Feel the excitement? Express excitement.
He is hear King of kings and Lord of Lords
Read Jerimiah 18:1-6
Read verse 6 again
He is working on us – we are His workmanship.
ACTIVITY: “Neighbor are you aware that you are Gods workmanship?”
Our lives = Gods workmanship.
As much as I enjoy art, I have never really been much of n artist. I can draw a fair bit, but to do what others do so easily all I can do is sit back and admire.
I love watching those portrait artists – watch a piece of ordinary white paper turn into something alive.
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Art process – blank canvas – after skill and tools develop a pic that is awesome.
Enjoy the fact that people can take something that looks pretty meaningless and make it super natural.
God with his touch can transform. Our loves are Gods art – his workmanship.
Lives uniquely made. “Wonderfully made” says Psalms 139:14,15
No matter where you are – no matter how shoddy you think the components are that make you up. You are Gods workmanship.
Think about that scripture for a moment -Wonderfully and fearfully made. In his likeness you are wonderfully and fearfully made. He doesn’t make mistakes. When He made you there were no mistakes.
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The problem though is on a daily basis seeing Gods hand in our lives.
I want to share 3 things that have happened in my life recently that has demonstrated to me Gods hand. That I am Gods Workmanship.
1. God works the familiar. Read verse 1 and 2 – Go down to the potters house.
In verse 3 – So I went down to the potters house – OR he immediately.
Some of us place an entire bible between vs 2 and 3.
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God says get up and go – we say well I don’t think I am ready yet. I need to get a conference and maybe get some equipping to go. I need to have some follow up sessions and to have some small group connection time so I can make sure I am really ready.
And I need some confirmation – 3 confirmations to know that this is really the word of the Lord.
How do I know that this is not the enemy speaking? How do I know that this is not my own mind or my own desire. So Lord I hear you in verse 2 but I need about another 25 chapters before I can respond to that.
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What’s with that – God works the familiar.
In those days pottery houses common. It was an important part of the economy. I mean the whole archeological world goes mad when they find a piece of pottery from that time. It was big.
A potter’s house was a familiar thing. He says to Jeremiah I am going to show you something incredible in familiar place. (MY MESSAGE)
Many today have come here looking for a purpose – asking, begging for a purpose.
But most of us want God to take a spectacular place and give us a spectacular purpose.
It does not always happen in spectacular places. God’s workmanship is revealed in the familiar.
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When God called me to full time ministry – he called me with a gift that was familiar to me.
I was just a sinner that needed to ask for forgiveness and be covered in his blood. – The rest was his workmanship
He will not call you to do something you will hate doing or don’t want to do
How idiotic!
God of universe - ultimate manager the ultimate leader.
And he sits there and says: “I am going to get a person who has a heart for me and I am going to get them to do something that they loathe and hate and have no ability to do and boy great glory will come to the kingdom through that.”
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God will speak to you and even work on you in the place of your familiarity.
Give story of teachers PTA’s – talks too much…
Its his mouth – Craig talks too much….
Little did those teachers know that my mouth would be what God would use to the glory of his kingdom?
God works in the place of familiarity. We want him to take a grand spectacular place or give us this epiphany.
What is that you are gifted to do? What simple ability are you thinking so little of or taking for granted, that God is crying out to use?
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So God takes Jeremiah to a familiar old potters house and a simple old potters wheel.
Not know what potters wheel is…
Rent movie Ghost
Ghost – Oh my love….
A potters wheel is a simple device used to turn out pottery vessels. Can be automatic/electric or worked with foot.
Back in that day we know for certain – not electric.
Wheel turns – the lump of clay looks unrecognizable but as it turns and the hands of the potter work the clay it begins to look like something else.
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So apart from working the familiar, for our lives to be Gods workmanship we must realize that get on that wheel and He will change us from one thing to another. He will most definitely move us from one spot to another.
If a Christian not moving if he or she is not changing – there is something wrong with that.
Everyone connected to the vine bears fruit – if you are not bearing fruit - check connection – no way person can be alive and not be growing.
Herein lies point number 2 - He also works with the fractured. Read verse 4
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I love the fact that God enjoys special project. Look at the person next to you and say “Hello special project.”
No offense - just one special project saying hi to another special project.
That’s what I love about my Father. I just absolutely revel in the fact that God enjoys taking impossible scenarios and making them possible. God loves taking something that is undoable and making them doable.
God enjoys adding a little super to you. When you are so base so natural, he mixes in a little bit of that super and turns you into the super natural.
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God takes the mundane and the ordinary and with His power and presence He can do something extraordinary with it.
Jerimiah sees potter doing something extraordinary.
Pot damaged – fractured marred not correct.
Potter works with that broken fractured pot on purpose so he can remake it into something else better.
God chooses broken fractured vessels. He chooses people that don’t have it all together, problems issues questions.
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Why? Simple – he takes the broken the marred the fractured and he makes them so awesome that no one can look at that vessel and not be in awe of what God has done. That fractured vessel becomes a vessel of honor to His name.
That’s the very reason He is not looking for people that have it all together. He is looking for people that need him.
We sit here and we say I m broken. I am so ashamed, I can’t do it, I have this or I have done that. Jesus could never love me, do you know all the issues. Thos every issues, those very cracks are what got you selected to be on the wheel.
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No matter what you lugged in here this morning we are all marred. It does not matter the size or the description, let’s just admit that we are marred. That’s the first step towards getting things right – lets come on out and say it – we are marred.
Scripture backs us up. While we are sitting here beating ourselves up, scripture agrees:
“for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”
As the wheel of life spins, every one of us needs the hand of God on our lump of marred clay.
That is the common denominator that unifies us as the body of Christ in need of his blood.
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Don’t think that the potter that’s working your clay is inexperienced. He can fix anything,
There is no sin or defect that is worse than the next. And trust me He is pulling out all the stops to make sure that that blemish is taken care of.
All of us sins – all of us need a saviour.
Doesn’t matter what sin a man sin or husband sin or wife sin. Sin is sin – but guess what the blood off Jesus washes all that sin away and makes us one in Him.
Hallelujah
We are one in Christ.
But he unifies us and he works on us in our being fractured and being broken.
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When you get on the wheel with God as your potter, know one thing, that wheel will turn.
Your life will turn around – that’s called repentance.
Did not sign up for life to be turned around. I didn’t get chosen to get my life turned up side.
You have no choice. Its now God deciding to make you His workmanship not your own.
Move away from comfort. In the hand of God for an eternal purpose.
Just get used to the turning know that you soon encounter the hands of the potter, shaping moulding changing. You will cry. You will feel the pain of the healing.
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With gods workmanship goes this thing called work.
We all need a lot of work.
Potter taking clay and begin pulling it. Sometimes the clay does not want to bend or have some flex. Add water.
Washed by the water of the word.
The word of God brings us conviction. It changes us. It makes us pliable. Makes us to do things not want as we did not think we could.
Forever changing – finds fractured and marred and makes us and moulds us into something else. That is Gods mandate with us.
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Get on the wheel and stay on it.
Living sacrifice – stay on the altar.
On the potters wheel. Adding the water of the word and he is making us into a different vessel.
He is forming into what is best for Him. A life that will please Him.
What is he taking and pulling out you?
What is he making you into?
What is he shaping and moulding you for?
It may not look familiar but it will be into something that would please him not us or selves.
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God decided to move me out of my confort zone for kingdom good.
Craig Smee I will use that marred and broken person with a mouth for my kingdom. He asked me to be shaped into something that I thought was something that should be hid.
Planted church. Methodist – where even the congregant who only comes to church once a year knows what’s going to happen next.
And I had to learn how to start leading a praise and worship team that did not want to work from an order of service. Guitars and drums. Power point and slides and video’s – Presbatarian – candles and liturgy. Baptist – 3 points and a poem. Pentecostals –dance – all these people. Unite them in the direction of the Oaktree vision.
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Stop trying so hard. And just start being. Stop trying so hard and get into the places that God places you
And as he places you there know you are a workmanship FOR Him.
Pulls you and works with you and moves into places that may not be comfortable – are you willing to be obedient to that call?
Not everyone is called to be a minister or a missionary. Maybe called to take love to your work place. Maybe called to not some crazy walk on water situation.
All he wants for you is to work with your own brokenness. He wants to take that brokenness and make you a workmanship for Him.
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Don’t think you know better.
His workmanship can work anywhere and we don’t have the right to decide who and where that can work. We are his workmanship and it is not up to us to decide who is his workmanship and who is not or what it is and what it is not.
SUMMARY: Familiar – Fractured
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3. Works are fantastic.
End result is verse 4.
When I get thru with you will be such an incredible vessel and work of art. Everyone will know whose workmanship you are. Everyone know that no-one else could have done this but God
God will replace for ashes beauty. God can’t make things beautiful until he allows things sometimes to be ashes.
So God has many of us in impossible situations. Ash situations. How is it good. I am going through marital difficulties, divorce, fighting habits, dealing with monetary difficulties- how are these good.
They are not good.
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All things will still work together for good to them that love God and are called to his purpose.
God will take fractures and turn them to His good. I can’t explain it but God will take cracks and difficulties on the wheel and make them something that will honour Him in the end.
You are on this wheel for a purpose - you’re spinning and you are being made and moulded and that is sometimes painful.
But when God is through with you, when he is finished, the complete work will be pleasing to the master . It will be something that will honor him. It will be something the world will look at and know that it was Gods hand on you.
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Already been done for some of you…
Moving from nothing to Christ – could not have happened without the hand of God in the middle. You can not be a completed work without the hand of the potter.
You have already been chosen.
Glorious presence knowing our lives are his workmanship and for his glory and for his honor and for his pleasure. Come on you got to be excited about that. Are you excited that God loves you.
Vessels of honour
Gods workmanship
