Used To Be
Well, we are excited about this morning and the baptisms that are taking place. We believe that it's a big deal because it specifically symbolizes a next step in faith. And while I think that that's reason enough to choose baptism, I do know that there are some misconceptions culturally about baptisms. I got people all the time that will argue with me and say things like, Well, Pastor Matt, I don't need to be baptized because I can be saved without being baptized. And that's the truth. You can be saved without being baptized, but you cannot be obedient.
If you haven't.
And then on the flip side, we got people culturally to say, hey, then watch our little videos. And if somebody doesn't get dumped all the way, then they haven't been completely immersed, and they're not fully baptized, that they can't be saved. Come on. How many of y'all know that's nonsense? The front of your little hair is still drying? So God's gonna be sorry, brother. I know you try. But you didn't make it to par for me. You practice now. That's not the case, everybody. That is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Now, some of you Joker's who are getting baptized today. Trust me, we're gonna hold you down a little longer than other people. But no, I'm just joking. I'm joking. I'm joking, we would we would never do that, we probably wouldn't do that. We probably wouldn't do that. But the reality is with these misconceptions there misses on both ends. And so I think it's really important that we do understand and are able to answer this question, why do we believe in baptism? Why do we believe in baptism? And so that's the question that I'm hoping to answer as I preached this morning's message called use to be look at your name and say used to be, I used to be a mess. I used to be far from God, I used to be an addict I used to be, you fill in the blank for who you used to be. And maybe some of us are still be in that and need to move, we'll have an opportunity at the closest service to be able to go that route.
If you got a Bible, you can open up to Matthew, chapter number six, Matthew chapter, excuse me, chapter number three, Matthew chapter number three, and we'll get there in just a minute. Father, thank you for the wonderful opportunity we have today to be in your presence, we don't take it lightly got us a big deal. And so we pray today that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would lead us that you would God as you would show us Jesus, like we've never seen him before. Because we know it's upon revelation of who Jesus is that you will establish and build your church.
God today specifically, as we lean into baptism. I pray that we would hear your voice, we would set your spirit that you would stir those of us in the room that have had questions or maybe concerns about baptism, by the way that it takes place. Teach us God lead us guide us. Most importantly, show us Jesus in a way that only you can. In Jesus mighty name. Amen. Amen. A Oh God, God, God, God, God, God, God, if the Huskers could win this morning,
so the pastor Carrie and I can go to the game this afternoon that would be great. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. A man, amen. So I think that most of us would probably agree as we looked around the room that baptism seems to be a good next step, a logical next step in our faith journey. However, I'm sure that there are many of us maybe even some of us who have been baptized some of us who, you know, made that decision who may not quite understand how to answer the question. Why baptism, when people ask you, well, why did you get baptized or why are you getting baptized? Or why should I get baptized? We're like, oh, because the preacher told me to wrong answer. That's a bad idea. If you ever go somewhere, if somebody asks you a question specifically about scripture, or church, whatever you say, because that's what Pastor Matt said. And wrong answer. That's the worst answer. Literally everybody, what we do every single week is we give you scripture and we give you principles, not for you just to regurgitate what we say. But for you to go and dig into, make your relationship with Jesus personal so that you can minister to somebody on your
job, at your school, in your neighborhood. That's the whole point of this thing. It's not so you can say, hey, let's get him to church. That's great when people come to church, but coming to church doesn't make you have a relationship with Jesus. Y'all hear him saying, and so that's what we got to be really careful of. So today, like I said, I want to answer the question, why get baptized looked at name. So why do you baptize
not your other name and say, I know why you need to get baptized.
I think there are four answers to this question. Why get baptized four answers to why when it comes to baptism, why should we be baptized? Number one is obedience.
Obedience, obedience, I believe that we should get baptized out of obedience.
Jesus is our model of faith, right, everybody. And so if baptism was good enough for Jesus, I think it's probably good enough for us. In fact, Jesus did not do a thing in ministry until he was first baptized. Verse 16, here and Matthew Chapter Three says after His baptism as Jesus came up out of the water, and let's just say something everybody, the writer would not have would have had to specify he came up out of the water if he had not been in the water.
