Psalm 90 Live Today for What Lasts Forever

Introduction There is a certain foolishness which comes with being young. For instance, when I was younger, I thought I would live forever. Not really, but I certainly tended to act that way. When we are young, there is a part of us that believes we have all the time in the world. When we believe that we have all the time in the world, we tend to waste a lot of it. We start to focus on things with little value in the long run. We live for the pleasure of today. Eventually, we become busier and more distracted. Any notion that we should live for things beyond today, things of eternal value, is lost on us. It’s something we can worry about tomorrow.

As we age, a lot of things change: we get a bit taller, maybe a bit heavier, we develop a few more wrinkles, and our hair begins to lose its color. But what never seems to go away is that foolish tendency to center our lives on things that don’t have lasting value. Our culture is steeped in this. We are a people that live for the pleasures of today. We’re addicted to instant gratification. When hard times happen, we escape into fantasy. We are so busy that we don’t stop to consider those around us. Is it possible that we’ve become so focused on the moment that we become blind to things of eternal value?

I think this is at least part of what made this year so difficult. Everything was put on hold. We weren’t able to see a movie, eat out, go to school, or do one of the myriad of things that we do to occupy our time. It reminds me a little of my kids. Sometimes I need to have an important discussion with them. I have learned not to try to do that when the TV is on, because they will be too distracted to hear anything that I am saying. So, I will grab the remote and turn the TV off. When I do, I am able to have their full attention. This year I feel like God has, ever so graciously, pushed the OFF button on the remote. So many distractions were temporarily removed, and we had a moment to put our full attention on him. To look away from busy things and to contemplate weightier matters, matters of life and death. But will this focus last longer than just this moment? What prevents us from returning to our old foolishness?

Look, I am as glad as anyone else to put this year behind me. I’m ready to make some half- hearted resolutions and forget that 2020 ever happened. But let’s not be in such a hurry that we miss an opportunity for growth. In light of that, what I would ask us to consider this morning is, “How do we shift our perspective away from temporary things of little lasting value? How can learn to live today for what lasts forever?" I hope we can answer those questions as we examine Psalm 90.

Context Psalm 90 is one of the oldest chapters in the Bible. The superscription tells us that it is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. What a wonderful title: Man of God. Acts 7:22 tells us that “Moses was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and he was mighty in his words and deeds.” Yet, Hebrews 11:24-27 tells us that he “refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin.” He rejected all wealth and wisdom of the world to be fully part of the people of God. He was a man called by God, commissioned by God, and inspired by God.

Moses traveled with the Israelites through the desert wanderings. Exodus describes the account of Moses being sent by God to confront Pharaoh and lead his people out of Egypt to

the Promised Land. This was a journey that would ultimately last for forty years. Forty years marked by the challenges of wilderness travel with a difficult and often rebellious people. These were years of struggle and hardship. We can just imagine Moses offering up this prayer somewhere in the midst of the wilderness wanderings. Perhaps he prays as the people gather before the Jordan River to cross into the Promised Land.

Remember that God is Eternal (vs. 1-2) If you are to live today for what lasts forever, you must remember that God is eternal. If we have a distorted view of eternity, it’s because we have an incomplete view of God. Moses does not let us start with in incomplete view of God. He begins by offering a view of God’s eternal nature. “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” (vs. 1) Think about where this Psalm was written. It is not in the halls of Pharaoh surrounded by all the comforts of the world. Rather, it is written in the heat of the open desert as Moses considers his people. Here was a people that had never really known a home. They were slaves that were descendants of slaves. For hundreds of years, they were suppressed in a land not their own. Each morning they rose in the desert, packed the few possessions they owned, and spent the day pressing forward to Canaan. They could not build houses or plant gardens. They were subject to the winds and the sun, wild creatures and troubles on every side. Even the tabernacle, their place of worship, was a giant tent designed to be transient. In every respect, here was a nation without a home.

Yet, the Bible states that the Lord was their dwelling place. The term “dwelling place” has in mind a refuge, an oasis, an encampment. Regardless of what they faced, each day carried with it the reminder that the Creator was their protection, their safe place, and home. In fact, there was never a moment in which God wasn’t their refuge. Each successive generation had found its refuge in him. From their fathers to their fathers’ fathers, all the way back to the first man and woman. We have multiple generations represented at Calvary. We have folks from the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, Gen Z, and even some from the newest generation. Each generation is a little different from the last. Yet, there is a common tie between all of them. The same Eternal God offers refuge to his people just like he did in the wilderness. Because God is eternal, he remains as much today a safe place for his people as he was for the Israelites.

