Transcription
What's up, friends? What's up, or should I say, howdy? All right, that's epic. I love it. How we doing tonight?
I'm great. I'm great, thanks for asking. Oh my gosh, this is so cool. How many of you are new to Breakaway? First time? Okay, how cool is this? Like, this is amazing. I don't know, um, if y'all have gone to other colleges before, but this is not normal. This is super amazing that this many students are coming together to lift the name of Jesus. That's awesome, to worship together. So you guys picked a great school; this is a great place. And thank you so much for inviting me here. I'm pumped, y'all. I'm I'm so excited. This is crazy that I'm even here.
So, back about Wednesday, I got a text from Donna Stewart, who's been—Stewart's wife, some of you might know—been a Donna. That's right, they're amazing. They deserve all the woof woofs out there. They're awesome. Um, so they uh texted me and said, "Sadie, I know this is kind of crazy, but you're in driving distance, is there any way you can speak at Breakaway on Tuesday?" And I said, "Well, this is crazy because last night I had—that I was preaching a message I've never preached before at a conference I wasn't supposed to preach at." So I was like, "I think God's saying yes. I think I should be there."
Um, little preface to to the message I'm going to share tonight: I've never shared a message like this before, ever. Um, this is super unique to me, super different for me. Um, honestly, God had just been kind of putting this idea in my heart, and like I said, I had a dream about it, and then I just really felt led to share a lot of my testimony that a lot of people don't know. Um, and that's kind of nerve-wracking. That's kind of scary. And so I typed it all out word for word because I really—like, I find it a lot easier to write than to speak. In fact, throwback: the first part of my story kind of goes a little bit like this: whenever I was young, my family had a TV show called Duck Dynasty. And okay, all right, good, so you all know a little bit about my life. Um, so we had a TV show called Duck Dynasty, and because of that—because I was obviously on Duck Dynasty—I started getting asked to speak places. Because I'm like 14 years old, 15, and I go speak for the very first time. I was supposed to speak for 20 minutes; I spoke for five minutes, had nothing else to say, awkwardly ran off the stage, and the people asked for their money back. True story. Humble beginning. Okay.
So after that, I was like, "I'm never doing that again. That was humiliating. I will never speak again." My mom's like, "Sadie, you just have so much to say. You know, you have so much to say in your love for Jesus." I was like, "Mom, that was terrible. Clearly not my calling. I'm never doing that again." And she said, "Well, I would just—it would just be such a great way for you to be an example to people." And I said, "What if I write a book? I'll write a book. I'll put all the advice I have at 14 into a book, and um, that will be the way I can be an example, and I'll just hide behind the words of the papers." She said, "Okay, well, that's a good idea. What's your book gonna be called?" And when I was five years old, my dad had nicknamed me the Original, and so I said, "I'm gonna call it Live Original." And I wrote a book called Live Original, and the irony of that is now I speak from a Ministry called Live Original. So God's crazy like that. But um, I say that to say, as I was writing it, I found a lot of comfort in just writing this and not speaking it. And last night I said, "Christian, I just—I want to say everything on this paper. This is what I want to say. This is what God's teaching me. This is what God did in my life, and I don't want to mess it up when I get up there." And he said, "Well, then why don't you just read it?" And I was like, "Oh man, reading out loud—scary, you know, in front of all those people." He said, "Baby, that's what you want to say, then then read it. You know, God can work through that." And I was like, "You know, I think I will." So I'm going to read um my story tonight. I know it's a little different, but I don't want you to miss a word of what God's done. I don't want to miss a thing—what God's done in my life that I've, you know, felt like he's put on this paper for me.
Last week, I actually—there was a TikTok that was going around about me, and honestly, I thought it was really funny. I think they're trying to make fun of me. I think they were making fun of me, but I kind of found it funny myself. They were imitating a video of me speaking, and the guy was just like going with all of my drama. So, you know, sometimes I can be like, "Oh wow," and he was like, "And then I was like really still," and he was like, "Yeah," and I thought it was pretty funny. So I went to comment on the TikTok, and I said LOL. And when I went to comment on it—of course, without even trying to read the comments—you can just read the comments, and people were being so rude about me, so horrible. And this one guy said, "Oh, bless her heart, you know, she has all the charisma in the world, but she could use a theology class," and then said, "You know, if she took this class and this class, she'd then be a real weapon." And I've had comments like that before in my life, but it made me so sad. And I was like, "Where has the church gotten? Because that is not how the church started. Because the people teaching in the Bible, they weren't the ones that had all these theology classes. They were the people that just had an encounter with Jesus." It was like the woman at the well who had an encounter with Jesus and went and told her whole community about what just happened with Jesus, and then everybody was drawn towards Jesus. It was like Paul, who used to be Saul and was killing people, but had an encounter with Jesus and couldn't stop talking about Jesus. It was like Peter, who was a fisherman, but had an encounter with Jesus and couldn't stop talking about Jesus. And the guy said in his comment, "If she would take some classes, then she'd be a real weapon." But friends, it is not anything other than the word of God and the testimony that Jesus has done in your life that's going to make you a weapon for the kingdom. And I just want every single person to know that. And maybe by me stepping back and just reading my testimony and not doing anything fancy—no lights, no cameras, no action, no this, no that—I mean, obviously there's lights and there's cameras, it's part of it, but it's not—it's not anything other than the testimony that God's given me, and that is where the power is. It's not in how I tell a story. It's not and how smart that I am and how I tell it. It's by the power and the blood of Jesus Christ. And I think it's available to every single one of you.
So, without further ado, I'm gonna read my story. I'm pumped. But before I do that, I'm going to read the passage that we're going to talk about tonight. It's in Luke 5. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there for taking notes. Write down Luke 5:1–11. It says this: "On one occasion while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear a word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret," talking about Jesus, "and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon Peter's, he asked him to put out a little bit into the land, and he went with him, sitting down with him and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon Peter, 'Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.' And Simon answered, 'Master, we toiled all night and took nothing,' but at your word I will let down the Nets. And when he had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boats to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so much so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus's knees, saying, 'Depart from me, Lord, I am a sinful man,' for he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken."
