Thank you, Michael. Happy New Year to all of you. Turning your Bibles with me, please, to the book of Psalms. Our text this morning is Psalm 90. Right about in the middle of your Bible. If you don't have a Bible, please reach under a chair and pull out a Bible and turn to page 630. 630 of those Bibles. Psalm 90. Today I'm going to bring you a New Year sermon. I actually preached on this text. I was looking through my records and I preached on this text 10 years ago on January 2nd, 2005. I'm sure if you were here then you remember that sermon. I'm sure it's never left you for a moment. But yeah, so this is like 10 years later I'm looking back at this same text of Psalm 90. It's a really wonderful Psalm. I'm going to tell you more about it in a little bit. A lot has happened though in those 10 years, right? I had hair in 2005. And since 2005 in these 10 years a lot has happened in my family. We've gained a son-in-law since 2005. And our number of grandchildren has gone from two to nine in 10 years. They've been very productive. Our kids. Just think of some of the things that have happened in our culture in the past 10 years. I made a short list. 10 years ago today America had never had an African-American president. The Facebook, and that's what it was called, was just for college students in January 2005. Google Maps didn't exist. If you wanted to watch a movie you'd probably go to this store they called Blockbuster. Michael Jackson was alive but about to go on trial for child abuse. Nobody knew the names of Carrie Underwood or Taylor Swift or Miley Cyrus. There were no iPhones. There was no YouTube for a little bit after January 2005. There were only five Star Wars movies. We was just a pronoun. Not a game system. The average price of gas was about $1.79 a gallon. And Urban Meyer had just been hired as the head coach of the Florida Gators football team who two years later would beat whom for the national championship Ohio State. Irony of ironies. A lot indeed has happened in 10 years. What's that saying from the old soap opera like Sands through the Hourglass so are the days of our lives? So it's fitting isn't it that on the first Sunday of a new year 2015 we think about time. Now before I read this song I'm warning you it's pretty somber. If you watched the movie Pollyanna you remember that Pollyanna had a problem with her preacher because he would always preach on the hard texts. And she wanted him to preach on a happy text. Well this is not a happy text. But it's not a sad text either. It's a realistic text. I want you to look at it that way. And I believe that only those who have a Psalm 90 view of life which I hope you have. Only those with a Psalm 90 view of life live well. And die well. And in the middle age well. I heard of a family whose tradition every year on New Year's Eve is for the father to pull out his Bible and gather the children in the family around him, around the dinner table. And every New Year's Eve they read Psalm 90. Why? Because at a time like this on the beginning of a new year it's so vitally important that we talk about time about how fleeting it is and how it's so very important to seize the day, to use the time well that we have. And as my sermon title intimates to age well. And that's what Psalm 90 says among other things. So I'm going to read the first 12 verses right now of Psalm 90. We're going to look at the rest of it later. So here with me please Psalm 90 beginning at verse one, a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth in the world. From everlasting to everlasting you are God. You return man to dust and say return our children of man. For a thousand years in your side are but as yesterday when it's past or as a watch in the night. You sweep them away as with a flood. They are like a dream like grass that's renewed in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and is renewed in the evening it fades and withers. For we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed. You have said our iniquities before you are secret sins in the life of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath we bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80. Yet their span is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. The Word of the Lord. May the Lord use this part of His Word to change our hearts to make us more conform to His image and to send us out today more willing and able to live for His glory. Three truths that I think Psalm 90 holds out to us in order to age well. If we are going to talk about the brevity of life, the fleeting nature of time which is what we are going to do on this first Sunday of a new year. We want to talk about these three truths that will help us age well. Let me give you the three and then we will look at them one by one. First you are mortal, second you matter and third you cannot make it on your own. Alright, so let's dive into truth number one. You are mortal look at verses five and six. The Psalm writer says that you speaking to God, sweep them speaking of human beings. You sweep them away as with a flood. They are like a dream like grass that's