Jesus, thank you so much that you could not hold back your love from us. And that's why we can't hold back our love, our love for you, Jesus. It's just because you gave it and you gave it in full. And so this morning, we're just a bunch of people that love you, and we love you because you love us. And we're just your your kids. We want to hear from you this morning. Holy Spirit, we just pray that you would speak to our hearts, that you would teach us whatever it is we need to just get to that next place in our relationship with you. Um and we trust that you're going to do that this morning. We ask all this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, uh, I guess to start this morning, I wanted to say that one of my favorite things about being a part of this church and getting to meet people and talk to people and hang out with people is that it's incredible how many amazingly talented people we have here. All of us have some gift that we have, uh something that we're naturally good at. But it just seems like every week I'm bumping into someone who I've I've either just met or someone I've known for years, and I just so happen to find out, oh, they have this incredible talent, this gift I never knew they had. Maybe they're a carpenter or they're, you know, anything. And it's just fun to do that. Um, all of us, like I said, have a gift. All of us have something that we're good at. Sometimes it takes us a while to figure those out. That's how it was for me. I went through elementary school being chastised by my teachers for talking too much, and turns out that was my talent. I just talk. So, you know, there you go. And then I married a teacher, so it was like perfect, I don't know, uh ironic, I guess. Um but you know, there's also the flip side to that. All of us have things that we're talented at. We also all have those things that we would love to be talented at. We would love to be gifted at, but we just don't have that gene. We didn't get that gift. And there's so many things that I can think of like that with music. I I would love to be gifted at music. I mean, I would love to, but I have never been any good at music. I had a hard time with the kazoo when I was a kid. I'm not even joking about that. It just doesn't translate. You know, music doesn't, I don't hear it. I sing loud in the car, and I know it sounds awful, but I just don't have that gene. And and interestingly, when I was in high school, my best friend was an incredibly gifted musician, like strangely gifted for his age. He was a guitar player, he was a singer, he was a songwriter, and it's just it's always weird to have something that you wish you were good at and talented at, but you don't have any gift at that at all, and to be around someone that's just off the charts at that. It's sort of a humbling kind of but cool experience. And I've never had a better example of that in my in my own life than what I have with myself and my wife and her family when it comes to art. My wife and her entire family are incredible artists. And they wouldn't tell people about it, but they're all insanely gifted at art. My wife can paint and she can come up with these really crafty, incredible art projects, and she'll think of things to do for our home that I would never have thought of, and her brother and sister are incredible artists, uh, her mom and dad are incredible artists. The whole family, I mean, they they're incredible at art. And if there's one thing that I am not good at, it's art. You give me a pen and some paper, and you ask me to draw something, and and I'll go stick figures, but not much more than that. You know, I gave up on art back in like third grade. In second grade, I will say this as an aside, in second grade, I was actually really into art, and I'm not trying to like brag or anything like that, but um, but I did some cool stuff, and I was really inspired by what I would consider the greats, you know, Michelangelo, Raphael, the other two Ninja Turtles. Um just saying, I I could I could draw a mean Ninja Turtle, that's what I did. I drew Ninja Turtles. But that's not that hard because they're all the same, you're just different color headbands, you know, and that's all you need to know. But that was where I peaked, you know, Ninja Turtles, that's where I peaked. Ever since then, I've just you know I've put that away. But my wife and her family, they are incredible, incredible artists. And one thing that I've really enjoyed by being a part of that family and being around all the art is that it's given me a different perspective on God. It's helped me see God as an artist. You know, we tend to see God, it's it's helpful to see God through kind of our experience in life. So growing up, I played sports, and so it was easy for me to see God as a coach. And God is a lot of things. You know, he's our father, he's a king, he's a warrior, he's a teacher, he's a healer, but he's definitely an artist. He's the creator, you know, he created everything, designed everything, thought up and conceived of everything we've ever seen, and he masterfully created it. He is an exceptional artist. And that's an that's an aspect of God I never really saw until I got married to my wife and became a part of that family and got to experience that. And so this morning, if we could sort of get in that mindset of seeing God as the artist that he is, of thinking of God as an artist, and here's where it gets kind of