TREASURES IN JARS OF CLAY Part 1
“What Type Of Clay Are You”
Jer. 18:1-6
Pastor Jeff Seaman
Today I would like to speak to you about one of the most powerful stories in the Bible. It is the story of the potter and the clay. 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.
Jer 18:1-6
“This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 2"Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message." 3So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4But the pot 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.
5Then the word of the LORD came to me: 6"O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does?" declares the LORD. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel”.
NIV
In this story the Lord makes reference to Israel being like clay in the hands of the potter.
Now turn with me to Romans 9:20-21
20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, `Why did you make me like this?’" 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
NIV
Again the Bible makes reference to mankind being clay in the potter’s hands.
In Isaiah 45:9 “Does the clay say to the potter, what are you making?”
When I was in high school I took a pottery class. Every day in 5th period I would go to my pottery class. In this class we worked with clay, throughout the year we were given several different projects. One of which we had to sculpt something with our hands.
Then the other was to make something on the pottery wheel. How many of you have ever worked on a pottery wheel. It is not easy. The very first time I sat down, I took a lump of clay and put it down on the wheel and I started the foot pedal and the clay flew off and hit the guy next to me.
There is a lot involved in the process of making a pot. Once we learned the basic ways to work the clay the pot took on what ever shape I gave it and let me say I made some pretty ugly things at first.
Never once during my pottery experience did the clay ever say to me what it wanted to be. The clay was totally subject to my design.
As I began to think about actual clay and the reference made to us being clay I realized that there are some significant differences.
We are clay with a will. This is a significant difference.
Because although God may have wonderful plans for your life, you may never see though plans because of your own free will.
Today I want to talk to you about clay that the potter can do nothing with.
As I had the opportunity to work with clay, I learned quickly there were three kinds of clay we could not use.
As God refers to us his people as the clay, I believe each type of clay I am about to speak on is relevant to our lives today.
WHAT KIND OF CLAY IS UNUSEABLE
1. Clay that is bone dry.
This was clay that at one time was soft and moldable and pliable.
All of us as believers when we first get saved become soft and moldable clay; our lives are put into the potter’s hands. But over a period of time there are those who allow their spiritual life to dry up.
There life becomes hard, bone dry. Nothing can penetrate their life any longer. They hear the word preached, they come to church, but none of it has any effect on their lives any more.
They have closed themselves off to spiritual truth. I have known many believers whose lives have become bone dry. They have backslide, no longer affected by the things of truth.
2 Peter 2:20-3:1
20If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning. 21It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them. 22Of them the proverbs are true: "A dog returns to its vomit," and, "A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud."
I know this is true fist hand; how many of you have ever witnessed to a person who used to know Christ? It is more difficult because they have already heard and experienced every thin you have said.
When people become bone dry God can do absolutely nothing with them. (They are clay with a free will)
The master potter can no longer shape the pot to his liking.
There is only one way for a pot like this to be used again, it must be completely crushed, and the process of molding must start all over again.
When I pray for people who are backslid-den and bone dry, I pray according to Hosea 2
The prophet wife had left him to go out into the world. She was what the bible calls a type (A type of sin that the Children of God had become) She had backslid-den.
This showed Israel’s relationship with God they had backslid-den; they had become a bone-dry people.
Hosea prays for his wife in vs. 6. The Lord answers and says
Hosea 2:6 “Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes;
I will wall her in so that she cannot find her way”
NIV
What is being said here is God was trying to break her will so she would come home.
Church, this is why a lot of times our loved ones who go back into the world have to hit the bottom before they will look up, why because God is taking a bone dry pot and he is crushing it, so it can be used again.
Church, the kind of clay God cannot use is bone-dry clay. Some of you here might be bone-dry the only way to be used again is to allow God to crush your will.
2. The next kind of clay God cannot use is clay that lacks moisture.
Clay that lacks moisture is clay that still exists but can not be used. The clay is just soft enough to exist, but not soft enough to be moldable for the potters use.
This is the place many believers are at today. They have just enough of a relationship with God to know they are saved and forgiven. They do just enough to make sure they will be saved when that times comes.
Turn with me to I Cor. 3:12-15
12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. 14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
NIV
The last verse is what I am concerned with today. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.
NIV
The implication from scripture is that there are many believers who never allowed the potter to mold them. They invested their lives into temporal things. They invested in bringing satisfaction to themselves here on earth.
These folk go to church, they love God, they believe in salvation, they participate in worship. But that’s as far as it goes, they never surrender their will to God.
They live life for themselves, and they aren’t bad people, but they refuse to allow the potter to mold them. The time when they get committed is when their world starts to fall apart.
Church there are millions of believers who God can do nothing with because they won’t soften up enough to be used.
You might say pastor I want to be more moldable, what should I do? Let me ask you what makes clay soft? WATER!
All through scripture the Holy Spirit is referred to as water. If you want to become soft you must allow the Holy Spirit to work on you. You must begin yielding your life to Him.
You must listen to conviction, you must be willing to give up your will to the potter.
When I watch people worship you can visibly see those who are soft, you can see that they are yielded vessels.
If you want to be softened you must say Lord come and begin to pour your Holy Spirit over me. take control of my life.
One way you can see weather or not you fit into this category is by answering this one question. (What do I do for the Kingdom of God?) The more yielded one is the more one does something for the Kingdom.
3. THE THIRD CLAY GOD CANNOT USE IS CLAY WITH HIDDEN AIR (SIN).
ILL. Let me show you this pot. This pot went through every process just fine. The potter threw it on the wheel and completed the pot.
It looks beautiful, but the final test always tells the potter weather or not the clay was pure.
Only the fire can revival the last defect. Every now and then some clay has hidden air pocket. You cannot see they or feel them.
When the potter puts the clay in to the fire it heats up and the air trapped in between expands and explodes the pot.
Church its no different with us many Christians believers by appearance look like they have it all together. They know all of the right words to say, they know how to dress when to worship. They may even be involved in ministry.
To look at these people a person would say praise God that person loves God. They look like a finished vessel. But Church those individual know that deep in their lives there are some hidden pockets of sin that they have not exposed to anyone.
No one else can see them but they are there. Its called hidden sin. It could be anything. (Lust, pride lack of integrity anger drinking)
When God begins to turn up the fire the hidden things are revealed.
Matt 10:26
26"So do not be afraid of them. There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known.
NIV
Church God has his ways of turning up the fire in our lives. If you have hidden sin you are a vessel God can not use until you confess it and turn from it.
Ps 32:5
5Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, "I will confess
my transgressions to the LORD"--
and you forgave
the guilt of my sin.
NIV
Prov 28:13
13He who conceals his sins does not prosper,
but whoever confesses and renounces them finds mercy.
NIV
Church Hidden sin is nothing to play with. This is why Jesus constantly called the Jewish leaders vipers and hypocrite. Because on the outside, they looked like a polished vessel, but on the inside they were full of hidden sin.
Maybe you have fooled everyone around you, let me say you may have but you will never fool God.
Lets Pray:
