Pressing in for your breakthrough means refusing to let a storm keep you down, and holding on to God until His answer comes. In this message, Jennifer, sharing at her father’s invitation, teaches that storms come to everyone, the wise and the foolish alike, but believers who build on the rock of God’s Word come through stronger. She draws on Jesus’ parable of the two builders, Moses on the hill with Aaron and Hur, Paul and Silas in prison, and her own family’s years of prayer until her son’s breakthrough at thirteen.
Below you will find the full video, a structured summary, the Scripture behind each point (linked to the NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for pressing through your own storm.
Sermon at a Glance
This message was shared at NTC Ministries and posted on November 12, 2024. It runs about 40 minutes and includes communion and a closing prayer of blessing. Jennifer explains that when her dad asked her to share, she began digging into the Word and asked the Lord what He wanted her to say. He reminded her of a hard season years earlier, when everyone else’s life seemed to be “all cupcakes and rainbows” and hers felt like one hardship after another.
Out of that season came this message. Everyone has a breaking point, she says, and when we reach it we have a choice: to come through as a better Christian, spouse and parent, or to be taken down. God never once says He will leave you high and dry.
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Speaker | Jennifer, sharing at her father’s invitation |
| Series | Stand-alone message |
| Main texts | Matthew 7:24–27, Exodus 17:8–13, Acts 16:16–31 |
| Key theme | Building on God’s Word and pressing through the storm until the breakthrough comes |
| Length | About 40 minutes, with communion and a closing blessing |
It Rains on the Just and the Unjust
The first thing the Lord reminded Jennifer of was that He sends rain on the just and on the unjust (Matthew 5:45). Everyone in the room, she says, could raise a hand because each of us has been through a storm that took work to get through.
Knowing the rain was not falling on her alone helped. But she stresses what makes believers different: because we are faith-filled people, we come through hardship and struggle stronger. A storm is not something that simply takes us down. God does not leave His people in a bad spot; He sees them through.
She names the storms people face. You may feel healthy and then read a doctor’s report you never expected. You may build your family on a firm foundation, teaching your children to go to church, read the Word and pray, and then get a phone call: “Mom, Dad, I don’t want to live for God anymore.” A relationship may go sour. God is teaching us to build a foundation that will not let those moments pull us down.
The key, she says, is where we look. The Lord told her not to look at the storm but to look to Him, and to look at the breakthrough. Her children are coming home, she declares, because “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15). A relationship that went sour does not determine her future; God determines her future.
Build on the Rock Before the Storm
Jesus taught this in a parable. Jennifer reads Matthew 7:24–27 from the New Living Translation: anyone who listens to Jesus’ teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. The rain comes, the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against the house, but it does not collapse, because it is built on bedrock. The one who hears and does not obey is like a person who builds on sand, and that house falls with a mighty crash.
Notice, she says, that the storm came to both houses. The parable does not say “if” the storm comes. The difference is the foundation, laid by listening to Jesus’ teaching and following it. By being in church week in and week out, listening and obeying, the church already has the upper hand.
But listening is only half of it. Are we doers of the word, she asks, applying what the Bible teaches about how to live and who to be (James 1:22)? God is preparing us for the storm before it arrives, so that we are still standing when it passes through.
She anchors that promise in Isaiah 43:2. When you pass through deep waters, God will be with you; through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown; through the fire, you will not be burned. When the doctor’s report or the phone call comes, it is not going to crush you. God says He will not leave you in the river. He will pull you out and set you up, “because I got you.”
Then she adds Proverbs 24:16: a righteous man may fall seven times and rise again. If you are living right for God, you may feel chopped off at the knees at times, but you get back up because God is upholding you and holding you in the palm of His hand. No storm will keep you down and out.
A Breakthrough at Thirteen
Jennifer shares her family’s own story of pressing in. When her son Payton was about three, she noticed problems with his eyes. Her mother’s side of the family had long struggled with poor eyesight and lazy eye. Before the first appointment she told her three-year-old that they were not going to take on that generational curse. “This generational curse is going to be broken,” she said. “We don’t have to own this.”
The first eye doctor visit was hard. One eye had a muscle that was not working at all, and the other had a muscle that was only partly working. Payton needed thick glasses. In the car afterward she told him they would pray every single time that his eyes were healed. At age four the report was worse, and he had to wear a patch.
For two years, a sports-loving little boy wore that patch through headaches, crying and schoolwork, seeing out of one eye. Every time they left the doctor without a good report, they kept praying. By about age six, Payton would climb into the car and say his eyes were healed, and she would answer, “That’s right, Payton.” Every night before bed they prayed, “Jesus, you’re healing my eyes.”
