- Well, good morning to those of you here in this room worshiping, those in our lower gathering area, and online. Thanks for being with us, as we continue in our series in the Book of Acts. You know, many of you are probably familiar with the story of the Titanic. The Titanic was that ship that went down after it hit an iceberg up in the North Atlantic. And when it went down, 700 individuals survived, but 1500 lost their lives. They had 20 life boats, they actually needed 40. So only about half of what they actually needed to rescue everyone. And many of those life boats were partially full, and some of them were actually half empty. Now there were women, there were men, there were children with life jackets in the water, crying out for someone to grab them and put them in the lifeboat. But unfortunately the lifeboats kept rowing farther and farther away from the cries. And eventually was one boat that turned around, and it went back in time to save about six individuals. And so by the time the funeral ships arrived 328 men, women and children had died in the water with life jackets on when they could have been rescued. You know, you think about that as a metaphor for life. And many of us, whether you're watching online or you're downstairs or you're up here. I know there are many of us who have made a decision to already be in the lifeboat, and we're secure in a relationship with Jesus Christ. And yet we live in a world where individuals, whether they realize it or not, their soul is crying out to be saved and rescued. And the decision is, are we willing to row that boat back into their life as we listen to the cries, so that they can hear the message that we're talking about in this book, so that we can be the witness that brings them into a relationship with Jesus Christ. Well, today we're gonna continue with the story of a man by the name of Philip. This is a guy who realized that the life boat is needing to go back to individuals because the ship is sinking in many people's lives. And so he was sent out, he rowed his boat up into Samaria and he shared Christ. And there were a number of individuals that gave their life to Jesus Christ, but he also was committed to going to the individual. And that's why today we're gonna look at this subject of discipleship 101. Because when you boil it all down, "Discipleship 101," is about sharing the story of how Jesus Christ has changed your life to others, so that they can join and become learners of Jesus and begin that process of following Him. And whether that's a number of individuals or it's one on one. And so I took a little creative license and played with the numbers here. Yeah, it's "Discipleship 101," but today we're gonna talk about how it really is discipleship one on one. And so what I want you to do is take your Bibles out and use your phone, your iPad, grab a Bible in front of you, next to you, the one you brought in here, and let's all turn to Acts 8 and locate verse 26, Acts 8:26. As we continue in the story of somebody by the name of Philip, and unpack the journey that he's gonna have with a single individual. Now, what I oftentimes like to do in the Book of Acts is go back and bring everybody up to speed where we are that is particularly important today as you put together the pieces of what is going on in this encounter that Philip has. Now Jesus, right after his resurrection, he called his disciples to meet him up in Galilee. Okay, that's Northern Israel. And he gave them what is referred to as the Great Commission, and here it is, okay? We've referred to this throughout our series, but I wanted it up here again so you can see how it all fits together. And Jesus gave him a command he said, "Go therefore," and here's the command, "Make disciples." Make disciples, tell them about me so that they can enter into a relationship with me. So go therefore and make disciples of all nations, all ethnic groups, all peoples, everybody. And then he says, first step of obedience, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. How do we do this? Well, we teach 'em, we teach 'em some things about me, we teach 'em what it means to enter into a relationship with me, we teach 'em about the significance of baptism, and what that looks like. So go make disciples, baptizing them, and then teaching them to observe all that I've commanded you and behold I'm with you always to the end of the age. The focus is on going and make disciples. Now, again, this is why our mission statement is really simple, we didn't invent this, okay? This is something right out of what Jesus said, our mission statement is multiplying disciples in a healthy church. It's really simple, you can memorize it just like that. Now, we say healthy church because we want people to follow Jesus within the context of a healthy church, right? Now we're not perfect here at Rockpoint, we're far from it, but it's like a family, you wanna raise a child in a healthy family. If you've adopted a child, some of you have, what do they do? Those adoption agencies do a huge background check to make sure you got a healthy marriage, healthy family, healthy dynamics. I mean, they may even check up on your dog to see if your dog's healthy, I don't know, but they're gonna try and figure out when they place that foster child or that child to be part of your family, they wanna make sure it's healthy. So that's significant. But today we're focusing on our operating system here at Rockpoint, and that is multiplying disciples. What does that, you know, what does that look like? Multitude, but today it's one on one, it's an encounter that Phillip has. Now, the disciples, apostles, eventually by the time we get to Acts, would've said, "Oh Lord, go and make disciples all over the world, "how on earth are we gonna do this? "We haven't even left Israel, okay? "We don't even know