1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,760 All right, let's pray before we go further. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much that 2 00:00:08,760 --> 00:00:16,380 you are a speaking God, that you give your word to us that we might know you. And we 3 00:00:16,380 --> 00:00:23,760 thank you that you speak to us in so many different ways, in parables and texts and 4 00:00:23,760 --> 00:00:30,040 songs like we have today. And we ask that we might understand that and that we might 5 00:00:30,040 --> 00:00:37,160 remember your word so that it changes our lives. Amen. 6 00:00:37,160 --> 00:00:46,960 Before I get into the passage directly, I wanted to start by thinking about two Christian 7 00:00:46,960 --> 00:00:54,920 ideas. And then we're going to take those two ideas and use them to discuss and understand 8 00:00:54,920 --> 00:01:04,440 the passage. And those ideas are the twin ideas of hope and faith. Now, the first of 9 00:01:04,440 --> 00:01:13,640 those, hope, is a bit of a tricky one because the Christian concept of hope kind of overlaps 10 00:01:13,640 --> 00:01:21,600 with the way that we use it in everyday language, but it's also a little bit different. So we 11 00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:26,920 use the word hope. Like if we're talking about hope, we might say something like, I hope 12 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:33,000 it won't rain on the weekend. So if I say that, I hope it won't rain, I don't really 13 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:39,480 know whether it's going to rain or not. I'm saying, well, if I am saying I hope, at that 14 00:01:39,480 --> 00:01:43,920 point I probably haven't checked the weather report, I'm kind of indicating that I don't 15 00:01:43,920 --> 00:01:52,200 know. I just mean that I don't want it to rain on the weekend. My desire is that I can 16 00:01:52,200 --> 00:02:01,400 have my picnic or whatever's going on. So it's a word that expresses our want for something 17 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:08,920 or desire for something to happen in the future. And that's part of the idea of a Christian 18 00:02:08,920 --> 00:02:17,640 hope. But hope can also mean the thing itself, the thing that we desire. So not just the 19 00:02:17,640 --> 00:02:28,120 act of desiring it, but focuses on that end thing. So not just my wanting that it's a 20 00:02:28,120 --> 00:02:34,920 sunny day on the weekend, but the sunny day itself. So that would be more like saying, 21 00:02:34,920 --> 00:02:43,120 I have put my hope in a sunny day. So I place my hope, my hope is on that thing that is 22 00:02:43,120 --> 00:02:50,080 the sunny day. And that's kind of closer to a Christian understanding of hope. Hope is 23 00:02:50,080 --> 00:02:59,480 a future thing that we both desire, but also that we commit to. It's kind of the end point 24 00:02:59,480 --> 00:03:05,120 that our journey is focused on. It's the thing that we're working towards. And it's a really 25 00:03:05,120 --> 00:03:11,080 good thing for us to stop in our lives and to think about what our hope is. What have 26 00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:19,920 we put our hope in? What is the goal? What is the objective that we build our lives around? 27 00:03:19,920 --> 00:03:27,800 For many Australians, our great hope is retirement. Okay, that's the great hope of our working 28 00:03:27,800 --> 00:03:34,960 lives. So we look forward to a time when we're no longer going to need to work, a time when 29 00:03:34,960 --> 00:03:43,000 we finally have the house paid off, if you can imagine such a thing. And then, you know, 30 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:49,680 with that paid off, then it's a time that we can buy our boat or our caravan or whatever 31 00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:56,480 other toy that our mortgage has prevented us from laying our hands on. It's a time when 32 00:03:56,480 --> 00:04:03,680 we're hoping that our kids will be more independent and not causing us too much grief. And then 33 00:04:03,680 --> 00:04:14,040 we can head up to Kalbarri or down to Gracetown or fly to Bali or do whatever our hearts desire. 34 00:04:14,040 --> 00:04:19,960 Another word for hope is our reward. It's the thing that we want to obtain. And we're 35 00:04:19,960 --> 00:04:26,840 going to put a fair bit, we're going to put up with a fair bit in our working life because 36 00:04:26,840 --> 00:04:33,000 it allows us to achieve that great hope. On a smaller scale, you may not be thinking that 37 00:04:33,000 --> 00:04:41,880 far ahead, especially if you're younger. On a smaller scale, we just live for the weekend. 