A Heart of Wisdom - Psalm 90

A Prayer of Moses and the Eternal Nature of God

Turn with me, please to the 90th psalm.

Psalm 90 I have the Suspicion that if we were to look back at.

Last year. Or maybe the year before that or the year before that that is one of the disadvantages of the sermon audio site that we now have is that people can go back. I Jamie went back and Inform me after I spoke on something recently.

Yeah, actually you last addressed that on such-and-such day. Give the exact time and that's that's not a good thing. But probably if you go back somewhere Around this time of year when I've had the opportunity to speaking.

I've probably gone to Psalm 90. I can't think of too many other places in the scriptures where we can have such words of wisdom as at this time of year we have Reason to consider eternity to consider time the new year and of course Different cultures and history have had new years at different times.

That's one of the real challenges and figuring out when certain Kings reign in the Old Testament. Is that some nations their New Year's in the spring and some of the fall and some the winter and Things like that, but ours happens to be coming up here in just a few days and people make resolutions and people think about.

Learning to Number Our Days

Stop and actually think about what's happened over the past year and that rarely happens at other points in time during the year. It's a good thing. It's a very good thing and it seems that here in a prayer of Moses the man of God We have some tremendous wisdom that we might take advantage of as we take advantage of this time in thinking about Eternity and our lives and the coming year.

So Psalm 90 Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth in the world. Even from everlasting to everlasting you are God. You turn man back into dust and Say return Oh children of men For a thousand years in your sight or 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. The morning it flourishes and sprouts anew toward evening it fades and withers away.

For we have been consumed by your anger and by your wrath. We have been dismayed. You have placed our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days have declined in your fury.

We have finished our years like a size for the days of our life. They contain 70 years or if due to strength 80 years. Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow for soon. It is gone and we fly away. Who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is do you?

So teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Do return Oh Lord, how long will it be and be sorry for your servants? So satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us in the years. We have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. But the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and confirm us and confirm for us the work of our hands.

Yes confirm the work of our hands. So many thoughts presented to us by this text. As we are reading through it. I'm sure your mind latched on to a number of the statements that were made here, but just a few thoughts as we Consider the coming year a year that none of us can See very far into.

Oh, we may have certain plans and we may have a good idea of some of the things we're going to be doing, but we all know that Things can enter into our life that will completely change what we think the future will be like obviously changes in health a Car accident a disease all those things can completely change things.

The change in employment for good or for bad. Change all those plans that we've made and of course we look beyond ourselves. And we think of for example the fact that well I'm already sick of political advertisements and discussions, and it's only to get much worse during the course of this year, but We would all agree a very very important political season coming up in our land as well.

And we don't know what the future is going to hold we we see things in the world, and we wonder Lord. Are you still in control? And as we think about these words as we think about this song we cannot help but pray.

That whatever the Lord brings into our experience over this next year that we would be People who respond to it as Christians are to respond to these things notice some of the themes. Psalm 90 verse 2 is a text that I have shared with many a Mormon.

Because they do not believe that God has been God for all of eternity before the mountains were born or He gave birth to the earth and the world even from everlasting to everlasting you are God. And so it does seem that in light of what Calvin said the beginning of the Institutes if you've not read them I would highly recommend them to your reading.

That it's sometimes difficult to know where we need to start the knowledge of ourselves the knowledge of God. I Think he ends up deciding that we need to start with the knowledge of God because we start with ourselves will always end up with a Twisted and contorted view of God and a twisted and contorted view of ourselves if we do not see ourselves as God's creatures and so here the psalmist begins.

Moses begins with the everlasting nature of God and You notice that he contrasts that with the very transitory nature of man and I know that for some of the young folks it may be a little bit difficult to Enter into some of the things the psalmist says because when we're young the future looks like it's almost inexhaustible and We look at folks, and I I remember About the time I got married of course.

I was a teenager when I got married as were some of you, but We had a teacher in our Bible study department, and I think he was about 40 years old. I wondered why they had this old man teaching us. You know I mean, it's just seen 40 years long ways down the road.

So we're twice as old as me. Doesn't seem that long ago but as you get older all of a sudden you you start realizing something and that is that every year seems to go by faster than the year before that and Can cause some panic on the part of some folks.

You start thinking about if it's going faster and faster, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna get to the end pretty quick. At least as I'm experiencing it but even that 70 or if by reason of strength 80 years is But a watch in the night.

It's like yesterday when it passes by a thousand years you started like yesterday when it passes by and so in comparison to God's Eternal nature we are very transitory beings and we need to keep that in mind.

