Sermon details
- Scripture
- Psalm 123
- Speaker
- Daniel Hiler
- Date
- 9 March 2025
- Length
- 44 minutes
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Our eyes look to the Lord
Good morning, church. Good morning. John Bunyan's classic allegory, The Pilgrim's Progress, is a story of the Christian life and the Christian spiritual journey. In it, the main character, whose name is Christian, he journeys from the city of destruction to the celestial city. And along the way, he encounters many, many kinds of trials and temptations. And along this journey, Christian reaches a place that is called the Hill Difficulty. Ahead, he sees this hill and he observes three different paths. Each of those paths has a name. To each side of the hill, staying low and going around the hill, there are two different paths called danger and destruction. The third path goes straight up the hill, and it's called difficulty. Knowing that danger and destruction are not the way to go, Christian chooses the hill difficulty and sings these words as he ascends the hill. He says this.
The hill, though high, I covet to ascend. The difficulty will not me offend, for I perceive the way to life lies here. Come, pluck up heart, let's neither faint nor fear. Better, though difficult, the right way to go, than wrong, though easy, where the end is woe.
Two other travelers soon follow behind Christian, and they choose the lower paths of danger and destruction, thinking that they'll eventually meet up with the path difficulty. But instead they find their fateful end indicated by the names of the paths that they take, danger and difficulty, danger and destruction, excuse me. Just as Christian's song had ended, wrong though easy, their end was woe. Christian recognized that though this path was steep, it was the way to life. He did not shrink back, nor seek the easier, more deceptive paths that the others had taken. Instead, he lifted his heart and he pressed on. The hill difficulty, it's actually not an unusual experience in the life of a follower of Jesus. In fact, it's normal. expected. Like Bunyan's Christian, we too, as a church, have songs that have been prescribed to us as God, in God's word, to sing as we journey up the hill difficulty of our lives. And broadly speaking, of course, that's the whole book of Psalms, which is meant to be the song and prayer book for the church. All of life's joys, trials, victories, defeats, in the Psalms we can find appropriate praise, petition, mourning, and lament. We can sing and pray them individually and corporately together to the Lord. More specifically though, the section of the Psalms that our Psalm today comes from is particularly applicable to these hill difficulty seasons of our lives. The Psalms of Ascent, or Pilgrim Songs, are a subsection of 15 Psalms, which are numbered 120 to 134, from Book 5 of the Psalms. Four of these 15 Psalms are written by David, one by Solomon, and the other 10 by an unnamed author or authors. They're unified, though, by common themes of looking to God in suffering and struggle while on a journey to a destination. And the name itself, the Psalms of Ascent, it gives some idea of where these psalms might have been originally sung or written, as the people of God went up to Jerusalem to worship God. After years in captivity in Babylon, they were finally returning to their home on a long and difficult journey ascending to Jerusalem, which was once the beautiful worship place of the people of God, but now was in ruins. After years of captivity in Babylon, they were finally returning to their home on a long and difficult journey. And we know from the accounts of Ezra and Nehemiah that even upon their return, they faced attack, scorn, and the likes. Some of these psalms may have been birthed out of or sung during these times, and it's within this context that our psalm today, Psalm 123, sits. Psalm 123 is the complaint of a sojourning people of God who are being looked down upon by the arrogant and proud. And yet, their eyes are upon the Lord. It's a psalm that is actually characterized largely by the direction of eyes. The eyes of the wicked look down. The eyes of the godly look up. and the eyes of God look down, though not at all in the same way as the wicked. As we explore Psalm 123 today together, let's ask, where are our eyes fixed? How can we journey faithfully in a world that is not our own? How should we respond when the world looks down upon us? What should we do if we feel like we just can't take this scorn and contempt any longer? Is it even okay to feel that way? Our text today reminds us that as the enemies of God look down with contempt upon the people of God, we look up to our reigning king who looks down on us with mercy. First, we're gonna walk through the text of this short psalm together briefly, and then we'll reflect on three points together. And those three points are simple. First, looking up. Second, looking down. And then third, looking down again. But first, some observations about the structure of this psalm as a whole. First, the author of this psalm, he's not named. In verse one of the psalm, the leader of this congregation, the psalmist, speaks in the singular, and then he quickly shifts in verse two to the end of the psalm to the plural, speaking on behalf of the mistreated people of God as a whole. Secondly, in this short four-verse psalm, it's easily divided into two subsections of verses. The first two verses, looking up to God, and verses three and four, the world looking down upon the people of God. And the last observation of the psalm as a whole, in each of these pairs of verses, there's what's called in Hebrew poetry staircase parallelism, which means that there's a repetition of various words and ideas, ideas like eyes, hands, mercy. And the way that they're structured, it's a literary tool that's meant to give a feeling of momentum throughout the psalm, pushing you forward on this journey as you're ascending up the hill. But it's notable that though this momentum exists, the psalm actually lacks a sense at the end of having arrived. It ends unresolved. And now turning our attention to verse one of the text, we're gonna briefly walk through these verses before we circle back to some bigger observations together. So read with me in verse one. It says,
to you I lift up my eyes.
So the author of this psalm, he wastes absolutely no time in proclaiming the remedy to his malady, even before stating what the problem is itself. He must lift up his eyes. And he goes on to describe exactly who it is that he's lifting up his eyes to. The verse continues,
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oh you who are enthroned in the heavens.
The one to whom the psalmist must lift up his eyes is none other than the one who is enthroned in the heavens. In his declaration about the exaltedness of God, we see both admiration and humility. We see his admiration in a heart of worship directed at the one to whom the psalmist must lift his eyes. This is God. He reigns from his throne in heaven, unmatched, unrivaled. And we see the psalmist's humility. There's a clear distinction here between the position of the author and the position of God. God sits enthroned while the author lifts up his eyes to God's lofty and set apart place. He continues in verse two with this powerful image. It says,
behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maid servant to the hand of her mistress.
So servants and masters, maidservants and mistresses. These are categories that we kind of understand and are familiar with in concept, but in our day-to-day lived experience, they're mostly foreign to our lives. And though a clear social hierarchy would have existed, it was actually fairly common at this time for servants to act as peripheral members of the families that they served. And still, a relationship of the servant and master was one of separation. The master was the ruler, the financial provider, while the servant, on the other hand, lived to honor the master's commands, receiving from his master whatever the master wills. And still, I think we should ask, why would the author of the psalm use this particular metaphor? What point is he trying to make here? Well, the nature of employment between a servant and master put the servant in nearly complete dependence on his or her master or mistress for sustenance and for provision. He or she would look to the hand of his master or mistress for lodging, for food, for financial pay, and from the outstretched hand of the master, reaching out in generosity, the servant's needed provision would come. The master seeing the needs of his servant and recognizing the servant's dependence upon him would metaphorically extend his hand to provide. Another possible interpretation of this image of the hand of the master or mistress would have been that the hand was a source of direction for the servant. The servant should be ready, even at the tiniest gesture of his master's hand, to be ready to attend to the need that his master was directing him toward. And let's just be clear here. As the psalmist uses this metaphor, he is not intending to identify himself with the master or the mistress. Rather, he is the servant. looking to his master, God, for needed provision in his need. He goes on to say just that in the next part of verse two, explaining the metaphor itself. The text says,
so our eyes look to the Lord our God till he has mercy upon us.
And so, our eyes look to the Lord our God. In the same way that the servant looks to his master's hand for necessary provision, so the congregation in this psalm looks to the Lord, their God, for their needed provision. And this imagery of God's hand being a place of provision, it's common throughout the Bible and the Old Testament. And you don't have to go very far away to find this kind of language. If we look back even just a few Psalms, in Psalm 104, it says this about the hand of the Lord. This is Psalm 104, 27 and 28. It says,
these all look to you to give them their food and due season. And when you give it to them, they gather it up. When you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
And so it is from God's hand that provision will come. And so we look up to it. The psalmist goes on as he transitions to tell us the specific provision that he's seeking from the reigning king's hand. He says this, till he has mercy upon us. Mercy. That is what the author is seeking for his people from the hand of God. Without delay, the psalmist continues his attention on God, but immediately pleading for that very merciful provision from his hand, crying out to God in verse three, saying,
have mercy upon us, oh Lord. Have mercy upon us.
And it's here in this double plea for mercy that our text finds its driving force. This is a plea for God to be merciful in his kindness, from his ruling place on his throne, to extend his hand and to deliver mercy to his people. Many of us are pretty familiar with the idea of mercy in general. It's talked about throughout the Old Testament and throughout the New as well. And yet still sometimes, depending on the context in which we find this word, its direct application can feel a little bit abstract. And so in this context, I think mercy is portrayed as the undeserved, gracious favor of the superior to the inferior. I'll say that again, mercy is the undeserved, gracious favor of the superior to the inferior. Mercy in this way can be shown in both physical ways and in non-physical ways. For example, as we look at the history of the Bible, God's delivery of his people Israel from captivity in Egypt, that was mercy. As we jump to the New Testament, Jesus' many healings were a supernatural, physical mercy. And of course, most supremely, God's mercy is seen in him sparing judgment to all who are adopted as sons. Each of these examples, and in our text, it's undeserved. Each is gracious. And in each example, it's the one who is superior, namely God, extending mercy to mankind who most certainly is inferior. And it's this mercy that the psalmist is pleading for. This mercy was not something the people of God had earned or deserved. They had done nothing to merit it. He was pleading for the Lord to graciously give his favor to an undeserving people. The last part of our text ends this way.
For we've had more than enough of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.
And finally, here we actually hear from the author the source of this pain and crying out to the Lord. the contempt and scorn of those who are proud and at ease. You can sense as reading this that the author here is crying out to God from a deep place. We've had more than enough of contempt, more than enough of scorn. The heart of the author's pain comes from being looked down upon by the enemies of God, as if he and his journeying friends were worthless and absolutely beneath any kind of consideration at all. The author says just that, that their very souls, their deepest, innermost selves had had more than enough. Pain beyond what they could bear from these proud mockers. Interestingly, in the text, it isn't actually clear whether this mocking and scorn was coming from exclusively without, or if it could have also been referring to mocking and scorn from the unbelieving, ungodly people within the people of Israel. That kind of pain, scorn, is an even deeper pain. And from this pain, this place of deep pain, and longing for merciful relief, we also see a certain recognition. The solution to this contempt and scorn was not going to be found from within themselves. The solution wasn't just to toughen up and bear it. It wasn't to retaliate with equally bitter words of scorn and contempt back their accusers, and it certainly wasn't some kind of quick-fix self-help program. Just speak enough truth to yourself about how great you are and then everything is going to be better. They needed mercy from one who was actually capable of delivering it. And so that's our text, and now I wanna make several observations and deeper applications to our lives together. And the first one comes from our first point, which is looking down. The enemies of God look down with contempt on the people of God. I wonder if there are some here today that have felt the pains and longings that this psalm describes. I suspect that there are. Maybe some of us have felt the deep pain of being mocked and looked down upon for holding fast, for example, to the moral teachings of God in the face of a culture that doesn't. Maybe you have fought to remain faithful to God and trying to honor him with things like your sexual purity or your views on the sanctity of life or in other matters of Christian conscience. Maybe on the other hand, some here have experienced scorn and contempt shortly after your initial conversion when you began to follow Christ. Maybe you've faced rejection by the people that you thought closest to you, family or friends. During our years in Sweden, we met Christians that had faced scorn and contempt that were shocking to us. in a culture that was so intensely, intensely secular. We met many families that, children of Christians, that as they went to school, they were repeatedly, day after day, openly mocked by their classmates, or even by their teachers, for following Jesus, or for being a part of a family that were Christian. We regularly encountered people that experienced outwardly well-educated Swedish people looking down their noses with Christians with the kind of pity that maybe you would encounter if you met a child that was like a little bit too old to still think that a fairy came at night and took your teeth out from under your pillow. It was like laughable to them that someone might be a Christian who would follow Jesus, and they mocked them with just relentless scorn and contempt. They regarded these kinds of beliefs as antiquated, even laughable. And the Christians there, they wrestled with pain that sometimes drove them to secrecy or to silence with their faith. The contempt and scorn of being looked down upon by the enemies of God can truly bring pain to our souls. And as we walk along this earth, we long for relief from that. Some of us here today feel like we've had more than our souls can bear. And yet, even deeper pain than this exists when we recognize the possibility of these kinds of attacks coming from within, not just from without. In the times of Nehemiah and Ezra, Those who returned to the land not only faced scorn and contempt from those outside the people of God, but from the unfaithful people of God as well. For us too, there is a great danger posed by proud and arrogant contempt from within the church. 2 Timothy 3 describes these kinds of people in this way. So 2 Timothy 3 says this. He describes them as
lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive. Disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness but denying its power.
Beware of the dangers from within. and the deep pain associated with the wounds that are left in the wake of such reckless men and women. It's worth noting that in the psalm that escape from this kind of scorn and contempt on this earth, it wasn't promised to this people of God, these sojourners, and nor has it been promised to us as the sojourning children of God while we are on this earth. In fact, Jesus promised his disciples that the world was going to hate them. In John 15, Jesus explicitly says that the world would hate his disciples because the world hated him. We will experience hate, scorn, and contempt from the world. I mean, Christ's life, it was the archetype of a life lived fully for the glory of the Father and yet looked down upon, scorned, and hated by the world. He was mocked, rejected, laughed at, and made to be an outcast among his own people, and ultimately tortured and killed. So should we as Christ's followers expect to be spared from the persecution of this world where Christ was not? According to the words of Jesus, no. John 15, 20, Jesus says,
if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.
