Bobby Bosler: Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler, and I’m speaking to you today from Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. the follow-up to our Thee Generation Youth Summit several weeks ago.

We’ve had a number of new things that we’ve been rolling out and even just some things following up with what happened at the Youth Summit. I want to make a couple of announcements here if I could. One is this.

All of the sermons from the Thee Generation Youth Summit, the Coley Clash Plus that took place a few weeks ago, are available on the Youth Summit page on thegeneration.org. You can access that. by going to thegeneration.org and in the navigation bar, just click on Youth Summit.

In addition to that, also on that page is the video that we showed, that we unveiled at the Youth Summit here a couple of weeks ago, the video entitled, There is a Generation. I would really encourage you to take a look and listen and watch that video. It stirs me every single time.

And also there’s one other thing that I want to mention here regarding the podcast. Now, I don’t know. In fact, I’d be very curious to know sometime how you listen to the Thee Generation Podcast.

I’m sure that there are some of you, you listen to it in the Apple Podcasts app. I’m sure there are some of you that probably listen to it on the Google Music Podcasts app. They’re probably, I think, by and far, the large majority of those of you listening actually go to the website and listen to it via the orange player bar across the top of the podcast posts.

Well, I wanted to let you know that if you are using a podcast app that reads the feed of the Thee Generation podcast, we’re going to be starting to release bonus episodes every single week for at least the next 32 weeks, I think. And what these bonus episodes are going to be is they are going to be the audio talk portion of the Battle Plan for Victory resources.

And so what’s going to happen is here shortly after we post this episode on the Thee Generation Podcast, you will see a bonus episode in your feed. and it’s going to be the introductory Battle Plan for Victory explanation of how to use the Battle Plan for Victory. And what we’re going to do is every week, in addition to our podcast episode, we will post a new Battle Plan for Victory audio talk.

By new, I mean it’s going to be one that’s not been in the podcast feed before. They all will be accessible from the individual Battle Plan for Victory pages, but we will release them in the podcast feed every week. We figure it’s just an easy way.

You might not be thinking about navigating to, say, the Assurance of Salvation category, but we’ll put it right in your podcast feed every week for you to hear a new category from that. So I trust that’ll be a blessing to you and to many. One more thing that I want to mention, and this is going to kind of be kind of where I’m heading to for the actual content of our here today.

I want to encourage you, if you were at the Cola Clash Plus and God worked in your heart, I want you to consider going to the Your Story page on thegeneration.org. Now, right after our first podcast, I went on there and realized that the form was not working. The form is now working, and we even have some more ways that you can share your testimony with us.

But you know, And this is where I’m going with our podcast today. Your testimony is very important. Your testimony could be the breakthrough moment.

In fact, just a couple podcasts ago, the one where we really recapped the Cola Clash Plus, Gabe Reisinger’s testimony was a breakthrough moment for many young people at the Thee Generation Youth Summit when he shared about how he was deferring, getting right with God, how he was saying, I just want to get through this. Many of the young people identified with that, and the Lord used his testimony to help other people come through to victory.

Now, that’s one thing for a college student, but I want you to know God wants to do the same thing through your testimony as well. So if you’re able, if you’re willing, go over to the Your Story page, head to the TheGeneration.org homepage, click on Your Story in the navigation bar, and you can either type out your testimony, or you can call the VGeneration testimony hotline.

Nobody will pick up the phone, but there you’ll be able to just verbally share your testimony. We would love to use that as well in any of the testimony posts that are to follow. Now, I want you to take a look with me with a passage of Scripture in Philippians chapter 3.

If you don’t have a Bible there, that’s fine. Just all about examples. And, you know, one of the reasons why I want you to share your testimony is because God wants you to be an example worth following.

In fact, in this passage, let me go ahead and read the verses. Verse 17, Paul says, brethren, be followers together of me. Well, Paul essentially is saying there is, hey, listen, brothers, you in Philippi, follow me because I’m doing something right.

Now, that’s not a prideful statement. In other places, he says, follow me as I follow Christ. But basically, we can say this, Paul was an example worth following.

Did you know that there are people in your life that are worth following? And really, I suppose the first thing I want you to see is this, follow those who are worth following. Now, that kind of begs the question, how do I know who’s worth following and who isn’t worth following?

And that’s why he says the next part of this verse, he says, and mark them which walk so, as ye have us for an example. Basically, what he’s saying here is this. Okay, there are some people worth following, and there are some people who are not.

Paul says, I’m worth following, so follow me. But there are other people in your life as well, they are also worth following, and it is important for you to discern who is worth following and who isn’t worth following. Young people, did you know there are some people in your life that are worth following, and there are some people that aren’t worth following?

I think this kind of goes without saying, but it’s something we need to take into consideration. We need to talk about this because there are young people in your youth group that are not worth following, and there are young people in your youth group which are worth following. And he says you need to mark them.

Mark them. Specifically, the word mark has the idea of to continue, to regard closely, to watch, to notice something carefully. In other words, you need to examine those people around you.

You need to seriously assess, is this person in my life worth following or are they not? Now, one of his burdens here is he wants them to understand that there are people that are not worth following and to avoid them.

And that’s why in the next verse he says, For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now I tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things. What he’s saying here is this.

You need to follow people who are worth following because there are people who aren’t worth following, and let me tell you about them. So there are wrong examples, and these people particularly are hell-bound, self-absorbed, self-disgracing, earthly-minded enemies of the cross of Christ. Young people, those are not the kind of people we need to be following.

Do you realize that if somebody is lost, okay, it says here whose end is destruction, Don’t follow a lost person. Don’t follow a lost person as an example. Listen, you don’t need to be doing what you’re doing, following the example of somebody from Hollywood.

They’re not worth following. Don’t follow people who are self-absorbed. Y’all know who they are.

They’re people, everything they do, everything they say, everything they think, everything they wear is all about themselves. Those are not the kind of people that are worth following. They’re people who are self-disgracing.

The things they indulge in are what will bring them and all around them ultimate shame. Don’t follow people who do shameful things because, mark my words, you will be shamed. Don’t follow people who are earthly minded.

You know, this is something that really burdens me sometimes because I watch people sometimes and I can tell they are all about earthly things. You try to have a spiritual conversation with them and it’s like you just walked off of Mars. You know what I’m talking about?

If you want to know if somebody’s earthly minded, just sit down and ask them, what’s God been teaching you? And they’ll look at you like you’re an idiot. Those are the kinds of people that aren’t worth following.

In fact, in the next verse, he says, our conversation is in heaven. And he talks about all the incredible things that we’re looking forward to. In other words, the people that are worth following are people that are all about God’s will.

Can we say people that are totally surrendered to God? These are people who are spiritual. They’re dependent upon God to do what God has called them to do.

Those are the people that are worth following, young people. It’s so important that you mark those around you, not that you’re being all looking down your nose on other people, but the fact of the matter is there are some people worth following and there are some people who aren’t. So figure out who’s worth following and follow them.

But furthermore, I think this goes without saying, it’s not explicitly stated in the text, but I think it’s implied, be someone who is worth following as well. God wants our lives to make a difference, and young person, as you are totally surrendered to God and totally dependent on His power, being the example through your life and your testimony, you will be someone who’s worth following.