Okay, so baptism is not a little sprinkle. Baptism is an immersion in the water. Okay, he came up out of the water and the heavens open. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, settling on him in a voice from heaven says, This is my dearly love son, who brings me great joy. Jesus modeled it. And if Jesus models that I think we should be obedient to it, you'll hear him saying it. So I think that we need to stop excusing ourselves or excusing other people out of following the model of Jesus. Well, you know, it's different culturally, not at Ron answer, man, if you appeal to culture more than you appeal to Christ, then you're missing it, we have to appeal to Christ and not the culture.
Christ Jesus will meet us in the middle of our culture, and he'll change us to be more like him, we've got to, if he modeled it, we should be obedient to him. If he modeled it, he modeled it.
If he modeled it, we should follow it. Before he started, he modeled it, this is a move you should make. And secondly, what he did is he commanded it, we should be obedient, because when he started out, he modeled it. But then when he finished it out, he commanded it when he's ascending to heaven. Here in Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, says this, Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth, in heaven, and on earth. I think that's so interesting. Therefore, because I have the authority in heaven and on earth, go and make disciples of all nations, what? Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Well, all of the nation's except for when it's inconvenient
all of the nation's except for when you got tickets for the game, all of the nation's except for when you got your hair done this week, and you don't want to get wet. Y'all hear them saying, All nations all people except for those who didn't come plan and prep to be baptized today. We came to first service because we didn't have any plan to be baptized. Oh, well, you're the exception then. At romancer to the smile on my face, I'm just gonna challenge you a little bit. Teach these new disciples to obey A Oh, look at this, look at this next word. Oh oh
you know what this word all means? I looked it up in the original language. Somebody called it, it means all, all,
all obey all the commands that I've given you. So he modeled it, we should be obedient to it, we should follow it. But he also commanded it. We should be obedient to it. Because here's, here's the reality everybody it is true. baptism does not save you. Okay? baptism does not save you. Okay? It does not if you don't get baptized, it doesn't lock you out of heaven. But it does make you disobedient if you choose not to. I didn't come to just give you a little warm fuzzy today. I don't and I don't care. I don't care if you're the age of accountability, whether you know, mom and dad if you feel like your seven year old is okay to get baptized, and you can lead them if fantastic 1315, whatever. If you're 6078 I don't whatever, it doesn't matter to me. I want to see us be obedient to the model of Christ in the command of Christ. This is not my command. This is not my model. I am just a follower of the model and the commands.
He modeled it, he commanded it, I think we should do it. That's why we get baptized. Number one. The second reason why we get baptized is profession. profession. It's a profession of our faith. This word profession means this the act of declaring. Specifically publicly the act of declaring specifically publicly. I remember one time, we were getting baptized and all these different things were taking place. And, and one person that we knew was kind of embarrassed, a little bit embarrassed to get baptized publicly, because they should have been beyond that. You know what I mean? Some of y'all feel like that in this room, like, Hey, I've been walking with Christ long enough, I should be beyond this, I should have probably been baptized when I was a teenager, or maybe I should have been baptized when I was in my early 20s. Or maybe I should have been baptized already. And some of us feel like that. But here's the reality. This is a act of declaring our faith, specifically, specifically, publicly.
So we were moving forward with the baptisms and this one individual was like, Ah, now I should be beyond that. So what I'm going to do is, I'm gonna baptize myself in my bathtub.
You can do that. You can do that. But it defeats the whole purpose of it. It's a declaration. It's a, it's a public profession, of your faith, saying, You know what, from this day forward, I don't care what used to be or what I used to be from now on. The Bible says Romans chapter six, well, then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not. Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that we were joined with Christ Jesus, in baptism, we joined him in his death, for we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. That's the public profession of faith. I'm saying, I believe by faith that I've died with Christ. And now I am raised again to life, just as Christ was raised from the dead by glory by the glorious power of the Father. Now we may also live
new lives. See, baptizing yourself in the bathtub. That's an old life. I'm still embarrassed, I'm still full of fear. I'm still concerned about what everybody else is gonna say about me. Trust me, I remember I was baptized when I was 12 years old. I was I was tracking my faith. Then I started working at this church and I realized, wow, I've made a brand new profession of my faith, and I was feeling stirred to be rebaptised.
