Boundaries To Success

Pastor Stan Mons

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNrcggnaEYY

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Sermon Transcription:

Church, we're once again going into a Discipleship Essentials teaching, a moment of discipleship here at Friday Discipleship at Safe House Church. If you have not received your notes here in the house, please raise your hand for a moment, and somebody from the team will make sure that you get your notes with the fill-in-the-blanks. It also gives you the opportunity to take them home and to go back to them at any time you like—for encouragement’s sake, or maybe even when you have an opportunity to explain something to someone else that you’ve grown in influence in their life and are able to teach them more accurately the gospel, the things of God, and you have something to go back to as a reminder for yourself.

If you've missed the first couple, specifically in this series, Discipleship Essentials, we've talked about breaking cycles in our lives—breaking cycles. The second one was conquering bitterness. And tonight: boundaries to success. Boundaries to success. This is one of those topics that you see back relevant in every single person's life you will ever meet. Some people may argue, “I’m not really struggling with bitterness right now. It’s good to know all this stuff.” But this one—every single one of us is dealing with it or neglecting it on a very daily basis. And so it is relevant really at any time in your life, but also for every person. This is the topic on which, when I meet people, usually generally, they are on an extreme on the spectrum. They have either an extreme lack of boundaries, or they have extremely many over-boundrafied boundaries. And so this topic of boundaries is incredibly important for discipleship because relationship is at the heart of Christianity.

First of all, relationship with God. Jesus did everything to make that relationship happen. But then also, relationship with one another. Jesus tells us to love others as ourselves—something that you cannot really do unless you are in relationship. But then, what if… and you get a whole slew of situations thrown at you where you’re like, “I don’t really want to do relationship with this person. How do I figure out when that is maybe the Lord’s direction? How do I figure out when that is my flesh? How do I figure out when it is actually wisdom to keep a person kind of at a distance?” Boundaries to success. Boundaries in relating to other people. A boundary is what keeps people from experiencing emeshment.

Now, emeshment means that your identity kind of melts together with someone else’s. So now, when a person is sad, you don’t really feel permission to be happy. And when that person is angry, you feel like you’re not allowed to rejoice or to enjoy things that day. You have now kind of… it’s almost like your emotional experience of the day has been glued to theirs, and you can’t really live your own life. That’s called emeshment. They are literally pressed into each other and meshed. And a boundary, just like in geology, allows you to have separated pieces of land. That provides safety. It provides consistency. It also provides clarity. And it allows neighbors to stay good neighbors. Amen. When there are no clear boundaries and there isn’t much clarity, you can get a dispute pretty easily. Now, in relationship—especially when we claim to follow Jesus—we don’t really feel we can have much dispute in relationship because we have to love people.

So now, if boundaries are not clear, or they are not defined, and somebody is overstepping a boundary, you get a whole slew of emotions—but you don’t really feel allowed to do anything with it because you’re supposed to love this person. Amen? You ever felt that way? Now, here comes a little bit of a kicker: marriage is supposed to have healthy boundaries. Marriage is supposed to have healthy boundaries. I've seen it time and time again. Your marriage can either slow your spiritual journey and your growth between you and Jesus, or it can make it flourish and obviously grow. But if marriage does not have healthy boundaries, then I, for example, can start to run to my wife for my emotional needs and my frustration, worries, panic, or whatever I may be going through. And if my wife has no healthy boundaries and she is too accessible for me, then guess who I stop running to? I don't run to God first anymore, because my wife—I can actually physically see her right here in front of me. I can get her attention like this. And if she makes herself available without healthy boundaries, I actually begin to slow down in my intimacy with the Father because I am called to love God above all things, including my wife. And love is not something that happens in the heart; it is actions. And when my marriage relationship slows me down in my actions towards the Father, my marriage does not have healthy boundaries. Amen?

Marriage was designed by God. Surely it's supposed to improve my relationship with Him, not break it down. Amen? Amen. A boundary creates a space needed so that each can maintain their separate identities, responsibilities, and privileges—the privileges you may have in life because of your situation, the responsibilities you carry in your life, and the very identity of who God made you is supposed to be separate from the identity someone else received, the responsibility someone else received, and the privilege that someone else received. This is how we have separated, unique people. When people have no healthy boundaries, they kind of start to literally mesh together. That's where that word “emeshment” comes from. And they don’t really know who they are. When the other person is not there, they feel kind of lost—responsibility-wise. When the other person falls away or maybe even passes, as grieving as a moment like that is, I've seen people completely lose their identity and sense of who they are when their spouse passes away. And what that tells me is that maybe it’s not an issue of love, not an issue of whether we're allowed to grieve, but maybe we were leaning a little more on our spouse than we were leaning on Christ. And so, when boundaries—and it sounds ugly, right? Healthy boundaries in marriage. “What do you mean? What do you mean I got to create some intentional distance from my wife?” That sounds, I don’t know about that.