So, just to put this into perspective: they're fishing all night; he's a fisherman, and Jesus goes out there and is like, "Hey, put out one more time," and he's like, "No, no, you don't understand, like we're not gonna catch anything," and they do, and they catch an abundance of fish. Christian and I were like, "What would that be a parallel to?" Because it's kind of funny that just by catching fish was the thing that made Peter drop to his knees and be like, "You are God." But you have to think about the context, and Christian and I were just thinking of funny comparisons, and we're like, "It would be like if Jesus showed up and Steph Curry was shooting a half-court shot, and he's like, 'I have been out here all night trying to hit 10 in a row, but it's impossible,' and Jesus is like, 'Try it again.' He's like, 'No, it's impossible.' He's like, 'No, try it again, now that I'm here.' And he's like, 'No, I've seriously been doing this all night,' and then he does it, and Jesus actually does it with him—boom, boom, boom, boom, boom—ten! And Steph Curry's like, 'You are the Lord! Like, that's crazy because I'm a pro, and you just did that.'" So this is kind of what this is like. So it says, "Also James and John were there, who were partners with Simon Peter, and Jesus said to Simon, 'Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.' And when they brought their boats to the land, they left everything and they followed him."
Okay, now I'm going to read my story. Relationships—they are an amazing thing. I assume everyone here has a best friend. Raise your hand if you have a best friend. You have to say who it is. Everyone has a best friend. My best friend in the world is here with me tonight. His name is Christian Huff. Hey yo, where my boo? Where my boo? He's over there. He's my best friend. Um, for several reasons: because we laugh the most together, we know the most embarrassing things about each other, we probably embarrass each other the most, and we really just know more about each other than anyone else does in the world. And that makes someone a best friend. It's amazing to have a community of friends. We all know this, but there's something extraordinary about having a best friend. It's different. For example, if you were going to go to a movie with your group of friends, you'd be excited to go with your group, but you definitely make sure that you walk in the theater closest to your best friend so that you get to sit together. If you were to ask me, "How can I know who my best friend is?" I would say your best friend is the one that you choose to sit by.
Jesus had close friends, and he had best friends. All of Jesus' disciples were his friends, but Peter, James, and John were three of his best friends. I want us to look at Peter's story tonight with Jesus and a little bit of his testimony, and I also want to share with you all a little bit of my testimony with Jesus. I was at the dentist the other day—this week—and I was going to a new dentist for the first time, and the lady looked at me and she said, "I was so nervous when I saw your name on the list today because I didn't know what I would talk to you about. I have questions that I of course ask all my patients, but I already know everything about you." And so we awkwardly sat there while my mouth was open, uh, for a long time, and she didn't ask any questions. I understood what she meant to some degree, but I thought, "Dang, you know, I feel like this lady doesn't know everything about me." And although she might follow me on Instagram and listen to my podcast and maybe she's watched everything I put out there, even if she did that, she wouldn't know everything about me. I think unintentionally we do that sometimes—the people in the Bible—we think that we know them because we've read a certain book about them, we've heard a certain story, we've listened to a sermon told about them. And so because we think we know them, we just stop asking questions, we stop learning, we stop digging, we stopped reading, and we stopped seeking. Tonight, I can guarantee you that a lot of people have heard the story that I just read. A lot of people may have even heard bits and pieces of my story, but I want to challenge you to listen as if we're going to coffee together for the first time and as if you don't know anything about me and anything about Peter.
Luke 5: On this occasion we just read about, "while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear a word, God was standing there," Jesus was standing there at the lake of Gennesaret, "and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone and they were washing them," and it says, "Getting into one of the boats, which was Peter's—" A stop right there to think about how cool that must have been. Jesus is about to teach a message to a whole crowd, but there's so many people there that he decides, "I need a little bit more room, so I'll go out in the water so that everybody can hear us." Now we know that Peter had somewhat of a relationship with Jesus at this point because right before this chapter it talks about how Jesus left the synagogue and went to Peter's house—another example of what you do with a best friend. And while he was at Peter's house, he actually healed his mother-in-law. So we know that they had a cool relationship. But on this day, with this crowd, Jesus got into Peter's boat to teach. Think about how cool that would be for a moment—that Peter was sitting there doing his thing, fishing, and Jesus chose to get into his boat to teach about the word.
