Jim Van Gelderen: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. This is Jim Van Gelderen and I am broadcasting from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart.

Lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thine heart. That was one of my mother’s key verses.

And I’d like to talk about that verse by illustrating it. I certainly haven’t lived it perfectly, but I do remember in the late teen years of my life when God called me to preach, I wrestled with it, but finally yielded at sixteen. And then when I graduated from high school, went off to college, and to prepare for the ministry, God began to do a work in my heart.

I began to grow spiritually, had some consistency, and spending time with God, began to make serious efforts in gospel giving, and began to see God work in my own heart about that. And God began to burden my heart for young people. Sometimes I just tell people, follow your burden.

You know, when I was in college, there was nothing like exists today, Minute Men Ministries. In other words, there was that box didn’t exist. But God was creating that box in my own heart, that ministry paradigm.

And I remember coming home after my freshman year having a burden to reach the kids in our community. And I remember going out early on as I got home and meeting a young man named Lenny Orlando and and another one named Tony Parusia still remember their names began a gospel conversation that night, and although they didn’t get saved, God did something in my heart that began something that entire summer long. Every night we were not in church.

We would go out trying to reach young people with the gospel all across our area. We just driving around or walking around, engage young people in gospel conversations. We got to know many of their first and last names, some of their phone numbers, constant contact.

Whenever they saw us, they knew that we were intent on giving them the gospel. In fact, some of them began to nickname us the God Squad. For most of you, that won’t mean much to you, but anybody who’s my age or older probably has a little smile on their face right now, because it was a little takeoff of a popular television program in the nineteen seventies called the The Mod Squad.

But nonetheless, God was working. And it was exciting to see young peopleas the gospel was given. And I will tell you, I remember sometimes talking to large groups of young people.

They’d mock, they’d make fun, they’d challenge. And I was like, preaching, except you’re getting interaction. And I remember absolutely loving it.

Absolutely find fulfillment and joy in preaching the gospel, even in difficult situations. Remember that summer in the middle of the summer? Uh, we I say we my older brother was the youth pastor at Marquette Manor Baptist Church, and we got a burden for the teens in the area.

So we thought, let’s do a youth outreach. And so during the Bible school hours of nine in the morning to twelve, we did something out on the back field with a tent and had some of the games we even used today, and we began with the Hatfields versus the McCoys was the two teams and really was the embryonic form of what now we call the war.

And I remember that summer many young people came more than we thought, and although we didn’t get a lot of high school, we did get quite a few junior high, and some of them did get saved the next summer. My sophomore summer after college was again a similar summer. And then after my junior year, I came back again, a very similar summer.

Except now we moved the outreach to the evenings and called it the Uncivil War between the rebels and the Yankees, and was certainly an exciting summer, uh, as well. And God was certainly working in all of our hearts. And then came probably the most exciting summer.

In fact, I say that that junior summer I should mention this my brother John had a burden to go out, and my dad found a couple friends that he could go out with a couple of young people, and they did a one night rally and a couple of places. And God really blessed. In fact, he invited me to come one of those weeks or actually a couple days in Chillicothe, Illinois.

And, and I knew then I’d like to do this all summer long. So the next year, the next summer, summer after my senior year, the Lord worked it out for a couple of my college buddies to travel with me. And we traveled literally many different churches, about ten different churches, one far west as Colorado.

And I remember God did so many marvelous things. I remember preaching to over one hundred young people, most of them lost. I was just a college kid, and I was so burdened as the gospel was given that they would come to know Jesus.

And it was certainly a thrilling summer in so many different ways. Well, the next summer I came back as interim youth pastor there at my home church, Marquette Manor, and our church was able to send out three teams. Although I didn’t go out, I orchestrated it and heard some great reports back, but God was working in my heart.

When I finished graduate school and married my wife three weeks later, we were out full time in the war Army versus Navy. The program had developed to that point, and we began to go do that full time, and it was just a remarkable time. I remember that fall, just seeing God do something, seeing the power of the gospel, seeing young people come.

And of course, God was in my own heart. He was molding the burden And my whole point simply, young person, is this I never would be in my life’s work. I’ve done this for thirty five years.

Sometime I’m going to tell you the story how God launched Special Forces in the mid nineteen nineties. But I would never have been in the war, a Minutemen miniseries or the generation or any of that. If I hadn’t in those early days, just followed the Lord’s burden in my life.

God gave me a burden, and although there was no place to go apply to do what I do, God created the burden to reach teenagers and the war was born. And later War of Special Forces and Cola Clash. And some of the things some of you are familiar with.

But it all began as we just knew that God had put a burden in our hearts. And I say, are. And we.

I know it’s largely myself, but there were other youth group members that helped me in those early days get the thing started. And it was just such an unbelievable time because we didn’t know what we were doing. We were just just doing the next thing.

And even though we may not have been the most spiritual people at the time, we did have a heart for God and we wanted to grow and the Lord led us. I will just tell a young person, he directed our steps in remarkable ways. I look back and marvel at how some important nuances of our ministry.

God just led us to. And they now are important mainstays in how we conduct our ministry and the effectiveness the ministry has. And.

And I would like to say that we started with this great theology and great philosophy and and then the program was born out of it. But that would probably not be true. We we didn’t know what we were doing.

God not only led us to do the program, we do. More importantly, he was teaching us. He was showing us the power of the gospel, the simplicity of the gospel, the issues of faith, the walk of faith, trusting God to do what only he can do.

And all these things were so critical in forming the philosophical and And theological foundation of what we do today. And I just thank the Lord for his graciousness. And I look back sometimes with a little bit of nostalgia of those early days, because there’s so much God, so much divine intervention, so much God just leading us when we didn’t even whenever deserve it.

But we we certainly didn’t know what we were doing. But you know, young person, you can trust the Lord. You may not know what to do.

You may not have the understanding to do it. But if you acknowledge him, say, Lord, I need you. Lead me.

He’ll lead you. The box may not exist. The ministry box may not exist.

The paradigm of what your burden for may not exist, but God can lead you, and he can guide you, and he can do a miracle. And one day you’ll look back and you’ll say, wow, this has been quite a journey. Look what God did.

And I can look back in those early years. And I trust even since we see the fingerprints of God and young person, God wants to do the same with you. And the next time I’m going to tell you about how God developed War of Special Forces, it’s another remarkable story where God was clearly leading.

But I want to encourage you tonight with trust the Lord with all your heart. Don’t lean unto your own understanding. You may not be able to figure it out, but you acknowledge him.

You say, God, I want you to lead me. Direct me, he’ll lead you, and it will be a journey. And he’ll have the fingerprints of God on it.

So, young person, those of you that are part of the the generation, remember the way you get there. Total surrender to the will of God, even if you don’t know what it is and a total dependence on his grace to lead you and enable you to do what he leads you to do.