Special Event – Summer Series; Psalm 139:13-14: Dr. David Fleming, 07/12/26

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[00:00:00] Good morning and welcome. So glad you're here. You did an amazing job of transitioning from, uh, the FLC. It's not the first time we've transitioned. You might remember, if you've been around a while, when we did some work in years past, we moved this class to this place as well, and it was brand new then.

You remember? So you got to help break this building in in the best of ways, so welcome back. Glad you're here. So I feel a little bit, as you know the saying, like a bologna sandwich at a banquet. I'm following two career academics. The two weeks previous, Dr. Todd Still from Baylor University Truett Seminary, who's a dear friend and, uh, is a part of Champion Forest going way back into the '80s.

Dr. David Capes last week, who's my colleague at Lanier Theological Learning Center, Library and Learning Center. Uh, brilliant fellow, great guy, knows that topic, uh, very, very well, sadly. However, uh, mine is for today, and, and I'm [00:01:00] excited to take you into what might be for some familiar, uh, ground, but perhaps to shine a little, uh, fresh light on it.

And this, uh, is, is a bit n- new to me given some new activities I've been able to engage in lately, and I just want to, uh, begin with sort of this, uh, choice between wonderfully made, and some of you immediately will know the scripture. Can you say the scripture, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. That my soul knows very well"?

Comes from Psalm 139:13-14. And work in progress, well, we'll get to that. And the question is: Which are you? Are you wonderfully made or are you a work in progress? I, I want you to think about, uh, throughout this talk, and I'll reference it several times, Michelangelo's David. Now, Michelangelo was a late 15th, early 16th century sculptor.

He created incredible art out of big [00:02:00] blocks of mostly flawed stone and, in this case, marble, and David is probably his most famous, well-known. You can see it still in Florence to this day in the gallery. There are replicas of it all over the place. It's considered a work of art. It's considered absolute cutting edge technology given the knowledge they had during that time about anatomy and all sorts of things related, and how to do exactly what he did.

The statue is 14 feet tall, weighs about 4,000 pounds. It's ginormous, and it is exquisite in the art world, as some of you will know and appreciate. What's interesting about the statue is what, uh, Michelangelo said when he brought the statue forth from a block of stone. And the statement, which we'll come to in just a few minutes, really tells us a lot about ourselves, really tells us a lot about how God sees us, really helps us get our minds around, I think, Psalm 139:14.

And here's what Michelangelo said. He [00:03:00] said, "I saw the angel in the stone, and I just set him free." Think about that. The question I guess for us, however, is do we have to choose between wonderfully made and work in progress? Do we have to choose? I came on this rather, uh, naturally. Lately I've been doing more coaching and mentoring and training.

It's something I really had looked forward to. For the last five years, Beverly and I have been mostly engaged in construction and renovation, as probably you know. Uh, but lately we've been able to get back more in the area of our primary focus in ministry, which is training, uh, the next generation of pastors, church leaders, ministers, missionaries, all sorts of different people who serve the Body.

And, uh, to do that, I've taken on some skills and training and taking some, uh, certifications so that I can do some. Uh, well, for example, the Myers-Briggs personality type chart, or, uh, a standout or, uh, Clifton's, uh, [00:04:00] Strength Finders or more recently I've added, some of you may know what the DISC is, uh, John Maxwell's DISC, D-I-S-C, kind of tells you a little bit about yourself and how you interact with others in the workplace, at home, at church, or just in life in general.

So in doing these, I had the chance to go in and do some assessments and then do some consulting and some training in these, and what I'm consistently finding is this: there is energy and electricity in the room when we're talking about our strengths. When we're talking about our gifts and our abilities, what we do very well, where we really shine, where we really add value, where we just kill it, there's tons of energy.

You don't have to pump the room. You don't have to engage or energize. They're-- as soon as you talk about someone's strengths, they're leaning forward, "Tell me more." But as you know, a part of any assessment also reveals where potential weaknesses might lie, or blind spots, as we tend to call them. Blind spots are areas where we just may not even be aware of, but that in fact are weaknesses.

