Woman Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts - The Best of: Woman Evolve - Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts

Episode Date: December 25, 2024

This special Best Of edition episode features some our favorite moments from the season! If you missed one of these episodes, this might be your second chance to listen!   Clip 1 Episode Title: Protect Your Spark with Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts Clip 2 Episode Title: The Moment of Increase with Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts Clip 3 Episode Title:  Character Development with Pastor Sarah Jakes Roberts See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Peace to the planet, shalomating to God here. And as we come closer to closing out this year, I just want to say thank you for tuning in to the Black Effect Podcast Network. There have been so many great moments over the past year. Take a listen to some of those captivating moments in this special Best Of episode. Your life is the stimulus for an event or a process.

In other words, when God created you, he was starting something. When God created you, you're not random, he wasn't bored, he didn't just decide that we needed more people in the earth. God says that there's something I want to start in the earth, and so I need to send someone in the earth who can start this thing

that I want to someone in the earth who can start this thing that I want to accomplish in the earth. You were here to start something. That's why you have this desire to do something that seems bigger than you. That's why you're discontent when life just seems mundane and routine and comfortable. It's because you were meant to start something.

That's why no matter how many times you try to give up on this idea of purpose and destiny, it just won't leave you alone. It's because you were here to start something. You better nudge your neighbor and tell them I'm getting ready to start something. When you start something, it is not something that can easily be undone.

When you start something, it is something that raises a standard for your family, for your community, and for your generation. I'm trying to start something that cannot be undone. I'm trying to start something that changes the way that my community is seen. I'm trying to start something that makes another woman recognize that bruised heels still crush the serpent's hand. I'm not just here talking words.

I'm here to start something. We don't get on the plane for 24 hours to come to South Africa so that you can stay the same. We get on the plane because we wanna start something. And the reason why we wanna start something is because we know what God put on the inside of you. Baby, you are a starter. I know sometimes you failed.

I know sometimes you may have quit. I know sometimes maybe someone gave up on you. That's good news because you can start again because you were here to start something. It doesn't matter how many times you failed. It doesn't matter how many times they betrayed you. When you are a starter, you get back up again. When you are a starter, you take a time out,

but you get back up again. Baby, I'm a starter. Mess with me, I might start something. Mess with me, I might change a. Baby I'm a starter. Mess with me I might start something. Mess with me I might change your life. I'm a starter baby. If I get to pray I might break something off of you. I'm a starter. I might introduce generational blessings in your life because I'm a starter. I know who I am in God. God called me to start something. When I see what's happening in the world I don't get discouraged. I come alive. Cause it's my sign it's time for me to start something. When I see some brokenness, when I see poverty,

it's my sign that it's time for me to start something. I'm a starter. Never played a sport, but I'm a starter. Never had a ball, but I'm a starter. I'm on the starting line, baby. I start stuff. I'm a starter. And I need to live with this consciousness.

Because when I do not know that I am a starter, I will believe that it is possible for the enemy to stop what God started. Oh God, it's gonna be good in here tonight. The enemy's mission is to stop you before you even get started. Because if you ever get started, there is no stopping what God wants to do through you.

So I gotta get you before you even get started. I wanna talk to some people in this room who know what it's like to have childhood trauma, to know what it's like for the devil to be chasing you from the time that you were born. You didn't know why he was doing it. You thought that they were just rejecting you. You thought there was just something wrong with you.

You thought you didn't fit in the family. You thought you were born in the wrong community. No, that's not what it was. It's that the enemy was trying to stop you before you ever got started. The enemy was trying to stop you before you ever received a touch from God because he knew one touch

from God would radically change your life. That if you ever got a revelation and started seeing yourself the way God sees you, then you would start rolling into your destiny. You wouldn't just step into it. God says you would take off running into your destiny if you knew what I knew about you. The enemy didn't realize though, that you can stop a person but you can't stop God. God help me. You can stop a person but you can't stop God. And because you can't stop God,

