Praising Through Lament (Psalm 88)
This is a sermon I preached in chapel at Maranatha Baptist University on 2/14/2022 as part of a series on Psalms called "Planted and Productive: Living a Blessed Life." Introduction I have an opening question for you this morning, and I want you to think about and chew on it as I go through the rest of the message. Our theme in Psalms is “Planted and Productive” – we are talking about living a blessed life that shows the enviable position of the one who knows God, but today as yesterday we are dealing with a lament psalm. Here is the question: are believers still enviable in the midst of what Martin Luther termed “the dark night of the soul” – that is, in great sorrow? I have another question for you to think about as we are going through the sermon today: in Hebrew, the book is not called “psalms” but “praises,” which accurately reflects a large majority of its contents; but does that title accurately reflect the laments? We are going to answer those questions in the end...