Make your life count!
Notes
Transcript
WELCOME:
Christmas Eve service was so good.
New Years Eve we will meet here in the sanctuary for prayer at 5:00. No food. No Bible Study. Just God’s people coming together in prayer
Members meeting right after service today.
SCRIPTURE READING:
Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;
LET US STAND AND WORSHIP!
“The Goodness of God”
Words and Music by Hillsong’
PRAYER OF PRAISE FOR WHO GOD IS
Lord, thank you for your constancy. For never turning Your back on us, for never getting frustrated with us, for forgiving our sins, for allowing us to be part of Your plan. We ask that You would look down upon this gathering of people and fill our hearts with great joy today as we focus on You. Amen!
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
“What a beautiful Name”
Words and Music by Hillsong
PRAYER OF ILLUMINATION TO OPEN OUR HEARTS
Lord, give us ears to hear Your voice and eyes to see Your glory. Would you this morning illuminate Your Word and make it known to us? Help us no to make application to others peoples’ lives, but to apply every Word to our own lives. Amen
SERMON
INTRODUCTION:
We are going to finish out this year with one more Psalm. I’ve saved this Psalm and I wasn’t sure if I’d even preach it, but it speaks so clearly and so plainly and with such common sense wisdom that it would be unloving of me to skip it.
Here we are attending the final worship service of 2025. And we will move right into 2026 next week as if things will just keep going this way forever. And that’s just the way people tend to live. And in the blink of an eye we will be at the final worship service of 2026, and before you know it, it’ll be 2030 and some of the people we see every single Sunday will be gone. Some moved away, some fallen away, some passed away.
This is just the way life is. Our lives are short. Time moves much quicker than we realize.James says, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes”. (James 4:14, NIV).
What I want to speak about today is “how to make your life count”. Life is short, and if we are not careful we will wake up one day and it will be over and much of the time we have been allotted here on earth had been wasted away.
What God wants for us to BE WISE and make our lives count! It doesn’t matter what age we are, young or old we can begin to live our lives in with meaning so that they count.
I want us to look at Psalm 90 today. It is a Psalm just about the subject of making life count. It is a Psalm that teaches us to use our time wisely. It is a Psalm that shows us what is meaningful and what is not. And I THINK IT IS A VERY FITTING WAY TO END 2025.
The Everlasting God
The Everlasting God
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.
Explanation:
This Psalm was written by Moses (and we know that because if you look at the heading it says, A prayer of Moses). And it is the only Psalm in the Psalter that Moses has written.
Moses is one of my biblical heroes because of his great humility. We spoke about this a few weeks ago. And when he wrote this Psalm, it was a somber, serious reflection upon his life and the life of the people he led.
It takes great humility to have this kind of honesty and transparency. And I’m thankful that Moses was this kind of man that we can learn so much from.
The Psalm is a prayer. We read that in the title to and it’s not hard to discern because of all the first person pronouns used over and over again: “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations”.
Keeping these small details in mind will help us understand the message in this Psalm for us today.
In these first two verses Moses recognizes two things:
1) God is eternal.
“From everlasting to everlasting, You are God”. That is a personal confession about who God is. And he is simply stating that God stands far above this world. In fact God is so far above this world that he stands outside of the dimension of time.
Everlasting means forever. He is from everlasting to everlasting meaning He has no beginning and He has no end. God is eternal.
He was here before the earth had ever come into existence. Before the sun had ever shined, before time itself was a things, God was there.
AND the point is God stands outside of time, over and above His creation. All that we know and experience cannot compare the existence of God, His power, his omniscience, His omnipresence.
2) God is the One who shelters His people.
“You have been our dwelling place IN ALL GENERATIONS”.
Dwelling place just means a shelter. Like a place of refuge that one would run to when they are in trouble.
In the book of Numbers, God had Moses designate 6 cities which were called, “cities of refuge”. And the purpose of these cities were to provide a place of refuge for people who have committed manslaughter to protect them from the victims avenger.
So let’s say someone was working with another person building an house and accidentally knocked him off the roof and he died. He would flee to a city of refuge where he would be kept safe and sheltered until he had received a fair hearing.
This says GOD IS OUR REFUGE. Just like that city where people escaped to hide from danger, Moses says God Himself is the One to whom he would run to when we they were in danger.
But God a s a refuge wasn’t just for Moses or the Children of Israel, but for ALL GENERATIONS. For Joseph who lived 4 centuries earlier, and Abraham, and all the apostles thousands of years later…God is the refuge for ALL GENERATIONS.
God stands outside of time, eternal all powerful, like a brick fortress welcoming people to run to Him. He shelters, protects, preserves, and cares for His people.
In contrast to the everlasting God, Moses moves into the swiftness of the human life
The swiftness of the human life
The swiftness of the human life
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 as a watch in the night. You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep; In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew. In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew; Toward evening it fades and withers away.
Explanation:
One things we see here is that it is God who determines the span of a human life
“You turn man back into dust”
“You have swept them away”
The point being God creates man and God bring a human life to end. It is God who numbers our days. It’s God who determines how long we will live.
And down in verse 10 the Bible says we live 70 years maybe 80 years and thats it. That’s awfully accurate because google says the average human life today is 78.4 years.
Then Moses compares our temporal lives with God’s eternal existence: “For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it passes by”
To the Lord a thousand years is a day on this earth. We see a day go by and its not big deal, just another 24 hour period, BUT IN ETERNITY, that would be said of a thousand year period!
Imagine what see happen here in a thousand years. Our entire nation is only about 250 years old. If you were alive to see the Great Depression, we would say you have lived such a long life, in fact you are an artifact of history! But 10 lives like that would be like a day in eternity.
In only 6,000 years you would lived long enough to see the entire existence of the human race. The fall of man, the earth completely flooded, and then repopulated, the rise of Kings, the coming of Jesus, the resurrection, the church age..and that would be like only a week in eternity
When looking at these two very different realities, its amazing to me how much effort Christian people put into trying to extend their earthly life by just a few years. They will spend an hour every day exercising to stay healthy, they will eat food that tastes terrible for every meal, they will consume animal dewormer, they will inject things into their bodies to make them look younger, put so much effort in trying to add a few years to their puny little earthly lives.
Isn’t it foolish when we read Psalms like this that put time into perspective, to put all of our emphasis on this life that is here today and gone tomorrow? 70 years maybe 80 years if things go really well for you…
Isn’t it foolish to live like this life is all there is, especially for those who at the same time confess with their mouths that there is a heaven which is our true home?
I’m not saying we should not take care of ourselves. I’m not saying we should not exercise, or practice some self-control and eat a good diet. Or never take any medicine
But I am saying to put more effort into the hear and now and not on eternity is to live like a fool.
Paul says it like this:
“for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” (1 Tim 4:8)
This is what Paul is saying: if you take care of your bodies, there will be a little profit for us, but only in this life. If you pursue godliness there will be tremendous payoff both in this life and in the life to come….which is the place where a day here that goes by so quick is like a thousand years there
This is what I am saying to us as we move into 2026….don’t make your life all about this life! Don’t let your decisions you make only benefit you in this life! We have to be people who keep our eyes on eternity
We need wisdom to make our life count
We need wisdom to make our life count
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 the light of 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 seventy years, Or if due to strength, eighty 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? So teach us to number our days, That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
Explanation:
Let’s keep in mind again, that this psalm was written by Moses. And these verses would be recalling a time in Moses life, most likely in the wilderness wanderings when he saw God bring judgement after judgement upon the Children of Israel for their sinfulness.
They refused to trust God and move into the Promise Land
When they first came into the Wilderness, they said life was better in Egypt to be enslaved to Pharoah
They constantly complained against Moses and God because of food, water, or the kind of food they were given by the Lord
They worshiped idols
Even Moses struck the rock in anger and never made it across the Jordan to the Promise Land.
Many died prematurely because of their sin and rebellion against the Lord.
What a sad reflection of the life of a people. I can’t imagine standing at the end of my life knowing that my life was characterized by unfaithfulness to God.
I wonder how many people today will end their life with a similar reflection. Chastisement after chastisement. One sin after another. God says do this and they say no, Im going to do it my way.
Church we must not let this not be us. Let us not be the ones who say, “I understand the anger of His fury”
But Moses doesn’t just state their failures, he appeals to God for mercy: “teach us to number our days, that we may present to you a heart of wisdom”
That is to understand how very short this life truly is and live everyday in faithfulness to God!
We all have a choice. Each day we wake up and we can have the heart of a disciple or we can wake up each day and spend out our short lives living for life.
Anything less than this is a life wasted!
Living to store up treasures on earth where moths and thieves take it
Living for the pleasures of this world which die with this world
Living for this swift life instead of living for eternity
How do we make our lives count? By living each and every day in the dead center of God’s will. Doing exactly what God wants us to do. That is a life not wasted!
