Guardrails | Drive Carefully

So, I'm pretty sure everybody in this room is familiar with a guardrail. They're kind of that invisible part of our driving experience that we don't even really notice them that much when we're driving. That is until you need one, right? When you need one, then you notice it, then you're glad that it's there. And just for the sake of our series, what a guardrail actually is, is it's a system that has been designed to keep vehicles from straying into dangerous or off-limit areas. And you generally find guardrails in one of three areas, or all three areas. You find them at bridges, medians, and curves, right? You find them at bridges, areas where there seems to be a very, very, very small margin for error. You find them at medians to protect us from people that may be moving in the opposite direction very fast and when they know we need protection from that. And then curves, these unexpected changes that come up in our driving experience quickly and on the other side could be destructions. And guardrails are not there to limit or inhibit our driving experience. I think all of us collectively know and understand that. They are created, they are built, and they are erected for one reason and one reason only to save our lives. They sit on the edges of roads and stand as a barrier and protector from what is just beyond it, a cliff, a ditch, or oncoming traffic. Now here's what I know, nobody goes down to DOT. Nobody goes down to DOT and gets all their friends together and stands there with picket signs and petitions DOT and says, you've got to take these things down. They are limiting or restricting our driving experience. We could be driving on a whole nother three feet of road. Nobody does that. Nobody does that because everyone clearly acknowledges and understands that they are there to keep us safe. And because we know that, we appreciate them so much and the fact that they exist.

And what we're going to do over the next four weeks, including today, is we're going to go through the scriptures and examine some of the word of God and look at how God uses this exact same principle in our lives to protect us and to keep us safe. Because the truth of the matter is, if we were all honest with ourselves and each other, some of the greatest regrets in our life, if not all of the greatest regrets in our life could have been avoided if we had just had some guardrails in our life, some guardrails in our marriage, some guardrails in our finances, some guardrails in our friendships, and many other places. So we're going to take this concept of a guardrail and we're going to apply it practically and spiritually to our lives and here's how we're going to define a spiritual guardrail for our series, okay? So if you're taking screenshots, here's where we're going. I'm going to go ahead and give you the whole scoop. A guardrail for our series is a system, a guardrail is a biblical instruction for our lives that becomes a matter of personal conscience for us. It's a biblical instruction for our lives that becomes a matter of personal conscience for us. Here's what I mean by that. I want us to look at the Word of God and I want us to see some parameters that God has lovingly placed in our lives that are there to serve and protect and preserve us. And our prayer for this series is that those parameters would start to become a normal part of the decision-making process of our lives as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you know that God intended this from the beginning? In Hebrews chapter 10, for example, the writer of Hebrews is juxtaposing or comparing the Old Testament and the New Testament, the Old Covenant and the New Covenant, and he records God describing what would be one of the most important distinctives of the New Testament era that you and I live in today. And here's what he said in Hebrews 10 and verse 16, he said, this is the new covenant I'm going to make with my people on that day. What day?

When the new covenant is instituted. When Jesus dies on the cross, he's resurrected from the dead, and then God begins to dwell within us. Here's what he said. I will put my laws in their hearts. I will write them on their minds and in their minds. In other words, God said, I'm no longer going to write my view of life. I'm no longer going to write my view and my way of doing things on just stone or tablets or paper, but in the New Testament, when Jesus comes into our lives and the Holy Spirit begins to dwell within us, what I want is I want my way and worldview to actually become a part of the way my people live their very lives, every aspect of their lives. God said, I want my way of seeing the world to become a part of their personal conscience. I want them to embrace and see life for the way, not the world says it should be, but for the way that I go. created it to be. Now let me state the obvious right here, okay? The world that you and I live in does not appreciate these at all. Not the spiritual guardrails that we're gonna be talking about for four weeks. The world doesn't appreciate them. The world doesn't understand them. They hate what it represents. So much so that even when they agree, when the world even agrees that there is danger or that there is problems or potential problems, they still cannot bring themselves to embrace a guardrail. What the world does is simply suggest a guideline for our lives. The world simply paints a few yellow lines of warning

