Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Menominee Falls, Wisconsin, where the preparation is heating up. And so is the weather actually for the Thee Generation Youth Summit.

I think most of you are aware, but in just a couple of days from the time of you hearing this podcast, we will be convening together in Menominee Falls on Wednesday, October 13th through the 15th for three exciting days of preaching and competition. Everybody’s coming in Wednesday afternoon. I trust you’ll be able to join us.

If you haven’t signed up yet, please head on over to thegeneration.org and head to the Youth Summit page and let us know you’re coming. but we’ve got some very exciting new developments. We’ve said a few things here and there, but we’ve got a brand new theme.

It’s called the War Max this year. Four brand new teams, Army versus Navy versus Marines versus Air Force. Yes, that’s right.

For the first time in Minutemen history, there is an Air Force team. We’ve got brand new competitions like Bomber Ball, which is big ball volleyball with an unexpected twist. We’ve got four-way tug-of-war, four ropes, eight groups, one winner.

It’s going to be exciting. We’ve also got something else called Duck, Duck, Boom. And I’ll just say this.

It’s a race, and it involves grenades. And you’ll find out more when you get here. But team T-shirts are a part of everyone’s registration cost.

Meals are provided, all three meals, breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We’ve got all kinds of competitions, all kinds of preaching sessions, workshops, even a brand new. We just got this finalized split session with Mrs. Rhonda Van Gelderen.

That’s Dr. Jim’s wife. You all haven’t heard from her very much on the podcast and much, much more. And so we’re very excited about this.

And I do want to invite you as a person who listens to the Thee Generation Podcast, please consider joining us. We’ve got a great crowd coming, but the only thing’s missing is you. Now regarding what I’d like to speak to you about here today, in Acts chapter 8 and verse 26, we’re right smack dab in the middle of a story.

The story is about a man that I identify with. His name is Philip. Philip is the only man in the New Testament that explicitly has the word evangelist attached to his name.

And Philip did some remarkable things for the Lord. He was a man, I think we can clearly say, who was surrendered to the Spirit of God and was dependent upon his power. And it says in verse 5 of chapter 8, And it tells about some of the particular things that God did through Philip.

and it says, and there was great joy in that city. Philip was a man who knew how to preach. He was a man that knew how to communicate the word of God.

But most importantly, he was a man who was completely surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, there’s a little bit of intrigue that happened regarding a man there in that city named Simon there. And I won’t get into that right now.

But when you jump down to verse number 26, right after that whole thing had finished, it says, And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise and go toward the south, unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert. So here we find Philip. He had just finished probably the single most amazing revival meeting of his entire life.

And then God speaks up and tells him what he wants him to do. He says, hey, get up, and I want you to go out into the middle of the desert. That doesn’t really sound like good advice, does it?

I mean, if you really think about it from just a wisdom standpoint, here he was in the midst of civilization. There were a bunch of people that he had preached to that had gotten saved. There was lots of ministry to be doing.

In fact, there was still ministry left to do there in that city. But the Spirit of God said, Philip, I’ve got something else I want you to do right now. So get up and go away from where all the ministry is and go into the desert.

Now, if you or I were Philip, we would have had a bunch of arguments for him. We could have said, well, you know what? There’s not a lot of water out there in the desert, Lord.

I’m not sure that’s wise. He could have said, well, you know what, Lord? It’s not safe out there.

There could be robbers and bandits along the road. I’m not sure that’s wise, Lord. But what Philip did was actually the only wise thing to do.

When the Spirit of God spoke, get this young person, he said yes. In fact, in verse 27, it says, and he arose and went. Get this, the command was this, arise and go.

And here was Philip’s response. He arose and went. I know that’s really basic, and I know that’s really simple.

But if I could just extrapolate out of that there for just a second, I believe the thing that made Philip the powerful man of God, the powerful preacher, the man that God saw fit to use, was because even when it didn’t make sense, Philip said yes. He said yes to God.

