Today I'm Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Did you ever notice that good things come in small packages? Interestingly enough, Jesus was a big proponent of small. If you long for a breakthrough in your life, Here's what you need to know. Absolutely small is the birthplace of breakthrough.
Stay with me and discover how to open it up. What if the breakthrough you're seeking won't come from doing something bigger, but from starting something smaller? Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram reveals a pattern that runs throughout scripture and history. God's most significant movements always begin with absolutely small groups of people. Three people in a car, twelve disciples around a table, one hundred and twenty believers in an upper room.
It's part of our series, Experience Breakthrough. From Jesus reaching a Samaritan city to the explosion of the early church, we'll discover why size matters only in reverse. Here's Chip Ingram with Absolutely Small, The Birthplace of Breakthrough. Spent about an hour in a car with a good friend and Out of the blue, he turned to me and goes, You know, this breakthrough stuff's messing with me, man. You hit me right between the eyes.
I said, Listen. Get this clear. I just talk, if you get hit, it's God. Yeah. He said, okay, well, God hit me between the eyes.
I said, well, what do you mean? And for the next hour, he began to very candidly and honestly talk about.
Some issues in his life that he knows this is right and this is wrong, and right now this is wrong, and I know what I need to do. And then he had that look on his face like, Like I was Not many brain cells working.
Now, do you understand if I do what's right the implications And he started going through relationships, finances, reputation. And I just said, man. You believe God is real or not? You believe he can take care of you? You think this is any different than when he said to the disciples, feed the 5,000 or feed the 4,000?
You just got to believe. He goes, I know, I got it. I got it. And I had to believe that he's probably not the only one.
Now here's what I want you to get. You're on the verge of breakthrough. Absolutely small. is the birthplace of breakthrough. You can have catalysts, you can be moved, you can step out, you can start, but the birthing of breakthrough happens.
In what I call absolutely small. Look on your notes. Size absolutely matters only in Reverse. to birth and sustain Breakthrough. Uh a book I've been reading um Great book.
It's a little heady in the first part, but it will be an intellectual challenge, but super insightful. It's by Andy Crouch, it's called Culture Making. He studied how cultures develop and how things happen in cultures and how they're shaped. He writes, Every cultural good, whether a new word, a law, a recipe, a song, or a gadget, begins. with a small group of people.
And not just a relatively small group of people, but an absolutely small group. No matter how many people it goes out to or the mass effect It always starts small. And this means that no matter how complex or extensive the cultural system you may consider, the only way it will be changed. Is by an absolutely small group of people who innovate and create a new cultural good. In other words, Rapid change, significant change, any change of any kind that is major always starts with a very, very small group.
He goes on: the optimal size of this small group I suggest is three.
Sometimes it's four or five, or occasionally you can pull it off with two. But three people can fit into a mini Cooper barely with room for luggage. Three people can talk on a conference call and convene around a table in a meeting or chat online without anyone getting bored or distracted or feeling superfluous. Three people can sit in a booth in a restaurant and hatch an idea. But the surprising pattern that emerges when you study the propagation of new, dynamic, innovation, cultural goods is that these three concentric circles are never very large.
They're almost always absolutely small. The optimal size, as I've studied, is 3 and 12 and then 120. These circles are small enough so that people can know one another's faces. They can be intimately acquainted. They know one another's talents and limitations, and they know how much to trust and how to verify.
And then he goes on, and whether it's the movie industry or the corporate world, or he even gets around and realizes that, you know, Jesus had of the 12, he had three, and then there were the 12, and at Pentecost there were 120. And he goes through ideas, and whether it's the starting of MySpace, or Facebook, or Google, or CEO, CFO, CIO. He just goes through and says it always starts small. And I want you to know that whether you're on the verge of potentiality and you're thinking and praying and dreaming, and God's put it on your heart, what you need is an authentic, smaller group of people to get on board with you, to dream that dream, to pray with you, and take some risk. and say, let's do this together.
And if you're on the other side and you are pregnant but conflicted, and you realize this would mean I would need to move out and I'm presently living with someone. This would mean I'd have to get my finances in order. This would mean I'd have to say I'm sorry and make restitution and forgive someone that I hate their guts. This would mean. Ah And you're just thinking, I just can't do it.
I know I should. I know I want to. I can't. You need to be in a small group of safe, loving, caring people. That says, regardless of the implications, whatever happens, we'll be there with you.
And what I want to tell you is, that's the pattern of Scripture. Everyone here believes that God wants to change the city, right? I mean, all through Scripture, isn't that what He does? I mean, have you ever have you ever kind of done a uh a little look at this Bible and realized Like the names of these books. When God wanted to change the world, he wrote a book to the Corinthians in the city of.
And the Ephesians and the city of And the Thessalonicans in the city of and to the Romans in the city of What are those? Those are the most influential cities in the world. But it always started what? Jesus, a small group of people, the 12, the 120. And then that got multiplied in birth here, there, and everywhere.
Well, did you ever wonder how Jesus reached a city and how he taught his disciples to reach a city? What if you didn't You should. And here's your lucky days. That's what we're going to look at. Open your notes, if you will, and let's look very specifically at how Jesus reached a city.
And today he's doing it in London and Paris and Hong Kong. John chapter 4. Very, very interesting. I think the goal here is So the disciples learn later when he leaves and gives them the mission. How to pull this off?
If you open your Bibles, John chapter 4, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, it's the gospel. The story opens as the Pharisees hear that Jesus is gaining and baptizing more disciples than John. And it's actually not Jesus baptizing, but his disciples. And so he chooses to leave Judea and he goes to Galilee. He's going to go on the non-Jewish side.
of the lake. And he says, verse 4, Now we need to go through Samaria.
So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. And Joseph's well was there, and Jesus was tired from the journey. And he sat down by the well, and it was about the sixth hour, or it's noon, and it's very, very hot. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, Will you give me a drink? Sidebar, the disciples all had left to go get food in town.
And she's shocked. Because Samaritans are a half-breed. The cultural division, I mean, is absolute. Jews hate Samaritans, Samaritans hate Jews. A.
B. Men don't initiate conversations with women. Women were subhuman in that day. And so she's wondering: one, you're a Jew, I'm a woman. It's an odd time of day, and the reason she's out at this time of day is because there's a little colorful past, and she's rejected in her community.
And so, when all the other women go out and draw water, she doesn't want to be there because she's not accepted.
So she's out here by herself. You a Jew ask me for a drink? For Jews don't associate with Samaritans Jesus responds, If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks, For a drink? You would have asked him. and he would have given you living water.
Sir, the woman replied, you have nothing to draw with, and the well is very deep. Where will you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us this well and drank from it himself? And also, His sons and his flocks and his herd. And Jesus said, everyone who drinks this physical water will be thirsty again.
But whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.
Now, here's the woman's response. I love this. Sir, give me this water so I won't get thirsty and I have to keep coming back to draw water. Boy, if you've got this, it sounds great. And so he throws out a little test, like many of you are in right now, like my friend is in right now.
He says, Oh, you want water? You're thirsty? You want me to meet your need? You want to spring up in you, eternal life? Why don't you go get your husband and we'll talk about it further?
Her reply. I have no husband. Jesus said, You're right. When you say you have no husband, the fact is you've had five husbands, and the man you have now is not your husband. What you have said is quite true.
And contrary to how I think most of us would read this text, I think he was. affirming her honesty. and vulnerability not condemning her, as we will see. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram, and we'll continue our lesson in just a minute. If you've missed any part of this series or want to dive deeper into the principles we're learning about, everything is available at livingonthege.org.
You'll find the complete message library, small group resources, and practical study tools, all designed to help you experience the breakthrough you're seeking. It's all there, waiting for you, at livingonthege.org.
Well now let's continue with today's message. Sir, she said, I can see that you're a prophet. Our fathers worshipped on this mountain, but you Jews claim the place we worship is in Jerusalem.
So, I guess, man, anybody that knows this, you're reading my mail, there's no way you could know this. You must be a prophet. I guess we're going to talk religion. Let's change the subject. You say, This mountain, you know.
And Jesus says, It's way bigger than what mountain or where. Jesus, verse 21 says, Believe me, woman, the time is coming. When you will worship the Father, neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know, but we Jews worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet, New dispensation.
New truth. A time is coming. And has now come when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. For they're the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit and his worshipers must worship him in spirit and in truth.
You might in your Bible circle or highlight in your mobile device seeks. Literally, it's pursues. The Father is pursuing and seeking and running after. people that don't know him. That they might turn and worship him, not in some external form, but in spirit and in truth.
The woman said, I know, okay, we're getting down to Pedro.
