- Well, good morning, my name is Bob Kidlicic. I've been one of the pastors here for about 19 years and we are starting a new series asking for directions, but I just wanted to celebrate last Sunday and just thank all of you who made our open house just a great thing and it was in kids ministry and greeters and the music and everything was wonderful. This was our parking lot, a bunch of you brought in some really nice classic and not classic, but awesome vehicles and I didn't realize this, but I felt like after it was all over that it somehow became a competition because they got these pictures from Tunkannock. They shut off an entire street so they could put their cars up and then Conklin, not to be outdone, rented a Cybertruck, somebody brought that thing in. But here's who takes the cake, Bridgewater Hancock. (audience cheers) What, what is that? That's an armored vehicle. Like, I can't bring a handgun across the border, but you can drive, that's like a 50 caliber. What, like, I'm just glad God's doing some great things there and I'm glad they're on our side, okay, in Hancock. So, actually, yeah, if you get a Sunday office, it's about an hour drive from here, but I would, if you're not ministering here and doing anything, go up and see what God's doing. I'm Jason, I got saved this last week in Hancock and we celebrated him just this and it's just awesome. So, we've been talking about doing this as well. You know, we have four different locations physically and then online and we are sending off Conklin and Vestal as a separate church, we're launching them and that is really just a life dream of mine to multiply everything. God wants us to go. I think in Acts, he says, go, right? Into all the world and I think ever since then, the church has been saying, oh, come back. You know, and as much as we love those guys, this is Pastor Andrew, Pastor Tim Sullivan, Pastor Jeff Shrekongost and then, Pastor Aaron Patton's gonna be leading them all. They're gonna come up with their own name, they're gonna just have their own budget, they're gonna have their own leadership team and we're gonna send them off but we're gonna vote on that in October and so if you wanna become a member, we have a Discovery class in several weeks that you can go through to do that. If you wanna check and see if you're a member, there's, as Nick said, at the Welcome Center list there about that. So, this is one of the things in the Bible that one of the reasons why I think this is a good thing. Invest in seven ventures, yes and eight, you do not know what disaster may come upon the land, Ecclesiastes 11-2. Basically, this is the biblical way of saying, don't put all your eggs in one basket and right now all our eggs are in the Bridgewater basket and eventually everything goes bad, everything. Everything human beings make, right? So eventually, you know, whether it's 300 years from now or 30 years from now or whatever, Bridgewater church is gonna go bad and but this is where, boy, if we can make multiple, separate things, you know, investing in seven, even in eight and then, you know, it's just safer and better and I think more of what God wants. So, for those of us in the South here, part of those four campuses, we are doing a special offering on October 13th and we'd like to challenge you. Now, if you're new here, like, if this was my even second or third Sunday, I don't think I would give, right? I would wanna know what is this church about? Do I, am I excited about their mission? Are they actually doing it? But those of you who've been here a long time and you know who we are, these are four things that that offering of 350,000 as our goal is gonna go toward. Elk Lake launch, we're remodeling Dimic Baptist Church right now and different people are going out on Saturdays and different times and volunteer hours, but there's lots of stuff that needs to be done, 150,000 tonkanic renovations. We still do not have a green light from the town to do that, but we just wanna save money so that when it's time, we don't have to borrow very much or we'll borrow less and so that would go toward that and then Hancock renovations, we bought the Hancock movie theater and that's awesome and so now we're gonna renovate one of the theater areas for kids ministry that can be better used that way and a classroom for starting point and discovery and then multiplying ministry leaders that's essentially interns. Right now we have an online guy for those who are watching online, Dallas Siemens is his name. He's our intern, he's from the Montrose campus. He is an awesome guy and we just wanna continue to hire young talent like that who are godly and whether we eventually hire them afterward or whether we send them out to other churches to bless other people, we just wanna do that. So we're talking about this new series asking for directions. How many of you have known someone who gives terrible directions, okay? Raise your hand. Okay, how many of you, you are that person? Keep, yeah. All right, you know, sometimes around here, people give directions like this, okay? Go out and take a ride on that road. What's the name of that? I don't know, you know, but that road, you know? And then you go down and that road ends and then it's 706 and then, you know, then you take a ride on 706 and as you go past tractor supply and you're like, "Wait a minute, wait a