Thank you Jim. It's really a privilege to be here in Bedford. I've come here many years for presbytery meetings and have enjoyed your hospitality and now to see your worship service together it's a joy, it's a real joy to be with Jim and Dina. They were a big light in Ottawa and we consider you to be fortunate to have them. It was our loss that they came here, your gain. Turn with me to Psalm 90. It's a Psalm that Jim and I consulted over in terms of what might be appropriate as you consider your 50th anniversary and the work that the Lord has done establishing your work. Psalm 90 it's in your Bibles otherwise it's in your bulletins. Psalm 90 a prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord you have 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 on children of man. For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past or as a watched night. You sweep them away as with the flood they are like a dream like grass that is renewed in the morning. 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 80 yet their span is but toil and trouble they are soon gone and we fly away. Who considers the power of 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 oh Lord how long heft 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. Once again it's a great privilege to be here for the 50th anniversary month. I know that next week is the 50th anniversary formally and we bring you a great affection from Resurrection Church in Ottawa. That's our my home church. It's been a thrill to learn partly through Don about how a small group decided to form a congregation 50 years ago and then joined the Presbyterian Church in America shortly thereafter. And it's been beautiful to consider your work on behalf of the Eastern Canada Presbytery. For those of you who don't know what a presbytery is it's a group grouping of churches and at the start if I'm not mistaken it was just Bedford and a few others Sydney and a Dennis River and just a few others and now it's so big that those who who provide meals for us on those October meetings know it's quite a large grouping and that's partly because of the strong work that you have done Don and others as well. The work has expanded enormously. Don and Lois online and Will and she and Peter and Holly Glenn and Anne and many others I know played an important role. I learned that the Bustons had been here for 47 years. That's very impressive. That's amazing. Don I heard you recently say how you can hardly believe it's already been 50 years indeed time flies and that is part of the message of Psalm 90. I want to encourage you from Psalm 90 about how the Lord established your work here and how we must rely on him to continue to establish your work. I want to show the emphasis of Moses the man of God that life is short and that we should number our days act wisely and seek the Lord's favor. My hope is that it will animate you and your work in your next chapter as you rely on him. I won't be here in 50 years but want to be grand of some of you who were some of you younger ones who were maybe in 2076 can look back and see all that the Lord has done to establish the work of your hands here in Bedford. I suggest that as we do we continue you keep your Bibles open or follow along in the printed copy of the bulletin. Fortunately the points that I will hit are there in the bulletin. The eternal God is our dwelling place. Life is short because of our sin and God's judgment. Number your days and act wisely and seek the Lord's favor. So the first point that Moses makes is that the eternal God is our dwelling place. We see that in verses one and two. Now it's easy to miss his main point. When you read the verses at first you might think Moses is only contrasting how eternal God is with how finite we are, how mortal we are and that is a contrast he does make. Verse two we read before the mountains were brought forth or ever you had formed the earth in the world everlasting to everlasting you are God. By contrast verse three shows man reaching into dust dying in other words. But Moses is making a lot more than just a contrast of longevity. There is an element of comfort a good news story as we say in journalism starting in the first sentence. Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations. There's plenty of bad news in the subsequent verses but it is of enormous encouragement if we couch this bad news and the good news of verse one. Lord you have been our dwelling place in all generations. The later verses do show that God is angry at sin and therefore we all die. But that same God is a merciful God. One who wants to live with him and he wants us to live in him as our dwelling place. It gives us unbounded joy in the face of death. You may know the name Martin Luther. He was the great reformer who started the Protestant Reformation and he was a Roman Catholic monk before he became pastor Martin Luther and he said that as a monk he would read this Psalm Psalm 90 with such terror that he had to put the book down. The terror of God judging. As a monk Luther overlooked these opening verses that it breathes life and hope. He failed to see that Moses was setting up the terrifying news of God's anger with a comforting idea that those who trust in God can firmly hold on to him as our dwelling place. Indeed after the Reformation Luther was able to point to the verse in Colossians. I believe he just studied Colossians that says our life is hidden with Christ in God demonstrating that God is our dwelling place. So if we are with Christ in God there's nothing to worry about. Whatever happens to us we are in Christ. No matter what we are going through we need not fear. We need not worry. We can take refuge in him. Indeed we should be sure to take refuge in him and not just go to him in a crisis take refuge in him now but it is clear we are safe even if we die on the way home today. I used to go to a Baptist church my wife and I, Margot, used to go to a Baptist church in Geneva Switzerland where a marvelous Indian brother named Chandra Daniel sometimes led the singing. At one worship service my brother Chandra dropped dead in the middle of doing just that. Imagine. Needless to say it was an enormous shock. It was heart-rending as he left his wife Sushila and their adult children. But we knew Chandra was immediately in heaven. We grieved but we did not grieve as the rest of people do who have no hope because the eternal God is Chandra's dwelling place and that's the point that Moses is making. The message of security under God's tender hand is a message the good people of Bedford need to hear. The people of Halifax, the people of the surrounding region of Nova Scotia, indeed the world. It's worth proclaiming that good news. It's also a message for us in our churches and in your church as you embark on new ventures in your second half century. You never know what the outcome will be but with the Lord as your dwelling place as our dwelling place we don't need to know what the outcome will be. We can just step out in faith. This concept can invigorate us as we do so. So that's the first point that Moses makes. God the eternal God is our dwelling place. The second point is that life is short because of our sin and God's judgment. That's the theme of verses three all the way down to 11. Genesis records that Adam was created from the dust of the ground and it is a tragic fact that because of the fall of Adam and Eve into sin it is the destiny of men and women ever since then to return to the dust. The Lord's verdict was pronounced in Genesis 3 verse 19 where he said to Adam by the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground for out of it you were taken for you are dust and to dust you shall return. And that's what Psalm 90 verse 3 says of God. He says you return man to dust and say return oh children of man. In fact the Hebrew word for man there is Adam. So God told Adam in Genesis that he would return to dust and now in Psalm 90 he tells the children of Adam that's us to return to dust. Now in the case of the children of Israel whom Moses led out of Egypt this teaching had special meaning. God decided that because of their refusal to go into the promised land and to take it none of them who were 20 years or older would live. None of them would enter it except for two people Joshua and Caleb the ones who had faith. They would wander around for a total of 40 years you may recall and all of those in that age bracket except those two Joshua and Caleb would die by the end of that period. Even Moses because of his own disobedience would die before the people crossed into Canaan. But bodily death is certain for all of us isn't it because of the fall and all of human history only Iqq and Elijah have been taken to heaven without dying. All of us here will die unless the Lord comes again. All of the people around us in Bedford and in Halifax every single one it brings a certain urgency to our work doesn't it? To your work. We must remember of course that we're referring here to bodily death. For those of us who believe in Jesus we have the assurance of life after death and that's because of point one the Lord being our dwelling place. We are assured of life after death and of rising again but in the meantime bodily death does await us. Returning to the text we see in verse four Moses poetically shows how time flies. For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past or as a watch in the night. A watch in the night was a space of three or four hours during which a watchman would stand guard. It goes by quickly. He goes on in verse five to explain that God sweeps men and women away as with a flood like grass starts fresh in the morning and is withered and dried up by evening. It's a reminder of vigor and confidence which gradually gives way to decreasing strength, failed health until verse nine we bring our years to an end like a sigh. Verse nine for all days pass away under your wrath we bring our years to an end like a sigh. Moses points out the stark reality that a person can't expect to live much longer than 70 or 80 years. Verse 10 the years of our life are 70 or even by reason of strength 80. Now of course you might know people who are 95 or somewhere around there. My mother lived in 95. My great uncle actually lived in three centuries. He lived in the 1800s and the 1900s and briefly in the 2000s before he died at the age of 101 but very few of course reached that age and for one of those there are people who die much younger. My high school classmate Kim Mars died in 10th grade. He was hit by a soccer ball as a cross country runner and he died about a year later. My dad died at 58. One of my brothers died at 68. You know in our church in Switzerland 35 years ago we had a marriage group and we had four couples. We were all happily married but one of the husbands got taken