Sermon Central
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Beyond All Limits
Contributed by Larry Elder on Aug 1, 2007 (message contributor)
Summary: All of us have limits and boundaries that make us uncomfortable if we go beyond them.
Beyond All Limits
Deut 30:11 Now what I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. NIV
LWE ODC SEPT 04
All of us have limits and boundaries that make us uncomfortable if we go beyond them.
• Personality types,
• money limits,
• knowledge,
• wisdom
• marriage
• patience
Joke - One of our limits we all face is age.
20 SIGNS THAT YOU’RE GETTING OLD
1. You’re asleep, but others worry that you’re dead.
2. Your back goes out more often than you do.
3. You quit trying to hold your stomach in, no matter who walks into the room.
4. You buy a compass for the dash of your car/truck.
5. You’re proud of your lawn mower.
6. Your arms are almost too short to read the newspaper.
7. You sing along with the elevator music.
8. You would rather go to work than stay home sick.
9. You enjoy hearing about other people’s operations.
10. You no longer think of speed limits as a challenge.
11. People call at 9:00 p.m. and ask, "Did I wake you?"
12. You answer a question with, "Because I said so."
13. The end of your tie doesn’t come anywhere near the top of your pants.
14. You take a metal detector to the beach.
15. You know what the word "equity" means.
16. You can’t remember the last time you laid on the floor to watch television.
17. Your ears are hairier than your head.
18. You get into a heated argument about pension plans.
19. You got cable for The Weather Channel.
20. You’re sitting in a rocker and you can’t get it started.
There are certain things we will not do or become involved in because it is beyond our comfort zone.
Where are the limits of your comfort zone?
The God Christians worship is the God who has no limits. That’s hard for us to even imagine, because most of our frustrations in life are a direct result of limitations.
We’re limited by space because we can only be in one place at one time.
ILL A recent television commercial for a new minivan shows a guy driving between his son’s swim meet and his daughter’s soccer tournament, and of course the minivan helps him get there at just the right times. It would be great if they made a minivan fast enough to enable you to be in more than one place at one time.
We’re also limited in our knowledge.
ILL The old adage is true, "The more you learn, the more you know how much you don’t know".
Living in an information based society like we do, we realize that we’ll never know even a fraction of what we could know.
ILL We encounter more information in one issue of The New York Times than a person in 18th century England encountered in his or her entire life.
We’re constantly facing circumstances where we don’t know what to do, trying to answer questions we don’t know the answers to.
We also face limitations in our resources. As much as we like to pretend that we’re invincible, all of us have a breaking point; all of us reach the point of being physically exhausted, mentally spent, spiritually empty, and financially busted. We’re overwhelmed with the needs around us, whether it’s the transient at the gas station or a co-worker who can’t meet his rent, yet we look at our own resource and realize how limited we are.
Because we are so accustomed to these kinds of limitations, it is hard for us to conceive of a God who has no limitations.
We need to read the background scriptures to understand what God is saying that will not be “difficult for you or beyond your reach”.
Deut 30:6-10 "The LORD your God will cleanse your heart and the hearts of all your descendants so that you will love him with all your heart and soul, and so you may live! 7 The LORD your God will inflict all these curses on your enemies and persecutors. 8 Then you will again obey the LORD and keep all the commands I am giving you today. 9 The LORD your God will make you successful in everything you do. He will give you many children and numerous livestock, and your fields will produce abundant harvests, for the LORD will delight in being good to you as he was to your ancestors. 10 The LORD your God will delight in you if you obey his voice and keep the commands and laws written in this Book of the Law, and if you turn to the LORD your God with all your heart and soul. NLT
1. New Heart Deut 30:6 The LORD your God will cleanse your heart and the hearts of all your descendants so that you will love him with all your heart and soul, and so you may live!
