September 28, 2025 - Keith Boyd - Finding Hope in the Darkness

September 28, 2025 - Keith Boyd - Finding Hope in the Darkness

0:00 Introduction and Background
1:11 Can We Be Real?
1:39 Anger and Frustration with God
3:30 Reading Psalm 88
6:00 Understanding Psalm 88
8:17 The Realism of the Bible
15:55 Learning About God's Grace
22:24 Becoming a Person of Greatness
33:03 Application and Conclusion

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction and Background
• 1:11 Can We Be Real?
• 1:39 Anger and Frustration with God
• 3:30 Reading Psalm 88
• 6:00 Understanding Psalm 88
• 8:17 The Realism of the Bible
• 15:55 Learning About God's Grace
• 22:24 Becoming a Person of Greatness
• 33:03 Application and Conclusion

Transcript

[00:00:00] Introduction and Background

hey, it's great to be back. Those of you who were not here when, when Deanne and I were here at, I guess, uh, the beginning of August, um, just a little background on us, we, uh, are both Aggies. Woo. Thank you. Uh. And, um, and after a and m we went, uh, I went to seminary at Gordon Conwell, which is north of Boston.

We came back to Texas and started young life in Denton. And then from Denton, we went to New York City where we spent 26 years, uh, pastoring a church there on the upper East side of Manhattan. Moved back to, um, Dallas and pastored in Lake Highlands for six years. And now, uh, our ministry is with five grandchildren, ages nine and under, um, who all live down the street.

And it's just, it's, uh, blessed craziness. Um. So anyway, it's uh, it's great to be back. Um,

[00:01:11] Can We Be Real?

can we be real this morning? Okay. Mass confession. How many of you have ever been just really pissed off at God? Mike said, I could say that in church. I didn't see everybody's hand go up. Are we, are we being real or not? Um,

[00:01:39] Anger and Frustration with God

sometimes you are so angry. I am so angry with God that I don't want to talk to him. I was in Hunt Texas in July and helping to do some cleanup after the flood and. Um, I saw the devastation there and I was talking with a friend of mine who I was down there with, and I just said, who do you point your finger at on this?

There's only one person that I can point my finger at, and that's God. And that just made me angry, my wife. Um. Suffers from a debilitating headache and has suffered, uh, with that headache for 10 and a half years. 24 7. She has a headache. Now, you may not be able to tell, but it ranges. Her good days are six level six and seven.

Uh, it goes from six to 10. And, um, who do I point my finger at on that? It just pisses me off that my wife has to deal with this every day. Um,

I, I'm sure that we could go around the room and every one of us in this room would say, there's this thing that I got. Nobody else I can point my finger at, but God. And it just makes us angry. 

[00:03:30] Reading Psalm 88

This morning we're gonna look at a psalm that hopefully will help us navigate that a little bit. It's Psalm 88, and in order for us to get our heads into the text, I'd like for you to stand and we're gonna read it together.

We're gonna put the version up on the screen. And we're gonna read verses one and two and then verses six through 18, which is the end of the Psalm. So let's read this together. 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. 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 from me, my closest friends, and have made me repulsive to them. I am 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 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. But I cry to you for help, Lord. In the morning, my prayer comes before you. Why, Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?

From my youth, I have suffered and been close to death. I have borne your terrors and am in despair. Your wrath has swept over me. Your terrors have destroyed me all day long. They surround me like a flood. They have completely engulfed me. You have taken from me friend and neighbor. Darkness is my closest friend,

Lord. Teach us this morning. Amen. Be seated.

[00:06:00] Understanding Psalm 88

So I don't know if you know this, um, maybe you do. There are 56 Psalms of lament. In the Salter, which means that over a third of the Psalms are these, these prayers, these cries, these lamentations to the Lord, but almost all of them end with some kind of glimmer of hope. You know, there's some, um, there's some promise of, of deliverance or redemption.

The psalmist will say something like, yeah, I know I'm in this place. But Lord, I trust in you. Yeah, this is really going bad, but Lord, your, your love never fails. Um, there are two Psalms in the Salter, Psalm 39 in Psalm 88, this one that do not end with a glimmer of hope. Um. Here the psalmist uses the word darkness three times.

So darkness is clearly the theme of this. And one of those uses is at the very end where he says, darkness is my closest friend. Uh, in the Hebrew it it act, the word darkness is actually the last word. So you could literally translate this, and my closest friend is darkness. And that's where the prayer ends.

There's no resolution, there's no happy ending. There's just this raw pain and and unrelenting despair.

So what kind of prayer is that? I mean, what kind of prayer? Ends, not with hope, but with darkness. Why would God put this prayer in the Bible? Why does it want, why does he want it to be there? Well, I think this prayer teaches us a few things. 

[00:08:17] The Realism of the Bible

The first thing I think this Psalm teaches us is that darkness can last for a long time, even for Jesus followers.

The Psalmist says at the beginning, you are the God who saves me. He is trusting in God as his savior. He, he says, day and night, I cry out to you and, and you read through the Psalm and, and, and He's praying, and he's praying and he's praying and trusting God to save him. Now we don't know exactly what's happening to this man.

Um, we know that he's lost his friends. At least he talks about that. He talks about facing death, and we don't know if that is, uh, literal death or just figurative death, but at least he feels like he's about to die. Um, we don't know exactly what's going on with this guy, and which, by the way, I kinda like.

Because when it's not crystal clear, it, it enables me to enter in more easily because I can step in and, and put my own circumstance in there. So outwardly, this guy is experiencing darkness, but, but inwardly, he's also experiencing darkness there. Um. When, when things are going badly for you, circumstantially, but you can still sense the presence and love of God, you can still kinda live with hope, right?

Yeah. I know circumstances are bad, but I know God is with me. You, you can just press on. That's not what's going on here. This guy feels abandoned. He feels God has rejected him. So he's experiencing both outward darkness and inward darkness, and he's praying, but he's getting nothing. So in the end, there's still just darkness.

What this tells me. Is that you can be a believer, you can be a follower of Jesus, and you can be believing in God for rescue, for deliverance. You can be praying and doing everything that you think you ought to be doing, and yet it doesn't get better for a long, long time. Aren't you glad you came to church today?

This is a downer, right? It is a downer, but I think there's a mercy in this as well, because it teaches us about the realism of the Bible. Um, there's a, a great, there's a great quote from one of the great theological movies of all time, the Princess Bride. Um. There's a line in this, in, in that movie

that goes like this, life is pain ness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.

Friends, the Bible isn't selling something.

If you are wondering if you should have anything to do with Christianity, I want you to know Christianity is realistic. Um, it's not selling you anything. It tells you that you can be doing everything right and yet for a long, long time, experience pain, have long times of darkness. But there's also a mercy in this because.

Knowing this tempers our expectations. I've had, uh, I've had a number of of people say to me over the years, something along the lines of, you know, now that I'm a Christian, now that I'm following Jesus, nothing bad can really happen to me.

No, no. You've missed the truth of the scriptures. If you think that

you see, I know someone better than you, way better than you named Jesus, and he didn't have a great life. He was rejected. He was tortured. He was killed. And in fact, the night before he was killed, he was having dinner with his guys and he told them, point blank, in this world you will have trouble, John 16.

And another point he, he said, um, a servant is not above his master. And just as the world hated me, it's gonna hate you too.

So here's the mercy. Expectations are a big part of how you handle suffering. If you think that because now you're following Jesus, bad things can't happen to you, you've missed the truth of the scriptures, um, the Bible is not selling you anything. And if you align your expectations with reality that in this world you will have trouble.

That can help you enormously as you face the troubles.

Very often, I think half the pain that we experience is not from the pain itself, but from false expectations where we think we shouldn't have to be going through this. How can this be happening to me? It shouldn't be happening to me. I'm I, Jesus is my savior. Yeah. Doesn't exempt you

friends as servant is not above his master. If Jesus had to endure suffering, which he did, so will we. You know, sometimes I think church culture can unintentionally pressure us to move on, put on, you know, put on a brave face. But what Psalm 88 insists is that sometimes darkness persists. Sometimes the answers do not come.

Sometimes all you can do is cry out and wait. That is real life and that is real faith.

Okay, so that's the bad news of this psalm. All right. It gets better. It gets better after this. Um. As a follower of Jesus, you may have to endure darkness, trouble, pain, grief, suffering for a long time. We are not exempt. That's the first point. 

[00:15:55] Learning About God's Grace

The second point is dark times are really the best times to learn about the grace of God.

Um, I wanna go back to a, a few lines of this, this guy's prayer. And, and it's not really even a prayer. It's more of an interrogation. He says in, in starting in verse 10, he says, 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.

Do you hear the sarcasm in what he's saying? He's saying, of course those things don't happen. Essentially, he said, God, I wanna praise you. I want to glorify you. I want to tell others about your good deeds, but how could I do that if I'm dead? How can I do that if I've lost my daughter in a flood? How can I do that?

If I experience pain every day for 10 years? What this guy is saying is, how can I praise you? How can I be what I want to be for you? If you don't show up the way you ought to show up, God, I need answers. It's what he's saying.

Now, some people might call this blasphemous. It's at least impertinent. He's definitely not being respectful. He's definitely not being deferential. He's definitely, definitely not saying thy will be done

when we are out of our minds with anger and grief and frustration. That God is not treating us the way we think a loving God ought to treat us. We tend to view everything in our life through the lens of that moment. Everything gets clouded by that. This guy is cross-examining God. In fact, when you think about the last statement.

Of this prayer. When he says, darkness is my closest friend, what he's actually saying is God. Darkness is a better friend than you are. Darkness gives me more comfort than you do.

This guy's struggling. And he's not doing things the way we think a good believer should be doing them. Which brings us back to the question, why in the world is this prayer In the Bible, this is like Psalm 39, where at the end of Psalm 39, the Psalmist says, um, God, turn your face away from me so I can get at least a little peace before I die.

And here he says, darkness is my closest friend. These two Psalms end with this anger and despair before God. So what do we do with that? Derrick Kidner was um, uh, an Old Testament scholar and he wrote a number of commentaries. Uh, he actually wrote two on the Psalms. And he says something that I think is, uh, really helpful in gaining perspective on how to handle darkness.

Kidner said the presence of these prayers in scripture is a witness to God's understanding. God knows how men speak when they're d.

What, what Kidner is saying is the very fact that God put these psalms in the Salter lets us know that God gets us. You've seen those television ads. He gets us. Well, he does. God gets us. Um. God doesn't say, I don't want that prayer in my book. I don't want people to think that I'm the God of someone who will talk to me like that.

No. God says no. I do want that prayer in my book. I do want people to think that I'm the God of someone who will talk to me like that. Why? Because I am a God of grace and I can handle it. You see, God knows that we're not always gonna be clicking on on all cylinders. He knows that life is gonna be hard and we're gonna be upset, and we're gonna get angry and we're gonna go through stuff.

He gets us and he says, just talk to me. Just be real with me,

friends. God wants us to know that he is a God of grace and he loves us even when we aren't getting it right. He is a God of grace and he loves us. Even when we are insolent. What God is saying to us through this Psalm is that he is our God, not because we get it right all the time or put on a happy face, and I'm gonna just, I'm not gonna be real.

No.

He wants us to know that he is a God of grace and he gets us. Do you re, do you realize how liberating that is? I don't know about you, but I've learned 10 times more about the grace of God in dark times than I have in good times. Here's the third point. 

[00:22:24] Becoming a Person of Greatness

Not only are dark times, the best time, the best times to learn about the grace of God, dark times are the best times to become a person of greatness.

You might say, well, Keith, how do you get that from this psalm? Well, here's what I mean. It's true that this guy isn't, uh, saying things. To God the way he should be saying them, but he is saying them to God.

And that reminds us of the Book of Job if, if you're familiar with, with the Book of Job. Um, job comes in the very beginning of the book, job comes into the presence of God, and God says, have you seen my servant job? Have you checked him out? He is. He serves me just endlessly. Job is a rock star. That's my translation and Satan's response is, well, God does Job serve you for nothing?

Does, does job serve you because he loves you or does job serve you because you do stuff for him? Is he, Satan, is positing that job does X, Y, and Z? Because he's try believing that God is gonna do A, B, and C for him. That there's this transactional relationship. That God, I'll serve you so that you will bless me.

And so what Satan is challenging God on is he's saying is if you'll give Job outer darkness and inner darkness, I bet he will curse you

because the transactional thing. Has gone away. Um, have you ever thought that somebody loved you for you, but then come to find out they loved you for what they thought you could do for them? Opened this door or provide that thing? How'd that feel to be used?

Not great, right? How do you think God feels?

What Satan brings up is, is really important for us. And don't forget, the Book of Job was written for everyone to read and whoever wrote the book of job didn't want us to just think about job, but the author. Also wants us to know that Satan is making that same accusation about us.

Satan is challenging whether or not we really serve God because we love God, or we serve him because of what we think he can do for us. Are we in a transactional relationship with God?

So what's true? Is Satan right about me? Satan, right about you. That you're in relationship with God for what God can do for you?

If I'm honest, I would have to say at least to some degree, yeah, he's right because I come to God so that God can do certain things for me. I come to God because I want eternal life. I come to God because I think he can, you know, provide this or that for me, friends, if we're honest, I think we would all have to admit that there is some self-centeredness to our Christianity.

Now, I'm not gonna take the time to un unpack the Book of Job, but if you read it, you know that job says some pretty awful things to God in that book. Um, not unlike this psalm, but at the end of the book, God says to Job's friends, that job has honored him. Now you read that and you go, wait a minute, God, how in the world can this guy who has said all of these terrible things to you, how can you say that he's honored you?

While it is true, that job was angry and he was complaining. Job was angry with and complaining to God, you see, he never walked away from the relationship. Sir. He never said, no, I'm done with this. He stayed in there. He kept, he, he kept in relationship with with God, even when he was getting nothing out of it, which means that Satan lost.

Right. Friends. The same thing is happening in this psalm, the psalmist, even though he's not praying the way we think he ought to be praying, he's still praying. Which means that Satan loses because the relationship is still there. Friends, when you go through darkness and you don't feel that God is there, you hold on any way and say, you're God and I'm not.

I am not getting anything out of this, but I'm gonna keep praying. I'm gonna keep worshiping. I'm gonna keep loving my neighbor. I'm gonna keep doing the things that I believe you've called me to do. And friends, when you do that, that will turn you into a person who is not in a transactional relationship with God.

But you are a person of endurance, a person of stability, and dare I say it, a person of greatness. It is in the darkness that you are forced to throw off that transactional approach, and you have to come to terms with whether you are serving God because you love God, or you are serving God for what you think God can do for you.

And when you say, okay, God, I'm gonna love you and I'm gonna serve you regardless of what happens in my life, that will change you, that will make you unflappable, that will cause greatness to rise up in you. And here's the last point. Darkness can transform you into a person of influence. Anybody know who wrote this psalm?

My wife does. Yes, David? No, no. This is a Psalm of Heman, not Haman from the book of Esther, but Heman, H-E-M-E-N. Anybody know who Heman was? No. Do you read your Bible? One? Chronicle six tells us that Heman was the head of the Kotite clan, and the Kotite clan was in charge of all the music for the temple.

When you read through the Psalms, a good number of the Psalms that you read were written by the Kotite. They were written by Heman and his proteges. And what's more, the salter is regarded by believers and non-believers alike as one of the greatest works of literary art in the history of the world. And so what happens is.

This guy, Heman and his proteges created some of the greatest literary and musical art that the world has ever seen, and millions and millions of people have been impacted by and influenced by this guy and his art.

Do you know how pressure turns a piece of coal into a diamond? God is using the pressure of this man's sufferings to, to create in him a person of great influence. Do you think that when Heman was going through whatever he was going through. Um, that he thought that 2,500 years later there would be a group of people at Possum Kingdom Lake talking about his words.

Of course not, he couldn't see it, but we can. We can see that God was there, that God was working, his suffering was temporary and God was using it to produce in him works that God would use in the lives of others for literally millennia

and friends, we can know that too. If God is your savior and you are relying on him, he is there. Even if you don't feel it, he hasn't abandoned you. He is working still. 

[00:33:03] Application and Conclusion

All right, very quickly, I've got five points of application. Um, if you are in a season of darkness, you are not failing spiritually.

Psalm 88 invites us to pray honestly, to bring our sadness and our anger, and our confusion to God friends. Lament is a part of faith. It's not an enemy of it. Enter into it. It's okay. Number two, stay in the conversation with God. This psalmist keeps praying even when he feels unheard. In your own pain, in your own darkness.

Keep turning to God. Don't let silence push you away from the one who loves you. Number three, lean on the community of believers. One thing we didn't talk about, um, though if you think about it, it's pretty obvious this. Is in the Salter, which means this was in the Jewish hymnal, which means they would come together and like we sang this morning, can you imagine singing this song?

But they came together and they sang this song. Why? Because the community is gonna rally around those who are hurting. Friends, when darkness falls, do not walk alone. Let others carry you when you cannot carry yourself. The church is the body of Christ, and we are called to weep with those who weep.

Number four, be honest with your emotions. Guess what? God can handle it. He can handle it. He can handle our honesty. There is no emotion that is too raw for him. Just name your pain, write your own Psalm ment. God does not despise your brokenness. He welcomes it. And number five, look for glimmers of hope, even when they're small.

One of the things I love about Psalm 88 is that it doesn't resolve. There's no happy ending. There's no tie a bow on this. It's just this raw emotion of a guy who keeps coming to God, but praying this Psalm is in and of itself an act of hope because he keeps coming.

Believing that even in the darkness, God is there listening. Friends, sometimes hope is just getting up in the morning. Sometimes it's asking for help. Trust that God is working even when you cannot see him. Here's where I want to close this morning.

I think we've all been, we've all experienced those times where we have felt abandoned by God. Yes. What we need to appreciate is that there's only one who was ever abandoned, truly abandoned by God, and his name is Jesus. When he hung on the cross, he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you turned your face away from me?

And you know what happened? Darkness fell. You see, we've only just felt abandoned. Jesus was abandoned and he was abandoned for us friends. Through his suffering, Jesus brought life. The resurrection tells us that darkness does not have the final word. Even when we cannot see the dawn Easter has come. The gospel is not the removal of all pain, but it is the promise that pain will not last forever.

In Christ, our laments are heard. Our suffering is shared. Our hope is secure. Psalm 88 may leave us in the night, but the gospel, the truth of the scriptures move us toward the morning. The Psalm is cry in Psalm 88 will most certainly be all of our cries at some point in our life. But in Jesus' death and resurrection, we can know that God is still at work, even in the darkness.

Let me pray for us,

Lord. Thank you. Thank you for that in this psalm. Thank you for, uh, the represent representation of the reality of life. Lord, I pray for any of us here this morning who are in the darkness. I pray God, that you would help us to be real with that. Us that you would help us to embrace it, that you would help us to keep crying out to you, uh, with our raw emotions, but to stay in that relationship and not walk away.

And Lord, for those of us who are not in that dark place, we say thank you, but we recognize that that dark place will most certainly come again. Lord, thank you that we can, uh, come together and celebrate you together and we say amen.