I Rejoice Because I Trust Series

I Rejoice Because I Trust

Habakkuk Part 3

This is the last week of our series on the book of Habakkuk,

so lets review.

Habakkuk was one of the twelve Minor Prophets,

He wrote this about the year 605 B.C.,

All the Minor Prophets give God’s message to the people,

but Habakkuk was the only prophet

that actually gives the people’s message back to God,

because this book is actually

a series of conversations

between Habakkuk and God.

Habakkuk starts off by complaining to God

that he’s getting sick of the way things are.

He’s tired of the sin, and suffering,

evil, and injustice.

So he asks God,

What are you gonna do about this situation?”

God answers him, and says,

“As a matter of fact, I do have a plan.

I’m getting ready to do something.

You know those nasty, mean, wicked people

that live next door to you,

the Babylonians?

They’ve been wanting to attack you for a long time,

and I was protecting you,

but notice the word was.

Since your people

keep sinning, keep disobeying,

and keep ignoring me,

I’ve decided that

I’m gonna let the Babylonians come over

and rough you up a little bit.

Habakkuk thinks about this for 2 seconds, then says

“Uhhhh, Is there a plan B?

I don’t know if you forgot God, but I live there too!

and I’m not one of the bad guys.

Can’t we work this out another way?

Because God, I know we’re bad,

I know we’ve been kind of ignoring you,

but the Babylonians are way worse.

How could you use them to punish us?

That is not fair,

God you’re supposed to be fair,

I don’t understand this,

God, you’ve got some explaining to do.

If you’ve ever had an experience like that with God,

where you thought,

“God, this just doesn’t seem fair,”

then you can relate to the story of Habakkuk.

And Chapter one ends,

with Habukkuk still not understanding,

and he’s questioning

why God isn’t being fair.

Now, in the last couple weeks

we also talked about something I called the dip.

So lets review that.

This is a graph of what the typical Christian life looks like.

At the starting point is an “x”

This would be a person who has not yet become a follower of Christ,

but one day, as the Spirit draws them, they make the decision to become a follower, they find new life in Christ. and are born anew spiritually. Their sins are forgiven. They’re filled with Holy Spirit,

And then what happens most of the time,is that there’s some immediate blessings and changes, they feel a sense of peace and joy, and God answers some of their prayers, and there’s like these God coincidences everywhere they go, and its like there’s this spiritual high.

In fact, for those of you who are Christians,

how many of you can relate to a time like that,

after you started following Christ,

where you experienced like a spiritual high.

(lot of you)

But if you’ve been following Christ very long,

you also know,

that doesn’t last forever,

Life goes on,

and eventually you’ll have experiences

where God doesn’t seem to answer your prayers like he did,

and you’re not having the same God coincidences,

Maybe something bad happens to someone you love,

and you’re like,

“That doesn’t seem fair.

God, you could have done something about that,

but you didn’t do anything.

Why not? I don’t understand.

And maybe you start thinking,

God, I thought we had this deal.

It was all good, and everything was working out right.

But now something’s changed.

What’s going on?”

How many of you have ever had a time like that with God?

Where you had some questions?

A bunch of you would say,

“Yeah. I can relate to that time.”

We’ve called this a crisis of belief.

This is where Habakkuk was in chapter one.

God, you aren’t being fair,

and I don’t understand.

And when you experience a crisis of belief,

you have 3 options.

A lot of people want to try to go back to their last point of spiritual high.

and pretend like everything is still great. That doesn’t work very well.

Others might say,

God, if you’re not gonna do what I want, if you’re going to let things happen that I think are unfair, then forget You, I’m not going to follow any more. I’m outta here.

Or the third option, is you can hang on, and continue to follow God,

even when you don’t understand.

If you do that like Habakkuk did,

you’ll get to chapter two.

In Chapter Two,

Habakkuk goes into a season of waiting.

God tells him to be quiet and listen,

because God wants to speak to him.

And God tells him to take notes.