Todd Wagner: Welcome! We're glad you're here. My name is Todd. If you're a guest, I'm one of the guys on staff here at Watermark, and I love the privilege of serving our body with so many people who have been greeting you already and welcoming you and inviting you to be a part of an amazing day. This is a very different day than what we normally do. We baptize folks at Watermark all year long, and the reason we baptize people at Watermark all year long is because God tells us to as a matter of really, first, obedience.
In other words, what Jesus says is, "When you know who I am and you know what I've done for you and you personally want to move into a relationship with me, you do that by confessing with your mouth and believing in your heart." The way the world knows you believe what you say you believe is that you do what would follow from a person who believes God is good, his Word is true, and Jesus is the means to which we're reconciled to God.
God has given us a picture that we should identify ourselves with him. It's called baptism. It's what the word baptism really means: to identify with. It means for us to participate in a moment where we declare Jesus' death, burial, and resurrection to new life is evidence that God's wrath was satisfied and is the means through which we can be forgiven, so we're here to celebrate that.
We do that all year long, but every year, as we move into the spring, we let folks know, "If you haven't done that yourself this year with us in different ways, then let's make a point to do it on this Sunday," and we're going to celebrate all of the life change that has happened all around us. Literally, hundreds of people are going to celebrate that today on this campus, up in Plano, and in Fort Worth, and we're really glad you're here because you're going to get to hear the story of the gospel, the best news we could ever tell you again and again and again.
We're thrilled, and we'll give you more details about how we're going to do that and where we're going to go. We realize some of you are here because friends are making that public declaration and you don't know this God we know, so it wouldn't be normal for you to sing songs to him about how great he is, but we know you're here because you trust us and you think we have something to say today that, because you love us, you want to hear. We're going to start declaring to you those things right now through song. Let's stand and do that together. We're glad you're here.
Father, that is our prayer today, that we would not just go through some order here of service, some ceremony, but there would be true transformation and revival in our hearts. Even for those of us who know you and love you, that you would just revive our understanding of your kindness. We pray for our friends who are here, Lord, watching this and wondering, "What in the world is going on?" or maybe they've been around religious services or ceremonies for a while, that they'd realize this is not the celebration of a service.
It's a celebration of a relationship, that you want to know us so much that you shattered through the darkness and the separation of eternity in sin, you made provision for our sin through Jesus, and we, Father, have by your grace been taught to see the glory of your name, and it has revived us. We thank you for the stories of that we're going to hear today, and I pray in telling them we would be lifting up your Son, our Savior, very God of very God. In Jesus' name, amen.
Please be seated. Let me tell you what's going to happen. We're so glad families are in here. Mama, if you have a little one who is hungry or whatnot, just slip out with them so we can keep focusing on what's here, but we're so glad everybody is here and we get to share together this moment.
What we're going to get to do here in just a moment is we're going to break up into all kinds of rooms and all kinds of places, but what I'd love for you to do in just a moment is to look at the list of names of folks who are being baptized. See if you recognize any name. Then, you would want to go and support that person as they share publicly their story of grace.
If you don't know any name, just pick a number and go and listen and pray for the folks who are sharing. Pray they wouldn't just be at peace as they get to speak publicly, which is fearful for a lot of people, but pray their life would continually be increasing in the grace and knowledge of God. Then, we're going to celebrate outside for a long time.
What we'd like to do in here, though, is to share a couple of stories corporately that are representative of the hundreds of stories you're about to hear, and we intentionally grab stories that are representative of dozens of other stories to let you know God loves people and runs after them and stories of people who have been around, maybe, communities of faith for a while but have never run toward God and God is running toward them even then.
I want you to meet my friend, Lauren. Lauren is going to share her story with you. Come on up here, Lauren. Lauren has been hanging around Watermark (she told me this morning and reminded me) since we were a group that didn't have any place to meet. We were in one of those weird places that you weren't sure had enough legitimacy to have their own facility to gather in. We were at a high school at that particular time.
Lauren, somebody ran into you at your place of employment, right, and just said, "Hey! Come hang out." Let me just let you take off and then we'll interact together in just a moment. This is my friend, Lauren.
Lauren: Hi, church! Yeah, that place of employment was a bar, and I was in a pretty sinful place and needed some God in my life. I ended up finding Watermark and came in and out for seven or eight years now, depending on my sin struggle and whether or not I agreed with what Todd was saying. There were large chunks of my life when I wasn't here before I came to know Christ.
By the time I was 19, I was a pregnant drug addict adult entertainer, so you can imagine the life before 19 that got me to that place. My 20s weren't any better. I have alcoholism in my story. I have abuse. I have sexual assaults. I have drug addiction. I mean, you name it I gave it a good try, and nothing would fit in that God-shaped hole I had in my soul.
In 2013, God decided we were done trying it my way and we were going to try it his way, and he started taking some pretty hard shots at my life, and in that place I decided to start coming back to Watermark pretty regularly. It was unbelievable. It was just one thing after another. My dog died tragically. I lost my job. The truck broke down. You know, 2013 was intense, and I ended up having to fight CPS for custody of my children, which was one of those things that was like, "Hey! Are you paying attention? Are you listening?"
It got to the place where in December of 2013 he took the shot that took me down. I had lost my father on December 7, 2013, and I finally got to that place because I kept getting up and fighting every shot after the other. Every shot, I kept getting up. I was fighting. "Christ can strengthen me. I can do all things. I'm a warrior for God."
I'd come to church, and I'd get that bump of faith. Then, I'd go back into the world. "I'm going to fight through this," but then when I lost my dad I stayed down, and I realized he hadn't been taking shots at my heart; he was aiming at my knees, and I prayed, and I asked for a Savior. I mean, I stayed down in that place.
Watermark has a ministry called GriefShare. Shout out, GriefShare! It was a biblical way to process the most horrible thing I could think of that could happen to me, and I found God's love, and I found his grace and his mercy and his redemption in that place. In that broken place down there in the pit in the absolute lowest place I could possibly be in my life, he came to me there, and I learned what Psalm 46:1 is.
He is my strength and my refuge. He is my strength. Not, "I can get up in there and get some strength and come down with spinach and Popeye." No. None of that. He is my strength, but that second part was the part that really just transformed my life entirely. It was the part where he is my refuge. I didn't know what a refuge was. I knew what abuse was. I didn't know what a shelter was. I knew what living in my car was. I didn't know what any of those things meant. I didn't know what promises and safety were. I didn't have that.
He taught me, "It's okay to be there. It's okay to hurt. It's okay to not know what you're doing. It's okay to be alone raising children. I'm here with you. I can do this. You just need to rely on me. We can get through this." It was just an unbelievable journey that got me through GriefShare. I'm now a leader in GriefShare. I lost my job about five months ago, and money has literally fallen from the sky. I actively participate in the single parents' ministry here. Shout out, SPF!
If you don't have the Porch app, download that. Shout out, Porch! There is hope and there is redemption, and if I can go from the bottom to where I am now, he can do it for you, too. If you stumbled in today and you don't know what I'm talking about but you know about sadness, you know about loss, you know about hurt, brokenness, shame, and misery, I would like to introduce you to my love, Jesus Christ, because he can save you just like he saved me.
Todd: Shout out, Jesus!
Lauren: Shout out, Jesus!
Todd: Lauren reminded me, this sweet little girl who grew up with a single mother…
Lauren: Ear muffs, children.
Todd: …and is a single mom herself and was repeating some of that same brokenness in her life. She and I met personally. It was a year ago right about now, and even though you were around right down here after one of the services, in the midst of looking for affection and belonging and getting away from some of the expressions of abuse, you were finding acceptance in a same-sex relationship, and as God convicted you in the midst of that, you ejected from that and kind of swung the pendulum the wrong way, and we thought maybe we were having a fourth child.
Lauren: Yes. I had left a same-sex relationship I had been in for about seven years. I had left that relationship and jumped right into a heterosexual relationship, and I was worried.
Todd: That was just as destructive, right? Not less destructive. Not more destructive. It was just another expression of trying to find life apart from God.
Lauren: I think your exact words that day were, "Out of the frying pan and into the fire." Yeah.