38 00:04:41,880 --> 00:04:50,200 Some people might put their hope in a kind of notoriety or some level of recognition 39 00:04:50,200 --> 00:04:57,200 or importance. And often we can gain that from our career itself. That's the thing that 40 00:04:57,200 --> 00:05:05,080 we're hoping for, is to achieve things in this life. And the reason that we do that, 41 00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:11,440 the reason that that's so strong in us as Australians, is because we're flooded with 42 00:05:11,440 --> 00:05:21,560 images of talent and achievement in whatever realm that we look into. So it's not like 43 00:05:21,560 --> 00:05:29,520 we live any more in small villages where we would just see the people around us and then 44 00:05:29,520 --> 00:05:38,840 value, therefore, those people and their commitments to the community. That's what would be prized. 45 00:05:38,840 --> 00:05:43,400 But we live in a global village where we can't just see the people around us, but we see 46 00:05:43,400 --> 00:05:49,600 the best of the best and have reference to them all the time. So we're bombarded with, 47 00:05:49,600 --> 00:05:57,680 we study the great writers and the great artists. We know about the great scientists. The news 48 00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:07,000 tells us about the great entrepreneurs of our age. And then we have Taylor Swift. And 49 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:14,040 if you haven't seen 10 images of Taylor Swift this week, then well done to you. And can 50 00:06:14,040 --> 00:06:23,960 I join you in whatever hole you're living in? I'm not trying to bring down Taylor Swift, 51 00:06:23,960 --> 00:06:32,040 but what I want to just point out is the way that she is her own brand. And that is a kind 52 00:06:32,040 --> 00:06:41,920 of this complete package of talent and beauty and notoriety and fame and celebrity. And 53 00:06:41,920 --> 00:06:49,580 we see that and we're bombarded with these images and we can't help but just want a small 54 00:06:49,580 --> 00:07:01,400 slice of that in whatever field that we would like to achieve in. Other people put their 55 00:07:01,400 --> 00:07:11,240 hope in marriage, put their hope in having children because that's the thing that makes 56 00:07:11,240 --> 00:07:18,080 them feel secure and significant in life. And all of these things that I've mentioned 57 00:07:18,080 --> 00:07:26,040 to a greater or lesser degree can be good and all of them are redeemable. But the question 58 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:34,240 is what do we put our hope in? What's the greatest object that our life is moving towards? 59 00:07:34,240 --> 00:07:38,720 What's the carrot, if you like? So you know about the carrot. You've seen the picture 60 00:07:38,720 --> 00:07:42,920 of the guy who's sitting on the donkey and he's got the stick and then kind of the string 61 00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:46,840 with the carrot. So there's always this carrot in front of the donkey and the donkey will 62 00:07:46,840 --> 00:07:53,960 just keep walking as long as he thinks he's getting closer and closer to the carrot. But 63 00:07:53,960 --> 00:08:00,120 what's the thing in our life that's driving our decisions, our life? What moves us forward? 64 00:08:00,120 --> 00:08:06,800 What's the thing that if you took it away from us then the journey of life just wouldn't 65 00:08:06,800 --> 00:08:15,920 be the same? And they're all worldly things. They're all things that the world runs after 66 00:08:15,920 --> 00:08:26,680 and we too may fall into. But as Christians we put our hope into things that are beyond 67 00:08:26,680 --> 00:08:33,320 us, beyond this world. And we can kind of express that and the Bible expresses that 68 00:08:33,320 --> 00:08:39,840 in many different ways. It can talk about us putting our hope in God or put our hope 69 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:50,320 in Christ or put our hope in his kingdom in the new creation, the life after this one. 70 00:08:50,320 --> 00:08:56,360 And one of the things that's really worthwhile doing and just say it was a Sunday and just 71 00:08:56,360 --> 00:09:02,440 say you had a free Sunday afternoon, one thing that you could do is if you have an electronic 72 00:09:02,440 --> 00:09:08,320 Bible like on your phone or your computer or the internet or something and you can do 73 00:09:08,320 --> 00:09:15,040 a search on it, put the word put and hope together in the search so that it'll find 74 00:09:15,040 --> 00:09:20,360 all the verses in the Bible that has those two words. And then spend time just reading 75 00:09:20,360 --> 00:09:26,160 all the things that we're to put our hope in. There's lots of them. But 1st Timothy 76 00:09:26,160 --> 00:09:35,160 chapter 4 verse 10 puts it this way, it says, that is why we labour and strive because we 77 00:09:35,160 --> 00:09:41,400 have put our