A Runaway’s Story and a Life Redirected | No Sanity Stories

A teenager runs away from an abusive home and ends up on a bench after curfew, where one unexpected encounter changes his direction. Brody sits down with retired state trooper Robbie Jacks to hear how God used mentors, friendship, and Scripture to turn a life marked by abuse and shame into one of purpose and service.

Robbie shares his story of hitting rock bottom, the people who stepped in at the right time, and how the Gospel, not just behavior change, brought real transformation. We also talk about breaking cycles, growing in faith, and building a meaningful habit of time in God’s Word.

• Be Strong Men's Conference
• Demas, Drifting, and How To Stay Faithful 
• What My Fathers Fall Taught Me
• Ezekiel 36:26-27

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Transcript

Be Strong Conference Setup

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Hey, in this week's episode of No Sanity Required, I'm recording from the Spring Bee Strong Conference. That's our men's conference. We got about 600 men here from all over the country. I met guys that flew in from Arizona, guys that flew in from the Midwest, guys that just heard about us through a Google search or through No Sanity Required Podcast and have come to attend our men's conference. We're off and running. It's so far, it's been an incredible weekend. Um fellowship, good food, just sitting under the word. We'll get all those sessions and teachings posted on the Snowbird Outfitters podcast later this week. But I'm sitting down today with a friend of mine, his name's Robbie Jackson. I'm just walking right now outside. I'm I'm on a I'm on a remote part of the property, just walking and recording this intro on my phone. I'm gonna sit down with a friend of mine named Robbie Jackson. Let me just quick introduce you to Robbie. Robbie's a retired state trooper from the state of Ohio. I met Robbie about 12 years ago when he attended his first Be Strong. We became really good friends. He's he's one of those stories that we would call a no-sanity story. His life has been impacted by this ministry, but also I've been impacted by the friendship that God's given me with Robbie. His story is riveting. He grew up in a really, really rough situation. He's a story, his story is one of those where you go, you know what? Um anybody can break the cycle of sin and can come out of brokenness and be used of God. Robbie invests in young men. He's involved in student ministries. He's been the student pastor at his church. He's an elected official in his community. Um, he's just a faithful dude. And his story is one of abandonment, abuse, a lengthy period as a runaway in his teen years, sexual abuse, physical abuse. I don't want to give too much of a story away, but it is riveting. God has used him in a lot of ways and is continuing to use him. But most importantly, Robbie's a true and genuine friend of mine and of Snowbird Outfitters. Robbie's the kind of guy that is the backbone of this ministry. We have a lot of faithful supporters that give 20 bucks, 50 bucks, 100 bucks a month to keep this thing going and growing. And Robbie's one of those dudes. He's not a Robbie's not a um, he he he wants to give as much as he receives. And I'm I'm so grateful for his friendship. He's a true brother and friend in Christ. And Robbie traveled with us on several trips to Honduras when we used to go down and run camps down there every year. And I got to know him really well. And um, yeah, I'm thankful to know him and his his family. And he's a, like I said, he's a true friend and uh excited to sit down with him, excited for y'all to hear all about it. And uh, and then the last thing is uh is this before we get into the conversation with Robbie. JB is back. She got back. I saw her for the first time uh yesterday, and so she's back. We cannot talk about where she's been or what she's done. I will tell you this. I'm gonna we're gonna sit down this coming week and we'll drop a bonus episode by the end of the week and just kind of give you a little bit of an idea of where she's been, what she's done, and how you can continue to pray for the impact that the Lord might have used her to make. And uh she's had a heck of an adventure. It's pretty cool. And uh we'll be able to share more of that in about probably probably about two months from now. We'll be able to really unpack everything that she's experienced over the last few weeks. So JB's back. We love her. We're so thankful she's back. Excited to have her back. Uh it's rolling here. Be Strong's over. Um, this week, as this drops, be strong is behind us. We're now turning our focus really towards staff orientation this upcoming weekend. Uh, and then everything's geared towards summer after that. So it's exciting times here. I'm excited for you to hear from my friend Robbie Jacks. So welcome to No Sanity Required.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_04 4:19

Okay, my first memory of meeting you and connecting with you was at a Be Strong came with John Meeks. Probably I don't know, probably 10 years ago. 10 or 12. Yeah. It's been a minute. But my first like collective shared experience memories you went to Honduras with us. Twice. Twice. Yes. And I'm gonna tell you something. Me and Hank, so me and Hank will sit around the fire ever almost every night in the summer. We sit around a fire with anybody that wants to come back there. And so I would say 90% of the people that come sit at the fire, you've set it at the fire. 90% of the people come sit at the fire are gonna be youth pastors, men that are we have very few ladies that come back. Um not because we don't want them to, it's just you know it is it is what it is, yeah. So it's and it's usually it's at 10 o'clock, it's like 10 10 o'clock at night. And so some nights it's me and Hank and Adam Garner and about one or two other guys, and then some nights there'll be 25 people circled around that fire. We'll build a fire up real big. Um but Hank's a phenomenal storyteller. Oh yeah. As you know, yeah. And Hank will say, so Hank has killed big game. You know, they're I mean, they had a professional, I mean, they had a hunt a show on TV for years. Right. They're killing elk, bears, big time turkey hunters, huge white-tailed deer. They're hunting Kansas, Illinois, Ohio, they're hunting Nebraska, they're hunting elk in New Mexico. And Hank says the funnest hunting trips he's ever been is those hunters because we shot dogs.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

We shot feral dogs. It was a it was an eye-opener for me, I'll be honest with you. It was fun, so much fun. So the fun the first time you went.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

You didn't like we barely knew, I mean, we knew each other. Right. We had hung out at an event or two. But it had to be, I'd love to know. Can you remember like what's the impression you're getting on that trip of all of us and just the being behind the curtain at Snowbird having been a guest?

SPEAKER_02 6:30

You know, I I told so many stories on the way down here. You know, I was trying to explain to the two men in my vehicle on the way down, one of them who I'm investing in weekly, you know, discipling the impact that Snowbird has had on me in my walk with Jesus. And I always look back to that Honduras trip. It was like, it was like this catalyst of, okay, this makes sense to me. Even if it's this crazy, I saw men being men and just enjoying what God has given them, you know, to have dominion over. And that's honestly, I mean, we're laughing about that hunting experience, but we're you guys were taking care of business for something that needed to be done. We were having fun while doing it, but we were also helping this orphanage in Honduras at the same time after working there all day. Yeah. And it just, it was like, okay, this my walk with Jesus is the fabric of my life. No matter what I'm doing, that's what you guys revealed to me. And honestly, the early morning things is what got me. I don't know if I've ever shared this with you, but the early morning things, me getting up and seeing everybody within your group, they were faithful to be in the word. And I knew that was something I needed in my life. The first time I went to Honduras, I everything had started clicking, and it was like then God showed me, oh, this is what I've been trying to reveal to you. Now I'm showing it to you real time. And watching you guys just being faithful, encouraging each other, holding each other accountable. And then there was another big point. We had some children of the staff that were with us. You guys were one big family. If little Johnny was messing up or doing something he shouldn't be doing, you guys were lovingly correcting them. You were always imparting into them, you never missed the opportunity. And I was like, that's what I want. And God was already leading me in that direction, but I never had anybody to in my hometown or where I live, or you know, I just never had anybody to set that example for me. Um, so it is like, okay, that's when like this makes sense. These guys are faithful, they follow the the Jesus model and they're doing it themselves. And you know, just as Paul says, imitate me as I as I follow Christ. And that's that's what just resonated with me. I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

That's encouraging. That's really cool. Because those trips were we went to Honduras for almost 20 years every year. And you made the last two trips, and then COVID shut it down and we quit going. But we go down there and we'd run a week of camp. That's the largest orphanage in Central America. Right. We would just run a week of camp for them. We had built for our listeners, we had built paintball field, we we had three-man swing, three-man swing, two zip lines. We had we had really established a cool uh setup down there. We'd go down and run a week of camp for these kids. But then, yeah, there it's the third world. So at nighttime, all these feral dogs would come out of the mountains and go through all the trash cans. So we would work all day. We'd be up at five. And what Robbie's talking about is get up, get up at five, gotta be out rolling by 6 30. So everybody's up at five just quietly, coffee's on, and it's warm. So everybody's sitting outside, kind of patio, veranda. People just spread out and spend an hour or two in the word, and then we hit the day, do ministry all day. And then at night after supper, we would we would borrow uh I I would go see this guy in Honduras and borrow a firearm off of him. Um sometimes he'd give me a shotgun, sometimes he'd give me well, a couple times he gave me a rifle, but I would always ask for the shotgun. And we would we would sit up and wait for the we'd bait these feral dogs and we would shoot them.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

I think I think it's important for the listeners to know. At first I was like, and this is weird. And I got to thinking back at home, we do this with coyotes all the time. They're a nuisance, they're livestock issue, disease-ridden, mangy, ticks, I mean everything, and they were nasty, nasty dogs. So nasty. Yeah. So I think a lot of people don't understand when you just hear, oh, they were shooting dogs, that's it was so much more than that.