renewed in the morning in the morning. It flourishes and is renewed in the evening. It fades and withers. You are mortal. Last week we all heard the sad news about that about that air Asia jet that went down in the Java sea. 162 human beings on their way to Christmas vacations in Singapore without warning who lost their lives. The writer of Psalm 90 is saying life is like that very brief trip in the air bus. That comes suddenly and as verse four says sweeps us away as with a flood. Morning and evening of the Psalm writer says in verse six he uses those images of morning and then evening and how quickly that cycle comes and goes comes and goes. It is his way of saying we are all aging. Every single one of us in this room have this in common we are all aging and in a very real sense you might say that we are all dying. Every one of you doesn't matter what age you are you are in process of deteriorating. How is that for a happy thought this morning? But it's true we're all dying. See you and I are not like God. Verse two says that God is from everlasting to everlasting. He is eternal. That's a word we use for God's nature. It's one of his incommunicable attributes. Have you ever heard that term? There are theologians tell us there are two ways to look at God's attributes or his character. He has incommunicable attributes and communicable attributes. The communicable ones are the ones that we have in some measure. You know God is love. We can love. God is good. We can be good. God is holy. We can try to be holy. Those are communicable attributes that we share to some degree. But he's got incommunicable attributes. He is infinite. You and I are not. We're finite. He is eternal. You and I are mortal. He is unchangeable. We change all the time. So his eternality. The fact that he is eternal. That he is immortal is one of the things that Psalm 90 points out to us. That's true about God. He always has been and he always will be. There was never a time when God was not. Get your mind wrapped around that and it will kind of blow your fuse. God is the only being in the universe who never ages. He exists above time. He is timeless. And because of that, what seems like forever to you and me is just a brief moment for God. In verse 4, it says that a thousand years in your sight, God, are but as yesterday when it's passed or as a watch in the night. A watch in the night was like three or four hours. A thousand years to you is like a few hours to God in comparison. God is immortal. But you and I are mortal. See, there was a time when you were not. And sometimes in the not too distant future, you and I are going to cease to exist upon this earth unless Jesus comes back first. In James chapter 4, we read that it says that what is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. That's what you are. That's what I am. But a mist compared to the immortality of God. One day, my friend, there's going to be a grave marker with your name on it. One day, people are going to walk around in a cemetery and your grave will be there and your body will be decomposing in the ground in that cemetery. One day in verse 3, it says that God is going to say to you, return to dust. The dust from whence we came. One day, it says in verse 4, that God is going to sweep you away as with a flood. That's just the way an imagery way of talking about the fact that you're going to die. Your earthly existence is going to come to an end. And in the meantime, while we're in this body, or you might say, while we're on that air bus called life, our lives are subject to frustration. Again, this is part of the reality of life that we're dealing with in this song. In verse 9, it says that we bring our years to an end like a sigh. Have any of you sighed recently? I suspect that not a few of us have sighed a day or two after Christmas came and went. When the packages had been open, when the ribbons were strewn about the living room, wrapping paper scattered everywhere, toys broken, clothes returned to the store, kids got in their car and drove away. What did you do? You sighed. Life is very similar to those old empty boxes that are now useless. You know, Job felt that way. Job wrote about this feeling of sighing in his book. At one point in the book of Job, it says that he says, my days are swifter than a weaver's shuttle and come to their end without hope. Now, it hasn't always been like that. When God first created Adam and Eve to borrow words from C.S. Lewis, it was always Christmas and never winter. There was no sin in the world, see? But when Adam and Eve disobeyed God's clear rule not to eat the forbidden fruit, sin entered the human race and with sin came the curse of frustration and sickness and sorrow and death, death physical and death spiritual. In verse 5, the psalmist compares us to the new grass of the morning, here one day and gone to next. There was a band many of you my age know who Kansas was. Kansas had a pretty famous song called Dust in the Wind in which they say, I close my eyes only for a moment and then the moment's gone. All my dreams pass before my eyes. A curiosity, dust in