Lord, we've not come to church just to check something off our schedule.
We've come together to meet with you.
And we pray that you would meet with us.
Lord, we pray that you would speak through your word today.
Speak powerfully by the power of your Holy Spirit.
Would you speak through your word?
Would you speak through me?
And would you convict our hearts?
Would you encourage us?
Would you help us to get to know you more?
That we might more perfectly love you and be more completely devoted to you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
So please be seated and please turn, if you have your bowels with you, to Psalm 88.
A couple months ago, I had the privilege of meeting up with a neighbor to talk about how he's doing.
He's going through some really hard stuff.
And he shared with me that it's been a whole bunch of months, maybe even a few years since he's prayed.
Because when he was trying to pray, the words would come out angry, dark, despairing.
And so, as he would try to start out with happy prayers and they would turn dark, his voice grew quiet, his words became few, and he stopped praying altogether.
And I sat there at the coffee shop in my neighborhood with him, thinking about how to reply, how to encourage him.
I could have shared with him Jeremiah 29, 11.
You know, for I know the plans I have for you to declare to the Lord.
Plans of, you know, plans of, et cetera.
Out of context, but we can do that.
Or I could try to share Proverbs 3, verse 5 and 6.
Trust in the Lord with all your heart.
Lean not on your own understanding.
Et cetera.
We all have these verses, some of them out of context, some of them in context that can be encouraging.
But in God's goodness, that morning I read Psalm 88.
And so, that is what I shared with him.
And we proceeded to wrestle through what we can learn from this dark psalm.
And what emerged from our conversation is the basis of the sermon today.
And just as I read it with him that morning, so also we'll read it again right now.
Psalm 88, a song, a psalm of the sons of Korah to the choir master, according to Mahalak Lenoth,
a mascal of Haman the Ezraite.
O Lord God of my salvation, I cry out day and night before you.
Let my prayer come before you.
Incline your ear to my cry.
For my soul is full of troubles, and my life draws near to Sheol.
I am counted among those who go down to the pit.
I am a man who has no strength.
Like one set loose among the dead.
Like the slain that lie in the grave.
Like those whom you remember no more.
For they are cut off from your hand.
You have put me in the depth of the pit.
In the regions dark and deep.
Your wrath lies heavy upon me.
And you overwhelm me with all your waves.
Selah.
You have caused my companions to shun me.
You have made me a whore to them.
I am shut in so that I cannot escape.
My eyes grow dim through sorrow.
Every day I call upon you, O Lord.
I spread with my hands to you.
Do you work wonders for the dead?
Do the departed rise up to praise you?
Selah.
Is your steadfast love declared in the grave?
Or your faithfulness in Abaddon?
Are your wonders known in the darkness?
Or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness?
But I, O Lord, cry to you.
In the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast my soul away?
Why do you hide your face from me?
Afflicted and close to death from my youth up.
I suffer your terrors.
I am helpless.
Your wrath has swept over me.
Your dreadful assaults destroy me.
They surround me like a flood all day long.
They close in on me together.
You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me.
My companions have become darkness.
This is the word of the Lord.
There are 150 psalms.
One third of them are laments.
And in all of those lament psalms,
as dark as they may be,
as frustrated and even angry as they may be,
there's always this positive twist.
You'll have David in Psalm 22 crying out,
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
But then by the end he is praising God
and declaring how the nations will remember
and know the Lord.
In psalm after psalm,
in all the lament psalms,
indeed in all 150 psalms,
there's always this praise.
In all of them, but this one.
And as a result,
for a lot of us,
we don't really know how to handle this psalm,
Psalm 88.
I remember when I was 12 or 13,
I was reading through the psalms,
one psalm a day,
and I'd read it as a prayer.
I'd read it aloud to the Lord.
And that works for like Psalm 27.
The Lord is my light and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
It's a beautiful, uplifting psalm.
As a young man, and still today,
Psalm 144,
you train my hands for war
and my feet for battle.
As a young man,
I love praying those prayers.
It's strong.
It's uplifting.
It's courageous.
But then I'd get to a lament psalm,
especially Psalm 88,
and my words would all of a sudden drop.
