Bobby Bosler: Take your Bible and turn with me to Hebrews chapter 12.

Hebrews chapter 12. Please hear this time. Last night we talked about airplanes.

We talked about the law of lift. We talked about the fact that there is a law that wants to keep you pinned to the ground. And unless you discover how to access a greater force than the law of gravity, you will continue to be an earth-bound Christian, so to speak.

I was so encouraged when I heard that truth, it changed my life. In fact, the analogy that God used through the preaching of His Word to clarify truth, you may have heard this analogy before, was staying in a basket. The idea of a hot air balloon and the fact that all you've got to do to remain defying the law of gravity is stay in the basket of the hot air balloon.

And I remember as a teenager, like I told you all last night, that concept that if I will yield to God and depend on His power, He can enable me not to eradicate, but to overcome the power of sin in my life. And I hoped you walked out of the service last night believing that God can and God will enable you to overcome the downward pull of sin because He can.

Again, we step in and out of the basket, unfortunately, at times. But I wanted to give you hope last night. Because throughout the various things that you heard yesterday, of course, we try to weave hope into every message as much as we can.

But it's very easy if you don't think that victory is even possible. It is very easy to hear preaching on sin and the problem and the downward pull. And it's easy to just tune it out because nothing different will ever happen in my life.

Nothing different ever has happened. But young people, something different can happen. And God wants it to happen.

Like we talked about last night, God wants you to soar. But this morning, I want to talk about something else that matters quite a bit if you're trying to get off the ground.

I want to talk to you about weight. I don't mean this. I've been trying to lose a little bit of that myself here the last couple of weeks.

But I want to talk to you about weight. Question, did anybody fly to the Thee Generation Youth Summit? Let me see your hands.

Did anybody fly here? We have one, two, three, four, five. I flew in.

Any of the adults in the back? Did any of you all fly in? Okay, we have one, two, three.

Okay, a few of you all flew. And if you've ever flown, in fact, how many of you have ever flown in an airplane in your life? Okay, many of you.

Is there anybody who's never flown in an airplane? You poor earthbound Christians. Oh boy.

Okay. Well, if you've ever flown on an airline, on an airplane, you know that the airlines care a lot about weight, right? You walk up to that counter.

Again, in the check-in counter, you're going to check your checked bag and you put it on the scale. And you know what happens? That little number on the side, it starts to climb, right?

Let's say it goes from 42.3 to 45.5 to 47.6. And you know what? It keeps climbing and you stand there praying.

Lord, you caused the sun to stand still. Would you cause this particular gauge to stand still right now as well, right? Because here's the thing.

If a piece of luggage is 49 pounds or lower, then it's nothing but luggage. But as soon as it exceeds 50 pounds, it becomes a long-term investment, right?

You might find yourself starting to do the luggage shuffle. Has anybody ever done that before? The luggage shuffle where your bag was overweight and you start pulling stuff out, right?

You start putting on a hoodie and then you put on another hoodie. Then you pull out your jacket and you put that on as well. You put on five pairs of socks and you find yourself walking through the airport looking like you're about 50 pounds heavier than you actually are, right?

Just to avoid owing Delta another $75 for an overweight bag charge. And maybe you're here, maybe you packed, did anybody pack too much for the TGYS? Anybody here?

Anybody pack too much? I know of one person somewhere over here who told me that she packed too much.

But you know, I want you to imagine here, if you were to grab every piece of luggage that you brought with you and we were going to have another competition. We were going to go outside and we were going to run a mile with you physically carrying your luggage. How would that go for you.

Right oh some of you guys are like. I packed light. I packed really light.

He didn't bring another change of underwear. He packed that light. Right I'm just messing.

You know you might not care too much if you over packed as long as it sits in wherever you're staying. But the moment you have to carry it it starts to matter. Right and if you were to try to run a race with a 50 pound bag you would find very quickly that there are things that you can carry that make it very difficult for you to run.

The text we're looking at is Hebrews chapter 12 and verse number one here. The word of God says, wherefore, seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every, what's the word? And the what?