interesting. Because if God is this incredible artist, if he is this master creator, and we are his creation, by definition, that makes us works of art. Now, I don't know if someone were to come up and ask you, do you consider yourself a work of art, what your initial response would be? Mine would be no. And I'm not just saying that just because it's the right answer. I mean, I can think of uh tens of dozens of hundreds of things that I know about myself, flaws, imperfections, sins, insecurities, I mean, you name it. The list goes on and on. There's way too much of that stuff in me to be a work of art. And that's how all of us are. We all know our stuff, we all know our junk. Half the time we're we're discovering more junk at a faster rate than we're getting rid of the old junk. And so, a work of art, how how could that how could that be? But even if we don't consider ourselves that, and there's probably some reasons, you know, there's some humility and there's stuff like that, we probably shouldn't walk around going, I am a work of art all the time to other people, but at the same time, there is something really powerful and important to understand who we really are, and who we are as God sees us. And in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10, the Bible says this we are God's masterpiece. He created us anew in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. It says, we are God's masterpiece. That's a big word. A masterpiece, that's a whole other level of art. That's that's the greatest of all works of art. That's a masterpiece. And according to God's word, that's what he sees us as. So here we have God who has created everything, and all of us can close our eyes and picture something in creation that we think is breathtaking. It might be the mountains, it might be the heavens, skies, the ocean, you name it. And what that verse tells us is that when God thinks of what he created, that he views as the greatest of all his creation, the thing that he thinks is his masterpiece, it's us. It's pretty incredible. When he thinks of his masterpiece, it's you. I mean, I I don't think I could have ever understood how that would even be possible if I had never married my wife Megan and been a part of all the art that goes on in that family. Because, you know, like I said, a masterpiece, I mean, a work of art, fine, but a masterpiece, I mean, that's a whole other thing. To say I'm a masterpiece, in God's eyes, I'm a masterpiece with all this junk. But being around all the art that just happens in our family has taught me something. That art is a process. And masterpieces are never created quickly, they take a lot of time. It's a process. So a lot of times we see ourselves and we see all this stuff in our lives, and we look at ourselves, and we can get pretty heavy with guilt and frustration at where we're at and who we're at. We're not who we want to be, we're not where we want to be. We have stuff that we've been trying to get past for years, and maybe we haven't been very successful, and it's so easy to look at that and to get really, really down on who we are, frustrated with ourselves. And to think that God probably thinks the same thing, that he's as frustrated, that he's maybe at the point of I've I've had it, I'm done, there's nothing else I can do. But it's the opposite. He sees us as a masterpiece. How is that possible? As I was thinking about this this morning, I had this uh this experience that came to my mind a few years ago. I asked my sister-in-law, Brittany, who's an incredible artist, to design an art piece for the stage in our youth area, the arena. If you've never been over there, it's right there. And it's kind of like this room, it's just much smaller. It's a smaller version of this, but it's got a stage and a big space for seating, and then it's got two screens on the side, but it doesn't have a center screen. And so I was kind of looking at the stage, and I'm like, man, it would be awesome if we would have some big visual impact on the stage to kind of connect everything together. And I came to Britney and I said, Hey, what do you think you could you could do? So she came up with this idea. She was gonna take five huge panels that were gonna be uh four feet wide by eight feet tall and put them together and do this big art piece on all of them. So it was it spaced out, it was gonna be like 25 feet long, eight feet tall. And she showed me the drawing and the concept, and I was I was blown away. I was really excited about it. And so we we got the paint, we built the panels, and we got started. And by we, I mean them, because like I said, if it's not a ninja turtle, I I don't know what to do. Um and as soon as it got started, I remember getting uh pretty nervous because we were kind of at that point of no return. We'd built the pieces, paint was going on, and now it was okay, is this going to turn out as good as I've I've hoped it's gonna turn out? Because I I got really excited, my expectations were high. I told a couple people, oh, this thing's gonna be awesome, just wait. And so what would happen is they would be working on it. My my wife, her sister, and and her mother, they spent six days doing eight plus hours a day working on this art piece. Because I mean it's a huge piece of art. And they're working on it and working on it, and I'm checking in tons of times, five, six times a day. I'm like peeking my head in, I'm looking at where they're at, and