WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.519 This is the word of the Lord, a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to the Shigianoth. 00:00:10.519 --> 00:00:18.140 O Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, O Lord, do I fear. 00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:23.859 In the midst of the years revive it, in the midst of the years make it known, in wrath 00:00:23.859 --> 00:00:26.560 remember mercy. 00:00:26.559 --> 00:00:32.399 God came from Teemun and the Holy One from Mount Peron. 00:00:32.399 --> 00:00:35.920 His splendor covered the heavens and the earth was full of his praise. 00:00:35.920 --> 00:00:43.119 His brightness was like the light, raised flash from his hand, and there he veiled his power. 00:00:43.119 --> 00:00:47.159 Before him went pestilence and plague followed at his heels. 00:00:47.159 --> 00:00:49.420 He stood and measured the earth. 00:00:49.420 --> 00:00:51.840 He looked and shook the nations. 00:00:51.840 --> 00:00:56.539 Then the eternal mountains were scattered, the everlasting hills sank low. 00:00:56.539 --> 00:00:59.159 These were the everlasting ways. 00:00:59.159 --> 00:01:02.280 I saw the tents of Qashan and Affliction. 00:01:02.280 --> 00:01:05.760 The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. 00:01:05.760 --> 00:01:08.640 Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:13.640 Was your anger against the rivers or your indignation against the sea? 00:01:13.640 --> 00:01:19.439 When you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation, you stripped the sheath from 00:01:19.439 --> 00:01:22.560 your bow, calling for many arrows. 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:24.799 You split the earth with rivers. 00:01:24.799 --> 00:01:27.599 The mountains saw you and writhed. 00:01:27.599 --> 00:01:30.000 The raging waters swept on. 00:01:30.000 --> 00:01:32.759 The deep gave forth its voice. 00:01:32.759 --> 00:01:34.879 It lifted its hands on high. 00:01:34.879 --> 00:01:38.399 The sun and the moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they 00:01:38.399 --> 00:01:41.879 sped at the flash of your glittering spear. 00:01:41.879 --> 00:01:44.719 You marched through the earth in a fury. 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:47.719 You threshed the nations in anger. 00:01:47.719 --> 00:01:53.120 You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. 00:01:53.120 --> 00:01:58.960 You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. 00:01:58.960 --> 00:02:04.160 You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors who came like a whirlwind 00:02:04.160 --> 00:02:09.719 to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. 00:02:09.719 --> 00:02:14.360 You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging mighty waters. 00:02:14.360 --> 00:02:17.560 I hear and my body trembles. 00:02:17.560 --> 00:02:20.400 My lips quiver at the sound. 00:02:20.400 --> 00:02:23.599 The rotteness enters into my bones. 00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:26.560 My legs tremble beneath me. 00:02:26.560 --> 00:02:32.719 Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who invade us. 00:02:32.719 --> 00:02:38.000 Though the fig trees should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the 00:02:38.000 --> 00:02:43.960 olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:46.280 be no herd in the stalls. 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:48.840 Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. 00:02:48.840 --> 00:02:52.400 I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 00:02:52.400 --> 00:02:54.560 God the Lord is my strength. 00:02:54.560 --> 00:02:56.920 He makes my feet like the deers. 00:02:56.920 --> 00:03:03.240 He makes me tread on my high places to the choir master with stringed instruments. 00:03:03.240 --> 00:03:06.240 God's word. 00:03:06.240 --> 00:03:07.319 James. 00:03:07.319 --> 00:03:12.599 Thank you, Corey. 00:03:12.599 --> 00:03:15.719 So this is our fifth sermon. 00:03:15.719 --> 00:03:19.520 I'm going through the book of Habakkuk, this and our final sermon as well. 00:03:19.520 --> 00:03:26.159 This short little book, in the Minor Prophets of the Old Testament, only three chapters. 