Which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus. The author and finisher of our faith. For the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down on the right hand of the throne of God.

For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. The title of my message here this morning is simply this, Dead Weight. Dead Weight.

What are you carrying that's keeping you from doing what God has called you to do? Let's go ahead and pray. Lord, I want to ask that as we look into your Word, as we examine this, would you fill me with the Holy Ghost?

Thank you for what you've already assured me of this morning. And I want to ask that you'd fill this room with the Holy Ghost, that every believer in this room would be stirred by your Spirit, that you would illumine truth to them. And I want to ask, like you did yesterday, in many hearts, would you put your holy finger on things that are keeping us from running, looking unto Jesus.

Lord, we do want to run well. We do want our lives to arrive at your intended destination. So Spirit of God, would you show us where we're overloaded and carrying dead weight?

In Jesus' name, amen. A question I really want you to grapple with here today. We've been talking about in this conference, Rising Above.

But a question I want you to really consider here this morning and really throughout the day today. Part of my goal here during this session is to set the stage for what is to come. And the question I want you to consider, though we are all called to rise above, what's holding you down?

What's holding you down? What is it that's keeping you stuck to the pavement, so to speak? What is it that's keeping you from running the course that God has set for you?

Because I've got good news for you here this morning. God has something. He has a plan.

He has a course that He wants you to follow in your life. If you're taking notes this morning, the first point is this, the race before you. Look at what He says in the middle of verse number one.

The end of verse number one, He says, let us run with patience the what? The race that is set before us. Young people, I want you to know God has called you to run.

I hate running. I hate running. I love the verse, The wicked fleeth when no man pursueth, right?

And I personally have never found running to be an enjoyable part of life at all. I run if I'm about to die, if I'm being chased by something that's gonna kill me. I run if I have to absolutely get somewhere quicker than I could by walking, but I'm personally not a fan of running, okay?

I prefer if I'm gonna lose weight to do it dietarily or to just starve myself or just to eat the right kinds of food. I will literally not eat for a week to avoid running.

I hate running okay but you know what young people in this verse God is calling us to run and specifically he's calling us to run a race the point of this race however the point of this running isn't the exercise it is that God has somewhere for you to go you know I love one of the things I love about this group of young people right here and the young people that listen to the Thee Generation Podcast is you all have a sense of destiny.

You have a sense that God has something bigger for you than just existing, than just holding down a job and doing the status quo. God has a plan for your life.

Before God formed you in the womb, God called you to something, and God ordained that even though you are a youth, and even though you may not have skill, though you might doubt yourself, God made your mouth, God made your life, and God made you for a purpose, young people.

And that's one of the things I love about this group right here. You know, I'm here for a reason. And when I look at this, I see the fact that he says, let us run the race with patience, the race that is set before us.

You know, God has something for you. I don't know if you know what God's plan is for your life, but I know God has a plan for your life. I think you've heard some of my story.

I was born out of wedlock in 1985. A series of unfortunate events led to my existence. And yet throughout my life, I've taken great comfort in the fact that even though I was not created intentionally, even though I was created in very poor circumstances, God had a plan for my life.

Young people, you may feel like you don't even deserve to exist.

You may feel like your existence should not be. But from the eyes of God who saw the end and the beginning and everything in between God had a purpose for your existence. God has a purpose for you.

See. God has somewhere for you to go. And I hope as you're here this week.

I hope as God stirs your heart God gives you a vision for your life. I hope as you listen to the podcast I hope as you listen to your pastor preach back in your home church that God stirs you and calls you to something. Because as God has a purpose for everywhere every one of you God has somewhere he wants you to go.

But it's interesting he says here at the end of the verse. Let us run with patience the race that is set before us. And I hear from that not only does God have somewhere for us to go.

God has a distance for us to go. You probably know this, but the Bible word patience has the idea of endurance. It has the idea of literally remaining under something.

And here's the thing, when we run, when we are pursuing God's will and the destiny that God has selected for your life, it doesn't happen in a day.