Then came a small breakthrough: the doctor said Payton no longer needed the patch because the muscle was starting to improve. They were thrilled, but she told him that God is not a God who does only half a job, so they would keep pressing in for the whole breakthrough.
It took until Payton was thirteen. After years of contacts, patches, tears and headaches, the doctor came out of his office and told Jennifer that her son had 20/20 vision, with not one lazy muscle and everything functioning as it should. He told her he could hardly believe it. The pressing through took a long time, she says, but the storm that seemed so big at first did not keep them down. God does not leave you in a place of despair. He is faithful in everything He does.
The table below follows how the family kept pressing in at each stage of Payton’s journey, as Jennifer tells it.
| Age | What the doctor reported | How the family responded |
|---|---|---|
| About 3 | One eye muscle not working, the other only partly; thick glasses | Refused the generational curse and began praying every time |
| 4 | Worse; nothing was working, patch required | Kept praying after every appointment |
| 4 to 6 | Two years of patching, headaches and tears | Payton declared his eyes healed; nightly prayer |
| About 6 | Muscle improving, patch no longer needed | Celebrated, then kept pressing in for the whole job |
| 13 | 20/20 vision, no lazy muscle | Saw God’s faithfulness through the whole storm |
Friends Who Hold Up Your Arms
Next Jennifer turns to Moses. When the Amalekites attacked Israel, Moses sent Joshua into battle and went up a hill with Aaron and Hur to watch. Whenever Moses raised his hands, Israel prevailed; whenever he lowered them, Amalek prevailed. That is hard to sustain.
She reads Exodus 17:12 from the NIV: when Moses’ hands grew tired, they put a stone under him to sit on, and Aaron and Hur held his hands up, one on each side, so that his hands remained steady until sunset, and Joshua overcame the Amalekite army.
When we press in, she says, there will be times we grow weary. That is why it is so important to choose your friends wisely. You need a friend who does not pull you back or keep talking about your hardship and feeding a bad state of mind. You need someone who comes alongside you, holds your arms high, encourages you with Scripture, and prays and intercedes for you when the hard phone call comes.
Some storms feel so big that you cannot pull yourself out on your own. You will need someone who does not say, “Let’s go to the bar and drink away our sorrow,” but instead says, “Let’s get to church; the joy of the Lord is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). If your daily circle is pulling you away from God and away from church, she says, you are not being a doer of the word, and it is time to wake up and be wise.
The same faithfulness applies to parents. Even if a child walks away for a season, a parent can say, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” and still be there to see that child through a dark hour. Though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with His hand (Psalm 37:24).
Jennifer compares pressing in to pregnancy and labor. Each trimester brings more discomfort, sleepless nights and aches, but what carries a mother through is knowing her miracle is right around the corner. Labor is a time of pressing through, bearing down, pain and tears. Once it is over, the tears of fear and pain become tears of joy as she holds her child. Your breakthrough, she says, is like that: right around the corner.
Praise at Midnight: Paul and Silas
Paul and Silas were going to prayer when a slave girl with a spirit of divination followed them day after day, crying out about them. Finally Paul turned and commanded the spirit to leave her, and it left at once. Her masters saw their income disappear and dragged Paul and Silas to the authorities.
They were stripped, beaten with rods, chained and thrown into the inner prison. Talk about a storm, Jennifer says. All they had done was be obedient, faithful and wise, doers of the word, and the storm still came, because it rains on the just and the unjust alike.
Look at what they did. Acts 16:25–31 says that at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening. Suddenly a great earthquake shook the foundations of the prison, every door opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. The jailer, thinking the prisoners had fled, was about to kill himself, but Paul called out that they were all there. The jailer fell trembling before them and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.”
Jesus said that in this world we will have tribulation, but to be of good cheer, because He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Jennifer stresses that He overcame every trial for everyone, sinners and believers, the wise and the unwise. And whatever storm you face, you will need an Aaron and a Hur like Moses did, and you will need an earthquake to shake off every chain that holds you back. God is not done with you yet.
So you do not have to live in fear, or live off of what the doctor says, or live stuck because your children are not serving God right now or a relationship went sour. You get back up, she says, and you walk from victory. She leads the church in reading Psalm 46:1 together: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Pressing In for Your Breakthrough With Determination
To show what determination looks like, Jennifer tells a childhood story from Iron Mountain, Michigan. In the bitter cold, there was one good seat on the bus, right next to the heater, and two older girls who seemed like giants to her always pushed to the front of the line to claim it.
One morning her older sister Sarah announced that they were getting that seat. She lined up Jennifer, then in second grade, and their brother Paul, in first grade, right in front of her and grabbed the backs of their jackets. As the bus slowed with its lights flashing, Sarah bore down with all her strength and pushed them through the line. They flew past the two “giants” and took the warm seat, and those girls were never first in line again.
