Blessed and Highly Favored || Pastor Adam Mesa

Welcome to the ALC Podcast. Here at ALC, we seek the loss,

teach the found, and send the disciples. We truly hope you're encouraged by

this week's message. We're so honored that you guys would join us today and

be here today. And if it's your first time here at a Bunnet leaving

family church, that kind of stuff happens every Sunday, so now I'm just

kidding it, and then it rarely happens. But if it is your first

time, and maybe you're here because you've been invited by a friend, and

you have a friend that's being baptized tonight, and so maybe they invited you

to be here for their special day. And so here's what I've known because

we've done this sort of mass baptism. And I'm gonna ask Pastor Diego come

up here right now for a second, because I want I want him to.

We are talking, and you know, he has a baptism story of

his own life when he got baptized. But you know, we've been doing

baptisms the way that we're gonna do tonight for seven years now, and so

we're so privileged that what we call mass baptisms there's a lot of different ways.

You could be baptized. You could be baptized in a pool with someone

doing it with you, you could do it one on one. There's so

many different ways. What we like to do is we like to do a

mass baptism because we believe as a community God has done something incredible in your

guys' life, and we want to celebrate that moment in a very celebratory way.

There are other churches that are amazing, and they may do it a

little bit more somber, and it may be a little bit more quiet,

But because I believe that conversion of faith is something to make noise about.

The Book of Revelation says that when someone gives their life to Christ, all

of Heaven rejoices. So if all of Heaven rejoices, why shouldn't we rejoice

here on earth with our friends and families who make that decision to follow Jesus.

And we'll talk a few moments about what that baptism looks like. And

so for me, what I've known over the years is as we've done water

baptisms for a lot of people that may come to celebrate with someone, this

may be the first time you've stepped in church in a really long time time.

And if you if someone you love wasn't being baptized, maybe you wouldn't

have come to church in the first place. So, whether you're watching online

or in this room, I count of honor that you came into church,

some of you guys for the first time. That really means a lot to

us that you came here to celebrate someone. And because we recognize for some

people coming to church ain't that easy. You may have grown up with a

different type of church and for whatever reason, you may be thought you'd never

step in church again. But here you are tonight to celebrate somebody. So

thank you so much for joining us. And you know we've been on Wednesday

nights we've been studying the Book of Mark, which we we won't stop.

Tonight we'll share again in something we read at the beginning of this month.

We'll share from the Book of Mark as well. And also next week we

have a special day where we're gonna have what's called our mass wedding ceremony where

people are making up marriage commitments with someone that was their boyfriend or girlfriend and

now they want to make a commitment before the Lord and get married together.

And so we're doing that next week, and we're gonna look at the Book

of Mark next week as well, and so we'll invite you guys to that.

But before we jumped to baptist, i'm'll let Pastor Diego share a little

bit about history baptism and then we'll share a little bit more from Mark chapter

once I'll give it you to Pastor Diego. Thanks, past round. Doesn't

he look good? He's losing weight, he's looking then, mean lean,

it's a new season that he looks really good. I don't know who's going

to be cuter now, him or or Ashley. Now it's a real competition

now. But anyways, you know, I don't know what you were like

when you were growing up. Let's say seventh, eighth and hythe high school.

But there's always the in crowd kind of thing. And I don't know

how they always come up with this, but you and I know what that's

like, because we want to be part of those clubs. There was the

good looking club, and there was the athletic club, and you know what,

there was the smart club, and there are all these groups and clubs

that sometimes we felt like we wanted to be a part of, but didn't

fit in kind of thing, the rich club, you know, the kids

that are popular club. And you, I don't know, if you're like

me, you found awkward, you know, because you wanted to belong,

but you just couldn't fit in sometimes. And here's what I know about the

Kingdom of God. It is a club, but everyone is invited to that

club. And the reality is is tonight there are some people that are going

to join that club. It's an eternal club, and tonight, not only

through have they already accepted Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and savior, they're

going to function within that club by being obeying one of the commandments of God

as a minister. They're called sacradotal functions that an ordained minister should be able

to do to hold to the commandments and the principles and the ordinations that God

has, and one of those is water baptisms. You guys, are about

ready to join an exclusive club that has been around for two thousand years and

there's been multiplyed billions of people that have done what you're about ready to do,

and they're cheering you on tonight for this statement of faith to be bold

to obey the commandments of God and do everything that God has asked you to

do. You did step one, you accept you accepted Jesus Christ as your

Lord and savior. But now you're doing step two, and that is to

show your salvation with an outward expression that I am dead in Christ and now

I am raised in Christ. My old man is crucified, but there's a

new man that lives. I don't identify with that old person and his lifestyle

and his behaviors and his attitudes and how he functions. I identify with this

new lifestyle of being born again. And so now I can think differently in

behave differently. So you're joining that club. You're joining a club number one

of millions of other believers that have declared their faith in God. Number two,

you're joining a club or a group that Jesus participated in. In that

river Jordan, he said, John the Baptist, my cousin, I want

you to baptize me. So you're doing something that Jesus did, and that

ought to be huge for you, that man. This isn't just something that

the church is doing. This is something that Jesus did, And I get

to be an emulator of who Jesus is. And I identify in the richness

of what happened that day when the Father spoke from heaven and said, this

is my beloved son and whom I'm well plased. God is speaking out of

heaven and saying, this is my son and daughter and whom I'm well pleased.