Unless we have healthy boundaries in marriage, your marriage will always become a threat to your relationship with Jesus. And He’s a jealous God. He knows how to get your attention back. You don’t want to be on that boat with Jonah. Amen? Amen. A healthy boundary creates a space between two persons that is necessary to maintain dependence on and obedience to God. It is a necessary space between two people to maintain dependence on God and not on people, and to maintain obedience to God and not first obedience to people. Amen? I’ve had many couples—and I’m not looking at anybody—but I’ve had many couples in my office, and the conversation will go something like this. It’s usually the wife saying this: “Well, if God told him, God would tell me as well.” Not looking at anybody.

If God spoke to him like that in prayer, wouldn't God tell me as well? God wouldn't do that. God ain't like that. And I always gently have to bring people back to the Bible because the Bible tells us that one has been created to lead. One has been created to follow. God got to give you something to follow. Amen? And when we blur the healthy boundaries between the responsibilities ascribed to each gender—when we get rid of healthy boundaries between what we should and should not do, and the way that we should depend on one another, and the way that we should obey God's plan for the way I should live my life in my marriage—when we get rid of those healthy boundaries, your marriage again becomes a threat to your personal relationship with Jesus. I always say it to the ladies: no man can learn to become a good leader unless somebody decides to begin following that man. You can't learn as a man to become a leader until somebody says, "You know what? You ain't that great, but I trust my God, and I'm going to be the first one to start following you." And now you can learn how to make mistakes as a leader. Now you can learn what the burden is of leading. Now you can learn the conviction of when you accidentally—genuinely accidentally—lead the wrong way. And I'm right there with you in the consequences. And I ain't blaming you. I just want you to learn to grow as a leader.

When we maintain healthy boundaries, even in the institution of marriage, your marriage actually begins to build—not only one another, but your personal relationship with Jesus. That husband who sees a woman say, "Well, sometimes I actually do know better, but I'm keeping my mouth shut and I'm going to give you your first real follower"—the conviction that will overtake a man that realizes that if he leads selfishly, she is still going to follow. The conviction that will overtake that man brings him to his knees. It makes him seek Jesus, because he better get it right, because she's going to follow, and eventually the kids are going to follow right into the life that God is leading that man into. So, healthy boundaries are incredibly important. Next point—and you have a fill-in-the-blank there as well: healthy boundaries help us safeguard others from our flesh and manipulation.

Setting up healthy boundaries is often the most loving thing you can do for the people around you in relationships. I've told most of you many, many times: there are times that you feel Pastor is not as available to you as you would like, and let me tell you, that's intentional sometimes. Because I don't want you to be dependent on me, to get your answers from me, or to get your emotional safety—so to speak, spiritually speaking—from me. My job is to make sure you run to Jesus first. And sometimes it's easier for you to run to me because I seem more available to you at times. And so sometimes the Holy Spirit gives me a check in my heart and says, "Mm, you ain't going to be available for them. It's your job to make sure they got nowhere else to go but to me." Healthy boundaries help us safeguard others from our flesh and manipulation. It is your job to make sure that other people don't get to walk in their flesh and that you also don't get to walk in your flesh in their life. That's your responsibility. By doing so, by setting up healthy boundaries, you prevent manipulation.

Now, we're going to get into manipulation and persuasion in just a moment. Because for some people, they've gotten hurt. They've had a manipulating parent, a manipulating spouse, a manipulating school teacher, or a manipulating boss. And when they even taste the slightest taste of it, they are disgusted and they run away from a person. But manipulation and persuasion are not the same thing. So there needs to be clarity so that you don't miss out and you don't put up an unhealthy boundary toward a relationship you should actually be persuaded by all the time. Healthy boundaries help us safeguard others from our flesh and manipulation. At the same time, the boundaries protect us from people who are not practicing self-control and seek to control us or what enters into our mind. Not everyone in your life is thinking, "What would be the best for her? What would be the best for him?" Some people think, "I know what's best for him, and that's what we're going to do." Or, "I know what would be best for her."

