Dry Land - Exodus 14:10-31 - Let My People Go

Amen. Amen. Awesome story, man.

Hey, welcome across all of our campuses. Man, this is just an incredible story about Thomas and his dad. I don't know about you, but I did not quite see the rock band thing coming, okay, in the video. So that was just incredible.

I've heard that him and his dad will absolutely melt your face with a guitar solo. So we're excited for them getting a chance to do ministry in that way. But I want to talk to you for just a minute because we are on a mission as a church to see what happened in Thomas's life and his dad's life happened in hundreds and thousands of other people's lives right here in the triad and then really, honestly, all around the world.

And that's what's happening and we want to see it continue to happen. One of the biggest opportunities we have as a church comes around just, you know, in the next month and that is the Easter season at Mercy Hill. Listen, our culture, for whatever reason, and I don't know if it'll always be like this, okay, but for right now, the culture that we're in, churches across the triad, including Mercy Hill, will naturally swell during the Easter season. And we are very pragmatic people. We're very strategic. We're like, hey, man, that's an opportunity for the gospel. And so let's make sure that we are ready for that. And the way that we're going to be ready to receive these people, guys, many of them probably at a church like Mercy Hill, maybe even thousands of them are going to be new.

They're going to be searching. Y'all, just this year, we've had a young lady named Madeline that was riddled with addiction, fear, anxiety. She's ended up saved, baptized, on her way to continuing to be a disciple. We had a young man named Steven. Steven was searching for inner peace, Eastern philosophy, you know, meditation, convent kind of situation and has come to Mercy Hill and has found that inner peace as he's met Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit has filled him, baptized, growing.

Y'all, we want to see stories like that play out hundreds and thousands of times. And we are all sort of on that mission if you are a Christian, to bring God glory in that way to see other people's lives transformed. And so Easter is a huge season for us. Now, the way that we get ready for Easter, okay, and this is, don't make me break out my piggly wiggly shirt again.

Okay, pigs. All right, that's the, if you say, what do I do for Easter? It's pray, invite, give, and serve.

Let me talk to you about serving for one minute, then we're going to dive into Exodus, okay? This is our standard, okay? And you guys, man, in your businesses, in your, for a classroom, if you work at a school, on your ball team, you all have rules of thumb, right?

We all have quick math rules of thumb. Here's a rule of thumb for a church like Mercy Hill. If we want to put on our best foot forward, best services that we can, we need 20% of whatever attendance is going to show up to be involved in serving. If you haven't noticed, if you look around, almost everybody who does anything on a weekend at Mercy Hill is a volunteer. They are part of our VIP guest experience.

Awesome. Man, they're running cameras, they're doing childcare, they're parking people. It's almost an exclusively volunteer led organization. If you, at church like Mercy Hill, if we dip much below this number, that the experience here for a new person, nose dives, okay? There's not anyone to tell them where to go.

There's not anybody to keep kids. There's not anybody to work cameras and do music and all that kind of stuff, right? So, this is kind of our standard. Now, we are praying and think, based on our numbers over the last couple of years and the opening of the Ridge, that we could get this, we believe we could see 6,000 people come to Mercy Hill Easter services this coming Easter, okay? Now, I don't know. There's 20 something services, college services.

I mean, there's all kinds of services. We really believe that God could do this. This is important for you if you're a believer. I bet you of that number, there could be upwards of 2,000 people here in that number that are not Christians. Man, they're not believers. They're trying to figure it out.

They're Stevens, they're Madelons, they're Thomas and his dad, and we want them to put our best foot forward for them. And so, you guys can do the math. What that means is, at minimum, we need to see 1,200 awesome people step forward and serve for that weekend. And I pray that you will be in that number, all right?

Let's don't teach our kids to receive without giving. Even if you can't commit to serving long-term, you could do it for one weekend, all right? And so, I pray that you will. We have about 800 people that serve normally. I'm going to ask you guys to re-sign up, even though you're like, I serve every week.

Great. Re-sign up, mercyhillchurch.com, Easter. But we probably need about 400 or 500 people to jump in to make this service awesome. This service is awesome. Easter week, and you can sign up right there, mercyhillchurch.com slash Easter. And we're going to make sure that we put you in a position where you can use your gifts and help us out in a big way, all right?

