Bobby Bosler: I’m speaking to you today from Fairmont, West Virginia. We are looking forward in just about a month or so to the beginning of the Thee Generation Youth Summit. And if you haven’t heard, I just wanted to let you in on a deal that is a few days away from expiring here. There is an early bird rate for registering ahead of time at the Thee Generation Youth Summit. If you register on or by September eighth, you’ll pay ninety five dollars for your registration.

Now, that includes everything as a part of. It’s essential to attending the event itself. That includes you being there. The workbook that also includes all meal tickets, and the two different t shirts that are going to be worn at the event. It includes, of course, attendance to all workshops, and so on.

However, I will say this if you wait, if you procrastinate at registering, um, the price will raise rise by twenty dollars and it will be one hundred and fifteen dollars per person if you register after September eighth. Um, so just so you know, as of the time of my recording, I’m recording right now, uh, on the fifth of September, the eighth is Monday. So you’re going to need to get onto this, uh, as soon as possible. Um, now, I will say there’s a couple of other extra fees that may be added in there. For instance, if you wanted to stay in the Baptist College of Ministry dormitory.

I believe that adds twenty five dollars to the total amount that covers all three nights. Uh, Wednesday night, Thursday night and Friday night. And then there is an additional meal on Wednesday night. That’s not a part of the package. Uh, that would be an additional five dollars for a meal ticket to that.

I’m excited about this year’s TGIF for a variety of reasons. One, this is the first one I’ve run remotely. Um, now I’m going to be there. Don’t worry. I’ll be there.

I’ll be aiding Doctor Jim and running the competitions and leading in many ways as I have before. But I live in Fairmont, West Virginia now, not in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. And so I’m working through the staff and faculty up there to coordinate and make sure everything’s ready to go. Hopefully it is by the time we get there. Um, but I’m also excited by one of the guest speakers that we have joining us, pastor Dean Miller.

Uh, pastor, I believe, of Front Range Baptist Church in Fort Collins, Colorado. Uh, he was going to be there already to help out with some of the Nelson Center preaching content that we are delivering to some folks. Uh, but he has also agreed to join us and to preach a couple of sessions. Uh, in the event itself, if you were there a few years ago when Brother Miller preached, you probably can’t forget his pedaling the bicycle uphill illustration. Uh, you probably can’t forget his story on Daniel and avoiding that matter of worldliness like he and his, uh, his friends, uh, did when they were sent off to Babylon.

Those are very memorable messages, and I look forward to being challenged and encouraged to live a life of total surrender and total dependence on the Lord as he comes and preaches as well. Uh, in addition to Doctor Jim, myself and Brother Miller, Joe Mueller is going to be speaking. Uh, Mark Gilmore is going to be speaking, I believe last I heard, Ryan Swanson was planning on being there, and Daniel Van Gelderen as well. Uh, Daniel, preach, do you remember last year at the TGIF? He just preached the opening meetings at Baptist College of Ministry, and I know he’ll be a blessing to you all as well.

One of the other things that I’m really looking forward to, uh, is, is really the theme of this year. Now, I haven’t unveiled this theme anywhere else except here on this podcast. And, you know, one of the things that I’m really excited about, one of the things that is core to who we are at Thee Generation the Me Generation podcast. The movement of total surrender to God and total dependence on his power to reach the world with the gospel is the optimism with, uh, that we have regarding Jesus’s power to deliver us. I want you to know, young people, though your flesh stinks just like mine does.

And though the world is awful and the devil is fighting very hard in these days, I want you to know we. We win. We are winners. It’s in our spiritual DNA. As Doctor Jim has said to us now, that doesn’t mean we win every battle.

It doesn’t mean that we overcome in every temptation. But the fact of the matter is, Jesus didn’t save us to lose. And I’m not just talking in the grand scheme of things. Jesus saved us to be winners. Young person, Jesus saved you.

And he said in the book of Romans chapter eight. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors. And the fact of the matter is, despite the challenges that you might fight, the obstacles you might find up against you every day, despite the pull of your flesh and the world, despite how many times a day you fail. God said, you are not only a conqueror, you are a super conqueror young person. You are a hooper.

As this verse is talking about. You are one who conquers in an exceedingly abundant way. Listen young people, you may say, that doesn’t really sound a whole lot about my experience. I may be saved, but I feel like I trip all over myself every day. I feel like I fail more than I win.

Well, I’ll tell you, it could be that you’re trying to conquer in the wrong power, he says. In all these things we are more than conquerors Careers. Through him, young people, it is Jesus inside of you that makes you a more than conqueror. He is the conqueror, and because he lives in you and can live through you, young person, you can live a conquering life every day. That doesn’t mean you’ll win every game of football or basketball you ever play.

