Forecasting Hope 7: Bury the Past (Pastor Greg Hudson, 10/19/24)

And on this card, there's a place to have any questions.

You write those on the back or any prayer requests, and then those are the cards that

we draw.

Now, this card is a little bit different than the ones we've had previously.

Just be aware of that, because as we close today, there's an opportunity to commit,

to take another step.

One other thing that we sometimes do before we begin is to answer some questions, some

Q&As.

So, a question that was turned in last night was about Revelation 13 and Revelation 17.

There's a beast in both of those passages, and in Revelation 17, it talks about a woman

riding the beast.

So, that was the question that was turned in.

But here's the answer.

I'm not going to answer that question this morning, because we're actually going to talk

about that Sunday night, and then I believe it's Thursday.

We're going to talk about both Revelation 13 and Revelation 17 this week.

So hopefully, we'll answer that question, and if not, if you still have the question,

then we'll tackle that after that.

So we hope that you'll come back tonight at 7 and tomorrow night at 7, and then also

we'll start Thursday and Friday and next weekend as well.

But let's bow our heads for a word of prayer.

Dear God, we thank you so much for bringing us here.

We've been able to sing songs.

We've been able to recognize that the thing that thrills our heart is the love that Jesus

has for us.

And our Lord be with us as we open up your Word this morning.

In your name we pray.

Amen.

Are these working or not working?

Okay, apparently, did you hit that select on there?

Apparently we won't have the little graphics, so that means you're definitely going to have

to open up your Bible.

I always encourage you to open up your Bible, but typically we have the verses on the screen

as well.

So we're going to start with a story today, a story about a farmer.

Now a farmer worked really, really hard all of his life planting, saving money, earning

money for one reason, because he wanted his son to be able to go to college.

And so he worked hard to make sure his son could have things that he was never able to

have.

And so as he did that, his son went off to college in the big city and was able to graduate.

And the farmer decided he was going to go visit his son.

And he went to his son's home where his son lived, and his son was having a gathering.

There were other friends, there were other people that were there.

And the son, now very wise and much smarter than his old farmer father, said, Dad, I'm

glad you're here, but please just don't embarrass me in front of my friends.

Please Dad, just don't embarrass me.

And the father said, Son, I would never do that.

In fact, I'm just going to sit in the corner and I'm just going to read the Bible.

Nobody will even know that I'm here.

And so the father found a corner to sit in, and he was just reading quietly to himself.

And as the gathering went on, suddenly the father stood up and he said, Hallelujah!

Praise the Lord!

And the son ran over, Dad, Dad, my friends are here.

What are you doing?

And the father said, Oh, I'm sorry, I just read in Romans 3.23 where it says that all

have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

And then I read a few pages over in Romans 6, and it says that even though we've all

sinned, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.

And I was just so excited about that.

I'm sorry, son, I'm sorry.

And so then I won't embarrass you anymore.

Dad, please.

Nope, nope, I'm just going to read over here.

I'm not going to embarrass you anymore.

And so the son went back to reading, and about 10 minutes later, Hallelujah!

Praise the Lord!

Dad, what now?

Please, you're embarrassing me.

And the dad's like, Oh, sorry, son.

I flipped over to the Old Testament, and I was reading in Micah chapter 7, and it says

Micah 7 · chapter mention

that God is going to cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.

And I realized that I have this promise of eternal life, and my sins will be cast into

the depths of the sea.

And I just had to say, Hallelujah!

Okay, dad, please, here, let me take the Bible from you.

That's getting you too excited.

And the son looked on his bookshelf, and he said, Here, here's an almanac, surely an

atlas, this world atlas will not excite you in that way.

Oh, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, son, I'm so sorry.

And the son gives him that, and the father continues to read, and 10 or 15 minutes later

as he's reading through the atlas, Hallelujah!

Praise the Lord!

Dad, an atlas.

How can you say Hallelujah from an atlas?

Well, son, I had read that we've all sinned, but we have this gift of God, this gift of

eternal life.

And then I read that all my sins are cast into the depths of the sea.

And in this atlas, I read that there are places in the bottom of the ocean that they've hardly

even seen.

It's so deep, they can't even get there.

They can't even explore the bottom of the ocean.

And it reminded me that even though all the things I've done, that God loves me, that

God cares about me, that God forgets my sins, and He casts them into the depths of the sea.

