All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Valley Creek. We are so glad you are here with us today. 

Wherever you are, why don't you go ahead and just grab your seat for a moment. Once again, let me welcome you to Valley Creek. Whatever campus you're at, whether you're in Denton, Flower Mound, Gainesville, Lewisville, the Venue, or online somewhere in the world, can we just welcome each other together for a moment? We are one church that meets in multiple campuses that carries the hope of Jesus to thousands of locations. Hope is here. Everyone is welcome. Jesus changes everything. Whether this is your first time here, maybe you haven't been in a while, maybe you're here every single week, or maybe you've left and recently come back. I just want to tell you, we're really glad that you're here. We are a Jesus-focused, Spirit-filled, life-giving church. 

Jesus-focused – we're more focused on what Jesus has done for us than on what we have to do for Him. Spirit-filled – we want to walk in the character and the power of Jesus. Life-giving – we have a heart to receive and release the life of God wherever we go. We are a movement of hope for the city and beyond. Today is a great day because today we get to celebrate baptisms. Today, across all of our campuses, more than 200 people are getting baptized; 200 people. 200 people that are saying, "Jesus is Lord and I will follow." 200 people that are accepting Jesus' invitation to come follow Him, that He might make their life. 200 people who have been rescued from the kingdom of darkness and brought into the kingdom of life. 

200 people who are rising to a new life as a new creation in God. You see, we've been in this series called the Hope Carrier Initiative, talking about being disciples who live on mission that change their world. In this season, in this series somehow, God is moving. He's been speaking and He's touched these people's lives with His goodness and His grace. He's opened their eyes and their ears and their heart, and they're ready to receive and they're ready to respond. They've counted the cost. You see, to follow Jesus, you have to count the cost before you get started. You have to look at what He says and what He asks and what He invites you to before you move forward. They've counted that cost and they've decided it's worth it. Because you see, not only have they counted the cost of what it takes to follow Jesus, they've counted the cost of what life looks like when I don't follow Jesus. 

The cost of that is a life without hope, a life without joy, a life without peace. It's life without life. Following Jesus isn't really a cost, then, at all, is it? Because He says, "Come follow Me because I am the way, the truth and the life. If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and pick up the cross and follow Me and you will find life." The problem is, is in the world, that we deny the cross and pick up ourselves, and that's how we don't find any life. But Jesus says, "If you'll deny yourself and pick up your cross and follow Me, you will find life and life to the full." That's what these people have experienced, and we get to celebrate with them today together. 

You see, Jesus says, "All authority in heaven and on Earth has been given unto Me. Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." He says, "All authority in heaven and on Earth has been given unto Me." In other words, "I have been given say over all things, so go and make disciples." A disciple – a learner, a student, a follower, one who becomes like the one that they're following. Someone who is learning to think like and talk like and act like and live like and believe like Jesus. Someone who is learning to do the things that Jesus did, the way that He did them, in the places that He did them. Someone who is practicing the way of Jesus. 

Someone who is literally saying, "Jesus isn't just my savior. He's not just my Lord. He's my teacher of life, and He's teaching me how to live." "Make disciples of all nations" – all people groups; not just all countries, not just all areas of life, but all generations. Today, we've got kids and we've got students and we've got adults getting baptized. Why? Because God is not the God of a generation. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the God of all generations, of all people, whomsoever will may come. "Baptize them." Baptize them, literally means to be immersed. In a moment, you're going to watch them as they go in the water. They're going to literally be immersed in the water and come back up to be baptized. Literally, means I am identifying with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. I'm a new creation in Christ. 

I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, it's Christ who lives within me, and I am rising to a new life in Him. As they go in the waters, the past, their sin, their brokenness, their pain, the shame, the condemnation, it all dies and it stays in the water and they rise to become fully included in Jesus, where everything that's true of Him is now true of them. Baptized literally means to immerse them, not just in water, but in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. In other words, let's immerse them in the love of the Father, the grace of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. "And then teach them to obey everything I've commanded you." They're not perfect yet. They haven't figured it all out, but what they've figured out is that Jesus is the way of life. They're a new creation that's now going to learn to live a new lifestyle. They realize, "I need a church family. I need a community of faith. I need other people to shape and mold and form me into this new reality that I've now stepped into because I want to fully learn how to live this new life that I now have in God."

A caterpillar that becomes a butterfly. No one has to tell it to stop crawling in the mud, but someone has to teach that butterfly all the things it's now capable of doing. You need a community of faith to discover that, and they're realizing it. "And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." In other words, Jesus will be with them. He will never leave them nor forsake them. Even though they walk through the valley of the shadow of death, they do not have to fear any evil for He is with them, leading them to green pastures and still waters. Today, what you get to experience is why we do what we do. This is why we serve. This is why we give. 

This is why we lead. This is why we do Circles, and invite people to church and create culture and pray, and intercede. This is why we do all of this stuff, because some plant, some water, but it's God who makes it grow. It's like He uses our little that we offered to Him and He takes it and He turns it into much. To every person that gives and serves and leads and prays and creates culture and invites people, today, you get to see the fruit of your labor. You get to see the outworking of the movement of God through your life, raising other people from the grave. Here's what's going to happen. In a few moments, whatever campus and service that you're at, people are going to come and they're going to get in the tanks. As they get there, someone's going to ask them, "Is Jesus Lord, and will you follow?" And they're going to say, "Jesus is Lord, and I will follow." 

Then they'll say, "I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." They go under the water and they come back up. When they come back up, we cheer, we hoot, we holler, we yell. We don't golf clap. We celebrate. Why? Because this is the kingdom of heaven on earth. You see, the Bible says that in heaven, the angels gather around God night and day, all day long, 24x7, they worship. "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty who was, who is, and who is to come." They're worshipping, and yet, the Bible says that when one sinner repents, all of heaven celebrates that resurrection. It's like they're worshipping. Someone gets saved. They stop and they celebrate the heck out of what just happened in that person's life, and then, they go back to worshipping. 

What we're going to do is we're going to worship, and then, with each person that gets baptized, we celebrate and cheer because you just watch resurrection life happen before your eyes. We're joining with heaven in what heaven is doing. We want to cheer for the last person as loud as the first person. Here's what I want to say, as all this is happening, I have two questions that I want you to think about. First one is this, what's your next step? You're about to watch a whole bunch of people take a next step, what's yours? When was the last time you took a next step that was clear and identifiable, something that God asked you to do, and you moved forward by faith. Maybe it's to get baptized. Maybe it's to join a Circle or a team. Maybe it's to start giving. Maybe it's to forgive someone. Maybe it's to apologize. Maybe it's to let it go. I don't know, but you're about to see a whole bunch of movement of faith. What's your next step? 

Then, what's God saying to you today? See, the Spirit of God is in this room, and you might not even be sure why you're here today. You might not even want to be here today, but you're about to watch the life of God on display. Sometimes the greatest message you will ever hear is someone else's changed life. Listen to what God wants to say to you today as we celebrate, because this is what a movement of hope looks like. At every campus, will you stand back up with me? For those of you that are getting baptized, you can make your way to the tanks and we can get started here. We're going to celebrate. We're going to cheer. We're going to worship because this is the kingdom of God on earth in this moment. Come on, Valley Creek. Will you just raise your hands with me right now? Jesus, we just invite You into this moment because You're already here. Will You open up our eyes and our ears and our hearts? Thank You, God, for what You're doing. Thank You, God, for how You're moving. 

Thank You that we get to be a part of something bigger than ourselves. Today, we watch new creation, new life, death to life in Jesus' name. Holy Spirit come, have your way, and do that which only You can do in our hearts, in our minds, in our lives. We just believe by faith that healings are taking place, that breakthroughs are happening, that freedom is being released, that destinies are being opened up, that purpose is being declared. Come Jesus, and do that which only You can do. At every campus, everybody said, "Amen." Here we go. 

Come on. Glory to God forever. Glory to God in the highest because He keeps on moving and changing lives and this really is what a movement of hope looks like. This is what it looks like to be a hope carrier, to be the person that takes the hope that's inside of you and passes it on to somebody else. 

Many of the baptisms that we saw today are exactly that story. It's somebody who has the hope of Jesus, who's received it for themselves, that gives it away through their life, and somebody else says, "Man, I want some of that. I want to follow and do whatever you're doing and whoever you're following." They're following a guy, His name is Jesus. He changes things, and He moves, and He heals. He does profound things across generations. In Acts Chapter 2, Peter is talking to a crowd of people. He says, "Repent and be baptized all of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and the promise is for you, and for your family, and for all those who are far off." The promise is for you, and your family, and for all those that are far off from God. 

Part of what we got to see today, part of what a movement of hope looks like, is that generations of people, families, people stepping into their journey with Jesus and saying, "Hey, follow me as I follow Christ," and receiving the promise, and saying, "It's not just for somebody else, it's for me. It's for me." Here's my question. What does God want to say to you today? About what we just saw? About His promises? About His goodness? About the chance to repent, to think differently? And maybe for you to be baptized at some point? For you to follow Jesus as Lord? What does God want to say to you? In an atmosphere like this, there's a whole bunch of different people that are coming in here with all kinds of situations. 

Inevitably, there's somebody that's like, "Yeah, I don't know what I just saw. I don't know what y'all are doing, but I feel something. It feels real. It feels alive. It feels like something I hadn't experienced before." So maybe that's for you. Maybe the promise is for you, and for your family, and for all those that are far off. May it be in Jesus' name. See, this is why we do what we do. This is why we get into Circles. This is why we serve. This is why we do life as a family on mission. This is why we give. This is why sometimes the very greatest message that you could see or hear is the transformed life, like, that's what you're experiencing today. Because when you experience that and you see it for yourself, something comes alive inside of you – every single one of us. 

Every single one of us has this feeling of, like, life. I want that. This is why we do what we do. This is why we're a movement of hope. This is why we invite people to what Jesus is doing and what's happening among us. Next weekend is Easter. When you came in, you might have gotten one of these cards. What a perfect weekend to have after a baptism weekend. What a perfect weekend to think, "Man, somebody could come here and they could experience that life." Somebody could have received the promise for them and for their family and for all those that are far off. I want to invite you to grab this Easter card because we want to pray for our Easter services. We all know it's one of the times a year that a whole bunch of people are willing to say, "Yep, I'll come. Yep, I'll be there. Yes, I'll listen." Grab that card if you have that in your hands. We want to take a moment and we want to pray over our Easter services. We want to pray over all that God is going to do next weekend here among us. 

I've got to just tell you, He's going to do a lot. He's going to break off some stuff in some people's lives and some families are going to be transformed because the story of Easter is a story of Jesus. The story of Jesus is a story of resurrection life. We want to pray over Easter. I invite you even maybe to raise that card with me right now as we just, by faith, pray over all that God is going to do next weekend. I want you to pray, not just me, but I want you to pray. What if you just prayed and started by praying for our leaders and our serve teams and just ask the Lord to be with our leaders and our serve teams and all that's going to happen among the Easter services, all that's going to happen among us. Come on, just pray for strength and wisdom. Pray for a joy across our leaders and our serve teams as they get ready for Easter. Pray for our staff teams, our campus pastors, and all that's going to happen on site when people come to experience Jesus for the first time. Pray for the people that you're going to invite. 

Can I just tell you, God wants to go before you in that conversation. He wants to move in that conversation. Pray for the people you're going to invite that they're going to say, "Yes. Yes, I'll check it out. Yes, I'll join you. Yes, I'll be there." Pray for those people. Maybe pray for them by name. What if you just said their name as a declaration of the kingdom of God over their lives? Speak out their name, the person you're going to invite. Who's that one who's far off? Who's that one that needs the promise that's for them? Who's that person? Speak out their name. Come on, continue to pray that the Spirit just moves among us, that there's an atmosphere of faith and joy; faith, hope, and love in our worship services and the Easter experience. Spirit, will You just move among us at all of our campuses and online and wherever, we have the Easter experience. God, will You just be right in the middle of it? Jesus, we just pray for Easter because we know that it is a special time of year to remember who You are and what You've done. 

We even take time to pray for the other churches in our region. Will You be with them, God? Will You give them the wisdom of heaven and the insight into how to reach people and to declare your gospel message? We pray for those churches all across our area, all those pastors. Be with them and bless them. Jesus, thank You for what Easter represents. It represents resurrection life. Just like baptism has a resurrection life, Easter is resurrection life. Thank You, Jesus, that we get to experience that and see that. We're so excited for what You're going to do this Easter. We're so excited for the joy that we get to experience. We're so excited that there is a resurrected Savior. His name is Jesus. We believe that by faith. We declare it by faith in Your name. Amen.