Well, good morning, Bridgewater Church. My name is Kevin. And man, what an awesome day it's been already. I get the joy of serving here as one of our pastors, so I got the joy of getting to see Stuart get baptized this morning as well, to see these two men get baptized today. And just to see these people taking their faith to the next level, to take their next steps. And if you've been around Bridgewater for a while, you know that one of our core values is that everybody has the next step. And man, it's a tough act to follow, because I don't know about you guys, but I had to go check between the baptisms and go make sure my mascara wasn't running or anything. But man, what a story of life change and generational change that's going on, because God is moving. So all of that was free. I just had to share that with you. I'm just so excited to be a part of a church that where God is doing amazing things, and we're hopefully not getting in the way too much. But we're going to be starting this new series called Under the Hood. As we look at cars and we look at how they can somehow share the gospel with us, and it's actually going to be a series in the book of Acts. So if you have your Bibles with you, you want to open up to that, it'll be about two-thirds of the way through your Bibles. If you're new to it, if you don't have a Bible, we would love to get one in your hands. You'll see the New Testament starts. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, those are called the gospels. Those are biographies of Jesus' life. And then the book of Acts is actually a sequel to one of those gospels. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then Acts. And that's where we're going to be over the next couple of weeks. You can bookmark that, maybe pull your ribbon into there, but we are using this analogy of cars. And I've got to admit to you first that I am not a car guy. If the car breaks down and the gas tank is not on E, I'm not your guy. Okay? And in fact, I'm the kind of guy who just, all right, I'm going to get a car and I'm going to drive it into the ground. Anybody with me? Anybody actually done it? Anybody done it twice? Okay? This is August 1st, 2020, so we just celebrated the four-year anniversary of the last time I drove a car into the ground. I was on the way home from recording a COVID-era sermon message for our church and came around a corner and all of a sudden the engine's still running. Everything is fine except that the car just won't move. Gas tank's not on either. The engine's still going and I looked at the car, it looks fine, right? It was getting up there, it was in 2007, this was 2020, but like I've had cars go longer than this, tires were fine, the engine sounded good, paint job was great. All those things that we look at were like these things are fine. And that's how we look at our lives sometimes is I'm going to make sure that everything on the outside looks fine. I'm going to dress up, make sure I'm wearing the right clothes, I'm going to be driving the right car, I'm going to be doing the right thing so that anybody who sees me knows that my life is okay. But what I didn't know about this car was there was a minor, minor problem. Again, I'm not a car guy, but your tire's not supposed to do that. See what had happened was the subframe of the car, part of the chassis had rotted out, it had rusted out completely because I was paying attention to the things that I could see from the outside. I was making sure those things look good. All the while, the entire frame of the car is rotting away underneath it. And for some of us in here, you've tried to live your life on a faulty foundation. You've been building your life on a chassis that is just breaking for Ralph, for Stewart, for Jacob, that those who have gone public with their faith this morning, they know what that feels like, and I'm guessing that some of you do as well. And my hope and prayer is that each one of us this morning will build our lives on the foundation, on the chassis of Jesus Christ, because there is no one like our God. There is no other way to live, and I hope that you don't have to hit rock bottom to realize that, and I wish that I can make a spiritual decision for everybody in this room and say, "Just give your life to Jesus right now, I promise your life will be better." I'm not going to say your life will be easier, but you'll have a foundation of people who are here to be with you and to walk with you through all of this. So it's my hope this morning is that we'll begin looking as we go under the hood in this series. We'll look at the foundation of our lives and build everything on Jesus Christ that we're building on a solid foundation, on a solid chassis, but let's jump into the book of Acts. Acts 1-1, in my first book I told you, Theophilus, about everything Jesus began to do in teach. So we see right away that it is a sequel to one of those biographies that we had just talked about, those gospels. This is written by the man who wrote the Gospel of Luke, and Luke was a doctor. He liked to have everything in order, anybody else, you've got to have everything has a place. There's a place for