Waiting on God
Notes
Transcript
The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
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 Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth 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,
for they pile up earth and take it.
Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
Are you not from everlasting,
O Lord my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O Lord, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.
You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
so he rejoices and is glad.
Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,
and his food is rich.
Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?
I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.
Scripture: Habakkuk 1:1-2:1
Sermon Title: Waiting on God
This morning we turn to one of those books I am guessing most of us do not read or hear a sermon preached on very often. It is nestled among the Minor Prophets, after Nahum and before Zephaniah. We do not know much about Haba(h)kkuk or Haba(c)kkuk depending on how you pronounce his name; he was simply a man tasked with communicating a message God had given to him for Judah probably about twenty years or so before the Babylonians completely took them into captivity. The passage will move through three parts: first, Habakkuk complains to God for not providing timely assistance to the innocent of his people, second, God responds with a promise that he will handle things, and finally the prophet questions God’s plan.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, over the past few months, we have been able to pray weekly, and I would guess many have prayed daily, about a number of broken situations we have seen and heard about in our world. To use language like Habakkuk’s, we can cry out, “How long, O Lord, must we call upon you for peace? How long must we see the daily offenses of terrorists and dictators around the world taking the lives of innocent civilians? How long must we cry out to you, “Violence!” when ISIS is executing their enemies and continuing to grow in influence? Why must Ebola continue to take the lives of so many in West Africa and spread now to other areas of the world? When will there be an end to shootings in schools and public places?
Those are just the stories that make the regular headlines of our news. Maybe some us take time to pray asking why God allows the slave trade of children and women. Why he tolerates physical, emotional, and sexual abuse going on behind closed doors? Why there must be physical and mental illnesses that take the lives of children and infants, mothers and fathers, elders and grandparents? We could go on and on naming struggles near and dear to our hearts, near to the hearts of this community, and near to the hearts of believers around the world. We pray all these prayers fully trusting that God exists and can answer, but why must it all go on.
“Why won’t you do something?” That is really the tough question in a much less poetic form that Habakkuk was putting before God. When he called upon God, it was not the evil of other nations against God’s people that frustrated him, but rather the evil happening in and coming out of the community of Judah. Habakkuk wanted to know why God seemed unwilling to address the wrongs happening with his people. What we find recorded here was likely not the first time he called upon God; rather this was the culmination of many prayers and petitions. The way he brought his complaints, or we might even consider them as accusations, against God might make us a bit uncomfortable, but when we consider the prayers we pray about the turmoil we see all around us today, I think we can understand where he was coming from.
But we are still wary, still hesitant to complain to God the way Habakkuk did. There is something about a human accusing God of being inactive, of not helping, and not listening that causes to wonder if we can or should be doing that? Like the prophet, we live in a world that seems often like God does not save here and now. We believe God is able to change things and could do so instantly, but it troubles us when he does not. So often it seems like he is not looking out for justice or bringing his kingdom to earth. So we wait and wait and wait, at times feeling like there is no end to our waiting for God to act.
When we think about what was taking place then and everything that is taking place now, it is all rooted in the same thing—the wretchedness of sin and its effects. All of the brokenness causes visible destruction to homes, families, cities, and civilizations. It also can lead to feelings of great pain and distress. This prophet was driven to prayer by feeling that wrongs must be overcome, divine help was needed. The problems in his community and his country were so heavy, even overwhelming, but he persevered. When things weren’t as they should be, it mattered to him, he petitioned for them.
Habakkuk’s cry captures just how normal evil was in his day, but it also captures a bit of what apathy can sound like, “Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife and conflict abounds. Therefore the law is paralyzed,” that which should mean so much cannot do anything. “And justice,” seeking the proper ends for those who do right and for those who offend, “never prevails,” he says; it never actually happens. “The wicked hem in the righteous,” the innocent, those who do good and want to do good for others, those who want to worship God and follow his commands cannot do anything, they are fenced in, “so that justice is perverted.” How things are supposed to be is twisted.
Apathy is suffocation from the weight and the pain of problems which can drive us to give up feeling anything at all. It is all too easy in a world of increasing connectedness and access to breaking news 24 hours of the day for the weight of the world’s problems to bear down on us even as believers. It becomes more and more tempting for us to give up being interested or concerned for the people struggling nearby or far away. Our apathy or passivity can lead us to the point of losing compassion; we lack love for others. But it can also lead us to give up any hope. We look at a situation, and cannot think of any possibility for change. When we go down there road, as Habakkuk almost could, we stop reaching out to God, we stop asking him to do something. If we go down that path, eventually we give up waiting on God, we lose sight that he has a plan.
While some of his words were rather depressing, it is clear that Habakkuk very much believed in God and trusted that he was in control. All of the trouble and injustice may have led him to wonder why God was not taking care of things, but he would not deny God. A beautiful thing happens in verse 5; that is where we find that God answered him. At the core of what Habakkuk desired, and what I think those of us who go through trials and times of intense distress and pain or hurt is the knowledge that God is listening. Whether we are praying for someone close to us who is going through something and can use encouragement, or for circumstances in the communities near to us, or whether we are praying for something terrible happening on the other side of the world, our prayers are acts of faith by which we seek to know the Lord and know that he listens and answers.
God told Habakkuk, “Look at the nations and watch—and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” He is telling him and all of Judah that would hear this message, “Hold on to your hats, keep your eyes open, I am going to act, and in a way that is not expected, it would be unbelievable if you heard it from anyone other than me!” God described the discipline coming their way, their punishment on the horizon.
