Trusting God With My Tomorrows

NOTE:

This is a manuscript, and not a transcript of this message. The actual presentation of the message differed from the manuscript through the leading of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, it is possible, and even likely that there is material in this manuscript that was not included in the live presentation and that there was additional material in the live presentation that is not included in this manuscript.

Engagement

Without a doubt, this has to be the best summary I’ve seen of what 2020 has been like so far.

[Time person of the year: Mayhem}

And when we live through times like this, it is natural to wonder how things are going to turn out and to worry about the future.

Tension

Since I knew I was going to be out of town this last week, I did most of the work on this message the prior week. At that time here are some of the news stories that were dominating the internet and the airwaves:

Protesters had taken over much of downtown Seattle. That was particularly of interest since before we had to cancel our vacation, Mary and I would have been in that area right about that time.

The number of COVID cases in Arizona was on a sharp rise along with the number of associated hospitalizations.

The Bighorn fire was burning out of control in the Catalina Mountains to the point where my mother-in-law had to be evacuated from her assisted living home.

The stock market fell over 1800 points in just one day.

As we’ve been talking about for the last three weeks, there is a lot going on right now that might cause us to doubt God or to claim that things just aren’t fair or to worry about the future.

Truth

That was certainly true for Habakkuk. In the first two chapters of the book that bears his name, we have seen that the nation of Judah also was going through times of chaos and turmoil. After the death of King Josiah, the people had largely rejected God and now their nations was engulfed in violence and chaos.

In the midst of that turmoil, Habakkuk took his doubts and his questions to God. And God revealed that He was indeed in the process of taking action. But it certainly wasn’t what Habakkuk expected. God was going to use the violent, wicked Babylonians to judge and discipline His own people. And when He was done with using them for His own purposes, He was going to then execute judgment on the them.

At the end of chapter 2, we got a hint of how Habakkuk was going to respond to what God had revealed:

Habakkuk 2:20 ESV

20 But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”

Habakkuk recognized that God was still sovereign and in control. He was on His throne in His holy temple. Today, we will look at chapter 3 and study the prayer that Habakkuk prayed in response to the conversation he had with God in the first two chapters of the book. And we’re going to see that prayer reveals...

When you walk with Jesus through enough yesterdays you will be able to trust Him with all your tomorrows

We’ll work through this chapter section by section.

Habakkuk 3:1–2 ESV

1 A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigionoth. 2 O Lord, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O Lord, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.

This is identified as a prayer of of Habakkuk, but we’ll see pretty quickly that it resembles more of a song or a psalm. The term Shigionoth is likely a musical term and at the end of the chapter you’ll notice that this is addressed to the choirmaster, to be sung with stringed instruments. We will also see that we find the word Selah used three times in this prayer. The only other place we find that untranslatable word in the Bible is in the Psalms. While we can’t be totally sure of it’s meaning, it seems to indicate a pause to stop and meditate on what preceded it.

Habakkuk’s prayer begins with words that sound surprisingly like the lyrics to one of the worship songs we sing frequently:

I've seen You move, You move the mountains And I believe, I'll see You do it again You made a way, where there was no way And I believe, I'll see You do it again

He has observed God work in the past and he asks God to “revive it” and do it again.

At this point, Habakkuk seems to have accepted that what God was going to do to judge Judah and then eventually judge Babylon was all part of His sovereign plan. As we’re going to see more fully in a moment, as he remembers how God has worked in the past, he is confident that He can trust God’s plans for the future. He is willing to accept the fact that this was going to be hard on the nation of Judah and on him personally and that some of his fellow Jews and possible he himself were going to suffer greatly and even die.

So he makes one last plea with God:

…in wrath remember mercy.

He could pray that confidently knowing that from the day that Adam and Eve sinned until that day, God had consistently been a God who tempered His wrath with His mercy. That was only way that the Jews could have still existed as a people and fulfilled the promise that God had made to Abraham to make his descendents into a great nation who would bless all the nations of the earth.

