Sermon Transcript
Habakkuk 3:17-19. 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 deer’s.
He makes me tread on my high places.
We don’t, uh, all approach Thanksgiving living the same set of circumstances. Some of us, we heard from today for instance, feel like we have much for which to be thankful. You know, maybe our cup runneth over, some big breaks have gone our way, maybe our health returned or a relationship was restored, you know, we’re in a good season, that’s some of us. Others of us are not there, our relationships are broken, our health is struggling, the big breaks didn’t go our way, our cup is empty. And then we come to this holiday and really the start of what we call the holiday season, and it seems to amplify everything.
Those of us who are in a season of plenty and harvest, we probably can’t wait for all the festivities, while those of us who are starving, figuratively or literally, you know, as these months approach and we see others celebrating, it increases the weight that we carry. It may create greater feelings of loneliness and isolation in us. So very likely, you know, emotionally at the beginning of the holidays, we may be very high or we may be very low. One reason to bring that up is just a reminder that as a church and as Christians who follow Scripture, we pledge to rejoice with those who rejoice and at the same time weep with those who weep. We want to be part of what is going on with you, wherever you are on the emotional scale.
The other reason to bring up the range of highs and lows is because we are studying the book of Habakkuk today, continuing our series in the Minor Prophets. And Habakkuk was a prophet who saw the fall of Judah into the hands of Babylon. He saw Israelites deported, likely his friends, neighbors, family deported. He’s a contemporary of Jeremiah, so he’s a contemporary of the book of Lamentations, although he probably wrote just a little bit before that book, which means he saw some lows, some lows that are likely inconceivable to many of us who have modern comforts in this country. But yet, by the end of the book, he is rejoicing, which means Habakkuk experiences both ends of the spectrum, great sorrow and great joy.
So, as we take a brief look at this brief book today, we will see very simply why such sorrow, And why such joy? Why such sorrow? Why such joy? So first, why such sorrow is his circumstances. Habakkuk is even sometimes referred to as a shorter Job, both for the severity of circumstances they experienced and because of how they responded to those circumstances, both in the short term and in the longer term.
Habakkuk is like mini Job. And even in just a few verses we read, we see why. No figs on the trees, no fruit on the vines, no olives, no crops in the field, no flocks or herds in the stables. It is an economic disaster, a picture of extreme poverty. But Habakkuk had actually been through a lot more than just the sudden and total financial collapse of everything.
Thing. As bad as that would have been on its own, he had actually been through a whole series of disappointments, each one kind of piling on top of another, and the economic collapse was just the last one to happen. You go back to the beginning of Habakkuk, and it’s only 3 chapters, so you could read it pretty quick on your own, but at the beginning, chapter 1, we see a picture of terrible corruption and injustice in his country. There’s immense violence, no one’s doing anything about it, the judges are corrupt, and Habakkuk says justice never goes forth. It’s like Gotham City.
The bad guys are in charge. They’ve taken over every level of government. And Habakkuk, like Job, he cries out and asks God, hey, how could you let this happen? Did you let go of the wheel for a minute? Like, aren’t you going to do something about this, God?
So just like Job, he is not polite when he speaks with God. He’s real with him. Habakkuk asks questions, he wrestles, he yells, he screams. He says to God, will you not save? Why do you make me look at inequity this bad?
Like, God, why do you sit there idle? That’s all right off the bat, chapter 1. And then God responds. But it’s not quite what Habakkuk had in mind, because Habakkuk probably wants, like, you know, of course, corrupt people to be tried for their crimes. Hey, let’s get new ethical leadership in here, and then that’ll make it— this place prosperous for everyone in the land.
That’s probably what he wants. Like us, right? We pray for judgment against injustice. If we’re sitting citizens of Gotham and we’re praying for justice in Gotham City. We’re thinking of the renewal of the city, and God can do that, and ultimately he will do that, but that was not the next immediate step in Habakkuk’s day.
