Unpacking Truths
Dive deep into God's word and unpack divine truths for today's life journey. In a world where everyone is seeking, join us as we guide you to find hope and power in God's timeless wisdom. If our discussions spark questions or ideas, reach out to us at UnpackingTruths@LOCChurch.com. Don't forget to Like, Share, and Subscribe, allowing us to continue helping people unpack God's truth for their lives! Hosted by Pastor Kendall Koenig and Pastor Maureen O'Connor of Light of Christ Church in Algonquin, IL.
Unpacking Truths
The Importance of Setting Boundaries: Biblical Insights for Modern Life
What if the boundaries set in ancient scripture could protect our modern lives from chaos and confusion? Join Pastor Kendall and Pastor Mo as we unpack the profound concept of boundaries through a biblical lens in this thought-provoking episode of Unpacking Truths. Journey with us back to the Garden of Eden, where God instituted the first boundary, reminding us that these divine limits are designed for our well-being. We'll explore Henry Cloud's insightful analogy of boundaries as property lines and discuss how the perpetual connectivity of the digital age complicates our ability to maintain clear-cut lines. With scriptural references like the Ten Commandments, we'll emphasize the importance of safeguarding our hearts, minds, and bodies in today's fast-paced world.
In another captivating discussion, we delve into the wisdom of discerning and setting boundaries to align with our unique callings. Reflecting on Jesus' interaction with the Canaanite woman, we examine how He strategically set boundaries to preserve His mission and prioritize people's well-being. Even good deeds, we argue, can detract from our primary calling if not wisely managed. To round out the episode, we navigate the delicate terrain of sarcasm in social interactions, debating its appropriateness and impact on our relationships. Tune in for a rich conversation that seeks to foster personal growth and deeper connections with God.
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Welcome everyone to another episode of Unpacking Truths, a podcast that Pastor Mo and I have a chance to lead here every week. Today we're going to be digging into a topic that's probably we may return to at different times, but it's just around the question of boundaries. What does the Bible have to say around boundaries? Why are boundaries important? How are boundaries important, especially in the lives that we live today? So we're going to try and just touch into that from a number of different angles. I'm Pastor Kendall and I'm Pastor Mo.
Speaker 1:Welcome to Unpacking Truths, where we dive deep into God's timeless truths for our lives today.
Speaker 2:Grab your coffee. Open your hearts and your minds. Come take this journey with us, as we unpack God's truths.
Speaker 1:Well, let me hand it off to you to start us in.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. A little more importantly, I think it's kind of childish that you're always trying to compete with me with my mugs. So what do you got? Oh, I got today.
Speaker 1:I have one from a family. My wife got it for me. It says the best things in life aren't things and it's a picture of us and the kids when we were out in. Colorado and we had been jeeping out in some Jeeping yeah Is that a verb. I'm using it as a verb. I don't know what you know.
Speaker 2:Hey kids, let's go jeeping. I love it, I love it. Hey, it's all right. Words are all made up anyway.
Speaker 1:I like it.
Speaker 2:I'm stealing it. I'm stealing it.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 2:So we're going to talk about boundaries today and you're going to get quite the perspective, because if there's one thing Kendall and I realize is that we come from very different contexts when it comes to this idea and we went back and forth quite a bit because you know the reality of a married person, single person.
Speaker 2:We both have kids His are a little a little older, a little, but the same sort of mine are still needing me for things and you know just what does that mean A single life and balancing all the things of a home and different things and so and a mom who needs help with some health concerns, and so just kind of talking about the realities of someone who needs to create lots of boundaries and feels that on a daily basis, you know, versus others who sometimes have a little bit more leisure time, yet they use boundaries to justify kind of just sometimes being selfish and doing what they want to do when they want to do it, and so, yeah, so we're going to have different perspectives and different thoughts and we hope it kind of resonates with you. Go ahead.
Speaker 1:Well, I was just going to jump in and sort of, if that's some of the modern day, let's jump back and then let's go forward. But just from the very beginning of Scripture, you see God setting boundaries. You know, in Genesis 2, in the Garden of Eden, god says I've made this amazing garden for you and all of this, except just don't eat from this one tree. And so God just set a boundary around this. God said all of this, not here Boundaries for our good yeah, Boundaries for our good.
Speaker 1:yeah, Boundaries for our good. And he said because if you do this, you'll die. So boundaries, when they're done in the right way, are to protect us. And so I think, and then, as you pointed out, Mo, as Scripture goes on, because of the sin that's in us and the brokenness, that we have to set boundaries because otherwise we will hurt ourselves and hurt others. And so boundaries in scripture are often lifted up in different ways.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I love what Henry Cloud he's an author, he's a psychologist, he's Google him if you haven't. He's awesome he talks about. I love that he likens boundaries to property lines, because what's on your property is your responsibility and what's on your property is your responsibility and what's on your neighbor's is theirs, right, and so it's our responsibility to guard and protect our hearts. That's in Proverbs. It's our responsibility to guard and protect our thoughts, right. We're to guard our thoughts right, keep our thoughts focused on Christ and our bodies and different things. And like.
Speaker 2:What does this look like if we take care of our bodies in a way and set boundaries around them where we understand that we're a temple and we hold the very presence of Christ in us?
Speaker 2:And so I love that idea of looking at it like that, especially now because we're in an era where boundaries have changed, I think exponentially, in that when you used to go to work, you'd come home. You were done with that. When you leave your mother's house or your in-law's house, you were separate from them. But because of technology, we are so connected that boundaries, I feel, can be crossed left and right and not even crossed like just being connected all the time, right, and that pressure even going to school, and if you're having problems with kids, well, the bullies can follow you now by your phone, right, and the bullying can happen online. And so how? It is so important that we look to scripture and see the different areas where boundaries have been drawn around our time, around our energy, around our hearts and our lives. And so, yeah, I just think yeah, what are some ways in which you think that Scripture has shown us that we can?
Speaker 1:Well, I remember, just to build on what Henry Cloud said, my Old Testament prof, I remember saying that the Ten Commandments he described them as fence posts that sort of defined you know God's people were to live within those fence posts. Yeah, because that sort of protected them from the things that you know, within these boundaries we don't covet, we don't kill each other, we don't and we honor God and we don't take God's names in vain. It sort of defined the community and there is something that's what boundaries help to do. They help to define. I mean, in some ways God created skin as the boundary for our bodies, so some of the very tender and fragile parts inside of us don't, you know, spill out, that's a really bad thing.
Speaker 1:when that happens, we need boundaries. I mean, mark Twain said fences make good neighbors. You that idea of boundaries. So I think it is this topic that impacts our time, impacts how we interact with others.
Speaker 2:And it's interesting that you talk about the Ten Commandments, because I remember in Old Testament class in seminary just how the laws oh my goodness, over 600 different laws how those were seen as a gracious gift because it did put boundaries around our lives in a way where it led us to prosperity and goodness and what is right and true for us, right and for the community.
Speaker 1:And so, looking at it like that, and yet they became challenges because, as the Pharisees focused on those, 613, part of what they ended up doing is that oh, you're not crossing that one, You're not doing that one. So they weren't just they were using them for themselves, but they were also using them to then judge everyone else, which was where Jesus challenged them. So boundaries are both needed, but then they can also be abused, and so that's that tension within them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whenever we're using something for selfish purposes, I think we've missed the mark of what the purpose of it is for right, but as human beings we so naturally slip into that.
Speaker 2:Oh, right, right, absolutely. One boundary I draw around myself is, I ask myself all the time like, how am I loving God? And how am I loving this other person, right, like before, in a decision that I'm about to make, how is this loving to them? Am I being loving to them? Am I even thinking about them?
Speaker 2:Jesus drew boundaries around all 600 and whatever you know laws by saying hey, two if you don't. You know you know laws by saying hey, two if you don't. You know there are two that are most important love God and love your neighbor. And so I love that because it's like it creates these, this, this way, right, this more simplistic way to just kind of filter everything through that we decide to do. But we are in a very fast paced world and life, right, and lots can be added on our plates and we often, you know, take on too much.
Speaker 2:And when I think about this, I think about the story of Moses, right, and how he was judging all you know, or he was the judge for all the people.
Speaker 2:So they were coming to him as he's in the wilderness, like with all these complaints and fights and arguments and things, and he was becoming overwhelmed and he was burnt out and if it wasn't for his father-in-law that said you know, no, like this is not how it's supposed to be.
Speaker 2:Delegate out and you take on what you, where your talents are, what you're supposed to be doing, which is the most you know, whatever the most important of the cases, or whatever. And so it's really I doing which is the most you know, whatever the most important of the cases, or whatever. And so it's really, I think, thinking through the reality that we've been created to be a body because we're not supposed to do everything. We're really not. Especially, I think about Ephesians 2.10 that says for we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. And so if we're doing all good works, not the good works that God prepared for us to do, then we're taking on things that God never intended and we're burning ourselves out, and you know we have finite energy and time.
Speaker 1:So you know, Mo, and I think there you're getting to this great place. You know, if, um, if you are doing not only the good works that God prepared for you to do, but the ones that three other people were supposed to do, you're robbing them of the chance to do those things and you're getting burned out. So the that's the one danger is that we don't have any boundaries and we try to do too much.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The other danger with it is some people create boundaries so high walls, going like, well, I want to just protect me, and then they don't even see where God is calling them out to love and serve neighbors. So some of us are too unboundaried and we're just sort of spilling out everywhere and some of us have probably built boundaries too high and God's saying knock those walls down. I'm calling you to love that neighbor. That's a pain in the derriere and show kindness to them. And you're just avoiding them and because, oh, I got to build a boundary, because they're kind of a jerk?
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm going to definitely piggyback off of this and I'm going to count on the fact that my daughter is probably not going to listen to this podcast. But I remember my mom was in the hospital and I had a really important doctor appointment that had been on the calendar for months, Right, and I tried to get into this doctor and so it was a sleep doctor thing and so, like I said to her, I need you, I need you to come up to the hospital. My mom was intubated. You know, be with grandma, sit with her. And she said to me and she's, you know, military. And she said, oh, I have to work out, I, I, this is my workout time. I thought I was going to jump through the phone. I was like I'll show you where y'all work you out. We can wrestle, You'll burn a lot of energy. Like I was shook. I was like well, that you know. And she went on about how, like you're talking about right now, Like well, I need to be, you know, if I'm going to continue and in the Air Force, and I have to make sure that I'm tip-top this and that and I'm just like you can do that.
Speaker 2:There are different things we're called to at different times, and this is more important, and this isn't an all the time thing but an extenuating circumstance. But you're right, we can get so caught up in and that is such a selfish. Like taking care of one's body is not selfish, it's beautiful. We're called to do that. And yet if you become so strict and your boundary is so tight around that, to the detriment of your responsibility to love your neighbor and care for others, I think that's when we make the mistake and that's why I draw that boundary around myself all the time, Like how am I loving? You know my neighbor as well, you know, just bouncing back and forth.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. I think it really does come down to creating healthy boundaries, and we can be unboundaried, we can be too boundaried. We need healthy boundaries because they help us to live well. They help us to steward the gift of our time and our energy and our talents in the right way. And yet there are times where God's going to call us out of our natural way.
Speaker 1:There will be times where my primary job at Light of Christ is not to vacuum the carpet. We have some other people who do that at different times. Does that mean Kendall will never vacuum the carpet? No, there might be a time where I need to step in to do that, so it's not my normal thing. There might be a time where I need to step in to do that, so it's not my normal thing, but there may be a time when I need to do that. Now, if I'm vacuuming the carpet all the time, I'm probably not preparing for a podcast or preparing for a sermon or calling someone who's hurting or something else, and not doing the things that only I can do.
Speaker 2:And that's where discernment comes in so much, things that only I can do, and that's where discernment comes in so much. And I can't help but think about the sermon I just preached about wisdom and the story of Jesus with the Canaanite woman and how she was crying out and begging help, heal my daughter, heal my daughter. She'd been possessed by spirits and Jesus is just ignoring her and that really kind of bothered me and it's getting annoying, apparently, because the disciples are like, can we shut this one up? I'm paraphrasing But—. And then Jesus finally stops and says it's not right for me to give the children's food, throw the children's food to the dogs, right, and it took me a while, but I really I think God's spirit really started to open me up to see this.
Speaker 2:Like he had a knowledge of who he was and what his mission was. Like he knew who he was. He knew that God called him to proclaim the kingdom of God, that a time of healing, a time of mercy, a time of forgiveness has broken into the world, and it was his responsibility to preach this to fellow Israelites. Right, and so that's what he was doing. And he also knew who the Canaanites were. He knew that they were people that worship many gods, had occultic sexual and moral practices, sacrificed their children. So he had a knowledge of these things. And so when he said that I don't think it was rude, I think it was having a boundary, like saying it's my responsibility to guard my time, my energy, my resources. And when she did respond back that yes, but even the dogs get the children's crumbs right, that was when he was able to have you know cause we're also called to make judgments. He was able to see that, wow, her heart is open enough to receive. And so he said you know, your faith has healed your daughter, and so I think it's.
Speaker 2:I thought that was actually kind of beautiful to see that we too are supposed to do that right in things. But it's all focused around the foundation of all we do is out of a connection with God. I think it's, you know, out of who we know. God says we are, who God is, what God has called us to do, those special things set beforehand right. We are supposed to protect our time, energy and resources so that we can live out of Ephesians right, so that we can live out of the purpose for which we've been created, not so that you know, protecting it all so that, oh so that I can have the best body because I'm, you know, in the military or not in the military, or whatever Like. But I think we miss sometimes we just kind of miss the mark right what this means to set boundaries appropriately If it's separate from, if it's more self-focused than God-focused.
Speaker 1:I think that's a great way to settle in on that, mo, and I think it's one we have to keep checking in on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because I'm really struck. In the Sermon on the Mount I mean there's just so much richness there. But at one point early on in Matthew 5, jesus says don't think I've come to abolish the law, I'm not throwing out all those boundaries, you don't know, but I'm coming to fulfill them. But then, just verses later after that, he says you have heard it said. But I say to you so you understood this boundary this way, but I have to reinterpret it.
Speaker 1:So there's this sense where I think Jesus even was taking the boundaries that God gave in the Old Testament and saying okay, now we got to rethink some of that, or we got to look at it in different ways, or sometimes it was more intense that you know. He said, you know, you heard, you shall not kill. I say, don't be angry, you know. And so he was intensifying some, the others around the Sabbath, they, you know, he got in trouble because there was a boundary, you're not supposed to do any work. Well, his disciples were hungry. They're picking some grain and eating. And Jesus says well, I'm Lord of the Sabbath. So there is a sense where Jesus both recognized the necessity of God's law and the boundaries but also said sometimes we have to look at it in new light.
Speaker 2:You know, this reminds me of an Old Testament class with a professor Guile that I had, and it was all about this. It was about did Jesus come to just kind of disregard the Old Testament laws and what it was. Every single thing that Jesus said. You know, you've heard it said, but I say it all has to do with people taking precedence. People take precedence no matter what. The well-being of others, the well-being of ourselves, takes precedence over the washing of your hands or the not picking grain or the whatever it was. Right is care of others and care of self, and I think that's why Jesus drew those simple boundaries. I'm glad he simplified it because it makes things a lot easier.
Speaker 1:Well, it makes it easier and harder. In some ways it was easier, it's just, oh, I do this or I don't do that, If I have to actually think what's loving? I have to wrestle with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and lots of other parts. I think too, because it's of course lots, lots of other parts. I think too, because it's of course lots of things are loving and you know I've even talked about, like. You know, there are things that look very good that we give our time to and we give our resources to, but it maybe is still unwise, because it's not what we are called to do during this season of our lives, or it would be to the detriment of ourselves or our own families.
Speaker 2:However, you are right in that I think sometimes we do end up protecting and drawing boundaries around things so that we could keep it kind of self-focused and more selfish, naturally, sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, one of the questions, I think, for those of you listening, those of you watching, to ask that question of yourself Do you see yourself as someone who is kind of unboundary, that maybe you're needing to create some more boundaries in some places? Or are you someone who maybe has such high boundaries? Maybe God's calling you to say, hey, I may be calling you beyond that, because we may be in different places and I find in my own life there are certain places where maybe I'm too high boundary, I need to loosen up, and there are other places that maybe I need to set some more, and so I think that's an ongoing question we have to wrestle with and keep seeking God's wisdom. I think of James, where James just says you know, ask God for the wisdom, oh, absolutely. And we just have to keep coming back because what may have been an appropriate boundary for me at one point in life may change at times.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. And that's where that connection with God and knowing who we are and knowing you know where God's calling us in a season is so imperative. So we would love to hear how maybe you have set up boundaries, how you have read different pieces of scripture and use them to set boundaries in your own life in some pretty powerful ways. Please leave them in the comments below. We are always looking to share and glean more wisdom from one another. That's what it's about. It's about sharing our experience of what it means to follow Jesus. So thanks for joining us and until next time. We'll see you later, next time on Unpacking Truths.
Speaker 1:Sometimes someone slights me, you know, doesn't open. They open the door for someone else and they didn't open it for me and I can go like, well, I guess they didn't see me and I can let it go and I'm going on with my life and and and it's gone.
Speaker 2:You know you let it roll off your back. You don't like say curses upon you and your family.
Speaker 1:No, I usually don't speak, curses upon people for that. On the other hand, as one of my friends says, you know there can also be things where it's hurt, they go. I'm not going to deal with it and I just throw it in the bucket.
Speaker 2:Wait, is it wrong to do like use sarcasm Because I'm like? I'll use sarcasm in situations like that where I'm like well, apparently, chivalry is dead here, as the door just slammed in my face, is that?
Speaker 1:wrong. Well, I heard someone say sarcasm is the lowest form of humor, but you can use what you choose.
Speaker 2:Thanks for joining us on this episode of Unpacking Truths. If anything that we discussed sparked any ideas or you have any questions, we would love for you to go to unpackingtruthscom, or you can also email us at unpackingtruths at locchurchcom.
Speaker 1:And don't forget to like, share or subscribe to the podcast, because you doing that allows other people to connect to this content and grow with God as well.
Speaker 2:Until next time, we hope you know that you are loved.