And it's strange to [00:05:00] watch the energy in the room just dissipate when we make the shift from now let's talk about the challenges we might face given our particular strengths and gifts. And you can just feel like a balloon just slowly sinking down to the ground. The facial expressions change. People get serious.

One time I was doing this with a group of people just a couple of months ago, and I felt such a drain in the room. I finally just stopped and I said, "Can you all tell me what you're feeling right now? Can you describe to me," and this is a group of about 20 of us in the room. I said, "Can you tell me what you're feeling?

What's happening right now? What are you thinking? What are you feeling?" And the comments were really interesting and very telling. They said, "Well, it's discouraging. It's a little deflating." Those kinds of words were used. "I feel a little-" embarrassed or maybe even ashamed. One person even said, same group, "I just thought I was so much further along.[00:06:00]

I thought I was doing so much better. It hadn't occurred to me lately that that might be an issue for me." So I really learned something in that experience, that we humans naturally lean into conversations about how good we are and how wonderfully made we are, but we start to shrink a bit when we need to talk also about the work that still yet needs to be done.

And oftentimes, I think we find ourselves in a position of needing to choose, am I fearfully and wonderfully made, or do I still have work to do? Am I wonderful? Am I awe-inspiring? Am I God's incredible design? And does God love me from before the foundations of the Earth, before I ever did anything, so it doesn't matter what I do?

Or am I still a worm? [00:07:00] Somehow trying to claw my way out of the mud and become who God ins- wanting me to be. Which am I? And I find that we tend to lean, gravitate if you will, to a pole, one or the other. So I've put the poles up for you to consider what might be some reasonable poles that we humans, in our humanness, might tend to gravitate to.

I'll just go through the list. For example, to the far left, resignation. The pole of resignation. Now, you see this is, like, far on this side. I'm not gonna say left or right, because some of y'all will assume political mindedness. I'm not talking about that left and right. I'm talking about your left.

Resignation, and resignation is where we land, or the pole that we embrace, grab hold to, won't let go of, when we essentially either lose interest or energy or hope. Any tho- sort of possibility of change, growth, progress becomes [00:08:00] uninteresting or seemingly impossible, and we just sort of camp out here, dig in, and we end up stuck.

By the way, you know the difference between a rut and a grave is the length. A rut is much longer. And sometimes we just gravitate to that pole. And I'll tell you a little bit more about what that sounds like and feels like. Wonderfully made, well, that's someone who isn't stuck in a sense, but they are appreciative and understanding of who God has made them to be in Christ Jesus, and how wonderful that is.

It's a great pole. On the other side of that pole could be, sorry I'm catching up now, the work in progress. Hold on. I've gotten all backed up here. There we go. Work in progress. Now, the work in progress is what I said. You might say, "Well, I, I think I'm wonderfully made, but what I know is I've, I, I gotta work.

I got things to do. I gotta pray, I gotta go to church, I gotta read my Bible, I gotta sing songs, I gotta give [00:09:00] service, I gotta give money. I gotta work." But then there's this pole way over here called perfectionism, and I think that's a perfectionism in the sense that it's an unattainable goal. Meaning I strive for perfection, not for the glory of God, not for the good of others, but because I'm driven to it, and nothing less will satisfy.

Uh, perfectionism. So those are your four poles. Left, right. And I have to confess to you, I'm not coming from neutral. I am what you might call probably a recovering perfectionist. Anybody else wanna confess? I am. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I hope you're recovering. Recovering perfectionist, all right? That, that's a little step back from...

And I, I, I tell you where I got this from, and I wanna honor my dad in every way, but I also wanna be honest with you and tell you, uh, every time I brought home a report card as a kid from kindergarten all the way up through grade school, [00:10:00] I had this one- Neered habit. I cannot tell you, I bet you 90% of the time, and that's why I'm a recovering perfectionist, otherwise I would've said 100%.

No, 90% of the time I would bring home a report card that looks like this

And my dad would say, "What happened in English? Can't you speak English? It's your native tongue, son. Come on, man. One more half a grade, you'd have had straight As. What's wrong with you?" Okay, it wasn't quite that bad. I'm probably exaggerating, but that's how it felt sometimes. Is I, I wanted my dad to see five As and a B, B+.

