"Finding your way in the dark"

Psalm 88. Lord, you are the god who saves me. Day and night, I cry out to you. May my prayer come before you, turn your ear to my cry. I am overwhelmed with troubles, and my life draws near to death.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit. I am like 1 without strength. I was set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care. You have put me in the lowest pit in the darkest depths. Your wrath lies heavily on me.

You have overwhelmed me with all your waves. You have taken me from you have taken from me my closest friends and have made me repulse sift to them. I'm confined and cannot escape. My eyes are dim with grief. I call to you lord every day.

I spread out my hands to you. Do you show what your wonders to the dead? Did their spirits rise up and praise you? Is your love declared in the grave? Your faithfulness in are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion, but I cried to you for your help, lord.

In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Why lord do you reject me and hide your face from me? From my use, I have suffered and being close to death. I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me.

Your terrors had destroyed me all day long. They surround me like a flood. They have completely engulfed me. You have taken me. You've taken from me friend, a neighbor.

Darkness is my closest friend. Well, good morning. Good morning. Thank you, Anne, for reading that sound to us. I wonder how you feel after that reading.

You feel uplifted, inspired, encouraged. We read of people turning to the Bible for comfort. Did you find any comfort in that reading? So that the last verse for that Psalm darkness is my closest friend. This has been called, a Psalm without hope.

Nearly all the Psalm arms end on a note of hope, not this 1. We're gonna be thinking today about finding our way in the dark. Dark. Dark is is mentioned 3 times. I mean, what what's a prayer?

What's a song like this doing in the Bible? Well, it's doing us a lot of good if we listen do it because it's very easy, even as Christians, for some to be naive about the fact that suffering is inevitable. This is not some for optimists. It's a some for realists. Suffings can overthrow us.

We often don't know how to deal with them. We had to listen carefully. So let us pray May father, this passage today, it seems so dark, so full of despair. Yeah. We know it's in your word for a reason.

Please speak to us this morning to help us to find our way in the dark. I mean. Now this song was about someone who's in despair. Absolutely despair. He's not just down in the dumps because his team happened to have lost.

There are key messages for us. We're gonna be looking at this and thinking about darkness in as external darkness and internal darkness and that it can last a long time. How it can show us god's grace, how it can turn us into something great, and how it points to the 1 who really knew darkness. Now this song was written by a man called Heeman. Today, he'd be called the worship leadership leader.

He said the music in the temple. You can mention there with his iPad conducting all the wonderful music in the temple. Well, we'll look a little bit more at heman later. Many pastors and church leaders will have known what it's like to sit beside someone to hold the hand of someone who is a true believer in Jesus, but who just can't be comforted and seems to be facing a future without any kind of assurance. Maybe be you've been there to some extent.

And so you're in a valley where there's where there's no sunshine, and where Jesus and his love, the gospel, the joy of heaven, well, that all belongs to someone else. Yes. This Psalm is very dark. But look verse 1. Lord, you are the god who saves me.

Day and night, I cry out to you. You see how he recognizes that god is the 1 who saves. And he per sisters in prayer day and night. I pray to you. But let's look at this darkness and see what we can learn.

Because we can see that darkness can last a long time. Now this arm ends with, apparently, no hope. So what's the teaching? When you can pray and pray, you can do everything right, but still be in darkness for a long time. As I said, there are 2 types of darkness.

There's the outside darkness, the darkness of your circumstances. Now we don't know the details of this man suffer ring. But that that that's quite good, actually, because it means that we can apply it to ourselves. Read the Psalms as your own, read it, relate to it. We can see that his closest friends and loved ones been taken from him, and that he's facing imminent death.

Then there's an internal darkness this man is suffering. He trusts in God as his savior, you see in verse 1, 0 lord, the god who saves me. But if he's caught, yes, he can't feel god's presence. He feels abandoned, rejected, trampled on by god. He prays, and he prays.

It is still in darkness. Now this is a tough message. You can be good. You can pray like crazy, but everything still seems to go wrong. You just don't feel the presence of god.

But hang on, doesn't the Bible say that god is always working everything for good that god has a purpose in everything? Yes, he does. But here's the thing. The Bible also says that you may never, in this life, fully understand what that good purpose is. That's to be in darkness.

And anyone who says that the Bible teaches that everything will always be alright in the end is gonna have to tear this page right after the Bible. So do you see how this Psalm prepares us for suffering? Because this Psalm says it can happen. If you go out in line life and you think this can't happen to me. I'm a Christian.

I'm I'm I'm a good person. God would never let something like this happen. Why? Why not? Jesus was a good person.

He suffered more than anyone has ever and we're not above him. So darkness, both spiritual and personal can last a long time, but darkness can show us god's grace Time of darkness are actually some of the best places to learn about god's grace. Look at verses 10 to 12. Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do their spirits rise up and praise you.

Is your love declared in the grave your faithfulness and destruction? Are your wonders known in the place of darkness or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? Now the Psalm is here. He he's not controlling his temper. He's not controlling his tongue.

He's not controlling his emotions. He's ranting and raving at god. It's like he's cross examining god. He even says in verse 15. From my youth, I've been afflicted and close to death.

I've suffered your terrors and am in despair. It's like he's saying, you've never been there for me, god. He he's really angry. He's not talking reverently or fully to god. It's it's it's almost like blasphemy.

And yet. And yet. This is a prayer. Look at verse 9. I call to you, oh, lord, every day.

Firstly, 13, I cry to you lord for help. Oh, lord, in the morning. My prayer comes before you. So despite it all, he is praying to god, and I cast my mind back to the series of sermons we had in the run up to Christmas on songs. And Gerind was taking us through Mary's song, and I can remember him saying, don't stop singing.

So we learn here is don't stop praying. Whatever you do. The very fact that this Psalm is in the Bible shows us that god understands when we're angry. He under stands us. He knows how we speak when we're desperate.

God didn't censor this Psalm. He didn't say you didn't take it out and say, I don't want this prayer in the Bible. I don't want to identify with people who pray like that. God is saying, I am your god not because you say and do the right things, or because you talk to me reverently, but because I am a god of grace. In spite of all the things you do, I am your god So darkness can show us god's grace, but also darkness can make us great.

Lily? How can darkness make us great? You you feel you're getting nothing out of prayer, you're getting nothing out of serving god. How's the darkness gonna make you great? You feel there's no benefit in serving god?

Actually, that's that's quite important. In the book of Job, we get to listen in on a conversation between satan and god, and satan is taunting god, talking about Job. He says, does Job serve you for nothing. Look at him. He's only doing it for what he can get out of it.

Take away all his world, be well, and he'll curse you. But really, Satan is pointing at us too. Look at them. They're only serving you because it pays. Because it makes them feel good.

They serve you, help the poor because as long as they feel good about themselves, they can feel superior to other people who don't. They know if they do all this, you're gonna answer their prayers. You're gonna take them to heaven. And give them peace in their lives. They're not loving you.

They're loving themselves. Satan also is saying, clung some of them into darkness. Don't answer their prayers for a long time. Take away their earthly comforts so that serving you and praying to you pays nothing, and you'll see they'll curse you. But if when things get hard, and it seems like god's answering our prayers, if we say, Right.

That's it. I give up. God isn't coming through for me. What happens if we do that? It shows us that Satan has won.

It shows to Satan is right. But we see in this Psalm, the Psalm is here. He it looks pretty bad. He's exaggerating. He's yelling at god, but everything he says in this Psalm is a prayer.

To god. Even right at the end when he says darkness is my closest friend. He's saying it to god, even though he's getting nothing out of it. So what does that mean? It means that Satan has been defeated.

It means that despite the darkness, this man is staying with god, even though he's getting nothing in return. So for us, when we find ourselves in darkness, we have a choice Are we serving god because he is our god, or are we serving him just to get him to serve us? If in that situation, in net darkness, you just hold on. Maybe you're shouting a god. God, I don't like you.

I don't understand you. I'm angry with you, but I'm not going anywhere. Why? I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna serve.

I'm going to obey you as best I can because you are god. Not because you're my servant, not because you're doing nice things for me, but because you're god, and I'm not. I'm going to be with you. God. If you do that, like this Thomas, you defeated Satan.

If you make that choice to stick with god, it can turn your heart into something wonderful that by the way that pressure can turn a lump of coal into a diamond. Do you see how darkness can make us great? It's through these times of darkness. We can start to get a soul that can't be nominated that can't be daunted. So darkness can make us something great, but above all, darkness points us to the 1 who really knew darkness.

So when you're in darkness, it can feel absolute. This man, human, certainly felt that. He felt that god had completely abandoned him, and that the dark Partners was complete and permanent, but he was wrong. How do we know that? If we look back in the book, the 1 Chronicles in the old testament, we know that Human was the leader of what called the Coethite, Gilder musicians and poets, who wrote some of the greatest psalms in the forties and the and in the eighties of the psalms.

He was in darkness here, but we now know that he helped write some beautiful psalms He thought his darkness was total, that god couldn't have any purpose in this, yet the darkness turned him into a great psalmist. This darkness, he felt it wasn't so total. It wasn't permanent. We could know that, too. Towards the end of Psalm 39, Sammy says, turn your face from me, god.

And at the end of our Psalm today, darkness is my closest trend. Does that remind you of anyone? Matthew chapter 27, from the sixth hour to the ninth hour. Darkness came over all the land. At the ninth hour, Jesus Christ on the cross cried.

My god. My god. Why have you forsaken me? Why have you earned your face from me. Stephen took her through this on Good Friday, the riddle of the darkness, all through the gospels, Jesus, prayed addressing God as father.

Not here. My god, he says. Because here on the cross, Jesus wasn't being treated as a son at that moment, because at that point, he had taken on all the sins of the world for us. Jesus got the ultimate darkness that heman thought he had got, but hadn't. Jesus was totally and utterly a abandoned.

Why? Why was the darkness, his only friend? Why was god's face turned away from him? Why? Because god wanted to forgive us If you forgive someone, what happens?

What happens is you have to absorb the debt instead of making that other person So in order to forgive us, god came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ and paid the debt himself. He took the ultimate darkness. He took the wrath. So that because of that, that our darkness is only apparent. Jesus was truly abandoned.

You only feel abandoned if you're in darkness. You're not truly abandoned. When Jesus was in the garden of gethsemane, and that darkness was coming down on him, and he knew it was coming, he didn't abandon us. He died for us. If Jesus didn't abandon us in his dark the ultimate darkness, why in the world would he abandon us in ours?

So this means that there is an answer to human sarcastic angry question in the middle of this song. Look at verse 10. Do you show your wonders to the dead to those who are dead rise up and praise you? Well, because Jesus died for our sins. The answer is, yes.

Someday, all who believe in and follow Jesus are going to rise from the dead and praise him because he took our penalty and took our sins upon himself. Now you can't know that that resurrection is coming and be in utter darkness. There was a lady who was chronically ill and always suffering. Someone said, oh, it seems like your suffering so much. How do you feel?

Nothing. The resurrection won't cure. If you know the direction the resurrection is coming, it's in to be in utter darkness. So, yes, suffering continues to remain a mystery. But as new testament believers, we read these old testament passages with each to eyes, crying out to god with complaints in difficult times is not a lack of faith, it's evidence of faith.

So we're here as a church family. How can we help them encourage each other? We're going through times of darkness, 3 things. Listen, accept, pray. Lap it up.

Listen, accept, pray. Pray for elephant ears, pray for pray for these 3 words, lord help me understand. Help me understand what it's like to have a child in hospital? What is it like to know you have cancer? What is it like to lose a spouse?

I know what it's like to lose loved ones, but I don't know what it's like for this person. Lord, help understand. Let them tell their story. Never underestimate the power of a card, a message, a prayer, a phone call, a visit. Remember, their darkness.

Ask them how it's going every time you see them. The suffering of mental illness and other tragedies is is real, but Jesus is our friend. At this friends of Jesus, we are called to be these people's friends. Jesus is present in our darkness, and we're called to carry others to Jesus. So this can't tell us that long term suffering may be our lot.

It reminds us that we're not in heaven yet, but Islam has given us a shining example of Systement prayer, here's someone who's walking in darkness, but trusting in the name of the lord and leaning on god in spite of everything, because Jesus went through the ultimate darkness, so we don't have to. I'm gonna close by reading a few words on a on this Psalm. This darkness can happen to a believer. This Psalm says, it doesn't mean you're lost. This darkness can happen to someone who doesn't deserve it.

After all, it happened to Jesus. That doesn't mean you strayed. This darkness can happen at any time as long as this world lasts. Because only in the next, all such things be done away with. This darkness could happen without you knowing why, but there are answers.

There is a purpose, and eventually you will know it. Let it close in a little prayer. Heavenly father, thank you for this Tom. Thank you for its realism. Thank you for what it tells us that you understand when we talk like this.

But most of all, help us to remember that your son Jesus got the darkness we deserved so that in our darkness, we can know that you're still our friend. Please change our lives by your Holy Spirit through this word, through this Psalm. So we still follow you when darkness comes so that we can become something like your son, Jesus. Jesus who came not to be served, but to serve and give his life for us. We pray this in Xi's name, Army.