And you may have not done anything for God but obeyed him by being

here tonight and having the Holy Spirit come upon you, and having the Holy

Spirit and dwell with you, will walk with you and live with you and

your greatest triumphs and your greatest tragedies, and He'll never leave you or forsake

you. And you have Jesus in your life, who is your Lord and

savior, you identify with something amazing. I got saved in nineteen seventy eight,

and I didn't get water baptized until nineteen eighty three, so five years

later. And the reason why I didn't get water baptized is not because I

didn't want to. It's because my church never gave me the opportunity to and

I wasn't knowledgeable enough in the scriptures to know that this is something that I

should be doing. I was trying to figure it out in my head.

Why do I need to do it? I've already accepted the Lord. What

is so or significant about it? But I'm so grateful that you belong to

a church that allows you to declare your faith in Jesus Christ by obeying the

commandment of God to be water baptized. And in nineteen eighty three, when

I got water baptized, I did this. I did it for not only

the commandment of God that God asked me to do it. I did it

by faith, but to believe that something was going to happen that hadn't happened

through my obedience to Christ. But I did it because I was about ready

to marry my wife, and I wanted to be a great representative in my

marriage to lead my wife. And I felt like I couldn't lead my wife

properly if I had not obeyed the commandment of God. And so I wanted

to be whole in my faith so that I could have a whole marriage.

And so that's what I did. I got water baptized, and a few

weeks later I would take the holy matrimony and marry my wife. And so

that's what I'm praying today is that there would be some kind of not only

marriage with Christ that would be complete, but there would be a fulfillment of

wholeness in your life. So wherever you're feeling empty, wherever you feel like

you're incomplete, whatever you're feeling like lacking, I pray that this is now

the seal of the wholeness and the completion. Just the way a product comes

off a manufacturing line and they put a piece of plastic on it to seal

it. Now, I pray that the Holy Spirit would come upon you and

bring a wholeness to you. And I want you to recognize when I walked

out of that out of that pool being water baptized, I just don't don't

ask me to describe it. I just I just felt something. I experienced

something, and I felt it was the power and presence of God. And

so when you walk into this tank, just know this. You're walking in

one way, but when you walk out, you're leaving differently. And I

believe the same thing that Jesus experienced in being baptized is the same thing that

you're gonna experience. That when you come out, you're gonna hear your Heavenly

Father tell you this is my beloved son and daughter and whom I'm well pleased,

and you're gonna feel the endowment of the Holy Spirit come upon you to

do whatever God's called you to do, and you will never ever be the

same. So I just want to say, in a few minutes, I'll

be on the other side of this giving you a high five, saying welcome

to this amazing club that you are about ready to enter. And I will

challenge you now to go out and just the way after Jesus was wout or

by baptize, his ministry began, he did not begin his ministry until he

was water baptized. I wonder what is waiting for you to get into that

tank that when you get out of that tank, now you're launched. Now

you're propelled, and now something begins in your life out of this act of

obedience. God, bless you. I took too long. Thank you,

Pastor, thank you. Hey. I want to read this verse for you.

That pastor reference is found in Mark chapter one, and I'm gonna have

it up on the screen. It's verses nine and to eleven. It says

this in Mark one nine eleven, it says, in those days we got

on the screen. Oh, there we go. In those days, Jesus

came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan River by John.

And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens

being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove, and a

voice came from heaven. You are my beloved son. With you, I

am well pleased. You know. That's the beauty about what Christ is and

what Jesus did for us is number one. Jesus has led the way for

us in every regard, and so what I appreciate. I don't know if

you've ever followed someone's lead before, and maybe they've asked you to do something.

I'm when I when I was a young child, I have one of

my best friends Ryan, and over at our old church property, there used

to be this bush that was about four feet wide with a hill that was

at the bottom of it, and all of us always wondered what it would

be like to jump over that bush. And so one day what he would

become one of my best friends, Ryan. He walks up to us and

he says, Hey, what are you guys up to? And we said,

oh, we've been jumping over this bush. He said, oh,

that's great, mind you We never we never jumped over the bush because we

thought you couldn't survive a bush jump like that. We're, you know,

we're seven, eight, nine years old. And so Ryan goes, can

I try And we say, yeah, you could try it, and he

runs and he jumps over the bush and we hear this loud smack and all

of a sudden, we don't hear anything from him. So we all run

up to the bush and we could barely see over the bush ourselves at that

age. Now, I go over to our old church property and I think

the bush is maybe a foot or two feet high, but you know,

at that age, it just seems so big, and so we run on.

