Living on the Edge

Chip Ingram: What if normal life for you consisted of major breakthroughs in destructive habits and behaviors? I mean, what if victories over anger and greed occurred on a regular basis, and you begin to think, "Oh, this is normal. This is how God works"? If you long to see that happen in your life, stay with me.

Dave Druly: Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram continues our series, Experience Breakthrough. We've learned how to recognize barriers, develop courage, and start small. But here's the critical question: how do you sustain breakthrough so it becomes habitual rather than occasional?

Through the dramatic life of King David, we'll discover the answer. Today Chip reveals five specific practices that kept David experiencing breakthrough regularly. Here's Chip Ingram with his message, What's Next? Making Breakthrough Your New Normal.

Chip Ingram: Breakthrough. It's unleashing God's supernatural power into your impossible situation. And we said that's what God wants to do. It's been really interesting. I've gotten emails, conversations, breakthroughs, people's marriages coming back together, a business guy that started something at his company. I've been praying with a guy for about three years about a relationship that he has where, boom, God's working.

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 as followers now, "I expect you to do the impossible." He said to his disciples, "You feed the 5,000," 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 100% of the time to meet every need and help you in anything you need to do."

So the question that's come to me is, yes, 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. We're going to take a snapshot of a man's life who all through his life, God did the impossible through him. The Scripture says for that which was written in earlier times, speaking of the Old Testament, was written for our instruction, that through perseverance and encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.

So here's the message. I want you to picture this. We're going to take a snapshot of a breakthrough person in the Old Testament named David. He starts as a shepherd boy, becomes a king, and takes a nation to its pinnacle, passes it off to his son. And then what we're going to do is we're going to peek into his personal journal. We're going to get to hear what went on inside of his heart. What was the inside journey like? How was it that despite his ups and downs and struggles, God continued to do the impossible from the time he slayed a giant to the time that he raised millions and millions of dollars to build a temple for his great God?

With that, let's do a little overview of his life. Many of you will be pretty familiar, but some of us didn't grow up in church and never opened the Bible until we were adults. So first of all, David is an unlikely choice. The context is this: the nation has rejected God as their king. They said, "We want a king," so they chose their own king named Saul. Saul had a very good but brief start, and then he became proud, he became disobedient, and pretty soon God said, "I can't use him anymore."

And he said to his prophet Samuel, "I'm going to choose my king, and I want you to go to this house. The man's name Jesse. Get his family together, and I want you to go there, and I'll tell you which one will be the king." So Samuel goes and he has his boys line up—one, two, three, four, five, six—and the first one is strong, big, handsome, and Samuel goes, "This must be the one," and God said, "No, that's not the one. Don't look at the height of his stature or his appearance, because God doesn't see the way man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but God weighs the heart."

So each of the sons comes by, and God says, "No, no, no, no, no." And finally, Samuel says, "Do you have any other sons?" He goes, "Well, I've got one more, but he's the youngest, and by the way, this is the smallest tribe which is the most insignificant." So now he's going to choose the youngest son. I mean, he's not even important enough to make the meeting. He's out just tending the sheep. And Samuel says, "We're not moving on until he comes." So David comes and he takes a flask of oil and anoints.

And even the word our word Christ means the anointed one. It means chosen, and the anointing of God always has the power to do a great task for God. So he takes the most unlikely, the youngest, a teenage boy, and says he's going to be the king. And you ought to have your mind swirling in 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. 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 who is about nine feet tall. He's huge, and he comes out every day taunting the armies of God.

If you can picture this valley, on one side are 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. David is on an errand. His dad says, "I want you to take some grain and take some cheese and take it to your brothers. They're out on the front lines." He takes it, and as he gets there, this event happens before his eyes.

And he's naive and idealistic and he doesn't know much—kind of the kind of people that God tends to use. And he hears all this and in his mind and heart he's going, "How can these people stand around when the things they're saying against our great God?" And if you know the story, he ends up volunteering. He goes to the king, 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. So what we see is 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 sort of the good and then there's the bad and there's even some ugly.

