Psalm 90, Learn To Pray Like Moses
1. Consider The Eternality Of God (v1-6)
2. Ask God To Fill Your Life With Purpose (v7-12)
3. Ask God To Fill Your Life With Joy (v13-15)
4. Ask God To Fill Your Life With Lasting Value (v16-17)
Psalm 90, Learn To Pray Like Moses
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As we look at Psalm Chapter 90 this evening, we are looking at what is most likely the oldest song in the Book of Songs because we're told right there in the beginning it is a prayer of Moses, the man of God, and so David, who wrote much of the Psalms of course, came many years.
After Moses Asaph
We can't pin him down exactly. There's a few different Asaph's throughout history, but they all of those asaps that we know about came after Moses long after Moses and after David.
And there's Ezra, who seems to have come after Moses, and on and on and on, we could go, and so this is.
Although it's some #90 and not some number one, it's probably the oldest Psalm in the book, and it's the prayer of Moses the man.
Of God.
And so this evening we are going to consider.
Learning how to pray like Moses and learning to pray the prayer of Moses that he models for us here in Psalm Chapter 90, Moses was a man of course, who experienced really some incredible works of God in his life.
And as a man of God, as a man who had such close encounters with the Lord and so much revelation from the Lord, and so many years walking with the Lord, we have a lot that we can learn from him.
And so this Psalm serves really as a model for us, and kind of something that we can follow along with and.
Tried to understand what he was experiencing.
It seems like this song was probably written that it was Moses prayer really during the time in the wilderness when the children of Israel were wandering around because of their failure to enter into the promised land and then they spent 40 years.
Perhaps 38 technically, depending on how you count the years and such, but they spent that time in the wilderness while that generation died out, and then the next generation would be led by Joshua into the promised land and based on the tone and some of the things that Moses shares here in this.
Prayer, it seems that he was.
Reflecting on these things and it kind of stemmed out of that portion of his life.
Perhaps an encouragement to himself, perhaps an encouragement in his prayer to to help others around him, other leaders, the elders to pray and for the people.
And you can imagine some of the things that they were going through, and so we're going to walk through this in four parts for points to consider to help us.
Pray the prayer of Moses, and learn how to pray like this man of God, and so we're going to start out in verses one through 6.
Here's point number one.
Consider the eternality of God.
Consider the fact that God is eternal, verses one through 6 says this.
Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the Earth and the world.
Even from everlasting to everlasting you.
Our God.
You turn man to destruction and say return, oh children of men.
For 1000 years in your sights are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night.
You carry them away like a flood.
They're like asleep.
In the morning they're like grass, which grows up.
In the morning it flourishes and grows up.
In the evening.
It is cut down and Withers.
Here as we learn.
To pray like Moses, the man of God.
He spends.
A good amount of the song reflecting on.
Who God is and the reality of the fact that God is eternal.
The Eternality of God.
The fact that God has no beginning and no ending.
In verse two he talks about God being from everlasting to everlasting and and from everlasting to everlasting.
He says you are God.
You have always existed.
You will always exist and everything in between you are God and it was by your hand.
All things were created.
And so he says in verse one you have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Lord, you have been.
Our abode, our dwelling place, our shelter or refuge is another way that that could be translated.
You've been our refuge in all generations, and so Moses is thinking back throughout all of history.
From his point from where he is at in history.
Now we look back.
It's you know, many, many years.
A few 1000 years to get back to Moses from where we are currently.
There was some history behind Moses as well, and the generations from Adam up to Moses had been many.
And and Moses.
Is looking back at the whole history of humanity and saying God, you have been our dwelling place, you've been a refuge for all of humanity since the very.
I think it's perhaps interesting to consider this again.
It's the Psalm of Moses now.
Moses had a secured dwelling place when he lived in Egypt.
He was royalty in that realm, and so he had a lot of security and prestige and prominence.
And he was pretty safe there until he decided to act on his own to try to be the Savior for Israel.
And then of course he had to flee out into the wilderness.
And that happened when he was about 40 years old.
And so.
From then on.
Moses lived 120 years for the rest of his life. Moses really dwelt in tents.
He didn't dwell in palaces any longer, even though he was leading millions of people, you know.
And there was this great work of God and he was in a really prominent position.
As the leader of God's people for the rest of his life, he lived in tents out in the wilderness, tending sheep.
So God sent him back to Egypt to lead the people out of Egypt into the wilderness.
Intending to go into the promised land, but of course they refused, and so Moses spent the rest of his life living in tents, wandering around in circles in the wilderness.
As you recount some of the journey of the children of Israel in the wilderness, you can look at the book of numbers and kind of get a glimpse of that journey and that time in the wilderness numbers. Chapter 33 records for us.