But what he saw was the B, B+, which to him was a not A. And now you're giggling because some of you were raised by my dad, right? You, you know. You, you remember that. Uh, [00:11:00] it worked for me sometimes though, to be truthful. I, I figured him out fairly early in life, and I was able to leverage his tendency toward perfectionism.

For example, if Dad ever said, "Son, go out and sweep the porch," well, all I had to do was take one or two swipes in the wrong direction, and he would immediately say, "Boy, that ain't how you sweep the porch. Give me that broom." And he'd take the broom and sweep the porch, and I'd watch him do it. A little bit later, in my teenage years, we moved into town.

We had a swimming pool. He said, "That's your job." I said, "Yes, sir." But if I didn't do it well, he'd take it over. And you know what I'd say? "Yeah, sure." "I, I'm happy to let you show me how to do that. Yes, sir." So I learned, I'm just being honest, to, to somewhat play the perfectionism game, because I knew it would never be good enough, and that he would take over and do it for me to show me how to do it just right, and I was fine [00:12:00] with that.

Until the next time. Because I had a tendency of forgetting that one stroke or just how to catch that corner just right. You know what I'm talking about. Anybody raised by my dad? Good man, loves the Lord, love him. It's just how I grew up. So I, I came into this, uh, from a perfectionistic, probably long line, multi-generational, driven to succeed, perfectionism, task-oriented, all of those things, type A, all of that thing.

I, I came by it naturally, I should say. In fact, I'll tell you one more story. I'm in eighth grade English. Remember not A English? I'm in English, and Mr. Brueger, who was German, right? That never made any sense to me. Still doesn't. But one day in class, he said to the whole class, to me, whole class listening, "Mr.

Fleming, you're not very bright." Whole class, eighth grade, like 14 years old, shaping my [00:13:00] psyche forever, right? "Fleming, you're not very bright, but you're a hard worker. You'll be okay." Well, thanks Mr. Bruegger. That changed my life. What was he saying? He's saying what my dad always said, "Son, you gotta work harder than anybody else.

You gotta do more. You have to perform to a certain expectation," and typically that expectation is A+, nothing less. So that just tells you a little about me. You've got your own story. You have your own background. You had your own parents, your peers, your profession. You had all of that that's put in you this sort of thinking that you possess, and hopefully that's been tempered w- plus or minus, left or right, by the scripture and the Holy Spirit and good sermons you've heard and good support groups and community that you've got and, and it's toned down some of that perfectionistic tendency.

I hope that's the case. That certainly has been the case for me, I think. Don't ask Beverly. She's not allowed to [00:14:00] say. Now, while we're talking about these two poles, I just want to go ahead and describe the poles because what I hope is clear to you, I'm not advocating that you be clinging to a perfectionistic pole or to the pole that says, "This is just how it is.

I'm done. There's nothing to change. There's nothing to grow. It's just me. This is how I am. This is how God made me." You know that. You know that. There are downsides to these two poles. The, the relentless pursuit of perfection when it's not a pursuit of perfection for the proper motivation, if you will, when it's driven by something other than, or it's the fruit of the result of something other than what we would consider of the Lord.

One of the downsides to this relentless pursuit is, are you ever truly satisfied? I mean, if everything always has to be vroom, but we live in a fallen world, which is whoop, [00:15:00] and, you know, you want vroom, and you keep getting whoop. Are you ever really satisfied with whoop? I mean, it's a liability of perfectionism that, that your brain is wired to think in terms of how could that have been better?

How, how could that have gone better, come out better, turned better? How? And, and you're always looking at... And it's never the glass is half full, it's always, "We need more water," right? I mean, that's just a liability that it, it, it may be. And I'll... And I'm, I'm being so transparent you're gonna no longer respect me, but I'm gonna tell you anyway.

Uh, when I left, uh, my first church, second church, sorry, uh, first adult church if you will, and Beverly and I moved back to Daytona, served as co-pastors, served there six years. Bobby Welch, who, uh, 20 years my senior, uh, military war hero from Vietnam, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, [00:16:00] V for Valor, Special Forces, captain in the Army.

