The Blessing Before the Battle •.August 23, 2026 • Andrew Spradlin • Mark 1-9-13

Welcome to the Valley Baptist Church sermon podcast.

We're so glad you're here, and we hope this message inspires you,

builds your faith, and moves you toward a deep relationship with God.

Today, you'll find great insight into the Bible

and learn how you can apply it straight to your life.

So welcome and enjoy the message.

In the New Testament, God gave us four portraits

of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And all of them are important

because they give us a different angle,

different vantage point or viewpoint for Jesus.

It's sort of like looking at a mountain.

Whenever you look at a mountain,

you can get a good and accurate look at that mountain

from one spot.

But because the mountain is so big

It's not an exhaustive look.

So in order to better understand that mountain, you've got to move around that mountain a little bit

so you can get a view from multiple viewpoints.

Well, the life of Jesus and the nature of Jesus is like that.

The reason God gave us four Gospels is so we can better understand the fullness

and the richness and the magnificence of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, Matthew and Mark begin their gospel by telling us about the birth of Jesus.

But Mark skips all of that.

He just starts immediately into the public ministry of our Lord.

He gives us only a few short verses in chapter 1 that sort of set the scene.

Last week, we looked at those verses.

Last week, we were introduced to...

Jesus's cousin, John the Baptist.

John was an eccentric guy.

He lived out in the desert, in the wilderness.

He wore camel's hair, he ate locusts and wild honey.

And he was appointed by God to be a prophet

who would prepare the way of the Lord,

who would come before the Messiah.

And he did that by preaching a message of repentance.

And people from all over Jerusalem, all over Judea,

gathered by the thousands to hear him preach,

to confess their sins.

and to be baptized.

But John's message was not just one of repentance,

of turning away from sin.

His message was to prepare the people's hearts

to encounter Jesus.

He told them, there's one coming after me

who's a lot mightier than I am.

I'm not even worthy to stoop down and unlatch his sandals.

He said, I'm baptizing you with water,

but he's able to baptize you with the Holy Spirit.

Well, meanwhile, about 60 miles to the north or so,

Jesus was in Galilee, Nazareth,

and he was there where he grew up

with his father as a carpenter.

And one day, I assume, prompted by the Holy Spirit,

Jesus just lays down his carpenter tools.

And he travels to Judea to begin his public ministry that would last roughly three years.

We read in verse number nine.

It says, it came to pass in those days that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.

And immediately coming up from the water, he saw the heavens parting and the spirit descending upon him like a dove.

Then a voice came from heaven.

You are my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased.

Jesus' public ministry commences with his baptism.

He arrives on the scene in Judea.

I'm sure there's a large crowd gathered around the prophet John.

And I imagine he kind of pushes his way through the crowd.

He approaches John to be baptized.

Now we know from Mark's account that John kind of argued with him for a moment.

He tried to talk him out of it.

You know, John, I think, is thinking, I should be baptized by you, Jesus.

Not the other way around.

But but Jesus insisted, saying, I need to be baptized in order to fulfill all on

to fulfill all righteousness.

And so Jesus and John, they walked together into the Jordan River.

And John lowered Jesus under the water, baptizing him, baptizo in Greek, which simply means to immerse underwater.

He submerged Jesus under the water.

And then Mark says something absolutely glorious happened when John raised Jesus out of the water.

were open and the Spirit of God descended upon Jesus

like a dove and God the Father blessed Jesus,

said, you're my son, my blessed beloved son

in whom I'm well pleased.

So here's the first thing we see

about the baptism of Jesus, what it did.

It revealed the triune nature of God.

One God in three distinct persons

simultaneously on display in this event.

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Now, the Trinity, admittedly, is not easy for us to get our minds around.

But it's true.

Adrian Rogers used to say,

the doctrine of the Trinity is not beyond logic and reason, just above it.

I like that.

Jesus is baptized, and what a glorious moment it is

as the triune God is on display for all to see.

Now, as Jesus' face emerges from those waters, glistening in the sun,

the Holy Spirit descends upon him like a dove.

Not an actual dove.

