Bobby Bosler: All right, Philippians chapter 2, please. Philippians chapter 2. If you could turn there with me.

This evening, I just got used to saying morning, and now I have to get used to saying evening again. Or afternoon here earlier today. You know, we’re here at the war, the War Max, and obviously there is a little bit of a military theme.

And I was sitting over there as I was just getting my heart prepared and my heart for the service, just thinking about wars.

obviously I run the war every spring semester all over the country we primarily operate what we do down south the two-team version so the two ones on the wings army and navy are the teams that we have and you know that war that’s a lot of fun we’ve got tug of war over a mud pit we’ve got we’ve got big ball volleyball basketball spoke tackle all those kinds of fun things but you know but the real war for the war.

It actually doesn’t even happen during the event itself, though there are plenty of battles. The war that happens during the war is really from the moment we arrive at a church. In fact, if I could say this, much of the war for the war took place before we ever even arrived at a church.

There are so many wars being fought that ought to culminate in souls coming to Jesus Christ, that really if we knew every battle that was out there, that was happening, it would probably scare us stiff. When I arrive at a church, I recognize the fact that there are people warring for their neighbors in prayer. There are young people in that youth group that are warring against the devil’s plans for their lives.

There are men and sometimes women in the church that are warring the war against moral impurity. There are lots of wars happening. The young people that we’re going to go and meet, there are wars that are happening just to help them understand regarding who they are, where they came from.

There are worldview wars that are happening. There are battles in the spiritual realm that are happening to keep these young people away from my recruiters when they end up outside of a school trying to invite these young people to come to the war. I recognize that here in this room there are wars that have been fought.

And one, just to get you here to this building. There have been wars that have been fought in your family history that really have brought you to the point where you could hear some of the truth that you have heard this week. When I think of my life, honestly, I was getting choked up over there as I was sitting through the song service just thinking of some of the wars that have been fought for me.

Some of the battles that have been fought in prayer and sacrifice that have brought me to where I am here today and have enabled me to be able to be what God wants me to be. And when we think of wars, oftentimes I think that we think in terms of what it takes to win a battle is strength, right? Guns, bombs, tanks, helicopters, F-35 fighter jets, aircraft carriers.

Many times when we look at the human wars, so to speak, we think in terms of firepower. We think in terms of sheer numbers. We think in terms of training, of weaponry, of explosives.

But did you know that even in the human realm of human warfare, that’s actually not all that it takes to win wars? Wars are fought and won, not just in terms of firepower, in terms of energy, in terms of might, but wars often are won or lost by one little factor that I want to talk about here this evening. They’re won by attitudes.

Wars are often won or lost by mindsets, perspectives. Every soldier that steps onto the battlefield comes into that battlefield with a certain mindset, a certain perspective, a certain attitude, if you will. And in a variety of different wars our country has been a part of, you could see the different attitudes that the soldiers went into those wars with.

We think of the great generation that fought World War II and the incredible willingness of these men to fly across the safety of the Atlantic Ocean or the Pacific Ocean to their assigned front and to literally lay their lives down. To be willing to pay the greatest price in order to preserve freedom in our world today.

you look at the attitude of the men on the beaches of Normandy who literally stepped out of the safety of those boats into people that had their guns trained on them ready to fire. No shelter. These men stepped out of where they were comfortable and they were willing to charge because they had an attitude of selflessness.

You can think of a variety of battles throughout our country’s history that have been pivotal battles. You can think of different battles fought during the Civil War, a battle at Gettysburg, a certain hill that those men were on, and those men were quickly getting outnumbered.

These men were quickly realizing they were running out of munitions, that it was only a matter of time before the far greater enemy would use their might, their power to advance up that hill before they ran out of ammo and would have been literally sitting ducks. And yet those men were willing in the face of a foe far greater than them at the sound and call of their commander to charge down that hill and literally turn the entire tides of the Civil War.

It’s amazing when you look back at history. You see the fighting spirit of different men in our nation’s history who were not merely concerned with, am I going to make it another day? Am I going to be able to get back and see my family?

Am I going to enjoy the simpler things of life ever again? But these people are more concerned about the cause that their country is fighting for. They’re more concerned about the war that their military is waging than they are about themselves.

In fact, you could say they entirely lose themselves for the sake of the mission. That is the attitude that wins wars. Young people, I just want to say this here this evening.

You all are soldiers of the Lord Jesus Christ. The generation isn’t just about orange and gray. it’s not just about merch the generation is about so much more than a podcast a website a youth summit the generation is about a war that we need to win in fact it’s about a war that has already been won and yet that war still need has battles involved There are still individual fronts where we need to fling ourselves with reckless abandon to accomplish our heavenly mission.

And you know, young people, you can be here and you can come to a youth summit. And in the controlled environment of these preaching times and this fun and in this building, this room, It’s easy to say, yeah, that’s right. I want God to use my life.

