God of Breakthrough - Breakthrough Courage

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

So last week we talked about Whole Hard 45, and I kind of gave you a challenge to grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, physically, relationally with Whole Hard 45.

So many of you signed up for that and you're doing that, or you're going to start that.

Some people ask me, when do we start?

And my answer is just whenever it's best for you.

My book comes out on Sunday, so if you'd like to use that as your nonfiction read.

But I'll tell you this, I'll warn you, you will not be able to read just three pages.

You'll just be gripped.

Maybe.

Maybe that'll happen.

I don't know if that'll happen.

But that book was, and I'll share more next week, but that was a pro that's been a four-year process starting with COVID.

That the research involved in it and all.

So I'm excited about the content.

You know, Worshiper Warrior on David was more of a devotional on those 21 days.

This is more of kind of equipping.

So today, we're not going to get very far in this message.

I'm just going to warn you because it's just there's too much stuff for the road to hear in my heart.

And when I began to teach it in the first service, I realized that this is really two parts.

It's going to be today, and then it's going to be next Sunday.

Got a breakthrough.

Some of you really need a breakthrough.

You need a breakthrough in 2025.

How many would say you need a breakthrough in 2025?

Yeah.

So I need a breakthrough in some areas in my life.

Matter of fact, I think doing like the push-ups that I'm talking about on the 21st is part of my journey for the need for breakthrough.

It may seem like it's physical, but it's more than that.

And there's so much to be said about the God of breakthrough, Baal Perazim.

And I'll talk about it.

I don't know if I'll get to it today, but I'm going to give you an introduction.

But we pick up a story of David.

So David's been on the run for 15 years.

King Saul has been right on his back everywhere he turned in the wilderness of Israel.

And he's in the wilderness and he's been with a group of men that were starting off at around 400, and it's become quite a fighting force.

And then Saul and his son Jonathan are killed in battle.

And so word comes to David that Saul has been killed in battle.

And so the tribe of Judah, which is David's tribe, comes together and anoints David king of Israel.

The problem is it's a divided kingdom because Abner, who is the military commander of Saul, goes and finds Ishbazath, the fourth son of Saul, and makes him king.

So it's a divided kingdom.

You got Judah and the rest of Israel.

For the next seven and a half years, David makes Hebron his capital or his operation center, Hebron, which is in the tribe of Judah, and Ishbazeth is in his domain, then he's murdered.

So word comes that he's been murdered, and so Israel comes together, they anoint David king.

So after all these years, seven and a half years, the the kingdom of Israel is united.

Well, at the anointing of David, we're gonna see what the enemy does.

So turn in your Bibles to 2 Samuel chapter 5.

2 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

2 Samuel chapter 5.

2 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

Now in 2 Samuel chapter 5, one of the first acts of David is he decides to take Jerusalem.

2 Samuel 5 · chapter mention

Now it's it's not really Jerusalem yet.

It's Zion.

It's what David calls the city of David.

And it's on elevated ground.

Now listen, listen up, this is important.

The Jebusites have controlled that high ground of Zion, or what we call today Jerusalem, for 350 years, since the time of Joshua.

They've controlled that area.

So they're shocked.

They're shocked that David, as he unites, would attack this high ground where he is at a huge disadvantage.

And yet they take it, and after they take it, David begins to build his palace or his house, the house of David, literal house.

And Hiram of Tyre, who's a friend of David's, sends him cedar wood, sends him carpenters and masons to help him build his house.

For the first time in David's life, he's 30 years old, he's secure.

You probably remember in your life, going from high school, maybe you went to college, maybe you didn't go to college, maybe you started a business.

Maybe you began to start a family.

And it's really, really hard.

The finances aren't really there.

Maybe you can borrow a little here and there.

Maybe you can get a loan for a house, maybe you can't, but it's hard.

But there's something about the security that comes when you maybe have arrived a little bit, right?

Where you write, well, that's David.

David has arrived.

David is comfortable.

That's when the enemy goes to work.

The enemy goes to work when you're the most comfortable, not when you're the most vulnerable.

A lot of times, for some of you in this room, this is true of a lot of us, we're the most passionate for the Lord when we're the most needy.

But the real test of leadership is when you have received a victory, when you've gone through a really great time.

You got the promotion.

You, you, the baby came, you got married, you finally got her.

If you guys didn't feel that way, I feel sorry for you.

But I when I got when I got Liz, I was like, I got her.

I was like so happy, and actually, I'm still surprised I got her.

And it's all these years later.

