BAPTISM | PASTOR MATTHEW JOHNSON

"Baptism is a physical action with a spiritual impact that invites God to supernaturally move." — Pastor Matthew Johnson

Water baptism is one of the clearest commands Jesus ever gave his followers. Yet for many people, it has become little more than a milestone - something checked off early in the Christian life and rarely revisited. In a recent Sunday message at The Tree Church, Pastor Matthew Johnson challenged that assumption directly, inviting the congregation to hear the subject with fresh ears regardless of whether they had already been baptized.

The message opened with a simple observation. When Jesus gave his disciples their final command before ascending to heaven, he could have singled out communion. He could have emphasized the call to love one another. Instead, in Matthew 28:18–20, Jesus uniquely highlighted baptism as part of the Great Commission. That choice, Pastor Matthew argued, was not accidental.

To understand what Jesus was calling his followers into, Pastor Matthew went back to the original Greek. The word translated as baptism comes from baptiso, a term common in first-century Greek culture. In the fabric industry, workers would baptiso cloth into dye - immersing it, saturating it, dunking it until the color fully took hold. The word simply means to immerse.

That same imagery carried into Jewish practice, where those converting to Judaism would walk fully into a body of water as a public declaration that they were leaving one life to walk in another. When Jesus came, he took that practice and filled it with new meaning - his own death and resurrection. Modern Christian baptism, Pastor Matthew explained, is a picture of being crucified with Christ and raised with him to walk in a new kind of life.

The depth of that meaning, he suggested, is exactly where the problem often begins.

Pastor Matthew made a pointed observation about the culture surrounding discipleship today. There is a persistent tendency, he noted, to take difficult things and make them easy, to take long things and shrink them down. That instinct is not always wrong. But when it is applied to the process of becoming like Christ, something gets lost.

Too many people, he said, have entered into a relationship with Jesus without ever truly wrestling with what they were committing to. They added salvation to their lives rather than allowing it to transform them. Drawing from Romans 6:1–4, Pastor Matthew walked the congregation through what the Apostle Paul described as the real meaning of baptism - dying to the old way of living and being raised into something new.

That process, he argued, was meant to be mental, emotional, physical, and ultimately spiritual.

Working through Romans 6, Pastor Matthew laid out four truths that frame what baptism was always designed to be.

The first truth is that baptism begins with clearly naming what you are putting to death. This is not a vague spiritual gesture. It requires honest reckoning — with sin, with broken patterns of thinking, with the wounds the world has inflicted. Before going into the water, a person should be able to name what they are surrendering. Dying to sin. Dying to self-determination. Dying even to the brokenness that has defined them. Baptism, Pastor Matthew said, is not a starting line if no one has thought seriously about what they are leaving behind.

The second truth is that baptism continues with choosing who you now belong to and how you will live. He pressed this point with a question projected on the screen: if Jesus told you to blank, what would your answer be? The right answer, he said, is always yes — not because the blank has been filled in, but because Jesus is Lord. That total surrender, across relationships, finances, parenting, calendars, and calling, is what baptism represents.

The third truth is that baptism is the moment you act in obedience and invite God to do what only he can do. Pastor Matthew drew a parallel to worship, the Sabbath, and tithing — each a physical act that creates an invitation for God to move supernaturally. The crossing of the Red Sea, he suggested, is the first image of baptism in scripture. God led the Israelites to the water's edge with Egypt closing in behind them, and then did what they could never do for themselves. He cut the old threat away completely. The enemy you see today, God told them, you will never see again.

The fourth truth is that baptism leads to a new life empowered and directed by the Holy Spirit. Referencing Acts 2:37–39, Pastor Matthew walked through Peter's response to the crowd on the day of Pentecost. Repent and be baptized, Peter told them, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. God does not change a life from a distance. He moves from the inside, filling the person who surrenders and providing everything they need to live differently.

Pastor Matthew closed by turning the four truths into personal questions. Have you named what needs to die? Have you chosen who you belong to? Have you acted in obedience and asked God to move supernaturally? Have you opened yourself to the empowering presence of the Holy Spirit?

For those who have never been baptized, his encouragement was straightforward - do it, but go through the process first. For those who have been baptized without experiencing its full weight, he invited them to set aside time that week to wrestle with it seriously. Baptism was never meant to be a moment that fades into the background. It was meant to mark the beginning of a life that looks genuinely different.

The Tree Church gathers every Sunday at 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM at both of its Ohio campuses.

If you are looking for a church in Lancaster, Ohio, you can find us at 1025 W Wheeling St, Lancaster, OH 43130.
 
If you are looking for a church in Logan, Ohio, we also meet at 65 E Hunter St, Logan, OH 43138.

We would love to have you join us.