As I was closing out college, I overheard my father saying he needed a little help back at the ministry. I figured I'd intern a few months and then go back for my master's. Eight years later, that's not what happened. When I asked where he needed assistance, he said marketing — something I had no training in. But I dove in. I took courses, got mentored, got certified, interned in every position. What I thought was a detour became one of the most fulfilling things I've ever done, mostly because of the people in this room I got to help lift up.

I'd always ask my father, "What is my purpose?" He'd tell me two things:

1. Give your everything to anything that you do.
2. If that thing is not the thing, it's the thing that will lead to the thing.

That is the entire gospel of an unfinished life. God will not waste a single season. There are no detours. All things work together for the good of those that love the Lord.

A Dangerous Prayer

A few weeks ago, God spoke to me and said to call a fast at our house. The entirety of my wife and I's relationship, we've been almost righteously indignant about one thing — to feel God's glory.

Let me tell you what I mean by glory. The glory is the weight. The presence in the room. The same presence that saved me that night — pressing into a room until it changes the very air, until it changes the very person it encounters. That is the glory of God.

Amid the fast, I prayed a dangerous prayer: "God, however you want to use me." Have you ever prayed that one? If you haven't, you should. I fell on my face and said, "Use me however you want to," because my obedience to him is more paramount than my fear, my insecurity, or my doubt.

He revealed two things. First, he wanted to use me to help shepherd his people. Second — and this wasn't what I asked for — he wanted to use me to speak to his people. Understand there's a difference between leading and caring for people and the office of preaching. He clarified because he knew I needed to know.

As we closed the fast, my wife said, "You should preach at the 30th." I figured there was some static on the Holy Spirit line that day. I swatted it down. A week later, sitting at breakfast with Pastor Sarah and my parents, Sarah looks over and says, "You should preach the 30th." I tried to swat it down again, but before I could, God reminded me: if you're going to say yes, then it's yes. So since breakfast, I've been studying. I haven't preached in 20 years, so I'll have some training wheels.

The Text: Jeremiah 18

The word which came to Jeremiah from the Lord saying, "Arise, and go down to the potter's house, and there I will announce my words to you." Then I went down to the potter's house, and there he was making something on the wheel. But the vessel that he was making of clay was spoiled in the hand of the potter. So he remade it into another vessel, as it pleased the potter to make. Then the word of the Lord came to me, saying, "Can I not, O house of Israel, deal with you as this potter does, declares the Lord? Behold, like the clay in the potter's hands, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel." (Jeremiah 18:1–6, NASB)

The message God gave me for us — as we talk about being unfinished — is Unfinished Glory. Because it's not finished. It's not over. Thirty years in, God is still remaking us. God still has his hand on us. God still desires to dwell with us.

From Prophet's Word to Believer's Confession

When God says "so are you in my hand," he's not talking to an individual — he's talking to the house of Israel. But watch what God's people did with that verse. They prayed it back to him in the first person. Isaiah says it plainly:

We are the clay and you our potter, and all of us are the work of your hand.

So the prophet's word quickly became the believer's confession: I am the clay, you are the potter. The verdict is in your hands, God.

When God comes to the prophet, he doesn't give him a sermon — he tells him to move his feet. Go down to the potter's house, and the watching will become the word. So Jeremiah goes down and writes what he sees: a wheel spinning, clay that's wet, and a vessel that has gone wrong — caved in, off-centered, marred.

You would assume the potter does what any potter does: take off the failed shape and discard it in the bin. That's not what he does. That's not what he did with you.

What Did You Assume God Did?

Somebody in here thought you were discarded. Let me ask you: what did you assume God did when your marring happened? When you felt broken, unworthy of being used? When the diagnosis happened, the relapse, the divorce papers? When you did the very thing you said you'd never do?

You might have assumed he reached right over you and got someone smarter, someone more useful, a vessel that wasn't cracked. But he didn't reach for cleaner material. The text says, "So he made it again" — with the same clay. The same thing that fell apart in his hands, he takes and sits back at the wheel just so he can make it again. That is the kind of God we have.

Remaking Requires Pressing

"Make it again" is not a gentle word. It takes more than a gentle press. The potter presses down, crushes the failed shape into a formless lump, drives the air completely out of it, puts his entire weight into it until it runs true.

If we're honest, sometimes we think the pressing we feel in life is punishment. You feel afflicted, like the pressing is God saying you didn't do right. Like Job's accusers said, surely you did something. But that's not what it is.

The pressing is proof that you're still on the wheel. You're still in God's hands. He still has a purpose and a plan for your life. You feared your marring disqualified you — it did not. Your marring is what God looked at and called his next assignment. Broken as you are, that is exactly who God wants to use. The very collapse you've been hiding from is the exact spot where he says, "I'll make it again."

I Know Something About Being Clay

I grew up going to the church's school, Clay Academy. I was there at six or seven years old, before I ever read a verse of Jeremiah 18 — and God was already forming me. That's the last place I spoke, 20 years ago, and it's where I fell in love with music. Even then, God was forming me for where I would eventually have to be.

Then I caved in. I ran from the call. I signed up for ministry school twice and I quit twice. I was a marred vessel with a famous name. I figured, "We've got enough people who can preach in our family. You don't need me, Lord." But I was unfinished. It wasn't time.

He made me again — the same clay. The runaway. The quitter. The scared one who said, "No, not me, not this, not yet." I gave him every no and not I could, until he put his hands on me, stooped down, put his hands in the dirt until I ran true — until the person who ran away was preaching to you on the 30th anniversary of the church that raised him. Don't clap for me. That's just the kind of God we have.

Who is like the Lord our God, who is enthroned on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and on earth?

The same God who spoke stars into existence without lifting a finger put his hands in the dirt when it came to us. The same God who stepped off a throne to die on a Roman cross is the same God who stoops over the wheel and works on us. A potter can only work on what he'll bend down and inspect.

The Other Half of the Bible

I've handed you half a Bible. Let's go back to the text. We read verses 1–6, get happy, and clap — but right after, God warns a whole nation: "I am fashioning calamity against you. Turn back, each of you." We don't clap as loud for that.

The same God who has the power to remake you can tear a nation apart. This potter is sovereign, not sentimental.

There is truly only one vessel he cannot work with — and it's not the broken or marred one. Verse 12 tells you. They hear the offer and answer, "It's hopeless. There is no use." That is not a whispered giving-up; it's a clenched fist saying, "I will not turn."

The only clay the potter cannot work with is the one that refuses to turn toward him.

The Most Dangerous Lie

Some of you have been crying, "I'm too broken, I can't be used." That is not the cry of verse 12. So hear me: the most dangerous lie you've ever told yourself was never "I feel worthless." It is "I will not turn." "I refuse to be used by you" is the only way God cannot use you.

Wherever you are, you are not too far gone. Hear it on the inside — the part of you that already gave up on yourself, that wrote yourself off. You are not finished. To be "too far gone" and to be "unfinished" are completely different things.

Surviving the Unfinished Life

I can feel some of you getting nervous, because the way I describe unfinished can start to sound like unstable. If I'm never finished, am I ever safe? Who's holding me together on the nights I can't hold myself?

Let Paul answer:

He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:6)

That verse gives you two things you need to survive being unfinished:

1. Who does the work — he does. Not your willpower, not your resolution. Lay down the pressure of putting yourself together; it's not your job. He started it, so only he can finish it.
2. When it's finished — until the day of Christ Jesus. Not your time, not your 30th or 50th birthday, not when you feel like it.

So if you're not finished this morning — good. And look at who he sent to tell you: not a bestselling author, but someone still unfinished himself. I am you. We're in the same boat.

Let's turn that shame around. You were never supposed to be finished yet — it's not your plan, it's his. The enemy's strongest tool was getting you to read unfinished as failure. It was glory the whole time.

Treasure in Clay Jars

We have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves. (2 Corinthians 4:7)

There's that potter word again — clay. Same clay. Paul then describes what a clay jar feels like: afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, struck down but not destroyed — pressed on every side but not shattered.

But that's not a verdict. You're just reading the pressure wrong. The crushing is not the end. He's still remaking you.

