What Does It Mean to be a Christian？

Well, good morning again. I had an interesting phone call this week as I was taking calls on the billboard line. This was just this past Wednesday, and a guy called me.

He said his name was Chris, Chris Schmidt, and he Chris told me that he was very encouraged by the billboards. You know, he mentioned he was a Christian as well, and he sees all these billboards talking about Jesus. He was excited about them, and he wondered who we are and what's the history.

How do we start putting up these billboards? How do they come to pass? So I shared with him a little bit about the history of billboard evangelism, Christian aid ministries. Well, he wondered what kind of Christians we are. So I talked to him a little bit about the, you know, the different denominations, different church groups that support the ministry, and he was, he seemed encouraged by that.

And then he, I asked him, what about himself? He said, you're a Christian. What kind of a Christian are you? Well, he said, you know, I'm in Utah, so it kind of tells you what part of Christianity I'm part of. And sure enough, he was what we call a Mormon, or they call themselves LDS, Latter-day Saints.

And okay, well, he was being very respectful. I tried to be respectful in return. We said, you know, I told him we have people taking calls all over the country.

I said, I personally am here in the state of Oregon. He said, oh yeah, I have some memories of Oregon, he said. We, he said, I had a sister that died in Oregon.

She was hiking up at Noma Falls and fell, and she was killed in that fall. And he said, it actually made headlines. It was kind of a famous event, he says, because my dad is, he's kind of a well-known figure.

He's the founder of a group called The Piano Guys, and they go around giving these concerts and so forth. His name is John Schmidt, and this was his son, Chris Schmidt, that I was talking to. And so it made headlines around the country when John Schmidt's daughter passed away in the fall up there at Noma Falls.

And I looked it up online later, and sure enough, it's, that's, that was what happened. And so we shared more, and we talked, and I was, he was encouraging to us and so glad that we're putting up these billboards. And I tried to be encouraging to him as well.

I says, you know, I'm sure there'd be differences if we started talking about doctrines and so forth. And he said, well, hey, that's fine. He said, I'd like to hear some of those differences from your perspective.

So we talked some more, and he was, he received, he didn't get offended, but talked about the whole thing of authority. Where do we start from when we get our path to truth? Do we start with Joseph Smith like they do, Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon? Do we start with Muhammad like the Muslims do? Do we start with a Pope maybe like the Catholics do? Where do we start? Where's our authority? And he received it. It was very, he didn't reject it.

And at the end of the call, he said, you know what? If I was you, I would just keep on doing what you're doing. He didn't try to convert me to become a Mormon or a Latter-day Saint. He just said, I would just keep on doing what you're doing.

So we had a nice talk, and he actually allowed me to send him some information. We had a little brochure that talks about the differences between, how is it again? It said the difference between you and your non-LDS Christian friends, something like that. It's written to Mormons, to people who are part of that church.

And it gives a whole list, you know, what they believe about God and what Christians believe about God, what they believe about, you know, judgment, eternity, righteousness, and just a whole lot of things. It's quite a, anyway, he said, oh yeah, he'll take that. So I sent that to him by email, sent him another sermon on an audio message, and yeah, he was very respectful.

We had a good talk. The title of my message this morning is, what does it mean to be a Christian? What does it mean to be a Christian? And the reason I want to preach about this this morning is because of the baptism. As Joyful has committed her life to Jesus and wants to be baptized today, I thought, you know, this is a message I preached many years ago, or preached something like this message anyway.

And it was again on a Sunday that we were having a baptism, and, but this question came up, what does it mean to really be a Christian? Now Chris, Chris Schmidt from Utah, considers himself a Christian. Many people today in this world consider themselves to be Christians. Is he correct? Are they correct? If we meet the average person in America, some people say, well, are you a Christian? Well, yeah, I'm an American, so I guess I must be.

I'm not a Muslim anyway, so I guess that makes me a Christian. Now I've heard that idea already. Is that right? Is that a right way to look at what it means to be a Christian? And so I have to, I want to start with some of these verses about baptism and, you know, what is it really saying? But before I do that, I have a handout I'd like to give.

