Bobby Bosler: The love of Jesus is very foundational for our understanding of the impossibilities that God wants to do in us. To be honest with you here this week, as we discuss overcoming impossibilities, which is the theme, I think we need to recognize that in order for God to do impossibilities through us, impossibilities need to happen in us first. And you know, in case you're perhaps sitting here wondering why in the world folks are preaching on purity and worldliness

and different things like that. It's because we have impossibilities that are present in our own very hearts. I appreciate Maddie's testimony.

I really do believe that that was the testimony of the hour because so often when we look at ourselves and when we look at the issues that we have, when we look at the mess that we have created for ourselves, whether it's through our sin habits, whether it's through our ruined and terrible relationships, whether it's just through us knowing us and the fact that we've tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed,

often we feel, I think, that the biggest impossibility with me is I'll never be able to straighten this stuff out. I'll never be able to clean my life up. I'll never be able to untangle this untanglable-ness that is me right here.

And so often we can talk about the impossibilities of reaching the world with a gospel and going out on world missions and giving our lives for Christ, but frankly, I think sometimes we're not even there yet. Where we're at is, you know what? I don't really think I can extricate myself from the tangled up mess that I am, that I have.

And that's why I really do believe, I think a theme from last night and even through the testimonies here this morning is that there is an incredible power in a personal testimony. I don't know about you, but it's encouraging to me to hear Ryan's testimony, Ryan Swanson. These testimonies that we've heard this week, Sam's testimony wherever he is, that's encouraging, encouraging to hear Maddie talk about.

You know

what, honestly, girls, some of you probably have come into a conference like this, and you really thought coming in that you were the only one who struggled with purity in your mind. Well, you just heard a testimony of someone else who said, no, no, you're not the only one. You know, this morning, I want to do something maybe a little bit unusual, something that I don't know that I've really done in a daytime session here at a TGYS.

I want to share just a little bit about how God can take

an seemingly unredeemable mess and how God can not only deliver them out of the impossibilities inside of them, but how God can take that mess and use that mess to do the impossible at reaching the world with the gospel. Turn with me to Acts chapter 26, please. Acts chapter 26.

One of the things you find throughout the book of Acts is there was a man, his name was Paul. Paul was a man who was obviously doing something good when it comes to reaching the world with the Gospel. And if you were to just perhaps read Paul's letters, you might think Paul was always that way.

You might think that Paul was just some unique kind of a person, an unusual person, a person who is different than you and different than me. And we might think that Paul is this man that you put on a pedestal that was just a unique guy that never had any struggles, that never had any wrong thinking, that never had any issues. But if you know your Bible, you'll know that is not the case.

Paul was a man who at one point in time in his life, though he was sincere, he was sincerely wrong. And though he thought he had it all figured out, he had everything turned upside down. And though he thought he was fighting for his God, he was in fact fighting against his God.

He, by his life, by his words, and by his action, was actually resisting the very work that God was doing in this world. He was an influence for bad, not an influence for good. But something happened in Paul's life that totally changed everything.

And as you go throughout the book of Acts, you find not only the narrative account of what happened in his life, you find in subsequent situations that Paul, when he had opportunity, he wasn't just in these opportunities sharing the gospel. He was using his testimony as an opportunity to reach people that perhaps would not have been reached otherwise. In Acts chapter 26, we find Paul in just such of a situation.

Paul found himself as a political prisoner in Caesarea. He found himself standing before a couple of people who could have the power to set him free so he could get back to doing what he believed God had called him to do. And yet he felt that God had placed him here for such a time as this.

And in chapter 26 of the book of Acts, in verse number 9, in the middle of his testimony, he says this. He says, I very thought with myself that I ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And really what he says here this time, here is my modus operandi, here was my purpose for living, here was the mindset, the mentality that I had.

If Jesus wanted something to happen, I wanted to make sure it did not happen. His whole purpose for living at that point in time was to resist the name and preaching and message and cause of Jesus Christ. I know that most of you here in this room, that is not your desire.

