All right, boys, wait on the altar and just give glory to the King.
Your name is light, our hope in darkness. Your name is strong to save the day.
Your name is great, our mighty fortress, when all else combos you remain.
Hallelujah to the one whose faithfulness goes on and on. This is our everlasting song.
Glory to your name, our God and our Savior.
Worthy of praise for the praise you, for ever you reign, our mighty repeater.
We are saved, we are saved, we are saved. Glory to your name.
For those who chase, your name is freedom, your name is mercy for the Lord.
Your name is light, our hope for sin, your name is love upon the cross.
Hallelujah to the one who never got to miss himself. This is our everlasting song.
Glory to your name, our God and our Savior.
Worthy of praise for the praise you, for ever you reign, our mighty repeater.
We are saved, we are saved, we are saved. Glory to your name. Glory to your name.
Glory to the name of Jesus.
Glory to the name, the name above all names, Jesus.
Glory to Jesus, Jesus. Glory to the name above all names, Jesus.
Glory to Jesus, glory to the name above all names, Jesus.
Glory to your name, our God and our Savior.
We are saved, we are saved, we are saved. Glory to your name. Glory to your name.
Glory to the name above all names, Jesus.
Hallelujah.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
So let's tell them when they're good. So tell them thank you when you see them.
And the coolest thing is they play and sing from their hearts and they love God.
And what a blessing they are to us each Sunday.
We're beginning a series today called Guard Rails.
And just in case you forget what we're talking about.
Just five years ago I was talking to one of our prop guys about making some Guard Rails out of Styrofoam.
And I think George, you overheard me talking about that.
And said, man, we ain't having no Styrofoam Guard Rails in this church.
And so George brought us the real deal. So thank you for that.
And even though we did this five years ago, I thought we were due for a refresher course.
So here we go.
Life groups are also doing this study during the week in homes.
And so I'm making some discussion questions for you to use.
And you can download those on our website at argile.church.
You can also pick up a copy of the discussion questions in our welcome center.
If you're not in a life group, you can find out more information about life group in our welcome center today.
Our mission at the church at Argyle is to lead people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
We believe that we should all connect with others.
And the best place to do that is in a life group.
We believe that we should all use our time and our talents to serve each other.
We believe that since God is a generous giver, that we should also give generously.
And we believe that we should all invest in the lives of others
and invite them to be involved in an awesome church just like the church at Argyle.
Guard Rails.
Now, all of you probably know what a Guard Rail is, but you don't pay much attention to them until you need one.
And when you need one, you're so very thankful that it's there.
A Guard Rail is a system designed to protect us by keeping us from straying into dangerous areas.
Now, the key word there is straying because none of us plan to go into dangerous areas.
We stray into dangerous areas.
And again, nobody pays any attention to Guard Rails until you need one.
Guard Rails are that invisible part of the driving experience.
Now, there are three areas where we normally find Guard Rails.
One of them is on bridges. Because on bridges, there's not much room for mistakes.
Another place that we find Guard Rails is in medians.
Because we're very close to people who are moving in the opposite direction.
And that's a dangerous place to be.
The third area where we find Guard Rails is around curves.
Because in curves, there are sudden changes in direction, and that requires extra protection.
There's something interesting about Guard Rails.
They are not put on the most dangerous part of the road.
Guard Rails are put on parts of the road where you could actually drive.
The reason for Guard Rail isn't to tell us, don't drive on this part of the road.
The reason for Guard Rail is to protect us from what's on the other side of the Guard Rail.
That's where the real danger is.
Nobody says, I don't know why they put these Guard Rails along the edge of the Buckman Bridge.
I wish they'd take those Guard Rails down because then I'd have more room to drive.
Nobody in their right mind would say that.
We understand that while driving on a dangerous bridge like the Buckman,
that there is very little room for us to make mistakes.
The theory behind a Guard Rail is this.
We will do less damage to your body.
And we will do less damage to your car if you hit the Guard Rail
instead of hitting what's on the other side of the Guard Rail.