everything, everything has to be in its place, orderly people out there. That's Luke, you'll love his Gospel, you'll love the book that he's getting into. I see all those going on back there, that's you. This is for you, because Luke had already seen other people who were writing gospels and were like, "Hey, I just want to make sure that like here's a clear orderly presentation of what happened." And then he also saw, "All right, we have these three other gospels, but nobody's telling the story of what's happening now." So that's what Luke writes the book of Acts for, is to say, "The gospels are all about the life of Jesus Christ, his teachings, his death and his resurrection." Spoiler alert, if you haven't read those yet, he dies, but he comes back, which is awesome news for us, because Jesus proves that he has power over sin and death, and that when we trust in him as our leader and forgiver, he can be freed from the burden of those things. We don't have to live in sin anymore as a slave to sin. But Luke continues on and says, "All right, this is what his disciples are doing after this." And in verse two, he says, "This is what Jesus began to do and teach, until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving his chosen apostles further instructions through the Spirit. During the forty days after he suffered and died, he appeared to the apostles from time to time." Wait a minute. Didn't he just suffer and die? He came back. He was resurrected. He appeared to the apostles from time to time, and he proved to them in many ways that he was actually alive, and he talked to them about the kingdom of God. This is the life of Jesus Christ. And C.S. Lewis, the author of Chronicles of Narnia and some other fantastic books, he says that when we're confronted with this idea of Jesus, we have three options. We can see him as a liar, somebody who just lied about everything who he was and who he said he was. We can look at him as a lunatic, or we can look at him as Lord, where we can say, "Jesus just lied about everything." Well, the apostles who followed after him in the book, the Acts of the Apostles is how my Bible has it titled, "Nobody knowingly dies for a lie. We see people dying left and right because they knew that the truth of the Jesus Christ was real, and it was living, and it was active, and it was moving." He's not a lunatic because the things that he said made way too much sense. And he was able to interpret all of the Old Testament and prove to the religious leaders of the day who knew the Bible better than you or I ever could. He proved to them, "Messiah is coming," and he proved to them, "By these Scriptures, I am the one that is coming to save Israel, to save you, to save everybody who will believe." So the only option then is that's left is Lord. Will I trust in Jesus Christ as my Lord? Will I found everything in my life on what he has taught, what he has done, and how he is continuing to act? Now I'll add a fourth category to that, not trying to correct C.S. Lewis, but one thing that I see kind of riffs on being a liar would be that Jesus could be just a legend, and I think that's a myth that people put around now is that, "Oh, well, this Jesus guy who wasn't historical, there's no proof that he actually lived, there's plenty of historical proof that there was a real life Jesus. The question is, what are you going to do with it?" And that's what the Book of Acts is all about, is what are we going to do with this Jesus who lived? What are we going to do with this story that he told us? What are we going to do with his teachings? Because the chassis of Christianity, the foundation of Christianity is the death and resurrection of Jesus. Everything is based on what Jesus did, the perfect life that he lived, and his resurrection from the dead. And Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15 that, "If Jesus did not raise from the dead, we of all people are most to be pitied. We are fools if we're doing this whole church thing, if Jesus isn't real. If he's a liar or lunatic or a legend. But because we believe that he is Lord, nothing else matters." He continues on in verse 4, saying, "Once he was eating with them, he commanded them, the apostles, do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised." As I told you before, I imagine the apostles are lined up like in all the races that we've seen over the last couple of weeks with the Olympics. They're at the starting line, they're just, "Jesus, let us go. We want to go tell people about who you are, what you've done. I am ready." But Jesus says, "Wait, it's not time yet because you're not actually ready." And he says, "I am going to send you a gift, the Holy Spirit." And he's going to get his own sermon next week as we look into Acts 2 and the power and the filling of the Holy Spirit in amazing ways. In verse 5 he says, "John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit." If the death and resurrection of Jesus is the chassis of the car, the Holy Spirit is the spark and the fire that allows us to move. And that's what we're looking at this morning. But like I said, Acts 2 talks more about the Holy Spirit and we're going to give