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January 22, 2022 · 25 min · Featured Sermons
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Chip Ingram is an American Christian pastor, author, and teacher. He is the founder, teaching pastor and CEO of Living on the Edge, an international teaching and discipleship ministry.
618K followers
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0:01 What circumstance in your life is so big, so overwhelming, so difficult that it looks impossible to conquer? God wants you to know that you can experience his power like never before, that there is a0:13 break through in situations as you learn to trust him for hope and for healing. Today, we begin a journey. How to unleash God's supernatural power into your impossible0:24 situation. Stay with me. Welcome0:31 to this edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Living on the Edge is an international discipleship ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Chip Ingram. I'm Dave Druy. As we begin this new series called0:42 breakthrough, it might help if you take a second to identify something in your life you'd like to see change. You know, you're not listening to living on the edge today by accident. But if you're tired of the junk0:53 and hopelessness that bog you down, this series is gonna provide the direction you've been looking for. Open your Bible, if you will, if you have 1, to Mark chapter 1, and let's join Chip now for his message, The First1:04 Step to Breakthrough.1:07 I was in a town in West Virginia where my wife grew up, and I won't mention the town in case they ever hear this. Of course, they would know who it is. But it's a place that, you1:19 know, in its prime was maybe 300 people, and maybe it's down to 50 people. And probably 90 percent of the people are unemployed and there's house and shack and it is1:30 just it is the most depressing place I've ever been in my life. There's so much junk and they've seen it so long they don't even notice it anymore. And1:42 so we're gonna talk about breakthrough. God wants to unleash power into your impossible situation. There's 5 specific questions that I1:54 begin to ask and answer about how you understand breakthrough happens, where it begins, what's the first step. Now, question number 1, you know, you're gonna have to start with the basics is, so what is a breakthrough?2:06 I mean, God is speaking to me and I'm thinking, I literally looked it up in the dictionary. I mean, what do you mean by the term? 3 key definitions. Number 1, it's an offensive thrust that penetrates and carries beyond a2:18 defensive line in warfare. See, when I've thought about breakthrough honestly, I often keep thinking, you know, I've read about it in church history and I've seen it in the bible.2:30 Someday, someway, God and we're gonna see these amazing things happen and we're gonna watch a breakthrough. And sort of it's like we wait for it to happen.2:41 Breakthroughs are not something you sit around and wait for. It's an offensive strike through enemy lines. God does it, but he's already commanded2:53 it, he already wants it to happen. A breakthrough is when you take an offensive step and say, I'm going to act on what I believe is true, and then I'm gonna trust God is supernaturally gonna do the impossible.3:07 The second is it's an act or instance of breaking through a barrier. A breakthrough is that there's a barrier, you're stuck, and it could be a relationship, an addiction, a lie, a false belief.3:19 It could be what you've been through. It could be an environment at work. But isn't it interesting that Jesus said, I will build my church and the3:30 gates of hell will not prevail against it. What was he saying? He says the church is moving offensively and when it hit barriers, here's the promise, I will be with you always3:42 and all power is given to me. You believe, you trust, we'll break through. So we know this is on God's heart. The third definition that was interesting, it's a sudden advance.3:54 There's a process, and we'll walk through the process. And there's investment, and there's prayer involved, and there's people involved, and there's thinking involved, and there's some steps that you4:06 take. But as those things culminate, there's change, there's differences, failure in relationships and addictions. God moves in powerful ways, and what people4:18 experience, boom, there's a breakthrough. There's a sudden advance. It happens in individuals, relationships, organizations, in churches, and sometimes God does it in whole4:29 societies and cultures. I love the quote by George Mueller. He said, remember today that you can never bring about the supernatural through natural means. Don't even try. And then Mueller, who4:41 never made his needs known and supplied the needs of literally thousands and thousands of orphans daily, wrote, faith doesn't operate in the realm of the possible. There is no4:53 glory for God in that which man can do. Faith begins where man's power ends. And so part of what we're going to talk about is how does that5:05 happen? How do you unleash God's supernatural power in your life and in your home and in your relationships and in your neighborhood and in your work?5:17 And what and how does God release that in a church? Well, that's what breakthrough is. Question number 2, is there a biblical pattern for breakthrough? In other words, these are5:29 kind of interesting ideas, but I don't know about you, I'm sorta committed to Scripture. Is there a Biblical pattern? And so what I did, and by the way, I'll spare you, I won't go through it. I found myself on a plane5:41 asking that question, and I started, about 3 hours earlier, and I started writing from memory from Genesis all the way through Revelation of breakthroughs that I5:52 saw, breakthroughs that I saw, breakthroughs that I saw. And I started even with, you know, God could have spoke 1 word and bam, we would have all creation, He made it. He can do it any way He wants. But6:04 even how God