Amen. Thank you guys. All right. If you have a Bible, turn with me to Habakkuk chapter three. We are going to look at verses 16 through 19. We're finishing the book of Habakkuk. This is the eighth sermon in the eight week series. And so today we bring it to a conclusion. If you are using one of the big blue Bibles that we have underneath the chair in front of you, it's on page 1000. And if you are a kid counting the word of the day, the word of the day today is believe. Here now, God's holy and true Word from Habakkuk chapter three starting in verse 16. I hear in my body trembles my lips quiver at the sound. Rotteness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon people who invade us. 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. 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 deers. He makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with stringed instruments. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray once again. Father, we do thank you so much that you have given us these eight weeks to journey with your servant Habakkuk to see the things that he saw to hear the words that you said to him. We pray, Lord, that as we conclude this sermon series this morning looking at this phenomenal passage. Would you help us to see the glory of Christ? Would you help us to see the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives? Would you help us to see how glorious you are and how much we can trust you no matter what? Would you take all the things that we have learned in the last several weeks, seal them in our hearts that they would bear fruit for the kingdom for the rest of our lives? Lord, we thank you and we pray that you would now use this time as well as all the time we spent in this book to equip us to take this gospel of your son to our neighbors and to the nations for it's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. So as I said, it's the last week in our series on Habakkuk. So we're saying goodbye to our good friend. We'll come back and see him occasionally, but it's been a really amazing run through this book. And you might want to think of this morning as somewhat of a moment of truth. You know what that phrase actually means, the moment of truth. It's actually a phrase that was coined by a man named Jan Carlson. He was a manager of a major airline and he would teach his employees that there's all sorts of moments of truth. And the moment of truth was when one of their customers would basically form their impression of the airline either good or bad. A positive or negative impression would be formed. And so he would tell them that every moment as they serve the people is really important because these moments of truth where people form their impression of the airline happen at all different times, a lot of times when you wouldn't expect little interactions with staff, little time moments on the airplane itself. And so he would talk about these moments of truth and it became a saying, this is the moment of truth. It's when somebody forms their impression of something. And really what's amazing is that the book of Habakkuk is really one big moment of truth. It's a moment of truth in which the prophet Habakkuk is going to ultimately form his impression of God, who God is, what God is like and how he can trust him. And so it's a moment of truth for you and I as well and see in Habakkuk's moment of truth this time in which he has dialogue with God and learned so many things. He forms I think kind of a new view of God, a view of God in which he can trust him more than he ever has before. A view that God is a God who no matter what is happening around us, he's always good, he's always in control. This seems to be where Habakkuk lands. And he believes that God is so good no matter what's happening, God is so in control no matter what's happening, he can rejoice in God even as his world seems to be falling around, falling apart around him. And you and I have that same promise, have that same grace from God that you and I can rejoice during our hard times when we believe that God is good and that God is in control. The more we believe those things, the more like Habakkuk, we can celebrate God's grace, we can rejoice in God even in our darkest times. So as we conclude our time in Habakkuk this morning, let's talk about three things, repentance, faith and the sweetest irony. That's what we see in this last bit here. Repentance, faith and the sweetest irony. Look at verse 16. In verse 16 we really see that this is the point in which Habakkuk has really changed his view. He now is approaching God differently. God has changed him, he's worked in him through the dialogue that he's had. Think about, go back, think about the beginning of the story, in the beginning of the book. Habakkuk cries out to God in frustration and in perplexity saying, God, why is this happening? Why are you letting these things happening? Why aren't you doing anything? The people in Judah were living very wickedly and Habakkuk was being impacted negatively by that. So he's crying out to God saying, how long is this going to go on? Why are you letting this happen? And then God responded to him saying, Habakkuk, I actually am doing something right now. I'm bringing the Caldeans, this wicked nation, they're going to bring judgment on Judah. In other words God says, Habakkuk, I am doing something about, I'm about to make things a lot worse. So Habakkuk is then of course shocked by that and even more perplexed asking, how in the world can this make sense? How can you use the wicked to bring judgment on the righteous? But God responds to him with several things including one of the most important verses in the whole book, Habakkuk 2.4, where God says that the righteous will