minute." If you take a ride on 706, you're not gonna go past tractors. Did you mean you're left? Oh yeah, that's what I mean. A left on tractor supply. Yeah, and then go past tractor supply and then you'll go past what used to be Jeff and Jerry Prose's parents' house. I'm like, okay, so what color is it? Well, it's not actually there anymore. (audience laughing) How am I supposed to, or it used to be the Mitchell farm? Like, well, how am I supposed to know whose farm it is, let alone, you know, it's just crazy, bad directions. Here's, so we're gonna talk about that, but not just getting wrong geographic directions, okay? That's not so bad. But the truth is you can, if you drive the wrong way, you lose a few minutes, right? Maybe you lose a few hours, but if you live the wrong way, you can lose years and decades of your life. And nobody wants that. And so that's what we're gonna talk about in this series. And there's a book, "Principal of the Path" and a lot of the wording of the points in these messages will come from that, but all the principles really come from God's word and comes from Scripture. And most of our problems, here's something that's very true. They can't be undone once they're done, right? There is no backspace button, you know, with computers and all of that, you're kinda used to like doing undo, right? Like, can I do it, go on the time machine and back it up or backspace or previous, you know, okay, I save it, or if I don't save it, then it'll revert to the old, but life doesn't work that way. There's no backspace. But so the key is not to go the wrong way in the first place and to avoid those issues and problems in our lives. So here's a principle we're gonna talk about today, and actually Jesus talks about this quite a bit in Matthew 7, and we're gonna read that in a moment. But he basically is saying that direction, not intention, determines your destination. In other words, what you actually do, not what you wish or hope or would like to do is what, in fact, with most people, usually we judge other people by their actions, 'cause that's all we can see, but we judge ourselves by our intentions. And that's not good, because no matter what you intend, it's actually what you actually do, the direction that determines where you're gonna end up. And so Jesus says that this way in Matthew chapter seven, though the rain came and comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, I missed a verse, verse 24. So Matthew 7, 24, I got this out of order. Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise like a person who builds a house on a solid rock. If you listen and follow it, you're wise. It's not enough just to listen, right? You have to also follow what he says, and then if you do that, the rain comes in torrents and the flood waters rise and the winds beat against that house, and it won't collapse because it's built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't obey it, maybe they intend to, but they don't, is foolish like a person who builds their house on the sand, and when the winds come and the storm beats against it, it collapses. So I read this for years, and I never put together. I only thought that it was the first 50% was the important part. I would have said, if someone would ask me this, yeah, I don't know, a couple decades ago, and they say, hey, so who is the person who builds their house on the rock? I say, that's the person who understands and listens to what Jesus says, and they read their Bible every day, and they go to church, and they know what God's word says, and they understand it, and that's like a house on a rock, and Jesus is saying, no, that's not. He's actually saying, no, that is, anyone who hears my, that is a house on sand if you only listen and understand, but you don't obey it and follow it. That second 50% is even more important than the first. And so here's another way of saying this, knowing the direction doesn't get you where you want to go. It's just follow, it's following the direction. That's important. Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, Christianity has been left untried because it's hard, you know? And so here's another way of saying this, it's in Hebrews chapter five, verses 12 through 14, verse 12 says this, in fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's word all over again. You need milk, not solid food. He's taking these believers to task and he's saying, you know what, you should be teachers, you should be mature, you should be eating meat, but you're not, you're drinking milk and milk is good, right? I drink milk, you know, I'm a grown man. Our pastor in one of our pastors, David Wyman in Halstead, he's like an in shorter than me, and he's in his 20s and he's grown a beard so he doesn't look like a child. (congregation laughing) And he coaches junior high soccer, like I do only at Blue Ridge, and he said, I have arrived. I'm like, what do you mean? He says, I was coaching with these junior hires and one of the junior hires is like, be careful with him, he's a full grown man. (congregation laughing) And David was like, no one's ever called me a full grown man before, it's so awesome, you know? But right, when you're a full grown, you need more than, even as your child, right? You need more than milk, milk is great, but you need meat, you need other things. And so here's what it says, verse 13. Anyone who lives on milk, just milk, being still an infant is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. So what does it mean, what is the milk? And so this message really, if you obey what God's word says, even if you don't believe Jesus was God, your house, your life will be much better because it will be on a solid foundation. If you obey Jesus, even if you don't believe he was God, but most of this message, so you can be here and you're not a follower of Jesus, this is a message for you, but most of this is really pointed to Christians. And I have met a lot of Christians who talk about meat and milk, and they don't know what the Bible says about meat and milk, because this is what they think meat is. They think meat is knowing big theological words, like propitiation and, you know, super-lapsarianism and the hypostatic union and all this, you know, oh, that's meat, man. You know big words, no, it's not me, that's milk. Some of you are like, what am I drinking water? Like, I don't, no, no, no. You may be eating meat because, but this isn't, I'm just saying this isn't meat. Another thing this is historical and cultural background. I'll hear someone say, man, that pastor, man, he is deep. He, he preaches the meat. And what they mean is, boy, he gets into all of the, the background of what was going on then, the history and the culture and uses these big theological words, and maybe he'll even use the Hebrew and the Greek. And he'll talk about the original languages and, that's milk, that's not meat. You know, and I'm not opposed to this. When I was in seminary, I had to translate a couple books, the entire book from Greek into English, and I made a terrible translation, but you know, it was an assignment. So, and it is, and these things are great. Milk is great, but here's what meat is, the very next verse, solid food. Meat is for the mature, who by constant use, have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. So it's like, there's one kind of knowledge when you read about how to ride a bike. But that's milk knowledge of bike riding. Meat of bike riding is actually riding a bike. And so the meat, you wanna go to a church that gives you the meat, it's a church where they actually live out and practice what they talk about. And they say, love the Lord your God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. And if they're actually doing that, that's a meat-eating church. Not just one that just uses big words or just gets into the, and that stuff is great. And you know, I have an inner linear Bible and you can see the Greek and the English and the Hebrew and it's helpful, but this is what Jesus is talking about. He says, it's not just understanding what I'm saying, it's not just listening, it's obeying it, it's putting it into practice and following it, right? Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it. And it's anyone, right? Anybody, you could be a Hindu, but if you listen to Jesus' teaching and you follow it, you'll be wise and your life will be better. Anyone who hears my teaching and doesn't is foolish. Builds their house on sand and when the rains and floods come, the winds beat against that house and it collapses with a mighty crash. So here's the thing, Jesus is saying he can predict and not only him, but a wise person can predict the future of someone's life. They can say, if you keep heading in that direction, I know what your destination will be. And that's wisdom, a great definition of wisdom is wisdom is the ability to see around corners. A wise person can look at someone's life and we do this with kids all the time, right? We say, you know, don't do that, why? Because you'll get hurt. And the kid's like, no, I won't. And then they get hurt. And they're like, how did Dad know? It's like he's got a crystal ball. No, that's wisdom, right? When I was a kid, I thought, you know, people putting your thumb in a light socket. What does that feel like? Some of you know and you didn't have to do it to know. Well, I put my thumb in the light socket just to see. And you know what, it did hurt, but then several years later, I was like, I don't remember it hurting that bad. I think my parents are overstating, you know, how bad this is, I did it again. And the second time I remember, man, that really hurt. I think it did the first time, but oh man. But that's stupid, right? If you're wise, you can predict the future. You can say, don't do that, it's really gonna hurt you. You do this, there's a kid, you know, on our soccer team. And he started sitting with different kids now, junior high, sitting with different kids at lunch. And he said, you know, I'm sitting here because when I sit with you guys, and this does my soccer coach heart really good, when I sit with the other soccer kids, I don't get in trouble. Yeah, it's as good as a chess club, man. So not the troublemakers, all right? And in fact, I was on the bus, we're riding, and all the girls are just singing this, it's a co-ed soccer team, they're singing this on. I'd talk into the bus driver, and he's like, man, this is so much better than junior high boys football. He's like, you know, the girls think, let's do something crazy, let's sing. You know, and the boys are like hanging out the window, you know, and he's stopping the boss and good. Anyway, but predicting the future, that was not in my notes