Speaker 1: Hey, what up?
Speaker 1: It's Mark Carter.
Speaker 1: I'm the pastor of Fierce Church.
Speaker 1: Welcome to our podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm so pumped that you're able to join us today.
Speaker 1: I hope this encourages you, inspires you, strengthens you, gives you hope to keep pressing on, and it's my prayer that this sermon gives you a more expansive view of God's love for you.
Speaker 1: Enjoy the message.
Speaker 1: You've probably seen one of these before.
Speaker 1: You might have gotten one in the mail, like I have.
Speaker 1: It is a traffic violation letter.
Speaker 1: You might have gotten one in the mail like I have.
Speaker 1: It is a traffic violation letter.
Speaker 1: You might have had one of these.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, they can be rough.
Speaker 1: The especially rough kind is when you didn't see it coming.
Speaker 1: Okay, so, maybe like you just didn't even know it happened.
Speaker 1: Like I've done, I've pulled up to a red light.
Speaker 1: I'm turning right and instead of completely stop, I get down to like two miles an hour and then go on through.
Speaker 1: Then, three weeks stop, I get down to like two miles an hour and then go on through.
Speaker 1: Then three weeks later, I get a letter that says you owe $100 for that thing.
Speaker 1: And the problem is I'm like I don't even know that I did that for sure.
Speaker 1: Are you sure it's me and I'm like oh, I guess it is me.
Speaker 1: There is a record of my violation of the law and I didn't even know that it took place.
Speaker 1: Has that ever happened to you?
Speaker 1: It might be maybe not with a traffic violation, maybe there's other things that you were supposed to do something and you were legitimately supposed to do it.
Speaker 1: You just didn't know you were supposed to do it until it was already a little bit too late.
Speaker 1: So maybe you started the job and you were supposed to bring your own tools and you didn't.
Speaker 1: First day they expected it but you didn't bring it because you just didn't know it.
Speaker 1: Now you were, it was communicated to you, but you didn't know.
Speaker 1: You were headed to the potluck and it was just kind of understood.
Speaker 1: Everyone was supposed to bring a dish, something you know, kind of your specialty, and you just thought it was a normal potluck.
Speaker 1: Now it was in the email that you were supposed to bring something but really didn't do it, even though you were supposed to do it.
Speaker 1: Not a big deal, but it was still something that you missed.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a little bit higher stakes.
Speaker 1: Maybe you went to the parent-teacher conference and or sorry, you didn't go to the parent-teacher conference and because you didn't go.
Speaker 1: That was where the sign-ups were for you to serve, for your kid to be able to be in the play.
Speaker 1: But you thought it was just like any other parent-teach conference.
Speaker 1: You're like nothing happens there, so you skip it.
Speaker 1: Now your kid is out for the semester and it feels like a burn.
Speaker 1: But really it was there, it was in the email, you just didn't read it close enough.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're visiting a new city and you're used to the bus just knows when to stop, but you're in a city now that you're supposed to pull the cord, but you don't know that.
Speaker 1: Everybody else knows that, but you don't know that.
Speaker 1: And so you're like man, when are they just going to stop?
Speaker 1: For my thing, I don't know.
Speaker 1: You're going around hours and when are we getting there?
Speaker 1: And it's legit, this is how it's done, this is what you're supposed to do pull the cord.
Speaker 1: But you don't know that, and so you don't do that, but you still experience the consequence of it.
Speaker 1: Now here's something that makes it a little bit worse for all of us.
Speaker 1: There's a thing called sin.
Speaker 1: It's a disease, it is a spiritual disease, it's a moral disease, it's the hell disease, it's the death disease, and this disease is so bad that it blinds us to the fact that we even are sinning.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it will tell us no, that's not wrong, or you don't need to worry about that.
Speaker 1: We can get in situations where we're genuinely sinning.
Speaker 1: Now we don't feel like we're sinning.
Speaker 1: I've been in homes of people where there is tremendous violence taking place and they don't even know it because they're so used to it.
Speaker 1: Now you think well, don't their feelings tell them that this is wrong?
Speaker 1: No, they don't, because their consciences have been trained in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: They don't because their consciences have been trained in the wrong direction.
Speaker 1: So sometimes the conscience is very useful.
