Psalm 88 - When Darkness Is My Only Friend

This morning you're going to get to take a break from me as I get the privilege of introducing to you, pastor Jay Holland, who is a pastor in Stuart, Florida. I have known him for well over a couple of decades now, almost three decades. And I've even shared I've never shared his name in my testimony when I've told you guys my story. But I will tell a little more specific with my own faith journey in Christ. I was a very angry child. I grew up in a somewhat broken environment and I carried that with me. and when I was, I remember in high school, pastor Jay would come to the high school that I attended and he would minister to the kids there, kids in his youth group, and he would reach out to kids. I was one of those kids that was on his radar, at least, that he would come to and try to invite me to church. And at that point in my life, I the greatest well, the thing that I enjoyed most about my interaction with pastor Jay is how quickly I could respond back in a very negative get away from me answer. I would think of the quickest reaction I could have in that moment to just be rude, honestly. And but he continued to be patient and gracious towards me. And when I was starting college, I remember I got to a place where I was just in a faith crisis, and I came to him and said, I'll give you some time to tell me about your Jesus.

And if I can disprove what you say to me, then I will reject it and continue to live life the way that I want. And I remember I showed up to church one Sunday, and in the middle of the gymnasium of their church, he put a table there, and he and his wife, and this was their Sunday school class. It was just me. And they started ministering to me. And through that, the Lord transformed my life. And, um. Let me just encourage you as you think about your own family and friends, to not give up and to keep being gracious and patient with them. But it's with that joy and privilege. This morning I want to introduce Pastor Jay Holland. You guys give him a round of applause as he comes up to share.

Thank you. I thought I got my cries out for service. It's good to be with you guys. Yes, Nathaniel was kind of a stubborn pain in the butt in high school. I know that would be a shock to any of you guys that know him now. What he didn't share is I kind of got a little bit of payback in, like, nearly killing him multiple times on mission trips. Just happened to, being young and dumb youth pastor myself, setting up with like, narcissistic, lying, opportunist and, nearly. Yeah. So Nathaniel's alive. That's just like the sovereign grace of God. He must have really had plans for you guys.

It's a joy to be here together. It's really sweet. Not just Nathaniel and Stacy. Stacy was actually literally one of the first kids in my very first youth ministry ever. And, just a sharp girl. And I again, I shared first service. I thought she hated my guts, like the first few months. Maybe she did, but a few months into it, having a conversation with her and she, like, repeated everything that I had taught for 3 or 4 months at that time where I was thinking, this girl really doesn't like me. Like she was just soaking it up and absorbing it. And, seeing Tyler and Laura out here, basically what I found is the best people in the world are those who come from West Virginia, but managed to escape And go somewhere. And the man, the Lord is like, if you can get out of this, God can use you for anything. I did, by the way. I, I also do a couple of podcasts. I'm a youth pastor, a student pastor in Stuart, Florida. I've done a parenting podcast for a number of years called Less Parent on Purpose.

This past month, I just launched a new daily devotional podcast called guided by Faith. it's aimed at, well, I say it's aimed at teens and young adults, and the reason I say that is because if I say it's for everybody, teenagers won't listen. but it's scripture, it's truth, and it's about five, six minutes a day. So it's something real good and easy to fit into your routine and just encourage you guys do whatever you can do to just build into your routine to build your faith. Go ahead and do it, whether it's my podcast or something else. time in God's Word is great. You guys have been in the Psalms for the last few weeks. I guess the last couple months, whatever. Late summer is in Utah. In Florida, late summer goes until Christmas, and then we have like a month of good weather and then early summer starts and we're back in it. We are also in Psalms, so it's kind of neat. this morning I'm going to share with you from Psalm 88. I would encourage you guys, go ahead and turn to Psalm 88. And as you turn, let me give you kind of an overview of a way to look at Psalms. There's 150 Psalms, and there's really kind of three different categories. As you're reading a psalm that each psalm is going to fall into.

And so this will help you out just in your quiet time as you're in your studying to see what is the background. Now the Psalms are the songbook of Israel, and there's really like it's their worship songs. But what you find is there's a lot greater Of variety in their subjects of worship than a lot of times what we sing in church. So the first set of psalms that you'll find, and it's not like the first 50 or this, then the next 50 and the next 50. They're really all scattered throughout the Psalms. But the first category would be what we would call Psalms of orientation. These are the foundational Psalms that tell you about the goodness of God, about how he's ordered creation, and essentially like, if you will follow God in God's ways, then you will experience blessing in your life. Psalm one is an excellent example of this. You know how blessed is the man who does not walk in the ways of the wicked, but instead delights in the law of the Lord. And if you will do this, you will be like a tree planted by the waters, with roots that will go down deep and endure the storms and leaves and fruit that produces a harvest. So, Psalms of orientation. We do this with our kids, with some of the songs that we teach our kids. You know, Jesus loves me.

This I know for the Bible tells me so. Jesus loves the little children. We teach one another theology through our songs, and there's a great section of Psalms that teach bedrock theology. But if you live in the world, you realize that the world doesn't always work according to that kind of perfect plan and model. It doesn't always work that if you will, just trust Jesus and follow him, everything will go well in your life. You will be protected from all evil, and you will just prosper financially and in your health and in your relationships. Sometimes things go wrong and there's a whole genre of psalms for these called psalms of disorientation. And so just the name is in the, the descriptions and the meaning. I'm disoriented. Why? Because I thought if I followed God this way, then it would work out this way. But instead I'm in the middle of suffering. I'm in the middle of people betraying me and abandoning me. I cannot see where God is in this. And there's a whole group of psalms that express this. Some of the ones that you know really deeply. Think of Psalm 22. It's the one that Jesus quoted on the cross. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then it goes into, why are you far from me? Why can't I hear you? I'm hoping for you, God. But I don't see you.

And these psalms of disorientation. I found a couple of interesting things. Number one, we have very little in the way of modern praise and worship that approaches this. You know, we don't get together and sing songs on Sunday that are like, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And it would be a little bit weird if we did, but to be honest, I feel like that sometimes. God, where are you? What is going on? Why? Why is everything going the opposite of what I thought it would if I followed you? And what I love is that God has put in Scripture songs, scripture, psalms that express these things in our heart. Now, to me, some of the most beautiful songs we're going to, by the way, we're going to look at a psalm of disorientation this morning. But to me, I think the most beautiful psalms probably are the last category. These are the Psalms of reorientation. These are the songs. When I have been through the dark waters, I have been through the trials. I have experienced deep pain and suffering. And now I'm on the other side and from the other side. When I look back at what I've been through now, I can see that he was with me the whole way, that he was protecting me, that he delivered me from the darkness and some great ones with that. Psalm 2732. Psalm 40. Psalm 73.

As you look at these categories, you'll start finding, once you understand these frameworks, it's pretty easy as you read through a psalm to pick out where the writer of the psalm was in here, and that's good to know sometimes. Otherwise you can be like, you know what is going on. I thought this was supposed to be encouraging, but it is encouraging when you realize that God allows the full expression of emotion before him as worship. You don't have to fake it in order to pray to God. You don't have to like, fluff it up with flowery language. You can express the cries of your heart to God. As I was looking at this and as I was studying this framework, psalms of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation actually reminded me of a gospel tool that we use quite a bit in our church. It's called the Three Circles. It might be one that you're unfamiliar with. I would encourage you. I'm going to give you a brief overview of it, but I would encourage you write this down. Here's your homework. go home today. And in YouTube, just type in the three circles and there's some really great gospel presentations that come up. This thing is so simple and so good. We train our five year olds how to go home and share the gospel with their moms and dads using the three circles. So there's some of these on YouTube that are like done in crayon with little kids sharing it, because it's such a great pictorial way to share.

So let me put up the basic picture here. I got to aim at the tissue box. I heard, uh oh, too much. There we go. So let me just briefly give you an overview of it, and I would encourage you again, go back and watch a deeper presentation on this. first circle, top left. When I look at the world, I see evidence all over of God's perfect design. I see the way that the earth revolves perfectly around the sun. You see the order of the moon and the stars of the sky. We know exactly where they're going to be because they move and they rotate with such incredible mathematical precision. I see the way the sun brings light to the world and to the plants. It gives them energy. I see the way the rains, the water evaporates from the ocean, comes and dumps fresh water on us. It creates our harvest. It gives us food. God has surely made this incredible world, and I see evidence of a good God and perfect design all around. But I look at the second circle here, and what this represents is reality is that's not all I see. I also see a world that is really broken. I see it and I feel it, and I experience it every day. When I turn on the news, I see wars that are happening.

I see famines that are happening. I see people that are suffering and they're starving. I experience the way that people have treated me and hurt me. And if I'm going to be honest, the way that I've treated and hurt other people. And so even though I see some evidence of God's perfect design, I feel disoriented because I see a broken world. And the question is if there really is a good God and he really did design things good and perfect. Why am I living in such brokenness? And the answer is sin. Sin is when God shows you what to do and you do the opposite. You run from God's good and perfect law. God's good and perfect design to do your own way. And it started in the Garden of Eden with just one rule. And they ran from the goodness and protection of God into rebellion. And we've been doing it ever since. And sin wrecks relationships. Sin wrecks the earth. Sin wrecks our fellowship with God. Now you see all these little squiggly lines up here. What that represents is that people don't want to live in brokenness. And so people do all kinds of things to try to escape from their brokenness. Some people will try to live the hyper perfect life. You know, you live in a dysfunctional family and you think, if I just get straight A's, and if I'm the captain of the sports team and I am, the head of, I get the key positions in band.

If I just be perfect in all of these things, it'll work out. But that never works and it snaps you into a deeper and darker brokenness. Some people think, well, if I just achieve, achieve, achieve, if I, climb the ladder of success, at some point I will feel fulfilled and these things won't matter to me. But it doesn't work. The higher you climb, the further you fall, the emptier you feel and you're stuck in brokenness. Some people think that if I just do a bunch of religious things that will make up for it, it'll make up for my sin. It'll, it'll balance it out. I, I can do good works, and that's going to take care of it. But listen, it doesn't matter how many little old ladies you help cross the street, it doesn't matter how many times you show up in a church service that doesn't take away the sin. It doesn't take away the brokenness. And as a matter of fact, the more I try to achieve religious perfection, the darker I feel, the more broken I feel. And then some people give up on trying to perfect the brokenness and they just try to escape it. They try to numb. They self-medicate with drugs, with alcohol, with promiscuous sexual relationships, with gambling, with just super addiction into video games and hobbies and anything I can do to take my mind off the fact that I'm a wreck and the world's a wrecked.

Guess what? It doesn't work. You're right in the middle of that brokenness, and the Bible tells us there's only one way out of that trap of sin and out of that brokenness, and that's through Jesus Christ. And so that third circle there, it's to show us that God Himself took on flesh. He entered the world. He lived the perfect life, the life that you and I could never live. And the Bible says that the wages of sin, the payment of sin, is death. And when Jesus died on the cross because he had no sin, he wasn't paying for his own sin. He was taking on my sin, and he was taking on your sin and he was paying. He was taking on the full wrath of God for every broken and wicked thing that we've done. And he died on that cross, and he was buried, but he didn't stay buried. On the third day he rose again. That arrow there shows that he rose again. And when he rose again, it shows and proves that God the Father accepted the payment for sin from Jesus Christ. Fully God, fully man, fully taking on our sin. And if we put our faith in Jesus Christ, we finally are out of our own wickedness and out of our own sin.