what's out there, "how on earth can we do this? "There's only a few of us." Well, that's where Luke pick up the story in the Book of Acts. And in Acts chapter one, he tells his followers, go to Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit is gonna come upon you, and you're gonna have dynamic power to go, and you will be, and here's the key word of the whole series, my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, and that's the outline of the book. And that's exactly what's happening because we got into chapter six, and these believers that committed their life to Christ are going through persecution. And by the time we got into chapter seven, Stephen was murdered. And as we encountered last week in chapter eight, we figured out who a couple of people were, we'll come back to Saul in a couple of weeks. But Philip was brought up, Philip was a friend of Stephen, they served as leaders in the church, and his friend was murdered and he lamented over him. But as a result of the persecution, they were scattered, and we read about how they were scattered outside of Jerusalem and Judea up here into Samaria, where they encountered people, they were part Jewish, and then they had some other nationalities mixed in, and they crossed some racial divides and shared Christ, and God was doing some miraculous things up in Samaria. And then all of a sudden we pick up the story now, if you'll down in verse 26 of Acts eight. "Now an angel of the Lord said to Phillip, "'Rise and go toward the south to the road "'that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.'" This is a desert place. "And he rose went and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, "a court official of Candace, queen of Ethiopians, "who was in charge of all her treasure. "He had come to Jerusalem to worship, "and was returning seated in his chariot "and he was reading the Prophet Isaiah, "and the spirit said to Philip, "'Go over and join the chariot.'" Now a couple of things here. Angels are ministering spirits the New Testament tells us, they're real, they're there. Hebrews 13, first couple verses there, it's a book in the New Testament it actually says that some of us perhaps have met one of these angels, and we didn't know it. And the Lord through this angel comes to Philip, who's up having the time of his life, can you imagine? I mean, a real, what is oftentimes referred to in church circles, I mean, there was a revival going on. People were committing their life to Christ and you know, it was incredible, all kinds of wonderful things were going on. And all of a sudden, the Lord says, "Phillip take a hike," and that's it, that's all he said. And literally he had to go take a hike on a desert road, going down south of Jerusalem and go into the desert. And you can, literally one translation is go to the desert at noon, okay? Now I like hiking and I love deserts, but you gotta have water. And noon is probably the worst time of day you wanna go hike in the desert, but that's where he's going. No other information is given by the way, and then he encounters this eunuch. So no information is given, he's having the time of his life, and by the time he gets there, no plan, just go on a hike, he sees this chariot coming and then Philip probably at that moment begins to kinda connect the dots. And the individual that he eventually meets is this Ethiopian eunuch. Now because it's probably a question, well, is this person from Ethiopia? No, not modern day Ethiopia, he was probably from ancient Nubia, which was south of Egypt, south of Aswan, over to Khartoum in Sudan. And he was an official of Candace, which was her title it's not her name, She was a queen of the Ethiopians or queen mother, which simply meant that her son was royalty. But because he was royalty, he was worshiped as an offspring of the sun. So any kind of governmental or political stuff was beneath him. So mom took the reins to run the country, that's what that means. And this Ethiopian was a treasurer, he had a lot of money 'cause he's traveling with a pretty big entourage and he's reading from a scroll in Isaiah. Now back then that would've been really expensive because it took a lot of time to produce a scroll. We have one here at Rockpoint, many of you know that. I mean they take hours and hours and hours to produce. They didn't have paperback books back then, so he had evidently the Isaiah scroll, which is rather long to begin with, maybe it was the whole Old Testament, I don't know. But he opens it up, and he's beginning to read from the Prophet Isaiah. I want you to think about this though, Philip heard nothing but, "Go," that's all he heard and he obeyed. And it reminds me that oftentimes we tend to think of excuses. Are you like me and the rest of us in the room? God, you want me to go do what? And then all of a sudden it's like, well, but, and then there's, it's a big but, right? So you're thinking, "Hey Lord, you know, there's this, "and there's this and there's this and there's this." And we come up with all kinds of excuses in life about whether we should, or whether we shouldn't. And here's what I want you to think about, when the Holy Spirit leads just say yes, just say yes. Philip had all kinds of excuses he could have. And I want you to remember this principle, remember, God always wins. If you are a follower of Jesus, it doesn't matter, he's sovereign over everything anyway. But if you say no, usually what ends up happening is later on he comes back 'cause he never gives up on you.

- [Woman] Amen.

