Breaking Down Walls of Containment Is 54 5-4-08
Breaking Down Walls of Containment
(Boundaries that protect)
Is 54
5-4-08
Bible Describes there are walls
· That protect
o Around the city
o Nehemiah
· Walls that block us
o Jericho
o Pharoah—wall of slavery blocking Israel
Last week—powerful sermon
· Rick Ryan
o Develop
· Need to hear
· Impressed with what God is doing here
o Drawn toward
o Carries prophetic
· Will have Rick Back
Containment—(interesting—confirmed—what I was going to be sharing here today anyway)
· I will allow you to go ‘so far’
o Is 54
Sing, O barren woman,
you who never bore a child;
burst into song, shout for joy,
you who were never in labor;
because more are the children of the desolate woman
than of her who has a husband,”
says the Lord.
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.
4 “Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame.
Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated.
You will forget the shame of your youth
and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood.
[1]
God Wants you to SPREAD OUT
· Enemy wants to contain/block
· Hit glass ceiling—you can proceed no further
· On the land—patterns
o Hit wall that stops us
o He is our peace that has broken down EVERY wall of CONTAINMENT
Title: Breaking Down Walls of Containment
Eph 2:14 14 For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation,[2] NKJV
Separate from God; walls Jew/Gentile; walls from inheritance
Modern History: East/West Germany
· Story/development
The Berlin Wall was erected in the night of August 13, 1961.
It was a weekend and most Berliners slept while the East German government begun to close the border. In the early morning of that Sunday most of the first work was done: the border to West Berlin was closed. The East German troups had begun to tear up streets and to install barbed wire entanglement and fences through Berlin.
The first concrete elements and large square blocks were used first on August 15, 1961. Within the next months the first generation of the Berlin Wall was build up: a wall consisting of concrete elements and square blocks.
A second Wall was build in June 1962 in order to prevent from escaping to the West.
The first Wall was improved during the next years and it's difficult to distinguish between the first and the second generation of the Wall.
These two first generations were removed by the third generation beginning about 1965. The third generation of Wall consisted of concrete slabs between steel girder and concrete posts with a concrete sewage pipe on top of the Wall.
From the year 1975 the third generation of Wall was replaced by the fourth generation. New concrete segements were used which were easy to build up and were more resistant to breakthroughs and to environmental polutions.
100 miles border line around West Berlin
29 miles Wall between the Eastern and Western Part of Berlin
45,000 concrete segments weighing more than 2.5 tons
116 Watchtowers
10,000 border guards
5000 escape attempts
239 deathsPersons killed on the Berlin Wall: 192
June 26, 1963
President John F. Kennedy visited Berlin and said, “There are many people in the world who really don’t understand, or say they don’t, what is the great issue between the free world and the Communist world. Let them come to Berlin.” President Kennedy, identifying with the citizens of Berlin in their quest for freedom and to be reunited with their families in East Berlin, said, “Ich bin ein Berliner” (“I am a Berliner”).
1974
The US establishes relations with East Germany, the German Democratic Republic.
June 12, 1987
President Ronald Reagan visits the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and speaks these now famous words: “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here, to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
December 8, 1987
President Ronald Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, eliminating an entire class of nuclear weapons.
February 6, 1989
Chris Gueffroy is killed in the last failed escape attempt
Over 5,000 people successfully crossed the Berlin Wall to freedom
About 3,200 people were arrested in the border area
More than 160 people were killed in the “death area,” and another 120 people were injured
Persons injured by shooting: ca. 200
CONTAINMENT:
· Communists thought—we can contain freedom
· Communism ROTTED behind the walls
· Freedom Bloomed
o Significant—Presidents Kennedy/Reagan ‘63/’87
· Berlin wall fell
· Price paid
· Stats
But Wall came down
We’re a lot like Germany
· Enemy wants to fracture our ID
· Cut off our inheritance
· Block us—from freedom
Jesus died to break down walls of CONTAINMENT
· Eph 2:14 Restated
· Containment sin—separation from each other
· Inheritance on the other side of the wall
Something about Ps 18; I am the gate; He is our peace who has broken down every wall; Joshua/Jericho; Borders/boundaries/THRESHOLDS of protection (borrow from some of Craig Hill’s teaching)
How do you know when you are facing a WALL that God intends for you to get past?
· Definition: When your inheritance reaches BEYOND the thing that is stopping you
· Germany (Put here instead or just refer back to???)
· God intends to EXPAND your borders
2 “Enlarge the place of your tent,
stretch your tent curtains wide,
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes.
3 For you will spread out to the right and to the left;
your descendants will dispossess nations
and settle in their desolate cities.
o
· But there is a wall that is blocking you
· Taking your wall—
o God wants to Break down Walls of CONTAINMENT
What are some EXAMPLES of walls of CONTAINMENT??
Addiction can be a wall
· Develop
Wounding/pain/trauma can be a wall
· Patterns of pain/trauma/abuse
· Cycles/generational patterns
Told ‘you will never make it
· Amount to anything
· Some believe—give in—what’s the use trying—believe lie—forfeit gift of God
· Others vow—‘I’ll show you’—workaholic—no family—no joy
· Codependant
OR
· Jesus came to break down that wall of conaitnment and set us free
· How many times watched someone .. .
o ON path—limits
o Jesus broke wall—new freedom
HE’s GREAT at breaking Walls of CONTAINMENT
FAILURES in past
· I’m damaged goods
· Shame-- redefine
Develop LIST
Containment cycles
· Ebb/flow
· Go so far—stop
· Glass ceiling
Financial patterns
· No one in our family ever made it “”
· You can only go ‘so far’—then BLOCKED
o Spiritual dynamics
o WALLS of blocking
o Over GHC—feel like there is a PATTERN that has blocked the port—blocked the city
o We need to pray about that
o Is that a lawful wall—Jesus Died to BREAK DOWN that wall
§ Individually/corporately/regionally
Church growth patterns
· Harbor dynamics
· Need to be mindful—fear of the Lord
· Lord how dow break down?
Family Sanctified
· Allowing it to go ‘only so far’—then it’s BLOCKED
· Definition of IMMUNITY—enough of disease—never FULLY infected!!!
· Need to press past! ! ! !
‘Take it to the NEXT Level’
· Develop
· Glass ceilings
· We press in—HE presses FARTHER
How Do we take wall?. .
o Facing your wall—come out of denial that it’s okay to
§ Embrace truth
§ This land is mind
§ It’s for ME
§ Too many times
· Believe isn’t for me
· Believe LIE
· Don’t understand the REALITY
· Nancy/Diane—little girls
o Find out the NAME of your wall
What do I mean?
· If I don’t know what I’m battling
· I can’t fight it
§ Ask Lord—What is its identity
§ What IS this thing that’s blocking
· HOW is it working in my life
· Example: Subconscious Annoyance
· Self-loathing/frustration
· Free-floating thought—I want OUT now
· Quiet heart—‘God, what is it I’m feeling right now?’
· What am I going through—where is it from?
· MANY times—simple step—asking HIM
What lies hold this WALL in place?
§ What part of my history holds it in place
How do I take it
· God—what is YOUR strategy???
· Each wall has it’s own strategy
§ Is this one that I scale?
Sometimes pray
· What’s the TRUTH
· Refer up one paragraph
Many times walls taken in teams!
· Typical
· ROPES course wall—10-12 feet
o No one can do it alone
o Each part of the team brings their unique gift to the table
· At least on the very basic level
Lev 26:8 8 Five of you will chase a hundred, and a hundred of you will chase ten thousand, and your enemies will fall by the sword before you. [3]
Deut 32:30 30 How could one man chase a thousand,
or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them,
unless the Lord had given them up?
31 For their rock is not like
[4]
o If 1 of us can put thousand to flight
o 2 of us!
There is power in prayers of agreement
§ Is it alone Ps 18
28 You, O Lord, keep my lamp burning;
my God turns my darkness into light.
29 With your help I can advance against a troopd;
with my God I can scale a wall.
[5]
§ Is it a wall that needs to be demolished—shouted down?
· Principles of shouting down a wall
o Joshua—shout building over time
o FULLNESS of time (unpack)
· Demolishing
Many times when facing wall—YOU need a DOOR!
Jesus is the DOOR—the GATE
John 10:9 I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved.a He will come in and go out, and find pasture[6]
§ Is this a wall that needs a DOOR?!
· What is the key?
o EXAMPLE
o Poverty spirit . .. . Mexico ??????
o Weight loss—alone—together—key
o WHY I’m overeating—not just WHAT I’m eating
· Maybe there’s a door already—how do we open it?
· Jesus is the GATE
§ Do I need to throw a rope OVER this wall?
· Do I need to ‘read the instructions’—from the word
· From someone who has already scaled it?
§ What is God’s TRUTH for this wall
· How do I ACTIVATE that truth
· Grab hold of it
§ Allow God to MANIFEST that truth in my life?
The GREATEST Thing to break down walls of containment
· Holy Spirit
· When in the fullness of time
· Holy Spirit confronts wall of containment—it comes DOWN
FINALLY, Not by might—not by power
Zech 4:6 6 So he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty. [7]
Something about HOLY Spirit
· Pushing in
Is 10:27 27 It shall come to pass in that day
That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder,
And his yoke from your neck,
And the yoke will be destroyed because of gthe anointing oil.
[8]
Anointing breaks yoke
· Literally ‘fatness’
· Breaks off like toothpick
Why not immediately
· There’s a lot to that
· Not time for all
· There is a price paid
Germany
· Lives/attempts
· Two bold presidential declarations
Jesus died
· Walls of containment
· Come down
We need to determine—‘sell out’—I don’t want to LIVE blocked by this wall anymore
· Lance Powers
· 3 more hours
· Just to the end of this day
· What is my wall?
o Fear of the unknown changes in the new form
§ Comfortable with what I know
§ Afraid of victory/change (prison)
§ Afraid of making wrong choice—I make no choice
o I feel ‘trapped’ in perceived ‘limitations’ of the new schedule/form
o But I’m not—in reality—it FREES me
o I will have greater freedom when we are addressing these things in a methodical—clear way
o All structures get altered each step of the way as growth happens—it’s key to adapt
o Growth is the ability to adapt to the new form and not revert back to ‘what you know’
Moving walls
· Getting ready for the new design
o Your BOUNDARIES are expanding!
o But need to get MASTER Plan
· Easier to knock out a wall—if you have the new design/vision
· Need to not knock out weight bearing walls without wisdom
o REMODEL
o AFV videos—weight bearing walls
**
Journal Entry:
Feel like there’s this wall I’m facing
· I’m needing to form some convictions
o This is my strategy
o This is how my schedule FLOWS from my strategy
o Now I WORK my schedule
· Need to identify the KEY pieces that need to be within my schedule/rhythm/week
o Need to review most recent job-description—line it up with what I’m doing
o Need to design my schedule around the new conviction/structure
· In Addition—this is really MORE than just my job description
o It is more a job description about how the office of pastoral ministry needs to operate
o How the LEADERSHIP flow of the River needs to operate
o It’s bigger than ‘what’s my job’—it’s what’s OUR job—and how are WE going to accomplish it
We’re here for a purpose
· The purpose is a Good thing
· We need to structure around this purpose
What are some of the categories that need addressing
----
[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Is 54:1-8). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[2]The New King James Version. 1982 (Eph 2:14). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
[3]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Le 26:7-8). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[4]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Dt 32:30-31). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
d Or can run through a barricade
[5]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Ps 18:28-29). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
a Or kept safe
[6]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Jn 10:9). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
[7]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 (electronic ed.) (Zec 4:6). Grand Rapids: Zondervan.
g Ps. 105:15; [1 John 2:20]
[8]The New King James Version. 1982 (Is 10:27). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.