How's everybody doing today? That doesn't sound too exciting. Well, we'll be doing great by the time we're finished, so that's okay. Glad you're here. I know some of you are here for the first time. Just want to tell you we admire your guts. It's uh there are very few things uh more risky, I guess, than uh visiting someplace for the first time, and especially a church. So we're glad that you're here. God's doing great things in a lot of different uh churches and places in this area. He's doing great things here, and by that I don't mean just that he's drawing so many of us together, but it's what he's doing in individual lives. How he's uh working in us, changing our hearts, changing our situation, changing our relationships. And every week we hear stories uh that are that are just awesome. Um consistently, people that uh even though we don't do a an altar call kind of at the at the end of the message, but people are turning their lives and their hearts over to God and to Jesus and consistently hear about relationships and physical healings and just all kinds of stuff. And so what we want to do is start sharing those uh with us as much as much as we can. And so in the last uh while we've videotaped uh some people and some couples talking about their lives and what God's gonna do, and we're gonna start every week, hopefully, sharing those. And I just want to encourage you if God's done something uh spectacular or even ordinary in your life, and and we would love to we would love to hear it. You could use the prayer request cards in the back to share that. You could shoot us an email. It might not even be something that's been done you know while you've been here, it might just be the story of God walking with you throughout your life. So we thought we'd start this morning by introducing you to Amber Moore.

Um I was working at IHOP here across the street on 92, and um and I had just left my husband, actually. Um he was very, very abusive to me. And um I just left him and I was just praying to God. I was just God help me, I don't know what to do. You know, and and I've always believed in God and I've always thought I had a relationship with God, but um come to find out I really didn't because you know I'm just praying, and I I was absolutely I had nothing. I had um my ex-husband's parents had the kids. I was I was alone, it was just me, and I was pregnant with the baby. And um and I was just in absolute despair. I I had I had nothing, and I didn't know what to do, and all I could do was pray and just cry. Stephanie and Susan both invited me to um to church, and I said, you know, I mean I'm working here at IHOP, we never get Sunday off, but if I get a Sunday off, I'll come, you know, that's not gonna happen, but if it if I get it off, I'll come to church with you. And um and needless to say, I did get that Sunday off. So I ended up coming to church, but it was really it was really just God, you know, saying, you know, Amber, you've you've you've shown me how much you need me. I'm here for you. Let me let me send some people here to invite you to me. My ex-husband's parents had the kids. So we went to court one time, and uh I didn't get them back then. And then we were gonna go to court in January, and I um had a couple people, uh, me and a couple people here, you know, prayed. I said, you know, I know that the court date is in January. It was January 21st. But I really want them back before Christmas. I really, I really need my kids for Christmas because I don't know if I can handle this Christmas without them. I said, can we really pray about that? Um I think it was December 12th. I got notice in the mail that the court date was changed to December 21st. And I got them back like three days before Christmas, four days before Christmas. And if that's not God, I don't know what it is. You know what I mean? It was just, it was completely, God gave me everything I asked for. And that was all I asked for. You know, all I said is I just want my kids with me for Christmas. And God was like, you know, you've you've been loyal to me. You can have your kids for Christmas. I'm not gonna make you live without that. And it was it was really great. I was so nervous going into court, but but it was really great because I don't know how I could have done it without my kids. Went through a Christmas without my kids. You know, God is amazing. That's all that I have to say because I don't even know. I mean, I was so lost, I was so confused. I didn't know. I didn't know where I was at. I just knew that I couldn't do it by myself. And now I know, still know that I can't do it by myself, but now I'm not so lost. Um I know exactly where I am, you know, and I know exactly where I'm going, and it doesn't matter where I go, because I know that I'm not by myself. And I know that I don't have to do it by myself. I may not know much, but I know that I can't do it by myself. And you know, when when God is all you have, you realize that God is all you really need.

