Breaking Barriers: Making Room for God’s Overflow

This summary and rewrite draws on a sermon by Christine Caine that uses the mandate in Isaiah 54:3 to outline a strategic approach for believers seeking expansion, greater influence, and renewed spiritual strength in the current global climate. It posits that God calls His people to actively “make room” for His work in their lives, moving beyond complacency and limitation.

Why Now is the Time for Spiritual Expansion

The prophecy of Isaiah 54 was delivered during a severely dry and desolate time in Israel’s history, characterized by wicked rulers, the destruction of the temple, and the people’s Babylonian exile. Despite the shame and fruitlessness of that season, God commanded Israel to sing radical songs of praise, promising that if they obeyed, revival would break out and their future “children” (descendants/impact) would be numerous.

This message is profoundly relevant today. We are living in dark times, marked by chaos, division, turmoil, pain, and unprecedented anxiety and hopelessness worldwide. However, these challenging conditions are precisely the perfect environment for the light, love, grace, and truth of God to shine brightest on the earth.

Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18). The church of Jesus Christ is not only remaining but growing across the earth. We are entering a new season of expansion, growth, influence, and impact. This is not a moment for believers to step back, hide, or pull back; we were born and positioned in time for this moment to serve our generation.

The world is not spiraling out of control; things are falling into place and culminating because God is in control and Jesus is coming back. Therefore, the most fruitful season for believers is yet ahead.

The 5-Point Strategy for Kingdom Growth

God uses the practical image of enlarging a desert tent—a necessity for a nomadic family expecting more children—to illustrate the steps required for spiritual increase. Just as the women of Isaiah’s day had to sew goat skins, drive deeper stakes, and broaden the cords to accommodate growth, believers must undertake five specific actions to make room for God’s overflow.

The Message translation of Isaiah 54 instructs us to “Clear lots of ground for your tents. Make your tents large. Spread out! Think big. Use plenty of rope. Drive the tent pegs deep”.

1. Enlarge Your Heart and Vision (Make More Room)

The first command is to enlarge, meaning to make bigger or more extensive. Just as a family needs more physical space for a new baby, we must make room for what God wants to do in and through us.

• Remove Clutter: God is often made big or small in the hearts of His people. He is saying He cannot fit what He wants to do in the limited space we currently occupy. This requires a spiritual “spring clean” of the heart to remove hindrances like shame, guilt, bitterness, unforgiveness, rejection, fear, jealousy, anger, or indifference that stunt growth.
• Magnify God, Not Trauma: Personal history, trauma (such as abandonment, abuse, or adoption), and woundedness can cause the heart to contract and shrink, limiting God’s capacity. To overcome this, one must choose to magnify what Jesus did at Calvary—making it bigger than what happened in the past—to prevent history from defining destiny.
• Total Surrender: God seeks to move into every “nook and cranny” of the heart, not just for a brief “visitation” on Sunday. We must allow Him to literally move in and take over the “whole neighborhood” of our inner life.

2. Stretch Beyond Your Comfort Zone (Embrace the Pain of Growth)

The second action is to stretch, which means being capable of being made longer or wider without tearing or breaking. Stretching involves reaching beyond what is familiar or comfortable.

• Spiritual Flexibility: Just as physical stretching prevents muscles from seizing up, spiritual stretching is necessary for increase, even if it involves embracing “a little pain”.
• The Gap is in the Stretch: The gap between where you are today and the future God has planned for you is found in the stretch.
• Willingness Determines Recovery: Recovery from spiritual setbacks (likened to physical surgery) depends on one’s willingness to embrace the pain of recovery. While stretching should not lead to “snapping,” the fear of breaking must never prevent the necessary effort to grow.

3. Do Not Hold Back (Go All In)

Isaiah prophesied that the people of God should not hold back anything. This is a challenge against merely showing up to a religious gathering without being “all in for Jesus”.

• Cling, Don’t Step Back: People often hold back due to disappointment, hurt, fear, or discouragement. However, withholding effort only hurts one’s future potential, not the people who caused the hurt.
• Recommit to Action: It is time to get off the sideline and back onto the playing field—to start praying again, hoping again, believing again, serving again, and fasting again.
• Pour Out: This is the time to step up and pour out, not to withhold, recognizing that there are lives and callings at stake. Personal testimonies confirm that continually choosing to be all in for Jesus, 24/7, is the only way to sustain impactful ministries like A21 and Propel Women.

4. Lengthen Your Ropes (Go Further in Effort)

Lengthening is the natural progression that follows stretching. Because flexibility has been created, there is now the potential to become longer and to go further in effort and output.

• Growing Stronger from the Inside Out: To sustain this extended reach, believers must be continually growing stronger from the inside out.

5. Strengthen and Drive Your Pegs Deep (Depend on God’s Power)

The final command is to strengthen, which means driving the tent pegs deep. As the tent gets bigger, its exposure to wind and vulnerability to the enemy increase. Therefore, spiritual strength is mandatory.

• Spiritual Fitness: Believers must avoid being “skinny fat” spiritually—looking good externally while being weak internally—which leaves them unprepared for the spiritual battles ahead. This requires picking up “heavy weights” and fighting the good fight of faith.
• The Impossibility of Self-Effort: It is impossible to enlarge, stretch, lengthen, or strengthen by ourselves. Only the Holy Spirit of God can help us do that.
• Renewed Strength Through Waiting: God gives strength to the faint and powerless. Isaiah 40:31 offers the promise that “those who trust in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not become weary. They will walk and not faint”.
• The Key is Dependence: The critical condition for this renewal is waiting upon God. This divine exchange requires us to continually wait upon Him to renew our strength so we can run our race and finish our course.

This is a time for believers to commit to these five actions—enlarging the place of the tent, stretching, lengthening, and strengthening—so that they can be about the Father’s business on earth.