It’s Not Complicated

Church, how are we doing this morning?

Everybody doing good?

Oh, y'all can do better than that.

Is everybody doing good this morning?

Come on.

I ain't asking you to make noise for tacos.

I'm asking you to make noise for Jesus.

Come on, can somebody make some noise for Jesus in this place today?

Well, hey, if it's your first time here, uh, my name is Josh Ezell, my wife Callie and I, we have the honor and privilege of being the campus pastors here at the celebration campus of uh celebrate at the College Park campus of Celebration Church.

We're so excited that you guys are here um with us today.

Last week we actually had our Heart for the House uh Sunday.

It was an amazing Sunday as Callie and I and Pastors Keith and Megan, we sat down and kind of set out some vision for where we're going as a church in 2020.

And really, here's what we're doing, guys.

You actually got a handout that you can look over whenever you walked in uh today.

But we're gonna continue doing what God has called us to do as a church and what he's called his church to do for thousands of years, which is to reach the lost and to resource the found, to equip the church.

And so for us, though, we really want to go deeper this year on doing that.

We want to be more excellent as we do that as a church, and so we're gonna do that in three ways.

Number one, we're gonna help resource our church better.

We know that we have a church of people who want to go deeper, who want to grow more and learn more about the Bible and about things of God, and so we're gonna be able to help you do that this year.

We're gonna get some video equipment, we're gonna start doing video podcasts so y'all can actually see Pastor Keith talking and not just hear him talking on the podcast.

It's gonna be awesome because he does some really cool dance moves too while he preaches.

Um, but also we're gonna do it by reaching out to our city.

I mean, we currently reach out to our city and we partner with amazing organizations, but we're gonna just take it up a level uh next year.

We're really gonna be partnering with organizations who are helping to alleviate homelessness organizations who are working with people in prison, also with senior care as well.

And then the last way we're gonna do it is we believe it's not only gonna start in our church and then pour out into our city, but then pour out into our world.

Um you may not know it, but children between the ages of four and twenty-four.

I don't know why I said children, but people between the ages of four and twenty four, it's the most unreached people group in the entire world.

They almost have no concept of Jesus or what he's done for them at all.

And so one of the things that we're doing is we're really gonna invest in the next generation.

We're partnering with a few different organizations to actually help develop a teen Bible app that will make the Bible reading like fun again for teenagers.

Come on, that's awesome.

Thank you.

Whoever has a teenager just clap their hands, they're like, thank you.

And then also, one of the things that we're doing is we're gonna help our Zimbabwe location.

We have a church in Zimbabwe.

We're actually gonna help them get a permanent location, a permanent building this year.

They feed over 60,000 kids a day.

And what we're gonna do is gonna help them so much in this next step.

And so here's what we ask.

We know that last week there were people who were not here.

We know there were some people who were not able to give last week.

We're gonna keep this giving open through the end of the year for our heart for the house.

So we just ask that you would continue to pray.

You continue to ask God how you can partner with us as us as a church to not only reach our church, but to reach our city and our world.

And so we just thank you guys that did give last week, and we just ask that you would continue to partner with us in this.

But today is Baptism Sunday, and it is gonna be an amazing day.

I just said it's baptism Sunday.

Come on, can we celebrate baptisms today?

Here's the thing, I want I want everybody to realize baptisms, the reason that we celebrate it is because people are publicly making a decision to either affirm their faith in Christ or reaffirm their faith in Christ through water baptism.

And just in the past month as a church, we have had 150 people give their lives to Jesus Christ.

Come on, can we celebrate that this morning?

And listen, this is no small thing.

I know sometimes when people hear that, they're like, oh, people made a decision to better their life.

No, people went from lost to found, from death to life, from bound to free.

Man, it is bigger than just people saying, I want to renovate my life.

There are people's lives who are being transformed, and you get to be a part of it every single week.

Come on.

I'm sorry, I'm fired up.

I love baptisms because it's one of my favorite uh Sundays.

But today's gonna be a little bit different.

I'm gonna preach shorter, and everybody said, Amen.