That's the way God is. He takes us where we're at, changes our lives, changes our hearts, and uh just does awesome and wonderful things. This morning, what I want to do is take the time I have and uh basically invite you to a party that celebrates a new life, celebrates uh a changed life. We talk about wanting to be a Jesus movement. We're really asking the Holy Spirit to allow us to be that, to represent him the way he really is. How everyday people were just drawn to him. And it was only the hyper-religious, if you will, that uh had such big big problems with him. And he was for people. He was known for who he was for and not what he was against. And so that's what we're hoping God will allow us to be part of here. Well, Jesus instituted two important symbols. Of all the things he could have asked us to do, there were two important symbols that he asked of us. The first we've already done, it's the Lord's Supper, which we which we already uh enjoyed this morning. Just think how cool is that. That Jesus could have had us do whatever. We would have come up with something extremely hard and difficult. Um Jesus asked us to do is have a meal with him. That's the same thing that we do when we want to get to know somebody better. Same thing that we want to do with a loved one or a relative, spend time together, be intimate, talking and enjoying each other. And that's what the Lord's Supper is. It's every week us having an opportunity to spend a little bit of time, even though we're in a big group, we're spending some time alone, enjoying a meal with Jesus. The other is baptism. And baptism is another simple, easy, enjoyable, fun symbol of being identified with Jesus, united with Jesus. Uh, joining in his uh sacrifice and his death, but more importantly, his resurrection and his life. So that's what I want to talk about this morning is baptism. So I don't want anybody to go, oh no, not this. This is gonna be pretty good. If you're here and you're not sure if you believe in God, if you're here and you you don't know that Jesus is God's son, it's gonna be all right because what we're gonna talk about is in fact what God is like. Kind of what he expects, what it means to uh to be a follower, a believer in Jesus. Oh, one thing that Jesus said over and over and over. One of his primary messages was to seek me and you'll find me. Keep on seeking and you'll find me. Just seek and you'll find me. Knock, the door will be opened unto you. And so that's a good place to be. Seeking, wondering, questioning. I want to start talking about baptism by kind of restating a consistent theme. This consistent theme is that we're not united by complete doctrinal purity. The idea that a group of people this size or any size can all agree on every single thing is uh is just not true. And it doesn't matter the denomination, it doesn't matter the background or the tradition. You get a group of people together, they have different uh beliefs on different things. And so sometimes there's the atmosphere of just keep those to yourself, and we're gonna pretend that we agree about everything. Now, the atmosphere we want is one where we acknowledge that we don't agree about everything, and it's okay. We don't have to agree about everything. We're united by the important things. We're united by Jesus Himself, by the fact that God wants to be reunited with us. The only way to do that is through his son, the sacrifice Jesus made, a belief and a fall in Him. We're united by the fact that the Bible is the Word of God. And so we can look to it for answers on how to live and what to do. But we're not going to agree on every single point, on every single thing, and it's totally fine. A lot of the things we argue about, fight about just really don't matter at all. The Bible would call them foolish arguments. Jesus often talks about the weightier matters, the more important things. And so baptism is one of those things. Uh man, whole uh churches have uh divided over baptism, whole denominations have been started and stopped and all sorts of stuff over baptism. And it's no wonder that Satan would attack us in this one particular area. Because what it is, is it should be a beautiful symbol of unity. Of unity with others, unity with all who have ever believed in Jesus, unity with Jesus Himself. And so we're gonna approach the topic with the understanding that we don't have to agree on everything. Now the word baptism comes from a Greek word baptisto or bapto. I know you can't believe it. I'm going Greek lexicon on you. It's pretty wild. But uh a lot of words in the Bible are translated. And so you take a Greek word. The New Testament was written in the commoners' language. They could have chosen Latin, they could have chosen Hebrew, but they chose the common language, Kone Greek. It was the one that was just commonly spoken by everyday people. And so most words are translated in English words. Some words are transliterated, which means they're just changed a little bit, twisted a little bit, and made into an English word. So baptism is one of those words. It comes from the Greek word baptisto or bapto. The way it would have been used back then was simply washed. We just meant washed. You're baptized, you're washed. And so it complicates things a little bit when we transliterate them, because in our