"A Conversation With The Clay" Rev. Reginald W. Sharpe Jr. Wednesday July 27, 2022

0:47 Go ahead and be a blessing tonight. You don't need a reason to give. You just need to know that God is faithful. And so go ahead and so the seven ways to give are popping up right now. Wow, that's popping up and you're giving from your heart. You're giving with some intentionality tonight. You're not just listening to me and not doing anything. You're listening and you're moving. You're not just a hearer of the word of God. You're a doer also. So thank you for giving right now. And let's close this month out strong. Everybody who is able, join me and sowing a $20 seed tonight. Only if you're able, if you're able, stretch with me and let's give as God has prospered us to give. I'm going to get out of the way now because I believe this message is going to speak to your heart and it's going to encourage you as we move into the next season of this year, 2022. I'll see you in a minute. Enjoy. Peace, peace. I'm excited to jump into this word and I want to invite you to join me in the book of Jeremiah.

1:45 Join me in the book of Jeremiah. Join me in the book of Jeremiah chapter 18. Join me in the book of Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 1 through 6. Pull it up on your phone. Pull it up on your Android. Pull it up in your Bible. Pull it up on your laptop. I want you to see these words. And I'm reading out of the Message Bible. And it would be helpful if you Google that or download that app if you're available to do that. because sometimes the message Bible makes the word of God so palatable, so relatable, and even so simple and comprehensible. So I thank you for joining me today in the book of Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 1 through 6. I don't like reading that many verses all the time, but to set the context for what God wants to say to us today, come with me to Jeremiah chapter 18 verses 1 through 6 and it reads like this out of the message bible god told jeremiah up on your feet go to the potter's house when you get there i'll tell you what i have to say so i went to the potter's house and sure enough the potter was there working away at his will whenever the pot the potter was working on turned out badly as sometimes happens when you're working with clay the potter would simply start over and use the same clay to make another pot then God's message came to me can't I do just as this potter does people of Israel God's decree watch this potter in the same way that this potter works his clay I work on you the people of Israel in the same way that this potter works his clay I work on you my people of Israel I want to talk today from this thought very simply

3:51 a conversation with the clay A conversation with the clay. Repeat that thought after me, if you will. A conversation with the clay. Brothers and sisters, as we maneuver our way through this 70th church anniversary, I must admit to you that this month, these Sundays make me very reflective. It was last Sunday, the second Sunday of September, that I shared my first message at Fellowship Chicago. It was September 9th, 2018. That's the first time I ever stood in the pulpit to preach on a Sunday morning. It was the 68th church anniversary. And so now this 70th church anniversary makes me so reflective of my journey with Fellowship. And what a beautiful journey it's been.

4:48 We have had some great days together already. I've been a part of you, whether you know it or not, for almost, for more than two years now. I've been on this journey. My wife and I have journeyed with you, fellowship. We've been sailing together officially as just a guest speaker, then as associate pastor, and now as your senior pastor. And what a miraculous, amazing journey it has been. Somebody mentioned to me earlier this week that, Pastor, you know, you've been our pastor in the pandemic longer than you've been our pastor outside the pandemic. And through all of that, God's grace has still been sufficient. What an amazing journey it's been. And one of the things that have made this journey extra special for me is that God blessed me to come to the ship in just enough time to develop a relationship with Reverend Clay Evans. I mean, that's sacred to me.

5:47 That's significant to me. I don't know if God allowed him to live simply so that I could meet him. I'm not that arrogant to say that God held up God's plans just for me. But I do believe that in the providence of God, God fixed it so that he would be able to know me and I would be able to know him. And one of the things that this anniversary has done is made me reflect on some conversations I've had with Reverend Clay Evans. Oh, whenever you're in the presence of the Godfather, I don't care who you think you are. your knees start shaking a little bit your heart starts beating a little faster because you know you were in the presence of someone who was special to God every time I was in the presence of Reverend Clay Evans our founding pastor I always got nervous my voice would drop a couple octaves and a level of reverence and deference would overcome me because I felt like I was in the presence of a man who walked closely with God. I'll never forget my first time meeting him when pastor introduced me as the young man who would possibly be his successor. He introduced me to Reverend Evans. Reverend Evans at that time was laying in the bed and he lifted up off of the pillow a little bit and Pastor Jenkins said, hey, I want you to meet Reginald Sharp. He's possibly going to be my successor. I'm thinking that Reverend Ephesus is going to say something gentle and kind and warm and welcoming. His first words to me was, be for real with Jenkins.

