Most of us could probably name people who never really
recovered from something. They suffered, they underwent
some major loss or devastating disappointment, sort of turn
their whole life upside down. But then maybe even when the
circumstance changed or their life improved in some way, the
inner darkness remains. Maybe they grew disillusioned,
unmotivated, basically gave up on life.
Maybe they grew angry and embittered.
And whenever you talk to them, they are telling you some new
person or group who's the reason for why their life is so
miserable. Some people see that kind of
inward devastation caused by suffering and they decide I will
never let life get to me like that.
And so they build up inward Shields and buffers.
They armor plate their heart, they protect themselves
inwardly, they harden themselves against adversity.
They see that care leads to suffering.
And so they decide that they will avoid suffering by refusing
to care. They lock themselves up, wall
themselves in so that nothing can get in deep enough to hurt
them. If the first type of person is
dominated by bitterness, the second type tries to protect
themselves by stoicism. Both the embittered person and
the Stoic are dominated by their circumstances, but in very
different ways. One is unhappy because of their
circumstances, the other is constantly on guard against
getting hurt by circumstances, so they can never take the risk
of trying to be happy. Of course, it's natural to be
happy when things in life are mostly going your way.
If you have a good job, good financial circumstances, a good
home, if you have good health, good friends, some time to
yourself to enjoy things you like, well, anybody could be
happy under those circumstances. But in that situation, your
happiness is completely dependent on those good
circumstances. Change one or two or three and
your happiness might take a nosedive.
How can you get a happiness that isn't dependent on good
circumstances or threatened by bad circumstances?
If you want to go outside in the rain and stay dry, you need a
waterproof coat. If you want to go into the pool
or the ocean and take pictures of your kids, you need a
waterproof camera. Is there such a thing as a
circumstance proof happiness? Our passage for this morning
declares that there is, and it tells you how to get it.
This morning we complete our series in the Old Testament
Prophetic book of Habakkuk with the last four verses, chapter 3,
verses 16 to 19. If you don't have a Bible, you
can feel free to hold up your hand.
Someone will bring you one. Keep your hand up.
We'll have an assistant bring you a Bible shortly.
Here's a recap of the whole book to refresh our memories.
Habakkuk begins by crying out to God against the injustice and
evil of his own people, Judah. He then receives A shocking
answer from God, that God is going to use the Babylonians to
come and judge Judah. But God also promises that those
who have faith in him will live, and by that he can only mean
live eternally, live beyond whatever happens in this life.
God also promises to finally judge the Babylonians
themselves, along with all evil powers who oppose him and
oppress his people. And then in chapter 3, those are
the first two chapters. Then in chapter 3, Habakkuk
meditates on God's saving work that he achieved in the past and
that he promises for the future. Now, at the tail end of the
book, our past, our Our passage concludes the whole thing by
showing us the prophet's personal response to everything
that God has revealed to him throughout the whole book.
Please follow along as I read the passage.
Habakkuk 3 Verses 16 to 19 I hear, and my body trembles, my
lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness 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 beyond the
vines, the produce of the olive fail in 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 choirmaster with stringed instruments.
How can you have a circumstance proof happiness by faith?
Make God your all sufficient good.
That's the point of our passage in a nutshell.
And I'll say it again. How can you have a circumstance
proof happiness by faith? Make God you're all sufficient
good. We'll walk through the passage
in three parts. In each point we'll consider
what making God, you're all sufficient good enables you to
do and be .1 on verse 16 troubled yet resting.
If by faith you May God you're all sufficient good, you can be
troubled yet resting. Look again at the first part of
verse 16. I hear, and my body trembles.
My lips quiver at the sound. Rottenness enters into my bones.
My legs tremble beneath me. Here the prophet Habakkuk
reports his own inward, deeply felt response to God's
revelation. He's telling us what God's Word
did to him when he heard it. Now, a few of you might be
wondering why I've grouped verse 16 with what follows rather than
what comes before. After all, the ESV puts it at
the end of the section rather than the beginning of a new one.
