Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast.

I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Penfield, New York, where we’re in the middle of an exciting week of the Cola Clash right now.

Our team has gone out recruiting for the last several days and we are just thrilled with what God is doing.

Appreciate your prayers for God to show up in our meeting and it’s our prayer that God will show up in your life.

Recently, I’ve been just encouraged to hear from several of you young people about how God is leading you and what God is doing in your life.

And just really do rejoice.

And I want to say this, I would love to be a part of it.

I’ve had a couple of young men recently approach me about the potential of traveling on one of our teams at some point in the future.

And we would love to be able to do that.

If you feel like you’re at a place in your life and in your spiritual pilgrimage where it could be a blessing and a help to you, please feel free to reach out to me.

You can email me at bobby at thegeneration.org.

But my purpose here is not so much to get team members for the future.

My purpose here today is to be a spiritual encouragement to you.

You know, there very well may be some young people listening to this podcast who perhaps have even gotten saved this summer at the Cola Clash.

I’ve been preaching again this week here in Penfield as our eighth week for the summer.

We haven’t gotten a chance as of the time of this recording to do any preaching yet here this week, at least not in the Cola Clash nights.

But we’ve seen 120 young people trust Christ this summer so far.

And I know many of you have stood up on the final night to say that you wanted to be completely surrendered to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And while you may not have totally understood the entire ramifications of a decision like that, I want you to know if you’ve come to this podcast, you’ve come to the right place.

Because we here at the Thee Generation podcast, as many of our faithful listeners know, we are committed to encouraging young people like you to nourish a walk of total surrender to God and total dependence on His power. to reach the world with the gospel.

And so as you’re listening, I do want to encourage you.

You can go back and listen to some of the previous episodes.

We’ve got a lot of them out there.

In fact, we’ve got over 275 episodes.

It’s a little more than that.

I don’t know the exact number in front of me right here.

But not only do we have the podcast episodes, we also have the battle plan for victory to help you find victory over sin issues.

Through the Lord Jesus Christ, we’ve got the pledge on the website, which is just an opportunity for you to put a stake in the ground and say, I am a part of the generation.

I want to be totally surrendered to God and totally dependent on his power to reach the world with the gospel.

It’s just a way for you to put that decision in writing, so to speak, digitally speaking.

And then we have the Youth Summit.

I do want to say a word about that here.

I’ve not sent out any emails.

I should be sending one out here shortly.

But the TGYS, the Thee Generation Youth Summit, is an opportunity for young people all across the nation to gather together in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, and really to have not only two and a half days of exciting competition, and that is certainly a highlight.

But for me, the biggest highlight is the opportunity to present young people with just the vision of what God can do in and through their lives.

This will be held in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

That’s just outside of Milwaukee. and we would encourage you to consider signing up for us for this event, October 16, 17, and 18, 2022, and we’re just thrilled with all that we’ve got going on.

I think I may have mentioned last time.

I’m sorry, I gave you the wrong dates there.

That’s October 12, 13, 14, 2022.

My bad there, but the event is going to be just tremendous.

We’ve got some brand new competitions and new spins on old competitions that have never been done before in a TGYS before.

Of course, the theme is the War Max.

That is our competitive theme.

Really, as far as the spiritual theme, we’re really burdened to present for you just this concept of doing the impossible.

And there are impossible obstacles in front of you every day as a teenager, as a college-age young person, and even beyond getting into life and ministry.

And I just want to say that this is a key youth summit here this year and want to encourage you to join us and to be a part of this with us.

Registration is available online and we’d love to have you.

But as far as the point of this podcast here today, I want you to, if you have a chance and you don’t have to turn there, but I want to really talk for a few minutes here about a topic that is really a very real part of living a life of total surrender to God.

Obviously, we want to surrender and to depend upon the Lord for victory, right?

Victory is not just success in service for him.

It’s not just seeing God use us to bring other people to Jesus Christ, but inevitably along the way, victory is also resisting temptation.

It is learning how to handle temptation. how to come out on the other side of temptation, a victor, not having given in to that allurement or that enticement to sin.

And oftentimes when we talk about victory, we talk about it in terms of God enabling us to have victory over sin.

And that is certainly a very important part of victory because the fact of the matter is, young person, you don’t have what it takes to overcome sin.

You, in your own strength, can do nothing.