Speaker 1: But if the conscience has not been trained according to what actually is morally right, you can be doing something wrong, but it's going over your head and you don't even notice it, and that's the effects of sin on us.
Speaker 1: We can't trust just our feelings any more than I could trust that I could feel when I ran through that red light.
Speaker 1: I didn't feel it, I didn't even know it, but I'd still broken the law and it still happened.
Speaker 1: This is a situation that Peter and his audience are in.
Speaker 1: Peter's preaching is really his first good sermon.
Speaker 1: Okay, the day of Pentecost has just happened.
Speaker 1: This promised person of the Holy Spirit has just arrived.
Speaker 1: Peter gets full of that.
Speaker 1: Holy Spirit of Jesus stands up and he begins to preach, and he begins to detail out to the people who are gathered around this is the Jewish nation.
Speaker 1: He begins to let them know hey, by the way, man, you guys really missed it you put the guy you've been waiting for all this time.
Speaker 1: You just put him to death and you either ignored it or you participated with with it, or you were one of the leaders.
Speaker 1: Are you afraid to stand up for him or whatever?
Speaker 1: Now you are the crew, this nation of the Jews.
Speaker 1: You are the ones who you say man, if you were alive during the time of the Old Testament prophets, you wouldn't have participated in putting them to death.
Speaker 1: You said no, not me.
Speaker 1: I would have kept my hands clean.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have participated in putting those good servants of God to death like they did back then.
Speaker 1: And then Peter says do you not see the irony here?
Speaker 1: Someone better than those Old Testament prophets was just here and you just put him to death approvingly.
Speaker 1: And he was the Messiah you're waiting for.
Speaker 1: And honestly, it's a little bit obvious when you just trace the story of the Messiah through the scripture.
Speaker 1: You should have seen him, but you didn't.
Speaker 1: And they get man, they get convicted, just like I did when I finally saw my license plate on that violation notice.
Speaker 1: Oh, I guess I did do that.
Speaker 1: Whoops, whoopsie.
Speaker 1: And this is how they respond.
Speaker 1: Acts, chapter two, verse 36.
Speaker 1: Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him Jesus, both Lord and Christ.
Speaker 1: The Jesus whom you crucified, he's Lord, he's King, he's God, he's the one in charge and he's Christ.
Speaker 1: He's the anointed one, he is the one who is to be sent to you, he's the one who can do it, he's the oneointed one.
Speaker 1: He is the one who is to be sent to you.
Speaker 1: He's the one who can do it.
Speaker 1: He's the one whose mission it was to bring salvation not just to the Israelite nation but to all the nations.
Speaker 1: He's the one, that's who he is, and this is the Jesus that you crucified.
Speaker 1: Now there's a little bit of a problem we might find with that.
Speaker 1: Well, they didn't literally do it Like they didn't crucify him.
Speaker 1: They weren't there.
Speaker 1: They weren't pounding the nails into his wrist, were they?
Speaker 1: Most of them were not.
Speaker 1: But here's what's theologically true of them and theologically true of me and you.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't feel it, even if you don't know it, it was our sin that put Jesus on the cross.
Speaker 1: It was our sin that crucified the Messiah.
Speaker 1: It was our sin.
Speaker 1: That's why he was sent to pay the price, so that he would pay the penalty and we wouldn't.
Speaker 1: But let's make no mistake, it's not just like some ancient event.
Speaker 1: My sin did that and it was real.
Speaker 1: It was personal.
Speaker 1: My sin held Jesus to the cross.
Speaker 1: We all have this, we've all done this, we've all done this.
Speaker 1: And we can get out of balance with this.
Speaker 1: We can either say well, you know, that's just life, you know You're born with it.
Speaker 1: That's just how it goes.
Speaker 1: You know you got dark hair.
Speaker 1: That's just what it is, man, that's how you were born, that's how you were born.
Speaker 1: That's minimizing a little bit the personalness of sin.
Speaker 1: So here's some encouragement.
Speaker 1: You and I are not uniquely sinful.
Speaker 1: You're not like the especially bad one, for we've all sinned.
Speaker 1: We've all fallen short of the glory of God.
Speaker 1: We all stumble in many ways.
Speaker 1: No temptation has seized you, but what is common to man?
