Turn your eyes to the merciful master

Keep your eye on the ball. Keep your eyes on the road. Keep your eyes on the prize. Fix your eyes on the horizon. Step back and look at the big picture. We have lots of phrases in our language that refer to keeping your eyes fixed on the right thing. Because it’s easy to recognize that whatever thing it is that you’re looking at and whatever it is you're focusing on is going to be what you move towards. It’s going to be the thing that directs you. We sing a wonderful hymn called “Turn your eyes upon Jesus”. When you look at Jesus, he becomes the one you’re focused on and the one you’re moving towards. 

Now why do we need to be reminded to look at the right thing all the time? Why do we have to be told to keep our eye on the ball? It’s because we’re so prone to distraction. Everything in the world is trying to grab our eyes. Billboards, ads, little jingles, our news feeds, the endless clips on social media. In addition to these there’s also our troubles, our anxieties, the worries that we have when we close our eyes in bed at night, our ever lengthening to do list, our jobs, our boss’s expectations of  us. Everything is saying “Look at me, look at me”. 

And so often we’re all caught. These other things catch our eyes. We look at them and they grab our focus. And as a result, we find ourselves worn down, beaten up, fearful, discontent, and we’re incredibly needy. We turn our eyes to the wrong thing and we end up in need of mercy. Our psalm today is a call to turn our eyes back to the right place and instead of receiving exhaustion from what we look at, we can receive mercy.

Main Point – Turn your eyes to the merciful master

Prayer

Our psalm is very short today, but don’t get too excited. It doesn’t mean the sermon will be shorter. We’re going to start at the end of the psalm as we do occasionally, because I want us to see what it is we need to look away from, before I talk about who we should look towards.

Point #1 – Turn your eyes away from the proud (vs. 3-4)

READ VS 3-4

     Our goal will be to look at the Lord by the end of this morning. But if we’re going to look to the Lord, it will be helpful to recognize what our eyes are on currently. It’s a little bit like in a movie when a scared character is trying to cross a rickety bridge high above a precipice. They’re looking down, but the brave character in front of them says, “Don’t look down! Look at me!” For many of us today, our eyes are looking down at the danger and this psalm helps expose why down is the wrong place to look.

     Nonetheless looking down is what catches our eyes day in and day out. We have two people identified here who tend to hold our gaze who we will have to look away from: those who are at ease and the proud. Now, that’s an unusual person to hold your gaze. Is there some sort of historical context or situation that the psalmist is referring to here? Does the Bible tell us the name of these proud people or the people who are at ease? Unfortunately, no it doesn’t. They are just described here as generic enemies of God’s people. So who are we supposed to be imagining here and who is it that our eyes are looking to right now? I think it's simply anyone who mocks obedience to God.

     The author of our psalm is being mocked. He’s being scorned is the word used here. Others are treating them with contempt. Contempt is an interesting word. I read one place that defined contempt as the attitude of “I’m better than you. And you are lesser than me.” Our psalmist is being more than just teased here. He’s being treated as an absolute fool. He’s being told, “You’re no good. You’ll never be any good. Everyone else is better than you. Everyone else is doing something that matters and you are wasting your time on nonsense. All the work that you’re doing will amount to nothing.”

You can see how hearing this message time and time again would crush someone. The author says, we’ve had more than enough scorn and we’ve had more than enough contempt. This wasn’t a message he heard once or twice, it seems to be the very air of the culture around him. Sun up to sundown. “You’re no good.” If his eyes are turned towards the proud, I don’t think it’s an intentional turning. I don’t think he was thinking to himself “Which voice would I like to listen to today? How about the one filled with contempt!” But if it’s loud, and it’s repeated, and it’s right in front of you, then it’s hard to not let it capture your attention.

     I’m not sure how many of you have a voice like this capturing your attention right now. Maybe it’s the mocking voice of that one crazy guy at work, but if he were the only one saying it, it would be much easier to ignore. There are some here who are hearing this voice from the people that should love you. Sadly, there are many parents speaking this way to their children. “You won’t amount to anything.” There are siblings who talk to one another like this - “Who do you think you are? Do you think you’re so holy?” Perhaps worst of all there are spouses who speak with one another with this sort of contempt. “You never get anything right. You’re pathetic.” It’s even possible that Satan is speaking with scorn towards you. He’s constantly telling you, “You’re too sinful. God could never be pleased with you.” The reason contempt is so destructive isn’t necessarily because it’s false. It could be true that you have done something very poorly or that you have sinned greatly. But contempt communicates the idea that you have no value and are not worth loving. It communicates that your significance is wrapped up in your performance and you are not measuring up.

How do you battle something like that? How can you turn your eyes away from that sort of message and keep it from seeping into your heart and destroying you? We’ll talk about what you ought to do in just a moment, but there’s certainly one thing you ought not to do. Don’t try to silence the voice by proving yourself. “Oh you think I’m no good? Well, I’ll show you how great I am! I’m going to earn your approval”. I will tell you in advance that you are fooling yourself if that’s your strategy to gain worth.

     How many movies have told us that’s the way to gain respect and feel valued? They all feature that down and out character who no one thinks will amount to anything, but then they work super hard, usually there’s a montage, and they become the greatest ever and earn everyone’s respect!  

     We laugh at the absurdity of that, but many of us are working harder in life to either prove to someone else that we’re valuable or to prove it to ourselves. But it’s a false hope. Because if we’re convinced that our efforts will make us significant, then one of two things will happen. We’ll either never accomplish our goals and always feel pathetic or we’ll successfully accomplish our goals and we’ll start to treat other people like they’re pathetic. You’ll become the one who looks down on others with contempt, “I got my life together, why can’t they?” But either way, you lose and are a slave to contempt. The attempt to earn favor or work hard enough to gain significance is futile. 

     So what then do we do? How do we turn our eyes away from the proud?

Point #2 – Turn your eyes to the one who is merciful (vs. 2)

READ VS 2

Ok, a lot to observe here. Let me just point a few things out and then we’ll talk about what they mean. First we see the image of servants and masters. The author states that he looks to the Lord with the same eyes that a servant looks to his master. And as the eyes of a maidservant to her mistress. Mistress here is simply the female form of master. That is not the way we commonly use mistress today, but that’s what’s meant here. And I think he mentions both male and female servants because he’s mentioning the specific people in the home who would have the absolute lowest status. You can’t get lower on the home’s social ladder than the maidservant. And he says, that’s what I am. 

Now this is a fascinating thing to concede. Because just a moment ago, the proud person with contempt for him was saying, “You’re a nobody and you’re beneath me.” And now the author is essentially saying, “I’m a nobody and I’m beneath you God.” His solution again isn’t to fight to prove his value, but rather to accept his lowly status. Yet instead of letting the proud try to humble him, he’s going to come humbly before his master.

The next observation we can make is that the eyes of the servants aren’t looking at the master’s eyes or his face . Instead, they’re  looking at the master’s hand. This means he’s expecting his master to act. He knows his master is going to do something in response to his request. He’s looking expectantly and he’s looking persistently. Notice the end of verse 2, “til he has mercy upon us”. I’m going to keep looking at my master and keep looking at him and keep looking at him until he does something because I know that he will.

     The last observation we’ll make on this verse and the most significant, is that the master serves the servant. What does the servant do here in this psalm? He does nothing. He’s not serving his master. He’s not helping his master. He’s not making his life better or easier in any way. The only thing the servant does is look to the master and call out for help. And the master is expected to give it. That’s backwards right? Don’t masters usually call out to their servants and get help from them? But what could we possibly have that God needs? Does he need our help? No, he’s quite capable of doing whatever he wants without us. Does he need our money? No! Does he need our love? No, he’s quite content without it.  The Apostle Paul summarized this pretty well for us:

     The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. - Acts 17:24-25

     So what’s the point of having servants at all if you don’t need anything from them? And if honestly, they can’t help you in any way? Here is an enormous truth from the Bible and one that is difficult to grasp, but can change the way you interact with God entirely: The way that you best serve God is by allowing God to use you as an instrument for showing his mercy. God wants to display his glory to the world. He wants to show his mercy to the world. And the way you can serve him is by being someone he can show mercy to so that he can receive greater glory.

     Let me state this all again because it’s a big truth. God’s greatest end, his goal in all of human history, the reason he created us and planet Earth is to receive glory. He wants to put his greatness on display for the whole universe. We are a means to that end. If you look throughout the Bible over and over God says, the reason I’m going to act is for the sake of my name. I will not give my glory to anyone else. So the reason God is gracious to you is so that he will receive more glory. Paul says this explicitly in 2 Corinthians:

     "As grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God." 

- 2 Corinthians 4:15

     He wants to receive glory, so he shows you grace and mercy. Now at first glance, you might think to yourself, I don’t like that. That makes God seem selfish. It makes him seem vain. It makes him seem almost manipulative that he’s just using us to get glory. But consider this, if God is the greatest, most glorious, and most loving being in the universe, infinitely greater than everything else, then the most loving thing he can do for us is draw our attention towards him. “Stop looking at your idols. Stop looking at things that can’t help you. Stop looking at things that are just a vapor and will vanish soon. Stop looking at  your circumstances. Stop looking at those who are proud. Stop listening to the voice that’s telling you you’re worthless. Stop looking at any of those and look at me.”

     Again, he wants us to look at him, because he wants to show us mercy. 

And “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.”

     We can look to his hand expectantly. We can look knowing that it’s not a chore for him to act towards us. It’s what he wants to do! We can look persistently. It’s not a matter of if he’s going to have mercy on us. It’s simply a matter of when. Showing mercy is what God does. Showing mercy is part of his very character. The reason we exist as his servants isn’t so that we can do lots of stuff for him. We exist so that he can display his mercy towards us.

     Let’s put this into some real world scenarios. What does this look like day-to-day? Let’s say there’s someone at work that is just driving you insane. They might be your boss. They might be your coworker, but they are just horrible to work with. It’s so bad that you dread every Monday morning going to work because you’ll have to see this person again. Your stomach is in knots. Your anger is flaring up before walking in the door. Then you are the person this psalm is talking about. 

“Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,

    for we have had more than enough of contempt.”

     You are not in your situation because God has abandoned you. You are not there because he has forgotten about you. He wants to give you grace so that you can see his glory. You are there because he has positioned you in just the right spot to see his glory. It’s like the painful climb to the top of a tall mountain because that’s the most glorious view of the sunrise. When he acts, you’ll see his goodness.

     This could be said similarly of your health being on the decline or your relationships deteriorating. This isn’t God abandoning you. This is him placing you at just the right position so you will see how glorious he is. “Well that seems quite rude. He’s awful to me so that I’ll think more of him?” But displaying the greatest amount of his glory to you is the best way to finally get your eyes to turn to him and away from everything else.

     Ok, so he’s going to show us his glory. I’ve called out to him for mercy. What’s he going to do? How is he going to show me mercy? Am I going to be freed from my pain? Will my hardships disappear? Is God going to actually do the things I’m asking him to do? Here we want to remember our final point.

Point #3 – He is the master, not us (vs. 1)

READ VS 1

     You’ll notice the very obvious reference to God being the king here. It says he is enthroned in the heavens. Kings are enthroned. He is over all things. And this of course is why the author of our psalm turns to him. If you are being attacked, abused, and oppressed by someone, and you need to find a way to deal with it, you’ve got a choice - take matters into your own hands or turn to someone else who has authority. We spoke just a moment ago about how taking matters into your own hands is a poor choice, so instead the Bible calls us to turn our eyes to the king. He’s the one who’s going to have mercy. But what will that look like? Will he deliver me from this rude coworker by having them leave and get a new job? Will they suddenly come and apologize to me for all the wrongs I’ve faced? Will he deliver me from illness by miraculously healing me the way that I’ve been asking? Will he show mercy by repairing my relationships that are struggling?

Here it’s important to remember that God is the one on the throne and not us. He is the one with all the wisdom and not us. He knows the best way to display his mercy to us and to a watching world and not us. We don’t get to pick how he shows us his mercy. We don’t get to tell him what he ought to do. He’s the master. We are not.

     On Wednesday nights, we’ve been studying the minor prophets. Recently one of the prophets we studied was Habakkuk. And Habakkuk is surrounded by wickedness and violence and he’s calling out to God repeatedly for help, but he feels like God’s not listening or doing anything. He accuses God of being idle. But God responds to Habakkuk with these words:

“I am doing a work in your days

    that you would not believe if told.” - Habakkuk 1:5

“Look Habakkuk, I know what I’m doing. I’m in charge here. You don’t get to tell me what I ought or ought not do. I’m working in ways that are so far above you that you wouldn’t even understand them if I tried to explain them to you.” 

You might be familiar with the famous verse from Isaiah:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.” - Isaiah 55:8-9

We don’t know how to run things. We’re not the master. We don’t get to tell him what he’s supposed to do. And why not? Because despite how highly we might think of ourselves and our own wisdom, we are in no way qualified to be in charge of the universe. He is the one who is enthroned in the heavens, not us.

Let me give you one more. Paul tells us that the greatest wisdom of man doesn’t hold a candle to God’s wisdom.

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men… But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong… so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” - 1 Corinthians 1: 25, 27, 31

God is intentionally undermining what we think is wise so that he can prove his wisdom is greater and again draw glory away from ourselves and on to him. 

     This is a hard pill to swallow. Because we feel like we’re very intimately acquainted with our own problems. And thus we are the ones who know what we need the most. If we had all the powers of God for just 60 seconds, we’re convinced we could just swap a few things around, change a few people’s hearts and then everything would be great. Our life would be so much better and happier. But would God get the glory? Or would you get the glory? Would you boast in him or boast in yourself?

     God has always acted in ways that we would never predict. He acts in ways that we in our miniscule wisdom would never ask him to. And the absolute greatest example of that is Jesus Christ. In fact, in the verses we just read from 1 Corinthians, that’s what Paul was talking about. He’s saying doesn’t the cross sound foolish? Doesn’t it sound outrageous that God would come and die to solve the world’s problems? Doesn’t it seem to make no sense that in order to exalt himself above all the world he would allow himself to get beaten and mocked and tortured? God doesn’t act in ways that we would expect.

If we were in charge of the salvation plan, we probably would have said, “It’s simple - be good and go to heaven, be bad and go to hell.” And when our 60 seconds of being God were up we’d pat ourselves on the back and praise our own great wisdom. And then every human ever including ourselves would end up in hell because we’re all bad and because the punishment for each of our sins would still need to be paid for. But praise God that he’s the master not us. In his wisdom and in his love, he arranges the cross. The plan where he dies for humanity, paying the penalty for their sin, but also where he rises from the dead and defeats death. The unfathomably wise plan where anyone who trusts in Christ and not in our own wisdom and works will receive mercy. As the one enthroned in the heavens, he gives mercy in his way and he receives the glory for. We boast in him and not in ourselves.

So when you cry out to God for mercy, when you find yourself saying “Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us, for we have had more than enough of contempt,” I don’t know how he will respond. I don’t know what kind of deliverance he will provide. But that’s because we don’t get to determine how he shows us his mercy. He’s the master not us. But he’ll certainly do it in a way that he receives the glory.

     Our eyes are constantly wandering away from him and away from his glory. We get distracted by other voices. We hear countless lies being told to us about us and about God. Pray that God would turn your eyes away from those. Pray that he would turn our eyes towards him, the one who is merciful and the one who is the master.