August 28, 2024 • 27 mins
We are constantly trying to shape our lives to fit our wants and needs. However, sometimes we try and shape God to our wants and needs as well. Are we the potter? Or are we the clay? More in today's sermon.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
We used to kind of walk hand in hand with
the world. We'd have things in common with the world,
that the values and the virtues were the same, at
least publicly and proclaimed in the public sphere as they
were in the church. And yet we've just kind of
like in over the last forty years, that's just drifted away.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Good morning and welcome to peace to you from Peace
Lutheran Church in our Vada, Colorado. Have you ever noticed
that in the scriptures, Jesus always seems to get angry
with the religious leaders. It wasn't that they were the
only sinners Jesus was around. Jesus spent a most every
day of his life surrounded by sinners. The reason that
(00:51):
he was always so direct and even angry was because
they were reshaping God and his law in their own image,
lost track of who is the potter and who is
the clay. Listen now, as Pastor Guy helps us, reflect
on how easy it is to forget that we are
the ones who are being molded, and give thanks that
(01:12):
we are in the hands of Jesus, the master potter.
Now here's Pastor Guy.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Good morning. You're a good looking bunch when you all
get together. That's awesome. I bet some of you out
there wish that Pastor Tim would have given you a
little bendy toy to play with. That's right, just out
of curiosity. How many of you did have a gunna bee? WHOA,
that's a fun toy. I had one too, I should
(01:40):
raise my hand.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I think mine was a used one from a different generation,
but it was fun. Nonetheless, let's go ahead and begin
with a word of prayer. Gracious Father, we thank you
and we praise you for a chance to be here today,
to learn to grow to be your people, and for
this opportunity that we don't get all that often to
worship together as one body. We praise you for providing
a sanctuary large enough for this, a parking lot almost
(02:05):
large enough for this. And we just praise you for
the family of faith that you have given us. And
Jesus name, we pray. I'm in so today in honor
of this, a gathering together of both services, both worshiping communities,
all in one place, I decided to do something that
I have never done as a pastor. I have never
(02:27):
done this in the sixteen years that I've been preaching.
In the years before that. I got to preach with supervision.
All those years, I've never done what I'm about to
try to do today, and that is preach on the
Book of Isaiah. I know this is a difficult book.
I don't know if you know this. I studied it
in college, I studied it in seminary, and I feel
(02:48):
like I didn't get any closer to understanding the fullness
of it. And I'm not alone. Just think back on
your long, illustrious career of hearing sermons, and my guess
is there haven't been too many the Book of Isaiah.
I mean, maybe some of the famous ones, like Isaiah
chapter seven that talks about the Virgin Mary, or maybe
Isaiah fifty three that talks about the coming of the
(03:10):
risen Christ the suffering Servant. Maybe you've had a sermon
on that around Easter. But in general, it's one that
pastors tend to kind of avoid because you know, there's
just a lot to know before you delve in here.
And I'm not alone. This is words of wisdom from
the founder of the Lutheran Church, Martin Luther. He says,
(03:31):
for if anyone would understand the prophecies, it is necessary
that one know how things were in the land Israel,
how matters lay, what was in the mind of the people,
what plans they had with respect to their neighbors, friends
and enemies, and especially what attitude they took in their
country towards God and towards the Prophet, whether they held
(03:51):
to his word and worship or to idolatry. So before
you even start on this and his lectures and Isaiah
chapters one through thirty nine, he said, you need to
know all of this before you would even think to
delve in this. In fact, his opening words of warning
are this, I say to him who ignores or does
not understand the title and what the title is? That
(04:12):
all of the things he just said that you got
to understand the land culture, all the things they were
struggling with. If does not understand the title the first
verse that he should what I know. So I feel
kind of rebellious today because I don't know all of that.
(04:34):
Like to be honest with I know a lot. I
know a lot more than I used to know, and
every year I learn more. But to this kind of
standard I do not know. And yet there was one passage,
There's one little line in this Isaiah passage that kept
standing out to me and I thought of today, When
I thought of us gathering here today, that just kind
(04:55):
of needs to be said that we need to talk about.
And it's this. It's a quot question, part of a
larger question. Let's read it together. Shall the potter be
regarded as the clay? And the answer is no, that's
the answer, right, No, he should not be regarded as
(05:16):
the clay? For sure, You and I, as we gather
here today, we know this. And so as we move
through this passage, I wanted to kind of just jump
into it. I wanted us to understand that this is
kind of how it works. This is the question that
is posed to his people in the Book of Isaiah.
And to be honest, I think we can relate to that.
(05:38):
You and I can relate to that because we live
in a world in which we know this is true,
you and I as Christians, and yet we struggle. Shall
the Potter be regarded as the play as the clay?
This was in the children's lesson and we all and
the kids all said no, and who is the potter?
