Help Me Remember

Intro

Google reviews are a powerful thing. Many people look at reviews when they’re choosing a vacation resort, a new restaurant, a doctor, a plumber, a product, a church.

Personally, I use them often, if not a Google review, I use Yelp a lot. Anytime I find myself in an area I’m not familiar with, I read reviews before going to a restaurant or staying in a hotel.

They are extremely helpful.

We also tend to ask friends and those we trust about their experiences. We want to know the experiences other people have had.

Why do we do this? Because past performance can be a good indicator of future results.

In the same way, when we have a great experience with something, we are typically eager to tell others about it.

If you went to a great restaurant or had an incredible vacation, did you tell someone about it? Most likely the answer is yes!

Likewise, if you had a bad experience you may warn others not to waste their time and money like you did.

The same principle is true in our faith. The Bible is a story of the redemption of humankind.

It’s a story of God’s holiness and his faithfulness throughout history. We can read the Bible and see his faithfulness. We see that he can be trusted.

Our testimony is powerful as well. Revelation 12:11 tells us that the enemy is overcome by the blood of the Lamb (Christ crucified) and the word of our testimony.

When we see God’s faithfulness in past situations, it gives us hope for present and future situations.

Getting Caught Up

If you haven’t been here or watched our service online for the last couple of weeks I would encourage you to do so.

The reason I say that is because we are right in the middle of a sermon series where each week builds on what was talked about the week before.

So you may miss some of the context of today’s message if you didn’t listen to the last two messages.

Obviously I don’t have time to recap on everything, but just real quick to set the stage this morning, we are going the through the very short OT book of Habakkuk.

And what we have here in this book is a situation playing out in the life of this minor prophet that isn’t unlike some of the situations we find ourselves in.

Essentially Habakkuk, like many of us is going through a season where it seems as if God has gone silent of him. Thus the reason for the name of this series, Silence.

Habakkuk comes to God wondering where he is?

Why he isn’t answering prayer, why he is letting the wicked in Judah go unpunished?

Why it seems as if those who do evil are prospering?

Why are good things happening to those who reject God’s law and bad things happening to those who strive to serve him faithfully?

Questions that if we are honest, we have probably thought about.

Finally, God answer Habakkuk’s questions and complaints by telling him that he is aware and that he is going to do something about it.

Unfortunately for Habakkuk, God is going to deal with the disobedience of Judah in a way that Habakkuk would never have chosen.

God is going to use an even more wicked nation, the nation of Babylon to bring judgement and discipline through conquest and exile.

But God reminds Habakkuk of two things.

First, don’t assume to understand why I do what I do. You are merely a finite thinking man trying to make sense why an all powerful, infinite thinking God does what he does.

This changes Habakkuk’s perspective. He is reminded that while Gods solution tot he problem doesn’t make sense to him, he can trust that God knows what he is doing.

This same principle applies to us.

Second, the judgement will not last forever and eventually God will deal with Babylon for her many sins and this judgment will not be redemptive in nature like it is for Judah

Rather this judgement will come in the form of wrath.

So we ended last week in the tension of Habakkuk not understanding why God was doing this while at the same time recognizing that he doesn’t have to understand.

Looking to the Past to Make Sense of the Future

This morning, let’s look at how Habakkuk responds to God, given this new perspective in...

Habakkuk 3:1 NIV A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth.

We immediately see Habakkuk pray, but not just any kind of prayer. This term shigionoth was actually a musical term. It is used in the Psalms to denote a lamentation, or grieving song sung to music.

In other words, Habakkuk begins to sing worship to God. Look at what he says.

Habakkuk 3:2 NIV 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.

He starts by saying that he has heard of the great works of God, and he is an awe of them. He knows God is all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing.

He understands what God has told him. He understands that difficult days are ahead. He calls upon the mercy of the Lord in verse 2: “In wrath remember mercy.”

Verses 3–16 recall incredible things that God has done in the past.

Habakkuk 3:3-7 NIV 3 God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens and his praise filled the earth. 4 His splendor was like the sunrise; rays flashed from his hand, where his power was hidden.

5 Plague went before him; pestilence followed his steps. 6 He stood, and shook the earth; he looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains crumbled and the age-old hills collapsed— but he marches on forever. 7 I saw the tents of Cushan in distress, the dwellings of Midian in anguish.

Here we see Habakkuk recalling God’s faithfulness in providing victory to the Israelites as the pushed north into the Promised Land in the book of Judges.