The good is he's exalted after he kills Goliath. He has fame, he gets a 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.

The bad is that the king who's carnal gets jealous. Saul. There's betrayal, and then he's persecuted. He's running for his life for about a 10-year period. He's hiding in caves. He's separated from his family. The king gives his wife to some other guy. So one of the reasons I wanted to choose David is as I've prayed for you all and you give me emails and conversations, you take these steps of faith. Some of you have decided you're going to go to counseling, and others have flown across the country to apologize or make restitution with a parent. Multiple things are happening as you tell me you're taking steps of faith.

Here's my concern: sometimes we have this sort of American notion like once you do the right thing, then everything's going to be rosy and wonderful, right? You know, "I went to counseling." Well, actually, usually they dig up a bunch of junk before you get to the good stuff. And your mate often gets more mad at you and stuff comes to the surface. Believe me, I've been there and done that. And when you go apologize to someone and say, "I was in church and I was thinking or I was reading the Bible and God spoke to me and I just want to..." you're thinking to yourself, "I'm going to apologize for my 10%. I really think it was their 90%." And you own your 10% and they go, "Yeah, let me tell you about what..." and you're thinking, "Wait a second, God."

Or you decide you're going to go public at work and you get ridiculed. All I want you to know is when you take steps of faith and God's favor is poured out, it often gets more difficult before it gets better. And you need to understand is that that's when a lot of people bail out thinking, "Oh, I must have done the wrong thing." No, you didn't do the wrong thing. All God's impossible grace into difficult situations are in the context of a hostile environment, and it's very, very difficult, and part of his power and grace is enduring through him and watching him work.

So David, he's anointed king, but for 10 years he's dodging spears, running for his life, eating off the land, and then eventually becomes king. He sees God's favor. Tremendous things happen. He takes control over all militarily. 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.

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—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 was 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, when I read the Bible, one of the greatest testaments that it's 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 great 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 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 sort of tent that God is living in and they're worshiping in. 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, our father, forever and ever."

And then notice his perspective of 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. 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's 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."

Dave Druly: 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 livingontheedge.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 livingontheedge.org. Now let's continue with today's message.

Chip Ingram: So with that picture, I want to show you a portion of his journey. Because here's what I can tell you: God wants to do in you, in your home or with your roommate, in your neighborhood or apartment complex, in this city, in your job, what he did in and through David. He wants to manifest his power and his presence to heal, restore, and love and communicate to people how real he is and how much he loves them.

And the question we're going to ask and answer is 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 10 or 20 or 50 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 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. He can save this marriage. He can save this relationship. He can save this business. He can save me out of this addiction.

That's what David's saying. And therefore, whom shall I fear? He's bigger than that. 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 against him, 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. And he's declaring something. This is why God used David. He declared by faith, "The Lord is my light, the Lord is my stronghold, the Lord is my deliverer. I won't be afraid, I won't be afraid."

And then in your notes, I want you to put a little box around a few key words, because he's not doing this like writing a nice song. Put a box around the word "wicked," put a box around the word "enemies," put a box around the word "army," and put a box around the word "war." Wicked, enemies, army, war. Anybody have any enemies? Anybody feel like you're going against life and it's really hard? Anybody feel like there's foes, visible and invisible, in circumstances and finances and struggles?

What's he say? In fact, he starts with the wicked, then he goes to some enemies, and then it's like if a whole army—I mean a whole army—or if an entire war comes against me, what does he say? "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. That'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? He refused to let his fears determine his life. He just refused. My fear of people, my fear of work, my fear of stepping out, my fear of what other people think. He was confident not in his power. He was confident in God's. You might jot if you will, Hebrews 11:6. 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. Not theoretically; that he exists. He. Who's the he? The all-powerful, all-knowing, sovereign king, lover, just one of the universe who created all that there is. He exists. And then here's 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 worshiper. That's who he was. Number two: a passionate worshiper. 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's 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? It's like he's trying to find different words. At this point in Israel's history, they worshiped in the tabernacle. He says dwelling, sacred tent, sacred tent, temple. He takes three or four different words and says when I corporately come with God's people into the presence of God and he manifests his Shekinah glory and his power and his presence and his beauty, and when I'm up on the rooftop or when I'm meditating on my bed, or like I have this thirst like a deer panting for water when I long to hear God's voice and have him speak to me. He says that's the number one priority of my life.