Over 40 different spots where the children of Israel camped during the time.
In the wilderness.
And so 40 years in the wilderness they camped in at least 40 places, depending on how you count different places and the timing and so on and so forth.
But you get the point, right?
So they're they're moving every year.
They're packing up their tents and they're moving and they're staying for sometimes six months, maybe a year and a half, and then packing up and moving again, and then packing up and moving again.
And their dwelling place is always on the move.
Their dwelling places always being packed up and reset up.
And it's not very secure.
It's not, you know, a palace.
It's not nothing like that.
And and I just kind of imagined Moses looking at his tent, thinking about all the places that they've been.
And then looking at the Lord and saying, Lord.
You have been our dwelling place.
Humanity collectively.
For us, the children of Israel in the wilderness, although we moved from place to place to place, and our tents were out, and we'd replaced them and repair them, where the reality is, you are the one that we are seeking for shelter.
Are abiding in you and God.
You have always existed to be the shelter that every generation has needed and that's really what Moses is driving.
Yet here that you've been our dwelling place in all generations, that that every generation has been able to find refuge in you, Lord.
And and been able to find refuge and and safety and security from all of the things that they experience.
In this life.
On Sunday, Russell shared from John Chapter 15 about abiding in Jesus and great teaching.
If you didn't.
Hear it, make sure you go.
Back and listen to it.
Once I put it on the website, it'll be up in the next couple of days, but, uh, abiding in the vine.
Abiding in Christ.
This is a similar idea that we have the opportunity to abide to make Jesus our dwelling place and and God has always made himself available to every generation, so that every generation from Adam until now has had the opportunity.
To find shelter and refuge in God.
And that is because as he goes on to verse, two God is the creator.
Before the mountains were brought forth, wherever you had formed the Earth and the world.
Before you begin creation, you already existed that God is not.
A product of creation.
He is the creator and so he says, even from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
From everlasting to everlasting, this word everlasting.
I like how J Vernon McGee McGee describes it.
He says the word everlasting is figurative.
It means from the vanishing point to.
The vanishing point.
And if you could think about that for a moment from the vanishing point to the vanishing point that that as far as you could look.
Back and and the idea of a vanishing point is if you've ever, perhaps you know, stood at the beach and looked off on a clear day and you can see as far as you can see, but it.
There comes a point where you can't see anymore and it doesn't mean that nothing exists beyond that.
It just means that's the vanishing point that is the farthest that you are able to.
Now you can talk about the curvature of the Earth and all of that.
But even if the earth was flat, you know there's there's a limitation like you could only see as far as you can see, and there would be this vanishing point where the distance would be so great there would just you would everything beyond that would vanish from your perspective.
Couple of years ago Kim and I had the opportunity to go visit Pastor Quint and Yeohlee in New Mexico.
And that it's got to be one of the most unsettling places I've ever been because.
It was weird.
You go out of his yard.
And you look.
And as far as you can see, it's just.
Flat land.
And you can see that sky touched the ground.
It's the strangest.
I mean, I know I sound like I'm being exaggerating, but I'm also very serious like it just felt so strange and unsettling the whole time.
Like everywhere you look.
You could just see the sky touching the ground.
Now you could try that.
Here you go out here.
There's mountains or hills.
There's trees, there's buildings.
There's like there's all kinds of stuff you don't get to see the sky touch the ground except for maybe.
In little pockets here and there, but.
There was just flat lands, and so everywhere you looked it was just you could see until the vanishing point where there was the land and then there was the sky that met the ground and that was it.
From vanishing point to vanishing point now of course he's not talking about physical sites, but that's just an illustration to help us think about think as far back as you can imagine in history.
Like, Can you imagine Adam and Eve in the garden?
Can you imagine before the garden Can you imagine?
God creating the heavens and the earth.
Can you imagine God in his existence before creation?
Can you imagine God with what he was doing and what that was like for him and what his?
Existence was like before the universe came into existence.
The vanishing point, however far you can think back and know about and imagine.
It's just the vanishing point.
So whatever science we uncover, I was listening to some.
Tech reporters getting very excited about you know some of the newer technologies and and opportunities for telescopes as they zoom in as far out into space as we've ever seen.
And and they were just so excited about how much we're going to learn of history.
You know, looking out and exploring those things because you know the the light that comes in.
Is history you know at that point because it was sent a long time ago and when we finally receive it and capture it and are able to visualize it.
It's many, many many years later, but they're so excited about being able to now explore even further in history of the universe with these new telescopes and such.
Now great increase technology 100 fold and see further and further and further into history.
They're still going to be the vanishing.
Point, and it's not the end.
Of that, search for the beginning.
It's just the vanishing point.
It's just as far back as we can understand or imagine or think, but even before that.
You are God.
And then how far into the future Can you imagine you know? How far Can you imagine 1000 years from now if life continues as is on this earth, Can you imagine 2000 years from now 3000 years from now?
Can you imagine on into eternity and what that's going to be like at 10,000 years in heaven and and then beyond that? Like how far Can you imagine?
Even if you have perfect understanding.
And no revelation from God about those things.
There's going to be a vanishing point, and apart, what you can't see beyond that, you can't imagine beyond that you can't think.
Beyond that.
But even beyond that vanishing point in the future.
God, you are God.
You exist, you are.
There's never a time where God has not been, and there's never a time when God will not be, he is.
In contrast, he goes on in verse three and he says you turn man to destruction and say return, oh, children of men.
You turn man to destruction or the new living translation puts it this way.
You turn people back to dust.
Saying return to dust immortals.
In contrast to God, who is from everlasting to everlasting man, humanity has a beginning.
And looking at the physical has a specific end and this is really a reference back to Genesis Chapter 3, verse 19 the the part of the curse.
As a result of Adam.
's sin in the garden.
God tells Adam in the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground.
For out of it you were taken for dust.
You are, and to dust you shall return.
And so our physical bodies come into existence at a certain point, and then, well, they cease to have life.
These physical bodies of ours, and they return to dust.
God's not like.
That he doesn't have a birthday.
And he does not have the decay that we experience in this physical.
Body he's completely different. Consider the eternality of God. Verse four for 1000 years in your sight are like yesterday when.
It is past.
And like a watch in the night and so now Moses is reflecting on.
The vastness of time and trying to imagine a little bit like what that is like for God.
A little bit of a comparison between the way God experiences time and the way that we experience time with God.
Being from everlasting to everlasting.
No starting point, no ending point and then here we are in this physical world.
Definite starting point.
Definite ending point.
We experience.
Time differently.
And so Moses says.
1000 years in your sight excuse me.
1000 years in your sights are like yesterday.
When it's passed.
Can you think?
About 1000 years ago.
Like you can about yesterday.
I can't, I can't even think about yesterday, much less 1000 years from ago.
But but he says, it's like a watch in the night now a night watch.
Usually the night was broken up into segments and so many times the night watch was four hour segments that just as the word sounds, it would be like this is your turn to watch stand guard for four hours, right?
And then the next guy would come after the four hours and his turn to stand watch and so there would be 3 watches over the night.
And so a night watch is 4 hours.
Moses says for you 1000 years, it's just like a few hours passing.
Now you know.
The perception of time for us can oftentimes be different that that we experience seasons where well, there's a four hour time period that just feels like it passes in seconds.
But sometimes for us that night, watch sometimes those four hours in the middle of the night feel like eternity and they just take forever and and we experience time in such different ways depending on what we're going through and where.
Our heads at our hearts at, and what we're feeling emotionally.
God doesn't experience time the way that we do.
1000 years that can pass and it's just like a night watch. It's just like a few.
Hours, it's just like.
A little bit of time that comes and then goes verse.
Five, he says.
You carry them away like a flood.
They're like asleep in the morning.
They're like grass, which grows up in the morning.
It flourishes and.
Grows up in.
The evening it is cut down and Withers.
There's a little bit of discussion that could be had about specifically what Moses is talking about here.
You carry them away like a.
Flood with who's there?
Then I would suggest you that the then is the 1000 years that he's continuing that train of thought.
But some people look at this and look at humanity and say you carry people away like a flood.
And so people are like grass when they grow up and then they flourish and they grow up.
And then in the evening or cut down on Withers but.
Whether it's a.
Person or humanity or 1000 years. It's the same concept.
As as we would.
Look at, you know what it takes.
To mow the lawn.
And you know your grass grows up and then you cut it down and then your grass grows up and then you cut it down.
Your grass grows up and you cut it down like that's like what 1000 years is for the Lord. It's just like oh time to mow the lawn again and and so the idea here is that.
God experiences time and looks at time very differently than we do, and.
That's important to understand.
Peter makes reference of this in second Peter Chapter 3 to to make sure that we don't forget when people are doubting and questioning the promises of God and the prophecies of God.
Second Peter 3.
8 Beloved, do not forget this one thing that.
With the Lord one.
Day is as 1000 years and 1000 years has one day.
And the Lord's not slack concerning his promise. He goes on.
To say he's long suffering so so it's not that he's late.
It's not that he's slow.
He knows exactly what's going on and how much time is passing.
Being just, he's experiencing time differently than we do as the creator of time. He's outside of time and so 1000 years to him is like a day to us.
It's not that big of a deal, and we of course are immersed in time.
It's hard for us to think about anything but.
It's hard for us to think about eternity from.
God's perspective.
