Living Wisely in Fragile Times W/ Pastor Ericka

When the world feels unstable and life reminds us how fragile it is, where do we turn? In this message from Psalm 90, Pastor Ericka explores Moses’ prayer, “Teach us to number our days,” and invites us to anchor our lives in the eternal God who is our dwelling place in every generation. When our days are placed in His hands, even fragile lives can be lived with wisdom, purpose, and hope.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

We're gonna go into we're in this new series, and Psalm 90 is where we will go today. Um, and it reminds us that that rock of our salvation has always been the one with us, the one that has held us together. And it's exactly the kind of um statement and prayer that we need right now. This is a prayer prayed by someone who knew what it meant to stand in the presence of death and to still cling to the faithfulness of God. I want to invite you to stand and we'll read together Psalm 90. As you're grabbing your Bibles, or if you want to look on, we are reading from the NIV. In this prayer, Moses teaches us how to live when we're reminded that life is so fragile and it's so short. And so I warn you now that this I say this all the time. I wish that I could preach something that was uh light and bubbly, but we're not in those times. So let's be worshipers that worship and even listen and receive the word in spirit and in truth. We hold the sobering reality of the word. This is a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations. Before the mountains were born, or you brought forth the whole world from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. You turn people back to dust, saying, Return to dust, you mortals. A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night. Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death. They are like the new grass of the morning. In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered. We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation. You have set your our iniquities before you. Our secret sins in the light of your presence, all our days pass away under your wrath, and we finish our years with a moan. 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 then we fly away. If only we knew the power of your anger, your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, Lord, how long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. 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. This is the prayer and the word for the people of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let us pray. Lord, we have some word to walk through. And so my prayer today is simple: Holy Spirit, come. Anointing come to preach what feels heavy, what we already come in feeling heavy. But I just recognize that these are just words that you've given me, unless you breathe on them. You know us individually, you know us name by name in this space. Even those that are watching through live stream, Lord, speak to us individually, and we'll be changed. In Jesus' name. Amen. The author of this psalm is not a young man writing poetry. This is written by an old shepherd who knows his days are almost over. And these are the words of a man who has learned the cost of a single moment. Step out of Psalm 90 and remind you that near the end of Israel's wilderness journey, God once told Moses to speak to a rock so water would come out for the people. And of course, Moses was angry and tired of the grumbling of Israel. And so instead he struck the rock. Because of God's faithfulness, water still flowed. But that moment changed the final chapter of his life. God told Moses, because of this, he would see the promised land, but he would never enter it. So when Moses prays this full discourse that we just read, teach us to number our days, those words carry weight, the weight of experience, the weight at the end of a life. That I wonder sometimes if he feels like was wasted or could have been more. He knows how quickly a lifetime passes and how deeply we need God to be our refuge. By the time Moses prayed this prayer, he would have walked with God now for decades. He'd seen all of the great stories that we love to retell. How God split the Red Sea, how he watched, they watched bread. What is this? This is manna fall from heaven. They ate the bread from heaven. He'd witnessed miracle after miracle. And yet he had also spent 40 years watching an entire generation wander in the wilderness because of their rebellion and distrust of God. God had declared that this generation would die in the wilderness and never see the land he promised. Think about that for a minute. How many funerals Moses likely presided over. These were the people who saw the Red Sea, and yet they continued to wander away from the Lord. Charles Spurgeon once said, You could track the progress of Israel in the wilderness by the graves they left behind them. Moses spent decades walking through that same wilderness, and he watched a generation rise and fall. I remember my grandmother at the end of her life saying, I've watched everyone die. She lived so long, I've watched so many of my friends, so many of my family members, my siblings are gone. So near the end of his life, Moses is also reflecting on everything he's seen, his leadership, suffering, rebellion, and mercy, correction. And