Even Though...
Notes
Transcript
Has anyone ever felt like that?
Liam didn’t even try to fake it his first day of preschool
but you know sometimes its easy for us to put on a face and act like everything is life is okay or good when it is really far from that.
I am sure this never happens but have you ever been on your way to church and your in the car and world war 3 has broken out in the car.
I mean people are yelling, syblings are in the middle of a fist fight, You forget to bring something your wife told you to bring,
And it is ugly, but you get out of the car and all the sudden we look like the leave it to beaver family.
Then someone will ask us how we are doing and it doesn’t matter if we our car broke down, the dog got sick, and we broke our arm, we will respond “I am doing good!”
And you know sometimes if we are being honest with ourselves even in our minds, we will occaasionally try to ignore our problems, and keep this mind set of everything is fine, its okay, until we eventually fall apart.
And this is why I love this series that we are in called “When God Doesn’t”
And if you have been with us we have been looking at the book of Habakkuk
And this is a book of a Bible about a guy named Habakkuk
And things are not going well for him or the place he lives.
in fact the king at this time was known to be a wicked and corrupt person, And we see that this has trickled down to the rest of the nation.
And now their is violence, greed, hurt, pain and we see the nation having all these issues internally.
But to make things even worse externally things are not great either because another nation that is worse then them is gaining power and is now getting ready to take them over.
And this is why I love this because throughout this book Habakkuk is not just ignoring all the issues and kind of in this delusional state where everything is great.
But He is really wrestling with God
In fact you might remember this but Habakkuks name translated from Hebrew litterly means to wrestle and to embrace
And so week one we saw Habakkuk coming to God and going what in the world is going on
And then God awnsers and He goes no thats messed up.
Then last week we saw Habakkuk in this period of waiting
And then finally this week we are in chapter 3 and I think verse 16 of this passage is a good place that tells us where Habakkuk is emotionally, spiritually and physically right now
Look what it says
16 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.
So Habakkuk has heard what God is doing and he is beyond anxious. His body is tremling, his bones are sore, he feels like he can’t stand.
And the litteral translation for part of this is his bowls are trembling (a little TMI right?)
But his stomach even hurts because of how anxious and worked up he is right now.
And so lets go to the first part which is Habakkuk 3:2 because Habakkuk comes to God trembling and he comes with a really simple prayer. It says this:
2 Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.
So he comes to God and goes God will you repeat what you have done before?
meaning Habakkuk has seen and heard what God as done in the past and He is going God can you do that again?
I love some translations because they translate the word as repeat, as revive which signifys while Habakkuk is wanting the situation to improve, theres also a strong spiritual side where even more so He is wanting them to get back to the place where God is calling them to be.
And I said this the first week because while we love the mountaintop places in our life (whether its spiritual or things are just going well in general), God sometimes will shape us more in the valleys then on the mountains.
And you can picture Habakkuk coming to God going “God will you use this valley we are in to shape us?”
Will you use it to revive us, use it to do what you have done before where we stray away, but you pursue.
Will You do that again?
And there is a lot more here, but I want to jump towards the end of this book because the last few verses of this book are loaded with some really good stuff.
look at verses 17-18. It says this:
17 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.
So Habakkuk is almost at the end of the book (these are 2 of the last 3 verses of this book)
And you can imagine Him reflecting and he comes up with three areas that have falled apart.
the fig trees have no blossoms or grapes, the field has no crops and there are no cattle in the stalls.
But whats really interesting about this is that a lot of scholors believe that Habakuk is not just going this area fell apart, this area fell apart but he is using Hebrew Poetry where every each part he list represents something deeper.
When He says the fig tree will not blossom and their are no grapes on the vines these things would have been kind of like special treats.
They might not be things we need, but we like them right.
One pastor I heard mentioned this would be like Chocolate.
Imagine if I said all the chocalate in the world is gone.
You would be sad, but we could probably survive right?
And so this would have represented the fun things in life going away, some scholors say it could also represent hope that we see looking towrd the future, and seeing those hopes and dreams fading
Then he says the fields yield no food, this would have represented their present situation.
There is no food. this is a problem.
This would be equivalent to if we had a big bill come up or we lost our job.
Our present situation is not very good.
And then finally he brings up that their are no animals in the stalls.
Animals do not grow overnight, but it can take years for an animal to get where it needs to be.
And so scholars believe that this refers to the things we have done in the past that have given us a security blanket.
This would be like your saving account is drained, your vehicle is totaled.
And so Habakkuk has really painted this terrible picture where everything has fallen apart.
But whats interesting is out of this place Habakkuk goes yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyfuil in God my savior.
I want to pause here a second, because this is a big shift from what we see Habakkuk saying in chapter 1.
Because Chapter 1 he goes this is garbage,
And now in chapter 3 he goes all of this is happening, yet I will rejoice.
