Faith Series: A Heavenly Perspective

Faith Series: A Heavenly Perspective

Let's turn to Psalm 90 together. Psalm 90 this evening. And let's look here in verse number 10. Psalm 90, verse number 10. Moses says, the days of our years are three score years and 10. And if by reason of strength they'd be four score years, yet is their strength, labor and sorrow for it is soon cut off and we fly away. Who know if the power of that anger, even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

So I know we've preached from this entire passage, at least a couple of times before in the past. But obviously as Moses is speaking here, we often refer back to that 70 years, three score and 10, don't we? And we're living on borrowed time, well, we're all living on borrowed time, but we especially know that we're living on borrowed time as we get up and beyond that age. We become more and more aware. I know I had someone take a tape measure one time and pull it down and I think he was 55 years old or something like that. And he said, well, we're promised, I know we're promised, but we're told typically what on average, I guess, the average in the United States might be higher than that now, but the three score and 10. And yet he said, look, when you visualize it on a tape measure from one to 70 and then he pointed to 55, he said, I'm a whole lot closer to 70 or 90 even, than I am to one year old. He said, so with every passing year, I realize I have just that much less time left to live for the Lord here in this body and this earth.

Now we know that if we're a Christian, we have an eternity with the Lord, but we only have so much time to serve him here on this earth. So with each passing day, we're getting closer, as I mentioned a few moments ago, to either the rapture or the Lord calling us home, to be with him. Maybe what does he say here in verse number 10? And if by reason of strength they'd be 80 years, right? Four score years. By reason of strength, the Lord may give us that, the Lord has given some, I think of Brother Tim tonight was mentioning, we sing a number of these songs that came from Ambassador Don Scoville. His name is on some of these that he wrote that we sing and he's evidently, Brother Tim, when they go up and visit your sister and brother-in-law, Sister-law often in that area, Shelby area, go visit the church there in Ambassador and he's still, would you say, leading the music or something? On Sunday school, he's a hundred plus years old now. Right around 100 anyway. That's just incredible that he's still going at 100. Say what now? He's older than my mom. Well, that's highly unusual. We might say he has good genetics and the Lord has been good to him. But at some point, the Lord is gonna call him home, right? Even though he's still active, serving the Lord there.

At that age, I think what the Bible says about the brevity of life really in the greater scheme of things, we're told in First Chronicles 29:15, that life is like a shadow. And Job talks about it in Job chapter 7 verse 6. It's like a faster, swifter than a weaver's shuttle, I think is what it says there in Job 7:6. Job 7:7 speaks of it like the wind. Swifter than a post in Job 9:25. That's a messenger, a courier. Life is kind of like the flower of the field, right? Job 14 verse 1. It's referred to as a hand breadth in Psalm 39 verse 5. A hand breadth, like grass, Psalm 103. And certainly other references we can mention as well. You can think of them certainly. There's vanity, life, the brevity of life is referred to as vanity in Psalm 144. We certainly see that in the book of Ecclesiastes, a vanity, a fading leaf in Isaiah 64 verse 6. We have a vapor in James 4 verse 14. All of these things, just they speak of brevity.

Things that used to seem like a long ways away for us when we were kids, you look back, it seems like it's a lot shorter period of time when you look back at it more so than when you look forward at it. When you look forward to the years to come. And we know that God sees a thousand years as if they were a day. To him, it's just a drop in the bucket. It's nothing to him as far as, because he is. He that cometh with God must believe that he is. He has no beginning. He has no end, he just is. He's eternally existent and we, he works in time, but he exists outside of time. He's not confined to time like we were born. We had a beginning, but he, he's the one that created it all. He's the one that made it all.