I don't know that any of us ever really fully appreciate that reality. If we did we would never be impatient with God if we really really took it in and we really had some sense. I Don't know that we'd ever be impatient with God.

I think everybody in this room has been impatient with God, but if we really thought about I saw a quote I'm not sure if the past is going to appreciate this because of where I saw it, but it was a good quote it was actually a quote from I see a lot of quotes from Spurgeon and and well-known writers, but the fact that I read it on Twitter might be enough to cause pastor fry hives, but I see a lot of good quotes there and and and the quotation.

I I saw went somewhere along the lines of The idea of of rushing Christ and his work in our lives is foolish because he is He is too good and too full and too satisfied a Savior to ever be rushed. I Thought that was an excellent thought.

We tend to push we tend to be impatient, but that's. It's because we don't really really look at things the way God does and we have so many examples the example of Joseph the example of David or These men had to be patient for long periods of time a lot longer than to be honest with you.

We normally have to be patient and yet if we start with God We recognize his eternal nature, and then we we think of ourselves and and we're like I used to have these bushes out front. Thanks be I don't have them anymore.

It took a lot to get rid of them, but paving helped a lot. That's that the sort of took care of the bushes, but you just have these bushes out front, and they had very pretty purple flowers on them and They would they would bloom in the morning, and they'd be beautiful.

But by the time you got back in the evening. And then the next morning. And then you and I I never thought I never even was overly concerned with the name of the kind of bush I like that. But it was it was interesting to watch the change that would take place in that particular plant especially in light of the fact that We're sort of likened to that by the scriptures.

We're like the don't have this a lot around here, but the do. Um yesterday morning I did a comparison to my wife a short ride and at one point at time I have a I have a Thermometer on my on my computer, and it was reading twenty eight point four degrees.

When I got back I calculated the windchill at the speed. I was going it was 17 degrees, okay? I just hurt that's all there is to it that that's all that's not we can describe it but at one point as I was coming back the Sun was coming up and I came over this little rise, and it was along the Canal where all the playing fields were it was beautiful.

There was frost on all the dead grass, and it was just it was gorgeous. I mean it really really was Beautiful to see but you know what it didn't take long for that stuff. Just be gone just Melts away disappears gone.

That's the illustration that is used of us. I like to think of ourselves in that way, but that is the biblical understanding and what makes it important to see that is What the psalmist then recognizes and that is that there is wrath on God's part against sin.

God's Wrath, Human Sin, and the Need for Wisdom

In that same venue of Twitter this morning someone happened to Mention me and the president the American atheists in the same tweet which gave the atheists my Nick and so pretty quickly a a an atheist wrote to me and said Hey, aren't you ashamed?

That your God Allows children to starve to death in Africa that was that was his message to me. And I wrote back to him and I said My God is the source and sustainer of all life including yours. And you owe him your thanks and your worship didn't hear back from him after that he didn't want to have a conversation or anything.

Here that or Twitter has profanity filters, and he couldn't get through to me. I'm not sure which one it was but But isn't it amazing the the way that people will think? They'll want to blame God, but they the idea of his wrath against sin.

Oh, no, we won't even go there. Won't even talk about that anymore, but the psalmist He talks about. You've been consumed by your anger by your wrath. We have been dismayed you have placed our iniquities before you our secret sins in the light of your presence this issue of God's holiness and our Sinfulness if we are wise if if we have Simple creaturely common sense and I would submit to you that sin drives creaturely common sense right out of our Existence, but if we have even simple creaturely common sense We will think about and consider Relationship to God and the fact that our consciences tell us that we have broken his Law and that his wrath and his fury.

They're just. They're just and if that's the case then as we see the evidences of our of our aging as we see as we start Gaining enough years to start thinking back. You know the past and I were just talking about well, you know, are we gonna have a video Friday night?

You know, we really haven't mentioned it and I said, well, you know I've got some videos and started thinking about it last time. We saw some of the videos that I've got 14 years ago 14 years ago anybody here.

Remember them very well for 14 years ago. Mr. Kyle hand up. Thank you very much for ruining my sermon illustration. Mr. Kelly, I appreciate that very much. Well, you make it you know what you're gonna have to stay and watch.

That's what I'm gonna make you do. I'm gonna make you stay and watch it. You're gonna watch the end this video. That's just all there is to it. Anyway Once you start adding up a few of those years start thinking about all that, you know, I Love telling that, you know, we had a Wedding this this summer and we all got together and told our favorite David stories, you know.

