Break Through The Noise – Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts
Break Through The Noise
We live in a loud world. It’s easy to get caught up in the chaos. When your life is in the whirlwind of noise, pause and breathe to find those moments of peace. This is when you can listen for what God has planned — a word meant just for you in the very moment you’re in right now. Allow His message to reach you through all the noise. It might not make sense right now, but it doesn’t have to. Trust that God will work the things into your life that you need in this season. But first you have to listen.
Dear Lord,
Today…….I am asking all my prayer warriors to say a prayer that may help others. So many people are hurting right now. Many are struggling with finances and need jobs. Some are facing foreclosure and don’t even know how they are going to make it from week to week.. Many are lonely. . Many are heartbroken. . Many are facing sickness and health is fading. . Some are dealing with difficult family members. Many have lost HOPE.. Tonight, let us put our prayers and faith together decree and declare breakthrough over our families. Financial miracles WILL take place. Jobs WILL be found. Our Bodies WILL be made whole & sickness WILL flee. Marriages and relationships WILL be restored. Family members WILL find Jesus. Heartbreaks WILL be healed. JOY WILL be restored and HOPE WILL be found. In Jesus Name. Amen!!!!!! Keep God First…….
I pray will add value to what God’s doing at this season of your life.
I am in X nine verse 10 through 18.
My subject is break through the noise, break through the noise.
And uh this point in the text, those of you who are familiar with Saul and the road to Damascus and the encounter that happens there.
This is just after that for those of you unfamiliar, I’m gonna just give you the cliff notes version.
There is an uh how can we describe him?
Saul is a very devout Jew and at the time that those followers of the way those who had been converted into believing that Jesus was the Messiah began to really convert more and more people, the devout Jew that was Saul of Tarsus made it his mission as a part of being a devout Jew to stop the spread as much as possible.
And so anyone who was converted or any disciple who was preaching that Jesus is Lord Jesus is the messiah.
He would literally kill them, bind them, do whatever was necessary to keep them from spreading the gospel and while he is on the road to Damascus looking for more followers of the way because they weren’t called Christians, then they were followers of the way when they were looking for, he was looking for more people to persecute he has an encounter with the Lord that literally stops him right in the tracks and he could no longer deny that Jesus was Lord.
And so everything that he was doing came to a complete halt.
And so after he has this encounter, there are scale over his eyes and he is blind and still the Lord says, continue on to Damascus even though you don’t know what your assignment will be.
Go there, someone’s coming. The plan that the Lord has for him is gonna be brought to fruition through a man named Ananias.
Ananias is a disciple who was in Damascus. He’s literally the target of Saul’s assault.
And the Lord asked him to go and have a confrontation or what he perceived as a confrontation with Saul because Ananias does not yet know that he has been converted.
We enter into this conversation when Ananias is going to receive his assignment as it relates to what God is doing in the life of Saul.
And verse 10 begins, it says, now there was a certain disciple at Damascus named Ananias.
And to him, the Lord said in a vision, Ananias and he said, here I am Lord.
So the Lord said to him a rise and go to the street called Straight and enquire at the house of Judas for one called Saul of Tarsus.
For behold, he is praying and then a vision he has seen a man named Ananias coming in and putting his hand on him so that he might receive his sight.
Then Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man how much harm he has done to your saints in Jerusalem.
And here he has authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name.
But the Lord said to him, go for he is a chosen vessel of mine to bear my name before Gentiles, kings and the Children of Israel.
For I will show him how many things he must suffer for my namesake.
And Ananias went his way and entered the house and laying his hands on him.
He said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road as you came has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Immediately there fell from his eyes, something like scales and he received his sight at once and he arose and was baptized spirit of the living God.
I thank you God for this opportunity to be in your presence and to serve these your incredible people.
God may the words of my lips and the meditation of my heart be pleasing and acceptable to you God.
I thank you that in this moment that you were going to allow us to receive prophecy, wisdom and encounter like no other.
And so God, I pray that you would allow me to flow in this word with ease and that you would allow this word to flow into the areas where they need it the most with ease that there would be no distraction, no worry, just an encounter with you and you alone take this word as only you can do and crafted to meet us in our own unique way.
I thank you God that you have great plans for these, your people and that this will be a moment of positioning and transformation.
Breathe in this room. Great God that you are let your glory fall.
And may we not miss the moment where you call us higher in Jesus name? Amen. Amen. Family.
I have to tell you um this Bible is one of my most prized possessions.
