I have been away for a good part of August and have not had the time to post my recent sermons. This sermon is the one I preached at the Carey Conference. I'll try to post my sermons from the past two Sundays sometime this week. Enjoy.
TRUSTING GOD IN ALL THINGS
INTRODUCTION
We have been asking some important questions as we have been studying the prophet Habakkuk. Questions that God's people have been asking for centuries...questions that many of us have wrestled with and perhaps are wrestling with. Questions whose relevancy is timeless. We ask these questions because we are faced with challenges, difficulties, problems God allows/permits for our growth and God permits the evil one use to discourage us and perhaps undermine or challenge our faith...
1) Lord, why? Why are you allowing all these terrible things to happen? Why does it seem like you are doing nothing? Why are you not more involved? Where are you? Why are you idle? The Lord answers and tells Habakkuk what he is doing. Once Habakkuk hears this, he has another question:
2) Lord, why this? Why are you acting in such an unusual way? Why are you raising up the Chaldeans and using them to judge us? They are more sinful than us. You are being inconsistent with what I know of you. You are not supposed to work that way. God was going to act in a way that made very little sense to Habakkuk. In fact, it was opposite of what he expected. When Habakkuk wanted God to do something in the first part of chapter one, but I don't think he had in mind the complete destruction of Judah and Jerusalem and their exile to Babylon. God was going to act in a way that shook him to the core of his being Habakkuk is left perplexed, as we heard yesterday. He does not understand…not what he wanted or anticipated. I think it is safe to say Habakkuk was having a crisis of faith His view of God was going to expand a little.
In the text that I am responsible for this morning, 2:1-4, God begins to answer Habakkuk again. The answer God has for Habakkuk is summed up in one little phrase only 8 words long..."but the righteous shall live by his faith!" God does not pull back the curtain of his hidden providence and reveal the intricacies of his decrees so that it will make sense to Habakkuk.
Habakkuk will still have questions. But God is saying trust in me...believe in me. And the point that he is trying to get across to Habakkuk and to us is that God's people are to trust God in all things and at all times, even when things do not make sense.
How do we trust God when things do not make sense? How do we live by faith? I believe the text gives us 3 directives.The first two directives puts us in a position to hear God's answer and what he is saying to us this morning. In the third directive I will unpack God's answer.
I. (By Faith) Start with Waiting on God (in Prayer) (1)
Look at what Habakkuk does in verse 1…he takes his stand on his watch post and he stations himself on the tower.
A watch tower was important because of its high elevation It gives a person a wide view of things and give a vantage point to see everything that his happening. This prophetic scene of being a watchman has been depicted before in the word of God…
- Isaiah 21:6, 8 - "For thus the Lord said to me: 'Go, set a watchman; let him announce what he sees…Then he who saw cried out: 'Upon a watchtower I stand, O Lord, continually by day, and at my post I am stationed whole nights.'"
Habakkuk is stationed on his watchtower waiting to see how God is going to answer. He is waiting on God and I believe we can say waiting on God in prayer. Waiting is not new to us as Christians. We can think of how Abraham waited for God to fulfill his promise of a child. We can think of the Psalmist waiting for God to respond and answer his prayers. We can think of how long we have waiting on God to answer our prayer…
Not only is it new, nor is it surprising. We have come to know that waiting is part of the process. Even God talks about it in his response in verse 3…there is this waiting period. But we don't like it, do we? It's like we have an allergic reaction to waiting. We live in a time of instant food, entertainment, knowledge. We can find out pretty much anything on your smartphone. And if we have to wait any longer than an few seconds with our smartphone to get the information we want, we want to get a new one because its not fast enough. We have apps for just about anything. We all naturally hate waiting for things. Waiting seems to useless to us…there seems to be no value in it for us. And that is what is challenging about the Christian life.
But to God there is value in waiting. We see it as a waste of time but God doesn't. God works through waiting. For example, this past January, my mother found out that she has cancer - breast cancer and bone cancer. And I have learned that one of the biggest challenges with cancer is not always the cancer itself, but waiting - waiting for tests, waiting for phone calls from the doctors, waiting for results, waiting for the treatments to work. But we saw God working through this time. This time caused my mom to depend more and more on God. She also saw God working in many different ways as she waited and as she still waits.
