Ps 90 (Victory)

Loanne & I

Married 16 years ago

Loanne baptized at Victory

Moved to France a year later

Married Loanne 16 years ago

Felt God calling us to plant a church

Education - Strasbourg, England & Ireland

Planted a church in central Paris with Acts 29 in September 2014

Eglise Connexion

Central Paris

2.2 million people

Only a handful of solid, gospel-centered, Bible-preaching churches

Châtelet-Les Halles

The center of the center

The goal: give everyone who lives in and around the city reasonable access to the gospel.

Access to Châtelet in 20 minutes from outside the city limits

Church has grown from 6 to 160 in less than 5 years (the average evangelical church in France runs 30-50 people).

Mostly young singles

Eight couples in pre-marital counseling

Fifteen babies born in the last two years (the most recent being two weeks ago)

Mostly young Christians

The most frequent testimony at baptisms: “Grew up in church, but I didn’t understand the gospel.”

Connexion

Moved to France a year later

Jack, Zadie

> Expository preaching—books of the Bible (Luke)

Eglise Connexion

I don’t presume to know what would be useful for you to hear, but every summer we go through a selection from each book of the Psalms together in our church; so I thought that today we could do a similar exercise together, in .

Mostly young adults (though more variety now)

In , there are three subjects which Moses hovers around and circles back to constantly.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place

And he’s going to respond to these three subjects with three distinct prayers at the end of the Psalm.

So the first big theme of the psalm is God’s eternity—or eternality.

throughout all generations.

2 Before the mountains were born

or you brought forth the whole world,

V. 1:

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place

throughout all generations.

2 Before the mountains were born

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

or you brought forth the whole world,

So that’s where Moses is going: he’ll be talking about time, and why God is fit to be a dwelling

from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

We see the same idea in v. 4:

4 A thousand years in your sight

are like a day that has just gone by,

or like a watch in the night.

One of the fundamental facts of God’s existence is his eternity—

That’s where we get the idea that God has always existed and will always exist—he will live for all eternity, and he has lived for all eternity before creating the world.

he has always existed, and will always exist.

We see the same idea in v. 4:

In this way he is totally unique;

4 A thousand years in your sight

there is nothing else that is eternal.

The second big theme is a contrast with God’s eternity—it is the temporary nature of man.

are like a day that has just gone by,

V. 5:

5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—

they are like the new grass of the morning:

6 In the morning it springs up new,

but by evening it is dry and withered.

And in v. 10:

10 Our days may come to seventy years,

or eighty, if our strength endures;

yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,

for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Compared to God’s eternity, a man’s lifespan is like a weed which sprouts up in the morning and is withered by evening.

So Moses takes the time to establish this temporal distance that exists between us and God—that he is eternal, and we are temporary.

It’s actually the perfect illustration of the existential distance which between God and ourselves in every other way.

We constantly try to remake God into our image, but it just doesn’t work; he has shared with us a handful of his attributes, but he is not like us.

The third big theme of the psalm is the reason why that distance exists—our own sin.

V. 3:

3 You turn people back to dust,

saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”

Moses clearly has in mind (he wrote it, after all):

or like a watch in the night.

One of the fundamental facts

V. 1-10: God, Eternity and Us

V. 1-10: God, Eternity and Us

Intro: v. 1—Dwelling place

That’s where he’s going, but it’ll take some pain to get there.

19  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

3 subjects Moses hovers around and circles back to constantly, which he will respond to in 3 distinct prayers.

(he wrote it, after all): 19  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

In case that wasn’t quite explicit enough, he goes on—v. 7:

God’s Eternity

7 We are consumed by your anger

and terrified by your indignation.

8 You have set our iniquities before you,

v.2: From everlasting to everlasting

our secret sins in the light of your presence.

9 All our days pass away under your wrath;

v. 4: 1000 years = like a day

Man’s Temporality (temporariness)

v. 5: they are like the new grass of the morning

we finish our years with a moan.

v. 10: 70-80 years of trouble and sorrow

Moses takes the time to establish the temporal distance between us and God

In other words, sin is the reason we have an expiration date.

So here’s what I think Moses is getting at.

Loanne sent me a video last week she knew I would like.

It’s the perfect illustration of the distance which actually exists between us, in every other way.

It was an animation model of how scientists predict the universe will end.

At the beginning, it showed one year every second; then it doubled its speed every five seconds.

And it is unsettling.

At the end of the first minute, we were 25,000 years into the future.

At the end of three minutes, we were at the destruction of the earth by the death of the sun, 7 billion years from now.