Uh but at the end of service, we ask that you guys don't leave.

What we do as a community, we go out and we support those who are making and taking that next step through water baptism today.

I'm gonna give you more information about that at the end.

But if you got your Bibles, let's go to Matthew chapter 28, verses 19 through 20.

Matthew 28:19–20

Whether your Bible glows or whether it folds, um, it is acceptable here.

Um, this is what it says.

This is some of Jesus' last words before he ascends into heaven.

This is resurrected Jesus talking to his disciples.

It says, Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.

Let's say this word together.

Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

Listen, I believe as followers of Christ that we should take Jesus' last words very seriously.

His last words should be our first priority.

So that's what we're going to talk about today.

If you're taking notes, the title of the sermon is It's Not Complicated.

Come on, say, It's not complicated.

Why don't you turn to your neighbor and tell him it's not complicated?

Turn to your other neighbor and say, Second choice.

Hopefully that wasn't your wife, or it's complicated right now.

All right, let's pray.

God, I thank you for today.

I thank you for your son Jesus.

God, we thank you for what you've already done in this service.

God, we thank you for the 150 people that have made decisions for you just in this past month, God.

We know that is no small thing.

And God, we ask that you would just help us as a church, as a community, to help them take that next step in their faith.

God, we thank you for who you are, and we thank you for all that you do.

God, let us leave here changed today, not because of who we are or what I say, God, but because of who you are and what you say.

Speak, God.

We are listening in Jesus' name.

And everybody said, Amen.

Um, really quick by show of hands, um, how many people hate when things are complicated in life?

Come on, you don't like complicated things.

All right, that's almost everyone.

Um, just this past week, there were a few things I experienced that were complicated.

Um, driving on I-4 with all the different uh road work right now, Google is like rerouting, rerouting, rerouting.

It's way too complicated.

Um, also, this past week, my wife asked me to put a duvet cover on a duvet, and she said it's really easy, and she told me how to do it.

35 minutes later, in four fits of anger, I finally got it done.

It's way too complicated, um, those duvets.

Um, also this week, I had to help my first grade daughter do some math homework.

It was so complicated, guys.

I'm not kidding.

I'm like, I don't understand how you do this.

I got on YouTube because I didn't believe how she said it had to go, and I got on YouTube and watched the video, and sure enough, she was right.

She goes, see, Daddy, told you like that.

I'm like, all right, it was way too complicated for me.

Uh, one thing that I think we can all agree on that is way too complicated is assembling any kind of furniture from IKEA.

Can I get a good amen?

Does anybody understand what I'm saying?

I might lose my man card for this, but it once took me two hours to put a lampshade together from Ikea.

It had like 12 pieces.

Don't judge me.

But uh we love IKEA.

I mean, almost 90% of the furniture in our house is from IKEA.

I did not learn my lesson uh the first time.

But here's the thing about IKEA: you walk into the store and it looks really simple.

And then you find it and you're like, man, this is gonna be great.

This doesn't look complicated at all.

And I remember a couple years ago, we bought a queen-size bed from IKEA.

I found the most uncomplicated, simple version on the floor.

I'm like, we're getting that one.

And so Callie's like, okay.

And she's like, Can you get it together by tonight?

I'm like, I'm a man, I can get it together by tonight.

We'll sleep on this bed tonight.

And so I take a picture of the tag, and then I go to the self-service area to go and find the boxes that I needed.

I got lost trying to find the boxes.

That's red light number one.

I should have known, hey, this is not gonna go well.

I finally find the boxes, and the first box is the size of a shoebox.

And I think to myself, how did you get a queen-size bed and a shoebox?

And then I realize this only box one of two, and so I find the second box, and then we take the boxes, we put them in my car, and we drive away.

We did pay for it first.

We're pastors, we don't do that, okay?

And then I take the furniture and I get it home.

And the first thing that I do is I open up this little shoebox, and there's like a thousand little pieces inside of this shoebox, and then I open up the other box, and I'm like already like, oh my gosh, this is gonna be so complicated.

And so I open up the instructions, and this is kind of what the instructions look like from Ikea, if you've never seen it.