This is still chapter 1. God says because of all the injustice and corruption, he is raising up the Chaldeans, which were the Babylonians, and they will come and invade and destroy and wipe out the nation. Of Judah. And Habakkuk doesn’t like that response. He was hoping for God to use, you know, like a surgeon’s skill, just get in there and carve away just enough of some specific but very widespread issues, just cut those out and leave the nation as a whole intact.
And God says, no, we’re stripping this place down to the studs. And starting over. And again, Habakkuk argues with God. Habakkuk believes that that kind of cure might be worse than the disease, and he tells God so. This is verse 13 of chapter 1.
He says, hey God, if a corrupt and violent nation like us is overthrown by an even more corrupt and violent nation like Babylon, How’d that fix anything? How could that be your answer, God? Like, how could you sit there and watch this happen? God, you’re supposed to have pure eyes and do nothing wrong. This is still chapter 1.
You can’t even look at evil, so how can you look at this? And God says, hey, don’t worry, I’m going to judge the Babylonians too. They’re not going to get away with the injustice and violence they do to you. I don’t think it’s okay that they will come to you and wipe everything out. Okay, which of course is sort of nice, but it’s little comfort to Habakkuk because in his mind his problems are just going from bad to worse.
There was corruption and injustice. Now there’s going to be a devastating military defeat. Later on there’s going to be economic collapse. It’s problems on top of problems. And every step along the way we see the same pattern of Habakkuk.
Telling God how he’s really feeling. Like Job, he’s unfiltered. Verse 17 of chapter 1, he goes as far as he’s sarcastic with God. He says, so, God, I guess you’re just going to keep mercilessly killing nations forever? That’s the plan?
And for us, just stop for a moment and consider how amazing it is that God puts in his word these examples for how we can speak with him. What other God invites you to be as real with him as the God of the Bible does, where there is no pretense, there is no filter, there is no specifically required process to bring a request to God? You don’t have to speak with lots of thees and thous. You don’t have to put on special clothing, you don’t have to fold your hands and bow your head, you don’t have to get on your knees, you don’t have to act reverent, you can be raw. God doesn’t answer polite prayers any more than he answers crass ones, so give him whatever is brewing in your heart.
Be real, don’t pretend everything’s okay if it isn’t, don’t put on a party face when you are really stewing underneath. You know, modern therapy, psychology tell us that kind of behavior is actually really unhealthy. If you are livid on the inside but you try to act like everything is okay, eventually that is going to damage you. And the longer you try to keep it in, the less you will be able to keep it in. It is going to come out somehow.
You know, if you’re stressed about work but you never bring it up, you’re going to be grumpy with your family or you’ll have road rage, right? I mean, something. And people are going to wonder, what’s up with that guy, right? It’ll, it’ll come out and it’ll probably come out in a much more destructive way than if you had just been open and put everything on the table to begin with. So if you have a beef with God, let it out.
It’s exactly what Job did. It’s what we see in many of the Psalms. It seems to be a precursor to breaking through to joy. The people in Scripture who go from, you know, one end of the spectrum to the other, they go from despair to rejoicing, whether it’s Job or Habakkuk, many of the Psalms, others, one of the steps they take is being raw and honest and sometimes pretty irreverent with God. Which leaves us to assume if God put all of these examples in his word, and he did, it must be because that’s what we’re supposed to do as part of the process.
So look, I hope right now in this season your cup is running over. I hope there are cattle in all the stalls. I hope you have a harvest so big you don’t know what to do with it. May that be the case for you. But if you’re on the other end and you’re looking ahead to the next, you know, few months or the entire foreseeable future and everything looks bleak and barren for you, one of the best things you can do is just pour your heart out and complain to God.
If you don’t, you may never get to the place of joy and thanksgiving because you haven’t actually worked through what’s going on in here. Which brings us to where Habakkuk ended up. At the end of the book, the verses we read, Habakkuk is rejoicing even though his circumstances are not better. In fact, they’re probably worse. Our estimates of when he wrote this and what was happening in Israel at that time, you know, there are multiple deportations to Babylon every day.
