Well, if you have a Bible, turn with me to Habakkuk, chapter one, Habakkuk, chapter one. And as you're turning there, let me remind you of a couple things. We finished our sermon series on the generosity of God, the freedom to live generously last Sunday. And we invited you, maybe if you weren't here, you didn't know this. But we invited you to take this car that's in your bulletin again this week. And if you're willing to commit to pray and prepare to live more generously in the coming year in 2016, all you're doing, if you fill this out or check this box and turn it in, all you're doing is saying that you're committing to pray about it. And if the Lord leads for you to live more generously that you would prepare as well. So, if you want to turn those in when you leave, there will be some people there that can take those for you. We have 171 people who have already turned one of these in, so that's really exciting. And we were just hoping for 100. So, maybe we can get over 200. So, that's cool. And then also, as mentioned in the email, here is an opportunity if you want to give a special offering for people who are suffering from the flood damage in South Carolina or to go to help the refugees that are fleeing Syria. We have people on the ground in both places, so we're able to get your funds to those places so they can help people in need. Don't feel obligated to do that. We just wanted to give you that opportunity as we move on into our next sermon series. So, let's do that now. Habakkuk chapter 1, it's on page 997, if you're using one of the Bibles we have underneath the chair in front of you. We're going to look at verses 1 through 11. Here now, God's holy and true Word.
O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear or cry to you violence and you will not save? Why do you make me see iniquity and why do you idly look at wrong? Destruction and violence are before me, strife and contention arise, so the law is paralyzed and justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth perverted. Look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded, for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. For behold, I am raising up the caldians that bitter and hasty nation who march through the breath of the earth to seize dwellings not their own. They are dreaded and fearsome, their justice and dignity go forth from themselves, their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves, their horsemen press proudly on, their horsemen come from afar. They fly like an eagle swift to devour. They all come for violence. All their faces forward, they gather captives like sand. At kings, they scoff and at rulers, they laugh. They laugh at every fortress where they pile up earth and take it. Then they sweep by, like the wind and go on, guilty men whose might is their God. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word and we thank you for the way that it teaches us about you, about us, about Christ. We thank you that all of your word, the entire Bible, is God breathed and profitable. We pray now, Lord, that you would fill us with your spirit, that we would see in this passage the glory of Christ and how desperately we need Him as well as enabling us to celebrate what we have in Him. We pray that you'll use this as a time to shape us and mold us, transform us so that we would grow to be more like Jesus and better able to run with the gospel to our neighbors and to the nations. We pray these things in Jesus name. Amen. So we are beginning this new sermon series this morning. It's going to go for about eight weeks and we will be in the book of Habakkuk moving through the book of Habakkuk. Some of you may not be as familiar with Habakkuk. Some of you may have been like, oh, that's actually in the Bible. It's one of the smaller, more obscure books, but it is an amazing book. I'm really excited. The title of the sermon series is Habakkuk and the sovereignty of God because one of the primary themes in the book of Habakkuk is God's sovereignty that God is absolutely sovereign. And that is a doctrine that's something that the Bible teaches that is pretty hard to embrace. In fact, there are many, many Christians who very, very much struggle with this teaching that God really is sovereign. Charles Version 1 said that no doctrine in the whole word of God has more excited the hatred of mankind than the truth of the absolute sovereignty of God. So we are diving into this book, which covers a topic, an attribute of God that's very, very hard to embrace. What does it mean? What does it mean to say that God is sovereign? It means that he's in control of all things at all times, always has been, always will be. That's what the Bible teaches when we talk about God's sovereignty, that he is in control. Like we said earlier, when we affirmed our faith, we said that the decrees of God or his eternal purpose, according to the counsel of his own will, whereby for his own glory, he has foreordained whatsoever comes to pass. Now, that can be a pretty challenging notion, especially when you realize that that means that all the different things that we have struggled through, all the things that have caused pain or hardship in our lives, God ordained that to happen. He could have prevented it, but he ordained it to happen, and that gets to be a very challenging reality for us to embrace. But the beauty is that in embracing the sovereignty of God, it really begins to change the way you understand the world as well as the way you understand the struggles that you're going through. It is a major means of gospel transformation as we call it, but it's hard to embrace. And here's something that's interesting. Habakkuk's name actually means to embrace. Now, it actually means to embrace, like physically, to hug. But it is very interesting, especially when I think about it personally, I had been through a lot of things in my life where I really struggled to believe that God loved me or even knew what was going on, and it's when I was introduced to the reality of the teaching of the scriptures that God is sovereign, that I began to really feel God's loving embrace of me. I've been