And uh yes, I, I wanted to say that um although I knew that most people would think because it’s just the Bible.
That is my prized possession. But I have to be honest with you that it is really the story of how I got the Bible that make most prized possession that I own.
So I won this Bible October 31st, 1996. I won it in children’s church at a spelling bee.
Yes, ma’am. Thank you so much, Michael Mike is already Amen. OK. We’re gonna try this.
I won it in October 31st, 1996 in children’s church at a spelling bee.
And I have to tell you as a preacher’s kid who grew up in church when you read, when you win a Bible at children’s church.
It’s not like, I don’t know if there’s any children’s ministry people in here, but I just want you to know specifically for the P K S specifically when y’all give us the Bible, it’s like, oh, more word.
That’s because I’m Monday through Sunday, I’m up here and this is exactly what I need.
And I don’t know what I did with this Bible.
I uh probably put it somewhere and um, I never, I had never seen it honestly, I, I won it in 96 I just never saw it again.
I’m like, the last thing I’m gonna need is to ever figure out where a Bible is in my household.
They got them everywhere. Uh Thank you or she understands.
And when you come, see, now everybody’s got uh Bibles on their phones.
But when we were coming to church, if you didn’t have a Bible, they give you one.
They said if you don’t have a Bible, raise your hand, we’ll pass one to you.
I’m not gonna never need a Bible. Like I love the Lord.
He’s been good to me, but I just figured like a karaoke machine, some lip gloss, something like that would have been something I would have never won where, you know, some mascara.
And so I just put the Bible up. Wasn’t until man 2013 when I found this Bible.
It’s really in my estimation, a miracle that I found this Bible.
But I think it was what was happening in my life at the time that made this Bible discovery so important to me.
In 2013, I had just gone through a divorce and moved back home to my parents house with now my two Children and I was going through some boxes in my parents garage and I see this Bible and I just figured it’s just another one of these random Bibles that were laying around my parents house.
And I opened the Bible up and they are written by sister Cheryl Tiner who’s from West Virginia was written to Sarah Jakes Vacation Bible school spelling bee first place.
And I think it meant so much to me that I found it at that stage in my life because I wasn’t exactly sure that God had a plan for my life anymore.
By this time when I found it, I was already breaking all the church rules.
I was doing all of the things that they said you can’t do and still experience the presence of God.
I figured that I was just one of those ones who would be discarded.
And right in this moment where it felt like I was at my breaking point. It’s like this Bible.
It’s like goodness and mercy was following me all the days of my life.
I wasn’t even looking for this Bible.
I wasn’t sure God had anything to say to me, but this Bible that had survived move after move.
And the disconnect after the disconnect, this Bible was like, I’m still here, I’m still available.
I’m still open, I’m still ready whenever you’re ready. And let me tell you how good God is.
Is that he front loaded me with something before I knew that I would need it.
So that when it came to the point where I actually needed it, that Bible was already there waiting for me.
See, most of us are waiting for God to bring something to us.
And God is mostly saying to us, I wish you would discover that I already front loaded this moment with what you needed for your breakthrough.
You don’t need anything to come for your breakthrough.
You just need to take better inventory of what’s already in your world because what’s in your world has the key to the breakthrough that you’re looking for.
Stop looking around you and stop looking at what’s in you. The breakthrough is already there.
And so what most people call the breaking point is what I actually call the listening point.
Because when you’re at your breaking point, a lot of people think that that is the moment where everything shifts.
That’s not necessarily the moment some people go through a breaking point and they stay shattered.
Some people go through a breaking point and they never pick their pieces back up again or they only pick up the pieces that they can bear to look at because everything else has so much shame connected to it.
But something powerful occurs when you see your breaking point as your listening point, that breaking point that becomes a listening point is actually where God begins to download his perspective, His wisdom, his vision for what can happen, happen from here.
Some of us need our breaking point because it actually gets us to our listening point.
I’m reminded of Hannah in the Bible who kept getting provoked over and over again by a woman who could bear Children even though she couldn’t.
And the woman kept provoking her and making her feel insecure until all of a sudden she got up from the table and it looked like maybe she had reached her breaking point.
But in said, she went to the temple because she understood that if I am at my breaking point, I have one or two options.
I can let this thing win or I could get into the presence of God and say God, I need you to speak a word to me at this breaking point that changes the way I see everything that’s happening in my life.
I’m thinking about Jacob who started wrestling with God and he said, I will not let you go until you bless me.
It looks like a breaking point from the outside looking in.
