Well, our sermon text this evening is from Psalm 90. Psalm 90, it can be found in your Bibles that are offered in your pews on page 581. Psalm 90. This won't surprise you, it comes right after Psalm 89 and it's right before Psalm 91. And, you know, Psalm 89 is a psalm of lament. It's a psalm that's very sad from really beginning to end. It's wondering what's happened to the promises that God made to David, especially that he would always be on the throne. Psalm 91 is a psalm of praise all throughout, talking about the secure place that believers have. And Psalm 90, set right in between the two, has aspects of both, both lament and praise. It's a wonderful psalm. I'm really very excited to be looking at it this evening with you. And so, let's pay attention to the Word of God from Psalm 90. And let's remember as we hear this that it is the very Word of God. Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations, before the mountains were born, or You brought forth the earth and the world. From everlasting to everlasting You are God. You turn men back to dust, saying, Return to dust, O sons of men. For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death. They are like the new grass of the morning. Though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered. We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your presence. All our days pass away under Your wrath. We finish our years with a moan. The length of our days is 70 years, or 80 if we have the strength. Yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For your wrath is as great as the fear that is due you. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, O Lord, how long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. As we prepare to hear the message, let's say a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. And this evening, as we hear from Psalm 90, we pray that You would speak to us and we pray that we would listen. Help us to hear from You. Help us to apply what we've heard. And let us come to praise Your Son all the more because of this time that we have had together this evening. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Now, people of God, I remember the first time I ever seriously considered the words of Psalm 90. I was in fourth grade, and I remember my teacher, Mrs. Deimstra, said something to me to the effect of, you know, Derek, life is short. It goes by very quickly. And I remember telling her something like, I don't know what you're talking about, it's taken me forever to get to fourth grade. And at the time, I really didn't understand what she was saying. But she told me, Derek, the Bible even says that a thousand years are like a day in God's sight. She said, the Bible says that life goes by quickly. She also told me, as you get older, you'll understand what I'm talking about. As I've gotten a little bit older, I'm no longer in fourth grade. I've come to understand a little bit of what she was saying. Life is quick. It goes by very fast. You blink and it's gone. I don't understand it as well as some of the elderly saints that I've come to know, though. And they tell me that that's true, that life goes by very quickly. It's brief. It's over in an instant. And that's what Psalm 90 is talking to us about this evening. And the way that it talks about it is so majestic and mysterious and beautiful. It's a psalm where so many opposites are brought together. It's a psalm of lament, but there's also quite a lot of joy and praise in it. It's a psalm that talks about fear in front of God, but there's immeasurable trust in this psalm. It's a psalm that talks about dying, and yet it's full of life. It's a beautiful psalm. It tells us that life is short, but because of who we are, because of who our God is and who He has made us, it's worthwhile, it's meaningful. So that's what we're going to talk about this evening, how life is short, but it's worthwhile because of our God. We're going to talk about it in three points, and those three points are going to try to reflect the opposites that are contained in this passage, in this psalm. First, we're going to talk about how God is distanced from us, how He's different from us, He's distinct from us. But we're also going to talk about how He's near to us, how He's close to us. And last, we're going to talk about how life is meaningful. So those are going to be our three points. God is distanced from us, He's near to us, and life is meaningful. So first, our first point, God is distanced from us. Now in Psalm 90, the author of the psalm, who's said to be Moses, points out how God's distanced from us in two ways. First, God is eternal, and we're temporary. And second, God is holy, and we are not. We're sinful. So first, God is eternal and we are not. We're temporary. And that's what he says right at the beginning. He says, before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. And you see the language that Moses uses here. He talks about the mountains being born. It's birth imagery. It's as if he was saying, when you look out and see those majestic mountains, Those are like babies. Like babies in the perspective of God. Do you see the world, the whole earth? That's like a child. God is from everlasting to everlasting. And when He brought forth the earth and the world, He had already been around from everlasting. And He will be to everlasting. You see, God is eternal. From everlasting to everlasting. But you see, in contrast to that, we are very temporary. Our lives are talked about as being very short, and that's what the next part of the psalm says. It says, You turn men back to dust, saying, Return to dust, O sons of men. For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that's just gone by, or like a watch in the night. You sweep men away in the sleep of death. Though in the morning they spring up new, by evening it's dry and withered. We're like grass that springs up in the morning, but in the evening is dry and withered. Have you ever seen time-lapse photography? Sometimes if you watch a