Manuscript of my sermon for August 27, 2023 at Brooks Avenue Church of Christ, Raleigh, NC. The text was Psalm 90.

Video of the sermon is embedded below for those who would like to watch.

Introduction: An anti-graduation speech

Back-to-school season always reminds me of a book I saw at one of those Scholastic Book Fairs when I was a kid. It was called Thirty Eight Weeks Till Summer Vacation. I wonder how many of you are already counting down the days and weeks until next summer vacation? 

Or maybe for some of you, it’s counting down the days and weeks until graduation. 

Today’s message comes from Psalm 90. And in v12, it says: Teach us to number our days. But it’s not about counting down the days until summer vacation. Or graduation. Or retirement. Psalm 90 teaches us to number our days in light of eternity.

And there’s not a single hearer who’s too young to start thinking in light of eternity.

So, I want to fast-forward from the first day of school all the way to the graduation speech. The fancy term is a commencement address. 

Now, the point of the commencement address is that whoever’s speaking is supposed to, I guess, be catapulting you right into the next leg of your adventure. By the sheer force of their words.

So they get up and say things like:

Have the boldness to go out and follow your heart and believe in your dreams. Let your intuitions be the compass that guides you, because they know who you want to become, even on the days that you are unsure. And remember: The only limitations you will experience are the ones you place on yourself.

I mean, it’s like every graduation speaker magically transforms into a motivational speaker who believes in you—even if they’ve never met you—and who wants you to believe in yourself.

These kinds of talks are meant to inspire you. They’re kind of like that scene in the Wizard of Oz, where the Wizard reveals to the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion already had the brains, heart, and courage they believed they lacked. The commencement address speakers are also trying to convince you that you already have everything you need inside you. You are enough. 

It sounds so encouraging and liberating when they say it. But then the day comes when you bump up against your limits. Or the bottom falls out in some way that you could never have foreseen. Or your intuitions lead you astray, and you find yourself lost. Or you find yourself 43 years old, and the dreams you had at 18 or 22 have passed you by.

And when that day comes—and sooner or later it always does—the kinds of things they say to you at graduation will not be wings with which you can soar above your failures and frustrations. No, they will be like lead weights tied to your ankles, as you sink and drown.

On the day you bump up against your limitations, pep talks like: Follow your heart … Believe in your dreams … You are enough … Everything you need, you already have inside of you … these will all become unbearable burdens.

So here’s the antidote. Take it before the graduation speech bites you. Our text today, Psalm 90, is kind of the anti-graduation speech. 

It gives a much more sober and realistic assessment of our power and our limitations. It tells us that we are finite. That we are prone to sorrow and sufferings, weakness and frustrations. Psalm 90 preaches to us that we are not in control, but God is.

Yet, Psalm 90 also teaches that we can live meaningful lives, and accomplish things that really do matter. Indeed, that what we’re doing now can matter for eternity. However we must not live believing we have no limitations, no ceiling, no expiration date. We must not live trusting our own hearts and intuitions. 

Rather, we must understand that, because we are fallen and finite creatures, we’re always going to be the underdog, and we must trust in God and in His power; and live by His grace and according to His Word. Then He will establish our works. He will crown our imperfect works with His perfect grace. In this life, fantastic success as our culture and our peers usually define it, will be the great exception—not the rule.

Psalm 90 teaches that alone, no—You are most assuredly not enough. Everything you need is not within you, but it is within God, and He will freely give those who trust in Him what they need. With God, you are enough; but that’s entirely on Him, not on you.

So, there’s three lessons I want to share from Psalm 90 as you go back to school. But really, these are lessons that every Christian needs to remember every day. 

First: God is eternal and Almighty. Second: You are temporary and limited. And third: Trust God to make your work matter.

Psalm 90 was written by Moses, so it’s the oldest Psalm in our Bible. And throughout Christian history, it’s usually been associated with the morning, the beginning of the day. For centuries monks have chanted Psalm 90 not long after they get out of bed, before they begin their day’s work. And that’s an appropriate time to pray these words, and meditate on them. 

