Distorted | Week 4 | Message

The big idea

God is not a hidden, gnostic puzzle-master waiting for you to fail His secret plan—He's a potter who redeems and reshapes clay that jumps off the wheel, so His will for your life is relational, not a rigid script you can permanently miss.

Many Christians believe God has a hidden, hyper-specific plan for their life and that one wrong decision or sin permanently disqualifies them from it. Jeremiah 18's picture of the potter and the marred clay shows the opposite: God reshapes what jumps off His wheel rather than discarding it. His will is a relationship marked by justice, mercy, and humility, not a tightrope you can fall off forever.</thesis> <parameter name="key_points"> <parameter name="points">[]

Point 1 of 6

Pastor Chris tells the history of hatmakers being poisoned by mercury nitrate used to waterproof felt hats, causing tremors, hallucinations, and psychosis long before anyone understood why. He uses this as a picture of Martin Luther's two kingdoms—the 'left hand kingdom' of culture and the 'right hand kingdom' of God—and how ideas from the culture we spend 165+ hours a week in can quietly poison our theology.

Point 2 of 6

He cites the statistic that 70% of Christians believe they've failed to follow God's hidden will for their life, whether through their own sin, someone else's sin against them, or just the storms of life—he shares losing his wife to suicide in 2021 as his own storm. This creates anxiety, analysis paralysis, and a 'shell game' view of God deciding our fate.

Point 3 of 6

Pastor Chris walks through Jeremiah going down to the Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna), a place of judgment and refuse, expecting to see broken pottery discarded—but instead watches the potter pick up the marred clay and reform it into another pot. He connects the potter imagery to Genesis 2:7 and Ephesians 2:8-10, showing we are God's handiwork, and to Israel's story as a pattern for how God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Point 4 of 6

Using the image of a dance recital where every step must be hit exactly versus a father giving his daughter open-handed rules at a wedding dance floor, he explains that God's revealed will—do justice, love mercy, walk humbly (Micah 6:8)—applies across almost any vocation. The question isn't 'teacher or plumber or pastor' but whether you do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly in whichever one you choose.

Point 5 of 6

He points to Psalm 37 and Romans 11:29 to show God's gifts and calling are irrevocable, and no sin outsins the grace of the cross. He shares a C.S. Lewis quote about not setting ourselves up as a higher tribunal than God by refusing to accept His forgiveness, naming that refusal as pride rather than piety.

Point 6 of 6

Pastor Chris explains that a good God would simply bury our mistakes and never mention them again, but a better God uses the cracks and fractures to bring others to know Him. He describes turning the enemy's reminders of past failure into testimony, echoing the healed blind man's line, 'I once was blind and now I see,' and ties it to Revelation's picture of overcoming by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

Take it into your week

Pastor Chris frames the charge around the dance floor he gave his daughter: God gave rules, not a rigid recital, so live inside do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly wherever you are.