Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast.

I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Menominee Falls, Wisconsin.

As of the time of my recording, my family and I just traveled up from Greenville, South Carolina for a very special week.

A week that for me is a treasured week, the Week of Victory Conference.

Victory Conference is, I think most of you probably know, it’s the adult version. of the Thee Generation Youth Summit without the competition and without the cheering contests and all of that.

But in all seriousness, it’s a time where we gather together to reflect on the fact that God has given us victory through our Lord Jesus Christ and all of the various ways that that is manifested in the Christian life.

I’m really excited this year.

We’re going to be taking a look at the I am, the fact that knowing who God is, is knowing who I am and the fact that Our identity is wrapped up in God’s identity.

And I’m sure I’m really looking forward to seeing how that theme is developed.

In fact, if you hear this podcast and you don’t have anything to do this week, I would encourage you swing on by down to Menominee Falls for perhaps one of the evening sessions.

Or if you’ve got time and the money for a hotel, come on down and join us for all of the day sessions as well.

It starts on Monday night.

Let’s see, the date is February 27th through Thursday night, March 2nd.

And it’s at Falls Baptist Church in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin.

But, you know, and I will say this, even if you’re nowhere close, I would really encourage you.

In fact, I’ll leave a link in the description to check out the Victory Conference podcast every year.

And you may have looked at it and thought, man, there’s not a whole lot happening on this.

That’s because every year as these sessions happen, we release each of the preaching sessions on the Victory Conference podcast.

So make sure you check that out if you’re not able to make it in person.

Just to warn you, those sermons are quite long.

Typically, they’re anywhere from an hour to an hour and a half, kind of like me.

But anyway, I want to direct your attention to a couple of verses of Scripture, something I’ve been thinking about, something that God has been teaching me recently.

But before I give the verses and the reference, I just want to say some things really are horrible when you leave out an ingredient.

You ever notice that?

Years ago, I was a little kid.

I was at my home in New Jersey, and it was Thanksgiving meal.

And, you know, as a little kid, oftentimes as an only child, I was served first.

And my mom, Denise, at the time, she passed away when I was 12. prior to this that she had baked the pumpkin pies and she had, you know, they were cutting the pies and handing them all around.

And I hadn’t learned at that time in my life that you’re supposed to wait for the hostess to sit down and put their fork on their plate before you eat.

Some of you still haven’t realized that.

But anyway, so I got my slice of pie and before she’d even served everyone else, I took a big old bite out of it.

And immediately I went, I didn’t throw up.

But I felt like it was the most disgusting, terrible pumpkin pie I had ever tasted in my entire life.

And I said, oh, this is gross.

Now, if a little kid tastes something from their mom and says that this is gross, typically they get nasty looks.

They get rebukes, you know.

Well, a couple minutes later, my dad sat down and tasted his slice and said, oh, Bob’s right.

This is gross. well come to find out she forgot the sugar and you know when it comes to a pumpkin pie they just don’t taste that good without the sugar in fact they’re kind of gross and um you know we learned an important lesson that day that don’t leave the sugar out of the pumpkin pie what i want to speak to you about is the sugar so to speak of the pumpkin pie so to speak of the christian life 1 Corinthians chapter 13 says, It profiteth me nothing.

Paul here is developing a very, very important truth.

And this truth for his audience is a truth that they desperately need.

And I would say that in our context today, and even in the context of you young people as a part of thee Generation, this is something that’s absolutely essential.

You know, you can have everything right in your Christian experience.

You can have everything right in your home, in your heart.

You can have everything right in your church.

You can have everything right in your dependence and in your surrender.

And we’re actually going to see that directly in the text in just a moment.

But if you’re missing the missing ingredient, your Christian experience is going to come out disgusting.

Here in the text he says, and again, I just want to draw your attention to a couple of things here.

He said that it’s possible to speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

And again, I’m not going to get into the issue of tongues here today, except to say, he’s saying here, essentially, you can have spiritual experiences and miss love.

I think you understand the word charity here in this passage is the word love.

True biblical.

Some of you may know what I’m talking about by this, but agape love.

So listen, young person, I know sometimes we understand that the Christian life is an experiential thing, and I think we need to keep that in focus.

I think many times we look at dead Christianity, experience less Christianity, and it’s really easy to think, well, I’m not even sure that that is real Christianity.

And oftentimes I’m convinced that because of the overreaction of some individuals to certain excesses and certain kinds of churches, they have left us with a neutered Christianity, a Christianity without true interaction between us and God.

That’s not what I’m arguing for here today.

That’s not what Paul’s arguing for here either.

He’s saying, listen, you listeners, the Corinthians is who he was speaking to, you can have the spiritual experiences down.

You can meet with God in a prayer meeting.

