.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Hall of Tyrannus

a place to discuss and learn together what it means to bring the truth of Jesus Christ into a secular world by words and deeds

Name:
Location: Central Asia or Kentucky--quite a range huh?
  • Email Me
  • Sunday, October 02, 2005

    The Master Sculptor and the Fragile Clay Pots


    What is man that you are mindful of him?
    -The Psalmist’s Question to God

    As I move along in life and (hopefully) grow in my love for and understanding of my God, one thing continues to weigh on my thoughts. As I read the Bible and try to live out my faith in Jesus Christ among the world, there is one thing that I cannot get my mind around. As I stumble along, fall and, all too often, make a mockery of the One to whom I owe all allegiance and love, there is that one thought I cannot shake—why would an all-powerful God choose to involve silly humans in His plans? Even more, why would the most holy God who spoke all that is visible and invisible into being even consider involving me in His plans?

    But it has always been this way. God created the heavens and the earth. Then He created man and woman. He gave them the charge to fill the earth with offspring and subdue it. He gave them dominion over every other living thing on the earth (Genesis 1:28). God entrusted to man the task of naming the animals (Genesis 2:20). But why would He do it this way? Why would he give the authority over His creation, which speaks of His glory (Psalm 19:1; Romans 1:19, 20), to creatures who would turn their backs on Him and go their own way?

    As time went on, God continued to choose to involve weak, unappreciative, sinful people in His plan. God purposed to bless all nations. But, more specifically, He purposed to bless all the families of the earth through Abram (Abraham) (Genesis 12:1, 2). The vessel God chose to use as a means of spreading His covenant love to all people was Abraham. God chose to use an idolater who would lie to protect his own life even if it meant exposing his wife to danger (Genesis 12:10-13). God chose a man who would be a polygamist when it was convenient (Genesis 16). This is how God chose to operate.

    But it gets even better (or worse). God sent his one and only Son to earth to live a perfect life as a man and die an atoning death in the place of men so that any person who will believe in him may have forgiveness of sins and become an heir of God. But there’s a catch. God ordains that the normal method by which this new covenant of grace will be spread is by, you guessed it, bumbling humans. Paul is clear in Romans chapter 10 that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But he doesn’t stop there. He asks a series of rhetorical questions in verses 14 and 15. Paul writes, ‘How are they to call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent?’. Paul’s reasoning is crystal clear. If children of God do not go out and proclaim the Good News (preach) then no one will hear of Christ. If no one hears about Christ then they will not believe in him. If no one believes in him then they cannot call on him. Therefore, they won’t be saved.

    The greatest news in world is to be carried by humans. The news that the world needs to hear more than any other in history is to be spread by humans. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4, refers to this news as a treasure. But he says that we have the treasure in jars of clay. The treasure that is the only hope for humans is carried around by other frail, cracked, broken humans. Humans who are afflicted in every way, perplexed, persecuted, and struck down. Of course it does not have to be this way. We know that we do not serve a God who dwells in temples and is served by human hands as if He needs anything from man. No. But God has ordained that we play a critical role in His story. He has decided that His plan of His righteous servant, Jesus Christ, who would justify the many, will involve humans. It is amazing. It is humbling. It is an honor.

    Paul makes a statement that, in my opinion, reflects just how mind blowing this concept is. In Colossians 1:24, Paul writes, ‘Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church’. Paul is filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions! How can it be? At first, it would seem that this is heresy. But, of course, Paul is not questioning the power or efficacy of Christ’s atoning death. Rather he is succinctly restating what he wrote to the Romans. That is, that God’s plan of bringing people to Himself through the cross of Christ will necessarily involve humans living out faith in Christ and preaching His Gospel. Without this work, the picture is not complete. Without people preaching about the suffering of Christ, His work is not complete. God chose to use us in the most important work in the world.

    Paul is not the only New Testament writer to know and write about this truth. The beloved apostle John writes in 1 John 4:12b that ‘if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us’. The powerful, pure love of God is perfected (or, we could say, completed) in us! You see, John knew that by loving one another we make God’s love complete. It is not that God’s love is not perfect. But rather, when the love of God is poured out onto poor, undeserving people it demands a response. That response—one human being showing love to another—is the one thing God cannot do with own His love. That makes the picture complete.

    As I continue to think about this topic, I have more questions than answers. As I struggle to realize, more and more, what this means, I still cannot get my around it. The Almighty God has, at a great cost to Himself, made it possible for me to know Him and love Him and follow Him. The God who inhabits eternity has made it possible for me to be involved in His work and in His plans. He chose to place in me the greatest treasure in the universe—Jesus Christ and the message of His gospel. And Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4 that He chose to put this treasure in weaklings like me ‘to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us’. So on days when I feel unloved or unlovable, when I fail far more than I succeed, when I know I can never measure up to what I should be—I rest on this. That by using the foolish things of the world to confound the wise, God brings glory to Himself. When it seems that I am useless, even to God, I remember that, for reasons I will not know in this life, God has purposed involve the fragile clay pots that are His children in His plan. But the pots are useless by themselves. They are only useable because they hold the treasure of Jesus Christ and the message of His Gospel and it is in Him alone that I will place my hope.

    Hit Counter
    REI Coupon Discount