and then hopes for the best. And the message that the world is giving us is quite clear. They're saying, oh, we acknowledge there's danger. You need to be careful, but whatever, man. Oh, there's problems that could potentially rise in your life, but there's death and there's destruction over there, but we warned you and it's your life, bro. Whatever, you just do whatever is right for you. The problem with guidelines, y'all, is that they're not enough. That's the problem. There are some places in our driving experience where the yellow lines are not enough. There needs to be more because we see the imminence of danger that is there. Even our society understands and recognizes that. But the world doesn't love guardrails. They don't like guardrails. They don't want guardrails because they see guardrails as inhibitive and restrictive and they would much rather just give you a guideline. Say, pastor, what are you talking about? Well, I'll give you a couple. In the world, we see this all the time. Maybe you've heard this. The world says drink responsibly. Well, let me just say to you that that's good advice. That's not bad advice. I agree with that advice, drinking responsibly, something that we should do, but that's just a guideline.

That is not a guardrail. I've been transparent with you always and I always will be. There was a time in my life that I was a very heavy drinker and if I remember correctly, the very nature of it is by the time that it dawned on me that I was drinking irresponsibly, I didn't care. I didn't care. I mean, I didn't care about that. That's the nature of how it works. Drink responsibly doesn't really work. It's a guideline, it's a good guideline. It's good advice, it's just not a guardrail, all right? I'll give you another one. Even the world acknowledges that 13-year-old kids should not be having sex. Even the world acknowledges that that's dangerous, that should not be, but instead of a guardrail, here's what the world does. The world just says, here's a guideline, okay, so here's the deal, you shouldn't be doing it, you don't need to have sex until you're ready. That's the guideline they give. Well, how does that conversation go with a 13-year-old boy? Don't have it till you're ready. Are you ready? I think I was born ready. Quite honestly, I don't. Guideline, not a guardrail. I could do this all day, but you get where I'm going, okay?

So again, even the world gets that there is some real danger, they do, but instead of true guardrails, they're more comfortable with just a few yellow lines, and here's the result, here's what's going on, and this is why we're preaching this. This is why it's such a big deal, because the result of all of this is people are flying off the cliffs to their moral and relational deaths, and they're living with unnecessary pain and lingering regret, sometimes, for the rest of their lives. I'll take it a step further, being as we're talking about it. Our culture thinks that this is the real problem with church. They think this is the problem with church. This is why they don't like church. This is why they don't like religion, because they believe that we are way too strict and somehow way too focused on these silly rules and these silly regulations and the things that are inhibiting them, and we're trying to limit people's freedom, but here is the truth. God is not interested in trying to stifle our lives with rules and regulations. He is not this cosmic Zeus-like figure that just gets his thrills

in just making our lives miserable and hoping that we have some bane, boring existence. Nothing could be further from the truth. That is not the way the Scriptures paint our Heavenly Father. God is trying to help us live the kind of lives that we really wanna live that would be a blessing to us and bring glory and honor to him. God isn't trying to stifle our lives, but listen, you need to hear this, but neither has God promised to compensate for our misplaced priorities and bad decisions. Take a screenshot of this, because this is the crux of the entire series, y'all, right here. The warnings of Scripture are not there to limit our lives. The warnings of Scripture are there to limit the potential that we all have to ruin our lives without them. That's why God gave us parameters. I wish I knew this when I was 13 years old. I wish I understood this when I was 12 years old, because that's why I'm here. That is not the way I saw God when I was 12. That is not the way I saw God when I was 13, 14, and 15. I just saw church as this boring thing, and it was all about the rules and the regulations, and they're just trying to kill my buzz, man, and they're just trying to scare me into heaven, and they're just trying to keep me from this thing

