Under His Wings

O God Our Help

Good morrning! I am Pastor Garey I pastor the small church plant that meets in the afternoons right here after you all meet. We, as a church, are deeply thankful for the opportunity to have a place that we might call home and thank you all very much. So, when Pastor Dan asked if I would be willing to fill in for him while he was on vacation it was an obvious answer for me. To provide for him and his family the opportunity to rest and relax is just a small way that we might be able to say thank you to him and to you all as well. This morning we are going to be looking at Psalm chapter 90. It is a very significant Psalm within the Psalter. For one it is the only Psalm that is said to have been written by Moses. Next it is important in its placement within the book of Psalms as well. It follows a grouping of Psalms that were written after the nation of Israel had seen glorious times under King David and then the Davidic lineage, but now it finds itself in ruins and much of the nation was being led away into exile. I find it interesting that these deeply troubled Psalms just prior are now followed up by Psalm 90. In fact Psalm 91 continues the theme that we are going to see begun today and so we will be looking at that Psalm next week. In fact Psalm 90 sets the tone for the next seventeen Psalms. Also this is said, in the title of the Psalm to be a prayer of Moses. It’s as though God in ordering the Psalms is saying, “Do not worry about the loss of the monarchy, I am God, and I was, am, and will always be your one true king! I was King in the time of Moses before David was even born, and I am still king to this very day and my kingship will last into eternity.

When the people of Israel faced struggles as they did when they fled Israel during the time of Moses and then wandered in the desert for forty years, and then later as they watched the glory of their nation crumble before their very eyes as the greatest, the brightest, and the youngest were carried away into exile and the nation was brought to ruin. We too are going to face dark and difficult days. Days when it is going to feel as though God is far from us and we have been abandoned in the midst of this sin soaked fallen world. As the people of Israel during these times in their history may have felt hopeless we too will experience these same emotions. Perhaps because we have lost a loved one, or sickness has come knocking at our door, or the loss of a job. Struggles and trials and the anxiety and depression and junk that come with living in the midst of a fallen world are going to be all too real for all of us here at some point in our lives. And so God chose to preserve for us this great Psalm. So that we might be reminded just as Moses was, just as the people were when the wandered in the desert, and then later as they were taken into exile. They were reminded by Psalm 90 that Jesus is our King and His is our Refuge. And so today my hope is that when those times come or perhaps they are for some of us here today, I hope that we might come to find our refuge in Christ Jesus. Amen. So let’s look at Psalm chapter 90.

It begins in verse one and reads.

Psalm 90:1 ESV

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Our creator, Our God, is first and foremost shown to have always been a place of rest and comfort for his people regardless of their circumstance and throughout all generations. Moses prays this prayer while wandering aimlessly in the midst of the desert. As God leads them in circles simply waiting patiently for forty years. For the entire generation who had come out of Egypt as adults had died. And so that a new generation had then arisen. Moses has seen the care, the compassion, and the comfort that God had brought during these uncertain times. And then later when the people of Israel read this Psalm watching their nation crumble around them they could lean on the fact that the loss of the human king did not change reality of God’s kingship in any way, shape, or form. God has reigned supreme over the whole of creation from before the time of Moses, or David, or the Davidic Kings, and he will continue to reign following the loss of the Davidic line. Jesus is still and will always be the dwelling place of His people. In fact we could say that Jesus is the only dwelling place that truly matters in life. Israel saw themselves, and Jerusalem, and the Temple as being impenetrable. God is the one that had founded the nation. But the idea that God is our dwelling place goes so far beyond the ideas of a nation, a temple, a sanctuary, or a refuge. The ultimate expression of went it meant for God’s people to dwell securely was never meant to be find in a city, or a temple, or even in a church. But, rather, always spiritually in their God.

What we are being encourage to do in this verse is to find spiritual refuge and strength in God. Because when we do we will find that this has real implications for living life in real terms.

Then in verse two we read.

Psalm 90:2 ESV

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

The very essence of our security is found in the eternal and unchangeable nature of our God. Before the earth and all of creation had been formed God was God. His was the great and high creator God. He was and is still sovereign over all that he has made. Moses is focused on the eternality of our God. We worship Jesus as the God who was, who is, and who is to come. In the next few verses Moses is going to contrast that with the shortness of human life. This is meant as a reminder that all of the individual events of human history although significant to each and every generation are but a moment from God’s perspective. And every single one of those events is under his control as our Creator and the one who ordains both life and death.