But but that's when you're the most vulnerable because you're kind of on the mountaintop.

So that's David.

He set up.

Now, pick it up with me at verse 17.

So look at verse 17.

That's the picture I wanted to paint for you.

It says here, now when the Philistines heard.

The Philistines always represent the enemy in the Old Testament.

The Philistines always represent the demonic.

They're never good.

Even when David joins them, when he's running from Saul, it's not good.

That's actually a compromise in David's life when he did that.

But the Philistines, they are located way down in what we now call the Gaza Strip.

That's where they hung out.

That was their area.

So down on that southwestern part of Israel is where the Philistines were.

So they had, they're gonna work their way up through a trade route up toward Jerusalem to attack David because.

Why did they attack David?

Because he was anointed David.

He's the anointed king over Israel.

And all, not a few, but all the Philistines went up to search for David.

Stop there.

Men and women, you're all anointed by God.

Everybody that's given their heart to Christ is anointed by God.

You may not feel it sometimes, you may not know it, it may not be a part of your experience, but the reality is you have an anointing from the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords that's more powerful than anything David had.

We have Jesus.

So the anointing that we read about in the Old Testament was for kings, priests, and prophets.

Kings, priests, and prophets.

But in the New Dispensation with the resurrection of Jesus Christ, starting with Acts chapter 2, the falling of the Holy Spirit upon you happens when you believe in Jesus.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

You have everything.

You have the Savior, you have the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

You have the most forgotten, the most forgotten person of the Trinity.

The Holy Spirit.

It was Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

Men and women, you have received the anointing of the Holy Spirit.

You are a king and a priest.

1 Peter 2.9.

Write this down.

It's really important.

Write down 1 Peter 2.9.

And I would challenge you, and this year, you memorize this.

But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people.

You may have never been told that you were special, but Jesus declares you special that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

You were a Philistine.

You were a Philistine.

You were of the darkness.

And when you put your faith in Christ by faith alone, through grace alone, through the word of God alone, Spirit of God came into your life and you became a holy priesthood and a holy nation.

You went from Philistine to the true Israel.

Write down Revelation 1.6.

Revelation 1-6.

And he has made us kings and priest to his God and Father.

To him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever.

Amen.

So as John is writing the great book of Revelation, he wants us to understand, he's writing it to kings and priests.

That's the church.

We are kings and priests.

You have power and authority in the spiritual realm as kings and priests.

Men and women, you have a territory.

You have a domain that has been given to you through your job, through your marriage, through your singleness, through your family, through your house.

It's yours.

Given by God for you to have dominion over.

Don't allow the enemy in there.

Don't allow the enemy to mess with your head and to ruin your family.

Don't let the enemy come in and ruin your marriage.

You're going to have to fight, man.

That's what this message is about.

That's why I'm on the second page of 10 pages.

We're not even going to get close to it today.

We're going to finish it up next week, but I'm fascinated by this.

I'm a king.

I'm a priest.

To me, kingship has the idea of authority over a domain.

Being a priest has the idea of intercession, worship, praise, and winning the spiritual battle.

John continues in Revelation 5.10.

Write down Revelation 5.10.

And he has made us kings and priests.

It's almost like I know you guys aren't getting this.

I know the seven churches aren't getting this.

I'm going to repeat it again.

Made us kings and priests to our God, and we shall reign on the earth.

You are getting trained all the time to reign.

You're getting trained to reign.

You're getting trained to reign.

You get trained to reign by problems.

You get trained to reign through difficulties.

You get trained to reign through attacks from the enemy.

David has to go back into battle.

It's not gonna ever be over for David.

And men and women, it's never over for you and me.

Write down 1 John 2.27.

1 John 2.27.

John writes here.

But the anointing which you have received from him abides in you.

You have the same anointing and so much more than what David had.

This story is a story to us of how to be overcomers and how to walk in breakthrough courage.

That's what this passage is about.

You're anointed.

The enemy knows you're anointed more than you do.

So I had a friend in high school, real strong Christian, when I wasn't.

So we became better friends after I got saved and everything.

But one time we were talking and she told this story of another friend from Clarkston High School, the high school I went to, who became kind of was becoming kind of a groupie to the Rolling Stones.

So she was fascinated by the Rolling Stones.

These were the high points of the stones in the 80s.

So they're coming up and they're the hot band and she's following them around the country.

But she comes from a Christian home and she's a believer.

But at one point she wanted to get into this party with the stones being there.

And of course, they had a bodyguard or two at the door.

