As mentioned previously, I am a youth leader within the church. Last night I had a dream I was teaching my youth this lesson. In my dream, we were outdoors somewhere. The youth were quite distracted and kept walking off. They didn’t want to hear it at first – as many of us don’t sometimes, but after great persistence, I finally got them to sit and listen. This was my message to them:
I bake. I love baking. What I’ve observed when I bake bread and some desserts, like cinnamon rolls and cheese danish, is that flour and other ingredients on their own are dead. There’s no action – nothing working. But when yeast is added under the right conditions, everything begins to come alive. Slowly it grows, it matures. Things get moving, taking action. Eventually, the aroma is pleasant. The results are amazing.
This is like our lives with the Holy Spirit. When we are lost, unsaved, or if we are not living by the Spirit, we are dead inside and stunted. There’s no action. But when we receive the Holy Spirit under the right conditions – baptism with a genuine, contrite heart and repentance, we begin to come alive. We grow and mature spiritually. Some areas rapidly, and some slowly, but, nevertheless, continuously. The results? Pleasing to the Lord.
“But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”
“What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace, be warmed and filled,’ without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
“But someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder! Do you want to be shown, you foolish person, that faith apart from works is useless? Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works; and the Scripture was fulfilled that says, ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness’—and he was called a friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone. And in the same way was not also Rahab the prostitute justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out by another way? For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.”
“And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.'”
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
All Scripture (unless otherwise noted): English Standard Version Bible. 2021. BibleHub.com and English Standard Version Bible. 2016. Crossway