Paul says death works in us, but life in you. The cracks you're worried about, the ones you're trying to hide — they're hiding treasure. Your fracture is not failure; your fracture is a window for God's glory to come out. A jar that never cracks hides its treasure.

The Cracks Where the Glory Escaped

I have to testify, because I lived it. Last year on April 1st, an ordinary day, I was in the kitchen sautéing shallots. My wife walked in with a look I'd never seen before and haven't seen since — a mixture of surprise, awe, and gratitude — and handed me two positive pregnancy tests. For five years we had been trying, hoping, praying. I was finally holding what I hoped for.

A few weeks later, I was holding the most pain I've ever felt in my life. We lost the baby. I won't dress it up for you, because it wasn't dressed up for me. As the doctor told us the words, I could feel the floor coming out from under me. Even then, I asked God to be glorified in it — not because I'm so spiritual, not because it made sense, but because through it all, I've learned to trust in God and to depend upon his word. It didn't mean I didn't cry. I held my wife while she cried many nights, and I asked God to be glorified.

The word I reached for out of instinct is the next thing Paul writes:

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. (2 Corinthians 4:17)

Producing — present tense. Right now. The affliction isn't blocking the glory; the affliction is how the glory gets out. The pressing down is the factory God uses to produce his glory.

I still don't know why we lost the baby. There was no reason handed to me. I'm not preaching to bring a baby out from the back so we can all shout. I'm preaching unfinished as a man with an unfinished prayer. That's not a hole in my message — that is the message. Because the day I pretend I've got my stuff together is the day I lose the right to tell you about yours.

People kept asking, "When are y'all going to have kids?" At first I'd joke, "On God's time." But I had to stop holding my peace hostage to make other people comfortable. God didn't hand me an explanation; he handed me an assignment. He told me to plant the seed now. So on the anniversary of the day I felt the most joy, I put it out there. I cracked on purpose, in public. I wrote about it — the very thing others would hide — because the cracks were the window where the glory came out. There's somebody in this room sitting on their worst day, unfinished, still waiting for God to answer.

I had enough pain to lose my faith, to break up our marriage — but it didn't. So you can be unfinished and keep your mind. You can be unfinished and God can still hold your marriage together. Unfinished, but your faith won't fail. The cracks are proof he's not done with you.

How the Glory Leaves

Now let me tell the truth, because grace that doesn't tell you the truth is flattery. There is a way to lose it — not your salvation, but that glory. There's a way to keep absolutely everything and lose the only thing that made it matter.

In 1 Samuel 4, Israel loses a battle to the Philistines and the ark is captured in one day. A pregnant woman, with her dying breath, names her baby Ichabod — the glory has departed from Israel.

But the glory doesn't always leave all at once. Ezekiel slows it down. In his vision, the glory departs by inches: it lifts off the mercy seat, hovers over the threshold, goes out to the east gate, and sits above the mountain. A God departing slowly.

And here's the danger — the services didn't stop. The incense kept burning. No one missed a Sunday. But the glory was departing the whole time. You can sing over a room that God has already left. Sometimes it's not a scandal; it's just a drift. You don't decide to walk away — you just get busy. You keep the worship playlist and lose the prayer life. You keep the form long after the fire went out.

You Cannot Wield the Presence

In 1 Samuel, they tried to haul the ark into battle to guarantee victory while living any way they pleased. They wanted the power of God without the presence of God.

Let me snitch on myself. My lifelong temptation as T.D. Jakes Jr. was to wield my name — and the house's name — into battle, thinking it would guarantee a certain end. I even wrote a piece saying, "I'm not my father's pulpit, and I don't have to be him to be called." But I hid behind a false humility. I remember posting it, happy that I'd finally told them I wasn't called to preach so they'd leave me alone.

But Paul settles it: the eye cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you." There is no lesser form of ministry — it's all part of the body. You don't have to be up here to be called. But I also couldn't disqualify myself.

The presence cannot be wielded; the presence can only be sought. You can't command it or negotiate with it. You invite him in, and that's where he comes. When it came time, I didn't pull rank. I fasted, I fell on my face, and through worship, that's where he came to me. Put the ark down. Don't hold the box that contains the presence — go after the person.

