Humility Month: Submitting to God's Design

When Clay is Left Alone

Romans 1:18-32

Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me… Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me… Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me...

Last year, in June, we took back our rainbow. This year, we are declaring June “Humility Month.”

This is not a time for Pride. There is no time for Pride. There is only time for Humility.

When Clay is left alone. When God gives you over.

I would like to use some Old Testament imagery if I may:

Jeremiah 18:1-6 and Isaiah 64:8 - We see this imagery of God being the Potter and the people being the clay.

Jeremiah 18 - God is calling people to repent, reform and change… But their attitude is wrong.

Isaiah 64:8 shows the proper attitude of God’s people.

The potter had a vessel in his hands… the vessel represented Israel, God’s people. And then the vessel is spoiled, it is ruined… but the Potter puts it back in His hands and remakes it into another vessel, a vessel that pleases the Potter.

And God says… “I can and will do the same for you. Turn back to Me, turn from your ways, come back to Me, come back to My hands and I will make you; I will remake you, and mold you, and I will be pleased...

Jeremiah 18, Verse 12 - But the people will say, “It’s hopeless! For we are going to follow our own plans, and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of his evil heart...

And the Lord will show them His back… God will leave them alone to be who and what they want to be...

This is what we are seeing today.

Romans 1:18-32 - We see a people who suppress the truth of God. They worship creation rather than the Creator. And God gives these individuals over to their lusts… to a depraved mind… to do the things that they want to do, the things that are improper...

What are some of those things mentioned? What is the description?

These folks have degrading passions. Women exchange the natural function for that which is unnatural. Men abandoned the natural function of the women and burned for one another...

When the clay turns from the Potter and the Potter turns from the clay… The clay becomes harder and harder...

And Verses 29-31 become their lifestyle and legacy.

When Clay is Left Alone… T

Listen: We need to make this loud and clear:

God is the Potter, and He is the Potter Who makes the clay, the wheel, and everything involved. You and I and everything else is made by God and for God.

You are designed by God and for God. Your life, purpose, goals, and dreams are by God and for God. Your body, gender, sexuality, and family is by God and for God...

You are clay that is to be in the Potter’s hands. You are clay to be molded into the Lord’s good pleasure. You are clay, God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works...

Sin separates us from God, and leaves us in brokenness. Jesus brings us into God’s hands to be molded and to be shaped into His image...

But if we are left alone… If we are left alone... as clay… If we are left alone… without the Fathers hands and the Spirit’s cleansing work through the Word of God...

We will become harder and harder towards God, and this is what our lives will turn into: A marred life. A distorted life. A life that will not glorify or please God…

When God leaves you alone… this is what will happen.

Now pay attention here:

The argument is not coming from Leviticus, or any other specific verse from the Old Testament.

The truth, that is being suppressed...

Suppressed: What does this mean? The truth comes up, comes to mind, brings a little conviction maybe… And then you push it down. And you keep pushing it back down...

God, the Potter, has given mankind general revelation to point them to God and God has given them a conscience that is informed by the revelation that God gives...

Mankind knows up from down, killing and stealing is wrong… they know what male and female is and how a body is designed for its purpose...

But what does man do? They suppress the truth, exchange the truth for a lie… and they do what they want to do.

They want to be their own potter. They want to be their own clay. They want to have their own will to spin...

“Wheel” and “will”… Get the word play here...

When you are born, you are born with an inclination to sin, to rebel against God, to go your own way and to do your own will… You are born with your own wheel/will...

And left to yourself, on or in your own will… You are ruined, your are hardened… and Your will forever destroyed.

But God, who is rich in mercy comes to us...

God, in His grace, intervenes. God gets involved. God comes to the broken clay… The clay/sinner will never come to God unless God first comes to the sinner. The person will always stay in sin, remain broken, on their on wheel… unless The Potter goes after them...

But… look around… what are we seeing around us today?