7:29 Don't be phony. I can still hear him telling me, be for real with Jenkins and don't be phony. Those were the first words he said to me, knowing that I would be in the lineage of the pastorate of Fellowship Chicago. I cherish that conversation. He was telling me, make sure I be for real walking beside Reverend Jenkins, because when Reverend Jenkins was walking beside him, he was for real. And that if it was going to work out, I would need to be authentic. I would need to be 100 and I would need to be for real and avoid being phony. Only Reverend Evans can tell you that and you simply say, yes, sir. I remember last summer after I preached this message, some of you remember, I preached this message entitled, so what if I am a grasshopper? Do you know a few days later, Reverend Evans called me and I was nervous when I realized it was him. He had that distinctive, one of a kind voice and he said these words to me.

8:28 He said, I'm so glad I'm a grasshopper. He said, I'm so proud to be a grasshopper. Sharp, I'm glad to be a grasshopper. He said, I'm just so proud to see you making sure the ship stays above the water and doesn't go under the water. I'm so glad to see you and Jank not competing with each other. You see, sometimes when preachers are both gifted, they don't know how to compliment each other. and they spend their whole time trying to compete. I'm just so glad that you're keeping the family feel. I'll never forget that conversation. And one of our last conversations, it was around October, and I went to his house, and I remember kneeling down beside his bed because the Spirit led me to go talk to him and ask him a question of advice. As I was nearing knowing that the baton was getting ready to pass, I went to just see him and ask one question.

9:29 It was October of last year, and I said, Reverend Evans, as I move closer to pastoring, do you have any advice for me? And he pointed, and he leaned over, and he pointed to a cup where he had these rolled up pieces of paper with a ribbon on it. He said, grab one, grab one. And he made me open it up, and I had to read it right before him. I started reading it and it said, trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not to your own understanding, but in all your ways acknowledge him. And then Reverend Nevis said, and he'll do what? And I kept on reading. He said, and he'll direct your path. He said, that's it. That's it. I'm waiting on something profound. I'm waiting on something philosophical. And literally all he gave me was all I needed, which is the word of God. Trust in the Lord. And as I started this pastory, y'all excuse me. Y'all excuse me a minute. As I started this pastoring, those words rang in my head when the pandemic showed up, when we lost members that were significant, when I had to rework and readjust and pivot and do things that had never been done before.

10:36 ringing in my head were the words that I found to Reverend Clay Evans gave me in our conversation. Trust in the Lord. And right now this Sunday morning you ought not just hear that and let it go in one end out the other. But that ought to be a word of hope for somebody right now that in spite of it all you've got to learn how to trust in the Lord. Lean not to your own understanding and keep on acknowledging God because he has promised to direct our path. I cherish my conversations with Reverend Clay Evans. But the other day I was tiptoeing through the text and I ran and bumped into another clay. And this clay was not a human. This clay was an inanimate object. This clay never passed up. But this clay spent some time on the potter's wheel. The clay in our text started talking to me and said, sharp, the next time you get to the pulpit, please share some pointers that I have to say too.

11:33 I know your founder was named Reverend Clay Evans, but I am another piece of clay that God made a way out of nowhere that God took and used. And I got some stuff to tell you too. I just want to ask you, does anybody want to know what the clay of the text had to say? Yeah, the clay of the text said that God sent a prophet by the name of Jeremiah down to the potter's house because God wanted to give an illustration. God wanted to make an analogy of what God wanted to do with God's people. And when God got ready to show Jeremiah what the people looked like, he compared the people to a piece of clay. And this clay of the text started talking to me. And we were just chatting. We were just conversing. Because you do know conversating is not a word. We were conversing together. And we were enjoying this conversation together. And the first thing the clay of the text said to me, he said, I am full of potential.

12:32 Can somebody just say that with me? I'm full of potential. You see, clay is a soft, loose, earthly material containing particles. It forms as a result of the weathering and erosion of rocks that is developed over a vast span of time. Clay is a type of fine-grained soil material that develops plasticity and elasticity when it becomes wet. However, clay in its raw, natural, unrefined, organic, artless, ordinary, regular, and basic form is simply just a lump of soil and a mud-like substance. But when it gets in the right hands, this lump, this soil, this mud-like substance has the potential to be used for pottery and to make bricks and walls and floor tiles and earthenware and stoneware and porcelain and cooking pots and art objects and dishware and smoking pipes and even music. musical instruments. Y'all heard me, but you didn't hear me. The clay said to me, I ain't that special.

13:52 I'm just raw material. I'm natural. I'm unrefined. I'm organic. But when the potter puts me in his hand or the potter puts me in her hands and puts me on the wheel, all of my potential begins to birth for. See, you can't judge me by how I look in the basket. You can't judge me by how I look in the soil because after the potter touches me, I can become what I never would have become. I can be what I never would have been. Michelle Obama ain't the only one becoming. I'm becoming too. You're becoming too. Somebody ought to pause right there and thank God for your potential. see some of us can only thank God when we become what it is God wants us to be but don't you know you are packed with possibility don't you know God has some stuff in you that eyes have not seen and ears have not heard and neither has it entered into the heart of men and women what God has in store for you if you let the potter hold you you can become something and make your life out of something. God will turn a drug dealer into a deacon. God will turn a player into a preacher.

15:06 God can turn a gangster into a graduate. God can turn a thug into a theologian. God can turn a victim into a valedictorian. God can turn a storm survivor into a success. God can take the raw materials of your life and make you something that nobody expected you to be. Somebody holler, I've got potential. Yeah, you better be careful who you judge. You better be careful how you treat people. You better be careful how you dismiss people. You better be careful only treating the folk nice with status and titles because somebody will sneak up on you. Yeah, that person may not look like much, but they got the favor of God on their life. They may not dress like you want them to dress, but they got potential. They may not talk. Their subject and verse may not always agree, But just like a piece of clay, the clay told me, don't you ever sleep on me because I'm becoming.

16:05 I'm becoming everything God wants me to be. I'm becoming something that's significant. But the clay didn't just say I'm full of potential. The clay said I have to face the process. Yeah, the clay was talking to me. He said, sharp, you just like me whether you know it or not. All your church family are just like me. you're just like a piece of clay because we all gotta face the process. I told you that that clay that comes out the mud, that clay that comes out the earth is raw, it's organic, it has dirt in it, it has mud in it, it has rocks in it, it has trash and debris in it and there's a process of turning this raw material into some useful, profitable product. It takes a process.

16:58 You just don't become a piece of art. It takes a process. Are y'all listening to me? It's a journey. There's some phases. There's some stages that you've got to go through. And some of you all right now are about to mess up your life because you're running from the process. you're running from the seasons that God is trying to make you and shake you and work you into a work of art but if you rush the process you're going to ruin the product I'm trying to help you understand that when that potter gets that clay that clay has to go through some processes first there's a screening then there's a shaking, then there's a spinning, then there's a shaping, and then there's a saving. Can I talk about it for a minute?

17:53 Yeah, yeah, that screening, whenever you want to separate mud from clay, and that'll preach right there, because sometimes the mud and the clay look so similar that people will grab mud and think they're grabbing clay. And sometimes they'll grab clay and actually have mud, and so they have to go through a screening process, and they put the mud and the clay together and they put it on this screen like a screen door that grandma used to have and what they do is they start shaking it because whatever is mud will fall off and the clay will stay in place. See, God says I got to screen you and shake you because every Christian got some mud in you. Oh, I know. I know you dressed up. I know you write scriptures on Facebook. I know you go live. I know you're on the prayer call. I know you're anointed. I know you don't cuss. I know you don't want nobody to see your humanity. But don't you let that person fool you. You got some mud in you. There's some mud in your mind, some mud in your habits, some mud in your flesh. And God has to screen you and shake you. And then they take that clay after it's set a while, after it's been going through a process, and they slap that clay on a potter's wheel.

19:08 Did you read the text? When Jeremiah walked in, he said, I saw the potter on his wheel. And old school, before electricity was invented, old school potter's wheel. One foot, the potter was spinning the wheel. And the other hand, he was helping the wheel spin. but the clay was being thrown around on the wheel. See, it looks like spinning to us, but the real word is throwing. He's literally throwing the clay around and the clay said, oh, I could deal with the screening and I could even deal with the shaking, but that spinning part, it was like I felt like singing, you got me going in circle. I was just spinning. I was dizzy. I didn't know what was happening. I was spinning on the wheel, But the only thing that helped me is that I felt his hand. I felt his hand on me the whole time I was spinning. And every time I would spin again, he was shaping.

20:06 The spinning allowed him space to shape. The more I spin, the more he shaped. The more I spin, the more he shaped. You went through that divorce and it spun you. You went through that grief and it spun you. You went through that depression and it spun you around. You went through that loss of your job and it spun you. But what you didn't see while you were spinning, his hands were still on you. I feel like preaching on a third Sunday. His hands were still on you. So it was the screening. It was the shaking. It's the spinning. It's the shaping. But then the last one got me. It's the saving. Because the text says that although the pot wasn't looking like I wanted it to look, the Bible says around verse 3 and 4 that the potter had a choice when it didn't come out right he could have got a new piece of clay but he broke it back down and built a new pot with the same clay oh some of y'all ought to be rejoicing this morning that even when you didn't look like God wanted you to look when you didn't talk like God wanted you to talk when you didn't become what God wanted you to become.

21:20 He didn't throw you away. He just broke you back down and used the same materials to build you back up again. I'm not with you, but somebody ought to pause right there and turn up on a Sunday that God didn't dismiss you. God didn't discard you, but God saved you and restored you. Oh, I'm so glad he kept me. He kept his hands on me the whole time. Anybody been spinning this year? Anybody been going through some stuff this year? Anybody been feeling some screening, God? Trying to get some habits off of you. Some patterns off of you. Some unhealthy ways of being off of you. Some screening, some shaking, some spinning, some shaping. But I'm glad he was saving me the whole time. Oh, I thank God. I thank God for the process.

22:14 And I'm here to tell somebody, this ain't for everybody. this is for the mature Christians, you gotta stop running from the process God has you working on a lower level right now so he can teach you about people, because if he lifts you high and you don't understand people, if you don't understand pain if you don't understand being betrayed, if you don't understand rejection if you don't understand how to deal with mean and nasty, trifling, treacherous people, then you won't make it when he lifts you to higher elevation. You've got to embrace this season where it doesn't feel good and it feels like I can't get my equilibrium and I'm not happy now and I don't like this now. He did not put his hands on you to make you happy. He put his hands on you to make you whole.

23:02 And I feel you. Yeah, we all spin it in the process. We all on the potter's wheel, but I'm glad his hands are still on me. Oh, y'all forgive me. Y'all forgive me. Y'all forgive me when I start thinking about how his hands are still on you. I know his hands are on you because you're still breathing. I know his hands are on you because you still got joy. I know his hands are on you because I've seen you on Facebook and you ain't stopped wearing no new clothes. I know his hands are on you. I've seen some of us. We ain't lost no weight. We still full. We've got some food on the table. I know his hands are on you because his grace is still sufficient. His peace is still perfect. His joy is unspeakable. His mercy endueth forever. His love is unconditional. Can somebody turn up and thank God? He still has his hands on you. The clay said, hey sharp, sharp, sharp I'm full of potential The clay said, I have to face my process Last and finally, oh it got good The clay said, I'm being formed to be more presentable Oh, the clay said, oh Don't you judge me by how I look on this table The clay said low key when Jeremiah walked in I was embarrassed Because normally I don't have visitors Doing my spending process Because some seasons you gotta You gotta watch people Watch you go through Sometimes you gotta Deal with the humiliation On the potter's wheel You got eyes on you trying to figure out What you gonna become What you gonna do How you gonna respond now How is it gonna work out Everybody's staring at you and the clay said for a minute there I almost caught an attitude but then the clay said I looked up to Jeremiah he couldn't hear me because I'm clay but I said keep on watching because if you keep on watching me through my spinning if you keep on watching me through my shaping if you keep on watching me through my breaking if you keep on watching me through my

25:08 saving if you keep on watching me if you keep your eyes on me in a minute you're going to see me become more presentable and I'll be everything God wants me to be I'm here to prophesy over somebody's life God is making you more presentable yeah you're going to be more polished after this you're going to be stronger after this you're going to have more focus after this you're going to shine with the radiant light of God's glory after this the Bible says that after you have suffered for a little while that the God of all grace is going to make you his glory is going to shine on you I don't know about you, but somebody ought to thank God this Sunday that he's making you more presentable. And this is what Declay said to me, and I'm done. Declay said, when I get finished, you won't even be able to tell what I've been through. Oh, I'm here to tell you that by the time 2021 gets here, somebody is going to look at you, and they're not going to have a clue of everything you've been through.

26:08 Who am I talking to today who can look back over your life and thank your God that you don't even look like some of the stuff you've been through. You don't even look like you've been losing sleep. You don't even look like you've been going through a storm. You don't even look like you've been going through headaches. You don't even look like you've been depressed. You don't even look like you've been grieving. You don't even look like you've been.