I'm talking to them and I'm saying, hey guys, how's it going? Everything going good? And they're like, Yeah, it's going great. And I remember the first couple days, you know, it was in the early stages, and it was it was pretty rough. And so I'd come in and I'd say, How's it going? And they'd look at me and they'd be like, Oh, it's going great. And I, of course, I'm saying, yeah, it is, um, because I was outnumbered. But but in my head, you know, I'm saying, yeah, it is, but I'm thinking, is it? Is it really? Because I'm not, I'm not seeing, I'm not seeing it get there. So day two, day three, I'm still doing the same thing. I'm peeking my head in, I'm looking at it, and I'm all excited, and you know, it's still in those early stages and it's looking, I mean, it's getting there, but I'm still at that point where is it gonna be as good as I I wanted it to be? And I'm still saying, how's it coming? Everything going good, any issues? And and they're just, yeah, it's going great, it's going awesome. And I can see in their eyes there's no fear, there's just absolute certainty that this thing is gonna turn out great. And so that kind of goes on for a few more days. I'm I'm still kind of battling this nervousness and whatever, and then they finished it. And I went in and looked at it, and I was just blown away. I mean, it didn't meet my expectations, it far exceeded them. It was incredible. Actually, the the stills we have on the behind me and on the side screens, those are zoomed-in pictures of different parts of this piece of art. It's really cool and really unique. I've never seen anything like it. It looks really cool, and it just turned out amazing. And then they did things that I would never have even thought of them doing. They're gonna bring up a picture on the screens, but they did, they came up with this idea for fluorescent paint, where they hit it with black lights and the same image becomes totally different. You see things you didn't see before. And so, even though it's this kind of old school piece of art, just paint on wood, it's it's got a lot of different effects that we can create with it. I mean, it's really, really cool. It's a masterpiece. And it's interesting because I think back on those days when I was coming in and checking on it, and I would have this disconnect with Britney, who had been who had designed it and who was the one that was sort of making sure it was all getting done and implementing it. When I would be nervous and I'd be looking at the state that it was in and asking, is this okay? She would just look at me and total certainty, total confidence, say, Yeah, it's great, it's gonna be awesome. And I realized that that's because Britney and I were not looking at the same thing. You know, I'm looking at it, I can only see where it's at, I can only see the state that it's in. In some of those days, it was at kind of a rough early state. But Britney, she was the artist. She had the final piece in mind. So when she looked at it, yeah, she saw the same thing I saw, but she saw that as just a step in the process. She saw where it was going next, and then after that, and after that. And so where I might have looked at it and been frustrated or concerned, she looked at it and she just knew that this was gonna, this was temporary, this was gonna go to this and then to that, and then that, and by the time it was done, it was gonna be amazing. And that is so much like how God sees us. We have rough spots, we have lots of them. And we might be at a rough stage in the process. But when God looks at you and me, he sees the finished product. He's always working on us, he's always shaping us and molding us and changing us. It's day by day, it's a process. And where we might get frustrated with ourselves or with someone else, because of the rough state that they're at or that we're at, God looks at us and he says, it's just a step in the process. I am, I am taking them to a different place. I'm not done working on them yet. Jesus totally showed us this with the disciples. I mean, the patience that he showed with the disciples is amazing. Because these were, you talk about masterpieces in the making. These guys were just rough a lot of times. And they really were. He's constantly having to teach them and then reteach them, and then they forget what he just taught them, and then he shows a miracle to exemplify what he taught them, but then they don't get that and they forget it. And he's reminding them what he taught them. I mean, this goes on for years, and it just seems like they never get it. And the thing is, if Jesus, if he had just seen them for where they were at, and that was it, if he had only seen them for the stage that they were at and he could not see where he was taking them and where they were going and that whole process, he would have totally just ditched them. I mean, there is no doubt. They would have woken up one morning and looked around and said, Where's Jesus? And then over by the campside fire, there would have been a Dear John letter. And literally would have been Dear John, because John was one of the disciples, usually pretty close. So, I mean, he probably would have he probably would have written the letter to John. That's my point. But uh but that's what would have happened. He'd have been gone. But he didn't. He never gave up on those guys because he saw where they were headed. He saw not just where they were at, he got through that