What's Next? Making Breakthrough Your New Normal, Part 1

Breakthrough. It’s unleashing God’s supernatural power into your impossible situation. And we said, you know something? That’s what God wants to do.

Here’s the question: We’re praying to an all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God, who says, “I want to heal, I want to bless, I want to restore.” And He basically said to His disciples then, and to us, His followers, now, “I expect you to do the impossible.” Right? He said to His disciples, “You feed the five thousand.” And they’re going, “We don’t have the resources.” He says, “Well, you bring what you have to Me. I want to use you to do the impossible.”

We pray to the God who says, “I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Nothing is too difficult for Me.” We pray to the God who says, “Ask of Me, and I will show you great and mighty things that you do not know.” We pray to a God who says, “His eyes are going to and fro throughout the whole earth, that He might strongly support those whose hearts are fully His.”

We pray in the name of the One who said, “All authority and all power is given to Me, and now, I send you out to make followers of every ethnic group on the face of the earth, and not just to share by your words, but by your life, and meet their deepest needs. And by the way, I will be with you one hundred percent of the time to meet every need, and help you in anything you need to do.”

And so, the question that’s come to me is, yeah, you have to step out, and it requires faith and courage. But how do we take what’s beginning to happen in many of our lives, and make it the new normal? How do you get where, next Monday, and the Monday after that, and the Monday after that, and the Monday five months from now – you wake up, it’s time to go to work, and you have this expectation that God is going to do something impossible and supernatural in you and through you in everyday life? That’s what we’re going to talk about today.

Sometimes I think a picture is really worth a thousand words, and we’re going to take a snapshot of a man’s life, who, all through his life, God did the impossible through him.

We’re going to take a snapshot of a breakthrough person in the Old Testament, named David. Starts as a shepherd boy, becomes a king, and takes a nation to its pinnacle – passes it off to his son.

And you ought to have your mind swirling and realizing there seems to be a theme in this series. God keeps choosing unlikely people that no one else thinks can do anything. And I don’t know about you, but that gives me a lot of encouragement.

Well, what’s his first big breakthrough? He’s an unlikely candidate, but His first impossible thing that He does is, he’s anointed, but – like it works with us – God speaks to us, but, often, there’s a journey and a time and a process. And so, they’re at war with the Philistines – 1 Samuel 17.

And as they’re at war with the Philistines, they have this giant, named Goliath. He’s about nine feet tall. He’s huge, and he comes out every day, taunting the armies of God. And if you can picture this valley on one side of the Israelites, and on the other side are the Philistines. And he comes out and basically says, “Let’s have one big war. You bring out your best warrior, and whoever wins takes all.” And every time he comes out, the king and the warriors tremble in fear.

And then, we find an impossible situation, where a teenage boy, without any armor, just takes what he does have – a sling and a stick – and he slings that thing and hits him right in the middle of the forehead, and he drops, and then, he grabs his sword and finishes the job. And, I mean, it’s impossible – a teenage boy slays this great giant. And so, what we see is, okay, God chooses this improbable person. He has this amazing event that happens.

Now, let’s peek into what happens after breakthrough. If you want a very, very long – this will take a pot of coffee, or all afternoon. From 1 Samuel 18, through the rest of 1 Samuel and all the book of 2 Samuel, is the journey of David’s life. And as you read it, what you find is that, although God does impossible things in him and through him, there’s a good, and then, there’s a bad, and there’s even some ugly.

The good is, he’s exalted after he kills Goliath. He has fame. He gets position in the army. He ends up getting to marry the king’s daughter. He gets respected; there’s wealth. Out of this process, he forms maybe the deepest and best relationship of his life, with a brother named Jonathan. He has blessing, reputation, and eventually, he becomes king.

But there’s some ugly. He’s a great man; he’s a great leader. He’s a great warrior. He’s a great psalmist, musician. But he’s at the wrong place, at the wrong time, one day, and in a moment of weakness, he takes another man’s wife, and he commits adultery.

And after he commits adultery, like many of us, his cover-up is worse than his sin. And he tries to make it look like the baby is going to be this other man’s, and he can’t get the man to fall for his plan, so he has him killed. And so, for a year, this great man of God lives with a secret: He’s committed adultery; he’s committed murder.

And then, he’s confronted. And what makes David a great man is not his history, not that he ever did everything right. I mean, those are big. But when confronted, he owned it, and he was honest, and he repented. And there were consequences. But he was restored.

And by the end of his life, he was a man that had a knowledge of God and a view of God that he sought to pass on to others, that we live with today, and many of them are in the psalms. It’s kind of his personal journey that he put to music. He wasn’t the best father in the world. He had moments where his pride got him in big trouble.

