Guardrails | No More Detours

We are in part four of a four-part series. So today is the last day of a series that we have entitled, obviously, guardrails. And just so that you know what we're talking about, let me take just a couple of minutes and catch you up, if you are with us, for the first time today. These guardrails are a part of the invisible part of our driving experience that we really don't pay a whole lot of attention to on the road. When we're driving, that is until you need one, and then when you need one, you are so grateful and thankful that they were there. And the practical definition of a guardrail is simply this, it's a system designed to keep vehicles from straying into dangerous or off-limit areas. That's why they're erected, that's why they're created, that's why they're put up all over the road. And you generally find guardrails in three areas on the road. You find them at bridges, where areas are very small margin for error to protect us from going off the edge. You find them at medians, where there is fast oncoming traffic in the opposite direction to protect us from them, and to protect them from us. And then you find them at curves, these unexpected changes that come up quickly on the road, and guardrails are not there

to limit or inhibit our driving experience. I think we all pretty much agree. They are there for one reason, and one reason only, to save our lives. And that's what we've been doing in this series. We've been looking through the word of God to understand that God himself uses this exact same principle to protect us, and to guide us, and to preserve us in life. We're looking through the word of God, and we're seeing what God has said to us, and we don't wanna resist that, we don't wanna reject that, but we know that he is our loving Heavenly Father, and what he wants best for us is to be well, and to be blessed, and to be benevolent, and to be safe, because if we were honest with ourselves, some of the greatest regrets in our entire lives, if not all of the regrets in our entire life, could have been avoided if we'd have just had some guardrails in our life. If we'd have just had some guardrails in that marriage. If we'd have just had some guardrails in our finances. If we'd have just had some guardrails, or some boundaries in those friendships, or those morals that we compromised at the moment. And here's how we're defining a spiritual guardrail for our series, a spiritual guardrail is simply a biblical instruction for our lives that becomes a matter of personal conscience for us.

In other words, that we would look at the word of God and see it for what it really is, not something given to us by some dominating creator that's trying to kill our cosmic joy, but by a loving Heavenly Father that really wants to preserve, protect, and for us to do well, and that as we read the scriptures, we would not reject that or resist that, but that we would actually take them, and they would become the filter that we would actually begin to make all of our decisions in our life through knowing that God knows best and that we trust Him implicitly. And we've been looking at many different guardrails throughout the scriptures. In week one, we talked about the concept of a guardrail, the importance of a guardrail. Week two, we talked about friendship guardrails. Week three, we talked about financial guardrails. And quite honestly, today, I was gonna go in a very different direction, but about two weeks ago, the Holy Spirit uniquely constrained me and impressed upon me to share what I'm gonna share with you today, and I just pray that you would open your heart and open your mind because today, I wanna wrap up our series by addressing something that I have observed for years in pastoring and leading people.

I want us to look at why sometimes we don't put up guardrails in our lives and why it is so vital that we draw a line in the sand and make up our minds once and for all that we're not gonna be derailed, that we're not gonna be detoured from God's purpose and best for our lives because chances are, as we've been walking through this series, there's probably been a couple of veins of thought or a couple of different tracks of thinking that has happened in people's minds and lives in our building as we went through the series. Track one or vein one maybe has went like this. Maybe when you heard me preach about the concept of a guardrail in week one or the concept of friendship guardrails in week two, you thought to yourself, man, I am so glad my kids were here to hear that today. Or maybe you thought to yourself, I'm so grateful my husband heard that today or I'm so thankful my wife was here to hear that today. I've had so many people out in the lobby tell me these last few weeks about encouraging their family to watch our online service and what a blessing it was to them and that's great, but don't forget that God wants us to listen and God wants us to learn for ourselves. This series wasn't just for everybody else around you in your life. This series wasn't just for your kids.

