the enemies in the hardship.

They've seen the Red Sea close back over. They're talking about a God who said, I love you, I care for you, I delivered you, I'm for you now. I want to give you some boundaries.

I want to show you how to live in such a way where you can enjoy the deepest, best relationship with me possible and the deepest, best relationship with one another. And see, here's the problem with the 10 Commandments. I mean, we think about them being on walls. These are the most revolutionary 10 words in the history of mankind. They have shaped law. They have shaped relationships. How we think, how the world thinks is rooted in.

But you know what? Before they came, they weren't around. They weren't around. God is giving this truth to his people out of his love and out of his mercy so they could experience him and experience, relationally, people not going left of center. And God didn't want the discomfort and the irritation and the fear and the anger and the pain when boundaries are violated with him or with one another. So the first thing to understand is who gave them?

They come from an eternal God who is personal, who is loving. And then notice the last line, who is all powerful. He says, I brought you out of Egypt, the land of slavery.

And then the command. The command is you shall have no other gods before me. So when did it occur and to whom? Open your Bibles, if you will, to chapter 19 of Exodus. And in the first six verses, we get a little background on when were they given and to whom.

It's in the third month after the Israelites left Egypt. So they've been through all this preparation and let my people go and the 10 plagues and all the chaos and all the pain. And then finally they're set free.

And then they think they're going to die. And then they get to the water's edge and God opens the Red Sea. And so they've been about three months, they're just literally starting to get a little sense of a daily rhythm, you know, the fire and the cloud and it's leading them. And so they've been three months to the very day they came to the desert of Sinai. And after they set out from Rephidim, they entered the desert of Sinai and Israel camped there in the desert in front of the mountain. Then Moses went up to God and the Lord called to him from the mountain and said, this is what you are to say to the house of Jacob and what you to tell the people of Israel. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, God of power, and how I carried you on eagle's wings and brought you to myself, a God of compassion.

See, in their day that eagle's wings would very quickly was a word picture that they in their day would have been out in nature and seen how a mother eagle would take those eagle and fly and then tilt the wings and drop them and they would flap and flap and then just at the last second swoop under and take care of them. He's giving them a picture of I'm the God of the most awesome power you have ever dreamed of but I'm a God who cares for you as a people the way an eagle cares for its eaglets. You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, how I carried you on these eagle wings, brought you to, notice the goal, myself. Now, if you obey me fully and keep my commandments, then out of the nations you'll be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words to speak to the Israelites. When? Three months after the deliverance.

Who? To a people in bondage for 400 years. To Israel.

And notice his treasured possession. These are words of life and grace and encouragement. These are words you're going to be a kingdom of priests. These are words they're saying to a group of people, all the earth is mine. I created it but a part of my plan, you are special and I'm going to bring you to myself for me.

This isn't about me giving you a straight jacket of rules and you've got to keep these rules. I'm going to give you these boundaries in order that you can share with me at an intimate level what no person has ever experienced and then we'll learn from later in scripture that I want to take this nation and I want to take it like a piece of coal and take it through a process where you become a diamond in the rough and when I give you my law and my presence and my power, all the world will see through this diamond the glory and the glitter and the beauty of the God eternal on this planet. And that was his goal. And so he's going to give them words of life. He's going to give them the 10 words, the 10 boundaries so they could have a relationship with him and a relationship with one another.

Why did he give them? Notice in chapter 20, skip down to verse 20. Moses said to the people, do not be afraid. Remember the mountain has shaken now. The smoke has gone up, lightning bolts. Basically by this time they're saying, hey Moses, if God wants to talk again, you talk to him.

I think we got the message. He's scaring us to death. Moses says to them, don't be afraid. God has come to test you.

Why? So that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning. Verse 21, the people remained at a distance while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was. God gave these 10 words to reveal himself. How do you know God's character of purity? The 10 words, the 10 commandments. How do you know what God wants for relationships? The 10 words, the 10 commandments.

God gave these to reveal himself and he gave them to protect the people and to protect us from sinning. When you miss the mark, that's what sin is. When you miss the mark in relationships, when you miss the mark with God, what is always the result? Doesn't it bring pain? Doesn't it bring fallout?

Doesn't it bring chaos? It's not just a matter of don't have sex before marriage. Do you think God knew about herpes? Do you think God knew about HIV positive? Do you think God knew about AIDS when he gave that command? Do you think God knew about all the psychological studies we've done that when we find that people live together before they get married, that the sexual satisfaction in the marriage is much less than those who don't? That the divorce rate is 50% higher?

That the chances of being a one man or one woman mate really goes down when people live together? Why do you think God gave these rules? Because out of his mercy and his love and his grace, he knew what would protect us. Sin always brings death. Death is separation and pain and chaos. These are not ten laws that are a straight jacket that you've got to do because there's a big God and he's so big he can make everyone do what he says. These are the ten words of an ultimate, all knowing, all powerful, eternal Father who is absolutely holy and pure and knows you and loves you and your children and loves you in your marriage and in your singleness and in your teen years and in your sunset years and has given words of life that if you obey them, it will keep you from sin. It will allow you to know him and it will allow you to meet God in ways beyond what you ever dreamed.