In fact, one of the things – you know, I didn’t grow up as a Christian. When I read the Bible, one of the greatest testaments that is actually the Word of God, is, if you were trying to write a book about religion, and get people to buy it, you wouldn’t include this stuff. I mean, read about other “leaders,” or, “religious movements.” I mean, they’re bigger than life. I mean, you wouldn’t say that one of the greatest men committed adultery and murder.

But God wants you to know, and I to know, that there’s a journey. And He does want to do impossible things and supernatural things, but He does it through fallen, hurting people, who often make some big mistakes.

But your failure doesn’t have to define the rest of your life.

In fact, here’s David’s view, near the end of his life. He’s realized all that he’s been through. He’s asked God and the people to join with him to raise some money to build a temple, instead of this tent that God is living in, and they’re worshipping. “And so David blessed the LORD” – it’s 1 Chronicles 29 – “in the sight of all the assembly; and David said, ‘Blessed are You, O LORD God of Israel’” – and then, notice his perspective of God – “our Father, forever and ever.”

And this is how he sees God: “Yours is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything in the heavens and the earth; Yours is the dominion, O LORD, and You exalt Yourself as head over all.” And then, he looks back on all the stuff of life, and all the demands of life: “Both riches and honor come from You. You rule over all, and it’s in Your hands is all power and might; and it lies in Your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank You, and praise Your glorious name.”

And that’s a picture of a man who God has used, from a shepherd boy to a king, and that’s now the view he has of God. In Acts 13:22, we get the New Testament picture of God’s view of him. Now, think of where he’s been, what he’s done – both the good, the bad, and the ugly. And when the New Testament writer, inspired by the Holy Spirit, looks back: “For I have found David, a man after all My heart, who would do all My will.”

So, with that picture, I want to show you a portion of his journal. And the question we’re going to ask and answer is, how did David habitually – that’s the key word – how did David habitually unleash God’s supernatural power into impossible situations?

And it’s not the only psalm, but I think, in this little portion of his journal, we learn five things about who he is, and five specific things that he did, that I can say in my life, and you can say in yours, “You know what? I think if I do that, I think if I seek to be that kind of person, that I can have a journey for the next ten, or twenty, or fifty years” – however God gives you – “and I can habitually make breakthrough the new norm.”

Let’s pick up the story here. It’s Psalm 27: “The LORD is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me and devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart – I will not fear; though a war break out against me, even then I will be confident.”

And what we’re going to see is, from his personal journey, exactly who he was.

Who was he? In this first section, verses 1 through 3, he was a bold risk-taker. He was a bold risk-taker. I want you to, if you will, circle “my light”, “my salvation”, “my stronghold”. Light is a force that automatically dispels darkness. When everyone else was afraid of the giant, light dispels the darkness. When he was hiding for his life, light dispels the darkness. When he felt like everything was overwhelming, and his family was taken away from him, and they were hijacked by a group of people, light dispelled the darkness. And notice the little word, my, my, my. This is personal. This isn’t a philosophy. It’s not a worldview. “God, Yahweh, Jesus is my light. But He’s more than just my light; He’s my salvation.”

In fact, you might write the word Deliverer. He’s not speaking of his eternal salvation, here. He’s saying, “When I’m in trouble, God rescues me. He delivers me. He saves me. That’s what David’s saying. “And therefore, whom shall I fear?” He’s bigger than that. You either have a really big God and small problems, or you have really big problems and a very small God.

And then, he says, “When stuff comes – He’s my stronghold.” It’s a picture of a place where the enemy can’t get in. It’s a huge cave, with a fortress in front of it, is the idea, and no one can hurt you there.

What is he saying? “I will be confident.” Why is he going to be confident? It’s not because he thinks he’s stronger, better, wiser, or more godly. It’s because he knows who God is. And so, when you see God and know God for who He is, you’re a bold risk-taker.

Now, what did he do? He trusted God. It’s what he did. That’s how simple it is. He trusted God. He trusted God with his future. He trusted God with his wife. He trusted God with the uncertainty of, I’m anointed as king. It’s been seven years; I’m hiding in caves, running for my life. My circumstances don’t seem to line up with God’s promises. Anybody in here have that going on in your life? This is hard. This is difficult. This is painful. This is unreasonable. This doesn’t feel like God loves me. He had over a decade of that. But he trusted God.

Question for you: Are you trusting God, or paralyzed by fear? You might jot, if you would, Hebrews 11, verse 6. It keeps coming back to this: Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And he that comes to God, or she that comes to God, must believe two things. Number one, that He exists.

And here’s, then, the second part – and He’s a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. God’s blessing – these impossible things, this supernatural power – it doesn’t happen to everybody. It happens to people who believe God to the point that they step out, even though they’re afraid. David was simply a bold risk-taker. He trusted God.