So, sign up to serve. All right, we're going to be next to this 14 today. And today, man, we're going to go deep, y'all. We're talking about baptism as it relates to the Red Sea.

I'm not going to bury the leaf, okay? Here's the deal. Passover, we talked about last week, connects to communion, Lord's Supper. The Red Sea event connects, and the Bible does this in the New Testament, we're going to do this, connects our baptism to this event in Israel's history. And it's this beautiful moment of understanding.

Death on one side, life on the other, what's in the middle? We go through the water. We go through the water as a symbol of what God is doing in salvation. If you have been baptized, you have the greatest symbol you ever need to fuel your faith. If we would just look back on it, if we would remember it, if we would, at the end of this sermon and service, bring our kids down front and kneel with them and put our hands on them and remember theirs, okay? And remember ours and talk about it and keep that fire burning alive. We have an incredible symbol.

We need to do some work on that today, okay? Others of you, man, you've never been baptized, and the reality is you've never done that because you're not a Christian. I pray you will become one today, all right?

Or you've become a Christian, but you've never taken this step. And what I want to tell you is, listen, Mercy Hill, we attract growers. That's who we attract for 12 years, people who want to grow their life, their leadership, their families, people who want to grow their resources, people who want to grow their influence, people who want to grow in their Christian walk. Man, if you want to grow in your Christian walk and you have not been baptized, you are a massive stumbling block right in front of you, right on the word go, okay? And we want to try to get that taken care of today.

Here's the big idea. Baptism brings glory to God. Baptism is all about God and His glory.

Why? Because He's the one that can part the Red Seas. He's the one that takes us from death to life, all right?

That's what happens. And so we praise Him for that. Baptism is a marked moment. You know, at Mercy Hill, let me give you an example of this. At Mercy Hill we have a lot of veterans in our church, even some of you guys I'm seeing right now, people who serve. Some of you guys served in wars. And we thank God for you.

Can we show some appreciation across our church to the veterans in our services? Of all people, I know this acutely because, man, I've traveled all over the world. I've done Christian ministry all over the world in some places where you can't say it openly.

You've got to be very covert. We get a chance right here to preach from a Bible in a pulpit in total freedom. And that isn't free, y'all. We understand that. So we thank you. You guys have served and women that have served in that way.

But here's the thing, okay? You know, I learned this about the military. Whenever they do your public swearing in, you've already enlisted.

You've already been enlisted, okay, whenever they publicly do the ceremony. It's very similar to baptism. It's like, man, you've already given your life over to Christ. Baptism is that point where you put on display the decision that you've made.

The children of Israel were God's people already. But something about the Red Sea event, man, they come out of that water on the other side and they have stepped into a calling. They have stepped into a purpose, a destiny.

They will be marked by this moment forever. And I pray that some of us will have that moment today. Really, what I'm asking us to do today is to give God glory in two ways. Number one, participate in baptism. It's coming up at Easter. All right, we're going to be baptizing churchwide at Easter.

Participate in that if you need to. But secondly, for those of us who have already done it, man, let us remember our baptism and let it fuel our gratitude and let it fuel our affections for God today, all right? Man, God doesn't give us these symbols for no reason, all right? If you have ever been one who's like, oh, they're about to baptize, so let me try to get out of here a little bit early, we're missing it.

We're missing something very deep. Just like communion, all right? So let's remember, hey, when we baptize at Mercy Hill, let's remember our own.

Let's think about what God has done. Exodus chapter 14, here's what I want to show you. The fear, the baptism, and the glory. The fear, the baptism, and the glory.

Let's talk about the fear. Exodus 14, 10. When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord, and they said to Moses, it is because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness?

Passive aggressive? Are we here a little bit? Okay. Is it because there are no graves there that you have brought us here into the wilderness? What have you done in bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not what we said to you in Egypt? Leave us alone, that we may serve the Egyptians. Now, is it this rose-colored glasses? Oh, we served them.

Really? You were their slaves. You were an enslaved people to a barbaric oppressive regime, for it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness. Man, fear can make us do some crazy things. Let's talk about the fear. If you were here last week, you're like, man, we just jumped from the plagues, you know, the Passover, the destroyer. Now, I thought they were going into freedom, and now Pharaoh's chasing them. Well, very basically, we're not going through all of it.

