Sermon

December 31, 2007
New Year's Eve
Psalm 90
Pastor Robert Raasch

Get a Godly Perspective on Life

1. Looking back, what do you see?
2. Looking forward, what will you ask for?

Have you seen the reviews?  Of 2007, I mean.  Almost every newspaper or magazine you pick up these days has some kind of review of the past year’s events.  This USA Today has a list of which celebrities garnered the most headlines in the gossip columns this year.  At the top of the list: Brittany Spears.  The Post Crescent has its list of the top video images of 2007.  Here’s MSNBC’s list of the most peculiar news stories of 2007, beginning with the duck that was shot and survived in some guy’s refrigerator for two days.  (I’m glad it wasn’t my duck.)  I guess it’s only natural for people to use the last few days of 2007 to look back over the year that has been.  And yet, for every magazine article that looks back over the past year, there is also one that looks forward.  The front page of U.S. News and World Report reads “50 Ways to Improve Your Life in 2008.”  Bottom Line offers the 2008 Investment Forecast.  Just as surely as New Year’s Eve is a chance for people to look back over the old year, it’s also a chance to look forward to the New Year.

In fact, did you know that’s where the month of January gets its name?  The word January comes from the Latin word Ianus, which refers to a doorway which you can look either way through.  The Roman god Janus is often depicted with two faces: one looking backwards and one looking forward.  So from ancient time, people have been using this time of the year to take a look backward and look forward.  Today we want to do the very same thing.  But rather than looking at simply the last year, we want to look at all of life.  And rather than looking at it through the eyes of the Post Crescent or USA Today, we’d like to look at life from a little higher perspective.  Tonight we want to get what we might refer to as:

Get a Godly Perspective on Life
In other words, we’re going to let God, through his Word, give us a more accurate view of life in both directions.  To do that we’ll ask two questions:

1. Looking back, what do you see?
2. Looking forward, what will you ask for?

First, looking back, what do you see?  Our text this evening is Psalm 90, which is a interesting psalm for a number of reasons.  First it is the only psalm in the entire Bible written by the prophet Moses.  In the Hebrew text, the little subtitle for this psalm reads, “A prayer of Moses, the man of God.”  That also means that this psalm is likely the oldest psalm in the Bible.  While most of the psalms were written by David or Solomon or Asaph around 1000 BC, Moses wrote this psalm around 400 years before that. 

Now, in this psalm, when Moses looks back on his life, what does he see?  First, he sees that God is eternal.  He writes, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.  Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.”  In other words, before anything else in the world, in fact, before there was time itself, there was God.  God, in effect, lives outside of time.  Or, as Moses puts it, “A thousand years in (God’s) sight are like a day that has just gone by.”

Now, against that backdrop of God’s eternal nature, Moses sees something far different in man.  When Moses looks over the year he sees something that stands in stark contrast to the immortality of God—and that is, the mortality of man.  Moses hearkens back to the very first human being, the one God made from the dust of the ground, and confesses that all mankind is doomed to return to the same dust from which they were created.  Moses puts it this way, “(Lord) you turn men back to dust, saying, ‘Return to dust, O sons of men.’”  In fact, don’t we make a similar confession when we commit the body of a loved one with the words, “Ashes to ashes; dust to dust”?

And yet, here in our text, Moses not only describes human beings as dust.  We are also grass.  Moses acknowledges this fact when he prays, “(Lord), you sweep men away in the sleep of death, they are like new grass in the morning—though in the morning it springs up new, by evening it is dry and withered.”  Boy, just to show you how true those words are, just imagine that your whole life was recorded by time lapse photography—from the moment you were born as a soft pudgy little baby to the day you died as a shriveled old man or woman at the age of say, 80 years.  If you would then go back and watch your life at “God’s speed,” namely a thousand years are like a day, do you know how long your life would last?  1 hour and 55 minutes.  Is it any wonder that Moses says that from God’s perspective, human life looks like grass?  It starts fresh and new and before you know it, it’s dry and withered.

But now, someone might ask, “Why does Moses spend so much time talking about death, about people being turned back to dust?  Well, do you remember how Moses spent the last 38 years of his life?  He spent them wandering in the wilderness with the Children of Israel.  And do you remember why they were forced to wander for all those years?  Because they had refused to believe that God could give them the land occupied by the Canaanites.  And as their penalty, God ordered that of all the Israelites 21 years of age or older, only two would live to see the Promised Land, namely Joshua and Caleb.  Do you realize what that means?  It meant that over the course of 38 years, approximately one million Israelites died.  That comes out to about 72 funerals each and every day for 38 years.  Do you think that drove home the point that Moses was making here?  All men are mortal.  Human life is but a vapor.  Here today, gone tomorrow.  That’s what Moses saw when we looked back.  Couldn’t the same thing be said as we look back on 2007?

