As I prepared this message, the Spirit of God revealed to me and said to me help the people understand that ‘there is no such thing as happenstance. Nothing just happens. That I designed every individual who is connected to Me, their destiny and deliverance is in My hand. I’m sovereign. I do what I want to do. And I do what I want to do with you. You can’t stop Me from doing what I want to do. Because I am the Potter; you are the clay. I mold you, shape you, break you, remake you—whenever and however I deem necessary.’
First of all, when you look at a Potter, we must establish God’s sovereignty. That He has an absolute right to deal with us in any way He wishes. This is illustrated in a tangible form when we look at God as the Potter and we, the creation of God, as the clay.
The Potter has the ultimate plan, objective and design. He can do whatever He wants to do with the clay. That clay is at the will of the Potter. Whatever He wants to do He can choose to do because He’s in charge. And the Potter is in charge of the clay and the clay is at the Potter’s wheel. The idea of God as the Potter, patiently and skillfully shaping the world and human beings to His specification undoubtedly lies behind the creation narrative.
When you look at the creation narrative, that’s the first place you really see God as the Potter and us as the clay.
If you look in Genesis 1:3, God says, ‘Let there be light’.
In verse 6 He says, ‘Let there be expansion.’
In verse 14 He says, ‘Let there be light in the expansion’.
But in verse 26, the narrative shifts. And He goes from saying ‘Let there be’ to ‘Let us make’. When He gets to man, He doesn’t say ‘Let there BE man’. He says ‘Let us MAKE man’.
He spoke light; He spoke fish; He spoke the sun; He spoke the moon. But when it came to man, He just didn’t speak He said, ‘Let us make…Let us shape Him into our image.’
That’s when the process began—God did not just speak you; God made you. God formed you from the dust of the earth, fashioned you and crafted you—then He stepped back and said ‘That’s good’. But then we have this sin issue. Because with this sin issue now, rather than looking like the Creator…we look more like the interloper and the enemy.
• Do you know the Devil? At best he is nothing more than an unemployed musician with the Messiah complex. He’s mad because he cannot be God therefore now he decides to hate on God. He was in heaven as the head minister of music; but he wanted to try to take over heaven. He didn’t just play the organ—he had an organ in him. He didn’t just play the drums—he was the drums. He didn’t just play the song—he was a song. He was a bad brother. But he got just a little too high and now he’s not there anymore.
• And so the Devil’s design is to kill you and to make you not look like your Creator.
And therefore we have this dilemma. The dilemma of trying to look like our Creator—but the Devil trying to get us to look like the world and look like the enemy.
Look at what Jeremiah says in verses 1-2.
• Without migration there can be no revelation.
You can’t get future blessings in your present place.
You want God to speak to your where you are. God is saying, ‘When you get up and go down—that is when I will speak to you.’
Arise—Get up. And as soon as you get up…go down.
Get up from you stagnation/stainless/from the place that you are. And as soon as you get up…get right back down on your knees and admit ‘Lord I need you to help me…with me’. You’ve got to get right back up and get up from your sin/things and people that are not productive/out that bad that’s not your spouse/from that mess and that dirt. And as soon as you get up then go down and repent.
Notice what he says….’Arise and go down to the Potter’s house…and there I will announce my words to you’.
• Isn’t it interesting that there are some things that God speaks to you that you can’t get at your house or where you are?
• That is why some things God cannot speak in your life until you let it go—and if you won’t let it go—sometimes He’ll snatch it away. (You wanted the relationship/the friend/creature comforts/remain in the state that your were in)
• But it is the will of God to work in you the need to have distractions removed. (ill—that is what it meant when Jesus went alone to a solitary place to be with God. There ought to be a place where nobody get to you because nobody can find you because you are alone with your heavenly father.)
Is there anybody in here who knows that it was not until God brought you up out of some things and then brought you down to a place where He could speak to you that you really learned how to hear from God?
After the divorce, lost your job, sickness, mamma died, dog was killed, friends walked away…that is the time that God began to speak to you.
Because it is when God brought you out—you learned how to cry out to God, call on God, lay before God.
• And now you can testify that if it had not been for the Lord that was on my side….
So Jeremiah, the prophet, goes down there and notices that he was making something on the wheel.
• Don’t talk to Him when you get there; just watch Him.
Now it’s funny because He spoke to Moses face to face; He spoke to Jacob in a dream; He spoke to Daniel in the den—but when He speaks here to Jeremiah, He speaks to Him illustratively. You know that God can speak to you how He wants to. So what He says is I want you to SEE more than I tell you. Because if you see it then you will be able to feel it.
• It reminds of Hosea the minor prophet who God tells ‘I want you to marry a tramp—because Israel has been tipping out on me—and I want you to preach to Israel how bad I feel when go out tipping out with other gods. So I am going to let your wife sleep with other men—so that when you get up and preach next Sunday—you won’t be preaching from your script you’ll be preaching from your heart…and you will know exactly how I feel because you are going to feel the same way too.’ I don’t want you to see it; I want you to BE it. I want you to go through the agony.
• There are some things that you really can’t talk about until God takes you through something. Then when you stand up as a witness, you are not speaking just from the stance of textbook philosophy—you are not just talking but you know exactly what God can do.
And so He says, Jeremiah when get there. Jeremiah, this weeping prophet. Sometimes you get an attitude. One time you were preaching and got mad and angry and said you weren’t going to preach anymore. I called you from your mother’s womb and when you were 20 I called you into the prophetic ministry. And now, Jeremiah, it’s time for you to go further and preach to JUDAH about how I feel when JUDAH walks away from me.
Go down and watch him. Don’t say nothing—just watch him.
Look at verse 3. Verse 3 says, ‘I went down’.
Verses 1 & 2 says ‘go down’. Verse 3 says ‘I went down’.
• This is an important reminder that when God speaks, you don’t have time to procrastinate, and vasilate, and hesitate and contemplate—when tells you to make a move, you don’t have a couple of verses in the chapter of your life to make up your mind; in the next verse of your life you need to be on your way down to where God told you.
• And the problem with some of you is that you are going at your own pace at your own time.
God told you to leave that mess that you are in right now—and you are trying to wait until finances get better and wait until you get a better job. God told you to leave now—I’ll meet you down at the Potter’s house.
Verse 4 says ‘the vessel that he made of clay spoiled or was marred at the hand of the potter—so He remade it’.
As He was making this clay, He was near done. As you look at it, He is near done. But He spots something that He’s not happy with. Now the clay, as it were, thought that it was almost finished.
And that’s the problem…because with many of you, you were halfway into what you thought you would have.
You were in love and you had picked out the house and you had chosen the selective occupation and you said, “I am there…I’m just a few years from my dream’. And in the middle of it all God, Who is the Potter, looked at you—and spotted something that He was not happy with. And said “there’s something I don’t like about her…I’m moving her out of your life. I’m moving him out of your life because there is something I see about him that you don’t see. And so I’m going to make him cheat on you so that you’ll break up with him.” Now you think it’s Him—but it’s really the hand of God.
God says that what you don’t understand…’I am the Potter…and you are the clay…and I choose in the middle of the process’.
Tell your neighbor, ‘I’m in process’.
God says, “I’m starting you over”
• But God, I’m 35…I’m about to start over
• Lord, I’m 40 and if I don’t have anybody by now…I’m about to start over
• Lord, I’m 50 and my life is halfway through…I’m about to start over
Because I’ve got something ready for you in the last part of your life that you weren’t ready for in the first part of your life. I am getting ready to remake your finances, remake your credit, remake the house you live in, remake your relationships, remake your attitude.
Preacher, how can God do that? Turn your attention to Isaiah 29:16.
What do you mean, ‘God you don’t understand!’ ?
What do you mean nobody understands you?
What do you mean when you make statements like that? God would have us to understand through this eagle eye prophet Isaiah, He says…’What do you mean that I don’t understand you when I made you? I know the stuff that’s right with you—and I know the stuff that’s wrong with you. I understand your sex drive because I gave it to you; you’re the one who perverted it when you didn’t use it the way I designed it in my word. I had designed it for somebody who like it just as much as you; but you got with the wrong person now you don’t know who to be with. But don’t blame that on Me because I designed that person for your needs. But because you didn’t want to wait on Me—don’t get mad with me and say that nobody understands.
I know everything that is wrong and everything that is right. How can the clay say to the Potter, “You don’t understand!”?
Turn to Isaiah 45:9
How can the clay question the potter? The Potter’s in charge. Whatever the Potter decides to do with the clay, there’s nothing the clay can do about it. The clay is not in the position to call into question the One who is shaping him.
And Jeremiah specifically says that there was something on the clay that the Potter didn’t like.
There are many versions: one says that it was marred, marked, stained, spoiled.
There was something about it or on it that did not please the potter and so he decided mid-process.
You’ve got to hear me because I’m talking to some people that are well into the process. Don’t be surprised if you place all of your energy, time and resources into something but it doesn’t –because maybe its your vision; but not His.
Don’t be surprised if you get this close to it and then something happens to where you can’t get to it. Because God says, ‘I am in charge of your destiny…and I see what you don’t see.’
Also understand that the Devil is the author of confusion. And what the Devil will do is that as you are seeking God for revelation, that Devil will take what you’re seeking and interpret it and mis-interpret it into confusion. So you will feel confusion when you are really seeking. And the Devil will tell you that you are confused, when you are really seeking. And while you are waiting on God and seeking the will of God, the Devil will snatch that seeking and then transfer confusion into your thinking until you say, ‘I don’t know what God is saying. I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t if it’s the right thing to do or not.’ Because the Devil is trying to pollute your destiny with your marred history and try to tell you that you are not hearing from God. But all you’ve got to say is “I’m in His hand’.
Watch This—I have a lot of responsibility—more than you can even see with the natural eye. Primarily because we are a purpose-driven church and the Devil will fight anything that is driven by purpose. I wouldn’t give up my assignment but I wouldn’t give to anybody—strange to understand, though I love what God has called me to.
It isn’t easy when you’re trying to start a new and growing ministry
• trying to make sure everything is in place
• trying to make sure things are in line and everything is straight
• when it looks like more doors and slammed in your face than there are that are opening
• being pulled on in 20 different directions
• trying to make an impact on the community
• when the risk is high—when the critics are many and the friends are few
• when the haters are hating and there are many who want to see you fail and fall and not make it
• then trying to be half way a decent husband and father
• they those who you’ve invested your heart into who simply walk away
And there were some weeks that I didn’t know how I was going to make it. There were times when I thought nobody understood the spiritual fight that I was in.
Now, there’s another wrong with me—I think too much. I’m an intellectual. I’m a visionary. I’m a go getter. I’m aggressive. Those can be the best attributes in the world and the worst. Because I make it happen and I don’t wait on it to happen. But in the midst of trying to make things happen, trying to make everything perfect—God had to show me that sometimes it just ain’t going to be perfect.
You can fuss; you can train people; you can cry; you can be on the edge of giving up—but, Son, what you’ve got to understand—It’s MY church…those leaders that you are training, that’s my disciples that you’re training…them are my preachers…that’s MY praise team…and MY praise dancers…those are MY musicians…the land I showed you—that’s MY land. The people that walked away—that’s MY child. And guess what HE told me: YOU are in MY hand!!!
But I didn’t come to preach about me, I’ve come to preach about you. Let me call you to the witness stand. What God told me to tell you—there’s too much stuff that’s stressing you.
Some of you can’t half sleep at night; and you are back to the medicine you had stopped.
Some of you are contemplating smoking a joint or atleast smoking a cigarette to calm your anxiety—stuff you had gotten over a long time ago.
And something jumped off in your life—somebody left you that you loved—and what you didn’t understand (and I didn’t either—we’re all guilty) is that HE is sovereign.
If I am living right. If I am giving right. If I am walking right. Then there is some stuff that God’s got to do. Not that He is my puppet—but that His sovereignty, power and prerogative are always in line with His Word. His word says if I do some stuff—He’s faithful to do something for me. Because He promised and He said He would.
• And you can choose to drive yourself crazy—or you can rest on the sovereignty of God and say: God, these are your bills/these are your kids/this is your car note—I’m yours.
The earth is the Lords and the fullness thereof…..
I’m not going to stress myself over YOUR bills.
• I refuse to go crazy
• I refuse to lose my mind
• I refuse to have a nervous breakdown
• I refuse to let the people who walk away and ain’t even concerned about the things of God to tell me what God can and cannot do
• I refuse to quit
• I refuse to go back to the club/whore house/chip and dales
I’m more than this. I’m better than this.
I’m a child of the King.
I’m more than a conquerer.
I’m in His hands. I’m going to keep my mind; you can lose yours if you want to. But as for me—greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world—I will put my trust in the Lord.
Go home and tell everybody this week: pray for me. I’m a work in progress. I still worry a little too much. I still get a little mad some times. But the good news is that I am in His hands.
• Ephesians 2:10 says “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them”
• We’re HIS workmanship. We’re not our own.
- That also reveals to me that I am not by myself
- It also teaches me that He is not with me—it is I that is with Him (It’s His program)
- It also teaches me that wherever I am or wherever I’ve been that He is the One that took me there. (Jeremiah 29:11) The rape, the abuse, the infidelity, being lied on and cheated on, sickness, the disease, the pain, the hurt, the rejection, the death, the heart break, the tears at night, the pink slip, the transition, the layoff, the co-dependency, the ridicule—God took you there.
