Waiting in Faith
HABAKKUK #2
… little known secret about our worship leader, Greg.
…a closet country music fan.
In fact, I thought I’d share with you a List - of Greg’s Top 10 favorite songs.
These are all the actual titles from the BMI country music database.
#10 on Gregs list … is the classic,
10. Mama Get The Hammer There’s a Fly on Papa’s Head.
9. You were only a splinter, as I slid down the banister of life.
8. If You Want to Keep the Beer Real Cold, Put it Next to My Ex-Wife's Heart
(Every time Greg hears the next song he can’t help crying)
7. I'd Rather Pass a Kidney Stone than Another Night With You
6. I’m gonna put a bar, in the back of my car, and drive myself to drink.
5. If I can’t be number one in your life, then number two on you.
4. One Day When You Swing That Skillet (My Face Ain't Gonna Be There)
(that one sounds like a heartbreaker)
3. I Went Back to My Fourth Wife for the Third Time and Gave Her a Second Chance to Make a First Class Fool Out of Me
(The next one is a sentimental favorite)
2. You’re the Reason Our Kids are Ugly
(And Greg’s favorite song of all time…)
If My Nose Was Running Money, Honey, I’d Blow It All On You
We’re in the middle of a series called “Habakkuk”,
which is one of the twelve Minor Prophets
from the Old Testament.
written in about the year 600B.C.,
If you weren’t here last week,
I’ll do a quick review.
It starts with Habakkuk whining to God.
Some of you may relate to this.
He’s complaining that
he doesn’t like the way things are,
there’s a lot of evil and corruption and injustice,
so he wants God to do something.
God then responds to him and basically tells him,
“Trust me Habakkuk, I’ve got a plan.”
And God tells him the plan.
God says, Because they’re so wicked.”
“I am going to have to punish the people of Judah,
and the way I’m going to do it is,
I am going to let the evil Babylonians come
and conquer my people”
So then Habakkuk whines again and says,
“Well, God, I don’t really like your plan,
that doesn’t sound fair,
because the Babylonians are worse that we are,
how can you use them to punish us?
And at the beginning of chapter two Habakkuk says,
I’m gonna climb a wall,
and watch and wait till you give me an answer,
about why you’re not being fair.
So God gives him an answer again,
but at the end of chapter 2
God basically says,
Habakkuk, why don’t you shut up and trust me?”
And then in chapter 3
Habakkuk comes up with this genius idea,
I’m gonna shut up and trust God.”
And that’s the whole Book of Habakkuk.
That’s how it’s all laid out.
it’s a series of conversations
between Habakkuk and God.
Today, if you are facing a difficult situation,
and you say,
“I don’t understand, God.
You could do something about my problem,
but you’re not doing anything.
why aren’t you answering my prayer,
I don’t understand.”
If that’s the way You feel today
about some situation in your life,
then the book of Habakkuk
has a lot to say to you.
And the question we’re going look at today is,
“What do you do when you’re in the dip?”
Now, if you weren’t here last week,
let me show you what the dip is. [SLIDE]
This is a picture of the typical Christian life.
Let me review it quickly.
Someone who doesn’t yet know Christ,
is at this starting point.
Then one day,
by the power of the Holy Spirit,
they feel drawn to God,
they decide they want a relationship
with God’s son Jesus,
so they ask for forgiveness,
they commit to follow him,
and spiritually, they’re born anew
And often with a new follower of Christ,
there’s tremendous excitement,
and God starts answering their prayers.
it feels like God is blessing them in so many areas,
and there’s kind of a spiritual high.
But then unfortunately, life goes on,
and after a while,
you’ll go through some more difficult times
and that excitement will cool off.
Maybe it happens when you lose a job.
Or maybe you start to struggle with certain sins
maybe your kid makes a bad decision.
Or maybe you pray about something,
but God didn’t answer a prayer
Whatever the case,
all of a sudden you’re going,
“Wait a minute, God,
I thought this was gonna always be great,
but now, it doesn’t feel so great,
you’re not blessing me like I thought you would.
What’s going on?”
And you enter into what Henry Blackabee calls a crisis of belief.