live by faith, unbelievably important verse and important reality. That's what Habakkuk is faced with believing that the righteous will live by faith. And we know from the New Testament since Paul wrote basically the whole book of Romans expositing Habakkuk 2.4, that what that tells us, one of the things that tells us is that we are made right with God not through anything that we do, but only through the finished work of Christ and we receive His salvation through faith alone. It's not according to anything that we do, which is the gospel we celebrate that every week. The other thing we saw in reference to Habakkuk 2.4 is that God said whoever believes in me, whoever lives by faith will recover, will live, will make it. It's this promise that no matter what is happening, if you will hang onto God, if you will continue to trust God, he will get you through those difficult things. You will live. And so Habakkuk is faced with that reality. He launches into this prayer that we looked at for a couple of weeks where he's talking about God's faithfulness, he's talking about God's power and his sovereignty over creation, talking about his justice, and he knows that even though the caldians are going to come and destroy the people in Judah, including Habakkuk. He knows that God will then bring His justice down on the caldians for their wickedness. Now you get to this point where now we seem to be at this moment of truth. He's processed all this information. What's he going to do? How's he going to respond? And what's interesting is the first thing that we see in our passage this morning is that what God told Habakkuk made him physically ill. Take a look at verse 16. He says, I hear, meaning I hear what you're saying, God, that judgment is coming, I hear what you're saying that I'm going to suffer. And he says, my body trembles, my lips quiver at the sound, rottenness enters into my bones, my legs tremble beneath me. Now this is exactly like what it sounds. He's saying that he feels physically ill. Some translations say that where it says his body trembles, it says his heart pounded. So you know that feeling when you get really, really, really terrible news, where your heart is thumping and your lip is quivering, and he says, rottenness enters my bones. It's like saying that I'm feeling physically ill. He says his legs tremble, he's weak in the knees. I mean, he is really, really physically impacted by this reality that it's God's plan that he would suffer. And he's not alone. There's several places in the scriptures where we see God's words to someone, make them feel horrible. In fact, in Daniel 827, if you're on our reading plan, you were in Daniel not too long ago. And in Daniel 827, Daniel says that he received a vision from the Lord and then he felt sick for days. And so there's this interesting reality, one of the things that we want to recognize here is that not every encounter we have with God, not everything we hear from God is designed to make us feel warm and fuzzy and wonderful. I mean, a lot of it is. A lot of what God does for us is comforts us. He's there for us. He does lift us when we are down. But you have to also understand that much of the way God worked is through these very, very challenging things. And there are times in which we are not going to like what God says to us. We're not going to like His plan for us. I think that's really important for us to understand when we think about what church is, when we think about why we're in a life group, why we pursue God in our morning devotions or our family devotions. That it's not, we shouldn't form a habit of always running to God so that we can feel better because that's not the ultimate purpose of why we have been redeemed right now. Right now he's forming us, he's shaping us. Pre-desk to us to be conformed to the image of his son. And so that's part of that we go through things that are very, very difficult. If we know that part of learning, part of growing is difficult, then we see the fruit much, much sooner. If we don't think, if we think that I really just go to church just to see people and to feel better, to hear some uplifting message every week, then we miss a lot. In fact, I, it's weird. I have a recurring nightmare and it is, you'd think it would be that I dream that I show up and I'm supposed to preach somewhere and I haven't written a sermon. You'd think that would be my nightmare. I actually never dreamed that. Here's what I dream. Junior high math class. Right. I show up. I'm sitting there in my desk, hey everybody. And then the teacher says, okay, I'm now going to pass out the test that will determine the rest of your future and natural born life. And I'm not ready for it. And I have this panic attack and I kind of wake up in the middle of the night. It's horrible. Junior high math. But the thing is, part of my issue was it took me forever to realize that I was actually going to school to learn. I just really kind of thought, this is what you do. And I really didn't care. And I really just wanted to see my friends. And it never buried any fruit until finally I realized, oh, if I really actually think I'm here to learn, I will actually learn and it will be formative for me. And that's what we have to understand. Our relationship with God is not just about comfort. It's not just about feeling good. It's about being formed. It's about him teaching us how powerful and amazing he is. And part of how we see that is through these very difficult times. And they become moments of truth when we're facing something very difficult. Well, what are we going to do? What impression of God will we form? Will it be from his word or will it be from something else? What's beautiful here is what we see Habakkuk doing is in this moment of truth. He chooses to believe that's what we see in the rest of verse 16. So he says, I am completely physically ill over what you just said, God. But look at verse 16, second part of verse 16. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who invade us. In other words, I will quietly wait for you to bring an end to the destruction that's coming to us. And that's wildly different. Now there's a change. We've seen a change. We've seen some sort of repentance. That's what repentance is. It's literally to change one's mind or to reconsider something. And that's what we see Habakkuk doing here. The change is visible in the way that he first started by shouting, how long? Why is this happening this way? And now he's saying, you know what? I can wait this out. He is showing incredible trust, trusting that no matter what, God is in control. God is good. He's carrying out his good plan. Now here's what's also important about this. Think about this. How did he get there? It was a process of pursuing God, talking to God, hearing from God, talking to God, hearing from God, praying about God, singing. Jeremiah 33 verse 3, Jeremiah says, call to me, speaking for the Lord, the Lord says, call to me, and I will answer you, and we'll tell you great and hidden things that you have not known. I think one of the best ways we could apply what we've seen in Habakkuk is when we are in the throes of difficulty, we chase after God, we pursue God with everything we've got. We cry out to him, we talk to him, we get in his word, we sing, we pray, and it's through that that God reveals the things that we need to see so that we see our view of God change. And we move to a view of God where we can trust him, we believe he's always good, he's always in control all the time. That ends up being a doorway to us being able to rejoice. Because really what that does is as we let the scriptures and the goodness of God and the scriptures and the sovereignty of God and the scriptures form our impression of him, no matter what's going on around us, it helps us to see something that God wants us to believe. And that's what we see next in verse 17 and 18, we really see faith, we see Habakkuk's faith, we see what he's choosing to believe in this moment of truth. So look at 17 and 18, and what it shows us is that Habakkuk believed he could lose everything and still have joy. He believed that he could lose literally everything and still have joy in God. This is the fruit of his repentance as he's changing his view of God and understanding that God is good all the time God is sovereign over all things he realizes he could lose it all and still have joy. Look at 17, he says, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, the fields and the fields yield no food and the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd and the stalls yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Now first what's amazing here in the English we see that word rejoice and it might not have quite as much power as it should but it really should have power when we hear it in the Hebrew this word has a real nuance of triumph. So Habakkuk is not just saying even though all these bad things are happening I'll be okay. He's actually saying yet I will rejoice I will triumph in God I will have joy in God the God of my salvation. Now what circumstances is he talking about? He's talking about losing even both luxuries and even necessities if you look you can see there's two triads Palmer Robertson Old Testament scholar points this out in his commentary. And you see the fig tree the fruit and the olive and that really is sort of representative of kind of the choices products of the land things that we might consider as luxuries things that we probably would realize or we probably think I could lose those things and still be okay but then he goes a layer deeper. And the when he refers to the field the flock the herd he's talking about the necessities bread milk meat and so Robertson says Habakkuk openly recognizes the coming loss of all these luxuries as well as lives necessities but believes none the less so he's recognizing that literally he could lose everything and God would be enough this radical. It's powerful. Now the thing is Habakkuk's on the front of this this struggle has not come yet but he's choosing to believe that he will have joy in God even when all these things are taken away the luxuries as well as the necessities so he's kind of in a position to go on faith many of us are maybe about to face something difficult or maybe you've just started to face something difficult. And the question is in this moment of truth you go on faith some of us have been through very difficult things and we've seen God sustain us so we go on a mixture of faith and experience even though we all seem to still be to be reminded that we can trust God through these hard things I know I do. But once you've experienced it then like I said it's a mixture of faith and experience but beforehand it's all faith you got to believe. I made a friend his name is Tom and Tom and I talked each week now for the most part Tom had unbelievable headaches just debilitating headaches he went to multiple neurologists and none of them could figure out what the problem was. And then just kind of in some random moment somebody had mentioned to him that sometimes if people have really really bad headaches if they get treated for allergies the headaches will go away. That's where I met him where allergy buddies we get treated together and so here's what's interesting in this moment all these neurologists are saying we don't know what to do we don't know how to fix this there's probably nothing we can do but one person comes with potentially good news. Yeah maybe if