Psalm 123 in the Old Testament, Psalm 123. You can find that on page 517 in the Bibles provided for you. Listen to the words of this short Psalm, Psalm 123. a song of ascents, to you I lift up my eyes. Oh, 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 the contempt of the proud. So far from God's holy word. Dear congregation, the Lord Jesus Christ, we took up a psalm last week, Psalm 124, calling out to God as our help. And I wanted us to take on a pair of psalms. I pointed out last week that the psalms are very often meant to be sung, and even we sing them many thousands of years after they were written. And it's a matter of unity with other believers, not only who are singing today, but who are singing through the ages. And this one is especially meant for singing just like the last one, a song of ascent, which has to do with actually ascending up from low level to high level when worshippers go from the low elevation up to the temple mount. So a song of ascent, a song for worship, a song of anticipation about going to be in God's presence. And I find this one to be just as stunning as the psalm we looked at last week. In this case, believers will be satisfied only when they lift up their eyes to the merciful God who is able to deliver our souls from the scorn and shame of this proud world. So the first major idea of this psalm has to do with where to look in our need. Where do I look when I'm in any trouble? Where do I look when I perceive that there's a lack in my life? And of course, this in itself is a very spiritually profound question. When things are difficult, what next? Where do I turn? When I'm missing something, then who can fill it? And that can be answered in small and in great ways in life. But as a longtime Christian, I often ask myself, Where would I be without God's presence in my life? Where would I be if there were no one to turn to, or if I was filling the blank of to whom do I turn, and where can I go, and where do I look for relief, for comfort, really for mercy according to this psalm? Where do I look? How could I have any peace? How could I have any joy? If my only answer and my only response was, well, I guess if I get enough money, I could fix my problems. Or I guess if enough people like me. If I'm answering this question with lesser answers, then how will I have any calm in life or any kind of composure when I think about things that can't be righted by me or by any other person that I know? Then when I see murder and when I see just cracked immorality in the world and when I see lies and abuses that I am not strong enough to address in the least way, Is this just gonna go on forever or are we gonna forever be scorned, forever be shamed, and forever have the world go on in sin and shame? And if there is no real answer to that question, to whom can I look in trouble? And why would I want to take care of myself, or anyone else for that matter, if it's all for nothing, if we are all just meaningless dust floating around in the universe? How could I cope with any trouble if it was clear that no help was coming, no justice or mercy was ever going to come? And in this way, the Christian has assurance and comfort that the world doesn't know, and a spirit that the world doesn't know. The unbeliever has to throw their attention of life, apparently, towards things that cannot last, towards things that will not last. Jesus talked about it in terms of just sand, building on life on the sand versus on the strong foundation that he provides. They have to expect, as it were, different results where we have no real way to expect any different than what others have got. I turned my eyes towards my money to be my shield, but no one ever took their money with them when they died. No one ever was comforted for the life to come by their wealth. And how can I delude my mind into thinking that the pleasures or the sexual immorality of this life and of this world will last forever while my very body is degrading every day? And while, you know, everyone else gets old, but not me or whatever, you know, like all the, you know, very silly thinking, you know. It's the same with our health. I'll just, you know, I'll keep, you know, I can just keep going, pedal to the metal, all the, you know, all day, every day, and I will work until I've established myself, and I will pound home, you know, the career, and everything that, you know, so that I can, then I can be at ease for the rest of my days, and my body will just keep the pace, and I'll just depend on that, until it doesn't, and until there's unexplained, you know, symptoms and problems and things that suddenly upend everything. I trust I'm making myself more than clear when I say that turning our eyes towards lesser comforts that last only for a time or only for this life is not enough, and that's the nature of our catechism reading. My only comfort in life and in death is with Jesus and him alone. And comforts that last only for this life, that's a very dismal thought. So we're turning our eyes not upward to something high, the way that the psalmist describes, I can look up to the throne of heaven. We're rather, you know, we're rather navel-gazing, and we're rather earth-bound in our looking when we look. to the things of this sinful world. And that's not comfort at all. Meanwhile, the psalmist with this very humble stance, I may be low, is the attitude of the psalmist. I may be low, but I lift up my eyes to the one who is enthroned on high. And what a comfort, through our prayer, which lifts our minds up to the Lord, through our worship, through our meditation on Christ, thinking of Colossians 3, we talked a bit about yesterday, where we fix our eyes and he's enthroned at God's right hand. By giving our attention to God as over us, and not just over us in the sense of space, but over us in authority, we're training ourselves with humility You know, decisions come from the throne. Wisdom comes from the throne. What did Solomon ask for? We