Speaker 1: So we're all equally sinful.
Speaker 1: None of us are uniquely sinful, but here's what we might miss you and I are also personally sinful, meaning it was an interpersonal exchange between you and your God.
Speaker 1: He takes it seriously.
Speaker 1: It's a relationship he has with you.
Speaker 1: Even when you don't know, you have it with him.
Speaker 1: When we break his law, when we say, god to hell with you, I'll just do it on my own.
Speaker 1: I should be boss when we say that.
Speaker 1: Now he's tough, but he takes it personally because he's like.
Speaker 1: Everything I've ever done and everything I've ever said toward you was for you and for your good, so you could be in the safest, most wonderful place, which is my arms.
Speaker 1: Now, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles man, brothers, what should we do?
Speaker 1: And Peter said to them repent.
Speaker 1: This word repent, it means turn around in your mind and turn around in your actions.
Speaker 1: Change from what you were doing and go the other way, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: For the promise is for you and your children and all who are far off, as many as the Lord will call to himself.
Speaker 1: There's so much good stuff in there, I just have to stop and talk about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, the idea that this is not only a promise for you.
Speaker 1: What is the promise?
Speaker 1: It was that you could have your sins forgiven and you would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the Holy Spirit for a second.
Speaker 1: The Holy Spirit was the Spirit of God who filled the temple.
Speaker 1: Who left?
Speaker 1: He left the Jewish nation when they'd betrayed him enough that he kicked them out of their own land and sent them into exile, and his presence never came back to that temple.
Speaker 1: But it was prophesied one day he would come back to a newer temple and do a better work, and that temple would be the hearts of mankind.
Speaker 1: So he's saying that promise is for you, this God that abandoned us with his presence long ago.
Speaker 1: His promise is he'll come into you as the temple.
Speaker 1: Right now, not just for in the temple.
Speaker 1: In you right now, you are the recipient of that promise.
Speaker 1: That's pretty dope Now, in an honor and shame culture, it's a big deal to get baptized, see, we don't necessarily know it's a big deal now, but if you were going to be baptized as a Jew, what you were saying was like Jews didn't get baptized.
Speaker 1: You got baptized if you were becoming a Jew, if you were a non-Jew, and be like oh my gosh, I recognize that Yahweh is the true God.
Speaker 1: I'm going to get baptized as a demonstration that I have not been following God's ways, but now I'm coming in to God's family.
Speaker 1: So for a Jew to get baptized was to shame themselves.
Speaker 1: We don't understand honor and shame in the way that they did.
Speaker 1: It's an honor and shame culture.
Speaker 1: There's deep shame attached to things and you can mess up your honor very easily.
Speaker 1: And so for you to step out and get all wet and say I take the shame, I should have been following God the right way and I wasn't.
Speaker 1: But I'm willing to take the shame, to demonstrate and essentially confess to everybody.
Speaker 1: I should be doing something else.
Speaker 1: I should be repenting.
Speaker 1: I should be following this God.
Speaker 1: Back to Peter and with many other words, he solemnly bore witness and kept on exhorting them, saying be saved from this crooked generation.
Speaker 1: So then those who had received his word were baptized, and on that day there were added about 3,000 souls.
Speaker 1: What does Jesus want all people everywhere to know?
Speaker 1: What does he want all people everywhere to know.
Speaker 1: He wants them to know that just what Peter offered, hey, each of you be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the promise is for you.
Speaker 1: Some people say I don't know if it is for me, carter, it is, it's for you, it's for your family, it's for your posterity, it's for the people that come after you, it's for the people, he said a long way off, which means probably many of us.
Speaker 1: You're Gentiles, you're non-Jews.
Speaker 1: That's the part of the promise that includes you long ago in the mind of God.
Speaker 1: Here's the promise.
Speaker 1: It's going to reach them.
Speaker 1: It's going to reach them in the 21st century.
Speaker 1: The promise is still in action.
Speaker 1: Everyone who God will call to himself.
Speaker 1: He wants us to know Jesus, wants us to know our sin, put Jesus on the cross, and so we need to humbly ask for forgiveness and express our forgiveness through embracing the shame on some of us.