I don’t want to live a human existence. I don’t just want to feel guilty all the time. Yeah, I want victory.

Yeah, I want my life to count for something. Yes, I want to overcome that habit that has for so long kept me enslaved. Yes, I want to fight the battle of peer pressure and win for Jesus Christ.

Yes, I want to fight the battle of bitterness and find freedom in my soul. Yes, I want to fight against that immoral pull that is constantly waging war against me. Many of us can come and we can want victory, but I want you to know those are battles and those are very absolutely essential fronts for you to win the victory in, and Jesus has won the victory for you in those fronts.

But I want you to understand something, young people and not so young people here this evening. It’s not all there is to the battle. The battle is so much bigger than you.

Wars aren’t won by bombs. They’re won by attitudes, by mindset. These attitudes are so powerful they can make or break the most well-funded, well-equipped armies.

And I want you to know, young people, attitudes, and the attitudes specifically that I want to close this meeting with here tonight is an attitude that if you understand it correctly, if you apply the truths of God-dependence that we’ve been speaking about in the context of this attitude, you can beat sin. You can stump the devil. And you can win souls to Jesus Christ.

See, the most powerful force in the universe, I would say, is a mindset. And it’s a mindset that says it’s not about me. It’s not about me.

I ask you to turn to the book of Philippians in chapter number two. I want to take a look at a few verses of Scripture here. In Philippians chapter two, in verse number one, he’s writing to a group of people.

Paul is a group of people that he loved. He cherished. These people loved him.

they were you could say his biggest fans on paul’s second missionary journey he was led by the spirit of god across the aegean sea to a place he’d never been before this was an unreached people group paul was a missionary evangelist apostle whatever you call him but this man was a man who wanted to accomplish his heavenly mission handed down to him by by god almighty and he followed jesus across the Aegean Sea showed up in the city of Philippi.

There he began to preach his guts out. That landed him in jail. That wasn’t good.

And yet it was. Because at the end of that jail time, there was another man, the jailer who trusted Jesus Christ alone as his savior. God literally shook the house and he shook that man’s soul and brought him to his knees and brought him to Jesus Christ.

And he and his family became born again believers. There was a battle that was won. Praise the Lord.

It Paul, because of his attitude of selfless abandon to his mission, he brought these people face to face with Jesus. Paul continued to minister there in that city for some time. People got saved.

People got discipled. There was multiplication happening there in that city because Paul was living out all that we’re sharing with you here this week. Paul was a man who was totally surrendered to Jesus Christ.

He was a man that knew that he was weak, but God was strong. He was a man who knew, even in this very letter, that he said that he could do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth him. And this man was a man who knew he was on a mission.

He was a man who wanted to complete that mission and teach others to do the same.

And so when you read throughout the book of Philippians, he’s coaching his converts, his posse, his crowd his fans and he was saying hey listen I want you to look at my life as we talked about the other day in chapter 3 I want you to look at my life I want you to follow my example because there’s a bunch of examples you just plain don’t want to tune into but if you go back earlier in the letter here he says

listen I want you to know I’m in jail for my witness I’m here in Rome in prison because I’ve been trying to fulfill the mission that God has given unto me. But my Philippian friends, I want you to know God has a mission for you. And in chapter 1 verse 27 he says this, he says, only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ.

That whether I come and see you or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs that you stand fast in one spirit with one mind. Striving together for the faith of the Gospel. Paul’s burden was that his fans, his followers, those that he had poured much time and sweat and tears and prayer and effort into, that they would adopt His mission to reach the world with the Gospel.

And when you get down to chapter 2 and verse 1, He begins to make a direct appeal to them. An appeal to emulate His mindset. This is an appeal to follow in His footsteps, to wage His war, to fight His battle, And to win.

Chapter 2, verse number 1 here, Paul says this, If there be, therefore, any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, and if I could pause there real quickly with Paul saying, listen, have you felt God moving in your life? Have you sensed the presence of God’s Spirit in you encouraging you, affirming you with His love? Has God touched your soul?

Has God moved in your life? Is God doing something in this ticker right here? If so, he says, let me tell you what you ought to do.

Verse 2, fulfill ye my joy. He says, hey, you want to make me really happy? You want to make me a happy apostle?

Here’s what I’d like to ask for you to do, my Philippian friends. He says that ye be like-minded. Can I say this, young men, young ladies?

You know what would make me a happy evangelist? Is if every last one of you were to walk out of this youth summit with a carbon copy mindset in your brain. You know, you wonder why I say things a lot for those of you that listen to the podcast.

You wonder why there’s some phrases that I repeat over and over and over again, like, you know, total surrender to God, total dependence on His power to reach the world with the gospel of Christ. You know why I say that over and over again? I don’t know if I say it in my sleep.

Honey, do I say that in my sleep? I don’t know if I do or not. I might.

I just don’t know. I’ve never heard reports that I do. I feel like I do sometimes.

