Why did God make you the way you are?

In Psalm 139:13-16, David marvels that God personally formed him in the womb. Dr. Toby Holt explains why your design, identity, and purpose come from God — and why that is good news.

David says he was "fearfully and wonderfully made," knit together by God Himself. Because a personal Creator made us on purpose, our identity and even the number of our days are set by His will, not by chance. He addresses why some are born with hardships — we live in a fallen world, and we are unfinished works whose full restoration awaits heaven.

Questions this study answers:

1. What does it mean to be "fearfully and wonderfully made"? That God formed you deliberately and with care, not by accident. You are the work of a personal Creator.

2. How does God's knowledge of us shape our identity? Our worth and purpose come from the God who made us, not from our achievements or others' opinions. He defines who we are.

3. Why can we trust God's plan for our lives? Because the One who designed us also ordained our days. A Maker that careful can be trusted with our future. "I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works…" — Psalm 139:14 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

Why did God make me this way? Why did God give me this particular strength or this particular weakness?

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Why did God do this? Why did God put me in the given situation that I'm in?

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Why did God put me in the particular family that I'm in?

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Why has God allowed me to be in this vocation with these giftness and this strength and these abilities

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or these weaknesses or these deficiencies? Why did God do it?

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Now these are good questions. They're reasonable questions to ask, even as believers.

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It's reasonable to wonder why we were made and to what end God has made us.

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Now, are there any answers?

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If these are good questions, if it's reasonable to ask,

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God, why did you make me?

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Does his word provide any answers for us?

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We're going to consider all this across the breadth of today's text.

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Let me stop for a moment.

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You know, one of the very first theological statements I learned in seminary,

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there is a God and you are not him.

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There is a God and you are not him.

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The minute you understand this, you are well on your way to a right orthodoxy.

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There is a God.

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he has made all things you can deny it you can suppress it and many do you can object to it you

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can try to narrow that down water that down dress it down to all manner of things it doesn't change

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the fact you and i are created beings and if we are created beings and there must be a creator

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and if there is a creator then how we are to live and what we have been made for what our purpose

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in life is to be flows from his own volition and not ours if god has formed a hammer does that

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hammer have the same utility as a spoon? No. Try and eat with one and you'll find out the hard way.

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The hammer and the spoon are different. They have different utilities. Their purpose, what they are

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to be used for, is determined by the one who made it. The ironsmith who can form vessels to different

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ends, it is he whose volition determines what end that vessel or that instrument will be used for.

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The creator does this, not the created. You want to know what your purpose in life is? You want to

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what your purpose your identity what you were made to do how many days you're to have what you're to

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do with those days you have any of these questions all these questions you have to look up you have

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to say there is someone transcendent over me if you don't start with that premise there's nothing

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i can say this morning that i'll help you if you don't start with the premise that there is a god

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and you're not him and that in order to know truth you need to look out for his revelation if you

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don't start with this premise you'll be left with nothing but guesswork if you want to know anything

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how you are to live why you live in the first place you look to him now some would deny or

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object everything i just said on the basis that there is no god in the heaven that we formed

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ourselves and therefore our utility is for us to determine this is the dominant view in the culture

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around us certainly in all of our institutes of higher learning that we're all just cosmic

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accidents folks believe there is no god in the heavens now if that is true we really are just

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cosmic surprises cosmic accidents we crawled out of the goo to you if that's the way things work

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then the very notion of purpose or identity it's academic at best in this silly question at worst

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if you and i are fundamentally no different than the ants outside these doors we're just silly

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creatures who fret and strut our hour upon the stage and then are heard no more than hamlet was

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right and life is nothing but a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing

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If you are not formed by hand of a creator, there is no purpose.

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There's no utility.

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There is no objective that transcends you by which you are to live your life.

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And anything you do with your life has no ultimate meaning.

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Whatever you might do.

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Now those who believe that, I believe it's a weak argument.

