Clay in the Potter's Hands [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

I like to think and thank God that he has a commitment to keep our hearts soft beforehand. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Brint, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Remade, as presented at Reynolda Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program today, I sure want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So, as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Don't miss it.

Contact us at PastorAlan.org, that's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860. We're going to give you more on all this later in the program. But right now, let's dig in and get started with today's teaching. Here is Alan Wright. When Jeremiah went down to the potter's house, he saw, much like what we would see, so marvelous an image. Why don't you go with him and imagine Jeremiah there. What does he see? What does he notice? I think he notices in the first place that clay is common. There's nothing more basic or unimpressive than clay. A little dust, a little water, a little mud, that by itself without any shaping from the potter is not much to look at and not much use. But he notices that the potter can take something that's completely amorphous, something that has no shape and no purpose yet, and the potter, the potter gets a vision for the clay. The potter gets in his mind something beautiful for that which is not yet lovely. The potter has in his mind an idea of usefulness for something that in its present form isn't very useful. It begins as the potter's creative instinct.

I love that. Leanne Payne, in her brilliant chapter called Creative Power, an insightful book, The Healing Presence, spoke of Michelangelo and commented on how Michelangelo had said of his greatest works, like the sculpture of Moses or his famous David, that Michelangelo said that they were in the stone clamoring to be freed. And he said he just chipped away the stone to uncover it. And I love her insight for our lives when Leanne Payne says the artist then is not creator. He is merely discoverer and servant to the work that is already there. The work says release me from chaos. Give me my form, my shape, my being, and listening to the work the artist frees it to become to be.

Give to me my form. Give to me my being, the soul, and chaos cries out. Separate me from the darkness, the stone. I'm here. All of me is here.

Free me. And the Spirit, when we invite him, broods over us in the situation. And he comes to us who are priests of Almighty God, and he does it. So God is both the creator and the shaper of our lives. He created, but then the Holy Spirit brooded over the chaos of the deep to bring form out of the void.

He does both. Ordinary stuff. That's what mundane means. It means just of the world. We once were mundane and now we've been made holy. We once were without form and life in chaos, but we have been shaped and brought into order.

Wow. And you watch with Jeremiah and see what you see. I think he notices that the clay has the potter's full attention.

Isn't that something? Jeremiah, the prophet comes in, the potter looks up, acknowledges his presence, but he can't take his eyes off the clay. He doesn't stop and let the clay grow hard, stagnant on the wheel. He has to keep it moist. He has to keep it spinning. He has to keep his hands on it.

The clay has his attention. It's hard to imagine that you're in the thoughts of God. Passion paraphrase is beautiful at many places. It says of Psalm 139, renders it this way at verse 17, every single moment you're thinking of me, the Psalmist says, how precious and wonderful to consider that you cherish me constantly in your every thought.

Oh God, your desires toward me are more than the grains of sand on every shore. When I awake each morning, you're still with me. Whatever you're going through, potter has his eye on you. He doesn't take his eye off of you. You know, when we say I'm thinking of you, that's a nice thing to say to somebody to say you're in my thoughts, but to say God's thinking of you, to say something different because God's thoughts are formative, powerful. I might say, I'm sorry you're going through what you're going through. I'm thinking of you. And you're going, well, it makes me feel some compassion, but it doesn't change anything.

But God's thoughts, how precious they are. I think Jeremiah watches how the potter keeps dipping his hand into the water in just the right amount. I've never thrown a pot. I don't like to try this.

We've got a few potters in the church. They say there's just a right consistency of moist kind of a little layer of clay on the potter's hands that makes it just right. You don't want it sloppy wet. You don't want it dry.

And you've got to find that right. And then you keep the clay the right level of moisture so that it stays pliable, malleable, moldable, you see. And he watches as he keeps the moisture coming. I like to think and thank God that he has a commitment to keep our hearts soft before him. You know, remember all those texts in the Old Testament about being a stiff necked people, texts about having a heart of stone. Those are descriptions of people that become resistant to God's shaping.

And God has a commitment to do the opposite. The words of the prophet Ezekiel, the word of the Lord, I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit I'll put within you. I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. This is what I love about the gospel. When the gospel, the good news of what God's done in Jesus and his love comes into your heart, it makes your heart soft towards God. You don't change yourself, but to the degree that you become less and less resistant to the changes God wants to make, you will be changed.

