Good morning. If you got a Bible, go ahead and
turn that open to Psalm 90. We're in the middle of a we're
in the middle of a little bit of a random sermon series until
community groups launch again next month.
We're calling it Psalms for every square inch.
It's been a little bit scattered.
You know, pastors are primarily just picking, hey, this Psalm
has moved me. We're going to exposite this
Psalm and I am doing Psalm 90, which I've always wanted to
preach on and I decided to preach on this, I think last
Sunday night. And it, it, it dawned on me like
Friday night way too late. It dawned on me, Oh no, kids are
going to be with us during that sermon.
And the reason why it came to me as an Oh no is because as you
read through the 1st 1112 verses of Psalm 90, you'll notice that
it's a very def forward Psalm. And so my, it's not my intention
to, it's not my intention to rush any difficult conversations
that your kids want to have with you.
And at the same point time, what, what the Bible does is it
forces us to confront big issues that the world is ignoring.
So I'm not going to try to like, I'm not going to try to, what
I'm going to do is rather than preaching, I'm going to elevate
my vocabulary like an inch. Does that make sense?
OK, so I'm not afraid of words like death, even with kids in
the room. But rather than preaching A
sermon that's centered around death, I'm going to preach a
sermon that's centered around frailty.
Understood. Mortality.
Brevity and and stuff like that. And as we slosh our way through
those first 11 or 12 verses, I think you'll find that it will
be worth it in order to get to verse 12 or 13 in in Psalm 90.
I'm going to pray. Then we'll move through this.
Heavenly Father, the Psalms, Lord Psalms explore difficult
subjects like mortality. But my, my prayer for us this
morning is that we would know that we do not have to explore
tough subjects alone. We don't.
And so my prayer for us is that the light of the Holy Spirit in
this moment, that he would illuminate this room, that he
would illuminate our hearts, He would illuminate our minds so
clearly that we could see and sense the presence of Jesus with
us here. It is Jesus who is our guide
through difficult subjects. It is Jesus who is with us.
He will take us by the hand and he will guide us through things.
And at the end of the day, the only thing I have found in my
heart in my life, the only thing that has ever helped me make
sense of human frailty and mortality and brevity and death,
the only thing that is ever satisfied my itch to know why
that's even a thing is the death of Jesus Christ.
And so may the death of Jesus and the death of Jesus alone be
what brings comfort to us. This morning, in the name of
Jesus, all God's people prayed. Amen.
Psalm 90, I read the, I read in, in my opinion, the perfect novel
during my sabbatical, my three weeks off.
It was a phenomenal novel. It was written 50 years ago and
apparently it didn't get a lot of attention when it was written
in like 10 years ago. Out of nowhere, this novel
started to get a ton of attention in literary circles as
a quote UN quote perfect American novel.
And so I picked it up in this novel.
It absolutely ruined me. It devastated, needed me.
I was, I was reading the the final chapter of the book.
It was a work of fiction. I was reading the final chapter
of it in Starbucks and I'm sitting, I'm not, I'm not
kidding. I'm sitting there in the middle
of a public coffee shop trying to read the ending of this book
and I have tears coming down my face.
I'm like, Oh my goodness, how many pages are left?
And so I looked down and there's like 6 pages left still.
I'm like, oh, I'm not, I'm too much of a mess.
I'm not going to be able to make it through this publicly.
So I, I put my cap on like I hid my face and I walked to my car
and locked myself in my car in the parking lot in order to read
those last 6 pages privately so I could just weep.
It was, it was really close to a perfect novel.
I don't know if anybody's ever heard of it.
The book was called Stoner, not that kind of Stoner.
Relax, we're in church. Relax.
It's written fit. Have you heard of this, Tara?
It's, it's like Hemingway and Steinbeck had a baby kind of
stylistically. It's it's fantastic.
It's on my desk in my office. You should go take a peek at it
right now. But essentially what makes it
exceptional is the fact that it is a book about an ordinary
American life, and it gets depth and meaning to an ordinary
American life. And what happens to It's called
Stoner because his name is William William Stoner and
Stoner goes through the difficulties of an ordinary
life. His his marriage turns out to be
cold and cruel and it devours him.
He falls in love with his teaching job, but then one of
his bitter coworkers tries to destroy his career and stunts it
permanently. He falls in love with his
daughter, but she is, in a way, taken from him.
And so the entire book is just filled with this sense of loss
and broken dreams and this sense of loss and broken dreams.
For Stoner, it hits him hardest in this moment early on when his
dad dies. His dad was a farmer.
And I just want you to, for a moment, I just want you to
consider this quote from the book Stoner.
Has he? Stoner has just attended his
father's funeral. And then he goes out into the
farm that his father farmed. And this is what the book says,
quote. They buried his father in a
small plot on the outskirts of Boonville, and William returned
to the farm with his mother. That night he could not sleep.
He dressed and walked into the field that his father had
worked, year after year to the end that he now had found.
Stoner knelt in the field, and he took a dry clod of dirt, a
dry clod of earth in his hand, and he broke him, and he watched
the grains darken, the moonlight crumble and flow through his
fingers. He thought of the cost, exacted
year after year by the soil, and it remained as it had been, a
little more barren, perhaps a little more frugal of increase,
but nothing in the farm had ultimately changed their lives.
He's thinking about his mother and father.
Their lives have been expended and cheerless labor, their
wheels broken, their intelligences numbed, and now
they were in the earth to which they had given their entire
lives. And slowly, year by year, the
earth would take them. Slowly the damp in the rot would
infest the pine boxes which held their bodies, and slowly it
would touch their flesh. And finally, it would consume
the last vestiges of their substances, and they would
become, they would become a meaningless part of that
stubborn earth to which they had long ago given themselves.
Yeesh. Right.
So Stoner is holding a clot of dirt in his hands, and he's
letting it slip through his fingers.
And the point here is that Stoner is experiencing
existential dread as he considers the end of his father,
and he comes face to face with the fact of his father's
mortality. He makes a common but crucial
error. Cynicism, right?
It's all meaning. My father had given his life to
this farm, and at the end of his life, it's just going to consume
him. It's all must be meaningless.
And the first half of Psalm 90 reads like the author of the
Psalm has a handful of soil in his hands.
And as it crumbles through his fingers, he's wondering what is
the point of all this meaninglessness?
Are we having fun yet? If you're able, let's stand for
the reading of God's Word. There are some preliminary, I
guess optimistic verses. Lord, you have been our dwelling
place in all generations. Before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world
from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
And then it hits, but you return man to dust, and say, return how
children of man for 1000 years in your sight, or but as
yesterday when it is passed, or as a watch in night you sweep
them away. As with the flood, they're like
a dream. Like the grass that is renewed
in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and
is renewed, but 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 set our iniquities
before you, 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 or even by reason of strength 80.
Yet their span is but toil and trouble.
They are soon gone and we just fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according
to the fear of you? And then there's a pivot.
So in light of all of that, so teach us to number our days,
that we may get a heart of wisdom return.
O Lord, how long have pity on us, Your servants, satisfy us in
the morning with Your steadfast love that we may be, that we may
rejoice and be glad all of our days.
Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, and for
as many years as we have seen evil.
Then our lives can be filled with purpose and meaning.
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.
It starts down here, then it ends up here.
What's going on? You can have a seat and as you
do, look at those first 2 verses right there.
Those kind of the the way that stands a functions.
This is kind of a a preliminary comment on on the Psalm.
What the psalmist says in verse one and two is Lord, you've been
our dwelling place in all generations before the mountains
were brought forth or ever you would even form the earth and
the world from everlasting to everlasting.
You are God. What the psalmist is doing right
out of the gates, what he wants to establish is the fact that
God is eternal. He has no beginning, he has no
end. He has a alpha and he's the
Omega, which begs a question, a literary question, which is
well, why? Why would this psalmist want to
point out or highly like the eternality of God of all things
the eternality of God at the beginning of this Psalm answer
because it's going to create a stark contrast with about what
she talks about next. God is eternal.