And so we need to have his perspective, and I wanted to speak along these lines tonight to continue the thought of this morning's message on faith. Faith views everything. Faith views the temporal life that we're now living through the lens of God's Word, doesn't it? Faith views everything through scripture. Not through how do I feel or how does everybody else feel about it? No, we need to know what God says about it. What does God say? God's the one that's got to give us wisdom in the time that we're living in of how to live, how to think, how to act in our everyday lives in a way that will be acceptable in his sight. Whether present with him in heaven or whether we're absent from him here still at home in the body, we need to walk by faith. Well, certainly here in the body, we need to walk by faith, even though we may not be present with the Lord, we might be absent here and still here on this earth, but we must walk by faith. We must walk in the spirit. We must think differently than the world thinks about things because we no longer walk by sight, whereas the world does walk by sight, right? That's all they know. That's all that an unregenerate person can do. They say, well, I'm gonna walk, I'm gonna do what seems right in my eyes. I'm gonna do what feels right. Maybe go with the flow, go with the crowd or whatever the case may be.

But whereas the world says, I'm gonna do my own thing, we need to say, I wanna do God's will. Where the world says, I want people to like me, we should say, I want to please the Lord. Whereas the world says, I want to have fun and please myself, we should say, well, I want to please the Lord. I want to do what's acceptable in his sight. You know, Pastor Peacock often said in the past, we stumble into happiness, real joy on the way of duty, right? When we're doing what pleases the Lord, we gain a sense of true satisfaction and true lasting joy that goes beyond the equivalent of a sugar rush in the spiritual realm. You know, sometimes you get that piece of candy, it makes you feel good for, or you eat that big piece of cake. You know, it makes you feel good about five minutes. And then, ten minutes later, it drops you. You know, and we can do like that spiritually. You're looking for a high, looking for a feeling. But no, we need to walk by faith.

The idea we read in Psalm, hold your finger here in our text, but Psalm 49, let's look over there. Psalm 49 verse 11. Psalm 49 verse 11 talks about how people think about their life. What are the ways, I should say, that people tend to think about their life here on earth? In verse 11, Psalm 49 verse 11 says, their inward thought is, what is their inward thought? What are they thinking? That their houses shall continue forever. You talked about a forever home this morning, you know, you're gonna build my forever house. They think their houses shall continue forever. And their dwelling places to all generations. You know, I think of the way things were in Rocky Mount when I was six, seven, eight, nine, ten years old. I'm 38 years old now, you remember how things were probably even before that in Rocky Mount. But I'm just saying, you know, as I think back and I see how much change has happened, you know, I can easily remember 30 years of time, things that used to be there, buildings that were there, they're not even there anymore. Names of places change just in 30 years. I mean, things are constantly changing. People that thought their farm would continue onto the next generation, and the next generation came along, they sold the farm. And now it's a, you know, it might be a data center before long. It's a shopping center. It's something else. Things that seem to be permanent really aren't. There's nothing permanent. Everything's temporal here in this world.

But the thought of men is I'm going to make a name for myself. There's nothing wrong with having a house and land and wanting to pass it on to your children, but that shouldn't be the only legacy you leave, right? There should be something more than just that, right? I want to have a spiritual legacy to pass on to my children because this is temporal. This is gonna, all of this is gonna burn up at some point, even if they don't tear it down and build a shopping mall over top of it. But he says here that this is the thought, this is the inward thought of men is that their houses shall continue forever, their dwelling places to all generations. They will call their lands after their own names. I don't want people to forget me. So I'm gonna name this place after myself. I'm gonna put all this money in here and I'm gonna get my name on it so that my name lives on. Well, what's more important is that we have our name written in heaven, right? What's more important is that our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life. That's what's really going to last.

