Basics | Week 2 | Full Service

It'd be a good thing. Good thing. Hey. We're in this this basic series, and and and we're just talking about what are those basic fundamentals of what it means to be a disciple.

And I think it's really appropriate for the the world we're in, and it always is. But the problem with basics sometimes is they're basic. I mean, you'd be like, okay. I get that, but let's go on to this. But the thing about a basic thing is is is when you do this basic thing, it's what allows you to do the next thing.

And that's why, you know, to be a disciple, we talk about our adherence to know, to grow, to go. And that's what we're unpacking. What does that look like? Last week, Jonesy did an excellent job of talking about we we get to know Jesus after we've accepted him as savior.

We continue to get to know him through worship and praise and and and and and now today, we're gonna talk about baptism. What's that one simple step of obedience and what it means a little But it's gonna what we're gonna the angle we're gonna take is beyond just

if you've been baptized, don't check out. It's it's about what does it really mean in our lives.

And, because basics are critical and sometimes it might seems like it's not. But let me give you example of how basics always build to something else and they can hurt you if you don't really get it down. You're not ready for what's next, and you won't move on to what's next, or it'll hurt you in what's next. Is I I have to admit this. I have horrible handwriting.

Terrible handwriting. Anybody else have terrible handwriting? I mean, mine is probably the worst. People have said I I write in tongues. I need an interpreter present.

I mean, I've written I used to write handwritten notes. Some of y'all probably got one from me at some point in the past. I stopped because you still have it. You probably that was nice that Bill wrote a note. You don't know what it says.

And here's the thing. If you came and showed it to me, I couldn't tell you what it says either. I can't read my own handwriting. I I I guarantee an FBI analyst of handwriting would say this guy should not be preaching. He should be institutionalized. There is something wrong with him.

And and but why? And you know why? Because when I was a kid, I was sick a lot. I used to miss thirty, forty days of school year. And and and so and I didn't do it at home when I was sick because it was monotonous. That's the problem with sometimes the basis. Basics

is just repetitive. You just gotta choose to do this. Keep doing it. Do this. Do this. And so I wasn't in school a lot when you were learning how to write. When you're learning how to write in cursive, which to me is cursive.

But so y'all are lucky that don't have to learn that anymore. But it it was difficult, and and it was I missed it. So I didn't get all the I didn't do the basics. So as I moved on, my handwriting was terrible.

And and and as I wrote, it started to cost me because back then we didn't type things. You just wrote things out. I got marked down on papers, on tests where I had to write answers because if the teacher couldn't read it, they would mark it off.

And I had to go explain it to them, and hopefully, someone would give me some back. They go, no. You need to learn how to write legibly or you're not gonna get credit.

And and and it was it was tough. And and it's the same thing with our faith. Sometimes there's these simple things that maybe we were sick that day or we just didn't wanna commit to it or we just didn't wanna do it. And you don't realize because it just seems, well, why do I need this? It's not that big of a deal.

It becomes important later. Because doing this, taking this step, now allows you to take this step. And that's really what we're talking about. And and today, what we're gonna see is this big idea.

God's personal love compels my public declaration.

We've talked about what baptism is. You've seen it. We just saw all these. It's a public declaration, but it's not the only public deck. It's it's the first step, the first one. We are continue we are supposed to publicly declare our faith in the way we live and the way we point people to Jesus the rest of our lives.

That's just step one. It's not one and done, but it's it is a step. It's that first step. And matter of fact, if you look in Romans chapter six,

it talks about this idea of this is what that step means. But you need to remember it as a believer as you keep going on in Romans six when Paul is talking about how sin's power is broken, about this incredible power of what baptism represents.

The love of Christ and what it does. And what it's saying is that God has such an incredible love and grace that is so infinite that it doesn't matter how much sin you've had or how much sin you do, his grace is more powerful than that. Well,

Paul writes here because he's writing I I guarantee he must have been a youth pastor for a little while or he knew what Americans were like because

they look for the loophole. So he just got done saying is God's grace is beyond any amount of sin. So what does he assume some people are gonna take that as is what he writes here. Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? See, that's what a teenager would do or most of us would do. Like, well, if grace is good,

sin brings more grace. Let's just keep sinning. And he said, of course not. May it never be is another translations. And it was a lot more brutal than that in the in the in the Greek. He basically said, hell no, is what it's saying in Greek.

He's like, not you're you're he's like, that is the dumbest thing that has ever been said, is what he's saying. He goes and he says, since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

Where have you forgotten? And when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, he's using the baptism ceremony, the symbolic when we became a Christian. But think about that baptism you did. We joined him in his death, death under the water. For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism.

And just as Christ was raised from the dead by his glorious power of the father, now we also may live new lives. He didn't say just get eternal life. He said live new lives.

We come out of the water and the death is left behind. We have this new life. Since we have united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.

So he's saying baptism is something that you do, but it's also something you continue to think about. You continue to let it live. It's public declaration that continues to happen. And what he's saying there is, and God's love should be what compelled it. If God loved you so much, he died on the cross, was buried, and then when we put our faith in him, our old self is buried. The death is buried and we come back out of the waters,

that should compel us to trust him and declare it publicly. And and and reality is sometimes we misunderstand baptism.

We think it's this checklist thing. It's this thing that, alright, I do this and then God love me, or I do that or I I have to do it or, you know, or I have to wait until I'm I'm mature enough to do it. No. It's a first step. It's saying, I'm identifying with this this love of God. I'm identifying with that. But, no, if we make it a checklist, we're gonna miss the moment.

And we're we're gonna make it into a thing. As if God sits up there and he has this checklist of how we get to heaven. He's sitting there next to Saint Peter who's guarding the gates, and he's like, alright. Who's next? Bill Bush. Oh, let me look at his list. Alright. Bill Bush. Okay. Yeah. He said he professed faith in me. That's good. Yeah. He's good looking. He's really smart.

Oh, cardinals fan. That's good. We hate the seahawks here and, and the forty niners except for Brock Purdy. He's in. But, and he's going down this list, and all of sudden goes, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Hold up. Stop him. He didn't check the baptism checkbox. Toss him out. That's not how it works.

Baptism is for us because it's a basic step of obedience. It's when we live when we accept that love on the inside, it's the first step of starting to declare it on the outside.

But it's what we continue to do. See, it's funny. We think baptism is like this and some of us think it's this spiritual thing that actually washes us clean, like the baptismal waters.

That that's that's not accurate to say the baptismal waters wash you clean. In baptism, in the illustration, what is water in the illustration? It's the grave. Water isn't the good thing in the baptismal illustration. It's the signifying of being buried. The good thing is coming out of the water, getting out of it.

And so when we come out of that, we can now live this new life. That's what Paul is saying. And that's what he's talking about. Take the love of God and let it live through your life. Your baptism should continue. What baptism symbolizes, this public declaration of this internal thing should be continued to live. It's and and and the bible talks in Ephesians,

it it talks about it in a powerful, loving way, what God did. When you say death, burial, and resurrection, it sounds dry, sounds theological. It is really a love story that God loves us so much that he would do that. Matter of fact, he writes in Ephesians that God's love

and the relationship that he wants to have with us is what marriage is an illustration of.

It's why he takes marriage so serious. It's why Christians say, this is what a marriage is because God said it is. Because marriage is not about finding someone you feel attracted to, finding someone to live life together. Thus, the bonus of it, marriage by God's definition of why he created it,

was to be an illustration of a relationship of us with him. It's an illustration of covenantal love. And and and that's why he takes it serious.

He says it's really this mystery when he talks about the love of a marriage, of how we're supposed to commit to one another and what it's supposed to be. But he says it's a mystery, but it's really talking about Christ and the church. In other words, here's what it kinda is and still should be as a part of our life.

Baptism is like the wedding the wedding ring ceremony in a marriage. Baptism is the wedding ring. You see, when we get married, God is called the groom. We're called the bride of Christ. So how we get into this relationship is Jesus invites us.

We did not find Jesus. You might have thought you came to this church on your own. You did not find him. He found you. And he's the one that asks. And then our job is to say yes or no. We say I do or I don't. That's the only thing that we do in this process. And then you say I do, so now you have the ceremony.

And baptism is that first step. He's like, alright, let's have the ceremony. And what you do in a wedding is there's always the rings, right, when you wear the ring. Why? Why do we have the ring? Well, first, there's a couple reasons why they use rings. The first one is even though the they're they're small,

they're expensive. Why? Because jewelry stores need to make money. No.

They're cherished and valuable. Mine's not. Mine's made out of rubber because I I'm afraid of falling off of a ladder and losing a finger, which is weird and makes no sense because I don't climb on ladders. But, you know, everybody has their weird phobias. I had a friend that fell off and lost his finger. It freaks me out.

But also it's easier to work out in a in a with a with not a metal ring. They get messed up. But that's not my point. My point is the value, even though they're small, is trying to say that each individual marriage, in the marriage illustration, relationship is to be cherished even with all the billions of people. God

cherishes us even though we're one person, and he's God. David said it this way, who am I that God would take mind of me? And they're circle the circular. The circle is a universal symbol of never ending infinite.

The love that we're saying we're committing to, the covenantal love in a marriage, is to never end but to grow and build. God's love is that. And so when you have that ceremony and you put that ring on, you are now giving yourself a public outside declaration of an internal heart relationship.

But the truth is don't do we stop wearing the ring after we're married? Or does taking it off make me not married? Or if I'm not married, does putting a ring on make me married?

That'd be like, I'll get baptized and not know the Lord. That'd be like, okay, I I wanna be married. So you put a ring on. Okay, I'm married. No, you're not. You're weird. And you need help.

It's the same thing. So so what we're supposed to do after we get married in the wedding ring illustration is, yeah, it was a moment. It was a moment, but it leads to movement. It's a declaration that happens in this one moment in a in a wedding ceremony. It happens like in baptism. It's this moment.

But you continue to wear the ring, don't you? You don't get married and go, alright, got married. I'm done with that. We are continually supposed to have what's on the inside show up on the outside and declare to the world because we know how much God loves us. That's the point.

So even if we've been baptized, what we gotta ask ourselves, have I been taking my ring off lately? Have I have I been doing that? And it usually is because we forgot God's love, his personal passionate love. If you understand what his love really means, that is what compels us to publicly declare it by the way we live.

That's the point. And baptism is that first test. It's just a simple thing. Get in the water and say in front of everybody, I do. That's all it is. And so what I wanna do to look at this, what is this love?

I wanna go to a love story in the Bible that really is real. It's like crazy. And I've I've only had four people raise their hand that they've ever heard something from this as, how many people here have ever heard a message preached out of the Song of Songs or Song of Solomon?

K. I got a few more hands in here. So we have a couple people in here that are old enough to read it because,

it's p g 13 bible, it feels like. A lot of people are like, I don't know if I'd let my kids, like, you know, don't don't go hey. Let's do memory verse time with your kids out of the book of Song of Songs. You know, talks it says a lot of words. And but what it's really about is it's it's it's it's wisdom poetry,

and it's really it's a love story, and it's written in the voice of two people, the husband, a groom, and a and a wife, And and it's talking back and forth about the love and their relationship. And it really is gives you an incredible picture

of how God intended our love to be between a husband and wife. That is personal. It's passionate. It's it could be physical. It's it's very much complete in all of it. And you think, wow. The reason we're worried is like, I didn't know that God would think that way. God created it. Think about that. He does. And and and but

the bigger picture is why is this in the bible? Because it's also just like Ephesians says about marriage. It is an analogy, an illustration of God's love for us. And so in this back and forth, God is the groom. We as the bride of Christ, or Israel at the time, is the bride.

And so when you hear this back and forth, there's some moments. And the reason we know this especially is God's name is only said one time. His official name, Yahweh, is in chapter eight in verse six and seven. It's the last finale of this whole book,

and it talks about the woman is crying out like saying, this is the love I I need, and I've seen you express for me, and it's the love the man says, this is the love I will bring, and she's saying, and so because you brought this to me, I wanna bring it back to you.

And it's in that point that it describes this love of God. And it's really trying to say all love is from God. If it's if it's if it's not God's love, it's not love. And so here we go. So I just wanna read it because it's really poetic, and you guys look like a really cultured crowd today, so that's good. And

and then point out three things of what does that mean for us? How does that help encourage us? How does it help us live out our lives no matter what's going on in them? He goes this, place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. For love is as strong as death, its jealousy as enduring as the grave.

Love flashes like fire, this lightning, and brightest kind of flame. The brightest kind of flame, that's where the name of God is. In the Hebrew that says, the flame of Yeah, Yahweh. Many waters cannot quench love nor can rivers drown it. If a man tries to buy love with all his wealth, his offer would be utterly scorned.

Even there at the end, it just shows this weird thing about trying to buy love, and and it's saying that it's talking about God's love and the point that you can't earn it. You can only accept it. And then what we're doing when we get baptized, when we know, when we grow in community, when we go live intentionally,

that is us living from the love, not for it. And that's that new life that Paul's talking about.

So this is beautiful. What does it mean? Three things. I think that what it's saying here, these three things, is the first thing to help us with what's covenant love described that what baptism represents. So when you get baptized or been baptized, that's what you're committing to. That's what you're surrendering to. It's this. First one, God's love is secure,

so live assured. It says here, place me like a seal over your heart, like a seal on your arm. He's talking about the seal, and it's not the singer. It's not a Navy Special Operations Force. It's not a

It's not that. He's talking about a seal like like what the ring is. The ring is a modern version of a seal on the relationship. It's this external and he says, on the heart and on my arm.

And and and the heart seal is is what the Bible describes when we put our faith in Christ, the love of Christ. When we put our faith in him, it says that we are sealed with the Holy Spirit in us. In our heart, we are now sealed and made into the identity of how God made us to be.

That's We find our identity in Christ and it is sealed in the Holy Spirit. It's not found in what we do. It's not found in who we love. It's not found in it's it's it's it's found in him and him alone. And it's a seal. And these seals were official things. So it's this internal seal, which is the Holy Spirit.

And and and and he seals us. And that means we are secure. That means he will not take that seal. He says, I am guaranteeing you my love will never end for you. It doesn't matter what you do, my love is sealed for you. You are sealed and secure and assured.

And then the second part is on the arm, is that what they would wear? They would wear a seal as a sign of ownership, identity, or if you're military person, you have these seals that now the world gets to see this is who I am. So this is indicating what's in here.

And so in other words, what is it trying to to say poetically is the kind of love God has for us and the kind of love that allows us to then express back is this such a secure love that our heart, it it it seals in who we are inside the heart is who I am. The arm is how I live. And he says, but God loves us the same way.

And that seal means we are secure. Now this is a simple point, but I think this is one of the biggest points that we struggle with as Christians. We come here and we go, well, God loves me, but man, it doesn't feel like it.

And sometimes, you you're afraid he doesn't love you because the things we've been doing. We've been sinning a lot, and we think that we can out sin his grace. We think that God is like a normal person. If you keep doing knuckleheaded things, you're finally gonna look at someone and say, you know what? I'm done.

God says I will never be done. Did you know that? And if you're afraid to put your faith in Christ,

you think there's no way. All the things I've done doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And when here's the thing. When you know he loves you no matter what, that should give us confidence to go live trusting him. Because if you think that obedience to him is all about, I better do this or God's mad at me,

you've missed the whole point. The more you know that he loves you no matter what,

you can probably then understand that whatever it is, you don't wanna listen to him. You don't wanna take that step of obedience. You wanted to you don't wanna know, grow, and go. You don't wanna trust what it means to be a disciple. It means you don't trust that he really loves you,

or you just don't care about it. Because if you understood that he will love you no matter what, that should compel us to live out of that insure assurance.

So I think what he's saying is, guys, God

loves you

no matter where you're at.

What would change right now if you chose to believe that? How could that change the way you view Him?

And in baptism, what it means for us that have been baptized, it means we still wear the ring. And that should give us the second point. God's love is fierce, so give him your fullest. Because his love is so assured as a seal on our heart and our life, give him the fullest. That's the putting it on the arm.

Trust him. It's when it says, its jealousy is as enduring as the grave. He's like, what? That's what it means, this fierce love. It's a jealous love. And we're like, but jealousy?

That doesn't sound right. It's because we keep using that word and we don't know what it means. It doesn't mean how we think of jealousy. This is not like I need to go get a restraining order type of jealousy. This isn't like, oh my gosh. I kinda broke up with Jesus months ago, and why is he out on the in his car on the other side of the street at 2AM? I need to call the cops. You go outside. He's peering over the hedges.

Why don't you love me? You know, that's not what it means. It literally the the Hebrew word there means it's a fierceness, but a good fierceness. It's a fierce protective perfect sacrificial love that will allow no rivals. It doesn't want any rivals to love because he knows that all the rivals are not love.

It's not truth. It doesn't care. His love is perfect. His love is protective. His love is I do not want allow. She actually asked for it. I want the jealous love. So he knows it means I wanna love that you love me so perfectly that that I know I can be safe and I will not run to the rivals. I will not do that. And because of that, when we understand that God loves us that much, he wants to protect us that much, then you understand that sometimes

he does allow something in your life to get your attention. It's the kind of love like this. It's kind of love like, you know, I there's a lot of parenting styles out there and lately there's this one like this I can't remember the name for it.

It's like this this this really supportive parent. Was all parents should be supportive. But it's like

you just talk to your kid like they're an adult and you're really calm and you're never really like, you know, I'm not gonna you know, there's not really much of a consequence. It's like we're into this really understanding type of parenting style, which sounds great on paper. But

what do you do if your little toddler is about to run-in front of a bus coming down the street and you're 20 feet away,

is, hey, junior, it's probably not a good idea you you you might get hurt if you go no. This is the moment where dads can be dads and probably do a better greater job in that moment. You know why? Because we're got that deeper voice that you don't hear as much sometimes,

and we can stun our kid like a taser, like a tranq dart hitting an animal that needs medical attention, it doesn't know it's running away. Alright. Sorry. It's and you know what you do? You go, hey. And guess what? When you yell like that and you scream with that authoritative voice, what does a kid do?

And that gives you enough time to run over there and grab them. That is loving. That is protective. That is jealous. I don't wanna share my love with a bus. And that's what God does sometimes. When you understand your his love for you is assured, sometimes he shocks you. He hollers out and it makes you freeze.

But you know why? Because his love is also fierce. He does not want any other rivals to take your heart away because he knows that all those other rivals are like the spiritual and living version of a bus is gonna hit you. It may sound fun to run-in that street but it's not going to end well. That

is why he's the way he is. He's getting your attention sometimes. And baptism is that moment when we step in that we need to continue to do that you go, I'm gonna trust you in this moment, but it's meant for movement. It's meant for trust. It's meant to go to the next one and the next one and the next one. It's

meant to live your ring, see it, and understand it's because God loves you. You are assured of that no matter what. You're not doing that so he'll love you. You're doing that because he loves you. And it's the safest way to go, and you'd see it. So if you can't see it and you don't wanna is something

disconnected between you and understanding how God loves you. That's the struggle. And then we get stuck. See, baptism is not a result of maturity. It results in us maturing. And every day and so when you've been baptized, you know what the same thing is of baptism? It's repentance. Repentance is basically the daily baptism.

It's I realize and I need to turn around and I need to walk away from this. I realize that I need to walk away from this. And that's why we should get the first baptism. It's like, hey, I'm choosing to not only believe in Jesus, but to repent and turn and identify with this.

But some of us were afraid to take the first baptism and the reason we don't repent after is we struggle it's the same struggle. I don't wanna get baptized the first time is the same time I don't wanna repent or I don't wanna repent. We think that we can't return to God. I can't get baptized and and until I get my act together. I gotta go fix this myself.

I can't just repent. I you can be in the middle of a sin and faith. I don't even know how I'm gonna overcome it, but I'm gonna confess it and I'm gonna try to turn from it and I'm gonna look for help. When you know you can't do it is the best time to turn from And and and otherwise,

what you're thinking is like is you're thinking baptism and repentance is like the equivalent of I gotta get in shape before I go to the gym. Why would you do that? Most people don't even get in shape after they go to the gym. But why would you think you should get into shape before you go to the gym? That's

what these moments are and what baptism is a great motive for that is is is it's kinda this. Dietrich Bonhoeffer said it this way, one act of obedience is better than a 100 sermons. A lot of what we consider Christian maturity and depth in preaching is I want you to make me feel something at a deeper level.

I want you make me to know something at a different level. We have disconnected do something at the most simple obvious level is really depth. That is what will change your life. You can listen to me a 100 times and go, that was great. I'm not gonna do anything about it, but that was great. Or

you think great preaching is you want me to yell at the world. You want me to point out that you know what's wrong with the world? That's what's wrong with you. Yeah. The world's wrong. Like

the world's our enemy. For God so loved the world. The world system is an enemy but the world itself is not our enemy. They're the mission. They're the mission and they are the prisoners of war not the enemy.

And that's why we need to choose to do the to take this step because when I choose to put myself in that love of God and take that first basic step,

the first public declaration, the first act of repentance, the identification of baptism, that will actually open up the next steps.

Not before, but just do it. Here's what I mean. I have a friend named Ross, and he was ago, a long time ago. The church wasn't pretty new. He already knew the Lord. He

but he had never been baptized. He felt like he didn't need to do it. He goes, you don't need to be baptized be saved. And I said, you know what? But you do to be obedient. And

and it does something for you. It's a step that helps mature you. And he fought it, but then all of sudden, he started dating a girl he met at work because she lived in California, and she was a totally sold out believer. So they started getting closer, and he said, you know what? I think you're I think I'm I'm gonna get baptized. I need to do that.

Flew out. We had this baptism. It was powerful. All the feels, the tears, the moment was amazing.

And then all of a sudden, they go. He leaves, and then I get a call at 2AM that morning, and it was him. I'm like, why is he calling you to him? Don't know. He's he usually answer my kids if they call me at this time. But actually,

back then, if my kids called me to him, there'd be something concerning because they were little. But he I answer the phone and I can hardly understand what he's saying.

Like, Jose, I called my dad. You're my second call and and and it's ruined. It's ruined. It's ruined. I go, what's ruined? My baptism is ruined. My faith is ruined. It's not real. I can't believe it. I probably don't God doesn't really love me. I don't really know him. I the day is ruined. The baptism was ruined, and it's gonna ruin my relationship.

And of and and I'm like, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why is the baptism ruined? And he calms down. He says, well, I took Jess to the to the airport, dropped her off to fly back home. And since I was downtown Phoenix, I drove right by my drug dealer's house, and I picked up drugs, and I went and got high.

And now that the high the high wore off, I realized I can't believe on the same day I got baptized, I did this again. And and now I've ruined it all. And you know what I said to him? I said, you're right. You ruined it all. You are a total loser, and I don't want you to come to my church anymore.

Yeah. If you're laughing if you're new, like, really? No.

You know what I said? Ruined it. Sounds like it worked. And he goes, what do you mean? Mission accomplished.

He goes, how? I did that the same day. I go, well, apparently, what you just told me is you've been my friend. We've talked about the Lord. You've served a church. You've been in this relationship with a girl that loves you. You chose to get baptized. And this whole time that you've known the Lord, you've been stuck in a habit that came from trauma in your past and hurt, and it was a coping mechanism that you can't seem to escape from. You didn't address it. You didn't wanna talk to people. You didn't wanna move forward in dealing with it. You just kept it. But you know what made you realize you should do something about it? Was because you were compartmentalized,

my friend. You had this life over here and your Christian life over here, and men can do this especially well. Ladies can do it too, but men are really good at it. And you keep them as far apart as possible, but what got really awkward and weird is on today, you put them both in the same room

and you had to make a choice. So baptism, understanding God in that way, and just obeying him in the moment when you had all these other problems is what unlocked the power of the love of God to deal with that.

And that's why he's still married, has two beautiful kids and to that woman named Jess who loved him in through the process. Because he went to rehab the next day and got into community and stopped hiding. He did the basics that we're talking about. He chose to not only know, but to grow and then to go. That's the answer.

That's the power of the fierce love of God, of the secure love of God. And when we choose to say I do to it But what we like to do is we like to we like to go back into the water and pull stuff out. Or we're like the Crusaders knights in the Crusade period.

They're like, we wanna be baptized because we're doing this for Jesus, but our sword and the things we're gonna do are probably not honorable. So they would literally get baptized and hold their sword and their sword arm out of the water as if this part will be for God. This part will do whatever it wants.

Some of us, that's our problem that you've already been baptized. You got baptized, but you left you held some stuff out of the water. Some of us, we struggle. We dive back into the water. That's what Paul was saying. Why would you go back to the death? Why would you get out of the baptismal and realize I've been saved from that and pulled out of the grave? Wait. I forgot something. And dive back in and try to live life down there.

Sometimes, if you dive back under the water, that's why you feel like you're drowning. Life, I'm drowning in it. And it could be because you're diving into death. That's why you feel like you're drowning. It's not the problems you're having. It's the fact that you dove under the water again. But we need to understand.

God's love is secure, so live assured. God's love is fierce. Give them our fullest. And then finally, ask yourself this question. What do I need to leave in the water? What do you need to throw back in the water? That's repentance. That's your daily baptism.

Because the reason we know we can do this is the last point is God's love is unstoppable, so trusted is unshakable.

It's unstoppable, so don't let it shake us when life is don't let it. We should live an unshakable life. Did I say problem free life? No. Did I say frustratingly

life? No. Did I say we're not gonna have problems? We're not gonna have fears. We're not gonna have struggles. We're not gonna have frustrations. We're not gonna have attack. We're not gonna suffer. No. I just said when you go through that, don't let it shake you. Stay on course.

Because it says, for love is as strong as death. And he says that love is as strong as the the flashes like fire, the brightest kind of flame. It is the love of God. It's this bright flame that many waters cannot quench nor rivers can drown. You know what that's saying is? It's saying that love, the love of God,

is an unquenchable, unstoppable flame. Fire. And then he says, the problems, the death, the frustrations, the fears, the struggles, that's waters. Raging rivers, tsunamis come into our life. Sometimes it's not a flood like that. It's just a constant drizzly rain. And he goes,

the love of God, this flame cannot be stopped, which is kind of weird, isn't it? How do we fight fire? Water. Doesn't water beat fire? Yeah. But what if you're throwing water at the sun? We could take all the water in the world. Get up with the the giant space squirt gun and go,

send all of it. It's the sun's doomed now. You know, and it'd be like it's just gonna evaporate.

That's why he's saying the flame that is so bright, the flame of Yeah, the fire of God is an unquenchable. It is more intense than the sun. It doesn't matter how much water. And one of the waters is called death. Death in that term was that the Jews believe death was the ultimate end of all things. Nothing beats death. Death is death and that's all death is. But he says, no. God's love beats death.

That's the story of baptism. That's the story of the cross. That's the gospel. That love can beat death. If love can beat death, and stop it dead and get you past it, what is the problem is in your life right now that is scaring you, frustrating you, confusing you, or making you angry?

And why are we so shaken by it? If love beat death and we have Jesus and we know we are secure in that love, we know that he is fiercely protecting us and guarding us in that love And we know that love is not stoppable that even death Why are we so angry? Why are we so confused? Why are we so struggling?

Because we will get those moments that we're gonna feel that way. The feeling's not wrong.

It's what we do with it that is. What do you do in those moments? I know what I like to do. I try to fight water with fire, but it's my own little flamethrower. I got so much gas, I have my little flamethrower. You know, a few drizzles, got rid of it. A real rush of water? What's a flamethrower gonna do? I

try to solve it myself, and then I blame God for not loving me. I struggle with that. What's in your world right now that is really heavy and really hard and really frustrating, and how are you trying to answer that? I know right now there's, like, about a 100,000 people at Charlie Kirk's memorial,

And apparently, Chris Tomlin's there. They're worshiping Jesus. It's great.

And I know that that has really caught a lot of Christians, a lot of us, even in this room, kinda threw us. It kinda hit different. Because just compiled on top of we live in a weird world right now, our culture. We're the world hasn't changed. It didn't get sinner. It didn't get worse. It just became more obvious.

And and there's lots of issues in our culture, in our neck of the world, the The United States. We got all kinds of stuff going on. There's world wars out there. There's economic problems here. There's political polarity. People don't seem to get along. We're worried about that. But if you like to study history, go study politics in the seventeen nineties. We have nothing on that right now.

Our founding fathers originally thought it'd be a good idea when part political parties formed that whoever gets the most votes for president is president. Whoever gets the second most is vice president.

Think about how that worked out until they decided that was a bad idea. You had vice presidents literally undermining the president as they're going. But we have that and the polarity causes problems. And now we have these violence and now we're getting political violence

on all sides because people can't talk. We're just we're angry. People are getting murdered on trains, murdered in their homes, school shootings keep happening.

What's weird to us is that kind of death, that kind of attack from the enemy, that kind of the bad stuff in the world has always existed. It just invaded our it just the water seemed to rise and get over the edge of the banks to us. And for many of us, it's culminated with Charlie Kirk. Why?

Is he more special? Is this I I for a lot of us, think it's because we just watched a guy that for whether you liked him or not, whether you agreed with things he said or not, he was a brother in Christ that we watched in in in four k get assassinated in front of his wife and his young children. That's disturbing.

It's it's it's scary. We wanna get mad at, who's doing this? I had to process it. I'm a human being. And the part that hit me wasn't the political part. It was the dad and husband in me got really kinda wrecked.

Because I said, God, I trust you, and your plans are bigger than my plans, and and and your ways are not my ways, but this is how this had to happen?

It makes me wanna question.

And I fall back to God's love. God's love.

The answer is not to strap on your flamethrower and try to burn the world down.

I think the real spiritual attack in all of what's going on, at least on the political spectrum and with Charlie, is this. The bible says to be really aware of the fiery darts of the enemy. And I know how he tries to work with them. Number one thing he likes to do is division.

The real problem is that the enemy is trying to get Christians to yell at other Christians, and have people say, if your church doesn't talk about this, that's a bad church. And if if you're not willing to stand up for this, then you're not bold. I

could be wrong, but I think the boldest thing I can do is tell us what we need to hear right now, not what we wanna hear. And when we got a problem in the world, the answer is not to yell at the world. The answer is not to yell at the problem. That doesn't help the problem.

I mean, I I like to do that. When I'm in meetings, sometimes I start yelling at a problem. And one of our staff, this good friend of mine, one time years ago said, you know, Bill, yelling at the problem doesn't do anything. And he said, well, makes me feel good.

Yeah. For a few minutes. And then I realized this problem's still there. And, now I've made it really awkward with everybody. And I think we we we we make this mistake that when we get frustrated, we wanna strap on the flame and we wanna go after it. We guys, the problems we have in the world right now, the answer

is and never will be political. Now someone's gonna hear what I'm not saying, so let me preface this. We are called as Christians. One of the things we do is to be good citizens. And in our country, we are the government basically,

so we should be politically active and our faith should inform our voting, and we should care about that. But that is just something we do that is not something we are. We are not right. We are not left. We're not this. We are children of the king of kings. And we have a mission. And if we start identifying

that way first instead of being something we do because we have political ideology,

that should be informed by our biblical theology by the way, but that should happen. But if I start getting up here and preaching this is this and this is that and say this and say that and say all that, we are distracted from the mission. We are distracted from the answer and I do not think boldness is for me to yell at the problem with everybody. I don't think boldness for me is to jump in there and yell at the issue and be mad with everyone's mad. Jesus met people where they were at, but he never left them there. My job is not to go. I know we're hurting. I know we're frustrating. I know there's a lot of opinions here. I know. And I know that there's people that are hurting and frustrated for stuff that has nothing to do with what's happening in culture.

And my job is to go, I see you. God sees you. I wanna meet you there, but I am not gonna sit here and yell at the world with you.

I am gonna take your hand and say, let's go where Jesus wants us to go. I'm gonna give you a hug and say verbally hug is Jesus loves you. He loves you. He loves us and it doesn't matter if this whole world systems collapses in on us. It doesn't matter if America ends. It doesn't matter if we lose everything.

We have the only thing. We have Jesus. And

that's why we're gonna point ourselves back to Jesus. Of course, we have to deal with the world. We have to deal with our daily lives. The bottom line is what CS Lewis said. Aim at heaven, you'll get earth thrown in. Aim at earth, you'll get neither.

So the only thing I'll ever say about politics and culture is this. You wanna change our culture?

Love, laws. You know how our culture got changed from, too? Less people know Jesus. You know why you wanna answer that problem and fight back? Let's get more people to know Jesus. Wish, by the way, 2,600 people have come to know Jesus in this church in the last six weeks. 285

just last week, and I don't even know what the number is for this week. Bottom line, here's what I'm saying, then we'll get out of here. And I can go watch the cardinals beat the sea not the sea ox. They'll beat them on Thursday, but My

baptism was a moment, a moment of obedience that changed me. It set up what's next. It was like the first act of repentance. Is I became a Christian in high school. My dad became a Christian when I was a kid. Our neighbors invited us to this little Baptist church, and we went, and my dad walked down forward.

The pastor himself led him to Jesus. He got baptized by that pastor, but then we went for a few years, but the rest of our family was, so my dad just kinda stopped going too. But then when I got into high school, my best friend invited me to a Halloween party at church, And I thought that was the stupidest thing ever.

But I went because I wanna see how stupid it was. And of all the stupid things, I met Jesus at that thing. And ironically, it was at the same church that my dad had went to that our neighbors invited to us all those years ago. And that pastor was still the pastor. He was old. He was dying of cancer.

They were building a brand new building. They're about to move into it. He should have died at least a year before, but he just wanted to live long enough to preach one time in there and baptize somebody before he checked out. He wanted to stay on mission. And

my youth pastor at the time that was there, he bugged me because I was yeah. He said, I believed in Jesus. I was showing up at church, you know, youth group and stuff, about once every two weeks, three weeks, thought I was being so spiritual. And he challenged me to the basics. Get committed.