According to Jesus in John 15, you do not have in your spiritual resources, I’m talking about just you, the ability to say no to sin.

However, with Jesus living inside of you, Jesus never once struggled with sin.

He is not susceptible to the allure and temptation of sin because Jesus is in you.

He can enable you to say no and to do not what the devil wants you to do, not what your flesh wants you to do, but what God wants you to do.

But the verse that I want to focus on here, to be perfectly honest with you, doesn’t focus on that aspect of resisting temptation.

The verse that I want us to focus on is in James chapter 1, Verses 13, 14, and 15.

And these verses here are really trying to help us identify the source of temptation.

And I think if we can identify the source, we can actually get proactive in cutting temptation off before it ever even begins to allure or entice us.

So here’s what the text says.

James 1, verse 13 and following it says, Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.

So the long and the short of that is the enticement to sin, that allurement, that draw, that pull that sometimes wants to pull you into the dark alleys, if I could say it that way, of temptation to entice you to do something that God doesn’t want you to do.

That enticement, that allurement, Never, young person, finds its source in God.

Why is that?

How can we say that confidently?

Well, because God is holy.

God, he himself is not tempted by evil.

And to take that a step further, because God himself is completely and totally pure and without sin, the thought that God would encourage or entice or even place in the pathway of one of his children, a stumbling block or an enticement to sin is just completely untenable.

It does not fit with the picture of God that we find in the Bible.

God does not entice people to sin.

But, verse 14 says, there is another source to sin.

There is a source to sin.

But every man is tempted when he’s drawn away of his own lust and enticed.

And here we really get to the root issue here.

Now, okay, there are different kinds of temptations.

I will say that.

Earlier on in the passage, he talks about trials.

Believe it or not, that’s the same word as temptation.

God does try us.

He does test us.

He’s doing that because he wants to build our faith, because he wants to help us grow.

But those trials are not an enticement to sin.

It’s not God putting bait on a hook and trying to get us to bite it.

That’s not the idea of trials.

There are other temptations.

We found that Jesus was tempted by the devil in the wilderness, okay?

And there, the devil was specifically placing things in Jesus’s path and saying things to get Jesus to sin, okay?

That’s another kind of temptation.

This is not that kind of temptation, okay?

I don’t believe this verse is talking about the allurements that Satan places in our way.

This in us.

He said every man is tempted when he’s drawn away of his own lust.

The idea of that word lust is desires.

So one of the reasons why oftentimes we find ourselves enticed to doing something that God doesn’t want us to do is because there’s something wrong.

There’s something about our desires that want that sin.

Okay.

But it’s interesting.

The next verse, verse 15 says, then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin.

There’s a lot I could say about those words, but for sake of time, I will just say this.

There is a union that can happen between these desires, which to be perfectly honest with you, our desires aren’t always bad.

Sometimes we want to eat and that’s not a wrong thing.

I love to eat.

Okay.

Sometimes we want to sleep.

Guess what?

If you don’t sleep, that’s not going to help you very much.

Sometimes we want to do something good.

We want to tell somebody about Jesus.

Sometimes we want to communicate.

There’s going to come a day when you’re going to want to marry that girl that God has for you.

Those are good desires.

Those are awesome desires.

But you got to understand that your desires sometimes are not appropriate.

There are desires in our hearts, which if they unite with our will.

Okay.

The product that results is sin.

Okay.

So think about this.

Okay.

A lot of times we can live our lives doing what we want all day long.

Right.

In fact, I find many teenagers, that is how they live their life.

They wake up in the morning or they don’t wake up in the morning because they don’t want to.

Right.

You wake up in the morning.

One of your first thoughts are I’m hungry.

I want to eat something.

So you go and you eat something.

And then you think, you know what?

I really want to look at my phone for a little bit.

And so you look at your phone and then, oh, I got to go to school.

Okay.

So you go to school.

You don’t really want to do that, but you do it because you have to and you don’t want to get in trouble, right?

So because you don’t want to get in trouble, you go to school and at school, you don’t really want to pay attention or maybe you do want to pay attention.

And so you kind of live your life’s bouncing from one want to another want.

And sometimes Sometimes throughout the day, our brains just bounce from one desire to another, and not once do we ever stop to think about what God wants.

It’s my contention, in fact, in studying this is something I really have been thinking about, and I’m probably going to develop some messages on it and preach some more about it.

