We live in a time of mass production.  Commodities are just churned out.  People are ….just a commodity.  But not in God’s eyes…..that’s what makes Easter so, well….special.

I sometime think about the times when Jesus was training to be a carpenter in his Dad’s carpenter shop. The wooden things that he made, we don’t really know but probably chairs and tables and doors and door frames, even coffins I guess. It’s ironic that ultimately he was nailed to two bits of wood.

I can’t imagine he ever turned out any shoddy work, I can’t imagine he ever made a table that wasn’t straight or level or a chair that wasn’t solid or a door that didn’t fit into the door jam. Well, what if he applied the same level of perfection to you and me? What if when we were created he was there? And what does that do to our view of Easter?

Yesterday and again today, we are looking at Psalm 139 because it’s about God’s motivations behind Easter. Psalm 139 is to me like a door into God’s heart, to see what was going on inside when He dreamt up this whole Easter thing. We had a look at the first part yesterday and we saw that God knows us so intimately and He’s on the journey of life with us, not way off at a distance, not disinterested but right in the middle of it with us.

Everywhere we go, even when it’s dark and stormy and painful His light shines in the middle of all of that. That’s huge, to know that God is walking every step of the way with us, there’s nowhere we can go and be alone or apart from God, if we go to heaven he’s there, if we go to hell he’s there if we fly to the farthest ends to the earth he’s still there.

But how is it that God knows us so well? I mean sometimes we don’t even know ourselves that well, do we? We can’t explain why we do what we do or why we reacted to something the way we did, I mean you and I are pretty complex creatures; there is so many layers to our personality and who we are. Some things are so deep inside us that we can’t ever really understand them ourselves or even talk about them. How does God know? Well, the Psalmist in Psalm 139 goes on to explain that to us, and we’re going to read that right now. We’re reading from Psalm 139 beginning at verse 13:

For you God, you created my innermost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb, God I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are so wonderful I know that full well. My frame wasn’t hidden from you when I was made in that secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth your eyes saw my unformed substance. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

This is one of the most precious passages in the Bible to me, as we look back on our lives what we see is a mixture of wonderful and desperate, beautiful and ugly, we’ve done some brilliant things and we done some really, really stupid things, there are great highs and there are dark valleys. But when you and I were conceived God was there, our innermost parts, who we are, our DNA blueprint, the way that we’d look and sound and all our gifts and abilities and strengths and weaknesses, all that complexity He created our innermost being.

He knit us together in our mother’s womb; you and I are handcrafted by God, one of a kind, distinctive, completely, utterly amazingly, beautifully, wondrously made. Separate and different from every other person who ever lived, and every person who ever will live, intricately woven, each strand of DNA laid down according to His plan. And not only that God wasn’t in control just of who we are but of everything that would ever happen to us. Look at this again:

All the days ordained for me, all the days set apart for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

That’s why I so despair when I meet people who waste away there lives worrying and complaining about their lot. Yeah some people have better lives that others, some people seem to get all the breaks and the benefits and the blessings and other people seem to get handed difficult and painful lives, just like Jesus, just like the Apostle Paul.

I was just talking, having a cup of coffee just recently with a couple and we were talking about just this, how come God does something mighty and powerful in this persons life and this other person God takes years to do what He’s going to do? I don’t know! But it’s about God’s plan, about God’s glory. There’s a wonderful poem call The Weaver, you may have heard me read it once before, have a listen, it’s beautiful:

My life is but a weaving between my Lord and me.I cannot choose the colours as He weaveth steadily, Sometimes He chooses dark threads and I in foolish pride Forget He sees the upper and I the underside. Not till the loom is silent and the shuttles cease to fly Shall God unroll the canvas and explain the reasons why The dark threads were as needful in the weaver’s skilful hand As the threads of gold and silver in the pattern He hath planned.

You and I are exactly what He made us to be, you and I are living the life that He planned for us. But you know sometimes we don’t open ourselves to His plan. Sometimes we shut God out and we wonder why life is going badly.

Easter’s coming, Easter is rolling around the corner and Easter is the time when we look at that Cross and we know that Jesus Christ came to die for you and me, maybe you’ve never ever accepted Jesus and put your faith in Him and what He did for you on the Cross. If you haven’t now is the time to do it, let’s just pray, you might want to pray this prayer with me.

Father,I thank you for what Jesus did for me on the cross, I believe that He is the Son of God, I believe He died for me, I believe He rose again. Father, I want to live my life in that knowledge, I give you everything I am, I give you everything I have, I’m sorry for all the things I’ve done wrong and I’ve put those at the feet of the cross right now. Father, forgive me through Jesus Christ, I want to be called a Christian, I want to follow Jesus and live my life for Him. Lord I don’t know what that means, I don’t know how that will play itself out, I don’t know what your plans are but Lord I want to live my life for the glory of Jesus Christ and today I lay my life down for Him so that in Him I cant take it up again, a new life, a fresh life. Thank you Father that I am forgiven because I believe in Jesus, thank you Father that I have an eternal life through Jesus Christ. Amen.

You and I are what He made us to be, when we put our faith in Him we live the most incredible joy and when we see the beauty of God’s plan hand crafted by Him to live the life that He laid out before time began we get some sense of what was going on in His heart when He came up with this plan of Easter.