(05:59):
And they said God, or you could say Jesus. Right,
And so we know this, and yet how often in
life do we struggle with bending God to our own
will misshaping him in the way that we want him
to be. You know, the staff is kind of is
(06:19):
very gifted around here for sure. And so when we
did this at devotions this week, they had other idea,
other things to describe the same. Pastor Tam came up
with gumby and then you have here, someone said, we
like to treat God like a genie, right, a genie
in the bottle. When do you rub the lamp? Yeah,
(06:41):
when you need something, right, you need him to overcome
something that you can't overcome. But otherwise, where does the
lamp go? Right up there on the shelf, right where
we want him because he might say something we don't
want to hear. So we'll just put him back in
there and we'll bring him back out. Now, you've never
done this right? Ever, What about this one? My wife
(07:07):
she had this really bad accident our last year. She
broke her ankle and she was completely relying on people
for a while, and we got her a bell. Yeah,
it was fun for her. No, it was not fun
for her to have a bell. It's not worth it
(07:29):
at all. But yet we had one because you just
would need it and so we think God like this
as well. He's out there kind of hanging around. He's
not gonna have much to say about life. But if
we need someone, jingle jingle, jingle, or there's this one,
I got it God, I'll take care of it unless
I can't, and then I'll dial boo boo boo. I
(07:51):
don't know if those are the right tones, but it sounded.
I don't know. I've never dialed it, Timm, you want
to dial it right now? And was just kid, that's right,
nine to one one emergency, God come rescue us. So
this question, shall the Potter be regarded as the clay?
It doesn't take much reflection to understand that while the
(08:12):
answer is know, our lives demonstrate that the answer.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Is what.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes that God. We lose our we lose our place.
We get to a point of confusion and struggle. And
I'm going to give you an example of why. Because
I told this story like I was going to be courageous.
I was going to delve into this passage with you,
and I was going to go where no pastor, at
(08:38):
least this pastor, has never gone before. I was going
to preach on Isaiah. But I want to tell you
the story of how I got there. Because we're committed
to the Lectionary. We're preaching on the lectionary. So we're
going through the appointed passages for the Sunday. And so
I opened up to the Gospel like I always do first,
because that's the one I like to preach on because
that talks the most about who. And so the words
(09:00):
Jesus are the place I usually, pretty much ninety five
percent of the time, will preach on the Gospel. And
I read it and it was one about traditions, right,
and I was like, ooh, I've only been here six months.
Probably shouldn't stand up there and tell people that they're
traditions they need to examine them, because nobody likes that,
at least in my experience. And so I'm like, nope.
(09:21):
And so then I went to the epistle Lesson and
I thought, oh, the epistle Lesson. That'll be great. That's
what I've been In fact, i've been preaching on Ephesians
throughout the summer, kind of making myself do it because
it's fun and kind of gives me a new thing
to do rather than the Gospel. And I opened in fact,
we didn't even read it here today we talked about
and decided not to read it today because this is
how the epistle Lesson starts. Are you ready, wives submit
(09:44):
to your husband's And I was like nope. Fact, I
was like, no way, no way. In fact, I'd try
not to ever say that word those words out loud.
In fact, if we're going to read that passage in
a Bible study, I always ask a woman to do it.
It seems smart, right, these are I mean, so I'm
(10:10):
kind of a proposed I kind of presenting myself as
courageous for jumping into Isaiah for the first time, but
it was really the only option for me. And then
I had the experience of reading that one verse, shall
the Potter be regarded as the And I'm like, oh,
so then I was convicted, and I'm like, well, now
(10:30):
I have to preach on Ephesians. I have to start
with wives and no one. I was like, no, that's
still bad idea. But it is a good example, is
he God or not? We live in a world in
which all that stuff's been thrown out. That's what's a
fluence all around us. And yet, so when God's created
(10:53):
design for marriage can no longer be shared without making
a joke about it, or ducking or hiding. Is he?
Is he the Potter? That's all I'm gonna go there today.
That's that's a passage best addressed in Bible study. I've
(11:14):
found in all seriousness, but in general, as we move
through this life, I think you've noticed that the world
has kind of departed from us. Right. We used to
kind of walk hand in hand with the world. We'd
have things in common with the world, that the values
and the virtues were the same, at least publicly and
proclaimed in the in the in the public sphere as
(11:36):
they were in the church. And yet we've just kind
of like in the last forty years, that's just drifted away.
And I think it happened here in Denver faster than
it did where I served last in Northern Minnesota. But
yet you've all experienced this. And God calls us to
be faithful and to follow him. He calls us to
lean and trust that His will is what's best not
(11:59):
just for us Christians, but for all of creation. And
he tells us that in this life that we live
then that we must be careful while we live in
the world and are sent to the world. We are
not to be of the world, and so we need
to be aware of this, this own temptation in ourselves.
(12:19):
And I came up with some phrases here. I don't
have a slide for it, but I want to read
them to you so that you can know if you
hear this coming out of your mouth, or if you're
in a conversation with friends and you're saying things like this,
this is a good side. This is a good, good
indication that things are upside down, that the clump of
clay has kind of overthrown God and become himself or
(12:41):
herself the potter. If you say something like, my God
wouldn't as anyone ever said this before, well, my God wouldn't.
And that's clearly contrary to something in scripture. You just
don't like what's in scripture. You found yourself in this place,
or have you ever maybe thought this or heard this
or heard someone say this, I'm spiritual but not religious.
(13:04):
That's a good sign that the world's been flipped upside
down and we're out of our place. How about this one, Well,
this one gets you out of a lot of awkward situations.
