Bobby Bosler: Welcome to the Thee Generation Podcast.

I’m Bobby Bosler and I’m speaking to you today from Menominee Falls, Wisconsin, where our team just got back not too long ago from an exciting summer all over the country with the Cola Clash.

In fact, it’s been an exciting year in many ways.

We’ve had 23 wars and COLA clashes all across the country, everywhere from Texas to Pennsylvania to New York State to Wisconsin.

And we’re thrilled with what God has done and what he’s doing.

In fact, just a couple stats to encourage you.

This year, we were able to see 1,600 young people come and attend our events, and then 431 young people have trusted Christ as their Savior.

That’s an average of about 19 saved per week.

And we are thrilled, just frankly, totally thrilled with the fact that the gospel is still the power of God into salvation.

And young people, we are not content to just learn how to go out and reach young people for Christ or anyone for that matter for Christ.

It’s our desire to equip you.

You know, I think you probably understand this, but in our culture today, it seems from the outward standpoint, like it’s getting harder and harder to reach people.

People, it appears, if you look on the TV and the news, are becoming more and more secular and more and more anti-God, anti-Bible.

But I want you to know something.

The more secular and ungodly this world becomes, I am convinced, the more impacting the love of Jesus Christ can have, more of an impact it can have on them.

I’m thinking of several instances, particularly from the summer.

One of the weeks we were at, there’s a young man who perhaps he’s listening to this podcast even now.

While I was preaching, I was making some application on some hard-hitting issues, some delicate issues, and that young man essentially was laughing, and I was getting on him a little bit in the preaching.

And come to find out, he even said out loud for everybody, oh, it’s just because it hits close to home.

Well, I just received a report that young man not only had gotten saved, which I knew that at our event that evening, God was all over him, working in his heart, drawing him to himself, but he’s been faithfully attending the church ever since. the quote from the youth pastor is he is a changed person another instance there was a young lady who came to one of our meetings near the end of the tour uh long story short she’d experienced some very painful things even during the meeting with some of her friends some serious rejection she was sitting on a rock outside the church weeping my wife found her and said wouldn’t you like to come inside and she said absolutely i would she came in heard the remainder of the preaching and the love of Jesus Christ gripped her heart.

And she responded in that invitation there that evening and found Jesus Christ as her Savior through tears.

It was thrilling just to see the love of Christ.

In fact, what I’m finding is the more anti-God our culture is becoming, the more love and the love of Jesus Christ is becoming a central focus point in my preaching.

It’d be easy to think that the more ungodly people get, the more you need to rip their faces off in the preaching of the gospel.

And while that’s certainly true in some cases, the law is the schoolmaster to bring people to Jesus Christ.

I’ve also found just the very fact that Jesus would love them so much, he’d be willing to die for them.

And that love demonstrated on the cross is one of the greatest things that God uses in an age where love is virtually non-existent as much as people talk about it.

True love, unconditional love, as much as that has become absent from homes and absent from relationships, it is becoming more and more desirous and craved.

People are looking for true love and they’re not finding it.

That’s all by way of introduction.

Before I dive into the content of today’s podcast, I do want to give a surprise announcement regarding the V Generation Youth Summit.

This year, we’ve actually got a very special guest who’s going to be joining us for the Youth Summit.

His name is Pastor Dean Miller.

He’s a senior pastor, Front Range Baptist Church, and he is a man who is definitely in high demand in preaching in various venues all across the country, particularly for young people.

He’s a very dynamic speaker.

He’s got a heart for God, a heart for souls, and he’s going to be preaching several times at the Thee Generation Youth Summit this coming October 12th, 13th, 14th in Menominee Falls, Wisconsin.

And so I really do want to encourage you young people, please plan to join us.

There’s been a large flurry of registrations just recently, and we’d love to see your name in the list of registrations that are coming in.

I do want to mention that registration will raise, rise, get bigger.

It’ll get more expensive after September 13th.

So as of the moment of my recording, that gives you about 10 days or so to register if you want to take advantage of the early bird discount.

And you can get all of those specifics on thegeneration.org there.

I think I’ve mentioned before, our theme this year is the Warm Axe.

Our passion is to talk about overcoming impossibilities.

And there’s a lot of my heart regarding that particular theme, but I’ll save a lot of that for the event itself.

Please come.