When a person enters into a crisis of belief,
you have a choice about where to go.
You can try to go back to your last spiritual high.
and basically pretend everything’s still great,
Or, you can get mad at God,
and give up on following him.
Or, you can continue to follow,
continue to hang on to God,
even through the hard times,
even if things don’t get better yet.
even if they actually get worse,
If you do this,
you start living out the New Testament principle,
from the book of James
where he says,
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
And if you do that,
if you hang on in the hard times,
then you will grow much closer to God
than was ever possible before.
If you look at the people who are closest to God,
they’re almost always those
who’ve been through the most difficult times,
but continued to trust God.
Now today, we’re going to let the book of Habakkuk show us
3 specific things we can do
while we’re in the dip,
while we’re going through difficult times.
This is what you can do when you are struggling
and you know that God could do something,
but He’s not doing it,
and you’re wondering,
“God, where are You?
What are you doing?”
Look at chapter 2, verses 1-3.
At this point in the story,
Habakkuk has heard the news
that God is going to destroy his people,
using the evil Babylonians,
Habakkuk complains to God,
That isn’t fair,
and then he says,
Okay, God, until you explain yourself,
here’s what I’m gonna do.
Habakkuk 2, verse 1
“I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts.
In other words, Habakkuk says,
“I’m going to climb up on the wall of the city,
to a watch tower.
and then he says;
“I will look to see what God will say to me.”
He says, I’m going to wait here and listen,
till I get an answer from God.
Too often, when problems come into our lives,
what we do is,
we just whine and complain about what’s going on
and then we go on about our lives.
We don’t expect God to talk back.
so we never stop to listen.
We never ask,
God, what are You trying to tell me?
What do you want to show me?
If you’ll stop to listen,
God will often speak to you.
How will He speak?
All sorts of different ways.
God can speak through His word.
as you read it.
God can speak to us by impressions of the Holy Spirit.
As you’re praying,
the holy spirit will bring
thoughts or ideas or images into your mind.
God can speak to you through circumstances.
God can speak to you through other godly people
and their advice or counsel.
He can speak to you on Sunday mornings, through me,
God has lots of ways.
Now I have to tell you,
just because you listen to God,
doesn’t mean you’ll like what He says.
Habakkuk doesn’t like what God says to him.
But at least when you hear it,
you’ll know that God is at work.
The apostle Paul had what he called a thorn in his flesh,
and he prayed over and over again.
“God, I know You can do something about it.
Please take it away.
He finally got an answer,
but he didn’t like the answer.
Because God’s answer was,
Paul, I could take it away,
but I’ve decided not to.
Why?
Because I am going to do something even better
than take it away,
I’m going to use it to teach you
that My grace is all you need.
I could take it away,
but I’m not going to,
I’m going to do something better.”
Paul didn’t understand that,
but he listened to God,
and at least got an answer to why,
and he knew that God was using it.
So when life is hard,
and you don’t understand,
The first thing to do, is listen.
And pay attention to all the ways God can speak,
until you get an answer.
If you don’t get an answer in prayer, do not stop there.
study God’s word,
or listen to some good teaching,
or ask godly people for counsel,
and listen till you get an answer.
The second thing Habakkuk did is,
to write what God showed him.
in verse 2.
Then the Lord replied: "Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets.
Why do we need to write it down?
Because you’ve probably had an experience like me,
Kathy asks me to pick up some things at the grocery store
and its not a long list, its only 3 things.
So I think, I don’t have to write that down,
how hard is it to remember 3 things,
But then, on the way to the store, something happens
its like a little birdy comes and steals that list right out of my brain,
and I get to the store,
and I cannot remember the third thing on that list.
Am I the only one this happens to?
Anybody else ever done that?
Of course, that’s what cell phones are for, right.
But then I realize I forgot my cell phone too.
In the same way,
Some of you have had an experience,
where you’ve been praying,
and waiting for God to do something,
and praying some more,
and then one day,
God shows something to you,
Maybe he speaks to you while you’re in prayer,
or maybe its something you hear on the radio,
or something I say on Sunday morning,
or something you read in the Bible,
but God speaks to you,
and shows you something about your situation,
something about that problem you’re facing.
and its great, its encouraging,
it builds your faith and trust.
You’re thinking, that was obviously from God,
But then what happens?
The next day, when you think back on it,
its not quite as sharp,
and its like,
I think that was probably from God,”
and then a week later, you’re like,
I can’t remember exactly what God said,
I think it was good,
but I don’t remember quite what it was.
And 2 weeks later you’ve forgotten it completely,
and you’re faith is down the tubes again,
and you’re back where you started.
It’s like a little birdy came along,
and stole that right out of your brain,
and its gone.
Did you know, the bible tells us
that Satan works overtime,
trying to do exactly that,
trying to steal God’s word out of people’s minds.
But there’s an easy solution,
so that he will never do that to you again.
Just write it down,
so that when God says something to you,
you’ll remember,
it’ll be recorded in black and white,
and you’ll never lose it.
Then that word from God
becomes like a spiritual anchor,
so that when you start to doubt,
you have a reference point to go back to,
its there in black and white.
So what do you do,
when you hit a crisis of belief?
and you’re wondering
“Where are You, God? I don’t understand.”
Habakkuk shows us 3 things to do.
You stop and listen to God.
Write it down.
Then the third thing you do when times are hard,
is you wait.
VIDEO:
I know you’ve all seen this video, because its gotten 90 million hits on youtube, but it illustrates our next point.
(Susan Boyle)
Why is that a great story?
Its because Susan Boyle had to wait for 47 years,
before anybody even knew who she was.
If she came on to that program as a 22 year old,
she could have been just as good,
but it wouldn’t be a huge deal,
just another talented singer.
Sometimes waiting makes a thing
much more special,
much more valuable,
And God knows all about that,
so sometimes he makes us wait a long time.
But we hate it,
because we’re so into instant return,
instant gratification,
I want it now,
I deserve it now.
Listen to what God says to Habakkuk in verse three.
He says,
For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.
When God promises something,
you may have to wait a while,
Some of you right now,
are in the waiting room.
You believe God has shown you something.
Maybe you’ve even written it down,
and now, you’re waiting
and you are waiting
and you are waiting
and you are waiting,
and you’re afraid it’s not gonna happen.
But remember this.
God’s delays are not God’s denials.
When God has promised something,
it will come to pass,
but we may have to wait a while.
Now, a lot of people think,
“Okay. I’m waiting,
so I’m stuck right here doing nothing.
When they think of waiting,
they think of no movement.
But, what does a waiter in a restaurant do?
A waiter is active, always on the move,
and a waiter serves, right?
Here’s what you do when you’re waiting.
You are serving the Lord the whole time.
It doesn’t mean there is no movement.
In fact, there may be more movement
when you are waiting
than ever before.
You are serving the Lord.
You see,
even when you don’t understand,
you continue to serve Him,
and you wait on Him, and you serve Him,
you wait some more, and you serve,
and at the appointed time, it’ll happen.
I want to re-read you this verse,
but this time, from the Living Bible,
And I want you to picture right now,
God is saying these words directly to you,
about the thing you’ve been praying and waiting for.
Ready?
Here’s what God says to you…
“These things I plan,[for you] won’t happen right away.
Slowly, steadily, surely the time approaches when the vision will be fulfilled.
If it seems slow, do not despair, for these things will surely come to pass.
Just be patient. They will not be overdue a single day.”
That is God’s word to you today.
That takes us to verse 4 of Chapter 2.
and Habakkuk 2:4
is one of the most important verses in your Bible.
Its quoted several times in the NT,
Romans, Galatians, Hebrews.
This one verse underlays the foundation of the theology of
the Old Testament, New Testament,
Apostle Paul
Martin Luther and the Reformation.
One little verse
from a guy some of you never heard of,
Habakkuk 2:4.
God is speaking, and says,
“See, he is puffed up”,
talking about the proud person.
“His desires are not upright,
but the righteous will live by his faith.”
Very simple verse.
God says,
“There’s 2 kinds of people:
There’s proud people,
and there’s people who live by faith.
