Introduction: Hello and welcome to this message from Pastor Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque. As these teachings are shared worldwide, our prayer is that God uses them to impact lives for his glory. Do you want to join us in sharing the love and hope of Christ to people around the world? Partner with us by supporting this ministry financially. Just visit calvaryabq.org/giving to give online securely. If this message inspires you to follow the Lord with boldness, tell us about it. Email us at mystory@calvaryabq.org. Now let's open our Bibles and turn our attention to this teaching from Pastor Skip.

Skip Heitzig: Turn in your Bibles this morning to Psalm 90; the book of Psalms, Psalm 90. We can't predict what's coming up in the new year, although I have read articles this week that claim that they can. Different news outlets have made predictions of what you can expect in the year 2015. One of them is a bendable television screen. I don't know why that's important, but it seems that we can't decide if we want a flat screen or a curved one. And so one manufacturer wants to pose the bendable television screen, that you can make it one way or the other way, depending on how many people are watching it. So that's an option for you, if you're interested. The U.S. economy is going to grow---that's what the predictions are---by 2.7 percent.

And one of the factors is that gas prices will continue to plummet, go lower and lower. That's a---that's very, very good news. So, that's what you can expect. Wireless charging stations will become more and more available for your mobile devices. You won't have to use plugs anymore. You can go to places that will just charge them up wirelessly. Also, they predict that Windows 10 is going to be unveiled this year. I don't know if that's good news or bad news, but---but that is news, nonetheless. But there is certainly bad news. Mortgage rates are going up, they tell us. On an international level, ISIS the Islamic state is going to pose a bigger threat than ever as they get more people. The organization is growing and poses a threat to global peace.

The Internet continues to grow and Internet content in going to grow this year by 200 percent. Now that to me is staggering, 200 percent more content. And the article that I read said already we're becoming numb to the Internet content. Two hundred percent, what that means to people who are using the Internet for advertising is that they have to be more strategic and targeted in how they're going to pose their product on the Internet. So people are just becoming numb to all the information overload and more in search of meaningful, real, human contact. Well, last weekend we considered 2014. We looked back through a little video to show God's faithfulness over the years, and we considered a passage in the book of Lamentations of things that were certain in uncertain times.

Today, because I had been reading Psalm 90, I wanted to bring that to your attention this week. Psalm 90 is the oldest psalm in the book of Psalms, and that's because who the author is. Notice that at the very beginning it says, "A Prayer of Moses the Man of God." This is a psalm actually written by Moses, so it goes way back, and it is a prayer of Moses. When you pastor two million people, you and God do a lot of talking, and God and Moses were in close contact. Now we don't know exactly when he wrote Psalm 90. Let me give you what I think are two possible places that you could put it, both in the book of Numbers. One is before the wilderness wandering. Remember they wandered for almost forty years out in the desert? One is before that; one is after that.

Some placed it around Numbers 13, a very strategic chapter. That's when Moses sent twelve men out to spy out the new land, and ten came back and said, "Don't go. We're dead meat"; two said, "Forget it, God is big, let's go take it." Well, what happened is the majority of the people believed the majority report, which often happens. So they were filled with fear rather than faith. So they were wandering around the desert for the next almost forty years. That's one possible historical setting for Psalm 90. The other one, scholars say, could be in Numbers, chapter 20, thirty-eight years after that first event. Moses is now old and three very important things happen in that chapter: number one, Moses' sister Miriam dies; number two, Moses' brother Aaron dies. Very, very significant losses for Moses.

But a third thing happened to Moses, which perhaps was worse than anything---and that is, because he struck the rock in anger, God said, "You can't enter the Promised Land that you have been longing to enter." So no matter where you place it, both were times of great loss for Moses. And with that as a background, we uncover some truths. I want you to look at the truths with me. There are five of them, and attached to each truth I'm putting an application point. Because these are so significant, and Moses looks back at whatever time that was, and through the midst of the loss and the heartache and the pain, there's some great truths that could---I don't say they will, because it depends on what you want to do with them. But they could transform your year.

Here's the first: God is big, or if you will, God is great---magnify him. Verse 1 Moses says, "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, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God." Now here's what I want you to see---here, but the rest of the psalm. The main subject of the psalm is not Moses. The main subject is not the circumstances surrounding Moses' life. The main subject of Psalm 90 is Moses' God, and he has a great view of God. And here Moses looks back through all of the generations. His parents' generation, if you remember their name, Amram and Jochebed. Most people don't remember those names. Most of you won't name your children after them.

