Sermon Tone Analysis

Breakaway to our breakthrough

What is a breakaway?

Basketball: Rebound the ball and throw it ahead of the defense

Sebastian Vargas: a sudden acceleration by one or more runners to pull away from the pack in a race.

I can ‘t stand losing.

I hate losing more than I love winning.

Let that sink in.

Dysfunctional?

Maybe.

Well it would rare it’s ugly head even playing candy land with my girls when they were young.

I would take me a couple days to recoup from a candy land beat down from my 5 year old.

God put me to the ultimate test one year when my daughter Kristen decided she wanted to play AYSO soccer.

She was still at that age where most of the girls did not know how to spread out and they would cluster around the ball and kick each other’s shines to kingdom come.

We our daughter got put on our best friends daughters team it made us super happy.

But as luck would have it we did not win one single game all year.

God, Tammy and our best friends will testify, what I am about to share next is not fake news.

The last game of the year was at hand.

I was praising God that my torture as an dysfunctional achiever was coming to an end.

My daughters team had not only not one one game… but we never scored one goal.

There was minutes left in the last game of the season and I yelled out to my daughter and our friends daughter if either one of you scores a goal before the end of the game I will take both to go see the Jonas Brothers in concert.

Years ago that was a big deal.

Well the ball ended up on our side of the field and guess what happened?

The cluster of little girls crushing each others shins pursued like usual.

But my daughter was not in all the chaos.

She was off to the side near the goal.

Then it looked like God’s hand squirted the ball right out as a gift to my daughter.

It was like right out of a movie.

She grab the ball turned and headed toward the goal.

She had a breakaway!

I screamed like a banshee.... shooooooot!

Her little leg cocked back and shot.

In slow mo the ball went right past the goal keeper.

Goalllllllllllll!

I ran onto the field pick my daughter and hosted her up above my head and swung her around in the air screaming YESSSS!

The ref came up to me and said coach you need to get off the field.

I was not the coach and I had signed a doc with AYSO stating that I would stay off the field at all times as a parent.

Ops.

So she won the game?

Oh no.

This is what we call a moral victory.

Moral victory: a defeat that can be interpreted as a victory on moral terms.

We finally scored.

So Jonas Brothers?

Yes like two years later.

They were so hot back then that their concerts tickets we sold out for two years.

But we eventually went.

Some of us need a breakaway to get to our breakthrough.

We need God to answer our prayer we have been seeking and pleading with Him for.

Like the season my daughters soccer team had.

Some of us had a season or two of no wins and not even one score.

Could there be something that is hindering our prayers?

Like the ball that is being hindered from getting out from the cluster of little girls soccer cleats.

Could there be something in our life hindering our breakaway on the way to our breakthrough?

Do you mean that we could be fasting and praying and hindering God moving on our behalf?

Let’s go over somethings that may be hindering God giving you your breakaway for you breakthrough.

1. Living in unrepentant sin.

Unrepentant: not sorry for having done wrong / have not asked for forgiveness for doing wrong in God’s eyes.

Like some faith systems who confess their sins to a priest in confessional, then go right our and do it again.

In middle school if one of the girls was mad at you and you tried to talk to them they would say “talk to the hand”.

God’s ears are attentive to those that live right and honor His ways.

2. Ignoring God’s Word.

How does one learn God’s will?

By learning God’s word.

3. Doubting God’s generosity and ability to answer prayer.

Do you sometimes ask God to give you a breakaway for your breakthrough then doubt He can or will do it?

As we seek after God for our breakaway to our breakthrough when we start to doubt we need to ask God to help us with our unbelief.

4. Asking with wrong motives.

Tim Keller in his book on prayer writes, “If we are living lives in which God does not have our highest allegiance, then we will use prayer instrumentally, selfishly, simply to try to get the things that may be already ruining our lives”.

5.

Not honoring and respecting you spouse.

6. Giving up and stop praying.

Justice: make things right.

In the coming weeks as we seek God for our breakaway to our breakthrough, we need go to our heavenly Father consistently, expectantly, reverently, and press on towards the place where prayer becomes a most precious pastime.