It is often said that there are two certainties in life – death and taxes. Psalm 90 speaks of a far greater certainty that Western society is rapidly overlooking – the everlasting God. Lord, you have been our dwelling placein 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, the Psalm begins (90:1-2).
In the same way that Isaiah 40 paints a big picture of a majestic God, so in broad brush strokes verse 2 of the Psalm speaks of the magnificence of the Lord God: He is the everlasting One. Unlike his creation which is subject to constant change, God’s very being, his essence, remains the same throughout eternity.
Written by Moses, who is spoken of as ‘the Man of God’, Psalm 90 is possibly the oldest Psalm. A prayer for wisdom, the opening lines express an assurance that God has been the dwelling place for his people throughout all generations because he himself exists in eternity – he is from everlasting. As the psalm unfolds the significance of God being our dwelling place becomes clear: without God, we are truly without a sure home.
But God’s majestic eternal nature opens up three themes we need to consider: our transience, the depth of our broken relationship with God, and our need for mercy.
Transient. 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. 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 (90:3-6).
Compared with God, from whose perspective a millennium is but a day, our life is brief. Like new grass we flourish one day and are gone the next. Yet ironically, we tend to live as though we will live for a thousand years.
John Calvin comments: ‘Although we are convinced from experience that men and women… are taken out of this world,… yet the knowledge of this frailty fails in making a deep impression upon our hearts , because we do not lift our eyes above the world’ (Calvin, Psalms).
Broken. The psalm seems to move abruptly to the theme of God’s justice and anger. But there is a logical flow – from the theme of God’s eternity to our all too brief life-span. Drawing from Genesis 2 and 3 Moses refers to the way we were designed as the glory of God’s handiwork and yet we became the shame of his creation. The shadow of death now hovers over us all (Genesis 3:19).
Verses 7 and 8 tell us: 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. Again, this is not said out of bitterness or anger: it is the reality. We have justly brought God’s condemnation upon us. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom, must be our prayer (verse 12).
Within us all, there is an awareness of eternity. Augustine, the 5th C Bishop of Hippo said, “God, you have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
Mercy. The concluding verses become a prayer for God’s mercy. With a boldness that reflects the opening line of the Psalm, Lord, you have been our dwelling placein all generations, Moses prays that God will reverse our situation. In verse 3 he had echoed God’s words to humanity: You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!” Now his prayer is that God will turn back (return) in mercy towards us so that we might live (verses 13-17).
Acknowledging the reality that life is not easy for anyone, Moses boldly prays for a reversal of life’s experience in verses 14 and 15: Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
The New Testament reveals how God has opened a further dimension in answer to this prayer. In 2 Corinthians 4:17 we read: …This slight momentary affliction is preparing us for aneternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17). Outwardly we experience pain and suffering now, but inwardly, through the Holy Spirit working within us, we begin to taste the glory and joy of eternal life.
The unbelieving world whose eyes are glued to the material things of life, will not understand how God’s people cope with life. But God’s people press on because we have the power of Jesus’ resurrection at work within us. We see that the troubles of this world are like a drop in the bucket compared with the greatness of the glory to be revealed.
Moses’ prayer concludes: 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! (Psalm 90:16-17). Certainty. We have it in Christ the Lord.
In the Introduction to his new book, God is Good for You, released last week, Greg Sheridan, an Australian op-ed writer and author, observes that ‘the hostility to religion’ in the West ‘is unfalsifiable’. He comments that liberal atheism which is committed to ousting Christianity from the market-square, ‘is driven insane by contradictory impulses it can no longer control or balance. One is an anti-social self-absorption. The development of the metaphysical understanding of human identity has ended in a dry gulch’, he says.
Christianity, he points out, brought hope even for ‘the excluded and marginalized of the ancient world – they all had souls. But the soul… gave way to the self as the therapeutic age replaced the age of belief. Now, in our post-modern times, the world of social media and the universal quest for celebrity, even self has been supplanted by the brand… From soul to self to brand is a steep decline in what it means to be human’.
