In this youth talk, Brady Sticker shares personal stories and vivid metaphors to illustrate how God’s love and redemption overflow regardless of circumstances. He opens with a junior varsity tennis tournament anecdote, noting that even a second‑place finish (among only two teams) still earned his dad’s praise, symbolizing God’s unconditional love. He then recounts a “lemonade game” from Camp Delicious, using the overflowing cup of mixed lemon, sugar, and water to represent the barrage of 30,000 daily ads and messages that fill a person’s life, yet God can still cause that cup to overflow with His presence. Brady describes a recent Chrysalis retreat where he learned that a sturdy spiritual life rests on a three‑legged stool: prayer, Bible study, and fellowship. He emphasizes passionate, not checklist‑style, Bible reading, regular fellowship with the Gateway community, and consistent personal prayer. A coffee‑pot analogy follows, showing how continual water (God’s presence) transforms dark coffee into clean water, symbolizing redemption and spiritual cleansing. He shares a rock‑writing activity where he wrote “redeemed” and “stronger,” linking these to the three‑legged stool. Finally, he warns that without ongoing prayer, study, and fellowship, spiritual fervor fades, but Psalm 34:22 assures that those who take refuge in the Lord are redeemed and protected. The talk concludes with an invitation to maintain one‑on‑one time with God, allowing the cup to overflow and walls to break down.
Chapters
The Brady. So this is. I'm going to start out telling you guys a story. This last, this last tennis season, me and my partner, not my partner, We competed in the junior varsity for a tournament and we got second place for boys doubles. And yeah, although there were only two teams, My dad, he knew that we got second place place, but he didn't know there were only two teams. I just told him on the way here what I was going to say. So that just kind of shows how God is too. I mean, no matter what place you come in and no matter how many teams there are, it's not like he's going to love you when you last. How many of you guys remember that lemonade game we played at Camp Delicious? So for those of you who weren't there, what you had to do is you bit into a lemon. You took like a spoonful of sugar and then drank some water and you ran, like, had to do five jumping jacks to mix it up. And then you spat into a cup until like everyone did it. Until it overflowed. Yeah, it was kind of gross. Drink it. Oh, and then people had to drink it. But that, that was later. That was later. No. Don't you guys think it would be easier if the cup was really small? If it was just like a really, kind of like a. Like the orange juice cups that we got. I feel like culture and the world had drew my cup really big. And statistics say that the average person sees over 30,000 ads a day. That's every billboard, every commercial, and every radio ad, if that even exists. They still have radio ads? Well, it just, it's like all, every message, every, every time of worship over this past week. It's kind of like God was spitting into my cup. It wasn't until last night where it started to overflow. What happened was Dallas and Jesse came over and we started to pray. And then as soon as Dallas just touched my shoulder, I just started weeping like I've never cried that much during worship. My entire walk with God. And. No matter how big the world has grown your cup, God will overflow it. A couple of weeks ago, actually almost a month ago, I went to this retreat, things called Chrysalis. One of the things they talked about was to stay sturdy, you need three legs to support stool. Three legged stool and three legs are prayer, study and fellowship. And prayer is. You need to have that relationship with God. You need to pray and study. Just read your Bible. Don't. Just don't read it as a to do list. Read it. Have a Passion for it. Just like your passion for worship. I saw you guys out there, you had a passion for that. You need to have a passion for reading your Bible. And that's one of the things that made my cup big and built up those walls. That kind of little song about I hadn't been reading my Bible. And then fellowship just come to the once a month things and help out and just build your. Not just your relationship with God, but your relationship with Gateway. I mean, it's you guys here. Gateway. Family. We're a family, not just a church. Maybe I can spit it and make it float. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Who in here likes coffee? Yeah, okay. I love coffee. You know how you take a coffee pot, you fill it with coffee and then you rinse it out, you put water in it, and at first the more water you put in it, all it does is just grow, but it's still black. But once you keep that water going and once the water keeps going in there, it'll turn that darkness, the black dirty hobby, into clean water eventually. And I wrote on my rock from Cam, what we did was everyone got a rock and you wrote something on it that you kind of took from it, what you got. And I put redeemed and stronger. And redeemed was that was God filling out my coffee cup. Filling out, washing it out and keeping that faucet coat. And that the stronger. That's what the three legs on the stool is. Prayer, study, and fellowship. I mean, that's how you. That's how you. After camp, I'm always on fire for God. And that lasts about a week. Then it just kind of dissolves. And that's because I wasn't keeping the prayer. I wasn't having that one on one time with God. I wasn't reading my Bible. I mean, I was felt, I know it's coming, but a stool can't stand on one leg. And Psalms 34, 22 says, the Lord redeemed the life of his servants and all who take refuge in him will not be punished. And just think about that. If you just. If you just break out down like I did on the last night and just. And just have that one on one time with God, he will redeem you. That is your redemption. And that's when your cup overflows. And that's when God breaks down those walls that you put up in your.