Because the reason for that distance is...

The video was thirty minutes long.

Sin (the Reason for that distance)

Usually I love that stuff, but the longer I watched it, the more unsettled I felt.

Up to the end of the earth I was fine,

but after that, it was suffocating, watching all these things happening in the universe, with no life around to witness it.

And that’s not even eternity—just a really, really long time.

v. 3: You turn people back to dust

you shall eat bread,

It was profoundly unsettling. And that’s the right reaction.

till you return to the ground,

Human beings aren’t meant to contemplate transcendance and feel good about themselves.

for out of it you were taken;

Moses clearly has in mind (he wrote it, after all): 19  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

for you are dust,

v. 7-9: Consumed by your anger.

and to dust you shall return.”

v. 11: If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

v. 9: Wrath => death in moaning

In other words, sin is the reason we have an expiration date.

Death, where is your victory, death where is your sting?

The video Loanne sent me

How scientists predict the universe will end (if it runs its course)

1 year every second

Doubles speed every five seconds

1:00: 25,000 years

3:00: Destruction of the earth by the death of the sun, 7 billion years

Video = 30 minutes long

UNSETTLING…and that’s the right reaction.

It’s the perfect illustration of the distance which actually exists between us, in every other way.

And it

Human beings aren’t meant to contemplate transcendance and feel good about themselves.

No one goes to the Grand Canyon and says, “I’m awesome.”

And we’re not meant to think about God’s eternity and feel good about ourselves.

And that’s right.

Because that is the distance that exists betw

Because the reason for that

Man’s temporality (temporariness)

Sin (the reason for that distance)

Eternal in both directions

We’re meant to see God’s eternity,

and our temporality,

and the infinite distance between us that we see there…

and we’re supposed to be afraid.

And I’m not making an assumption there—Moses says as much in v. 11:

If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

v. 11: If only we knew the power of your anger! Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.

These truths are meant to frighten us a little,

because they show us who we are, and who he is in comparison.

We are not infinite, we are finite—

and we have made ourselves smaller still because we’ve sinned against a holy God.

It’s a crushing reality, and we’re meant to feel a little crushed.

So how does Moses respond to these things?

He doesn’t stay crushed.

Moses establishes these three truths, and then responds to them with three distinct prayers.

3 Prayers (v. 12-17)

v. 2: From everlasting to everlasting

So Moses establishes these three truths, and then responds to them with three distinct prayers.

1. “Teach us”, v. 12

“Teach us...”

v. 4: A thousand years = like a day

It’s a bit counter-intuitive, since he’s just said that the knowledge of God’s wrath against sin should drive us to fear.

Why run towards the One who is the reason for your fear?

Because if he’s big enough to crush us, he’s also big enough to protect us from being crushed.

It’s the difference between being in a building, and being under it.

The distance between us and God is why he is a refuge for us.

So he asks God to teach us—teach us what?

“Teach us to number our days...”

A while back, Jack asked me how long he would live.

It’s a terrifying question for a parent,

because you don’t want to lie to your kids,

but at the same time you don’t want to scare them.

I told him I didn’t know for sure,

but healthy people can live anywhere between seventy and a hundred years old,

sometimes even more, often a little less.

The funny thing is, I thought talking about death in this way would bother Jack, but it didn’t.

Eighty years feels like an eternity to a seven-year-old, and the idea of death is a purely theoretical notion—

I thought that discussion would bother him, but it didn’t, because little kids feel invincible.

kids think they’re invincible.

And if we’re honest, we all do,

until something happens—an illness, the death of a loved one—to wake us up to how fragile we are.

And even then, that realization only lasts a while—

we get better, life continues,

and we get used to life’s rhythm again,

and we go back to feeling pretty strong.

Moses knows this, so he doesn’t rely on circumstance to drive the message home to us.

He doesn’t assume that because he’s older now,

of course he understands this.

He asks God to teach us.

But why? (This is the important thing.)

“Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

To put it simply, when we truly realize how short our lives are,

we are able to see our lives more clearly.

The “heart of wisdom” that comes from knowing how short our lives are only ever tells us one thing:

Everything we do is totally useless if we don’t do it in him, and for his glory.

(Remember the line from that old poem from Studd:

“Only one life, twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last”)

I feel almost silly saying this here, since it’s so obvious...

but how much of our time is spent on things that just don’t matter at all?

How much of our free time is spent on things we’re not going to remember a thousand years from now (or even a week from now)?

How much of our ministry is spent on things that just don’t matter (in any ultimate way)?

How many of us have had the experience of beginning our ministries full of fire and passion and optimism about what we’re doing, only to see all of that passion get stale over the years?

How many of us have had the experience of beginning our ministries full of fire and passion and optimism about what we’re doing, only to see all of that passion get stale over the years?

The more time goes by, the more I’m convinced this isn’t just what happens when we get older.

The more time goes by, the more we try to fill our ministries and our lives with tasks,

boxes we can check,

We fill our lives and ministries with tasks whose main goal is to remind everyone of how relevant we still are...

...when all the while, what gave our work meaning at the beginning was the simple work we did for no other reason than because the Bible tells us to, and because we wanted to glorify God.

...when all the while, what gave our work meaning at the beginning was the simple work we did for no other reason than because the Bible tells us to,

and because we wanted to glorify God.

Moses’s prayer brings us back to basics—

he asks God to show us just how little time we have left,

to not just be efficient, but wise.

to see what is actually worth pursuing,

(And he’s going to take it even further in a minute.)

and which is simply padding.

2. “Satisfy us” (v. 14-15)

s

14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,

that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

for as many years as we have seen trouble.

I won’t let the Calvinist in me come out too strongly here—v. 15 is one of my favorite verses, and I could talk about it for hours.

But in this case, I don’t even need to—Moses makes his point perfectly clear in v. 14.

Think about how amazing this is for a minute.

Moses asks God to help him see the length of his life, to get a heart of wisdom.

But he doesn’t ask God to change anything about his life itself.

He doesn’t ask God to give him a longer life,

or to miraculously intervene so that his life could have more meaning.

He asks God for a heart of wisdom,

to see what “a life of meaning” actually looks like.

And he asks God to satisfy him with the life he has now.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love.

We really need to pay attention to what he’s saying here—

God’s love is unfailing,

and in that, we should be totally and completely satisfied, joyful, and glad.

Because no matter what we’re going through, or what holes we’ve dug ourselves into, nothing has fundamentally changed.

There are always two questions I ask our people when they are struggling with doubt, or fear, or sin.

Who are you?

The first is Who are you?

Where are you going?

Who are you? (I’m not expecting an answer, but I’m actually asking.)

Who are you?

The Bible tells us who we are.

:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

:

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

:

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

I try to hammer this home to our people all the time, because they are young, and often filled with uncertainty:

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

there is nothing inconstant about their status before God.

jesus didn’t just come to make it possible for us to be saved; he came to save us.

He lived the life God commands us to live,

and he suffered the death we deserved for our rebellion against him.

He put on all of our sins—past, present and future—

and was punished for them.

And in exchange for that sins, he gave us his perfect life, lived for us,

so that now, when God looks at us, he doesn’t see sinners—

he sees the perfect life of his Son.

That’s why in nearly all of Paul’s letters, he greets the Christians in these churches by calling them “saints.”

Not “friends.”

Not “struggling Christians.”

Not even “sinners saved by grace.”

He calls them—and us—“saints” (or in the NIV, “holy people”).

This is the only thing about us that matters at all anymore:

we are his.

We are new.

We are in Christ.

We are not our job,

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

we are not our effectiveness,

we are not our family.

We are HIS.

That is who we are.

And that is all we need to be.

Where are you going?

The second question I ask is: Where are you going?

People have asked me what I hope will be my “legacy” will be,

what I hope people will remember about my ministry in fifty or sixty years.

My answer is invariably the same: “I don’t care.”

My answer: “I don’t care.”

I really don’t.

Think about it—

no one’s going to be talking about how great my ministry was in heaven.

“Did you see what he did? Man, he could kill it!”

They’ll talk about how great his ministry was, and hopefully I’ll be able to look back and see that he used me to do it.

But that’s not what I’m working for. I don’t care about a legacy.

Where I’m going, I’m going to be with him,

to enjoy his glory forever,

with the millions of brothers and sisters from around the globe whom Christ drew to himself.

Ultimately, we are going to be with him, to enjoy his glory forever.

No matter what we’re going through,

or what holes we’ve dug ourselves into,

nothing has fundamentally changed.

Who are we, and where are we going?

All any man or woman living today has ever known has been a short life in a broken world.

We are HIS, and we are going to live eternally with HIM.

And Moses prays that that simple knowledge would be the only thing that matters to us.

So essentially, Moses says to God, “All we have known is brokenness, for as long as we can remember; so I’m asking you to satisfy us, for as long as we can imagine.”