God can always reach that person. I wanna take you back to Genesis three, when there was a woman in the garden named Eve, and that woman had eaten from a fruit, and the enemy must have been rejoicing. He must have thought that he had won. But even when the devil thought he won, God showed up in the midst of the garden, and he had a question for that woman. He asked that woman who deceived you. He wanted to understand what happened to you. While the devil was rejoicing, the woman was

having an encounter with God because God said it doesn't matter what the devil did to try and stop you. I know how to get you to start again and he told that woman if you would start producing even in your brokenness, if you would start producing even in your wounds, if you would start producing, even in your brokenness, if you would start producing, even in your wounds, if you would start producing, even though you've been hurt, I promise you that this devil you see today, you will see no longer. If you would start pressing towards the seed anyway. The devil thought he won. But he was no match. Because there was a destiny over her life. There is destiny over your life. That means even though the enemy

thinks that his plan will stop you. Guys, I'm going to show up. And I'm going to show you how to work around. I'm going to show you how to push through. I'm going to show you how to hang on, how to trust, how to keep producing in spite of what tried to cripple you. Because what I put in you is so unstoppable. Increase is often something that we just step into. And when God sends someone to push us, he's also helping us to realize

that there are some people who see you better than you see yourself. And even if they don't know who you are, God knows who you are. Can I tell you a little something about increase in disguise? Increase in disguise will have you looking at a shepherd boy with a lunchbox, thinking that he could not possibly run up on Goliath,

saying to him, you should go back to the field and let the big, strong, bold people take care of this giant. They said he wasn't enough. God says this is increase in disguise. See, there are some people who may look at their situation and think, Lord, this is not enough. But God says you are increase in disguise. Don't expect for them to see what God sees.

David had more courage on the inside of him than they had muscle on the outside of them. He was increase in disguise. That little boy had two fish and five loaves of bread. They said, Jesus, we don't have enough. Jesus said, that's more than enough. That's increase in disguise. I want you to start looking at what you have to work with

and recognize that you may say it's not enough, but God says, I'll take whatever you have because whatever you have is something that I can use. It's increase in disguise. but something that I can use is increase in disguise. Something happens when we begin to recognize that it's possible to move from one stage to another stage and never realize it. I don't know what's scarier,

not realizing the moment where there has been increase in disguise, or missing the moment when I begin to decline. I think, I think I'd rather miss increase than to miss decline. David, this warrior, this man after God's own heart, would not fight a battle without asking God, shall I go up? Some kind of way, this same person

who was so committed to following the heart of God finds himself in a situation where he is home from battle, and when he's home from battle, he begins making choices that he should have never made, so much so that when the prophet Nathan comes to him and tells him a story about himself, he doesn't even recognize himself because he has been declining and doesn't even recognize himself because he has been declining and

doesn't even realize it. Sometimes we decline and we don't even realize it. We're shocked to find out that while we were so busy producing, so busy people pleasing, so busy showing up, that they were getting the results, but we were getting the decline. I don't know what's worse. How does Jonah, the prophet, God's mouthpiece, find himself in a situation where he will not do

what God told him to do. He declined. And didn't even realize it. There are people in this room. And they don't even realize how much they have declined in their faith, how much they have declined in their hope, how much they have declined in their courage,

because it happened so suddenly that we don't even know how we got there. I know in a room this size is not everyone's testimony, but I don't know about you, there have been some times where I looked at my life and I was so far off track that I couldn't even retrace my steps. Moments in my life where I was so far off track that I didn't even realize that I was walking by sight and no longer by faith, I had declined.

So busy having my purpose, my vision, my talent come to life that I didn't realize that I had taken ownership of something that started with God. I started declining and didn't even realize it. It started off a blessing, now it feels like a curse. What happened? When did I start declining? When did I lose the honor for the thing that God gave me?

When did I lose the honor for this opportunity? I started declining. Maybe I should have rested when somebody said that they would help me. Maybe I should have rested when somebody said that they would help me maybe I should have asked for help because now I'm in a situation where I'm declining maybe I should have talked to somebody because now I'm in a situation where I'm declining maybe I should have asked someone to give me some wisdom and some insight instead of being superwoman

because now I am declining and nobody knows it because I'm still producing. Nobody knows it because I'm still showing up. Nobody knows it because I'm still singing the songs. Nobody knows it because I came out of my way to go to Women Evolve Conference. They think I'm here because I'm such a good church girl. I'm here because I can sense I'm declining. I'm not as sharp as I used to be.

I'm not as solid as I once was. I feel myself declining. I used to have power and authority, but I feel myself declining. I used to believe that no weapon formed against me will prosper, but some kind of way I'm declining. I used to believe that I could rebuke the devil and the devil would flee, but some kind of way I'm declining.

And the more that I decline, I could rebuke the devil and the devil would flee, but some kind of way I'm declining. And the more that I decline, the more quiet I become because I don't want anybody to know that I'm declining. What happened to me? What happened to me? What happened to me? Like so many of you, I grew up in church. Some of you did not grow up in church,

but you grew up around it. I will tell you that part of my experience in church, and mind you, when I was growing up, it was part of the height of the purity culture. So everything was kind of about like performative relationship with God. You do the right thing all of the time. If you can't do the right thing all of the right time,

then you do not have as much worth or value as other people, especially as it relates to your body. As it relates to your body and how you carry yourself, there was a desire to be this person who was pretty, I'm gonna say blameless and constantly, I won't even say pursuing righteousness, cause like the idea was like they had already arrived and they had achieved it.