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This is not going to be a sermon on intelligent design, but I tell you this much.

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I believe it's a weak argument.

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But furthermore, it's the most unsatisfying one.

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There's an old saying that one thing about Christianity that gives it meaning

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is that it operates under the preconditions for intelligibility.

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And what that means is this.

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In order to make life and love and work and labor

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and everything that you do intelligible at all,

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in order to be able to understand why we have laws,

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why we have love, why we have emotions,

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you have to start with a structure that makes those things intelligible.

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Christianity does this.

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Other approaches, evolution and the like, do not.

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In any case, presuming that you and I were formed

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by someone greater than ourselves,

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Presuming that God exists and presuming that we are His handiwork, presuming that Psalm 139 is true,

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it still is reasonable, it still is reasonable to ask why He's made us the way that He has.

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Now, some people ask that out of curiosity, you know, genuinely just want to know.

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Why was I given this ability or strength? Why do I have this health condition or this issue?

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Some people ask it out of curiosity. Others ask it out of a wellspring of pain.

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They look at their life, they look at the circumstances, they look at their health,

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They look at their future and they say, why?

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They say, God, I know you're supposedly good and I know you're supposedly in charge.

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I know these things.

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In fact, I believe these things.

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And yet I have trouble reconciling your goodness and your sovereignty with this terrible thing that has come into my life.

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This health condition, this relationship problem, my job I lost, the poverty I'm suffering from.

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But see, if you're good and you're in charge, shouldn't you have fixed all that stuff?

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Sometimes it can be hard to reconcile God's goodness and his sovereignty with our circumstances.

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If you live long enough, life will give you plenty of reasons to ask why about any number of different things.

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As you seek to understand what God is doing with you and through you, you will ask why.

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Are there answers?

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That's why we ask the doubts.

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If this morning, if you have questions, if you have doubts about these issues, I'm hopeful that our study will be an aid.

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I'm going to read now verses 13 through 15, and we'll go through the passage.

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Verse 13.

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For you formed my inward parts.

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Now right here, starting with the presupposition that there is a God, David wasn't him.

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He looks up, he says, for you, you form my inward parts.

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It wasn't determined by my mother, it certainly wasn't determined by me, you did it.

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You form my inward parts, you covered me in my mother's womb.

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I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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David looked at the rocks and the trees and the squirrels and the acorns and he said,

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I am not of these.

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I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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I have been made different.

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I have been made in the likeness and image of the one who made me.

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And that makes me different than all the animals I might see outside these doors.

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I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

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Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well.

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Verse 15.

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My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in secret and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.

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You know, before my daughter was born, my wife and I had the opportunity to observe one of these prenatal sonograms

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on one of the big screens they had up in our hospital room.

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And this was the most amazing experience.

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My son had only been born a few years earlier,

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but the technology had improved dramatically.

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So as I sat in the room, as I watched,

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they had put this song up on the largest TV they had in this room.

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I was astonished.

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Before they just gave you a little piece of paper

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and they pointed with a red pen and put a little dot there

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and they said, that's your child.

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You'd go, yay.

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Well, in this case, you could see all manner of things.

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You could see fingers.

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You could see toes.

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You could see movement.

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It wasn't a static image.

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There was so much about this, and my jaw just dropped, and I thought, this is the most amazing thing.

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And as I watched these little, tiny, little fingers moving about, I didn't see a cosmic accident.

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I didn't see chance.

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I saw the handiwork of God.

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And in watching this song, I realized there's things going on, even at a molecular level, that I couldn't see with the greatest technology, that were not an accident, not a coincidence.

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Rather, my child's tiny body was being fashioned by the hand of the same one who made the cosmos.

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By the same one who fashioned all the massive things within the created realm.

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Now, in a nutshell, that's what verses 13 through 15 of today's text are declaring.

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You formed my inward parts.

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In places that no one could even look.

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In my mother's womb, you were at work, oh God.

