It's not often that you read something in Scripture, something really, really ancient,
something 3500 years old, and think to yourself that that text of Scripture is more applicable
in today's world than it was in the day it was written. But I think today's Psalm fits that bill.
The subject for our time this morning is understanding time and how to approach it
with wisdom, which is super practical. In fact, never let anyone tell you the Bible isn't intensely
practical. It is. And in the world that we live in today, learning about how to use time, I think,
is more important than any era of human history. Now, why do I say that? I say that because the
pace of change in our world today is accelerating at levels never seen before. Changes in religious
demographics, changes in social movements, changes in economic classes, changes in the outlook of
governments across the world, and most obviously changes in technology that threaten to take us
to some very uncertain places. And across the board today, we're all sort of feeling a sense of, well,
okay, what's next? What could possibly be next? And for some of us, we're asking, is time beginning
to run out? So this is a very, very practical topic that we're going to study today. For those of you
here this morning who are on the younger side, you're in your 20s and 30s, maybe recently you've
thought to yourself, do I have time to build a career? Do I have time to find a spouse? Will there
ever be a time that I can afford to buy a home? Will I have time to not just have, but raise children?
And for those of us who are on the upper scale, we're wondering how much time do we have left
before we pass from this life into eternity? So the issue of time is a big one. We just don't
find the time to think about it. Catch the irony there? It's like the old one-liner, I'm going to
take a time management class as soon as I can figure out how to fit it into my schedule.
This is what we live under. Read an interesting quote this week that had some excellent truth in
it, but you're going to see it on the screen. In the end, it fell just a little bit short,
here's what it said, time is an equal opportunity employer. Every human being has exactly the same
number of hours and minutes per day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new
minutes and you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair. No
matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have tomorrow. Now the first half or the
first three quarters of that quote is accurate. Time is what it is. It can't be purchased, it can't
be invented, it can't be saved up, but look at that last statement. That's where it falls short. Even
if you've wasted time in the past, guess what? There is no promise that you have tomorrow to make
up for it. We're not guaranteed tomorrow. In fact, you can work hard for decades, you can amass a
great fortune, you can set your heart on retirement someday, you can hit all of the life goals
that you set for yourself, you can accumulate all kinds of material goods and make a great name for
yourself, and it can suddenly be brought to nothing through the one thing that levels the playing field
100% of the time, and that is death. And for a little while, family members and friends will grieve
and mourn over a life lost, but eventually everybody moves on. You have to, and if you doubt that,
go visit a cemetery and look at the gravestones, look at how faded they are.
People move on, they have to, and it raises the question, is life on earth, is it just futile,
or can we discover real significance in the days that we're given? That's what we're going to talk
about today, and it leads me to one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite movies, Lord of the
Rings. Some of you know this scene, Frodo, who is the main character. I'll give you just, I won't go
into detail. Frodo is the main character, and he's talking to Gandalf, who is the wise and learned
character in the story. He's talking to Gandalf about the difficulty of the age they find themselves
in. It's an age where Sauron, the evil character, is rising, and there's this one ring that rules
all the other rings that has been found, and that sets up the basic conflict of the story,
and Frodo says this. He says, I wish it need not have happened in my time, and wise Gandalf replies,
so do I, and so do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to
decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Brilliant, right? The point that Tolkien was
making is simple. We're all born into a particular time and a particular era ordained by the Lord
for his purposes. The question is, what are we going to do with the time that we've been given,
and will we rise to the challenges that are laid before us in this period of time
ordained by God? Will we rise to that challenge? Let's see. Let's grab our Bibles. Go to Psalm 90.
Psalm 90 marks the beginning of the fourth collection of the Psalms. Hey, we're in the
fourth collection of five. We're making progress, right? So, five books within the book, this is
the fourth one, and book four runs from Psalm 90 to Psalm 106. Now, this psalm is very, very unique
because it's not written by David, and it's not written by Asaph or the sons of Korah, which we've
looked at recently, and it's not written by the sons of Korah, and it's not written by the sons of
Korah, which we've looked at recently, men who lived during the period of David and Solomon. Psalm 90 is the oldest
psalm in the entire collection. It predates David by somewhere around 450 years, and as you can see,
if you look at the superscription at the top, it should say in there that the authorship is attributed
to a guy named, let me see, Moses. Anybody know Moses? Yeah, that's the Moses, the Moses,
and it says there that this is a prayer of Moses, and that he's called what? The man of God, and by
the way, that's not the only place in the Bible where he's called the man of God five other times.
