Habakkuk (05-Aug-28)
KSS, relevant to life.
Even though…. Joy Habakkuk 3 August 28, 2005…
SIMPLIFY STRUCTURE and work on transitions:
Big Idea: When we go deep in our relationship with God we pray for God’s purposes to be advanced and we rejoice in God even in adversity.
We have some friends who have a sailing club here in the city. For a couple of years, they’ve been encouraging us to learn how to sail…
This summer Sakiko and I were learning some of the basics of sailing.
Once in a while our skipper would say something like, when you become a skilled sailor you’ll be able to sail single handed (i.e., with no crew), across the Georgia Strait or you’re be able going to tell which way the wind is blowing from without look on the windex (wind indicator) or you’re going to be able to navigate your way around the Coast of B.C. with having to rely on GPS global positioning satellite technology…
If you have a hobby, whether you are a beginner or an expert you probably have some idea as to what it would look like to be an expert…
If you are snowboarder, a painter, a guitar painter, you can probably identify what characterizes a master in your field…
Many of you here would consider yourself to be people want to have a growing connection with source of all life…
So we what would a person who is deeply connected to God look like?
(That’s likely a more difficult question than asking you to describe what an expert in your hobby looks like. It’s a difficult question, but an important to wrestle, because it’s unless we have vision of what the person deeply connected to God looks, it going to be hard to become that kind of person).
The prophet Habakkuk at the end of the book in the Bible that bears his name, gives us picture of what it looks like to become who is increasingly connected to God…
At the beginning of the book of Habakkuk we see the prophet spouting angry complaints at God… It’s about the year 600 B.C. and Habakkuk sees corruption, violence, and injustice all around him in Judah and cries out to God, “How long oh Lord?!” How long until you do something?” And God replies, “I am going to do something that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people… to bring judgment on Judah. Habakkuk is not satisfied with that answer! He is furious that God would raise up the Babylonians a people more evil than the Judeans to judge Judah!
But Habakkuk goes up to his watchtower and waits for God to speak.
God reveals to Habakkuk that yes he will use the brutal Babylonians to judge Judah, but God also says he will then also in turn judge the Babylonians.
As Habakkuk spends time in the presence of God and as he learns more about God’s character… we see a person who comes to evidence a deep and mature trust in God.
This is particularly evident in his prayer in Habakkuk 3
If you have your Bibles’ please turn to Habakkuk 3:
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth . (we are not sure what shigionoth means, may well be some kind of muscial term that sets the prayer to music)
Habakkuk prays:
2 LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
We see Habakkuk coming before God in humble awe.
This is quite a contrast to the beginning of the book of Habakkuk where we see the prophet railing against God. How long, Oh Lord till you do something against these wicked Judeans? What are you doing raising up the evil Babylonians to judge the Judeans, why are you raising a people more depraved than the Judeans to judge the Judeans?
But Habakkuk, instead of turning away from God in his anger, waits on God for an answer.
As Habakkuk has spends time waiting on God and as God reveals more of his character to Habakkuk, the prophet recognizes more of God’s greatness…
It’s not as though all of Habakkuk’s questions about the presence of evil in the world are answered, but as Habakkuk spends time in God’s presence and becomes more aware of God’s greatness and he’s more inclined to humbly, trust God…
Notice how he prays in Habakkuk chapter 3.
He prays, “LORD I have heard of your fame and stand in awe of your deeds… Oh LORD.”
Habakkuk expresses wonder at what God has done… (and in vss. 3-15, Habakkuk recounts some the amazing ways God has works in the history…)
This posture of awe and wonder before God is in sharp contrast to the prophet’s anger at God in chapter 1 because of all the violence and injustice he sees about him…
In many ways, not much has changed in terms of Habakkuk’s world. He’s still living a place that is filled with violence, corruption, and injustice (a world that would be even more violent with the invasion of the Babylonians).
So why has Habakkuk changed his approach to God?
