You can’t have a banana split without bananas.

You can’t have strawberry short cake without strawberries.

You can’t have peach cobbler without peaches.

And you can’t have apple pie without ice cream.

Those are all essential, necessary ingredients.

What about baptism? Is that an essential, necessary ingredient within the ‘recipe’ of our salvation?

At first blush, it sounds non-negotiable in passages like Mark 16:16. “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved…” Or, how about what Jesus said in John 3:5? “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.”

So, is baptism like a banana in a banana split? Is baptism necessary for our salvation?

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That God invites us to mercy others as we have been ‘mercied’ is an invitation to die.

I can’t give forgiveness without the death of my pride. I can’t extend mercy without the death of my injured ego. I can’t exhibit compassion without the death of my impatience. I can’t extend love without the death of my hatred. I can’t pursue reconciliation without the death of my grudges.

Thing is, we’d much rather see the one who wronged us die – even if it’s death by a thousand cuts. We justify all sorts of ways of exacting payment from people, but withholding forgiveness from someone else is just as soul-suffocating to the withholder; it’s a cancer that will eat you alive.

So, what sets us free to set others free?

The limitless mercy our God has already shown us.

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Some adoption stories of this world may resemble the story of Natalia Grace. But your adoption into God’s family is a completely different story.

No cliffhangers. No lack of closure.

Your baptism is God’s pledge of undying devotion and fidelity to you.

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Whatever four-word phrases threaten to ruin your Thanksgiving, remember that, from the vantage point of eternity, whatever sorrow we suffer is just “a little while.”

But your Savior doesn’t make you wait until eternity for comfort. While there will be trouble in our future for Christ’s sake, Christ’s accomplished victory already speaks to our present. Jesus’ victory doesn’t just get the last word; it get’s the first word, too.

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For thirty days, King Darius would function as the sole mediator and the unparalleled high priest between the gods and the Persian empire. And if anyone wanted the favor of the gods, they had no other avenue but to go through Darius. And anyone who prays to any god or human being – other than Darius – [would] be thrown into the lions’ den.

That situation sounds uncannily similar to the situation at the time of Martin Luther. And on April 18, 1521, he found himself in a bit of a lions’ den, too.

But neither he nor Daniel were alone.

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That Jesus calls us to seek first his kingdom is his invitation to see the world through a greater hierarchy of needs. But notice, the kingdom that we are called to “seek” is the same kingdom our God has already been pleased to give us! Jesus is drawing our attention to a need that everyone in this world desperately has – a need that this material world can never meet.

It’s a need that is beyond our perceived highest needs, and yet it’s a need far more foundational than even our need for food and clothes.

But do not worry; that need has been eternally met in Jesus.

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It feels good when your friends, your neighbors, or your spouse speak your love language, doesn’t it? You feel validated. You feel belonging. You feel special. You feel like you’re seen – like you matter to someone.

You may be waiting for those closest to you to love you in your language.

But you don’t have to wait for your Savior to do that. He already has.

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Netflix’s docuseries, The Last Dance, beautifully showcases what happens when your entire body is in the game and wholly committed to a single vision: for Michael Jordan, the crucible of professional basketball conformed his entire body into a relentless machine that could seemingly suspend the laws of gravity and dunk from the free throw line. Professional basketball is an arena that involves your entire body.

So, what does this have to do with Romans 12:1-8? Paul, in these verses, paints a picture of a far greater body called by God to contend in a far greater arena.

And you were made to be part of that body.

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What happens when our wealth is gone, our cars are stolen, and our castles burn to the ground? What eternal value do they really have?

You don’t have to be poor to be in desperate need of Jesus, but you don’t have to be rich to buy into the lie of greed, either.

You are not defined by the material possessions you do or don’t have.

You are defined by Jesus.

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A bait and switch is where you’re advertised one thing, but you’re given something completely different.

You feel the bait and switch when that company promises you that promotion, and then they give it to someone else. Or when those friends who said they’d have your back then leave you high and dry. Or when “the man/woman of your dreams” promises to be faithful, but then has an affair.

When we live in a sinful, broken, dying world, the bitter examples of bait and switch are endless. It leaves us feeling objectified, doesn’t it? – dehumanized to nothing more than an accessory towards someone else’s gain, a prop in someone else’s play, a pawn in someone else’s game: just a means to their end.

That same kind of bait and switch could be seen at the time of Jesus, too.

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