It says like a dove, a symbol of peace and gentleness,

also a fulfillment of prophecy.

Isaiah chapter 11, verse 2 says,

Isaiah 11:2

The Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.

That's the coming Messiah.

The Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.

So the Holy Spirit comes and he rests upon the Lord,

anointing him for his public ministry.

And then the heavens open up.

Literally, they're torn open.

It's the same exact word that Mark uses later in his gospel to describe

when God the Father tears the temple curtain in two from top to bottom after the crucifixion.

In a similar manner, God the Father, he tears open, he rips open heaven,

and he calls Jesus, my beloved son.

Now,

As we're going to see, Mark emphasizes throughout his gospel that Jesus is the very son of God.

He said it in the very first sentence of his book that we looked at last week.

The demons are going to even proclaim it throughout the book.

And here Mark says, even God the Father declared that Jesus is his son.

Now later in Mark, at the transfiguration of Christ, God the Father is going to say the same thing.

You're my beloved son.

Now, some people, unfortunately, try to downplay this title, Son of God,

thinking that somehow it means that Jesus is somehow less than God.

But that's not at all what it means.

It means the opposite.

Let me ask you, what species is the son of a dog?

It's a dog, right? It's a canine.

What species is the son of a human being?

A human.

What species is the son of God?

God.

The very nature of God is what he is saying.

God makes himself revealed here.

Jesus was and is fully divine.

And that's made clear, as is the rest of the Trinity,

from day one of our Lord's ministry.

Now, we also see that the baptism of Jesus inaugurates his public ministry, kind of a formal kickoff.

It was the will of God that Jesus be baptized in part so the spirit could anoint him and God the Father could formally bless him and commission him.

Can you imagine how Jesus must have felt when God's voice thundered from the heavens?

My son, I'm pleased with you.

I imagine he was ecstatic at that because did you know there's nothing in all the world

like having God's approval upon your life?

For God to say, I'm pleased with you.

Jesus had it.

So the Spirit anoints him.

The Father blesses him.

And all of this kicks off Christ's public ministry that would end at the cross.

But the question becomes, why baptism?

I mean, Jesus had no sin to repent of, and so why was he baptized?

Well, I think the main reason is that his baptism identified Jesus with sinners.

You and I.

He came to identify with us, right?

Jesus would begin and end his ministry both by identifying with sinners in his baptism, but then also in the cross.

I mean, wasn't that the reason that Jesus came to the earth in the first place?

He came to stand in the place of human beings.

You and I, to be our substitute, taking upon himself all of our sin.

And so Jesus begins his ministry the same way

he's going to end his ministry on the cross,

not by shying away from sinners,

you know, holier than thou type of a thing,

but by wading through a crowd of sinners.

And he waded into the waters of sin,

just like he would wade into the waters of sin

on the cross, right, for his baptism.

You see, in many ways, baptism is about identification.

It's about identification.

When Jesus was baptized, he was identifying with us.

And whenever we're baptized, we are identifying with him.

Now, another reason that Jesus was baptized, I believe, was to provide us an example to follow.

Remember, throughout Mark's gospel,

he highlights the life of Jesus,

but he also highlights the way of Jesus,

meaning how as disciples, you and I are to follow him

in the way, to follow in his path.

And so he provides us an example, right?

I think that's part of the reason why these two

monumental events in the life of Jesus,

his baptism and his temptation that we're gonna get to

in a few moments, these two massive events,

Mark only dedicates five verses

Total to them.

I think it's because Mark's purpose wasn't to give us all the details.

He is putting a spotlight highlighting the purpose of these events.

And that is to let us know how to better follow after Christ.

Now, we talked last week about one of the keys to discipleship.

One of the keys to growing in a relationship with Jesus is to just take the next step.

Right?

I think God has a next step for all of us.

I don't care if you're a brand new believer or you've been a believer for 50 years.

There's always a next step with Jesus.

Now, if you're a believer and you've never been baptized, then your next step with Jesus is to be baptized.

Now, some people will downplay baptism.

They'll go, baptism isn't really all that important.

What God really cares most about is the heart, not ritual.

And they're right.