In the Old Testament, Moses is referred to in that way, including in the Torah, in Deuteronomy 33.1.
So, Moses, as we know, was uniquely a man of God, and he was God's man for the moment that he lived in,
and as we talk about time, that's important to notice. He was God's man for that particular moment,
and obviously, even today, he's greatly revered by the Jewish community and by Christians like us.
Now, you may be thinking, why is Moses writing a psalm, right? He's not David. He wasn't a musician
as far as we know, but I'm going to surprise you now. This isn't the only song that he's written.
Two other places in the Old Testament, Moses writes songs. He appears to have written a song
recorded in Exodus 15. It's sometimes called the Song of the Sea, which is a celebration of God's
hand of protection as the Israelites cross the Red Sea, and then before his death, he penned a 43-verse
song that is literally called the Song of Moses in Deuteronomy 32. So, we shouldn't be surprised
that he wrote this song in Psalm 90 and that it was read by generation after generation of Israelites.
It was passed down through the centuries and then later compiled into this collection of songs that
we know as Israel's Book of Psalms. Now, there's both external evidence that Moses wrote this song.
There is a long historical tradition of his authorship, but also, importantly, internal
evidence. There is common vocabulary and phraseology in Psalm 90 that compares favorably with some of
his other writings. So, we're confident in his authorship. Now, what about the context? The
question is always, when did he write this? And as you can see, there's no historical details given
to us in the superscription, which is a bummer, right? For nerds like us, this is a bummer. What
that means is we have to rely on some oral tradition and we have to look at some informed
speculation based on what's written in the Psalm itself. And the good news is there's pretty good
consensus on this. Most Old Testament scholars are convinced that Psalm 90 was written after the
Exodus out of Egypt and during the wilderness wanderings, the 40 years that Moses was leading
the Israelites through the desert. Some have even pinned it down to a very specific chapter
in the Torah, in Numbers 20, because a series of things happen in Numbers 20. Moses' sister
Miriam dies. That's where Moses sins against God by striking the rock. And it's also the chapter
where his brother Aaron dies. And so, some believe that those tragic events are the motivation behind
what Moses chooses to write about in this song. The fact is, at that time, Moses was a man
surrounded by death. We have to understand this. He was surrounded by death. Why? Because again,
he's leading all these Israelites, and I've seen all kinds of numbers, hundreds of thousands
of Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and towards this particular land that was promised to Abraham,
but because they grumbled against God, because they were disobedient, God determined that that
generation of Israelites would not make it into the land. What would happen to them? They would die
in the wilderness. And so, think about that. It's funerals every day. Moses is surrounded by death.
He's seeing people that he knows, people that he loves dying. And so, this is the backdrop of the
psalm. He's reflecting on the shortness of life. He's reflecting on the fact that as people pass
from this life into eternity, we need to know what matters most. And you'll see that as we go along.
So, here's the way we're going to work through this text. Basically, there's four sections here in
Psalm 90, two of which speak of some really difficult truths, the end of man and the reason
for death. And then the other two talk about how we can find real significance in life in spite of
the shortness of the time we're giving. So, basically, like the gospel, you know, we're
going to talk first about the bad news you see highlighted there in gray. And then at the end,
we'll come back to the good news in sections one and four. Make sense? So, I'll leave that out there
so you can track with us. Let's start. Let's skip past verses one and two and drop down to verse
three, which is the second of the four sections. Now, remember, as we read this, we're going to read
verses three through six, Moses is the compiler and author of the Genesis narrative, right?
Right? So, as we read these verses, see if you can hear a faint echo of key portions in the book of
Genesis, verse three. You turn man back into dust and say, return, O children of men, or return,
O descendants of Adam, for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by,
or as a watch in the night. You have swept them away like a flood. They fall asleep. In the morning,
they're like grass, which sprouts anew. In the morning, it flourishes and sprouts anew.
Toward the evening, it fades and withers away. And so, the big idea of this section is very simple.