did creation gives us insight about His heart and what He wants to do. Because when we get creation in the beginning, he doesn't just tell us how it all happened,6:16 he creates and he says the earth is formless and void. Those are very interesting Hebrew words that mean lifeless, dead. Later, they're used in places where there's chaos, lack of life, and then what happened?6:28 He speaks, and when He speaks, let there be light, it's good. Let there be plants, it's good. There's He speaks, He speaks, He speaks, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good, it's good, then He creates us,6:39 it's very good. He breaks through darkness. There's a reason he tells us because that's the pattern. Everything in life, mark this, every6:51 single thing in life is either broken and deteriorating and moving toward chaos or it's moving toward health and7:03 restoration and healing. Everything. And the eyes of the Lord are going to and fro throughout the whole earth that he could find a man or a woman or a7:15 student whose heart is fully his so that he could strongly support you just where you're at, right where you live with the IQ and the gifts and the7:27 background and experiences both good and bad that you presently possess so that he could use you as an agent of breakthrough to stop the darkness and the chaos and the corruption and the wickedness and7:39 to bring light and healing and love. That's the game plan. Well I I went through the actually the whole bible and I wrote for 3 hours.7:50 Here's what I can tell you just in terms of does God unleash supernatural power to overcome the impossible? Well once you get beyond the amazing story of creation and then you see the drift, the8:02 idolatry, the evil, the wickedness, Then 1 man finds favor named Noah, and he's an agent of breakthrough. And God protects,8:13 intervenes. And then he, after the human race begins to get rebuilt, he finds Abraham. And the process of8:24 Abraham becoming the beginning of a nation that would be the jewel that God would demonstrate his power and his goodness, and His plan is always, I love people. I love people. I love people. I love people. He wanted to8:36 be with us in the garden and walk with us in the garden. He forgave Adam and Eve, and then over and over and over. But the hearts of men, we just bend and drift away from God and we end up corrupt and greedy and8:48 selfish and hurting 1 another. Wars have always been with us and God keeps intervening. And so with Abraham, he's 100 years old living off a promise that he's going to have an heir 1 day.9:00 And so his 90 year old babe has a baby. It's a breakthrough. Would you say that's unleashing God's power into the impossible? And then after9:12 Abraham, find that there's desolation and famine and difficulty, and so he a Hebrew slave becomes the most powerful man in the world under Pharaoh. To do what? Break through and deliver the people.9:24 430 years later, now they're in bondage and slavery, and there's an idol in every corner in Egypt. And what happens? He brings Moses to do the impossible. 10 supernatural acts, each 19:35 declaring Yahweh, the God of Israel, powerful than the gods of Egypt. And then there's a breakthrough at the Red Sea, and then there's a breakthrough with the man, and then there's a breakthrough with water out of the9:45 rock, and there's a breakthrough where his presence is with him. And then Joshua comes along and you're you're you're this is the land. I've already given it to you. You possess it. I'm good. I love you. I want you to9:57 have vines that you didn't plant and wells that you didn't dig and houses that you don't have to build. You're my people. I love you and I wanna bless you and express that to you. But there's a lot of big guys over there10:09 and there's this big walled city and so impossibility, the walls fall down. And we go all the way through scripture to these cycles. Here's the cycles that you see10:21 because it becomes very clear in Judges and all the way through the Old Testament, later through the New Testament and new church history, is there's great need and the great need is caused by10:32 great sin. So people are hurting, people are discouraged, people have problems. The great sin brings about bondage. People are in slavery.10:44 And sometimes it's whole nations or sometimes it's individuals. They're slaves to their sin, slaves to corrupt government, slavery and bondage, the sex trade. I mean, you can go all through history, this pattern.10:56 And then this God who created us loves you and loves these people. As far away as anyone has ever been from God, He still loves them and He's compassionate. And judgment occurs, and by judgment what I mean11:08 consequences come to help us understand, you know what, how we're living is not the way to live. It's in the great kindness and love of God that the velvet vice begins to come on nations at times11:20 in the past and comes on people and this judgment of things don't work And then he raises up a deliverer who breaks through. A deliverer who is like a Samson11:32 or a Gideon or a Deborah, and then later a Samuel. And cycle after cycle, this cycle right here happens at least 6 times in the book of Judges. And I would tell you that it happens the11:44 rest of the Old Testament, New Testament, and church history. But the impossible happens, walls fall down. And each time with Gideon, the impossible happens, 30011:55 men defeat a whole army. And then the story goes on and what is it? It's the story of the supernatural power of God reminding you that the12:07 walls that you have can come down. The giants that you face, the unleashing of God's power like with David, they can fall just like they fell for him. And12:19 then you have a series of horrendous times where all these kings turn away from God and yet then Josiah pops up and Hezekiah pops up and Asa pops up and they start reforms and every12:31 time there's a reform there's a breakthrough and there's prosperity and there's love and there's fellowship