Well, good evening. You know, it is a blessing, and I think if you’re like me, you grow up in church your whole life, and it’s just part of what you do, you know. But, you know, Elder Chase was, we were praying together, we always pray together before the services and there’s elders, and he was saying, really, you’ve got to come prepared for worship. You can’t just show up, you know, you’ve got to get your mind and your heart in a state where you’re desiring to worship God’s people and you’re longing to hear God’s word. You can sit through the whole thing and leave unchanged, right? It’s a desire to meet with God when we’re gathered corporately as His body and believe that God will change you and you will meet with Him when you desire to rightly meet with Him. So, always see this time. It’s as precious that we can gather on Sundays. We’re going to be in Psalm 90 this evening. If you would turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm chapter 90.
And.
Starting in verse one, it says, Lord.
You’ve been our dwelling place in 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. You return man to dust and say, return, O children of man, for a thousand years in your sight, or but as yesterday when it is past or as a watch in the night, you sweep them away. As with the flood, they’re like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning and in the morning it flourishes and is renewed in the evening. It fades and withers 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 for all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end like a sigh. The years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength. Yeah, their span is but toil and trouble. They’re soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you?
So, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. Return, O Lord. How long have pity on Your servants. 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. 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.
Ralph Barden, who was, he was a very popular cartoonist in like 1920s. He did kind of like caricatures or kind of, you know, satire, kind of poking at culture, politics, those sorts of things. He committed suicide in his late 30s and he left this note right next to his bed. He said, I have had few difficulties, many friends, great successes. I’ve gone from wife to wife, from house to house, visited great countries of the world, but I am fed up with inventing devices to fill up my 24 hours of the day. You may not have such a bleak outlook on life, but I think a lot of people
don’t really know why am I here? What’s the point of life? Why do I exist? And I think if anyone in all the world should know why and the what, why I exist, and then what, how do I exist? What do I do with my life? Which according to the psalmist is a very short momentary life. It should be Christians. We should have great clarity about what it means to be people, to be human. And I love this psalm because I think this psalm gives us a great clarity. What is the purpose? What is the meaning of my life? And how do I live my life? How do I spend my short little momentary life well? I think that’s what this psalm clearly uncovers for us.
In verse 1,
it says, Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. You have been our dwelling place in all generations. When we think of the psalms, usually we think of, King David, don’t we? We know David was a mighty king and warrior, but he was also a poet and a musician and so many of the psalms he wrote, but in fact, not all of them are by him. And certainly this one isn’t. You’re heading in your Bible, that probably says the same thing mine does, a prayer of Moses. So this psalm is actually ancient, way before even ancient King David. And I think it’s interesting that Moses is its author because I think it’s interesting that Moses is its author because I think the life that God uniquely called Moses to live, Moses gives us a sort of great and precious clarity on three things, and I think in this order, God, then self, and then eternity.
On purpose, necessarily in that order. And I think it’s truly a precious clarity, a precious clarity that Moses saw as kind of a type of clarity that Moses was kind of the first political leader. He was certainly a prophet. And even before his brother was established as priest, he was a priest and some of the priestly duties he did for the people in Mount Sinai. And it’s from these providential happenings that Moses reflects, maybe perhaps at an old age, with a great spiritual clarity as he composes this psalm. And he says, looking back over his life, you, Lord, have been our dwelling place. You have been our shelter for all generations. For all generations. And I think that’s saying a lot because you’ve got to think back about all the generations. Go all the way back to Noah. And Noah was that man who was the righteous among an evil, wicked world. And God truly was a dwelling place, for them and the ark. And God kept him and his family. And you think about Abraham and the patriarchs and so much upheaval that Abraham and his wife suffered in their travels and nations, many fears, many doubts. You think about Baron Sarah. And then, you know, you think about Isaac and you think about getting the right wife and you think about Jacob. And Jacob, because of his own stupidity and sin, was sent out of the promised land, which would have ruined everything God promised to Abraham. But he’s brought back providentially to the promised land again. And he reconciles with his brother. And then we get 400 years eventually in slavery.
