Psalm 90 "Teach Us to Number Our Days" December 31, 2006 Children, did you know that you are going to die? I don't know if you have ever thought about that, but someday you are going to die. That's not easy to think about, is it? Have you ever seen a dead body? Perhaps a grandparent? Someday, that will be you. You are not going to live forever. Someday, unless our Lord should return first, you will die. Why should you think about that? You're only 4 years old or 7, or 12, or 24, or 40, or 65, or 80. But you never know when death will strike. Moses prays Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Your days are numbered. The heart of wisdom is to understand that. Psalm 90 starts with the vision of the everlasting God, and then turns to the reality of the never-lasting man, and concluding with a glimpse of the heart of wisdom. And the heart of wisdom beats forever in the breast of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because in him, the favor of the Lord our God has come upon us, and in him, truly the everlasting God has become our dwelling place. 1. The Everlasting God (verses 1-2) Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Psalm 90 starts where we need to start by remembering our true identity our true home. God is our rock, our refuge our dwelling place. We are used to talking about the temple as the place where God dwells with his people, that we may be taken aback to hear Moses say that God is our dwelling place. It is passages like this that prove Hebrews correct in its assertion that the faithful in the Old Testament recognized that they had no earthly home. You, O Lord, have been our home and you have been our home in all generations. (literally, to generations and generations). There is a constancy to our God. He is our dwelling place, yes. But he has always been a dwelling place for his people. In all places, in all times, God is constant in his steadfast love. Wherever you go, he is there. He is a home to the homeless wanderer a refuge for the afflicted. But this is not something new about God. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. If you go back before the creation, in the depths of eternity, God was still God, and he will remain the same while everlasting ages run. God is everlasting. Literally, "from ages, unto ages, you are God." In every age, God remains God. In the ancient world, when man bowed down to idols of gold and silver, God remained God, and called idolaters to worship him. In the modern world, when man bows down to idols of sex and greed, God remains God, and calls idolaters to worship him. Humanity continually tries to supplant God. We come up with all sorts of variations we desperately seek some way to avoid worshiping the one true God. But from everlasting to everlasting you are God. As you try to make sense of life and death, remember that you will never see clearly unless you the everlasting God is your dwelling place unless he is your starting point! Because if you start with man, if you start with the never-lasting world of flesh and blood, then all you will see is the never-ending cycle of death. From everlasting to everlasting you are God. 2. The Never-lasting Man: Dust, Grass and Toil (verses 3-11) But having seen the everlasting God in verses 1-2, we can now understand something truly about the never-lasting man in verses 3-11. Man returns to dust. Man is like a dream. Man is like grass. There is a simple structure to verses 3-11. There are three "You" statements, each of which is followed by a "for" statement. The Hebrew word "for" (f - o - r) is kiy. So we might say that there are three "kiys" to understanding why man does not last. And in the Hebrew, the word kiy starts verses 4, 7, and 9, providing the three reasons why humanity never lasts. Look at verse 3: You return man to dust And verse 4: for a thousand years are like yesterday (3-4) Verse 5: You sweep them away Verse 7: for we are brought to an end (5-7) Verse 8: You set our iniquities before you Verse 9: for all our days pass away (8-10) Notice the effect of this you (do this) / for (this reason) structure: while the section is talking about the never-lasting man, man's context is the everlasting God. You return man to dust You sweep them away You have set our iniquities before you Before anything else existed, God was God. God does not need humanity to define himself against. But we cannot understand ourselves without God. We have no meaning without him. We get so caught up in the rat race of life that we forget this! You cannot make sense of yourself unless you see yourself in this perspective. We tend to think of ourselves as indestructible especially in our youth but when we see ourselves in the context of the everlasting God, we see ourselves for who and what we are: a pile of dust blowing in the wind! Verses three and four set the context: You return man to dust and say, 'Return, O children of man!' God formed Adam out of the dust of the ground. Adam is one of the Hebrew words for man. And now Moses says that God returns man (ish) to dust, saying, Return, O children of adam. Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. But why does God return us to dust? The answer is found in verse 4: For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. For God a thousand years are like a day in our experience. Or, better yet, like three hours a watch in the night. So if a thousand years are like three hours, then your life lasts for about 12 minutes. You've heard of people who long for fifteen minutes of fame and glory? Well, if you bottle up the whole of your life in the context of the everlasting God, you've got about 12 minutes. What are you doing here? Everyone seems to be trying to leave their "mark" on this world. Bill Clinton is still trying to figure out his "legacy." What about you? What is your legacy? A hundred years from now, who will remember you? Dust you are, and to dust you shall return. The first "kiy" in verses three and four does not give us much comfort! God is everlasting and we are not! The second "kiy" in verses five and six continue this theme: You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. Do you understand the futility of life? As the floods swept away New Orleans we were reminded that this is what happens in life! We have this strange, perverse notion that we can prevent anything bad from happening! It is a good thing to be able to anticipate coming danger and prevent it. We should not be sloppy or careless. But at the same time, we must recognize that there are limits to our power. God alone is the everlasting God. We are the never-lasting man. We are like a dream. We are like grass that flourishes in the morning, but fades and withers in the evening. As you drive home today, look at the grass withered and brown awaiting the spring. Look at the trees, barren and naked, devoid of fruit or leaf. This is a picture of the never-lasting man the cycle of birth and