that I wanna do, and it's good, and it's fun, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the problem was is that I did all of those things, and now, even after 27 years of walking with the Lord, at 48, there are lingering effects of sin that are still showing up in my life because I didn't acknowledge what God had told me to do. Now, that's the reality of it, and I would say that we could go around this room, and we could pass the mic, and I bet you that there are people here that if you had lived your life outside of Christ and ignored the parameters of Scripture, that you would also acknowledge there are some things in your life that you are dealing with even to this day that you knew you should have never had to deal with had we always listened to the Lord. There are lingering effects of sin in our lives. This is what guardrails are all about. Here's the deal. God is a loving, wonderful, heavenly Father, and good fathers who love their children and want to see their children blessed and prosper will establish guardrails for them in order to protect them. Tina and I had two children. They're grown now, 30 and 27. I've told you about them. They were with us in Easter last week, praise God. But listen, my wife and I had conflict after conflict

after conflict with our kids because of these, because of these spiritual guardrails that we had placed in their life, things that Tina and I had set in their lives for the sole purpose as their parents of protecting them. Now, they didn't see it that way, but I wasn't trying to kill my kids' vibe. I wasn't trying to make their lives miserable. That's what they thought, but I was just trying to love them and protect them, and every good father is willing to have conflict with their children on this side of the guardrail so that they don't have to pick up the pieces on that side of the guardrail because conflict is easy to resolve on this side of the guardrail. But on that side of the guardrail, things could happen to our children's lives that could be unrecoverable, and we know it. And so we're willing to stand on this side and say, hey, you can, you know, because my kids would, you know how they, oh, man, what do you mean be home at 11 or midnight or whatever, bro? Look, and I've said this to my, I said it to my kid one time, and I wasn't being sarcastic or cynical, and I'm sure if you're a dad here, you've had these same conversations. I said to my son a million times,

I've been 16, you ain't been 35. I'm not trying to act like I'm superior to you, but I know stuff, and I'm dealing with stuff that I don't want you to have to deal with, so here's some guardrails for your life. They didn't like it then, but they thank God that I did it now. They thank God for it now, and this is the whole concept of what God is doing in the scriptures for his children. Conflict on this side of a guardrail is easy to resolve, but conflict on the other side of that guardrail can be life-altering and potentially unrecoverable. Now, in Ephesians chapter five, the Apostle Paul is writing to a literal church that was meeting in ancient Ephesus. Now, let me tell you just a little bit about Ephesus, because you need to know the history. Ephesus was one of the most immoral places the planet has ever seen. In fact, I would tell you that as hard as it is for her to believe, in the world that we live in that is marked by such immorality, Ephesus was even worse than the world we live in now. I'll give you an example. Even though we live in a very loose and X-rated culture, generally, no matter whether you're a follower of Christ or not, the practice of adultery or extramarital affairs is still generally considered something wrong to do. But in Ephesus, back in Paul's day, having extramarital affairs and promiscuous sex

was actually considered to be a part of a wonderful religious experience, and people would go to the temple and partake in it in the church. That's what was going on back then. So when I tell you that it's crazy, it's crazy in Ephesus. And Paul is writing this letter in Ephesians to this group of Christians that have given their lives to Christ, that have accepted what Jesus did on the cross, and they're doing their best to try to live in this X-rated city, a life of purity that would bless them and honor God. And Paul is writing to them to give them instructions on how to do that, how to live pure in an impure city. And he writes this in Ephesians chapter five, verse 15 through 17. This is our text for today. He says, so be careful, then, how you live. This is why I titled this sermon Drive Carefully. Be careful how you live. Don't live foolishly, but rather like those. who are wise, making the most of every opportunity in these evil days, don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the will of the Lord is for your life. Here's what he's saying. He's saying don't be cavalier or careless about how you live your life. It is a very, very dangerous world out there.

Instead, learn what God's thoughts are on how we should live our lives, and then once we learn his word, fully embrace them and make your future decisions based on the wisdom of his godly instructions. That's what he's saying. Notice he says be careful, or he says don't be careless. Why did he say that? Because Paul knew human nature all too well, and so do you. He knew what we like to do, what you and I like to do in our fallen nature is we see a guardrail, but we like to get right here. And we like to get as close to the edge as we can and not fall off the cliff. We don't want margin. No, no, no, that's too easy. We like to get right on the edge of this thing, and we like to ride with part of our tread over the cliff, looking in the face of imminent death and danger at all times. We do it financially. I'm gonna preach about that in week three. We do it relationally. I'm gonna preach about that next week. We do it morally. I'll give you an example. I can't tell you how many times as a pastor, how many people, couples have come into my office over the years whose marriages were on the verge of destruction and in serious trouble