It's important to remember that while the words of the book are
inspired by the Holy Spirit, the little paragraph divisions and
headings printed in your Bible aren't.
Those are choices made by editors.
Now, In any case, the important clue here to the shape of the
passage is the verb. In verse 16.
I hear it's exactly the same Hebrew word as at the very
beginning of the previous section in chapter 3, verse 2.
There it's translated. Lord, I have heard the report of
you. I think the repetition is
deliberate. From verse 2 to verse 15, we
learn what Habakkuk prayed in response to the revelation the
Lord gave him. Now here in verses 16 to 19,
Habakkuk continues the prayer, but it's as if he hits the reset
button, he brings us back to the top.
He's he's showing us that. He's reflecting again on what he
heard from God. What exactly is Habakkuk
responding to? I think he's reflecting back on
the two big revelations God has given him throughout the book.
First, God is going to judge His people by the Babylonians.
The Lord first reveals that to Habakkuk in chapter 1, verses 5
to 11. Now, this was going to take
place just a couple decades in the future.
The Lord doesn't tell Habakkuk exactly when it's going to
happen, but Habakkuk can know from sort of reports on the
geopolitical stage that Babylon is rising.
They're on the move, they're on the March, they're coming soon.
We can call this the near judgement.
Near in the sense of it's going to happen within 1020 years.
Secondly, the other big thing God revealed to Habakkuk in this
book is that in the more distant future he's going to judge the
Babylonians. He reveals that most clearly in
chapter 2, verses 6 to 20. When he judges the Babylonians,
he's going to judge all the other evil powers that oppose
him. When he does judge the
Babylonians and all other evil powers, he's going to rescue his
people. He's going to renew them.
He's going to restore them. As verse 14 of chapter 2 puts
it, Then the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the
glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
This will be one act of both judgement and salvation.
It's going to restore God's people perfectly, finally and
forever. And yet one of the key themes
throughout the book is that Habakkuk and all of God's people
are going to have to wait patiently for that day.
If it seems slow in coming, wait for it.
So we can call this the far judgement.
When Habakkuk describes his response to God's Word, he's
responding to the announcement of these two judgements.
The first one, the near judgement, makes his bones
shake. It's going to mean suffering and
destruction and desolation for him, along with the rest of
God's people. Habakkuk's immediate future is
bleak. It is a bleak future guaranteed
by God's Word. So one last time, Habakkuk tells
us, and he tells God his struggle.
I hear, and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound.
Rottenness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me.
This isn't exactly lament like we saw earlier in the book,
especially in chapter 1, but it is an honest confession of
struggle. Here we are at the end.
God has made his big revelations to Habakkuk.
We're at the end of the story and he's still shaking.
He's still trembling. He's still struggling with what
God has revealed to him. Habakkuk does not look on the
bright side. He does not pivot to consider
the positive things that must somehow be in this word of
judgement. Instead, God's word of judgement
undoes him. He's devastated and he let's God
know it. He casts himself and all his
trouble back into God's hands in prayer.
When you're burdened, bring your burden to God like Habakkuk
does. When you're overwhelmed, entrust
yourself to God like Habakkuk does.
That's part of what he's doing in confessing how he's
struggling with God's Word. So pray about what's troubling
you and leave it with God. Refuse to keep chewing on it in
your mind. If you've given a burden to God
in prayer, don't snatch it back out of His hands in worry.
What it means to wait on the Lord is to entrust yourself to
Him and leave your problems in His hands.
Very often, the trailhead that marks the beginning of the
journey toward a circumstance proof happiness is this.
Start by telling God what's wrong.
Start by telling God your trouble.
Confess your struggles to God, even if it's God's own word that
you're struggling with. Bring that to God and ask for
help. Lament is a pathway to
contentment. But that's not all Habakkuk
does. Look at the second part of verse
16. Yet I will quietly wait for the
day of trouble to come upon people who invade us.
Here, Habakkuk shifts his focus from the near judgement to the
far judgement. The near judgement brings
trembling, and the far judgement brings confident hope.
The near judgement brings him trouble.
The far judgement brings him rest.
The Hebrew word for quietly wait here could literally be
translated rest. It's the same verb that Noah is
named after because his father said he'll bring us rest from
our laborers. Even amid Habakkuk's trouble, he
can be at rest. He can wait for the Lord quietly
and confidently. He can do that because he lifts
his eyes up to the horizon of eternity.
He lifts his eyes up from the near judgement to the far
judgement. He lifts his eyes up beyond the
near horizon of trouble to the far horizon of blessing for him
and judgement on God's enemies. He knows that however heavy are
the burdens he has to carry for now, the blessing God has
prepared for him outweighs all those burdens easily.
The path to circumstance proof happiness often times begins
with telling God you're trouble, and it continues with letting
God's promises weigh heavier in your heart than present trouble
does. In order to have peace and calm
confidence in God amidst troubles, you must trust His
promises for your future. The only way to find sure rest
in dark times is to let the light of eternity shine in.
One way to do that is by praying God's promises back to Him.
What does that look like? Here's kind of a worked example
out loud, real time 2nd Corinthians 417 For this light
momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal
weight of glory beyond all comparison.
If you're trying to pray that promise back to God, you might
struggle to accept it. It might struggle to sound real
or realistic. Oh Lord, I, you tell me.
And so I know this affliction is light and momentary, even though
it sure feels long and heavy. Lord, help me to see how short
my suffering is in light of eternity.
Lord, help me to see how light my suffering is in light of the
eternal weight of glory. You're preparing for me.
The suffering doesn't feel light.
But would you by Your promise, lighten it in my heart?
Then, as you keep meditating on that promise, you might notice
another detail in the verse. This light and momentary
affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory.
The affliction itself is working glory, producing glory, causing
more glory to be added. So pray that part back to God.
Lord, it doesn't feel to me like this suffering is doing
anything. Doesn't feel like it has any
point, doesn't feel like it has any purpose, doesn't feel like
it's working any good for me right now.
Yet you tell me, excuse me, microphone, yet you tell me.
It's producing glory. It doesn't seem to have any
fruit, any effects, but you say it is.
And so I have to trust that Lord help me to take comfort that
this suffering is not futile, but active.
Grant me to remember that this suffering is not endless, but
brief. Being troubled and at rest are
usually opposites. Let's say it's 10:30 PM.
You've settled down to bed for the night.
You're about to fall asleep, the lights are off, when you hear
what sounds like a door opening and closing.
You're not expecting any guests. Everybody else in your household
is tucked away from bed, yet a door has apparently opened and
shut. Chances are you are not getting
to sleep until you are confident that you have discovered the
source of whatever that noise was and that there is no trouble
associated with it. The rest you were about to have
has been snatched away by the threat of trouble.
That's how life normally works. If you have trouble, you are not
at rest. If you are at rest, that is due
in part to an absence of trouble.
But that's not how the Christian life works.
The Christian life is a paradox. As Christians, we rest amid
trouble, and despite trouble we can rest no matter how severe
our troubles are. We endure all sorts of hard
circumstances, loss, illness, pain, poverty.
We endure all sorts of inward struggles like fear and doubt
and depression. There are hard truths in
Scripture that make our minds and our hearts hurt, and we're
troubled by our own sin and its consequences.
Yet by faith, if you make God, you're all sufficient good.
You can be at rest despite any trouble.
And in the midst of every trouble.
By faith, Habakkuk made God his all sufficient good.
He, like God's promises, weigh heavier in his heart than
present trouble. You hear how he sets the future
judgement against the present trouble.
Yet I will quietly wait. Here's the present trouble.