Friends, we are but strangers and aliens in this world. As such, we shouldn't be surprised when there is scorn and contempt and trial and persecution so much as when there's none. That should be far more surprising to us. Not facing scorn and contempt is actually the anomaly in the history of the people of God. And as Ben prayed earlier, this is actually an opportunity for us as a church today to identify and pray for and with the persecuted church around the world. I'll spare details of this particular incident, but even just less than a month ago, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there were 70 Christians that were rounded up and brought into a church and slaughtered for their faith by Islamic militants. Would we pray earnestly for our brothers and sisters in faces where they face persecution that is far beyond what we face here? Places like the DRC or even places like Sweden where secularism has such a tight grip on that culture. Will we pray for our brothers and sisters to endure faithfully and pray that they would respond to such persecution like the psalmist in Psalm 123? It's a promise that we will face scorn and contempt in this world. There's a real weight to promises like this one. The Word of God on one hand is full of truly beautiful, beautiful promises. our assurance of salvation, the promise of heavenly inheritance, the promise of the gift of the Spirit. You could go on and on and on listing out these wonderful promises. And still there are some promises that the word of God gives us that are equally true, but point to realities that are a result of brokenness in this world until God makes all things right. And this is that second kind of promise. It points to the alien nature of the Christian life. Brothers and sisters, we are not at home here. We were once like the world, at home in brokenness and sin and on a path to destruction, but by God's grace, no longer. We have been chosen out of the world. We've been made new, and with that newness in spirit, we have been given a new citizenship, a new allegiance. And though we walk this earth, and this is exactly where God wants us for this season, we have been given a citizenship that is a heavenly citizenship. We are citizens of a world that isn't this one. We're citizens of a world that is yet to come. one that in Christ we will inherit. Jesus says in John 15, 19,
if you were of the world, the world would love you as its own, but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
We are not citizens of this world. We too, like those in the psalm, are just sojourners here, walking around at times being looked down upon with scorn and contempt and yes, even hate. But there is hope. When the eyes of the world look down upon us, there is one to whom our eyes can look. Point two is looking up. As the enemies of God look down with contempt on the people of God, we look up to our reigning king. Let me just say that no matter how obvious a Sunday school answer this might seem in our minds, like, duh, the right answer is to look to God, there's actually nothing at all that's natural in our flesh about the kind of response that's described here in this song. Think through with me what some of the more natural responses of our heart might be when the world looks down upon us. One response of our hearts might be to look back up at our attackers rather than looking back up to God. Maybe we would respond with frustration or even resentment at those who are mocking us. Looking back up at them with the hope of vengeance or retaliation. I'll show them might be the thought that's going through our minds. Because it can feel so good to get even. And maybe we don't even ever try to get even in person, but instead it's this internal dialogue that's playing out in our minds of what you know that you could have said in that moment when that person was mocking you, or what you're gonna say in the future to that meanie to show them and put them in their place. And of course it sounds so childish when you say it this way. But who among us hasn't found ourselves thinking these kinds of thoughts? Another natural but still sinful response of our hearts, rather than looking to God, might be to look to those around us desiring their pity. And of course, there's nothing wrong with seeking comfort from a trusted friend. That can be a good thing. But we also know that if we're honest with ourselves, those kinds of interactions can become conversations that in themselves are distractions. Rather than confessing the sinfulness of our hearts, they can become little pity parties. The conversations themselves keep our eyes low on the circumstances themselves, rather than turning our eyes together to the one who can actually solve them. And that's the key distinction between good godly counsel and bad counsel in situations like these. Do those conversations keep our eyes on our circumstances, or do they fix our eyes on the one who provides mercy? Or next, perhaps, in these kinds of circumstances, rather than turning our eyes to God for mercy, Our eyes just look within to despair or to hopelessness. Under the weight of contempt, we sulk and sit in the ease of isolation. In contrast to the urging of the psalmist, These are some of the sinful tendencies of our heart that we must confess to one another, and that we must confess to the Lord our God. There is another way that is offered, and it's the words of this psalm.
So our eyes look to the Lord our God.