just read, I need understanding. I'm gonna lead these people. God has wisdom for us. And he hands down his will, his decision to us. How silly of me, from my low position, to try to control everything in life. To try to make demands of God or of others, when he's the one that sits on the throne. And this, for us, is a constant humbling mindset. How silly of me to try to control other people. How silly of me to try to control my life. I have never sat on the heavenly throne, but God sits on that throne every day. And I need to learn to turn my mind and my heart and my life orienting them towards him, the one who has the right and the one who has the power to sit on the throne forever, Jesus Christ. Praying to Him, depending on Him. That's the only thing that makes sense for us. So we're perpetual worshippers. We're perpetual, we're perpetual glorifiers of God. We glorify and enjoy Him forever. That's our chief end in this world. And it only makes sense when we look with our eyes towards heaven. To go a little further, the psalmist describes and identifies God as king, but also master, right? The writer compares us to servants, really slaves is the language. Slaves, male and female as it were, who have no authority. They don't have say-so about their lives. They are dependent, they are bound to the word and the will of their master, of their mistress. You know, wow. We don't think of ourselves this way, do we? I am the servant girl, I am the slave, and God is the master on whom I wait. You know, passages like these are the ones that help us see the truth and the lie in this culture so well. You know, isn't this how we know that Christianity today has let sort of the ooze of this culture, the muck of independence and self-serving, selfish thinking just wash over us and also flood into the church? This is how we know that Christianity today, for so many, is based on what we think is right, like we read in Lord's Day 33. It's what I think is right, it's what I feel like doing, it's what I want to do, and not what God has actually said. We've invented Christianity for ourselves, rather than take it from the hand of our master, or receive it from the hand, as it were, of our mistress, as a servant. according to what God has said, what he has willed. We style ourselves, rather than God, as the deciders of everything. Nobody tells me anything, especially not about my personal faith. And I'm nobody's slave, nobody's servant. I don't ever have to put up with any decision that I don't like. I don't ever have to wait for anyone else to determine what's right for me or good for me in my life. I go where I want, I say what I want, I do what I want, and I never have to submit to another person. My life, my body, my rights, my money, my family, my faith. I take what I want, I buy what I want, how I want, when I want. This is the nature of our culture, and we see how it is, it is affecting us so much that Psalm 123 is a joke to today's Christian. And if it's a joke to us, we have a major problem. We have a faith problem. Christian maturity teaches us more and more to pray and to live out the gospel according to the way that Jesus taught us to pray and to live. Thy will be done. As it's done in heaven, so may it be done with us on earth. We do wait for you, Father in heaven. We wait for your command. We wait for what comes from your throne. We wait for what conforms to your will and your way and your law. If we are truly God's disciples, really, then we will want God's will, and I'll wait to eat if that's what must be done, and I will wait to go to sleep if that's what must be done, and I will wait to be satisfied in whatever way if that's what God requires, because that is the nature of our service as slaves for Christ. God's will and God's way. So I am like a maidservant to a mistress in my attitude and my conduct. With expectation, I think about what God wants, not what I want. He wants worship in spirit and in truth in the name of Jesus Christ and our undivided love, undivided heart of devotion. He wants our lives devoted to Him as living sacrifices, we read in Romans 12. And He commands us to make disciples of all the nations, and teach them everything that He's commanded, and to live with one another, like we read today, in unity as a body. All these are just some of the what. that our master wants from us. And with expectation, waiting on him, praying about and wrestling with and trying to be careful to discern, with expectation I think about how God wants me. to be a servant of his, the master. How God wants me to do what he wants, right? These are simple things, but they're profound. He wants service, but not half-hearted and lazy service. He wants worship, but not arm-twisted worship, willing and joyful worship. He wants our service and our gifts, but never grudgingly, otherwise we may not as well have given them. He wants you to serve others, but never proudly or in divisive competition. We talked about that in Sunday school, right? We want to be truly joyful and not proud or rude to one another. He wants you to work with others, but kindly and patiently. never harshly, never crushing others to put ourselves forward. And I have to serve God how he wants, doing what he wants, when he wants, if I'm like a... a servant to the master, a maidservant to the mistress. If God is master, then I don't tell him, I'm sleeping in today, or I'm taking a personal day from my faith. I'm off duty, why should I have to deal with these things? Or I have a right today to be angry, or right now, I'm so upset that I can say what I want, and we'll clean it up later. It's when he wants, and what he wants, and how he wants it. And the fact of the scripture is there's always that urgency. He wants willing hearts for holy service now. He wants us today, not tomorrow, because we can't see one minute into the future. We don't know about our tomorrows. He wants our holy service, our willing hearts now. So it matters to him. His Sabbaths matter to him when the things that should be done today are not to be put off another day. The sun is not to go down on our anger today. It shouldn't exist tomorrow. These are the kinds of exhortations that we read even in our services today. The sins that should be killed today in putting off the old self shouldn't survive to tomorrow. They're to be killed. The honor that God has owed now, this we bring to life. And it shouldn't be held back from him. Such an attitude is the one who waits with expectation. You know, I am waiting on God's decisions. I am waiting on whatever comes from his hand. Lord, what will happen to me today? I pray that I'll be faithful in it. Lord, how can I worship and serve you and show your truth today? And I wait expectantly as the day unfolds on what God provides. I never would have expected today was going to be like this, but it is today. And I want to be faithful in it. So I wait on him. He decides whether my life today will be one way or another. I'm accepting the fact that not everything will happen how I want or as fast as I want or maybe it will go too fast for me and I wish it was slower and it won't slow down. It won't be when it's convenient for me or when it fits best into my busy schedule that I serve the Lord, my master. The master decides my coming and going. the master will either have mercy or there is no mercy. but I won't go taking for myself apart from God's will. I won't go stealing and sneaking and feeding on the world when I should be honorably concerned with my master's business, and that first and that only. Isn't that what Jesus described? I'm about the business of my father. I'm about the things that God has willed for me, and he accomplished all of them, everything that God had said about him. We need God to have mercy on us. We need God to help us. We need God to remember us and direct us. And so we should hang on his words. And he teaches us in prayer to beat down the doors of heaven, as it were, to remind him of how much we need him to be the one that gives, that dispenses his many gifts. And God will show mercy. Jesus Christ came to deliver the mercy of God from heaven to us. And just like this song is oriented towards the temple worshiper who is singing it with expectation, it isn't a dismal song in the sense that we're going to the temple to be filled again. You know, this is a song for the worshiper. Now Jesus is the center of our worship in spirit and in truth. We never lack for mercy from him. We never lack for love and forgiveness from him. He's the one on whom we rely. And there's a driving reason why we need it so badly. Have mercy on us, he says twice. Maybe before we even get into the idea of enemies, it's just because we've run into walls on our own. We've tried to do everything on our own. We have seated ourself on the throne, and it has fallen apart. And so we were self-serving, and we were the self-proclaimed captains and masters of our own lives, and it caused us all kinds of damage, caused us all kinds of problems. That may be true. Our sins are galling to us. They hurt. But here we see something different. That's not where the psalmist goes. The psalmist goes in the way of faithfulness. Here we see that even faithful servants will have trouble in this life. Someone who is walking to worship, someone who is determined to honor the Lord and does look to Him and is looking for His mercy, which the psalmist seems to be doing, He shows that he is yet suffering many sufferings. It was true of Jesus in his service, true of the apostles and the saints through history, the prophets. They were good servants of God in many ways. They did depend on God for strength, and even then it was difficult. because the enemy and because the people of this world heap shame on us, because the world is no friend to the faithful who look to God for renewal. you know, what a way to say it, you know, it's almost like it's, it almost sounds to me like it's in terms of eating, you know, we've had more than enough of contempt, like I'm full, I'm full of it, and I can't stomach anymore, we've had more than enough of contempt, we're weary down to our souls over the pride and ease with which the world scorns us, with people around us scorn us, because of our desire to serve the Lord and our unwillingness to go their way in this life. And we need God's help. We need his mercy. I can't help but think of the way that Christians are being scorned in our day. And in some ways, I'm sick to death of it. I'm tired of the situation that we're constantly in where we're barely able to talk about even simple things that we believe without being automatically seen as hateful, as awful, as terrible before we can get in a word or two. Nevermind that we preach and believe with all our hearts that God forgives sins, that he cleanses our lives, he cleanses our minds, he's able to work great renewal in us, over all kinds of sins and every kind of shame. If we say, you know, we say we oppose homosexuality, we say that we oppose divorce, we say we are scorned, we're held in contempt, we are mocked. If we say we oppose such things and they are sins, we're monsters. You know, I couldn't help but notice the story of this, you know, the cake baker guy. I'm not trying to get into all the particulars of his case, but the Supreme Court just ruled on him and they're coming after him again with almost the same type of lawsuit. And the hatred there, the scorn there is very strong. That's all I want to point out. You won't celebrate immorality you know, the flood, the flood in this case, not just of shame and scorn, but I guess of legal battles. If you believe God made the world, you know, if you are trying to be a serious college student, especially maybe in the science, you believe God made the world, you can't be a serious student, you know. You get shame and scorn from your professors. Never mind that God's word is radically inclusive of women, and ultimately women are counted as equal to men