And so that's why he gave them. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. You've been listening to part one of his message, Know Gods But God from our series, God's Boundaries for Abundant Living.

Chip will be back shortly to share some helpful application for us to think about. Chip's joined me in studio now and Chip, we're just diving into your deep study of the Ten Commandments. And you know for a lot of people, this list represents an angry God who's ready to scold you for messing up. Tell us what you're doing in the series to correct those perceptions of God and the Ten Commandments.

First Dave, I would have to say that's how I grew up. It was like I remember telling my mom, you know, I think I'm okay with Jesus. I didn't have any theology, but boy, God, I'm really afraid of and I feel like his arms are crossed and he's mad at me. And I remember studying the Ten Commandments as a believer and later as a pastor. And then this series literally became a delight because one of the things I learned was the need to set boundaries, you know, that I needed to set boundaries, obviously, for my children not to run out into the street or put their hand into a fire. But I learned from my own self, setting boundaries is actually the key to freedom and life. And these are God's boundaries, not to take something away, not as rigid rules by a sort of a God who doesn't care, who's way out there.

These are boundaries from a father. And then in each one of these, I'm going to go to the very words of Jesus where he gets behind the law and the commandment and the spirit of it and helps us understand where there's life that's really life. So I am so excited about this series because we live in a world that has so much chaos and challenge and people that are hurting, and these are God's boundaries for an abundant life. Thanks for that, Chip.

Well, I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to this series. So we hope you'll join us for each message and invite a few friends to listen with you, either through the Chip Ingram app or livingontheedge.org. Also, Chip, you've spent a lot of time the last few years talking about the importance of reaching today's young people with the message and power of the gospel.

So if you would, take a minute and explain where this passion comes from. Well, Dave, you know, it could have come from statistics and that we're losing, you know, almost 70% of our young people. And I could give people lots of reasons and rationale, but where it really came from is I live in a place in America that long before it went all across the world, the brokenness among young people, the gender issues, the identity issues, the whole sexual identity struggles, the depression, the anxiety, the suicides, and what I just see is brokenness and a lack of hope. I've sat in my living room with Teresa, with young people who don't know how to manage their money, their relationships aren't working. Many of them have really good jobs.

They've come from either here or all around the world. And just with a little bit of food and a little bit of love and praying with them and caring for them, and instead of assuming that they don't care about God and they're just all hardened and evil and secular, what we found was as we just opened our home and as we opened the scriptures with them and said, you know, maybe you've never heard or maybe you've never really understood and next week, why don't you just read this and we'll discuss this next week. And as we prayed for people, I just see how they're so lost and there's such pain and the truth of God's Word, when it's wrapped in a genuine caring relationship, God rescues them. And that's our heart. We want to rescue the next generation. We want to help parents and grandparents and pastors not be frustrated or upset or angry, but actually love and then get the truth in the heart of young people's lives so they might have hope and life instead of brokenness and confusion. And that's why we're so committed to it. And that's why we're asking the Living on the Edge family to come along with us, help us, pray, give. We can make a difference together. Thanks Chip.

Well, if you feel like God is moving you to partner with us, now's a great time. As Chip said, thanks to a handful of donors, every dollar we receive until midnight this Friday, July 7th, will be doubled dollar for dollar. To send a gift, call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003, or go to livingontheedge.org. App listeners, tap donate.

Well, with that, let's get to Chip's application for today. You know, when I was a kid, I grew up and the Ten Commandments were like these big, heavy things that were on the wall. And you know what? They are big and they are heavy, but what we forget is that they're given by a God of grace, the God who when he gave them and there was thunder and lightning and they heard his voice and the people trembled, he was putting up guardrails in a very evil world to protect them from all the things that would destroy their lives. He knew that if they worshipped other gods, they'd be destroyed. He knew that if they would create idols or would not obey the things that he laid out, he was giving them a way to live that would produce intimacy and joy and prosperity. And that's what the Ten Commandments were designed to do. In fact, Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount does a lot of work to explain, you know, you have heard it said. And what he talks about is how people took the Ten Commandments and put them as balls and chains around people's necks and weights that they couldn't hold. And he said, you know, the spirit of the Ten Commandments, the spirit of God's truth, it was really to liberate.

It was really to protect. And so we're going to have a really great time. And I want you to know that we all struggle with idols. I mean, we talked about this and the idol can be your wife, your husband, your job, money, your looks, your body.

It can be all kind of different things, but none of those things can deliver. And so what we talk about here at Living on the Edge a lot is becoming a Romans 12 Christian, being a grace-oriented, relationally connected follower of Christ. And so these guardrails of the Ten Commandments are the Old Testament picture of this is what's best for you.

In Romans 12, what God does, he says, look, here's how it plays out in your relationship with me, with the world, with yourself, with believers, and with unbelievers. I hope that you will really lock on with me and study the Ten Commandments. And I pray that you'll see them like never before. Let's go on a journey together.

Looking forward to the series, Chip, thanks. As we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has provided encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever. So thank you to those who support us in prayer. God is doing amazing things. Well, join us next time as Chip continues his series, God's Boundaries for Abundant Living. Until then, this is Dave Drouie saying thanks for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge.