Connect What is one aspect of ‘ordinary faithfulness’ that you can nurture and grow as you wait for Jesus’ return with patient confidence?

Warm-Up

1. How do you feel when you see or open up a blank calendar or diary for the new year?
2. As you look back over the past year, what are you most thankful to God for? Has there been anything that hasn’t quite worked out as you had hoped? How can you also take those disappointments to God?

Read Psalm 90:1-6

3. Who is this Psalm attributed to? How is this Psalm unique in authorship?
4. As Moses comes to God in prayer, what does he first do? How might this be instructive to our prayer life?
5. How is God described here in relation to time? What does ‘from everlasting to everlasting’ mean?
6. How does God compare to the oldest thing you’vee seen? Was there ever a time in which God was not? 
7. Do you find it hard to comprehend that God is eternal? Why is it good news for us?
8. If humanity is part of the created order of things, how are we not like God in relation to time?
9. How are we fleeting compared to God? Do you ever struggle to accept that we are ‘finite’ creatures?
10. How is the fact God is eternal and at work on a different timescale good news? Have you seen any examples of God working over thousands of years? 

Read Psalm 90:7-17

11. What does Moses ask God to teach us? What is meant by ‘numbering our days’?
12. Can you think of some healthy, God-orientated, ways of numbering your days? What would be some less-than-helpful approaches? How can we encourage one another to approach this well?
13. If God is the maker of everything—including time—what does that mean about our use of time? 
14. How does orientating our time to God’s purposes guard against: frantic activity, laziness, and feeling like our time is of no value? 
15. What does the Psalm warn us about what God knows? 
16. What daily and weekly rhythms in your life help you be reminded of God’s forgiveness? How might daily confession, weekly gathering, and rest be a helpful way of numbering our days? 
17. What does Moses ask God to do for us in the morning? What do you think it looks like—or what has been your experience—of seeking daily satisfaction in the Lord? Why is this so needed?
18. Is there anything about the passing of time that you find most challenging? How can the perspective of Psalm 90 help as you begin a new year?

Apply How can you begin 2025 in a way that helps you to ‘number your days’ in orientation to the Lord?

On Your Front Line this Week

How can what you write and say point to the news of Jesus' birth this week?

For Families

• Download: some of the family resources to use at home: stbartskids.org

Listen, Watch, and Read

• Read (book): “Becoming Friends of Time” by John Swinton 📚
• Read (book): “How to Inhabit Time” by James Smith
• Read (book): “What’s Best Next: How the Gospel Transforms the Way you Get Things Done” 📚
• Listen (five-part sermon series on Psalm 90): “The Basis of Life” by Dick Lucas:
  https://www.st-helens.org.uk/resources/series/627/ 
• Listen (sermon): “From Everlasting to Everlasting (Psalm 90)” by Abraham Cho:
  https://gospelinlife.com/sermon/from-everlasting-to-everlasting/ 
• Listen (sermons): Previous sermons from St Bart’s on the New Year:
  “A New Year and a New Purpose” (2014) by the Rev’d Dr Daniel Rouhead
  https://www.stbarts.com.au/sermons/a-new-year-and-a-new-purpose
  “New Year: Live for Jesus” (2021) by the Rev’d Michael Calder
  https://www.stbarts.com.au/sermons/new-year-live-for-jesus
  “New Year Rhythms” (2023) by the Rev’d Adam Lowe
  https://www.stbarts.com.au/sermons/new-year-rhythms 

📚 Available to borrow in the Church library