Speaker 1: We don't feel like it's a shame embracing, in some sense a shame of getting all wet of baptism, of saying me I'm the one I should have been following God and I wasn't.
Speaker 1: What does baptism mean?
Speaker 1: I wrote this down.
Speaker 1: Here's, hopefully, a succinct definition Baptism is an act of announcing that you are turning to God, admitting your sin and believing in his personal eternal forgiveness and friendship.
Speaker 1: Doggone, that sounds good.
Speaker 1: That sounds better than a bowl of Captain Crunch.
Speaker 1: Let's read it again Baptism is an active announcing.
Speaker 1: It's an active announcing when people get baptized here pretty soon.
Speaker 1: It's an announcement.
Speaker 1: It's an announcement that they are turning to God and admitting their sin and believing his promise of personal eternal forgiveness and friendship.
Speaker 1: That's what we're seeing and it's beautiful baby.
Speaker 1: It is a fleeing from the sin virus, the death virus, the hell virus, straight into Jesus' arms, knowing he himself is the cure.
Speaker 1: It is a demonstration that I trust Jesus, though my sin did keep him on the cross.
Speaker 1: His open heart of love and affection never stops fighting for me and always is reaching toward me and pulls me in to his chest and loves me.
Speaker 1: And I can't get away from it.
Speaker 1: Somebody say can't, I can't get away from it.
Speaker 1: Who's it for?
Speaker 1: Get away from it.
Speaker 1: Somebody say, can't, I can't get away from it.
Speaker 1: Who's it for?
Speaker 1: It's for you and your children and those who are far off.
Speaker 1: What happens when somebody is baptized?
Speaker 1: Just what he said they're forgiven from all their sin and they get this gift of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: What's happening is another way we talk about it is they get saved.
Speaker 1: They get saved.
Speaker 1: They trust their eternal destiny and their life right now to Jesus.
Speaker 1: And there's really only three things you got to do.
Speaker 1: You have to acknowledge that's true what Jesus said.
Speaker 1: Remember that's what Peter said.
Speaker 1: He said you have to know this, we have to accept it.
Speaker 1: We have to acknowledge it.
Speaker 1: We have to believe that believe is trust.
Speaker 1: I have to trust it that Jesus really can and does want to save me.
Speaker 1: And then I need to confess it, and really you don't have to confess it to all of us, you just need to confess it to Jesus.
Speaker 1: I'm the one and I need your forgiveness and I'm so thankful that your arms are wide open and you're willing to give it.
Speaker 1: When you see a baptism, these used to be together okay, in the first church times, when you got baptized, that's what you were saying.
Speaker 1: You're saying I'm getting saved.
Speaker 1: Now, it's true, you don't have to get baptized in order to get saved.
Speaker 1: It really is a heart thing.
Speaker 1: You just come to Jesus on your knees saying I need Jesus.
Speaker 1: Boom, you're forgiven and it's forever.
Speaker 1: The baptism doesn't improve it.
Speaker 1: What the baptism does do is it announces it, and in those times they always went together.
Speaker 1: In our time there's not as much, just baptismals everywhere in the world, and so sometimes we save it for church or we save it for when we're at the lake, but either way it means I'm trusting Jesus for my salvation.
Speaker 1: Here's four changes.
Speaker 1: We're going to go up, walk through them real quick and then we're going to baptize some folks.
Speaker 1: Four changes of baptism announces.
Speaker 1: Number one my identity changes.
Speaker 1: My identity changes.
Speaker 1: For you are all children of God through faith in Christ.
Speaker 1: We all might say, hey, we're all children of God.
Speaker 1: That's true in a sense, but in the purest biblical way.
Speaker 1: We're all creatures of God.
Speaker 1: We're all creations of God.
Speaker 1: But there's a son and daughtership that he invites, a unique, favored son and daughtership that he invites us into when we trust Christ.
Speaker 1: He says and all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ like putting on new clothes.
Speaker 1: It's like putting on.
Speaker 1: We kind of get dirty through life from our sin and we come to Jesus first and he says, okay, get rid of all that and put on me, put on my purity, put on my cleanness.
Speaker 1: But then as we walk through life we still get a little bit dirty, like our heels kick up some dirt because we don't get perfect suddenly.
