Good morning.  Well, I have to tell you that I am running on very little sleep for the past couple of days.  Last night of course, I stayed up with the youth at the lock in.  So if I fall asleep up here, would someone please finish the service for me.

Before we start, let’s just open with prayer

The ball dropped in Times Square just about 11 hours ago.  And 100 million Americans headed down a well-traveled path.

We’re frustrated by our bad habits, by our bad choices.  So, we vow to change things.  We make New Year’s resolutions.  We says, “This year, I’m dieting or exercising regularly,” or, “I’m quitting smoking for good.”  But by May, the stair stepper you bought is gathering dust in the closet, the diet books are sitting on the shelf unread, and the cigarettes are still in your pocket.  So, we quit.  We give up.

Making resolutions is the easy part.  A recent survey by psychologists at the University of Washington, found that most people keep their #1 resolution for only 2 months.  So how can we do better?  How can we make better resolutions?  Is there a better way?  Well, there is, and God has that better idea.

Out of 150 chapters in the book of Psalms, this was the only one written by Moses – the same man who God used to write the first five books of the Bible.

Psalm 90 is the oldest psalm.  It was written during a very bleak time in Hebrew history.  Moses was commissioned by God to lead the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage.  After the miraculous escape through the Red Sea, Moses leads them toward the Promised Land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  Moses saw a whole generation die during his lifetime.  And at the end of his life, he sits down and writes.

A Nike commercial caption went, “Life is short!  Just do it!”  The question is, “What is it?”  If "it" is just bouncing around in new shoes, that doesn’t seem like much.

The Psalm we’ll look at today could have a caption something like Nike’s.  But it might say, “Life is short, do it right!”
Let’s go ahead and look at our text for this morning.  Psalm 90:1-17.  Here in Psalm 90:1-12 it says, “1”

Look in your Bibles at verses 1-2.  Here in these verses again it say, “1”

In verses 1 and 2, Moses is looking at God.  He’s reminding us that God alone is eternal.  Look at the mountains.  He says, “Lord, even before the mountains existed, You were.  And after they return to rubble, You still will be.”

One reason that I think people like the mountains is that they seem old and steady -- something not easily removed.  Well, that is the way God is, and He pre-dates all the mountains around.

This is Moses’ way of saying, “It’s not about us.  It’s about God.”  Life begins and ends with Him.  If you want to find out what to do with your time, look to the one who is not time-bound.  God is not a recent invention.  He’s been there from the beginning, and will be around forever.

As we move on, remember that life is short.  Verses 3-6 say, “1”

After Moses looks at God, he looks at us.  God is eternal and we are temporary.  This is a lesson in contrasts.  God is infinite.  We are finite.

In the near east, little flowers would spring up in the morning.  New growth represents new life, hope, optimism.  But in the heat of the day, the flowers fade.  Our lives are like that.  We are fading away.

Do you remember everything that happened to you yesterday?  What you ate?  Who you talked to?  Every word you said?  Not likely.  Here in these verses it tells us that humans are limited.  Our lives on earth have a morning, a noon, and an evening.  Now we tend not to think about that until about noon of life.  Then you have a mid-life crisis!  But as humans, we find that there is a process, and that life is short.

The next thing that we have to do comes from verses 7-11.  We need to remember that sin makes us sigh.  Verses 7-11 again says, “1”

Why is life so short?  It’s our sin that has shortened our lives.

When God made Adam and Eve, they weren’t meant to die.  God told them, “Don’t eat of this tree. Because in the day you eat of it, you shall surely die.”  They disobeyed God and they died.  And we’ve been dying ever since.

Sin blocks God’s blessing from your life.  It activates His anger.  And sin brings about death.  Romans 3:23 says, “The wages of sin is death.”  Now, if sin brings about death, what does death bring?

The NIV says, “We end our years with a moan.”  Sin brings death and death brings a sigh or a moan.

You are going to live 70 years, maybe 80.  Those years are going to be filled with hard work - toil.  Moses had written before, “By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread.”  After the hard work, we get trouble, sorrow.

Now, how’s all that for good news for the New Years?  Life is short because of sin.  Life ends in a sigh because of sorrow.  Why bother to focus on these dismal realities?

In fact, not many of us want to stop and think about our lives in light of God and eternity.  Most of us live in a denial of death.  We think that the flowers last forever.

We ignore our sin and its results.  We don’t really want to deal with our own death, our own sigh.  We fill up our lives with activity – with entertainment – to cover over the pain and sorrow and hardship of life.

God is calling us to be sober – to be God-fearing people.  You see, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom.

