Baptized in Fire and Spirit

Luke
Written By Steve Estes

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Speaker: Steve Estes
Scripture: Luke 3:16-18
February 25, 2024

Luke 3:16-18: The people were waiting expectantly and were all wondering in their hearts if John might possibly be the Christ. John answered them all, ā€œI baptize you with water. But one more powerful than I will come, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with 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.ā€ And with many other words John exhorted the people and preached the good news to them.

Sermon Outline

1. The voice in the desert

2. Why people came

  • Many felt spiritual need

  • Fear of death

  • Others came for lesser reasons

3. ā€œI baptize you with waterā€

  • A Ritual cleansing

  • An illustration of a greater person than John

4. ā€œHe will baptize you with the Holy Spiritā€

  • What John means by ā€œbaptizeā€

  • Holy Spirit at creation

  • Holy Spirit helps people over what threatens them

  • Holy Spirit purifies peopleā€™s very souls

  • John proclaims people will gain the Holy Spirit through the Messiah

5. ā€œHe will baptize you with fireā€

  • Terrible judgment/consequences for sins

  • John exhorts, ā€œRepent!ā€

  • To those who repent, the fire of judgment was endured by Jesus Christ

  • Thus, Messiahā€™s offer of baptism is good news

6. Final applications

Steve Estes

Steve Estes has been senior pastor at Brick Lane Community Church in Elverson, Pennsylvania, for over thirty-five years. 

Steveā€™s books and other writings began with his longtime friendship with Joni Eareckson Tada. As teenagers, they grappled with why God allowed Joniā€™s paralysis in a swimming accident in the Chesapeake Bay. Steve left for college . . . they kept in touch . . . she liked the style of his letters. When her 1976 autobiography Joni spawned thousands of reader responses, she asked Steve to join her in crafting a follow-up. The result was A Step Further in 1978.

Later, Wycliffe Bible Translators commissioned Steve to write the biography of former college friend Chet Bitterman, a Wycliffe linguist who was kidnapped and murdered by political terrorists in Colombia in 1981. Other books and articles followed, including When God Weeps (with Joni) and A Better December (a giveaway book for non-Christian friends at Christmas.)

Steve was educated at Westminster Theological Seminary, Columbia Bible College and Jerusalem University College in Israel. He has taught homiletics at Westminster and is a board member of the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation.

But Steve would say his most significant life achievement was persuading college classmate Verna Stoltzfus to marry him in 1974.  They now have eight children and more grandchildren than can fit in a van.

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