“Experiencing God’s best.”
Passage: Acts 19-20; 1 Corinthians 16
Speaker: Aaron Patton
Bridgewater Montrose’s Podcast
Your Story: Week 2
- Well, good morning, everyone. Hey, my name's Aaron. I'm one of the pastors here at Bridgewater. I currently serve as our vessel campus pastor. And it's my privilege to be with you here in Montrose. If you're joining us here today, man, I'm so glad you're here. If you're joining us online as well, or joining us at our Hancock community gathering, it is awesome to be able to be with you guys here today. We've been doing a series with all of our campuses and all of our campus pastors called Your Story. Our campus pastors are traveling around, kind of sharing bits and pieces of their stories. And here's the beautiful thing, okay? I got to be in Hall said last week. I'll be back in vessel next week. I'll be in Tunkanic the week after that. And then Conclin the last week of this series. But last week, I was reminded of why we're doing this series. I met a number of amazing people in Hall said last week who started telling me bits and pieces of their story. And I realized something that I should have realized from the beginning. God is doing something amazing in every single one of our stories, whether we know it or not. He's chasing after us, he's being patient with us, he's teaching us man, he is up to something big. And so today, if this is your first time here or first time joining online or first time in Hancock, I just want you to know, even though you're gonna hear my story, this is actually about your story as well. So today, I'm gonna share a little bit of my story. Some of the pastors have been sharing pieces of their stories that have to do with how they came to know Christ. That's not what I'm gonna share this morning, okay? I'm gonna share something that's a little bit more recent. But before I do, let me tell you a few things about me, all right? Number one, this is really, really key, okay? I do not like to be uncomfortable. How about you? I don't like to be uncomfortable, like it is not in my top five list of things that I would put down and say, hey, if I could do anything, I really want to find more ways to be uncomfortable. How about you? I don't enjoy it. We do something in our house that highlights this for me every single morning during the winter. We heat by firewood. Anybody else do that, okay? We do that. We have a wood-burning stove and thankfully, it burns really, really well throughout the night, but then every morning when I get up, what do I have to do? If you've ever done this, you know, right? You have to go feed it again. Why? Because it's started to get chilly in the house. That's just the reality. So I get up, I'm usually up, the first one up, I go out to the living room, I'm standing there by the fire and I'm just like praying like, please, let it be continuing to burn, you know? If you've ever done this, you know that dance. Well, I feed in the firewood and get things going and then I go out and I get my cup of coffee and then do you know what I do? This is how much I hate being uncomfortable. It's a little chilly. I get my hair dryer and I warm up. I know I'm weird and you can mock me all you want. Have fun with that over lunch or whatever. I know I'm weird, but I sit there with a hair dryer and I read my Bible and I warm up. Why? Because I just don't like being cold because cold is a little bit uncomfortable. Now there's some other things that come with discomfort, at least I've felt them. When I've had to walk into seasons that were uncomfortable or situations that were uncomfortable, there's an emotion that tends to crop up in my head. I wonder if you can identify with this. The emotion, it's a very simple one. We're all very familiar with it, but I've realized that it's really attached to being uncomfortable. Here's the emotion. The emotion is fear. You start to fear that maybe things won't ever get better. You ever felt that? I've had situations like that, you know, all throughout my life. I'm sure you have as well. Here's a few of the thoughts, the what ifs that start to creep up in our minds when we're uncomfortable and we start to feel afraid and we start to wonder whether or not anything is ever gonna get better. We start to wonder, well, what if he never changes? Or she never changes. You're uncomfortable in a relationship and you begin to wonder what if things never change? What if the bills don't get paid? Like, what if I don't have enough at the end of the month? How in the world is that gonna get taken care of? What if I'm not able to retire? Because I've been working for 40 plus years and I would really like to settle into a different pace of life. And what if the economy or things just don't ever change and I don't get to do that? What if they reject me? What if this new venture doesn't go well and I lose my job? These and a whole myriad of others are fears that every single one of us have felt when we were uncomfortable. Over the last couple of years, God has been teaching me something about being uncomfortable. And part of my story begins about three years ago. My wife and I had been pastoring, or I'm not my wife, sorry, I had been pastoring in Kansas City. My wife and I lived in Kansas City for 18 years. We had seen God do some incredible things in a church that we were able to be a part of there. And about three years ago, God started making us uncomfortable. We loved where we lived. We owned our home, we loved our church, our kids had never been, lived any place else. We grew up in the Midwest, we lived in the Midwest and all of a sudden God started saying, "Hey Aaron, something's about to change." We didn't know what was gonna change, we didn't know what was up. We just knew that we were starting to feel uncomfortable. And