Then Habakkuk expounds his thoughts even further by recalling some of the other events in Israel’s past like the parting of the Red Sea and the Jordan River, along with other victories recorded in the book of Judges.

Habakkuk 3:8-15 NIV 8 Were you angry with the rivers, Lord? Was your wrath against the streams? Did you rage against the sea when you rode your horses and your chariots to victory? 9 You uncovered your bow, you called for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers;

10 the mountains saw you and writhed. Torrents of water swept by; the deep roared and lifted its waves on high. 11 Sun and moon stood still in the heavens at the glint of your flying arrows, at the lightning of your flashing spear.

12 In wrath you strode through the earth and in anger you threshed the nations. 13 You came out to deliver your people, to save your anointed one.

You crushed the leader of the land of wickedness, you stripped him from head to foot. 14 With his own spear you pierced his head when his warriors stormed out to scatter us, gloating as though about to devour the wretched who were in hiding. 15 You trampled the sea with your horses, churning the great waters.

Habakkuk is reminding himself (and us as readers) that God has been faithful and just in past generations. He makes a list and writes them down. The beautiful thing about what he is doing is that now it is something that can be remembered by generations that followed Habakkuk.

This makes God’s instructions in Habakkuk 2 even more powerful. God’s answer was basically, “Write this down so future generations will know that I did what I said I would do.”

Here Habakkuk is reminded of the fact that this isn’t the first time his people have found themselves in a dire situation.

This isn’t the first time they were were oppressed, attacked, or foreigners in a land that was not their own.

God is trying to get Habakkuk to see that while Babylon invading and exiling Judah may seem like God has abandoned his people, it is just the opposite.

God is simply doing what he has been doing all along. Bringing his people to a place where they have no one to rely on except for him.

Whether its as slaves in Egypt

Nomads in the desert

Or captives in Babylon

One way or another God was going to get his people’s attention and when he did, it would serve as an opportunity to redeem his people, turn their hearts back to him, and bless them once more.

And by Habakkuk singing this song his entire attitude changes.

Habakkuk 3:16 NIV 16 I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound; decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled. Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.

Habakkuk gets it now. He comes to the place where not only does he accept that he can’t possibly make sense of what God is doing, nor should he be trying to.

But he believes that God is faithful and that is never going to change.

Habakkuk is left shaken and speechless by this new understanding of God. The text says that his heart pounded and his lips quivered, meaning he couldn’t even speak.

His legs trembled and shook as he stood there seeing God in a way that he hadn’t before.

God is God and he will save! When and where and how he does it is entirely up to him. Habakkuk realizes he can wait for God.

Application/Closing

It’s one thing to say ok, at the end of the day God is God and he can do what he wants and he doesn’t owe me an explanation, nor is he required to make it make sense for me.

While that is 100% true, that doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to go through the thing God is taking us through.

If you are going through a season where it feels as though God has gone silent, or he has forgotten about you.

Like Habakkuk you must understand God is faithful. That as Paul said in...

Romans 8:28 NIV 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

But how? How can he use something that seems so awful for my good.

1 Corinthians 1:25 NIV 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Is Paul here calling God foolish or weak? Of course not. He is using antithetical terms to draw a sharp contrast here.

In other words as much as the world seems to have all the answers and as much as in our human understanding we think we are wise, and as much as we think we can explain and understand the universe around us, understand that even God’s foolishness, if it were to exist, would be wiser.

Or what about…

1 Corinthians 13:12 (NLT): 12 Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.

Instead of trying to make sense of why God is allowing you to go through something that doesn’t make sense. Spend that energy reminding yourself of all that God has already done.

Spend that time and energy remembering his faithfulness. Like Habakkuk, learn to wait and see what may come of your current situation.

Think about your past and the times things didn’t make sense but now you see how God used that time to bring to where you are today. Somewhere you never would have gotten to had it not been for that season in your life.

If you are someone who struggles to remember, do this. God home this week and start to journal the things God has done in your life. Do this every week, write it down.

An old Chinese proverb says “The faintest ink is more powerful than the strongest memory.” How true that is.

We are prone to forgetting, write it down and then in your times of confusion. In your times of things not making sense. In your times where is feels like God has forgotten about you or grown silent towards you.

Go back and read of all the faithful acts of God in your life. And when you do that, you’ll find that waiting to see how God will use your current situation a little more bearable.