Finding Meaning in a Meaningless Life

Finding Meaning in a Meaningless Life

Good morning, Good morning, Welcome. It’s great to see you. My name is mike, one of the pastors on staff here at Solar Church. I’m just a little distracted, a little flustered this morning and no one ever get that way at times. You’re like, I’m, my pregame ritual is not there right now. And so you’re just kind of trying to find your sea legs as you go into this thing. I was under the impression that our, our donut crew of people were both all on vacation this week. So I drove my, my three kids to north walmart to pick up the massive amount of donuts we consume on sunday morning and one of y’all beat me to the punch and got it before I did. So this is great. And so, uh, I feel like I had three kids in the car for me though and that was not normal for my sunday morning routine. And so I feel like I’ve been trying to catch up since. Welcome. I’m mike when the pastors on staff today with the privilege of looking at moses, looking at the character, the man, the myth, the legend moses. We see him throughout the bible moses is um, moses is one of my favorite characters in the bible and he wrote one song in the book of psalms moses. The self proclaimed humblest man that has ever lived. The humblest man that has ever lived. If you look at me two, numbers 12 3. It says now moses was very humble man, more humble than anyone else on the face of the earth and you’re like, wait a second. That’s me. You you’re the most humblest person that’s ever lived. Maybe that’s when moses lived. He was the most humblest man who ever lived. Um, but who is moses? Some of you know who moses is? You have a friend named moses others. You have no idea who moses is and the pastor’s quoting humility and you’re confused. And so moses wrote the first five books of the bible genesis, Exodus leviticus numbers and Deuteronomy. Those five books, composed 100 and 25,000, 139 words. If you compare the math of that with the 611,000 words that are in the bible moses wrote 20% of the bible and he wrote one song, the oldest psalm in the book of psalms. One psalm psalm 90. The song we’re gonna look at today. So let’s pray and let’s get grounded and ask God to bless our day and bless our time in the word and use the work of moses and his life to instruct and convict our hearts. Let’s pray God. I thank you for these men and these women and what you’re doing in their lives. So thank you for the work you’re doing in their lives. God I pray. We would find our grounding in you. I pray. We would be convicted by the words of moses, by the reflections of moses in this psalm 90. I ask that you just really uh instruct us, encourage us correct us. Lord, I pray that people would hear you and your word and I would say out of the way and they would just see you and appreciate you and love you and worship you more results of spending a chunk of time focusing our thoughts quieting our spirit and just trying to focus on you and learn about you so that we might live for you. We commit this time to you in jesus name amen. So if you, if you miss the background on this chapter 90, you will miss a significant amount of meaning. So I’m about to embark into one of the longest introductions of my pasture probably. But if we miss this background you it will not ring as powerful as if I don’t. And so okay so the people of God starts as a nation of a nation of Israel starts with Abraham. Abraham had a son named Jacob. Jacob had 12 sons. One of their name was joseph joseph and the 12 brothers in a series of unfortunate events that we’re not gonna cover find themselves in Egypt. With 12 brothers and the bible says they came to Egypt and they were fruitful and multiplied, which is bible speak for they had babies like crazy. And so those 12 brothers in their family after 400 years passing That small family unit that had the promise of God having a relationship with the people that grew from a family to a nation. Each of those 12 brothers became the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel. And those 400 years, 12 brothers and many baby parties. Later, two million people strong make up the nation of Israel, the people of God and the Israeli nation was what’s unique about them is they’re the one nation with one unified monotheistic religion. Um and if you think about where it takes place, they, this story of moses life, his career as a leader takes place in Egypt, which is a very polytheistic faith with very anti monotheistic view of religion and faith just the exact opposite of the people of God. And these people, they they shared their they shared a shared faith with God and God put them on the stage on the largest nation on the planet, with the largest economy, the largest political thing, the largest religious institutions, the largest military, it was the pinnacle of man’s creation, man’s existence. The most powerful nation on the planet was the nation of Egypt at this time. And there we find these two million people that are holding onto their customs, their traditions, their religion, their walk with the promise of Abraham God giving him a promised land of where they have descendants, as numerous as the stars of the sky as the sand of the sea of the sea, but the Israelite nation was not in a peaceful Egypt situation