We look over at the bush and he jumps up and he's like he's

like, yeah, I did it. And then we all start freaking out

because we're like, oh, he made it, he did it? Die

he did, you know? And he starts putting two together. He said,

what do you mean I didn't die? We set up. We said,

yeah, we none of us have ever jumped it before. We all

were too scared. We didn't know if you'd get hurt or not, or

you break something. And he was like, what you mean. I was

the first one to jump that something could have happened to me. So he

starts freaking out. Lo and behold, we share a pack of skittles.

We become best friends. He's still one of my friends to this day and

still comes to the church. And so what I appreciate about Jesus is Jesus

isn't leading us into something that he's never done before. And us Jesus will

never lead you to something that he hasn't let himself into. The epistles say

that Jesus sympathizes with us in all of our weaknesses because he's experienced every earthly

thing that you and I could ever experience. So the beauty about Jesus,

and that's the beauty for any of us sitting here today or any watching online.

God is never asking you to do something that he hasn't done himself.

And God is not asking you to experience something that his son Jesus had never

experienced himself. And so the beauty about Jesus, in trusting Jesus with my

whole heart, mind, and soul, is that I trust that Jesus is

completely leading the way in my life. And you want to know, the

beautiful thing about Jesus leading the way in our life is that when we commit

and confess our lives to Jesus, and we radically give our lives to Christ,

we can experience this relationship with the Father that we just read in Mark

chapter one, where the Father looks down on us and he says, well

done, I'm pleased with you, child, I'm pleased with you. And

when we read Mark one, it's the first instance where the Trinity is present,

the Father's son, Holy Spirit is there when we lead and so and

what we read and so today as we go and get baptized, the beauty

is God is fully present with us here today. The Spirit of God is

moving in this place. Jesus is sacrificed for our sins, is completely active

in this place, and the Father watches completely with total assurance to be pleased

in what you guys are doing today. And so what's gonna happen is when

we come out of this water and we profess our faith in Jesus. It's

supposed to lead to a boldness in our life with Christ, which means baptism

is not suitable for the intra that I understand. And so if there's anyone

being baptized here today or you sit here and you're like, the only reason

why I've never done baptism is because you got to stand in front of people

and you have to get wey. It's not an introverts, friend, But

to be a believer and follow Jesus means that I have fully walked away from

an introverts lifestyle. When it comes to who saved me and who redeemed me?

I love that everyone's an introvert until they're passionate about something. Have you

ever noticed that, Like, I've never met an introvert before that is just

an eor Christian okay, or just an e or person. Even an introvert

is passionate about something. Get them talking about cars, get them talking about

sports, get them talking about food, get them talking about anything. Ask

them what they don't like about the world. Now, don't start talking,

you know, get them talking about politics. Still start talking. But for

us as believers, the thing that should excite us the most is that God

redeem me, Jesus saved me, and I've been completely made new. That's

something to be excited about that's something to want to share with some people and

to let them know God has changed my life. That's what I know to

be true. And so the beauty about the message of Jesus, and every

single year we do this is just the launching ones of our baptism for the

year. So every single year we always release kind of a new T shirt

that's annual, so that whenever you wear this shirt around the church, if

you ever see someone wearing it, you know that they were baptized the same

year that you were baptized. And so it's something that every single year we

change the shirt and we change the design and so this year we're calling it

the Baptism Year that's blessed and highly favored. So as a church, we're

believing in the favor of God as we see God's favor. And there's a

passage in Luke where the Angel of the Lord is speaking to Mary and I

have it up on a screen and then we're going to get started tonight.

It says this in Luke. It's okay, it was supposed to say.

I just think our computers took the day off today is probably what it is.

But there's passage in Luke where the Angel of the Lord goes to Mary

and he tells Mary because God chose her to bear Jesus, and he says,

you are a blessed and highly favored woman of God, which means that

when we live our life as God is speaking to you and wanting to use

you and wanting to move in you, it shows God's abundant favor in our

lives. That doesn't mean that once you get once you get out of here,

life gets easy and there's no difficulties or anything. That's not the case.

