Getting a Heart of Wisdom

Psalm 90:1–17 ESV

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 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. 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 seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you? 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!

Intro:

Good morning and Happy New Year, everyone! I’m really excited to see you guys this morning and I’m even more excited to be sharing the Word of God with you.

If you have your Bibles go ahead and grab those and turn with me to Psalm 90.

Is anyone here into making New Year’s Resolutions? Anyone have one already made? I always have a hard time keeping New Year’s Resolutions. Usually by January 31, I have given up. Things like working out or losing weight don’t work out for me.

And I was thinking about this as I was preparing for this message. And then I began to think about how fast this year went by and how tomorrow, it will be 2024 already. I mean, it’s crazy how fast time goes by, right?. I never really understood it until I started having kids. It feels like yesterday my eldest was born and she is already 8 years old. Where has the time gone?

This is when the Holy Spirit brought Psalm 90 to my mind. This is really a special Psalm that addresses this very thing. The brevity of our lives and making our lives count.

Every time I’m asked to preach and there is no series or an assigned text, I naturally default to what the Lord is teaching me in my own walk with him. And this is it: That we live in a fallen world, our lives are short, and we need to get the most out of our time here by living wisely with the future in mind. And when I say future, I mean the return of Jesus, the resurrection of the dead, and the Age to Come.

Intro to the Text:

Before we jump into Psalm 90, I would like to give you some background.

This Psalm is historically attributed to Moses while he was leading the Israelites through the Wilderness. Most commentators put the time in which this Psalm was written to be around Numbers 14 when 10 of the 12 spies brought a bad report about Canaan.

The header in your Bible probably says something like “A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God” – Moses is interceding on behalf of the people of Israel. He is asking for Grace from an eternal God for a people that have been unfaithful. (Exodus 32:12) Moses has interceded on behalf of the people of God before when God was threatening to destroy the nation and start a new people of God out of Moses’ offspring.

This happened in Exodus chapter 32 when Moses was at the top of Mount Sinai for 40 days. When he was coming down from the Mountain, he heard loud noises like there was an invading army coming in to take them out. He wasn’t hearing the sound of fighting, though. Instead, he was hearing the sound of debauchery and idolatrous worship.

This is when the Lord became so angry that he was going to just wipe them all out. But Moses prayed for them. This happens again in Numbers 14 during the time in which this Psalm had been written.

Moses prays to God in Exodus 32:12, “Why should the Egyptians say, ‘With evil intent did he bring them out, to kill them in the mountains and to consume them from the face of the earth’? Turn from your burning anger and relent from this disaster against your people.” Exodus 32:12

God answered the prayer of Moses in Exodus 32 and he showed his rebellious people mercy.

Moses knew the entire history of Israel. God showed him the cycle of rebellion and repentance that his people would live throughout their history. We can learn this in the chapters leading up to the Prayer and Song of Moses - Deuteronomy 32 and 33. Moses knew that God’s people will need this prayer (Psalm 90) all throughout this Age.

Moses also knew that God is wrathful, and he has absolutely no problem condemning those that sin because he is just. So, Moses, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, penned this Psalm for the benefit of God’s people for all time. In this Psalm, the Eternality of God is compared with the frailty of Man.

And this is point one in your notes,

The Frailty of Man and The Eternality of God (Ps 90:1-11).

He opens by declaring that God has been their dwelling place for all generations. The word for Dwelling Place here means the same as shelter or a safe place. God had been faithful to his people. From the time of Abraham even up to the wilderness, God had been protecting them and preserving them. He made the covenant with Abraham to make him a great nation and time and again, the enemy had threatened to destroy them through means of evil people like Pharoah but have failed because God is the one that is in control.

This is something that many may need to hear today, that there is shelter in God. That no matter what kind of difficulty we may be going through in our lives, there is protection in our God. The God of Israel.

This may have been a particularly hard year for you. I know there has been a lot of sickness and death around us. Either we have lost a loved one or we know someone who has. Just know that there is care and protection in our God and he has always been faithful to his people.

Remember the context in which Moses penned this Psalm. Moses and the Israelites have seen God’s faithfulness. They’ve seen God part the sea and swallow up their enemies, they saw him descend on Sinai, they’ve eaten the mana in the wilderness. They have seen God’s faithfulness. They’ve heard the stories of their fathers, of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

As a church we can certainly attest that God is faithful. As Disciples of Jesus living at the end of 2023, we have far more we can look back on than even Moses.