Discipleship That Becomes Partnership

SPEAKER_04 10:42

It it wasn't your golden doodle that you take to the groomer every week. These were wild, wild dogs. I will say, your golden doodle will eat its own turds and lick another dog's rear end. Yep, yep, absolutely. But yeah, those dogs. That guy, I remember one year we're down there and I said to the guy that ran the place, I was like, Man, these dogs, they're getting our trash, they're dragging our stuff off. And that wouldn't, I think they'd come out in the middle of the night. And he's like, Oh yeah, man, we're it's just a nuisance. And I said, Well, we'll take care of them. And he said, Wait, are you being serious? And I I think he knew I was being serious. And he said, They used to keep them thinned out, but people, several churches that had come down to do mission trips had gotten very offended that they were that they had killed dogs, had shot them. Americans have such a weird love affair with their dogs. Right. And uh these guys like, these are wild dogs, man. They come in here and wreak havoc. So anyway. Well, I I remember on that trip, that's when I remember having a lot of conversation about, like I can remember explaining, okay, this is what biblical exposition is and why it's critical to the church. This is what discipleship looks like, why it's critical to church, this is what church leadership should be if it's going to be biblical, and having those conversations of ecclesiology. And I think at the time you were wrestling through is this time for us to to move to a different church, or you were kind of just praying about God's next steps for you. And then, but then more importantly, what and I know we'll get into this, um, God's path for you in terms of ministry opportunities just locally. You you've got a real heart for and a desire to mentor and disciple young men, especially young men that don't have a father figure. Um, and that's kind of what you're doing. Yes. And a lot of that was already happening, but I think it gave you maybe some biblical focus on okay, I don't want to just mentor dudes. There's secular organizations that do that on a disciple.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Right. Well, for for me when I finally had a real encounter with Christ, our local church recognized it. So, like a lot of churches, once they see somebody on fire, they say, let's give them responsibility, which was, you know, I'm glad I had the opportunity, but I was not prepared for it. Nobody had discipled or invested in me. I was passionate about about what I was doing, but I wasn't very skilled at what I was doing. Coming here, you know, to Snowbird, it started clicking and started making sense. I then figured out that if I want to be effective at ministry, then I have to spend time at the feet of Jesus on a daily basis, just T and I, not preparing a lesson, not doing this, not doing that. But kind of what you talked about last night, reminding myself on the daily basis that Jesus is Lord. And for me, it was more like reminding myself of the gospel. And because of my troubled childhood, reminding myself on a daily basis that I'm a son of God. Because of what Jesus has done through me through the gospel, I am now an heir to the creator of all things. And it really just started making sense at that point. I think so many times that guys are hungry and they're passionate, churches recognize that, and they task them with something and they're not prepared for it because they truly don't even understand the gospel. I was still thinking that I had to earn my way to heaven. I was I was still thinking that. And this is one of the ways I was doing it by, you know, teaching lessons to teenagers. It was everything was backwards. The cart was before the horse. So you guys helped you helped me see the force through the trees, so to say, you know, it started making sense. Um, so then, you know, I left here. I didn't have that environment back home, but I didn't have very many people that was interested in that. But I knew of one guy who was somewhat offensive to me at times because he was so bold. And always, every time I saw him, there was there was no, hey, how you doing? You been fishing or anything? It was just boom, hey, how's your time with Jesus? What are you doing? You know, that guy rubbed me the wrong way initially. But I when I left on that second trip or no first trip to Honduras, I was like, okay, I don't have this. Brody and that whole crew, they're they're very gracious, but they don't have time for me to call them with every little issue or to disciple me one-on-one. So I bit the bullet and I and this gentleman's name is Dave Perry, and we're still in relationship to the get today. He's helping me with the rent uh ministry on the University of Ria Grant. He still disciples me. Um, I got back and got connected with him. And so now weekly, you know, he we and he invests in me, and now it's kind of grown into we invest in each other in a lot of different ways. Um, but yeah, you guys open my eyes to that, just seeing you guys live it out on a daily basis. And I had seen it loosely while I'm here at camp. But when you live with somebody for a week and just get to see them, you know, live their lives, it makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_04 15:42

Yeah, like uh uh as you get behind the curtain. Yes, yeah, you you go behind the curtain. And one of the things that I always want to be said of this ministry is when because we're an open book, like we don't have like when you called and said, Hey, can I go to Honduras with you? I'm like, Yeah, man, come on. Yeah. You know, and that relational component to House Number Does Ministry, I'm always encouraged when somebody says, Yeah, I got here and realized there's even more to what I was encouraged coming to an event, but then living doing life with y'all for a few days, I was even more encouraged because it's real and it's authentic. And I think you hit on something right there that's very important. I've seen this happen so much in my life, and I've seen it happen with a lot of like I was talking to one of my daughters recently, and it's happened with one of her friends, where a lot of times you start investing in somebody, and then there's a point where they become more like just a brother in arms. Right. A sister in arms. So like Dave's investing in you, but now you're at this point where you're just co-laboring. That's how I am with Rob and Spencer and these guys that are all seven, eight years younger than me came here when they were 20 and I was investing in them, but now it's mutual investment. Right. It's just partnership for the gospel. And I think that's healthy discipleship. I think that's what it looks like. Yes, absolutely. Um it's kind of like, you know, uh it would be I don't I don't think the idea is that I always stay eight years more mature than the guy I'm discipling who's eight years younger than me.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Yeah, I want him to pass me.

SPEAKER_04 17:12

Yeah, that's right. That's the goal. And I think that we see that in the New Testament. Even the passage I read last night where Paul's talking to Timothy, and he's he's giving him a charge, but he's giving it to him. You still have that, you can tell Paul was the one doing the discipling, but now Timothy has gotten to this point where he's a co-laborer, you know. And if you read a little further in that chapter, I love there's this part where Paul says, Send John Mark to me. He's asking for some folks to come visit him. It's just because he's useful for ministry. Well, he had kicked him off the team.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah, no, I I love that passage. Yeah, I love that because there's many times I should have been kicked off the team, but people stayed patient with me. Now, you know, Paul took offense at that early on. He's like, You're not going to be growing up. Then you see him maturing, it's like, okay, Paul. Paul's like, Come on, you're back on the team.

SPEAKER_04 18:04

Yeah, and John Mark matured because he took that rebuke and apparently it clearly he went and grew and matured and developed. And so I think good discipleship always turns into partnership. Then you look at Demas, completely opposite. The opposite. Yeah. Started, yeah, and it you they mentioned him three times. I did an episode on Demas. Okay. Um probably two years ago, and it I got a lot of good feedback on that because I think it's one of those names that pops up, and then the first time you see him, it's like, uh, here's who we're all here together and we're laboring, and Demas' name is in the list. Paul's doing one of those where he's listed everybody. Next time he's like, uh, yeah, and Demas, Demas is here too. And there's a different tone to it. And then the last time he mentions him, he's like, Yeah, he's forsaken us for the love of the present world. So it's a progression where um Demas, yeah, he goes in the opposite direction. And we're I think there's an important component to developing leaders where I mean we're not going to promote you or advance you or raise you up to a position of leadership just because you've got leadership ability. Right. We want to see what's your work ethic, how are how do you be faithful? Are you faithful in the small things? Are you humble and are you taught like are you a a student who wants to be taught? And so when somebody's like that and you start to invest in them, pretty quick they're gonna be a peer. They're gonna be a co-laborer because they're gonna grow humility leads to growth, you know. And so when you reach out, you know, in your story, you reach out to a guy like Dave and you're like, hey man, I I need some investment. Pretty quick, you can you can come online and grow, and next thing you know, hey, we're doing this together. All right, I want to go back because well, I want to get to uh Okay, so what I like to do with the time we've got left is go back to I'd like to walk through your testimony.

