Introduction: Plaques
Since visiting London for the first time over 20 years ago, I’ve always enjoyed walking around, exploring its streets. London’s history and architecture inspire the careful observer to feel part of something bigger, something that started well before our time and that will continue long after. In that moment, you feel small but oddly significant. This is especially true when you come across one of those blue heritage plaques, announcing that an important person lived or did something important on this spot. For example, I once stumbled upon a plaque in memory of Kenny Clare, an accomplished jazz drummer who played with the likes of Ella Fitzgerald and Tony Bennett. I had never heard of him, but because I love drum and bass, I looked him up, listened to his music, and celebrated the fact that I had just walked down his street. I think he would have loved drum and bass, too.
Closer to home, our village only has one of these plaques. Have you seen it? It proudly proclaims: “Nothing of note has happened here.”
These plaques may lead us to ask how will I be remembered? Will I be remembered at all? This morning, I’d like to suggest that the question is not so much whether and how we’ll be remembered but will we make the most of the life that we have been given. Between us and our maker, will we number our days carefully? Will we develop wisdom in our hearts? Never mind the plaques. That’s fast forwarding to the end. What about the here and now?
Psalm 90
Psalm 90 speaks to the here and now. It is read at the graveside as part of the “order for the burial of the dead.” As such, it also provides a fitting connection to baptism. According to the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, baptism is a picture of dying to sin, being buried, and being raised to new life in Christ. In this new life, we are taught to number our days as expressed v. 14: “Teach us to number our days carefully so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts” (CSB). Let’s look at it piece by piece to gain an eternal perspective on the here and now; in other words, wisdom.
Teach Us to Number Our Days
Teach us. We notice that the first word of the most well-known line of this psalm is “teach”: “Teach us to number our days.” The psalmist first looks outside himself to God as the source of perspective and order. So we recognize that numbering our days doesn’t come naturally. We may think we’ll live forever, but this is an illusion that slowly fades as we grow older. As one writer put it,
Time is the medium of our mortality and so the favorite focus of our folly.… The young think they are immortal, the old despair because their time is over. Time is a burden when we have to wait, a scarcity when we are busy. It is the source of anxiety, illusion, remorse.[1]
The psalmist recognizes that his life is fleeting and that he needs to be taught. He needs a change of perspective. Now you have to be careful asking God almighty to teach you. Because he will and you may not like it. Teach me to be patient. Teach me to be kind to people who annoy me. Teach me to put others first. That’s not easy or obvious. But the first step is a change of perspective: “God, my days are few, you are eternal. Teach me to count the days and make my days count.”
So how do we number our days carefully?
First, we must come to terms with our own mortality, the brevity of our lives. But notice that the psalmist does not appeal to God to escape death. No, the psalmist asks God for the ability to deal with the knowledge of death in such a way that life can be accepted as a gift and be lived wisely.[2]
That is what you are doing in baptism: you are accepting a death with Christ so that you can be raised to new life in Christ. You are not appealing for rescue from something as much as to be identified with someone, to be identified with Christ! You are choosing to be identified as a Christian, a follow of Christ, a little Christ. He is true wisdom so that is the art of living!
Let this realization inform your decisions and make you wise. Wisdom starts with fear of the Lord. Wisdom continues with calculating and carefully apportioning one’s life. It’s the wise person who makes the most of life. Numbering our days isn’t just counting them up to admire them like trophies on a mantel or tally marks in a jail cell. This isn’t just letting time roll by. This is appointing, making the most of, budgeting, strategizing, a sensible construction of life.[3] Teach us to order our days rightly (NEB). Teach us to consider our mortality. Teach us so that we may develop wisdom in our hearts. Teach us to remember our baptism.
It is this life that is truly wise and the one that can pray “O prosper the work of our hands!” because it is aligned to God’s way. No other life can pray that prayer with any confidence if it is not based on and ordered according to God’s wisdom, God’s definition of the good life.
