Faith When I Don't Understand

[0:00] Well I'm glad that you guys are all here with us today during this time of crisis. I think this is an opportunity that we can provide a benefit to both our leaders or government workers, frontline staff, just giving them all an opportunity to what they commonly call flatten the curve. That means as it comes to disease which is especially prone to wander quite freely. This may slow down the infection within the community itself allowing our hospitals, doctors and those frontline workers an opportunity to handle things in time. I've got one pastor friend of mine who noted this week that this is the first time in over a hundred years that their church is closing the doors for their gathered worship. The last time was 1918 and the reason was the Spanish flu was present. So I think there's several things that we can do before we go to the Lord in prayer that I think we need to be aware of is that we need to continue to pray for God's provision and his presence during this time. This is going to be a frustrating time for many of us. For some people are no longer able to go to jobs that means it's going to add extra burden to EI benefits workplace. One of the points that someone brought up is just the problems that it brings up in the stock market and a lot of our seniors who are retirement benefits are based on investments. It could be a time of hurt and or definitely consternation and panic. And then of course we see the the panic buying that's going on. So our desire is to pray for peace, to pray for a not just a heartfelt peace but a realized peace in our lives that the Lord would bring us away from anxiety and help us lean in on truth.

[2:12] And of course our prayers we want to pray for our government officials. They are making decisions in what is known as a fog. Not everything is revealed. They are trying to figure out what's best for us. Kind of a funny story. I have a good friend who I used to play baseball with. He's actually one of the primary emergency preparedness team for the Canadian government. So when the earthquakes happened in Haiti he was one of the frontline staff, him and his wife. But he shared a story with this week. He got called in to Trudeau's team to deal with this. It turned out he was the only person who showed up. Everyone else had self-quarantined including the Prime Minister. So the rest of the the time meetings, planning went on like this. So what was interesting he says we're going to go through four phases. One right now it's called the mitigation phase. That is the phase where we're trying to ascertain what's going on and we want to lesser the possible extent of both the disease and the effects it has on our communities. The second phase that we're going to have to deal with is the preparedness phase. He warned us. He just simply said what would you do, what would you tell us?

[3:32] Church, small town, Squamish, BC. He said just make sure that you have plenty of meds and plenty of foods. There's no reason or need to stockpile. And he said later on you're going to learn to deal with the response and how it's affected us long term. And obviously he says the fourth level is called recovery. And part of recovery is analyzing how he did and how we can do better next time. What was interesting from our talk, he shared a very wonderful story about the evangelical church. He's not a believer or professing believer, but he said he works with this group called FEMA.

[4:13] If you're familiar with the United States, they have an emergency response team. And he said any time in FEMA, they had, he says they draw these really big maps and he was trained by these guys.

[4:25] And what they do is they put high risk areas and low risk areas and risks in between. So when they look at the map, they can know who needs more help, whether it be flooding or fires or tornadoes or any type of disaster. And he noticed that there was these communities that were consistently low risk.

[4:45] And when he asked them about it, he simply stated that the reason that many of these communities were low risk is the government themselves knew that there was an evangelical church in the area. And that evangelical church people were going to insert themselves into the problem by helping fellow people not only just the believers, but they were the ones first type of people that are going to show up and help others. So even in this difficult time, there's opportunities to serve, there's opportunities to witness, and there's opportunities to love in our community. And these are the things I want to pray for. So please pray with me as we go before our great Lord. And we're going to look, we're going to spend some time in the word, hopefully answering some of the questions you may have. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we we do thank you for your provision and care for us, that we do indeed have stores where we can go and continue to get food. We have friends that we can depend on, that there is no reason for any of us to be on on our own during this time. We understand that this disease is starting to spread into the sea to sky corridor. We know it is a particular aggressive in its scope, but it's not always dangerous for those who do not have respiratory problems and who are youthful. But it's very possible that many of those who are not aged or seniors can be carriers. So we need to look out for one another and for our community.

[6:31] Father, we are just asking that you would calm the nerves of those around us, that we would not be into panic buying or taking all the food away from the grocery stores, thinking that this is perhaps a doomsday scenario. That is not what it is. It's just a simple request of us to permit our health community breathing room in order to care for us, eventually, you know, first of all test us and eventually bring antidotes to the community and help us get better. Father, we pray for those who are dedicating much time to this, those that are frontline workers that are putting in extra hours.

