The Wisdom of Numbering Our Days (Psalm 90)
Please turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 90.
Introduction:
“Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” These were the final words delivered in the 2005 commencement address at Stanford University by the late Steve Jobs. As CEO of the multi-billion dollar company Apple, Jobs gave a 15-minute address that now ranks among the most memorable speeches in modern history.
What made Steve Jobs’ speech so memorable was that he broached a topic largely ignored in popular culture…the topic of death. Jobs spoke these words,
“Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life…No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away…Your time is limited, so don't waste it…”
In the face of death and the limitation of time, Jobs concludes:
“So, Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish…I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”
Steve Jobs is right about a great many things:
Life is short.
The certainty of death is motivating.
Death is indeed life’s change agent.
Our time truly is limited and our lives ought not to be wasted.
And yet, Steve Jobs misses it altogether.
Clear the platform and let’s invite Moses to the microphone. How would he correct the message just given? His correction would be the essence of Psalm 90.
In light of the brevity of life, Steve Jobs encourages you to stay hungry for foolishness. On the contrary, Moses in Psalm 90 encourages you to number your days so you might receive a heart of wisdom.
Proposition: This morning I want us to see how the wisdom of numbering our earthly days should compel us to hunger for the all-satisfying presence of the Lord.
I. Our Eternal Dwelling Place (vs. 1-2)
II. Our Sovereign Authority (vs. 3-12)
III. Our All-Satisfying Restorer (vs. 13-17)
*Prayer of Illumination*
Background Information
A. Psalm 90 Begins Book IV of the Psalter
Perhaps you have noticed in your study of the Scriptures, that the Book of Psalms is a very carefully constructed collection divided into five groupings, called books.
Each Psalm that begins and ends a new section seems to be significantly placed, with each section/book ending with a Doxology.
Psalm 89 closes Book Three by re-publishing the promises of the Davidic Covenant. Why? Because as the author of Psalm 89 reviews Israel’s history, the monarchy is in serious trouble. Psalm 89 ends with a lament, calling upon God to show his steadfast love and to remember His promises to David.
Book Four––which begins with Psalm 90––provides an answer to that lament.
Psalm 90 reminds Israel that God has been working on their behalf long before the days of King David. And who better to hear from when reminding Israel of God’s faithfulness than Moses.
B. Author - Moses
Psalm 90 is the only psalm written by Moses, which means it is the oldest psalm in the Psalter.
It has as its background some unspecified calamity, but its purpose is to re-establish Israel’s hope in her foundation.
The tone is sober and the topic serious, but it drives home the truth that is most needed. Israel needs the presence of the Lord!
TRANSITION:
When viewed from a different perspective, this Psalm looks backward to the way things used to be in verses 1-2,
contrasts that with the way things currently are in verses 3-12,
and forward in faith that God will graciously restore His blessings in verses 13-17.
Let’s begin by considering the opening hymn of praise in vs. 1-2 that display God as the Eternal Dwelling Place of His people.
I. Our Eternal Dwelling Place (vs. 1-2)
A. Exposition
Verse 1 reads, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” This psalm begins and ends with the affirmation that God is “Lord” (Adonai), the Creator & Ruler of the universe. He alone is the beginning and end of everything.
The term “dwelling place” carries with it the idea of an animal’s lair, the secure abode that it prepares for itself.
The term can refer to God’s secure dwelling in the heavens or His dwelling place in His earthly temple.
However, here the text does not say that God has a dwelling place, but that He Himself is the dwelling place for His people in every generation.
One can imagine how this would be especially significant for Moses to proclaim from his wilderness context. Like tumbleweed driven by the wind, Israel wandered for 40 years in the wilderness. But even still, Moses acknowledged God as Israel’s eternal dwelling place.
Verse 2 reads, “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”
Here, the phrase, “or ever you had formed the earth and the world” shows the Lord’s creative control over both the created cosmos and all that fills it––specifically, over people like you and me.
The phrase “everlasting to everlasting” parallels the phrase “from generation to generation” in verse 1. It highlights God’s eternal faithfulness to His people. From age to age, God Himself is our eternal dwelling place.
B. Illustration
I’ve never personally lived in a home that experienced a break-in where thieves have entered and stolen personal items, but having spoken with family members who have, I’m told there is often a lingering sense of vulnerability and unrest.