I started to think about when Jesus came into my personal space for the first time, when he got into my boat, if you will. The first time I could think of was when I was 13. I love playing sports, growing up; it was what I was super passionate about and worked super hard for. But eventually, my goal was to actually play sports in college, and so that's what I was working super hard for. I went really hard in practice and came home and practiced even more. In seventh grade, I was on the seventh grade, eighth grade, JV, and varsity team for basketball, softball, and track. That's—that wasn't my whole life; that's what I loved; that's what I did. And I would come home, and I'd shoot more and make a certain amount of shots before I'd even let myself go inside. That was just my thing. So the hard work started to finally pay off, and I got asked to be in the Junior Olympics held in Austria when I was 13 years old. At the time, my parents could not afford to come with me and see me play, and I couldn't even afford a flight over there myself, so I had to do a fundraiser—a free throw shooting thing. I actually went out there, and people sponsored how many free throws I would make, and that's how I was able to pay for my flight to go. But because my parents didn't have enough money at the time, they weren't able to join me. So this is my very first time out in the real world without my parents, away from my very, very sheltered home. I was pretty shell-shocked to say the least whenever I got there. Some of the language of my new friends—and just to put it into perspective of how sheltered it was—I remember there was a girl on my team who rapped the whole rap part of "Poker Face," and I thought this was wild. Like, I wasn't even allowed to listen to that song, and I was like, "This girl's crazy." Um, so it was pretty crazy. Um, there was a party that was held every single night for all the players in every sport, and because of the variety of ages that were there, there was a lot done at those parties that I had never seen before—experience lots of drinking, lots of provocative talk, and lots of provocative things being done. And I felt super, super uncomfortable. So I asked my coach if I could leave, and she said, "No, you represent USA Basketball; every athlete has to be here." So I sat by the door each night. I sat by the door for the next eight nights. And sitting by the door, for the first time in my life, I realized I don't just know about Jesus, but I actually have a relationship with Jesus. Like I said, you know who your best friend is by the person that you want to sit by. Sitting by the door led to other people sitting by the door with me and, of course, asking the obvious question, "Why are you sitting by the door?" Which led into moments that I got to share my faith with people. I got two different reactions about sitting by the door those eight nights or so, and little did I know those two reactions represent the two types of reactions that walking with Jesus tends to produce in the people around you. I have experienced the extremes of these two reactions for the last 12 years, and I fully expect to continue to. One group of people mocked me. This is going to sound funny, and it is funny, but to a 13-year-old, it felt like the massive insult it was intended to be. The girl said, "Why don't you party with us? You're so boring," and then they went on to say, "We are like Lamborghinis going out and living our best life, and you are like an old lawnmower put up in a garage." It's your story; I literally can't make that up. Um, the other group didn't mock me; they were impacted by the way that I lived. Although they didn't know Jesus, they thought it was cool that I loved him so much. I think the most significant impact was the one I had on my coach. She said, "I've been coaching for years, and I've never seen a kid come out here in another country without their parents and behave the way you have." And she asked me if I would represent all of USA Basketball Division at the closing Olympic ceremony, on stage, to present an award. So I got to literally stand in front of athletes representing the nations that day because my love for Christ set me apart. And that was really cool. That was a super cool part of my story. And I think I saw then what a relationship with Jesus looks like. On one hand, you know, you're probably going to get mocked, and people are gonna make fun, and people are going to be rude and not understand. But on another hand, man, that aspect of being set apart opens up so many doors to show the love of Jesus to other people. So that's a good part of my story.
Over the years, my relationship with Jesus was tested and got a whole lot harder. The mocking got harder, and so did the influence. The very next year, at 14, my family got a TV show, like I said, called Duck Dynasty, and there were a million good things that came from that, but man, for a time, for me personally, I walked through some super hard things. Like I said, all my life I was super driven when it came to sports. Playing sports in college was what I dedicated most of my life to at that point, and I felt super passionate about it. And even at 14, it was pretty clear I would definitely have a track scholarship just based off of the things I was hitting, but basketball would need to continue to work super hard for. When the show started, life obviously got crazy. We filmed so much that I ended up missing more than half the year of school. We traveled so much that I missed so many practices, so many games, and not to mention I got into a long-distance relationship that took so much of my emotional energy, and it was not very healthy. So in just one year of my life, so many things changed, and I felt like I was gaining so much, but I was also losing all the things that really mattered to me. I lost pretty much every single one of my friends that I had since pre-K. Once again, this is gonna sound funny, but it definitely hit as hard as it was intended to. Whenever my friends kicked me out of the lunch table—and I know that seems really shallow, but those are just the things in high school—if you've ever experienced that, that it hurts. So they kicked me out of the lunch table, and then a Snapchat that was intended for another friend was actually sent to me about how much of an embarrassment I was to them. So in one year, I gained a lot of followers but lost all of my friends. I lost all of my direction in life. I hurt my shoulder in track and wasn't performing as well in basketball due to how much I missed, and I lost a lot of who I was because of the relationship I was in. And I felt extremely misunderstood and had extreme anxiety to the point that I was crippling.
Then an opportunity, when I was a junior in high school, arose for me to go on Dancing With the Stars. It was honestly crazy, um, as crazy as that sounds, but it was an incredible experience in and of itself and opened up doors. So once again, a lot of good things, but it made all of these other things that much more hard. Like I said, I was in a pretty twisted relationship that messed with me a lot that continued to get worse. I felt like a hypocrite because I looked like the poster child of Christianity and joy, but my private life was very far from that—a lot of sin and a lot of anxiety. I had a very unhealthy view of my body and began to think very disorderly about it and had eating patterns that were not healthy. The girls at my school got even meaner. I remember getting back from Dancing With the Stars and someone said, "Don't talk about it; no one wants to hear about it." And uh, I even remember going back to school, and it was my senior year—it's kind of crazy, I'm at a college campus—and um, it was senior day where you all wear your college campus shirts to school, and I wasn't going to college because of just the way that my life was going, so I didn't have a shirt to wear, but I had my first Live Original shirt printed for this ministry idea I wanted to start. So I show up to school; everybody's wearing, you know, LSU, A&M, all the stuff, and I have on Live Original, and someone says, "What's that?" And I go, "Oh, it's kind of what I'm hoping to do after high school." And she goes, "That's embarrassing." So there's just a lot of stuff like that that ended up adding up and really hurting. I would literally have whole student sections from the other school show up to my basketball games with duck calls and blow every single time I shot the ball. Once again, sounds funny, but when you're in high school, it is humiliating. So I would cry off the court. And so what I loved was not even fun anymore. It was an extremely lonely season, which is super ironic because that was the time that everyone probably knew me the most, but I was probably the most lonely that I've—than I've ever been. Um, I began to think at this point, "I gotta do something different. This is not working. I don't even want to go to school here. I don't want to live here. I just need a fresh start." So I started thinking about what are other things I'm passionate about. Obviously, sports is not working. Obviously—
This is not working, so I started to think. Well, I love entertaining people since I was little. I like doing vlogs, and I would act like I have my own show. I love imitating people, so I thought, well, maybe all of this was for God to lead me into pursuing maybe acting or something in Hollywood. So I thought about moving to Hollywood. This afternoon star has already had an opportunity there, so I thought I'll go there. And honestly, doors started flying open; it was crazy. I wouldn't even audition for stuff, and casting directors would be like, "We want you to do this part." But I would read the script, and as exciting as it was, it was so outside of my morals and so outside of what I felt—well, really what God's word is—not even what I felt, but what God's word is, that I felt like I couldn't do it.