either, but thankfully it wasn't as bad as some of my, not my notes illustrations, but predict your destination by looking at your current, right? So this is where just obeying God, God knows a thing or two that we don't know. And so reading God's word is important. Are you listening to God's word? That is important, but then the other half then, are you putting it into practice? Because Jesus is saying, I don't want you. We know this as parents, we look at a kid and say, if you hang out with those kids, you will get in trouble. And they're like, no, but mom, no, you will. And while we're gonna talk about friends and the impact that they're gonna have on our destination and decisions and things like this in this series, but what we really need to understand is you are not a passive victim. No matter who is around you, you get to decide, and you get to decide who's around you to a point. And you get to decide whether you're gonna follow Jesus or not. And Pastor in Oklahoma, he said this, all people will end up somewhere in life, but only a few will get there on purpose, right? It is so much easier to build in the sand. Any of you like building sand castles when you go to the beach? I probably used to spend more time doing that than getting in the water, 'cause the water's cold and sometimes the jellyfish are coming in and it's awful, but you can literally, now he's got a shovel, that's a lot easier, but you can literally dig a three-foot hole in the sand at the beach with a plastic shovel. I have broken shovels, I have bent steel picks in Susquehanna County, I have a digging bar and I've bent that thing as well, steel digging bar. Trying to, I rented one of these, I rented one of these, it wasn't quite that big, but because it would help, I am not digging these things by hand anymore, like this is ridiculous, it takes hours. And I still had to stop, right? It was getting jammed, it didn't have enough power and I still had to go down and try to get around or try to break the stone, and if it's this thick, it'll break, if it's this thick, like it's, it goes millimeter by millimeter, it's just awful, but, see, this is like shortcuts. If you're gonna build a foundation here, you'd be done, man, in a hurry, it's a shortcut. You get that house up so quick, awesome, but is it really a shortcut? Because the fall comes and a hurricane comes through and you have no house and you have to build it again. And then again and again, whereas you build in Susquehanna County, ground, you dig footers here, that thing's gonna be around for hundreds of years because it's built on solid, and so it seems like God's way often seems harder and longer and slower, some of you are dating and you're like, I'm never gonna find a good Christian woman or a good Christian man, there's not very many of them, it's just not, you know what, it does take longer to do what God wants, but it's better and we can trust Jesus with that. If you wanna end up somewhere good on purpose, follow Jesus, often consequences take longer than we think to happen, but are greater than we can imagine. And this is especially important when God's word seems contrary to what you think is the best way. Speaking of directions, we went out this summer to Leonard Harrison State Park and right across the way there is Colton Point State Park, I think we, I forget which one we stayed in, but we stayed in Colton Point, it's on the east side of the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania. And the thing is, to get from the east side to the west side, there's two ways, you can walk down into the canyon and then there's no bridge, but forward the little creek river at the bottom, which is pretty fast, and then walk up the other side, you know, it's a two mile journey, or by car, you can go in the exact opposite direction and then drive 20 miles north and then find a bridge eventually, and it just doesn't seem right. Like if you were to get directions and say, I wanna go from here to there, I mean, it's just like that, and it gives you this direction, right? Right, you're like, oh, like that, like that doesn't seem right, there seems like there's a faster way, I'll just go this way, really, really fast, and it looks like a shortcut, but by the time you get out of the hospital, you'll realize it would have been quicker by just driven around and followed the directions from the person who knew better than me and from the person who's been there. God knows your future, he knows your past, just trust him, and this is the most important decision we can make is to ask that Jesus be our forgiver and to pay the penalty for our sins and then ask him to be our leader, and then we follow him. Let's pray, Heavenly Father, I just thank you that there's something different about Jesus. And Lord, I just thank you for even opening the eyes of individuals like Elon Musk and Richard Dawkins who just made fun of Christianity and now they'll even say, yeah, I don't think it's true, but boy, it seems like people's lives are better when they live according to the principles of God's word. God help us to have wisdom, to know what's right, to be in your word, but most of all, give us the strength to just obey what you want us to do. And to just one day at a time, take that next step in the right direction, following you in Jesus' name, Amen. We're gonna have some people up front.