SPEAKER_03 19:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 19:54

Um because I think it is a powerful picture of a couple there's a couple things that and we'll we'll draw those out at the end. One, obviously just the sovereign grace of God. Amen. But then there's also a powerful picture of how small of an investment a person can make and make a difference. I think people think, what can I do? How can I make the smallest investment can change somebody's life, and I think that really comes through in your story, and then that those two things now motivate the work that you're doing with local teens and boys and now on a college campus with athletes from inner city and so let's go back.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

You got a crazy childhood story. Yeah, it it was it's pretty interesting when you look back on it. You know, I think, you know, right now I'm a teen pastor at a local church that has a ton of middle class kids, um, and they have issues and they have problems just like we all do, but for the most part, they've not had any major traumatic events. And I one of the things that I can look back, and you know, there's a lot of things that happened to me as a kid that I wish wouldn't have happened, but it certainly helps me appreciate where God has brought me from to where he's taken me to. And I'm not, you know, I'm not a big guy talking about um successes in life, but let's let's be, I should not be where I'm at today. Many of the people that I was raised in a rural, economically depressed Appalachian area. Now, my story is there's many people that have a very similar story to what I have that are in prison. Yeah, they're unemployed or beyond the or dead or you know, whatever, strung out, they're this, they're that, they're whatever. But even before I knew it, I can look back on my life now and know that God was always pulling me towards him. He was always leading me along. Um, I just didn't realize it. I didn't know it. I couldn't verbalize it, I couldn't articulate it, but I could feel, I can look back and say, that was a God thing. You know, so I am so excited. I appreciate Jesus for what he's done, God for what he's done. So I want to serve him from that. platform but just a heart of thankfulness. I mean this is and I think we miss that so often you know we're our churches in our area oftentimes we're just you know we're still somewhat legalistic you know don't smoke drink or chew or go with girls that do that was the kind of word that was my start in the introduction to the gospel and it confused me and it caused a lot of I don't know just caused me to slip up a lot you know just yeah I was never worthy I was never I was never going to be able to do this and I walked away from the faith because nobody came alongside but luckily God provided those people along the way and you know so I know I'm rambling but I get so excited about that.

SPEAKER_04 22:36

Well as we get into your story I think to me it's always been shocking that you ended up in law enforcement you had a you had a career in law enforcement you still work in emergency medical services um you're a community leader not just through church and youth programming you're a youth pastor you're also involved in a chaplaincy with college athletes but uh you're a community leader like an elected official and I think um that started with a law enforcement career it is is kind of in your local police then you're highway patrol and b before like I I've never heard until you recently um sent me a written copy of your an e you emailed me your testimony that's when I was like okay you gotta come on in that's our but I never have known the connection between how you came through the stuff you came through in your teenage years to where how you ended up being a you know a police officer. Right. That's even God's grace. That's sovereignty you know let's go back to there was your childhood's I mean it's a rough story.

SPEAKER_02 23:41

There's abuse of different kinds and as much as you're willing to share and talk about I'm an open book with that because I I've learned a long time ago that that was my biggest fear as a young man growing up that people was going to find out what I had experienced and they were going to whatever think whatever they were going to think. I was embarrassed I didn't want the world to know and then um Jamie Graham who you've met numerous times Jamie and I were we were co-labours we were pursuing he's like hey I need you to come I had never spoken to anybody or anything about that Jamie had had similar experiences to me so he and I had you know we developed a relationship around our shared human experience then he challenged me he said hey you never you've never spoken in front of a crowd you've never done anything I want you to come speak at our my church I said what am I going to say he said it's gonna be surprised oh goodness oh man I wouldn't recommend this I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend this for everyone so I go I have no idea and you know so he's it's a QA it's on a Sunday evening or whatever in front of his church and then he asked me about that experience and um you had no idea that was coming. No so for the first time ever I gave uh a public testimony about what I had experienced as a as a child and then it was so powerful because I think it's and I know we haven't even talked about it yet but I'm sure everybody from the context of this conversation knows what we're talking about. How many you can look across the crowd and see how many men or people in the crowd that have had a similar experience. I think it's much more prevalent than what we even appreciate at times. And I was like well there's power in this there's power in my testimony in my story. I'm not gonna be ashamed of that anymore. You know it isn't like I caused it just something happened to me. And so yeah I I don't I don't care about sharing my story. So let's just start like your early childhood memories let's just start right there and walk through okay well my my mother you know I'm gonna it's it has to start there and I'm not going to go into all the intimate details but my mother I think was 16 and both of her parents had passed. They they had died. They were actually pretty successful, owned a large farm in Megs County they had relatives that were judges they had this they had that I mean they she came from a what would be a consistent background but when they passed at 16 she kind of went off the rails she ended up um meeting a guy in West Virginia who would end up being my biological father who I didn't meet until I was about I don't know 34 35 years old something like that. But she was pregnant with me that guy that gentleman exited stage left here she is 16 years old no parents no nothing she meets this man who's married has two kids already and I I would I want you to understand I think he had a genuine encounter with Christ by the end of his life. So I don't want to beat up on this man too much. But I think at that point in his life he saw this young girl she's in a bad situation and she had stuff she had a farm she had resources she had whatever he came from a history of um people just kind of living through the system you know welfare not really working not doing not all of them but it was prevalent throughout his family and you know looking back I don't know what he experienced as a kid I would say something very similar to what I endured through him. I don't know what messes people up I just know that we're all messed up so um I don't want to beat up on him too bad but he I had a lot of resentment towards him and it and it key it continued to grow. Now I was born they were together his name is on my birth certificate that's just the way they did it. But I'm of course not his son and I figured that out rather when you start having a conscience, you know, that you understand what's going on around you. You know he ended up being physically abusive to me as I was growing up my earliest memories was just getting my clock cleaned all the time by this guy. And then it progressed to sexual abuse. And you know I don't understand the psychology behind all of that. That's just what happened until I got I don't know probably about eight nine 10 somewhere in there then that kind of I finally had enough like okay this isn't right spoke out well he he kind of slowed down but as abusers often do his tactic was to remind me constantly that I'm nobody's going to believe anything you have to say you know you're worthless you have no value so don't run your mouth you know that was that was the message that I heard constantly so the sexual sexual abuse stopped you know before I became a teenager but the physical violence never stopped and it wasn't just with me it was with my mother it was my with my siblings but those were his biological kids and it wasn't as harsh with them as as it was me. You know I think he almost looked at me like it I don't know there's a target for my anger because he's not even my son. You know I can remember this and I've never shared this with anybody just it reminded me I remember one time that he looked at me and said and you know I'm not a big guy. Thankfully people can't see me there's nothing good about physical parent parents there's nothing but he said he made a comment and you know and said um you know you have you have broad shoulders just like I do or something along those lines then he smirked you know and I didn't at the time know what that meant. I was starting to suspect something was amiss but at that point I thought well I just got a bad dad that's all I got you know that's when it clicked with me because I could just tell that sarcasm that I might not be his son. The way he said that in the smirk and the the the whole thing and it I can remember that's when like and I've never shared that with anybody and I've never thought about that but that's when things like something's not right here.

SPEAKER_04 29:51

You can right now you can remember thinking why would he say that something's off with the hump.

