Good morning. Happy Lord's Day. If you have your Bibles with you, turn with me in Psalm 90. Psalm 90. Can I request everyone to please stand as we read the word of God? Psalm 90. A prayer of Moses, the man of God. 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. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God. 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 the 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 it withers. 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. 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 70, or even by reason of strength, 80. 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? So teach us to number our days, that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. 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. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God, Prophet Isaiah tells us in his words, the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever. Let's pray. Our gracious God and loving Heavenly Father, may the preaching of your word be used by your Holy Spirit to build up your church and to speak to us in a very personal way that we may come out of here looking more like Christ. This we ask and pray in Jesus' name, amen. Please be seated. The title of our message this morning is Teach Us to Number Our Days. Dr. Martin Lloyd-Jones in 1939 preached a series of sermons at Westminster Chapel in London during World War II. His goal was to help the people see the present crisis as both a mirror and a lens. And he thought that crisis exposes us of our true self. It reveals and reflects what we are. As he said, the natural, the real, and the true come into view. He describes several kinds of people from among the Christian community how the war has somehow revealed their true characters. The first group of people was described as those who have been raised in religious family. I grew up as a missionary's kid. We transfer from one place to another. I literally spent my six elementary years in six different schools, in different municipalities, in three different dialects. In the Philippines, we have hundreds of different dialects and they're totally different from one another. Well, I grew up in a parsonage literally all my life. And Martin Lloyd-Jones described this people who grew up in such a setup and have embraced religious teachings, but when faced with crisis, they behaved and reacted just like the rest of the world, as someone who is without hope and with unbelief. Now, another group of people was described as spiritually bankrupt. They interest themselves with theology but never really experience the transforming power of the wonderful doctrines of God in their lives. When crisis came and start to beg for more than a good argumentation, they find themselves clueless. and empty. Now, the last two groups of people are described as one, a person who does not care about doctrines, but only his or her personal experience of religion. And the other one is a person who has loose ends. And if that person is probably living in our generation, he probably got his theology from TikTok and memes. They are both ignorants, and their ignorance led to their inability to understand the crisis in the light of God's revelation of himself through his word by means of these testings and tribulations. Biblical illiteracy, beloved, is a serious matter that needs to be addressed. There are some who would intentionally shun and shoo away theological conversations and doctrinal teachings. Coming from the Philippines, I've heard a lot of people saying, you would waste three years of studying theology at Mid-America Reform Seminary, and you can plant a lot of churches in those years. Why waste your time in that classroom when you can do a lot of things during that years? We believe that nothing is more important in times of crisis than our worldview. And we can even say, not only in crisis, but in all facets of life, our knowledge of the whole counsel of God, as revealed and taught in His word, is of first importance. Our theology matters. Our knowledge of God matters, and it matters now. On the other hand, this is not to suggest that those who know more are better than everyone else. During the World Wars also came brilliant theologians who became, and believers, drifted away even though they are some of the most brilliant people back then. People like Soren Kierkegaard, you've heard probably of the name. He is the father of modern existentialism. He was a regular church attendee. Or Friedrich Schleiermacher, who was the father of modern subjectivism, who was also a regular church attendee. They were church people. So what we are trying to point out here is that growing in the knowledge of God is of first importance, but it should always go hand in hand with our growing and righteousness. That sermon series was 80 to 100 years ago, and nothing can still best describe this postmodern generation than that. Persecutions, trials, testings, tribulations, maybe in your private life, maybe in this congregational life, and even wrestling with theological and philosophical complexities. dealing with social issues and modern debate topics. They are indeed become mirrors to see the true and natural self. And we can even say they are mirror, a mirror that reveals the true and natural church. Our worldview is the lens how we see everything else, how we see through them, and how we respond to them, and how we practically appropriate our worldview in our lives, day in and day out. Psalm 90 is the only psalm that we know that was written by Moses, and it's probably the oldest psalm. The consensus historical context among Bible scholars is that this was during the Israelites' long-dreaded pilgrimage from Egypt through the wilderness and going towards the promised land of Canaan. Although