What did the first one wear off? No, it didn't wear off. But my profession wore off and changed. And so now I was making a new profession of the new life, that I was living in Christ. The new understanding that I had, it was my opportunity to make a public profession of faith. Trust me, man, I was embarrassed, working on staff at this church
going in and get a little baptized. I believe in Jesus. I believe in him. I believe in Jesus free from sin. That was my declaration. That was my profession. And that's why we get baptized. We get baptized out of obedience, and we get baptized to make a profession publicly. And I could tell some you're angry with me. And that's okay. I'll own that. But I love you. And I know you love me too. Sometimes you just get ill with people you love. That's okay. It's okay.
through obedience, we're professing our faith and life in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, declaring Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives. We're disconnecting us from the sin that has kept us separated from the Father baptism moves our faith from private to public.
And people tell me all the time, why don't you know man, my faith, I'm just kind of private in my faith. Well, you will consistently state and mature in your faith that that's just my little challenge. I love you. Love. You should we're moving out here. I'm saying, okay, bless God.
Don't worry, we're gonna finish up here and, you know, 12 minutes and 58 seconds. Okay, so
everybody puts a smile on your face. Oh, we go. Yeah, pretty smilers. Love it. So third reason why we should be baptized, why should we be baptized, we should be baptized because of the symbolism.
Because it is symbolic of us, putting an old life to death who we used to be to death. And now we can become who were called to be. We don't have to go back and pick up our old sin. It is symbolic. Again, baptism does not save you. But it's a step of obedience. It's a step of public profession. And it's a step that shows symbolically that you have done what you've been commanded to do and what Jesus modeled. You'll hear him saying,
so let's read the Scripture. Since we have been united with Him in His death, we are also raised in to life as he was, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ. So the sin might lose its power in our lives, we're no longer slaves to that sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin is since we die with Christ. We know we will also live with him.
We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead and He will never die again, no death has any power over him any longer. That's a good day. If death doesn't have power over him, then death also doesn't have power over us. And this is one of those symbolic things where we know Hey, because of the baptism, I am going back, because of the baptism, I'm not going back to who I used to be. I'm going to walk in who I'm called to be, for example, well, most of us who are married wear a wedding ring, right? Got a tattooed on my hand.
Symbolically saying, I am married. I'm taking. I'm not going back to who I used to be. Don't hear them saying. Now some people try to be slick and cutely go to certain places, slip their little ring off. What are they doing? They're taking off the symbolism of the covenant that they've made.
Do you see what I'm saying? But baptism is the same. That wedding ring doesn't make me married. The fact that I have this on my hand doesn't make me married. Right?
The covenant that I made before God and man with my wife on June 16 2001. That's what makes me married. The thing that makes me married is that I continue to pursue a relationship with her that I continue to honor and value her. It's not the ring, but the ring, or the tattoo is symbolic letting everyone else know publicly, hey, he's got a symbol that says he's taken there's a symbol that says his life is different than it used to be. He's walking out a calling of who he's supposed to be. Don't hear them saying, and that's what baptism does, as well. Publicly we profess and symbolically says, oh, not who they used to be. They have a desire to walk in who they're called to be symbolism. Fourth and final reason answer to the question why we should get baptized is for remembrance. Remembrance. Y'all ever got down the road a little bit, and then you just kind of forgot what you were doing or where you come from. Never been just driving, and your mind just blanks. You're like, oh, man, and you like look at your wedding. Oh, yeah, I'm married. Call chef, was the same in faith, isn't it? Sometimes we get and we get in familiar situations. And we feel like our old life is coming back who we used to be as kind of making its way back. But then you remember all may 26 2024. I really remember. I died to that old life I was buried in that watery grave that old life is gone. And when I came up out of the water, the person of the Holy Spirit. It's not we're moving forward and who you call it. It's an act of remembrance, as well, always. And forever, you'll be able to remember the date, I remember how I felt when I walked in that tank. I remember looking at the congregation, as I as I walked down in the nerves, and I thought, Man, I should be beyond this. But there was nothing more powerful because not only was it was a step of obedience.