But Moses knew them, remembers them, and thinks back to the generation before his, his parents' generation; and then back further, his grandparents' generation; and great-grandparents'---all the way back to creation. And he says, "You have been our dwelling place in all generations." Hey, did you know that the year 2015 is very significant for American generations? The oldest baby boomers are going to turn seventy years old this year. And generation Xers are nearing fifty years of age. And the generation after that, the millennials, twenty to thirty year age. One-third of the American workforce will be occupied by them. It's a very, very strategic year. In looking back through the generations of time, Moses says, "Lord, you have been our dwelling place."

Maon/main is the Hebrew word. It means, "You have been our shelter," "You've been our fortress," "You've been our house." One translator says it would be best translated, "You have been our den," our den. I want you to think about this as a possibility. "Lord, you have been our den." You know what a den is in a house. Do you know that some homes have formal living rooms, but then they have dens, family rooms? If you're invited into a house and you are only put in the formal living room, you are not all that welcome. [laughter] Salesmen get the formal living room. People that stop by that you don't want to hang out get the formal living room. It's a little cold and, hence, formal. But if you get invited into the family room, the den, that's a good sign. That's a sign of relationship. That's a sign of being welcome.

That's a sign of intimacy. "Lord, you have been our den in all the generations." Just think of what he was thinking back: the children of Israel wandering for forty years, before that they had been in Egypt. But "Lord, you've been close to us. You've been our den." Question: Are you at home with God? Are you at ease with God? Can you hang out with him? Do you hang out with him? It almost goes without saying that if God is your dwelling place now, you will be in his dwelling place later. "Lord, you've been our dwelling place through all the generations." Now here's the most obvious thing about the Ninetieth Psalm. Moses who wrote the psalm has a great big view of God. God is huge to him. In this psalm he makes much of God. He paints God as magnanimous and magnificent and great, big.

Years ago there was a professor at Princeton University named Robert Dick Wilson, theological professor. This was a long time ago at Princeton. And Robert Dick Wilson was a venerable professor of theology. And on one occasion, one day (twelve years after he graduated), a student came back to preach at Princeton. Again, this was a long time ago---you could preach at Princeton. And he preached in Miller Chapel on the grounds of Princeton University. So on that particular day when this graduate came and returned, his professor Robert Dick Wilson was in the audience, and after the sermon walked up to him and said this: "If you come back again, I'll not come and hear you preach. I only come once. But I'm glad that you are a big Godder."

"When my boys come back, I come to see if they are big Godders or little Godders, and then I know what their ministry will be like." Well, the former student who just preached didn't quite understand it, and so he said, "Well, could you explain what you mean by 'big Godder'?" He said, "Well, some have a little god and they're always in trouble with him. He can't do any miracles. He can't take care of the inspiration and transmission of Scripture. He doesn't intervene on behalf of his people. They have a little god and I call them little Godders. But then there are those who 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 them that fear him. You," he said, "have a great God and he will bless your ministry."

Then the professor smiled, said, "God bless you," turned and left. Moses was a big Godder. He had in his mind a huge God. And what Moses does in this psalm is magnify God. He writes about it. Now, here's what---here's what I want you to see: whether or not Moses ever wrote what he wrote about God or not, God was still all of those things. Right? God was great whether Moses said he was great or not. But here's the point: Moses said he was great. He magnified God. He made---he made for people the big God appear big. In the book of Philippians, Paul said something, he goes, "Here's my prayer: I would like to make sure that whether by life or by death, that I magnify God in my body." The word "magnify" means to enlarge or make great.

Here's a question for you: How do you make great the greatest One who ever lived through your body? How to you make God greater than he already is? Well, here's the analogy. There are some stars out there that are humongous. There are some stars out in the universe that are a thousand million miles in diameter, twelve hundred times the size of the sun. You don't know about them. You don't care about them. You don't see them unless somebody magnifies them, somebody bring in a telescope and takes that which is far away and brings it close enough for you to go, "Wow! Wow! Wow!" And that's what you should do when you see these things. They're amazing. Too many people God, even Jesus, is this misty figure of two thousand years ago. They don't relate to him.

