So let’s say, you’re a cucumber. Everyone is born a cucumber already. This is like being a human. Everyone is born a human with value, worth, Etc. Now maybe your parents, or your grandparents were pickles. That’s still a cucumber, but ones that have gone through a process. Maybe you hang out with a lot of Pickles. But that doesn’t necessarily mean you are one. You have to get turned into one.

The good news is, every cucumber has been given the opportunity to become a pickle.  1 Timothy 2:4 [God] who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

The pickle Jar/Juice is Jesus. Now maybe you’ve gotten saved, but you don’t feel a big difference yet. There’s a process that in “Christianese”, is called sanctification. It’s where you are definitely a pickle, you have been adopted into the jar, sealed into the family, but at first you don’t taste very much like one. But the more you marinate in Jesus, getting to know Him, learning what He’s like, trying to form your life into what He wants for you, the Holy Spirit helping change your heart, the more of the “essence of Jesus” if you will, soaks into you. You end up tasting more and more like Jesus. Don’t be frustrated by the process.

  John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.  

 

Hebrews 10:14 For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

1. Having parents or grandparents who are pickles doesn’t make you one.
2. Going to Church doesn’t make you one. The church isn’t the jar or the juice. It’s  just a group of pickles.
3. Doing good, pickle-y things does not make you a pickle.
   (Eph 2:8-9  God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.)

Have the youth verbalize,  what is the thing that gets you adopted into the jar?

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. —Romans 10:9-10, ESV

What does “getting saved” mean?

How is the analogy like getting saved/becoming a Christian? How does the analogy break down/not work?

Have you ever met someone who says they are one thing, but really aren’t what they say they are?