Side Chick Savior Marked (Part 5)

0:30 Well, let's get started. Anybody ready for the word? Well, we've been in a series called Mart. And, like, I've been debating whether to pause the series and just talk about baptism. But I think I can make this all work together. And um because when we talk about being marked that's god anointing or his approval on something Like like like a lot of people say anointing and that's a big christian word that people use like we don't want god To to we don't want to do anything without his anointing or anything and they use it in the scripture a lot of times But all that means is god's approval is something he said yeah That I I agree with that and it makes it easy and there's a blessing and there's Extraordinary things that happen, but what I found out is that baptism is one of those things that marks your life It's something that when you get baptized you can say hold on I'm marked somebody just yell at me. I'm marked Come on because I believe God has done something in your life that that he's specifically wanting to see come to pass And it's gonna take you to do it And we've been talking about these processes to the purpose in the palace that God has us to to go to But as I studied scripture this week, I saw that our great example, Jesus, he got marked by baptism.

1:47 And I've never looked at it like this before. But when we talk about the anointing of God or the approval of God, remember I told you that Jesus embraced his season of obscurity when he went away from the time of 12 to 30. And he decided that God was going to have to develop some things in the dark room. And then we see him at 30 and he performs his first miracle. But do you know what happens in that first section of his ministry? He goes and he gets baptized. And I was like, what is this God? He said, people who are going to do great things for me don't follow half of the instructions.

2:24 The God on earth who could have said I baptize myself in the name of me, me, and me. He decided everybody say decided because that's what many of you are going to do today Because I know some of you came in here real preppy and nice and it's like it's labor day weekend I ain't getting my hair wet just got it done I ain't gonna do nothing but I'm telling you by the end of today my prayer and i'm gonna be up front with this At the end of my talk today my prayer is that everybody who's received jesus as their personal lord and savior Would take the next step on their journey and be baptized today Can I get somebody to agree my brother back there like I don't I don't even know The thing that you got to realize is that we're on a spiritual journey And god wants all of us to do it his way and and I know some of you like well I've been baptized before I have pictures. Did you know what you were doing? Because this whole thing in relationship is about choice And a lot of us there's religions that feel like as soon as the baby gets out You got to sprinkle water on them You got to baptize them or they're going to hell or all this other stuff The scripture says nothing about that It says when you come to a place of maturity Where you understand who you want to be identified with What baptism does is it lets everybody else know Of the inward work that God is doing in your life And I started to think about that I was like God if it's that simple Why don't people get baptized?

3:45 Like I would just get saved and then get baptized He said because most people want a side chick savior which is the title of my talk. Side chick savior. Yeah, if you're taking notes, I know you've never taken a note on this yet, but I want you to take this note. See, most people want the benefits of a relationship with God, but no commitment.

4:09 Most of us want to be able to call him when we need him, but not claim him in front of people. Some of y'all know, because y'all were side chicks in a former life, but what I'm saying, What i'm saying is someone like side chick sally explain side chick to me Okay, if you just look it up in the dictionary It's somebody that has a relationship That they claim in front of people But somebody has another person that they're in relationship with but they do not let anybody know publicly That they actually have a relationship with them And I came to challenge some people who have been using god as a side chick savior God if you ever get me out of this situation I'll serve you but we go back on our promises Because it was only me and him late night talking And we didn't have to say it in front of nobody We don't claim any of their pictures We don't show up for any family events We don't even come to the house where the family's at All we want is the benefits With no commitment But that's why water baptism is so important Because what it does is to say I'm coming out of the work that has been happening In closed proximity the inward work and I want to let everybody know That this is the one I choose This is the person I claim you don't have to look for another and and this is the I literally looked it up because it's so funny how practical things correlate to spiritual things I just typed in Google how to be a side chick don't ever type that in but I'm a pastor Okay, so I typed it in look at the first three things it said how to be a side ship keep the situation to yourself How to keep jesus a side chick savior don't tell anybody what he's doing in your life Keep the situation to yourself. I used to do this and I used to do this, but i'm not going to share my testimony You know, the word says we overcome by the blood of the lamb. That's what he did but the words of our

