God Is the Potter and We Are His Clay

 GOD IS THE POTTER AND WE ARE HIS CLAY Spring Valley Mennonite; January 22, 2023; Isaiah 45:9, Jeremiah 18:1-4 When our children were in elementary school, a special activity most of them looked forward to was the day they did "show and tell." A special object could be brought from home and the child would talk about it. This morning I've brought several objects to show you and to tell about them. This boot was given to me by a friend who visited Mexico; it's among my oldest possessions. This small vase came from Hopi Land, and this bowl was made by Isaac Shue who has a gallery in Harper Kansas. The thing that each of these items have in common is that they each began as a lump of clay. I truly admire the person who can take clay, put it on a turning wheel, and use their hands to craft a vessel of grace and beauty. God uses the craft of the potter repeatedly to teach lessons to His people. 2 Corinthians 4:7: But we have this treasure in earthen vessels (literally pots of clay), that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves." Isaiah 45:9: "Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker-an earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! Will the clay say to the potter 'What are you doing?' or the thing you are making say, 'He has no hands?'" In Isaiah 64:8, the prophet says," But now, O Lord, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You are our potter; and all of us are the work of Your hand. Today, I want to explore with you the object lesson of the potter and his clay, concentrating on God's words to Isaiah, but also through Jeremiah, as the background and message was in common. Jeremiah began his ministry about 50 years after Isaiah's death. God was speaking a dual message of warning and of hope to the nation of Israel. It was warning because they had abandoned the worship of the One True God and had sunk to the depraved level of worshipping idols, even to the point of offering human sacrifices. There was also a word of hope, for God offers forgiveness upon repentance. This object lesson involves the making of clay pots. (Read Jeremiah 18:1-4) God told Jeremiah to "go down to the Potter's house," for there was a lesson to be learned. It was a special lesson for Israel, but also for us today. As we think about these verses and God's object lesson for us, we find that there are: I. THREE ELEMENTS OF THE POTTER'S CRAFT The first element is the Potter, himself. The making of pottery is one of the oldest and most important developments in the history of man. Imagine the difficulty of life without the ability to carry liquids from one place to another or the ability to store food for future use. Pottery made such things possible. In these modern times, we have forgotten the importance of something as basic as clay. When properly fired in an oven, clay undergoes permanent chemical changes that make it hard as rock. Amazingly, the process of making pottery has changed very little in the last several thousand years. The potter takes a lump of clay, then he diligently and thoroughly kneads the clay to achieve a uniform texture, being sure to remove any air bubbles. Once the clay is thoroughly mixed and kneaded, the clay is placed on a potter's wheel, as much in the center as possible. The lump of clay revolves on the potter's wheel in front of the potter, and he skillfully creates the vessel he desires using the pressure of his hands. It is important to notice that when the lump of clay is revolving in front of the potter, he gives it his full attention. If a potter happens to stop in the middle of the process of shaping the clay (or throwing, as it is called), if he would stop, and go do something else, the clay will begin to dry out and the pot would be ruined. Once the potter begins, he continues until he is done. Philippians 1:6: "For I am confident in this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." When the potter begins working the clay, he has in his mind what the finished product will be. To achieve his goal, his main tool is simply his hands. Making a vessel of clay is a "hands-on" process. The finished vessel is a product solely of the pressure of the Potter's hands. So, the first element in the potter's craft, the most important element, is the potter. The second of the three elements in making of pottery is the potter's wheel. The wheel is what the potter uses to bring the clay into contact with his hands. The potter is in complete control of the speed of the wheel. The potter can slow down or speed up his process of creating. The potter does not get in a hurry. The only advance that has been made in the potter's wheel in the last several thousand years is that it has been motorized. THIS BRINGS US TO THE FINAL ELEMENT, THE CLAY. There are many kinds of clay available to the potter. Whereas the modern potter secures his clay today through a professional supply house, early potters dug their own clay. The important point is the potter chooses the clay that he works. He then works and kneads it thoroughly. What is clay? It is just a type of soil! There is nothing special about clay, in fact, clay is one of the most common things to be found in the ground. This speaks of God's grace when He chooses us to be His child. In the object lesson God is giving us, the clay represents you and me, so we should take particular interest in it. The common nature of clay speaks of God's grace when He chooses us to be His child. It is the potter's hands-on-work that turns the common into something special. God is the potter; we are the clay. So, we have the potter, the wheel and the clay. Now let's observe II. GOD, THE DIVINE POTTER AT WORK In both Isaiah and Jeremiah, God is speaking of the process He uses to create and develop His people. Specifically, God is speaking of Israel, and how He chose an ordinary man, Abraham, and from him, developed a family of people, shaping and molding them into something useful for His purposes. God continues to use the same process with you and me today. What a moving and profound object lesson God gives us on the process He uses in making us into vessels for His use! We all begin the same way, just lumps of clay. As I said, there is nothing special about clay. What is vital is what the Potter can do with the clay. Just as the potter chooses his clay with a purpose in mind, God has chosen us for His purposes. Perhaps the kneading of the clay, the first step in the process, corresponds to the initial working of God in our lives, getting us into the proper form so He can make something out of us. Then God places us on His potter's wheel. The wheel is what the potter uses to bring the clay into direct contact with His hands. Perhaps our "potter's wheel" is the particular circumstances God allows in our lives that draw us to be centered on God, to the point where we yield to His will for our lives. What happens first when the clay is placed on the wheel? The wheel begins spinning around, always under the direct control of the potter. God is always in complete control of the circumstances of our lives, even when we might doubt it. The potter then begins to apply gentle and even pressure to the clay. Understand this: until the potter applies pressure, nothing changes in the lump of clay. Without pressure, the clay cannot change. But when the potter skillfully begins pressing on the spinning lump of clay, something amazing happens: a vessel begins to take shape! Depending on how the potter's hands move, the clay moves upward; with another type of pressure, the vessel becomes wider, or wider, then narrow again. As the clay is molded on the wheel, occasionally the potter comes across some sort of impurity, perhaps a small hard lump or even a tiny grain of sand missed during the kneading process. Can you imagine the discomfort the potter feels when that sand particle rubs against his hand? The molding process stops for a moment while the particle is removed, then it resumes. If the resisting area is simply a less pliable portion of clay, the potter increases pressure to smooth out that section of the pot. Often the potter will use an outside object, perhaps a rod or some type of sharp object to create an attractive pattern on the outside of the vessel. If the clay could speak, it probably would cry out in protest- "that hurts; are you sure you know what you are doing?" Of course, the Potter knows exactly what he is doing for He has a beautiful design well in mind. One more thing about the process before we draw some conclusions about what God might be saying to us in this object lesson: in the forming of the vessel, the potter often wets his hands with water. The moisture softens the clay and makes it pliable and easy to shape. The potter's hands become covered with a watery clay mixture as excess clay is rubbed off. Making a vessel of pottery on the wheel is a messy process. This is a picture of God's personal, hands-on involvement in our lives. Let's draw some lessons from the potter and the clay on-- III. HOW GOD SHAPES OUR LIVES God clearly states that He is the potter, and we are the clay. The things we have no control over like our race, our parentage, our family of origin, the country into which we were born, our genetic make-up, our athleticism (or lack of), in addition to the circumstances of life that are beyond our control-all these things are the wheel upon which our lives revolve. These are the "givens" of our lives that we cannot change. That being said, here are a few points of truth regarding God's work. 1. (First) Man is under the absolute sovereignty of God, like clay in the hands of the potter. * Once God chooses us, He begins to mold us according to His wonderful plan for our lives. He is shaping us, using whatever methods and instruments He deems necessary. * Questioning God's methods was the basis of the quarrel Israel was having with God in Isaiah 45: "Woe to the one who quarrels with His Maker---an earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth! * Will the clay say to the potter, "what are you doing? Or the thing you are making say "He has no hands?" * Israel was questioning God's method of using an ungodly nation like Babylon to accomplish His purposes. Of course, we would never quarrel with God about what He uses to shape our lives-would we?? A second point of truth is: 2 We can no more achieve anything of ultimate worth in life than can a lump of clay become a beautiful vase without the Potter. Jesus tells us in John 15:5 that "without Me you can do nothing." Someone defined "nothing" as a zero with the rim kicked off! 3. (Thirdly) God has a purpose for every believer's life as the potter has with the clay. And, praise God, we are assured that "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion." Like the Potter, God does not abandon the work of His hands. He will continue His work. What God starts, He finishes. 4. (The 4th point of truth we draw from this object lesson is that:) God continues to shape our lives even though at times we might question His methods. Don't we all question why certain things happen in our lives? By the way, the best explanation I have ever heard why bad things happen to good people is that we live in a sinful world where things go wrong. We wonder why we have certain disabilities or limitations. I may not understand what God is doing or why things happen in my life, but we must learn to trust the Divine Potter. He does know what He is doing! Most often it seems to me, God doesn't explain the "whys" of life. Often, He only answers with the "Who": "I am God; trust Me." God seldom gives full explanations; trusting God develops our faith. There is a beautiful song with the words, "When we can't see His hand, when we don't understand, trust His heart." The fifth thing I would point out is: 5. The speed of God's shaping process is determined by our level of pliability. Let me expand a bit here, using the passage from Jeremiah 18: (read vv 3-4): The vessel Jeremiah was watching being formed, due to some issue with the clay, doesn't turn out to suit the potter; the molding process stops, and the clay is reformed into a lump, wedged or kneaded again, and replaced on the wheel. There is of course a difference between a believer and a lump of clay. The clay, being inanimate, does not have a contrary, resistant will. We on the other hand, often resist the pressure of God's hand, even though it is applied lovingly and purposefully. If we resist, or if a significant enough impurity is found in us, then no further progress can be made in God's design for our lives. Perhaps this is why we see so many believers who stagnate and never seem to grow past spiritual infancy. Our own resistance to His hand causes us miss out on the incredible joy that comes from being a beautiful vessel being used by God. But notice that the potter doesn't throw the clay away, but patiently begins again the shaping process. I came across a phrase recently that stuck with me: it was our "level of blessedness." The idea is that we choose how blessed by God we want to be. To put it simply, we are as blessed as we choose to be. We can choose to resist God's will for our lives, persisting in stubborn unforgiveness, or impure habits-continuing to delay God's purpose for our life. And we choose to reject God's blessings. And the Divine Potter increases the pressure to work out that impurity. This is God's loving hand of discipline; Hebrews 12 tells us that "Whom the Lord loves, He disciplines." But, when I relax in His hands, trusting and accepting the circumstances that come in my life, or confessing the sin that so easily entangles me, often the pressure I feel decreases. As I yield to the Holy Spirit's promptings to do this or not to do that, I find life much less stressful. Like water that lubricates the clay and makes it pliable, the Holy Spirit serves that purpose in our lives. This really makes sense when we realize that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, and then fills us as we confess sin. He then makes us pliable to the Potter's touch. God is just waiting to bless you-oh not with petty material blessings, not even with perfect health. His blessings are much more significant: they last for eternity! You see, God continues to shape and mold us until He takes us to heaven. I believe this speaks of how God's specific purpose for each life will continue throughout eternity. God is the Divine Potter, and we are the clay. He has a purpose for our lives. On the potter's wheel of circumstances, completely controlled by the potter, we are being shaped into vessels for His glory. Our responsibility is to remain pliable in the Master's hands. 6