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:32.159 And it's a book written by someone who is facing what feel to him like the worst of 00:03:32.159 --> 00:03:34.039 times. 00:03:34.039 --> 00:03:38.919 The society that he lives in is crumbling, and it's about to fall apart. 00:03:38.919 --> 00:03:43.400 He is living in the immediate aftermath of a world war. 00:03:43.400 --> 00:03:48.240 And the side that has won the world war is now advancing on where this guy, Habakkuk, 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:49.240 lives. 00:03:49.240 --> 00:03:51.319 And they are coming like a plague of locusts. 00:03:51.319 --> 00:03:53.360 They're coming to devour resources. 00:03:53.360 --> 00:03:54.360 They're coming to pillage. 00:03:54.360 --> 00:03:57.120 They're coming to enslave. 00:03:57.120 --> 00:04:03.280 And in the midst of all of this, these terrible times, Habakkuk is someone you'll see in chapters 00:04:03.280 --> 00:04:09.080 one, and two, who wrestles with God, who gets close enough to God to ask him, why is this 00:04:09.080 --> 00:04:11.200 happening and what are you doing about it? 00:04:11.200 --> 00:04:12.599 Isn't this supposed to be your world? 00:04:12.599 --> 00:04:14.319 Aren't you supposed to be eternal? 00:04:14.319 --> 00:04:17.519 Aren't you supposed to be good? 00:04:17.519 --> 00:04:23.639 So he wrestles with God, and he asks God to tell him, what is your plan for this world? 00:04:23.639 --> 00:04:28.639 And in the midst of all of that, as he can look out and see like a cloud of terrible 00:04:28.639 --> 00:04:39.560 times rolling in over this desert plain towards him, Habakkuk somehow is able to find peace 00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:44.920 and also able to find joy even in the midst of what to him feel like the worst possible 00:04:44.920 --> 00:04:48.120 circumstances that could befall him. 00:04:48.120 --> 00:04:56.879 Now that is a timely but also a provocative idea for people who are formed in the kind 00:04:56.879 --> 00:04:59.519 of culture that we come from. 00:04:59.519 --> 00:05:06.160 The idea that even of the worst times that you could possibly imagine were to land on 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:12.800 your doorstep, it's still possible to have joy and peace. 00:05:12.800 --> 00:05:18.160 And I think that's provocative in our culture because our culture encourages us to, and 00:05:18.160 --> 00:05:23.280 this is a great word, it's a terrible thing to do, but it's a great word, to catastrophize. 00:05:23.280 --> 00:05:28.480 So catastrophizing is when you maybe you'll recognize this in your own life, you'll certainly 00:05:28.480 --> 00:05:32.480 if you think about it, recognize it in the culture around us. 00:05:32.480 --> 00:05:37.960 And what you imagine is when you treat every day with whatever the big challenges in that 00:05:37.960 --> 00:05:45.960 day as though you are on the edge of a cliff, the edge of a catastrophe, whatever problems 00:05:45.960 --> 00:05:51.080 you are facing today, the stakes have never been higher for the entirety of the future 00:05:51.080 --> 00:05:53.120 of the world. 00:05:53.120 --> 00:05:56.080 Life every day is this high stakes game. 00:05:56.079 --> 00:06:03.359 And as well as that where you imagine that the worst outcomes are about to happen, for 00:06:03.359 --> 00:06:06.000 you're prompted to see the worst than other people. 00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:10.079 Okay, so you live always on the edge of catastrophe. 00:06:10.079 --> 00:06:15.599 It's in your doom scrolling, it's in the evening news, it's all over the place. 00:06:15.599 --> 00:06:18.399 It's in people rioting on the streets. 00:06:18.399 --> 00:06:22.560 It's in a generation of teenagers burdened by anxiety. 00:06:22.560 --> 00:06:28.560 Okay, so the world around us pushes us to catastrophize. 00:06:28.560 --> 00:06:34.319 But the culture around us also recognizes that catastrophizing is not good for you. 00:06:34.319 --> 00:06:36.920 It's not a good way to live. 00:06:36.920 --> 00:06:40.279 And our culture gives us ways to deal with it. 00:06:40.279 --> 00:06:46.199 So there's an article, you can read it on the BBC website about why you shouldn't catastrophize. 