Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Baytown, Texas. We’re down in the South for the winter, though it’s kind of chilly down here. It’s getting down into the forties overnight. Those of you up north are possibly a little bit jealous of that, but we just finished up an amazing week of the war here at Victory Baptist Church. We’ve been here two times before, and to be honest with you, we’ve struggled at getting a decent crowd. We’ve been able to get recruits, but for some reason, they’ve just had a difficult time showing up.
But this week was a blessed answer to prayer. I’m not going to go into all the details. You can read the update on minutemenministries.org. We had forty-five young people at one night, fifty the next night, forty-five the next night, and seventy-three unique individuals come. Twenty-two trusted Christ. On the final night, we gave an invitation for those young people that wanted to surrender their lives to Jesus Christ. We had thirty young people stand amongst their peers saying, “I don’t care what anybody else does. I want to do what God wants me to do with my life.” And so it really was honestly just a thrilling week.
Another thing that was a thrill to me here this week was to get to meet the youth pastor of Victory Baptist Church. This is actually the first time he’s been the youth pastor when we’ve been here. Trevan Kemp is from the Bahamas. He went to West Coast Baptist College, trained for the ministry, and God led him here to this church to take the youth pastor position. He’s been doing a good job loving the young people here. I went out to eat with him on Sunday afternoon after the morning service, and he began to share just a little bit about how he got saved and a little bit about what God did in his home. As I heard him share his story, I thought, “I’ve got to get this on the podcast.” And so it’s my delight to introduce to you here today, Treyvon Kemp. Brother, won’t you please share with us what God has done in your life?
Trevan Kemp: Well, thank you for having me today. Like you said, my name is Trevan Kemp, and I’m excited to be here today. I know at a young age, at the age of twelve, my parents decided, “Well, let’s send Treyvon to a private school.” They did what they could and they sent me to a private school, but they didn’t know that this private school was a Christian school, and this Christian school had chapels Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It was through the courses of those chapels that I heard the gospel. For the first time, as a young boy, I never went to church on Sundays or really any time throughout my life. Hearing these chapel messages, they really started to impact me.
I remember one day the principal, who was the pastor of that church and that school, preached about heaven and hell. He told the difference of the two places, and being a person that never grew up in church, these were new concepts to me. I remember just thinking, “Wow, this is interesting.” He really touched on hell in the latter portion of that chapel time, and I remember thinking, “Well, I don’t want to go there.” He said, “If you do not know with one hundred percent surety that you are going to heaven, chances are you’re going to hell. I wouldn’t gamble with that if I were you.” I remember as a young boy thinking, “I don’t want to gamble with that.”
Right there that day, during the invitation time, he said, “If you would like to talk to someone that can help you get this straightened out, that can help you and show you from the Bible how you can know that when you die, you would go to heaven, go ahead and come on up.” I remember that day talking to someone and getting that settled, and I remember bowing my head and asking Jesus to save me. I believe He did that day. It wasn’t, of course, just an instant change. I still have my struggles, but God was good to me still.
Through the course of my teenage years, He allowed me to do something very unique. I remember going and visiting that church. When I visited that church, I started to think to myself, “You know, I have to come here more often.” And so I went there more often. It was a youth night specifically that my youth pastor preached about just being a witness and being a witness to those around us, specifically our family members. I thought to myself, “Yeah, well, I have this Jesus now and I’m saved, but I haven’t told my parents about it.” God really got a hold of my heart that night, and I got a burden for it.
That night I went home and I talked to my mom. I said, “Mom, I’ve heard good news lately that I didn’t share with you.” Right there and then I went into the gospel, and I just started telling her about how Jesus died for her, how He wants to save her, and how He wants her to live with Him for all eternity. I gave her the gospel. Of course, she didn’t get saved that night, but it took me living a godly life for a few years for her to get it.
I remember her calling me one day and telling me, “Hey, I got saved.” I thought to myself, “What? You did what?” She told me, “I got saved.” She said ever since we had that talk, it resonated with her. The thing that resonated with her was, yes, Jesus died for her, but she saw it real in my life. That’s what helped her to get to that point where she realized that she needed to be saved. Because if she could see that change in my life, she thought, “Surely that change can be inside my life.”
It was just an encouragement to me as a teenager that God was able to allow me to experience that. Then the same thing happened with my dad. I was able to talk to my dad about the gospel, and now to see both of them going to church each Sunday and to see both of their lives change, it’s been incredible. Those two things in my teenage years that God allowed me to do—I look back on it, and it was just very unique.
Now to have me as a youth pastor, I think about it—we’ve just gone full circle. A youth pastor came into my life and impacted me, and now as a youth pastor, I can impact someone else. I think it’s very special. God definitely can work no matter who you are, no matter what age you are. God can use you. He used me, and I’m telling you, He can use you. Brother Bosler, thank you so much for allowing me to be able to share that today.
Bobby Bosler: Amen. Amen. Praise the Lord. You know, young person, I recognize we’ve got a lot of different young people with a lot of different backgrounds listening to this podcast today. Maybe you came to a War of Special Forces or a Cola Clash and you trusted Christ. Or maybe you trusted Christ through some other means and your parents are not yet saved. Can I encourage you, young person? God wants to use your witness. God wants to use your life to be an encouragement to them to find salvation through Jesus Christ.
It’s one thing to declare to them their need to be saved, but you know what? Your life needs to back it up as well. Young person, I want to encourage you to grow in grace. I want to encourage you to learn the 0/100 life, and I want to encourage you, young people, that God wants to use you if you’ll be totally surrendered to Him: zero percent your will, one hundred percent God’s. If you will be totally dependent on His power—zero percent your strength, one hundred percent God’s—you, my friend, can turn the world and your home upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