You can have a vibrant set of feelings and spiritual encounters. in your Christian walk, but that doesn’t mean you have love.

He says in verse two, though, I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge.

And here he’s saying, listen, it’s possible that I can understand my Bible.

Again, there’s a variety of different ways you can take this.

You could say, take the prophecy idea of understanding the future.

You could take this in the sense of being a fourth teller or a preacher.

You can be a gifted preacher.

You can understand and be able to see what God is doing.

You can have a great theological understanding of the mysteries.

You can even understand the mystery of Christ in you and miss out on love.

And in fact, he goes on and he says, and though I have all faith.

Okay, let me just catch this here.

He’s saying, even if I understand total dependence.

And it’s not just the dead faith that James 2 talks about.

It’s not just the faith that does not act.

He actually says this faith works.

He says, though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains.

He’s saying, listen, I’m not talking about a faith that is somehow a misguided faith.

I’m not talking about a faith that somehow lacks detonation.

I’m talking about a real, true God dependence that actually does the miraculous.

He says, and have not charity.

Young people, understand me.

It’s possible to be gifted in the ministry, to understand the word of God, even to understand with theological precision what the Christian life is all about.

It’s possible to not just have dead faith, but true, vibrant faith that does miracles and not have love.

It’s what this verse is saying.

Verse 3, he says, Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned.

I used to think that love was the sacrificial giving of oneself for the good of another, but I’ve learned that it’s actually deeper than that, Because here in verse 3 he says, it’s possible to sacrifice all my stuff, to surrender all of my stuff and even my own life for the sake of someone else and to mislove.

You know, this is total surrender here.

You can be totally surrendered to God and mislove.

Wow.

So what if we mislove?

He says, I have become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal in verse 1.

I’m all talk.

Verse 2, he says, I am nothing.

Verse 3, he says, it profiteth me nothing.

Young people, we can talk about total surrender and total dependence, but if we are missing the essential quality that total surrender and total dependence ought to manifest in our lives, We are kidding ourselves.

Here’s why I say this.

God’s been really working in my heart about this over the last year.

Some of it started with a story I think some of you heard me talk about last summer in Viroqua, Wisconsin.

The Lord just touched my heart in a very unique way with love for the young people there in the room.

And I felt as if I felt the love of God in me.

And the difference that it made was just remarkable.

And I have to say, I have preached to rooms where I did not love the young people.

I know that sounds horrible.

I’m thankful that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation, and where you wield it, God will use it, and people will embrace it.

But, you know, I found that there’s something about that quality of love being present that just lubricates the atmosphere.

It’s not my love.

It’s not a put-on.

It’s not me just deciding to smile at people more or to think loving thoughts a little more.

No, this is a supernatural dynamic that is alien to me.

Over Christmas, I got a chance to spend some time out east with my family.

And, you know, I don’t know if you guys understand even what I mean by this, but in my heart, God gave me a love for not just family, but for the folks of the church that I grew up in.

And I was able to preach a couple times, and I don’t know, maybe they didn’t sense it the way I sensed it, but I sensed the presence of God there. like I don’t know that I’ve ever felt before.

A couple weeks ago, I was privileged to be able to do a revival meeting in Ohio.

And coming into that meeting, one of the things that the Lord had been working in my heart about was that my kids weren’t there, my wife wasn’t there.

It was pretty much just me and one of my team members for this semester, Alex.

Some of you might get a chance to meet him at some point along the way.

By the way, we do have a new war website.

It’s the same URL, thewar.team, T-E-A-M. and it’s totally been overhauled.

I’d encourage you to give it a look and see if you’re going to be anywhere nearby.

And we’d love to have you come and join us for one of those wars this semester.

We’ll be in, I’m not even going to start to list all the states we’re going to be in, but just take a look at the war.team at the bottom of the page.

Our itinerary is posted there.

But I was there at this revival meeting getting geared up for things and the Lord was speaking to my heart and said, you know what, Bobby, you don’t just go there and preach.

You need to go there and love people.

Your wife isn’t there.

Your kids aren’t there.

You’ve got no excuse. and as I began to before the service and after the service not try to rush away not try to just go get to bed or go be my myself which I can often do because that’s my personality I’m not a super I don’t know people person that’s just not who I am it’s not how I’m wired but I had a heart cry to the Lord and I said Lord you I’ve preached about this multiple times and I’m just asking God that you would give me divine love for these people and help me show it to them before and after the services.

And, you know, it wasn’t just that I spent extra time with people.

It wasn’t just that while I was talking to people, my heart wasn’t screaming to try to get out of the conversations, which as an introvert, that can kind of be the case sometimes.

It wasn’t just that I smiled more.

God put a love in my heart for the people that I never had before.

I’ve done plenty of meetings for that church.

I’ve done a number of cola clashes over the years.

