Thank you, Pastor Kerry. It certainly is a joy and privilege to be here. I'm so grateful for the opportunity. Well, one of the very interesting things, as you might imagine, about living where we live is just all the historical places that are so fascinating to visit. One of my favorite places personally is a local museum called the Museum of Civilizations, of Egyptian Civilizations, specifically because there's this room in the basement. It's like a hall of mummies. And I find it just fascinating that you can go there and actually meet face-to-face characters from the Bible in the flesh. in the very dried up and darkened flesh. They're right there in front of you, behind just a small pane of glass. I like to forearm myself by reading this history of Israel. It's a classic work by Eugene Merrill called Kingdom of Priests. And you can go and see how he lays out the biblical data along with the conservative date for the Exodus. along with the archaeological findings and really marry up with some degree of certainty who it is that you're looking at. So, for instance, you can see Hatshepsut there in that room and very likely she was the daughter of Pharaoh who pulled Moses from the river. It's fascinating to see and it enlivens the imagination. I like to think about Moses in particular, especially in relation to the psalm that we're going to be looking at, and just all that he saw and witnessed in his life. Maybe you've not ever thought of that, but just consider 40 years of growing up in Pharaoh's household and learning at the height of culture and wisdom of that day. And of course, the 40 years in exile in Midian after he chose to associate with his ethnic family, Israel. All that he saw there, how he came across the burning bush and interacted with God, how he received the law from God on Sinai, how he spoke with the pharaohs, some of which, again, you can see in that same museum. saw God harden the Pharaoh's heart. He saw the plagues descend on the land. He saw, after receiving the law, the people's rebellion of worshiping the calf. Of course, the parting of the Red Sea and crossing over, all those things. Specifically though, after that rebellion, he heard the judgment of God on those people. And then after their refusal to enter the promised land, he heard the judgment of God that that whole generation would be wiped away. And so for 40 years, The same Moses witnessed 60 to 70 people die every single day. If you do the math from Numbers 14, 28 and following, that's what you come up with. A whole generation wiped out, thousands of people every year. And so he's coming to the end of his life and he's witnessing this. And he's knowing that even he himself, he can't go into the promised land either because of his own sin. He knows that there's no do over, there's no reset button that he or the people can hit. And of course, by this time, he knows God very well, so he's thinking about God. He's thinking of the people perishing in the wilderness. They seem to be wandering and just living in futility as they wait to die. And as he does, he turns to prayer. And he sits and he writes out the psalm that we're going to look at today. Really, a prayer, not only for himself, but for all the generations of God's people to follow. So I invite you to turn to Psalm 90, Psalm 90 is, of course, written by Moses, so it's the oldest psalm we have in the Psalter. And it really gives us some big picture themes, I mean, really big picture themes, timeless themes about life for God's people. And if you're familiar with the psalm, verse 12, of course, is the main takeaway that most people come to. Teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. That, in short, is what Moses' petition is on behalf of himself and on behalf of God's people. This Moses, the greatest theologian that Egypt has ever produced, he calls for a theologically, biblically wise perspective on life. And that kind of approach, I trust, is what we ought to be after as well. As with Moses and the Israelites, we don't have the privilege of starting our lives over again. But this psalm helps us as a guide for living our remaining days with wisdom. So let's look at this psalm together, and as we study it, I want us to see three realities that we must affirm in order to live wisely in the days our creator gives us. Three realities that we must affirm in order to live wisely in the days our creator gives us. These are very simple affirmations, but they're so critical. You can't neglect any one of the three because eternity is at stake. So the first affirmation, we see it in verses one and two, we have an eternal sovereign. We have an eternal sovereign. Moses writes, 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. So now some 600 years have passed since God first gave this promise to Abraham in Genesis 12, a promise of them being a chosen people. And so Israel can look back and just see amazing acts of his persevering grace throughout their history. 600 years is a long time and a lot of things have happened. It's a long time generally. For us, from our perspective, that predates Columbus arriving to the new world. Even so, Moses is actually pointing to something far greater, far more transcendent than that 600 years. Before Abraham, far before even the world existed, Moses says, from everlasting to everlasting. He's pointing to God's eternality. Psalm 90, verse 2 in particular, is one of the key biblical passages for the doctrine of eternality. Stephen Charnock in his famous book, The Existence and Attributes of God, he framed his whole section on eternality on this verse, verse 2. And it's an important doctrine for us to consider. You wonder, well, what is eternality? I had a seminary professor, when he came to this doctrine, he asked, do you know what eternality is? And then he said, you know, eternality. God doesn't have an ending, a beginning. You know, eternality. You