SPEAKER_02 29:56

Yeah yeah so how old were you at that point? I it was before I was a teenager probably 11 12 something like that. Yeah somewhere in there I mean that's kind of weird and I know but and I had never really verbalized that before but that's when things started like okay something's wrong here. So so that led to um motivation and it wasn't healthy motivation. I was like I will never be like that man. I hated him I genuinely hated him I never had I had no feelings there was never ever he never ever told me hey I I love you anything like that we never had that we never had that kind of relationship um ever even before he died we had reconciled I'd forgiven him but we had never had a a solid relationship so um you know I'm gonna fast forward to I desperately wanted to play sports but um they didn't want to mess with it you know I would have lived I would have lived in a rural area of the county the high school was about 30 35 minutes away from where I lived they weren't going to take he didn't work um alcoholic um some drug use nothing nothing crazy um but he you know he had some drug use um so they just wouldn't take me but I had a man um his name was Jim Oliphant he was a my geography teacher in high school and I was fairly smart I didn't apply myself but I loved to read that was my escape was reading well he was teaching a geography class I had some notebook in front of me or something and I was reading catcher in her eye as he was as he was talking well he was surprised by looking at me because I had nothing I was poor you know didn't have good hygiene I didn't have any of these things um because we just didn't have anything and I think he was just shocked that here's this guy who he I don't know that he ever written any kid off but he probably was shocked you to be reading a classic yes he didn't he didn't expect that and so he took an interest in me and he happened to be our track and cross country coach I never had dreams of running track or cross country I wanted to play football basketball all those things that kids want to do. But here's a guy willing to drive 30 minutes each way to come pick me up, take me to practices, take me to meets, take me to do this, take me to do that. And he was a Christian man. Now he was not bold about his faith he would drop pints every now and then but I think that being a teacher you know he's I don't know so many teachers are worried about perception and legal issues but he was always just kind of leading me in a positive direction. Then physically I started getting pretty strong okay I mean I was had good endurance and because of my hatred for my stepfather it's like I'm gonna work I'm gonna work my way out of this situation. I'm gonna work my way out. So I was for the local farmers I was the hay bale kid you know most of them had a self-loading bailer. I was the guy on the back on the trailer by myself stacking unloading doing all those things I've become pretty strong you know for a skinny dude yeah yeah I can't I became became pretty strong and I was just motivated I am not going to be like him I'm going to do something different and I kind of gave up on that but it comes back later even worse. So anyways I come home one day um from school and he was physically assaulting my mother I tried to intervene you know because here I am now I'm 16 years old um pretty good physical shape never fought him never fought back never did anything had that fear you know just had that fear and um he was assaulting my mother when I got home and I tried to intervene. He punched me in the nose well you've we've all been there all men have probably been there I don't know I have um when I got hit in the nose I just saw red I lost it and I fought him for the first time and I got him down on the ground and I was going to kill him. I really think it's a God thing that I didn't because I beat him bloody. I mean I was just I had lost control scared myself honestly um but it was like God snap me out of it I get up off the ground I said you will never touch my mother again and I will never stay in this house again.

SPEAKER_04 34:10

So he's laying there in the pool of his own blood because you just whipped his hind end as it's not proud of that.

SPEAKER_02 34:16

I'm not bragging about it.

SPEAKER_04 34:18

That's what happened you know yeah I know I know you're not but I won't I think there's even something in that part of the story where there's a sense in people's hearts where you go there's this moment of dang that guy finally got something that was coming to him you know and we've all I've set across from so many kids that never got the courage to push back.

SPEAKER_02 34:42

Yeah you know and so that's a pretty defining moment for you it was it was a defining moment for for me and it was a catalyst for everything that changed my life.

SPEAKER_04 34:53

Yeah so that that's right that's why I want to highlight that moment how did he respond like he's laying there you've just pounded his face in there was no response he just he just laid there.

A Deputy And A Principal Step In

SPEAKER_02 35:02

I mean he was conscious I mean he knew what I was saying but he just got his clock cleaned by a 16 year old he's not in the mood for discussion at this point. We never ever discussed it after that day after I said what I said to him it was never discussed again ever. So you stood up and you said I'm I'm done I'm done I grabbed a shopping bag and threw a few clothes in it and off I struck on foot I didn't even have a driver's license I didn't have a car I had nothing but I had a guy I had a buddy his name was Shannon and I don't even know whatever happened to Shannon. He was another kid similar to me a troubled childhood you know we you you get this community and you find each other right these kids that share similar human experiences you find each other um and he didn't live I don't know four or five miles away from me and there was a way to get there and stay off the roadway. So I made my way to Shannon's house and he was living with his grandparents because of his relationship, you know, not having solid parents because of their situation. So he's living with his grandparents I roll in there, you know it's dusk at that point and knock on the door Shannon comes I was like dude I need a place to stay and they let me stay there. They never ask any questions or anything. I think they knew something was up but they let me stay um and so that was my first stop was was there. So what became a pattern after that for about three three weeks four weeks I would go to a place then I would I would stay there until parents or grandparents would say why is this kid at our house he's he's got to go so then you would just jump and go to the the next buddy's house the next buddy's house until I ran out of places to go. And the criminal mastermind that I am I'm I have nowhere to go and somehow I get in the village of Pomeroy which is the county seat it's a little tiny village in Megs County Ohio I ended up in the village after curfew with my little bag of clothes thinking okay where do I go next?

SPEAKER_04 37:01

What am I going to do? Village up there would be just like a small town.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

It it was it would be smaller than Andrews. So it's like more like a rural community maybe you got a post office. I mean you we had a you know little shopping or grocery store I mean there was little shops just tiny but it's like I don't know 3,000 people you know it's it's not very big. 3,000 people probably okay you know so yeah it's not it's not very big. So I ended up you're just there. I'm just there. I'm like okay well there's a bench close to the courthouse that's that where I got I was every all the kids hung out the river had a a public parking lot and all the kids would hang out there. That's how I ended up there well a block over is this bench and I was like well I'll just go over on this bench not thinking or not really knowing because I was socially ignorant I didn't I didn't know how the world worked I nobody ever taught me how the world worked. What happens to be where the sheriff's office is as well so I never I never put that together. So I'm sitting on this bench it's after curfew and a guy named Carl Heisel he was the uh juvenile probation officer he's a deputy sheriff he was like the boogeyman for kids anytime you messed up and he's a big mountain of a man gruff you know just he's scary he's a scary dude Carl's gonna come get you Carl's gonna come get you Carl's gonna come get you if you don't behave Carl's gonna come get you I don't know the man I've seen him from a distance like I don't want anything to do with that guy. Well lo and behold I'm sitting on this bench after curfew who pulls up Carl Iisel. He doesn't know me I don't know him and um he just pulls up in his cruising rolls down the window what are you doing? I'm like nothing just hanging out how old are you and I said 16 17 whatever it was at that point 16 and um he said what's your name and I said Robbie Jacks and he said you're the runaway and I was like so here's what I found out later my parents they didn't they weren't trying to drag me back home but they to cover their butt had reported me as a runaway as a runaway. And um I don't think anybody was looking for me too hard but somehow it got on Carl's radar so he recognized the name. So he parks his car he gets out and he's uh you know we're talking a little bit I'm scared to death I don't even know what he said. Because he's the boogeyman. Yeah he's the boogeyman I don't you know I don't even know what we talked about. But by the end of it he said get in the car. No hey I'm gonna help you nothing just get in the car. And I like crap. And I'm thinking fight or flight at this point. Am I gonna take off? What am I gonna do? So I just did this. I looked at him and said look I don't know where you're taking me to but you best be taking me to jail because I'm not going back in that house and I will not be staying in that house. Carl and I developed a relationship over the years. He became a mentor he's the reason why I became a police officer. He lived life with me he took an interest in me and I think that he had enough uh he could just read the situation that he said get in the car just do what I told you so we get in the car. Well we start heading towards my house and I'm like as soon as I get out I'm bolting well before we get to the area I'm living in he turns right on this road I've never been on before I was like where are we going? You know I didn't ask him I was scared to death um but in my mind I'm thinking where are we going? So we drive you know it's it's late it's before cell phone there's nothing and there's no there's no communication with anybody it's and is there are y'all riding in silence? Yeah I'm sitting in the backseat of a cage carry nothing he's not saying nothing. So we pull into this house that I didn't recognize I didn't know whose house it was I'm sitting in the back seat thinking what are we doing here? So I get him he knocks on the door it's late at night finally some lights flip on people start stirring and I see somebody come out on the porch he's talking to somebody on the porch and he comes back back to the car he says get your stuff I'm like what for he said you're staying here. I said well we're here he didn't answer I was like okay I guess I'll figure it out when I get on the porch I walk up in the porch what's my high school principal I didn't know him he paddled me once because I was skipping class I didn't know the man kind of feared him as well but his wife was my English teacher who was a super kind woman. So my principal is Fenton Taylor his wife's name is Jeannie uh we call him coach everybody called him coach uh he's an old football coach and so I get up on the porch with my bag of belongings and he says I got a room uh in the basement for you take your stuff down there go to bed we'll talk tomorrow well that started this whole new thing in my life now of course I didn't appreciate it at the time you don't you know as a young man you don't really so selfish and self-absorbed I didn't appreciate it but I can certainly look back now and think this is so cool what God has done. So coach and Jeannie so now I have this team I have Carl Heisel I have coach and Jeannie and they have made me their project you know so they all all started investing in me teaching me what it means to be a man. So I had these two coach was a gruff guy too suffered with anger issues I mean just all kinds of stuff but he was a tough gruff guy and then I had Jeannie who was just a mom just loved you know she was just loving. So I live with them um until I turn 18. They let me stay there. Coach Taylor was the first man that ever told me that I love you.