He has no beginning or end. Human beings.
On the other hand, man life is brief, life is frail, life is
fickle versus 3 and 4. You return man to dust and say
return, O children of man for 1000 years in your sight are as
but yesterday when it's passed or as a watch in the night
finitude brevity of the human life, the length of a human life
from God's perspective is it is like nothing is what the
psalmist is saying in verses 3 and four 1000 years from our
vantage point. It's just to God.
It's just like a a brief moment that has already become a
distant memory to God. It's like, it's like nothing.
And then then you have versus 5 and 6.
You sweep them humans, you sweep them away.
As with a flood, they're like a dream, like a grass that's
renewed in the morning. In the morning it flourishes and
is renewed, but in the evening it fades and wither.
Some poetry is what the Solomon is employing to make the same
point, which is the brevity of human life, The brevity of the
human life compared to the eternal God of the cosmos.
What's it like? It's like the poetic device of
grass. It sprouts up one day and grows.
The next day it Withers and is gone.
Finitude and the brevity of the human life verses 7 and 8.
Psalmist goes on to say, For we are brought to an end by your
anger, by your wrath. We are dismayed you have set our
iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your
presence. This is a theological take on
finitude and the brevity of the human life in verses 7 and 8.
What the author of the psalmist pointing out here is that
finitude is penal, right? It's a it's a pen, it's a
penalty, right God, God doesn't like death.
He hates death. It's an intruder upon his
creation. But it is the penalty of sin
that is entered into the cosmos. And so whenever the psalmist
sees finitude and more mortality, the psalmist is
reminded of the anger and wrath of God towards sin and it's
penalty which is death, finitude and the brevity of human life.
I'm not, I'm not proud of this story.
I, I'm going to tell it really quickly as as a means of
repentance. I regret it now, but about about
10 years ago, I, I was young and dumb and I was at a pastor's
conference in Chicago with some of the leaders from the church
that planted us. And we are sitting at a round
table with another pastor from Chicago.
And he's going through a difficult season of ministry.
And of course I would never, we would never laugh in his face.
And we, we listened in the moment, but he's going through a
tough season in, in ministry. And all of us were leaning in
and he just kind of leaned back after it all.
And he said, he said it's just death, pastoral ministry, it's
just death. And all of us were like, and for
the next year or two, sometimes we would sit around whenever we
would talk about pastoral ministry and how we enjoyed it,
we, we would always bring that up as a means of mockery about
being like, Oh yeah. Well, you know, at the end of
the day, it's just, it's just death.
But that's the exact tone of Psalm 90.
Like those are the 1st 12 verses.
Look at verse 9 through 11 For all our days.
They pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end
like a sigh. The years of our life are 70 or
maybe 80, yet their span is it's toil and trouble.
And then there's gone and we fly away.
Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according
to the fear of you? Again, finitude and the brevity
of of life. This time, the psalmist takes a
mathematical approach to the problem.
And he says, look, you got maybe 70, maybe 80 on average.
And it's like, yeesh, this guy is the life of the party, isn't
he? Be be honest.
You're not. You're not inviting him to your
community group. All right?
This is the guy who wears all black, listens to too much My
Chemical Romance and wears too much eyeliner.
It goes to the party, sits in the corner, talks about
existential. It's just death.
This guy is such a buzzkill, right?
Here's where it gets really interesting.
Who wrote Psalm 90? You don't have to guess.
Look at the inscription at the very beginning of the Psalm.
It tells you Jay, Who wrote Psalm 90.
Sorry, you're not in trouble. I just thought you'd have the
answer. Moses, do you know how many
psalms Moses has written? One.
This is the only Psalm he wrote a prayer of Moses, the man of
God. Watch this.
This is going to make everything
click. It's going to make these first
11 verses click. OK, Moses, if you don't know,
he's the man of God in the Old Testament who led the people of
God out of slavery in Egypt and ultimately to the Promised Land.