His passion was for a person, not for prosperity. His number one passion was for God himself, not for what God could give him. And he arranged his time and he arranged his energy around pursuing God. And what he does, he praises him. He wants to behold his beauty. He wants to praise him. And for some of us, it's kind of like, "Boy, 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, praise was not a big part of my life. I interceded, I prayed, I thanked, but this idea of acknowledging who God is and worshiping for who he actually is, which enlarges your view. God says he inhabits the praises of his people.

And so a couple things happen. I keep mentioning this book because I've been reading it for over 30 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 begin to read about the attributes of God, I begin 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 worshiper. He was a passionate worshiper.

In fact, can I give you an example? If David was going to come to our services, he would have been here 5 to 7 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 where our behavior always tells you what you believe. So if you can come 10 minutes late or 15 minutes late or 8 minutes late and 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 weeks because I wanted to do this and I wanted to do this, but I watched it on the internet." I got news for you: you can get content; the presence of God does not 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, but 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's 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, I can't get it done, there's two issues I'm overwhelmed with, there's 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—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's stars. And this morning there was 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 old 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.

Dave Druly: David was a bold risk taker and a passionate worshiper, two qualities that kept him experiencing God's power regularly. We'll hear more from Chip in just a moment, so stick around. As you think about making breakthrough your new normal, I want to recommend a resource that can help establish those daily rhythms with God. It's Chip's free 10-day devotional, Psalms of Hope. The structure is simple: Chip teaches for 10 minutes each day from Psalm 1, Psalm 15, or Psalm 23—three psalms that shaped countless believers throughout history. Then you spend 10 minutes alone with God in prayer and meditation. Just 20 minutes daily for 10 days.

Today we studied Psalm 27, which reveals David's heart for worship and his bold trust in God. Psalms of Hope will take you deeper into that same transformative practice of meeting God through the psalms. Download it free on our website, livingontheedge.org. Search for Psalms of Hope and begin today. We can freely offer resources like this because friends like you support this ministry. If Living on the Edge has been helpful in your walk with God, would you consider supporting us? Your gift of any amount helps us continue reaching people with biblical teaching that transforms lives. We've made it easy to give online; just go to livingontheedge.org or write to us at Living on the Edge, PO Box 3007, Atlanta, Georgia, 30324. You can also call us and give over the phone; just dial 888-333-6003. And be sure to subscribe to the Living on the Edge podcast. It's available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all major podcast platforms. Once you're subscribed, you'll get each of these daily messages delivered right to your phone so you can listen wherever you are, whenever you want. Now here's Chip with today's talking point.

Chip Ingram: As we close today's program, the temptation with everything we've talked about in this series is to very unconsciously think, "Well, this is for someone else. I mean, it's, yeah, God does this in Scripture. He does it for someone who's smarter than me, more holy than me, knows the Bible more than me," etc., etc., etc. And the reason I walked through David's life is to remind you that David was an unlikely choice. To remind you that David's life after breakthrough was good, and then it was bad, and then there's danger, it got ugly. And then finally that there was recovery, and he left a legacy for us where God would look back on David's life and say, "Now there's a man after my own heart." And it wasn't because it was morally perfect for sure, and it wasn't because he had it all together. I want to remind you today breakthroughs, supernatural unleashing of God's power is for ordinary people. Would you be willing to trust and believe that it can happen in your life and say, "God, will you show me, and whatever you show me, I'll take the next step"? And if you do, God will work.

Dave Druly: Tomorrow we'll discuss three more practices that made David a breakthrough person. I'm Dave Druly. Join us Friday on Living on the Edge. Today's program is produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.