But for a time, I tried to justify in my mind, like, "Well, it's not really me doing it; it's just acting," and then I can tell people later that that's not really what I agree with, you know, just trying to find a reason that I could say yes, do it. But at the end of the day, my convictions were stronger than my reasoning, and I said, "Okay, I'm not going to do it." And my agent said, "If you turn stuff like this down, then no one's gonna take you seriously." And they found it really hard to work with me because they give me these huge opportunities, and then I'd say, "I can't do it because of my morals."
And so once again, here I am feeling like the girl that everyone said I was at 13—like a lawnmower in a garage, who was just boring. And honestly, at this point, I had no idea what to do. At this point, I'm about 18 years old and literally have no idea what I'm gonna do. And honestly, I was really mad at God. This was the only time in my life that I can remember genuinely being that mad at God. I always heard that from people, and people would say, "I'm mad at God," but from the time I was little, I genuinely did love the Lord. But at this point, I was just mad. I was like, "My future is white; everything I thought I knew is gone. No more sports, no more acting, no more boyfriend. After three years, we broke up. No clue as to who I am. God, what in the world? Where are you, God? Do you really care about the desires in my heart? God, are you really a man of your word?"
I remember telling God one day, an honest prayer, that He chose the wrong person. I said, "I don't want any of this; I don't want to be famous. You chose the wrong person. I don't know how to do this. I wanted to play sports; that's what I knew. I wanted to have friends; that's what I love. I wanted to go to college. Who am I without any of those things? What do you have for me? Do you even care?" I felt like I was getting nothing in return. Some of you might feel this way; some of you might be here asking some of those hard questions like I do. Some of you might have had plans one way, and it's rerouting you a different way, and you're like, "God, do you even care how much time I put into that? Do you even care how much I love that? Do you even care about the desires? Are you even there? Who even am I, all the different things?" If you're there, that's where I was. And I feel like Peter in some ways might have felt the same way in that night where he's trying to catch fish, and he's trying to catch fish, and he's doing what he knows to do, except for nothing is happening that day.
On the boat, Jesus told Peter, after speaking, "Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch." Now, I noticed something when I read that that I loved: that He didn't say, "Put out your net and let's go fishing." That honestly would probably be super annoying to hear at the time, but He said, "Put out your net for a catch," despite the fact that you didn't catch anything last night. "Put out your net for a catch." I love how Jesus didn't say, "Put out your net; let's, you know, hope for fish," but He said, "Put out your net; we're gonna catch fish." But Peter said, "Master, we toiled all night and took nothing." So basically, Jesus is inserting Himself at this point into Peter's life—a part of Peter's life that Peter worked super hard towards, a part of Peter's life that he knew everything about fishing because he was a fisherman; he should know more than a carpenter about fishing, right? And a part of Peter's life that he was facing disappointment in, despite the fact that he stayed up all night trying to make this happen. And Jesus is here saying, "Cast out your net into the deep"—in other words, "Cast out your net into the unknown, despite your disappointment, despite not knowing what to do. I want you to cast out into the unknown."
Peter could have argued back and forth with Jesus like I did, but he didn't do that. He could have said things like I did: "I worked so hard for that; do you not even care? I've been—you aren't here; this is what I do; do you even care? Are you even with me?" But no, what Peter said was so beautiful—beautiful. He said, "Master, we've toiled all night and took nothing, but at your word…" Can everybody just say, "At your word…" But at your word, I will let down my net. Full obedience, full humility. What Peter was doing right then, right there, was trusting that God knew better than he did, that God knew more than he did, even about a situation that he knew so much about. "I may be a fisherman, but you are God." Some of you need to say that tonight. "I may be in this major that I thought was going to be the answer, but you are God. I may be in this relationship that might have just ended, and that might seem terrible, but you are God. I might be in this situation that seems hopeless, and I don't want to put myself out there again, but you are God. I may be good at fishing; I may be good at predicting what might happen, but you tell the fish which direction they can and cannot swim, so I trust you." And when he did, they enclosed a large number of fish, so large that the nets were breaking. Peter fell down on his knees and said, "Depart from me; I'm a sinful man, O Lord." And Jesus said, "Do not be afraid," which I just love that. I feel like so many of us, so much fear creeps in when it comes to thinking about our future, and I think that's why I had so much crippling anxiety at the time because I didn't know anything about what I was gonna do; I didn't know who I was; I didn't know what I was going to do, and those things cause such anxiety. But right here, Jesus said, "Even though I'm about to totally change the direction of your future, don't be afraid. From now on, I'm actually gonna give a purpose to things that you're passionate about. I'm gonna make you a fisher of men." And when He did that, they got to the land; they brought their boats to the land, and Peter left everything he had. Peter, James, and John left everything they had, and they followed Jesus for the next three years or so. Their ministry was absolutely insane. Peter was full-time ministry now, if you will.
So back to my story: Right after I said all those big things to God, like, "Where are you? You don't understand me; you chose wrong; you did wrong," I ended up going to a conference with about 2,000 people there, and I was just there sitting in the audience attending because my friends invited me. Now, I was raised super traditional in church, and this church was a little bit more charismatic, so it was my first time in my whole life—like I said, just about 18 years old—that I'd ever seen a woman preach the word. I'd never seen a woman preach before because in our church, women didn't preach. So I never thought about preaching or ever thought about doing that, and my only context of speaking was when people asked for their money back. So like I said, this wasn't even a thought, and it was like everything in that moment as a watcher began to make sense. It was like, "If I did that, there would be a purpose to all the things that you've actually put in me to do." I remember thinking, "If that was what you were gonna do in my life, God, then there would be a reason to this; this would be how I could catch fish, how I could fish for men." I got down on my knees before the Lord at the conference for the first time. I responded to an altar call, and um, it must have been how Peter felt that day is how I felt when I got on my knees and I had that moment of recognizing that You are the Lord. It was a moment of repentance. "I am a sinful woman, God; you are God, and I want you to be Sovereign in my life." And for the first time in my life, I began to realize that Jesus didn't want to just be a part of my life, but He wanted to be all of my life. He didn't want to just sit at the door with me, but He wanted to walk with me everywhere I went. I was not someone who played sports and happened to love Jesus on the side. I wasn't someone who was a celebrity who happened to love Jesus. I realized now, for maybe the first time, that I am a follower of Christ, and everything I do needs to flow from that place. I heard Ben Stewart once say, "My job is to follow God, and my ministry will follow that," and that just simplifies everything for you. I think many of us get stuck and sing our live our life and our lives with Jesus as two separate things. We genuinely do love Jesus, but we don't know how that relationship with Jesus actually plays out when it comes to our jobs, our titles, our majors, our relationships, and all the practical things in our life.