As Habakkuk has waited on God and learned more about God’s character, it seems that Habakkuk’s focus has shifted.
In Habakkuk chapter 1 Habakkuk was judging God through the lens of what he saw in the world… whereas in chapter 3, Habakkuk is now judges what he is sees in the world through the lens of what he knows about God.
As Habakkuk waited on God, his focus shifted… so that what he begins seeing what is happening in the world in light of what he knows about God. That mean he understands all that God is doing, but it does mean that even in the midst of the chaos and the pain of his world, he comes before God in humble trust.
This is somewhat abstract, let me illustrate.
Let’s say you have a dog that becomes very sick and so you take your dog to the veterinarian. The veterinarian needs to give your dog a needle. Let’s say your dog judges you--focusing on the fact that you handed her over to the vet and you let the vet prick her with the needle! The dog’s conclusion, you’re mean and evil.
Second scenario: let’s say the dog (somehow) focuses not primarily on the fact you allowed her to be stabled by needle, but focuses on your character and person and your track record of care for her. She still doesn’t understand why you are allowing her to experience the needle, but she can trust you.
It seems that as we progress through Habakkuk, Habakkuk judges God less and less through the lens of what his sees around him, and more and more judges his what he sees in the world through the lens of what he knows to be true of God. Instead of just looking at the problems in his world around he starts seeing them in the light of God.
Again this doesn’t Habakkuk know understands why everything is the way it is, but it does mean Habakkuk becomes less angry and more humble before God…
T
We chapter 3, we Habakkuk standing in awe of God then actively praying for God’s work to be furthered.
Habakkuk prays, LORD, I have heard of your fame, I stand in awe of deeds, oh Lord, renew them in our day, in our times make them know, in wrath remember mercy.
Amazingly Habbakuk has come to place where he trusts God enough to pray that God would further work in the world, even if that “work” is judgment against the world, and after praying would do his work even if that work is judgment he adds, but in the midst of wrath, remember mercy…
Habakkuk and his people are in the midst of a crisis: they are being invaded by the Babylonians and then their enemies in turn will be invaded by the King Cyrus of Persia.
And in midst of this chaos Habakkuk doesn’t just pray, “God would take away the crisis” an understandable and legitimate prayer! But that He prays that would God would do his work (renew your work in our day), fulfill his purposes, and be merciful (remember mercy).
And as the world and perhaps our world is in our crisis… our knee jerk response is typically to ask God to remove the crisis: We pray Lord please stop the war, Lord please don’t let our union go on strike (or maybe it’s Lord let the union go I need a salary raise and I need more spare time), Lord please take away this cancer…
There’s nothing wrong with this kind of prayer. Those are legitimate prayers. But as we go deeper in our relationship with God, while we do pray for deliverance, we also pray like Habakkuk that in our crisis that God would further work and be merciful… We come to place where God’s purposes our more important than our preferences. Like Christ, we pray, “Take this cup from me, but not my will, but “thy will be done.”
Lord I have heard of your fame, I stand in awe of your deeds, renew them in our day, in wrath remember mercy.
T… When we experience deep connection with God, it’s not that all the hard questions melt way, but we become people whole to trust God, we begin to see things in light of God, and we pray for God’s purposes to be furthered in our lives and in the world…
And the chapter 3 closes with this extraordinary affirmation of faith:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls yet, I will rejoice in God and be joyful in God my savior…
Habakkuk is living in a time of crop failure, a time when their livestock wiped out… these kinds calamities in agricultural society, would have devastated the economy.
Yet, he praises God…
In modern language like saying, Though I lose my job and financial life sinks, though I loss a relationship and my “friends” don’t want to have anything to do with me, though my health fails and I end up in hospital, yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior.
If you can say that… you know you’ve established a deep connection with God…
Though none of us would voluntarily choose calamity and loss, adversity does provide a context in which a place like nothing else for us to demonstrate that God is our real God…
Every person of faith goes through seasons where they don’t feel like they are experience God’s blessing…
Part of the reason why God at times may allow visible blessings to be withdrawn from us… is so that like Job we can demonstrate that we don’t just relate to God because of the benefits we get from but because we want truly want we love God.
Now most people initially do come to God because of some kind of benefit they want: I need you spring me from this jam… I need wisdom… or forgiveness… or some thing from God… God welcomes us on those terms, but he wants to eventually come to the point where we relate to God because He’s God.
You know those lottery commercial, with the lines, “Be nice to people who play Lotto 649?”
If the only reason, you’re nice to your roommate, if the only you stay with your boyfriend is because he’s playing Lotto 649 that would be a pretty superficial relationship…
If the only reason we stay with God is because the great things he does for us, that’s a pretty superficial relationship.
Disraeli, the former Prime Minister of England, fell in love and married a lady twelve years older than he by the name of Mary. They had a legendary love and marriage. He used to tease her and say, "Mary, you know the reason I married you was because of your money." And she replied with a twinkle in her eye, "But if you had it to do over again, you'd marry me because of your love."
So it with our relationship with God… we may enter into our relationship with God… because we want something: deliverance, wisdom, a sense of peace, forgiveness… but God wants us to come to the place where we love God not just for his gifts, but for who He is.
We see that Habakkuk has come to this point as he prays:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior.
Habakkuk became a person who learned to rejoice in God even in the middle of great hardship.
Habakkuk was saying come pestilence, come famine, come hell or high water, Lord I “in.”
Are we can becoming a person who can say that to God?
Are we becoming the kind of person who can say, if I lose my job, a relationship, though my health fails…
Yet I will rejoice in God and be joyful in God my savior!
If can say, we know that we have deep connection with God because we know that God is our greatest treasure…
When Habakkuk talks about the fact that he finds joy in God even when the fig tree doesn’t bud and there are no grapes and vines, and though the olive crops fails, and there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls…
I do NOT believe he’s psyched himself up through power of positive thinking… I don’t believe that able to “praise” God by trying to be stoic, stiff upper lip, by saying “No use crying over spilled grace juice.”
I think he able to find joy in God because God was more important to him than figs, grapes, crops, and herds… all the things generate world security for him and his people.
A large family, of modest means, in Epsworth, England… watches in dismay as their house burns down…
There 6 year old son John is trapped in a burning house, but is rescued when one neighbor climbed on another’s shoulders and pulls him out of window.
No doubt John’s parents Samuel and Susanna Wesley were grieved to their home burned to the ground, but they rejoiced because they had something far more valuable, their son was alive.
The John and Susanna Wesley grieved like any of us would grieve over of the loss of their home and almost all of their material goods, but they rejoiced because had far more precious than a physically object, they had their son.
In the first century of church, many of the followers of Jesus were facing persecution and some imprisoned. Apparently some followers of Christ as went to visit their brothers and sisters in prison and thus it became known that they too were Christians. And people, kicked their work benches, stole their horses, ransacked their houses, and then burned to the ground… The book of Hebrews chapter 10 tells us that the joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property,
Why??? According to Hebrews 10: 34 BECAUSE they KNEW that they had a BETTER and MORE LASTING possessions…
When we experience a deep connection with God, even though we experience great loss and experience real mourning in that loss…
we can have joy in God because we know we have treasure in God that it is better and longer lasting than anything on this earth…
Habakkuk has come to know this and that is why he can say…
Though the fig tree does not bud, though there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields no fruit, though there a sheep in the pen and no cattle yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior…
A person with deep connection, prays for God’s purposes to be advances: Lord, I have heard of your fame and stand in awe of your deeds Oh LORD, renew them in our day in our time make them know, in wrath remember mercy…
A they can say… even though…
yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior.
Even though…. Joy Habakkuk 3 August 28, 2005…
SIMPLIFY STRUCTURE and work on transitions:
Big Idea: When we go deep in our relationship with God we pray for God’s purposes to be advanced and we rejoice in God even in adversity.
We have some friends who have a sailing club here in the city. For a couple of years, they’ve been encouraging us to learn how to sail…
This summer Sakiko and I were learning some of the basics of sailing.
Once in a while our skipper would say something like, when you become a skilled sailor you’ll be able to sail single handed (i.e., with no crew), across the Georgia Strait or you’re be able going to tell which way the wind is blowing from without look on the windex (wind indicator) or you’re going to be able to navigate your way around the Coast of B.C. with having to rely on GPS global positioning satellite technology…
If you have a hobby, whether you are a beginner or an expert you probably have some idea as to what it would look like to be an expert…
If you are snowboarder, a painter, a guitar painter, you can probably identify what characterizes a master in your field…
Many of you here would consider yourself to be people want to have a growing connection with source of all life…
So we what would a person who is deeply connected to God look like?
(That’s likely a more difficult question than asking you to describe what an expert in your hobby looks like. It’s a difficult question, but an important to wrestle, because it’s unless we have vision of what the person deeply connected to God looks, it going to be hard to become that kind of person).
The prophet Habakkuk at the end of the book in the Bible that bears his name, gives us picture of what it looks like to become who is increasingly connected to God…
At the beginning of the book of Habakkuk we see the prophet spouting angry complaints at God… It’s about the year 600 B.C. and Habakkuk sees corruption, violence, and injustice all around him in Judah and cries out to God, “How long oh Lord?!” How long until you do something?” And God replies, “I am going to do something that you would not believe, even if you were told. I am raising up the Babylonians that ruthless and impetuous people… to bring judgment on Judah. Habakkuk is not satisfied with that answer! He is furious that God would raise up the Babylonians a people more evil than the Judeans to judge Judah!
But Habakkuk goes up to his watchtower and waits for God to speak.
God reveals to Habakkuk that yes he will use the brutal Babylonians to judge Judah, but God also says he will then also in turn judge the Babylonians.
As Habakkuk spends time in the presence of God and as he learns more about God’s character… we see a person who comes to evidence a deep and mature trust in God.
This is particularly evident in his prayer in Habakkuk 3
If you have your Bibles’ please turn to Habakkuk 3:
1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth . (we are not sure what shigionoth means, may well be some kind of muscial term that sets the prayer to music)
Habakkuk prays:
2 LORD, I have heard of your fame;
I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD.
Renew them in our day,
in our time make them known;
in wrath remember mercy.
We see Habakkuk coming before God in humble awe.
This is quite a contrast to the beginning of the book of Habakkuk where we see the prophet railing against God. How long, Oh Lord till you do something against these wicked Judeans? What are you doing raising up the evil Babylonians to judge the Judeans, why are you raising a people more depraved than the Judeans to judge the Judeans?
But Habakkuk, instead of turning away from God in his anger, waits on God for an answer.
As Habakkuk has spends time waiting on God and as God reveals more of his character to Habakkuk, the prophet recognizes more of God’s greatness…
It’s not as though all of Habakkuk’s questions about the presence of evil in the world are answered, but as Habakkuk spends time in God’s presence and becomes more aware of God’s greatness and he’s more inclined to humbly, trust God…
Notice how he prays in Habakkuk chapter 3.
He prays, “LORD I have heard of your fame and stand in awe of your deeds… Oh LORD.”
Habakkuk expresses wonder at what God has done… (and in vss. 3-15, Habakkuk recounts some the amazing ways God has works in the history…)
This posture of awe and wonder before God is in sharp contrast to the prophet’s anger at God in chapter 1 because of all the violence and injustice he sees about him…
In many ways, not much has changed in terms of Habakkuk’s world. He’s still living a place that is filled with violence, corruption, and injustice (a world that would be even more violent with the invasion of the Babylonians).
So why has Habakkuk changed his approach to God?