The next section of this chapter is a vision that Habakkuk has of God. It is likely that it is based on two epic songs that had been passed down from generation to generation that recounted God’s work in delivering and saving His people. In the vision, God reminds Habakkuk of who He is. While both of these poems portray Israel’s exodus out of Egypt and eventual entry into the Promised Land, even in our English translations we can see that there are two distinct compositions that come from different viewpoints. In the Hebrew there are even more grammatical devices that differentiate these two poems. But in both, the focus is on the God who brings deliverance and salvation to His people.

Habakkuk 3:3–7 ESV

3 God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah His splendor covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise. 4 His brightness was like the light; rays flashed from his hand; and there he veiled his power. 5 Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. 6 He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations; then the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. 7 I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction; the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.

You’ll notice that this section refers to God in the third person - “He”, “His”, and “Him”. Habakkuk begins with emphasis on the glory of God, with echoes of His glorious appearance to Moses on Mt. Sinai when He gave the Law to His people.

He then transitions to a focus on God’s power, as demonstrated by the plagues that He brought against Egypt.

Although Habakkuk’s prayer continues to focus on this theme of God’s deliverance, we’ll see some noticeable differences in the next section.

Habakkuk 3:8–15 ESV

8 Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the rivers, or your indignation against the sea, when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation? 9 You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. Selah You split the earth with rivers. 10 The mountains saw you and writhed; the raging waters swept on; the deep gave forth its voice; it lifted its hands on high. 11 The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped, at the flash of your glittering spear. 12 You marched through the earth in fury; you threshed the nations in anger. 13 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Selah 14 You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. 15 You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of mighty waters.

The first thing we notice is the shift to referring to God in the second person - “You” and “Your”. So it is more personal. In this section there is more emphasis on God’s miraculous acts - like the parting of the Red Sea - and on His wrath and fury that was poured out on His enemies. We also see in verse 13 that there is a focus on God’s salvation. Not surprisingly, the Hebrew word translated “salvation” in that verse is a form of Yeshua - the Hebrew name of Jesus.

Let’s continue with Habakkuk’s response to his vision,

Habakkuk 3:16 ESV

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.

When Habakkuk is reminded of God’s glory, His power and His mighty works, He trembles. That is the reaction we see over and over in the Bible when someone gets even a glimpse of who God is. But he then makes the decision to wait for God’s plan to be carried out. It’s as if he says “Message received. I get it God”. Even though the final fulfillment of what God has revealed won’t occur for 70 years and Habakkuk won’t be around to see it, He is going to live by faith.

Let’s finish the book:

Habakkuk 3:17–19 ESV

17 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, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 19 God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.

Here we see that Habakkuk applies the main idea from today’s message:

When you walk with Jesus through enough yesterdays you will be able to trust Him with all your tomorrows

Even if God’s plan for Judah results in famine, chaos and disaster, he is going to rejoice in the God of his salvation. The word “rejoice” in verse 18 literally means to “jump for joy”. And the expression “take joy” there means to “spin around”. So Habakkuk is not just reluctantly accepting God’s will here. He is rejoicing with all his heart.

He closes his prayer by proclaiming that he is able to have joy in the midst of these horrible circumstances because God is his strength. Even in the midst of calamity God makes him to tread on the high places.

Application

My question to you this morning is this:

Do you trust God with your tomorrows, no matter what they bring?

We’ve watched the big swings in the financial markets over the last few months. If your entire 401 (k) or IRA were to be wiped out, could you still rejoice?

What if you lose your job and your unemployment benefits run out? Could you still rejoice in God?

What if the doctor tells you that you have terminal cancer. Could You rejoice in God?

What if a loved one contracts COVID-19 and dies. Could you still rejoice in God?

What if your business or your house is burned down by looters? Could you still rejoice in God?

Those aren’t easy questions, are they? So let’s close our time by talking briefly about...

HOW TO TRUST GOD WITH MY TOMORROWS

Before we get to the specific applications, let me remind all of us that by the time we get to chapter 3, nothing has changed on the outside. The circumstances haven’t changed. The people are still mocking God, violence still fills the streets, and the Babylonians are still coming to attack Jerusalem. Outwardly everything is just as messed up as it was in the beginning. But was has changed is Habakkuk himself - he has changed on the inside. And we need to follow his example. Let me suggest four practical steps that he took that we can take, too.

Bring my doubts and fears to God

That is what Habakkuk does in chapter 1. Instead of just ignoring his doubts and fears or whining or complaining about them, he takes them directly to God. And as we’ve seen, God actually delights in us when we do that and He delights in helping us deal with them.

That doesn’t mean we can’t seek help from others, too. But the first step is always to bring them to God before we do that.

Remember what God has done before

There are two very practical ways that we can do this.

First, when we read the Bible on a consistent basis, we are continually exposed to the accounts that show what God has done for His people in the past. We see His promises and how He has fulfilled them. We see how He has freed His people from bondage and guided them and protected them. And when we do that, we are encouraged.

Second, we need to remember what God has done for us personally in the past. This is where having some markers in our life to remind is of those things is helpful. That’s why baptism and observing the Lord’s Supper are so important as physical reminders of God’s past work in our lives. And keeping a journal where we record how God has answered prayer and worked in our lives can also be helpful.

Accept God’s answers

It is important to note what Habakkuk does NOT pray for:

He doesn’t pray for deliverance

He does not ask for his own personal comfort or that he would be spared from the coming judgment

He does not pray that the Babylonians would not be successful in their conquest of Judah.

He knew that in light of who God was and how His people had rejected Him, that God had to judge. What He does pray is that God will carry out what He is going to do with mercy.

The New Testament equivalent of that kind of prayer was modeled by Jesus in what we usually call the “Lord’s Prayer” when He taught His disciples to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done”.

I am not saying that we should never pray for God to change our circumstances. As Christians we ought to be praying for God to bring healing from the Coronavirus and asking that He would stop it. We ought to be praying for racial justice and for an end to the chaos and violence we see in our nation. But at the same time, we ought to also be praying that God would accomplish His purposes and His will, even if that means things are going to be painful or difficult for us. And that means that we need to be willing to accept , and even rejoice in, God’s work in our world even when it doesn’t line up with what we want.

Choose to trust God with the outcome

Faith is not a matter of my feelings or my circumstances. It is about making a choice to believe and act on my belief even when it would be easier to just give up and stop believing. It is living the way that God has instructed me to live even if no one else is doing that and even if that is difficult, and then just trusting Him for the results.

Essentially Habakkuk looked at the truth of the situation squarely in the eye and said, “This isn’t going to be easy. It isn’t going to be fun. Those that I love are going to die and I might, too. But I will trust God anyway.

Action

Undoubtedly there are some of you joining us today who are going through difficult times in your life. There are some of you who look around at what is going on on the world and question and/or doubt God. There are some of you who are going through things that make you think that life is unfair. And if that doesn’t describe your life right now, I can almost guarantee that one or more of those will be true in your life at some point - maybe very soon.

So what I’m going to ask everyone to do right now is to pause for a few minutes and pray and ask God to help us apply what we’ve learned these last three weeks. I’ll guide us through that prayer process:

Admit your questions and doubts to God

Ask Him to reveal any that you might not even have thought of or those you have ignored or buried.

Commit to accept what God is doing

Make a commitment to accept what God is doing even if you don’t understand it or if it is difficult or painful for you personally.

Thank God for His past faithfulness

Thank God for the way He has worked throughout history in the lives of His people. Thank Him for the way He has worked personally in your life. Be as specific as possible.

Promise God that you will rejoice in Him regardless of circumstances.

Inspiration

When you walk with Jesus through enough yesterdays you will be able to trust Him with all your tomorrows

Habakkuk had walked with God long enough to know that He could trust God with his tomorrows because God had been faithful in all his yesterdays. Because of that He was able to live up to his name, which as we discovered in the first message of this series, means “embrace”. He embraced God in spite of the difficult circumstances that he was living through. My prayer for all of us is that we would do the same.