I think that's a beautiful picture of what God does for us.

But let's turn over to Micah, chapter 7, as we start here.

Micah 7 · chapter mention

Now Micah is towards the very end of the Old Testament, so if you go to Matthew and go

back just a few books from there, or go to Daniel where we've been and go forward, you

will find Micah.

And we're going to look at Micah chapter 7.

Micah 7 · chapter mention

Micah chapter 7 is where we're going to look today.

Micah 7 · chapter mention

Micah 7, and we'll start in verse 18.

And it says, Who is a God like you?

Micah 7 verse 18, the Bible says, Who is a God like you?

Micah 7:18

Pardoning iniquity, pardoning sin, and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His

heritage.

And then it goes on in verse 19 and says, He will again have compassion on us and will

subdue our iniquities.

And then it says, You will cast all of our sins into the depths of the sea.

And that's that picture of no matter what we have done, we have a Lord, we have a Savior

who forgives us, that Jesus died for our sins.

And even though you and I can look back into our life and can remember times that we have

fallen short, we can also recognize that God does not remember that.

God casts it away.

God puts it to the side.

And so we're going to look today and see that God has given us a way to put our past behind

us, to bury our past, and to wipe out totally any sense of guilt that we may have, any sense

of shame that we might have.

And it's through this experience of accepting Jesus as our Savior and then taking another

step and being baptized.

Baptism is God's way of taking away the shame and the guilt and washing that away.

And we may say, well, wait a second, this forecasting hope, this is about Bible prophecy.

Why would we take a session about Bible prophecy to talk about forgiveness again, to talk about

baptism?

Well, we've seen night by night that the purpose of Bible prophecy, the purpose of

revelation is to point us to Jesus.

And if all we do is learn some interesting facts about prophecy or to learn a timeline

or to learn some history, then we've missed out on the real purpose because the real purpose

is to teach us about Jesus.

And not only that, but believe it or not, we're going to go to Revelation chapter 1.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

And in Revelation chapter 1, we can see that this is actually a part of Bible prophecy.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

Revelation chapter 1.

Revelation 1 · chapter mention

We're going to go to Revelation 1 and we're going to start in verse 4 because it gives

us the full background here.

It says, grace to you.

Revelation 1 and verse 4, John is writing and he says, grace to you and peace from him

who is and who was and who is to come.

That's Jesus right there, the one who is, the one who was, and the one who's coming

again.

And it says, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne.

So we have God, we have a spirit, and then it says from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness,

the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.

And then notice what it says, it says, to him who loved us and washed us from our sins

in his own blood.

That's a picture right there of what Jesus wants to do for us.

That's a picture of this cleansing from sin as we are washed from sins by the blood of

Jesus.

And so here in Revelation before it gets to any apocalyptic vision, before it gets to

the seven seals or the seven plagues or the beast or any of those things, there's this

picture of this cleansing, this forgiveness.

And then turn over to Revelation chapter 7.

Revelation 7 · chapter mention

Now we briefly looked at this chapter a few nights ago because in chapter 6 it ends and

it says, who is able to stand?

It ends with that question.

And then chapter 7 describes who is able to stand.

Kind of gives two names there, the 144,000 or the great multitude.

And notice just one of these verses, verse 14.

It says, well verse 13, who are these wearing the white robes?

Where did they come from?

And then in verse 14, I said to him, sir, you know.

And this heavenly being said to me, these are the ones who came out of the great tribulation

and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.

So again we have this picture of cleansing that only Jesus can do.

And Jesus has given us this understanding, this idea of baptism, this cleansing from

sin where our sin and our guilt is totally wiped away, totally forgotten by God.

And so we could begin and ask ourselves the question, is baptism really needed?

Is it something that we have to do?

Well let's go over to Matthew chapter 28.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 28, the very last chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.

Matthew 28 · chapter mention

This is very much the very last words that Jesus proclaimed before he goes back to heaven.

And you know sometimes we look at the last words that people think, that people say,

and we think, well those last words are important.

Because when somebody is sharing their last words, they're usually not talking about

something that doesn't matter, something that was trivial.

Someone's last words are usually something that's close to their heart, something that's

important to them.

And so we're going to pick up the story in Matthew 28 and verse 19.