SPEAKER_04 42:40

You know and he just taught me what plus he had two daughters his daughter his oldest daughter we were in the same class together we were friends um so now I also have these two sisters um one of them is Mike Bartram's wife she was the younger really so that's where that all ties back in together okay yeah so um Mike Bartram is a friend that Robbie introduced me to he's a former NFL player and is a college football coach so yeah so um and Mike becomes like a brother to me so you know I just have this whole new identity now didn't understand it didn't appreciate it but I had it so they started investing in me and and you know to make a long story short um Carl and Fenton coach they taught me what it was to be a man.

SPEAKER_02 43:28

The girls just the women just loved me and taught me what it was what that looked like and started me down this career. So initially I thought I want to be like Carl I want to be a juvenile probation officer and I want to help people. Well the best way to do that was go take a social work uh trying to get a social work degree at University of Rio Grande. So I went to college you know so he send me off to college college was not for me and social work was definitely not for me. I didn't know it you know I just didn't know it. But I real learned real quick That this isn't who I am. So the natural the next natural step was well, here's my mentor. The guy's helped me change my life. He's a police officer. And he started investing in me there. So at 19, I was going through police basic and, you know, graduated. You know, I wasn't even 21 yet. Back then things were a little different. If you're a deputy sheriff, you could be 18 and have a commission and carry a carry a weapon. Municipalities, you couldn't do that. So I started with the sheriff's office, got a commission, and that was all thanks to Carl. You know, he was a deputy. He convinced the sheriff to take a risk on this young kid, which at times I think the sheriff, you know, especially like when I got in a fight one night at a local dance, I think he probably regretted that. But anyways, um, they they just invested in me. And so I now knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a police officer. And so I went after it. One of the things that God has designed me, whatever I do, I'm all in. I'm all in to a fault at times. Okay. Like gives me blinders. My passion overrides my mouth sometimes. You know, just it's one of those things. And um, but I was all in at that point. And it was a great career, and I'm glad that I had it. Um, you know, it really, really helped me later in life.

Marriage Struggles And Chasing Validation

SPEAKER_04 45:18

You end up marrying, raising a family.

From Legalism To Heart Change

SPEAKER_02 45:21

That's the next, you know, you look, and everybody has this. My wife, God sent me a woman that she's tough too, boy. Yeah, yeah. My wife, I'm telling you, she's you don't know her real well, but I know her good enough to consider her a friend, you know. Like Yeah. The the she we went on a blind date, only blind date I ever went on. I was an undercover narcotics agent. And one of my one of my snitches knew a sister, knew her sister and was going out with it with her. And uh he said, Hey, look, um her sister wants to come along. Why don't you come along? You know, just I was like, okay. So I went. We went to a mall in Lancaster, Ohio, and we played air hockey together. And I let her win, which I'm just throwing that out there in case she ever, yeah, yeah, if she ever listens to this. Just so she knows. Yeah, just so she knows. Um, and so everybody else knows. Yeah, absolutely. She will argue that fact. But, anyways, um, she was church. She she grew up in church, okay. And I had never never been church, never gospel was never really given to me. I didn't understand the gospel. Like I said, spending time in that culvert under State Route 325. I felt God's presence. I spent a lot of time praying as a troubled kid, but I really genuinely didn't even understand what I was doing. Um, but she did. And but we didn't do things right. We, even though she was churched, I convinced her that we should move in together. We should live this life together, that you know, whatever. And she looks back, and we, you know, you look back and think, uh, things we could have done different, should have, would have, and could have. It all worked out, but it could have been so much better for her. She took a project on that the first 10 years of our marriage was miserable for her. It's pretty good for me because I just did what I wanted to do, and I didn't care how she felt about it. She stuck it out. She stuck it out. And I don't know why she did, but she did. Thank God she did. But she started going to church. She was raised in church, and she was always, she had people praying for me. She was, you know, and but it was a really conservative Baptist church, and she was embarrassed about her situation. Here she is, she's going to this conservative Baptist church. They're probably looking at her, well, she'd come to church, but she's living with that dipweed over there, you know, who had a reputation of being a great cop, hard-nosed cop, but also when he wasn't working, he partied as hard as he worked, you know. So she was always trying to get me to go to church, go to church, go to church. And I just refused. And I did this same typical excuse you hear time after time. I'm not going there. Those people were worse than me. They're hypocrites or this, you know, just all this stupid stuff that we we say. But she stayed faithful. Um, so fast forward a few years, we have a we have a child. That kind of that's another catalyst in my life. Okay. So now I have a son. My son was born, and I'm thinking, okay, in my mind, if I want to be a good father, if I want to be a good contributing citizen to this community, now I have to go to church. You know, that's what I'm supposed to do. So I started going to church. And I look back on that and uh created so much embarrassment for my wife because it wasn't atypical for me to go out on a Saturday night, get out and party with my buddies and go to church the next morning with her, just reeking of alcohol, obviously hung over, probably still still intoxicated. She suffered through it. She stayed faithful, she stayed patient, she prayerfully just always looking out for me. And she didn't let that, she didn't let that stop her. So I'm, you know, she's definitely one of those people in my life that just that changed things for me. And at this point, I'm still, I'm still selfish. I still don't appreciate what Carl Heisel has done for me. I still don't appreciate what Fenton and Jeannie Taylor has done for me. I in the moment I'm not appreciating what my wife is modeling for me and doing for me because it's still about me, you know, because here's the reason why. When you're a victim of abuse and you've been told time and time again that you're worthless, I used it for motivation to never be like that. Which made the it compounded, it didn't help the problem. Yeah, did I, was I successful? Yes, but I burnt bridges. It was never about people. It was always about me. I was chasing one, you know, we would wear ribbons for uh, you know, if you did something really cool, the highway patrol would give you a ribbon. So I was always just chasing ribbons, you know. I was the first, first ACE Award winner at the Gal Police Post in the history of it. And the ACE Award is recovering um five stolen vehicles with apprehensions within a year. That had never happened in Gal police before. I was able to do it. I led the state in felony drug arrest working at the Gal Police Post. And I thought, okay, if I do this, this is going to fulfill me. People are going to know that I'm worth something. Well, once I've reached those goals, well, I didn't feel any different. I was just trying to chase the next thing. So you're spinning your wheels, you're like, man, I still feel like crap. Why do I feel like crap? Because I didn't have that God-sized toll filled that I needed filled. And I was trying to fill it with other stuff, you know, just trying to make myself feel valued. And I still didn't understand any of those things. So I was going to church, going to church, going to church. The pastor was a faithful man. Every time he got the opportunity, he was trying to pick me off, he was trying to invest in me, you know, whatever. And I was holding him off at arm's length. I was like, I don't, I'm going to church. This is more than I ever expected him to do. Just be happy I'm at church. He never gave up on me. Uh, I'll give him credit. And then one night there was a knock on the door at our house. And it was this pastor, um, Jim Lusher is his name, great man. Um, he comes in, he presents the gospel to me. And I'll be honest with you, um, I did it for more to get him off my back. Because I'm like, quit bugging me. So I prayed a prayer. I prayed a prayer. Um next week, he baptizes me and everybody celebrates, yay! And then everybody goes, I guess looking for the next one. Because nobody invested in me. But I'm the type of guy, I'm a self-disciplined guy. You know, I've I there's certain things that I do and I'm going to do. This is one of those things. I'm just going to white-knuckle my way through this. I'm my in my brain, my mind said, okay, well, now you're a Christian, so now you got to toil every day. Don't do anything wrong, so God will love you. Well, because of my skewed vision of fatherhood, I looked at God the same way. He was this angry deity that every time I messed up, he's ready to smack me with a ball bat. That's, you know, that's that's the way I approached God. Well, fear's no good reason to believe in anything, but that's what I was trying to do. I was just, I was just trying to keep God happy. And I tried that for a year. I didn't drink, quit rubbing snuff, quit doing this, you know, tried not to cuss just for a year. Well, you know how that goes. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it. I just gave up. Just gave up. And it's like, and I went back to partying and harder. I quit going to church, partying harder than I ever did. And now I have a son in the mix, you know. Now he's an infant, but um, a toddler at that point. I didn't care anymore. I was like, I'm just destined for hell because I believed there was a God. I believed there was consequences for no decision. But I was like, God hasn't equipped me to do it, so I'm just destined for hell. So I'm gonna live it up here on earth because I'm not cut for this. Yeah. Um but luckily I had some dudes that I worked with. I was a state trooper at that point, and some dudes that worked that I worked with that understood it. They they understood this relational, how it starts there, how it starts with the gospel, and then one of my favorite scriptures scriptures is Ezekiel 36, 26, 27. Because God says what he will do, not what I'll do, not what we'll do, but what he will do. He will give me a new heart, he will remove the heart of stone from my flesh, he will give me a heart of flesh, he will put his spirit within me, he will cause me to be able to walk in his statutes and to obey his rules. Once I started understanding that, and that's when everything changed. And in and then near that time period, or a little later, is when I was introduced to Snowbird, John Meeks, as you mentioned earlier, said, Hey, you really need to come check this place out. Well, I'm gonna be honest with you. You know, I looked at stuff and I was like, this doesn't seem like much. It's down in the mountains of North Carolina, and it just didn't, it didn't resonate with me. And I thought, well, John's a pretty good dude. I'll just listen to what he says. So I came down here and I was like, oh, now I get it. Now I see it because I saw faithful teaching. I didn't even, I didn't, I had never heard the term expositional teaching until I came to the campus of Snowbird the first time I came here. Didn't even know what it meant. You know, if I would have had a cell phone, a smartphone at that time, I'd been looking it up, trying to figure out myself. But you you did a masterful job at explaining it. And I think that's for me was the difference. You can take these terms, these doctrines, and break them down where somebody like me that's not churched, that they that they make sense. And that's when things really started clicking for me. And as I as I said earlier, I'm a self-disciplined guy. I was listening to what you were teaching, and I'm like, I'm gonna try to implement these things in my life. And I was like, as I did, I was like, this makes sense. Things are getting better. My relationship with my wife is getting better. I'm a better dad, I'm a better this, I'm a better that. Um, and it wasn't, and I understood it wasn't because of anything I was doing, it was because with the Holy Spirit, this new heart, you know, that 2 Corinthians 5.17 of just being this new creation. And I started to appreciate it because you guys taught me how to appreciate it. And I think that's where we mess up so often in ministry. We don't start, we don't start there oftentimes. I think we put the cart before the horse so many times, but until we have relationship and can have influence, and then explain that relationship and the influence that Jesus will provide, we mess it up. You know, and you guys do it really, this ministry does a really good job at just aligning things so that they make sense. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_04 55:53