Well, practically for me, after that, I decided to move to Nashville because I got asked to speak on a tour, and I thought, "Well, if that's what I want to do, then I need to say yes to this." I was asked to come on stage on this tour while they moved the stage, the setup behind me, and talk for 10 minutes about whatever I wanted to talk about. Now, mind you, like I said, I had a lot of insecurity when it came around speaking, but I worked super hard for those 10 minutes and really studied and ended up preaching a message about David and Goliath. At the beginning, you pretty much memorized everything I was gonna say, so maybe I was more like speaking, but by the end, I was really preaching. Right before I moved there, I had one of my mentors share a word with me. She said, "Sadie, before you go to Nashville, I want to speak a word over your life. She said, 'You need to go to Nashville with a spirit of hanani.' I'm like, 'What does that mean?' And she says, 'Hanani means "Here I am, God," in Hebrew. It says, "Here I am, God; send me," but it's more than that; it's "Here I am, God, with no limits and no distractions; send me." She said, "I want you to go with the hanani spirit." So I went to Nashville, and even just two months in, I will say I got the "send me" part, but I had a lot of limits and a lot of distractions. I was following Jesus, but let's just say when Peter abandoned his net and abandoned everything he had, I held on to all my nets, all of my—I held on to my agency; I held on to my management; I held on to the auditions; I held on to the relationships; I held on to the insecurities; that held on to the anxiety; and I held on to everything that had become super comfortable to me. Um, and one night, I went to church for the first time since I moved to Nashville. Someone told me about a church called The Belonging that meets on Tuesday nights instead of just the weekends for people that tour, so I said, "Awesome, I can go," and I slipped in the back of this church, not really wanting anyone to know I was there. And a woman gets up to preach, and sure enough, it was the woman—the first woman that I had ever heard preach a couple of years ago—now up there speaking at this church that I was at. I'm like, "This is so cool; no way." So Alex Seeley walks out, and she gets on the stage—on nerve, forget it—if you've ever seen Alex Seeley preach, she is a firecracker, that girl. I was preaching, but she walks out very slowly, and she leans over her table just like this, and she goes, "You know, I'm not gonna preach my message tonight," she said. "The Lord just told me to speak a word over someone's life," and she said, "In this word, I feel like it's serving as a reminder to someone in here," and so she said, "If God repeats Himself to any of you, then you better be listening." And I'm sitting here like, "What is about to happen? This is cool; somebody's about to get a word." And she goes, "The word is hanani." I'm like, because that is not a common word, y'all; you just don't hear that often. She's like, "The word is hanani," and she said, "I feel like someone has recently said to God, 'Here I am, with no limits and no distractions,' and she said, 'But yet you've come here, and you have a lot of limits and a lot of distractions, and I want to tell you tonight to drop your safety net, drop your limits, drop your distractions, and actually tell God to send you.'" Y'all, when I tell you I was about to fall out of my chair, I was like, "Whoa." So needless to say, after that, I dropped the net; I dropped all the safety nets I have. I ended up leaving the agency that I was a part of, leaving the management I was a part of, breaking up with the guy that I was dating—literally anything that was prohibiting me to fully follow Jesus full force—got rid of and followed Jesus. About one month later, I'm still on this tour because the tour was three and a half months long, still preaching about David and Goliath, and even people on tour were starting to notice the difference in me. My speaking turned into preaching; I wasn't memorizing things, but I was really letting the spirit lead through me. This crazy how God can turn someone who is so anxious and filled with anxiety they can't even speak or read in class and yet make them into a bold preacher. He did that for me, and He also did the very same thing to Peter; He did the same thing for Moses, and He did the same thing for many people in the Bible. It's the character of who God is; it's the power of a testimony, y'all. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. I experienced that firsthand.