and God is worshiped and then people drift away again and we get 400 years of silence.12:43 The greatest judgment in all the world is when you can't hear God's voice anymore. And then the ultimate breakthrough. We're talking about the pattern, we're going to look at the pathway. And part of the12:54 pathway, there are certain seasons where God prepares people and certain seasons where he prepares organizations and certain seasons where he prepares the entire world for major breakthroughs.13:07 And what we have in Jesus is the greatest breakthrough. God's supernatural power unleashed. Open your bible if you will, Mark chapter 1, and what I'll encourage you to do13:19 is read. I'm gonna give you sort of mountain peaks. I'm gonna walk through some mountain peaks because here's what I want you to see. So often we start reading and many of us have been Christians for a lot of years and13:29 this is Jesus and this is what he said. And sometimes we we miss the whole point. The very first verse of the book of Mark. This is the beginning of the good news,13:41 the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's about God's goodness. It's about God's not down on people. The word good news, it wasn't a Bible term, it was borrowed from the day.13:53 When a king would go to battle and win a victory, they would make an announcement. Good news. They would have a gospel announcement. Our king defeated that other group, and all the people would celebrate.14:05 We're free. The gospel was an announcement. Now, here's what I want to do. I'm gonna walk you through a little journey, and I'm gonna skip around a lot, because what I really want you to see14:16 is how did Jesus are you ready for this? How did Jesus teach his disciples to experience breakthrough? If you're taking notes,14:28 the first question was, what is breakthrough? The second question was, is there a biblical pattern of breakthrough? And I think we've demonstrated that. The third question, how did14:40 Jesus teach the disciples to experience and be agents of breakthrough? Now, you'll notice I've already quoted the very first verse. This is the beginning of the gospel. It's written to the14:52 Romans. You need to understand the Roman mindset. They're powerful. They're proud. They respect action and power. And so this gospel writer doesn't spend a lot of time in genealogies, not a lot of time of15:04 quoting, you know, Hebrew fulfillment. I mean, he comes out of the gates, Jesus, the man of action. And so in a relatively few verses, we have his introduction, his baptism, and his15:15 temptation. And then notice as you pick it up in verse 14, after John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee. His ministry starts. Notice what he does. This is what Jesus came to do. He did15:27 not come to get people to live moral lives. He did not come to give them a philosophy or worldview, or to become a good religion on the salad bar of other religions. He came to proclaim the15:39 good news of God. He came to make an announcement. The God who made you loves you. He wants to bless you. He's for you. He wants intimate fellowship and relationship.15:51 The time has come, he said, the kingdom of God is near, and then there's a command. It's twofold. Repent and believe the good news. Repent. Metanoia. It means16:03 with your mind. Have a change of mind. Think differently about God. Think differently about yourself, and start thinking about it the way God thinks about it, and believe the good16:14 news. Believe that God's for you. Believe that he loves you, and live out of the freedom and the reality. The gospel is not, what can I do for God? How can I earn his favor? The16:26 gospel is good news. This is what God has already done for you. Receive it, believe it, let it fill you up, and then out of thanksgiving and love,16:38 express that same kind of love to others. Now with that said, how did he teach his disciples? I mean, you think about it. The creator of all of life decides to inhabit a16:49 teenage girl supernaturally, lives a perfect life, begins his ministry, and this is the message, this announcement. So what does he do? And here's what I want you to see as I walk things17:01 through. He wanted to teach these good Jewish religious boys that he didn't come to change the culture. He came for people to move out of17:13 their stuck religion and the wickedness of the day and to have a relationship with the living God. And so he announced what it was. And then as you look at the book of17:24 Mark, what I want you to see, his goodness, his goodness, his kindness. And He's kind and good to people in that day that religious people would say don't17:36 deserve anything. The religious system of Judaism and especially the Pharisees is we earn our favor, we're more righteous. In fact, they were just self righteous. So as you pick it up, notice, okay, he's17:48 gonna announce the good news. Skip down, if you will, to verse 21. Then he went to Capernaum, and the Sabbath came, and Jesus went into the synagogue, and he began to teach. And the people were amazed at his teaching,17:57 because he taught them as 1 who had authority, not as the teachers of the law. And there was a man in the synagogue who was possessed by an evil spirit. What do you want to do with me? The18:09 first thing he does is eradicate evil. He's, quote, in the church of their day, and there's a guy demon possessed, he casts out the demon. So there's sort of some18:20 authentication. Woah, who is this guy? The next thing he does, as you skim, look at verse 29, he goes over to Peter's mother in law's house, and she's sick. And people are wondering, wow, who is this18:32 guy? And he heals her. And then if you skim down a little bit after that, what you find is there's a real buzz here and he spends almost all night and the whole town comes out, He casts18:44 out demons and heals. Casts out demons and heals. Casts out demons and heals. I mean, it is like a rock concert starts, and he is like, whoo. And people are coming from