The Potter

Jeremiah 18

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "Go down to the potter's house, 

and there I will give you my message."

My brother Jeremy has recently entered the fascinating world of pottery making. Not having much money to start his venture he has basically built his wheel from scratch and also plans to build his own kiln. He is soaking up as much information as he can from our uncle Geoff who has been a professional potter for years. I am incredibly excited for him. There is something wonderful about seeing a person find "it." Perhaps this is it for Jeremy. Have you found your "it"? The "it" is that one thing you were made to do. I honestly don't know if more than half of us ever come close to discovering "it." There are people that don't believe in "it," but we'll avoid that rabbit trail today.

An interesting theological byproduct of this venture is that Jeremy sometimes gets called Jeremiah like the biblical prophet. Like my brother, Jeremiah learned a profound lesson about the sovereignty of God. He was sent to the house of a potter where he was given a clear illustration of the relationship God has to all things. "Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." (vs6)

We are not Israel, and we aren't a nation either. We are the body of Christ--the community of faith. We have local responsibility to our congregation and universal responsibility to represent God to the world at large. However, what this text teaches us today is no less sobering. God will not abide sin forever, and the Church is not exempt (see Rev. 3). Divine justice must prevail. God is at work drawing all thing to the ends that serve his perfect purposes. His plans and his purposes are good (see 29:11), and his love endures forever (Ps. 136).

Question: If a prophet came into your life like Jeremiah did in Israel how would you receive him? When the truth of God is spoken into our lives we have two choices. We can either "follow the stubbornness of [our] evil hearts," (vs 12) or "reform [our] ways and [our] actions" (vs 11). Sadly, the prophets were seldom heeded in the scriptures. How much heartache they could have avoided none can tell, but we each should be careful to avoid stubbornness. Unyielding clay never reaches the art gallery.