His circumstance meter probably falling lower and lower and lower. It’s not going higher, for sure not going higher, and yet he rejoices. I mean, imagine the scene. It’s Book of Lamentations, literally. He’s in the aftermath of war and its economic ruin, and in the background you see his house burning.
You know he has no money or means to get back on his feet. Maybe half his friends have been deported to Babylon or killed. He could be next, and yet he says he has something in which he can really rejoice.
So, what is that? Why can he rejoice? Why such joy? It’s because of his Lord. It’s really brief, verses 18 and 19.
He says, 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 deer’s. He makes me tread on high places.
It’s only 2 verses, but there’s a lot there, so I’ll break it down into sections. First, because his joy is in the Lord, he can honestly acknowledge his circumstances, which is a healthy thing to do. Second, because his joy is in the Lord, he is enabled— he is enabled to stand within his circumstances. And finally, because his joy is in the Lord, he has a a source of joy to draw from, they can’t be affected by circumstances. Take those one at a time and super quickly.
First, his joy in the Lord allows him to properly and honestly acknowledge his circumstances. In other words, he’s not in denial. He doesn’t have to put a positive spin on what’s happening in order to deal with it. He can admit how bad it really is. Which is actually far healthier than what we often do.
As a culture, if you haven’t noticed, we are so enamored with comfort that we sometimes struggle to grieve properly. Like if you tell someone, you know, you lost your job, for instance, it’s almost like they have a reflex. It’s like they must find something to say to make it seem like your suffering isn’t so bad. Right? You’re like, I got fired, and they say, oh, sorry, but hey, you never liked that job anyway.
This will lead to something better. You know, at least you don’t have to deal with your crazy boss anymore. Right? It’s like we’re pressured to find a silver lining, and we’re anxious if we can’t find one. It’s like we have difficulty sitting in reality that is just bad.
It’s like we can’t say, I’m so sorry, this is tragic, and leave it at that. We almost can’t leave it at that. I feel we must say something positive, which isn’t always healthy if there isn’t something positive, but it makes sense why we would do that because think about it, if circumstances are the only thing we have, If we don’t have another potential source for joy, like the Lord, for example, if our happiness, if our security, if our worth, if all of that is wholly dependent on our circumstances alone and there is nothing else and the circumstances are bad, then of course we need to lie to ourselves that they aren’t so bad. Because if we didn’t do that, then we just have to admit that we are utterly hopeless and we don’t want to face that. We think we can’t stand in that, so we lie.
We say it’s not so bad, even if it is. That’s totally unhealthy, right? It’s avoidance coping. It’s not dealing with the real nature of your reality. Habakkuk can honestly face what’s happening to him.
He can admit his circumstances are hopeless, and if they are like his are, then that’s actually the healthy thing to say. He’s not in denial, he’s facing his reality. And at the same time, he’s able to stand in his reality. He doesn’t crumble when he faces hopeless circumstances. And we wonder, how could that happen?
Like, if your circumstances are hopeless and you admit it, wouldn’t that— wouldn’t you then crumble? But he doesn’t because his joy isn’t in his circumstances. His joy is in the Lord, and therefore he can stand within them. Habakkuk’s circumstances don’t break him, they make him, they refine him, they strengthen him. The picture in verse 19 is that, you know, a deer scaling the mountaintops, the cliffs.
You’ve probably seen something like that on like a National Geographic special, you know, either a deer or a mountain goat, it’s like bouncing up the side of what looks to be a sheer rock wall, like there’s no place to stand and yet they’re just dancing up the top of some terribly dangerous terrain.
Most animals can’t survive there, right? Predators, for instance, they can’t chase the deer up those cliffs because it’s too dangerous for them. They don’t have the ability to navigate such steep angles. So those animals will just fall off the side of the mountain and break into a thousand pieces.
But yet the deer and the mountain goat in the exact same location, they bounce along just fine. They are safe there. They can stand there. It’s a perfect metaphor for Habakkuk’s situation because many people in his position would not make it. It.