Speaker 1: And yet Jesus says, even though you don't feel perfect, here's the way the law works the other way.
Speaker 1: I've called you perfect.
Speaker 1: I've changed your who.
Speaker 1: You're still going to do things that aren't perfect and aren't right and that's going to make you feel sometimes like, well, you know, I can't be saved, it must not have taken, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Jesus doesn't really love me because here I go, hurting him again and betray him again.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, precious, you're going to do that right up until the day you leave this earth.
Speaker 1: That's part of being in this body that still kind of has the disease.
Speaker 1: But there's a higher truth and Jesus says I know you still experience it, but your who has changed.
Speaker 1: Even when you feel dirty, you need to confess I have done this.
Speaker 1: But it's not who I am.
Speaker 1: I am now a prince or princess of the most high king and I have Jesus's cleanness.
Speaker 1: Even though I don't always act like I have Jesus's cleanness and it's a picture of death into life.
Speaker 1: When you see this in a second it's going to be a picture Romans 6, 4, for we died.
Speaker 1: That's what you're going to watch.
Speaker 1: 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 have new lives.
Speaker 1: It's a picture of us dying but then rising, so we can have friendship of Jesus and the power of Jesus.
Speaker 1: We have access to him in a way that we didn't when I first came to Christ.
Speaker 1: You know before that I was a real partier Like and I did the drugs of the time.
Speaker 1: They're not like what they are now, but it was still wrong, it was still illegal and I was always out partying man.
Speaker 1: I knew whatever God there was out there didn't particularly like it.
Speaker 1: I knew the authorities I was deceiving, didn't like it.
Speaker 1: And when I came to Christ, I began to just have this thing go off saying God's not done with this, he's not down with this.
Speaker 1: He didn't force me to lay it down, he invited me and inspired me.
Speaker 1: You need to lay that down Because, see, jesus says if you seek to keep your life, you'll lose it, but if you lose your life for my sake, you'll find it.
Speaker 1: And that was resonating in my brain.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I, if I keep all this fun that I'm having, jesus says I'm going to lose real life.
Speaker 1: But if I lay it down, I'm going to gain the life that only Jesus can give.
Speaker 1: And so, with his help, it wasn't easy, it wasn't perfect and it wasn't the first time, but, with Jesus' help, there had to be a relinquishing, a dying bye-bye.
Speaker 1: Bye-bye to that saying bye bye and then embracing the new life that was in Christ, and some of them friends, it was really easy.
Speaker 1: It was like boom, that's done, and others were like doggone, this is a walk.
Speaker 1: There's like a magnetism that pulls me back, trying to toward that thing.
Speaker 1: But when I'm in Christ, my who is different, even when my do seems like the old me.
Speaker 1: My identity changes, my access changes.
Speaker 1: That's number two.
Speaker 1: My access changes.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, this might be my favorite one.
Speaker 1: My access changes.
Speaker 1: Baptism brings the times of the refreshing from that Holy Spirit that is crazily given to us.
Speaker 1: For by the Spirit, for by one Spirit, all of us, jews and Greeks, everybody, slaves and free, we're baptized into one body and we're all privileged to drink from the Spirit, to experience His renewing and His refreshing and His friendship.
Speaker 1: Imagine that you have had a walkie-talkie that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: Your whole life You've just had it with you, tried to throw it away and it just always found its way back into your room.
Speaker 1: You've moved and it came with you and it just never works.
Speaker 1: You shake the thing, it just doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And then one day it starts to come on.
Speaker 1: Someone on the other side is trying to talk to you and this whole.
Speaker 1: You've had it the whole time but it was kind of like broke.
Speaker 1: When we come to Jesus, he turns on the walkie talkie and he says you're not going to hear me perfectly because you're still riddled with sin, but you're going to begin to sense my direction and sense my leading.
Speaker 1: And when you come to me at the end or beginning of a hard day, I'm going to hold you and soothe you and give you some sense that the world can't see.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you a piece of me and I'm going to impart my peace into you.
Speaker 1: This is just what Jesus talked about.
Speaker 1: John 14, verse 16,.
Speaker 1: The disciples are kind of like distraught.
Speaker 1: Jesus just told them by the way, I'm going to be killed soon, I'm going away.