Again, I mentioned a few minutes ago, we are not content to just reach souls with the gospel ourselves just to see God use us.

We want to train and equip you for God to use you to overcome impossibilities and reach the world with the gospel.

So please plan on joining us.

If you and your church, maybe if you haven’t heard your youth pastor say anything about it, maybe send them the link.

Say, hey, I’d really love to go with this.

Would you consider coming with me or bringing our youth group?

Perhaps tell your parents about it and see if they can make an opportunity for you to come.

What I want to speak about here today is really a conceptual thing here today.

You know, we at Thee Generation Podcast, we talk a whole lot about total surrender.

And total surrender really is one of the pillars of who we are and what we do for this movement.

And I want to just take just a couple of minutes.

I’m not going to make this a long one.

You watch that, just famous last words, right?

But I really do want to spend just a couple of minutes meditating on what it actually means to be surrendered to God.

James 4, verse 7 says, Submit yourselves, therefore, to God.

And really there in that phrase, that right there is total surrender.

Total surrender to God isn’t necessarily just the idea that I want to be a missionary.

It’s not necessarily just the idea that I want to be a preacher, though that could be a part of that.

But total surrender to God is absolutely essential.

And I fear because oftentimes we have a, I don’t know, a camp idea of total surrender.

I’m not dissing camps here.

Please don’t misunderstand me.

But we have a throw your stick into the fire kind of an idea about surrender.

I fear that it can be a little bit ambiguous.

And even though we talk a whole lot about this, really my prayer, my burden is that this will give us some real precision as we’re talking about total surrender.

That word submit, and that word means to submit to the orders or directives of someone, to obey, submit to, obedience and submission.

Someone else said this about that word, to submit to God means to place ourselves under his lordship and therefore to commit ourselves to obey him in all things.

Someone else said it’s a call for their voluntary subordination to God and his will.

Thus, they must express their recognition of God as supreme in their lives.

See, surrender, and even that word submit, has the idea of to place yourself under God.

In other words, you are revoking your rights to be the driver and decider when it comes to the moment-by-moment decisions of your life, the decisions of your future, the decisions of your career, etc., and so on.

There’s a man, I’m sure you’ve heard this, Henry Varley.

He’s a very intimate friend of D.L.

Moody.

He loved to talk about this conversation that he had with D.L.

Moody.

And here is the quote.

I’m sure you’ve heard it.

Varley, walking along, I believe, the shore, said to Mr.

Moody, it remains to be seen what God will do with the man who gives himself up wholly to him.

And Mr.

Moody, evidently in the midst of that conversation, said in his heart, I will be that man.

And you know, perhaps as you’ve listened to our podcasts over the years, as you’ve heard us talk about this matter of being surrendered to the lordship of Jesus Christ, of being under the orders or directives of God.

You’ve said in your heart, I want to be that kind of person.

Well, I hope this podcast will offer some clarity to this.

Number one, to be surrendered to God is to be surrendered to God’s words.

It’s to be surrendered to God’s words.

James said in another place in his letter, but be ye doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves.

Jesus said in John 14, if you love me, keep my commandments.

He says, he that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me.

If a man love me, he will keep my words.

So this matter of surrender, it’s not just this general concept of willingness.

It is surrendering to God’s words, to what he says in the scriptures.

In other words, when you approach the Bible, you are approaching the Bible not just as a source of information, not just as a place to learn stuff about God.

You’re approaching it with a humility and a readiness to obey.

You know, when the Bible says, children, obey your parents in the Lord for this is right, you don’t just want to think about that in a general sense you need to think about that in terms of oh mom just told me that i’m supposed to take out the trash so i better do that because i want to be surrendered to god when the bible says love not the world neither the things that are in the world it actually approaches that verse and that command with some self-evaluation and asks oneself are there areas of my life where i’m allowing the world’s entertainment the world’s music, the world’s philosophies to enamor me and take hold on my heart.

When the Bible says that it’s good for a man not to touch a woman, do you take that seriously?

Do you actually implement that in your interaction with young men or young ladies, young person?

You know, when the Bible says we’re supposed to deport ourselves with modesty, we’re supposed to dress in a way that does not draw attention to us in a sensual or a sexual way.

Do you take that seriously when it comes to your wardrobe?

Do you take it seriously when God says he wants us to be holy as he is holy because he is holy in all manner of conversation?

