KGM School of Service Knowing God Missions · Tumenyimana
Course: The Potter’s Wheel (Wheel)
Lesson: 1
Scripture: Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:1–6; 1 John 4:7–16; Mark 12:28–31
Language: English

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Lesson One — The Potter’s House: A Church That Knows and Relies on the Love of God

BIG IDEA


The church does not belong to us. God is the Potter, and we are the clay. A local church is the place where two realities meet: the Triune God and the lost world. She receives the love of the Father, the truth of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. Then she pours out fellowship and outreach. A church built on the knowledge of God will outlast her founders, because the Potter never leaves the wheel.

How to Use This Lesson

This is a course manual. Read it slowly. Read it before class, and read it again after class. Keep your Bible open beside it, and test everything by the Word of God.

This term we do not walk through one book of the Bible. We walk through one question: what is a local church for? Our guide is the book The Potter’s Wheel: Five Pillars of a Church Formed by God. The twelve lessons follow the book from its first page to its last. This first lesson covers the Introduction and Chapter 1. All Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (NIV).

This Term at a Glance

The Vision

Five Relationships, Five Pillars

The Vision in Practice

PART 1 — SCRIPTURE READING

Isaiah 64:8 • Jeremiah 18:1–6 • 1 John 4:7–16 • Mark 12:28–31

Open your Bible and read slowly: Isaiah 64:8, Jeremiah 18:1–6, 1 John 4:7–16, and Mark 12:28–31. In Isaiah, God’s people confess that He is the Potter and they are the clay. In Jeremiah, the Lord sends His prophet down to the potter’s house. In 1 John, we learn what kind of God holds the clay: God is love. In Mark, Jesus tells us what the Potter is forming: a people who love God with everything they are, and who love their neighbour as themselves.

In the book of Acts we watched the Lord build His church by the Word, by the Spirit, and in the Name of Jesus. Now we ask a simple question, and every believer must settle it: what is a local church for? We begin at the potter’s house.

KEY VERSE — ISAIAH 64:8


“Yet you, LORD, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”

PART 2 — WALKING THROUGH THE LESSON

A. The Potter’s House — He Sees What the Clay Cannot See

A potter’s wheel is a flat, round table that turns. The potter places a lump of clay in the middle and shapes it with his hands while it turns. The clay has no shape of its own and no beauty of its own. Nothing in it would make anyone stop and look. But the potter sees what the clay cannot see. He wets his hands and begins to work. He presses the clay in one place and lifts it in another. He is patient when the clay resists. He stays faithful when it collapses. He keeps working until the vessel he intended from the beginning stands finished on the table.

This is the picture Scripture gives us of God and His people. The Lord said to Jeremiah, “Go down to the potter’s house, and there I will give you my message” (Jeremiah 18:2). Jeremiah went down and saw the potter working at the wheel. Then he saw this: “But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him” (Jeremiah 18:4). The marred pot was not thrown away. It was made again.

Jeremiah tells us what came next: “Then the word of the LORD came to me. He said, ‘Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?’ declares the LORD. ‘Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel’” (Jeremiah 18:5–6). What the Lord said to Israel, He says to His church: we are in His hand.

We are the clay. He is the Potter. Let us take our place on the wheel.

B. One Question — What Is a Local Church For?

Every believer must settle this question. When believers do not know the biblical foundation for what they do, they may serve to gain the approval of people and not out of obedience to God. This is dangerous. Look at Israel in the book of Judges. The people served the Lord as long as Joshua and the elders who outlived him were alive (Judges 2:7). Then we read: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). When the leadership changed, their reason for serving faded as well.

A church built on the personality of her leaders will last only as long as those leaders do. A church built on the knowledge of God will outlast her founders, because the Potter never leaves the wheel.

C. Where Two Realities Meet — A River, Not a Pond

The local church is where two realities meet: the Triune God and the lost world. God gives us His truth, His love, and His presence. We, in turn, are called to share Him with the world.

That means the church is not a stagnant pond. She is a flowing river. The pond keeps everything for itself. The river receives and pours out. A church that only receives becomes a museum. A church that only pours out becomes exhausted. Health is the rhythm of both: filled by God, emptied for the world, and filled again (John 7:37–39).

D. Five Relationships — Five Pillars

To know God’s saving work rightly, we must look at five relationships. The five pillars of a local church rise from these five relationships. The pillars are not programs. They are relationships with a living God and with living people.

  1. The Father — the Source and Planter of the Church. His love is self-giving, and He plants the church as part of His work of redemption (John 15:1). This is the pillar of Love.
  2. The Son — the Foundation and Stability of the Church. The church is built on Christ, who makes her holy through His Word (John 17:17). This is the pillar of Truth.
  3. The Holy Spirit — the Life and Power of the Church. He empowers, guides, and sustains her mission (Acts 1:8). This is the pillar of Prayer.
  4. The Local Church — a Community of Self-Giving Believers. We give ourselves to one another in love, service, and discipleship (Acts 2:42). This is the pillar of Fellowship.
  5. The Neighbours — Self-Giving Beyond the Church. The church is a light to the world, not a community that looks only inward (Matthew 5:14). This is the pillar of Outreach.

Love and Truth are what the church receives. Prayer is the power that sustains her. Fellowship and Outreach are what she pours out. A healthy church receives spiritual nourishment and then shares it with others.

Picture a local church as a tree planted in the eternal love of the Father. The tree has three great roots: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The roots feed and hold up the trunk, which is the fellowship of believers. The branches can bear fruit only when the sap from the roots flows through the trunk. That fruit is our outreach to the world.

We bear only the fruit that His life in us produces (John 15:5).

E. A Household and a Pillar — Not an Audience

Paul told Timothy why he was writing: “Although I hope to come to you soon, I am writing you these instructions so that, if I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God’s household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Timothy 3:14–15).

Notice what Paul did not say. He did not call the church an audience, or an event, or a building. He called her a household. A household is not the walls of a house. It is the family that lives in the house. This is God’s family, standing in the world like a pillar and holding up the truth where everyone can see it. That is the place of a local church in God’s plan for her village, her town, her city.

F. Two Words — Loving and Depending

The apostle John wrote, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them” (1 John 4:16).

Two things are hidden in that one verse. First, we know the love of God, and knowing His love enables us to love. Second, we rely on the love of God, and that speaks of a growing dependence on Him. (Your Kiswahili Bible says that we have believed the love of God. It is the same thought. To believe His love is to rely on it.) Loving God, and depending on God. Hold on to these two words. They will carry you through this whole term.

G. Loving — With All Your Being

A teacher of the law asked Jesus which commandment is the most important. Jesus answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Then He added, “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:30–31).

Notice how these two commandments leave no part of us out. Heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbour: five loves. Each love is tied to one of the five pillars.

The Five Loves at a Glance

H. The Mirror of the Five Loves

Take the five loves and hold them up to your own life like a mirror.

None of us is strong in all five. The mirror is not there to shame us. It shows us where the Potter’s hands are pressing next.

I. Depending — A Growing Reliance on God

The second word is depending. The five pillars are not five projects for us to complete for God. They are five dimensions of a growing reliance on God. Look at the last column of the chart: emotional stability, spiritual strength, intellectual soundness, practical application, and evangelical readiness. In each one we lean on God and not on ourselves.

The order matters. We receive love, truth, and power. We pour out fellowship and outreach. The church that reverses this order tries to pour out what she has not first received. She will exhaust herself, and she will call her exhaustion ministry.

J. The Lesson in One Sentence

The church is clay in the Potter’s hands: planted by the Father’s love, founded on the Son’s truth, made alive by the Spirit’s power, joined together in fellowship, and poured out for the world.

In Lesson Two we follow Ezekiel into a river that flows out from the temple. The river grows deeper the further it flows. At each depth we will meet one of the five pillars again.

PART 3 — KNOW THE WORD: TEACHING FOCUS

1. The Church Belongs to the Potter

Read the key verse again. We are the clay, and He is the Potter (Isaiah 64:8). The clay does not choose its shape. The Potter does. The clay does not supply the skill, the water, the wheel, or the fire. The Potter does. What the clay supplies is surrender. It stays on the wheel through the pressing and the turning, and it trusts the hands that hold it.

2. The Church Is God’s Household and the Pillar of the Truth

In one verse Paul calls the church God’s household and the pillar and foundation of the truth (1 Timothy 3:15). A household is a family. So the church is first a people who belong, not a crowd that attends. A pillar holds something up. So the church exists to hold up the truth of Christ where the whole community can see it.

3. The Command to Love Leaves Nothing Out

Heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbour (Mark 12:30–31). A church can be measured by the same mirror. Some churches are all head: they have sound doctrine but cold hearts. Some are all heart: they have warm fellowship but shallow truth. Some are all legs: they are always busy but have no root. The vision is a church where all five pillars stand together. The God we worship is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and we cannot receive only a part of Him.

PART 4 — TRUST THE SPIRIT: TEACHING FOCUS

1. The Spirit Makes the Heart a Home

“Jesus replied, ‘Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them’” (John 14:23). With the new birth, a human heart becomes a home of the Triune God. We become the very headquarters of the Trinity. The Spirit of truth lives with us and is in us (John 14:17). It is at this point that the Holy Spirit begins the work of turning the old and corrupt nature into Christlikeness.

2. The Spirit Makes the Church More Than Human

The character of the church is not merely human. It is supernatural. The Holy Spirit empowers her, guides her, and sustains her mission (Acts 1:8). Remember the tree. The Father’s love is the root, the Son’s likeness is the body, and the Holy Spirit produces the fruit. We simply bear that fruit in our outreach to the world.

3. The Spirit Fills Before He Sends

We receive before we pour out. Remember Acts 1. Jesus told the apostles to wait in Jerusalem for the gift the Father had promised (Acts 1:4). They were filled, and then they were sent. This is still the order of the Spirit for every believer and for every church.

Word and Spirit in Lesson One — Side by Side

PART 5 — FORMING CHRIST IN THE BELIEVER

This lesson forms Christ in us in three ways:

  1. Christ is formed in us when we stay on the wheel. Clay is not asked to be impressive. It is asked to be surrendered. Stay under His hands through the pressing and the turning.
  2. Christ is formed in us when we look into the mirror of the five loves. Heart, knees, head, arms, legs. None of us is strong in all five. The mirror shows us where the Potter’s hands are pressing next.
  3. Christ is formed in us when we receive before we pour out. Be filled with the Father’s love, the Son’s truth, and the Spirit’s power. Then give yourself to others in fellowship and outreach.

PART 6 — DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Come prepared to answer. Come prepared to listen.

  1. What is a local church for? How would the members of your church answer today? How would you answer after this lesson?
  2. Jeremiah saw that the marred pot was not thrown away. The potter formed it again. Where have you seen the Potter form a person, or a church, again?
  3. Think of the work you lead in your church. If you moved to another place, would the work continue? What would it mean to build it on the knowledge of God, and not on yourself?
  4. Look into the mirror of the five loves: heart, knees, head, arms, legs. Which is strongest in you? Where are the Potter’s hands pressing next?
  5. Some churches are all head. Some are all heart. Some are all legs. Which picture is closest to your own church? What would help all five pillars to stand together?

PART 7 — WEEKLY ASSIGNMENT

Before next class, take time with the following:

CLOSING PRAYER

A PRAYER TO PRAY OUT LOUD THIS WEEK


Father, You are the Potter and we are the clay. We are all the work of Your hand. The church is Yours. You planted her, and You keep her. Teach us to build on You, and not on any person.


Let our church live as Your household, a pillar and foundation of the truth in our town and across Tanzania. Make Your home with us, as Jesus promised. Fill us by Your Spirit with Your love, Your truth, and Your power, so that what we pour out is what we have first received.


Teach us to love You with all our heart, all our soul, all our mind, and all our strength, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. Give us loving hearts, loving knees, loving heads, loving arms, and loving legs. We take our place on the wheel. Keep us there until Your work is finished. In the Name of Jesus, amen.

NEXT LESSON — Lesson Two — The River from the Temple. Ezekiel 47: Deeper Levels of Reliance, a Thousand Cubits at a Time

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