Yeah, it does. I mean, it's actually very that is not only does it make sense, it's very affirming, it's very encouraging because that's the goal. I mean, you know, one of our in uh our mission statement, one of the phrases is through the exposition of scripture. It's Snowbury Wilderness Outfitters exists to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ through the exposition of scripture. In other words, everything we're doing, we're everything everything we do, we're proclaiming Christ. No matter what text we're in in the Bible, we're gonna get to Jesus. Um, but we're gonna do it by saying what that text is saying. And so it's another phrase that people use is it's text-driven preaching. So the text drives the main thought and the main point of the sermon, and then so that therefore the text drives the application. It's safe because now there's no room for human error. I mean, there's you can always mess up in your preparation or make mistakes, but when your heart is to just say what God intends to say through this text, um I'm just saying what God says.

unknown 57:00

Right.

SPEAKER_04 57:01

And not only is it safe for the communicator, it's very convicting for the hearer who will submit to it. And so it's it becomes the most effective way to preach. Right. It's the most effective way to study. So we got somebody listening, most of the people listening to this are not preachers, teachers, but everybody's to be a student of the word. I told a buddy of mine, he's a cut, he's actually a family. Let me interrupt you there.

Learning Expositional Bible Teaching

SPEAKER_02 57:24

How come that was one of the biggest factors of my life, spending time at the feet of Jesus every day by being in the Word? And I'm not talking about just reading, I'm talking about just downloading, just trying to figure out what is God saying in this passage to me and how does it apply to my life. I, and I know you do it, I know I do it time after time after time with dudes. Like, if you really want this in your life, it has to start here. But you can't, you can't convince people. And you guys couldn't convince me until I did it. How do you get people just to have enough self-discipline for a month, two months, three months just to suffer through this? Because once I did, then I saw the value. And Jesus spending time with my savior, the creator of the world, I get to spend time with him. How do you get that excitement in other guys? Because I haven't been able to figure out how to do it yet. Yeah, I not not consistently.

How People Learn To Love Scripture

SPEAKER_04 58:22

Yeah. Um This is a tricky question. And the way I want to be careful how I answer it because there's kind of two, there's two answers. The first answer is going to sound kind of like a defeatist answer or kind of fatalist, fatalistic. You can't, you can't. If somebody don't want that, you can't. Because if if if you if somebody's doing it with the wrong motivation, it doesn't work. You know? I just recently did an episode we were talking before we turned the mics on, we're talking about my dad, and you know, that stack of Bibles over there. He read through them. I mean, and in that in that episode, I walked through all his Bibles, and here's the date he started, and here's the date he completed this read-through. Here's the date he started, here's the and so there are there are plenty of examples, even in my own personal life, of seasons where I was in the Word every day. Um, but it was just the monotony and drudgery and legalism of this what I'm supposed to do. But because you can get you can grow for a season and then get conditioned to thinking, I gotta just keep reading my Bible. You can stop growing and keep reading your Bible. Right. You can grow cold and keep reading your Bible. So to get someone initially to engage with the Word of God, they gotta want it. So then I think the second part of the answer is what are the things that make people want the Word of God? I think there's a list. It's not, you know, I think there's a list of things. Desperation, you're at the end of yourself, what you're currently doing ain't working. You're sick and tired of being sick and tired, you're fed up with doing it your way. And what happened is when, or, or you, you know, in a in a less severe sort of pattern, you've been trying to figure it out, but you just need somebody to help you. You want it, the desire's there, but the know-how's not there. So sometimes, like in my dad's case, the know-how was there, but the motive and desire was wrong. Okay. Some people have the desire, you had the desire and motive. Once, once you turned that corner and you started to realize your need for intimacy with Christ, the desire and the motive were there. What happened when you came to Snowbird is you learned how. Right. And so you it takes both of those things. A person has to desire it, and then that desire they got to be teachable, and then they got to learn how. For me, my story is when it comes to studying the Bible, we started Snowbird when I was 25 years old. And to that point, I had been reading my Bible for about four years. Oh, I I started to actually read it right before I got married. Got married at 21, almost 22, somewhere out in there. And I thought, I've got to read my Bible every day if I'm gonna be. I was a Christian. I'd been a I'd been truly saved for a couple years, grew up in a legalistic church setting, but very legalistic upbringing, very legalistic. I don't, I mean, um, it it's mind-blowing to me now to think about some of the things that we're like we're taught. Right. And so it did it doesn't give you a love for the scripture. That does not give you a love for the scripture. So I pushed away from that and got out of the house. And first year or so of being away from home, I kind of just tried the world on for size and and uh then I surrendered my life to the Lord right before I turned 20. And I'm like, I should read the Bible, so I read a little bit, a verse, maybe a short psalm, something like that. Okay, close it up, get out the door. But then I did get involved in a church. I'm like, I need to go to church every week. So you're trying, and my I think my motivation, my motive and motivation were right. And I think that's where you were. The motive and the motivation were right. You need somebody, that's what discipleship does. It teaches someone how to pursue Christ and how to pursue holiness. And and so it's like mentorship for the Christ follower. And and uh when we came to Snowbird, and I realized, I remember having just this monumental moment where I realized not only do I need to get serious about interacting with the word of God, if I'm gonna be a good husband and eventually be a good father, we're building a, we want to, we think God's calling us to build a ministry. I'm gonna build a Christian gospel ministry where I read the Bible for three to five minutes every day, five days a week. That ain't gonna work. You can go be the police because you watched some cop shows when you were 12. Right. Well, I can be a cop, right? What what career field does it work that way? You know, none. And and Christianity is greater than a career field. It's it's who you are, it's an identity. It's and so for me, I'm like, okay, if I'm gonna do this, I remember at the time I was shoeing horses on the side to make money. Um so I was doing farrier work, and it's brutal work, and it's a big learning curve to learn how to do it. But it's not like going to uh police academy, it's not a year-long process, it's not like getting a four-year degree, it's not like going to the military and doing basic training. It took me about two weeks. But it was two weeks of 10-hour backbreaking days. And I remember thinking to learn how to take a farm animal and nail a metal shoe to its foot, it took me two weeks of 10-hour days sweating and I mean work just so I could do not really a crazy task here. And so what makes me think that I can learn how to how to lead people in their relationship with Christ and invest in them if I haven't sat at the feet of Jesus with the with the word open. And so for me, that process was being in that old cabin, me and little the first three winters we were in Andrews, no running water, it's just me and her. You know, we had electricity, but it but but it was limited. So heat with wood, run by, you know, a couple lamps in the evening. In the winter, it's dark at 5 30. And so I read my Bible. No TV, no internet, those things didn't exist. Well, that's that's huge. It's huge.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:51

