Our Turn on the Wheel

Jeremiah 18:1-11 18The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2‘Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.’ 3So I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was working at his wheel. 4The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. 5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. 9And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. 11Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.
There are many times that God asks us walk out of our comfort zone and become what He desires us to be. We become Christians and we feel that we have arrived we have become what God wants us to be. Our feet are set in heaven and our names are written in the Lamb’s book, we are waiting for either death or the Lord’s return. My friends when we accept Christ our journey has just begun! Now that He has changed our eternal destination, He wants to mold us into what He wants us to be so that we can be used in His service. Many times that means stepping out in faith, leaving our comfort zones where we feel safe and secure. He wants to take us out of a place where life goes on just the way we like it and we feel we are in complete control.
While reading this scripture I realized how little I knew about what it takes to make a clay pot. I thought you dug the clay out of the ground, put it on the wheel, worked it with a little water, and threw it in an oven. As I learned the process for making one clay pot I began to see why God used this analogy to reach Israel. As we examine this process together perhaps you can hear God reaching out to you and wanting to change you and make you into a useful vessel for His service.
I first looked at mining clay and learned that you just didn’t dig a hole and use what you found. First you had to work out the impurities in the clay. You took one container of clay and one equal container filled half way with water and put the clay into the water mixing it till you had watery slurry. You then placed the screen over the empty container that contained the clay and poured the slurry over the screen removing the impurities you had found. After removing the screen you allow the container to set overnight while the slurry separated from the water and you could remove any other debris with the water.
God saves us just as we are with all the impurities still in our lives. We don’t wait till everything is right in our lives to come to God asking for forgiveness. We sing the hymn “Just as I am” and in the second verse we sing; just as I am, and waiting notto rid my soul of one dark blot, to Thee whose blood can cleanse each spot, o Lamb of God, I come, I come. If we waited to come to God after we get our lives in order would we ever come? At what point do you say; “Okay, God I am ready now.” What is our measuring stick? When will we feel that we have everything ready for salvation? So we come to God with all our imperfection, all our baggage, asking for forgiveness and accepting Jesus as our savior. It is then that God begins to take these imperfections out of our lives. He begins to strain out the sin in our lives by pouring our lives through His screen, which is the bible. God places in us a hunger for His word and as we begin to read it, and it speaks to the imperfections in our lives, His word begins to strain these imperfections out of us.
At this point the clay is not ready to be thrown on the wheel, and God is still working out our imperfections. The potter has to work the clay till all the water is out and all the air bubbles have been removed. He has to fold it over and over till it reaches a consistency he can work with and all air bubbles have been worked out. If the potter leaves one air bubble in the clay it will crack, or explode when he fires the final piece ruining all his effort. There are times that we go back to our old lives because it is familiar to us, we feel comfortable in it, and what God is trying to do in us is making us face some things that are uncomfortable to us. There are things that we have hidden deep inside but have shaped our lives. We tell God what good does it do to bring these things out? God is not willing to leave us in our old lives these things are keeping us from becoming what God wants us to be. So he continues to work on us removing the desire for the old life and replacing it with a desire for a life centered on Him.
At this point the potter forms the clay into balls that is able to throw on the wheel. He has to throw it on the wheel with enough force that it sticks on the wheel, and as he throws it on the wheel it has to be centered. If the clay is not centered on the wheel it will begin to wobble as the potter works it, and he has to start all over again. God wants us to be centered upon His word so that no matter what comes in our lives we are able to withstand it. He wants us to in a bible believing church where the word of God is preached so that we have a community that supports us as we go on to become what He wants us to be. If we are not in the word we will fall for every false doctrine that comes along till we are far from the center of God’s will. At this point God moves us back to the center of his will and gets us back into His word, or we can stay forever wobbling not really sure of what we believe.
This process takes patience from the potter and from God. As the potter begins to shape the clay he has to keep a steady hand upon his work, for any movement will ruin his work and he again has to start all over. He begins to apply pressure to the clay and lift it up as he works it with his hands. He has a picture in his mind of what he wants the clay to become and he patiently yet forcefully moulds the clay and the pot begins to take shape. He keeps the clay and his hands wet ever mindful to keep the piece centered on the wheel. As God continues to shape us, His hands are never from us. We may feel at times that He is far from us, and even think that He has forgotten us but He is never far from us. He is watching our lives and shaping us into what He wants us to become.
