Renewing Your Mind for the New Year #2

Are you entering into this new year with discouragement, maybe over chronic long-term trials that seem to have no end?

Does the new year bring trials to you? Well, beloved, let me encourage you to return to this perspective that we're talking about. The hand of God is in everything that happens. We're glad you're with us on The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, Founding Pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Hi, I'm Bill Wright. We're continuing our series, As the Calendar Turns. Last time, Don presented part one of his message, Renewing Your Mind for the New Year. We received the first of four principles to help us in that renewal. We are to embrace eternity.

In light of that, mere temporal concerns pale by comparison. On today's program, Don will give us the final three principles concerning the brevity of life, humility, and what our priorities should be. So have your Bible ready, and let's join our teacher now in The Truth Pulpit. We said you must embrace eternity. Secondly, you must embrace brevity.

You must embrace brevity. As Moses goes on in his prayer in verses three through six, he turns and contemplates the mortality of man. That life is brief. Life is fleeting. Life is like grass that flourishes for just a little while and then it withers and fades away.

If you're going to think rightly about life, you need to calculate that into your perspective. Look at verse three through six of Psalm 90. Moses, still praying here to God, he says, You turn man back into dust and say, Return, O children of men. For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it passes by or as a watch in the night.

You have swept them away like a flood. They fall asleep. In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew. In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew. Toward evening it fades and withers away. What's he doing here? He's simply meditating on the brevity of life.

The flowers flourish in the morning and then the afternoon sun causes them to wither and by evening they faded away. And God sees it from his perspective. God is not inside of time like we are. He is outside of time so that a thousand years to God is like a four hour watch in the night. God has eternally existed, but you and I are transient.

We die and we return to dust. And here's what you've got to think about as you contemplate life. Life lulls us. Life lulls you into a false sense of security.

No doubt about it. Because today was pretty much like Monday was for all of us, wasn't it? Not much different from Sunday. So life and the days seem pretty much the same and the years seem to be pretty much the same. And it lulls you into this sense that things are just the same and day to day you start to think it's always going to be like this. You just start to presuppose it without even thinking about it. It never occurs to you, most of you in your conscious thought, that life changes and life brings much difference eventually.

Actually. While we think about life being the same from day to day, actually there's a much different picture that you need to think about it. Psalm 90 verses 7 through 11. He had just said that life flourishes, sprouts anew, evening fades and withers away.

Why is it like that? Verse 7, 4. Because we have been consumed by your anger and by your wrath we have been dismayed. You have placed our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days have declined in your fury, we have finished our years like a sigh. As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years or if due to strength, eighty years. Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow for soon it is gone and we fly away.

Soon it's gone. Who understands the power of your anger and your fury according to the fear that is due you? What he's saying is life is brief and in this next section that I just read, he says it's brief because God has judged the human race for sin. Our secret sins are exposed in his presence. God is a holy God who does not accept the sin and rebellion of man as a permanent condition of the existence of the universe. And Romans 5, as you know, teaches us that death entered into the world through sin. And so the sin of man has consequences and they are inescapable consequences.

Death surely follows sin because scripture says that the soul that sins, it will die. Now remember what I said about the context here and to understand what Moses is saying here in Psalm 90. Moses is writing this at the end of the wilderness wanderings where the whole generation of Israel would die in the wilderness as judgment for their rebellion against God. A generation of Israelites died over forty years in the wilderness. If you do the math on it, the population of Israel at the time, the years of forty years, you calculate it out, it's an average of about fifty people per day in the nation that was dying. Fifty, seventy-five, somewhere around in there. Here's the thing, Moses is the leader of the people of Israel day after day after day after relentless monotonous day. More people are dying, more people are being buried, another fifty people gone, another fifty people gone, another fifty people gone.

Four hundred a week. That gets pretty wearisome. That gets pretty discouraging. Each grave reminding them about their disobedience when they wanted to return to Egypt rather than to take the promised land. Put yourself in Moses' shoes. You know, he's leading a people doomed for destruction, a generation doomed for destruction I should say. You know, he must have heaved sighs at the constant death.

Another one. Moses, Omar's gone, Judah's gone, Levi's gone, just picking the names out of a hat. And so Moses is writing this from a deep perspective of understanding that life brings sorrow.

We get started and then death takes us away. What Moses does, as you can carry on in Psalm 90, is he prays to overcome that false sense of security and there is a pivotal verse right in front of us now in verse twelve. Look at verse twelve with me. He's talked about the eternality of God. He's addressed the brevity of life. He's addressed that life is brief because man is sinful in the presence of a holy God who must be feared. What do you do in response to that?

How should you think? Verse twelve, Moses lays it out. This is a verse that has influenced my life significantly. Verse twelve, he says, so in light of everything that I've said here about your eternality and the brevity of life, so God, teach us to number our days that we may present to you a heart of wisdom. Maybe that we might gain a heart of wisdom.