Just 2 kinds of people:
there’s people who trust themselves,
or people who trust God.
That’s it.
If you want to summarize all of life,
and boil it all down to the basics,
Here it is… God says,
“There’s two kinds of people:
People that trust me, and people who trust in themselves.
That’s it.
And He says,
“People who trust themselves are proud.
They’re puffed up.
full of themselves.
They think they’re smarter than they are.
They think they’re better than they are.
They think they’re wiser than they are.
They think they’re more enlightened than they are.
And they’re wrong.
God says, the righteous will live by faith.
Now, some people would say,
I don’t think you need faith.
I don’t have any faith. I’m an atheist.”
The truth is,
if you’re an atheist,
you are a person of amazing faith.
Because you trust in the three pounds of meat between your ears.
And you can’t even prove the three pounds of meat between your ears
is working properly,
without using the three pounds of meat between your ears.
Obviously some people’s brains don’t work properly,
So your amazing faith comes down to the fact that
you trust your brain even though
you don’t know how your brain works.
That’s amazing faith.
Some people would say,
“Well, I don’t believe there’s life after death.”
But you’ve never been there.
So what you’re really saying is,
I have faith in the hope that there is nothing.
Its faith, not fact,
because you haven’t been there.
The point is,
every person alive is building their life on a faith decision.
You’re going to put faith in something,
you’re going to trust in something,
even if you reject God.
So, what God is saying to Habakkuk is,
“The righteous live by faith in me.
They trust me.”
But proud people trust themselves.
Those are your only two options in life.
God says,
“You can trust me, or you can trust you,
and everything else is just details.”
Now, 600 years after Habakkuk wrote this down,
this great truth about faith,
sinks into and becomes clear
to a guy named Paul.
Paul writes a letter to the church in Galatia,
and tells them,
“No one is justified before God by the law because (what?)
the righteous will live by faith.”
He quotes Habakkuk.
Again in Galatians 2:16
Paul says,
“Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.” So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus, that we may be justified by faith in Christ, and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
What’s the point here?
If you try to work for your salvation,
and just try to be a good person,
then one of two things will happen.
If you’re really good, at being good,
then you’ll commit the worst sin of all ,
because you’ll become prideful about how good you are,
And then you’ll be farther from God than when you started.
Or the other option is,
you’re not very good, at being good,
so then you become really depressed,
and frustrated,
and full of guilt,
because you can’t do it.
Maybe some of you are feeling like that right now.
You work really hard
trying to be a good Christian,
but you get frustrated
because you don’t feel like you’re making any progress,
you’re working as hard as you can
and getting nowhere.
Some people hit that place
and they get depressed and frustrated,
stuck in endless guilt and shame,
and they walk away from their faith,
because they’re thinking,
this doesn’t work, I can’t do it.
But Jesus says,
that’s the whole point,
I know you can’t do it,
that’s why I came and did it for you.
I know you’re not good enough,
that’s why I came and lived a perfect life for you.
I know you can’t please God,
that’s why everything I ever did to please my Father,
I’m giving that to you,
it’s a gift because I love you,
I’m giving you my righteousness,
if you have faith in me and trust me,
the righteous will live by faith.
So stop trusting yourself.
and trust me.
Stop trusting in your goodness.
and trust in mine.
Stop trusting in your life.
and start trusting in mine.
Stop trusting in your efforts
and trust in mine.
Stop trusting in your wisdom.
Trust in mine.
I’ve taken care of everything.
just because I love you.
Now does that mean that life is easy,
after I decide to follow Christ?
No.
You see, here’s the problem.
We all want comfort, and ease and continual blessing.
But God wants faithful people who trust him.
And those two goals are irreconcilable.
Faith only comes through suffering and trial.
If you live in continual blessing and comfort,
you don’t have to trust God at all,
and your faith takes a nose dive.
That’s why Jesus says
its so difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.
They don’t have to trust God very much,
so their faith doesn’t have a chance to grow.
That’s why faith among people in the US is declining,
because we’re all wealthy,
but faith is skyrocketing in the poor areas of the world,
like Africa and China.