Springing out of the ‘brand’, Sheridan continues, liberalism, against the universalism of Christianity, is creating ‘a new series of tribal identities. Nothing is more powerful now in Western politics, or more dangerous, than identity politics. It sells itself as a way to help disadvantaged and marginalized communities. But eventually everyone wants a slice of identity politics and it sets all against all’.
How do we live in such a world? Paul’s significant prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21 goes to the heart of what we need.
In Ephesians 3:14 through 3:17a we read: For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,… that… he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;…
Paul links the power of God to the strengthening work of God’s Spirit in our lives – not in order to make us externally powerful people, but rather that our inner lives will be open to Christ, the Spirit of Christ, fully taking up residence within us.
Paul understands that while we may truly turn to Christ in repentance and faith, we tend to fear him being Lord of every aspect of our life. We might be seen as ‘fanatics’. We shrink from the idea that Christ is interested in changing those things within us which conflict with his expectations. We resist the idea that he may want to re-tune the desires of our heart.
While we might be truly Christ’s, we may not be fully Christ’s. This is not about a second blessing. Rather, it is the recognition that Christ’s presence within us is, as with all relationships, a process.
So Paul prays that the Spirit will use his supernatural power to open our hearts to the beauty and love that flows from Christ – so that when we see his overwhelming love for us, we will not fear putting our lives fully in his hands.
Further, Paul continues: So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith;…
Dwellhere is key. It means, ‘take up residence’ and ‘settle down’. There are many things in all of us with which Jesus Christ will not be at all comfortable. As we come to know him better we realize the need for cleaning up and even renovation. And, as anyone who has been involved in renovation knows, it takes longer and costs much more than originally expected.
Paul knows this and that’s why he prays for God’s power to be working in us through his Spirit. He knows that God’s intention is to make our lives a fit home for his Son.
Paul often uses the imagery of putting off the old and bringing in the new. Colossians 3 gives us an example of the kinds of practical things Jesus wants to see happen in our lives. So in 3:5, we read: Put to death therefore what is earthly in you:… Toss out of your life what doesn’t fit this new life with Christ. Is it sex outside of marriage? Is it pornography? Is it evil or greed? Is it anger or rage, or malice or slander, or perhaps cursing? Do you always tell the truth? These things belong to the old self.
Put on the new self which is being renewed after the image of its creator. So, Put on then,… compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, and patience, forbearing one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
The key to living as God’s people in our rapidly changing world, is to have Christ, who has saved us, now living at the very center of our life.
‘When it comes to knowing God, we are a culture of the spiritually stunted,’ writes DA Carson in A Call to Spiritual Reformation (Baker: 1992, p.15f). ‘So much of our religion is packaged to address our felt needs – and these are almost uniformly anchored in our pursuit of our own happiness and fulfillment…’
He comments, ‘In the biblical view of things, a deeper knowledge of God brings with it massive improvement in… purity, integrity, evangelistic effectiveness, better study of Scripture, improved private and corporate worship, and much more… One of the foundational steps in knowing God, and one of the basic demonstrations that we do know God, is prayer – spiritual, persistent, biblically minded prayer’.
Let me ask, ‘How can we grow as well as meet the challenges that confront us in today’s secular progressive society if we don’t adopt an ever-deepening relationship with God through prayer?’
Ephesians 3:14-21 gives us a glimpse of Paul the Apostle’s prayer-life. He begins: I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name (3:14f).
Genesis 1 tells us that God created all men and women in his image. It is, therefore, true to say that all of us have our fatherhood or parentage in God.
However, as the Bible unfolds, we see there is a special relationship between God and those who turn to him and enjoy a personal relationship with him. Paul tells us what Jesus tells us – we can call God, ‘our Father’. It is this great truth that stands at the head of Paul’s prayer.
With this thought in mind let me touch on the first theme in his prayer: ‘I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,…’, he writes(3:16).
Notice he doesn’t simply pray, ‘God bless…’ Rather, drawing on his deeper understanding of God – the riches of his glory – he prays for God’s powerful work within us.