And notice the Bible says, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing

them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them

to observe all things that I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to

the end of the age.

And so here in Jesus' last words, he kind of is mentioning two different things, two

different things that seem to be important to him.

The first thing he's talking about is mission.

He says, go, go and make disciples.

Who are you supposed to make disciples of?

It says all nations, everybody.

It doesn't matter a language, it doesn't matter ethnicity, it doesn't matter social level,

but we're supposed to go and tell everyone about Jesus.

And so that's one thing that is important to Jesus.

And another, as he mentions here in his final words, as you go and make disciples, the next

thing he says, the next step that people can take with Jesus is this act of being baptized.

Baptize them in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And so when someone is accepting Jesus, a next step that they can take is this step

to be baptized.

And that's why even in a prophecy seminar, as we're talking about the prophecies of Jesus,

as we're pointing people to the teachings of Jesus, we want people to have an opportunity

to take the next step, as we have one young lady next week who's decided to do that.

And so when people are baptized, what is happening is they're symbolically, publicly stating

whose side they're on.

And it doesn't mean that someone is perfect.

It doesn't mean that someone is never going to make a mistake again, but it means that

they've made a decision in their life about who they're going to follow.

Now many times, in some ways, the Bible compares this baptism to a wedding, to getting married.

Now I see many people here that are married, and I would imagine that many of you remember

your wedding day.

You remember where it was, what the weather was like, what people were wearing.

You probably remember what went wrong that day.

At least the ladies probably remember what went wrong that day.

I remember my wedding day.

Jolie and I got married at a wedding chapel in Gatlinburg.

A wedding chapel in Gatlinburg.

And I had some pictures of that, but we're not going to be able to see them today.

And so what happened on that day is that I was standing up before family and friends.

It was a small group of family and friends.

It was a wedding chapel in Gatlinburg.

But I was declaring to them that I want to spend the rest of my life with this lady,

that I love her.

It wasn't the beginning of our relationship, but it was the next step.

It was an outward sign of something that was happening in my heart.

And that's what baptism is.

It's an outward sign of the love that we already have for Jesus and the decision that we make

to follow Him.

And as we follow Jesus, we recognize, because we're human, we recognize there's going to

be good days.

We recognize there's going to be bad days.

But we're telling everyone that I want to walk with Jesus.

Let's turn over to our scripture for this morning, Romans chapter 6, the scripture that

Romans 6 · chapter mention

we read this morning.

Because this, perhaps more than any other verse, gives us a picture of what baptism

is all about and what it represents.

So we're going to go to Romans chapter 6, and we're going to begin reading in verse

Romans 6 · chapter mention

3.

Romans chapter 6 and verse 3.

Romans 6 · chapter mention

The Bible says, or do you not know that it was that as many of us as were baptized into

Christ Jesus were baptized into His death.

Therefore, we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was

raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of

life.

And so that gives us several pictures there, several things we can look at, several things

that we can examine.

It says we were buried with Jesus into His death.

Now what does that mean?

That means that as I've been living my life apart from Jesus, then perhaps I have not

always lived the way that I should.

Maybe I've been dishonest.

I've spoken ill of people.

I've not been trustworthy or whatever it means.

But when I want to begin walking with Jesus, then I want to put that old way of life behind.

I want to take a new step.

I want that old life to die in essence.

And I want it to be buried.

Then I want there to be, as it says, a resurrection, just as Christ was raised from the dead, even

so we also should walk in the newness of life.

And so this baptism gives us some symbolism of death, of dying to an old way of life,

of being buried with water and then rising to a new way of life.

And that's just what Jesus did in this plan of salvation.

He laid down His life on the cross.

He was buried in the tomb, and He resurrected to a new life and to give us the assurance

and the promise of eternal life.

That kind of reminds me of a story.

There was a lady who had lived a very dark life, a hard life.

She had been involved in selling her body.

She'd been involved with the mafia.

She'd been involved in murder and different things like that.

Had a very, very rough background.

But as she continued to live out her life, she heard of a series, a revival that was

taking place, and she began to attend that, and she heard stories of how Jesus could change

people's life.

She heard stories of Mary Magdalene and her life being changed, and King David who had

people killed and his life was changed.

And she recognized that if Jesus could do that for others, then perhaps Jesus could

do that for her.

And she made a decision to follow Jesus, and she began to prepare to be baptized.