He changed his mind. Okay, so he's coming after him now, and now, man, it's about, they're scared to death. They look back, they see the army coming, they're going to kill us, they're going to take us back to slavery, and what happens in their life?

They immediately, because of fear, revert back. Doesn't matter that they've seen the plagues. It doesn't matter that they just saw the destroyer pass over Egypt, and if the blood was on their door, that their children lived, and everybody else firstborn died.

It doesn't matter that they've seen all this stuff. God has done battle with the gods of the Egyptians, if you want to say it like that. I mean, he did battle with Ra, the sun went out.

He does battle with Pharaoh, Pharaoh's firstborn dies. They have seen the power of God, but the second something scary gets on their heels, what happens? God gets really, really small, and the circumstances get really, really big. Y'all, in fear, we forget about God's power.

In fear, we forget about God's purposes. There has always been a plan. God was always going to save these people for his glory.

There was never any doubt. These people saw it firsthand with all of the plagues. I mean, just think about this, the story we talked about last week. Y'all, they went from slave to free, enriched, and bound for the promised land in one moment, and now the army shows up, and they're pretty sure that God has abandoned them, and that he's not going to show up for them again. Lest we, this is what we do, y'all, lest we start throwing rocks at them, how many of us forget about God's powerful moments in our life the second one of our kids has a fever? How many of us forget about God's awesome, powerful plans and omnipotent power the second the stock market drops or our business goes in the red for a couple of months? Okay, I mean, as soon as sales are down, whatever it is, we're getting worried that a spouse is getting a little flaky on us or a child's making bad decisions.

I mean, as soon as that stuff comes into our life, and I'm telling you, I'm not talking down to you in any way, I promise you, I am a chief offender in this room when it comes to this particular thing. When it comes to fear and forgetting about God's power and his plans, how quickly can we forget he is powerful, he has plans, and that he is good? And what happens in our life, listen, fear makes us do crazy things. All of a sudden, we start misremembering the past.

I mean, that's what happens here. They're like, oh, we're going to die in the wilderness. It'd be a lot better if we were just back, you know, serving in Egypt. I mean, if you go to Exodus 16, they get in a similar situation. They start talking about Egypt as if it was the good old days. They start talking about Egypt like, oh, we were sitting around, but you go read it, Exodus 16, three, sitting around eating pots of meat, you know, all this stuff. You were enslaved by a barbaric oppressive regime who killed your firstborn sons. This is the reality. But you know what happens? When we begin to face fear, when we get in scary circumstances, even a miserable past becomes the good old days.

We just have these, man, we don't remember well. Fear messes with all of our faculties. Y'all, I counsel a young man, you know, sad story, counsel a young man years ago who was coming out of a crazy dark past. It was not just that he was coming out of homosexuality, but he was coming out of homosexuality in a very illicit way. I mean, just dark. And these are all his words.

I'm tamping it down. These are his words, abusive, partner after partner after partner, the way he was treated, the way people would treat each other and the circles that he was in, man, it was just dark and wrong. And he came out of that. And it was awesome. He was coming out of it. He was shaking loose. He was getting the freedom that comes from being around God's people. And then 2020 happened.

What happened in 2020? We all got scared. We all decided me included to do fear. It's one thing to see the Egyptian army and have your blood pressure go up and your pulse quickens. That's natural. God gives us that response. So we know to fight or flight. It's another thing to just settle down and make friends with it. It's another thing to do fear. That's what they're doing here. Spraying poison. We should be back in Egypt.

How could you do this? How could you leave us out here to die? Projecting a future that is unknowable to them. I mean, that is one of the first hallmark things that we do in fear.

We start speaking about things as if they're certain. We can't remember the past they're doing fear. And here's what happened in this young man's life. He began to do fear around 2020. And you know what happened?

What long? He went right back to that dark demonic lifestyle that he was in. That was so bad for him. And here's the thing I think about that story. It wasn't me putting that on him. He was telling me what it was like, but it was what he went back to.

Why? Because the fear of right now makes a miserable past look like the good old days. We can't see clearly when we're in fear. You know, my question for us today is do we understand that the opposite of faith isn't doubt. The opposite of faith is fear. We think, well, I still have my faith because I don't doubt that God is there and that he is good.