But look at First Corinthians 15, please. First Corinthians 15, verse 32. It says, Paul says here, in verse 32, if after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage of that to me if the dead rise not. Why have I put in all this effort if there is no resurrection? Why have I labored? Why have I fought the fight that I fought if there is no resurrection? Let us eat and drink. For tomorrow we die. If this life is all there is, then I have missed the boat. If all that there is is this life, then we should just get drunk and fornicate. I mean, that's what it will, what else are we going to do? Let's just be merry, right? Let's just live for the feeling, let's live for the moment. No, there's more. That's what the world thinks. That's why the world lives the way they do because they have no greater joy or happiness or goal to look forward to than the weekends. Let's live it up. But no, as Christians, we have far much, far more to look forward to than the weekend, TGIF, you know, thank God it's Friday. No, we have, thank God my name is written in the Book of the Lamb, the Book of Life. Thank God that I have a house, a heavenly body that I will receive one day. Thank God, I have an eternal inheritance that fades not away. Thank God that I will see my Savior face to face. I will know Him by the print of the nails in His hands. Thank God that I have far more to look forward to than the temporal things that men tend to focus on.

But Moses is saying in order to bring our hearts in order that we may be wise, that our hearts may be wise, we need to remember how short this life is in order that we may apply our hearts to wisdom. We need to, that the thought needs to grasp us or take hold of us, grip us, that your life is passing quickly. Your life is short. My life is short. Typically 70, maybe 80 years of life. I think most people you see in the, I mean the average now, I think we have a little longer lifespan because we have it a little easier than some folks have had it in the past. But you know, you see the average person is somewhere between 80 and 90 years old when they pass. That's kind of an average what I see in the obituaries and some are much earlier sadly than that. And others do make it longer like we talked about tonight. But teach us to live with that consciousness, Lord, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Teach us to number our days, pulling out the measuring tape, looking at that sand in the hourglass and realizing, you know, there's more in the bottom than there is in the top now. There's more inches on this tape measure that have been covered than inches that have not been covered.

And so teach us to number our days. I have a quote here that I wrote down some time ago about Richard Baxter. He said, remember your ultimate purpose and when you set yourself to your day's work or approach any activity in the world, let holiness to the Lord be written upon your hearts in all that you do. Do no activity which you cannot entitle God to and truly say that he sets you about it and do nothing in the world for any other ultimate purpose than to please, glorify, and enjoy him. He quoted 1 Corinthians 10:31, whatsoever therefore you do, do all to the glory of God. Do all to the glory of God. Well, how would we live tomorrow? No, we could say today for that matter, but how, the day's almost done. If we have, let's say tomorrow is our last day, how will we live? How will we think? How will we approach the use of our time and the things that we spend our time thinking about? The words we say, actions we take. How will we live tomorrow if we knew? If we knew that it would be our last day. We don't know what our last day is. Someday out there is our last day on this earth, but we don't know when it will be.

I'm reminded, you know, like I said this morning, if we're living by faith, it will change the way that we think about God. I want it, it will change the way we think about other people. It will change, it will affect the way we think about others or affect the way we think about ourselves. It will affect the way that we think about our trials and really that falls under the category of God, right? And others, because how do we think about God in sending those trials, allowing those trials to come to us? How do we think about God or how do we think about others that are being used maybe even to try us in some way in our lives? Do we get angry with the messenger? Do we get upset with the instruments that God is allowing to be used in our lives?

But as we think about God and how we ought to think about Him, if we're gonna apply our hearts to wisdom once again, how are we gonna think about God? Well, we need to realize as we've often been told, I know growing up, I used to always hear Pastor Peacock saying, you cannot improve on the Word of God and prayer, the Word of God and prayer. You need to be in the Word and you need to be in prayer. Now, a blessing just this afternoon, the Bergmans relayed to us of a family there in Spain. I won't, I don't know if I'm, it's probably fine to share it with you, but I know this message is being recorded so I'll just give generics here. But there's a family that's there in their church and one of their daughters moved off to another country and they could tell that she wasn't, you know, growing closer to God in those times. And we're even not sure about her salvation. And she called them up today and said, I want you to know that I had a real encounter with the Lord this week and he just got a hold of me and she said it was, I had this very strong impression that I was gonna, I was invited with some friends to a party and I needed to stay. She said I just had a very strong impression. I needed to stop and pray about this before I went and she stopped and called out to God and he just really dealt with her. And she said, I realized that God loved me in a way that I never, I never really truly believed that before. I never really believed the love that he has for me and she said it just, the Lord just broke her down and she did not go to the party. And she actually called her sister up and was talking to her about, she said I consider myself a baby in Christ now. And she said the Lord has changed me. She said I'm not the same person that I was. She said I know I played the game but I wasn't really a child of God. She said I'm starting from square one here.

