Set Your Eyes on the Right Place

There are mornings when you love God, when you walk with him, but you are frustrated. You look at your life, your problems, your struggles, your suffering, and you tell yourself: this isn't fair. Then you look around at people who do not love God, who do not walk with him, and who seem to have a great life. Something inside you whispers: what's the point of following God?

Pastor David Pothier preached this message from Psalm 73 at Nouvelle Vie church. He addresses three kinds of people: the one who loves God but is frustrated, the one who keeps himself pure and wonders if it's even worth it, and the one going through a crisis in his faith. In the Bible, Job went through a crisis because he had lost everything. Elijah went through a crisis because he was burned out. David went through several because of his enemies. Jeremiah went through one because obeying God's call cost him dearly. In Psalm 73, Asaph goes through a crisis of faith because his eyes were not set on the right place.

The title of the message is simple: set your eyes on the right place. Pay close attention to what you look at.

Outline of the message

1. God is good: the foundation you must never lose sight of

2. Asaph looks at the wicked and sinks into a distortion of reality

3. He hits bottom and sees his calling as a punishment

4. God's sanctuary changes his perspective

5. He rediscovers that God is faithful and sufficient

6. The call: set your eyes on God, a glory awaits you on the other side

1. God is good: the foundation you must never lose sight of

Asaph was a Levite, the worship leader of God's temple. He wrote twelve of the one hundred fifty psalms. He was a model for an entire nation, a spiritually strong man. Yet even the strongest among us can go through a crisis. The good news is that God sustained him through this crisis and brought him out of it victorious.

Asaph opens his private journal to us. And he begins with a declaration in verse 1: "Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart." Before recounting his fall, he lays the foundation. Life is hard, but God is good. If you are going through difficulties right now, never lose sight of God's goodness. Despite everything you are going through (discouragement, despair, distress, loneliness, maybe even depression), never lose sight of the fact that God is good.

God is good to those who are pure in heart. It takes a pure heart to see the goodness of God. Jesus said: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God." Having a pure heart is not about being perfect or never falling. It is about refusing to have two masters: you do not want to serve God and money, God and sex, God and power. You want only one master. It is not that God is not good to others (he is simply good), but only those who are pure in heart see his goodness. Without that purity, you can receive showers of grace without even noticing them.

If you have a pure heart right now, never lose it. Even if it costs you something, even if you find yourself alone, even if people mock you. It is not worth losing the purity of your heart just to stop seeing God. Seeing God is what gives the most life to your existence.

2. Asaph looks at the wicked and sinks into a distortion of reality

After laying that foundation, Asaph confesses in verse 2: "But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold." Israel's worship leader had come close to abandoning God altogether. Why? "For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked."

The verb see here, in Hebrew, does not mean a simple glance: Asaph fixed his attention on the wicked and could no longer stop looking at them. He saw them at work, on Instagram, on Snapchat, on TikTok, in high school, in college, at university, in Hollywood, on Netflix. The wicked seemed happy, and that was his problem.

Why does the person who does not love God seem happy? Why does the one who cheated on the exam get the best grade? Why does the one who lied on his resume get the promotion? Why does the wrong guy end up with the girl? Asaph falls into jealousy. His problem was not only that the wicked prospered, but that he could not stop looking at it.

If you set your eyes on people, if you put your hope in people, it is only a matter of time before you go through a serious crisis of faith. When you set your gaze on the wrong place, you start to experience a distortion of reality. You look at the wicked person's life and you see something that isn't there: as if he never had a problem, as if everything always went well for him.

That is exactly what happens to Asaph. In verses 4 through 12, he describes a life of the wicked that does not really exist: free of suffering until death, in perfect health, spared the common troubles of mankind, arrogant and proud of it, blaspheming without consequence, always at ease, piling up riches. It is not true that the wicked never suffer. It is not true that they are always healthy. "He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous." But because Asaph is not looking in the right place, he believes something is missing in his own life.

3. He hits bottom and sees his calling as a punishment

In verse 13, he crashes: "Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and washed my hands in innocence." Then in verse 14: "All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments."

Here we need to grasp what Asaph's daily life actually looked like. His mission was to go to the temple every morning, to be in God's presence and lead the people there. What an extraordinary privilege! King David himself wrote: "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere." David would have loved to have Asaph's calling. But because Asaph is not setting his eyes on the right place, he sees his privilege as a punishment.

That is what happens when you look at the wrong place. You will see your job as a punishment when it is a blessing. You will see being a parent as a punishment when it is a gift. You will see the commitments of marriage as a curse when, yes, you give up a measure of freedom, but you gain a husband or a wife.

Your calling is not a punishment. Your work is not a punishment. Your service at church is not a punishment. Getting up at five in the morning to take care of your children is hard, but it is not a punishment: it is a privilege. When you see blessings as punishments, it is because your eyes are not set on the right place.

In verse 16, Asaph tries to work his way out by rationalizing: "When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply." He tells God: If I don't understand, I can't obey. If I don't understand, I can't be faithful. That is a dead end.

4. God's sanctuary changes his perspective

Then comes the turning point, in verse 17: "Till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny."

When he was alone at home, brooding, Asaph could not see clearly. But when he arrived in the house of God, in the sanctuary, in God's presence, his perspective changed. In verses 18 through 20, he now sees the end of the wicked: "Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin. How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors! They are like a dream when one awakes."

In verses 21 and 22, he recognizes his own foolishness: "When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you." As long as he kept his eyes on the wicked and their prosperity, he was thinking like a foolish man. Once he arrived at the sanctuary, his eyes were set back on the right place and his reading of events changed completely.

If you are frustrated, tired, discouraged, overwhelmed, depressed, troubled, or anxious this morning, the question to ask yourself is simple: where are you looking? If you look at people, you will slide into envy and jealousy, and it will attack your faith. Do not be irritated at the wicked. Do not envy the wicked. The Bible does not ask you to approve of the wicked, only to stop setting your eyes on them.

Do not look at Hollywood celebrities. Do not look at influencers on Instagram. Do not even look at other Christians. Set your gaze on God.

5. He rediscovers that God is faithful and sufficient

In verse 23, Asaph makes a discovery: "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand." In his moment of crisis, in his moment of doubt, God was with him from beginning to end. God had never abandoned him. Verse 24: "You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory." Even when he was in the fog, God was leading him.

If you are suffering, if you are in confusion, if you are in frustration: stay close to him. Leave your hand in his, because on the other side a glory awaits you. "In all things God works for the good of those who love him." There is much needless suffering in this world, but for a believer, no suffering is ever wasted. In the end, good comes out of it.

Then come verses 25 through 28, one of the most beautiful passages in the Bible:

"Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

He did not begin the psalm this way. His eyes were fixed at eye level. Then, when he realized that God had been with him the whole time, his eyes lifted. "Whom have I in heaven but you?" There is not an angel, there is nothing that can compare. And the second half is even stronger: "Earth has nothing I desire besides you."

It is not that Asaph no longer loves anything on this earth: his family, his friends, a good meal. What he means is that the pleasure he finds in God is so much greater that everything else becomes secondary.

"My flesh and my heart may fail." The flesh is the physical: sickness, loss of strength, loss of independence. The heart is the emotional: discouragement, deep depression, the moments when you are not okay. But God is the strength of my heart and my portion. The portion was the land, the inheritance, something very concrete. Asaph is saying: God matters more than my possessions.

This is the language of the sufficiency of God: I did not get the job, but God is sufficient. This marriage did not turn out the way I thought, but God is sufficient. I do not have the physical or emotional health I would like, but God is sufficient. My bank account is empty, but God is sufficient. I don't have the apartment, the house, the job, the friends, the promotion I would like: but God is sufficient.

Nothing changed in Asaph's situation between the beginning and the end of the psalm. His perspective, on the other hand, changed completely, because instead of setting his eyes on people, he set them on God.

6. The call: set your eyes on God, a glory awaits you on the other side

David Pothier closes with a warning and a memory. The warning: for a long time, Asaph went to the temple without truly being in the temple. He was in the house of God without being in the presence of God, because his mind was elsewhere, with the wicked, envying them.

Do not make the same mistake. Why are you at church this morning? Not to look at people, but to look at God. Not to dwell on your disappointments and frustrations (you were chosen or you weren't, you were accepted or you weren't), but to lift your eyes to God. It is a fight. You have to fight for that presence.

Then comes the memory. At a Christmas dinner, David Pothier met Stephane, a man who had just lost his wife to cancer after only two months of marriage. They had fought the illness together for a few years. Childless, quickly separated. That evening, everyone was singing songs of praise, and Stephane, from his own pit, was singing too. He was fighting. He no longer had what he loved most, what he cherished most. But he was lifting his eyes. Whom have I in heaven but you? Earth has nothing I desire besides you.

If you are in that wilderness today, if you are in Psalm 73: set your eyes on the right place. Do not let your eyes linger on the wicked. Set your eyes on the Lord. Does it actually pay to be pure? Oh yes it does. Does it actually pay to walk with God? Oh yes it does. You do not always see it in the moment, but it is always worth it to obey God. There is not a single time when God asks you for something difficult that will not pay off.

Do not lose your pure heart. Blessed is the one who is pure in heart, for they will see God. It is not worth it to stop seeing God. Set your eyes on the right place, set your eyes on the Lord: a glory awaits you on the other side.

Points to remember

• Your situation may not change, but your perspective can change if you shift your gaze.
• Looking at people, at influencers, or at the wicked who seem to be succeeding creates a distortion of reality. Looking at God puts things back in their proper place.
• A pure heart is not perfection: it is the refusal to have two masters.
• Your calling, your work, your family, your service are not a punishment. They are privileges that turn into burdens when your gaze slips.
• God is faithful: even in your crisis, he holds your right hand. God is sufficient: when everything else is missing, he remains the strength of your heart.

Personal application

• Today, where do your eyes settle most often: on God, on yourself, or on those who seem to have succeeded better without him?
• What accounts, channels, or people feed jealousy or a distortion of reality in you? Are you ready to stop looking at them?
• Is there a privilege in your life (your work, your children, your marriage, your service at church) that you currently see as a punishment? What would happen if you changed your perspective?
• What do you want to say to God like Asaph in verse 23: "Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand." How has God been faithful in your crisis?
• Can you complete this sentence: "I do not have ______, but God is sufficient"?

Verses cited

• Psalm 73 - Asaph's psalm, the base text of the message
• Matthew 5:8 - "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God."
• Psalm 84:10 - "Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere."
• Romans 8:28 - "In all things God works for the good of those who love him."
• Matthew 5:45 - "He sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

FAQ

Who is Asaph, the author of Psalm 73?

Asaph was a Levite, worship leader in God's temple. He wrote twelve of the one hundred fifty psalms in the Bible. A spiritual model for all Israel, he nonetheless went through a deep crisis of faith that this psalm tells us like a private journal.

Why does the righteous person suffer while the wicked prosper?

Asaph admits this observation nearly made him fall. It was only by entering God's sanctuary that he understood two things: the final fate of the wicked, who slide toward ruin, and God's lasting faithfulness, which holds the believer's right hand even in the thick of the fog.

What does "having a pure heart" mean in Psalm 73?

It is not being perfect or never falling, but refusing to have two masters. A pure heart does not want to serve God and money, God and sex, God and power. It wants only one master. It is this undivided heart that sees the goodness of God, here and now.