I know you don't cognitively, but when we are feeling fear and deciding to do fear and sit down in fear, what has happened? We actually have decided somewhere along the way that we can't trust God and his promises and his good nature. And it's coming out in a settled truce that we have with fear.

Now here's the deal. What Moses is going to tell them is, no, no, no, you fear not and you stand firm. Christians, we don't make a truce with fear. You don't bring fear to the negotiating table. Fear is not one of those things that we try to make friends with. There is no parlay in our life of fear. What the Christian is called to do is to fight fear until we have overcome fear or fight fear until we die and then it is ultimately overcome. But we are to fight all the way through. We don't make a truce with it. Okay.

I don't know if you guys know the popular theologian, Ricky Bobby from Talladega nights. Okay. Maybe, maybe you guys have, um, but there's a scene in that movie where what Ricky's scared. He's scared to drive the car. His dad has a solution.

Okay. I'm going to go capture a cougar and put the cougar in the car. And if you learn to drive with a cougar, you'll overcome the fear. His dad actually says to him, you've seen the fear and there's nothing scarier than the cougar. So you got to learn to make friends with that fear.

Well, that's fine for a movie, but here's the thing. Christian, we don't make friends with it. Man. Fear is one of those things that we don't give terms. There is no negotiation. We are called to fight and crush. Okay. All right.

But here we are. Child's fever. Business is in the red, man. Something's going on with a child that's older. I don't know. Man, college student, not, you know, not, not getting the grades I need, not getting to play as many minutes as I thought I was going to get to whatever it is. I don't know what it is in your life. Fear is beginning to creep in.

What do we do? Well, let's talk about that. Here's what he says.

And Moses said to the people, fear not and stand firm. Got that part. We don't make, we don't make friends with it, right? Okay. Fear, not stand firm. I'm asking how, not what. Okay.

How do I do that? Here it is and see the salvation from the Lord of the Lord, which he will work for you today for the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you and you only have to be silent. Some of us grew up thinking that this passage be still. You only have to be still, be silent, be calm.

Why? Because God is the author of salvation. God is the, God is the one that breaks open the red seas. Man, we are under a cloud of death.

There is no way that we're going to get away from the Egyptians. The only one we have to turn to is God. And what Moses is saying is that when you realize, this is very important y'all, when God has done what is necessary to bring you from death to life, that is a fear crusher that begins to remove those shackles and chains of fear in your life. When we can remember what God has done for us in salvation, that's what he's talking about here. Now for them, he's saying, you got to watch what God's going to do for us.

We get to remember what God has already done, which one's easier. What, what they had to do was watch to see God's going to part the sea so you can go across on dry land. What we understand is that God sent his son to take the bottom of the red sea for us because his wrath was bearing down on us because of our sin.

We deserve that. And then he parts the red sea and allows us because of the sacrifice of his son to walk through on dry land. Y'all, God calls us away from fear by reminding us of our salvation.

Let me ask you this. Do you understand the deep symbolism of baptism? Baptism is a deep symbol.

We see it right here in the red seat. I'm going to spoil the story for you. If you have never seen the movie, the Prince of Egypt, okay. If you've never seen it, all right, what happens is red sea parts. They're going to walk forward. Egyptians are going to follow. Red sea comes down on them, crushes them.

That's the story. It's a story that will mark them forever. It's a symbolic moment in the nation of Israel's history.

Your baptism is a symbolic moment in your salvation history. And here's why. Well, listen, it's a deep symbol. What's happening in the red sea?

Wait, here's what's going to happen. They're dead to their old life. They're called into Moses, deep relationship with God, and then they're bound for the promised land. What happened in your baptism? You know how deep the symbol of baptism is? Baptism is simultaneously symbolic of a funeral, a wedding, and a birth announcement.

All in one shot. What a symbol. I am dead under the water, old life. I am united to Christ, and now I am coming out of the water, and that is why I am brand new, and that is showing that I am brand new. And this is what the Bible is giving us. What God is saying is, what Moses is saying to the people is, you need to fear not. How? Look at God's salvation.

Okay, how does that work for us? Fear not. Child's fever, business is in the red, something's going on with your spouse. I don't know, you're waiting on a call, blood works coming back, whatever it is. I'm gripped with fear.

What do I do? Remember my salvation, and here's why. This is what Paul says in the New Testament.