And the sister actually had been praying, praying, praying for her. She didn't really think she was saved and she was praying for God to save her. And she said when was it the Lord dealt with you? And she told her the day and the hour it was. And she said I got very, she said I was being tempted and I was tempted to give up and the Lord just really rebuked me that morning that you need not, you don't need to give up faith. And that you shouldn't doubt me. And she had asked the Lord for a sign that morning and she was just crying out to God saying, get a hold of my sister. And it was that very morning that she gave her heart to the Lord. And I just say that to say, we don't need, we need to not grow weary in praying, praying, God answers prayer. Just because he tarries long and he doesn't always answer in a way we think we want him to answer. We need to be, we need to continue in prayer. And watching the same with thanksgiving as the scriptures make clear to us. David said evening, morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice, Psalm 55:17. We need to pray.

We need to be in God's word, looking at Psalm 1. Psalm 1, verse 1. And Psalm 1 verse number 1 says, blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. We do well, we redeem the time, we will be wise, we will be applying our hearts unto wisdom if we will meditate on God's word day and night. And if we will stay on our knees, stay in prayer before the Lord, we cannot go wrong. We're not wasting time, we're not being unwise in doing those things. We need to let the word of Christ, Paul says, dwell in us richly in all wisdom. We need to let the word of Christ dwell in us richly. And part of that is tied up with meditating on his word, right? Think on what Paul said to the Philippians, those things that are lovely, of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things, meditate on God's words, God's words.

And look in Ephesians 5, if you will, Ephesians 5 verse 18, these are our responsibilities toward God. How do we think about God? How do we relate to God? Do we love His word? Do we love to talk to Him in prayer? Ephesians 5 verse 18 says, and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. It's God's word, we meditate on it. We talked about scripture songs, we were practicing that one tonight as a choir, mount up with wings as eagles. It's God's word dwells in us, we can sing, we can make melody to the Lord in our hearts. And only as we are right in our hearts to our God, can we have the right, can we think rightly about the trials that He sends? Can we think rightly about others?

When God's, how easy it is for us, when we get our, we can get discouraged. We're human beings, we get discouraged because of tests and hardships and things that don't work out like we had hoped they would work out. That's just the fact of the matter. We get weary sometimes. We get weighed down with care, but we ought not to. We ought not, we need to be continually transformed by the renewing of our minds as we meditate on God's word. So that we can be, instead of droopy in the season of drought, we can be bearing fruit and flourishing in the middle of the drought as the scripture indicates. Jeremiah 17, of course Psalm 1, we just read, bringing forth fruit planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in season.

But we noticed that, I know I've shared this illustration with you before too, but Fanny Crosby, there was a well-intentioned minister that spoke to her one time and said something to the effect. He said, I think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when he showered you with so many other gifts. She said it sounds hard to believe, or she said, do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition that would have been that I was born blind? She said, because when I get to heaven, the first face I shall ever, first face that shall ever gladden my sight, will be that of my Savior. See, and what she was getting at there was, I'm seeing this, even though I can't see, I'm seeing this from God's perspective. We don't naturally see things his way. We need, we have to have faith. We have to be humbled. We have to have God, God has got to work and purify and change our way of thinking to think like he wants us to think and see things the way he would have us to see them rather than just how, with our own natural heart we tend to view things, how we tend to think about things.