through some things that were difficult, probably no more difficult than the things that you've been through. We've all been through things that have really caused us to struggle and to question life or question God, just to mention a few, like when I was very young, I remember we had this great dog, and for some reason someone did not like the fact that my dog and the neighbors dog barked at each other, and so they killed them both. And as a young child, I was very, very perplexed at why in the world somebody would do that, and why God would allow that. When I was in high school, I had a girlfriend who attempted suicide, and that was very challenging, I didn't know why that happened. I had emotionally and physically scarring battle with Acne, I've mentioned that a few times, and that was a long journey of wondering why in the world is this happening, how long is this going to be. Like this, you may remember I have a back injury that took about three years of physical therapy before I was finally out of pain. I am a failed musician, I tried to be a musician and failed, so I became a pastor, that's how that works. But the pain that I had of really being a failure, that was very challenging, I wondered why God had allowed that to happen. And there's some other things too, that you have your things, I have my things, we've been through some things that are really, really perplexing and hard for us to handle, especially when we think about God being involved in them. And that's the thing, the struggles that we have, the hard things that we go through, they either drive us away from God or to God. And when we let these things drive us away from God, you don't get any more hope, things just get more dark and more hopeless. But if we run to God, then the hard part is if we really look at what the scriptures teach, then we have to face this challenging reality that God is sovereign, that he's ordained all these things to happen. And that is really challenging. And so the only way I think that we're really able to embrace the sovereignty of God as taught in the scriptures is through a process, which is very interesting because that's ultimately what the book of Habakkuk is. One author, G. Campbell Morgan, says the whole value of this book is, sorry, the whole value of this book is its revelation of the process that led to the song of 3, 17, and 18. So flip over real quick, look at Habakkuk 3, 17, and 18, and even 19. Just see where we're going. Okay, let's do a little spoiler alert because the bottom line is, we've already seen Habakkuk is crying out, he's very perplexed, and then just a few chapters later, this is what he says, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. So in other words, though everything around me is falling apart. Here's what he says, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God the Lord is my strength. He makes my feet like the dears, he makes me tread on my high places. So that's the end game. This reality that God is revealing his sovereignty in this book so that we can be on a journey in a process where we will end up being better able to praise God even in our darkest times. We're going to go through this process together over the next eight weeks, and Lord willing, we will, many of us will feel a very different view of how we view our suffering. So that's one of the things that we see in the book of Habakkuk, and as we begin the sermon series, that's what I want us to focus on, that one of the reasons God has revealed his sovereignty to us is so that we might find joy in him even in our darkest hour. If you're making an outline, we're going to talk about basically what we see here. First we see honest prayer by Habakkuk and then we see a call to bold faith. Honest prayer and then a call to bold faith. So let's jump and look at verses one through four. And there's just notice here that Habakkuk takes his perplexity to God in honest prayer. So he's not going to let it drive him from God. He is going to God in honest prayer. Let's talk about why he's so perplexed. Look at verse one, the oracle that Habakkuk, the prophet saw, and then verse two, oh Lord, how long shall I cry for help? And you will not hear or cry to you violence and you will not save. Why do you make me see an equity? Why do you idly look at wrong? Let's give a little context here. Clearly we can see that Habakkuk is really upset. He's very, very upset. He's very, very perplexed. Here's what's going on. Most scholars believe that he was a prophet in the around the year 609 BC because that's when Jehoia Kim was the king in Judah. And he was an absolutely terrible king. And he just totally inept leader John Currid and Old Testament scholar says that Jehoia Kim was a most ineffectual king who was well known for building himself a lavish palace while Judah was physically and morally crumbling all around him. So the king is not doing anything and everything is falling apart in Judah among God's people. And that's why Habakkuk talks about violence. He's saying there's violence and God doesn't seem to be doing anything. Now the word violence, when we think violence, we think murders and guns and knives and stuff like that. And that's not ruled out here except what that Hebrew word really means is there were flagrant violations of the moral law by which man injures other man. So that's what's really happening here. There's just this complete disregard of the law of God. And that has led the people in Judah into treating each other horribly. Look at verse four, he says the laws paralyzed, which means that it's having no effect. It's like the ten commandments in the law of God don't even exist. People are totally ignoring them. He says the wicked surround the righteous, which is another way of saying that the the number of people who are trying to live according to God's laws are vastly outnumbered by the number of people who are just doing whatever. And he says also that the so justice goes forth perverted. What that means is that even even the court systems at this time were messed up. The people who were doing the right thing were winding up seeing injustice take place when they were trying to get the courts to help them. One author says the worst thing a righteous person could do would be to appeal to the courts of the land for adjudication of his case for it is certain that the decision would be rendered against him. So this is why Habakkuk, who's one of the few righteous who are trying to obey God, this is why he is so upset. Everything is falling apart around him. He does not understand what's going on. He doesn't know why God seems to be not doing anything. And so he cries out to God. Notice though, he really asks two questions. He asks two primary questions. How long is this going to go on? And why aren't you doing anything? Or in another way, you could say why is this happening? And what's so interesting is that's one of the ways we can really connect with Habakkuk because when we're going through something really, really difficult or when our world seems to be falling around a part, falling apart around us, that's what comes into our hearts. We're thinking, you know, how long is this going to be like this? And why doesn't God seem to be doing anything? And one author interestingly says that behind the question, how long is the unspoken cry, I have my limits? And then he also says that behind the question, why is the insistence, I must have reasons. So that's what's going on in our hearts. We know we have limits. We long for reasons. It's like we intuitively know that if it's not forever and if there's a good reason for it, then I can endure. And that is why it's so important that we see Habakkuk here taking his confusion and his perplexity to God. He's running two God with this and crying out to God. We have to understand it's not a sin to be totally perplexed at our circumstances. It's not wrong to not understand what's going on. When author says Habakkuk's doubts and questions are not those of a fault finding negative, critic, or skeptic, but the honest searchings of a holy prophet of God. And that's what we're doing. When we're calling out to God, we're just saying I don't understand this. In fact, it's interesting calling out to him actually shows that we have a high view of him, not a low view of him. Another author says Habakkuk was genuinely perplexed by the unpredictable nature of God's dealings with him. He raised his protests actually because he thought so much of God and hungered and thirsted to see God's righteousness vindicated. I mean, that's why we're so perplexed. Not because we think God is bad but because we don't understand. It's hard for us to reconcile. How is God good? But yet these bad things are happening to me. It is so hard for us to understand. And Habakkuk is in a long line of people in the Bible who brought questions like this to God. Moses asked questions like this David Jeremiah. This is good and right for us to pursue him with our perplexity because we're simply saying that we just really struggle to reconcile those two things that God does love and care for us and that he would allow and ordained suffering. But how could we understand that? I mean, this is one of the things that we have to where we recognize the difference between God who is infinite wisdom, right? And we have these finite little minds. So of course, it's going to be very, very difficult for us to understand certain things about God. Just like a little baby doesn't understand often. They have no idea what's really going on when a parent is actually doing something that is good for them. I heard a story about this Russell Moore. Some of you might know his name. He's a pastor and he's an author as well. And he's also the parent of at least one adopted child because I've heard him tell the story of when he and his wife went to adopt a child overseas. And one of the things that you may know when you adopt a child overseas, there's a long process where you go over to the place and you sign some paperwork there and then you come back to America and sign some more paperwork here. And then you go all the way back to pick up the child. You can't just go and come back with an adopted child, maybe in some places, but in a lot of places you can't. So they were going through this process. And so he tells the story about how when he and his wife arrived at the orphanage, one of the things that was really eerie and weird is that it was completely silent. And they didn't realize what was so weird at first, but after they had been there for a little while they realized that, yeah, there's all these children and babies here. Why is it completely silent? So they asked the orphanage director about this and she said, well, it's because when the babies first come here, they cry a lot, but then when they realize nobody's coming, they just give up. And so that obviously broke their heart. Well, anyway, then they went and they were able to select this little boy and they got to hold him and they got to play with him and they spent a few hours with him and they got really excited about bringing him home. And then, of course, because of the process, they had to leave him there and then go down the hall and sign the papers and then head back to America and then later come back. And so anyway, what happened was as they were walking down the hall talking about the next step here, all of a sudden they heard this baby boy cry out, screams out. And the reason is that the boys cry show that those three hours that they had spent with him that he had spent in their arms was this picture, this proof that he believed that they were there or that they loved him or something. The cry was simply saying, I don't understand. Where are you going? Why are you doing this? Why aren't you here anymore? What he couldn't understand was that they were leaving for a very good purpose. And so Russell Moore said that all he could think to do was to shout down the hall to the top of his lungs, John 14 aid. He just yelled, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come for you, which is what Jesus said to his disciples. In the same way that that baby was just acknowledging he didn't understand that's what's happening when we are honestly crying out to God saying I don't understand this. And it's so critical that we take our lack of understanding to God because he is the one who can make sense of the things that we cannot. He's the only one who can make sense of the things that we cannot make sense of. And really, our biggest fear in the moments of struggle and trial, our biggest deepest fear is usually that God has rejected us or that he doesn't love us. And that's why it's so key that we look to the cross as well. As we run to God and we're honest about how we feel about our circumstances, we need to look to the cross as well because that helps us deal with our greatest fear. I mean, Habakkuk at this time, this is before Jesus came, so he had the promises of God, we have the fulfillment of those promises in Christ, and that has to weigh heavily on how we view things. And the reality is that Jesus is God's beloved son who suffered on the cross that we could be forgiven and declared righteous by grace through faith. And what we know for certain from the scriptures is that his suffering was not because God didn't love him. That's why the cross has to bear on all the hard things that we are facing. The cross proves that whatever the reason may be that God has ordained that we suffer in certain ways, it's not because he doesn't love us. And that's a huge step for us. It's a huge step for us to say that whatever I'm going through, I know this is not because God doesn't love me. But that doesn't give us an answer of why it's happening. That's a huge important step that we acknowledge that that the cross teaches us that. But it doesn't tell us why it's happening. So we also need to see the call to bold faith that is given to Habakkuk here. So look at verses 5 through 11. The call to bold faith is really to believe that God is at work even when we are suffering. That he's doing something amazing. Even while we're suffering. That's what we see here. See Habakkuk had asked God basically why he's not doing anything of God's answer is that he is doing something something beyond Habakkuk's comprehension. Look at verse 5. He says, look among the nations and see, wonder and be astounded. He's saying, Habakkuk, this is a huge bigger picture that you even realize. This is a cosmic thing that's taking place. In the rest of verse 5, he says, for I am doing a work in your days, like right now. He says, I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if told. In the way that he's speaking, he's saying that he's doing something so astounding, so wonderful, so amazing that even if he tried to explain it to Habakkuk, there's no way he could have understood it at that point of understood it at that point. So Habakkuk's calling out saying, why aren't you doing anything? And God says, I am doing something right now. I am at work. And then there's the super challenging part of this. Well, what is he doing? Verse 6. He says, for behold, I am raising up the Caldians, that bitter and hasty nation who marched through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings, not their own. And then he goes on in verse 7 to basically say that the people that he's raising up are way more unjust than what's taking place in Judah. And verse 8, they're basically an unstoppable army. Verse 9, he says that they're much more violent than what's going on in Judah. And verse 10, they have absolutely no respect for authority. Verse 11, they basically worship their strength or their themselves. And so God is saying, I am doing something. I'm about to make things a lot worse. I mean, what do you do with that? It's a call to bold faith. See, I mean, there's really no getting around the sovereignty of God right here. He's not saying, hey, heads up. There's this army over here and they're horrible. I think they're on their way. He's saying, I've raised them up. And they're going to come. And they're going to wreak havoc on you. So things are going to get worse. It's a really challenging thing, especially if we're going through something really hard right now. But it has to do with the sovereignty of God. Here's a long quote from John frame's book, salvation belongs to the Lord. But I just want you to see that when we're talking about the sovereignty of God, it's not just in the back kick one that we see it. I mean, it's everywhere. It's everywhere. He says, this is what we often call the sovereignty of God. Everything that happens in the world comes from him. He is the one who sends rain, thunder and lightning. We see that in Psalm 65, Psalm 135, Psalm 147. He makes things freeze and then melts the ice. The smallest details of nature are under his control, the falling of a sparrow, the number of hairs on your head, Matthew 6 and Matthew 10. And the events that we call random that we ascribe to chance are really God at work. We see that in Proverbs 16. He said God rules not only the little things, but the big things too. He demonstrate or he determines what nations will dwell in which territory. We see that in Acts 17 verse 26. He decides, what king is to rule when and where? We see that in Isaiah 44, 28. He decides whether the purpose of the nation will stand or fall. Psalm 33, 10 and 11. And he decided once that wicked people would take the life of his own dear son so that we, we sinners may live and we see that in Acts 2, 23 and 24. Let me, let me, let me read Acts 2, 23 and 24. It says this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and for knowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, losing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. So right there, what we see then is when we look at Jesus, when we look at the cross, we see that it was God's definite plan that his beloved son would suffer. So that you and I could be forgiven. God was at work in Jesus suffering. We already know that that shows us that our suffering isn't because God doesn't love us. But we also see that if we're wanting to know why are we suffering? What is our suffering for? What we can know for sure is that it is for a good purpose. We can know that for sure. The cross proves that to us when he says to Habakkuk for I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe. We can take that and look at the cross and we can see that that God is doing something amazing. He's doing something that will reveal to us how glorious he truly is and it's all centered on this reality that the cross is the proof that God brings incredible good out of incredible evil. That he does ordain all that comes to pass and the bad things that really throw us for a loop and change us and challenge us are still under his control, but therefore a purpose and with the belief that God is doing something amazing, we can endure and even go through these things with joy. That's again, that's the end game, right? That we get to the point where we see how we're able to have joy and this is one of the things that's so beautiful about Jesus is it says in Hebrews 12 to familiar verse, it says that for the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, despising its shame and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Jesus was able to face the cross with joy because he knew that there was a phenomenally amazing purpose so that you and I could be completely forgiven of all of our sin and reconciled to God and promised that we will one day live with God in his presence, free from all suffering for the rest of eternity. Jesus calls us to bold faith to believe that there is a good purpose for our suffering and struggles, the things that God has ordained in our lives. Again, I know that this is hard, most of us probably, this is a reformed and Presbyterian church, a lot of us are very familiar with the sovereignty of God, but I know that there's new people as well. I just want you, if this is something you're struggling with, I want you to know that you normally when you begin to look at the scriptures teaching on the sovereignty of God, you struggle, that's normal. And I remember I struggled with that very much because of the things that I'd been through. One of the things that was really helpful was when I had a conversation with a pastor of a little tiny Missouri-centered Lutheran church where I had in God's wild, interesting providence, the worship leader. So I was a play guitar for this little church and by little I mean 23 of us. And I ended up having a conversation with him after a while because I was really, really perplexed at why I had been through all these things and I wasn't sure God loved me. I actually wasn't even sure God knew I existed. I couldn't reconcile. So I would, how can God love me but then all these bad things have happened to me and I had never gone to God about that. But I did talk to the pastor because I was going to quit. I was going to quit my role as the worship leader. I said, I can't do it because I'm not in the right frame of mind. So I struggled with all this stuff and he said, well, what are you talking about? So I went through this long list of things that I had been through and just kind of explained some deep, painful things that I had experienced. And he said, oh, do you know how to make a sword? I was like, dude, I just told you my deep stuff here and you want to talk about metal work. What's going on here? I don't know, I don't know how to make a sword, Dave. He opened the Bible and he took me to some passages that revealed God's sovereignty. And then he said, Matt, here's how you make a sword. To make a sword, you take a lump of iron out of the earth. It's cold and it's hard and can't really do much with it. But you put it in an oven and the oven heats it up and then it begins to soften. You take it out and you pound it as flat as you can, but then it begins to harden. So you got to put it back in the oven. The oven heats it up again, pull it out, fold it over, pound it flat again. And you repeat that process of heating and folding and pounding, heating and folding and pounding until eventually what you have is this virtually unbreakable piece of steel fashioned into a sword that's ready for battle just probably needs some sharpening. And he said, did you ever think, have you ever even considered the possibility that instead of abandoning you or not even knowing that these things were going on in your life, have you ever considered the possibility that God brought you to them and through them that he was very involved with you when you were being heated and folded and pounded and heated and folded and pounded so that he could shape you into something that you weren't beforehand. And I said, no, I've never thought of that. But then he said, let's do this. Let's kind of go through some of those things you were talking about. Let's see if God maybe, maybe possibly brought good out of those and I was blown away as we went. Circumstance by circumstance event by event tragedy after tragedy and I was able to see the way that God had stripped away things from me that I didn't want there anyway and built in things that I never thought I could have. And it was, that was my beginning, that was the beginning of so much deeper and more fulfilling and real relationship with God because I finally realized that he was sovereign even over my suffering. And that's the beauty of the cross that we can look at the cross and know that out of the greatest evil, the murder of the perfect flawless son of God, God brought the greatest good, the forgiveness of sins, and the promise of eternal life for people like you and I who believe. God has a good purpose for your pain, I promise. Let's pray. Father, I know that there are some here who are in the throes of great pain and it is the hardest time to believe that somehow you have a good purpose for this. It's in those moments when it is the hardest to grapple with your sovereignty and I pray specifically for people wrestling with something big right now that you would just pour out your spirit on them and help them to feel your embrace. Help them to believe deeply that their suffering is not because you don't love them and it is for a good purpose. Thank you for the process we see in the book of Habakkuk. Take us through it so that we might cherish Christ and the cross even more as well as be better equipped to find joy in you even during our darkest times. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.