Yet I will be at rest. He lets God's promise set a
limit to his trouble. He set his heart entirely on
what God would bring him then, and so he can suffer the loss of
anything now. That's how you can be troubled
yet resting. But Havacov doesn't only rest in
the Lord, he even rejoices in him, .2 desolate, yet rejoicing.
We see this in verses 17 and 18. If by faith you make God your
all sufficient good, you can be desolate yet rejoicing.
Look first at verse 17. Though the fake tree should not
blossom nor fruit beyond 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. Pause there.
Here. Habakkuk certainly has in mind
the coming Babylonian invasion, both in ancient times and still
even today. One major tactic and warfare is
to cut off food supply. Burn the fields, slaughter the
animals, uproot fruit trees and vineyards, starve the enemy into
surrender. If they can't eat, they can't
fight. Now the list of 6 food sources
that fail probably moves from the optional to the essential.
Figs, fruits, olives, those all make life better in a wide
variety of ways, but bread and meat make life possible.
Habakkuk is anticipating a time when the Babylonians come in and
demolish all of it. What he anticipates is not a
recession, not a downturn, not some budget readjusting and belt
tightening. He's not even considering a
major economic depression that his country might emerge from in
five or ten years. He's looking to the end of
everything that can keep body and soul together.
He's looking at desolation. He is considering, quite
soberly, a worst case scenario. And because he's looking at an
absolute worst case scenario, that net that he casts is wide
enough to capture and include any of our lesser suffering.
What he's saying when the absolute worst happens, well,
any of the worst case scenarios you might live through are
included. What worst case scenario do you
fear? What worst case scenario have
you lived through? Habakkuk is describing the
experience of being desolate, devastated, empty.
Life is in ruins, everything is destroyed.
Even if you've never lived through starvation conditions
like that, have you ever felt like your life just got wiped
out? That everything you look to for
satisfaction, fulfillment, support, meaning, comfort, even
survival in a sense, is just gone.
The experience of loneliness can be a kind of desolation.
You're bearing heavy burdens. Just feels like there's no one
in your life who can bear them with you.
Doesn't seem like there's anyone who's near enough or who knows
enough or who cares enough to carry the sorrow you're
carrying. When you're desolate, where do
you turn? What hope do you have?
What help do you have? If you're not a believer in
Jesus, how would you answer those questions?
When you are desolate, where do you turn?
What gives you hope? Who gives you help?
When Habakkuk is desolate, where does he turn?
Verse 18 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
We have to notice that Habakkuk's attitude toward the
Lord here is not resignation, but rejoicing.
This is not grudging submission, but glad delight.
Habakkuk is not saying, well, I guess I'm stuck with God.
You know, I've gone this far with him.
It's not really working out great, but I don't really have a
better option. So I'll just kind of tough it
out with the Lord. No, instead he's saying even
when I have 0 ground in my life for rejoicing, the Lord will be
my all sufficient ground for rejoicing.
As we've studied the book of Habakkuk over these past 7
sermons, it's my experience of studying and preaching and
certainly talking to some of you, is that there are parts of
Habakkuk that are so human it's hard to see how they're holy.
His, his wrestling with God, his anger, his accusations.
Well, that feels very human. We got that doubt, anger,
uncertainty, accusation. Yep.
But how can he be saying that stuff and not sinning?
That's what the sort of dilemma in the first part of the book
feels like. But now we have the opposite
problem. It's not so human.
It's hard to see how it's holy. It's so holy, it's hard to see
how it's human. How can you total up even the
necessary supports of life and find 000 and then still say, yet
I will rejoice? That's an equation that makes no
sense whatsoever in worldly terms.
Now, one of the important points to keep in mind, try to make
sense out of this, is that this is the goal of the whole book.
This is the conclusion that all of Habakkuk's wrestling with the
Lord has been leading to. This is the destination of his
whole journey of lament. It's the place the Lord has
patiently, lovingly guided him to.
So he didn't start off here. He didn't get there instantly.
It's the result of the whole process the Lord is walking him
through. The goal of lament is
contentment in God, and contentment often comes only as
the conclusion of a long journey of laments.
Again, Habakkuk is not spotting a silver lining.
He is not reinterpreting these bad conditions as somehow being
good. He is not looking on the bright
side. He is not an optimist somehow
staying an optimist against overwhelming evidence.
No, he's saying there's no earthy reason to be happy, yet
he's going to be happy in God, in God, and because of God.
This is a circumstance proof happiness.
This is the paradox of Christian contentment.
This is a happiness the world can't take away because the
world didn't give it. This is a happiness nobody can
take away because only God gives it.
This is a happiness that you can have so long as your heart is
anchored in God and tethered to God, and as long as God means
more to you than anything in this world.
Happiness always has a reason. It always has a ground.
It always has an explanation. Whenever you're happy, you're
happy because of something, even if a consciously aware of it.
It might just be you're in good health, you got a good night's
sleep, the sun is shining, it's a beautiful day, it's not too
hot. That might be enough to make you
happy today, but it's still a reason.
It's still a ground. Rejoicing and happiness are
always a response. They always depend on something.
You cannot get happy just by trying to get happy.
You cannot rejoice by commanding yourself to rejoice.
Soul, rejoice. Now get happy.
Didn't you hear me? Where?
Where's the rejoicing? We have.
We have instructed you to rejoice.
And I'm not saying it. Soul, rejoice.
It's not how it works. You can't summon it up on cue.
You can't will your way into rejoicing.
Joy and happiness are always resting on something, like a
house. Happiness has to rest on
something solid. The embittered person is unhappy
because their life has gone S. The stoic person won't take a
chance on happiness because they see how risky it is to let your
heart attach itself to anything in this world, because it could
always break, it can always disappear, it could always
vanish. The Stoic person rightly sees
how fragile every earthly source of happiness is, but then they
just resign themselves to never being happy.
How can you have a circumstance proof happiness?
By making God your greatest good.
And if that feels abstract, if that feels hard to get your mind
around, just start looking for competitors in your heart and
your thoughts and your motivations.
The things that you naturally turn to the when you wake up
first thing in the morning, thing that you're thinking about
last thing at night before you go to bed.
The things that you sort of tie your heart to with many knots
and think, well, if I get this, I'll be happy.
If I get this, I'll be set. If only I can arrive here, then
I'll be good. Whatever those things are, those
are the things that are competing with God to be your
greatest good. Only by setting your heart on
the God who is Himself infinite happiness can you get a
circumstance proof happiness. First Timothy 111 calls God the
blessed God, which you could also translate the happy God.
God is infinite happiness in himself.
If you tie your heart to Him, you'll always have grounds to
rejoice again. How can you find this happiness
in God? Consider again Habakkuk's
resolve. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will take joy in the God of my salvation, God of my salvation.
Habakkuk trusts the Lord to save him.
Habakkuk knows that his people are going to suffer for their
own sins, and under the terms of the Old covenant, even though
Habakkuk is presumably righteous, he's going to suffer
along with them. But Habakkuk's soul wouldn't be
lost. His eternal destiny was not
under any threat by the Babylonian invasion.
We still see a picture here. Habakkuk is trusting in the Lord
to save him, to deliver him. He knows he's going to face
temporal judgement. He knows by God's grace and
mercy and forgiveness, he's going to inherit eternal life.
Habakkuk understands God's holiness back, He understands
his own sin, and if you want to be happy in God in a
circumstance proof way, the only way through there to there is
through the gate of repentance and forgiveness of turning from
sin and trusting in Christ. God created us to share in his
own happiness. He created us not because he was
a little bit unhappy, a little bit lonely.
It might be nice to have some creatures to kind of relate to
and hang out with. There's no deficit, no need, no
lack in God that led Him to create.
He created out of an abundance, an abundance of goodness, an
abundance of love, an abundance of happiness so that we could be
happy by sharing in the happiness that He is.
God created us to find satisfaction in Him.