It was a step of profession. It was a step of symbolism. I didn't know this at the time. But now I'm 24 years beyond that. I got baptized in August of 2000. I didn't know this in August of 2000. But I'd be able to look back on that. And remember the profession that I may owe the old me as God, no matter how many times he tries to come back, I can say no, no, no, no, I'm dead to that. And alive in Christ, the spirit of the living God that raised Christ from the dead now dwells on the inside of me. And symbolically, I have something to point back to to remember.
When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So you also
should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin, and alive to God through Christ Jesus. So you also you and me also get to consider ourselves debt to sin. The stuff that keeps you trapped into who you used to be
the addiction,
the gossip, the fear.
Come on the you fill in the blank. What is it for you?
Come on, man, just like you put on a wedding ring.
So you don't forget, oh, I'm married.
You put on your wedding ring to remind yourself that hey, I'm in a committed covenant relationship. My eyes don't wander, My heart doesn't wander. I don't go back to where I used to be.
Doesn't change it. It reminds you of the decision that you made. That's what baptism does. And that's why we choose baptism. The old life is gone.
And the new life is here.
If you're saved if you're a follower of Jesus, if you're somebody who has profess your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
then you're not who you used to be.
And today is a day where you can symbolically from a place of obedience profess that publicly and have an opportunity for remembrance for the rest of your days
will everybody stand with me this morning?
We're gonna we're gonna go back into the song
We're gonna go back here specifically this part, even though I don't see it, I'll trust you and believe, even though I don't see what faith people, everybody
and as we go as we go there
we haven't made the steps of faith yet.
Let's visualize ourselves
in obedience to Christ because He modeled at any command, stepping forward in faith, professing
stepping forward into the symbolism that it brings to our life stepping forward into the remembrance that it offers us for the rest of our days.
Even though I don't see it, I'll trust you and believe. I believe that as we close our eyes, I believe that as we lift our hands, I believe that God is going to give you a vision of what your tomorrow could look like. I believe he's gonna give you a vision of what your future children to look like what your future family will look like.
And that's why we obey. That's why we move forward so that he can break the power of sin, break the power of who we used to be, to help us walk into who were called to be. Come on. Let's
see that.
I'll trust you and believe
it.
Thanks again for listening to today's message. For more information on all that God's doing it versus city, or to share how the message has impacted your life. Visit us online at Mercy City DOT church or on social media.
If you haven't.
And then on the flip side, we got people culturally to say, hey, then watch our little videos. And if somebody doesn't get dumped all the way, then they haven't been completely immersed, and they're not fully baptized, that they can't be saved. Come on. How many of y'all know that's nonsense? The front of your little hair is still drying? So God's gonna be sorry, brother. I know you try. But you didn't make it to par for me. You practice now. That's not the case, everybody. That is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. Now, some of you Joker's who are getting baptized today. Trust me, we're gonna hold you down a little longer than other people. But no, I'm just joking. I'm joking. I'm joking, we would we would never do that, we probably wouldn't do that. We probably wouldn't do that. But the reality is with these misconceptions there misses on both ends. And so I think it's really important that we do understand and are able to answer this question, why do we believe in baptism? Why do we believe in baptism? And so that's the question that I'm hoping to answer as I preached this morning's message called use to be look at your name and say used to be, I used to be a mess. I used to be far from God, I used to be an addict I used to be, you fill in the blank for who you used to be. And maybe some of us are still be in that and need to move, we'll have an opportunity at the closest service to be able to go that route.
If you got a Bible, you can open up to Matthew, chapter number six, Matthew chapter, excuse me, chapter number three, Matthew chapter number three, and we'll get there in just a minute. Father, thank you for the wonderful opportunity we have today to be in your presence, we don't take it lightly got us a big deal. And so we pray today that by the power of your Holy Spirit, you would lead us that you would God as you would show us Jesus, like we've never seen him before. Because we know it's upon revelation of who Jesus is that you will establish and build your church.
God today specifically, as we lean into baptism. I pray that we would hear your voice, we would set your spirit that you would stir those of us in the room that have had questions or maybe concerns about baptism, by the way that it takes place. Teach us God lead us guide us. Most importantly, show us Jesus in a way that only you can. In Jesus mighty name. Amen. Amen. A Oh God, God, God, God, God, God, God, if the Huskers could win this morning,
so the pastor Carrie and I can go to the game this afternoon that would be great. In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Amen.
