Psalm 123
Welcome again to our study of
the Psalms of Ascent. This study will cover Psalm 123. Remember, our study of the Psalms
of Ascent covers Psalms 120 all the way to Psalm 134. In this
study, what we’ll find in Psalm 123 is the beginning of another
pattern of trouble, that’s Psalm 123, then trust, Psalm 124, and then Jerusalem in Psalm 125. Remember these Psalms of Ascent
are pilgrim psalms. These are the psalms that would
have been sung when Israelites made their journey from their
home to Jerusalem for the various festivals during the seasons
of the year when God summoned his people Israel to worship
him at Jerusalem at the house of the Lord. There are a couple
other psalms that are reminders of the great joy and pleasure
of attending the festivals in Jerusalem. Psalm 42 is a psalm
where the psalmist says this, as the deer pants for streams
of water, so my soul longs for you, O Lord. And in that psalm,
he speaks of being in the procession, in the throng of God’s people,
keeping festival, making their way to Jerusalem. And he speaks
of making glad shouts and singing songs of praise along the way. Also in Psalm 84, you catch a
glimpse of the joy of God’s people as they made their way to Jerusalem
for worship. Psalm 84 says, how lovely, O
Lord, is your dwelling place. My soul longs to be in your gates
and in your courts. And then he says, a day in the
house of the Lord is better than a thousand days elsewhere. And so now to Psalm 123. If you have your Bible, take
a look at Psalm 123 with me. We read this in God’s word. To
you, I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens.
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 our eyes look to the Lord our God till he has mercy upon
us. Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have
mercy upon us. For we have had more than enough
of contempt. Our soul has had more than enough
of the scorn of those who are at ease, of those who contempt,
of the contempt of the proud. This is God’s word. May he bless
us in our study of it together. Maybe you’ve said before, I’ve
had it up to here. Maybe that’s something you heard
your mother say as a child, I’m fed up, I’m sick and tired. That’s what these words in this
Psalm express. The Psalmist says, our soul has
had more than enough. The Psalmist had been mocked,
they’ve been scorned, they’ve been ridiculed, they’ve been
held in contempt and they are driven to despair. not driven
to despair, but driven to the throne of grace. Most likely
this psalm is an expression of the exiles who’ve returned from
Babylon. They’re rebuilding the houses
in Jerusalem, they’re rebuilding the walls, the city, the temple,
even the altar, because they want to live again in the precincts
of God’s holiness. They want to live again, not
in the land of the pagans, they would rather live amid the rubble
and the hardship of rebuilding the ancient city that had been
destroyed in decades previous because of their sin against
Almighty God. Remember, God warned them, he
warned Judah, he warned Israel, if you don’t obey me, you’ll
be carried off into exile. So the northern tribes were carried
off by the Assyrians, and then a little later, the southern
tribes carried off to Babylon. And so God’s people have had
enough of the contempt of living among pagans. They’re back in
the city, they’re rebuilding, they’re taking the rubble of
the city and putting it back into order that they might live
for God’s glory and worship Him. But while they’re rebuilding,
there are enemies who come among them, enemies who do not want
the city rebuilt, enemies who do not want their houses rebuilt,
their walls, the temple, and especially the altar. They do
not want these people living in the city, and they certainly
don’t want them living and worshiping for God’s glory. And so in the
middle of this taunting and this ridicule, they’ve had it up to
here, but they look to God. They look to God as the one who can help them and
give them assistance. And maybe you find yourself living
in this world seeking to live a godly life. You’re seeking
to live for God’s glory, and so your peers, maybe your family
members, your neighbors, they don’t like the way you live. They poke fun, they make jabs,
and on and on it may go, and you can be in despair. But the
encouragement of this psalm is to look to God. Maybe you’re
part of a church that seeks to be a biblical church. You desire
to worship according to the scriptures. You desire to Listen to the voice
of God through his word. You want the church to worship
and to be governed by and to hold up standards of your denomination
or your confessions and creeds and catechisms. Yet there are
people within the church and even outside the church who say,
no, no, we must do church according to the world. You’re trying to
say no to godliness and yes to faithfulness. I remember several
years ago, I was taken to lunch by a man who was loosely connected
to our church. And he said, you want your church
to grow, don’t you? Well, you need to check these
boxes. And he began to put before me
a list of things that if I did, I might could win the world,
but God would certainly find me. He would find our church
unfaithful. And I simply said to him, we
cannot do these things. I cannot do these things. Maybe you’re a student at a secular
university and you’re finding that your Christian worldview,
one that you hold to dearly and with great affection, is being
challenged by your fellow students and your professors. Maybe you’re
being mocked and ridiculed. and you’ve had it up to here
with contempt and scorn and so you must look to God’s throne. Maybe you are in the workplace
and you’re trying to work ethically, you’re trying to do right, you
won’t bend the rules, you won’t cheat, you won’t do evil things for a different
bottom line and so you’re being met with contempt and scorn and
ridicule. Well, this psalm is for you This
psalm is a psalm that says, oh God, we want relief, the taunts. And in fact, the curses, the
curses we find at the end of verse three and the beginning
of verse four are too much for the psalmist. Maybe you find
yourself in that position. At the end of verse three, it
says, for we have had more than enough of contempt. And then
in verse four, our soul has had more than enough of the scorn
of those who were at ease. Our soul has had more than enough
of the contempt of the proud. You might find yourself in a
place where you are humiliated and your eyes are on your only
hope and help, and that is Yahweh, our God. In this psalm, I want
you to take a notice of the pattern. The psalmist is under great curses,
the contempt, the scorn, the ridicule of the proud. Those
are at ease. But he puts his faith in God
who is enthroned. He puts his hope in the one who
can grant him mercy. and he seeks God’s blessing or
his benediction. And so let’s look at three things
in this psalm that may help us and bring us encouragement. These
three things are faith, hope, and then benediction. First,
faith. We find the psalmist saying to
you, I lift up my eyes. Oh, you who are enthroned in
the heavens. This is maybe another way to
say the words of the familiar Lord’s Prayer. We begin the Lord’s
Prayer when we say, Our Father, who is in heaven, to you I lift
up my eyes, O Lord, you who are enthroned in the heavens, the
Lord who sits on the throne of glory and the throne of grace,
the Sovereign One can help us. And so our faith is in Him. And
we’re reminded from the scriptures, particularly Hebrews chapter
11 of faith. Faith is the assurance of things
hoped for. It is the conviction of things
not seen. Though we have not seen the Lord
Jesus Christ, we love Him. Why is that? We love Him because
we believe the truth about Him in the scriptures. Hebrews chapter
11 says, the people of old trusted in things that were far off.
They believed in things that could not be seen with their
eyes, yet they lived as strangers and pilgrims in this world. because
their faith was firmly fixed upon these things. Faith is belief. It is belief in the promises
of God. It is receiving them as true.
It is resting in them as that which can save us. It is believing
in whatsoever God reveals in his word and by his Holy Spirit,
and we believe it to be true. And so faith embraces the truths
about Almighty God. And we embrace these truths in
the middle of whatever struggles we’re facing. It could be the
taunts and the jeers and the ridicule of pagans around us
as we strive to live a godly life in our home or as we strive
to live for God’s glory in a church that hopes to be faithful to
God. It could be the student in the
secular university or the man or woman with ethics the workplace. But it could also be that we
need to have our faith strengthened as we live in the middle of this
pandemic called COVID-19 or the coronavirus. We need to look
across the hardship. We need to look past the forest
of difficulties and see Almighty God sitting on His throne and
we need to see His great glory. We can look at all our enemies.
We can look at those who taunt our churches, taunt our families,
taunt us in the workplace, taunt us in the university and in the
marketplace. We can have our eyes fixed on
them or we can look beyond them to the King of glory sitting
on His throne. We can, as the author of Hebrews
reminds us to do in chapter 12, to fix our eyes on Jesus, the
author and the perfecter of our faith. Jesus himself sets the
example of a man of faith. He put his trust in Almighty
God and he looked past his tormentors. He looked past the pain and the
suffering of the cross and even the grave. And he fixed his eyes
on the prize, which was saving a people unto himself. And so dear friends, we must
look to God for relief, putting our faith in the truths of God’s
word and believing them. The Heidelberg Catechism is a
catechism that many of you are familiar with, particularly questions
one and two, as we say them often about once a month in church.
But the first question of Heidelberg Catechism reminds us that our
only comfort in life and in death is that we belong, both body
and soul, to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. And our faithful
Savior, Jesus Christ, who is, by the way, the object of our
faith, He fully paid for all our sins. He’s delivered us from
the tyranny of the devil. He watches over us so much so
that not a hair can fall from our heads. He works out all things
for our everlasting good and his eternal glory. And he assures
us that we are his children. And so dear brothers and sisters,
what more could we offer to God, but to wholeheartedly and willingly
live for him, putting our faith in him, believing that what he
says is true, and what He requires of us is necessary. You can look
elsewhere. You can put your faith in your
checkbook. You can put your faith in your own resources. You can
put your faith in idols, but that faith will fail. But faith
in Almighty God, who sits enthroned on the heavens, it will never,
ever fail, for God and His promises are sure. So we’ve looked at
faith. Let’s now think for a moment
about hope. And the psalmist expresses his
hope in this special way. He says, behold the eyes of the
servants. The eyes of the servants look
to the hand of their master. And as the eyes of a maid servant
look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord
our God until he has mercy on us. The psalmist gives us this
wonderful example from the master and slave relationship that would
have certainly been common under the old covenant. And he says,
just as a manservant or a maidservant looks to the hand of their master,
so the psalmist, so we, the Christian, can look to God who sits enthroned
in the heavens as our master until he blesses us. Our eyes
look to God in hope. Our eyes look to God in hope
that he can deliver us. that He can give us all that
we need for godliness, for life in this world. What is hope?