because of inappropriate behavior. And if I've heard it once, I've heard it a million times. When we would be sitting in private, one of them, whoever the party was that was engaging, would always say, hey, hey, look, look, look, man. We never touched. We never did anything physical. We never had sex. But once we got into it, we found out that the lewd conversations, the flirting, the way they were dressing for each other, the emotional affair was already in full swing. And you're not gonna just cut it off at emotions because God created it to be that if we engage at that level, we are gonna see it all the way through. And it was a matter of time before they just careened off the edge and were destroyed. And they were driving, it's close. But we never had sex. But boy, when you talked to them, they were leaning over the edge as far as they could go. And it was imminent what was about to happen. That's what Paul is addressing, this idea of trying to get as close to sin as we can. And Paul tackles this thinking head on. I love it. He tackles this mentality head on. And he says, trying to see how close you can get to sin without actually sinning is the kind of thinking that will eventually lead to pain

and destruction in your life. I read something several years ago about a man, true story, about a man whose land bordered right up to Yellowstone National Park who was killed by a 900-pound grizzly bear. Come to find out, the man had been regularly feeding the bear for months because he thought it was cool that while the bear was eating, he would walk up and take selfies with the bear. Despite the fact that there were literally hundreds, literally hundreds of signs everywhere on his border that said, do not feed the bears. In fact, come to find out, park rangers had went to the man's home and warned him twice not to feed the bears but he kept on. And one day, that grizzly did exactly what God created full-blown grizzlies to do. He looked at the man and he said, Twinkie filet mignon. All right, and so it's an easy decision today. I'm tired of eating these little things he's throwing me. This guy is juicy, all right, and that's what he did. He ate this guy. Listen, there were literally hundreds of signs. There were warnings everywhere. There were signs everywhere. But instead, he ignored the instructions that were there. Listen, solely for the express purpose. They didn't put up the signs to kill the guy's buzz living on the edge of Yellowstone. They didn't put him up to say, we're gonna ruin

this guy's whole experience next to Yellowstone. They put them there solely for the express purpose of protecting his life and he tried to cuddle up to a grizzly and he paid the ultimate price. This is what Paul is saying in Ephesians five. This is exactly what Paul is saying in Ephesians five. He's saying, playing and dancing around on the edge of sin is like trying to cuddle a grizzly bear. You may get away with it for a while, but eventually, sin is gonna do what sin does best. Eat you and everything you care about the most. That's what it's gonna do. That's what playing this close to the edge will do. One of my mentors, a guy named Adrian Rogers, used to say it this way. Adrian used to say it like this. If you're taking screenshots, he would say, sin thrills and then it kills. It fascinates and then it assassinates. Boy, truer words have never been spoken. And I've lived, unfortunately, in the wake of that. I have been thrilled by sin. The Bible even says there's pleasures in sin for a season. For a season, for a season. But that season will end and when it's all said and done, what's left in the wake of sin is destruction. It'll fascinate you for a moment. It'll implore you for a moment. It'll tickle your fancy for a moment. But when sin does what sin does in the end,

it'll destroy you and everything in your life you love. My dad used to say it like this when I was a boy. He said, son, sin will take you farther than you wanna go. It'll cost you more than you wanna pay. It'll keep you longer than you wanna stay. And I've lived it. My daddy was right. And I've suffered consequences because of it. Then after addressing this issue, let me, I gotta do this, okay? So let's just get into it. Paul offers us an example in verse 18. And let me be quick to say before I read this to you that Paul did not choose this particular example that I'm gonna break down for you because it's any worse than any other. He simply chose it because it was such a common issue among the people that he was writing to. And so here's what he says in Ephesians 5 and 18. And don't be drunk with wine because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, because this is such a common question that I often get as a pastor, and because Paul includes it in our text, let me just break it down and address this elephant in case you've ever been wondering, if you've been around church, is drinking alcohol gonna send you to hell? I grew up being taught that it would,