It wasn't for your neighborhood. It wasn't just for your husband or your wife. I wanna encourage you in track one to make time. and to take time for solid self-examination so that you would reflect and then apply these things to your life because I truly believe as your pastor, they're gonna save you and they're gonna help you in such an amazing way. Track two goes a little like this. Well, pastor, it makes sense, really does. You made a lot of great points through this series, but honestly, if I was honest with myself, deep in the depths of my thought life, I'm not sure I really wanna do this. I'm really not sure that I wanna establish some guardrails in some of these areas because the truth is, if I do establish the guardrails that you've been talking about, it's going to keep me from some of the things in my life that I really do want. I wanna buy that thing even though I can't really afford it. I wanna be friends with him even though I know they're crazy as sprayed roaches, I know it. I wanna date him, I wanna date her, even though I know that we're not moving in the same direction spiritually and we're not moving in the same direction emotionally because they fine. We tell ourselves these things.

I wanna do some of the things and I don't wanna have some guardrails in certain areas of my life even though I know I need them, even though I know the scripture tells me I should, even though you made some strong points because I'm just not sure I'm ready to be without those things in my life. Let me address for the rest of our time together today, track two, because I love you more than I could ever express to you. God has given me the great honor to be your pastor and I love you and even though I don't know each and every one of you personally, our church has grown so large, I'm telling you that when you walk in the doors of this house, I feel a direct responsibility for your life and for leadership in your life and for God to do a work in your life and I'm just telling you that what is on my heart today is so heavy on me because of the implications that it will have in all of us and I wanna start by saying this about thinking track two, okay? Just let's acknowledge this right up front. No matter what you and I do for the rest of our life, we need to know this and settle it, that the issue of temptation is never ever going away. We need to know that. It is never going to go away. Just because you go ahead and buy something

you can't really afford now, it will not eliminate the desire once and for all to buy something you can't afford again. Just because somebody indulges in an illicit relationship with someone outside of their marriage is not going to once and for all settle the temptation to have another illicit relationship with someone else later down the road. We are humans with revolving appetites. We are humans with revolving appetites and just because we may give in completely to those appetites does not eliminate them or satisfy them. Here's what it actually does. They actually grow stronger with each instance that we indulge. I want you to take a screenshot of this because here's what I'm trying to say to you as best as I can. Refusing to have guardrails and giving into these things does not eliminate the tension of temptation. Here's what it does. It only weakens our resolve and makes giving in the next time even easier but by that time the consequences are even greater. The cost of giving in will be even higher. Our appetites as humans will never fully be satisfied. We need to settle that. You will never eat a meal to end all meals. Over time you're gonna get hungry again. The more you feed an appetite, the larger an appetite grows.

Now deep down we all know that's true. The more you feed an appetite, the larger that appetite grows. So giving into overspending leads to what? More overspending. Giving into wrong relationships lead to what? Giving into more wrong relationships. If you find yourself cheating once, it's just easier to cheat the second time. If you lie once, it's just easier to lie again. If you cross certain lines one time, crossing them a second time becomes nothing and then the third time becomes nothing and then the fourth time is even easier and by the fifth time you've lost your way so much that your whole character has changed and you no longer feel convicted or bad about the things that you used to feel convicted about about or that you should feel challenged or convicted about. It just becomes normal. It just becomes normal in our lives. Crossing lines doesn't solve the problem of desire. It only weakens our ability to resist it the next time. Now let me give you the great news. The great news is is that the antithesis or reciprocated version of that is also true. It's also true that the more you surrender to the Holy Spirit and the more you bring God-driven discipline and resolve into your life