My voice would drop
and my voice would grow silent.
I felt so uncomfortable,
so even embarrassed
to say these words aloud to God.
They're so dark,
brooding,
and angry.
And I believe that for a lot of us,
we have this pressure as Christians,
as Canadian Christians,
that we're polite people.
As Canadians, we're polite.
As Christians,
we're supposed to be happy.
So we're these polite,
happy, clappy people.
And we don't have a grid
through which we can say a prayer
like this out loud.
And so, so often,
you and me and our friends
will be like my neighbor,
where we have these prayers
from our heart to God
that come out angry,
and so we just don't pray them.
There's parts of our lives
where we just won't go with God
because we don't want to be rude to Him.
But as we look at Psalm 88,
we see that this psalmist,
Haman the Ezraite,
is very real and very honest with God.
Verse 3,
For my soul is full of troubles,
and my life draws near to Sheol.
Sheol is a Hebrew word for hell.
He's saying,
God, I'm going through hell.
He's being very real and very honest.
As we read these words,
there can be this feeling of embarrassment,
like, how did this get in the Bible?
Who let this in?
But as we're honest with this passage,
we remember that what is true
of the rest of the scriptures
is true about this.
The 2 Timothy 3.16 says
that all scripture is breathed by God,
and it's profitable for teaching,
for rebuke, for correcting.
It's profitable,
and it's God-breathed.
And so I want to invite you today
to open up your hearts with me
as we study and plunder
the depth of Psalm 88,
these words that are God-breathed
and included in the scriptures
by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit,
by God himself,
for you and for me,
that we might know God more completely.
So Haman the Ezra is crying out to God,
saying,
I feel like I'm going through hell.
I have no strength.
I'm like one who's among the dead.
He's being very real and very honest.
And so the first truth
that we can learn from this today
is that our God is a God
who's not easily offended.
Our God is a God
who's not easily offended.
And as a result,
we can be real,
we can be honest,
we can be raw with him.
Our God is a God
with a big heart
and thick skin.
He is a God
not easily offended.
We can bring
a real and raw,
honest prayers to him.
Haman the Ezra height continues.
Verse 6,
He's speaking these real
and honest words to God,
saying,
God, this,
my broken condition,
this is on you.
And I believe this is worship.
And here's why.
Who you complain to
tells you a lot about
who you think is in charge
and in control.
A lot of us have worked jobs
where people will come to you
and they'll complain
about the prices,
they'll complain about the product,
they complain to you
as if you actually have
any say in the matter.
My first job
when I was a teen
was McDonald's.
People would complain
about the prices.
I'm just like,
well, you know,
thank you for your complaints.
But the reality is
if you have a complaint,
talk to the manager.
They're actually in charge.
They actually have
some type of voice
in what we serve.
I, as a cashier,
I don't.
Okay?
Who you complain to
says a lot about
who you think is in charge.
Haman the Ezraite
is complaining to God
because he knows
that God is in charge.
If you were one of his friends
or a neighbor of his,
you would see that his friends
were abandoning him.
You would see that
he had no strength,
that he was physically weak.
You would see these things.
But Haman sees
that this is on God
because he's the one
that's in control.
There is no direct line
to show that God
was removing his friends
from him.
But he knows,
God, you're sovereign.
God, you're the king
of the universe.
God, you're in control
and I'm going
through darkness.
Ultimately,
this is on you.
There's various reasons
that we'll go
through darkness.
A friend of mine
gave birth to a baby
and went into
postpartum depression.
Her hormones were off
and there was a chemical
imbalance in her
and as a result,
she was going through
a time of depression,
of darkness.
Sometimes we're going
through darkness
because someone
is making very evil decisions
and they're exploiting us.
Sometimes we're going
through darkness
because we've done
some very foolish things.
There's various reasons
why we go through darkness
and there'll be various ways
through which to deal
with the darkness,
whether we need medication
or we need forgiveness
or to ask for forgiveness.
Different reasons
why we go through darkness
but in Haman's case,
he understands that
regardless of the reason
that he's going
through darkness,
ultimately,
God's in control.
And so when he,
in his lament,
is bringing his complaint
to God,
he is actually
worshiping God by that,
by saying,
God, this is on you.