nature program, you can see time-lapse photography. It's pretty cool. You can see a flower spring from the ground and flower and blossom and then die, wither and die and go back into the ground. All in just a matter of seconds. The way this psalm is explaining our life is in the same sort of terms. We spring up in the morning like the grass of the field, but in the evening we're dry and withered. You see, God's from everlasting to everlasting, but we are temporary. We go by in an instant. Life is short. And that's what Psalm 90 tells us. And you know, there are some artists in our time, in times past, who have really sort of captured this, have had a picture of this, given us an image of this. One of them is Samuel Beckett. He's a playwright. He's well known for a play called Waiting for Godot. But there's another play that he wrote that's much shorter, much less well known, but has been actually performed more times. It's a play called Breath. It's a very interesting play. What happens is people come into the theater where the play is going to be performed. They sit down. The curtain is down. Once everybody's seated, the curtain comes up. And it reveals a stage that's covered in garbage and rubbish. and the first thing that you hear is the cry of a baby and that cry of a baby is followed by one pained inhalation like this and one pained exhalation and after that the lights go down and the play is done all told it's about 32 seconds and the meaning of the play isn't very hard to discern, is it? what Beckett is saying is that life is short. It's just a heap of garbage. It's one pained inhalation and it's one pained exhalation and after that it is done. You know, Shakespeare said much of the same. He said that life is but a fleeting shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It's a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And what both of these artists have sort of gotten a hold of is what some of Psalm 90 is telling us about. Life is short. It goes by so quickly. It's over in an instant. We're like grass that springs up in the morning but then withers and dies. Life is so fast. It's like one pained inhalation, one pained exhalation, and then it's over. And you know, if this seems like a desperate picture of life that's given, it actually gets worse after that. In verses 7-11, because Moses talks about how not only are we temporary, we're also sinful. He says we're consumed by your anger. And we're terrified by your indignation. You've set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. All our days pass away under your wrath and we finish our years with a moan. And so if it wasn't enough that life is short and temporary and over in an instant, it's also filled with all sorts of hardships and trials. And it's because of our sin. It's because our sin is brought to light. Even our secret sins brought to light in God's presence. And so he sees that sin and because he's a holy God, he's rightfully angry with it. And so we are terrified. Terrified by His wrath and His indignation because we know that we are sinful and He is holy. That He sees those sins and He's rightfully angry. And then Moses talks more and more about the length of our days being 70 years or 80 if we have the strength. He talks about how our life is 70 or 80 years. And it's interesting that Moses would relay this because he certainly would know about his ancestors. He wrote the book about it. About Noah who lived more than 900 years. About Abraham who lived almost 200. So now the fact that life is 70 or maybe 80 years just shows the impacts of sin in shortening the lifespans of individuals. Sin has impacted this life and it's made it not only short, but it's made it hard. And it's made it difficult. Moses certainly was especially equipped to write about this and talk about this, wouldn't he be? Because Moses saw the glory of the Lord. Moses asked the Lord to show him His glory and so the Lord hid Moses in the cleft of a rock, passed by and allowed Moses to see the backside of His glory. And even seeing the backside of God's glory made Moses' face shine so brightly that he had to veil it in the presence of his people. They were scared to look at him. Surely somebody who had seen the glory of the Lord is able to say, God is from everlasting to everlasting. But we are so temporary. We spring up in the morning, but in the evening we wither and die. And so Moses, especially equipped to write this, gives us a fairly desperate picture, a life that's over in an instant. One pained inhalation, one pained exhalation, and then it's over. It's filled with the hardness and the hardship that's been brought about by our own sin. And we lead our lives in fear of the anger that God rightfully and righteously has because of our sin. It's a desperate picture. And yet in verse 13, something really strange happens. This takes us to our second point about how God is near to us. You see, because even though Moses has relayed how holy and righteous and eternal our God is, in verse 13, he starts making demands. He starts issuing commands. He says, Relent, O Lord. Have compassion on Your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with Your unfailing love. He says, Make us glad. Now, what in the world could give Moses the sort of confidence to approach God and talk like this? He's just been speaking about how we're terrified before God. So how is it that Moses can come before him and say, relent, have compassion, satisfy us and make us glad? Is this bold-faced arrogance? Is he foolish? Does he not know the power of God? Well, obviously, that's not it. He's just expressed the power of God. The reason he can approach God with such confidence is given to us where he says, Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love. That word, unfailing love, it's a translation of a Hebrew word that's chesed. Chesed is the Hebrew word. It's a word that means God's covenantal faithfulness or His covenantal loyalty. What that means is this. At various times throughout the history of Scripture, God