September 8, 2025 • 28 mins
What happens when our lives don't unfold according to plan? When we make mistakes or choose wrong paths? The ancient metaphor of a potter and clay offers profound insight into how God works with our imperfections and redirections.
Through Jeremiah's visit to a potter's house, we discover a revolutionary perspective on divine guidance that challenges both ancient Greek fatalism and our modern anxiety about "missing God's will." Unlike the predetermined destiny of Greek mythology, Hebrew prophecy presented a God who responds to human choices while still accomplishing His purposes.
The potter doesn't discard clay that becomes marred during the creative process. Instead, he patiently reworks it into something different but equally valuable. This collaborative relationship between artist and material beautifully illustrates God's approach to our lives. When we face failure, sin, or unexpected turns, God doesn't abandon us but reshapes us - sometimes in ways we never anticipated.
Pastor Ryan shares insights from a conversation with a professional potter who explained how pottery is more art than science. A good potter doesn't force rigid outcomes but works with the clay's natural tendencies. Similarly, God doesn't micromanage our lives but guides us through a give-and-take relationship where our choices matter significantly while His purposes ultimately prevail.
The sermon's powerful message - "You are not done yet" - offers hope to anyone feeling stuck in past mistakes or current struggles. Your history doesn't determine your future in God's hands. The clay remains moldable, and the Potter remains committed to creating something beautiful despite the marring.
Ready to discover what it means to surrender control and trust the Master Potter? Listen now and find freedom in becoming clay that remains flexible in God's hands. Your past doesn't define you - your willingness to be reshaped does.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And the question for this week was something like.
It was like a multifacetedquestion.
It was like how does God leadus and guide us?
Is the future sort of set, andhow does God respond to us?
Or what if I make a mistake,and what if I mishear the will
of God?
And how does God answer prayers?
And there's a number of theseI'm going to squish into one
sermon and it's about thispassage from Jeremiah 18.
(00:21):
So buckle up, because we mightwell, we'll see.
We have a lot to cover, butwe'll see how it goes.
So are you ready?
Okay?
So here's the context.
By the way, the sermon iscalled Not Done Yet.
If you hear nothing else thismorning, I want you to hear that
you are not done yet, probably.
So that's okay, have some gracefor yourself.
So Jeremiah is this Israeliteprophet who's mostly working and
(00:45):
living and prophesying in thesouthern kingdom that is called
Judah.
My clicker is not working.
Any idea why?
There we go, okay.
So if you remember Israel—oh, Iwent too far Israel was a
kingdom that was divided in two.
If you remember Israel'shistory, you don't have to go
too far into the weeds here.
But Israel was one nation andthen, because of some rebellion
and these two kings theyactually split in half.
There's the Northern kingdom,called the kingdom of Israel,
(01:09):
and then the Southern kingdomwas called the kingdom of Judah.
Jerusalem, the temple and allof that was down in the South,
in the kingdom of Judah.
So the kingdom of Israel wasalready, at this time when
Jeremiah is prophesying, thekingdom of Israel, the Northern
kingdom was already ransacked bythe Assyrians.
They'd come in and they hadtaken over and taken those folks
from the north into exile, andthe southern kingdom, though,
their day was sort of coming.
Jeremiah was a prophet wholived and prophesied in the
(01:31):
final decades of the kingdom ofJudah and he lived in and around
Jerusalem and he broughtwarning to the people saying,
hey, you guys have broken thecovenant with God by way of
idolatry and injustices, and sobe careful, because if you don't
, god will allow judgment tocome and God will let the
Babylonians come in and sort oftake over and drag you into
(01:53):
exile too.
So Jeremiah brings this warning, begging the people of Judah
and Israel, jerusalem rather, tochange their ways in order that
God might relent and change hisplans for this kingdom of Judah
.
Now here's the deal.
This is an ancient prophecy andHebrew prophecy was a bit
different than Greek prophecy.
The Greeks hadn't taken overthis part of the world yet.
(02:14):
Those would be a couple hundredyears later.
But most of us in this room areGreek thinkers.
We're influenced by Greekthinking, greek philosophy,
greek culture, and so we thinkof prophecy as a prediction of
the future.
The Greeks remember.
They thought that the world wasrun by these three sisters in
Greek mythology, called theFates, that we were all victims
of the Fates.
(02:34):
So these are the three sisterscalled the Fates, that these
women controlled the course ofhuman history and you could do
nothing to escape the Fates.
Whatever happened to you wasyour density, I mean your
destiny.
Back to the future, okay, andso you really couldn't escape
(02:55):
your fates.
The Greeks loved divination.
Divination was this act ofseeking knowledge about the
future or about unknown eventsthrough supernatural means.
They would do all kinds ofweird things, like crystal ball,
kinds of things to understandor to divine the future or
unknown events.
So they would like they had onething.
They would like tear theseanimals apart and they would
(03:17):
spill the entrails out like theguts, to sort of predict the
future, which sounds a bit odd,but it's like an ancient world
version of the magic eight ball.
You know, like you'd shake upthat sheep and pour out the
entrails like, oh, outcome looksnot good.
You know, I've seen the futureand it's medium rare.
Oh, that thought that wouldn'tbe a little bit funnier than
(03:37):
that.
Uh, is it the will of the gods?
It looks more like taco Tuesdayto me.
I'm going to cook that up andI'm going to see.
But the Greeks love this kindof thing.
Those will work at the 10o'clock.
I think they'll work at the 10o'clock.
The Greeks would like, theyloved crystal ball because they
knew that the fates had designedthe cosmos and how it would go
(03:57):
and you couldn't do anything toescape your destiny because it
was your destiny after all.
Hebrew thinkers were not likethat quite they didn't.
They weren't fatalists.
These, these, the Greeks, werefatalists.
They believed in the faith.
Greek Hebrews weren't like thatthey.
So if you're a Greek thinker,prophecy is really just a
prediction of the future.
It's already set.
You're going to kind of go onthe road, but to the Hebrew mind
(04:18):
, the prophets were notpredictors of the future.
They were people who werecoming with warning Change your
ways and things might change foryou.
Relent, repent, come back tothe Lord that's what you hear
all the time in the prophets andGod will make your way straight
again and bring you, welcomeyou, back home.
That's the Hebrew mind.
It raises the question, though,for all of us Are we victims of
(04:41):
the fates?
Do the fates control ourdestiny?
Do we have any choice or say-soor agency in the matter?
And then, how does God lead?
Does God sort of micromanage usas human beings?
Do we have any agency?
And if we do, how much?
And what happens if I make thewrong decision, or if I sin or
(05:02):
make a mistake or marry thewrong person or choose the wrong
career or have a failedbusiness venture?
How does God respond to thesekinds of things?
Am I just playing on a rolethat was set from the beginning
and the fates are kind ofpulling all the strings and I'm
just an innocent bystander?
And can I miss God's will?
Is it possible to miss the willof God?
And if I miss it, will God justlike wash his hands of me, like
(05:24):
I'm done?
You missed it, ryan, sorry.
Well, I hope this story mighthelp.
So here's the story.
Jeremiah gets word from God andsays hey, go down to the
potter's house.
All right, this is a picture ofthe potter's house, thanks to
chat GPT.
And so this is a potter in hishouse making pots with clay.
This is what potters did.
So God tells Jeremiah go downto the potter's house, I'm going
(05:47):
to put on display for you likea theater, like a show, and
you're going to watch it.
It's going to be a word from mein this theater.
It's a guerrilla theater, youknow, like from back in the 70s.
It's a subversive, provocativelive drama that God's going to
(06:09):
show to Jeremiah and make apoint.
And so he's watching this.
It's like this live in thisordinary place called the
potter's house, and God wasgoing to speak to him about what
was happening with Judah andthis nation and their rebellious
ways through this very muchlive action guerrilla theater at
the potter's house.
Are you with me?
So far?
Okay, thank you.
So pottery was very common, bythe way, in the ancient Near
East and actually in the ancientworld, because pottery, it was
ubiquitous, it was everywhere,because pottery was what people
(06:29):
used for nearly everything.
I mean pots were used forstorage, for cooking, they used
it for oil lamps, they used itfor even divine or like for
idols, for other divine kinds ofyou know wear, and pottery was
everywhere.
It was used all the time forall these kinds of things.
You would use pottery.
You'd see it everywhere.
(06:49):
In fact, archaeologistsdiscover pottery in the ancient
world, or what was the ancientworld.
In places like Israel it'severywhere.
When I was there, you wouldfind shards of pottery.
They call them pot shards.
You'd find them all over theplace and you could just grab
one and take it, because nobodycared, because there was pottery
everywhere and it was actually.
If you were a potter, you werein high demand because pottery
(07:10):
was very much needed, because itwas breakable, especially if
you had teenage sons.
It was always being broken, andso there was always more
pottery needed, and so thepotter had a very, very robust
business and there was a potteralmost in every single town or
city and their job was really,you know, it was a very secure
job, and even in the smallest,most rural towns there was
(07:30):
always a potter who had apotter's wheel and was making
pots, because people needed pots.
They used pots again foreverything.
So they're in high demand.
So people knew in the ancientworld, they knew this image of a
potter's house, but that thepotter would live, where he
worked, was like his house andhis business, and so everybody
knew this image of a potter'shouse.
So this was not like a foreignidea for them.
(07:51):
Like, oh yeah, we know thatthis metaphor, this live drama
that Jeremiah is going to seeand witness, everybody would
have known this image.
That's why it worked.
The image worked so wellbecause, like, oh yeah, we know
a potter, so a potter used awheel.
This is what it looked like.
By the way, in the text it saysthe potter was at the wheel, but
it's literally, in the Hebrew,it's two stones.
(08:11):
And so here's what it lookedlike.
You had these two stones, oneon the top, one on the bottom.
This is before, of course, thedays of electricity.
And so here's the wheel, whatit looks like.
So they would spin this bottompart, the stone, and it would
spin to the top one spinning.
I don't know if that's supposedto do that down there.
(08:32):
All right, I was told this isan antique, so be careful.
So I don't know what this does,we're going to leave it there.
And so you would spin it and itwould get going, and then they
would work the clay on top, andso it was really this two stones
wheel.
There's like a, like a rod thatgoes right in between there,
and it was like this flywheel onthe bottom that the potter
(08:52):
would spin and begin to work andmassage that clay.
Now about this wheel, this oneactually, this is sort of modern
version of this one.
This one began to sort ofsurface in history and
archeology around the fourthmillennium BC, so around 4,000
BC was when they started todiscover these artifacts in this
part of the world.
This potter is just two wheel,so it's spinning.
Now, on occasion, though, youheard the clay that the potter
(09:15):
would get.
It would get this clay out ofthe earth.
The clay would become marredwhen he's making a pot, but he's
making a pot in the.
I've got my napkin here.
The potter is making a pot andhe would get the clay and the
clay would, on occasion, bemarred.
So, at first glance, you wouldlike see the clay, like, oh,
this is gonna be good, but then,as he begins to work it, it's
like not so good, sort of likeonline dating, you know.
(09:38):
You get there like, oh, this isgood, not so good for a while,
and so it's marred or it'sspoiled.
He's making a pot and herealized oh, the pot's not
turning out like I wanted to.
So in the text it says thevessel he was making, the pot or
whatever it was was spoiled inthe potter's hands.
Now, spoiled literally meanslike this it means to be
destroyed or corrupt, or to goto ruin or to be decayed, to be
(10:01):
spoiled or marred.
You get the idea, but in caseyou don't, here's another way to
put it To render less perfectthis clay was To be less
attractive or useful, or to bedisfigured or defaced or even
scarred.
This clay was not turning outhow it was supposed to go.
So the question is what willthe potter do with this clay, as
(10:22):
he's working it and it's notdoing what he wants it to do?
Well, I might just throw itaway because I'm not wasting my
time.
So I called my friend Chad.
He's a potter, he does greatwork.
Anybody know potter Chad?
Okay, he makes pots and he'sincredible at his pottery.
I'm like hey, talk to me aboutpottery, pottery and pots.
(10:42):
How does this work?
Have you ever had clay that,while you're trying to work, it
isn't doing what you want it todo?
He's like oh yeah, all the time.
He's like Ryan, this was verycommon to get clay that just
won't do what you want it to do.
I'm like well, tell me moreabout it.
It's like sometimes you'll bemaking a bowl and you're
spinning that wheel, making abowl, you know, and the bowl
will collapse and become a plate.
(11:04):
I don't know what I did here,let's get out of hand, okay.
So it happens all the time.
And so now you have a plate onyour hands and so you can do two
things.
You can either like, okay, I'mgonna make a plate out of this,
or you can throw it away.
I guess you have three options.
You can like, okay, I'll make aplate, because it doesn't want
to be a bowl, or I'll throw itaway.
(11:25):
Or I'll maybe start over,because clay is this formable,
malleable thing.
You can kind of squeeze it backtogether, make it into a ball
and then start all the way over.
But he doesn't ever throw itaway.
He says, hey, ryan, it's becausepottery is not really a science
, it's more like an art.
So you have to kind of beflexible in this way with this
(11:45):
clay, because you have to adjuston the fly.
If you're making a bowl andit's just not working, you will.
Okay, you got to adjust Like,what does it want to be?
So he says I don't try to comewith this idea in my mind of
what I want to make, necessarily, but more like a general idea,
and I want to see instead, whatdoes the clay want to be itself?
What's the clay doing?
(12:06):
What might this clay want tobecome?
So again, he comes with thisgeneral idea, not a specific
idea per se.
In other words, he's like Ryan,I don't try to force it, I work
with it and I massage the clayand the clay massages back and I
don't come like, hey, here'swhat I think it should be.
Rather, what is this clay allabout?
It's like an active discovery.
(12:27):
So the potter, he told me Ryan,the potter must always be
flexible.
Even his thinking has to beflexible.
This potter to adjust and toadapt.
He has a friend who's amathematician, who's also a
potter.
He's like Ryan, he's not a verygood potter.
He says mathematicians don'tmake good potters, for all the
obvious reasons.
(12:48):
Okay, any mathematicians in thehouse, okay, I mean, try it
anyway.
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, he'slike, because he's so rigid
about it.
He's like and he'll make thesepots and it'll not be what he
wants it to be.
He keeps forcing it anyway, andwhen there's a mistake in the
(13:11):
clay He'll use it anyway.
He calls them seconds orfailures.
At that point it becomes notreally art as much as a
commodity.
He goes because, ryan, when I'mmaking art, there's some amount
of humanness, of my humanness.
It becomes a part of the clay.
When I'm molding it, there's apart of me that goes into the
clay, into the pot, into thebowl, whatever it is.
This thing that I'm making isimbued with something more than
just the components that arethere, like.
(13:32):
In other words, there's more tothis thing than just clay.
There's part of me in there, inthis bowl.
There's a part of the human,the artist, the potter that
becomes a part of the clay.
This is why he told me peoplewill pay $40 for a handmade mug
that they could have got atTarget for $5.
It's the same kind of mug, theyserve the same purpose, but one
(13:53):
is imbued with the blood andsweat and tears of the artist.
If you look at the bottom ofthose cups at Target, it says
made in China.
If you look at the bottom of anartist's mug, it says made in
my garage while listening to sadindie music.
The Target mug, though it won'tjudge you, this one might judge
you when you're drinking out ofit.
So there it is.
(14:14):
There's a part of the human, thepotter, the person who's making
it, imbued into the clay, andthat way then it becomes this
collaborative effort between theclay and the potter.
There's a give and take.
The clay has to give, but notso much that it breaks.
The potter has to give.
(14:35):
He can't like force it to bewhat it won't be.
I mean he could, but it's not agood potter.
A good potter is there's aflexibility to the potter, some
pliability, some give and taketo this relationship.
It's a collaborative effort.
And then Chad said this is,ryan, is how clay that's brought
out of the ground can thenbecome useful in the hands of
(14:57):
this potter.
Now, I'm not trying to make moreout of this image than there is
to make, but let this be my ownkind of commentary, my own
midrash.
This is what's happening inthis story.
It's incredibly beautiful.
Jeremiah goes down, he sees thepotter making this clay and
it's not doing what the potterwants it to do.
So the text tells you thepotter then changes his mind,
(15:21):
his plans for the pot, for theclay, and make something else.
And then he says God tellsJeremiah this.
Then the word of the Lord cameto Jeremiah and said can I not
do this with you, judah andIsrael, on this, as this potter
does?
Can I not take you and make youinto something that you didn't?
Maybe it wasn't working so welland maybe you were marred and
(15:41):
spoiled.
Can I not do this with you,like clay in the hands of the
potter?
God tells Jeremiah to tellIsrael.
So you are in my hand, israel,you're the clay, I'm the potter.
By the way, in the ancient NearEast, people believed that
humans were made out of clay.
They thought they were made outof clay, and you know this.
(16:04):
I mean clay comes from theground.
So it's no wonder in our storythen, in Genesis 1 and 2, god
takes some clay, some dirt fromthe ground and he begins to
shape it and form it and hemakes human beings out of it.
He does this a lot with theentire cosmos.
He builds and shapes and forms.
God's always taking these rawmaterials and then he breathes.
(16:26):
Of course, he breathes lifeinto this thing.
So this is what God has alwaysbeen doing.
So it's no wonder that in theancient world they had this idea
that people thought that humanswere made out of clay.
Clay is formable.
It's, again, malleable.
Also, ancient Jewishcommentators.
They didn't really all agree orbelieve that God created out of
nothing.
There was nothing and then Godjust creates.
(16:46):
They call this ex nihilo.
A lot of the ancient Hebrewscholars didn't think that was
true, because in Genesis, whenyou have what they call the tohu
vavohu or the world wasformless and void there was a
chaos and wildness there.
Something was there.
According to some Jewishcommentators, rather, god
doesn't create out of nothing.
He begins to shape and mold andform what's already there.
Of course he would.
(17:13):
This is what God always does.
God shapes and molds and bringslife.
He brings life, identity andpurpose into this clay, this raw
material that's alreadyexisting.
It's already there.
Notice too that God doesn'tunilaterally sort of just make
something happen.
He's molding, he's shaping,he's forming, giving it life.
And where the clay is marred orspoiled or defaced or it's not
(17:35):
turning out, well, it seems likeGod's like that's okay, I'm
still going to make somethingout of it.
I'll reshape it, I'll reform it.
I'm not going to throw it inthe garbage.
I'll make it, I'll mold it backinto a ball or, if it's going
to a plate, I'll make it into aplate.
I'm still going to work with it.
In other words, the clay's notdone until I say it's done,
(17:57):
which is good news for Israel,because God tells me hey look,
if you repent and return to mefrom your wicked ways, I'll
relent and you can have apathway forward, which is good
news for us.
It means that you and I, we arenot done yet.
(18:18):
This is the good news thismorning.
If you're looking for good news, this is the good news.
You and I aren't done yet.
We are merely clay in the handsof the potter.
And if you're marred or you'respoiled or you've gone off the
path or you've made wrongdecisions, it's okay.
If God was making you into abowl, you're like I don't want
(18:39):
to be a bowl, I want to be a pot.
Even unknowingly, god's likefine, fine, fine, let me just
adjust.
There's some give and take,there's collaboration.
If it started to break, okay,hang on.
By the way, I was told by Chadtoo.
He goes.
Sometimes the clay gets so thin.
They will take pieces of otherclay and they call these grog.
(18:59):
That's what he told me.
They take grog, they ground uppieces of other clay, they mix
it into this clay and it becomesstronger Again.
I'm not trying to read too muchinto this, but they'll take
other clay pots, other peopleperhaps, and they will put them
together and when they'retogether they're stronger.
And he says and I don't know ifChad's a church goer he's like,
yeah, yeah, kind of like maybe,what God would do with people
(19:21):
If you're kind of on your own,you're weak, he'll put people
with you to make you stronger.
I'm like, yeah, that's good,I'm writing that down, chad.
So that was Chad's, not mine,that was his idea.
So you're in the hands of thepotter and he's making you
worked for Israel.
They understood it right away.
The great Hebrew scholar,abraham Joshua Heschel, says it
this way.
He says life is not as fatedesigns.
(19:44):
Are we merely victims of thefates that are just sort of just
playing out?
This role of the fates haddesigned for us?
Nor is history a realm to betyrannized by man, by humans.
Events are not like rocks onthe shore shaped by the wind and
the water.