And what happens is when you get filled with the love of God and you love him and you love him more and more in a very real sense, what's happening is his prophecy is coming true. He's causing his statutes to take place in your life. He's causing you to be who he made you to be because the love is constraining you. The love has changed you.

You can't help yourself. And God's committed to keeping us soft like clay. And then he wants you to spin. And as it spins, this is what's cool about throwing a pot. This vessel is formed because as it turns and the potter skillfully, the potter with skillful hands puts pressure, pressure, pressure, light, sometimes more firm, and where the pressure is, then the clay has nowhere to go except where the hands are not. So you put pressure on the lower part and the clay moves upward. And wherever the pressure is, the clay moves the other direction. So he's moving, listen to this, he's moving the clay in the direction he wants it to go by applying subtle and sometimes more intense pressure to the clay. That's how he's shaping it.

That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God. The values of our country have changed. Suddenly, most people don't go to church or have a biblical worldview.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon. Through our special offer this month, you can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did. When you give before the end of the month, we'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series, Daniel, a favored foreigner.

You may feel like a stranger in this world, but as God showed favor to Daniel in his foreign land, God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. I just wish I could get to some point in my spiritual life where I realize the pressures that you feel are not the sign of despair and God's judgment, but of God's love of I'm moving you in this way, and I'm shaping your life in this way, and we're going to go this way. Anybody who's ever tried to bulldoze their way through somewhere where God didn't want you to go and then later realize he didn't let you, you go back and you're really thankful for that, aren't you? The psalmist says, you hem me in behind and before and lay your hand upon me. That's a good prayer to pray. God, put your hands around me and wherever I need the pressure to come so that I don't go that way, put the pressure there and I'll go in the right way. Because honestly, we don't know the right way to go, and his hands are shaping us.

Hallelujah! Jeremiah watches. And I think he notices that the potter's force is not one of anger that is displacing, but of purpose. And the potter is not taking out his frustrations on the clay. He's an artist. He's making something beautiful. And he watches. And he watches it spin.

And Jeremiah has seen a potter spinning a wheel probably hundreds of times in his life, but now he's there with prophetic eyes. And the Holy Spirit's teaching him, speaking to him, and he's looking, and he's watching, and he's thinking about the spinning. I think it occurs to him that the spinning is essential, that there's a force at work, that it has to be turning. It has to be spinning. That that's where the creative genius is coming from the potter's hands is that he's taking that which looks like it's flying around, flying around in some uncontrolled way, but actually it is in the spinning that in that turbulence that it's being formed. In the turbulence, the vessel is being formed. In the spinning, the beauty is emerging. In the whirling, shape is taking place. What looks like wild disorder is actually sovereign, purposeful whirling of the clay. And he watches. And I wonder if that's when it dawns on him that the clay as it spins is never out of the potter's hands.

That's the key. When you go through tough times and you just feel like clay just, I'm just spinning. It can be dizzying. Life can be where you're just, it's not turning out the way I thought. It's not going the direction I wanted it to go. It doesn't seem like it will stop.

It doesn't seem, I don't understand. I don't live in such a time. And what Jeremiah sees is that as that clay spins and spins and spins, turns and turns, it's never out of his hands. Fear not, Isaiah 41, 10, for I'm with you. Be not dismayed for I'm your God and I will strengthen you.

I'll help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. First Peter five, six, humble yourselves.

Therefore just be soft. Just be malleable, be pliable, humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God so that the proper time he may exalt you. Just be clay, just be clay spinning in his hands. Casting, he said at verse seven, all your anxiety is on him because he cares for you. Jesus said in John 10, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I give them eternal life and they'll never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My father who has given them to me is greater than all and no one is able to snatch them out of the father's hand. Life's spinning and we're in his hands. Life's troublesome and we're in his hands. Life is sorrowful at times and we're in his hands. Life is uncertain and we're not sure which way to go and it's in his hands and we don't know what the world looks like after all of this sickness and death and we're in his hands and we don't know what church would be like and businesses would be like and what your vocation will be like and what everybody will be like in this polarized world and we are in his hands. We are spinning and spinning and spinning like this great earth itself and it is all in his hands and I promise you the potter has not taken his eye off the clay and we are being shaped and he will get glory and make something beautiful from it. He's the potter I tell you. And I think in the end what Jeremiah must have been most prophetically encouraged by and this is the kernel. This is the pearl. This is what I think God most wanted Jeremiah to see because remember Jeremiah this long prophetic book full of so many judgment oracles he wanted him to get this at the heart of his ministry.