So that is what we're going to do. Well, Mia's right here. At Mia's age, her parents still have to just decide that for her. Soon, there's going to start a little conversation, and she's going to have to start to think together with her parents as to why we make these decisions for her life.

But there’s going to come a day—I’m picking on you now, Rosinella—but there’s going to come a day where they’re going to have to say, "You know what? These are your choices, and I’m going to support you no matter which one you pick." And all of a sudden, out of nowhere, for the first time, Mia is going to feel the responsibility of making her own choice. Healthy boundaries have to be set up so that when Mia is 18 or 22, she doesn’t feel like she has to do exactly what makes her parents happy. Otherwise, she will have a hard time figuring out her own identity, her own responsibilities, and walking separate from her parents in her own privilege while maintaining a healthy relationship.

If you don’t have healthy boundaries—and unfortunately, some of you have been there—relationships become heavy and kind of yucky. But you are a Christian, so you have to love people. So, you keep up with it, and you put up with it, and you put up with it. And then it gets so heavy and painful, and now you get hurt, and you don’t know what to do anymore. You’re literally burning out because you just have to keep loving this person. But in all reality, what is happening is you’re in a relationship without healthy boundaries, and the health is being sucked out of the relationship. You’re getting sick of it because there’s no health left. There is no health left in that relationship. So that second part of that statement: at the same time, the boundaries protect us from people who are not practicing self-control, or who may not have healthy boundaries, or who may not have taught us healthy boundaries, and they seek to control us or what enters into our mind.

Now, here's where I have to talk to you about manipulation and persuasion, because every teacher at school sought to control what went into your mind, and so does your pastor. Amen.

So, what is the difference between manipulation and persuasion? Manipulation is a form of persuasion. Someone is trying to talk you into something, or someone is trying to talk you out of something. A skillful manipulator doesn’t want to get caught, so they try to do it covertly. They don’t want you to catch them trying to persuade you. But not all manipulation is covert—some manipulation is blatant. So what really is the difference between manipulation and persuasion? The difference is found in the motive, not the method. The method is often virtually the same. But the motive determines the outcome. Is this person seeking what is good for your life, or what is good for their own life? A manipulator seeks to persuade you into decisions that secretly serve their own life. A persuader is trying to get you to make decisions that turn out really good for you.

At the surface, the method of persuasion is used by both, and so it can sound the same. It can even feel the same. But the outcome is very different. When you have been under manipulation, and then a persuader comes into your life—someone trying to build you up and help you make decisions that will benefit you in the long run—you may get a bad taste in your mouth. You might think, "Here’s another manipulator. They’re just trying to tell me what to do, talk me into stuff, get me to commit to this, that, and the other thing." And it probably feels like it’s just to serve their own good. Manipulation versus persuasion: a person with healthy boundaries communicates to others what is okay and what is not permissible within the jurisdiction of their life. If you are a person with healthy boundaries, you tell your friends what is permissible, what they are allowed to do, and what they are not allowed to do if they are going to be part of your life. That needs to be communicated.

A lot of people who have hurt you have no clue that they did that, and often that is because we didn’t learn growing up how to communicate to people what is permissible if they are allowed in the small circle of our life and what is not permissible. Sometimes it’s just dismissed with the thought: "Well, we’ve got to love all people, just keep your mouth shut, and love them through all of this," only to find out way too late that you get sick and tired of relationships if you don’t develop the art of setting healthy boundaries. When a person does not communicate—this is the blank in your notes—when a person does not communicate and ends up without boundaries, they create an unlivable situation for themselves. This is the kind of person that feels, in their heart, that all people have rights and all people have permission—except me.

This person makes excuses for all kinds of poor behavior that others are doing, but they themselves are never permitted to fail. They are so hard on themselves and can’t give themselves grace. Even though they have excuses and grace for even unacceptable behavior—not mistakes, but unacceptable behavior—they permit it in others’ lives, because they have learned to believe that they are so much lower than the other person that it’s okay for them to feel horrible, while the other person should always feel good.