It's better to cause a little bit of damage than to experience a lot of damage
either to yourself or to your car.
That's the idea of a Guard Rail.
Now, we're going to be talking a lot about Guard Rails for the next several weeks.
Not as it relates to driving, but how this principle relates to other areas of our life.
Because the truth is, our biggest mistakes relationally, our biggest mistakes financially,
our biggest mistakes morally, our biggest mistakes ethically,
chances are our biggest mistakes could have been avoided.
And if you think of it in terms of driving, that bridge that you drove off of morally,
that head-on collision that you had relationally,
that curve that made you lose control financially,
your biggest mistake probably could have been avoided
if you would have had Guard Rails in your life financially, morally, relationally,
in your marriage, in your parenting, wherever you needed to put up some Guard Rails.
So what we want to do is take this very common illustration of a Guard Rail
and apply it to several areas of our life.
So this is our definition for the Guard Rails that we will put in place to protect us in our life.
A personal code of conduct that is connected to my heart.
A personal code of conduct that is connected to my heart.
And this is what I mean by that, as we talk about our marriage,
as we talk about our dating life, as we talk about our relationships,
as we talk about friendships, as we talk about our time and our possessions,
that we begin to develop some personal Guard Rails.
That means that it's just for you.
This isn't for everybody. This isn't the law for everyone.
This is specific for you.
We're going to think through and develop a personal code of conduct
that is connected to your heart, that serves as a Guard Rail to protect you
from messing up your life and from hurting the lives of those that you love.
Now here are two verses that will kind of be our theme verses through this series
that I want you to remember.
You may even want to consider memorizing these verses as we consider putting up Guard Rails in our life.
First verse, you're familiar with because I use this all the time.
Proverbs chapter 4 and verse 23,
above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
One of the best ways for you to guard your heart is to put up some personal Guard Rails.
And then Proverbs chapter 22 and verse 3,
the wise see danger ahead and avoid it, but fools keep going and get into trouble.
You know, we all have a choice to be wise or to be a fool.
And just remember as your pastor, I'm not sitting up here in judgment.
I'm sitting down there with you and the times that I've been a fool in my life are too many to count.
A personal code of conduct that is connected to my heart.
The reason that I say connected to my heart is this, in driving,
the whole idea of a Guard Rail is that some damage will be done to you when you hit the Guard Rail.
But it's less than the damage that will be done if there's no Guard Rail at all.
So what we want to develop is a personal code of conduct that we are so personally committed to.
That if we break our code, that it bothers our heart, that it bothers our conscience,
that our personal code of conduct is so connected to our heart,
that if we break our code, that we feel like we've actually done something wrong when maybe we haven't.
That's the Guard Rail.
That we would even feel guilty when we bump these Guard Rails that we've set up in our life to protect us.
That these would become our personal Guard Rails because they're connected to our heart.
And remember, these are not for everybody. They're specific just for you.
And if you bump up against your Guard Rail, that there would be something inside of you that says danger.
And if you continue to bump up against that Guard Rail and you ignore it,
that it'll take you somewhere where you don't want to go.
That's what we mean when we talk about a personal Guard Rail.
It's a personal decision that you'll make about your marriage.
It's a personal decision that you'll make about your finances.
It's a personal decision that you'll make about your friendships and about your dating.
A personal decision that you'll make in advance about the important areas of your life.
Now, Guard Rails might seem kind of restrictive.
Guard Rails might seem kind of negative.
Some might think that they're too confining.
Some of us, if we're foolish, will think that we're above something like this.
Fools might even make fun of your Guard Rails.
But at the same time, even they know that on the other side of the Guard Rail,
there's some bad stuff out there that can happen to any one of us.
No one is exempt, whether it's in our marriage, or with our money, or morally, ethically, or in our job.
What I'm saying is this, that I need to set up personal codes of conduct that are connected to my heart,
so that if I bump up against my personal Guard Rail, that doesn't bother anybody else in the office,
that doesn't bother anybody else in my school, that doesn't bother anybody else that I hang with,
but it bothers me because I have some personal codes of conduct that are connected to my heart.
