Twentieth-First Sunday After Trinity (B C P). Series

Psalm 90:1-12, Genesis 32:24-29, Ephesians 6:10-20, John 4:46-54.

A). NUMBERING OUR DAYS.

Psalm 90:1-12.

Psalm 90:1. It is remarkable that the children of Israel survived 400 years in Egypt, and for some of that time under unspeakable oppression. Yet despite their hard labour and sorrow, the LORD had been their dwelling place “from generation to generation”. This is an expression of God’s covenant love from Abraham to Moses, and onward to our own days.

Psalm 90:2. The LORD is not limited by time as we are. He is the One who inhabits eternity. His perspective is “from everlasting to everlasting”, where days and millennia are of no consequence (2 Peter 3:8).

Psalm 90:3. The theme of this Psalm is the brevity of human life. Man was formed of dust, and to dust he must return (Genesis 3:19). This is the judgement of the LORD against our sin.

Psalm 90:4. For a while after the Creation, up until the flood, men were living to what we might consider extraordinary ages. Yet even the oldest of them died at less than 1000 years old. This is nothing to God.

Psalm 90:5. Since the fall of man, generation after generation have been swept away in death. Even our life is like a sleep, already under the judgement of God. We are like a dream which disappears with the opening of a new day.

Psalm 90:6. We are like a grass which springs up overnight, flourishes in the morning, and grows up. In the evening it is cut down, and withers. Such is the frailty of life.

Psalm 90:7. Yet there is a reason for all this. Our mortality is on account of God’s anger at man’s disobedience (Genesis 3:17). As the couplet goes, “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.”

Psalm 90:8. Each of us has also aggravated our collective guilt with our individual sins. Every deed, every word, every inmost thought is open to the One who dwells in eternity. He sees it all, and there is no fleeing from His presence (Psalm 139:7).

Psalm 90:9. Our days pass away under God’s wrath. Iniquity already had its hold upon us in our mothers’ womb (Psalm 51:5). We were born already “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), and our fragile mortal lives have been subject to decline ever since.

Psalm 90:10. It is a far cry from the great age of the patriarchs to our mere seventy or eighty years. We have known trouble and sorrow ever since the fall. For the generality of mankind, it all leads down to the grave.

Psalm 90:11. We cannot begin to imagine how angry God is. Our sin is against an infinite God, so He could only be satisfied with the payment of the sacrifice of His infinite Son on our behalf. His anger is in proportion to our failure to reverence Him.

Psalm 90:12. Yet when we do reverence Him, we will want Him to teach us to make a right application of the truth about the brevity of our lives. We need to know ourselves sinners, and to be aware that death is “the wages of sin” (Romans 6:23). And knowing this, our wisdom is to repent.

B). WRESTLING IN PRAYER.

Genesis 32:24-29.

Jacob's wrestling, whilst factual and historical, is nevertheless a metaphor for prayer.

1. The place name, Jabbok, means pouring out, or emptying.

This reminds me of the self-emptying of Christ (cf. Philippians 2:7-8).

It also reminds me of Jesus' prayer life, as portrayed in the Gospels.

Jabbok was a ford, a crossing place, but also, incidentally, a place where God and man met.

There Jacob wrestled with a man: surely indeed, he wrestled with the Lord, in a prayer of disciplined endurance (GENESIS 32:24).

2. When God meets with us, it puts us all out of joint: until Jesus puts us back together again.

For Jacob this was not just metaphorical, but literal: a prayer of painful perseverance (GENESIS 32:25).

3. We need to exercise a certain tenacity in prayer, not easily giving up.

Jacob was persistent in prayer, refusing to let his opponent go until he procured the desired blessing (GENESIS 32:26).

4. Thereby Jacob - whose name means 'usurper' - had power to prevail with God and man.

Jesus the great intermediary, has power with God and man, and empowers us to prevail with God and man.

Jacob received a new name, Israel, which means 'a prince with God' (GENESIS 32:27-28).

There is a new name written in Christ's kingdom for those who overcome (cf. Revelation 2:17).

5. Such outpouring of ourselves, painful perseverance, tenacity in prayer - will cause us also to prevail.

Thus, like Jacob, we will procure the blessing (GENESIS 32:29).

C). A SPIRITUAL ARMOURY.

Ephesians 6:10-20.

“Go on being made strong,” begins the final exhortation of this Epistle. Having been made strong in the past by relying on the Lord, so make your stand now “in the power of His might” (Ephesians 6:10). Do not yield one inch: do not ‘give place to the devil’ (Ephesians 4:27).