I mean, he was my hero. He was a man. And he was the senior pastor, and he, he named me co-pastor. And, and I'm 20 years younger, never been in the Army, don't have a Bronze Star, V for Valor. I didn't grow that church over a 30-year ministry span. I was the new guy, and, and... Y- so you know what I'm saying? The co looked kind of like this.

It looked kind of like this. But it was supposed to be a transitional co where I would become the senior pastor and he would become emeritus and, and so on and, and so forth, that go. Well, as things change, uh, his circumstances changed, which I respected, and, uh, that transition, uh, wasn't gonna happen in the timeframe that we had, uh, established and that I was hoping for.

And, and I was just honest with him, and I said, "Well, Brother Bobby, I, I thank you for your honesty, but I sense that my time here has come to a close, and, uh, I, I don't think God has called me to serve in this role for another six years." It'd been six. For another six years. So I asked his [00:17:00] permission. I said, "Will it be okay if I, uh, open the door of possibility?

There've been a few calls, and I've turned them down, but maybe I should take the call and see where God leads." And he granted that. "Well, of course. If God calls you, you gotta go," and said all the right things. But, but here's what he said later. Here's what he said later. He said, "Fleming left because he's the kind of person who will never be satisfied."

So no matter what I did or we did, we could have never have kept him or satisfied him. He was always going to leave. Now, that was really hurtful, and let me tell you why. Because it was true

That's 30 years ago. I hope it's not still true. But in my late 20s and early 30s, what I've already told you about my drive [00:18:00] towards holy perfectionism and attainment and achievement and checking boxes and getting it done, he probably was telling more truth about me than I was willing to receive at that time.

But looking back, I don't think he said anything except what he saw.

There goes my perfection bubble. Because the problem with perfectionism is you never attain it, not in this life, not in this flesh And so you live with a persistent sense of dissatisfaction. And oh, by the way, everybody around you feels it too Dad will never be satisfied. My husband, my wife, no matter what I do or how much I do, will [00:19:00] never be satisfied.

The people around us get it. It's a liability. It's one of those things you kind of got to look out for, as is falling into the performance mode. And what I mean by performance, it's not wrong to perform, it's not wrong to do a good job, it's not wrong to do your best, but when your value and your self-worth is tied to your performance, it becomes a liability.

So if there's a nagging sense of, "Well, if I could do better, he, she, God would love me more." Like through my effort, I can somehow impress God or the world or my congregation or my family or my co-colleagues at work. If I could just do a little more, do a little better, if I could just go a little further, a little faster, they would appreciate me more, they would like me more.

So we fall into this trap of performance value, which means [00:20:00] we're always striving for acceptance and to find our worth as defined in the eyes of others who watch us work. It's a liability, as is pride. Because if I could somehow, should, possibly, perhaps do better than you, well, now I can congratulate myself because I'm better, faster, smarter, work harder, gone further, made more, have more, known more.

And so pride is just sort of like an incipient little-- it just slips in there to, to people who are driven to perfectionism and live as perf- even recovering perfectionists have to be aware that there's the tendency to perform for others so that when they see us, they value us, which then feeds our pride and ego And if I can remind you of something, [00:21:00] what John the Baptist said, "I must decrease, He must increase."

So anything that's feeding my pride and building my ego in self, not in identity in Christ, but in who I am based on what I do, well, that's a potential liability that we need to be really careful of and really cautious of On the other hand, if we move from perfectionism to resignation, I get really passionate about this one.

Not really, I could care less. I have, I have resigned to the fact that it ain't gonna matter. I am who I am. I do what I do. It's just who I am. I've tried before. I've failed. Or the super spiritual one, "This is how God made me." Well, let's consider that, uh, on the other side you may [00:22:00] hear things like, "What's the problem?"

That's denial. Denial that there is room to grow, denial that there is progress to be made, denial that there's a problem between us or around me or in me. Denial. I- "What problem?" And we all know somebody who's got a telephone pole sticking out of their face. Right? I mean, this huge log, this big tree just sticking out of their face.

But here they come to you saying, "Can I talk to you about this problem you have?" And the problem you have that they are wanting to deal with this little piece of sawdust, right? It's just a little speck in your eye. And you just think, "Hang on, y- you got a tree sticking out of your face, but you want to talk to me about a speck of dust in, in my eye."

S- so this is a person who is resigned to who they are, accepted who they are, and is blind to anything they may or may not be otherwise. [00:23:00] It's a person who might say, "Well, that's just the way I am," as if it's a life sentence. Can I share you a little good news with you? The way you are is not a life sentence.

It's not meant to describe how you will always be. There is hope in the Gospel. There is hope in Psalm 139. There is hope that the way you are isn't how you have to stay. You can change People on this pole say things like, "Well, I'm just too old." Can't teach... Say it with me. You can't teach- Old dogs- Old dogs new tricks.

Well, maybe so. But you ain't a dog, are you?

I mean, is it harder to change after patterns have been well worn and habits have been well ingrained? I mean, you're talking about a [00:24:00] lifetime of thinking, a lifetime of seeing the world, a lifetime of responding in times of stress or crisis. I mean, these are habits that are well ingrained, true, but how powerful is the God who made you and made me?

See, hope speaks into the challenges of life, no matter what stage of life we find ourselves in. And you might say something like, "Well, I'm just too busy to bother," which is just deferral. It, it's just procrastination. "Yeah, I need to work on that, and when I get to a better time in my life, that's what I'm gonna do."

The problem is that time never comes, does it? So this poll comes with, as you would expect, some downsides of its own. And to my way of thinking, one of those downsides is the reality that there's a finish line in our future Nobody's promised tomorrow. It's presumption to think that we're gonna live any longer than the Lord gives us the breath in our lungs to breathe.[00:25:00]

There's a finish line in our future, every one of us, and when we reach that finish line, will we find ourselves spiritually mature or immature? And by the way, nobody argues at this point. We all know that we're born again in Christ, and we are like babes craving spiritual milk. But what are we supposed to do?

We're supposed to grow. We're supposed to mature. We're supposed to fill in the blanks. We're supposed to take on strength, and knowledge, and wisdom, and trust and faith, and, and all of those things we grow in, we add to, we put on. There's ... It's an assumption. It's a part of the whole fabric of what you are and who you are as a Christian, that you come to Christ, He doesn't come to you.

Now, don't worry about the theology of that in certain conversations, but you understand my point. N- nowhere in the Bible do we see Jesus coming up next to a sinner, sitting down, and joining in the sin Never do we see Jesus [00:26:00] come up and say, "You know, this is a nice house. Why don't we just stay here, guys?

Let's just chill out. Let's just dig in. Let's just settle down. This is a good place. Let's stay right..." No. The call of God in Christ Jesus is consistent. "Come, follow me." Why? He's on the move. The kingdom of God is advancing. The kingdom of God's not sitting. The reign and rule of Christ is coming. It's not settled.

So progress is built in. Growth is built in. Spiritual growth and maturity is the expectation, not the exception, that we are supposed to make progress. We are supposed to fill it out. We're supposed to put it on. We're supposed to live it out and work it out The danger for somebody who's holding onto the pole of resignation is, is they get to the finish line before they get to the finish line.

Unfinished. And along with spiritual [00:27:00] immaturity comes unrealized potential. Gosh, who could I have become in Christ if I had become who I could become in Christ? How different of a person would I be, would I have been? Think of the spiritual treasures in Christ in us. Think about the abundance of the knowledge, of wisdom, of goodness, of grace and mercy, of love, of peace.

All the fruits of the Spirit in abundance flowing out of our lives. All of that unrealized as potential because we sat down and grabbed hold of a pole called complacency or Resignation. And don't think it just stops with you because unrealized potential means missed opportunities. So what an impact my life would make.

What a difference your life could make. How many people could you impact? How many lives could you touch? [00:28:00] What future could you shape? What trajectory could you change even one degree, but over time changes the world? But you won't ever know because you never opened that box, because that gift sat under the tree, because you never asked that question or sought that strength or applied with intentionality the strategy towards getting there so that from there your platform would expand and your ministry explode.

There's a liability of that pole. So obviously I'm not encouraging any of us to be on either one of these two, what we might say, extremes, either the one to the left or the one to the right, resignation on the one hand or relentless perfectionism, unholy I would say, on the other. Now I'm not, I'm not including that.