You do you, man, have you heard that one? Have
you ever said that one? I've been tempted to say
that one because it's just like you go do whatever
(13:24):
floats your boat. I think is the older version of that.
What about this one? This one's really common today. I
follow my truth. Anybody wo Now that one's popular. I
heard that out of Christian's mouths all the time. Well,
I follow my truth as if there is a truth
apart from who. Yeah, you start to say these things,
(13:46):
you start to see these things, you know, And in
the Church we have more subtle ways. We say things
like this, Well, that's just old fashioned. You heard that
one before. It's like, well, when I was in my twenties,
I'm like, I'm like twenty something. I'm not old fashioned.
Like I can grow an amish beard. I can't. I
did that when I broke my neck once. Just say no,
(14:06):
this right here glows, This is grows glorious. Not so
much here, but here, Oh it's amazing and gross. How
about this one? This is a Christian one. I can
worship God in nature? Have you heard that one? This
isn't as common here, but where I came from, they'd
(14:28):
say I can worship God in a tree stand. Now,
I'm a hunter, and I like being in a tree stand,
But can you get his body and blood? There is
that where he called you to be? Who is the potter? Here?
And on and on. You can go through these. Let
me see if there's any more worth sharing. How about
this one? God is love? Now that's good. Where's that
(14:50):
come from? That comes from the Bible? Right? God is love?
Everyone say it with me. Where it gets a little
dicey is when by bye, God is love, you mean
there is no right or wrong and I can do
whatever I want and God would never say no to me. Ooh,
(15:11):
what happens is when you read through this chat, this
passage in Isaiah, we realize that we are no better
than Israel and Judah, and we're no better. We are
no better than all the people out there, at least
those people out in the world. They have the excuse
of not knowing better. But when we really stop and
reflect on this, we know better. You said it in
(15:31):
church today, who is the potter? And then take your
finger like this and go like this, who is the clay?
That's right? And so we know this, We have learned this,
We trust in this, and yet we live most of
our life upside down, out of whack and out of order.
(15:51):
We have the same struggle, the same sin. There's only
one difference between us and the world, between us and Israel,
between us and all the people that ever lived. Is
one thing that makes us different, and it's the Potter.
His name is what. This is your Lord and Savior,
who has shaped you, not only from your beginning with
(16:12):
your colors of your eyes and the way that you
were made and the way that you were born, but
then also in this life of brokenness and sin, he
has reached down and claimed you, put you to death
and raised you to new life. He has made you
into a new creation, informed you into something different. This
is who we belong to. And you know this. And
he loves you so much that he accepts you for
(16:33):
all the things, for all the things, every single one
of them. This is to whom we belong. We are
now redeemed children of God. And this life he has
called us to is not going to be easy. It
will require pain and suffering, sweat and blood and love,
(16:56):
a love that was shown to us through all those things,
through the sacrifice on the cross that was given to
us and now shown to us. And this is the
life that you are going to be called to. Not
to be shaped into whatever you want to shape yourself,
but lead wherever He would lead you in his glory
and grace for his purposes. And there is no better
place to be in all of life than in the
(17:18):
hands of the potter Jesus Christ. Amen, let's pray, Almighty God,
your word is cast like seed into the ground. Now
let the Deo of Heaven descend and righteous fruit abound.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Good morning, pastor God, good morning. Ky love that that
whole message. That's great because it hit home with me
a lot of times because I do that, you know,
occasionally we're I don't think of God right away.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's crazy. That's kind of the nine
to one one approach, Like that's if I need you,
there's emergency, I'll call.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah. And I like the genie in the bottle too
when you talked about that, I mean, how true is that? Yeah,
you know, Lord, I need you know, I'm gonna rub
this lamp here, and that's rightfully help me out, that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
But otherwise go back in the lamp because I know
that's the bad part of that, that analogy.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's right. Yeah, we don't have to go back. And
like you said, is he God or not, you know.
And and then the other thing I was thinking about,
and we talked about just briefly, was that when I,
like in our introduction talk about Jesus being angry and
Jesus getting angry and I know, when you know, the
money changers and that were out and he was tipping
(18:42):
over the tables and stuff like that. I kind of
understood where he was coming from on that. But when
you hear about Jesus being angry, is this seems kind
of counterintuitive. He's you know, the loving kind, you know,
God that is there for us and takes care of us.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And but anger, yeah, righteous anger. I mean he's brutally
direct with the religious leaders that so many times through
in fact, you get this incredible compassion and forgiveness and
just this soft, tender approach almost whenever he's dealing with
like prostitutes or.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Tax collectors or the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
But he reserves his anger and direct and just brutal
almost prosecution for the religious leaders. And that is because
the sinners that are at his feet, these worst of
the worst, they had no illusions of being anything other
than sinful. They knew they needed him, and the religious
leaders they had taken God and reshaped him into their
(19:42):
own image, and then now we're proclaiming to be authorities
to the word of God himself. And so yeah, sometimes
anger even comes out and it's righteous like this is
and not to they're not any worse than any other sinner,
but Jesus came to die for them to Yeah, he saves,
(20:02):
He seems to save that they seem to get the
most under his skin.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
So that this guy, when I was reading that, I
was thinking to myself, this is kind of like when
somebody does something that's in a position of trust, you know,
and those religious leaders are in a position of trust,
like when you know a teacher acts inappropriately.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Towards a child and things like that. They're they're a
step above, they're special. They're not supposed to be doing
anything like that. These are religious leaders, same thing, right, Yeah,
that's that.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And then they're they're they're going they're supposed to be
the ones who are saying things like we are the clay,
He is the potter. And what they proclaim with their
existence and how they interact with everyone is they are
the potters and God is on the shelf. He's in
the like literally in the box, that's the tabernacle.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So how arrogant are we to think of that? You know,
we can handle all these things that we just don't need,
and God, we can put him on the shelf because
we don't really need him, because you know, we can
handle all Yeah, anything that comes up.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's been I've been in my ministry sixteen years.