Jesus, the Pattern of God’s Wisdom
Above all Christ is the wisdom of God. Look at how he ordered his life. The so-called messianic secret in the Gospels has long puzzled readers of the Bible. Why at times does Jesus tell people not to tell others about him? Come on, Jesus, I thought that was the whole point. Like the time he told his mother Mary, “my time has not yet come.” Sometimes he went to the crowds, sometimes he withdrew alone. His life was ordered with a recognition of his purpose and his allotted time. He didn’t just speed run life. He walked methodically and with purpose.
This life he lived and gave up so that we could walk in newness of life. No longer enslaved to sin and destructive desires. Jesus gives us a new heart. He gave us his Spirit to guide us. He calls us into his kingdom. And don’t think just because you’re religious that you’ve already got this covered. At one point, Jesus told the religious leaders of his day, “Look, the people you despise – the tax collectors and the prostitutes – are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you!” (Mat 21:31). They were already following the way of King Jesus the Messiah and adopting his new kingdom lifestyle while the outwardly religious were tarrying and tutting.
How about you? Is your life patterned after his? His kingdom way of living which produces the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, self-control? No, not all the time. So, Lord teach me. Teach us to number our days, to order them aright both in purpose and with perspective of the shortness of life and weight of your kingdom. Lord, make me wise.
Lack of Plaque
Lack of a serious blue plaque in our village is instructive. The point of numbering of our days isn’t to live in such a way that we are remembered at all costs, with a plaque bearing our name. No, the point is to number and order our days in such a way that at the end we will have lived life to its fullest and we will hear those words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Humor and not taking oneself too seriously, I think, are part of that good life.
So, life shouldn’t be lived any which way but should have order and lived with perspective. It’s not as important that we be significant as we live with wisdom for the One who is eternally significant. Living for God draws us into something bigger than ourselves, his kingdom. The kingdom of God is being established through King Jesus and by the presence of his Spirit. This is a change of perspective from “let me be significant for my sake” to “let me have stake in the kingdom for his sake.” Or, in the words of British cricketer turned missionary Charles “CT” Studd (1860-1931):
Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.Give me Father, a purpose deep,
In joy or sorrow Thy word to keep;
Faithful and true what e’er the strife,
Pleasing Thee in my daily life;Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.Oh let my love with fervor burn,
And from the world now let me turn;
Living for Thee, and Thee alone,
Bringing Thee pleasure on Thy throne;Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.Only one life, yes only one,
Now let me say, “Thy will be done”;
And when at last I’ll hear the call,
I know I’ll say “twas worth it all”;Only one life, ’twill soon be past,
Only what’s done for Christ will last.And when I am dying, how happy I’ll be,
If the lamp of my life has been burned out for Thee.[4]
Application: Resolutions
Jonathan Edwards
This change of perspective was expressed rather strikingly by the 18th century American preacher Jonathan Edwards. He is remembered for his prayer, “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs.” Put that on a plaque. What does he mean by this bizarre prayer? He wanted to see the every day through the lens of eternity, eternity-tinted lenses overlaying his life. In response, he authored 70 personal “resolutions” and committed himself to reading them over once a week.
Your Resolutions
So, let me encourage you to make a resolution today, a resolution for something that you will do tomorrow. Let’s start easy and go day by day. A resolution today for tomorrow turns into a lifetime of resolutions. Tomorrow is day 1 of a lifetime of resolutions… if we are counting our days, that is.
References
Quoted in Christopher Ash, Psalms 51–100, vol. 3 of The Psalms: A Christ-Centered Commentary (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2024), 529–546.
Frank-Lothar Hossfeld and Erich Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51-100, ed. Klaus Baltzer, trans. Linda M. Maloney, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), 422–423.
Hossfeld and Zenger, Psalms 2: A Commentary on Psalms 51-100, 422–23. ↑
Charles Thomas Studd, “Only One Life, Twill Soon Be Past – by C.T. Studd (1860 – 1931),” Reasons for Hope* Jesus, 29 December 2021, https://reasonsforhopejesus.com/only-one-life-twill-soon-be-past-by-c-t-studd-1860-1931/. ↑
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