I think obviously I'm trying to get you to think more towards the center two poles, right? Because that leaves us, if we eliminate those two to the degree we can, with the two in the middle. Wonderfully made, you have two poles left, [00:29:00] or a work in progress. And we do often tend to lean toward one or the other Some days we feel like David of Michelangelo.

Other days like a block of marble, and we see that chisel and hammer coming, and we think, "Oh, no. Here comes the sculptor. He hates me. He's gonna peck at me, and hammer away at me, and take pieces away from me." So we tend to lean one side or the other. But what does the Bible say? I know you're wondering, "Is there any Bible in this talk?"

It's a very good question. What does the Bible say to Orr? Well, let's, uh, rattle through obvious ones. Psalm 139:13, "For you form." Who [00:30:00] formed your inward parts? God. You knitted me together in my mother's womb. What did you know when you were in your mother's womb? Not much. What had you done in your mother's womb?

Not much. How well had you performed in your mother's womb? Did you kick the game-winning goal in your mother's womb? Did you win the trophy for first place? Did you make a million bucks? Did you travel the world? What'd you do? Nothing. Just sort of sit there, upside down, I think But what did God do? He was hands-on.

And by the way, the Hebrew word here, inward parts, is kidneys. That's as deep as it gets. So what the Bible's telling us is that God was active in your creation and in your formation from the beginning. Before anything you [00:31:00] ever did to earn His favor or His attention or His handiwork, God was already working in you to accept you and love you and make of you something wonderful.

Before God formed us. So some people, believe it or not, would take one Psalm 30, 1, Psalm 139 as a reason to puff themselves up and be prideful. "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Look at me." No, you didn't do the work. God did that work. In fact, look at verse 14, "I praise you," who? The God who formed me, who knew me, who fashioned me together in the depths before anything, chosen to make something out of me that is wonderful.

Praise God. He's the creator, the former, the fashioner. "For I am," I praise God, "For I am by you fearfully and wonderfully made," that... By the way, the root Hebrew word is used three times in there, kind of [00:32:00] as a play on words. "You formed my inner parts. I praise you. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well."

There's a repeating there for emphasis that we are the work of God, and all God's works are wonderful, and I'm one of them. The focus here is not on my wonderfulness, but God's creative genius and His acceptance and love of us. So there's nowhere and room to boast or be prideful or arrogant because of Psalm 139.

It's to fall on our face and say, "Praise you, God." Amen. "That you made me like you made everything else, and everything you've made is wonderful." Now, let me tell you what that should do. That should give you confidence, not in self, but in your Savior. That should give you hope, not in your ability or your perfectionistic drive or tendencies of checking boxes and getting things done in the very best possible way to impress all of your friends and colleagues so that they give you the employee of the year award and [00:33:00] a check at the end of the year.

No. This is a reason to fall on our face before the Lord in acknowledgment that we have hope because of who made us, not who He made us to be It's really powerful. Before. And to realize that our dignity is in our design. Our dignity is in our design. Now, you all know you can have a great house plan. What do you gotta do with that house plan?

You gotta actually go put it on the ground in lumber, and concrete, and steel, and tiles, and appliances, and carpet. Design, wonderful But it doesn't stop with the design. There is the working out of that and the building up of that. So God formed us for sure, but this verse does not tell us that God finished us in that condition, in that [00:34:00] state, in that location.

It just says the design that He had for you, what He saw in you when He saw unformed mass was

a wonderful expression of His creative genius called you. What a great place to start. What a great place. I want to underline some of these words. "I am fearfully and wonderfully made. My... Your works are," wow, "wonderful. My soul knows that very well," meaning I was formed in the inward parts, and in my inward parts I am confident and established on this: I am fearfully and what?

Wonderfully made. So if you have to say, "Well, which am I? Fearfully and wonderfully made, or am I a work in progress?" You could certainly grab the pole that says I am fearfully and wonderfully made, because you are. It's biblical, it's scriptural, it's a fact. And when Michelangelo saw David, he looked in that block of stone and he saw a form.