- And he always is working, he's always pulling, he's always drawing and he always wins. Now there's a little tiny book in the Old Testament, if you're not familiar with it, I want you to go find it. It's the book of Jonah. If you can't find it, go back to the table of contents, and you'll find, it's a little short, you can read it really quick. It's a great book, right? It's a true story about a guy in the Old Testament, that said no to God, and it didn't work out really well for him. He was called to his city and they needed Christ, and they were really far from God. And he didn't like them because you know, he had to cross some racial divides, boy is that a cultural issue we're dealing with here, and all kinds of stuff. And he just knew God was gonna show up, and he didn't wanna do it. And so what does he do? He gets on a ship and he goes out in the Mediterranean, some of you know the story, right? He's swallowed by a fish. So if you don't wanna get swallowed by a fish, not literally, but just say yes. And when you are full of the Holy Spirit, as we know, Philip was based on the other parts of the book of Acts, which simply means he was living under the control of the Holy Spirit. That is that moment you wake up every day and you say, "God, I'm yours, I submit to you, "I want you to control my life and control my thoughts." And when you are under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, there's that surrender then your eyes are open, and you begin to see the needs around you, and you can start caring for people. You know, some of you have heard some of my stories over the years, 'cause I've been here for 20 years so, but this one was classic and it just came to mind as I kind of worked my way through this. But we're on a plane and I won't give all the details like I have in the past, but I was working, and I was close to the window so I could ignore everybody else on the plane. And my wife is sitting in the middle, and it was one of those where somebody sitting next to her. and had his computer out and she ended up watching the movie that he's watching, which on a plane, you know, I'm always thinking, well, you're not supposed to do that it's somebody else's business, you're sticking their nose in their life. And I'm busy doing my own thing, and she leans over to me and she says, "Look, the movie he's watching "is about how to find purpose and meaning in life." And she leans to me and she goes, "We have the answer." So if we're sitting next to a guy, who's watching a movie about finding the purpose of life, and we have the answer, don't you think we ought to say something. See that's a, "Okay God," you better say yes to that, right? I mean, that's just one of those times where it just has to happen. I remember another time she's on her, you know, talking to a cable person with our cable company and they're talking on the phone, and then they end up chatting on the computer and it's the end of the day. So it's been a long day for this person they've been helping people deal with problems. If you're in that business you know how it is. And so they finally, this gal says to her, "You are the nicest person I have worked with all day." You know, 'cause people are angry they can't watch their show and all that kind of stuff. And so, you know what she does? She said, yes Lord. And she said, well, here's the reason why, I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and boom, the door opened, and she was able to use that as an opportunity. You know, we are already scattered, as we said last week in a mission field, God has you if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you're in the boat, he's got you scattered. He's got you out there, And how you treat people when you buy something, when you talk with them, when you go to school board meetings, and you go to teacher conferences, and you talk with people in your neighborhood, and you talk about the issues our culture faces today. And here's one that we oftentimes forget, somebody comes knocking at your door, and you interact with them. Do you realize that your character is oftentimes best communicated when you say no to someone instead of when you say yes. See that's what we're talking about here, it's just living it out. And then if you look at verse 30, we pick it up again, "So Philip, after he is nudged by the Spirit again, "ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet "and asked, 'Do you understand what you're reading?' "And he said, 'How can I, unless someone guides me.' "And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. "Now the passage of the scripture "that he was reading was this, "'Like a sheep, he was led to slaughter, "'and like a lamb before the shearer is silent, "'so he opens not his mouth. "'In his humiliation, justice was denied him. "'Who can describe his generation? "'For his life is taken away from the earth.' "And the eunuch said to Philip, 'About whom I ask you, "'does the prophet say this about himself "'or about someone else?' And so Philip begins a conversation with this individual, which by the way, when you go back into your world, and you go to those places that I just described, having a conversation is a great way to get the ball rolling. As you're listening, as you're under the control, you've said, yes, God is moving, and that's exactly what was taking place here. There's a discussion, there's a process, there's questions. And then all of a sudden they begin to talk about what he's reading, which is a quote from Isaiah 53 and it's verse seven and eight. Isaiah 53 is this chapter in the Old Testament, written hundreds of years before Jesus came explaining how Jesus Christ would die on the cross. It's talking about the Messiah to come. Now isn't that so like God to put together a divine appoint, have you ever been in one of those moments where it just happens and it's obvious what you should do. Remember, God is already at work drawing people to himself. We just gotta open our eyes, they're crying out for help, and they're ready to go, and God cares for the individual. It's not just about the numbers, that's why I love this passage. Every person is created