understand what that means, right? And he went on until we were all nodding our heads. And then he said, no, you don't. You do not understand eternality. And he was right, because we're bound up in the timeline. We start to use time words immediately to describe eternality. But for God it's totally different. We can kind of conceptualize not having an end, and maybe even not having a beginning. Our brain starts to stretch and hurt a little bit at that point. How God could be in full existence without a succession of moments of time. We can say what I've heard Pastor Hardy say before, that God exists outside of time, but enters into time at every point in time, all at the same time. But every time we say something like that, we're using those time words. We have trouble because we're time-bound creatures. And that's the way it is for all pagan religion, by the way. Moses would have grown up hearing about Amon-Ra, the ancient god of Egypt. And in recent years, a hymn to Amon-Ra has been uncovered, and this is what that hymn describes him as being. It says, Amon-Ra was the first to come into being in the earliest times, the primordial god who engendered all the other gods. No god came into being before he came into being. There was no other god with him. You see, paganism can't escape this boundary, but Moses uses this language that really elevates the reality of God's eternality to the highest level possible for our human language, our frailty in language. He is before all created matter. You remember that God gave Moses that unforgettable interchange at the burning bush, right? And Moses asked him this question, I'm going to go and tell the people that you've sent me, but they're going to ask me, who are you? What do I tell them? And of course, you know God's answer, Exodus 3.14. He says, I am who I am. You tell them I am has sent you. Well, that little expression in Hebrew is just phenomenal. It itself transcends our English limitations when we start talking about tenses of time, past, present, and future. We could rightly translate that expression as God saying, I was who I was. I was who I am. I was who I will be. I am who I was. I am who I am. I am who I will be. I will be who I was. I will be who I am. I will be who I will be. God, he is the eternal God. He's non-contingent. He doesn't depend on anything. Rather, all created things, ourselves included, are fully dependent upon him for our existence. Why do I belabor that point? Well, this is really what I want us to pick up on. It's that as the one from whom every being derives their existence, the whole universe is beholden to his authority. That's clear from the very name Moses uses for God. The first word of this psalm, it's Lord, Adonai. It points us to God's sovereign authority over his creation. That is, he's the transcendent source. And therefore, he is the rightful authority. We could really trace this reality biblically, all through scripture, but just a couple of places to establish it. Psalm 24 one, for example, says, the earth is the Lord's and all it contains. It's not just nature, God also lays explicit claim on every person when he exclaims through his prophet Ezekiel, this is Ezekiel 18.4, behold, all souls are mine. The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is mine. The soul who sins will die. The point then that Moses is making is that God is the eternal sovereign and he's reminding us that we live our very short lives in the grand context of his supreme eternal authority. And it's impossible for us to live a life of true wisdom if we fail to affirm that simple reality, that foundational truth. If you adopt a worldview of autonomy, and rather than submit to God's authority, but buck against it, Scripture has a word for that. Psalm 14.1, for instance, it's a place where it says, that person is not wise, that person is a fool. So again, simple affirmation, we have an eternal sovereign. The second we see is that we are under his judgment. This is verses 3 through 11. Moses writes, you turn man back into dust and say, return, O children of men, for a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by or by as a watch in the night. You have swept them away like a flood. They fall asleep. In the morning, they're like grass which sprouts anew. In the morning, it flourishes and sprouts anew. But 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 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?" Maybe you've asked the question before, why do we have to die at all? Well, this little section gives us a sobering explanation of the plight that all of us are in. There is a reason for death. And it's not a matter of just fate or some physical law. Some people see this wording and you can immediately kind of harken back to Genesis 3.19. You are dust, and to dust you will return. Moses is talking about dust here. They see this reality and they picture some sort of serene, peaceful setting, like we're organic matter, we're going back to Mother Earth, that kind of thing. But interestingly, Moses actually uses a different word here for the dust that he's talking about. It's different than Genesis 3.19. Here, he speaks not of the mere elemental nature of our frame, our organic matter, but he's talking about something that has been crushed. The term is one that contains really an element of violence. In Psalm 34, 18, David used this term, and he speaks of those who are contrite and crushed in spirit. The prophet Isaiah, he uses the verb form of the word to describe the way the suffering servant would be crushed for our iniquities. Isaiah 53.10, it was the Lord's will to crush him. So Moses is giving us a picture, very much so, of something that is intentional. It's not blind faith, it's not natural. I don't know if they still make obituary columns. I don't even know if they still print newspapers. I don't know, but I remember reading the obituaries in the past, and sometimes the older people, what would it say the cause of death was? They died of natural causes. That's really a misnomer here, because in reality, every death comes not from an impersonal process, but from an intentional divine act. That's what it says in verse three. It says, you say, you turn and you say, return. So Spurgeon writes, if God calls man to death, he dies. If he does not, man lives. There is a direct cause and God is the only cause. In fact, God himself confirmed this to Moses. We read of Yahweh's words in Deuteronomy 32, 39. God says, it is I who put to death and I give life. So death, you see, it's God's judgment on sin, and it's a judgment that extends to all of us. Romans 6.23, the wages of sin is death. We know it comes to each of us because of Romans 5.12. Death entered into the world because of sin, and death spread to all men because all sin. As believers in Christ, we can say, hey, what about Romans 8, 1? There's no condemnation, therefore, for those in Christ Jesus. And we're right, and amen. Our personal sin, praise the Lord, it can be atoned for by Christ's perfect sacrifice when we look to Him in repentant faith. And we do escape the second death. of Revelation 20, but in Adam and in the setting of this fallen world, God still demonstrates faithfulness to his just execution of the consequences of sin. Therefore, we live under his judgment. And this pattern of death, and these verses, they show us the pattern. They show us these universal descriptions of what life is like in this fallen world. And we'll just go through these quickly. But Moses acknowledges that our lives are marked by brevity. That's very clear. He uses these simple metaphors to explain. He says, no matter our strength, no matter our relative longevity, we're just a little blip on the long line of history. A thousand years being just as a day to God. Maybe your biblical antenna pops up and you're thinking of Genesis 5, and you think of all those really, really old guys, right? I think of the creepy animatronic Methuselah at the Creation Museum, if you've ever been there. So old. They were all pre-millennial, by the way, but never reached 1,000 years. 969 years, he almost made it to a day, but he died. And every person, the refrain, one after the other, and he died, and he died, and he died. It's so short. It's like a watch in the night, Moses says. It's a little four-hour time period. You wake up in the night, and you've all experienced this, I'm sure. And you're kind of reluctant to look at the clock. And you look at it, and it's 2.13. And that's such a good feeling. So you snuggle back in under the blanket, close your eyes. One moment passes, and the 6 o'clock alarm is sounding. It's so fast. It's like the grass that sprouts in the morning, he says, and withers by the evening. Regardless of the metaphor, what comes to everyone, though, verse five, is the flood of judgment. So Calvin writes, while we're breathing the breath of life, the Lord overflows us by death, just as those who perish in a shipwreck are engulfed in the ocean. That's how it is, unexpected and it's there. The invisible deluge of death, so quickly for each one, and there's no stopping it. Our lives are also marked, Moses says, by guilt, starting in verse seven. He just makes it even more plainly explicit. We have been consumed by your anger. We have been dismayed by your wrath. In the immediate context, of course, Moses is watching as all these people die. And you remember, this is during the early years of the tabernacle. And so the people, they were making this connection. The parade had started, the parade of animals, the sacrifices every day. The same drumbeat was sounding. Sin equals death. Sin equals death. It's always going to be the consequence. And Moses says there's no way to hide. That's just a reality. It's going to happen because of the overt sins that we see in ourselves and one another. But it's also the hidden sins in our heart that brings this death. It's all going to come out to the open. So the sins that we think no one sees, the selfish motives, the resentment, the anger, the derision, the uncharitable estimations that we have of one another, all of that brings death. Our lives are marked by brevity and guilt. They're also, he says, marked by futility. He talks about 70 to 80 years, it's kind of being the top end point, not the promised point, but the top end point for life. And when we're young, that seems like an eternity, but as we said, it's gone so quickly in the blink of an eye. And left to ourselves as we get older, we start to come into the thinking of Solomon when he looks around and he's seeing, what's it all for? You start to think of what it'll be like after you're gone. What will be remembered? What will be lasting? And there's futility there. So Moses says, verse 10, this is what it seems like, our labors bring sorrow. Our lives are marked also, verse 11, by delusion. He asks, who understands the power of your anger? It's a simple rhetorical question. And all of us, if we're honest, we're all on this spectrum of insufficient fear of God. We're not accurately and consistently making the connection between our guilt and his judgment. Derek Kidner says that this is because, left to themselves, men hardly ever realize the relationship between mortality and sin because they're living for the moment. They're consumed with the here and now, so they put off any thought of death at all. Everyone knows it's coming, but they think they're going to be the one to escape it somehow, somehow. It's irrationality. It's this delusion of sin. Pascal described it this way. He says, we run, mankind, we run heedlessly into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us from seeing it. We know the abyss is there, man does, and the end is coming at some point, but in obstinate rebellion, whatever the distraction is, whatever the preoccupation, whether