hope in the living God. So that's the Christian hope, putting our hope in the 78 00:09:41,400 --> 00:09:50,080 living God. But I said before that hope has a twin and that is faith. Okay, so if hope 79 00:09:50,080 --> 00:09:57,560 is the thing that is focused on the goal, the end point, then faith is trusting day 80 00:09:57,560 --> 00:10:07,640 to day that we're going to receive that thing. Faith is the active working towards our hope. 81 00:10:07,640 --> 00:10:13,840 And so the writer to the Hebrews puts it like this, so this is Hebrews chapter 11 verse 82 00:10:13,840 --> 00:10:18,000 1. So you could turn to that or just if you're writing it down jot it down to have a look 83 00:10:18,000 --> 00:10:24,160 or listen to it really carefully because listen carefully to what it says about faith and 84 00:10:24,160 --> 00:10:34,840 hope. It says, now faith is confidence in what we hope for. So it's the confidence that 85 00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:40,680 we have in that thing, the thing that we hope for, that goal. Faith is confidence in what 86 00:10:40,680 --> 00:10:49,680 we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. So we cannot see the thing that we 87 00:10:49,680 --> 00:10:57,520 hope for. We can't see Christ's glorious return. We can't see the perfection of the new creation. 88 00:10:57,520 --> 00:11:04,400 But faith is what gives us confidence, not just that it's going to come but assurance 89 00:11:04,400 --> 00:11:09,880 that when it does that we're going to be a part of it. Okay, so we've talked a bit about 90 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:18,760 where we place our hope, but we need to think also about how we find our faith. How do we 91 00:11:18,760 --> 00:11:27,320 continue to believe in the coming of God's perfect kingdom, a kingdom of righteousness 92 00:11:27,320 --> 00:11:35,640 and justice when we see injustice around us in the world? How can we continue to put our 93 00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:45,240 hope in a good God when we suffer? And how do we live a life that forsakes all the wonderful 94 00:11:45,240 --> 00:11:51,480 looking shiny and beautiful things of this world for the sake of pressing on to be counted 95 00:11:51,480 --> 00:12:00,400 worthy of the gospel on the last day? Where do we find that faith? And that question is 96 00:12:00,400 --> 00:12:07,520 answered by Habakkuk and so we need to get into that now. And in order to do that, in 97 00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:15,000 order to find answers, we need to first notice that we need to notice what we have here in 98 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:22,240 this chapter 3 and how all the bits fit together. And once we do that, we start to be able 99 00:12:22,240 --> 00:12:33,080 to see its meaning more easily. So if you look at the start and the end of chapter 3 100 00:12:33,080 --> 00:12:39,800 of what we have, you'll see that we have here a psalm. It's very much like what we find 101 00:12:39,800 --> 00:12:46,880 in the book of the psalm. So if you look at the first line, it says a prayer of Habakkuk. 102 00:12:46,880 --> 00:12:51,440 So that's the way that many of the psalms start by announcing that it's a prayer of 103 00:12:51,440 --> 00:13:03,800 somebody. Then it says on shig in on off, which is probably a musical term. We don't 104 00:13:03,800 --> 00:13:09,120 know but we assume that is, that's part of the psalm. And then if you kind of look, so 105 00:13:09,120 --> 00:13:14,920 that's in the first line and then you look at like the bracket of it in the last line, 106 00:13:14,920 --> 00:13:20,480 it says for the director of music on stringed instruments. So it's a prayer, it's a prayer 107 00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:28,920 of Habakkuk, but it's one that's written in a poetic form and it's to be sung and performed. 108 00:13:28,920 --> 00:13:37,280 And we've sung songs today, even one of them reflecting on this psalm. And the songs that 109 00:13:37,280 --> 00:13:44,720 we sing have a structure, right? We have a way of kind of they fit together and a pattern 110 00:13:44,720 --> 00:13:51,600 to them. So songs can have verses, so it could be a series of verses or it might have a chorus. 