There’s nothing worse than when someone treads on your toes – you know they get in your space, they tread on your toes and what you feel is something between discomfort, anger and fear. That’s why boundaries are so important.

The concept of setting and maintaining boundaries in our lives is actually very important yet it’s not something that we tend to think too much about until someone crosses a boundary, until someone, as I said, tread on your toes. Then all of a sudden we react and more often than not our reactions aren’t all that good.

That’s why it’s important for us to think about and to understand our boundaries and that’s why it’s important to set our boundaries in the right place with the right controls. Boundaries that are too tight end up isolating us, boundaries that are too loose allow our lives, our emotions, our possessions, to be plundered.

Different people have different concepts of boundaries. I remember back in the 1980’s I was doing a consulting job for the City of Melbourne in Australia. They set up a small office for us in a small laneway not far from the Town Hall in a building that we shared with, amongst other things, an English language school with lots of Asian students.

There was only one elevator in the building and as I recall it was a pretty small one. Now we all have a concept about when a lift or an elevator as some call it, is full. You get in, you take a look, it looks too packed to you, so you decide to wait until it comes back again empty.

But it turned out that the Asian students coming from countries much, much more crowded than Australia had a totally different notion of what ‘full’ looked like and so they just keep on packing in and packing in and when I thought we simply couldn’t squeeze anyone else in four more people would get in the lift. That truly tested my notions on the boundaries of personal space with bodies pressed up against me and people literally treading on my toes.

But it didn’t seem to bother them because they were used to that sort of overcrowding, it was entirely normal for them. Fortunately though the lift never broke down, I don’t know how I would have ever coped with being stuck in there for half an hour pinned to the wall.

So we all have different ideas of what boundaries are acceptable, and what boundaries are unacceptable. You see it between nations, in most of the world you have to have a passport to enter a country as a foreign national but not all foreign nationals are the same.

Many countries treat different nationalities differently in terms of visa requirements and security requirements and so on. I have to fulfil certain requirements to get a visa to enter India but if you’re a Pakistani national the requirements are much more stringent. And yet travel to Europe now, most people can pretty much move across national borders without any sort of control whatsoever.

The more you think about boundaries whether on a personal level or a national or an international scale, the more complicated it gets. But there’s one thing for certain, if someone, a person, a group of people, an army or a nation steps over a boundary that they’re not supposed to, well there’s going to be a clash of some sort, anything from friction to all out war.

That’s why boundaries are important. And yet we spend little, if any time, thinking about, talking about the boundaries that we’ve set. Mostly the setting of boundaries is an unconscious thing and because boundaries are never talked about people step over them, often without knowing it, until it’s too late and right there you have the beginnings of a potential conflict.

Given that this subject is such an important one in our lives it won’t come as any surprise to you that God has rather a lot to say about the boundaries in our lives. It seems to me that if I set the right sort of boundaries in the right sort of places with the right sort of controls, balancing stringency and defence on the one hand with kindness and openness on the other, I’m going to have a much better life.

The Bible tells us that we should pursue peace. And since war happens over this whole issue of boundaries, it seems to me at least, it’s worth talking about and thinking through the boundaries that we set in our lives and perhaps adjusting a few of them to bring about more peace.

That’s why we’re talking about boundaries, learning to set the right boundaries on the program this week and next. And today I want to get us thinking by kicking off some wisdom on this whole issue of boundaries from the Old Testament Book of Proverbs. Have a listen, Proverbs chapter 22 verse 28:

Do not remove the ancient landmark that your ancestors set up.

Landmarks were the basis of boundaries. When Israel came into the Promised Land every one of the twelve tribes of Israel bar one, the Levites, were allocated their own land in this Promised Land. The ancient landmarks were set up to draw the boundaries between the lands between the tribes.

But here this idea is being used metaphorically, it’s this idea that God has ordained certain boundaries, certain things that are good and yet in this day and age we want to toss all those things out because they’re not all that convenient because we think we know better. Meanwhile, wars continue to be fought over boundaries, marriages continue to fall apart over boundaries, and lives continue to be robbed of God’s peace over boundaries.

Just a few verses on God takes this to a whole other level, Proverbs chapter 23 verses 10 and 11:

Do not remove an ancient landmark or encroach on the fields of orphans for their redeemer is strong and he will plead their cause against you.

He uses the example here of the orphans, the poor and the needy and the vulnerable in society. God has a heart for the poor and what He’s saying here is, “Don’t step over that boundary, don’t move the ancient landmark because God, the redeemer of the orphans, is strong and He will defend them”.