It's a bunch of pictures and no words, like a lot of pictures, and there's nothing on there telling you how to do it.

I spent like three and a half hours trying to put that bed together.

All of a sudden, there's like three legs turned one way, one leg turned to the side, and I'm freaking out, I'm about to give up.

And then finally I turn to the final page, and this is on the final page of the IKEA booklet.

There's this guy who's mad, that was me.

And then it's like, man, you just need to call IKEA.

We can help you, man.

We can we can help you, you just gotta go to the source.

I called IKEA.

He's like, Did you use this bolt?

I'm like, no, I didn't.

I changed out one bolt and turned the thing around, and we were good to go.

But here's the thing: IKEA has a way of making very simple things very complicated.

It puts you on the verge of getting frustrated, wanting to give up.

And I think over the years, as humans, we have the same exact thing.

We have a way of making things that God has put very simply in his word very complicated.

And if we're not careful, what we'll do is we'll try those things, and it seemed like they're not working in our life because the instructions that we got maybe weren't from God, they were from someone else, and then it leaves us wanting to give up.

But can I encourage you guys this morning?

If you're in a place in your life where you want to give up, listen, don't give up.

You need to do what that book says in IKEA.

You need to go to the source, you need to see what the source says.

If you're thinking about giving up on your marriage, don't give up on your marriage, go to the source, read what the source says, and then apply it to your life.

If you're thinking about giving up on your family, don't do that.

Go to the source, read what the source says and apply it to your life.

It's not complicated.

Everybody say it's not complicated.

Listen, one of those things that has been complicated over the 2,000 plus years of Christendom is baptism.

Depending on what denomination you may have come from, some of you didn't grow up in church and all, and you're like, you want me to get in water that somebody else got in, there's germs, what?

But depending on what denomination you grew up in, man, everybody has a different way of getting baptized, a different when, a different how.

It can get so complicated that it can actually keep people from taking that next step in their journey with Christ.

And here's the thing: this past week, in preparing for this, I actually talked to a majority of our church staff.

I talked to our interns, I text friends, I text over 30 people, talked and text over 30 people, and every single one had a different story about their baptism and how it happened and the classes they had to go through and the six-step processes and all these different things.

Some people were christened, all these different things, and there's so much complication around something that Jesus made very simple.

Listen, if you're taking notes this morning, I want you to write this down.

Bottom line is this baptism is an act of obedience.

Baptism is an act of obedience.

We just read it and we were reading Matthew 28, but I'm gonna read it again.

This is what it says.

Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

This is Jesus right here talking to his disciples.

He didn't say go and make disciples of all nations and make churches.

He didn't say go and make disciples of all nations and give them a necklace with my picture on it and call it a Jesus piece.

He didn't say that.

He said, Go and make disciples of all nations.

A disciple is simply a follower of Christ.

If you have made a decision to follow Christ, your next step is to be baptized.

It's not a goal that you have to work towards.

You don't have to go through a six-week class.

It's not like you have to be at a serve, a certain level of Christianity to be baptized.

If you have made a decision to commit or recommit your life to Christ, or if you make a decision to commit your life to Christ today, your next step, your act of obedience, your response to Jesus is baptism.

It's really that simple, and that's how simple Jesus made it.

I can tell you throughout the Bible and the New Testament, when you look at baptism, this is a lot of what happened.

People would get up and they'd preach and they preach the same three points.

Could you imagine if I did that every Sunday?

Turn to God, be baptized.

All right, let's do the altar call.

Could you imagine if I did that every Sunday?

How many of y'all come back every week?

Don't lie, it's okay.

But they would say, repent, and then turn from what you're doing.

And then they gave you a little more details.

Make sure you don't turn to anything else.

Make sure you don't turn to a substitute, turn to God and then be baptized.

It was very simple.

Baptism was an act of obedience.

It was people stepping out and taking their next step with Christ and publicly affirming and reaffirming their faith in Him.

Listen, baptism is an act of obedience.

Jesus' last word should be our first priority.

And here's what I know.