So, after those things, we need to plan for personal growth.  In verse 12 it says, “1”

If you want to fulfill God’s purposes for your life, you have to have a plan for growth.  So teach us to number our days…

The average life of copper wire is 20 years.  Joe Hilt may very well have the oldest chicken on record at the age of 18 years.  The average age for a cat is 15 years.  The average life of a dollar bill is 18 months.  The average life of a painted line on the road is 3 to 4 months.  The average life of a professional basketball player’s shoes is 2 weeks.  The average life of a tornado is 10 minutes.  And the average life of a human is 25,550 days, or 70 years.

So, number your days.  Moses already told us that God is good to give some of us long life – 70 to 80 years.  How many more days do you have to live if you live that long?

There’s a site on the Internet called deathclock.com.  You can enter your date of birth, whether you smoke, and some other facts about your life.  The site then calculates your life expectancy.  It said that my death day is January 27, 2052.  That means that I have about 46 years to go.  Of course, God alone knows how long we have to live.  But that’s not the point here.  The point here is to number your days.  So, 46 x 365 = well, I have 16,790 days left.

You say, “How depressing.  Why would you want to calculate that?”  Let’s read the rest of the verse.

“So teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

We don’t want to run from this idea that our days are numbered.  In the days we have left, we want to be wise enough to give ourselves to what counts.  It’s foolish to spend your energy on things that don’t matter and leaving only leftover energy for things that do.

How you spend your days will determine whether you live a God-honoring life or not –whether you’ll be more satisfied at the end of 2006 than you are today.  You have the freedom to waste every single day of 2006.  You also have the privilege of investing every single day of 2006.  The choice is yours.

The New Living Version translates that verse to say, “Teach us to understand how many days we have.  Then we will have a heart of wisdom to give You.”

Numbering your days means taking each day as a gift.  Each one is precious.  If $100 is all you’ve got to live on in the next month, you’d be very careful about how you spend it.  In the same way, live each day to make it count.

So how do you make each day count?  You learn from God about what’s worth your time.  Then you make sure you do it.  You live with purpose -- His purpose in mind.

One of those very clear purposes is to love Him and be loved by Him.  That’s reflected in verses 13-16.  In these verses it says, “1”

How do you live wisely?  Most people gamble away their time because they don’t know their purpose.  Success is impossible without focus.  And godly success is impossible without the right focus.

The answer is not to simply "get busier", but to live more intentionally.  The average worker in North America now works about 2 ½ hours a week more than 20 years ago.  Does that mean we have a more fulfilled society?  “No!”  Merely staying busy does not define success.  So make sure your life counts!

Then we close with verse 17.  Here in verse 17 it says, “1”

Moses ends with the prayer that we would be busy in the work of God.  Moses desires us to be doing what God has in store for us.

In 2006, I encourage you to find your niche.  Join some ministry team.  Join God’s work in this world.  I’m not simply suggesting that you just volunteer for something.  This isn’t about being on a list – but on a mission.

As Rick Warren says, “Life’s value is not its duration but its donation!”

This past week, I read a story about three demons who were arguing over the best way to destroy the church.  The first demon said, “Let’s tell all believers there is no heaven.  Take away the reward and the church will collapse.”

The second demon said, “No.  Let’s tell all the Christ-followers there is no hell.  Take away the fear of punishment and the church will collapse.”

The third demon said, “There’s a better way.  Let’s tell people in the church that there is no hurry.”

And the other two said, “That’s it!  All we have to do is tell them there’s no hurry and the whole Christian church will collapse.”

Teach us to number our days, so we may gain a heart of wisdom.  As time goes by, and we take on this new year, may we all be focused on the importance of numbering our days aright.

As I close, I have one last story.  Imagine there is a financial institution that deposits $86,400 to your account each morning, carries over no balance from one day to the next and every evening cancels whatever part of the amount you failed to use during the day.  What would you do?  The answer is obvious, you would draw out every cent of course!  Well, everyone has a bank like that.  Its name is time.

Every morning Time credits you with 86,400 seconds.  Every night it writes off as lost whatever you have failed to invest to good purposes.  It carries over no balance from one day to the next, and it allows no overdraft.  Each morning it opens a new account for you.  Each night it burns the records of the day.  If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss is yours.  There is no going back.  There is no drawing against tomorrow or yesterday.  There is only today.

You must live in the present on today’s deposits.  Invest is so as to get from it the utmost in health, happiness, and success.  The clock is running.

Make the most of today.  Treasure every moment you have.  And time and life are precious, learn to live above and beyond the line and you’ll never have to live to regret the things you didn’t do!                                                           Let’s Pray