Amen. A man, amen. So I think that most of us would probably agree as we looked around the room that baptism seems to be a good next step, a logical next step in our faith journey. However, I'm sure that there are many of us maybe even some of us who have been baptized some of us who, you know, made that decision who may not quite understand how to answer the question. Why baptism, when people ask you, well, why did you get baptized or why are you getting baptized? Or why should I get baptized? We're like, oh, because the preacher told me to wrong answer. That's a bad idea. If you ever go somewhere, if somebody asks you a question specifically about scripture, or church, whatever you say, because that's what Pastor Matt said. And wrong answer. That's the worst answer. Literally everybody, what we do every single week is we give you scripture and we give you principles, not for you just to regurgitate what we say. But for you to go and dig into, make your relationship with Jesus personal so that you can minister to somebody on your
job, at your school, in your neighborhood. That's the whole point of this thing. It's not so you can say, hey, let's get him to church. That's great when people come to church, but coming to church doesn't make you have a relationship with Jesus. Y'all hear him saying, and so that's what we got to be really careful of. So today, like I said, I want to answer the question, why get baptized looked at name. So why do you baptize
not your other name and say, I know why you need to get baptized.
I think there are four answers to this question. Why get baptized four answers to why when it comes to baptism, why should we be baptized? Number one is obedience.
Obedience, obedience, I believe that we should get baptized out of obedience.
Jesus is our model of faith, right, everybody. And so if baptism was good enough for Jesus, I think it's probably good enough for us. In fact, Jesus did not do a thing in ministry until he was first baptized. Verse 16, here and Matthew Chapter Three says after His baptism as Jesus came up out of the water, and let's just say something everybody, the writer would not have would have had to specify he came up out of the water if he had not been in the water.
Okay, so baptism is not a little sprinkle. Baptism is an immersion in the water. Okay, he came up out of the water and the heavens open. And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, settling on him in a voice from heaven says, This is my dearly love son, who brings me great joy. Jesus modeled it. And if Jesus models that I think we should be obedient to it, you'll hear him saying it. So I think that we need to stop excusing ourselves or excusing other people out of following the model of Jesus. Well, you know, it's different culturally, not at Ron answer, man, if you appeal to culture more than you appeal to Christ, then you're missing it, we have to appeal to Christ and not the culture.
Christ Jesus will meet us in the middle of our culture, and he'll change us to be more like him, we've got to, if he modeled it, we should be obedient to him. If he modeled it, he modeled it.
If he modeled it, we should follow it. Before he started, he modeled it, this is a move you should make. And secondly, what he did is he commanded it, we should be obedient, because when he started out, he modeled it. But then when he finished it out, he commanded it when he's ascending to heaven. Here in Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20, says this, Jesus came and told his disciples, I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth, in heaven, and on earth. I think that's so interesting. Therefore, because I have the authority in heaven and on earth, go and make disciples of all nations, what? Baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Well, all of the nation's except for when it's inconvenient
all of the nation's except for when you got tickets for the game, all of the nation's except for when you got your hair done this week, and you don't want to get wet. Y'all hear them saying, All nations all people except for those who didn't come plan and prep to be baptized today. We came to first service because we didn't have any plan to be baptized. Oh, well, you're the exception then. At romancer to the smile on my face, I'm just gonna challenge you a little bit. Teach these new disciples to obey A Oh, look at this, look at this next word. Oh oh
you know what this word all means? I looked it up in the original language. Somebody called it, it means all, all,
all obey all the commands that I've given you. So he modeled it, we should be obedient to it, we should follow it. But he also commanded it. We should be obedient to it. Because here's, here's the reality everybody it is true. baptism does not save you. Okay? baptism does not save you. Okay? It does not if you don't get baptized, it doesn't lock you out of heaven. But it does make you disobedient if you choose not to. I didn't come to just give you a little warm fuzzy today. I don't and I don't care. I don't care if you're the age of accountability, whether you know, mom and dad if you feel like your seven year old is okay to get baptized, and you can lead them if fantastic 1315, whatever. If you're 6078 I don't whatever, it doesn't matter to me. I want to see us be obedient to the model of Christ in the command of Christ. This is not my command. This is not my model. I am just a follower of the model and the commands.