God’s way of answering all of the wrongdoings of his people in Judah was by sending the Babylonians. All of the wrongs that God’s people did, the ways they lived perverting justice and ignoring the law, were destructive and violent towards God and one another. God had seen them himself, but he also listened to the righteous, and now he was going to send a corrective by way of one of their enemies.
After receiving that answer, Habakkuk’s question of “why won’t you do something” is changed to “why or how can you do that?” God described the Babylonians as who everyone knew them to be—ruthless, reckless, thieves, feared, dreaded, selfish, swift, fierce, devouring, completely violent, imprisoning people, humiliating kings and rulers and strong cities; they were never satisfied in their victories. Habakkuk wanted an answer from God, he wanted him to do something about the evils, but Babylon? Really? Is this really who the holy and perfect God, great in justice and mercy wanted to send in to punish his people?
If you take time to read chapter 2 sometime later today or this week, you will see that God had a plan that would bring the downfall of Babylon as well. It is in his holiness that God does not tolerate those who have racked up a relatively small number of evils or those who have a much more substantial record of wrongs. While Habakkuk had not been able to see it, God was bringing about a just punishment, and doing so in his timing. Sometimes God gives answer to our prayers, but he does so in ways we cannot comprehend.
Let’s return to God’s promise in verse 5. He says, “I am going to do something in your days.” That’s a promise for Habakkuk, but that’s a promise for God’s people in all times too. God had heard his people and cared about what goes on in this world he has created. By speaking, he established there is hope for those that wait on him. When we think about people of the Old Testament that needed to wait, to persevere, maybe David comes to mind. At one point in his life, David reflected on the many evil enemies who wanted to attack and devour him, to make him fearful and fight him, to bring trouble to the Lord’s anointed one. But he rested on the assurance we find in Psalm 27:13 -14. “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”
Both with David and Habakkuk, we find people assured by God that he does not leave prayers unanswered, and he is not indifferent to what is taking place in his world. It is with that assurance, offered to us still today, that God’s people must be on guard against losing concern, losing compassion, and losing hope for the darkest areas of our world! God has promised great things still to be done in the present; we must not be too quick to doubt that his goodness will still be shown in the land of the living. As we find, again both with David and Habakkuk, there is a belief among God’s people that God is still looking out for us. Therefore, things were not and are not even entirely hopeless or without value to God that we should believe he has left peoples and civilizations to fend for themselves. God cares about what is happening right now, and desires for us, his people, to care as well.
Amidst our waiting for God to bring an end to the struggles, evils, and hurts going on in our nation and our world, there is waiting going on in this congregation. As you are seeking to call a new pastor, seeking to discern who and what God’s plan for you is, you are brought through times of wondering, “How long must we wait, O Lord, before you send us someone to lead?” Waiting in circumstances like these can cause frustration and distress, especially when we thought we knew God’s plan but things did not turn out as we might have wanted them. Waiting can cause us to question if there is something we have done wrong or if there is something wrong with us.
Another way of looking at things is to understand our willingness to wait, in the manner that we find with Habakkuk; waiting displays our trust in God. We are waiting on his perfect will and on his perfect time. If that can be our mentality, then Scripture also teaches us that waiting and being patient should not be an empty action, a time of just standing around. In James 5, James taught his audience to be patient for the Lord’s coming; but in their waiting, they needed to stand strong.
He compared the waiting that they were to do to how a farmer waits for their crops to grow. What little I know about farming is that crops do not come up overnight. You do not just plant a seed in any type of ground and in any climate and expect it will grow. No, it takes adequate amounts of sun, warmth, rain, and wind, but not too much. It takes months to grow from the time fields are prepared and planted to when a crop can be harvested. A farmer needs to have a certain perseverance and patience; the word we find being used by James to describe this ability to wait is the combination of two words to mean “long tempered.” To appropriately wait and be patient calls for persistence and willingness to go for the long haul. The results are not instantaneous for farmers, yet God has not forgotten them. While believers back in the early church and still today have not seen Jesus come back quickly, God has not forgotten them or us. So too with you, East Martin; even though you are continuing to wait for a pastor to accept the call to shepherd your congregation, know that God has not forgotten you.
In the waiting, the longing, through times of patience and impatience, hopefully you and I learn about ourselves and our desires. As we learn about ourselves, hopefully we are also learning more about God and growing in our willingness to lean on him because we recognize he is in control. Remember that psalm; David was confident he would see the goodness of the Lord. To wait on the Lord for the goodness that he alone can offer may at times mean that we are going to receive what we ask for and receive it quickly. Other times his goodness might take a little bit longer to be revealed and to be recognized.
As one theologian points out, “God is sovereign. He responds to prayer at the time and in the manner he deems best. Believers must cease to think of prayer as the tool by which they can force the Lord to follow their agenda and schedule.” Those are blunt words for believers, but they are true. It took a little bit of convincing for Habakkuk to understand how God could use such wicked means to accomplish a right end, but God explains to him that he has all of the world in his control; that remains true to this day. Brothers and sisters, do not lose faith that our God has big plans for you, for each of us, and for his people around the world in this life and in the life to come. Do not give up praying for the problems and troubles that have been placed on your hearts. Remember that he always has our good in mind, and that he shares his glory with those who wait and those who endure suffering. Amen.