That we would be satisfied with his steadfast love, which hasn’t gone anywhere.

That we would sing for joy and be glad all our days, no matter what is going on around us.

Because it is only if we are satisfied in God that the last prayer makes any sense.

3. “Establish the work of our hands” (v. 16-17)

V. 16:

16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,

your splendor to their children.

17 May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us;

establish the work of our hands for us—

yes, establish the work of our hands.

There are multiple contrasts at play here that are impossible to miss.

The most obvious one is that in v. 16 he says, “Let YOUR work be shown to your servants,”

and in v. 17 he says, “Establish the work of OUR hands.”

In other words, our work will only be of lasting significance if it isn’t our work, but his.

Our work will only be of lasting significance if it isn’t our work, but his.

And then there is the simple contrast between the temporary nature of everything we do

(as he spoke of in the first eleven verses of this psalm),

and the lasting glory of what God does.

Once again, we see that we are horribly finite and temporary, and God is wonderfully eternal and powerful.

In other words, our work will only be of lasting significance if it isn’t our work, but his.

That he would take something which, under ordinary circumstances, would be flimsy and short-lived,

and make it durable, and worthwhile.

Now we often imagine that dynamic as being very “us-centered”.

When we see this prayer to “establish the work of our hands,” we imagine something like this:

I have a project, I have something I think I should do,

and I ask God to make it work.

That’s not what he’s talking about.

He’s saying that everything we do is totally useless if we don’t do it in him, through him, and for him.

And that is why, earlier, he asked God to teach us to number our days.

The “heart of wisdom” that comes from knowing how short our lives are only ever tells us one thing.

Everything we do is totally useless if we don’t do it in him, through him, and for him.

(Remember the line from that old poem from Studd:

“Only one life, twill soon be past, only what's done for Christ will last”)

I feel almost silly saying this here, since it’s so obvious...

but how much of our time is spent on things that just don’t matter at all?

How much of our free time is spent on things

we’re not going to remember a thousand years from now (or even a week from now)?

How much of our ministry is spent on things that are of zero lasting significance?

And I’m not knocking things which aren’t directly

How many of us have had the experience of beginning our ministries full of fire and passion and optimism about what we’re doing,

only to see all of that passion get stale over the years?

The more time goes by, the more I’m convinced this isn’t just a by-product of getting older.

The more time goes by, the more we try to fill our ministries and our lives with tasks,

with boxes we can check,

whose main goal is to remind everyone how relevant we still are...

...when all the while, what gave our work meaning at the beginning was the simple work we did for no other reason than because the Bible told us to,

and because we wanted to glorify God.

Everything we do is totally useless if we don’t do it in him, through him, and for him.

If we want him to establish the work of our hands, it has to be his work.

And because of Christ’s work on our behalf, it’s finally possible.

After all this time it seems we’ve spent working for nothing,

finally we have the possibility of not laboring in vain.

Finally, we can work for something which will last not only beyond our lives,

but beyond our children’s lives, and their children’s lives.

And it has literally nothing to do with our profession or our vocation.

I could be a garbage man and say the exact same thing about myself.

Because we are in Christ, and we are working for his glory and through his power,

we work for something which will last forever,

which will be of eternal significance.

No matter what that work is.

Only the eternal God can make something eternally significant.

And now, in Christ (to quote Derek Kidner), “not only God’s work…will endure, but, with his blessing, the work of our hands as well.”

Conclusion

The point of all this?

Particularly for people who work in ministry?

Ministry isn’t a job. We are not professionals.

We have the odd privilege of being paid to spend our days in a place where we’re reminded day in and day out that our jobs are not who we are.

And while we do want to strive for excellence in everything we do,

we are gravely mistaken if we think that because we did excellent work,

that work means something.

Our excellence does not give our work value.

And we can see that by the way Moses prays.

When Moses establishes this frightening distance between ourselves and God,

he does not first ask that God would make him an effective minister.

He asks that God would make him wise,

and that God would make him happy in God’s unfailing love.

Because it is only in that context that anything we do makes any kind of lasting sense.

It is only after asking God to make us satisfied people

that he asks God to establish the work of our hands,

and he’s very clear that the lasting impact of our work has nothing at all to do with us.

In other words, God is far less concerned with the work we do, than with the people we ARE.

Who are we, and where are we going?

We are his.

That will never change.

We are going to be with him.

That will never change.

So we can live satisfied,

and work satisfied,

and not be afraid,

because in a thousand years,

we will still be his,

and we will still be wih him.

And that’s all that will matter.