Todd: I remembered just listening to you. It was a funny conversation because there was this understanding of God but a lack of intimacy and abiding with him. There was belief but not believing, as we have said recently here. In the midst of that, you said, "I'm not going to now make a mistake. I'm not going to punish this child for mama's craziness," so we began to walk through those roads together. It turns out it wasn't, in fact, what we thought was going on. There wasn't a pregnancy.
Lauren: By God's grace I trusted in him and it ended up not taking, so I'm still with my three babies.
Todd: But what has taken since then?
Lauren: I'm in re:generation. I'm going through that. Shout out, re:generation! I'm a Watermark junkie, y'all. Going through re:generation has just been transformative. That was the thing. I kept getting all of this information. I kept just coming to church and taking on information. I'd do the whole pray and open.
I'd be like, "Okay. That's good. On to the next thing in the Bible," and nothing was transforming. It was just straight-on information, but when I hit that place of surrender when I lost my father and I just stayed in that place, that's when it was like, "Hey! It doesn't have to be this way anymore."
Todd: Let me tell you what I love about Lauren's story. When she went to GriefShare, she heard about Jesus. When she went to re:generation, she heard about Jesus. When she bumped into some of you individually, she heard about Jesus. When she went to The Porch, she heard about Jesus. This is not about Watermark, The Porch, re:generation, or GriefShare. This is about the one who saves and who sparks new life and who heals and who is not angry at Lauren. He's not angry at you. He's just saying, "Sweetie, when are we going to listen to each other? When are you going to really begin to enjoy the forgiveness and the life I have?"
Lauren: Absolutely. I'm able to take what I learn here… I mean, this is basically just a place. We call this a campus. This is where I learn for when I go out into the world. Not having a job, I'm able to spend a lot of time in different shelters in the area and I've gotten to really know and connect with people there.
I've started Bible studies in a couple of those shelters. Because I don't work for them, I'm able to take in Jesus and get Bibles out there and take that out into the world and into the workplace. I still work in a restaurant in the bar industry. I still have that group of people around me who I'm able to take what I learn here and take it out. Thank you, all. Thank you, all.
Todd: So sometimes you read the Bible and you hear stories about Mary Magdalene and others and you wonder if God is still saving people like that today. I think Lauren is a loud yes, and if you're here today and you wonder, "That's nice, your little church story," this is not a church story.
This is a Jesus rescue story, and I pray you would see that in Lauren's life because what you're seeing is a little girl who is being redeemed to her Father and is beginning to walk with him in a way that her three children are going to see not just a single mom but a transformed, saved mom who lives in community and has a family here who loves her.
If I'm the Enemy, I'm trying to take this one out. I'm aiming for her heart and for her head, and I'm trying to lie to her all of the time, so one of the things that happens at baptism is, if you're a member of this body and you see Lauren now, you go, "That's my sister. I'm responsible to love her, to pray for her, to encourage her, to help her, to admonish her, and to ask her how she's doing."
Lauren: Hold me accountable. I need it.
Todd: There's the deal, so I asked Lauren the same thing you've probably seen as she's been up here talking. It's a little Arabic. Tell them what it says.
Lauren: Yeah. It says, "I suffered, I learned, and I changed," and I got it on the one-year anniversary of my sobriety date, so… We learn, and then we change.
Todd: Here's the story you heard today. Sometimes God lets that suffering come in because he lets you reap what you sow so you'll stop sowing there and so you'll stop reaping the suffering, so the change that happened is not just sobriety. The change that happens is clear thinking. "I'm not a good god. Trying to deal with my pain with my own strategy is not a good way, but Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life, and you should come to him."
Father, I pray for Lauren. Thank you for your grace in her life and thank you for her clarity of speech and thought and her boldness. Lord, this big life right here, this sweet single mother's life is a shout out to our Savior and our King, and I pray you'd keep growing her and protecting her. I pray this community around her would be a family and encouragement and a love for her in the way she is an encouragement to us.
We love you, and we thank you, Father, that you say to all of us, "Come, ye sinners, poor and needy, weak and wounded, sick and sore. Come." I thank you Lauren is reminded that when we come there is grace and mercy there. May that story be multiplied out 100 times today. In Jesus' name, amen.
