well hey welcome at all of our campuses what an incredible story um I know none of you guys saw the turn into the rock music man that was incredible uh Thomas is an awesome guy and what a beautiful story of him and his dad coming to Christ and getting baptized man that's awesome we're going to talk about that today but before we do I do want to talk to you guys a little bit uh about this uh concept of man Easter and preparing the jars and being ready for what God is going to do now if you remember last week I don't know if you remember our acronym or not for last week but we're asking everybody in the church to pray invite give and serve okay so the acronym is pigs and if I need to I will wear my Piggly Wiggly shirt again okay uh if I have to do it but um man that's that's it if you're like "Hey what do we do to get ready?" Well that's it pray invite give and serve today I want to talk to you for just a moment about the serving side of that because what we have learned at Mercy Hill over years this is just so important for us to know as a church okay over years we have seen it seems like God brings us about the amount of people that we were ready for okay if in our faith we we are ready for a certain harvest that seems like it's about what God does now listen God could do whatever he wants okay he could do anything he wants but I'm just telling you what has kind of generally happened here and we see a connection to this concept of being ready for what God is going to do uh we see a connection to that in 2 Kings 4 this concept of preparing the jars about the time that the jars ran out if you don't know that story you can go read it about the time that the widow's jars ran out the blessing of God ran out you know that that's about when the miracle stopped so we want to try very hard in moments like this like the Easter season uh to just be ready for what God is going to do and prepare well for the harvest i know we have a lot going on y'all i got a lot going on you got kids sports and you got work and you got financial things and you got uh social things and man we got we got a lot going on but there is an opportunity right here for us to kind of remember we are on a mission if you're a believer we are on a worldwide mission to see people go from death to life to see stories just like the one we saw of Thomas and his dad and and the mission that they're on now sharing the gospel with the rock community and they have the Christian rock band and stuff i mean we are all on a mission that is like that and so if we have that mission we need to take advantage of a very strategic time like Easter okay now here's let me show you some numbers here um and some of you guys have been around Mercy Hill long enough to kind of know what I'm going to do here but we we know that for our church okay and I mean at our campuses as well for Mercy Hill all of our campuses if we want to put on services well where when people come and they have an opportunity to to feel like we were ready for you then we're going to need 20% okay of that weekend's attendance to have served that's just what it takes man all right a 20% I mean the whole thing look around the whole thing is a volunteer organization i mean everybody who does anything on the weekend basically is a serve team member when you really think about it okay yeah i preach yeah there's a worship leader or whatever but man everything else that's going on is the church the body of Christ jumping in serving right and so man if we can hit this then we're going to have a good opportunity for new people to come in to have a good experience now I don't know what God's going to do but I believe and this might be just kind of me throwing it out there I believe that we could see over 6,000 people at Easter this year for Mercy Hill i really believe we could see that and I'm going to tell you if we see that that will probably represent maybe I don't know 1500 or so lost people i want you to think about that when you think about the kids too we got a lot of kids over there they're a lot of them are really young they don't know Jesus yet okay but you have a lot of people that will be coming okay and there's a lot that's what a what an opportunity what a mission opportunity that is well what does that mean let me just do the math for you then we need 1,200 people to step into the serving uh thing if we're going to make sure that this thing goes well and that means we need four or 500 people to jump off the sideline and onto the front line and say "Count me in pigs." Okay pray invite give and I'm going to serve so you guys can go to mercyhillurch.comster and uh that is the place where you can sign up for that and so man I hope that you will even if you can only do that one weekend life's crazy right now for you whatever man jump in and let's make a great experience for others so I hope you'll do that all right we're going to be in Exodus 14 today man as we continue our story and uh this was really cool i don't I hope you guys were blessed last weekend where we got a chance to connect this Old Testament idea of the Passover to what we get to do we do it about once a series here at Mercy Hill that we get a chance to take communion together all right this week we are going to talk about how important it is you you thought felt it all through that video how important it is that we not only participate in baptism but that we remember our baptism it's going to be very and I know what you're saying you say "Wait I thought baptism is a New Testament idea." Baptism is the continuation of an Old Testament idea it's the building on is it new yes it's new in the New Testament but it builds on and the New Testament links it specifically with an event in the Old Testament and it's the event that we come to today i told you last week was the big show in the Passover and that's true but man I don't I mean where do you pick what's the big show here i mean today we're talking about the children of Israel crossing the Red Sea and first Corinthians specifically says it was in this moment that they