INTRODUCTION: Our metaphors in today’s text say it all.
God is the Potter. And we are the clay.
OUR QUESTION: Should the lump of clay tell the potter what to do?
▶︎ Object Lesson: Red terra cotta clay from Hobby Lobby.
Who has the most experience and the best resources to construct our decisions?
God (the Potter) has a catalog of human experience since time began. Every person, every experience, our birth, our death, jobs, personal relationships, religions … everything.
God (the Potter) is experienced with humanity and the affairs of this Earth on every imaginable level. God has life and work experience on Earth and in Heaven. And God is the only Person we know who is eternal. He knows all about this life and the next.
So how about the lump of clay? What is on our resume? Maybe not so impressive. Finite beings whose time on this earth is compared to a vapor or a mist. But not only limited by our finiteness, but our perspective is obscured by the darkness of sin. We have the experience of one person living on the planet for a very brief time.
So let’s come back to our question: Should the lump of clay tell the potter what to do?
▶︎ Please turn with me to Romans 9:19.
(1) The Potter has the right to do whatever he wants with the clay, 9:19-21.
▶︎ Do we trust the Potter? Who do we believe the Potter to be?
(2) The Potter reveals the riches of his glory to the mercy vessels, 9:22-24.
▶︎ GET THIS: The Potter patiently tolerates the vessels of wrath because of his desire to show the vessels of mercy the riches of his glory. He endures the rebellion of the “wrath vessels” with much patience in order that we (“the mercy vessels”) may better understand the riches of his glory.
(3) The Potter is the one who makes people “his people,” 9:25-29.