And so we next read in verse three.

Psalm 90:3 ESV

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

God’s sovereignty and eternality gives him complete control over the days of all mankind. Moses is simply stating the obvious here, that all of humanity sprang from dust from the beginning of the creation of man as written in Genesis chapter two verse seven and all of humanity must eventually return dust after their death which we read in Genesis chapter three verse nineteen. And it is the brevity or shortness of life that Moses is going to focus on in the next several verses bring before our eyes this grand contrast between the eternal nature of God and the finite nature of humanity.

In verse four we read.

Psalm 90:4 ESV

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

And then in verse five and six we read.

Psalm 90:5–6 ESV

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.

The point that Moses is making is that true security can only be found in the everlasting strength and stability of our God. Because all of us are marked by the frailty and temporary nature of the human condition. God is in control because he is the Eternal Creator God.

Now Moses is going to shift gears in the next several verses. And so we have seen God’s eternal nature compared to our finite nature. And now Moses is going to discuss God’s need as our perfect Father to at time rebuke us in His anger towards our sin. And so in verse seven we read.

Psalm 90:7 ESV

For we are brought to an end by your anger; by your wrath we are dismayed.

The words referencing Gods anger and wrath are meant as reminders of God’s warnings from the book of Deuteronomy concerning what would happen to the nation if they failed to keep the covenant once they had entered the land. And of course we know that they failed to do so. And so God’s anger and His wrath were poured out upon the nation of Israel. It is this combination of words that were associated with the ultimate punishment that Israel might face if they became unfaithful to God and His covenant with the people. And that punishment was exile. And so we should not see God’s wrath and anger as capricious. These words reflect a righteous response to a persistently rebellious people.

Moses continues in verse eight and he writes

Psalm 90:8 ESV

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

This is the very reason for God’s anger and his wrath. Sin will always provoke a response from God. We have essentially the same thing said twice here. Moses uses simply two different words for sin, our iniquities and our secret sins. And he combines them both with simply two different ways of representing the idea of presence. They are “before you” and they are in the light of your presence. I believe, Moses does this so as to magnify the situation that we all face. We all face a very real problem. And this is the problem. How can an absolutely holy God live among a sinful people? God’s anger is brought about by the continuous sins both known and unknown of his people. And the only means for the relationship that we so desire, so desperately need, between ourselves and God, is a complete and utter dependence upon the grace of God.

Then in verses nine and ten we read

Psalm 90:9–10 ESV

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.

Moses is now pouring out his heart before His God. He is saying that experiencing God’s anger simply adds to the frustration of living such a brief and troubled life. It is possible that a short life might be live in beautiful communion with our God, but a life lived under God’s wrath is both bitter and frustrating. And this is the life that Moses knew. Life can be both short and full of difficulty and grief, and in the end often times we groan our last breath and we simply pass away.

Moses continues in verse eleven and he writes

Psalm 90:11 ESV

Who considers the power of your anger, and your wrath according to the fear of you?

This is what Moses wants you to hear more than anything else. When we experience the righteous anger of God in our lives how do we respond? We should have a response of faithfulness to a faithful father who justly corrects his children. Anyone who understands the full extent of God’s righteous anger will respond with a desire to walk in His way by rejecting sin and striving after His holiness.

All of this leads Moses now in his prayer to come before him and plea for Gods help and mercy. And so we read in verse twelve.

Psalm 90:12 ESV

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

In the previous verse we were called to respond rightly to the anger of the Lord by exercising what we often times see in the Old Testament as the “fear of the Lord.” And verse twelve is what a right response looks like.

Moses cries out that God might teach us to understand just how finite our lives truly are. When we begin to see our lives in true perspective as but a vapor. Then we begin to see our need for God to be our dwelling place for true security. Then we will begin to find a heart of wisdom. And we will then we begin to approach life with prayerful awareness of our weakness and complete dependence upon God.

Moses continues and in verse thirteen he writes.