were baptized into Moses we're going to talk about what that means but here's the big idea baptism brings glory to God baptism is about God it is about what he has done in our life it is about our our story being all wrapped up in him it is a marked moment in our life where we step fully into uh we you know the the call that God has on our life we start taking massive steps towards maturity this is what baptism is all wrapped up in if you think about the children of Israel yes they were the children of God but they were still wrapped up in slavery the oppressor the you know Pharaoh and the Egyptians are following them and they come out of the water and now there's a new day supposed to be now there's there's a new it man it's it's on to the promised land it's stepping fully in to God's call and for us baptism is very much that way it doesn't make us a child of God but it marks a moment in our life of stepping into God's fullness his call maturity you know in this church we have um a lot of you know we have a lot of first responders and and officers and that kind of thing but we also have uh a lot of uh military especially um some of you guys that were veterans of even some of the recent wars i mean there I wars and things like that and um man we have a lot of them across our church i think we could show them some appreciation what do you guys think i mean we really do we have a lot of veterans here we are grateful for you um I get to do what I do and we get to worship freely man i hear stories of of our own sent ones that are are in places where you can't have the freedoms that we have to worship our God and man in a lot of ways if it wasn't for you guys that put your life on the line and serve for us we wouldn't be here but but here here's my here's my point okay um you know the the the public swearing in is is it's a public ceremony of people who have already enlisted right you're you're already in but there is a public showing of that okay there's there's kind of a marked moment of that and that's a little bit how baptism is all right for someone who gives their life to Christ you're already a believer but baptism in our life is a place for us to sort of come out to the public to say "This is my new life man i am identified with Christ that old me is gone uh you know leave leave all that levan in Egypt." Okay i'm coming out and I'm brand new and this is what we get a chance to do and I'm going to call you today to participate in that at Easter we have a few weeks okay participate that in Easter if you have not already but then for others of us I'm going to tell you today man we need to remember and make baptism a part of our of kind of our our our spiritual strength and our our makeup and and one of those core memories that we go back to in our life look at Exodus 14 with me let's just let's just read through this we'll talk about some things along the way um but ultimately I want to talk about baptism and get to that let me organize the sermon this way i want to show you uh the fear the baptism and the glory all right let's look at the fear the baptism and the glory exodus 14:10 says this when Pharaoh drew near the people of Israel lifted up their eyes and behold the Egyptians were marching after them and they feared greatly and the people of Israel cried out to the Lord they said to Moses "It is because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness what have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt?" Well their hearts are a little fickle right um they're they're ready to already go back is not this what we said to you in Egypt leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness y'all you know this because you've been there in your life i've been there in my life maybe you're there right now what do you hear all over this text what is speaking fear that's what's going on here man i You know you say "What happened?" Okay let me let me give you the the Well I don't have time to go back through the whole story okay pharaoh said he was going to let him go he changed his mind all right now he's after him and he's going to come and he's going to enslave him he's going to kill him he's you know not totally sure all what's going on but they see the Egyptian army and immediately they start to and this is the phrase that I want to use they start to do fear now that's different than feeling fear any any of us that look back at that army coming at you your blood pressure is going to rise you're going to start to sweat okay there there is a feeling right there is an anxiousness that comes upon us when we're in a dangerous situation that's not wrong okay uh in some ways God gives us that for so we know when to fight and flight and all this right but what are they doing here they are not combating that in any way what they are doing is with their words spoken out loud there may be nothing more powerful in the world than shaping your own heart than the words that you actually say they are speaking out loud they are poisoning throwing vitriol of fear and it's coming out all over the place in fear we forget about God's power and his purpose he has not abandoned them this is always a story about God who will have his glory and he will save his people but now because of this fear everything in their mind has gone out the window it's like you know we want to sit there and say "We don't want to do it because we know we do this too right?" But when you just read it you're like did did you not just see all these plagues were you not just saved from the destroyer himself i mean were were you not did you not see the power of God how could you see those things and immediately revert back to fear and of course we don't want to throw rocks because I think about it in my life and maybe in your life how could we see the power of God and the ways that he has showed up in our life for this church and our own salvation and yet what happens when the child has a fever or the drop market the the the drop market the stock market drops someone else down the street in your neighborhood gets broken