Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen, and I am podcasting from Taylors, South Carolina, where my son-in-law, Ryan and my daughter Stephanie live, and Ryan is assistant pastor here at Fellowship Baptist Church, and I’m actually sitting in their building while doing this podcast. 

And what brought us down here is the birth of little Parker James, born on Friday, December 30th, and we’re so excited about that. That is one of the reasons the podcast is a little bit delayed. He kind of stole the show there over the weekend, and we’re certainly excited about his arrival. 

His name’s Parker James. My name is James Parker, and I was certainly touched by Stephanie and Ryan naming him Parker James, and certainly I know I will be praying for him that God will lead him, and he will do whatever God wants him to do. But it certainly is exciting to have that little one here, and we’re enjoying every moment with him. 

Well, podcast today, many of you know I have been on a series of My Journey, and just different aspects of my journey and my Christian life, calling of God, and the different steps God’s led me to take, and different things that have been an encouragement and help along the journey, and that’s what it isーit is a journey. 

None of us do it perfectly. But if we keep our eyes on the Lord and trust in the Lord with all our heart, lean not on our own understanding, in all our ways acknowledge Him, He will direct our paths. 

And that’s one thing, even if you’re off-path, you can look back to Jesus, trust Him to lead you, and He can get you back on target. God has a plan for each one of you listening, and I don’t want you to miss any of it. And I trust that you’ll be able to live a life looking to Jesus and see the fullness of what He has for each one of you. 

But I’d like to talk about my journey in preaching. I remember as a little boy, just thinking about the fact I’d probably be a preacher. That was probably more from default, just because my dad was one. But there certainly could have been a divine element in that. 

But in my later elementary years, I remember my first year of Christian school was sixth grade, and my mother taught in the Christian school. And I remember saying to her, “You know, Mom, I’d like to preach in chapel here.” 

I don’t think I ever did, but I did have a burden to preach. I don’t know that my life was ready to preach, but nonetheless, there was something in me that wanted to preach to my classmates. And that fire kinda waxed and waned over my teen years. 

I yielded to the call to preach at 16. And I do rememberーI couldn’t tell you exactly the timetable on it, but I do remember preaching in my car. 

My dad had a Buick LeSaber that the church had given him. And we also had a Plymouth Duster. I think it was the Buick, but I could be remembering incorrectly. But I just get to preaching all alone in that car. Just things that I’d see in the student body of the Christian school that burdened me. 

And I think I even cracked the dashboard by hitting my fist on the dashboard while I was preaching. But there was a fire in my heart. And I didn’t really know how to express that. 

I didn’t have a lot of preaching opportunities. Some of you’ve heard my story where I was, after my call to preach, went and preached at a nearby church, and I thought it was an utter disaster. 

But there was still times as I preached in Youth Group or things that came up after my call to preach, where I sensed God give me a burden. I didn’t know all the time how to express it. 

But I began to see some measure of victory in that, and, of course, there were times in the following years where I saw complete liberty in preaching, and I knew there was a divine element in preaching. 

I remember that time, I have told many times, when I was preaching right before going back for my sophomore year of college, where I preached at the Marquette Manor Baptist Church and how God stirred my heart while I was preaching. 

I didn’tーI was just empty. I had done some study on a passage that I’ve been burdened about, but it just seemed to be dry at the moment, and I remember getting in the pulpit, and God just rekindling the fire…. And all of a sudden, I knew He was there, and the text came alive again. And I preached, and God worked, and people were touched.

And it was things like that stirred me. I knew that there was a reality to God in the preaching event. I sometimes feel like maybe a good verse to help us would be Jeremiahーin Jeremiah chapter 20 and verse number nine. 

He says, “Then I said, I will not make mention of him nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay.” 

I can relate with that. There’s times where I just had a fire. I needed to deliver the message. God put a burdenーin fact, it’s interesting… in the Bible sometimes in some of the booksーthe prophetsーit’s called that. The burden. “The burden of the Lord.” And the prophet delivered that burden. 

I felt that way at times, where you just felt like you had a fire. You had to deliver the burden. Once it’s delivered, then, of course, you were burdened that God would do a work in hearts, but I wasn’t necessarily burdened to redeliver the burden, because it had been delivered. 

But certainly, in college, I saw victory. I started getting more and more victory in preaching. Became a hall leader, and I remember preaching in the hallway there standing on a chair. I don’t knowー150, 200 (maybe more) guys sitting in the hallway on a hall meeting, and preaching, and God stirring my heart. 