And sometimes that may seem very insignificant, but I assure you it is not.
And sometimes that may be very difficult and require patience, and grit, but it will not be wasted
I love the story of the feeding of the 5,000. There are many great truths in that story but one that always stands out to me the clearest is when Jesus feeds all those people, and then tells the disciples to go around and pick up all the fragments, “so that nothing is wasted”
Jesus wastes nothing in our lives
I think that we believe that when we choose to surrender our will to Jesus, we are going to throw our lives in the garbage can and all will be wasted. That we are going to miss out on so much the world has to offer, that our kids are going to miss out on so much by not playing all the sports, and taking all the vacations, and not having the relationships that everyone else in the world gets to have AND that our time, our money, our dreams EVERYTHING WILL JUST BE WASTED IS WE TRULY COMMIT OURSELVES TO HIM.
But the truth is WE are the ones who waste our lives away by clinging to all those things rather than clinging to Christ and what He has to offer. We run day after day, year after year, pursuit after pursuit, seeking this fulfillment in all these things that can never give us what we are longing for the most. And every person who does will eventually wake up one day only to realize how much time we have truly wasted.
You wanna make a good return on your gift of life? Then you must place it completely in the hand of Jesus and trust Him with it. He wastes nothing!
And how does Moses plan to get this wisdom to number his days? He asks God to teach Him..
All wisdom comes from God. Wisdom is not the same as knowledge. Knowledge is knowing something. Wisdom is knowing what to do with what you know.
Two people can read the same chapter in the Bible and get the same truth out of that chapter. The wise person will unknown how to use that truth, the one who lacks wisdom will only know that truth.
POINT: This is what I’m saying church: If we want to know how to make our lives count, we are going to have to ask God to teach us. It doesn’t matter where you are in life, you can make the rest of your life count if you will ask God to teach you how.
This is what I’m saying to us: Spend time in prayer about how you can make your life count in this new year. Spend time asking God to teach you how to number your days. And if you do, the Bible says God will give it.
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him.
I want us to see one other thing before we move on: Look up at the heading of this Psalm at what it says: “A Prayer of Moses, the man of God”.
It makes perfect sense to us for a relatively new believer to ask God for wisdom about how to live his life so that it counts…but most of us who have been walking with the Lord for some time secretly think we’ve got it all figured out.
But if Moses, whom Scripture calls the man of God, who knew God face to face, who was well in his 70’s or 80’s when he wrote this Psalm….needed wisdom from God shouldn’t we be humble enough to admit thy we need still need God’s wisdom too?
No matter how much we have failed in the past, God can still make our life count
Moses spent 4 verses speaking of the judgement and death that he had seen because of sinful foolish mistakes…some of them being his own.
Yet He still knows God is a God of mercy and kindness second chances.
And so even as sinful and rebellious as Israel has been, he still prays and asks God to teach Him to make his days count.
It is God’s work that makes our life count!
It is God’s work that makes our life count!
Do return, O Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for Your servants. O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness, 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 have seen evil. 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.
Explanation:
“Confirm the work of our hands; yes, confirm the work of our hands”
Do you know what makes our lives count? Spending our lives doing the work of God.
Do we know that if we begin praying for God to show us how to make our life count, that there is a great chance it will not be ways that make our lives great here on earth.
If were hearing from God to go make a bunch of money and put all of our emphasis on the things of this world and ourselves then we are probably not hearing from God.
God’s work is where God wants us to be busy. And God does not save people just so that they become saints, he saves people that they become servants of His.
God has made each of us. And God who stands outside of time and placed us on this earth, at this specific time, in this specific place, to be a part of His work
Our lives will never be more meaningful, until we are dead smack in the middle of God’s will. And only then will we live this life wisely and numbering our days knowing what we did counted for eternal things.
But that means we must want it, and be willing to sacrifice for it.
But the payoff will be tremendous!
My question to you is this: what do you need to do today to make your life really count? Maybe you are doing exactly what God has for you and you know that without a shadow of a doubt. And maybe God is saying to you through this Psalm, don’t throw your life away for things that perish, work for God and you will spend your days as a wise man or woman
~PRAYER~
Business Meeting
Business Meeting
Opening Prayer
Reading of last months minutes
Any Questions?
Vote to approve last months minutes
Treasurers Report
Any Questions?
Vote to approve the treasurers report
Unfinished Business
Sign
Spend enough to landscape the base
New Business
New budget proposal
Vote in Mary Glenn Johnson
Any other new business?
Meeting adjourned