in the image of God, with infinite dignity, value and worth. Every person. And so he moves into his life, and he's placed you strategically in their lives to care for them as a witness. And here's the other thing I want you to keep in mind here, it's not your job to save anybody, that just takes the pressure off. Now he uses you because it is your responsibility to share, but it's pretty clear that when someone comes to faith, and I'll make this as simple as I possibly can so we don't go down all kinds of rabbit trails this morning if you're familiar with what I mean, when someone gives their life to Jesus Christ, it is a work of God from beginning to end. It's his work, he does that work. John wrote in, he's an apostle of Jesus, in chapter six verse 44, he said, no one, he quotes Jesus, "No one can come to me "unless the Father who sent me draws him." It's his work. And in John 16, Jesus explains how the Holy Spirit will convict people of guilt and sin. And maybe it's a confirmation class where that moment happened for you. Maybe it was a Sunday school class, maybe it was middle school or high school or college, and faith became your own. I still remember, I was 10 years old, I was sitting in the back of a southern Baptist church. I don't remember anything the pastor was saying, but I remember this all of a sudden he said something about heaven and hell. And in that moment, it was like, "Wait a minute, you need to pay attention to that." And I started thinking about heaven and hell in a way I had never thought about it before. That was clearly the work of the Holy Spirit. And that began a process of discussing things with my parents so they could explain to me how to enter into a relationship with Jesus Christ. And that's how it happens, that moment takes place. I'm sitting in my office and there was a woman that was walking around our church, and she was a Hindu and she ends up coming inside 'cause she just wanted to talk to somebody. So she came in my office and we sat down and I explained the gospel to her. Now, fortunately we had another woman in our church who was retired missionary from India. And so she was able to take her, and help her understand that it's not Jesus plus 30,000 other gods, it's Jesus only, and walked her through an understanding of the gospel. I had another woman come in my office at one point and she said, "Well, I'm married," and I honestly, this is the part of the story that's a little fuzzy I can't remember specifically. The guy she married was either already an ordained Roman Catholic priest, or he was in seminary to be an ordained Catholic priest. Bottom line, is she married him. He's no longer a Roman Catholic priest, okay? And then she started talking about the gift of the Spirit, and how she had learned about him. And I finally in that conversation just said to her, can I help you understand how you can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and what that really means? And that was the common bridge to talk to her, and I explained the gospel, and she gave her life to Jesus Christ. That's how it happens. And so it takes the pressure off, when we realize, wait a minute, this is God's job. I'm just faithfully entering into their life, and that's what Philip did. Because if you look at verse 35, "Then Philip opened his mouth," and noticed this, "began with this scripture from Isaiah 53, "he told him the good news about Jesus." He began to explain to him how to find faith in Jesus Christ. Now, we don't have any other information than this, but my guess is because this guy was a God fearer, he was interested in the Jewish faith, he was a eunuch and most of the government officials, male government officials were in the near east, which meant though he could not convert to Judaism. So he couldn't become a full proselyte, he couldn't worship in the temple, but he had enough religion to understand Old Testament concept. So my guess is Philip probably went back to the book of Genesis and said, "You know what? "We were created to be in relationship with God, "but it didn't take very long for sin "to enter into our world." "Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I kinda remember that story, "it was Adam and what was his wife's, Eve, Eve." And they chose to disobey God and they sinned, but in the very chapter that sin entered in, God brought up this plan of redemption because he promised a Messiah and he probably went to Genesis 3:15, read it, you'll see it. And then he probably went through and said, well, you wanna know why in the temple, you can't get in there and see everything that's going on. But let me tell you what's going on, there's all kinds of sacrifices taking place. And the reason for that is because God who is holy and perfect wanted to have a relationship with an imperfect people. Because when Adam and Eve sinned, their sin nature is passed down to all of us, their guilt and their sin nature, and everybody's driven to control their life and to do what they want, and nobody's perfect. And everybody has missed God's mark, and standard of perfection, but God wanted a relationship with his people so he set up the sacrificial system, so that they could actually live in relationship with him, so that if they would offer this perfect animal's sacrifice as a substitute and they would do it by faith, that God would allow that animal to bear the guilt of people so that they would be temporarily covered with that sacrifice so that God could live in relationship with this people because they acted by faith realizing that a substitute must come as payment for their guilt. And then it was pretty easy from there, right? Some of you know it, he would've launched into Isaiah 53 and said, guess what? Jesus is the perfect sacrifice that all those sacrifices were pointing to. And he lived a perfect life, he was the Son