Latest / Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast / #20260111 - Life is Short, Make Your Days Count - Psalm 90

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#20260111 - Life is Short, Make Your Days Count - Psalm 90 · Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast

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Welcome to the study of God's Word recorded live at Calvary
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Church in Aurora, Co. To learn more about the many
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resources available through Abounding Grace Media or to tune
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into our live stream services, visit us online at Calvary Co
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dot Church or download our free Calvary Church app.
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Now let's open our Bibles and study God's Word.
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Amen. All right.
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Well, if you're taking notes again, we're in Psalm 90 today.
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The title of today's study is life is short.
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Make your days count. Life is short.
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Make your days count. This is Psalm 90.
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This is a passage where Moses specifically says is the author
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of this, and we don't have any other Psalms that specifically
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give that the the authorship to Moses.
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Some scholars believe that perhaps he did write a couple of
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other Psalms, including possibly Psalm 91.
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We call Psalm 91 an orphan Psalm because there's no name attached
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to it, but it does flow really well with Psalm 90.
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So even after the study today, it would be great to read Psalm
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91. But we know for sure Moses wrote
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Psalm 90, and we see here that it is a prayer of Moses.
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It's a prayer of Moses. We get an insight now into
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Moses's prayer life. And again, when you pastor 2
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million people, as Moses did with the children of Israel, you
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and God do a lot of talking. And so we get to get a picture
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here of the kinds of things that Moses would say to the Lord.
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And we don't know exactly when Moses wrote this, but there is
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some ideas and a lot of scholars and commentaries believe that it
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was right after the wilderness wanderings, which would have
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been the 40 years that Israel spent in the desert.
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If you remember that wandering in circles, it was because of
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their rebellion, it was because of their unbelief.
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And it was possibly during that time when Moses began to write
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Genesis and Exodus and Leviticus and Numbers and Deuteronomy.
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We call that the Torah, the first five books of the Bible,
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Pentateuch. And it was somewhere, probably
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as he's writing those, that this came forth from his heart as
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well. And, and it was also likely
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during the time or around the time when Moses was told by God
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that he himself couldn't go into the Promised Land.
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If you remember the story, he was angry and God wanted to give
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the people water from a rock. So he takes his staff and he
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hits the rock out of anger because he's frustrated at the
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people. As a parent, I kind of
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understand that a little bit, but God said you didn't
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represent me. Well, Moses, you failed in that
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area of your leadership. And because of that, the
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consequence is the people behind you, the next generation,
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they'll be able to make it into the promised land, but not you.
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So I can imagine how much that broke Moses's heart, the kinds
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of conversations he was having with the Lord in that season.
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So likely somewhere in that the vicinity of time and older Moses
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penned the words that we're going to read here this morning.
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Now you can take this Psalm and you can break it up into two
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different parts. At the first part would be the
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first 11 verses. And that's where Moses is
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contemplating here who God is and who man is.
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So he's going to tell us about God.
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God is eternal, God is creator, God is powerful, God is
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faithful. And then he's going to say about
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man, man is frail, man is weak, and life is short for every man
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and for every woman. That's kind of the anchor of
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what what he's saying here in this verse.
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And then he begins his prayer in the second part of the Psalm,
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verses 12 through 17. And this is then a response to
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who God is and in response to who man is.
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And in all of this, Moses again, no doubt as an old man, Moses
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tried by many trials in his life.
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Moses learning from experience, even as a leader who made
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mistakes, he learns that from everlasting.
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Everlasting you are God, you are God.
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He's going to say that here. So in Psalm 90, we're going to
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see the shortness and the brevity, the briefness of life,
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and again, how to make the remaining days that we have in
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front of us count for eternity. So if you're taking notes, we're
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going to look at four ways to count your days, four ways to
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count your days. Because he's going to say here,
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Lord, teach us to count. Teach us to number our days.
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So here's our first point. Four ways to count your dates #1
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count on God's eternality. Count on God's eternality first
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2 verses here. He is eternal.
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Old Moses is going to write here in verse 1.
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Lord, that's Adonai there. You have been our dwelling place
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in all generations. Dwelling place there literally
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means Lord, you have been a refuge for your people for every
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generation or more literally, and I like this Lord, you have
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been a home for your people for all generations and and and
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every believing generation before us.
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God's people through all of church history, God has been a
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home for them. Just as I can tell you this
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morning, God is a home for you here today as well.
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All those that have gone before us, he has been a dwelling
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place, He has been a refuge. And if the Lord tarries, I
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believe that we could very well be in the last days.
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Live, I think we are in the last days, but we could be the
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generation. I believe this with all my heart
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that Jesus could return and take us home.
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And yet if He does tarry, then He will be a home for our kids
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and our grandkids and the generations that come after us
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and take note of this, that the world is not our home.
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I think sometimes we we want the world to be home.
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We want to be comfortable. We want to kind of land here.
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But then especially as we get older, we realize the world is
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passing. We realize that I'm just passing
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through this world. But it is God himself who is our
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home, who is our dwelling place. So be encouraged today if you're
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here and you feel just a little bit out of place in this world.