6:16 Testimony, but if you never tell anybody that you used to be that Are you used to struggle with that and it was yesterday that you typed in that website or it was yesterday that you and your wife had an argument Or it was yesterday that you lied about something What he's trying to do is keep the relationship behind closed doors And the enemy will lie to you that your personal relationship is just supposed to be between you and god And he said what you're doing personally what me and my wife do personally Yes, it is between us, but you should see effects of it when i'm around you If I came in here and my wife I acted like I didn't know her when she had a request I ignored her When she you would say I don't know what's going on, but they probably ain't they need some counseling something right? And there are too many believers right here because God is their side chick savior They've not ever made it public. The second thing that it said is it expect plans to change if you're a side chick So so god needs to understand that that there's priorities that you have that they have that have to be first And and this is the crazy thing about many of us. We have other things that are first above god And I know nobody's gonna say it right now, but you have jobs your family There are things that you have put before god because you think they give you more security than him And he said could I please come out of this category Of a side thing to you Could you please make this public for me?

7:48 The last thing it said is it says if you're going to be a good side chick, don't ask about where the relationship is going. How many people you've been in the same place in your relationship with God for the past decade? I pray. God answers. I live any kind of way. And God, don't ask me to serve. Don't ask me to give. Don't ask me to get baptized because that means our relationship would have to progress past this point And and and and and I need you to be I need you to be a good side piece to me god So please don't ask me to grow in our relationship What I believe god's challenging all of us to do today i'm preaching already some of y'all like where's this in the scripture? I got it for you. Okay, come with me But I'm trying to get you to understand that this is the day. That no matter what you did yesterday and what you did before, you're saying I'm coming out of the shadows with my relationship with God.

8:48 I'm about to make this thing public, and I'm going to let the whole world know who I'm in relationship with.

9:26 Well, Pastor Mike, is this something that we need to do? Yeah. Why water baptism? Because baptism is an action of obedience. Write that down. It's an action of obedience. Matthew 28 verse 19. It says therefore go everybody say go Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations watch this word baptizing them Now he could have said anything right there He could have said like hey, I want you to go and I want you to get everybody a chain with my face on it Call it a jesus piece I want you to go I know what did he say? Because this is one of the last instructions that he gives to his disciples before he leaves and said guys come around here This is my only instruction for you. I want you to go and I want you to baptize People in the name of the father the son and the holy spirit I know you're gonna have a lot of things that people are gonna try to remember and you're gonna try to remember all my Talks and all that other stuff He said but when people hear what you have to say something's gonna move in their heart and when it moves in their heart They're gonna be like I want to follow this jesus and when they follow tell them hold up Don't just follow him from what you've heard. I need you to do something to actually show that you actually identify with what you've heard And there are too many believers right now Who don't ever want to Take a step Beyond what is comfortable And today baptism it ain't comfortable You got to get wet in front of people. You don't know You might have just spent a lot of money on your hair Some of you that's just not my personality But he didn't say let all extroverted people get baptized He didn't say let all the wild people get back. He said baptizing everybody say all It don't matter your color your creed your race your background He said if they follow me, I want them to get baptized and I want them to do it because this is the second reason why we get baptized I want this to be an action of identification I want them to identify with me They've been identifying with things of this world. They've been identifying with drugs. They've been

11:36 Identifying with pride. They've been identifying with all these other things. I want a sign That they identify with me This is what baptism does for all of us and there was a man named john He was an evangelist. He he was around a long time before jesus and and and literally 700 years before that a prophet isaiah He prophesied there'll be a man. He'll be like a man that's shouting in the wilderness saying prepare the way of the Lord. And this was John and John. He was baptizing people before anybody. And so what would happen is he had a message that he shared every Sunday, the same message every Sunday with the same three points. Would you go to that church every Sunday? His message was like this. Hey, y'all. Good morning. God bless you. All right. Open up your note tablets. Repent And all that means is turn Turn from what you've been doing Turn from the way you've been going turn from the way you've been acting And then he gave clarity to it. He said turn to god See because a lot of people turn and they're sorry for what they do in one season, but they don't turn to the right thing A lot of times they turn to a substitute And so he had to say turn repent But then I want you to turn to god and then his third point was get baptized Service is over. We're going to the pool This was the whole service repent Turn to god Get baptized Um pastor, what are you preaching next week?

13:09 Repent Turn to god Let's go get baptized I was thinking about bringing my cousin to church. Did you think you were gonna switch it up? Oh, yeah, I was going to tell him, repent, turn to God, and then do what? Get back. That was the whole, and thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people every day did this very simple instruction. But for some reason, along the way, we've gotten away from the simple instructions that the Bible tells us to do because we want to impress people instead of impress God. And so all I'm saying today, I think we're going back like like like this ain't like an old school church thing. This is original school church thing that today. All I'm asking you to do is repent. Turn from whatever you've been walking in. That's not like God. And don't just turn to something else. Turn to God.

14:05 And just about 10 minutes. I'm going to give everybody in this place an opportunity to get baptized. there has been no easier moment than right now i'm only preaching 25 minutes so that you have no excuse to go public with what god wants to do in your life and i'm telling you for some of you this is going to be the line that you've been one way for so long and god said this is all i've been waiting for is you to make a decision to come to me and repent and get Baptismo is the word in the greek and all it meant is to wash or to immerse yourself And this is a crazy thing that god used a cultural word before it was a spiritual word They used the word baptismo all the time in the day There was like girl i'm about to go down to the lake and baptismo my hair Like like it wasn't a it wasn't a christian term But the reason that john and i believe god made that word is he because i want you to know that culture has a definition of something But I have a definition of something and I want you to identify with me And so they're hearing john say come get baptismal. It's like, oh my god. I was already taking a shower At the lake. Why is he telling me to get baptismal and it would intrigue these people like What is he talking about? That's more than what we're already doing What does this christ thing have to do?

15:31 With my life being cleansed more than my body or my hair or my clothes being cleansed So they were baptizing people in the same area that people were taking showers, that people were getting drinking water, and that people were washing their clothes. And they hear repent. Like, oh my God. Who is yelling?

15:54 But what would end up happening is they would see people's life transformed. And they said, maybe I'm not as clean as I think I am. Maybe maybe there's a portion of me that this water and this soap can't touch That has to be something that's done on the inside of me I feel the presence of god and and what ended up happening is They went and got baptized because baptism is a public declaration of a new association write that down It's a public declaration of a new association when I put this ring on my finger I was letting everybody else know all the other women That's my man right there. He helping me preach I was letting everybody else know That I was in an association with Natalie Diane Todd And and and when I get a new association, it should change the way people treat me And it should change the way I act with others Okay See when you get baptized today This should be an identification of a new association I was at your party last week and I turned up You got pictures I can't But that was who I was But today I got baptized Oh I feel this thing Today I got baptized And I talked a little different And I walk a little different And I'm not perfect yet But I'm progressing And there's some people in here that you've been looking for that defining moment and you thought it was gonna come when you got more money But all money does is magnify who you really are You need a transformation And what baptism says is that when you go down, it's a symbol of your old life going down And you identify with Christ and they say when you come up, you're a new creation And today there are hundreds of you in this room that I believe that that thing has been stirring in you And this is the moment that everything is going to change in your life.