Because what once was a place of safety and security, now feels like a place that is defenseless and exposed to those who would bring harm.
The opening two verses undercut that notion that while God might have been a secure dwelling place at one time, but He is not anymore. From everlasting to everlasting, and in every generation, He must remain our only secure place of refuge.
C. Application
Does this knowledge comfort you this morning?
Is God’s presence the place where your security lies?
Is He the refuge you seek through trials, temptations, and storms within and without?
Do you tend to exchange your eternal, secure refuge in God
for a temporal, transient sense of security that is bound up in what this world tries to offer?
RECAP & TRANSITION: God is the eternal dwelling place in Israel’s story and so too for us today, but He is also our sovereign authority. Let’s consider verses 3-12.
II. Our Sovereign Authority (vs. 3-12)
A. Exposition
We read in verses 3-6, “You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O Children of man!’ For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.”
Moses is contrasting the eternality of God with the transience of man. In comparison to God, man is only “dust” and will one day return to dust. Notice that it is God who turns men to dust.
Not only is Yahweh sovereign over our beginning, but he commands the timing and circumstances of our end. As certain as I was born on July 13, 1985, so too has God also appointed a day that I will return to dust.
A thousand years to the Lord is compared to a short, three-hour watch in the night. Several metaphors are used to communicate how man is transient, but God is eternal: Man’s finitude is compared to rushing floodwaters, a passing dream and a new blade of grass that fades away by nightfall. We are meant to think deeply on these most humbling realities.
Verses 7-8 read, “For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”
We must recognize that were it not for sin’s consequences, we would not even be having this discussion on the mortality of every human being.
To this point, D.A. Carson writes, “all suffering, sickness, and death are tied to sin. If there had been no sin, there would have been no death, and no illness, which is death’s prelude. Death must be seen, not as the supreme instance of a cosmic lack of fairness, but as God’s well-considered sentence against our sin. Death is no accident; it is God’s doing. The perennial slide toward death is nothing other than the outworking of God’s judicial sentence in Genesis 2:17: ‘when you eat of it, you will surely die.’ It is always true that the wages of sin is death.”
Just as God observed Israel’s rebellion––grumbling and murmuring in the wilderness––so He observes our most secret sins.
We are all fully exposed in the blinding light of God’s holy presence. Hebrews 4:13 reminds us that “no creature is hidden from his sight, but all things are open and exposed to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” There can be no hiding before an all-knowing God.
Verses 9-11 read, “For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are seventy, and even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?”
Moses recognizes God’s ongoing wrath that persists as the result of Israel’s chronic wandering away from Him. While an average lifespan might include 70-80 years of life, Moses laments that the end is always the same for every person.
Although the tone is heavy, the climax of the psalm is reached in verse 12, “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”
B. Illustration - What Does it Mean to Number Our Days?
This is not an uncommon phrase in our culture.
If an employee is continually insubordinate in the workplace and proves to be a liability to that company’s mission, it may be said in hushed words that that person’s days are numbered as a paid employee of the company.
OR, perhaps a Sportscaster might conclude that the days are numbered for a particular professional athlete due to old age/injury.
The point is this: Numbering our days means reckoning with the shortness of life, and this reckoning is the pathway to wisdom. Because God has numbered man’s days, all men must do the same in order to present to God a heart of wisdom.
The writer of Ecclesiastes echoes this same sentiment when he writes, “Better to spend your time at funerals than at parties. After all, everyone dies— so the living should take this to heart. Sorrow is better than laughter, for sadness has a refining influence on us. A wise person thinks a lot about death, while a fool thinks only about having a good time.”
The New Testament writer James writes, “you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.”
C. Application
Do you live with an awareness that your life is but a vapor?
What effect does it have upon your soul to know that all of your secret sins are open before the Lord who created you?
As you see your own mortality side-by-side against the righteous immortality of God, are you led to the same posture as Moses? A posture of humble prayer for God to show mercy?
RECAP & TRANSITION: We observed how God is our Eternal Dwelling Place (1-2) and our Sovereign Authority (3-12), but let’s now see how the text portrays Yahweh as Our All-Satisfying Restorer (13-17).