Stephen and Joshua, would you guys be willing to hand these out? I think there's enough probably for one, for everybody who can read. If you start running out, maybe you want to give one per couple, but I think there's probably enough for everybody who can read to look at this. So go ahead and hand them out and see how far, how close to the back of the church building they last.

And so we have some verses here about baptism and what does the Bible say about it? And what's, what are we, when we have a baptism service after, you know, down there at the park after today, after the service, what are we really saying? Well, here's some verses that Jesus, some of these are the words of Jesus, some of the words of Peter or other apostles. Mark 16.16 says, He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned. Acts 2.38 says this, Then Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

Acts 22.16, And now, why tarriest thou? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. That was Ananias speaking to Saul who later became Paul. Are we, did we run out before we made it to the back? I wish we had a copy machine here, we could make more.

It looks like you still have a few. Raise your hand if you would like one and didn't get one. Okay.

Hopefully everybody can at least be within eyeshot of one of these papers here. Let's keep reading about baptism. 1 Peter 3.21, The like figure whereunto even baptism doth also now save us, not the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God by the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You know, if I was to write up here on the board or let's, maybe I could ask you first of all, if you were to write on the board, what do you need to do to become a Christian? Or I could change it. What do I need to do to be saved? Or I could change it another way. What do I need to do to get my name in the book of life? Because that's an important one because it says on judgment day, those whose names were not found written in the book of life were cast into the lake of fire.

What would you tell someone? Maybe they would ask you, what do I need to do to become a member of the kingdom of God? What would you tell them? And I've thought about that a lot because I get those questions quite often. And usually there's three words that I give them. And I'll put those three words up here on the board.

I mentioned the word repent. I mentioned the word believe. And then I tell them be baptized, repent, believe, be baptized.

That's a Baptist. That's not right. How's that? Okay.

Be baptized, repent, believe, be baptized. Okay. So, and there's verses that will support all of these.

We can look at repent and believe. That's in Mark 1 15. Jesus said, repent and believe the gospel.

We can look at another passage in Acts where Peter was talking. We just read it, repent and be baptized. And then was it there in Mark 16 where it says, believe and be baptized.

We have those three different verses. And between those three different passages, we have both of those things, all three of those things mentioned at least twice. So repent, believe, be baptized.

That's the beginning point of a Christian life. You're making that commitment to Jesus. You're stepping out of the world into the kingdom of God.

You're allowing Jesus to take over your life. Those three words. Now, that's very concise, but we'd like to dig a little deeper this morning into all of those terms and ask the question, what does it really mean? What are we really saying? What is the message that we have when we use that word repent? We might say, well, I think I know what word repent means, but what does it really mean? What about the word believe? We think, I know what that means too, but what does it really mean? Is there more to it than is only on the surface? And so let's dig into this.

And this paper that I handed out to you has a few other things on it. Like for instance, let's just start with that word repent. Metanoia is the Greek word, I believe it is.

I'm not a language scholar. So if I say these things wrong, please forgive me. But I'll just say it this way.

Basically, it's a change of mind that results in a change of action. So when Peter calls people to repent, when Jesus or Paul or whoever calls people to repent, he's saying, you need a change of mind. You need to be thinking differently than you used to think.

And that can be on different areas. The repentance needs to be changed. We for a sinner, he loves them.

A repentant person though, he's changed his mind and he hates them. How do we look at, we mentioned the word cancer already this morning. How do we look at cancer? How do we look at the word poison? How do we look at the word physical danger, an accident? Those are all negative words to us.

We need to have that change of mind to where sin becomes like those words. It becomes a negative thing, not a positive thing. And as I encourage any of you who are already Christians, as I encourage you joyful, who is making this commitment this morning, have learned to hate sin.

Often the difference between victory and defeat is whether or not you have that deep hatred for sin, a hatred for sin that's motivated by the fear of God, and ask God to show you your sinful self. Read Galatians chapter 5. It gives a whole list of sins there. The works of the flesh are manifest, which are these, and adultery, fornication, and there's a whole list of them.

We could talk about from 1 John chapter 2, verses 15 to 17, talks about all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father, but is of the world. There's another word that people still, they still struggle.