Speaker 1: And they're like you're going away.
Speaker 1: What are you talking about, man?
Speaker 1: Jesus, you're the whole mission here.
Speaker 1: And he says it's better if I go away, because if I go away I'll send the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: See, jesus is limited to one GPS location when he was on earth.
Speaker 1: He says when I send the Spirit, I'll be with all y'all deeper than I am right now, and I'll get to be with everybody Verse 16,.
Speaker 1: And I will ask the father and he'll give you another helper to be with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.
Speaker 1: You know him, you know me, and he dwells with you and he will be in you.
Speaker 1: What a promise.
Speaker 1: The privilege to drink from the Spirit, the privilege that some of you have experienced this.
Speaker 1: You thought preaching was really bad and dumb and you thought church was dumb, and then, somewhere along the line, you heard a sermon and the Lord clicked it on.
Speaker 1: He began to cause you to be illuminated and to drink from the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: You may not have known what was happening, but you're like oh my gosh, I understand this.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I kind of like this.
Speaker 1: That was him, that was the helper.
Speaker 1: What was he doing?
Speaker 1: He was helping you.
Speaker 1: He was helping you hear him and get it and understand what God was saying, even if only kinda.
Speaker 1: My identity changes, my access changes, my allegiance changes.
Speaker 1: My allegiance changes.
Speaker 1: Did you see that in the last verse, 1 Corinthians 12, 13?
Speaker 1: For by one spirit, all of us, all of us, jews and Greeks, any kind of person, no matter where they've been, no matter what their background, no matter what their religious history, no matter what their ethnic history, no matter what, were baptized into one body.
Speaker 1: Everybody who comes to Christ is brought into one body, one family.
Speaker 1: Now, that body is the body of Jesus, yes, but it's also the body of all the Christians who are also one with Jesus, all the Christians alive today, all the Christians in the past who are now in heaven.
Speaker 1: You become one with all of them.
Speaker 1: Imagine so.
Speaker 1: We sometimes talk about baptism like it's a wedding, and that's a helpful illustration because it's that permanent.
Speaker 1: It's's a helpful illustration because it's that permanent.
Speaker 1: It's like Jesus is committing to you, and you're publicly committing to him, the danger of it.
Speaker 1: You can't marry everybody.
Speaker 1: When you marry Jesus, you marry all the people Jesus married.
Speaker 1: You marry the entire body of Christ.
Speaker 1: You're grafted into his body.
Speaker 1: It's a little bit like, instead of like, a person who needs, maybe, a heart transplant receiving a heart.
Speaker 1: It's more like the heart receiving a body.
Speaker 1: You and I are the heart.
Speaker 1: Maybe You're an appendage, you're a piece of it, but really your whole life.
Speaker 1: You haven't been able to find your ultimate purpose until you are in that body.
Speaker 1: You belong in the body.
Speaker 1: It's not that you're not useful, it's not that you can't be used for other things.
Speaker 1: It's just that there's something higher and something better.
Speaker 1: When we come into the family of God, even when they've messed up, even when different ones have hurt you, I know that that's real.
Speaker 1: And yet we're on our way as Jesus sanctifies all of us.
Speaker 1: He says you're now one with all of them.
Speaker 1: Number four, my aim changes Matthew 28, 19 and 20.
Speaker 1: This is Jesus kind of parting gift mission to his disciples before he ascends into heaven.
Speaker 1: And everybody goes about the mission of God.
Speaker 1: Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1: Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I've given you and, be sure of this, I'm with you.
Speaker 1: Always, even at the end of the age, when someone is baptized, they receive that exact same charge.
Speaker 1: That was a charge to the disciples.
Speaker 1: I want you to go make disciples and when you're making them, help them get baptized, help them come into the family, help them to announce their salvation, but when they do, they're also receiving that charge.
Speaker 1: So when you get baptized now you have a higher, ultimate aim.
Speaker 1: I want to do what I'm here to do on earth.
Speaker 1: I want to love my family, I want to achieve my goals, but there's also this higher sense of and whatever else I do, I'm supposed to be contributing to making disciples who will then get baptized and make disciples and then baptize others and then baptize others all the way down.
Speaker 1: Do you know?