He modeled it, he commanded it, I think we should do it. That's why we get baptized. Number one. The second reason why we get baptized is profession. profession. It's a profession of our faith. This word profession means this the act of declaring. Specifically publicly the act of declaring specifically publicly. I remember one time, we were getting baptized and all these different things were taking place. And, and one person that we knew was kind of embarrassed, a little bit embarrassed to get baptized publicly, because they should have been beyond that. You know what I mean? Some of y'all feel like that in this room, like, Hey, I've been walking with Christ long enough, I should be beyond this, I should have probably been baptized when I was a teenager, or maybe I should have been baptized when I was in my early 20s. Or maybe I should have been baptized already. And some of us feel like that. But here's the reality. This is a act of declaring our faith, specifically, specifically, publicly.
So we were moving forward with the baptisms and this one individual was like, Ah, now I should be beyond that. So what I'm going to do is, I'm gonna baptize myself in my bathtub.
You can do that. You can do that. But it defeats the whole purpose of it. It's a declaration. It's a, it's a public profession, of your faith, saying, You know what, from this day forward, I don't care what used to be or what I used to be from now on. The Bible says Romans chapter six, well, then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? Of course not. Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? Or have you forgotten that we were joined with Christ Jesus, in baptism, we joined him in his death, for we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. That's the public profession of faith. I'm saying, I believe by faith that I've died with Christ. And now I am raised again to life, just as Christ was raised from the dead by glory by the glorious power of the Father. Now we may also live
new lives. See, baptizing yourself in the bathtub. That's an old life. I'm still embarrassed, I'm still full of fear. I'm still concerned about what everybody else is gonna say about me. Trust me, I remember I was baptized when I was 12 years old. I was I was tracking my faith. Then I started working at this church and I realized, wow, I've made a brand new profession of my faith, and I was feeling stirred to be rebaptised.
What did the first one wear off? No, it didn't wear off. But my profession wore off and changed. And so now I was making a new profession of the new life, that I was living in Christ. The new understanding that I had, it was my opportunity to make a public profession of faith. Trust me, man, I was embarrassed, working on staff at this church
going in and get a little baptized. I believe in Jesus. I believe in him. I believe in Jesus free from sin. That was my declaration. That was my profession. And that's why we get baptized. We get baptized out of obedience, and we get baptized to make a profession publicly. And I could tell some you're angry with me. And that's okay. I'll own that. But I love you. And I know you love me too. Sometimes you just get ill with people you love. That's okay. It's okay.
through obedience, we're professing our faith and life in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, declaring Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives. We're disconnecting us from the sin that has kept us separated from the Father baptism moves our faith from private to public.
And people tell me all the time, why don't you know man, my faith, I'm just kind of private in my faith. Well, you will consistently state and mature in your faith that that's just my little challenge. I love you. Love. You should we're moving out here. I'm saying, okay, bless God.
Don't worry, we're gonna finish up here and, you know, 12 minutes and 58 seconds. Okay, so
everybody puts a smile on your face. Oh, we go. Yeah, pretty smilers. Love it. So third reason why we should be baptized, why should we be baptized, we should be baptized because of the symbolism.
Because it is symbolic of us, putting an old life to death who we used to be to death. And now we can become who were called to be. We don't have to go back and pick up our old sin. It is symbolic. Again, baptism does not save you. But it's a step of obedience. It's a step of public profession. And it's a step that shows symbolically that you have done what you've been commanded to do and what Jesus modeled. You'll hear him saying,
so let's read the Scripture. Since we have been united with Him in His death, we are also raised in to life as he was, we know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ. So the sin might lose its power in our lives, we're no longer slaves to that sin. For when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of sin is since we die with Christ. We know we will also live with him.
We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead and He will never die again, no death has any power over him any longer. That's a good day. If death doesn't have power over him, then death also doesn't have power over us. And this is one of those symbolic things where we know Hey, because of the baptism, I am going back, because of the baptism, I'm not going back to who I used to be. I'm going to walk in who I'm called to be, for example, well, most of us who are married wear a wedding ring, right? Got a tattooed on my hand.
