From death to life

Pastor Max Lyons opens a baptism Sunday by celebrating those going public with their faith. When we are baptized, we die with Christ and are raised to a brand new life, and the sin, shame, and guilt stay behind in the water. He tells the story of John, a young man from Missouri who fell through a frozen lake, was dead for over an hour, and came back to life when his mother prayed. The same is true of baptism, just as the Israelites walked through the Red Sea out of slavery and into freedom.

Why Mark starts with baptism

Mark skips the genealogy and the Christmas story and goes straight to Jesus' baptism. It is the clearest moment in Scripture where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all manifest at once, and it functions as the coronation of Christ. Pastor Max recalls walking into a mall arcade as a kid to find his favorite game, Street Fighter 2, covered with a paper sign reading "out of order." Something inside was broken, so the whole machine was broken. Too many people live life out of order and then wonder why they feel anxious, empty, or purposeless. Jesus' baptism in Mark 1:9–13 puts three things in the right order.

Identity before activity

As Jesus comes out of the water, heaven is violently torn open, the Spirit descends like a dove, and the Father says, "You are my beloved son; with you I am well pleased," joining the messianic prophecies of Psalm 2:7 and Isaiah 42:1. At this point Jesus has done zero miracles. If we wrote the story, the Father's approval would come at the end, after the ministry and the cross. In God's kingdom it comes first. Pastor Max describes asking his kids after discipline why Daddy loves them, and they answer, "Because I'm your son" or "Because I'm your daughter." God loves us not because we are good but because He is good, and we work from His approval rather than for it. If this order is reversed, we spend our lives trying to earn approval and fill voids with other things.

Private before public

The Spirit then leads Jesus, not accidentally but deliberately, into the wilderness. A wilderness season does not mean God is absent; He often leads us there to strengthen us. Pastor Max tells of a Bible college friend who wanted to preach but was assigned to the Spanish translation team in a back room. He chose to become the best translator he could, later started a community group in Spain by translating messages, and today leads what Pastor Max understands to be the largest church in that nation. We want God to launch us in public before we have done the work in private, but if we are not formed in private, we will fall in public.

Fight before fruit

Jesus spends forty days being tempted by Satan, and the very next verse launches His public ministry. God positions us for a fight before we see fruit. Pastor Max shares his own story of leaving a consulting job in New York for Bible college in Sydney, expecting doors to fly open, and instead never once being asked to speak in chapel over two years. Only when he surrendered his ambitions, telling Jesus he would clean toilets or stack chairs if that was all he ever did, did a pastor in London invite him into ministry that same week. David fought a lion and a bear before Goliath, and Goliath before leading an army and a nation. You cannot lead a Group on finances if you are not tithing or lead a Team if you have never served on one. God wants us to be David, not Saul, so He does not place us where we will fall.

A ring, not a requirement

Does a Christian have to be baptized? Pastor Max answers that baptism is like a wedding ring. Taking the ring off does not end the marriage; the vows did that. But it would be strange to hide the ring and never tell anyone you are married. Yet the Bible everywhere assumes that those who repent will be baptized. The closing challenge is to go public with faith in Jesus, to stop hiding the ring in our pocket, and to be unashamed of the gospel. It is not a have to; it is a get to.