in our minds it gives a specific meaning. But in uh the day that Jesus was walking on earth, they would have used baptisto simply as wash. Now, as I grew up, what I was taught was that the word baptism means immersion. And uh that's really not true. It often is used as immersion. It often is used as dipped or dunked or immersed. But it also is used at times as poured or cleaned or washed. There's two places in the New Testament where the Pharisees are getting on Jesus. And so they're saying, hey, why don't your disciples wash, do ceremonial washings before they eat? And that's in Mark 7 and Luke 11. The word there is baptisto or bapto. What they asked him is, why don't your disciples baptize themselves? Why don't they baptize their hands before they eat? Because the Pharisees were all fired up about ceremonial washings, making sure that they were always clean on the outside. And so an example might be like a bath. If you were to say bath, most often you would think of being dipped or dunked or underwater. You're taking a bath. But you also might say, Let me give the dog a bath. And depending on how you uh baptize the dog, it may not be that. And so John the Baptist would have been known as John the Washer, John the cleaner, John the Washer. It was a common, a common day word. Now I say that because this is one of those areas I don't feel like we need to be so dogmatic. I think we can give people the grace to hear from God. The idea that you could be baptized and it isn't immersion, that it could be sprinkling or pouring. I read a 72-page thesis, if you will, on why baptism is exclusively sprinkling or pouring. Half of it was Greek, half of it was Hebrew. And the point, I don't necessarily agree with that. I think that when you when we look at the verses we're going to look at, it's going to say things like, John baptized here because there's so much water, or when Jesus came up out of the water, and things like that. So that's why we got a donking tank over there that we use for baptisms. But I don't think that's one area that I'm willing to draw a line in the sand over. I'm willing to admit that honest people that love God and love the Lord can interpret something in a different way. You don't have to agree with me on that. Um but uh that's kind of what uh what I feel about it. Because the the purpose of baptism, the substance of baptism is the same. Now, John the Baptist is the first one that we see baptizing people, John the washer, John the one who uh who claimed. Now, his baptism was for repentance or for forgiveness. What he was saying is, hey, the Messiah we've been praying for, the messiah we've been longing for, he is coming. We need to get ready. We need to repent. We need to ask God to forgive us of our sins. We need to get ready. The Messiah is coming. Now, the idea that he would start washing people would not be unusual to the Jewish people. Because they ceremonially washed all the time. They had uh kind of fancy bathtubs called mikvehs in the outer courts of the temple and in different places in the city where they would do the ceremonial washings. In the uh the book of kind of Jewish rules, there were ten pages devoted just to washings. If a Gentile converted to Judaism, they went through a ceremonial washing. And so this wouldn't have shocked people that John was washing people as he proclaimed that the Messiah is coming. And so those that would come and be baptized by John would be adhering to what John's saying, agreeing to what John's saying, identifying with what John's saying, and asking God to wash them and forgive their sins in anticipation of this Messiah. And so in Matthew the third chapter, starting in verse 1, we see what John was about. In those days, John the Baptist came to the Judean wilderness and began preaching his message. It was repent of your sins and turn to God, for the kingdom of heaven is near. The prophet Isaiah was speaking about John when he said, He is a voice shouting in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord is coming. Clear the road for him. So that's what John was doing. That's what his cleaning, what his washing was all about. Well, as we talk about representing Jesus and seeing what Jesus did when he was on earth, what he taught, what he said, how he thought, what he did, one of the first things he did when he started kind of his public ministry was he was baptized by John. And in Matthew the third chapter, verse 13 through 16 is where that story is told. Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk him out of it. I am the one who needs to be baptized by you, he said. So why are you coming to me? But Jesus said it should be done, for we must carry out all that God requires. So John agreed to baptize him. After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And so that's Jesus' baptism. Now, why would Jesus be baptized? I mean, it wouldn't be for repentance or for forgiveness. Jesus didn't have anything to repent of or be forgiven of. The reason Jesus was baptized was out of obedience, a spirit of submission to what God was doing through John, and an identification with John's message. That indeed this is true. The Messiah is coming, the kingdom of God is near, the kingdom of God is at hand. So you see the wonderful thing that happened when uh when he was baptized. The Holy Spirit descended like a dove upon him. And then God goes on to say that this is my son, my beloved son, and who I am very pleased. Well, one of the first things the disciples did next is they started baptizing. You see, Jesus said, I am the one, I am this Messiah. The one John's talking about, it's me. And so Jesus' disciples started baptizing, and people started identifying with Jesus, following Jesus. The final instructions that Jesus gave, we call it the Great Commission. This is when he's talking to his followers, is in Matthew the 28th chapter, verse 18 through 20. Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you, and be sure of this, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. When Peter was talking about Jesus, and he he gives this great message to this huge group of Jewish people. He says that Jesus was God's Son, you in fact did crucify him. They said, What must we do? And so he says, and this is in Acts 2 and verse 38. Peter replied, Each of you must repent of your sins, turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, to show that you have received forgiveness for your sins. Then you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you and to your children and even to the Gentiles, all who have been called by the Lord our God. Then Peter continued for preaching for a long preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, save yourselves from this crooked generation. Those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day, about 3,000 in all. So that's kind of where we get baptism and the importance of baptism, the idea that when you identify with Jesus, when you accept Jesus as the Son of God, as our Savior, one of the things that we do is get baptized. I want to talk about two quick points. The first, and this isn't going to stay like academic the whole time. We'll finish uh with some more practical, real examples. But the but the first question is does baptism itself save you? Now, in the denomination I was raised, we didn't even talk about being saved. We talked about being baptized. And it was taught based really on Acts 2.38, but also in 1 Peter 3, when he talks about baptism, that baptism does indeed save you. That if you're not baptized, you're not saved. And the thing is, we can take a couple of verses from anywhere and prove just about anything. That's why it is so important for us to, when we're trying to study a particular topic, to try to read everything God's Word has to say. About it, understand the context, and understand the total message. And not just for me, for all of us. You know, the the point of me is not, or my role here is to not go and learn everything God has and then come back. It's really to point all of us to God. He gives us all his word, gives us all his spirit. We can dig in and see what uh what God has for us. But anyway, that was the thing. And so the deal is that if you decided to follow Jesus, you had to hurry up and get saved. Because uh if uh if they sang just as I am, and you came up front, and God forbid you uh banged your head somewhere between there and the uh baptismal. I mean, they just weren't sure. You're uh you're kind of on your own. And you think I'm joking, but that's actually true. Um the truth is baptism does not save us. We're saved by faith. Baptism is a demonstration, a symbol, an outward acknowledgement of the work that God's already done. Now, a perfect example of this is found in Romans the fourth chapter. Now, Paul has just been talking about faith, about how Abraham saved by faith, how it's it's all about faith. And so he goes to an obvious question does circumcision save Abraham or is faith? Now, this is the third out of four weeks. Somehow I've been able to talk about circumcision when the topic had nothing to do with it. And so I'm not sure what that says. I'm gonna try to get help somewhere. But this is what he says. Now, is this blessing only for the Jews, or is it also for uncircumcised Gentiles? Well, we've been saying that Abraham was counted as righteous by God because of his faith. But how did this happen? Was he counted as righteous only after he was circumcised, or was it before he was circumcised? Clearly, God accepted Abraham before he was circumcised. Circumcision was a sign that Abraham already had faith and that God had already accepted him and declared him to be righteous even before he was circumcised. So Abraham is the spiritual father of those who have faith but have not been circumcised. They're accounted as righteous because of their faith. And Abraham is also the spiritual father of those who have been circumcised, but only if they have the same kind of faith Abraham had before he was circumcised. You see, with baptism, it is the exact same thing. Baptism is the outward symbol of what God has already done, that he has already, by faith, made us righteous. But he sets up this outward symbol to declare that, to show that. And then there's other cool things about it that we're gonna talk about