Symbolically saying, I am married. I'm taking. I'm not going back to who I used to be. Don't hear them saying. Now some people try to be slick and cutely go to certain places, slip their little ring off. What are they doing? They're taking off the symbolism of the covenant that they've made.
Do you see what I'm saying? But baptism is the same. That wedding ring doesn't make me married. The fact that I have this on my hand doesn't make me married. Right?
The covenant that I made before God and man with my wife on June 16 2001. That's what makes me married. The thing that makes me married is that I continue to pursue a relationship with her that I continue to honor and value her. It's not the ring, but the ring, or the tattoo is symbolic letting everyone else know publicly, hey, he's got a symbol that says he's taken there's a symbol that says his life is different than it used to be. He's walking out a calling of who he's supposed to be. Don't hear them saying, and that's what baptism does, as well. Publicly we profess and symbolically says, oh, not who they used to be. They have a desire to walk in who they're called to be symbolism. Fourth and final reason answer to the question why we should get baptized is for remembrance. Remembrance. Y'all ever got down the road a little bit, and then you just kind of forgot what you were doing or where you come from. Never been just driving, and your mind just blanks. You're like, oh, man, and you like look at your wedding. Oh, yeah, I'm married. Call chef, was the same in faith, isn't it? Sometimes we get and we get in familiar situations. And we feel like our old life is coming back who we used to be as kind of making its way back. But then you remember all may 26 2024. I really remember. I died to that old life I was buried in that watery grave that old life is gone. And when I came up out of the water, the person of the Holy Spirit. It's not we're moving forward and who you call it. It's an act of remembrance, as well, always. And forever, you'll be able to remember the date, I remember how I felt when I walked in that tank. I remember looking at the congregation, as I as I walked down in the nerves, and I thought, Man, I should be beyond this. But there was nothing more powerful because not only was it was a step of obedience.
It was a step of profession. It was a step of symbolism. I didn't know this at the time. But now I'm 24 years beyond that. I got baptized in August of 2000. I didn't know this in August of 2000. But I'd be able to look back on that. And remember the profession that I may owe the old me as God, no matter how many times he tries to come back, I can say no, no, no, no, I'm dead to that. And alive in Christ, the spirit of the living God that raised Christ from the dead now dwells on the inside of me. And symbolically, I have something to point back to to remember.
When he died, he died once to break the power of sin. But now that He lives, He lives for the glory of God. So you also
should consider yourselves to be dead to the power of sin, and alive to God through Christ Jesus. So you also you and me also get to consider ourselves debt to sin. The stuff that keeps you trapped into who you used to be
the addiction,
the gossip, the fear.
Come on the you fill in the blank. What is it for you?
Come on, man, just like you put on a wedding ring.
So you don't forget, oh, I'm married.
You put on your wedding ring to remind yourself that hey, I'm in a committed covenant relationship. My eyes don't wander, My heart doesn't wander. I don't go back to where I used to be.
Doesn't change it. It reminds you of the decision that you made. That's what baptism does. And that's why we choose baptism. The old life is gone.
And the new life is here.
If you're saved if you're a follower of Jesus, if you're somebody who has profess your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
then you're not who you used to be.
And today is a day where you can symbolically from a place of obedience profess that publicly and have an opportunity for remembrance for the rest of your days
will everybody stand with me this morning?
We're gonna we're gonna go back into the song
We're gonna go back here specifically this part, even though I don't see it, I'll trust you and believe, even though I don't see what faith people, everybody
and as we go as we go there
we haven't made the steps of faith yet.
Let's visualize ourselves
in obedience to Christ because He modeled at any command, stepping forward in faith, professing
stepping forward into the symbolism that it brings to our life stepping forward into the remembrance that it offers us for the rest of our days.
Even though I don't see it, I'll trust you and believe. I believe that as we close our eyes, I believe that as we lift our hands, I believe that God is going to give you a vision of what your tomorrow could look like. I believe he's gonna give you a vision of what your future children to look like what your future family will look like.
And that's why we obey. That's why we move forward so that he can break the power of sin, break the power of who we used to be, to help us walk into who were called to be. Come on. Let's
see that.
I'll trust you and believe
it.
Thanks again for listening to today's message. For more information on all that God's doing it versus city, or to share how the message has impacted your life. Visit us online at Mercy City DOT church or on social media.
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