Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast. I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Shawna, Wisconsin, where I’m sitting next to Pastor Matthew Weber. Many of you, if you attended the Cola Clash Plus Youth Summit, the last few years have heard Pastor Weber, his testimony and his preaching.

And I know he’s been an encouragement to you. He’s been an encouragement to me here this week. Our team has joined him here in Shawano at Shawano Baptist Church to do the Cola Clash here for them in the community.

And boy, the Lord sure did it work. It was a knockdown, drag out battle. And God did an amazing work.

We saw many young people saved, many young people came, and it certainly was a thrill. But I’ve asked Pastor Weber here before we head out of town to just share his heart with you here on the Thee Generation Podcast. So Pastor Weber, why don’t you share what God’s put in your heart?

Matt Weber: All righty, good to be with you all this morning. Excited to be able to share some thoughts with you about what God’s doing in my heart and my vision for you all this morning. I’m in the book of Acts.

If you have your Bible, feel free to join us, Acts chapter 26. I want to share a few thoughts from the Apostle Paul’s testimony as he was there with King Agrippa. And just share a few things here this morning.

I think our generation, especially this young generation coming up, you all, and whether you’re leading, maybe in a youth division leader or a Sunday school leader, you’re working with this next generation. We’re believing God to be a powerful generation to come up and change this world. I think we need to catch a vision for these kids.

And I think these young teenagers, these young men and women, these future world changers need to have a vision themselves. And we see that word in the scriptures, and we see that word in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, that word vision. In fact, in the Old Testament, we would find a phrase where there is no vision, the people perish.

And I think in multiple ways, there’s an application there that a community will perish, will die, will go to hell if there is no vision for the Great Commission. And I believe it’s incumbent upon the local church, upon the youth, upon everybody who’s born again on their way to heaven Christian to catch a vision for the Great Commission and their community.

But I also believe that there is a death to a generation where the leadership doesn’t catch a vision for them. And I think it is a responsibility for our leadership to catch a vision for this generation and pass the vision along, to cast that vision before them. And where there is no vision for the next generation, they’ll perish.

And they won’t serve God and they won’t change this world. And I believe that’s not God’s will. I believe it’s God’s will for this next generation coming up to change the world and to be powerful and to have an amazing impact in history.

So we’re excited this morning to find ourselves in Acts chapter 26. And there’s a verse there in verse 19, the Apostle Paul sharing his testimony with King Agrippa. He says, Whereupon, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision.

I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. And here the Apostle Paul is giving testimony about how he met with God one day on that road to Damascus. And God shared with him his heart about his future and those different things that God wanted to do in his life.

And the Apostle Paul grabbed the vision of heaven and took it for his own, and he began to live it out. Now there’s a few things I want to mention this morning that I think will be helpful for all of us, whether you’re a teenager or you’re a leader in some way. There’s a few things here that I think would be good for us to grab a hold of as it pertains to a heavenly vision.

Number one, there’s a purpose to a heavenly vision. The Apostle Paul in this passage of Scripture gives us really clear purpose. Why did God give him this heavenly vision?

What was the purpose of it all? And if you find yourself a few verses up, in verse 16, we see here as the Apostle Paul is relaying the testimony of heaven to him, he says, but rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose. Here’s the purpose statement that God gave to Paul for the heavenly vision, to make thee, number one, a minister, and number two, a witness.

Now, if there’s one thing this generation needs to learn, it needs to learn how to be a minister. It needs to learn how to serve in and through a local church to a community the realities of God. They need to learn how to serve their parents.

They need to learn how to serve their brothers and sisters. They need to learn how to serve and how to get involved in ministry. And it’s our responsibility as leadership in the local church to equip them and teach them and demonstrate to them what service is, how to serve, how to minister, how to connect with people and work with them around the realities of the Christian life.

Not only minister, but also a witness. And you’ll notice here in this passage of Scripture, in verse 16, it says, Both of the things which thou hast seen, and of those things in which I appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto now whom I send thee. Now notice verse 18.

It’s a wonderful verse here. To open their eyes and to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. So the witness or the testimony that these young people need to be sharing and we need to equip them to share is the realities of the power of the gospel.

They need to witness of that which they’ve already experienced. So young people, let me encourage you, if you’re listening in with us this morning and you’re catching this podcast, let me encourage you. This verse 18 isn’t what happens to other people.

It’s what happened to you. You have had your eyes opened. You have been turned from darkness to light.

You have been turned from the power of Satan to God. And that you have received forgiveness and also wonderfully here, something you can embrace and begin to enjoy and learn about in the Christian life, this wonderful inheritance you now have in Christ. And I want to encourage you this morning.

You have a purpose in this life. You’re not here just to wander in the wilderness. God wants to teach you how to minister.

He wants to teach you how to function in and through a local church and then how to be a witness of all that God is doing and has done in and through your life so that other people can embrace and enjoy and come to know the reality of these things.

The Apostle Paul had an amazing opportunity, a big, huge experience with God, but he also gave him a huge purpose, and not just to go and do these things aimlessly, but he was to reach a whole people group. He wasn’t just to reach the people down the street. He was going to reach the entire Gentile people group.

Now, that’s a big call, and that’s a big opportunity. But we find, actually, in Scripture, the Apostle Paul tells us that he’s burdened about his call. He’s a little nervous.

There’s some things in his life that he felt like, you know, we’re going to be a hindrance. He had this, what the Bible tells us in Corinthians, this thorn in the flesh. And we find here the Apostle Paul was burdened and passionate about this vision that God gave him, but he had this thing that was bothering him.

He asked God three times to take it away. And God told him in Corinthians there that God says he’s not going to take it away. He said, my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.

Now, young people, you would say, God’s given me an overwhelming task to be a minister, to be a witness. These are things I can’t do. I don’t look right.

I haven’t grown up in a Christian church. I don’t have all the equipment. God, take this away from me.

I can’t do this. This is too overwhelming for me. And I want to share with you what God told Paul in those moments of weakness.

The strength of heaven is on your side. Embrace the fact that you can’t and rely on Jesus to do for you what you could never do in and of yourself. The power of heaven is on your side to fulfill the purpose for which God has called you.

Now, I’ve got much more to share with you this morning, but I feel like our time has run long here, and I just want to take a minute and encourage you this morning. God has a plan for your life. He has a purpose.

He’s got a heavenly vision, and that vision starts and really is encapsulated in the fact that God wants you to be a minister and a witness right where you are in the power of God.

Bobby Bosler: Amen, Pastor Weber. Thank you so much for that. You know, young person, I think a lot of times society and what you hear all around you, maybe even in your school, says that you’re an accident, that you’re purposeless, but it’s not true.

God designed you to fulfill a specific set of tasks. He created you for a reason. He saved you for a reason.

And that reason is probably a lot bigger than you could ever imagine. And so, amen. Thank you for that, Pastor Weber.

Never forget, young person, the vision that God has cast for you is something you can’t do. That’s why we yield to it in total surrender and depend upon God to do what’s impossible in our flesh via total dependence. Thank you so much for listening.