Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation podcast. I’m Bobby Basler, and I’m speaking to you today at the time of this recording at the Michigan Revival Conference. Right now, I’m sitting in a room with Dr. Rick Flanders at Landmark Baptist Church in Clio, Michigan, and God has been doing a great work in hearts. We’re trusting God to do a work all over Michigan as a result of this conference here this week. But I’ve asked Dr. Rick Flanders to share a few things. The Lord has used His ministry in my life, probably in many of your lives who are listening. When we talk about the matter of the Thee generation and total surrender and total dependence, I know this is something that Dr. Flanders could speak to. So, I wonder if maybe you could just share a little bit of what God’s put in your heart here today. It could be a blessing to those listening to the podcast.

Rick Flanders: Well, I probably can’t actually describe for you how excited I was when I heard about the launching of the Thee Generation. Then I heard the theme, that is the motto or whatever you call it, and that is total dependence. Wow. Why was I excited about that? Because that actually describes the way Jesus Christ described the Christian life. It really did. If you would take a minute, I could tell you where in the Bible Jesus Christ said that Christian living is total dependence. Have you ever heard this? Jesus said the metaphor for the Christian life is a grapevine with branches that are supposed to bring forth grapes. That’s it. He says that the key to the Christian life is to stay connected. In other words, Jesus is the vine, I’m the branch. Nothing works unless I stay connected to the vine because a branch, especially a branch of a grapevine, is worthless unless it brings forth fruit. It can’t bring forth fruit unless the life-giving sap comes up from the vine through the branch. Let me read you the words and then I’ll just point this out. That’s all I’ll do right now. 

He said in chapter 15 of John, “I am the true vine, my father is the husbandman.’ That means like the vine dresser. ‘Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” In other words, the Father is watching over our life that his goal for us, bringing forth fruit, would actually take place. Now watch this. “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine, no more can ye except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches.” Now listen to this. “He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit, for without me ye can do nothing.” 

Here’s the picture. Here’s the vine, and it has branches growing off of it. The goal is for the branches to have grapes. The vine and the branch do not function unless the fruit’s coming, okay? Now, the key to a branch, and I’m a branch, bringing forth fruit is not that I try real hard to bring forth fruit, but that I abide or remain connected to the vine. That’s the whole thing. Now, there are two things Jesus said that a branch does in order to stay connected. One is dependence. Did you see that? ‘Without me you can do nothing.’ 

Sometimes I think, brother Bosler, that if every Christian got up in the morning and just after they woke up said, ‘Without Jesus I can do nothing.‘ Zero. Zilch. I can’t eat breakfast. I can’t take my pajamas off. I can’t take a shower. I can’t go to school. I can’t drive a car. Without Jesus I can do nothing. I certainly can’t live the Christian life, and I certainly can’t bring forth fruit or win other people to Christ. That’s can’t. I cannot. I’m totally dependent because the branch is absolutely dependent on Jesus Christ. One of the most wonderful things you ever learn after you get saved is that you really can’t do it. That sounds terrible, but all the things Jesus Christ requires of us are impossible.”

But now what’s neat about that, it makes living the Christian life a miracle. Not just once, but hour by hour where I’m saying, ‘Jesus, I’m going to do your will. Jesus, I’m going to do what you say, but you know me, I’m weak. If things go as they would normally go, I’ll fail today. So I’m going to depend on you, Lord. I got to lean on you. You got to do it. I can’t, but you can.’ That’s dependence.

Now the disciples were listening to Jesus that night, the night before he died. He told them wonderful things about the Christian life. He talked about answered prayer. He talked about peace and joy. He talked about the Holy Ghost. You ought to read it, John 12-17. But now he says the key to it all is the metaphor, the vine and the branches.

And what you gotta do is abide in me. Well, I’m sure at this point, they were wondering, ‘I wonder what abide in me is, wonder what it is.’ Well, you’re gonna keep reading, you’ll find out more about it. But finally, verse nine, look at this first time. ‘As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love.’ Now the word ‘continue’ is actually the same word as ‘abide.’ Abide in my love. Now watch. Verse nine: “As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you. Continue ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.’ Now let me ask you, how long has the Father loved his son? Well, if you know your Bible, God the Father has loved God the Son for eternity, all the way back.

Matter of fact, love is the emotional attachment between the persons of the Trinity. Father loved his son, father and son loved the Holy Spirit. Okay, now watch. He says, it’s my father loved me, I have loved you. Now get this. He says, ‘if you keep my commandments,” like I keep my father’s commandments, meaning this, the proper response to love is submission. Okay? ‘My father loves me, I love him back,’ Jesus says, ‘so I do all of his commandments. I keep them all.’ Matter of fact, if you read the life of Jesus in the book of John, you’ll find keeping his commandments, doing his father’s will was not just part of his life, it was his whole life. And here’s what he says.

If your whole life is doing whatever I say, then you’re gonna abide in me. And that’s like a branch. He’s committed to bringing forth fruit. That’s why he exists. And he’s also dependent on the vine to be able to do it. So it’s getting up every day and saying, ‘Jesus, you know what I’m gonna do today? I’m gonna do your will, whatever you want.

But you know I’m weak, I can’t really do it. So I’m gonna depend on you for the power to fulfill your will.’ You see what that is? Total commitment, total dependence. And that is the Christian life. 

Bobby: Amen, well, that’s wonderful. And that’s our heart cry here at the Thee Generation Young People. You know, some of you have signed the pledge on the website and your sincere desire is to completely, absolutely surrender to Jesus’ will and to abide in Him, to depend on His power, to bear fruit, to reach the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thank you so much, Dr. Flanders, for showing us that out of the Scripture. And thank you, young people, for listening. Remember, the Thee Generation is all about total surrender, total dependence. Thank you so much for listening here today.