That's an unlivable situation. Sooner or later, you will get so sick from an unhealthy relationship that you will develop an aversive reaction. Next point: when this is not corrected growing up by a parent, then over time relationships can become heavy and a negative experience. Who made you for relationship? Remember: relationship with the Father and loving others as ourselves. Relationships. But if we don’t have healthy boundaries, relationships can become a heavy and negative experience. When this happens, one is likely to swing from one extreme to the other extreme and create unhealthy boundaries. They go from no boundaries at all to unhealthy boundaries later in life. Now they keep all people out, just a little bit at a distance. Hard to make friends, hard to make deep friendships, hard to make new friends, because they’ve learned they have to keep the manipulators out. They’ve got to keep the bloodsuckers out—those who suck them dry and make them tired and sick of relationship.

But in the process, you don’t only keep the manipulators out, you also keep the persuaders out. Those people that are sent into your life—good friends, people God wants you to do relationship with—because they have the Holy Spirit, and from time to time, they’re going to be used to persuade you into making better decisions that actually turn out really good for your life and for your kids who follow you. So when we don’t have healthy boundaries, it is incredibly likely that at some point in our life, we go to the other extreme. Now we have unhealthy boundaries, and now we keep people out that God sent into our lives, and we are supposed to be persuaded by them. Why? Because we were not made to do the Christian journey alone. We were not made to have the perfection and fullness of the Holy Spirit in ourselves and not need anybody else. No. The Lord told us that it pleased Him to build the church through the manifold wisdom of God, the manifold gifts of the Spirit, and a manifold. If you think about a car, if you have eight cylinders, then your manifold has eight ways—eight different ways to get a mixture of air and gasoline to each cylinder. And if they all work together, then the engine runs well. That’s the example. That’s a manifold: it allows one source to be split up into a couple of small directions so that all of a sudden, different things are working together to accomplish one goal.

That’s the word that is used there. The Lord doesn’t give me and you all the fullness of the Spirit so that we don’t need each other, so we can just love each other and hang out at church and go home. No. He gives us all a portion of the heavenly giftings, and if we all work together, then together we accomplish one goal successfully.

But when you say, “I’m going to do all this by myself,” you block people out. And you may do it so sneakily that almost nobody really realizes that you do it. You know who you are, but you keep people a little bit at a distance. And all of a sudden, your life does not seem to be a part of seeing people become saved. Your life may be so stuck in a marriage without healthy boundaries that if your wife cannot come to church, you also stay home. You don’t want to grow without her. And it all sounds very spiritual, but it isn’t. You’re allowing your marriage to determine when you actually show up to worship Jesus and grow together within the manifold of everybody that is filled with the Spirit. We can reprioritize our lives around something, and when that something is not God, it is marriage. Then choices are going to follow. Amen? Amen. Those amens are getting quieter and quieter.

Let's talk about healthy versus unhealthy boundaries. How do I recognize that? How do I know if I'm doing this right? How do I know if I’ve got some adjusting to do? How do I know where to start if I’m new to this whole boundaries thing? Boundaries can be healthy or selfish. The origin of every boundary is found in the motive. We heard that word before—remember manipulator and persuader? The difference is not the method; the difference is the motive. It is the same with healthy versus unhealthy boundaries. An unhealthy boundary comes from a selfish, controlling person—a selfish, controlling motive behind the boundary. A healthy boundary is quite the opposite. It originates out of love. “I would love to do relationship with you for the rest of my life, so I’m going to do what needs to be done in order to make sure that’s possible.” That’s a healthy boundary.

This is what you can ask yourself, and I have some scriptures for you here to test: Are my boundaries healthy? How do I set them up? Are you seeking to prevent the first fill-in-the-blank unbiblical influences? Is that what you’re seeking to prevent? Are you seeking to prevent unbiblical influences? Proverbs 13:20 says, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.” The Bible talks about healthy boundaries here. If you decide that you’re going to limit your life to hanging out for relaxing time or companionship—just hanging out time—this is not at your job. This is not when you’re evangelizing. This is not when you’re trying to be good to someone or a friend to someone even though they cannot yet be a friend to you.

This is when your guard is down, when you are walking, when you are doing companionship. He who walks with wise men will be wise. You’ve been praying for wisdom your whole life. You never read this scripture. You just start to hang out with people that already got it—and you get it too. It’s contagious, is what the word says. But the companion of fools will be destroyed. Even worse, you start to hang out with people that don’t like to be rebuked. You’ve ever met people like this? They don’t like to be told what to do. You can tell pretty quickly. They don’t like to be corrected. They have an opinion about everything. The Bible calls them fools. The Bible says, “Wise men love rebukes. Fools hate correction.” And then the word tells you, “He who walks with wise men will be wise, but the companion of fools will be destroyed.”

