The
Christian is on fire!
He
is full of the Holy Spirit and he is on fire.
His
sins are forgiven. He's forgiving others, and the grace of God is
flowing out of him. The Kingdom of God is literally expanding
because of him!
The
Christian is grateful and humble, running to God in prayer daily
because he loves Him and he needs Him and he must have sweet
fellowship with his Savior!
He
is seeking God's will for every part of his life. He is shining
God's light into every area of his own life and into every area of
the world around him. He is holding everything up to the piercing
light of Jesus and His Word, His double-edged sword.
The
Christian is doing a world-dump. A world dump. He is dumping
worldly things out of his life. Those things look so....plastic...in
the light of God and eternity. So cheap.
The
Christian is offering his body to the Lord as a living sacrifice.
“Jesus, use me; and O Lord don't refuse me...for surely there's a
work that I can do.”
The
Christian loves God and his heart aches to please Him. “As the
deer pants for the water, so my soul longs after Thee!”
He
hungers and thirsts for righteousness, and the living water of the
Holy Spirit is flowing within him, bringing revelation and
understanding, bringing deep conviction of sin and deep adoration for
Jesus.
The
thought of taking Jesus' name in vain...or anything close to it....is
appalling. His love is so great for his Savior, he wants to do
nothing that would hurt Him, or even disappoint Him.
To
what shall I liken the Kingdom of God? It is like a mustard seed,
which a man took and put in his garden; and it grew and became a
large tree, and the birds of the air nested in its branches.
Because
of the Christian, the Kingdom is expanding. The tree is growing, and
neighbors are finding peace and rest and salvation in its branches!
He
is like the nation of Israel in its best days. The nation was
expanding and growing in power and influence. Foreign dignitaries
came to marvel!
But
then the people gave in to sin. They would relax their MORAL
borders...then their PHYSICAL borders would be raided by enemies.
The
Israelites really NEVER did a great job of establishing strong
borders.
Listen
to Judges 1:27. It's an awful passage, but we have to ask
ourselves….is this a picture of our spiritual borders today?
27
However, Manasseh
did not drive out the
inhabitants of Beth Shean and its villages, OR Taanach and its
villages, OR the inhabitants of Dor and its villages, OR the
inhabitants of Ibleam and its villages, OR the inhabitants of Megiddo
and its villages; for the Canaanites were determined to dwell in that
land.
So
back to the Christian. He is on FIRE for JESUS!
But
sin....but SIN, like the Canaanites....is determined to dwell in his
land.
Are
his borders strong enough to keep sin out?
Or
has the enemy already breached his borders and taken little bits of
territory that rightfully belong to Jesus?
Listen
to this. Sin is OBDURATE. It is stubborn. It doesn't want to be
driven out. It wants to DWELL IN YOUR LAND.
Ephesians
4:22 says, “...that you put off, concerning your former conduct,
the OLD MAN which grows corrupt...”
The
Christian had driven out that old man in the past. Jesus had sent
him packing!
But
sin is obdurate. That old man is stubborn, and he wants to dwell in
the land...and he is just waiting for his chance to cross back over
the border and get back to work, making things corrupt.
That's
a word you don't hear very often. Corrupt. “Whoa, Doug, it sounds
so harsh.”
But
you don't want your milk to be corrupt.
And
you don't want your spirit to be corrupt, because the smell is even
worse!
Judges
chapter 1 ends with these fateful words, “Now the boundary of the
Amorites was from the...” blah to the blah to the blah.
Wait
a second. I'm wondering, “Why do the Amorites have boundaries at
all? They are supposed to be GONE.”
But
it's like the sin in our lives. It's supposed to be gone, but next
thing you know.......next thing you know, we draw a little map. It's
a wretched little map in our brain where we give some space to sin.
We
set up a boundary for sin. On Saturday night....
On
business trips....
While
I'm single....