Don't miss this. What does the potter do when he looks and suddenly realizes that the pot the vessel is marred. The text says it's spoiled we don't know what it could be a bubble in the clay.

It could be an impediment. It could be he found a pebble in the clay. It could be there was some imperfection in the clay itself.

It doesn't describe it as if the potter messed up. It says that there's something wrong with the clay. There's something wrong with this clay and he watches and the potter stops.

He stops the spinning and realizes this vessel is ruined and Jeremiah watches thinking what ordinarily would happen something's been ruined is you take it and you throw it away and he watches and instead the potter takes this vessel that had begun to be formed and then realizes it is marred and spoiled and ruined and he takes the vessel and instead of chunking it in the can he balls it up again rolls it up moistens it a little bit and throws it back down on his wheel and he starts the spinning again and he spins and he spins and he takes the same exact clay and makes it that had been marred into something perfect. He's seeing not just into the restoration that will come in 539 BC when the people go back to their homeland. He's seeing what he can't even describe a whole new covenant.

We are the people who have been remade. What God made from the dust and formed a man and a woman in his image sinned against him and became marred and spoiled and ruined spiritually by the creation's rebellion and the potter did not throw us away but he sent Christ such that anyone who trusts in him in a new covenant of grace is made to be reckoned to be unspoiled righteous a new creature in Christ remade. And guess what one day you'll breathe your last you will and should Jesus tarry we will all experience it one way or another we become dust again. He's going to take the same dust yourself same being moisten it up and remake it into a spiritual body same clay remade. I think that's what he saw at the potter's house and God's commitment is instead of just realizing he messed it up and it's all goofed up and just covered over with mist tear it up throw it away not with God this Potter can remake anything and that's the gospel Alan Wright today's good news message clay in the potter's hands.

It's from our series remade and Pastor Alan is joining us back here in the studio with a parting good news thought for the day to carry with you in just a moment. Maybe you're like many Christians in America today. You're stunned by how fast a nation's culture has turned away from God the values of our country have changed. Suddenly most people don't go to church or have a biblical world view.

It can make you feel like an alien in your own culture. There's a lot to learn from Daniel when he was exiled to the pagan land of Babylon through our special offer this month. You can learn to live under the favor of God in an alien culture the way Daniel did when you give before the end of the month. We'll send you Pastor Alan's audio series Daniel a favored foreigner. You may feel like a stranger in this world but as God showed favor to Daniel and his foreign land God's grace is upon you as well. Your donation will not only help you navigate through these troubling times, but it will also help someone else. Thanks for your partnership with Alan Wright Ministries. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website Pastor Alan dot org back here in the studio to share Pastor Alan's parting good news thought for the day and self admittedly you've not what's the term throne throne the I've not thrown any any pots but you have done some artistic stuff. I have as I'm talking about my famous horse in the mist that just increasingly became mist. I want to leave everyone with this incredibly nourishing thought God doesn't scrap his creation he he didn't scrap Adam and Eve he won't scrap the world in the end he'll make all things new you'll make a new heaven and a new earth what he does is he takes that which he's made that has become marred by sin and he remakes it he takes your life the the real life that you've lived the stuff you've been through and the things you faced and whatever is marred or damaged your life he takes all of that and he doesn't it doesn't say well I'm giving up on you he's you know he's a potter who says ah there was an impediment let me spin the wheel and keep shaping because he he remakes you you're clay in the potter's hands. Thanks for listening today visit us online at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860 that's 877-544-4860 if you only caught part of today's teaching not only can you listen again online but also get a daily email devotional that matches today's teaching delivered right to your email inbox free find out more about these and other resources at pastorallen.org that's pastorallen.org today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.