What will happen when you, I, the neighbor, the world around us… what will happen if they continue to go their own way and reject God?

Well, we are seeing it. We are seeing this spiritual reality:

Men and women are doing unnatural things all around us. What is a male? What is a female? What is a family? Who and what is a mother and a father?

God has clearly taught us, shown us… but we want to go our own way and follow our own desires, our own will… and God is giving them over to do what they want to do...

They turn from His hands. They turn from the water of the Word. They turn from His wheel… will...

Becoming harder and harder… Excusing and justifying our behavior… Changing the definitions of words, changing God’s Word… Doing whatever it takes to do what we want to do.

And in the end… There is a hardened heart. In the end there is a vessel that is distorted.

*Examples: In the Old Testament, we read God hardened Pharaoh's heart… and Pharoah hardened his own heart...

Which is it? Yes… Both. Pharoah turns, and God turns… and lets Pharaoh be himself.

Church: As we look at individuals and nations… What do you see? You see this reality. You see lives that are not submitting to God, the Potter.

You are seeing nations, as a whole, who turn their back to God… and the hardening is evident. The judgement is evident...

And what are their descriptions? Their lives and their nations are filled with unnatural patterns of living. Your having men desiring to be women, and women desiring to be men. You see women marrying women, men marrying men...

You see everything found in the text… Lifestyles of hardened hearts. You see what happens when God allows people to do what they want to do...

This is the worst judgment. This is the worst thing that can happen to us: For God to leave us alone.

The High Priestly Blessing: May the Lord bless us and keep us, and make His face to shine upon us...

What is the curse? That God turns His back to us to leave us as we are.

There is no hope here, only hardness and brokenness. If God does not intervene on behalf of the clay… It will be destroyed… Unless God intervenes.

Are you looking at your lifestyle, and do you see these descriptions? Do you see these descriptions in family members, in neighbors, in the nation and world in which you live in?

Do you see the by-product of lives turning from Christ and being left alone in their condition?

What do we need? Wake up! And believe this spiritual reality and cry out to God on behalf of others, on behalf of the nation.

You need God to intervene.

You can’t fix it. You can’t do it. You can’t change hearts. You can’t fix the your family, neighbor, or nation by your strength or your complaining...

But there is a God Who is Mighty. There is a God who is gracious. There is a God Who can...

There is a Savior who can do it. There is a God that will. There is a Jesus who will draw you up out of the pit of destruction, out of a miry pit and who will set your feet on a solid rock.

There is this Master Potter who will put you in His hands and who will work you into into His masterpiece.

There is this God… That knows what He is doing… If you and I would only yield to those hands...

If we would only come to Him and let Him work...

Does God use broken vessels? Those are the only vessels He will work with… Only broken. Those are the only ones that exist.

This world is a potter’s field… filled with broken vessels. That is what we all are. But do you know that you are broken?

Because… then God will deal with you.

There is good news. My Savior purchased the Potter’s Field. He has purchased all the vessels that belong to the Potter. He has bought every one of them… And will make them whole.

We all have history:

1 Cor. 6:9-11 - Some of you have lived these lifestyles of sin, you have turned your backs; you were hard. You were homosexuals, fornicators, drunkards and all the rest...

That is what you were… were… were...

But God… But God… But God...

But you were washed… You were sanctified… You were justified… In the Name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God...

God put His hands around these folks where they were… and made them vessels for God’s pleasure and glory.

And He will do the same to you.

Are you in His hands? Are you submitting your life to His work in you. Are you turning and going your own way?

Do you know someone in your family, or around you… and you have heard this message and you have been thinking… “This may be them… They are hard. They are going their own way and they don’t care...”

And the need the same grace that was given to you.

Don’t wait. Don’t get any harder. Come to the Potter today.

This is Humility Month. Leave your Pride behind you.

Will we turn to the Lord today and pray for God to intervene?

For you? For them? For that family?

Let’s pray together, before it is too late.

Close.