In
Judges 2 the Angel of the Lord said, “I led you up from Egypt and
brought you to the land of which I swore to your fathers; and I said,
‘I will never break My covenant with you. 2 And you shall make no
covenant with the inhabitants of this land; you shall tear down their
altars.’ But you have not obeyed My voice. Why have you done this?”
The
Christian doesn't make a covenant with sin. He tears it down! He
gives it no space, no quarter.
Don't
you know that friendship with the world is enmity against God?
So
the fire of the Holy Spirit is still burning in the Christian...but
it is being quenched. Sin is being allowed....and it is grieving and
quenching the Holy Spirit who once set him ablaze!
The
borders of the Kingdom are no longer expanding in this man, but they
are contracting. They are shriveling.
In
Judges 2, the Israelites allowed their borders to be weak and their
enemies to remain; so their judgment would be that those enemies
would be, now listen, “thorns in your side...and a snare to you.”
The
Christian can't allow sin to remain! He can't draw up special
borders for sin. It will be thorns in his side and a snare...a trap.
Thorns and traps! That's what sin brings to the Christian's
life....if he gives it space.
In
Israel, the enemies were consistently creating breaches in their
borders. They would invade and raid, ransack and plunder....steal,
kill and destroy.
It
started small, but grew larger as they grew bolder and the Israelites
grew less resistant.
One
of the Israelites' huge problems was their desire to fit in and be
like the people around them.
So
the Christian begins to allow border breaches in order to fit in with
the people around him.
What
borders does he relax first? The borders his neighbors have already
relaxed. If it's okay with them, then it's okay with him!
Judges
5:8 offers a terrifying statement, “They chose new gods; then there
was war in the gates.”
When
we give way to sin, instead of being on fire for God, instead of
offering our bodies as living sacrifices and seeking Him in every
area of our life....if HE is not the God of that area of our life,
then SOMETHING ELSE is the God of that area....and when they chose
new gods; then there was war in the gates.
When
we let anything but GOD ALMIGHTY call the shots for any area of our
life, then we are allowing a border breach for sin....and we will
have war in the gates.
That's
not war afar off. That's not war on the other side of the ocean.
That's not war down at the river. That's war AT YOUR DOOR.
To
create a space for sin is to allow a border breach, and you will have
WAR AT YOUR DOOR.
Do
you love your family? Then do not bring the war to your door by
allowing sin to have space in your life.
So
where might the border be breached?
What
about media? Do you allow things on your screens that taint, that
desecrate the holy place within you. As I asked a group of Christian
young men recently, “Is there anything you won't watch?”
So
the Christian begins to let his morality loosen. After all, why be
so judgmental and legalistic. That's not what Jesus came and died
for, good grief. Loosen up, man!
The
Christian was once concerned about his witness, about shining the
light of Jesus as brightly as possible to a hurting, lost world. He
didn't want to waste any time or opportunity to plant a seed for
eternity.
But
that drive has slipped. After all, who really cares? If the world's
salvation is hanging on one little witness, we're in big trouble
anyway.
So
he pulls back and allows a border breach, because it doesn't matter!
Now
he's thinking about intoxicants. I mean, really, where does the
Bible say he can't? And the next generation is completely forgotten,
ignoring that the small border breach in his life is likely to lead
to a larger border breach in the next generation because when they
are young, they rarely have the power on their own to rush in and
reestablish a border that their parents and grandparents GAVE UP.
So
he in-takes a little intoxicant.
And
the war is at his door.
Another
border is breached. His language. God set the Christian free from
bad language, bad words, foul words, cursing, swearing, taking the
Lord's name in vain, using sexual phrases, vulgar phrases, excrement
phrases, bawdy jokes, double entendre....wait a minute... How
clever! How cute! How witty and funny. In the ballrooms, the dance
halls, the clubs, the bars, it doesn't matter where...from the crack
house to the White House, WHY WATCH YOUR TONGUE? It's about FREEDOM,
man, FREEDOM.
And
in the name of freedom, another border is breached.
