Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. I’ve been here for the last few weeks, having many meetings, planning sessions, getting a lot of work done to get things prepared and ready for next week’s Thee Generation Youth Summit, also known as the Cola Clash Plus. We’re really excited.

We’ve put a ton of work into this and getting things prepared. If you have not yet signed up to come, if you have not yet planned to come, I would encourage you if you’re at all able to make it. It’s still not too late. We can figure things out for you, but sign up and register on thegeneration.org and let us know you’re coming.

Now, that being said, as we’ve done the last couple of podcasts, we want to give you something just to prepare your heart for this time of concentrated challenge. You know, you summit as much as we have the competition and I’m excited about that. Our burden is not just competition. I would say far and away we’re even more burdened about something else to happen in your life.

And that is consecration. The tagline of Thee Generation, as you know by now, is total surrender, total dependence. And that’s our theme at the Youth Summit, to challenge you to surrender to the will of God and to depend on whatever he tells you to do. And, you know, as I was thinking about this, there’s kind of a whole bunch of different things that have been happening in my heart here recently, things God has been challenging me with, things he’s been showing me in the Bible.

And there’s one thing I want to point out to you here today. I think this will be a blessing to you. And I think this will even help prepare your heart, not just for the youth summit, but for what God’s called you to do, maybe to clarify a couple of things. In 2 Thessalonians 1, verse 3, Paul says, We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly.

You know, Paul was really, really excited about the faith that was growing in the hearts of those there in Thessalonica. I don’t have time to go into all of the background of it, but these are some baby believers that hadn’t been around that long. Paul worked with them for a short period of time, then got torn away from him. And yet every time he hears a report, every time he turns around, their faith is growing more and more and more.

And in the face of impossible obstacles and persecution and everything going wrong, these people are doing right. They’re not just doing right. They’re depending on God to do the impossible. And this example of Thessalonians, it’s been such an encouragement to me.

And it’s been an encouragement to Paul. That’s why he’s writing these two letters. But he says, your faith groweth exceedingly. And I’ll be honest with you, for years, one of my goals in my walk with God God would grow my faith.

Whether it’s believing God for his provision for my school bill in college, or whether it was believing God to lead me to the right one at the right time, which he did, by the way, for me to marry, or whether it was believing God to get started in the ministry and full-time evangelism, or whether it was depending on God to provide a trailer, or depending on God to provide a team captain for my next tour, or depending on God to break through in this impossible situation. My burden is for God to grow my faith. And you know what? God wants to grow your faith.

He’s going to grow your faith. If you come to the youth summit, God’s going to challenge you in some way to believe him for something more. Now, that being said, Paul didn’t stop praising God for their growing faith. He goes on.

He says, and the charity. Okay, so let me stop here. We’re bound. We are constrained to thank God always for you, just as it’s appropriate for us to do, because number one, your faith groweth exceedingly.

And number two, the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth. He says, you know what I’m praising God for, for you? I’m praising God that you are depending on him to do the impossible. And as you are depending on him to do the impossible.

He’s doing the impossible in your heart. He’s producing love. You know, love, I find, is somewhat of a neglected topic in the Bible. Love is something that I think we relegate to other people, other movements, other stripes, or other kinds of churches.

And I want you to know love is absolutely essential. In fact, if you’re looking in your Bible, look over with me at 1 Corinthians 13, because this has just been such a challenge to me these last few days in meditating on this. In verse 1 of chapter 13, he says, Though I speak with the tongue of men and of angels and have not charity, I become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. Though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing.

Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not charity, It profiteth me nothing. You hear that, young people? Nothing. You know what, young people?

In God’s estimation, we may look amazing. We may sound amazing. We may even do amazing things. But if love is absent from our heart, we have sound without substance.

We might feel important, but be nothing. We might feel successful, but have succeeded in nothing. Do you realize it’s possible to surpass all others in the exercise of spiritual abilities and to miss love? Do you realize it’s possible to know all about what God is doing and to depend on God for great things and to miss love?

Did you know it’s possible to sacrifice oneself and one’s own resources for the good of others and to miss love? love because young people, love is not just an action. It’s a motivation that results in actions. And here’s the thing. The Thessalonians got it.

The Corinthians may not have gotten it, but the Thessalonians did. Every time Paul’s turning around, whether it’s in first or second Thessalonians, he’s praising them for the fact that their love is growing and growing and growing and growing. How do you know? How can you see that the love is growing and growing and growing? well guess what you may not be able to put your finger on it in your own life but you can see it in others you can tell when somebody really loves you can’t you you can tell when somebody’s just putting up with you can’t you you can tell when somebody’s tolerating you can’t you in fact even sometimes when people they sacrifice for you sometimes you can tell they really don’t want to do it and you know what sometimes we do that too and i’ll admit there have been times in my life where it’s like, oh, I’m doing this because I have to do this.

And I want you to know that is not love. You see, love is a catalyst for real true sacrifice. Love is a catalyst for the kind of life that makes a difference in the lives of others because love at its core essence, it is not being preoccupied with me. Love is an other’s orientation.

Love is the, it’s not just the occasional sacrifice for one another. It involves the deepest motivations and the daily decisions of life. You see, love is when God has so taken control of our lives that the mind of Jesus, mentioned Philippians too, is oozing out of our heart, out of our words, out of our eyes, out of our actions. And you know what?

Talk about something that’s impossible and our own strength. I can’t love in my own strength and neither can you. And yet, you know what? If I don’t have love, My evangelism will be out of duty.

If I don’t love, the sacrifices I make for my brothers and sisters will be because it’s just what I’m supposed to do. It’ll be an inconvenience. I won’t really want to do it if I’m honest with myself. But you know what?

When love is present in our hearts, evangelism is not because we have to. It’s because that guy down the street is going to die and go to hell. And Jesus paid for his sins. And I genuinely care about him.

Because the love of Jesus is in my heart. The love of Jesus is coursing through my veins. You know, young people, I want you to know you can live total surrender and total dependence, but if your total surrender and total dependence doesn’t result in love, you’re wasting your time. You’re wasting your energy.

You don’t pass the test before God. You know, one of my burdens for this coming week is for God to work in a deep way in our hearts, For God to put his finger on our motivations for why we do what we do, maybe even why we depend on Jesus and surrender to him. My burden is that this week, for the love of Jesus, to grow and overflow in and out of our hearts to the lost world around us. And that’s what we’re about here.

Total surrender to the will of God. Total dependence on his power to do what we can never do in the strength of our flesh, to love the world and to turn it upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thanks for listening.

please visit thegeneration.org. That’s T-H-E-E generation.org.