What Do You Seek? Seeking the Beauty of the Lord in Psalm 27

Praying in the School of the Psalms

What Do You Seek?

Psalm 27:1-14

August 2, 2026

Theme verses: Psalm 27:4, 8, 13-14

A sermon preached by Russell Smith

at Madeira Silverwood Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.

We have finished Sabbath month, and now we are moving into a new series for August: learning to pray in the school of the Psalms. The Psalms are the ancient hymnbook of Israel, but they are also its ancient prayer book. They were frequently on Jesus' lips, frequently on Paul's lips, and frequently on the lips of the early Christian believers. In them we are given words for prayer - words for crying out to God and offering our lives to Him. Across all 150 Psalms, we move from giddy joy to the depths of despair, from wrath to comfort, through the whole range of human emotion. The Psalms teach us how to bring our inner world and our inner experience to the Lord, and how to be changed and transformed as we go to Him.

Today we turn to Psalm 27, asking the central question, What do you seek? Before the Psalm asks that question, though, it begins with a life situation and a different question: Whom shall I fear?

David is surrounded by enemies. He says, 'The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?' Then he describes the pressure: 'When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besiege me, my heart will not fear; though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.'

David's setting is military and political. As we read the epic of First and Second Samuel, we see that David had many enemies, many adversaries, and many seasons of confrontation. But how do we hear this Psalm as Christians in the twenty-first century, after Christ has come, risen, and sent the Holy Spirit into our hearts? Christ tells us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. Other human beings are not our enemies; Christ is transforming them into people we are called to love, pray for, and have compassion on.

Yet Scripture tells us that we do have enemies. Paul gives the translation in Ephesians: 'Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.' These are the intangibles, the immaterial spiritual forces that war against our souls - forces that assail us, seek to crush us, derail our hearts, lead us into dark places, and undermine our walk with Christ.

A wonderful picture of this comes from Edmond Rostand’s play Cyrano de Bergerac. It is a rip-roaring, swashbuckling tale: plumed hats, capes, rapiers, daring-do. Cyrano is a magnificent swordsman, the best in France, and also a comic hero marked by his enormous nose. Toward the end of the play, an adversary arranges for a rock to be dropped on Cyrano's head. He comes onstage wounded and delirious, draws his sword, and begins to fight enemies whom no one else can see. 'You there - who are you? A hundred against one, eh? I know them now, my ancient enemies.'

Who are Cyrano's ancient enemies? Not the Germans or the English, not some general or politician. He names them: 'Falsehood! There! There! Prejudice! Compromise! Cowardice! What's that? Surrender? No! Never! Never! Ah, you too, Vanity? I knew you would overthrow me in the end. No! I fight on! I fight on! I fight on!' Cyrano understands that his deepest enemies are inward enemies, the spiritual forces that seek to twist the heart toward cowardice, compromise, and self-aggrandizement.

In light of that, let me ask you: What are your ancient enemies? What are the spiritual forces that seek to steer you away and unmake you? Self-indulgence? Pride? Judgment? Cynicism? Mockery? Apathy? Wrath? Sensuality? Escapism? Jadedness? Contempt? I cannot answer that for you. In the quiet places, in the quiet hours of the night when you cannot sleep, what are the forces that circle around you and seek to undermine your heart, your life, and your soul?

Psalm 27 teaches us not to fear those enemies, but it does so by asking another question: What do you seek?

The fascinating thing is that David does not first seek relief. He does not make his first request the vanquishing of his enemies, their removal from his life, or even safety. Instead, he says: 'One thing I ask from the LORD, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the LORD and to seek him in his temple.'

Later the Psalm says, 'My heart says of you, "Seek his face!" Your face, LORD, I will seek. Do not hide your face from me; do not turn your servant away in anger; you have been my helper. Do not reject me or forsake me, God my Savior.' The antidote to fear, the strong tower to which we run, is not escape from our enemies but transformation by what we gaze upon. The vision of the Beloved changes us. It is the vision that draws us forward - the beatific vision.