It’s because that’s the mindset, the perspective that I want every one of you to have. Many years ago, I was a young Bible college student, and I remember I had a vision for my life. I had a vision for my life.

My vision was that I was going to be an evangelist to Southeast Asia. Through counsel and men of God in my life, I knew that I was an evangelist. That was the gifting that God had given unto me.

And that God was going to use me to bring people to Jesus Christ and to bring saints to revival. And I knew of a preacher that did a lot of ministry in Southeast Asia. And I saw what God did through his life.

And I thought, man, I would love to do that. Wow, that would be so amazing to preach to crowds like that, to see so many people come to Jesus Christ. And so I, at that time of my life, I just wanted to serve the Lord.

And so I saw that opportunity. I knew my gifting, and so I said, well, you know, I think I’m going to be a missionary evangelist to Southeast Asia. That must be what God wants me to do.

Well, God began to work in my heart, and I’ll never forget my senior year of Bible college. God was doing a lot of different things, and I won’t go into all the specifics, but I remember at one point, I began to get this niggling sense in my soul that God did not want me to do that, but that He wanted me to preach to teenagers.

And I remember there was a part of me that thought, well, wait a second, but I want to go reach the unreached, right? Right? That’s important.

And I was trained to believe that that was important, to go find those that had never heard and to go tell them about Jesus Christ. And I’m thinking, come on, our country’s had the gospel for how long? Come on, teens.

Many of these teens, you know, they grow up in churches and they’re fine. But you know what I realized? More important than to find an unreached people group, it is to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit of God.

God wants to lead you to your mission field. And listen, we ought to find every last one and take every opportunity that we have. We ought to head that direction and let the Spirit of God lead us.

But in my story, I was heading towards one of those unreached people groups. I was going to do it, and then God said, hey, I’m glad you’re willing. I’m glad you’re surrendered to that, but I’ve got something else that I want you to do.

I’ve got a mission that I want you to accomplish. I want you to not only reach teenagers with the gospel, but this was the phrase that God burned into my heart. I want you to reach the next generation of harvest laborers.

That’s what I want you to do. It shaped the way I do even the war. I don’t just want to come in and see teens saved who we never see again.

I glory in every young person that trusts Christ because I know I will see them again even if they never darkened the door of the church they got saved in. I praise God that at least they found Jesus. I praise God that I’m going to have a crowd waiting for me when I step through heaven’s pearly gates.

I praise God that people get saved through my ministry. But I know the Great Commission is so much more than that. I want to see these young people go on for Jesus.

I want to see them grab a hold of God’s cause. I want to see them turn the world upside down with the gospel. I began to realize again as we had meetings with Minutemen, God was stirring all of our hearts that God is doing something in our day.

We’ve been praying for years that God would raise up a missions movement, a revival movement among the young people of our world. And here at Baptist College of Ministry, we’d have many prayer meetings at the Victory Conference. We would have many prayer meetings where God would just settle upon our souls and just make it so clear to us we could see it with our spiritual eyes that God was going to do it.

As we began to look around, we began to realize God is already doing it in our students. God’s already doing it in many youth groups and places around our country our world. And we thought, you know, as I remember a meeting particularly where Dr.

Jim laid out the term V generation for the first time. I’ll be pretty candid. I didn’t like the name.

I tried to change it to Generation V, but it probably would have been a flop if I hadn’t listened to Dr. Jim. That’s typically how things work.

But the generation was birthed in that meeting as far as the name the title not the color scheme that came later but you know as we began to talk and pray um god put a unique burden on my heart that we had to reach young people who would storm the gates of hell who would know that they were weak but god was strong who would be willing to step out of their comfort zones and attempt great things for God in the strength of Jesus Christ.

I’ll never forget the very first D-Generation Youth Summit, 2015. I was to preach on the final night, kind of like I am here this evening. And I remember I sat out in my van or my truck, I don’t remember which one in the parking lot, before that service, and I was scared to death.

Not scared to death. I was just so overwhelmed because I felt like my entire life’s ministry, like I was called to preach for that night. I felt like as I had become to understand why God had given me the gifting of an evangelist and what God was shaping my life to do and how He had been leading me for years, I felt like tonight was the night where it was going to be revival or riot.

I didn’t know which one it was. I stood up there that night and I just shared my story and I shared the fact that, you know what, I’m a mess. But God delights in cleaning up messes and giving them a mission and using them to turn the world upside down for Jesus Christ.

And I will never forget there that evening, I didn’t know what I was doing. I gave an invitation and I said, you know what, young people, if you’d say, you know what, I’m sick of living in the human realm. I’m sick of just doing my own, thing.

I want to be completely surrendered to Jesus Christ. I want to enlist. I want to do what God wants me to do, and I don’t want to do it in my own strength.

I don’t want to just take a stab at it. I want God to use my life, and I want the world to be reached because God was using me, not just because God was using them. And I invited young people to respond.