But while they were in the wilderness, which was supposed
to be a short stint, the people of God sinned big time.
And they were condemned by God to wander in the wilderness for
40 years, 40 years, 40 years to wander in the wilderness before
entering the Promised Land. Why 40?
Well, Numbers actually, the Book of Numbers actually tells us 40
the numbers exact because God wanted to allow for the current
disobedient generation of Israelites who sinned to pass
away before entering into the Promised Land.
So here, here we go. Watch this.
So while Moses was leading the people of God through the
wilderness for 40 years, do you know what he saw?
A lot of finitude. How much?
Good question. Let me prove it to you.
According to Numbers, another book in the Bible, there was a
census that was taken at the beginning of the wilderness
journey and it recorded exactly 603,550 men of fighting age.
So only men who are aged 20 and up 603,550.
Most scholars estimate that the total Israelite population.
If you throw in women, children, elderly or sorry, women,
children and Levi White said there, it was probably around 2
million, give or take half a million.
Some say 1.5, some say 22.5. We'll meet in the middle and say
about 2 million people. Here's where it gets really
interesting, though. The logic of wandering for 40
years in the wilderness is that all men 20 years and upwards
need to pass away before entering into the promised land.
That number would have been the 603,000 number, not the
2,000,000 number. If you spread that number, we'll
even crank it down. The number of 600,000 out over
the course of 40 years. Do you know how many deaths
yearly happened in the wilderness?
15,000, probably more, but about 15,000 to put that in
perspective. That means about 1250 deaths
were happening in the wilderness per month.
To put that into perspective, while Moses was leading the
people of God wandering through the wilderness, he was seeing
about 40 deaths per day, 40 per day.
That means that if Moses never sleeps, which of course he does,
and if Moses never takes breaks, which of course is not true, But
if Moses did never sleep and then never took a break, then on
an average day of pastoral ministry for Moses, he's
performing about two funerals per hour.
That's all he's doing. You know what he's doing?
He's digging holes and performing funerals.
That's that's his job. And when you get that, all of a
sudden, Psalm 90 makes a lot of sense.
You sweep them away like a flood.
Yeah. People are just dropping.
Yeah. Life is just death.
Yeah. Moses spent 40 years wandering
around in a cemetery. That's what the wilderness was
for him. It was a cemetery.
Does Psalm 90 make sense now? So no wonder Moses wasn't the
life of the party, right? No wonder he was a killjoy.
Or is he being killjoy? Not to sound like Shrek, but I'm
convinced the shape of life is like an orange.
Onion's great too. Shape of life is like an orange.
The surface feels, tastes, appear, smells bitter, and it
turns your face sour. But if you peel your way through
the bitterness, and the key is you have to go through the
bitterness at the very of the center of it, underneath the
bitter wrapper of it, is the glorious divine sweetness of the
orange. This is the way that God has
designed life. It doesn't matter if we prefer
it to be a different way. It doesn't matter if we like it.
It doesn't matter if we approve of it or wish it were different.
A true experience of joy in life is not like choosing between a
happy experience or sad experience.
That's not what the Bible's talking about when it puts forth
joy for you. It's like, oh, I don't want to
have a sad experience. I want to be happy.
That's not what it's like biblically.
It's not the way it works. It's more like an orange in its
peel. Like an orange in its peel,
right? You see this with Paul in First
Corinthians. Paul's describing his entire
ministry and he says sorrowful comma yet always rejoicing.
Which one is it? Are you happy or sad, bro?
Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing, like an orange in its peel.
Real biblical joy is always wrapped in the sadness and
sorrow and suffering of life. Joy has a bitter peel of sorrow
around it, and you must go through it, not avoid it, not
pretend it doesn't exist if you want to bite into the citrusy
flavor of joy. As Christians, we don't get to
plug our ears and convince ourselves that life should be
easy and still arrive at joy. That's why the cross is the
symbol of the Christian life. That's why the cross is the
center of the Christian faith, because the shape of the cross
is the shape of life. What happened with the cross?