In fact, I think I’ve done three or four cola clashes for them.

But God put in me a heart of love.

And it didn’t just result in spending more time with them.

It resulted in true connections with them.

And honestly, to me, one of the more special revival meetings that I’ve done to date.

I could give other examples, but I don’t want to sound like I’m just talking about myself.

Young people, I want you to know that the Christian life, especially for those of us that care to obey God explicitly, You know, this whole desire to keep the God’s commandments and show our love to him can result at times in an inflexible, harsh, hard-nosed Christianity.

Now listen, please, before you turn off the podcast and call me a compromiser, I believe that we ought to obey the Lord in everything.

We shouldn’t dismiss what he says because it doesn’t make sense to us or because it doesn’t fit in our culture.

Cultural relativism is destroying certain friends of mine, to be perfectly honest with you.

But here’s what I’m saying.

I think a lot of people have experienced conservative churches with people in those churches that cared more about their standards than they did about their fellow believers.

And if I could say anything, the Christian culture of high standards without love, it’s kind of revolting.

I’m not saying we ought to pitch the standards or the conservatism out the window.

What I’m saying is just like here, he’s not saying, listen, he’s not arguing against spiritual experiences.

He’s not arguing against being a gifted preacher.

He’s certainly not arguing against having mountain-moving faith.

He’s not arguing against us, sacrificing for the good of others.

He wants the Corinthians to live biblically, but he’s saying if love is not a part of the equation, the resulting bakery product, if you will, is going to make you want to puke.

I hope you catch my balance here, young people.

Love is essential.

And I know some of you may have heard me preach on this before.

I’m not going to preach my whole sermon at just this one point. that God is working in my heart about in my home.

I can put my kids in the greatest environment, in the greatest church, in the greatest school.

I can give my kids the greatest homeschool curriculum.

They can have the greatest mom, but if their daddy doesn’t love them like he ought to, it’s going to result in a home that makes them want to puke.

Listen, young people, you can be the greatest employee at a summer job or at some means of employment.

You could be the greatest student, but if you don’t have love, you can be the most obedient son, But if your heart is not full of God’s love, it is going to create a sour experience.

So how do you get God’s love?

I do not have time to preach all of this.

I’d encourage you to maybe, I don’t know what to say, except to say the fruit of the Spirit is love.

Galatians 5, again, I have whole sermons that I’ve preached on this.

Galatians 5 teaches us that if we will walk in the Spirit, we’re not going to fulfill the lust of the flesh.

But what will happen is fruit.

The fruit of love will pop out of us as a branch.

And that love will not be a product of us, the branch.

It will be a product of the Holy Spirit.

And that product of love will be the real deal.

That product of love will be the kind of love that truly has substance.

It will be the kind of love that actually is something and accomplishes something.

It’s the exact opposite of what Paul’s talking about in verses 1 through 3.

You can have everything right but miss the essential ingredient.

Listen, if you walk out of this podcast feeling discouraged because you’re selfish, you’ve misunderstood, I want you to get on your face.

I want you to open up your ears and listen to what the Holy Spirit of God is telling you to do right now.

You might need to pause this podcast and go obey God.

Because here’s the thing, it is a relationship with the Holy Spirit, a relationship with God, not just opening up the Bible and looking at the scripture.

Please do not misunderstand me here.

The Bible is essential.

The Bible are the guardrails to keep you from going off.

But I’m talking about a vibrant, moment-by-moment, step-by-step walk with God, yielding to him every moment of every day.

And as we yield, not so much just to a set of principles, not so much just to a set of commands, but as we yield to him, to his voice, to his direction, to his interaction with us.

The amazing byproduct to that will be love.

Listen, some of your personalities are entirely the opposite of love, but if you’ll yield to God moment by moment, if you’ll listen to him and let him bear his fruit in your heart, you’ll find yourself loving people in ways you never even thought possible.

Young people, I want to encourage you.

Listen, the V generation experience is a gross one without life. it’s a repulsive revolting one without love and not your cheap knockoff version of love that you plaster onto your face I’m talking about the real love that God bears in your heart as you yield to him young people I’m God’s teaching me these things I trust he’s teaching you them as well but listen don’t miss don’t miss the essential ingredient that of love and as we surrender to God step by step and depend upon him to bear that fruit of love in our hearts, I really do believe that the result will be sweet.

The result will be a sweet-selling savor that will draw souls to Jesus and that will cause your life to make a difference in this world as we reach the world with the

gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for joining us for this episode of the Thee Generation Podcast.

If you have an issue you need help with, we have a resource that can help you.

The Battle Plan for Victory is an online resource designed to help young people deal with personal sin issues through the Word of God and ultimately to find victory in the Lord Jesus Christ.

To view the Battle Plan, please visit thegeneration.org. slash victory.