00:06:46.199 --> 00:06:49.519 And the gist of the article is this. 00:06:49.519 --> 00:06:54.639 Something is what pessimists do, and it's really bad for you. 00:06:54.639 --> 00:06:58.680 But also, well, the thing is you don't know for sure if bad things will happen tomorrow. 00:06:58.680 --> 00:07:01.879 Maybe good things will happen tomorrow, but you can't know until they happen. 00:07:01.879 --> 00:07:08.519 So official BBC guidance, don't be an optimist or a pessimist, just be a realist. 00:07:08.519 --> 00:07:09.719 And only live in today. 00:07:09.719 --> 00:07:12.639 Don't let tomorrow's burdens crush you. 00:07:12.639 --> 00:07:20.039 But the problem with that advice, if you are a Habakkuk, is the Babylonians are coming. 00:07:20.039 --> 00:07:25.479 The bad tomorrow is you're not a realist by saying, well, let's wait and see what they're 00:07:25.479 --> 00:07:27.279 like when they turn up here. 00:07:27.279 --> 00:07:28.800 You know what they've done everywhere else. 00:07:28.800 --> 00:07:30.560 You know what's coming. 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:38.959 So if you're Habakkuk and you could read the internet back in his day, why not catastrophize? 00:07:38.959 --> 00:07:41.599 Why not just collapse into anxiety? 00:07:41.600 --> 00:07:46.240 How could you possibly find peace and joy knowing that what is about to happen is about 00:07:46.240 --> 00:07:49.920 to happen? 00:07:49.920 --> 00:07:56.120 Turning away from the BBC, you can read an article in The Guardian giving you advice, 00:07:56.120 --> 00:08:01.000 very kind of secular advice on how not to catastrophize, and very secular in our culture's sense 00:08:01.000 --> 00:08:04.920 in that all of the solutions you need come from within yourself. 00:08:04.920 --> 00:08:06.439 So The Guardian approach. 00:08:06.439 --> 00:08:12.279 If you are tempted to catastrophize, step one, accept yourself. 00:08:12.279 --> 00:08:17.040 Accept how wonderful you are because although you're very anxious, an anxious person beneath 00:08:17.040 --> 00:08:22.560 the anxiety is a really energetic person, and you're just misdirecting your energy into 00:08:22.560 --> 00:08:24.399 anxiety. 00:08:24.399 --> 00:08:29.639 So instead, why don't you direct your creativity somewhere else and take up a hobby? 00:08:29.639 --> 00:08:35.240 Do something creative with all that energy instead of catastrophizing. 00:08:35.240 --> 00:08:40.159 And then if you really need to, maybe set aside a worry time every day, half an hour, 00:08:40.159 --> 00:08:45.399 and you let yourself catastrophize then, but then you move on with other 23 and a half 00:08:45.399 --> 00:08:47.720 hours of your day. 00:08:47.720 --> 00:08:50.680 And then maybe learn how to self-soothe. 00:08:50.680 --> 00:08:54.799 Find things that will make the catastrophe feel not so bad. 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:56.799 Okay? 00:08:56.799 --> 00:09:02.120 Habakkuk might say, the Babylonians are coming. 00:09:02.120 --> 00:09:06.399 An invading army is about to pillage, about to take all of our resources, about to enslave 00:09:06.399 --> 00:09:12.960 us, and life-changingly bad things are about to happen. 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:20.440 A creative hobby, as I'm watching these Babylonians arrive, that's not going to help me very 00:09:20.440 --> 00:09:21.879 much. 00:09:21.879 --> 00:09:26.960 Self-soothing, having half an hour a day to worry about the Babylonians. 00:09:26.960 --> 00:09:34.360 I don't think that Habakkuk would find the Guardian's approach helpful. 00:09:34.360 --> 00:09:38.040 So that makes what you read in the book of Habakkuk, that in the worst possible times, 00:09:38.040 --> 00:09:43.519 it's possible also to find joy and peace, makes that all the more provocative to people 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:47.519 in our generation, because the solution to this isn't something that you find within 00:09:47.519 --> 00:09:48.519 yourself. 00:09:48.519 --> 00:09:50.040 It's not that Habakkuk learns to self-soothe. 00:09:50.040 --> 00:09:53.440 That's terrible times around folding around him. 