Pickles!

I have to get something off my chest.  I hate it when restaurants put pickles on the plate.  I hate it.  Why do I hate it?  Because the pickle juice gets on everything, especially the fries.

Why do they do that?  The internet doesn’t even know.  But a user named Snow on Yahoo answers says in the 1850’s saloons were trying to attract people with free food and pickle wedges hid the taste of the often spoiled meat.  Well guess what restaurants of 2013…you can stop! 

The pickle juice taints everything!  Pickles ruining fries is a parable.  Did you know that?  (A parable is using something familiar to describe something unfamiliar.  Jesus parables are about sheep, and lost coins, and wheat.  In 2013 that’s like trying to teach us something unfamiliar with something unfamiliar.)

Matthew 13:33  The Kingdom of heaven is like leaven (picklejuice), which a woman took and hid (placed) in three measures of meal (on my dinner plate) till it was all leavened (ruined).

Why did I make the leaven evil pickle juice?  We all like fluffy bread, but in Scripture leaven is used to describe evil (13 times in the New Testament).

Our pickles are evil.  However, they are part of our Christian experience as Jesus predicted in Matthew.  Those pickles will keep appearing our our plates, and we need them off. 

The pickle in your life might be a person, it might be people, it might be an app on your phone, it might be a website you look at, it might be something big or something small.  It might be something with huge consequences.  It be something nobody will ever know.  It might something that you think makes you cool.  It might be the thing that keeps you apart.  Only you know what your fry ruining pickles are.

But don’t try to remove the pickle on your own. You have tried it with your dinner plate right?  

We can dab our fries with a napkin the juice doesn’t come off. 

We can blow on the fries, the juice remains

We can try to cover the fries in a bath of ketchup to cover the taste, but it DOESN’T WORK. 

In the same way…I cannot clean sin out of my own life.  I cannot cover it up with any lasting success.

But I do try, I’m telling you I have year and years of covering my pickle juice fries with ketchup to make them acceptable not only to me, but mostly for you.

We don’t want people to know our fries got ruined.  Meanwhile, everyone has ruined fries.  We don’t want people to know our lives have been infected by sin, meanwhile, everyone else has.

But believe it or not God can even clean pickle juice if you let Him.  

Most of you probably think I mean salvation.  But only the people who aren’t thinking that need to think that.  Many of you have already entrusted your life to Jesus.  But is it still His?  He cleaned you in the eyes of God, but is He getting the opportunity to clean and transform your life now? (That's a matter of trust)

He can clean you if you let Him.  Alone we cannot do this.  This is not a work of us.  In whom do we abide?  God alone can make sure your fries are pickle free.  And that’s something we all need.