God does care most about the heart.

But a heart for Jesus is a heart that wants to please Jesus.

And once you become aware that Jesus wants you to be baptized, that's when you need to be baptized.

Let me ask you, do you think baptism is important to Jesus?

I bet it is.

Jesus began his ministry by being baptized.

And guess what?

He ended his ministry by commanding us to be baptized.

After the resurrection, before Jesus ascended into heaven, he told his disciples, he told you and I, he said,

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,

something that's been on display all morning long in our worship services.

Baptism serves as bookends for our Lord's ministry.

So we dare not de-emphasize what Jesus emphasized.

Now, here's why baptism is so important.

Now, this is beyond that Jesus commanded us to be baptized.

That's enough.

But here's the why behind it.

Baptism is a visual declaration of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

When Jesus was baptized, he pointed forward

to the cross and the resurrection.

Whenever you and I are baptized,

we're pointing backwards to the cross and the resurrection.

You see, baptism does not wash away your sins.

Only the blood of Christ can do that.

But it does accomplish something spiritually significant.

It's a powerful picture of the gospel of Jesus.

It's a silent sermon.

As a person's lowered under the water, it pictures the death and the burial of Jesus.

And then as they're raised up out of the water, it pictures the resurrection of Jesus.

It also pictures our resurrection to new life.

You see, when Jesus died, he died for us.

When he rose, he rose for us, meaning we're all going to rise as well.

I mean, someday, just like we came up out of those waters of baptism, we're going to come out of the grave.

Amen?

And baptism by immersion is a visual declaration of that fact.

Romans 6, verse 4 says,

Romans 6:4

Therefore we were buried with him through baptism into death,

that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father,

even so we also should walk in the newness of life.

Baptism is a picture of the gospel.

Now, pictures are important, aren't they?

Let's say you come up to me after the service and say,

Pastor, I hear you talk about your wife Kelsey all the time,

but I don't know what she looks like.

Can you show me a picture?

So I take out my phone and I pull up a picture of some random picture.

It's like a waterfall or something.

I say, there she is. There's Kelsey.

You'd be looking at me like...

A little confused by that, right?

I don't think you married a waterfall.

And I didn't.

So I say, I didn't marry a waterfall.

But since the picture is not Kelsey, any picture will do.

Well, that's not true.

Any picture will not do.

A picture of Kelsey ought to resemble her, right?

Here's my point.

Only baptism by immersion, baptism by baptism, the word means to immerse.

There's no other meaning.

Only baptism by immersion gives a proper picture of the gospel.

Sprinkling is not capable of picturing the death, burial, and resurrection of our Lord.

That's why Jesus went down underwater, and then he came up out of the water.

Now, we've got a lot of beautiful pictures in our church throughout our campuses.

At Olive Drive, we have these stunning stained glass windows throughout the worship center,

pictures of the life and the ministry of our Lord.

But by far, the greatest picture in our church at all of our campuses is baptism.

Over and over again, week after week, as we baptize people, we put a spotlight,

literally a spotlight on the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord.

Now, some churches do baptism services, you know, in a separate location,

maybe every few months, a baptism service.

I understand that.

That highlights it in its own way.

But that's not how we've chosen to do it here at Valley.

Our baptisms are front and center in our worship services each and every week.

Why?

Why?

Because baptism is the greatest symbol of our salvation.

We want to be reminded of it every day.

It's far greater symbol than the cross.

And I love the cross.

I mean, Jesus never, though, he never told us to hang up a cross.

Right?

Cross certainly symbolizes our salvation, but baptism illustrates our salvation in real time, real life.

As a person stands up in the water, a person who was once dead in their sins and trespasses like all of us were,

as they stand there, but now they're alive in Christ, they stand in the waters and they're baptized,

what they're doing is they're proclaiming their faith in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.

declaring it. And that's what baptism is. It's a declaration. It's a proclamation.

It's a believer's way of saying, I am not ashamed of Jesus. I belong to him.

I heard about a young boy who got saved and his life group teacher said, now that you're saved,

go over to the pastor and tell him you're saved and that you need to get baptized.