Think of the names: Merv Griffin, Lady Bird Johnson, Luciano Pavarotti, Marcel Marcea, Evel Knievel, Boris Yeltsin, Johnny Hart.  What do all these people have in common?  Yes, they’ve all experienced God’s command, “Return to dust, O sons of men.”  All the fame and fortune in the world couldn’t prevent them from breathing their final breath.

Closer to home, the year 2007 brings with it another set of names: Carol Galleske, Ian Mack, Carol Wenninger, Bill Wilharms, Ruby Melchert—each one a brother or sister in Christ who has experienced death first hand.  One cannot look back over the past year without coming to grips with the reality of death.  And yet, here in our text, when Moses looks back he not only sees death at the end of human life.  He also sees trouble and tribulation during human life.  Verse 9:  “All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our days with a moan.  The length of our days is seventy—or eighty if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow.”

Moses point is this:  as long as we live as sinful human beings, surrounded by other sinful human beings, life is going to be hard.  And what makes life so hard?  Sin does.  The sins we commit against others and the sins other commit against us: the hurtful words, the thoughtless actions, the destructive behavior.  And you know what makes it all even worse?  It’s knowing that God hasn’t missed a single one of the sins we’ve committed.  How does Moses put it? “(Lord) you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.”  Can you imagine sitting down in a room with God and reviewing every sin you committed last year.  All the sins that nobody else knows about, the sins just make you want to puke, the sins that have earned for you God’s wrath and condemnation?  Is it any wonder that Moses says, “We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.”  What Moses is saying is this:  As we review our behavior over the past year, especially in light of what God expects of us, it’s not a pretty picture.  Our conscience and God’s Word tell us that we’re all sinful human beings who deserve nothing from God but a grave.  That’s not being pessimistic.  It’s being realistic.

But you see, it was that realistic view of life, that God-given perspective on life that allows us to know what we truly need for the future.  Again we can look to Moses for a Godly Perspective on Life.  Here in Psalm 90 he helps us answer the second question, II. Looking forward, what will we ask for? 

Again, let’s let Moses be our guide.  Notice what Moses prays for from God.  Verse 13:  “O Lord…have compassion on your servants.  Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love.”  Verse 17: “May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us.”  Did you catch the common denominator in all those passages? “Compassion, unfailing love, God’s favor.”  In each case Moses is not asking for riches or fame or good health.  He’s not asking for success in his business adventures.  No rather, Moses is simply asking for God to show him mercy.  He’s asking God to treat him with kindness.  He’s asking God to give him the exact opposite of what he deserves from a just and holy God.  He’s asking God, in an act of pure grace, to be favorably disposed to a sinner like Moses.

My friends, isn’t that a prayer that belongs in our hearts and on our lips as well?  “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.  I am embarrassed, yes, I’m horrified by the things I have done against you and my fellowman.  So, I plead for your mercy.  I ask that you forgive my sin.  I pray that you will show me compassion.”

My friends, you realize, don’t you, that our God in heaven has already answered all of those prayers?  By sending his son to take on human flesh, and with it, all of our sins, God has proven to us that he has had compassion on us.  When Jesus announced from the cross, “It is finished,” he was declaring for all to hear, “The bill for your sins has been paid in full.”  When Jesus broke out of the tomb on that first Easter morning, he was guaranteeing his promise that whoever believes in him will live, even though he dies.

Friends, these are the assurances God has given to us in the Gospel.  And it’s these promises that give us hope and confidence about the future.  Because of what Jesus has done for you, you know where you stand with God.  You know that even though your life may be hard, still God loves you.  He’s at your side, guiding you, carrying you when necessary, training you for what he has in store for you.  It’s that fact, that God’s love never fails, that ultimately brings a sense of contentment to our hearts and joy to our lives.  Isn’t that what Moses says here in our text?  He prays to the Lord, “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” 

As Christians, we have every reason to be optimistic about the future.  We have the promise of God’s unfailing love and we have the opportunity to put God’s love into action in our lives.  Each and every day of our lives is another opportunity to work on keeping our priorities straight, feeding our faith on God’s Word and sacrament, investing ourselves in gospel ministry, and rededicating ourselves to the various vocations that God has given us as husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, employers and employees, recognizing that God has only given us so much time to know and carry out his will for our lives.

In fact, isn’t that what Moses is referring to when he prays, “Teach us to number our days aright that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”?  In other words, “God, help us recognize that you have given us a certain amount of time to come to know you as our Savior God and a certain number of opportunities to live our lives to your glory.  Help me take advantage of all the opportunities you give to me!”

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