We had a unique kind of an invitation and I was blown away as we had over a hundred young people go back in that invitation because they said I want to be a part of the generation but you know what I’ve realized I’ve realized over the years that you know it is one thing to understand the basic concepts of total surrender that is key

if you’re not willing to do what God wants you to do it’s kind of like you can’t go any further if you are not willing to surrender to jesus it’s kind of

hard to even get to the next step once many people surrender often they realize how difficult god’s will is if you try to do it in your own strength and and to them it seems like the thing that really opens their eyes is what we talked about a little bit earlier this afternoon uh this concept of faith this concept of dependence,

this concept of stepping out of the boat and depending on Jesus to enable you to do what you could never do in your own strength unless you depended upon him to enable you to do it. And when we begin to understand that I have in me Jesus Christ and Jesus is all powerful. Jesus can enable me to do the impossible.

I don’t have to be limited by my skill set. I don’t have to be limited by my brain mass, my gray matter. I don’t have to be limited by my human strength or even by my own spiritual strength.

God can enable me to do anything He wants me to do. And when you begin to understand that it’s possible, and when you begin to understand that the pathway is faith and the power is Jesus, all of a sudden, what seemed like something that was hard and terrible and just miserable seems exciting. It seems possible.

It even becomes desirable. But I’ve realized we can understand the concept of total surrender and total dependence. But if that total surrender and total dependence isn’t directed outside of ourselves, it’ll backfire.

I want you to look at this text here. He says, If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, of any comfort, of love, of any fellowship of the Spirit, of any bowels of mercies, have you sensed the presence of God in your life? Has God done something for you?

Fulfill ye my joy. Make me a happy apostle that ye be like-minded. There that is again.

I want you all to have the same perspective having the same love. I want you to love the same thing, being of one accord. I want you to be working together in harmony with one another, of one mind.

He’s like he’s repeating himself four times, saying, I want all of you to have the same mindset, the same perspective. Get to that perspective, all right, why don’t you, Paul? He says, let nothing be done through strife or vain glory, but here’s what he’s wanting them to do.

but in loneliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. You know, really what I want to get across to you here this evening, this mindset that Paul is teaching, this mindset that I think is absolutely essential if what you receive this week is going to make a difference, and frankly, if it’s going to last, You’ve got to get this perspective, young people.

It’s not about you. It’s not about you. You know, when it comes to our own things, I recognize that young people can often be pretty self-centered.

We can be very focused, even the spiritual ones. We can be very focused on my victory, my reputation, what people think of me. And unfortunately, our social media generation hasn’t helped that because we can market ourselves in so many different ways.

We heard different comments and little things here and there. You know, here’s my bio. Here’s what I have in there.

You know, my photos of myself that are out there. And, you know, oh, delete that photo of me. It makes my nose look big.

And all those kinds of self-focused, self-centered perspectives on things. And so often, even though maybe we wouldn’t want to be vain like that, often we have a sort of spiritual vanity where we just want people to think of us in a certain way. Where we just want to have that spiritual assurance in our hearts that we’re okay.

Inside, often, all we’re looking for is affirmation and love. And let me just say this. It’s absolutely essential.

You can’t go further unless you understand that God loves you. Brother Weber’s sermon, once we get that up online, I would encourage you to listen to that several more times because you probably don’t even have to understand what you got in that sermon. Listen, this verse doesn’t say ignore yourself and look on others.

That’s not what it says. It says, look, not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let me tell you, young man, your victory in the moral realm is important.

It’s important, but that’s not all there is to victory. Young lady, your victory in your self-concept is important, but that’s not all there is in victory. Listen, your battle on insecurity is absolutely essential, but that’s not all there is to victory.

Understanding how to have a good peer group. Listen, that battle of friends is so important, but it’s not all there is to victory. If all you do is come out of this conference clean, it’s still possible to be self-focused.

Because you can be focused on your cleanness. You can be focused on your victory. Listen, you need to get victory.

You need to find it. take the victory of Jesus Christ. But it’s not about you.

He goes on here, he says, let this mind, he’s been talking about mind, in fact, all throughout chapter one and what we’ve seen so far in chapter two, we see this word mind thinking. I want you to think this way. I want you to have this mindset.

He says it over and over and over again. And finally here, he’s getting to crystal clear to giving us an illustration of what this mindset that he wants all of them to have looks like. He says, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation and took upon him the form of a servant and was made in the likeness of men.

And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. See, Jesus had this selfless perspective. Jesus had this perspective.

Listen, Jesus had it all together. He didn’t need to get clean. He didn’t need victory.

He is victory. And yet Jesus had an outward focused perspective. Jesus said, even as the second person of the Trinity who needed nothing, Jesus said, I’m going down there because they need me.

Jesus stepped out of heaven. He stepped out of his comfort zone. I don’t know, maybe you could say he stepped out of the boat in a certain sense.

