Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from New Freedom, Pennsylvania, where we are just about ready to start our final night of the Cola Clash here this week. God is greatly blessed.

In fact, God’s brought out a number of teenagers. We had in the mid-60s last night, and I think we’ve seen 28 young people make professions of faith thus far this week, which has just been a thrill. But one of the things that has been a thrill to me as well this week is I get to spend the week with Pastor Adam Burt.

Now, I got to say something. Pastor Burt and I, we traveled together on the War of Special Forces team back in 2005, And we were talking before we hit record here today just about some of the stories. And there are some of the stories we can enjoy.

We won’t necessarily let you in on some of these stories because lots of fun stuff happens on the road. But, you know, we were just talking about the fact that, boy, God taught us how impossible things were. Wouldn’t you say so?

Yep.

Adam Burtt: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of times people try to live the Christian life in their own strength.

And we found out, I found out week one. I remember that very first week, very first day of the week, you know, that I could not do it in my own strength.

Bobby Bosler: Yeah. Well, we had things put in front of us, like go out and talk to teens you’ve never met and tell them about this event that they’ve never heard of and try to get them out. That was impossible.

We found ourselves standing in front of a group of Christian school teenagers who thought we were dumb as it was. And we were. Yeah, we were.

And we were supposed to lead them in team cheers and preach to them later on in the week. And it was, yeah, I think we definitely learned how impossible it was. And you know what?

There’s a sense in which you could kind of think that maybe one day we’ll get this all figured out and it won’t be impossible anymore. But I don’t know about you. You and I have kind of traveled on separate tracks a little bit the last 10 years or so.

But I don’t know about you. It’s still impossible. ball.

I still can’t do it. And I know the Lord put something on your heart here, kind of about that, pastor. So I wonder if you could share some of what the Lord’s put in your heart about that here

Adam Burtt: today. Yeah. I mean, something I said recently at our church as well is I’m going through a series and came to a point in which we talked about the fact that the Christian life is impossible to live.

And of course, everybody in the congregation gets bug-eyed and they look at you weird. You’re like, the pastor just say that? And like, yes, that’s exactly, if you look at what scripture says, it’s impossible to do what God requires.

And that’s the whole point really of the Christian life is the Christian life lived in our flesh is impossible to do. It’s actually impossible. And Philippians, you know, Colossians talks about, Colossians 2.6 reminds us when it says, as you’ve received Christ Jesus, the Lord, so walk in him.

I think a lot of Christians forget how they received Christ and obviously what Christ had to do in their life. And so recognizing that, you know, none of us got saved by our works. Right.

None of us. I mean, if you got saved by your works, there’s issues and there’s other podcasts probably for that as well, but you don’t get saved by works. You get saved by what the work that God does in you and through you.

And so then we kind of transition. And oftentimes, instead of following that up with continual conscious dependence on the Lord in our Christian lives, we kind of put Christ to the side. We’ll put, you know, God to the side, and we’re like, I’m going to do this now.

Right. You know, I’ve got an idea how to do this. I’ve seen somebody do this before.

You know, I can figure this out. But Christian life is not lived in our own dependence. Yeah.

Christian life is lived very simply in God dependence. You know,

Bobby Bosler: that’s really good because I think sometimes we can get this mentality that, you know, at the beginning, I need God. At the beginning, you know, when I signed the Thee Generation Pledge, oh boy, I need Jesus. I can’t do this.

This is impossible. Maybe, you know, you go and you do a ministry opportunity. You go out soul winning for the first time to tell somebody about Jesus and all those first couple of times you think, oh, this is impossible.

But once you’ve done it a few times, you can start to think, you know what, God, I think I got this. You know what? I’ve got this under control.

You can do whatever else you’re doing in the universe, but I’ve got this under

Adam Burtt: control right now. What happens when we do that? Well, very simply, we crash and burn.

God in his gracious mercy allows us to fail. And oftentimes I think that’s where kids with our camp or making decisions or whatever, you know, they make the decisions, they start well, and they see God do some wonderful things in their life. But then all of a sudden they’re like, oh, this Christian life doesn’t work.

Well, the Christian life works fine. But what doesn’t work is when we try to do it in our own strength. And God told us that over and over and over again, but yet somehow we forget those parts.

You know, in John 6, 63, where it says that it’s the spirit that quickens, the flesh profits nothing. In John 15, 5, he says, without me, you can do nothing. He actually said, the Christian life is impossible without me.

You can’t do it without me. In Galatians 3, the apostle Paul talking to the Galatians says, oh foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you that you should not obey the truth. He said, you’ve begun in the spirit.

And he actually asked him this question. Are you now made perfect by the flesh? You know, can you now live the Christian life in your flesh?

And God actually, in his gracious mercy, allows us to fail in our Christian life. He allows us to fail because we’re not depending in him. Not because he wants to see us fail.

There’s never an excuse to fail in the Christian life other than not depending on what God alone can do in us and through us. So I’m so thankful that, you know, that’s one truth. If there’s nothing else that you get in the Christian life, if you start there recognizing you need conscious and constant dependence on the Lord.

And I’m not just saying throwing up a prayer because, you know, that’s just going to do everything. Just like an unsaved person throwing up any sort of prayer, that doesn’t mean they’re saved. They have to trust Christ for salvation.

That’s where salvation takes place. And that same thing takes place as well. Sometimes it may be that God’s, you know, God’s word says something and you say, you know, by God’s grace, I’m going to do what this says.

I can’t do it, but your word says it. So I’m going to do it. I’m going to walk forward

Bobby Bosler: trusting you to do it. So, you know, it’s, it’s amazing to me because I think many of us could probably give testimony that there were periods in our lives where we didn’t get this, you know, where we, maybe you’ve never heard this kind of a thing before. Maybe you’ve just always assumed the Christian life is about me just kind of bucking it up and doing it.

But you know, what would you say are some ways that people get around this? In other words, it’s impossible, you know, but we got to make this work anyway. So how do you think sometimes people try to just make it work?

Adam Burtt: I think there’s multiple ways that can happen. One of them is very simply, you can lower the standard. So God’s word says, for instance, I mean, while some of you may not be married, Ephesians 5 says, you know, husbands love your wife as Christ loved the church and gave himself for it.

Okay, so there’s a God expected standard for the Christian life. Loving your wife as Christ loved the church. And oftentimes what they do is say, well, that really doesn’t mean, you know, sacrificial love.

Really, it just means putting up with really me. It can mean all sorts of other things. And so you kind of, you lower that bar just enough so you can kind of jump up and grab it.

I mean, there’s all sorts of ways that individuals do that and in all sorts of other passages as well.

Bobby Bosler: So that’s good.

Adam Burtt: That would definitely be one way.

Bobby Bosler: That’s good. And I’m sure there’s many more ways that we could talk about, you know, you know, you lower the expectations. If you think about it, our lives are supposed to be supernatural.

It’s supposed to be God all over it. Sometimes we try to manufacture life through music. Maybe it feels like it’s full of life, or you try to manufacture it through emotion or just kind of jumping up and down, hooting and hollering.

Listen, sometimes when you’re excited, you’re excited, but it’s easy to try and manufacture the working of God. And I don’t know about you young people, but I know my heart and I know Pastor Adam’s heart here is we want our lives to have the fingerprint of God all over it. I’m not interested in living a life that’s humanly explainable.

I want to live the life that’s impossible, the one that cannot be done by me, that has to be God. And you know what, young people? I think that’s your heartbeat too.

I think that’s why you’re listening to the podcast here today because there’s a thirst inside of you. You realize there must be something more to the Christian life. And I want you to know there is.

His name is Jesus. And the same Jesus that delivered you from hell is the same Jesus that can give you his supernatural divine assistance every day of your life. And it’s only through surrendering to his will and depending upon his power to do what he’s told you to do.

Thank you so much for listening today. Remember that these generations is a generation of young people who are committed to total surrender and total dependence.