And I remember an opportunity I had later on after I got out of college, and I began to be on staff there at the Bible college where I attended. And had an opportunity to preach in Preacher Boys. And I was still in my 20s. And I remember the fire God gave me and the burden. 

And the thing that thrilled me about that message is, even years past that, young people would come up to meーof course, now they’re out in the ministry themselvesーand talk about how the Lord touched their life during that message. 

I remember also my senior year being asked to preach in a Sunday School setting there, that was a large Sunday School setting with many students. And I’ve, years later, had those that were there tell me how that message touched their heart. 

God was doing something in my heart. And I remember before I preached that morning on my senior year. God met with me in a way that He rarely had met with me up to that point. 

There are times I sensed God’s presence up to that point, but it was an unusual stirring of my soul as I got up to preach, and I knew God was with me, and I knew He was going to work. As I had gotten up that morning and spent some significant time with the Lord, there was a confidence He gave me. 

I remember also my senior year. At the end of my senior year, it was a preaching contestーyou had to enter itーand I remember the privilege of going to the finals and preaching a message to the entire student body, about 5,000 people. 

And I remember, of course, spending a lot of time preparing for thatーmostly my heart spiritually, because I had by that time almost memorized the message. But God just again, meeting with me. There’s the presence of God in the preaching event. 

I get there’s my journey in preaching, I learned that God’s presence frees you in the pulpit. It doesn’t mean there aren’t times where you struggle or you feel like you’re in a battle that God does not just intervene and use it, even though necessarily you weren’t experiencing a lot of freedom, but God used it anyway. 

Sometimes you’re walking by faith, and sometimes God just manifests His presence in a way where you have a strong confidence that God is working at that very moment. 

But I got out of college, and, of course, began to travel with The War ministry, and even during college, in the summer times, doing some War ministry. 

I’d preach Gospel messages. And there were certain times along that, where God had a fire in my heart as I preached. Maybe they’d mock or make fun, and my heart would just be overwhelmed with a burden to preach the Gospel. 

And just all kinds of things happened back then where I saw God work, and I became absolutely convinced that preaching the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. 

And I’ve been convinced of it now for 30 some years, as I’ve preached the Gospel literally across the country to all kinds of unsaved teenagers and watched God break hearts, watched God arrest their attention. Times where you could hit a pin drop…. 

Other times where it was like a battleーkids are talking, and yet God still, the Gospel, cut through, and kids were remarkably saved in spite of the spiritual battle that was going on. 

So certainly the Gospel preaching reallyーthe decade after I got out of college and spent that first decade of ministry. Preaching the Gospel three times a week did something for me about the Gospel and the preaching of it. 

But then in the mid-90s, God stirred my heart about the War of Special Forces. It’s a story for another timeーI think I’ve told it in another podcast, but I began to spend more time preaching to Christian schools. We still had our rally night, so I’m still preaching the Gospel to unsaved teens. But God began to add something, and that was revival preaching. 

And I began to learn that the “gospel of the saint” has power. And I’ve learned that the goodness of God leads to repentance. And I learned along the way: If you preach on sin and preach Jesus as the answer, and then preach that God has a provision for you to live the Christian life, that goodness of God leads breaking. 

And I began to see God send His reviving presence into Christian schools. And sometimes a whole Christian school would be touched. Sometimes part of a Christian school would be touched. 

But I began to see in almost every setting, when you preach the gospel of the saint: You preach on sin, you preach how to get right with God, then you preach how to keep it right through the provision we have in our union with Jesus Christーthat God uses that. 

And it’s gonna work. Sometimes it’s the whole school, or most of the school; sometimes it’s just a fraction. But God always works. It’s just like the gospel of the sinner, it always works. And God stirred my heart about that. 

Well, I’ve kinda given you my journey here, and I could say more, maybe I will another time, but that preaching is a great joy. God’s called me to do it, so it’s a great joy. 

I could put it this way: it’s where I find some of the greatest fulfillment in my Christian experience, is preaching the gospel to the sinner and to the saint, because it’s powerful and God’s called me to do it. And to watch how effective God’s message is through the power of His Spirit as He wields that sword. How it just changes lives, touches lives, and brings young people into freedom…  and what a blessing it is!

Well anyway, gang, maybe God’s calling you. Maybe, young man, you have that kind of fire in your heart. Let me encourage you to follow God’s call on your life and seek the Lord about what He’d have you to do. 

There’s no greater privilege than being in the center of God’s will. Totally surrendered to it, and totally dependent on His grace to live it.