And it says here, he, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to equal with God. because it wasn’t all about Him. He was willing to let go of things that were rightfully His.

Because it wasn’t all about Him, Jesus was willing to, well, it says He made Himself of no reputation. He was willing to lay His reputation down on the line to empty Himself of what people thought of Him. He says here that He took upon Him the form of a servant because he wasn’t all about himself.

He was willing to do what a servant does, what a slave does. There was nothing below him. Jesus was willing to humble himself.

He was willing to be humbled. He was humbled. He was willing to go through the valley of humiliation, mockery, difficulty, limitation, because he wasn’t about him.

It says, in being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient. See, Jesus, because he wasn’t all about him, he was willing to submit himself to the will of his Father, though his will and his Father’s will were synonymous here. But it says he became obedient unto death.

He’s willing to go all the way. Even the point of death. Even the death of the cross.

Not just any death, but an excruciating death. A misunderstood death, at least at the time. He was willing to be brutally, brutally mistreated.

He was willing to be spat upon. mocked, scourged, lacerated, punctured. He says, that’s the mindset I want you to have.

Listen, don’t be all concerned about yourself. Don’t be looking at this event thinking, this is the pathway to me being a big shot. No, the pathway that we’re talking about of total surrender and total dependence is not a pathway to human glory.

It is often, when you really begin to get a hold of it, it’s often a passage, a pathway to great hardship, difficulty, scorn, misunderstanding, and even sometimes death. I remember years ago when God began to get a hold of my heart and I began to make decisions for the Lord. Dr.

Jim mentioned a camp that I showed up at. All he remembered was my shirt. I remember a little more than the shirt I wore.

I remember he preached a message on, I don’t remember how many death sentences, I think it was three, for disrespecting teens. Teens are disrespecting their parents. I probably mangled the title, but it was something like that.

I’d never heard anybody preach like that in my entire life. And as I sat there, God was already doing a work in my heart. There were some things that God had put in place, I think, so that I could even receive some of those sermons that he preached that weekend.

I wept through the entire sermon. And God there, that senior year of high school, just began to totally change my life. I heard a preacher come to my church and preach about God dependence and spirit enablement.

I remember that week, God just awakened my heart to the fact that I can’t, but God can. I remember that week, God, actually because of that truth, God brought me to the point where I was willing to totally clear the deck about everything. And yet my life, as it was changing, it began to polarize me and some of my peer groups.

I told you yesterday about some of my friends that I hung out with that were not good influences on me. Well, as I began to get right with God and as I began to follow what God wanted me to do, let’s just say I got some flack. I began to get accused of being a holier-than-thou person, and I’m sure as an immature person I didn’t handle every situation right.

I’m a little bit outspoken sometimes. Don’t always care about people’s feelings like I should. My wife does all that for me.

You know, as I, again, I’m sure I didn’t handle everything right, but frankly, in my heart, I just wanted to do what God wanted me to do. I just wanted to be where he wanted me to be and go where he wanted me to go. And as I surrendered to the call to preach and I began to gut certain things out of my life, there were people who did not like that.

There were people who got angry at me for the fact that I was doing right. I’m thinking, man, go do what you’re going to do and leave me alone. But sometimes when you follow Jesus, people don’t like it.

Here’s the thing. If you go home and you’re all about you, that will really bother you. If you go home and you’re all about coming home, all of a sudden a spiritual giant, and you want people to look up to you as this great spiritual whatever and you go home and they say, he looked at me funny.

Or you go home and they say, man, why did you all of a sudden get so holy or whatever? Again, just recognize people are going to say stuff. That’s okay.

Just follow Jesus. Just walk with him. If you are, if it’s not about you, It might hurt.

It might be difficult to swallow. But listen, ultimately, at the end of the day, if it’s not about you, it’s not going to knock you off course. It’s not going to knock you off course.

See, Jesus didn’t care when people called him names. You know, people said that he was born illegitimately. That wasn’t true.

It wasn’t true. It didn’t bother him. You know, some people are going to say some things about you, perhaps, that are false.

Hey, if it’s false, don’t let it bother you. Don’t let it bother you. It’s not about you anyway.

See, here in this passage, we find that Jesus, his mindset was one not about himself, not about exonerating himself, not about vindicating himself, not about letting everyone just get the right take on things. Jesus was on a mission, and his mission was to provide forgiveness of sins for the entire world. And listen, I will tell you this.

If you live a life that’s not about you, there will be some times when you get trounced, trashed, treated incorrectly, treated wrong. But if you’re living for others, it’ll keep you going. Now, I just want to say this.

Jesus, yes, He let Himself get cruelly treated. He let them misunderstand Him. He let them nail Him to the cross.

But I want to remind you that if all it was were the human circumstances, maybe that would be a cause to be discouraged by. But that wasn’t all that was going on.

Because if you look at verse number 9, it says, Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of the Father.