But it’s my contention that when believers live their lives giving into their wants all day long, no wonder they fall to temptation when the opportunity presents itself.

Again, not all wants are wrong.

Sometimes you want to go out and get some exercise.

Sometimes you want to go for a ride on your bike.

Sometimes you want to go for a drive if you’re an older teenager.

Sometimes you want a Big Mac, a large fry.

Sometimes you want a milkshake.

Those things aren’t necessarily wrong, but I found, again, even just looking at my own family, my own kids, sometimes the desire for pleasure can cause us to live for ourselves all day long.

I want to watch that YouTube video.

I want to scroll through my social media feed.

I want to play the piano, go on my violin and practice my violin.

I want to talk to so-and-so.

I want to tell some jokes.

I want, and you fill in the blank, whatever it is, they live all day, every day.

They live in the realm of their desires.

And I guess what I’m trying to say here is if you live in the realm of your desires, when your desires begin to trend towards that which is wrong, And your will says yes to your desire.

It’s going to have a baby.

That baby is going to be sin.

So I promised earlier that I wanted to just briefly talk about a proactive measure that I think you can take.

And this is not the end all solution to temptation.

Please don’t misunderstand me.

I really want to encourage you to listen to some of the satisfied podcast episodes.

Ryan’s got some tremendous things to say about temptation, accountability, being consumed in your walk with Jesus.

And just, he’s got some outstanding things to say.

I feel like he says some things far better than I can ever say over here on this side of the podcast.

But I just want to say this.

How do you proactively condition yourself to say no to those wrong desires?

And again, I’m not here.

Again, I’m not, this is not, I’m not trying to go against the idea of God’s enablement.

This is just one human thing that I think can be a help to you, and that is throughout the day, train yourself to listen to God and to say yes to God instead of yes to your desires.

I hope you see that this is the total surrender side of total surrender and total dependence.

Obviously, we do not have what it takes to do what God wants us to do, right?

But I do want to say you can get in a habit of saying yes to God.

You can get into a habit of saying no to yourself, not in your flesh, not in your own strength.

Again, I hope if you’ve listened to this podcast any length of time, you understand I’m not encouraging flesh dependence here.

But I just got to say, if we say yes to what we want all day long, why are we surprised when we say yes to what we want when we want sin?

And what I’m trying to say is let’s get ourselves in a pattern of saying yes to Jesus.

Well, that requires a couple of things.

That requires we got to know what Jesus wants, right?

So that means we got to get close to Jesus.

We got to listen to him.

Yes, we got to read the Bible.

You got to meditate on the scripture.

But it’s not just about human even.

It’s not just about reading a book.

It’s not just about thinking about scripture.

That’s an important part of it.

Again, I don’t want in any way you think I’m diminishing any of these things.

But what I’m saying is in as you cultivate a relationship with Jesus, you need to be asking him all day long.

What do you want me to do?

Do you want me to go talk to that person about Jesus? should I be wasting time on my phone right now Lord or do you have something else you want me to do God my heart is open if there’s something you want me to pray for I’ll stop and pray right now Lord what do you think about this I’ve been thinking about this I’m not sure this is something that ought to be in my life what do you think Lord to get in tune with Jesus where we are listening and when Jesus speaks we don’t just explain it away right we don’t just be like ah yeah, whatever, you know, I’ll think about that at a youth summit, whether I’ll give that up, right?

No, if God speaks to you and says, I don’t want you to read that book anymore, get used to saying yes to him.

If God says, I don’t want you to eat that candy bar, just get used to saying yes to him.

If God says, you know what, I know you want to listen to music right now, but I’d really prefer for you to talk to me right now.

Get used to saying yes to God.

I know I’ve talked in this podcast, just say yes, I’ve got episodes about that in the past, But I’m focusing here on the proactive measures we can take to not even get to the point where we are so living according to our desires that our will unites with our desire in an area of sin and we end up falling to temptation because we don’t just automatically say yes to our desires.

That’s not our first inclination because we’ve gotten used to listening to Jesus, to yielding to what he says to the point that, to be perfectly honest with you, you want to do what he wants you to do more than you want to do what you want to do.

If such a thing is even possible, right?

Let me give you an example here.

Several years ago, I felt like I was overweight.

Full disclosure, I was what? 220 pounds? in 2019 and I got sick of it.

I thought, you know what?

I need to go on a diet.

And so I’d heard some folks in the 2019 tour talk about the keto diet.