So this is where we start…
But what does this waiting look like? What kind of attitude are we to have? Martyn Lloyd-Jones has been helpful here. He highlights a few ways in which we are to wait:
1. Commit your perplexity to God
We have seen how Habakkuk has wrestled his perplexity and we do see him commit this perplexity to God. He asks why God in verse 13. He is questioning God hoping in faith to make sense out what God is doing. But it is a process. He will grow in his trust and by the end of the book he is fully trusting God. And we too will have this questioning faith that tries to make sense of what God is doing. We will have questions and that is not bad because we will be perplexed and that is not wrong. If we didn't Habakkuk's God would be too small and insignificant and not worth our time here this morning. But in faith he commits his perplexity to God.
2. Leave the problem with God
Look at what Habakkuk does in verse 1 again…he is going to take his stand at his watch post and station himself on the tower. What we see here with Habakkuk is that he in a sense detaches himself from his perplexity. What I mean by that is that he presents his problem to God and leaves it with God. In doing so he turns his back on the problem and focuses his attention on God. Jones calls this one of the most important principles in the psychology of the Christian life. It's as if he is done being concerning with the problem. Brothers and sisters in Christ, isn't that helpful? So often we commit our problems and perplexities to God. We go to him in prayer. We pour out our hearts confessing that we cannot solve the difficulty we are in. We don't understand. Then the moment we get up from our prayers, we worry about it again. How many have done that? But that is not what Habakkuk is doing here he leaves it with God and went to stand on the watchtower. He stood looking at God and not the problem. This is how Paul can say in...
- Phil. 4:6, 7 - "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be make known to God. And the peace of God, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Jones - "Get up in your watchtower and just keep looking up to God. Look at nothing else, least of all your problem." Waiting means commit your problem to God...leave your problem with God.
3. Expect an answer from God
He is determined and is looking for an answer from God. He is waiting expectantly. He does not resort to his own imaginations. He is not making up imagined answers nor is he projecting his own answers on God. There is a passive dependence on the divine word while he is waiting in prayer. He knows that only God can answer him. Only God can help him understand. Only God can help him. Only God is sovereign and is able to help him with his perplexity.
Calvin - "All…who indulge themselves in their own counsels deserve to be forsaken by God, and to be left by him to be driven up and down, and here and there, by Satan; for the only unfailing security for the faithful is to acquiesce in God's word."
What do you expect when you pray? Do you expect God to answer your prayers?=
4. Watch and wait for God to answer
This is what Habakkuk is doing here. He is watching eagerly and persistently. How can he do this? It is because he knows that God is faithful to His Word and that his promises never fail. I think it is a sign of a lack of faith to not expect and answer. Habakkuk not only prayed, he expected and watched for the answer. So, we see Habakkuk waiting on God by committing his problem to God…by leaving the problem with God…by expecting an answer…by watching and waiting for God to answer. As we wait we …
5. Learn that God is sovereign over time and it is perfect
This is nothing new but it is so important for waiting. This is one of the hardest lessons that we must learn as Christians is that God's timing is often different than ours. God sees things differently than we do. He sees the bigger picture. God is doing something bigger. We get tunnel vision in our pain, have you ever noticed that? We tend to forget many things. For example, we forget truth that we have learned in God's Word. But God is reminding him here that God is still in control. He is never frustrated in the timing of things. We always get frustrated with the timing of things. We can plan and many times things doing work out as planned. Bur He is outside of time, he is sovereign over time, and he works perfectly in time.
That is what it looks like when we wait in God in prayer. We...
1) Commit out problem or perplexity to God
2) We leave our problem with God
3) Expect an answer from God
4) We watch and wait for God to answer
5) Learn that God is sovereign over time and that it is perfect
This is how we prepare for God's answer...
II. (By faith) Search for the truth in Scripture (2-3)
Searching for the truth in Scripture is so important. In searching the truth in Scripture we must remember:
1. God's Word never changes
Truth of God is our Rock, it is our compass, why?
- Our emotions will lead us in many ways...fear can paralyze...worry can make life miserable...
- Our circumstances will lead us in many different ways...
- Our thinking will lead us in many different ways...
- The advice we get will lead us in many different ways...remember the advice Job's wife gave him? "Curse God and die"...imagine if he did...Job would be useless to us.
But it is the Word of God that brings us back to His will, to what he wants. It might not be what we want to hear or like to hear. But the truth of God is the firm foundation on which to stand no matter what the circumstances are. God and his word never change. That is why we can trust him in all things - that he will do what he promises.
Our hope is not in this world, not in our technology, not our wisdom, but in God and his Word.
2. God's Word is trustworthy
Notice how God is telling them that his word will not delay. The events that are being foretold and described will take place.
I love what Isaiah says in
- Isaiah 55:10-11 - "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
God's Word is trustworthy. This is why we are to search the truth in Scripture.
3. God's Word is to be obeyed
Because it is trustworthy, it is to be obeyed. Even though it may seem backwards to human logic or human thinking, even if you do not understand everything, it is to be obeyed. This important because we like to have everything figured out and make sense to us. But sometimes it might not make sense...sometimes obedience might not make sense. But God's Word never changes...it is trustworthy...it is to be obeyed.
We start with waiting on God. Then we search for the truth in scripture. And as we wait in prayer and search scripture, we will...
III. (By faith) See the Final Triumph of God (4)
Verse 4b is the heart of Habakkuk. But not only is it the heart of Habakkuk, it is the central theme in all of Scripture. For example, the Talmud records the famous remark of Rabbi Simlai, "Moses gave Israel 613 commandments, David reduced them to 10, Isaiah to 2, but Habakkuk to one: 'the righteous shall life by his faith.'"
But over the history of the church, the importance of this text seemed to grow. As one scholar puts it, "the preeminent illustration of this phenomenon was the text's catalytic effect in leading to the Reformation: 'Habakkuk's great text, with his son Paul's comments and additions, became the banner of the Protestant Reformation in the hands of Habakkuk's grandson, Martin Luther.'
Feinberg's appraisal of Habakkuk is not an over exaggeration, "The key to the whole Book of Habakkuk…the central theme of all the Scriptures."
"The righteous will live by his faith."
We have a great text before us here this morning. God has used it in powerful ways that have changed the course of history. I want to break down the last part of this verse into 3 parts as this verse talks about the final triumph of God.
1. The righteous will see the triumph of God
Who are the righteous? This is not as easy to figure as it might seem because in the original language there is no referent for the word "righteous". But notice the contrast here in verse 4. The contrast is between the soul that is puffed up and between the righteous, between those who reject God and those who will live by his faith. This contrast is described in verses 4 of chapter 1. So, the word "righteous", in this context, refers to those whose lives are characterized, more or less, by righteous living. They are not those who are characterized by injustice and violence the prophet is complaining about. The righteous, those who seeking to live rightly, to live holy lives, are the ones verse 4 is referring to. These are the ones who live by faith or to put it another way, those who live by faith are righteous because Paul picks this verse up in Romans 1:17 to talk about how one can be righteous before God...
- Romans 1:16-17 - 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, "The righteous shall live by faith."
This is Luther's text! In the last year of his life, Martin Luther wrote about how he had finally come to understand what righteousness of God meant in the book of Romans. This is what he said,
"I had hated that phrase "the righteousness of God" which, according to the use and custom of all the doctors, I had been taught to understand philosophically, in the sense of the formal or active righteousness (as they termed it), by which God is righteous, and punishes unrighteous sinners.
Although I lived an irreproachable life as a monk, I felt that I was a sinner with an uneasy conscience before God; nor was I able to believe that I have pleased him with my satisfaction. I did not love(in fact, I hated) that righteous God who punished sinners, if not with silent blasphemy, then certainly with great murmuring. I was angry with God, saying "As if it were not enough that miserable sinners should be eternally dammed through original sin, with all kinds of misfortunes laid upon them by the Old Testament law, and yet God adds sorrow upon sorrow through the gospel, and even brings wrath and righteousness to bear through it!" Thus I drove myself mad, with a desperate disturbed conscience, persistently pounding upon Paul in this passage, thirsting most ardently to know what he meant.
At last, God being merciful, as I meditated day and night on the connection of the words "the righteousness of God is revealed in it, as it is written: the righteous will live by faith," I began to understand that "righteousness of God" as that by which the righteous lives by the gift of God, namely by faith, and this sentence, "the righteousness of God is revealed," to refer to a passive righteousness, by which the merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "the righteous lives by faith." This immediately made me feel as though I had been born again, as as though I had entered paradise itself...And now, where I had once hated the phrase "the righteousness of God," so much I began to love and extol it as the sweetest words, so that this passage in Paul became the very gate of paradise for me."
2. The righteous will see the triumph of God by faith
What does the word "faith" mean? There has been much ink spilt on the exact meaning of this word in the context of Habakkuk. Some believe that is means "faith", with the root meaning "steadfastness" - steadfastness with respect to faith. Other's believe that it means "trustworthiness" or "reliability" - the trustworthiness of Yahweh or the vision in verse 2. Still other believe that it is to be translated "faith" and "faithfulness". Still others believe, and I think makes the most sense of what is being taught here is "faithful trust".
I think the key element in this word in Habakkuk is the idea of trust, trusting God. It is a trust that endures...it is a faithful trust. It is a saving faith, as Paul expands on it. But it includes a faithful trust. The righteous needed to trust God that he will work things out in his perfect timing. They needed to remain faithful despite their confusion, despite their hardship, despite the misery they were experiencing jn their present circumstances even though they don't have all the answers. He is referring to the trust of those who are righteous, who have trusted in God and are continuing to trust in God. By this faith they will live.
Let share and illustration I read that might help illustrate the meaning of the word...
There are a number of ways that we can respond to bad news or to tragedy or to atrocities that we see. People respond in despair, unbelief, or faith. During the WWI, the Ottoman Empire committed one of the worse crimes that the world had ever seen up to that point. Between December of 1914 and the summer of 1915 they had killed about 800,000 Armenian Christians. By the end of the war that number had doubled…whole villages were marched out in the middle of freezing cold rivers and were left there to die. Others were crammed into churches and burned to death. Even more were sent out into the desert and left there to die of exposure and thrust, thousands were hung or shot to death. No one was spared: men, women, old people, even children.
And people responded in different ways. Walter M. Geddes was a business man from NY who was in Aleppo, Syria, when all this happened. He saw thousands of Armenians who had been kicked out of their homes and deported to Syria die of starvation and exposure and he was helpless to stop it. He returned to his office, filed a report about what he saw and then in deep despair, he committed suicide. And that is the attitude of so many when faced with tragedy…there is a deep despair...hopelessness…depression can easily set in.
Others look at this and declare that God cannot exist…if he did, he wouldn't allow this to happen…leads people to unbelief. But there is another reaction…
And people responded in different ways. Walter M. Geddes was a business man from NY who was in Aleppo, Syria, when all this happened. He saw thousands of Armenians who had been kicked out of their homes and deported to Syria die of starvation and exposure and he was helpless to stop it. He returned to his office, filed a report about what he saw and then in deep despair, he committed suicide. And that is the attitude of so many when faced with tragedy…there is a deep despair...hopelessness…depression can easily set in.
Others look at this and declare that God cannot exist…if he did, he wouldn't allow this to happen…leads people to unbelief. But there is another reaction…
The Reverend George E White was the president of an American Collage and girl's school that was attacked by Turkish peasants during the war. Many of the 1000 students were put in ditches and were killed. But some of the boys did something extraordinary before they died. He says, "One group of our college boys asked permission to sing before they died and they sang, 'Nearer, My God, to Thee,' and then they were struck down…
By faith they saw the triumph of God in Christ. That is genuine faith, faithful trust, trusting God no matter what. They trusted God because they saw the final triumph of God. That is what the word faith means...
- Hebrews 10:38
He is talking about the people of God. Those who remain faithful to God in the midst of pain and suffering. They refuse to shrink back. They refuse to go along with all the sin that is around them. They persevere because their faith is a persevering faith. Saving faith is a persevering faith. It is by faith they are righteous; it is by faith they persevere.
Moo - "The point in Habakkuk is that faith is the key to one's relationship with God. The meaning of faith in the NT is deepened through its intimate relationship to Christ as the object of faith, but the OT concept, in verses like Gen. 15:6 and Hab. 2:4 especially, shares with the NT "faith" the quality of absolute reliance on God and his Word rather than on human abilities, activities, or assurances."
Faith is not something that happens just once and then never to be used again. They died in faith hanging on to the promise of God. Habakkuk was called to trust God no matter what, even though he did not understand everything. Why? Because of the promise in this verse. What is that promise?
3. The righteous will live to see the triumph of God
What does the word "live" mean in this context? This may seem pretty straightforward in your minds, but not so in the Hebrew. There are a number of options…
- How life is conducted in the present
There could be aspect of this in the meaning of the word. But as scholars point out, the problem with this understanding is that whenever a Hebrew author wants to talk about how some one conducts their lives in the present, they use the verb "walk", not "live".
Micah 6:8 - He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does he Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?"
The word "live" means to have "life"...to be "alive" There could be some aspects of how life is conducted in the present, but that is not the main nuance of the word...
- Survival in the near future
It does say they "will live". Is he saying they will survive? The problem with this is that when the vision is fulfilled, the wicked and the righteous are killed. We are not sure what happened to Habakkuk. There was no distinction in the minds and actions of the Babylonians. If this is the case, it becomes an empty promise. So I do not think he is talking about survival in the near future. There is one other option...
- Future Resurrection
I think this is what God is really telling Habakkuk. He is saying the righteous will live again by faith.The word "live" means to have "life"…to be "alive". What does this mean for Habakkuk? Even though the righteous may die by the hand of the Chaldeans, their hope is not in this life. Their hope is in the life to come. Through their faithful trust in God and his promises, they will live again, they will have eternal life, to use the NT phrase. There are parallels in…
- Ezekiel 18:9 - "...and keeps my rules by acting faithfully-he is righteous; he shall surely live, declares the Lord GOD."
- Ezekiel 37:11-14 - 11 Then he said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are indeed cut off.' 12 Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I will open your graves and raise you from your graves, O my people. And I will bring you into the land of Israel. 13 And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and raise you from your graves, O my people. 14 And I will put my Spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I am the LORD; I have spoken, and I will do it, declares the LORD."
- Isaiah 26:19 - "Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
There is a promise bound up in this word, "the righteous will live by his faith."
It is as if he is looking to the future. But there can even be more than a promise, it can be seen as a prediction. My Hebrew prof puts this into perspective. He says
"We need to stop and think how radical what would have been in Habakkuk's day. We're used to this kind of thing because that's the king of of thing we're told over and over again in the New Testament: our hope is that we'll rise from the dead. But in the Old Testament, at least up until this time, people were focused on God's blessings for the here and now. And that's what they should have been looking for because that's what God has promised.
But now something new has happened: God has finally revealed that this world is so wicked and sinful that any blessing that's tied to the way things are now in this world is ultimately worthless because this world isn't getting any better, its getting worse. The only way to really experience God's blessing is for God to destroy the world and start over again and then all of God's people, even those who are in the grave, can l live again and enjoy it in peace. But saving up your hope for that day requires faithfulness to God and trust in him."
The righteous will live through their trust in God. Ultimately, I think God is pointing Habakkuk to the new life we have in Christ. The righteous will live, will have life, be raised from the dead by faith in Jesus Christ...
Paul picks this up in in Galatians 3:11...how one has life..."Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for "The righteous shall live by faith."
Thomas Schreiner helps us here when he says...
"Those who believe will obtain life eschatologically. 'To be righteous by faith' and the live by faith' are alternate ways of describing the same reality...authentic faith expresses itself in obedience and faithfulness. Thus a wedge should not be driven between Paul's understanding of faith and Hab. emphasis on faithfulness."
They are justified by faith...they will live by faith...they will have eternal life by faith.
God is pointing to the future life in Christ. How much of this Habakkuk understood, again we are not sure. Because this life began with the resurrection of Jesus...
Jesus says, in
- John 11:25 - "I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die."
- 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 - "20. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
This life is experienced by us by the grace of God through through faith in Jesus Christ...
- Ephesians 2 - "But God, being right in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ...by grace you have been saved by faith."
This life is also our future hope...
- 1 Thess. 4:15-18..."15 For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words."
This is the final victory of God. This promise is what God wanted Habakkuk to trust, that he would have the gift of life in the age to come, a life that will never end.This Chaldean invasion is not the end. There is more to come. That is what he wants Habakkuk to see, the final triumph of God, the salvation of God. The Chaldeans do not have the final word, but God will. This is what he wanted Habakkuk to see and focus on...
And this is what he wants us to see. I want to go back to Hebrews 10 for moment.It says that the Christians who faced hard struggle with suffering, joyfully accepted the plundering of their property. Notice the reason why. It says, "...since you know that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one."
Notice the play on words here. One commentator points out that there is a "deliberate play on the possessions that can be lost through seizure and the better and permanent possession which Christians enjoy because of their relationship with God through Christ. The listeners lost multiple possessions, but they have one possession which is better and lasting."
F. F. Bruce - "The eternal inheritance laid up for them was so real in their eyes that they could lightheartedly bid farewell to material possessions, which were short lived anyway."
The saw it. They saw the future triumph of God. This is the truth that God wants his people to see. And the question for us is, "Is your eternal inheritance so real in your eyes?" Our pain, yes we experience pain and suffering and it is real...there will be weeping, there will be pain...there will be questions...there will be perplexity. We will not have all the answers. But we are to see the victory over sin and death that Jesus won on the cross. We are to see that we live in the "already, but not yet". But that "not yet" is guaranteed to come. Death does not have the final word, God does. God puts things into perspective for Habakkuk. Our hope is not in this world. It is in the one to come. This is what the righteous are to see. They look to the future when God will cause us to rise again into the new heavens and the new earth. This is where out salvation is and this is where out hope is were our hope must be.
Piper - "Nothing fits a person to be more useful on earth than to be more ready for heaven"
This is God answer to a questioning, perplexed, perhaps hurting Habakkuk...this is Gods answer to you and me - "The righteous will live by his faith."
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