[7:16] They are away from their family and their loved ones in order to serve us. But however, Father, as we go forth, I pray that you would give us many opportunities to serve, witness and love our communities. It's a great opportunity to love others, not just love our own families, but those who may not have families around.

[7:40] It's opportunities for us to communicate with their neighbors if we need to prick up provisions for them or food that we would gladly do so. I know myself, I've been the recipient of much love and support this this past week. As I mentioned, when I went to the store, just jokingly, what wasn't there, many people in the church community immediately volunteered to give my family the extra provisions that they had. So we ask that this would be consistent in all the things that we do. We ask these things in your name and holy presence. Amen.

[8:19] Obviously, this is a time of confusion and it's difficult sometimes to understand it. I believe times of confusion are a great opportunity for people to gain faith. I also believe it's an opportunity for people to lose faith. It's an opportunity for people to to panic. As they do not understand, they begin to ask questions such as, can God really be in control? I believe there's two greater categories for people struggling to believe if God really exists and he's in control.

[9:00] The first is called the internal issues. Those are the issues that personally happen to us that make us question our place in God's plan, in God's mercies. It could be any, most of the time, it's a life trauma, something that specifically happens to us. It could be a divorce in our family.

[9:18] It could be sin that one of our members of our family does to us. It could be loss of a job. It could be a severe sickness diagnosis. It could be on the severe side of possibly even losing a child to losing a relationship. Those are those situations in life that affect each and every one of us differently. And for some people, they begin to question not only is there a God, but is God good? Then we have this other type of life situation, which are what's called the external issue category.

[9:57] That's where we find ourselves now just dealing with this, this disease. It's confusing. It's unclear. We start to see injustice. We see a disease that preys on weakness. People who have asthma.

[10:18] And it's overwhelming for us. We see a disease that preys on the other side of us. It's confusing. And the reality we know is that there is sin in this world. And this sin brings chaos, violence, anguish, despair, brings confusion. And what's really interesting is all these things have been going on around the world that we are seeing with this virus, but now it's more global. It's coming to our our community. When we see these injustices and these things that happen, sometimes we feel lonely, depressed.

[10:57] We can feel frustrated. And sometimes we start to believe that there is no way there is a God who would allow this to happen. And if there is a God that allows this to happen, he's either not powerful enough, or maybe he's just not loving enough.

[11:18] I know we as believers in Christ, we are going to have to face this. And today, I want to look at what God's Word says to how are we to respond to these type of issues.

[11:32] So, for the next couple of weeks, as we are most likely, most probably be doing our church time together, we're going to be serving you by giving you these messages.

[11:43] And one of the things that I want to concentrate on is what faith looks like for God's people. And today, it's what God's faith looks like when I don't understand what is going on.

[11:58] You could turn with me to the book of Habakkuk, or perhaps you call him Habakkuk, but he is a minor prophet. And so, if you look in your Bibles, you probably need a table of contents. There's only three chapters to his book.

[12:14] It's a very small book, but I think it's a very poignant and powerful book as pretty much all of the Word is. So, while you're looking for Habakkuk, I want to do a couple of things. I want to give you guys a little bit of background.

[12:28] Truth be told, there's not a lot of information that we have on Habakkuk. There's not a lot of things we know about him. He is suspected to have been a priest from the tribe of Levi.

[12:40] And we know that he lived during the time of the prophets Jeremiah, Nahum, and Zephaniah. And those would be between the years of 626 to 575 BC.

[12:54] And what's interesting is that Habakkuk stands apart from every other prophetic book that we have. The prophetic books that we have in the Bible are declarations that God has given the prophets to give to God's people.

[13:15] But what's interesting about the book of Habakkuk is actually a dialogue between God and his prophet. It's just this one-on-one dialogue that's going on.

[13:28] I first heard of Habakkuk when I was in university, and someone termed him as the prophet with a question. I found that very satisfying to know at that time in my life that we can ask questions of God.

[13:47] That there was actually an example of a prophet that was known as the prophet with a question, who could ask God these questions to what God was telling them in response to what he was seeing, what he was feeling, what he was experiencing.

[14:06] So here's this Habakkuk. And at the time of his writing, Judah was ruled by a very evil man who did great injustice in the world.