It's hard for us to think about a year from now, or you know, ten years or in the past 20 years.
It's hard for us to to understand, you know, it feels like.
Well, think about Moses in the wilderness as he's writing this 40 years in the wilderness, right?
Like Oh my goodness.
How agonizing must that have been camping at the same campsite?
That he camped at 10 years ago and you've still got 30 more years to go. And you're just going in circles and all the 40 years must have felt like 1000 years to Moses and the children of Israel.
But 1000 years for the Lord. It's just like yesterday. It's just like.
It just came to pass.
It's not that big of a deal.
We're self-centered.
And consumed with ourselves and consumed with our perception of time, and so it's hard for us to imagine and understand time like God does.
But we need to.
We need to consider the eternality of God.
It's interesting to go back and think about some of the.
Men and women of old who have gone before us.
I was thinking about Adam and I want to.
Just show this little chart for you.
The bottom bar represents 6000 years of recorded history. Now you can wrestle with all of that, but looking at the scriptures looking at, you know our understanding.
There's roughly 6000 years of recorded history that we have from Adam and Eve to the present day.
And Adam lived 930 years, almost 1000 years, right? We could look at Methuselah who is even closer. But but Adam lived 930 years almost.
1/6 of all recorded history. Adam lived in his own lifetime.
Like even that.
Is so hard for us to imagine.
It's so hard now he's going to make reference in a few verses to a normal lifespan being 70.
Or 80 years.
And so you can see Adams life there in the middle, but the very top is.
80 years.
And so that's our life span.
And we're just this like little blip.
Now history is continuing to be written, right?
This bottom bar is extending, extending, extending.
And we're just our 80 years our.
Little piece of it.
Is so tiny.
But that's not how it feels.
We're we're living life and 80 years sounds like ancient.
It sounds like you might as well be talking about hundreds of years.
You know from certain people perspectives, right?
Maybe for some of you, you're thinking past to the 80 year mark, right?
And and that's OK, that's.
You know we all experience it in different ways and so your perspective on 80 years.
It might be a lot different than somebody else is.
But the point is, here we have this huge amount of recorded history.
And gods beyond even that.
Now if we.
Were to zoom out these bars to fit the existence of God.
Even recorded history would look like the little tiny space of the 80 years that are shown here on this example, right that that the point is.
There there is so much more to eternity than there is.
To this life.
And and it's so valuable and important for us to keep the internal perspective, especially when we're feeling like we're in the wilderness when it feels like the 40 years that we're living or the 80 years that we're living is just dragging on and on and on and on, and we're going in circles, and not much is being accomplished.
God's not worried about that.
You know, we worry about well if I go to school and then that's like is that four years wasted like should I just go into the workforce and and get you know that that we're agonizing over that four years or that two years?
You know going to college or a trade school or?
Taking time off or whatever right where, like we're agonizing over.
Two years, 5.
Do you have a five year plan right?
We're agonizing over.
The five year plan and.
It's such a little piece.
Of our real life, it's such a little piece of what God has planned and we need to remember.
In his eternality.
Has so much more for us than what we're really able to grasp in this little tiny slice of life that we have here in this earth.
And so with that in mind, we move on now to verses 7 through 12 and we get point #2 and that is ask God to fill your life with purpose.
As you consider the eternity of God as you consider before the beginning and after the end, there's no real end, right?
But you get the point from vanishing point to vanishing point everlasting to everlasting.
You are God and you our our our refuge.
And so we can come to you always.
No matter what we're going through, no matter what time has transpired, we can come to you.
You have all wisdom you have.
All knowledge and we can ask you.
What is important?
For us in this life.
Let's read verses 7 through 12, it says.
For we have been consumed by your anger and by your wrath.
We are terrified.
You have set our iniquities before you our secret sins in the lights of your countenance.
For all our days have passed away in your wrath.
We finish our years like a sigh.
The days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength there are 80 years.
Yet there boast is only lever and sorrow.
For it is soon cut off and.
We fly away.
Who knows the power of your anger?
For as the fear of you, so is your wrath.
Verse 12.
So teach us to number our days.
That we may gain a heart.
Of wisdom.
Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart.
Of wisdom.
This is one of the.
Interesting aspects of Hebrew poetry.
We often think about poetry, you know, in our day it's it's rhythm and rhyme, and lines rhyming with previous lines.
And if you get really technical and advanced, and it's not just the next line rhyming, you know.
But then there's alternating lines and and and all of those kinds of things, but but we think of those kinds of patterns in.
The idea of poetry, but.
Hebrew poetry
Wasn't necessarily focused on writing, it doesn't mean it never rhymed, but the idea was that it was a contrast of concepts and ideas.
And so, as he contrasted from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
But in contrast, verse 3.
