September 2, 2005

 

Teach Us to Number Our Days

 

Psalm 90

 

When I was a boy, growing up in Kenya, our family used to take a holiday every year at Mombasa on Kenya’s coast. It was a long drive, about 300 miles, and it would take us a day of driving to get there. The road was marked at intervals by mileposts. I used to watch for the mileposts and keep track of them as they marked our progress toward our destination. I’m not sure why, but as I did so, it always seemed as if numbers that ended in a 5 or a 0 were more significant, and marked a more substantial achievement.

 

This month several such milestones have converged together for me on my life’s journey. First of all, this coming week I will be celebrating a birthday that has two 5’s in it! I will turn 55. That reminds me of the story of the woman who turned to her husband and said, “I don’t look 50, do I?” “Oh, no,” he responded. “You haven’t for years.” I’m not quite sure how I got to this milestone so quickly. I only know that I’m much too young to be this old!

 

But that’s just one of the milestones. Esther Ruth and I passed another one a couple weeks ago. It was in the middle of August, 1975 that we arrived in the little town of Palmer, Alaska where I had been called to be the pastor of the Lazy Mountain Bible Church. That means that I’ve been preaching and we have been sharing in ministry together now for 30 years.

 

The final milestone we passed just a couple days ago. This is the one that is hardest for me to believe. On August 27, 1990, Esther Ruth and I and our two boys arrived in Abu Dhabi to begin our ministry here at ECC. So, of the 30 years we have been in ministry, 15 of those years, exactly half, have been spent here in this church. It seems odd to think that for half of my ministry career, I’ve been preaching on Fridays instead of Sundays!

 

As I’ve been reflecting on these milestones in recent days, and the passing of time and of life passing by, my thoughts turned to one of my favorite psalms. It is Psalm 90. The inscription tells us that this is “a prayer of Moses, the man of God.” That makes this the oldest psalm in the book, and one of the very earliest writings in the entire Scriptures. For eloquence and simplicity of language and thought, it is unsurpassed.

 

In the very middle of this psalm, there is a prayer, a request, that I think lies at the heart of the writer’s thought. It is a prayer that I believe we would all do well to pray and passionately seek an answer to, no matter what our age, or where we are in our life’s journey. It is found in Psalm 90:12: Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

 

What is the connection between the passing of days and wisdom? What is the link between age and wisdom? It is worth observing that wisdom doesn’t always come with age. Sometimes old age comes alone! It is clear from this verse that we don’t acquire wisdom automatically with the passing of days. Otherwise there would be no need for such a prayer. What I want to do in this sermon is to glean what we can from this psalm to find out what a heart of wisdom is, and how we can gain it. For it seems to me that the wisdom that Moses is praying for is actually revealed in this psalm. As I have studied and meditated on this psalm, I would summarize what I have discovered in five statements characterizing a heart of wisdom.

 

First, 1. A heart of wisdom recognizes and takes comfort in the eternalness of God.

 

Read Psalm 90:1-2

 

We learn first that God’s quality of being eternal is a thing of the past. “From everlasting” deals with the past. God has always existed. There was never a time when he did not exist. I remember this was the first great theological riddle I wrestled with as a child. How could God have no beginning? My childish mind could not comprehend it. I have a confession for you. My adult mind cannot comprehend it either. It remains a mystery, something beyond my ability to comprehend. In the beginning, God was. He already existed.

 

To give such a statement a sort of comparison or perspective, Moses compares God to the oldest and most permanent things he can see around him; the mountains and earth upon which they stood. Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

 

But God’s eternalness is not only a thing of the past. It is also a thing of the future. From everlasting to everlasting; Eternity past to eternity future. God is eternal. He had no beginning and he will have no end. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

 

Not only does the heart of wisdom recognize the truth of God’s eternalness, but it takes comfort in it. Look at verse 1 again: Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. The image of a dwelling place here carries both a sense of familiarity and permanence as well as a sense of refuge and safety. I think we can capture it by inserting a different word. Lord, you have been our home throughout all generations.

 

What a comfort this is to the believer. All else changes, but God remains the same from generation to generation. He is a dwelling place, a place of refuge, safety and comfort for his people. In a very real sense, this timelessness of the changeless, eternal God makes the passing of time of little significance. The God I put my faith in as a child, the God I committed myself to serve when I was a teenager, the God who stayed by my side during my first frightening days on a college campus in the 1960’s, the God whom I turned to for help when I preached my first sermon over 30 years ago, he hasn’t changed! He is the same now as he was then. He is the same now as he was when Moses wrote this psalm almost 3500 years ago. A heart of wisdom recognizes and takes comfort in the eternalness of God.

 

Second, 2. A heart of wisdom understands the brevity of earthly life. The shortness of human life on this earth is brought into sharp contrast with God’s eternalness.

 

Read Psalm 90:3-6

 

In contrast to God, man’s life is compared to grass in a dry, hot climate. For God, a thousand years is of no significance. It passes like a watch in the night that one sleeps through. A thousand years is like yesterday to him. In contrast, man springs up like new grass in the freshness of morning only to lie withered by evening from the burning heat of the day.

 

In spite of this reality, we human beings tend to great arrogance during our lifetime. Life seems long and endless, especially when we are in the prime of youth. This arrogance of the immediate causes us to overemphasize the here and now, the temporal over the eternal. We are alive, we are young, like fresh green grass, and it seems like it will always be so. I remember as a boy, figuring out that in the year 2000, the change of the millennium, I would be 50 years old. At that point in time, that seemed incomprehensibly old to me! I mean, my Dad wasn’t even 50 years old yet. Now, very suddenly, the year 2000 and my 50th birthday are fading very rapidly in my rearview mirror.

 

Moses had an especially poignant perspective on the passing of life. After the people of Israel rebelled in fear and refused to enter the Promised Land, God declared that they would wander in the wilderness for 40 years, until an entire generation, everyone over the age of 20 years old, had died. He watched a generation die. He was constantly reminded of the brevity of human life. Every time the Israelites packed up their tents and moved, they left graves behind.

 

Life is short. A heart of wisdom understands the brevity of earthly life.

 

Third, 3. A heart of wisdom understands that life is hard, and that the difficulties of earthly life are the consequence of human sinfulness and God’s judgment.

 

Read Psalm 90:7-11

 

I am not going to expand on this at great length, but I need to make a few comments. These verses make it clear that there is a connection between the difficulties of earthly life and the sinfulness of the human race. Moses, as I just mentioned, was in a particularly good position to observe this. The Israelites were wandering in the wilderness, waiting to die, because of their sin and rebellion.

 

But I must offer a word of caution. Scripture makes it clear that we are not in a position to judge and apply a mechanical, one to one formula. One that says: “You are suffering more than I am, therefore you are more sinful than I am.” Job and his “comforters” wrestled with this issue. Jesus’ disciples came and asked: “Who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?” Jesus responded, “Neither one. This was for the glory of God.” Jesus also commented on a particular human disaster of his day, asking, “These people who were killed when the tower fell on them, do you think they were more sinful than those who survived?” He was obviously expecting the answer “No”.

 

We must avoid such superficial judgments. But at the same time, I believe we must still remember that there is a connection between human sinfulness and the suffering in the world as we see it today. This world is not the way it came from the Creator’s hand. It’s been messed up, and we are the ones who messed it up. We recoil from the natural and man-made disasters that we see around us in the world today. But if we truly understood the depths of man’s rebellion against the holiness of God, we would marvel not at the disasters we see around us, but rather marvel that they are not even greater in magnitude and severity. As the Scripture says, “It is only by God’s mercy that we are not consumed.”

 

Without professing to understand all the specifics or attempting to make judgments in individual cases, a heart of wisdom understands that life is hard and that the difficulties of earthly life are the consequences of human sinfulness and God’s judgment.

 

Fourth, 4. A heart of wisdom understands that true and lasting joy comes only from the hand of God.

 

Read Psalm 90:13-16

 

This section is spoken as a petition to God. Notice the specific petition in verse 14b: That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. How can we have that? Where does such true and lasting joy come from? It comes from God. That’s why he is making this in the form of a request to God. This joy comes from God as he reaches out to us.

 

One line especially says it so clearly in verse 14: Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love.

 

People today want joy. They want lasting joy and gladness. They are looking for something to satisfy that longing. It was rather sad, a few years ago, to listen to the speeches of politicians and other world figures, as they spoke of their hope for the new millennium. All too often, they spoke of their hope based on their faith in the innate goodness of man and of discovering the good that is in us, harnessed to our growing technological achievements. Before the new millennium was even two years old, those hopes were dashed on September 11, as technology was harnessed by human hatred to shatter such vain illusions.

 

Real, lasting joy comes only from God and a right relationship with him. It comes in answer to this prayer: Satisfy us with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

 

Finally, 5. A heart of wisdom understands that only the eternal God can transform the efforts of the believer’s brief, earthly life into something that counts for eternity.

 

Moses closes the psalm with another petition. Read Psalm 90:17.

 

I believe there is in all of us a seed of the eternal. We want to make an impact, to leave a legacy; to leave something permanent behind us. We see it in the pyramids of Egypt and in the elaborate tombs of Petra. But such human efforts at permanence are ultimately doomed. The poet Shelley wrote of a traveler crossing a desert where he came across part of an ancient statue. Only two vast and trunkless legs of stone remained on the pedestal. Nearby lay a shattered face, half buried in the sand. On the pedestal were engraved these words: “My name is Ozymandias, king of kings. Look on my works, ye mighty and despair.” And the poet concludes: “Nothing else remains. Round the decay of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare the lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

Life is short, and our efforts at lasting impact usually do not survive us very long. But there is a way to make an impact; an impact that will stand the test of time. It is found in this prayer to God: “O Lord, establish the work of our hands for us – yes establish the work of our hands.

 

When we live by Gods’ power, in God’s way, trusting in him and in him alone to make a difference through us, then we will have a lasting impact and leave a lasting legacy: one that will be felt in eternity. In John 15:16, Jesus said to his disciples: You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last.

 

During the years I was growing up, my parents had a small plaque hanging on the wall of our home. It was a simple but powerful reminder. “Only one life, ‘twill soon be past. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” Whether you’re celebrating a 55th birthday, or a 15th birthday, or just setting your priorities for a new school year, that’s an important truth to keep in mind.

 

O Lord, teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.