to heaven during COVID. The second couple the wife died just three months ago over in Bath, England of cancer. The husband and the third couple died of cancer less than a month ago in California age 64. We watched part of the funeral yesterday at Peggy's Cove online. It was an eye-opener for me and my wife Margo as the only one of the four couples left standing. Man knows not his time and in fact it's interesting isn't it how accurate Moses' description of 70 or 80 years is 3,300 years later. The average world life expectancy for someone born today is 73 years. In Canada it's about 82. It goes just like that. Now is it because of individual sins that we die? It may be the case that our actions that actions we take actually contribute to our death but no the message of Psalm 90 is and of the Bible in general that because we are children of Adam we are all sinners. We are all born with a rebellious nature and we see the result in verse seven. For we are brought to an end by your anger by your wrath we are dismayed. Who considers the power of your anger? Moses asks in verse 11. For many of us we are so busy enjoying life or maybe so busy on the treadmill just trying to survive that we don't consider the power of God's anger. We don't consider this bad news story. For some of us we actually actively avoid talking about death and what's going to happen afterwards or if we are glad recipients of God's grace we might gloss over God's just anger at our sin, at our secret sins, at our rebellion. But Psalm 90 shows it is serious business. The people of Bedford I submit to you might not be thinking of their sin and of God's judgment. They might not realize it is serious business. They need to hear that message too. Especially those who are younger might not give much thought to life being short and death being certain. They need the people of Bedford and people of your neighbors need to come to grips with that reality as do we all. So life is short because of our sin and God's judgment point two. That brings us to our third point number your days and act wisely. We don't know exactly when Moses wrote the psalm. He may have written it towards the beginning of the 40 years of wandering seeking relief for the Israelites so they won't just be clomping around as if they had stones around their ankles for 40 years as it were. Or he may have written it towards the end writing it to the new generation of Israelites to encourage them as they prepared finally to enter the promised land. But whenever he wrote it he was asking God to teach them to realize how short life is and to satisfy them with his love so they wouldn't be clomping around. He wanted them to act wisely and to live joyfully. The core of this psalm is in verses 12 to 14 and if I had to pick one verse it would be verse 13. No verse 12. So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. He is asking the Lord to give us perspective both to realize how short our time on earth is and to have wisdom to know what is important in the time that we do have on earth. For starters of course it would mean turning our lives over to God to Jesus in the first place. At the beginning of Jesus' ministry he said this, repent and believe. A very simple message, repent and believe. That is turn away from your former way of life and believe in Jesus as your Savior. The beauty of the salvation that he promises eternal life and a dwelling place is clear. Why wouldn't you take up this offer? But it is plain also that it's only for those who do believe in Jesus as their Savior. This passage is clear that God will punish everyone else. Following Jesus is the most important decision anybody can make. You might not have all the doctrines sorted out but follow him. And again the message of following him is one that the people of Bedford need to hear. Now once the question of following Jesus is settled then a heart of wisdom would mean acting as if the time is short. John Calvin was another of the reformers, the great Geneva reformer. He said that so many of the errors people make arise from foolishly imagining that quote, we shall nestle in this world forever. That we shall nestle in this world forever. Unquote. What was he saying? If we think we're here forever maybe we can do whatever we please. Not loving God or our neighbor but instead focusing everything on ourselves. We need to ensure it's not like the rich fool in Jesus parable in Luke 12. Those of you who remember that story might remember the rich fool's harvest was so plentiful that he decided to build larger barns to store all his grain and his goods. Verse 19 quotes as saying and I will say to my soul, soul you have ample goods laid up for many years. Relax, eat, drink and be merry but God said to him fool this night your soul is required of you and the things you have prepared whose will they be. So is the one who lays up treasure for himself it is not rich toward God. He concluded, Jesus concluded, the rich fool to use Calvin's language thought he would nestle in this world forever. Not so. It is valuable for us to seek that wisdom that we won't nestle here forever and to be rich toward God. Paul echoes this in Ephesians chapter 5 verses 15 and 16 telling us to make the most of every opportunity. Look carefully Paul says, look carefully then how you walk not as unwise but as wise making the best use of your time because the days are evil. That is what you do if you have a