it's politics or wealth or career or even service in the church, people focus on that and try to convince themselves that everything's just gonna work out somehow. They push the idea of death down into the cracks and sedate themselves against the idea. But the reality we see is that death comes to everyone and it is tied to the eternal sovereign God judging sin. Hence the turning point, verse 12. When we understand and affirm God's sovereign authority and the wrath that we're under, we should be, along with Moses, asking what? God help us. Help us live in wisdom. Help us number our days so that we can know what to do, so we can know how, know how to live. That's what wisdom is. Not just knowing things, but knowing how. Some skill in living. Skill that we have to develop. We don't have it on our own, we're dependent on God for it. And it involves, as we see in verse 12, a form of spiritual arithmetic. He says, teach us to number our days. Not to count up the ones that have already passed, but to see what's left. and to live life rightly according to these spiritual realities. In other words, we have to hold on to Hebrews 9, 27, that it is appointed for men to die once, and after this comes judgment. So with that being the case, what are we to do then? He is our eternal sovereign, and we are under his judgment. So what do we do? Well, that leads to the third affirmation, Again, these are so simple, but we are dependent on his grace. We have to understand that. If you read most commentaries about Psalm 90, they'll label it, usually, as a Psalm of lament. And I do think that's correct, sort of. He is painting a very bleak picture of life here in the verses we just looked at. But we have to remember, in the scheme of the Bible, The place of lament becomes the place of salvation for God's people. Isn't that what Jesus taught? You think of his most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount, and what's the very first thing he said? Blessed are the poor in spirit, right? Blessed are those who see their spiritual reality. They see their bankrupt estate before God and his just judgment that rests on them. So they're poor in spirit. And then immediately follows, blessed are those who mourn. Again, they understand their plight. They understand who they are under God's transcendent, blazing holiness, and that's the place of blessing for them when they turn to him for grace. That's our only hope for moving forward from God's judgment. And of course, for us, that means turning to Jesus Christ in repentance and faith. And so as Moses closes with these last verses, he displays the posture, the wise posture that welcomes grace. You can see clearly that's what he's doing. He's making all these right affirmations. He's acknowledging God as his creator, as his authority. He's not cutting himself off by making excuses for his sin. He's not blaming others. He's not blaming his circumstances. He's not painting himself as a victim in any way. He's not pursuing a path of earning salvation by working for it. No, he's showing us the path of ancient wisdom. Having acknowledged the guilt of sin, he simply pleads for God's grace. And as he does, we see, again, what the posture of that wise person looks like. So you see, verse 13, do return, O Lord. How long will it be? And be sorry for your servants. You can really hear the contrition in his prayer. He says, Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days you have afflicted us and the years we've seen evil. In verse three, we saw that God calls out to man, return, you will return to dust. Here, Moses uses the exact same word to plead for God's presence, return, return. And he does this, notice, on what basis? Not on his merit, but on account of what he knows of God and his character. That's reflected in the name he uses to address God. It's not merely Adonai, the way it was at the first, the sovereign creator. Here we see Yahweh, God's covenant name of grace for his people. Verse 14, satisfy us according to your loving kindness. The wise man leans upon this and only this, God's character of loyal, unchanging, faithful love. I said love, if you're familiar with that term. So Moses knows and he affirms that only Yahweh will bring this kind of true satisfaction and joy. That's the kind of satisfaction, by the way, that you will not find in verses 3 to 11. That's where the world is in verses 3 to 11. True satisfaction is not there. I think we've all experienced, in some form or another, the reality that we can't find satisfaction on this earth. Maybe the classic example of that would be the part of your childhood when you're anticipating Christmas, and there's that great buildup there, and there's that one thing that you've been scheming to get, and then the morning's there, and the box is sort of shaped like that thing, and you think, this might be it, and you open it, and it's it, and it's wonderful. And two hours later, it's lying against the wall, and you're wondering, maybe I should have asked for what my brother got. That looks more interesting. I heard of Sinclair Ferguson talking about his own childhood of this kind of a thing, and he got the bright idea of recapturing that joy and that fulfillment by rewrapping the present on Christmas Day. And so then the next morning, he could do it again. He could open it. And of course, he was sadly disappointed. But Christians get tripped up in the same way. We try the wrapping paper tricks in different ways. We run back to the world and dabble around and fish for satisfaction there. But these verses are showing us you can't find it there. Israel did the same thing. Moses did write another psalm, by the way, it's not in the Psalter, it's in Deuteronomy 32, and in that psalm he rebukes them for doing this very same thing, for going after satisfaction in other gods apart from Yahweh, and that same dissatisfaction came. But the wise one