He created us to give our hearts back to Him and have them filled
with Him forever. But of course, ever since Adam
and Eve turned their backs on God in the garden, we've been
repeating that same sin over and over again, looking for
happiness and everything but God, striving for happiness in
every single way except the way God holds out to us.
That's very close to the heart of what the Bible calls sin, and
it deserves judgement. It deserves condemnation.
That's what God promises to give to all those who persist in
rejecting him and refusing him. But he sent his Son into the
world, who for the joy set before him, endured the cross,
despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God.
Jesus came to bear the curse we deserve for turning our backs on
God and seeking our happiness our own way.
He came to bear the full penalty and punishment for sin, and he
rose from the dead. He triumphed over death, over
sin, over the devil, and now he holds out the offer to come to
him in faith and repentance. Be made happy in him forever.
That's what Jesus holds out to you today.
If you don't yet believe in Him, all you have to do is turn from
sin and trust in Him. The only way to rejoice in God
amid desolation is to know God as the God of your salvation.
When you have nothing, God Himself is the only sure ground
of rejoicing, because in Christ he's given you everything.
How can you make God you're all sufficient good?
How can you progress toward that end?
One way is to put to death desires for sinful
satisfactions, and even put to death desires for good things
that have grown too big, Put to death desires for the wrong
things, and desires for the right things that have grown to
the wrong size. Confess those disordered desires
to God in prayer and ask for the Spirit's help in pulling those
desires up by their roots. Also, cultivate a greater love
for God. Meditate on His character.
Meditate on His saving work. Meditate on the promises He's
made to you. The key to desiring sin less is
desiring God more. The key to loving sin less is
loving God more. And the key to loving God more
is knowing better how much He already loves you.
How can you rejoice in the Lord when you have nothing?
It's by remembering that even if you have nothing here, you have
every spiritual blessing stored up for you in the heavenly
places in Christ. And sometimes having nothing
here is the means God uses to remind you that you have every
spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.
The missionary Old Testament scholar Chris Wright tells the
story of a man who fled a war zone in Rwanda after the 2004
genocide. The man was holding an empty
bowl, praying in a refugee camp. He owned nothing.
He was dressed in rags. He told of how he was in his
80s. He had seen his own wife and
children killed, his home burned to the ground.
After recounting these horrific losses, he turned and said to a
missionary who is serving there. I never realized that Jesus was
all I needed until Jesus was all I had.
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit beyond the
vines, the produce of the olive failed in 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 when you say that.
Yet when you total up hard circumstances and say,
nevertheless, I'll rejoice in God, you give God a unique
glory. You show that He means more to
you than those earthly goods you've lost.
You show that you care more about getting Him than what you
can get from Him. You prove that He's able to
satisfy you in a way that nothing on earth can.
You show him. You show yourself, you show
others that God holds first place in your heart.
Empty circumstances reveal the fullness of God.
If you still love God when he takes away everything, then you
know it's still God that you're loving.
That's one crucial way in which trials prove the genuineness of
your faith. Like Job trials show that you're
not trusting God for what he can get you.
You're trusting in God so that you can get God.
One of the key goals of corporate worship is to train
our hearts to do that, to train our hearts to rejoice in God, no
matter how severe our trials, to train us all together to say,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, To learn to say that together.
Corporate worship is not the only time and place when we
rejoice in the Lord, but corporate worship helps to renew
and refresh our rejoicing. How often do you is your heart
more invested in rejoicing in the Lord, more able to rejoice
in the Lord 45 minutes into corporate worship than it was
when you showed up? Corporate worship reminds us of
all the reasons we have to rejoice.
It gives us an occasion to rejoice.
You might not feel ready to rejoice in God, but come to
church anyway. You might receive more help than
you expected from the experience of hearing, listening, reading,
confessing, singing, praying with several dozen other
believers. In the mid 18th century, the
great Congregationalist theologian Jonathan Edwards was
pastor of the church in Northampton, MA.