What really is sin? S-I-N, sin. Well, there's another word that I think if you just really don't get it, you say, I just don't know what sin is. Here's a word that might make it more clear.

It's simply this, selfishness. Selfishness. If you don't know what sin is, ask yourself, do you know what selfishness is? Most people do know what selfishness is.

They're living for themselves instead of for God. That's what selfishness is. Sin is, you could say, an abbreviated form of that word selfishness.

We could talk about unforgiveness. Is that a sin? Yes. Ungratefulness.

Is that a sin? Yes. Learn to hate those sins. So, repentance about our sin, genuine sorrow, turning away from it.

It's not just being sorry for it. You know, there's people today that are sorry for their sins. They're in the habit of going out every Friday night and getting drunk.

And part of the week, they hate their sin. The part usually is Saturday morning when they're having a hangover, or maybe Monday morning when they have to show up and pay a traffic ticket or something, or Tuesday morning when they have to, you know, maybe have other consequences for their sin. Maybe their wife or their girlfriend is turning against them because of their alcohol habit.

And those times, they hate their sin. But about Thursday and Friday morning, they're starting to love their sin again. So, they go back and forth.

They don't really turn away from it. They hate it in spurts. And that's not repentance though.

Repentance is hating it enough to turn away. Hating it enough to... It's a change of mind, not just a change of mind, but it's a change of mind that results in a change of action. Okay.

But then the other thing we need to change our mind is, is toward God. You see, when you turn away from the world and sin and all that, we're doing it about face. And all of a sudden, here we are facing the opposite direction.

What do we see in front of us? Well, nothing. I just know I'm getting away from my sin. That's not going to be successful.

We need a face that turns toward our heavenly Father, God Himself, and says, who is God? I need to love Him. We need a new motive for living. Where it used to be our selfishness was our motive for living.

Now, we need God to be our motive for living. And so that's... And by the way, if you see this, I'm not pointing fingers by this blue. This is a sprained finger.

That's what... I wish I could repent from this. I wish I could cut off that blue bandage and get rid of it. I can't.

So hopefully nobody's distracted by that, but that would be something that would be nice to let go. And many of you have... Another thing I forgot this morning was my eyeglasses so I could read. And I'm hoping I printed this big enough so that I could... I wish my nearsightedness would be something I could just drop.

And maybe some of you have injuries. Maybe we... You know, cancer. We have whatever.

We wish we could leave those things behind and go on to every kind of success that God has for us. But some of those things we can't. But sin is something God wants us to.

He wants us to drop. He wants us to leave behind. So, is that your desire as well? Or do you love it too much to really repent from it? Okay.

Repentance from sin. Repentance toward God. A motive for living.

The glory of God. A following Christ. That's who we're about now.

Jesus now becomes our goal. A relationship with Him. So, I had here in my notes this group of Indians who used to... They called the Shuara Indians.

And I don't remember. I tried looking it up and saying, what country were they from? But it was an amazing story about how they had turned from their... What they were known for was very dangerous people. Head hunters.

People had fear going into their part of the country. I think it was South America somewhere. I'm not sure that's right.

But I think it was South America somewhere. But instead of... After the gospel came to these Shuara Indians, they repented. They turned their life over to Jesus.

And now, they are still traveling where they used to travel from village, capturing people, killing people, eating people. Now, they're traveling to win souls for Jesus. They're traveling to tell them about Jesus.

So, they used to live selfishly. Now, they're living for Jesus. They have a new motivation.

Repentance from sin. Repentance toward God. Jesus said, seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.

In Colossians, it says, if ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above. That's what repentance, true repentance does. Gives us a new motivation.

The second one we want to look at is this word, believe. That one is one that has a lot of misunderstanding. But it's key how... What we truly... It's key for a lot of reasons.

John Demartin tells a story about his own conversion. He says, you know, back when he was very young, I think he was maybe 8 years old, he made a commitment to Christ. And he says, I think it was at a revival meetings maybe.

And he was told, okay, what you need to do is confess all your sins. You need to repent. He was told the right things.

So, he was told to name his sins. And by the way, I would encourage anybody to do that. If you're going to come to Christ, if you're leading somebody to Christ, name the sins you want to repent from.