17:54 Look at Matthew chapter 3 verse 11. It goes on. John is baptizing one day. He's like, y'all, I mean, I baptized with water, man. This is great what God is doing. And people are repenting of their sins and they're turning to God. But someone is coming soon who is greater than I am. No, no, no, no. Y'all don't get it. He's so much greater than I am. Matter of fact, he's so great. I'm not even worthy to tie his heir Jesus sandals He said I'm not worthy even to be a slave or carry his sandals He said when he gets here He's gonna baptize you with the Holy Spirit And with fire some of y'all have been trying to figure out like how does your relationship with God go to another level? It's like it's like playing Mario Brothers like there's certain things that you can't do until you pass a level And a lot of people on the first level of god like why can't I do this thing that I saw my friend do It's because you have not done the things that are necessary to go to the next level It's when you get baptized It opens up to another one who's going to come and baptize you with the holy spirit and with fire And this is what god wants and literally the bible says as john is talking Jesus walks up now picture that scene Like he's like bro. Somebody's coming. It's like, oh my god Y'all There he go, it's like no it ain't Look at him, that's him, that's who I was talking about It said then Jesus, verse 13 Of Galilee, he came up And then they went to Jordan River To be baptized by John But John was like, Jesus, you know this is dumb I should not be baptizing you I'm the one who needs to be baptized By you So why are you coming to me But Jesus said It should be done Thank you.

19:43 baptism should be done am i going to hell if i don't get baptized no you know not if you accepted jesus christ as your personal lord and savior we know that there are some situations like the thief that was on the cross and he accepted jesus right there he didn't have time he was hung up bad joke but but but he didn't have time to get baptized but we know jesus said today i'll be with you in paradise. You'll be with me in paradise. But if you had the time, the effort, the energy, pools outside, 85 degrees. And Jesus, our example said, it should be done. Why would we listen to a direct quote from our savior who didn't have to do it, but he did it so he could identify with us? Why would we hear that and then be like, no, I'm not, you know, I'm fine. And this is where it comes to having a side chick savior.

20:48 Is that there's a need or a want or a desire from the one you say you're in relationship with. But because it doesn't seem like a priority to you. You dismiss it. And God said, I want to I want to move up in your life. I don't want to be something that I meet your needs behind closed doors, but you act a different way on Instagram and Facebook. I don't want it to be that when you're in a dire situation and one of your family's needs need to be met you pray out and you cry out to me But then I never hear I never hear from you ever again After I meet your need God's saying I'd like you to do something for me Could you let your co-workers your family your friends? Could you let them know we're together? Could you let them know that even though our relationship is not perfect because there's still things we're working out That you chose me And I chose you And what happens here is he said this should be done For we must carry out all that god requires So a john agreed to baptize him don't miss this this is so powerful The powerful thing about jesus getting baptized is that Jesus doesn't ask sinners to identify with him first but through baptism he identifies himself with us he says I'm gonna do the same thing I'm gonna ask you to do we serve a God that never asked us to do anything that he hasn't done he said yo I'm gonna get in this dirty water in front of everybody who's gonna end up killing me because you're worried about what people think about you and he said I'm going to do this for and in front of the same people that are going to kill me but it doesn't matter he said because I want my children 2019 years from now on May 26 to know that I'm not asking them to just participate in something that seems cool

22:54 I'm asking them to let everybody know that I'm not a side piece in their life anymore. I'm the main deal. And I don't care what it took for us to get to this moment. I don't care how much hell we had to go through. I don't care how many times it almost didn't work. Today is a defining moment. And I'm going to prove it by getting baptized in this place.

23:53 And I look all through the scriptures like in Acts 8 when a unique Ethiopian man got saved. His first question was, where can I get baptized? He said, what must I do to get saved? They're like, nah, it's the Sabbath. He said, stop the cart. Isn't that some water over there? I want to do the thing that I know is taking me to the next level with God. And then this other woman in Philippians, there were some jailers that were there with Paul and Silas. When the jails were shaken, they got this man saved. And that man said, hold on, we got to go to my house and I'm going to get my whole family saved. Pookie, Ray Ray, Chauncey, everybody come on. We're going to get, everybody say baptized. He did not wait. He said, I can't wait for another opportunity. God just changed my life. I'm not promised tomorrow. So I'm not just going to lead my family and do it. I'm going to bring them with me.