in every way that counts in terms of everlasting joy, and the rewards of heaven, and of God's grace and mercy poured out so that, in a manner of speaking, there is no male or female. Never mind all that. The church follows and believes God's word about marriage, that a man should be head of his wife, and love her and she should respect and submit to her own husband. I would be surprised to have people burn the place down. If we proclaim this loud enough, if we show it loud enough, even worse, even worse, women should not serve in the offices, minister, elder, and deacon. Oh, toxic patriarchy. We're scorned and we're shamed. And if any woman should speak up, right, and say maybe to others, no, I believe it's right in God's eyes. that I do it to honor Him. I do it to submit ultimately to Jesus and to show that I love Him and I want to worship Him and that's why I do these things that I do. You're shamed and scorned, right? You sad, brainwashed, foolish, traitorous woman. Shame. You're setting all women back. is, this is what I see in politics, it's what I see in the media, it's what I see as I counsel couples for marriage. This is what I'm hearing, and I know you're hearing it too. If I start talking about God's word related to politics, you know, I'll get eaten alive, maybe from either side, right? We should respect our president, God, which one? We should have respected President Obama. We should pay taxes in a legal and fitting way. You know, the rich are not sinning simply because they are rich. Inequality, income inequality. Skin color, gender, sexual orientation, et cetera, should not be our number one identifier in life. This is what I am. This is the most important thing. We talked about that this morning. It's so critical that we become Christians first, that the baptism of Jesus Christ is foremost, is the front of our identity. What do I want to be known for? Who do I want to be in this world? And so I don't condone that kind of thinking in others. It's not that issues of race and gender and so on, all these things are not important. It's that they're not most important. And trying to elevate them to that level is a disaster. Our faith tells us that the government should not be protecting or paying for the wicked and false so-called right to abort children. And nothing in this world can make that legitimate. There's nothing in this world that can make murder legitimate. Not now, not ever. No amount of money, no legalities, according to man's judgment, not possible. rah, you are Nazis, you are fascists, you are racists, scorn and contempt, scorn and contempt. And these are basic things that we believe. These are not going way out on a limb. in the Christian life, to look at the scripture and say we should respect authority, to look at the scripture and say a husband and a wife should live together with this understanding, to say that the church should preach and proclaim all of these things, and especially, you know, in our speaking about our relationship to money or sexual immorality, these are not, I am not out on a limb at all, not at all, to say these scorn and contempt, we've had enough, never mind. Nevermind that God says we should be reborn, transformed, repentant, changed to live differently now for Jesus than we lived before. A loving God would never make such demands on my life. The love of God means I never have to change. He'll love me no matter what. Don't try to tell me how to live my life. Many so-called Christians openly scorn God's word to have their own way, and in as much as we do so, it's according to our own thinking, our own minds, not according to the new life that Christ has given. Many so-called Christians openly scorning God's discipline, many churches openly scorning God's word by preaching the opposite, and of course the world is the direct enemy and threat to the gospel. We've had more than enough of the contempt of the proud. If you believe any of these things, we will alienate you. We will talk bad about you. You can't be our friend. We'll slander you. We'll call you names. We'll take away your job. We'll take away your property. We'll beat you. Maybe we'll take your life. We've had more than enough of scorn. The good news is that Jesus has shouldered all such scorn and shame for us. How will we ever be cleansed of this? How will it ever be that the flood of shame, that the flood of scorn could ever be removed except that Jesus bore it like he bore his cross? and that he suffered for all of it to bury it once and for all. Those who are shamed, their shame is removed. Those who are scorned, their scorn falls on him. So that anyone who has ever hungered or thirsted or waited for God's mercy, they'll finally get it. We have not just a king and a master, right, but also a loving father. and a savior who loves to show mercy and who pays the cost so that mercy can be ours, the very price of his own body and blood. Scorm and shame because of Jesus won't last. We've had enough of it. We're sick of it. The taste of it is bitter, but God's mercy is sweet and it's sealed to us in the wounded hands and in the pierced side of Jesus. Amen. Heavenly Father, we pray that we would be strengthened by your spirit and emboldened through your power so that like Jeremiah, we would come to understand that your power is sufficient for us. Your word is so strong. that you break every stronghold and that you will humiliate every proud opponent and that you will crush every obstacle until Christ is all in all. And so those who speak your words after you and those who depend and stand on the foundation of Jesus, they will not be put to shame and their scorn will not last forever. And those who mock will be suddenly terrified but those who love you and those who honored you and those who trusted you, they will be joyful forever, vindicated in Christ, made to stand firm. So Lord, we pray that we would stand firm now and in the future until Christ comes again. Hear our prayer in his name, amen.