Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Who or what has molded you to be the person you are today?

Have you allowed God to mold you?

Where you molded by God and shattered into pieces by the world?

Sometimes we allow satan to mold us.

Sometimes God has molded us and when we become broken, instead of depending on God we find ourselves allowing Satan to put our pieces back together and then we wonder why we are defected.

We have to be molded by God, in effort to look like him, sound like him and act like Him.

He is our potter, we were formed by God.

states “And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul”.

We have to remember that it was God that formed us, we have to be careful that we do not allow ourselves to be molded by toxic people or the wrong people at the expense of forgetting who molded us in the first place.

Who are We?

Verse 8 states that we are the “work” of the hands of the Lord.

We are his accomplishment, we are his final product.

2:10 states that we are God’s workmanship or His production.

The interesting thing about being God’s workmanship is that it means that we are quality in the making.

His handiwork meaning that we are an ongoing process.

He continuously works on us because we have been prepared beforehand therefore we should act accordingly.

In verse 7, God molded his people just to be melted and consumed by their own devices.

They had lost their way at the expense of sin.

Similar to verse 12 in “remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Isreal, and strangers to the covenants of promise having no hope and without God (Our master potter) in the world.

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

We belong to Jesus, why do we allow ourselves to be molded by a potter that did not create us in the first place.

Who Should We Depend On?

The word potter essentially means the one who formed us.

If we are in a place in which we are depending on the wrong potter says “you turn things around!

shall the potter be considered equal with the clay, That what is made would say to its maker, he did not make me.

or what is formed say to him who formed it, He has no understanding?

Understand God formed you in effort for you to look like him.

Our problem is we look at how God has formed us and when we believe there is a better sculpture for us to be made into we allow our molding to happen in every way except through Jesus Christ.

The clay depends on the potter, the molding of the clay begins at the place of pliable and submissive.

As clay we need to be pliable, understanding that we may want to be molded in one way and God is saying no.

Nonetheless we allow ourselves to be molded by the wrong potter and we end up looking worse.

My grandmother loves ceramics, and the process of ceramics begins with the potter molding this clay in a manner that the clay is willing to submit to.

Understand the potter has complete authority over the class.

It makes no sense to be molded by God the Potter, put through the fiery kiln, painted and shiny just to live like the enemy that will eventually shatter us.

“Woe to the one who quarrels with his Maker— An earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth!

Will the clay say to the potter, ‘What are you doing?’

Or the thing you are making say, ‘He has no hands’?

When we refuse to allow God to mold us we are similar to a child refusing to lay claim to the mother and father that brought them into this world Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’

Or to a woman, ‘To what are you giving birth?’ ”

I’ve been Shattered, Now What?

Verse 8 states “and have delivered us into the power of our iniquities”.

Life can shatter you sometimes, but we have to refrain from being co-dependent to the wrong Potter.

When it comes to our past we cannot change it, our duty is to process it in the proper hands.

It is similar to waste management or trash.

We cannot worry about what is in the trash can we just have to dispose of it properly so it does not keep stinking up our house.

Ask yourself, what is molding me?

Am I letting my friends mold me?

Am I letting social media mold me?

Is my marriage molding me?

Is my family molding me?

Is my relationship molding me?

Even though we are all clay we take on the identity of the hands that molded us.

What are you trying to be molded into?

When it comes to pottery the first step is identifying what you are trying to be?

The first decision a potter makes is the type of piece it wants to create.

Typically, a piece that is just going to house flowers or vegetables is made on a wheel.

These are just your regular, run of the mill flower pots.

Many of us have become Christians and believe that is enough, we are alright with getting on the wheel and fulfilling basic purposes.

Sometimes we can become so codependent that we do not want our own identity we just want to belong to someone else’s so we do not really have to hold ourselves accountable for our actions.

These are called conformers, they hop on the wheel of the world and become whatever the world spins up.

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

Then there are some of us that want to be those decorative pieces for God, we desire to be molded by his hands.

The interesting thing about any type of pottery they have to be hollowed in effort to form to their full potential.

The fire does not have it’s full effect on the clay unless the piece is hollowed before it goes through it’s transformation.

“I, the LORD, am your God, Who brought you up from the land of Egypt; Open your mouth wide and I will fill it.

It is up to the Potter to decide the size of our pot.

We have to stop allowing people to have control over the size of our territory or where we will be placed as a piece in the house of God.

See God knows what he wants to put in you before he molds you.

He molds you according to your purpose.

The issue with depending on the wrong potter is the fact that the world is look at the shattered pieces and decide the amount of responsibility.

God looks at the responsibility and gathers the shatter pieces to put together to hold what he needs help for his kingdom.

Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?

In verse 7 the scripture states our sin or iniquities have consumed us.

That word consumed means thou has melted us.

When we become so co-dependent on the wrong people instead of dependent on God we can confuse the mess they put us through as a refining fire of God.

A potter puts the clay pot in the kiln at 855 degrees Fahrenheit to put the clay pot out and decorate it in a way that is beautiful, Satan puts us in the kiln to damage us further.

That fire hardens us, but when we are in the hands of the wrong potter we can be hardened for the wrong purposes.

God wants to sustain us, so we do not break as easily as we did in the hands of the wrong potter.

Many of us are in the hands of the wrong potter.

We long so much for sustainability that we forget that being sustained by the wrong people is just as dangerous as being shattered.

Stop letting people and society mold you, and begin to let Jesus mold you!

Remember as clay we play a part in the process as well.

God cannot used spoiled clay.

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.

Let God determine your purpose and refrain from depending on the wrong people.

states “for this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate my power in you, that my name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.

So then He has mercy on whom he desires, and he hardens whom He desires.

Stop losing your identity in people and find your identity in Christ.

You might be shattered, you might be chipped, your paint might be fading but understand the power of the Potter.

It may take some extended time in the kiln to come out the way God wants you to come out.