If we would apply our hearts unto wisdom, then it will affect the wisdom that God gives us, will affect certainly as we've already alluded to, the way that we view our spouse, our family, our brothers and sisters, co-employees, our neighbors, affect the way we view others, all of our relationships with people. It'll affect it for the good, for eternity's sake. Remember what we read in James chapter 5, James chapter 5 verse 9. This is here in verse 9, it says, James says, grudge not one against another brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold the judge standeth before the door. Don't murmur and grumble against others, against your brethren. Pray for them, is any merry let him sing psalms, we read the scripture, is any afflicted, let him pray. Well, and we all rejoice with those that rejoice, but we ought to be touched with the feeling of the infirmities of others, we ought to pray with them, weep with them, whatever the case may be. We need to pray one for another, that we may be healed, right? But don't grumble and complain.

Oh yeah, as long as there's human beings, God gives us all different personalities that need. Some of you are introverted, some of you are extroverted. Some of us are analytical and we judge and think of things critically and others are just be happy, don't worry, kind of people. You know, some people think ahead and they're organizing, some people think retroactively about things after it's already broken down and falling apart. And sometimes that difference in personality makes it a little more difficult for us to all get on the same page, we might say about things. And yet, Lord, I only have so long of a life to live. Let me, whether I eat or drink or whatever I do, help me to glorify you in however I relate to my brothers and sisters in Christ. Help me, the words of my mouth, as I said this morning, meditation in my heart, even about my brothers, my neighbors, help me to be acceptable in your sight in the way that I deal with that. And the way that I relate to others.

Well, if we would apply our hearts to wisdom, sometimes we would need to realize we just need to quickly ask forgiveness of others, right? Well, I'm sorry that I said that or I acted that way or did that, please forgive me. Help me to make this matter right. Let's take it to prayer or whatever the case may be. And you know, husbands and wives, I'm sure have a number of opportunities. I know, have the number of opportunities to just address things and nip it in the bud before it becomes an issue, right? Become something bigger. Let not the sun go down upon your wrath. The scripture tells us. Keep a short list. Don't go to sleep if there's something you can do to resolve them. And I know sometimes you might not always be able to fully resolve everything, but don't stay angry, right? Don't stay mad, don't stay upset. Don't hold bitterness in your heart. Be kind, one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you. Ask for forgiveness, give forgiveness, even as God has forgiven you.

Galatians 6:10, how do we, why for those that we come in contact with around us? Well, as we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially those that are of the household of faith unto all men, let us do good. Let's redeem the time by doing good to all men. Visit the fatherless, James says, and the widows. Paul said, don't forsake the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is. The devil works hard on Sundays to keep, to keep us away from church, everything in the book, there's sometimes, you know, we legitimately can't come. I mean, my wife, I feel like if she came tonight, it probably wouldn't have been good if she came seeing how she was. Hoping that she can get some rest. But I'm not talking about that kind of thing where we just, we can't make it, but at the same time we want to seek every opportunity to be together in the Lord's house. We ought to rejoice, as I said, with those that rejoice, weep with those that weep. We ought to redeem the time, we ought to apply our hearts to wisdom. Lord, help me to use the days that I have. Because I don't know how many more I've got, we ought to speak of the Lord.

As I mentioned Wednesday night, I alluded to this, I believe it was Wednesday night in the marketplace of life daily. That's just in the daily concourse of life. Pastor Peacock, I know, especially in his later years, said, I think one of the most important things about our witness is that we just be ready to speak to anyone, anywhere at any time. As we're going in our daily life, doesn't mean you can't go knock on doors, and we've done some of that. But we need to just be ready to speak to people anytime, it's not a program, it's a life, right? It's a life everywhere we go. I need the Lord to help me every day, all of us do, to apply our hearts to wisdom in being ready to share Christ with people everywhere we go, in situations that we find ourselves in. Sometimes what a grief it is when we realize, you know that was an open door and I missed it because I wasn't ready, wasn't ready to speak for the Lord in that little window that opened up there. So we need to be ready, we need to walk circumspectly, redeeming the time, as Paul says. We need to live like we're gonna die today. We need to live like we just have today.