Doesn’t mean you’re going to beat everybody in the game of Catan, but it does mean that when it comes to the battles that really matter, you can win. You have the victory. Thanks be unto God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. I want you to know your victory is wrapped up in Jesus. And if you live in dependence upon him, in surrender to his plan and relying on his power, what you’ll find is his victory.

His conquering will be manifested in your life. I’ll tell you If you’ll yield to Jesus and depend on Jesus, he will enable you to conquer that habit that’s been getting you down for years. If you will yield to Jesus and depend on Jesus, he’ll enable you to conquer in the soul winning effort in your community. He’ll enable you to conquer. When it comes to the matter of prayer, he’ll enable you to conquer in doing God’s will in your life, in his power, and in a way that makes him look good because he’s the one who did it to begin with.

I want to encourage you, young people, as we come into this conference. You are more than a conqueror, and we’re excited to see how God can enable you to be a winner in the battle of Jesus Christ. Now that being said, little pep talk there. Come and join us if you want to hear more about that. Uh, we’ve got a lot of planning yet to do.

And yet I think with that direction, it will be a huge encouragement to you as well as it will be to the rest of us. But, you know, I don’t know if you caught something when I said that. And this is something that’s easy to bypass or to overlook. But young person, I want you to know you’re conquering only goes as far as it relates to your personal walk with Jesus Christ. Yeah, I think a lot of times we think conquering has to do with obedience.

We think conquering has to do with conformity. Does my life check all the boxes of what a conquering person is supposed to look like? Am I living a righteous and holy life in the sense that my life is conforming to a particular standard? I was just getting ready for a sermon, really, a Sunday school lesson for this coming Sunday on the sermon on the Mount, which, by the way, I don’t know if you noticed on the generation org. Um, we are taking and converting my lessons into articles that are there the Upside Down Kingdom article series.

I’d really encourage you to check that out. And by the way, if you’re not so good at reading or you just prefer not to or don’t have time to, um, each one of those articles that has been released, and many others also has a read along feature. So if you go to the article, there’s a player at the very top of the content of the post. If you click play, um, I will read you that post in my own voice. Um, so I know that’ll be a stir stirring encouragement to you all, but I’m in the midst of this series.

Uh, again, I’m a few weeks ahead of it in the series, and I’m. I’m getting ready to take a look at what Jesus said. Uh, on the sermon on the Mount when he said, ye have heard that it was said by them of old time. And then he gave a particular perspective. But then he corrects it, and he says, but I say unto you.

And one of the things that Jesus was doing is he was correcting a misunderstanding or a misapplication or an artificial limiting of what Jesus was really talking about, what God was really talking about when he gave certain commandments or certain perspectives. You see, there were people that had turned the law of God into a checklist. They had turned even the matter of the Ten Commandments into a set of things. Well, hey, if I just happen to check off each one of these boxes, then I’m good to go. And what this ended up doing, the net effect of this perspective was that people didn’t need Jesus.

All they needed was a checklist. Young person, can I say beware of a perspective on Christianity that is nothing more than checking a few boxes. Beware of a Christianity that has everything that is only having to do with the outward, the exterior. That is only a matter of compliance and doing the things. You see, I guarantee in this passage that I’m still going to get studying through.

But as I’m looking ahead and looking over this, the perspective Objective of this section has nothing to do with a checklist, and it has nothing to do even with a new expanded checklist put there by Jesus. And it has everything to do with somebody who lives under the domination, the rule, the kingship of Jesus. You see, a person who lives under the direct rule of Jesus by his Spirit is someone who will not just fulfill what God intended, but he will do so much more. His life will be unimpeachable. His life will be uncondemned.

There will not be a thing that God can condemn about the life that is lived truly in absolute surrender to Jesus. I want to read just a section. There is an author that I’m reading. I’m not going to mention his name because some mixed mixed stuff in his work here, but I my heart burned when I read this last night, and as I was thinking about the podcast today, I thought, I need to read this to you all here today. He says that in turn, brings us to the fifth principle, which is that the law of God and all these ethical instructions of the Bible must never be regarded as an end in themselves.

We must never think of them as something to which we just have to try to conform. The ultimate objective of all this teaching is that you and I might come to know God. Now, these Pharisees and scribes and the Apostle Paul said it was true of him too, before he was truly converted, put as it were, the Ten Commandments and the moral law on the wall, and having viewed them in this negative, restrictive manner, said, well, now I’m not guilty of these various things, therefore I’m all right. I am righteous and all is well between me and God. You see, they viewed the law as something in and of itself.

They codified it in this way. And as long as they kept to that code. And I’ll insert here that checklist, They. They said all was well. And again here in this in this section that I’m reading here, he’s talking about why Jesus said, um, but I say unto you, he goes on, he says, according to our Lord, that is an utterly fallacious view of the law.