[14:19] His name was Jehoiakim. In fact, he was so evil that he actually put one prophet named Uriah to death. And as Jeremiah wrote on his scrolls, the prophecy he received from God, Jehoiakim took these scrolls and burned them.

[14:37] This was a man who had absolute all disdain for God. Now the situation that he's involved in here is that there was so much evil in the land, God could not understand why God would leave this evil unchecked.

[15:00] Why he would not render punishment and judgment and obviously bring justice to God's people. 2 Kings 24.4 tells us that Jehoiakim is described as a tyrant who shed the blood of innocence.

[15:22] Jeremiah called him as unjust and a brutal despot whose chief interest was the enlargement of his palace.

[15:35] So, I want to share with you what are some of the responses, questions that Habakkuk asked God as he lived in a time where he did not understand.

[15:49] So, the question that I want to ask you or answer is, what am I supposed to do when I don't understand why God isn't doing what I expect for him to do?

[16:01] Well, the first thing is, we need to learn to talk to God. We need to learn to talk to God. We need to begin any problems, questions, queries that we have of God to begin talking to him.

[16:18] Obviously, life is not making sense to Habakkuk. What happens when life doesn't make sense? Well, sometimes our first response is to complain.

[16:29] We complain about the injustice, whether it be financial or judicial, or we cry about something going on in our life. Why me? Why me, O Lord?

[16:40] Sometimes we cry, I don't deserve this. I've kept my life healthy. I've done the right things. I've made the right investments.

[16:51] I have acted always in good character. Why am I so bewitched by this life situation? I have.

[17:03] I don't deserve this. But this is not what Habakkuk does. He doesn't go and find Jeremiah and say, Jeremiah, I just don't get it.

[17:14] He doesn't go to his brother Nahum and complain. But he takes his deepest and foremost concerns to God. Listen in with me as I share with you from Habakkuk what he says, as we see in chapter 1, verse 2.

[17:35] He states, O Lord, how long I shall cry for help, and you will not hear, or cry out to you, violence, and you will not save?

[17:49] 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.

[18:02] So, the law is paralyzed. And justice never goes forth. For the wicked surround the righteous, so justice goes forth.

[18:16] Perverted. You see, Habakkuk knows the things that God detests. Violence, impurity, iniquity, powerlessness, the powerless laws, and justice.

[18:29] And of course, as we all know, these are all part of man's sinful condition. We live in a fallen world, with fallen people. And the reality is, when we see, and we understand that these things break our hearts, it's important to understand that they break God's heart as well.

[18:51] But something is about to change. More often than not, it's about bringing change to our attitudes, right? How do I think through this? How am I to respond to these type of situations?

[19:06] So how does God respond to Habakkuk? Let's read verse 5. This is God responding to Habakkuk. He says, Look among the nations and see.

[19:18] Wonder and be astonished. For I am doing a work in your days that you would not believe if I 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.

[19:40] They are dreaded and fearsome. Their justice and dignity go forth for themselves. Their horses are swifter than leopards, more fierce than the evening wolves.

[19:53] 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.

[20:08] 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.

[20:22] Then they sweep by like the wind and go on, guilty men whose own might is their God. Notice, God begins with these words, look, see, wonder, be astounded.

[20:48] I am going to do a work in your day that you wouldn't even believe if I told you. Now, what's interesting here is God is calling, or Habakkuk, is calling on God to bring justice against the rulers who are doing evil against his people.

[21:14] evil. And what God is doing is he's raising an even more evil people who show no regard to God to bring judgment upon those that are doing the evil to God's people.

[21:32] evil. Let's be honest, when we cry out for justice in our city today, that would be like the police are abusing and we would be expecting perhaps a federal police to come and bring justice.

[21:49] But instead, it's like he brings a criminal underlord ring to come to the city and bring justice. It wouldn't make sense to us because they themselves break the law.

[22:03] They themselves do evil. These people are angels. Historically, we know there's a shifting of the world's powers.

[22:14] The Assyrians were ruling and now the Babylonians are beginning to rise. It's safe to say that this is not what Habakkuk expected.

[22:30] Which leads Habakkuk to ask a second question. Take a look at verse 12 of chapter 1. He says, Are you not from everlasting, O Lord my God, my Holy One?

[22:46] We shall not die. O Lord, you have ordained them as judgment and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof. You who are pure eyes, then 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?

[23:10] You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. He's saying there's chaos, there's no sense to what is going on.

