Life is the title tonight. The beautiful song we heard tonight. God's been there. You think of Joseph's life? God was there all along. Think of our own lives as well. So we're going to look at the shortness of life tonight. I was talking to Christy this morning.

I remember when we were like teenagers, you would always hear that question, would you want to know when you die or how you die? I was like, neither, I don't want to know. But hey, the day is going to come where we're going to leave here. But God wants us, with the short time we have, to spend it applying it to wisdom. So that's what Moses teaches. And then also later on we'll turn there to Psalm 39. So look there at Psalm 90.

Verse 1, So life is uncertain, but the only thing that is certain is God. And so God is everlasting. He's eternal.

And so one day they're going to bring our name up and there's going to be a story there.

The days of our years are three score years and ten. I like this part. And if by reason of strength they be four score years, so if you get a little bit extra time, yet is there strength, labor, and sorrow, for it is soon cut off and we fly away. So Moses here is saying, even if you get a little bit of extra time, it's still short. It's still a short life compared to how God is eternal. Who knoweth the power of thine anger, even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. And then our main...

Emphasis here tonight is verse 12. So teach us. So if God's eternal and man is fragile, and if man will only get a little bit of time here on earth, then how should we spend that limited amount of time here on earth? There in verse 12. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Moses says,

There's not a whole lot of time you'll get here on earth, but that short amount of time you have, apply it to wisdom. Do something for the Lord. So let's go ahead and pray and then we'll get started. Father, thank you for tonight. Thank you for just your many blessings today, just meeting with us here this morning, speaking to our hearts and just looking forward to tonight, looking at how short life is. But hey, we have a short time to do a work for you. And so you have a plan for each and every one of us. And just thank you that you're always there guiding us, protecting us.

So an intriguing topic for anyone is on life, right? How long you're going to live, how old you may be when your time comes, when you pass away. And so Psalm 90 deals with the subject of life. And so Psalm 90 is written by Moses. So it's the oldest Psalm out of the 150 Psalms.

And so the Psalm deals with the fall of our first parents, Adam and Eve, and it will continue to be important and puzzling until the return of our Savior. So here in Psalm 90, we're dealing with the eternal God and frail humans, the fragile, just how man is fragile or a whole existence is fragile, a holy God, a sinful man, life and death, and also the meaning of life in a confused and difficult world.

So here, the verses that we read from verses 1 to 12, we find the psalmist Moses giving the reader a contrast between God and man. So you think about God, he's everlasting, but man, he is finite, he is limited.

And so here, the idea here of Psalm 90 is that of a traveler. And so he's traveling from one place to the next. And so Moses here is introducing the idea of being travelers. And so we are on this journey of life. So for all mankind, life is a pilgrimage from birth to death. And for believers, it is a journey from earth to heaven. And so it's a journey. How are we going to spend that journey? Are we going to live for God? Are we going to do exactly what God wants us to do? Right.

So if life is filled with many difficulties, even for the believer, then the believer needs some relief. We need some safety. We need some refuge in our life. So where is the relief? Where is the refuge? Where can we turn to in life? And so as a child of God, we find relief in the eternity of the Lord. So God has that timeless existence. And so we can trust him.

So when all else fades and vanishes, God is unchanging. He's a home. He's a refuge for his people. From all eternity and to all eternity, God is infinite. He's eternal. He's unchangeable in his being, in his wisdom, in his power, in his holiness, in his justice, in his goodness, and in his truth. So because God is all those different things, because God has all those attributes, then we need to focus on him. We need to make sure that we're living our lives for him.

We know him being there in Egypt. We know that after he spent 40 years in the wilderness leading a nation of complaining former slaves. You think of the Jewish people. So he was leading God's chosen people.

And these people didn't always appreciate God or even the leadership of Moses. And even if you go back and study Numbers 33, there's a lot of places that are mentioned. There's 42 specifically places that are mentioned where God shows that people camped during their journey, but God knew exactly where they were going. So God knows every detail about your life. So time is nothing to him. Detail is nothing to him.