I've been accused. Maybe that's not the right word, but
I've been I've been described as being able to talk
at a level that people can understand, so my sermons
are understandable. I've heard that over and over and over.
There have been people who are frustrated by that because
(21:26):
to them, I sound too lay oriented or not professional enough,
or I need to use bigger words, or I need to,
you know, sound smart. And I always find that crazy.
But then I realized one time that what they liked
about that was the pastor would get up and he
would say a bunch of really really smart things that
(21:47):
no one really understood. But they would feel good about
it because they've got a smart pastor who knows and
then they know they can go to him if they
need something. Sure, but it also allowed them to not
have to actually engage with God's word, and you know,
and that's a I think that we all have to
own that that's in us. That's we like God and
(22:09):
we like having him, but we don't always like having
him because he is molding us and does not leave
us alone. He loves us too much to let us
just wallow in our sin and brokenness. And it's a yeah,
it's kind of brutal realization. I could I could say
that I'm trying to be something or talk like I'm
(22:31):
a better preachers. That's not at all the point of
that observation. I think the point of the observation is
we like to keep our pastors at arm distance. We
like to keep God's word at arms distance. We like
to keep God at arms distance because when he gets
too close, it gets uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
We like to be in control. Yeah, exactly, it's a
human nature.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
We like to be in control. And then you had
said some different things that people say. Yeah, and what
you had said was that that that his will is
not just best for us, but for all creation, you know.
And here we are seeing back, you know, saying things
like you know, my God, wouldn't you know? And I
(23:13):
have a person that was here on Sunday that said
that my God wouldn't let you know, a family member die.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
They wouldn't do that. My God wouldn't do that. And well,
so because you said that that's true.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's like, I mean the flippant answer to
that is, well, that person did die, and this is
God's world, I mean, so he did apparently allow that
to happen. And you know what's our hope in it
is that he would send his son to die and
across so that that's not the end of the story,
you know, like it's yeah, it's just it's funny we
do it that you do you as another one. These
(23:47):
are like, as I shared in the sermon, these are
things that if you're saying this or hearing your loved
ones say this, you can probably kind of guess that
this is what's going on. It's idolatry. It's a breaking
to the first commandment. And we have kind of we've
kind of stepped into the potter roll why and that's
not a good place for us.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
No, I wouldn't. I don't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
We'll make a mess.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
It would be very.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Bad cups we will make so big.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
But the other one I liked is that I'm spiritual
but not religious in the one and I just had
a guy say this to me not too long ago,
because he knows I'm Christian. He's you know, in our
neighborhood and stuff like that. He goes and I was
talking to him about it, and I said, well, we're
having this barbecue coming out and stuff like that, and
you know, I really want.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You to come on over there, and goes, you know
that's your thing, and you do you Oh, yeah, okay,
I'm just inviting you. You have to come. You don't
have to preach, you know, just inviting you to come
and just see what it's like. But you know, it's
it's hard to get through to some people. But once
they do, and I know, you know, we've talked about
it before once. Like my son that just finally accepted
(24:53):
God as his saviors, like Jesus as his savior, opened
up his heart, his life has turned around one hundred
and eighty wonderful. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, that's where we blown.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
That's right. Well, thank you again for that messages. That's
great and I'm looking forward to more.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Thank you, Ken, and I hope your voice gets better.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh, I hope it does too, because right now it's.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Kind of an FM voice, but it is a radio voice.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It is a radio voice. Yeah, it's a radio face too,
so opinion. Thank you pastor guy, and blessings on your
week when you talked to you next week, you two.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Thank you for joining us. A peace to you from
Peast Church in our bat To, Colorado. If you have
no church home, we would be delighted for you to
join us on any Sunday. Our address is five to
six seventy five Field Street in our bat of Colorado.
Our services are at eight and ten thirty am. Bible
classes for all ages are at nine to fifteen am.
(25:57):
You can easily access our sermons online at www dot p,
s Lucret dot M, or at Pasarbada at YouTube dot com.
Peace to You in part is a listener supported broadcast.