forever, tensions rise as the population rose and then eventually, a very anti anti Israelite pharaoh comes to power and he’s very anti God, anti pharaoh and he doesn’t view these people as sweet descendants of joseph, 400 years removed of an old high ranking um political leader in the nation of Israel. He views them as a threat. His threat to his hold on, power on his kingdom, has threat to controlling the economy and the inner workings of his kingdom. And he was fearful of this growing population of non Egyptians, a different ethnicity living in Egyptian culture. You look at the Egyptian ethnicity, I mean an Egyptian ethnicity and the jewish ethnicity, their customs and their their cultures are very different. But this growing non Egyptian Israelite ethnicity demographic in the nation of Egypt is a growing problem. So what does he do? He brutally enslaves the people of God, making them slaves, putting them into hard, brutal forced labor. He also commands an edict of a genocide against all male babies in the population to curb their population growth as they’re having more and more offspring and brave hebrew midwives didn’t obey the pharaoh’s Egypt edict and they would attempt to smuggle and get babies out into safe places. So in the midst of this crisis, this cauldron of pain and confusion, God leads one desperate mother to take her baby boy to the Nile and release him in a water resistant basket. I think it’s just fascinating in a plan that is simply amazing that this is something God would do. God leads a bundle of baby bouncing boy in a basket right down the Nile to an influential woman in the household of pharaoh. And she saw and heard the cries of that baby and she was, her emotions were stirred and she had pity on that baby and adopted him and gave and raised him like her own son. And she gave him the name moses and moses grows up in the lap of luxury. He’s living large and in charge. All the rich and famous parties that are out there, all the who’s who’s registry list of the red carpet of Egyptian highlight life. They’re living moses. Was there moses had anything he wanted his entire young life. But in a series of events that happened, moses ends up getting burning anger in his heart and murders an Egyptian slave driver who’s beating one of his own an Israelite with his own ethnicity. He’s beating him severely. So he murders the slave driver and then God leads moses to flee for his life. And moses finds a new life in the wilderness with Jethro and he marries Jeff throws daughter and then moses finds himself as a 40 year old man leading a quiet life in the country tending sheep and then one day he sees on a mountain a burning bush and he goes and investigates the bush that is burning. It doesn’t burn up. And in that Bush, you’ve probably, this is the bell should be going off in your mind. There’s been some movies you’ve probably seen on it by now. Uh, in that burning Bush experience, God says he’s heard the cries of the oppressed people in Egypt of his people and he wants to send moses into the largest economy, largest political structure, largest religious structure and largest military structure on the planet. The pinnacle superpower of Egypt with the message, let my people go and moses does that. And he engages that with the 10 plagues And those 10 plagues are systematically targeting the top 10 Egyptian gods like they worshiped the sun God. So the sun stayed in place and it was dark all over the nation of Egypt except for the place where the Israelites lived, that the sun was able to come through there, whatever else was pitch black like a reverse eclipse. They worshiped the Nile. They will now turn the blood, they worshiped frogs. They worship all kinds of things and all those different things. Those 10 different plagues mirrors God’s systematic cage, fight against an Egyptian god and how God, the jewish god, the monotheistic god slowly dismantled the top 10 and Egyptian gods and the power structure behind them. In the economy behind those different worship entities, those different deities and one by one by one, they break and they die and they yield those Egyptian gods and slowly the people of Israel’s heart softened the leaders of the Egyptian people soften. And then finally, the Pharaoh who had it out to get these Egyptians. His heart softens. If you read about this Pharaoh, he was he was he was not soft and squishy. He was a seasoned vet who made a career in the military field and who had a robust leading military, you know before and a broad policy. This man was an accomplished Egyptian Pharaoh. But finally his heart breaks when his oldest son dies and all the Egyptian oldest son dies the 10th plague. But the but the but the Israelites sons who had the blood of the lamb sacrificed at the door posted their doorways, their homes did not lose their sons. There’s just foreshadows, jesus and all kinds of stuff and I’m gonna keep moving so that his heart breaks and he yields and pharaoh releases moses and moses leading two million refugee people out of Egypt into the promised land. So that was the that was the carrot that that God talked to the people about that moses promised there’s a land flowing with milk and honey where they’re not being forced bondage where they’d be oppressed by another more powerful institution. The