Let's turn now in our Bibles to Psalm
115 for our Scripture reading.
I'll read the first, the unnumbered verses, and
Pastor Brian will lead the congregation in reading
the evens.
Shall we stand as we read the Word
of God?
Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us,
but unto thy name give glory, for thy
mercy and for thy truth's sake.
Wherefore should the heathen say, Where is now
their God?
Our God is in the heavens.
He has done whatsoever He has pleased.
Their idols are silver and gold, the work
of men's hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not.
Eyes have they, but they see not.
They have ears, but they hear not.
Noses have they, but they smell not.
They have hands, but they handle not.
Feet have they, but they walk not.
And neither speak they through their throat.
They that make them are like unto them.
So is everyone that trusteth in them.
O Israel, trust thou in the Lord, for
He is their help and their shield.
O house of Aaron, trust in the Lord.
He is their help and their shield.
Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the
Lord, for He is their help and their
shield.
The Lord hath been mindful of us.
He will bless us.
He will bless the house of Israel.
He will bless the house of Aaron.
He will bless them that fear the Lord,
both small and great.
The Lord shall increase you more and more,
you and your children.
You are blessed of the Lord, which made
the heaven and earth.
The heaven, even the heavens are the Lord's,
but the earth hath He given to the
children of men.
The dead praise not the Lord, and neither
any that go down into silence.
But we will bless the Lord from this
time forth and forevermore.
Praise the Lord.
Let's pray.
Father, how thankful we are that you are
in the heavens and that you do what
you please.
We ask you, Lord, today, as we study
the Word, that we might be so yielded
to you that you indeed can do as
you please in our lives.
Help us, Lord, to be totally submitted unto
that which you have purposed and planned for
us, because we know, Lord, that that's the
best thing that could ever happen to us.
Show us today, Lord, your plan, your love,
and how, Lord, we can experience the fullness
of that work of your Spirit in our
lives.
In Jesus' name we ask, Father.
Amen.
This morning we'd like to draw your attention
to the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, beginning with
verse 1.
The Lord spoke to Jeremiah.
He said, Go to the potter's house, and
I will speak to you.
So Jeremiah said, I went to the potter's
house, and he was making a pot on
his wheel, and the pot that he was
making was marred in his hand.
So he made another vessel from that clay
that pleased him.
Then the Lord spoke to me and said,
O house of Israel, cannot I do with
you as this potter?
Behold, this clay is in the hands of
the potter.
So are you in my hand.
As we go with Jeremiah to the potter's
house, there are three things that catch Jeremiah's
attention as he watches the potter.
The first is the potter himself, his skills
at making pottery.
The second thing that caught his attention was
the clay that the potter was working with.
And of course the third thing that he
observed was the potter's wheel, by which the
potter would turn the wheel, and by which
he could shape the clay that he had
there on the wheel.
This figure of the potter and his power
over the clay is used in the Bible
to show God's awesome, sovereign power over our
lives.
God becomes the potter, we become the clay,
and the wheel are the circumstances that God
brings into our lives, whereby he can form
and shape us into the person that he
wants us to be.
Isaiah wrote in chapter 64, But now, O
Lord, you are our Father.
We are the clay, you are the potter,
and we are the work of your hand.
Paul wrote to the Romans, Therefore, God will
have mercy on whom he will have mercy,
and whom he will, he hardens.
You will say to me, How then can
he find fault?
For who can resist his will?
Just who are you to challenge God?
Shall the vessel say to him that formed
it, Why have you made me like this?
Has not the potter the power over the
clay, of the same lump to make one
vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor?
It is true, God can do with any
of our lives just what he pleases, because
he is God.
And I really have no right to challenge
him with what he does with me.
He created me, and so he can make
of me whatever he desires.
He has that sovereign power over all.
Now, that would terrify me, if I didn't
know that God loved me as much as
he does.
And that God, because of his love for
me, would never do anything that would be
to my detriment, or to my harm.
He can make of me whatever he pleases.
He can make of me a vessel of
honor, or a vessel of dishonor.
But, it pleases him to make each of
us vessels of honor.
So, he sort of leaves in our hands
what I want to be.
Do I want to be a vessel of
honor for his glory, or do I want
to be a vessel of dishonor?
Now, if I will yield myself to him
completely, he is pleased to make out of
me a vessel that he can use for
his purposes, for his glory.
If I say I don't want to yield
my life to God, I will be what
I want to be.
I will make myself what I want to
be.
I'm not interested in yielding myself to God.
Then, you will become a vessel of dishonor.
Your life will become marred in the potter's
hands as you stiffen and resist yourself to
what God is seeking to do in your
life.
So, I can choose.
What kind of a vessel do I want
to be?
A vessel that brings honor to God, or
a vessel of no honor at all?
It all depends.
