A Word in Season: Looking to the Lord (Psalm 123)

The Church Under Contempt

How do most people think of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ? I think it would be fair to say that in most places the language used could be that of contempt. Now it might be a kind of polite contempt, a sort of an indulgent smile at these nice enough people who have their silly and shallow little ideas about the sort of the Sky Fairy and they're not doing too much harm but they're a little bit simple.

Or it might be real aggressive contempt, utter disdain, a kind of quick antagonism that is almost angry in its reaction to God and to his word. And I think that the last very often lies not far beneath the surface of the first.

In fact the language that is used in Psalm 123 might be easily applied to the Church of Jesus Christ today. We are exceedingly filled with contempt. Our soul is exceedingly filled with the scorn of those who are at ease with the contempt of the proud.

Looking to the Lord with Reverent, Expectant, Obedient Faith

But that comes at the end of that psalm. It's the reason why there the psalmist begins with prayers and pleas to the God of heaven. From the beginning he says this, Unto you I lift up my eyes, O you who dwell in the heavens.

Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God until he has mercy upon us. Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us, for our souls are exceedingly filled with contempt, with the scorn of those who are at ease.

So you see that's the reason why God's people look to God himself. And that looking is not just a glance up or out as it were. It's a deliberate looking. It's a believing looking. There is here reverence.

We are turning our eyes in hope upon the God of heaven. It's expectant. We believe that he will be able to help us and we are waiting for him to do so. It's obedient. You notice the imagery that is used here, the servant who is looking to the hand of the master, the maid who's looking to the hand of the mistress.

This is an environment in which the monarch needs only to gesture with a finger in order for his servants to be out about his business, understanding his will and doing what he pleases. It's a patient looking until God has mercy upon us.

Rejecting Human Strategies and Seeking God's Mercy

We need to learn to look to the Lord in days when the souls of his people are filled with contempt. It's very easy for us to try and find other solutions to the way in which the church is perceived and the way in which Christians are treated.

Whether that's that more polite or that more aggressive contempt, it is God and God only who is the hope of his church. We're not to look then for other ways to try and make the church and her worship palatable.

The point is not to try and win the affections or the applause of the world around us. When we are in trouble, when we are disdained or despised, when the church of Christ is trampled down and sneered at, our concern is not first and foremost how people think of us but how people think of our God because their attitude toward us is fundamentally a reflection of their disposition toward the God of all the earth whom we serve.

And so under such circumstances we need to be faithfully looking to God with this reverent and expectant and obedient and patient faith that God in his mercy will be pleased to act in might and in grace to show us what he wishes us to do to pour out his goodnesses upon us.

And that looking is going to express itself amongst many other things in earnest prayer to God. Have mercy upon us. That's what that looking involves. It's a crying out to God. It's a disposition of readiness to do what he wills.

It's a waiting upon him to glorify his own name, to make himself known and to lift up the light of his countenance upon his people. And what better day to do that than on the first day of the week, the Lord's Day.