It's not something that's entirely realized before you graduate high school. God has a plan for you that is going to continue to unfold and develop throughout the rest of your life.

The word patience here, I think, implies that it is not a short sprint that's over and done in 30 seconds. It is a long run that God has for you. Again, if I recall your memory last night, Orville Wright's flight lasted 12 seconds and it covered 120 feet and that's great and everything.

But I think the point of that phrase with patience is that God doesn't just want you to soar until you graduate college and then you can go back to regular normal life. God wants your life to soar towards your destiny for the rest of your life. And that means you can't just view things from the short-term perspective.

You can't just think about the next step. You've got to think about the fact that this run, this journey, this destiny, this race, is going to take a long time.

The plan that God has for your life isn't a short-term goal. I recognize as a teenager, you don't know what's going to happen for the rest of your life. I don't know what's going to happen for the rest of my life.

But I do know this, unless you keep your heart surrendered to the Lord, You might see God lead you in something today or this week or in the next couple years. But if you get your eyes off of Jesus and back on yourself, you might complete one leg of the journey and miss the rest.

Listen, Thee Generation isn't something that's over when you graduate from college. It's not something that gets finished. Total surrender and total dependence once you get married and have kids and have to worry about providing for your family.

It's not something that is finished until you become a middle-aged, slightly pudgy dude like me, okay?

It's not something that you do until you get a good paying job. It's not something that you do until you can figure out what else you really want to do with your life. This pursuit of your destiny, this race that God has set before you is something that must continue.

You must remain in a position of total surrender to God and total dependence on His power till God takes you home.

But I think a question we need to ask this morning is if God has put a race in front of you, why are you having such difficulty running that race?

I won't ask for a raise of hands, but I want you to consider, has God given you a sense of destiny?

Has God given you a sense in your heart that God has something big for you to accomplish in your life do you feel as if God has great things for you then why are you not even heading towards it what what is holding you back that's going to lead us to our second point here this morning I think it's because you're trying to run while loaded down the second point is this the weight upon you.

The weight upon you. Look at the first part, or the middle part of that verse now. Verse number one.

He says, let us lay aside every, what's the word again? And the what? Which doth so easily beset us.

Young people, I want you to know in the pursuit of total surrender to God and total dependence on his power to accomplish the great things that God has for you and turn the world upside down with the gospel there are some things that are hindering your running. We've been talking about that. You know if you look at the uh that verse here.

The second thing he says is the sin which doth so easily beset us. Some of the things that are holding you up and pinning you down are clearly sin. You know I wanted to talk about this here this morning.

And normally you preachers know you talk about sin first and then you give the answer. But I wanted to give you the answer last night. So this morning as we talk about the sin the things that hold you down you realize you don't have to be held down.

You don't have to be stuck on the floor. These sins don't have to lock you up and keep you from accomplishing the purposes because if you'll walk after the spirit you can rise above and soar in God's power for the rest of your life. And yet we sit here in this room and there are things there are sins that are besetting us.

The idea of easily besetting. I was doing some language work on that here even this morning. Literally you want to break it up into etymology it is good around stand.

You say wow that's helpful. Yeah no it's not. The picture though, is of something wrapping itself around you real good.

Okay. How many of you were in the war we did at Canaan in Covington, Georgia? The war that we did there a number of years ago, I think there's maybe just one.

We did spoke tackle there and I'll never forget this. I think my kids would remember this a little bit. Somebody, I'd never seen this done before in spoke tackle and I made sure not to tell you until after we did spoke tackle.

Okay.

Everybody's in the line,. Right they're sitting down and as the spoke is called you jump to your feet and you leap forward. Well there was somebody in that line that got the bright idea of as the person was going forward they just grabbed their ankle.

And so the person would vault and boom flat on their face. And I loved it. They did it several times.

And the guy face planted several times during that spoke tackle. And it was great because there's this great anticipation. There's this I'm gonna win.

