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The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Messiah. John answered them all, \u201cI baptize you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.\u201d And with many other words John exhorted the people and proclaimed the good news to them (Luke 3:15-18).

Yesterday, Pastor Anthony reflected on John\u2019s call to repentance leading to living ordinary lives in an extraordinary way. His listeners had been cut to the heart, desiring to be part of what John was declaring. In John\u2019s warning of impending judgement, the folks heard the word of God, maybe not as clearly as Samuel had, but clear enough to make them wonder.

You see, these were people who lived with expectation. Rooted in their listening to the prophets of old, they believed that God was coming to renew his people. They believed it enough to have an ear and an eye open for God\u2019s arrival. Luke tells us that they wondered in their hearts if John was the one, the Messiah. Someone must have verbalized this wondering because John responds.

He needs them and us to understand: no amount of baptism or repentance will be enough to get us on board with what God is doing. What is needed is fire. Approaching God is always going into the fire: the fire of judgement or the fire of the Holy Spirit. The great one John is announcing will baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. The Spirit purifies. We cannot meet God and stay unchanged.

John\u2019s audience was expecting the Spirit. They knew God\u2019s promises, \u201cI will pour out my Spirit and my blessings on your children" (Isaiah 44:3) and "I will put my Spirit in you so you will obey my laws and do whatever I command" (Ezekiel 36:27) and "I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live" (37:14). Water purifies the outside; fire purifies the inside. This is the ministry of the Messiah, to cleanse our lives of everything that is not pleasing to God so we can live. As it was then, so it is now.

We still believe that baptism points not to our work, but to the Spirit\u2019s. These waters draw us to God and call us to respond in faith. But they also point us to the Spirit who purifies us from all unrighteousness and leads us into living our ordinary lives with righteousness, making them extraordinary. "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you,\u2019 writes Paul, \u201che who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you\u201d (Romans 8:11).

John is quite clear that true repentance will produce fruits. The Heidelberg Catechism teaches that genuine repentance or conversion is the dying-away of the old self, to be genuinely sorry for sin, to hate it more and more, and to run away from it; and repentance is the coming-to-life of the new self, whole-hearted joy in God through Christ and a delight to do every kind of good as God wants us to (Lord\u2019s Day 33).

All this is the purifying work of the Spirit in us. We stand between a fire and a fire. The fire of our selfishness and self-indulgence will destroy us. The fire of the Spirit will make us into fruit bearing disciples.

Can we survive the fire of the Spirit? Absolutely, through faith in Christ. And by that faith are we able to bear fruits of repentance. John called his audience to grow their roots not in their family, nor in their own religious activities, but in Jesus Christ.

If bearing the fruit of repentance seems far fetched to you, listen again to words Paul wrote, \u201cFor the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say \u2018No\u2019 to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope\u2014the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good (Titus 2:11-14).

Trust Jesus and let the Spirit burn.