SERIES: Songs of Ascents
TEXT: Psalm 123
MESSAGE: “Looking Above Your Circumstances”
“Why do you tell me of this and that outward comfort, when I cannot see his face whom my soul loves? Why, my honour is not my Christ, nor riches is not Christ, nor the favour of the creature is not Christ; let me have him, and let the men of this world take the world, and divide it amongs themselves; I prize my Christ above all, I would enjoy my Christ above all other things in the world; his presence will make up the absence of all other comforts, and his absence will darken and embitter all my comforts; so that my comforts will neither taste like comforts, nor look like comforts, nor warm like comforts, when he that should comfort my soul stands afar off (Lam. 1. 16)…We have all things in Christ, and Christ is all things to a Christian. If we be sick, he is a physician; if we thirst, he is a fountain; if our sins trouble us, he is righteousness; if we stand in need of help, he is mighty to save; if we fear death, he is life; if we be in darkness, he is light; if we be weak, he is strength; if we be in poverty, he is plenty; if we desire heaven, he is the way.“ — Thomas Brooks
“The psalm begins with an anonymous individual expressing his personal dependence on God (v. 1), before shifting to plural, expressing a corporate dependence on God (vv. 2–4). The shift from “I” to “we” may indicate that a king or a leader, such as Nehemiah, or a worship leader, like a Levite, could have originally written this psalm…It also fits various times of Israel’s history, such as Hezekiah’s reign. Regardless, it’s clearly a prayer of the community of faith.” — Daniel L. Akin
Q: How can we look above our present circumstances? By looking to (1. The Heavens 2. The Hand 3. The Humble)
- The Heavens (v. 1)
“To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!”
“Just one lift of the head makes all the difference. Look up when others look down on you! When you do, you may be able not merely to tolerate your enemies, but like Stephen and our Lord Jesus, even show mercy to them (Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60, also Matt 5:43–44).”
— Daniel L. Akin
- The Hand (v. 2)
“Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us.”
“If the traveller in Psalm 121 had to learn to look higher than the hills, this sufferer, even more hemmed in, has won the same victory. His words, soaring above his circumstances, set his troubles in a context large enough to contain them. God, enthroned in the heavens, ‘does whatever he pleases’ (115:3), and his faithful love and wisdom are equally beyond our calculating (36:5; Isa. 55:9).” — Derek Kidner
“They have refused to ease the strain of waiting for God by renouncing him, or to buy off ‘the contempt of the proud’ by joining them.“ — Derek Kidner
- The Humble (v. 3-4)
“Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt. 4 Our soul has had more than enough of the scorn of those who are at ease, of the contempt of the proud.”
“Contempt is irritation directed at a person you feel is at a lower status. It involves disrespect. It usually includes cutting words (e.g., condescending words, name-calling, damaging words) that can break a person’s spirit. It could involve an attitude of disgust or an attitude of cool dismissal to go along with those words…To be looked on with contempt means to be the object of ridicule, to become a laughingstock.”
— Daniel L. Akin
- The way of the proud (worldly, temporary)
“The abbot (priest) in Melancthon lived strictly…and looked humbly…but when…he got to be abbot, he grew intolerably proud and insolent; and being asked the reason of it, confessed, That his former lowly look was but to see if he could find the keys of the abbey.”
— Thomas Brooks
- The way of the humble (supernatural, eternal)
“True grace will enable a man to step over the worlds crown, to take up Christ’s cross; to prefer the cross of Christ above the glory of this world…Oh! but temporary grace cannot work the soul to prefer Christ’s cross above the world’s crown; but when these two meet, a temporary Christian steps over Christ’s cross to take up, and keep up, the world’s crown.”
— Thomas Brooks
“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he made his home in the promised land like a stranger in a foreign country; he lived in tents, as did Isaac and Jacob, who were heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God.”
— Hebrews 11:8-10
TAKEAWAYS: How do we keep going?
- Remember who is on the throne
“Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, 24 knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ.” — Colossians 3:23-24
“If you have been given authority—whether as a parent, a teacher, a government official, or a small group leader—it is something God gave to you (Daniel 4:17), and God holds you fully responsible for what you do with it (Deuteronomy 17:18–20). You now must, as much as possible, represent him in your leadership.”
— Timothy Keller
- Remember who is continually working
“God is too good to be unkind and He is too wise to be mistaken. And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” — Charles Spurgeon
- Remember who is able to relate
“To you I lift up my eyes, O you who are enthroned in the heavens!” Psalm 123:1