However, there are some here in this room, to be perfectly honest with you, the way you sit in your chair and cross your arms and the way you check out during the sermons and the way you close your eyes like you're asleep and pretend that I'm not talking about you. Listen, friends, I want you to know by the very way that some of you all act here, it's almost as if the purpose of your life

is to do that which is contrary to the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, he gets into more specifics in verse 10 and following. He says, Which thing I also did in Jerusalem.

And many of the saints that I shut up in prison, having received authority from the chief priests, and when they were put to death, I gave my voice against them. And I punished them oft in every synagogue and compelled them to blaspheme. And being exceedingly mad against them, I persecuted them even unto strange cities.

What we find here is Paul testifying to what he was like before Jesus showed up in his life. He said, essentially, I not only did my very best to shut down the spread of Christianity, I persecuted people. I gave my verbal assent, and I even gave my testimony against people who were living for the Lord Jesus Christ.

I shut them up in prison. I caused them to scatter away all over the region. He says, however, in verse number 12, even though he was totally on the wrong side of every issue, even though he at this point in time in his life was actively resisting the forward movement of the gospel, there came a point in time when God showed up.

Verse number 12, he says, Whereupon as I went to Damascus with authority and commission from the chief priests, at midday, O King, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above or brighter than the brightness of the sun shining round about me and them which journeyed with me. And when we were all fallen to the earth, I heard a voice speaking unto me and saying in the Hebrew tongue, Saul, that was his Hebrew name, Saul,

why persecutest thou me? It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And here what happened was the very Jesus that he thought was a sham, the very Jesus that he thought was a liar, the very Jesus who he thought was dead and hidden away somewhere, spoke to him out of a supernatural light from heaven.

God manifested his presence to Saul, a persecutor of Christians, a man who did not want the gospel to be spread, a man who was resisting Jesus Christ. God manifested himself to him. God says, you know what?

I've been working in your heart for a long time, haven't you? i've been talking to you and i've been uh cutting you to the heart very many times in very many situations perhaps as these people were ready to die as these individuals were looking up and saying i see jesus standing next to his father as he began to hear these men and see their boldness as they were being persecuted for the cause of christ god was working in paul saul's heart

and yet prior to this moment he had been resisting he had been resisting he had been resisting maybe you can identify with that maybe as you've heard preaching over the last couple days as god has put his finger in your heart and maybe in sermons prior to even come to the degeneration youth summit god's been working on you and god's been saying you know what this thing is killing you it's absolutely shredding

your walk with God. It's absolutely ruining your potential. It is holding you back from being all that God wants you to be and doing all that God wants you to do.

It's killing your relationship with your parents. It's making your prayer life virtually non-existent. You need to get help.

You need to come clean. You need to do right. You need to get victory in this area.

And we resist, and we resist, and we resist. He says it's hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And I said, Who art thou, Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. But rise and stand upon thy feet, for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a minister and a witness both of these things which thou hast seen and of those things in the which I will appear unto thee, delivering thee from the people and from the Gentiles unto whom now I send thee to open their eyes and to turn them

from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among them which are sanctified by faith that is in me. And he says when Jesus showed up, he not only wanted to deliver me, he wanted to use me to deliver them. And God had a plan for my life that was so much bigger than I could have ever imagined.

He says in the next verse, whereupon, O King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision. There's power in a personal testimony. In fact, we find in this instance, a king was almost persuaded to be a Christian.

You know, as you've heard these testimonies here this week, I am sure that you've identified with some aspects of them. I'm sure that God has used them in your heart. I'd like to add one more testimony to the list.

You know, I don't know what you think of me. I have no idea. There's a certain sense in which I don't care.

But you know what, friends? I want you to know many, many years ago, this preacher right here was a mess. 1984, a young lady went to a party to salve her conscience.

At the party, she met a guy dipped into some alcohol, has no recollection of what happened after that. She had been a freshman in Bible college when she went back to her sophomore semester after having committed some terrible sins with that young man. She found herself pregnant.

That baby was me. She didn't terminate the pregnancy, for which I'm very thankful. She gave me life.