This is intuitively true. If you fixate your attention on an enemy, you make that enemy stronger. If you give your imagination continually to the inward force you are combating, you give it strength and power. But when you fixate your attention on the Lord, you are changed by the vision. We become what we gaze upon. David is praying: Let me behold the beauty of the Lord. Let me seek His face. Let the vision of redeemed and restored creation so strengthen my heart and fill me that I need not be afraid of anything else.

Where have you encountered that vision of the Lord, that vision of completeness? The classic ideas of truth, goodness, and beauty point us toward God. All truth, all goodness, and all beauty come from Him. When we experience them, we receive a hint of that heavenly reality, a heavenly taste. Some of us encounter it in music - losing ourselves in the song, in the voices and their blending, and receiving a sense of transport. Some encounter it in the wideness of God's creation, seeing the thumbprints of the Creator on the universe. Some experience it through art, through service, through prayer, and above all through Scripture. We see dimly now, but that glimpse draws us onward in hope toward the day when we will see with clarity, face to face.

For me, one of the wonderful literary illustrations comes from Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy. Everybody reads the Inferno; fewer people make it through Purgatorio and into Paradiso. Yet Paradiso is magnificent. Dante travels through hell and purgatory with the Roman poet Virgil, but in Paradise he is guided by Beatrice, the woman he loved in life. The cantos move from one level of heaven to another, and then, in the final chapters, Dante reaches what is called the Empyrean vision.

At that point his perspective changes, rather like one of those three-dimensional pictures where suddenly reality shifts and a new way of seeing swims into view. He takes in the whole cosmos: the saints and angels arrayed around the triune God, light radiating from God into the saints and reflecting back to God in praise. Dante describes it as an eternally blooming rose, a rose reverberating with goodness, light, and beauty. Gustave Dore's 1871 illustration tries to render the scene, with Dante and Beatrice gazing upon the heavenly hosts gathered around the triune living God.

Dante's vision matters because he must return to ordinary life. He wrote as an exile from his beloved Florence, without a home or family to which he could return, living on the kindness of strangers. He had to come down from the mountain of that beatific vision and keep living amid spiritual foes. The composition of the Divine Comedy was healing for him, and the vision gave him strength for the living of the rest of his life.

That is the practical effect of the beatific vision. It is not being so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly use. In fact, those who are most heavenly minded are often of the most earthly use, because they see the strength that carries them through the struggles and travails of life. David gazes upon the beauty of the Lord, but then he returns to daily life and prays, 'Teach me your way, LORD; lead me in a straight path because of my oppressors.' He is ready to face his enemies because he has been strengthened by this heavenly vision.

The Psalm continues: 'Do not turn me over to the desire of my foes, for false witnesses rise up against me, spouting malicious accusations. I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living. Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.' David has seen the goodness, grace, and glory of God. The truths of eternity wash back into the present and give strength for living today. The vision of the beauty of the Lord gives us strength for today.

What do you seek? Comfort? Security? Wealth? Accolades? Or do you seek to be transformed by an eternal vision? Every time we come to worship, we have an opportunity to seek that vision. Every time we sit with God's Word in the morning or evening, we have an opportunity to seek it. And every time we come to the Lord's Table, we have an opportunity to seek that transforming vision.

The Table invites us into a holy imagination, a kind of spiritual double vision. It is a little slice of bread and a little cup of juice, and yet by faith we learn to see the body and blood of Christ nourishing us. We see the spiritual realities that undergird material reality. We see the beauty of the Lord, the graciousness of the Lord, and the power of the Lord made manifest in bread and cup. Behold, brothers and sisters, with the spiritual imagination you have been given, the beauty of the Lord. Come and be nourished by it.

Questions to Consider

Which ancient enemies most often seek to undermine your heart, life, and soul?

What beauty, goodness, or truth gives you a glimpse of the Lord and draws you toward Him?

Where might you seek that transforming vision this week: in worship, Scripture, prayer, creation, art, service, or at the Lord's Table?