I just want to tell you this, as works of art that you are. As pieces of clay that you are, God does not create ordinary, bland, or lifeless people. He doesn’t do it! Mike – who is a master potter -doesn’t create bland or boring pieces of art. God who is a better artist than Mike or any of us here combined, does not create bland or boring art. You have to trust tonight that He’s never gonna to stop squeezing, shaping, or molding you into who you’re supposed to be – Why? Because He doesn’t create ordinary or bland art.
Some of you might come to a room like this tonight and think – “I have nothing beautiful about me, I have too much baggage, too much history, too many flaws, I’m really not that great of an artist, and I don’t know how I slipped in here.” You need to hear this truth tonight, with all your flaws, with all your mess ups, with all your history – you are yatzar by God. He’s forming you!
Some of you guys might think – “I’m a self-made man or self-made woman, I earned what I got, I studied piano for 10 years, I deserve the platform I’ve been given.” You need to hear this, He is the potter and You are the clay. He wants to keep yatzar you. That’s why He made you to keep doing this over and over. When God forms people, He pays careful attention to yatzar that person into who He’s planning for them to be. Mike is so good that he might be winging it right here, I don’t know if you had this planned, but you might be winging it. But God is so perfect, He doesn’t wing it when He’s planning it. He doesn’t wing any of the pressing or any of the pushing or pulling. He is perfect at doing it!
Listen to what Jeremiah says when he’s at the potter’s house. It says (Jeremiah 18:3-4 MSG):
“Whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly, as sometimes happens when you are working with clay, the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.”
Sometimes, not with Mike because he’s a pro, sometimes the clay breaks down, sometimes the pot falls apart, and sometimes it gets wobbly and falls over. My daughter Story who is ten, went to pottery camp this summer. She and about a hundred other ten-year-olds went to a pottery camp at the contemporary art thing. She loved it! But every day she would come home and she was so depressed and so disappointed. As she tried to form pottery it just seemed to kind of wobble, topple, and fall apart. Every day the same sort of experience, but every day the teacher would say “you gotta put your hands back on the wheel. Keep shaping it. You’ll learn. You’ll get it. Even when it falls apart!” The potter – the good potter keeps after it! Never stopping!
I think Jeremiah probably knew this frustration of things toppling over. He’s with God’s people who are falling apart, they’ve stopped trusting God, they’ve stopped believing He’s the only God.
He’s probably a little frustrated, He sees the clay and says “yep! that’s my people, that’s what they do! They wobble over!” But the image here is that the potter never ever stops shaping. Even when it wobbles. Even when you fall apart. Even when you mess up. The Potter who is so good and so intent to yatzar you, puts you back into shape, puts you back on the wheel, and keeps molding you.
Does the potter ever get frustrated, kick the pottery wheel over, raise his hands in the air and walk out? Mike does! God does not! He doesn’t! He never ever stops working on you. Listen to what it says again (Jeremiah 18:3-4 MSG):
“the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot.”
What a Good Potter our God is! He squeezes a little bit here, He squeezes there, He pulls here, and pushes there. But He does it without ever giving up on you because the Potter loves the clay and the clay belongs to Him. You belong to Him! Why would He give up on You? Why would He stop? He’s after something! He’s wanting to make You beautiful...