some scholars would even go further in saying that this was written in response to what happened in Numbers chapter 20. You see, this psalm is a prayer of Moses. And what happened in Numbers chapter 20 is at the beginning of the chapter, Miriam died. The chapter ended with the death of Aaron. And what happened in between was the infamous story of the Israelites grumbling for the lack of water. And this, they said, was Moses' song and prayer in response to those circumstances. And it makes sense, losing his loved ones, losing the leaders of Israel. He was not just stuck with his unbelievably hard-headed, ever-complaining people, but he is now basically alone leading them. he was faced with a lot of uncertainties. And Psalm 90, the Psalm of Moses, speaks volumes how his worldview, how his knowledge of God, based on what he wrote in this song, teaches us not only the proper response when we are faced with such life-changing circumstances, but also how important our theology is during the trying times and how it can be the most encouraging thing we can hold on to. That is what we will try to unpack this morning. And we can divide the psalm in three parts, which can also be the answers to the question that we can get from our key verse, verse 12. It says, so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. The question is, what teachings do we need to put in heart in order for us to properly number our days. I have three points this morning and I believe you also have them in your bulletin. Three points and I put phrases, key phrases for the children to remember actually. First point is from verses one to six. God is our dwelling place from everlasting to everlasting. For children, you may want to remember God is our home. For the littlest one, remember this, God is our home. We have actions. I'm not a Sunday school teacher. I don't intend to be one, but it's for the little children. God is our home. Remember that. Second point from verses 7 to 11, God is the righteous king who judges our sins. Sin is our enemy. Sin is our enemy. And from verses 12 to 17, God in his steadfast love compels us to be glad, to rejoice, and to testify of his glorious power to our children, man who is happy. A man who is happy. Now, point one, God is our dwelling place from everlasting to everlasting. We can see that in verses one to six. Let me read the first two verses. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. before the mountains were brought forth, wherever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. That immediately strikes home. Pun intended, because Moses was basically saying that God is their home. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. I thought they were, you know, traveling towards the promised land, coming from Egypt where they were foreigners. They were not the owners of the land and they were actually slaves back there. And now they are on their way to a place they can actually call their home, their own, the land of milk and honey, Canaan. And the opening of this psalm is so encouraging in so many levels, right off the bat, that Moses acknowledges, Lord, you are actually our home. You are our home. Canaan might be a city of milk and honey, more desirable than the quail and egg in the wilderness for sure, but God is the better city. God is the city of refuge. Though not explicitly said, we can say that Moses' theology is deep, that he knows God is not bounded by space, that Canaan does not make God more real because he is real even in the wilderness, even in their pilgrimage. God is very real. And even back in Egypt, God never left his people. He knew that God is spirit. God is omnipresent. He is everywhere. That God is eternal. He is not bounded by space nor time. And that God is with them all the days of their lives. Now, the context of this psalm in Numbers 20 which will make more sense why Moses said those words. God told Moses that he will never see the day when his congregation shall enter the promised land. It was because Moses and Aaron did not trust God enough when Moses struck the rock twice rather than speaking to them or to the rock in order for the water to come forth. We know that story really well. And in this psalm, Moses was somehow teaching his congregation of a very important truth that could be easily forgotten, especially when their visions become clouded and overwhelmed with disappointments. Miriam is dead. Aaron is dead. Moses is sad. This teaching also addresses the problem when their visions were so fixated at arriving to the promised land that they have forgotten that their God has been with them in all generations. God was with them in the wilderness. He's the clouds by day and the fire by night, and most especially the glorious tabernacle. Beloved, living in this sin-sick world and how the gravity of its fallenness overwhelms us, discourages us, depresses us to the point that we start to think that it's better to just escape everything in the here and now because it's very tiresome. The song of Moses reminds us that God is with us, that God has been with us, and that God will always be with us regardless. Isn't it interesting that the words everlasting to everlasting were put in the same paragraph as dwelling place? Everlasting teaches us of God's transcendence, He transcends time and space. He is not localized. But God is also our dwelling place. This truth gives comfort in so many ways, knowing that God's everlastingness is true in our lives. that He is beyond this realm of fallenness, that He is sovereign over all, that He is Lord and that He is still King seated on His throne. Whatever, however chaotic our lives may be and this world may be, God's everlastingness And God's nearness were perfectly demonstrated in the incarnation of Christ. That in the book of Matthew, he was actually