into you feeling like you're losing a spouse a doctor's call from results of blood work is coming in and you're not sure and what happens in our life man many times those things begin to get real big and God gets real small the the fear we we begin to fuel it we begin to do fear we begin to speak things we begin to lean into it rather than using fighter verses and community and sermons and and going back to our own baptism i'm going to argue here in a minute rather than those things we give ourselves over and I'm a chief offender in this area in my life and we forget about how miserable it was to live in that old life that God has taken us from right that that's what's so funny about what they want to do here they want to go back to that life actually in Exodus 16 they get caught in another cycle like this you know what they say go and read it exodus 16:3 they say "Well in Egypt we had pots of meat that we sat around and I mean you know we we hung out." And they almost forget that they were in slavery in Egypt when we get into fear what ends up happening is our in our life is we forget about how miserable the past was i mean in fear we all of a sudden look at our miserable past and act like it was the good old days it wasn't it wasn't it's just that we're doing anything we can to get out of the fear that we're in now you know I coun I counseledled a young man a few years ago absolute heartbreaking story he had come out of one of the darkest pasts man it was it was dark it was elicit he was coming out of a homosexual past but more than that it was just a crazy elicit version i mean it was like you know just just really reckless and not not um not healthy i mean it was just it was just bad and he talked about how dark it was this is him talking to me this is not me making a judgment it was him talking to me about how dark it was about how abusive it was about how um man how you know the people that he was around how people would take advantage and just just the darkness of it right and he was so glad to be coming out of that and then throughout COVID and different things happened in his life and things got hard and fear began to set in and guess what life he decided to go back to and I'm thinking like man I remember sitting with you when you were in a sober mind and the sobriety of the mind that when I sat with you you understood it for what it was but because fear and hardship now in other areas has come in a miserable past just became the good old days and we've got to watch out for these things in our life what fear does for us y'all fear will take us to some crazy places and I want to make sure we understand this the opposite of faith is not doubt the opposite of faith is fear many of us right now it's like man we we sometimes we can this can happen but in a Christian's life a lot of times we don't come to like a cognitive conclusion that we don't believe in God anymore like we lose our faith in that way now that has has happened I understand but a lot of times what it looks like more is just that we end up feeling the result of a wobbly faith and that result is fear you know what yeah fear listen fear is a response okay I understand like I said it's you know you blood pressure goes up all that i'm not talking about that i'm talking about man we decide to lean into it and we decide to grab hold of it and and what I'm calling you to do today and and I hope we're going to see this in Moses is like man that fear needs to be crushed it needs to be killed it needs to be eradicated we don't need to make friends with it we don't need to wave a white flag and make a truce with it what we need to do is crush it there's really only one way to do that god's got to get really big again in our life in order for these circumstances to get small again you guys remember the the movie The Ballad of Ricky Bobby okay very theological all right i know um but you know his that scene in the movie where his dad has caught a cougar and put it in there and and he says "You can't drive race cars anymore because you've seen the fear." And his answer is you need to get in that race car with the cougar and drive and make friends with the fear okay bad bad idea all right for us with fear we're not trying to learn to make friends with it we're not trying to learn to be calm in the face of it what the scripture tells us is fear not and that's what Moses says moses said to the people "Fear not and stand firm you don't make peace with it there is no parlay we're not making a truce there's not a white flag we're not going to try to be friends fear not stop crush get out that's the idea stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord now we get a chance to look back on something they were looking forward to but this is the idea how does God get big again in our life you need to see the salvation of the Lord which he will work for you today for the Egyptians whom you see today you shall never see again the Lord will fight for you and all you will have to do is be silent moses says "Fear not." How do we get away from fear how do you get away from fear today maybe you're gripped with a fear of something with one of your kids or a health issue or somebody's not making good decisions in your life right now and you worry about that or or maybe there's a financial thing or something with your business or man it's been two months and this year didn't start the way you thought and you're in the red and that's never happened before i have no idea okay but the idea for us today is when we start to feel fear I get it when we start to do fear when we start to do what the children of Israel did we start to cry complain negativity we become poison we're speaking things out loud about oh there should have been you know there were graves in Egypt that we could have had why did you bring us here and all of this stuff how does this stop god's going to get big again how does God get big well he said it fear not stand for stand firm and see the salvation of the Lord god calls us away from fear by reminding us of our salvation now they