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:57.840 So the way that he faces this is very different to the kind of solutions that the culture 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:01.080 around us offers us. 00:10:01.080 --> 00:10:02.280 So that's what we're going to look at tonight. 00:10:02.280 --> 00:10:07.920 How does Habakkuk find joy and peace, bearing in mind what is about to unfold in his life? 00:10:07.920 --> 00:10:10.800 His worst nightmare is happening. 00:10:10.800 --> 00:10:13.840 Now the last chapter of Habakkuk is a song. 00:10:13.840 --> 00:10:16.800 So when Akhorey read it, if you didn't get that, it's a song. 00:10:16.800 --> 00:10:22.480 And the book of Habakkuk, so I've said a couple of times in this series, is a book of songs. 00:10:22.480 --> 00:10:25.759 So chapter one is his Sam of Lament. 00:10:25.759 --> 00:10:29.080 How long, O Lord, will you let these terrible things happen? 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:33.000 Chapter two is a funeral dirge for the Babylonians as they advance on him. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:36.560 Their doom is already secure, however terrifying they might be. 00:10:36.560 --> 00:10:42.600 But chapter three is a very distinct kind of song, a very unusual song. 00:10:42.600 --> 00:10:47.920 And so what we're going to do is look tonight, just in two points. 00:10:47.920 --> 00:10:52.200 First of all, the song itself, the very distinct kind of song it is. 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:57.520 And then secondly, we're going to look at the joy and the peace that Habakkuk finds 00:10:57.520 --> 00:11:00.200 in singing this kind of song. 00:11:00.200 --> 00:11:05.680 Now there's a key detail here that we get in verse one of chapter three. 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:11.360 I was curious to know how Kori would pronounce this word, because it doesn't get said a lot. 00:11:11.360 --> 00:11:12.840 And the word is shigionoth. 00:11:12.840 --> 00:11:19.120 Okay, so a prayer of Habakkuk the prophet according to shigionoth. 00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:25.279 Now you might have noticed if you've read through the Old Testament, and particularly 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:30.799 in the book of Psalms, that this stuff all happened in Hebrew, first written in Hebrew. 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:33.240 And we're reading an English translation. 00:11:33.240 --> 00:11:36.840 And in our translations, almost all of the words are in English. 00:11:36.840 --> 00:11:41.039 But sometimes there are Hebrew words that just don't, well, we don't have them in Hebrew 00:11:41.039 --> 00:11:42.039 letters. 00:11:42.039 --> 00:11:44.080 They're in Latin script for us to read them. 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:47.680 But they don't get translated into words in our language. 00:11:47.679 --> 00:11:50.000 So the most common one is Seila. 00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:51.439 You'll see this throughout the Psalms. 00:11:51.439 --> 00:11:52.919 Lots of points, Seila. 00:11:52.919 --> 00:11:58.159 It was at various points in Habakkuk's song in chapter three there, Seila. 00:11:58.159 --> 00:12:02.319 And that doesn't get translated into an English word, because translators just don't know 00:12:02.319 --> 00:12:03.759 what it means for sure. 00:12:03.759 --> 00:12:06.919 It's a musical term, but what exactly we don't know. 00:12:06.919 --> 00:12:10.159 And it turns out it's very hard to translate words if you don't know what the original 00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:12.120 one means. 00:12:12.120 --> 00:12:15.079 And shigionoth is a term like that. 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:22.480 It's a Hebrew musical term, a very uncommon one, but an extremely important one. 00:12:22.480 --> 00:12:28.440 And a lot of translators aren't confident enough to know what it means to turn it into 00:12:28.440 --> 00:12:30.320 an English word for us. 00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:36.800 So Habakkuk three verse one, this is a prayer, it's directed to God, but it's a song prayer. 