Well, I know that the Messiah, the Christ, is coming, and when he comes, he'll explain everything.
Now, this next line is absolutely amazing because the Pharisees can't figure out who he is. The disciples have been foggy on who he is. And after he heals people, he says, Don't tell anyone because of all the mushrooming of crowds. But here is an immoral woman. Who's a half-breed, who's despised, who's rejected, and she gets honest, and here's the truth she gets.
Then Jesus declared: I who speak to you am He, I'm the Messiah. Just then, his disciples returned and were surprised finding him talking to a woman. That is an understatement. But no one asks, what do you want or why are you talking with her? Then leaving her water jar.
Here's her response. She leaves her jars there. The woman went back into the town and said to the people, Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could he be the Christ? And they came out of the town and they made their way toward him.
Meanwhile, the camera lens, as the people are starting, hub, bub, they're coming out of the town, camera lens goes back. It's Jesus and the disciples.
Meanwhile, the disciples urged Jesus to get something to eat. By the way, that's why we went to town. It was a to-go order. We got it, we brought it back. You got to be hungry.
Rabbi. But he said, I have food to eat that you know nothing of. Then his disciples said to one another, could someone have brought him food? Come on, guys. I mean, think about where this is at.
My food. Jesus said, is to do the will of him who sent me. and to finish his work. Do you not say there are four months and yet then comes the harvest? You think that the work of God or when things are going to really happen and breakthrough and things like you've never seen, you guys say it's in the future, someday, some way when God intervenes.
But I say to you, lift up your eyes, and I imagine there's some people coming out of that town. Led by an immoral woman, who was disrespected and despised. who thought she was unworthy. See? The fields.
are white for harvest. And then notice his explanation even now. The reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together. One sows, another reaps. It's true, I sent you to reap where you haven't worked.
Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits for their labor. And in just a few moments, we're going to learn that they come, they believe based on her testimony, and they're Samaritans, and he's a Jew. And they say, Do you think you could stick around for another couple days?
So he does a two-day seminar, and then they turn to the woman and they say, We have come and believed based on your word and your testimony, but after two days of hearing his word, look in your text. What's it say?
Now we believe and know that you are the Savior of the world.
Now I want to have you look at your notes if you would and I want to show you something. About how Jesus very intentionally reached a city. And I'm going to suggest that he didn't just reach a city, but he's wanting to teach his disciples about how to reach cities. And then we're going to learn from the disciples how to reach a city. Where did the breakthrough begin?
Answer with Jesus. Jesus cared. Jesus had compassion on that city, and he had very specific compassion on that woman. Whom did Jesus choose? This is always a stumper for us religious people.
He chose an immoral, socially rejected woman in a culturally despised town. That's just for all of us that think we're not qualified. Third, how did she make room for breakthrough? She recognized that she had thirst. A lot of us do a lot of stuff.
A lot of us eat, sex addictions, shop, work. We have thirst for fulfillment and meaning. She recognized she had thirst, and she was open to realize maybe there's a different way to quench your thirst. Second, when confronted with the truth, she was just honest. I don't have it all together.
I have a checkered past. But she had the guts enough to say, Yep, that's me. And then she made room. When she heard about the truth, she left her jar, step of faith, and she said, I've got to share this with someone else. It's a pattern.
What courageous step did she take? Can you imagine her reputation? And the fear of rejection of going to a whole town that thinks you're like the most immoral person in the whole town, and you say, I believe that I may have just met the Messiah you should come and see. What do you think was going on in her heart when she was walking from where her jar and the well was to the town? No one's ever gonna believe me.
No one's ever gonna believe me. I gotta tell them. No one's ever gonna believe me. I gotta tell them. I gotta tell them.
Anybody here? In the labor pains of potentiality, but your fear of being rejected is keeping you from launching. What did Jesus want his disciples to learn about himself? His love and compassion is for all people, regardless of where they've been, what they look like, or what they've done, or what they're presently doing. He wanted them to understand that his personal satisfaction.
Is rooted not in what you can achieve, not in how you look, not in what you own. My food is to do the will of Him who sent me and to accomplish His work. I saw in 60 minutes a brief Little interview with a man in New York City. And his name is um Tudor Jones II. Paul Tudor Jones II.
He's a hedge fund guy. I have no idea his spiritual background, other than he mentioned his mom wanted him to be a preacher. He started 80 charter schools in New York City. And in the interview, this one line captured me. He turned to the interviewer, he says, Well, you need to understand that the only real purpose and significance in life is making sacrifices to meet the needs of other people.