Egyptians were not there, there’s a land of their own where they can fulfill the promise of Abraham their ancestor that they would live in freedom and peace as a people where they can dwell peacefully. And this rescue op that moses leading, It seems to have failed because he finds himself at the shore of the Red Sea and then pharaoh has another change of heart which you’ll see through the exodus. And the largest military on the planet is barreling down on the Israelites and it’s kind of like they have they have the advanced chariots at this time in world warfare and the Israelites didn’t have any weapons. And if they did, it’s like if if we have a few guns and tanks are rolling down 27th Street, we’re in trouble. I don’t care what your gun looks like. There’s tanks coming at us, Tiger tanks coming out of advanced military coming at them. But God blocked the Egyptian advancing army and made a way for the Israelites to pass through the Red Sea on dry ground. And God leads he led the nation of Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground and God’s people escaped. And after they went out through on dry ground with skyscrapers of water on either side of them through the bottom of the Red Sea, God performed that miracle and many other miracles up to this point and many other miracles after this chapter Then the Israelites are out of the Red Sea and the Egyptian army comes in because the fire pulls up the pillar of fire disappears and then God drowns the largest military on the planet humbling and crushing the Israel, the Egyptian nation, but the very last thing that they took incredible pride in. But that’s not the end of the story, the story continues and God leads the nation of Israel to Mount Sinai where there’s this cloud around the top of Mount Sinai and God was speaking of an audible voice of the people of Israel, voice to voice, voice to ear drum that he created, sharing with them the moral law. The 10 Commandments about this covenant relationship the people of God will have with their God, their monotheistic God, how God would reflect this nation. Put them on display for the whole world to see what it looks like for those people who give their lives to God. Remember the 10 Commandments, We just did that series. That’s where we just landed the plane alright. And then moses leads them from Mount Sinai. After the 10 Commandments series, we just did moses leads two million people through the wilderness and then we hear about manna and quail which is basically meat and bread. I don’t hear any veggies. Moms and dads, meat and bread was their diet as they traveled through the wilderness to provide water for them in the wilderness. He provided a cloud by day to provide shade for two million refugee people and then he provided fire by night. Shade in the desert is key. Two million people walking through the desert is key to not just sunburn and I fire by night of cloud of fire by night to warm them in the desert Cold at night. Just incredibly practical God taking care of two million people. These are the highlights of moses career. Just to remind you of moses life. Which of these mountaintop moses moments did moses write about this pillar of the faith is 10. Commandment writing 20% of scripture writing saints, which psalm did he write Ironically, Moses wrote one song And it’s about the darkest season of his life. Psalm 90. The title of psalm is finding meaning in a meaningless life with all the purpose, all the fanfare, all the meaning, all the impact, all the life changed moses had on his friends and family and two million of his nation’s people. He led them out of Egypt when they’re forcefully being beaten and their kids were being genocide by another, by the ruling class of Egypt All of that significance moses struggled with meaninglessness, moses had dark a dark season. He walked there where he questioned and wrestled with the meaning of his life. If he’s making an impact with his life, if anyone would notice if he existed in the future Psalms 90p Purpose is to help give you a faith perspective for your pain. The faith perspective for your pain because you will experience pain in life, christian you have and it’s changed you or you will and it will change you, but when you have a faith perspective for our pain. Why is this in the bible because moses models persevering through painful circumstances. I propose you the wildest, most painful craziest circumstances I’ve seen in the bible. I believe you listeners will sit in this text, you should be able to suffer well privately and publicly. You see God’s wisdom is perspective on our pain and I think it will help seek to help you find meaning in your work. What pain are we talking about? What pain is moses writing about two million people. Their toes are dipped in the edge of the Jordan and the promised land is on the other side of the jordans and that is where they lose faith. That is where they become fearful. They lose heart and they turn their backs on God. They turn their back on moses, all these people that saw amazing works of the Lord and his wonders in the deep ocean. They saw amazing things. They heard God’s voice themselves. They saw everything. Their instagram reel was amazing. Okay. It wasn’t even no, no photo doctored up images and videos they are posting. It was amazing