What Really Lasts? A Sermon on Psalm 90
Updated: Sep 7
What Really Lasts?
Scripture: Psalm 90:1–17
Series: Learning to Pray in the School of the Psalms
Preacher: Russell Smith
Date: August 16, 2026
Church: Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio
Theme verses: Psalm 90:1, 12, 14, 17
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What Really Lasts?
We are continuing this series, Learning to Pray in the School of the Psalms. From time to time, I like to take a month or so and see how the Psalms teach us about prayer. This week we are at Psalm 90. Part of the conceit of this series is to ask: What pressing question might life today stir in our minds, and how does this Psalm speak to that question? The question I am focusing on now is: What really lasts?
We are in an era of great transformation, change, and turmoil. So much in the world feels unsettled. What really lasts? What is eternal? What is worth pursuing? What really matters? Psalm 90 addresses that as we wrestle with the shortness of our lives. It zeros us in on what is lasting and eternal.
A Psalm of Moses
Before we dive into the text, I want to address the superscription at the top of the Psalm. We often do not pay close attention to those superscriptions. Many Psalms are of David; occasionally there is a song from the sons of Korah, the great boy band of ancient Israel. This is the only Psalm in all 150 Psalms attributed to Moses: a Psalm of Moses.
Many scholars see its placement at Psalm 90 as significant. The Book of Psalms is divided into five books, perhaps in parallel with the five books of Moses. The first three books are heavily Psalms of David, and they are an emotional roller coaster. Then Psalm 88 is a Psalm of despair, and Psalm 89 shows the failure of the Davidic kingship. So when we arrive at Psalm 90, it is as though we are going back to first principles. We are going back to Moses, to be grounded again in the law and revelation of Moses. In a period of seeming unsettledness, we are called back to the covenant that God made with his people.
The Eternal God Is Our Home
The answer to the question, What really lasts?, is in the first verse: “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations.” What lasts? The Lord. The Lord has been faithful through the generations past, and will be faithful through the generations to come. The ground of all things, the root of all things, is the Lord: relationship with the living God, the God of Israel, who calls his people to follow him.
There is also the dwelling-place component. The Lord is not only eternal; the Lord is our eternal home. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Victorian preacher, leaned into this idea as he preached on Psalm 90:1. His tabernacle in London was the megachurch of the era. He was a theological heavyweight and, incidentally, a general heavyweight as well. He preached for a whole hour on this one verse, so count yourselves blessed that you only get 20 minutes on the whole psalm.
Spurgeon says, “Man’s home is the place where his affections are centered.” He says, “The dwelling place of man is the place where he can unbend himself, and feel himself at home, and speak familiarly.” But the line I love is this: “In our homes, we find those to whom we must and ever shall be most attached.” In other words, home is more than a place; it is the people to whom we belong.
In this instance, home means belonging to the eternal, transcendent God who made the universe. God is not merely an abstract concept or a check box that says, “I believe.” God is the infinite, eternal being and person who calls us into relationship, calls us beloved, and says, “I want to speak with you. I want you to walk with me. I want to counsel you. I want to comfort you. I want to be a part of your life, and I want you to be a part of the cosmos that I am unfolding.”
God is the Root of Our Identity
God is the root of our identity, our rootedness, and our reference point. “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the whole world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 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.” Everything is rooted in God. We may be temporary; our lives are brief and fleeting. But God is the eternal truth in which we rest.
The Psalm continues: “You sweep people away in the sleep of death; they are like new grass in the morning. In the morning it springs up new, but by evening it is dry and withered.” I attended the funeral of a friend from a prior church yesterday. At the funeral, and while watching the slides at the reception afterward, I was reminded of the temporary nature of life. All the moments of life pass before us, and then a mortal life is over. Our resumes, accomplishments, portfolios, goods, and toys are swept away. What lasts? Relationship, love, and being in the hands of the Eternal One who loves us.
Carolyn Weber’s Surprised by Oxford brought this truth home to me in a lovely way. Weber was an academic who went to Oxford University to study. At the time, she was at best an optimistic agnostic, but at Oxford she found faith and came to Christ. Her memoir is a well crafted read that tells that story.