It means that you and I have every opportunity to rest our faith on

Jesus. Like Pastor Herron talked about today, you have someone regularly that you

can tag in to bear the weight that you're carrying. That's the beauty of

confessing Jesus. Some people think that you confess Jesus and they say something's got

harder, some thing's got more difficult. Yeah, that's a reality of leaving

Satan's team and joining Jesus's team. That can and will happen. But the

reality is you have someone fighting for you and with you. And like Romans

chapter eight says, those that fallow Christ and believe the spirit of God is

in them. You're more than a conqueror through Jesus Christ. And so I

want to encourage you with that today. And so as we get baptized,

as Pastor Diego talked about, when we get water baptized, it's something that

we join that's a two thousand year old tradition which represents that when I go

in the water, it represents my death to my old self. So as

Jesus when he died on the cross and he was put in the tomb for

three days. This going underwater represents that three day time period that says,

my old self is getting washed and cleansed away. When I come out of

this water, I'm coming out completely a new person. And so when you

come out of the water, it represents resurrection, the fact that you've trusted

Jesus that he is fully alive and victorious over death. And so it represents

Jesus's death and resurrection, and it represents what water does. It cleanses me.

So there's a spiritual cleansing that took place when you said yes to Jesus.

And so all we're doing is publicly declaring what God has already done and

So for those that may be joining us and maybe it's your first time in

a while to church, or you don't know what we're doing in the water,

what's gonna happen is our pastoral team will be in the water, and

every single person when they get in the water, we're gonna ask you one

question, do you confess Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior? In

which you guys are gonna say, yes, I do. And then at

that moment, our pastoral team is gonna say, we now baptize you in

the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Jesus' name,

and at that moment will baptize you. And the reason why we say that

is because we're not baptizing under our own authority. We're baptizing under God's authority.

So it never matters what man is baptizing you. Has everything to do

with the fact that God is actively present in this moment of baptism. And

so you could rest assured that you're not being baptized even in Abundant Living's name.

You're being baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, and you're being baptized

in the name of God who loves You, has redeemed you and can do

so much more for our life than we could do for ourselves. And that's

the beauty of baptism. So that's what we're gonna lean into today. And

uh, and I'll say this before I pray, and we're gonna what's gonna

happen is if you're just joining us in a few moments when I pray,

we're gonna stand on our feet, we're gonna worship. The baptisms go relatively

quickly, and so uh, at that moment, we're just gonna ask if

you, if if you could with us, stay till the end of the

service, because it'll end. It'll end on on a on a good time.

It's not gonna go long or over anything like that. And so while

everyone's getting baptized, we're just gonna sing songs and we're gonna worship to the

Lord, because this is a moment where we thank God for the miracle that

he's done in your life. And so we sing together and we worship together,

and then we celebrate those being baptized. At the end of our baptisms,

we're gonna make an invitation of faith, and we're gonna invite if there's

anyone here who wants to make their own public declaration of faith that we encourage

you at the end of these baptisms to come in line, give your life

to Christ and be water baptized with us today as well. And here's the

thing. We've removed that little voice in our head that says, but I

didn't come prepared with the right clothes. Well, if you when you,

if you get baptized in your clothes, then we have clothes for you in

the back room. Okay, so you'll get a whole new change of clothes.

Okay. So we've removed that excuse from you. Okay, I'll do

it next time. I didn't bring any clothes. We got closed. Don't

worry about that. We got I don't have a towel. We got towels,

okay, so so don't worry about that. So we've had people be

baptized in suits and everything that they need like that. People have just came

as they were, and we celebrate the move of the spirit at that moment.

I'll say the last thing as we worship. One of the things our

team did, which I encourage you guys to notice on camera, is when

you guys go in the water, there's gonna be some things that change about

your shirt, okay, and so I'm not gonna tell you what it is,

and you can't tell now, but when you come out, there's gonna

be something that it will change on your shirt. It will appear on your

shirt. And what we want to encourage you with this is in the safe

way that when you get in the and your shirt will change subtly, but

you'll notice it. That's the same way that our faith and our walk with

Christ looks like us. We said yes to Jesus is a radical transformation,

okay. And so we've never done that before, so it's the first time

our team has done it. It's awesome. But you'll be able to see

on camera, but you'll really be able to see in the water. So

you'll look down at your shirt after you get baptized. Okay, So can

we all do this me to me favor? Will we all stand on our

feet. I'm gonna pray for us tonight and then we're gonna spend time with

the Lord and celebrate God's goodness and his mercy tonight. God, we thank

you so much for your hand and your spirit. Today. God, I

thank you so much for those who have said yes to Jesus that will be

publicly declaring their faith in you, Lord. I pray Father God, that

as they leave here, they won't be ashamed for the work that You've done

in their life. Father God, I pray that they be bold to share

about your goodness and your mercy and the riches of your grace. God God,

we thank you as you move in this place today, May you break

change free, break burdens free, and heal those that need healing. Today,

Father God, we thank you for your move. We thank you for

these lives in Jesus' name. Hey man, we really hope you enjoyed the

message, and if you said yes to Jesus, we just want to say

congratulations and give you a free devotional to help you walk out your faith.

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