frustration and he saw where he was going to take them. He always saw them as a work in progress. His relationship with Peter really is an incredible example of this. In Matthew 16, verses 13 through 18, the Bible says, When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, Who do people say that the Son of Man is? Well, they replied, Some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, others say Jeremiah, or one of the other prophets. Then he asked them, But who do you say I am? Simon Peter answered, You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God. Jesus replied, You are blessed, Simon, son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. Now I say to you that you are Peter, which means rock, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. It is really cool. This is actually one of my favorite little things with Jesus, because I love the fact that, as a guy, I just love the fact that he gives one of his disciples the nickname The Rock. I just think that that's awesome. He also gave two of the other disciples the nickname the Sons of Thunder. So these are like wrestling names. I just think it's great. Um, as a very manly. But here, Peter, he recognizes something in Jesus that no one else has recognized yet. That Jesus is, at least none of the other disciples had, he is the Messiah. He is the Son of God. And Jesus sees a potential in Peter that is so strong that he says to Peter, You are like a rock, and I'm gonna build my church through you. You're gonna be one of the primary leaders that I'm gonna use to grow my kingdom on this earth. And then after this moment, Peter basically starts a campaign of doing everything he can do to try to make Jesus regret ever saying that. I mean, he is constantly just messing things up. The very next set of verses. I mean, it's it's the next section in that same chapter, Matthew 16, 21 through 23, says, From then on, Jesus began to tell his disciples plainly that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem, and that he would suffer many terrible things at the hands of the elders, the leading priests, and the teachers of religious law. He would be killed, but on the third day he would be raised from the dead. But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. Heaven forbid, Lord, he said, This will never happen to you. Jesus turned to Peter and said, Get away from me, Satan. You are a dangerous trap to me. You're seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God's. It's really interesting because just before this, Jesus says to Peter, You're seeing what God has shown you. No human being has taught you this. And now Peter's back to seeing things from a human point of view, not from God's point of view. Peter's gone from telling Jesus, You're the Son of God, you're the Messiah, to you don't know what you're talking about. You're wrong. You've got it all messed up. And Jesus responds kind of sternly at this point. He says, Get away from me, Satan, because at this moment, Peter is literally and probably unknowingly tempting Jesus to not go through with God's plan. And this is not an isolated event with Peter. I mean, there's tons of other examples. Peter brags to all the other disciples and everyone around Jesus that he would never betray Jesus. And then the day that Jesus is arrested, when the going gets tough, Peter leaves. Denies that he even knows him. And there are countless other examples. But Jesus never gave up on Peter. Ever. He saw Peter as a work in progress. He was a masterpiece in the making. And so Jesus, just like he does with us, he worked on Peter day by day. Sometimes it was stern, like the moment where he said, get behind me, Satan, but most of the time, it was patience, it was gentleness. Day by day, one step at a time. You know, this morning, we may not think of ourselves as masterpieces, and maybe we can appreciate the analogy and think, okay, that feels good, but how do we get to that point where we really understand that? How can we get to that point where we can apply that? And that's tough. It's tough to view ourselves as a masterpiece. It really is. One of the most famous illustrations in the Bible about God and us is this illustration of him being a potter and us being clay. Isaiah 64, 8 says, And yet, O Lord, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the potter. We all are formed by your hand. That is just a really beautiful and powerful illustration of how God is with us. And you know, we we can look at ourselves and we can see everything that's wrong. And we can get so frustrated and so just down on ourselves. I mean, it's one thing to look at ourselves, see flaws, and say, hey, I need to work on this. I need to make some changes, I need to do this. That's good, that's healthy. But we all know that it's not that far of a road from that to just looking at ourselves and just kind of having that hopeless, like, I'm terrible, I'm I'm never, this is, I'm never gonna get this, I'm not, you know, that kind of self-hate type thing. But you know, we can look at ourselves in the state that we're in, and we can get all worked up over it and all frustrated and all down, but the truth of the matter is it's it's Jesus' job, it's the Holy Spirit's job to shape us into who he's gonna shape us. He's the potter. You know, we're the clay. He's the one that really needs to be concerned with how things are turning out. Our job as the clay is just to be moldable. Our