And as she was talking to the pastor about her baptism, she said, Pastor, you know what?

I've been practicing.

I have an odd request.

I've been practicing holding my breath.

And I can hold my breath for almost a minute.

And when I get baptized, I want to really experience this.

And I just want to bask in all that Jesus has for me.

And so, Pastor, when you put me under the water, I want you to hold me there for a little

bit because I can hold my breath.

And when I'm ready, I'll squeeze your hand and you can lift me up.

And so, Pastor, I've never heard of that before, but okay, yeah, we can do that.

And so, that day comes.

He raises his hand.

I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

He puts her under the water, and he waits.

One, two, three, four, five seconds, ten seconds.

He could see the joy on her face down through the water.

But what he hadn't done, he hadn't told any deacons or elders or church members that this

was the plan.

And so, the people watching, they got to know Pastor not like this lady.

Did he hurt his back?

What's going on here?

And finally, she squeezed his wrist.

He lifted her up.

And when she came up out of the water, she said, hallelujah, praise the Lord.

Now, pull that plug and wash my sins right down the drain.

She understood that there was a cleansing.

She understood that something took place, that a forgiveness took place, that a new

life was taking place.

Let's turn over to 2 Corinthians.

So from Romans, you go to 1 Corinthians, then 2 Corinthians chapter 5, 2 Corinthians chapter

2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention 2 Corinthians 5 · chapter mention

5 and verse 17.

It says in 2 Corinthians 5, 17, the Bible says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he

or she is a new creation.

Old things have passed away.

Behold, all things become new.

When we put ourselves into the grace of Jesus, it says the old things have passed away and

all things become new.

And that's something that's hard to explain.

We can't explain how a life is changed.

Psychiatry can't explain it.

Sociology can't explain it.

But a divine miracle can explain it as the Holy Spirit comes in and baptism is part of

that journey.

Now, we have to make sure we're careful here because sometimes people go to one extreme

or another.

Sometimes people look at baptism as kind of a life insurance policy.

I'm not sure about this whole Jesus thing, but you know what?

If that water touches me, if I get in that water, then I'm saved no matter what.

So I'm going to do it just in case.

But that's not what baptism is all about.

Baptism is a public expression of something that's taking place in the heart.

If you're not truly believing it, then you can get baptized, but really just getting

wet.

So that's one extreme that sometimes people go to.

But then there's another extreme, and that's that idea of perfection, that I have to wait

until I'm perfect in order to take that step.

And I have to wait to achieve a certain level, and then I'm worthy to be baptized.

I remember one time many years ago I was doing a kind of a small group study with collegiate

people, young people, and there was one young lady who every time we gathered, she's like,

you know what?

I need to get back to church.

I need to get baptized.

But whenever you talk to her about that anymore, she was like, well, I've got some things in

my life that I need to take care of.

I've got some things that I need to work on.

I've got some things that I need to fix.

And during my time with her, my experience with her, she never ever made that choice.

And so we have to make sure that we're not putting things off, that we're not delaying,

that if God is calling us to do something, we don't have to wait until we feel that we're

perfect.

If we waited until we were perfect, none of us would ever be baptized because we fall

short of the glory of God.

So then sometimes people say, well, okay, that makes sense, but what is baptism?

How do we get baptized?

And there's different ideas.

There's different ways that people do it.

I've heard of baptism by oil or baptism by pouring or sprinkling or baptism by telephone

or people get baptized for somebody else, proxy baptism.

There's baptism by immersion.

So is there a way in the Bible?

We want to make sure that we're following what the Bible says, what God says.

Well, the word itself, baptism, it comes from the word baptizo, baptizo.

And what that word means, it means it comes from the textile or the garment world.

And it's talking about dyeing clothes.

So if you're dyeing clothes to turn them a different color, you would want to put the

cloth into the dye.

And what would you do with it?

You would want to push it all the way down.

And that's what that word means.

Baptizo means to submerge or immerse or to dip or to plunge under the water.

So that word gives us a little hint, and that is the one way that kind of fulfills that

theology that we saw in Romans chapter 6 about dying to an old way of life, about being buried

Romans 6 · chapter mention

as you hold your breath under the water, and then about a resurrection as you arise to

a new way of life.

But let's do more than just vocabulary.

Let's look and see what happened.