and embrace some of these very real guardrails and areas of your life that you need them, the easier it becomes to make the right decisions and win the war over temptation. The further we stay away from the edge of disaster, the easier it is to resist the things that could derail us and avoid destruction. So somewhere in our lives, what my goal today for the next few moments is, somewhere in our lives, we have to draw some lines, somewhere in our lives, we have to establish some very real godly guardrails, and we have to say to ourself, enough is enough, no more detours for me, I'm not going any further than this. And here's the promise that I'm gonna show you today from the scriptures, when we do this, when we do this, when we say enough is enough, I'm putting up some godly guardrails in these pivotal areas of my life, what happens is we actually attract the attention of God into our lives on a different level, we attract his favor in a different measure, and his power comes into our lives in unimaginable ways. And nowhere in the scripture better illustrates this than in the life of a young man that I want us to look at for a few minutes by the name of Daniel. In the year 605 BC, a king by the name of Nebuchadnezzar ruled the empire of Babylon, it's modern day Iraq. Before Rome was ever Rome and known as the most powerful nation in the world, Babylon was a precursor to Rome, it was without question the most powerful region, the most powerful city,

the most powerful nation on planet Earth. And Nebuchadnezzar was a wicked but brilliant king who had ambitions of expanding his kingdom all over the world, and so he literally conquered many nations, and in 605 BC, he set his sights on Israel, and more specifically, on the city of Jerusalem. Now again, he was a very brilliant king, he was very intelligent and a great strategist, and let me tell you what he would do. He was a brilliant king and he had a very strategic practice that allowed his influence and authority to spread rapidly throughout the region. Here's what he would do. Whenever he would overthrow a major metropolitan city, instead of just destroying the city and killing everyone in it, Nebuchadnezzar would arrest and take captive the royal family as well as their general councils and major players in government. And the reason he did this is because these people were generally the best and the brightest of the city. They were the most well-educated and they were the most highly skilled. He would then bring them back to Babylon, listen to this, and he would place them in a highly intensified training program. The system and program was designed to deconstruct them and deprogram them of all of their previous history and knowledge, regardless of where they came from. Over time, he would slowly strip away their culture,

their history, and their heritage, and then replace it with Babylonian culture. He would begin to give them a new worldview, listen carefully, he would give them a new identity and he would give them a new history. They would become completely indoctrinated in full-blown Babylonian philosophy. Then history records that sometimes, and in some cases, he would actually send them back into the other regions of the world to replant Babylonian culture into the new places where he wanted to expand his territory. So by taking the cream of the crop and by defragging them of all of their culture, history, lineage, and heritage, and indoctrinating them in Babylonian culture, he was swelling the power and prowess of his own nation and then he was using them to expand the territory of Babylon. It was brilliant, it was smart, it had never been done before, and oh yeah, it was working. It was working. Babylon became what we know Babylon to be, one of the most powerful things that have ever been on this planet. And in 605 BC, he finally conquers the city of Jerusalem, he loots the city, rounds up all of the best people the city has to offer, and among those best in the city were this group of four incredibly sharp, intelligent young teenagers named Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Now, those are odd names, I know, they're Hebrew names, and if you've never been around church, you've never heard them before, but if you've been around church at all, you've probably heard them in Sunday school. And he takes these four Jewish young men back to Babylon for training, and this is where we're gonna pick up the story in Daniel chapter one, verses three through five. If you have your Bibles, you can look, if not, we'll put it up on the screen for you. Here's what it says. So the king ordered his chief of staff to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah's royal family and other nobles who had been brought to Babylon as captives. And here's what Nebuchadnezzar said. Select only strong, healthy, and good-looking young men, and make sure they are well-versed in every branch of learning, that they're gifted with knowledge and good judgment, and that they are suited to serve in the royal palace. these young men in the language and literature of Babylon. And then the king assigned them a daily ration of food and wine from his very own kitchens. Now let me stop before we continue on in the scripture and address what may be obvious to you here in the room. That for many of those that were captured and brought to Babylon for training, you need to know this,