What's he saying? This is a very simple but earnest and profound prayer. This should be a defining prayer for you to say, Lord, in light of the reality of your eternality and the brevity of life, oh God, would you by a work of your spirit grant to me the capacity to understand the brevity of my own life so that I would use my own window of opportunity wisely? Teach me, God, to number my days. Teach me to understand that life is brief and let that knowledge and understanding cause me to live differently, live in a way that is wise rather than according to the manner of those who do not take that perspective into account. Moses is saying, and you should be thinking along with him, God, I only get one shot at life. I don't get to do it over if I mess it up. Therefore, God, help me to get it right on the front end so that I don't come to the end with regret on the back end. Now, brings us to our third point. You must embrace humility. You must embrace humility.

Understanding the brevity of life humbles us. You and I, we need help. Moses, the great leader of Israel, needed help.

How much more us? So look at what he does in verse 13. He turns to prayer, and he starts asking God to be merciful to him. Look in verse 13. In light of what he's been through, here's the edifying closing thoughts that Moses brings to us here.

Verse 13, he says, Do return, O Lord, how long will it be? And be sorry for your servants. Oh, satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness that we may sing for joy, and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days that you have afflicted us in the years that we have seen evil. He's asking God to show him mercy. He's asking God to give him joy.

And what he's saying is, and perhaps this is where you're at, he says, God, we would be depressed. I would be discouraged by this weakness of the brevity of my life, except for the fact that I am appealing to you to be gracious to me. I'm asking you to show me mercy so that I could transcend the despair that the brevity of life would otherwise impose upon me. God, you are the giver of life.

God, you are the source of joy. God, the joy of the Lord is our strength. Then God, grant me grace that I might be able to walk through this brief life with a sense of your mercy, of confidence in your goodness, of joy, despite the brevity. He's asking God for spiritual blessings in the midst of this.

You see, you see, that these realities don't bring you to a dead end of despair. It simply brings you to the throne of God and in a humbled position by his eternal nature and the brevity of your life. You come as a humble suppliant saying, God, be merciful to me. God, show grace to me. God, tinge this brief existence with your eternal joy.

Be good and kind to me, God, because I'm so weak and failing on my own. And then he goes further and he asks God to bless his labor. He comes to God. Look at verses 16 and 17. He says, God, give me an inward sense of joy.

And then he expands out. And having been humbled by the brevity of his life, he says in verses 16 and 17, look at it with me. He says, let your work appear to your servants and your majesty to their children. He says, let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and confirm for us the work of our hands. Yes, confirm the work of our hands. God, as I go through my life, as I'm doing what you've given me to do, God, I pray that you would bless it, that you would establish it in ways that go beyond natural human ability.

I pray that you would supernaturally bless the work of my hands in a way that it establishes it as something that was valuable in your sight. Beloved, you may have regrets about the past. You may look back and see how people have wrecked your lives with their dishonesty and unkindness. Maybe you've wrecked the lives of others with your own sins.

But here's the thing. This is where Psalm 90 brings you to finish. In the grace of God, in the hand of our omnipotent, gracious God who loves to bless his weak and feeble children like you and me, in the grace of God, despite the regrets of your past, you can finish well.

Moses is writing this at the end of his life and saying, God, establish the work of our hands. And in your own individual personal lives, even those of you with gray hair and, you know, you're like me and a lot more is in the rear view mirror than is in the windshield ahead of you. Look, this is true for every one of us what I'm about to say. Your prayer should be this. Lord, I'm still here. And I detect by that, I detect by my presence and my life now, I detect by that that you still have something appointed for me to do. That there is still purpose in my existence.

Lord, in the time that I have left, please, oh God, help me get it right. Help me to see the circle of relationships that you have given me and let me be an influence for godliness in Christ upon them. That kind of renewed thinking will serve you well in the new year. No doubt about it. You see, you and I should be thinking about ourselves from the sense that we're simply agents in the furtherance of the eternal purpose of God.

Lord, let me wire into that. Let my mind be saturated with that so that I live out that in whatever realm you've given to me, your life, beloved, is not about you. It's not about you. How could it be about us when Christ died for us?

It has to be about him. Now, final thing, said that you must embrace eternity, you must embrace brevity, and you must embrace humility. All of these things humble us and make us think differently about life. I'm going to give you a fourth point that goes beyond Psalm 90, and that is this, is that you must embrace priority.

You must embrace your priority. Oh, and I'm so glad I get to say this. And I want you to know, call a time out here, I want you to know that I can't begin to express how much I appreciate the fact that you all come to hear God's Word. You are a blessing and a gift from God to me. To be able to have a people that want to hear Bible teaching and for me to be able to do it, I am so thankful that you come and make the effort to be here. And it is a blessing to be a part of this ministry together with all of you.

And it is a blessing to be able to say what I'm about to say to you because I think it will help you. If you're a Christian, you cannot cling to this life. And what I mean by that is this, is that Christ redeemed you with an ultimate purpose that you would be with him in heaven. That's why he saved you. It's because he wanted you to be in heaven with him. And that is the ultimate purpose of your life. It's not about the happy circumstances that we would prefer here in this 70 or 80 year earthly existence.

