Potters | 9 to 5 (Part 4)

[00:00:00] Host: You're listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. Travis Rutland is a spirit filled pastor and ministry leader who has been featured on International Christian Television. He serves as lead pastor of Liberty Square Church in Cartersville, Georgia and as president of Global Servants. His sermons focus on clear biblical teaching, practical truth and encouragement for everyday life. Each message is designed to strengthen your faith and draw you deeper into God's word. This podcast is brought to you, to you by Global Servants. For more information about Global servants, please visit globalservants.org now here's Travis Rutland. [00:00:43] Travis Rutland: Now I am as Pastor Jen sang the chorus. We are continuing this series on 9 to 5. We have different work in the Bible, jobs in the Bible. So turn if you will to the Old Testament. This morning is Potter. This morning we're going to talk about the job of Potter. Turn if you will to Jeremiah, chapter 18. As we talk about the potter. Jeremiah 18. I'm going to begin reading with verse one, Jeremiah 18 and one. And this is from the book and the prophecy that God gave to Jeremiah. So the book and prophecy of Jeremiah. And this is Jeremiah 18 and 1, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, arise and go down to the potter's house and there I will cause you to hear from my words. Let's pray. God, I ask in the next few moments that you will speak to us, all of us, each of us, we want to hear from you. All that you have for us this morning, speak to us deep under deep, spirit unto spirit, we want to hear from you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. In 1860, there was a young man, a baby born, named Samuel Logan Bringle. Samuel Logan Bringle, born in the Midwest of the United States in 1860, right at the outbreak of the Civil War. As a teenager he found salvation. He came to Christ and he, he did well in academics, he did well in school. And so he actually, at a time when not a lot of people went to college, especially sort of, you know, very much a middle class upbringing, he actually went to college. He finished college and then he went on to seminary. He felt like he wanted to go to seminary, went to seminary. While he was in seminary, he had a transform with God. The language that they used at that time was sort of like a holiness experience. Is what they used at that time what we would call probably being filled with the Holy Spirit. Because as many of you would know, the Church of God and almost all Pentecostal denominations flow out of like a Wesleyan Holiness roots. My roots is in the Methodist Church and the Wesleyan Holiness Movement. Birthed the Assemblies of God and the Church of God and all of that. So, so Samuel Logan Bringal had this, this transformational experience with God, with the Holy Spirit, while he is in seminary. And it just, it changed his life and his ministry. He began to preach, he began to travel around, he started his own ministry. And, and it just got exploded in his life and opportunities exploded and it was going great for him. In fact, it was going so wonderful that even as a young man, he was offered to be the pastor at several of the largest Methodist churches in the entire country. And so things were going great. In the midst of that, he encountered some people from the Salvation Army. Now, at the time, the Salvation army was relatively new then as well, the late 19th century. And he was very taken by what the Salvation army was doing. Feeding, feeding the hungry, helping the poor, doing all these things in addition to preaching the Gospel. And he said to himself, I don't know that I want to pastor a big church. I want to work at the Salvation Army. At the time, the international headquarters was in London, England. And, and the, the head of the Salvation army at that time was the founder, William Booth. William Booth started the foundation, the Salvation Army. And so he traveled, Samuel Bringle traveled to London and set up an appointment with the head of the entire Salvation Army. And he writes in his journal that he expected to be given a high position in the Salvation Army. He's preaching, he has a ministry. People travel from all over to hear him speak. He's been offered the pastoral role at some of the largest churches in America. And he meets with William Booth and the meeting does not go as he expected. William Booth says to Samuel Bringle, he says, you are a most dangerous man, he says, you are a most dangerous man, he says, because you've got your own ministry. You've been doing your own thing for so long. I'm not sure, sure that you can really hear when God speaks to you. I'm not sure that you can adhere to the, to the uniformity and the discipline of the Salvation Army. And so instead of giving him a high, a high ranking, you know, the Salvation army is set up like an army. So instead of giving him a high rank in the Salvation army, he makes him an introductory cadet. He makes Samuel Bringle, who has been offered the role of being pastor at some of the largest churches in America, he has his own ministry. He's preached to thousands, tens of thousands. He offers him an entry level role as a cadet at the Cadet Training center in London, England. Samuel Bringle is in. He's got his, he's hurt, he's a little insulted, but he, he feels like God has called him to this. And so he accepts. Not only does William Booth make him start as a cadet, he makes him shine the other cadets boots every single night. So Samuel Bringle, previously being offered some of the roles at the largest churches in America, finds himself in the basement of the cadet in London, England, shining the boots of the other cadets. And he says he just struggled with it and he was frustrated and he just didn't know what he was doing here and why he was here. And he said he was praying, he was calling out to God, asking him why, night after night, night after night, he's not doing anything important, he's just shining the boots, right? And he's frustrated. And he said one night as he's shining boots and praying, he, he said he had an image of Jesus washing the feet of the 12 disciples. And Samuel Bringle said to himself, if you can wash their feet, then I can shine their boots. And Samuel Bringle said that other than the moment in seminary where he had a transformational experience with God, he said that moment, shining boots, was the most important moment in his entire life. He said, I learned in that moment the idea of servant leadership and all that God is calling me to do. Samuel Bringle was faithful in the little things. He worked his way up through the Salvation army army. Eventually he was sent back to Boston where he ran the Salvation Army's operations in all of Boston. He continued to preach and write books and all kinds of things. But he said that all of the ministry that flowed out afterwards came from that moment where he was shining boots. This is the most important thing I'm going to say before we get into lessons from the potter. And it is this. And we need to remember this. We are clay. We're clay. That's all we are. If you think lessons from the potter is about you being the potter, you are radically mistaken. From dust we came and to dust we will return. If we think for a minute that we're in charge or that we're the potter, we will never learn the lessons that we're supposed to learn in the potter's house. The God said to Jeremiah, go to the potter's house. There's some things I want to show you, to tell you. You will hear my word in the potter's house. And I don't think for a second that Jeremiah, you know, was thinking, oh, what am I going to learn? It's clay. It's that we're Clay. That's what we learned. That's the first, most important thing that's the foundational element to lessons from the potter is we are clay. And if we humble ourselves, if we will learn that lesson at the beginning, then there's all kinds of things that are amazing and wonderful that God wants to do in us and through us and with us and all the rest of it. But the foundational element of this whole thing is that you are clay. From dust to dust, we will return. We are clay. Now, what does God say to Jeremiah in the potter's house? Look at verse three, right where we were. We're going to pick back up again. Jeremiah is speaking, and he says, then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was making something at the wheel. And the vessel that he made of clay was. Was marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to make. Oh, I love these two verses. I love these two verses. The most important thing, the first thing, the. The best thing for me, for me, the best thing, the most encouraging thing that we learn in the potter's house is that the marred clay is not disqualified. The marred clay is not disqualified. It's not thrown away, it's not useless. The marred clay in the hands of the potter is useful. The potter molds it. And just because we've made mistakes, just be. Everybody's got nicks, you know what I'm saying? Everybody's got problems with their clay. Some. Some of us got this thing happening with the clay, and others of us have this thing happening with the clay. But. But the marred clay is not disqualified from being called and being used and being useful and doing things in the kingdom. In the hands of the potter who is skilled, the marred clay can become anything that the potter can imagine. That's so wonderful. This is the best news you're going to hear. No matter what your past looks like, no matter the problems, the pain, no matter the sin, the addiction, no matter the mess you've made of your life in the potter's hand, no clay is disqualified. No clay is disqualified. No clay is disqualified, you say, but look at this. I got news for you. When somebody says to you sometime, who do you think you are? What do you think you are? You tell them this. You go, I'm nothing but a lump of clay. That's all you are. And I've got news for you. It's all you're ever going to be. For you to think that you're Anything more than a lump of clay puts you at a plateau that you do not deserve to be at. I am a lump of clay. And I've got a bunch of stuff from my past that in the natural would disqualify me from standing here this morning happening. The things that I have struggled with in the past, the stuff that I have done, my sin, my addiction, the things that I've talked about many times from this platform in the natural. If people said, if someone came in here that didn't know anybody, and we picked 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of us and said, hey, this is what this person has done, who do you think is the pastor of this church? I promise you, I would not be chosen. But see, the marred clay is not disqualified because the potter sees something that the clay itself doesn't see. The potter sees something that the clay itself doesn't see. I got other news for you. That's great. The potter sees stuff that none of the other lumps of clay see either. The other lumps of clay go. What in the world can the potter do with that one? Look, that clay is a mess. That clay is a mess. It's all. It's got a bunch of dirt in it. Got too much dirt mixed into that clay. It's got too much. You ever been have something sticky and a hair gets in it? Oh, Lord, that's getting thrown away, right then I don't care how much I paid for that piece of candy or whatever it is I'm eating if there's a hair in that. Nope, straight in the garbage, right? And so some of us, we're not nice, respectable clay. Courtney's. Courtney's mom actually does pottery as sort of a side hustle. She does pottery in her. In her home and, and sells it online. It's quite good. We have stuff that she's made for us in the house. But. But she. I asked her one time, I said, where do you get the clay from? I don't know anything about pottery. They live in Florida. I thought she went to like a riverbank and like dug up clay. I didn't know. You laugh, but I didn't know where you get clay from. She orders it. She'll like 50 pound blocks of expensive, nice, fancy potter's clay that she gets and she takes it and uses the water and molds it into bowls and cups and all the rest of it. But listen to me. Nobody in here is nice, expensive 50 pound bags of clay that come from a nice fancy clay manufacturer, right? We're clay that somebody dug up on a riverbank, we're clay that came out of a swamp, right? And the potter gets this clay and you go, what in the world can he do with this? This clay's got, like, stuff in it, grass and dirt and rocks in it. And the clay itself thinks it's useless. And the other lumps of clay think the clay is useless. And the potter says, I have a plan, I have a calling, I have a destiny. I have a future for this CL Clay. Clay doesn't decide what clay becomes. Clay doesn't decide what other clay becomes. Just because everybody speaks into your life and says, oh, you'll never do. Oh, you can't accomplish that. Oh, you don't have the right qualifications. Oh, this is your past. Oh, what a mess you've made. Oh, wheat. Clay doesn't decide what clay becomes. And other clay doesn't decide what this clay becomes. This clay is formed in the hands of the potter and the potter alone. And just because this clay is a mess, and I'll be honest with you, this clay is a mess. The potter still uses it. The marred clay, the messed up clay, the screwed up clay is not disqualified from usefulness. Look at it again. And the vessel that he made of clay was marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again into another vessel. I love that he made it again into another vessel. No matter what you've done, it does not disqualify how the potter will use you on his wheel. The marred clay is still usable clay. Now pick right up where we were. Look at the end of four. He made it into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to make. Now look at verse five. Then the word of the Lord came to me saying, O house of Israel, can I not do with you? As this potter says the. As this potter says the Lord. Look, as the clay is in the potter's hand, so are you in my hand, O Lord, O house of Israel. Look again at verse six. Can I not do with you? As this potter, the clay was marred, the potter still used it. But then he takes it and says, okay, what it was, what. What was happening here is not what's going to happen anymore. Look at the end of verse four. And he made it into another vessel, another vessel. This is the second part of what we were just talking about, and this is equally important, and it is this. The potter decides what the clay becomes. The potter decides what the clay becomes. What happens is that too many of us get on the wheel and tell the Lord, hey, I'm ready to Become a cup. God says, you're not a cup, you're a bowl. And you say, no, I don't want to be a bowl. I'm not interested in being a bowl. I don't want soup and stuff and cereal in me. I want to be a cup. I want a fancy cup with a nice handle. I want people to drink expensive drinks out of me. I want to be a cup. God says, no, you're a bowl. And furthermore, you're a bowl that the horses are going to eat out of. And you're like, what? What? Right? But that's the thing. The clay doesn't decide what the clay becomes. The potter decides what the clay becomes. And we have to submit ourselves to the potter on his wheel and what he wants to do with us. Otherwise, we miss what God is calling us to become. We miss what God is calling us to be. When I was a little boy, my. My first team that I loved, the first team that I absolutely fell in love with, was the Atlanta Braves. When I was a little boy, I was born in Atlanta. I grew up in Conyers, and. And it, it, it. That opened my eyes to suffering. That made me understand the concept of suffering as a very little boy. Because what you know of the Braves now is not what the Braves were in the 1980s. Oh, my God, they were so awful. As the worst team, they were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs by the first week of the season. They were. It was how, I don't know how it's possible. The Braves were the Dale Murphy and eight dudes that should have been playing in the minor leagues. That was all the Braves were. Now, let me tell you something, though. My favorite player, when I was a little boy growing up, my favorite player was not Dale Murphy. He was the All Star. And I knew real quick I wasn't going to be and couldn't ever be Dale Murphy. My favorite player on the Atlanta Braves. Now this is old school. You're going to have to dig deep and show me you're a Braves fan. My favorite player was the second baseman named Glenn Hubbard. I loved Glenn Hubbard. He was my favorite player. He had a big old beard. He played second base. I played second base for Little league. And the best part was Glenn Hubbard was about 4 foot 11. He was tiny. He was tiny, Glenn. And I thought to myself, if Glenn Hubbard can play in the major leagues, I've got a chance. He was an encouragement to me. If he can do it, I can do it. Needless to say, I cannot do it. But. But what I Thought I was going to be until I was 11 or 12 years old. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was going to play second base for the Atlanta Braves. Marked it on my. I knew it beyond a shadow of doubt, second baseman for the Atlanta Braves. In high school, I took a class called pre law. In high school, I took a pre law class. And as you can tell, I like to talk. I don't mind being in front of people. I took a pre law class and the professor was talking about how well lawyers did for themselves. And I thought to myself, you know what I want to do? I want to be a trial lawyer. I said, that's what I'm going to do with my. I'm going to be a lawyer. And I took pre law too, in high school. I said, I want to be a lawyer. And then I got to know a couple lawyers and I realized, I don't want to be a lawyer at all. That's. I don't want to be a lawyer at all. I was like, no, no, no. So I went into college, I went to community college, took a class, and I thought to myself, you know what I think I'd like to do? This is before CSI came on. I said, you know what I'd like to do? I think I want to be a forensic scientist. I said, I think that's a calling on my life to be a forensic scientist. And then we went into the lab and we had to dissect a fetal pig. And I said, I don't want to be a. I don't. I don't want to be a forensic scientist at all. I don't. No one do that. So then I thought I was going to be a coach and a teacher. I went working towards my degree in education. I was going to as. As every coach does. I was going to be a history teacher and coach basketball. You ever met a coach that's not a history teacher? I don't know what it is with coaches and history. Every coach I know teaches history. It's the craziest thing ever. None of them ever do science. But regardless, I was going to teach history and coach basketball. And I did that for a little while. And I got a couple jobs, assistant coach, things like that, working at little schools. And I said, that's what this clay is going to do. I'm going to coach and teach. And the potter said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I got a whole bunch of better stuff for you. But if we refuse to get on the Potter's wheel. And if we refuse to put ourselves in his hands, then we lose out on what the potter has planned. We can't see the whole thing, we can't see the big picture. We can't see all that God wants to do in our life. And so we say to ourselves, this is what I'm going to do. This is what I'm going to be about. I want to say here, by the way, I'm not just talking about your profession. I'm not just talking about that's what you do. And there is a part of that that the potter is on and calling you to and directing you to. But it's not just about what we do, it's about who we are. There's all kinds of things that God can call you to be about that have absolutely nothing to do with your profession. There are ways that he's calling you to serve and to give and to go and to help. There's all kinds of things you can do that aren't going to pay you a dime. You're going to volunteer at it. But that is actually the calling of God on your life. If we confuse profession with calling, we miss out on what God wants to do. Let him get you on the wheel, let him move you on that potter's wheel. I've watched my mother in law and she spins that wheel with her foot and I think nothing, nothing, nothing. And then all of a sudden, if you've never watched it, it's an amazing thing to watch. I've watched her do it and all of a sudden, bowl. You're like, what? That was clay like a second ago, like a cup, just like that. But the clay doesn't get to choose. The clay can't mold itself. The clay doesn't have the ability to mold itself. The clay puts itself in the potter's hand and allows the potter to do what he wants to do with it. We've got to get there. We have to be. We have to humble ourselves. We have to allow God to do stuff in us that we wouldn't normally expect that we weren't thinking about, that we weren't counting on. There's all kinds of stuff that the potter wants to do that the clay. The clay is a lump of clay. The clay can't understand long term. The clay can't see into the future. The clay is not sovereign. All the clay is, is clay. It's just a lump of clay. What it has to do is submit itself and get on the wheel and allow the potter to do what the potter wants to do, the potter decides what the clay becomes. Now turn over to the next chapter. We're going to leave that portion, but we're coming back to something with the potter. Look at Jeremiah 19 and one, over one chapter. Jeremiah 19 and 1. Thus says the Lord, go and get a potter's earthen flask. So now he's given a word to Jeremiah after he went to the potter's house. But then he says, now go back to the potter's house. And I want you to notice he doesn't tell him to get clay this time. He says, get an earthen flask. He says, get a finished product. Do you see this? It's. It's been fired in the kiln. It's no longer clay now it is a bowl, a cup, whatever it is. A flask. Right? Thus says the Lord, go and get a potter's earthen flask and take some of the elders of the people and some of the elders of the priest. Verse 10, same chapter. Then you shall break the flask in the sight of the men who go with you. Verse 14, same chapter. Then Jeremiah came from Tophet, where the Lord had sent him to prophesy. And he stood in the court of the Lord's house and said to all the people, thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, behold, I will bring on this city and on all her towns all the doom that I have pronounced against it because they have stiffened their necks that they might not hear my words. Now I want to make clear what's happening. Jeremiah, through the word of the Lord that has come to him, is pronouncing doom on Jerusalem. We know, because we know the history. Doom is coming. The Babylonians will invade and utterly and completely destroy Jerusalem and take everybody away as captives. And so Jeremiah is speaking to the king and the other rulers of the city. But what he does is he goes back to the potter's house and he finds a piece of pottery that has been fired in the kiln. It's hard, it's hardened, it's stiffened right. It's no longer pliable clay that can be molded on the wheel. It has become this one thing. It is fired, it's hardened. He takes it into the king's court and he smashes it on the ground. And look at what he says. Thus says the Lord of hosts, behold, I will bring on this city and all her towns all the doom that I pronounced against it because they have stiffened their necks. The final thing is this. The clay must remain pliable in the Potter's hands. The clay has to remain pliable. You say, well, wait a minute. Are you saying we're. I'm never going to be a finished product. Let me tell you something. If nobody's ever told you this before, yes, you're never going to be a finished product. You never get done. We are all pliable clay in the hands of the potter. He's constantly working on us. He's constantly shaping us. He's constantly showing us stuff. The moment that you think God is done with you is the moment that he's going to show you the next step in his call on your life. There's always something that needs to be not there. There's always things that we. God is calling us. There's stuff. There's things. God says, hey, what about this thing that you've allowed in your life? What about this? I can still use the marred clay, but this thing has got to go. This stone has got to leave. This sin, this problem, this addiction, this unforgiveness, this person that you're unwilling to forgive, this pain, what it is. And so the. The clay is constantly being used the same way is true for. For what we do and. And. And what we are about. The moment that you decide, oh, this is what I'm going to do with the rest of my life, is the moment that God says, let me see if I can turn this into something else. Right? And if we allow ourselves to. If we stiffen our necks, if we. If we harden our hearts and refuse to let God show us the next step, we miss all that he wants to do in our life. There's something else out there. We are never at the finish line. We are never done. We are never finished. There's the next race, there's the next step. There's the next season, there's the next calling. And we have to remain pliable on the wheel so that we can embrace all that God has for us. The old joke, how do you make God laugh? Make a plan. How do you make God laugh? Make a plan. That's it. The moment that you say, oh, I'm going to do this. Oh, I'm going to be this. Oh, I'm going to be about this. God says, oh, that's great. You say, God, look at this. Look at this house that I created out of these cards. Say, look at how I shaped it. And I took these cards and I built it up. Isn't this beautiful? God says, wow, that's great, Travis. I say, this is what I want the rest of my Life to look like. Look at what I've done here. He says, boy, that's amazing. You see, the clay has to remain pliable in the potter's hands. Don't allow yourself to miss out on the next thing because you've hardened your heart and refuse to hear what the potter has for you. The clay remains pliable, agreeable, humbled, willing to hear that thing. And some of it might be scary, some of it might be intense, some of it might be overwhelming. But we trust that the potter knows better for the clay than the clay knows. That's what we hold onto. I'm a lump of clay. The potter spoke light into existence. Who do you think understands the clay better? The clay or the potter who created the clay? We remain pliable in his hands. He does what he wants to do with us. Let me close with this. In just a moment, we're going to receive communion. Normally we do it the last Sunday of the month, but with Palm Sunday next month, we decided to move it up a month plus it. I wanted to do it with this sermon. In a moment, we'll receive communion. But as we close, I just want to encourage you. You are clay. Don't get yourself any more complicated than that. You are clay. Clay alone. That's all you are. Just because you've made mistakes, just because you've done dumb stuff, just because you committed sin, just because you struggled with addiction, doesn't mean that you cannot still be used on the potter's wheel. Just because you've always done the same thing, just because you've always kind of looked like a cup, doesn't mean that God wants you to be a cup for the rest of your life. Allow yourself to be changed. Allow the potter to show you what you are. And above all, humble yourself and remain pliable in his hands. However he wants to form you, however he wants to shape you, however he wants to mold you. We are nothing but clay. Pastor Chris, his whole early life, education was all pointing towards being a lawyer, which I was talking about. He was a lawyer for years. He went to law school, got a job in politics. He worked for the governor of Georgia. That governor got given a cabinet position in Washington, dc. Chris lived in Washington, worked in the White House. It's obvious what his future looked like. It's obvious what he was supposed to do. It's obvious what the rest of that thing was supposed to be. You know, a good Christian working in politics, trying to make a difference. Chris said, look at this. Look what I made. God, God said. Chris came to me and said, chris was recommended to us. Let me rephrase that. Chris was recommended to us. We desperately needed a financial secretary here at the church. And so Chris was recommended us. He came up. I said, I understand you've been in politics and you work at a high level law firm in Atlanta. He said, yes, I do. And I said, and you want to come to Liberty Square and be the financial secretary? He said, yes. I said, okay. We talked for a while. At the end, he said, well, I'm just, what is this? You know, what does this position pay? And I was like, much, much less. Like, let me be clear, Much, much less. Okay. But he embraced the call of God on his life. He gave up law. He went back to school again, got a degree, went to seminary, and now he's on the executive team here at Liberty Square. Does an amazing job for us with discipleship and assimilation and God. But see, Once you harden your spirit and refuse to remain pliable on the wheel, you can't embrace the next season of life and ministry. Chris is a blessing to me personally and to this church. And the reason he is is because he remained pliable on the wheel. He realized, I am nothing but clay in the hands of the potter. Now, I'll tell you the exact opposite of Chris. Joseph D' Angelo is our Men's Ministry Director. For 14 years, Joseph was on staff at an amazing church in Miami, Florida. God had called him to ministry, all of that. He was there, he was doing it. God had called him. The call was on his life. And then all of a sudden, he began to feel the call for him to become a lawyer. Chris was a lawyer and became a preacher. Joseph was a preacher and said, I supposed to become a lawyer, see, but you have to remain pliable on the wheel. You have to let God mold you when it doesn't make any sense. Lawyers becoming preachers, okay, Preachers becoming lawyers, that's crazy, right? But you became you. You stay pliable on the wheel. You let God use you. You let God show you. And so Joseph told me, without knowing exactly what the next step was, he went back to law school without knowing where or what God was calling him to. What an amazing testimony to staying humble and obedient to the potter's hands on your life. I don't know what this is supposed to be or where this is supposed to go, but I'm going to do this thing that God's calling me. And he did. He graduated from law school, passed the bar and a Christian organization, a Christian lobbyist political organization here in Atlanta contacted him, offered him a job. He goes down to the Capitol three or four times a week. I went with him just a couple of weeks ago. He talks to our elected officials about bills and things that are biblical and Christian, and we need that in politics. We need people lobbying our elected officials. I'm proud to have him and Felicia and their girls at our church. I'm proud to have him as our men's ministry pastor. But more than anything, I am so proud of his call. That's scary to be the executive pastor at a big church in Miami and come home and tell your wife I'm going to law school and quit my job. Good for you, man, because. And you go, whoa. You know, but that's it. You got to stay pliable in the hands of the potter. And I'm proud of what he is doing, what he does for this church. My point with both of those stories is if we harden our hearts and refuse to embrace the next season of our life, we miss what God wants to do in us and through us. Whatever your past is, you're not disqualified. Whatever present shape you are doesn't mean that's what you're always going to be. And if you want to embrace the full future that the potter has for you, you must remain pliable in his hands. The clay only knows right now. The potter sees past, present and future. Our job. Stay on the wheel. Stay in the potter's hands and let him do what he wants to do. Whatever the potter wants to do in our life, we give it to him. Remain pliable in his hands. We thank you, God, for all that you are doing. We thank you that you are the great potter. That you see who we used to be and you still find us useful. That you see what we are presently doing and know that you have something else for us and that you just call us to remain humble and pliable in your hands. God help each of us to remain on the will to stay under your calling for our life. We love you and we worship you. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. [00:38:03] Host: Thank you for listening to the Travis Rutland Podcast. If you enjoyed this message and you're in the Cartersville, Georgia area, we invite you to join us at Liberty Square Church. You can also watch online and connect with us on Facebook and YouTube. We'll see you next week for another message from Travis Rutland.