III. Our All-Satisfying Restorer (vs. 13-17)
Exposition (vv. 13-16)
The prayer in verses 13-16 reads, “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. 16 Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.”
The imperatives in verses 13-14 cascade forward -
“Return…Have Pity…Satisfy…
…that we may rejoice”
The hope of God’s satisfaction coming in the “morning” (vs. 14) implies a new beginning, for just as “all our days” have passed under God’s wrath, now Moses asks that this would be reversed…that all of Israel’s days would rejoice in God’s merciful restoration of His favor and presence.
In light of man’s dustlike existence and when faced with fears in every direction, all that matters is being near the presence of God. And in that presence, there is gladness of heart and satisfaction for the soul.
And although the days of your life may have been spent running after sin or even toiling after vain distractions of little eternal value, God is able to restore your soul in Himself.
Exposition (v. 17)
Finally, verse 17 states, “Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!
True worship expresses itself in action that can be observed. God’s people not only ask for His favor to be restored to them, but that the work of their hands would also be guided and controlled by His mercy and grace.
Connection to Christ:
Transforming grace is at the heart of the gospel. As those who have been restored by God’s mercy in Christ, we must stare into the brevity of our lives and with whatever time God grants us, we must faithfully invest it in God’s kingdom priorities.
As we look at this Psalm some 3500 years after it was written, how can we not be moved to add our voice to the voices throughout the ages by proclaiming, “Lord, you still remain our dwelling place in this generation.”
As Christians, we recognize that just as Israel found their dwelling place /refuge / secure abode in the Lord, we have found ultimate refuge in our Lord Jesus Christ.
No one is able to snatch us out of our Father’s hand, because our Father’s grasp could not be more secure. He holds on to His own because they are united with Christ through the blood of the New Covenant.
Our Savior suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us back to God. By absorbing God’s anger and wrath, Jesus atoned for our sins in his body on Calvary’s cross.
Now, we are in Him. We are in Christ Jesus. In Him, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace and it is in Him, that we have obtained an eternal inheritance with the Saints. And it is He alone who is able to keep us from stumbling and to present us blameless before the presence of God’s glory with great joy.
You see, friends, our eternal dwelling place is still in the Lord and it is secured for us through the blood of the Messiah. No other refuge will do.
Conclusion (Story of Mr. Knox):
Every time I reflect on the themes of Psalm 90, I am normally drawn to the memory of a man named Richard Knox.
When I was in late elementary school, my family moved to a home across town that was one street away from a retired missionary to Lebanon & Cyprus who also attended the same church as my family.
Mr. and Mrs. Knox reached out to us and they soon became good friends of our family. He quickly learned that he and I both played the trombone, we both shared the same first name, and oddly enough, we both had the same birthday.
As I got older, Mr. Knox would have me over to his house to play trombone duets and to have a time of prayer together. On one Friday evening, he invited me to join him in holding a service at a local rescue mission. He asked if I’d give a challenge from the Bible to about 30 men who were in attendance.
I remember speaking from James 4 on life being like a vapor. Although as a high schooler, I’m sure I wanted to do something else with my Friday night, but because this older Christian man refused to “retire” from serving Christ, he modeled for me Christ-like living.
As I grew older, I became more and more aware that I wasn’t the only young man Mr. Knox was investing in. Though well into his 70s, he was still discipling and encouraging a host of young men in our church to live faithfully for the glory of God and to spend their lives for the sake of the gospel.
I share that story with you because it displays what life looks like when
God’s presence is prized and the shortness of life is understood. Mr. Knox did not seek the American dream of making ridiculous amounts of money and retiring at age 45 so he could, with utter abandonment, complete every adventure on his “bucket list.” Rather, he utilized the time he had been given to lead others to enjoyment in God.
Moses wrote Psalm 90 to remind us of the brevity of this earthly life, but so we might more completely rejoice in the safety and satisfaction of God, our eternal dwelling place!
So, rather than staying hungry and staying foolish (as Steve Jobs noted) when you consider the shortness of our earthly lives, Moses calls us to be wise, and to number our days so we might treasure the secure abode we have in Christ.
And may this glorious hope spur us on to invest all we have and all we are in advancing the work of God’s unshakable kingdom.
Let’s pray.