I. Introduction: The Pothole

I Just though I shared with you the one of the time I was in the altar speaking the word of God, Jeremiah happens to be my favorite person in the whole entire bible, he's known as the crying prophet, I can totally relate to him in so many ways, I will try to break down Jeremiah 18:1-4 verse by verse, I will begin by verse 1 "This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord" I have learned that the lord will speak to you at any time and you have to be ready to hear his voice, I have been giving driving lesson for about 10 years now, and I still remember very clearly hearing God's voice when I was giving a driving lesson to my student Diana, Diana had been taking driving lesson for about 3 months on and of, it was about the10th lesson that she had taken, at this point Diana would always fall in this particular pothole everytime that we when through this particular street, I would always tell her to avoid this pothole, and she would always fall in this same pothole, by about the 20th time that Diana fell in this one particular pothole, I was totally getting a little upset that she was always falling in this pothole.

By this time, I remember I was preparing for a sermon for a Friday night youth meeting, and I was asking God to give me a topic to speak about. I will never forget that day that I gave Diana one of her driving lessons, she once again fell in that same pothole. "Oh my God" was my reaction, after we stop at the first red light, after she fell in that pothole, I remember calling out to God to please give me the right words to give Diana so that she can totally understand me, so she wouldn't fall in this pothole no more, as soon as I proclaimed to Him, God right of way spoke to me, and said.........(NOW wait a second, when I say He spoke to me I dont mean that I physically heard His Voice, what I mean is that I felt it in my heart that He was talking to me) well, I felt like He told me that "Do you know how many times you have fallen in the pothole and I have lifted you up again, Do you have any ideas how many times I have point it out to you the pothole that you shouldn't have fallen in, but you still did, but regardless I was there to pick you up, Abel My mercies are new every morning" Man! When I felt that in my heart I knew exactly why my student was falling in this pothole so much, God was trying to show me something, As soon as I Learned this lesson from Him, Could you believe that Diana finally missed the pothole, LOL. Amen to that! Well I got my theme for that friday youth meeting, it turn out to be "The Pothole" Back to the verse of Jeremiah 18:1, I learned that God can speak to you at any time and any place, and He can used anyone or anything to get His message across to you, So just as the word came to Jeremiah and was told to go to the potters house, God can certainly speak to you at anytime, We just need to have our hearts and mind ready for His word........................................................................ 

II. Verse 2 - "Go down to the potter's house"

"Go down to the potter's house" seems like a simple phrase spoken by God, but it's very important that we put ourselves in the right places to hear the Word of God, so many time we get discorauge from going to church for what ever reason, at times we are even to the point that we are heading out the door, and something happens to spark something within us that will cause us to change our minds and we dont end up going.  Now how many times we hear from a friend that went that day to church and they later tell you how you missed the best word ever, and then we regret not have gone to that service.  The Word saids that faith comes from hearing the word of God, so it would be impossible for us to gain any faith if we dont expose ourself to hearing His Word.


III. Verse 3 - "So I went"

Being obidience to God's Word has to be one of the most difficult things to do in this life, I remember at the time when I was preaching this sermont I never felt closer to God than what I did at that time, at this point in my life I could relate so much to the "prodical son" the prodical son asked for all his inheritance and left His father's house to explore many different things, I cannot pint point exact at what time in my life, or what could've have happend for me to have lost that beautiful relationship I once had with God, I know it all began with a big problem that happend at my all church with the youth, that I really didn't agree on how my Old pastor dealt with it, (I still love my old pastor though). See when you back slide, I learn that it's something that happens gradually, fisrt, you begin with starting to miss the Sunday services, then you convince yourself that maybe hearing the morning sermonts on TV will be enough for you to get spiritually fed, nothing can replace the worshiping, praying and crying with your fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. Second, you have walked away so far from God, that you begin to feel like you're not worthy of entering his presence no more, then, there are the days that you wonder why you feel so empty inside, everyone keeps telling you that you have everything going for yourself, but you just keep feeling that empty feeling inside that you just cant describe, the best way I can describe is when you are really hungry, and you have that feeling in your stomach that doesn't go away untill you eat, well, that's the feeling that I feel in the chest area close to my heart.............


IV. Verse 4 - Conclusion "Marred in his hands"

I'm not really sure why I felt like I needed to write all this, but hopefully it will help someone, "Marred in his hands" is a very powerfull verse,  If you notice in the verse, the Clay Marred in hand of the Potter, and I know that this is something that I should totally relate with, We need to learn how to stay in the Potter house no mattter what happens, It's interesting to me that the clay marred in His hand, so basically it means that even if you stay in the Hands of the Potter, everything is not always going to be ok, "oh boy!", trust me when I tell you, you can scream, jump, dislike some of the people in the church that you're in, cry all you want, but absolutely never leave the Potter's hand, See, because when you leave His hand, so many things can go wrong, and feeling the way I once felt is one of them. Feeling lost, the feeling of wanting to know why things were at once so perfect, I had so such a beautiful relationship with GOD, I remember the way I used to pray to HIM, with such passion, that I couldn't help but become emotional. See when you Marred in the hands of the Potter, He can fix you, We cannot walk around being broken vessels, The dangerous thing about a broken vessel is that we leak our blessing, how many time we have been to church feeling all happy about the word we just heard, and as soon as we live the church, we begin to feel down or depress again, that's because we leak the blessing quickly, some have bigger holes that others and leak faster, but the bottom line is that we need healing and fixing.

My prayer is that God can fix me and those who are broken and in need of miracle or touch from God! keep seeking! Fight for your blessing, and together we can seek God's peace in our live. And pursude to continue being a Beautiful Vessel in Gods' Hands

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I just want to add that I wrote this sermon years ago, and I'm Proud to say that I'm back in the Potter's Hand stonger than ever, Seek God In your life, we all have a purpose in this world that is greater than we can even begin to imagine, Remember that being successful does not mean that we might have a great job or career, or perhaps that we find that special other significant, all this things are great, but, being successful means that we are living and doing God's will in our lives, God tells us to seek His kingdom first and everything else shall be added.

Praise God, God Bless You,

Abel :)

GOD BLESS ABEL