I'm gonna get first place, I'm going to tackle somebody, and then boom, right on his face.

And you know why? Because something wrapped itself around his ankle good, right? They got him real good.

What is it that grabs your ankle and puts you flat on your face every single time?

Is it the moral impurity, the stuff you look at on your cell phone? Is it the social media account that you tolerate, The uncleanness that constantly comes through your eye gate on that thing? Is it the movies where you tolerate God's name being taken in vain?

Or dirty bed scenes? Is that what you tolerate? Is that the thing?

Listen, you can start walking with God and you can start moving forward for Him. And then movie night comes around and you watch something you know good and well God does not tolerate and God does not like. The Bible says, I will set no wicked thing before my eyes, and yet you set it before your eyes on a regular basis.

I know this has been talked about some here this week, and I get it, but what is it that grabs your ankle and puts you flat on your face?

Maybe for some of you girls, it's gossip. Could be some of you boys. Could be some of you moms and dads in the back.

Could be some of you pastors. What is it that grabs you in the ankle? You hear some juicy news, you just got to share it because it makes you feel good.

The Bible condemns being a talebearer or a whisperer of secrets. They separate chief friends and maybe you're a source of drama constantly because you just can't keep your big fat mouth shut.

What is it that grabs you by the ankle and puts you flat on your face? We heard a testimony about bitterness just a few moments ago. The root of bitterness troubling you and thereby many be defiled.

And boy, if you've got a testimony, that's the testimony of your life. You're so twisted up because of the things that other people have done to you or even to someone else, and you in your heart are so ticked, and the sense of justice has been so violated in your heart that it just bubbles out of your words and it pollutes the people around you.

I want you to know hurting people hurt people, and I don't just mean that you lash out at them, but the plague of bitterness, the root of bitterness can infect an entire youth group, an entire friend group, an entire household. And listen, friends, you look around at things that you think, man, that's not right. You know what?

You could be right. It's not right. In fact, the Scripture doesn't say we need to ignore things that are not right.

Romans chapter 12 says that we need to abhor that which is evil, but that doesn't mean that you should stop believing that God can work it all together for good. I'm taking my church through a series on the life of Joseph right now called Detour. The unexpected journey and God's perfect plan.

And we're looking at right now, we just finished last Sunday morning, how Joseph's brothers took him and just mistreated him. First, they wanted to kill him. Then the other brother wanted to rescue him.

And then the other brother wanted to sell him. And everybody had a plot. Everybody had something that they wanted to accomplish in this brother's life.

And yet God had a plan that he wanted to accomplish in his life. Can I say, friends, the very things that you think are the worst things that have ruined your life are the very things that God wants to take and use to make your life an amazing testimony of God's grace and power.

But here's what happens. Mom or dad or your pastor or your youth pastor or some leader in the college, maybe they don't respond right. Maybe they're not doing right.

And genuinely it's evil. Maybe. I don't know.

But what happens is you allow your heart to descend into unbelief and bitterness. And it grabs you by the ankle and puts you straight on your face.

Later on in this chapter, it talks about it. It defiles. You become a fornicator or a profane person.

It leads to being a God-hater. Or it leads to moral impurity. It's always what happens eventually until you pull up the root.

What is it that grabs you by the ankle and puts you flat on your face, young people? He talks about the sin that locks us up and takes us down. Maybe for you it's dishonesty.

You make stuff up. You love the thrill of saying something that's not true and getting away with it. Maybe you lie about serving God.

You stretch the truth about how many people got saved when you were out soul winning or whether that person got saved out soul winning.

I cannot imagine a worse thing than to lie about what God did. I think God takes it seriously. Ananias and Sapphira were treated pretty severely for their lying.

Thou hast not lied unto man, thou hast lied unto who? God. And listen, you can come home and you can maybe write on your youth group report.

I read my Bible seven days this week when you didn't crack it all week or just doing it for the points and the Doritos at the end of the week or whatever your prize is. Nobody will catch you. Nobody will know.