Let's turn over to Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 3 tells us the story of Jesus' baptism.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

We talked last night about what would Jesus do.

Well, let's see what he did in Matthew chapter 3.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

We'll pick up the story in verse 13.

Matthew 3 starting in verse 13.

Matthew chapter 3 starting in verse 13.

Matthew 3 · chapter mention

It says, then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.

And John tried to prevent him saying, I need to be baptized by you, and you're coming to

me?

John's like, wait, I'm not worthy to do this.

You're the Messiah.

You should be baptizing me.

But verse 15, Jesus answered and said to him, permit it to be so, for thus it is fitting

for us to fulfill all righteousness.

And then he allowed him.

Jesus is giving us an example.

And then in verse 16, it says, when he had been baptized, Jesus came up immediately from

the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him.

And he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

And suddenly a voice came from heaven saying, this is my beloved Son, in whom I am well

pleased.

And so Jesus here is giving us an example.

You notice what happened there in verse 16.

It says Jesus came up immediately from the water.

Now if Jesus was to come up from the water, that would mean that first he had to go down

into the water.

And so we see that Jesus gives us this example of death, burial, and resurrection, this immersion

that takes place.

And we can actually see it in another place.

Let's turn over to Acts, the book of Acts, which is the story of the New Testament church

as these disciples are going everywhere sharing the gospel of Jesus.

And in this story, in Acts chapter 8, there's a follower of Jesus named Philip.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And he's one of the deacons, and Philip has been sent by an angel to go down a particular

road, a random road, into the wilderness, a desert road.

And as he's going, he sees a chariot coming by or a wagon coming by with a government

official from Ethiopia.

And this angel who sent him tells Philip to go next to this wagon, this chariot, and talk

to this guy.

It's kind of like if you're driving home today and suddenly God tells you, why don't you

roll down your window at that stoplight and start talking to the person next to you.

Tell them about Jesus.

We might push back a little bit at that, but Philip doesn't.

Philip goes up next to this wagon, this chariot, and he hears the gentleman reading from the

Old Testament.

And he's reading about the Messiah.

And he didn't understand what he was reading about.

And so then notice in Acts 8 verse 35, the Bible says, Philip opened his mouth, and beginning

Acts 8:35

at this scripture, preached Jesus to him.

It's an awesome story.

He starts right where that guy is, and he tells him about Jesus.

And then it says in verse 36, now as they went down from the road, they came to some

water.

And the eunuch said, here is water.

What hinders me from being baptized?

And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.

And he answered and said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

And so he commanded the chariot to stand still, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into

the water, and he baptized him.

And so an awesome, awesome story that this man learns about Jesus, and he recognizes

that there's a new step for him to take.

And it says, they came to a place where there was water.

And once again, it says, Philip and the Ethiopian went down into the water, and he baptized

him.

And again, they came out of the water.

This is a symbol here of immersion, of death, and burial, death of the old life, and burial,

and resurrection to a new life in Jesus.

But did you catch, there was a really cool question that the Ethiopian asked in verse

36.

Verse 36, he says, here is water, and then he says, what hinders me from being baptized?

He's like, I believe in Jesus.

You've taught me some new things.

What hinders me from being baptized?

And I think that's a question that we can often ask ourselves.

Is there anything that hinders you from taking that next step with Jesus?

Is there anything that hinders you from following this command of Jesus as you've been studying

the word, as you've learned more about Jesus, as you've drawn closer to him, as you recognize

that Jesus is coming soon?

What hinders you from being baptized?

And so that's a question that I think we can all ask and we can all consider.

So what does it mean?

When can we be baptized?

Well, just like this Ethiopian, it said if you believe, he believed and accepted that

Jesus was his personal Savior.

And we've seen in nights before that we talk about repentance, turning from our desire

to sin, and publicly stating, I want to be on Jesus' side.

And like this Ethiopian, there was some instruction, just some basic knowledge.

He didn't know everything, but he knew enough.

He knew that Jesus was his Lord, that Jesus was his Savior.

Sometimes people ask a question, well, what about rebaptism?

Is that ever a thing?

Well, I would say that we don't want to get to the point where we get baptized seven or

eight or ten times or whatever.

Every time I sin, I need to get baptized again.

That's not what baptism is for.

The Bible talks about a communion service as kind of a reconnection, a recommitment

to God.