Potter's House, hear me: because we stand on a great name, the temptation is to lean on a name this big and stop seeking the One who made this house anything. Don't worry about who's preaching today. Worry that God sent them. You can coast off somebody else's fire a long time before you realize yours went out. Bishop's, Pastor Sarah's, Pastor Tore's glory does not mean you don't need to seek his face yourself.

The Glory Returns the Same Way It Left

The pregnant woman said Ichabod in grief. But watch — Ezekiel shows the glory leaving through the east gate, and it comes back the same way, through the same gate. The prayer life you stopped, the altar you quit, the thing you started and abandoned, the business that failed — that is the very place God is going to come back.

Ezekiel's last verse renames the city Jehovah Shammah — the Lord is there. Man says Ichabod; God says Yahweh Shammah. Only God has the right to reverse what you already named. So be careful what you speak over your life. Whatever you named yourself in your worst season, God reserves the right to rename it. Don't give up on yourself.

The Latter Glory

In Haggai, the people rebuilding the temple who remembered the former glory begin weeping, because the new temple looks smaller, less ornate.

Who was left among you who saw the temple in its former glory? And how do you see it now? Does it not seem like nothing in comparison? (Haggai 2:3)

Some of you aren't grieving a temple — you're grieving a version of you. The you with more money, in a better circumstance, the you before the diagnosis, the you whose faith felt stronger when prayer felt like breathing. You're looking at an old picture and calling it your glory days.

But Haggai says:

The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former. (Haggai 2:9)

Not equal. Not just as good. Greater. The best is yet to come.

Don't let the devil sell you a counterfeit, though. "Greater" isn't your old life back with an upgraded body or car — that's a sales pitch. What made it greater was never the size, the LED screens, or who was singing or preaching. It was the glory that fell. That's what we're here to honor — not a building. Buildings don't get saved. Buildings aren't up at 2 a.m. wondering if they've gone too far from God. People do. That's what God wants to dwell inside of.

Watch the tense: shall be. The glory shall be greater. Speak it over your life.

And he proved it. The smaller second temple — the one they cried over — is the same place the Messiah walked into. Malachi says, "The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple." The mourning did not stop the glory. So write this over your less-than self: the smaller temple held the larger presence. We need less of our stuff and more of his weight. The smaller season you're embarrassed by may be the exact room God will dwell in.

When Greater Hasn't Come Yet

Let me be honest about the other side of greater, so I don't dress up a lie as faith. Somebody prayed years ago for something that still hasn't shown up. You planted the seed, but you don't see a blade of green grass. On this side of heaven there's no guarantee it will happen — yet you're still holding on. Sometimes you plant something in the dark and you're still holding the seed at the funeral.

We don't clap for that as much, but it's the reality. And it is not your faith failing — that is God still putting you on the wheel to remake you. Psalm 88 is a song that never turns; it opens in the dark and its very last word is darkness. God left it in the book on purpose. That means you can be broken, unmended, and still give it over to God. He won't blot it out to make his record look good. So if your greater hasn't come, don't assume he's finished or that he's left. Sometimes greater means you feel absolutely nothing — but God is still in the room. You may not get the gift, but you'll get the Giver. And that's all right.

From Glory to Glory

One last thing about greater — it answers a question you've been asking your whole life: Do I finally arrive? Am I done?

We are all being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord in the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

From glory to more glory. And the one moving is named: the Lord, the Spirit — not your striving, but his.

An old church father, Gregory, set that verse beside Paul's "I press on, forgetting what lies behind, reaching forward to what lies ahead," and read it this way: Because God is infinite, the soul never arrives. You can truly have him and never reach the end of him. Every time you reach for him, there's more to reach. He called it epektasis — the eternal stretch forward, always hungry for God.

If you've ever loved someone a long time, you know the more you love them, the more there is to love. That's what unfinished means for you. Being unfinished is not being behind — it's the nature of being alive. You'll be unfinished at 50, at 105, forever finite stretching for an infinite God.

Even in heaven, when we are glorified and perfected, I believe we'll still be reaching for more of him — not because anything is missing, but because he has no end. The gap was never the problem. That is the romance of all eternity: reaching for God.