But God knows. And listen, young people, maybe it is your habit of deception that grabs you by the ankle and puts you straight on your face. See, sin can wrap itself around you good and it can keep you from accomplishing the destiny that God has for you.

God's got a long road ahead of you and He's given you the law of lift to keep you up. But if you keep tolerating sin and explaining it away and saying this is fine, this is okay, you're going to keep falling on your face and falling on your face and falling on your face.

Listen, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made us free from the law of sin and death.

You don't have to fall flat on your face. Yet when we keep tolerating it, when we keep excusing it, and saying it's okay, we will. We will.

We heard about dishonoring parents yesterday afternoon. It's amazing how this happens. You can be at a church service and God can be working in your life and you come home for five minutes and you cop an attitude for mom or dad.

You can have an amazing time in your devotions and feel like you met with God. And then with 10 minutes at the breakfast table, you find yourself resisting or treating your parents lightly.

And grabs you by the ankle and puts you flat on your face. See, he's concerned. He's saying we need to lay these things aside, and I hope you got hope last night.

You can lay them aside by walking after the Spirit. It's not just a matter of determining, I'm going to honor my parents better. It's not just a matter of saying, I'm not going to say what I think.

It's not just a matter of saying, you know what, I'm going to try real hard not to gossip. It's not just a matter of saying, you know what, I'm not going to go to those sites on my phone. It's not just a matter of buckling down, gritting your teeth and clenching your fists and saying, I'm not going to do it again.

No, the solution is instead to yield to the Spirit of God and to depend on His power to take you up off the ground and make you soar.

He talks about the sin which doth so easily beset us, but right before that He says, lay aside every weight. That's not what trips you up, that's what slows you down.

It's what slows you down. You know there are some things that are holding you down and holding you back that they aren't necessarily sin but they're still keeping you from running the race and accomplishing your destiny. What's a weight.

A weight is a burden or it's an impediment as one lexicon called it. It's it's being used figuratively here for something that slows you down. Listen I wants you to know God wants to take you from wherever you're at right now and God wants to rocket you forward into his will and use you.

You don't have to wait until you get to college to lead somebody to Christ.

You don't have to wait until you're out and have some kind of ministry title for God to use you in the lives of other people. God can use you right here, right now. God can use you in your squad.

Teenager, God can use you in your team. God can use you in your family and with your siblings. In fact, God wants to use you.

God to use you. You need to be the influence on your siblings that God wants you to be. And God doesn't want you to wait.

God wants to use you now! But some things hold you back and they slow you down.

We heard in the testimony earlier, Gavin talked about his video game addiction. Escaping the real world for the digital one. The alternate reality.

I get that. I want to clarify here this morning, I'm not preaching against video games. I don't think they're sinful.

Oh, there's a lot of sinful ones. Don't get me wrong. And I have whole messages I preached way back in the day on that.

I don't think they've gotten any better since then, but I could be wrong. But I'll tell you, when I was 12 and my mom died and I got angry and bitter at God, the real world hurt so much, I didn't want to live in it. Now, I didn't at any time want to take my life.

I just wanted to live a different life. I wanted to live a life where I could be powerful. I wanted to live a life where I could control what was happening because my life here like it was out of control.

And so for me, I dove into the digital world, particularly in video games. I don't want to date myself too much with the systems. Sega Genesis, N64, Sega Dreamcast, PlayStation 2.

Of course, there was definitely a timeline there. I know I'm old. I'll tell you, there were times when I got up, I just kind of lickety split, ran through my school without even really trying.

I was homeschooled at the time. That I would play video games from 10 a.m. Until 3 a.m.

And that was my life. Listen, there were definitely some things sinful in some of the games that I played, but you know what? I had games there was nothing sinful about.

You know, sports game, no big deal. There's nothing wrong with that. Mario Kart, there's nothing sinful about that.

Woo-wee! Woo-wee! But they have a way of controlling you, of ruling your life.

And, you know, there may be some here in this room, you genuinely can control it, you can put it in proper proportion and in proper measure, but I couldn't.