you get treated for allergies and sure enough he had to go on faith he had nothing to prove that this would work or not but he went on faith and he started getting treated in the headaches eventually went away. This is the situation that Habakkuk is in and maybe you're in that right now you don't have proof yet that God will get you through this very difficult thing but you can go on faith. And the beautiful thing is just like Tom now can tell people yes getting your allergies dealt with can affect your headaches because now he knows from experience you and I after we have gone through a very difficult time with our faith in God we will have both faith and experience and that's what we see in the New Testament. The Apostle Paul has multiple situations in which he expresses the faithfulness of God in struggles look at Philippians 4 11 through 13 I love this now we know Philippians 4 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me we've seen that on Tebo's eye black years ago right it's really not about football okay listen to this in context Paul says I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. To be content I know how to be brought low and how to about in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger abundance and need what's the secret I can do all things through him that's Christ who strengthens me so Paul now is somebody who speaks not only out of faith but also out of experience he has felt God strengthen him through. Through difficult situations incredible difficult situations that he has been through so take it from him as we face these difficult situations it should go to our minds that God will get me through this God is enough I could literally lose all the luxuries in my life I could lose even the necessities in my life and through the power of the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ I can get through this no matter what it is that's what we see in Paul and it's rooted in believing that God is good no matter what and that he sovereign over all things that he's carrying out this good plan and so really what this is is a call for you and I to believe these same things that you and I would live believing I can face anything I can get through anything because God is literally all I need. We go how free we are when we believe that all we really need is God and we can still have joy and purpose and so much meaning in our lives absolute freedom and so no matter what we continue to pursue him like we talked about a little bit ago we continue to worship him we continue to go to our life group we continue to pursue God in our personal and family devotions knowing that he's the one who will get us through even if we lose everything what we really need is him and then that leaves us with the sweetest of ironies look at verse 19 19 the sweetest irony is basically that Habakkuk expected to gain from his losses we've seen him now in this moment of truth he's he's changing his view on God he believes God is in control and that he's good so there therefore he believes that all he really needs is God he's trusting God implicitly now and he knows he can lose the luxuries he can lose even the necessities and still find joy in the God of his salvation and lastly he shows up that he expects to gain from his losses 19 the Lord is my strength he makes my feet like the deers he makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with stringed instruments and let me just touch on that last phrase there I love this what that saying is to the choir master with stringed instruments what that saying is this was meant to be sung this was meant to become part of the people of Israel's worship which reminds us that when we sing in worship it's not really just a time for us to express our love to God it's really a time for us to be formed for our impression of God to be formed and so they would sing these words together they would sing that everything can come crashing down around us yet we will rejoice in God in the God of our salvation that he makes our feet like the deer that he may helps us tread on our high places they would sing these things just like we sing in worship to be formed so what does he mean feet like the deer tread on my high places it's really powerful what he's ultimately realizing here it's he's using imagery and I would imagine he might have even been riding the sitting looking at a mountain side and maybe even seeing some sort of deer like animal because when he talks about feet like a deer and treading on high places he's talking about the way that some deer and goat type animals are very very incredibly balanced and their feet are are able to climb almost straight up and down cliffs look at this this is a picture of a rock wall in Italy and people when they go there they take all these pictures because those little dots in the middle as you can see in the blown up part those are goats on a wall right you and I would look at that wall and we would say okay nothing has ever getting up that wall and then a goat would run by okay and it changes our understanding look at this one this is what I'm saying this is not sideways okay this is not sideways here is some sort of goat might be called an ibex and they you can there's a bunch of them you can see it almost looks like the picture sideways and they're lying down but it's actually right up look at the mountain in the background they are so able to climb up these seemingly insurmountable walls it's absolutely amazing apparently they he's licking or kissing the wall too but either way whatever you know I don't judge but here's a back kick right he's in this he's about he's about to face something that's so horrible it's making him making him physically sick but he has decided I'm going