in a minute. Okay, the other quick point, because I'm trying to get it through some of these uh uh doctrinal elephant in the rooms type of thing that we might have questions about, and again, that I don't think we necessarily have to agree on. Um and the other quick one is infant baptism. What's up with that? Now, if you were in New Testament times and you had been worshiping Zeus, and you had gone to the temple of Zeus, your whole family participated in all the rituals, every day or every week, or how often you did that, and you came to know that there was a loving God that wanted to be reconciled with you. That in fact he had sent his son to die for you, that by leaving believing in him, he would adopt you into his very own family. And as a symbol of that, he asked us to be baptized. What would you do? I'd baptize the whole family. I would. Now the truth is that baptism is an outward symbol of people that are old enough to choose to follow Jesus. But if someone were to take a baptism and use it as an outward way to dedicate a baby, ask for God's special grade on the baby, on their baby, I'm not going to judge them for that. We dedicate babies, we we baptize them in prayer. We pray together for them. And so if as a baby you were baptized, as a parent, if you had your children baptized, um, I would applaud you for that. For having the faith to call upon God to bless your child in a certain way. But it's a totally different thing than what Jesus is talking about when he's talking about choosing as an adult to follow, not as an adult necessarily, but once we're old enough to make that choice, to follow Jesus, identify ourselves with Jesus, it's a totally different thing. And so I just want uh I guess to clarify that and to uh to kind of give a tree of life perspective on on uh on dedicating our children, asking God to bless our children and take care of them in the way that we know how to do it. But choosing to identify with Jesus is a different thing. And that's explained in Romans the sixth chapter in a beautiful way. Now, what Paul has done is he has talked about grace. Now, when Paul talked about grace and being saved by faith, he talked about it in such a way that there was always this obvious rhetorical question. And that was what? We should just keep on sinning so grace may abound. Paul, like Jesus, overemphasized grace. Now, his answer is of course not. And then he goes into an explanation of what it means when we're baptized. Now, before reading that, I want to just kind of take a minute to talk about a question I get asked every now and then. And that is why do we, or why do I, as I'm teaching, overemphasize grace? Why don't I talk more about putting off the things of the flesh, crucifying ourselves daily, being holy? And I had uh that conversation with a great uh great guy who's here this morning uh via email this week. And it's it's it's it's a really, really good question. But you see, when we're talking about loving other people, when we're talking about loving God aggressively, when we're talking about being generous with other people, when we're talking about not being self-righteous, not being condemning, not being judgmental, being for people, we are talking about holiness. We are talking about imitating Christ. We are talking about putting off the things of the flesh. Specifically, we are talking about what Jesus called the weightier matters, the more important things, than the specific little things that we can all improve on. Because those specific things are different for all of us. We all have different things the Holy Spirit's working on. The example in this conversation that was asked was um thinking on things that are good and teaching about uh TV and movies and music and those types of things. But but the thing is, we're all wired differently. God created us all differently. And so, me personally, I'm actually really sensitive to movies. Um so I rarely go to movies. I go to a movie if I think it might be funny. I go to a movie if uh I'm trying to be nice to Susan and she wants to go. Um But the thing about movies is if it's a suspenseful movie, it stresses me out. If it's a scary movie, it scares me. Um if it's a profane movie, um it just discourages me. And so I personally am rarely am sensitive to movies. Now, I've got great friends that are incredibly godly, that are not affected at all by movies. They can go to just about any movie that's ever come out, and they're not gonna be affected by it. But you know, some of those same people can't go to the auto show. Because they go down, they look at new cars, and they get all just disappointed in their own life and and uh jealous and covetous. Uh Susan and I used to, sometimes on Sunday afternoons, we're remodeling our house and we'd go to uh the street of dreams, you know, when they have them at different places. I started calling those the avenue of discontent. Because man, you go to those things and you keep, you know, good night, no wonder I'm so unhappy. I don't have a home theater. I can't turn my house lights on from inside the car? It's no wonder. And so we decided, you know, we're just not gonna go to those