 It's time to praise Jesus. Jesus, we thank you and we praise you and you alone. Jesus, you paid the price for our praise. 39 stripes, infinite praise. So we lift our hallelujah up to you and we say be magnified, be glorified. We lift our eyes to you. We set our gaze upon you. We set our affections upon you. You are the only worthy one and we love you this morning in Jesus' name and everyone said, amen, hey, you may be seated, you may be seated. As we continue to worship the Lord and remembering the price that he paid on the cross, one of the things he also purchased for us is a new family. When you're born again, you're born into the people of God and today we have an opportunity to celebrate with families during this sacred moment of child dedications. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna call some families up. We're gonna spend some time praying for them and as the church, we're gonna believe God that we can partner with these families as they seek to raise these children in the way that they should go. So right now I want to invite the parents of Jack Owen to make their way up, Jack Owen. Also, I want to invite the parents of Maryam Renee to come up, Maryam Renee to come up. I'd like to invite the parents of Franklin to make their way up as well. We'll also like to invite the parents of Rena Shine and Purity Rise to make their way up. Also like to invite the parents of Evelyn Oakley and Sadie Hope to make their way up. Last but not least, I'd like to invite the family of Kayvon Schultz to make their way up. Kayvon Schultz, beautiful. Where we do value strong families and are excited that you are taking your responsibility as a parent to seriously dedicate your child to the Lord. We know it takes intentionality. We know it takes prayer. We know it takes passion. And this morning is our honor as the church to partner with you as you dedicate your children to the Lord. So I'm gonna ask you a couple of questions and I want your response to be, we will. Will you as parents consecrate yourself to the Lord to help your children walk out the plans and purposes God has for them? Are you making a decision to dedicate your children to the Lord this morning, recognizing that according to Psalm 127, they are a gift to you from the Lord? Last question. Will you accept the responsibility to teach and train your children in the ways of righteousness, to love God, to love God's word and to love God's people? We will, we will also. I wanna invite some pastors up as we gonna pray. Church, would you extend your hands this way as we pray? Church, as your hands are extended, let me ask you a question as well. Church, do you commit to partner with these families to raise up children that will know God, love God and serve them all the days of their life? Church, if you do say we will. Amen, let's pray for these families. Father, we love you and we thank you for every single family that's represented. God, we pray that you wanna empower the parents, Holy Spirit even now, would you fill them with more of your love, more of your grace, more of your truth? We ask that you would lead them as they lead their little ones to know who Jesus is. God, we pray that they will serve you all the days of their life. That even now, God, we speak destiny and calling over each and every one of them. God, we say that they are the Lord's, they belong to you. And when you were forming them in their mother's womb, you had a plan and a purpose for their life. And we say even now, God, that they will be ministers unto the Lord. God, we say that this generation will lead millions of people that come to know who Jesus is. We pray for a revival generation with these little ones right now. And we thank you for their lives. Lord, have your way in them. In Jesus' name we pray. And everyone said, amen, amen, amen. Well, we have a tradition here at Rating and Church just to show off the cuteness of these little ones. And so right now we're gonna do the symbol lift. Church, let's celebrate these families as they show off these beautiful, beautiful babies. Amen, look at those. Picture moment, picture moment, come on church. Let's celebrate these beautiful kids. Amen, amen, amen, hallelujah, hallelujah. Awesome, awesome, awesome. You may be seated. Church, we're gonna continue and worship. Why don't you get to your feet, stand up and let's greet one another as we continue this service. Well, good morning Rating and Church. Thank you so much for worshiping with us. If I haven't had the joy of meeting you yet, my name is Tim and I serve as the Location Pastor here at Richland Location. And I wanna say thank you, especially to the families of those who've come to celebrate your babies being dedicated to church. Can we welcome them? Thank you so much for being with us this morning. Really appreciate you. Hey, if this is your first time or you're a returning guest here at Rating and Church, if you will be so kind to take a moment and then seat back pocket in front of you, you'll see a communication card. If you fill out some basic information, hold on to that card and at the end of service, make your way to Radiant Central. And we have a gift just that we wanna give to you to recognize that you came and to show you our appreciation for worshiping with us today. There's a lot of things to celebrate. One thing we're really excited about is that our album, All Eyes on Jesus is out. Can we praise God for that? Praise God for that. Listen, if you wanna know what a praying in worshiping church sounds like, please get the album. I wanna encourage you. This isn't so that we could be famous. This is All Eyes on Jesus in Latin. It was Friday, Friday morning. I just put it on during my quiet time and then I text Pastor Caleb. I'm like, bro, I'm on my face right now before Jesus. These are beautiful songs, prophetic