There's a long story behind it, but basically a conflict between
him and the congregation came to a head and they had a vote on
whether to fire him as their pastor. 90% of the church voted
to fire him. Only 10% opted to keep him as
their pastor. There was a witness, David Hall,
who reflected in his journal. He even saw the meeting, I
believe, where the committee delivered to Edwards the news,
you're gone, 90% vote. See you later.
Here's what Hall recorded in his diary, his journal about seeing
Edwards in that time. I never saw the least symptoms
of displeasure in his countenance the whole week.
But he appeared like a man of God whose happiness was out of
the reach of his enemies, and whose treasure was not only a
future, but a present good over balancing all imaginable ills of
life, even to the astonishment of many who could not be at rest
without his dismission. How would you like a happiness
that's out of the reach of your enemies?
How would you like a happiness that's out of the reach of any
human, any demon, any hard circumstance?
How would you like a happiness that can endure any trial?
If you make God your all sufficient good, that's what He
promises you. No trial or struggle can finally
do you in. No suffering can finally defeat
you, which brings us to .3. Dependent, therefore triumphant.
If by faith you make God, you're all sufficient.
Good. You can be dependent, therefore
triumphant. That's what Habakkuk shows us he
is in verse 19. God, the Lord is my strength.
He makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on my high
places. The choirmaster with stringed
instruments, if you look up at chapter 3, verse one, you see
similar instruction. It's showing us that this is not
merely a prayer, but a Psalm. It's to be sung.
This closing prayer of Habakkuk is meant to be sung corporately.
So it's not just by him, even though it's in the first person.
Other believers in ancient Judah and then throughout the history
of God's people are meant to take this up and make Habakkuk's
words our words. His struggle gives voice to our
struggle. His confidence helps become our
confidence. Suffering so often isolates.
It makes you feel alone. You walk into a crowded room,
everybody looks smiling and happy, and you feel 10 times
more alone than you did before. Suffering makes you feel like no
one gets you, no one cares about you, no one can help you.
But one way corporate worship helps.
Honest hymns. Of praise amid hardship give
voice to our grief and our hope. They help us share our grief not
only with God but also with each other.
Songs that are suitable for miserable Christians to sing can
help us bear our grief to God. And they give us words to help
open up our grief to each other and bear it together.
Singing songs of sorrow and joy shares sorrow and strengthens
joy. What Habakkuk gets from God in
this verse is strength. He has joy in God.
He receives strength from God. God is His joy and God is his
strength. This means that Habakkuk is not
relying on himself, but on God. Habakkuk is not self-sufficient,
but God sufficient. Because God is.
Habakkuk is all sufficient good? He is also Habakkuk's all
sufficient strength. Now, this also means that
Habakkuk sought strength only in God.
He people. People often try to be strong
through all kinds of schemes and stratagems, reasons, plans,
powerful friends, storing up money, possessions, hardening
your heart against others, tearing other people down to get
power over others. Habakkuk didn't do any of these
things. He did not come up with any
plans for strengthening himself. He only sought strength in God.
The path to a circumstance. Proof.
Happiness is one of constant dependence, constantly living by
faith and walking by faith. This picture in verse 19 of God
making his feet like the deer and causing him to tread on high
places. It conveys a sense of strength,
security, skill. Maybe you've seen a nature
documentary like the Planet Earth series.
You see these mountain goats on like what seems to be sheer
cliffs, and you have the sort of dancing along the sides of them.
That's how God has made them. He's given them incredible
agility, reflexes, sure footedness in dangerous places.
That's what Ivanka is saying he gets from the Lord.
Sure, footedness even in dangerous places.
Hard circumstances and the strength to endure them are both
from God. Trials and the grace to sustain
them are both from God. The trials come straight from
Providence. The grace to endure comes as an
answer to prayer. God gives trials whether you
like it or not. God gives timely help in your
need in response to your requests.
If you need God's strength, ask for it in prayer.