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(26:19):
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(26:39):
Now from the entire broadcast team at Peace Lupmchurch and Arbada,
I am up in holiday and may the peace of
our Lord you with you today and always
We used to kind of walk hand in hand with
the world. We'd have things in common with the world,
that the values and the virtues were the same, at
least publicly and proclaimed in the public sphere as they
were in the church. And yet we've just kind of
like in over the last forty years, that's just drifted away.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Good morning and welcome to peace to you from Peace
Lutheran Church in our Vada, Colorado. Have you ever noticed
that in the scriptures, Jesus always seems to get angry
with the religious leaders. It wasn't that they were the
only sinners Jesus was around. Jesus spent a most every
day of his life surrounded by sinners. The reason that
(00:51):
he was always so direct and even angry was because
they were reshaping God and his law in their own image,
lost track of who is the potter and who is
the clay. Listen now, as Pastor Guy helps us, reflect
on how easy it is to forget that we are
the ones who are being molded, and give thanks that
(01:12):
we are in the hands of Jesus, the master potter.
Now here's Pastor Guy.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Good morning. You're a good looking bunch when you all
get together. That's awesome. I bet some of you out
there wish that Pastor Tim would have given you a
little bendy toy to play with. That's right, just out
of curiosity. How many of you did have a gunna bee? WHOA,
that's a fun toy. I had one too, I should
(01:40):
raise my hand.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
I think mine was a used one from a different generation,
but it was fun. Nonetheless, let's go ahead and begin
with a word of prayer. Gracious Father, we thank you
and we praise you for a chance to be here today,
to learn to grow to be your people, and for
this opportunity that we don't get all that often to
worship together as one body. We praise you for providing
a sanctuary large enough for this, a parking lot almost
(02:05):
large enough for this. And we just praise you for
the family of faith that you have given us. And
Jesus name, we pray. I'm in so today in honor
of this, a gathering together of both services, both worshiping communities,
all in one place, I decided to do something that
I have never done as a pastor. I have never
(02:27):
done this in the sixteen years that I've been preaching.
In the years before that. I got to preach with supervision.
All those years, I've never done what I'm about to
try to do today, and that is preach on the
Book of Isaiah. I know this is a difficult book.
I don't know if you know this. I studied it
in college, I studied it in seminary, and I feel
(02:48):
like I didn't get any closer to understanding the fullness
of it. And I'm not alone. Just think back on
your long, illustrious career of hearing sermons, and my guess
is there haven't been too many the Book of Isaiah.
I mean, maybe some of the famous ones, like Isaiah
chapter seven that talks about the Virgin Mary, or maybe
Isaiah fifty three that talks about the coming of the
(03:10):
risen Christ the suffering Servant. Maybe you've had a sermon
on that around Easter. But in general, it's one that
pastors tend to kind of avoid because you know, there's
just a lot to know before you delve in here.
And I'm not alone. This is words of wisdom from
the founder of the Lutheran Church, Martin Luther. He says,
(03:31):
for if anyone would understand the prophecies, it is necessary
that one know how things were in the land Israel,
how matters lay, what was in the mind of the people,
what plans they had with respect to their neighbors, friends
and enemies, and especially what attitude they took in their
country towards God and towards the Prophet, whether they held
(03:51):
to his word and worship or to idolatry. So before
you even start on this and his lectures and Isaiah
chapters one through thirty nine, he said, you need to
know all of this before you would even think to
delve in this. In fact, his opening words of warning
are this, I say to him who ignores or does
not understand the title and what the title is? That
(04:12):
all of the things he just said that you got
to understand the land culture, all the things they were
struggling with. If does not understand the title the first
verse that he should what I know. So I feel
kind of rebellious today because I don't know all of that.
(04:34):
Like to be honest with I know a lot. I
know a lot more than I used to know, and
every year I learn more. But to this kind of
standard I do not know. And yet there was one passage,
There's one little line in this Isaiah passage that kept
standing out to me and I thought of today, When
I thought of us gathering here today, that just kind
(04:55):
of needs to be said that we need to talk about.
And it's this. It's a quot question, part of a
larger question. Let's read it together. Shall the potter be
regarded as the clay? And the answer is no, that's
the answer, right, No, he should not be regarded as
(05:16):
the clay? For sure, You and I, as we gather
here today, we know this. And so as we move
through this passage, I wanted to kind of just jump
into it. I wanted us to understand that this is
kind of how it works. This is the question that
is posed to his people in the Book of Isaiah.
And to be honest, I think we can relate to that.
(05:38):
You and I can relate to that because we live
in a world in which we know this is true,
you and I as Christians, and yet we struggle. Shall
the Potter be regarded as the play as the clay?
This was in the children's lesson and we all and
the kids all said no, and who is the potter?
(05:59):
And they said God, or you could say Jesus. Right,
And so we know this, and yet how often in
life do we struggle with bending God to our own
will misshaping him in the way that we want him
to be. You know, the staff is kind of is
(06:19):
very gifted around here for sure. And so when we
did this at devotions this week, they had other idea,
other things to describe the same. Pastor Tam came up
with gumby and then you have here, someone said, we
like to treat God like a genie, right, a genie
in the bottle. When do you rub the lamp? Yeah,
(06:41):
when you need something, right, you need him to overcome
something that you can't overcome. But otherwise, where does the
lamp go? Right up there on the shelf, right where
we want him because he might say something we don't
want to hear. So we'll just put him back in
there and we'll bring him back out. Now, you've never
done this right? Ever, What about this one? My wife
(07:07):
she had this really bad accident our last year. She
broke her ankle and she was completely relying on people
for a while, and we got her a bell. Yeah,
it was fun for her. No, it was not fun
for her to have a bell. It's not worth it
(07:29):
at all. But yet we had one because you just
would need it and so we think God like this
as well. He's out there kind of hanging around. He's
not gonna have much to say about life. But if
we need someone, jingle jingle, jingle, or there's this one,
I got it God, I'll take care of it unless
I can't, and then I'll dial boo boo boo. I
(07:51):
don't know if those are the right tones, but it sounded.