That to that, you know, and it doesn't seem like it was that long ago, you know and you start you start collecting enough years to be able to start talking about things like that and That should make you wise enough to realize you know what?

I'm a mortal being I'm gonna go the way of the world. What does that mean? Should I not be concerned about my relationship to this God that I know is there? That has testified of his existence in my life, you know That leads us to a verse that to me every time I read it.

I am absolutely.

Struck by.

The depth of the wisdom and and it really it becomes for me sort of a Attest a standard. Almost every year I think of this at this time of year and I ask myself How have I done? In light of Psalm 90 verse 12 and and I would suggest that for you not in front of everybody else, but in the in The quietness of your own heart over the next few days.

I've got a really really really busy time period coming up. It's not really going to be one to still allow me to do a whole lot of Contemplation of these things, but maybe you might have some more time than I will so teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of Wisdom.

Teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. There's something There's something about recognizing our Immortality recognizing the passage of time. Recognizing that God has been at work in our lives and there are duties that he has given to us.

I think that's what numbering our days is recognizing. Getting away from that worldly way of thought where we never think about The fact that we are mortal beings. We we invest a tremendous amount of effort in not thinking about that putting it as far out of our minds as possible there's something about numbering our days where we recognize that we are the creatures of God and That our days are limited even if We don't get hit by that semi truck.

Remember remember ten years ago that guy that stole a Dump truck and Was flying through Phoenix with it. He was going up Central Avenue. And I remember I was watching it live on TV channel 3 or something had their helicopter up and they were following this thing and he was going up Central Avenue and and they zoomed in on on Bethany home and Central Avenue right near North Phoenix Baptist Church there and You can see this car you're it's amazing how you may not be able to do trigonometry on a piece of paper but isn't amazing how your mind can do it really fast and You just know This car is going to a green light can't see anything coming at it.

We all go through those green lights every single day don't we and It looks like it's going to be a t-bone and this is a full-size Dump truck and a regular-sized car you figure this is this is a fatality about to happen.

Thankfully somehow It worked out to where it hit the back of the car spun the thing actually tipped over the dump truck. That's what stopped the stop the the chase anyone know remember in which one I'm talking about here.

I'm the only one remembers. Okay, you remember it? Okay. And then some other guy gets out of a car the baseball bat and chases the guy around and whacks him a few times. I think he ended up getting in trouble too.

But anyway You know it reminds me of Earlier this year as we were coming to church on a Sunday morning We're going toward 19th Avenue on Indian School Road. Just driving along got a green light. Well, I don't know 100 yards out.

We have a green light and Right through the intersection going north goes a pickup truck. Didn't even slow down totally ran it Didn't hit anybody didn't hit me. I Couldn't help but sit there and think three seconds four seconds.

Boom. We may dodge all of those things. We may be the recipients of God's grace and missing all of that stuff and get to our 70 or 80 or these days 90 or even a hundred but it's still such a small period of time and so the question becomes if if we number our days if we Recognize that we are mortal creatures.

How is that related to? Presenting to God a Heart-of-wisdom. Or to put it another way Doesn't it follow that a person who? Doesn't think about the future and doesn't think about their mortality and doesn't think about the number of days that have been given to us.

That person's not going to have a heart of wisdom part and partial of presenting to God a heart of wisdom which evidently Something that we should desire to do we should desire to do it part and parcel of that Is recognizing who we are as creatures and That God has given us a limited amount of time before we are in his presence before we experience that eternal state and So ask yourself a question.

Has my heart grown in wisdom in 2011 has my heart grown? It has had that even been a goal of mine. And if not What can I do in? 2012 so that When white forgets again that he's already spoken out of Psalm 90 once recently and he takes us back here again at the end of next Year, I can actually look at this and go.

Yeah, I I think I can see not out of pride. But I I think of them just honestly evaluating myself. The Bible tells us to evaluate ourselves test ourselves. I Can see that there's still much foolishness.

But there's been a growth and godliness has been a growth in wisdom. I Want I really do want to present to God a heart of wisdom. Now the the means of doing that the means of grace exposure the Word of God all those things.

Well, that's why we get together regularly at church, but I hope it'll be for all of us a real desire this coming year. To cultivate a heart of wisdom so we may present to God on that day. Not as Paul would describe it Wood hay stubble.

But I think a heart of wisdom would be that gold that silver those precious stones a heart of wisdom. It should be something that we desire it should be something that we want to cultivate and Lord willing if he gives us another year.

Let's hope when we gather together again that we will be able to say yes Lord by your grace I've learned wisdom this year. Let that be our goal.