And the truth is nothing haas really changed in his situation (in fact some would argue things have gotten worse).
but while nothing has changed externally, everything has changed interenally.
Because through all this questioning and waiting Habakkuk has not ran away from God but he has embraced Him more.
I love these two painting done by Anthony Gurrolla and it just says “To wrestle with God, is to still be in His hands”
And he writes a poem with it where He says this
When you wrestle with God..
“You are close enough to be embraced by Him.
The choice is how we choose to see Him.
Will we see Him as the creator of our suffering?
Or the one who comforts us in the middle of it.
Will we see Him as the author of confusion?
Or the one whose peace surpasses understanding.
Will see Him as the cause of our pain?
Or the one who felt it first.
Will we see Him as someone looking to ruin our life?
Or as the source of life itself.
When we see God, will we demand that He conform to our image?
Or will we finally allows ourselves to be broken and molded into His.
If we are close enough to push God away,
We are close enough to be pulled in.
If we are close enough to curse His name,
We are close enough to bless Him.
If we are close enough to doubt His goodness,
We are close enough to truly taste it.
And if we are close enough to peirce His hands,
Then we are close enough to be healed by them.
When we grab the hands of God to push Him away,
May we remember the holes we put in them.
May we not see you as a cosmic slave driver,
But as the lover of our souls.
In our wrestling with Him,
May we let go of the fight,
And accept the embrace”
You know as I was thinking about this book I was thinking about how for us to get to a place where we have chapter 3 faith, we often times have to have the chapter 1 and 2 questions.
And I think one of the reasons I love this book so much is it leans into those questions so we can grow our faith.
Where for Habakkuk, he gets to the end and goes God even though there are not a ton of reasons to rejoice or worship, I will rejoice and worship you.
Even though the fields produce no crop, I will rejoice
Even though my car broke down, I will rejoice
Even though I have this diagnoisis I will rejoice
Even though I am lonely, I will rejoice
Even though (Fill in the blank) I will rejoice and worship.
I heard this quote from another pastor who said “We cannot avoid suffering, but we can avoid joy, because what happens to you does not define what happens in you”
And let me end on verse 19 (and our worship team will be coming forward)
Because Habakkuk closes on this he says:
Habakkuk 3:19 (NIV)
19 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to tread on the heights…
He says God is my strength,
He does not saay my situation, but he says my God.
We can go through a lot but when God is our strngeth it changes everything.
And as we close today, I want to read a story about a man named Maartin Rinheart, and He was a person that knew this firsthand.
Let me give you a little background on him
He was just 31 years old when he became pastor of the Lutheran Church in his hometown, Eilenburg. A year later, one of Europe’s deadliest wars broke out. During the years from 1618 to 1648, more than 8 million people died in what historians refer to as the Thirty Years’ War. The next year brought the greatest devastation of the war to the city. Thousands fled the war, and Eilenburg became a place of refuge. But in 1637, overcrowded conditions and the devastation of war brought famine and plague to the city. During that one year alone, 8,000 souls were lost.
At the beginning of 1637, four pastors served the city of Eilenburg. Soon after the plague struck, one of those pastors abandoned his post and fled to safer regions. As the death toll mounted, Pastor Rinkart and the remaining two pastors conducted sometimes as many as 40-50 funerals in a day. Then the two other pastors died. Pastor Rinkart, sound in body but no doubt suffering in spirit, was left alone to deal with the dead and dying. Over the course of that year, Martin Rinkart conducted more than 4,000 funerals. Then, his own wife died. By the end of the year, with no suitable burial ground remaining, the city of Eilenburg was forced to dig trenches to bury the dead.
You know if there was was person who you could say had a hard life, I think Martin Rinkhart is it,
But something really interesting that happens is about a year after all this occurs, Martin writes this
Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in Whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers’ arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.
Oh, may this bounteous God through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us;
And keep us in His grace, and guide us when perplexed;
And guard us through all ills in this world, till the next!
All praise and thanks to God the Father now be given,
The Son, and Him Who reigns with Them in highest Heaven—
The one eternal God, Whom earth and Heav’n adore;
For thus it was, is now, and shall be evermore.
You know as we close today, maybe your at a place where you can rejoice in the hardships, maybe your in a place where you are really wrestling.
The past few weeks I have been wrestling with some things
But I just want you to look at this painting one more time.
If you are close enough to wreslte, you are still in His hands.
Maybe this morning as we sing this last song we can just do what we did the first week of this series where we opened this space up to be a place where we wrestle and rejoice.
Maybe its a place to cry, a place to question and a place to say I trust you.
Because some of us might have landed in a space where we can trust God, others might still be wrestleing
Because your wrestleing might not bee fixed in a 20 minutre sermon, but it might take much longer.
But the beautful thing is God would rather have us wrestling then running.
Will you pray with me?