Not only did she give me life, she gave me up. She gave me up for adoption, not because she didn't want to deal with me, not because she didn't love me, but because she loved me and because she wanted me to have a home that could have all the things that I needed. She wanted me to have two parents.

She wanted me to have a mom and a dad. And the young man who was involved, again, she didn't even know who he was. I was adopted by my parents in April of 1985.

My parents raised me in a good, godly church. I got good preaching throughout my growing up years. I trusted Jesus Christ as my Savior as a four-year-old.

I still remember the lift and the joy that was there when I found forgiveness of sins through Jesus Christ. But you know, in my upper elementary years and early junior high years, I began to get involved with some friends down the street. Through the process, I remember one of the friends, the kid who lived next door, he took me down into his basement once, and I remember at one point, he opened up a magazine, and he said,

Hey, look at this, and I looked down, and there was an image of a naked woman. I'd never seen anything like that in my entire life. I'll be honest with you, I screamed and ran out of his house.

That's a good response, by the way. But you know what? The other friend who lived across the street, he had a habit of talking dirty.

He began to talk about dirty things with me on a constant basis, and while initially I didn't want anything to do with that, I didn't even know what it was about, because of the constant exposure, because of the constant dirty talk, I began to develop an appetite for those things. When I was 12 years old, my mom, my adopted mother, the one who'd raised me, she went in for a transplant. Long story short, two weeks after the transplant, she died.

I found myself in a one-parent home. Because of the intense trauma of it, I dove into anything and everything that could medicate the pain in my heart. I was angry at God for taking my mom away from me.

I was angry at the situation because I felt like all of a sudden my life was ruined. And because of that, I dove headlong into two things. First thing I dove headlong into was video games because for me it was the escape.

While I was in the virtual world, I could be what I wanted to be. I didn't have to worry about the pain of real life. I could control my life, my existence.

I could hit reset, restart if things didn't work out too well for me. but another thing that I dove headlong into was internet pornography you know probably one of the things that even got me started on that I was a computer kid I remember getting into the cache files on our computer you know where images are stored that had been evidently viewed on the internet and I found a pornographic image don't know where it came

from. I know I didn't find it. However, that led to an exploration of curiosity.

That exploration

and curiosity led to a constant addiction. Probably not a day went by that I would find dirty images to find. I remember one time I had a friend of mine, this is a different friend than the ones that lived on my street, but he and I, we would talk about dirty things.

He was actually a

kid from our church and he and I, one time he was over my house on a Sunday afternoon and I remember we'd found some stuff in the computer back in the back bedroom and we were looking at it together, kind of gawking at those things. Evidently my dad had overheard a little bit of what we were saying. He snuck outside around the house and looked in the window.

Yeah, we got in pretty big trouble there.

But to be honest with you, I did not really come clean. I kept diving into those things. My brain was an absolute trash pit.

My life was in darkness. I watched things I shouldn't watch.

I had a major addiction to the world's music. I listened to things I shouldn't listen to. I developed a foul mouth, and by the time I was 14, 15, 16 years old, if you were to have looked at me, you probably would not have thought I was a Christian.

In fact, many people in my church

didn't think I was. I was hurting. I was broken.

I was a mess. And there had been moments in time, here and there, when God would work in my heart and I would think, you know what, I probably should clean this up. And you know, you kind of sort of try, but it never worked for me.

I would try to maybe not look at the stuff a little bit longer. And you know what, after time, you know the pressure, you just end up going back to it. I would try maybe to clean up my mouth and you know but sure enough when I hurt myself or when something happened I didn't like and nobody else was around I would cuss oh I had all kinds of issues I was a mess

when I was 16 years old however I'll be honest with you the the church that I grew up in as much as I'm so incredibly thankful for much of what I got from it they didn't preach this kind of preaching, like the in-your-face-going-after-things kind of preaching. And I didn't quite understand. I'm sure it was taught in some form, but I didn't really understand the power of Jesus Christ who's in me.