In the book, Weber describes having Easter dinner with Regina, a well-respected academic in her department. Regina was a widow whose children had moved away; Weber describes her as “small as a wren, but majestic as an eagle”, such a delightful and evocative description. Regina spoke with Weber about finding her reference point in Christ alone: “What is important is that my identity doesn’t lie primarily in being a professor or being a wife or being a mother. Those things will always fall short.”
Regina continues: “Entire careers are swept away in a moment at the presentation of a pink slip, a vote of the elders, an accusation of a student, or a cut in the budget. Marriages face infidelities and end up like car wrecks from which people can recover, but are never again the same. Children grow up and move away and forget to write or call. The point is that if you have your identity in any of those things, it is a surefire disappointment.” Then she concludes, “Having my identity in Christ first and foremost gives me the courage to live my life boldly and purposefully in everything I do, no matter what that is.”
Our lives are ephemeral. Identity in Christ, identity in the living God, resonates for eternity. What really lasts is our identity in Christ.
Our Frailty and Our Need for Mercy
Now the Psalm moves to human frailty. This is where it can kick us a little bit. “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. All our days pass away under your wrath; we finish our years with a moan.”
The Psalm says, “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, 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 your due.”
That is not always the most cheerful part. Yet it is a logical truth. If God is infinite, eternal, immortal, all-seeing, and all-knowing, God sees what we would rather keep hidden. God sees through our self-justifications and pretensions. There is something mildly terrifying about being fully known.
We are much more frail than we dare admit. We need God’s power, forgiveness, grace, and mercy. We cannot do this life on our own. We can try, but ultimately it becomes seventy, eighty, or ninety years of stress, struggle, and toil. We need God’s power. That is why it is so interesting that this is a Psalm of Moses. Moses leads us into the cry for mercy.
Moses Intercedes for the People
“Teach us to number our days, 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.” Moses cries out for mercy: teach us to number our days, to be aware of our frailty, and to be mindful of our mortality. If God is the eternal one and relationship with God is the ground of our being, then our frailty leads us to ask for mercy.
Moses did this repeatedly on behalf of Israel. Moses is, in many ways, a precursor of the work of Christ because he prays for and intercedes on behalf of God’s people. I found a watercolor from the early 1920s, Moses Prays in the Wilderness, by J. H. Hartley. It is hard to find artistic depictions of Moses praying; artists love to portray the golden calf and the drama of sin. But this image shows Moses standing on the heights with his arms extended, praying over his people.
I imagine this painting depicting Exodus 32. Moses is on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments while, in the valley, Aaron makes the golden calf and the people worship it. God says, “Go down to your people; they have created an idol. I am going to destroy them, and I will raise up a nation from you.” God says, “I have seen these people, and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone, so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them. Then I will make you into a great nation.”
But Moses seeks the favor of the Lord his God. “Lord,” he says, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand? Why should the Egyptians say it was with evil intent that he brought them out to kill them in the mountains and wipe them off the face of the earth? Turn from your fierce anger; relent, and do not bring disaster on your people.” That is almost exactly what we see in Psalm 90: turn, relent, have mercy.
Moses has the audacity to remind God of the relationship: “Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to whom you swore by your own self, ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky.’” Moses reminds God of the promise. You said we would be your people. You promised us a home in you. Even when we are frail, wander, and are difficult, we can call out to God and remind God of his everlasting faithfulness. Even when we are faithless, Lord, you promised everlasting faithfulness. Have mercy on us.
From Mercy to Blessing
Then Moses boldly goes from asking for mercy to asking for blessing: “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.” It goes from frailty and judgment, through a cry for mercy, to a cry for blessing. You can only have the audacity to ask for blessing only if you are in relationship, if you are secure at home in the living God.
This is the work that Jesus does for us. Jesus tells us in John 14, “I go to prepare a place for you. In my Father’s house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you.” The living God is our home. Because the living God is our home, we have courage, strength, and humility to live our lives in this world, in this material existence.
And so as we conclude this journey through Psalm 90, I ask you to ponder what God has been saying to you? If you’re usure what the Lord has been saying, then I invite you to use these questions as idea starters:
Reflection Questions
• Where is your sense of home actually rooted?
• How does your relationship with Christ shape your perspective on what really matters?
• How does that relationship embolden you to pray for mercy and blessing in your life?
This sermon is part of the Digital Discipleship Resources of Madeira-Silverwood Presbyterian Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. We create resources to help people take their next step of faith with Jesus.
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