Summary: Just as the potter molds and shapes the clay into what it ought to be, our heavenly Father molds and shapes us into what we ought to be. He uses our situations and our circumstances to make us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.

What Type of Clay Are You

Jeremiah 18:1-12

 Intro:

 I was reading about a teenager named Ron who came from a broken home. When he was 15, he said something terrible to his dad and he ran away. He got into drinking and drugs and partying. But one day, he met someone who told him about Jesus. He heard about how God loves him so much that He wants us to come back to Him. The Spirit of God opened Ron’s heart to respond to the gospel. He accepted Jesus as his Lord and Savior. And God changed his life. One day, Ron said, “I bet there are a lot of teenagers who need Jesus just like I did. I want to do everything I can to reach them with God’s love.” He started Teen Mania Ministries in 1986. And now Ron Luce is in ministry for the Lord. God totally reshaped and reformed his life, and turned him into something beautiful.

 That’s what God wants to do for everyone in this room! Today, we’re going to talk about becoming something beautiful for God. We’re going to talk about how God can give us an extreme makeover.

 I would like to focus on one of the most powerful stories in the Bible. It is the story of the potter and the clay found in Jeremiah chapter 18. The reference to the potter and the clay is made on several occasions in the Bible. As you begin to study the significance of their stories, you will be quick to recognize the powerful spiritual implications it has not only on God’s people but on us as individuals as well.

 At the age of 14, Jeremiah became a prophet around 628 BC. His age didn’t stop him from obviously developing a great reputation as a prophet evidenced by what God was able to do through him.

 Jeremiah lived in the southern kingdom of Judah during the years leading up to the fall of the capital city, Jerusalem. For 40 years he preached that a catastrophe was going to happen if the people didn’t repent and turn toward God.

 Jeremiah’s warnings come true when the armies of Babylon under the leadership of King Nebuchadnezzar, invade Judah. In 587 BC they destroyed Jerusalem and the temple. The Babylonia Army took the Jewish king and many of the people away to exile. Moses out of Egypt in 1549bc

 This story happens about the midway point through Jeremiahs career around 608 BC.

 Read Text:

 This is a picture of God at work in our lives. Just as the potter molds and shapes the clay into what it ought to be, our heavenly Father molds and shapes us into what we ought to be. He uses our situations and our circumstances to make us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ.

 The MESSAGE:

• Jeremiah goes to the Potters house to listen to what God has to tell him.

• Sounds like what we do here as well.

• Let’s look for a moment at the Potter himself.

• The potter is an artist. Like other artist they are a unique they have a special since of vision that most folks don’t have.

• When a potter set out to create a vessel he has to envision what it is he wants to make.

• The Potter has an idea of what the vessel is to look like when he is finished.

• All Artists have that same property in their physique.

• An Architect has a vision of what the building will look like when completed.

 God has a plan for our lives as well and He knows what He wants us to look like when HE is finished with us.

• Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.

 The real message is in verse 6

• Just as the potter had the authority to do with the clay as he pleases, God has the Authority to with us as he pleases.

• But HE doesn’t just free style it. He has a MASTER plan.

 We were created in the image of Christ.

• 1 Corinthians 15:49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

• Colossians 3:10 And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:

 So the plan is for us to look like Him.

• If we are to look like him then we must undergo some major transformations.

 But it requires you to be moldable, it requires you to be receptive, it requires you to be firm enough to hold its shape, it requires you to be tough enough to handle the process, it requires you to be pressured enough to release all of the impurities.

 So what kind of clay are you?

 The METHOD: vs. 7-10

 Not only does the potter need a plan he also knows the method (steps) it requires to mold this ball of clay into a beautiful priceless work.

 The first thing you must do is pick out the clay to be used.

 There are three basic types of clay: Earthenware, Stoneware and Kaolin.

• Earthenware clay, contains many minerals, such as iron oxide (rust), and in its raw state may contain some sand or small bits of rock. Earthenware is secondary clay because of its many impurities; earthenware melts at a cooler temperature than other clays. Earthenware fires (or bakes) in a temperature range of 1700 to 2100°F. After firing, it is still porous and is often white or gray. Earthenware is commonly used in the making of terra cotta pots, roofing tiles, and other low-fire ware.

 Firing is the process that clay must go through to allow it to be hardened so that it will maintain its shape and be useful.

• Stoneware is hard and durable clay that is fired to temperatures between 2100 and 2300°F. Stoneware comes in several colors and styles, textures and it will hold water all by itself when fired to the recommended temperature, but requires more shaping and manipulating than earthenware. Its natural colors vary from light gray or tan to dark gray or chocolaty brown. Historically stoneware was used for crocks and jugs and is now typically used to make dinnerware.

• Kaolin clay, the purest clay it is the closest to glass. Called primary clay because it has few impurities and is the main ingredient used in making porcelain. Its particle size is larger than other clays; it is the more fragile, and the most expensive. Kaolin is high-fire clay, needing heat from 2335 to 2550°F, to vitrify (hold water). Fired porcelain can become very hard and translucent, its melted surface becoming so smooth and shiny that it can reflect an image when held to a bright light. Kaolin also requires the most work.

 Depending on the Type of clay you are depends on the method required to make you the vessel you need to be.

 Jeremiah observed that God had a purpose for his chosen people.

 While the potter worked on it pottery, the vessel became marred in his hand.

• We are all marred.

• Marred means: decayed, ruined, corrupt, spoiled, disfigured, and wasted.

 Once marred, the vessel could not become what the potter wanted.

 The vessel could have been marred because of an impurity in the clay, or from some outside source.

• Even while the Divine Potter works on us, we may become marred.