I can yield to God my life.
He will make of it something that is
valuable and beautiful for his glory.
The second thing that we observe, of course,
in the potter's house, beyond the potter, is
the clay.
Clay is one of the most common materials
on the face of the earth, and thus,
in its raw form, it has very little
value.
Clay, however, has a great potential for value
according to the skill of the potter.
The potter can take a lump of clay,
and he can make of that clay a
beautiful, expensive vessel that is worth thousands of
dollars, according to the skill of the potter.
All the clay has to do to attain
its full potential is just to yield itself
completely to the potter's touch.
As the potter begins his work, he first
of all just takes the clay, and he
begins to knead the clay.
He begins to work it over in his
hands.
He's feeling for lumps.
He's trying to create a sort of elasticity
in that the clay will mold and conform
to his touch.
He's looking for a texture.
He's looking to make the clay very pliable,
and so we see him as he is
working the clay.
He's seeking to get out all of the
lumps.
He's seeking for a consistency in the clay
itself so that it will respond to his
touch when he puts it on the wheel
and he begins to form it into a
vessel.
Now, sometimes as God begins his work in
our lives, we have a tendency to get
impatient.
We want to see his shape taking place.
And God is still just sort of working
us over.
He's getting the lumps out.
He's creating a pliable bit of clay that
he can really work with.
And as he is kneading and working in
this process, sometimes we think, Oh my, you
know, ever since I yielded my life to
God, it seems like everything is just going
upside down, topsy-turvy, you know.
I can't figure out what's happening.
Well, God's getting the clay ready so that
he can begin to form and shape it
and to make it something of real value
that he can use for his glory.
The kneading process is an important process in
the developing of the vessel.
Unless you take time and really prepare the
clay, you'll never be able to make a
vessel of any worth or value.
The Bible encourages us to be patient with
the Lord.
Paul said to the Galatians, Don't be weary
when you're doing the right thing.
In due season, you will reap if you
faint not.
James wrote, But let patience have her perfect
work, that you might be perfect and entire,
wanting nothing.
The third thing, of course, that we note
in the potter's house is the wheel itself.
Behold, Jeremiah said, he wrought a work on
the wheel.
After the clay has been thoroughly prepared, the
potter places the clay there on the center
of the wheel, and the wheel is the
instrument that he uses in order to shape
the clay.
In our lives, the circumstances of our lives
are the instruments that God is using to
form and to shape our lives, our character.
Sometimes it is necessary for God to use
pain.
There is a certain quality of character, unfortunately,
it seems like it can't be formed apart
from pain.
But whenever we're going through painful experiences, we
have a tendency to complain against God.
We can't understand why He would allow this
pain in our lives.
But He is forming us.
He is making us into a vessel that
He can use for His glory.
And sometimes it does involve painful situations.
Sometimes as God is forming us, He uses
sorrow to form us, to develop character within
us.
I can remember the sorrow that I experienced
when I received the call from the CAP,
Civilian Air Patrol.
And they told me that they had discovered
my brother's plane.
It had crashed at San Ofre there in
the mountains on the Marine base.
And they said, We're sorry to tell you,
Mr. Smith, there are no survivors.
I knew that my brother and my father
were on that plane.
They were flying up from San Diego.
And the sorrow that gripped my heart when
suddenly two men who were so close to
me and had brought so much joy and
support in my life are gone.
And I knew I would never have an
opportunity to be with them in that way
again.
And the sorrow.
I know the sore throat that comes from
swallowing so many tears.
I know the pain in the heart when
you try to work over in your mind,
Why did it happen to happen?
And what could I have done?
And all of these crazy things that go
through your mind.
And yet God was preparing me.
It was a part of God's process.
In years to come, I would need to
talk with families.
Families that had lost a close loved one
by accident.
I understood how they felt.
I do understand how they feel.
And because I went through the experience, and
because I experienced in that time God's help,
God's strength, God's comfort, so that I was
actually able to do the services for my
father and brother.
Because of God's strength and God's help, I
know what God can do when you're going
through those heavy trials and hard experiences.
Paul the Apostle wrote, Blessed be God, even
the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the
Father of mercies, the God of all comfort,
who comforted us in all of our trials,
that we might be able to comfort them
which are in trouble.
By the same comfort wherewith we ourselves were
comforted by God.
For as the sufferings of Christ abound in
us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ.
For we experienced our affliction and sufferings for
your sake, that we might be able to
console you in your affliction and in your
suffering.
So Paul looked at those sufferings that he
went through.
As a part of God's preparing him for
the ministry, in his ability to minister to
others, because he had gone through these things,
and he could, in going through them, experience
God's strength, God's help, and now he could
impart that to others who were going through
similar circumstances.
Oftentimes the potter is pushing pressure on that
clay.
He'll take his thumb and he'll push on
the thumb to get the clay to respond
and to shape it into a particular shape.
God oftentimes puts pressure on us.
But it's all in the process of molding
and shaping us into that vessel that God
can use for His glory.
Now many times we find ourselves complaining about
the pain or the suffering or the pressures
that we are going through.
But in reality, these are all from God.
They are the instruments that God uses to
shape us into a valuable vessel for His
service.
And thus to murmur or to complain about
my circumstances in life is to murmur against
God and that work that God is seeking
to do in making me the vessel He
would have me to be.
Now sometimes as I'm under the pressure or
sometimes as I'm going through the suffering or
the pain, I resist, I stiffen, I say
I don't want that.
And the moment I stiffen, I mar the
work that God is seeking to do in
my life.
There's a song that says let pain and
sorrow have her work.
God uses them as instruments in molding and
shaping our characters and our lives.
And sometimes we resist that.
And as Jeremiah was watching the potter, he
said the vessel was marred in the hand
of the potter.
Probably there was a bit of hardness that
he had not discovered when he was kneading
the clay.
And when he put pressure on that lump
or that hardness, it just marred the vessel
that he was seeking to make.
There was a resistance to the touch of
the potter.
That stiffness, that resistance, it caused the marring
of the vessel.
Even as we, so often, when we resist
the work of God or we stiffen when
God is seeking to mold and shape us,
it mars the work that God is doing.
Now, as Jeremiah watched the potter, he didn't
say, he didn't take that marred vessel and
just, you know.
But he worked it over again, took the
clay, took it back to just the lump
and started just working that hardness out of
it, the stiffness out of it, so that
he could then put it back on the
wheel and make the vessel that was in
his mind to make.
I don't know how many times God's brought
me back to just a blob.
You know, he was working and I stiffened
and the work of God became marred in
the hands of God and, poof, here I
am, working me over again and getting out
the lumps and so forth and starting over
again.
But it's exciting when you begin to see
things taking shape, when you begin to see
what God has in His mind to make
of your life.
As the potter begins his work with that
clay, in his mind he knows what he
wants to make.
He knows the vessel, he can see it
in his mind.
He knows exactly what he's wanting to make
out of that lump of clay.
That poor lump of clay doesn't know anything.
It has no idea what is in the
mind of the potter.
There's only one way the clay can discover
what is in the mind of the potter
and that's by yielding completely to the touch
of the potter.
And by yielding completely to the work of
God in your life, gradually we begin to
see, gradually we begin to understand the shape
that God is making us, the work that
God is wanting us to do and ultimately
we begin to experience the beauty of God's
work in our lives.
And we become vessels that God can use
for His glory and for His honor.
And it's always an exciting thing when God
begins then to use us and make of
us something that is worthwhile.
I see in this analogy that God is
the potter, I'm the clay.
The wheel is the circumstances in my life
that God brings to make the vessel that
pleases Him.
I realize from the beginning when the potter
takes the clay and begins to work with
it, to knead it, he already has in
his mind a plan, that which he wants
to do with that lump of clay, that
which he desires to make out of it.
I realize that the clay has no intrinsic
value within itself, but it does have the
potential for great value according to the skill
of the potter.
Paul wrote, for we are His workmanship.
That is, God is working in us.
Created in Christ Jesus unto the good works
that God has before ordained that we should
accomplish for Him.
I realize that the clay can only know
what's in the mind of the potter by
yielding fully to the touch of the potter.
I realize that the clay has no power
to make anything of itself.
That without the touch of the potter it
will remain nothing more than a worthless blob,
a lump.
And as far as eternal things are concerned,
totally without value.
I realize that the potter, because his love
for the clay is so intense, he has
a plan that is far better for that
clay than anything that that clay could ever
make of itself or imagine for itself.
For the eye has not seen, the ear
has not heard, neither has it entered into
the hearts of men, the things that God
has prepared for those that love Him.
The future that He has prepared for you
as you yield fully to Him.
Maybe today you've tried to control your own
destiny.
Your life has become marred, rather worthless.
Perhaps you've resisted the work that God is
wanting to do in your life.
It's comforting to know that the potter will
take that marred vessel, he'll remake it into
a vessel of value and usefulness.
And he made of it a vessel that
pleased Him.
And God can do that for you.
He can make of your life a vessel
that will please Him.
Father, we thank You for Your work in
our lives.
And Lord, we do pray that we might
become vessels of glory.
Vessels that will please You, Lord.
Forgive us, Lord, for our stubbornness.
Forgive us, Lord, for our resisting Your touch
on our lives.
But may we yield and surrender ourselves, Lord,
fully unto You, that You might accomplish in
us Your eternal plan, Your eternal purposes, as
You make of us a vessel of glory
fit for the Master's use.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.