Sermon

The Potter's House or The Potsherd Gate | Pastor Paul McGee

First Apostolic Church

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  1. Bless his name. Can you give him a hand clap of

  2. praise right now? We're thankful to you, Lord.

  3. Now we're so grateful to your holy name.

  4. Hallelujah, Jesus. Amen.

  5. If you don't mind standing with me this evening and meet me in

  6. the prophetic book of Jeremiah tonight, Amen.

  7. It would have been my task to sing, but my voice is a little

  8. bit rough from just this morning.

  9. And so just to save that for the next little while, Amen.

  10. I'm not going to do that here tonight.

  11. Hallelujah. Jeremiah.

  12. Going to read from a couple different chapters in the book

  13. of Jeremiah here this evening, Jeremiah chapter 18.

    Jeremiah 18 chapter mention

  14. And then also Jeremiah chapter 19 going to be reading from

    Jeremiah 19 chapter mention

  15. tonight as well. Amen.

  16. Hallelujah. Jeremiah 18.

  17. Also be reading from Jeremiah chapter 19.

    Jeremiah 19 chapter mention

  18. The Bible says starting with verse #1 Jeremiah 18.

  19. The Bible says the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord

  20. saying, Arise and go down to the Potter's house.

  21. There I will cause thee to hear my words.

  22. Then I went down to the Potter's house, and behold, he wrought to

  23. work on the wheels. The vessel that he made of clay

  24. was marred in the hand of the Potter, so he made it again

  25. another vessel as seemed good to the Potter to make.

  26. Skipping now over to chapter #19 and with verse #1 the Bible says

  27. the save the Lord, go and get a Potter's earthen bottle, take of

  28. the ancients of the people, and of the ancients of the priests,

  29. and go forth into the valley of the Son of Hinnom, which is by

  30. the entry of the Eastgate. Other versions read that.

  31. Take it to the gate of broken pottery, or to the potsherds

  32. gate. Proclaim, They're the words that

  33. I shall tell thee. Verse 10.

  34. Then shalt thou break the bottom of the side of the men that go

  35. with thee, and thou shalt say to them Thus if the Lord of hosts,

  36. Even so will I break this people in this city as one break of the

  37. Potter's vessel that cannot be made whole again.

  38. They shall bury them until fat, till there be no place to bury.

  39. 2 distinct episodes tonight. Jeremiah observing something

  40. taking place at the Potter's house and then being

  41. instrumental as an instrument of the Lord to break a vessel at

  42. what would be known as the pots herds gate.

  43. So I want to minister with these two things in mind, the Potter's

  44. house or the pots herds gate, The Potter's house or the pots

  45. herd gate. And again, pots herd is just

  46. broken pieces of pottery, shards of pottery.

  47. Amen. Amen.

  48. Let's ask the Lord to help us here tonight one more time,

  49. shall we? On this Sunday, Father, we come

  50. to you tonight. God, we lean upon you, O Lord,

  51. we lean upon you, O Lord, God, I pray, Lord, our hearts and our

  52. minds, God surrendered to you, Lord, for the next little while,

  53. God, allow us to Lord to be touched, but also allow us to,

  54. Lord Jesus in return to touch heaven.

  55. I pray, Master today, God, you know the needs, Lord, in this

  56. place. And you know us Lord, more

  57. intimately God than anyone else does.

  58. I pray God that you're able to help us in our walks and our

  59. relationships with you. God make us what we should, what

  60. we ought, what we need to be in the lovely name of Jesus said, I

  61. pray, I thank you and I adore you.

  62. Amen in Jesus name of the church, say Amen, Amen.

  63. You may be seated tonight in Jesus name the Potter's house or

  64. the potsherd gate. Jeremiah 19.

  65. We must submit together. Tonight starts with begins with

  66. a strange command from the Lord unto the prophet Jeremiah.

  67. The Lord basically tells Jeremiah that he should go and

  68. acquire purchase if you will be a consumer and buy and go get a

  69. Potter's earthen bottle. This earthen bottle, of course,

  70. is quite different than what he would have seen in some respects

  71. in Jeremiah chapter #18 This was not clay that was on the wheel.

  72. This was not a soft pliable substance at this particular

  73. time. But it is something that is a

  74. finished vessel. It is a finished vessel.

  75. He's he's not buying or purchasing unfinished material.

  76. He is buying and purchasing a finished vessel.

  77. It is already been fired by the kiln.

  78. It is already hardened. It is already set in many ways.

  79. It has already passed through the flames.

  80. It's it's taken on a permanent form already when he has

  81. purchased it, whenever he has made the transaction in order to

  82. secure it. If I say it like this tonight,

  83. this vessel that he he gets is no longer adjustable in any way.

  84. And then God gave Jeremiah what would seem to be even a stranger

  85. instruction. He told him to carry that

  86. hardened vessel out of the city through a very specific gate and

  87. into a very specific valley. He told him to walk through the

  88. pots herd gate and into the valley of Ben Hinnom, which was

  89. the city's refuse dump. And there in the presence of

  90. some of the ancients of the city and people of renown of that

  91. place, in the presence of witnesses, God said, pray the

  92. bottle. This wasn't, of course, the

  93. first time, as you know from our reading of the text, this wasn't

  94. the first time Jeremiah has visited a Potter in chapter #18

  95. Jeremiah has already been prior to this moment, to the Potter's

  96. house. But the atmosphere there is

  97. quite different than what he has in chapter 19.

  98. In chapter 18, Jeremiah is not a consumer or a buyer or a

  99. purchase of a finished good, but Jeremiah is a spectator and he's

  100. taking in what the Potter is doing upon the will.

  101. The Bible says he watches as the Potter works the wheels, the

  102. clay. The Bible says as Jeremiah is

  103. observing these things that the clay has become marred in the

  104. hands of the Potter. It has, if you will, been and is

  105. somewhat flawed. It is imperfect it it did not

  106. turn out as the Potter intended it.

  107. The Potter, though, as the as Jeremiah is taking in the

  108. picture of what's going on here, he's interested and takes note

  109. because the Potter does not throw away the clay that has

  110. become marred. He does not throw away the clay

  111. that becomes imperfected or flawed upon his will.

  112. And he did not do as in the 19th chapter with the finished

  113. vessel. There is no carrying for this

  114. vessel outside of the the city. As a matter of fact, the

  115. scripture says these words that Jeremiah observes that so he,

  116. the Potter made it again, another vessel as seen good for

  117. the Potter to make it. So here is a clay that had

  118. become marred, but it was a clay that was still solved.

  119. It was a clay that was flawed or imperfect, but it still had some

  120. Motability that was to it. If I'd say like this, it still

  121. had a responsiveness to the hands of the Potter.

  122. Hey, man, it was damaged, if you will, if you want to call it

  123. that, but it was still soft enough to reshape it yet again,

  124. as seen good unto the Potter, and as long as it remained soft.

  125. Amen. It's failure, it's flaw, it's

  126. damage was not a finality for that particular lump of play.

  127. There's a truth that is revealed just in these couple chapters

  128. very quickly tonight that God gives to us through Jeremiah,

  129. through these two episodes of a Potter, and that is this, that

  130. God does not discard vessels just because they are marred.

  131. Let me say that again. God does not discard vessels

  132. simply because they are marred. And there's one thing for sure,

  133. you are in no better place in your marrying than being in the

  134. hands of a Potter that has the ability and the want to Amen to

  135. reshape you. Yet again.

  136. The Bible tells us He doesn't cast it aside, He doesn't push

  137. it to the side, but he remakes the vessel because it is it's

  138. still pliable. It is still responsive to his

  139. hand. And so that's a big difference

  140. between chapter 18 and chapter 19.

  141. And the difference is not that the Potter was different.

  142. Hey, man. The difference is, is that the

  143. condition of the vessel in chapter 18 different from the

  144. condition of the vessel in chapter 19.

  145. The condition of the vessel in Chapter 18 is that it was

  146. marred, but it it was still soft.

  147. But in Chapter 19, it's a vessel that seems to be complete or

  148. finished or whole and hardened. Amen.

  149. But it can no longer be shaped. It can no longer, if you will,

  150. respond to the hands of the Potter when you looked at one

  151. one in its March state, it doesn't look too good.

  152. It doesn't look too appealing to the eye.

  153. It looked worse, if you will, then the vessel that was in

  154. chapter #19. But although it looked worse, it

  155. still had hope. Although it may have looked

  156. worse, it still had hope. Whereas on the other case, in

  157. Chapter 19, it's a vessel that has all the likeness and the

  158. appearance of being whole. But the fact is it was hardened

  159. and nothing else could be done with the vessel.

  160. It seemed fine. It seemed, oh, it's incomplete,

  161. it seems set, but it really didn't have a future.

  162. Because God is interested in our Motability and pliability and

  163. the shaping of our lives. Because it's how we can be

  164. responsive to the master spotter that really determines destiny

  165. for our lives. So when I read this, Bishop, I

  166. understand that God is not limited by our quote UN quote

  167. flaws and our damage. But many times what limits God

  168. is our inability to be shaped and the hardness that we develop

  169. in life. So in chapter 19, everything

  170. shifts because what Jeremiah is observing there, it's no longer

  171. clay in the Potter's hands. It's a vessel that's already

  172. taken a prescribed form. It's already been fired in the

  173. kiln. It's no longer soft.

  174. It can serve a purpose. Yes, it could perhaps Brother

  175. Fred carry water, or maybe it could handle some other type of

  176. liquid. But here's the fact of that

  177. vessel. It could no longer be changed.

  178. It was fixed, no longer could be changed.

  179. And God, he told Jeremiah, he says, whenever you get this

  180. vessel that can no longer be shaped and no longer be changed

  181. and no longer be influenced, he says, don't take that vessel and

  182. take it back to the Potter's house, he said, but instead take

  183. that vessel to the gate of the pots herd.

  184. Amen. And it's there they would say,

  185. man, he said, you, you take that to that gate because that

  186. potsherd gate only really serves for one purpose.

  187. That potsherd gate is named that.

  188. And you see this throughout Scripture.

  189. Read it, Nehemiah. You read it in all the different

  190. gates that surround Jerusalem. Usually whatever they were named

  191. kind of indicated what was brought through them.

  192. There was the sheep gate. Guess what went through it?

  193. There was the King's gate. Guess what went through it?

  194. There was, sorry, the Dung Gate. I'm just saying.

  195. And so the Pottser Gate is called the Pottser Gate because

  196. it is designated for broken pottery to make its exit.

  197. It's a gate that's named after all the fragments of something

  198. that used to be whole and complete and fixed that all the

  199. shards you can exit out of the pots her gate and you're going

  200. to see on the ground Amen pieces, if you will, of O

  201. pottery vessels Amen that are there that that have lost to

  202. fulfill their function or can no longer be impressed or made into

  203. anything else except what they were.

  204. The Bible says that pots her gate was right next to the

  205. valley of Ben Henom, which was the garbage dump of Jerusalem.

  206. It's in this refuse heap and pile.

  207. We're broken. Things were carried that no

  208. longer could be used. It was a road.

  209. If you took the road from that gate to the valley, it was

  210. littered with shards of broken pottery and fragments.

  211. Bottles that once held water, vessels that once held other

  212. liquids, vessels that once served a purpose, but now they

  213. lay there just discarded and abandoned and broken.

  214. You might ask, well, brother me, what in the world?

  215. Why would anybody need? Why?

  216. Why would a city need an entire gate?

  217. Amen. Just to broken pottery?

  218. Because when you have a gate like that, that's dedicated to

  219. something like that, what that tells us is this that brokenness

  220. was common. Brokenness was common enough

  221. that they needed a gate by which there could be an exit for it.

  222. It was common enough, and it happened enough times and was

  223. constant enough. There was enough vessels that

  224. became so hardened that could no longer be pliable or shaped, but

  225. were cracked or perhaps failed that they had to have a

  226. dedicated exit necessary just for carrying them away.

  227. Am I doing all right? Historians say, as I read this

  228. week and even testify, that the pots heard gate probably existed

  229. near the Potter's house that was on the inside of the city, so

  230. that it would be a short transfer and walk from the

  231. Potter's house to the pots heard gate.

  232. But you're talking about just a short distance between something

  233. that was still pliable and something that was set and

  234. fixed, something that could be changed and altered to something

  235. that was not going to be changed and not going to be altered.

  236. If I could just say it like this, there was just a small

  237. dividing wall between the Potter's house and the pots.

  238. Herd date, the separation of that which was solved, a man

  239. impiable to that which was hard and impenetrable.

  240. What the pots her game basically tells us is a very sobering

  241. reality that every vessel that refuses to be pliable, every

  242. vessel that refuses Amen to be shaped by the pressure Amen of

  243. the Potter and comes to a place of being hardened beyond change

  244. Amen. Eventually it's going to leave

  245. it's mode of usefulness. Not because the Potter lacks his

  246. skill, not because the Potter lacks patience, but because the

  247. vessel has become hard beyond reshaping.

  248. And once it reaches that condition, the future of it was

  249. not a reshaping but a breaking someone say man of the vessel.

  250. So God told Jeremiah, he said, you take that thing that will

  251. not change and you go to the place of refuse that place of

  252. abandonment just outside the wall.

  253. And I want you to raise that in front of all the eyes of the

  254. witnesses. And he says, I want you to smash

  255. that thing on the ground in front of the people.

  256. What Jeremiah was Acts asked to do, it was not an accident of of

  257. of a faltering and mishandling and he dropped it.

  258. It was very intentional. God says you go out there, you

  259. smash that thing down on the ground.

  260. He says because it's a hardened vessel, and in order to break

  261. that hardened vessel, it's going to take some force, Amen, of

  262. putting it down on the ground. Ladies and gentlemen, do you

  263. understand there is a vast difference between Chapter 18

  264. and Chapter 19? In Chapter 18, we have the

  265. gentle, we have the gentle pressure of a Potter's hands.

  266. We have the gentle kindness of a Potter's hands, Amen.

  267. That's working with malleable clay.

  268. But in Chapter 19, we have a hardened ceramic, Amen, that it

  269. doesn't matter how much you'll put push on it or how much you

  270. plunge down upon it, it's not going to alter.

  271. Hey, man. And God said unto Jeremiah,

  272. those people. He said Even so, will I break

  273. this people as one breaks a Potter's vessel again, because

  274. God is in the business of reshaping the pliable listen,

  275. but he'll break the hardened. What I explained to you tonight,

  276. it's not limited to pottery. As a matter of fact, it's

  277. evident in God's Word, in the lives of humanity.

  278. The Bible even tells us in the story of Israel's deliverance

  279. from Egypt that Pharaoh is a prime example and showcased in

  280. his own life. What happens when a vessel

  281. refuses to stay flexible? The Bible says that whenever

  282. Moses first stood before Pharaoh and he's saying those popular

  283. words, Let my people speaking for God, let my people go.

  284. And he delivered that word unto the king of Egypt, Pharaoh.

  285. At that moment, Pharaoh had a choice.

  286. He could have yielded to the voice of the Deliverer.

  287. He could have lifted his hand totally without saying he would

  288. and changing his mind the next day.

  289. He could have yielded totally. It was an opportunity that was

  290. extended to him. He could have been soft to the

  291. voice of God. He could have been soft to the

  292. reasoning of Moses. He could have responded

  293. differently than the way that he he responded.

  294. But the Bible says and said, this is in your Bible, in the

  295. book of Exodus, the Bible says that Pharaoh hardened his heart

  296. and under the pressure of the hand of the master Potter, hey

  297. man, he is resisting. He's being inflexible.

  298. Here comes one plague and there goes another plague.

  299. Hey, man, it wasn't judgment as much Amen for Pharaoh as it was

  300. an opportunity to Pharaoh. Let me say it like this, when

  301. you refuse God's opportunities, they'll become judgment to you.

  302. He'll become judgement to you. And so here it is.

  303. He had an opportunity to yield. He had an opportunity to say,

  304. OK, God, I'll listen to what you're saying.

  305. I'll relieve my hand of pressure.

  306. Amen. From your people.

  307. But the Bible says plague comes and plague goes and Pharaoh

  308. refuses again and again and every time, most times you'll

  309. read in Scripture that Pharaoh hardened his own heart.

  310. But then there's a point along the journey, there's something

  311. very terrifying that happens according to Scripture.

  312. Now the Bible no longer says Bishop, that Pharaoh hardens his

  313. heart, but the Scripture says that God hardens the heart of

  314. Pharaoh. It's not, Amen, that God was

  315. hardening a soft heart, but God was confirming the hardness of a

  316. heart that was already hard, saying he had resisted so many

  317. times, unchanged, unaffected, influenced so many times.

  318. It meant that it went beyond now him being able to change.

  319. He came set in his ways. He became set in his resistance,

  320. Amen. He became so hard, God says,

  321. I'll harden it for the last time, Amen, because you've

  322. hardened it all along the way along the journey.

  323. And the end result for Pharaoh, it was not transformation, but

  324. it was destruction for his life. And the Bible says at the Red

  325. Sea, if I could say it like this, that that hardened vessel

  326. was shattered right there. And so the truth of Pharaoh's

  327. story tells us that the greatest danger in our lives is not when

  328. God stops working on you, it's when you stop responding to Him.

  329. Hey, man. So when we stop responding,

  330. someone said a long time ago said if someone's always

  331. checking up on you, you shouldn't be offended by that.

  332. So you need to fear the day that they stop checking up on you.

  333. Because if they're always checking up on you, they they

  334. believe there's still hope there.

  335. There's still something salvageable.

  336. Is everybody here? I'm saying right now I want, I

  337. want conviction still to fall. I want God to see me as a soft

  338. lump that maybe He'll give in this time to my hand.

  339. I want that. But I'm fearful, went through

  340. times of being unresponsive to the touch of God.

  341. Like I say. Why?

  342. Because God says as long as they're pliable, I'll just make

  343. it yet another vessel. But what I have to do with hard

  344. vessels is I got to break them. This is the pastor tonight.

  345. It would be the preference of everybody in here to rather be

  346. reshaped than broken. There is a danger in our

  347. spiritual lives when when we no longer struggle with certain

  348. things. And I'm not talking about with

  349. what's right or what's wrong, but I'm, I'm just talking about

  350. with giving in to the unction and giving in to the wooing of

  351. the presence of God. And we just become settled when

  352. there's no longer the wrestling match at your back of God, God

  353. and Jacob, but you just become to a place that you're so rigid,

  354. no impact that I'm not pliable anymore.

  355. But I'm just fixed. I have a form, but I've lost my

  356. surrender. Hallelujah have all the

  357. appearance of being intact, but there's something inside of me

  358. that's beyond the reach of the reshaping of a Potter's hands.

  359. God said this plainly to Jeremiah of that vessel.

  360. He said it cannot be made whole again.

  361. What he said it cannot be made whole again.

  362. Can I tell you tonight that there is something positive in

  363. the breaking that though a vessel is not to be repaired

  364. according to God after the breaking that the Potters not

  365. ran out of clay, he can form a new vessel.

  366. He not going to repair the old vessel because we don't need a 2

  367. point O somebody hear me We don't need a 2.0.

  368. What had to be broken honey, in my New Testament scripture it is

  369. with with emphasis why the apostle said all things are

  370. passed away. Behold all things become new.

  371. I don't need a better version of who I once was.

  372. I need a new version. I need a new version of who I

  373. used to be, but there's still some material around.

  374. There's still some clay around. And the Potter says, you know

  375. what? That became hard.

  376. So I'm going to break that and I'm going to make, I'm going to

  377. get my old hands in the dirt again.

  378. I'm going to get my hands in the Mar again, and I'm going to make

  379. a new creation out of the same material.

  380. I'm going to make a new creation out of the same material.

  381. Can someone say, man, let me tell you about just personal

  382. lives, and that is this, that we need both the Potter's House and

  383. the Potter Gate. If I'm speaking these terms

  384. tonight, there are areas of my life that become rigid, there

  385. are areas of my life that become set and firm and unforgiving,

  386. and the only remedy for that area of my life is a breaking.

  387. There's some areas of our lives that do not want to change, do

  388. not want to acquiesce to the pressure of the Potter set in

  389. our ways. From what I need in those areas

  390. is for a loving Potter to say, you know what, Prophet, go get

  391. that thing that seems to be whole and fixed and rigid and go

  392. out there and throw it down on the ground because I can't do

  393. anything with that until it breaks first.

  394. I can make something new, but that old thing's got to be

  395. broken. That.

  396. Yeah, this. Because we live our lives like

  397. this. It's like, God, here I am.

  398. I surrender everything to you. And then we rope off with yellow

  399. caution tape areas of our life. It's like it's all yours.

  400. And then we have the list of exceptions.

  401. He wants all of you. He wants all of your life to be

  402. in adjusting to His hand, His touch.

  403. I'm going to make sure I want to get into a place with God, that

  404. at the end of the day, you can see where his fingerprints have

  405. touched me. Clay's very impressionable.

  406. Clay's very impressionable. And then I know this is like a

  407. Far Cry, but whenever we were kids, we love Silly Putty, man.

  408. We get that old comic section, black and white in the

  409. newspaper. We'd roll that thing out thin.

  410. We'd. Yeah, let's see, We laid over

  411. top of that comic. We smash, smash, smash, smash,

  412. smash. And you know what happened when

  413. we peeled that back was the imprint, Because that Silly

  414. Putty. Now, if you had Silly Putty long

  415. enough, it'd start getting rigid.

  416. It didn't transfer the image of what it was up against, but as

  417. long as it was pliable, as long as it was malleable, you could

  418. set it. You could set it against a

  419. little crisscross pattern, and that crisscross pattern was

  420. going to get on in. I could put it on top of the tea

  421. kettle and there's going to be a point where the top of the tea

  422. kettle was. It was just impressed because it

  423. was malleable. Honey, I'm going to be like that

  424. in the spirit God. I want to be able to have you

  425. fingerprints on my life. I want to be able to.

  426. I wanted to show up on this vessel that's still in process.

  427. Yes, Amen. God's purpose does not end

  428. because the vessel becomes hardened.

  429. Since I go back to the same material that that was made out

  430. of. Now find me some clay that's

  431. pliable again. Here's one thing I'm sure of.

  432. Our Potter never runs out of clay.

  433. And since he's committed to His purpose, He's committed to His

  434. purpose even more so than committed to just preserving

  435. those things that are set in their ways.

  436. He's more committed to His purpose.

  437. That's the reason why being flexible and pliable in the

  438. hands of God is everything. It's one of the safest places in

  439. our life. Not to be all intact, but being

  440. able to be impressed. Most people by today's

  441. standards, I would say that would judge a vessel that's went

  442. through the fire and the kiln and has his true form.

  443. Wow, look at that thing. But in the Kingdom, God has an

  444. upside down Kingdom. He's the first will be last.

  445. He's the greatest will be least. He's upside down Kingdom.

  446. And in his upside down Kingdom, he that is pliable, he that's

  447. still in the mode of being able to be shaped has a better

  448. appreciation than the one that just gets fixed and set in a

  449. venue or Ave. Hey, man, it's better to be Mar

  450. Jeremiah was telling us in chapter 18 in his hands than to

  451. be hardened outside of his hands, outside of the gate.

  452. Amen, folks, You say well, brother McGee, I'm not what I

  453. need to be. That's all right.

  454. Welcome to the club. None of us at this juncture in

  455. the road are where we need to be.

  456. But my question for you, are you still in his hands?

  457. Are you still in the Potter's hands?

  458. Folks, this isn't a finished work until the sweet by and by,

  459. and until then, I don't want to go through the fire of finishing

  460. until that day comes. And so until that day comes, I'm

  461. saying God, take out the imperfections, take out the

  462. flaws, cut off the damage, mash me down, mowed me again, shake

  463. me up. Until then, someone say, man,

  464. when we become hardened outside of his hands, it's only one

  465. option. The breaking becomes inevitable.

  466. And yet scripture speaks of another episode in the New

  467. Testament Scripture, another image that comes to the mind

  468. describes a woman. It describes even a Sinner woman

  469. that's made her way to Jesus presence carrying an alabaster

  470. box vessel filled with precious ointment.

  471. That vessel was made to contain the contents of what was inside

  472. this woman. She did something quite

  473. unexpected of a completed vessel.

  474. A prophet didn't come along and extract that out of her hand and

  475. break it in the eyes of the people.

  476. Jesus didn't take that vessel crack open that long neck flask

  477. in the eyes of the people Bible describes she broke.

  478. Someone say she broke she broke that vessel herself.

  479. Can I say tonight better, Mason, that she didn't wait for

  480. circumstances. She didn't wait for judgment to

  481. break it. She willingly broke it herself

  482. in His presence. And when she did, what was

  483. inside could finally flow out of that vessel.

  484. Can I tell you tonight? Hear me?

  485. Some vessels will never fulfill their ultimate purpose until

  486. they're broken and surrendered in His presence.

  487. And there is a profound difference between some one or

  488. something else breaking you in His presence and you breaking

  489. yourself it. I'm wondering if we could just

  490. save ourselves some heartache if we would take some of the rigid

  491. areas and say, God, I'm not waiting for anything else to

  492. come along to break it. I see it.

  493. I'm going to break it, God. I'm not waiting for circumstance

  494. or problem or unforeseen things to come around and break that

  495. down, though. I'm going to acknowledge it and

  496. I'm going to break it in your presence.

  497. Not outside the city gate, not on the other side of the wall,

  498. not at the refuse pile, not where abandoned things are.

  499. No, I'm going to stand in your presence and I'm going to do

  500. whatever is so it's Amen. And so she breaks it right there

  501. within the presence of the Lord at his feet.

  502. And what poured out filled the room.

  503. And I don't read where God rejected her breaking her vessel

  504. in His presence. This, folks, is the great

  505. dividing line between chapter 18 and chapter 19.

  506. Because every vessel's clay, every vessel's clay, every

  507. vessel is being shaped, every vessel is moving toward 2

  508. futures either reshaped by his hands or shattered outside of

  509. his hands. It's the Potter's house or the

  510. pots heard date, their spiritual realities.

  511. The difference of these two places, it doesn't come to bear

  512. that. The difference is my past, your

  513. past, my failures, Your failures, My scars, Your scars,

  514. My weaknesses, Your weaknesses. No, no, no.

  515. The difference is, are you malleable?

  516. Are you malleable? It's clear the air, Zach.

  517. God's not searching for perfect vessels.

  518. He's searching for modable, moldable vessels.

  519. Because if you're moldable, I can shake that.

  520. If you're moldable, if that's out of kilter, no problem.

  521. I'm a master Potter. Not just just a little bit of

  522. pressure, you know, So awesome. And we don't have time to go

  523. into all the things of of of a Potter, but they're unique,

  524. right As a Potter shapes A vessel.

  525. You ever watched it in some of those where they candle making

  526. under basket weave? I don't know if that's really a

  527. thing, but I guess it'd be cool to try see how far you can get

  528. as you hold your breath. I guess blacksmiths, right, All

  529. these different things. You ever seen a Potter and some

  530. of these old little things and little niches where they have

  531. these different things going on and you see him making a, a vest

  532. or a vase, you know, making a vase or something that liquid

  533. and putting handles on it. He was so interesting about that

  534. brother, Brother Reese. You see him and he smashes that

  535. clay down in the middle of the wheel and he's spinning it

  536. right. And he's he's pulling it up.

  537. But if he's going to make it to contain anything, he's got to

  538. put a hand in the vessel and on the outside of the vessel.

  539. Because a hand just on the outside of the vessel isn't

  540. going to provide any space for anything to be inside of the

  541. vessel. And if he puts his hand inside

  542. of the vessel, the only way he can keep that thing from falling

  543. apart from the pressure that he's putting on the outside is

  544. to have a firm hand on the outside.

  545. He can't create no walls of that vessel.

  546. It takes a Jesus working on the inside, moving on the outside.

  547. Oh, what a change. And he can get his hand down

  548. there and he can make the base just right.

  549. He can, he can extrude up those walls.

  550. But the vessel has to be pliable.

  551. It has to be malleable in order to do that.

  552. You're saying you've been crying out to God lately?

  553. God, I feel me. I want contain.

  554. I want everything you have for me.

  555. Honey, He's going to have to move in your life to

  556. Createspace. How like the pressure God?

  557. Well, I'm sorry, the pressure's the means to the end.

  558. Pressure is a means to the end. So he's working on these things.

  559. He's not looking for perfect ones, He's looking for pliable

  560. ones less It's a hardened 1 and he has to break it.

  561. Let me tell you something about your God.

  562. Your God prefers reshaping you rather than having to break you.

  563. Breaking is not God's first choice.

  564. Breaking is not God's first choice.

  565. Reshaping is, I believe, with intent.

  566. He took Jeremiah to the Potter's house first before he took him

  567. to the pots herd date. Because Jeremiah.

  568. I'd rather have Jerusalem respond to the Potter's house.

  569. Then I had to experience the pots herd date of brokenness.

  570. I'm closing. You might be surprised, but it's

  571. OK. Happy love weekend.

  572. Here's what I know. This is quite simple, but if

  573. such a gate exists, such as a pots herd date where refuse

  574. broken pottery is discarded or where whole fixed unchangeable

  575. festivals vessels rather are are cast down, if such a gate

  576. exists, here's what that should tell us.

  577. If there's a pots herd gate, there must be a Potter's house.

  578. And if there's a Potter's house, there must be a Potter.

  579. Stay with me tonight. There must be a Potter.

  580. What are you saying to the McGee?

  581. I'm saying you are not shirt short of options.

  582. Like all there is is the Potter gate.

  583. No, no. If there's a gate, if there's a

  584. house, and if there's a Potter's house, there's a Potter.

  585. And if you desire to be anywhere, you don't want to be

  586. on the refuse pile. You want to be in the reshaping

  587. hands. Here's the fact of the matter,

  588. Sister Brittany. Every day, sometimes it feels

  589. like he gets me out, throws me in the middle of the will WHEEL

  590. and in the spirit, sometimes he has to throw me in the middle of

  591. his will WILL. You know what, folks?

  592. I'm not trying to allegorize and, you know, make all the

  593. topologies and stuff, but you're at my wife.

  594. Tell me. My wife's telling people some

  595. more. She says you got to be careful

  596. when you sit on the front row because he goes by, he taps you

  597. on the arm. He might slap you hard on the

  598. leg. This morning I did some things.

  599. I guess I didn't even know I didn't.

  600. I hope it's not on camera. I bet everybody's going to watch

  601. this morning service like Mike Newley.

  602. Pray God. The clay kind of gets tacky and

  603. a little sticky, and there's always a reason why the Potter

  604. keeps water close by. It's amazing how water can make

  605. the clay supple again. Oh yes yes yes yes.

  606. I remember this lump of clay, 8 years old now.

  607. Bishop Sizemore, David Sizemore, that kind voice.

  608. Is everything OK? Yes, yes.

  609. Had his hands on little Paul Robert McGee, just like you all

  610. do. I have my little hand up there.

  611. He took this lump of clay. So let's just add some water.

  612. And you know what happened in the moment.

  613. Sins were remitted when the water is literally applied to

  614. clay. They can allow to find those

  615. impurities and those little pebbles in there that allows

  616. really, I'm not trying to allegorize everything tag.

  617. I'm really not, but I'm just saying there's something about

  618. when you add water and you apply up 1 and you walk in that place,

  619. that God, there's no place, there's no area that you can't

  620. touch, that you can't minister, that you can't add the pressure.

  621. I've thought it sometimes for the reason I have, I thought

  622. God, and it feels kind of hard there.

  623. You know, it's you let up a little bit there.

  624. No, because I have a vision to part when he sets down, he has a

  625. vision of the completed. He's not just spin that thing

  626. around. Well, we'll just kind of see

  627. what, see what goes, you know? No, he has a vision of the

  628. finished work. And sister Jen, he has one for

  629. your life. And Samantha, he has one for

  630. your life. Zachary, Megan, he has one for

  631. your life. And Brandon, he has one for your

  632. life. He's seeing further down the

  633. road than what's setting on the wheel.

  634. And so since he sees that, apply it where you need to apply it,

  635. Lord. Shape it where you need to shape

  636. it, Lord. Put the water where you need to

  637. put it, Lord. Because I'd rather be reshaped

  638. than shattered. Can we raise our hands right now

  639. to the Lord? This altar is open.

  640. There could be someone here tonight, Pastor McGee.

  641. I I felt myself leaning toward a rigidness in my life in certain

  642. areas. I've noticed myself that I've

  643. almost drawed lines in the sand for God as certain areas of

  644. life, Sir or ma'am. Let let his hand touch that.

  645. Let the Potter's hand rest upon that.

  646. He has your good in mine. He has your good in mine.

  647. Yeah, yeah. Come on.

  648. Some of us, we, we need to touch our minds.

  649. Some of us, he needs to touch our hearts.

  650. Some of us he needs to touch our lips.

  651. Some of us he needs to touch our ears.

  652. He, he needs to touch us. He needs to touch areas.

  653. Hallelujah. You know, in no better position

  654. for demaring than being in his hands.

  655. That's a safe place to be. That's an appropriate place to

  656. be. A place where he can shape.

  657. A place where he can touch. A place where he can form.

  658. God, I don't want to become rigid.

  659. I don't want to become unchanged.

  660. I don't want to be inflexible. I want to be forgiving.

  661. God, to the hands of a master Potter.

  662. You see, Lord, what you're doing in me.

  663. You see God, what you're doing in my family.

  664. You see, God, What you're doing around me.

  665. You see, God, You have. You haven't expected in for me,

  666. God. You have the future for me.

  667. God, how am I shy? Come on, Sir man.

  668. Hallelujah. Come on.

  669. Sure, ma'am. Oh, but I'm flawed.

  670. That's all right. You got a Potter tonight.

  671. Oh, but, Brother McGee, sometimes I just feel like

  672. damaged goods. That's all right.

  673. You got a Potter tonight. Let him mow.

  674. Let him remake after his counsel, after his will.

  675. Let him shave. What seems good unto him.

  676. What seems good unto him?