But it’s actually the moment in which I insist on hearing from God. It’s not my breaking point.
It’s my listening point. I don’t know who you are in this room, but you feel like life is trying to break you.
But I want you to understand life is just trying to get your attention because God’s trying to whisper something in your ear that can only be whispered.
If you break down, out of your ego and out of your pride and out of your shame and out of your insecurity, there is something that happens when we get desperate to hear from God.
And most of the time, it only happens in our breaking point.
And that transformation that takes place is when I say this breaking point cannot break what God put on the inside of me.
You start praying stuff like God.
If you’re really here, man, God, if you really see me, God, if you really got a plan for my life, I’m ready to listen.
I’m ready to listen. I’m ready to obey. I’m ready to grow. I’m ready to move past this point.
You can call it a breaking point. But I hear God saying that’s when the tomb becomes a womb.
That’s when the breaking becomes the blessing. That’s when what you went through becomes the weapon.
That’s when the breaking point builds you up, you looking at other people’s lives thinking that they were built into this moment.
No, baby, I wasn’t built into this moment. I was broken into this moment.
I got broke down and I started listening and any time I started building and it was off filter, I’d get broken down again so they God can show me what did I do wrong?
There’s something powerful about somebody who keeps listening even when I keep getting broken because I’m crazy enough to believe that if God allows it to break down, it’s because he wants me to rebuild it stronger than it was before.
Breaking is not the end. Breaking is the point of transformation.
Breaking is not the end. It is the point in which you must become an active participant in the blessing connected to your life.
It’s when you stop hustling and stop doing and stop creating and stop manipulating and stop hustling and stop talking about other people and stop gossiping.
I to gossip. But then I hit my breaking point and I realized hearing my story was more important than hearing somebody else’s story.
I used to talk behind people’s back until I realized I got a knife in my own back.
And because I got a knife in my own back, now I start listening for who I should be connected to and who I need to walk away from.
And it happened at the breaking point that became the listening point that changed the way that I see everything.
I’m listening again. I’m listening, I’m listening. I’m doing less talking so that I can do more listening.
I’m doing less celebrating so I could do more listening.
I’m doing less writing because I need to do some more listening. I know you’re used to counting on me.
But right now I’m in my listening season.
This is, this is my listening season.
This isn’t my speaking season. This isn’t my being there for everyone else season.
This is my listening season because life is trying to break me and my back is against the wall.
But I also believe that God is trying to make me while life is trying to break me.
And if I don’t listen, life might win, I might allow the depression to be the end.
But if I listen, I believe that no weapon formed against me. Well, if I listen, I believe that though.
He slay me. That should I trust him? Listen by listening.
Yes, but just break through the noise.
If I just, I’m listening, I’m listening because my family’s dependent on it.
I’m listening because I can’t break a generational curse, not by my, nor by power but by your spirit.
Lord, I can’t hear your spirit unless I get to my listening point.
I can’t talk and listen at the same time. Todd.
What are you same about this? What are you saying about my car?
What are you saying about my identity. What are you saying?
You think you came to be preached? And no, you came to listen.
We didn’t get dressed up to come to church so we could check it off our list.
Somebody’s in this room listening for something. I’m listening. Everybody else can come in here and be cute.
But I came in here because I got to hear from God. God. I need you to speak a word.
God. I need you to give me confirmation that I’m on the right track.
God, I need you to pull me back. God, I need you to change my position.
God, I don’t know how to raise this child. God, I don’t know how to build this business.
God, I don’t know how to be a partner. God, I don’t know how to be a grandchild.
What am I gonna do after retirement?
God, I need you to, I need direction.
Some of us start resenting the fact that we can’t move says you can’t move yet because you need to create space to listen, man and you can’t just put noise on top of noise.
One thing I love about God and sometimes he will break through the noise.
But then there are other moments where he will not compete with your pride.
I’m not gonna get in a screaming match with your plans.
So when you’re ready to listen, God says I’ve got something to say.
Yeah, man.
My favorite part of the message is when the silence hits the room because that’s when, you know, it just got personal for somebody.
That’s the moment when they realize that I’m getting what I came forward, the heart posture of a listener makes all the difference.
I often wondered to myself, why is it that though I was raised in church and raised here?
I mean, here right here where you stand in this church raised me?
Why did I still feel that distance from God?
Especially when we hear that scripture, that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God and surely the word of God was being preached here.
But then I realized that they’re using hearing in that context in the purest definition.
Really, it’s faith comes by listening and listening by the word of God.
That means that you can be immersed in a room where the word of God is being preached.
But if you are not postured to really come in as a listener, if you came in to judge whether or not something is really anointed, you came in to make commentary.
You’ll miss out on revelation. If you came in to make a judgment, you’ll miss out on revelation.
But when you came in and you say, I don’t really care who’s preaching.
I don’t really care who’s singing and I don’t really care what’s happening in the room.
All I know is that I came in to listen, I may get my word in the parking lot.
I may get my word when I go to the restroom.
But what I know is that my heart is gonna be positioned to listen.
I wanna hear what God is saying to me in this season.
And so if your prayer life is nothing but where you go, when you make requests and not the space where you are intentional about listening, you will think that God does not answer prayers where most of us have had to learn that God does answer prayers, but he doesn’t talk on top of us.
God answered my prayers when I stopped talking over him, God answered my prayers when I stopped insisting that it had to be my way.
God started answering my prayers when I started silencing the voices of everyone else and who they thought I should be and what they thought I should do.
That’s when I cleared. When I broke through the noise, when I turned the volume down on them and created a space where I said God, if you wanna speak to me, if I’m li I’m listening.
If you wanna speak a word here I am.
You got to create space in your prayer life for God to talk back to you where you can receive God’s vision, God’s wisdom, God’s heart posture towards the situation.
At the end of the day, Jesus said, nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done, period, which means that from here, God, whatever you tell me to do, I’m listening, I’m listening, I’m listening.
The steps between watching and doing is listening.
I’ll prove it to you.
In acts one, Jesus gives the disciples the great commission.
He tells them to go into all of the earth, to Judea, to into all of the earth and spread the gospel.
And right when I’m sure they were ready to take off and do exactly what Jesus told them to do.
He says, but don’t go yet. You’ve watched me now, I’ve told you what you can do.
But the in between stage between watching and doing requires that you wait for the promise of the Lord.
And so he sends the disciples into a waiting posture, but he doesn’t tell them exactly what they’re waiting for.
He doesn’t tell them to wait until the angels come, wait until someone else.
He doesn’t give them specifics on what they’re waiting for.
They just, he just says, wait for the promises of the Lord.
So they stay in the upper room and they’re praying and they’re waiting and they’re listening, they’re listening for the moment where the promise of the father is revealed.
And what I loved about when the disciples are in the upper room and they’re waiting for the promise of the Lord to be revealed is that they had to be sensitive enough to listen for something that could only sound like God.
Mhm That’s why the Bible really will always be relevant because it is the only full book that gives us insight into the heart posture of God.
When we see the way God has shown up in the lives of other people throughout history, literally thousands and thousands of years ago.
And we realize that he is the same yesterday today and forever more.
I recognize that when that same heart is turned towards me, I can expect the same level of covering, I can expect the same level of results.
I can expect the same level of strength.
I can expect the same level of pieces, the same today today and forever more.
That’s why a shepherd boy thought he could take on Goliath.
And you think you could take down the criminal justice system.
It’s the same God that whispered in his ear that is telling you couldn’t break that generational curse.
It is the same God that rose Jesus from the dead that says I can raise you up out of the death of what you’re going through.
I can raise that child up out of the death of what they’re going through. That same God.
And so they’re waiting in the upper room for the promises of the Lord to be revealed and they’re waiting for that moment and they knew that moment had come because there came a sound like a mighty rushing wind.
It was a sound that broke through the atmosphere. It was a sound.
They knew it was God because the sound disrupted the atmosphere.
That’s how, you know, it’s God because when God sends you a word, it disrupts the atmosphere.
They were waiting in the upper room and they were listening for something.
They didn’t know what they were listening for, but they knew that it was the moment that they were waiting for because it disrupted their atmosphere.
You see, there’s gonna come a moment at some point in this service where somebody gets a breakthrough and it’ll be because they receive the sound that disrupted the atmosphere.
I was feeling depressed and hazy. But all of a sudden there was one word that disrupted the atmosphere.
You wanna talk about disruptive thinking, that disruptive thinking started with God, the disruptive thinking that said, I know what the enemy is trying to do in the world.
But because I will not let the enemy have the say the final say, I’m gonna disrupt the atmosphere of doubt.
I’m gonna disrupt the atmosphere of anger. I’m gonna disrupt the atmosphere of pride.
And when I disrupt the atmosphere, you’ll know it’s me because all of a sudden you will receive power when the atmosphere is disrupted.