I remember many years ago, I had just finished one year of Bible college and I had gone back out to my home after my first year, back home in New Jersey, where I’m from, Philadelphia area. I had gone to Westchester Christian School, which, by the way, if you’re a student in Westchester Christian School, send an email to me, bobbyatthegeneration.org. I would love to just give a shout-out to my little alma mater there.

But I went out home, and I decided there was going to be a group from my school, And they were going to be doing a little dramatic presentation at Westchester. And the church that I had that had the school where I graduated from, long story short, I decided to go out to see him. And I’ll never forget when I went out there.

I remember it was a very powerful, very powerful presentation out of Philippians one, whether by life or by death. I still remember many of the visuals and some of the music that they did there in that presentation so many years ago. I remember afterwards, we were outside in the parking lot, and I remember I was talking to those that were on this group.

This was actually a high school group, and one of my good buddies, Daniel, was on the group, and a couple of other folks I didn’t know too well at that point. One was actually Jessica. Salas was her name then, but she’s now called Jessica Reed.

She was in the Faith Talks podcast just a couple weeks ago, the one expelled into God’s goodness or something like that. Another one is one I’m sure you’re going to hear eventually. Summer Smith was her name at the time.

Her name is now Summer Raines. And I’ll never forget, you got to understand something. If you listen to the podcast about Jessica, she wasn’t exactly the model student at certain points in her high school career.

That’s about all that I knew about her. Summer also, she had her struggles with attitude and so on in her high school years. And I remember when I went there, I remember I just saw God’s hand was all over them.

God was using them. They were free. There was life there.

And I think I even asked Summer and Jessica, what in the world happened to you? Because the last I knew, they weren’t exactly free, and they weren’t exactly having God’s hand all over them. And I’ll never forget.

Summer, she looked at me, and she said, I just said yes to Jesus. And she recounted a little bit of her story, and I won’t go into all of it. I’m sure she’ll tell her story on the podcast at some point.

But you know, a young person, all of us have that choice. Because when God speaks, we do have two choices. Either we can arise and go and do what he tells us to do, or we can resist.

We can say no. We can ignore what God is saying. Obviously, we need to obey what God says in his word, and whenever he says anything in his word to us, we must say yes and obey.

Did you know in the Bible it says that we’re supposed to go and make disciples? Did you know that we’re supposed to preach the gospel to every creature? You know, part of walking with Jesus is just saying yes to the Great Commission.

Not saying yes, I agree with it. Not saying yes, I think it should be done. But saying yes to go out and do it.

Young person listening, when’s the last time you’ve actually intentionally tried to start a gospel conversation with somebody? When’s the last time that God maybe prompted you to give a tract to somebody and you didn’t? Or maybe God prompted you to start up and turn a conversation.

You saw an opening and you decided you felt like God was working in your heart and you thought, oh, I should probably do this, but you didn’t. Listen, young person, don’t get down in the mouth about it. Don’t get discouraged, but just start saying yes.

I’ll bet you there are probably some young people listening that there are some things you’ve been doing behind mom and dad’s back that aren’t exactly what they would like, and God’s been all over you working in your heart saying, You need to go talk to mom and dad about that. And you’ve been saying no. You’ve been saying no.

Or you’ve been saying later. You’ve been saying later. You know what you need to say?

You need to say yes. I’m going to tell you, young person, even as somebody who’s been out in the ministry for 10 years now, I still have to say yes to God. I still have to say yes to God.

There are times when maybe I wrestle for a few minutes or even a few hours or even a few days or weeks even. A couple of weekends ago, I was out in Des Moines, Iowa. I was preaching for a church out there.

I’m sure somebody from the church is probably listening to this podcast. But while I was out there, God was really working in my heart. He was really working in my heart.

If I can say this, I was thirsty, so thirsty. I felt like that all that I was believing God for, just not all, but some of it, I just felt like it wasn’t happening to the level that I knew was possible. And I was very thirsty.

And I remember we were parked at the church and I left the trailer, had a little bit of time. I went into the church and I sat down and I just began to spend some time with the Lord. And I remember there was a song that came to my heart, a song, Spirit of God Descend Upon My Heart.