And I just want to remind you that though Jesus may have had His time when people talked trash about Him and when people tore Him down, when people treated Him cruelly, God vindicated His servant and God lifted Him up. I want you to know that if you’ll have this mindset that it’s not about me. And if you’ll follow Jesus to accomplish His mission for you, there may be some dark moments.

There may be some deep valleys, but I promise you there will come a time of exaltation. You know, as my wife and I, we travel in the ministry. It’s not always easy.

She doesn’t like it when I talk like this. She thinks people think that I’m complaining. I’m not complaining at all.

It’s not easy. there are some times we go into a church and man the community hates us we had a time this last summer we had one lady she just got it in her head that what we were doing was terrible and awful and she spread it all over social media and it really did affect the meeting we had some people saved we praise God for that but you know what it wasn’t about us we praise God

that people got saved we praise God that that church now is actually taking some huge steps forward as a church plant literally just got started in the last couple years, and that church is moving forward by leaps and bounds. I was counseling with a pastor just the other day, trying to give him some coaching lessons. Why am I giving coaching lessons to a church planner?

I don’t know, but he’s talking to me, so I’ll give him what I know. But you know what? God’s moving in that church, and God’s moving them forward. And you know, even though you might get talked about, even though you might get trashed, God,

if you’ll continue to totally surrender to God and totally depend on his power not so you’ll look good but so you can accomplish God’s mission which is to reach the world I’ll tell you what God will lift you up God will enable you God will use you and he’ll exalt you you know there have been times in my life where as we travel some weeks like I said are difficult I’m thinking of one week we were in Tarborough, North Carolina.

And it was kind of an unusual meeting where we had, before we’d gotten there, we had that week cancel. And so Dr. Jim knew the guy and he managed to get us in and we show up at the church and nothing is planned.

There is, you know, there’s so many things that are lacking. And I was just glad to have a meeting though. I was just glad to get a chance to go invite teens to come to hear the gospel.

And our team captains, they go out. And if I remember right it was a rough town to recruit in we had a hard time finding people we had a hard time really connecting and it seemed like there was just this this spiritual heaviness upon us and and it felt like even as we met for prayer it was like oh it’s just like slowing through a swamp we just couldn’t quite get there there wasn’t that that freeness that

that so often is there when you sense god’s presence and i remember we got around to the first night and our team honestly we felt a little funny you know like oh boy we’ve driven halfway across the country to fill in this canceled week and this pastor was so gracious to let us come and sacrifice to have us here and here we are and we’re just a little sheepish about our numbers

and oh we’re not quite feeling spiritually there and it was a time of darkness just to be honest with you even up to when the kids started arriving now remember you know there’s a few kids and most of you are not going to get this but the way I feel and Dr.

Jim’s probably one of the only people in the room that’s going to get this you know when when the teens start showing up you’re thinking okay we’re all right right now it’s still quarter till more will come and you get around to 10 till and it’s still the same amount of kids and you’re like oh you go to the team you’re like guys we’re in trouble we need to pray you need to pray your recruits have

you texted your recruits text them again and five till and two more people came whoop-de-doo and then you know all right 559 this is surely when they’re all going to roll in the driveway right you kind of look down the road but don’t want to look like you’re looking down the road okay where are they okay maybe we’ll start a couple minutes late you know I’m sure they’ll all be late are people around here normally on time and you’re hoping they’re

going to say, no, they’re not normally on time. And I was dying. Dying.

And I remember when the meeting started, I think we had 10 to 15 kids there. And I’m thinking, we drove all the way across the country for one of these. Oh, come on.

Come on. And to be honest with you, there’s a certain sense in my heart is about me and my reputation. What’s the pastor going to think?

Small crowd. What are these kids going to think? Peensy little crowd.

And I remember after just a few moments of moping before we got started, I remember I said, Lord, it’s not about me. You gave me these 15 kids.

let’s go and see what you can do within like 10 minutes we had 60 i don’t know if it’s because of that or if they were on their way or what obviously they were on their way but god i think was just holding out till i stopped being all about me that night was an amazing night unbelievable all kinds of spiritual battles were happening

but they’re the kind of battles you have fun swinging at the devil’s nose i’m telling you it was an awesome night there that evening. I remember the guys were getting up to sing, What Will You Do With Jesus? It is definitely not a lively song in the sense of any bounce or any syncopation or anything like that.

It’s very, very straight. And yet there was this one-year-old baby that could walk. Not only could that baby walk, that baby could boogie.

That baby, while the guys are singing, What Will You Do With Jesus? jumped in the middle aisle and began to dance like the dancing baby of YouTube of old, all right? That baby was practically spin and break dancing in the aisle.

And the teens were no longer watching the show up front. They were watching the show in the aisle. And I’m turning around and I’m looking and I’m thinking, that’s a devil baby.

The devil must be inhabiting that baby because no baby can physiologically dance like that. The guys finished up the song, and you know, I’m thinking, all right, come on, we’re in a battle, spiritual battle. The guys finish up, I stand up, and I walk over to the platform, all right, and I couldn’t talk.