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It was not just chemicals bouncing off chemicals that did this.

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But when I look at rocks and trees, when I look at mountains, when I look at an infant,

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I see the hand of a creator.

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And where I see the hand of a creator,

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and where I see something that was made,

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and where I see something like fingers,

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I know those fingers, each one of them,

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from the thumb on down, has utility and purpose

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assigned to it by the one who made it.

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This is part and parcel of what David is saying here.

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Now other translations, we read from the ESV earlier,

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it expresses the same sentiment by saying this,

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that God has knitted, knitted our parts together in the womb.

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Think of the carefulness of that image.

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Think of a master weaver.

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Seek this great product, this great outcome.

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You know, for all of God's might and His power,

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and yeah, He's mighty, and yeah, He's powerful.

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You can't see to the end of the created realm

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with the most powerful telescope we can make today.

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You can't see to it.

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You can only speculate.

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And that's speculating that there is an end

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to what we see outside these doors through a telescope.

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But the point is this.

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You can't see all that He has made.

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There's plants and stars and all sorts of things

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that are beyond your ability to see, let alone to experience.

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And God formed every molecule, every rock,

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every toadstool, whatever exists on every last one of them.

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He has done this.

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This is a God who's mighty.

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This is a God who's powerful.

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And yet, this is a God who's tender

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and looks upon infants with this sort of care

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and this sort of deliberateness in what He does

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and in how He forms them.

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This is a God who looks upon us with this love

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and by which David says,

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we have been fearfully and wonderfully made.

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Anything from abortion on out, euthanasia that strikes against this is striking against the very hand of God in creation.

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We've been fearfully and wonderfully made from the womb to the tomb and on into glory.

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Now, assuming you believe that to be true, the question remains,

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how do you reconcile that truth against the issues we mentioned earlier?

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Where a man might be born blind, a child might have cancer when they're young,

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Well, there are more miscarriages than we could possibly know in the world around us.

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How do we reconcile those who are born blind, those with Down syndrome,

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those with genetic predispositions towards anger or alcoholism or something similar?

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How do we reconcile these things in light of what we just read, in light of Psalm 139?

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You see, if theology is going to hold water, if theology is going to hold water,

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it needs to be stress-tested against all the pain and questions that can be brought to bear against it.

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If our theology holds water, if our theology is credible,

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it needs to be stressed out against the pain you're facing this week,

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against the things and the doubts and the things you wonder about on the horizon.

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But that said, let me offer two specific thoughts.

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There's not enough time to get into all the answers we might provide here,

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but let me offer two specific thoughts or responses to those sort of questions.

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First of all, this almost goes without saying, but we have to be realistic.

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Living in a fallen world inevitably will mean suffering fallen ills.

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Living in a fallen world means we suffer from fallen ills.

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In other words, the reason for any deficiency or any depravity in the world around us

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is because the world's entire nature is deficient and depraved.

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The fall is real.

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Following the fall, it wasn't just that mankind fell,

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but the whole created realm fell into chaos.

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And because of this, it's the same way if you're jumping into a pool.

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You jump into a pool, it does you no good to ask,

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why did I get wet?

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It's the nature of your environment.

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It's the nature of where you are, and it will affect you.

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Every bit as much as jumping in a pool will get you wet,

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living in the here and now living in a prey of fallen world means you will suffer from the fallen

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ills and they will manifest themselves differently for some people it's hardships or sickness or

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things we're experiencing in our physical condition for others of us it's just the hurt

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and pain of broken relationships and the like but this is part and parcel to where we live

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the good news is we're made for something different we're made for something better

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we'll get to that before we end today in any case as long as we live in a fallen world we

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will suffer from fallen ills all of which will affect us from the womb on forward and they will

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affect our cognition it will affect our addictions and our affectations our behaviors and all of it

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will culminate in the grave this is our reality you think differently you think you're in a fashion