I know a lot of times though, we we have reasons that we don't do it.

Or like, man, all my family's not here.

But guess what?

We got FaceTime.

Or like, I ain't got any clothes.

Guess what?

We have clothes for you.

I have people who say, Well, I wanted to get baptized with my friend.

If you want to get baptized with your friend, you still got 30 minutes.

You can call them and get them here today.

I'll tell you the two most common things that I hear.

The first one is I don't think I'm ready yet.

I don't think I'm ready yet.

I really don't understand baptism.

I really don't understand what it means.

I don't think I'm ready for this next step.

Here's the thing on our journey with Christ, there are so many things that we may not fully understand.

And if we always wait to take that next step, we'll actually be living in disobedience to what God has asked us to do.

There are so many things that God has asked us to do, and if we wait until we fully understand it, we may never move from the place that we're at.

Because this is what walking with God is like: God says, do this, we do it, we obey, we grow.

God commands something, we do it, we obey, we grow.

You may not fully understand something, but if you're waiting for someone to tell you you're ready, if you're waiting for a sign from God, listen, you are ready.

I'm telling you today, if you have made a decision to follow Christ, this is your next step.

And the other one I hear is this a lot, and this was me, is like, what are people gonna think about me?

And especially if you grew up in church like God did.

I I I remember a few years ago, I was listening to a baptism sermon that was preached here at Celebration Church, and I remember God saying, Josh, I want you to publicly reaffirm your faith through baptism, I want you to do that.

And I'm like, Me?

Like, me?

Like I I've worked for you, Jesus, since I was like 18.

Like I've been on your payroll.

You want me to get baptized?

I've baptized other people, I've led worship and preached to people like you want me to do that?

And so I thought, man, what are people gonna think about me?

They're gonna think that I'm a hypocrite.

They're gonna think all those things.

But here's what I did.

I actually began to search my heart.

Here's what I realized.

When I got baptized as a child, I was not baptized because of my personal relationship with Jesus.

I was baptized because of my parents' personal relationship with Jesus.

And everywhere I look in the Bible, people were not baptized because of someone else's relationship.

They were baptized because of their own personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And so I had to decide to put away my insecurities and say, you know what?

I'm going to get baptized.

And you know what happened that Sunday morning, it was April 24th of 2016.

I led worship at Celebration Church downtown and then got baptized that night, right in front of God and everybody.

But I was obedient to what God asked me to do.

If you're in here and you feel like God is asking you to do this, just be obedient.

Even if you got baptized as a kid, maybe you didn't understand it.

Maybe you were baptized because of someone else's faith.

If you feel that thing inside of you, be obedient.

Baptism is an act of obedience.

And listen, this is so important.

I want to give you three things really quick that it personally means for you.

That it personally means for you.

Here's the first one it's a public declaration of a new association.

It's a public declaration of a new association.

So on May 9th, 2009, I got that right, babe.

I'm in a new association with Callie Noel Eazel.

Everything else that I had before, I'm not associated with that.

I am now associated with her.

When you get baptized, what you're saying is, is I'm no longer associated with the culture that I came from.

I'm associated with Christ.

I'm associated with the kingdom of God.

I'm saying in front of God and everybody, I am publicly declaring I'm in a new association with Jesus.

I'm on his side, I stand with him, he's my boo thing.

I got it, I'm with Jesus.

That's what you're doing in that moment.

And here's what's so important because this is a question we get a lot of times.

Well, like, does baptism like save me?

If I take my ring off, does it mean that I'm still not married?

No.

Think about how our marriage ceremony goes.

You make vows which are personal to each other, and then you publicly put this ring on in front of everybody, and everybody sees it for the rest of your life.

The same is the same thing with Jesus.

Whenever you make a decision to follow him, it's this personal decision between you and him, but it was never meant to stay private.

Whenever you get baptized, you are saying, I am publicly with him, I am publicly with Christ.

It is a public declaration of a new association that you have in your life.

The second thing is this.

And I love this.

It's a physical representation of spiritual transformation.

It is a physical representation of spiritual transformation.

