Be God's Family
S3 E38. Jeremiah: In the Potter’s Hands
This is the Be God's Light Podcast with Ben Greenbaum and Mark Elsasser and here in 2024, we are continuing our exploration of the Old Testament. Last week we started off with Jeremiah and we're going to pick up some more of his life here. Here Ben, as we take a look at who the prophet Jeremiah was, was recall that he was a prophet to the southern kingdom of Judah. It was in the last 40 years he prophesied before they were conquered and exiled to Babylon. So there was a lot happening in his world as he was doing that. And about five years after he got his start, Babylon conquered the Assyrian Empire. And so that became the new existential threat and the ones who would eventually wipe them out. So all these things are happening in the backdrop of his life as he's warning the people first against their idolatry and then also because of that, that they will be conquered first by Assyria and later by Babylon and they got they should pay attention. And we talked about this a little bit last time that Jeremiah was a man that used lots of imagery and action in his life. You have any sermons that stand out for me where you brought in a prop or something and it just didn't go well at all. It flopped. It was the the wrong idea the wrong the wrong or the wrong illustration to make or like oops shouldn't have shouldn't have done that because there's a lot of stuff here that Jeremiah does a whole lot more dramatic than anything that I've I've ever done. I found a nest of baby rabbits in my garden one time. So I thought that'd make a really cool children's sermon back when I used to children's sermons. So I brought those in and that worked out for the children. The children were like I'm playing with them. And then I got people chastised me after after that for that not being good for wild rabbits. Not being good for the children nor the rabbits, I guess. I don't know. But you know with they were eating my green beans. We can't have the yeah, I don't I don't know. I'm trying to think like I'm not big on I'm not much of a prop guy. I do use a lot of stories to image things. Can't think of one that has just absolutely didn't land. I still I know the one that landed most prominently people still tell me about it was one one time my my oldest thank God this was not a a love of my youngest but my oldest loved Elmo can I mean Elmo it just it was inescapable. So anyway she loved Elmo and she had gotten somebody about her a tickle me Elmo which was a big deal back in the day and she loved this Elmo. Pretty happy about that gift huh as she was. And so I brought it in to use as a prop one time and a sermon to image idolatry and I'll probably savannah 16 so this is 14 15 years ago and I will I still have people that remember that sermon because of that image because of that prop and they can tell me what the message was on I don't I just do was on idolatry I don't remember what passage I linked it to but they will still remember so that good props a good thing maybe you should use props more often or just bring in Elmo every week. Yeah yeah I don't even know where that thankfully that was one of the benefits of having you called it idolatry so she probably chucked it. Yeah ultimately she smashed that bail thank God but it was one of the same as one of the benefits I think sometimes if having children five years apart is that by the time Charlotte my youngest came along you know savannah was way past her Elmo days and my youngest wanted to be like my oldest and so it was almost like she jumped straight a little bit into Barbie the savannah was never big on Barbies and like jumped into American Girl doll and so that was like savannah's big thing almost a lot cheaper than American Girl dolls from what I understand a little bit but one of the benefits that we had is that my oldest is a saver I mean now my youngest you know she now she she saves a little bit but she she can blow through money too the oldest is a saver and so savannah honestly I think she bought at least one of her American Girl dolls herself and she's been very giving toward her younger sister to where you know Charlotte is much more you know savannah would stage the dolls Charlotte is much more like of an active player you know now she's starting to grow out of that a little bit but she would have you know she would create conversation and dialogue between the dolls and savannah just like enjoyed watching her sister get a lot out of these dolls and so we've got you know we've probably got four American Girl dolls at at home one or two of which savannah bought with her own money with their beds and whatnot and so Charlotte almost kind of seamlessly jumped in to that and so we got to bypass Elmo who honestly said sometimes was living rent-free in my brain and all I could hear were Elmo's words because I felt like that's that was like the the sound cloud in my mind constantly so yeah thankfully that that's gone well back in Jeremiah's day I mean I don't know if they had the American Girl versions of a Hebrew girl dolls made out of pottery but Jeremiah is called here in Jeremiah chapter 18 verse 1 this is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord he said go down to the potter's house and there I will give you a message so I went down to the potter's house and I saw him working at the wheel but the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands so the potter formed it into another pot shaping it as seemed best to him verse 5 then the word of the Lord came to me he said can I not do with you Israel as this potter does well now there you have it Ben the imagery that Jeremiah is seeing and then proclaiming that a potter says this is not working outright I'm just gonna reshape this make a new lump of clay and make this into a whole different kind of pot and God says I can do that with you and if you don't want to follow my ways live from for me then I can do that with you in fact this goes on here in Jeremiah 18 picking up the middle of verse 6 like clay in the hand of the potter so are you in my hand Israel if at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted torn down and destroyed and if that nation I warned repents of its evil then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned and if at another time I announced that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted and if it doesn't evil in my sight and does not obey me then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it it goes down into this next verse verse 11 now therefore say to the people of Judah and those living in Jerusalem this is what the Lord says look I am preparing a disaster for you and devising a plan against you so turn from your evil ways each one of you and reform your ways and your actions but they will reply it's no use we will continue with our own plans we will all follow the stubbornness of our evil hearts. So Jeremiah 18 has a story and it's got a potter and God says that's my relationship with you you can't shape yourself I can I can shape you how I want it says the sovereign Lord I mean it's how it works and I find this phrase interesting when they just say it's no use they've sort of given up on God given up on themselves given up on trying to escape Assyria then later Babylon I'm not sure what they're saying is no use here but it feels like a defeatist attitude what do you make of this whole story I mean there's a we're going to keep on our own plans and we're going to do what we want and God says I you're in my hands how do you look at this famous story of Jeremiah at the home of the potter. Yeah I mean I think part of it is like the Jeremiah's words really are of no use as they continue to follow the stubbornness of their hearts they continue with their own plans and they refuse to allow God to mold them you know he he's the creator of all an author of life he's the creator and author of truth and love he presents to them the way that they are to live as his creation and as those that have been set apart to him and they are just unrepentant in their ways and that's that's the thing I mean God allows for repentance he calls us to repentance in the presence of our sinful behavior to to change our mind about what it is that we're doing that it's not aligned with him he makes a way for repentance he mercifully pursues the people and they refuse just to listen to him and so they you know follow the stubbornness of their hearts they follow ultimately the desires of their hearts you know the people would have thought that the the life they were living they would have seen that life to be right and good they would have thought that this is the means towards you know a satisfying life and uh and just chose to to follow the direction of their heart rather than then God and so there there's a part in in Jeremiah you know where Jeremiah says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it and I the Lord search searched the heart and you have a people who have followed after their own hearts after the desires of their own hearts rather than seek to have their hearts molded by the potter uh that their hearts would reflect his heart and so again God's going to do what he needs to in order to discipline the people as a means of bringing them back uh to him and uh and yeah as he he brings Jeremiah or has Jeremiah go in and preach this word Jeremiah knowing that they're not going to respond um because the people have hardened themselves hardened their hearts uh against God and and it's and it reaps this constant dysfunction I mean we see the outflow of their sinful ways it just reaps brokenness it reaps death um for the people yeah he continues to try to draw them back to woo them back and we've seen this year for year I mean it's century after century now of this old testament study and as we've gotten into these prophets we see it at prophet after prophet it's a similar message in Jeremiah 19 the very next chapter there's more imagery with a clay jar Jeremiah 19 verse one this is what the Lord says go and buy a clay jar from a potter take along some of the elders of the people and of the priests and go out to the valley of Ben Hennem near the entrance to the pot shirt gate so they're going to go out to do this and this is what the Lord says verse three the God of Israel says listen I am going to bring a disaster on this place that will make the ears of everyone who hears it tingle for they have forsaken me and made this a place of foreign gods they have burned incense in it to gods that neither they nor their ancestors nor the kings of Judah ever knew and they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent they have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal and he calls it the valley of slaughter takes the valley of Ben Hennem and he renames it the valley of slaughter and then in verse 10 he's commanded then break the jar while those who go with you are watching so Ben I'm looking at this and I'm saying this this is a powerful image everybody's watching and he takes this clay jar and he lifts it up over his head and he smashes it down and so they cannot be repaired the bible says and says this is you you've been you've been following these false gods and you've been burning your children and and fiery sacrifices you've been looking at the sky like like the starry hosts are some kind of a a series of gods that can help you you've been building statues out of wood you've been doing all these things and god says you're going to be broken your your nation's going to be shattered if you don't turn your hearts toward me now Jeremiah knows right they're not going to listen but he's still called to be faithful and to live into that and to serve that and to do those things and in this next section in Jeremiah 20 he uses the phrase terror on every side I mean he's not really mensing words here or self peddling this thing at all the valley of slaughter terror on every side those are some some strong phrases that he uses in coordination with his actions this Jeremiah 20 passage is in the context of again beating up on the messenger let me just read a little bit of that verse one when the priest posher son of immer the official in charge of the temple of the Lord heard Jeremiah prophesying these things he had Jeremiah the prophet beaten and put in the stocks at the upper gate of Benjamin at the Lord's temple the next day when posher released him from the stocks Jeremiah said to him the Lord's name for you is not posher but here's the name terror on every side now the guy just got beaten and thrown in the stocks and when the guy who had the power to beat him again releases him he calls him a name he says your name is terror on every side which is fair because the guy was bringing bad things sometimes we look at Jeremiah I don't know even nickname the weeping prophet he's really like the bold prophet I don't he's not like a crybaby he's weeping for the nation of course but he's that's a strong thing to do coming right out of getting beaten and look at your accuser your abuser and giving him a raunchy nickname yeah and that's where there is this boldness to Jeremiah that is born of the spirit's work in his heart where as we're going to read here in a second as he's wrestling with God's call upon his life he he makes the point you know that his word is in my heart like a fire fire shut up in my bones where he can't contain the word of God because the spirit is moving in such a way in Jeremiah's life where it's leading him to this boldness a boldness that many of us will look like look at and see as unique and yet this is where the the Holy Spirit leads the follower of Christ is we're abiding in Christ we are set free to a level of boldness a boldness that that uh that also is is done in the character of Christ and so I don't want to diminish that by any means but this level of courage to say I'm going to go because I love others I am going to speak the truth of God into the life of others and I'm also going to allow for people to speak God's truth into me and so we see that in Jeremiah's life where he's getting direct revelation from God and he is humbling himself before that direct revelation he's humbling himself before the word of God sometimes even entering into acts that maybe he doesn't necessarily want to do and yet he can't help but do them because he's taking this posture of absolute humility independence before God to where he's going to do whatever it is that God asked him to do yeah sometimes I have to admit I've wind around about not getting what I consider the proper proper affirmation from a bishop or a superintendent or a church member or a staff member or whomever you know in my years of ministry but I've never been beaten and thrown in the stocks and he's by no means a a quitter yet there's some hard things in his life you referenced that some section we're going to read go ahead and read that for us that that part that contained those verses you were talking about there and we're in Jeremiah chapter 20 that in verse seven or whatever else yeah so Jeremiah 20 yeah beginning verse seven and I won't read it all but there's pieces of it here Jeremiah says it's labeled Jeremiah's complaint but it says you deceived or persuaded me lord and I was deceived you overpowered me and I and prevailed I am ridiculed all day long everyone mocks me whenever I speak I cry out proclaiming violence and destruction so the word of the lord has brought me insult and reproach all day long but if I say I will not mention his word or speak anymore in his name his word is in my heart like a fire a fire shut up in my bones I'm weary of holding it in indeed I cannot I hear many whispering terror on every side denounce him let's denounce him all my friends are waiting for me to slip saying perhaps he will be deceived then then we will prevail over him and take our revenge on him but and this is where Jeremiah his security comes from he says in verse 11 but the lord is with me like a mighty warrior so Jeremiah is allowing God's objective truth about who God is to influence him more than than the emotion that he's feeling at the moment but the lord is with me like a mighty warrior so my persecutors will stumble and not prevail they will fail and be thoroughly disgraced their dishonor will never be forgotten lord almighty you who examine the righteous and probe the heart and mind let me see your vengeance on them for to you I have committed my cause sing to the lord give praise to the lord he rescues the life of the needy from the hands of the wicked and it's not like Jeremiah has experienced like what I would call a certain rescue at this point he's living off the promise that God has given to him and he rests in the promise even is in the midst of suffering persecution in his immediate circumstance and then in verse 14 he says cursed be the day I was born may the day my mother bore me not be blessed cursed be the man who brought my father the news who made him very glad saying a child is born to you a son may that man be like the town's the lord overthrew without pity may he hear wailing in the morning of battle cry at noon for he did not kill me in the womb with my mother as my grave her womb enlarged forever why did I ever come out of the womb to see trouble and sorrow and to end my days in shame you can go back and forth her days like God is great my life state yeah but I mean you you get it you know and yet he's still as we see from the that's why I love Jeremiah and now the word itself is like this it is just so honest yeah and when people present the word to me that you know well it's all just a bunch of like mythological fairy tales blah blah blah blah and I'm like it doesn't read like that you know there is like deep honesty within the context of the word so we see Jeremiah in the midst of this ministry that God has called him to wrestling with it and as is wrestling with God and that's where the difference is between the people in Judah and Jeremiah that the people in Judah are completely resistant to God Jeremiah is suffering and yet he gives up the whole of his life to God even in the presence of suffering to be faithful to him because the deepest treasure of Jeremiah's life really isn't his life it's his God who he knows loves him who he knows is with him even when he might not feel it in the immediate he knows that God is with him because he knows that God cannot act outside of who he has declared himself to be and God has declared himself to be a covenantal God who exists in covenantal love with his people and so Jeremiah relies on that we see the same attitude in the context of the Psalms both among David and other psalmist when even when they're crying out how long O Lord must I go on suffering forever and and there'll be that point in the Psalm where it's like but I'll trust in your unfailing love like nothing much has improved yet but I know God that your love is unfailing it is undeniable and so I can rest in that I can entrust myself to that and I can live as you have called me to live we're going to see that in Habakkuk which is another one of my favorite prophets where Habakkuk comes to God and he's like I won't spoil it all but he comes to God and he's like God what are you gonna do something about these wretched evil people and God tells Habakkuk don't worry man I've got it covered I'm gonna send in the Babylonians and Habakkuk's like are you wait what they're even more unrighteous than we are and God tells Habakkuk within the context of this back and forth he just says the righteous will live by faith and he's basically telling Habakkuk just trust me bro I've got this I know what I'm doing and in Habakkuk at the end of at the end of the the Habakkuk narrative gives this beautiful testimony to his faith that even if basically Habakkuk says even if like everything though the world around me crumbles into nothing I'm gonna trust the Lord and that's where we see Jeremiah that even in the midst of lament the recognition that things aren't as they should be which we should lament you know I mean the reason Jeremiah is suffering is because of the people's unrighteousness because they're not living as God has called them to live and so Jeremiah lament over his own suffering he also laments over the unrepentant hearts of the people around him and yet he still remains faithful this morning you and I were just chatting about some other types of things in ministry and all kinds of topics and one of the things that we talked about was the large number of people called in the ministry that don't make it to the finish line they step out of ministry before they're in full retirement and go do some other career or whatever else this reads like the opposite of that when when Jeremiah has been beaten and put in the stocks and he keeps getting hassled in one way or another and he's crying out to God but these words that you quoted earlier when he said his word is like a his word in my heart is like a fire a fire shut up in my bones I'm weary of holding it in that's God's word indeed I cannot like it's got to come out God's words planted in me and it must be proclaimed whether I receive praise or persecution it must come forth and I will don't presume to know all the reasons that so many you say I think you say 70 percent of pastors don't make it to the they start off ministry or whatever and don't make and don't retire as a as a pastor I don't know all the reasons for that or not but it seems like that's the opposite of this that this is say it's in me I can't not do this God has given me his word I must proclaim it regardless of whether or not I'm putting the stocks or treated fairly by my denomination or whatever you might want to call it I don't have a choice yeah and that's where like it's incumbent upon you know folks in vocational ministry who've been called to vocational ministry it's incumbent upon the the Christ follower himself or herself that we find our identity solely in Christ that our joy and the condition of our heart is rooted in God because if not we will in an essence flame out in one in one way or another if like if my ministry or if if God's call upon my life is dependent upon the response of others that that's that's not where the the root of our calling exists the root of our calling exists and being faithful to God and that's where you see with Jeremiah is that is at the end of the day while there are some prophets that that he is in connection with and obviously you know we when we're looking at Jeremiah we're talking about the whole of Judah and so within that whole there are those who are still faithful there are undoubtedly those who hang on Jeremiah's every word it's not that he's completely and utterly alone in this so at times I'm sure he feels that way but at the end of it all it's not about the response it's about responding to the one who is called and that's what Jeremiah is doing he's responding to the one who has called him and seeking to be faithful to him to where the call is not dependent upon the people of Judah responding to him amen that's true for people in vocational ministry it's true for everybody our our God's calling us to live and be in the world it should be a fire in our belly fire our bones it's it's it's got to come forth from from who we are okay so we've done two weeks on Jeremiah next week we'll conclude Jeremiah with something pretty special so you're just I'm gonna leave you just hanging like that it so you want to tune in next week to hear something pretty special about how we finish up looking at Jeremiah and if you want to jump in deeper you can go to our church's website fishersumc.org or the church app and click on the be God's light link that I'll take you to more elements in this year-long study of the Old Testament Ben we've been doing daily Bible readings that go with devotions as well as weekly sermons and if you want to stay up to date with these podcasts we encourage you to follow and rate them tell somebody about them so that we can spread the the good news of the gospel until next time make god bless (gentle music)
Mark Ellcessor and Ben Greenbaum continue their discussion of the book of Jeremiah, prophet to Judah as they were threatened then conquered by Babylon.