And so he went over and he told the pastor, he said, I've been saved and now I need to get

advertised.

Well, that little boy may have confused his words a little bit, but he got it right.

To be baptized is to be advertised as a Christian.

More importantly, it's to advertise Jesus.

Now, let me be clear, though.

Baptism is not what saves you.

John said, I can just baptize you with some water.

Jesus, though, can baptize you with his spirit.

Our church, all we can do is baptize you with some water, but Jesus can baptize you with the spirit of God.

Baptism does not save you, but it is the way that Jesus told us to declare that we have been saved.

It's like whenever a person joins the army.

At the moment they're sworn in, that's when they're officially in the army.

But soon after, they're given a uniform, right?

And they're to put that uniform on to identify themselves as being in the army.

Well, baptism is sort of like putting on our uniform as a Christian.

To say, I'm in the army of Jesus.

I'm a follower of Christ.

Now, I think it would be suspect if a young soldier in the army was told by his commanding officer to put on the uniform and he refused it.

I'm not even sure what would happen in a situation like that.

So if you're aware, and now you are,

that you should be baptized as a believer,

then you ought to be baptized.

Now, to reiterate, baptism doesn't save you,

but it does identify you.

We're saved by grace through faith, right?

Not by works, not by ritual, by baptism,

not by the Lord's supper, not by religion.

It's by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus alone.

like a little seed that is in the ground, it's dead, it lies dormant. The moment we believe

we're like a seed that germinates and it sprouts to life. And as soon as that happened, Jesus says,

be baptized, identify with me as I have identified with you upon the cross.

Verse 12, Mark continues.

He says,

Immediately the Spirit drove him into the wilderness, and he was there in the wilderness 40 days,

tempted by Satan, and was with the wild beasts, and the angels ministered to him.

Talk about a drastic turn of events.

Jesus goes from being on the spiritual high to this intense season.

of temptation. Immediately after his baptism, the spirit who had just anointed his life now leads

him into battle. In fact, it was the greatest battle the world has ever known, has ever seen,

as Jesus stood toe-to-toe with the devil for 40 days. Now, why would God lead Jesus right to the

To win.

You see, Jesus was victorious.

He won over temptation, living a perfect and sinless life his entire life.

Jesus went out into the wilderness to declare war, and he won the battle.

And guess what?

He wins the war.

Now, Mark does not detail for us the specifics of his temptation,

so I'm not going to today either when I'm out of time.

But while Matthew and Luke tell us about the big three of his temptations,

I imagine it was all 40 days, right?

Right?

I mean, 40 days, he's fasting and he's being tempted by the devil.

And he's tempted in all ways as we are.

That's what Hebrews 4, verse 15 says.

Hebrews 4:15

For we do not have a high priest, that's Jesus, who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses,

but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.

Now, Scripture calls Jesus the second Adam.

And what the first Adam failed to do in the garden, Jesus accomplished in the wilderness.

Now, had he failed, hell would be in all of our futures.

Had he fell, there would be no salvation.

There would be no forgiveness.

We'd all be guilty and remain guilty.

You see, Jesus on the cross is the only way of salvation.

Only God can forgive sins.

So in steps Jesus, the son of God.

Only man can pay for sins.

So in steps Jesus, the perfect man.

Now, like I said earlier, Mark doesn't detail out for us this temptation.

In perfect Mark form, he summarizes the event.

And I think his summary of these two events makes a powerful point.

And it says, after God's blessing often comes the devil's temptation.

After his blessing often comes the devil's temptation.

Anytime you've made a big commitment to the Lord,

anytime that God has called you to something in your life,

you can expect a battle with the enemy.

Now, we praise God.

The Christian life has these high, mountaintop experiences, right?

You know these moments in life where we encounter God in a fresh way.

The Spirit of God is convicting us, and He's very clear to us.

But sometimes right after that can come a low point.

or at least a moment or a season of testing or temptation.

This summer we took seven busloads of teenagers to camp,

about almost 350 of them, not counting our kids camp.

And a bunch of those young people,

they had these high mountaintop experiences with God.