Question: Are you a bold risk-taker? Are you a bold risk-taker in your relationships? Are you a bold risk-taker at work? Are you a bold risk-taker in your neighborhood?

Second thing, in the next section, we’re going to learn that he was a passionate worshipper.

That’s who he was – number two – a passionate worshipper. And you say, “Well, Chip, where do you get that?”

Look at verse 4: “One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life.”

He has declared, “I’m not going to live in fear,” and now, he’s going to say, “This is my personal, number one priority in life. One thing. One thing. One thing do I seek.” And what is it? “That I may dwell in the house of the LORD.”

Well, what are you going to do? “To gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek Him in His temple.” Well, why? “Because in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; He will hide me in the shelter of His sacred tent, and He will set me high on a rock.” And the result? “Then my head will be exalted above my enemies who surround me; at His sacred tent will I sacrifice with shouts of joy; I will sing and make music to the LORD.”

David was a passionate worshiper, and what did he do? He pursued God. He pursued God. Did you see the word seek, seek, seek? He wants to behold His beauty. He wants to praise Him. And for some of us, it’s kind of like, “Well, I don’t really know how to do that.”

I brought three tools that have been helpful for me, because my confession is, at least the first decade or so I was a Christian – and I’m probably exaggerating; it was probably more – praise was not a big part of my life. I interceded, I prayed, I thanked, but this idea of acknowledging who God is, and worshipping for who He actually is, which enlarges your view – God says He inhabits the praises of His people. And so, a couple things happened.

I keep mentioning this book, because I’ve been reading it for over thirty years, but it’s called The Knowledge of the Holy, and it’s three or four chapters on the attributes of God. And as I began to read about the attributes of God, I began to enlarge my mind and my heart, and I would begin to praise Him for who He was.

A book that has been instrumental in my wife’s life – Ruth Myers wrote a book called 31 Days of Praise. Praise will strengthen your faith. Praise ushers you into God’s presence. Praise activates God’s power. Praise helps you overcome demonic opposition. Praise transforms your perspective. And praise brings pleasure and glory to God.

And what I know is, most of us are busy, and we come to God like we do other people: “I want to get this done. Could You take care of this? God, I have a problem. Would You take care of that?” And basically, for many of us, our time with God is, “Oh, God, will You fix this, take care of that, or give me so I get relief?” David was a worshipper. He was a passionate worshipper.

In fact, can I give you an example? If David was going to come to our services, he would have been here five to seven minutes early. Because David would have never dreamed that someone getting up and declaring the truth of God’s Word is more important than gathering and singing praises directly to God. And yet, we kind of live in a day – see, our behavior always tells you what you believe. So, if you can come ten minutes late, or fifteen minutes late, or eight minutes late, because the singing is just the singing.

Actually, we’re not singing to one another; we’re declaring the praise of the holy Creator of the earth. He finds pleasure in it. His presence is manifested in it. And it’s not just reserved for corporate worship. I’ll meet a lot of people, and they say, “Oh, yeah, I missed the last couple of weeks, because I wanted to do this, then, I wanted to do that. But I watched it on the internet.” I got news for you: You can get content – the presence of God doesn’t show up on the internet.

You need to be gathered with God’s people, and for some of us, maybe loosen up a little bit. See, part of us long to experience God’s presence; we won’t let our emotions get involved. And maybe the place to start is in a back bedroom. Put a pillow under the door and sing to God. What you’ll find is, your experience of Him will change. His power will get manifested, and your problems will sort of start shrinking.

Another little book that’s been very helpful to me is called The Handbook of Prayer by Ken Boa, and it’s nothing but Scripture, but he just takes you through praying Scripture back to God. And when I have done that, it’s amazing. There are mornings I get up – I don’t know about you, about how it works – there are mornings I get up, I don’t even want to go to the day. I don’t want to face the problems. I got a list this long, and I can’t get it done. There are two issues I’m overwhelmed with. There are demands – right? I mean, that’s – but if I stay there, and go into my day that way, it’s usually not a pretty picture.

And so, I have to stop, and I just choose – “God, I don’t feel like talking to You. Sorry. I don’t feel like reading Your Word. Sorry. But I want to remember who You are.”

And so, the first thing I usually do – and this morning was particularly spectacular – is, you know, the dog wants out very early, and I let the dog out, and then, I turn all the lights out in the house. And every morning, I just look up and hope that there’s a clear sky so there are stars.

And this morning, there were those puffy clouds in different places, and stars everywhere, and a sliver of a moon. And I looked up, and I saw the Big Dipper, and the Little Dipper, and all these stars, and I was just reminded, the God who spoke those into existence and holds them, moment by moment, by the word of His power, says to me, little ol’ Chip Ingram, “Everything you need, I’m here for you. I made all that, and I live inside of you. Just let Me help you.” And you know what? He will.