I didn't quite understand all of that. And so I didn't have a whole lot of hope. In fact,

many times it seemed to me, at least the way I heard things, maybe it was the way it was preached, maybe the way it wasn't, I felt like if I was really saved, I wouldn't be struggling with those things, which isn't true, by the way. And so I remember many times throughout my growing, throughout those rebellious years, I would get worried. I would think, well, if I'm living this way, maybe I'm not saved.

And I would pray and say, dear Jesus, save me, change me, save me, change me. You know, it never worked because I was already saved. But I remember when I was 16 years old.

I recently, I was homeschooled. I recently cheated on a bunch of tests, all kinds of stuff. I learned how to get into the cabinet and find all the keys and fill out all my answers and get a few wrongs so nobody would think I was suddenly brilliant.

And cheated on a bunch of stuff. And there was just the pressure of all the things that I was hiding, all the things that were going on behind the scenes. At this time, my dad had actually gotten remarried to a lady who'd been a missionary to Africa for 15 years.

She began to pray for me. And I want you to know this woman knew how to pray. I remember one night in my bedroom, the pressure was building you know how this is the pressure was building it was building it was building i was kicking against the pricks like in this story i was resisting god's working in my heart and yet i knew god was saying you keep this up you're going to absolutely destroy your life

and i remember in my bedroom i remember getting up getting down on my knees next to my bed and i remember looking up and i i was not having a repenting moment okay i'll tell you what i was angry at God. I was mad at God because he was telling me that if I continued down this road, it would destroy my life. But as far as I was concerned, I couldn't fix it.

I couldn't change

my heart. I couldn't do it. And I was mad that God wanted me to do something that I couldn't do.

I was ticked off. I felt like, in fact, I remember kneeling by my bed, looking up at heaven. This was not a contrite prayer and saying fine then if this life is going to change and get cleaned up you're going to have to be the one who does it because i sure can't i'm sure so glad i am sure glad i'm so glad that god is merciful because you know what there that night as i looked up to heaven and honestly it wasn't a

prayer of faith. It was not a prayer of contrition. It was, frankly, a prayer of giving up.

God knew what I meant, and he knew what I needed. And there, that evening, God showed up in my life. It was the strangest thing.

It was like, for the days following,

it was like, all of a sudden, I didn't have desires that I'd had before. It was like, all of a sudden, there was a victory that I didn't even know what it was or where it came from. And it was like it seemed to me to be a random thing.

All of a sudden, the things that had been completely dominating me for some reason just didn't seem to have as much of a hold on me anymore. What is this? And I remember after about two weeks of a different kind of life, I remember thinking, I think I got this now, God.

I think I've got this figured out. You can imagine what happened next. Boom!

Flat on my face again. Honestly, for another year, darkness, defeat, discouragement. Then a preacher came to my church.

A preacher came to my church and he began to preach about some of the kinds of things you've heard here. The whole concept that the flesh is futile. You can't serve God in your own strength.

And if you try, not only will you fail, it'll be counterproductive. This preacher began to talk about the fact that in me was Jesus. Jesus didn't struggle with sin.

And if I would walk in the Spirit, if I would depend on Jesus, He could enable me to do what I could never do in my own strength. This preacher came, and there was a whole variety of different things that started to happen. God started putting the pieces together in my heart.

Right around this time, I had some major moments where I had unloaded the truck to my parents. I dealt with some of the sin. I had conversations that I felt like I could never have with mom and dad.

I divulged things that I swore I would never divulge to anyone. Listen, I shone the light on it like we heard about last night. I dealt with those things.

Between dealing with the sin and beginning to understand the prospects of victory through Jesus, God began to give me something that I want every one of you here to have. He began to give me probably one of the most valuable possessions you'll ever get. He began to give me hope.

And I began to realize that this kid who'd been an absolute mess, this kid who looked like a lost kid, this kid who tried and failed, this kid right here who seemed like he had no purpose for being on planet Earth, this kid who was a ball of hurts, of anger, of frustration, there was hope. As I began to make decisions of following the Lord, as I began to take steps of faith, baby steps at first,

some of them were big steps like dealing with sin, getting right with my parents. Other steps were smaller steps. Like, honestly, there was a time in my senior year of high school, frankly, it wasn't a spiritual decision.