songs that this house, this church has come up with. So we just encourage you to download it wherever you can stream music. All right, play it in your house, play it in your car, parents. I encourage you to teach your children these songs, right? During family worship, it's just a beautiful, beautiful album that will hopefully uplift us as we look to Jesus, who is our hope, who is our savior. So that is out, please download that. At this time, I want to invite our ushers to make their way forward as we receive our tithes and our offerings. As they come up, wanna remind us, you'll see this in the video, that in a couple of weeks, we have our Be Radiant class. This is a time for you to hear the heart, the vision, and the mission of the church. And maybe you've been here and you're considering membership. We don't want you just to attend church. Church is something that you just watch. Church is something that you go to. Church is a family that you belong to. So if you're here, we will love to invite you. You'll get a little bit more details on the video. I'm gonna pray for our offering today. It's gonna be an amazing day as we're gonna hear from the word of God today. Let's pray. Father, we do love you again. God, we thank you for who you are. And we ask now, God, that you would make us cheerful givers as we give to you in your kingdom. God, we do that so that family, so even these little ones would come to know you. God, we pray that you will open up our lives, our hearts, and our minds to receive God, the word of God. Holy Spirit, we say we surrender to you and your will. And we're hungry. God, we're actually ready to hear from you this morning. God, we thank you for the family of God that I truly do thank you personally for Radiant Church. And I ask that you would continue to knit our hearts together as family as we pursue your heart. We pray these things in Jesus' name, and everyone said, amen. And we're so glad that you're joining us. Whether you're with us in person or online, here are a few things that you need to know. To stay up to date on everything going on, head to radiant.church or follow us on social media at the Radiant City. Whether this is your first time here at Radiant, you've been attending for years or you just wanna learn more, Discover Radiant is the first step for you. In this short three-part video series, you'll dive deeper into who we are, learn more about our history, and find out how you can get more involved. To get started and watch Discover Radiant, head over to our website at radiant.church slash discover. If you would like to give today, visit radiant.church slash give or drop an envelope into one of our offering boxes at any location. There are so many ways to get plugged in and grow here at Radiant. After service, head over to Radiant Central where someone from our team would love the opportunity to meet you, answer any questions, and give you a gift. We're so glad that you've joined us today. Thanks for being here. Created to flourish. The Be Radiant class is designed to help you learn more about being a part of our church family and growing as a disciple of Jesus. In this class, you will discover what it means to be a member of Radiant Church and explore how to align with its vision, purpose, and heartbeat. Our next Be Radiant class is on Sunday, November 12th at our Richland Portage and Downtown locations. Sign up today on our website. Radiant, how are you guys doing? Everybody doing good? You guys look good. Isn't it fun to be in Michigan in the fall? Man, it's so good. And Jane and I were supposed to be in Israel leading a tour this weekend. And so because of that, I had invited a great friend of mine to come and to minister here. He was here in January for seek. His name is John Chastine. I'll call him up in a minute, but he came kind of last minute and we had a cancellation. So I said, John, can you come help me out? So he's like, oh yeah, man. So he flew up here, preached and did a great job and administered several times at his church. And he said, the only request I have is if you ever invite me back and you invite me back when it's not like a polar vortex. And so we decided, well, let's invite him during the fall because that's beautiful. And so this morning, we do have a guest. His name is Pastor John Chastine. His wife, Michelle, is with him. And he's become a good friend over the last several years. He pastors an amazing church in Oklahoma City called Victory Church. Victory is a Victory Center. It's church. And they have a location now in Great Vine, Texas as well. But he's brilliant. He's younger than me, but he's my big brother. And I look up to him, love him, respect him so much. It's an honor to have him here. So at all of our locations, would you stand up on your feet and welcome to the platform, John Chastine. What's going on, Radiant Church? You can be seated real quick. I want to take just a quick second and say hello to the Portage campus and the downtown campus. What a pleasure to be with you. Those of you here at the Richland campus, I gotta tell you, we're family, you don't know it because Pastor Lee and I are brothers. We're brothers in Christ. And so because we're brothers, that makes me Uncle John. Because he's the father of this house. And so get it. So everybody, all campuses, everybody just say with me, hello Uncle John. Hello. See, now I feel at home. Now I feel like I can just preach the word to you. No, I'm so honored to be here. Pastor Lee and Jane, they are just some of the most amazing people. And Lee has been such a good friend to me in a lot of ways, a mentor to me. And I love them so much. I had the honor for about five years of being the president of the King's University and Seminary and being a part of training ministers and bachelor's, master's and doctorate degrees and theology and things like that. And I told Lee last night at dinner, and I mean this with everything in me, your pastor is a true theologian. He really is, he really, really is. In fact, he's probably more educated than most PhDs that I know. And I mean that from the bottom of my heart. And so you have a pastor who loves the word of God, who dives deep, who digs deep into it, who reads way more theological books than most theologians I know. And so I just want you to know how rich of content and how rich of sermons and leadership that you're getting. And I know you know this, but I just came to remind you. So can we give just honor where honors do? Love you, love you. You guys are amazing. And it's an honor to be here. My wife, Michelle is with me, my best friend in the whole wide world. Michelle Chastine, and we've been married 22 years and we have a 16 year old and a 13 year old. So pray for us. Okay, we're in the middle of it right now. Now we have great kids and they're doing amazing jobs. And I love pastoring and I love your pastor. So I'm honored to be here. If you have your Bibles with you, open up to the book of Jeremiah today. My prayer is that I can bring a word that encourages you but also challenges you and hopefully reminds us, reminds us of something really important today. So I'm gonna go to Jeremiah. I'm also gonna jump over to Isaiah. That's a lot of jumping. So if you wanna just watch the screens, you can watch the screens too, okay? So this passage in Jeremiah, when I begin to read it, it will be a passage familiar to many of you who've been in church for a number of years. But I pray that I can use it to encourage you and maybe shed some light on where we may be in our walk with the Lord. So Jeremiah chapter 18 is where we're gonna go. And I'm gonna read verses one through four. I'm gonna read out of the new King James version, okay? So here we go. If you're there, say amen. If you're not there, say hold on. I'm not gonna hold on because my clock's ticking, okay? All right, Jeremiah chapter 18 verse one. It says 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 my words. And 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 marred in the hand of the potter. So he made it again into another vessel as it seemed good to the potter to make. Love this passage of scripture. We're gonna unpack that but flip over with me if you can real quick to Isaiah chapter 64. Isaiah chapter 64 verse eight. I'm just gonna read one verse. It says this. It says, but now, oh Lord, you are our father. We are the clay and you our potter. And all we are, the work of your hand. Today, I wanna talk to you and remind us all that there's a particular place that we belong. It's the place that I hope to always be in. It's the place that I hope to pursue and to remain in. If you ever receive a letter from me, it's kind of, everybody has their signature where they sign their signature sincerely or blessings or whatever, however you write your signature. At the end of every letter that I ever write is the title of my message today, okay? This is what my letter say. This is the title of the message in his grip. In his grip. Let's pray real quick. Father, we thank you for the word of God and I'm thankful that we are in a house who loves your word. The Bible describes your word that it never returns void. And so, Father, I pray that as your word leaves my lips today that it would fall on fertile soil and that seed would go deep into the soil of our hearts and that it would bear much fruit in our life. We thank you for it. In Jesus' name and everybody said, I have a favorite cheesy pastor joke. Have you ever heard cheesy pastor jokes? So I have a cheesy pastor joke. It's my favorite one. It's this story about this little boy and he was in church with his grandma and the pastor of this church was quoting this passage in Psalm 130, 103 where it says, and we are reminded that we are nothing but dust. And this little boy leans over to his grandma and goes, grandma, what's but dust? Told you it was cheesy, okay? All right, I'm sorry. I was told you it was bad. Come on, leave your neighbor right now and say you're but dust. I mean, really, are we more than dust? In Genesis chapter one where creation is taking place, do you know what God made us from, right? This passage that we're reading gives us this picture that we are the clay. It says you are the potter, we are the clay. We know what clay is made from, right? I mean, I'm from Oklahoma. There's no such thing as good soil in Oklahoma. It's all clay. But even clay is a mixture of dust and water. And for some reason, I don't know exactly why, but for some reason when God chose to use this analogy to describe who we are, he used this analogy of clay, that we are clay in the potter's hand. And I want to extend an invitation, the same invitation that this passage in Jeremiah says when the prophet, when the Lord speaks to the prophet Jeremiah and he says, I want you to go down to the potter's house. There was something happening at the potter's house where the Lord wanted to remind us where we belong and what our role is. And so just for a little bit this morning, I want to invite you to go on a journey with me as we go down to the potter's house. And what I want to very simply do, I don't want to over complicate the word of God because it really is simple. If we'll just let the word of God preach, it does a pretty good job of preaching. And so what I want to do is I want to take this text that I just read to you in Jeremiah and I want to pick out four quick things, all right, as we're reminded. So I want to invite you to go down to the potter's house with me for the next few minutes as we dig into this. And let me go to verse one. Verse one says this, the word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying arise and go down