And this bodyguard stopped her and said, You can't come in.

She said, Why not?

He says, There's something about you that frightens me.

Big bodyguard.

You see, he could sense the anointing of God on her life even when she couldn't.

Right?

So the enemy knows you guys.

The enemy knows what you have.

My job is to encourage you to discover that this year.

To discover who you are in Christ.

Together, we are a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a chosen generation of kings and priests to our God and our Father.

Breakthrough in our lives will always be opposed by giants.

There's always another giant waiting to take us down.

Now, when the Philistines heard that they had anointed David king over Israel, when the enemy, when demons heard that you were anointed by the Holy Spirit because you gave your life to Christ, the demons went up.

The Philistines went up to search for David.

You have a target on your back.

And David heard of it.

And he went down to the stronghold.

Now, very interesting what David does.

And I'm sitting here debating in my mind what I want to do today.

I think I'm going to wait to cover this verse next week because it flows into something else.

But look at verse 18.

Look at verse 18.

The Philistines also went and they deployed themselves in the Valley of Rephaim.

Underline Valley of Rephaim and write giants in the margin.

That's the valley of giants.

They don't go to the Valley of Elah.

And it's interesting, when you look at where Jerusalem is, on a map of Israel, Gaza Strip, as we see it today, is down here.

Maybe if you're looking at it, we'll turn it this way.

So this would be the southwest.

Here's Jerusalem where David is, Mount Zion, the city of David.

They're down here, Gaza Strip.

This is where the Philistines are.

There's a couple routes up toward Jerusalem, trade routes.

And the first one, and the one they had used, somewhere between 15 to 17 years ago, when they met Israel was the Valley of Elah.

Do you remember that?

The Valley of Elah.

And that was the battle where David became famous for taking out a giant named Goliath.

Now many believe that from the tribe of the Philistines there were vestiges of the Nephilim.

Talked about in Genesis chapter 6.

Genesis 6 · chapter mention

And I've covered this before, so I won't go into a lot of detail.

But could be, we don't know for sure, but it could be that these nine-foot giants who were part of the Philistines were descendants of the Nephilim.

And those were the sons of God, the watchers who came down and had intimacy with the daughters of men.

We found archaeologically nine-foot beds in Gaza Strip.

So they changed their tactic.

We're not going into the Valley of Elah.

He defeated us there 17 years ago.

We're going to go to the Valley of Rephaim, which is called the Valley of the Giants, because we're going to intimidate David.

Plural.

Men and women, that's how the enemy works in your life.

There are valleys of Rephaim that you have struggled with your whole life.

And you've run from that valley.

And it usually is around shame.

Shame issues in our life.

Brene Brown, one of my favorite authors, has written the most on shame and vulnerability.

This is what she says are the shame areas for women.

And I would call it giants in a woman's life.

The giants in a woman's life.

Quote: To look perfect, to do perfect, to be perfect.

Anything less is shame.

Never enough.

You're never enough at home.

You're never enough at work.

You're never enough in your relationships.

Shame is never enough.

End quote.

This is what she says about men.

Shame in men.

Shame is failure.

Failure at work.

Failure in your marriage.

Failure in your relationships.

Failure with your money.

Failure with your children.

It doesn't matter.

Shame is failure.

Shame is being seen as weak.

Everybody look at me.

Don't waste shame.

Don't waste failure.

It's there to teach you something.

Go into the valley this year.

Go into the valley of Rephaim.

Go into the valley of the giants and face it.

David could have run.

David could have stayed in his stronghold, and I'll explain the stronghold next week.

David could have stayed in the stronghold.

No one, no one would not have understood his desire for what he had been through for 15 years.

Years of battle, battle, fight after fight.

He could have sent someone else.

Men and women, listen, you can't send someone else to fight your battles and quit blaming others.

Quit blaming your parents.

Anybody have perfect parents, raise your hand.

And if you do, you're a liar.

You need to get out more often, man.

Now, if whole kids want to raise, there, yeah, there's there's charity.

She's raising her hand.

That's okay.

That's okay.

Right?

Nobody has perfect parents.

Nobody's had that perfect boss.

Nobody's had that perfect boyfriend or girlfriend or spouse.

God wants to do something in you.

He may not change your circumstances, but he can change your heart for your circumstances.

Can make you different.

That's the God of breakthrough.

I wish I could get into it.

I hate to leave it at this point, but I think it's not fair to what God wants to say to the road church.

We'll save it for next week.

Thank you for listening to the Born for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.

God bless.