Bounderies: I am limited

Our world is filled with bounderies. We encounter them every day, from the time we are very young till we enter the grave. There are limits set on where we can go, what we can do.

Bounderies are not bad, imagine you were on a ship. Your’e walking down the hall and find a door with a do not enter sign on the engine room. That boundery keeps people out. People who would end up breaking the ship and stranding everyone on board.

Job 38:4 ESV

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

Job 38:10–11 ESV

and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

God has set bounderies in his creation, to help it work properly according to his design. Bounderies on where the ocean stops, and how high the mountians can soar. Bounderies like gravity and time, all made by God to ensure goodness and order.

Genesis 2:7–17 ESV

then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good; bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

1. God’s uses bounderies to teach us.

Our place in this world. God gave humanity dominion over creation, but he didn’t give us free reign. They could eat from any tree in the garden except the one with the knowledge of good and evil. Our authority in this world is not limitless. God is still God, he defines what is good and evil, we do not get to change that to fit our desires.

Our Place with God. God has given us everything we need. Have you ever asked yourself why God put that tree in the garden in the first place? Because God wanted us to choose him. If the tree was never there, and the option to break God’s bounderies wasn’t provided, then our relationship with God would never have been a choice. It would have only been forced on us.

That we need a savior. No amount of good works or attempts to stay “in bounds” will ever be good enough.

Galatians 3:10–14 ESV

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

2. God uses bounderies to protect us.

The command to not eat from the tree was given with a warning. Genesis 2:17 “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

God knew that if we sinned that death would follow, so he warned them. Its the same way that we have speed limits on the highway. If you go too fast, the chances of you having a accident skyrockets. So the boundery, the limit, isn’t there to force you to have no fun, rather to keep you from hurting yourself or others.

3. God uses bounderies to guide us.

Leviticus 20:22 ESV

“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out.

God sets the laws and the rules throughout the Bible, to lead us in the right way. To help us live Holy as he is Holy. The truth is while our good works cannot save us, in Christ we should strive to live up to God’s goodness. Without the law, without the bounderies, we wouldn’t even know how to do that.

Application

We can struggle with bounderies. When rules don’t make sense we want to push back, strech the rules, or even disregard them entirely. But God has set bounderies on our lives to help us. He wants to see us thrive within those bounderies because then we can see just how good he is. He wants us to be protected within his design, because when we go out of bounds we mess things up.

So next time you are stuggling to obey ask yourself...

Why is this rule here?

Is it protecting me from something?

Or is it trying to teach me something that I havn’t thought about?