This morning, I want to take a couple of minutes and talk about baptism.

I don't know that a lot of us are like, yes, baptism.

We're having baptism today, but it's really more than that.

Today, people are coming to overcome their fears, to overcome their nervousness,

to overcome whatever tension might have existed in a family or in a relationship

to say, I'm just going to take the plunge today and I'm going out on a limb

and I'm going to tell the world that I have fallen in love with Jesus.

And all of us who have been in moments like that know that's a huge step, don't we?

It's a big moment in life and I know for me, I was baptized when I was a kid growing up

and that's the way we did it in the stream that I grew up and you came down on the morning

and put your face in Jesus and filled out a card on a clipboard with the deacons

and then you got baptized that night.

It was like, bam, bam, bam, it all happened pretty quick and sometimes you didn't even see it coming

because you weren't 100% sure you were going down in the morning

and so you didn't even plan on getting baptized in the night and you had people out of town

and I don't know if anybody ever remembers those days but this morning it's not really happening like that.

This morning people are coming who've given a lot of thought and a lot of prayer

to stepping into this water today.

They've been meeting with people and walking through their story with people,

they've been praying and waiting on the Lord to sort of give them that last bit of confidence and encouragement

and when they come today their stories absolutely are going to blow our hearts apart

and before they come I just want to step back around the whole idea of what they're doing this morning

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