And then we get saved out of slavery. And we see all these good things happening to God’s people. We see all these bad things happening to God’s people. And God says in the midst of all the good and the bad, I am your dwelling place.
God’s purposes always work like a shelter keeping and preserving his people.
It’s fun to think about God as a dwelling place or a shelter when we think about it positively. I can think about all the benefits I get from God. But what about when God being my dwelling place, my shelter means he’s going to put me in a really trying, difficult place or in difficult seasons where I’m going to be tempted to believe God is not my shelter in my dwelling place. Yet he says even those 400 years in slavery, God was just as much a dwelling place for his people as the golden age of the kings.
And that has to be true that God is my dwelling place in seasons of great difficulty and trial as much as not because life, and you know this because you’ve been alive for a while, life, life has too many tragedies and difficulties. Life has too many boring, dry days. Life has too many confusing circumstances for it to be true that the Christian life is insulated with health and wealth. And every day I’m full of warm, spiritual fuzzies. And I just feel ever nearer my Lord to thee. And I’m just on this spiritual high all the time. And that’s not the Christian life. And I think that’s the point that God wanted them to know even in your slavery, even in your difficulty, I’m still your shelter despite what you’re experiencing. His purposes for his people are perfect. And if you’re God’s people, you’re never outside the shelter of God. And that’s so true for us, especially that we’re in Christ Jesus.
Which in turn, I think, has to drive you and I to do the work, and it is really hard work, of training and conditioning my mind to see God in every aspect, every difficulty, every hardship of my life. I’ve got to see God’s hand on it. Because if I fail to see or refuse to see that God is my dwelling place, even in that thing over there that I hate, that I don’t want to experience, that I don’t want to put up with, then I’m refusing to believe that God is truly my dwelling place and he’s not really working in me and through me and over me through all things for my good. And you know how I know when I’m not really trusting in God as my dwelling place in all things as he wants me to? It comes out a lot of times as murmuring and grumbling.
Grumbling. One of the best words in the Old Testament. There’s so many lessons to learn from that word grumble. Why didn’t the Israelites, the first generation of Israelites that came out of Egypt, why didn’t they get to go into the promised land?
Because they said, Moses, there’s giants in the land. You brought us out here to die. There ain’t no way. This is God’s plan. It can’t be done.
God’s not with us. God’s not with us. God’s not over this, right? And what’s the result of that? God said, your bodies will fall dead in this wilderness because of their grumbling. They disbelieved that God could somehow still be their shelter and their dwelling place, even in a very difficult, very difficult situation. No way.
And if not grumbling against God, what do we do? We put our security, we put our trust, in lesser dwelling places like a golden calf. Remember the golden calf? With God’s forgottenness, him and Moses are up on the mountain doing whatever. Let’s make a golden calf. God’s left us down here. Or, if we go into verse 2 in Psalm 90, something like a mountain. Why not put my faith and trust in a mountain? Aren’t mountains awesome and strong and they’ve got grandeur like nothing else you’ve ever seen? And they would perceive to provide such security? Or all the mountains or the money or the smart planning or my talent or my connections and resources or my education? All these things can’t compare with the One who precedes all of it. There is no safe place except for God. God.
Genesis chapter 1, verse 1. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Hebrews chapter 11, verse 3. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the Word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. God, the psalmist tells us, He’s from everlasting to everlasting. He’s outside of all this stuff that’s happening. So how weak and foolish, am I and low is my faith when I say I’m going to hold on to a mountain? And God’s saying, a mountain? I made those things. I’m going to tear them down someday. Friends, God, God is your dwelling place. The mountains will crumble and fade into the sea just like the Israelites who perished because they trusted in a lesser thing. So, if I put my trust and faith in a dwelling place that’s eternal, that means I’m going to outlast everything that’s going to fade away. But if I put my faith and my trust in a lesser thing that God created with His hands, I’m going to die and fade when that thing does as well.
How true and magnified is this, again, in God’s gospel?
John chapter 4, 14, Jesus says, I’m not going to leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more. But you will see me because I live. Catch that? Because I live, you also will live. In that day, you will know that I am in my Father and you in me and I in you. Jesus is calling us to dwell in the shelter of His eternal life.