Choice and design is whatdetermines the shape of events.
God is at work on humans,intent to fashion history in
(20:11):
accord with himself.
So I thought this might be alittle bit poetic for many of us
.
Let me throw this in the chatGPT and have it reworded.
So here's what rewording cameup with.
So this is re-quoting AbrahamHeschel Life isn't ruled by
blind fate and history isn'tsomething that humans can
completely control.
So there's this collaboration.
It seems like Events don't justhappen automatically, like
(20:31):
waves shaping rocks.
Instead, our choices giveevents their shape and God works
through people, guiding historyto reflect his purposes.
And so God's like okay, I'mgoing to make something.
My purpose, I'm going to makesomething beautiful out of this
clay, this lump of clay that Ipull out of the ground.
I don't know what it will beyet, I don't really care, but
I'll make something beautifulout of it.
(20:52):
And I can say that because I'mGod and I'll make sure my will
is done.
So at the end of this thing,I'm going to have you be some
beautiful something.
Now, your part is okay.
What do you bring to the table?
And how might you respond?
There's this give and take, andGod's not shocked or surprised,
like I don't know what to dowith this clay.
No, I got you.
Okay, you're marred, I'll keepmassaging it.
(21:12):
Abraham Heschel goes on to saythis then, is not a cul-de-sac,
nor is guilt a final trap.
Sin will be washed away byrepentance and return and beyond
guilt is the dawn offorgiveness.
We're going to gather in aminute around the table and
(21:36):
you're going to come forward andreceive the grace and mercy and
forgiveness of God in the waferand in the wine.
I love it because you don'thave to be stuck in this
cul-de-sac of sin or brokenness.
You can find a new way forwardbecause you're like clay in the
potter's hands.
The door is never locked.
The threat of doom is not thelast word, heschel says.
I love that.
By the way, philippians writesit this way Paul writes to the
Philippians, being confident ofthis that who began a great work
(21:56):
in you, who started making youinto something nice, he's going
to carry it to completion untilthe day of Christ Jesus.
You are not done yet.
Do you hear me?
You're not done yet.
And God is wise, the smartest,wisest, best potter I've ever
(22:18):
met in my life.
He knows what he's doing.
He will take care of you andkeep massaging you and working
with you, which means that yourpast does not have to dictate
your future.
Your past wounds your pastmistakes your past, or even
current sins, the wrong turns,your parents who were not very
good, the job you lost, thefailed business decision that
(22:40):
you made, your failed marriage.
These things don't have to bethe end.
They don't have to dictate yourfuture, because it's marred,
it's spoiled, but we'll makesomething else out of this.
This is the redemptive work ofGod.
This is resurrection.
See, clay is being formed.
That's what you're doing.
You're being formed in the handof the potter.
(23:00):
Remember, it's not a science,it's an art.
So here's your job, then.
Okay, now that was the good news.
Here's some good advice.
So take this or leave it.
I'll help you.
Take it.
Your job is to remain moldablein the potter's hands.
It's your job.
Or, as John writes it justremain in me and I'll remain in
(23:22):
you.
But be pliable, be flexible.
Here's how you do that.
I'm going to give you threeways.
One let go of control.
Stop telling God, god, I don'twant to be a bull, I want to be
a plate.
Okay, fine, but just relax andlet God shape you how god might
(23:45):
see best.
I don't know, maybe god knowsbetter than you do and you can
look back like, yeah, I know the10 ways I screwed that up, like
.
We all know that we look back.
I was so.
I was being so obstinate there.
I just what if you let go ofcontrol and just even just today
, like, okay, god, god, I'm justtrusting in you that you're not
gonna screw me up.
Maybe you start there.
You know, okay, god, and youhold it.
By the way, the reason we raiseour hands in worship, some ways
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like it's just a sign ofsurrender.
It's a physical action when youget, when, if someone were to
hold a gun up to you, you wouldsurrender by doing this, it's
all worship.
When you're in worship, youjust okay, let go of control.
By the way, I love this.
Tim Keller says this most of usthink we know better than God
about how our lives ought to go.
Raise your hand.
If you think I'm just kidding,I'm not going to have you do
(24:27):
that.
Yeah, I know better God.
You don't know as good as I do.
If it's not going right, we getanxious, filled with self-pity,
scorn, we get skeptical, hardand cynical, but patience and
the ability to not worry whenthings go wrong is a kind of
humility.
Oh man, we don't like beinghumble, I don't, because it
(24:48):
takes humility to say, well, Ithought this is how my life
ought to go.
I thought I should be a bull.
Maybe I shouldn't, though, butwhat do I know?
How would I know?
I can't see what God can see.
I don't know what's best for me.
Then Tim Keller says I lovethis.
He says it takes pride to beworried.
I'm just saying To tell God Iknow how my life ought to go,
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and I'm afraid that God won'tget it right.
Humility says I don't know.
You have enough joyful hope,enough belief in the fact that,
though weeping tear for thenight, joy comes in the morning.
I know it's not going so well.
Maybe I don't know what God'sup to, and I know that in the
end God will make me intosomething beautiful, but in the
meantime, this is painful, butall right, let's just see what
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happens.
So, number one let go ofcontrol.
Number two repent.
Are there any ways that you'reactively walking the wrong
direction or rebelling againstGod, doing things you know you
shouldn't be doing?
Things like that areundermining God's love and plan
in your life.
We do this, we.
We actively rebel against Godand we do things we know we
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shouldn't do.
That's called rebellion and sinLike okay, don't do that,
because sin destroys.
So repent, turn around, stopdoing those things.
We'll help you.
You know, when you're activelyundermining God's plans for your
own life and doing things youshouldn't be doing, stop doing
them and we can help you.
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We're the church, we're helpingyou.
So confess your sins.
Bring, by the way, the onlything you need to bring for
communion when you come forwardfor the meal.
The only thing you need tobring, not your good works, not
your good looks, not your money,not your accomplishments.
Bring your sins.
That's all you need to bring.
Bring them, just dump them uphere and leave them and repent.
Number three, then, lastly, istrust the potter.
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He knows what he's doing.
He's good at this.
He's a good potter.
Trust him.
Trust him, because you can thenstart over again.
You can, and again, and again,if you need to.
And if you need to, you canstart over again and again, and
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again, and again, and again, andagain, and again, and again,
and again.
Is he going to keep going?
I don't know.
Is he going to keep CentralLutheran Church?
(27:24):
May you be moldable in the handsof the potter, the great and
wise potter.
May you trust him and his plansfor your life.
May you know that god iscalling you home.
I mean you turn from all theways in which you're not going
that way and just go home.
It it's safer there, it'sbetter there.
May you remain moldable in thehands of God.
Here's what we're going to do.
We're going to respond in threeways.
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We're going to sing a song,we're going to take communion
and also we've got the ushersgoing to give out some clay.
Right, ushers, are my usherswith me?
So everyone's going to getsomething out of this clay.
Okay, is that right?
Are the ushers going to do it?
They've got, oh God, great.
So, oh, you've already got it.
Oh, good grief, thank you, youalready got it, thank you.
(28:08):
So you're going to open it andjust add, as the song is going,
before or after communion, justmake kind of I don't know, just
have fun and make something andnotice how malleable the clay is
.
And if it's not becoming whatyou want, okay, well then maybe
change it to something differentand notice the collaboration
between you and the clay.
Now, this is air dry clay, soit might dry.
I don't know how fast it willdry, but you've got, you know,
(28:30):
you've got probably a good houror so.
But then take it home and, like, set it on a windowsill, but
maybe a reminder for you of thestory that God can take our clay
and make us into somethingbeautiful.
And if you get a picture of it,send it to me.
I'd love to see what you makeand what you think of it and how
it speaks to you.
Okay, amen.
And the question for this week was something like.
It was like a multifacetedquestion.
It was like how does God leadus and guide us?
Is the future sort of set, andhow does God respond to us?
Or what if I make a mistake,and what if I mishear the will
of God?
And how does God answer prayers?
And there's a number of theseI'm going to squish into one
sermon and it's about thispassage from Jeremiah 18.
(00:21):
So buckle up, because we mightwell, we'll see.
We have a lot to cover, butwe'll see how it goes.
So are you ready?
Okay?
So here's the context.
By the way, the sermon iscalled Not Done Yet.
If you hear nothing else thismorning, I want you to hear that
you are not done yet, probably.
So that's okay, have some gracefor yourself.
So Jeremiah is this Israeliteprophet who's mostly working and
(00:45):
living and prophesying in thesouthern kingdom that is called
Judah.
My clicker is not working.
Any idea why?
There we go, okay.
So if you remember Israel—oh, Iwent too far Israel was a
kingdom that was divided in two.
If you remember Israel'shistory, you don't have to go
too far into the weeds here.
But Israel was one nation andthen, because of some rebellion
and these two kings theyactually split in half.
There's the Northern kingdom,called the kingdom of Israel,
(01:09):
and then the Southern kingdomwas called the kingdom of Judah.
Jerusalem, the temple and allof that was down in the South,
in the kingdom of Judah.
So the kingdom of Israel wasalready, at this time when
Jeremiah is prophesying, thekingdom of Israel, the Northern
kingdom was already ransacked bythe Assyrians.
They'd come in and they hadtaken over and taken those folks
from the north into exile, andthe southern kingdom, though,
their day was sort of coming.
Jeremiah was a prophet wholived and prophesied in the
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final decades of the kingdom ofJudah and he lived in and around
Jerusalem and he broughtwarning to the people saying,
hey, you guys have broken thecovenant with God by way of
idolatry and injustices, and sobe careful, because if you don't
, god will allow judgment tocome and God will let the
Babylonians come in and sort oftake over and drag you into
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exile too.
So Jeremiah brings this warning, begging the people of Judah
and Israel, jerusalem rather, tochange their ways in order that
God might relent and change hisplans for this kingdom of Judah
.
Now here's the deal.
This is an ancient prophecy andHebrew prophecy was a bit
different than Greek prophecy.
The Greeks hadn't taken overthis part of the world yet.
(02:14):
Those would be a couple hundredyears later.
But most of us in this room areGreek thinkers.
We're influenced by Greekthinking, greek philosophy,
greek culture, and so we thinkof prophecy as a prediction of
the future.
The Greeks remember.
They thought that the world wasrun by these three sisters in
Greek mythology, called theFates, that we were all victims
of the Fates.
(02:34):
So these are the three sisterscalled the Fates, that these
women controlled the course ofhuman history and you could do
nothing to escape the Fates.
Whatever happened to you wasyour density, I mean your
destiny.
Back to the future, okay, andso you really couldn't escape
(02:55):
your fates.
The Greeks loved divination.
Divination was this act ofseeking knowledge about the
future or about unknown eventsthrough supernatural means.
They would do all kinds ofweird things, like crystal ball,
kinds of things to understandor to divine the future or
unknown events.
So they would like they had onething.
They would like tear theseanimals apart and they would
(03:17):
spill the entrails out like theguts, to sort of predict the
future, which sounds a bit odd,but it's like an ancient world
version of the magic eight ball.
You know, like you'd shake upthat sheep and pour out the
entrails like, oh, outcome looksnot good.
You know, I've seen the futureand it's medium rare.
Oh, that thought that wouldn'tbe a little bit funnier than
(03:37):
that.
Uh, is it the will of the gods?
It looks more like taco Tuesdayto me.
I'm going to cook that up andI'm going to see.
But the Greeks love this kindof thing.
Those will work at the 10o'clock.
I think they'll work at the 10o'clock.
The Greeks would like, theyloved crystal ball because they
knew that the fates had designedthe cosmos and how it would go
(03:57):
and you couldn't do anything toescape your destiny because it
was your destiny after all.
Hebrew thinkers were not likethat quite they didn't.
They weren't fatalists.
These, these, the Greeks, werefatalists.
They believed in the faith.
Greek Hebrews weren't like thatthey.
So if you're a Greek thinker,prophecy is really just a
prediction of the future.
It's already set.
You're going to kind of go onthe road, but to the Hebrew mind
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, the prophets were notpredictors of the future.
They were people who werecoming with warning Change your
ways and things might change foryou.
Relent, repent, come back tothe Lord that's what you hear
all the time in the prophets andGod will make your way straight
again and bring you, welcomeyou, back home.
That's the Hebrew mind.
It raises the question, though,for all of us Are we victims of
(04:41):
the fates?
Do the fates control ourdestiny?
Do we have any choice or say-soor agency in the matter?
And then, how does God lead?
Does God sort of micromanage usas human beings?
Do we have any agency?
And if we do, how much?
And what happens if I make thewrong decision, or if I sin or
(05:02):
make a mistake or marry thewrong person or choose the wrong
career or have a failedbusiness venture?
How does God respond to thesekinds of things?
Am I just playing on a rolethat was set from the beginning
and the fates are kind ofpulling all the strings and I'm
just an innocent bystander?
And can I miss God's will?
Is it possible to miss the willof God?
And if I miss it, will God justlike wash his hands of me, like
(05:24):
I'm done?
You missed it, ryan, sorry.
Well, I hope this story mighthelp.
So here's the story.
Jeremiah gets word from God andsays hey, go down to the
potter's house.
All right, this is a picture ofthe potter's house, thanks to
chat GPT.
And so this is a potter in hishouse making pots with clay.
This is what potters did.
So God tells Jeremiah go downto the potter's house, I'm going
(05:47):
to put on display for you likea theater, like a show, and
you're going to watch it.
It's going to be a word from mein this theater.
It's a guerrilla theater, youknow, like from back in the 70s.
It's a subversive, provocativelive drama that God's going to
(06:09):
show to Jeremiah and make apoint.
And so he's watching this.
It's like this live in thisordinary place called the
potter's house, and God wasgoing to speak to him about what
was happening with Judah andthis nation and their rebellious
ways through this very muchlive action guerrilla theater at
the potter's house.
Are you with me?
So far?
Okay, thank you.
So pottery was very common, bythe way, in the ancient Near
East and actually in the ancientworld, because pottery, it was
ubiquitous, it was everywhere,because pottery was what people
(06:29):
used for nearly everything.
I mean pots were used forstorage, for cooking, they used
it for oil lamps, they used itfor even divine or like for
idols, for other divine kinds ofyou know wear, and pottery was
everywhere.
It was used all the time forall these kinds of things.
You would use pottery.
You'd see it everywhere.
(06:49):
In fact, archaeologistsdiscover pottery in the ancient
world, or what was the ancientworld.
In places like Israel it'severywhere.
When I was there, you wouldfind shards of pottery.
They call them pot shards.
You'd find them all over theplace and you could just grab
one and take it, because nobodycared, because there was pottery
everywhere and it was actually.
If you were a potter, you werein high demand because pottery
(07:10):
was very much needed, because itwas breakable, especially if
you had teenage sons.
It was always being broken, andso there was always more
pottery needed, and so thepotter had a very, very robust
business and there was a potteralmost in every single town or
city and their job was really,you know, it was a very secure
job, and even in the smallest,most rural towns there was
(07:30):
always a potter who had apotter's wheel and was making
pots, because people needed pots.
They used pots again foreverything.
So they're in high demand.
So people knew in the ancientworld, they knew this image of a
potter's house, but that thepotter would live, where he
worked, was like his house andhis business, and so everybody
knew this image of a potter'shouse.
So this was not like a foreignidea for them.
(07:51):
Like, oh yeah, we know thatthis metaphor, this live drama
that Jeremiah is going to seeand witness, everybody would
have known this image.
That's why it worked.
The image worked so wellbecause, like, oh yeah, we know
a potter, so a potter used awheel.
This is what it looked like.
By the way, in the text it saysthe potter was at the wheel, but
it's literally, in the Hebrew,it's two stones.
(08:11):
And so here's what it lookedlike.
You had these two stones, oneon the top, one on the bottom.
This is before, of course, thedays of electricity.
And so here's the wheel, whatit looks like.
So they would spin this bottompart, the stone, and it would
spin to the top one spinning.
I don't know if that's supposedto do that down there.
(08:32):
All right, I was told this isan antique, so be careful.
So I don't know what this does,we're going to leave it there.
And so you would spin it and itwould get going, and then they
would work the clay on top, andso it was really this two stones
wheel.
There's like a, like a rod thatgoes right in between there,
and it was like this flywheel onthe bottom that the potter
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would spin and begin to work andmassage that clay.
Now about this wheel, this oneactually, this is sort of modern
version of this one.
This one began to sort ofsurface in history and
archeology around the fourthmillennium BC, so around 4,000
BC was when they started todiscover these artifacts in this
part of the world.
This potter is just two wheel,so it's spinning.
Now, on occasion, though, youheard the clay that the potter
(09:15):
would get.
It would get this clay out ofthe earth.
The clay would become marredwhen he's making a pot, but he's
making a pot in the.
I've got my napkin here.
The potter is making a pot andhe would get the clay and the
clay would, on occasion, bemarred.
So, at first glance, you wouldlike see the clay, like, oh,
this is gonna be good, but then,as he begins to work it, it's
like not so good, sort of likeonline dating, you know.
(09:38):
You get there like, oh, this isgood, not so good for a while,
and so it's marred or it'sspoiled.
He's making a pot and herealized oh, the pot's not
turning out like I wanted to.
So in the text it says thevessel he was making, the pot or
whatever it was was spoiled inthe potter's hands.
Now, spoiled literally meanslike this it means to be
destroyed or corrupt, or to goto ruin or to be decayed, to be
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spoiled or marred.
You get the idea, but in caseyou don't, here's another way to
put it To render less perfectthis clay was To be less
attractive or useful, or to bedisfigured or defaced or even
scarred.
This clay was not turning outhow it was supposed to go.
So the question is what willthe potter do with this clay, as
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he's working it and it's notdoing what he wants it to do?
Well, I might just throw itaway because I'm not wasting my
time.
So I called my friend Chad.
He's a potter, he does greatwork.
Anybody know potter Chad?
Okay, he makes pots and he'sincredible at his pottery.
I'm like hey, talk to me aboutpottery, pottery and pots.
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How does this work?
Have you ever had clay that,while you're trying to work, it
isn't doing what you want it todo?
He's like oh yeah, all the time.
He's like Ryan, this was verycommon to get clay that just
won't do what you want it to do.
I'm like well, tell me moreabout it.
It's like sometimes you'll bemaking a bowl and you're
spinning that wheel, making abowl, you know, and the bowl
will collapse and become a plate.
(11:04):
I don't know what I did here,let's get out of hand, okay.
So it happens all the time.
And so now you have a plate onyour hands and so you can do two
things.
You can either like, okay, I'mgonna make a plate out of this,
or you can throw it away.
I guess you have three options.
You can like, okay, I'll make aplate, because it doesn't want
to be a bowl, or I'll throw itaway.
(11:25):
Or I'll maybe start over,because clay is this formable,
malleable thing.
You can kind of squeeze it backtogether, make it into a ball
and then start all the way over.
But he doesn't ever throw itaway.
He says, hey, ryan, it's becausepottery is not really a science
, it's more like an art.
So you have to kind of beflexible in this way with this
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clay, because you have to adjuston the fly.
If you're making a bowl andit's just not working, you will.
Okay, you got to adjust Like,what does it want to be?
So he says I don't try to comewith this idea in my mind of
what I want to make, necessarily, but more like a general idea,
and I want to see instead, whatdoes the clay want to be itself?
What's the clay doing?
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What might this clay want tobecome?
So again, he comes with thisgeneral idea, not a specific
idea per se.
In other words, he's like Ryan,I don't try to force it, I work
with it and I massage the clayand the clay massages back and I
don't come like, hey, here'swhat I think it should be.
Rather, what is this clay allabout?
It's like an active discovery.
(12:27):
So the potter, he told me Ryan,the potter must always be
flexible.
Even his thinking has to beflexible.
This potter to adjust and toadapt.
He has a friend who's amathematician, who's also a
potter.
He's like Ryan, he's not a verygood potter.
He says mathematicians don'tmake good potters, for all the
obvious reasons.
(12:48):
Okay, any mathematicians in thehouse, okay, I mean, try it
anyway.
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, he'slike, because he's so rigid
about it.
He's like and he'll make thesepots and it'll not be what he
wants it to be.
He keeps forcing it anyway, andwhen there's a mistake in the
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clay He'll use it anyway.
He calls them seconds orfailures.
At that point it becomes notreally art as much as a
commodity.