now in this story they're about to get baptized into Moses God's appointed leader who's going to take him to the promised land you and I have a chance to get baptized into Christ okay our appointed leader who's going to carry us into the promised land they were looking forward to a baptism that was about to happen some of you need to look forward to a baptism that's about to happen at Easter if it hasn't happened for you yet but there's a lot of us that are going to be looking back on a baptism that signified what it signified that God Almighty has already stepped in and fought for us in our greatest fight and greatest battle the battle against sin and death that's what baptism is baptism is a marked moment where we remember our God has fought for us and saved us from what is our absolute greatest enemy you know what baptis baptism y'all it's one of the greatest pictures I can imagine we try to preachers try to liken things to it i'll do it you know wedding ring or you know you're not it doesn't mean that you you're uh you know it doesn't mean that you're it doesn't it doesn't mean that you're not married if you if you don't have it or have it but it's a good symbol that shows a spiritual reality and we try to do that kind of stuff and I'll I'll continue to do that there ain't no there's no symbol like baptism baptism listen is simultaneously a funeral a marriage and a birth announcement in one shot i'm dead to that old life i am joined and united with the one who has gone down in this water the true water the waters of God's fire for me and pulled me out and now I am brand new that's what that's what our baptism is and here's what I want to call you to do today if you have if you have not been baptized one of the great crushers of fear one of the things that can steal your spine is to be obedient in this area of your life and have a rock a symbol to look back on that God has defeated your greatest enemy i mean what does Paul say in the New Testament death where is your sting if you kill me you plant me and you see what I will be in the kingdom to come now if we can get away from that fear because God has fought for us in that way what else would he not fight for us in what else do we have to fear whom shall I fear man our baptism is a symbol that God has already saved us we accept Christ our what what does it mean okay we we our sin deserves death right jesus took death for us yet we sang about it goes into the tomb three days later stones rolled away he is alive we have a chance to be joined with him through our faith admitting our sin believing what Christ has done and confessing him as the Lord of our life and then we take on the baptismal waters and what does that mean it's a symbol a marked moment of funeral marriage birth announcement you are a new person and now we have a chance if you're not baptized you get a chance to do it if you are baptized we get a chance to have that symbol for the rest of our life that we get to look back on and we get to say "God you did that for me spiritually." And I marked it in that moment and now man I'm not going to be afraid because this child has a fever i'm I'm not going to choose fear because our business is in the red what I'm going to do is understand in my baptism you saved us from the greatest oppressor sin and death and hell and I never have to worry about those things oppressing and grabbing me anymore and because of that man now I have the opportunity to walk in some freedom in these other areas of my life now that if you if you're a Christian that's already happened in your life but for these people that hadn't happened yet look at what he's saying he's saying "You are going to see the salvation." And that's what he does look what it says then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night made the sea dry land and the waters were divided the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground and the waters being a wall to them on their right and on their left now I skipped some stuff here because man sake of time there's a whole thing about God and the pillar and the cloud and the angel of the Lord i mean y'all Angel Lord shows up in the bush he shows up in ma well maybe the destroyer he definitely shows up in um in the cloud and and there's a whole another story with that but man we're going have to got to play some catch-up if you need to get that one we're focusing on baptism today okay now this is their baptism story what' I tell you fear baptism glory remember all right so we saw the fear now we're looking at the baptism moses stretched out his hand now why did he stretch his hand out he I This is a great answer for any of you that are like "Man I've got friends of mine who want to try to convince me that the whole Exodus and all of the plagues and um and and God you know move moving the Red Sea and parting it in dry land that it was all just natural phenomenon had just happened to to happen." And and I think one really good thing for you to remember is well then why did Moses stretch his hand out right he he stretches his hand it's very similar to when he said to Pharaoh if you guys remember when he said to Pharaoh "Now exactly what time do you want the want the stuff to leave?" Remember when he said that exactly what time do you want this or that to happen he wants to make sure it's not just a natural phenomenon f Moses stretches out his hand and and all of the sudden the sea begins to part and there's listen there's a lot in this man you can go read there's so many little details and and people have different opinions about this and that and all that i'm not really that interested in all that because the main story is what I think will steal and put spine put you know iron in my soul and my backbone the main story is Pharaoh impending doom death oppressor i see that as a Christian look back and I say man that is the slavery to sin it's the slavery to death it's hell itself they're hot on our heels and what stands between me and the promised land is this water and God parts it and we're able to go right through 1 