Vision Sunday 2025

A man once prayed, Lord, what is a thousand years like to you?

And he sensed a reply in his spirit, it's like a second.

And the man then asked, What is a million dollars like to you?

Again, he sensed, he heard an answer, and it was like a five-cent coin.

And the man thinking he was clever and having a bit of fun with the Lord, said, Lord, can I have a five-cent coin?

And the man sensed the Lord's smile and say, Sure, just wait a second.

We're launching this new series today in the Psalms entitled Everlasting Worship, and it's the kickoff of the year focused on this theme of everlasting.

2025 marks yet another quarter of a century, and reflecting last year on this year, I was really struck by, if we live more, if we're older than 25, we know what a quarter of a century is like.

It's a good chunk of time, and you know you're getting older as the 25-year blocks go by.

I look around and some of you, like me, look a bit older.

I was at a funeral recently, and a young man, well, he's not that young anymore, but a bloke walked in here at the service, and I hadn't seen him for 35 years.

I was his youth group leader.

And I went up and said, Simon, you've grown old.

You've lived a whole life since I saw you.

He was a full silver fox with a beard.

And it happens, doesn't it?

People age.

We get older.

We change over time.

But the Lord hasn't changed, amen?

He is the unchanging God of change.

Psalm 90 begins our series.

It's a Psalm quite possibly written by Moses, which contrasts the vast difference between the everlasting God and every last human being who is not everlasting.

This contrast is enormous, and we should sit in it and enjoy it and learn from it.

So firstly, from our text, we see our God is everlasting.

Psalm 90 verse 1, Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.

Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

Have you been to the Grand Canyon?

I haven't.

The closest I've been is a virtual reality treadmill video.

And I went down it and I came up and it was awesome.

But nothing, I'm sure, like going to the Grand Canyon and looking out and seeing something that's very old.

It's either been done by a big flood or it's very old and erosion has created this awesome thing.

God is awesome like the Grand Canyon, but he hasn't changed.

There's no change in him through erosion.

Psalm 90 is considered by many to be the oldest psalm attributed to Moses.

And it's likely written during the wilderness period of wandering, obviously an oral psalm and then it's been handed down and then put into text for us later on, some hundreds of years later on.

You can imagine that Moses in those 40 years of wilderness wanderings, in the punishment God gave to the unbelieving Israelites, he's seen a lot of people die.

This generation that's getting judged is just dropping off the perch.

And it's very much part of the human condition, isn't it?

To see God as so different to us who are merely mortal.

And so with an economy of words, Moses describes this absolute uniqueness of the one living God.

He says, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

From everlasting to everlasting.

So what does that mean in contrast to us?

Well, God has an eternal perspective.

If all of eternity, of all of human history for sure, was in a book, he can thumb through the pages.

Hallelujah.

He knows the end from the beginning.

He has a completely eternal, everlasting perspective on life.

God enjoys eternal self-sufficiency, unlike humanity.

We are not self-sufficient, though sometimes we think we are.

When he revealed who he was to Moses in Exodus at the burning bush, what did he say?

I am.

In other words, he said, I be.

I'm not caused by anything.

I'm here.

I always have been.

I have always been self-sufficient in my existence.

God has eternal consistency.

He doesn't change.

Hebrews 13, 8 says, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

The Grand Canyon is awesome, but it changes over time.

Our God is unchanging.

What does that mean for us this morning?

We can trust Him.

You can bank on His words.

Not changing.

His promise is not changing.

This room is full of complex lives, isn't it?

Just take a look around a bit.

And I know we have a lot of pain, a lot of fears, a lot of challenges coming up.

And can I encourage you today, if there's nothing else you take, know that God is everlasting and He is in control of your life.

And you can trust Him.

Moses begins the whole psalm by saying, God is a dwelling place.

And if you look up in the Hebrew, this idea of dwelling place, it's a wonderful idea.

It means a place of refuge.

So these Israelites are wandering in the desert.

They feel at risk.

But Moses is saying to them, no, trust God.

He is a refuge.

There is safety in Him.

And it's not just a physical in Him.

This idea of dwelling place means a sense of belonging, belonging in relational intimacy.

You are known by this God.

It means eternal stability.

This refuge, this dwelling place is not going to change over time.

And a beautiful picture, he says, it's throughout all generations, this dwelling place, this relationship the people of Israel have with the everlasting God, that He is their dwelling place across the generations.

Isn't that wonderful for us to know?

Not just for us, but if we're blessed with children, God wants to know our children and our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren.

Ecclesiastes 3.11 is that great verse that says, He has made everything beautiful in its time.

He has also set eternity in the human hearts.

Yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.

Human beings, the human soul, though not everlasting in itself, is designed to be made alive with Christ and to find its home in the everlasting God.

We are designed for everlasting.

We are.

And you can't find anything to satisfy you until you find that connection with the eternal God, the everlasting God.