thing they’ve seen from God, But they lost heart. They were filled with fear there on the 99 yard line and they decided to punt the ball at the one yard line after going 99 yards moses, whole generation of peers and leaders and influential people, all these people he spent years with, they were told they will never, they cannot enter the promised land, which they were longing to enter Tom 90s, rendering that that time. That period. Scholars think of during those 40 years of moses in the, in the desert, in the wilderness wandering. While a generation of people died waiting for the people that had no faith or feel the fear to die. How many people are talking about dozens, hundreds. We don’t know for exact how many, but if you take two million and you take half of them are considered too old, that were part of what God commanded. If you take half, you take a million people, that’s 25,000 funerals a year, 2083 funerals a month, 480 funerals a week. That is a dark 40 years wandering in the desert. I’ve done 50-60 some weddings in my life. I’ve done three funerals. I talked to a pastor this last couple of weeks who have done more funerals and weddings. I took five pages of notes on what he said and he said that funeral messages have a way of sticking a few more than wedding sermons. People pay attention, they’re paying more than they do when they’re doing great and they’re getting married as a background of moses. You’ve got to understand his headspace and the pain he’s looking at as he writes this. It’s a miserable season of life. There’s funeral after funeral after funeral happening And that the key is great troops are shared in the times of great loss and Saul 90 has great troops on a perspective for our pain in life and this song moses shares his heart of when he followed the Lord and was led the people of God in good times and bad times and were wise if we learn from his heart. So you gotta understand moses. He shared the perspective of a man who had spent face to face time with God. Now I think I have a close relationship with God some days, but then other days. But I think for the most part my relationship with God is encouraging and solid and growing. But God never calls me on facetime. I don’t have face to face interactions with God. I don’t conversation God face to face, look at exodus 33 verse 11. It says the Lord used to speak to moses face to face as a man speaks to his friend, I propose most probably most probably knew God as good as any man that has ever lived. This song is theologically rich and meaningful, but it’s also incredibly dark and answers real questions to real questions. Has real answers to real questions. You are contemplating this psalm looks at the reality you have faced in your life or you will be facing in your life. Let’s read that psalm 90 verse one Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains were brought forth forever. You had formed the earth and the world from everlasting to everlasting. You are God, You return man to dust and say, return o Children of man. These 1st 11 verses of the song. There’s no request made by Moses. There’s no justification made by moses. He’s just reflecting. It’s very much appropriate to stop and reflect on your life, especially in times of pain. There’s this quote that I’m not sure who said it. It says the unexamined life is not worth living moses lead ID and lead an examined life. Two thirds of the psalm that we’re looking at today is him reflecting and examining on his life by himself privately and his the people of God publicly. And this is key. The very first verse. This is key. And if you miss this, we miss it all. This is key dwelling place, the word dwelling places listed there. Now, I know none of you say after church today, I’m going home to my dwelling place. If you did, your friends would say you weirdo, you’re going home to your apartment, you’re going home to your home, you’re going home to not hear. Uhm. If you ever talk to a person who doesn’t have a dwelling place, a stable home, a homeless person, they’re very unsettled moses. Made God, his dwelling place moses May God, his dwelling place. The people of Israel refused to go into God’s dwelling place or their promised land. So think about this, the promised land for you, your dwelling place of rest and relaxation and refreshment ease. It’s not your thirties, It’s not your 40s. You’re dwelling places not when you have a baby, it’s not if you get that house, it’s not to get that promotion. It’s not forget that guy, that girl, your dwelling place. It’s not the promised land out there where you get things here, the dwelling place we need to learn from from moses, we won’t have perspective for our pain. That’s faith filled. That’s gonna help us handle the storms of life. Is making God our dwelling place. It’s not it’s not on your phone. When you’re dwelling this afternoon, you’re gonna go to your phone. You’re like, what have I done for five hours? I mean, your dwelling place is not what we find ourselves in all the time. As christians. Our dwelling place has to be God himself moses, May God, his dwelling place. The people of Israel refused to go into God’s promised land and dwell in the dwelling place, the promised land because they cherished that more than that. The whole generation of unbelieving people