Human life is short and it's fleeting. And as much as we try to cling onto it, as much as we try in
these finite minds to process what we're experiencing in these bodies, what Moses is trying
to do here, he's using a bunch of poetic statements to shake us from that condition and to say, look
bigger, look broader, look at the big picture of what's going on around you. And we see that we
see people dying every day, right? Every day, it happens all around us. So, you see here in verse
three, an obvious reference back to the creation account of man in Genesis two, right? And then
in Genesis two, right? When the Lord formed Adam from the dust of the earth. And now, Moses reminds
us that's where we will return. God himself declared that, right? Genesis 3 19. God said,
you are dust, O man, and to dust you will return. And of course, the reason for that return to the
dust is because of the fall. It's because of Adam's sin and because of our sin as well. We will all
return to the ground someday. And that is a judgment from the Lord that has to take place.
And then in verse four, he draws a contrast between the way we view time and the way God
views time. He, of course, being an eternal being, God exists outside of time. We have to understand
this, right? I know it's hard for our finite minds, but God is outside of his creation, outside of
time and space. So a thousand years, which seems so long to us, to him, it's like a single day. Like
yesterday, as it passes by, Moses says, or like a single hours watching the night, a thousand years.
Now imagine that for a second. Think of, think of your yesterday, your Saturday. Don't Saturdays go
really fast. They always do, right? Whatever your Saturday looked like, it came and it went very,
very quickly. And the next thing you knew, you were waking up and getting ready for church. That's the
way God sees a thousand years passing on the earth, that quickly. Now, are there echoes of Genesis
here? Most scholars believe there is. Most scholars believe that Moses is thinking about the extensive
lifespans that people lived prior to the flood. Methuselah, for example, lived almost a thousand
years. So Moses is saying, even if such a person lived that long, it's still nothing to God. And
we look at Methuselah and we're like, who wants to live for 969 years? But even that is a blip on the
radar of history from the way God understands it. Now, God certainly understands how earthly
progression of time happens, but for him, for him, time is not a series of successive moments. God
sees all of human history at once. Think about that. From the first day of creation to the last,
he sees it all at one time. It's kind of hard for us to understand, but think about how wild that
concept is. What was happening on the earth a thousand years ago? What events were unfolding
that would lead to the first European crusade, right? To take back the Holy Land from the
Muslims. From God's perspective, that was like your Saturday. It was like yesterday. And by that
standard, Columbus set sail for the new world about a half a day ago, about 12 hours ago.
That's how awesome our God is. So we have a reference to creation in verse three, an allusion
to the pre-flood world in verse four, and then listen to verse five, another reference from
Genesis. You have swept them away like what? Like a flood. Anybody ever hear of the flood?
Meaning you, God, have brought their earthly lives to an end. You have returned them to the dust.
And notice the language, just as important, God sovereignly causes these things to happen.
We often talk about, well, he passed away from natural causes, right? That's sort of the way we
rationalize it. But Moses says, no, you, God, you turned man back into dust. You sweep them away.
And by describing it that way, he's describing our helplessness in the face of death. As much as we
try to control our lives, as much as we, you know, we set out to do all these things to try to
extend our lives at the end of the day, we just don't have sovereign control over it. Only he does.
And then just in case you haven't yet grasped his point, Moses uses this poetic imagery of grass
in the field to describe how quickly our lives fade away. And the way he describes it, we can
all sort of connect with this, right? Every new generation sprouts anew, he says, and they look so
promising. Everything looks so fresh and promising, but then towards the end of the evening, everything
sort of dries up and turns brown and it withers away. And as a homeowner who's tried for decades
to keep my yard from dying, you know, all my plants, I'm constantly maintaining them. Guess what?
Ultimately, they all pass away. Let me come visit my house sometime. You'll see it.
And my body testifies to this truth as well. How quickly the promise of younger days just flies by.
It seems like yesterday that I was going into vocational ministry in my thirties
and then I like woke up one day, I was in my sixties and I was a grandpa.
How did that happen? Well, human life is short and fleeting. And Moses's point is rather than
deny that wisdom dictates that we start with that as a fact of the heart. And that's the point.
That we start with that as a foundational truth, acknowledge that that is a fact
and that God's in control of it. Amen. Okay. Let's go to the second section, beginning of verse seven.
Right? Seven through 10. Here, Moses describes the hard truth about our lives
and he gives us the reason that we all have to go back to the dust.
This is tough stuff. Verse seven, for we have been consumed or brought to an end
by your anger and by your wrath, we have been dismayed or terrified.
You have placed our iniquities before you. Even our secret sins have been placed in the light
of your presence. So the same God who stands above time and sees a thousand years like a day,
he has the right and authority to judge mankind in his righteous anger.
His anger is not sinful, it's righteous and it is just. And when his wrath has kindled,
man is rightfully condemned. This is a hard truth. And again, Moses was witnessing this all around
him, friends, family members, fellow Israelites, constantly dying throughout their wandering in
the desert. And people say that death is just a natural part of the cycle of life that we should
accept it as normal. And from a standpoint, a practical standpoint, that is true. But as
believers, we should never lose sight of the fact that sin caused this. That that's at the
at the base of it. The disobedient choices of man has caused this cycle of death. And we should
recognize that every time someone dies, they're about to stand before a holy God for judgment,
not just for their obvious sins, Moses says, but for the secret sins as well, because everything
eventually gets laid bare before an all knowing God. We can't hide it. We can't hide it. We can't
hide anything from him. The great Jonathan Edwards once preached a message titled the justice of God
and the damnation of sinners. That'll preach the justice of God and the damnation of sinners. And
in that message, he argues that our problem with God's judgment, our problem with hell itself
comes from the fact that we think too lowly of God and too highly of ourselves. And this is,
you'll find this in the world all the time. We think too lowly of God and too highly of ourselves.
So Edwards goes on to say in our pride, we declare our right to self-empowerment
to do as we please. When the reality is we've earned every bit of God's condemnation and it is
he who does as he pleases, not us. That's the fundamental mistake that so many in the world
make today. Verse nine then, for all our days have declined in your fury. In other words, they
pass away under your wrath. We have finished our years like a sigh, which is a beautifully poetic
statement, right? Here again, we're reminded of the Genesis account. Recall what was Adam's
punishment, the consequence for his sin in the garden. Here's what it says. Cursed is the ground
because of you. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. By the sweat of your face,
you will eat bread until you return to the ground. In other words, your life and your work is going
to be marked by what? Pain, toil, frustration. And then as your body begins to break down, to fade and
wither just like that grass, you will finish your days on earth with a sigh or with a groan.
And again, I can testify to that as I get older. We're groaning. Okay. So let's pause and just take
stock of what Moses has said so far. It's pretty heavy, but it's reality. And if this psalm were
just verses three through 10, we would all be in despair right now. And rightfully so, because
we've just diagnosed the problem. What's the solution? Well, let's look at the rest.
The first and fourth sections are going to show us how these short and fleeting lives that we have
on earth can have meaning and value. So we ought not to spare. Let's go back up to verse one now
and see what God has to say. Verse one, Lord, and by the way, the Hebrew word there is not Yahweh.
It's not even Elohim. It is Adonai, which speaks of God's kingly rule. It speaks of his authority
and power. Adonai, you have been our dwelling place or our refuge in all generations. Before the
mountains were born, before they were brought forth, or you gave birth to the earth and the world,
even from everlasting to everlasting, you are the eternal God. As in Psalm 84 last Sunday,
what we get here is a snapshot of two amazing principles about God, both his transcendence and
his imminence, both the fact that he is, he is up in heaven and above us and outside of all this,
but at the very same time down here with us, present with his people, amazing truth.
So first Moses paints for us this picture of Adonai's transcendence. He is from everlasting
to everlasting. Underline that phrase in your Bible. He is before time and he is beyond time,
from eternity to eternity. That is the highest description that we have in human language to
describe the eternal nature of God. We also see he's the alpha and the omega. He's the beginning
and the end. He's the first and the last. He is the one now, get this, who formed the entire universe
and we as humans still don't even know how large that is. Simply with a command, let it be.
Think about that. And yet in spite of that majesty, in spite of that transcendence,
in spite of that eternal nature, you Lord have condescended to be a dwelling place
for your people in every generation. And you can sort of picture Moses now, he's leading these
people through the wilderness and he says, he says, Adonai, we have needed you. Abraham needed you
and Isaac and Jacob, and we need you in the wilderness. And trust me, they constantly needed
Adonai to be a refuge and a protection and a shelter for them as they walked through the Sinai
and through the Negev. And notice the personal pronoun. This is where you get this eminence.
Moses uses our, the Lord is our dwelling place, possessive. The eternal God is our God, he says.
And this is still true today among God's people in the church. You and I, we have our home in Christ.