But let's turn over to Acts chapter 19, because there actually is an example of that.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

Now in Acts chapter 19, we have Paul, and Paul is visiting in the town of Ephesus.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

And Paul comes across a group of people, and he begins to question them and figure out

who they are and what they've done.

And it says in verse 2, the end of verse 1, it says, finding some disciples in Ephesus,

Paul said to them, verse 2, Acts 19, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?

And so they said to him, we have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, what's that?

What are you even talking about?

And it goes on in verse 3, and he said to them, into what then were you baptized?

And they said, into John's baptism.

Apparently, this group of people had left Ephesus and traveled to Jerusalem at some

point and they had heard the ministry of John the Baptist.

And John the Baptist was teaching about the baptism of repentance.

And then they had gone back to Ephesus and they had missed the whole story of Jesus and

the Messiah and everything that came after that.

And so Paul now tells them, verse 4, it says, Paul said, John indeed baptized with a baptism

of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on him who would come after

him, that is on Christ.

And then in verse 5, it says, when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the

Lord Jesus.

So this group of people had been baptized before and then they learned something significant.

They learned something new.

And they felt that once again, they wanted to take this public stand, they wanted to

take this public and show their commitment to this new significant truth that they had

learned.

And so we see there in Acts 19 that they were baptized again.

And that's a perfectly acceptable thing.

I think another time would be if someone has been baptized before, has been following Jesus,

and then for an extended period of time began to walk away from God, began to live their

life in a totally different direction.

And people realize that and people recognize that.

But now someone says, you know what, I walked away from God, but now I want to publicly

stand and I want God to recognize that I am with him and that he is with me.

Now I want to look at two more verses here and then we'll be done.

We're going to go to John, they're both in John, John chapter 3, and then we're going

John 3 · chapter mention

to go to John chapter 14, John chapter 3 and verse 5.

John 14 · chapter mention John 3 · chapter mention

John chapter 3 and verse 5.

John 3 · chapter mention

The Bible says, Jesus answered and said to him, most assuredly, I was reading verse 3,

Jesus answered most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water, that's the baptism,

and the Spirit, he can't enter the kingdom of God.

So just being dipped or dunked, that's not enough.

It says, baptized with water and the Spirit.

Then turn over to John chapter 14, John chapter 14, and we're going to look at verse 16.

John 14 · chapter mention John 14 · chapter mention

John chapter 14 and verse 16.

John 14 · chapter mention

Jesus had just said in verse 15, if you love me, keep my commandments, but then it says

in verse 16, I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper or another comforter

that he may abide with you forever.

There's a beautiful promise there that Jesus does not just leave us alone.

He doesn't say, okay, you've been baptized, great, good luck, you're on your own now.

But no, he wants to pour out, he wants to give us a helper, a comforter.

He wants to give us the Holy Spirit because it's through the working of the Holy Spirit

in our life and in our heart and in our mind that we can begin to walk this path with God.

And we can ask God as individuals, I want to be born of the water, but I also want to

be born of the Spirit.

And we can pray that prayer every morning.

God, fill me with your Spirit.

Let me walk with you.

And so there may be some here today who haven't been baptized or maybe have a different walk

with God.

And so I want you to take out the little card that you were handed because there are several

different responses there.

And I think there's something for each one of us.

The first one says, I know that Jesus is my Savior and I desire to follow him with all

of my heart.

I hope that every one of us could check that and make that statement.

And then some would say, I'd like to experience Bible baptism by immersion one day soon.

And then I have strayed from the Lord and I would like to be re-baptized or I've learned

new things and would like to be re-baptized.

Or maybe you want to study more.

I encourage you just to fill this out prayerfully.

We're going to sing in just a moment, Amazing Grace, because that's what it's all about,

the grace that Jesus has for us.

And so as you fill this out, just respond to what Jesus is asking you to do.

Dear God, we thank you for such amazing grace that even though we have been blind, that

we can see because of what you have done for us.

And Lord, I thank you for decisions, commitments, for steps that are taken because of what you

have done for us.

And Lord, thank you for your promise to cleanse us of our sins and to cast them to the depths

of the sea.

And Lord, it's my prayer that may the words of our mouth and the meditation of our heart

be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, our strength and our Redeemer.

In your name we pray.

Amen.