[23:22] 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 in his 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.

[23:40] Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? Here Habakkuk is trying to make sense of what God has told him, but one of the things he does is he recognizes several things and I think this is a place that we need to recognize when we come before the Lord.

[24:01] One, it's to understand that he is God, he is holy, he is just, everlasting, he is unchanging, and he makes a statement, you do not look at wrong, but still God, can you not see how can you use such evil people to do your righteous deeds?

[24:38] Are not those deeds now tainted because you have used wrong people to do them? So the second question is that we ask is, what am I supposed to do when I don't understand what God is doing?

[24:57] So I pray for God to insert himself into my issue, and God is working out his will, but it's not the will that I intended, it's not the way I thought it should go.

[25:12] What are you doing, God? Well, this is where we find Habakkuk gives us the answer. We are to wait on God.

[25:26] We are to wait on God. Look at Habakkuk 2, verse 1. It says, you know, I will take my stand at my watch post, and station myself at the tower, and look out to see what he will say to me, and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

[25:53] The imagery, it's almost like he's on this outpost of this mountain that overlooks all of God's land. Perhaps it is a real mountain, and he's got a little cave or a tent like structure where he just sits down, and he looks at God's land, and he says, I'm simply going to wait for you to answer.

[26:22] Run so contrary to what we want to do, right? When we don't understand, or we want to understand, we try to press God.

[26:35] We want to press God's hand. We start to look for signs, right? If we don't know what kind of school, the woman or man we want to marry, the job we want to test, so we start testing God.

[26:47] We start looking for inner promptings, how I feel inside towards this person. Sometimes we make decisions based on, I feel really at peace over here, or over here I feel really uneasy.

[27:02] without understanding that sometimes the reason I feel uneasy is that perhaps I'm going to pursue this person in marriage or make this decision with my job. I need to change inwardly.

[27:13] I need to take to grips something, things in my life, and I need to put them to death. Maybe I need to confess my anxiety, confess my doubt in God.

[27:27] Sometimes the reason I feel more comfortable is I can remain the same, and just ask God to change everything else around me, because I must be that person who's perfectly in place, and everything else isn't making sense, rather than understanding maybe I'm the one who's not making sense.

[27:50] Or sometimes we push, try to push for God's hand. the reality is when we push ahead without God's blessing, it can lead us to times of confusion, disappointment, and sometimes even spiritual tragedy.

[28:09] We complain, we murmur, we get angry, and we give up on God. And when we give up on God, we then try to explain things in our own wisdom.

[28:31] We try to discern truth outside of God. The Bible has an answer for, or a description for who or what that person is.

[28:45] The Bible tells us we become fools. The reality is, God created us to be wisdom receivers, not wisdom givers.

[28:59] We're not the ones to explain to God what is happening. We're not the ones to look for ourselves, our feelings, our thoughts, our opinions, in order to discern or make sense of what's going on.

[29:14] Consistently, God calls us to weight on Him. These are legitimate questions we're going to have.

[29:26] What's going to happen to my family? What's going to happen to us? For some of us, we're being told to self-quarantine, we're going to be lonely, are we going to reach out to people, we're going to ask for help, perhaps we don't have the protection with work if this starts to continue on, perhaps my retirement fund is going to take a hit because investments are depreciating.

[29:54] Reality is, sometimes these things that we desire God to do, do not happen right away, nor do they always happen in the way we think they are supposed to happen.

[30:08] And here we're going to learn between verses 6 and 8 chapter 2, God's response to Habakkuk. I want you to take note of what he says here.

[30:22] The Lord answered me. First thing that God told them was, write the vision. I want you to write this down. I want you to write down my promises.

[30:36] The reality is, we read in verse 6, that the Chaldeans, the early predecessors to the Babylonians, are still going to be judged. They are still under God's command.

[30:49] He gives his warnings in verse 6, he says, woe to him who heaps up what is not his own. Yes, those people who steal and loot, they will answer to me.

[31:01] Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house to set his nest on high. What he's saying is those who will take from others to build up themselves, who take advantage of others in their time of despair.

[31:17] It's interesting, when I was reading about this, it was Amazon had actually put limits and had kicked people who had hoarded masks, which rendered hospitals needing to rationalize.

[31:33] But there's a story in the New York Times by some guys who had traveled all over the eastern seaboard buying all the hand sanitizer and selling it for incredible marked up prices.