made covenants with His people. And at those times, God came close to His people. And He spoke to them. We saw Him come close to Abraham and make a covenant with him. He said, I will be your God. He said, I will bless those who bless you. I'll curse those who curse you. Through you, all nations of this world will be blessed. And saying that he was making a covenant. He was coming close. He was making promises to Abraham. You see, he reaffirmed those to his people following him to Abraham and then to Isaac and then to Jacob. Again and again, he would appear to them and say, I will be your God and you will be my people. He promised to be faithful. He promised to uphold them and never to let them go. And you see, he had demonstrated his faithfulness to those covenants, to Moses and to the people of Israel in mighty and in powerful ways. You see, He had taken them out of Egypt, out of slavery with great signs and wonders. By His mighty hand, He had brought them out of captivity. Not only that, once He had taken them out of captivity, He led them in such an intimate and a close way with a pillar of fire, a pillar of cloud. He fed them. He took care of all of their needs. not only did he do that but he drew near again and gave them his law told them how they must live in all these ways he was proving that he was faithful to the covenants that he had made Moses knew this and that's what gave him the confidence to approach God and say relent have compassion on us make us glad satisfy us with the fact that You drew near to us. That You promised to never let us go. Satisfy us with Your loyalty to that. Act based upon Your loyalty to that covenant and make us glad and satisfy us. It's a wonderful and a bold prayer. Have you ever made that your prayer? Have you? Because the truth is that we have it even better than Moses, even better than the people of Israel. We have a greater display of God's covenantal faithfulness, don't we? We sang about it this evening. We sang joy to the world. The Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. You see, God demonstrated His faithfulness in the most profound and the most beautiful way by sending His Son, Jesus Christ. He was born of a virgin. He was laid to rest in a manger. It's what we celebrate, what we remember each year at Christmas time. God came as a man. Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man. He came and He dwelt among us. The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We've seen His glory. The glory of the one and only. And see, not only did Jesus come, but He lived a perfect life and He died and He rose again. And in so doing, He made His church. He made His covenant community. He took us. He put us into the story. He gave us the ability to pray this prayer, to say these words, to say, satisfy us with Your unfailing love. And not only that, when He was about to leave, He promised that He would be with us always. That He would never leave us or forsake us. We have that assurance. And so we can pray with Moses, satisfy us with the fact that You drew close to us. That You've brought us near to You and You've promised to never let us go. It's an amazing prayer that we're able to pray. And so maybe there are times where you feel like you are insignificant. Maybe there are times where you look at the world or you see mountains and you think, if these mountains are but infants to our God, then what am I? If this world is like a child, if this whole globe is like a child, then I'm but a speck. Why would God listen to me? Or maybe you know of your own sin and you think, my secret sins have been brought to light. In God's presence, how can I ever approach Him? Well, people of God, you have the assurance that comes to us in this psalm. You can approach Him and you can speak to Him because He has been so faithful to us. He made a covenant and He was faithful to it through Jesus Christ. And if you have Him, you can approach the Father and you can pray this prayer, this bold prayer. You can pray, The truth is that Christ is always with you. He will never leave you. He's promised that. He's promised that. And so God, the God who is distanced from everlasting to everlasting, is also so near to us. so close to us. And because of that, life is meaningful. That's our third point. Moses says another interesting and striking thing. He says it in verse 12. He says, Why is it that Moses would say this? I mean, he's talked about how temporary and how quickly life passes. If it really does pass by that quickly, why is it that we need to be taught to number our days correctly? It's over so quickly. Why can't we just let it pass? Well, in fact, it's because of how short life is that we need to number our days aright. That's the reason we need to gain a heart of wisdom. That's why Moses would pray, teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. You know, when I was a kid, there was a neighbor friend of mine who had a pool. He lived three doors down from my house. And from time to time, my family would go and we would swim in the pool for a while. And I remember my mother would say, all right, it's time to go. And whenever it was time to go, we would ask for five more minutes. We'd be like, Mom, can we have five more minutes? She told me later that she knew we were going to ask for five minutes, so she told us it was time to go five minutes before it was actually time to go, because then she could give us five more minutes. And I remember in those times, I would swim with more zest and more joy and more gusto because I realized that my time was short. I only had five minutes. I needed to get it all out. I assumed I was going to have to get out of the pool, and so I swam with so much vigor for those five minutes. You know, here in this psalm, we're given the five-minute warning. Our life is short. We need to live it well. We need to number our days aright. And that's why Moses prays, teach us to number our days aright. Our time here is so short, it passes by so quickly. We must live well, live in a wise fashion. So I ask you again, have you made this your prayer? Have you prayed that the Lord would teach you to number your days rightly, that you might live wisely, live well? Because there are so many ways that we can waste our time, that we can spoil our lives. We can just waste so much time. There are so many means to waste time. So much, it seems, of what's invented now is another way that we can waste more time. And so in the face of all that, knowing how limited and how short our life is, this can be our prayer. Teach us to number our days aright, Lord, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. You see, knowing how short life is will help us to live well. So people of God, you've heard the five-minute call from Psalm 90. Live well. Live for the Lord with this short time that we have. Make it worthwhile and useful. The other thing that Moses says is establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. And here again, this is another sort of striking and amazing prayer. I wonder what is it that the Israelites were doing that could have possibly been established. They were wandering in the wilderness. They were wandering for 40 years in the wilderness. Year after year after year, they were waking up, wandering, setting up camp, going to sleep, and waking up to wander again. until the generations that had disobeyed passed away and they could enter the promised land. Why would the leader of such a people pray that that work could be established? What in the world could they possibly be doing? Collecting manna? Maybe teaching their children? And yet he prays, teach us to number our days aright, and then he prays, establish the work of our hands. It indicates to us that the work that they were doing was somehow meaningful, and the Lord could establish it, do something with it. And you know, this is a great comfort to me, because oftentimes I wonder, what is the point of this life that we lead? I look at my own life, and I wonder, what have I done? You know, I'm 26 years old, and I've only ever been a student. It seems to me that there is nothing that I could have accomplished in the span of these 26 years of life that could mean anything. It seems to me that... What's the point? You know, I've heard this from other people as well. I knew a man once who was a Christian school administrator. He was a teacher. He became an administrator. He loved that work. He loved it. He was so fulfilled in his work and he enjoyed going to work, but he was made to retire early because of a series of issues. and so all of a sudden he found himself unemployed. And so he went to work for his uncle. As an hourly worker, he fitted shoes on people in his uncle's shoe store. And he told me, I don't understand why I had to do that. Why is it that I had to leave this profession that I found so fulfilling, so important, so meaningful to fit shoes? What possibly could have been the purpose of that? And, you know, I can't say why it is that in God's providence that took place. But what I can say is this, that regardless of the work, whatever it is, it's God's job to establish it, to make it worthwhile, lasting. It's God's job to establish that. It's not our work to establish our own work. And, you know, if he can make something of the wanderings of a desert people, then he can make something of a student who's been in school for 26 years. He can make something of an hourly wage, fitting shoes. This work is still valuable and good and God establishes it. And you know, we know that he established the work of the Israelites, don't we? In Deuteronomy 2.7, Moses is giving a speech and he says, Israel, the Lord has blessed all your work. The Lord has blessed it. and so we can see that the lord answered his prayer and said yes i will establish the work of their hands i will bless their work but not only that he preserved the people for himself the lord preserved this people and from this people came the savior of the world right came jesus christ and so talk about establishing work the whole the savior of the whole world came from this people group, God established their work. And He also established the work of His Son, Jesus Christ. And again, because His work has been established, our life is meaningful. And so we can pray these prayers. Teach us to number our days aright. That we may gain a heart of wisdom, Lord. And establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands. So in conclusion, I'd like to say this. I'd like to say that Mrs. Dymstra was right when she told me that life was short. It is. It goes by very quickly. She was right on. We are like the grass that springs up in the morning, but in the evening it's dry and withered. But I'd like to say also that those artists, those playwrights, they were only half right. Because both of them said that life was essentially meaningless. A heap of garbage. Sound and fury that signifies nothing. People of God, we have something much better because we know that while life is short, because our God is near to us, because He came close to us in the person of Jesus, Because we have Him, life is meaningful. It's worthwhile. It's not a heap of rubbish or garbage. It's worthwhile and meaningful. So because of that, let's pray that the Lord would teach us to number our days rightly. That we would live wisely. Knowing that even the labors that we do, God is working to establish for His purposes. Life is short, but it's so worthwhile and meaningful because of who our God is. Amen. Let's pray. Lord, You have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born, or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting. You are God. So Lord, teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Lord, establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Let us live this life that we lead in view of Jesus Christ, the one whose work has been established, knowing that because of him, our lives are meaningful and worthwhile. Let us live well to your glory because of that. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.