Do you take that seriously?

In other words, when God says thou shalt not lie, do you take deception seriously and honesty seriously?

When the way you view advertisements, the way you view technology, do you actually let it affect your very actions?

So being surrendered to God isn’t just about going and being a missionary.

It’s not just about being willing to do what God says.

It is actually surrender to the very words, commands, expectations of the word of God.

How about this one?

God says, love your neighbor as yourself.

Do you take that seriously?

Do you actually endeavor to be loving to your siblings?

Do you actually endeavor to treat your neighbors, your actual people that live next door to you with a preference for their good over and above your own?

Do you see how this really flushes itself out into a lot of our lives?

Now, listen, I know we can’t live the Christian life and our own strength and we really can’t do anything that pleases God.

Jesus said, without me, he can do nothing.

I understand that total surrender is absolutely essential, but it is incomplete without total dependence.

But this podcast particularly isn’t about total dependence.

It’s about total surrender.

So number one, it’s about surrender to God’s words.

That means you need to be humble.

That means you need to recognize that what God recorded in his word, God knows better than you know.

That means regardless of the cultural gap between what the society was like when it was written and now is something that God was able to take into account when he led holy men of God to record God-inspired words.

In other words, don’t be looking to culture and what is surrounding you to determine how to live, you need to look to God and his word.

It says, be not conformed to this world.

Don’t let your thinking, your words, your actions, don’t let your vocabulary be shaped by the world around you.

Don’t let your dress be shaped by the world around you, but instead you’re supposed to be renewed in your mind by the word of God.

So surrender to God’s words, number one.

Number two, surrender to God’s will.

This is different.

Although I would say God’s will definitely includes what he’s recorded, I would also say that God’s will is more than just what he explicitly states in the Bible.

In other words, surrender, total surrender, isn’t just determining I want to do anything and everything God says to do in the Bible.

It also says, God, you have the right to lead me moment by moment and every day.

Total surrender decides ahead of time that when God prompts me in my spirit, I will obey.

You could call this consecration.

You could call this setting yourself apart to God.

Dedicating oneself to a specific purpose set by God.

This isn’t just doing what God says he wants.

It’s doing what you know he wants.

Listen, you need to surrender God’s will regarding sin.

You know, as you get close to God, there may be some areas in your life where maybe the Bible doesn’t come out and say, thou shalt not watch such and such a movie.

And certainly there are principles that I think you can apply that often give us a pretty good idea of what God wants or doesn’t want.

But there are times when the Spirit of God is going to talk to you in your heart and say, uh-uh, don’t watch that.

Don’t listen to that.

I don’t want you listening to that music.

That grieves me.

There are times when God is going to say, you know what, that relationship that you’re in with so-and-so, I’m not even talking about guy-girl relationships.

I’m just talking about friendships.

There may be times where the Spirit of God says, you know, I don’t want this to be as big of a deal in your life as it has been.

I don’t want you to so look to them for affirmation as you’ve been doing for the last several weeks.

No, no.

And nowhere in the Bible does it say that you’re supposed to perhaps distance yourself from a certain person, like by name.

But it does say that a wise man will walk with other wise men and be wise.

But a companion of fools will be destroyed.

Again, we’re getting back to what the Bible says.

But I’m just saying the Spirit of God has a right to make specific what the Word of God does not say specifically.

Furthermore, the Spirit of God also has a right to tell you His will regarding how He wants you to serve Him.

The Bible doesn’t say that every single person is supposed to be a missionary.

It doesn’t say that every single person is supposed to be a preacher.

It doesn’t say that every single person is supposed to be a Christian schoolteacher.

But I want you to know God does have a specific will.

I’m sorry, contrary to popular belief out there, the Christian pursuing God’s will is not an episode of choose your own adventure.

It’s not where you just pick something and then assume that it’s the will of God.

No, it puts the horse before the cart.

It puts God before your plans.

And it says, God, I am submitting my future to you.

I will do whatever you want.

Surrender oftentimes does have a moment in time where you submit to God’s will, where you literally lay it all out before God and say, God, I am right now the best I know, giving you the keys to my life.

I’m giving you the rights to my future.

But surrender and that kind of surrender to God’s specific leading is something that must be maintained.

Every morning of every day, you need to wake up and say, God, I want you to lead me today.

It’s something that not only must be maintained, it’s also something that must be sought.

