LIVING BY FAITH?
HABAKKUK 1:1-4; 2:1-4
SUNDAY PM SERVICE AUGUST 4, 2002
INTRODUCTION: Somerset, Pa. – Rescue workers pulled nine miners from the watery, 240-foot-deep shaft where they had been trapped for three days, a jubilant reward for an effort that had been fraught with one gut-wrenching setback after another… I don’t want to use the term loosely, but it was a miracle,” said David Streets, a distant relation of Robert Pugh, one of the miners. Dozens of family members had kept a vigil at the fire hall and had made several trips to the rescue site. Officials met with them every hour to keep them apprised. AS REPORTED BY AZCENTRAL.COM
TRANSITON THOUGHT: Our text for tonight finds us in the reality of the day in which we live. Some might say this is dated material, but after careful consideration all must agree that we share the same frustrations, as did Habakkuk. Habakkuk ponders living within the context of great injustice, violence, strife, and conflict. The end result of his pondering and questioning leads to an understanding of Faith. I want us to ponder for a minute or two the thoughts and actions of this Prophet Habakkuk and how it can help us learn to live by faith!!
THESIS SENTENCE: As God’s people, we must not live by circumstance or sight, we must live by faith!
I. LIVING BY FAITH IS BECOMING SO FRUSTRATED WITH THE PRESENT REALITY THAT QUESTIONS MUST BE ASKED (1:1-4)
A. Can Having faith equal asking questions?
1. There is a deep understanding within this text that not only did Habakkuk believe in God, but that Habakkuk had experience a theophany, a literary form that describes an encounter with God that sees Him as Lord of all the earth coming to reveal himself to his people.
2. Habakkuk’s faith in God, his belief that God did exist and was present, caused him to ask questions. I know you’re there, SO HOW LONG AND WHY??
B. How about those questions, HOW LONG AND WHY?? Would we or could we ever ask such questions?
1. If you say you never have, you might be a red neck, or a liar. You make the call. Habakkuk simply asked the questions that were on everyone’s minds.
2. Habakkuk was so sickened by the moral and physical destruction all around him he desired audience with the living God to know what was going on.
3. If you look deeply into these questions you may see some irreverence!! This is a kind of in your face confrontation.
C. Boiled down, what is Habakkuk asking?
1. Regardless of the sin of His people, why would God allow a greater wickedness to prevail?
2. And, why has God allowed his own people to become so wicked?
3. What is happening is a process that is greatly important. Habakkuk was realizing what God saw and was also seeing it for himself. His EYES WERE OPENED TO THE REALITY OF LIFE AND OF THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM!
4. Back to the Idea of process. God speaks to us on a journey of understanding that comes often from complaint, to accusation against God, to waiting for an answer, to hearing it, and finally to responding. This is how we learn to live!
5. Think about how contemporary all this is: Do with see the law paralyzed. Do we ever feel that Justice never prevails? Do those who stand against Christ seem to have all the power, and those who serve Christ seem to be controlled or immobilized by those opposing Christ?
6. The bottom line appears that Justice, the way things should be in a perfect world, is lacking, perverted, or as the Hebrews puts it: “bent out of shape.”
D. The real bottom line here is not ultimately why or how long will this unjustness prevail, But How long and why is not God acting to solve the Problem! This is a direct statement of Faith. God, You do exist, you are the only God and You are not taking care of Business!
ILLUSTRATION: Injustice!!
II. LIVING BY FAITH IS BEING SO CONFIDENT IN GOD THAT YOU WAIT FOR AND ANSWER (2:1)
A. Once again, Habakkuk assures us of his faith in the Living God.
1. Look at this language: I will Stand: what we do when someone of respect enters the room. At my watch: I am not slack and sleeping on it. I am watching and waiting!! Anticipating a response. Holding my breath, if you will!! I will look and see. Discerning, investigating
2. He was about the business of seeking God and expecting from God what he sought, an Answer!!
B. There is also this same not of arrogance or confrontationalism toward God.
1. God I am waiting, you better answer. Reminds me of Job and the Psalmists!!
2. There is significance in the very fact of the waiting. His accusations could be read as being done with God, concluding that if God acts in this way and that if the world is this unjust, then God must not be God. But there is none of that. Habakkuk waits, not to see if God will respond, but rather to hear what he will say.
3. There is also a note that what he will hear, the answer given, is for more than himself. THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS THAT EVERYONE IS ASKING, SO GOD, DON’T JUST ANSWER ME, ANSWER US ALL. The power of numbers. We deserve an audience!!
ILLUSTRATION: Impatience
III. LIVING BY FAITH IS AN EXPANDED WORLD VIEW/UNDERSTANDING (2:2-4)
A. It is getting it all down. (verse 3)
1. Write it down, God is getting serious with Habakkuk. Make it plain!!
2. I am going to speak now, are you ready!!
3. “so that a herald may run with it.”
a. Multiple ways to interpret this phrase.
b. The real meaning here refers back to the phrase plain. This doesn’t mean legible only, but for understanding purposes, make it clear to all, even the simplest among you.
c. Why? So that all can take this information with them as they live their lives, Run, walk, in obedience to God. God was going to speak in terms of how to live, versus what He was going to do to change things!!
B. It is getting the right perspective (verse 4).
1. God says to Habakkuk, “I am not on your time table, and you are not on mine.”
2. How long and why are not the real questions, God says. I know what I am doing and I know when I am going to do it. I am Sovereign and every thing is in my control, let me handle history.
3. What God has planned will come to pass. You must learn to be patient and wait!! Habakkuk was to live between the times. Between the promise and the fulfillment. God would straighten out his People and all evil foreign nations, but not yet!!
C. But, God Has a Final word:
1. While you are waiting for me to act, know that the unrighteous only appear to be in control (Verses 5ff.)
2. But those who are just and know me, the living God, are not to focus on outward circumstances that I, the living God am in control of, but are to live by being faithful. By doing what is right in the face of what is wrong.
ILLUSTRATION: Habakkuk 3:16-19
CONCLUSION: Habakkuk understands that waiting is sometimes the only faithful response when we ask about the injustice of the world. But it is not a passive waiting with the resignation of fatalists who think there is nothing beyond the events themselves. This is a dynamic waiting that comes from knowing who is really alive and who is really dying. It is a faithfulness that is grounded in the assurance that God is really God, even though present circumstances do no provide proof. It is a willingness to live life on God’s terms (torah), rather than trying to worship the gods of power, wealth, and short-term success. It is an understanding that our perspectives are too often much too narrow in scope, to confined to our own time frames, and much too limited to our own range of vision. It is a willingness to accept the “not yet!” of God, confident not in what we want in the present, but in the certainty of God himself.
Habakkuk had no direct answers to his questions, He still did not know how long. He still did not know why. He had not been able to solve the questions of relative injustice, or to answer the basic questions with which any person of genuine faith has asked or will ask. He still did not know God’s timetable, nor exactly what the future would hold.
But he saw something more important that would allow him to face an uncertain future with out knowing all the answers. He has seen God, a God who assured him that He is, indeed God, and who called him to be faithful without having all the answers. It is that living in faithful hope beyond ourselves, grounded in nothing but God himself, that finally gives life purpose.