I don't know. I've never dialed it, Timm, you want
to dial it right now? And was just kid, that's right,
nine to one one emergency, God come rescue us. So
this question, shall the Potter be regarded as the clay?
It doesn't take much reflection to understand that while the
(08:12):
answer is know, our lives demonstrate that the answer.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Is what.
Speaker 1 (08:18):
Yes that God. We lose our we lose our place.
We get to a point of confusion and struggle. And
I'm going to give you an example of why. Because
I told this story like I was going to be courageous.
I was going to delve into this passage with you,
and I was going to go where no pastor, at
(08:38):
least this pastor, has never gone before. I was going
to preach on Isaiah. But I want to tell you
the story of how I got there. Because we're committed
to the Lectionary. We're preaching on the lectionary. So we're
going through the appointed passages for the Sunday. And so
I opened up to the Gospel like I always do first,
because that's the one I like to preach on because
that talks the most about who. And so the words
(09:00):
Jesus are the place I usually, pretty much ninety five
percent of the time, will preach on the Gospel. And
I read it and it was one about traditions, right,
and I was like, ooh, I've only been here six months.
Probably shouldn't stand up there and tell people that they're
traditions they need to examine them, because nobody likes that,
at least in my experience. And so I'm like, nope.
(09:21):
And so then I went to the epistle Lesson and
I thought, oh, the epistle Lesson. That'll be great. That's
what I've been In fact, i've been preaching on Ephesians
throughout the summer, kind of making myself do it because
it's fun and kind of gives me a new thing
to do rather than the Gospel. And I opened in fact,
we didn't even read it here today we talked about
and decided not to read it today because this is
how the epistle Lesson starts. Are you ready, wives submit
(09:44):
to your husband's And I was like nope. Fact, I
was like, no way, no way. In fact, I'd try
not to ever say that word those words out loud.
In fact, if we're going to read that passage in
a Bible study, I always ask a woman to do it.
It seems smart, right, these are I mean, so I'm
(10:10):
kind of a proposed I kind of presenting myself as
courageous for jumping into Isaiah for the first time, but
it was really the only option for me. And then
I had the experience of reading that one verse, shall
the Potter be regarded as the And I'm like, oh,
so then I was convicted, and I'm like, well, now
(10:30):
I have to preach on Ephesians. I have to start
with wives and no one. I was like, no, that's
still bad idea. But it is a good example, is
he God or not? We live in a world in
which all that stuff's been thrown out. That's what's a
fluence all around us. And yet, so when God's created
(10:53):
design for marriage can no longer be shared without making
a joke about it, or ducking or hiding. Is he?
Is he the Potter? That's all I'm gonna go there today.
That's that's a passage best addressed in Bible study. I've
(11:14):
found in all seriousness, but in general, as we move
through this life, I think you've noticed that the world
has kind of departed from us. Right. We used to
kind of walk hand in hand with the world. We'd
have things in common with the world, that the values
and the virtues were the same, at least publicly and
proclaimed in the in the in the public sphere as
(11:36):
they were in the church. And yet we've just kind
of like in the last forty years, that's just drifted away.
And I think it happened here in Denver faster than
it did where I served last in Northern Minnesota. But
yet you've all experienced this. And God calls us to
be faithful and to follow him. He calls us to
lean and trust that His will is what's best not
(11:59):
just for us Christians, but for all of creation. And
he tells us that in this life that we live
then that we must be careful while we live in
the world and are sent to the world. We are
not to be of the world, and so we need
to be aware of this, this own temptation in ourselves.
(12:19):
And I came up with some phrases here. I don't
have a slide for it, but I want to read
them to you so that you can know if you
hear this coming out of your mouth, or if you're
in a conversation with friends and you're saying things like this,
this is a good side. This is a good, good
indication that things are upside down, that the clump of
clay has kind of overthrown God and become himself or
(12:41):
herself the potter. If you say something like, my God
wouldn't as anyone ever said this before, well, my God wouldn't.
And that's clearly contrary to something in scripture. You just
don't like what's in scripture. You found yourself in this place,
or have you ever maybe thought this or heard this
or heard someone say this, I'm spiritual but not religious.
(13:04):
That's a good sign that the world's been flipped upside
down and we're out of our place. How about this one, Well,
this one gets you out of a lot of awkward situations.
You do you, man, have you heard that one? Have
you ever said that one? I've been tempted to say
that one because it's just like you go do whatever
(13:24):
floats your boat. I think is the older version of that.
What about this one? This one's really common today. I
follow my truth. Anybody wo Now that one's popular. I
heard that out of Christian's mouths all the time. Well,
I follow my truth as if there is a truth
apart from who. Yeah, you start to say these things,
(13:46):
you start to see these things, you know, And in
the Church we have more subtle ways. We say things
like this, Well, that's just old fashioned. You heard that
one before. It's like, well, when I was in my twenties,
I'm like, I'm like twenty something. I'm not old fashioned.
