WE ARE CLAY IN THE HANDS OF GOD.
Isaiah 64:8-9: Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter. We are all the work of your hand. Do not be angry beyond measure, O Lord. Do not remember our sins forever.
I think it’s safe to say that we’re not always aware of all the changes that are taking place around us. For example, in the area of technology, sometimes I will look down at my cell phone, and it will tell me that it has just finished updating itself. Something was getting changed around inside my phone, and I didn’t even realize it. This is how it is with all kinds of things in our world today. Another example would be in the area of food. It is true that the food we eat today is very different from the food people ate a generation ago. Food today is more genetically modified, more protected from bugs and disease and decay by pesticides and chemicals. Some will argue that this is good, and others will argue that it’s not so good. I don’t want to get in the middle of all of that - but the fact remains that things in this world, like food or technology, are always changing, and you and I aren’t always aware of what’s going on around us.
The Bible says that you and I are always changing, and maybe we’re not always aware of it. Not just in the way we look, or the way we dress, but in our soul, our inner being. Our level of trust in God, our level of hope from the forgiveness of sins, our level of desire to glorify God – these things are always changing inside of us, sometimes for the good, and sometimes for the bad. We are like clay, the Bible says, something very changeable. And God is the one who can change us for the good.
This morning on this Lakeside Sunday, we’re going to be reminded of the special way God shapes and changes us, and especially young lives through the power of his Word in Christian education. He is the potter, and we are the clay in his hands. May God bless our study of his Word this morning.
Today we are looking at Isaiah, chapter 64, where the prophet Isaiah is talking to God about the nation of Israel. A long time ago, Israel was very faithful to God, hearing his Word and living according to it. But now they had fallen away. Earlier in this part of the Bible Isaiah spoke those famous words: “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags. We all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.” (64:6) Isaiah was talking to God about how the people have changed for the worse. “No one calls on your name, or strives to lay hold of you, for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.” What happened? Instead of staying in God’s Word, allowing God to shape them, they pushed the Word away. The sinful world shaped them instead. Idol worship, materialism, immorality, selfishness - this is what was shaping Israel.
The same thing can happen to you and me if we push the Word of God out of our lives and let our sinful culture shape us. Sadly, the same thing often happens to our Lutheran confirmands. For 2 or 3 or 4 years, the grade school student spends time in the Word. There in those confirmation classes, God is the potter, and he shapes those students into the people he wants them to be. And then the student is confirmed, and some statistics show that within five years, two-thirds of them lose their connection to God and his Church. Just like Israel, materialism, immorality, selfishness – this is what shapes that young person. Without even realizing it, the young person has changed, and not for the good, because of the influence of the world.
Can you look back on your life and remember a time you let the world shape you? We are like clay, and without God continuing to shape us through his Word, we start to change for the worse, and maybe we don’t even realize it.
Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, Isaiah says, “Do not remember our sins forever.” God our Father looks down from heaven, and he loves us. He doesn’t want us to transform into a piece of clay that he can’t allow into heaven, covered with the filth of sin. And so God reaches down from heaven, and he shapes us. First he uses his law with all of its commands and threats, and cuts away our sin. Just like that first century potter who would dig clay out of the ground, and remove all the rocks and sticks that were stuck in that clay. Sometimes the potter stomps on the clay, pushing it through little holes in order to remove impurities.
God does this with our sins. The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. Our Heavenly Father removes our sins by the sacrifice of his Son Jesus on the cross. He does “not remember our sins forever.” Instead, they are “forgiven forever,” “forgotten forever,” because of his undeserved love. Then God shapes us into the people he wants us to be. The potter takes the clay that has been purified and puts it on the wheel, and he begins to shape it. The potter has a plan for each piece of clay – what it will be, by the time he is done.
God does the same thing with us. He uses his Word to shape us, and he has a plan for what he wants each one of us to be.
Who do you want shaping your children, and the future of our church? Who do you want shaping that young person who just finished confirmation? You average high school student will be away from home at high school from 7:30 until 3:30. If the student is involved in co-curriculars, then he or she is gone from 7:30 until 5:30. If the student is going to stay for a sporting event or concert in the evening, then the student is at high school from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 or 10:00 at night. During those 8 or 10 or 14 hours, who do you want shaping that young Christian?
Lakeside Lutheran High School provides a place where the Potter can work on his clay. The Word of God is present in so many different ways and in so many different situations. The potter shapes his clay in our religion classes and chapel services. The student in science class learns about God’s creation, and the Potter is working. The history student sees the hand of God in all the events of the world, and the Potter is working. The music student sits at the foot of the Christian teacher. The carpentry or welding student learns in a Christian workshop. The athlete listens to the halftime speech from the Christian coach. And the potter is working and shaping that student. He talks with his Christian friends as they grow up together, going through life’s ups and downs together, and the Potter is working, shaping and molding that young Christian into the person he ought to be.
And after four years of being shaped by God’s law and God’s Gospel, the student graduates into the world, ready to face college, or the military, or the work place, filled with the comfort of knowing that all of his sins have been forgiven in Christ. He graduates, understanding his purpose of serving Christ and others because of the love of God.
May God continue to bless the ministry that takes place at Lakeside Lutheran High School. And may God continue to bless you and work in you. We are still and will always be God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do. May God continue to shape you. Amen.
