Title: CLAY IN THE POTTER’S HANDS
Focus: All people who know and love the Lord Jesus are God’s workmanship; they are like clay in the potter’s hands, constantly being shaped for good works.
Function: To encourage the people to turn to Jesus and see themselves as instruments in God’s hand to do good, to be a blessing.
Text: Ephesians 2:1-10
INTRODUCTION
“Workmanship” is the Bible’s keyword for us today. Listen to the text: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Literally, Paul says that believers in Christ are God’s poiema, God’s “poem.”
When you write a poem, you could call yourself a poet, and your poem is your workmanship, your piece of art. Poets, then, are craftsmen and women; and their poems are their workmanship. Actually, this is what the Apostle Paul is saying about God and Christians. God is the Poet, the Craftsman; and believers in the Lord Jesus Christ are his poem, his workmanship.
This is not hard to understand. For example, when you go down France Ave, all the way to Interstate 494, you will see a huge crane. (there is one also right beside our church building where they are building these new apartments). Well, think about that huge crane. Someone had to design the crane. Some engineer, for example, must have drawn a crane design on a blueprint. That engineer must have put a lot of thought into how to design this crane for heavy lifting in difficult places.
Then, after the designer was done with his design, someone else had to manufacture the crane. Lots of steel and bolts and cables all had to come together to assemble the crane.
And now the crane is standing there; it’s a workmanship, a poem, a piece of art, an instrument, a tool--to do heavy lifting. The craftsmen designed and others built the crane to do good works on the construction site.
Listen again to the keyword and the text: “For we are God’s workmanship in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
In other words, all people who know and love the Lord Jesus are God’s workmanship; we are like clay in the potter’s hands, constantly being shaped for good works.
Now I learned that the Cadets during these last couple of months have learned from the Prophet Isaiah’s writings that God is the potter and we are the clay. And I understand that you, Cadets, are also studying Ephesians 2:10, which teaches that God shapes us for the purpose of service. Thus your Cadet theme is: “Shaped for Service.”
THE PASSAGE
Now let me say a few things about the passage. Note that the Apostle Paul makes use of contrast. That is, he talks about things BEFORE and AFTER. First, then, we look at the things BEFORE. Writing to new Christians, Paul says: “…you were dead in your transgressions and sins….”
Now that does not sound very nice. I thought that God is our Creator, that God has created us good. Then how come that Paul says that we were dead in transgressions and sins?
Paul reminds us today that all people, though created by God in his image as reflected in Adam and Eve—we are all affected by sin that entered our world through Adam and Eve. Our human nature is spoiled; it’s no longer alive to God, but dead. Our human nature is incapable of living in love and obedience, unable to image or reflect God’s beautiful characteristics. Spiritually speaking, we are as dead as a doornail.
Every person, apart from the Lord Jesus, is in bondage to sin and the devil. That’s why Paul can say: “…you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.”
In other words, all people are in bondage and slavery to sin and death. All people are prone to live in disobedience to God; all people live a lifestyle that shows separation from God.
As Paul says: “All of us also lived (or walked) among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of the sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.” But all of this is BEFORE.
Now we must look at the things AFTER. Listen: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus, to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (or “to continue to walk in”)
Well, now, what happened that our BEFORE situation has changed to an AFTER situation?
Before, we were rebels, unbelievers, slaves to sin and death, objects of God’s wrath, says Paul. But now, after, we are a new creation, God’s poem, God’s piece of art, God’s workmanship. What happened?
The answer is simple: God showed his unbelievable kindness and love: God sent his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus came, took on our human nature, lived a sinless life, yet, he took upon himself our sins, he died on the cross, he paid the price of our sins, he arose again, he ascended into heaven, and today he rules as our lord.
And you know what that means? It means that the BEFORE situation changed into the AFTER situation. Or as Paul says: “…God…made us alive with Christ…and God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms….” Before, we were outside of Christ; but after Christ’s came to earth, we are in Christ. And all of this is God’s doing. God is the Poet, the Potter, the Creator.
Listen again to the text with its keyword: “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus….”
Adam and Eve, and all other people since then, were and are created in God’s image. But because of sin, we are spiritually dead, in bondage to sin and death, and disobedient; That’s the BEFORE situation; But when God acts in our lives, and gives us new birth, we become alive. We receive salvation from sin and death; we become a new creation. That is, we are re-created, re-formed, re-shaped after the image or mind of Christ.
Christians who know and love the Lord Jesus are God’s workmanship; they are like clay in the potter’s hands.
THE POTTER AT WORK
Let me tell you the story of my life. Think of me as clay in God’s hands.
When I was 9—a kid / teacher
When I was 14—a teen /business
When I was 18—a produce worker
When I was 21—a factory worker / truck driver
When I was 23—a student / bus driver
When I was 31—a pastor
When I was 47—a professor
Now I am 56: I am a husband, a father, a preacher, a teacher, and an adjunct professor of theology and worship.
From the day I was born until the day I die, I have been and still am a lump of clay, God’s workmanship. I have always been aware that God has claimed me, saved me. To be sure, I certainly did not always live that way—there are rebellious stretches of disobedience in my life. Yet, God has been at work even before I was born. For the things that I do, and that may be called “good” are works that God has prepared in advance for you and me to do.
GOD’S CALLING: SERVICE
Are you a Christian? Do you know and love the Lord Jesus? Do you yield your life, your all to him? Then you are an AFTER person; you are no longer bound to sin, but free to serve. You are clay in God’s hands; you are God’s workmanship.
Here’s what God calls us to do:
1. Remember whose you are; you belong to Christ.
2. Remember what you are: you are a new creation.
3. Ask: Lord, what do you want me to do?
Immediate answer: to do good works. But how do you know, at this stage in your life, what it is that God wants you do?
Your gifts, abilities, passion, interest, your creativity, athletic ability, your sensitivities—it takes time, sorting out, patience, testing, risk taking, to figure out what God is calling you to do.
These are questions all Christians today must ask throughout the various stages in life. Young and old, we are God’s workmanship, clay in the Potter’s hands.
Glory be to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now and always shall be, world without end. Amen.