As Habakkuk has waited on God and learned more about God’s character, it seems that Habakkuk’s focus has shifted.
In Habakkuk chapter 1 Habakkuk was judging God through the lens of what he saw in the world… whereas in chapter 3, Habakkuk is now judges what he is sees in the world through the lens of what he knows about God.
As Habakkuk waited on God, his focus shifted… so that what he begins seeing what is happening in the world in light of what he knows about God. That mean he understands all that God is doing, but it does mean that even in the midst of the chaos and the pain of his world, he comes before God in humble trust.
This is somewhat abstract, let me illustrate.
Let’s say you have a dog that becomes very sick and so you take your dog to the veterinarian. The veterinarian needs to give your dog a needle. Let’s say your dog judges you--focusing on the fact that you handed her over to the vet and you let the vet prick her with the needle! The dog’s conclusion, you’re mean and evil.
Second scenario: let’s say the dog (somehow) focuses not primarily on the fact you allowed her to be stabled by needle, but focuses on your character and person and your track record of care for her. She still doesn’t understand why you are allowing her to experience the needle, but she can trust you.
It seems that as we progress through Habakkuk, Habakkuk judges God less and less through the lens of what his sees around him, and more and more judges his what he sees in the world through the lens of what he knows to be true of God. Instead of just looking at the problems in his world around he starts seeing them in the light of God.
Again this doesn’t Habakkuk know understands why everything is the way it is, but it does mean Habakkuk becomes less angry and more humble before God…
T
We chapter 3, we Habakkuk standing in awe of God then actively praying for God’s work to be furthered.
Habakkuk prays, LORD, I have heard of your fame, I stand in awe of deeds, oh Lord, renew them in our day, in our times make them know, in wrath remember mercy.
Amazingly Habbakuk has come to place where he trusts God enough to pray that God would further work in the world, even if that “work” is judgment against the world, and after praying would do his work even if that work is judgment he adds, but in the midst of wrath, remember mercy…
Habakkuk and his people are in the midst of a crisis: they are being invaded by the Babylonians and then their enemies in turn will be invaded by the King Cyrus of Persia.
And in midst of this chaos Habakkuk doesn’t just pray, “God would take away the crisis” an understandable and legitimate prayer! But that He prays that would God would do his work (renew your work in our day), fulfill his purposes, and be merciful (remember mercy).
And as the world and perhaps our world is in our crisis… our knee jerk response is typically to ask God to remove the crisis: We pray Lord please stop the war, Lord please don’t let our union go on strike (or maybe it’s Lord let the union go I need a salary raise and I need more spare time), Lord please take away this cancer…
There’s nothing wrong with this kind of prayer. Those are legitimate prayers. But as we go deeper in our relationship with God, while we do pray for deliverance, we also pray like Habakkuk that in our crisis that God would further work and be merciful… We come to place where God’s purposes our more important than our preferences. Like Christ, we pray, “Take this cup from me, but not my will, but “thy will be done.”
Lord I have heard of your fame, I stand in awe of your deeds, renew them in our day, in wrath remember mercy.
T… When we experience deep connection with God, it’s not that all the hard questions melt way, but we become people whole to trust God, we begin to see things in light of God, and we pray for God’s purposes to be furthered in our lives and in the world…
And the chapter 3 closes with this extraordinary affirmation of faith:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls yet, I will rejoice in God and be joyful in God my savior…
Habakkuk is living in a time of crop failure, a time when their livestock wiped out… these kinds calamities in agricultural society, would have devastated the economy.
Yet, he praises God…
In modern language like saying, Though I lose my job and financial life sinks, though I loss a relationship and my “friends” don’t want to have anything to do with me, though my health fails and I end up in hospital, yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior.