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utopia out of a fallen landscape have a charred charred horizon you're wrong it doesn't work that

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way now because of this asking why one person suffers from this particular issue and someone

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else doesn't well this gets to be a bit more challenging asking why one person lives for years

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longer than someone else lives asking why one person has an affliction that someone else doesn't

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suffer from this is challenging but it also presupposes that there's some optimal standard

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that we should all meet and we don't meet it whether it's life expectancy or various health

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issues or what have you we think well somehow this is a tragedy we've fallen short of some

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optimal standard that we all some bar that we should all be at again that's not anything you

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see in scripture comparing one's lifespan or impairments against someone else or against some

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normal mean, some average curve, in order to seek out or to try to attain some optimal standard that

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we hope to reach, that fails to recognize we're all two inches from the grave. The fact that any

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one of us suffers from a different health condition, the fact that any one of us has a

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different challenge in our lives, misses the point. We all have health conditions and we all have

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challenges in our life and the ultimate reality of that is found when you walk into any cemetery

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in Cobb County. They all end in the same place. I don't know why Bob has diabetes and Carol has

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cancer i don't know exactly what god is doing in every last circumstance and anyone who claims to

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know is speaking out of turn but i do know this that both bob and his diabetes and carol with

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their cancer they're suffering from the the same common denominator the same affliction we call

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this sin as consequences will eventually claim them both because the wages of sin is death how

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it manifests itself and when it manifests itself does vary from person to person but we all end up

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in the same place.

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Some folks don't want to hear this.

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They don't want to hear

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the bad things happen

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because we live in a sinful world

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because they say,

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isn't God greater than the world?

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Is He any greater?

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Can't He override our condition?

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And so folks will object

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to everything I've just said

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on the basis that it's insufficient

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against the backdrop

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of God's sovereignty

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and His power to do something.

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That's fine.

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I know folks have this objection

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to them talking about sin

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and the fact that we suffer

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because we live in a fallen world.

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They look at that as insufficient.

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It's less than helpful,

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especially if they're

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on the outside looking in

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that matters of the christian faith but as a pastor my job is not to be a social worker but

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rather my job is to open the book and explain this is what the book has to say on the matter

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and every last condition we suffer from things we don't understand every last hurt every last pain

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every last tear that we have all can be traced back to the same exact root to sin i was a chaplain

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in the hospital i've been in people's rooms or suffering from just about everything you can

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suffer from when you're a chaplain you enter in all myths of trauma all myths of hurt all myths

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of pain all manner of different diagnosis the common denominator behind every last one of them

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is sin the common denominator behind every last one of them is sin if i look in the mirror i often

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use the example i've been getting grayer it seems by the week i look and i see more gray is sprouting

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up why do i get old why do i get sick why will death ultimately claim me sin the world doesn't

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like that and again they don't find that to be a sufficient explanation if we don't like it it

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doesn't change the facts now with that said let me offer a second observation sometimes we have a

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tendency to see a healthy child or a healthy adult we'll see is that that's the pinnacle that's the

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pinnacle of god's work in forming mankind look at the health look at the vitality and many of us

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will be envious of that we'll say i remember back when i was 20 pounds last i remember back when i

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could run and the joints didn't ache and so forth we have a tendency to look at healthy child or

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healthy adult we say that that's the pinnacle of god's work in forming a man forming a woman in

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other words we have tendency to think that a day should come for many of us it's already came and

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went when we will be all that god has made us to be in terms of our physical being now that is

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incredibly short-sighted do you think that god has done forming you and i at any time while we live

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on this mortal coil do you think that god has done forming man at such time as he reaches that apex

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of his physical spiritual emotional maturity do you think we can or are completed works while

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we're here we have no idea we have no idea see the truth is that every last one of us is a work

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in progress you know even an olympic athlete doesn't hold a candle in this life to the sort

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of health and vitality we will once experience.

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In a time and place where joints don't ache.

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In a time and place where you don't grow old,

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where there's no aging and sickness.

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There's no death.

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Even an Olympic athlete in the here and now

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doesn't hold a candle to the health and vitality

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you will one day have.

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Even the greatest genius in our midst today

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and on the globe today

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doesn't know one-tenth, one iota

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of the things that he will one day know.

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The things he will one day comprehend.

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Even the greatest poet couldn't dream

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of that which God has prepared for those who love him

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of the beauty and the sights that we will one day see,

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of the experiences that we will one day have,

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and how our bodies and souls will be equipped

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to see and to partake in things

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that you can't even dream up right now.

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Oh my goodness,

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you are not a completed work

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no matter how healthy you are tomorrow,

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no matter how sick you may be right now.

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The goodness is this,

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that in God's time,

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every ounce of sickness,

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every ounce of disease,

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every ache, every pain,

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every scintilla of dementia,

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everything like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's,

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all of that, gone.

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Our God makes all things new.

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And the here and now, we experience these things

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because these things remind us to look up to something better.

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Part of the reason we suffer, part of the reason we have the health conditions we have,

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why did Paul have the thorn in the flesh?

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Because it reminded him that God's grace is sufficient.

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God allowed Paul to have a thorn in the flesh.

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Even the apostle Paul cried out and he said,

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God, take this away.

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Take it away.

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And what was God's response?

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God said, no, you need this.

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My grace is sufficient for you.

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Even that which Paul and probably the people around him determined was a weakness or a deficiency.

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God knew what he was doing.

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And in the here and now, in the present experience that Paul's undergoing,

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I guarantee you that thorn doesn't still exist.

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It has been removed.

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All of us, if you live long enough, will become so infirm you can't get out of bed.

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If you live long enough, it'll happen.

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And God will use even those moments, even our infirmities, even our sicknesses today.

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He will and is using for our betterment and His glory.

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I can't pretend to know exactly how, and neither can you.

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But we know God is in charge, and we know He is good.

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And we know that what we see in this present existence is not the end of the story.

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Thank God it's not.

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Think of the hardship and the tears you've cried over different things.

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Would you desire this to be as good as it gets?

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Would you desire this to be the end of the story, even on your best day?

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Now, I've been to Disney World a few times.

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You can drive there if you're from Georgia.

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And guess what?

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I look around Disney World, the happiest place in the world,

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there's still kids crying.

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There's still people with sad faces.

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That will not be the case there.

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Every last tear will be wiped away.

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This is the promise we see in Revelation 21.

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Every tear will be wiped away.

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By who?

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By God Himself.

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Remember the tenderness we talked about earlier?

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By the God who knits infants together in the womb?

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The same God who knitted you together and knew what He was doing.

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He is appointed a day when you will stand before him, and he will bend down to you.

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He will condescend.

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And the most tender picture we have in any culture, in any tribe, or any tongue,

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is when a parent wipes away a tear.

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Maybe uses the back of the hand or finger to wipe a tear from someone's eyes.

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This is the picture of God's love for you and his care for you.

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And it's a picture of something you have yet to experience, but which you will experience.

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And if he wipes away your tears, he will wipe away everything that caused your tears.

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Every thorn in the flesh, every thorn in the spirit.

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It will be gone.

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And God is a pointer of the day for this.

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We get so caught up in why is that not happening right now

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when I'm in the midst of the crucible of my pain.

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And the reality is that in this present life,

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this is the nature of this existence.

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And God himself is not immune to this

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because he sent his own son down to die on a cross.

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God can empathize with pain.

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When Jesus looked at those who were weeping,

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what does the shortest verse in the Bible say?

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It's two words.

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What are they?

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Jesus wept.

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He's not compassionate with whatever you're going through.

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He's not somewhere off just with his arms folded, just seeing how you do.

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He has empathy.

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He weeps for those who weep.

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He mourns for those who mourn.

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He continually cups our chin and focuses us upward.

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He says, remember.

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He says, remember what you were made for.

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He doesn't give us all the answers we might want today.

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He gives us something better.

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He gives us a blood-bought promise.

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A blood-bought promise that he makes all things new.

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And our future is more glorious than we can possibly hope for.

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But in this time, as darkness falls, we are to be busy being about our master's work.

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We are to be busy praying for our loved ones.

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We are to be busy sharing the gospel.

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We are to be busy studying scripture.

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We are to be busy doing that which he has made us to do.

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But the good news is that this isn't even half time in terms of what we've been made for.

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And you know what?

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Even when you're there, even when you're in glory, do you think you'll be fully formed on the first day?

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No, you will continue to grow in Christ and your knowledge of Him

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and your relationship with Him every day on into eternity.

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The mercies of God will be new every morning.

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Even there, there's a sense in which you're growing,

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growing closer with the One who has made you.

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Verses 13 through 16, their implications extend far beyond earthly genetics.

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Let's look at verse 16.

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Verse 16 says this,

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Your eyes saw my substance being yet unformed,

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And in your book they all were written, the day's fashion for me, when as yet there were none.

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You know, in the past I've suggested this.

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I've said that the main reason, the main reason the secular world hates the idea of creationism,

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it's not just for purely scientific reasons.

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The main reason that they teach evolution and the like as the primary mode,

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not even as a contrasting option, but as the primary mode by which we came into being.

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The main reason that the secular world hates the idea of creationism, I won't even talk about it,

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it's not based simply on the science or the biology.

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It really isn't, rather.

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The main reason that people hate the idea of a creator God

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is because creationism implies that one's purpose comes from the will of someone other than you.

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The main reason people don't like creationism and all the ivory towers and academic worlds

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is because it presupposes this.

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If there is a creator, and if he formed you, if all that's true,

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without even defining who this God is just yet.

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Presumably there is a God and he made you.

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That God, that God has a say in how you are to live.

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And the world hates that.

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The objection is not simply based on science.

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Don't get fooled into thinking that.

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The objection is, if I agree,

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if I, secular humanist Joe, agree to you,

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agree with you,

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I've been formed by someone other than me,

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that means I'm responsible to the one who made me.

433

That means if he told me how to live,

434

I need to live accordingly.

435

People don't like that.

436

They don't like the idea that there's something external that can tell them what to do.

437

And that's the main objection.

438

And that's why people will adopt even the silliest presuppositions,

439

like the idea that we're made from an ape.

440

People will cheer and applaud and say, this is the greatest grandpa ape.

441

They'll say, this is wonderful.

442

They would rather have that because that allows them to preserve their own autonomy.

443

It allows them to say, I am the measure of all things.

444

And all things fall subject to my purview and my judgment.

445

If there is no God, suppose it's right.

446

It's also hopeless in the final analysis, but that's a different story.

447

But the point is this.

448

The main reason people object to creationism is because they know the implications.

449

They know the implications, and they don't like the implications.

450

They don't like what it means.

451

If God exists, if He created all things,

452

what does verse 16 say?

453

In your book, my days were written, the days fashioned for me,

454

when as yet there were none of them.

455

If God exists and if he created all things, then he must have a purpose and a plan for what he has made.

456

That's what verse 16 declares.

457

And that's what our culture objects to.

458

Sinful folks want to determine their own purpose.

459

They don't want to bend the knee to a purpose that is external to themselves.

460

Now, this idea of God having a purpose, it's explicitly referred to in verse 16 with this mention of God's book.

461

God's book.

462

Now, what in the world is God's book?

463

There's a lot of different books referred to in scripture.

464

What book are we seeing here?

465

Well, verse 16 says that this book is a book in which our days have been recorded

466

when previously there were none of them.

467

In other words, it's saying our days were written down before we'd ever walked in them.

468

Before we breathed a breath, God knew what we were going to do.