So when I cut things out of my life, this is when I could do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:54

Yeah, distractions, I think, are the biggest hindrance for most people. Distraction, desire, determination, discipline, these things all you got to work through all these things. So, yeah, so I think to come back to your original question, how do you get somebody? You can't, but when their desire and their desperation um gets them to a point where they realize, I I need something bigger than myself. I need something bigger than my career, I need something bigger than my marriage, that people have to get desperate and then they won't that then then that's where we've got to, as ministers of the gospel, be ready to introduce them to Jesus. Or if they're cultural Christians, be ready to have some hard conversations.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:38

First of all, I'm gonna say this. I understand all those things that you just brought up, but I ri really want to make that a huge emphasis during this podcast because I know that's when things started making sense for me. Okay. So that's how the reason why I brought it up. But I think you bring up a good point. There are so many people that when they start going to church and They just kind of do the behavior modification part of being a Christian. That's as dangerous as going the opposite opposite direction because we think that we have arrived. I go to church on Sundays. I go to church on Sundays. Or grandpa was a pastor. I hear that so much with these young kids. Are you, yeah, do you do you feel like you have a relationship with Jesus? Well, yeah, my grandma or my grandpa was a pastor or some, they think they get it vicariously through someone else. So I really want to emphasize that because if I can tell you anything that has impacted my walk with Jesus, it's that if you don't get in the Word spending time at the feet of Jesus every day, understanding the entirety of the Bible points to Jesus Christ. Points either forward to him or back. And if you don't look at that, I don't know, string of redemption through there, through Jesus, if you're not looking through that every time that you're spending time in the Word, it gets kind of I don't know, tiresome after a while. You know, just okay, I'm going through the motions. So I tell guys all the time, I don't want you to read a chapter. I don't care what you read, I don't care if you read one verse, as long as you're learning. Meditate on it, learning what God is doing, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:22

Learn from it, yes. Those are the key components. I think when you get a person to the point where they're ready to, I want to do what I got to do to become a student of the word, it's just a few basic principles. When we approach the scripture, we approach it in an attitude and a posture of humility, eagerness to learn. We say, speak to me, Lord, please teach me from your word. We we apply a few principles. Where's Jesus in the passage? Right. How does this apply to my life? Not what does it mean to me. I think vernacular and terminology is important. I don't want to approach the word of God and go, what does this mean to me? What does it mean to you? No, what does God intend to say to me right now? Right. And how do I, how is it applied to my life? I think that's important. And that's when a person starts to do those things. Um, there's a saying that David Helm, who's a pastor and a commentator, said one time, when you open the word of God, the word of God should open you.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

Amen.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:16

And I think that's the difference when someone opens the scripture to be opened by it, when they submit to it to come under its authority and realize this is living and active, and it's got it's got power and efficacy for my life. Then that's when a per and you know, once you experience that, that's why scripture says, taste and see that the Lord is good. Yeah, absolutely. You can't go back. Yep. You cannot go back to not feasting on God's word every day. I don't have a category for someone who professes to be a Christian and doesn't spend meaningful notice, not voluminous, meaningful time in the word every day. Right. And I appreciate what you said a while ago because I want to come back to I said, yeah, I would read a verse three to five minutes. Now I'm back to a place in my life where some mornings I read a verse. Right. But I meditate on it, it's meaningful, I reflect on it, I take notes, and I'm but yeah, I'm gonna ask those questions. Where does this connect to how where's Jesus in this passage? Oh, in the message this morning, and you guys can go listen to the Be Strong sermons from this this conference. But Rob did two things. He was in Hebrews 3, he dipped back into Hebrews 2, and he read a passage where Jesus conquered death. And in doing that, he conquered the thing that give that that we fear. And he drew the, and and he and the writer of Hebrews draws the parallel to that he conquered Satan in doing that. Then Rob takes us over to David and Goliath and and talks about when when David raises Goliath's sword and chops his head off, he's using the enemy's weapon to kill him. And he comes back to Hebrews 2 and says, Satan's weapon against us is death. It's spiritual death, and then it's the fear of physical death. Jesus used that weapon to kill Satan. Right. So that was powerful.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:04

That's powerful.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:06

I'm in the sermon, I'm texting Rob, knowing he doesn't have his phone, but he's gonna read it when he walks off stage. I was like, fire emoji, flame emoji. That I was like, the David connection was crazy. That was awesome. But then later in the passage he was teaching in Hebrews 3, it's about Moses leading the people out of the wilderness, and then they murmur and want to go back into slavery. And he's like, the warning is that as Christians, we don't want to go back to the slavery of sin. And so you're drawing those connections back to Christ. And so what I encourage young people that are young in the faith, they might be 50 years old, but they're young in the faith, or they're or they're ready to start getting serious about you know their commitment to walk with Jesus. I say, um, take the word of God, focus on the texts and books and passages that are most easily connected to the work of Jesus. Right. So like I love, I I studied, I taught through, we did a minor prophet study at our church, and I taught I I don't remember what all books I did, but I know I did Zephaniah. It was not easy. Right. It's an obscure prophet in an obscure place in a weird season of Israel's history, and it's addressing a specific, you know. Right. But so that was that that took some that took some craftsmanship as an expositor and a preacher. That's where you've got to press into, okay, God's called me to this, he's gifted me to this, I got to do the hard work of of preparing the sermon. I don't want to take somebody there right out of the gate. Now I don't want to say that God can't speak to them through that. He can. But a young Christian that's that wants to learn the scripture, I want to kind of contextualize this person, their life experience, where they are. So I want to take them to books and passages that are going to be meaningful to them. So I always just encourage people to go to the gospels. I love the gospel of Mark because it's the most fast-paced gospel.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:57

It's but you even look at Zephaniah. One of my the most powerful passages that speak to me in my situation is Zephaniah 317. 317.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:05

Absolutely. Which that and but you know that is that's there it is. There's where you park. Yeah. That's where I landed in that sermon. Which, I mean, I we should probably say what it means or what it says.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:17

The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love. I mean, that's that was so powerful.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:27

That is so as a Christian, you go to Zephaniah, you read through three chapters, and then that verse, because you're going slow and meditating, it goes boom. It hit you in the face. Yeah. So when you realize, okay, I've just got to do the work when I get into it doesn't matter if it's an obscure passage. Right. And I memorized those verses years ago. I memorized Zephaniah 3.17. But when I was up in your part of the woods this year and I was hunting, the first morning in the stand, I was preparing to preach that text the next week.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:00

Oh, really? Okay, awesome.

