God – John Markum

18 Baptized in a Single Day!

Posted on June 16, 2025June 16, 2025 by johnmarkum

As God has been blessing our ministry at Life Valley Community Church, we have been passionately and urgently calling people to give their lives to Jesus Christ and be baptized into God’s family. This past Pentecost Sunday (June 8), we were able to lead 18 people to take this public step of faith in Christ!

But what was particularly incredible was that we only had 12 people that we knew were prepared to get baptized! In partnership with Baptize America, we coordinated this baptism Sunday with thousands of other churches across the country, to proclaim the Gospel message and call people into believer’s baptism. Two people found us because of Baptize America, and another handful of people responded to the message, received Christ as their Lord and Savior, and were baptized that day, just like the first Pentecost Sunday.

I know that not every pastor or church is warm to the idea of “spontaneous baptisms” who come forward for baptism that day, but we have found that there is an appropriate way to do it. Additionally, every example we see in Scripture of baptism, it was what you might consider “spontaneous”. There are two major considerations for having successful baptisms for people who come forward Day-of a Baptism Sunday.

Spiritually prepared. We want to make sure that everyone getting baptized at LVCC is doing so because they have trusted in Jesus Christ death and resurrection for their salvation. Because of this, we generally do an entire message on baptism for that day, so that we have given plenty of attention to the doctrinal concerns of people’s motives. We also have counsellors to talk to before getting baptized, so that we know we are all on the same page about why we are baptizing someone. The counselling process usually only takes 5-10 minutes after we had an entire message, and occasionally we do need to tell someone “Not today, but we would love to talk more with you so you can be ready for a future baptism day.”
Physical considerations. If you’re going to offer baptism to people who did not come prepared to get baptized, at least you and your leaders should be prepared! For this, we have plenty of extra towels, a t-shirt they get to keep, as well as undergarments and gym shorts of every size. We also walk through how they will get baptized when they meet with our counsellors.

We had set a goal of 20 baptisms at Life Valley in 2025, and with an earlier baptism, we are already at our goal! What is particularly exciting to me, is that we are also only halfway through the year! And with others in our church who have recently received Christ or indicated a desire to be baptized, we have 10 more people currently needing to be baptized.

To all of you who partner with our ministry, thank you for serving Jesus with us. 2025 is shaping up to be our most amazing year yet!

Blessings,
Pastor John

Sermon Recap: The Last Amen, week 3

Posted on December 16, 2024December 16, 2024 by johnmarkum

In the final week of our End Times series, The Last Amen, I led our church through graphs and timelines of what to expect with the approaching end of the age. In this message we sought to understand and answer three common questions:

How do all of the events of the End Times fit together?
When is Jesus coming back for His church?
What happens after the Tribulation?

We considered the timing of our rescue from the judgment to come, the general timeline of the Tribulation, the Millennial Kingdom, the final judgment of Satan and all those who have rejected the grace of God, and the New Heaven and New Earth that awaits. 1 Corinthians 2:9 reminds us, “Eye has not seen and ear has not heard, and which have not entered the heart of man, all that God has prepared for those who love Him.”

As such, the BEST is yet to come! One day God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and there will no longer be any pain, nor sickness, nor death (Revelation 21:4-5).

You can catch the entire service here, and this week’s 5-day Devotional based on the message. Below, are the two main graphs I made to summarize what the Bible teaches about the End Times. I also shared that I tend to believe in a Mid-Trib Rapture of the church, as this seems to make the most sense of Revelation 14:14-16, when contrasted to other teachings such as 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, and 2 Thessalonians 2:4.

Here is the graph I made, giving a broad overview of the 7-year Tribulation period, along with the key passages of Scripture that we can use to discern the layout of these events, and study each in more detail.

This is my graph showing a big picture of the events of the End Times, primarily focused on the culmination of Revelation.

Was Mary the “Mother of God”?