Today, we're going to look in the book of Ephesians, which is in the New Testament.
Ephesians is a letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christians in Ephesus.
In the fifth chapter of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul is talking to a group of Christians
who lived in a culture that is actually even more immoral than our culture is today.
In that culture, in Ephesus, cheating and adultery was considered common and even acceptable,
because in that culture, having sex outside of marriage was even part of their religious experience.
But we know that God's design for sex is for it to happen only in a marriage relationship.
Sex outside of marriage is wrong.
So the Apostle Paul goes through a list of things to do and some things not to do,
and as he goes through this whole list of stuff, he can tell that they are struggling with it.
And they were asking, like many of us ask, how in the world can we do all this stuff?
And so in these verses, we're going to read in Ephesians, Paul is explaining how a person avoids driving off of the bridge.
How can we keep our car from hitting someone head on?
How can we keep from losing control in the curves of life?
How a person can stay between the guardrails?
And even though they didn't have guardrails back then like we have now,
Paul begins to explain the principle of a guardrail.
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 15.
Pay careful attention then to how you live.
The original language carries the idea here of living with precision and accuracy.
In other words, see that you live carefully with exactness is what this verse means.
The opposite would be to live carelessly without any plan in place to protect you from trouble.
We are deceiving ourselves if we think that we can leave the Christian life to chance.
If we're going to live a life that is pleasing to God, we must make wise decisions.
We have to have a plan in place. We need to have personal guardrails.
In verse 15, pay careful attention then to how you live, not as unwise people, but as wise.
Do you know the difference between unwise and wise?
Wise people care and unwise people don't care.
When you hear someone say, well, I just don't care. What they're saying is they're not wise.
Wise people care and I mean really care, not just saying that you care,
but you care enough to do something about it. You care enough to change.
Proverbs 22 verse 3.
The wise people who care see danger ahead and they do something.
They avoid it, but fools, people who don't care, they keep going and they get into trouble.
Verse 16, making the most of the time.
Paul says to make the most of every opportunity that we have.
In other words, he's saying be very intentional, be very intentional with how you use your time
because God has a plan for your life.
There's a certain way that God wants all of us to live because God, as your heavenly Father,
wants to protect you and he wants to lead you and he knows what is best for you.
So he says, be careful, be intentional, don't be careless, don't be foolish,
but pay attention to how you're living your life because here's the reason in verse 16.
Making the most of the time because the days are evil.
Paul is saying that you are living in dangerous days.
And so if you're not careful, you're going to go over the bridge.
If you're not careful, you're going to have a head on collision.
If you're not careful, you'll lose control in the curve financially.
Maybe you can't imagine how you got so much debt because of that.
You can't give like you'd like to give because of that.
You can't be generous like you'd like to be generous.
These are dangerous days to live in financially.
So you've got to be careful.
Morally, it's the same way.
You've got to be careful.
In your marriage, you have to be careful.
The way you deal with temptation, you have to be careful.
He's saying we live in a dangerous world financially, morally, ethically, professionally.
Paul is saying that we all have to be careful how we live for 17.
So don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is to know something
and to understand something can be two very different things.
Sometimes we as church people can be guilty of becoming religious sponges.
We come to church.
We go to life group.
We go to Bible studies.
We listen.
We soak up the information like sponges.
We're getting fed, maybe even getting overfed.
But we don't understand the knowledge we have because we don't apply it to our life.
We just want more information.
He's saying to you and he's saying to me, I want you to accept.
I want you to be responsible for what you already know in your heart is the will of God for your life.
So don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is to understand.
Means to use your mind to discover and to do the will of God in your life.
Sometimes we think that discovering God's will is some mystical experience.
Instead of just using the brain that God gave you to think.
Romans chapter 12 tells us we discover God's will as he transforms our mind with the word of God.