He's so far away until you come and you magnify him. You by what you say and how you act make him big or you make him small. I will say especially this is true whenever you face a crisis. Whenever you face a crisis, people kind of bend in a little bit closer to hear what you're going to say, and they're going to watch your reaction, because you say you love and you trust God. So now you're in a crisis, they're coming in to watch how you handle that crisis. And you are either magnifying God and showing himself strong to those who are watching, or driving people further away. Could it be that for some of you God seems so distant because you just never bother to magnify how great he really is? So that's the first truth: God is big---magnify him.

Here's the second truth closely associated: You are frail---rest in him. Verse 3, "You turn man to destruction, and say, 'Return, O children of men.' For a thousand years is your sight are like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night." A "watch" is three to four hours. "You carry them away like a flood; they are like a sleep. In the morning they are like grass which grows up: in the morning it flourishes and grows up; in the evening it is cut down and withers. For we have been consumed by your anger, and by your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance." You'll notice in verse 3 through 8 the comparison between how big God is and how small or frail man is. God is infinite; we are finite. God is unlimited; we are limited.

God is timeless, ageless, doesn't follow the tick of a clock; you are and I are limited by time and space and age. In other words, we are frail. And one of the biggest differences between us and God is a little word called "control." Ever meet a control freak? It's a person who always wants to be in control of a situation. Some of you are fidgeting about now. It's interesting. [laughter] But I know a few. They're not easy to hang out with. They're hard to live with if you're married to one. And I'm not saying I am, 'cause I'm not. I am not saying that at all. I want to underscore that. [laughter] But here's the problem with people who want to control their lives so much, is there's so much of life that we cannot control. There's so little of life that we do control.

We just make ourselves better by making all of these plans and hoping that it's going to happen the way we've controlled them. But they're so much out of our control. I prayed for people who were sick only to watch them die. I can't control that. It's not what I planned. That's not what I wanted. I've given advice to people that I think is right, I think is biblical, and I believe that if they were to apply it, that things would get better for them. But they don't regard it as important enough to apply it and they don't agree. I can't control their decisions. At the time I wish I could, but I can't. I can't even control my own schedule half the time, because life happens. So much is out of my control. Here's a motto for you in the new year: "Blessed are the flexible; they shall not be broken." [laughter]

I was reading an article this week about Hollywood's fascination with superheroes. Superheroes. Every few years there's a new movie about Superman or Spiderman or Iron Man or Batman or Ninja Turtles, and I sometimes think, "Couldn't you get an original thought over there in Hollywood?" I mean, we just keep recycling the same Marvel comic book stories we have learned about. But I read in the article the reason Hollywood is so fascinated with superheroes is because they know that we are fascinated with superheroes. They're just simply giving what sells. But Americans have been for a long time fascinated with, like, ancient Greek mythology, amplified humanity that wants control. We want to gain power, we want to have control, and we want to make bad things better.

We would love to set in order and bring justice to a world that seems out of control. But the truth is God is great and we are frail. God is totally in control, and we have such a limited amount of control. One little virus can make you go down. We are so frail. We are so weak. Verse 6, playing off the thought in verse 5 that we "are like grass which grows up: in the morning it flourishes," verse 6, "it grows up." It's because of the dew that waters the ground. But, "in the evening it is cut down and it withers." The sun scorches it. His point is this: just as the grass withers, you wither. The older you get, the more you wither. Somebody said, "Time is a great healer, but a very poor beautician." [laughter] And time seems to---I know it doesn't, but it sure seems to accelerate the older you get.

I know we've said it before, but it's already 2015. And in about a week we'll be saying it's already 2016. That's---just see how time seems to go by so quickly. So here's the deal: it just makes sense if there's so little that you can control in life, why not rest in the arms of the One who does control everything? That's the point here. God is big---magnify him. You are frail---rest in him. Here's the third truth: Life is short---live for him. Verse 9, "For all our days have passed away in your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh." I was at my mom's deathbed and observed her last---haaa---breath. It was a holy moment, a sigh. "The days of our lives are seventy years." He's giving it a generality. "And if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow. For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

"Who knows the power of your anger? For as the fear of you, so is your wrath. So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom." So he says, "You know the average life span is around seventy, but if by reason of strength you get to be eighty." Some get to be ninety or above. But notice it says, "If by reason of strength." I would put in that category: genetics, environment, cholesterol, exercise. And if you can postpone seventy and make it eighty or ninety, you're just postponing the inevitable. We all face the consequence of sin in this universe; and that is, death. What I've always found interesting in Psalm 90 is that Moses tells us that we ought to view our life by our days, not our years. If somebody asks how old you are, you don't start counting days to them. You tell them how many years you've lived.

