"What Should We Do?"
(Luke 3:7-14)

Salvation is a gift without payment when we call the name of Jesus. We should turn away from sins to get salvation. By repenting sins and accepting Jesus as our Savior, our identity is amazingly changing from the slaves of the devil to the children of God. After being saved, we should live a life as saved children of God to bear meaningful fruits. We should live a holy life, offer ourselves completely and fight against sins until we can reach the Kingdom of God.

1. Repent
Proclaiming the baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus the Messiah. As the external sign of repentance, John the Baptist baptized people. However, the Jewish religious leaders at that moment believed that they were the descendants of Abraham and were the circumcised chosen people. So they thought they didn’t have to repent to flee from the coming wrath. However, they were rebuked by John the Baptist harshly and regarded as ‘the brood of vipers’. The social status and academic background are not related to be saved. Everyone should repent their sins. We should put down our knees before the Lord all the times.

2. Produce good fruit
After repenting and being baptized, we should produce good fruits in keeping with repentance. John the Baptist said that we could not avoid God’s wrath unless we bear good fruit. Verse 9 says, “The axe is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” The true repentance brings about changing ways of our life. We should get out of self-oriented life and turn to God-oriented life. And we should produce fruits in keeping with repentance by returning from the sinful habits.

3. Practice love and justice
The crowd asked John about what they had to do when John the Baptist asked them to bear fruits in keeping with repentance. John answered, “The man with two tunics should share with him who has none, and the one who has food should do the same.”(Luke 3:11) Also verse 14 says he replied, “Don’t extort money and don’t accuse people falsely--be content with your pay.” To bear fruits suitable for the life after repentance, we should practice love for neighbor who don’t have anything by giving and sharing our things. And we should practice justice.
What should we do? We should repent. We should return to God-centered life from self-centered life. We should produce fruit in keeping with repentance.