One of those nights of me preaching on this tour for 10 minutes as I moved the stage, a couple came to see their friend Crowder, and that couple's name was Louie and Shelley Giglio. They saw me preach, and as the time I got off the stage, they were sitting there, and they spoke a word over me that I was so shook by; I don't even know if I really believed them at the time. They said, "Sadie, God is going to use your voice to speak to this generation," and then Louie said, "I want to invite you to preach at Passion City Church." I was like, "What? I was like, 'I don't know if you know this, but um, 10 minutes is my max time—um, I've ever preached before; you're looking at it—10 minutes and Goliath.'" And he said, "No, God's gonna do something through you. I want you to come preach at our college night. It'll be in May." This was March, and I said yes. And I said yes even though I was absolutely terrified because I knew that's what God called me to do. And people say, "What God calls you to, He equips you for," and that is 100% absolutely true. So my life since then has been full-on ministry for the past, gosh, six years, I guess that's been, and I don't say it's been ministry since the time I spoke at Passion; it's been ministry since the time I dropped my nets because ministry is not limited to a platform; ministry is not limited to uh, church or to Tuesday night at Breakaway. Ministry is when you drop your net, you repent, and you turn the other way, and you follow Jesus. I want us to stop separating the idea of ministry in our everyday life, friends. I want us to stop seeing a relationship with Jesus as a part of our story, and I want us to get to the point of seeing it as our whole story. I know it's hard to learn how to merge these things because we've been so trained to compartmentalize our life, but I believe Jesus, through His relationship with Peter, teaches us so much. So we're going to fast forward a little bit to John 21. So we've been reading in Luke 5; John 21 is a different story with Peter, but it's very, very similar in context. Jesus had just died on the cross; that's where we're at. And so ministry seemed to be at a standstill for Peter, and it says in John 21 that Peter went back fishing. Now, a lot of people preach about this, and they say this is a bad thing, as if this is a bad thing, and I've even preached about it as if this was a bad thing. Now, Peter just went back fishing, but when I read it with the context of this message and just with the context of the word, I don't know how much of that was actually a bad thing. I think Peter just went back fishing because that's what Peter did. I think Peter just went back fishing because he wasn't doing ministry anymore; Jesus was gone, and what he knew before then was to be a fisherman. So I think he just went back fishing because he loved to fish. When Jesus was no longer there and it seemed like ministry was over, why would Peter not fish? I think this is how many of us separate our lives of Jesus as well. On Tuesday nights, we're at Breakaway, and we do ministry there because that's where Jesus is. On Sunday morning, we go to church, and we're a part of ministry because that's where Jesus is at my Bible study; that's where I do ministry, but because that's where Jesus is. But then on Monday morning when I go back to my finance class, what is that supposed to look like? My finance class; I just go back because that's what I do. I go to finance class, or maybe I go back to my sorority house; I go back home for the holidays; I go back to the football games on Saturdays; I go back to the tailgates; I go back to the date parties; I go back to the house and hang out with my friends. It's not a bad thing that you go back to these things; these are just your normal life things. None of these things are bad, but I think it is bad when you see those as a separate thing than your life with Jesus. I think it's bad when you don't see how Jesus can fit into those type of things. When we do ministry in places that Jesus naturally has talked about and forget to do ministry in our everyday life, I think that's when we see the suffering of the Gospel getting spread, and I think we have to know that that's happening because there's like 10,000 people here, and I just wonder, "Do we feel this when we're on campus? How do we get this there?" I want to talk to y'all about that: How do we merge the two?
Well, looking back, I think there was a reason that Jesus got onto Peter's boat that day when the crowd was all around. I don't think it was a coincidence, and I don't just think it was because there was a large crowd. I think that Jesus got on the boat that day to show Peter that you can preach from the boat. I think I got on the boat that day to say, "Right where you're at, you can stand up, and you can talk about the word of God, and it can have impact even on the boat." I believe He told him that day that you can fish for men to show him that from now on your purpose is not limited to boat and water; your purpose is actually able to be lived out no matter where you are. So I want you to hear that today: That right here, right now, with what you're gifting in is what you need to teach people about Jesus. It's not waiting for you after you graduate; it's not waiting for you when you get married; it's not waiting for you and God finally answers you on all the big questions that you have; it's right here and it's right now. In John 21, Jesus met Peter and the disciples at the sea where they were fishing. They didn't, of course, recognize Jesus because Jesus had just died on the cross, and Jesus looked different, but He called out to them, and He said, "Children, are you catching any fish?" And they responded, "No." And something about that I just love: that they were just a "no"—just the reality: "I'm not catching any fish." And I mean, I'm sure He actually meant, "Are you catching physical fish?" But maybe it's like we can take it tonight to us: "Are you catching men right now? What are you doing? Are you catching fish? No, I'm not; I'm just fishing, and we're catching nothing." He said, "Well, cast your net on the other side," and as they casted their net on the other side, once again, an abundance of fish were caught, and they recognized that it was the Lord. And I just think that's so cool that they recognized it was the Lord, not because it was the context of where they thought they were going to see Jesus, not even because it looked like Jesus, but they recognized the Lord because they already had a previous relationship with Jesus, and they recognized His word. See, Peter had already experienced a time where he was up all night and catching no fish, and Jesus said, "Cast it on the other side," and they caught a bunch of fish. And when I think about that for Peter, I think, "Man, that had to be like my hanani moment." You hear that word; you're like, "That's my word; like, that's my friend; that's me and Jesus's thing." And here Peter is; he's like, "Cast it on the other side after we just stayed up all night and caught nothing." That's my word; that's my friend; that's Jesus. So Peter can't even contain his excitement; he jumps overboard on the boat; he swims—I'm assuming he beat everyone there because he swam—and they're hauling all the fish, and he's hugging Jesus. The other people are rowing in the fish, and Jesus says to Peter that day, He said, "Bring me some of the fish that you just caught." It was like funny because Peter's like, "Forget the fish," once again separating fishing and Jesus, which—and in some degree is a beautiful thing—but in another degree, I just love that Jesus is like, "Don't forget about the fish; like, go get your fish, man; like, you just got 153 fish; like, that's actually really cool." And so Jesus said, "Peter, go get the fish," and Peter went back, and he brought Jesus the fish. And what did Jesus do? He used the fish to make breakfast for everyone else—in other words, He used what Peter had, but the ability that Peter had to multiply it into something that fed the other people around him, and He fed breakfast to everyone. I love that Jesus used the fish. Once again, Peter ready to ditch everything to get in the presence of Jesus, but Jesus is like, "Hey, don't forget about that fish; I actually want to use that. Your fish are not nothing to me; your fish actually means something." See, when you're in a relationship with Jesus and you let Him into your boat, you invite in an opportunity for Him to change the lives of everyone around you. Many of us are panicking as to what our life is going to look like: "Who am I going to be? What title am I gonna have?" All these huge questions about what life is going to look like, and in college, it's really easy to slip into the…
Anxieties of that. But tonight, I want to simplify just the searching of that question. Tonight, I want you to get to a point where you can be confident in what you say when you ask those questions. I want to first repeat what Jesus said to Peter that night: “Do not fear. Do not fear. From now on you will fish for men.” Friends, you have nothing to be afraid of when it comes to your future if you’re following Jesus. So I want to lead you with three questions that I believe will help bring your relationship with Jesus into every part of your life. I believe these three questions will help you merge every aspect of your life with Jesus.