And they’re handing this baby around too, all right? They’re handing the baby around in other people’s labs. Oh, you’re such a good dancer.

Can you come to my party? Whatever. And I’m thinking, the devil is all over this.

God, you brought the teens, but oh. And I remember I asked, I said, can somebody take the baby to the nursery? And I hoarsely said, can you somebody take the baby to the nursery?

And I just stopped, and I prayed against the devil. Prayed against the devil. And after I finished praying, my voice came back.

I started preaching. By the time we got to that invitation, God had come down, gave an invitation, 30 to 40 young people went back in that invitation that evening, and almost all of them trusted Christ as their Savior. You know, the pastor’s wife came to me a little bit after everything, weeping, weeping.

She said, Brother Bosley, you have no idea what we’ve been going through here. You have no idea, no idea. You’ve never seen anything like this before, Brother Bosler.

You have no idea how much this night means to my husband to die. No idea. You know what that was?

It was God lifting up someone who didn’t want to be about himself. He wanted to be about God’s mission and God’s glory. Now, I’ll be honest with you.

God, sometimes you can let it get to your head, and God has to humble you. I remember we were at a little church in Pennsylvania. not a little church, but I remember we were at this church, and while we were there, it was one of those weeks, Dr.

Jim, where, man, just everything went awesome. You know, recruiting. They found the teens.

We didn’t know if we were going to be able to find them, but they found the teens. I had a great team. Andrew was on that team, actually, if I remember right.

Man, it was awesome. So much fun. And then, of course, when the war night comes, you know it’s a good week when the spiritual battles happen, and yet every night God came down.

People got saved. You know, one of the nights, one of my girl team members like got some kind of massive migraine and could hardly get onto her feet. I’m thinking, it’s going to be an awesome night tonight.

And sure enough, she was fine. And people came and people got saved and God showed up. I’m telling you, when you begin to understand what God can do through you, the battles that the devil throws at you aren’t intimidating anymore.

They get you excited because you know you’re stirring up the hornet’s nest and it’s going to be good. And I remember it was one of those weeks where God lifted up the whole team. He helped us.

The church was like, man, this was great. We love you guys. And I was feeling like a pretty good evangelist.

You know, get the love offering check. Hey, they really liked us. That’s a blessing, you know.

That’s shop talk, all right? And, you know, that next morning, I remember we were getting ready to leave. And one of the things evangelists do before they leave, typically is you’ve got to let the trailer go potty.

Okay? You’ve got to let the trailer take care of business. And I remember I texted the pastor.

No, I talked to the youth pastor. Never listen to youth pastors when it comes to stuff like this. A little bit of a preview there, foreshadowing.

I asked the youth pastor. I said, hey, I see there are two places where we can dump the sewage. Does it matter which one I use?

There was one that was on the wrong side of the trailer, okay, and I’d have to string stuff underneath, and it’s just kind of a pain. You’ve got to climb under, and I won’t talk about all of that. And the other one was a little bit further away, but it was all downhill, and I had enough hose to get to it, and so I thought, I’ll use that one.

So I got my hoses out. We call them stinky slinkies. That’s just what they’re called, all right?

For real, that’s what they’re called. I don’t know. I’ve never seen it on a box, but that’s what we all call them.

And I got those out, and I strung them down. I got my little L bracket, and I clicked it into that thing, and I went up, and I’m thinking, all right, I’m just feeling good. Honestly, you know, I’m whistling hymns, singing to the Lord.

This has been a great week. This church loves us. And, you know, I’m sure we’ll come back again.

And, you know, I go over and I pull the black tank and I’m still excited. And I remember down at the bottom where that stinky slinky went in, it was straight. And then all of a sudden, it squiggled.

And then the L bracket, like a rocket, went whoosh, like that. I grabbed the rocket. I shoved it back in the hole.

And brown water is literally shooting streams out all over. There’s toilet paper and other stuff all over the ground. And I’m thinking, maybe I could just jump in my truck and leave.

So I don’t have to tell the pastor about this. Well, I knew that wouldn’t have been right. So I texted the pastor and I sent him a picture. and I said pastor there’s something wrong with your sewage inlet here he said that’s not a sewage inlet that’s an access valve it’s only about like a foot deep I’m thinking well that makes sense that makes a lot of sense remember the pastor came down he was kind and everything but you know I

had gone from feeling like a mighty gospel warrior to being a dumb guy who dumps his sewage all over which is long. And I remember the pastor even, he said, you know, I’ve only had one other person ever dump their sewage into that, so don’t feel bad. You’re not the first one.

He was from New Jersey too. And God has a way of humbling us. And you know, I believe, honestly, there have been so many times right after some of the greatest meetings when I’m feeling the greatest and the highest, God seems like he just wants to remind you that it’s not about you.