That's what life's all about. The rest of the world's trying to make A lot less than $3.6 billion, but someone with $3.6 million understands there's not enough steak, there's not enough jets, there's not enough houses, there's not enough vacations. What life is about is sacrificially giving up time and energy and money to meet the needs of other people. That's where fulfillment is. I think he got that from somewhere.
I wonder if we do. And finally, what about breakthrough? I think Jesus wanted them to learn that breakthroughs start small. This is Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. What an incredible example.
Jesus chose one despised woman in one rejected town to spark a citywide movement. That's how breakthrough works. Chip has more to say in a moment. As you consider what God might be calling you to start, even if it feels too small to matter, I want to point you toward a resource that can fuel your faith. It's Chip's free 10-day devotional called Psalms of Hope.
Each day follows a simple pattern. Chip provides 10 minutes of teaching from Psalm 1, Psalm 15, or Psalm 23. Then you take 10 minutes to pray and meditate on what you've learned. 20 minutes a day, 10 days total.
So don't wait. Get started today. It's completely free at livingontheedge.org. Just search for Psalms of Hope. This ministry reaches millions because listeners like you provide the support that makes it possible.
If these messages are helping you grow, would you help us reach others? Visit livingontheedge.org to give or write to livingonthege PO Box 3007 Atlanta, Georgia 30024. You can also call 888-333-6003. And be sure to subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast, available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you listen.
Well, now here's Chip with more on today's lesson. Just a final thought as we close today's program. I love this part of the series. Because we all get this. Big things don't just happen.
They're a culmination of a lot of little things. and we can get our mind around little things. You know, I think so often when we think about breakthrough, we think of these huge things that occur and people that are smarter than us and holier than us and historic characters are out of the pages of the Bible and sometimes we get lost thinking, I guess those things are reserved for, you know, people that are so far above us and yet... The Bible goes out of its way to remind us that the biggest breakthroughs have come through the most ordinary people. Y y you think about Rahab.
A breakthrough that changes the course of a nation that is a part of the lineage of the Messiah because there's a little thing. She's heard some stories about this God and she lowers a red rope down and she trusts him in the midst of it. Or you think of disciples who, I mean, the people that Jesus chooses in scripture, in church history, the closer we get to them, we realize how regular, how ordinary, how much they're just like us. And in the teaching today, The important point I want you to get is that supernatural breakthroughs are not dependent. on a future work of God.
but on a present work of one. And that's you. In other words, there's not some big thing that someone out there is going to do. Your breakthrough is going to come. and it starts very, very small.
And as I wrap this up, I'll just share, there was a season that I found myself drifting in my marriage. Just a little mindset was emerging where I was very busy and I found myself. Being critical of my wife, but inside my head, not even in my words, but if you're critical of your mate, why doesn't she do this? And why didn't she catch that? And what about this?
And what about that? And, you know. I have my issues, she has her issues. And it formed a little bit of a habit, and I could feel emotional distance. And I knew in my heart, like, God, I want a close marriage.
And I got concerned, like, boy, this is not a good way to go. And I began to pray for a breakthrough, pray for a breakthrough. And I needed to try harder and try harder. And nothing was working. And kind of had this private world that I was living in.
Like, I'm a pastor and I love my wife and I'm absolutely committed to her. But I didn't realize I was feeding my mind a lot of negative thoughts about my wife that produced negative emotions. And you know, then I would get from her like, Hey, what's wrong? or you know, are you okay? or Are we okay?
And here was my breakthrough, talk about something very, very, very small. The Holy Spirit whispered, Chip. I want you to focus on what you do have in your wife, not what you don't have. I want you to focus on how faithful she is, what an amazing mother she is. I want you to every single day start listing in your mind all the things she does, all of her qualities, all the positive things.
And I began to do that. And as I began to do that, guess what? The breakthrough started to come, and I was more and more attracted to her. And all of a sudden, that 10% of the things that bothered me were just overwhelmed by the 90% of the things that I was renewing my mind and thanking God for her. What do you need to do?
What small next step do you need to take? to get a breakthrough in a relationship. or with a supervisor. or with yourself and how you see yourself. It starts absolutely small.
So start small and do it today. Think your next step is too small to matter?
Well, think again. I'm Dave Druy. Join us tomorrow on Living on the Edge. Yeah. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.
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