So holy discontent is not immaturity. Saying "I've had him, and I want more of him" is the very thing my wife and I were fasting for: God, I felt you, but I want to feel you more. I don't think you're done with me yet. A church that thinks it's arrived is a church that has stopped reaching.

Get Hungry Again

The cure is not to mourn old glory — it's to get hungry again. Get your appetite back up. The second I asked for his glory is the second he gave it to me. Don't wait for someone else to sing the song you like or preach the way you like. Stop waiting on me to hoop — that's not happening. Wait for his glory. That's what you came to seek. If his presence falls, we don't need anything else. We could turn off the screens, and if the presence falls, that's all we need.

Speak to your Father. Invite him into this room. Holy Spirit, we need you. You're not done with us — 30 years and we're still building. Our best days have not come yet. The highlight reel is cool, but I can't wait to see what you're going to do. I still want your presence in every space of my life — the weight of your presence, that all-consuming fire.

Like Moses coming off the mountain, his face shone with glory. Everyone should be able to see the glory when they encounter you. We didn't come to celebrate a temple; we came to celebrate God's hand — his glory falling fresh over and over again. There's no building where the presence cannot dwell. You are his temple. The indwelling Spirit is the temple within us.

The glory is not meant to stay in this room. In Revelation, John looks for a temple, and the Lord is the temple; the city becomes the temple. The glory is meant to envelop every part of this city and every part of your life. Make room for the glory of God. We're just lighting a match — but your family needs to feel your glory. When they encounter you, they should feel glory coming off of you.

The Invitation

That's what an unfinished life is all about: "I want you, but not on my own time — within your divine will, God." I won't go ahead of you or force my will. I'll be patient and wait on you. But send your glory. Is there anyone hungry for his glory?

Today it's not just for healing — it's for sending. The glory you receive, you must share. So I challenge you to pray the same prayer I prayed: "God, use me however you want. I surrender it all to you." Plant it anyway. Don't wait for your testimony to go the way you want to tell it — glorify God in the part that isn't done. The seed you plant on your hardest day could help somebody else.

If you have never accepted the gift of salvation, and if you want to feel his presence — you who have gone through life searching, feeling unfulfilled, looking for something to fill the hole and bury the affliction — he wants you to come as you are. Unfinished is the way all of us came. There is no finished part of you that he needs; he just needs a willing part of you.

And there's a call for those who want to feel a heavier weight of God's glory — the person struggling with the unfinished story, the prayer not answered yet. God still wants you to dwell with him. You might have walked in the same way you'll leave, but God wants to change you right now. He wants to place his hands on the very clay that broke down in his hand.

Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Is that wide enough for you? Whosoever. The devil tried you over and over, tried to lay hold of your joy and your future — but I rebuke the enemy. God has called you for greater. He doesn't need a perfect version of you; he just needs a willing vessel, someone willing to change.

Unfinished does not mean unchanged — you have to keep turning on the wheel. You have to keep coming through the same gate, to repent, to lay aside your wicked ways and say, "God, change me — broken as I am." I'm not pointing at the gate from across the room. I'm standing in it with you.

Come unfinished. Surrender it all to him — the parts you've been hiding, the parts you've been ashamed of, the parts you thought he could do nothing with. Send it.

Just as I am, without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me — O Lamb of God, I come.

I come with all my faults, all my cracks, all my idiosyncrasies. I don't come to the preacher or the building — I come to Jesus.

Lift your hands like a criminal under arrest. I give up. I'm through running, hiding, fighting, making excuses, going my own way. Here I am, Lord. Spirit of the living God, fall fresh on me — like you've never fallen on me before, because I've never called on you like I'm calling now. I give up my pride, my ego, my resistance, and I'm ready to let the Holy Ghost do whatever he wants in me today.

Spirit of the living God, cover this altar. Reach down and find your sons and daughters — prodigal or wayward — and when you find them, fill them. Fill them until they feel brand new, until their soul is stirred and their mind is changed. Break every addiction, every stronghold, every soul tie, everything I can't break on my own — break it in the name of Jesus.

I refuse to be who I used to be. I will not die in the state I'm in. I declare liberty all over this altar, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

He's not done with us. It's not over. He still has more to do — and he's sending us. Glory to your name, God.