Instincts without Direction

We continued our series about "The Me I want to Be". Last Sunday we talked about "The God-Centered Life" and this Sunday we discussed "The Transformed Life" and Deo Volente we will talk Sunday about "The Obedient Life".

Instincts without direction will always lead you down the wrong path. Roy Riegels is a classic example of this. Roy was a football player who played for the University of California. In 1929 at the Rose Bowl, Roy's instincts kicked in. Roy was not a brand new football player, he had played his whole life. He was not a dumb player as his coach called him the smartest player he had ever coached. He was not an average player as he has been inducted in The Rose Bowl Hall of Fame. Roy just ran the wrong way.

Roy played center. Centers handle the ball but don't run with it. In this Rose Bowl game a fumble took place and the ball hit the ground, Roy saw it, grabbed it and started running. Instincts took over and he ran as fast as he could. He had a caravan of his players running alongside him, yelling, screaming and to Roy cheering him to run on. When he crossed the end zone, he discovered he had been running the wrong way. This great play in football history cemented his legacy as Wrong Way Riegels.

Wrong Way Riegels' legacy is a metaphor of our own lives; our instincts to run with the ball but disconnected from direction so we run in the wrong way. Instincts without direction will always lead you down the wrong path. Saul discovered this principle.

Saul saw a fumbled ball. Judaism had dropped the ball allowing this "Jesus movement" or people of the way to go to far. Someone needed to pick the ball up and run, so Saul ran. Saul thought he was running for his team, working for his God, scoring for his beliefs only to discover, HE HAD BEEN RUNNING THE WRONG WAY. Instincts without Direction will always lead you down the wrong path.

We look like Saul. Living life by raw instincts. We think only radical rebellion can lead you down the wrong path but more often than not, it is through disregard and disconnection that we began to stray and start running in the wrong direction. Whether it is through self-directed living, abandoned restraint or transitory joy, instincts without direction will always lead you down the wrong path.

Even though God sends us runners to run alongside us like Roy Riegels had to show us we are headed in the wrong direction, we don't see it until either we are buried under a pile of disappointing results or we have a Damascus experience. The disappointing results reveals to us the errors or our judgments, over spending, over eating, wrong choices etc. However, the Damascus experience shows us the excellency of God who gives us direction and frees us from living a life based on our instincts. He transforms our lives.

John Ortberg shared this in The Life You Always Wanted (p.55-56):"It's like a motorboat and a sailboat. A person can operate a motorboat without assistance, given the right equipment and effort. Operating a sailboat is different--it is dependent on the wind. The operator of a sailboat does whatever enables him to catch the wind. Spiritual transformation is like this: ...we can open ourselves to spiritual transformation through certain practices, but we cannot engineer it. We can take no credit for it."

A Transformed Life is a life where God:
Changes your Outlook 9:5, "Who are you, Lord"
Changes your Outreach 9:15 "he is a chosen instrument to carry my name to the Gentiles"
Changes your Outcome

Shortly before his death, the legendary film producer Cecil B DeMille wrote this beautiful meditation:"One day as I was lying in a canoe, a big black beetle came out of the water and climbed up into the canoe. I watched it idly for some time. Under the heat of the sun, the beetle proceeded to die. Then a strange thing happened. His glistening black shell cracked all the way down his back. Out of it came a shapeless mass, quickly transformed into beautiful, brilliantly colored life.

As I watched in fascination, there gradually unfolded iridescent wings from which the sunlight flashed a thousand colors. The wings spread wide, as if in worship of the sun. The blue-green body took shape. Before my eyes had occurred a metamorphosis--the transformation of a hideous beetle into a gorgeous dragonfly, which started dipping and soaring over the water. But the body it had left behind still clung to my canoe. "I had witnessed what seemed to me a miracle. Out of the mud had come a beautiful new life. And the thought came to me, that if the Creator works such wonders with the lowliest of creatures, what could he do with me!

