Sermon: Stewarding Our Time: Seasons of Life

I ask you to take a copy of God's word in hand this morning and we'll turn open to Psalm 71. And this morning I'm just going to read verses 17 through 24. But as you'll see, we'll kind of walk a little bit or away through the entire Psalm. But this morning, Psalm 71, verses 17 through 24, it's on page 4 84 if you want to use a pew Bible. 4, 8, 4 in the pew Bible.

Let's pray before we open God's word together this morning.

Father, we come before you this morning as children that are in need of a strong word from their father. A correcting word, an exhorting word, an encouraging word, a leading word you say this morning that you are not just father but your heavenly Father. And so we know that this is a word that is incomparable, that it is unrivaled, that it is truly wisdom from above. And so give us ears to hear, give us minds to understand.

Give us hearts to receive. May we encounter the truth of your word and be changed as a result of it. We pray all of this in the strong name of your Son and our savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. This morning, Psalm 71, verses 17 through 24. This is the holy iner, sufficient word of God. Oh God from my youth. You have taught me and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even the old age and gray hairs, oh God, do not forsake me

until I proclaim your might to another generation. Your power to all those to come your righteousness, oh God reaches the high heavens you who have done great things, oh God, who is like you, you who have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again from the depths of the earth, you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again. I will also praise you with the harp for your faithfulness.

Oh my God, I will sing praises to you with a liar, a holy one of Israel. My lips will shout for joy when I sing praises to you. My so also, which you have redeemed my tongue, will talk of your righteous help all the day long for they have been put to shame and disappointed who sought to do me hurt though the grass withers and the flower faiths, the word of God is forever. Thanks, speed to God. Amen.

For those of you that have been here for a number of years, you know that in each January what we've done for a number of years is that we stop what is our normal practice of where we preach consecutively expositionally through a book of the Bible in January. What we do is we just stop that for this month and for this month we do more of a topical series. And what it is is we called our faith focus, uh, our elders, the under shepherds of the church who have responsibility

for your souls before the throne of God. Uh, meet and discuss what would be helpful for us maybe to address in a way that we can't normally by just going through a book consecutively expositionally, but some topic or subject that we would like to see more in the DNA of the church, more in us as individuals, more in us corporately. And let's just preach through that for the four weeks of January. And so we have done different faith focuses over the years.

We have done prayer, we have done, uh, living in light of eternity. Uh, one of my favorites was last year, uh, where we did one on gratitude or Thanksgiving. And this year what your elders asked us to preach through was to preach through stewardship. And by that we are speaking of all of life that everything that you have been given, you have been given as a steward. And I love that this is the subject for this year because it makes a lot of sense for this year.

Uh, this year is a big year and the life or life together, university Reform Church turned 60 this year. So you think of everything that we have received as a 60-year-old congregation and it's good to reflect upon all that we have received. And now think about, okay, what what do we do in light of that going forward? And so we're going to look at stewardship together over these weeks, this morning, what I want to do is I want

to begin this faith focus series. We're thinking about stewarding our time. And again, that makes sense. It's the first Sunday of the year we begin a new year. We often think about, okay, I'm getting ready to start this new time period, this new year, this new month, this new day of the month, January 1st. And so as we go forward, what is it that we are going to do with this year? It's a crucial thing to think through.

How do you steward your time? It's a good thing to think through for your Christian life and I think one of the most needed things to think through in our Christian life. I was thinking yesterday about this and thinking, what, what do we mean by time? This is a thought that went through my head yesterday. I was thinking about this, is that when you and I speak of time, we in essence are speaking about our life, our life.

That the time that we have been given our time is our life and our time. We have a beginning, we have a middle, and we have an end no long, no matter how long our life is or how short our life is, there is a beginning and there is a middle and there is an in to it. And we have a limited amount of time, just a limited amount. Psalmist takes us through that reality in the psalm. So let me just give us quickly an overview of the psalm.

I'm gonna walk through it. I want your Bibles open on your laps as we kind of just quickly walk our way through this psalm. But our first point this morning is that we all have a beginning and an end. We have a beginning and an end. We're not sure who wrote this psalm. We're not sure what his name was. We're not sure what he has done. We're not sure what he is left undone. What we do know about him is that his life has experienced severe trials.