In other words, you must in your heart and in your spirit, not just sit around waiting for God to whack you in the back of the head with his leadership, but you actually need to pursue his guidance.

Yes, the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, but you also must say, God, I want your will.

God, I am quieting my heart and I’m opening my ears and I’m listening.

I want to be led by the Spirit.

I want to keep in step with the Spirit.

I want to do what you want me to do because, young people, God does have a specific will for your life.

Again, the Word of God says that we’re supposed to present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto the Lord.

It says that there is a good and acceptable and perfect will of God. 2 Corinthians 5 says, the love of Christ constraineth us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then we’re all dead, and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves or for themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

So you need to be surrendered to God’s words.

What he says in the scripture need to be your commands and your marching orders, but also you need to be surrendered to his will, where he speaks to you and leads you in your heart.

You need to be ready to obey.

But thirdly and finally, and I’ll just mention this briefly, you also need to be surrendered to God’s wants.

You could also say his wishes.

You say, isn’t this the same as God’s will?

Well, yeah, But the way I look at it, at least the way I think about it regarding this, God’s will is his expressed will.

Maybe not in black and white text in your Bible, but it’s his expressed will in your heart.

When I say surrender to God’s wants or God’s wishes, I mean something a little different.

Because the better you get to know God, the more you begin to know what truly pleases him.

And by that I mean, just like if you one day get engaged to somebody and you begin to learn, oh, my fiance really, really loves chocolates.

You know, I doubt that, again, maybe this might not be the case, but if you begin to learn what your fiance likes and what really pleases her, I’m sure you don’t just sit around waiting for her to say or him to say, I really want some chocolate.

No, you go out of your way.

Once you figure out what makes them happy and what pleases them, You are looking for opportunities to go above and beyond what is explicitly stated, what is expressed, even without words, and you just want to please that person.

Listen, when you begin to understand God’s heartbeat, when you get your finger on the pulse of his love, when you begin to realize that he so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, when you begin to understand the scope of his love for this world, when you begin to understand what God really wants to do and how God really wants to manifest his power in answer to prayer, I really do believe that you can come to a point you are so in tune with him and so enamored with his will that you just get a gut sense for what he wants.

I’ll give you this way, a biblical example here.

You remember the story when David was on the run in the cave of Adullam.

He was, in a certain sense, well, he was on the run.

I don’t think there’s any better way to say it.

And while he was there in that cave, he just made a little statement.

Oh, wouldn’t it be great if I could have some water from the well, the spring in Bethlehem?

Well, that was not a command.

There’s no way you can get a command out of that.

It was not him, you know, passive aggressively trying to tell his men to go get him some of that water.

In fact, I would say if those men had actually come to him, he probably would have said, no, don’t risk your lives for that.

But his men, to his men, David’s wish was their command.

And his men took that uttered wish.

They were so in tune with their leader, their king, that when they figured out what he wanted, they took it and they ran with it.

They went and busted into the city of Bethlehem.

Philistines were guarding the area. and like commandos, they swept in, got a container full of that water and brought it back to David.

And David was so blown away by the love of his men and their desire to just simply please him, that he felt unworthy.

He took that water.

And while we may not totally understand the context of this, he poured it out on the ground as an offering to God because it was so precious to him.

Young people, when you begin to understand the heart of God, you at times can actually initiate and step out because you love Jesus with all of your heart and because you have so imbibed his passion that you can go out and genuinely, and I say this reverently, you can tickle the heart of God with your passion for his cause.

You know, young people, to be surrendered to God is to be surrendered to his words.

You take the word of God seriously when he says it in the Bible.

You want to obey it.

You also need to be surrendered to God’s will.

Where God makes, and though it may not be explicitly recorded in the scripture, when God communicates his will to you through his spirit in your heart, you are ready and willing to drop everything and do what he tells you to do.

And it’s also being so in tune with God’s heart that you’re willing to step out maybe what he hasn’t even said specifically to you.

You know, young people, that’s the kind of relationship I want to have with God.

And I’ll bet you that’s the kind of relationship some of you want to have with God.

Listen, it’s not a bondage relationship.

It’s a relationship of love.

It’s a relationship of just passion.

And if you love your God, and if you’re willing to follow him with all of your life, young person, I know that as we depend upon him and surrender to his will, we will turn the world upside down with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for listening.