who truly knows God's authority and holy judgment runs not to the world but to God himself for his chesed love. And of course, he displays that for us most clearly where? Romans 5, 8 tells us he demonstrates it for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Moses then continues, let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the work of our hands. Again, Moses looks around at people who are in essence, they're just waiting to die in the wilderness, and he asks God to give them the grace of purpose in life. And again, his starting place is so instructive for us. He starts not with himself or themselves or even in the work that they want to do for God, but he starts with Yahweh. He wants God to reveal himself in his glory, in his majesty, the same way he personally saw him at Sinai, such that his face shone with residual glory. He's like Psalm 42.1. This is Moses' attitude. It's bleeding through the page. His soul is panting for God like the deer pants for the water brooks. What a difference it makes when we glimpse God's glory that way. I trust and hope that you have had that in your life at some point. Glimpses of His glory, they change everything, don't they? They reorient our priorities and they shape in us a heart of wisdom wherein we don't just fritter away the very few days we have with all the passing vanities of the world, the vanities that this world is so focused upon. We don't have time for that. With God's glory in our vision, we see the reality of how we should use those few days. And Moses knows that. So he pleads for a renewed view of God's majesty for himself and for those who follow as well. I pray that you pray that for your children. Lord God, wow them with your glory. enthrall them with the exhilarating joy and privilege of knowing Him and following you." That's the way of God's true favor. That's the grace of knowing Him, living with the view of His glory and communing with Him as you serve. That's what gives life real meaning. It lends beauty and significance to even the most mundane work, no matter what it is that we're called to do. If we're in Christ, if we're affirming His Lordship, if we're acknowledging our guilt, and yet we're leaning on His grace for forgiveness in life, then we are poised to recognize the beautiful nature of this creation. Even though it is in a state of Genesis 3 fallenness, we can enjoy our time in this world better than the world. The world certainly takes pleasure in creation apart from Christ, but for them it's that mask that Pascal talked about. It's what's covering over the reality of the abyss that they're running towards. But when we see it and legitimately take pleasure in it and what is around us and the work God gives us to do, we are truly being wise. Moses' prayer here, it's simply marking the timeless reality that for God's people, life isn't just to be muddled through as we wait to die. We're built to serve and to live and to thrive. And that fits the creative pattern. It's exactly what God did when he created the world. He creates and refines. He put Adam in the garden, not just to sit there, but to till it and work it and to bear fruit. It's the same pattern that remains in place until King Jesus returns and he brings perfect fulfillment and restoration. The work will be full and lasting with perfect meaning, and it's never to be stunted again and thwarted by sin. So for us now, truly, when we work in him, Colossians 3.3, and when we live and work for him and through him, Romans 11.36, our lives have eternal meaning, no matter, again, our earthly occupation. That's Moses' petition. And really, it's our petition. Lord, confirm the work of our hands. Confirm the work of our hands. Wrapping this up then, what do we see? Well, it's interesting that sometimes in the Psalter, the writers will put their conclusions at the beginning of the Psalm. You think of... For instance, Psalm 32, David says, how blessed is the man whose sin is forgiven. And then he talks about the process of conviction and confession and cleansing. You think of Psalm 62 and the statement, I will trust in God alone. And then we hear why that should be the case. Well, it's sort of like that here. Moses gives his conclusion at the beginning. The true life of wisdom, the life that matters and is redeemed comes only to those who flee to the refuge of God's grace. And when we flee to him and abide with him in Christ, he becomes, Alec Mateer describes it this way, he becomes our fixed address, no matter where we are in the world. That's the God Moses is holding forth for us. There is no eternal life for us outside of the one who is eternal. But when we recognize his sovereign authority and holy judgment over ourselves, and we cast ourselves upon his promise of salvation in Christ, when we do that, we are in touch with eternity. And there's no other way. All the other approaches of life are a lie. They're all bankrupt. They will leave us invariably saying, like Macbeth, that life is sound and fury signifying nothing. but praise be to this eternal sovereign God that he does hold out this grace to us. When we turn to him in Christ and make his priorities our priorities, knowing by the way what those priorities are as we swim in his word and commune with him in prayer, as we do that, he frees us to live wisely and that is the life that's worth living. Lord, I pray that you seal these truths in our hearts If there are those here who don't know you, do draw them to yourselves that they might see their need and the availability of this grace in Christ Jesus. And Lord, for those of us who are following you already, please teach us how to live You do promise wisdom to us when we ask, and we're asking. We ask that you help us live wisely, help us to honor you all our days as we walk in the blessed joy and satisfaction that we can find only in you. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.