That's not it. That's inconsequential by comparison. Christ came to die on that cross. Christ shed his blood to redeem your soul not for health and wealth here in this life.

It was to secure the certainty that you would be with him in heaven forever. The culmination of your existence is yet to come. It is beyond the veil. It is in that realm, that glorious realm with Christ. And so, beloved, what that means is as you grow in your understanding of that, as you are sanctified by the Spirit of God, and you realize the purpose of your salvation, then your heart should long to be with Christ more than it desires to stay on earth. And that doesn't mean that we have a death wish. That doesn't mean that we don't enjoy the life that God's given us now. He's given that to bless us. This is the realm that he's given us to serve him, to love him, to proclaim him. We enjoy this life now. But, beloved, we don't cling to that as if this earthly life is the end of our existence. We hold it loosely. We hold it loosely because we realize that all death does is simply usher us into the culmination, the realization of the purpose that Christ saved us to begin with. And that is only going to be glory. Look at Philippians chapter 1. Here's the concluding mindset that I would give you as we contemplate moving forward. Or if you're listening to this 40 years from now as you move forward. Philippians chapter 1. Won't that freak them out if they hear that? You know, someone's actually listening to this 40 years from now.

Whoa, really? Whatever. Philippians chapter 1 verse 21. Look at what Paul says in this familiar passage.

Here's the priority. For to me to live is Christ and to die is gain. But if I am to live on in the flesh, this will mean fruitful labor for me and I don't know which to choose.

But I am hard pressed from both directions. Having the desire to depart and be with Christ for that is very much better. Yet to remain on in the flesh is more necessary for your sake. What's Paul saying here? He's saying I'll stay as long as Christ wants me to stay.

And I'll be glad to do it. Paul writing to the church in Philippi says I'll serve you and it will be to your benefit if I stay with you. But he says the deepest desire of my heart is to be with Christ, to be with my Redeemer, to be the one who bled for my soul. In the final analysis I want to be with Him. See, and that's the true desire of every true Christian. Maybe you need a little time and help to think through that and come to that conclusion and realization. But the path of Scripture is so clear and direct on this that the redeemed heart says, I was saved to be with Christ in heaven forever.

That's what I ultimately want. I love Christ more than anything on this earth, more than any circumstance in this life, more than any position or relationship that I could have. I want to be with Christ. And so the ultimate culmination is what I long for.

Now, if He in His wisdom says, no, not yet. I want you there a little longer. There's things for you to do.

I'll embrace that. But the heart priority, I want to be with Christ. My goal, the reason that I exist as a Christian, the reason that you exist as a Christian is so that one day you would enter into God's eternal presence. That's why you exist, is for you to be in the immediate presence of Christ forever. And death only escorts you into that glory. You know what embracing that priority does? It frees you to leave when the time comes. You don't have to be afraid.

You don't have to look at it with regret and say, oh, I wish I had a few more years to go. No, we look at death and we realize that from an earthly sense it's an enemy still. Christ conquered death with His resurrection and Christ uses death to usher us into the realization of the whole purpose for which He saved us. That is how much He has overturned the consequences of sin. Sin led to death, ushered death into the world. Christ now uses death to usher us as Christians into the presence of God.

How great is He to be able to turn things so completely upside down like that? And so there's no fear. There's no reason for you to be afraid if you're in Christ. There's no reason to look back with regret because Christ has covered that. There's no reason to fear the future in this life because Christ is with us.

That's our priority. For some of you that's not your priority and your soul needs to be rebuked and chastened by everything that we've said here. You've lived in neglect of Christ. You're not even a Christian.

You wear the mask of one but underneath is the reality that everyone might not suspect but God knows and you know you're not even a Christian. You need to turn to Christ in humble faith for the forgiveness of your sins. Won't you turn to Christ? Won't you turn to Him and His blood atonement for sinners and enter into this great spiritual current?

Not a current that leads to earthly death and regret but a current that sweeps us into heaven. We hope you've been encouraged by Pastor Don Green's message today on the Truth Pulpit and that you'll continue to renew your mind daily by immersing yourself into God's glorious word. There's more to come in our current series as the calendar turns so tune into our next broadcast. Right now though Don's back here in studio with some closing words.

Hi friend. As we close today I just want to make something available to you. You know as you listen to these radio broadcasts they have to fit into a 25 minute format and we're very grateful for the opportunity the Lord's given us to do just that. But the radio messages are born out of a longer sermon message that contains more information, more background, a fuller explanation of the passage than what we're able to do on radio. So I encourage you to go to our website and find the link that says Follow Don's Pulpit. That'll lead you to a podcast that gives you the full length sermons from every Sunday and every Tuesday from my pulpit. I really think that it'll minister to you over time to hear the full length messages. So we make that available for free and we would love you to join us in that way as well. Thanks Don and friend. To take advantage of what Don just mentioned visit TheTruthPulpit.com. I'm Bill Wright inviting you back next time when Don Green presents more from The Truth Pulpit.