Another
border is breached.
Look.
If you have to redraw the map in your brain to account for the
border losses to sin, YOU MIGHT HAVE A PROBLEM.
The
sanctity of the marriage bed. The holiness of a Godly,
Christ-centered marriage and family. For better, for worse. For
richer, for poorer. In good times and bad. 'Til death do us part.
What God has joined together, LET MAN NOT PUT ASUNDER.
Put
asunder. The striking words of the sword of the Lord.
Make
a vow to the Lord and keep it.
Except
the marriage vow, which what is marriage anyway? Why, it's
malleable! It's changeable. Shapable. Expandable!
Shrinkable…..just like our borders.
The
Christian's borders are shrinking. His borders are shrinking, and
the war is at his door.
There
is a devil and there are demons, and the Christian forgot. And he
forgot their intentions, to steal and to kill and to destroy.
And
he forgot that the devil is a roaring lion, and that lions go for the
weakest in the herd, WHICH IS THE CHILDREN.
But
now the Christian thinks he's a Lion Tamer. Strong in himself, doing
what is right in his own eyes, redrawing boundaries, even thinking
they are getting LARGER. After all, he's doing more, saying more,
experiencing more. His life is getting bigger! Yolo, man! Live
like you're dying. Tackle that bucket list. And if you get hurt,
well don't be a burden, man. Let's have assisted suicide and just
let Jesus welcome you into heaven on His magic carpet, with a little
stash of your favorite intoxicant.
Forgetting
that the middle word is TOXIC, as in poison, as in harmful and
hurtful and the borders are eroding like sand, and now his children
are wasted.
And
his wife has Momma's Little Helper.
Now
unforgiveness crashes through the border and takes up a stronghold in
the Christian. It started with a few unforgivenesses, people that
Jesus told him to forgive, but he wasn't quite ready to...you know,
like his favorite Disney song, Let It Go. So he held on to it, but
he had to keep it quiet, because those judgmental Christians down at
the church would have told him to forgive, and that's the LAST thing
he felt like doing.
And
now he won't forgive the driver that isn't driving the way he wants,
meaning mostly get the blank-blank-blank out of his way, because his
language border was breached a long time ago, and where better for a
good language breach than when you are in the car, alone, and someone
doesn't MOVE THE INSTANT THE LIGHT TURNS GREEN GOOD GOD THEY'RE ON
THEIR PHONE. And he tells himself, while redrawing the map in his
brain, “Well, I meant it, because God is good,” but then he
doesn't say that anymore, and pretty soon he drops the “good” and
he's just screaming “Oh God” about every INFRACTION.....and his
border is shrinking and his life is getting smaller...in the name of
freedom.
And
you know who the worst people are, that he might never forgive just
for spite? The Christians who won't GET OFF HIS BACK about these
LITTLE SINS.
But
really, he doesn't even think about that word anymore...sin.
And
he's not really thinking about going to church anymore, either.
And
now his marriage bed has a gleaming wall of unforgiveness right down
the middle of it.
Now
the question is….what about us?
Where
have we allowed border breaches?
Where
have we redrawn the map in our brains, giving sin a little space,
telling ourselves we will let it go this far, and no farther?
It's
time for us to do a “world dump” and to return to the Lord with
all of our heart!
Judges
10:10 says, “And the children of Israel cried out to the Lord,
saying, “We have sinned against You...”
Judges
12:3 says the Lord delivered them and gave them the victory.
And
He will do the same for us!
So
ask the Lord to show you any border breaches, where you have allowed
sin to creep in and take space...and then repent! Ask God for
forgiveness and deliverance! Give all that territory back to Him!
Let's reclaim those borders for Jesus!
Let
us be the people who give no space to sin, but are full of the Holy
Spirit and on fire for Jesus!
Let
us be the people who are forgiven and walking in forgiveness,
forgiving everyone.
Let
us be the people who are literally expanding the borders of the
Kingdom of God!