died because they didn’t make God their dwelling place, but God was moses dwelling place, his place of rest refreshment, relaxation and a dry and weary land Moses would say something like the promised land isn’t my dwelling place, you are my dwelling place, God. And this is key for these 11 verses. You see these details of what he thinks about as he makes God his dwelling place and what he got there and how he got there. It’s like your roommate when God is your dwelling place, he’s your roommate. You get what I’m saying, dwelling place, your home. If God is your home, you’re gonna see your roommate, you’re gonna see God when you have breakfast, you have coffee when you come home from work, you’re gonna have more interactions of God, your dwelling place when he’s your dwelling place. Does that make sense? If God’s not your dwelling place, you’re not gonna not see God, you’re gonna see God’s dwelling place. And so these 11 verses is moses reflecting on God moses points out to us readers that that he not only knew God face to face, but he made God his eternal dwelling place. The 1st 3 verses, he moses reflects a great bold, beautiful view of God and it just starts to seep out of these 1st 11 verses, starting the first three verses. And you see moses comparing and contrasting God’s resume versus moses resume moses resume is more impressive than our resumes as christians. But God’s resume moses resume is infinitely different moses. A finite person. God is an infinite God moses immortal man. God is an internal God, eternal God moses has uh he’s a present person. God’s an omnipresent God, unless there’s a Egyptian horse racing on sportscenter, then if there’s a tv in the room, then moses might not be paying attention. I’m just kidding, but moses thinks himself. I’ve accomplished this in my eight years of living. But God has accomplished everything since the creation of time moses had a great big God honoring view of God and it helps them have a faith fulfilled perspective for his pain, robert Wilson, a seminary professor, wrote a letter to one of his students. 12 years after that student graduated from seminary. The student invited the old seminary professor who had made an impact on his life to come in here and preach in a town. The professor wrote this back to a seminary student. He said this. If you if you come back again, I will not come and hear you preach. I only come once, but I’m glad that you are a big Ghadir. When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big otters or little daughters. And then I know what their ministry will be like. Some have a little God and they’re always in trouble with them. They have a little God and I call them little daughters. They then there are those that have a great God. He speaks and it is done. He commands and it stands fast. He knows how to show himself strong on behalf of those who fear him. You have a great God and he will bless your ministry moses had a great, big, bold, beautiful view. A God honoring view of God moses magnified God. He didn’t magnify his pain. We, as people, we think too big of our pain. We think too big of our problems. We think too big of ourselves. We think too little of God. And I’m not saying it’s not appropriate to grieve and lost and suffer. Of course it is. We have some resources. The resource library. I think you should grab on the way out that are helpful tools to help you process your pain and spend significant time in this and loss. That is the reality of the human existence. I’m not saying stomach your emotions and move on, but in the grand scheme of things, moses wasn’t the only hero of the faith that had made God his eternal dwelling place that magnified God moses wasn’t the only hero. The faith that made God big paul echoes the same sentiment in his perspective, in Philippians one versus 20 it says this paul writing, he says according to my earnest expectations and my hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed. But with all boldness as always. So now also christ shall be magnified in my body. Whether it be by my life or by death for me to live. Is christ and to die is gain, paul made God. His dwelling place, verse 21 for me to live is christ and his game. I’m here. I’m gonna live if I die. I met with God. That’s God’s dwelling place that’s God’s is hope God’s his his home and God. But look at that verse 20 christ shall be magnified in my body. He wants to make christ famous holding a walk around from city to city with people trying to kill him. City after city. I was like evangelizing the Middle East and the mediterranean sea area walking around as well as me, all of my problems, this guy betrayed me. This guy left me. This guy is coming after me and I’m getting lowered out of baskets and I’m running for my life as people are trying to stone me and kill me, paul had a grand, glorious bold view of God. He wanted to make God’s name famous. He made God his dwelling place. Let’s go back to the psalms 90 verse three, You return mankind to the dust saying return descendants of Adam. That’s a nod to what moses wrote in genesis 3, 15 for 1000 years in your sight are but a day when it is past or as a watch in the night. You’ve heard that phrase before. Probably 1000 years in his sight are as ours. But as of yesterday, you probably heard that before the funeral. You probably heard that growing up before. Let’s stop here for a moment. He gets into this more in the next couple of verses. But what is the one thing you cannot control on this planet. What is the one thing you cannot buy on this planet more of was the one thing you have no power over on this planet. What’s the one thing most feared on this planet I proposed to its time? Time, Time is coming for all of us and time is gonna get all of us. We are people that live under God’s creation of time. Time is coming. You’re going to grow older. We worship a God who lives and rules over the the most constraining force on all the creation time. We have an eternal god that reigns over temporal time and finite beings like us. When you think about your very finite existence and your impact, you may or may not have on anything, it’s sobering, especially if moses is sober about what he’s done for God. We are all sober about what we think we’ve done for God and we’ve accomplished for God. But the purpose of this verse is to show the wildly disproportionate realities. There is between God and man and time. We’re not in the same zip code and on the same planet and in the same galaxy, God, man in time are incredibly far apart. So like if there’s one minute and a million years, there’s at least increments that make you get from here to there. It might take a long time, but there’s a way to get from here to there. But time and internally there’s no correlation between the two of them. Time has a beginning and time has an end. But Attorney has no beginning, eternity has no end. God is an eternal god that we want to make our dwelling place, he has no beginning and no end at the beginning of creation. He was there at the end of this world when he’s there, he’s gonna be at bookend. Either part of human existence is God. He realized that he reigns above and beyond and beyond and around and in all over time, it has no constraints on him as a deity. As soon as you’re born, you’re starting your long march towards your final destination death. Some people that’s a quick march. Other people that’s a slow march. Each day you get one day closer to your death. Each moment gets you one closer to that moment when you two will be like moses and being face to face with the creator God judge an eternal God, your dwelling place 1000 years or like a 1000 years or like when you think of eternity, what God has been doing over the course of human history from genesis to revelations, 1000 years is nothing. When you think about eternity, you think about what’s gonna matter trillions and trillions of years from now. Or like my kids say a bazillion years from now, what’s gonna matter? My wrinkle in my shirt’s gonna matter. A bazillion years from now, let’s read verse five, you sweep them away as a flood. They are like a dream like a grass that is renewed in the morning in the morning it flourishes and is renewed and in the evening it fades and withers. Human life is frail and weak in general, but especially when you compare it to the existence of an internal God verse 74. We are brought to an end by your anger, by your wrath. We are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you. Our secret sin in the presence of our secret sins in the light 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 and for by reason of strength, 80 yet are 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. These verses are both terrifying and comforting at the same time, God is the God of all time is eternal. God outside of time. He’s there at the end of time and realize the reality that time is slipping away and your time is slipping away and our time together is slipping away. It’s hard to get young people to think of the future. I think the most effective way is debate you with an app. Here’s a photo of our website, photo that they took of me and this is cool old me. You can get this app on your phone. I’m sure I forget the name of that someone, I’m sure besides you have already done this. Uh, and you can see what you look like as a cool old you, you could do old old you, but I have cool old me, that’s my father staring at me right now is what that looks like. But you are all gonna be an old you someday I will say that okay, these 11 verses, we have an eternal God with eternal power. We see in these 11 verses how rich and powerful God is, how, how in control god is of the cosmos, how wise God is. We see how eternal God is and how we are not God. The natural response of you. The natural response of moses was looking at 11 and verse 11 verse 12, a natural response is to worship God. True worship, authentic worship flows out of a proper perspective of who we are and who God is. So like we do worship here for a reason the way we do it. And I mean like if concerts and taylor swift and Justin Bieber and you know, 50 cents can put on concerts and get your emotions stirred up with lights and smoke and things to emotionally manipulate you to have an emotional feeling from the music. The way it’s written, the way it’s presented the environment that will get a response unless its people and the non christian secular world has figured out how to crack that code. And so is the christian world, how to prepare how to crack that code. But true worship, authentic, genuine healthy worship flows