The watchman's faith, watching for God's justice.
When he first stood before the British Parliament
in 1789 and called for the abolition of the slave
trade, few people took him seriously. Some rolled
their eyes, others accused him of being naive
or self -righteous. Many even, those who privately
agreed with him, whispered that his efforts were
pointless. The trade was too entrenched, too
profitable, too accepted to ever be undone. But
William Wilberforce spent the next 20 years introducing
bills that failed, facing ridicule, political
defeat, personal exhaustion. His friends begged
him to give up. He grew frail and sickly. But
through all those years, his faith never left
him. He once wrote in his journal, God Almighty
has set before me two great objects, the suppression
of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.
Those were not the words of a man chasing his
own glory. Those were the words of a man learning
to wait, like a watchman on the walls, trusting
that God's justice would come, even if it came
slowly. He didn't know when it would happen.
but he still trusted and followed and didn't
change what he did based on what anyone else
did. And that's the same attitude we find in
Habakkuk 2 verses 1 through 4. The prophet says,
I will stand at my watchpost and station myself
on the rampart. I will keep watch to see what
He will say to me. Habakkuk had cried out, to
God because of the violence and corruption in
His nation. The wicked seemed to thrive while
the righteous suffered. And when God answered
that He would send Babylon, a nation even more
brutal than Judah, to bring judgment, Habakkuk
was stunned. How could God use them, the wretched
ones who cared nothing for God? We, we, we...
are the people of God. How can we be reprimanded
by someone else? Someone who should be even worse.
So he climbed the walls of his doubt, letting
go of the reasons why God's ways didn't make
sense to him. And he said, I will wait. I will
look out to see what God will say. It's a picture
of faithful waiting. Trust mixed with impatience.
if we're being honest, but still faithful waiting.
Habakkuk doesn't pretend to understand. We don't
have to always understand, but he believes that
God must speak, that God's justice, even if it's
delayed, is still sure. And God does speak. He
does tell Habakkuk to write the vision down plainly
so that it can be carried forward, so that people
can keep running toward hope, for the vision
awaits its appointed time. Though it linger,
wait for it. It will surely come. It will not
delay. In other words, you may not see it yet,
but you can trust it will come. as soon as it
can. Faith is not wishful thinking. It's the
decision to cling to God's promises when the
evidence seems thin. The proud, those who trust
in their own strength, their own wisdom, their
own timing, they will fall. But the righteous,
God says, will live by their faith. And that's
what sustained people like Wilberforce. He didn't
see quick results. He saw years of defeat, and
yet he trusted that the vision of God's justice,
not what his nation saw as justice, but God's
justice, was certain. When Parliament finally
voted to abolish the slave trade in 1807, Wilberforce
broke down in tears. And when slavery itself
was outlawed in the UK in 1833, just days before
His death, He knew that faith had not been in
vain. See, that brings us to Luke 17, 1 -10,
where Jesus gives His disciples a lesson about
faith, forgiveness, and humility. He begins with
a warning, temptations to sin are sure to come,
but woe to the one through whom they come. Well,
great! The sinners are going to get what they
have coming to them. So doesn't that mean that
disciples can start speaking judgment upon all
the terrible people around them and make sure
they rub it in their face as to how much God
despises them? and how the disciples are now
the ones in charge. But he tells them that if
someone sins and repents, even seven times in
one day, they are to forgive. Is it any wonder
the disciples responded, increase our faith?
They're saying, Lord, that sounds impossible.
How are we supposed to do that? To let them off
the hook. to trust you have it under control
when we cannot see them suffer as they deserve.
But Jesus answers in a very surprising way. If
you had faith like a mustard seed, you could
say to this mulberry tree, be uprooted and planted
in the sea and it would obey you. See, faith
isn't about size or how much there is. It's about
where. you place your trust. Even a small faith,
when placed in the promises of God, can move
things that seem immovable, especially our own
hearts. Faith isn't something we build up through
effort. It's something that grows when we act
in trust, being willing to bury it in the ground,
wondering if it will get lost and forgotten.
trusting it to the waters of baptism and our
own grounding in faith, forgiving when we'd rather
hold on, serving when we'd rather be thanked,
believing when we'd rather give up. You can imagine
if someone like Wilberforce lived in our time,
how many people would have found ways to tear
him down? They would have said he was too idealistic,
too privileged, too naive. They would have found
fault in his manner, his motives, his methods,
maybe even the people he associated with. If
only you would stop focusing on something so
hopeless, William. We've got it all figured out.
Join the rest of us in achieving victories that
we can see. Then we can make the world work the
way we want. He was a brilliant man, popular,
ambitious, a man destined for power, but... Just
as all terrible things come, Christ got a hold
of them. And Wilberforce came to faith and began
to see the world differently. He saw the wickedness
of the slave trade. Men, women, children treated
as property. And he thought, surely God wants
me to do something about this. Maybe he assumed
that if he obeyed God, success would come quickly,
but year after year it didn't. The slave trade
was just too profitable, too entrenched. He faced
ridicule, exhaustion, and loneliness. And like
Habakkuk, he must have stood at his own watchtower
and prayed, Lord, how long? Like Hananiah, publicly
contradicting Jeremiah in the temple saying God
would end their suffering in Babylon within just
two years and restore all the exiles and temple
treasures even while Jeremiah warned that they
should watch to see what would happen or like
the false prophets telling King Ahab what he
wanted to hear while the true prophet Micaiah
warned of God's judgment or like Micah exposing
the self -interest of the prophets of Samaria
where their prophecy depended on whether they
were being paid or praised, and their message
of peace being a product of comfort and corruption,
not divine truth. People love to find reasons
to stumble and avoid listening to God's words
of command. Reasons to discredit those who make
them uncomfortable. You're not on the winning
side, you're sounding like the losers. It's easier
to critique someone's tone than to face the truth
of what they're saying. Faith, though, keeps
us listening. Faith doesn't make excuses. Faith
keeps our hearts open to correction by God, open
to the Spirit, to the possibility that God may
be calling us to change. That's what the disciples
had to learn. That following Jesus meant more
than believing in miracles. It meant humbly forgiving,
faithfully serving, trusting God even when obedience
felt ordinary. The parable of Jesus, it ends
this passage, who among you would say to your
servant who has just come in from plowing or
tending sheep? Come here at once and take your
place at the table. Would you not rather say
prepare supper for me? Put on your apron and
serve me while I eat and drink and later you
may eat and drink. And he concludes, so you also
when you have done all that you were ordered
to do, say, we are worthless servants. We have
done only what we ought to have done. What a
harsh and strange thing for Jesus to say, especially
with so many of his closest disciples around
him. But what Jesus is saying, is that faith
is not about achieving some type of victory that
we want to see or possess. It's not a transaction
where we follow because we're looking to be rewarded.
It's a relationship that's rooted in trust and
gratitude, which means that we follow even the
parts of what God wants that others may not be
willing to support, even the ones closest to
us. The righteous live by faith. not for applause,
not for control, not for pride. Wilberforce may
have never seen himself as a hero. He definitely
saw himself as a servant of Christ, doing what
needed to be done. And when his opponents mocked
him, he neither retaliated against them, nor
gave up. When his own party abandoned him, he
kept showing up. And that's mustard seed faith.
Small. steady, persistent, waiting to blossom
in God's timing. With persistent patience, the
UK changed because of evangelical revival, moral
reform, and growing public conscience, even while
other countries had to force their own people
to change through warfare and money. If Habakkuk
teaches us to wait on God's timing, and Jesus
teaches us to act in humble obedience, then together
they remind us that faith lives in the tension
between waiting on God's timing for the fulfillment
of righteousness and doing only what God allows
while accepting that we may not always win. Faith
waits for the vision to be revealed while it
keeps forgiving, keeps serving, keeps believing.
Sometimes that's the hardest kind of faith. Not
the mountain moving kind, but the day in, day
out kind. The faith that keeps loving someone
who hurts you. The faith that keeps praying for
a child who's wandered away. The faith that keeps
working for justice when change comes painfully
slow. The faith that says, That fighting against
moral debauchery and harming the unborn does
not require that we step around the poor, the
Lazaruses of the world, and ignore the infirm,
and empower the corrupt and lie to ourselves
about what is right in front of us. Even now,
there are voices that try to redefine injustice
as something good. You can still hear people,
even on our own time, saying that slavery in
some way was a blessing in disguise. that it
brought civilization, education, or job skills
to savages who sold each other into slavery as
if people who called themselves Christians back
then were excused when doing the same evil practices
as the heathens. Some even claim that there's
no real inequality among races anymore as if
history's wounds simply healed themselves that
quickly. But faith doesn't look away from reality.
Faith doesn't make excuses for the sins of the
past or the struggles of the present. Faith tells
the truth and then keeps trusting that God's
truth will lead to healing, not denial. The proud
refuse correction. They say, we've done enough.
The righteous though, live by faith. And faith
is humble enough to listen, to learn, to keep
repenting and moving forward in hope. Living
by faith in our world means something both very
ordinary and very bold. It means holding fast
to God's promises while living with open hands.
It means doing what's right even when it's unpopular
and seemingly unrewarding. It means forgiving
when others don't, listening when others shout,
serving without needing recognition. Faith doesn't
have to be big to be real. It just has to be
alive. clinging to God's promises however small
the grip might feel. The watchman on the wall
waits for justice. The servant in the field obeys
with gratitude. The disciple forgives again and
again and together they bear witness to the same
truth. The righteous shall live by faith. When
we look at people like Wilberforce or even at
Habakkuk and the disciples, we're reminded that
faith isn't about being strong and large. It's
about being steady. It's about trusting that
God's vision for the world, a vision of mercy,
justice, and then restoration, will not fail,
even if it feels slow in coming and we do not
feel in control. So we wait. We forgive. We serve.
We speak truth, not in arrogance, but with grace,
even forgiving ourselves, because we're willing
to admit to our own sinfulness. And we live by
faith. Not in what we can see, but in the one
who is promised to make all things new. Even
small faith, Jesus says, can move mountains.
Even small faith, Habakkuk says, can outlast
empires. And even small faith, your faith and
mine, can make the light of Christ visible in
a world that still longs to see it. By His grace
alone. Thanks be to God.