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Teach Us to Number Our Days

 Psalm 90

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, [16] making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  (Ephesians 5:15, 16 | TNIV)

Introduction.   If you have ever seen a still photograph from the silent-film era, odds are you have seen this one: a young man in round horn-rimmed glasses and a straw boater, dangling high above a city street, hanging on for dear life to the hands of a giant clock. That is Harold Lloyd in the 1923 comedy Safety Last! Audiences screamed and laughed at the same time, and a century later that image is still one of the most famous pictures Hollywood ever produced.

I think the picture has lasted because it is a parable of modern life. Most of us spend our days hanging off the hands of the clock. We are running late, running behind, running out. And a few decades after Harold Lloyd, Walter Huston introduced a song on Broadway by Kurt Weill and Maxwell Anderson, called “September Song,” that put the other side of it into words:

“But the days grow short when you reach September.”

Those of us who have reached September, or October, or even a little bit of November, know exactly what that means.

Last week we saw that we are stewards of God’s world and our work. This week we come to something even more precious, because you can earn more money, and you can plant another garden, but nobody, not one person in this room, can make more time. Turn with me to Psalm 90.

The title tells us this is “A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.” It is the only psalm attributed to Moses, and it opens Book Four of the Psalter. Think about who is praying. Moses spent forty years in Pharaoh’s palace, forty years tending sheep in Midian, and forty years leading a grumbling nation through the wilderness. And during those last forty years he attended a funeral, it seems, almost every day, as the generation that refused to enter the Promised Land died off just as God had said:

“…your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness” (Numbers 14:29 | ESV)

If any man ever had reason to think about the shortness of life, it was Moses. Psalm 90 is what he learned. Four movements: the God who owns time, the man who borrows time, the heart that counts time, and the Lord who redeems time.

The Everlasting God Who Owns Time (Psalm 90:1-4)

Our Dwelling Place (v. 1)

Moses does not begin with man. He begins with God.

“Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.” (Psalm 90:1 | ESV)

The Hebrew word for “dwelling place” is ma’on, a home, a refuge, a den. For forty years Israel had no permanent address. They lived in tents and moved whenever the cloud moved. But Moses says, “We have always had a home. YOU are our home.” Before you can steward time well, you have to settle where you live. Do you live in your schedule, or do you live in God?

From Everlasting to Everlasting (v. 2)

“Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.” (Psalm 90:2 | ESV)

The word is olam, the farthest horizon in both directions. Go back as far as your mind can reach, and God is already there. Go forward as far as you can imagine, and God is still there. Notice Moses does not say “you WERE God” or “you WILL BE God.” He says “you ARE God.” Time is His creation, and He is not bound by it.

A Thousand Years as Yesterday (vv. 3-4)

“You return man to dust and say, ‘Return, O children of man!’ For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.” (Psalm 90:3-4 | ESV)

That phrase about “dust” takes us right back to Genesis 3, which we read last Sunday. And the thousand years takes us forward to the apostle Peter, who quotes it to explain why the Lord has not yet returned:

“The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9 | ESV)

Our time is not God’s time. And that is good news, because the “delay” of Christ’s coming is actually the patience of God, giving people time to repent.

The Fleeting Man Who Borrows Time (Psalm 90:5-11)

Swept Away Like Grass (vv. 5-6)

Now Moses turns the camera on us, and it is not a flattering picture.

“You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning: in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers.” (Psalm 90:5-6 | ESV)

A flood. A dream. Grass. Here in the morning, gone by evening. James says the same:

“What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” (James 4:14 | ESV)

Shadowed by Sin (vv. 7-9)

But Moses goes deeper than the brevity of life. He tells us WHY life is so short.

“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.” (Psalm 90:7-8 | ESV)

Death is not natural. It is an intruder. Paul explains:

“Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned” (Romans 5:12 | ESV)

And notice that phrase, “our secret sins in the light of your presence.” You can hide a great many things from the people in the next pew. You cannot hide one minute of your life from God. The clock on the wall is a reminder that we are mortal, and mortality is a reminder that we are sinners.

Seventy, or Even Eighty (vv. 10-11)

“The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” (Psalm 90:10 | ESV)

Now, Moses himself lived to 120, so he is not setting an expiration date. He is describing the ordinary human span. And here is something sobering: if God gives you eighty years, that is a little over 4,000 weeks. Four thousand. If you are forty, you have spent about half of them. If you are sixty, you have spent three-quarters. “They are soon gone, and we fly away.”

Which brings us to the hinge of the whole psalm.

The Wise Heart That Counts Time (Psalm 90:12; Ephesians 5:15-16)

 “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12 | ESV)

 Learning the Arithmetic of Mortality

The Hebrew verb for “number” is manah, to count, to reckon, to assign. Moses is asking God to teach him arithmetic. Not the arithmetic of years, which is easy, but the arithmetic of DAYS, which is hard. We tend to think in big round numbers: “Someday I’ll get serious about prayer.” “When the kids are grown, I’ll get involved at church.” “After I retire, I’ll read through the Bible.” But “someday” is not on any calendar I have ever seen.

David prayed the same prayer:

“O LORD, make me know my end and what is the measure of my days; let me know how fleeting I am!” (Psalm 39:4 | ESV)

Notice that this is a prayer, “TEACH us.” We do not naturally count our days. Left to ourselves, we drift. We need God to teach us.

Gaining a Heart of Wisdom

The goal is not to become gloomy. The goal is wisdom, a “heart of wisdom,” and in the Hebrew mind the heart, levav, is not just the seat of the emotions. It is the control center of the whole person: mind, will, and choices. When you realize that your days are numbered, you start making different decisions. You stop majoring on minors. You call your brother. You forgive your neighbor. You open your Bible. You get on your knees.

Buying Up the Opportunity (Ephesians 5:15-16)

Paul takes this same idea and puts it in the language of the marketplace.

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16 | ESV)

“Making the best use of” translates the Greek word exagorazō. The agora was the marketplace. The word means to buy up, to snap up a bargain before somebody else gets it. And the word for “time” there is not chronos, clock time, but kairos, the opportune moment, the season of opportunity. Paul is saying: every day God hands you opportunities, and they are on sale for a limited time only. Buy them up!

The great American preacher Jonathan Edwards wrote a set of personal resolutions as a young man, and his fifth one reads:

“Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.”

Now, I would not want you to turn that into a burden of guilt. But I would love for you to catch the spirit of it. Our Lord Himself lived that way:

“We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work.” (John 9:4 | ESV)

Here is the most urgent kairos of all:

“Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2 | ESV)

If you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, the wisest use of the next five minutes is to settle that. Not tomorrow. Today. Nobody here has a written guarantee of next Sunday.

The Gracious Lord Who Redeems Time (Psalm 90:13-17)

If the psalm ended at verse 12, it would be sound advice. But Moses does not stop with advice. He turns to grace.

Return and Have Pity (v. 13)

“Return, O LORD! How long? Have pity on your servants!” (Psalm 90:13 | ESV)

Do you see the turn? In verse 3 God said to man, “Return,” that is, return to dust. Now Moses says to God, “Return,” return to us in mercy. And God answered that prayer in the most astonishing way imaginable.

“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” (Galatians 4:4-5 | ESV)

The everlasting God stepped into time. The One who is “from everlasting to everlasting” was born in Bethlehem, lived some thirty-three years, and on a Friday afternoon outside Jerusalem took the wrath of verses 7 through 11 upon Himself. He died in our place, bearing our sins. Then He rose again, and because He did, the clock is no longer the boss of the believer. Death is not the end of our time; it is the doorway to God’s eternity.

Satisfy Us in the Morning (vv. 14-15)

“Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.” (Psalm 90:14 | ESV)

That is chesed, God’s covenant love, His loyal, never-quitting love. Here is the secret of time management that no seminar will teach you: start your day satisfied in God. Many of us start the day by grabbing our phones, and before our feet hit the floor we are anxious, behind, and hungry for things that cannot fill us. Moses says, start the morning by being filled with His steadfast love, and then you can “rejoice and be glad all our days.”

 

Establish the Work of Our Hands (vv. 16-17)

“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!” (Psalm 90:17 | ESV)

Moses says it twice because he means it. The word “establish” is kun, to make firm, to make it stand. Grass withers. Floods sweep away. But Moses asks God to take the work of our short lives and make it LAST. Isaiah tells us how:

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” (Isaiah 40:8 | ESV)

What you do in obedience to His Word, for His glory, by His grace, will outlast you. That is the steward’s hope.

Conclusion:  Handing Over the Clock

So how do we steward our time this week? Let me offer four simple suggestions.

First, START with God. Before the news, before the email, give Him the first moments of your day.

Second, AUDIT your week. Get out your calendar and look at where your hours actually went. A household manager keeps records. Your calendar tells the truth about your priorities more honestly than your words do.

Third, PROTECT the Lord’s Day. God built rest into the rhythm of creation. Stewarding time includes stopping. You are not a machine, and the world will not fall apart if you rest and worship one day in seven.

Fourth, SPEND on people. Your children will not remember the extra hours you spent at the office. They will remember the hours you spent with them. Opportunities to encourage, to forgive, and to share the gospel come with an expiration date. Buy them up.

And then rest in this:

“My times are in your hand” (Psalm 31:15 | ESV)

And remember, as Paul says in our cross-reference from last week, that every one of us will give an account at the judgment seat of Christ. Our Lord will not ask, “Were you busy?” Everybody was busy. He will ask, “Were you faithful with the time I gave you?”

Harold Lloyd hung from the hands of that clock high above the street, and audiences gripped their seats. Here is the thing: he was hanging on to the clock to keep from falling. And many of us are doing the same thing, clutching at time, trying to slow it down, trying to stop it, afraid of what happens when we let go.

But the believer does not have to hang from the hands of the clock. We rest in the hands of the One who made the clock. The days do grow short when you reach September. But for the child of God, December is not the end of the song. It is the beginning of eternity.

So pray it with Moses this week: “Teach us to number our days.” You cannot stop the clock. But you can place it in the nail-scarred hands of the One who holds eternity.