The Potter's Heart
Bible passage: Jeremiah 18:1-6
“1. 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." 3. So I went down to the potter's house, and I saw him working at the wheel. 4. But 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. 5. Then 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. ”
Objects made by human beings can be roughly divided into products and works of art. Products or commodities are objects for sale and provide material benefits to human life, but works of art are creative artistic creation activities that play a role in improving the value of human life.
The price of a product or commodity is determined by comparison with other objects, but a work of art is something that has a unique value that cannot be compared to anything else. This microphone is a product mass-produced by factories to make money. We bought it at a reasonable price. However, God does not mass-produce people like commodities or products. God made human being a work of art with unique values that can't be compared to anything else in the world. Unfortunately, humans have left God and are living their lives reduced to one of many other products. God created humans as His work of art with infinite value, but humans have lost their image and form and focused on, ‘Who has more money?
Who has the more expensive house? Who is more successful in the world? Who drives the more expensive car?’, As if putting a price on a product, human value is evaluated in material terms, reducing it to a commodity or a product. Today’s scripture is what God said to Jeremiah. Jeremiah was a prophet who was active around the time that Southern Judah was destroyed by Babylon. He prophesied that Southern Judah would be destroyed by Babylon and taken captive. Jeremiah, who predicted the destruction of his country, had no end to his suffering. To Jeremiah, who was distressed, God said, ‘See how the potter makes pottery vessels out of clay.’ Verses 3-4 says, “Then I went down to the potter’s house, and there he was, making something on the wheel.
But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter; so he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make.” Judah, the chosen people, burst and broke like a broken vessel and was destroyed, but Jeremiah saw ‘the potter not just throwing it away, but reusing it and making it into a better vessel.’ The meaning of this is God's promise to restore Southern Judah not to a commodity nation sold for worldly wealth, fame, or power, but to a nation of works of art that serves only the LORD God and receives God's blessings.
Isaiah 64:8 says, “But now, O LORD, You are our Father, We are the clay, and You our potter; And all of us are the work of Your hand.” God, the ‘potter,’ is molding me and you, like clay, into works of art, and not products. So, what kind of heart does God, the potter, have when He creates pottery out of clay and turns it into a work of art rather than a product? 1. The heart of a potter is the desire to create ‘the perfect work of art.’ To explain the scripture again, in verse 3, a potter is working with a potter's wheel. Please take a look at the screen. The video shows what a potter’s wheel is like. <Show Potter’s Wheel Video> A potter's wheel is a tool used to make pottery. Like a millstone, it has two pairs of flat stones at the top and bottom, so when you turn the stone below, the stone above turns as well. First, a potter kneads the clay into a bowl shape, places it on the stone plate above, and when he turns the lower stone plate with his foot, the upper stone turns along with it.
Then, he uses his fingers or tools such as a carving knife to delicately shape the bowl. The problem is that while a potter is using a potter's wheel to make a vessel out of clay, if he doesn't find a vessel that he likes, he breaks it and rebuilds it again and again, until he finds a good vessel. He spares no effort to make the best bowl that he likes. God, likened to a potter, wants us to be the best and the most excellent work of art. Isaiah 5:2 symbolizes Israel by saying, “He dug it all around, removed its stones, And planted it with the choicest vine.
And He built a tower in the middle of it And also hewed out a wine vat in it; Then He expected it to produce good grapes, But it produced only worthless ones.” By saying this, the LORD expressed regret that the premium grapes symbolizing Israel had become wild grapes. One time, while leading a prayer meeting, Mama Bishop said that even before marriage, our senior pastor was precise, neat, and thorough, and always put back things he had used back to where they were. When I heard this story, I thought that compared to the Senior Pastor, I had a rounded life. Rounded life, what does this mean? Even though it is not a perfect number, if it is more than, it is rounded up to treat it as a perfect number. This is called rounding off. “I can't think clearly, I can't act accurately, I have a lot of loopholes, and I have to compromise a bit. If I can do this, I'm doing well, but how can I do it so perfectly?” Living with this in mind is a rounded off life. “This much is okay, if I pray this much, I am doing well.
If I live my religious life at this level, I am doing well. How can I do any more well?” If you do this, you are not living a complete religious life, but a rounded off religious life. The spirit world is accurate. When learning mathematics at school, there is rounding off in the world of numbers, but there is no rounding off in the world of spirits.
We know that great people like Noah, Isaac, and Jacob entered the third heaven without being qualified to enter New Jerusalem. They are the heads of the 3rd Heavenly Kingdom Since these people are such great people, it would be nice to round them up, consider them wholesome, and allow them to enter New Jerusalem, but that is not the case. When calculating the amount of faith, even if it is 99% of the 3rd level, it still belongs to the 3rd level and does not round up to the 4th level 0%. We must not live a rounded life, but become the perfect, best work of art that God wants. In the eyes of God, the potter, two conditions are necessary to become the best vessel.
The first is the material of the vessel and the second is the size of the vessel. The material of a vessel refers to ‘what the vessel is made of,’ that is, whether it is a gold vessel, a silver vessel, a wooden vessel, or an earthen vessel. This is related to obedience. People who obey promptly become golden vessels, while those who obey slowly or disobey become wooden or earthen vessels. On the other hand, the size of the vessel refers to the ‘nature of the heart’ and is a matter of how broad or narrow one’s heart is. This is related to loyalty.
When a person with small courage does something, he either barely accomplishes what he has to do, or he does it reluctantly or complaining, even though it is his duty to do it. Because he is a man of great courage, that is, a man with a wide heart and a loyal heart, he not only does what he has to do, but he also looks after the affairs of others, is loyal to his entire family, and serves as an example to the entire church.
God delights in and greatly uses people who have a good heart, who take on more than their own tasks but do their work with a joyful and grateful heart, in other words, ‘people with a large capacity.’ If you are not good at being a vessel, like an earthen vessel, you may seem to listen to the Word, but you will not obey, so there will be no progress in faith even after many years. On the other hand, a person who is like a golden vessel with goodness obeys immediately without any fleshly thoughts, and as soon as he hears the word, he is transformed amazingly, quickly achieving sanctification and demonstrating greater spiritual power. A person who listens to the word of God carefully, memorizes it, and puts it into practice is a person of good quality, like a golden vessel. When taking on a task, did you think more broadly and embrace it? Or were you just barely able to handle what was given to you and your mind was full of complaints and dissatisfaction? Have you ever been in an area where you didn't do what you needed to do, but made it difficult for those around you, and where you fought and clashed with each other?
This is because your mind is narrow and the size of your vessel is small. In front of God, a ‘golden vessel’ with a good vessel and a ‘broad and large vessel’ with a good heart become the perfect and best work of art. If you are an earthen vessel that hears the word with one ear and lets it flow out of the other, unable to keep it in your heart and do not right it with your actions, or if your ‘heart’s quality’ or ‘size of the vessel’ is small, then obey from now on and become a silver vessel or a gold vessel. I hope that you will expand your heart and become a bigger vessel and become God's best work of art. 2. The heart of a potter is that he will spare no effort and sacrifice as long as he can make a good vessel. A potter sits in front of a potter's wheel to make an earthenware vessel. He breaks or crushes the clay of an incorrect vessel by breaking it, and while turning the potter's wheel, he uses his fingers or tools to carve, cut, and remove the clay, until the best work is produced. He spares no effort in trimming and pasting.
From the perspective of clay, being broken, trimmed, and dented will be compared to refinement, tribulation, and trials. Nevertheless, the potter sweats hard and works with all his heart and joy, sparing no effort, hoping only to produce a work that he likes. When I was in high school, I had an art teacher. He was an elder at a church, and he was popular with students because he was kind and talented. Later, when he became a professor at a junior college, he held exhibitions of his work. When artists hold exhibition, they sell their works of art. A young foreigner came to see the exhibition and he liked the paintings and wanted to buy one. However, he heard somewhere that when he goes to Korea, he has to bargain to lower the prices of things,’ so he said, “Please lower the price, please lower the price.”
So, the teaching assistant went into the office and said, “Professor, a foreign customer wants to buy a painting and wants its price cut off,” and the professor, who had been listening quietly, took out a fruit peeling knife from a drawer and came out. The teaching assistants were embarrassed and thought to themselves wondering, “No? I'm not asking you to peel the apple, so why use a knife?” The professor took the knife and stood in front of the painting that the young foreign customer asked him to cut off; he tore the painting to pieces without mercy.
The foreigners were surprised by that action, the teaching assistants were surprised, and the other guests were also surprised. “No? Why? It's a good painting, but it's also quite expensive. Should you tear it up with a knife? Why are you like this, Professor?” the assistant teacher asked like this. “When that customer asks to reduce the price of this painting, he or she is no longer viewing this painting as a work of art, but as a commodity. I am a person who draws works, not a person who creates products,” he said.
If it is not a work of art but a product, it is not a waste to tear it up. A potter will not hesitate to break and destroy a vessel if he can make it truly better. He can't break it if it's a waste, so he doesn't hesitate and say, “Why not just add remake it?” When a potter makes earthenware, pots, etc. out of clay, if he turns it into a commercial product, he will not break it, even though he may receive a little less price, even if it has some flaws. However, if it is made as a work of art and the work quality is poor and the owner is not satisfied with it, he or she will boldly destroy it. God, the potter, also allows us trials, refines us, and allows us to pass through tunnels of pain in order to make our lives into God's work, not products. Are you also experiencing the pain of being broken as you listen to today’s message?
Do you feel the pain of being broken? Are there trials and refinements that leave you chipped away and torn apart? All of that time is the time, process, and God's hand, sincerity, grace, and love in which God makes you into the most beautiful vessel. If you turn the potter's wheel and keep turning it, how messy will the clay on top of it be? The spinning wheel of the potter's wheel spins round and round. The clay is chipped away, hollowed out, and cut away with the potter's fingers, a piece of wood, or a carving knife. It hurts and it's painful, but all of this is a process of becoming a better vessel. You should not jump off the potter's wheel just because it hurts or is painful. You must not run away. No matter how difficult or hard the situation may be, you must go through this process with the spiritual faith that God has given you from above, smile, rejoice, be thankful, pray in hope, and expect to come out as God's wonderful work.
As it is said in 2 Corinthians 4:7, “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves;”, we humans are earthen vessels made by God from the earth. As I was preparing this sermon, I remembered a time when I too was like an earthenware vessel. After graduating from university, I entered the military as an officer. However, at that young age, I vomited blood and was hospitalized in a military hospital. The disease, which I thought would be easily cured, did not improve for almost a year. The military hospital said they could no longer treat me, so I ended up being discharged as a volunteer. It was dark ahead. Just because a hospital can't cure it, does that mean I had to live with this disease and be weak for the rest of my life? I was also worried. Then, that was the moment when the earthen vessel called ‘I’ broke and shattered.
It was dark and frustrating at the time, but now that I think about it, it was a moment when God, the potter, disciplined me with love to make me a better vessel. I went to God, fasted, cried out in prayer, and received healing. However, at this time, God not only gave me healing, but also gave me a mission to become a servant of the Lord. When I was young, I was a dirty and rough earthen vessel that longed for the world and was stained with sin, but God loved me, and at the right time, He broke and shattered me and made me a new good vessel as His servant. However, God did not stop at that, and in order to make me a better vessel, He allowed me to meet Senior Pastor and get to know Manmin, and He diligently turned the turning road of my life toward me, refining me with the hand of love, and helping me overcome trials that I could endure. He is carving it with a knife, removing it, trimming the parts that are lacking, and adding it with clay, making it into a proud work of God.
If I had continued to work at the company, I would have already retired by now. Wouldn't I have had a decent apartment, drive a nice car, and be receiving a generous service payment like my university classmates? However, if I had lived like that, leaving God's calling, I would have become a product. But now, I have been created by God's loving hand and am becoming a good work of God. How happy and blessed is this? I hope that you all do not become a commodity among the people of the world and live a life of crying and laughing, but that you all become God's best works of art that are held in God's hand and live like the sun, moon, and stars in the sky. 3. The potter's heart is that he wants the vessel he makes to be a valuable and useful vessel, not a useless vessel. Suppose a potter makes a vessel, but it turns out to be useless, it may become a burden to its owner, a useless vessel, and even cause him harm. In a jar shop in the market, there are many large and small jars on display, but there are jars that are scratched and in bad shape, so customers don't look for them, and they aren't sold and are just taking up space and collecting dust in the corner. They may be out of the owner's eyes, and they may be abandoned as a burden to the owner.
Long ago, when I was young, Seoul, Korea, was similar to the countryside back then. There was a crock pot in the yard of my house, and there was a small jar in the corner. It seemed to be of no use, as it had nothing in it and was just lying in a corner. While running around and playing with my younger siblings, I ended up breaking the jar. There was a ‘clunk’ sound, and my mother, who was in her room, asked, “What’s going on?” As she said this, she came out in amazement. I thought I would be scolded by my mother for breaking the jar, so I crawled away and said, “Mom, I’m sorry, I was playing around and the jar broke.” To my mother’s surprise, “Huh, that? It's okay if it breaks. I'm not using it.” She tried to throw it away even if she didn't have to. I remember she even asked with concern, “Are you hurt anywhere?” Useless and unprofitable things are thrown away. We must be useful, not useless, for the kingdom of God and its glory. We must be useful to the church, not useless to the church. Philemon 1:11 says, “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.”
The Book of Philemon is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to Philemon, and its contents are as follows. In a city called ‘Colossae,’ there was a man named Philemon, who was wealthy and influential, and whose entire family believed in Jesus. He offered his home to become a church and became its leader. He had a slave named Onesimus, who caused material harm to his master, Philemon, and ran away, all the way to Rome, where he was captured and thrown into prison. Coincidentally, Paul was also imprisoned in that prison, and Onesimus accepted Jesus and was changed by Paul, becoming a great helper to Paul. As a slave who harmed his master and ran away, he was a very useless and harmful person, but now he accepted Jesus and was changed, becoming a very necessary and useful person for the kingdom of God and in spreading the Gospel. That is why the Apostle Paul sent a letter to Philemon, urging him to accept Onesimus as a brother rather than a slave. Looking at Christian history, Onesimus not only later became a worker in the early church, but later became the bishop of the church in Ephesus, contributing greatly to the expansion of the early church.
It was not difficult for him to become a beneficial person. If you spread the Gospel of holiness, cry out and pray for power, forgive and understand, love and serve one another, carry out your mission with joy and live fruitfully, you will become a person who is useful to the Kingdom of God and the church. If someone does not pray, does not obey, does not participate in church events, and has no gratitude or joy, he becomes a useless person. If he complains about everything, opposes everything, thinks only his own thoughts are right, is unable to unite with others, he cannot be at peace, he only blames others and only uses fleshly thoughts, he becomes a harmful person. Proverbs 25:13 says, “Like a snow-cooled drink at harvest time is a trustworthy messenger to the one who sends him; he refreshes the spirit of his master.” Dear Manmin believers, Let us be useful to God’s kingdom and the church by refreshing God’s heart and the Lord’s heart on hot summer days.
Instead of living a product life looking at the world, let us quickly achieve sanctification and become a work of God that refreshes the heart of the Lord and the heart of God the Father. In this world, a life of crying and laughing that is influenced by physical things such as material things, fame, and power is a commercial or product life. We have our dreams higher; that is, it must be God's work of art heading toward New Jerusalem, where God's throne is. Let me conclude today’s sermon. In Chapter 2 of the Gospel of John, there is a scene where Jesus goes to a wedding feast and performs his first miracle by turning water into wine, giving joy to everyone. There were six stone jars there. It is said that the six stone jars symbolize 6,000 years of human cultivation. Before Jesus performed His miracle, He asked them to fill a stone jar with water up to the bream. We too are jars made of clay. Miracles can only take place when we fill the jar of our hearts with spiritual things. It must be filled with spiritual love.
We must be filled with the Holy Spirit. You must be filled with the faith. Our heart must be filled with the Word. It must be filled with fiery prayer; We must be full of prayer. We must be filled with wisdom and truth and gratitude. We are works of art created in the image of God. We must be a masterpiece among God's works that completely restore the image lost due to Adam's sin through the Gospel and power of holiness. I pray in the name of the Lord that in the sight of God you will become the best work, the greatest masterpiece, even more than when He first created Adam and said, “It was very good.” I hope that Father God will look at each and every one of us and say, “It was very good.” - END -
