Good Morning, and welcome to the Berean Break.  My name is George Sinkie and it is such a privilege to be your host to this program.  I really appreciate those of you who have commented on the Berean Break over the years it has been on.  It is so great to know that you have grown in knowledge by the Lord’s use of this program.  As we begin this morning, let’s go to God in prayer.

Great God in heaven, You alone are reverend, We praise You for Your goodness, Thank You for this new day in our lives, And thank You for the beginning of this New year.  We pray that we will use it to Your glory and honor.  In Jesus’ name, we pray !!  AMEN !!

     Well, can you believe it, its 2003.  Many people will probably spent the next couple of month adjusting to writing 2003, instead of 2002, on their checks.  It seems that change is hard for most of us to do.  We become set in routines, and routes.  We get stuck in diets and doctrines and we are simply unwilling to change.  For those who are this hardened there is no way for God to have His way in their lives.  We sometimes sing the song, “Have Thine Own Way.”  The first verse of this song goes,

Have Thine own way, Lord! Have Thine own way!
Thou art the Potter; I am the clay.
Mold me and make me After Thy will,
While I am waiting, Yielded and still.

     Have you ever sung that song?  If you have, did you really mean what you were saying?  Or did you lie to God?  It doesn’t make it right to lie just because we do it to a rhythm or beat.  If we say for the Lord to have His way with us and then turn around and follow man-made denominational doctrines or live our lives out of harmony with the will of God, we are lying.
     The idea of the Lord being the Potter, means that He is the one who molds us and shapes us.  How does He do this?   Does He grab us and make us do things we do not want to do? Some would say that He does, but the Bible teaches that we get a choice.  As the song says, He makes us “after His will.”  The will of God is revealed to us in the Bible and if we want to be made after His will then we need to study His word and apply His word into our lives.
     The song goes on to say, “while I am waiting, Yielded and still.”  The only way that God will be able to mold us, is if we are yielding our will to the will of God.  People could be compared to three different kinds of balls.  First there are those who are like a croquet ball, hard unyielding non-moldable wood balls.  These are the ones who are unwilling to let God have any influence in their lives.  They have shaped themselves just the way that they want to and there is no way they are going to allow anything or anyone change them.  Perhaps you have known someone like that, perhaps you have been someone like that.  The thing that is different from that croquet ball is the fact that you can choose to be different, you can choose to be moldable.
     The next type of ball, I would like you to consider is the Nerf ball.  Do you know what they are?  They’re those foam rubber balls that are designed to not break things in the house.  You can crush them and scrunch them.  They will stretch some and you can mold them to some extent, but in the end they bounce back to their own shape.  People like this are those who are a part of some man-made religious group.  They talk about God guiding them and read His word to some extent, but in the end they bounce right back to their denominational teaching.  Again we have to remember that these people make this choice to shape and mold themselves, if they would yield to the will of God they could break free from their self-made shape.  An example of this may be those who believe in “Total Hereditary Depravity” or original sin as it is sometimes called.  These people have chosen to allow this man-made doctrine to shape their lives and so when they read passages such as Ezekiel 18:1-4, where Ezekiel says,

  1 Then the word of the Lord came to me saying,
  2 “What do you mean by using this proverb concerning the land of Israel saying,
     ‘The fathers eat the sour grapes,
     But the children’s teeth are set on edge’?
  3 “As I live,” declares the Lord God, “you are surely not going to use this proverb in Israel anymore.
  4 “Behold, all souls are Mine; the soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine. The soul who sins will die.”

     or on in Ezekiel 18:20, where God has Ezekiel write,

  20 “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.”

     The Nerf ball person will read this and God will try molding them and making them after His will, but they bounce right back and say, “No, we inherit the sin of Adam and are born sinful.”  How sad it is that they will not open their hearts and minds to the will of God.
     The third and final type of ball that I want to look at today is the ball of soft pliable clay.  This is the type of ball that God wants each of us to decide to be.  It is with this yielding and open ball that His word can have its way.  And we will be formed into the type of person God wants in this world.  This type of person will not allow their family to keep them from doing the will of God.      We have an excellent example of this in Acts chapter nine.  In this chapter we have Saul, whom we know better as Paul the apostle.  Saul was a very committed Jew, he was following the faith of his parents.  Listen to what Paul writes about himself; remember this is inspired by God, not just Paul’s own feelings; look at Philippians 3:5-6

  5 circumcised the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the Law, a Pharisee;
  6 as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.

     Because Paul was this moldable ball of clay, he made the choice to obey God.  When asked what he was waiting for and told what to do to wash away his sins, Paul obeyed.  Listen to how Paul tells it.  Ananias tells him God’s will in Acts 22:16

  16 ‘And now why do you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.’

     At this point Paul had to decide what type of ball he would be – a croquet ball – hard and unyielding.  f he had chosen this he would have been like the Jews he encountered in Pisidian Antioch.  We read about them in Acts 13:45-46

  45 But when the Jews saw the crowds, they were filled with jealousy, and began contradicting the things spoken by Paul, and were blaspheming.
  46 And Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God should be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.”

     The decision they made was that they were too hard and they did not accept God’s will for their lives.
     Paul could have decided to be a Nerf ball and been changed some by God but in the end bounce right back to what he was before.  This is what many of the Jews did in the first century.  Paul wrote that even Peter and Barnabas were caught up in this for a while.  Let’s read Galatians 2:11-14

  11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.
  12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision.
  13 And the rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy.
  14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, “If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

     You see these Judaizers as they are sometimes called.  Shaped their lives by becoming Christians but then bounced back to requiring that a person must obey the Old Law to be a Christian.  Paul did not do this and he stood up against those who tried to teach it.
     The decision that Paul made was to be moldable and he did this by obeying the will of God.  Paul wanted his sins washed away and he did that the only way that God teaches it can be done – he was immersed in water for the forgiveness of his sins.  Listen to what it says in Acts 9:18

  18 And immediately there fell from his eyes something like scales, and he regained his sight, and he arose and was baptized;

     Paul was told to be baptized to wash away his sins in Acts 22:16 and as a ball of clay he was obedient to the will of God and was immersed according to Acts 9:18.
     As we entered into this new year of 2003, many people made New Year’s Resolutions.  These are hopes and plans and goals that they want to accomplish in the next year.  Unfortunately, far to many of these resolutions are broken before the year is over.  I want to encourage each one of you to make three resolutions with me, that we will keep this year, and not just this year but the rest of our lives.  First, determine to know God better.  Second, to study God’s word more.  And third, to obey God’s will completely.  If we make and keep these resolutions, 2003 will be the best year we ever had.