things for a while. Because there's something about them that make it make us discontent. And so a demonstration of this, and this isn't gonna be a trick. If you raise your hand, I'm not gonna end up asking you to come forward. This is just an out-and-out question. Who in this room this morning has some area in your life that you're wanting to improve on, that you know you can do better on, that God is wanting to change you and improve. Everybody. So do we need to come here on Sunday morning and uh get hammered on? I mean, maybe, maybe every now and then, about love or something like that. But but the truth is, the idea that we all come in here thinking that we're just uh so great and there's nothing wrong with us is not true. Most of us come in here discouraged with shame, with burdens, with guilt, with heavy things in our life. And we don't need an area pointed out that God may that may not even be the area God's working on. The Holy Spirit works in each of us. He sanctifies us, and it is important that we change, that we be more like him, that we put off things that keep us from the purpose that he has, that we put off things that don't bring life to us, that we put off things that destroy us. Of course, of course that's important. But we get the card before the horse, because we think we get rid of that stuff, then we can come to God. And that's not true. We come to God with everything, all the junk. We connect with him, we stay connected with him, and then lovingly, usually gently, he works out all that stuff in us. And so that's why we go about it the way we do. But of course, we want to get better. Of course we want to be better. Of course, we want to be more like Jesus, the one that we're trying to represent. And so Paul talks about this. He answers that rhetorical question. Well then, should we just keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not. Since we've died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Oh, I guess, you know what? I threw Chris a curveball. Um, he goes on in verse 2 and uh, or in verse 3, or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death. For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. And that's the significance of baptism. That's one of the reasons that uh that we do the immersion thing is the beautiful symbol of being buried with Christ, but more importantly, that we're raised with him. We're raised with him to a new life, to a life of purpose, a life of joy, a life filled with the Spirit, walking with God. And when we do that, when we do this outward public thing that he asks us that may not make total sense, when we see the big picture someday, everything's gonna make sense. Right now, there's lots of things that don't always make sense. It was like uh Naaman when when he came, he had leprosy. He wanted to be healed. He was told, go dunk in the Jordan River seven times. It made him really mad. Why did I do something like that? Well, his buddy said, if it had been Randy and American Idol, he would have said, dog. What are you thinking? If he'd asked you to do something really big, you would have done it. Just go do it. And so he did, and he was healed. And so everything about baptism doesn't have to make sense to us. It is something Jesus asked us to do. And what it is, is a beautiful symbol of being united with Jesus, of being one with Jesus, of being buried with Jesus. But the whole thing about a life with Jesus is not the crucifixion and the burial. The whole thing about life with Jesus is the resurrection. It's that he was raised from the dead, and the same promise is for us. It's the new life that we live, that we're raised with Jesus. And that same promise is ours. Cool thing about baptism is that it is uh so many things in life are hard. You know, it's a daily struggle. We all have things, or I don't know about all. Some of us have things that we have to every single day. We've got to go to the cross. We've got to crucify ourselves, we've got to work on every single day. Baptism is something that takes a few minutes. It takes a little obedience, a little humility, and something wonderful happens. We get to participate in the same one of the two symbols that Jesus set up. We get to participate with with everyone before us that has been followers of uh of Jesus. And we get a special gift of the Holy Spirit. And when we believe, the Holy Spirit comes into us and guides us and starts to change us. But I believe in baptism something special happens with the Holy Spirit. That's why Peter said, repent and be baptized, you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. That's why the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. And so when we're baptized, something special happens. You know, in Acts, there was a group of people that Paul said, You know, have you been baptized? And I said, Yeah. And he said, which one? It was John's baptism. So he baptized them again, laid hands on them. And they got this gift of the Holy Spirit. For them, they all started speaking in tongues. That was the gift. But God gives different gifts in different ways to all of us. And something really special happens when