Number the Days

Introduction

What goes up but never goes down? Your age.

Though a joke, it hints at how time is actually our most valuable commodity.

Once it is gone, it is gone.

It is not transferrable.

None of us know the amount we have which means any amount we still have is precious.

Regret is a thing because we cannot go back and change our mistakes.

(Many of us wish we had a DeLorean and Marty McFly riding shotgun so we could go back and change a few things in our younger years.) But we can’t.

With this realization, what are you spending this most valuable resource on?

Lord willing, you will have 8784 hrs in 2024

2920hrs sleeping - 33%

280hrs traveling to work - 3%

52 Sundays - .5%

3hrs/day on smartphone - 1095 hrs/year - 12%

We’ll come back to that statistic.

For now, I’d like us to turn to our passage where Moses will call us to Count our days and allow God to make our days count

Psalm 90 (ESV)

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

This is a prayer

Of Moses - no reason to dispute this - this would then would be written during and about the time of the Exodus.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

God is the standard of time.

God is eternal

He has no beginning and no end.

Revelation 1:8 (ESV)

8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

God is the standard of time.

ILLUST - Time zones began because of the transcontinental railroad

Charles F. Dowd proposed a system of hourly standard time zones for North American railroads around 1863,

Before this, time was standardized to each town -

This is how many live their lives now - as though they are the keeper of their own time. However, God is the standard of time.

Which means:

God is the giver of time.

God is the keeper of time.

You cannot live one minute longer than God has prescribed nor will you die one minute sooner than He has determined.

If you believe you need to control your time you will live in fear but when you understand that all your times have ALWAYS been in the hands of the Keeper of Time, you will live in freedom.

While we understand that God is everlasting, we know that you and I are not.

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

4 For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night. 5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: 6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.

Time is a matter of perspective

Have you ever noticed how time seems to move more quickly as we age?

When someone becomes a teenager, a year is 1/13 of their entire life.

For the 80 yr old, a year is 1/80 of their life.

God is from everlasting to everlasting. We are fragile and temporary. 3 You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!

Your life is short and fragile.

40 generations is about 1000 years.

in 1024:

John XIX became pope

Viking raiders (800 men) sail through the straits at Abydos to the Aegean Sea. From there they made for the island of Lemnos,

How many of us really take account of how many days we have left? Are you really living in light of eternity or in light of this afternoon?

I’m not trying to be morbid; I’m trying to be mature. As we will see in a moment, taking account of the brevity of our lives and accounting for how we spend our time should not bring fear or anxiety - it should, however, bring change.

7 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. 9 For all our days pass away under your wrath; we bring our years to an end like a sigh. 10 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. 11 Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?

This was speaking about Israel in the desert wanderings.

12 So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

In light of our mortality, difficulties, and past regrets, the prayer is for God to give wisdom.

The prayer is not for God to give a time machine; it is for maturity moving forward.

This is not about regret - it is about moving forward.

Wisdom is knowledge applied.

With the knowledge that our time on earth is limited, and God is the keeper of time, we should make changes to make the most of it!

Lord willing, you will have 8784 hrs in 2024

2920hrs sleeping - 33%

280hrs traveling to work - 3%

52 Sundays - .5%

3hrs/day on smartphone - 1095 hrs/year - 12%

We are either day-wasters or difference-makers.

It is less about counting the days you have left and more about making the days you have left COUNT.

Jesus tells a story about a man who is focused on possessions for his short time on earth:

Luke 12:16–21 (ESV)

16 And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, 17 and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ 18 And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.” ’ 20 But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”

Matthew 6:19–21 (ESV)

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

To “lay up treasures” requires your time. So it would follow that if where you are laying up your treasure indicates where you have set your heart than an assessment of your time would indicate the same.

How much of what you have done this past week will have made a difference after your short life is over?

Ephesians 5:15–17 (ESV)

15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is.

God can make a difference in your days.

13 Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants! 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Once the Psalmist evaluates himself correctly in light of the eternal God, he asks God to redeem his suffering.

Satisfy us in the morning directly counters the withering in the morning (5-6)

Why? because of his “steadfast love” (chesed) because of the covenant

God can redeem your days going forward if you are willing to allow him to make a difference in your day.

Philippians 3:13–14 (ESV)

13 Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Ask God to make a difference with your days.

16 Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. 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!

Don’t waste your year!

How might God want to use your days this year?

How will you pursue things in your day that will outlast you?

Will you be a day-waster or a difference-maker?

Remember, you have one life. That’s all. You were made for God. Don’t waste it.”

“It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, “I’ve wasted it!” then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of God and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God’s passion.”

“The greatest cause in the world is joyfully rescuing people from hell, meeting their earthly needs, making them glad in God, and doing it with a kind, serious pleasure that makes Christ look like the Treasure he is.” ― John Piper, Don't Waste Your Life

How will your days be different this year in order that God might make a difference through you this year?

The Goodness of God