him his due time and that time. He goes on to say in verse 6, "So when the apostles were with Jesus, they kept asking Him, 'Lord, has the time come for you to free Israel and to restore our kingdom?' You see, the apostles were just like us. They were so anxious and eager to know all of the answers. God, when are you coming back? I see this world crumbling around me. Can you just... I don't want you to leave Jesus is what I hear the apostles saying, "I'm not ready for you to go." And for some of us it's, "I'm ready for you to come back." Jesus come and wouldn't it be amazing if before the end of this service Jesus came back. But then I also think of that and I weep for those who don't yet know Christ. And every minute, every moment, every day that Jesus waits is an opportunity for more people to come to know Him if His people will be obedient. Are we ready to move, are we ready to listen to what the Holy Spirit is calling us to do, to what Jesus' word calls us to? Let's stop looking for all the answers because He's given us everything that we need for life and godliness. He's given us His word. We don't have to be prophets who know all the signs of the times. We just need to know I once was blind, but now I see. I once was dead in my sins, but now I'm alive in Jesus Christ. And I am raised to walk in a brand new way of life. In verse 7, Jesus says, "The Father alone has the authority to set those dates and times. They are not for you to know. If you needed to know this information, wouldn't I have given it to you?" Don't worry about those things. Worry about your neighbor who doesn't know Jesus. Worry about your co-worker who doesn't know Christ. Worry about those people whose eternity's are hanging the balance. And in verse 8, Jesus says, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere in Jerusalem throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." He says, "You're going to be my witnesses. You are God's plan A for advancing the gospel, and there is no plan B." Jesus said, "You will be my witnesses." Now witnesses was the term that Jesus used way before Christians were called Christians. We'll see later in the book of Acts that the word Christian was actually a derogatory term. It means literally little Christ. And what these people around them were saying, "You look just like Jesus, that guy that we just murdered." Is there enough evidence in your life to call you a little Christ? Are you living that out? Would somebody call you a little Christ because of the way that you live? Or are we going about as secret agents? It's not what we're called to do. But what the apostles were tasked with here is they had all been part of this moment with Jesus. They had experienced his teaching, and their moment stretched out over three years. They got to be with him every single day, hearing his teaching, watching him do miracles, and being a part of something amazing. But the problem with a moment is that moments are fleeting. We all have those times in our lives. We look back and, "Oh, those are the good old days. Can't we just go back there?" We pick up souvenirs from these trips that we take. My son loves whenever we go hiking or anything, he'll pick up a stick and say, "I need something to remember this hike by." Like that looks like every other stick that's in our yard. But we go on these trips and we get these chotch keys in these souvenirs and these monuments that we build up and say, "Man, remember that trip? Wasn't that great?" and we put it on the shelf and it gathers dust and we forget about it. So when we experience a moment, if we do nothing with it, it's going to naturally devolve into a monument. But if we want to be faithful to what God has called us to, we need to add something to the moment. We need to add velocity that we keep on moving forward and we need to add energy and these things, these are hard. When we add velocity and energy, watch this word play here, puts a little V and E into the word moment and what do we get? We have a movement. If we don't add those things, we will naturally devolve these moments of our lives into mere monuments. And monument mentality says, "Oh, look at that amazing thing that happened so long ago. It wasn't that great." But movement mentality says, "Look at what God is doing now. Come be a part of it." And Bridgewater Church is not set up to be a monument of days gone by, of what God used to do. Bridgewater Church is set up to be a movement. That's how God wants to use us. Because if we are going to be faithful with what God has given us, our church needs to move and praise God. Bridgewater has been moving for over 200 years. We have amazing, amazing stories of what God has done through the lives of people who are formally addicted to drugs or pornography or anything else. Over 200 years ago, Bridgewater Church in this area was changed by a moonshine-er-turned-pastor named David Dimick who said, "Jesus is more important. He is greater than anything that I've experienced in all of my life and more people need to know about him." For the first seven years of our church, we didn't have a building we met in the courthouse. I think that was nine