he begins to meditate on two profound realities in Psalm ninety. And those two realities are really the heart of this Psalm. The first reality, God is eternal, and the second, human life is fragile and it's fleeting. Psalm ninety tells us God is our dwelling place in every generation. Before the mountains were formed, before the earth existed, from everlasting to everlasting, he is God. He's not bound by time. A thousand years to him are like yesterday when it passes. But humans, we're very different. We are creatures of dust. Our lives are brief. Moses says, we flourish like grass in the morning, but by evening it is dry and it withers away. Our lives pass so quickly. Seventy years, maybe eighty, if strength allows, Moses says, and then they're gone. And he says, even something I think we can end up missing in verse nine, something very honest. All of our days pass away. We finish our years with a moan. And he's confronting something we often, I think, try to avoid thinking about. Life is not only short, but under the curse of sin, it's also heavy. Our years are marked by struggle, by loss, by disappointment, by grief. And if we're honest, we don't have to look very far as we gather today to feel the weight of that reality. And I'm grateful that we have the opportunity to gather together, to feel that in the presence of God together. Every day the news reminds us how fragile life is. Nation rising against nation, wars erupting, rumors of more of more, rumors of more wars, fear gripping our TV screens, communities experiencing violence storms out of nowhere, taking lives, families and friends sitting beside hospital beds, hospice rooms becoming sacred, holy spaces where we're walking people to the end just as long as we can until we have to say goodbye. And sometimes the people we love most are suddenly closer to eternity than we want, that we even expected, even. All of us, all around us, keeps witnessing the same truth that Moses saw in the wilderness, and he speaks of life is not as stable as we pretend it is. And our days are not guaranteed. The last time I was here, I remember feeling and I preached, I remember we were talking about worship, the woman at the well, and I kept getting that. The Lord saying to me, I don't want pretend worship. I want worshipers that worship me. God is searching for people, worshipers that worship him in spirit and the truth and in truth. And when we come in and we sing songs, we don't want something that's just upbeat for upbeat's sake because we have to have a upbeat song at the top. We want to be honest when we gather in the presence of the Lord. Lord, things are not as stable. We don't want to be pretending. Our days are not guaranteed. And so when we bring that to you, and when we begin to feel the weight of that reality, questions begin to emerge in our hearts. How should we then live? How should we spend the days God has given us? How do we live wisely in a world that seems so fragile and it feels like we have no control? Moses turns those questions into this prayer. And I want you to notice something. Moses doesn't say in this prayer, so God, we will figure out how to number, how to number our days. He says, Lord, teach us. Want to just invite you right now, say, Lord, teach us. Because numbering our days does not come naturally to us. Most of us spend our lives trying to add days to our lives. But in verse 12, Moses teaches us to add wisdom to our lives. We live as if time is unlimited. We assume tomorrow will always come. And I mean, we're finding you don't have to be sick to be gone. You don't have to be older to be gone. We drift through days sometimes distracted by things that ultimately do not matter. So Moses asks God to teach us something that we cannot learn on our own. Because if God doesn't teach us, I keep getting that sense. If God, if we don't invite God to teach us this, something will eventually teach us this. Tragedy is a teacher, loss is a teacher, sickness is a teacher. Sometimes the shaking of the world around us is a teacher. But Moses says instead of waiting for that to teach you, let's just ask God, God, teach us. And the good news is that Scripture tells us exactly what to do when we need this wisdom. The book of James says that means of wisdom, it's not just reserved for a select few, it's not just reserved for an elite believer. He says he gives wisdom liberally. God does not withhold it, he does not shame us for needing wisdom. We can ask of God and He will give it to us liberally. So our prayer today is really simple. Lord, give us wisdom. Load us up with wisdom that we need to live these days that are before us. And give us wisdom to love what matters, and wisdom to release what does not. And give us wisdom to invest our lives in what will outlast us. And while we're asking for wisdom, let's ask God for spiritual gifts, the gifts that He desires to give us, to live that life with the grace to be led by the Spirit. We don't have to figure that out ourselves. He desires to give us discernment. He desires to give us the grace that we need to live the lives he calls us to. So teach us to recognize the brevity of life so that we may gain a heart of wisdom. And so that we don't leave today saying, Yeah, but what is a heart of wisdom? I'm glad you asked. He's not talking about intelligence or knowledge. We can't go get a degree in this. A heart of wisdom is the ability to live with an eternal view. Eternity in view. I'm waking up today, but I have eternity in view. A heart of wisdom helps us to recognize what matters and what doesn't. Because wisdom is knowing that life is short. Wisdom says, hold your time carefully. Love people deeply. Repent quickly. And invest your life in what God is asking you to invest in. A heart of wisdom, it does not just prepare us to die well, it teaches us how to live well. Wisdom begins when we realize this day that we have been given is a gift. The moment we start thinking about eternity, we inevitably confront the reality of death. I think about um uh there's a quote that says, Lord, stamp my eyes, my eyeballs, with eternity in view. So I'm living this life, but Lord help me to have an eternal perspective. Even though we hate death, and we're in this series, the good news of the gospel is that death does not have the final say. This is why, as a church, the big sea church, across generations and centuries, we have prayed this same prayer. Come, Lord Jesus. And I believe we can see that his return is closer than it's ever been. When we look around, the signs of the time tell us it's not a distant hope, it is a coming reality, and wisdom would also say, ready yourself for his return. Whether we meet him through his return, or we meet him at the end of the number of our days, the call is the same. Be ready. Will you be ready? Therefore, that's why the psalm is important because we are learning to live wisely, but we must do it now. Jonathan Edwards, that's who said it. I was trying to search my notes. Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs. He's asking, Lord, give me an eternal perspective with the ability to live every single day with eternity in view. And I have to admit, would it not change how we live? Would I cut the person off in traffic? How many people wouldn't flip me off in traffic if they had eternity in view? How many grudges would we hold if we knew tomorrow was the final day? And then Moses has a second request for God's mercy. And he prays it in three ways. He says, first, relent, Lord. Have compassion on your servants. He's pleading for mercy. He knows that if God were to deal with us according to justice, none of us could stand. Feel the weight of that. Our lives that pass quickly and are full of sin would stand fully exposed before a holy God. And so knowing that he's saying, God, have mercy. And as we stand here today, I stand with a smile because the good news of the gospel is that God has answered that prayer. God has relented. We're here because his anger did not have the final word. He's not dealt with us according to what our sins deserve. Where there was judgment, God has provided mercy through Jesus Christ. Thank you, Lord. Where there was death, he brought life. Where there's despair, guess what? He will give you hope. The cross tells us that God's mercy is greater than our failure. The second request of Moses in this prayer is satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love. And I think this is one of the most important prayers we can ever pray. Our hearts were created with deep longings, longings for meaning, for security, for joy and peace. And yet, so often we try to satisfy those old longings with things that we cannot possibly hold in the weight of our souls. We choose and chase achievement and comfort and recognition, but none of those things can satisfy us fully. As John Piper famously said, God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him. So God satisfies us. C.S. Lewis, he wrote these words: God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself. Why? Because it's not there. Our deepest hunger is not for success, although we think it would make us feel really good or comfort or control. Our deepest hunger is for God. And through Christ, he invites us to find our satisfaction in him, our dwelling place. Finally, Moses prays this prayer: May the favor of the Lord our God, this is the final request, rest on us and establish the work of our hands. And he says it again, yes, yes, Lord, establish the work of our hands. He's asking God, redeem our labor. We're toiling. Redeem that so that our lives actually matter. Without God's favor, life can feel like this hamster wheel. That we're in this endless toil, and then we end with a moan. Where we build, where we work, where we strive, and everything seems temporary or it feels like nothing. But Moses is asking God, establish the work of our hands. Take these brief, fragile lives. Some of the things that I do that I don't know if it's bearing fruit. And I'm asking you, God, let them count for something eternal. Let the work we do today echo into eternity. I asked this question, I still look at this and I wonder, did Moses feel like he wasted his life? And I think about after spending 40 years in Israel, they never would have made it to the promised land if Moses was not obedient to lead them in the Exodus. So the Lord has a way of redeeming our obedience. And I believe that that same promise is offered to us today. When we place our lives in God's hands, even our ordinary work, even that prayer that you leaned over at the beginning of our worship time and prayed with your brother or your sister, that is a part of God's eternal work in their lives. So Moses prays this. And we're gonna have an opportunity to pray this together. Establish the work of our hands. As I was sitting here in worship singing these songs this morning, um, I started thinking about that prayer. Lord, let our lives matter for your glory. And I was thinking about saying that to you. Repeat after me. But I began to think, how many of us would resist saying, Lord, let my life matter for your glory? Give me more to do. Some of us, I think, are hesitant to say that. Um, and we may sometimes think, I don't need another thing. When I was in Liberia, I was given a text in Philippians where Paul was talking about, I am poured out like a drink offering. When I arrived, I found out that there were about three more assignments that I was not told about that I would need to do and prepare for. And really by Monday, I felt like I had been poured out like a drink offering. That's nothing that I would ask for. But as we were worshiping, I felt like the Lord was saying, I'm calling my people. I'm asking them to surrender, to yield. Let me pour you out like a drink offering. There are things that I've put in you, there are days that are numbered, there are assignments, things, good works that I have predestined for you to do before the foundation of this world. Allow me to pour you out like a drink offering, so that your life has an eternal weight. Centuries later, we know that through Jesus, God fulfilled all of these requests from Moses, and everything we do today is in light as we prepare for that day that we see the Lord. One day, church, the days that we are numbering will come to an end. And we will stand before God who gave them to us. I want to invite our worship team to come back as we begin to pray and to respond to this psalm. But wisdom, the heart of wisdom, is learning to place those days into the hands of God who has given them to us while we still have those days. None of us knows how many days we have left, but we do have we do know who holds them. The rock of our salvation. As we sit with Psalm 90 today, the invitation is not simply to just agree, life is short. Life is short, give me the blessing, let's go. What is our application? What do we do with this weight, Lord? It's an invitation to ask God to teach us how to live. Again, Moses doesn't say, we have numbered our days. He's praying, God, give me the kind of wisdom that I need to live out this life. It must be God given. So the question, how are we to live our life? Maybe for some of us, numbering our days means reordering our priorities. Maybe we've been spending our energy on things that won't last. Maybe for some of us, numbering our days means reconciling a relationship that has been delayed for too long. Maybe for some of us, numbering our days literally means I hear the Lord calling me. I'm going to turn back and allow him to again be my dwelling place. And maybe for some of us in this season as a family, we are walking in grief. Maybe there's some things in your life that are fragile. I'm sure there are. The altar is going to be space for us today to come. So maybe you're coming for yourself. Maybe you're coming for someone else. But this I trust and I believe is holy space to meet with the rock of our salvation, the God who has been our dwelling place from everlasting to everlasting. And the good news is that He is everlasting and knows what tomorrow brings. We thank you for this time with you, oh God. God who has been our dwelling, God who has been has refreshed us, God who has anointed, I believe, in this space, God, you have anointed the remaining days. I pray, Holy Spirit, that we would wake up every morning with eternity stamped on our eyeballs. We are your people. We are your people. We give these days to you, oh God. I pray, God, that as we go, that we would be reminded and teach us how to number them. Holy Spirit, let fine-tune our ears, fine-tune our spirits to hear you, to be sensitive to you. We want to glorify you and honor you with the remaining days that we have left. I trust God, the things that we have laid at your feet, Lord, that you're already moving, you're already answering, and that you've spoken to us until the day we see your face and you say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of the Lord. And as a body, we pray, even now, we send our prayers to our sister Laura that we trust is being held in this holy, sacred space in your bosom as you prepare her to see you. Lord, we are so sorry to see our sister go, but Lord, how holy we live this life to live again. And so I thank you for the way that she has lived before us, the the testimony of her life that we have seen, even the pictures, we see your countenance all over her face. I pray, God, that you would fill her room now with peace. God, let that that veil between eternity and and and and and now where we are here and eternity, that that as it thins, that she would be surrounded by your peace and your love. And I thank you that we will see her again. And if it's if I could almost speak for Laura, I would know that she would say, Church, we've got a lot of work to do. And so, Lord, prepare us for that work so that we can see our sister again. It is in your Son Jesus' name that we pray. Thank you for your presence. Thank you for your glory in this day. Amen.