Jars of Clay
2 Corinthians 4:6-4:18
Introduction-
Good morning …Happy Fathers Day to all the Fathers. If Staff has not told you yet, we have a gift for all the men here and you can get it on your way out of the sanctuary.
Today, usually the conversation centers around Fathers, the difficulty of raising kids, and the role that we play in our children. Men, you are not totally getting a get out of jail free card, but we will look at the value that God puts on us.
Illustration
Here is a thought I found to be interesting as we talk this morning.
“The greatest gift a Father can give his children is to love their mother” Author unknown.
In a story of the worse Mothers day gifts ever given, the Houston Chronicle wrote an article about Jerry Maltz (imagine, they mention him by name) giving his wife an iron.
The article ends with…He got the message when she gave him an ironing board for Father’s Day.
I think back and I made some really dumb decisions when I was young. I hope and pray I do not make quite as many today as I did then. We won’t ask Becky that question. When people are not on the same page, it gets complicated and messy.
Each generation seems to have do’s and don’ts.
Each generation takes what they feel the previous generation did wrong and adapts to what they feel is a better solution to the problem.
I think that is a great idea and it is needed if we are to ever move ahead to bettering ourselves and our families.
The problem with the problem is that everyone has an interpretation of what is wrong and what is right.
We are having conversations today that we would have never had 10-15 years ago.
Here is where I am going this morning-
We can have our opinions on any subject.
We can move on either side of the fence on any issue.
The final line is God determines what is right and what is wrong and no matter what we believe can take away His final authority on any issue. Amen.
We may not agree on some of the issues but we can agree that we as a people are broken. Amen.
We need God to help us and intervene in our mess.
Text- 2 Corinthians 4:6-4:18 Read from Bible
So here is what we can see in God’s Word
God loves crackpots
God turns our weaknesses into strength
God uses Cracked pots
God loves Crack Pots
In 1984 when I moved to Pa. and began trying to establish life from Texas to Pa., I noticed a few things.
I noticed people did not talk like me- not many knew what … I’m fixing to do something meant.
I used the word “bubbler” and they didn’t know I wanted a water fountain. Everyone in Milwaukee knows what a bubbler is.
I noticed something else that I have never noticed before anywhere that I had lived. In Pa. they have rooms in their house that nobody goes in except to clean. It is the showroom dining room or showroom living room.
You walk by and comment how nice the room is with pretty furniture and vases and pictures on the wall but you never use the room.
If you have one of those rooms, please, whatever you want is okay. I just don’t have one in my home.
The only way that you never get cracked pots is to never use them, to set them on the shelf and just look at them. (Repeat)
God loves cracked pots because;
We don’t live in a room that never damages us
We do not live in a world that never put their hands on us
We live in a world that is more like a scratch and dent sale than a showcase room of collectibles.
Here is a liberating thought for you –
God didn’t create you to be decoration.
Because you are cracked, does not mean you have no value.
(6-7) that we read
God tells us that He gets glory when His light shines out of darkness.
Out of His abundant light, He allows His light to shine in His people. So that they not only see God’s light when looking at God but through God’s people.
God’s power working through us in earthen vessels brings Him Joy.
God does not have to work through us. He does not need us, we need Him. But He chooses to work His power through us. You want to put a smile of God’s face, allow Him to work through you. It will bring Him Joy.
Clay pot means ‘earthen vessel”- the ordinary clay that makes ordinary pots allows God to do some amazing things.
A created pot has not value until it is used for its purpose. An empty pot has not value. A pot sitting on a shelf just looks pretty, not useful.
God specializes in broken.
He never gives up on someone because they have a few dings and dents.
The broken pieces fit together when the potter is the one putting the pieces together.
I think God loves yard sales- because He get great joy finding something that someone else has discarded and finding value in it and will put it again to use.
Jeremiah 18
The prophet Jeremiah was instructed to go see what God had in store for Israel.
“This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord. Go down to the potter’s house and there I will give you my message. So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot that he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him.”
God was giving instruction to the prophet Jeremiah for the nation of Israel.
The principal is the same for us today-
God doesn’t throw out- He desires to reshape the broken and unwanted piece of clay and molding into something beautiful.
“Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does? Declared the Lord. Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand Israel.”
God turns our weaknesses into strengths.
Some are broken and trying to find what good can come of these experiences we have gone through.
God uses them to strengthen us.
God uses them to strengthen and encourage others.
First Christians were called unlearned and ignorant-
“Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential not many of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.”
Billy Graham
Did you know that if Billy Graham would take Preaching 101 today - He would have failed the class? If he had to account for a three point message- He would failed-He basically had one point in every sermon he preached. THE CROSS… I cannot remember him saying in the Greek, this means this or that- but God took the foolish thing of the world to bring His message of truth.
D.L. Moody
He was just an uneducated shoe salesmen- lots of jokes could be said- But He was under the anointing of God and touched the lives of millions of people.
Moody Bible School
Moody Press
There is hope for this preacher who stutters like Moses but desires to preach under God’s anointing more than the papers that hang on the wall.
The best messages of encouragement for me personally have been the times people have shared what God did for them and how He has changed their lives and their circumstances.
How their weaknesses have been turned to strength because of the power of ‘God working in their life.
Apostle Paul
After he surrendered his life to God, he did not get their easily. He asked God to take his “Thorn in the flesh” AKA his weakness! But God said to him
“ My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” 2 Cor. 12:9
Psalm 20:7
“Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord.”
Apostle Paul tells a young Timothy
“You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.”
Feel overwhelmed?
Under staffed
Over extended
Tired/ exhausted
People/things not moving fast enough?
God turns weakness into strength when we turn our weakness over to him and His strength becomes our strength.
The devil wants you to believe;
You are the only one feeling this way.
You are the only one going through something like this.
Pushing you to give up because you feel powerless.
God uses Cracked pots
Recap
God loves Cracked pots
God turns our weaknesses into strengths
And finally, God uses cracked pots
I love calling you cracked pots! You and you and you! Why?
Because I am one too!
We are all damaged goods that the Lord has taken an interest in.
There is not one of us sitting here that does not need Jesus!
There is not one of us here who would make heaven without Jesus!
There is not one of us here who on our own merit is worthy of a relationship with a holy God!
Why?
Because we are sinners!
Because we are broken and our vases should wear and tear and have the glue marks to prove it.
God turns those broken and glued marks of our lives and uses them as badges of honor for what He has brought us through and where He wants to take us.
As we close this morning,
Dads- Be all that you can be for God
Moms- Be all you can be for God
Rosedale Be all that you can be for God
Did I get everyone? Be all that you can be for God.
Last thought-
What doe s it mean to be a broken vessel that God can use?
2 Corinthians 4:7-9 Read slowly and clearly
We are treasures to God- Clay yes! Breakable Yes! But important to God.
Containers made by a holy and perfect God.
All different sizes for all different purposes.
Dead Sea scrolls were found in jars of clay- God’s Word in clay jars- Gods Word in each of us for safe keeping.
Clay jars are temporary holding places- these bodies of ours are temporary holding places for what God has for us in the future.
The light of God’s Word entrusted to us and dwells inside.
While we were dead in our sin and destined for destruction (Colossians 2:13), God made a way for us to be made new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our physical “jars of clay” will be resurrected one day to become glorified, eternal bodies (1 Corinthians 15:20–23). God extends an invitation for “whosoever will” to come to Him while still in these earthly bodies (Revelation 22:17).
This knowledge and resulting relationship with God are the greatest treasures any earthly vessel can hold.