And old pastor W.B. Henson was his name. He was a preacher and he was once told by a doctor that he had a terminal illness and he would die very soon.
He wrote once, I walked out to where I live five miles from Portland, Oregon and I looked across at that mountain that I love. I looked at the river in which I rejoice. I looked at the stately trees that are God’s own poetry to my soul. Then in the evening, I looked up into the great sky where God was lighting His lamps and I said, I may not see you many more times, but mountain, I shall be alive when you are gone. And river, I shall be alive when you cease running toward the sea. And stars, I shall be alive when you have fallen from your sockets in the great downpouring of material universe.
Friends, this passage gives us really great clarity. about what true and real life is. And it’s outside, it’s outside of all this. Jesus says eternal life is knowing and being known by the Father and the Son. The joy of it is mine and the Spirit always. But my life, my security, my safety, that’s located in a world to come. So I’m not, I’m not, I can’t, if I believe that, I can’t let my situation, I can’t let the difficulties of it, I can’t let the trial dictate to me whether or not I should have joy every day.
Because my joy is going to run out real quick. It’s going to run out real quick when persecution comes, when bills I didn’t expect come, when my child, you know, kicks a hole in the wall. There’s going to be a lot of things that, that pull at my joy and happiness. But the goodness of the Gospel is Jesus and the Spirit reorients my eyes and my heart to look at the Father and see that the Father has set up for me an eternal dwelling in Him. And everything that’s happening cannot have a bearing on it.
Looking Godward shapes the trial. It shapes the boring day. It shapes the confusing day. It gives it purpose. It gives me joy to know it’s momentary and God’s using it to bring me nearer. It makes me willing to walk through the boring day. It gives me willingness to suffer the loss. Because I know this is not what I was made for. God is calling me heavenward. I think that’s clarity. I think that’s clarity on who God is for us in Jesus.
But I think Moses gives us clarity on self. Clarity on self.
God is eternal. But Moses tells us your life is really short. Your life is probably not even fair to call it momentary. Your life is so short.
Verse 3, he says, You return me into dust and say, Return, O children, of man, for a thousand years in your cider, but as yesterday when it is past, or as I 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, and in the evening it fades and it withers. So God goes on forever, but we perish quickly.
Moses says, For God, large swaths of time are just a few hours, just like little bitty moments. Moses says, Like a flood, we just had something of a flash flood, didn’t we, recently? Like a flash flood, your life is gone. Like a dream. It’s gone.
It’s quick. Short span. And you say, Well, just because God made us to have short lives? No. Not because God, God just made us to have short lives.
In verse 7, Moses tells us why you’re going to have really short lives. For we are brought to an end. Why? Because God’s angry. Brought to, by your wrath we are dismayed. You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence. For all our days pass away under your wrath. We bring our years to an end like a sigh.
Beyond comprehension is God’s anger with us because we are sinful. Again, and I’m thinking from, you’ve got to think, I think from Moses’ perspective, probably like a sharp knife, he knew this truth. He knew this truth. Think about how often Moses saw people and peoples wiped out because of their sin. Remember the quail plagues? It says the people had a craving. It’s what it says. And so God gives them the quail and before they could even sink their teeth into the quail, God brought a plague to wipe them out. Remember the guy, instead of going to worship and rest on Sabbath like he was supposed to, it says he went and picked up sticks. He was picking up sticks on the Sabbath. In other words, he didn’t care about God’s Sabbath or what he was supposed to do. He’s got stick picking up to do. What am I going to do with those sticks? And they brought the case before the Lord and the Lord said, the Lord said stone that dude. Or what about Korah’s rebellion when Korah said, you’re not really God’s man. Who do you think you are? And the ground opened up and swallowed them. And that’s just a few examples of what Moses saw.
And even if you don’t die for some greater grievous sin, which I think is still possible because when you look at the New Testament, you see the people dying because they took communion in the wrong manner. You think about Annas and Sapphira who lied in such a way that took their lives. So I think it is, it is possible to, you want to play games with sin so much that God can snuff your life out early if He wants. But even so, what does Moses say here? If you’re lucky, you’re going to get 70, 80 years. Right? I mean, Moses had an unusually long life, I think because God was using him for a special task. Think about how many people he saw die and he kept going on to 120.
But he says, even if you get 70, 80 years, it’s nothing but toil and trouble.
So we come to verse 11 and he asks this question and it’s a really amazing question and the answer is nobody. Who considers the power of your anger and your wrath according to the fear of you? Who really gets how much righteous anger, how much justified anger God has against you and against mankind because we’ve all sinned? Like, who actually fears God in the way that you’re supposed to?
I saw, it was an ad, you know, I guess they try to target you on Facebook and some church on the other part of town and it was the pastor and I’m careful to, you know, unnecessarily, you know, criticize or knock, but the ad was,
hey, God’s not angry with you. Come to church Sunday and find out about the God who’s not angry. We’ll see you there.
And I give him the benefit of the doubt that it is a shame to say that. It’s a marketing ploy to get people to show up. Maybe they’re going to show up and he’s going to say, just kidding, he’s totally angry with you. It’s here in Psalm 90.
I doubt it.
God is angry with us and we deserve his anger for we have sinned and none of us are even that good at recognizing how much we have offended God. Nobody fears him as they ought to fear him.
If that’s where the psalm stopped, I think we’re ending on a dark note. I’m thinking about Paul quoting, you know, the Old Testament. Let’s eat, let’s drink for tomorrow. We die. Apparently this dwelling place is lost, but it doesn’t, but it doesn’t. And I think this is why this, it’s so impactful and so meaningful that it was Moses who wrote this psalm. And here’s why. Who in all the Bible knows that if you push God to his absolute, limits through disobedience and you push God to his absolute limits in sin, yet even in that moment, if you ask for mercy, he would give it. Moses.
Moses. Think about it. God said to Moses, Moses, my anger burns with a white hot anger. I’m going to wipe out this whole people and I’m going to start over with you. But Moses says, oh, don’t do that. You’ve promised yourself to us. You’ve covenanted yourself. Just remember that. And God relents. I think about Nineveh. Jonah says, repent. And what do they do? They repent and God’s wrath and his anger, it subsides. Nobody, nobody knew that better than Moses. So I think, I think Moses knows that life is far off track as we can get. If we would turn to God in Christ Jesus, we could reorient by God’s grace, our lives and be set on a right path.
So I think verse 12 and on gives us nothing less than gospel hope.
Verse 12. So.
Enjoy your few years of life and you’re going to die and God’s going to wipe you out. So you’re all miserable sinners.
That’s not what Moses says. He says, so.
Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. If I turn to God in Christ Jesus and I can in humility say, Lord, I’ve gone on a wrong path. I deserve the worst of what you, what you could give me. Yet, Lord, I’m coming and I’m asking for a heart of wisdom. I’m asking for a spirit of wisdom to rightly order my life. It seems that God’s going to give that to me. It seems that God would honor my genuine plea for mercy. God would set me on a right path. And even though my life’s really short, I can I can now use my little bitty life for his glory.
Even after sin, even after making a big, dirty, awful mess, because look at verse 13. Return, O Lord, how long have pity on your servants satisfy us in the morning with. And here it is. Here it is. It’s not because it’s not because God says, I’ll give you one more chance. It’s not because God said, OK, last time you said if I gave you a heart of wisdom, you do it better this time. It’s not because you and I have merited it or you and I could do anything to appease the wrath of God. It’s because God here has what? Steadfast love. It’s because God steadfastly loves you that he forgives you and forgives you eternally and keeps drawing you back to be made new and to live well and to live right in Christ Jesus. And that’s it. God gives purpose to your life. God reorients you.
To your short little life, friend, it matters greatly because God by his grace has washed you clean in his son Jesus and he’s given you the spirit of wisdom from and in his son Jesus so you can live with sanctified hands because you’ve been given a sanctified heart to live for him. That, I think, is great clarity. I think that’s great clarity on the purpose of this whole thing.
It’s living for God in Christ Jesus because he graciously has washed us clean and renewed us.
Jump down to 17. He says, 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. So what ought you do with your life? You ought to work with your hands. You ought to live for God. That’s what you ought to do.
Matthew Henry says,
We then number our days to good purpose when thereby our hearts are inclined to engage in true wisdom. That is the practice of serious godliness. To be religious, is to be wise. This is a thing to which it is necessary that we apply our hearts. And the matter requires and deserves close application to which frequent thoughts of the uncertainty of our continuance here and the certainty of our removal hence will very much contribute.
In other words, you ought to think long and hard about this little life God’s given you because he’s redeemed it and he’s made you new. And he’s promised you an eternity with him. So guess what? You can live for him now. So is it true that real, meaningful, joy-filled, shooting out your ears, joy in life and holiness is coming in the next life? Absolutely. But because, not that I’m in God’s dwelling place in Christ, but because Jesus tells me that he’s living in me now, that means that my short little life is not just this boring, waiting around thing till I die. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m actually making a difference for the kingdom of God in an eternal sense when I see I’ve been given sanctified hands and God is living in me in Christ through me for his kingdom right now. That’s the kind of work you do with your hands. It’s not talking about your nine to five. Your nine to five is important and I think you honor God when you work hard in that. It’s not talking about, you know, sprucing up your house, your backyard. It’s talking about kingdom work. It’s talking about kingdom work. It’s talking about abiding. It’s a very important verse
in John where Jesus says, Abide in me and I in you as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine. Neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine. You are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing. So here’s the thing. You and I, to go off what Matthew Henry says, I can’t like this one time. Oh, God’s my dwelling place. Yeah, it’s great. Because you don’t have that kind of spiritual timber to just hear something once and like, got it. Like you need to go into that dwelling place. Like you need to go back into the house time and time again and get a fresh supply of God’s grace and you do like a fresh supply of rest and remembrance of how powerful and strong and wise this God is because you can’t go use your hands for God if you’re not strengthened in heart and mind by this God. So in other words, you can’t be good with your hands for Jesus if you’re not good with sitting down with Jesus.
Are you in a good or a poor season of abiding with Jesus? That’s important. That’s really important.
Are you becoming like Christ in order to live well for Christ and for the Father? That’s a conscious choice to push aside the cares of life to not let anything matter more than being reminded of and really sensing Jesus. And that’s hard. That’s really hard. And I don’t have some special gift for that because I’m a pastor. I’m waking up. I’m waking up and I did the thing. I read the Bible and I pray, are you happy? I’m running out the door. That’s not dwelling. That’s not abiding. It’s sitting there. It’s getting a real sense for Jesus. It’s really letting Christ speak to my heart. It’s saying, God, you’re the most important thing here. I’m not here to check off lists. I’m here to feast on you, Jesus. I need a fresh supply of Christ. That’s what it is, man. And it’s so easy to let that go. So friends, sit with Jesus. I’m not telling you to do Bible study. I’ve done some heart oil. I’ve known folks that have been in Bible study their whole life and you wouldn’t know it. You can study the Bible until you know the thing like the back of your hand. It doesn’t change you unless you’re really experiencing Christ. And there’s such a difference. There’s really such a difference. In summertime, I think summertime can be great or it can be terrible because summertime you can use to your advantage. You’re in different rhythms. You’re on vacation and you can really think about how you’re going to prioritize God. Or you can blow your summer and just completely get out of rhythm and do nothing and come back to fall and you’re a big mess. So in these summer months, prepare, change, condition, plan. Do what Matthew Henry’s talking about. Don’t waste a second of your life. Use it well for God. Plan your dwelling so you’re ready to serve. Which takes us to, what’s the next kind of work of our hands here? And that is your family. So this is certainly for those of you, of us who have children. Is your home a dwelling place? Is your home a place where God is found because the gospel and because Jesus is set forth and your children know, hey, in this home, we gather together and we sit with Jesus. It might look different. I get that. Whether you’ve got a four-year-old or a 14-year-old. But in this home, we dwell with Jesus. We sit with Jesus. This is a home where Jesus is pro-worked as. Because if I don’t do those things with my kids, I’m not going to be able to really model for them what it looks like to go with my hands and serve Him. I can’t just tell them the things I need to do. I need to show them, this is what it looks like when you’re older to dwell with Jesus. Spend your younger years disciplining yourself to do that which pleases the Lord.