So we have already recited portions of the Psalm—the portions I will be preaching from—together this morning. 

Now listen, think about how you might go about your day differently if you began it by praying: Lord, Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. Or, if right before you began your work, you prayed: Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us; and establish for us the work of our hands.

Don’t you think that might invest your day, and the things you do, with a deeper sense of gratitude and a greater sense of purpose?

Along those lines, I want to share this with you, and hope that God writes this prayer on your hearts, at the beginning of your school year—in the morning of the year, as you are about to begin your work.

God is Eternal and Almighty

So then, let’s move on to the first lesson Psalm 90 teaches us, which is that God is eternal and Almighty. This is from vv1-4. v1 begins: Lord, you have been our refuge in every generation.

Notice, Moses did not say, Lord, You provide a refuge for us. He did not just say, You are a refuge. Instead he says: Lord, you are our refuge; and you have been our refuge in every generation.

In other words, God is home for His people. Christ is a safe dwelling place for all who believe in Him. And this is who God has always been, this is who Christ will always be, for His people—in every generation, from the beginning of time, until eternity.

Students—your homeroom might change. You might change schools. You might lose friends, or gain new friends. The challenges you face will change. Many of you are at the age where your voices and bodies are changing. What doesn’t change, and will never change; is that if you belong to Christ, God is your home; Jesus Christ is where you belong; and the Holy Spirit is hovering over you, shielding you with his wings. The Triune God is your refuge—your dwelling place, your safe home.

Deuteronomy 33:27 says: The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms. You are safe within Him, under His care and provision. And His mighty arms are always there, holding you up, carrying you, catching you if you fall. God is your haven in a heartless world.

God is, indeed, a stable home—even if you don’t have one—because He is eternal and Almighty. Listen to how v2 picks up: Before the mountains were born, before you gave birth to the earth and the world, from eternity to eternity, you are God. 

Picture the power, the knowledge, the wisdom on display as creation unfolds. Here is God, restraining the oceans; forming the continents; hanging the sun and moon and stars in the heavens; adorning the land with lush green grass and beautiful wildflowers and fruit-bearing trees—and then bringing forth every kind of living creature … they’re just popping, fully formed, out of His mind, by the power of His Word … and then He crowns it all with … us. With humans, made in His image.

The God who made this beautiful home for us—so that we would see His power and might and wisdom and care, and seek to find our true home in Him—He is your refuge. His are the everlasting arms that will uphold you on your weakest days, and catch you when you stumble.

When you stop to consider this God who simply is, before all else, from everlasting to everlasting, you begin to see how foolish it is to believe that you could be enough, or that everything you need is already inside you. For you see that God is the Creator, and you are the creature. 

He is the uncreated One, so He is always the cause, never the effect. Always the one who acts, never the one who is acted upon. He gives to those who need, but never needs anything Himself. He is the giver of all good gifts, who needs nothing from His creatures, but who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly.

When you consider this God who is the source of all things; yet has no source, but simply is—without beginning and without end—you learn that you will never be enough, because He didn’t create you to be enough. He created you to dwell with Him, to make your home in Him, so that He would be always more than enough for you. And you realize that you will not find all you could ever need inside yourself, because He is the source and giver of all that we need—whether it is food or forgiveness, courage or comfort.

Do you understand? When you give yourself in faith to this Eternal, Almighty God, you are set free from having to look to yourself for all that you need. You are free to see yourself as a finite creature. You are free to recognize your limits. You are free to truly live like that song we learned in Sunday School: We are weak, but He is strong.

And that’s not all the comfort you get when you know that God is your refuge from eternity to eternity. Because God is love, and God is eternal, His love for His people is eternal. He says: I have loved you with an everlasting love (Jeremiah 31:3). God’s love—like God Himself—is from everlasting to everlasting. I cling to what Geerhadus Vos once said, and I hope you will, too: The greatest proof that God will never stop loving you, is that He never began. 

And then, in vv3-4, Moses tells us:

You return mankind to the dust,

saying, “Return, descendants of Adam.”

For in your sight a thousand years

are like yesterday that passes by,

like a few hours of the night.

Now, this is stepping on the toes of point two a bit. God is Eternal and Almighty; but we are Temporary and Limited. That’s okay—you can’t really talk about one without the other. But even here, both the youngest and oldest among us can find at least three great sources of comfort.

First of all, God is not bound by time. He is eternal. He created time; He Himself is timeless. All times are now to God. That’s what Moses is preaching to us when he says that for God, a thousand years is like a few hours of the night. 

God stands outside of time, and says: I declare the end from the beginning, and from long ago what is not yet done (Isaiah 46:10). That means that when Romans 8:28 promises that God works all things together  for the good of those who love Him, He is never improvising. 

So no matter what you a struggling with right now; whatever darkness you can’t see through; whenever you can’t see the way through—He is with you right now; and He is already waiting for you in the future He has planned for you. That’s good news for the old and the young. But it’s better to learn it when you’re young.

But here’s a second piece of really excellent news when Moses says, You are brief; but God is everlasting: If you put all your hope in something that’s not going to outlive you, then your hope isn’t going to last. 

You see? If you have put all your hope on making a certain grade; or getting into that college, so you can get that job; or on that girl or that boy liking you—because these are the kinds of things we tend to hope for when we are in school—then where will you put your hope after that?

But if you put your hope in this everlasting God—now you have a hope that will outlive you. You have a lasting hope—an everlasting hope, that will not disappoint you. All these other things you might hope for—the grades, the college, the job, the relationship—those might disappoint you. But St. Paul says that: This hope—our everlasting hope in God—will not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us (Romans 5:5).

And then the third comforting bit of good news is that because God is eternal—he simply is from everlasting to everlasting—He is unchangeable. He’s stable and steady. In Malachi 3:6, God says: I the Lord do not change. And Hebrews 13:8 says: Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. That means He will always be who He is to you—your steadfast Refuge; the Everlasting Arms. 

There’s an old hymn I love, I wish we sang it more often, “Abide With Me.” And it says: Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou who changest not, abide with me. When your hope is in the Lord, your hope is steady and sure, because God is steady and sure. Your hope is a powerful hope, because God is all-powerful. Your hope cannot die, because God cannot die.

So that’s the first lesson I want you to take from my un-graduation speech, as you head back to school: God is Eternal and Almighty. Even the strongest and meanest bully you meet on the playground isn’t all-powerful. And neither that haircut you regret, nor unified geometry, are forever.

Now, understand—when I tell you I want you to latch onto this Almighty and Eternal God, I don’t mean that He’s going to magically solve all your problems. You might still flunk trigonometry and have to go to summer school. That girl might not like you back. You might not get into the college you wanted. But your salvation, your hope in the Lord, His working all things together for your good—those are still true and good and real, in spite of your failures and setbacks.

You are Temporary and Limited

Now, the second lesson I want us to learn from Psalm 90 is: You are Temporary and Limited.

You have human limitations. You’re limited for two reasons. First, because you are a creature, not the Creator. You are not infinite, eternal, and unchangeable. You are not all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-wise. God is all of those things, so you have to trust Him.

The second reason you are finite—or limited—is that you are fallen. You are a child of Adam, so you have unfortunately inherited a sinful nature from Him. Romans 3:23 says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. 

Well, how did we get into that condition? Romans 5:12 tells us that sin entered the world through one man—that was Adam—and death through sin, in this way death spread to all people, because all sinned. Ephesians 2:3 says that we are by nature objects of God’s wrath—again, after Adam, sin is our nature. It is the natural inclination of our hearts. That’s why your parents had to teach you not to be selfish, not to hit your little sister, not to throw a fit when you don’t get your way. 

It’s in some people’s nature to have blue eyes, it’s in some people’s nature to have curly hair. But it’s in everyone’s nature to sin.

So that limits us. Okay? It limits your intellect, your will, your desires, your emotions, and your understanding. Jeremiah 17:9 says that by nature, the human heart is is more deceitful than anything else, and incurable. Ecclesiastes 9:3 says that human hearts are full of evil, and that madness is in [our] hearts. So that explains some of your classmates and teachers, right? Ephesians 4:17-18 says that our best thinking is futile; our understanding is darkened; and that we are by nature full of ignorance and unbelief.

Not a very flattering picture, is it? Yeah, the picture that the Bible paints of humans in our fallen nature is a lot more embarrassing than your fourth grade yearbook photo, when you had that bowl cut and your mom made you wear that goofy sweater.

So yeah—so much for the graduation speeches that tell us to believe in our dreams, follow our hearts, and let our intuitions guide us. Proverbs 28:26 says that whoever trusts in his own ideas is a fool.

So you are limited in your thinking, and feeling, and knowing—which is why you need to trust God. You need to cling to the Gospel of Christ—that He is your wisdom, your righteousness and holiness before God; and that He is your redemption from beginning to end. And it’s why you need to let the Law of God instruct you and guide you. Psalm 119:45 says: I will walk freely in an open place because I study your precepts.

But the other limitation we all have as fallen, sinful humans is death. We heard that in Romans 5:12 a few minutes ago—sin entered the world through Adam, and death through sin. What an awful inheritance Adam left for his children! Unlike God, we all have an expiration date. And that’s where Psalm 90 brings us next.

Psalm 90:10: Our lives last seventy years or, if we are strong, eighty years. Even the best of them are struggle and sorrow; indeed, they pass quickly and we fly away.

By the way, that old Gospel song, “I’ll Fly Away”—gets this completely wrong. Moses isn’t saying you’re going to fly away like a bird out of its cage. When he says we fly away, he means like smoke or vapor or dust in the wind. Like the old hymn says, we’re frail children of dust, and feeble as frail.

Typically, Moses tells us, we get seventy or eighty trips around the sun. I know, when you’re young that feels like forever and ever. But I’m going to tell you this, and I guarantee you will not understand it until it happens to you, but I need to tell you this now. 

Right now, the year seems to drag by. That 38 weeks til summer vacation seems like a lifetime away. But the older you get, listen—time speeds up.

I don’t know how it happened, but I woke up one day in March and I was 43. I graduated high school 25 years ago, but sometimes it feels like last week.

But 70 or 80 years aren’t even a blip compared to eternity. And listen, Moses says that even the best of those years are full of sorrow and struggle. Those graduation speakers don’t tell you to get used to frustration and disappointment. But the fact is, you don’t get a your happily ever after in this life. You’re already facing some of that—whether it’s a broken pencil or a broken heart. 

So in light of the fact that this life is temporary, and you are limited—you’re finite, you’re weak, you’re prone to mess up, you were born with an expiration date that only God knows, and this life is full of sorrow and struggle—how should you live? What should you do?

Look at v12: Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. Understand that you are going to die. We are all born with one foot already in the grave, and it is appointed for people to die only once and after this comes the judgment (Hebrews 9:27). In his comments on this Psalm, Martin Luther says that those who never think of death and feel no misery remain senseless fools, caring nothing for God’s grace or help.

Moses teaches us to pray that God would give us the good sense to recognize that we are weak and temporary creatures, so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. Proverbs 9:10 declares that: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Remember what I said earlier—by nature we are all foolish, and our understanding is darkened. Our wisdom has to come from outside of us. We have to receive it from God, through faith. That’s really what the fear of the Lord means—trusting Him, worshiping Him, acknowledging that you are accountable to Him.

Young as you are, you already have one foot in the grave. Number your days carefully! Ecclesiastes 12:1 says to remember your Creator in the days of your youth: Before the days of adversity come. Come to Him now—put your trust and hope in Jesus now. Death and the Judgment are coming for us all, you see. And your works, your righteousness, your good intentions—those will not stand up to God’s scrutiny. 

Your worst fear right now might be getting an F in geometry. But imagine getting an F from God, on your whole life, from God. If God graded any one of us fallen, feeble sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, we would all fail. So come to Christ now, and you won’t be graded on your performance, but on His at Judgment Day. God will give you credit for Jesus’ A+, for His perfect obedience, for His righteousness and holiness.

The thing the grownups don’t tell you enough about the Christian life is that the church is basically a group project where we all get credit for the work that Jesus did. Trust in Him as all your righteousness and holiness before God; put Him on in baptism—and He will receive you into His study group. See? Come to Him now, at the beginning of the school year of your life.

Trust God to Make your Work Matter

Okay, I really must move on, even though I had a lot more to say about these verses. So here’s the third lesson we learn from this anti-graduation speech, Psalm 90. It’s found in vv16-17: Trust God to make your work matter.

Listen, you are going to have bad days at school. You’re going to struggle with certain subjects. You’re going to have emotional and social struggles, too. There’s going to be drama. You are never going to be perfect in this life. When you get out of school, you’re going to have bad days and even bad years.

So what should you do—besides accepting that your years are going to be struggle and sorrow, like we heard a few minutes ago in v10? Well, you’re going to need to pray. A lot. 

In v16, Moses teaches us to pray: Lord, Let your work be seen by your servants, and your splendor by their children. Martin Luther, again, says that God’s work and God’s splendor is Christ working salvation for us—rescuing us from sin and judgment and death, and making all things new. Pray that God would preserve you in Christ. That by His Spirit in you, your faith would be kept strong; your hope of eternal life would grow more eager; and your love for God and for others would grow deeper. Pray with earnest expectation for the return of Christ, for eternal glory with Him, to see Him face-to-face.

And then in v17, Moses teaches us to pray: Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us; establish for us the work of our hands—establish the work of our hands! A lot of the work you’re doing in school right now probably feels pointless. But in Christ—Go will somehow make all of your work matter. 

Same for us old folks, too. Twice, Moses prays: Establish the work of our hands! God, may our work matter beyond graduation; beyond retirement; beyond our death.

Here’s a change in perspective for you. In school we’re basically taught that the work we’re doing now is preparing us for the next thing. But God created us to be working creatures. The only reason we find frustration and failure and pointlessness in our work now is because our work—like the rest of life, and the rest of the world—has been infected by sin. Without sin there would be no failure or frustration or futility.

So instead of simply thinking of your work as preparing you for the next thing; find some hope in the idea that right now matters for eternity. And that’s even the stuff that feels boring and tedious and pointless. If God is working all things together for His glory and the good of those who love Him, that includes muddling through physics. 

So how does that matter for eternity? I will admit, there’s a mystery there. But it’s interesting that in 1 Corinthians 15—which is a very long chapter, 58 verses in all—and it’s all about our resurrection from the dead; at the very end of this long chapter about resurrection and eternal life … Paul tells us that our labor in this life is not in vain. 

When God answers this prayer—let your favor rest on us, and establish the work of our hands—we need to understand that in light of God’s promise to renew all creation, raise the dead, and reward the faithfulness of those who believe in Him, those who have loved Him. So there’s a mystery there, but the implication is that our worthy work will not be lost, but that God will preserve it and protect it in eternity—just as He preserves and protects us. 

How does this work? Isaiah 26:12 says: Lord … you have indeed done for us all our works. Now listen, the work is done by our hands, from our minds. It’s our toil and sweat. But It is God working through us, to accomplish His perfect will. And He is not going to allow His good work to be lost. No, He’s going to establish it forever, He’s going to perfect its imperfections that came from our feeble hands. 

What you do matters to God. Forever.

So Psalm 90 has taught us that God is Almighty and Eternal, while we are Limited and Temporary. So come to Him in Christ, and He will give you eternal life with Him, and perfect your imperfections in glory.