with mine, so it's great to be here with you. My name is Bob Kidlesic. I've been a pastor at Bridgewater Church for 19 years now, but the reason you probably haven't seen me is because I'm usually up in Montrose. And so this series that we're doing for this Sunday and then the next four Sundays, your story, is gonna involve each of the five different pastors at different locations at Bridgewater coming and just sharing a little bit about themselves and how God has worked in their lives. So Pastor Kirt is up in Conklin today and sharing there and he will be back here in two weeks. And I don't even know who's here next week, but I don't even know where I'm going. I'll have to look it up, but it's just a great opportunity. And really, this is a great start to the series because we're hearing about other people's stories about how God is working in their lives. And so this Sunday's there's only six, I mean, 13 here. Only six getting baptized in Montrose, which is an amazing amount in itself. But there's a contrast, right? There's some, there's two in particular that have spent time in prison and just significant difficulties in their lives. And then there's others who've basically been good people of their lives, but still realize, yeah, I still need Jesus. You know, there's still something missing. And so I think it's great to be able to share our stories with others. And if you haven't written your story out in a succinct way, if you couldn't share with someone, maybe in one minute or two minutes, how God has worked in your life, you should work on that. I think it's an incredibly powerful thing. Well, what I want to talk about with my story is the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary. Some of you might recognize this guy, Yusuf Deekich. And he was the sensation of the Olympics because all these sharpshooters in the Olympics, they have these special glasses that they put on, they have all this tech and stuff. And they tend to be young, he's 51 years old. And so maybe the oldest man in the Olympic village. And basically he just goes up and he's like, yeah. You know, sticks his hand in his pocket and like, what is the difference between him and me or you? Like, I think all of us could hit the bullseye, right? Given enough chances. Hundreds, maybe. We could eventually, even a blind squirrel, finds a knot, right? But the difference is consistency, right? He's gonna hit it, he got the silver medal. He's gonna hit it every time. So the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary isn't skill because I coach junior high soccer. You can have very naturally skilled players who just, it just doesn't work, you know? Not intelligence, not strength, not even time. Some people, you can practice and practice and practice. I started taking piano lessons at one point in college. And I thought, if you practice enough, you'll eventually get really good. And I realized that that's not always true. Sometimes no matter how much you practice, you hit a wall and that's it, you know? And so it's not time and it's not perfection. Nobody's perfect. The difference between the ordinary and extraordinary is consistency or as we would say in our spiritual lives, perseverance. And so integrity is the most important thing in your life to have a relationship with God, to become more and more like Jesus, but to do it consistently. I've known people who follow Jesus wholeheartedly for an entire week, okay? And then they just kinda go their own way and crash and burn and don't know what happens. And others for maybe months, but to follow Jesus for 50 years, for 70 years is truly extraordinary. This is actually true in investing. If you were to give me a mediocre investment, like give me, let's say $5,000 and I promise mediocre returns. But you give me $5,000 and I promise you I will make it a million dollars. Would you go for that? Okay, there's one little asterisk it will take 70 years to turn that 5,000 into a million because that's the power of compound investing and this is the rule of 72 if you take an interest rate. Anyway, I'm fascinated by this, but basically what it means is you take a little bit of money or a good amount of money and you over time, 8%, you reinvest those dividends and reinvest what you've earned in it and in 70 years you're rich. The problem is we are a microwave society. The problem is I don't have time, 70 years, I'll be 123, you know, it just doesn't help that way. So here's the thing spiritually. We often overestimate what we can do in the short term in years and we underestimate what God can do over the long haul and in decades. How many of you have been married for a year or more, one year, all right? Being married for a year, that's good, it's a good thing. How many have been married for 30 years or more? See, now we're starting to thin the ranks out. 60 years, anyone 60 years? No, so you gotta live a long time to do that too. You know, that's amazing, that's incredible and my wife and I, it's a picture of us before we got married and we've been married now for a little bit over 30 years and you know, that's significant, right? Perseverance, through the good things, through the bad things, through the difficulties and so if you wanna get somewhere you've never been, you need to talk to someone who's been there, right? We talked about that in the Asking for Directions series, we just finished and so if you wanna hike Mount Everest, don't ask me, right, I've never been there, wouldn't even know what airport you fly into if you wanna hike it or who you talk to or how much money it'll cost. You wanna talk to someone who's been there, you wanna go somewhere you've never been and so today I wanna look at the Apostle Paul because as I talk a little bit about my story and people around me, I wanna talk about the importance of perseverance and Paul was there. Here's what the Apostle Paul says, one of the last things he writes in 2 Timothy 4 verse 6, he says, "As for me, my life has already been poured out "as an offering to God. "He knew he was going to die, "he was beheaded several weeks or maybe several months "after he wrote this by Nero. "He says, "The time of my death is near. "I have fought the good fight. "I've finished the race and I have remained faithful. "And now the prize awaits me. "The crown of righteousness, which the Lord, "the righteous judge will give me on the day of his return. "And that prize is not just for me, "but for all who eagerly look forward to his appearing. "That's what I want. "That's how I wanna finish. "And that means I need to, and if you want that, "you need to persevere. "How do we get there? "Well, we gotta back it up to the beginning of that chapter "where Paul is telling his spiritual son, Timothy. "This is how you get to where I'm at." He says in verse one, he says, "I solemnly urge you in the presence of God in Christ Jesus. "Who will someday judge the living and the dead "when he comes to set up his kingdom?" It's interesting, he closed with, the righteous judge is gonna give me this crown, but he's opening with, you gotta live like God will judge you. Because if you live like God will judge you, because he is, he's gonna someday judge the living and the dead, you live like God will judge you, and you will fear God and not fear anything else. So often in life, we're just afraid of other people, what they're gonna think, right? What they're gonna do? What's gonna happen? What, the election? Anybody afraid of the election? You shouldn't be, yeah! But so many people are, what if, what if that person gets in office? What if that person gets in office? I mean, we have a choice between bad and terrible, right? That's pretty much the choice. And from my perspective, I mean, you can disagree, but you know what, if you fear God, you don't have to fear anything else. Whereas if you don't fear God, and you don't live like God is the judge, then you're in trouble. So first thing you need to understand is you need to live like God is the judge. Now, this also means something, a lot of times we think of God is the judge, so there's this long list of don'ts. Don't lie, don't talk bad about people, don't be greedy, don't steal, don't get involved in sexual immorality, don't be arrogant and proud, and don't, you know, and that's what we think, like living like God is a judge is just not doing stuff. But the truth is, we need to not just take our eyes off the wrong things, we gotta put our eyes on the right things. This previous series asking for directions, we talked about how attention, what you pay attention to determines your direction. And so if you're driving down the road and you look off to your left, you're gonna tend to steer to the left. And so the solution to that is not to close your eyes and not pay attention to anything, right? Because then that's worse, right? Then you're, who knows where you're gonna end up. I talked to a man in prison and I said, you need new friends, these friends, they have your attention, they've taken you in the wrong direction and you gotta leave them and he's like, absolutely. And I said, then you need new friends, he said, no. What do you mean? I'm gonna have no friends. I'm gonna go live by myself, I'm gonna just, there's all by myself, I'm gonna fix everything in my life. You know what happened? I found him, I saw him again in jail, little over a year later. Because you have to have something have your attention. And I just wanna share a little bit of you, with you about my story. I grew up in a Christian home, had every incredible privilege that you can imagine. My parents actually loved each other and are still married now after almost 60 years and had a great childhood. But at the age of 12, I got hooked on something and I don't like to talk about it because I wish at the age of 12, I got hooked on like cocaine, you know? Be easier for me, I don't really wish that, that would actually be. I probably would not be alive. But it would be easier to talk about because what I got hooked on was masturbation. And I became addicted to sex. And all into my, I thought in fact at 12 and 13, I thought surely when I become an adult, I'll be able to stop. I'll have the self-control and I didn't. And surely when I get married, I'll be able to stop and I'll have the self-control and I didn't. And I tried everything I could except for one thing. To stop, I tried, this is before the internet, before cutting was a thing, I'd never heard of that. But I thought, you know what? Next time I do it, to prove to myself that