The one test which you must always apply to yourself is this what is my relationship to God? Do I know him? Am I pleasing him? In other words, as you examine yourself before you go to bed, do not just ask yourself if you have committed murder or adultery, or whether you’ve been guilty of this or that. And if you have not, thank God and all is well.

No, you ask yourself. Rather, has God been supreme in my life today? Have I lived to the glory and the honor of God? Do I know him better. Have I a zeal for his honor and glory?

Has there been anything in me that has been unlike Christ? Thoughts. Imaginations. Desires. Impulses.

That is the way. In other words, you examine yourself in light of a living person. And not merely in terms of a mechanical code of rules and regulations. And as the law must not be thought of as an end in itself, neither must the sermon on the Mount. These are simply agencies which are meant to bring us into that true and living relationship with God.

Young people, I just want you to think about this. You need to walk with God every day. Don’t just find yourself looking at a list and comparing yourself to that list and thinking. Do I measure up? No.

Are you walking with Jesus? Are you absolutely surrendered to him? To his purposes? To his plans? Are you in your life yielding moment by moment?

I’ll ask you this, young people, has Jesus corrected you this week in your heart? Well, I’ll tell you, he does that to me pretty regularly. There are times when I’m sitting around doing what I think I’m supposed to be doing again. I’ve got a lot of new things that I’m doing here at Fellowship Baptist Church in Fairmont. Um, there’s a lot of new administrative, administrative details and hospital visits and funerals and oh, boy, the sermon prep for new sermons a week is rough.

But in the midst of all of it, there are times when the Lord just says, Bobby, get on your knees and worship me. Bobby, just get on your face and surrender your heart to me. There are times when you’ve said, he said, stop studying and get out there and go share the gospel with somebody. Or there have been times when he’s said, you know what, you should probably send a text to that person you haven’t seen in a little bit, see how they’re doing. Or when he said, you know what, just go sit down with your kids for a bit.

You can study later. Has Jesus corrected you like that? See, here’s what happens when a list is what rules our life. We get the list done or we’re so focused on the list, we stop listening to the voice of the Spirit of God who lives inside of us. And can I tell you that’s not a relationship with God.

That’s a relationship with a list that is in the most negative sense of the term religion. God didn’t save you for religion’s sake. He saved you for a relationship’s sake. He saved you so that you could walk with Jesus every day so that you could yield to him, to actually listen to him and His voice and to obey. Oh, don’t let a list of any kind, no matter how good it might seem.

Again, Jesus. Here he goes through six items on the people’s list that he was preaching to, and several of them were biblical. And yet here he is saying, do not even let a list close your ears, no matter how good and righteous and appropriate might be. Close your ears to the voice that says, but I say unto you. Are you listening, young people?

I know God has spoken. He has spoken through His Word. His word is perfect, I get it. I’m not in any way arguing against that. But are you listening to his voice every day?

Our Savior is not dead. He’s alive. The spirit is in you. And if you will recognize that you’ve been crucified with Christ, nevertheless you live. Yet it’s not supposed to be your life that lives, but his Christ Liveth in me, and it’s by faith.

It’s depending on Jesus and yielding to him. And I will tell you, young people, when you listen to the voice of Jesus, that still small voice in your heart, and when you say yes and rely upon him, your life will conquer. I hope this has been a blessing to you all here today. By the way, I’ll just mention this before I finally finish. If you want to hear other preaching and content, I am churning out four sermons every week just about.

Um, we do have a podcast that’s on Spotify and Apple Music or Apple Podcasts. Um, it’s called the Fellowship Baptist Church Podcast. It’s a dark blue cover with a copper logo in the middle. Uh, that’s our church’s podcast with the sermons from the pulpit of Fellowship Baptist Church here in Fairmont, West Virginia. Feel free to give us a follow and a listen.

I think it’d be an encouragement to you. Um, but otherwise, please head to the generation org if you haven’t signed up yet, I trust you will. I trust you’ll make plans to come and join us. I will say dorm space is limited. And so if you’re hoping to get a spot in the dormitory, please sign up sooner than later.

We do cut that off at a certain point once we get to max capacity. There are other options for lodging. We do have free options to stay with folks in the church, but even there we only have so much capacity. Otherwise, there are hotels in the area. Or if you’re able to figure out another means of lodging, you’re welcome to do that too.

But I would say it’s best to plan ahead and in advance. And we would love we will love to see you at the Thee Generation Youth Summit. Remember, our desire is not to hand you a new list to follow. Our desire is to put you in contact with the Lord of the law, Jesus Christ Himself, for you to surrender completely and entirely to him, and to depend on him to do whatever it is that he tells you to do. Let’s turn the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for listening.