[Song]
Todd: It's amazing to move in and out of worship in song by worship and speech. I want to share with you again the story and the picture of baptism. What you're going to see today are people who are standing before you and they're going to answer, in effect, three questions. They're going to answer, first, "Do you believe God has forgiven you for your sins?" They go, "Yes, absolutely. He's not in the process of forgiving me. I am forgiven. The debt has been paid. It is finished."
We'll ask them, "Do you believe Jesus is the means through which you have been forgiven?" They'll say, "Yes!" Then, that third question goes with the song we just sang, and it's what we corporately do all of the time, but individually we're called to answer the question, "With the life you still have, do you purpose to love and honor and serve him in response to his love?"
It's not performance-based acceptance; it's acceptance-based performance. "Do you purpose to want to honor and love him with your life?" and they're basically saying, "All to Jesus I surrender, all to him I freely give. I'm going to seek to take up my cross and daily follow him." We are not perfect people at Watermark. We all have moments we just move away from in that second trusting what God wants us to do.
My family suffers from that more than anybody in those little moments when I'm impatient and demanding and full of expectations I haven't communicated that I wonder why they don't think like I think, and it turns into a very non-loving leader (nonverbally…tone), and in those moments I'm not Jesus' man.
We're not talking about being perfect, and some of us run really far from God and we look for life in other places and we need each other to come back, but what you're seeing is a group of people today who haven't just decided to do this on a whim but have sat and shared their story of grace. They've opened up God's Word. They've given a testimony. They've said, "This Scripture is mine. I believe it."
There is a moment in your life when God calls you to do that. In fact, today might be the day when God calls some of you to move with clarity toward him. What I'm going to tell you is we baptize folks all year long. Don't get discouraged that you can't get baptized today or we're not going to baptize you today. Today is about taking the step in the process of obedience with folks who have been communicating with us, but trust Christ today.
We'll baptize you next week. We'll baptize you tomorrow night. We'd love to do that. Every week, I'd love between services for a bunch of us to be out there just celebrating life change, so don't be discouraged, but come. Come to Jesus and say, "This is my day. With clarity, I'm going to make a decision for him." There comes a time in your life when you can do that no matter what kind of community of grace you've been around.
Jim, come on up here. I want you to meet my friend, Jim Proctor, who is going to share with you his story and share with you a little bit about his journey to where he understood who Christ was and his need not just to be around religious environments but to be in relationship with the God who calls us to know him. Jim?
Jim Proctor: Good morning, church. My name is Jim. I grew up in Dearborn, Michigan, in a very good family, a loving family. We grew up Catholic. I went to church every Sunday. I went to catechism every Monday by force through my mother. In fact, when I got old enough, I got a part-time job and made sure I worked on Monday nights so I wouldn't have to go back to catechism.
I never understood what it meant to follow Christ or have a personal relationship with him. It was never discussed at home. We didn't even own a Bible at that time, and in catechism I didn't want to be there so I didn't hear anything. I grew up kind of thinking, "If I was good enough, I'd get in." I thought, "I'm a good enough guy. Fifty-one percent of the time I'm there, so I'm in."
As I moved through life, I got my education. I got a job. In my 20s, I went out on weekends binge drinking all of the time and playing sports (any sport I could play, whether it was team sports or individual sports), dating when I could get a date… Look at me. You know, just living my life, but as the years turned into decades, I finally thought something was missing in my life. I really was craving something else. This was happening in my 20s, actually. I just knew something was missing.
I often thought, "I'm going to meet the right girl and get married and everything is going to come together," or "There's a nice, shiny new job over there. If I get that job, I'll be satisfied," but it was never satisfying to me. Finally, in my early 40s, I met up with a group of running friends here in Dallas at White Rock Lake, and many of them were Christians.
One woman invited me to go to church at a non-denominational Bible church in far North Dallas, so I went to church, and I saw in her and in many of these Christians in the running group an inner peace and joy I never thought was possible. I quizzed them. I said, "What is this?" They said, "We have a personal relationship with and we believe in Jesus Christ." I said, "Well, I believe in God. How come I can't have that?" I even found myself one night face down in my bed in my pillow pounding my fists on the bed going, "God, where are you in my life?"