The right response to difficulty is desperate dependence.
So often you think you're at a certain stage of spiritual
maturity. You think you're doing pretty
well, and then God throws you a curveball and you swing and miss
and you realize I'm not quite as advanced a Christian as I
thought. I need to lean on the Lord
harder. I need to ask for more.
I need to get lower in my own opinion of myself and ask God,
Lord, what would you have me learn?
What would you have me do? How would you have me grow?
Let trials teach you to pray with fiercer determination and
more desperate dependence. What strength does God give us
as Christians? How does He enable us to be
dependent, therefore triumphant? Here are five ways out of many
that the New Testament holds out to us.
And I mean, for these just to kind of be prompts to
meditation, prompts to application.
If you take notes, fine. If you want to write them down,
fine. Just kind of five examples of
the ways, specific ways, the Lord holds out His strength to
us in the Christian life #1 He gives us strength to endure
trials with joy. Colossians 111.
Paul prays that we would be strengthened with all power
according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience
with joy. What does that sound like?
A back experience #2 He gives us strength to continue hoping in
His promises despite hardship. In Romans 1513, Paul prays.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in
believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may
abound in hope. He empowers us to have hope.
He strengthens us so that we keep hoping #3 He gives us
strength to know and to be filled by Christ's love.
Ephesians 316 to 19. Paul prays again that according
to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened
with power through his Spirit and your inner being, so that
God, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have
strength to comprehend with all the Saints what is the breadth
and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ
that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the
fullness of God #4 He gives us strength to work for the Gospels
advance Colossians 128 to 29 Him we proclaim, warning everyone,
and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present
everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with
all His energy, that He powerfully works within me #5 He
gives us strength to endure persecution for the sake of the
gospel, as Paul says in Second Timothy 18.
Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord,
nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the
gospel by the power of God. Which types of strength have you
received from the Lord lately? What strength from the Lord do
you need today, and what can you do to get it?
Each of these kinds of strength we see in the New Testament.
When God gives them to us, it enables a triumph of faith.
Every type of spiritual triumph is a real victory.
It's important not to miss this. We can get so discouraged.
We can think our lives are so kind of small.
One step forward, 2 steps back. What is God really doing in my
life? It's easy to think nothing's
really happening. Christian faith doesn't feel
like a whole lot of victories, feels like more defeat.
But every spiritual triumph is an eternally significant
victory. Here's how John puts it in
first. John 54 For everyone who has
been born of God overcomes the world, and this is the victory
that has overcome the world. Our faith, he's saying faith is
victory. Faith itself is the victory that
has overcome the world. Endurance is conquest.
Sustained trust in Christ is triumph.
Perseverance and believing in Him is victory.
As Christians, we triumph despite hardships and in the
midst of hardships. The triumph of faith, for now,
is in some ways an ironic triumph.
It's hidden, it's veiled. We don't see it in its full
dimensions, but it is a triumph nonetheless.
As Paul put it, after this laundry list of hardships and
suffering and all these things, we are more than conquerors
through Him who loved us. If you continue to live by
faith, if you make God your greatest good, then nothing can
finally demolish your faith. Nothing can destroy your soul.
And one day faith will become sight, anticipation will become
possession, longing will become satisfaction.
If by faith you make God your greatest good, you can be
troubled yet resting, desolate yet rejoicing, dependent,
therefore triumphant. That is how you can have a
circumstance proof happiness. No suffering can bury your soul
in bitterness. No desolation can lead you to
despair. No matter what you lose, God
remains your greatest good, and therefore you're never failing.
Reason to rejoice. Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, we pray that you would work this paradox of
contentment in our hearts. Or may we be able to say,
whatever sorrow and hardship you ordained for us, that we rejoice
in you, and we'd be able to look honestly at circumstances that
would undo us and still rejoice in you.
Father, would you work that in us for your glory?
Would you cause the light of the gospel to shine through us as we
rejoice in you even amid suffering?
We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.