death. And verse 7 explains why. For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. Here is the problem! The everlasting God is angry with us; and his wrath is what dismays us most, because there is no getting around the wrath of God. God's wrath and curse has set death as the wages of sin. And so as we approach the end of life, (and please remember that all of you are approaching the end of your life you may be young and healthy, but you do not know the hour of your death), and so as we approach the end of life, we see looming in front of us God's anger. So the second "kiy" in verses 5-7 simply tells us that we die because God is angry with us! The third "kiy" "You (have done this) ... for (this reason)" in verses 8-10 explains this further: You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. Notice the progression of pronouns in our three "kiys" Verses 3-4 spoke of man, but the divine "you" dominated the section. Verses 5-7 spoke of man as "them" and "they" until verse 7. Now in verses 8-10, man is entirely "we" and "our." Having seen God for who he is the everlasting God, and humanity for who "they" are the never-lasting man, now we see ourselves in the light of God's divine wrath, and we tremble. When God sets our iniquities before him, when the light of his presence shines upon our secret sins, then we understand why we are swept away why we return to dust. For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. (Verses 9-10) Some of you may well be facing death this year. Perhaps your own, or perhaps the death of a loved one. But whether this year or not, the years of your life are drawing inevitably to a close. And their span is but toil and trouble. The word translated "span" is more normally translated "pride." This is not just saying that the span of your life is characterized by toil and trouble, but that even the best part of life -- the pride of life -- is but toil and trouble. Nothing lasts. Nothing endures forever. Ever since the Tower of Babel, every great city has crumbled; every great philosophy has failed; every human life has ended. Verse 11 concludes the whole section with a question: Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? Do you consider the power of God's anger? Have you considered the wrath of God, in the light of the fear of God. After all, if you consider his wrath and anger from the perspective of pride and arrogance, you will despair. Because who can stand against the everlasting God? But who considers the power of God's anger and wrath from the perspective of the fear of the LORD? Do not set yourself up as judge over God. Recognize that you are the never-lasting man, and you stand before the everlasting God. 3. The Heart of Wisdom (verses 12-17) And so, verse 12 teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. If you remember that God is everlasting, and that you are not, then you just might learn the heart of wisdom! I'd like to point out two things about verses 13-15. First, verses 13-15 each begin with the same letter of the Hebrew alphabet. There is a repetitive aspect to the cry of Moses. Return, O LORD Satisfy us Make us glad Second, each of these verbs that begin verses 13-15 are imperatives. All through verses 1-11 the verbs have been in the indicative, describing the situation as it is: God is everlasting Man fades away The only imperative in the first eleven verses is God's command, Return, O children of man return to dust. But now Moses cries out Return, O LORD! The return of man is death. But the return of the LORD is life! How long, O LORD? How long must we labor under the rod of affliction? How long must our enemies triumph over us? Have pity on your servants! Satisfy us in the morning in that brief glimmer of time when we have hope! Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil! Notice the mood change: when he is describing the situation (the indicative), death and destruction lies before him; but when he considers the power of God's wrath in the fear of God, then he has hope. It might seem odd for a man to be issuing commands to God! Especially after he has reminded us how our sins bring forth God's wrath, how can Moses now issue commands to God? This reminds us that the return of the LORD is the coming of mercy and grace. The imperatives of Psalm 90 are reminding God of his promises. Because of your steadfast love, we are not consumed. Because God himself is our refuge, our dwelling place, we can come in hope and faith to the LORD our God. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands. Verses 16-17 conclude with the prayer that God would show his work to his servants that God would reveal his glorious power to their children, and that in so doing, the favor of the Lord might come upon us, and establish our work. And God has revealed his work to his servants. God has shown his glorious power to their children. Because Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of the everlasting God, humbled himself and took the form of the never-lasting man. And he was swept away by the wrath of God; he endured the cursed death of the cross. But God exalted him, and raised him up and seated him at his right hand. You see, Psalm 90 only makes sense in the light of the resurrection. The never-ending cycle of death is only broken in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead! Because there, the never-lasting man is finally raised up unto everlasting life! It is only here as the exalted Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father that we see the return that Moses longed for. Only here do we see the dawning of that new morning that Moses prayed for. And it is here that we see the favor the beauty of the Lord our God coming upon us, that he might establish the work of our hands. Yes, you have a legacy. God promises that he will establish the work of your hands, and it will last not just a hundred years but it will last as long as the everlasting God shows steadfast love to his people. What is that legacy? What is the work of our hands that God establishes? I could say that your legacy is found in rearing a godly family but you would hear that as a call to rear a monument to yourself: I reared a godly family! I could say that your legacy is found in loving the saints and devoting yourself to the poor but you would hear that again as a call to self-aggrandizement: I gave myself for others! But if I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it is nothing. The legacy that endures, is the call of discipleship to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow Jesus. It is what Paul said to the Philippians, Have this mind among yourselves, which was also in Christ Jesus. As we saw a few weeks ago, when we heard from the thief on the cross, crying out, "Lord, remember me," the only things that will last, the only things that will endure, are those things that Jesus remembers. Lord, when you enter your kingdom, remember me.