Well, two months later, he showed up. I was at a party (not unusual for me) drinking a lot of wine (still not unusual for me), got drunk, and had to stay at the neighbor's house on her couch. Well, the next morning that neighbor led me to Christ, and I confessed my sins and accepted Jesus into my life.
Immediately, things started to change for me. I felt an inner peace and joy (I couldn't stop smiling) that I had never had. I went out and bought eight Bibles, I think it was, and started reading and went to church on a more regular basis and started taking some classes. I finally realized, in Romans 3:23, "…for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…" and. in Ephesians 2:8 and 9, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
As a guy growing up Catholic, that was very comforting to me, that I was never going to be good enough and I had to put my faith in Jesus Christ. Those years following that, I still fell short. I still would drink a lot, especially at big events my friends were at and stuff like that, and I still sinned a lot, but I finally saw some changes in my life. My language started to clean up. Some of the things I was doing behind closed doors I had stopped doing. Some of the things I did in the past I thought back and said, "Wow! I thought that was acceptable behavior, but it's not."
Things really started to change as I dug in and did a daily Bible reading and started attending church and getting into a body of believers. I'm one of those guys who had to do everything by myself, so it was really hard for me to jump in and actually become a member of this church. It took me several years. I was like, "I just have to get in here," and it was just leading to me. When I did that, everything started to change again for me.
I started to take some leadership roles. I see some of my community group members are here. I'm co-leading them. I don't know why, but… A bunch of old, single guys. Also, I'm helping out in Equipped Disciple leading some tables there and just started working on the Believe Team, too. I had to do a shout out since you covered everything else, Lauren, and I praise Jesus for what he has done in my life and what he continues to do in my life. Thanks.
Todd: Amazing! What I want you to hear from Jim… Way to go, Jim! At one point, he said, "God, where are you in my life?" and the response you described was, "That's the question I want to ask you, Jim. Where am I in your life? I mean, you're around this stuff." Catechism… There's some good truth being exchanged there, and truth exchange is important because truth sets us free, but it sets us free when we engage with it and we personally appropriate it in our lives. To listen to Jim up here now who doesn't just own eight Bibles but reads them. Yes?
Jim: I do, every day.
Todd: You talk about that truth with your community guys who spur you on and admonish you and encourage you and help you. They devote daily and pursue each other relationally. As a result of that, the brightness in his eyes and the hope he has is not just in that form but in the function of a relationship with the living God. This Equipped Disciple? Tell people who don't know what that is what Equipped Disciple is. It's another place that's about Jesus. What is Equipped Disciple?
Jim: Equipped Disciple is a three-course series that teaches you the basics of how to study and how to be a Christian. It goes through Bible studies. It goes through Bible readings and journaling, some Scripture memory. It's something I really needed in some structure to really help me grow. I would recommend if anybody hasn't taken Equipped Disciple to jump in.
Todd: If you're here and you want us to help you with structure that will lead you to a basic understanding of the Bible, how to study it for yourself, apply it to your life, and what Scriptures you should memorize if you start to hide God's Word in your heart, take the perforated section in your Watermark News, write your name, your contact info, and just say, "Equipped Disciple."
We will follow up with you in the same way we did with Jim, who is now a leader there. You'll see this man there encouraging and helping others. This is about a personal relationship not about a God who wants you to show up but a God who wants to show up in your life in every way. Let me say this in closing.
In America, when we talk about discipleship, most people think it's about learning more information. In the Bible, when it talks about being a disciple, it talks about following Jesus more. We don't follow him and so we're saved. We are saved into understanding that he's good, so we follow him. I'm going to let you quote one more time the verse you did a second ago (Ephesians 2:8-9). I want you to listen to what this verse says about how we come into relationship with God.
Jim:"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast."
Todd: Then, it says this in verse 10: "For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them." Jim, I want to tell you something. I love seeing you walk in it. I love seeing you be a man saved by grace through faith, not as a result of works, who then works out his faith by loving him in all of the ways God says, "Jim, this is how I want to use you, to be a discipler, a lover, part of my family, and to testify to the sufficiency of Jesus Christ." Well done, brother. God bless you.
Jim: Thank you!