You're the king.
You're sovereign.
You know,
the people of Israel,
as they're going
through the wilderness
after they exited
from Egypt,
they're grumbling
and they're complaining.
They're lamenting.
And Moses also laments.
And yet,
the people of Israel,
a whole bunch of them
are swallowed up
in the ground,
whereas Moses is blessed
by God,
a man after God's own heart.
What's the difference?
Well, the people of Israel
in this case,
many of them
were complaining
and lamenting
to each other,
whereas Moses complained
and laments to God.
And if you read
the scriptures,
you'll see that
the men and women of God
throughout the Old
and New Testament
through history
and even today
are men and women
who understand
that our God
is a God
not easily offended
and our God
is a God
who's in control
and so they bring
their complaints,
not grumbling
one to another,
but they bring
their complaints
to God.
The second truth
we can learn
from Psalm 88
is that it is worship
to say these words,
even sometimes
these angry words,
because we're saying,
God,
you're the one
that's in control.
Now,
as he continues,
first talking about
how he feels
like he's going
through hell,
second with these words,
complaining to God,
then in verse 10
he begins questioning God,
cross-examining God.
Do you work wonders
for the dead?
Do the departed
rise up to praise you?
Is your steadfast love
declared in the grave
or your faithfulness
in Abaddon?
Are your wonders
known in the darkness
or your righteousness
in the land
of forgetfulness?
And it's one thing
to be like,
God,
this is on you,
I'm going through
brokenness
and you're sovereign,
you're in control,
you're doing this,
I feel upset,
but then he has
the audacity
to question God,
to confront God.
And as I sat there
with my neighbor
wrestling through this,
through this section,
I was brought back
to last year,
just about exactly
a year ago.
I was on a big
epic road trip
with my brother Josh.
Josh is one
of my closest friends.
I was going to be
a best man
at his wedding
the very next week
and we had driven down
all the way
to St. Louis non-stop
and about at
the third kilometer
from Ottawa,
he did something
that offended me
and I decided
that I'm the younger
brother,
I'll be the bigger
brother,
I'll be the bigger
guy,
the bigger man
and so I decided
to just keep it
inside,
just let it go.
We kept driving,
something else
he did really
frustrated me,
I kept it inside.
By the time
we drove all the way
to St. Louis,
I was so frustrated
and by the time
we eventually
got back to Ottawa,
I didn't want
to be in a conversation
with him,
I didn't want
to be in a car
with him,
I just wanted out
and so I got out
frustratingly,
so I was fuming,
I was just angry
and I met up
that day
with a friend
of mine named Sid
and I said,
Sid,
I don't know
what to do,
he's one of my
best friends
and I'm supposed
to give a best man
speech at his wedding
next week but I just
am so frustrated
and I'm trying
to be a godly man
here,
I'm not getting
mad at him
and my friend
Sid said,
Daniel,
when you're dealing
with conflict,
when there is a
problem between you
and someone else,
you have two choices,
either you can do
exactly what you're
doing and keep it
inside,
don't deal with it,
move on,
or you can go
through the mess
and the headache
and even sometimes
the heartache
of confronting him
and being honest
with him and dealing
with it and both
have their places,
the reality you need
to know,
Daniel,
he said to me,
is that if you
choose to keep it
inside like you're
doing and not deal
with it,
you're going to
inevitably go apart
from each other,
you'll go your
separate ways,
you just won't want
to be in the same
room as him,
you'll be apart,
but if you go
through the headache
and the mess
of confronting him,
know that there's
actually hope
for reconciliation,
the question is,
he said,
do you value
this relationship
enough to go
through the mess?
If this isn't a
very important
friendship to you,
just keep it in,
don't go through
the mess,
you'll go
your separate ways,
but if this
friendship matters
to you,
deal with the mess,
go through that,
for there's hope
of reconciliation.
Lament is worship,
even these questions,
these rhetorical questions,
these angry questions
to God are worship,
because it's actually
saying,
God,
you matter so much
to me,
my friendship
matters so much
to me,
that I will confront
you,
I feel like you're
crushing me,
I feel like you are
indifferent to me,
I feel so far from you,
and I will not take
the status quo
happily,
I will come to you,
and I will complain
to you,
and I'll go through
the mess,
I'll go through
all that,
because,
because he loves God.
Look at these
questions again,
he's saying,
is your steadfast love
declared in the grave?
Are your wonders
known in the darkness?
Even though it's
coming out very angrily,
what he's ultimately
saying is,
God,
I want to know
your steadfast love,
I want to declare
your goodness again.
These words that
seem so angry
are the best
Haman has right now,
he doesn't have the
strength to try to
put on a happy face,
he's being real knowing
that our God is a God
not easily offended,
he's confronting God
knowing that God
is the one in control,
your sovereign God,
and he's confronting
him and questioning
him,
expressing hope
for reconciliation
with God,
a desire to be
close with God again.
Notice that he's
praying day and night,
he's not,
he will not be silenced,
he will not take
the separation,
he will fight for
being reconciled
with God.
Now as he continues
from these questions,
verse 16,
the psalm wraps up,
your wrath has swept
over me,
your dreadful assaults
destroy me,
they surround me
like a flood all day
long,
they close in on me
together,
you have caused my
beloved and my
friend to shun me,
my companions have
become darkness.
The final word is
darkness,
and unlike these
other psalms we have
in the Bible,
from beginning to end,
the psalm is dark,
with the very last word
being darkness.
That's no mistake,
it's intentional,
darkness.
And this feature of
the psalm which makes
it an anomaly and
makes it so
disconcerting at first,
I think is one of the
most precious features
of the psalm.
Because one of the
darkest things about
going through darkness
is that feeling that
the darkness is going
on too long.
say you're going through
a time that you feel
so dark inside,
and you go for a jog
through your head,
and you come back home,
it's still dark,
you're still feeling
turmoil inside,
and so you go and you
hang out with positive
people, encouraging
people, people of God,
and even in the midst
of being with these
people, and they're such
wonderful people,
inside you still feel
so isolated, so alone.
You go to church,
or maybe you go to
your own bedroom for
devotions, and you go
through the right things,
you worship God, you sing
songs of worship, you say
prayers of gratitude, you
read the Bible, you're
doing all the right stuff,
yet the darkness remains.
So often, as you already
know, so often you have
the darkness and the trauma
that you're going through,
and then you have this
added darkness that you're
going through darkness,
like this guilt, I
shouldn't be going through
darkness, I'm a Christian,
I should be a happy
person, and so it's this
added darkness upon
darkness.
Psalm 88 is a gift to us
because it shows us that
the children of God do go
through dark times.
Haman was one of the
worship leaders in the
temple.
He's one of the priests
whose job it was to lead
the nation of God in
worship.
This is a man who knows
God, and he wrote a lot
of other psalms too, he
knows God, and yet his
darkness extends so long
that his prayer begins and
ends in a place of
darkness.
Again, this isn't the only
psalm he wrote, but in this
prayer, in this song, from
beginning to end, there's
darkness.
And so I want to encourage
you, my brothers and
sisters in the Lord, that
when you're going through
darkness, whether that's now
or in the future, or if
you're walking with a friend
through a dark time, that
God understands that he's
included this prayer, this
song in the Bible, Psalm 88,
on purpose, to let us know in
part, that sometimes our
prayers will end where we're
still in a place of
frustration, and God gets
that.
God understands that.
God is okay with that, that
he's for us.
Now, as we're wrestling through
these words, one of the things
we must ask ourselves is, are
these words expressing an
objective truth or a
subjective truth?
When Haman is saying to
God, my companions have
become darkness.
Darkness is a better friend
than you, God.
When he's saying these
things, is it true?
Is he really, really alone?
Or is this just an expression
of how he's feeling?
To answer that question, we
must look at the whole
Bible, the whole cancel of
scripture, and what we see
is that we know that God has
said in various passages that
he's with us in our
brokenness, that he is near
the brokenhearted, that he'll
never leave us nor forsake
us.
We know that God is a
better friend than darkness,
that darkness will never
actually be our closest
friend.
And the primary way we know
that is something that Haman
would have only ever seen in
part, and that is that these
words he says about darkness
being his closest friend are
actually true, objectively true
for someone else.
