I'll read the psalm in its entirety. Psalm 90, a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were born or you gave birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn man back into dust and say, return, O children of men. For 1,000 years in your sight, are like a 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 are like grass, which sprouts anew. In 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 sigh. As 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 due you? So, teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Do return, O Lord, how long will it be? And be sorry for your servants. O, satisfy us in the morning with your lovingkindness that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us, and the years that we have seen evil. Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. Let the favor of the Lord, the delight of the Lord our God be upon us, and confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the work of our hands. Let's pray together. Father, now we ask for an understanding. Indeed, open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things from your law. We ask in Jesus' name, amen. Someone has said, and it's not C.S. Lewis, someone has said that the psalter of all books of the Bible is that book which gives expression to the experimental, experiential side religion of all books it is that book that expresses and this is an old word and if you want a further definition I won't go into it this morning but it's of all books it is that book which expresses the experimental and experiential side of religion in the law and the prophet prophets in the law and the prophetic writings it is God who speaks to his people But in the Psalter, we listen to the saints speaking to God. Now, in Psalm 90, we are listening to Moses, the man of God, speaking to God. It is a prayer. It is a prayer of assurance. You have been our dwelling place in all generations. It is a prayer of lament. We have seen, we have been consumed by your anger. And we have finished our years like a sigh. But it's also a prayer of assured hope. Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness that we might sing for joy. The book of Psalms, we too learn. We too learn how to speak to God. And further, not only learning how to speak to God as we listen to the saints here speaking to God, as we listen to Moses, that man of God, speaking to God. We ourselves learn how to speak to God, and we learn how to frame our desires, our burdens, our cares in such a way as to carry them to the Lord. We are like children taught. Somewhere in the New Testament, one of the apostles says that We do not know how to pray as we ought. Well, here we learn how to pray as we ought. It's like sitting around the table with small children, perhaps small grandchildren, and you teach them how to ask. Not that they just grab for things. Not that they just demand things. You teach them how to ask for things. And so like children, we come to this psalm, and we listen to Moses' prayer, and we, too, learn that we, too, speak to God. But it frames how we are to speak to him. This is important this morning. The parents who brought their child for baptism, Ryan and Christy, bringing Heidi, they promised before the Lord to pray with and for Heidi. And we, as a congregation, We've entered into those vows to some extent as a supporting community, as the church, where we too, we too are committing ourselves to pray for this child as well as we pray for one another. We pray for all of our children. Well, how is it that we so frame and shape our prayers? What is it that we are to ask for? Well, here we find assistance. Here we find that way of Asking God, we hear instruction for our prayers. And so this morning, briefly, the focus will be on verse 16. Moses has acknowledged that God is our dwelling place. He has further confessed that he is eternal. We are transient. He has holy righteous wrath. in light of our sin. But beginning in verse 12, he begins a series of petitions to the Lord. There's wonderful contrast you see between the petitions and all the things that he has acknowledged and confessed. We don't have time to unpack this wonderful psalm. But this morning, one of those petitions is found in verse 16. It's one sentence, and it's a parallel sentence. Let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. And so the question this morning, as we focus on this text, and as it's brought to you as the word of God, and we, a living congregation, are thinking it through, needing to hear the spirit. I want to put a question to you, and it's this. What is one of your chief concerns for your children? What is the overarching burden that you bear for your kids? What is it that you really want for your children? And I could ask parents that, and we could think of, children, small infant, toddlers, adolescents, even adult children. What is it that we really desire? What do we desire for ourselves? What is it that we desire for our children that we will express in prayer, continual prayer again and again, petitioning, interceding, seeking, supplicating, looking to God to so work, not only in our lives, but in our children's life, in whatever season our children find themselves. When we go to prayer, what is that concern and burden? Well, here