So this Psalm opens with such a powerful declaration “Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations" (Psalm 90:1, ESV). This is Moses setting the tone for the entire passage, emphasizing the timeless and unchanging nature of God as a refuge for humanity throughout the generations.

Verse 2, Psalm 90:2 “Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”

This is where Moses really begins to theologize about the Eternality of God. He says, “before the earth gave birth to the mountains or even before the earth itself was created, you are God.” He says from everlasting to everlasting. What he means is from eternity past you have been God and to eternity future you will remain God. Our God has always been God and he will never stop being God. Let this bring comfort to you.

To the ancient mind, the mountains and the high places were where all of the temples were built and worship took place. Sinai and Zion are two very notable mountains where our God has chosen to reveal himself to man.

Even pagans would worship in the high places. This is why we see all over the scriptures when the Israelites rebel against Yahweh, they raise up altars on what are called the High Places. What verse 2 of Psalm 90 is saying is that our God is bigger than all other gods. He is more powerful and he takes care of his people. In fact, these mountains that these pagans would worship on were created by our God.

Verses 3, Psalm 90:3 “You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”

What he is saying here is that it was our God that judged mankind. It was our God in Genesis chapter 3 that took immortality from man because of our rebellion. He’s really describing the differences between God and man and the differences are vast.

God is infinite, we are finite

God is limitless, we are limited.

God is timeless, we are limited by time and age and space.

Verse 4 Psalm 90:4 “For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.”

Not only is God bigger than us but he is bigger than time itself. To him looking back to a thousand years would be like us looking back to yesterday.

Peter says this same thing in 2 Peter 3:8 when discussing Jesus’ delayed return when he says 2 Peter 3:8–9 “But do 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.”

Verses 1 through 4 are really about the greatness of our God. Of how Yahweh is the greatest being that has created all things. He has always existed and he judges the sins of man by returning us back to dust through death. He is eternal, meaning that he is without beginning or end.

Verses 1 through 4 are about the greatness and the Eternality of God but verse 5-6 really highlight the frailty of mankind.

Psalm 90:5 “You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning:”

One of the biggest differences between us and God is that we die. All of us die and it is inevitable. Moses is using imagery from the flood of Noah here and the suddenness of how lives were ended duing that time.

Jesus compares his second coming with the time of the flood. In Matthew 24:37, Jesus says

“For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.”

When the flood came, there were whole towns and villages that were just gone. They may have been there for generations and in an instant, they were gone forever. And like Moses said, they are like a dream. Our lives can end suddenly. While we are totally unaware, it can all end. And like a dream, right before we realize what is going on, it is over.

Verses 7-11 are about the justice of God. How mankind is frail because of our sin. We are sinful creatures, therefore, we die. This is the curse that we are all under. Out of God’s grace, he has made himself a shelter and a dwelling place for those who seek refuge but this does not exclude us from death. Instead, it garauntees our resurrection to a new life at the end of this Age, when Jesus returns to restore creation as the Davidic king on the throne in Jerusalem.

Psalm 90:7-8 – “For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed. 8 You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”

This is where I really think that Moses had Genesis chapter 3 in mind. He’s talking about the Eternality of God and the frailty of man and how we die. Our mortality rate is 100%, our death is guaranteed. No one, other than Jesus, has every escaped death. In verse 10, he points out that at best, we have is 80 years.

He sees all of our sin, including our secret sins. All of us have secret sins. Things that we do, say, or think that we think no one else knows about. God knows about them. This is why we must live lives of repentance everyday.

All of this can sound really disheartening but I don’t think it is meant to. I think that it is important to acknowledge that our lives are short so that we can seek refuge in the shelter of our God. Because our lives are short, this is the best thing that we could do. Both for protection and care in this Age but also for the resurrection in the Age to Come at the second coming of Jesus. The reality of our frailty is an important reminder that we need God in our lives. It is also an important reminder that we are able to rest in our God who offers us shelter.

And that shelter is the cross of Christ. All who believe in the gospel of Christ and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit are invited in to this shelter. In the same way that Noah went into the Ark to escape the waters of Judgement, we are offer protection, not from death in this life but protection from judgement on the great Day of the Lord when he will judge all secret sins.

Verse 11 really makes me think of the culture in which we live. There is just so much craziness and normalization of sin going on in our country, the question needs to be asked, “who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?”

