If Pots Could Talk

Nick Nilson @ Lakewood Church

Isaiah 64:8-12

Still, God, you are our Father.    We’re the clay and you’re our potter:    All of us are what you made us.Don’t be too angry with us, O God.    Don’t keep a permanent account of wrongdoing.    Keep in mind, please, we are your people—all of us.Your holy cities are all ghost towns:    Zion’s a ghost town,    Jerusalem’s a field of weeds.Our holy and beautiful Temple,    which our ancestors filled with your praises,Was burned down by fire,    all our lovely parks and gardens in ruins.In the face of all this,    are you going to sit there unmoved, God?Aren’t you going to say something?    Haven’t you made us miserable long enough?

1 Potters shapes us all and designs us for different purposes.
All pots start from clay, but before their condition could change, their position had to change.
We come to Jesus as we are.

Comfort is overrated. The potter presses you, molds you and wedges thing out of your life. It's not always comfortable. Sometimes you feel like you're spinning out of control. Don't fight against everything that makes you uncomfortable God may be using those things to shape you.

Drink the water. Ephesians 5:26: hat He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word. Always respond with the Word.

Comparison Kills. Don't spend your time wishing that you were like another pot. The potter made me and I'm a masterpiece just as I am.

Romans 9:21-33 Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn’t talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, “Why did you shape me like this?” Isn’t it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn’t that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.

A vase is pretty but when it's time to eat you'll hope that there's a pot for beans. Imagine a house without a garbage can.

Galatians 5:25-26 Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Philippians 1:6 And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.

Ephesians 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

The clay's job is to stay on the wheel.

Pastor Craig's Exhortation
God can use whatever you have in your hand.
It's not what you have in your hand but whose hand is working in your life.


Exodus 4:1-5
Moses objected, “They won’t trust me. They won’t listen to a word I say. They’re going to say, ‘God? Appear to him? Hardly!’”2 So God said, “What’s that in your hand?”“A staff.”3 “Throw it on the ground.” He threw it. It became a snake; Moses jumped back—fast!4-5 God said to Moses, “Reach out and grab it by the tail.” He reached out and grabbed it—and he was holding his staff again. “That’s so they will trust that God appeared to you, the God of their fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Exodus 17:6-7
God said to Moses, “Go on out ahead of the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel. Take the staff you used to strike the Nile. And go. I’m going to be present before you there on the rock at Horeb. You are to strike the rock. Water will gush out of it and the people will drink.”6-7 Moses did what he said, with the elders of Israel right there watching. He named the place Massah (Testing-Place) and Meribah (Quarreling) because of the quarreling of the Israelites and because of their testing of God when they said, “Is God here with us, or not?”