then God began to stir and work, introduced us to Bridgewater, and he made it clear over the next six months that God was asking us to come and be a part of this incredible team and be a part of what God was doing here. So guess what we did? We'd been praying about it for a while. When we finally came to the place that we realized this is what God wanted us to do, we went back home, we talked to our friends, we started talking to our family members, we started talking to some of our key leaders in our church, and guess what they said? And I quote, "Are you crazy? You wanna move to New York? Do you know what the weather is like in New York? Do you know what the politics are like in New York? Do you know what the taxes are like in New York? And they don't even do mineral rights up there, okay? Like all of that. Those are the things that people started to say to us. And I will tell you, I started to question, "Wait a minute, am I crazy? Did I get it wrong?" Because now all of a sudden I'm really uncomfortable. And what now? I mean, here's the thing. I don't like being uncomfortable, and I don't think you do either. But here's what God has been teaching me. Because we did, we packed up our family. We sold the only home we'd ever owned. Do you know how much junk you can accumulate in 18 years? Okay. And we put it in a semi, and we got in our vehicles, and we moved, and we started something, and we thought that was the uncomfortable part. But it was only the beginning. God started teaching my wife and I, and our kids, a very valuable lesson, a one that I wanna share with you here today. It's this, God's best blessings are found when you choose to follow Him into uncomfortable seasons. And here's the thing, you can miss out on it. Because I like to be comfortable. I like to insulate myself. I like to say no, that is gonna be a little too difficult. No, that, I don't know if it's gonna work well, so I'm not gonna do it. And we say no at the very time when God has you on the precipice of something good and something big. And I just don't want that to be true for me or for you. Now, this idea, God's best blessings are found when you follow Him into uncomfortable seasons. This idea is not original with me. This is an idea that we find very clearly in the scripture. I wanna show it to you in the life of a man named Paul. In Acts chapter 19, we find this incredible story where God allowed Paul to be a part of something that was just like amazing. Let me show you the amazing piece of it, okay? Acts chapter 19 and verse 10, here's what it says. This went on for two years, what's this? The this is that Paul was in Ephesus and he was telling people about Jesus and reasoning with Jesus first in the synagogue and then later in another location with Jews and with Greeks. He's been able to tell people about Jesus. And if you're a Christ follower here today or been a Christ follower very long, you would say, that's awesome and we would all cheer this on, right? But then look at this, it says this. All the Jews and Greeks, not just some. Did you catch that? All the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord. Every single one, yeah, that's what it says. Now what's the province of Asia? It's not Asia like we think of today. It's actually what we would call Asia Minor. It's the modern day Turkey. I mean, Turkey is a big country. If you've never been there, even to this day, it is a modern, it is a very large area. Hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people lived there then and the text is telling us that Paul was getting to be a part of something so big, so great, so awesome that every single person who lived in the area of modern day Turkey heard about Jesus. Now can we just all say that would be amazing, right? Like I would love to be a part of something like that. I would love to be a part of God just blessing and moving and like, whoa, like people everywhere are hearing about Jesus, that would be awesome. But you need to know that that's not the full story of Acts chapter 19. It's not like Paul just showed up and God was like, boom, wow, cool. You're going to have an easy road and look at this, it is awesome. No, not at all. Let me show you the rest of the story. And now the rest of the story. I don't have a good Paul Harvey voice, I'm sorry, okay? If you don't know who that is, you're under 40, so there you go, okay, all right. Acts chapter 19, back in verse one, here's what it says, Paul traveled to the interior regions until he reached Ephesus. He traveled up from Antioch and Syria and went up through Syria and around to the inner regions of Turkey and worked his way out to the western coast of Turkey, which is where Ephesus is, on the coast where he found several believers. Verse two tells us then, Paul, it goes on, excuse me, in verse eight, it says this, "Then Paul went to the synagogue "and he preached boldly for the next three months, "arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God." So here, Paul found believers, he's connecting with people in Ephesus and then he starts telling people about Jesus. And guess what, he faced some discomfort. He faced some pain. Anybody ever faced that? Listen, if you're gonna endeavor, big thanks for God, you're gonna face pain, okay. Verse nine tells us this, "But some became stubborn." Now, I don't know what that means 'cause I've never met anyone like that. But please don't let my wife listen to this, okay. But some became stubborn. They're fighting against him, rejecting his message and it gets worse. They were publicly speaking against the way. Here's what the way is. This is what Christians were first called. Jesus, this is where it comes from. Jesus said his very famous statement made in John chapter 14. He said, "I am the way, the truth