we're baptized. Now, last time we had baptisms, which was in maybe first part of February. Man, God's presence was so strong. It was so great. It was such a wonderful, wonderful thing, even to be there. And that's what's going to happen when we share in the symbol of baptism again. So I mentioned that I wanted to invite you to a party. May 20th is when we're going to do baptisms again. We're going to have a special day. It's the week after Mother's Day. Um there's a guy named Michael Lewis that you may or may not have heard of. He's referred to as the Jesus painter. Uh the way that a special way, one special way that he worships God is that he paints. And so he's going to be here with us this morning or that morning during worship. And what he does is he has like six foot by four foot canvases. And while worshiping, while we're worshiping together, he's painting. And he's going to paint these beautiful pictures of uh kind of intimate portraits of Jesus. And then we're going to keep those, and then we're going to put them up in the coffee house. And it's really going to be exciting and fun. And the Holy Spirit is going to be moving in a big and and uh in a special way. So I kind of want to finish by telling you a personal story. About four, I don't know, maybe it's four or five years ago. I was uh you know running a business and doing the whole business thing, and and you know, God has us in different roles at different times. And there's uh most of us he does not have in a formal full-time ministry, but he's got us all in full-time ministry in our homes and in our businesses and in our communities. It's just different roles at different times. And so the Holy Spirit was working on me and led me to get away. I rented a cabin, and the whole idea was just to fast and spend some time with God. This wasn't something that anybody had told me to do. This wasn't something that was a requirement, a rule. It was just the Holy Spirit knowing what I needed. And the idea was that I was going to get away, and I was really, this is what was my cry, and this is what I was asking friends to pray for me as I went, and Susan, was that I had given myself like 90% to Jesus. But there was areas I didn't trust him. And so what I wanted to do was give the rest, give it all. And so I get this cabin, it's on the Tacoa River, um, because you can fly fish and fast at the same time. And um and so I get up there, and all I took was a message version of the Bible and a notepad, some worship CDs. Um, and man, was I in for a surprise. Because what I found out after a couple days of talking with God was that I hadn't, in fact, given 90% of myself to him. It was kind of more the other way around. I had really trusted him with about 10 or 20 percent. And he kind of in a loving way showed me what the uh what the rest would look like. And I felt pretty beat up for a few days, honestly. And um, but then he ended up just a loving reconfirmation of what I meant to him and and what our relationship was about. And he showed me a lot of things in this time. Well, one of the things he showed me was to talk to him normal. And it was really hard at first, because I was used to praying in a very uh I don't know what traditional sort of way. And so he he he taught me to try to talk to him like I would to anybody else. It was really, really hard for me at first. And what he did this whole time was I had this message version of the Bible. And if you're familiar with that, it's very common-day language. And so he started showing me um pieces of scripture and having me write them down. Now, that's not like me. I don't journal, I've tried it before, it's just man, I can't stand it. I'm sure it would be good for me if I did it. But it's just not me. I'm just I don't like writing. But what he what he had me do was just the old stereotypical man flipping back and forth the pages. The Holy Spirit would highlight a passage of Scripture and I would write it down. And I wasn't even sure why I was doing this. And I did this for several days, and I ended up, this is it, I ended up with 27 pages of Scripture from the message. And I didn't realize what he was doing, but when I got done and read it, what he had done was written me a letter. And he had me copy it over several times. But it was such a neat thing, and that's the way God is. Man, there's fewer formulas than we think. Man, he is alive and he's a powerful, and he's Powerful and he works in us the way we need at specific times in special and unique ways because we're all unique and different sorts of people. So anyway, he writes me this letter, which is all the Bible is anyway. It's a love letter from God. And part of it in the message version. If you have a copy of this letter, it'd be page nine. Turn to it with me. And anyway, it's uh the message version, and it's the verse I read uh earlier from Matthew 3, and this is what it says I'm baptizing you here in the river, turning your old life in for a kingdom life. The real action comes next. The main character in this drama, compared to him, the main character in this drama is Jesus. Compared to him, I'm a mere