Matthew 3:11-12
The Rev. Dr. Robert S. Langworthy, preaching
December 14, 2025
Eight years ago, LifeWay Research polled Americans and found out that two-thirds of us will assent to the statement: “I am a sinner”. Just over a third of us say we’re working on being less of a sinner, 28% say we’re depending on Jesus to make us so, and 6% say we’re “fine” with being a sinner. For what it’s worth, 38% of the men prioritize working on becoming more righteous over depending on Jesus to make it happen, while 33% of the women prioritize depending on Jesus first, a rate 50% higher than that of men.
I suspect John the Baptist would say the women are wiser than the men. For, while he urged everyone to serious moral and spiritual exertion, he saw that growing in righteousness lay, not so much in more self-help, as in availing of help from beyond oneself. That’s why, immediately after exhorting folks to “bear fruit worthy of repentance”, John reminded them that the One whose way he was preparing was “more powerful” than himself – in fact, so much greater than he that he was “not worthy to carry his sandals” – and that this greater One to come offered a baptism greater than his own, one that would bless folks, not just with forgiveness, but with the life force of God to grow in righteousness. The baptism of the One to come would be a baptism “with the Holy Spirit and fire”.
The Greek verb, translated in our English Bibles as “baptize”, means literally to “immerse” or to “submerge”. Thus, when first century Palestinian cops would go to Dunkin’ Donuts, they’d baptize their donut in their coffee – and if they submerged it long enough, their donut became saturated with coffee. In the same way, to be baptized with the Spirit is to be submerged in the Spirit; and to stay submerged like that is to become saturated with the Spirit Himself in His superior energy and strength.
And who is the Spirit? God Himself in the third Person of the Holy Trinity, a Person who’s one with Jesus – so that, when Jesus spoke of His living in us and our living in Him, He was talking of the same relational reality John was.
And what is the “fire” of which John spoke? Likely, it’s both God’s burning zeal to incinerate unrighteousness in us and to refine us in the furnace of His holiness and God’s blazing wrath against all evil consummated in His holding everyone accountable at the Last Judgment.
The Spirit is wonderfully dangerous if we choose to submerge our life into His. He cleanses our soul with His holy fire and purifies our character with His passion for justice, love and godliness. He elevates us beyond our natural potential, and makes us walking miracles for whom there is no explanation but a God who inhabits the willing and endows them with gifts of grace from on high.
Glenn Pearson served as the executive vice-president of the Georgia Hospital Association for two decades. More importantly, for many more decades than that, he has served Jesus as a Spirit-baptized disciple. Now living in LA, Glenn shared in Christianity Today two years ago his testimony, entitled “There is No Explanation for Me.”
When Glenn was 12, his father abandoned the family. His dad withheld both financial and emotional support; and, if anyone reached out to him, he mocked and rejected their overtures. Glenn writes, “In Matthew Jesus asks, ‘Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?’ Well, I’ve got someone to nominate.”
Glenn’s maternal grandfather had a nervous breakdown and spent months in a hospital for indigents. His paternal grandfather committed suicide by jumping in front of a train. His brother suffered from schizophrenia and manic depression; and, after spending 20 years in and out of mental hospitals, hanged himself.
Religion played no role in Glenn’s family, but deep-down Glenn knew his life was wrong. That led him to dabble in occult practices like astrology, séances and magic. In his sophomore year at college, he stumbled into a campus Christian meeting and heard the gospel of Jesus for the first time. As he listened, a Presence whom he’d later recognize to be the Spirit burned two realizations into his heart: that this new thing was one hundred percent true, and that he would be a part of it. That night, even though he knew almost nothing about theology or the meaning of salvation, he brushed aside his skepticism and made a commitment to Jesus.
Glenn participated in campus Christian groups, and was impressed by how “together” the members were and by the quality of their relationships and lifestyle.
So Glenn started a lifelong adventure to fulfill the repentance and faith He began there. As a result, he ended up becoming a very different man than every other man in his family.
Glenn writes, “Years ago, I visited a counselor hoping to piece together the complexities of my background. After hearing my story, he commented, ‘There is no explanation for you. In my professional opinion, someone with your background should be unemployable, divorced three times, and addicted in some way.’” The counselor then remarked that his being none of those things was an astonishing surprise that suggested more than merely human activity.
Today, Glenn mentors a number of young men. He listens to them, shows genuine concern for them, and points them to practical insights rooted in Scripture and real-life experience. Glenn notes, “Essentially, I’m giving these men something I never had.” Glenn says he’s just letting the supernatural happen between them.
If you’re willing to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, to give up on making your own way, to give yourself over to being immersed in the Spirit’s life force, and to depend on the Spirit to endow you with capacities you wouldn’t otherwise have, you’ll become someone for whom there is no explanation and who gives others what you never had. And some will see something supernatural happening and wish it would for them as well.
In an interview in Esquire magazine last December, Academy Award-winning, mega-star actor Denzel Washington gave a witness. He told the reporter, “The biggest moment of my life was when I was filled with the Holy Spirit…[at] the West Angeles Church of God in Christ on Crenshaw Blvd. in LA.” He went on to say he now knows that “God is real, God is love, God is the only way.” He also said that he knows that “it is my job…to give God praise and to make sure that anyone and everyone I speak to…understands God [has recreated me].” Denzel added that the Spirit strengthens him to live out that commitment even though faith in Jesus is something that’s not talked about in Hollywood and that talking about it costs him some roles.
May we all put our hope in the Savior who in the flesh moved into our world that first Christmas and who in the Spirit is with us this Christmas – that the supernatural might also happen in us and through us!
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