God says to us, return to the dust like we came from dust.
We returned to the dust definite beginning definite ending.
A very strong contrast right in the the look at God and then the the understanding of our existence.
Well, as he considers God and how God experiences time.
He kind of now spends some time thinking about what they're experiencing, and again, this is probably written while they're wandering around in the wilderness.
And it's.
Perhaps some time into the 40 years of wandering.
And the whole purpose that God set for.
That wilderness time that wilderness wandering.
That whole purpose was for the entire generation 20 years.
Old and up.
To die off before they would enter into the promised land, since they refused to go.
In God said.
OK, this whole generation will not enter in.
You're going to be paused out in the wilderness here until that generation is gone and the next generation.
We'll be the ones who go into the promised land.
And so Moses.
Has been experiencing.
You can imagine many years of difficulty.
Watching millions of people die out.
In the wilderness.
Go back to verse 7.
For we have been consumed.
By your anger.
And by your wrath were terrified.
He's watching the people be consumed.
As a result.
Of their refusal to obey God.
And to go into the promised land, and so they're being consumed in the wilderness.
Remember the census? 600,000 men not counting women and children, right? So 600,000 men.
Dying off in the wilderness.
Probably plus their wives.
A million people over 40 years.
You can do the math.
That's a lot of funerals that Moses is conducting day after day, after day, after day, after day, for 40 years.
We have been consumed by your anger.
You have set our iniquities before you.
Our secret sins in light of your countenance.
He's really feeling the effects of sin.
And the damage.
That it has done.
Now for Moses as he looks at this time that they're experiencing, he has a direct connection to.
This is a result of our sin and our refusal to obey God for us as we look at.
This we can follow along.
We can pray this prayer with Moses we have.
Been consumed by your anger.
And some of that might be directly and some of it might be indirectly.
Some of the results of sin and consequences of sin that we face in this life.
Sometimes it is direct that.
We refuse to obey God, or we deliberately rebel against God, and the repercussions of that in in our life are like wandering around in the wilderness and and there is this.
Feeling this experience of being consumed.
Withering away and dying off as a result of our disobedience to God, but we can also look at this indirectly.
As I always like to point out, every difficulty or trial or affliction is not a direct result of some sin.
Many times many things in life are just the result of living in a world that is affected by sin.
We have inherited a sinful nature and so.
In some ways we can.
Consider our lives like a journey through the wilderness.
That are just suffering the results of a fallen world of a sin filled world and of a sinful nature within our own selves.
And so our iniquities are before the Lord, and our secret sins are brought to light.
They're not hidden from God.
And they're being dealt with in this journey in this existence that we have here on this earth.
Verse 90 goes on to say for all our deeds.
I've passed away.
In your wrath, we finish our years like a sigh.
It's over quick.
Sin has caused our life to be over like a sigh.
It's done.
And and that implies the the pain and the difficulty that causes us to sigh, right?
But but again, I think Moses has in mind here the idea of how short.
Our life span is and our our very short lifespan.
Our little blip in the the whole.
History of of humanity.
Is filled with.
Repercussions, consequences, and effects of sin.
Hours sent directly or indirectly we our lives are filled with.
Complications and issues and hurts and pains as a result of sin in this world.
He says the days of our lives are 70 years, and if by reason of strength they are 80 years.
The best that.
They can boast about is labor and sorrow.
He almost sounds a little bit like Solomon writing the book of Ecclesiastes here, right?
Like it's like wow.
The best we can do is just a lot of hard work and sweat and sorrow.
That's the only thing that we can boast about.
If we get 70 years or 80 years if you know it's kind of an unusually long life for us, we don't have much to show for it.
It's just labor and sorrow and soon cut off.
And then we're gone.
We fly away.
Who knows the power of your anger, he.
Says in verse 11.
For as the fear of you, so is your wrath.
Death was introduced back in Genesis Chapter 3.
Jesus, not Jesus, but well Jesus but the father.
God said the day that you eat of it talking about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the day that you eat of it.
You shall surely die.
The Tree of Life was there in the garden.
There was the potential.
Although you could wrestle with whether or not it was a real potential or not, but there was the potential for Adam and Eve to live eternally from that point on.
But sin brought death to their lives and to all of their descendants.
Including us and so death.
Is a result of sin.
We still experience the power.
Of the wrath of God, the consequences of sin.
Directly and indirectly in our lives through the things that we face and ultimately.
Through death.
And so there's a lot of challenges.
Moses had a lot of challenges in his life, and he's reflecting on that, but but he's reflecting on how hard it is and and we get 70 years, maybe 80 years like working through pushing through these great challenges and these setbacks of sin.
But then not much to show for it unless.
Unless we have wisdom from God, and so he goes to verse 12 and, and here's where it kind of makes a turn a little bit.
