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!
One must have a new heart to love god and put him first in life and conduct.
Ezekiel 36:25 -26 “then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” “a new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put with in you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.
2. Grace to obey = the power and desire to follow God
Deut 30:8 Then you will again obey the LORD and keep all the commands I am giving you today
During the time of Jesus walked the earth, the biggest boundary separating people was the boundary between Jew and non-Jew. This boundary was an impassable boundary for many people. You see, the Jewish people had faced extinction many times in their long history as a people. As far back as the Jewish exile to Persia, a man named Haman had tried to exterminate of all the Jewish people. And of course we saw the
same thing in the twentieth century in Germany under Hitler. Hatred has for generations fueled a desire on the part of some people to completely destroy the Jewish people. And if they couldn’t be destroyed by killing them, some people who hated Jewish people tried to erase Jewish people’s identity. If Jewish people could be persuaded to intermarry with non-Jews and let go all their distinctiveness as Jewish people, they could be destroyed.
So the Jewish people at the time of Jesus held on to their uniqueness for dear life. In their minds, their very existence as a nation relied on their uniqueness. In Jesus’ day, this uniqueness revolved around three areas of their life.
• First, they were unique because of circumcision.
• Second, they were unique in their celebration of the various Jewish Sabbaths: The weekly Sabbath, the monthly Sabbaths, and the seasonal Sabbath celebrations like Passover.
• Third, they were unique in their purity laws, their laws that separated different objects into categories of clean and unclean. They would only eat certain kinds of food, abstaining from food that they considered "unclean," food like pork and catfish. They could only touch certain kinds of objects, while objects like dead bodies, dead animals, and people with leprosy were considered unclean.
We know from history that the Jewish people of Jesus’ day felt that these distinctive traits, circumcision, Sabbath keeping, and purity laws--were the essential ingredients to maintaining their uniqueness as Jewish people.
Even though the Jew were constantly under treat of extinction through out history, God gave them the ability to keep their faith in Jehovah.
Ezk 36:27“ I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in the statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do them.
Promise to the New Testament believer.
Eph 3:14-19 When I think of the wisdom and scope of God’s plan, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father, 15 the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth. 16 I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit. 17 And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. 18 And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. 19 May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God. NLT
When we move to the very edge of our personal limits, we need God’s help to continue to mature and move forward with Christ.
ILL - A story is told about a guy who stopped in the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up a couple of items for his wife. He wandered around aimlessly for a while
searching out the needed groceries. As is often the case in the grocery store, he kept passing this same shopper in almost every aisle.
It was another father trying to shop with
a totally uncooperative three year old boy in the cart.
The first time they passed, the three year old was asking over and over for a candy bar.
Our observer couldn’t hear the entire conversation. He just heard Dad say, “Now, Billy, this won’t take long.” As they passed in the next aisle, the three year old’s pleas had
increased several octaves. Now Dad was quietly saying, “Billy, just calm down. We will be done in a minute.”
When they passed near the dairy case, the kid was screaming uncontrollably. Dad was still keeping his cool. In a very low voice he was saying, “Billy, settle down. We are almost
out of here.”
The Dad and his son reached the check out counter just ahead of our observer. He still gave no evidence of loosing control. The boy was screaming and kicking. Dad was very calming saying over and over, “Billy, we will be in the car in just a
minute and then everything will be OK.”
The bystander was impressed beyond words. After paying for his groceries, he hurried to catch up with this amazing example of patience and self-control just in time to hear him say again, “Billy, we’re done. It’s going to be OK.”
He tapped the patient father on the shoulder and said, “Sir, I couldn’t help but watch how you handled little Billy. You
were amazing.”
Dad replied, “You don’t get it, do you?” the boy’s name is Alan my name is Billy!”
ILL In Acts 4, after Peter and John had been arrested by the Sanhedrin and were threatened not to speak in the name of Jesus again, they gathered with other believers and prayed for boldness or strength to speak God’s word.
Acts 4:29-31, “Now Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word, by stretching out Your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of Your holy Servant Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God boldly.”
Where did their strength or boldness come from? It came from being re-filled with the Holy Spirit. They were Baptized in the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, but now they experienced a re-filling – “in the inner man”.
When you are “Born Again” God’s Spirit comes and takes up residence in you. But Paul is not satisfied with the people of God just being saved. He desires that “Christ dwell in your hearts”.
Jesus wants to have constant fellowship with you. He wants to set up housekeeping in your hearts. That means that He will go from room to room and may find some things in each that He is not comfortable with. He will let you know that He doesn’t like it, but He will never make you stop whatever it is you are doing.
He will begin to flood those compartments with His word so that there is not enough room for both. You will have to make a decision, more of Jesus or hang on to worldly things.
When you make up your mind to be all for Jesus, the Baptism in the Holy Spirit gives you the power to do just that.
If your Christian walk is based on a set of rules and regulations, then it becomes no different than any other religion. However, when your Christian faith is the source of power, it becomes something different from any other religion
3. Blessings from the Lord
Deut 30:9 The LORD your God will make you successful in everything you do
The first blessings is a Solid Foundation
ILL What is it that makes mighty oak trees so stable? Storms may come and blow some limbs out, but it is not often that you see an oak blown over from the roots. The oak’s root system is created so that it can withstand the storm. There is a tap - root that goes down as deep as it has to go to get the nourishment it needs to stay healthy. Oak trees are rooted and grounded.