You cut yourself in the hand when you explain away why you don’t have to have healthy boundaries. You just get to hang out with fools—biblical fools. The amens are gone. The next point: Are you seeking to prevent abusive intrusion into your life? Are you seeking to prevent abusive intrusion into your life? In other words, these are people that seek to betray you. Remember from another teaching we did: betrayal is somebody using the relationship for their own benefit. That’s betrayal. Using the relationship for their own gain. Are you seeking to prevent abusive intrusion into your life? That’s a healthy boundary if that’s what you’re seeking to prevent. If you’re seeking to prevent unbiblical influences, if you’re seeking to prevent walking with fools, that’s a healthy boundary as well.

Ephesians 5:11-13 says: “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of the things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light.” The word is asking you to make sure that you are a child of the light and you do not get stuck in darkness through relationship. Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. This is talking about a people group—it’s about relationship. Healthy boundaries can keep you from getting sucked into a life that is now infested with unfruitful works of darkness. Instead, you can put up a healthy boundary and expose, bring into the light, anything and everything. Openly talk about it. No shame, no condemnation, no room for people to continue doing what they’re doing in secret when you’re around. Light is your companion. So if that is a healthy boundary you have—light is my companion—that is a boundary I always try to practice. When somebody asks, “Can you keep a secret?” I say, “Well, I may not choose to, but light is a companion.” You get to walk in the light. You get to walk with light as your companion. That means that when people do secret stuff and you’re around, it’s no longer going to be a secret.

Cuz I'm not going to keep darkness. I'm not going to create darkness in my life so that your secret can stay a secret. Now, I'm not talking about confidentiality. I'm not putting on Facebook everything you share in my office. However, when we're talking about unfruitful works of darkness, in order for those unfruitful works to maintain influence and power in your life, they need to stay in the dark. The light kind of evaporates this stuff. It takes away the ability and the power. So, a healthy boundary, if you love people, is saying, "I bring the light." If you're going to have me around, you got to be okay with it, or else we cannot be in a long-term relationship. It won't work for the both of us. And that will cost you some relationships, but it will give you also very, very deep ones. The next point: are you seeking, on healthy boundaries, to prevent manipulation of your mind? So, persuasion of the mind, but not for your own benefit, not for your own good, but for someone else to control your decision so that you make their life better—manipulation of the mind.

2 Corinthians 6:4–18. The word says, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." Who thought that was about marriage? Yes, the hands are slowly coming up. The Bible doesn't tell you to be married to unbelievers, multiple. Not about marriage. Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God, as he has said, "I will dwell in them and walk among them. I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Therefore, come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.

So the word clearly tells us that there cannot be a mixture in our mind, always resulting in our actions. Right? As a man thinks, so is he. In other words, however you think is going to affect however you live—the decisions that you make. And the word says, "Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers." What's he referring to? What's another scripture you can think of talking about a yoke? Do not again be entangled into a yoke of slavery. An unbeliever that does not believe in Jesus, as much as they may not like it, they are still powerless to walk away from their sin. And the word says, "Don't you go and sin with them while you have the ability to run right back to me and not get stuck in that place, leaving them behind right where they were. Don't you be unequally yoked because you can walk next to them and it looks the same, but it's unequal because you can walk away from that yoke in a heartbeat, because you've been made new and they're going to be stuck right there in that burden of sin. But if you are not there to break them free from their yoke, don't be walking there. If you are not seeking their best interest, if you are not seeking for them to know the love of God, for them to know the redemption of Christ, and you just want a moment of time off from your spiritual journey, to just have fun the way the world has fun, then really you are the worst friend that person could ever have. You are manipulating the relationship. You're just using it for your own benefit. You're betraying them. Because this word is to believers. This is not to unbelievers. What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? In other words, you can't have your unbelieving friends think that it's okay, that they are fine, and that they're allowed to just be wherever they are, and they're going to be okay just because you behave like it's fine to have fellowship and they're going to be okay.

The word is really making it clear: the way you behave around people that are not on the road to heaven—they have not been delivered from their sin yet—the way you behave around them better communicates love to them, that you care for them, and that you believe they need to be set free, and they can be set free because of Christ Jesus. Because when you just fellowship with them in the very place of bondage and slavery and yokes that they are stuck in, then you are worse to them than you could have ever been. You need to be separate from their yoke—not separate from them. That's what the word tells us. You're going to be in the world—we'll see that in a minute. Jesus sends us into the world. Jesus sends us to love all people, but he wants the world to see that freedom is possible through His holy name. And it is so easy to walk in our freedom among our brothers and sisters and then to kind of just go along with the river of filth and kind of just, you know, we're kind of pedaling upstream from them, but we're kind of tolerating a lot of stuff, behaving as if it's okay. And the unbeliever starts to think, "Ah, they go to church. I don't, but we're friends. It's not that big of a deal. He still loves me. He still… and it seems such a Christian journey." But because there is a lack of healthy boundaries—because there are unhealthy boundaries—that person begins to think it’s not that big a deal to them, so it’s probably not that big of a deal. And we say it’s love, but in all reality, you’re letting people slip to hell, and they’re not even realizing it’s that serious of a deal because of how you behave. And that’s not love.

So the Lord tells us, don’t do that. Don’t do the fake yoke thing. Don’t be unequally yoked. We all know you’re free. So don’t behave as if you still do that stuff. If you still go there just to be their friend, no. If you’re actually their friend, then you’re going to throw them a rope, pull them out of the mud, and show them that there’s deliverance for anyone who comes to Christ Jesus. You can mess up that message by the way you behave. That’s what He’s saying. And it happens, one of the ways at least, is when we do not have healthy boundaries. "I love you. I want to be your friend. But A, B, and C we cannot do. If you can’t honor that, we cannot have a long-term relationship. I will tell you about Christ, but we cannot have a relationship." It’s healthy boundaries. It’s going to cost you some people. It’s going to gain you some people too.

Now, let’s look at unhealthy boundaries. Hopefully, you won’t recognize any of them. Unhealthy boundaries—or let me summarize the healthy ones first: Are you seeking to prevent unbiblical influence? Are you seeking to prevent abusive intrusion into your life? Are you seeking to prevent manipulation of your mind? Or do you like to keep people at a distance so that your will has no competition?

What you can put on the line there is selfish. These are selfish boundaries. A lot of people do it. They keep people a little bit at a distance because that way they don’t have to deal with extra wills in their life. When you get too close to a person—or you get too close in your marriage, because don’t get me wrong, you’ve got to be close in your marriage—you get a little too close. Now I’ve got to deal with this other will in my life all the time. She always has a will just like me, and it doesn’t line up all the time. That’s annoying. So why don’t I just get to do my thing, you get to do your thing? And that’s me saying, "I love you. You get to do your thing." But in doing so, I just get to do my thing right here. That’s an unhealthy boundary. It is called selfish. It is motivated by: I want to create a situation in which my will has no competition. I just get to do it. Or do you like to decide for yourself without being told what to do? You can write down “rebellion” on that line. You do not like to be told what to do. It just rubs you the wrong way. You don’t like it. You like to decide for yourself. And so I’m putting up a boundary—a healthy one. You even call it a healthy boundary. But in all reality, it is rooted in rebellion. You don’t want to be persuaded by anybody. You want nobody to tell you what to do. You don’t like that. You want to decide yourself. That’s called rebellion.

Another one: do you like to avoid committing to deeply personal relationships because of past hurt? You like to avoid deep, vulnerable relationships because you’ve gotten hurt in the past. On that line behind that one, you can write “control.” You want to be in control over the relationship. If you’re going to have it, you want to be in control over it because you have decided you are going to protect yourself from that ever happening again. You do not let God be in control. You do not trust Him to be in control. You do not trust that He’ll protect you, and that when you get hurt, He’ll heal you, and you’ll have a great testimony. You have decided that it is safer for you to be in control than for God to be in control. That’s not a healthy boundary.

Healthy boundaries keep both the persuaders and the manipulators in proper perspective—they safeguard, guide, and protect relationships.

The last one: do you like to avoid confrontation with people because you don’t want to upset them? One of the most miserable places you could ever find yourself is when you are constantly trying not to upset people. You don’t want confrontation with people. You don't want to upset them. The line you can fill in right behind that is fear of man—fear of man when you have unhealthy boundaries or a lack of boundaries at all. You don’t want to confront that family member. You don’t want to see that person upset. You fear man, not God. You’re trying to please man, not God. You’re trying to obey man, not God. And under the disguise of boundaries, you can explain away a hundred times why they should be good. In all reality, they are motivated by the fear of man. Remember, motivation is the differentiator. Selfishness, rebellion, control, and fear of man—those things can motivate us to put up boundaries. They are unhealthy boundaries. Setting up a healthy boundary can cause friction and confrontation in any relationship you have. If you are even going to try to learn to set up healthy boundaries, you may do it wrong, and you may cause some unnecessary friction and confrontation. But it’s worth learning to put up healthy boundaries because if you get good at it, you get really strong, long-term, relationships. Really proper, rigid relationships.

If a person’s response—this is in your notes—is to get angry, leave, or to try and argue, or continue to overstep the boundary you’ve made known, they simply do not respect the boundary and they don’t want you to have biblical conviction. That is the reality when we seek to put up biblical and healthy boundaries. We’re pursuing a long-term relationship with a person through healthy boundaries, and they don’t like it. They’re saying, “I don’t want a really long-term relationship with you. I just want life the way I want it. And only if you do life the way I want it are you allowed to be in my life. I don’t love to have you around; I love to have my way. And if you can’t get on board with my way, then I’d rather not have you around.” That is the heart of what somebody says when they get upset, angry, leave, threaten, or overstep, when you present, to the best of your ability, with healthy motivation a boundary you believe is going to build long-term relationship with a person. If a person doesn't like it they don't want you to have Biblical conviction. They want you to have thier coniction, they don't want you to follow Jesus in the way you do relationship. They want you to follow them.

Here’s a point—I think I put it in your notes. If not, write it down: we should not expect spiritually unhealthy people to respond well to healthy boundaries. It is so important to set our expectations right. If God is working in a relationship we have, let’s say, with an unbeliever, and it’s coming to the point where either they’re going to get saved and we’re going to have a beautiful relationship, or we’re going to eventually part ways, because we are on a mission in this world to see the lost become saved—and Jesus did say, when people don’t hear, dust off your feet and move on to the next city—Jesus does tell us there is a moment where we move on. That is a healthy boundary for relationship. Jesus said, “Listen, I’m still there. I’m still loving that person. I’ve got other people to send, but I’m asking you to put up a healthy boundary. And if people eventually will not listen to the very message I’ve asked you to take into this world, then you dust off your feet. There is no guilt on you. You move on because there are people who will hear. There are people who will listen.”

We should not expect spiritually unhealthy people to respond well to healthy boundaries.

However, this topic of healthy boundaries is so incredibly important for your spiritual journey and for those that are around you. Setting healthy boundaries will keep you from unnecessary suffering. Church, there is so many people that have suffering in their life that is unnecessary. Jesus promised us there would be suffering, but there are sure things you can bring on your own head. I'll read it to you from Proverbs 27:12: A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. A simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences. You can be simple. You can be uneducated. You can be unintentional. You can forsake insight. You don't even want to learn this thing. You can stay simple on this topic of healthy boundaries. And you are going to suffer the consequences of that. That's what the word tells us. And a prudent person, someone who likes to learn, they begin to foresee, oops, that's not going to end well. They begin to foresee that. They realize it even before it comes to pass. And they take precautions. They set some healthy boundaries. Precautions. Those are healthy boundaries. So that what could happen in the future actually doesn't happen because I set a boundary so that I cannot cross over that boundary into my neighbor's lawn and cause stress and cause difference of opinion and cause arguments and cause all of these things that eventually become such a strain on the relationship that somebody wants to move out of the neighborhood.

A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. A simpleton goes blindly and suffers the consequences. You know what that says? That person just doesn't do nothing. They just keep going. I don't want to do the confrontation. I don't want to learn how to do this. I don't want to give my effort to this. I already started the relationship. We've been going for 10 years. How am I going to change it now? The simpleton goes blind. He just keeps going the way he's been going and suffers the consequences. You can be wonderfully saved, love Jesus, and have unnecessary suffering in your life because you never took the time. You never took the Word of God and said, "I need to learn how to follow Jesus in doing relationship with all kinds of people in my life. I need to learn how to set healthy boundaries so that I can have good long-lasting relationships with those people that God has in my life for a purpose. Some may get to know Jesus even through my life. Some are going to help me to know Jesus better. They're going to persuade me into decisions that are going to make my life so much better, so much closer to Jesus, so much more drawn to His presence. It's going to cause there's people in my life that are going to cause me to fall more in love with Jesus. They have been sent into my life to cause—they are oil on the fire of the Spirit in my life. That's the kind of people Jesus does send into our life because He works through that manifold. So He sends people.