The first question is: What is your boat? In other words, where are you? What spaces are you in that you can invite Jesus into to do ministry from your boat? It might look like business class. It might look like your sorority, your fraternity, your friend group. It might look like tailgates before the game. Man, you can invite Jesus into that; you can preach from there. It might look like social media; it’s a great way to let Jesus in; it’s a great place to preach from. Maybe it’s your family, maybe it’s your roommates, maybe it’s your apartment, wherever it is, maybe it’s your dorm rooms—that’s a boat Jesus can preach from there. Jesus showed Peter, “I’m gonna get in your boat, I’m gonna preach a word to everybody, and then, because we’re friends, we’re gonna fish.” Make it normal.
What are your fish? Is the next question. What are your fish? In other words, what are practical things that you’ve been gifted and doing that God can use to feed his people through? What are you talented in? Maybe it’s a gift of hosting people. Maybe your gifting is creativity; you’re great at writing. Maybe it’s storytelling, or your humor, maybe it’s your wisdom, maybe it’s actually cooking, maybe it’s actually fishing. Whatever it is, like, what are you actually good at? What do you love to do? Maybe at sports—that was what it was for me for a long time in my life. It’s different now, but it was that for me for a time. What are you good at? What can Jesus use to feed people around you?
And lastly, I think this one’s super, super important; it was the thing for me that kept me back. I got the boat, I got the fish thing, but it was this thing: What are your nets? What is the safety net that you were holding on to that you need to drop to fully follow God? Maybe it’s like me, and it was an ungodly relationship that you’re in. Maybe it’s the major that you’re in that’s truly just not your sweet spot, but you’re doing it because it might bring more financial peace, but it’s actually bringing no inner peace because it’s just not your thing. Maybe it is, man. Maybe it’s your social status; you’re unwilling to give up going to the things because you feel like, “I gotta be there if I’m gonna be somebody.” Maybe it’s your image—this image you put up; you want people to think you’re one way because you think it’s cool. What is it? What do you need to drop? Maybe it’s your Snapchat. Christian and I both had to delete Snapchat at times in our life because it was unhealthy for us. Maybe it’s TikTok. What social media are you…um…just kind of abusing? What social media is leading you down ungodly paths? Be willing to drop that net.
You see, your life and your ministry should not be two separate things, because that would mean your relationship with Jesus is not welcomed in your life. Your relationship with Jesus and your goals in life should go hand in hand. I feel like I used to walk with Jesus as if I was holding his hand and just kind of bringing him into some of the things that I wanted to bring him along for, for moral support. But I feel like now it’s me holding his hand and him leading me into the doors that we walk through together. His ways are higher; his ways are better. When we first met Peter, his title was a fisherman, but in the letters that he wrote, in verses, Second Peter, he addressed himself as a servant of Christ. It’s not that Peter wasn’t a fisherman; it was just a servant of Christ was above that. It’s not that I don’t actually preach and speak; it’s not that I don’t write books; it’s not that I’m not a wife; it’s not that I’m not these things; it’s just that’s actually not all of who I am. Who I am first and foremost is a child of God, is a servant of Christ. And because I am that, everything naturally flows from that. And the amazing thing is, whenever you have a relationship with God right, everything else, there’s an abundance, too. You don’t come up empty-handed anymore. You see, because whenever all those other things were placed first, I would be catching fish, but I would become…I would come up empty; it was like I was catching nothing. But whenever my relationship with Jesus was at first priority, even if some of those other things, like social status and all those things weren’t working out, I had an abundance because of who God was in my life. I had joy in a time where I used to would have had so much anxiety. I had peace in a time in my life where I would have never thought peace would be an option for me. I felt immeasurably loved, even though I was in a relationship for so long that made me feel so far from loved, but yet, all of a sudden, I had an abundance because Jesus was in my boat, because I was doing things for the purpose of serving Christ. Everything changes when you invite Jesus into the boat. Everything changes when you choose to sit by him. Everything changes when he actually becomes your best friend in life. Everything changes.
I felt like the Lord told me to share one more part of my testimony and do a call for this. I have two calls I want to do tonight, and I do not do this to humiliate anybody; in fact, to do this in the opposite, to bring forth freedom from shame that you might feel. And it’s actually interesting: when I got asked to speak here, I was super excited, but it actually had some hurts when it came to A&M, and it wasn’t y’all’s fault—love you guys—but back in the day, I had actually dated a guy who went to A&M and played football here. And during that time of me dating him, an article came out on a…um…Twitter account called Total Frat Move, which I don’t know if y’all know of that account, but it had millions of followers; it probably still does. And an article came out, and it says, “Sadie Robertson, the ugliest girl a football player has ever dated.” And it was this entire article—literally pictures of me that were not attractive—maybe I was caught off guard—and pictures of me with pimples, and zoomed in on parts of my face that weren’t attractive. They talked about how pale my skin was and just pulled out every aspect of me that they did not find beautiful. And how can this…that guy date her? And then put me in line with all of his ex-girlfriends who were cheerleaders and models and stuff like that. It was just humiliating, and it was humiliating for a lot of reasons. One, because that is really hard to read an article about you like that. But two, is humiliating because it was on such a huge Twitter account, and all my friends at school, friends saw it; all the people were talking about it: “Did you see this? Did you see this? Did you see this?” I knew all of these college students had seen it when I was a senior, and even though I wasn’t going to college, it’s just really embarrassing, and I just felt so humiliated and…um…so belittled. And those are such hard days, and I feel like when you get humiliated like that, you think like, “How am I even gonna wake up and go in tomorrow? Like, how am I gonna face people? You know, like, how am I even gonna go to school tomorrow knowing that everyone just saw this thing that was super embarrassing?”