Christians are to be grounded in God’s love. When you submit yourself to the indwelling presence of the Living God and to the baptism in His Holy Spirit, your foundation cannot help but become a strong one.
We are speaking of spiritual experience that is grounded in the love and the word of Jesus. Through this, you can understand the width, the length, the depth, and the height of the love of Christ.
• His love is so wide that it encompasses the whole world – all are included if they accept it by faith.
• It is so long that it extends from eternity past to eternity future.
• It is so deep that it reaches down into the miry clay and lifts sinners up to stand on the solid Rock and
• It is so high that it raises both Jew and Gentile up to the heavenly places to be seated along side Him in His eternal kingdom.
4. Beyond all limits - Deut 30:10 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
Joseph was one of these with whom God was delighted in.
After many hard times for Joseph, God brought him into a position of blessing and honor.
God showed Him how to help Egypt survive the famine and to be a resource to the Jews for food.
Gen 41:49 Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea; it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure. NIV
Eph 3:20 - Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. NLT
1) Now to Him who is - Heb 11:6 So, you see, it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who wants to come to him must believe that there is a God and that he rewards those who sincerely seek him. NLT
2) Now to Him who is able - Rom 4:20-22 Abraham never wavered in believing God’s promise. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. 21 He was absolutely convinced that God was able to do anything he promised. 22 And because of Abraham’s faith, God declared him to be righteous. NLT
3) Able to do - God is not inactive. He is the God of the living. He doesn’t just sit on His throne and rule. He works.
4) Able to do beyond what we ask - When you ask according to God’s word you can expect more than you ask for. Jesus said in Mark 11:24-25 - Listen to me! You can pray for anything, and if you believe, you will have it. NLT
5) Able to do exceedingly, abundantly beyond what we think. Did you ever wonder if something was just too outrageous to ask God for?
• I ask for revival in Odessa
• I ask for 10% of the population
• I ask for church wealth to pay for needed ministries
• I ask God to bless you daily
• I ask for You to mature in the things of the Lord
6) “according to the power that works in us…”
• This is the same power that Jesus is building His church
• The same power that spoke all creation into being
• The same power that declared Jesus to be the Son of God through His resurrection
• The same power Jesus implied when He said, “the work that I do he will do also; and greater works than these will he do because I go to My Father
• The same power that heals the sick,
• sets the captives free,
• casts out demons,
• raises the spiritually dead to eternal life
• The same power that baptizes you in the Holy Spirit
• The same power that can change the entire world much less the city of Odessa the county of Ector, the state of Texas
“Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power working in us…”
It is time to go beyond all limits we set in our life.
It is time move beyond all limits in our marriage
It is time to go beyond all limits in our finances
It is time to work beyond all limits in our ministries.
What are you asking from God ?
ILL In its early days, Dallas Theological Seminary was in critical need of $10,000 to keep the work going. During a prayer meeting, renowned Bible teacher Harry Ironside, a lecturer at the school, prayed, "Lord, you own the cattle on a thousand hills. Please sell some of those cattle to help us meet this need." Shortly after the prayer meeting, a check for $10,000 arrived at the school, sent days earlier by a friend who had no idea of the urgent need or of Ironside’s prayer. The man simply said the money came from the sale of some of his cattle!
• Do you know who you are in the power of the Holy Spirit?
• Do you have any idea what you can accomplish through the power that works in you?
• Can you begin to fathom the idea that God is willing to do exceedingly abundantly above what you ask or even think?
• Are we asking for big things from a big God?
• The promise is made. The power is available. What are you going to do with it?
ILL - A little boy who lived far out in the country in the late 1800s had reached the age of twelve and had never in all his life seen a circus. You can imagine his excitement, when one day a poster went up at school announcing that on the next Saturday a traveling circus was coming to the nearby town.
He ran home with the glad news and the question, "Daddy, can I go?" Although the family was poor, the father sensed how important this was to the lad. "If you do your Saturday chores ahead of time," he said, "I’ll see to it that you have the money to go."’
Come Saturday morning, the chores were done and the little boy stood by the breakfast table, dressed in his Sunday best. His father reached down into the pocket of his overalls and pulled out a dollar bill-the most money the little boy had possessed at one time in all his life. The father cautioned him to be careful and then sent him on his way to town.
The boy was so excited, his feet hardly seemed to touch the ground all the way. As he neared the outskirts of the village, he noticed people lining the streets, and he worked his way through the crowd until he could see what was happening. Lo and behold, it was the approaching spectacle of a circus parade! The parade was the grandest thing this lad had ever seen. Caged animals snarled as they passed, bands beat their rhythms and sounded shining horns, midgets performed acrobatics while flags and ribbons swirled overhead.
Finally, after everything had passed where he was standing, the traditional circus clown, with floppy shoes, baggy pants, and a brightly painted face, brought up the rear.
As the clown passed by, the little boy reached into his pocket and took out that precious dollar bill. Handing the money to the clown, the boy turned around and went home. What had happened? The boy thought he had seen the circus when he had only seen the parade!
Are you experiencing all that God has for you? The Christian life is a marvelous adventure, an exciting journey. Many people-including Christians-seem to be content to float in a sea of mediocrity, settling for second best.
Let us move beyond all limits together!