And so I decided, okay, I’ll try this out.

And at first it was really hard.

I was so hungry all day long, right?

It was like, oh, this is terrible.

I hate how I feel.

I sure hope this works.

And, you know, after a while I began to realize a couple of things.

I began to realize, whoa, this thing is working and I’m actually losing weight.

That was super encouraging to get some traction in victory, frankly, in any area is super encouraging and it helps you keep going.

But there was another thing that I realized as I realized, just because my body gurgles at me doesn’t mean I have to eat something.

And to be honest with you, some of you are, you have no idea that is how you live.

Again, I recognize I’m talking to teenagers, right?

You all eat your parents at a house and home.

You want some Doritos, you get some Doritos.

You want some gum, you get some gum.

You want a candy bar, you eat a candy bar.

And you can do that while you’re a teen.

I mean, you probably shouldn’t, but you can get away with that as far as your weight is concerned while you’re a teen.

But when you get to be an old 30 something year old like me, doesn’t always work unless you’re Pastor Gilmore and he can eat ice cream all day long and not gain a pound.

But what I’m saying is this, when you and I, when we are so used to just saying yes to what It never even occurs to us that we can say no.

And I began to learn in the process of my diet that just because my body wants something, I don’t have to give into it.

And it became a whole change in paradigm for me that I eat because I should, not because I wanted to.

And eating changed from a source of pleasure, though, man, there are things I love to eat, right?

It changed from doing it because I wanted to to doing it because I need nourishment, right?

And there’s a huge difference in those two mentalities.

And I just want to encourage you, there was a certain sense in which that was one small way where I was learning not to live according to my desires.

Maybe for you, it might be learning that just because you’re tired in the morning doesn’t mean you stay in bed.

Maybe for you, that might mean just because you want to stand in the shower for 20 minutes in the hot water, you don’t.

Maybe for you, that means learning that just because you feel like drinking Gatorade or drinking some Kool-Aid, maybe you just don’t.

And again, I know that’s more from the human standpoint, but I’m saying we need to learn how to listen to Jesus and learn that just because you want to do something right now, even if it is completely innocent, doesn’t mean you should or need to or have to.

I was talking to Dr.

Jim about this yesterday and just sharing, you know, I’ve got some things and some opportunities where I’m thinking about preaching on this coming up here in the next several months.

And just thinking in terms of, okay, I don’t want this to come across in terms of human effort and even just human conditioning.

And yet I know in my life, just learning that even from a human standpoint, I don’t have to say yes to what I want.

It’s a big deal. you know I think sometimes when we talk about proactive proactive means to resisting temptation we think in terms of accountability software we think in terms of cutting ourselves off from accessing things that we shouldn’t get into and I think that has its place I think that’s super important but I want you to know just cutting yourself off from sin doesn’t change your desire to sin and if you want to you’ll find a way and again I’m saying also what I’m talking about here isn’t the full solution either I think it’s just a part of it and so I guess I’m probably going to need to wrap this up here young person as you think about your life I really want you maybe do a little bit of homework maybe just ask yourself the question what percent of my day today has been spent doing what I want to do or maybe I should say this way What percentage of my discretionary time today has been spent just bouncing from one desire to another?

And how much of it has been spent genuinely seeking the Lord for his will and choosing to do what Jesus wants over what I want?

Because listen, this is surrender.

And I think if we understand that the source of temptation is our desires, the idea of that word lust, and if we begin to curb our desires, learning that it’s possible to say no and to do what Jesus wants, I really think that this can almost retrain your brain.

Again, please don’t.

I’ve made this disclaimer many times.

You try total surrender without total dependence.

It’s not going to work because without me, ye can do nothing.

But why don’t we do a little experiment?

Why don’t we try?

Why don’t we just try this?

Why don’t we just try this?

Why don’t we try just for a day or two, not doing what we feel like doing, not doing what we want to do, but doing what Jesus wants us to do, depending upon him to enable us to do it.

I think if we do that, we will surprise ourselves at how God will change our hearts and change our minds and even, I think, change our desires as we totally surrender to him and totally depend on his power, not just to reach the world with the gospel, but to resist the temptations that surround us.

Thank you so much for listening.

I hope this has been a blessing.

If you have any thoughts for me, feel free to reach out to me at bobbyatdegeneration.org.

But otherwise, we’ll talk to you later.