That is a changed outcome, I was in the mud, headed in the wrong direction, living life by instincts but I met the Lord...........

Owens

What the Master Can Do with the Mud!

Charles E. Jefferson in his treatment specifically on the potter's house and generally on Jeremiah: 18 and 19 said, "Jeremiah did not get his flash of insight while he was praying or fasting but rather through watching. He was not watching a religious activity, a miracle or something extraordinary but rather through watching a potter perform a task that the potter does hundreds of times a day. God revealed his message through the majesty of watching what the master did with the mud!

We began our series on "The Me I want to Be" preaching out of Jeremiah 18:1-6. The Potter's House is one of the most well known "field trips" in the Bible. I remember an encounter traveling through Arkansas when I had the occasion to visit a Pottery factory known as Dryden Potteries. It was a magnificent campus full of a showroom with exquisite and expensive mugs, planters and serving dishes. Further you see the work being done; nothing into something, and finally they show you the back of the property. MUD. A big pile of mud. Nothing impressive, nothing noteworthy, nothing expensive, just mud. However, everything that was in the expensive showroom came from the mud.

This is the message God gave Jeremiah. Go to the potter's House and watch. Watch the potter work a work on the wheel and realize the same thing the potter does with the clay, I can do with the house of Israel. I can turn you into the me I want you to be. In order for God to begin the work in us, many us need to realize, at best we are nothing but mud. I realize that the text talks about clay but after looking, inspecting and watching, clay is a nice way of saying mud.

We do all we can to sugarcoat our shortcomings but if we just tell the truth, we are nothing but mud but the good news is God uses Mud. I still drink, can God use me? Yes, that's nothing but mud, ask Noah! I still have a temper and curse, can God use me? Yes, that's nothing but mud, go talk to Moses and Peter. I have a woman issue, like them way too much, can God use me? Yes. just mud, talk to David and Solomon. The reality is we all are mud but God uses mud. He works on us, removing the imperfection, breaking down the clay/mud until it becomes what the master wants.

The wheel that spins around and around would make you go crazy except for two reasons. One as long as the clay is in the center of the wheel, no matter how fast it spins it will not spin off because it is perfectly placed. The clay can't be on the edge of the wheel because the slightest turn would throw it off. Life's circumstances would throw us for a loop, losing a job, no income, too much out go, it would throw us but when you are in the center of God's will, what kills other people will just help you to live.

Secondly, as long as the potter's hands are on the clay while the wheel is spinning, nothing can harm you, which is why you can't let every one's hands on you. To become the me that God wants you to be, there can only be one project manager. Some of us have too many hands on us. We have become our spouse's vessel instead of God's; we have been shaped into the deacon's pastor instead of what God wanted for us. We are living parent's dreams instead of fulfilling the vision God gave for us. There can only be one designer. Watch who puts their hands on you.

Two things got my attention when I looked at this text, what the potter did not do and what he did do. When it was revealed the vessel that was being made had a defect, it was marred or spoiled the potter did not do what the world does. We Discard, Dispose and Destroy. We throw it away. Car has a defect, get another one, wife has a blemish, get a younger one, church has a defect, find a new one, pastor has a flaw, run him down and get another.

We throw it away but God does not. The moment he sees the imperfection he reworks the vessel as it pleases him to do so. God does not throw us away and I am so grateful he didn't throw me away. This is what the potter did not do but what he did was after he decided not to Dispose, Discard or Destroy, the potter chose to Develop, Design and Display.

I used to be in the mud patch in the back of the store. I was an eyesore and an embarrassment but the master started working on me. When I was too dry to be used, he gave me moisture, when I was too wet to be shaped, he allowed the Sun to dry me, not dry me out but he made me usable. The master moved me from the mud patch to the wheel and worked on me. Shaping! Developing! Designing! I am God's Creation. I am a Masterpiece.

Thank God, The master works with the mud and he is still working on me and one day I will be in the showroom with God's other creations.

Owens