Like I can grow an amish beard. I can't. I
did that when I broke my neck once. Just say no,
(14:06):
this right here glows, This is grows glorious. Not so
much here, but here, Oh it's amazing and gross. How
about this one? This is a Christian one. I can
worship God in nature? Have you heard that one? This
isn't as common here, but where I came from, they'd
(14:28):
say I can worship God in a tree stand. Now,
I'm a hunter, and I like being in a tree stand,
But can you get his body and blood? There is
that where he called you to be? Who is the potter? Here?
And on and on. You can go through these. Let
me see if there's any more worth sharing. How about
this one? God is love? Now that's good. Where's that
(14:50):
come from? That comes from the Bible? Right? God is love?
Everyone say it with me. Where it gets a little
dicey is when by bye, God is love, you mean
there is no right or wrong and I can do
whatever I want and God would never say no to me. Ooh,
(15:11):
what happens is when you read through this chat, this
passage in Isaiah, we realize that we are no better
than Israel and Judah, and we're no better. We are
no better than all the people out there, at least
those people out in the world. They have the excuse
of not knowing better. But when we really stop and
reflect on this, we know better. You said it in
(15:31):
church today, who is the potter? And then take your
finger like this and go like this, who is the clay?
That's right? And so we know this, We have learned this,
We trust in this, and yet we live most of
our life upside down, out of whack and out of order.
(15:51):
We have the same struggle, the same sin. There's only
one difference between us and the world, between us and Israel,
between us and all the people that ever lived. Is
one thing that makes us different, and it's the Potter.
His name is what. This is your Lord and Savior,
who has shaped you, not only from your beginning with
(16:12):
your colors of your eyes and the way that you
were made and the way that you were born, but
then also in this life of brokenness and sin, he
has reached down and claimed you, put you to death
and raised you to new life. He has made you
into a new creation, informed you into something different. This
is who we belong to. And you know this. And
he loves you so much that he accepts you for
(16:33):
all the things, for all the things, every single one
of them. This is to whom we belong. We are
now redeemed children of God. And this life he has
called us to is not going to be easy. It
will require pain and suffering, sweat and blood and love,
(16:56):
a love that was shown to us through all those things,
through the sacrifice on the cross that was given to
us and now shown to us. And this is the
life that you are going to be called to. Not
to be shaped into whatever you want to shape yourself,
but lead wherever He would lead you in his glory
and grace for his purposes. And there is no better
place to be in all of life than in the
(17:18):
hands of the potter Jesus Christ. Amen, let's pray, Almighty God,
your word is cast like seed into the ground. Now
let the Deo of Heaven descend and righteous fruit abound.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
Good morning, pastor God, good morning. Ky love that that
whole message. That's great because it hit home with me
a lot of times because I do that, you know,
occasionally we're I don't think of God right away.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's crazy. That's kind of the nine
to one one approach, Like that's if I need you,
there's emergency, I'll call.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah. And I like the genie in the bottle too
when you talked about that, I mean, how true is that? Yeah,
you know, Lord, I need you know, I'm gonna rub
this lamp here, and that's rightfully help me out, that's right.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
But otherwise go back in the lamp because I know
that's the bad part of that, that analogy.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
That's right. Yeah, we don't have to go back. And
like you said, is he God or not, you know.
And and then the other thing I was thinking about,
and we talked about just briefly, was that when I,
like in our introduction talk about Jesus being angry and
Jesus getting angry and I know, when you know, the
money changers and that were out and he was tipping
(18:42):
over the tables and stuff like that. I kind of
understood where he was coming from on that. But when
you hear about Jesus being angry, is this seems kind
of counterintuitive. He's you know, the loving kind, you know,
God that is there for us and takes care of us.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
And but anger, yeah, righteous anger. I mean he's brutally
direct with the religious leaders that so many times through
in fact, you get this incredible compassion and forgiveness and
just this soft, tender approach almost whenever he's dealing with
like prostitutes or.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Tax collectors or the worst of the worst.
Speaker 1 (19:19):
But he reserves his anger and direct and just brutal
almost prosecution for the religious leaders. And that is because
the sinners that are at his feet, these worst of
the worst, they had no illusions of being anything other
than sinful. They knew they needed him, and the religious
leaders they had taken God and reshaped him into their
(19:42):
own image, and then now we're proclaiming to be authorities
to the word of God himself. And so yeah, sometimes
anger even comes out and it's righteous like this is
and not to they're not any worse than any other sinner,
but Jesus came to die for them to Yeah, he saves,
(20:02):
He seems to save that they seem to get the
most under his skin.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
So that this guy, when I was reading that, I
was thinking to myself, this is kind of like when
somebody does something that's in a position of trust, you know,
and those religious leaders are in a position of trust,
like when you know a teacher acts inappropriately.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Towards a child and things like that. They're they're a
step above, they're special. They're not supposed to be doing
anything like that. These are religious leaders, same thing, right, Yeah,
that's that.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
And then they're they're they're going they're supposed to be
the ones who are saying things like we are the clay,
He is the potter. And what they proclaim with their
existence and how they interact with everyone is they are
the potters and God is on the shelf. He's in
the like literally in the box, that's the tabernacle.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
So how arrogant are we to think of that? You know,
we can handle all these things that we just don't need,
and God, we can put him on the shelf because
we don't really need him, because you know, we can
handle all Yeah, anything that comes up.