it was a little bit like hitting the lottery. Because you have to keep in mind that most of their people have been killed. They would kill sometimes 50 to 70% of the entire nation, and a few of them that were brought back were forced into slave labor and worked in coppers and salt mines for the rest of their lives. But there was a select few, like Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that were brought into the king's palace, they were fed the king's food, and they were given a free royal education. And then after training and passing an oral exam, they actually got to enter into the king's service, and from that day forward, they pretty much lived a royal lifestyle. So keep in mind, for many people in this position, given the alternative, they were actually thrilled. Yeah, we're not living in our homeland, yeah, we're living in a neighboring country, yeah, we're under the oppression of a country that has overthrown us, but hey, it's not that bad. I get to eat good food every day, I get to live in the palace every day, and I get to work in the king's court every single day, and everything is not really all that bad. For many of them, they were thrilled that life had turned out this way for them. That is everybody except Daniel.

Everybody except Daniel. Daniel saw something other people didn't see. Now, I want you to keep in mind that I just gave you a five-minute lesson on history and what Nebuchadnezzar did because we have the luxury of looking back in history and seeing how it unfolded, but to the people that were captured and held captive and brought to Babylon, they were ignorant of what he was actually doing. They didn't know the strategy, they didn't understand everything that was happening, they just knew that they weren't killed, and all of a sudden, they're getting treated really well, but Daniel, even in his young age, saw something that everybody else didn't see. He saw the end game and what they were actually trying to do. He saw the big picture and realized what they were up to. Daniel realized what was about to happen if he allowed things to follow their natural progression because when they captured Daniel and the others, if you read the story, you're gonna find out they gave Daniel immediately new clothes, they shaved his head, they pierced his ear, and they even gave Daniel a brand new name. His Babylonian name was Belteshazzar. Now, you can't even get a good nickname out of Belteshazzar.

I don't even know, I don't know belts or shazzy, or I don't know what that is, but that was his Babylonian name, and Daniel realized exactly what they were doing. Listen carefully, this is the meat of it, come on now. Daniel realized that slowly and surely over time that they were going to strip away everything he believed in and everything that he stood for and everything that he held dear to his life and heart and everything that he had placed his faith in and specifically Jehovah God. And he knew that if he allowed it to happen that one day he would wake up and be Babylonian through and through and he would not even know where he came from or who he really was. And Daniel assessed in his heart and Daniel took inventory in his soul and he said to himself, they've changed my clothes, they've changed my hair, they've given me a new schedule, they've even given me a new name, and if this continues, everything that I've ever believed to be true and right will be gone. I see where this is going and Daniel decided to do something that as your pastor, I pray that every single one of us would decide to do today.

In Daniel chapter one in verse eight, here's what the Bible says, but Daniel resolved. But Daniel resolved. But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or defile himself with the wine that he drank. See, the king's meat and the king's wine, you need to know this, were completely contrary to his Jewish heritage. The Jewish people years ago, centuries ago, had made a covenant with God and part of their covenant and honoring the Lord was their diet and they had done this for centuries. It was Daniel's bond with God. It was a heart thing for him. It connected him to God in a meaningful way and Daniel knew this was the last thing that he had that defined him as a Jewish man in covenant with his God and it was the last thing. He couldn't do anything about all the other stuff that they had done to him. It finally came down that they tried to change his diet. It wasn't the food, it was the covenant that he had with God. He recognized this is the last thing, and I love what the Amplified Bible said, Daniel made up his mind. He came to a point where he said, that's it, bro.

That's it. I'm not going any farther than this. I'm not letting them take me any deeper than this. I'm drawing a line in the sand that's as far as I go. I won't be pushed any farther. I'm settling it now. I'm gonna put up a guardrail in my life right here, and I'm not crossing this line. You talk about guts. This was a young teenage boy who was taken captive by the most powerful nation on the planet, by the most powerful king on the planet as a prisoner of war. He is surrounded by powerful people, and they could have easily just killed him. They could have easily just eliminated him like a piece of lint, but he makes up his mind. I won't be pushed any further. Here's my guardrail, and I'm not crossing it. Now, I'm gonna finish the story here in just a minute, but you can't miss this because of all the screenshots I'm gonna ask you to take, this is the one that is the crux of the sermon, and honestly, the series today. Daniel set a bold standard for his life, and he placed a guardrail there even though he could not predict the outcome, but he did it because he could fully predict what the outcome would be if he didn't do it. We'll say it again because I don't want you

to glaze over that too quickly. This is the whole sermon. Daniel set a bold standard for his life, and he placed a guardrail there even though he could not predict the outcome of what taking that stand would mean for him, but he did it because he could fully predict what the outcome would be if he didn't put up a guardrail in his life. What I'm saying to you is nobody knows what the future holds. Even if we do establish guardrails in our lives, we can't see around the corner. We can't see around the bend. None of us have a crystal ball. We can't predict the future, but what I'm saying to you is that we can all predict what will happen eventually if we don't have guardrails in our lives. Eventually, if we continuously live our lives without guardrails, we're going to get closer and closer and closer to the edge, and eventually, we are going to go off the cliff, over the cliff financially, over the cliff relationally, over the cliff morally, over the cliff emotionally. I can't tell you how strong your marriage is gonna be once you establish guardrails because there's other factors that go into play, but I can tell you how weak your marriage will be if you never put up guardrails in your relationship. I can't tell you how strong your finances will be

if you put up guardrails in those areas of your life, but what I can promise you is I know where it's gonna go if you don't have guardrails in your life. While we cannot predict the outcome if we do it, we can fully predict the outcome if we don't. I tell you where it's going. I've been doing this a long time, and it hurts me so bad as a pastor to watch broken family after broken family after broken family after broken family, broken marriage after broken marriage after broken marriage after broken marriage, broken life after broken life after broken life when it all could have been avoided had they just put up some guardrails in their life, and yet people still believe they're the only one in history that's gonna still be able to have their cake and eat it too. You won't be. You won't escape what's coming. I won't escape what's coming without guardrails, and Daniel knew it too. Daniel knew that if he didn't make a stand, if he didn't take a stand, that that would be it for his faith in Jehovah, for his relationship with God, and for who he was as a Jewish man. And so the Bible goes on to say, I'm gonna keep going here,

that Daniel asked the guard something specific. He asked the guard to bring him and his other Jewish friends vegetables and fruits, things that were in line with his relationship with God and his tradition and his religious connection to God that were honoring his relationship instead of theirs. At first, as anybody would think, the guard that was over them was naturally hesitant, so Daniel made him a deal. And here's what Daniel said. Daniel said, I know that you could get in trouble for doing this, so I wanna make a deal with you, okay? You give us 10 days. Bring us vegetables, bring us fruit for 10 days, and if for some reason we look weaker, we look slower, we look worse than the others that are in training, we will never bother you with this again, and this request will be over, and that'll be it for it. So let's keep reading what happens in verse nine and 16. Bible says, I'm gonna stop right here for just a second because I can't get past these two words. I gotta stop and preach this a minute. He makes a decision, he draws a line in the sand, he builds a guardrail, and then the Bible says in verse nine, now God, don't you dare think that's random. Don't you dare think that's accidental. Don't you dare think that's coincident. That all of a sudden, at this particular moment in time, that God shows up.

Daniel drew a line in the sand and he made a stand and he found the courage to resolve that he was going to put God first in every area of his life. And at the moment that he drew the line in the sand and said, God, you are my God, and I will never compromise this relationship I have with you, God shows up. That's not coincidence. That's what happens every time every single one of us take a stand, put up a guardrail in our life, and say we're doing it because with our lives, we want to honor God. When you say that, when you do that, you attract the favor and the power of God to your life. It was a defining moment in Daniel's life. And I believe our decision to set guardrails, not compromise, or give in, to not bow, or to bend to the pressures of the world brings the favor and power of God in our lives in ways we can't imagine. Let me just stop and say, do you see what's going on here? Do you understand that I'm preaching something that happened thousands of years ago, but it is as relevant as today's headlines? This is what's going on. This is why I believe the Lord impressed me so hard to preach this today. Watch the news.

Listen to what's being said. I would have never believed, at 48, that I would live in a world where some of the things that I'm seeing, that we're seeing. There is an all-out onslaught, and the attack is trying to get us to strip away our faith, our identity, and to be, okay, they're cool with you going to church as long as you just don't live out the godly principles that he calls us to live out. They're cool with religion. They're cool with spirituality. Everybody's cool with the baby Jesus at Christmas. You ever notice that? Even atheists talk about the baby Jesus. What they hate is the righteous Jesus. Everybody likes the little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. He's innocent, he's beautiful, he's harmless. Hope of the world. But when Jesus rises up and preaches the sermon on the mount and begins to establish guardrails and says, this is right, this is wrong, this is what marriage is, this is what it's not, this is, when there's lines being drawn because God set those lines, the world rejects that, and they are seducing an entire generation of people to have just enough Jesus to ease their conscience, but not enough Jesus to change their life. I'm preaching, y'all.

Listen. And it's got me worried as a pastor, because we're reaching a lot of young people in this church, and it astonishes me that they don't recognize and see what Daniel recognized when he was just a teenage boy, that if he continued down this path, that he would have such a decaffeinated, sugar-free version of what his relationship with God really looked like, that it would be as if he didn't have any relationship at all. And he saw the end game, and he heard what they were doing, and he said, nah, that's it. That's it for me. I'm drawing a line in the sand. And at the moment that he found the courage to take a stand, did you know there's a scripture in the Bible, in the book of Chronicles, that said, okay, let me do this. The Bible says in 1 Peter 5, in verse eight, that the devil walketh about as a roaring lion, seeking who he may devour. That he's walking around, he's looking to and fro, up and down the earth, seeking who he may devour. But there is a counter to that in Chronicles, that says God himself walks up and down the earth to see those whose hearts are fully committed to him, so that he might show himself strong in them.

He's looking for people that have the courage and the guts to draw a line in the sand and say, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the Lord. And when he finds that, now God, when he finds it, he shows up. All right, let me finish this, I gotta finish this. Daniel chapter one, verse nine, let's keep reading. Now God had given, watch this, now God had given the chief of staff both respect and affection for Daniel. Who gave it? God gave it. God showed up and gave him favor with the guy who was over him. Please test us for 10 days on the diet of vegetables and water, Daniel said. And at the end of the 10 days, see how we look compared to the other young men who were eating the king's food. Then you make your decision in light of what you see. The attendant agreed, tested him for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days, Daniel and his three friends looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who had been eating the king's food. God blessed and honored this, keep reading. And God also gave, God gave these four young men an unusually good life. Usual aptitude for understanding every aspect of literature and wisdom. And God gave. They make a stand.

They find the courage to say, God first in my life. And then all of a sudden, God gave. God gave. God gave. God gave. God gave. God gave. God gave. God showed up. God gave them this. God helped them with that. This is how it works. And God gave Daniel special ability to interpret meanings of visions and dreams, which by the way he had for the rest of his natural life. And when the training period was completed, the chief of staff brought the young men to King Nebuchadnezzar and the king talked with them. And watch it. No one impacted him as much as Daniel and the others. Imagine that. And whenever the king consulted with them in matters requiring wisdom and balanced judgment, he found them 10 times more capable. He said, these boys are 10 times wiser, 10 times smarter, 10 times more strategic, 10 times more intelligent. And the Bible says God gave them that. God gave them that. God gave them that. Why? Because they came to a point in their life that they said, I will not allow the culture to strip down and rob me of my relationship with the Lord. He is first in my life.

I don't care what the culture says. I don't care what they're trying to make me believe. I don't care what they're trying to make me do. I believe that God, there's only one God, his name is Jehovah and I will serve him till the day I die. And as soon as God found a heart fully committed to him, God shows up and says, woo, I'm going to even in exile, I'm going to bless you in ways that you can't even begin to fathom. Right in their captivity, God showed up and intervened in their lives in supernatural ways. Listen carefully to what I'm about to say here. They were in Babylon, but they knew that they were not of Babylon. They were in Babylon, but they knew they were not of Babylon. And while they could not change where they were, they were going to be true to who they were and whose they were. And the Bible says in 1 John chapter 2 that you and I, if we have been bought with the blood of Jesus, we are in this world, but clearly we are not of this world. That God has called us to something bigger and higher. And every time that we make a God-driven decision that honors him with it and we put up a guardrail in our life, we attract the power and the favor of God over our lives in ways that the world will never fully understand. They were in Babylon, but they were not of Babylon. We may be in this world, but we are not of this world. We are bought with a price. And then Paul comes along in the New Testament, and he sees the game is still afoot. And so to the new Christians and the new believers in Rome, the new Babylon, he writes to the Christians in Rome, the new Babylon, these words. I'm going to read it to you in the message because I love the way it says it so much. Watch this. Paul said, take every day ordinary life, your sleeping, your eating, your going to work, your walking around life, and place it before God as an offering.

Watch this. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you easily fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God, and then you'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what God's will is for you and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, boy, that's a mouthful. God brings the best out of you and develops well-formed maturity in you. Now it's our turn. We are in Babylon, and the culture around us is doing everything in its power to strip us of our faith and our identity and those things about God that we truly believe in. And listen, Daniel wasn't trying to make a statement. Let me say this. Daniel wasn't trying to just, you know, stick it to the man. Daniel wasn't trying to, Daniel didn't get on Facebook and just tick everybody off. That's for somebody here. The Holy Spirit said, that's for you. He wasn't trying to reform rallies. He quietly assessed his life. And somewhere, he quietly reserved and resolved. That's it for me, that's it for me. What matters the most in my life regardless of where I am or what they're trying to do to me is my relationship with God and that comes first and I will not ultimately divulge anything that compromises my relationship with the Lord. He's first in my life and that kind of courage and that kind of boldness is what it's gonna take for you and I to survive this thing we're in. And my prayer is your pastor because here's what I know. My suspicion is is that we don't really have to go

on some long quest to find out where we need guardrails in our life. My suspicion is the whole series, the Holy Spirit's been speaking to us, we know exactly where some parts of our life have the potential to get really out of control and God has been challenging us to put some guardrails there and my prayer today as your pastor is that you would just once and for all settle it, find the courage, find the strength, just get gutsy with it and say that's it, man. I'm not gonna be pushed any further. I'm gonna draw a line in the sand and as for me and my house, we're gonna serve the Lord and watch what God will begin to do in your life and in my life. Here's what I'll promise you. God will begin to do exactly for you what he did for Daniel. At the moment that you make your move, at the moment that we make our stand, our story will start the same way that Daniel's did. Now, God. Why? Because here's the whole summation of the series. God honors guardrails, y'all, because guardrails honor God. God honors guardrails because guardrails honor God. Guardrails are not trying to make statements to people. Again, it's not trying to make some political thing out of it.

Guardrails are simply saying I acknowledge that the most important thing in my life is my relationship with God and I'm gonna fully trust his word even when it goes against the grain of culture and I'm going to embrace it because I know that he knows what's best, that I didn't create God, he created me. He is the creator, I am the creation and then he sent his son to die for me and based on all of that, I believe the word of God can be trusted and I'm gonna tailor the energies of my life to live in such a way that not only is a blessing for me but brings glory and honor to God with my life and when we do that, and it's gonna take guts in this world, it's gonna take guts in this culture, it's gonna take guts young people in this school age, it's gonna take guts in this college age, it's gonna take guts in this workplace age to do this but when we do, something incredible happens.