24:46 And last year we saw entire families. Say, I know our relationship hasn't been the best, but today we're making a new declaration and a new association that God is in this relationship. And they got baptized together. All I'm saying to you in this place is that God wants to renew you. Some of you have had horrible paths, but baptism is an action of renewal. This is going to be a new day for so many of you. Galatians 3 27 and all who have been unified with Christ in Baptism is what the scripture says Put it up there because they need to see all who have been united with Christ in what does it say? That have put Christ on It's like a garment like putting on new clothes It's like it's like when I take this mug off and I get baptized. It's like, oh I put on something that's real clean and what ends up happening is now everybody doesn't see what was under what they first see is what's over until i unzip this and show you my scars and my my all this all you see is christ and this is what god says he said it's like putting on new clothes second corinthians 5 17 says therefore if any man be in christ think about christ as a new designer like if any man be in i'm wearing nike right now but just imagine this said christ they're not saying like if any man be clothed with christ because he's been baptized he is a new creature look at the promise the old things are passed away some of y'all been needing this so bad that what you did how you messed up what you said you would never do the second and the third problem and issue. He said, all that passes away. And behold, I make all things new.

26:44 What God told me, he said, Michael, the reason I don't want to be a side chick savior anymore is because I want to give them PDA. And some of y'all are like, huh? Public displays of affection? No, no, no. He wants to give you a public display of approval. See, that's what anointing is. because you don't realize what happened to Jesus after he made this happen. The Bible says, look at it, Matthew chapter 3 verse 16. It says, as soon as Jesus was baptized, as soon as it happened, as soon as he identified and went down and came up a new car, as soon, he went up out of the water and at that moment, heaven opened. I'm telling you, I prophesy to you right now that some of you are about to make this decision for baptism and as soon as you go down and as soon as you come up, heaven is opening over your family.

27:40 Heaven is opening over your situation. Heaven is opening over that issue that has been, oh, I feel the presence of God. Heaven, somebody say heaven open. It says heaven open. And he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove. and it came on him and the scripture says the father said this is my son that's my boy that's my girl they're marked and i'm well pleased what would happen if hundreds of us made a decision to go public today come alive in christ and allow God to open heaven over our lives and see his public display of approval. He opened the sky.

28:33 He didn't send him a text message. You remember when I talked about being approved in private? There comes a moment when you claim God that he'll approve you in public. And he cracked the sky and let everybody see. This act has changed everything. And Jesus goes from that place. He gets tempted and then he starts doing miracles that the world will talk about until jesus comes back Today, this is the first time some of you Will ever be who you've truly been called to be Because you're gonna make a decision. I feel the presence of god in this place Hearts are being molded right now people who came in here prideful are right now deciding like what do I have to lose? I'm making a decision to go public with my faith If you believe in baptism and you're thankful for it, can we give God a shout of praise in this place? So this is what I'm going to do We have over 160 people That before anybody got here Decided I'm getting baptized I will not have a side chick savior anymore I'm going public Everybody say public I'm going public with my faith But I feel like there's hundreds more That after hearing this And it don't matter about your title Or if your kids are going to think something Some of you men need to do this To make an example for your family That i've been a different person but today god is starting this transformation in my life Some of you mothers need to go ahead and do it. Some of you kids don't wait on your parents be the change in your house I'm telling you right now. This is a moment of renewal and I want to pray for you in this place right now The first thing I want to pray Is that you would give your life to christ if you're in this room and you've never made jesus your personal lord and savior See baptism has an order. Let's don't get baptized and then get saved Says get saved ask me to come in. Let me let my grace wash over you like a flood And then right after that you don't gotta wait a month and prove to everybody You could do it immediately But today would you close your eyes and bow your head everybody even watching on transformation nation?

30:41 And only you and god know if this is real We're gonna say this prayer today And I believe there are several people in this room that this is going to be a defining moment in your life Because you're gonna make jesus christ your personal lord and savior everybody just say god Thank you for sending jesus To identify with me Today I need a savior And I choose you Come into my life And change me Transform me Renew me I'm yours I believe you lived And you died Just for me And today, I surrender my life. today I surrender my life God I thank you for every person that prayed that prayer today I thank you that their lives are changed forever and we'll give you all the glory all the honor and all the praise in Jesus name come on can we give God a shout of praise in the building right