So Moses conveys in verse 12 that while man has breath, their life should be applied to something important, which is wisdom. Not living for yourself, not living for the world, but living for God, applying it to wisdom. And so the wise applies themselves to obtaining a heart of wisdom. So wisdom, you think about that area, that subject, it begins and ends with the Lord, as the wise seek the Lord in all of their ways. So man must understand that their life is limited.

It mentions there, I believe there in verse 9, that the day of man is spent as a tale that is told. So we have all known people. We have all known people that have lived for many years, but we also have known people that have lived a short time here on earth. So life is brief. It's brief and passes swiftly, which means if there's just a short amount of time, you must make the most out of it, no matter how long we have here on earth.

So you think of man one day, they're in the prime of their life. You think, I know many of you know that I like sports. All the different athletes have come and gone and just how athletic they were there for a time. And then you began to see their bodies break down or even maybe some of our loved ones that are very healthy and active. And then you began to see that as years go on, their health begins to decline. So man may be in their prime for some time, but that strength will not last forever.

So the perspective would no longer be, well, it was just another day, or hey, I have this day to waste, or this time I have a lot of time left. But no, if someone tells you that you only have a limited amount of time left, then you are counting down the days. You realize that your days are numbered. I believe it's there in Job chapter 14, it talks about your days being determined. And so when a doctor gives you that type of diagnosis, you know that, hey, I only have a limited amount of time left here on earth. But they would really appreciate the casual moments of life.

So tonight we have some children here, some teenagers. I'm sure that they would think that they have all the time in the world to live their lives, but the harsh reality is that we will not live forever. There's going to be a time where we'll get older, so we may be so wrapped up in our own little world, but our life is limited. Each day that we have in this life should be used in a way that is pleasing to God. The life that we live should be lived in such a way where it exalts God, it magnifies Him in the manner that we live. So we think of future plans.

Now, none of us are rich in here, so you know we have to budget money because we only have a limited amount of money, so we have to budget it for whatever it may be. That is the same thing with time. With our life, we only have a limited amount of years, and we have to make sure that we're using it in the right manner. So as you look back on your life, it would be a shame to find that we lived our life on the path of wickedness instead of on the path of wisdom, living our short life on the path of wisdom. So as we look back on our lives, it would be a shame to see all those opportunities we had to witness to others,

And some of those opportunities where we didn't take advantage of those given opportunities, right? Trying to reach people. You know, many times we ask God, hey, give me somebody to talk to, and they're right there, and we kind of miss that opportunity. You know, we may be bashful or something, but there's opportunities that God gives us to try and reach people, to give them the gospel, to invite them to church, to just be an encouragement to them.

And then also as you look back on your life, it would be a shame to see how you worried your life away instead of trusting and having a completely God-dependent perspective. Trusting Him, just trusting Him every step of the way. So as you look back on your life, it would be a shame to see how you allowed bitterness to control your days of life. You think of people that have addiction and things like that, and that takes a large portion of their lives many times. And then finally, maybe they have that opportunity to get things right.

But, you know, you think of looking back on your life, there may be some years where we wasted when God was trying to get our attention or maybe he had something for us to do for him. So we must learn to enjoy life. So this is not our home. You know, I think of the Christian life, it's a very interesting dynamic when you think about it most of the time because you think we're in this flesh, but we're not to live according to the flesh. And then we live here on earth, but we're not to be so focused on earth, we're to be focused there on heaven.

And so we must be looking forward to our heavenly home. But in the meantime, we can enjoy life, enjoy life with our church family, with your own family, with your kids, enjoying the life that God has given you. So if you have another day of life, then you must be busy for him. If you have another day of life, then you must apply your heart unto wisdom. So Moses here is teaching that the older you get, the better you understand that life is brief and moves past very swiftly.