[31:44] Now they were shut out of everywhere where they can sell these. That was God giving immediate judgment upon people who were trying to enlarge in their house on the fear of others.

[32:01] Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity. In verse 15 we see woe to him who makes his neighbor drinks to seduce them.

[32:16] He's saying hey, yes, I am still God. And yes, they are used by me. But that does mean they are going to stand well or in peace of me.

[32:32] See, the reality is we are to surrender to God and wait for God to do the overflowing to meet the needs of justice. We need to follow back, example, and wait on God.

[32:49] You know what the reality is? Sometimes we're not going to get the answer we want. Sometimes we're not going to get the answer that we understand. But we still need to keep in mind God is not changing.

[33:02] God is for His glory. That as we become followers of Jesus Christ, He is going to use our lives to magnify His glory to the nations, not our glory.

[33:18] How often we think that what God, the good that God is supposed to do in our life is for our glory, but it is for God's glory. world. The fact is when we try to add our own understanding to what God is doing, we tend to mess it up.

[33:37] Here's the third question. What am I supposed to do when I don't understand what God is doing? What am I supposed to do when I don't understand what God is doing?

[33:51] That means I'm getting an answer I don't understand. Does it sit well with me perhaps? Or it's just not the way that I thought it was going to happen?

[34:05] Well, the reason that Habakkuk provides for us, and we're going to see this in Habakkuk 2.4 and Habakkuk 3.17-19 is we need to learn to know God.

[34:19] We need to learn to know God. every situation in life that we are going to be confronted with is always helped by our understanding of God Himself.

[34:38] If you do not know God, this book is just a book that you are just a fan of, you do not study it to know Him, you will be perplexed.

[34:52] But if we begin to know God, we will see how this will shape our attitudes, and we will begin to see what makes sense in the world. Take a look at chapter 3 verses 16 to 19.

[35:07] This is how Habakkuk responds. He says, I hear and my body trembles. Anybody been there?

[35:19] You hold on to God, everything else is shaking. But you're going to trust Him. My lips quiver at the sound.

[35:31] Rottenness enters into my bones. My legs tremble beneath me. Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon my people who invade us.

[35:47] He accepts what God is going to do. But notice that he's scared, and that's okay. His body trembles, his lips quiver, his legs shake, rottenness comes into his house.

[36:09] love. Now notice what he says in verse 17. He says, 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.

[36:28] The flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

[36:40] I will take joy in the God of my salvation. salvation. What Habakkuk means when he speaks here is that the whole world is turned upside down, if the sun rose in the west and set in the east, and everything in the natural order ceased to function as I've always known it will function.

[37:11] what he's talking about are these fig trees, and the grape seeds, and the olives. These were all the staple crops of Israel. What happens if none of those things happen?

[37:26] All the sheep that we have, that we depend on for clothing, food, cease to exist. He simply says, I will rejoice in the Lord, because I know he is sovereign and God never changes.

[37:48] That God saves even when life doesn't make sense. Verse 19, God, the Lord is my strength.

[38:03] He makes my feet like the deers. He makes me tread on my high ground. That is an imagery for a mountain goat. They have a goat over in Israel called the Ibex.

[38:16] The way it's able to climb these mountains is incredible. Just little outcroppings of rocks that we would struggle on. They are almost able to perfectly balance and find their way up.

[38:29] That's what he's asking God to do. Make my feet like theirs in this stumbling world, this little spot that I get to stand on. Make it firm.

[38:44] But he makes this comment that God is his strength. It is God who makes his feet stable. It is God who makes his foot sure-footed. It is God who places him in high places.

[38:58] It's not him who climbs to these places because of his own merit, but it's the God he trusts that will take him there. It is the God he trusts and knows to place him there.

[39:16] I think anybody who's ever experienced the horrible sin of adultery comes to know and understand as they work through that rebuilding relationship of God who had meant that they will struggle in trusting their partner.

[39:31] they will go through such feelings of despair and distrust, whether it be phone calls that come up or texts.

[39:42] They will constantly be wondering, is my spouse being loyal to me? However, their confidence is never to be found in the promise that their spouse makes, but their strength is to be found in their trust for God.

[40:04] That no matter how this person will act in the future, whether they will be true to their promises, we don't know, but it's to put our faith in God that God will continue to care for me, build my home, take care of my children, provide for me.