And I'll tell you what happened

when they came down off that mountain.

They came back to the same problems at home.

They came back to some of the same temptations.

They came back to some of the same friends at school.

They came back home to the battle.

Now, God wants to prepare.

That's why he anointed Jesus with his spirit.

He fills us with his spirit at the times of blessing, and we carry that into the battle.

Now, what about the 1,300 people that have been baptized by our church in the last three years?

1,300 of them.

Well, I'm sure every one of them experience heightened sense of temptation following their baptism.

Why? They're a new believer.

If Satan can get him early, he's got him, right?

Sadly, some of them seem to have fallen away, but a bunch of them, a bunch of you remain,

and you're growing in your relationship with the Lord, and we praise God for that.

But here's my point.

After God's blessing, we often face the devil's temptation.

I think about the blessing of God upon our church and all that God has called us to.

I mean, I hope you feel the weight.

My goal as a church family is the weight that I sometimes feel about the high calling of what God wants us to accomplish to the church.

I hope every member in our church family starts to feel that same weight because we're in this together.

But I think about his blessing and what he's called us to.

And I start looking around my shoulder like, OK, where's the attack coming from?

Where are we most vulnerable?

You know, as Christians, we are vulnerable to any sin.

That's why the Bible says,

let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.

We need to put on the whole army of God every day, right?

We need to be filled with the Spirit as Jesus was filled with the Spirit in the wilderness.

But you know...

I think sometimes we think it's going to be this big monumental sin that takes us down.

And those destructive sins of sexual sin, drunkenness, murder, something that's big.

But I think there's a lot of other sins that as Christians more often we're vulnerable to.

Maybe it's bitterness and unforgiveness in the life of a church.

Someone pockets over church.

You.

Maybe it's pride and gossip stirring up troubles.

Maybe it's withholding love to a person that God has told you to love unconditionally.

What about discouragement?

Discouragement is not always a sin, but it certainly is a temptation, I've found.

In fact, I think discouragement might be the greatest temptation that we face in life.

If the devil can get us discouraged, he's one to have to battle.

Now, I've been battling discouragement for the last week.

A family had, I think, just like one of the greatest,

the greatest family vacation we've ever had.

My boys and I had, honestly, one of the best days of my entire life,

out on the ocean fishing in a boat.

It was just an amazing time.

One moment is this high moment of God's blessing on my life,

and the next moment a knife goes into my foot.

Everything changes like that, right?

Now, I did great with my foot for the first few weeks, keeping my spirits up.

God was holding me up.

But when the progress stalled out and I stopped getting better,

and if anything, maybe things have gotten a little bit worse,

the discouragement set in.

And I have found that in my life, whenever I get discouraged, the other arrows that are being shot at me,

that come my way, that I normally navigate with a little bit more ease, can become significant attacks in my life.

The discouragement can compound and grow to an overwhelming amount.

So here's the answer for me.

Cling to the Lord.

Hold on tight, right?

Allow his word and his presence, his love, his spirit to comfort me while I'm discouraged.

To hunker down and allow the Lord to be my fortress, right?

God is our fortress in time of need.

And in his perfect timing, when the season of testing by God or the season of temptation by the devil,

when it is over, he's going to lift me up.

I know he will.

You know what?

He'll do the same exact thing for you.

Maybe you've been in a time.

Maybe it's been this week.

Maybe it's been this year.

Maybe it's been a decade where you have faced discouragement that has weighed upon your soul to the point that you are vulnerable to all kinds of attacks within your life.

I'm telling you, God will lift you as you cling to him, to surrender to him, and he will lift you in his perfect timing.

You see, we are in a battle.

Do you recognize that as a believer?

It's not, oh, we get saved and man, it's just coasted all the way to eternity.

No, we're in a battle.

Jesus was in a battle, right?

It's a battle for the souls of men and women, boys and girls.

It's a battle for a city.

And God never promised us comfort or ease.

He promised us his presence.

He told us, he said, I'm never going to leave you.

I'm never going to forsake you.

Jesus never ran from the battle, and neither should we.

Jesus ran to the battle.

You know what he told us to do?

He said, follow me.