Jesus himself, God the Son, God in the flesh said, abide in me and I in you, abide in my love.
This transcendent God says, I want to make a dwelling place with you. It's amazing.
Jesus is our dwelling place today, our shelter, our protection, our home, our home. And where our home
is, we find joy and we find rest and we find peace. Even as we're in the midst of the battle over sin
in our lives, right? As the flesh and the spirit war, we still have our home in Jesus Christ
as these days quickly pass in our life. Augustine put it this way. You have created us for yourself,
O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. That is the truth. If you don't
know Jesus, you hear this morning, you don't know Jesus Christ, you don't have that rest. You don't
have that peace. But he says, come and abide with me and I will abide with you. Abide in my love.
Now I've saved the best part of the Psalm until last. Let's drop down to verse 11.
We'll read through the rest of the Psalm, verses 11 to 17. Now remember now coming out of verse 10,
Moses has painted this really bleak picture of the shortness of man's life because of sin
and the helplessness that we find ourselves in. Guys, I cannot stress that enough.
We are helpless in that, right? We are all corrupted. We are guilty before a holy God,
and we cannot control the days of our lives. So what should man do? Right? That is the key
question when you're talking to somebody who doesn't know Jesus. Okay, so what now? What do we do?
Well, first get understanding. Look at verse 11, rhetorical question. Who understands the power
or the intensity of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you?
A clear way of reading that second phrase is your wrath matches the fear that is due you.
Think about that. Your wrath matches the fear that is due you. So who really understands? Who among
us as finite people can understand the intensity of God's anger and wrath? Can any of us really
understand how much fear is due this being who made the universe with a command? It's really not
possible, but we should read God's word and strive to recognize what that means because it's so weighty
and it's so important for us as we worship the Lord. And then once we try to understand that,
the next step is logical. Verse 12, so as a result of that, teach us to number our days
that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Now that's a famous verse. A lot of us know that verse,
but reading it in context matters because of your blazing holiness, Lord, because of your perfect
righteousness and because we ought to fear you. Moses says, now Lord teach us, teach us, teach us
to grasp the full truth about you and your wrath and to grasp the full truth about our mortality
and our sin. Understanding both of those sides. Help us to see our lives here on earth as you do,
so that we'll develop the wisdom that we need to live lives that are pleasing in your sight
and therefore significant for all eternity. Let me say that again. Help us to see our lives here on
earth as you do so that we will develop the wisdom that we need to live lives that are pleasing to
you and therefore will have significance. I think it's important to note that Moses's request for
God is to teach us. What does that mean? It means we have to learn. It means it's not just automatic.
Well, I received Jesus and therefore I have this wisdom. No, it's a learning process. God teaches,
but we need to listen. The spirit has to help us in this. We need to be taught and then we need to
be taught again and again. Right? This is part of living in the flesh. We need to be reminded
over and over again about these truths, about the shortness of life. We need to be reminded
that earthly things are fleeting. We need to be reminded that we're not guaranteed tomorrow.
And the spirit will do that. The spirit always does his job. Where do things break down? With us.
Will we listen to the spirit? Will we pay attention? Will we learn what the spirit wants to teach us?
Will we be open to having our minds renewed and our lives changed in such a way that our priorities
start to line up with the type of lives that we live? Are we going to be open to that? Or are we
just going to keep filling our days with busyness? Listen, is this not the bane of our day?
To fill our lives with busyness and entertainment and memes and reels and stories on our phones?
We just pretend that everything's going to be fine. Just keep scrolling
and that none of this requires our attention. And I'll be honest, this is a struggle for every
person in the room, including me, every one of us, but friends hear Moses on this.
We number all kinds of things in our lives. We do our finances, our schedules, our social media
likes, our vacation time, but do we number our days on earth? Do we pay attention to that?
Most of us are focusing either on the future or on the past. Right? If you're on the younger side,
you're looking forward. You're always, man, if I could relive my life, I would fix this.
You're always looking to the next season. Because right now, we're looking to the next season.
Cause right now you're like, Oh, this isn't so great, but the next season. And then guess what?
The next season and then the next season. And you don't have contentment. And if you're on the
older side, you're looking back and going, where did the time go? Can I get back there? Friends,
the present matters. This is part of what Moses is saying. The present really matters. And since
we don't have assurance of tomorrow, we dare not waste the present, either looking back at the
present, either looking back or looking forward. If we're not numbering our days and acknowledging
our mortality, then we are lacking practical wisdom for life. And the results of that are
predictable. It ends up in selfish living. It ends up in misplaced priorities. It ends up with
lots and lots of wasted time. And it ends in missed opportunities to love and serve and care
for people. Going back to what I said at the outset, we've all been born into this particular
era that was ordained by the Lord for his purposes. So how are you going to respond to the needs of
the hour right now in the present? Let's keep going. Verse 13, Moses says, do return, O Lord,
how long will it be or how long will this suffering last and be sorry for your servants? Now,
again, it's a little bit awkward in the NASB. So here's a simple way to read it. Turn back to us,
Lord, how long will this suffering last? Have compassion on your servants. And he goes on to
verse 14, O, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, your chesed, right? That's your
steadfast love that we may sing for joy and be glad all of our days. Now, as he says, this is
critical. He's not taking back what he wrote earlier about God's anger and wrath. He's not taking
that back. It's deserved, he says, but in spite of God's righteousness and judging men for their sin,
as he now comes to the end of the Psalm, Moses pleads for mercy. He hasn't taken back wrath. We
deserve it. But now he says, be compassionate on us, be merciful to your servants. We deserve your
wrath, Lord, but I'm asking for grace. Friends take note of this. This is salvation by grace through
faith in the Old Testament. We think of that often as just a New Testament concept, but here it is,
right? We deserve wrath. We're petitioning you for grace. You're our God. We trust in you. We love you.
Our faith is in you. Show us compassion. You've placed our iniquities before you, even our secret
sins. Yet I know Lord, that you are a refuge for those who trust in you. That can be a prayer we
say today, right? So have compassion on us. Satisfy us each morning with your covenant love so that we
as your people can sing for joy and be glad in these days that we have numbered on the earth.
That's the big point. Verse 15, I love this. Make us glad according to or in proportion to the days
you have afflicted us and the years that we have seen evil. Let your work appear or be shown to your
servants and your majesty to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and
confirm or establish for us the work of our hands. Yes, Lord, establish the work of our hands.
Listen, that generation that came out of Egypt, yeah, they grumbled. They were disobedient, but
they suffered greatly. Many of the days were there were their affliction, Moses says. And once again,
he now asked for God's grace in the midst of that suffering. In fact, he says, Lord, by your mercy,
grant us as many days of gladness as we've had in affliction. And if we must die in the wilderness,
then give us the fullness of your favor now so that however many days you have to live,
so that however many days we have left, we can enjoy your favor. He's appealing for God's
compassion and mercy and grace. Do they deserve it? Absolutely not. It's really quite beautiful.
All right, so how do we summarize all this, right? How do we summarize this? I have some thoughts.
I know that's a surprise. I have to admit that studying this Psalm this week hit me like a ton
of bricks because it caused me to do a whole lot of reflection on the years that I've had
in my life to look back and say, Lord, have I really numbered my days? And I think this is true
of everyone who's here this morning that's around my age, but it's going to be true of every single
person in this room at some point. One day you're 17 and you plan for some day. And then
you wake up one day and some day is today. And then you blink again and some day is now yesterday.
And then you blink one more time and you can't even remember yesterday.
And I know that's funny. I'm not even joking, right? If you're my age, you get it. You're like,
how did this happen? But this is man's life on earth. It's fleeting. The New Testament says it
too. Your life is a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. And during
the years of that mist, we are going to experience many, many moments of sadness and frustration and
failure and yes, death because of our sin. Some of it will be your sin. Some will be sin that
belongs to others, people you love. But overall, as you get older, you recognize
that this life is messed up. It's just not how it should be. And the older you get, the more you see
it. Now, again, we can spend all kinds of energy trying to deny that reality and just live like
with blinders on, rationalizing the idea that if I just had a little more money or just work a little
bit harder at it, that I can find satisfaction and fulfillment here on the earth. You can live in that
type of self-deception or you can listen to the wisdom of God and His word. You can trust what He
says about life and eternity and you can seek satisfaction and fulfillment in Him alone.