If we're truly saved, and the Bible is right about all this stuff, and we have given our hearts to Christ, and we have seen the funeral, the marriage, and the baptism all in one shot, guess what's true of us? Man, death has no more reign over us. Paul says it like this, death, where is your stain? Because me, I'm a Christian, man.

I don't know about you. If you're not a Christian, I don't know how you fight fear. There's probably a bunch of secular ways to do it, and there's a lot of tips and tricks I use to fight fear in my life, that's fine. But the bedrock of it is, wait a minute, the greatest fear I could ever have is death and hell, and those things have been vanquished, because Jesus won. And so if death has no sting, and I have no fear of death, now what other things in my life can I trust God with? What other things in my life can I trust that God, you're gonna work this out for my good and your glory may hurt?

But ultimately, I'm trusting that these things are light and momentary afflictions. See, if I know that death itself is defeated, and that is what we symbolize in baptism, all right, the death itself is defeated, now I can move on and move into courage in my life. That is why our baptism, y'all, is supposed to be a steel in your spine kind of moment that we don't do once and ever think about again.

We remember it together. Let's talk about the baptism number two. All right, verse 21. Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong wind all night and made the dry land. And the waters were divided, and the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, and the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

Oh boy, man, what a scene, all right? The fear, let's talk about the baptism. Now, some of you may have heard before, well, these are all just natural events that happened to coincide with all the things that was going on.

I mean, the plagues were natural events, this walking across on dry land, if you hit the right amount of time, and you hit the right amount of season and all that kind of stuff. And let me tell you something, this is why I don't really go there and have any reason to go there, because Moses stretched out his hand for a purpose. Moses puts his hand out so that we would know this is not a natural event. God is doing something in accordance with his faith and God is moving and he parts the Red Sea and allows the people to walk through on dry land.

And it's an incredible adventure. Y'all, they are standing on this side of the shore and what's going on is the certain death of Pharaoh's army. The cloud of death is hanging over them and now the sea parts, they're going to walk through and on the other side is going to be life and promise and bound for the promised land.

All right? That's the symbol that's being set up here. And the sea parts and they're able to walk through, but the New Testament sees this event and interprets it theologically to apply to our baptism.

Now this is not me just keep saying this over and over. I want to tell you the text that I'm getting it from. First Corinthians 10 says this, for I do not want you to be unaware brothers that our fathers were all under the cloud. Now this under the cloud is a part of the story that I haven't had time to mess with today, but you guys can go back and read that part and all pass through the sea. Listen, verse two, this is a money verse y'all and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. Now what does it mean to be baptized into Moses? I have come out from the Red Sea and now I am quote in Moses, God's appointed leader to take me to the promised land.

I mean, isn't that true with us? What have we said in baptism? In baptism we are saying, remember funeral, marriage, birth announcement. I am new in Christ, God's appointed leader, part of the triune God. I am new in Christ and he is carrying me ultimately to that promised land. That baptism, listen, is a marked moment of when you and I are symbolizing and saying, hey, we were on that side of the Red Sea. God did something. Now we're on this side of the Red Sea.

Now this is my new life and I'm going to be able to look back on that forever. It's going to mark me and I think about this. I mean, just think about it with me.

Y'all though, I have no idea what it was like. I mean, what the tempest of waters is on both sides. I bet it's churning and bubbling. I mean, it's meant to, meant to, you know, signify God's wrath. I would imagine that it's not glass and peace. I would imagine that it's filled with chaos and fury. I don't know.

All right. You got people that begin to walk across on dry land and I know some of you guys because some of you are gifted in faith and some of you would be like this, man, you're skipping on the dry land. I knew God was going to do this. Can you believe this? Look at all this. These are the people that got their kids and they've got them up on their shoulders, man, and they're just dancing them around and they're, and they're taking them all over and they're running up and down and they're saying, I knew God was going to do this. Look at him. Look at him.

How awesome is he? There were probably others a little more like me that were like this. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. Not natural.

This shouldn't happen. How is that whale way up there ahead of me or whatever? I, you know, I'm just, I, how does this, you know, just that kind of like attitude. I told you I struggled with fear. I understand a little more of that attitude. Here's the thing. We look back and we think their faith must've been so strong. Maybe some of their faith was strong. Maybe some of their faith was incredibly weak, but here's what we know. It's not about the strength of their faith. It's about the object of their faith, whether they were running or whether they were tiptoeing. What matters is faith was keeping them one step in front of the other. It was a display of faith. Man, God, I can't save myself.