years. And in that time, we sent out implanted seven other churches before we had a building. God doesn't need a building to move. God works through people who are faithful to the calling in their lives who say, "Here I am, Lord. Send me." 13 years ago, we got to continue this movement when we launched. If you don't know, Bridgewater has won church in many locations. We started up in Montrose, that was the home of Bridgewater Church and Bridgewater Township there, which is where obviously we got our name from. From Montrose, we had a gathering of people and we were just bursting at the seams. So we said, "Hey, we had 50 people who committed, "Hey, we live close to Halsted. Our neighbors need Jesus." So we sent 50 people from our Montrose campus. Half of those were children to launch the first campus up in Halsted, Pennsylvania. When I was back in 2011, in 2013, we had people do the same thing up in South Vestal. "Hey, we live up in South Vestal. People are going to Hal here, too." Let's do something. So we started our South Vestal campus. And then in 2014, the next year, Conklin, New York, was launched because God is doing something bigger than we can ask or even imagine. 2016, Tunkanic Baptist Church, the building that you're in right now, people who are meeting here, they had kind of given up hope and they said, "We are done. Here's the keys. We hear Bridgewater's doing some great things. Will you guys come in?" Because we think God has better things to do in Tunkanic than what we can do. And we believe that we are better together as the Church of Jesus Christ. We are called to be a movement into our neighborhoods, into our communities, with this gospel that changes lives. South Vestal would merge with Ross Corners to become our Vestal Campus in 2017. Then we took a little bit of a break. We got lazy. You know, this little thing called COVID came by. We paid off a few million dollars of debt. We slept for a couple of years. But those campuses continue to grow. That's the true story. And those campuses continue to do awesome things. Last year, you heard about the Hancock launch, where a small group of people said, "Hey, we're driving too far to get to church. Our neighbors aren't going to come with us." What can we do in our area? So we said, "Start a small group. We'll see what comes out of it." Okay, we started our small group. Now it's two small groups, and we're too big for our houses. What an awesome problem, right? So now 60 to 70 people every week are meeting at the theater in Hancock, New York, to watch the Montrose feed. We're going to be starting our Elk Lake campus coming up soon. We're starting that process this year. And in Elk Lake pioneers in here already, you know God has already called you to go to Elk Lake to love your neighbors and your community there. We got one in the front row. We got a few in the first service. But God is calling us to go and to be on the move. I don't know what's going to be after that. Maybe it's your area. Maybe you're driving too far to get to church. Your neighbors aren't going to come. Be faithful with what God has given you now. But if we want to be part of what God is doing, you need to move. Don't just wait on Bridgewater to move. We're big. We move slow. But God has gifted you a sphere of influence of people that you can impact in your community and your neighborhood that I can't get to. They're never going to listen to me because they don't know who I am. They don't care who I am. And that's great. And Jesus calls this disciples to go to four different places in Acts 1, 8. He says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, which is their hometown. Jerusalem was almost exactly the same size as Tumcanic, about one square mile. So do a Google map, pan out from you, one square mile, one mile radius. This is my Jerusalem. These are the people that I'm bumping elbows with every day. How can I love those neighbors? Into your Judea. That's about the size of Northeastern Pennsylvania. As you go out to Wilkes-Faire Scranton, wherever you're going, be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ there. We don't get vacation from being Christians, okay? You can go down to the Caribbean on a vacation. But wherever you go, you are a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Can you be a witness without witnessing? No. You have to go and tell. Go and tell the people in your area, right in your neighborhood and in Northeastern Pennsylvania and all around us here to the ends of the earth. Maybe God is calling some of you to be missionaries. Maybe God is calling somebody to the other side of the world. You may or may not know that Pastor Curt and Amanda were preparing to be missionaries to Peru, not long before they came here. So how did they start preparing by loving their neighbors, by being faithful to their Jerusalem and Judea, because every story matters to God, that every single person that you encounter is set for eternity. The question is where? You need to move. Now some of you may have noticed that I skipped over some area. And that's because that's exactly what Jesus followers wish he had done. Because I cannot explain to you how deep