And that's the path of wisdom. Now, what does that look like? It means that while we're here on the
earth, first of all, let me just say this. We can and should enjoy all the good gifts that come from
God's hand, right? He is a gracious God. He gives us many things that we can enjoy. The good gifts
as many things that we can enjoy. There are always, listen, always things that we can enjoy and be
thankful for. But at the same time, we also have to come to realize that this world is not our true
home, that this is not our culture, that we don't fit. We're aliens and strangers passing through
this culture is not ours. And we're searching for a greater prize. We're searching for an eternal home
where all of the frustration and the futility and the sin are done away with and where we will
finally find eternal rest for our souls. That's the prize. And as we lift our eyes to Christ into
heaven, listen, we don't despair of this life. I know that that's a whole thing now. Like we just
go around mopey all the time because everything looks like such a mess, but we don't despair of
this life. Yes, we manage our expectations. We prepare for times of suffering and trial,
but we don't despair. In fact, quite the opposite. What we should do is see this time on earth,
the days we're given as a great challenge. Flip this thing upside down, stop moping,
see it as a great challenge. We see moments in history as a series of divine opportunities to
love people and to serve and to care and to see God work in our lives and in the lives of those
that we love. That's the challenge. And so therefore we number our days and we order our lives
according to that vision and purpose. There is no higher calling than that. That is true significance.
Responding to God's call in the time we're given on earth in such a way that we make an imprint on
lives for all eternity. That is true significance. Amen. But this requires a heart of wisdom, Moses
says. It requires that we listen, that we learn. It's available to every believer who picks up
God's word, believes it and acts upon it. We need to be taught it. It means renewing our mind. It
means walking in the spirit. It means putting off the patterns of the old self and putting on the
righteousness of the new self. And one day you and I will sit at the judgment seat of Christ.
I know this is harder for younger folks. I remember I didn't think about this for a long time.
We'll sit at the judgment seat of Christ, not to be condemned, but to be rewarded
for our faithfulness. And on that day, our lives are going to be tested to see what we did with
the gifts and the opportunities that he gave us in the time that we lived. Did they profit us or did
they profit his kingdom? Will be the question. Was our labor motivated by personal gain or for his
glory? And since that day will come for all of us, let us decide today, right now, to labor and strive
for the things that will last, not for the things that will pass away. Because that judgment seat is
coming. I know that we all need a certain amount of worldly things to live and function down here.
We can't separate from the world, but at the same time, let us keep in mind the words of John.
John writes this. He says, children, it is the last hour. The world is passing away along with
its lusts, but the one who does the will of God lives forever. The only things that God is going
to reclaim off this planet are his word and his people. So those, there's your marching orders
in terms of setting your priorities, his word and his people. Avoid the things that waste your time
and take you off that mission. Avoid those things. I know that's not easy in the time we live,
but again, listen to the wisdom of Moses. Let Israel's experience in the wilderness teach us.
It was written for our instruction so that we might not fall in that same way.
And I'll close with the same word that Paul gave to the churches in his day. Different time,
same message, right? It's a good word for all believers in all generations. And if you don't
believe what I've said today, believe what Paul says. Just two short passages. My dear brothers
and sisters, be steadfast and immovable, always excelling in the Lord's work because you know that
your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Pay careful attention to how you walk, not as unwise people,
but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil. So don't be foolish,
but understand what the Lord's will is. Amen. Let's bow our heads.
Most high God, Adonai, I know that the day that we live in right now is different than 1500 BC
when Moses wrote this Psalm. And yet God, man doesn't change and you don't change. And so this
is a good word for today. And so Lord, we first of all praise you for being our refuge.
In this generation and God, we, we acknowledge that we deserve your wrath
because we've all sinned and fallen so short of your glory, Lord, but you are a gracious God to
those who trust in you. And so we pray for your compassion. We pray for your grace in our lives
and we pray for those we know and love that don't know you Lord, who stand unto your wrath, even
right now and pray God that you would draw them to yourselves and save them.
Father teach us to understand our mortality, to number our days and to make the most of the time
that you've given us. God, we pray, satisfy us with your faithful love. We pray that you will
be glad in the days that we're given. God help us to order our lives, help us to seek significance
in the days that we're giving so that there might be an imprint for all the eternity on lives.
People that we love, people that we serve and care for.
God, we acknowledge that we can do none of this in our own strength. We need your spirit.
So God, for those of us who know you here at Oak Hill, I pray that your spirit would fill us and
empower us to do the ministry that you have for us in this time. Thank you Lord God for your word.
Convict us, encourage us and help us to worship well in the time we have left this morning.
We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.