Now, if I have unhealthy boundaries, even if my fire is going out and God says, "That's not a problem. I send three people into your life to be encouragers," but I keep them at a distance because I'm just obsessed with keeping the manipulator out or the one that's going to hurt me, I'm going to end up losing. I'm going to end up suffering unnecessary consequences because I just keep walking my road like this. If you would stand with me for a moment, church, you are called to have intimate relationships and healthy boundaries at the same time. God wants you to allow people so close to yourself that people can now persuade you. People can now persuade you into making better decisions. You have to do that. You have to let the right people get so close to you that they can persuade you into better decisions because you're not that great at making decisions yet. It's your first time to be alive. Amen. We all need help from time to time. So the helpers have to be allowed to come so close into our lives that they have been given the authority. They've been given the power to persuade us. They have our ear.

They have our trust. At the same time, God wants you to have boundaries that keep other voices out. And it's not that easy to get it right. You really have to learn how to do this one person at a time. Remember, both manipulation and persuasion seem the same in the beginning. It's the fruit. It's the motive and the fruit that it produces in the end. That's where you can taste the difference. Only at that point, unless you have a word from the Spirit in prayer, which can happen, but only at that point do you know who to put healthy boundaries up against and who to let in, maybe even more. So that does mean that both the persuader and the manipulator, at least for a season, you have to let them in, or else you're going to miss out on them both. And some of us, we've gotten hurt so bad because we began to recognize a manipulator, and we never learned, once we recognized it, how to put up healthy boundaries. And we just allowed some stuff to go on. Maybe because we didn't know how, but we allowed some stuff to go on, and we became sick of that relationship, or of that kind of relationship. So, here's one of the clearest directions for healthy boundaries.

John 17. John 17:14-19. I have given them your word. Jesus is speaking. He's praying to the Father now. I have given them your word. And the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world—a boundary between the two. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world. You got to do relationship with the world. I do not pray you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one, that they don't get yoked again with the unbeliever. Keep them from the evil one. Verse 16: They are not of the world. He says it again: just as I am not of the world. They're like me now, sent into the world by you, Father. Verse 17: Sanctify them by your truth. Your word is the truth. Jesus says, "Let them be persuaded by the truth. Let them be persuaded so that they start making decisions based on the truth and based on what you say, Father. Those decisions are going to change their life for good in the long run. Let them be persuaded by the truth." Verse 18: As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. How did the Father send Jesus into the world? To seek and save the lost, to serve and to not be served, to love even when reviled. As you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. And for their sakes, I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified by the truth. Set apart by the truth. That's what sanctified means—set apart, made clean for a purpose.

See, God is a persuader, not a manipulator. God doesn't tell us a whole book of what to do, what not to do. That's not what He gives us because He just wants us to do His way, His will. No, He’s a persuader. He seeks to get you to believe and to make different decisions because they will actually end up being so much better for you. He's not a manipulator. He's not just trying to get you to do what He wants you to do because that's better for Him and for His kingdom. He is not a manipulator. He persuades, and He has sent you into the world to persuade as well. His motive is for your good, not for Him to get the benefits. So the question I believe the Holy Spirit placed on my heart for you is this: Will you let the truth? Will you let what God shows in His Word persuade you into healthy boundaries?

Now, that looks like a simple question, but I'm telling you now, there are people here tonight, if you're actually going to let God persuade you into having a life of healthy boundaries, you have confrontation waiting for you. You have conversations waiting that you really don't want to have. You have to go and talk to people, and you feel small when you go and talk to them.

It's going to take an incredible step of faith for you to actually allow God to persuade you into new decisions in your relationships, to take on healthy boundaries, to let go of some unhealthy ones, and to also let go of no boundaries at all. It's going to require a step of faith. And if you want to say to the Lord tonight, "God, I don't know where to start, but I'm willing. Would You lead me?"—if that is you, I want to invite you to come forward so we can pray together, and we can ask the Lord to give clarity for the very first step in your situation.

-Pastor Stan Mons