the hatred ran from Jews to Samaritans and vice versa. They absolutely despised each other. When Jews were traveling from Galilee down to Jerusalem, which was a pretty normal route, they would travel across the Jordan River. There weren't any ferry boats in the day or bridges. They would travel down the east coast and then cross back over the Jordan River, just to avoid Samaria, because they hated them that much. Oddly enough, no coincidence here, Samaria is about the area of the West Bank today, that fought over territory, Samaritans and the Jews of that day, very, very similar conflict and mentality between Palestinians and Israelis today. They hated each other. Jesus says they need the gospel too. They need me. They need Jesus Christ. So who's the Samaria in your life, the people that you try to avoid at all costs? I'm going to go out on a limb and say some of you, it's a red and blue thing. Some of you are died in the wool republicans and you need to go love your Samaritan Democrat neighbor. Some of you are died in the wool democrats and you need to go out and love your Republican neighbor, because they need Jesus, amen? And I think the gospel is so radical, I think Jesus even calls us to give the gospel to Red Sox fans, because they sure need it, right? But the gospel doesn't give us a choice of who deserves it and who doesn't, none of us deserve it, you don't deserve it, your neighbor doesn't deserve it, but God freely gives it, because he wants everybody to come to know him, because we are desperately lost without him. So we come to the question now of who are you influencing? When we start the book of Acts, there are 120 people gathered in the upper room, 120 people, it's probably about how many are in this room right now. By the end of chapter two, there's 3,000 people who trust in Jesus as their leader and their forgiver, because those men in the upper room knew that there was a difference to be made, that there were people to tell about Jesus. And you're going to get a card on your way out with 3 words and 3 blank lines, there's a verse on the back, "For this is what the Lord has commanded us, I have made you a light for the nations that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth." This is plan A, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth. The question is, who are you influencing? On top of that card, it says pray, invest, invite, and you're going to have the chance to write down 3 names, I'll give you leniency, you can write couples on there, that's okay. Three names of people who knew Jesus in your life, maybe they're coming from your Jerusalem, your Judea, maybe they're from your Samaria, but pray for those people that God will give them an opportunity to surrender to him as leader and forgiver, pray that they will be open to what God is doing in their lives, invest in their lives by taking the time to get to know them, to ask them questions, to spend time with them, doing things that interest them, just become a part of their lives. And then the third part is invite, okay? And we're going to set the bar low, invite yourself to have lunch with them during the work day, invite them out for a cup of coffee, do a small invitation first, because then they'll get used to you, oh, this person just asked me to do stuff, that's cool, and that's an investment in their lives because I care about you. And then the bigger invite, obviously, invite them out to a church service on a Sunday morning, come with them, save a seat for them, say, hey, will you come out to church with me? Because here's what Jesus has done in my life, and you need this too. So pray, invest, invite, you'll get one of these cards, write three names down on it, and then put it somewhere where you're going to see it constantly. Maybe it's on your bathroom mirror, maybe it's on your fridge. I put mine right on the tachometer of my car because who needs that thing anyway? Some of you are just going to cover your speedometer with it because... But pray for these people because they need Jesus. Let's pray. Lord God, we are so grateful that you are a God not of stagnation and staleness, but you are a God who is constantly moving. And God, I thank you that we get to be a part of your church that gets to go and move all across the earth. Father, I thank you for where you've placed each one of us in Tunkannock, in Elk Lake, in Denmark, in Springville, in Falls, Nicholson, in Factoryville. God, wherever you have placed us, may we be faithful to the call that you have put on our lives to be your witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea, even to Samaria. God, I pray that you will break our hearts for what breaks yours. Break our hearts for those who don't know you yet as leader and forgiver. Because God, we have been given the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Are we using these keys to let people in or to keep people out? Father, we pray that you will move through us. Help us to do hard things because you are worth it, and there's nothing that's better than you. We pray these things in the holy and amazing name of Jesus Christ, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