He goes because, ryan, when I'mmaking art, there's some amount
of humanness, of my humanness.
It becomes a part of the clay.
When I'm molding it, there's apart of me that goes into the
clay, into the pot, into thebowl, whatever it is.
This thing that I'm making isimbued with something more than
just the components that arethere, like.
(13:32):
In other words, there's more tothis thing than just clay.
There's part of me in there, inthis bowl.
There's a part of the human,the artist, the potter that
becomes a part of the clay.
This is why he told me peoplewill pay $40 for a handmade mug
that they could have got atTarget for $5.
It's the same kind of mug, theyserve the same purpose, but one
(13:53):
is imbued with the blood andsweat and tears of the artist.
If you look at the bottom ofthose cups at Target, it says
made in China.
If you look at the bottom of anartist's mug, it says made in
my garage while listening to sadindie music.
The Target mug, though it won'tjudge you, this one might judge
you when you're drinking out ofit.
So there it is.
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There's a part of the human, thepotter, the person who's making
it, imbued into the clay, andthat way then it becomes this
collaborative effort between theclay and the potter.
There's a give and take.
The clay has to give, but notso much that it breaks.
The potter has to give.
(14:35):
He can't like force it to bewhat it won't be.
I mean he could, but it's not agood potter.
A good potter is there's aflexibility to the potter, some
pliability, some give and taketo this relationship.
It's a collaborative effort.
And then Chad said this is,ryan, is how clay that's brought
out of the ground can thenbecome useful in the hands of
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this potter.
Now, I'm not trying to make moreout of this image than there is
to make, but let this be my ownkind of commentary, my own
midrash.
This is what's happening inthis story.
It's incredibly beautiful.
Jeremiah goes down, he sees thepotter making this clay and
it's not doing what the potterwants it to do.
So the text tells you thepotter then changes his mind,
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his plans for the pot, for theclay, and make something else.
And then he says God tellsJeremiah this.
Then the word of the Lord cameto Jeremiah and said can I not
do this with you, judah andIsrael, on this, as this potter
does?
Can I not take you and make youinto something that you didn't?
Maybe it wasn't working so welland maybe you were marred and
(15:41):
spoiled.
Can I not do this with you,like clay in the hands of the
potter?
God tells Jeremiah to tellIsrael.
So you are in my hand, israel,you're the clay, I'm the potter.
By the way, in the ancient NearEast, people believed that
humans were made out of clay.
They thought they were made outof clay, and you know this.
(16:04):
I mean clay comes from theground.
So it's no wonder in our storythen, in Genesis 1 and 2, god
takes some clay, some dirt fromthe ground and he begins to
shape it and form it and hemakes human beings out of it.
He does this a lot with theentire cosmos.
He builds and shapes and forms.
God's always taking these rawmaterials and then he breathes.
(16:26):
Of course, he breathes lifeinto this thing.
So this is what God has alwaysbeen doing.
So it's no wonder that in theancient world they had this idea
that people thought that humanswere made out of clay.
Clay is formable.
It's, again, malleable.
Also, ancient Jewishcommentators.
They didn't really all agree orbelieve that God created out of
nothing.
There was nothing and then Godjust creates.
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They call this ex nihilo.
A lot of the ancient Hebrewscholars didn't think that was
true, because in Genesis, whenyou have what they call the tohu
vavohu or the world wasformless and void there was a
chaos and wildness there.
Something was there.
According to some Jewishcommentators, rather, god
doesn't create out of nothing.
He begins to shape and mold andform what's already there.
Of course he would.
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This is what God always does.
God shapes and molds and bringslife.
He brings life, identity andpurpose into this clay, this raw
material that's alreadyexisting.
It's already there.
Notice too that God doesn'tunilaterally sort of just make
something happen.
He's molding, he's shaping,he's forming, giving it life.
And where the clay is marred orspoiled or defaced or it's not
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turning out, well, it seems likeGod's like that's okay, I'm
still going to make somethingout of it.
I'll reshape it, I'll reform it.
I'm not going to throw it inthe garbage.
I'll make it, I'll mold it backinto a ball or, if it's going
to a plate, I'll make it into aplate.
I'm still going to work with it.
In other words, the clay's notdone until I say it's done,
(17:57):
which is good news for Israel,because God tells me hey look,
if you repent and return to mefrom your wicked ways, I'll
relent and you can have apathway forward, which is good
news for us.
It means that you and I, we arenot done yet.
(18:18):
This is the good news thismorning.
If you're looking for good news, this is the good news.
You and I aren't done yet.
We are merely clay in the handsof the potter.
And if you're marred or you'respoiled or you've gone off the
path or you've made wrongdecisions, it's okay.
If God was making you into abowl, you're like I don't want
(18:39):
to be a bowl, I want to be a pot.
Even unknowingly, god's likefine, fine, fine, let me just
adjust.
There's some give and take,there's collaboration.
If it started to break, okay,hang on.
By the way, I was told by Chadtoo.
He goes.
Sometimes the clay gets so thin.
They will take pieces of otherclay and they call these grog.
(18:59):
That's what he told me.
They take grog, they ground uppieces of other clay, they mix
it into this clay and it becomesstronger Again.
I'm not trying to read too muchinto this, but they'll take
other clay pots, other peopleperhaps, and they will put them
together and when they'retogether they're stronger.
And he says and I don't know ifChad's a church goer he's like,
yeah, yeah, kind of like maybe,what God would do with people
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If you're kind of on your own,you're weak, he'll put people
with you to make you stronger.
I'm like, yeah, that's good,I'm writing that down, chad.
So that was Chad's, not mine,that was his idea.
So you're in the hands of thepotter and he's making you
worked for Israel.
They understood it right away.
The great Hebrew scholar,abraham Joshua Heschel, says it
this way.
He says life is not as fatedesigns.
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Are we merely victims of thefates that are just sort of just
playing out?
This role of the fates haddesigned for us?
Nor is history a realm to betyrannized by man, by humans.
Events are not like rocks onthe shore shaped by the wind and
the water.
Choice and design is whatdetermines the shape of events.
God is at work on humans,intent to fashion history in
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accord with himself.
So I thought this might be alittle bit poetic for many of us
.
Let me throw this in the chatGPT and have it reworded.
So here's what rewording cameup with.
So this is re-quoting AbrahamHeschel Life isn't ruled by
blind fate and history isn'tsomething that humans can
completely control.
So there's this collaboration.
It seems like Events don't justhappen automatically, like
(20:31):
waves shaping rocks.
Instead, our choices giveevents their shape and God works
through people, guiding historyto reflect his purposes.
And so God's like okay, I'mgoing to make something.
My purpose, I'm going to makesomething beautiful out of this
clay, this lump of clay that Ipull out of the ground.
I don't know what it will beyet, I don't really care, but
I'll make something beautifulout of it.
(20:52):
And I can say that because I'mGod and I'll make sure my will
is done.
So at the end of this thing,I'm going to have you be some
beautiful something.