He's reflecting on all of the challenges and the shortness.
And the difficulties.
So that he can say so.
Teach us to number our days.
So that we may gain a heart.
Of wisdom.
So teach us to number our days again, contrasting this life, our 70 or 80 years with eternity.
Although we might look.
At from one perspective, 70 or 80 years and think, wow, that is so much time.
I'm not even sure if I wanna stick around 70 or 80 years that's that's too much time.
I don't want I.
Don't want to experience that?
From one perspective, we could have that view, but.
It's not a good perspective.
Moses says teach us to number our days.
That we would pay attention.
To how short life really is?
That we may gain a heart of wisdom.
The new living translation puts verse 12 this way.
Teach us to realize the brevity of life.
So that we may grow in wisdom.
Teach us to realize the brevity.
Of life.
This is why it's.
Important to consider.
The Eternality of God.
To consider our little blip.
And all of recorded history.
It's just tiny.
So that we don't.
Take for granted the days that we have.
I just celebrated a birthday on Sunday.
I have no idea how old I am.
2022 nineteen 70
44 I'm 44. Math teacher 44. That sounds right. OK, so I'm 44.
Don't ask me to do the math and tell you how many days old I am OK.
But we number our years.
Moses says teach us to number.
Our days we need we need to.
Have a little bit better grasp.
Again, from our perspective, many times life feels so long, but when we consider the eternality of God.
We we get a better perspective about the reality of life.
And the the reality of life beyond this life.
And when you try.
To fit eternity into your scope.
The time that we spend in in this life and on this earth is so.
Minimal, no matter how much.
Life you live no matter how old you become.
Even if you live two 930 years like Adam.
In comparison to eternity 930 years.
Is just that little tiny sliver.
It's it's just a blip.
There's so much more, and so Moses is here saying.
We're out here wandering in the wilderness and we're wasting away.
We're being consumed by the wilderness and and it's difficult.
There's all these challenges and there's the effects of sin and and so we need to take advantage.
Of the time that we have.
Lord, we we need to.
Learn how to number our.
Days Lord, we need you to help us.
See how short our life is that we may gain a heart of wisdom that we may understand.
The best way to.
Use the time.
That God has given to us.
Pastor Warren Wisby says in light of eternity, life is brief.
No matter how long you live.
And so we need wisdom.
So that this little blip of a life is not just wasted, so it's not just gone and vanished.
We fly away.
Like a vapor is another illustration that the Bible uses to describe our lifespan.
And then it's gone.
That's not.
A wise use.
The resource called time that God has given to us.
And so I made the point.
Here, ask God to fill your life with purpose.
Because the idea here of wisdom is the right application of knowledge and understanding, right that we need wisdom to understand what is the best use.
Of this date, he just a number our days.
So what is the best use?
Of my day.
What is the best use of my days plural?
Stacking them all together, but what do you want me to focus on?
What is the right things to pay attention to and to invest myself in?
I can spend a lot of time and a lot of days on things that.
Don't really have real meaning or value or purpose.
But I need wisdom from you to recognize to be able to identify those things that really matter and those things that don't.
There's going to be challenges of sin.
My own personal sin, the general effects of sin in my life, and around me I I can't just overcome those.
I don't want to just be a victim of all of the.
Those consequences of sin I I want to Lord have a heart of wisdom to understand how to navigate these stormy seas.
To make the most of the.
Days that you've given to me.
That the time that we have is short and we often don't feel that way.
But Moses here is saying.
Teach us to feel that gravity.
So that we look to you for wisdom on how to find the purpose and value and meaning.
In the short opportunity that we have here.
We're moving on to verses 13 through 15. We get point #3.
Ask God to fill your life with joy.
Verse 13 through 15 says return, oh Lord, how long and have compassion on your servants.
Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy.
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days make us glad.
According to the days in which you have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil.
Moses goes on now to ask God to return Lord work in our lives again.
He says, how long he's expressing.
It feels like forever.
Since we've seen your compassion and your mercy.
How long would.
Return come back.
Show compassion.
Verse 14 says satisfy us early.
Let's come quickly and satisfy us with your mercy.
Yeah, I throw it still.
I do great until I sing, and then I aggravate it.
Satisfy us early with your mercy.
That that we need mercy.
The withholding of judgment that we deserve.
We need compassion.
God feeling.
We have a sympathetic high priest got understanding and being with us and comforting us even in the midst of some of that.
Consequences for my own direct sin, right?
And so his compassion and mercy.
He's saying show us that quickly.
Be be quick to.
Bring forth your mercy and compassion so that.
We may be, we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
So previously in the verses he was talking about how difficult life is and the challenges and you know, the days of of difficulty in feeling and experiencing the consequences of wrath and.