When you're young, you go by half years, right? Because three and a half sounds better than three. You're trying to gain as much as you can. If you're almost sixty, you say proudly, "fifty-nine," even if you're two days away from sixty. [laughter] But Moses said we ought to look at our life by days, and so I did a little math, and I discovered that I have lived for 21,697 days. That sounds depressing, [laughter] but it's actually enlightening. It adds perspective to life. Here's another way to look at your life: if you're thirty-five years old today, and let's say you're going to live another thirty-six years or so, you have in reality only about five hundred days left to live. Now hear me out.

If you strip away all the time you'll spend sleeping, or working at the job you have to work at, or going to the doctor, going to the dentist, or being in traffic, or all the miscellaneous time wasters, you have five hundred days left to do whatever you want with. That's not much time. So you have the ability to decide---that's the control part you do have---how you're going to spend your days for the next five hundred days. Point is simple: "Life is short, life is fragile, so teach us to number our days, that we might gain a heart of wisdom." A better translation is: "Teach us to make the most of our time, so that we may grow in wisdom." "Teach us to make the most of the time we have, so that we might grow in wisdom." Or another way to put it: "Since time flies, it's up to you to be the navigator."

But counting time is not as important as making time count. That's the thrust of it---make your time count. Life is short---live for him. How can you do that practically? Let me give you three points. Let me give you the ABCs of making your time count. "A" stands for acknowledge: acknowledge that there are no guarantees of how long you have to live. Notice the word "if" in our text: "If by reason of strength you live to be eighty." That's a big "if." So acknowledge there are no guarantees. You might live another twenty years. You might live another two days. The Bible says, "It is appointed unto every man once to die." God has made an appointment with you concerning death. The problem is he hasn't told you when that appointment is that you will keep, so there are no guarantees.

Have you made plans for the new year? That's good. That's good. It's good that you do that, but just realize something God has editing rights over your script. You've written the script. You know what you want. You've got it all planned out. Great, work toward that goal, but God has editing rights. So first, "A": acknowledge there are no guarantees how long you will live. The "B" in ABC, "B" stands for breathe. Breathe more this year. Take life in smaller chunks. Don't worry about your whole life; worry about one day at a time. At the end of today ask yourself, "How did I do today?" That's numbering your days. Also, under "breathe," I would say take more breaks in your routine. Take more breaks. Change things up. Drive a different way to work.

Take a break in the middle of your work routine, if your boss will let you. Tell him what you're doing, ask if it's okay, but do something to break it up. Get your mind focused on a completely different subject or activity. It will actually help your productivity in the long run. Take more breaks. Also, under "breathe" I would say wait before taking on a new responsibility. Some people are just prone to say yes to everything without evaluating to see if this is what God has called me to do. So, wait, breathe. "A", "B'; acknowledge, breath. "C" stands for commit. Commit every day to the Lord. Tell him every day, "Lord, I want your control. Lord, I do rest in you and not in me." And think this thought, think that "Perhaps this is the very last day I'm going to live."

Because if you think that way, that'll give you a light touch with this world. "This could be the last day that I'm going to live." Jesus told the parable of the rich fool who had so much he said, "I'm going to build bigger barns to store my stuff in." And God said, "You fool! This night your soul will be required of you." A poem I remember hearing as a young believer has stuck with me: "Only one life, 'twill soon be past; only what's done for Christ will last." ABC, making your time count. So God is big---magnify him. You are frail---rest in him. Life is short---live for him. Here's the fourth truth in this Psalm: Joy is possible---depend on him. Look at verse 13. Moses prays for joy. "Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on your servants. Oh, satisfy us early with your mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our days!

"Make us glad according to the days in which you have afflicted us, the years in which we have seen evil." Moses is praying for joy in proportion to the sorrows that they have tasted out there in the wilderness. I've tried to imagine what it would be like to live forty years in the desert, in tents, burying people every single day. An entire generation died. People were dying all around them. People were dying who had never died before. [laughter] Thank you. You got that one. I throw those in just to see if you're awake from time to time. [laughter] So in the midst all of that death and all of that loss, Moses prays for joy. How on earth can you have joy when all of that is happening around you? There's only one way: by depending on him for it, by asking him for it. "Lord, help me to rejoice."