That, Jennifer says, is how determined we need to be when a storm comes. We do not look at how big the storm is; we look at how big and how good our God is, knowing the miracle is right around the corner. You may be weeping tears of fear now, but you will have tears of joy when the breakthrough comes.
As the church prepared for communion, she shared more of her own storm: a time of humiliation from bad choices and a hard, unhealthy relationship, when she felt held back by chains she could not shake. Her Aaron and Hur in that season was her dad, who held her accountable and called her every time to say, “Jennifer, your breakthrough is coming.” You may be sowing tears of sorrow right now, she tells the church, but your tears of joy are right around the corner.
She closes with Psalm 43:5, read from The Passion Translation: do not be discouraged or disturbed, but expect your Savior God to break through, and you will have plenty of reasons to praise Him again. God knows every heartbreak and every storm, and He is right there with you in the middle of it, ready to pull you up.
In her closing prayer she thanks God for the day He has made (Psalm 118:24), declares that no weapon formed against His people will prosper (Isaiah 54:17), and prays for their children to serve Him wholeheartedly and for angels to guard them in all their ways.
Living It Out This Week
Here are practical steps drawn from this message on pressing in for your breakthrough:
- Build before the storm. Keep listening to God’s Word and doing it now, so your foundation is set before the rain comes.
- Look at your breakthrough, not the storm. When a report or phone call shakes you, turn your eyes to God’s promise and declare it out loud.
- Keep praying after every setback. Like Jennifer and Payton, pray again every time the news is not what you hoped.
- Do not settle for half a breakthrough. Thank God for progress, then keep pressing in for the whole job.
- Choose friends who lift your arms. Draw close to Christlike people who pray with you and point you to church, and be that friend for someone else.
- Praise at midnight. In your darkest hour, pray and sing to God as Paul and Silas did.
Timestamped Outline
- 0:00 A hard season and “cupcakes and rainbows”
- 0:55 It rains on the just and the unjust
- 2:04 Everyone has a breaking point
- 3:19 Matthew 7: the wise and foolish builders
- 4:34 Doers of the word and Isaiah 43:2
- 5:53 The doctor’s report and the phone call
- 6:55 Proverbs 24:16: the righteous rise again
- 9:07 Payton’s eyes and the generational curse
- 11:06 Two years of wearing a patch
- 12:12 God does not do half a job: 20/20 vision
- 13:27 Moses, Aaron and Hur
- 16:08 Choose your friends wisely
- 18:27 Psalm 37:24 and the stages of pregnancy
- 19:55 Labor, then tears of joy
- 21:16 Paul, Silas and the slave girl
- 24:07 Acts 16: praise at midnight
- 25:37 Be of good cheer, an earthquake is coming
- 26:53 Psalm 46:1: a very present help
- 28:14 The warm seat on the school bus
- 31:26 That is how determined we must be
- 32:49 Communion and a personal testimony
- 36:04 Psalm 43:5: expect God to break through
- 37:39 Closing prayer of blessing
Frequently Asked Questions
Does being faithful to God keep storms out of my life?
No. Jennifer stresses that the storm in Jesus’ parable hit both the wise and the foolish builder, and that Paul and Silas were beaten and jailed while doing exactly what God wanted. It rains on the just and the unjust alike. The difference faith makes is not the absence of storms but the outcome: the house on the rock does not collapse, and the righteous get back up every time they fall.
What if the breakthrough takes years?
Jennifer’s family prayed for about ten years, from Payton’s first eye appointment at three until his 20/20 report at thirteen. Along the way the reports got worse before they got better. Her counsel is not to let the pressing-in season take over your life, to keep praying after every setback, to thank God for partial progress, and to remember that He does not do half a job.
Why does this message end with communion?
Jennifer invites every believer present, and those watching online with juice and bread at home, to share communion as a family. She ties it to her testimony of being freed from chains she could not shake. Communion becomes a moment to remember that Jesus has overcome every trial the world brings and to receive His help before the closing prayer of blessing.
Scripture References
All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:
- Matthew 7:24–27 — the wise and foolish builders
- Matthew 5:45 — rain on the just and the unjust
- Isaiah 43:2 — through the waters and the fire
- Proverbs 24:16 — the righteous rise again
- Exodus 17:8–13 — Aaron and Hur hold up Moses’ hands
- Psalm 37:24 — the Lord upholds him with His hand
- Acts 16:16–31 — Paul and Silas at midnight
- Psalm 46:1 — a very present help in trouble
- Psalm 43:5 — hope in God
How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.
Watch More Messages
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