They would fall off the side of the mountain and break into 1,000 pieces, so to speak. Situations that dire tend to make some and break others. The circumstance can be refining, right, which we’ve seen. We’ve seen people come out the other side of terrible circumstances more gracious, more loving, more patient, Like we just heard some of those testimonies today. But then for others, the same circumstances break them.
They go through the same thing and they come out monstrous, or they’re lashing out in the midst of them. And Habakkuk says he has come out like the deer. So the circumstance is still there. It is exactly the same. It is just as precarious as it always was.
There are still no sheep in the pen. There are still no cattle in the stall. There’s still no fig on the trees. Injustice is still rampant. It’s all there, but Habakkuk is navigating it with grace, like the deer and goats dance up mountainsides with poise and certainty and confidence.
And the reason Habakkuk claims he can do that is because, verse 19, the Lord is his strength, making him like the deer. He has this other source from which to pull confidence and strength that is not related to his circumstances. Because the Lord is his joy, he has a source for joy that is never in jeopardy, that doesn’t come and go with circumstances, that is stable, and that is enough. Even though his circumstances were utterly hopeless, he had enough to rejoice. And I’m sure there are some of us who might find it cliché to say something like, you don’t know the Lord is all you need until the Lord is all you have.
That might sound cliché, but if it’s real, it’s not cliché. And it is real. It’s— you heard those testimonies today. It’s a pattern that repeats itself all over Scripture, hardship produces faith.
Hardship, in fact, can produce unshakable faith, refined faith. It’s as if the less we have, the more we see the Lord is all we need. It seems like the hardship pushes us up the mountainside to these heights where we can have grace and poise in the midst of it, right? Romans 5, suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame because God’s love has been poured out in our hearts.
That kind of unshakable faith is produced through suffering. I don’t know if there’s another way to get that kind of faith.
At least we’re not told another way. We’re never told, you won’t find this verse, comfort and ease produces unshakable faith.
It’s not in there. We’re never told that. Don’t know if it can happen or not, but we see all over the place when everything else is stripped away, everything, and we are left with literally the Lord alone, that is when we discover his beauty is enough to satisfy us. That is the moment we find he is a source for joy that never runs dry. Who doesn’t come and go, who is stable, who is there regardless of our circumstances.
Do you know him like that?
A line of a song that we sing in here often, it says, it’s, you know, it’s speaking to God. It’s like, I don’t know what you’re doing, God, present circumstances. I don’t know what you’re doing, but I know what you’ve done. Whatever comes my way, I will overcome because of what the Lord has already done, because of what He has already done. Even if He does nothing else, He’s done enough for us to stand because his circumstances also pushed him up a precarious hill.
But he didn’t stand on top of that hill. He was hung on top of his hill so that you could stand on yours. On top of his hill, he was broken to pieces for you so you could be whole. He lost the joy of the Lord. He was forsaken so you could always have the joy of the Lord.
He put his sin, he put your sin on his shoulders so you could be reunited forever to the source of light and life no matter how dark your moment is. So if he does nothing else, he’s done enough for us to stand, for us to face our circumstances honestly, and for us to have joy in the midst of them.
May we find Him that satisfying in this season and always. Let’s pray.
Father, thank You for being enough.
If I’m honest, Lord, I don’t always see You as enough.
I want more than You.
And I’m often dissatisfied in the more that I have. So Lord, I pray that in this season and always we would see you as enough, that you would be all-satisfying, that we could draw from you as a source for joy and strength and confidence, that even if we were on the side of a sheer cliff that we would have poise and grace because it comes from you. We pray those things in Jesus’ name, amen. Well, one of the symbols that Jesus gave his church as an illustration for what he has already done for us us is communion. And at Bridges, normally we take communion the first Sunday of the month, but this month, with this being our Thanksgiving service and Jesus’ work on the cross being what we are most thankful for as Christians, we’re taking communion as part of our Thanksgiving service.
