THE STRUGGLES OF DISCIPLESHIP
Introduction
We have been studying aspects of daily discipleship. By now we know that discipleship is not simply church attendance. It involves a life that has been changed by following our Master, Jesus. He taught us the foundational principles in the Beatitudes. He is our only source of authority, Jesus is Lord. Jesus promised Divine help with the Holy Spirit. Jesus set the examples of service, love, intentionality, compassion, maturity. Jesus taught us how to pray and demonstrated the life of prayer. In every way he is our example and he leads us to be examples to the dark world around us.
We affirm all of those teachings, but at the same time we affirm we have a hard time doing them. All of this takes our attention, it takes effort and time. There are struggles of discipleship and often that struggle is overcoming the failures - the brokenness - the inability to be what we desire to be.
Romans 5:22-24 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?”
I wanted to include a message in this series for the times when we do not live up to the calling we claim. I don’t know a better place to put our attention than to the story told by the Weeping Prophet - a story of redemption and grace if accepted by God’s people.
We need to go to the Potter’s house.
Jeremiah 18:1-4, ESV
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord “Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.” So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel.And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do.” Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done? declares the Lord. Behold, like the clay in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel.
Here are some principles for addressing the difficulties of discipleship from this profound parable.
1. Know that God is at work in your life. “he was working at his wheel”
Sanders: “The potter took a lump of plastic clay and threw it into the very center of the revolving wheel. … His skillful fingers molded and caressed the clay, the pattern conceived in the potter’s mind began to emerge. He shaped it first from without and then from within until the shapeless clay began to be a thing of beauty.”
How God works is often a mystery to us - we can’t see the end result. Pottery is that way - it’s just a lump of clay and even while the potter is at work, it’s hard to know what he is aiming to accomplish and create. The assumption of discipleship is that in following God, we are following the One who can create within us the formation of Christ.
Job appealed to God in Job 10:9 NIV “Remember that you molded me like clay…”
The ultimate value of clay in the touch of the potter. He is at work in your life.
2. It Is A Mistake To Try To Take Over!
There is limitless potential when we yield to the heavenly Potter’s touch - so why do we try to do take over?
Isaiah 45:9 CEV “…you have no right to argue with your Creator. You are merely a clay pot shaped by a potter. The
clay doesn't ask, “Why did you make me this way? Where are the handles?”
We try to take over when we fail to follow God’s Word for our everyday lives! When we think we know better than what the Lord has revealed! We try to take over when we allow our own feelings and emotions to guide us rather than God’s Spirit.
This is what it looks like to let the Potter have his way:
Galatians 5:22-23 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.”
3. God Knows What To Do With Broken Vessels. (Jer 18:4 “And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand…”)
As Jeremiah was admiring the vessel, it collapsed into a shapeless lump of clay. The prophet expected the potter to throw it on the scrap heap.
What breaks us? Sin, shame, guilt. Ezra 9:6 ““O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift my face to you, my God, for our iniquities have risen higher than our heads, and our guilt has mounted up to the heavens.”
When our lives break down, there is still hope. The clay is still in his hands. He did not toss it to the scrap heap! God knows what to do when we have lost our way.
“He reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do…” 4) Here is God’s message of hope. The Potter is accustomed and skilled at reshaping the pottery.
-Only God would have chosen Jacob to head up the holy nation through which the Messiah would come. When Jacob laid down the sword of rebellion, God changed him from a cheat into a prince.
-Simon Peter was not very promising material. After many failures, he surpassed them all with his denial of the Lord with curses. But in fifty days’ time Peter was preaching the Pentecost sermon that swept three thousand into the kingdom of God. He became a great leader.
The Bible is full of redemption stories! Then there is you and me - how often has he had to remake our broken lives? Know that God is at work / don’t try to take over / He knows what to do with broken vessels
4. The Greatest Danger is to Resist the Potter.
Jeremiah 18:7,8 “…if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it.”
“Judas persistently rebuffed the beneficent touch of the Potter on his life, with the result that there was no other place for him but on the scrap heap. … His end is a solemn warning to any who, like him, are resisting the potter’s touch.” (Sanders)
Hear and cling to the instruction of the potter! Why resist Him?
“But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand.” - Isaiah 64:8
Conclusion: Peterson
1. This is one of Jeremiah’s most powerful sermons. The image has captured the attention of people of faith everywhere.
2. The first word that Jeremiah heard from God was “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.”
3. The verb formed is the same word translated “potter”.
4. The word by which Jeremiah first learned to understand his own life is the word which is now used to let the people understand their lives: God shaped Jeremiah; God is shaping the people. God is shaping you.
5. Today are you willing to surrender to the Potter?
Will we allow ourselves to be placed into God’s hands for molding as He seems fit?
Give me a clean start, Lord! Make me a new vessel!
For some this means rededication, for others turn away from sin, be immersed into Christ, begin a brand new life!
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Resources
Peterson, Eugene H. Run With The Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best. IVP, 1983.
Sanders, J. Oswald. Spiritual Discipleship. Moody Press, 1994.