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I don't know how many of you felt that before.
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I've felt that a lot. Some of you may have said I felt
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that my whole life. Just I don't quite fit in.
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And, and if you're in a hard season this morning or if you're
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struggling with something this morning, if life hasn't turned
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out the way that you hoped it would, it's because this life is
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not your dwelling place. This life is not your home, but
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you do have a God that you can run to, and you can find your
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home in Him, your dwelling place in Him, a place that you belong
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in Him, a place where you can find rest in Him.
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The Father that you always wanted, maybe, maybe never had.
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You can find that in Him. The question this morning is,
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are you at home with God today? Do you spend time with Him?
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Is he your place of rest? Is he your place of safety?
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When you wake up in the morning, you get your cup of coffee out,
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you open up your Bible. You're, you're, you're still
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kind of getting the cobwebs out of your brain waking up in the
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morning. Is, is this something that you
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enjoy? Do you enjoy your relationship
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with him or is it your 2026 New Year's resolution?
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I'm checking off, I'm reading the Bible in a year and checking
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this off and then moving on to the next thing.
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Or can you say no, no, I feel like in a world that feels so
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out of place sometimes that when I'm with the Lord and I'm alone,
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He's my home. He is my sanctuary.
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It's been said that if God is your dwelling place now, you
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will be with him and his dwelling place later.
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And that sense of home, that sense of longing for home or
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being homesick, you know, if you have been away on a work trip
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for a period of time or in college, you're away for a
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semester or maybe some of you have been on a short term
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mission strip. You know what it's like to say,
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I can't wait to get home. I can't wait to get a warm
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shower. I can't wait to be in my own
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bed. I can't wait for a home cooked
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meal. There's something about home.
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And God is wanting to say here that that is who he is for us,
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our dwelling place, our dwelling place.
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And in all times He's been that. In all circumstances, He's been
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that in all generations He has been that.
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He's always had a special care for his people.
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He's always been a comfort for his people.
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He's always been a help and a home for his people.
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And I'm just here to tell you, he is that for you today, this
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morning, no matter what you're up against.
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You know, Moses wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, it says
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from desolate desert to desolate desert.
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He had no earthly home, but he was able to write here.
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God was his dwelling place. Same thing with Abraham.
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Abraham was called from home to be a stranger in a strange land.
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And it's because, again, even though he had no home, God was
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his dwelling place. So if you feel like a stranger
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in a strange land and you can resonate with that, and if you
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feel like, again, you haven't felt quite like home in this
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world, it's because this world is not your home.
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It's because God is your home. Heaven will be the place that
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will be with God, but God will be our home.
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And then he continues here in verse 2, before the mountains,
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you were brought forth. I was driving here this morning.
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I don't know how many of you guys saw how clear the view was
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of the mountains today, but driving here, it just struck me.
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It was so beautiful and I thought right away of this verse
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before those mountains were brought forth or ever you had
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formed the earth and the world. It says in verse 2, even from
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everlasting to everlasting, Moses writes you are God, you
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are God. You know as people we're so
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confined to our five senses every single day.
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What we can touch, what we can taste, what we can hear or what
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we can see, what we can smell. And it's because we live in a
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physical world. We live in a material world.
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But before God created the material, he was there.
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He existed. God never had a beginning, as if
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there was some kind of a Big Bang and God all of a sudden
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existed. And God will never have an end.
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He has always existed for all eternity.
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When there was nothing, He existed.
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And nothing doesn't mean empty space.
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And then He created something, because empty space would be
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something when there was nothing, when we don't even have
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a file in our mind for that. Before there was anything, there
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was God. There was God.
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From everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
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As far as you can look back, he was God.
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So he was God yesterday he was God last week He was God
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Christmas morning when you woke up, He was God.
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The moment you were born and you heard the stories of that, He
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was God. When your parents were born and
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your grandparents were born and you continue to work your way
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back. He was God when America was
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founded. He was God throughout world
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history and church history all the way back to Genesis 1 verse
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one in the beginning. God, He is always existed from
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eternity to eternity. No beginning point and no ending
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point with God. And as you look forward for all
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eternity, He will be God. That should bring your heart
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some peace this morning of knowing whatever it is that
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you're up against, you have a God that stands outside of time
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that that that knows you and loves you.
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And He invites those of us that have put our faith and trust in
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Jesus to then step into eternal life with Him so that we will
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live forever. I remember as a kid hearing
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that, and I'm laying in my bed at night thinking about what
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eternity is like. I don't know if you've ever had
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that, trying to process again, what is it like to live for
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millions and millions and millions and millions of years
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and know that that's just the beginning, that we're going to
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continue with God forever. Well, God again is the beginning
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and He is the end. He is eternal and He is
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unchanging. He's the alpha and the Omega.
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He's the beginning and the end. He's the 1st and the last, the
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same yesterday, today, and He will be the same forever.
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That is our God, and that makes Him, by the way, the perfect
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dwelling place and a world that is always changing again in a
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life where perhaps it takes a turn and something comes into
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your life that you didn't plan for.
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I didn't sign up for this God. What's going on?
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You have a God who stands outside of that imperfect
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control from everlasting to everlasting.
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This is also good to know because one of the things Moses
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is going to bring out here and the Spirit of God is going to
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bring this out here, is that life, on the other hand, is
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short. God is eternal, but life here is
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fleeting. The life that we have, we are
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here 1 moment literally and then we're gone.
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And that concept of being gone is difficult.
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We it's hard to kind of wrap our minds around that.
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I did 2 funerals last two weeks ago.
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The last week of December 1st funeral was for a precious lady
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in our church that got pancreatic cancer.
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And I don't get the opportunity of doing this much, but but we
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actually sat down with her and planned out her funeral.
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So what songs did she want sung? Who did she want to read the
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eulogy? And one of the things she said
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she loved this church, by the way, she would always sit right
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in this section right here. And she said, I want to make it
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back to church to be there with with God's people and I want to
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spend Thanksgiving with my family.
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And so that Friday before Thanksgiving, she went on to
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Hospice. That Saturday she spent time
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with her family for Thanksgiving and then the following Friday
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she slipped from time into eternity so quickly.
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Less than a week. And then a few days later I did
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another memorial for a young 26 year old son of a woman that
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attends the church. Harry took his life and there
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were 200 people there that were very much not believers.
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But to be able to look into their faces and to say life is
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short, we don't know what's coming.
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And that's what Moses is wanting to communicate here.
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None of us are guaranteed tomorrow on the earth.
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But from everlasting to everlasting, we have a God.
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We have a God that goes before us.
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So again, the first way to count your day is to count on God's
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eternality. God is eternal.
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Now the second way to count your day is to count on man's
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frailty. To count on man's frailty.
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We're going to see this now from verses 3 through 9.
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We're frail, we're weak, we're fleeting.
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Verse 3, Moses says here you turn man to destruction.
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The idea is you turn us to dust and you say return, O children
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of men. In other words, from the dust of
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the ground, when God took dust and breathed his life into it
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and created man, from that dust man was created, and that's the
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dust to which man is going to return.
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Moses would write in Genesis 319 for dust you are and dust you
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shall return. And you'll notice here in verses
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3 through 9 this comparison, how big God is and how small or
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frail man is. God is infinite, man is finite,
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God is unlimited, man is limited, God is timeless and God
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is ageless. But you and I were confined to
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time and to space and to age. And he'll continue here in verse
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4 for 1000 years in your sight or like yesterday when it is
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past and like a watch in the night.
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Some of us this morning, we're worried about the remaining
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years that we have in front of us.
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And there's all kinds of things that we could worry about how
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many years we have left, what's going to happen when we're gone
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to our loved ones, to our family.
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But God here stands outside of all of that.
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He, he can see 1000 years into the past.
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He can see 1000 years into the future as if it was yesterday to
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him. And God says I am the one who
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stands outside of time, and I can tell you when you were
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created, why you were created, and what your future holds.
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So come to me if you're feeling the weight of some of that.
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The question, though, I believe God would ask you today, and me
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and our frailty and in our limited finiteness is do you
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trust me? Do you trust me as the
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everlasting God in your life? If you're struggling in your
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marriage today and that's taking a toll on you, God would ask, Do
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you trust me? If you've got a prodigal son or
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a prodigal daughter out there and you're worried God would ask
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you this morning, Do you trust me?
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If you've recently lost a loved one or if you've received a
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diagnosis from the doctor, or perhaps you're struggling
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financially, whatever it may be this morning, God would ask, Do
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you trust me? Because God sees it all.
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He stands outside. He sees the beginning of your
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life and the end of your life at the same time, and he tells you
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you can trust Him. You can bring all of it to him
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because he sees the beginning from the end.
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He was there the moment you were conceived.
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He's been there every moment that you've lived, every minute
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of your life. He promises you he'll never
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leave you, He'll never forsake you, and he'll be there when you
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slip from time into eternity. Psalm 23 says even through the
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valley of the shadow of death, you are there.
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You are there. Your rod and your staff comfort
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me. And you know, the older we get,
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the more we realize the fact that we ain't here forever.
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We ain't here forever. I'm at the point now where
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again, and Ed says this a lot as well, there's a number of us, I
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think, in the church that are saying there are fewer years in
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front of me than there are behind me.
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And that causes you to begin to think a little bit different,
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doesn't it, about life? You know, when I was young, I
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never thought about these things, didn't it?
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Didn't. I was going to live forever.
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That was my goal. That was my plan.
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And then the older you get and you start to say goodbye to
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people and you have two memorials in a week, you know,
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you start to realize, OK, we ain't here forever.
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And Moses is going to give us 4 pictures here of our frailty.
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He's going to tell us this. Our years are like a flood.
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Our years are like a sleep or a dream.
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Our years are like grass and our years are like a sigh.
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You know, you inhale and you exhale and it's over.
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So Speaking of our years, Moses writes this in verse 5.
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You carry them away like a flood, like a riverbank.
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Is the idea carried away in a flash flood.
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They are like asleep. The picture, you know, you can't
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wait after a long day of work and you're tired.
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You just can't wait to crawl into bed and to fall asleep.
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And the moment your head hits the pillow, the alarm goes off
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and you wake up and you can't believe it's time to get going
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again, right? That that is the picture of
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life. It's a picture of life.
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And then he says they're in the morning.
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They are like grass which grows up.
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So life feels like, I want to say life is like a box of
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chocolates. No, life is like a flood.
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Like is like a flood. The idea is this life is pushing
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forward and it's totally out of our control.
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None of us can guarantee how much longer we're going to live
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or what's in front of us. You think of floods, you think
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of places like Japan or Thailand that have had some of these
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these massive tsunamis. And we've seen videos and
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pictures of that or Hurricane Helene in North Carolina not too
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long ago. And again, when you're watching
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those images on the news, you just see these homes being
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carried away by this flood and you see cars being carried away
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like it's nothing and all this debris just being moved on.
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And none of those things have an ability to stop because of the
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flood. They're caught up in this flood,
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pulled up from their foundation, carrying them forward.
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And there's a sense in life in which we are carried away like
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that, like a flood. Our years says here in verse 5,
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our years can also be like asleep again, quick passing,
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like a dream. You know, there's a sense of
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something, but then it's over. You know, I don't know if you've
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had those dreams or those nightmares I have where there's
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something chasing you, a bear is chasing you, or a dream where
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you do something really, really stupid.
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But then you wake up and though your heart is still beating and
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you're still catching your breath and all the adrenaline is
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still shooting through your body, you have a moment of
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going, oh, it's just a dream. Thank you.
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Lord, that wasn't real. I'm so I'm so glad.
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And it's over. The dream is over.
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And there's a sense here that our life is like that, a dream,
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sleep that passes. Now for the believer, praise the
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Lord, one day we're going to wake up to a greater reality.
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But I have a feeling in eternity we'll probably look back on our
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life and it will feel a bit like a dream.
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And then he says here life is also like grass.
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At the end of verse 5, he says in the morning they're like
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grass which grows up. Verse 6, in the morning it
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flourishes and grows up because no doubt the dew that's on the
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grass that that allows it to become beautiful and green in
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the morning. And the dew is glistening from
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the morning sunlight. And then it says in the evening
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it cuts down and it Withers, becomes hay at that point.
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So his point is this, just as the grass Withers, we wither.
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He's saying the older you get, the more you wither.
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Does anybody relate to that? The older you get, the more you
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wither like grass. Isaiah would say it this way.
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In Isaiah 40, the grass Withers, the flower fades because the
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breath of the Lord blows upon it.
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Surely the people are grass. The grass Withers, the flower
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fades, but the word of our God stands forever.
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Peter would say it this way. All flesh is as grass, and all
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the glory of man is the flower of the grass.
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The grass Withers, and its flowers falls away.
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Psalm One, O 3, says it this way.
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As for a man, his days are like grass as a flower of the field,
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so he flourishes, for the wind passes over it and it is gone,
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and its place remembers it no more.
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So these pictures that we see not just here in Psalm 90, but
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really all throughout Scripture, there there's something the
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Spirit of God is wanting to communicate to US.
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Time moves and it is quick, and our time on earth is short and
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time seems to, I know it doesn't, but time seems to go
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faster the older you get. We all want it to slow down.
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We want to be able to take stock of our lives and inventory of
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these things. And then Moses says he's writing
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with these pictures here. He then begins to tell us the
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effects of sin on this short, frail life of ours.
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Sin is the reason death was brought into the world.
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Sin is the reason that life is short.
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And he says this in verse 7. For we have been consumed by
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your anger and by your wrath. We are terrified.
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And I just want to take a note here for a second and say it's
24:46
important that when you read the Psalms and you come across a
24:50
verse like this talking about being consumed by God's anger
24:55
and by and being terrified by God's wrath, that if you're in
24:58
Jesus Christ this morning, this verse doesn't apply to you
25:02
because God's anger was satisfied at the cross.
25:06
And so we will never again need to worry about being consumed by
25:10
his wrath or terrified by his anger.
25:14
Praise the Lord for that. I'm so thankful because we are
25:17
in what the Bible calls a, a new and a better covenant.
25:21
Moses is writing under an old covenant.
25:25
And so he is speaking here of the generation that he lives in,
25:29
where the people rebelled because of their unbelief and
25:32
they refused to enter into the promised land.
25:34
So they were under God's anger and God's wrath.
25:37
And he's taking note of that here as he's writing.
25:40
And then he continues in verse 8, He says, you have set our
25:43
iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your
25:47
countenance, in the light of your face.
25:48
God, you see it all. You see it all, verse 9 For all
25:52
of our days have passed away in your wrath.
25:56
But again, for us, the wrath of God was satisfied at the cross
26:00
where our sins were set before Jesus, but he paid for our sins
26:04
in his blood. And then he says, here we finish
26:09
our years like a sigh, like you, an inhaled breath and an exhaled
26:15
breath, a sigh. You know, some of us have been
26:19
at the bed of a loved one when they've passed.
26:23
It's always precious as a pastor to hear these stories because
26:26
it's a holy moment when you get to be there and you get to
26:30
experience the last breath of somebody that you loved.
26:32
It's a, it's a, a painful moment because what it, what it does is
26:36
it makes you realize you're here and then immediately you're
26:40
gone. It, it's, it's, it's an
26:43
unbelievable experience to be looking at somebody that was
26:45
here a moment ago. And when you look at a body,
26:48
you, you realize at that point when the spirit is gone, there's
26:51
no life in the body. How, how quickly, how fleeting
26:54
life is that, that is the picture there.
26:57
That's the picture there. Which brings us then to our
26:59
Third Point, which speaks to this, the third way to count our
27:02
day #3 count on life's brevity. Count on life's brevity.
27:08
Verses 10 through 12 here, that life is brief, that life is
27:13
short. Verse 10 says this.
27:18
The days of our lives are 70 years.
27:22
Now he's speaking here. Just the average lifespan of a
27:26
person, 70 years. And if by reason of strength
27:29
they are 80 years. So if you're stronger, if you're
27:33
healthier, if you take your vitamins every day, maybe you
27:35
get 10 extra years. That's the idea here.
27:38
Yet he says they're boast is only labor and sorrow for it is
27:43
soon cut off and we fly away. Thanks Moses.
27:48
Thanks for the encouragement Moses and then verse 11 for who
27:51
knows the power of your anger for as the fear of you so is
27:55
your wrath again life a flood no control takes us life like grass
28:04
here 1 moment and then withered. Life is like asleep feel like
28:11
it's some sort of a quick here and gone reality and then he
28:16
says life is like a sigh. It's here, it's gone.
28:20
James would say it this way. James chapter 4 whereas you do
28:24
not know what will happen tomorrow for what is your life.
28:30
It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then
28:34
vanishes away. James is saying the same thing
28:37
there. It's like your cup of coffee in
28:39
the morning and and when it when it's fresh and hot, you see the
28:44
steam coming off the cup, but it's only there for a moment and
28:46
then it's gone. James says that's what life is
28:49
like. That's how fast it goes.
28:51
And if we ask any 70 or 80 year old person here, I guarantee you
28:56
that they will tell you life goes quickly.
28:59
It goes quickly. And Moses would say, and yet
29:02
what is 70 or 80 years and compared to an eternal
29:06
everlasting God? And so here Moses, in response
29:11
to all of this, in response to who God is, his eternality, in
29:15
response to who man is, his frailty and the fact of life's
29:19
brevity, he responds now here in verse 12 in prayer.
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And he invites us that the Spirit of God invites us then to
29:27
pray this prayer along with Moses.
29:30
It's a beautiful thing. The Psalms can become words for
29:33
us to pray, especially if we run out of words or we don't know
29:36
what to pray. Open up a Psalm and pray that.
29:38
And so here we get to pray with Moses himself under the
29:42
inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Verse 12 teach us to number our
29:47
days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
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This is the anchor verse here in this Psalm.
29:53
The new Living Translation says it this way.
29:55
Teach us to realize the brevity of life.
30:00
So a heart of wisdom will do this.
30:02
It will number, it will count our days to see life correctly,
30:08
to slow down again, taking, taking inventory, taking stock
30:12
of our lives. Where are we?
30:14
Where are we at with the Lord? Where am I at with my wife and
30:17
my kids? Where am I at with the other
30:19
pastors around here? To, to be able to, to, to number
30:22
our days rightly? Is the idea here not a
30:25
mathematical equation, but to number them rightly?
30:28
And yet because we are frail and we all feel that, we try to do
30:33
whatever we can to live as long as we can.
30:37
So we're always trying to slow time down a little bit.
30:40
We go on special diets so that hopefully we can get our 20 year
30:44
old bodies back at some point. And wishful thinking, right?
30:47
We take all the vitamins and we take all the supplements and we
30:51
dye our hair and we nip and tuck our skin and we get veneers so
30:55
that we can look young again. We take cream to help with
30:59
wrinkles. We get hair implants.
31:01
We'll do it all. And yet the reality is gravity
31:05
still takes its toll on our bodies, right?
31:07
We lose our hair, we lose our teeth.
31:10
At some point, we lose our minds.
31:12
Amen. God bless you guys.
31:14
Great to be with you. We know this.
31:18
Birthdays will cause us to number our days, won't they?
31:21
There's times I'm in my 40s, I forget how how 40 what?
31:25
I don't know what 40 I am today. Some people are like it's my
31:28
birthday, It's just another day. I don't even want to think about
31:30
it because birthdays tell us something about life.
31:34
Anniversaries will do the same thing will cause us to number
31:37
our days. My wife and I just celebrate our
31:39
25th anniversary, which is amazing to thank.
31:43
Thank you, amazing. And by the way, that's God's
31:48
grace and a lot of patience for her.
31:49
So it tell you know, to think man 1/4 of a century, more time
31:55
with her than without her. You go life.
31:59
Life is fast, it moves fast, it moves quickly.
32:02
Biology doesn't slow down for anybody.
32:05
Time is not the enemy. The enemy is sin.
32:09
The enemy is the effects that sin has on our bodies and the
32:12
way it takes a toll on us. And many people don't even make
32:15
it to 70 or 80 years old because their days are shortened.
32:19
Even before that I heard these true accounts that speak to the
32:26
brevity of life. There was a Greek historian, his
32:29
name was Esquiles. True story.
32:32
He dies by the fall of a tortoise on his bald head, which
32:37
was dropped by the claws of an eagle.
32:40
So he's walking around down the street, gets hit on the head by
32:43
a turtle and dies. It's one way to go.
32:46
Another guy, Agathocles, he was a tyrant of Sicily.
32:50
He died by a toothpick at 95 years old.
32:53
He was mocking somebody and he choked down a toothpick and
32:57
there he was, an eternity. A story was told by this Italian
33:01
poet named Luigi Pulsi. He was telling a story of a man
33:06
named Margot who died laughing after seeing a monkey putting on
33:10
and off a pair of boots and it literally says he burst.
33:15
He died from a heart attack from laughing.
33:18
Another guy, a stoic philosopher named Crispus, he laughed
33:23
himself to death after seeing a donkey eat figs and then giving
33:27
it wine to wash them down. That was the way he went out.
33:31
Quintus Fabius Maximus was a Roman predator.
33:35
He choked to death on a single goat hair when he was drinking
33:39
goat milk. Gone.
33:43
Frederick Lewis, Prince of Wales, died when he got hit by a
33:45
cricket ball. Jack Daniels, who made the
33:50
whiskey one morning forgot the dial code to a safe and he
33:55
kicked the safe in anger. He injured his toe, he developed
33:59
gangrene which led to sepsis and he died in 1911.
34:03
That was how Mr. Whiskey himself went to eternity.
34:08
Louis the 6th son, Philip, died when a pig ran under his horse
34:13
and caused his horse to throw him off.
34:15
Stinking pig. There's this guy, Sigurd the
34:19
Mighty. I love that name.
34:21
A 9th century Viking of Orkney. He beheaded an enemy in battle.
34:27
He takes the head strap the head to the saddle of his horse as a
34:31
trophy, and he's riding through town with this guy's head
34:35
bobbing on on the saddle there while the dead man's tooth
34:39
grazed Sigurd's leg and caused a fatal infection.
34:43
That's how Sigurd the Mighty went many years.
34:47
There was a story, true story, of course, in Philly, was in the
34:49
newspapers of a guy who was sitting in a Barber shop getting
34:54
a haircut. And a block away, a bus went out
34:57
of control. I hit a fire hydrant.
35:00
The hydrant snapped at its surface, spun down the street,
35:04
crashed through the barbershop window, struck the guy in the
35:07
head and killed him immediately. And that was the way he went in
35:11
the chair while he was getting a haircut.
35:12
And you know your time is up when that happens, right?
35:15
And, and if you took any of these guys and lined them up
35:18
right here, I know one thing that they would tell you.
35:22
Number your days because you never know.
35:26
You never know Moses's prayer hair.
35:28
Teach us Lord to number our days.
35:32
There was a study recently, and this study's kind of been around
35:35
for a while, on how a typical lifespan of the average 70 years
35:40
is spent. And you've probably heard some
35:43
of this. We sleep if we typically sleep 6
35:47
hours a night at minimum, we sleep an average of 23 years of
35:51
our life. Assuming we're 70 years if
35:54
that's our if that's the average lifespan, we sleep 23 years,
35:57
which would be 1/3 of our life. We're just unconscious for it.
36:02
You go to work or to school, 16 years of your life.
36:07
That's 22.8% of your life scrolling or watching television
36:12
for three hours a day. And now I read recently, the
36:15
average is actually 5 hours a day, but for three hours a day,
36:18
that's eight years of your life in front of this thing scrolling
36:23
or watching television. We eat for six years of our
36:27
life. We're sick for four years of our
36:31
life. We're getting dressed for two
36:34
years of our life and the bathroom.
36:37
That depends on what your story is or who you are.
36:42
Bathroom, which includes showering and getting ready.
36:45
If you spend an hour a day, you spend two to three years of your
36:50
life in the bathroom. So when you calculate all that
36:54
these guys worked this all out and they say this, that at 50
36:57
years old, if you take just the hours of working, eating and
37:02
sleeping and you add those to your future and you're going to
37:06
live to be 70, That means at 50 years old, you have 80 months
37:09
left of life to live 80 months. So again, the point here, Moses
37:15
isn't trying to say let's figure out a mathematical equation for
37:18
all this, but rather when we number our days, our perspective
37:23
begins to change because we realize our life here is
37:27
limited. So we can begin to live for
37:30
eternity on this side of eternity.
37:34
We can begin to send our treasure forward, right?
37:38
And we and we get to store up treasures in heaven, which means
37:41
this. Then there, if I've got 80
37:43
months left, there's not enough time for me to live in
37:46
unforgiveness and to not forgive the person that's harmed me or
37:52
the person that's hurt me in some way.
37:55
There's not enough time for me to live in bitterness.
37:58
I have 80 months left. I want to spend those eighty
38:00
months with Jesus. I want to spend those eighty
38:03
months worshipping with you guys as we did this morning.
38:07
I want to serve people and invest my time here for
38:11
eternity. And I want to stop.
38:13
And I want to look at my kids in their face, my three sons, my
38:17
daughter. I want to tell them I love them.
38:21
And you know, God can take whatever months we have in front
38:24
of us and He can multiply them. I always think about Jesus.
38:27
He started his public ministry at 30 years old and in 3 1/2
38:31
years he changed the world, didn't he?
38:34
So God can, God can take our months.
38:35
But the prayer is this, Lord, take my life and let it count
38:39
for something. I don't want to waste it.
38:43
I don't want to be like an animal.
38:44
I just get up and I eat and I work and go back to bed.
38:48
That's my life, Lord. I want it to matter because who
38:51
knows what tomorrow will bring. It can be cut off instantly by a
38:55
turtle falling on your head. You just never know.
38:58
Let me have the best 70 years and if I'm strong, maybe I'll
39:02
get 80 years because life is here and life is gone.
39:08
Life is like a flood and it moves us on like is like a grass
39:12
that's up and and it Withers away or like sleep or like a
39:16
sigh. So the prayer here is God teach
39:19
me the number my days that I may gain a heart of wisdom.
39:24
Because one thing is true when it comes to time.
39:26
Once it passes, we can't get it back.
39:30
We can't get it back. So four ways to count your days.
39:34
Count on God's eternality, Count on man's frailty, Count on
39:39
life's brevity. And then finally #4 as we get
39:44
prepared to wrap this up, count on daily mercy.
39:48
And I am so thankful we see this from 13 to the end. 13 to 17
39:52
here. Count on daily mercy.
39:55
As Moses considers numbering our days and gaining a heart of
39:59
wisdom. He then here lifts up his voice
40:02
in prayer, and he says this in verse 13.
40:04
Return, O Lord, how long and have compassion on your
40:10
servants. This is a great prayer to pray.
40:12
God, would you have compassion on me?
40:15
I need it. I need your compassion.
40:17
Lord, verse 14 O satisfy us early with your mercy.
40:22
I love this. Some of you might be evening
40:26
people. I'm typically more of an evening
40:27
person myself. But there's something about
40:29
waking up early in the morning, opening up your Bible, cup of
40:33
coffee in hand, and just saying, Lord, would you meet me here?
40:37
Because the Lord knows the day that's in front of you, so He's
40:40
the perfect 1. Lord, settle my heart before
40:43
you. Lord, allow me to have a
40:44
conversation with you before I have a conversation with anyone
40:47
else. And I love this.
40:48
Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy, that we may rejoice and
40:53
be glad all our days. Even though life is short, even
40:58
though it's frail, God has great compassion.
41:01
God has daily mercy for us, tells us your mercies are new
41:06
every morning in the book of Lamentations. 3 Great is your
41:09
faithfulness. Verse 15 Make us glad according
41:13
to the days in which you've afflicted us, the years in which
41:17
we have seen evil. Moses is saying, and maybe some
41:20
of you feel this way this morning as well.
41:23
God, we have wasted so many years and we haven't been able
41:28
now to make it into the promised Land because of that.
41:31
So Moses is praying a prayer we could pray.
41:33
Lord, would you turn our difficulties to joy?
41:37
Verse 16. Let your work appear to your
41:40
servants and your glory to their children.
41:43
You know how you number your days and spend your time is
41:46
going to leave a legacy for the next generation.
41:49
We could spend a whole time on this verse alone.
41:51
But you don't just live and die unto yourself.
41:54
There's a generation coming up behind you that God wants to
41:57
show His glory to. And God wants to use you for the
42:01
ones that are coming up behind us.
42:03
And then verse 17 and let the beauty of our God be upon us.
42:09
I love that. What a beautiful prayer in this
42:12
dark generation. His compassion, his mercy and
42:16
hair, his beauty, his salvation. And then he ends by saying and
42:21
establish the work of our hands for us.
42:24
Yes, establish the work of our hands.
42:28
So Moses is saying number your days, consider them.
42:33
Slow down enough to think about how we're spending our time that
42:36
you may gain a heart of wisdom. Let our life count for
42:41
something. There's there's a part of this
42:43
where you've got the ability to take inventory for yourself.
42:48
There's an ability where the Lord has put some of this into
42:50
our hands to consider these things to consider that it is
42:54
over quickly. Don't spend it so that at the
42:58
last hours of your life, if you end up in a hospital bed, you're
43:01
saying things like, why didn't I do this?
43:04
Why didn't I tell my son or my daughter that I forgive them and
43:08
I love them? Why didn't I go to that person
43:10
and tell them Jesus loves you? Or why didn't I look into the
43:14
face of my wife and say, honey, forgive me, I was wrong.
43:19
You know, when I'm on my deathbed, I think about this.
43:22
The most important thing in that moment isn't going to be how
43:25
much money I made. It's not going to be if I met my
43:29
career goals. It's not going to be how many
43:31
people knew me or approved of me.
43:35
But what's going to matter in that moment are going to be the
43:38
few faces that will be around that bed.
43:42
My wife, my three sons, my daughter.
43:48
Maybe they'll be a couple of grandkids there as well.
43:53
And when I draw my last breath, I'll be able to look into their
43:56
faces and say, I'm, I'm going to go see Jesus.
43:59
But I know that I'm going to see you again because you love
44:03
Jesus, because you love Jesus. That to me is how I want to make
44:08
my life count for that moment right there.
44:13
So as a worship team comes up a way to summarize all of this
44:16
down to one thought that you can hold on to and take with you
44:20
today. Counting your days is not as
44:23
important as making your days count.
44:27
Counting your days is not as important as making your days
44:30
count. When Moses says number your
44:31
days, again, the idea is number them rightly.
44:35
Hebrews 927 tells us this. It's appointed for every man
44:40
wants to die. So God says this, there's an
44:43
appointment with you concerning death.
44:48
God just hasn't told you when that day it is.
44:51
But he will keep the appointment that's been made for all of us.
44:55
Out of every 100 people born, 100 people will die.
45:00
Death is total in every generation.
45:02
War doesn't increase death. Every generation experiences
45:06
this. You know, I read recently two
45:09
people per second pass from eternity and how many of them
45:14
pass without Christ? Two people per second.
45:17
That means during our time here together, it's 120 people per
45:21
minute. Over 7200 people have passed
45:25
since we've been here together. Again, statistically, hundreds
45:29
of thousands of people are born every single day.
45:32
Hundreds of thousands of people die every single day.
45:35
So two people a second, now 4 people, and now six people.
45:40
Every single one of them is a person that God so loves that he
45:46
gave Jesus that whoever would believe in him will not perish,
45:52
but of everlasting life. See, the heart of all of this is
45:57
not just to think of the frailty or the brevity of life here, but
46:01
is to realize we have an eternity waiting in front of us.
46:06
And if you're here and this message freaks you out and
46:10
you're thinking what a bummer it may be because this is all you
46:15
think there is in life, We live, we die, and then we cease to
46:19
exist. God has a greater message.
46:22
God loves you that he sent his own Son so that he could forgive
46:26
you. Yes, even you of all your sins,
46:29
of all your mistakes, of all your failures, of all the times
46:33
he walked away and ran away from God, He loves you so that he
46:36
could say to you, your sins are forgiven.
46:38
If you put your faith and trust in me, if you believe on the
46:41
Lord Jesus Christ and you confess Him with your mouth, you
46:44
will be saved. And the great benefit is not
46:47
just that your sins are forgiven.
46:48
Wonderful. It's not just that He promises
46:51
He'll give you life and life more abundantly today, but He
46:54
promises you life forever in eternity, which means this there
47:00
will come a day for all of us when we close our eyes in this
47:03
world. But the Bible says this, to be
47:08
absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.
47:12
So imagine that you close your eyes, you breathe your last
47:17
breath and immediately you open them and you're in eternity.
47:24
And who's going to be the first person you're going to see?
47:27
It's going to be Jesus. What's that moment going to be
47:30
like? Jesus looking into your face And
47:34
Scripture tells us what he's going to say.
47:37
He's going to look at you and he's going to say, well done,
47:40
good and faithful servant. And then he's going to say,
47:44
enter into the joy of your beloved.
47:46
And and what happens at that point is we can only imagine the
47:52
colors, the sounds of worship, the hues.
47:56
I do know this. There will be people there that
47:59
have gone before us that we miss and love.
48:02
That why I have no doubt we'll be waiting there to welcome us
48:05
home as well. I can't wait for that.
48:08
I think of my dear brother Ian. We all know this.
48:11
He lost his dad. His dad will be there waiting
48:13
for him in that moment. Isn't that a joy?
48:16
Isn't that the hope? It's the center of everything we
48:18
believe as Christians and have belief for over 2000 years.
48:22
Eternity, eternity. Life is short, but making your
48:27
days count, we're making them count for something greater than
48:30
the 70 or the 80 years that we have on this life here.
48:34
Amen. Amen.
48:36
So let's stand, let's worship. This is a great song to end
48:39
with. Lord Jesus, we thank you for the
48:41
way that your Word speaks to us. Lord, sometimes it comforts us,
48:45
sometimes it exhorts us, it stirs us up.
48:47
Lord. So have your way with whatever
48:49
it is that you've wanted to say and speak to our hearts this
48:52
morning. Lord, it's living, it's active.
48:54
I believe, Lord, every heart that has been opened to receive
48:57
has heard something from you this morning.
49:00
So bless us as we go about our week today.
49:03
And I pray, Lord, that we would just step back out, Lord, as we
49:07
go home today, thinking about the remaining days that we have
49:10
left and having our hearts set and our eyes gazed and fixed on
49:15
eternity. And we pray these things in
49:17
Jesus name, Amen. We pray that you've been
49:21
encouraged by this Bible study delivered live from the
49:23
sanctuary of Calvary Church for prayer.
49:26
Call us at 87730 Grace that's 877-304-7223.
49:35
To listen to this message in its integrity or to join us for our
49:39
live stream services, visit us online at Calvary Co dot Church
49:44
or download our free Calvary Church app.
49:47
Be blessed as you worship Jesus this week.