So Moses' first point is, our God is everlasting.

And that's very different to anything else, anybody else.

And his second point is, we are not.

We are not.

Humanity is not everlasting.

1 Timothy 6, 16, and this is part of that course on conditionalism that we will be exploring.

1 Timothy 6, 16 says, God, the blessed and only ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone is immortal, who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see, to him be honor and might forever.

Amen.

The idea of the immortality of the soul is a popular concept in Christianity, but it's not Christian, it's Platonic.

It's this idea that the soul of a human will, is immortal, will live forever.

It's not what the Bible teaches.

It can be how?

John 3.16, we sang it today.

God so loved the world that if you believe, you could live forever.

Without him, the gift of immortality, the gift of eternal life, there is eternal death.

We will be raised, the Bible says, all raised as resurrected human beings, but we will come to judgment.

The Psalm says, verse 3, you turn people back to dust, saying, return to dust, you mortals.

A thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

You sweep people away in the sleep of death, they are like the new grass of the morning.

In the morning, it springs up new, but by evening, it is dry and withered.

Thank you, Moses.

I like the one that says, at least we're a flower.

This one just says, well, you like grass.

Reminds me of our grass.

It was looking great until it all died recently with the hot weather.

Humanity, the Bible says, here and in other places, is frail and vulnerable, mortal, temporary.

Our lives are brief.

It's a fair point what Moses makes here.

Genesis 3 19, after the fall of humanity in the judgment, God says, Genesis 3 19, by the sweat of your brow, you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken, for dust you are and to dust you will return.

Have you held the dust of someone you loved, the ashes?

It's confronting.

It's confronting, but it's the truth.

We go back ultimately to the dust.

The text says, a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night.

A watch in the night is a couple of hours.

So what is the Psalmist saying here?

For human beings, a thousand...

We don't need to go to that one quite yet.

Yeah.

Problem is seeing things out of the corner of your eye.

Thanks, Karen.

I'm sorry about that.

For human beings, a thousand years is a long time, isn't it?

Think about it.

Nations rising, kingdoms rising and falling, technological advancements, multiple generations of people.

It's an enormous, gravitous thing, a thousand years of human history.

Yet the Psalmist says, for God, it's like a watch in the night.

Now again, in a way, that's depressing.

It is, isn't it?

It's like, we're so brief.

We're so almost insignificant.

But I think what it does is, it leads us to humility, doesn't it?

If this text is true, we are drawn to humility.

It makes us realize, I am not God.

If God is everything that everlasting means, that's not me.

I'm the grass.

Here today, gone tomorrow.

But I'm significant grass, because Jesus died to redeem me.

Amen.

I'm significant.

Now, that next picture, it's an interesting time we live.

That next picture with the face, that guy, yeah.

His name is Brian Johnson.

Have you heard of Brian Johnson?

He's a tech entrepreneur, millionaire, biohacker.

It's a new term.

For rich people who are trying their best to hack life and live forever, he is trying to build for $2 million of treatment a year on himself the Tower of Babel, to try to go, I want to be like God.

I want to live forever.

So it's called Project Blueprint, and there are a few people doing it.

He follows this very strict routine of diet and sleep and exercise and supplements, takes 100 pills a day, does exorbitant skin care processes.

How old do you reckon he is?

How much?

No, I think he's 48, 49.

It's all the rage, apparently, if you've got millions to try to stop this process of aging that is part of the human condition.

So, our God is everlasting and it should be actually comforting.

Humanity is not, and that's us, because of a problem that exists and it's the problem of sin.

This is what we heard read to us.

Let me read it again.

We are consumed by your anger and terrified by your indignation.

You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

It's interesting that God would take someone who's like grass and take their sins and be interested in their sins, this grass-like being.

But it tells us we're not grass and insignificant in His sight.

He's interested in how we live our lives, our secret sins in the light of our presence.

All our days pass away under your wrath.

We finish our years with a moan.

Our days may come to 70 years or 80 if our strength endures, yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow.

This is a bit depressing.

For they quickly pass and we fly away.

If only we knew the power of your anger.

Your wrath is as great as the fear that is due your name.

So Moses is living in the context of the judgment of God on a generation.

They didn't trust God to provide and protect them as they went into the Promised Land.

It's that 40 year period of wandering.

And Moses is aware, our sin is constantly before us.

Eugene Peterson taught on this that sin is not just breaking the rules, it's about breaking relationship with God.

That's a really profound thought.

For God, relationship is the key.

He's Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, for everlasting.

Like, he has always been a community of oneness.

Relationship is what matters, and that's what sin does.

It breaks our relationship with God, more than just breaking a bunch of rules.

Moses says, they feel consumed by God's anger and indignation.

And I think this is a true thought about the human condition, that we know something's wrong, whether you're religious or spiritual or not.

Something's just not right with suffering and evil.

And the Bible calls it sin.

