Pliability in Ministry

Making Pots

What picture does Isaiah give in Isaiah 64:8?
- Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.
What pronouns are used in Isaiah 64:8?
- You - in reference to God the Father
- our - in reference to each of us individually. Notice the personal nature of the word. God is not simply the potter, he is our potter. Each of us can have e a personal relationship with God.
- we - In reference to each of us individually.
- your - in reference to God. We are not a product of evolution or random chance, but the direct workmanship of none other than God himself.
What picture does Romans 9:21 paint?
- Does not the potter have power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor?
- We see that God, as the potter has the right to mold and make us into whatever he desires. Clay that is in-liable is not useful.
What question does Paul as in Romans 9:20?
- But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?”
- It is interesting that an almost identical questions comes up in Isaiah 64:9
  - “Woe to him who strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth! Shall the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ Or shall your handiwork say, ‘He has no hands’?

In Jeremiah 18:1-6 we have a very touching picture of the potter taking a marred pot and reforming the pot. What is it about the clay that allows the potter to do this?
- The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord, saying: “Arise and go down to the potter’s house, and there I will cause you to hear My words.” Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter; so he made it again into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying: “O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter?” says the Lord. “Look, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are you in My hand, O house of Israel!
- The key here is that the clay is pliable. The potter can take the clay and remold it. The potter can take a successful businessman and turn them into the vice president of a bible school, or the physician in the prime of their practice is molded into a missionary. The key is that the individual is molded by the master.

Clay is pliable until it is placed in the kiln and fired. Once fired, clay becomes hard and can no longer be remolded. According to Jeremiah 19:11, what is the p[otters response to hardened clay that is marred?
- and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Even so I will break this people and this city, as one breaks a potter’s vessel, which cannot be made whole again; and they shall bury them in Tophet till there is no place to bury.