Don't be vague about what those are. So, he did that. He asked Jesus to forgive him.

And he started down the road of living as Christian. I got baptized sometime in there, I guess. But he said it was such a struggle.

He said life didn't go well. It was... I was always questioning, am I really saved? I wasn't walking in victory. I was... It was a miserable Christian life for the first 10 years of his life.

And when asked later why it was a struggle, he said one of the things that he was never told to do at the time of his conversion, he was told to confess sins and repent and get forgiveness from his sins. But he was never told that he needs to bow the knee to Jesus Christ. He was never told that he needs to surrender his life to Jesus to make him Lord of his life.

And he said when that truth came to him 10 years later, it transformed everything about his life, his walk with the Lord. Because there's a big difference in coming to Jesus and asking him for something. I need your forgiveness.

I need a home in heaven. I need your power. And I need the things that you can give to me, as important as those are.

And they are extremely important. But this other step, which is a key part of this word believe, and we're going to dig into that here in just a little bit, is equally important. The need to bow the knee to a higher... To bow the knee to an authority.

We already heard about authority this morning. The need to come before him and saying, I am yours. I'm not just coming for what I can get out of this.

I'm coming because I am surrendering. I'm bowing the knee. I'm making you Lord.

And I will do what you say. And I'm going to do that even if I don't feel saved on a given day. I'm going to do it even when I don't feel forgiven.

I'm going to do it regardless of how my emotions are affecting me that day. I no longer belong to myself. That's a feeling and an attitude that we need to have.

So let's look into this word believe. The Greek word, again, is pisteo, or you can look at the word faith, which is pistis. But it's not just a head knowledge in which we can use the word believe just simply as a head knowledge.

Do you believe that, whatever, the earth is round? Do you believe two plus two is four? Do you believe that the sun's going to come up tomorrow morning? We can say, yes, I believe all that. Okay, great. Is that what it's talking about here? No, it's far more than that.

It's an active believing. It's a living faith. James talks about the difference between a dead faith and a living faith.

A dead faith is a faith without any works to back it up. It's a faith that says, hey, I believe these things are true, but I don't really want to obey what that implies. But a living faith is a faith that is backed up by the works that Jesus requires.

I think that word faith, I've been looking at it, studying it some, read a book about a guy who dug into this and that Greek word, and he said of all the different places that the word faith is used, a great majority of the Bible, actually, it would be a better translation to use the word fidelity rather than just simply faith, even though faith kind of has the same meaning, but fidelity, faithfulness, or another word is allegiance. You know what that, probably you've heard of this idea of pledging allegiance. Some people, there's a pledge that's read in public schools.

I pledge allegiance to the flag. There's a song, I pledge allegiance to the lamb. Much better pledging of allegiance, I think.

So, pledging allegiance, that's what this word faith means as far as, that's the way I would encourage people to think of it. Not just believing a fact, but pledging allegiance. There's a book out that I really appreciate.

It's called Salvation by Allegiance Alone. The Reformation and Martin Luther, they had this battle cry, salvation by faith alone. Well, if the word faith is properly translated, that's probably a good thing.

The problem is there's also a way to translate that word faith alone that the Bible clearly says is not going to save you, and that's in James. Faith alone, when it simply means believe, a head knowledge, and no surrender, James says it doesn't profit you anything. All right, but salvation by allegiance, now that's a different thing.

I have vowed the need to Jesus Christ, and I'm going to live for him. There's a word in the, during that same time that the Anabaptists use. You had the faith alone Protestants, but you also had the Anabaptists who had this word, Galasainite, and that's, I think it's a German word, but what does that mean? It's a letting loose of my will and desires.

It's a submission or yielding. It's not a yielding to a doctrine or a creed or a church or a denomination. It's a yielding to Jesus Christ.

He becomes my king. A total abandonment to forsake completely, and finally, as you would abandon a sinking ship. You know, when a person gets off of a sinking ship and into a lifeboat, it's not going to work if you keep one foot on the ship, the sinking, another foot on the lifeboat.

Nor is it probably going to work to get in the lifeboat, and then get right up against the sinking ship and say, I just want to be close in case, whatever. You want to get away from that ship because the under, you know, you'll usually sink the lifeboat if you're not careful. So you get away from it.

That's what we're supposed to be. We're supposed to be abandoning our former life, our selfishness, our own will and desires, and giving our life to Jesus Christ. It means complete surrender.

Give up yourself to the power and authority of another. It's an ownership change. 1 Corinthians 6, 20 says, ye are bought with a price.

Do you live as though you have been purchased? We have a history in this country of slavery that is absolutely horrible. And some of the ways people were treated, you know, for one human to own another human is now looked at as a horrible thing. And in our country, it certainly was a horrible thing, the way it was carried out, the way the kidnappings were.

But this is exactly what Jesus is inviting us to do, to sell ourselves into slavery to Him. Ye are bought with a price. And it's voluntary.

We don't have to. But it's a wonderful thing when we have a wonderful master. So, joyful? Anyone else that's ever been baptized? Anyone that will be baptized in the near future? I don't want you to struggle for the next 10 years.

And so I'm going to tell you, make this full commitment. When you look at the word believe, think of more than just the word believe. Think of the word surrender.

Think of the word allegiance. Think of the word abandonment. Think of the word commitment.

Think of the phrase bowing the knee to the Lord Jesus. Are you willing to do that? And if you are a struggling Christian today, maybe you could go back and think, have I done that? Is my life a life of abandonment? Is it a life of surrender? Am I following through? Have I pledged my allegiance to Christ alone? And have I followed through with a life of obedience to His commands? All right. So, steps one and two, repent and believe.

The third step for entering the kingdom of God as prescribed by Jesus and His apostles is this one of baptism. And we read some of those verses, repent and be baptized, believe and be baptized. And so, what is this saying? When we enter into, when we see someone that's willing to be baptized, what are they saying? What are they, what are they saying publicly before everybody's watching that baptism, whether it's in the dark of night in a persecuted place where, you know, they can't, there's nobody there but them and the preacher, or whether there's a whole crowd of people that will probably be there, like will probably be at the baptism today.

What are they saying when they receive this baptism? Well, the Bible talks about washing. So, the baptism is saying, you know, I want to be washed, quote it like Acts 22, 16, and now, why tarryest thou? Arise and be baptized and wash away thy sins, calling on the name of the Lord. And of course, we could talk about, you know, the symbolism of that and how much of it is symbolic and how much of it is, you know, at that moment, how much of it is, has already happened.

But either way, it's definitely a part of it, is a washing. But it's more than that. It's not more than just washing.

It also implies a death. In Colossians 2, it says, buried with him in baptism. And so, the way we typically do it is, you know, they go under the water and then they come up.

It's like a burial and then a resurrection. Know ye not, Romans 6 says, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized unto his death. It's talking about death to sin.

Shall we continue in sin that death, that, shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid, Romans 6 says. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer therein? So, baptism is a dying. It's a death to ourselves.

Galatians 5, 24 says, and they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. It's a death to the world. Galatians 6, 14, but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified to me and I unto the world.

So, baptism means death this morning. Are you willing to die if you're contemplating baptism? But it is also a glorious time of coming alive wherein also ye are risen with him. It says in Colossians 2, we are alive to God.

We are listening to his voice. We're experiencing his power working in us. That's what baptism is indicating.

When I get baptized, I am saying that I am forsaking everything I own for the sake of Jesus Christ. Are you willing to say that? It no longer belongs to me. It belongs to him.

Back in the times of the Anabaptists, they were asked some of these questions. Now, they had some very real issues going on. They had the issue of persecution and there was a large number of them that after getting baptized, now they called it re-baptism.

So, depending on who you asked, you know, the Catholic authorities would look at these people and say, you got re-baptized. They would look back and say, no, we just got baptized once because they didn't count the one that they got baptized as a baby. You know, we didn't biblically get baptized because the Bible says repent and be baptized, believe and be baptized.

I never repented and believed when I was eight days old. And so, this is really my first baptism. Either way, the Catholics were in charge.

They had the power. They wielded the sword. Many people were killed as a result of their commitment.

But they were asked this question before their baptism. Are you willing to make all your property available to meet the needs of the brotherhood? Are you willing to make all your property available to meet the needs of the brotherhood? That was a question they would be asking and they needed to answer that. Another question they would ask, and this was either verbally said or else implied, are you willing to die for this commitment? And I like to ask anybody that I've ever been involved in a baptism that question.

You're making a commitment by being baptized. Are you willing to die for this commitment to Jesus Christ? If not, I think it's right to say, well, I don't think you're ready to be baptized. If you're not willing to die for Jesus, if persecution came to this land in the same way it's come to other places, would you die for this commitment? Okay, so that's what I'm saying.

When I get baptized, I'm saying, yes, I'm committed to Jesus and I would die for this. I am also saying I'm becoming an ambassador for Jesus. I'm willing to be his ambassador.

I'm willing to be a light that shines to the world around me. Ephesians 6, and for me that utterance may be given me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in bonds, that I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. Are you willing to speak for Jesus? When you get baptized, you're saying, I am willing to be an ambassador for him.

You are becoming a soldier in God's kingdom, a kingdom not of this world. So those are some heavy statements. When you agree, yes, I want to come to Jesus and I want to get baptized, you're saying, I want to become an ambassador for Jesus.

And you're saying, I am willing to die to myself. I'm willing to give up everything for Jesus. We're going to go on to number four on your paper there.

We've talked about the three things that are up here on the board. We talked about repentance, believing, and baptism as a way to enter the kingdom of God, the beginning of the Christian life, if you want to put it that way. But now I've got some warnings for you.

There's some warnings in Scripture, and these are heavy because if, I mean, just look at how dark some of these warnings are. Jesus said in Matthew chapter 7 that the way to life is narrow and few find it. He said in Luke 13, many will seek to enter and will not be able.

In 1 Peter 5.8, it says that Satan, our enemy, walks around as a lion, a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And he has devoured many. There's a parable multiple times in the Gospels called the parable of the sower or the parable of the soils or the parable of the seed.

But there were four different kinds of soil that that seed landed on. Three of them didn't make it. Only one of them did.

And that included people who started the Christian life. It didn't just include people who heard the Gospel. It included people who actually made a commitment.

They received the Word. They repented. They believed.

They were baptized. But they did not end up enduring to the end. They did not stay in the will of God.

They did not make it. These are warnings. That was three of the four that didn't make it.

Only one of the four did. And so as I look at these warnings, I say, well, wow, my heart breaks for those of you here today, for those of us here today who either are getting baptized today, who have already gotten baptized, or who will get baptized in the future. These are sobering warnings.

And what could I possibly tell you to mitigate those warnings, to somehow take courage that it doesn't have to be that way, that Satan doesn't have to win this battle, that you don't have to fall away. And so I put down in this fifth section, necessities for survival, things that will be, I think, necessary, important, if you're going to be that one of the four soils, the one that survived, that went on and bore fruit. And so I put these things down.

Let's just read through some of these. Number one, necessities for survival. Number one, feed daily on the Word of God.

Spend time in God's Word every day, the Bible, the written Word of God. Number two, prayer. Spend time in secret prayer, much time in secret prayer every day.

Call on God for every need. Fasting is an important one. If you don't do that, start doing it.

Learn to do it. Number three, another extremely important one. It's hard for me to know as I go through this list, say, well, which one is the most important? Well, I think this one is, but then I get to the next one, I think, well, maybe that one's the most important.

And I don't know, but if you neglect any of these, it could be fatal. Three is very important. Keep a clear conscience.

If you don't have a clear conscience, go get a clear conscience. Do whatever confession is necessary to get a clear conscience, and then keep that clear conscience no matter what happens. Number four is closely related to that.

Learn to humble yourself in every situation you get yourself into. Humble yourself, Peter, it says in Peter, and also in James, under the mighty hand of God that he may be the one to exalt you. That's one way to get a conscience.

But it's not the only time you should humble yourself is when you have a defiled conscience. It's one very important time, but learn to humble yourself in working with other people, in dealing with your sins or dealing with the other people's sins. Learn to humble yourself.

When you're in a difficult situation and you say, I just don't know where to turn, I tried going this way and I can't, and I tried going that way and I can't, and I don't know what to do with this relationship or this problem or this dilemma I've got myself into, humble yourself. Or maybe life is going really well. We have a beautiful day today and I got enough food to eat and we're just really enjoying life.

Humble yourself. No matter what happens, learn to humble yourself in every situation. Number five, forgive everyone quickly, freely, and completely.

No matter what happens, learn to forgive and do it completely and do it quickly and do it freely. Do it thoroughly. Do it.

Learn to forgive. Learn to accept the pain that is caused by other people's actions without holding anything against them. It's not easy.

It's hard. But Jesus said, it will be deadly if you don't and there will be tremendous blessings if you do. And he said in very clear words that it's just hard to get around if we'd like to get around.

If you don't forgive others, my heavenly father will not forgive you. Number six, be grateful in any and every circumstance. Rejoice always.

Learn to be grateful. Learn to rejoice. Learn to give thanks as you go through life.

When times are good, rejoice. When times are hard, rejoice. Give thanks.

There's always something to give thanks for. If you know Christians in your life and all think, oh, there's a group of people here. We all know Christians.

Even if we're not one ourselves, we know them. And they could probably be divided into two groups. You could call them the strong Christians and the weak ones or somewhere along that scale.

The one to ten. I look at that person. He's a strong Christian.

I look at that one. He's kind of shaky in his Christian life. She's somewhere in the middle.

How do you judge that? How do you know this one's a strong one and this is a weak one or this one's kind of a medium-sized Christian? How do you figure it out? I almost guarantee you some of it is this spirit of gratefulness. Are they a grateful person? If they are, they're probably a strong Christian. If they're not a grateful person, you probably don't look at them as a strong Christian at all.

So learn to be grateful. And how do you learn to be grateful? How do you become that? You say, well, okay, I'm just going to hit a button and now I'm grateful. Well, that's not the right button.

The right button is to start giving thanks. Start by giving thanks even when you don't feel like it. Start by giving thanks in private to God in your quiet time as you pray.

Give him thanks. Give thanks to God when you're interacting with other people. Give thanks.

Rejoice. Even if you don't start out that process being a grateful person, it will turn you into one eventually and probably pretty quickly if you're consistent with it. Okay, letter G there.

Seek the infilling of the Holy Spirit and depend on his power. Ask God. What does he say in Luke chapter 11? How much more will he give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So ask God for that power.

Recognize you can't do this on your own. You need Jesus. You need his power.

So ask him. Learn to ask for that which you don't have. Letter H. Study and obey the commands of Jesus.

What did Jesus say? Jesus said when we go and teach and baptize, we're supposed to go and teach them, calling our disciples, the people we're baptizing, the unsaved we're witnessing to, teach them to obey the commands, the things that I have given you. And maybe that's primarily after baptism. But either way, learn those commands.

If nobody's teaching you those commands of Jesus, pick up your Bible and read them yourself. Get a Bible that has the red letters in it. Read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John and find out what Jesus' commands are.

Feed your mind. Feed on godly literature, books and sermons and so forth. And I missed the one, letter I there.

Guard your mind, taking into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. What is in your mind? What are you allowing into your mind? Guard it. Protect it.

And one of the ways you can guard and protect it is by feeding on things that are going to build you up. Letter K there. Share your faith with others.

Talk to others. This is a hard one, but it will help you grow. Talk to other people about your faith.

Ask them about their faith. Share them with about Jesus. Share a Bible verse.

Hand them a gospel track. Do something but to move out of your comfort zone to share with others that which God has given to you. Make God your passion.

Love Him with all your heart. You know, I heard a statement one time, you can have many interests, but you can only have one passion. Many of us have different interests.

Maybe we have a job and we're interested in our job and we're studying about it, we're learning about it. Maybe it's some travel project we're doing. Maybe it's some research project we're doing online.

Maybe it's something we just enjoy doing in our spare time. Maybe that's volleyball or spikeball or riding bike or whatever it is. Those things can be interests, but they dare not become your passion because you only have room in your heart for one passion, one true passion.