the wind, all we are is dust in the wind. Those guys were right. Our lives are over in a flash. The psalmist says in verse 10 that the years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength, 80, in other words, some of us make it to 80 if we have enough streets, some of you to it to whom I'm speaking are already there or maybe beyond that date. There's a hand raised. See, you've already beaten the odds. But the psalmist is simply saying by and large generally speaking, human beings make it to 70 and many of them make it to 80. But whether you do make it to 80 or not, their span he says is but toil and trouble. They are soon gone and we fly away. What's 80 years compared to eternity? You know what the average life expectancy for people in the United States is now? If you were born in 2012, surprise, surprise, 78.8. Women make it a little bit longer. Men may not make it that long. But the Bible is right. 70, 80. This is why verse 12 is such an important Bible verse. May it sink into our hearts. Maybe, maybe, should we memorize this verse? Verse 12, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. What I hear the Psalm writer saying there is, Lord, help me to remember that life is fleeting. Help me see life realistically, Lord. Remind me of the brevity of life so that I won't waste it, so that I won't fritter my seconds and minutes and hours and days and weeks and years away doing meaningless things. Building up material wealth instead of spiritual wealth. Lord, help me to remember that my days, my time is short. That life is going past me if I let it. Give me a heart of wisdom, Lord. I want to be wise more than I want to be successful. I want to be wise more than I want to be handsome or beautiful or youthful or rich or whatever people chase after in this life. I want to do things that really matter, Lord, so help me number my days. Have you numbered your days lately? It's an exercise that we all ought to do from time to time. I numbered my days just to show you how it's done. Here are my calculations. If we take the Bible writer literally here and imagine that we make it only to 70, that gives us 25,500 days. So I'm 61, right, or will be in a couple of weeks. That means that I'm 22,246 days old. That gives me 3,254 days left. Now, again, will I make it past 70? Who knows, I may not make it that far. But if I make it to 70, I've got 3,254 days left to do something for the glory of God. Tomorrow, I'll have 3,253 days left. The day after that, 3,252 days left. You see how it works? You see how you number your days? You start realizing that my time is really short? I've lived already 87% of my 70 years. My life is pretty much over. That sounds terrible, I know. But you hear what I'm saying. See, when you start numbering your days like that, it'll do one of two things. It'll either pull you down, and I pray that it won't. But it'll either pull you down or it'll push you forward. And I pray that that's what it will do. It will either make you depressed, it could, it could make you depressed, or it could give you wisdom. And it's that second option that God offers to us here in Psalm 90, to live not looking back, but looking forward, not to be depressed and morose, and sentimental, but to be optimistic in a biblical sense, to be gospel optimistic, to look forward to the next day, to the next opportunity, to do something that really counts. That's the view of life that God offers to us as we number our days right. Because not only does this Psalm teach us that we're mortal, but let's go on to the second truth that will totally transform the way you look at time, it teaches us that you matter. This Psalm teaches that you matter, and you matter immensely. Let's read now the rest of the Psalm. I remember I stopped at verse 12, let's pick it up again at verse 13, and I think you'll see a very clear change of mood. Verse 13, return, O Lord, how long have pity on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you've afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil. Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us. Yes, establish the work of our hands. Ah, the sun has come out. Right, verses 1 through 12 are sort of like the dark gloomy, drizzly days we've just emerged from. And verses 13 through 17 the sun rises, and here is hope, here is purpose, here is meaning. Here it teaches that you matter. Do you notice this shift of perspective? There's not a looking back to the past. There's not a, oh, woe is me. The good old days were back there. No, this is a shift looking forward with hope, not despair. And so we ought to ask the question, why? Why can the Psalm writer, after talking about the brevity of life, how fleeting time is, why can he now offer us hope in such a dark psalm? Well, let me show you three reasons. In a way, what this is going to be, is three beams of sunshine in an otherwise heavy psalm. So first, I want you to notice how the psalm begins. Look at the title of the psalm. It says, a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Most scholars agree that Moses wrote Psalm 90. The evidence is pretty strong because