to the potter's house and there, somebody say there, and there I will cause you to hear my words. So the first thing that happens at the potter's house, if you're taking notes, write this down. The potter's house is a place of calling. It's a place of calling. And I want to emphasize the word there. The Lord says it's at that place that you're going to hear my words. And so as we even frame in our minds that we are the clay and there's one place that the clay belongs, it's at the potter's house. And as we go down to the potter's house, we're reminded that it's in this place when we are reminded on a regular basis as believers, that we belong on the potter's wheel, not in the potter's seat. Our place is the potter's wheel. It's a place of surrender. And the Lord is reminding us, hey, whatever situation is happening in your life, you're trying to raise kids, you're trying to build a business, you're trying to heal your marriage, you're trying to go through whatever it is you're going through. We must be continually reminded that it is not my job to put God on the potter's wheel and let me shape God around my life. That my place is to say, Lord, my hands are open, my life is open. I just want to climb up on the potter's wheel and make myself vulnerable and pliable enough to say, Lord, I want you to begin to shape me and speak to me. And it is in the potter's wheel, in the potter's house that we are shaped and molded. We're in his grip, in his grip. And not radiant church, because radiant church and victory church, of course, we're like those are the two perfect churches in America. So I'm not talking to y'all, but this is for like social media clips later, you know? I believe that many times as Christians, we have a tendency to place God on the wheel of our lives. And I don't know about you, but I tend to sometimes just ask God to do what I need him to do. And God is sometimes my vending machine. And I'm like, okay, God, here's the plan, be seven. And I have to remind myself sometimes that, Lord, I just want to get up on the potter's wheel and say, Lord, mold me, shape me into whatever vessel that you need me to be used for. My life is yours. And so the first thing we're reminded of at the potter's house is that my, this is a place of calling. This is a place of where God molds me, okay? The second thing, let's go to verse three. Verse three says, then I went down to the potter's house and there he was making something, making something at the wheel. So the first thing that happens at the potter's house is it's a place of calling. The second thing that happens at the potter's house is it's a place of shaping. It's a place of shaping. In this analogy, we are the clay, right? We are the clay, he is the potter. If we're gonna be the clay, if in this analogy we are the clay, we have to know what it feels like to be the clay, okay? So let me ask this question. What does it feel like to be the clay? Well, if you've ever really wanted to be the clay, you will soon realize that being the clay means being folded and pushed, folded and pushed, folded and pushed and placed on something. There's this Psalm in Psalm 40 that says, he pulled me out of the mirey clay and set my feet upon the rock. And if we really wanna say, well, yes, Lord, I wanna be moldable, I wanna be, then we should really understand what it means to be shaped because shaping is uncomfortable. Shaping is being pressed and pushed and nudged and made into a shape that is not our normal shape. If left to ourselves, we are shapeless. In fact, when the Lord created the earth, this says the earth was formless and void. And God came and he began to speak and it came into shape. And this is a picture of us that as we climb ourselves up on the potter's wheel, we just have to understand what this means. It means to be vulnerable enough to be pressed and pushed and prodded and nudged and forced and shaped by the potter's hand. It's uncomfortable. It's not always comfortable. And just when you start getting used to the shape, then for some reason the potter can take his hands and just push them down deep into your soul and start to deal with stuff in my heart and start to push me and pry and nudge and nod and the Lord will come in. If you really wanna be shaped by the potter, y'all, I'm just saying the potter will come in and say, hey, this anger issue down in your heart, we're gonna deal with that. This little habit you have that no one knows about, but you and I both know you have, I want to push some things in your life. And it's not that he's wanting to punish us, he's wanting to use us. And we would all say, I wanna be used by God, I wanna be used by God, I wanna be used by God, I wanna have a purpose. And the potter's like, okay, then climb up here. Cause there's some things we need to do. I need to push, I need to. And just when you think things are getting normal, then it'll start, your life will start spinning, you know, spinning will begin to happen. And just when you think, okay, I'm starting to take shape here, I think I see what you're doing here, Lord, I'm ready for ministry, I'm ready for marriage, I'm ready for the new career. God will like, no, we're gonna fine tune you just a little bit. We're gonna shape just a little bit more cause you have a little bit of flaws here and there. And I'm just gonna take you and I'm gonna shape you and I'm gonna mold you. And this is the work of the Holy Spirit in us, this is the work of the Holy Spirit taking us from glory to glory, from this step to this step. And it's good. And I just wanna be honest, I don't wanna come in here and get everybody fired up. I wanna be used, I wanna be used. If we're the clay, we need to really understand what it looks like to be the clay and how uncomfortable it can be to be used by the Lord. So the clay can never ever mold