job is just to be shapable. That just means having a soft heart and a teachable spirit. If we have a soft heart where we're totally okay with God or someone else revealing something about us that needs some work, and instead of resisting and fighting it and saying, no, I'm fine, this is fine, this is not a problem, we just say, Yeah, okay, yeah. I need to work on this. This is not what it needs to be. That's being moldable, that's being shapable, and if we're moldable, God will mold us. So for some of us, that means it might mean taking some action, it might mean getting help and saying, hey, I do have a problem, I need to get some counseling, or my marriage is in trouble, we need to get some marriage counseling. It might be getting into a program to get past an addiction. It might be forgiving ourselves for the fact that we're not done yet, for the fact that we're an unfinished work of art, and just literally forgiving ourselves for all the mistakes and all. The problems that we have, all the stuff that goes on, and saying, okay, God, I'm not going to try to be the only one molding myself. I'm just going to be moldable. You show me what needs to be worked on at what pace. We might see something that we think we got to work on now. And God is saying, we'll get to that. But first, I want to do this. That's how he is sometimes. And if we'll just allow that to happen, he will totally shape us into the masterpiece that he wants us to be. That's what he does. It can be really hard for us to let God work on us however he wants to, whatever pace, whatever order. But maybe this morning, maybe the frustration isn't with yourself, maybe it's with someone else. Maybe someone's sitting close by you. I don't know. But man, it can be even harder to let God shape that person at his pace. And in that order that he wants. And in the direction that he wants it to go. Those relationships that we have, the ones with the people we're closest to, the people that affect our daily life, those are tough because, like us, they're not finished yet either. They're a work in progress. They might be in a rough state. And those rough edges they have affect our lives. And so what happens is it's really easy for us, and I'm saying this to myself, to try to take that paintbrush from God and take over the work of art. Say, I'm going to paint this direction. And you know, God, it's not getting done fast enough. Or that this needs to be more like this. You know, it's easy for us to want to take control from God and us have the control of that other person and try to shape them into who we would like them to be and at the pace we would like them to go. And that's pretty normal. And there are some relationships in life where that is kind of part of our role. As parents, when we have kids, we do have a hands-on role in shaping them. God kind of hands us a paintbrush and says, hey, I want you to do some stuff over here, and then we do our best. We might get outside the lines a little bit, but he'll come along later and cover it. But he does ask us to take an active role. Who's one day he asks us to put the paintbrush down, and that's hard. My son's one year old, so I have a long time before I have to worry about that. But then we have those relationships where God does not ask us to take the active role. And those are the hardest. Those are the hardest for me. One that jumps to mind, I'm sure, for a lot of us is our spouse or our significant other. It can be really hard to let God mold them and shape them at his pace, however he wants to, whatever direction he's going, and for us to just be close spectators that appreciate what he's doing, let him do what he's doing, and don't try to seize control. I know I am 100% guilty of trying in my marriage to shape my wife into the person that I would like her to be that best suits me, instead of letting her grow into the person that God is going to take her and make her into. Megan and I have been married six years and we've been together for a decade. And uh we were young when we got together, we were 17 and 18. And when I when I first got together with Megan, she was this opinionated, strong girl. Very strong, very opinionated. Which was great with me because at first her opinion of me was always good. You know? And I, you know, made mistakes, did things like anyone else does, and eventually I started running into times where this opinionated, strong person had opinions, strong opinions, that differed from mine. And that was inconvenient. She's sitting over there, so I'm trying not to look that way. Um but you know, it's it's funny because I remember earlier in marriage, and even up to not even that early, I mean even pretty recently, um, I'll get these ideas and I'll go to Megan and I'll say, Megan, I got this idea. And it's an idea that, frankly, I'm just being honest, I'm convinced that it is brilliant. It is just the best idea that has ever been thought of. And I'll go to Megan with it. And I remember I would go to Megan and I'd say, hey, here's what I'm thinking. I'm thinking we do this and this, and then this is gonna happen. And and she would say, Well, have you thought about this? And I don't know if that's gonna work because of this and this and this, and and she would come back with a dissenting opinion. And she was asking me to alter it, change it, sometimes even abandon it altogether because she just thought it was a terrible idea. And in my heart, I just