Making Room for Breakthrough, Part 1

Today on Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, do you believe that what you're experiencing today is not all there is?

Now what if I told you right now God is orchestrating events, circumstances, people, and relationships to bring about a breakthrough? A shift in the status quo, a fresh awakening in your heart of His Spirit. and that he wants you to get in on the action. The question is, will you be ready? Find out.

That's today. Do you believe what you're experiencing today is all there is? What if God is preparing something bigger than you can imagine? Today, on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram reveals how breakthrough actually happens. It's not random, it's not luck.

Throughout history, God has followed a consistent pattern to create windows of opportunity for his power to work. a pattern we're discussing today. It's part of our series Experience Breakthrough. From the early church to modern-day revivals, the formula remains the same, and it starts with us getting honest about our need.

Well, here's Chip Ingram with today's message titled, Making Room for Breakthrough. I have a little devotional called Magnificent Prayer about prayer that I read just about every morning. And I came across a quote that literally kind of energized my whole view of breakthrough. It's by a preacher of the 19th century. His name is Phillips Brooks.

And he said this, pray the largest prayers. You cannot think of prayer so large. that God in answering it will not wish. You had made it larger.

Now, is that an amazing thought? You cannot. Pray a prayer. That no matter how large it was, that after you have prayed it, God would wish. that you would have made it larger.

And then I love the last nine. He says, Pray not for crutches, but for wings. Don't pray for a little help to get through the situation. Pray to soar. And it just reminded me: God is good.

I mean, God wants to bless you. He wants to intervene. He wants to take the most difficult situations, the most difficult relationships, the most amazing things that you couldn't fathom in your neighborhood and at your job and with your relatives. and with your past and with your struggles. And he wants to...

Blow his power into him and change him. Can you imagine, would you just kind of lean back for a second? And just let your mind imagine what it would be like. Can you imagine one of your neighbors knocking on the door and saying, you know, something, we kind of known a little bit that you're one of those Christians. Would you lead a Bible study in our neighborhood?

We would like to discover who Jesus is. Or can you imagine going into work one day and you know the person that's a jerk, I mean the person that you wish would leave, you know, coming in and saying, excuse me, could we talk? And you get over there, and he goes, I was arriving on the bus, and some really weird-looking person started talking to me, and I just wanted him to go away. And he talked about Jesus, and life, and eternal life, and payment for my sin. And I have no idea why I was listening.

I found myself at a park bench later, sitting down, and I prayed to receive Christ. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine one of your relatives that, I mean, is just mean? cantankerous, that you just think there's no hope for. And having them calling you and saying, You know what I I've just trusted Christ.

God really loves everyone. God can do anything. What would you want Him to do? What would you want him to do in your life? And maybe it's not a neighbor or a boss.

Maybe it's like, you know, you've struggled with that alcohol. That porn addiction The guilt from the past from a divorce or an abortion. You know, just an issue inside where you know you just sense and you've tried a number of times, and for you it's a spiritual issue. It's not even a weight issue. It's just you keep eating food when you know you're not really hungry, and you keep hitting it, hitting it, hitting it, and you're down on you, and you live in shame.

What would happen if the power of God was released? in your life. and then through your life. We're going to learn that he wants to do it, but we're going to learn also that we have to make room. Isaiah 53 is the biggest breakthrough.

God talks about a Messiah is going to come and liberate and bring light. A Messiah is going to come and he's going to bring life and forgiveness. But in chapter 54, he says to Israel at a time when I mean their life is not going well and breakthrough doesn't even seem possible. He says this to them. Enlarge the place of your tent.

Stretch out the curtains of your dwellings. Spare not. Lengthen your cords. Strengthen your pegs. Why?

For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left your descendants. I mean, they're in captivity. Your descendants Are going to be a very good question. to resettle cities and nations. God is going to use you.

He's saying you need to make room for the huge and amazing blessing beyond what you can imagine is coming. And what I want you to do. Is that you and I have to do that in our private lives? We've got to do it in our relational lives. And we need to make room, even in the church, to let God work.

So, what is a breakthrough? It's an offensive thrust that penetrates and carries beyond a defensive line in warfare. We're in a war. And it's a war for your soul, and it's a war for the future. But breakthrough isn't something we wait around and hope God will do someday, some way, sometime.

God has promised and wants to. It's something we do. Only He makes it happen, but there's initiative on our part. It's an act or instance of breaking through an obstacle.

So, breakthroughs have to do with there's resistance, it's difficult, there's a barrier. And breakthroughs always have a sudden advance. Change happens. There's a difference. We find in our personal lives, or in a group, or in a church, or in a city, or as we see globally, there's a great need.

And the great need is caused by great sin. And sin is just missing the mark. We're not doing life God's way. And sin always leads to great bondage. People become slaves.

Become slaves of food, slaves of money, slaves of sex, slaves of power. Breakthroughs come when people not realize their In pain, in difficulty, and there are bad people, and they don't measure up, and God would never want them. Breakthroughs come when they understand the goodness and the kindness of God. It's the tolerance of God, it's the love of God, it's the patience of God. Romans chapter 2 tells us that leads us to repentance, to a change of mind.

I want you to know that Whatever breakthrough you're struggling with, whatever breakthrough you would long to see happen in your family, the breakthrough will come. Not when you're down on yourself and I can't measure up, I need to get with the program. The breakthrough will come. When you can begin to grasp that God is waiting with open arms and He loves you. And he loves people that you don't think much of.

And he cares about them. And he literally wants you and me to be agents of kindness and love. It doesn't mean there aren't boundaries. It doesn't mean there isn't truth. It means that you aren't their judge, God is.

And the judgment of God, by and large, is just the consequences of people's behavior. And then God, over and over and over and over, He does it in individuals. He does it in families. He does it in small groups. Historically, he does it in churches.

At times, he does it in whole cities. And then there's times where we've even seen it in the last 40 or 50 years. He does it in nations. where there's a revolution of breakthrough and the kindness and the goodness of God. God's deliverance comes through a clear, strong vision.

Of what? of God's goodness and mercy. Notice where does this clear, strong vision of God's goodness and mercy its birthed? in ordinary people that meet the great needs. By unleashing God's power in impossible situations.

What we're talking about is not for special people that get in stained glass someday. What we're talking about is the God of the universe that wants to take the person that's sitting in your seat and get you to believe and to trust that He's so good and so kind and so willing and so powerful that He would use an ordinary person like you. to receive that and then pass it on. If what I just said is true and it's borne out in Scripture, it's borne out in church history, how does breakthrough actually happen? How does it happen?

This isn't theory, this isn't what ought or should or maybe could happen someday, some way. How does it happen? The answer is: the pathway to breakthrough involves three things. But I want you to know the pathway to breakthrough involves God's sovereign work in the world. First and foremost.

Then we're going to see it's his sovereign work in his people. And finally, a little bit later, we'll see it's his sovereign work through. his people. Let's take them one at a time. First of all, God's sovereign work in the world.

Yeah. When you look at how God has broken through in seasons in the Old Testament, in captivity, in the coming of Christ. In major things like the Reformation, when you see what happened in China or in Korea, in South America or in Africa in the last 90 or 100 years. The pattern is all the same. Number one, there's external pressure.

External pressure. Stuff starts happening. Economies, politics, shifts, famine, plagues, difficulties. There's external pressure in the world. Simultaneously, there's internal deterioration.

This is a picture of the Roman Empire. God didn't just come at a certain time. Galatians 4:4 says, When the world was pregnant, when it was ready, when the world was ripe for a breakthrough, there was external pressure. There was ethnic divisions. There was problems with the economy.

There was Romans. and Greek culture in conflict. And there was internal deterioration. Infanticide. Families, women being passed around, being divorced seven, eight, and nine times.

There was a global crisis, and into that breakthrough, Jesus came. And you see that pattern, God sovereignly works. We're going to talk about our responsibility, but jot, if you would, in the corner, Job 42.2. It's near the end of the book, and if you know the story of Job, he's been through a lot. And he didn't know what was going on behind the scenes.

But as he gets near to the end of the book and sees life for how it is, this is what Job says: I know, O God. that you can do anything. and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. I will tell you this: no purpose of God will be thwarted in your life, in this country. in any nation or in all of history.

God is sovereignly at work, and He will take the error and the pain, the disobedience, the judgment, the faithfulness of people, and He aligns those things. And he brings about the velvet vice of external pressure. And then as the way people live begin to deteriorate and they realize they have need, he creates windows of crisis in individuals' lives, windows of crisis in groups and in churches and in cities and in nations. And when there's responsiveness, we make room. And when we make room Yeah.

The Spirit of God blows with power. And he works in individuals. and revolutions occur. And we've seen it happen over and over and over. Second, that's the sovereign work of God, not just in the world, but He always begins with His people.

When you happen to be a follower of Christ for a while, after a while, what we start doing is: you know, the problem is Hollywood. I mean, are they just putting out a bunch of lousy stuff or what? Or you know what? It's the government. I mean, let's have coffee and just talk about the government.

Or you know what? The educational sites? Or those corporations? Or it's all those lazy people. What we tend to do is we find someone else somewhere where the problem is to blame.

And I will tell you this: here's God's perspective: repentance always begins with a household of faith. Here's the principle. God must work deeply in you before He will work powerfully through you. That's always his agenda. I mean, he worked in Paul.

He worked in Peter. You look at what happened in China. He worked in people, external pressure, persecution, kicked the missionaries out. You look at Korea, a pagan nation. You look at what's happened in South America.

You look at the last 90 or 100 years in Africa. At the current rate, there will be more black Christians than white Christians in the world because of the movement and the power of God. But he always starts in us. He always puts his finger on what he wants to do in us. And so individuals have a breakthrough like an Apostle Paul.

And then a group has a breakthrough. like the church. And the early church breakthrough is to realize, can you imagine this? You mean God doesn't just love Jews? I mean, this was like hundreds of years of poop.

Breakthrough, he cares about them. And after that breakthrough, then you see communities impacted. And as it's rolled out of the New Testament, you go from the Jews to then the Samaritans, the mixed breed, and then by chapter 10 it's the Gentiles. And what you see is a spontaneous movement of God, and often centered around cities. City movements are birthed.

and nations are transformed. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll hear more from Chip in just a moment. If you've missed any part of this message or if you'd like to share it with a friend, you can find it anytime online at livingonthege.org. And while you're there, you'll also discover a full library of Chip's teaching series, small group resources, and practical tools to help you grow in your faith.

It's all waiting for you at livingontheedge.org.

Now let's get back to today's message. In 1857, it's an interesting story and there's many more of these, but in 1857 morality in America was in the pits. If you know some of the research between 1857 and about 1890 or close to 1900, it went from about the average of seven kids to three kids because abortion was so widespread in America. And thanks, believe it or not, to the Feminist and the American Medical Society, they said how we're treating women, abortion was just basically birth control. Pushed on women.

And in 1857, with external pressures and internal deterioration, a group of people thought something needs to happen and they started praying in New York City. And that little prayer meeting, they just began. They took three request answers, three requests, answers, three requests, answers. And all I can tell you is they made room for God. And they said, you know, we got a big problem, and this country is going down the tubes.

And boy, there's all kinds of issues, and it's family issues, and moral issues, and economic issues. And pretty soon Something happened, and thousands of people were taking their lunch hour all over New York and praying. And then pretty soon it went to other major cities and literally. Statistically, millions of people came to Christ, and there was a reshifting and a rebalancing. Why?

Because God worked in his people. But when God works in his people, the litmus test is not that they get together and go, oh, I love Jesus now. We need everything Christian. I love being with Christian people, and let's read the Bible more. And I want to be at church not three times a week, but seven times a week.

And in fact, we'll have Christian bowling, and we'll have Christian dentists, and Christian doctors, and Christian recording artists, and Christian everything. In fact, I want all Christian floss. With a Christian toothbrush. Made by Christians who make grape toothpaste. And what happens is the privatization and thinking that this movement of God is about our little world and there's the bad people out there, and somehow that we are God's people.

totally misses everything God wants to do. That's not a breakthrough. Yeah. The litmus test of when the Spirit of God supernaturally works is He's orchestrating things in the world sovereignly. And then he begins to work in his people dynamically.

And then his people get it, and they begin to deal with issues in their heart and their relationships, and then he works through them. supernaturally. Notice, God's sovereign work through his people. Here's what happens. There's life.

And since it comes not because I'm trying hard, I'm going to church more, I'm praying harder, oh God, please listen to me. It comes because we Christians realize. The good in life isn't out there. It's from God. We start believing our own message.

It's the gospel. He's merciful. I'm a Christian and I love God and I have a deep eating disorder. I'm a Christian and I love God and I've got one divorce in my past and it looks like another one's on the radar soon. I'm a Christian and I love God and I have this secret habit on the internet.

I'm a Christian and I love God and I hurt my back and they gave me those pain pills and now my back's better but the pain pills are still with me. I'm a Christian and I love God but I'm working like 90 hours and I'm telling myself that And we feel shame, and so what most Christians do is try to project everything's okay and fake it. Because down deep you don't believe God's good. You don't believe this patient. You don't believe he's tolerant.

Unlike the prodigal, you don't believe you have a father that's going, son, daughter, come home. I understand? You're in the pig pen. I mean, you're doing life your way instead of my way. I'm not down on you.

Every day, what did the Father do? I wonder if he's coming today. I wonder if he's coming today. And so Jesus What he says to the church, so he can work through it, he says, come. Come to me, all you that labor and are heavy laden and are stressed out and trapped with sin and shame and difficulty.

I'm not down on you. All the judgment that I have, I've already placed on my son. You're forgiven. Come to me. Are you ready?

Don't have some little emotional experience. Come unto me, all of you that are laboring. And stressed out and under pressure, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke. It's a picture of, you know, the oxen.

And Jesus says, I'm on this side. I want you to get your life hooked up with mine, and I want you to let me lead. I've got the power. In fact, your side of it will be light. My burden is light.

It's not burdensome. I want you to do marriage my way. I want you to do your finances my way. I want you to do your thinking my way. I want you to discover how much or how little or what to do with the media the way I would.

Why? Because I could. Because I want to give you the best. And all the mistakes and all the junk, you don't have to hide from me. You don't have to be in shame.

I want to forgive and restore, just like I did when you first trusted me. And then I want to do life with you. And I want to empower you. And we need to erase some of those old tapes and some of those lies and some of the stuff that is just absolutely messing you up. Because I'm good.

I'm merciful. Do you know what mercy is? I mean, do you know what the word means? It means you don't get what you deserve. We don't believe God's merciful.

We think, you know, we're going to come and He's got a big ruler, you know, like this cosmic ruler. Whap, whap, whap.

Now when we come we got to get honest And he'll change us. But you gotta come. And when you do, here's what happens to all those people around you. He's not just working in the world and he's not just working in you. He starts working through you.

And your focus, instead of all your energy on trying to find the good out there and hiding in shame from God, is neighbors are known and loved. Coworkers observe excellence, integrity, and concern. A community's deepest needs are met. The poor get fed. HIV patients get A drive to their doctor.

And you're not concerned about how they got it. Because you realize You know what? God mercy and goodness. is really As much for everyone else in the world as it's been for you. Paul would say, I was a chief among sinners.

Some of us are so uptight about people's lifestyle or their behavior or where they're coming from or the direction of this or that that we're not kingdom people anymore. We're our people and don't mess up our little world and our country like it's ours. I got news for you: the kingdom of God is near. And the kingdom is, I want you to think about these people the way I do. They're hurting.

They're lost. They have needs, they have hurts, their relationships aren't working, they're in bondage. And I want to set them free and love them like I did you. And that begins to produce some things. Research tells us when a city sees about 10% of the population converted to Christ.

You begin to see a ripple effect. Then, educational, governmental, corporate, and entertainment cultures. They get transformed, but they don't get transformed by external power and saying this is the way it's going to be because we're going to say what happens in a country. They get transformed historically and biblically because how we live transforms things from the inside out. The values are so attractive, it's not you Christians against us, it's you Christians meeting the deepest needs and living the life.

I wish I had a marriage like yours, the way he repaired it. I wish I had a relationship with my kids like yours. I wish my finances were in order at a time like this, like yours. I wish I experienced peace the way I see you do. Rodney Starks, in a very interesting book that's probably worth reading, he's a secular author.

I don't know if he's still a secular author because this book, I think, rocked his world. He wrote a book called The Rise. of Christianity. He's a sociologist and he wanted to figure out, because it didn't make any sense to him, what were the cultural or sociological issues that in the first century could. Begin with a few thousand people.

And by the fourth century, actually, 313 AD Have the majority of the population of the Roman Empire be followers of Jesus? It was estimated there were about 60 million people in the Roman Empire. At 313. And about 33 million of them. were followers of Jesus.

And this, you know, there's no book of Acts, there's no miracles, there's no this, no, and that. All he does is he's looking at the research. And as he looks at it, he realizes in the first century there's two epic plagues that wipe out, at times, a third of the whole population. And so the elite run to the hills and run away, but there's one group that feeds people, nurse people, give them food, and in many cases lose their lives. At times, whole towns Two-thirds of towns would be lost.

This happened twice in the first century. And out of all his empirical data, what he says is: the Christians loved people, the Christians cared, the Christians didn't change the culture externally. What happened was the people that were left were Christians, or the people that Christians loved. And when your family members have died and these are the people that loved you and cared for you, there were great conversions. Later on in the next few centuries, Starks points out that there were three major.

cultural issues that destroy a culture. Number one, he said there was no sanitation and there was ethnic division. Number two, he said, the treatment of women. was deplorable. And third, He said, We had a situation where all around the known world In fantaside, children were routinely drowned.

And what the church did is they expressed the goodness of God. And they began to clean up and find cultural solutions that were creative to sanitation. They elevated women as co-heirs of the grace of God, and in their relationships treated them quite differently than a piece of meat to be passed around or to be used. And they begin to pick up the children from the dumps and raise them themselves. And he said it was this internal Magnification of the He wouldn't call up the grace of God because he didn't use those terms, or the goodness of God, but from a cultural perspective.

Do you get that's what God wants to do? This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Breakthrough begins when we make room for God to work in us first. That's the pattern throughout scripture and church history. We'll hear again from Chip in just a moment, so don't go away.

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Then you take 10 minutes to pray and meditate on what you've learned, just 20 minutes daily for 10 days. If you're feeling spiritually stuck, or if you need fresh assurance that God is good and wants to work in your life, these ancient psalms will speak directly to your situation. They've sustained God's people for thousands of years, and they'll sustain you too. Get started today by going to livingontheedge.org. Just search for Psalms of Hope and begin your journey.

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Well now once again, here's Chip. As we close today's program, I realize we have really covered a lot of material. And as my wife often reminds me, Chip, you talk so fast.

So let me encourage you, if you happen to be in the car or on the treadmill, or maybe there's some kids in the back seat, or you're on one of those Pelotons and you're grinding it out, let me encourage you to go to livingonthege, alloneword, dot org, and download the message notes. When I taught this for the first time, and then I began to share it in small groups, I have to tell you. I watch God breakthrough. I watch God do things in people that they thought were impossible. And what I want to remind you is that it doesn't happen just by listening and hearing and intellectually acknowledging.

What we learned in today's message is God sovereignly works in the world.

So that means right now, at this moment, he's working. He's working in your circumstances, the good and the bad, what you think is ugly and difficult. He's orchestrating things. It's like that picture of the beautiful tapestry. And when you look on the one side, it is really beautiful.

But if you look on the back side, I mean there are knots and strings and all kinds of junk. And God is orchestrating things in your life to bring about good. And many of those knots, many of those strings, many of the difficult things, He's really preparing you. He's creating a a new level of dependence as you lean in and as you seek Him. He wants to bring about the best in your life.

But often, are you ready? It gets harder or it gets worse before it gets great. All through scripture. Remember the disciples when it was like, hey, there's 5,000 people, and hey, by the way, you guys feed him. And they go, it's impossible.

He says, well, what do you have? God allows impossible situations to create dependency that make you and me lean in in a way like never before. And then when we get to the end of ourselves and we trust Him, there's breakthrough. In our next program, I'm going to be sharing the personal past to breakthrough. Don't miss it.

What does God need from you to unleash His breakthrough power? I'm Dave Druy, inviting you to find out tomorrow on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge. Uh