Change from within. Paul knows that life is not all downhill as we age. Rather, he says that if God is at work in our lives, changes for the better to our inner being can occur.
It’s here we begin to see the counter-cultural way God works as opposed to the way that the world expects him to work. The world expects God to work with great display of obvious power. And we can be tempted to think like this too.
But God in his goodness has a different plan. For the present, he chooses to work in secret— changing us from the inside out, not the outside in. It’s easy to miss this for we tend to think of God’s power in terms of what can be seen.
We might think God’s power in our lives will bring self-confidence, self-assertion, success. And when it comes to churches, we think that God’s power will be seen in high-powered church.
But what Paul is praying for is the work of the Holy Spirit, strengthening us at the very heart of our lives. Because of his understanding of the character of God, Paul wants God’s Spirit to strengthen our appetite for God. He wants the Spirit to strengthen our resolve to trust and follow Jesus so that we say ‘No’ to temptation and ‘Yes’ to him. He wants the Spirit to so focus our life on Jesus that we will drop sinful habits and adopt a new framework for living.
He longs to see the whole of our inner life affected by the Spirit—the desires of our hearts, our thoughts, and the choices we make. Paul is saying, ‘I pray that God will change you through the Spirit’s work within you.’
This can be painful for as the Holy Spirit begins to probe and question, to challenge, discipline and develop us, it hurts. The adage, ‘no pain no gain’ rings true when the Spirit begins his work.
Growth. When he takes the Word of God and reaches to the very depth of our lives, the Word becomes like a scalpel in his hands. Paul knows that God wants us to put on the qualities and integrity that Jesus himself displayed. So he writes in 2 Corinthians 3:16-17 that God is committed to changing us into the likeness of the Lord Jesus Christ— from one degree of glory to another.
Is your prayer life stunted because you don’t make the time to grow in your understanding of God?
In Knowing God, JI Packer writes, ‘Christian minds have been conformed to the modern spirit: the spirit, that is, that spawns great thoughts of humankind and leaves room for only small thoughts of God.’
In her Wall Street Journal article (May 31, 2018), Peggy Noonan wrote: ‘I have been thinking about trust. All the polls show and have for some time what you already know: America’s trust in its leaders and institutions has been falling for four decades…’
She went on to observe, ‘It’s time to see our mighty institutions with their noble facades—the grand marble court houses, the soaring cathedral—for what they are: secretly frail and in constant need of saving.’
Is there a solution? If so, where do we begin? Pray.
How then should we petition God for our leaders, for his people, for the nations and for people in need? Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9 sets out principles for us.
The Honor of God’s Name. Following his confession of Israel’s sin (see last week), Daniel petitions God on the basis of God’s mercy. In 9:15 we read: And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have a name for yourself,…
Daniel reminded God that his Name was revered because he had brought about the release of his people from slavery in Egypt. People knew that you didn’t mess with this God. He did what he said he would do!
And while Daniel was honest about the sin of God’s people (Lord, we have sinned, we have done wickedly), he was bold to pray: Lord, in view of all your righteous acts, let your anger and wrath, we pray, turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy mountain;… (Daniel 9:16).
Daniel didn’t ask God to put aside his righteousness and overlook the faults and failings of Israel. Rather, he asks God to act becauseof his righteousness.
We don’t live under same covenant as God’s ancient people. With the coming of Jesus the Messiah we live under a new covenant grounded in the unchanging character of God.
In Matthew 16:18 we read that Jesus plans to build his church and in Matthew 28:18-20 we see that this involves drawing people from all nations to himself as Lord. What is more, you and I are caught up in his commission to bring others to know and love him, to honor and serve him.
This brings us back to the principles of prayer that we find in Daniel 9.
Consider how he develops his appeal to God in 9:17-19: Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his supplication, and for your own sake, Lord, let your face shine upon your desolated sanctuary. Incline your ear, O my God, and hear. Open your eyes and look at our desolation and the city that bears your name. We do not present our supplication before you on the ground of our righteousness, but on the ground of your great mercies. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive; O Lord, listen and act and do not delay! For your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people bear your name!”