God allows his people to go through hard times
like Habakkuk was going through
so that their faith would be built.
So they’d become strong in faith.
Faith is like a muscle.
It grows when you exercise it.
When you don’t exercise it, it atrophies.
Chris taught a couple weeks ago about how
faith is like lego building blocks,
one piece fits on another,
and it builds into something great.
Each time you use your faith,
it leads to more faith,
which leads to more faith,
which leads to more faith,
and God will allow hardship and trial to come
to strengthen your faith
so that you will be closer to him
because his goal for you and me
is not comfort, but closeness to him.
That’s the whole message of Habakkuk.
and that’s the whole message of the Bible.
Trust him.
That’s what it all comes down to.
And when do we trust him most deeply?
When it seems most hard,
God tells Habakkuk,
and he tells you and me,
“the righteous will live by faith.”
they learn to live, not by what they see,
not by what’s going on around them,
but instead,
they will live by faith.
So that even when it looks like
everything’s going the wrong direction,
and even when it doesn’t make sense.
And even when everyone else says,
“You should give up,
because God is not coming through for you.”
The righteous do not live by what they see,
but they live by faith.
The righteous live by faith.
when your marriage is falling apart,
and everyone says,
“Well, you might as well go get a divorce,”
but instead you say,
“No, I remember the vows that we made.
and by faith, I believe that all things are possible with God.”
The righteous live by faith.
When your kids are making wrong decisions
and everyone else says,
they’re a mess,”
but you believe by faith
that God is working in their lives
to bring about good for those who love God
and are called according to His purpose.
The righteous will live by faith,
when God tells you to give something,
even when you don’t have enough money left
for the rest of the month,
but you believe that God will be your provider.
The righteous will live by faith.
when God promises you a child
and you can’t conceive,
you believe by faith that somehow God will bring it about.
whether by a birth or maybe adoption,
but you have faith
God will do what he says.
The righteous will live by faith,
even when you don’t understand what God is doing,
even when things are going the wrong way,
even when life is hardest,
because you say,
I don’t live by what I see; I live by faith.
In fact,
there’s some words at the end of chapter two, of Habakkuk,
that are the ultimate answer
to any hardship or difficulty we face.
They’re the ultimate answer
when you don’t have any answers,
and when life is hard.
They’re the ultimate answer
when you’re allowing circumstances of life,
to draw you closer to God,
in your journey toward intimacy and trust and faith.
The last verse of chapter two says this,
Hab 2:20 NIV
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him."
Habakkuk says,
“I don’t understand what God is doing,
I don’t like it,
and I even want to believe it’s gonna happen,
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth be silent before him."
In other words,
The Lord is still in charge.
The Lord is holy,
He is good.
He is righteous.
He is true.
And even though everything else
looks like its out of control,
“The Lord is in his holy temple,”
let all the earth be silent before him.
He’s in charge,
he’s in command.
So I will not give up,
I will not give in,
I will have faith,
I will keep trusting,
Why?
Because I believe the Lord is in His temple,
He is still on the throne,
He is still in charge of it all,
and I can trust him.
Lets stand for Prayer,
“Father, I want to pray especially for those going through a difficult time right now, who don’t understand all that’s going on. Would you help them and bring them your life and power and victory?” Help each one of us to live by faith.” Teach us not to live and walk by sight, but to walk by faith.
as we continue to pray, there are some of you that God brought here for a very specific reason, because as you think about your standing before God,
you don’t really know where you stand. You’re still wondering, have I done enough good works to qualify for God’s approval, or have I done committed too many sins to disqualify me for God’s approval?”
But the righteous will live, not by works or by performance or by the absence of sin, but instead, they will live by faith.
What you need to do today, is simply step across the line, and say, “By faith, I believe Jesus is enough. You can say that with me, in your heart right now. By faith, I believe Jesus is enough. I believe that You are the Savior of the world, that You are the Lord of life, and I put all of my faith in You.” Thank you for forgiving my sins and taking away that weight and the burden right now. I trust in You. Thank you for new life.
In Jesus’ name.” amen.