And I sat down and I just, again, I don’t know, this may sound weird to you. I just began typing out the words. I had to look them up some, but I began typing out the words as a prayer from my own heart.

And I just want to read it to you here. Spirit of God, descend upon my heart. Wean it from earth through all its pulses move.

Stoop to my weakness, mighty as thou art, and make me love thee as I ought to love. Hast thou not bid us love thee, God and King? all, all thine own soul, heart, and strength, and mind.

I see thy cross. There, teach my heart to cling. O let me seek thee, and O let me find.

Teach me to feel that thou art always nigh. Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear, to check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh. Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Teach me to love thee as thine angels love one holy passion filling all my frame. The baptism of the heaven to seven did dove. My heart and altar and thy love aflame.

I want to maybe get a little bit more candid than I normally do here on this podcast. I want to read you what I typed out as my prayer after that. This was a sacred moment in my life and in my heart.

I said this. I said, Dear Spirit, you’ve been wooing me for the last several weeks. I’ve had moments where I’ve listened and felt the burning of my soul as you came near.

But yet, when the opportunity presented itself, I walked away. You burned in my soul when I heard of all you’d done for Walter Wilson, for Ed Nelson, and for others. I’ve known you can do the same for me, and yet I’ve been contented to make you my servant and retain the master’s position.

I’m done with calling the shots. beckoning you to my side as some loyal canine to do my bidding. I give up the reins of control, the right to decide, and the weights that go with them.

I report for duty, for direction, for soul ownership, and for submission. Please accept me into your service. Forgive me for wandering, neglect, and distraction.

I give my heart for you to fill it, guide it, engulf it. Please take me over. Rule me.

Command me. I give you my all. I sell my soul away, signing on the dotted line for service.

I loosen my grip on life, letting it fall into your skilled hands. I come with no requests, no commands of my own, except for you to do as you see fit with me. Whether that falls in line with my expectation or diverges me far from my foolish, futile plans.

O holy God who saved me, justified, who’s united me to himself, who’s given me hope both for now and for eternity, I do present myself to you anew as an offering to be consumed by the fires of trial, spent by the sweat of exertion, used as a tool for a building or however else you see fit.

As such, I retain no more rights to use this tool, this offering, for my own uses, but exclusively reserve it for your use and for your purposes. Accept this offering. I worship you, not by saying words of worship, but by being a consumable offering.

Take this feeble lamb and use it for thy glory. Young people, I’ve surrendered my life to the Lord before, obviously, many times. I’ve made many decisions of surrender.

I felt particularly during this time that I needed to say yes to God. And maybe you’re listening to this. Maybe you’re struggling with some things.

Maybe there are some things you’ve got your nose out of joint about. Maybe there are some things you’re struggling with saying yes to. Can I just give you some counsel?

Just say yes. Just say yes. The reason why Philip was a man that God used in a mighty way is because he just said yes to God.

Again, I don’t know what specifically he’s dealing with your heart about. Maybe there’s somebody listening and God’s been telling you, you need to come to the youth summit. Just say yes.

Maybe God’s been telling you, you need to break off a relationship that’s not helping you. Just say yes. Maybe God’s telling you that you really shouldn’t be playing that game on your phone anymore.

Just say yes to God. Maybe he’s telling you that he wants you to do something more. with your life than just go out and make money.

Just say yes to God. This is not a complicated challenge, young people. But if you want God’s hand on your life, it begins with surrender, and surrender restated in a slightly different way is saying yes to God.

So maybe you need to have a conversation like I had and say, God, I’m done asking you to fulfill my bidding. I’m here to fulfill yours. Your wish is my command.

Your command is my agenda. I’m saying yes to you. That’s what these generations are all about.

It’s complete and total surrender to God to do whatever he wants us to do and depending on his power to get it done, to reach the world with the gospel. Hey, young people, don’t forget, we’ve got a youth summit coming up here this week. Come join us.

We’d love to have you. But even if not, please say yes to Jesus. To view the Battle Plan, please visit thegeneration.org slash victory.