You just blink and your kid ages like 10 years already. It's like, man, what just happened? I always tell Joshua sometimes, hey, just stop growing for a second. He's like, I can't do that. And so we can't do that as well. You just blink and just at the snap of a finger, someone's older and just all different things are going on. So life is brief and moves past very swiftly. So God dwells in eternity and is not limited by time.

So only God is eternal and we humans are like objects suddenly swept away by a flash flood or grass that comes and goes. You kind of wonder about that too. You know, you think we're just here for a short time. I wonder in our nature, I wonder if that's why we're impatient because we're only here for like a short amount of time. And so God, he doesn't deal with that. God is a very patient and long-suffering God. And so he doesn't work on time like we do, especially in the West, right? We're in the West and the culture, everything is just so fast.

So God is eternal, and so we're like humans are just objects suddenly swept away by a flash flood or grass that comes and goes. And so in the Eastern culture, the grass often grows on very thin soil and has no deep roots.

And so Moses is saying, before you go away, we must learn to live for God. He gives you another day of life, so use it for him. Use it for his honor and for his glory. So Moses strives to get across in this psalm that life is something that must be enjoyed, and a part of that is applying your short journey of life to wisdom. Enjoy life while you're trying to search for God's wisdom. Allow God and life to teach you to value each day.

So David would write about these sobering facts years later after Moses. So God will allow David to think about the frailty of man and how short life is. And we know David, right? He's the one that defeated Goliath and he was a great man of war. And so this was a man that had a good prime, therefore a good time. But we find that even God had to remind him that, hey, man is only here for just a short time and then they go away.

And so look there at verse 4, there at Psalm 39. It said, Lord, make me to know mine in and the measure of my days. So, you know, you're measuring something because there's only a certain amount there. And so he said, and the measure of my days, what it is that I may know how frail I am. So that's the problem there is knowing many times we don't think that, hey, we just have a short amount of time here on earth. He says, God, teach me, show me how frail I really am.

Behold, thou hast made my days as in hen breath. And so that was the smallest measurement there in the ancient Israel days. And mine age is as nothing before thee. Verily, every man at his best state is altogether vanity. So he wasn't comparing man to man. He was comparing man to God. So when God is compared to man, man at his best state is altogether vanity. It says, surely every man walketh in a vain show. Surely they are disquieted in vain. He heapeth up riches.

And knoweth not who shall gather them, and now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. So it's a lot of uncertainty surrounding David, but he's saying, hey, I'm just going to hope in the Lord. I'm just going to focus on him, even though I have no idea how long I'll be here on earth. So he's giving some wise words pertaining to life. So the words of David in this psalm cause the readers to pause and think of the shortness and the frailty of life.

And so David here is making a contrast as well, just like Moses did, right? God is everlasting, man is finite, but it's the same contrast that David is making here as well. God is mighty and man is feeble. So in an overview of Psalm 39, we find that David acknowledged the few days of life that we have. He submitted to the knowledge that his life was brief.

So David mentioned how he needed to measure his days because how frail man is in their life. To measure it so you don't have a short amount of time, so you need to do something there for the Lord. So David cast himself wholly on the Lord to make his brief sojourn in life enjoyable.

Because he said, even man at his best state is merely a vapor. So you think about all the great athletes we've had over the course of time, all the great people we've had. But he said, people at their best state is just vanity. They're nothing compared to who God truly is. We're just here for a short time and then we're gone.

And so David here in verses 1 through 6, David made an acknowledgement of life's brevity, the shortness of life.

So he prayed that the Lord would help him know the brevity of life. He's saying, Lord, show me that life is short and that I need to make sure that I'm making the shortness of life that I have, that I'm making it count for you and for eternity. So this prayer was prompted by the awareness that life is brief in duration, like a hand breath or just a breath, right? We just take a breath in. It doesn't last very long. And so that's what David had to realize that, hey, I'm not here for very long.

So the hand breath was one of the smallest measurements in ancient Israel. And he's saying that's what man is. So it's like man was the smallest measurement there in ancient Israel. So man is nothing compared to eternity. Man is nothing. Man is just here for just a short time compared to how God is eternal. So David understood how people would feel themselves to be established in his day, even when it seems that people are strong and self-assured.

And so human importance really isn't that important in comparison with God, right? We always kind of live our lives that way, trying to make sure that people think we're important. But really, how does God feel about us? Are we living our lives for God? What importance do we have there towards God? People's busying about them gave them some status and wealth and even does that today. But even in their accomplishments, they share the fate of all. Humans are mortal and cannot control their affairs after their death.

So their inability to control, know, and project themselves outside the sphere of human limitations characterizes that we're all just fragile, the fragile existence of man. So David was observing man, right? He was looking at man and saying, hey, man, man is fragile. You're only going to be here for a short time. You're just going to be here for more than a breath, and then you're going to be gone, and people are going to be fighting over everything that you had accumulated over your course of time. If you were able to heap up a lot of riches, now people are just going to be fighting over

Joshua just had his first grade there on Monday, and he was kind of going back and forth if he wanted to call his granny or not. And I told him, I was like, you never know how many more first days of school you can talk to your granny. And so you just never know what will happen over the course of time. And it just kind of makes you think now. It's like, oh no, I'm getting older. I'm thinking about, hey, time is limited. But it really is. And so we should always cherish the time that we have.

He says, my hope is in thee. I have no idea what's going to happen. Man is only here for a short time and then he vanishes away. And he's like, I don't know when I'm going to die. But he says, hey, my hope is in thee. I don't know when I'm going to die, but I'm accepting that I'm not going to live forever. So his hope would be found in God.

So you must understand it, the shortness of life, accept it, and allow God to guide us. We have a short amount of time left here on earth, so we should accept it and allow God to guide us. And to just cherish the moments that we have with our family. Cherish the moments thereof going to work, you know, just going and being with family and being able to be in church and just things like that. So think about this. What if God gave you personally a piece of paper to write your own obituary today? Right? What would they write?

I think it was the lady that Chrissy works for, Tina, her aunt had passed away a couple years ago, and it was the most beautiful obituary I'd ever seen, because normally it's just like a paragraph of somebody's life, and this was just this long, all these long paragraphs, just specifically saying what the person was. She was, I think, a nurse, and then she was involved in her church, and it talked about all the different people she invested in. I was like, I want that person to write my obituary. I just get this little paragraph, like a little statement, a little sentence.

I think if I was in that situation, I'd probably just give it to Chrissy. You know, like, hey, here you go. You could give it to a family member or a spouse or a friend. You know, what would they write? Then maybe that would make you nervous because you don't know what they're going to write. Well, I'm sure the first thing that would be mentioned is that you're a believer, you're a child of God, that you have a relationship with God. And then it's like just blank after that. It's like, okay, then what next? What after that? What about your life? You may not want to give it to someone that knows you too well.

So compared to eternity, it would be a short life. Now to us, someone that lives over 100 years, you always want to know what they learned and everything that they went through. We always kind of contribute that to different accomplishments they had or what tragedies they were able to be alive for. But compared to eternity, it's just a short life. So David understood that he needed to trust in God. His hope while in this brief journey of life would be in God.

So from Psalm 39 and Psalm 90, we learn to enjoy life. I don't know how many times we stress out many times. I was talking about anything last Sunday night, thinking about when Chris and I first got married, and I don't have any regrets or anything like that, but it's just like, man, I think of just...

And then when we do pass away, what are our family members and friends going to say about us? Are they going to say, hey, this person lived for God. This person wasn't rich. He wasn't flashy in any means, but hey, he lived for the Lord or she lived for God. She was able to raise her kids to serve the Lord and they're still serving the Lord to this day. So what will people say about us? As they read that book,

I think of the book, if we live for a long time, maybe the thicker that it is. But hey, what is that book going to say? That they spent their life not living for themselves, but applying their lives there to wisdom.