Now, your part is okay.
What do you bring to the table?
And how might you respond?
There's this give and take, andGod's not shocked or surprised,
like I don't know what to dowith this clay.
No, I got you.
Okay, you're marred, I'll keepmassaging it.
(21:12):
Abraham Heschel goes on to saythis then, is not a cul-de-sac,
nor is guilt a final trap.
Sin will be washed away byrepentance and return and beyond
guilt is the dawn offorgiveness.
We're going to gather in aminute around the table and
(21:36):
you're going to come forward andreceive the grace and mercy and
forgiveness of God in the waferand in the wine.
I love it because you don'thave to be stuck in this
cul-de-sac of sin or brokenness.
You can find a new way forwardbecause you're like clay in the
potter's hands.
The door is never locked.
The threat of doom is not thelast word, heschel says.
I love that.
By the way, philippians writesit this way Paul writes to the
Philippians, being confident ofthis that who began a great work
(21:56):
in you, who started making youinto something nice, he's going
to carry it to completion untilthe day of Christ Jesus.
You are not done yet.
Do you hear me?
You're not done yet.
And God is wise, the smartest,wisest, best potter I've ever
(22:18):
met in my life.
He knows what he's doing.
He will take care of you andkeep massaging you and working
with you, which means that yourpast does not have to dictate
your future.
Your past wounds your pastmistakes your past, or even
current sins, the wrong turns,your parents who were not very
good, the job you lost, thefailed business decision that
(22:40):
you made, your failed marriage.
These things don't have to bethe end.
They don't have to dictate yourfuture, because it's marred,
it's spoiled, but we'll makesomething else out of this.
This is the redemptive work ofGod.
This is resurrection.
See, clay is being formed.
That's what you're doing.
You're being formed in the handof the potter.
(23:00):
Remember, it's not a science,it's an art.
So here's your job, then.
Okay, now that was the good news.
Here's some good advice.
So take this or leave it.
I'll help you.
Take it.
Your job is to remain moldablein the potter's hands.
It's your job.
Or, as John writes it justremain in me and I'll remain in
(23:22):
you.
But be pliable, be flexible.
Here's how you do that.
I'm going to give you threeways.
One let go of control.
Stop telling God, god, I don'twant to be a bull, I want to be
a plate.
Okay, fine, but just relax andlet God shape you how god might
(23:45):
see best.
I don't know, maybe god knowsbetter than you do and you can
look back like, yeah, I know the10 ways I screwed that up, like
.
We all know that we look back.
I was so.
I was being so obstinate there.
I just what if you let go ofcontrol and just even just today
, like, okay, god, god, I'm justtrusting in you that you're not
gonna screw me up.
Maybe you start there.
You know, okay, god, and youhold it.
By the way, the reason we raiseour hands in worship, some ways
(24:06):
like it's just a sign ofsurrender.
It's a physical action when youget, when, if someone were to
hold a gun up to you, you wouldsurrender by doing this, it's
all worship.
When you're in worship, youjust okay, let go of control.
By the way, I love this.
Tim Keller says this most of usthink we know better than God
about how our lives ought to go.
Raise your hand.
If you think I'm just kidding,I'm not going to have you do
(24:27):
that.
Yeah, I know better God.
You don't know as good as I do.
If it's not going right, we getanxious, filled with self-pity,
scorn, we get skeptical, hardand cynical, but patience and
the ability to not worry whenthings go wrong is a kind of
humility.
Oh man, we don't like beinghumble, I don't, because it
(24:48):
takes humility to say, well, Ithought this is how my life
ought to go.
I thought I should be a bull.
Maybe I shouldn't, though, butwhat do I know?
How would I know?
I can't see what God can see.
I don't know what's best for me.
Then Tim Keller says I lovethis.
He says it takes pride to beworried.
I'm just saying To tell God Iknow how my life ought to go,
(25:10):
and I'm afraid that God won'tget it right.
Humility says I don't know.
You have enough joyful hope,enough belief in the fact that,
though weeping tear for thenight, joy comes in the morning.
I know it's not going so well.
Maybe I don't know what God'sup to, and I know that in the
end God will make me intosomething beautiful, but in the
meantime, this is painful, butall right, let's just see what
(25:32):
happens.
So, number one let go ofcontrol.
Number two repent.
Are there any ways that you'reactively walking the wrong
direction or rebelling againstGod, doing things you know you
shouldn't be doing?
Things like that areundermining God's love and plan
in your life.
We do this, we.
We actively rebel against Godand we do things we know we
(25:53):
shouldn't do.
That's called rebellion and sinLike okay, don't do that,
because sin destroys.
So repent, turn around, stopdoing those things.
We'll help you.
You know, when you're activelyundermining God's plans for your
own life and doing things youshouldn't be doing, stop doing
them and we can help you.
(26:14):
We're the church, we're helpingyou.
So confess your sins.
Bring, by the way, the onlything you need to bring for
communion when you come forwardfor the meal.
The only thing you need tobring, not your good works, not
your good looks, not your money,not your accomplishments.
Bring your sins.
That's all you need to bring.
Bring them, just dump them uphere and leave them and repent.
Number three, then, lastly, istrust the potter.
(26:34):
He knows what he's doing.
He's good at this.
He's a good potter.
Trust him.
Trust him, because you can thenstart over again.
You can, and again, and again,if you need to.
And if you need to, you canstart over again and again, and
(26:56):
again, and again, and again, andagain, and again, and again,
and again.
Is he going to keep going?
I don't know.
Is he going to keep CentralLutheran Church?
(27:24):
May you be moldable in the handsof the potter, the great and
wise potter.
May you trust him and his plansfor your life.
May you know that god iscalling you home.
I mean you turn from all theways in which you're not going
that way and just go home.
It it's safer there, it'sbetter there.
May you remain moldable in thehands of God.
Here's what we're going to do.
We're going to respond in threeways.
(27:45):
We're going to sing a song,we're going to take communion
and also we've got the ushersgoing to give out some clay.
Right, ushers, are my usherswith me?
So everyone's going to getsomething out of this clay.
Okay, is that right?
Are the ushers going to do it?
They've got, oh God, great.
So, oh, you've already got it.
Oh, good grief, thank you, youalready got it, thank you.
(28:08):
So you're going to open it andjust add, as the song is going,
before or after communion, justmake kind of I don't know, just
have fun and make something andnotice how malleable the clay is
.
And if it's not becoming whatyou want, okay, well then maybe
change it to something differentand notice the collaboration
between you and the clay.
Now, this is air dry clay, soit might dry.
I don't know how fast it willdry, but you've got, you know,
(28:30):
you've got probably a good houror so.
But then take it home and, like, set it on a windowsill, but
maybe a reminder for you of thestory that God can take our clay
and make us into somethingbeautiful.
And if you get a picture of it,send it to me.
I'd love to see what you makeand what you think of it and how
it speaks to you.
Okay, amen.
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