 We may become marred because of some inborn or natural trait we have not turned over to Him.

 We often become marred because we allow other things to have influence on us.

 Reasons we resist the working of the potter in our lives.

 We become marred when we want only the blessings, not the responsibilities of serving God.

 We become marred when we starve ourselves by not reading and studying the Word.

 We are marred because of lack of communication with God; we do not pray.

 We are marred because we will not take advantage of training to become better servants.

 We are marred, becoming unusable for the potters original plan because we will not hear Him.

• If you are earthenware clay you are not really aren’t good for much of anything except to hold dirt and to set outside and collect dust. You took the potter’s molding but you are still very much tuned in on the world’s dirt. You are porous in your faith and you aren’t really even sure what it’s all about (this Jesus thing)

• If your Stoneware clay you have been through some stuff that required you to rely on God for the answer. But as soon as the crisis is over you’re right back in your hold habits. Your go to church and you are doing your part but you like the earthenware are still able to hold the world’s dirt inside only now no one can see it, when its held up to the light you can’t see anything.

• Or maybe you’re Porcelain Clay you’ve been through the shaping process, You’ve been beaten, broken down, ground up, and then mixed with water and a little bit of new clay so that you now can be reshaped into something beautiful. And now you are being fired at high temperatures. The beauty of all of this pressure and manipulating by the potters hands and his kiln is that now you are becoming transparent in your faith, and what is revealed when your held to the LIGHT is the beauty of the only begotten, The creator, and Sustainer, in fact the reflection of the Potter.

 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

• Without the potter we are just a lump of clay.

• You may be struggling financially. You’re working as hard as you can. But the bills just keep coming. You can’t get ahead. You say, “Lord, this isn’t what I wanted!? Why is this happening?”

• But then you realize that God is using this to make you more like Jesus. He says, “Right now, you need this situation in your life so that you’ll continue to pray night and day and to ask me for help. You need this situation as a reminder that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. You need this situation so that I can accomplish my purposes in your life. I use all the good things and all the hard things to make you more like Jesus.” Philippians 1:6 says that “He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Our God is an attentive God He cares about every aspect of your life and how it will turn out and most of all will you become the vessel He has planned for you to be.

 The Madness: vs. 11-12

 Even after knowing the plan Know what the finished vessel will look like. Sometimes we just become these lumps of unusable dirt. Yet all it takes is a little bit of moisture and some hard pressure from the potter and we can be conformed into something beautiful something priceless.

 There’s one problem with all clay sometimes we just don’t want to become anything we are happy and content just being dirt.

 We don’t want to be touched we don’t want to be used and we certainly don’t want to be transparent or even valuable. We like just being dirt.

 That way no one can expect us to be anything useful and we won’t half to worry about breaking and we won’t have to worry about someone seeing us for what we really are.

• Isaiah 45:9 Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, What makest thou? or thy work, He hath no hands?

 Listen even David after all of his screw ups was as God says, a man after Gods own heart.

 God never stop working on Peter or Paul.

 He did not quit working on Jeremiah. He was 14 when he became a vessel for God how many times in his life did God have to reshape and refire him.

• He did not quit working with the clay until he had made an object of use.

• He may have had to restart several times.

• With each remaking, he may have had to design a new vessel because of limitations imposed by the failure of the last one.

• The Lord has persistence in working with us; He will not quit until we develop into a vessel for His use.

• He may have to restart many times, as we fail to develop as He desires. But HE will continue until we are finished.

 Philippians 1:6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

 Conclusion:

 Are we ready and willing to be shaped into what The Potter has planned for us?

Are we soft to the leading of the Lord?

Do we resist when He applies pressure, or do we move?

Have we become hardened and brittle? We have to be careful

Once clay is hardened, no matter what shape it is in, it becomes very fragile and is in danger of being broken to pieces.

 Lord help us to not become hardened and unusable.

Lord help us to always be willing to move the way you see fit that when we one day go through the fire we become vessels fit for your house.

 God, the potter, even with such power and majesty, loves you and I so much that in our marred condition, He still sees a Masterpiece! He tenderly and loving works to accomplish His Purpose!

GOD SIMPLY WANTS CLAY! He doesn’t want steel – He doesn’t want oil – He wants CLAY – Something that He can put in His hand to mold and fashion into a useable piece of work!

• Isaiah 64:8 “Yet, O LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

 Offer the Potter your heart, soft and tractable, and keep the form in which the Artist has fashioned you to be. Let your clay be moist (never ignoring the journey), lest you grow hard and lose the imprint of the Potter’s fingers.

 I just praise God that He chooses to love me enough to envision this old boy to be worth anything! BUT THEN, that’s the awesomeness of God!

 Are you “Workable – Moist – Useable” Clay?

 Back in 1501, Michelangelo was commissioned to work on a great statue of David. At the time, he had a big block of marble that was spoiled and abandoned. Most artists would say, “Who needs this ruined hunk of marble?”

But Michelangelo couldn’t take his eyes off of it. Every day he would walk to where it was, and he would touch it, measure it and caress it. He decided to work with it. And so for two years, Michelangelo worked without any contact with the outside world. He chipped off the parts of the marble that were bad. And he chiseled the rest of it into the image he wanted it to be.

Today, his amazing statue of David is considered to be one of the greatest works of art in Renaissance culture. It’s a wonderful example of how an artist can take something that is marred and turn it into something that is marvelous.

That’s what God wants to do for you. And all you have to do is say “God, I’m ready for a makeover! Help me to be the best student I can be, the best parent I can be, the best Christian I can be. Please make me over into the person that you are calling me to be.” God’s plan for our lives will turn out well if we turn to Him.