One of my favorite verses in the Bible, 2 Corinthians 5, 17.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old is gone.

Behold, the new has come.

But how many people know as soon as you make a decision to follow Christ, it says, the old is gone, behold, the new is come.

And sometimes you're like, whoa, where do you where'd the new go?

Because you still can feel like the old you.

But here's what's happening spiritually on the inside of you, there's a transformation that is happening.

There's something that is going on on the inside of you where the old is leaving and the new is coming in that moment.

Here's the thing: baptism, it is the best physical picture of that.

Because when you go under that water, it is like you are being buried and baptized into Christ's death.

And when you come up out of that water, you are now raised into new life with Him.

It is a it is literally a picture, a physical representation of something spiritual that is happening on the inside of you.

I love the way the Apostle Paul says it in Romans 6, verses 3 through 4.

Romans 6:3–4

He says, Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death.

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

Listen, church, who you were is not who you are anymore.

When you go down under that water today, here's what I want you to think about.

It is like you are having a funeral for your past.

You were burying everything in that water, your old addictions, the old things that you used to be tied to.

You were burying it in that water.

And when you were raised out of that water, you were raised into new life with him.

It is a picture, a physical picture, a physical representation of what is happening on the inside of you.

And I remember this past April, I believe it was, or May, our daughter Olivia wanted to get baptized, and she's seven.

So I had some questions for her because I'm like, I'm not just gonna let you do this because your parents are pastors.

Like, I want you to do this because this is what you know, like this is what you're supposed to do.

This is your next step.

And so I sat down with her and I sat down.

I was like, okay, Olivia, I'm like, we're gonna talk for a minute, and she's like, you know, she's seven.

So she's like, I was like, uh, dad.

And I'm like, okay, is Jesus Christ your Lord and Savior?

And she's like, Yeah.

I'm like, okay.

Do you believe that he forgave you of your sin?

She's like, yes, and I have eternal life.

I'm not going to hellfire.

I was like, okay, all right, we're good.

And I said, but but what does baptism mean to you?

And this is literally what she said, her exact words.

When I go down in the water, the old me is gone.

And when I come up, I'm just like Jesus.

This is a seven-year-old.

You know, I didn't teach her that.

I don't know where she learned that from.

But the picture that she had in her mind of baptism was this physical representation of a spiritual transformation that is happening on the inside of each of us when we accept Jesus Christ.

And so to her, she was like, that's what it is.

And so for me as a dad, as I'm crying, I'm like, that's enough, we can do it.

It is a physical representation of a spiritual transformation.

But the last thing is this is it's a celebration of your dedication.

Y'all know I had to rhyme and be like Kanye today.

It's a celebration of your dedication.

Here's what you're celebrating.

You're celebrating every single thing that we've talked about already.

You're celebrating, man, that you now have a new association with Jesus Christ.

You are celebrating that you have got a spiritual transformation going on on the inside of you, and you're going to remember that for the rest of your life.

We all remember celebrations.

We all remember these moments in our life.

We remember whenever we graduated from kindergarten because I graduated one year late.

We all remember when we graduated from high school, when we got the keys to our first car.

We always remember like whenever we got married, when we have babies, we remember those things, when we adopted, we remember those things because there was a celebration, there was happiness and joy that went along with it.

When you get baptized, it is one of those things.

It is a celebration of the dedication that you have made to Jesus Christ.

And not only are you celebrating it, but as a community, as a church, we are celebrating with you.

And we are saying, you know what, we are out here and we are supporting you and we are celebrating you.

And there's a reason that we do it this way.

It's because tomorrow, I'd love to tell you, if you make a decision to follow Christ today and get baptized, whenever you wake up, it's not gonna be like, oh my gosh, all of a sudden life is all the way better, and the the enemy and the adversary stops attacking you.

That's foolishness, it's not in the Bible anywhere.

If anything, whenever you start taking your next steps with Christ, you actually start facing more opposition.

And so the reason that we make such a big deal out of it, the Reason that we celebrate it is because we want you to remember the decision that you made.