I did not fit in in church because I kind of knew like, listen, I'm trying to figure out how you do this thing. Like how do you even get to a place where that is your experience? How do you get to a place where you are living blamelessly and righteously and no one was really explaining it or at least maybe I wasn't paying attention, but no one was really explaining it. It just seemed like either you get it or you don't.

I took many years to finally learn that character is something that is developed. It's not necessarily something that you just get. I think part of why I am such a, you know, advocate, I guess, for gentle parenting is because even the idea that like you do something wrong, you get a whooping and you're not supposed to do it again is a little performative, at least it was for me.

Let me speak about my, let me sweep around my own front porch. And as a result of it being performative for me, let me speak about my, let me sweep around my own front porch. And as a result of it being performative for me, I never learned like why what I did was wrong. Um, and I never felt a conviction necessarily to do right as much as I was like, I'm either not going to do it again because I don't want to whoop it, which I think was the goal, or I'm going to do it differently next time. Instead of the challenge of this is not the kind of person you want to become.

A person who makes these types of decisions are X, Y, and Z. And these are the types of relationships that they lose and the type of people they attract, because character is so important. We wasn't breaking it down. And so, as I said, many years for me to get to a place where I'm like, okay, I need to have character development for myself so that I understand the value of integrity, of honesty, of loyalty, of, you know, communicating in a way that makes a person feel safe and being

a safe place where someone's secrets are safe with me. Like that was something that was developed for me. It wasn't something that I just got naturally. And maybe it's just me, you know, but that's a part of my experience, creating a space for other people to be vulnerable. All of that was developed through character development. And so if you are in a position where you are constantly

undergoing the process of character development, I want you to know one, you are not on your own. Secondly, I want to encourage you to be intentional about understanding what type of person you want to be. You know, as I'm talking all about power moves, I'm reading it, I'm constantly consuming it and just trying to figure out how do I continue to unpack everything that God gave me when God gave me this book. But part of it really was just this practical guide to developing characters so that you can show up in the world in a way that gives you confidence and

our character is developed through submission to the Holy Spirit. So when we talk about what type of person you want to be, what are the values of the person you desire to be? I will give you an example as a mother, I guess I want to be easy to talk to, but I also want to be committed to telling the truth. I want to be a parent who can apologize. I want to be vulnerable with my children about the choices and decisions that I made.

I want to help them understand why they may be making some of the decisions that they have made. And so that requires dialogue and intentionality. And what's wild is as a teen mom, you know, raising a kid at 14 versus raising kids at 35 is obviously completely different because at 14 I was just doing what I thought I was supposed to do. Tapping that Laffy Taffy, yelling if necessary. And my child, you know, very respectful,

loves me very much. Yes ma'am, no ma'am, all of those things. And yet like he doesn't ask me for anything. I can remember when he was maybe in middle school and I looked at his shoes. I was like, are your shoes too small? And he was like, yes ma'am, I just didn't want to ask you for anything.

I had trained him to think similarly to the way that I think that I was raised in that your needs, and no matter how legitimate they are, could be an inconvenience. So if you could just keep them to yourself, unless absolutely necessary, that would be ideal. And so now, even in his twenties, like I'm constantly asking him like, you know, not necessarily just what do you need, but like,

how did that make you feel and making sure that I am creating a space where he can tell me what he needs without judgment. And so those are some of the things that I want to hold near to me as I seek to be a mother that moves in power for my children and who I am as a mother, though there is certainly overlap, may be different than who I am as a businesswoman. As a businesswoman, I want to be direct. I want to be clear. I want to be concise. I want to be compassionate.

I want to be clear. I want to be concise. I want to be compassionate. I want to maintain a boundary. And so as a businesswoman, I'm having to navigate how does that show up in my decision making? The problem is like there is who we want to be, but then there is who we are in the moment when it's time for me to actually activate those things. How do I make sure that as a parent, I'm not tapping back into what feels normal and culturally acceptable for me? And how do I make sure that my actions align with my desire and that I am showing up in the way

that I have consulted God and come away with as my blueprint for an existence that looks more like him. Once again, thank you for tuning into the Black Effect Podcast Network. See you in 2025 for more great moments from your favorite podcast.