everywhere. And then he gets up18:56 real early the next morning to pray, to stay focused, and the disciples say, Jesus, last night, You were a super hit. Everyone's talking about You. This is gonna be awesome. Come on back. And He says, No, no, no, no.19:08 I'm on mission. There's many other villages and places I need to go. So He teaches the disciples it can't be about them, it can't be about us, it can't be about just now. It's fulfilling what God wants.19:19 You've been listening to part 1 of Chip's message, the first step to breakthrough from his series breakthrough, unleashing God's power into impossible situations.19:32 When you need a supernatural intervention, this series is a powerful resource that'll help you find the direction you're looking for. From the first step to a new normal, Breakthrough is a life changing series not to be19:43 missed. Now to get all the messages and really dig in, there are both audio and video options for you, including online streaming with a study guide. For previews and ordering details, check out Breakthrough at19:55 livingontheedge dot org, special offers on the Chip Ingram app, or give us a call at triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3. That's triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3.20:07 Well, now here's Chip.20:09 I'll be right back in just a minute, but I want you to know that breakthroughs don't just happen, and there's a few tools that have been absolutely critical, at least in my own personal life and in the lives of20:21 people I know, for breakthroughs. 1 of those for me is having a reference point, understanding what is God doing in my life, being able to look back and process things.20:33 It helps me abide in Christ. It helps me to get thoughts that are confusing out of my head, and it gets them very clear. And this tool is called a journal. And I don't know for some people it's like, oh, a20:44 journal. I have I don't wanna keep a diary or write my whole day. No. No. No. No. A journal has many purposes, but what I want you to know is that it allows you to jot down just a few thoughts. This is where God20:56 spoke to me, or this is what I'm going to do application, or writing a very specific prayer request, or writing down this is what God is speaking to me about,21:08 and you don't want to forget that. As I've kept journals, what I want you to know is that when I get deeply discouraged, I go back and I read them and I see the hand of God and the work of God. And so at Living on21:20 the Edge, our creative team has put together a really beautiful journal, and they have a little portion there where I talk about how I do it, and then there's lyrics and inspirational words from historic Christian21:32 figures, and and maybe a lyric from a hymn, and so it's it's done in such a way that keeps you moving along, and there's plenty of room for you to write, and then at the very end, it has a place for very21:43 specific prayer requests and prayer answers. What I want you to know is that if you don't have some discipline where you can know this is where I'm at, this is what God is doing in21:55 my life, and this is where I'm headed, if there's not a place that you can document those things, you will lose perspective. We would love to help you, and Dave's gonna tell you how you can get this beautiful 200 page22:07 journal to help you in your breakthrough.22:10 Well, it's easy to be excited about our new prayer journals because they're so well done. They're beautifully bound in a couple of different colors with embossed gold or silver trimmings, and inside it's even better.22:22 Chip's given you a few of his journaling tips. There's a dedication page if you want to send it as a gift, and there's tons of room for you to do your own personal journaling. For a limited time, our brand new prayer22:33 journals are discounted, so I hope you'll check them out today. You'll find all the details at livingontheedge dot org. App listeners will find them when you tap special offers. And for more information, just22:44 give us a call at triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3. Well, now here's Chip with a final thought.22:52 As we close today's program, here's what I know. Everybody wants and needs a breakthrough in some area of their life. And so here's what I want you to do. I want you to just think in your mind23:04 and your heart, what do you long to see God do in your life? I mean, of the status quo, the way it's always been, certain things that you've accepted, they're just going23:15 to be the way they're going to be. What 1 area, if God would choose to pour out supernatural, dynamic power that would literally23:27 change things, impossible things, what would that 1 thing be? And all I want you to do today is to identify it. And then I want you to sort of in your mind's eye bring it to God and23:39 say, Lord, maybe I don't even have enough faith to believe that you could act in this area, but I wanna go on this journey, and I'm gonna ask you, would you increase my faith? And then let me encourage you, be with23:51 us for our next broadcast, and if you happen to miss, get online and and stay with me this whole series. I think God's gonna do something special in your life.24:00 As we wrap up today's program, just a quick but important thought. Living on the edge depends on listeners like you to help us continue programming right here in your area. And would you consider partnering with us on a24:11 monthly basis so people around you will continue to benefit from the ministry of Chip and Living on the Edge? Now to set up a recurring donation, call us at triple 8 3 3 3 6 0 0 3.24:23 Tap the donate button or go to livingonthedge dot org. And thanks in advance for doing whatever God leads you to do. We'll be with us again next time when Chip continues his series breakthrough. Until24:35 then, for everyone here, this is Dave Drewey saying thanks for listening to this edition of Living on the Edge.
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