Speaker 1: I mean, my friend, if you're a Christian right now, there's a link from you all the way back to those first disciples.
Speaker 1: People just kept passing on the truth and passing on the truth, and it got down to you.
Speaker 1: And now it's our turn to pass it on to others.
Speaker 1: And it's really not about us.
Speaker 1: It's about doing what Jesus wants us to Like.
Speaker 1: I was baptized as a kid, doesn't that?
Speaker 1: Isn't that it?
Speaker 1: I think that counts, just so you know, I was baptized as a kid, but here's what I would.
Speaker 1: I would make this pitch to you.
Speaker 1: I'll bet you, if you're baptized as a kid, your parents probably I'll bet you most of them, they probably were saying something in that baptism like we want this kid to belong to Jesus.
Speaker 1: That's what they were saying.
Speaker 1: They're saying we set this apart, we're pledging this child Now.
Speaker 1: They knew I can't control what they do.
Speaker 1: They might just forget the whole thing, but I'm asking God to honor this and make him or her his own when we come later in life and we've actually chosen to follow Christ.
Speaker 1: It's an appropriate step in some ways to complete what the parents started To say.
Speaker 1: My parents, they believed that I would want to follow Christ.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to go ahead and finish it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to ratify the deal that they tried to express a heart for for me.
Speaker 1: Don't let it throw you if you have already been baptized, but you feel the Spirit tugging on you now, because here's what we're going to do.
Speaker 1: In a minute we're going to have some people come out here and get baptized, but there's some of you, I'm willing to bet, are feeling the nudge of the Holy Spirit to get baptized yourself today.
Speaker 1: And if that is you, I want you to think about it.
Speaker 1: But then I want you to go ahead and do it.
Speaker 1: You're gonna meet Laura and any helper.
Speaker 1: She's got out that door.
Speaker 1: She's ready to sign you up right now.
Speaker 1: We've got changes of clothes for you.
Speaker 1: You can go home dry if you want to.
Speaker 1: It's a perfectly sunny day.
Speaker 1: What I'm saying is it won't be hard If God is nudging you to take that step and make that announcement.
Speaker 1: I wanna give you that opportunity.
Speaker 1: What's required?
Speaker 1: Just what Peter said repent, each one of you, and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Speaker 1: The danger is we might feel the Spirit of God piercing our heart, like those original folks did, but we might resist it and push back against it and say, no, not me.
Speaker 1: Can I just encourage you to give in, follow in their footsteps and just give into it, because the promise is for you and it's for your children and all who are far off.
Speaker 1: As many as the Lord will call to himself.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you this question Do you hear him calling you?
Speaker 1: Here's what I want to do.
Speaker 1: First, before we bring out our baptizing people, I want to give you the opportunity.
Speaker 1: If you've never put your faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: Today's a great day to do that.
Speaker 1: Remember how simple we said it was All you have to do is acknowledge, believe and confess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, jesus, I don't know all the things.
Speaker 1: I just know that you're really who you said you are.
Speaker 1: I believe and trust that you can save me and that you want to.
Speaker 1: And I confess, jesus Christ, you are Lord, you're the King, you're the Christ, you're the one who was sent.
Speaker 1: You're God's answer to my sin problem.
Speaker 1: If that's you, I'm going to pray for us real quick.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you the opportunity to pray that with me.
Speaker 1: You just pray it in your brain you don't have to pray it out loud and as you pray it, trust.
Speaker 1: Jesus hears you, he loves you and he's saying come to me, I will, I'll hold you and I'll never let go.
Speaker 1: Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a home church and you're looking for a Bible preaching community that has its heart set on passionately knowing Jesus and being his witness in our generation, check out fiercechurch.
Speaker 1: We'd love for you to join us, either digitally or in person.
Speaker 1: Also, if you're looking for leadership development related content, don't forget to check out the Fierce Leadership Podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts from.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to those of you who give generously to support this ministry.
Speaker 1: It's because of you that this is possible.
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Speaker 1: Whatever challenges you're facing, I know you can make it.
Speaker 1: Don't give up.
Speaker 1: Hang on to Jesus.
Speaker 1: He won't let go of you.
Speaker 1: Jesus loves you so much and we love you.
Speaker 1: I hope someday we get to meet in person.
Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening.