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[ Silence ] [MUSIC PLAYING] [ Music ] In case you have fallen by the wayside of life,

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dreams and fears and shadow, you're all broken inside. You don't have to stay in the shape that you're in. Oh, the potter wants to put you back together again. Oh, the potter wants to put you back together again.

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In case your situation has turned upside down, And all that you've accomplished is now on the ground. You don't have to stay in the shape that you're in. Oh, the Potter wants to put you back together again.

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Oh, the part of one to put you back together again. You who are broken, stand by the parter's house. You who need me, stop by the potter's house. Give him the fragrance of your broken life, my friend.

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Oh, the potter wants to put you back together again. Oh, the potter wants to put you back together again. You who are broken, step up. Step up.

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Step up. Step up. ♪ The potter's house ♪ ♪ You who need bending ♪

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♪ Stop by ♪ ♪ The potter's house ♪ ♪ Give him the fragrance of your broken light ♪ ♪ Yes Lord ♪

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♪ My friend ♪ ♪ Oh, the Potter wants to put you back together again ♪ ♪ Oh, the Potter wants to put you back together again ♪ ♪ Oh, the Potter wants to put you back together again ♪

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[Applause] Saying, "Arise, 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.

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And he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. This message is entitled "The Potter's House." The Lord God sends his prophet Jeremiah on a journey. The place, the designation is stated in the command.

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Go down to the potter's house. This journey is the journey that Jeremiah is to take. He will not be alone, for God goes with him. He does not forsake his prophet.

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The journey is from Jerusalem to the Valley of Hinnom, go down to the potter's house. Every one of us is on a journey.

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I like to think of it as a spiritual journey. And where we are in the course of our journey depends upon our response to the eternal.

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For the Eternal speaks to every one of us, telling us to go to the potter's house. And it is there at the potter's house that we are to receive a lesson.

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Oh, I suppose Jeremiah had been around the Potter's house many times. That was no strange place for him. Just like many of us,

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we've been to this church many times, on many occasions. So why, in the name of heaven, would God tell Jeremiah to make a special trip

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to the Potter's house? You know, sometimes we can go to a place time and time again and never really see what's there. Never really get the message as to what is there for us.

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We have eyes, but we fail to see the message God has for us. So we need to pray in the language of the poet, "Open mine eyes that I may see. Open mine eyes that I may see glimpses of truth. thou hast for me." Now the prophet is known as a seer. So

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God sends him to the potter's house to see what he can see. Go down to the potter's house. Well, Jeremiah goes down to the potter's house. And what does he see?

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He sees something that he's seen many times before. He sees the potter at work, at his wheel, calling with a lump of clay. The wheel is horizontal, he turns it with his foot,

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and he works with this lump of clay, shaping it, molding it. This clay is very impressionable.

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And you can shape it if it responds to your work. The potter, it's interesting how he has it phrased in his book, the potter is at work at his work.

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He's got his wings. And he is toiling over a lump of clay. As I said, the wheel is horizontal. So he's toiling over this lump of clay.

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Pliable, pressurable, he toils over this lump of clay. to shape it the way He wants to shape it. God is toiling today with us. We're but a lump of clay and He's toiling at His will

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seeking to shape us in the way that He wants to shape us. in the way that he wants us to be. One translation of that says to shape, here means to shape after a yeast disaster.

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You know, if God really shaped us the way he wants to shape us, We wouldn't go to pieces when disaster comes. Because he shapes us so that we are prepared for disaster.

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Go back and read the first chapter of Jeremiah and see how he talks to Jeremiah when he calls him, when he tells him. He's shaping him.

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Yeah, yeah, the potter. The potter is at his wheel. toiling over a lump of clay, shaping it the way it should be. You know, some lumps of clay come out just the way the potter wants it.

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They follow his design. They are obedient to his skillful hands. turns out just the way the potter wants it to be. But then there are times, as Jeremiah stands here and watches the potter at work, that some extraneous matter gets

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into the clay. or it may be a small piece of rock or something, it gets into that lump of clay and it spoils the work

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that the potter is trying to do. You know, no matter how good your efforts are, sometimes they marred, is spoiled. So this lump of clay is spoiled in the hands of the potter.

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When I was coming along, the old folk used to speak of girls who for some reason went astray as being spoiled. and spoiled my daughter.

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And from that spoil, we had shotgun weddings. [LAUGHTER] Because someone had been spoiled by the quirk of circumstance, the potter.

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But when the potter looks and sees that this lump of clay has been spoiled, he doesn't take it and throw it into the garbage. He takes it and makes a new vessel.

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If it's broken, There it is, separated. And we often find ourselves victims of brokenness. Broken homes, brokenness on our jobs

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that we have to deal with. Brokenness in our communities, broken. So when the clan is broken, the potter is able to put it back.

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>> Yes, Lord. >> Together again. >> Yes, yes. >> And make it according to his design.

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You know God has a design for every one of us. >> Yes, yes. >> We may not know what it is, but he's got it. >> Yes, Lord.

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And it's our task to try to find out from God through prayer, through Bible reading, through meditation, what is your design for my life? Not for John's life, not for Sue's life, but for my life.

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And sometimes that takes us to the Lord. Find out what God's design is. I said, well, maybe Lord, you want me to be a lawyer. He said, no, that wasn't it.

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Maybe you want me to be a YMCA secretary. Maybe you want me to be a teacher. Or maybe you want me to be a college president. All of those things dangling in my mind.

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All of those things in the mind, this piece of clay. But God is the sovereign. Did you hear what I said? He is the sovereign.

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He is the ruler. He is the designer who is to determine what this piece or this lump of clay is to be.

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So, it's marred in the hands of the potter. Just staring at how

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this clay becomes marred in the hands of the potter. I'm talking about the designer. I'm talking about the one who is the sovereign,

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who rules of all. How in his permissive will, this lump of clay becomes marred in his hands. And we often wonder how one can grow up

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in the best of circumstances, religious power, Grew up in the church, religious grandparents, and had every opportunity to do good, and yet somehow -- >> Yes, Lord.

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>> -- become marred, broken in the hands of the father. Well, this is what Jeremiah sees. And really, I guess we might call it show and tell. You know, Jeremiah has a lot of symbiotic actions,

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but this is not what you may call a symbiotic action, because Jeremiah doesn't do anything but just observe. He observes what is taking place, And as he observes, God speaks to him.

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And brothers and sisters, it's a wonderful thing when you are on a journey, a spiritual journey I'm talking about, and the Lord God himself speaks to you.

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And he may speak to you through some particular event in your life. And you know in your heart of hearts that the Lord is addressing you.

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Now sometimes we can go a long time sitting in church and I watch and I remember how we used to sit back and talk to the girls while the preacher was preaching. Not know anything he said.

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Socializing. And this is not just young people, this is just people. But when, and somehow they miss the fact that the potter is at work making his marvelous design.

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They miss it, and yet somehow there are times when you come alive and you see, say, ah, ah, that's God there, God is acting, God is doing something special.

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And that's a wonderful moment. Now I don't know was it a wonderful moment for Jeremiah so that he chronicles it and he puts it here in this 18th chapter so that we who've come along

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many years later can understand, but we can also understand that the same God who spoke to Jeremiah speaks to us and he is telling us that he is the one,

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Not this popular, secular culture with which we are surrounded. We have all kinds of cultures. I don't understand them, but they're there.

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I've been trying to find out what is the hip hop culture. - Yes, yes Lord. - But it's there and they all have influence in there. They seem to impact our lives,

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But we must not forget that there is the divine designer who wants to shape us according to his will so that we may live according to his way. So be sure, we've all gotta go down,

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we've all got our Jerusalems and there are times when we have to go down from Jerusalem to the valley. But in the midst of the valley to know that God is with us and that he is shaping us even through the valley experience. That something wonderful can happen in the valley.

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The song said, "Oh I went to the valley and I didn't go to stay but my soul got happy and I stayed all day." God can give us a wonderful experience down in the valley. So, not only does God shape us, but He has a plan. He has a plan for us. He has a plan for our lives. We may be dilly-dallying

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and here and there, not knowing where we're going. But God has a plan. And what we need to do is to hook up with God. Because he has a plan for our lives.

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Our youngest daughter, Ria, was in college. And she just kept changing her major. And I said, girl, don't you know this is costly? [LAUGHTER]

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I say every time you change-- even though you're passing all your courses, when you change your major, there's another set of rules, another set of courses, a curriculum that you've got to satisfy in order

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to get that degree. So yeah, yeah, daddy, but this is what I want to do. And you should be glad that at least I found what I wanted to do.

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Well, we ought to be glad when anyone really discovers what God's plan is for their life. And so God's plan here is that this would be a vessel. In other words, this vessel will hold certain things.

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It will contain certain things. It's an earthly vessel, but it has a purpose of service. And so this is the plan, that this will be vessel. A vessel of God.

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That's his plan for you. That's his plan for me. To be his vessel. To be it's.

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Through whom he communicates his love. through you, whom he communicates his sympathy, through whom he communicates his grace, to be a child, yes, to be a child of God's grace.

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So that's the purpose of this vessel. We have this treasure, says Paul, in earthen vessels. That means in vessels of clay. we have this treasure, the treasure of the gospel.

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And God's plan is that we might use it, that we may carry it out. And the wonderful thing about it is that when this clay becomes barred,

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God puts it together again. Isn't that wonderful? that he puts it together again. When it is marred, he puts it together.

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It becomes marred in the hands of the potter, and in spite of the perversity in this clay, he takes it and makes it a vessel according to his satisfaction.

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That's so wonderful. That's good news. That's what God does. It fills me with joy to know how he will take this old vessel that's been marred and take it and put it together again and let it be a vessel that serves him. My heart rejoices when I think about that. Because one day, one day I was on my journey. I was on a spiritual journey and God arrested me and turned me around and lifted me to a new level where I could see a vision of his love and of his glory.

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And made me a new vessel and he's still working on that vessel It needs a little work here and a little work there and he's still working on it I'm so glad that he hasn't given up on me So brothers and sisters be patient with me

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Because God is not through with me yet He's still working on me Thanks be to God that he's the potter and I'm just the clay. And I submit myself to his will and his way.

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And he does the rest. He does the rest. It's an open door he sets before us to become submissive to his will, to be guided by his hand.

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And as we come to this moment, we ask that you respond to the goodness and the grace of God by giving him your life just as this clay. Surrender. Surrender. Surrender to God. And he'll do the rest. He'll make you the kind of vessel he wants you to be. As we come to the hymn of invitation, we ask you to come.

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By letter, by Christian experience, on professional faith, we ask you to come. Let God take you, a broken vessel, and put you together in a way

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that you can serve him with honor. Come, come. Come, come. Come unto me all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest, he says, come.

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Come ye that love the Lord, come. The potter saw a vessel ♪ That was broken by the wind and rain ♪

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♪ And he sought with so much compassion ♪ ♪ To make it over again ♪ ♪ Over again ♪ ♪ Oh, I was that vessel ♪

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♪ That no one thought was good ♪ - Lord, the church is open. We invite you to come. ♪ I cried Lord you're the potter ♪

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♪ And I am the clay ♪ ♪ Make me over again ♪ ♪ Today ♪ ♪ My friend ♪

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♪ If you're broken ♪ ♪ And shattered by the storms of life ♪ ♪ And have searched in vain for the answer ♪ ♪ To all your turmoil and strife ♪

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♪ Don't strive ♪ ♪ Just look to the Savior ♪ ♪ Who now can set you free ♪ ♪ And cry, Lord, you're the parter ♪

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♪ I am the claim ♪ ♪ Make me over again today ♪ ♪ Then God picked up the pieces ♪ ♪ Of my broken heart that day ♪

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Then he made me a new vessel And revived my soul again So you ought to let God pick up the pieces of your broken, your broken heart today. Let him make you a new vessel And take all your sins away

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Church, I'm here to tell you That if you just let him ♪ He'll take all your sins ♪ ♪ He'll make you new and He'll make you whole ♪

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♪ He'll take your sins away ♪ (audience applauding) Could you go now to the rear of the sanctuary? Oh, celebrating birthday.

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All right, you're already there. Do we have the fellowship period arranged for today? We invite those who are visiting with us to, would you hold your hand, those who are visitors again?

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Visitors, hold your hand. Ebenezer, would you go to those visitors invite them to the fellowship period. Some Ebenezer member near them, invite them to the fellowship period.

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Could you bow your heads? Now unto him who is able to keep you from falling and present you faultless before his glorious presence with exceeding joy, through the only wise God our Father, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, now and forevermore.

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Amen. Amen. [MUSIC - "THE LORD LIVES"] The Lord bless you and keep you.

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The Lord lift his countenance upon you. And give you peace. And give you peace. And give you peace.

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And give you peace. The Lord lend his face to shine upon you. [MUSIC] [MUSIC - "AWARD ME GRACIOUS"]

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♪ The Lord be gracious, gracious unto you ♪ ♪ Amen, amen, amen, amen ♪ [MUSIC] [MUSIC]

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