and the life. "No one can come unto the Father but by me." So people who started following Jesus and believing that Jesus was the only way to be right with the Father. They were called followers of the way. What's going on? Paul's obeying, right? Paul's doing what he should be doing. And I like to think that when I obey, everything should be a-okay, don't you? But that's not what's going on. He faced difficulty. He faced rejection. He faced discouragement. I don't like those things. Verse 10 goes on and here's what it says. This went on for two years so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord here. Here's where you see this verse 10. And now you know what's actually going on behind it. He was obeying, yeah. But God had called him into a season of comfort, God, or discomfort, God had called him into a season of difficulty. God had allowed him to walk through pain and rejection and problems and through all of that, he was accomplishing something big. Here's the thing. When I walk through difficulty, when I walk through pain, I tend to think that maybe I've messed up. Maybe I got it wrong. Maybe I heard wrong. I tend to think that maybe it's a sign of God's disapproval, but the reality is what the Scripture teaches us over and over is this, difficulty is not a sign of God's disapproval. It's actually a doorway to opportunity. God is giving you a door that you're going to have to walk through. And if you'll walk through it and endeavor through the pain and lean on him and trust him, he will do something big. The question is, will we trust him? Now, this isn't even, you know, what we've read already isn't even, you know, the culmination of all the difficulty that Paul felt. My wife and I, we packed up our house. That's a painful thing to do, knowing you're not coming back. We had all of our friends that we'd invested and built a life together with in Kansas City. They're helping us live for what seemed like weeks, getting things together. We had to say all of our goodbyes. You know, my parents, my kids, grandparents, lived in that area. My wife's parents, my kids, grandparents, lived in that area. We had to say goodbye to everyone. And we got on the road and we started driving here. When we got here, we were greeted and loved on and encouraged by a group of people in Vestal that was just incredible. And then we got to work. Because we came here believing that just like God has been doing through Bridgewater for so long, he's been changing lives like in incredible ways. You all are evidence of that. We came here believing that God wanted to further do that in Vestal. And so over the next six months, we started to get to work. And I wish I could stand in front of you and tell you that the first six months were easy, but they were not. I wish I could tell you that I wasn't lonely in the first six months, but I was. I wish I could tell you that things were great and it's easy to go from being a lead pastor to now stepping into a campus role and figuring out all of that. I wish I could tell you that all of that was easy, but it was not, and yet God was in it. In those first six months, we saw six people trust Christ. I'm glad for that. And I rejoiced in that six precious souls, but I'm telling you we were begging God to do something. I'll tell you the rest of it here in just a minute. Let me show you what happened in Paul's life though. If things were bad before verse 10, it got worse later. We read in verse 23 this about that time, serious trouble developed in Ephesus concerning the way. Wait a minute, there wasn't serious trouble earlier. It wasn't painful, difficult, and uncomfortable earlier. No, it got worse. Here's what happened. It began with a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who had a large business manufacturing silver shrines of the Greek goddess Artemis. He kept many craftsmen busy. There was an entire industry where people would make money off of idolatry. That's what was happening, you know? People would come to Ephesus even to this day. How do you know, one of the wonders of the ancient world, the librarian at Kelsus, but there was another, there was the temple dedicated to Artemis. People would travel all over and go there, and these craftsmen began to realize that they were on the verge of losing their livelihood because God was changing lives. God was doing something. In verse 25, the text goes on. He called all these people together along with others employed in similar trades, and he addressed them as follows. Gentlemen, you know that our wealth comes from this business, but as you have, he goes on in verse 26, but as you have seen and heard, this man, Paul, has persuaded many people that handmade gods aren't really gods at all. And he's done this not only here in Ephesus, but throughout the entire province. So what does he do? He gets them all riled up, verse 27. Of course, I'm not just talking about the loss of public respect for our business, and he tries to couch it in care for this goddess that is no god at all, okay? I'm also concerned that the temple of the great goddess Artemis will lose its influence and that Artemis, this magnificent goddess, worshiped throughout the province of Asia and all around the world will be robbed of her great prestige. So what did people do? We got them all riled up. I don't know this, but I think he knew what he was doing. He got them all riled up. And all the people started cheering and chanting. Now, hold on a second, okay? Any Eagles fans in here? Okay. Yeah, a few of you are not very proud right now, that's fine. Okay, any Pittsburgh fans in here? I saw, I don't understand, you know, I'm sure as people are watching online and maybe in Hancock there's a couple of Giants fans. I don't know what you root for. If you were a