And this is the one to whom we look. He is the king. He's the one who sits enthroned in the heavens. There's no king greater than our God. He is God, he is holy, he is set apart, he is full of power and might. And it's to him who is king alone, he is the one who is enthroned, he reigns. And it is the cry of the psalm that in humility we are to cry out to him, The one who is so unlike us in every way. And that's a good thing that he is unlike us in every way. Because he is sovereign and we are not. He is full of power and might and we are not. He is actually able to do whatever he wills and nothing happens apart from his will and we can do no good thing. Even more frightening to me, though, is in light of the reality of God as king, to whom we should turn our eyes as another possible sinful response of our eyes. Rather than looking to the one who is king, perhaps at times our eyes will look to other kings instead. Crying out to earthly rulers or politicians and begging them for relief. rather than crying out to the one true king. Friends, our world is full of kings, and it always has been throughout history. Kings that promise one after another to be the solution to all of the problems that we're feeling. And each of these kings deride the previous king with scorn and contempt while simultaneously promising to be the solution to the scorn and contempt that his followers say that they're feeling. They might as well be saying in some twisted version of this psalm, to me lift your eyes and I will have mercy on you who have felt politically ignored or socially downcast. Brothers and sisters, I say this with a heart that is trembling. If we ever find ourselves seeking mercy from such voices, all of our hearts should tremble in fear. Tremble in fear at our heart's deception and quickly repent. Do not confuse the true solution and source of mercy Each of these earthly kings is going to pass away just like the last one did. Some are going to do more good and some are going to do more evil, but not one of them is the one to whom our eyes should turn when scorn and contempt comes our way. The only one who will not fail, who will do no wrong, who will execute judgment perfectly, and will deliver mercy, true mercy that is new every morning, is our reigning King, Jesus Christ. And it is this reigning King that invites us to pray the words of Psalms like these, to acknowledge Him in faith and to cry out to Him for mercy, to even lament the distress of our souls at the scorn of this world. Pray for grace. Pray for the grace of the Spirit to put to death these false gazes of the soul, because there are many, and we've only mentioned a few. Our hearts are deeply deceptive. and perhaps even more so when put under the pressure of scorn from the world. Pray with the psalmist here and look to the hand of the master. Our third and final point is looking down again. So as the enemies of God look down on the people of God with scorn and contempt, We look up to our reigning King who looks down on us with mercy. As we've mentioned before, this psalm ends unresolved. There's no declaration of relief given at the end. Instead, it ends in waiting. waiting, in the words of the psalm, until he has mercy upon us. Isn't this fitting? Because the mercy of God doesn't always appear when and how we think it should. We often wait and wait and wait, but mercy will certainly come. From his outstretched hand, like a master stretching out his hand to his servant, there is mercy. There is merciful promise, merciful comfort, and merciful hope. There's merciful promise. There's promise that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purposes. There's merciful promise in that. Our reigning king is sovereign over all, working things for the good of us, for his beloved children. These are merciful promises that we can cling to. There's merciful comfort given freely to all those who call upon the name of the Lord. Merciful comfort in looking to the one who sovereignly and justly reigns in goodness, not in an unjust way, but with kindness and mercy. There's merciful comfort in the Holy Spirit residing in each of us who follow Jesus, and he is our comfort. And there's merciful comfort in the good news of the gospel. that in Christ there is abundant life for all who trust in him. And there is hope. There is merciful hope that this world is not our final home. Here we are sojourners and pilgrims. Here we face scorn and contempt from the enemies of God as they look down upon us. And sometimes it is even more than our souls feel like we can bear. But this is not the end of the story. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul reminds the church in Corinth and all believers of the merciful hope that we have in eternity as we journey through trials here on this earth. He says this,
for this light and momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.
And ultimately, Most of all, the mercy that each of us needs most is one that God the Father will gladly grant. And the greatest act of mercy ever, Christ died for the ungodly. And the ungodly, that was once all of us, walking in our sin and disobedience, separated from God and without hope, There's mercy in that if we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead, we will be saved. There is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which man can be saved. And so turn your eyes to Jesus. Turn your eyes to him who has paid the price for your sins upon the cross. His mercy is a free gift to you. So if you're here today and that's something that you have never done before, please, please talk to me or someone else here. Turn your eyes to Jesus and receive the mercy that is offered to you. Finally, as the enemies of God look down on the people of God with scorn and contempt, we look up to our reigning king who looks down on us with mercy. We are a people who lift our eyes to the one who is enthroned in the heavens. We are a people who have been derided and scorned, and we are a people that wait until he has mercy upon us. Let us journey on in the pilgrimage that these psalms of ascent invite us into. And like Bunyan's character Christian, Hill difficulty though we may climb, the destination of our eternal home awaits. In the words of the great theologian Augustine,
whither are we traveling? To Christ. How shall we reach him? Through Christ.
And so, our eyes look to the Lord our God until he has mercy upon us. Would you pray with me? Father in heaven, fix our eyes upon you and would we wait until you have mercy upon us. In the name of Jesus, amen.
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