Romans 13:11–14Scripture
Everybody turn your Bibles to Romans chapter 13, and we are almost, I think we have almost hit two years, we are nearing the end of Romans. It has been a wonderful blessing and an immense challenge at times, but we have been true benefactors of great doctrinal truths that will shape us from now to the end of our life, and I don't know about you, but I am immensely grateful for the truth of God's word and the shaping force of it upon my life.
Anyway, today I'm taking a strange turn. I am typically someone over the last several years who has been moved away from topical preaching, not only for personal conviction but also private instruction that there is great benefits to preaching through God's word verse by verse, because we get to better contextualize the message of the writer and understand the heart of God, and then it prevents us from going out and picking verses that excite the preacher or stir our hearts. Then we are forced to actually preach through things that are challenging not only to our fellowship but then to ourself as well. The reality is that many preachers can be guilty of steering clear of things that are challenging and leaning into things that are our passions. And how many of you know that God, when he does his work in you, he does not necessarily only work on your passions, but he touches every part of you, and when you become his child the reality is that there is no part of your
Introduction
Life that is untouched by God. As much as you try to refuse him from certain arenas or areas of your life, those private places, he has a way of meddling. He's a meddler, and I'm grateful for it when it's happening to you. I am not so grateful for it when it's happening to me, but he does that because he loves us and we are his. And I am, that's why I, hey, anyway, Romans 13:11–14. I'm going to read this, I'm going to mention a few things out of it that I think are pertinent for us today, and then I'm going to seem like I just took a right turn, or maybe turned the car 180 degrees and went a different direction, and I went topical on you. I did not go topical on you. I however am pulling out a prophetic book by a prophet who is the weeping prophet, I didn't think about that till just now, and he is, his name is Jeremiah, and the reason that I'm going to be talking and looking at a verse by Jeremiah, something that the way that God used him, is because I think it's going to help us as we enter into verse 14 and we close out chapter 13, because there's some things that we have a tendency to do when we move out of understanding the sovereignty of God, the greater work of what he's doing with the nation of Israel, the greater work of what he's doing with the Gentile nation, the greater work of what he's doing for a depraved life, the greater work of what he's doing to redeem a people, and the greater work of what he's doing as the Potter who makes vessels of honor and vessels of wrath, that although God is sovereign we have some responsibility, but that does not mean that we then shift into this idea that everything now depends on us. And upon reading chapter 13 many of us have struggled with the idea: is God sovereign or are we sovereign? Is it God who does a thing or is it us who does a thing? And how then can we reconcile the idea that the apostle Paul is calling us to live righteously before men? And so I want to remind us today by evaluating jeremiah, the words of Jeremiah, and considering a verse in Jeremiah, I want to remind us that it is the Potter who does the work, all right,
Point 1Believers know the time, so put on Christ
Because I think that's important. But let's read our text for today in Romans. Romans 13:11–14 says this: "Besides this you know the time." There are many people, I'll just go ahead and start off by saying, there are many people today who do not know the time. They do not know the time. He is speaking about a specific people here. He's not speaking about all people. The apostle Paul is speaking of believers. It is believers that have had their eyes opened. It is believers who the scales have fallen off their eyes. It is believers who can see clearly. It is believers who know the time. All other men and women and boys and girls do not know the time, and because they do not know the time, because they are blinded to the time, because they are not aware of the time, their life looks different, it acts and behaves differently. Nothing makes you behave,
Nothing affects and shapes your behaviors like an understanding of the times in which you live.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 5:56
Right? Nothing does. Take for instance, let's just not go off the rails here, okay. "Besides that, you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed." Now notice here, he's talking about a salvation that is to come, although a salvation has already come. He is speaking of people who have believed and have been saved, and at the same time he is speaking to people who have believed and have been saved about a salvation that is to come. How many of you know that are believers in the house today that although you are saved there is a salvation that is to come? It is the hope of glory, it is what we hope for one day. How many of you know that are in the room today who are wrestling with some form of illness today that one day we will have a new body? That new body will not be sick, it will not get ill, it will not come down with cancer, it will not come down with COVID, it will be well. I can't imagine what my glorious body would be, but if I were to chisel one out it would not look like this one, right? And many of you could testify, some of the men in the house now, I know men are somewhat oblivious because we tend to flex in front of the mirror, seeing the version of ourself that is not accurately depicted in the reflection of ourself. But today, if we were honest, the reality is we hope for a salvation that is to come. How many of you know that although your mind is being renewed day by day by the word of God, how many of you know that your mind still needs saving, that there is a salvation that is to come that will, as we ride down the road, specifically when we go into Walmart, that our thoughts are pure of our brothers and sisters and not haggardly, you know what I mean, they're not broken thoughts? How many of you know that our behaviors, there is a salvation that saves our behaviors and attitudes, that the private parts of our life that we're ashamed of will be redeemed? There is a hope for us beyond what we could ever hope for, even as a believer here today. Oh, the goodness of God, that there is a salvation that is to come. So we look and we know, we know that we are saved but we know that we are broken. We know that we are saved but we know that we are still sinners. We know that we are saved, we know we still do wrong, but there comes a day where we will be made white as snow in the heavens and given a new body and made completely righteous in his sight. This is good. We are saved, we are being saved, and we will one day be completely saved. I love this. "The night is far gone, the day is at hand. So then let us cast off," now here it gets into the doing part, and there is human responsibility. How can we reconcile that God is sovereign and we are responsible? And one of the things we do is, when we move into texts like this, we forget the first twelve chapters and then we forsake the sovereignty of God and we operate in complete sovereignty, so that instead of allowing the Holy Spirit, through the work of the Holy Spirit in our life, and being yoked to him, that in our doing we are yoked to him, we are empowered by him, that it is a partnership with him, we begin to forsake him in our doing. The apostle Paul has gone through painstaking chapters here to try to help you understand that the nation of Israel had sacrificed God's sovereignty on the altar of their doing, and it displeased him much, and they were as guilty as hellfire as the Gentile who do not know him, because they turned to their own devices to live and to sustain a life that could only be granted by God and sustained through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Any of you that think you can hope in yourself, you have no hope, because none of us can hope in ourself. We will fail ourself by the end of the afternoon if not for God. So he said, "The night is far gone, the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light." We read in some of our devotionals through the week that we are to put on the full armor of God. News flash: each piece of the armor is not an action you do, but rather it is Christ. You know, each part of that armor is putting on Christ. That's why at the end of this he says, "Put on Christ." What is the helmet? It's Christ. What is the breastplate? It is Christ. How, why, what do you shod your feet with? That is Christ. It is Christ we put on. It is not our works, it is not our doing, it is Christ that we put on. We are covered with Christ. "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." If you're a believer today and you don't have much Word, you don't put on Christ. And the reality is we have a word from every commentator, every Instagram celebrity, every Instagram pastor. We have a word from every friend and every parent and every person in the church. We call and get a word from somebody, because
We would rather have a word from man who is faulty, it is a faulty word, than have a word from God.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:39
The reality is men only see the parts of you that men see, and the reason
We don't want a word from God is because we don't want God to put his hands on the parts of us that men can't see.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 12:49
And so if I can get a word from men will only give me a word based on the best side that I put forward that they can see. But God tends, when he gives you a word, to give you a word about something opposite of what you were to word about. I mean, right, I mean, just open the Bible. "I need a word, I need a word, just give me a word." That's why a lot of the prophetic words that are given today are things to, oh man, to flatter men rather than help men. What you need is you need a word. See, the word of God will come and touch the parts of your life that you don't want no one to know about. That's the word we need.
We don't need more flattery in this world.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 13:52
Men chase flattery like never before. I think it's funny because at night I put on my skivvies, that's what we called it in the South, but my jammies, my PJs, and they aren't the best clothes. Come on, men, come on, men, they're the clothes that your wife wants to get rid of at the garage sale because there's holes in everything. It's the thing you've got the emotional attachment to, that junk should be burned and lit on fire in the backyard, and it but it don't. For men it don't matter if there's holes in your undies, it don't matter if there's holes in your shirts, and it don't matter if there's holes in your everything, right? That's the stuff you want to wear. Why? Because it's comfy, because it's been softened by life, because the holes give, when your wife wants to turn the heat up the holes are ventilation that you do not turn to a pillar of coal in the middle of the night and light on fire, right? So there are reasons why men behave the way they do. We're not just stupid, and we do care, there's a rhyme and a reason for everything. But the reality is, men, you're not going to work in those holy PJs and messed up clothes, because you know the time. Are you with me today? That's just second nature to you don't have to think about it. You don't, well, I mean, will my boss care that I have these holes in these? No, you're not going to work like that. It isn't like, "Well, I better do what's right here. Oh, it's such a dreary doing what's right." No, you just get up, you know the time, and you put the right stuff on. Are you with me? There's no contemplation. It's not like this conversation. There is no debate, there's no wrestling to decide whether or not you're going to do what's right. I think that's the heart of this text: as believers, you know the time, and so because you know the time, this is what you do. It's natural. It's like fruit springing forth from a tree.
Fruit is not produced out of effort, it is produced because it's its nature.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 16:07
We don't eat what we eat, a cow doesn't eat what it eats because it decided to do that, it's because it's its nature to eat that, right? So we have been changed and it is our nature, so let us not turn then to striving. Let us just understand that time. Understanding the time, and we understand the time because God has enlightened us to the time, and understanding the time then shapes our behavior, and because we take off those clothes that men wear in the middle of the night, we put on new clothes. We put on new clothes, and this is the symbolism here. Let us walk, then, so then if you have on these new clothes and you know the time, well then walk accordingly, the way somebody will behave in the daytime. He is comparing what a believer should do compared to what a non-believer does. Even a non-believer does this, are you with me, to a degree, not in the spiritual sense but in the earthly sense, okay. All of the things that it mentions: "Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness,"
Guess what, non-believers don't do orgies and drunkenness during the day. I, well, yeah, they probably do, but you understand overall that's not something they're going to, this is nighttime behavior. So this is what he's done: "not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires." All right, let's move on. Jeremiah 18:1–11. I'm trying to caution us to not turn to human effort here, especially as we move into chapter 14, and this is going to be quick. Jeremiah 18:1–11, I'm going to read it completely. Some of you are going to wonder why I picked this verse, because some of you are going to begin to go, "Oh see, the Potter behaves according to how men behave, and the Potter responds to the behavior of the clay." I don't have time to broach this subject, but that is completely inaccurate, so before we even read it, before your mind even goes there, I just want to say hit pause on that, because I want to talk about something else. I'm actually talking about the sovereignty of the Potter, and then I'm going to, over the next couple weeks, slowly introduce why this is not saying that the Potter forms the clay based on what the clay does. I'm going to talk about that.
How many of you know that God would send a prophet to, for instance, Nineveh, and he would tell them to repent, and I want you to know what God was going to do, what he did in sending the prophet is not dependent on what men do. He already knows what they're going to do. And so we'll talk about this over the next coming weeks, but here it is, Jeremiah 18:1–11: "The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: 'Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will let you hear my words.' So I went down to the potter's house, and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter's hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. Then the word of the LORD came to me: 'O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter has done?' declares the LORD." This is Jeremiah speaking to Judah, and we know that their repentance was false and God repays them for their false repentance. "If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will relent of the disaster that I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will relent of the good that I had intended to do to it." This is not speaking of the dependency of God on the behaviors of men, this is speaking of how God works. "Now, therefore, say to the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the LORD, Behold, I am shaping disaster against you and devising a plan against you. Return, every one from his evil way, and amend your ways and your deeds." Now Jeremiah was the weeping prophet. I really want to spend some time to talk about how God would call a prophet and how God would use a prophet, and prophets, they spoke the exact words that God gave them. This is very different than abuses we see today. This is why you can't go wrong when you stand up and you open the word and you proclaim it. You want to hear God speak, open the word. You want to hear him speak out loud, read it out loud. Are you with me today? That is ironclad, that is truth, that is unwavering. How dare us chase a word outside of his word. Some of us have substituted words of men for words of God, and I'm not saying that God cannot speak through men, I am saying that we should not hang our livelihood and our hopes and our lives on the words that come from men. It is amazing how we have created a
Point 2Jeremiah shows God ordains whom he will use
Substitutionary way of living that only brings sadness rather than hope. Jeremiah was from a city called Anathoth, his father was a priest, and at the young age, teenager actually, he had not gone to seminary yet, and some of you are so anti-school because you don't value education, but listen, God gets to your heart through knowledge, and so if you want to live your whole life being ignorant, you're going to have an unchanged heart. It isn't heart first, head second, it's head first. That's why he talks about a changed mind so much. He gets to your heart through your head. But when God decides to call somebody, it is interesting how he calls somebody who is young, who will say what God says regardless of his opinion about it, and at a young age he had an encounter with God. Here he discovered the hand of the LORD and the grace of God upon his life to be a prophet to the nations, and he was a young teenage boy when this came. It was actually said of him that God had ordained him to be a prophet to the nations, listen to this, before he was born. So this is not a man that has risen to stature, some man of great skill. This is God who decided he would use someone. So before you get too prideful of your skills and your talents and your gifts and your ability, and what you've accomplished, and what you have accomplished,
You are not that special.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 25:04
Oh man, this is very different from the way I used to preach, but just hold on to me for a second, because God has spent my whole life trying to help me understand it is him that is worthy of glory, not me.
Maybe this is just a personal struggle, oh man, but I have this innate ability to make myself the most important thing in the room. I'm not, and I didn't come to burst your bubble or get you to be down in the mouth or just to punch you in the throat, but neither are you the most important person in this room, and in every room on this Sunday, in greater evangelicalism, evangelicalism, it is not a famous preacher, it is not a holy roller, it is not the person in this fellowship you look up to or in other fellowships you look up to, it is not people who operate in what you consider high giftings, there is no such thing, but it is God and God alone. Our worship has been corroded by this idea that we are great because we have forgotten him, and we worship at the altar of self, and we have forgotten him in his very house, and it's a shame, and the house of the Lord is in shambles, and it's a shame. Jeremiah was going to a nation to remind them of this self-
Worship. It's anti-worship. Anti-worship is
Pastor Shawn Gray · 27:02
self-worship. We write songs to edify ourself, no, wrong word, we don't edify ourself with songs, we love ourself with songs, even when we declare how much we love him. It's declarations of our awesomeness, because we love him and we do not consider him, we consider how we love him. "We will worship you." Just do it already and stop telling me how much you're going to do it. You with me today? If you'd stop telling God how much you're going to do something and singing to God about how much you're going to do something, you would actually do it, then we could have some worship. All right, that's a diatribe, but anyway. God will ordain things that have not even been born yet. This is why I believe that you're here this morning, because God ordained it. I believe he's that involved in our life, that less of your life is an accident, that he's orchestrating and working to do things in your life that you don't even know he's doing. I don't know about you, but that's good news for me, because sometimes I just wonder if he's checked out, but he has not, and he's still meddling because he has a purpose. God decides in his sovereignty that he will do something and there is no power on earth that can stop him from doing what he has set his mind to do, AKA on this Sunday, Jesus Christ dying. Are you with me today? Nothing can stop him from redeeming a people that he has decided to redeem.
There is no cross, there is no nail, there is no sword, there is nothing that can stop him from redeeming a people that he has chosen to redeem.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:07
When God decides to do something, he does it. You must know this morning then, let us not too quickly forget, after reviewing the first eleven chapters of Romans, that we must understand that God's hand is sovereignly ordaining things in this earth, and there will be trials. Can I get an amen on that one? And here's a word, I wrote it in my notes and I thought I would just say it instead of converting it into a simpler word: vicissitudes, and troubles that come into your life and cause you to question the sovereignty of God, because when we believe in the sovereignty of God we only believe it to the degree that everything good happens to us, and we do not see God working in the tough things, so we excuse him from those things, and we then assign difficulty to the devil, and many of us are trying to cast out the devil when what we're really doing is trying to remove the hand of God, and who do we think we are? And let me tell you think that you can discern what is the God and what is the devil, but oftentimes I realize through reading the word that God has a way of operating at times in ways that I would assign to the devil but is actually God. It's crazy. So difficulty will come. There were several times that Jeremiah, and I don't know about you, wanted to quit. He wanted to quit the position that God had given him. He just wanted to quit. He just wanted to hit timeout, walk into the timeout huddle and keep walking out of the stadium and just quit the team. Have you ever been there? I mean, you just don't know if you can take another moment. There are many of us who wanted to quit a marriage, and there are many pastors who wanted to quit the pastorate, and there are many people who wanted to quit on life. Jeremiah, you're in good company. Jeremiah was like that too. But I want to encourage you today, do not allow trouble to marginalize, silence, and young people, and press you into a mold that God never envisioned for
Point 3The Potter, not the clay, is the point
You. And before we move too far I want to fill you in on a little secret, and here we go, and here's my three points. This story in jeremiah, and honestly what we read in Romans this morning, there's great connection here. This is not about the clay. Neither of these paragraphs are about the clay.
It is all about the Potter, and if you read either of these making it about the clay, you've missed the whole point.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 32:26
It's about the Potter. The most important character in the text is not the clay, the most important character in the text is the Potter. And I want you to know this morning that this was not the coach's house, and this was not the co-pilot's house, and this was not an advisor's house. This was the potter's house, and those are completely different roles, amen. And when we're in the potter's house, here's what we know of
The clay: the clay has no voice, the clay has no opinion, the clay has no say.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 33:15
All the clay can do is yield to the one and sovereign authority. And let us not forget this as we read Romans, and let us not forget this as we consider Jeremiah. And I came here to tell all of you that the church will only find her identity, because that seems to be a hot word today, when she stops looking at herself and fixes her gaze on the Potter. It is the Potter who has the power to change life, not you and not me. There is only one in this room who is able to take everyone in this room, raise us up out of our mess, and turn our mess into a miracle. It is God, more specifically the Potter. He's not your coach, he's not your advisor, he's not your co-pilot, he's a Potter. He is the God of all flesh. I love this hymn: "Let heaven and earth adore him, let angels bow before him, what a mighty God we serve." Notice, you don't, don't even come in there, it's all about him. And the reality is God is not to be trifled with. He is not a joke. Let us not proclaim him with our mouth and make him a joke with our life. He's the
Point 4A potter touches every side of the vessel
Potter. Number two, there's a wheel. This is going to be quick. A potter is different than a sculptor. I worked at a place called Animax, and they made puppets for Disney. I was a nobody in the joint, right, in the warehouse. I mean, I think I got to shave a couple of Lion King puppets, hyenas were my project for the puppets we made for Disney. I got to make the guts and then I think I put on a nose of one of the hyenas, like I was a nobody, but I became friends with somebody there who sculpted, and it is amazing because when they sculpted, much of the inside of the sculpture, so they would make a sculpture and they would take and shave off patterns off the sculpture and then create patterns for that and print that and then cut foam out of that pattern they made from the sculpture. You don't have to understand the details of how that worked because it's kind of interesting, but I don't have time to go into that, but much of the inside or the base of that was Styrofoam, was not all made of clay, it was superficially a clay sculpture. I always thought it was a solid piece of clay, but when you make something this big it gets expensive when you're just dealing with clay, and so they would make most of the main part of the form like a mannequin, okay, right, like, and then they would put clay superficially on the outside because really it's about what people see, it's not about what people don't see. And then there were parts of the model that they would really care about, because there were parts that were mostly going to be seen by the people as the puppet was on the stage, so there were certain angles of the puppet that were more important than the rest, and they would spend most of their time focusing on the front of the sculpture. And a potter is different than a sculptor. A sculptor's concerned about certain sides that people see. A painter is always only really worried about the canvas on the front. If you ever went to an art gallery, or if you went to the museum here in Kansas City, the art is that, right, what is that, Nelson-Atkins, and you looked at some of the paintings, if you were to take the painting off the wall, don't, you'll get tackled and probably arrested, but if you were to take the painting off the wall and turn it around, guess what you would see: some janky old canvas with some wood, with canvas stretched and stapled to the back. It would not be a painting. Why is that? Because a painter only paints one side of the canvas. It is only concerned about what people see. So it is interesting then that a potter is different than a sculptor, and he is different than a painter. How many of you have ever put a Christmas tree up in the corner of your house? You see where I'm going with this, right? And I've gotten to a place because I'm so OCD, kind of like Jeff Compton, and he's in the house today, right, I'm so OCD I know that although we can't see what's behind the tree in the corner, I want to decorate what's behind the tree in the corner, because i'm a holistic person. But there were years, there were years I tell you, and also I only do that now because I have a little more money, but when we were first married I was so broke I could only get the decorations for the front. That's why I put it in a corner and not against the wall, because that gives even less ornaments I had to buy, because it was two parts back in there that I didn't have to decorate, and I would decorate just the front part of the tree, and it saved me money, but now that I have more money I do the whole tree. But how many of you are guilty of not decorating the back of the tree like you do the front of the tree? And just like a sculptor who only takes care of what you can see, and just like a painter who only paints the part that you're going to see, and just like a Christmas tree decorator who only decorates the part that you can see, a potter is different. A potter has the wheel. The potter understands that for a vessel to be used as it was intended to be used, it can't just have one good side, it has to be touched on all sides. So for God to touch all sides of the vessel, he has to put a lump of clay on a wheel. This is why some of you are so frustrated with God this morning, because you want God to leave one side of you alone and address the sides that everyone sees. But if he's going to use you mightily for his kingdom, he will not just touch the side that everyone sees. He puts you on a wheel, because
There's no part of your life that God doesn't eventually get to put his hands on, no matter how much you fight it.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 40:35
It's going to come around and he's going to get his hands on it if you're his. Are you with me today? How can you know that you are his? When he gets his hands on the parts of you that no one sees. When he starts putting his hands on that, you know that you're on his wheel. The hand of the Potter is going to touch your attitude and your addictions and your anger, the hidden and broken parts of you that no one knows about except for the potter, because you're on the wheel. Number three, and the final thing, and the last thing, and the least significant thing, and the thing that I only mention because it reflects to us a little bit more about the Potter, not about you. I'm talking about this thing, not that I want to talk about you, i'm talking about this thing that you can have a better understanding of the Potter. Are you with me? The clay. The clay comes from the earth. If you've been on Instagram any amount of time, you've seen those guys who make entire buildings and pools and everything by digging dirt and putting water on it and just making cool junk. Can I get an amen up in here? How many of you are on Instagram in the house? How many of you have ever seen one of these things? Only two of you, I'm so sorry. But they make whole, like, whole, like, magnificent, like, castle-looking things with these great pools, and you know how they do it? By taking dirt out of the ground, and listen, and they take the dirt out of the ground and they put water on it and they stomp on it and they punch it until they get clay and then they begin to form
Point 5God softens us with soaking and treading
Things out of the ground. It says of God in the beginning that he took dirt from the ground and he breathed on it and he made life. It's the clay. Clay comes from the earth. The potter had to take the clay from the ground, but listen to this, he had to soften it and make sure it yielded to the pressure of the potter. If you think you're going to be in God's hand and there not be pressure applied to your life, you're crazy. So we've pitched this idea in the church, and I'm sorry for talking softly because I kind of want to yell, we pitch this idea in the church that if you come to God, the pressure's off you. That's not true.
When you come to God, pressure on you. That's the way it works.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 43:31
That's the way it works, because if you have hard clay, it doesn't matter how hard the pressure is, hard clay is hard. A hard clay will never yield to the hand of the potter. And before you think, "Well, I've got to be softer and more yieldable and more moldable," so it's about me, the clay, yielding to his pressure? No, it's not about the clay at all. The clay doesn't have opinions, it doesn't have thoughts, the clay simply does what the potter chooses to do with it. And the reality is, yes, you have to yield, the clay has to yield, but it isn't because it chooses to be moldable. Hard clay will never yield to the hand of the potter on its own accord. A potter would dig the clay out of the earth, and this is what really happened, a potter would dig the clay out of the earth and they would put it in what was referred to as a soaking pond, and they would soak this clay for days until it absorbed enough moisture, everybody say moisture, to be pliable and moldable, and if that was not good enough, that you were waterlogged. And some of you like, "Yes, a bath!" That's what I thought when I read it. A bath for Jesus, that's amazing, put me in the bath, you know. And that all sounds fun and everything, but the reality is he's not done there. He takes you and soaks you, and then after that, after you've absorbed what the potter believes is enough moisture, the potter would lift you out of the pond and put you in a pit and tread on you. Oh, if I just had some time to talk about that, if I just had some time to talk about the character in the Bible who went to the pit, that
Before God prepares you for the palace, you go to a pit, and you go to a prison before you get to the palace,
Pastor Shawn Gray · 45:43
because before God can use you mightily he has to tread on you first. Now just track with me here for a second, because anyone who's put in the palace too quick, without a little bit of treading and without a little bit of pit and without a little bit of prison, will become arrogant and prideful and unproductive for God. So if God wants to use you, he has to prepare you, and I'm afraid it requires a lot of soaking and a lot of treading, and he would pull, the potter will pull you out of the pond and he would put you in a pit and he would walk and tread on you, and he would tread on you until you became pliable and yielded to the pressure of the foot of the potter, and the potter would tread on it and tread on it until he felt the hard places were softening enough to be pliable, and he would step on it until he felt the resistance start to leave the life of the clay. I know some of you this morning think you're special and you're God's prized jewel. Oftentimes I think that as well, but God is saying to us this morning, I can't trust those who I haven't treaded on. Some of you are trying to make yourself somebody, but you aren't the Potter. That's the point of this. He is. If you think your life is going to be used in any sort of way for God without being treaded on, you've got another thing coming. We've got people with pride in pulpits who stand up and think it's all about them. Oh, but I'm learning sweetly every day, this is not about me at all, it's about him, and God will tread on me and he will tread on you. He will tread on us until he changes us into his image. That's the message. Do you know what time it is?
It's treading time. That's what time it is.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:15
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