When the foundation of the second temple was laid, “all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord” (Ezra 3:11). Valley has had its own reasons to shout lately: six or more baptisms in a short stretch, and a new building to meet in. Anyone who has watched someone come up out of the water knows the feeling. Then the hugs end, the lights go off, and a quieter question shows up. Now what?
Acts 2 answers it. Three thousand were baptized in one day, and then “they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers” (Acts 2:42). The baptism took a day. The continuing took the rest of their lives. Steadfastly is the word to hold onto. It means commitment and persistence, the kind Paul had in mind when he wrote, “let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart” (Galatians 6:9). He would not have written that if nobody was ever going to lose heart.
A new believer and a congregation in a new meeting place stand at the same starting line, and four things are true of both.
Both Beginnings Are Gifts
“A man can receive nothing unless it has been given to him from heaven” (John 3:27). Wages are earned and gifts are received, and Romans 6:23 puts the two side by side: what we earned was death, and what God gave was eternal life.
The building is a gift in the same way, but it is only where the church meets. If a storm took it next week, the church would meet somewhere else on Sunday. The building was paid for with money. The church, the people, was purchased with something priceless: “the church of God which He purchased with His own blood” (Acts 20:28).
Both Are Public Declarations
Teams wear uniforms so you know whose side they are on. “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). Coming out of the water, a person has a new uniform, a new nature, and a new assignment: “we are ambassadors for Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:20).
A church hangs out a sign, and the community reads it. Years before this building went up, a city council member stood up in a public meeting to thank the congregation for what its food pantry had done for the town. People notice.
A building can be a monument, which looks back at something that once happened, or a lighthouse, which shines every night so people still out on the water don’t hit the rocks. It needs to be much more lighthouse than monument. “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden… Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:14-16).
Both Will Be Tested
The water is followed by the wilderness. The Father said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17), and the next verse says, “Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1). If He was tested right after His baptism, His followers will be too.
New Christians usually meet some familiar tests:
- Doubt. Sin didn’t disappear and life didn’t get easy, so did anything really change? John wrote so that “you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13).
- Old friends. “They think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you” (1 Peter 4:4).
- Fading feelings. Drift is quiet. Nobody announces it.
- Disappointment with people. You get close enough to the church to see its flaws, and they are real.
Jesus answered every temptation with “It is written” (Matthew 4:4), and James says the testing of faith produces patience (James 1:2-3). A test is there to make you stronger, not to break you.
The church is tested too, and outside storms rarely destroy a congregation. Cracks from the inside do. The engineers on this building over-built the foundation, digging out a dozen feet of bad soil and packing new fill a few inches at a time, because they knew one crack could ruin everything. Paul put the same urgency into a plea: “that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you” (1 Corinthians 1:10). God gave elders to watch over that foundation. “Obey those who rule over you, and be submissive, for they watch out for your souls, as those who must give account” (Hebrews 13:17). Take concerns to the elders, not to the parking lot. Walls don’t hold a church together. Love does.
Both Require Faithfulness, Not Heroics
Heroics happen once. Faithfulness happens every day. The master in the parable did not say “good and spectacular.” He said, “Well done, good and faithful servant” (Matthew 25:21). Most of the time faithfulness looks ordinary: staying in the word, staying connected, getting involved, and staying on your knees.
Nobody builds a building in one heroic day. It goes up a block and a beam at a time, and God builds a Christian the same way. “For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zechariah 4:10).
A Call to Respond
Everybody takes pictures on the front porch of a first house, but nobody lives there. At some point you go inside, where the dishes and the laundry and the arguments are. Out of the water means into the walk. Into the building means out into the town.
“Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 15:58). Maybe you have watched these baptisms and know it’s your turn. Maybe you were baptized long ago and have drifted, or you have been looking for a church family. The answer to now what is the same for all of us: salvation in Christ, and then the steady walk that follows it.