I mean business, 'cause I'm fighting myself, right? There's times of lucidity where I'm like, this is wrong, this is stupid, I need to stop. And then there's times of I don't care, I just wanna do it. And so I said, I'm gonna just scratch off the skin on my arm until I start bleeding. And so that's what I did. And then I did it again. And I'm like, all right, I gotta prove that I'm gonna follow through. And so I scratched off the skin on my other arm. And then I did it again. And then I scratched off a third time, the skin on my arm, and then I did it again. And I thought, I'm not the brightest bulb, but this is not working. And then later on, I tried it with food, which was the absolute worst idea. I said, I'm gonna not eat for 24 hours. Next time I do this, and I did it. And I didn't eat for 24 hours. And then a week later, I did it again. So I didn't eat for 24 hours. And then during that 24 hours, I did it again. And so I didn't eat for 48 hours. I was running three miles a day in the morning, two hours soccer practices in college in the afternoon, didn't eat for 48 hours, did it again. And I thought, I can't go 72 hours. This is not working. Every time I'm hungry, I think about why I'm not eating. And I think about why I'm not eating. I think of the temptation. And it's like dangling it right in front of my nose. And this is, I, but there was one thing I was not willing to do. I didn't want anybody to know. I would rather, literally, I would rather die. I wrote suicidal letters to, you know, my wife, Becky, you know, she got a letter and she's like, what is wrong with him? Like, he is so depressed, what is going on? I didn't want anybody to know. And then I got caught by my wife and it devastated her. And the pain of that helped me to, you know, I used to think that men were more logical and rational than women, men are driven just as much by their emotions and desires, just different ones, right? And I had to feel how evil what I was doing was. I had to feel that pain that I was causing. And that was real. See, the lie that everything was okay was not real. It was not true, the truth was incredibly destructive and it needed to come out. And from that point on, my life changed, but it changed because of this. Not just because there was something I wanted that I hated and that hurt others, but I had to find something that I loved more than my own selfish desires. In fact, I do pre-marriage counseling. And one of the things I look for is are these people capable of being unselfish? I meet adults today, I don't think they're capable. Like of loving someone or something more than yourself. And that's what I had to do. And so for some people, they have a kid and that child breaks them out of their own selfish mode and there's someone and something I should live for more than my own selfish desires. For some people, it is a spouse. For some people, it's a goal that they have in mind, but I would say the thing that it needs to be is Jesus Christ, to love Jesus Christ more. And that's why this is so exciting because you can see we are a part of a movement that is changing the world. That is the answer to almost everything that's wrong in the world. Name something that other than like hurricanes. Name something that's wrong with the world, that coming to Jesus and following Jesus doesn't fix. Suicide. You got people around you who love you and care about you. That's gonna help divorce, man. If both them, husband and the wife give their lives to Jesus Christ, I don't care what needs to be forgiven, but that can move on. I mean, and drug abuse and laziness and poverty and war and violence and all this stuff. The answer isn't the vote in November. The answer is Jesus Christ. And to love him more than what you want. Live like God will judge you. He goes on next verses, preach the word of God. And so this is the key. He doesn't say live like God will judge you and stop doing this stuff. He says live like God will judge you. And do stuff for him. Live for him, preach the word of God. So a lot of you aren't preachers. So you're like, ah, that's not me. But whatever God's made you to do, do it. All right, we got some 90-year-old ladies up at Bridgewater Montrose. And one of them was telling me, she lives on her own, Louise Chalker. She says, sometimes when I go to get the mail and it's like, you know, about 30 feet down her driveway, I have to stop before I come back to take a little rest. And then I get back in it. But she has a list of people that she prays for and then she calls them and checks up on how they're doing. And we have like mailing parties. If you ever get mail from Bridgewater, Louise or Willie Palmer, who are both in their 90s, may have been the person that put that sticker on your mailing 'cause they come in a bunch of these ladies and they all like, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, and they're putting the stickers on and they're in their 90s, you know? What's our excuse? Whatever God's made you to do, whether it's to, I coach junior high soccer at Montrose and just opportunities to have invest in those kids' lives. And honestly, to talk to them about important things, talk to this one kid about why do bad things happen to good people? And where is God in that? That was the bus ride home from the game yesterday. What a great opportunity. And so do what God made you to do. And so he's talking to Timothy, a pastor. He's like, you need a pastor, you need to preach. You need to be patiently correct, rebuke and encourage your people with good teaching. And that's something we all need to do. Who are your people? Maybe it's your family. Maybe it's some other believers that you're involved in in a small group, man, encourage them and maybe even rebuke them with good teaching. So live like God will judge you. The second thing you need to do is live like God's word is true. Live like God's word is true. And here's the next verse in verse three. It says, "For a time is coming when people will no longer "listen to sound and wholesome teaching." Do you think that time has come? They will follow their own desires and we'll look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears wanna hear. That's where we're living now. You can go on YouTube or whatever Instagram or TikTok or I don't know what all that stuff is. And you can find somebody that approves of anything you can imagine. And talking about, you know, they will reject the truth and chase after myths. If you would have told me 30 years ago what a lot of Americans believe today is absolutely true, I would have said you are, I mean, you are high, man. There's no way that Americans are gonna believe that's true. Are you kidding me? That's the most ridiculous crazy thing I've ever heard of. And they follow it and they believe it. How do we know what's true in a constantly shifting society? It's the word of God. This is sound and wholesome teaching, all right? And it's hard to understand sometimes. There's verses I still don't understand, you know, but to do, the problem isn't that we don't understand at all. The problem is we don't want to do what we do understand. And so to just focus in that. And it says follow their own desires, right? It kind of highlights that. If what you want is different than what the Bible says, who do you think is right? In fact, in fact, I would say this. I would say if you like everything that the Bible says, then either you don't know the Bible well yet, or you're twisting it to make it what you want it to say. If you like everything the Bible says. And isn't this true about truth in general? There are things about America that I don't like. There are things I love, but reality has truth that sometimes we don't like. I don't like that I'm growing old, okay? Nobody cares, like reality is not gonna change because I don't like it, right? Like truth doesn't really care about our feelings. And so we need to live like God's word is true. And then the final thing, live out the ministry God has given you. And so verse five, he says this, but you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don't be afraid of suffering for the Lord. I would say the two greatest sins of our community and our congregation, and I would say of our nation, two greatest sins are sexual immorality. I think it's rampant. I think it destroys so many people in so many ways. Pornography is an epidemic. Stop it, get help. You need to ask somebody, don't just try harder. You've probably done that already. But then the other thing that I think is probably even worse than sexual sin is fear. Out of fear, we don't do what God wants. We don't say what God wants us to say. We retreat into ourselves. I can't invite them over because then they might judge me and my house is a mess or maybe they just do it. Like get out there and take some risks and love people and obey God. Work, you should keep a clear mind in every situation. Don't be afraid. Work at telling others the good news. I want to tell you about a nurse back in 1965. Her name was Nancy Haines and she was in nursing school in Johnson City and her stepdad, no, not stepdad. Yeah, stepdad. Her stepdad had told her, when you go to a new town or a new city, you need to go to church once. So the big guy will be on your side, just in case. It's kind of like a lucky rabbit's foot thing, you know? So you go to a new place, go to church once, then you're good. All right? And she never went to church growing up, but this was the advice she gave. So she goes to nursing school and one of her fellow nurses says, "Hey, would you go to church with me?" And she's like, "Yeah," my dad says. She didn't tell her that, but she's like, "Yeah, lucky rabbit's foot, I'll go." And it was very convenient. It was literally a hundred feet from her dorm. And so she walked over there to the church, first Baptist church in Johnson City and went to church and started going every week. And several months into that, she was convicted on that Sunday morning. Now back then, at this church, every Sunday, they would sing a song and they would encourage people to come forward if they wanted to accept Jesus as their savior. And so one Sunday, she was there and the message got through and she realized, "I am a sinner, I need forgiveness, God's forgiveness is real, I want him in my life, I want to follow him." And she's like, "I'm gonna go forward." And the pastor didn't give an invitation that Sunday. And she went back to her dorm and she thought, "God doesn't want me because I'm ready and there's