And then, fellas, your children are a work of your hands. And sometimes that’s not fun. It’s not sparing the rod. It’s discipline. It’s modeling. It’s showing what it looks like to have a marriage. It’s showing how to interact with culture. It’s talking about it. It’s doing things. It’s having your children present so they can say, man, dad, mom showed me what it looks like to both dwell with God and to use my hands well for God. So that’s such an important work of our hands, isn’t it? And, you know, it’s funny, I know we all laugh about it, but we have more kids than we have adults, I feel like, at Providence. We have like 30, 40-something kids or something. And I think God is calling us to raise up an army of godly people who love Jesus and are seeking to live for the everlasting. So I know if it fits, if it feels old, like, be reminded of these resources. Like, if you’re not doing it, stop walking in disobedience and start.
Darcy, Dawson, Josie can’t pay attention, it’s good. But we do Spurgeon’s Catechism. It’s the Westminster with the Presbyterianism subtracted, so no infant baptism.
But it’s great theology and it’s got Bible verses that support the questions and the answers, right? Who is God? How do I live for Him? What is the first commandment? Where do people, where do people go when they die? All those things. It’s a wonderful foundation. The ology of, you know, ancient truths ever knew. That’s great for younger people. This family worship God. It’s a straight-up commentary on the Bible. So you’re like, I don’t know how to sit down and talk through the Scriptures with my kids. Here’s like an easy, quick little commentary on what it means. Do something. You know, I just, it’s been killing me lately just to think how old Darcy is. I’m like, how did that happen? I have a 10-year-old, right? And it’s, these days are going to be gone. I’m like, ah, I waste it. I don’t want to waste it. I don’t want to waste the work for my hands. And I don’t want you to waste that either, fellas.
But then what’s the next work that God puts in our hands as Christians? I think it’s the local church. I think it’s right here. I think it’s serving the needs of the saints when someone’s sick or someone has financial needs. I think Jesus tells us the way that we love the body proves that we’re His, right? So it’s loving one another well. It’s forgiving one another. It’s teaching one another. It’s correcting one another. It’s engaging in spiritual discipleship. It’s meeting up with people to help them follow Jesus. It’s not being selfish and saying, I am my own work and I’m just doing my own thing with God, but I’m going to take on a work. I’m going to take on a believer and I’m really going to invest in them and teach them how to seek God. That’s so important.
I think it’s really important when we make coffee, I think it’s really important when we do nursery. And I think for you ladies that do nursery, you probably are the least thanked people in the church, probably for all time. Maybe there’s like a special celebration in heaven for like nursery workers, right? And, you know, so I’m sure I don’t say thanks enough. I’m sure we don’t say thanks enough to those of you that show up and you wipe somebody else’s kid’s snotty nose or change a diaper or put up with a crying baby so that other people can sit and hear the Word of God. That’s a great thing. That’s a great work of your hands. Thank you.
And then I think when we get outside of discipling in the local church, it’s outward to reach the non-believing world. I know he didn’t do this to get praise or anything, but Cameron texted us yesterday and said, hey, I served at Harvest House with my family this morning. It was a good opportunity to interact with people. Praise God for that. That’s amazing. That’s a really cool way to just reach non-believers. And do the work of evangelism.
Richard and Chase, probably a lot of you know this, but they give up like three, four hours a week to sit with men and to share the gospel and disciple them. And that’s a huge sacrifice. They’ve got families and pressing jobs and children. And they show up and they pour their hearts and their lives into people that are going to hell. And they love these people to Jesus.
And the blankets for the HPRC that some of you have sewn presently, or I know in the past, different ladies have made hats or bibs or the blankets. It fills my heart with joy when I’m there because those ladies are so excited to have these beautiful blankets to give to these destitute women who don’t have anything. They’re pregnant. And it says Providence Fellowship on the corner. That’s amazing, man. That’s a work of your hands for the Lord. Don’t think it’s a small thing. When we’ve collected bottles for the HPRC, we’ve collected bottles for the HPRC. That’s not just some change. Man, that’s a work for the Lord. So stop seeing if you do, and maybe that’s my fault for not praising us enough for being faithful. Don’t see anything you do for God in the church or around as a small thing. These are works of your hands. The Spirit is moving you to do. Sharing the Gospel. We talk about sharing the Gospel because Christians share the Gospel. That’s a work of our hands. We should. That’s what we should be doing. Obviously, we do evangelism in the park, and we’ve been doing that, and we’re going to ramp it back up soon in the fall semester. That’s important. But as we talk about, you should be living in the Spirit to look for who can you share the Gospel with on a daily basis, whether it’s someone you’ve been knowing at work for a while, or a family member, or somebody, a stranger. So, because I’m a big sucker, we bought Darcy a puppy yesterday. I know. And we go to this kennel, and this guy gives us this massive spill about the dog, and I’m signing all these papers and all this stuff, and I got this thing in my heart, like, do this thing, this thing, and I’m like, I’m not going to do that. Who shares the Gospel with dog breeders? That’s weird. And so we’re going to walk away, and I went back in my car, and I got one of these things, and I went up to him, and I said, hey man, I’m a pastor. I just like for everybody to know who Jesus is. I just think that’s really important. I just want to give you this, and it’ll just tell you about who Christ is, and whatever.
Friends, God’s calling us just to do whatever we got to do to just share Jesus, you know? You might have an opportunity to have a big, long conversation. You may not have the opportunity to have a long conversation. Be looking for them, and that’s why we keep the tracts out there so you’re armed to use that supplementally when you engage people for Jesus. So grab one. Give yourself a personal challenge. Like, this year, this coming semester, I’m going to try to give out two tracts, have two conversations about Jesus with somebody. Challenge yourself to do a work with your hands.
I guess I could stand up here and just come up with a million examples, but time would fail me. The bottom line is, whatever work the Spirit is calling you to do, that’s the work of your hands, okay? And the Spirit gives us clarity, and we’re seeking clarity on what it means to live for Jesus. With your hands, because your heart has been cleaned and made new by God, who steadfastly loves you and has focused the vision of your soul on Him and His eternal love and grace and mercy. God, help us see you as you are so we can be as your Son and serve as your Son served. That’s gospel, kingdom of heaven kind of clarity. And it only comes from being in Christ.
So I want to just say to us here, set your gaze heavenward. Look long and hard until you see Jesus and not a second before. Look for Jesus and find Him. See what’s eternal. See how He’s an eternal dwelling place for you. Get a divine perspective on life, its valleys, its trials, its shortness. And in this God, you will find mercy and steadfastness to live holy and well. And to live with a faithfulness for Him. Forget about your failures, because He has. It’s under the blood.
And with a renewed heart, renewed hands, live for His glory. A life lived for God is well spent. And a life lived for God is perfectly preserved in Him with all joy for His glory. Let’s pray.
Father, how often we just have eyes
for our own personal wants. How often we have desires for pleasure. How often we content ourselves with smaller things. How often we just want to live to have a good time or seeking experiences we think are for our best. And we’re not. We’re not living with joy for a kingdom and a life to come. We’re not living for the cross. We’re not giving the best of our time and talent and energy to making Jesus known.
So God, we just pray for Your Spirit to deeply work into us a holy discontent. A holy discontent for sin. A holy discontent for disobedience. And a great, a burning desire to chase after Jesus.
But also, Father, a great peace to know that we’re in the shelter and the dwelling place of the life of Jesus. And in Christ, we are eternally preserved and kept.
So God, we can’t even begin to say with words,
thank You for the blood of Jesus. Thank You for Your blood, and thank You for the atonement that has taken the cancer of sin into remission and makes us new and preserves us with You and for You always.
So Father, we love You and we pray these things in Christ’s name. Amen.