Jesus went through death, through sorrow, through
suffering for the joy that was set before him, not one or the
other. And so as Christians, when we
call our way through the bitter orange peel, right, And we do
hard things like considering the fact that we're mortal,
considering the fact that we're sinful, considering the our
experience of convictions of sin, whatever the hard thing is
in life, when we claw our way through the bitter orange peel,
we are fighting for joy. Look at that fight for joy.
We don't mean pretend like everything's fine.
We mean dig, dig deep. But I tell my, I tell my
wrestlers, they don't like it. They don't think it's funny.
I like it. I tell them.
I tell them, look, you are, you are never closer to happiness
than when you are exhausted. They hate it.
I what I do with my middle
school wrestlers is when they're, when they're warming
up, I, I yell, Hey, what's fun? And they have to yell hard work,
but they hard work. So I yell what's fun hard work.
And then I yell what's hard work?
And they yell fun. I don't know why they keep
asking me to coach. I don't even know why they keep
on inviting me back. They like it.
They just pretend not to. What's hard work fun?
What's fun hard work. But your brain is wired in such
a way that like, it literally was designed by God to not have
the capacity to release feel good chemicals unless you face
difficult challenges. Your brain hoards all of your
joy chemicals in its brain unless you're willing to go
through a challenge and then it releases all those feel good
chemicals. That's the way life is.
That's why when, when wrestlers are going, when they're, when
they're doing sprints, I'll yell how, how lucky are you guys to
be able to be doing sprints right now?
Your your poor friends at home, They're stuck on the couch.
My goodness, those poor souls are stuck on the couch.
They got to, they got to be watching their favorite TV show,
scrolling on their phones. You're just getting more and
more sorrowful, but not you. You're once Sprint away from
happiness. And it's it's true.
It's true, right? Bring that up because this is
the shape of Psalm 90. I bring that up because I think
that the spiritual realm mimics the physical realm.
You don't experience biblical joy by avoiding hardship or
ignoring the sorrows or ignoring the pains in your life.
You must face them. Memento Mori.
Be mindful of your frailty. Admit you're going to die and
then go through them. That's why when Moses confronts
his own mortality long enough for those first 11 verses, when
he does the hard thing that human nature is averse to, I
don't want to think about it. When he rejects the comfort of
ignorance, I don't want to think about that stuff.
It ultimately leads him to joy. Moses is not a killjoy.
Moses is a custodian of joy. Psalm 90 is not morbid.
Moses's response, verse 12, we see it.
His response is not, not to tell people, well, you know, life,
life is just death. So, you know, just walk around
fixated on death and drag your toes.
No, look at verse 12. This is his response.
He says, OK, so teach us to number our days that we may get
a heart of everybody. Say wisdom, great, I want to be
wise. Do you want to be wise?
What? So what would that look like?
What would it look like to live a wise life in view of our
finitude? We'll look at verse 13.
Moses pleased with the Lord, return, O Lord, how long have
pity on us. And then he goes on to say,
satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love.
Why? That or in order, or for the
sake of Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast
love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
In case you missed it, here's a different way of phrasing it.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as
many years as we have seen evil and then he goes on to say then
our lives can we can do meaningful work that matters.
He was on as I let the favor right you God's God's love for
us of the Lord our God be upon us and then establish the work
of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our
hands. Wow.
So the wise heart follow me here that knows that she's mortal and
her days are numbered. How does she live?
The Psalm tells us she lives in dependence upon God, asking God
to help her quote, rejoice and be glad all of her days.
Wow. So the effect that Moses wants
Psalm 90 to have on us isn't for us to walk around with our tails
between our legs like Eeyore all the time.
He, he wants us to walk through the sorrow and sadness and
suffering of our life so that we live with an urgency for
pursuing maximum joy in God. What's the word for that?
That's wise. It's wisdom.
There's actually a ton of practical used to this.
Aquinas kind of a big deal in the 13th century Aquinas, 13th
century theologian. He had such an interesting take
on this that I actually I had to read what he wrote twice.
Aquinas said quote, rather than face the weight of mortality,
the soul turns to distractions, agitation and laziness.
This is helpful because this happened in the 13th century.
I tend to think like, oh, this is like a 21st century problem.
We want to put makeup on everything and not avoid hard
things because we have technology.
No, it's a human problem, right? They're going through this in
the 13th century. Aquina says rather than face the
weight of mortality, the soul will turn to anything
distractions, agitation and laziness.
And he goes on to say this is a kind of spiritual disgust.
OK, Right. That makes everything watch this
heavy and meaningless. Interesting.
I was like, is he saying what I think he's saying?
Right. It would seem that pretending
like you're not mortal would actually make life feel lighter,
right? But what Aquinas is saying is it
actually makes everything feel heavy and meaningless.
So refusing to acknowledge your mortality, according to Aquinas,
makes everything heavier. How so?
Let's let's test this really quickly.
I know I'm pushing time right now.
Imagine for just a moment, an issue in your life right now.
I don't care what it is. It's between you and the Lord.
Maybe it's a tough decision. You have to make it work.
Maybe it's a conversation you know you need to have in your
marriage. Maybe it's a behavioral issue
with the kid. I don't like Whatever it is.
Imagine one of those issues, and I want you to hold that issue in
your heart right now. How does the issue feel in your
heart? Heavy.
It's heavy. That's why we're all going to
say, man, it's heavy. OK, Keep that issue in your
heart right now. But I want you to tell yourself
one truth that you normally don't remember.
Here's the truth. Someday you're going to croak
and stand before Jesus. How does that, how does that
make the issue feel? It doesn't vanish.
That's foolishness to pretend like it's not an issue.
But it gets lighter, doesn't it? You have that issue, and it's
worth thinking about and it's worth trying to do the right
thing. But you when you remember your
mortality, the issue gets appropriately lighter.
That's what Aquinas is saying, right?
If you don't do that, everything feels so heavy and meaningless.
But the human heart that contemplates her mortality
understands that the appropriate decision in every situation is
to urgently seek joy in Jesus. And this, what this does is it
empowers her to obey Jesus, to listen to Jesus, to honor Jesus,
and to enjoy Jesus with an urgency in every moment.
Most people don't have this realization until it's too late.
Stoner, the book that I was talking about, he has this a
similar realization. He's not a Christian, and so he
doesn't have a religion, his epiphany while he's on his
deathbed, but he does have a really common epiphany on his
deathbed. I just want you to look at it,
all right? It's a lot different than his
clump of dirt moment. He's sitting on his deathbed
with his wife. And this is just a moving
paragraph. It says, quote.
A new tranquility had come between them.
It was like a quietness that was like the beginning of love, and
almost without thinking, Stoner knew why it had come.
They had forgiven themselves for the harm that they had done each
other, and almost with regret, he looked at her now, in the
soft light of late afternoon, her face seemed young, and
online he sees her differently. If I had been stronger, he
thought. If I had known more.
If I could have understood. And finally, mercilessly, he
thought, if only I had loved her more.
As if it were a long distance and had to go.
His hand moved across the sheet that covered him and touched her
hand. So when he's holding the clump
of dirt, he makes a common error in considering his mortality.
It's just meaningless. But now, on the edge of his own
passing, he's hit by the correct meaning of mortality, which is I
wish I would have loved more. Moses in Psalm 90 is saying
Wisdom is having that deathbed realization right now in the
Pew. You're sitting in, in the moment
you're occupying and not waiting until it's too late.
It's coming to the conclusion right now.
Oh my goodness, my days are numbered.
I need to urgently fight for Jesus.
I need to urgently fight for joy and satisfaction in Jesus.
I need to love Jesus. The one who created me.
The one who, even when I was enemies with him, took on flesh
for me. The one who died for me.
The one whose death on the cross purchased forgiveness of sins
for me. The one who gave his
righteousness to me. The one who sent his Spirit to
me. The one who even now at the
right hand of the Father, continues to intercede for me,
and the one who, who after the days of my numbered life are
over in this mortal body, will resurrect me to eternal life
with Him. And, and then and then are you
guys with me? And when you see that, then you
can see Psalm 90 with gospel eyes.
You could see it with gospel eyes.
And this is where the gospel blows up.
Psalm 90. You ready?
Here it is. Are your days numbered?
Yes. In the mortal, failing sinful
body you have yes. Are your days numbered?
Yes. But do you know whose days are
also numbered? Deaths.
Days are numbered. Death has a leash on it.
Death has an expiration date. That's why we sang O the
fullness of salvation. Sin and death defeated both of
them. The Western Church is really
good at focusing on the defeat of sin, which is great, right?
And you're going to be in heaven with your soul with them, and
that's great. That's just not what to him, we
call full salvation. Full salvation requires the
resurrection. You ever wondered why?
Why do we even need to be resurrected if our souls are in
heaven with God? Because our bodies are still in
the ground waiting for us. And if God leaves them there,
that means death wins. That's only half a gospel.
Jesus wants to defeat sin and death.
Death is God's enemy. He hates it.
He's not partners with it, he's not a fan of it.
He's willing to employ it when necessary, but he hates death.
It is his enemy. That's why the Bible says that
when Jesus returns, even death itself will be destroyed because
of the death of Jesus. You can actually read verses one
through 11 and apply it to death.
Verse 7, death will be brought to an end by your anger, by your
wrath. Death will be dismayed.
Verse nine, death will pass away under your wrath.
Death will bring its years to an end like a sigh.
Jesus doesn't just want to save your soul.
He does. He also wants to crush death and
resurrect your body. Amen.
And that's why when Jesus died, he did not merely die.
When Jesus died, he took a shovel into the grave with him.
And where there was only a wall, Jesus dug an exit so that all
who believe in Jesus will be resurrected into everlasting
glory and March out of the grave on resurrection day and triumph
over death. Deaths days are numbered.
The the grip, the grip, the grip that death's greedy little hands
right now have on the bodies of your loved ones.
It's slipping. It's slipping.
And when Jesus comes back? When he returns, he's going to
break each and every one of Death's fingers to finally and
fully destroy it so that for those in Christ Jesus, there
will be a resurrection into eternal glory.
So until that day, until we see Death defeated, until we see
death destroyed, until we see death crushed, what would be a
wise way to spend our very numbered days?
What would it look like to live a wise life?
Answer. Seek maximum joy in Jesus
urgently, every moment, every day.
Fight for joy in Jesus. Heavenly Father, thank you for
the destruction of of death and the good news of the gospel.
Sometimes, yeah, I don't know if anybody needs to hear this.
Sometimes we think that Christianity means that we have
to pretend like like death doesn't bother.
I I remember Lord, there was a friend of mine who one time told
me when he was at the funeral of a loved 1.
He was told by his parents, said he wasn't allowed to cry because
his friend was safe with Jesus in heaven, and that should make
him happy. And of course, that part is
true. It's just not the full truth.
It is very possible, and I think even healthy to #1 yes, be happy
that the souls of our loved ones are with Jesus in heaven.
And yeah, we can also be very angry and very sorrowful that
death currently has a grip on their mortal bodies, and that
can make us angry and sorrowful. And the reason why it's OK is
because that's the way you feel about death.
The Book of Revelation, you call death the final enemy of God.
You don't like it, you despise it.
You weep at it in the person of Jesus Christ and the Gospels.
And yeah, but we weep and mourn not as those who have no hope.
We do so with the full knowledge that one day Jesus Christ will
return and destroy and defeat death and crush death underneath
his feet and throw him into into the lake of fire.
And we believe that. And so, Lord, until that day, I
pray that you would teach us to number our days so that we might
be wise people. So it's in the precious name of
Jesus that all God's people prayed.
Amen. Let's stand and let's worship
this Jesus together.