And he said, the first thing you had to do is if you believe in Jesus, should get baptized. And I go, I don't wanna get baptized. He goes, well, should. He goes, does it make me saved? He goes, no. But it makes you obedient. And I'm like, but then why do I need to do it? Because because you should. He goes, but I don't wanna do it. If you know why I didn't wanna do it? Because back then, we did it different than we do now. This little Baptist church had a baptismal that was raised up high right behind the pulpit, big cross above it, all the spotlights on it with a microphone. And when you went out one at a time, you had to talk to the you gotta ask questions. You had to talk to everybody.

And believe it or not, the reason I didn't wanna do it is I thought, I do not wanna get up in front of people and talk. I didn't like it. I didn't want it. Matter of fact, my mom that same year had already made me take a a speech class.

And I'm like, why should I take a speech class? Because you need it. Why? You need to learn how to talk in front of people. Why? Because someday you're gonna have a job that you have to deal with people and work. And I said, you know what, mom? As God is my witness, I literally said this. As God is my witness of all the things I can do in my life, I promise you this one thing, I will never never never have a job where I talk in front of people.

And you know what God did? Jesus sat there next to Peter looking at my list. He says, hold my wine, Peter. And here we are. And so I chose to obey. I did I did it anyways. And it was freaky. I didn't really feel comfortable. I knew this was silly, but I go, I'm gonna just I'm gonna trust God. I'm gonna trust what he said.

So I do it. I get there, and there were seven of us, and I ended up being seventh in line. So I'm the last one. This pastor's priest, he's he's he's baptizing us, and if it's he's he's almost dead, man. He is so frail, and he he willed himself, and and and and we're coming down coming down. I'm the final one.

And as I come into the water, I'm looking out at the cup, I'm like, oh, gosh. This is the worst thing ever. I never wanna stand in front of people with lights in my face ever again. Ironic. And he leans away from the mic, and he whispers to me two things. First, he says, Bill, you're a big guy, and I'm almost a dead guy.

You have got to use your legs, dunk straight down, and come up, and basically do this yourself. Otherwise, we're both going down like the Titanic. He had a great attitude, man. Even and he goes but then he goes, but second and more importantly, he looked behind me and saw that I was the last one.

And he goes, it's the end of the line for me on this plane of existence.

Man. He looked me right in the eyes, and he said, you're the last one.

Make this count. Make this count. Now he did not mean make God love you by doing this. He already knew I was loved. What he was saying is take this moment of what this means, of what God has done for you, and live a life of assurance that God loves you.

Live a life that because you know he fiercely loves you, that no matter what, you can give him your fullest, and it'll be okay. And then finally, understand that no matter what, God's love is unstoppable. So let your life be unshakable in those tough moments, and go all in on what he's called us to be. Do not get distracted.

Do not go after other things. Don't get rivals. Don't cheat on gods. Don't take your ring off. Stay in this fight and see what God does in your life. And ironically, I'm doing the thing I swore I would never do, and I could not be more happy. What is the thing you're afraid? Yes. Amen. What

is the thing you're afraid of? If I really trust God, he's gonna make me do this. Have you ever thought the thing he might make you do is that he'll also give you the incredible desire to do it? Because now you see it right, now you see his love, you'll see it on the other side.

That's why God's love compels us for public declaration. Let this come out there. Amen? Hey. Let's pray real quick. And what I who I wanna pray with is there's some of us in this room that have you've been baptized. You know the Lord. Take this moment. Start praying. Make it another rebaptism, that baptism of repentance.

What do you need to throw back in the water? And what do you need to step towards? For some of us that you have been you you know the Lord, but you've never been baptized. I'm gonna challenge you when we're done and say amen to go out there and get baptized right now.

And for some of us in this room, and this is who I wanna pray with right now, is maybe you've never surrendered. You've never said I do to that love of Christ. You've never said, put my faith in you, Jesus. I confess that I'm a sinner. I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm dead in my sin.

And only by putting my faith in what you did for me can I come back to life? If that's you and you realize that now, Jesus is asking you to say yes to his love. And if you wanna pray with me and then say yes,

I'm gonna ask you just raise your hand and hold it up as if you're handing him your sin and taking his hand for life. I see those hands. Just keep them up. Hold them up like you're grabbing his hand.

Just pray something like this. Jesus, yes. Thank you that you died for me and you came back to life. So right now, in the best way I know how, I've given you my sin and I'm taking your hand for life. Thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for loving me with this kind of love. Help me to go from here and live from it

the rest of my life. Thank you. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Bunch of hands went up again. Amen. So hey, here's what we're gonna do. If you haven't been baptized and you know the Lord now,

go get baptized. We have the shorts, we have the shirts, we have the towels, we have everything. Matter of fact, if you're willing to go out there get baptized, I'll run back and get my baptism and clothes on and I'll baptize you myself right now if you go out there. Just you get dressed, I'll get dressed, I'll meet you out there in ten minutes. How's that sound? Let's do it. Thank

you so much for joining us online today. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected.

Hi.