it is, verse 16, that God would reveal His work, various translations, that God would reveal His work, God would reveal His glorious work, God would reveal His glory, God would reveal His splendor to us and to our children. And so that's our prayer. We ask God, reveal, manifest, show, disclose to us and to our children what you have done, what you are doing, and what you shall do. Verse 16, a parallel, like I said, it's one sentence that has two parts, two clauses. And I think most of you know how a parallel works. We could label the first clause A, the second clause B, The first clause here makes a request. The second clause makes a similar request. You see it. The request, let your work appear to your servants. Moses is speaking on behalf of himself and Israel, God's community. Then clause B, similar. And your majesty, it's implied, and let your majesty appear to their children. So we are asking God to show something of his activity. Something of his activity. What's implied is we don't necessarily see it. We don't see what God has done. We don't see what God is doing. We don't really see what God will be doing, what he shall do. There is a natural blindness to use like the context of Moses There's like a veil that is put over our face, not to hide glory, but a veil in which we can't see what God is doing. And so Moses prays that that kind of blindness would be healed, that somehow we would be able to see. And obviously, it's just not by naked sight. It includes that God does great and wondrous things. We know that. delivering his people out of Egypt and all the judgments upon Pharaoh and delivering his people through the Red Sea, et cetera, things experienced and seen. But how is it understood? And that's, I think, what he's driving at. Cause your work to appear. Manifest it. Disclose it. Reveal it to us that we might see it, that we might understand it, that we might so interpret it as to rest in it, to depend upon you, to continue to look to you, to know you as our dwelling place. for all generations. The point I want to stress is before we can pray for our children and demonstrate by example who the Lord is and who we are as his covenant people and all that God has done, is doing, shall do, we need to know that ourselves. Before praying for our children and instructing them There is something that has to be revealed to us as adults, as parents, as a church. We need to behold, see, recognize, discern, interpret what God has done over history in all of the redemptive works that he has done, most especially the incarnation, the coming of Jesus Christ, death, resurrection, ascension, coming of the Holy Spirit. We need to understand, discern that work that has happened for us in history. We need to be able to discern in our lives presently, moment by moment, what God is doing, how that's connected to the gospel, how that's connected to Christ. What does that mean for our union in Christ? Every experience, every day, moment by moment, the familiar or the crisis, what is God doing now? Do you understand His providential care? Do you understand that providential care in relation to Jesus? Do you understand that care in relation to eternity, what God is doing? And all of the blessings, all the prosperity, all the adversities, all the trials, the open doors, the closed doors, whatever you're facing, do you have that ability to see, as it were? to understand, to behold in the circumstances, and then to recognize what God is about. What is he doing? Well, brothers and sisters, you can't really pray with a clear conscience, pray effectively, or nurture your children well in a covenant way unless you see these things. So Moses himself is crying out, show us. This is so like Moses, isn't it? Remember when Israel rebelled with the golden calf? Moses goes up to the Lord and he says, show me your, show me your face. Reveal yourself to me. Show me your face. Remember? And Lord says, you can't see my face. You see my face. Can't live. I'll show you my, my backside as I go by and it's proclaimed and, and, and Moses, Moses sees something of God. He sees who he is and what he is doing. Of course, he comes off the mountain, he's been transformed by that glory, and he puts a veil because the glory fades. The Apostle Paul picks up on that whole scenario in 2 Corinthians, implying it to us. But you see, Moses is concerned, show me, show me, show me your glory. Well, here now he's praying on behalf of the whole community, show us, manifest to us. Make visible to us who you are and what you are doing. Well, for parents and for a congregation, that's our prayer. We need to experience that opening of the eyes and seeing God making visible what he is doing, understanding and discerning all that he's about in every circumstance. And this, my friends, is an environment in which our children will be nurtured. There's so much burden about children leaving the church. Well, one of the questions is, and I'm not throwing adults under the bus here, but could it be that we do not have that experience of having eyes open, the eyes of the heart enlightened, beholding what God has done, is doing, and shall do, and so receiving it and living by it that it's part of our DNA? It's part of the warp and woof of our life, of our moments, and our children sense that. It's