- It also tell me that sense He took me there—He knows exactly where I am.
Here’s what you’ve got to understand about the Potter:
He takes the clay and meeds it.
Then he puts it on a wheel to form it (one hand is inside; the other hand is outside). One hand holds and gives it the desired form; while the hand which is outside smoothes and refines the curves in it.
What is the lesson? God’s got His hand on your outside; but He’s also working on your inside.
• He’s got His hand on your inside to keep you stable; but He’s still working some kinks out on the outside so people won’t see all of your frailties and your fragility.
• He’s fixing me on the inside so that He can handle me on the outside.
• There is some stuff that He wants to give me on the outside so that people can SEE my blessing; but He can’t give me my outside stuff until He does an inside job.
• God is working on my inside, because the songwriter said ‘He’s preparing me”. What is He preparing me for? He’s preparing me so that He can bless me. See there was some stuff a few years that He couldn’t bless me with—because my mind wasn’t strong enough—and my spirit couldn’t handle success. But the last few years He’s gotten me grounded—He has humbled me—so that when He gives me the stuff—I wouldn’t put the stuff before Him.
Matthew 6:33 ‘Seek ye first…..’
Here it is:
I look like I’m done….
But here is the piece of the puzzle—once He gets you properly made, you’ve got to go in the oven. The oven is necessary. Any potter worth his salt understands the importance of the oven. It doesn’t matter how good it looks on the outside; if it doesn’t go through the burning—it is not complete.
Pastor, I did start tithing last month/I did let go of that relationship….
But there is another stage—after he started you and then molded you and after he saw some stuff on your that he didn’t like and remade you and then moved some things, moved some stuff, moved some habits and moved some people and moved some desires. And now you say….’Why does it seem like I’m still going through hell, havoc and hurt’.
You ought to shout because that means that you are in the oven.
Let me give you four things about the fire and then I will take my seat:
# 1 The fire removes impurities (There is some stuff about me that nobody else sees—I’m nasty. There was some impure things in me and in you—But God sees it because He’s the Potter—and He loves you too much to leave you where you are and leave you like that)
• You can’t worship it off, you can’t tap it off, you can’t shout/dance it off. Some stuff—God’s got to take you through hell. God’s got to burn some stuff off. Because you would never let it go unless God takes you through the fire.
- You would never leave that brother alone, until he almost drives you crazy
- You would never leave that sister alone, until she almost makes you kill yourself and half the block
#2 The fire hardens the vessel – So once God brings you into the promise (because note that this ain’t promise—it’s just the rehearsal) when the Devil comes at you—you can say, ‘Devil, you gone have to come with more than that now.’
• People used to say some dumb stuff and you would start crying
• Friends used to walk away and you used to think it was the end of the world
• Enemies and foes used to lie on you and you felt like nobody loved you
But this is a new day and this is a new season.
• You used to cry yourself to sleep…but now it’s a new day.
I’ve been through the storm and the rain….through the fire and the flood and stuff that used to get on my nerves…I’m rougher/tougher/stronger/wiser than that now. You can’t do that to me. Don’t you know that I’ve been through that already? Don’t you know I’ve been lied to before?
You shouldn’t desire to trade in your past. You ought to say I’m glad I went through the pain/separation/….Because you should see me now—My heart is fixed on nothing less…
-- Don’t push me because I’m close to the edge.
#3 It beautifies the vessel -- You thought you were cute and thought you looked good—but you haven’t seen the finished product.
You were a nice shape—but when you’ve come out the oven.
There is some stuff that went down in my life that was ugly—mamma said something to me as a little girl that destroyed my self esteem…daddy did something that made me feel unwanted and unloved. I feel ugly. But lately, God has just brought me out of something. And now I like myself now. I’m happy with myself now. And if you don’t like me for who God created me to be, I don’t need you in my life. (I’ll holla)
#4 Fire lightens the vessel
I was a dark, messed up individual. There was no light about me. I didn’t even like myself. But after what I went through and the Potter worked on me, I’m brighter now. I’m happy now. I’m happy with me. My mamma said I’ve changed. My friends have been asking me why I’m so happy. And I had to look at them and say ‘I sing because I’m happy….”
Closing
Metaphorically, the wheel represents life (round and round)
The potter represents God the Father
The clay represents you and I
The oven represents the trials/abandonment/being lied to
The everyday ups and downs are in the oven.
What I didn’t get to is that He works with tools. He doesn’t just use His hands. But the tools is the Holy Spirit. That’s what God is using to shape me. The Spirit of God is causing me to be different. And that’s why you have to be filled with the Spirit.