Todd: Lord, I pray for Jim. I pray today you would use his story just to wake somebody up who has been sitting around Watermark for a long time here in the catechism of truth from this pulpit and maybe from re:generation or The Porch or GriefShare or some other place that they need to personally engage, who are wondering, "Where are you, God?" That's what you're saying to them. "Where are you? Come! Come to me."
Father, I thank you that you break our chains of sin and shame. You cover us with grace. You break our chains of dead religion and functionality into a real life faith relationship. I pray for Jim, his men he runs with, and the church he's a part of right here at Watermark, that he would be a disciple-maker, he would teach others to follow you, as he himself abides with your Word and follows you. Bless my friend. Thank you for the grace of God on his life. May it be multiplied out a thousand times in this body and into others who learn from him. In Jesus' name, amen.
Here's what I want you to know. Every single person up here on this stage in just a moment is somebody who, whether it's where they work, where they hang out and run, somebody said, "Come and see. Let me tell you about my Jesus. Come and hang out." Maybe it's somebody who lives in your home. Parents, there is no greater opportunity than to model everyday for your kids. This is the goodness of God. This is why we walk in his ways and say, "Come and see. Come and learn his ways. Come and know my God."
There are a lot of kids in this body who on their own are saying, "Mom and Dad, I don't want to just know your God anymore. I want him to be my God." Every kid who is up here has said, "I love my mom and dad, but let me tell you what. I want to honor Jesus and honor him. I've seen the blessing of that, maybe, in my family, but it's my God."
There are a lot of adults here who didn't have that home or maybe did and just squandered it and moved away from it or never really understood what God wanted, where it took running into one of you in this community and personally saying, "Would you look at me? God loves you, and he wants to know you, and he wants to make provision for your sin."
Here's the deal. It's disciples who go out and tell others about that kindness. If there is not somebody on this stage today who wants to look you in the eye and say, "Thank you for telling me about Jesus," you are squandering the greatest privilege this world could ever tell you about and what God has called you to, if you're his.
Yesterday was a major day, so-called, in the sporting community. I don't know if you heard about it. There was a horse race in Kentucky. There was a basketball game in LA. There was a fight in Vegas. Do you know where God's eyes were? Looking for you. He didn't care about the horse race, the basketball game, or the fight. He cared about you, and he wants to know you, and if he does know you, he wants others to know him through you. Look what God does when people just say, "Come and see! Come and know my Lord." Watch this.
[Video]
All right! That's the deal. God set us free from having to live according to what the world says is smart, what we think is smart. We are free now because we believe God is good to go, "Let's look and see what his Word says." We realize we don't have to do anything. He has done it for us, but we're going to look at what his Word says because we're free now to believe that he is good because we've come to understand that Christ died for us.
Gang, we celebrate these stories all year long, and maybe today is the day your story is going to be written because you're going to move out of just a general understanding of Jesus to say, "That's my Jesus!" and from the tale of truth to say, "That's my teacher." Jim was christened in the Catholic Church. The Bible talks about believer's baptism. As he's studying his Bible, he goes, "I've never done that as a believer!" That's why he is on this stage today and he can't wait for you to see his identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
We're going to celebrate this all day long. We do it with food out there. We're going to feed anybody who wants to be fed. If you're not really up for the hamburgers and hot dogs we're going to feed you, there are a bunch of food trucks out there. They are not free. There's no gospel at the food trucks! That's a pay-as-you-go gig there. Free is what we are in Christ, and all of the other food that's out there not in a truck is free through the generous gift of this community of friends who want to celebrate like crazy.
One of the ways we're going to celebrate is we're going to just pound social media with what is called #watermarkbaptism15. Take a picture. Post it wherever you post your stuff, on Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest or Instagram and just celebrate what God has done. Let me show you what else God is doing as part of this one church we're a part of. I haven't heard from Plano yet, but this is Fort Worth. That's the community over there. That's this morning.
Through your leadership, your gifts, your vision, and other people wanting that story in their community that's what is happening over there today. It's an amazing thing! Inside your Watermark News, you'll find out where every one of these people is going to be hanging out for the next 45 minutes. You go find a number. You go listen to some people talk about the one who set them free, and then we're going to celebrate all afternoon.
God bless you. Have a great day of worship. We'll see you.