And that passion, if you're going to survive, needs to be Jesus Himself, needs to be God. Love God with all your heart. And out of that, love your neighbor as yourself.

So love God with all your heart. Make Him your passion. Fellowship regularly with other believers.

And I added this one this morning. Choose your friends wisely. I don't know if there's anything that's going to make more of a difference in a person's Christian life and their online survival.

Who is their friends? And when I say friends, I'm not talking about their parents. And I'm not talking about their children. I want my children to be my friends.

I want my parents to be my friends. But friends is something different than that that we're talking about here. We're talking about peers, people that are on the same level as me.

They're not my parents. They're not that authority. They're not my children.

They're not under my authority. But we're on the same level. They're the people we look at eye to eye and say, we're walking life together.

We're probably about the same age. If you're in a workplace, they're on the same level as you. They're not the boss.

They're not the person working for you. They're the person kind of on the same level as you. Who are you choosing to be your friends? Choose wisely.

It will make more difference than almost anything else in your life as to which direction you're going to go. Finally, persevere. He who endures to the end shall be saved.

Matthew 24, 13. Finish the course. Keep walking.

Don't stop. There will be discouraging times. There will be good times.

There will be some times of a flat level, just a plain. You're walking and you say, wow, this is a long ways and you don't see anything but a horizon way off there in the distance. There's other times where it's up and it's down and it's hard times and then it's good times and then it's hard times.

And life goes back and forth. But keep walking no matter what happened. Way back in the early part of the 1900s, there was an ad that was placed in a London newspaper.

Started out with the two words, men wanted. Here's what it said. Men wanted for a hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger.

Safe return is doubtful. Honor and recognition in case of success. The ad was signed by Sir Ernest Shackleton.

He was an Antarctic explorer. He was going to go down to the continent of Antarctica and he was going to try to walk across that. Anyway, they ended up having a shipwreck and so forth.

And if I understand it right, they did all make it back safely. But when he was trying to get men, you'd think he would use a little more wisdom in how he placed the ad. Listen again to the ad and think about this.

Men wanted for hazardous journey, small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger. Safe return, doubtful. But you know what? People responded to that by the thousands.

People were signed up to come and say, I want to be part of this expedition. And so he had thousands of people to pick and choose from. And he picked out his crew of guys and most of them got rejected.

Most of them didn't go along on that voyage, but a few did. Why did people sign up for an ad like that? You'd think a heated cabin would have been at least a good thing. Maybe nice warm clothing and lots of money and all that.

But no, hazardous journey, probably not going to have a safe return. Long months of complete darkness and constant danger. You know, people want to live for something higher than themselves.

I'm here to encourage you with the thought that the kingdom of God is something higher than yourself. It's even higher by a long shot than hiking through Antarctica and exploring uncharted lands in this world. The kingdom of God is going to last forever.

It's not going to be safe nearly always, maybe never. Safe return to your old life, never. Will you face bitter cold, small wages, sometimes that seem like complete darkness? Yeah.

But it's worth it. Join the quest, the expedition for the kingdom of God. Join his kingdom and follow all the way through to the end.

And God bless you all. God bless you. Joyful as you get baptized and everyone else who has already been baptized and has made this commitment.

Everyone else who is contemplating making this commitment. I want to just encourage you with these words that Jesus said that we read this morning and wonderful. And by the way, let's just do one thing here at the end.

You have a verse there at the bottom of your page. 2 Corinthians 5.15. Let's read that together, all in unison. And that he died for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

One more time. And that he died for all that they which live should henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again. Let's bow for prayer.

Father, that's the reason we want to live is to live for you. Thank you for dying for us. Thank you for rising again.

Thank you for the promise of a new life. Thank you for the invitation to come and join a kingdom that's not always going to be easy, but a kingdom that provides forgiveness of sins and a purpose for living that is higher than any purpose that man has ever achieved here on this earth. And I pray for this day that we have together.

I pray for each one that's here this morning. I pray for joyful and the commitment through baptism that she's going to make today. And I pray, Lord, that we would all just live for you, turn our lives over to you, that you would set us free.

If there's bondages we need to be set free from, you would do that, Lord. You would do a work in us. In Jesus' name, amen.