but it's not biblical, it's not scriptural, it's not anywhere in the scripture that drinking is a heaven or hell issue, or a sin that doesn't mean that you have a relationship with Christ. Again, I know many people who believe that, I know many people who teach that, but it's just not true. The scriptures do not forbid it. But, but, but, but, but, but. Just because the scriptures do not forbid it doesn't mean that we should ignore the many, many, many warnings of scripture about this issue in our lives. There are over 80 in the Old and the New Testament that are strongly worded, that warn us over and over and over about the damaging, devastating potential of this thing in our lives. I'll just give you an example too, man. You know, in 27 years of ministry, nearly all of my interactions with people in marriage counseling have been negative whenever excessive alcohol is brought up in the conversation, it's just true. I've never, not one time in 27 years of ministry, had a couple sit in my office and say, pastor, you ain't gonna believe it. We were on the verge of divorce, we were at each other's throats,

we hated each other, we were so mean to one another, but then all of a sudden we decided we were gonna start drinking more every day together. And now I love my wife more than ever, and we respect each other, and we get along better than we've ever, not one time. I've never had one father that was worried sit in my office and say, my son's 16, and we were so worried about him because he was skipping school and hanging out with the wrong people, his grades were floundering, we didn't know where he was gonna go, but then we started realizing he was drinking heavy every day, and now he's at school every day, and he loves us, and we love him, and there's respect, he's home every night at 10. Never. Every time excessive alcohol comes into the conversation, 99.9999% of the time, the after effects are destructive. There are about 80 recovery people in our church right now, and I love these people so much. They come together, and they are long-term recovery, including Zach. Many of y'all know Zach Zeder. Zach's on our staff, and Zach leads our young adults. Zach is a big deal in the recovery community, and his story is unbelievable,

and they would tell you that nowhere in their life when they first started doing this did they think that they were going to lose their homes, lose their families, lose their careers, and lose their very lives. None of them started out that way, but it ended up that way because there wasn't Ephesians five-type guardrails in their life. Nobody wakes up one day and says, you know what, I'm gonna be a raging alcoholic. That sounds phenomenal. So again, don't misunderstand me now. I can see y'all looking at me all crazy like, what the crap's he talking about? He didn't say don't drink wine. What he said, if you get drunk all the time with wine, it is going to ruin your life, and I would step out and say that there is not a Christian or an atheist who would deny and ignore that that's true. I've seen people lose everything because of it, and that's what he's saying. This is an area of. our life that needs a guardrail. And it's not just this, right? Again, he's not saying that excessive alcohol will send you to hell. He's saying that excessive alcohol will bring hell into your life.

But it's not just that. I can show you all over the Bible, and we're gonna do it in this series. We're gonna look at some specifically. It's not just alcohol. It's all kinds of stuff, all the good stuff, all the stuff that God gives us as gifts. For example, I can show you how the scripture gives us guardrails for money, for sex, for food. I didn't think nobody'd amen me on that one. Did you know the Bible talks about gluttony more than we ever want to preach about or talk? Undisciplined lives that lead to physical destruction. Look, I'm just trying to tell you, what does the Bible say? What, know you not that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, that you are not your own, you're a purchased possession bought with a price? I don't get to treat my body any old way that I want to treat it. My body belongs to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is under his control, and we have to treat it that way. We're stewards. Sex, all of these things are God-given. Thought life, relationships, these are gifts. All of these are gifts. But God's gifts without guardrails have the potential, God's gifts without guardrails have the potential to create havoc and chaos in our lives.

That's what this series is about. It's about learning God's word and seeing where God lovingly puts these instructions in our lives so that we can live the kind of life that as a heavenly father, he wants us as his children to live. Again, I'm gonna give it to you over and over. The purpose behind every biblical instruction is not God trying to kill our joy, not God trying to rob us of a beautiful experience of life. It's this one right here, that God loves his children too much not to warn them about the things that have the potential to bring us pain and destruction. He warns us about the danger of losing control for the same reason that you're concerned and fight against things that are coming into your children's lives. You know the danger. You know what certain things will lead to. And because you love your children and you want them to be protected and preserved from the things that can harm and destroy them. And I'm just telling you, man, take a screenshot of this and keep it with you. Any area of our lives, any area of our lives where we have the potential to lose control requires a guardrail. And it could be anything. Anything that has the potential to overcome and overwhelm your life.

Anything that becomes an idol to you. Anything that can dominate your life. And that's, that list is so long. That list is so extensive. For some people it's emotions, man. They just live their life. Their emotions run them. They don't master their emotions. They are mastered by their emotions. And the consequences of it come, show up in the people around them every single day. Because the people who love them and have to live with them don't know who's walking in the room every day. Jekyll or Stinkin' Hyde. And their children watch it. And they grow up in those unbalanced homes and those marriages become unbalanced. I'm just saying, anywhere. Emotions, finances, sex, whatever it is. Anywhere in your life and in my life that we have the potential to lose control demands, requires a biblical guardrail. And God, thanks be to God, gives us a guardrail in his word for each and every one of those things. You know what I'm thankful for so much about the Bible? I've been studying this stuff for 27 years as deeply as I know how. I'm still as hungry today as I've ever been. I'm so thankful that every time the word of God

exposes something in our lives, that God doesn't just kinda, you know, cut us open and then walks away and says, hope it heals up fine. He doesn't, he never does that. God exposes the things in our lives that have the potential to destroy us and then he always offers us a beautiful solution that he has provided for us to find health and healing for our lives. And he does in chapter five in verse 18. Be not drunk with wine or in his excess, but here's what he says the secret to it all is, instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit. Paul simply says, God desires to be the preeminent influencer in our lives. Not sex, not food, not money, not emotions, nothing should drive us or control us. We should call nothing Lord, but Jesus Christ himself. Nothing should dominate our lives. And because of that, we need guardrails in all of these areas in our lives. The Holy Spirit dwells in us in order to lead and protect and encourage us toward the truth. Things that will not only bless us, but bring glory and honor to God. Because as I said earlier, nobody ever plans to drive off a cliff. Nobody does. Nobody ever plans on devastation and catastrophe. There had never been anybody stand at the altar on their wedding day, and in the back of their mind think,

boy, I'm going to make a mess of this one. I can't wait. I'm going to get some kids. We're going to drag them into there. I'm going to have an affair, and I'm going to blow this thing up, and there's going to be collateral damage everywhere. Nobody thinks that. But here's what I'm trying to say to you. As clearly as I know how as your pastor, as much as I can, because I love you, and quite honestly, I'm sick of seeing the devil wreak havoc in people's lives. I'm sick of it, man. I'm sick of it. I'm sick of being part of the guys and the team that's there. When all of it blows up, and we walk in again to try to heal and pick up the pieces, and it's okay. Thank God that we're there to try to heal. But there's so many people that what I'm saying is, is that nobody plans on blowing up their lives. The problem is we don't make enough plans not to. That's what a guardrail is about. It is a preventative measure that says, I see that this area of my life has the potential to get out of control. And because of it, oh Lord, you created me. You gave me that gift, and in its right context, it's good. But I recognize out of context, it's not. And where do you want me to put guardrails in my life so that I might live the kind of life you've always dreamed and hoped that I would live that would be a blessing to me and my family, but also people would look at our lives and they would give our Heavenly Father all the glory because he's led us and guided us as his children. Where is it where you need a guardrail? See, because here's what I probably know.

While I've been preaching this morning, while I've been teaching this morning, most of us are not going to have to go on a seven-day spiritual vision quest to figure out where we need a guardrail. I'm going to say that all of us, if not most of us, as I've been preaching this morning, the Holy Spirit's been speaking to you already, and you know exactly, clearly, perfectly what that thing is in your life that requires and demands a guardrail. I bet you you've got it in your head and your heart that there's an area of your life that feels a little bit out of control or has the potential to get out or in the past has careened out of control and you've tried to pick up the pieces and keep moving forward and God is saying, listen, man, there's something in your life that I want to get a hold of. There's something in your life that I want to change. I want to protect you and preserve you because I love you. And guidelines aren't enough anymore. You tried guidelines and it cost you. What you need is a guardrail in your life.