I can't hold these waters back. You are the author of salvation. What I'm doing is taking step after step in that and marking what I believe about you to be true. And that is what our baptism is.

Y'all. It is giving God the glory for what he's done in our salvation. It is putting it on display for the world.

All right. I told you about symbols, right? So, um, this is a, you know, wedding ring is a symbol and what does it symbolize? It symbolize that you're married. No, it doesn't make you married. You could go buy one of these and wear it if you wanted to and not be married. You could be married and not wear one. Okay. There's not a law about it or whatever, but it's a symbol. You know, nowadays they've got these rings like this, the rubber ring.

Okay. Some of you guys have done this. Um, I, I, when me and Anna got married, which was like a million years ago, all right, we, it was, it was really in vogue at that time to go buy a real cheap metal ring. It'd be like a heavy metal ring, like, like a tungsten or something like that. So we went and bought a real cheap ring that was heavy and it was metal. And listen, I don't wear stuff, you know? Um, I just, I don't because it kind of bothers me or whatever.

I put that ring on y'all. I couldn't sleep for one month. I don't know if it was like a sensory thing, man. It was, you ever, you ever had a kid, one of your kids that can't wear a shirt when it's got like the tag in it?

I mean, they just can't, you know, I'm talking about, okay. I felt like that it was like I had that ring on and for about three months, every second of every day, I was aware of the ring. I knew it was on my finger and it just, it just kind of, it just kind of bothered me.

I'd never worn anything like that. And, um, what's, here's what, here's what happened. I'm a good husband. I persevered. Okay.

I got through it. All right. Um, because here's what I was not going to do. I was not going to go to Anna and say, Hey babe, this whole wedding ring thing, it ain't working for me. That ain't going to work. That's not going to work. Okay.

And I didn't want that either. Okay. I like the symbol. I love the symbol.

I love there being no, I love the walking in somewhere and there's no question. All right. It's, it's very clear, man. You know, he's married. I want people to know that's my wife. This is our family.

My eyes are for her. Like I want people to know that that 20 years ago we made a promise to each other and that promise is symbolized in this ring. And that's important. I don't want there to be any ambiguity around that. That's how baptism is.

Baptism is for the person that says, man, I don't want there to be any ambiguity about this. I want to be clear with the world. God saved me. He parted the red sea.

I got a chance to walk through on dry land. I deserve death, but I got life and I want the world to know it. And I want that symbol to be something that everyone sees. And I want that symbol to be something that I can draw back on and remember his grace in my life. Look at verse 26 then the Lord said to Moses, stretch out your hand over the sea that the water may come back upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots and upon their horsemen. So Moses stretched out his hand over the sea and the sea returned to its normal course when the morning appeared. And as the Egyptians fled into it, the Lord threw the Egyptians into the midst of the sea and the waters returned and covered the chariots and the horsemen of all the host affair that had followed him into the sea. Not one of them remained, but the people of Israel walked on dry ground through the sea and the waters being a wall to them on their right and to their left. Thus the Lord saved Israel that day from the hand of the Egyptians and Israel saw the Egyptians dead on the seashore. Israel saw the great power that the Lord used against the Egyptians. So the people feared the Lord. They gave him glory and they believed in the Lord and in his servant, Moses, they feared and they believe this is what God is after in this sermon. It's what he's after in this story. He is after our fear of him. You said, Oh, I'm scared of him. Like I'm scared of it.

No, no. I want you to think about even the symbol here. You ever stood about knee deep in the ocean and felt its power.

It's good. It's beautiful, but there's an awe. There's a fear.

There's a reverence that comes when you think about what that body of water could do. Fear the Lord, serve him, man. I want to do what he wants me to do. I am the contingent one.

I am the created one. That's what God was after here. We've seen the fear. We've seen the baptism. Now let's close by finishing this and kind of seeing the glory.

Okay. The glory of God is at stake. Whenever we withhold our baptism, he wants the glory for what he has done in our life. And I know some of us today might be like this. You're like, man is, is, you know, you're, you're thinking to yourself, I don't have the fire and the passion to give God praise and give God glory.

Okay. If that's you or it's ever been you and you got to listen up because the way that you get there is by remembering what he has done for you. You got to remember this deeply.

You got to see, you got to remember in your bones. I see this sometimes, man, especially guys sometimes will say, I've heard people say things like this before, like, man, yeah, I'll come to church, but I mean, honestly, dude, I just really love to come and hear the preaching out. We don't really care about like the singing part.

And it's like, oh, that's great. That's very immature as spiritually. And you, you want to know why? Because here's the deal. The God of the universe has told us, I love to receive praise by hearing my people sing, but we're too much of a man to sing.

I mean, it's crazy, man. Like God has told us, you, you come and you sing corporately to me. You, you praise God. You praise me in this way. If you want to learn some things about me, this will, this will take you a long way.

Very fast. If you're trying to learn me and my personality and my heart, I'm just a dumb man. That's really true. Okay. And here's why I say that.

Because for me, it ain't no problem. Coach says that we do it. Coach has run through that brick wall. Here we go.

Put your helmet on. The God of this universe has told us the contingent ones, the people that he has created and sing praise, clap your hands, raise your hands to me. I'm calling you to praise me.

I love to receive this in this way. Now you're struggling with that. Are you struggling with praising God?

And we praise him in other ways too. Okay. All right. I've been there too. All right. I've been in that immaturity too.

Here's the deal. How do we come out of that? We need something that lights a fire in our soul.

We need something that lights us up, man. It gets into our bones. That stirs the, we need the, the Holy ghost to come in and rattle some things around for us. You know how that happens, man?

It happens when we remember what Christ has done for us. And I hope you remember it today because here's the thing. How do we get there in this text? I'm gonna tell you how we get there in this text. We've got to remember today that while many of us are in a habit of looking into the old Testament and when we read these stories, we put ourselves in the characters of the Israelites.

That's what we do, man. We go back and we read the story and we're like, Oh, okay. I would have been here on the red sea. I would have seen the pharaohs. I would have seen pharaoh coming. I would have walked across on dry land and I would have been on the other side.

Really? Is that you? Let me ask you a question. In your sin and rebellion, which army would you be in? Apart from Christ, actually, which side of this thing would you be on?

Because here's what I know in my life. In my life, there have been many times when I rebelled against God. There've been many times when I followed the pharaohs of the world instead of our God. There've been many times when I bowed down before idols. There've been many times when I wanted to look at something that was God's as if it was mine. See, I know that apart from Christ, I'm not the one walking out on dry land.

I'm the one buried at the bottom of the red sea. And that's every single one of us that are in our sin. You want to get fired up about Christ?

You want to sing with your hands raised up? You think about what you deserved and what you and I deserved was to be buried in the fury of God's wrath because of our sin. But you know what? Man, we have a greater Moses, one who came that didn't just lead us through the red sea on dry land, but one who came and took the burial on our behalf. He took the fury. That's what Jesus did on the cross.

Man, he did this for us. He didn't say, follow me. He said, I will take what you deserve because what we deserved was to be buried.

You could say it like this. Man, we are bound for the promised land because Jesus was buried in the red sea of God's wrath for us. He went down so that we could go free.

This is so crazy. Jesus got baptized. I don't know if you know that. Jesus was baptized. Why would Jesus get baptized? I mean, we get baptized to symbolize God doing something in our life, removing the old, bringing in the new.

Jesus didn't need that. Why did he get baptized? We get baptized to remember what Jesus did. Jesus got baptized to foreshadow what he was going to do.

You remember in his baptism, what did they say? Behold the lamb that takes away the sin of the world. Jesus was saying, Oh, you want to know what this symbol is for me? This symbol for me is that I will be the one to take what you deserve. This going down in the water to symbolize death. Oh no, it won't just be a symbol for me. It'll be a symbol for you because of what I will do. I will go down and I will take all of the wrath of God on your behalf.

I will die so that you can live. When we understand what he did for us in the gospel, y'all, it begins to light us up and it makes us want to give him glory. And that's how I want to give glory to God through your baptism.

Alright, this is it today. Participate in and remember, give glory to God in your baptism. It's what he deserves. Don't withhold it from him. Be excited about it.