That was Jesus.
We see in Matthew 27, as the
crucifixion is taking place,
darkness descending on the
whole earth.
And Jesus experiences this
darkness and isolation that
no one else will ever fully
experience.
That Jesus on the cross, as the
world became actually dark,
there was more than just a lack
of light, though that was also
present, and that was dark.
But that he experienced the full
and complete wrath of God.
Full and complete isolation and
darkness.
darkness as he took and conquered
death with his own body.
And as Jesus in Matthew 26 is in
the Garden of Gethsemane, and the
darkness is descending on him, and
he knows what's about to happen, and
he's praying earnestly and
struggling and even sweating
blood, he says, not my will but
yours be done.
And if Jesus would not abandon us in
his time of objective darkness, of
utter and complete darkness, then you
and I can have confidence that even in
those seasons where life seems so
dark, and it will feel so dark, you
and I can know objectively that he
will not abandon us in our darkness.
If Jesus did not abandon us in his
complete and utter darkness, he will
not abandon us in our partial darkness.
He will be faithful.
Haman the Ezraite, even as his words
are so dark and so brooding and so
angry, is crying out day and night to
God, saying, God of my salvation.
In doing so, in lamenting to him, he's
saying, God, you're my hope.
I want out.
I want this to be dealt with.
He's crying out.
And he counters a reality of God, which
I think is best expressed by C.S.
Lewis and the Magician's Nephews.
Two weeks ago, I read, I've been
preparing the sermon, and I was reading
through the Magician's Nephew with my
little sister, Abby.
The Magician's Nephew, one of the
Chronicles of Narnia, begins with the
little boy, Diggory, crying, in C.S.
Lewis' words, blubbering, because his
mother is sick and dying.
And isn't it true that for a lot of
us, at times, the greatest darkness
will be not only our own pain, but the
pain of someone we love, out of our
control.
So he's crying.
By the time you get to the 12th
chapter, a lot has already happened, and
his mother is still sick.
The darkness seems even darker, if that's
possible.
And Diggory is standing before the lion,
Aslan, who in these books represents
Jesus, and he's been looking down, and
he's silent.
And then finally, he opens his mouth, and
he speaks to the lion, to Aslan.
And this is what he says.
He, Diggory, thought of his mother, and
he thought of the great hopes he had
had and how they were all dying away.
And a lump came in his throat, and
tears in his eyes, and he blurted out,
But please, please, won't you?
Can't you?
Give me something that will cure
mother.
Up till then, he had been looking at the
lion's great feet and the huge claws on
them.
Now, in his despair, he looked up at its
face.
What he saw surprised him as much as
anything in his whole life, for the
tawny face was bent down near his own.
And wonder of wonders, the great,
shining tears stood in the lion's eyes.
Diggory's darkness did not evaporate
when he saw the tears of the lion.
But something did change.
He knew that he was no longer alone.
And there's something about when you're
silent and you're looking down.
When you cry out to someone for help,
you instinctively look at their face.
Haman the Ezraite, unlike my neighbor,
refused to grow silent in his despair.
But he, knowing our God is not a God who
is easily offended, knowing that God is
the one who is in control and that his
darkness is ultimately on God who's
sovereign, expressing to him as a
worship that he wanted reconciliation,
even though it was angry prayer,
knowing that the darkness may last
longer than a psalm or a prayer.
He's crying out to God.
And he knows, as it says in verse one,
that God, you're the God of my
salvation.
He's looking to him knowing that God is
the one who saves.
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine
was horrifically abused.
She was sexually abused.
And I remember being in my bedroom
praying.
I was praying a Psalm 88 type prayer,
angry, brooding, dark prayer.
I was saying, God, like, I wish I could
have been there to fight away, to fight
away the rapist.
I wish I could have been there.
And even if I couldn't have fought him
away, like, I wish that I at least could
have taken the rape in my flesh, that it
would have been me and not my friend.
I was so frustrated.
As I prayed, I remembered one of the
names of God, Emmanuel, God with us.
And you'd think that'd be comforting,
but actually in this context, it was
not comforting.
My prayers turned even more
confrontational.
God, you're with us.
You're with me.
You were with her.
You were there.
What on earth were you doing?
Like, what on earth were you doing
that you would be there and this would
still happen?
Psalm 88, confrontational prayer.
And then in God's mercy, he brought me
to Isaiah 53, which says, by his wounds,
we are healed.
And that day in my bedroom, my view of
the cross expanded.
My view of what Jesus did on the cross
became more complete.
You and I both know that on the cross,
Jesus took the punishment for our sins.
But Jesus did more than that on the cross.
He took our woundedness in his flesh.
What I came to see that day is that
that Jesus did for my friend what I had
wished I could have done.
That he took her woundedness.
He took the rape in his flesh.
And that doesn't mean that my friend
wasn't hurt.
My friend was hurt.
But Jesus took that hurt in himself,
which means that darkness no longer has
the final word.
That woundedness no longer has
the final word.
That our brokenness no longer has
the final word.
Because Jesus has taken it,
and he's overcome it on the cross,
in his death, and in his resurrection.
And so you and I can have the confidence,
as a result, that when we're going
through broken times, and we're going
through darkness, that Jesus has
actually taken it, that he's with us,
and he's overcome it.
When it says that his name is Emmanuel,
God with us, it doesn't mean like
when someone's talking to you,
and you're talking to someone,
and they say, I'm with you.
It means that they understand
what you're saying.
Maybe they have sympathy for what
you're saying.
When the scriptures tell us that
God is with us, it doesn't just mean
that he understands, or that he gets it,
or that he has sympathy.
It means he's with us.
That he's in the chaos, and the darkness,
and the madness with us.
And so we can have the freedom to pray
these very raw prayers.
And our prayers don't always need
to end happy-clappy, like a lot
of prayers do.
They can actually end even with
the word darkness, as Psalm 88 does.
But we can have the confidence
that Haman had, that God is the God
of our salvation, and that he's with us
in the chaos.
Because of the death and resurrection
of Jesus, nothing, nothing can
separate us from God.
We can have that confidence.
And you'll find that as you cry out
to God, that like diggory, it doesn't
mean that darkness will disappear
right away, but that you will
encounter the tears of God.
You may not be able to feel it right
away, but that God's with you in it.
And that's an objective truth.
I was sitting there with my friend
at the coffee shop, and we wrestled
through these truths from Psalm 88.
And as we wrapped up, I got to have
the privilege of hearing my friend,
my neighbor, pray for the first time
in a whole bunch of months, maybe
even a few years.
It was a real, it was a raw, it was
an uncomfortable prayer.
But it was grounded on the reality
that God is not easily offended.
It was grounded on the reality that
God is the one who's ultimately in
control, and so he brought his pain to
God, saying, God, you're the one who's
sovereign, and I'm going through this,
and I don't understand how if you're
king and you're good, I can go through
this, but God, I'm looking to you.
And in doing so, he was expressing hope
for reconciliation with God.
I got to sit there and witness it.
And he understood that just because he
is praying that the darkness might
continue longer than he wants it to,
but just because he's praying that
might not change that right away,
but that's okay.
But I also got to see in my friend's
own face and hear in his own words
that he understood once again that God
is the God of his salvation, that God
is with him in it, that he's with us in it,
that darkness is no longer the final word,
that the final word is Jesus.
Jesus, would you stand with me in prayer?
Heavenly Father, I stand before you right
now feeling like diggory before the lion,
saying, can't you, won't you give me
something to help my friends?
Lord, would you be with us and our loved
ones in our darkness?
Would your presence be with us in a
tangible way?
Would you show us that you are God
who's with us, Emmanuel?
Lord, would you do more than that?
Do more than just be with us in our
darkness.
Lord, lead us out of the darkness into
your glorious light, that we might
again be able to declare your praise
and your steadfast love.
We want to know you evermore completely.
Lord, would you help those of us who
have conversations we need to have with you
and share prayers and parts of our lives
with you that we are, that we're
shying away from because it's
uncomfortable, because we're afraid
those prayers might come out angry.
Help us to go there with you, being
real, being honest with you, because you
are in control.
You are sovereign.
You are the God of our salvation.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.