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So I do want to jump into our series that we have for today. We're continuing our series, the baptism of discipleship, baptism in the name of the Son, part two. So we last week we talked about baptism in the name of the Son. Before that, we talked about baptism in the name of the Father. And then at some point in the near future, maybe not next weekend, but we will dive into baptism in the name of the Holy Spirit. So Matthew 28, verse 18 is our springboard scripture for this series, a baptism of discipleship. And in verse 18, the resurrected Lord 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 have given you, and be sure of this. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That is what we know as part of the Great Commission. It's the last thing that Jesus said before he ascended into heaven in his physical form, in his resurrected form. And so it's very important. It's very important. It's the culmination of his ministry, his earthly ministry. It's the culmination of his resurrection and the fact that he then in that moment stood having all authority and power in heaven and on earth. And that's what he chose to say. And so we know obviously that what he was laying out was a discipleship model. He was saying, This is what I want you to do with all the authority and the power that I am giving you, that I have. I want you to go and make disciples. And then he said, and then here's how I want you to do it. So he tells us what he wants us to do, why we are qualified to do it, what he wants us to do, and then how to do it. And so we're making disciples, we're baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching these new disciples to obey all the commands that I've given you. And so what we looked at is this model of baptism in the name of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Father is a baptism of identity. That's what we talked about a couple weeks ago. We may have this slide up there, Noah, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit slide. So the Father, baptism in the name of the Father is a baptism of identity. That is origin, order, love, belief, repentance. It's personal. Say it's personal. Baptism in the name of the Son, that's what we're talking about now, is a baptism of acceptance. It's forgiveness, imputed righteousness, the word, truth, grafting into family, salvation, new life discipleship. We talked extensively about some of the things that Jesus' ministry provides for us, and it's positional. It's positional. Say it's positional. And then the baptism in the name of the Holy Spirit is a baptism of power, purpose, health, nurture, emotional health, security. Say it's powerful. It's powerful. So the Father is personal, the Son is positional, and the Holy Spirit is powerful. These are the emphasis, if you will, of those baptisms. So baptism into the Father or baptism into the Son and into the Holy Spirit is a process through which a believer goes through to become a disciple. Let me say it like that. Baptism in the name of the Father is focused on the person that you are. Baptism in the Son is focused on the position that you occupy. Baptism into the Holy Spirit is focused on the power that you have, the power to be who He created you to be and do what He has called you to do. So to be baptized in the name means to be fully immersed, submerged, under, and firmly fixed into Jesus' very own authority, character, and nature. So here's a little bit of a recap from last week. We talked about three different things, three different elements of this baptism. One, we talked about it's a baptism into relational reconciliation. It's a baptism into relational reconciliation. Listen, the evidence of this should be found in the life of a disciple of Jesus in the form of restored, repaired, and reciprocally relevant relationships. Sorry, reciprocally reverent relationships. There's your alliteration for the day right there. Let me say that again because this is important. The evidence that you have been baptized in the name of the Son should be that relational reconciliation becomes your testimony. Relational reconciliation becomes a fruit of your life. The evidence should be found in the life of a disciple of Jesus in the form of restored, repaired, and reciprocally reverent relationships. Alignment. Relationships that have alignment with core values and beliefs. Healthy, vibrant relationships will be evident. And where there are unhealthy people, there must be appropriate boundaries to preserve relationship and to protect your family. The next thing we talked about is it's a baptism into total acceptance. We spent most of our time talking about the importance of acceptance versus rejection. Anything other, here's a statement that I made, and I want to bring a little clarity to it. Anything other than love and acceptance is processed by us as rejection. Understand that when I use the word love, I'm not talking about your definition of love. Anything other than love and acceptance is processed by us as rejection. That's just how we work as humans. So as I say that to help you understand, even if you don't feel like you've struggled with rejection or you've had issues with rejection, you have. All of us have. Anything other than love and acceptance is processed to us by. So when I use the word love, I'm not talking about our definition of love. I'm talking about God's love. How many of you know God is love? Love is not God. We don't take our definition of love and superimpose it onto God and then make him look like our version of love. That's what the world's doing right now. Well, that's not very loving, right? We have to be all inclusive and all these different kinds of things. And no, God's love is different than our love. God defines what love is and we submit and align with his definition of love, not ours. How many of you know God's love includes discipline and correction? And so let me let me say it like this: if you didn't get discipline and correction from your parents, it was it was processed as rejection by you. There's an illegitimacy there that happens because the Bible says that it's the legitimate son that gets disciplined. It legitimizes sonship, it legitimizes the position that you have in the life of a person when they love you enough to really love you. And so we talked about that rejection generally comes from the bad, hurtful thing that someone did to you and the good thing you needed that someone didn't give you. Like discipline, like protection, like correction. However, sometimes God's love in the form of discipline and correction and even in boundaries can feel like rejection if you are emotionally unhealthy. But even little kids know in their hearts that a lack of discipline from their parents is a lack of love and acceptance. So here's another truth. It's impossible for another human being to give you all the love and acceptance that you need. No human being can do that. Therefore, no matter how much they love and accept you, it's not good enough. Your parents may have been amazing parents. You still suffered rejection under their love and leadership. It's impossible for another human being to give you the love and acceptance that you need. You will feel rejected by everyone at some level in your life. This is why, if you are not baptized in the name of the Son, immersed and firmly fixed into his very own character and nature and authority, you will struggle immensely with rejection. If you remain a believer but fail to become a disciple through this process of baptism, you will perpetually hurt. You will perpetually stay wounded and likely live in a state of offense, being overly critical and judgmental of others, especially those who will where you will not. If that describes you or someone you know at all, it's an indication that you are not baptized into the acceptance that Jesus has made available. Total acceptance. The other thing I mentioned was this concept of a best friend. A lot of you had never heard that before. And I spend a lot of time meditating and contemplating and thinking about the kingdom of God and how our lives should look different than the world's. And I recognize that not everybody uh does that for a living, okay? And so I'm like, well, I've this I've thought this for years. I've operated like this for years. That's just a revelation that I've had. I've thought everybody has, and I mentioned it, and people were like, what? And so I made the comment that the concept of a best friend uh is a part of this world ruled by Satan. It's a part of his, the way that he does relationships. And so just to clarify, uh, it is okay to recognize different levels of relationship. I just don't use the verbiage of best friend. Okay, and I think our kids especially need to understand this because they perpetuate so much rejection, and I don't know that it's necessarily out of an evil heart to cause pain in the life of other people. I think it's ignorance. And so when you have a bestie and you have a best friend, and you're taking selfies and posting it on social media, I'm with my best friend, I'm with my bestie. Somebody's looking that and experiencing rejection because of that. It's you being more of a servant of rejection than you are a servant of reconciliation. And so we don't want to be ministers of rejection, that's Satan's ministry. We want to be ministers of reconciliation, that's Jesus' ministry. And so I do recognize Jesus modeled different levels of relationship with people. There were people that had different access to him than others. He gave more of himself to certain people than others, and he didn't apologize for it. And so what I use the language of acquaintances, of friends, of close friends. There are people who are I'm close friends with, right? I don't use that language uh publicly unless absolutely necessary to indicate, you know, but I usually don't even say anything about that. I just say it's a friend of mine or it's a good friend of mine. And so use those kind of indicators, but try to stay away from those best because you only have one. You only have one. And there are people that are like family to me. They're like family to us. They've they have done things differently than other people to get to a level of relationship with us that other people don't have, right? All of you should have relationships like that. Or you have acquaintances, you have friends, social friends, maybe co-workers, you know, different reasons. And then there's your close friends, right? Those are the ones that you get rejuvenated when you're around, not depleted, right? You can you can circle up with them when you're tired and you feel at peace and you feel at rest and you're not having to protect, you're not having to put boundaries in place, you're not, you're not having to do any of that. Those are those are your close friends. Uh, and then there's those ones that are family. We're gonna talk a little bit more about that today. And then I talked about it's a baptism into newness of life. It's a baptism into the newness of life that Jesus gave. That He doesn't bandage up stuff, He doesn't put band-aids on us, He doesn't dress up the old. He came to do a work that leaves us a new creation in Christ Jesus. The old is gone, the new has come. Amen. And and being a disciple is about being baptized into that newness of life. So today I want to share three more biblical truths that help us understand this baptism in the name of the Son. And I likely won't get through all three of these today. But the first one is this it is a baptism into Jesus' very own family. It is a baptism into Jesus' very own family. Father, for the next few minutes, I pray you would anoint me to communicate your word and your heart and your character and your nature and what we have available to us because of your son. And I pray that you would open our eyes and our ears that we may see you, that we may hear you, that you would give us revelation into the scriptures today, that we may know you better, that we could have knowledge and wisdom and understanding to be your people. In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. It's a baptism into Jesus' very own family. Now, this is a very important and powerful concept. We are grafted in to the family of God. We are grafted in to the family of God. John 15, Jesus said, He used this language often. Jesus said, I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them will produce much fruit. For apart from me, you can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned, but if you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want, and it will be granted. When you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father. Amazing truth and revelation in that. But again, Jesus is using his language of being in me, being baptized in my name, into firmly fixed in, under the authority of his very own character, nature, uh authority, character, and nature. And so uh what he's saying is is this is what it is uh this is the posture, if you will, these are the results that a disciple gets. Now, um let me clarify something here, and I think this the context of this whole series really fits in this, and I've mentioned this before. I'm gonna teach more on it in the future, but you have to understand something with Jesus. There were different groups of people that Jesus ministered to very differently. I refer to it as the ministry model of Jesus. Jesus related to and ministered to unbelievers, believers, followers, and disciples. Okay? Four main groups of people that Jesus related to, and he related to them very, very differently. And his messages that he taught to those groups were very different depending on what group he was talking to. Very different. What he gave, what they received, what they heard, it was very different. So he had unbelievers, he was always educating unbelievers on the kingdom of God, providing opportunities for them to become a believer, to repent, to change what they believed to be true about God and to become a believer. And then to believers, he was always talking to them and he was giving them opportunities. He was uh motivating them, if you will, to become disciple followers. Okay, so he would say things like in in John 8, 31, Jesus said to those who believed in him, You're truly my disciples, if you continue to obey my teachings, then you'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free. But what he was laying out for them was a path. And what he was saying to those who believed in him is you're a believer, but you're not a disciple. You're not a follower. And so what he was saying is, I have something more for you. Right now, you're a believer, and I have this thing called disciple that's available for you, and you, but you got to step out of just believing in me and you got to become a follower. And then out of his followers, he chose disciples, and out of the disciples, he gave power and authority to then go and make disciples, right? The unbelievers certainly didn't get that, the believers didn't get that, only followers and disciples got those opportunities. And there's a lot of people who are just comfortable spending their whole life as a believer. Whole life. They'll sit there their whole life as a believer, never really become a follower, and certainly obviously not become a disciple. So this baptism process is how you become a disciple. It is to be fully submerged, immersed, firmly fixed into and under, right? Jesus' very own authority, character, and nature. That is a serious thing. That's not something we just tack on to the end of a prayer. It is, uh remember, I've said this, it's not a certain kind of prayer God hears. It's a certain kind of person that God hears. And so when he's talking about this in me, uh, you will you will remain, and if you ask anything you want, it will be granted. That's not for everybody, right? Like, in other words, he's saying, you gotta be in me and you gotta remain. If you're not in me and remaining in me, that doesn't apply to you. Answer prayer is not not applicable. When you produce much fruit, listen, verse 8, when you produce much fruit, you are my true disciples. It's pretty amazing. Romans 11 23, and if the people of Israel turn from their unbelief, they will be grafted in again, for God has the power to graft them back into the tree. You by nature were a branch cut from a wild olive tree. So if God was willing to do something contrary to nature by grafting you in to his cultivated tree, he will be far more eager to graft the original branches back into the tree where they belong. I'm gonna keep reading in 1117. He says, But some of these branches from Abraham's tree, some of the people of Israel, have been broken off. And you Gentiles, that's us, who were branches from a wild olive tree, have been grafted in. Say, grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God promised Abraham and his children, sharing in the rich nourishment from the root of God's special olive tree. That's powerful, revelatory stuff right there. That is because of Jesus. When you are baptized into the name of the Son, you are grafted into the very own family of Jesus. Like co-heirs, joined and jointed, grafted in, adopted, right? And it's the only time in scripture that you see this concept of grafting mentioned. It's a fun, it's a fascinating and phenomenal uh concept. And I remember kind of diving into studying about horticulture and grafting, and it's it's really it's really amazing. Um so what grafting is is when you take a tree or a let's Most of the grafting that we do is with stone fruit trees. That's when it's most successful with any kind of stone fruit tree. You can do it with other things, but it's a lot more difficult. So let's just say that you have a peach tree and you take a branch from a plum tree. This is stone fruit, and you take it and you graft it onto the peach tree. What's amazing is that that peach tree, that that graft, will then begin to receive nourishment and everything it needs for life and fruitfulness from the peach tree, and then it will still produce plums. It doesn't start producing peaches, it produces plums. So you can have a tree that has peaches and plums. They do this with apples a lot, and they just do different species of apples. So you could have a tree that has red delicious apple, Granny Smith apple, and honey crisp apples. All on the same tree, very different kinds of apples, but if it's grafted, that's what it's what it's saying is you were a part of a wild olive tree. And God grafted, how many of you were wild, a little bit wild? I was a little wild. I was that was that was me. But it was still an olive tree. Amen. It was still an olive tree. And so we we have an olive branch in our logo that we just love. We feel like there's so much symbolism in that, in the river. And so you were cut off of the wild olive tree, and you were grafted into God's olive tree. You were plucked out of the family of sin and Satan and death, and you were grafted into the family of God and righteousness and peace and health. Amen? It's a powerful thing. Ephesians 2, 18. Now, all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit. Why? Because of what Christ has done for us. Who can we come to? The Father. The Father. Through the same Holy Spirit, because of what Christ has done. What do you see in that one verse? Father, Son, and Spirit. In one verse. So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. That's the river life. We are grafted into God's family. Together we are his house built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Christ Jesus Himself. We are carefully joined together in Him, in Him, there it is, becoming a holy temple for the Lord. We are grafted into family. We have the spirit of adoption. Romans 8.14. Now, how many of you have heard of Romans 8.28? You like that verse? Right? For God works all things together for the good of those who are called according to his purposes, who love him and are called according to his purposes. So this is the context of that verse. You're going to see it differently today. Romans 8 14. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you receive God's spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him Abba, Father, for his spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. That's the work of Christ. Verse 26, Romans 8, 26. And so the context is family. The context is us being grafted into the family of God. And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don't know how God wants us to pray. We don't know what God wants us to pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. I believe that is including talking about praying in tongues, praying in the Holy Spirit. So here all of a sudden you have him talking about family, talking about the Father. Now he's talking about the Holy Spirit and prayer. And then it says this, and the Father who knows all hearts, knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will. So you have the Father and you have the Holy Spirit. And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes for them. For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his son, so that his son would be, listen, the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. Romans 8 28 is about family. It only applies to people who are baptized in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. Anybody that wants to can throw that on their wall and they can quote it, but the only people it actually applies to are disciples of Jesus, people who have been grafted in to the family of God. The firstborn among many brothers and sisters, and having chosen them, he called them to come to him, and having called them, he gave them right standing with himself, and having given them right standing, he gave them his glory. So here's what he's talking about here is there is a place in Christ, in the name of the Son, where you are literally grafted into the family of God. Spirit of adoption, spirit of adoption. You are plucked out of the family of this world, your family of origin, and you are grafted into the family of God. And that's good news. That's good news. Because most people don't have a good family of origin, by the way. Most people don't. Some of you did, and praise God for that. That's the way it should be. Even still, even with a great family of origin, it's not good enough. It's not good enough. God wants you to be grafted into his very own family, Jesus' very own family. And then the question is, once you get grafted in, what does life look like after that? You know, my parents uh were believers, and that they weren't followers of Jesus. They weren't disciples, they were believers. They never believed in false gods or anything like that, but they just didn't really follow Jesus. They believed we'd go to church sometimes, but we just we lived our life according to our own terms and what you know seemed right, okay? Um and because of that, I didn't didn't have what I needed. I didn't have what I needed as a as a son in a family. And then my parents divorced, the family was broken, um, and broken broken family is a great uh description of what happens when parents get divorced. It shatters, it breaks the family. And so there was this little boy, I was the youngest of three kids. I have an older brother, older sister, and I come into you know my teenage years not having a father in my life and not having what I need from my mom, and again, they did their best with what they had. That was the best they could do with what they had. And as a young man, I was very broken, I was very desperate for love and acceptance, and I was looking for it in all the wrong places. That was the old song, was that Kenny Rogers? Looking for love in all the wrong places, right? That was me, and it created such a bondage and such darkness in my life. I was a most of you know my testimony, but I was very, very much in captivity to sin and death and drugs and alcohol. And this scripture that I'm about to read to you is my story. It is Melandy's story. And in Psalms 113, I call this dumpster theology, dumpster theology. And it says, Who can be compared with the Lord our God who is enthroned on high? This is Psalm 113, verse 5. Who can be compared with the Lord our God who is enthroned on high? I may not have this in the notes. Do I have this on the notes? Yeah, okay. He, listen to this. This is amazing. He stoops to look down on heaven and earth. Now, what I love about that is that's a revelation of God right there. In our minds, I remember when I first read this and saw it, I was like, wait a minute, what did that just say? I had this picture of God like floating around in heaven, right? Because we do pray, Father in heaven, right? Hallowed be thy name. And so I had this picture of God existing within heaven. And when I read this, it blew my mind, literally blew God out of my mind. And I was like, it says he doesn't just stoop down to look at earth, he stoops to look down on heaven and earth. That's how high above his throne is. Amen. And listen to this as high as he is, above heaven and earth, he lifts the poor from the dust and the needy from the garbage dump. And listen, and he sets them among princes, even the princes of his own people. That's our story. That is our life. We were living in the sewers and the dumpsters of sin and worldliness and just yuck. Brokenness, broken families, broken lives, broken souls, sin and death and darkness. We were living in that, and God, in his kindness, in his mercy, in his goodness, the Father, he reached down and he picked us up, he lifted us up out of the dump, and he placed us among princes, even the princes of his own people. That's literally our story. We got placed into this church, and these people were like royalty, like Christian royalty. They were just amazing. We thought, we do not belong here at all. But we did. God grafted us into his very own family. We became his very own people. Jesus was the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. We became siblings of Jesus in that moment. Isn't that crazy? Not everyone, people say this all the time, we're all God's children. Everybody's every human being is God's children. That's not what the Bible teaches. Only those who are in him, only those who obey, only those who remain are his children. And so Jesus, because of Jesus, we accept Jesus and He grafts us into families. Psalm 68, verse 5 says that God is a father to the fatherless, defender of widows. This is God whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families. He sets the prisoners free and gives them joy. But he makes the rebellious live in dry places. That's an interesting contradiction there when you, you know, uh, or or contrast there, rather, not a contradiction, a contrast there, because he's saying, This is my heart towards people who accept Jesus. This is a promise for us. He is a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows. He places the lonely in families, and he sets prisoners free and gives them joy. Amen. This is God whose dwelling is holy. We have a baptism into the very own family of Jesus. And what that does, if are you coming back up? You can come back up. And what that does for us is it changes everything. It changes your lineage, it changes the brokenness, it breaks the cycle of the generational curses, it changes everything. Everything that you didn't have that you needed, now you have. That we have. That's God's will. That's God's design. Family, some people refer to it as family of choice, you have family of origin and family of choice. I call it family of faith. Family of origin and your family of faith that you're grafted into by faith. You can play if you want to play. Give me a little something. Give me a little something. There we go. You can, Daniel, you can turn those set the mood here. Because I just want to have a minute of prayer. Where we just have a moment in God's presence. In his love, let's stand together. Maybe you have been grafted, and I think obviously most of you in this room have been grafted into the family of God. You know the joy of that, you know the power of that, you know what it feels like to cry out, Abba Father. He is your father. But maybe just in this moment today, there's something special God wants to touch in you because of that revelation. There's something He wants to deposit in you. Some love, some acceptance. Maybe you like me, the family of origin was not what you needed. There was a lot of brokenness there. But maybe your family of origin was great. Again, I think most parents do the best with what they have, and it's just often not enough. And unintentionally, there's lack and limitations and hurt. Being grafted into the family of God heals all of that, it fixes it, it makes it just. Next week, we're going to talk about the imputed righteousness and justification that Jesus gives us. And what one of the things he does, he makes it right by grafting us into his family and saying this is how it was supposed to be all along. But sin came and messed it all up, created a bunch of brokenness and a bunch of generational curses and just perpetual brokenness. Brokenness breeds brokenness, hurt breeds hurt. And God said, One of the things I'm doing, if you are baptized in the name of the Son, I'm grafting you into my very own family, and I'm your lineage changes, your family tree changes. And so if you're if you would just bow your heads, how many of you are here today, and you recognize there's still some healing that you need, there's still some healing that your soul needs as a son, as a daughter. Just lift your hand up. I want to pray specifically for just some healing from some family stuff. Maybe there was abuse, maybe there was rejection, there was bad things that happened to you that hurt you. Maybe there was good things that you needed but you didn't have, and it hurt. It created issues in your life. There was love that you that you lacked, there was acceptance that you lacked, there was nurture and discipline and correction and you lacked it. It created wounds, it created brokenness. How many of you need the Lord to touch those areas? Thank you, God. Thank you, God. That's what generational blessing is all about. God interrupts the cycles of brokenness. And he says, if you will be baptized in the name of my son, I will graft you into the very own family of Jesus. And now your lineage is Christlieness. Your lineage is Jesus. Your lineage is faith and hope and love and peace and joy and healing. Your lineage is freedom. Amen. And you want your kids and your grandkids and your great-grandkids to be grafted in to the family of God, to the generational blessing of God. Father, right now, we just submit these situations to you, our past to you, what we had, what we didn't have. And we say, God, we are your sons and daughters. We are completely submitted to the authority of Jesus. Our life doesn't belong to us, it belongs to Jesus. He is Lord. And we trust fully in his ability to graft us into the very own family of God. That we have been plucked out of all the pain and hurt and rejection and sin. And we have been grafted into your family. And because of that, we know that you will cause all things to work together for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purposes, who are resting in the position that they have in the family of God. Lord, I speak, God, that you would redeem, that you would reconcile, that your providence, God, would be sovereign in their life. You are redeeming, you are reconciling, you are making all things new today in our lives, in our family, in our children and our grandchildren. And I thank you that you are releasing generational blessing. You are releasing generational blessing in this place, in our lives. And it's because of Jesus. And we're just going to close out our time today worshiping Jesus and thanking Jesus and expressing gratitude for Jesus that the cycles are broken, that we are grafted into the family of God.