Do you ever find it interesting that Paul the apostle in the book of Philippians writes a commandment? And here it is: "Rejoice in the Lord always, and I'll say it again," he writes, "rejoice." How to you give a person a command to rejoice? Here's how: because, in part, joy is your choice. It's the choice of what kind of an outlook you're going to have. Is your outlook going to be determined based on the fact that you know God is great, and you know you are frail, and you are resting in him? Because if you do that, you will have joy. It is the accompanying emotion that comes with the life of trust. So Paul writes, "Rejoice in the Lord." He didn't write that from the Ritz-Carlton in Rome; he wrote that from a Roman jail. He talked about how much joy he had in the midst of that.

I've always loved the story of Michelangelo who painted the Sistine Chapel. Some of you have seen that in Rome in the Vatican. He was---he spent a lot of time on one wall and a big mural called the Last Judgment, and a lot on the frescoes that adorned the ceiling. He had been on the scaffold for two weeks straight almost, in almost the same position. His neck was careened way back and he was---he was working on this delicate piece of painting. When he came down off the scaffolding, because he had been so used to looking up for so long, he found it painful to look down to the ground. I know some people who live the reverse of that. They're so used at looking down at all the bad stuff in life, it's actually painful for them to look up and expect God to give them joy.

Why not make that a choice this year? Joy is possible---depend on him. Ask him for it. Here's the fifth and the final: There is a plan---work for him. There is a plan---work for him. Verse 16 he continues his prayer and then he closes it. "Let your work appear to your servants, and your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands." There's something I want you to see. There's a connection in verse 16 and verse 17. Notice in verse 16 Moses writes about "your work" as he prays to the Lord; in verse 17 he says, "the work of our hands." There is the secret to making sure that your life is not a waste--by investing your life into his work, by making sure your work and his work are the same work.

God will bless the work of your hands when the work of your hand is his work. It doesn't matter what job you have or what occupation you have followed, you can still do God's work in that place. I've told you before the two significant days of your life: the day you were born, and the day you discovered what you were born for. And when you discover that---"This is why I'm here, and I'm going to get involved in God's work while I'm on this earth. When I make his work my work, then I'm following the plan." There's a Roman city by the name of Segovia, and if you've ever been there, one of the landmarks you'll notice is an old Roman aqueduct that runs through part of that town. It was built in 109 AD. For eighteen hundred years it brought cold water from the mountains to thirsty mouths of that city.

Sixty, six-zero, generations drank water from that aqueduct until a generation came that said, "This thing is so old and so monumental that we ought to not run water through it anymore. We ought to build a new system and preserve this sort of as a museum piece for our children and grandchildren." So they piped the water in through modern pipes and the aqueduct dried up. The sun beating on the mortar just over time disintegrated it and it started flaking off, and the stones began to sag because of it. In other words, what years of service couldn't destroy, idleness disintegrated. However old you get, make sure that you're always in God's service, that you're not idle, that his life is flowing through you to other people. There is a plan---work for him.

So to sum up Psalm 90: we find that man, human beings are a strange mixture between dust and divinity; we're all going to die, but we all will live forever; we are creatures of time, at the same time we're creatures of eternity; that what we do here will matter about how we enjoy there. So, to sum it up, I would say this: make sure that your time counts for eternity, so that in eternity you have a great time. That would sum it up nicely. Most people that I meet---and I'm speaking about unbelievers now. Most people that I meet in the world, their life is a meaningless existence without eternal purpose or challenge. What they need more than anything else is to have an encounter with the living God through Jesus Christ, so that they could say, like Paul, "For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."

Make sure that you don't just waste your time, or spend your time, but you invest your time into something that will outlive you. Thank you, Father, for this reminder from the oldest psalm in the book. Moses tells us that God is great and man is frail, and we do good to magnify the greatness of God, and in our weakness rest complete completely upon God. And also with whatever time we have to live for him, to depend on you, Lord, as our source of joy, and to find your work and be involved in it. Those are transforming truths. Our year could be different than last year if we were to apply these. May your Spirit help us to do exactly that, in Jesus' name, amen.

Closing: We pray that Jesus Christ would remain a priority in your life. Let us know how you will cultivate a deeper relationship with him when you email us at mystory@calvaryabq.org. And just a reminder: you can give financially to this work at calvaryabq.org/giving. Thank you for joining us for this teaching from Skip Heitzig of Calvary Albuquerque.