“Numbering our days” (Psalm 90)

Psalm 90

Listen to Sermon

Pastor Tom Johnson, November 19, 2017

What if you knew this was the last day of your life? What would you do in the 14 hours remaining? Would it have a great impact on how you would spend your time and with whom? And so our Psalm challenges us: “Teach us to know the shortness of our days, may wisdom dwell within our hearts.” “Teach us to number our days.” This is the one Psalm written by Moses. And his signature is all over. He summarizes in one song the whole of the Pentateuch—the first five books of the Bible also known as the book of Moses or Torah. He brings us back to creation: “Before the mountains…before the earth was created, you are God.” It has only been in the last 100 years that scientists have caught up with Moses. The universe is not eternal. It has a beginning. It will have an end. God transcends his creation. The great I AM precedes the universe. We have been taught to number our days as creatures bound by space and time. We are now open to the wisdom of living as creatures fearfully and wonderfully made.

Moses with the Ten Commandments by Philippe de Champaigne

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Their lives were cut short because they believed the lie that they would become like God. They wanted to live independently, expand their consciousness, and do what felt good. And so, our psalm reminds us that we all must now learn to live with the reality of the shortness of our days. Death looms over all of us. It is a universal human condition. Like our first parents, we make a choice every day to live our lives independently, to greedily accumulate knowledge and stuff, and do what is right in our own eyes. We eat and drink today for tomorrow we die. This is the foolishness of unbelief—to live for one’s own self-pleasure or self-ambition.

The problem with the one slave in the parable of the talents (Matt 25:14-30) is that he had a wrong view of the master as harsh and lording it over his subjects. So, he goes off, digs a hole, and squanders the master’s money. He did not number his days and so lacked a heart of wisdom. We have not learned the shortness of our days. We act as if our days are not numbered. And so our lives, our gifts, our talents, and our impact on this world is minimal. We have cheated ourselves by not cultivating hearts of wisdom. The Scriptures say, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov 1:7). This is a reverential fear. It is the realization that God is God and we are not. We are his creatures. When we live in awe and wonder of him, we open ourselves up to the wisdom of the ages and of God. “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord stands forever” (Isa 40:8). In this case, God’s Word is Moses’ prayer: “Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.” So we should pray: “As we live a temporal existence, give us eternal perspective. Help us see the brevity of life so that we make the most of our days. Make our lives count for the Kingdom. ‘For thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever.’”

Our Psalm brings us into deep time and the profound truth of God: “A thousand years are like yesterday come and gone, no more than a watch in the night.” Or as Peter in his second epistle, “But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet 3:8). God truly is our refuge from generation to generation. Moses witnessed God’s faithfulness to his people who were enslaved for over 400 years. God delivered them from Pharaoh whose heart was not given to wisdom but hardened and calloused to God. Moses himself pointed to a prophet even greater than himself. It may have taken a thousand of our years, but it was like a watch in the night for God. In spite of God’s transcendence he sends his eternal Son from heaven to earth—from timeless eternity to become flesh—to take on humanity and our struggle with sin and the shortness of our days.

Jesus learned the shortness of his days. He lived maybe into his early to mid 30s. That is a young life. He spent about three years teaching, healing, and preparing his disciples to carry on his ministry. That is not a long career. But its impact is immense. Jesus knew his days were numbered from the beginning. Even when he knew he was just days away from his arrest and death, he still set his face like flint toward Jerusalem—the place he was determined and destined to give his life for the world. In his last hours and minutes, he forgave the sins of those who did not know what they were doing. These are the people who had not yet numbered their days and were living their lives in the foolishness of unbelief.  Jesus told the other one crucified next to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus brought him from a temporal to an eternal reality. Their suffering would soon be over. Their joy in heaven will never come to an end. In just three short days, Jesus changed the course of human history. He takes away the sting of death. He pays the penalty for all our foolishness and sin. He gives us the wisdom of the Cross. He blesses us with the joy of the empty tomb.

And so our days are numbered. But God makes our lives count for the Kingdom now and forever.