I don’t know whose word this is, but I feel like the wind is about to blow in this place.
I feel like God is about to release a sound in this room that disrupts the atmosphere that has been disrupting your peace, that disrupts the atmosphere that has been disrupting your confidence that disrupts the atmosphere that has been disrupting your ability to move in the things of God.
And I hear God saying I need you to listen for the sound because all of a sudden there’s gonna be a sound like a mighty rushing wind and it’s gonna change everything that you’ve been thinking.
You better listen for it. You better listen for it.
If you’re listening to the rumors, you may miss the sound.
If you’re listening to the she say she say you may miss the sound.
If you’re listening to the news, you may miss the sound.
If you’re listening to your past, you may miss the sound.
But I dare you to get quiet enough to listen for a sound that disrupts the atmosphere.
All of a sudden, I couldn’t pray the way that I was praying because there was a sound like a mighty Russian wind.
And all of a sudden I felt power and all of the sudden, I felt strength and all of a sudden, I felt vision all of a sudden, I didn’t care that there was a target on my back because I knew there were angels backing me up.
All of a sudden nervous, didn’t matter.
All of a sudden shame didn’t matter because I got a word that disrupted the atmosphere. You’re right.
I shouldn’t be up here preaching but the sound disrupted your opinion. The sound disrupted my fear.
The sound disrupted my anxiety. The sound disrupts shake it up, shake it up, shake it up, shake it up, shake it up, shake it up, shake it up, shake it up, shake it up.
You better watch who you’re sitting next to because if they mess around and release a sound, it may disrupt your atmosphere.
You might get a breakthrough because of who you’re sitting next to.
You better watch out when you get to sit next to me because I’m listening for something and you’ll know when it hit me because I’m gonna praise God for the generations that God saved because I got disrupted the sound.
The sound changes everything, the sound changes everything. That’s why the enemy wants you to not release your sound.
Because if you don’t release your sound, then you cannot get breakthrough.
If you don’t release your sound, then the devil might have your mouth.
But the power of life and death is in the tongue. You worried about speaking death.
God says, who gonna speak life in this? Who’s gonna speak life in this situation?
Who gonna speak life in the middle of what’s taking place?
It’s gonna be, it’s gonna be me. I’ll release the sound.
If I’m the only one who doesn’t, I’ll release the sound, I’ll release the sound of victory.
I’ll release the sound of breakthrough. I’ll release the sound of healing.
I’ll release the sound of power for the next generation. Need nobody else to do it.
Me and my sound aren’t enough but one could chase 1000, 2 of us could chase 10,000.
Do I have anybody in this room who doesn’t mind releasing a sound?
The sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound that says, I’m not in it by myself.
The sound that says God’s got my back. The sound that says, no weapon formed against me won’t prosper.
The sound that says I’m gonna worship anyway. The sound that says, I will believe the report of the Lord.
The sound that says cancer cannot have the final say the sound that says I’ll go into territory where they’re not used to seeing people like me.
But the sounds hit me. The sound sent me. How did you get here?
The sound sent me. How did you write it? The sound sent me. How did you do it?
The sound sent me the sound sent me the sound. That’s why I’m here. The sound kept chasing me down.
The sound did it for me.
I didn’t study the sounds at me.
I didn’t hustle the sound sent me.
I shouldn’t even have this idea but the sound gave it to me. I shouldn’t even be talking like this.
But the sound did something for me. I ought to be quiet. I ought to be in jail.
I ought to be in my grave. But the sound wouldn’t leave me alone.
Everywhere I went, the sound was chasing me everywhere. I heard the sound.
The sound, the sound, the sound, the sound, the sound that says, I am the redeemed of the Lord.
The sound that says the sound, the sound said I could still use you.
The sound said I’m not finished with you. The sound says you carry breakthrough. The sound says you’re still anointed.
The sound said if you get your life together, I could turn this world outside town. That sounds sad.
You’re not damn good. The signs sad. But I still got power. The sound sad. There could be fire.
Shut up in your mouth. The sound setting the sound said it’s time to grow up.
The sound said it’s time to start listening. The sound said it’s time to start building the sound set.
It’s time to get my head right.
The sounds that it’s time for me to start acting like what I went through is not what I’m still going through and I’ve been walking around ashamed and not proud.
But I hear God saying that it’s time for you to break out of who you’re used to be because this sounds got something for you to do.
Sound, sound, sound sound.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Release your sound. Release yourself. Shake a third, shake up your family. Shake up your fear.
I’ve been, I’ve been down too long.
I’ve been quiet too long.
This same had me for too long and this next half of the year is about to be the year where you don’t just see me.
You’re gonna have to hear me.
I’m sorry.
Get nervous. I just think Helen’s getting nervous.
I just think we about to have a party in here. Think we’re about to drag somebody.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
But I’ve been holding it in. I’m sorry. But the depression was pressing down my sound.
I’m sorry, I’m trying to move on in the sermon.
But I feel like somebody could do more with the sound than I could do with a word.
I feel like somebody could do more with a that I can do with them.
No.
Yeah. Hallelujah.
Hallelujah is a sound God. I trust you as a sound.
God, I hear you as a sound. God, I’ll obey you is a sound. God.
I changed my life for you. I lay it all down for you as a sound.
Have your way as a sound.
They came a sound like the mighty rushing wind that sound like a rest.
Rest and the sound allow them to release their sound.
That sound gave them power to release their sound.
You were not designed to stay in the waiting season waiting silently.
You were supposed to move when the sound came.
And the truth is that sometimes we move a little when the sound comes, but there comes a moment where the Lord requires more and when the Lord requires more from us, when we’re already outside of our comfort zone, outside of where we thought we should be, I’m already moved.
I moved when you told me to move.
But then we find ourselves like Ananias who waited for the sound and moved according to the sound.
But now the Lord is asking for more.
I need more from you.
We make obedience sound so easy.
But I would like to be obedient one time and like that be enough.
But your obedience builds a relationship with God.
And if you could be obedient with that, then maybe I could trust you with more.
But you gotta re up again on the courage required to be obedient to the next thing.
That’s why you don’t feel qualified even though you’ve already accomplished something that required faith.
It’s because this time, it is requiring even more faith this time, it is requiring you to do something that you didn’t even think you would have to do this time.
God says I need a little more and the Lord comes to us in a vision and he says to, I need you to go to Saul of Tarsus.
I need you to go into a threatening environment.
See, it’s weird because we know the end from the beginning because we’ve heard this so many times and we know that Saul is gonna end up being an incredible warrior for the Lord.
He’s gonna be a general in the kingdom, but Ananias doesn’t know this in the moment, in the moment, the Lord is asking him to go into something that looks like a threat and I was moving undercover.
But now you’re asking me to do something that’s gonna blow my cover.
It’s gonna blow my cover.
I’m not gonna be the quiet one anymore. I’m not gonna be just the minister anymore.
They’re gonna find out that I have depth and layers and dimensions to me, it’s gonna blow my cover.
I’m gonna have to start doing things that I didn’t even know that people know what’s possible to, to let happen through me.
But because God, you’re asking me for more, you’re asking me to expose myself in a way that I’ve never been exposed before.
And now all I hear is noise.
Every time I get ready to expose myself, I hear the possibility of failure.
I hear the possibility of not being qualified.
I hear the possibility of this thing quite actually wiping me out, taking away the wholeness.
I worked hard for taking away the healing that I worked hard for. God.
How could you ask me for something that would put me in a threat?
How could you ask me for something that would threaten? The very thing that I’ve been working for?
No, all I hear is noise.
Mhm And the Lord says to him because he was willing to admit where he was stuck because he was willing to say this is where I’m hung up.
This is where I don’t see you using me. This is why I don’t think it’s possible.
The Lord gave him insights. I think a lot of us make a mistake when we disagree with the path that God has for us by going silent and no longer listening.
But he stayed in the tension of the Lord’s request and his fear, the Lord’s request and his inadequacy.
And the Lord gives him a perspective on what he’s doing that no one else is going to understand until it unfolds God.
I wish I could say this.
There are mysteries that God has and it is to the glory of kings to search them out.
And Ananias is standing in this moment where God is asking him to do something mysterious and instead of going silent and saying, get somebody else to do it instead of going silent and saying, I think you picked the wrong person.
He was brave enough to look for the mystery.
Do you know that God wants to tell you the full plan?
God doesn’t wanna leave you blind. God doesn’t wanna leave you in a position that’s gonna threaten your well being.
God says, if you tell me where you’re stuck, I’ll tell you what your plan is and this is New Testament.
But even in the Old Testament where Moses said, I don’t know how you’re gonna use me.
God kept explaining to him. We make it seem like God just gonna do whatever God’s do and I either say yes or I’ll walk into it blindly.
We do not serve a God who wants to leave you blind.
We serve a God who wants to position you to listen. If you could open your heart.
God says, I’ll tell you that I’m gonna stick it out with you.
I’ll tell you why I had to allow that to happen. I’ll tell you what’s gonna happen to them.
Have you ever been praying that something bad would happen to your enemy?
And God says, I’m gonna do one better.
I’m gonna restore them in such a way that they take accountability for what happened.
So don’t let your heart become like theirs, wishing them bad.
Just trust that if I allowed it to happen, it’s because I could bring you both to a place of restoration.
But we don’t wanna listen for that.
We only wanna listen for what will make us feel better but is not married to things coming out the way that he thinks that they should.
He listens for what the Lord has to say.
What I found so powerful.
I’m almost finished about this moment as an as though he had already departed and began the journey of spreading the gospel is that he stayed within earshot so that the Lord could always have access to Him, family.
We have a responsibility and walking out the purpose that God lays ahead of us.
It is not to get so caught up that we think that we have the final total plan that we miss out on when God unfolds another layer of the plan.
That means I gotta have one hand on the plow, but the other ear connected to what God may have for me to do next.
That means yes, I’m gonna work what is in front of me, but I’m gonna work it with the knowledge that at any given moment, God could change, change the plan.
And if God changes the plan, I wanna make sure that I’m on the right side of the plan because I don’t wanna be working off of an old sound when God could be giving out something new every day.
This is exactly what happens with. Saul. Saul is working off of an old sound.
Saul was not always a bad guy.
There was a time when he was a devout Jew on the right side of what was happening.
But then when the Lord released a new sound, he was so carried away with what God did that.
He missed what God was doing.
Now, that means that you gotta stay connected to who God is in this very moment and not who God was in the last moment because God may have a different purpose for, for you now than he had back then.
And so you gotta stay within earshot constantly asking God what is it that you need from me?
Now, how can I serve what you’re doing in the earth? Now, Saul found himself on the wrong side.
Of what God was doing. But he sends Ananias to break through the noise.
The whole reason why I chose this message.
This set, this text is because between verse 10 and 18, we see something powerful happen.
We see the Lord come to Ananias in a vision.
We see Ananias express his fear with the vision and then we see him then transform into someone who backs what God is doing.
I chose this text and I wish I could explain it in a way that was in sequence.
But the Lord got ahead of us. And so I guess this is how I’m supposed to explain it.
The um time had come for the Lord to amplify the vision and accelerate the pace of the gospel spreading.
And because it was time for the vision to be amplified, for that sound to be amplified.
He chose saul the least likely person because the least likely person always amplifies the loudest.
I’m saving the least likely person always makes the most noise.
So when we’re worshiping and somebody gets loud, you think they’re just loud, acting a fool, they’re not just acting a fool.
They are the least likely person who should have a praise. The least likely always makes the most noise.
And when God gets ready to amplify something in the world, he will always use the least likely person because the least likely person leaves no doubt, except for God must have been with them except for God must have touched them, except for God must have transformed them.
So if you let the least likely disqualify you, you’ll miss that.
The least likely is actually the way God wants to use you because he can amplify from the least likely.
And when, when the Lord lets know I am using the least likely because the least likely is gonna make the most noise for my glory.
The mission becomes more important to him than the threat. Oh God, help me.
I’m closing, I’m closing, Anna doesn’t go. Ok.
Now I trust him and we can be best friends and Anias is so committed to the mission of what God wants to do in the earth that he obeys what God says needs to happen.
Not because he trusts him, not because he has confidence in who Saul is, but because He trusts God more than He trusts whatever could happen if He moves in obedience.
I wish if I say that the right way, it’s gonna give you some breakthrough about going in the spaces where you don’t trust people and going in the spaces where they may talk, talk about you, baby.
If God sent you into that room, it’s not so that you can make friends with who’s in that room.
If you are the path to the mission, then baby, I’m gonna walk right through there because the mission is more important to me than anything.
You have to say the mission is more important to me. I don’t trust you. I trust God.
I don’t trust them. I trust God. I trust where God sent me.
I trust where God wants to use me. We don’t have to get along. I’m where God sent me.
We don’t have to get it all friendly. I trust where God sent me. God sent me here.
Little does know that God had neutralized the threat before he got there.
I want this to be the final word to somebody before I go.
I don’t know where God is calling your feet. I don’t know where God is calling you to move forward.
But I want you to know that you’re afraid of a threat that does not exist.
You’re afraid of a threat that the Lord has already neutralized.
So you may go afraid, but I’m letting you know that your fear is gonna be your audience.