Not [00:35:00] mass, a form. And with vision and with skill and with persistence, speck by speck, chunk by chunk, he whittled away everything that didn't belong to free what he saw inside that mass And essentially in Psalm 139, God's looking into a mass and he is forming an individual. How amazing. "I saw the angel in the stone," Michelangelo said, "and I carved until I set him free."

But you have to also understand that along with the statue of David in Florence, some of us have been there, there are other statues too, not quite as glamorous. They're called the unfinished works of Michelangelo. This one, for example, is called The Atlas. It's an unfinished work of art. And what you can see is, is clearly Michelangelo saw inside that big block of stone around it [00:36:00] an individual.

And you look closely, you can see body parts, face even beginning to emerge, but it's still wrapped and, and trapped in, in stone. So that work wasn't finished. The form was there, the vision was there, but time ran out. The finish line came before it reached the finish So let's see now if we can maybe think about the other pole between these two, and choose which one it should be.

Ephesians 2:8-9, you know it well. "For by grace you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it's the gift of God, not of works." Not of works. Ook. Not, no works. Can't add to it, can't build on it. Not up to you and your good works. It's up to Him and His good work. We know that. And this reaffirms that we are fearfully and wonderfully made.

We are created in Christ Jesus. We are saved by grace through faith [00:37:00] before, not because, before. Not because of good effort on our part, although I'm all for good effort, you know. That perfectionist says, "Yeah, but you gotta, you gotta try." No. That's... Ephesians 2:8 and 9 says the key to salvation is surrender to the one who did everything necessary to save us.

But as I always like to do, and you know this if you know me, I love to keep reading, because verse 10 says, "For we are his workmanship." The word poiema. It's a workmanship, it's creation, it's a form from vision within. It's a bringing out of, and that's the same language really we see that's very similar in a sense to what we read in Psalm 1:39.

We're His workmanship, so the work He did isn't finished, see? Because in fact, the work He did is the beginning of the work He will continue to do. Created in Christ Jesus unto good works, [00:38:00] for good works. Not because good works, for good works which God prepared, there He is again in the active formation role.

He's prepared these works for us that we should walk in them, live them out, check them off, get them done. Ephesians 2:8-9, wonderful word, workmanship. Read into it. It just means we're a wonderful creation, and that there is more creative genius to be displayed for good works. How about Philippians 1:6? Three more quick ones.

We're doing fine on time, don't worry. "And I'm sure of this," Paul writes. I love this verse. "That he who began a good work in you" ... Can... Do y'all know the Greek word for began translated into English? It's so powerful. It's this word. You ready? Began. It, it, it's just [00:39:00] some things are so painfully simple. I'm sorry, I'm not a career academic.

I think I'm just getting my head around this, but it's not quite complicated he began a good work in you Sounds like Psalm 139. What else does it say? I'm glad you asked. He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. Will is what kind of verb, class?

Future. He will. Doesn't say He did, He has. Says He will. So we've got He began a good work in you, and He will bring it to where? Completion, maturity, fullness, done. He will. It's a promise. It's full of hope and inspiration and power and encouragement. Because every time you and I slip and fall, we tend to say, "I just can't do this."

And He [00:40:00] says, "Good to hear. Never thought you could. I can. You didn't start this. I'll finish it." How encouraging is that? I hope you need that this week. Well, I don't hope something bad happens, but I mean, I do hope. What about this one? Philippians 2:12-13. "Therefore, beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only in my presence but more in my absence," oh, my goodness.

Work for your salvation Come on, only one person corrected me? What's it say? Work out. Doesn't say work for, it says work out. What, what, what do you mean work out? Work out your salvation with fear and trembling. There's a sense of awe and reverence in those words. Like a holy obligation/responsibility/privilege when we recognize the salva- the salvation that God has graciously granted [00:41:00] to us and given to us in Christ in us as salvation.

And now he says with reverence, recognizing the power and the awe and incredibleness of that, the wonder of that, work that out. It's like getting the most valuable Christmas present you've ever gotten, and you're told that, and you say, "Yeah, I'll open it later." Well, clearly you don't appreciate the messenger or believe the message that what's in that box is the most important, expensive, wonderful thing you've ever been given in your life, and you say, "Yeah, I've got enough."