no invitation, I bet I'm too bad for God." And was really depressed that afternoon. And then this roommate, there's not roommate, but this fellow nursing student woman comes in and says, "Hey, let's go to church tonight." And she's like, "What?" She's like, "Yeah, night church, there's such a thing as night church." She's like, "Yeah, and I think you should go with me today." And so they went to the six o'clock service that night and at the end of that service, they gave an invitation, they sang a song just as I am and she went forward and she just wept and bald. And prayed with Pastor Larry Rowland to accept Christ as her savior. You know, three years later, she started teaching Sunday school in that church. In fact, she talks about it and says, you know, people would say, "You know, like the story of Abraham and Isaac." And she's like, "Who?" Like, "I've known some Isaac's, I've never really known Abraham." That's a name, like Abraham Lincoln. Like, she knew nothing. And they made her a Sunday school teacher. And this is what they said. "All you have to be is one week ahead of the kids." (congregation laughing) And she said it was the greatest discipleship tool in her life because she ain't, she got her Bible out and she's like, "Just one week out of the kids." What happened to Abraham? I got to tell this story. This is a Bible story, he's got to kill his kid. What kind of a church is this? You know, like, and she, and so that's three years. And then she got married also about that time, three years after she accepted Christ as her savior. And started teaching something. And then five years after she accepted Christ as her savior, she had a little baby boy, Bobby Kedlesik. And that's me. And she has taught Sunday school for 54 years. In fact, she stopped just a couple years ago because she needed to translate for a deaf man in the congregation. And so she can no longer teach her a class 'cause she's translating for the deaf every Sunday. In the same church, I remember she'd come home from being a nurse, working all night, the 11 to 7 a.m. shift. She'd take a shower. She and my dad will help get us ready. Actually, she just got us ready. My dad's a wonderful guy, but yeah, and he was a great dad. Anyway, but, and we'd go to church and we'd come home and we'd eat lunch and then she'd collapse and exhaustion, sometimes being awake 24 hours straight. But God was important. And so I just wanna challenge you persevere because so often, and talk about Bridgewater Church in this way, Bridgewater Church 30 years ago had 180 people, 20 years ago had 150 people. Today has over 2,000 people. Bridgewater Church is a 215 year overnight success. It's 215 years old. Overnight success. So often, you do your best and you are faithful to God and you are trying and you are, and nothing happens. And your kids don't change and your marriage doesn't change and your community doesn't change and your workplace doesn't change and your friends don't change or whatever needs to change. Maybe you don't change. Maybe like me, you don't change. For decades, I cried out to God. Change me over a decade. And I didn't change. But perseverance. It seems like nothing happens. Nothing happens. Nothing happens. And then all of a sudden, everything happens at once. And close with this quote. Moses, the first 40 years of his life, he spent thinking he was somebody. He was in Pharaoh's household. He was royalty. He spent the next 40 years of his life thinking he was nobody. He's in a desert watching sheep. And then he spent the last 40 years of his life finding out what God can do with a nobody. And that's what God wants to do with us. And here's what it looks like. Next slide. That's what serving God faithfully looks like. Doing little things that maybe nobody else wants to do that need to be done day in, day out, reading your Bible in the morning when nobody's watching you, and you're not preaching it, plunging the toilet, washing clothes, going to work, never going to be a front page, you know, article in the paper. Man works 50 hours a week for his family, 40 years in a row. Nobody cares. But those little faithful, right, we talk about a mediocre investment over 70 years, an amazing return. You might think you're mediocre. Like, I was never the best at everything, anything. Like even in school, I love soccer. And I went to college, and I didn't even make the team the first year. The second year I made the team and I sat the bench and never played. And the third year, I was still sitting the bench, right? And so I was good, and I wasn't great. With God, that doesn't matter. He can take the mediocre and do amazing things if you're just persevere with him. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for how you've changed these people's lives who are baptized. Lord, I just ask that I know that this isn't the pinnacle. This is just one step in the way of even greater things you want to do through them. So God, I just ask that you just continue to work in their lives, continue to work in our lives, help us not to quit. Lord, when we fall down and when we sin and when we mess up, God help us not to quit. To get right back up, get someone to help us and get right back in it. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]