of God, he went to the cross and he paid for your sin, and he paid for my sin and he said it is finished. And when he died as payment for your guilt, not his, he now offers you his new resurrection life 'cause he came back three days later to prove that his claims to be God were true, and that God accepted his sacrifice. And by receiving the gift of his sacrificial death for you as your substitute you can be forgiven, not just temporary, it's permanent. And so he presented the gospel, but he did it accurately. As you're moving into people's world, and you're scattered be ready to give the gospel accurately and communicate two things, remember these two things. Make sure that you keep it biblical. Use God's Word, let it change the person's heart. And then number two, make it centered on Jesus. So keep it biblical, focus on Jesus. I always use questions when I interact with people, one of my favorites is this, you ought try this one out. Hey, if you were to die and stand before God, and he were to say, why should I let you into my heaven? What would you say? And right then and there people start talking about stuff and then you can kind of figure out are they thinking they're gonna get in by all the good things they do, or are they really trusting Christ as savior and Lord? And then we begin a conversation, and then I start talking about the bad news of what I just told you that we're all sinners, we've missed the mark. And then I talk about the good news of why Jesus came and he died for them. And if they will repent, and turn and put their trust in Jesus Christ as a person, as the one who died for their sin, asking for his forgiveness, wanting him to lead their life. And then they've repented, they've turned their trusting in him as Lord and savior, and that's the good news, 'cause it was a gift. You just gotta receive it. And when you explain that to someone, then they begin understand the nature of the true gospel. Jesus died for me. Now some of you're saying, "Oh, you're a pastor." "Pastor Roy, you can do that, "you've memorized all these verses, and you've got this." You know what? You can do the same thing and we will help you. We've got little booklets that you can actually read with someone. We'll hand them out, you take 'em for free. Pull up your phone, there are apps on your phone that will actually have diagrams, so people can walk through with you. And the verses will be right before you so you can walk through it. Here's the other thing you can do. Again, you know, "Discipleship 101," we've started this new thing at Rockpoint called one on one. And we're following this it's called the "Destined Series," where we will help you understand that you truly have committed your life to Christ. And then the point of it, we'll walk you through all the books, we will teach you how to multiply disciples with other people so that you can share your story. All the verses are right there. You'll be able to put together your story to help someone else understand how they can put their faith and their trust in Jesus Christ. Because ultimately you need to ask each person to make a decision about Jesus themselves, a personal decision. So look at verse 36, 'cause this is how Luke winds up this story. "And as they were going along the road, "they came to some water and the eunuch said, "'See, here is water, what prevents me from being baptized?' "And he commanded the chariot to stop, "and they both went down into the water, "and Philip and the eunuch and he baptized him, "and he came up out of the water. "The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, "and the eunuch saw him no more "and went on his way rejoicing, "but Philip found himself at Azatos, "and as he passed through, "he preached the gospel to all the towns "until he came to Caesarea." He's moving north from Gaza. Did you notice this guy was troubled at the beginning of this encounter and now at the end of verse 39, he's rejoicing. He's rejoicing because in that moment, even though we don't have a prayer that's listed here, but he came to that understanding where it moved from his head to his heart, and he began to understand, "I've gotta commit my life to Christ." And he came to that moment where Jesus actually uses these words. You need to be born again. And he was born a new, he was given new spiritual life because he put his trust and his faith, in Jesus Christ, as savior as Lord. Now, he wanted to be baptized. So how did all of this come together? Well, it's because Philip made it obvious in the conversation. Well, how would Philip have been told how to do that? Well, he learned it from the apostles. Well, where the apostles get it? Well, remember when started with the Great Commission at the beginning of our time today, back in Matthew 28, where Jesus said, "Go and make disciples, baptizing them." Go and make disciples is sharing your faith, go and make disciples is helping them grow. It's inviting them into a relationship, and then the first step of obedience is baptizing them. So that's where Philip got it from the apostles, and he's telling this guy, and if this guy's talking about getting baptized, then he got it. He was a follower of Jesus, he was ready to get baptized, which is that first step of obedience, communicating that he had put his trust in faith in Jesus. Did you notice too, that it goes from verse 36 to 38? I know some of you, you need to read in glasses, but it actually does that, okay? So we've skipped first 37, and the reason for that is simply this it's probably not in the original letter that Luke wrote. Somebody probably came along, and it's oftentimes down in the margin of your Bibles, and actually wrote in what the guy might have said, but we're not really sure he actually said it, but it's pretty good anyway, 'cause it gets to the point. And here's what verse 37 in the margin