See there are some good boundaries that we can set in life, we’re going to talk about a few of those in the rest of this series and there are some very bad boundaries that we can set like exploiting the vulnerable as in this case or being selfish. When you think about it, selfishness is about setting the wrong boundary in the wrong place, having more than enough and not sharing it with those who are in need, placing your comfort above others needs.

And when we move from being selfish to generous with our resources, with our time, with our encouragement, what we’re doing is saying, “Hey, this boundary around what I have and what I own, I’ve had it set in the wrong place. I actually need to move it outwards a lot more, I need to make it’s defences less stringent so that some of what I have can flow out to those who don’t have what I have and who need what I have.”

Do you see the point? Do you see how important it is to have our boundaries set in the right place? The question is where is the right place? What is the right level of control? Well the answer to that is that the right place is the place that God sets up according to His ancient landmarks.

We tend to think of things ancient as being irrelevant, hey! Come on, the world’s moved on. In this era of instant connectivity, in this era of having the world in the palm of your hand on your smart phone, what possible relevance can ancient landmarks really have?

Well for God the answer is rather a lot of relevance as things turn out. Let me bring you back to it, Proverbs 22 verse 28:

Do not remove the ancient landmark that your ancestors set up.

What landmarks have you set up in your life that defines your boundaries? Are they where God would have them or have you set them up to suit yourself with little or no thought as to God’s will for your life? Now that’s something worth thinking about, have you removed God’s ancient landmarks in your life?

Your mind is an incredibly powerful thing. What we think, often becomes our reality. If we think good things, then we end up doing good things. If we think bad things, we end up doing bad things. That’s why it’s so incredibly important to set boundaries around your mind.

Yeah, as I said the mind is an incredibly powerful thing. If we use it positively and creatively we’ll end up living a positive and creative life. If we use it in a negative way we’ll end up living a negative life. As Joyce Meyer once said, “You can’t have a negative mind and expect to live a positive life”.

But our mind, these days, is being bombarded with so many things, so many negative and unhelpful ways of thinking that if we’re not careful we end up taking that negativity on and making it part of our minds. Just one example is the sitcoms that play themselves out on television these days.

On the surface, yeah they’re funny and we laugh and we feel entertained, but more and more these sitcoms are being used as platforms for delivering wrong thinking about sexual promiscuity and perversions much in the same way as cigarettes were merely a delivery platform for the addictive substance nicotine.

Now that’s a somewhat unpopular thing for me to say because so many people have consumed so much of this stuff, so many people have swallowed the promiscuity and the perversions hook, line and sinker that it’s become part of them, it’s now how they think, it’s now what they believe.

There would be many people hearing me say this today who’ll write me off as some conservative crackpot. I know I’ll get many, many emails from people contending with what I’ve said, that’s okay, I don’t mind that because the lies of this world are not what determine how I think, God’s Word is and God’s Word says this, 1 Corinthians chapter 6 verses 18 to 20:

Shun fornication and flee from it. Every sin that a person commits is outside the body but the fornicator sins against the body itself. Or don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you which you have from God and that you are not your own for you were bought with a price. Therefore glorify God in your body.

We’re talking in this series, ‘Learning to Set Boundaries’, about the boundaries that we set in our lives and one of the important boundaries that we need to set is the boundary around our mind, what we let in and what we don’t. It’s about guarding your mind from that which is wrong and feeding it with that which is right.

And one of the reasons that this is so important is that the mind is the gateway to the heart. It’s a bit like the relationship between the mouth and the stomach. We take food into our mouths, if it tastes bad we spit it out, if it tastes good we chew it, we swallow it and it goes down into our stomach where it’s broken down and digested and then subsequently absorbed into our bodies where it becomes part of us.

And the reason that so many people are sick and obese these days is because they are putting the wrong sort of foods into their mouths, swallowing it and slowly killing themselves. Well it’s kind of the same with our minds, we’re presented, let’s say, by a seductive idea of promiscuity or perversion wrapped in the sweet wrapper of the comedy of a sitcom.

That is our minds, we chew it over and then we can either swallow it or spit it out. Swallow bad stuff and it will give you heart disease, swallow good stuff and it will make you strong and pure. The problem is we consume most of these things uncritically. In other words what we see is the humour of the sitcom that makes us laugh rather than thinking over what they’re feeding us.

Isn’t that what we do? We swallow before we chew, taste and decide whether this is any good for us or not. These days so many people in God’s Church, people who proclaim that they believe in Jesus will become all defensive when God’s Word on promiscuity and perversion is preached. Why? Because they’ve swallowed the rubbish, and as I said that’s just one example, there are many, many others.

But God’s Word says that He’s given you a powerful mind, a mind that can begin to affect powerful change in your life. Have a listen to this, Romans chapter 12 verse 2:

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Now I know that that particular Scripture is going to be a familiar one for many but how often have you ever read it with the understanding that it’s talking about the power of your mind to set new boundaries. What it says is that as we renew our minds by starting to believe God rather than the father of lies, by starting to consume God’s Word rather than the poison of this world, our lives will be transformed. Listen to it again, Romans chapter 12 verse 2:

Don’t be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Isn’t that powerful? It’s talking about real transformation by starting to believe God over the world because that’s where you’ll discover the good and perfect and acceptable will of God for your life.

So to come back to the example that I’ve been using today, the apparently innocuous but actually poisonous sitcoms that we get dished up on television every night. Those that are poisonous, not all are but quite a few of them are, I simply don’t watch, ever, full stop and when I’m watching a movie that promotes promiscuity I see it for what it is and reject it and if a sex scene pops up unexpectedly I actually fast forward through it.

Now call me square, call me old fashioned, call me whatever you like but I am determined to guard my mind, to set boundaries, but at the same time I allow my mind to wander free over the hills and valleys of my dreams and imagination because God has spoken to me so often out there on those hills and in those valleys. I’ve chosen not to be conformed to this world but to let God transform my life by changing my mind, by renewing my mind by setting the right boundaries around my mind.

So let me ask you, what is some of the rubbish that you’ve been allowing your mind to consume? Maybe people have been feeding you lies all your life that you’re not all that smart or you’re not all that good looking or you’re not all that useful and so your whole pattern of thought is premised on those lies.

Well if that’s the case it’s time to say, “Hey! Enough is enough here, I am not living like that anymore, I’m going to start believing what the Bible says about me not what the world says about me, I’m not going to conform to the pattern of this world anymore”, or as the J B Phillips translation of Romans chapter 12 verse 2 says:

I am not going to let the world squeeze me into its mould anymore because I simply don’t fit.

It’s uncomfortable in there, I don’t belong, God has given me a mind, a good one and I’m going to set up boundaries to keep the lies of this world out and I’m going to open the door wide to feed my mind with the Word of God.

As a lecturer of mine back at Bible College used to say, Dr Barry Chant, “When we open our minds to God’s Word we replace our flawed self image with a faith image based on what Gods Word says about us.”

So instead of letting rubbish into your mind which ends up in your heart causing untold damage deep inside, damage which on a daily basis works its way back to the surface to ruin our lives, instead of that, you and I can take a choice, a simple choice. It’s a choice to set up boundaries and discern what our minds are being fed or alternatively just swallow all the rubbish, live a flawed, painful, unhealthy life that will ultimately lead to your destruction.

I don’t know if you’ve ever thought of it that way but that’s the choice that confronts us. Let me tell you something, I know, I absolutely know which one of those I’m going to choose, how about you?

When we’re under pressure, one of the things that we love to do, is to behave badly. In fact, sometimes, even when we’re not under pressure we still want to behave badly. And don’t we just find it so easy to rationalise, to justify that bad behaviour. The problem is that behaving badly, well, it tends to end badly as well.

Whether we realise it or not, whether we like it or not there have been some boundaries set for us around our behaviour. It all started when we were children, when we did something wrong and our parents said ‘no’ and we continued doing it, we’d get a slap on the wrist or around the legs or on the bottom. Mum and dad were setting boundaries on our behaviours, and in fact the parents who don’t set those boundaries and enforce them are the ones who end up with delinquent teenagers more often than not.

And those delinquent teenagers, many of them, end up growing up into delinquent adults. So boundary setting begins or it should begin early in our lives. Sadly, some parents are savage in the boundaries they set, there’s a harshness that ends up damaging the child. Something that can, in some cases, stray into the area of abuse, mental, emotional and physical.

The point is that when it comes to setting boundaries around a behaviour both too little and too much are not a good thing, the answer lies somewhere in the middle. And the same flows through in our adult lives, none of us would like to live in a lawless society where there aren’t any boundaries on people’s behaviours because that sort of anarchy is simply dangerous. Whilst at the other end of the scale none of us would want to live under a brutal, despotic, dictatorship either and there are plenty of those left in this world today.

What we’re looking for is a society that’s governed by the rule of law whilst at the same time preserving individual freedoms, that’s the balance. And it’s that very same balance that you and I should be looking for when we’re thinking about setting boundaries on our own personal behaviour.

But that seems so easy in this day and age because we live in a time where people believe that if it feels good you should do it. And so people have latched onto that and they’re living that. Don’t worry that divorce rates and suicide rates are sky rocketing, don’t worry that the rich are getting richer and the poor and getting poorer, don’t worry that the excessive lifestyle’s that we’re seeking to live out are leaving us with a deep emptiness inside, no, if it feels good do it.

I live not far from an inner city hospital, a very good hospital in fact but each Friday and Saturday night the emergency department is jam packed full of people affected by alcohol fuelled violence. Sure if it feels good do it. Well maybe you don’t get out and get drunk every weekend, maybe you’re not at the point of divorce or suicide but still the excesses of our behaviour can have a detrimental effect on our lives.

As I said yesterday on the program lies are always presented to us as being something attractive, something seductive, and the lie ‘if it feels good we should do it’ is just that, it’s an attractive, seductive lie. But when you spend a bit of time listening to God through His Word the Bible, His love letter to you and me, you discover one of the things He urges us to do is to show some self control.

The Book of Titus in the New Testament chapter 2 verses 2 to 8, have a listen:

Tell the older men to be temperate, serious, prudent and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Likewise tell the older women to be reverent in their behaviour, not to be slanderers or slaves to drink, they are to teach what is good so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, to be self controlled, chaste, good managers of the household, kind, being submissive to their husbands so that the word of God may not be discredited.

Likewise urge the younger men to be self controlled. Show yourselves in all respects as a model of good works and in your teaching show integrity, gravity and sound speech that cannot be censured. Then any opponent will be put to shame having nothing evil to say of you.

Now at first that may all appear just a little bit old fashioned, a quaint notion from a slower world that existed two thousand years ago but just listen to the wisdom of that. Imagine a society where the older men are great leaders, where the older women teach the younger folk to love each other, where the older men teach the younger men to be self controlled, to show respect, to have integrity and character of substance. Just imagine a society like that, what would it look like?

Now let’s bring all that back to you and me, let’s bring that back to our behaviours. We’ve been talking this week about learning to set boundaries, boundaries around our heart, around our mind, a boundary around the truth that we all believe. All those are important as is the need to set some boundaries around our behaviours.

Of course what we say and what we do is a consequence of what’s going on in our hearts, that’s what Jesus said, Matthew chapter 15 verses 17 to 19:

Do you not see that whatever goes into your mouth enters your stomach and goes out into the sewer but what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and this is what defiles. For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander.

And the way that we guard against those things, the Bible says, is self control. Now the thing with self control is that it’s not a particularly fun thing to have to exercise because you’re talking here about putting boundaries around your behaviour and we each have some Achilles heel here, we each have that one thing that just sets us off. Maybe it’s grumbling and complaining, maybe it’s passive/aggressive behaviour, maybe it’s lying or undermining or gossiping or anger.

For me it was always anger. That might surprise you, but I think quickly, I move quickly, I act quickly, that’s how I get lots of things done in my day. But the underbelly of that is impatience and anger. You get annoyed with people who don’t match up to your speed and stamina and standards and so in my walk with the Lord I’ve had to learn to zip my lip, to shut up when something or someone doesn’t suit me, to be patient and that, I have to tell you has not been easy and it still isn’t.

But unless I learn to exercise my self control, what good am I as a minister of the Gospel? Unless I show the same patience and gentleness and grace and mercy that God showed me through Jesus on that cross, how can I say I believe in Jesus? And the same is true of you, have a listen, 2 Peter chapter 1 verses 4 to 8:

Thus he has given us through these things his precious and very great promises so that through them you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of lust and may become participants of the divine nature. For this very reason you must make every effort to support your faith with goodness and goodness with knowledge and knowledge with self control and self control with endurance and endurance with Godliness and Godliness with mutual affection and mutual affection with love.

For if these things are yours and are increasing among you they keep you from being ineffective and unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You read that and you realise just how right God is in all of this, how important this boundary of self control is around our behaviour. So allow me to bring you back to your Achilles heel, whatever it is, you know what it is. Today is the day where you decide to begin to work at this self control thing.

No it won’t be easy and no it won’t be pleasant to start with, it’s like over-eating, ultimately you have to give up the chocolate cake in order to lose the weight but when you lose the weight it’s worth it right? It’s the same with our sin, it’s the same with that one thing that’s been ruining your life and the lives of the people around you up to this point. Because God has a mighty plan for your life, He really does and to see that plan fulfilled He needs you to be self controlled, Godly and loving.

When those things increase in you, so will the fruit that you bear for His glory.