111 00:13:51,600 --> 00:13:58,200 So you have verse, chorus, verse, chorus. If it's a more kind of modern song, then it 112 00:13:58,200 --> 00:14:01,720 sort of has verse and chorus and it's got to have a bridge in there somewhere and then 113 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:09,720 back to a verse or whatever. That's the structure around what we have. And in this psalm, they 114 00:14:09,720 --> 00:14:15,800 do things differently, but it has a structure too. And once we see that, it's easier to 115 00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:26,040 get the meaning. And what we have here is a sandwich with a conclusion at the end. Okay? 116 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:32,880 So it's a sandwich in the sense that verses two and verses 16 are kind of parallel and 117 00:14:32,880 --> 00:14:38,200 work together and they bracket around the bit in the middle. So that's kind of like 118 00:14:38,200 --> 00:14:45,440 the meat in the sandwich, which is verses three to 15. And when we see the way that 119 00:14:45,440 --> 00:14:52,520 verses two and 16 work together, that's kind of a helpful clue to what's going on here. 120 00:14:52,520 --> 00:14:57,480 And then at the end in verses 17 to 19, we get a conclusion, which is a conclusion to 121 00:14:57,480 --> 00:15:05,480 the psalm and a conclusion to the whole book of Habakkuk. So we have a kind of a sandwich. 122 00:15:05,480 --> 00:15:12,720 It's actually a judgement sandwich with judgement in the middle. And it's a judgement sandwich 123 00:15:12,720 --> 00:15:19,840 served in hope, with hope around it, with a side of faith, with faith at the end. So 124 00:15:19,840 --> 00:15:25,240 we have judgement served in hope with a side of faith. And we're going to look at those 125 00:15:25,240 --> 00:15:31,200 things. We're going to look at judgement and hope and faith in that order. But to do that, 126 00:15:31,200 --> 00:15:36,600 we need to go a little bit out of the order of the psalm because we need to kind of recognise 127 00:15:36,600 --> 00:15:42,320 that it is a sandwich and we want to keep verses two and 16 together. And really in 128 00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:48,960 order to understand those verses, it's best to first kind of look at three to 15 and then 129 00:15:48,960 --> 00:15:55,080 see kind of what holds two and 16 together. So what we're going to do is we're just going 130 00:15:55,080 --> 00:16:03,160 to walk through fairly briefly verses three to 15 and look at the meat in the sandwich, 131 00:16:03,160 --> 00:16:10,960 if you like. Look at the judgement. So in verse two, Habakkuk asks God to make his great 132 00:16:10,960 --> 00:16:18,240 deeds known in his time. And then what we get in this middle part, verses three to 15, 133 00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:24,400 we get this prophetic vision of God's great deeds, the very thing that Habakkuk's just 134 00:16:24,400 --> 00:16:30,880 prayed for in verse two. And what happens in these verses is that they combine references 135 00:16:30,880 --> 00:16:40,440 of what's happened in the past with visions of God's greatness and his glory and power. 136 00:16:40,440 --> 00:16:48,680 And so if you look at verses three and verse seven, you'll see that there are place names 137 00:16:48,680 --> 00:16:57,200 there. And those places are places that are associated with the journey out of Egypt. 138 00:16:57,200 --> 00:17:05,920 So we have that kind of like as if the people are coming up out of Egypt into the land. 139 00:17:05,920 --> 00:17:11,680 And then if you look at verse 15, we hear of trampling the sea and churning the great 140 00:17:11,680 --> 00:17:17,760 waters and their words that key us in to remind us of the Exodus when God saved his people 141 00:17:17,760 --> 00:17:25,400 from Egypt. And he allowed his people to cross the sea and then drown the Egyptian army. 142 00:17:25,400 --> 00:17:33,600 And so we have here reminders of God's great deeds in the past. In fact, from Habakkuk's 143 00:17:33,600 --> 00:17:39,280 point of view, that's the greatest deeds of God looking back into what is essentially 144 00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:48,280 the gospel of Israel in the Old Testament, the Exodus and their salvation out of slavery. 145 00:17:48,280 --> 00:17:56,240 And the passage then is along with those images, it's full of images of God's glory. So for 146 00:17:56,240 --> 00:18:02,960 example, look at verse four. His splendour was like the sunrise, rays flashed from his 147 00:18:02,960 --> 00:18:09,840 hands where his power was hidden. They're not just pictures of how great God is and 148 00:18:09,840 --> 00:18:19,320 how powerful, but how terrifying God is. So look at verse five, he sends plagues and pestilence. 149 00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:26,120 Verse six, he stood and shook the earth. He hooked and made the nations tremble. So these 150 00:18:26,120 --> 00:18:36,640 are images of great power, of God coming in war against his enemy. In verse six, he marches 151 00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:44,480 on forever. Oh, sorry, that's in verse nine. Sorry, no, in verse nine, he uncovers his 152 00:18:44,480 --> 00:18:53,520 bow. He has called for many arrows. And then we might ask, why is God at war? Why do we 153 00:18:53,520 --> 00:19:01,760 have these images of power and glory and war all mixed together? And that's the question 154 00:19:01,760 --> 00:19:09,760 that's asked in verse eight. It says, were you angry at the river's Lord? Was your wrath 155 00:19:09,760 --> 00:19:15,360 against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your 156 00:19:15,360 --> 00:19:21,600 chariots to victory? And that's a rhetorical question. The answer is of course, no, God 157 00:19:21,600 --> 00:19:30,040 doesn't get angry at rivers. God is acting against people. He's acting in judgment. The 158 00:19:30,040 --> 00:19:36,160 answer comes in verse 13. Let's have a look at verse 13 there. It shows us the point of 159 00:19:36,160 --> 00:19:46,240 this section. It says, you came out, come out is words of war in their way of thinking. 160 00:19:46,240 --> 00:19:54,480 You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one. You crushed the leader 161 00:19:54,480 --> 00:20:02,960 of the land of wickedness. You stripped him from head to foot. So all this power and war 162 00:20:02,960 --> 00:20:10,960 and judgment in this vision is to remind Habakkuk and to remind us of God's awesome power when 163 00:20:10,960 --> 00:20:18,480 he comes to judge, when he comes to judge the wicked and deliver his righteous people. 164 00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:24,440 And this brings us back to verses two and verse 16, which as I've said, sit like brackets 165 00:20:24,440 --> 00:20:35,840 around this awesome vision. So in the first half of verse two, it says, Lord, I have heard 166 00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:43,720 of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. So that's what we've actually just seen 167 00:20:43,720 --> 00:20:55,560 in verses three to 16. This fame of God, the awe, the awesome deeds that have been shown. 168 00:20:55,560 --> 00:21:06,600 Habakkuk has heard of God's fame and Habakkuk has heard of God's great power in the Exodus. 169 00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:12,280 And he says, I stand in awe of your great deeds. And this is what we have described 170 00:21:12,280 --> 00:21:18,320 to us, God's great and awesome deeds. And then in the second half of the verse, we see 171 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:24,920 Habakkuk's request to God. So he's seen those deeds, he knows about them. And then he asks, 172 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:33,640 this is what he's asking God in his prayer. He asks God, repeat them in our day, in our 173 00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:43,360 time, make them known in wrath, remember mercy. So Habakkuk looks to the past in order to 174 00:21:43,360 --> 00:21:48,680 find his hope for the future. That's his hope. What he's praying for is the future. He knows 175 00:21:48,680 --> 00:21:54,920 God, he knows God's great acts in delivering his people in the past. And he prays that 176 00:21:54,920 --> 00:22:02,440 he might see similar things, the same things in his day. And this is more than a fleeting 177 00:22:02,440 --> 00:22:08,360 hope for Habakkuk. This is more than kind of a wish on the wind. Look at verse 16, which 178 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:16,880 is an echo of verse two. In the first half, he thinks again of God's awesome judgment. 179 00:22:16,880 --> 00:22:24,840 In the second half, he concludes his prayer from verse two. This is his conclusion to 180 00:22:24,840 --> 00:22:33,840 what he's prayed. He says, yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come 181 00:22:33,840 --> 00:22:41,240 on the nation invading us. So he's prayed that he'll see God acting in his day. And 182 00:22:41,240 --> 00:22:46,960 then he concludes by saying that he's going to wait patiently. He has just chosen to 183 00:22:46,960 --> 00:22:57,400 put his hope in God. His hope is there. He can wait patiently now. And how has he been 184 00:22:57,400 --> 00:23:04,440 able to make that choice? He's been able to do that by being filled with this vision of 185 00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:11,800 God that reminds him of God's great acts in history, this great vision that displays God's 186 00:23:11,800 --> 00:23:20,480 nature, that displays his ability to act in his time. And that's how we need to put our 187 00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:28,520 hope in God, by looking back and looking up. When we look back to God's great deeds, and 188 00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:34,840 we see that in the Bible, and when we look up in prayer. And so we need to kind of put 189 00:23:34,840 --> 00:23:40,800 this back together in the context of the book of Habakkuk that we've been working through 190 00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:47,760 for the last couple of weeks. So in chapter one, if you remember, Habakkuk cries out to 191 00:23:47,760 --> 00:23:54,320 God because of the injustice that he sees around him within Judah, within his own country. 192 00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:59,880 And God replies and says that he's going to send the Babylonians, right? He's going to 193 00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:06,640 send the enemies against Judah. And then he goes into some detail, he goes to length to 194 00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:15,240 describe how terrible the Babylonians will be. So there is this fearsome judgment of 195 00:24:15,240 --> 00:24:22,640 God that's coming on Judah, that's coming on God's own people. And in verse 16 that 196 00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:30,640 we have here, he says, I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound, decay 197 00:24:30,640 --> 00:24:36,760 crept into my bones and my legs trembled. So perhaps in part he thinks that as he thinks 198 00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:45,960 back to remembering God's great works in the Exodus. But perhaps too, Habakkuk is referring 199 00:24:45,960 --> 00:24:54,440 to his own fate that God has told him is coming, the fate of Judah. He is in Judah and these 200 00:24:54,440 --> 00:25:03,760 horrific enemies are coming. And back in chapter one, Habakkuk questions God again, asking 201 00:25:03,760 --> 00:25:11,720 whether it's really right that a holy God should use a sinful enemy as his means of 202 00:25:11,720 --> 00:25:18,800 disciplining his people. And God replies and says that the Babylonians will be punished 203 00:25:18,800 --> 00:25:28,680 in their turn as well all the wicked be punished. But the righteous person will live by his 204 00:25:28,680 --> 00:25:39,080 faithfulness. That is to live with a trust that motivates obedience. So if you look again 205 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:49,360 at verse two, part of what Habakkuk prays is that within God's judgment on Judah, so 206 00:25:49,360 --> 00:25:56,400 he's accepted that he knows it's coming. But within that, that God will remember his promise 207 00:25:56,400 --> 00:26:04,280 of mercy and his promise to give life to the righteous through their faithfulness. And 208 00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:11,800 in verse 16, he's waiting patiently for the invading Babylonian army to be the judges 209 00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:21,920 of Judah to come against him. And his act of patience here, which is so different to 210 00:26:21,920 --> 00:26:26,800 what we read at the start of the book when he says, how long, oh Lord, his patience is 211 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:35,920 a demonstration of the faithfulness that he has learned. He is the righteous man living 212 00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:44,000 by faithfulness. He's learned to put his trust in God's deliverance. But notice that nothing 213 00:26:44,000 --> 00:26:51,360 has actually changed. Nothing has happened to Habakkuk. His circumstances haven't changed. 214 00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:58,800 He's still living in corrupt Judah and waiting for a foreign army to invade him. He hasn't 215 00:26:58,800 --> 00:27:06,640 had an answered prayer. He hasn't seen a miracle. He hasn't been shown a special sign. But what's 216 00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:18,240 changed for Habakkuk is his own perspective. So how can you put your hope in Christ as 217 00:27:18,240 --> 00:27:26,440 your King? How can you put your hope in everything being set right in a final judgment? How can 218 00:27:26,440 --> 00:27:39,600 you live a life that denies yourself for Jesus, putting all of your hope in eternity? And 219 00:27:39,600 --> 00:27:47,840 the answer is that like Habakkuk, we need to look past what we can see and we need to 220 00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:57,240 understand God's nature and trust in his promises. And we can see that when we look backwards. 221 00:27:57,240 --> 00:28:03,280 God has fulfilled his promises to send his Messiah and he's raised that Messiah from 222 00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:11,080 the dead. And we know that he will be faithful to send him again and raise us to new life 223 00:28:11,080 --> 00:28:20,400 just as he raised Christ. And what we need to do now is to live out our hope faithfully, 224 00:28:20,400 --> 00:28:27,920 which brings us to the last section, which expresses Habakkuk's fateful life of patient 225 00:28:27,920 --> 00:28:38,120 waiting. And we have that in verses 17 to 19. Habakkuk says that regardless of whatever 226 00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:47,520 he sees in this life, so regardless of whether he sees prosperity, whether destruction comes, 227 00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:55,040 regardless of whatever tragedies come, he will choose to rejoice in the Lord. He has 228 00:28:55,040 --> 00:29:05,240 confidence in what he hopes for. He has assurance about what he does not see. You see, if you 229 00:29:05,240 --> 00:29:11,000 want to put your hope in God, if you want to put your hope in a new creation that you 230 00:29:11,000 --> 00:29:18,200 can't see, then it would be foolish, wouldn't it, if we found our faith in things that we 231 00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:25,280 can see. And that's where we go wrong in life. That's where our faith falls down because 232 00:29:25,280 --> 00:29:30,920 we put our faith, we put our trust, we judge things based on the things that are seen, 233 00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:39,760 not the things that are unseen. So if you are going to base your faith on your perception 234 00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:46,400 that God is blessing your life, then your faith is going to fall apart really quickly 235 00:29:46,400 --> 00:29:51,720 when things go wrong in your life. You've put your faith in the things that you've seen, 236 00:29:51,720 --> 00:29:58,360 not in the unseen God, and it's going to fall apart on you. But we need to see that both 237 00:29:58,360 --> 00:30:03,320 good things, whether we're being blessed or whether we're suffering, both are things 238 00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:11,680 that can be seen. And neither should cause us to put hope or to lose hope in something 239 00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:18,400 that is unseen. God is working beyond your riches. He's working beyond your poverty. 240 00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:25,120 He's working beyond your sickness. He's working beyond your health. And neither of them indicate 241 00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:34,120 anything about whether you're going to receive God's kingdom. If your faith is based on an 242 00:30:34,120 --> 00:30:40,840 experience of church that you can see, either by the traditions and the comfort of the church 243 00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:52,080 or by the hype or of feeling God in a church service, then your faith is going to shrivel 244 00:30:52,080 --> 00:30:58,320 pretty fast when your church falls apart or when your pastor sins. Because what you've 245 00:30:58,320 --> 00:31:06,160 actually done is put your faith in the church, not in Christ who is the head of the church. 246 00:31:06,160 --> 00:31:10,560 And so when you see that thing, that thing that you can see falls around you, you will 247 00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:21,320 lose your faith. Christianity is not a mystical experience. It's not an experience of being 248 00:31:21,320 --> 00:31:29,560 shown blessings or curses. Christianity is based on the historical work of an unchanging 249 00:31:29,560 --> 00:31:41,280 God. The one thing, the one thing that we have seen, the one thing that is seeable that 250 00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:52,080 gives us great evidence of the Christ is Christ coming in the flesh. That's the seen thing 251 00:31:52,080 --> 00:32:00,080 from the unseen. And we have that great evidence of the new creation in Christ's resurrection. 252 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:08,020 That's the one glimpse that we get and we have that attested to in the Bible. And that 253 00:32:08,020 --> 00:32:19,060 is what we need to put our hope in. So we need to put our hope in Christ and we need 254 00:32:19,060 --> 00:32:28,640 to live by faith because we know that no matter what we see, we know that God is good and 255 00:32:28,640 --> 00:32:37,880 that his promises will come to pass. Let me pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that you fill 256 00:32:37,880 --> 00:32:46,280 us with hope day to day in our lives. We pray that you give us a great hope in the things 257 00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:52,480 that are unseen, the things that are yet to come. And we pray that you give us faith that 258 00:32:52,480 --> 00:33:01,560 might carry us through every suffering, every setback, every sickness, every challenge that 259 00:33:01,560 --> 00:33:07,520 we have in our lives. We pray that you help us to hold onto the great gospel of your son, 260 00:33:07,520 --> 00:33:13,160 Jesus Christ, and put our hope in him and nothing else. And we ask this in his name. 261 00:33:13,160 --> 00:33:37,800 Amen.