to believe that God is good and God is in control and he's bringing about his good purposes no matter what's happening around me and I can trust him he's liberated to believe I could actually lose all the luxuries even the necessity and then he's looking at this mountain and he's thinking I'm imagining here that he's looking and he's seeing this mountain and he's thinking you know what that wall that cliff is like what's coming down on me and if it weren't for God it would it would crush me but because of God because God is my strength I can be like one of those little deer that hops right up on top of it in other words what he believes is that no matter what is coming it's he's going to lose it's going to be destructive to him but it's simultaneously going to be gained which is exactly what we just confessed we believe when we affirmed our faith together and just a little bit ago when we read from Romans chapter 5 and look at it again this is exactly what Paul says he says we rejoice in our sufferings knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us what a phenomenal promise that we will have actually more hope on the other side of trusting God through a very difficult challenge than we did at the beginning more endurance more Christ like character more hope to spread to the world it is absolutely amazing to see ourselves to see these walls of suffering that are coming or that we're in right now and see that God will make us like a deer and we will get up on top we will come out on top realizing that we actually gain while we're losing Charles Spurgeon one of the greatest preachers ever some people don't realize that he actually suffered tremendously he had horrible depression sometimes out of the pulpit for weeks at a time because he couldn't get out of bed he also had a horrible case of gout in this man suffered yet he knew this to be true he says I am certain that I never did grow in grace one half so much anywhere as I have upon the bed of pain Jerry Bridges similarly says every adversity that comes across our path whether large or small is intended to help us grow in some way if it were not beneficial God would not allow it or send it for he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men lamentations three thirty three God he goes on he says God does not delight in our sufferings he brings only that which is necessary but he does not shrink from that which will help us grow so the sweetest irony is that in the world we think if when you lose you lose but in the kingdom what we see is that actually when we are losing somehow even if we can't see quite yet we are winning there is gain in our loss and it really comes together at the cross it only makes sense if we see it in light of the cross what happened at the cross the the perfect son of God dies to pay for the sins of his people so that people by grace through faith can be permanently reconciled to God promised eternal life but in that moment it is the greatest loss in the history of the world in the history of anything because here is the perfect son of God who is losing his entire life giving up everything and dying the while he is undergoing the greatest loss he is also simultaneously carrying out the greatest victory he's winning the victory over the penalty of sin so that we don't have to be judged by God for our sin if we believe he's winning a victory over the power of sin so that you and I through the work of the Holy Spirit can grow and can be trained changed and transformed into someone much more like him now and perfectly like him in the next life in the next life. And then he's also won a victory that proves the resurrection proves that one day you and I will be raised as well brought to full new life in which we are made absolutely perfect. And we're set free from the very presence of sin which we talked about last week. And so you see this cosmic loss and at the same time this cosmic gain, it all makes sense because of Jesus. And the proof that God really is good. And that really is in control. And so we really can trust him. We really can lose everything and still find joy in him. We really can know that when we're losing because of him we're gaining. It's all centered on the finished work of Christ. The proof is the cross. Let's be formed together right now. Would you take your Bible? And would you think about verse 17 with me for a moment? And think about whatever adversity is that you are facing. What is this big challenge? That what is this big wall that you desperately want God to make you like a little goat that you can scamper up it? And even though you're going to lose, you know you're going to gain. And let's be formed by these words. 18 and 19 at least to the words high places. Let's say this together. 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. Let's pray, Father. I know that there are some in the room who see these walls of affliction, these cliffs, these mountain sides of suffering, and they still, even after seeing your word this morning, it's so hard to imagine that you would make us like the dears. So holy spirit, would you seal in our hearts the reality of what we've seen in the word this morning? Would you help us to really live and believe and live that believing that we really can lose everything, everything? And you would be enough. Would you help us to believe that you are that glorious, that powerful, that good? And would you help us to know that when we face suffering, we're going to lose. It's part of your plan for us. But we're also going to win in the loss of Jesus' life and the victory he accomplished over sin and death is the proof. So may our eyes be fixed on Jesus' the author and finisher of our faith. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.