Psalm 90:13 ESV

Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on your servants!

Here we see the first usage of God’s divine covenantal name. This is the name Yahweh. Represented in most translations as the all capitalized word LORD. This is a clear reference back to the story of the rescue of Israel from Egypt and Moses request to see God. It is in Exodus chapters 32-34 that God has described the great sin of Israel in rejecting God when they built a golden idol to worship. It is then that God reveals His true nature in Exodus chapter 34 verses 6 through 7. Where we read.

Exodus 34:6–7 ESV

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

So when Moses moves into the heart of His prayer he now begins to use the covenantal name of God, Yahweh. This should remind us that God is, by nature, a God of grace, love, and forgiveness even when confronted with the unfaithfulness of His people. But, at the same time it should remind us that God is a good father. And as a good father he must punish sin. Moses continues in verses fourteen through sixteen and writes.

Psalm 90:14–16 ESV

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.

We need to understand that true joy in this life can only be experienced when we are walking in a right relationship with our God. And so Moses is praying for a renewal of joy in the life of the believer. And that means a renewal of right relationship with our God. That requires us to repent of our sin. And as the wrath of the Lord is felt for several generations. The grace and glorious power of the Lord is as well.

Finally in verse seventeen we read.

Psalm 90:17 ESV

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!

Through our Psalm we have seen this play between humanities frailty and rebellious nature and Gods eternality and divine wrath. Now we see that it is only by the undeserving grace of God that any relationship with our holy God might be maintained. This final request by Moses requests Gods favor for His people. Because without Gods favor there can be absolutely no hope for restoration to a right relationship with our God. And if there is no right relationship there is no hope at all.

And finally Moses requests that God would establish the work of their hands. Historically, we can see that God’s grace always had clear evidence in the experiences of His people. Here Moses is requesting that reality for the people of God.

It is only through God’s grace that we kind find purpose to this life and to the work that we do.

Amen.

So What?

At the end of all of my sermons I like to ask the question so what? So what does all of this have to do with me here today? It’s during this time that I try to land and 2-3 principles that I feel flow from the sermon that we should walk away with today. Principles that hopefully we can apply to our lives and walk out of here a people changed by the word of God.

So today I have two points that I want to discuss. The first is

Our Sin and Our Significance

Sin and Significance

Throughout the Old Testament we find this consistent question: How can a holy God dwell with a sinful people? Here in our Psalm we have clearly stated both the problem as well as the solution.

The problem is that God is infinite and we are not. And God in his perfect infinite righteousness is angered by our sin. And in a nutshell that anger should inspire us to change our behavior. But, we often times fail to do so. That is why it is only through the unwarranted grace and favor of our God that we might experience fellowship with Him and live our lives in a way that might leave a mark on this world in which we live. The key here is that the solution can not be found within us. It is found in God and God alone. Without his grace there is no hope of living rightly before him and no way of making a lasting real, important impact on the world around us.

This is one of those times I like to say, “But God..” But God in his infinite wisdom gave to us His one and only son. Jesus the Messiah.

How can a holy God dwell among a sinful people? By becoming one of us and literally dwelling among us. Jesus deals with not only one of the problems stated within this Psalm. The sin that causes us to be separated from a right relationship with our God. But, Jesus deals also with the brevity of life that is presented in this Psalm as well. Jesus on the cross not only dealt a final blow to the cost of sin in our lives. But he also delivered each of us into a state of eternal life with our God. In Christ Jesus we find that our sins are taken away which enables us live a rich relationship with our God. It is then through this relationship with our God that we can begin to find significance to our lives and the works of our hands.

Sounds all good and well. But, why do so many within the Christian community still struggle with feelings of unworthiness, finiteness, and a lack of purpose? Because we have lost sight of our true refuge in times of trouble. We easily forget that God is our dwelling place during times of struggle. When we lose sight of the truth of the work of Christ on the cross all we see our the worries of life, health, purpose, the sins that we have committed. When we find ourselves in this place we need to turn from our self-centered thoughts and look to Jesus. We need to turn to Jesus and the mercy he gives because only then can we return to a right relationship with Him. We need to understand just how deep the depths of our dependence are upon our Messiah our Jesus as our “dwelling place.” Then we will begin to experience lives shaped by the hand of Jesus shaped by the grace of Jesus. Lives the spring forth in joy and purpose for Jesus.

Next I want to talk about our brief lives.

Brief Lives

When I was younger there were these really wonderful things called newspapers that were delivered every morning. They were so cool. I know that there are a few that still exist to this day. But, there are few local newspapers still in print. One of the things that struck me when I was a teenager was how older people nearly always looked to the obituaries. I simply could not understand this need to look at the obituaries. It wasn’t until I became a little bit older that I began to realize why as the more people aged the more they read the obituaries. And the reason is because the older they became the more likely it was that they would find the names of those with whom they had lived this brief life. When we are young a seventy or eighty years seems like an eternity. But as time passes we soon realize that it really is but a brief moment in the history of this world.

Look, it’s a healthy thing to come to the realization that our lives are both frail and brief. In fact we need to come to this realization because if we do not we will never come to understand our need to depend upon our God as our dwelling place. This need to depend upon God should permeate the reality of every day that we live our lives. Everyone in this room is weak and sinful. It is only our God who can deal with both of these issues. Not a single person here today can demand from God our next breath. He and He alone has numbered our days. We need to begin to see every breath as a gift from our gloriously grace God. And listen the sooner we realize this the fuller our lives will be. Each and every one of us is a created being. And as such we can only find true meaning to our lives when we live that life in a right relationship with our creator. We need to have a healthy awareness of our dependence upon God so that we might live lives with meaning and with purpose.

This Psalm gives some very good advice on how it is that we might live these brief lives that we have well. The first request that Moses makes is found in verse twelve. He writes, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” There are never enough hours in the day, nor days within a week, nor weeks within a month, nor months with a year, nor years within a life to be able to do everything one might imagine him or herself doing. We we consider this truth and the fact that seventy years is truly not that long of a time is it really all that important to watch that tv show or movie. Please, I’m not trying to beat up on TV shows or movies. I won’t lie I chose them because I’m not much of a fan. I often times find it difficult to sit long enough to watch much TV or to watch a movie. I am often times asking my wife how long is this episode or this movie. You can substitute many things that use up your time for tv or movies. Each of us know those things that tend to grab or even perhaps “steal” our time. Today for many it is the death scroll through facebook or tik tok all dependent upon your age. Moses encourages us to number our days. We need to have an understanding and we need to prioritize those things that are truly important or carry an eternal value. When we begin to do this we will than gain or reap is what the hebrew literally states “a heart of wisdom.”

So, what is a heart of wisdom. It is a heart that is attuned to God’s will and purpose for our lives. It seeks to live life successfully in God’s good but fallen world. Look there are things in life that should play a part in our patterns of life that we live as created creatures within our God’s creation. Worship and work, rest and play, family and good food, sunrises and sunsets — all these and many more play roles in a life well lived. We should seek God’s will and purpose for our lives day by day, moment by moment and live each day in a vibrant relationship with Jesus as our dwelling place.

Finally in verse seventeen Moses helps us in finding meaning in this brief life. Some of us here today might be homemakers or statesmen, warehouse workers or business leaders, farmers or civil servants. Each and every one of us want to find significance in the work that we do. I will not lie I often times struggle with this as my full time job is working in an Amazon fulfillment center. I can not lie. It’s not very fulfilling at times. This desire is not a bad desire. We need to recognize that it is ultimately a spiritual reality though. Often times we get stuck in a rut seeing our jobs as simply a means to pay the bills. But we all recognize that we were made for something more than that. Moses closing prayer is one that understands that for our work to have meaning and to be fulfilling is must be a work of the eternal God. What does that mean though and look like. It means that our labors should be prayerful. It is only then that we can have a permanent impact on the world around us. Our labors must be covered in prayer. Prayer is the beginning of the labors that we work at. Moses prayer is almost an echo of Proverbs chapter sixteen verse three, “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” When we live a life of prayerful devotion to God, to his will, and to his purpose we will then begin to follow Jesus as the great shepherd of the flock. Then, though our lives may be brief, Jesus will leads through lives that our full of meaning and purpose.

Amen.

Amen.

Let us pray.

Father God....

Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.