He has gone through as he will say, a lot of calamities, a lot of high waters. And it's not just that he has gone through that. He's going through them right now. He's going through severe trial and testing and opposition from enemies that we know. We also know that he is coming to the end of his life. He is an old man when he writes this. But other than that, we don't know anything about him. And in some ways I think that's incredibly helpful

because he kind of serves as a general man to us. This is true of all men, women, and children. There's a beginning, there's a middle, there's an end, there's a life. And in the midst of that life, there are different calamities, different trials. And he serves as a kind of general man for us. He's not only reflecting upon his life but God sustaining and protecting and providing and giving to him throughout his life. So verse three, he says, of the Lord, he says, you are

my rock and my fortress. You go down to verse five, he says, you Lord are my hope and my trust. There's the middle of his life. He's in the midst of it. But then he goes to the beginning of his life, he says that God has been his trust quote from my youth and he makes it clear that this has always been his wave. Verse six, upon you, I have leaned from before my birth. You are he who took me from my mother's womb from the very

beginning, even before I was born in this world, before I had done anything, you oh Lord, were the one who provided for me, who protected me, who nurtured me, who safeguarded me you even when I was in my mother's womb. And that leads him to verse six to say, my praise is continually of you. That's been his experience throughout his life when when he emerged from the womb, he began to walk through life and he found himself in all kinds of trials.

He says verse seven, that he was important to many. That is he was a warning to many people. Many people were set against him. He had trial upon trial and all of these many people set against him. But he says God was for him. He says verse seven, you are my strong refuge. You were for me. So I've said to you before, one with God as a majority, no matter how many are set against you. And he knows that God is for him. God is with him the beginning and middle of his life.

But now he writes the Psalm as he is old and he is coming to the end of his life like all of us will do. And he feels increasing weakness as we all do. He asks in verse nine and following that the Lord would not abandon him. That in fact he says he would say in verse 12 that you would be, that you would help me. This poor man is being falsely accused. He's being surrounded by enemies. There heaping insults and injuries upon him to his hurt, seeking to hurt him.

He says verse 13, there there's no rest for him, even an old age. But notice in the midst of his recognizing that he has a beginning and that he has an end, he says our second point that he has a purpose from beginning to end. Verse 14, he says, but I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more. He says that he will speak of God's righteous and mighty acts in verses four 15 and 16. His work to save works in deeds,

which the Psalm says in verse 15 are beyond the ability to number. If I tried to count them, I couldn't even do it.

And now to the verses we read this morning, verse 17, oh God, from my youth, you have taught me he's been a pupil in the school of life and he's been a pupil in the school of hard knocks in life. And God is his teacher. And what is it that God is teaching him in this life?

It is that he's dependent upon God and that life is not about him.

Psalmist looks back over his life from the beginning, the womb to his old age in the present seeing his end on the horizon. And he recognizes that he was created by God and he's been kept by the same God. He has been redeemed by this God, this God who is different than he is. And his desire, his purpose is to praise him.

It's not about him. His life is about God.

You see that in his response, the direction his life has been. And that takes even here at the end, he, he wants the Lord to save him from these foes. He says, do not forsake me. He says in verse 18, but being saved from his foes is not an end in itself. That's not what he ultimately desires.

He says, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation. Your power to all those to come. He has purpose and God has taught him. He knows that he lives for a reason. We have breath so that he might receive praise.

That's why you exist.

Psalmist has purpose from the beginning of his life to the end of his life. He says that testify to who God is and what he has done. And then the psal ends with his multiplying of praise upon praise to God who he is and what he has done. He says He will do so with the harp. He'll do so with the liar. He'll do so with his lips. He'll do so with his tongue. Why? Because he says, you have redeemed. You have saved my soul.

This God is worthy of praise. From the beginning of the womb, he created me. He is worthy of praise because he has sustained me through all these trials. He is worthy of praise because he has redeemed my very soul. He has recreated me.

Psalm has taken us through the span of his life. And when he gets near the end, he's saying over and over the same thing. You hear it. It's ultimately this. Your life is not about you.

It's about him

exists for his praise. Let me declare who he is and what he has done from beginning to end. Who is this? God, let me proclaim him. Praise him. Who is so different from us, from beginning to end of my life. Let my life be about praising him who has no beginning and has no end who's eternal.