called Emmanuel, God with us. That is a Hebrew word for God is with us. El is God. Im is us. Us with God. God is with us. Now interestingly, the tabernacle in the wilderness was the place where the Israelites meet with their God. It's their place of worship, a transcendent God descending in that place. And it is possible that Moses had in mind this modes of what we call special revelation where God speaks to his people in a very special way. in the Old Testament, like what I mentioned, fire by night, clouds by day, and especially the tabernacle. And if we know how that is ultimately expressed in God's story of redemption, we know that Jesus is the true tabernacle. The great God who is spirit became man, and by being united with him, God has tabernacled upon us. And that was sealed and signed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in us. And the Apostle Paul teaches us in the book of Romans that through the indwelling of the Spirit, God the Father and God the Son also dwell in us. Beloved, God is our home. And we can also say that God has made his home in us. It's this Christian life, this pilgrimage towards our promised land. It's not as if we are traveling to one day meet with God. That is true in some sense, but let us never forget that God is with us and God is with us now. Be encouraged, beloved, God is with us. God is our home. That doctrine now becomes a mirror and a lens. We see who we are before God and we see everything else through it. Listen to Moses from verses three to six. He said, 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. Trials and tribulations, testings and temptations, they do not have the final say. They are not here to stay. God has been our home and he will still be our home from everlasting to everlasting. Beloved in Christ, be encouraged by this truth. Rest in God. Rest in the truth that God is our home. Let us put this truth into heart. For the second point from verses 7 to 11, God is righteous who judges our sins. Sin is our enemy. While it is the first important that we should be reminded that God is our city of refuge and that how that can definitely change, you know, how we number our days, It is important to acknowledge the real presence of sin in this world. Yes, God is our home. He is very present with us in this very moment as we are being summoned at Mount Zion to gather with all the saints and worship God. But let us also acknowledge that we are still in this pilgrimage where Sin is real. The real presence of sin in this world, we need to acknowledge in how God in his holiness and justice must punish sin and sinners. God will not leave the guilt unpunished. In response, as believers, we live our lives in repentance, and righteousness. And so to number our days is to live in repentance and righteousness. This can also serve as another lens how we are to understand the effects of sin in this world. Let me read verses 7 to 11. Listen carefully. 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. 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 70 or even by reason of strength 80. Yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear A few. Twice the word anger was mentioned. Three times the word wrath. And because of that, verse 7, we are brought to an end. In New American Standard Bible version, we are consumed. We are dismayed or troubled. Why? Verse 8, because of our iniquities and our secret sins. And then verse 10, our lifespan is but toil and trouble. We are soon gone, we fly away. In the previous verses, Moses acknowledging the finiteness and the frailty of man. Oh God, you return man to dust. Here in the succeeding verses, Moses was saying, all of our miseries we brought upon ourselves. We brought upon our nation all of these things, deaths and our miseries. The death and miseries of man is because of sin. It is because of our fallen nature. The finiteness of life is because of sin. The frailty of life is because of sin. There is death because of sin. There are natural calamities because this is a fallen world. and we hear the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans saying and describing that the world is also groaning and waiting to be redeemed. Sicknesses are but means to that end which is death, death as punishment of our sins. Now, notice the contrast between the previous point and the imagery from verses 7 to 11. God is our dwelling place from everlasting to everlasting. And here Moses is pointing out that we are but a flower quickly fading. Here today and gone tomorrow, a wave tossed in the ocean, a vapor in the wind. We bring our years to an end like a sigh. The point of this is not only that our lives are insignificant in the light of God's eternality. The point here is verse 11. He asks, who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? Who considers the power of God's anger and God's wrath Beloved, if we know how to die, we know how to live. If we know that death is imminent, then we will live all our lives in the fear of the Lord, repenting of our sins and walking in righteousness. Do we consider the power of God's anger and wrath because of sin? We ask the wrong questions when we try to figure out why are these terrible things happening to us? Question is why not? We deserve every single one of them. We deserve the wrath and anger of our holy God. What we don't deserve is grace. What we don't deserve is the forgiveness of God. We should ask the questions, why is God still good to us? Why is life still good to us somehow? Why do we still receive good gifts? We have good church, good community of believers, good marriage perhaps, good jobs, good food today. Thankfully, I was invited on a second Sunday. I don't deserve that. We deserve death because of our sins, but the good news is that God saved us and that God sustains us and he sees us through in this world full of troubles. Knowing about the fact that we are experiencing, that what we are experiencing in this fallen world are all effects of sin, it changes the way we see unfortunate events, right? Back in the Philippines now, the LGBTQ community has now reached the national education of their agenda of having to have the freedom to use your preferred pronouns. And people in the Philippines are very surprised. The Lord is coming. Look what's happening. Well, we're not surprised. I remember five years ago I was talking with one of the elders in the church I serve with in the Philippines. I'm saying it's only a matter of time that same-sex marriage will be legalized in the Philippines. It's only a matter of time that abortion will be legalized. It's only a matter of time. When I came here in June, Those are the times where general assemblies are gathering. Man, those agendas. What happened to our rich tradition, our rich reformed tradition? We have watered down the gospel in order to cater to worldliness. What happened? Who removed those fences? Now we are at the freeway and ready to be demolished by these large trucks. Now, that's the first thing I noticed here in the United States, riding on the freeway. I live in the Philippines, and it's traffic every time. It's traffic every time. And the first time we drove through the freeway, there was a truck in front of us and at the back. And I can see in my rear view that one of the tires blew. And just 10 seconds after that, the track in front of us, one of the tires blew. I said, is this normal? And my wife started to notice this remains of truck tires everywhere. Yep, freeway is not my favorite place here in America, definitely. Knowing about the fact that what we are experiencing in this fallen world are all effects of sin changes the way we see unfortunate events and unwanted circumstances. And it will definitely change the way we respond to them. Now, I am not saying that we put a blind eye and be inconsiderate with those who are sufferings because of the sins of others. I'm not saying that we use the reality of sin as an excuse to justify injustices. I would actually suggest the opposite. Since we now know that God is holy and that He hates sin, then we should also hate sin. We stand up against injustices. We confront lawbreakers. And we kill sin every day. but we also dispense love and forgiveness because God has loved us and has forgiven us. Beloved, consider the power of God's anger and God's wrath towards sin. The comfort that we have in Christ as people who have been redeemed from the slave market of sin and were freely forgiven should result not in a life that abuses grace, it should result to a life of repentance. And our good friend Martin Luther said, all of the Christian life is repentance. Now, what's interesting is that in the Greek language, the word for repentance is metanoeo. Now, I'm geeking out because I just finished summer Greek, and that's probably the longest two months of my life. But metanoeo, interestingly, means the change of mind. Meta means beyond. or change and news means mind. It's the altering of mind. And it's the same word used in loving God with all our mind. And what it implies is that repentance is not a mere response to whenever we fall into sin. It's not a reaction. Repentance is a change of mind. It is the altering of our worldview. Therefore, the Christian life starts and will be sustained by what we know about God as God is holy and how we translate our knowledge of his holiness by continually living in the light. Let us mortify our sins. day in and day night. Being united with Christ, the psalm of ascents are wonderful imagery. That's my favorite part of the book of Psalms, the psalm of ascents. You can see everywhere eyes lifted on high. It makes sense. They are basically ascending Mount Zion, but it's also a picture of God, the Lord of Zion. and that we are fixing our eyes to Him in hope, regardless of what is behind us. It could mean armies of Israel that are defeated from the wars and are coming home to rest and replenish. It can be people who are going up to Mount Zion in worship, It's a wonderful picture, especially if we know that we were saved from Mount, from another Mount, Sinai. This is the second use of the law. It becomes a reflection of God's perfect character that it condemns us because there is nothing in us that we can use to save ourselves from the judgment of the law. God is our home. He is the city of refuge because the law of Moses condemns us because of our sins. And so we run from Mount Sinai to Mount Zion. The beautiful thing about this is that Jesus Christ climbed up Mount Sinai and received upon himself the punishment that the law requires and the righteousness that it demands so that we do not need to climb Mount Sinai. And instead, by being united with Christ, we ascend Mount Zion with Christ, the mountain of the Lord, and receive the grace of God. A beautiful picture. But we must beware, brothers and sisters, that sin is real. and we are to live our lives in holiness every day. Now we end our message with this third and final point. The first two points are balance of our comfort in God as our home and the challenge we have as sinners redeemed from slave market of sin in order for us to live in righteousness. Our third point is the natural results of having to understand the first two points. So this third point is our applications, additional applications, verses 12 to 17. God in his steadfast love compels us to be glad, to rejoice, and to testify of his glorious power to our children. A happy man. Now I'm starting to smell that good scent for our lunch today, and I'm indeed a happy man. But verse 12 tells us, so teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. This is the practical application that Moses thought of after reflecting upon the eternality and the righteousness of God. So Lord, teach us to number our days so that we become wise how to make use of our short time here in this temporal world. to your glory and your glory alone. And so we ask, how do we go about our everyday life in view of what we talked about this morning? Let me give practical applications from the remaining five verses in our passage. Number one, we wait upon the Lord. Verse 13, return, O Lord, how long? Have pity on your servants. Yes, it will be hard. We will all struggle But we are not without hope. Our struggle is not the end. The Lord's coming again is the final chapter. Therefore, we wake up every morning by going to God in prayer and say, Lord, I'm weak. Be my strength. I'm foolish. Be my wisdom. I am bound to fall short. Let my heart rest in your faithfulness. I am doubtful. be my hope. Lord, teach me to wait upon the Lord. Second one, let God be our supreme satisfaction. We can see that in verse 14. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. To be a blessed man literally means to be a happy man. And to be a happy man is to rejoice and be glad all our days. Because we know that God will satisfy us with his love in the morning. What an encouraging truth. No matter how the day drains us of all our strength and sanity, tomorrow is a new day. And the mercy of God is new every morning. His love will satisfy us. in the morning. The third application is that make us glad even in our affliction. Now this is hard. In verse 15, Moses said, make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as many years as we have seen evil. That prayer is hard to pray. but we must trust God and his wisdom. One of my favorite hymns is written by William Cooper, title is God Moves in Mysterious Ways. Let me read two paragraphs. God moves in a mysterious way, his wonders to perform. He plants his footsteps in the sea and rides upon the storm. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust him for his grace. Behind a frowning providence, he hides a smiling face. Now the fourth application, may we and our children see God's glorious power. This is my favorite verse from this psalm. Verse 16, let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children. This is covenantal language, beloved. To number our days to the glory of God and in our pursuit of righteousness cannot be divorced with our congregational life. To number our days is not a solo mission. It is a community enterprise. In fact, outside of God's church, outside of this church. If you are a covenant member of this church, it is impossible to get a heart of wisdom. It is only through the diligent use of God's instituted ordinary means of grace that our pilgrimage in this foreign land can be sustained until we enter God's rest in heaven, the better promised land, our eternal home. Church is essential. it is impossible to grow in faith outside, normatively outside of our congregational life. Therefore, let us catechize our children. Let us catechize our household. Let us catechize one another in the word and let the work of the Lord be made known in and through this church. And to all the children here, This morning, may you continue to come here every Lord's Day. Sit beside your parents or and your grandparents or run around church, pews once in a while, make a sound, noisy sound like my little one there. It's okay. Sing hymns with them. Pray with us. Stand up with us and recite God's word with all of us. and listen to the pastor preach. Also, always remind your parents not to miss the Lord's Day. Now on the other hand, if you are here right now and you know in your heart of hearts that there is void in your life, there is restlessness in your spirit because of this world, There might be inclination to indulge the flesh, whether in the form of worldliness or in the form of perpetual hopelessness and darkness in your mind and in your heart. Today, my friend, is the day of salvation. God is inviting you to his home and be part of his household in this place. He offers forgiveness for your sins only in the finished work of Jesus Christ, his resurrection, his ascension, and he's being seated in the right hand of God. So repent of your sins. He offers rest for your restless soul, so trust in Him. He offers a family, run to Him. He is your city of refuge. He is your home. Now we close this message in prayer, and let me pray the last verse of this psalm, and may we find wisdom in these words. Verse 17, 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. Our gracious God and loving Heavenly Father, We approach your throne of grace in humility because there is nothing in us, nothing about us that can merit your favor. But we approach your throne also in confidence because we know that we are now united in Christ and that Christ is now our Lord and Savior. And we ask, Lord, in this prayer by the Spirit, that you help us as we go through trials and tribulations and testings, both in our personal life and both for this church. I pray, Lord, that your sovereignty will be of great comfort to every one of us. I pray that the truth about the incarnation of Christ gives comfort that you are with us and that the indwelling of the spirit will give us peace and rest, that our God is in us. We also pray that you help us live in righteousness, help us to mortify sin day in and day out. And may you help us by your grace to become happy men who glorifies you who edifies one another and are witnesses of your goodness in our lives. This we ask and pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I'm glad you responded to us. We're going to begin together and sing Psalm 90. Sam will lead us in Psalm 90A. During that, if you have a prayer request, I'll come around. I'd be happy to grab that from you.