interesting how children pick up an environment. They can't articulate it, young children. They can't articulate when there's tension, mom and dad tension. Later, when they're 20s and 30s, Hazel and I now get the reports, oh, when you were quarreling, we were in that little room off to the side and we were listening. And of course, for little children, when parents are even having a simple quarrel, it's like the house is shaking, right? They can't articulate it, but they feel it. Well, surely they feel when the parents and a congregation know the Lord, when they behold His glory, when they're able to discern in all of the circumstances of life that God is not out to get us, but He loves us, and we live in the light of that, even in all the difficulty and the messes. And so I pick up on this parallel because, in part, there is that similarity in the petition. Reveal your work to us and in a similar way to our children. But you see, he begins with us. We need to be as humble as our children. We need to be like children. We need that revelation, that manifestation, God disclosing his ways to us before we nurture our children well. So the parallelism in the poetry, in the sentence, in the psalm itself, really reflects, represents the parallelism of life, doesn't it? First for us, and then for our children. Now, second, this is how the parallel works. A, it makes this statement, it makes a request, Moses is making this request. B now is going to be similar, but it's going to develop that first clause a little bit more. Can you see that? Look, verse 16. And let your work appear to your servants. Now it's similar, but there's going to be more. There's going to be more. Well, what is it? And your majesty, not just your work, and your majesty to their children. The preposition is a little different, a little broader. little more ambiguous. Is it let your majesty appear to your children or let your majesty, your splendor appear on your children? It's a question that's raised. I don't have the answer. If you keep the strict parallel, it's then revealed. Now, not just your work, but your splendor, your glory, even the things that I saw as you walked by your hind part when you declared your loving kindness and your justice, your holiness. Reveal not just your work now, but to our children, reveal your majesty, your splendor, your glory. The word can go back used in Deuteronomy to Joseph and a blessing that's given to Joseph where it's likened to him being a wild ox pushing the nations out. It can have that idea, that sense of power Show us your power, your majestic power. Show us, I think it's the ESV. Show us your glorious power. Show that to our children, your splendor, your glory, your majesty, your power. Reveal that, show that, make that visible to our children. What a wonderful request. If you know something of the angst of the middle class family, parents often have a great deal of anxiety about their children materially. Not necessarily us. Will our children do better? It's like the American dream. It's part of the American myth. will our children do better materially than us, than this generation? It's always a question, it's a concern. Now with the education and the debt in education and the lack of jobs or whatever else, there's this concern. Are we stagnant as a civilization, as a culture? Will our children have a step down materially? Will their standard of living be less than ours? No, the American dream is That next generation should step it up, should be better. It's a great deal of pressure upon parents and even upon children. And it may be at work in all of our psyches deep down, whether we admit it or not. It may be a controlling factor in the way we treat our children, educate our children, push our children. And I think we have to be careful with that. But here, it's not about the material gain of that next generation. What is Moses praying for? is that our children see, they behold, they discern who God is and what he is doing. And so a question, I'll begin to wrap this up, I think. What is the chief concern or at least a chief concern for your children as families, as grandparents, as a congregation? For some moms, it's settling the baby right now, which is good. She could cry out. It's no problem. But overarching, what is our chief concern? That they get an education, that they do better, that they marry well. All those are good concerns. But here, this should be shaping our prayers for our children. Show to them. Reveal to them, disclose to them, make visible to them your splendor, your glory, your work. Isn't it interesting? Not praying for like moral reformation for our children, protecting them from all kinds of things. So, so possessing and controlling them that they meet our expectations or some expectation of the community. That's not what is being prayed for. It's rather a simple prayer. but all important because it will profoundly change the human heart. We pray that our children might behold the glory of God. Now, historically, this prayer has been answered. The apostle John, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. It's rather interesting. It's just not the work of God. It's the person and work coming together in the incarnation, and we beheld his glory. The incarnation, the coming of Jesus, is that work of God that is so wise, so powerful, so efficacious, so gracious and compassionate. God, Emmanuel, comes to us in human vesture, in human nature, all God, all man. What a work, being born of a virgin, growing up, being Messiah, Baptized, Spirit filling, Messiah filling his work, fulfilling his work. What a tremendous work. Show us. Show us the glory of your work. Show us the power of your work. Show us the mercy, the compassion, the splendor of your work. Well, what greater work has occurred in human history than God coming among us as a human being and that never to be severed? Marvel at that. We behold that Lord's Day by Lord's Day, and we pray that our children might behold that, that they might understand and gather what really has occurred in history that has so revolutionized all of life. God has come among us in Jesus Christ. It's as though God cannot get any closer to you than he has in the incarnation in Jesus. But there's more. How is it we 2,000 years later? Well, the apostle John writes later in the first epistle, the things that we saw, the things that we beheld, the things that we handled concerning the word of life. These, this is what we proclaim to you so that you might have fellowship with us. And indeed our fellowship is with the father and the son. You see, there is, there is another movement for us. We don't behold Jesus in his earthly mission. We don't behold Jesus even in his heavenly glory. We behold Jesus as he is communicated to us in his word. So Peter says that you love him and rejoice with a joy inexpressible, even though you don't see him. The gospel of Luke, the road to Emmaus, Jesus as a stranger. They don't recognize the resurrected Christ, and he opens the law and the And the prophets and the Psalms, it says they all speak of Him. And the two disciples said, did not our hearts burn when He opened the Scripture to us? How is it that we come to see the glory of Christ, but in the simple means of grace, particularly the Word, the Gospel proclaimed? How the Spirit uses the Word simply, humbly, with all weakness, proclaimed. And we enter into a fellowship. In some sense, we behold Christ. We hear His voice. We see His glory. We understand that He is with us. He loves us. Is that not a work? Is that not a splendorous, gracious, majestic work being revealed? Paul speaks about our being transformed from glory unto glory, unlike Moses, when we behold in a mirror the glory of the Lord as we are being transformed and conformed to His image. Oh, don't you see? This prayer has been answered in history, but it's a prayer that continues to be raised by parents, by ministers, elders, deacons, by congregants, raised Oh, show us your work, O Lord. Make visible your work. And not only that, your majestic splendor, your glory, your power. Make it visible to our children as well. And this is a chief concern, really. If our children behold Jesus, all of His glory, what can I say? What leaves us of the anxiety They're secure. Whatever might happen to them, they're secure. Whatever trial, whatever sickness, if death takes them early, secure, because they beheld their God and they've been transformed by that glory. Now, one more thing. When Moses asks to see the glory of God and when he's praying this prayer in Psalm 90, It could very well be during the time of the rebellion of the nation of Israel in the wilderness. And this is what he's praying. And so we can make this application. It gets a little bit more specific, a little bit more narrow. Adult children wandering? Straying? Throwing off the yoke of Jesus? Not walking consistent with their baptism? Raising questions, acting out, living in ways no different from the world. Well, you see, when Moses prays to see God's glory, to see his face, it's at a time of crisis. It's at a time of rebellion. When he prays this prayer, it's a time in the wilderness where Israel is a rather stubborn child, a rather rebellious child. And so this is a prayer for all of us and a prayer most especially for those parents who are so concerned about their children who are wandering this world. And there doesn't seem to be that evidence of new life. But we continue to pray, oh Lord, show them, make visible, reveal and disclose your glory to them. Like the prodigal son, in a very familiar circumstance, he's feeding pigs, husks, He is not getting fed as well himself. And the text says, and he comes to himself in a most mundane, familiar circumstance, no crisis really, just day in and day out, or slopping around with the hogs, and it comes to him. We pray, Lord, show your glory, reveal yourself, your work, your splendor, your majesty to our children. When our adult children are out, mom and dad were no longer in control. Don't try to take control. You'll just mess things up, but you can always pray. And here's the prayer. This is how it's shaped. This is a chief concern that we have for our children. Lord, reveal yourself and your work to our children that they might behold you and in beholding you, be changed, radically changed. May God bless the Schaffners, all of our families with young children, our families with adult children, and us as a congregation as we continue to look to the Lord and pray that he might disclose his work to us and to our children. Let's pray together.