heart of wisdom. That Psalm 90 refers to. It means prioritizing how we spend our time and our money and where we place our affections. It means being careful about how much time we spend on our phones and what we do on our phones. I thought about trying to give other examples here to help you consider whether it's worth doing this or that but I also did not want to set up a legalistic standard. So I'll leave you to reflect and examine yourselves to examine how you spend your time and your money and where you place your affection. It's a very worthwhile exercise and I believe it's also a worthwhile exercise for you as a church to engage in and particularly as we celebrate church anniversaries. It can be a time for us to step back and seek that heart of wisdom. There's an immediate, there's an innate danger in our own lives and in the lives of a church just to coast, just to get comfortable and nestle in. I encourage you to use this period to consider what the Lord would have for you and for Bedford Presbyterian Church to engage in. Is he asking you to remember afresh what is at stake for your neighbors and for your families? What does it look like to be rich toward God? May this invigorate your lives and the life of Bedford Presbyterian Church in the months and years to come. So we've seen the eternal God as our dwelling place, point one, life is short because of our sin and God's judgment, point two, therefore number your days and act wisely, point three, and that brings us to the point four, point four, fourth point, seek the Lord's favor. In fact there's great overlap with acting wisely and point three for central to acting wisely is actually seeking the Lord's favor. I want to break down the concept of seeking the Lord's favor into two broad categories. First of all, seeking satisfaction in God which we see primarily in verses 14 and 15 and then relying on the Lord to establish his work and our work in verses 16 and 17. The concept of seeking satisfaction in God is actually framed in the request in verse 13 for God's mercy for his pity for his blessing. Verse 13 return O Lord or relent it could be translated return O Lord how long have pity on your servants and that's a perfectly valid prayer if you feel that our life is but toil and trouble as it says in verse 10. For many of us we do feel the toil and trouble don't we? The prayer in verse 13 is to frame it negatively please relent but then he frames it positively in verse 14 the next verse satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love that we may rejoice and be glad all our days the good news returns. Moses goes on verse 15 make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us and for as many years as we have seen evil make us glad make us joyful satisfy us with your love now remember this plea for love and joy was written by Moses. Moses knew God intimately Moses would speak to God face to face as a man speaks to a friend he knew God's mercy and love he knew his people could ask for this steadfast love so that they could rejoice all the days rather than just plodding around the desert yet when you consider it you here in Bedford we here in Canada wherever we live we have far more than Moses did we have Jesus himself Jesus who died for us and assured us of eternal life with him. Moses asked for years of joy equal to the years of trouble but we have something beyond comparison look to look at how Paul describes what Jesus assures us in 2nd Corinthians 4 he says so we do not lose heart though our outer self is wasting away our inner self is being renewed day by day for this light and momentary affliction the toil and trouble this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison note the time element eternal weight of glory not just a few years he's asking for promising us but eternal that's enough to give us joy now and forever you may know the name of pastor John Piper Piper has been an expert at drawing our the attention of believers to the idea of enjoying God or a glorifying God by enjoying him verse 14 was a favorite verse of his satisfy us or sate us like at a banquet make us full satisfy us with your steadfast love make us enjoy that in fact that's what the first question gets at in the summary of Christian doctrine known as the Westminster Catechism it asks what is the chief end of man the answer the chief end of man is to glorify God and get this enjoy him forever satisfy us God is glorified as we enjoy him or as we are satisfied as we are sated with his love we can enjoy him as we go through our lives whether the mundane tasks the discouraging moments the bad health reports or the exciting trips the meaningful work the joys of welcoming a new baby chasing a baby down the aisle whatever we go through in the life of a church as well we can enjoy him in lean times and we can enjoy him in times of plenty through Jesus our satisfaction knows no bounds so seeking satisfaction in God is part of what it means to seek the Lord's favor but verses 16 and 17 shows us also that we should seek the Lord's favor to establish our work it actually happens as God works and as he establishes our work and in the process as we rely on him we are seeking satisfaction in God look at verses 16 and 17 let your work be shown unto 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 upon us work of our hands verse 16 calls on God's work his glorious power to be displayed to the Israelites and to their children and this was answered as the people walked across the Jordan river riverbed with the water piled up high on either side as the walls of Jericho came a tumbling down as the wall town of Ai fell as the sun stood still in the midst of the heavens with the kings of and during the battle with the kings of the land and countless times throughout the history of the Israel and then his work was shown to the people of Israel to the miraculous coming of Jesus of course and through his miracles and through his dying on the cross and his rising again and his establishing his church throughout the world in Iran and Bedford and everywhere else we can renew that prayer for his work his glorious power to be shown in Bedford throughout the maritimes throughout eastern Canada presbytery throughout the world we can renew that a prayer in our own lives as we seek to follow him we can renew that prayer for his glorious power to be shown to our children as it says Lord let your work be shown to your servants and your glorious power to their children we have seen it haven't we we want our children to see it and wholeheartedly believe the same glorious god that we serve let it animate your personal prayers let it animate your corporate prayers let it give new urgency to prayer meetings and prayers in your small groups and then Paula Moses is asking that the Lord would establish our work in verse 17 he is assuming that Moses people and not just the Lord were doing important work even for those who were wandering around for decades in the desert they were raising a new generation which would go into the promised land they were doing important work his prayer for them was was that the work of their hands and raising this generation would be fruitful that it would be established and his prayer was that the favor or it could be translated pleasantness or beauty verse 17 the favor of the Lord our God would be upon them would be upon us to establish their our work their work their work was important and established in the nation of Israel but as we enjoy Christ more than the Israelites ever could dream of we also build on a foundation that is beyond what they could imagine the foundation of Christ we build on the foundation of Jesus work on the cross and is rising again that's a sure foundation an established foundation a foundation that I hope the people that come to alpha group will be able to see and I hope many people will come to that it's a fabulous ministry it's a foundation of my faith and your faith it's a foundation of Bedford Presbyterian Church because of this work because of this resurrection our work for the kingdom of God matters it lasts Paul references that in first Corinthians 3 he says there for no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid which is Jesus Christ and then Paul encourages the Christians to build on that foundation Jesus with gold silver and precious stones in other words things that are valuable and that last you might be saying hang on here my job my actual job is pretty boring it doesn't hold that much meaning the work I do in my family or here the church is mundane but even the mundane has meaning if it is done with the right attitude doesn't it the apostle Paul tells us in Colossians to do our work as if serving the Lord and as the favor or the pleasantness or the beauty of the Lord rests upon us in our work as we see in Psalm 90 verse 17 it will make us and our work more attractive to the people around us to the people of Bedford and around us the people who don't know Jesus you can pray for the favor and beauty of the Lord will so come upon Bedford Presbyterian Church that people will be drawn to the good news that you proclaim in the coming months and years don't know if you know the name CT Stud CT Stud was one of the top British cricketers a cricket player in the late 1800s he gave up everything all his fame to become a missionary first in China then in India and Africa his most famous saying is this only one life will soon be passed only what's done for Christ will last I'll say it again only one life will soon be passed only what's done for Christ will last now obviously you can play cricket or hockey or basketball and thrill and using the bodies that God has made you remember the you may remember the Olympic runner Eric Liddell who did that just that he was featured in chariots of fire we can enjoy food and laughter and art and history and lighthouses and engineering and fishing and all sorts of things that interest us and we can glorify God as we do so but Stud's advice is to make sure that whatever we do we work for what lasts only that work that's done for Christ will last I encourage you to be bold and to be invigorated as you embark on your next chapter here at Bedford as you hold out the good news of salvation to your families and your friends and your neighbors I look forward to hearing about the the alpha work this this autumn I hope it really succeeds and draws many people to faith I encourage you to be bold as you deepen your own faith in the Lord as your dwelling place what is done for Christ will last may we all hide in Christ as our dwelling place may we number our days and gain a heart of wisdom may we draw deep satisfaction and enjoyment of the Lord in our work may his favor or his beauty rest upon us and may he establish the work of our hands yes may he establish the work of our hands let us pray