It’s not about you. Often, after some of the greatest Mount Carmel moments of my life, God has brought me into the valley. God has brought me into that place where he is not trying to discourage me.

That’s not it at all. But God is trying to remind you. It’s not about you.

When we begin to get this vision of what God can do in and through us and we are smack dab in the center of it, sometimes God wants to say, hey, it’s not you anyway. You didn’t do that. It was me.

You didn’t work in those people’s hearts. That was me. And God wants us to get that mentality that, listen, it’s not about you.

It’s about my glory, my power, my mission, my way. If you look down at verse 12, he says, Wherefore, my beloved, as you’ve always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

You know, in this whole process of recognizing, listen, it’s not about my will, my way, my plan, my reputation, my 10-year plan, 15-year plan, my desires, my preferences. It’s not about me. He reminds us it’s not about our ability either.

We can’t do it. We can’t even sometimes will what God wants us to will.

Listen, young people, I just want you to understand everything that we’re talking about, everything that we’re sharing with you, training you for, all of the possibilities that God can do in your life, all of the might, strength, and power that is inside of you in Jesus Christ, all of the amazing access that you have to that power for victory over your sin, for powerful service, it’s not so you can become a big shot.

it’s not so you can get a great reputation be a BMOC in some Bible college somewhere so God can bring people to Jesus so God can get glory out of your life it’s not about you you know we go down again he reminds us here in verse number 14 he says do all things without murmurings and disputings You know, often when we get focused on ourselves, even folks who want to be surrendered to God and dependent on his power, right?

Even folks who want to be a part of this. So often we let personality conflicts and different frictions happen in our lives. He says, listen, I don’t want you to live a life of friction with those around you.

But he says, do all things without murmurings and disputings because, listen, if you do that, it’s going to hurt your witness. That’s what he’s saying. Look at the next verse.

ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation among whom ye shine as lights in the world. He’s saying, listen, even your testimony isn’t about you. Your testimony isn’t so you can say, wow, I’m spotless.

It’s so that the world can see Jesus in you. Verse 16, holding forth the word of life, that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither labored in vain. This isn’t the right motivation here, but I put a lot of work into this week.

A lot of other people have as well, some of them even more than I have, and I’m so grateful for that. A lot of money has been poured into this week too to make some of these new advances and different things that you’ve enjoyed here this week. And listen, that’s not the motivation.

But what Paul is saying here in verse 16, listen, I want you, I don’t want anything to hold you back from holding forth the word of life because he says that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain. It’s like he’s saying, I put a lot of work into you people. Spent a lot of prayers on you people.

put a lot of effort and tears into you people. He says, I don’t want to find out when I stand before Jesus that it was all a waste. Don’t want to waste my time.

I listen to young people, just understand this. Don’t live for Jesus because of the Thee Generation Youth Summit. Listen, the one who’s put the ultimate amount of investment into your life was Jesus.

He spent his life on you. And listen, as much as Paul didn’t want his labor to be a waste, just imagine how Jesus feels. Listen, he has literally provided everything you need to be victorious, to be free, to be godly, to be encouraged, and to be useful in his harvest fields.

you know more than I want to be thought of well among people I want to be thought of well to God I do what I do even with the generation the podcast and these events because I believe it’s what God has for my life and honestly even if nobody made decisions I would do it because it’s what God wanted me to do but young people I want you to know you have been given a charge.

You have been given, you have been handed truth that can not only change your life, it can change the entire world. And it’s time for us to stop sitting back on our backsides and just merely enjoying it for ourselves. Listen, I’m talking to Baptist College of Ministry students.

It’s time for us to not just use it to get good grades. It’s time for us young people who are coming to visit to just use it so you can feel better about those things that happened last month. It’s time we used the might that has been given us to reach the whole world with the gospel.

You know, earlier I saw, I’m sorry, I peaked. I peaked during one of the hand raisings. You know what preachers speak is?

When they say, nobody bow your heads and close your eyes. Everybody bow your heads and close your eyes, no one looking. Preachers speak.

I don’t know preachers if I’m allowed to share this or not. Maybe this is divulging sensitive information. But that’s everybody but the preachers, typically.

I’m sure some preachers bow their heads and close their eyes, too. But again, I wanted to see. Earlier when Pastor Gilmore asked the question, how many of you would say, I’m willing to go?

and almost all of you raised your hands and that’s worth it that makes it worth it makes every podcast worth it makes every line of code that’s driving me nuts on a website worth it makes every uh you know one of those evenings during youth summit when i wake up at 3 a.m. because the alarm in the building went off and I still don’t know why it went off worth it. I’ll have to find out what that was, actually.

I’m kind of curious. Probably made everybody curious now. It makes all of it worth it, traveling.

It makes the sacrifice worth it. The young people understand there’s a mentality, it’s not about you. That’s core to the generation.

Total surrender to God. Total dependence on His power, not for us, but to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.