If you can say that… you know you’ve established a deep connection with God…
Though none of us would voluntarily choose calamity and loss, adversity does provide a context in which a place like nothing else for us to demonstrate that God is our real God…
Every person of faith goes through seasons where they don’t feel like they are experience God’s blessing…
Part of the reason why God at times may allow visible blessings to be withdrawn from us… is so that like Job we can demonstrate that we don’t just relate to God because of the benefits we get from but because we want truly want we love God.
Now most people initially do come to God because of some kind of benefit they want: I need you spring me from this jam… I need wisdom… or forgiveness… or some thing from God… God welcomes us on those terms, but he wants to eventually come to the point where we relate to God because He’s God.
You know those lottery commercial, with the lines, “Be nice to people who play Lotto 649?”
If the only reason, you’re nice to your roommate, if the only you stay with your boyfriend is because he’s playing Lotto 649 that would be a pretty superficial relationship…
If the only reason we stay with God is because the great things he does for us, that’s a pretty superficial relationship.
Disraeli, the former Prime Minister of England, fell in love and married a lady twelve years older than he by the name of Mary. They had a legendary love and marriage. He used to tease her and say, "Mary, you know the reason I married you was because of your money." And she replied with a twinkle in her eye, "But if you had it to do over again, you'd marry me because of your love."
So it with our relationship with God… we may enter into our relationship with God… because we want something: deliverance, wisdom, a sense of peace, forgiveness… but God wants us to come to the place where we love God not just for his gifts, but for who He is.
We see that Habakkuk has come to this point as he prays:
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior.
Habakkuk became a person who learned to rejoice in God even in the middle of great hardship.
Habakkuk was saying come pestilence, come famine, come hell or high water, Lord I “in.”
Are we can becoming a person who can say that to God?
Are we becoming the kind of person who can say, if I lose my job, a relationship, though my health fails…
Yet I will rejoice in God and be joyful in God my savior!
If can say, we know that we have deep connection with God because we know that God is our greatest treasure…
When Habakkuk talks about the fact that he finds joy in God even when the fig tree doesn’t bud and there are no grapes and vines, and though the olive crops fails, and there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls…
I do NOT believe he’s psyched himself up through power of positive thinking… I don’t believe that able to “praise” God by trying to be stoic, stiff upper lip, by saying “No use crying over spilled grace juice.”
I think he able to find joy in God because God was more important to him than figs, grapes, crops, and herds… all the things generate world security for him and his people.
A large family, of modest means, in Epsworth, England… watches in dismay as their house burns down…
There 6 year old son John is trapped in a burning house, but is rescued when one neighbor climbed on another’s shoulders and pulls him out of window.
No doubt John’s parents Samuel and Susanna Wesley were grieved to their home burned to the ground, but they rejoiced because they had something far more valuable, their son was alive.
The John and Susanna Wesley grieved like any of us would grieve over of the loss of their home and almost all of their material goods, but they rejoiced because had far more precious than a physically object, they had their son.
In the first century of church, many of the followers of Jesus were facing persecution and some imprisoned. Apparently some followers of Christ as went to visit their brothers and sisters in prison and thus it became known that they too were Christians. And people, kicked their work benches, stole their horses, ransacked their houses, and then burned to the ground… The book of Hebrews chapter 10 tells us that the joyfully accepted the confiscation of their property,
Why??? According to Hebrews 10: 34 BECAUSE they KNEW that they had a BETTER and MORE LASTING possessions…
When we experience a deep connection with God, even though we experience great loss and experience real mourning in that loss…
we can have joy in God because we know we have treasure in God that it is better and longer lasting than anything on this earth…
Habakkuk has come to know this and that is why he can say…
Though the fig tree does not bud, though there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields no fruit, though there a sheep in the pen and no cattle yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior…
A person with deep connection, prays for God’s purposes to be advances: Lord, I have heard of your fame and stand in awe of your deeds Oh LORD, renew them in our day in our time make them know, in wrath remember mercy…
A they can say… even though…
yet I will rejoice in the Lord and be joyful in God my savior.
posted by Shigematsu at 10:58 AM
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