Corinthians 10:1 this is not me trying to read the New Testament back in the Old Testament trust me the New Testament does that by itself okay it does a lot of that 1 Corinthians 10:1 says this "For I do not want you to be unaware brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud." That's the part of the story that I sort of skipped over here and all passed through the sea and were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea this is their baptism moment okay and we see this this uh this picture of water being both salvation and judgment many times i mean think about the story of Noah all right it's it's both judgment and it's a and it's salvation at the same time you see other people in the Old Testament you know Joshua is going to lead the people through the Jordan splits it right in half they got to go through the water before they get into God's destiny right you end up seeing Elijah and Elisha you see Jesus even going through baptism and going through the water at some point that is I think symbolic mostly of this story but of all of these stories of of walking through the water to step into God's blessing and to step into his call on their life and this is their baptism moment now I don't know what it was like okay I'm I'm trying to imagine these walls of water on both sides right whatever that looked like and uh I'm just trying to imagine it and I would imagine y'all that because some I think Some some of us might say "Man you know they they must have had just the strongest faith to keep walking." Maybe some of them did i don't know i would think yeah some of them probably looked around i mean I think about some people in my life that have the high faith gift i've got some people in my mind like that i bet you they were dancing through the water i mean they're they're dancing on the dry land can you see this look what God's doing look how awesome it is there's other people that are like "We're going to die we're going to die we're going to die we're going to die." You know that would have been me there's There's no way there's no way this this keeps up we're going to get you know this is I mean just every negative but you know what happened hey they kept putting one foot in front of the other and it was not the strength of their faith it was the object of their faith some probably had a strong faith some probably had a weak faith but to keep moving and to keep walking every step is a demonstration of faith that they are walking through the marked moment that God has for them to come out on the other side and be his people who are on a mission to be a light to the whole world that's what it is this is a moment that's marked i mentioned the wedding ring this is baptism for us y'all this is the the uh the wedding ring analogy you know a wedding ring doesn't show you um you know that you are it doesn't it doesn't mean you're married it's not you could go get a ring and put it on it doesn't mean you're married but people who are married many times will wear a wedding ring to show that when Anna and I got married the these things are all the rage now a little rubber kind of ring you know and I really like this because it's very lightweight but the one I got was like a metal ring i can't remember it was like titanium or tungsten or something it was this heavy metal ring and I never wear anything okay i don't anything on me like it just you know I I'll try every once in a while I'll go through a phase where I try a watch and I need to probably do that they got the really cool fitness watches where that are all the rage okay so I need to probably do that but um you know I generally don't have anything on and it just kind of it just kind of bothers me i I don't know it's like a sensory thing i put that wedding ring on y'all i couldn't sleep for a month i'm serious i put that wedding ring on i I don't know if you've ever experienced this i really think it's like you know how some kids you put a shirt on them and a tag and they just can they c they literally cannot do it you may have had some kids like that i put that wedding ring on and for the next three months there was not one second of my life that I was not aware of it i can feel it it just is a feeling on my on my hand all the time but you know what i got through it didn't I i didn't just I didn't just say to Anna like "Hey man this wedding ring thing don't really work for me." Okay i mean I mean that ain't going to really fly okay that's not going to go that well it's like no no no we're not we're not going to do that we're going to push through that why because the symbol is very important for me to make sure the world knows what God has done in my life and given me this woman and we're in this marriage the the wedding ceremony the ring the these things are really great markers of the moment of a newly formed relationship and guys this is the moment in a lot of ways that will mark the children of Israel how many times in the in the Bible and in the New Testament do we think about the children of Israel and associate them with this very moment christians how can we not see the importance of our baptism man that is a moment that we should be associating with maturity and stepping into God's calling and destiny and purpose in our life and and a great marker of obedience in our life and it's something that we should look back on it marks the moment man in the gospel we listen we deserved death in the bottom of the Red Sea and God let us walk through on dry land but some people got judgment that day and look at verse 26 then the Lord said to Moses "Stretch out your hand over the sea that the water may come back upon the Egyptians upon the chariots and upon their horsemen." So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared and as the Egyptians fled into it the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the host of Pharaoh that had followed them into the sea not one of them remained but the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea the waters being a wall to them on their right and to their left thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore and Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians so the people feared the Lord and they believed in the Lord and in his servant Moses the fear the baptism and the glory who reaps the glory from our salvation and the moment that marks it man our God reaps the glory because it was all his work he has moved in our life we see a thing here y'all pharaoh made war with God and God judged him rightly just as in the days of Noah the water forms God's judgment and y'all this is what we learn and we God's glory bound up in it forever y'all when God joins the fight anything is possible and and where do we I mean that that's true just in general okay i mean when God joins the fight like I've said it could be some things you're fighting for you're fighting for a marriage you're fighting an addiction you know we we talked about these uh we talked about serving in order that we could um see you know a lot of people come at Easter man I we we have so many stories in our church right now i think about story of Meline meline fought addiction fear and anxiety in overwhelming ways for years of her life and man coming to Mercy Hill hearing the gospel she has gotten saved gotten baptized and gotten plugged in and God is moving in her life fighting those things god fights for his people and we and and maybe you're fighting for something now i mean you're fight like you're fighting for an adoption you're fighting for a business that you're trying to save i don't know what it might be in your life man a good general truth from this story maybe it's not the main thing but a good thing is that when God joins the fight anything is possible that may listen I don't know what that means i don't know how it works out in your life i don't know how it works out in my life exactly but man just the faith for us to know that when God jumps in anything can happen but of course the main idea here and the main story is when God fights for his people and he wins and the oppressive slavers are at the bottom of the ocean and God's people have walked across on dry land we praise him and give him great glory for it that is the whole idea that we would praise and honor him and I think about us today you know some of us might be here today and it's like hey do do you have a heart that wants to praise do you have a heart that wants to give glory do you have a heart that wants to honor do you have a heart that wants to worship i know I I've met so many people uh in my life a lot of men are this way when they're like "Well yeah I mean I come for the music but really I just want to get to the preaching." And I'm I'm just a little bit like man how immature is that you don't you don't have anything you can praise and shout and sing to God over and get in a childlike form so that you can reach your hands up to father you know that that's do do you are you there are you you have anything in your life like that man I want to I want to praise and I want to glorify God okay you know how we get there it's the same way that looses the chains of fear in us the thing that will erupt a gratitude and affection in our life is when we realize well really this is a pretty deep metaphor because listen it's not one thing it's two when you think about your life slavery sin death hell these things were right they were right over you they were oppressing you and God has thrown those things into the bottom of the sea so that you could walk out on dry land he has done that through his son Jesus Christ but the metaphor goes deeper do you really want to praise let me ask you this in this story are you assuming that you would be in the camp of Israel walking across on dry land which army would you be in i mean let's just think about it no let's just think about it here for a moment well which army would you be in well have you ever decided that you wanted to kind of act like you were in control of your own life like Pharaoh was you ever had anything in your life that maybe wasn't yours that you were chasing after you ever had anything in your life that that you decided man I'm going to go to to war with God and rebellion over i know I have i mean this metaphor is deep yes there is uh the oppressors that are coming after me and death wants me and God is saving me from that but you know what the real story for this is man if I'm honest I deserve to be at the bottom of the Red Sea too that's who I was that's who you are or you are and God in his kindness sent Jesus Christ man to take the penalty and the death that we owe so that we could come out if you think about it I mean you know Jesus was why was Jesus baptized think about this john the Baptist sees Jesus and he says "Behold the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world." And Jesus got baptized why would Jesus need to be baptized it was symbolic he was going to be baptized into the wrath of God all the way to the bottom of the ocean of God's wrath poured out upon him for us so that you and I could emerge from that bloody mess free you and I deserve to be at the bottom of the ocean but Jesus took that for us so that you and I could walk out on dry land and when we begin to get some of that in our heart it ignites a passion it begins to well up in gratitude romans 6:4 we were buried therefore with him by baptism into death in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the father we too might walk in the newness of life y'all we get the promised land because Jesus took the Red Sea of God's wrath and that should make us grateful and spark love in our heart here's what I want to call you to do today as I close give glory to God through your baptism man give glory to God through your baptism you know in the story here I read it in first Corinthians these folks get baptized into Moses what does that mean it means that in this moment Moses became this figurehead leader that was carrying them it was God's movement through Moses and we see that in Christ as he has carried us okay um but you and I when we get baptized we don't get baptized in the name of Moses um one of our church planters Jeremy Dagger and I know our church has grown okay and I know some of our camps you may never met Jeremy he's been gone for a couple years now jeremy's one of my best friends okay he moved here to help plant Mercy Hill and one day he comes to me and he says "Man I'm going to go plant a church." And I said "Where are you going to plant the church?" And he said "Halifax Nova Scotia." And I said "Russia Varsity." Okay it's actually not in Russia it's Canada okay and uh Jeremy Jeremy is awesome okay jeremy became an elder at Mercy Hill he could have been he could have been an elder at the Summit Church where we came from in Raleigh Durham but he waited to come here but the funny thing about Jeremy was during his elder candidacy I'm going to tell y'all right now baptism was his Achilles heel okay he just couldn't get it he just couldn't totally get it right one day he st the first time I ever saw him baptized he gets him in the water okay they're about to go you know you go down and up and and he says "By the power vested in me I now pronounce you man and wife." Like he goes down he got it all messed up okay the second time he baptized he baptized in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Temple i said I think that's Mormon okay i don't know but I know I'm Do we rebaptize this person okay i'm not sure what we're supposed to do we get baptized okay i think he's gotten this right now okay now that he's planting a church um we we baptize in the name of the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit you're getting you're getting baptiz you're getting baptized into the family of God you're getting baptized into God's team you're getting baptized into his military service if you want to go back to that anil an analogy about the swearing in process it's the marked moment now some of you right now listen you you've already been baptized and and here's what I'm going to call you to do savor it we're baptizing again in a few weeks at Easter man don't be the people who are like "Oh the service is over we're going to slip out early to get our kids." Don't do that i mean to leave it's like "No no no savor it see see what remember who you were remember what God did in your life in your baptism and allow that to crush fear and allow it to fuel gratitude in your heart and affections for God let it stir up the gift in you right but others of you listen if you're not baptized you have not been baptized today then here's what we got to talk about you don't get baptized if you're not a Christian so if you're like "Man I'm not a Christian i don't plan to be a Christian." I get that okay but some of us have either given our life to Christ over the last few months here or you gave your life to Christ years ago like Thomas I don't know if you saw that thomas said "Man 14 years old I became a Christian but I didn't get baptized till later." And what did he say went along with that he said "I had a bunch of struggles that I was withholding." I bet he did because when we decide the first act of obedience that gives God the glory for my salvation I'm not going to do what else you think creeps in what other stuff begins to entangle us what other stuff do we begin to compromise on and so I want to call you today if you're not a Christian become one today admit you're a sinner believe in what Christ has done to save you man you and I deserve the bottom of the sea jesus took that wrath so that you and I could walk out on dry land be united to him today and confess him as the Lord of your life and then get baptized listen a bapt obedience in baptism changes you it gives you that moment to look back on in your life if you haven't taken this step if if you're like man this is what this is what kills me okay maybe you're thinking today man I don't feel like I'm really growing i'm not really maturing i don't really have a passion i don't this i don't that i don't that and it's like but all the while you know I've never been baptized you know what that would be like that'd be like somebody saying "Well I'm trying to get in shape." And it's like well do you go for a walk no you drink any water no you sleep eight hours at night no well what are we talking about right like how serious is this that'd be my question is like hey you want to grow mercy Hill attracts growers okay that is just that I've known that for 10 years okay 12 years as long as we've been here it just does people want to grow in their fitness they want to grow in their finances they want their families to grow they want to grow in their leadership they want to grow as Christians if you want to grow as a believer and you're not baptized there is a major roadblock in your life and I would call you let's nail this down you can text baptism to 87217 okay i'm gonna leave that up there 87217 man remember that number text it in we're baptized in three or four weeks at Easter and I would pray that you would be a part of that number if you need to be let's pray father we thank you for this day god we thank you for what you're doing in our church we thank you for the growth both numerically but also God the spiritual growth the ferveny that is here and God I pray that this Easter season we would see hundreds of people who need to take this step because they've gotten saved or they're getting saved and they need to be baptized god I pray we would see hundreds of people take this step so that the spiritual ferveny and obedience in our church would skyrocket and you would use us in even greater ways in Christ's name we pray amen amen all right well hey at all of our campuses now I'm going to ask you to stand and uh I want you to know this altar is wide open here um guys come forward man just get on your knees and think about and remember your own baptism and thank God for what he's done in bringing you through the Red Sea maybe some of you have a decision to make am I going to do this or not is this going to be serious for me come down forward wrestle with God um at this altar here tonight all right