September 22, 2002

Service Theme – "Our God is Mercy"

Jeremiah 18:1-12

The Touch of the Potter’s Hand

1. Introduction

1. Illustration – J. Oswald Sanders ("How Do You Love?" Discipleship Journal, March/April 1981) wrote, As a young woman, Frances Havergal, author of the hymns, "Take My Life and Let It Be" and "Like a River Glorious," had a very quick temper—the kind that would explode. Afterward she would be mortified and confess it to the Lord. But then she would lose her temper, again and again. One day after a particularly bad explosion, she threw herself down by her bed and wept. She prayed, "Lord, must it always be so? Will I always have this temper to keep me humble before you?" While she was on her knees, the Lord injected a verse of Scripture in her mind: "The Egyptians whom you have seen today you will see no more forever." God spoke these words to Moses when the Egyptians pursued the Israelites to take them back into bondage. Havergal related the verse to her temper and the way in which Satan wanted to use it to pull her into bondage. She saw that God could take her temper away. She asked, "Lord, could it be forever?" It seemed to her that the words came back from the Lord, "Yes. No more, forever." Her sister said that from that day Frances Havergal never again lost her temper. She believed God, and God did a miracle.
2. Context – All of us have miracles we would like to see happen in our own lives. There are parts of us that we absolutely detest, and we can’t understand why we can’t seem to get rid of them. Jeremiah faced the same problem. He saw things in the life of his country that appalled him. But God stepped in and showed him how He is more than able to reshape our lives into something beautiful. So let’s read today’s passage to find out more about what God says.

1. Scripture Passage

1. Jeremiah 18:1-12, from the New Living – The Lord gave another message to Jeremiah. He said, ² "Go down to the shop where clay pots and jars are made. I will speak to you while you are there." ³ So I did as he told me and found the potter working at his wheel. ⁴ But the jar he was making did not turn out as he had hoped, so the potter squashed the jar into a lump of clay and started again. ⁵ Then the Lord gave me this message: ⁶ "O Israel, can I not do to you as this potter has done to his clay? As the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand. ⁷ If I announce that a certain nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down, and destroyed, ⁸ but then that nation renounces its evil ways, I will not destroy it as I had planned. ⁹ And if I announce that I will build up and plant a certain nation or kingdom, making it strong and great, ¹⁰ but then that nation turns to evil and refuses to obey me, I will not bless that nation as I had said I would. ¹¹ "Therefore, Jeremiah, go and warn all Judah and Jerusalem. Say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says: I am planning disaster against you instead of good. So turn from your evil ways, each of you, and do what is right.’ " ¹² But they replied, "Don’t waste your breath. We will continue to live as we want to, following our own evil desires."
2. As we look further at the image of the potter and the clay, we need to figure out first what the potter’s job is, then what the job of the clay is.

1. The Potter’s Job

1. First, the potter’s job is to set the standards for the pots he is going to make. In other words, he gets in his mind how big they will each be, what shape and form they will take, what color they will be, etc. The potter has to decide what his products will be used for, and what kind of clay to use to make them. The point I’m trying to make here is that God is the potter. We are the clay. God sets the standards for each one of us by determining which lump of clay will be made into which pot. He sets the standards by getting rid of the rocks and air bubbles and pieces of hard clay in the lump that would ruin the pot. Just like my high school ceramics teacher decided what we would make and how we would make it, God decides what each one of us will be made into. God sets the standards for the products the clay will be made into.
2. Second, the potter’s job is to select the clay. Different kinds of clay have different properties, so it’s important to get the right type of clay for the pot you are making. In ceramics class, almost all of us used standard clay. But there were one or two kids who were extremely talented and got to use the porcelain. Porcelain is much more delicate to work with then the clay normally used, so special care had to be taken with it. Porcelain was only used for special projects – special plates or bowls or other pots. But even when fired in the oven, pots made of porcelain are still more delicate and easy to break than pots made with other kinds of clay. God alone knows each one of us well enough to choose which ones of us will be used for special projects and which ones will need to be made of stronger stuff with a less delicate beauty. God as the potter decides which kind of clay to make each pot out of.
3. Third, the potter’s job is to form the clay according to the standards he has set. There are two ways to form pots. The first is to make them by hand. Sometimes the clay is rolled into strips and coiled to form pots and jars. Sometimes it is squashed flat and cut into panels that are used to make pots and jars. Sometimes the clay is sculpted using tools into unique forms. That’s how pots are formed by using only the hands. The second way to form pots is to use a potter’s wheel. A flat disc is turned either by foot or using a motor, and the spinning clay is pushed and prodded and smoothed into the shape the potter desires. I imagine that if clay were living, the process of being formed into a pot would be very painful. But God as the potter cannot form us into works of beautiful usefulness unless He puts us through the process of forming us into the pots and jars He desires.
4. Fourth, the potter’s job is to seal the clay by glazing and baking it so that moisture will not destroy it and so that it will be much more difficult to break. There are two kinds of baking. The first is called bisque firing. After the pot is completely dry all the way through and the potter is done scraping off the rough edges and inscribing his designs on it, it is placed in the kiln and baked at fairly high temperature for several hours to harden it for glazing. After the pot cools, the glaze is applied in whatever design the potter has in mind and it is returned to the kiln. Glaze firing takes even longer and uses even hotter temperatures, but when the finished pot is removed from the cooled oven, it is much more beautiful and useful and much more difficult to break than the original lump of clay was. God as the potter scrapes off our rough edges, bakes us through the trials of life, glazes us by clothing us with His beauty, and finishes the baking job with even hotter trials until we become the beautiful and useful pots He created us to be.
5. When God starts with us, we are only ugly lumps of clay. Clay that has tons of potential, but ugly lumps nonetheless. He picks all the rocks and air bubbles and hard pieces of sin and pride and selfishness out of us so that we become clay He can work with. He forms each one of us into the pot or jar or plate He can use most for His glory and to further His kingdom, because He knows what kind of clay we’re each made of and what is best for us and Him. He kneads us and forms us into those vessels. When He is turning us on the wheel or shaping us with His hands and He finds another air bubble or rock or hard piece of clay, He gets rid of it, squashes us and starts over again. Finally, He has the pot He’s had in mind all along. But then, as we grow closer to Him, He scrapes off the rough edges and inscribes His image even more deeply on us, signing His name to us. Then, using the fire of the trials and struggles of life, He sanctifies us until the form He has shaped us into is firm and much less easily broken. This baking process continues our whole lives. Each time the heat is turned up, more of the clay destroying moisture and impurities are burned off and we become stronger and more pure as each hour goes by. God continues working with us by applying the glaze He knows will most reflect His image through us. The glaze isn’t perfect until its baked, but the bisqued pot is being transformed from ugly pink to showing the Potter’s design with each stroke of the brush. Sanctified but incomplete becomes more and more like God’s design as time goes by. Death puts us through the final fire as the glaze is sealed on us and we are works of beauty that God is pleased to have in His presence. God is telling Jeremiah to look and see what He can do – taking the ugly lump and transforming it into a work of art. The Potter’s hand is the transforming touch all of us need.
6. Illustration - J. B. Phillips, in Leadership (Vol. 2, no. 1), wrote, Every time we say, "I believe in the Holy Spirit," we mean that we believe that there is a living God able and willing to enter human personality and change it. God, through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit, is in the process of remaking us into something beautiful and wonderful to behold. He is remaking us to be like Him. George Whitefield, British preacher and contemporary of John Wesley, had the right attitude. He said, O may God put me into one furnace after another, that my soul may be transparent; that I may see God as he is (as quoted on PreachingToday.com). May all of us learn to have that same attitude too!

1. The Clay’s Job

1. Now, we come to the clay’s job. What is the job of the clay? Simply to cooperate with what the potter has planned for it, because if the clay doesn’t cooperate, it gets squashed so that another attempt can be made. And after only a few tries, if the clay still won’t cooperate, it gets thrown into the slip bucket, where water breaks it down into a mud that can be used only for making minor repairs on other unfired pots, or mixed with fresh clay to make other pots. Either way, its individual identity is totally destroyed. That’s what happens when we allow sin and pride and selfishness to keep us from allowing the Potter to form us into the pot He knows is the best for us. He has to throw us back and start from scratch, incorporating new materials into our lives so that He can form us into the pot He had in mind all along.
2. So what happens after the pot is bisque fired? Well, if the pot does not cooperate by accepting the glaze, the only way it can be reformed into something useful is by grinding it back into powder, mixing it with water and other clay, and starting over again. Many people who have gone far in their relationship with God, have allowed Him to sanctify their hearts entirely, and are ready for glazing, allow sin and pride and selfishness to keep them from accepting the glaze. God has no choice but to smash them, grind them up, and start over again, trying to reform them into what He originally had in mind.
3. The saddest decision happens when someone has gone through the entire process, has been formed and smoothed and bisque fired and glazed, and suddenly, through the process of death, rejects the Potter’s hand. The glaze has beautified the outside, but the heart has turned. God has no choice but to break the pot and discard it for all eternity. I pray that none of us ever make that choice.
4. You see, unlike the ugly stuff we use to make pots with, God’s clay always has a choice. We have the choice to be unusable to God. But God has also given us the greater choice of becoming, over the process of a lifetime, beautiful works that reflect His likeness and His glory. That is awesome news! God in His mercy has chosen not to leave us like ugly lumps of clay! On our own, we can only just sit there and look messy. But with the touch of the Potter’s hand, we will be beautiful!
5. Illustration - (From Leadership Magazine, Mistreated, Vol. 12, no. 3) Over a hundred years ago, in a Scottish seaside inn, a group of fishermen were relaxing after a long day at sea. As a serving maid was walking past the fishermen's table with a pot of tea, one of the men made a sweeping gesture to describe the size of the fish he claimed to have caught. His hand collided with the teapot and sent it crashing against the whitewashed wall, where its contents left an irregular brown splotch. Standing nearby, the innkeeper surveyed the damage. "That stain will never come out," he said in dismay. "The whole wall will have to be repainted." "Perhaps not." All eyes turned to the stranger who had just spoken. "What do you mean?" asked the innkeeper. "Let me work with the stain," said the stranger, standing up from his table in the corner. "If my work meets your approval, you won't need to repaint the wall." The stranger picked up a box and went to the wall. Opening the box, he withdrew pencils, brushes, and some glass jars of linseed oil and pigment. He began to sketch lines around the stain and fill it in here and there with dabs of color and swashes of shading. Soon a picture began to emerge. The random splashes of tea had been turned into the image of a stag with a magnificent rack of antlers. At the bottom of the picture, the man inscribed his signature. Then he paid for his meal and left. The innkeeper was stunned when he examined the wall. "Do you know who that man was?" he said in amazement. "The signature reads 'E.H. Landseer!'" Indeed, they had been visited by the well-known painter of wild life, Sir Edwin Landseer. God wants to take the stains and disappointments of our lives and not merely erase them, but rather turn them into a thing of beauty.

1. Conclusion

1. Please bow your heads and close your eyes. All of us are lumps of clay that are at some place in the process of becoming beautiful pots and jars. Some of us are still at the lump stage. Some are being thrown on the wheel. Some are having parts of them rolled and twisted into handles for their pot. Some are in the fire of the bisque kiln that incinerates their fleshly desires. Some are having the glaze delicately and carefully painted on. And for some the fires of the final finishing flames are beginning to warm. But all of us who have a personal love relationship with Jesus Christ are somewhere in the process of becoming more like Him. And all who don’t have that relationship can begin the process right now.
2. If you don’t have a personal love relationship with Jesus and you want to start one right now, pray with me: Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner and need your forgiveness. I believe that you died for my sins. I want to turn from my sins. I now invite you to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as Lord and Savior. Amen. If you just prayed that prayer, please see me after the service.
3. I would like everyone who does have a personal love relationship with Jesus to right now ask Him where you are in the process. Ask Him to reveal anything in you that is hindering the process, any air bubbles or rocks or hard pieces in the clay. Now if He has revealed any, ask Him to forgive you for those sins and thank Him for doing it. Now thank Him for wherever you are in the process. Thank Him that He is using the wheel or the tools or the bisque kiln or the glaze or the final firing to make you more like Him. Invite Him to continue and complete the work. Now thank Him for the grace that He gives you to make it through this process. Thank Him that He has promised to complete the process. Finally, thank Him that you are becoming a beautiful work of art that reflects His image.