469

And not only did God know what we were going to do through foreknowledge,

470

but he decreed that we should do them.

471

And that really stymies people.

472

Even the people who are okay with God being in the picture somewhere,

473

they want to redefine all this to mean that God only knows what's going to happen ahead of time

474

rather than He decrees, but that's not what the Word says.

475

Scripture regularly talks about God decreeing the end from the beginning,

476

not just knowing the end from the beginning.

477

They are two totally different things.

478

God's book refers to God's decrees and those things He has planned,

479

those things He has intended before creation itself.

480

Do the concepts of providence, election, predestination, does that stuff bother you?

481

If you're being honest, the answer for some of us, maybe all of us,

482

is either yes, they do, or they did at some time.

483

So the idea of God declaring any one man's future, let alone all man's future,

484

flies in the face of our natural desire to plot our own course.

485

We like to think of ourselves as free agents.

486

We like to see ourselves as free agents who choose, who choose God.

487

Oh, how wonderful of us.

488

I chose God.

489

How wise I am.

490

No, that's not it again, not the way it works.

491

We're not free agents.

492

God is in charge.

493

Now, He does, this is a different sermon,

494

but He does give us latitude in making a whole host of decisions.

495

But we can only choose that which is part of our nature,

496

and we can only choose that which is an option for us.

497

Can I choose right now to fly through this room?

498

No.

499

I might want to, but I cannot choose to.

500

Why?

501

Because my nature does not give me that as an option.

502

Right there, my free agency has been stymied by my creation.

503

Am I right?

504

You can nod, yeah.

505

My free agency has been stymied by the way I've been created.

506

That's the most basic way to explain the free agency is capped,

507

that our abilities to select certain things are limited by what God enables us to select from.

508

Again, there's probably not just one sermon, there's probably ten sermons we could preach on this.

509

But the point is, people want to think that free agents are all manner of different things.

510

Temporal, spiritual, what have you.

511

And again, it's not only that God's word says this isn't so, but common sense says it isn't so.

512

No man can just take off his feet and start flying around the room.

513

Everyone should recognize their natural limitations, even if you do.

514

In any case, when it comes to free agency, free will, all these different things, again, there's a lot to this.

515

When I talk to folks about God or the gospel, most folks, honestly, they don't object to the fact that God is there in a general sense.

516

They don't object to God in a general, abstract sense, almost like he's the force.

517

That doesn't mess with people too much.

518

They don't mind this idea that there's some deistic benevolent force.

519

They don't mind this idea of some sort of cosmic energy and karma and the like.

520

They don't mind the idea of a God who's way far away who kind of sends us his benevolence on the wind.

521

They don't mind that.

522

But they do mind a God who has an agenda.

523

They do mind a God who shatters their self-deterministic lifestyle.

524

A God who decrees and ordains the future.

525

And when we say that this God does this, we fly in the face of what man naturally wants.

526

Does the fact that God has ordained your future scare you or encourage you?

527

Does the fact that God has ordained your future fill you with dread?

528

Or does it encourage you to know that every step, every breath has been unfolded into a plan

529

and into a horizon that you can't possibly see?

530

Does it scare you? Does it offend you? Or does it encourage you?

531

Let me consider that with the remaining few moments here.

532

If you were to hop on a plane tomorrow, if you could choose the pilot,

533

what sort of pilot would you choose?

534

Would you choose a pilot who had just this perfect, unblemished track record and a perfect view, a view of all directions, a view onto the infinite horizon?

535

Would you choose that pilot or would you choose the pilot with the spotty track record, the pilot with limited, maybe double vision?

536

Would that be the pilot you would choose?

537

Well, unless you have a death wish, you're going to opt for option A.

538

You're going to opt for the first pilot.

539

In the same way, if you were to be given, right now, autonomy to choose.

540

Autonomy to choose the pilot for your own life.

541

Would you choose God or would you choose yourself?