We're going to see that in our next passage next Sunday, Lord willing.

He said, follow me.

Follow me into the battle.

Sometimes we think it's all going to be easy.

No, listen.

Jesus said, take up your cross.

He said, my way is a way of suffering.

If they hated me, they're going to hate you.

Life as a Christian is not all ease.

Yes, it's the best life there is.

We've got the comfort of the Lord.

We've got his presence.

We have purpose.

We have joy.

We have love.

We have all those things, but it's not easy.

So let me ask you, this is the most important question in life.

Are you following Jesus?

Have you ever surrendered your life to him?

The Bible says in John 3, 16,

for God so loved the world.

That's you.

That's me.

Oh, how God loves us.

God loves you with a perfect love.

It doesn't matter what you've done.

It doesn't matter.

where the condition of your heart is in, God looks upon your life and he loves you.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son,

that whosoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

I want to invite you today to find life in Jesus right now.

Let's bow together in an attitude of prayer, if you will.

This is a holy moment, but please, this is not a formalized moment.

I think formality sometimes, while there are moments that God calls us to formality,

sometimes it can get us just uptight physically and maybe even spiritually.

I want you to feel free.

to move as God moves you today.

In just a moment, I'm going to pray.

And as soon as I pray, we're going to stand to our feet

and we're going to have pastors and other leaders,

men and women here at the front, prayer partners.

And we're going to invite you to step out as we stand.

You just walk down one of these aisles.

You walk down one of these staircases and say,

you know what, I want to give my life to Jesus today.

They'll know exactly how to help you.

They're not going to embarrass you in any way.

It's not that you get your life right and then you come to Jesus.

No, you come to Jesus and he'll get your life right.

So you just come as you are, brokenness and all.

And you allow God to meet you right where you're at.

These leaders, they'll know exactly how to help you.

They're not going to embarrass you in any way.

They're going to do their best, spiritually speaking, to take your hand and to place it in the hand of Jesus.

They're going to help you take the next step towards Jesus.

Maybe you are a believer, but you've never been baptized.

Maybe it was out of fear.

And so in a sense,

Because it was out of fear and you knew you were to be baptized, but you didn't.

There was an element of disobedience.

But you've come to grips with it today.

And you're all in and you want to be advertised as a Christian through baptism like Jesus asked you to do.

Maybe you haven't been baptized and it wasn't fear.

It was ignorance.

You just didn't know.

No one.

talk to you about the importance of it.

And that happens.

And so we want to invite you to be baptized today,

to go public with your faith.

Maybe you want to join our church family.

Maybe you want to just have someone come.

You want to come and just have someone pray for you.

We'd love to pray for you.

What's your next step with Jesus?

Whether you're a new believer, you've been a believer all of your life.

What's your next step?

Let's take the next step.

That's what this time is for, a time of reflection and taking the next step.

These steps are open for you to pray and pour out your heart to the Lord as he leads.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you so much for loving us.

Lord, I know that because of sin and failure and the hardness of pain and wounds that God

scar up and sometimes callous our hearts,

that we don't experience your love like you offer it.

So I'm praying, Lord, that your spirit would touch us.

And, Lord, that you would just open people's eyes to how much you love them,

that you'd send your only begotten son, Jesus, to die on the cross for their sins.

And Lord, that they don't have to remain in their sins anymore.

They can be free today.

They become your child.

You can give them a new, not only a new life in you, but a new identity in you.

I pray, Lord, that you would help every believer identify with you through baptism.

And more than just through baptism, with their entire being.

Lord, I pray that you help us take the next step.

Those that are facing intense persecution around the world,

those who are facing temptation in this season of life

or testing from you,

Lord, we ask that you help us.

Lord, we thank you that

while you led Jesus right into the battle,

I don't think most of the time with new believers,

you lead us into the battle right away.

But Lord, the battle comes to us.

We become a target.

I just pray, Lord, for our church family.

Would you give us the strength that only comes from you?

We ask in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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to find even more great resources.

No matter where you are in your journey,

know that we love you.

We're praying for you

and we can't wait to see what God will do in your life.