At the heart of Daniel’s intercession is the glory of God’s name. Daniel did not hesitate to remind God of what he’d already revealed in his Word and urged him to roll up his sleeves and act.
Daniel wasn’t being presumptuous. He was humble, honest and contrite about his own and Israel’s sin. But this did not prevent him from praying on the basis of God’s character and God’s promises.
The glorious thing about God which the Bible reveals to us, is that he is gracious and always willing to receive people back on the basis of repentance and a commitment to start afresh. No matter how great our sin, God is willing to forgive us when we turn to him in heartfelt repentance.
Furthermore, Daniel’s prayer challenges us to come to God, not just about the little things that concern us as individuals, but about the big things, namely governments, our loved ones and the salvation of people we know.
In the prayer Jesus taught his disciples, he told them – and us – to pray for the honor of God’s name and for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. These are promises we can take to God in our prayers for our country, our leaders and all our concerns – great and small.
Prayer is a precious privilege. It brings us into the very presence of the God whose nature is honor-bound always to have mercy. Yet so often our prayer life is dead. Why don’t we pray? God is the perfect father who loves to give.
Phillips Brooks once commented: ‘Prayer is not conquering God’s reluctance, but taking hold of God’s willingness’.
Optional – you may want to read Daniel 9:16-19; Luke 11:1-4; Ephesians 3:14-21.
He was relaxing on the palace roof when he saw her. Now in his early 50s, King David was tantalized by the beauty of a young woman bathing on a nearby rooftop.
But things went too far. Bathsheba, the wife of one of his officers, became pregnant. A scandal was inevitable. He tried to cover it up by calling Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, back to the city. For three days he entertained him, urging him to have a night at home with his wife. But Uriah refused: his troops were still fighting.
David adopted an unscrupulous plan. He had Uriah put at the center of a major battle as his troops were drawn back. Left to fight alone Uriah was killed. David married Bathsheba. Like the eye-surgeon in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, David had apparently committed the perfect crime. But he had made a mistake. He had forgotten God.
Today we live in a self-absorbed society where everyone is intent on pursuing their own interests and pleasures, ignoring the reality of God.
Not that this is new.
Writing in his Letter to the Romans (1:28-32), Paul the Apostle says: Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.’
As Paul points out earlier in Romans 1, we have evidence all around us that there is a creator God. We also have the evidence of history – the life of a unique man, Jesus of Nazareth who, after he was put to death, was raised again to life.
Furthermore, we have the awareness of our own conscience that we are guilty before a holy God. To agree with the implied conclusions of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors suggests that there is no ultimate justice – that there is no God to whom we are all accountable. We may as well live as we like.
But it is foolish to ignore the reality of God. Psalm 49:13-14 (it’s worth reading the whole psalm) says: Such is the fate of the foolhardy, the end of those who are pleased with their lot. Like sheep they are appointed for death; … But God will ransom my soul from the power of death, for he will receive me.
Repentance. Three millennia ago, the prophet Nathan rebuked King David (2 Samuel 12). David was reminded that the guilt within him was neither socially conditioned nor a psychological hang-up. He knew he had offended God: You are justified, God, in your judgment, for against you alone, have I sinned… (Psalm 51:4).
Some disagree with David’s words: Against you alone, God, have I sinned… ‘What about Uriah?’ they ask. Bathsheba may have consented, but what about Uriah? David expresses what we all have to come to terms with: ultimately all sin is against God. Committing adultery and murder is breaking the second commandment: ‘Love your neighbor’. But sin against our neighbor is first and foremost sin against God. We cannot come to terms with our guilt until we personally deal with God.
And so, when David turned to God in an honest confession from his heart (Ps.51:7), he could say: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
We need to be cleansed, not merely from our isolated sinful acts, but from sin’s powerful grip on our lives. So David prays: God,create in me a pure heart… (Ps.51:10). Our problem is that we too often shy from this. We don’t want to change.
