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CrossPointe Community Church
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Chippewa Lake, OH 44215
SCRIPTURE
I look up to the mountains—
Psalm 121
does my help come from there?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth!
He will not let you stumble;
the One who watches over you will not slumber.
Indeed, He who watches over Israel
never slumbers or sleeps.
The Lord Himself watches over you!
The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade.
The sun will not harm you by day,
nor the moon at night.
The Lord keeps you from all harm
and watches over your life.
The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go,
both now and forever.
Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting Him, He endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now He is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne.
Hebrews 12:1-2
SERMON
The Upward Look
Randy K’Meyer
A Kindergarten teacher was observing her classroom of children while they drew. She would occasionally walk around to see each child’s artwork. As she got to one little girl who was working diligently, she asked what the drawing was. The girl replied, “I’m drawing a picture of God.”
The teacher paused and said, “But no one knows what God looks like.”
Without missing a beat, or looking up from her drawing, the girl replied, “They will in a minute.”
The little girl had her eyes set on God.
The same could be said of the writer of the 121st Psalm in the RSV: “I will lift up my eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help? My help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth” (Psalm 121:1).
In these first two verses of Psalm 121, the author is engaged in looking up from an earthly perspective to set his sights on God. And then through the rest of the Psalm he is encouraging you and I to emulate him as 10 times he employs the word, “you” or “your;” as in, “The Lord Himself watches over you” (5a) so lift up your eyes.
As we live out our lives on this 3rd rock from the son, working and playing, buying and selling, and striving and struggling, there is a temptation, a woeful tendency, a spiritual danger that our eyes will become glued to earthly things, that our focus will be fixed down here.
But the Psalmist reminds us we need to lift up the eyes of our souls and fix our gaze on heavenly things in what I am calling The Upward Look.
The Upward Look always provides proper perspectives on life.
For The Upward Look reminds us whose we are. “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth! (121:1b-2).
You ever get yourself in a rut? “You get up every morning from your alarm clock’s warning, take the 8:15 into the city?” 1 We get up, we go to work, we pay our dues, we come home again, do a little Spring yard work, eat dinner, watch a little telly, and go to bed day after day after day, year after year. But hey, we’re takin care of business, every day, taking care of business every way.” 2
And even on Sunday morning, it can be a hassle to get to church on time. And on the drive in, it’s tempting to be envious of the neighbor who we see out mowing the lawn or washing the car. And if we’re not careful, we’ll come in and sit down a little resentful that God is asking us for some of our time. Week in and week out, 52 weeks a year, year after year. But we put up with it because, that’s life, right?
The Psalmist would have us to lift up our eyes unto the hills, unto God, to seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; knowing that when we do, everything else will take on the proper perspective.
When I was about nine or ten years old, an old man came to the door of our house. My mother opened the door a few inches and we could see that his eyes were glassy and his unshaven face hadn’t been washed in a while. He held a wicker basket holding a few unappealing fruits and vegetables for sale. My mother was uneasy enough to make a quick purchase, probably to alleviate fear as well as pity. At some point we learned his name was Charlie Gilger, the garbage collector, who lived in a tiny garage-like structure tucked behind another house down the street.
Six years later I began working at the local Rexall Drug Store where Charlie was a regular visitor. I learned it wasn’t alcohol, but cataracts that marbleized his eyes. I also noticed that he often wore two mismatched shoes. One day he came into the store and said, “The Lord is so good! I came out of my house this morning and someone had dropped off found a bag full of shoes and some clothes at my door.”
The store owner Mel Scheck, who knew Charlie pretty well said something like, “That’s wonderful Charlie.”
“You know what’s even more wonderful?” Charlie asked, with his eyes set toward heaven. “Just yesterday, I met some folks who could really use them.”
God help us to regularly lift up our eyes unto God that He might help us see the world through His eyes. May He help us understand that this world and everything in it is passing away, that life is more than takin care of business in exchange for food and clothing, cars and houses and toys. As we take The Upward Look, may God remind us, as Paul did the Romans, “The Kingdom of God is not about what we eat or drink, but of living a life of goodness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (14:17-18).
Sometimes I wish that God would shake us up to realize these things, but He won’t because he doesn’t operate that way. He will wait, until with longing in our souls, we look up toward Him and cry out to Him in a prayer of desperation,
“Lord, help me to see life as You see it.”
The Psalmist is inviting us to lift up our eyes unto the hills because he knows it will bring a fresh perspective on life!
The Upward Look Leads to Hope.
Life is full of shadows. Shadows of doubt, shadows of all kinds of fear, shadows of grief, shadows of trouble, shadows of sickness, shadows of death. And there are certainly times in our lives when the shadows seem overwhelming, times when we give in to the tendency to wallow in the shadows. As God’s people, we must remember that if there is a shadow, it also means that there is a light shining. And that Jesus is that light!
I read about a mother and 6-year-old daughter who had finished shopping at Wal-Mart to discover that it was pouring down rain outside. Huge puddles had formed around the parked cars. And she and her mother and a handful of other folks stood there just inside the doors of the Wall Mart waiting for the rain to subside. Suddenly the little girl said, “Mom, let’s run through the rain.”
“No, honey; we’ll wait until it slows down a bit.”
This young child waited about another minute and repeated, “Come on Mom; let’s run.”
“We’ll get soaked if we do,” Mom said.
“That’s not what you said this morning.”
“When did I say we could run through the rain and not get wet?”
“When you were talking to Daddy about his kidney failure, you said, ‘If God can get us through this, He can get us through anything!’”
The entire crowd stopped dead silent. You couldn’t hear anything but the rain.
Mom paused and thought for a moment about what she would say for this was a moment of affirmation in a young child’s life, a time when innocent trust can be nurtured to bloom into faith and hope. “Honey, you are absolutely right; let’s run through the rain. If God lets us get wet, maybe we just needed washing.” Then off they ran. The rest stood watching, smiling and laughing as mother and daughter splashed through the puddles getting drenched before they even got to their car.
Somewhere down the road, that Mom will find herself reflecting back on those moments they spent together running through the rain. She will laugh again, and her heart will beat a little faster as she recalls that precious moment when they ran through the rain believing that God would get them through.
It is so true that in every life a little rain must fall. And sometimes it’s not just a little rain, sometimes it pours! Perhaps it’s pouring in your life right now. Yes, bad things do happen to good people, but that does not mean that God does not love you.
When the shadows of death and despair and gloom threaten to engulf us, let us not forget to “lift up our eyes to the Lord.” When you get the blues, when you are downhearted and discouraged, don’t look down, look up to the Lord.
As this Psalm reminds us, “The Lord himself watches over you! The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon at night” (5-6). And somehow by His grace we can keep on going no matter how long it rains.
The Psalmist is inviting us to, in an act of faith, lift up our eyes to the God “who causes all things to work for the good toward those who love Him and who are called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)
That last part about being called according to His purpose reminds us that The Upward Look can and does lead to salvation.
“The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever” (8). Forever implies being with God forever; in other words, salvation.
Jesus was talking about The Upward Look when, in John’s gospel, He said, “As Moses lifted up the bronze snake on a pole in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in Him will have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).
The Israelites had been set free from Egypt and were journeying to the Promised Land, when they sinned and rebelled against God. And in response, God sent judgment upon them by allowing poisonous snakes to bite many, many began to die. When the people cried out to Moses, Moses prayed to God, and God told Moses him to make a serpent out of bronze and to lift it high upon a pole. And the people were told that if they simply looked in faith at the serpent they would be healed.
Imagine yourself in your tent. The serpent has bitten you, and you know you are dying. Someone comes to your tent with the good news about the bronze serpent. So you drag yourself to the door of your tent and you look up, past yourself, past your circumstances to that object high on the pole. And as you do, you feel the healing power of God begin to surge through your body and you leap for joy!
And suddenly Jesus words make sense: “We have been bitten by temptation and have succumbed and now the poison of sin runs in our veins and we are dying. But God so loved us so much that He sent His only Son so that whoever in faith lifts up his eyes toward Him hanging on the cross will not die, but will live, and live forever.
Salvation comes when we look to the lifted up on a pole Christ, who hung there because He was paying the price for sin’s consequence: death. Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe.
Solomon Rosenberg, his wife, his 2 sons, and his mother and father were arrested and placed in a Nazi concentration camp during the Holocaust of WWII. It was a labor camp and the rules were simple: As long as you can do your work, you are permitted to live. When you become too weak to do your work, you will be exterminated. Rosenberg watched his mother and father marched off to their deaths when they became too weak to work. He knew that his youngest son, David, would be next because David had always been a frail child. Every evening when Rosenberg came back into the barracks, he would search for the faces of his family. When he found them, they would huddle together, embrace one another, and thank God for another day of life.
One day Rosenberg came back, but he didn’t see those familiar faces. He finally discovered his oldest son, Joshua, huddled in a corner weeping. He said, “Joshua, tell me it’s not true.”
Joshua turned and said, “It is true, Poppa. Today David was not strong enough to do his work, so they came for him.”
“But where is your mother?” asked Mr. Rosenberg.
“Oh Poppa,” he exclaimed, “When they came for David, he was crying and afraid. Momma said, ‘There is nothing to be afraid of, David,’ and then she took him by the hand and went with him.”
There are few things as strong as the love of a mother for her children; a love so strong that it would choose to give up life so her child can be comforted. That kind of mother love is an illustration of the love of Jesus for you and me.
“Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith,
who for the joy set before Him endured the cross” (Hebrews 12:1).
We ask, “What joy? Where can you see any joy in a cross?” Jesus looked beyond the cross, to an empty tomb. He lifted up His eyes to God in heaven and said, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit,” and Jesus trusted the One who had the power to take the sting, not only out of doubt and fear and grief and sickness and troubles, but even out of death!
So let us follow His lead and lift up our eyes to the hills and beyond; to the One who will gladly grant unto us a fresh perspective on life, a quickened hope that God holds all of our futures in His precious hands and a rock-solid confidence that the blood of Jesus is more than able to cleanse us from our sin and guarantee us a place in God’s eternity!
1 Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Takin Care of Business, 1973.
2 Ibid.