No, with awe, with fear, with reverence, we say, "Oh my goodness," trembling hands. "Give it to me. Can I open it now? Help me. I don't wanna drop it. Is it breakable? Is it fragile? What is it? I can't wait to see." Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for, here it is, it is God who works in [00:42:00] you. God's working.

I mean, wonderful are your works. I was made fearfully and wonderfully. Wonderful are your works that are still going all these years later. God is still working. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure, Philippians 3:12-16. Not that I've already obtained. This is Paul.

You think he's holding on to the resignation pole? You think he's camped out at the wonderfully made pole? Look, anybody that's willing to say, "Not that I've already obtained," or, "I'm already perfect or complete, full done, full grown." This is an honest assessment. I'm not, I'm not where I could be Positive way of viewing it.

Negative way, I'm not where I should be. [00:43:00] Now, that can either be an indictment for shame or an opportunity for growth. It's all in your head because in reality and in the Word and in real life, those assessments are just honest assessments about where we are with the understanding that we don't have to stay where we are.

We're not condemned to this place. This habit does not have to define the rest of my life. This attitude does not have to shape my thinking for the rest of my life. I can change because the one who is bringing about the change in me is more than me. I press on to make it my own. Press is a physical exertion.

There's, there's a muscular reaction here. This isn't a resignation. This is intentional action. I'm pressing, pushing forward, reaching To make it my [00:44:00] own. What it is whatever God has for me. Maturity, c- completion, experience, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, intimacy, service, ministry, spiritual gifts, fruit of the spirit, spiritual maturity.

I wanna get my hands around it, so I'm reaching for it. This is a guy who's nearing the finish line, folks, and yet he says, "I'm not there yet, so I'm not done yet." And he's reaching forward. "Not that I've already obtained, or that I'm already perfect. But I press on to make it my own, because Christ has made me His own."

That's exactly what Psalm 139 is saying about God forming us to the inward parts, is there's tied up in that Hebrew word, in that verse of scripture, the sense of distinguishing. Not, not just of forming, but distinguishing, making. Like if I make you captain of the team, right? I didn't, like, create you. It's not a biological statement.

It's an [00:45:00] affirmation of your identity in the design and vision that I have for you. He made us. And, and Paul says, "Christ made me His own. He named me. He claimed me. He redeemed me. He's possessed me," in a sense, in the most positive way of viewing that, "so that I can get my arms around Him." That's so good.

Already perfect? No. Press on. By the way, tetelesti in the Greek sounds familiar, doesn't it? It's what Jesus said on the cross. He said, "It is finished." What's it? Fill in the blank. It's a complete statement of completion. Uh, specifically, the payment for our reconciliation has been paid. Sin's debt has been settled.

The door is open to heaven and eternal life, the free gift of God given through Christ and His work on the cross. It's finished. [00:46:00] It being the will of God in and for my life. I had lots of people try to talk me out of this. Peter said, "This will never happen," but here it is. It's finished. And Paul uses the same word, tetelestai.

I'm not there So Jesus can say to Telesti, Paul can't. Neither can I. And probably neither can you Brothers, I don't consider that I've made it my own, but one thing I do, I'm turning my back on where I was and I'm learning, turning ahead and straining ahead and reaching forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

So wow. Press on. That'd just be a good summary of today's sermon, wouldn't it? Just press on. Wherever you are, whatever you've attained, whatever level [00:47:00] you've reached, press on Well, by the way, you can still be wonderfully made and press on to what God has for you next. So you see, this whole time I've been putting you in the position of needing to choose, but nowhere in the Bible does it call us to choose between wonderfully made and a work in progress.

Nowhere. The upward call of God. And by the way, uh, the, the value in that block of stone that became David was in that block of stone before the chisel hit the rock. Because our worth and our value and our dignity is in our design, not in our outcome. So here we are between these two poles, and I guess we have to choose which is it, wonderfully made or a work in progress?

Can I change the word a bit?[00:48:00]

You mean I can be both wonderfully made and I can praise the Lord for His fearful and wonderful work that I am, and I can be eternally and forevermore satisfied in who God is making me to be in Christ Jesus? I can be satisfied with His effort on my part, with His work for me. I can be truly,