1. Marked  Why? to fulfill all righteousness, diligent and fervent
2. To identify himself with man, man’s needs, as a man himself, numbered with the transgressors
   
3. Identified as God’s servant, Father marks Jesus as his own son, the beloved

1. Consecrating – the Spirit hovered over the waters, the dove hovered over the waters until a place of rest was found for man, the dove descends upon Jesus, saying I will dwell here.
   
2. Sealing – anointing is a sealing, the Spirit’s descent is the promise of the Father’s continued blessings, in the words of Eph 1:13-14 a pledge and earnest, a seal saying to Jesus “you are my son” to others “this is my son”

1. Father’s declaration, the voice of God thundered over the waters
2. You are my son, my beloved

1. We are Marked By God – baptism is God’s work
   1. Too long seen as something that we do. It is something we submit to, something that is done to us. As William Willimon writes “We are dealing here with grace, which is always in danger of being perverted from a gift of God into an individual achievement of the believer. Baptism is an action done to me and for me than by me.” Just as a longhorn cannot brand itself, we can’t baptize ourselves, must be part of the community, initiation, God’s mark upon us
   2. God marks us – this is my covenant
   3. The church marks us In baptism the church is saying to the recepient “You must never again think of yourself as ‘on your own.’ You are ours, and we are God’s. As we claim you and as God claims you through us, so also your new brothers and sisters will make claims upon you. You are now a part of the Body.”
2. Anointed
   1. Eph: 1:13-14, sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise
   2. Romans 5:5 Our hope will not disappoint, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
   3. For Jesus baptism was a beginning, so to for us. Luther in his small catechism states that baptism “signifies that the old Adam in us, together with all sins and evil lusts, should be drowned by daily sorrow and repentance and be put to death that the new man should come forth daily and rise up, cleansed and righteous, to live forever in God’s presence. Willimon paraphrases Luther “the old Adam is a mighty good swimmer” who doesn’t easily drown. Therefore, “baptism, is a once-in-a lifetime experience that takes your whole life to complete.”
3. Claimed – united to Christ
   1. God’s word to us
   2. Adopted in Christ’s sonship
      1. You are my beloved son, I am well pleased with you
      2. Calvin “the designation of Son belongs truly and naturally to Christ alone” but he has obtained for us the privilege and honor, Eph 4:6 declaring he is the “Father of us all.” So, too, when he says “beloved” we know that in sin we are unlovable, yet as the Father claims Christ, so he claims us in Christ, predestining us into adoption…according to the good pleasure of his will to the praise of the glory of his grace, in which he accepts us in the beloved to the point that he may say of us, “with you I am well pleased” for in Jesus we are fully reconciled to the Father.

Conclusion: Romans 6 We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.