wanted to say, hold on, back up. I just want you to say, Wow, and be impressed. I I don't want what is what's this with the you know differing opinion. That's not what this is about. I just need you to say, you're amazing, you're smart, you know, go do it. And I would get frustrated that that was sometimes the response. And so I would I would criticize Megan, I would say, you need to be more encouraging, you need to be, you know, you you you burst my bubble sometimes. I used to say that to her a lot. You always burst my bubble, and you just need to, you need to be, you need to make me feel good about myself. That's basically what I was trying to say. And I would try to then take control from God and say, hey, instead of her being this strong, opinionated woman that is totally okay with being honest with me and telling me things that she really believes are are important and necessary, she should really just agree with me more often. You know, that's kind of what I was, and I mean it's it's funny, but that's kind of what I was trying to do. I was trying to make her more agreeable. And I'm so glad that my wife listens to God more than she listens to me. Because as God has has grown Megan in our marriage, she has become a stronger and more opinionated person than when we first got together. And it's good. It's good. And it's good for several reasons. Number one, I have terrible ideas a lot. That's just it is. And you can talk to anybody on one of our youth teams. Ask someone on the junior high team about the marshmallow fight of 2009 and how cleaning up the marshmallow fight of 2009 went. See, terrible ideas. And Megan told me not to do that, but I did it. Um and the thing is, it's there have been so many times where I have gone to her with an idea and she has responded with some pushback, but she was right. And so here's here's what I'm trying to say is I tried so hard to take control from God and to try to create Megan into being someone more agreeable, someone that would, you know, just go along with things more. And God had different plans. God didn't want Megan to be a greater source of I don't know, agreement or security for me. God wanted Megan to be a greater resource for me. And so the woman that he's grown her into is a much better person and a much better help in my life than the person that I would have tried to shape her into. I was trying to shape her into someone who would make me feel better about myself, and God was shaping her into someone that would just make me better. And I'm glad that she listened to God and not me. When it comes to the people in our life, when it comes to our significant others and our spouses or other relationships we have, we we can trust God to grow them and shape them. And it may not be at the pace that we would want it to go, it may not be the direction we would want it to go. But we can trust that the person he's gonna grow that person into is gonna be a person that helps us so much more, that adds so much more to our life than the person that we would try to shape them into ourselves. And so all of us this morning have something about someone we love in our lives or something about ourselves that we want to change. And it is so tempting to try to take control and do it. But you know what? God is the artist. And he is good at what he does. He's amazing at it. It's hard for us to create a masterpiece of a human being. If it was, parenting would be so easy, and it's not. God is the artist, and so this morning, I guess it's really just about us being freed up to let God have control. And it takes some of that pressure off ourselves, and it takes some of that pressure off of the people closest to us, and let them grow with God at the pace that God's gonna grow them, and let us grow with God at the pace that he wants us to grow. If the worship team would come back up and get ready to close us out, we are all masterpieces. We are just masterpieces in the making. He is not done with us yet, and we might feel like we have a long way to go. And that's because we probably have a long way to go. And that's okay. One of the things about God that is amazing is that he finishes everything he starts. So when he picks up that paintbrush, I know it's an analogy, but he's not gonna put it down until it's done. That's why in Philippians 1.6, the Bible says, I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. And we're not gonna be perfect masterpieces until we're with God. But he will get us as close as he can get us if we'll just let him. And it won't be a smooth ride, it'll be bumpy, but it'll be good. Because he's not finished with us. Let's pray. Father, thank you for uh thank you for starting what you have started in our lives. Thank you that you saw us as valuable enough, as masterpieces that were worth your effort and your time and your love and your patience and your grace and mercy and all of it. So, God, this morning we are just trusting you with uh with creative control. Take us where you want to take us, whatever pace, whatever order, whatever you show us, we just want to have soft hearts and just go with it. And God, with the people in our lives that we love and that affect us, we want to do the same. And it's hard for us to do that. It's hard for us just to give you control, but it's so necessary and it's so much better. And so this morning, Lord, we just say we trust you, we love you. Thank you for everything you do for us. Amen.