And maybe tomorrow morning I'll pull up this message and listen to it again tomorrow because I need to be constantly reminded. You might only have today, Daniel. You might only have today, it's gonna need to affect the way I think, I need to think wisely, I need to speak wisely, I need to act and react to situations with God's wisdom and respond to them with God's wisdom. Richard Baxter said, I preached as never sure to preach again. And as a dying man to dying men, I have that quote, just it's kind of a rustic way that a brother, he did it with a brother of mine that I went to school with in Christ. He did it with wood burning. I was trying to think of the word, the wood burning and I've got it in the shed out there, hanging over the door so I see it every time I come in and go out to preach as a dying man to dying men. I need to be reminded of that. I don't have any guarantee that this won't be the last message that I ever preach. We don't have any guarantee this won't be the last time we meet together in the Lord's house. We just don't know. We don't know what tomorrow holds for us individually or even as a church. And so we need to redeem, we need to redeem the time for the glory of God, for the good of others and the good of our own souls. We need to ask Lord daily, help us, teach us to apply our hearts, teach us to number our days that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.

May the Lord help us to have an eternal perspective as we go this week. Wisdom is always, is always for right now, isn't it? Wisdom, we need it right now where we are. We need to be wise today. We can talk about, well, I wanna be wise tomorrow, but we need wisdom where we're walking right now. I need you Lord to help me to take wise steps. I need to carefully, circumspectly take the next step. I want my steps to be ordered in your word. By your word, I want my words to be wise. I want to say things that will bring attention to you and not to me. Sometimes we just need to let our words be fewer and talking to me. I like to talk, but sometimes I need to be careful that I don't say so much that I am not saying what the Lord would have me to say. So let's pray that the Lord will give us those words that we need to say. There would be his words and not simply our own thoughts but that they would point others to God and to his thoughts.

Paul would say in Acts 20, neither count I my life dear unto myself so that I might finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus to testify the gospel of the grace of God. You know, Paul left it in the Lord's hands. When I, he knows when I'm gonna die. That's not mine to worry about. I'm not sitting around and wringing my hands. What, when am I gonna die, Lord? I don't know how much longer. I wish I knew how much longer I had. He said, no, I don't count my life dear unto myself. I'm ready to go if the Lord's ready to take me to go. But I don't count my life dear unto myself because I want to finish my course with joy. My focus is on what I want to do but what he wants me to do. How would he have me to live? What would he have me to say? And may that be our desire as well, that we would not be like this, that we would be strangers and pilgrims in this earth. That we would not think like the people that do not know the Lord that we rub shoulders with but that we would have a distinctive difference in the way we think, we speak, we act around them that would point them to and glorify our Savior. So may the Lord help us this week as we go to do that and may He be glorified, let's pray.

Heavenly Father, thank you for those gathered here tonight. We thank you for, I thank you for the reminders you bring to my heart even through this message tonight of the fact that I cannot improve upon praying without ceasing, Lord, to keep on praying, knowing that you answer prayer. Keep on feeding on your word, let the word dwell in me richly in all wisdom so that it will influence the words that I speak, the meditations of my heart would be, would be filled with truth, not with feelings, not with my own fleshly reactions to things, but would be informed and controlled, stabilized by truth. And as a result of that, you might be glorified and people might be pointed, might be pointed to Christ and not as Paul says, not I, but Christ, that others would be able to see the Christ that lives in me. We pray that you would help us this week, not to count our own lives dear unto ourselves, but that we would number our days to apply our hearts unto wisdom in the various aspects of our lives. We pray these things, thank you for your word, thank you for the opportunity we have to live another day and even though we know this very next day you give us may be our, maybe the last one you give us Lord, help us to live it in a way that fulfills, that is fulfilling eternally in eternity's perspective. We pray and ask these things in Jesus' name, amen.