Giants fan, I'm sorry, we sing every giant must fall. It's a, you know, God said it, you know? But if you've ever been to, sorry, I apologize. If you've ever been to a game, you know what it's like when people start standing and cheering and chanting and just going and it's powerful to be a part of, you know? I'm an Nebraska fan, I grew up in Nebraska in the 90s. Let me just tell you, you know, we cheered, okay? And we haven't cheered in a while, but we cheered, okay? And a whole group of people, they get going. That's what happened here. In verse 28, it says this, "At this, their anger boiled and they began shouting, 'Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!' And people kept cheering it and chanting it over and over and over. And here was the end result. Soon, the whole city was filled with confusion. Everyone rushed to the amphitheater, dragging along Gaius and Aristarchus, who were Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia. These are guys who are also helping to tell people about Jesus and they get caught up and they get grabbed. You think they were comfortable? No. And Paul wanted to rush in to the amphitheater. You know what would have happened to him? Yeah, we know. Things were not going well. Paul's obeying, but God, I'm obeying. And he's facing difficulty and rejection and discouragement and now strong opposition. But can I show you Paul's perspective on it? And can I show you what God has been doing in my heart, in my life? He wrote to a different group of people, the Corinthians about all of this. In 1 Corinthians chapter 16, here's what Paul says. He says, he's telling them that he was gonna come and visit them and he says, but in the meantime, I'm gonna be staying here at Ephesus. We know this is happening right now. This is right when all of the difficulty and discouragement and pain and strong opposition is taking place. He's saying, I'm gonna be staying here at Ephesus until after the festival of Pentecost. There is a wide open door. (chuckling) But guess what? Many people oppose me. Why? Why is it such a strange thing in our minds that if we are going to go after anything big for God, that there would be opposition? Why do we think that everything should just be easy? It's because we've missed the fact that God's best blessings are found when we follow him into things that make us uncomfortable. If you want to overcome some of the things that have been going on in your life and you just have not been able to overcome them, I'm telling you, you're going to have to get uncomfortable. If you want to accomplish great things for the kingdom of God, if you want to be used, if we as a church want to be used to accomplish things that are great for God, we are going to have to get uncomfortable. He will call us into seasons of discomfort. Here's why. If you're going to experience God's best, you're going to have to get out of your comfort zone. So for six months, as I told you before, Amanda and I were praying, our leaders in vessel, we were praying and we just, we felt like God had asked us to be here for a reason. As we stepped into that next year, God began to kind of open up the doors. Did things get easier? No. Were we still uncomfortable? Yeah. But last year alone, we saw 28 people come to know Christ at our vessel campus. (audience applauds) We weren't doing anything special. We weren't, but God was. I wasn't doing anything special, but God grew that campus by 43% last year. And moving into this year, I began to experience some of the same discomfort and some of the questions and like, "Ah, okay, last year was amazing, but will it happen again?" I don't know, and what's going to happen if it doesn't happen again? And we've moved into this year, and so far on this year, we've seen 21 people come to know Christ this year, and the campus has grown by 33% already this year. What is happening? Well I can tell you what's happening for me. So God is humbling me, and He is showing me that I'm going to have to follow Him into discomfort if I want to experience His best. And I'm going to have to learn to trust Him and wait on Him and let Him do what He does best if I'm going to experience His best. And the reality is, so are you. Paul wrote again about this whole situation to the Corinthian church. He wrote another letter to the Corinthian church, 2 Corinthians, and 2 Corinthians chapter 1, he addresses this very issue. Here's what he says in verse 8. He says, "We think you ought to know, dear brothers and sisters, about the trouble we went through in the province of Asia." Where have we read that before? Acts 19. We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability. Man, I have felt that. I've had those times where people have walked into my office, no, not here, but in other ministries. I had a person walk into my office and tell me because we had led through change and discomfort in their church. Aaron, I hate you because we had changed something. I was crushed. You have felt those things and you're going to continue to feel them if you follow Christ. They were overwhelmed beyond their ability to endure and we thought we would never live through it, but they did. And verse 9 gives us incredible insight. Here's what he says. He says, "In fact, we expected to die, but as a result," here's what we did. We stopped relying on ourselves and we learned to rely only on God who raises the dead. We didn't try to insulate ourselves and make things comfortable. We didn't try to remove all discomfort and pain. We didn't try to remove all strong opposition. We didn't complain online about strong opposition or talk about how bad the culture is. We just simply stopped relying on ourselves and started relying on God. And I just wonder, I just wonder what we're missing out on when we