Posted on January 11, 2024January 10, 2025 by johnmarkum

This is the third of four articles I’m writing, addressing the doctrines of Catholicism that revolve around their belief that Mary was something more than Protestant Christians claim her to be. The four core dogmas of RCC Mariology include:

Perpetual Virginity. This is the notion that Mary remained a virgin after giving birth to Jesus, and was never sexually intimate with her husband Joseph, and gave him no children aside from Jesus (who was not biologically Joseph’s son).
Immaculate Conception. The idea behind this doctrine is that in order for Mary to have been the vessel for bringing God’s Son into the world, she too must have been sinless. Catholics will argue that Mary still needed Jesus as a Savior, but that she was saved from sinning, not saved from sin she committed like everyone else.
Mary as “The Mother of God”. This doctrine is based on the Greek title theotokos meaning “God Bearer” or “Mother of God”. Protestants generally reject this title, and I’ll discuss why in a later post.
The Assumption of Mary. This doctrine insists that Mary did not physically die like most people, but that she ascended into Heaven – or, God “assumed” her into Heaven – like Christ, Elijah, and Enoch are described as having experienced.

For today, let’s address Mary as the Theotokos…

This term originated back in the early church…, and has two commonly accepted meanings: God-bearer or Mother of God. Catholics and Orthodox alike enthusiastically embrace the moniker “Mother of God” as both have a much higher view of Mary than most Protestants. The logic seems pretty straightforward:

Is Jesus God? Yes.
Is Mary the mother of Jesus? Yes.
Therefore Mary is the “Mother of God”.

The term Theotokos, and its formal acceptance into Roman Catholic doctrine was affirmed at the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD, which met under the request of Nestorius. Nestorius upheld a different term for Mary – Christotokos, meaning “Mother of Christ” – a term which he felt honored Mary as the rightful mother of our Savior, without eluding to any greater significance. However, the council went against Nestorius, and even condemned his teaching as heresy, namely by Cyril with a series of “anathemas” or condemnations.

The primary basis of this condemnation is lost on us in the modern English, as the Greek term Theotokos more accurately stressed the divine nature of Christ, and the privilege of Mary to bring God into the world through the incarnation of Jesus. Yet in English – and modern Catholicism – the emphasis is placed much more so on Mary. Regardless, it was this emphasis on the divinity of Christ that made Nestorianism seem indefensible, though it never denied the deity of Jesus.

Ironically, it would come a mere 20 years later at the Council of Chalcedon where the two-fold nature of Jesus would be articulated and formalized in church doctrine, known as the “Chalcedon Definition”. This council in 451 AD would identify Jesus as having two natures (human and divine) and that Christ was fully both, and yet united in one person, Jesus Christ. Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians unanimously affirm this doctrine just as we do that of the Trinity. Just as there is a tangible and intangible nature to every human, there is/was with Christ.

So why do Protestants “protest” the “Mother of God” title for Mary? Because it specifically identifies her as being the progenitor of both the divine and human natures of Christ, making her not only divine, logically, but even more than divine, the creator of the divine. While Mary is the Mother of Christ, and Christ is God, the second member of the Trinity “was in the beginning” with God the Father, co-equal in Creation (John 1:1-4). As such, “Mother” of God is a gross overstatement. So what is the correct view?

Protestants believe that Mary is the mother of the human nature of Christ, and yet the “Word” of God – eternal, co-equal, and co-existent with the Father – is eternal and never “begotten” by Mary at all. His human nature, however, was the result of the virgin Mary giving birth to the human nature, united with the “Word” who was incarnated into one person we know of as Jesus Christ. In summary, she was the vessel through which Jesus Christ came into our world, not the means by which Jesus Christ was created.

Mary deserves all of the honor and favor rightly endowed to her as the mother of our Savior. And yet she was a finite human being through which God entered the human race. By contrast, God the Son existed in eternity past, and was also the Savior of woman He would call His emma on earth (Luke 1:47).