It's interesting that when Moses appears before God and God is sending him down to Egypt, and Moses says to God, you know when I get down to the Israelites and I tell them that I have been sent to free them, they'll wanna know who has sent me. What name do I give them? And and God's reply to them Is that that sacred name, that name Yahweh or Jehovah? Which literally means I am who I am. I exist when John in Revelation, at the beginning of Revelation appears

before the throne, God says to him, I am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end. I exist when those four living creatures are before the throne and they are ascribing praise to God. They will say over and over, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come. That is He did exist. He exists. And he will forever exist. He is. He has no beginning. He has no end. He is truly timeless. There was never a time

that he was not before. A person was born, before a grain of sand was formed before the ocean existed. God was before the planets. The stars before the sun was was burning. God was before angels flew. Before demons rebelled, before there was ever a man brought forth from the dust of the ground, God was,

and the scriptures start this way in the beginning was God, why does it say in the beginning was God? Because he was there before the beginning.

Long after you and I come to our end, long after mountains crumble and oceans dry up, God will be long after every monument that has been crafted to memorialize man. Man falls after every single tombstone in the name that is written on. It disappears. God still will be.

It's hard even to wrap our minds around the fact that he's eternal because we're bound up with time, you and me.

So even when we speak of eternity, as one theologian said, we speak of some indefinite past, some indefinite present, some indefinite future. And yet we're still communicating with words that have to do with time.

When he's beyond time, he's eternal.

It's confusing that he transcends time.

He created time.

The only way that you and I can do it in any kind of way is that we do it by negation. He has no beginning. He has no end. He is not old. He is not young. He does not progress. He does not deteriorate. He is

eternity doesn't begin, it doesn't end. There's no parts to it. There's no moving from one moment to another. There's no progression, there's no detention. It's an indivisible forever moment that always has been and always is and always will be. God transcends time. Even this concept, even as this concept transcends our minds.

This one theologian said eternity is a mystery but it's a mystery which shrouds and covers unspeakable glory.

And here's the point. When you begin to understand that you have a beginning and you have an end and that there is one who has no beginning and has no end, you begin to understand your purpose.

Because the one who has no beginning and has no end and everything else has a beginning and has an end. That means that he created all things, all things exist according to him. And why do all things exist? They all exist because they were created by him for him. And all of a sudden, your life has purpose. My life has purpose. All the things in this, this world have purpose.

So Psalmist says in verse 19, oh God, who is like you? It's a rhetorical question. The answer is none The school of life and especially the school of hard knocks, as you're going through the trials of this life, what is it doing? It's seeking to lead you from yourself to him to understand you're wholly dependent upon him. That all of this is about him.

Your purpose is praising him. Oh God, from my youth, you have taught me and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, oh God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation. Paul will say it this way. So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, due to the glory of God, our Westminster shore catechism that you Presbyterians have memorized, you know that first question answer, what is the chief end

of man man's? Chief end is to glorify God, his ultimate end, his great end. His great purpose is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Why enjoy him as well? 'cause you were created for this

and you're redeemed for this and you'll be resurrected to this plumber. An old commentator on the Psalms commented this. He said, praising God is a delightful privilege, but it's a miserable task. The drudgery of hypocrites.

Isn't that true? The cri, the hypocrite lament says, how much more must I give to God?

The redeem says and laments all that I could give so much more to God that I desire to give so much more to God

becomes a delightful duty.

This is why Paul, you know, after 11 chapters and that magisterial work of Romans and detailing who God is, what he has done, his mighty works. Finally he gets the application. Great Paul, tell us now what to do.

And he opens up that chapter 12 verse one, I appeal to you therefore, therefore in light of who God is. Therefore in light of all that he has done all his mighty works. I appeal to you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Your life for him,

living act of worship to him

all of my life, a part of it. All of it must be oriented to him who is worthy. He created and redeemed you for his praise.

He formed you in your mother's womb for his praise. He sustained you through the trials of this life. For his praise, he sent his son to this world to live and to die a bloody death upon the cross for your sin and the guilt of your sin so that you might be redeemed so that you would be redeemed for his praise.

He will resurrect you from the grave. This is one of the great texts in all of the Old Testament about the resurrection. You see it here in in 71 in verse uh 19. He says, oh right, you're righteousness. So God reaches the high heavens. You have done great things. Oh God, who is like you? You have made me see many troubles and calamities will revive me again from the depths of the earth, you will bring me up again. You will increase my greatness and comfort me again.

When he resurrects you, what does he resurrect you unto His praise.

Your time is so fleeting. My time is so fleeting.

It has purpose.

He sustained your life for his praise, redeemed it for his praise, created it for his praise.

So here's the question. How are you expending it?

Your time's limited. You have a beginning, middle, and end. Unlike your creator.

How are you using it?

What are you setting it upon? What are you aiming it at?

You know, know all of us have a life that comes to an end. And when that life comes to an end, we will face him who is our creator and we will appear before him and we will give an account for how we have spent our time. We we'll be held accountable. Paul says in Ephesians, you know he says that the days are evil by that he means that they are a great time that we live in, that there's great corruption, there is great sin,

there is great allure by the world to try and draw you and I in. That is part of it. But he's also referencing the fact that the days are evil and that they are quickly passing away. But they're also an incredible blessing if used appropriately.

It staggers the mind, closes every circuit in my head that the Lord of all glory would give you and I time in this world to store eternal treasures in heaven.

He gives you moments here to store things for eternity.

And he tells you that what grace

every hour that we've been given is an opportunity. Is that how you live

to older individuals in the room?

You'll notice that old age does not stop the psalmist from living to God. Now doesn't stop them. Rather it does the opposite. It propels him to live even more for God. Now why? Because he knows what God has done for him. He knows that God has been faithful in the past. He knows that God has sustained him in the present. So he has hope for tomorrow and it propels him forward. He knows this God and he knows this. God continues to sustain his life for a reason.

To give him praise to tell others of this God in the mighty acts that he has done, they ha he has purpose.

It absolutely pains me to watch how many older saints you get older and you, you retreat to the background and you become a person that hides away.

You think you have nothing to give.

I'll tell you what I told you before. Old is not dead.

You still have breath, you still have life. You are still to give him praise. Now you may not have the energy that you once had. Your mind might not be as alert as it once was. Your body may be failing in different ways, but you still have breath

and you're to give him praise.

You're to live for God today. Did he make a mistake in giving you another breath today? No. 'cause he doesn't make mistakes. Was it just willy-nilly that he gave you another week, another month, another year? No, because he's always intentional.

You have breath to give him praise.

You have so much to give agrees me. I think a lot of older saints lose confidence. They think well the the young have more energy. They know more about the world today than I do. You're still trying to figure out what the digital cloud is and what swifties are.

But the reality is, is those things don't last. Swifties don't last.

What you know lasts. You know God, you know his faithfulness. You know what he has done

like the psalmist, you know what it is to be dependent upon him. You know that he is worthy of trust. You know him in ways that the young don't. They need your example. They need your words. They need your service. They need your correction.

Stop wasting your time.

Stop it. You have breath live. It went to visit one of our older saints this week, the oldest members of our congregation, she's 95. And I went to encourage her and pray with her. But the truth is I also went for selfish reasons. 'cause I knew I would get more than she would by visiting her and she didn't disappoint. She's got a good memory, she's active in mind. And I sat there and I just peppered her with questions and let her tell me stories.

And you know she has lost a husband, she's lost children. She has been through sickness, especially over the last week. She's just been put on hospice. And you know what she said to me at least three or four times in the midst of those stories, God is so very good. Pastor. God is so very good.

She knows him. She knows him longer than I've been alive. She's experienced it. And she's a living testimony at the end of her life that this God is worthy of trust. I need to hear it.

The young need your reminder

longer one lives in Christ, the more this truth flows from our lips because we've experienced them even to old age and gray hairs. Oh God, do not forsake me until I proclaim your might to another generation. Your power to all those to come. Verse 19. Oh God, who is like you? None, none.

Plummer said. He said, we dare not wholly trust the best men or the chief angels, but we can trust an infinite God and you old saints, you know this

as we speak to the old, we also have to speak to the young.

So children, I want you to hear me. You think about in this room, children, all of these gray haired people in this room this morning, you look around, you know them. You talk with some of them. All these gray haired people are some of us that don't have hair here this morning. And you know that they were your age at one time.

They were as small as you were at one time. And they sat in the pew like you do at one time and thought, man, that preacher preaches way too long. They may still think that as they sit there,

but you look at them and some of them you say, oh he's godly, she's godly.

And you know what they would say to you? Live for Christ now. Live for Christ. Now

there's so many people, especially young people that think I'll live for Christ tomorrow.