when one’s mind and their will and their affections of their their their person realizes who they are and who God is and then they come under authority and yield and worship God, There’s nothing flashy here and we’re never gonna smoke machines and lasers. You get what I’m saying, we’re not a production driven church, but natural response of authentic genuine worship comes from when one has an understanding of themselves and proper perspective of themselves. And God Verse 11, he starts to pivot to worship verse 12 is one of the first commands of this whole reflective sharing of moses thoughts verse 12 because of all of this, we’ve covered verse 12 teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. It’s just a number our days that we may get a harder wisdom. Ask God christian to make your heart wise, ask God to ground you in the pain with his perspective. Ask God to make you make him your dwelling place christian, you can find ultimate meaning in this meaningless life and an unlimited God. Life is short christian teach us to number our days. If you’re gonna most likely pick the wrong meaning for your life. If you don’t think about it and examine life, you’ll pick the wrong meaning, number your days, your days are numbered. Help help me to be satisfied in you God and anchor my heart and you help me to dwell in you. Those are appropriate prayers of a christian. We need to deeply consider our frailty are shortness of our life and the uncertainty of that life. We think we’re gonna live in light of the eternity of what God is standing on the edge of our days are numbered. We need to make our days count. Think of your life a third of it. You’re gonna sleep away. You sleep a third of your life. The time you have your sleeping, you’re sleeping in your bed snoring. Most of us sleeping another third of the awake time you’re spending staring at the screen. Statistically we’re staring at a screen. A third of our eyes open time, staring at a screen. 1/4 of your life. You’re at school and work. It’s depressing when you think of how little free time me time you have, he’s just a number of days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Your time is short. Your time is short because that’s the school’s time. That’s your employer’s time. That’s that’s your sleep time. We have to shut everything down and reboot it every morning. You know, that’s your time is short 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. Scholars say this morning suggest a new era for mankind and when a man is no longer under the judgment and wrath of God. And it could be. And I agree it should be a reference to Easter morning when christ conquered the grave, death and sin and destroy the chains of time on us as people. That early morning jesus rose as an early riser in Easter morning, he got up and he got to work and he got out of the grave. I love this. There’s gospel hope in these next few verses, verse 15 make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us. Make us glad and for as many years if we have seen evil, let your work, let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their Children. Ask God to make your life matter. Ask God to make your life have meaning only God can give meaning to your life Verse 17, 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. Only God can make your work matter. There’s eternal God. And when you work in the way that you’re gifted, it’s it’s a way of worshiping God and there’s there’s a temporary joy here and now. But there’s an eternal joy in heaven. When you work for God. I love these two quotes. I’ve shared this before. Sorry if you’ve heard me before, Michelangelo painting the 16th chapel. He spent weeks on scaffolding? He spent weeks looking up uh in his hard, you know, painting and whatnot that I can’t do. And he messed up his neck as an old man and he had trouble looking down. Some people are so Oliver Wendell Holmes said some people are so heavily minded, they are no earthly good. Some christians are so hard to get to if you’re the devil because they make God their dwelling place. They’re so focused on the then and there of eternity, trillions and billions and bazillions of years from now, not the here and now. I was watching that fireworks like you all did A couple of weeks ago my neighbor blew up $15,000 of fireworks. You can see it, you can taste that, feel it, it was great and it’s a professional fancy fireworks show And I’m never amazed. I’m always like amazed at what is happening there in those trees that I’m always get a little more concerned about that are getting lit up to, there’s some big trees getting lit up at night with fireworks exploding into them. I’m like, oh my God, we’re gonna, we’re gonna burn the neighborhood down. That would be great. And I’m looking around. I’m always amazed that the teenagers are like this. I’m like how do you, I mean not our teams. Our teams will look at fireworks and I’m saying like how how do you, how do you miss that and get stuck with this this thing. Men and women bring God into your work. Only God can make your work count think of like you have so much little limited time. Bring God into your work. Work, your jobs, your teacher teach, teach to the glory of God. If you’re a coder code for christ. If you’re a coach, coach, young men and women for christ. If