It doesn't mean that we escape the broken world. What it does mean now is we have a new orientation. The Bible says if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creature. Old things are passed away. All things have become new. And what I have found, and this is what's amazing when I'm in Christ, when I put my faith in Christ, when I trust him, God will take the hardest and the worst things that have ever happened in my life. And he will heal me and he will use those things for his glory. For my good and for the good of the world around me. And I know some of you guys have experienced that. You've experienced incredible tragedy and terrible things, and then you have, instead of living as a victim for those things the rest of your life, you've given them to Jesus. And you've watched Jesus use those things to heal other people. That's a reorientation. So that's a framework. And today, since I've given you that happy good news, let's now go to Psalm 88, which is the bleakest psalm in the entire scriptures, the darkest one that we can find. And as you read it, you might be like, why is this in the Bible? It is just it's like being in a depression therapy service that ends in depression.

So with that encouragement, we should pray that Ask Holy Spirit to teach us this morning. God, I thank you for this day. I thank you for your word and I pray now as we go into this, that your Holy Spirit be our teacher God, that as we look at what you have ordained to be Scripture, even though it might be surprising to us, Lord, we would find the surprising goodness of God in the midst of the darkness. And I pray for those here who are suffering, who are struggling, who are disoriented, that this would be good news. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. All right, guys in the back are going to control this. As I read through Psalm 88, O Lord God of my salvation, I cry out to you day and night before you. My, let my prayer come before you and 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. And I am a man who has no strength. Like one said among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, and like those whom you remember No more. They are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the pit and the region's dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves.

You have caused my companions to shun me. You have made me a horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape. My eyes grow dim through sorrow. Every day I cry upon I call upon you, O Lord, I spread out my hands to you. 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 the abandoned? 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. And they close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me. And my companions have become darkness. The end. I believe it's the King James translation that last line says. And darkness is my only friend. I got serious about my faith in Jesus when I was 18 years old, and that was when I committed to start reading the Bible daily. For the first time, I put my faith in Jesus. At six, I know I belong to him, but I didn't really get serious about it until 18.

So from 18 to 27, 28 years old, man, I'd read through the whole Bible several times. I had certainly read this Psalm a number of times, but it wasn't until 2005 that this really came alive to me. In 2005, I was married. I was a youth pastor in West Virginia. I had Tyler was in my youth group. I don't remember if Laura's family was there at that time or not. Nathaniel and Stacy had graduated from there. my wife and I, Christy, we wanted to go to India to be missionaries, but instead she got sick. And as we kept trying to take steps to go to India to be missionaries, she got sicker and sicker and sicker. And as she got sick and as the treatments didn't work, the pressure inside our household got greater and greater. And I experienced the worst marriage troubles of my life. And it was really weird because it's like I, I, I'm planning on going to be a missionary in India or I might be divorced. What in the world is going on? And it just felt like bomb after bomb after bomb was going off. And it all came to a head in October of 2005, when instead of us getting to live in the like, we had made up, we had, had our peace with one another.

And I'm thinking we're going to get to walk through this and have restoration and figure out what life and ministry is, because India was off the table with her sickness, but instead in living in that restoration. Instead, I found myself doing CPR on my dead wife on the floor of her mom's kitchen. And over that next week, friends and family, old, old people that had been in our youth ministry that we had loved and cared for, they came in from all over the country and they stayed with me, and they loved me and my little three year old girl. And then at the end of that time, we do the funeral and everybody has to go back to their life. And there was one guy who had been friends with who lived out of state, and his church had actually said, hey, instead of going for the funeral, why don't you wait until everybody's leaving and then go spend time with Jade? Because he might need it then. And I remember being in my living room, and this was probably two weeks, three weeks after Christy died and just unloading. And I was a slobbery, angry, vomiting mess of just emotion and words. And my friend Virgil just sat there quietly in a chair as I spewed and I spewed and I spewed. And finally, when it was done in silence, I remember looking up and saying, man, I know that doesn't sound really pastoral, does it? And he said, actually, it just sounds like Psalm 88.

And for the first time, I really read Psalm 88, and it felt like me. And I got so much encouragement out of the fact that God would allow in His Word in the Holy Spirit inspired Word of God, Something that had no flowery language in it had no. But I know you're going to work this all for good, but instead ended in darkness because I was in darkness. There is a statue, a bronze statue in Switzerland. The artist's name is Albert Gyorgy and the statue is called melancholy. He built this after his wife passed away. And when you look at it, you don't need a lot of description. It's pretty obvious. And I know in this room many of you guys have felt like this. You have felt that gaping empty hole inside you and you're going to. And there's a lot of versions of Christianity that are being sold. I really think they're being sold because they want people to give money that basically say, if you will come to Jesus, he'll take away all your problems and you will prosper, and you will have health and you will have wealth. And if anything bad happens in your life, it's because you're, you've taken your eyes off Jesus and you don't have faith.

And that is a lie from the pit of hell. When you come to Christ, you don't get zapped out of this world that we live in. When you come to Jesus, you have Jesus, but you are still going to walk through darkness. And so this morning, just in the last few minutes we have together, I want to give you some insights from Psalm 88 and from walking through multiple periods of darkness in my own life. When darkness is your only friend, you need to honestly grieve. You need to honestly grieve. You need to stop acting like everything's okay. In the Old Testament, when somebody would die, they would basically stop life for 40 days. In our modern culture, if somebody passes away, we have the funeral. It's all done in a week, maybe ten days. If people are coming in from out of town and then you're supposed to go like back on with your life as if everything is normal. And it is disorienting because death is awful. Death is wrecking. But it's not just death. Some of you all have suffered. You have been betrayed. You have been abandoned, you have been abused. And these things are wicked and you need to be able to grieve. And I had a friend one time who explained it like this. He called it the grief monster and he would say, the grief monster will come and we'll start knocking on your door at the most inconvenient times.

And if you ignore it, that knock just gets louder and louder. But if you will open the door, you'll stop what you're doing. You'll open the door and you'll come and you'll let the grief monster come sit in your living room. He'll kind of get bored and he'll get up and leave. No, he doesn't leave forever. He's going to come back again. But if you will make that a practice when the grief monster starts knocking to be honest and open and grieve the grief, instead of being a monster that controls you, actually ends up being a pathway to healing. So when you're in darkness and darkness is your only friend, you need to honestly grieve. You need to cry out. This psalm gives you so much permission in how you cry out to God. You also need to cry out to others. We have this weird habit in American culture of how you doing? You know, like you pass people and they're like, hey, how are you doing as you keep on walking? And have you ever found like somebody if you actually stop it? Or maybe, maybe you've said that and then somebody actually starts telling you how they're doing, you're like, oh, whoa, I didn't mean that. I just meant hi. So but we say, how are you doing? But we don't want to know how somebody is doing.

But when you are in darkness, you need to be honest with how you're doing. People need to know that. And it doesn't mean you have to walk around in a perpetual pity party. But you can be like, I'm really struggling, I'm having a hard time and I just need to let somebody know. But the last thing is you need to wait and watch. Wait and watch. I said that this is the most hopeless psalm, but it's really I mean, you don't get one verse into it without the hope really being there. Why? Because how does it start out? It starts out with, O Lord God of my salvation. I cry out to you day and night, and you don't cry out and spew and rant at somebody unless you think they're there. You know, you parents. And if you're not parents, you kids, there's probably times where you have just unloaded on mom and dad. And why do you do it? Because, they're going to stay around. And in some ways, that's the same thing with God. Like, you can be honest, you can be open because he's not going anywhere. He's not going anywhere. So you can wait and you can watch. Why? Because he is actually there. There's a beautiful quote that I'll put up here from Walter Brueggemann. In the message of the Psalms. It says, the reason that darkness may be faced and lived in is that even in darkness there is one to address.

He is in the darkness with us, but not a part of the darkness. Because he is in the darkness. We find the darkness transformed not by the power of easy light, but by the power of relentless solidarity. These are where the Psalms of orientation come in. Last week Nathaniel preached on Psalm 139. And what does it say? It says, where can I go from your spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go to heaven, you are there. If I go to the grave, you're there. If I ascend the wings of the morning or dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there you're with me, God, and your right hand will lay hold of me. If I say, surely the darkness will overwhelm me, and the night around me, the light around me will become night. Behold, even the darkness is not dark to you, and the night is as bright as day, for darkness and light are alike to you. Just because it's dark doesn't mean he is not there. And just because you can't see Jesus doesn't mean he can't see you. He can always see you. What is Psalm 23 say? Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. Why? Because you're going to protect me from all bad things, and I'll never suffer.

No, because you are with me. Because you are with me. And if you only remember one thing from this morning, I hope you remember this. The presence of Jesus in the midst of suffering and struggle is the normal Christian experience. It's the normal Christian experience. As a Christian, you're going to suffer and struggle, and you're going to be surrounded by people that suffer and struggle. It's not the exception to the rule. Like we still live in a broken world and it's going to be the normal Christian Experience. So suffering and struggling is going to be the normal Christian experience. But the presence of Jesus is also going to be the normal Christian experience. And so let me share this passage with you. And then and then one other thought I want to give you. Second Corinthians chapter one, verses three through four says, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. So praise the God of all comfort, because he comforts us, but he comforts us not for our end, but so that we might be instruments of comfort to other people. As I was walking through the grieving and healing of the loss of my wife, which, again, is just it's not the only it was just the biggest and probably the first giant suffering in my life.

What I found was the people that were most helpful to me were the people who had experienced the depths of suffering, the depths of hurt, and they never came to me with an easy answer. They never said, oh, well, I did this and this is how I got over it. Instead, they just sat with me. They were present with me, and the fact that I could see that they weren't in that same spot still, that there was life on the other side of the tragedy, gave me hope that maybe there'll be life for me on the other side of the tragedy. Why? Because the God of all comfort had comforted them, and they were there to comfort me. And so when you're in the midst of suffering and struggle now, remember, suffering and struggle are the normal Christian experience. So you are either going to be personally struggling and suffering. I know this like real pick me up happy go lucky message, right? You're going to be in the midst of suffering and struggling, or you are going to be next to somebody who is suffering and struggling. And often that's the case. I don't want you to run from it when you're in the midst of it. Here's what I encourage you to do. Embrace the presence of Jesus through others.

You know how often, like we say something like, Where is God in this? And we're going on and on and we're ranting and raving, and we're doing it to a follower of Jesus who is right before us, who is loving us so well through the midst of what we're doing. And it's like, where is God? All of this right in front of you and the person who's with you and the person who's talking to you. Where is God? He is here in his word. And thank God that the gospel story is so clear. But thank God also. You have things like Psalm 88 where you don't have to bubble, you don't have to hide. You don't have to pretend. When you're in the midst of suffering and struggle. Embrace the presence of Jesus through others because he is sending them to you. He is sending them to you. And then if you happen to not be in a place of suffering and struggle right now. Remember that people around you are to be the presence of Jesus to others. Be the presence of Jesus to others. The comfort that you've been given. Turn around and offer that to other people. Be the presence of Jesus to others. But I want to add one more to that. Sometimes you are in the midst of suffering and struggle, and man, it's so good to be honest with where you are.

It's so good to be going to God's Word, to be finding psalms of praise and psalms of despair. But the other thing that you have an opportunity to do, and this is really powerful. Don't get so self-centered in the midst of your suffering and struggle, that you forget that people around you are also struggling and suffering. And I imagine when we get to heaven, if God does anything like playing a videotape back of your life of how he used you, I would imagine that some of the most powerful times that God will ever use you is when you are in the midst of what you feel like is the dark night of the soul. And you look up and you see somebody else who's broken, somebody else who's hurting, and you offer the little light of comfort that you have, because there is nothing that speaks to the power of the gospel, like a wounded, hurting person who still has enough hope to hand out hope to somebody else. God is real. God loves you. His word is true. He is with you, and he is especially present with you in the people that he brings into your life. So embrace it, be it and look. The darkest Psalm in the Bible really is one of the greatest psalms of hope that you could possibly have. So live in that hope. Live in that joy.