itself. It must be pliable. So we should never mistake ourselves as the potter. We should never mistake. We should never mistake the place that we belong and where God is calling us to be. And this happens time and time again in scripture. Time and time again in scripture. And this is the good news, this is all normal. Time and time again in scripture, people would take their role from the potter's wheel to the potter's seat. King Saul did it. King Saul decided that he wanted to decide when the sacrifice was gonna be and how it was gonna be done. He had removed himself from the potter's wheel and said, let me just take charge. Jonah did it when he ran. Peter did it when he cut off an ear. And time and time again in our lives, we see things, I don't know about you, but sometimes I'm like, okay, God, I see what you're shaping here. Let me take over. Let me help you, Lord. Let me shape this a little better for you because I have in mind a shape and it's really coming to the understanding that no, Lord, I'm just in your grip. I need you to shape me. I need you to mold me. I need you to do what you need to do. Moses had this moment where he went up to the Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments, remember this? And Aaron was left down at the bottom with all the people. And there was a moment where Aaron decided to take his own grip of this situation. Let me show it to you. It's in Exodus 32, verse four. This is Aaron and it says, he took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. And then they said, these are your gods, Israel, these are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt. God was on the mountain shape in their future for them. And Aaron was down on the bottom saying, I got this, Lord. Let me shape this for you. There is a designed shape that the Lord wants you to be for you to be used by God. The vessel, and I like to think of it as when the potter sits down at the potter's wheel, before the potter even puts his hand to the clay, in his mind, he has something in mind, right? Before he ever begins to shape you for what he has designed you to be, he has something in mind. And the biggest temptation for me is for me to try to help the Lord as if he needs my help. For me to take over and be like, well, let me help you here, Lord. This is how my church needs to look. This is how my family needs to look. This is how my career needs to look. This is how my church needs to look. Like, I have a tendency to come in and swoop in, but the Lord has something in mind. I'm reminded of when God spoke to Ananias. Remember this, when Saul became Paul, and God tells Ananias to go and lay hands on Saul before he's Paul. And this is what the Lord said, watch in Acts 9, not 15. It says, the Lord said to him, go, he's talking about Paul, for he, being Paul, is a chosen vessel of mine. Before Saul ever became Paul, before Paul ever wrote a big portion of the New Testament, God had a vessel in mind. And God has a vessel in mind for you. And he's trying to shape us and mold us. And the best thing we can do is to climb up on the potter's wheel and say, Lord, shape me into whatever shape you need me to be used for. So that's the second point. It's a place of shaping. Third point, we should all be really thankful for this one. It's a place of reshaping. Let me show you this. Verse four, and the vessel that he made of clay. So he made a vessel, okay, was marred in the hand of the potter. This is rich. So he made it again into another vessel. So he made a vessel, something happened that the vessel became marred. And so he made it again. Aren't you thankful that we serve a God that when we mess up, he doesn't just throw us to the side and say, you're done. That was your one shot. You're done. I love this text because it says that he takes the clay that was marred. Now we need to understand what the word marred means. Okay, let me show it to you. The word marred in the Hebrew is the Hebrew word shakaf. You have to really have to hack yesterday, shakaf. There's nobody real close, so I can spit. This is what that means. It means to be destroyed, corrupted, ruined, rotted, perverted. Now let's use some of our own, let's insert some of our own 2023 words here, okay? Divorced. Bankrupt. Broken. Addicted. Lost. I don't know about you, but this makes me excited that when I mess up, God doesn't throw me to the side. He picks me back up and he puts me back on the parter's wheel and he says, let's do this again. And he made it again. He made it again. He made it again. This is good news for us. There's one key to this, one really big key to this text that it says that the marred clay was in the parter's hand. So if you really wanna know the key to being reused by God, when we've messed it up, when God was shaping us and we inserted ourselves and messed up the whole thing and God decides, okay, we can do this again, but only one circle and only one way this can happen. There is a prerequisite. The marred clay must be in the parter's hand. And what's crazy is that when we mess up, the tendency in the clay in us, in our flesh, is that when we mess up, shame drives us away from the parter's hand. And shame drives us away from the church. And shame drives us away from wanting to do what would be right in the situation. But this text says that there's only one place that the marred clay belongs and it's in the parter's hand. So God is a God of reshaping, remolding, renewing, and this is good news that no matter how marred we are, no matter how broken we are, no matter how scattered we are, there is a God who can reshape, renew, restart, redevelop, right? Can I get an amen up in Radiant Church today? This is good news for us. There's one more really important step in making pottery. Now, I'm not a pottery expert. My luck, someone here at Radiant is and they'll come correct me after the sermon, but. So in the process of making pottery, there's one step that is rarely preached about. We love the shaping part. I wanna be used by God, God shape me. You know that old hill song, shape me. Mold me, use me, walk beside me. Okay, I can't sing. I'll stop. We like this part. I wanna be used by God, I wanna be shaped by God. But anybody that knows anything about pottery knows that there is a final step to pottery before it can actually be used. So if you really wanna go to the potter's house, when I first said, come with me to the potter's house. Yes, let's go to the potter's house. I wanna be shaped. I wanna be molded. I wanna be used. It's a place of calling. It's a place of shaping. It's a place of reshaping. And point number four, it's a place of fire. No amen, it's cool. It's not enough. Let me say this. It's not enough to be shaped by God. You have to be used by God. But you know that in the realm of pottery, you could actually be in the right shape, but you're unusable. You're in the form of a pitcher. You're in the form of something that's meant to bring a refreshing thirst to those around you. But you're not ready to hold the water yet because you haven't gone through the fire yet. Now here's the scary thing. Listen, I understand that we don't like the word fire. It's not a fun word, but let me just tell you some good news when it comes to the fire, okay? There is a fire in the process of being used by the Lord. But the good news is God tempers the fire. God tempers the fire. And this is the other really good news, all right? This is preach. If I was a hanky waving pastor, this would be the part that I would get you waving in your white hanky, all right? The fire is not authorized to destroy you. Whatever it is, whatever the fire is, whatever the test is, whatever the circumstance is, you just need to know that when I say you need to go through the fire, if you really want to be used by God, you need to know first and foremost that this fire, whatever it is, it can't destroy you. It doesn't have the authority to do so. So in this realm, in the realm of fire, let's look at this analogy in the pottery standpoint, okay? There's two fires, I didn't know this, but there's actually two fires that pottery must go through to be used, to be effective, okay? I'll show you these real quick. The first thing, the first fire that pottery must go through, the first one is called the bisque fire, the bisque fire. This fire is torched at around 800 degrees, 800 to 1900 degrees. Now when this piece of pottery comes through this fire, it is officially referred to as ceramic. That's what makes it ceramic. Now the interesting thing, this is very interesting to me, I don't know, maybe it's not to you. The interesting thing to me is in this fire, water is the enemy. The purpose of this fire is to burn off every single water molecule that resides inside the clay because if moisture remains in the clay, it won't work, it's too fragile to break. So isn't it interesting that the very thing that this piece of pottery will one day contain while it's being formed is an enemy? Now think about that in the context. Colossians says that we are designed to carry the glory of the Lord. Now, you might be designed to carry it to pour it out for others, but you're never hoped meant to contain it. So in the formation of you becoming usable by the Lord, part of that process is God getting at any pride, anything in you, right? Anything in you that might cause you to fall apart, might cause you not to be able to contain this thing because in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 7, Paul said this, he says, we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. Now, there's two reasons that water is the enemy, okay? Problem number one, if there's water, I'm sorry, at this process, not the water, at this process, when it becomes ceramic, there's two problems that make this pot still unusable. It has to go through another fire and there's two reasons. The first problem is it's too absorbent. When it comes to the bisque fire, it's ceramic, but it's very absorbent, okay? And whatever you put in, think about this, some of you are really smart, you're gonna hit me. Whatever you put in the container, the container will absorb it for itself. So there could be a reason that you have not gotten the promotion yet. You have not gotten the acceleration yet. You have not gotten to the process yet because God can't put wealth in you to be a distributor of wealth because you're too absorbent. We really want influence, we wanna be used by God, but unfortunately God says, there's another fire I gotta take you through because if I put influence in you now, you will absorb the influence for yourself instead of pouring it out for other people. No way man's there either. Cool, I'm cool with that. Thank you, pastor. So it's too absorbent. The other problem is, the other problem is, the saints at this point through only one fire is too fragile, it's too fragile. At this point in the process of creating this pottery, just the slightest bump, it would shatter, it would shatter. There's another fire that it must go through and there's a lot of fires that the saints need to be willing to go through. And let me tell you something, your pastor's been preaching amazing sermons on Israel and in times. There is a time coming where the saints are going to have to be less fragile and some of us are too fragile. The slightest bump and we lose faith in the Lord. The slightest bump and we lose our temper, whatever it is. And so there's a second fire that it must go through. So if you wanna know what the second fire is, if I haven't lost you yet, there's a second fire required that pottery must go through and it's called, it's referred to as the glazing fire, the glazing fire. And the glazing fire, the heat's turned up even more. The heat is up around 2,300 degrees. What they do is they take this ceramic that's been through the bisque fire and they coat it. They coat it with something. And then as it goes into the second fire, that coat seals and solidifies. And now the container no longer absorbs what it contains. It's just meant to pour it out, right? Now all of a sudden, the vessel is filled with something that's going to bring rich nourishment and thirst quenching power to those that come into its proximity. And I get to contain something, but at the end of the day, it's not just for me. It's so that I can pour it out to other people. And I must go through the glazing fire in order for that to happen. And because of this, it's far less fragile. Far less fragile. It can hit stuff. In some cases, it can fall from shorter heights and it won't even shatter. It's far more sturdy, far more bold and strong. And I have found in my experience in pastoring is Christians get really excited about shaping, but we avoid the fire. We avoid the fire. Now what does fire look like? Fire could mean a lot of different things. Joseph's dream is talked about in Psalm 105. It says the word that God gave Joseph tested him until the time of its fulfillment, that there is a testing. Okay, I got a verse for you that nobody will say amen to. Okay, so I'm just preparing myself for it. James one, two through four. Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Watch verse four. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. I've never liked that verse. Can I just, can I confess to you? I don't like that verse even now as I say it, but I do think that the context of this verse makes sense in the form of a fire. He says, consider it pure joy when you go through fires, when you go through testing of many kinds. Why would he say that? Because let me tell you something. If you're going through the fire, you're almost ready. When ceramic is being formed, when clay is being formed, it becomes ceramic, and then it's in the glazing fire, the potter knows this thing's almost ready to be used. So let me just tell you something. If you're going through a fire right now, you need to just remind yourself, God is preparing me for something. You need to encourage some people that are going through trials and tribulations and say, this just means God's preparing you to be used. This is good news. God is going to use this to empower and equip people all around. One last thing, there is a fire for God's people. You're like, can we not have John back anymore? Uncle John, you're supposed to be more encouraging to us. Next time, I'll be super encouraging, all right? I'll just tell you, God's gonna fix everything, all right? There is a fire for God's people, but I wanna remind you, he also is the one who tempers the fire. He tempers the fire. The potter knows exactly how hot to make this fire. Now, there's another thing I learned about pottery that I didn't know. There's this thing in pottery world that's referred to as a sagor, or a sagor, depending on how you pronounce it. Now, what this is, is this is a vessel, okay? That the potter knows, I have a vessel that I'm creating and it's ready to go to the fire, but I don't want the flames to lick the vessel. I want this vessel to go inside another vessel. So inside, there's this vessel that takes the flame, takes the flame, because inside, it's heated up because it's doing a work on that inner vessel, while the outer vessel takes all of the abuse from the flame. Now, this is a picture of what Jesus does for us. He tempers the fire. In Colossians 3-3, it says, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. That Jesus took the brunt of it. I don't know if you know this or not. Jesus took the brunt, by his stripes you are healed. He tempered the fire. The flames hit him, not you, but it's doing a work in me so that God can do a work through me. Isaiah 43-2 says, when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, and the flames will not set you ablaze. Ask Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They went in the fire too. And it says, the nothing burnt, they didn't even smell like smoke, y'all. Y'all walked by somebody smoking a cigarette, you smell like smoke. They were in the furnace, and it says they came out, they didn't even smell like smoke. The only thing that burned off of them was the things that bound them. I just came to remind you today y'all, the Potter's house is the place to be. It's the place to be. Yes, it's uncomfortable. Yes, he's gonna press on you and push you, and you're gonna be uncomfortable. He's gonna lift you up out of the Myrie pit and set you on a rock, but then the work's just beginning. This is the day you gave your life to Jesus. He picked you up out of the Myrie pit and put you on the Potter's wheel, and you're like, oh good, my life is perfect now. Oh, you think? Let me get to work on you. And then six years in, you mess it up, and oh, God's like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're marred, but you're not done. Put you back on the Potter's wheel, reshapes you, and you're like, oh, I see what you did, Lord, oh, I'm the perfect shape, I'm ready. You're not quite ready. We gotta put you in the fire first. You're gonna go through some trials, you're gonna go through some challenges, you're gonna go through some circumstances, but it's to be used. It's because God wants to use you in a powerful way. I want to invite you, and I wanna close by just praying for you, all right? And you don't have to respond to this. At Portage, at downtown here, you don't have to respond to this, okay? But if you, I just wanna pray over you. If you would like to accept the invitation, okay? To go down to the Potter's house. Knowing what you know, knowing what you know. I didn't sugar coat this thing, okay? So if you don't wanna stand up, I understand. It's cool. But if you're like, man, I don't care what my life is, what it looks like, Lord, what you have me doing, where you have me working, who you have me serving, whatever it is, God, I wanna be on the Potter's wheel, shaped, molded, pressed, pushed, shaped, fired, tempered, all of that. If you're saying, I wanna go to the Potter's house, will you stand up? All of our campuses, would you stand to your feet with me? Now that you're on your feet, I really want you to think about what you just did. Tomorrow, when you're at work, and your boss says something to you, and you're like, ah, I want you to remember this tall uncle John coming up in here and be like, that was uncomfortable. Okay, Lord, what are you saying? What are you doing? When the phone rings next week and something happens and now you're in a circumstance that you didn't see coming and you feel fear, you feel worry, you feel anxiety come in. Okay, Lord, what's that fire about? I want you to be reminded that the Potter knows what he's doing, okay? We trust the Potter, he tempers the fire, and the fire is not authorized to destroy you. Let's pray, Father, I pray for every single brother and sister under the sound of my voice. God, I can preach a corporate message, but that's about where my gift ends. You're the only one who can send the Holy Spirit to minister to us individually right now. And so we all individually pray our own prayer to you in this moment, and we say, Lord, shape me, mold me, temper me, use me for whatever you want me to be used for, Lord. Imagine the thousands of people at Radiant Church today that are saying, here I am, Lord, send me, here I am, Lord, shape me, here I am, Lord, use me in these end times, use me in this church, use me in my community, use me in my family, use me in my business. And we really come to you today, Lord, pliable, moldable. We're nothing but dust, breathe in us, Lord, and turn something that was just a pile of clay into a mountain-moving vessel. We thank you for it today, Lord. In Jesus' name and everybody's sin, amen. Great word, John, thank you. Powerful word, thank you so much. I want to invite our prayer team to make their way up to the front. John was talking about the potter's wheel. Just thinking to myself, I think I took one class in high school pottery and I was terrible at it. But I remember the one thing that, you know, you need the wheel, you need the know-how, the master, and you need the clay, but one of the things that a master potter understands is that beyond just his hands and the wheel and the clay needs to apply water. And one of the things that we need when we're in the midst of the fire is we need the water of encouragement and prayer from one another. We need the humility to ask for it, but then the ability to receive it. And there's something that happens when we acknowledge that we're in the fire, that we, even though we're in the hands of the Lord, we trust him, there's encouragement, strong encouragement that comes when we invite a brother or a sister or a friend or a family member into the fire with us. And their prayers over our lives becomes the water that helps the shaping process take place. And so this morning, here's how we're gonna close, is you may be here today and you say, that's me, I'm in the fire. I'm going through the flames of it. I'm wrestling, I'm struggling and I know that God is doing something. But what I really could use is, I could just use some water to be applied to my life, encouragement, prayer, have somebody look me in the eyes and pray with me about what's going on or pray for me so that God will give me grace in the midst of the fire. And so what I'm gonna do this morning is as we dismisses, invite you to come and to receive prayer. Our prayer team at all of our locations is in place and prepared and this is more than just, oh no, I've got this on my own, no you don't. There are times where we just need to pray for one another. The Bible says to pray for one another that you might be healed. That you might be healed, that God steps into moments where we pray for one another. Maybe you just feel all alone and isolated, you're not. There are people that love you and wanna pray for you. It's one of the things that God has given to the church, given to each one of us is that we need each other. So I'm gonna pray and close and dismiss and then we're gonna invite you to come up and receive prayer. Also wanted to let you know that next weekend, I was gonna be in Israel but I'm gonna be preaching, obviously I'm here, so I'm gonna be preaching on Israel. Part three is coming next week and so just wanted you to be aware of that so you can plan to be here. Let's pray together, shall we? We just pray with my father today. We, as your kids, we just recognize that we need everything that you are doing in our lives and there's no other place that we wanna be than on the potter's wheel in the potter's house because broken in your hands is better than broken by the wayside. We don't want our lives to be thrown into the waste heap. We put our lives in your hands because we know that you're trustworthy, you're good, that you're for us and that you are making something. Our life is not chaos. Our life is not just scraps. Our life is not broken beyond repair. You are the master. And so Lord, we invite you to put your hands and your heart into the shaping of our lives and to meet us here at this place in prayer. Lord, today as we leave here, would you go with us and would you help us to speak words like water that bring encouragement and refreshing to others? Help us to be your light that shines brightly in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Everyone, you're dismissed. Come forward if you'd like to receive prayer this morning.