Consider verse 2. “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” From everlasting to everlasting. From eternity to eternity. From always has been to always will be. The very idea of eternity can be difficult for us to wrap our heads around. A child might ask, “How old is God?” The problem with that question is that it doesn’t work. God invented time. He is the Master of time and as such is not mastered by it. This year you and I will have a birthday. God won’t. There never was nor will there ever be a moment when God does not exist. Consider the mountains. Surely it must have felt to the wilderness wanderers that they passed countless hills and mountains. Moses certainly had some incredible experiences on a mountaintop. Each mountain that passed invited them to consider the eternal nature of God. As old and majestic as the mountains may be, they are as infants in God’s eyes. The Bible begins with the statement, “In the beginning, God.” Before anything was made that has been made, when the earth was nothing but chaos, God was there. God spoke into existence all the creation that we see around us. When Moses looked at the mountains, he didn’t see the result of millions of years of chance, but rather the handiwork of the eternal Creator of the universe. But Moses also understood that in contrast to God’s eternal nature, mankind was fleeting.

Remember that Life is Fleeting (vs. 3-6) If you are to live today for what lasts forever, you must remember that life is fleeting. At this point the psalm makes a difficult shift. These following verses weren’t designed to make us feel good about ourselves. They are often recited at funerals because they force us to consider our own mortality. To ignore this is to become like the fool of Luke 12:16-21 who chose to relish in comfort, not knowing that this very night his life would be required. The verses don’t let us get away with this. They make a stark contrast between the everlasting existence of God and the very short life of man. Verse 4 tells us that for God, a thousand years are like a single night. A thousand years is such a long time. Think of all that has happened in the last thousand years. Nations have risen and fallen, leaders have come and gone, various philosophies of men have been introduced and soon forgotten, wars, events, ideas, so much that we can hardly remember it all. Yet, for God, a thousand years are but a moment. As generations upon generations of men pass away, it is like a watch in the night for God.

Yet, we are reminded that the existence of man is so very brief. Before God, we are swept away as with a flood. We are like the grass that is new in the morning and withers away at night. We too are born in the vigor of youth and beauty, only to watch our lives fade. God is not unaware of the fleeting nature of mankind. Instead, he has decreed it. It is God who ends the life of man. Verse 3 tells us that God declares, “Return, O children of man!” and we return to dust. This imagery of dust seems to allude to the creation of man. Genesis 2 tells us that “the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground.” Here we see that at the end of this life, man returns to dust. But Moses uses a different word for dust than the word used in Genesis. The word used for dust in Psalm 90 refers to dust that results from something being crushed or pulverized. Moses paints a picture of a people crushed before the eternal God. These types of thoughts make us feel uncomfortable. I mean, can’t we just go back to the part that talks about God as our dwelling place?

Why does thinking about death make us so uncomfortable? Because death was never our divinely intended destiny. Our Creator made Adam and Eve to enjoy him and glorify him forever. And yet death is here as an unwelcome intruder into human history. Why has God determined that mankind should die? Verse 8 tells us it is because of God’s anger toward human sin.

Remember that Man is Sinful (vs. 7-11) If you are to live today for what lasts forever, you must remember that mankind is sinful. We are sinful people. As such, we are all deserving of God’s wrath. From Adam and Eve and their rebellion against God in the Garden to each person in this room, we all stand guilty of sin against the eternal Creator. As such, God will judge our sin—all of our sin. It’s not just our outward iniquities that make us guilty before him, but also our secret sins. Verse 8 tells us that our secret sins, those things we think nobody knows about, are set before God in the light of his presence. We cannot hide our sin. Our secret sins are open, plain as day before the holy light of God. All sin has consequences. The Apostle Paul in Romans 6:23 states that “the wages of sin is death.” Death serves as a sad but deserved consequence of man’s sinful nature. Each time someone around us passes away, we are reminded again of this truth.