of your Bible actually says, "And Philip said, "'If you believe with all your heart, you may.' "And he replied the eunuch, "'I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God.'" Now we know that that's what you need to do, it's found in the rest of the New Testament, and so that's probably why the person put that in there, but it needs to be a choice. And they went into the water, there was a desert stream that was there. Yes, there can be streams of water in a desert, come down from the mountain, flow out into the Mediterranean. And they went down both into the water, we don't know how the person, you know, this eunuch was baptized. I don't know if water was poured on him from a cup from the chariot, or else he actually dunked him down. It doesn't say, I think he actually immersed him, and that's because of what the word baptized actually means. It means to dip or immerse. And then he went away rejoicing because he gave his life to Christ. Now the way we chose to end this time today is because we're gonna actually illustrate this. We're actually gonna baptize four people, four you, who have committed their life to Christ, and now they're gonna go through the waters of baptism. But I want you to understand that when they do this, it's just this great picture of how to pull this all together. It's not because baptism saves them, it's because they've already made a decision for Jesus Christ. And the best way to explain it, which is exactly what happened here is to talk about two different kinds of baptisms. One is dry and one is wet. There's a dry baptism that happens the moment you put your trust, and faith in Jesus Christ as savior and Lord. And that dry baptism happens at that moment. Last week, I had a great verse up in front of you, 1 Corinthians 10:13. It talks about how the Spirit of God at the moment you say, "Jesus, I want you to be my Lord and savior," takes you and baptizes you into Christ, and you become part of the family of God. Well, the word baptize is significant. It's actually we pronounce it in the original language, baptizo I don't do that very often, but I did it today to impress you. But the English word is baptize, and you know what that word means? It means to actually dip or immerse, so that your identity changes. Much like you would take a white piece of cloth, and dip it into red dye. When you pull that white cloth out of that at red dye, the identity of that cloth has changed, it is now red. It is no longer white. And when you've put your faith and trust in Jesus, you may not have felt it, you may have had emotion, you didn't feel it physically, but the spirit of God took you and dipped you into Christ, the very experience of the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus. So the way I like to say it is this, what is true of Jesus is now true of you. Because you are far from God, you were a sinner, you had no spiritual life, you were dead in your sin, but when you trusted Christ, you and all of your guilt was transferred to Jesus on the cross. And it happened like that, the moment you trusted him as savior and Lord. He's your sacrifice. And when he was crucified, that old life separated from God with your guilt and your sin was crucified. It is dead, it is no longer alive, it is placed in the grave with Jesus, and then you are raised to new life. You are forgiven, your sins are washed away, your guilt is no longer held against you, and you are given new life. And when you trust Christ as savior, that is now true of you. You see that's what the dipping, the immersing means, you identify with Christ and you are transformed, you didn't have a relationship and now you do, you see? But that dry baptism is pictured by wet baptism. The wet baptism doesn't save you, it best pictures what I just described. And that's why we immerse. We dip people below the water so that they, after they've said, yes, I've trusted Christ as savior, I'm joining you in this community. And that's why I oftentimes say buried to sin and death, and raised to new life in Christ. Because when they come out of the water, it's a picture of how their sins have been washed away, and they're following Jesus and it is a time to celebrate. So I have three things I want you to think about. First is this, have you committed your life to Christ? Today would be that day. Where you come to that moment, you acknowledge your sin, and you turn to Jesus Christ in repentance, and you trust him, you trust him alone. Forgive me, save me and be the Lord of my life. I believe you died for me and rose from the grave, and I want you to be my savior. You can use your own words, but that's it. The second is this. If you've made that choice, but you've never followed in baptism, that's the first step of obedience. Maybe it happened as an infant, but the New Testament teaches believers baptism. It happens after you've trusted Christ. Then I would encourage you, we can't baptize you today, but we can the summer when we do our outdoor baptism and that's a blast and it's a splash too, I'll throw that in, but we want you to be a part of that. And then the third thing is this, if you've trusted Christ as savior, and you have been baptized, then who's that person in your life that you need to share Christ with so they can be the next person to be up here, and get baptized and join the rest of us on this journey. Let me pray for us, and then we're gonna see some wonderful things. God, thank you for your goodness and your grace. Thank you for all that you've done in our lives. And Lord, in the next few moments, as we sing and celebrate and hear testimonies of people giving their lives to you and saying this publicly, Lord, may we rejoice with them, rejoicing in the new life that you've given them, and the journey we can share together. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.