As speakers at GAFCON last week observed, when we fail to call one another to repentance we preach a false gospel. How important it is that when we turn to Christ we do so in true repentance and in faith. How important it is when we gather as God’s people we also confess our sins against God before one another, for our own benefit and also for the benefit of outsiders who are present.
When by God’s grace we do truly turn to him with heartfelt repentance, we have this assurance: God in Christ not only pardons our sin when we turn to him and confess it, but also delivers us from its consequences.
The English 1662 Book of Common Prayer puts it well: ‘God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he/she may turn from his/her wickedness, and live; and has given power, and commandment, to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins: He pardons and absolves all who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that what we do now may please him, and that the rest of our life may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
He was relaxing on the palace roof when he saw her. Now in his early 50s, King David was tantalized by the beauty of a young woman bathing on a nearby rooftop.
But things went too far. Bathsheba, the wife of one of his officers, became pregnant. A scandal was inevitable. He tried to cover it up by calling Uriah, Bathsheba’s husband, back to the city. For three days he entertained him, urging him to have a night at home with his wife. But Uriah refused: his troops were still fighting.
David adopted an unscrupulous plan. He had Uriah put at the center of a major battle as his troops were drawn back. Left to fight alone Uriah was killed. David married Bathsheba. Like the eye-surgeon in Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, David had apparently committed the perfect crime. But he had made a mistake. He had forgotten God.
Today we live in a self-absorbed society where everyone is intent on pursuing their own interests and pleasures, ignoring the reality of God.
Not that this is new.
Writing in his Letter to the Romans (1:28-32), Paul the Apostle says: Since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.’
As Paul points out earlier in Romans 1, we have evidence all around us that there is a creator God. We also have the evidence of history – the life of a unique man, Jesus of Nazareth who, after he was put to death, was raised again to life.
Furthermore, we have the awareness of our own conscience that we are guilty before a holy God. To agree with the implied conclusions of Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors suggests that there is no ultimate justice – that there is no God to whom we are all accountable. We may as well live as we like.
But it is foolish to ignore the reality of God. Psalm 49:13-14 (it’s worth reading the whole psalm) says: Such is the fate of the foolhardy, the end of those who are pleased with their lot. Like sheep they are appointed for death; … But God will ransom my soul from the power of death, for he will receive me.
Repentance. Three millennia ago, the prophet Nathan rebuked King David (2 Samuel 12). David was reminded that the guilt within him was neither socially conditioned nor a psychological hang-up. He knew he had offended God: You are justified, God, in your judgment, for against you alone, have I sinned… (Psalm 51:4).
Some disagree with David’s words: Against you alone, God, have I sinned… ‘What about Uriah?’ they ask. Bathsheba may have consented, but what about Uriah? David expresses what we all have to come to terms with: ultimately all sin is against God. Committing adultery and murder is breaking the second commandment: ‘Love your neighbor’. But sin against our neighbor is first and foremost sin against God. We cannot come to terms with our guilt until we personally deal with God.
And so, when David turned to God in an honest confession from his heart (Ps.51:7), he could say: Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
We need to be cleansed, not merely from our isolated sinful acts, but from sin’s powerful grip on our lives. So David prays: God,create in me a pure heart… (Ps.51:10). Our problem is that we too often shy from this. We don’t want to change.
As speakers at GAFCON last week observed, when we fail to call one another to repentance we preach a false gospel. How important it is that when we turn to Christ we do so in true repentance and in faith. How important it is when we gather as God’s people we also confess our sins against God before one another, for our own benefit and also for the benefit of outsiders who are present.
When by God’s grace we do truly turn to him with heartfelt repentance, we have this assurance: God in Christ not only pardons our sin when we turn to him and confess it, but also delivers us from its consequences.
The English 1662 Book of Common Prayer puts it well: ‘God, and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who desires not the death of a sinner, but rather that he/she may turn from his/her wickedness, and live; and has given power, and commandment, to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins: He pardons and absolves all who truly repent, and unfeignedly believe his holy gospel. Wherefore let us beseech him to grant us true repentance, and his Holy Spirit, that what we do now may please him, and that the rest of our life may be pure and holy, so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