a lot of the words and phrases that he uses in Psalm 90 are also found in the first five books of the Old Testament, which Moses wrote. This means that Psalm 90 is the oldest of all 150 psalms and a very old part of the Bible. But think about it. The title says that it's a prayer. That's real important to see in this dark psalm. It's a prayer. Why would a person pray to God if that person doesn't matter to God? I mean, if all we are is dust in the wind, if all we are as some scientists would say is a bag of chemicals, then why in the world would we ask God to establish the work of our hands? Why would the Bible bother to tell us to pray? Because we're more than dust in the wind. We're more than a bag of chemicals. We matter to God. We're created in His image. We bear His likeness. God created us with purpose and put within us a desire for meaning and meaningful work. Imagine this, that the one being in all the universe who is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable cares about you. He loves you. Moses praised this prayer Psalm 90 because he knows this. He knows he matters to God and he knows God's people matter to God too. Verse Peter 5.7 tells us that we ought to be, we ought to resemble Moses in this way. It says cast all your anxiety upon God because he what cares for you. So in 2015, if you would age well, if you would grow spiritually, if you would look forward rather than behind you, aspire by God's grace to be a man or a woman or a boy or a girl, a prayer. Prayer founded in this conviction that God deeply cares about you and about the things that you care about. It's a prayer of Moses, the man of God. Second, notice in this Psalm, not only the title of it, but the theology of it. There's a certain theology in Psalm 90, the view of God in other words that is presented to us in Psalm 90. God is not just an exalted immortal sovereign God. He's not just this huge infinite God with these incomunicable attributes. No, he is also close. He's personal. He's involved in your life. He is accessible. He is, again, to use some theological jargon, imminent as well as transcendent. Transcendent is big, glorious, bigger than we can comprehend. Eminent is tender, kind, like a father, like a mother, like a friend. God is both those things. That's the theology of Psalm 90. Look at the opening verse and you'll see what I mean. The opening verse says, Lord, you have been our dwelling place. See, isn't that fascinating that this God who is above all things, even above time, is right here? He is your dwelling place. That phrase in Hebrew is often translated as refuge or shelter or home. So he is close as well as immortal and sovereign and big and far away. I live near a driving range, and we often can look out from our back porch to the driving range and golf balls are just flying all over the place. But there's often a man in a machine and he's driving that machine picking up golf balls. He cannot get hit by the golf balls because he's enclosed in a shelter. It's all around him. Glass walls in this machinery that he drives around picking up golf balls and they may hit him, but it bounces right off. See, God is like that. God is your shelter, even when painful things come into your life. God is with you inside those things, feeling them with you, helping you to keep going, helping you to endure the suffering in the trial. God's your dwelling place. He's your home. He's always with you, even if he feels far away, if you're a Christian today. So don't you find it amazing that this self-existent God we're learning about this self-sufficient immortal God should care so much about you as to walk with you and talk with you through the trials of life and be your dwelling place, your refuge. If you want to age well this year in 2015, that would indicate that you need a repent of your worry. If God is indeed your dwelling place and you believe he's always with you and he's your home and he's your protection and your shelter, then why do you spend so many of your days and hours worrying about things? If you're a warrior, take heed and listen to what Psalm 90 is saying. Trust God to be your dwelling place. And then third, not only notice the title and the theology of the Psalm, but notice the ending of the Psalm. The very last verse, verse 17, says, let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us, yes, establish the work of our hands. I was talking with someone the other day who said something like this paraphrasing. He said, Mike, I don't know what I'm going to do. My kids don't need me anymore. My friends are too busy for me. I'm never going to go further in my job. I feel like my life is over. He's 45. Very sad. But one of the things that makes it hard for many of us to age well is this sinking feeling that we don't count. That we're not significant. That we're not making a difference in the kingdom, right? That your best years are behind you instead of in front of you. Listen to Moses prayer. He doesn't look at life that way. He says, establish the work of my hands. Yes, Lord, establish the work of my hands. You know how old Moses was? Probably when he said those words, when he prayed that prayer, possibly 120. Many scholars and I agree believe that this Psalm was probably written near the very end of Moses' life as he was standing with his people on the east shore of the Jordan River before they were about to go over into the promised land. I want to raise this prayer. Establish the work of our hands, Lord, as we go into the into Canaan, into your land that you've given to us. Establish the work. Bless us. Use us to spread the gospel as it were for the glory of God. And your life is not over unless you choose it to be. I don't care how old you are. Your life is not over unless you choose it to be. See, there's this longing in each one of us for significance. God put that longing inside you. It's one of the proofs that you've been made in his image. Don't discount that. Follow it. Your work matters to God whether you're a computer geek or a carpenter, a homemaker or a home builder, a teller or a teacher, a salesperson or a scientist or a student or a secretary, whatever it is, whatever, wherever God has placed you, you have a unique influence in this world that no one else has. Nobody else can fill your shoes. God designed you, made you, wired you, put you where he put you so that he could use you in the world in your way like no one else. That's significant. Your work matters because you matter. You can look forward to the future as the best years of your life. Yeah, life might be short. It is, but it's significant. This is significant. This little card. Love your neighbor. We've asked you to put three names on there and pray for those people and love them in some way. That's significant. This matters. There's just one example of many to show that there's purpose to life. There's a purpose to your existence that makes the 70 or 80 years that you have worth living. You're just a little lower than the angels created in the image of God. There was a fellow who lived back in the 1700s that I kind of think a lot of. Jonathan Edwards, many of you know that name. He was a famous theologian preacher, pastor, author, very instrumental in the great awakening that happened in our country in the 1700s. And one of the things that Jonathan Edwards offers to us or does for us is he gave us a number of resolutions. He wrote about 70 resolutions throughout his life, mostly when he was a young adult. So listen to that. You who are teenagers and people in your 20s. He wrote most of these resolutions in those age brackets. And I wanted to share with you three. Look at resolution number five resolved never to lose one moment of time, but to improve it the most profitable way I possibly can. Resolution number six resolved to live with all my might while I do live. And number seven resolved never to do anything that I should be afraid to do if it were the last hour of my life. Very good resolutions right now those are the words of a man who knew that even though he was mortal. He knew that he mattered. He had opportunities and abilities of mind, a heart, hands, feet, health, family, friends, a man who knew that all of those things mattered immensely. And he desired by God's grace to use them as best he could while he had time. All right. So you might say, OK, I'm going to be like that guy. I am going to go out of here today. I am so charged up. I'm going to write my new years resolutions. I'm going to work harder than I ever have at being a better person. I'm going to improve my habits. I'm going to start this and start that. I'm going to get my finances together. I'm going to love my family better. I'm going to lose weight. I'm going to stop wasting time. I want to tell you that that's not the way to respond to this sermon. Because truth number three is you cannot make it on your own like that. It's not a matter of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and trying harder to just be a better person and get things right. You cannot make it on your own. You need to be in vital relationship connectedness with first other believers and then second with Jesus. You need to be first in vital connection with other believers. Let's talk about that. I want you to notice the plural pronouns in Psalm 90. If you were paying attention to that red, you might have noticed many of the pronouns are plural, not singular. Verse one, Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Verse 12, so teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. And verse 17, let the favor of the Lord be upon not just me, but upon us and establish the work of our hands upon us. Moses does not pray alone. He prays with and in community. As you age, you know what's going to happen? I feel it sometimes. Besides, I'm an introvert and I tend this way. As you age, you're going to feel the temptation to close in on yourself and become more and more self-reliant and isolated and independent of other people. And that's a really dangerous situation. So the Bible is calling us not to be singular but plural. Are you in a life group? Can I be practical? Are you in a life group? If not, talk to me. You pay me to help you get into community. I can help you get into relationship with other people. It's so very vital that you be in relationship with others. But secondly, more than anything else, you need to be in relationship with Jesus. You need to be close in relationship with Jesus. Look at verse 14 of our Psalm. It says, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love. May that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Moses here is really by faith looking forward to the day when God reveals his steadfast love through the Messiah. And we know that Messiah. Now, because we're on this side of the cross, you need to be in relationship with Jesus. My father died about 13 years ago. The year was 2000. He died of leukemia. And I'll never forget sitting around the dining room table, just my dad and me. And he knew that his end was coming pretty soon. And he said these words to me that I've never forgotten. He said, Mike, I don't have a lot of time left. And he was right. He died a few months after that. I want to say those words to you. You don't have a lot of time left. You may think you do, but you don't. Every now and then we get awakened out of our stupor where we think we've got a lot of time left. It happened here in this church, one of the many occasions in June of 2004. Some of you were members then. I was down in front of the Lord's table about to serve communion that day when someone handed me a note that said Bill Bovet has passed away. Bill Bovet was one of our long time members. He was a deacon in the church. He was 50-ish. And he was over at university high school during the second service. That's what his habit was. He would come worship at the early service and go play basketball with some buddies in the late service. And he killed over dead. 2004. You don't have a lot of time left. And neither do I. Are you in relationship with God through Jesus Christ? I couldn't ask you a more important question. Is he your shelter? Are you closed in and is God your dwelling place your home? You ought to be able to say yes or no to that question. If not, in all love, I want to tell you, you've got a problem. And the problem is the wrath of God. Did you notice in this Psalm particularly in verses 7, 8, 9, the references to God's wrath? See, God though he loves you, made you, wants relationship with you, also terribly hates sin. And he must punish it. And if you're not in relationship with Jesus Christ through faith, if you've never come to that place where you realize I am a sinner, I need Jesus to pay for my sins. And if you stand before God without a relationship with Christ, all of his wrath is going to fall on you. I believe in a judgment day, the Bible talks about it, a day of wrath because God is holy and he must punish sin. Jesus, here's the good news, Jesus came, that's what we celebrated in Christmas. Jesus came to absorb in himself that wrath on the cross the wrath of God fell upon him instead of you, instead of all who believe in him. God punished his son so he wouldn't have to punish you. But in order to have that benefit of Jesus paying your debt, you must confess your sins to God and ask him to forgive you and make you his child and believe Jesus died on the cross for you. This eternal transcendent God became man and that's what Psalm 90 tells us about. So what does it tell us then to age well? Let's wrap up three things. Number your days because you are mortal time is fleeting. You don't have a lot of time left. So live for the things that really count. Second, believe that you matter, that you have important work to do for the king and it's never too late to start. You matter, your life matters, your work matters, your words of witness matter, your deeds of mercy matter immensely. So find a place to share and to serve if you aren't doing so already. And third, resist the temptation to live independently and in isolation you need people but especially you need God and Jesus has made it possible for you to have both. So may God give us all here at UPC grace in 2015 to age well for his glory and for the good of all peoples. Let's pray. Lord teach us please to number our days are right. So we may gain a heart of wisdom. Father, we confess so quickly we forget how mortal we are. So easily do we listen to the world's message that we don't really matter. And to naturally do we rely on our own willpower to live the Christian life instead of relying on you and the help of other people. God help us to look to the future as the best days of our lives fill us with your spirit in 2015. So we may love you and serve you with all our hearts, souls, minds and strength until we draw our last breath. And thank you, Lord Jesus, that you drank the cup of the Father's wrath to the very last drop so that we might be free from sin and guilt and shame and rejoice and be glad all our days. Lord, as we begin a new year here at UPC may your favor rest upon us. We ask you we beg you establish the work of our hands upon us. Yes, establish the work of our hands and prepare us now. We pray to receive the sacrament of communion and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen.