In this chapter, Peterson says that as a person grows and matures in the Christian way, it is necessary to acquire certain skills.  One of those skills is service.  Psalm 123 is a Psalm about service.

When most of us hear about service, we think about doing something for someone else.  However, Psalm 123 is not about that kind of service.  This Psalm is about our service to God.  This service to God is a difficult skill to develop because it runs counter to our human nature.  We are taught that we should be free.  From a patriotic stand point we celebrate the freedoms we have in this country.  However, our developing relationship with God demands that we be subservient to Him.

At the beginning of the Psalm, God is referred to as “heaven-dwelling” God.  We look up to God for help.  Too many times we are guilty of either looking at God or even looking down on God.  As we look up to Him, we assume the posture of a servant.  Too many times we may look upon God as our servant.  Someone who is  standing by to respond to our beck and call when we are too tired to do something or something is too hard for us to do and we need help.

God is a heaven-dwelling God that we must look up to and once we look up to God we are in a posture of servitude.  However, what happens when we look up to God? The Psalm tells us very plainly what to expect.  We expect, and receive, mercy.  The idea of mercy means that the upward look to God in the heavens does not expect God to stay in that heaven, but He will come down, enter our condition to accomplish the enterprise of His redemption.  As servants of God, what we expect to come from that sevitude is simple, we expect mercy.

The third aspect of service is an urgency.  We have been kicked around and we have been abused.  We need God’s mercy and the Psalm is a part of the literature of outcry, a longing for deliverance from oppression.

Although we do long to be free, we are really slaves.  Not many of us act or feel free.  We are a nation of complainers.  I can’t spend my money to way I want.  I can’t spend my time the way I want.  I can’t be myself.  My life is controlled by others.  There are many addicts today.  Some are addicts to alcohol and drugs, while others are addicts to compulsive work habits, obsessive consumption or recognition.  We all have our masters.  We all are servants of something.  The Christian is a person who recognizes that our real problem is not in achieving freedom but in learning service under a different master.  Every relationship that excludes God becomes oppressive.  Knowing that, we urgently want to live under the mastery of God.

This service we offer to god through our worship will be extended into specific acts that serve others.  As we learn a relationship of service to God, we become available to be of use to others in acts of service.  If the  attitude of service is learned, by attending to God as Lord, then serving others will develop as a very natural way of life.

The Psalm moves from oppression ( “kicked in the teeth by complacent rich men”) to freedom ( “awaiting your words of mercy”) to a new servitude (” like servants, alert to their master’s commands”).

The chapter includes a quote from Karl Barth who said, ” Service is an act whose glory becomes increasingly greater to the extent that the doer is not concerned about his own glory but about the glory of the other.”

The Christian must learn about service.  Service to God first and then extend to others.