stagehand. Will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He's going to clean house, make a clean sweep of your life. He'll place everything true in its proper place before God. Everything false, he'll put out with the trash to be burned. And so the last thing that I wrote, or he had me write, and I eventually read, was your joy will be a river overflowing its banks. And so I look out the window of this cabin, which is on the Tacoa River, and they're generating. Now, I don't know if you know anything about uh the Tokoa River, but when when they generate from the dam, the river rises two or three feet, like all at once. If you're fishing there, you better get out fast because it rises. And so I look out, and the water is overflowing the banks. It's up to the top of this little dock that's out there. And so I decide I'm gonna be baptized. Now I've been baptized when I was 15, when I first had accepted Jesus. But the truth is my heart's cry is I wanted to be identified with him. I wanted to turn my life over to him. I really did want him to be Lord of my life. And so I don't know what anybody else on the river thought, but I go out there, and it's freezing cold in the Tacoa River, too. But anyway, I go out there fully clothed and uh get in this river. And man, it's really flowing. So I'm ending up, I'm hanging on to the uh post on the dock, and I'm almost horizontal because the current is uh is so strong. But it was such a meaningful symbol that God used in my life of turning my life over to Him, identifying with Him, being one with Him, and then coming out and living a whole new life. A whole new life. And that's the opportunity that baptism is for each of us. Identify with Him, live a new life, join with Him. It's such a great and beautiful symbol. You know, if the worship team wants to come up, and so what I wanted to invite everyone that has chosen Jesus as your Savior, has become a follower, but hasn't been baptized, I just want to encourage you. Uh literally, take the plunge and uh and sign up afterwards. Uh Justin and Caitlin will be back by the info desk. And uh you can join us on May 20th and participate in the sim in that symbol. And it may be that it's a time in your life where you could use it as a different symbol. That, hey, I'm all in. I'm tired of living two lives. I'm tired of being one thing here and one thing here. I'm gonna be identified with Jesus. I'm gonna live a new life. Well, that'd be uh that'd be great too. If you've got children that are old enough to decide that Jesus is the one that they want to follow, love to uh to baptize them. And it's not gonna be if you haven't been to a baptism here before, uh well, let me back up real quick. You can be baptized anywhere. You don't have to be, I mean, I just I guess talked about the Tacoa River. Man, if you want to be baptized in a pool or a lake or with friends or whatever, you can go and publicly identify with Jesus as your Savior. Um, here, we would love for you to be baptized by someone that's meaningful to you. Um as a parent, as a mom or dad, you might want to baptize uh your children. You might have a special friend or a spouse or any other believer. It is such a joy to be able to participate in that uh incredible symbol together. So I'd invite you to choose someone that uh that you would like to uh to baptize you. Invite your friends and and all to celebrate with you. Um Pendleton Brown just is gonna kind of preside. Um he'll be in his swim trunks baptizing. Uh he has so much joy and just loves baptism so much. He'll bring uh a sample of the Jordan River that that he brought back from Israel, and he'll pour it in the baptistry. And uh it's really gonna be a great time. Bring an extra towel if uh if you have one. But we'll get to celebrate together, and that's the way God is. That's why we party on Sunday. It's to celebrate this new life, this goodness of God. You know, in the New Testament, Jesus describes uh God the Father in the story of the prodigal son. And when the son came back, God rushed out to meet him, put on new clothing, put on a new robe, gave him a gift, ring, and then they had a party and they celebrated together. So that's the part I want to invite you to to join us on May 20th. If you've never been baptized before, what a great opportunity to uh to obey and to submit and to join in this beautiful symbol of our new life with Jesus. So if you'd stand, I'm gonna pray, and then we'll finish with uh one more great song of worship to God. Father, thank you for being such a good God. Thank you for being so loving. I just praise you for sending Jesus, your son, to die for us. To show us who you are, to give us the way to be adopted into your family. And Holy Spirit, I just asked to speak to us that you would just show us what you would have each of us do, how you would change and transform us to be more like Jesus. To really be able to represent Him as we live our lives in His image. Praise you. Thank you for such great symbols as baptism, for being able to take the Lord's Supper with you. Just show us how you would want each of us to use that in our lives. We praise you and thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.