And there was this time in Peter’s life where, right before John 21, right before Jesus died, that he denied Jesus three times. So he’s Jesus’s best friend, and he denied Jesus three times publicly. And that was actually humiliating for him; like, he wept after he did that because of, like, how embarrassing is that that he couldn’t be bold enough when Jesus is there taking the Cross, but he couldn’t be bold enough to even act like he was Jesus’s friend. And he was so humiliated. And that…that’s why some people preach it like he just went back fishing, because how do you go…how do you keep doing ministry when you just did that? For me, like, how do I even show up whenever…like that was so…how do I even go to this campus, you know, when that was so humiliating? What if people read the article? What do people know about that time in my life when it wasn’t great, or a date with this person, or blah blah, you know? You know your shame kind of sits on you. And I’ve talked to Christian about his start of college, and I would just be surprised if, in the first couple of weeks of college, some of you haven’t already been humiliated by decisions that you’ve made. Some of you haven’t already been humiliated by some of the things that people have already said about you. Some of you haven’t been already humiliated by things that people found out about you that you did in high school that you wish nobody knew you did now that you’re in college, but somehow that’s your reputation, and that reputation is actually not who you are. Maybe it has been who you are, and tonight you’re like, “Well, dang, I really want to follow Jesus; I really want to be this person, but it’s really hard to be this person when everybody knows me as that person. How do I break off this humiliation? How do I break off this shame? How do I break up the sins that I did last night, last week, during rush, during fertility? What do I do with all that? How does that play into ministry?”
Friend, if you feel humiliated, if you feel shame, if you made a mistake, the greatest person who could be in your boat with you is Jesus Christ. Don’t get distracted right now by the noise around, because this is so important. Some of you feel this way; I know that because I know too many people who have that story in the first weeks of college. And think that, out of 10,000 people, not one person, at least, has felt that. So I don’t say this to embarrass you, but if you’ve been humiliated, if you feel like you’ve done something that was against your character, against the way that you actually want to live, you feel a little bit stuck in who you used to be known as, and you don’t know how to shake that off and be who you feel God’s calling you to be, because you don’t know how to get past that awkward tension of who I was and who I feel called to be, then I want to ask you, if you would be so bold in this room, stand up. And why I want you to stand up is because I want to give an opportunity for everyone around you to see, “I’m not that person.” They might not know what you did; this might have been something that will happen in high school or middle school. They might not know what you did; this might be something that was in your hometown. They might know exactly what you did because they were all there whenever you did it. But I want to give you an opportunity to stand in that tension, say, “I’m no longer Saul; I am Paul, because I had an encounter with Jesus. I no longer am in that moment where I denied Jesus three times at a charcoal fire; I’m in the moment that I said to Jesus, ‘I love you’ three times at a charcoal fire.” I see people standing already. If that’s you, I want you to stand up. It takes insane bravery. If we can clap for them…same bravery…stay standing. It’s insane bravery. I want to speak directly to every one of you: that is not who you are. You are a child of God. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. When you repent and when you turn to Jesus, everything about your life changes; the slate is clean. That’s why Jesus died on the cross for you—is to wash you free of the sins. Now I’m not gonna say people might not still be mean; I hope that they’re not; I hope that they would grow up and not be so immature. But your identity is not found in what they say about you. Your identity is found in what the Lord has written over your life. Your identity is found in when God decided to knit you together in your mother’s womb for such a purpose. And you’re no longer going to be held back from the shame of the past, but tonight you’re walking free into the things that God has for you in the future. And if you’re standing around someone, I just want you to just hold their hand, and I want you to say two things to them. We’re gonna pull a Ginny Allen, if you were at Passion. I want you to say, “There is therefore no condemnation in Christ Jesus.” No condemnation. The second thing I want you to say to them is I want you to say, “Because you’re a friend of Jesus, you’re a friend of me now.”
Adam, I want to call you to something higher. If you…if you see your friends, and not just these people, there will be others of you who will make mistakes; there will be people on your campus who will make mistakes. And if you see people being humiliated, I want you to stand up for them. See, all the disciples were scared to hang out with Paul because he used to be Saul. They were literally like, “No, like, he cannot be in our group; like, he used to kill Christians.” There was one disciple that was like, “No, y’all, like, actually Jesus changed his life; like, I want him here.” And in Saul…Paul wrote most of the New Testament, the letters of them. So I want you to stand up for people. I want you to fight for people. I want you to say, “No, yeah, they used to be that, but then they met Jesus, and because they met Jesus, and because I believe in the power of Jesus, they’re a different person, just like I’m a different person, because that’s what Jesus does in people’s lives; that’s what Jesus does; that’s what the gospel is. He took away our sin at the cross.” So now I want to do a second call. If you want to merge the two things in your life, which means your life in Jesus, and if you’re willing to stay on A&M’s campus, “I will be a disciple of Christ; I will be following Jesus now.” This is a man; you’re not going to make any mistakes. This doesn’t mean that you’re gonna have amazing…every day is gonna be perfect, but this just means, “I’m making a decision today: I will be a disciple of Christ; I will follow Christ; I’m gonna be the light of the world on this campus. Jesus is going to be preaching from my boat.” I want you to stand up. [Music] Amazing. Come on. [Music] Amazing.
Now, if this is true…this is true. I expect next time I come back here to see revival. I think that we talk about revival so much; people say, “Well, why isn’t revival actually happening?” And I think it’s because revival is happening in these spaces, but it’s not happening out there because people don’t know how to merge the two. But I fully expect for revival to happen because this is thousands of people who are revived, people who are about to go make it happen. Because once you get revived by Jesus, you can’t stop talking about Jesus; you can’t stop loving on people; your joy is so infectious; people notice. You’re gonna be in class on a Monday, and people are like, “What the heck is wrong with you?” I managed to survive by Jesus; life is good. Hide the Spirit of the Lord living inside of me; therefore, the joy of the Lord is my strength. I have peace that surpasses all understanding, as a love that washes over me every mercy…and mercies…every day. I’m quoting scripture, y’all. I’m quoting the promises of God over your life. That’s the true promise and the true blessing of being a follower of Jesus. So good. This is amazing. Take a second, just look around. Now I’m going to pray over us. This might be awkward, and I know we just got over a pandemic, but can everybody hold hands because we’re doing this together? Because revival…God revives a person’s heart, but I believe that revival really breaks out from the king…from the body of Christ being a body, building the Kingdom. So I’m going to pray.