Living Dependent On Jesus Daily

SPEAKER_04 1:13:01

And I, and I um I memorized it for that week in a different translation. Sometimes I'll do that. I'll take a verse I know, I'll memorize it in a new translation. So go from the King James to the New King James, or the we use the ESV and the New Living Translation here. But I it ended up being one of the most enjoyable sermons I preached in the last year because of what that verse means, right? But a young Christian needs to be taught how to find that maybe. Now, again, I don't want to discredit the Holy Spirit will speak to that person and show them that. No. But some of those, so when I'm teaching somebody how to learn to study the Bible and become a student of the Word, I'm gonna take them to, I want to take them to the Psalms. I want to take them to the life of Christ. And then a guy like you, a guy like uh a buddy that I've recently started to from a distance take some part in his discipleship. I've mentioned him on here before. If I can convince him to come on here, we'll do it. He's a devgrew team six guy for 22 years. Okay. Crazy career, 20 combat deployments, of course, wrecked two marriages, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:10

All that it brings with it. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:12

Yeah. And then got saved at 53 after he got out of the military. And so now he's growing. This past week we had a conversation where he's saying, I feel like I'm he's he's been at it for about nine months. And he's like, I feel like I've kind of hit a wall. I don't know. My reading seems stale. I don't know really. So we're we're talking through these things. Uh, but but I said, hey man, I want you to study the life of David. You're a warrior. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:37

I want you to study the life of David. Well, that's the beauty of scripture. It is. We're we're all different and we've all had different experiences. That's right. We all need different things. That's right.

SPEAKER_04 1:14:45

That's the beauty of scripture. And it and it it is all things to all people in their need. Absolutely. And yeah, so I think um, you know, if I'm talking to somebody that's like, I I really want to learn how to study the Bible, I want to get serious about it. I'm like, okay, man, I want you to spend the next, I want to I want you to spend the next few months reading and studying Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and Hebrews 1. I do the same thing. Yeah. Learn who Christ is. The thing I went over last night in the sermon. If we're if we're gonna the foundation for good theology is the study of Scripture, the foundation for loving the Word of God is realizing this teaches me who Jesus really is and what Jesus really is done with.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

That's the redemptive thread that we need to do. He runs all the way through. Every time we're in the word, that's the redemptive thread that we're looking for.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:30

Yeah. Yeah, and that's what you learned. And down there in Honduras and those subsequent trips and conversations, and now you're teaching it. And that's the way this works is we learn and then we teach, and we learn and then we teach. And you never stop learning and you should never stop investing in others. And right.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:46

Um Yeah, don't call yourself a disciple maker unless you have discipled someone that's discipling someone else. I mean, at the end of the day, if we're I mean, we should always try. And I I've plea I don't want you to think or anybody to think that I'm arrived or better. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:01

That last statement you said uh you should say that again. That was good. Don't call yourself a disciple maker until you're discipling someone who's discipled. It's that generational disciple.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:12

That's the model that Jesus set. Yeah. You know, he taught to model multitudes, which I've heard, you know, I think that's the difference. People that understand who Jesus really is and what he did. You look at that model, he taught to multitudes at times. He fed them, he done different things, but his emphasis was always on the 12. And then in those 12, he drilled, I think, drilled down into three and then drilled down into one. And he changed the world by that model. Why does the church, why do we think that our faith consists of coming to church on a Sunday, then I'll see you next Sunday. If your walk with Jesus is boring, then you're not doing it right. You're you're missing something. I have to spend time with Jesus because I'm putting myself in situations that I'm not equipped to handle on my own. That makes it exciting for me. Yes. You know, Matthew 11, 30, for my yoke is easy, my burden is light. Jump here in beside of me. Let me lead you, teach you, guide you, show you how to do these things. Yeah. And it's fun.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:17

That's right. And it's, yeah, I appreciate what you said right there. We I I teach this often to our folks here, to our young people. Um what will drive and motivate meaningful time in the word is living your life in such a way that you have to depend on Jesus. Amen. Yes. If you ain't got to depend, you go back to go back to your your policing days, you know, or you take, you know, Terry's, your wife's a school teacher. Something that you can do, you've been doing it for 15 years, and so you can do it now. It's easy to do that without depending on the Lord. Right. Right? Absolutely. So for the believer, I I need to I need to be putting myself in situations where I gotta rely and depend on Christ. And that, and to do that, I need to spend time in his word. I think that's important. And so, so doing hard things, getting uncomfortable, and usually what that looks like is investing in people. Right. And like if I'm investing in a young believer or a group of young dudes, I gotta be spending time in the word, I gotta be with the Lord.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:19

Those young guys in an instant can pick up when people aren't genuine. Sniff it out. They sniff it out. And once they figure that out, they don't want, they don't, they don't want to, they don't want to hear from you.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:32

They don't.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:33

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:34

But being honest, being open, you know, I start everyone. I'm out, listen, I'm a human, I'm gonna let you down, I'm gonna fail you, I'm gonna make a mistake, I'm gonna hurt you at some point, but Jesus never will. Yep. And I'm just introducing you to Jesus, teaching you how to have a relationship with him. Trust him. Yeah, you and I live life together because one of these days you're probably gonna be pointing me towards Jesus when I need when I need you to point me towards Jesus. You know, that's where family comes from. You know, the the closest people in my life, my mom is still alive, okay, and I love my mother, but I love her differently than I love a brother or sister in Christ. Um, you know, I honor my mother and knew all of those things. I'd love to tell you I have a, you know, that's a whole nother part of my testimony we never even got into. Um, I would love to tell you I have this beautiful relationship with my mom where everything's loving. And but it's not because of all the years of abuse and all the stuff that she's been through. She has mental health issues, she has this, she has uh has had addiction issues, she's you know, just all of those things. But my brothers and sisters in Christ that I'm living life with on a daily, my mother has no interest in that, even though I've I've done that with her a million times, you know, proclaiming the gospel. Never going to give up on her, but it's just like it doesn't resonate. And it could be her mental health issues. I don't, I'm not sure what all it is. But I say that to say this people like a Brody Holloway, uh a Muggs, uh John Meeks, uh, you know, any number of those 13 guys who are with me right now, that's my family. And we live life together. You know, it's mess, messy, but it's beautiful at the same time.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:09

The dudes that you know I'm calling. Pick up the phone and call.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:13

Absolutely. I know. And how many times have I picked up the phone and called you and said, hey, I'm I'm dealing with a situation here? What do you think? Uh, you know, it's usually something to do with my kids that I'm talking to you about because I the model of fatherhood that you've taken from Jesus from God and you've you've displayed to me, I see the value in that because I didn't have that. I didn't have that as a I didn't know what a good father was. Kind of got a general idea of it with Fenton Taylor, but he had his warts too. He had his own issues. He, you know, a lot of different things he was struggling with. But you guys have been faithful to letting me know there's there's a better way to do this. And it's just setting at the feet of Jesus. And you follow that model, everything will work out. Even he gives you hope in the adversity in the junk. You know, I don't, I'm never without hope. I might be for a moment, but it don't last long. You know, I'm going to like, okay, God's always done something before in the mess, so let's just see what he's doing. Um, you know, so now you don't you face life with this new courage, this new excitement towards life because you know what? When things get rough, then Jesus shows off. And I've I've never had that not happen yet. Now there's been times and I'm like, I still don't understand what God was doing here, but I know he was doing something. That's enough for me. I can trust him. He's always kept his word to me. So if I can trust him, why wouldn't I follow him and make it my mission? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:37

Yeah. That's good. Well, we'll just plan on next time you're down, we'll do a part two and we'll do the rest of the story. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:45

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 1:21:46

Sounds good.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:47

Awesome. You know, get some lunch. Yeah, let's go get some lunch.

JB Returns And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_00 1:21:50

Okay, everyone. Thanks so much for listening to this week's episode. Um, like Brody said, we just finished Be Strong, our men's retreat, and I got to meet some of you guys, so that was really awesome. Um, and just, you know, put a put a face to some of our listeners. So that's always really cool and encouraging for me. Um, but yes, I'm back from my adventure. I can't wait to talk about it. I'm having to really bite my tongue, um, but I'm excited to discuss everything in a few weeks or maybe months. I'm not really sure. But thank you guys so much for all the prayers and support. Um, I'm so glad to be back just in Andrews and at Snowbird. And I'm super grateful uh that I had this opportunity to go um and leave and have this really cool experience. Um, shout out to Josiah and Carter. Uh, those are some of our interns that really picked up the slack when I was gone. And of course, I'm so grateful for Brody and Austin, the head of our media and marketing department, for letting me take off basically two weeks to do this. Um, but I'm super grateful and I'm really, really grateful and glad to be back. But thank you guys for listening. We will see you guys soon.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:09

Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.