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 and 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 tignor 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 our 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 [Applause] 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 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 instead 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 Press 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 it 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 inside of me you start praying stuff like God if you really hear me 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 anytime I started building and it was office filter I'd get broken down again so that 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 is 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 used
to gossip but then I hit my breaking point and I realize 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 bed 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 what's
talking so that I can do more listening I'm doing less celebrating so I could do more listen and I'm doing less writing because I I need to do some more listen and 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 prank 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 the weapon formed against me will pass me if I listen I believe that though he save me that I trusted him in there listen [Music] but listen touch us touches break through the noise if I just I'm listening I'm listening cause my family's depending on it I'm listening because I can't break a generational curse not by might 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 God what are you saying about this what are you saying about my call what are you saying about my identity what are you saying you think you came to be preached at 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 that 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 going to do after retirement God I need you to I need direction some of us start resenting
the fact that we can't move but God says you can't move yet cause 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 sometimes he will break through the noise but then there are other moments where he will not compete with your pride I'm not going to get in a screaming match with your plans so when you're ready to listen God says I've got something to say [Music] 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 for 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's 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 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 going to be positioned to listen I want to 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 want to speak to me if I'm Liz I'm listening if you want to speak a word here I am you got to create space and 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 this 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 unless the steps between watching and doing is listening I'll prove it to you in Acts 1. Jesus gives the disciples the Great Commission he tells them to go into all of the Earth to Judea to submarine to 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 that 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 hmm 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 forevermore 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 PCS the same yesterday today and forevermore 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 going to come a moment at some point in this service where somebody gets breakthrough and it'll be because they received a sound that disrupted the atmosphere I was feeling depression hazy but all of a sudden there was one word that disrupted the atmosphere
you want to 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 to say the final say I'm going to disrupt the atmosphere of doubt I'm going to disrupt the atmosphere of anger I'm going to 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 going to be a sound like a mighty rushing wind and it's going to 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 he 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 pastor me miss the sound but I dare you to get quiet enough to listen for a around 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 sin 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 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 I'm sick of them you better watch who you're sitting next to because if they mess around and release a sound it makes 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 cause I'm listening for something and you'll know it and hit me cause I'm gonna praise God for the generations that got saved because I got disrupted [Music]