Think about the Israelites in the wilderness. They didn’t wander for forty years because they were lost; that would make Moses a pretty terrible guide! They wandered as a consequence of their sin. God faithfully remembered his people. When the time was right, he delivered them,

provided for them, gave them his law, established a covenant with them, protected them, and led them in his glory all the way to the Promised Land. To which the people responded with grumbling, rebellion, idolatry, and a refusal to follow him into the land. Deuteronomy tells us that in his anger towards their sin, God swore that evil generation would not experience the good land he had prepared for them. Instead, an entire generation would perish in the wilderness. I can’t help but wonder how many funerals Moses attended in that forty years as another life and another life and another life withered away and died—each death serving as a reminder that the consequence of sin is death.

Is it any wonder, then, that Moses describes the conclusion of a man’s life with a sigh of weariness? Whether by God’s grace someone lives to be 70 years old or perhaps, if they are strong, lives to be 80 or much older, their years are marked with toil and trouble. We groan under the consequences of sin, a lifetime of suffering, until death releases us, and we fly away. Yet, death’s release is into the hands of the holy God to whom we must give an account.

In light of this, Moses poses a question for us to camp on for a moment. Verse 11 asks, “Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?” Brothers and sisters, as we contemplate these things, as we consider our sin and the terrible wrath of our eternal God, fear is the appropriate response. As Spurgeon puts it, “Mark well the graves of lust in the wilderness!” It is a fearful understanding of our true, frail, sinful condition before a holy, eternal God that cuts through all of the distractions and noise around us. It is this fear that lights a fire under us and compels us to respond. It is this fear that creates an urgency in our hearts. How does Moses respond? He cries out for the mercy of God.

Remember that God is Gracious (vs. 12-17) If you are to live today for what lasts forever, you must remember that God is gracious. Moses’ prayer began by acknowledging God as the dwelling place of his people for all generations. Despite all of life’s hardships, toils, troubles, and sighs, God never ceases to offer refuge for his people. Thus, Moses casts himself upon the grace of the Creator. Let’s briefly examine how he prays. The man who lives today for what lasts forever will be on his knees in prayer to seek grace to number his days, to cry out for God’s mercy, to find satisfaction in God’s love alone, to pursue gladness despite the years of hardship, to recognize the glorious works of God and show them off to his children, and to seek the favor of God upon his calling. Notice the transition of Moses’ prayer as he leans on the grace of God. The lament of all of their days under the wrath of God is replaced by the hope that all of their days could be filled with joy! In the end, as we land upon the grace of God we find, as Derek Kidner states, that “It has been worth facing the unwelcome facts of time, wrath and death, to have been moved to such a prayer and such assurance.”

Living Today for What Lasts Forever It was the first few weeks of the pandemic shutdown. Like everybody, my life had taken an interesting turn. Everything was shutting down, and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. Schools were closing, restaurants shut down, and we were discouraged from going out. My regular routine was rattled. One afternoon I got a message from a brother in my D-group who happens to live in my neighborhood. He wanted to know if I would like to go for a walk. So we went for a jaunt around block. It was nice to get outside after being cooped up in the house. As we walked, we began to discuss the people who live in the houses around us. I didn’t know many of them, but I was struck by how many he knew. It was obvious that he was intentional

about building relationships with others in a way that I was not. In the midst of my busyness, distraction, and selfishness, I had lost sight of what has eternal value.

Each of us has a very short time left. We are not promised to make it to 80 years old. We are not promised to live through the day. Every one of us will come to the end of our time on this earth and have to give an account of our sins and what we have done with this life before the Eternal Judge. As we’ve already stated in Romans 6:23, “the wages of sin is death.” This death is not just physical death but eternal separation from God in a very real place called hell. Thankfully, there is more. The verse goes on to teach that “the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Like us, Jesus experienced all of life’s trials and hardships to the point of dying on the cross. But his death was not as a consequence of HIS sin but ours. Our gracious, eternal Father sent his only Son to us, as a perfect sacrifice, so that we could have eternal life. Perhaps as you contemplate the number of your days, God is calling you to salvation and to experience the comfort of his refuge.

Finally, the New Testament adds something else to consider as we learn to develop an eternal perspective. Death is only one possible end to this life. The other lies in the great hope that Jesus is coming back. Peter, in 2 Peter 3, urges us to “not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed. Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness.” (vs. 8-11) I think again of our neighbors. The day is coming when they end this life returned to dust or they stand before our returning King. Are they ready? Are you, with your focus on eternity, moved to share the good news of the gospel with them? Let us live today for what lasts forever.