you’re a builder who builds things, build things with the glory of christ. If you manage finances, manage finances for the glory of christ, if you’re a manager of people, be the best manager of people for the glory of christ that exist. You understand that christians bring God into your work and ask him to make your time count. Your days are numbered to just the number of days and establish the work of our hands. No matter how old you get, you will always keep busy, no matter how old you get always keep busy serving the Lord moses was 120 when he died, he was 40 when he was called by God. He had a very productive second half of his life. Second two thirds of his life, you’re never too old believer to follow the Lord with reckless abandonment. But there’s joy only found when you’re fulfilling the role that God has given you when jesus awarded you and gifted you and things. There’s joy found in that that’s not just temporary joy. It’s eternal joy When you’re serving and working with open hands, that God will establish the work of your hands using the gifts that God gave us a tremendous source of joy. And our membership classes, we tell everyone like, you know, most churches, 20% of the people do 80% of the work. but in our church we’re gonna have 100% of people, 100% of the work, because it all works when we all work. If you don’t want to serve at this church, maybe shouldn’t be a member of this church, you won’t be a member of this church. We don’t survive. This church is what we tell our members because we all work and it works. But it’s not like we say, you know, hand out donuts for the glory of God to kids. I mean, that should be easy, but you have gifts beyond tell people where to park for the glory of God. I mean, that’s great. Yes, but I’m saying like you have specific gifts members And 100 and almost 40 of you members have sent in 100 ish of you have done your homework and sent in your homework assignment to us of your that spiritual gift survey we sent you. And the idea is we’re gonna be launching in our, you know, in September our membership meeting. We’ll be launching a the classes that we’re doing so that you can spend a year, a year learning about one of your top gifting that you’re excited about because there’s a gifting you have that’s used to build up people for the glory God. And there’s amazing joy found in establishing the work of your hands and using your gifting. Because like if you’re gifting a be gifting a don’t pretend you’re gifting because their days are numbered and time is short, do be who you are and be mature version of who you are. But those leaders of those classes are gonna be leading you for a year in those classes. It’s an amazing way to become joy filled as you’re using the gifts God gave you. It’s been one year developing one spiritual gift. We’ll look at the other one in the next couple of years, but as we conclude what a psalm 90 teach us, I believe psalm 90 teaches us that God is our dwelling place. God is great, man is frail. God is our only source of eternal joy. We want him to establish the work of our hands moses demonstrates the power of life. He can moses demonstrates the power a life can have that walks in close relationship with God as their dwelling place moses demonstrates for us. A powerful perspective in the face of terrible and terrifying pain In Psalm 90 and Moses demonstrates hope for us when staring down a hopeless no win situation. It’s that Gospel hope. The last few verses moses demonstrates worship in the deserts during your most painful times of your life when you’re hurting. We should be worshiping christian. But moses also demonstrates that we all need a savior. Jesus knows you and he desperately knows that you desperately need someone to run and rescue up for you to lead you out of your Egypt, out of your sin of bondage. Jesus knows you and he needs that. You need a loving and dwelling place for your life that will live beyond this life that will lead you to the desert seasons and the painful seasons of this life, Jesus not a mortal man who sinned like moses who murdered people like moses. Jesus didn’t murder people, but he was murdered by people’s anger on the cross. For you, Jesus picked up and carried your sins in your punishment that you deserved and lived the life that you could have and didn’t live the life you should have lived. He lived that life for you, Jesus made a way when there was no way Jesus what you need Philippians 3 10 says this, I’m gonna emphasize jesus when he says he as you read the passage with me, but my goal is to know Jesus and the power of jesus resurrection and the fellowship of Jesus is suffering. Being confirmed to Jesus’s death prices are dwelling place christian, there is no other dwelling place. There’s nothing this world offers for us. Let’s bow our heads and pray as our brother comes up and leaves us in communion. Lord, thank you for these men and women. Thank you for the work you’re doing in their lives and thank you for the message that moses has for us and psalms 90. We would study it. We look at it, we read it. That’d be time well spent looking at psalms 90 s. People just give us perspective for our pain and help us to be a field of a church of people that find our dwelling place in you to commit this time to you in jesus name. Amen.