Because when God gets finished showing you that I already prepared the room before you got there, I already prepared the heart before you walked into it.
I neutralized the threat. So all you have to do is say yes, because they’re ready to receive you.
They’re ready for you to release you. They’re ready for your gift. They’re ready for your sound.
They’re listening for you. Oh God, I feel like preaching in this place because I just got a revelation that while Ananias was listening for God, that God had position saul in the room to listen for Ananias.
That means as much as I need to listen for God, that there’s somebody in a room right now waiting for your sound to hit the room.
I’m waiting for the sound of your footsteps. I’m waiting for the sound of your music.
I’m waiting for the sound of your idea. I’m waiting for the sound of your vision.
I’m waiting for the sound of the way you practice. I’m waiting for the sound of the way you minister.
I’m waiting for your sound. I’m waiting for your sound.
So when you get your sound, it breaks through the noise because I’ve been waiting on you.
I don’t know who you are, but I hear God saying that they’ve been waiting for your sound and if you stay here, then they may stay blind.
But if you go and release your sound, somebody’s eyes will be open. Somebody will be healed.
Somebody will be delivered. Somebody will be as saless. Somebody will experience breakthrough.
Somebody may recover cancer may get a of somebody, depression may go your sound.
So is waiting for the footsteps of Anna to hit the room.
He’s waiting for him to come. He’s waiting for him to get the revelation.
I don’t know who you are but I hear God saying they’re waiting for you.
I don’t know who you are.
Oh God, I see somebody stepping down to the altar not realizing that every time you take a step that you release a sound that says I’m out of this situation.
I’m coming for everything God has. For me. Your footsteps make a sound.
Every morning you wake up, hell gets nervous because the moment your feet hit the ground, I hear the sound of somebody I could not keep down.
I hear the sound of somebody who took a licking and kept on taking.
I hear the sound of somebody who says my bad days shall be greater than my former days.
So I woke up this morning, I woke up this morning to release a sound.
It’s not just walking. It’s releasing a sound. It’s not just talking, it’s releasing a sound.
It’s not just writing, it’s releasing a sound, it’s releasing a sound that somebody’s waiting for.
It’s not just creating, it’s releasing a sound, it’s not just a business, it’s a sound.
If it’s not a sound, I don’t want it. Anybody can make noise. I’m trying to make a sound.
I’m trying to make a sound that shakes things up.
I’m trying to make a sound that establishes a new normal and the sound that God gives will always break through the noise.
So committed is so trusting is Ananias that when he finally walks in the room and see Saul, he calls him brother in one text.
He thought Ananias might kill me, might bind me up just a few scriptures down.
Now he’s calling him brother because he is so convinced of who he is because of what God said that he was able to walk in it with full confidence and trust.
I wanna talk to somebody who’s been half stepping.
I’m in it a little bit, but I’m also afraid, I mean, it a little bit, but I won’t be bound.
So I’m not giving it my all.
You gotta qualify this thing is this where God told you you’re supposed to be and only you can listen for that.
I’m not trying to manipulate you into being where you’re not supposed to be.
My job is to only tell you this if your feet are planted where God told you to be, even if the environment looks like it could pose a threat.
I am telling you that if God allowed you to be there, the only way that you can get everything that you need from it as if you go all the way in and Anna calls him brother, you’re my brother now because you’re in the mission and because he is his brother, he does more than what the Lord asks him to do.
The Lord said just touch him that he may receive his sight, but he touches him and he fills him with the Holy Spirit.
You can only do that if you bring the fullness of who you are.
He, he was so full of the Holy Spirit that it wasn’t just enough Holy Spirit to get him into the room.
He had enough holy spirit to allow it to overflow into this man too.
I wanna speak, overflow into somebody’s life that not only is God gonna send you in the room with enough spirit to open the door.
God says, I’m gonna send you into the room with enough spirit that where you start touching things, they get full of the Holy Spirit too.
I hear God saying you’re gonna change the atmosphere with your touch.
You’re gonna change the atmosphere with the fullness of who you are.
So don’t you dare shrink and don’t you dare allow yourself to have step into destiny, bring the full weight of who you are because the full weight of who you are is enough to fill the room and we, our room fillers.
I don’t care how big the room is, how experienced it is, how young it is, how innovative it is.
You are a room filler.
God says when I send you, I send you to fill the room.
I wanna pray with you.
Oh God, I want to pray for your sound.
- Unconditional Trust | Joel OsteenTháng năm 14, 2023