This is where the similarities between the pot and the Christian cease for awhile. The pot can not be used by the potter until it is finished, but the Christian begins to explore how to be used of God. We begin to exercise the gifts that He has placed in us even while God continues to work on us. As we do we begin to serve Him other forces begin to shape as well. As we meet with success in our service we tend to look at ourselves doing the work and not God working through us. We begin to look at the creation as more important than the creator. The old life we led begins to pull at us, reminding us of the familiar life we led before all this church stuff began, calling us back to the sin we enjoyed like an old lost friend. We begin to think this is just too hard and we begin to give in to the familiar, the comfortable, and what is easier. We begin to wobble and get far from the center of God’s will, and God looks at what His creation has become and as the potter will do, smashes the creation and begins again. This is what happened to the nation of Israel as they got far from the center of God’s will He had devised a plan to bring them back to Him, back to the center of His will. In verse eleven we read; “Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord; Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.’ ” they had begun to wobble and God was going to bring them back to the center of His will.
At long last the potter is finished with His vessel and he begins to adorn it and seal it with glaze, preparing it for the firing. He looks on his creation with pride as he inspects the work for any flaws that would ruin it as it goes into the fire. Somewhere at the beginning of this whole process God has sealed us, separated us from the world and set us about His service. In 1 Corinthians 1:21, 22 we read. Now He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God, who also has sealed us and given us the Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee. We are sealed by the blood of Christ set aside for His service, and we have the pledge of the Holy Spirit that God will complete the work that He has begun in us. God has written our names in the Lambs book of life and they can never be removed. God does not have a big eraser that he takes up every morning opening the books and saying to Himself, “Let’s see who we can remove today.” Does this give us a license to sin? Certainly not, but there will be times that we will fall from the will of God and we have the Spirit to convict us and encourage us to get back to the center of God’s will.
The glazing makes us unique as well. The potter has to consider the content of the clay the temperature of the fire and the glaze he is using before he places the piece in the fire. He can take two identical pieces, glaze them the same way but once they are fired they come out looking completely different. We all react to God’s leading in different ways, yet God is able to work in the those differences to still create a product that is beautiful and unique, created to do what only we can do, as well as only we can do it. God saves us and uses us, changing our nature, but wants to leave our personalities intact, or even bring them out to the fullest of our potential. So is it any wonder that we respond differently to this whole process?
Finally the potter is ready to place the piece in the kiln. The potter knows how hot the fire can be, he knows that he has worked out all the imperfection in the clay , he knows that he has sealed the piece to preserve the beauty of the piece, and that the fire will bring out that beauty to its fullest. He knows his piece and he knows his work. God has prepared us for the tests and the trials that will come our way. He has readied us for the persecution that we can stand strong against it. He knows that we are centered in His word that we will be able to withstand false doctrine, and not settle for someone just tickling our ears and telling us what we want to hear. He has sealed us with the blood of His Son and has placed his Spirit in us that we will not settle for second best. He knows us better than we know ourselves, and knows we can withstand the fire. The potter never leaves the piece alone in the fire. The kiln the potter has placed his prized piece in has a sight glass in it that is able to check on the product and make sure that it is surviving the process and when he can remove it from the fire.
When God places us in the fire He goes in with us in order to keep a better eye on His precious creation. When Nebuchadnezzar fired up the furnace so hot that the guards that brought Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- Nego, to it died, he intended to kill them. God had prepared the three to withstand the fire. When the king looked into the fire he saw the men not only surviving the fire but walking around in the fire with one who looked like the Son of God. When he brought them out of the fire their clothes weren’t singed and didn’t even smell of smoke. They had survived the fire.
Still sometimes the fire causes the piece to crack. The potter knows that despite his best efforts the piece is destroyed. Again this is where we are separated from the pot. Though we are weakened by the fire, though our weakness seem to keep us from becoming all that God wants us to be, God can work in that weakness. In 2 Corinthians 12:7-10 we read: And least I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in my infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distress, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak then I am strong.
No matter if it is a weakness we took in the fire with, something that we cling too refusing to turn over to God. Or if it something caused by the persecution from others because of our witness for God, His grace is there to work in our weakness, that He might become our strength. Though we pray that this one thing will keep us from becoming all that God intends us to become, God is telling us I want to work through that weakness to glorify my name. If you were abused, then God may want to work though you to reach others who are abused. If you have been divorced, God may want to reach others who are going through divorce. If you lost a loved one, God maybe sending you to comfort another who is grieving that you can comfort. The list can go on and on.
In our service to God we are encouraged to step out of our comfort zone to become what God wants us to be, forgetting our weaknesses, forgetting the past life and walking in faith knowing that is working on us to make us what He desires us to be. He never leaves us, and He will never lead us astray.
Prayer: Father help me to turn over to you today my weaknesses, so that you can make them strengths in my life that will bring you glory. In Jesus’ name amen.