You don't know you have tomorrow.

You could live 95 years. You could live 55 years. You could live 35 years. You could live 25 years. You could live five years. You don't know that you have tomorrow.

Most children like Legos. I like Legos. Maybe think about it like this. I got two thumbs ups over here. Legos, maybe think about your life like this. The godly men, ungodly women in this room didn't miraculously get there. It wasn't in an instant. It was laying down one Lego. You lay down one Lego, then what can you do? You can put another Lego on top of that Lego and then you can put a third Lego on top of that Lego.

And all of a sudden you have this great tower of Legos.

This is how it works in the Christian life. It's just one day seeking after the Lord and worshiping him and another day and another day and another day and another day. And all of a sudden you've built a life, a life of worship to the Lord as you just lay spiritual Christ centered life serving God, glorifying self-sacrificing bricks to God, one upon another day after day, had to live for God today. Give him praise today. He's given you the grace to do so.

He's given you breath. Is that how you view your time or is it all about me?

I give you your time. We exist in time and that time is so limited. The hours are so fleeting. So be a good servant of your time. Finally, to those of you that are in trial and it has been extended trial and you are weary, you are tired, you're like the psalmist who feels like, man, I have just been getting pummeled from every single sign. You'll notice what the psalmist does. He doesn't use that as an excuse. Skews, he doesn't withdraw,

he doesn't get mopey. He doesn't become morose. He doesn't turn inward and run. I found as a pastor over the years, there is one of two responses to trials, severe trials in people's life. And it's only one of two. I have never yet found a third. It's one of two severe trial comes in your life and one of two things happens. Either you run from God or you run to God.

The psalmist experiences a severe trial. Again, calamities you have brought upon me. He recognizes this comes from God's sovereign hand. Calamities you have brought upon me and he runs to God. He doesn't throw a pity party, he doesn't retreat. He doesn't excuse himself. No, he doesn't run from God. He sought God even more. Why? Because he's reflected. He's seen over the course of his life. God has been faithful in the past.

God is faithful in the present and he has hope that God will be faithful in the future.

He knows this God and he knows this. God is worthy of his trust.

How much more you and I this side of the resurrection know He is worthy of trust?

John did it this morning, was praying from Psalm 23 and I was thinking about that this week. You know the psalmist in Psalm 20 threes in the same place.

He, he's resolved in faith because he knows. He knows the Lord is my shepherd. He knows the Lord is leading him. He knows that the Lord will provide for him. He will make me to lie down in green pastures. He will restore my soul. He will prepare a table for me in the presence of my enemies. He is so confident in what the Lord will do because of what the Lord has done so that he says, even if I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil. Why? Because you are with me.

You're with me in the midst of this time bound world where we have a beginning, a middle, and an end. He's with us. What did the Lord Jesus say? He said, oh, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age. I will not leave you. I will not forsake you. He's with me.

So take me through the valley of the shadow of death. I'm not cowering, I'm not running. I'm not turning back. He's with me and he's worthy of my trough.

Maybe it gets your mind around this if you can,

as he's leading you and I through these severe trials

and we're in the midst of it, where else would we want to put our trust? Everything else is time bound.

He's outside of it. He's above it. He's over it. What he has decreed, he sees from beginning to end. It's been always before him.

And he knows what is for your good.

He knows he sees the beginning and the end like you see the present, but even clear,

he's worthy of our trust.

We'll sing it at the end today and that race is complete still. My lips shall repeat yet not I, but through Christ in me.

He's with you. So even in the midst of this trial and in the midst of the suffering, you and I can give him praise. And one day we'll appear before his throne and give him everlasting praise. That's why you were created. That's why you've been sustained. That's why you will be resurrected, recreated.

Is that how you view your life?

Is that how you view your time For him? Let's pray.

Our Father, we are thankful that you have given us not only life but purpose in this life. And we are thankful that it is not something we have secured 'cause we are so unfaithful, something your son has secured for us. We're thankful that he who gave his life for us has given us life and given us life abundant. And oh, it is our heart's desire to live that life more fully. To your praise, we pray that he who began a good work in us will bring it to completion

the day that he returns. And we look forward to that day when we shall no longer have divided hearts and minds. And it shall truly be endless time of giving you praise day after day and the glory that is to your name truly. What a delight that shall be. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Christ, our Lord and our Savior. Amen.