refuse to do that. Actually, I know we're missing out on God's best. A few years ago, my daughter, who's 10 now, and couldn't be with us today because she's sick throughout the night last night, she was experiencing some fears, wrestling through some fears. And so we sat down with our kids and we decided as a family to memorize a verse that we thought might help us. We'll share it here with you today. It's Psalm 56 3. In it, David says this. He says, but when I am afraid, he's assuming you will be afraid. He's assuming you will be uncomfortable. When I am afraid, I will put my, what in you? My trust. Whether you're in New York or Pennsylvania, whether you're in Montrose or joining us online or in Hancock or wherever you are, the solution is the same. When you're uncomfortable, we need to trust him. And church, today is an interesting day. We're walking into something. Can we just say it? We are walking into something that is uncomfortable. Anybody uncomfortable? If you're not, I'll be honest with you. I am. Am I excited? Yes. Do I have fears? You better believe it. Is it keeping me up at night? Yeah, just a little. But if our church, if Bridgewater is going to experience God's best, we are going to have to get out of our comfort zone. That's what today is. That's what today is. That's what it is for me. And I believe that's what it is for our church. A couple of years ago, I came across a quote that has helped me a ton. In fact, one of the pastors here, Matt Pusser, who was a Hallstead campus pastor for a while shared this with me, he shared this quote. It goes like this, "Grass and weeds require the same soil to grow dirt. In the same way, fear and faith require the same soil to grow." Uncertainty. Not uncertainty. Fear can't grow, but neither can faith. He goes on, "The same unknowns of the future related to your marriage, your job, your health, your family, your finances, and I would say your church provide just as much an opportunity to grow your faith as to grow your fear. What you grow in the long run depends on you, what you choose to choose to trust." That's what it depends on. So here's what I want to leave you with before I close with a little story, okay? I want to share with you three opportunities to get uncomfortable. And I think these are true for all of us. Number one, the first is, today's the day where I think it's time we choose to talk to the person that you're scared to speak to. I've got people that I'm scared to invite to church. Not because there's anything wrong with our church. I'm scared of their response, you know? I'm sure that's true for you. Or maybe for you, the step that you need to take is this. You need to share with a trusted friend that struggle that you've been privately having because you've been thinking for a long time, I can fight this on my own and it'll get better, but it's not getting better, is it? And the longer you keep it in the dark, the more grip it's going to have on you. It's fearful to talk to somebody about the struggles we're having privately. It's scary. What will they think of me? What will they say? I'm telling you, it's time to get out of your comfort zone. Or maybe today, the step that you need to take is a step of generosity and service. Maybe for you, it's time to take the step to give generously and serve faithfully. And that's scary because that's going to take time and that's going to take resources, but I'm going to tell you, God's best blessings are found when you follow him into uncomfortable seasons. Do you know who one of God's best blessings has been for me? Her name is Linda. Linda has a granddaughter who goes to our Halstead campus. Her granddaughter got baptized last year, and she invited her grandmother to come and see her baptism. She couldn't come because she'd been in a terrible car rack and had all kinds of injuries, and she was sick and facing difficulty, but she asked, "Hey, can I watch online?" And so she started watching the online campus that takes place right here in Montrose. Linda started watching, and for a year, she paid attention to it, and she connected with Pastor Andrew and his team, and recently Pastor Andrew had to come up to Vestal, and Linda lives up by our Vestal campus, and so he said, "Hey, Linda, I'm going to be in Vestal. Would you come and join me at the Vestal campus?" And so Linda showed up, and I got to meet Linda and connect with her, and she started sharing some things going on in her life, and so I connected her up with Renee and Chris. Are you seeing the trend? There's a lot of people involved. Renee and Chris started a starting point class with her, and two and a half or three weeks ago, Linda put her faith in Jesus Christ. Now, here's the thing. I think Linda still would have trusted Christ whether I was here or not, or Andrew or anybody else, but I never would have gotten to be blessed by it. And I just wonder, what are you going to miss out on if you refuse to follow Him into discomfort? I want to invite you to take that step. I'm going to pray for us, some of our team, some of our wonderful volunteers who would love to pray for you are going to come right up here. They're going to have little signs that say, "I'd be happy to pray with you," and I want to urge you, if today is a day, that you need to take a step that might be uncomfortable, come up and pray with somebody, and I look forward to seeing what God's going to do. Let's pray. God, thank you. Thank you for loving us as much, just like Jess said earlier. You love us so much that you're willing to send your son, and you sent him into discomfort and pain so that we could experience great blessings. God, I pray that we would follow in His footsteps, that we wouldn't insulate ourselves, but that we would trust you. We ask in Jesus' name, amen.