It was just because I was so busy, I stopped watching the TV shows that I normally watched. I had all kinds of shows. Man, I'd tune in every single week to some of these shows, and they dominated me.

I didn't have as much time to play my video games, and it was just like some of these things that the world was using to get me to worship it or the devil. It was like they just slowly began to fall away. They began to become strangely dim, to be honest with you.

And it was during that senior year with many of those distractions starting to fade away, God began to lead me. I remember shortly into my senior year at my home church, it wasn't because of anything that was preached. It was because God was becoming real in my life.

I remember after a service, God spoke to me and said, Bobby, I want you to be a preacher. And I remember thinking, what, me? No.

Is there somebody behind me? No, I want you to be a preacher. Now, I'm a weird personality.

Sometimes I can agree to something and then freak out about it later. I don't know if there's anybody else like that. Okay, that's totally me.

I can easily agree to something. Then when I realize what I agreed to, yeah. I remember there that day I said okay sure Preacher sounds good I got in the car on the way home And I said hey mom and dad After the service this morning God called me to be a What Bob God called me to be a What A preacher And mom and dad I said yes what have I done

I remember honestly I was man thought I was having a heart attack I looked at my mom and dad and I said I can't do that I realized that meant I had to stand up in front of people that meant I had to talk oh no I can't do that I don't know how to do that mom and dad what do I do and my mom turned around and I'll never forget she said to me what God calls you to do he'll enable you to do

that started a whole series of decisions of surrender from surrendering to where god would have me go to bible college all there's so much i could say i had my plans i had a place that everybody in my church just went by default god called me to surrender that and say what if i led you to go somewhere else then there was the place where my best friend was going then god said uh-uh that's not the place i want you to go i want you to go to baptist college of

ministry in monomony falls wisconsin i surrendered to that even coming here to baptist college of ministry god began to challenge me with areas in my life i remember i came and some of the things that i was used to listening to i felt like were fine apparently weren't god began to change me and show me what godliness looked like in many ways. God began to challenge me about how to find a wife.

God began to challenge me with how he could use me in the harvest fields. I got to lead lots of people to the Lord as a student at Baptist College of Ministry. I got to travel on a Minutemen team with Dr.

Jim. I got to see God use me to bring young people out to hear the gospel and get saved

through that. God gave me a heart for that kind of ministry. And before long and near the end of my time at Baptist College of Ministry, God spoke to me and said, I want you to be a teen evangelist.

In fact, not only that, I want you to be an evangelist. And this is going to sound kind of crazy. I want you to be an evangelist who starts a youth movement to raise up an army of young people who will turn the world upside down with the gospel.

I said yes to the Lord whenever he spoke, not always right away. Sometimes there was a wrestling match. But you know, God has led one step after another.

The Lord gave us the opportunity to take the war and then the cola clash. Also, I travel, I preach the gospel to teenagers. In the summer, we passed an incredible milestone.

In the 11 years that we've been doing this, we've seen 4,000 plus teenagers come to Jesus Christ. And I say that not at all as a boast or in any way, any kind of bragging. I say that because I was a mess.

And you know what? If I can maybe just summarize this, the thing that happened in Paul's life is what happened in my life too. I was at odds with God's plan.

But when God manifested himself to me, I said yes.

and as he continued to show me the next steps i continued to say yes yes yes and while at the beginning of this process i felt like there was no possible way i could ever be in a place with god where god would use me to do anything significant as i said yes to god and yes to god for the next step and the next step and the next step i'm finding myself in a position now where i'm realizing

think God is working and God is using me, not because there's anything special about me, because there's not, and there's nothing special about you either, but God wants to use every single one of you. That begins with when God shows up. You need to say yes.

You need to say yes. I know this has been an unusual session y que los hombres, world with the gospel. And the reason why I know that is I was a mess too.