542

Well, given our track record, given our limited vision,

543

if we were piloting our own life, we would have crashed and burned a long time ago.

544

I don't know all the backstories in this room, but I know people well enough to know.

545

Most of us wouldn't have lived past our teenage years if it was left up to us,

546

if there was no God in Zion, if there was no God in heaven.

547

David knew that.

548

The author of Psalm 139, he knew that.

549

Man alive, he looked back at his past so often,

550

and he declared regularly in the Psalms

551

how often God had come through for him,

552

even when he knew he'd been wayward.

553

A sheep prone to wander.

554

David knew who he was.

555

He knew he was a sheep, and he thanked God for his shepherd.

556

He didn't want to be on autopilot.

557

He didn't want to command all things.

558

He knew how much better it was that God is in charge.

559

Just like you and I, David was prone to doing some silly stuff,

560

and he would pay the price when he did so.

561

So when he finally stopped and looked at things objectively,

562

he concluded that God being in charge is a good thing.

563

God being in charge is a good thing.

564

He wanted a God to lead him.

565

He wanted a God to put a hedge around his steps,

566

to lead him beside the still waters, to restore his soul.

567

That's the conclusion you see throughout Psalm 139.

568

David trusted in God's hands and God's plans.

569

Do you?

570

For some of us, the answer is sort of.

571

We trust in God just enough to want an insurance policy against hell and the like,

572

and to want some sort of benevolent force sort of looking after us.

573

But we don't necessarily trust His plans,

574

especially when His plans seem to develop along a path that looks dark to us,

575

or that we would never choose for ourselves.

576

In this moment, we might be okay with God's hands,

577

but God's plans we're not so sure about.

578

Whatever the case, rather than seeing God's hands and God's plans as a negative thing,

579

God knew it was for His benefit.

580

In Psalm 139, he not only declares it, but he praises God for it.

581

He says, I would not have it any other way.

582

The wise man doesn't get upset or angry that God is there and that God is in charge.

583

The wise man wouldn't want it any other way.

584

Conversely, the people who reject God's leading are the ones who think they can end up someplace better without Him.

585

Is that us? Do we think we know better than God?

586

Do we think we ought to be the pilot of our own destiny?

587

If so, we're in for a lot of heartache.

588

If so, we're in for a lot of disaster.

589

As for David, as for myself, and I trust as for you, I know this much.

590

I don't want my fate dictated by coincidence or by my own whims because I'm a silly man, as are we all.

591

But instead, I want a providential decree by a good and sovereign God.

592

I want a God on the throne who looks down and can and does actively intervene in my life, even if I don't understand it.

593

Most of the time, I don't.

594

But I still want him there.

595

I still want him there.

596

If God's hand was so careful in forming me in the womb

597

before I knew right from wrong, let alone could choose it,

598

if God's hand was so careful in forming me in the womb,

599

why in the world would I want to reject or let go of that hand somewhere down the road?

600

Why in the world should I ever want to release that hand later on?

601

When I look at the care God has demonstrated,

602

when he fashions a finger, when he fashions a snowflake,

603

how can I not trust him to fashion tomorrow?

604

When I look at the care he had on that sonogram

605

and the diligence that he showed in constructing and putting my loved one together in the womb,

606

how can I not trust my loved one's future to him?

607

This morning, if you're struggling to understand your limitations,

608

be they physical or otherwise,

609

perhaps your circumstances, you don't get why God has allowed certain things to come in your life,

610

join the club.

611

There's a sense in which we cannot fully understand all these things on this side of glory,

612

but we can know this, that God has ordained them.

613

God has ordained them.

614

And when a good and a loving and all-powerful God ordains anything in this life,

615

it will ultimately be for the best even if you can't see it in the here and now.

616

In time, King David saw it all.

617

On the side where he is now, he's seen it all.

618

He rejoiced.

619

Even when he didn't know it all, he rejoiced.

620

He invites us to do the same.

621

Let me pray for us.