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Yeah, yeah, it's been I've been in my ministry sixteen years.
I've been accused. Maybe that's not the right word, but
I've been I've been described as being able to talk
at a level that people can understand, so my sermons
are understandable. I've heard that over and over and over.
There have been people who are frustrated by that because
(21:26):
to them, I sound too lay oriented or not professional enough,
or I need to use bigger words, or I need to,
you know, sound smart. And I always find that crazy.
But then I realized one time that what they liked
about that was the pastor would get up and he
would say a bunch of really really smart things that
(21:47):
no one really understood. But they would feel good about
it because they've got a smart pastor who knows and
then they know they can go to him if they
need something. Sure, but it also allowed them to not
have to actually engage with God's word, and you know,
and that's a I think that we all have to
own that that's in us. That's we like God and
(22:09):
we like having him, but we don't always like having
him because he is molding us and does not leave
us alone. He loves us too much to let us
just wallow in our sin and brokenness. And it's a yeah,
it's kind of brutal realization. I could I could say
that I'm trying to be something or talk like I'm
(22:31):
a better preachers. That's not at all the point of
that observation. I think the point of the observation is
we like to keep our pastors at arm distance. We
like to keep God's word at arms distance. We like
to keep God at arms distance because when he gets
too close, it gets uncomfortable.
Speaker 2 (22:46):
We like to be in control. Yeah, exactly, it's a
human nature.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
We like to be in control. And then you had
said some different things that people say. Yeah, and what
you had said was that that that his will is
not just best for us, but for all creation, you know.
And here we are seeing back, you know, saying things
like you know, my God, wouldn't you know? And I
(23:13):
have a person that was here on Sunday that said
that my God wouldn't let you know, a family member die.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
They wouldn't do that. My God wouldn't do that. And well,
so because you said that that's true.
Speaker 1 (23:25):
Yeah, yeah, it's like, I mean the flippant answer to
that is, well, that person did die, and this is
God's world, I mean, so he did apparently allow that
to happen. And you know what's our hope in it
is that he would send his son to die and
across so that that's not the end of the story,
you know, like it's yeah, it's just it's funny we
do it that you do you as another one. These
(23:47):
are like, as I shared in the sermon, these are
things that if you're saying this or hearing your loved
ones say this, you can probably kind of guess that
this is what's going on. It's idolatry. It's a breaking
to the first commandment. And we have kind of we've
kind of stepped into the potter roll why and that's
not a good place for us.
Speaker 2 (24:06):
No, I wouldn't. I don't want to be there.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
We'll make a mess.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
It would be very.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Bad cups we will make so big.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
But the other one I liked is that I'm spiritual
but not religious in the one and I just had
a guy say this to me not too long ago,
because he knows I'm Christian. He's you know, in our
neighborhood and stuff like that. He goes and I was
talking to him about it, and I said, well, we're
having this barbecue coming out and stuff like that, and
you know, I really want.
Speaker 2 (24:31):
You to come on over there, and goes, you know
that's your thing, and you do you Oh, yeah, okay,
I'm just inviting you. You have to come. You don't
have to preach, you know, just inviting you to come
and just see what it's like. But you know, it's
it's hard to get through to some people. But once
they do, and I know, you know, we've talked about
it before once. Like my son that just finally accepted
(24:53):
God as his saviors, like Jesus as his savior, opened
up his heart, his life has turned around one hundred
and eighty wonderful. It's wonderful.
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Yeah, that's where we blown.
Speaker 2 (25:02):
That's right. Well, thank you again for that messages. That's
great and I'm looking forward to more.
Speaker 1 (25:07):
Thank you, Ken, and I hope your voice gets better.
Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh, I hope it does too, because right now it's.
Speaker 4 (25:11):
Kind of an FM voice, but it is a radio voice.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
It is a radio voice. Yeah, it's a radio face too,
so opinion. Thank you pastor guy, and blessings on your
week when you talked to you next week, you two.
Speaker 4 (25:33):
Thank you for joining us. A peace to you from
Peast Church in our bat To, Colorado. If you have
no church home, we would be delighted for you to
join us on any Sunday. Our address is five to
six seventy five Field Street in our bat of Colorado.
Our services are at eight and ten thirty am. Bible
classes for all ages are at nine to fifteen am.
(25:57):
You can easily access our sermons online at www dot p,
s Lucret dot M, or at Pasarbada at YouTube dot com.
Peace to You in part is a listener supported broadcast.
If you would like to sponsor a broadcast in the future,
call us at three O three four two four four
(26:19):
four five four. If you would like a copy of
today's broadcast and no charge to you, contact us at
the same number three oh three four two four four
four five four. You can access our sermons at any
time by going to our YouTube channel peaceharbatatube dot com.
(26:39):
Now from the entire broadcast team at Peace Lupmchurch and Arbada,
I am up in holiday and may the peace of
our Lord you with you today and always
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