We learn what the Lord wants us to do by meditating on the scriptures and by spending time alone with God in prayer.
Most of the time we already know what God wants us to do.
Paul is saying, I want you to be honest with yourself.
You know what's on the other side of this guardrail financially.
You know what's on the other side morally.
You know what could happen to your marriage.
You know what could happen to your future if you don't change some things.
You already know this.
You don't need new information.
You just need a reminder so don't be foolish, but understand what the Lord's will is.
Paul is saying, I want you to stop deceiving yourself and own up to what you know God's will is for your life.
And do it that you need to be careful because days are evil.
And then he gives us an illustration of a guardrail right here in Ephesians chapter 5 verse 18.
And don't get drunk with wine.
Now, those of you who don't drink, you're ready for me to preach a sermon to all of the drunkards in here, aren't you?
And those of you who do drink, you're thinking, oh no, here it comes.
And in our church family, I'm sure we have a wide variety of opinions on this topic.
Some of you were brought up in a home where any use of alcohol at all was wrong.
For some of you, it was never a big deal at all either way.
For some of you, you've been in situations where it was abused and it was awful.
I don't know which side of the issue you're on, but I do know that we are told to be wise.
I can't tell you that it's a sin to drink, but I can tell you that the Apostle Paul says that being drunk leads us into the danger zone.
A place that we shouldn't be, a place that we need a guardrail.
Verse 18.
And don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living.
It's not the wine that's the problem.
It's what it leads to, reckless living.
Reckless living is a loss of control. That's the sin.
That's the danger zone to be out of control.
We need to set up some personal guardrails.
For some of us, the best personal guardrail would be to not drink at all.
But for all of us, the guardrail is not to be drunk.
We need to be wise, not fools.
We need to keep ourselves under control.
Did you know that we can also be out of control with food?
Now hold on preacher.
You can go ahead and mess with the wine, but don't be messing with my food.
We can also be out of control with greed.
We can be out of control with lust.
We need to set up some personal guardrails.
We need a personal code of conduct that is connected to our heart.
Verse 18.
And don't get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit.
When we become a Christian, when we place our faith and trust in the blood of Jesus Christ,
when we become a Christ follower, when we accept God's gift of grace,
God's Holy Spirit moves inside of us and we become His dwelling place.
Some of us think that God lives in here, and I want to burst your bubble, but He doesn't.
If you're a believer, He lives in here.
He lives in our heart.
Paul is teaching that we should be filled with the Holy Spirit.
That means that the Holy Spirit has control of our life.
And when we are full of the Holy Spirit, there's not much room left in our heart for sin.
We need to set up some personal guardrails.
But here's what I know about me, and here's what I know about you.
None of us ever plan to mess up our life.
No one has ever stood at the altar at their wedding.
And in the back of their mind thinking, I can't wait to get married because I'm really going to mess this thing up.
We never plan to mess it up.
But how many of us have a plan not to mess it up?
And that's what guardrails are all about.
Guardrails are your plan not to mess up your life.
Proverbs 4-23, above all else, guard your heart.
For everything you do flows from your heart.
Proverbs 22-3, the wise see danger ahead and avoid it.
But fools keep going and get into trouble.
I'll promise you this, no one, no one has ever regretted setting up a guardrail.
But there are plenty of us who look back and wish that we had.
We all need a personal code of conduct that is connected to our heart.
So as we've been talking today, there are some areas in your life that have popped up in your mind,
and you know that you are approaching the danger zone.
There's somebody at work that you're attracted to, and you know where that could lead.
There are some things you're doing on your computer that you know you shouldn't be doing,
and you know where that could lead.
There are some people that you're hanging with that you know you shouldn't be hanging with.
There are some financial decisions that you're thinking about that you know would be a mistake.
We need to set up some personal guardrails, some things that are connected to your heart.
Would you begin that process today?
Would you see this not as something negative?
God wants to mess up your fun, but that your Heavenly Father loves you so much that He wants to protect you.
Would you begin that process today?
Let's get this right together.