All of us are living under these realities. What’s important isn’t that you know it, what’s important is what you do with this realities.

It is really important that we understand and acknowlege these two truths. That mankind as frail but God is eternal.

The two things that you should see in these verses is that 1. God is really big and 2. we are really small. This is how we are to respond to the fact that our lives are small and short - with resting in the greatness of who God is because He has always been our dwelling place, our shelter.

You know Moses had to have felt overwhelmed. They were wandering through the wilderness, there are enemies all around, and he’s constantly dealing with a complaining people who thinks it would be better to return to slavery in Egypt. His life was hard but his God is big.

Notice the fact Moses does not mention his circumstances in this prayer. Instead, it’s all about how big his God is. This is important for us all to remember because we all go through trials and difficulties. No matter how hard life gets, no matter how tough our circumstances are, we can remember and rest in our God who is so big that a thousand years ago only seems like yesterday to him.

This is the significance of verse one. God has always been our dwelling place, our shelter. Rest in him.

It does not matter what life throws at you this year. Rest in him because he is much bigger than you. He is much wiser than you. He has been faithful in the past, trust that he will remain faithful at all times, because he will.

Our lives are short and frail and this should lead us to a humility that leads to wisdom.

And this really brings us to verse 12 in Psalm 90, and this is the second thing in your notes.

Living with Humility that Leads to Wisdom (Ps 90: 12).

Verse 12 is really what Moses is working toward with verses 3-11.

Psalm 90:12 “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”

In light of our fallenness and in light of the coming judgement of God, Moses says that we need to be taught to number our days so that we have a heart of wisdom.

Because our lives are so short, we need to learn to number our days. What does that mean? To number our days is to appreciate the shortness of our time here on earth for the purpose of living intentionally. It means living in light of our deaths because our lives can end at anytime. It means living in light of eternity. To number our days means more than just counting each day, instead it means that we are to make everyday count.

And when we number our days, we will gain a heart of wisdom.

But what does this look like?

It means spending time with God every day through the Spiritual disciplines (prayer, scripture reading, journaling, fasting, etc.).

It means devoting your life to prayer. Devoting your life to prayer is acknowledging that you are not in complete control. God is. It means you are not God in your life, God is.

It means devoting yourself to your church. Really get involved with this ministry this year. Listen, Mike has been saying that we are going to be doing a lot of discipleship focused ministry this year. Give yourself to it.

It means leveraging your daily lives for the sake of mission.

And I think that it is really important to acknowledge our fallenness in light of who God is. To acknowledge that we could die at anytime. But why is that important?

Because I think when we don’t, we will begin to love this world too much. Isn’t this exactly what happened with the Israelites in the wilderness?

Like I mentioned earlier, many commentators put the time of Psalm 90 being written around the same time as the events of Numbers chapter 14 which is right after they sent the 12 spies into the land and 10 of them brought back a bad report while only two had faith that God would fight for them. Do you remember? They said that the people were too big and they could never conquer, even with God’s help.

Listen to what they say in Numbers 14,

Numbers 14:3 (ESV)

Why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become a prey. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt?”

They had seen God fight for them in incredible ways and they still have no faith. God had promised them a land that would be their own but they did not trust that he would be faithful to his promise.

Paul makes this same point in 1 Corinthians chapter 10. He says, 1 Corinthians 10:1–5 “For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.”

Instead of longing for the land that God promised them, they thought it would be better to go back to Egypt. Back to slavery. Can you imagine?

But how often do we do that? Because just like Peter said in his letter, we are exiles here. This is not our home but we have a tendency to love it like it was our home. As soon as things get hard, and they will get hard,

Paul said in 2 Timothy 3:12 “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted,”

But when difficulty comes our way, we look back and think about how much easier it was for us when we stayed quiet to fit in with the rest of society. We begin to love this life too much. John 12:25 “Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”

What does this look like? When we love this world too much, our work becomes about making money or getting the promotion that’ll look good on our resume.

I heard this interview of Elon Musk from a few years ago where he was asked about his success and if he had any advice for young professionals.

He said,

Work like ‘heck’. I mean you just have to put in 80 to 100 hour weeks every week. [This] improves the odds of success. If other people are putting in 40 hour work weeks and you’re putting in 100 hour work weeks, then even if you’re doing the same thing you know that you will achieve in 4 months what it takes them a year to achieve.

That is not having a heart of wisdom the way Moses is describing. What happens when you make your life about success? One of my favorite quotes by John Piper is “there are no Uhauls behind hurses.”

Having a heart of wisdom means you live in light of the shortness of your days and in light of the eternality of God,

I know that this is a super silly example and for that I apologize but has anyone seen the movie Hook with Robin Williams and Dustin Hoffman? It’s the movie where Robin Williams plays Peter Pan but he’s grown and has a family.

One of the driving themes in that movie is that Peter Pan had grown up and no longer appreciated life in the way that a child does, like he once used to.

One of the first scenes in the movie is Peter missing his sons baseball game, which seemed to be a regular occurence. His little boy is playing ball and he looks up to the stands to see all of his family but his dad. Where is he? He’s at work chasing a dream that will not matter when he’s an old man with a grown son that he never got to know.

That is what not having a heart of wisdom.

This is my prayer for all of you this New Year. That all of us will have a heart of wisdom. Solomon in the book of Proverbs tells us that “The Fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom.” And just like how verses 3-11 really display the justice of God and how he righteously judges sin, there is a lot to fear with God. God judges sin but he offers us grace.

Let that grace motivate you to really live for him. We deserve justice and wrath. We do not deserve the love that we have experienced in our God through his son Jesus Christ.

So in light of all this, I want to leave you with four prayers of Moses from the last verses of this Psalm. And this is the third point in your Notes.

Four prayers for the New Year (Ps 90:13-17).

Verse 13, Psalm 90:13 “Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!”

Prayer 1 - That you would model repentance this year.

When Moses says, “Return, O Lord,” he’s asking God to turn from his anger toward them. I know I said this already but I think it is worth stating again, we deserve wrath but we have received grace. We are still deserving of God’s wrath but by the blood of Jesus we are counted righteous.

Let the reality of the cross cause you to live a life of repentance. Own your mistakes, confess your sins to other believers, and repent of them. When Martin Luther penned his 95 thesis, very first of the theses stated that “our Lord and Master Jesus Christ . . . willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.” Make this a daily practice for you.

Verse 14, Psalm 90:14 “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.”

Prayer 2 - That you would look forward to the return of Jesus.

When Moses says, “Satisfy us in the morning,” he has the resurrection of the dead in mind. This is an eschatological prayer. All that means is that it has to do with the End Times.

He is longing for the time where Israel’s messiah will come to restore and renew all thing. When he will correct the curse that we have all been living under since Genesis 3. None of us can deny that the world that we live in is under a curse. Things are not right. Jesus has promised that he will return to make all things right. This includes the resurrection of the dead and the establishment of Jesus’ earthly kingdom from Jerusalem.

I don’t know about you guy but I find the return of Jesus as the greatest drive for discipleship. I cannot wait for him to come and make all things right.

Verse 15, Psalm 90:15 “Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.”

Prayer 3 - That you would live for the Age to Come.

The way that we prepare for the return of Jesus is we live sacrificially in this life now and when he returns, we will be rewarded by him.

Matthew 6:19–21 ““Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Live sacrificially now while you are still alive so that the good that we experience in the Age to Come will surpass the difficulty we experience in this fallen world.

Verse 16-17, Psalm 90:16–17 “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!”

Prayer 4 - That God will grant us fruit that lasts.

In contrast between who God is and who we are, how God is eternal and we are finite, the best that we can ask is that God will show us grace to see lasting fruit for the work that we do here now. Without his grace, everything that we do here will be in vein.

We must acknowledge how much we need God’s intervention in our lives and in our ministry. May he grant us favor as we endeavor to make disciples this year.

Conclusion

Let us go into 2024 with humilty and let’s just rely on God’s goodness and power. Listen, there are a lot of great things that we are going to be doing as a church this year. We are really going to be emphasizing discipleship. There is no better way to store up for yourselves treasures in heaven than to commit to using your life to make disciples. So, maybe this is your application this morning. Maybe you need to commit to living in obedience to the Great Commission - to make disciples of all nations. Maybe this is your New Year’s resolution. Just stick with us and commit to being a part of what we are doing.

Maybe the application that you need is you need to trust Jesus for the first time. You can do that. As we are singing this last song, the altar will be open, or you can speak to Jesus from your set. Confess your sins to him, turn from your sins and turn to Jesus. He will fill your life with his Holy Spirit.

I’m going to pray and then we will sing.