Look what he did for me. You know, we baptize people. We baptize them in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Ghost. You're being baptized into God's family. Some of you guys have been here more recently, but even really, even over the last couple of years, there was a guy at our church named Jeremy Daeger, pastor Jeremy Daeger, and he's one of my best friends and he moved to plant a new church.

A couple of years ago, he comes to me and he says, hey man, God's calling me. I'm going to go plant a church in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I said, Russia?

I was like, dude, that's varsity, man. It's not Russia. It's Canada. Okay. Not a lot better.

Alright, so I shouldn't have said that. Alright, so he goes to Canada. He goes to Canada.

I'm kidding. He goes to Canada. Um, Jeremy has gotten way better at all. You know, he, when he came here, he was pretty raw, like on some of the pastor stuff, elder stuff. He actually became an elder here at Mercy Hill for a long time. Baptism was his Achilles heel.

Okay. He just couldn't get it right, man. It was the first time, you know, they're baptizing the name of the father, son, the Holy Spirit.

He gets up there. He immediately, his mind reverted to the other thing that pastors say all the time. And he looked at the person and he said, by the power vested in me, I now pronounce you man. He goes to baptize them and it's like, dude, okay. One time he baptized somebody in the name of the father, the son and the Holy temple. I was like, do we need to convene some kind of theological court here to see if this is a real baptism? I mean, is this Mormon?

What is this? Okay. And uh, he finally started getting it right when we got, we baptized in the name of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit.

Why? Because when we're being baptized, we're being baptized into God's family. He is our head. We're being baptized into his team. We're being sworn into his military service, whatever analogy you want to put on it. So let me apply this in two ways and I'm done.

Okay. If you are a Christian that has happened in your, and it's happened in your life, are you drawing upon that moment? Are you drawing upon that symbol? I pray that you are, and I pray that you will today. Think about your baptism. Think about where you were.

Think about who you were with. Think about your kid's baptism, man, what God has saved them and what he's done in their life. Well, we're going to pray in just a minute. I want you to come forward, man. Let's, let's, let's gather up down here at the altar and in our campuses as well.

Why? To remember what God has done in our baptism and allow that, that, that symbol to put some fire in us to break chains of fear, to, to man kind of, to kind of lubricate the wheels of generosity in our life, to get, get us moving and serving, signing up for all the stuff, man, allow it to flow from a heart that is so grateful and, and praising God for what he's done. But others of us, we've never been baptized and I'm going to call you to participate in that.

You get baptized after you become a Christian. So for some of us today, that's the thing you need to do today. Realize that Jesus, remember what I say, we're bound for the promised land because he was buried in the red sea. That's what the cross is.

All right, so let's think about that today. Hey, Jesus stood in your place. Have you accepted him? Have you believed in him?

Have you confessed him as the Lord of your life? I pray you will today. And if you do that, participate in baptism when it comes up Easter here in a month or whenever it is. Okay. And, and, and listen, if you've not been able, if you're not a believer yet, I mean, if you're, if you're a believer, but you've not been baptized yet, now is the time. Don't wait.

Okay. Obedience in baptism changes you. Did you, did you see what Thomas said in his, in his video? He said, man, I got saved at 14, but I didn't get baptized until later. And I was holding a lot of other stuff that I needed to surrender.

That is exactly how it works. If we are holding back from giving God glory for that part of our life, we'll hold back another areas of our life as well. All right. I told you earlier, man, we're a church full of growers. You want to grow your finances. You want to grow your leadership, your influence. You want to grow your families. You're thinking about third, fourth generation down.

That's the type of people who come here and that's you. All right. If you want to grow spiritually button up first things first, don't try to go around the first thing, step right into it. All right. I pray you'll get baptized. Hey, you can get baptized at Easter by texting baptism to eight seven two one seven. That what that's going to do is it's going to trigger a conversation that you're going to have with some of our pastors.

All right. And they're going to talk to you about, is this right for you, man? Let's talk about that. Let's get it nailed down and get you ready to get baptized. So I pray that you'll take that step. Let's pray. Father, we come before you right now and Lord just ask that across our church, you would be moving in incredible ways, convincing people to give you glory and remembering what you have done in our life by thinking about our baptism. God move in incredible ways in our church this weekend in Christ's name. We pray. Amen.