And maybe you can't either. Maybe you sit down on the thing intending to play for 20, 30 minutes, and four hours later, you've lost all the time you needed to do your homework. You in your heart feel even farther from God than you were when you started.

And you find that this thing is holding you back. It's pulling you down from soaring in the Spirit the way God wants you to. Again, I'm trying to be carefully balanced here because I'm not saying that if you own a video game system at home that you're in sin.

I'm not saying that you necessarily need to get rid of it, but maybe you do. I remember, I don't know if Brother Ingram's in the room here at all, But he came to my church when I was a senior in high school, and he did the war when I was a teenager. And at the war, he did a bunch of preaching before we ever invited the lost teens to come in.

And I remember God was so working in my heart. God had called me to the ministry already. I was on my way to be a student here at Baptist College of Ministry.

Yet I had my PS2, Metal Gear Solid 2, a bunch of other games. I don't remember all of them.

But it was like I wanted to serve God. I knew God had something for me. But this stuff it was just controlling large portions of my life and it was holding me down.

And I remember that week the spirit of God spoke to me. And he said Bobby I want you to get rid of it. I want you to get rid of it.

Okay think about it. Total surrender to God. Total dependence on his power.

Total surrender means when God says get rid of it you say yes sir. And I did. I'm not saying every one of you here needs to get rid of it.

In fact I had a fella in Dayton Ohio area. He came up to me. He had heard my testimony about video games.

And he came to me and he says hey, I'm married, I've got a little boy.

And he says, but I've got a video game system. And he says, I stay up till all hours of the night playing it. Do you think I should do what you did and get rid of all of it?

What do you think I said? That's not what I said. That's not what I said.

I didn't say that. What I told him was this. I said, listen, if you just do what I did because it worked for me, you're not following the Spirit of God.

You're just following my example and my testimony.

I said in fact I would say do not do it just because I did it. I did it because the spirit of God told me to do it. You need to get on your face.

And you need to seek God. And you need to ask God what he would have you to do. I told this man.

I said here's the thing. I cannot give you grace power life. To put it in the terms of last night.

I can't give you lift. But the spirit of God can. And so if you in your heart yield to him and say I'll do whatever you want with this and if he says it's got to go.

You say yes to him, and if you say yes to him, he will flood in with his grace, his power, his strength, and he will make you soar. I didn't use those terms in that conversation, but that's essentially what I said.

Listen, I will tell you, I created a personal standard in my life. I don't impose it on others, except maybe my children, okay? But I will have no video games.

I don't want video games in my home. I cannot have them on my phone, okay? I will not have them on my phone.

I made a personal decision between me and God. I will not have a video game on any of my devices in my home. Here's why.

Because I can't control it. And the Spirit of God has said no. Now, I'll play them in Walmart, right David?

Okay? Because I leave them there. And I trash my kids in Mario Kart.

Absolutely trash them on the Switch 2. I can beat them in any video game, okay? I still got it.

But I can't take it home. There's a man in my church. He collects video games.

He has got the biggest library of everything I remember. And you know what? I told him the other day in the lobby, I said, I'd like to come over to your house.

I think I'd love to game with you a little bit. Because I want to connect with that man. Because I want to love him.

And I want to dig into his life. And I want to be a blessing to him. But guess what?

I ain't taking it home. See, what's the weight in your life? What is it that's holding you back?

You know what? I need to end here. But young people, I want you to know whatever it is.

Whatever it is. You need to say yes, not to me, not to a preacher, but yes, to the Spirit of God. God is going to lead you.

And God is going to show you that there are some things in your life that are holding you back and keeping you from soaring the things that God intends for you. Listen, in just a moment, we're going to head to several workshops that are going to deal with specific issues that God wants you to rise above.

And I want to challenge you now, as the second verse says, to look unto Jesus for Him to tell you what He wants you to do.

I want you to open your heart to Him and let Him deal with you. And as He does, young people, I want to urge you, yield to Him and depend upon Him to enable you to rise above these things.