And here he's contrasting that.
He's saying, that's that's how it feels, Lord, we've been going through this season.
Feels like 1000 years to us, but.
It's just a day for you now now.
We're learning our lessons we're hearing from you, where we're we're overcoming these issues and we're looking to you.
To now have compassion to show us mercy.
So that even though we navigate these stormy seas of life that are filled with the consequences and repercussions of sin.
What it doesn't mean that you want us to be miserable all our days.
Even when the sin was our own direct rebellion against you.
Might come early quickly with your mercy.
Show us compassion.
So that we may rejoice.
And be glad all our days.
Jesus told his disciples they were going to experience tribulation, but they were to take comfort to be of good cheer 'cause he has overcome the world.
And there's the the opportunity to experience Affliction.
Persecution difficulty.
Strong issues and great challenges.
And yet, at the same time.
Take cheer and be of good comfort.
He came to bring us joy and peace.
Satisfy us early with your mercy.
Ask God to fill your life with joy.
We don't deserve it.
We don't deserve for God to be merciful, but that's.
Not what merciful means.
Merciful is God working and bringing good into our lives in spite.
Of the fact that we don't deserve it.
And no matter.
Who you are or what?
Consequences you're experiencing is the result of sin.
Because of God's compassion and mercy, you can ask him to return.
That you might.
Be satisfied with mercy.
That you might have occasion to take joy to rejoice and be glad all your days.
There's not a lot, there's just a few.
It's a little sliver of time in recorded history, but but that time should be.
Filled with joy.
Because of God's compassion and mercy in your life. Verse 15 make us glad. According to the days in which you have afflicted us.
The years in which we have seen evil and so here, Moses says, look, we spent 40 years wandering in the wilderness.
At least 40 years of joy.
Let let that be given to us then.
We've suffered in these ways for this.
Period of time.
Or would you?
Give us that much time of great joy, but.
Even more.
That that there would be this looking back and recognizing.
That time of affliction that hard.
Time in life.
Those consequences for sin.
Or those experiences, so it might be consequences for sin that we directly did or didn't do against God or.
Or it might be just part of living in a fallen world.
Those things that we experience, the days that we've been afflicted.
The years in which we've seen evil.
Take that into account.
And make us glad.
According to the days that you have fitted us, he's really not saying one for one, he's just saying use that as the the basis for your formula.
Think about what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 8.
I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
The things that we experience in this life, the sufferings and difficulty in challenges.
The result of direct consequences of sin or just the results of living in a fallen world, the sufferings they're not worthy to be compared, and so it's not a 1 to 140 years of misery equals 40 years of joy in eternity.
The idea is the 40 years of misery are.
But rewarded exponentially in eternity.
Much more than just.
Year for year equal, you know that there's much more.
And So what is that multiplication factor?
Well, I'm not going to try to figure that out, right?
God hasn't shown us exactly what that is, but but we can trust him and.
Understand it's not even worthy.
To be compared.
If I could just speculate a little bit, it's like this this 70 years of misery.
Is multiplied.
To be more like.
The bar showing recorded history that that what we experience in this life, the sufferings, the difficulty, the challenges, overcoming sin, and the consequences of sin in our lives.
And again, whether it's directly or indirectly.
That God rewards us substantially more.
In eternity.
For those years of difficulty and hardship.
In suffering.
Pastor Warren Rasby says.
Yes, life is a difficult school.
And God disciplines us if we fail to learn our lessons and submit to his will.
But there is more to the story, the past and present experiences of life prepare us for the future.
And all of life prepares us for eternity.
Think about the children of the parents.
They had to endure that 40 years in the wilderness as well, right?
But that 40 years in the wilderness.
They were kids.
Wasn't their fault, wasn't their choice?
That 40 years in the wilderness prepared them.
For the future, for the next season where God would lead them.
Into the promised land.
There are those seasons of life that are difficult and challenging for us, but they're they're meaningful, they're purposeful.
And God is going to fill our lives with joy.
In proportion.
To those challenges and those difficulties that we face.
As we often quote, James tells us to count it all joy when you face various trials 'cause you know God's working in the midst of that, bringing us to completion and to maturity.
So you can ask God to fill your life with joy, even with when experiencing the consequences of your own sin.
The direct consequences of your refusal rebellion, whatever the case may be, or whether it's just experiencing.
The challenges of living in.
A fallen world.
Ask God to fill your life with joy.
Ask God to fill your life with purpose as you consider the eternality of God.
There is meaning and value, and it's just a little bit of a sliver of all of history and all of eternity, and so we need to make the.
Most of our time while we have it finally.
Verse 16 and 17 gives us point #4 ask God to fill your life with lasting value. Verse 16 sets.
Let your work appear to your servants.