Life is affected by sin.

It's not the way it should be.

It's a little bit like life is a bit like a plant that has been cut off at its roots.

And you look at it and think, that's a great-looking plant.

And it just starts to wither because it's not connected to life.

Human life without God's life is like the plant cut off from its roots.

Verse 8 says, You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.

It's a reminder, isn't it, of this contrast between a pure, everlastingly holy, just God and a broken, wounded, sinful humanity.

So, we are reminded this morning, as we start a new year, God sees sin.

He sees our sin.

He grieves over our sin.

In fact, he's angry at sin.

CS.

Lewis wrote, The fear of God, which is what we need to come to after, we recognize this.

The fear of God's wrath in these verses doesn't diminish his love.

It highlights the depth, the depths of it.

Only a loving God would take sin so seriously, enough to judge and correct it.

Our God is everlasting.

We are not.

The problem of death is sin, and yet there is a solution.

Teach us to number our days, Psalm 90, verse 12 and following, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Relent, Lord.

How long will it be?

Have compassion on your servants.

Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble.

May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children.

May the favor of the Lord, our God, rest on us.

Establish the work of our hands for us.

Yes, establish the work of our hands.

God, the psalmist says, have compassion.

And he did.

He did have compassion.

We've celebrated it today in communion, that God loved the world so much, that while we were still sinners, in a terrible breaking of relationship with the living God, he sent his son to die in our place to pay for our sin.

He has demonstrated his compassion.

Romans 5 tells us all about it.

God made a way for the mortal to access immortality.

Those sins that are constantly before the Father's eyes, they were poured on Jesus, hallelujah.

The sins before God, before his purity and holiness, that's what Jesus took in our place.

And because he died, taking our punishment, when we put our faith in Christ, what does the Bible say?

Our sins are separated from us as far as the East is from the West.

We are righteous before God, so we can come into him as a dwelling place and be confident that we're accepted.

God made a way to show his compassion, the gift of salvation, John 3, 16.

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever would believe in him would not perish, but have everlasting life.

Through faith in Christ, we can join the everlasting God.

Dwell with him.

Dwell in him.

Know him.

And I think prophetically, Moses wrote, May we be satisfied in your unfailing love.

I don't think you could quite have that fully until Christ, until the Spirit of God came and dwelt inside of human beings.

But that's what he asked for.

And he says, learn, teach us how to number our days.

Do you know, do you know, many of you would know this, but some wouldn't.

Do you know what it means to do your dash?

He's done his dash.

Yeah.

To do your dash.

There are these numbers for most of us that are very significant.

The first number on the tombstone is our birth, and the dash in between is that life, that grassy life of ours.

And the other number is when we finish.

To do your dash.

Moses says, teach us to number our days, to live the dash with gratitude and thanksgiving and intentionality.

NT.

Wright encouraged us to live in the present, live in the present with eternity in mind.

Live in the present with eternity in mind.

He says this, I love it.

Every act of faithfulness, every moment of love, every step of obedience echoes into eternity.

We're living in the temporary, but in Christ, connected to the everlasting God, there's more.

We are blessed with an everlasting impact.

It's what makes our lives consequential.

Dallas Willard said, hurry is the great enemy of the spiritual life.

That's a good thing to remember, in the brevity of life.

Don't hurry those, them days, there aren't that many of them.

Don't hurry.

Take your time, handing over outcomes to God, trusting in His grace, and see your life, isn't this a beautiful picture, as a masterpiece that is being painted.

Every day, the artist puts on a few more strokes.

And by God's grace, let Him help you do that.

Painting this picture, that is your life to the glory of Jesus.

Number our days.

To finish, 2 Corinthians 4, 16 to 18, is a wonderful scripture that I think brings Psalm 19 into the light of the Gospel and the New Testament.

Paul writes to the church at Corinth, We could lose heart, but we don't.

Therefore, we do not lose heart, though outwardly, we're wasting away, grassy.

Yet inwardly, in this brief life, we are being renewed day by day, for our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, that temporary, but on what is unseen.

Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

We are called to live in the kingdom of God, aren't we?

To join with, to co-manage with Jesus, this small section of life in the history of humankind.

And so we are kicking off a new year as a church, and by grace, we are trusting, Lord, may we have an impact with the gospel that has an everlasting impact.

May we do what You are calling us to do.

So could we stand, please, as the band comes up?

I want to pray a blessing over our church.

May you know this week and this year that your God is from everlasting to everlasting.

He is self-sufficient and all-sufficient.

May you know the glorious relief of being a creature in need of its creator.

Not eternal until God says you are by faith.

Here there is humility and peace.

May you acknowledge the problem of sin and the reality of your own sin and be prompted to lift your eyes up to the Savior who has made a way through the cross and the resurrection.

May you number your days that your life song may sing to the only one worthy of its praise, the everlasting God.

And all the people say.

Amen.

Let's worship together.

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