We give you these bracelets that say WWJD, every single person who gets baptized.

We give you this so every single time you look at it, you know what you can say to yourself?

On October 27th, 2019, I made a decision to publicly affirm or reaffirm my faith through water baptism.

So that way, whenever the enemy comes at you and he tries to talk to you about your past, you can talk to him about your future.

Whenever he tries to come at you and talk to you about what you've done and put shame and put guilt in your life, you can say, No, that shame and that guilt, it was washed by the water.

When I came up, I am like Jesus Christ.

I am not going back to those things again.

You will always remember this day.

It's so important that we remember the decisions that we make and remember the choices that we make because ultimately what you're doing today is you're saying, Jesus, I choose you.

And I am on your team for the rest of my life.

And you are my father, I am your child, and there's nothing that I would rather do than publicly before God and everybody say that I'm yours.

Say that I've chosen you.

I remember we celebrated a year of our adoption this past week.

But when I was working on this sermon, here's what it made me remember.

So they have this period of time in the adoption process that they call bonding.

It's when everything's like personal, but it's not really legal yet.

And you're you're personally bonding with your children.

And every day you're making a decision to be their parents, and they're making a decision to be your kids.

But then you have to go and you have to sit in court a few weeks later.

For us, it was like two different court dates.

And then you sit there and a judge looks at you and starts asking you all these questions.

And then comes this moment where they say the names of your children.

And they said, Are you Olivia Leon Ezel?

And Olivia shakes her head, she goes, Yes.

Are you Mia Soul Ezel?

Mia shakes her head and she says yes.

And right there in front of all those people, she asked a very important question.

She said, Is this your father?

She says, Yes.

Is this your mother?

She says, Yes.

See, personally, there had been this preparation that was happening.

Personally, there had been this bonding that was happening.

Personally, there had been this transformation that was going on, but publicly they had to declare it in front of those people before it was ever finalized and for us to be able to come home.

Here's the thing, guys.

Today, some of you, you have been in preparation for this moment, and people may not have seen your preparation, man, but they're gonna celebrate with you over your dedication to Jesus Christ today.

It is gonna be an amazing day.

It's gonna be a day that you remember because it's the day that you publicly said, God's my father, I'm his child, and I choose him.

And the only reason that we can choose him is because Jesus chose us first.

With every head bow, every eye closed, all across this room this morning.

You know, the Bible says that we've all sinned, we've all fallen short of God's glory.

That the only person who lived up to that was Jesus, and so he became the standard, and because he was the standard, he also became the sacrifice.

And at any point on his journey to death, he could have said, Nope, that's enough.

I'm not gonna do that.

But every moment he was choosing us, every moment he was choosing you.

When they put that crown of thorns on his head, man, he was choosing you.

He could he could have made it stop, but he didn't.

When they ripped his beard from his face and they spat on him, he could have made it stop, but he didn't because he was choosing us.

When they hung him on the cross, he could have called down angels and they could have taken him off that cross, but he didn't because he was choosing us.

And on that cross, he chose to become like us.

He chose to become sin so that we could become righteous.

He traded places with us.

And the Bible says that all we have to do is believe in our hearts that he died on the cross for us and that he rose again on the third day and confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and we are saved.

Listen, if you are in this room today and you want to commit your life to Christ, you want to choose Christ for the first time, or you want to recommit your life, you want to say, Man, I'm choosing Christ again for the first time in a long time.

I want to line up things with him.

Remember, Jesus chose you first.

If you want to choose him today, all you have to do is believe.

And so I'm gonna ask on the count of three, if you want to commit or recommit your life, that you would lift your hands on the count of three.

Ready?

One, two, three.

Praise him.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Come on, let's celebrate that this morning, church.

Well, let's say this prayer together.

Dear God, thank you for your son Jesus.

I believe that he died on the cross and he rose again for me.

Jesus Christ is the Lord of my life.

Thank you for saving me.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Come on, church.

Can we celebrate that this morning?

Thank you for tuning in to today's podcast.

For more information about Celebration Orlando, or to get in touch with us, please visit celebrationorwendo.org.