And let your glory.
To their children and let the beauty of the Lord our God.
Be upon us.
And establish the work of our hands for us, yes.
Establish the work of our hands.
Let your work appear to us, Lord.
As we're navigating these difficult, challenging situations and consequences and environments, Lord, we know.
Right?
That you're working.
But so often we can't see.
We don't know what.
That work is.
So Lord, would you show us?
What are you doing in the midst of this?
Let your work appear.
Let it become apparent what you are doing in the midst of this, and and so apparent that the glory of the Lord is revealed.
To the next generation.
Wow, look at the work that God is doing in their lives and then it impacts the next generation because they see what God is doing in the midst of that older generation and and again really direct application to the time in the wilderness and and the parents who made the decision and their their children.
Learning the lessons and seeing the work.
Of God and seeing the glory of God.
Worked out in the midst of their parents, even though.
The glory of.
God in that way was manifested by dealing with the sin and bringing about the judgment that was appropriate for their sin.
Its glory nonetheless, let let your work up here.
Let it be revealed and and that your hand.
Would be seen in the midst of the situation.
And let the beauty of the.
Lord our God be upon us.
God does have to deal with sin, and he does bring judgments, but but that's not all that God is.
And that's not all that.
God does let the.
Beauty of the Lord be upon us.
Like the beautiful hand of God, the beautiful work of God.
And his prayer at.
The end is to establish the work.
Of our hands.
To make.
Sturdy to make it last.
Our little sliver of time.
Our little portion in this thing called life.
But if you establish the work of our hands.
It'll be more than just a temporary work.
It'll be a legacy.
It will impact our children the next generation.
But when God establishes.
Something heavy has even more than.
More value than that.
It's not just valuable for another 80 years for somebody elses lifespan.
But when the Lord establishes a work.
And we're involved in the work of the Lord.
There's eternal value to the work and so ask God to fill your life with lasting value.
We have just a little bit of time.
Doesn't feel that way many times.
From our perspective, it feels like this situation, this trial, this agonizing conflicts that we're in the midst of.
It's just been going on.
For ages and ages and ages.
But that's not the truth, that's.
The right perspective.
It's 'cause we've.
Kind of just zoomed in on this problem and we need to zoom out.
To consider the Eternality of God.
How big he is he's doing so much more.
Then we can see.
But he invites us to have a really important and prominent part.
In what he's doing.
And when we.
Understand when we have the right perspective.
In our life, and even in the midst of a what might be described as a wilderness, wandering, our life can be filled with joy and purpose and lasting value.
What a great message.
Think about to the the parents right of that generation.
Like you could just be depressed for the next 40 years.
I'm just, you know, out here walking in circles waiting to die.
And Moses, here speaking to them, says, no, no, there's there's there's still opportunity for you.
To have purpose to have joy.
And to be involved in the work of God that has lasting value, there's still opportunity for that.
So Moses praised that for himself for his generation.
Teaches us to pray.
Also that we.
Might make good use.
Of the time that we're given.
Finishing up with one final verse, Daniel Chapter 12 verse 3.
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament.
And those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever.
And ever.
Give us a heart of wisdom, right?
Teaching us to number our days that we would be wise and we would invest ourselves in things that have eternal value that we would see the work of God and be involved in the work of God.
Great prayer.
Modeled for us by Moses, let's learn to pray like him, Lord me do ask that you would give us the right perspective on eternity and to see your place in it and you are shelter Lord, you are refuge.
We can always run to you.
And humanity has always been able to and will always be able to run to you.
And to find refuge and rests.
And strengthen peace and forgiveness in you.
Well, you're so good and faithful in that way, and so we come to you now.
And Lord, we live in a fallen world.
Much of the challenges and difficult and hardships we face are as a result of that.
But some of the things that we face are results of our own.
Decisions to obey you or to not obey you.
Our own rebellions against you.
And yet, Lord, we come.
Before you and we pray.
As we run.
To you for shelter.
Lord, we ask that you would.
Fill us early with mercy and compassion.
Or that you would give us joy.
Teach us, Lord.
How to count our days and to have the right perspective?
Lord, that we would be wise in the use of our days.
Lord, that they wouldn't be wasted.
Any longer or any more.
But that they would be put to work.
And things that have lasting value.
They have great returns.
As we look for ultimate fulfillment, not in this life.
Although you want us to have joy all of our days and you want to work in our midst and you're going to do that.
Or we also want to fix our eyes on eternity.
And recognize the real value.
Is the reward the treasure that is in heaven?
As a result of US learning to have the right perspective to have hearts of wisdom.
That walk with you that know you.
And that are involved.
And what you're doing?
Lord like Jesus.
May we say we must be about the father business.
We pray this in Jesus name.