Well, hope is something that is certain or sure. Now, that’s
not worldly hope. Worldly hope is that you’ll win
the lottery. Worldly hope is that your ship will come in.
Worldly hope is that luck will be with you. It’s hoping that
something may happen. Of course, it may not. You know
that when you look at worldly hope. But when we hope as Christians,
our hope is in something that is firm, it is fixed, it is final,
it is for sure. We hope in things that are certain.
And our hope is anchored in heaven. Everything we believe and hope
in is going to come true because God has promised that to be the
case. And so our eyes long for the
hope of things that are promised and yet to be with God, either
on earth or ultimately in heaven. And so our eyes look to our master. Our eyes look to the master,
the one enthroned in the heavens. I have a puppy dog. Well, he’s not a puppy anymore.
He’s about eight years old, but he still has those puppy dog
eyes. And he looks at you longingly
when he wants something. He looks at you longingly when
he wants to get a treat or when he wants to go for a walk. His
puppy dog eyes will stare at you until your heart melts and
you go and get or do with him whatever it is that he desires. And our eyes in this psalm are
longing for God to do something for us here, longing for him
to show us mercy and give us grace. And so the eyes of the
servant are on the master. The master would give his manservant,
his maidservant, these hand signals, go, do, serve. But with his hands,
he would also provide and protect. He would either show kindness
or punish. And so the master would give
everything to the manservant or the maidservant. And the maidservant,
the manservant would watch his eyes expecting something from
him. And so it is with us. We live
under the rule of Yahweh, our great God and King, our heavenly
Father, the one who sits enthroned in heaven. Our hope is not in
vain, but our hope is in the one whose character and actions
and promises are all over the pages of scripture. His character,
he’s good, he’s gracious, he’s kind, he’s merciful. His actions,
he’s a creator, a provider, a sustainer, and a redeemer. His promises,
all the things that are yet to come true in the Bible, some
which have come true, they’re all yes and amen in the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so these messages of hope,
these words of hope, keep us from despair. They keep despair
at bay, and maybe our circumstances are difficult, but our hope is
sure. We can say we’ve had it up to
here with ridicule, with calamity, COVID-19, with home quarantine,
we’ve had it up to here, we’re fed up with these things. And
so then we look to God, not only in faith, not only in hope, but
we look to him for benediction. The psalmist says these words,
have mercy upon us, oh Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have
had more than enough of contempt. Remember the Israelites had been
disobedient and God had promised them in his word and through
the ministry of his prophets, if you disobey, if you continue
in idolatry, if you continue steadfastly in living the way,
not of the word, but the way of the people of the lands, serving
false gods, serving your own appetites, the promised curse
would be exile. And so God’s people were exiled.
They lived among pagans in Babylon. There was no temple. There was
no worship. There was no word from God. There were no sacrifices.
But now they’re back in the promised land. They’re trying to be faithful.
They’re striving in the midst of a dark and dying world in
the middle of a crooked and depraved generation, namely Sanballat
and Tobiah and others who are there in the land taunting the
rebuilding efforts of the Israelites. And they say, we’ve had enough.
We’ve had it up to here. God, our faith is in you. Our hope is in you. Now give
us benediction. Let us have success in building
the wall. Let our houses be finished. Let the temple be completed.
Let the altar be built. Let the Levites, the offspring
of Abraham and others, do their work in the temple so that your
favor will rest among us. And again, A small band though
we are who have returned from exile, may you bless us as we
live and worship and serve you in the land. We all want God’s
benediction. We all want his blessing. We
want the Lord to bless us and keep us and cause his face to
shine upon us and be gracious to us. We all want the Lord’s
face lifted up towards us. We want his favor, his smile,
his look upon us. We also desperately want that. And the word of God tells us,
Jesus teaches us about prayer. He says, your heavenly father
knows what you need before you ask him. We’re to ask, to seek,
to knock, to come like the persistent woman in the scriptures who continually
come to God and ask him for what it is we need. We’re like Jacob
in the old covenant. We won’t let God go until he
blesses us and until he gives us benediction. were thankful
that Jesus knows what it’s like to be ridiculed, to be mocked,
to be scorned, to be held with great contempt. He had it up
to here, yet he continued steadfastly in his faith in the Father and
in his hope of redeeming a people. And so he went resolutely to
the cross, yes, being mocked, yes, being hailed the King of
the Jews, being hit and spat upon and ridiculed in all sorts of ways.
had enough, I’m sure, of the contempt, but he continued on
to the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before him was
our salvation. And so, dear friends, we may
be met with contempt and ridicule in this world. You may be ridiculed
in the marketplace, the educational institutions, even for being
a Bible-believing Christian or a Bible-living, God-honoring
family. but you are in good company.
Jesus has gone before you and he will give you his benediction.
He will give you his blessing. Oh, you may grow weary. You may
be in despair. We may be sick and tired and
have headed up to here, but let our faith be strengthened, our
hope be sure, and let our hands be out expectantly waiting for
God to give us his benediction. Amen.