[40:25] love. It's to have this trust in God, not man, upon which I build my life upon. See, earlier God reveals an eternal truth in the second part of Habakkuk 2.4.

[40:43] You might have heard of this verse, it's a very famous verse, it's repeated in Scripture, it simply says, the righteous shall live by his faith.

[40:57] The word faith in the Old Testament basically means the firmness, the strength, the foundation. The root of the word describes a supporting post of a door.

[41:11] When it was used of God, it was meant to convey a sense of unwavering commitment to his promises. That God wasn't going to move.

[41:23] It wasn't an abstract idea, but it was an attitude that was characterized by all the works that God has done, and it's an attitude of wholehearted trustness in God.

[41:40] The reality is, if we want to be stable in this world, when we want to answer the questions of this disease, how will it affect me, or what does that mean going forward?

[41:58] The answer is found in we need to know God. I'm not talking about a fan of God, or those times where we call up God during times of convenience, or we are in such desperation, we throw up a Hail Mary pass.

[42:15] the fact is, we need to know God, we need to know His word, and we need to know His promises. One of the promises that He made throughout the Old Testament is that God was going to provide a Redeemer that would save them from all the injustice, all the unrighteousness that this world offers.

[42:43] Israel continued to place their trust in kings, new kings, prophets, and these men who in many ways failed them. The prophets told them about this God, this Redeemer, but yet they chose to not believe them.

[43:02] Judgment came, and the judgment that we read in Habakkuk was the judgment that God brought upon His people when they chose not to believe in Him.

[43:15] they chose to follow the way of the world. Sometimes the ways of this world are not going to make sense.

[43:27] Even though we may believe we are fully at peace with God, and sometimes we are, God is still going to reign in this world that doesn't make sense to us.

[43:37] this Old Testament points to the Son, and Jesus Christ Himself says, whoever has seen me has seen the Father.

[43:47] If you've been with us in Ephesians, we understand that to imitate God is to imitate the sacrificial love that Jesus Christ demonstrated for us.

[43:58] that He gave His life to die on the cross, to pay for my unrighteousness, my sin, my madness, my selfishness, my unbelief.

[44:16] because the whole story of man in the Old Testament is, I can't do it. Any law that I follow just shows that the law that I follow, at some point, I will break.

[44:29] I need someone to live this law perfectly, without sin, without unrighteousness, and we see that in Jesus Christ. So, God has provided for us in this Bible four gospel stories, of men who knew and walked with Jesus Christ and wrote down what He taught, how He lived, and the example of this love for us.

[44:58] That He was born of a virgin, to nobody of importance. That He lived a perfect life fulfilling the law, that He taught in the land for three years, imploring with His people to repent and turn to Him.

[45:21] So, in order to bring harmony back to man, He gave His life for us as the payment for our sins, so that we may be right with God and know His true love.

[45:39] Romans tells us that we believe that these facts are true. We confess with our mouth that Jesus Christ is our Lord.

[45:55] He will save us. God and that is where we begin to know God. The first two things we learn about God is His great love for us and the capacity of His forgiveness for us.

[46:13] Let me pray. Dear Lord, Heavenly Father, we thank You for this short testimony that You offer us from Habakkuk. What is the message that we need to learn, we need to understand, we need to know?

[46:29] That in order to waver these moments of our lives, the key is knowing You. First, knowing You as our Lord, our Savior, the one who died for us.

[46:43] Then, as our mentor and our teacher, as we come to know You, as we enter into this relationship, we come to reside in our house, our lives become a temple unto You.

[46:56] Through this, we know You. As we study Your Word, we come to know not only about You, but You more and more. As we learn about Your justice, Your righteousness, Your love, Your unchangeableness, Your great ability to do everything, Your nature, we begin to know and understand how to answer these problems that this world has.

[47:24] We begin to reflect and we begin to share with those around us, magnifying Your love and ultimately Your influence to a world which You called us to reach.

[47:36] So, Father, we give You thanks for this unique opportunity and time and we get to serve and know You in ways that perhaps we've never known or understood.

[47:49] May we take confidence that what You are doing is for Your glory. Then how we respond, we pray, will bring people closer to an understanding of You, those who are trapped in darkness and the deceit of this world.

[48:10] May God do all things for His glory and through His glory. In His name we pray. Amen.