00:12:36.800 --> 00:12:40.920 It's a song directed to God of a very distinct kind. 00:12:40.920 --> 00:12:44.080 And the kind is a shigionoth. 00:12:44.080 --> 00:12:52.000 And I think that the most helpful, the most mind blowing explanation of what a shigionoth 00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:55.879 that I've ever read is, is from a theologian called John Owen. 00:12:55.879 --> 00:13:01.160 So he was an English theologian, he was a professor at the University of Oxford back 00:13:01.160 --> 00:13:03.320 in the day, a few hundred years ago. 00:13:03.320 --> 00:13:06.680 And he was a really perceptive reader of the Bible. 00:13:06.680 --> 00:13:11.160 And John Owen noticed that there's only one other song in the Bible that gets called a 00:13:11.160 --> 00:13:12.600 shigionoth. 00:13:12.600 --> 00:13:16.360 And it's in the book of Sam's and Sam seven. 00:13:16.360 --> 00:13:20.080 So Sam seven is written by King David. 00:13:20.080 --> 00:13:23.720 And it's written in a time of terror in his life. 00:13:23.720 --> 00:13:26.120 His own worst nightmare is unfolding around him. 00:13:26.120 --> 00:13:27.759 People are coming to kill him. 00:13:27.759 --> 00:13:32.080 He's on the run and he is extremely vulnerable. 00:13:32.080 --> 00:13:36.159 And those circumstances all around him feel very real. 00:13:36.159 --> 00:13:38.800 And the Sam is very upfront about all of that. 00:13:38.799 --> 00:13:43.319 He's really pouring out what it feels like for your life to be in danger, pouring that 00:13:43.319 --> 00:13:44.959 out to God. 00:13:44.959 --> 00:13:52.479 But at the same time in Sam seven, whilst feeling all of that, David also realizes that God 00:13:52.479 --> 00:13:59.759 is with him and simultaneously therefore that he's never been more secure. 00:13:59.759 --> 00:14:07.519 So a shigionoth in Sam seven is when both of those realities are felt at the same time. 00:14:07.519 --> 00:14:14.199 And so John Owen said that a shigionoth song exercises all the affections. 00:14:14.199 --> 00:14:18.480 So in his old fashioned English, what that means is it exercises every emotion that you 00:14:18.480 --> 00:14:21.519 could feel at the same time. 00:14:21.519 --> 00:14:28.319 And it touches each part of your emotional life, the entirety of your experiences, the 00:14:28.319 --> 00:14:32.879 terrifying, the comforting touches them at the same time. 00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:35.559 It makes you feel the hope and the fear. 00:14:35.559 --> 00:14:38.719 That makes you feel the joy and the sorrow. 00:14:38.719 --> 00:14:44.519 And the grace of God is the thing that binds it all together. 00:14:44.519 --> 00:14:54.199 So shigionoth songs, they're not fake, twee, sentimental, emotionally one dimensional 00:14:54.199 --> 00:14:55.639 songs for your meant to act. 00:14:55.639 --> 00:14:58.599 Although the world feels like it's falling apart around you, you're meant to act like 00:14:58.599 --> 00:15:02.119 it's all sunshine and roses. 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:07.799 But shigionoth songs are also not cynical songs. 00:15:07.799 --> 00:15:09.960 They're not despairing songs. 00:15:09.960 --> 00:15:18.159 And shigionoth, you could put it like this, it's catastrophe that never catastrophizes. 00:15:18.159 --> 00:15:24.840 And to borrow from John Owen again, he had this amazing illustration for the effect that 00:15:24.840 --> 00:15:29.879 knowing how to experience and sing a shigionoth song, knowing how this will transform you 00:15:29.879 --> 00:15:31.799 as a human being. 00:15:31.799 --> 00:15:36.039 And it's the illustration of a ship, a sailboat. 00:15:36.039 --> 00:15:43.000 So if you have a sailboat on the sea and it has wind only coming to the sails from behind 00:15:43.000 --> 00:15:46.799 it, that will move it forward. 00:15:46.799 --> 00:15:51.120 If you have a ship and the only wind that's coming to it is a side wind, hitting it on 00:15:51.120 --> 00:15:55.479 the side, that's a wind that opposes it, it's not going to make any great progress going 00:15:55.479 --> 00:15:56.479 forward. 00:15:56.479 --> 00:16:01.079 But you know how to make a boat, a sailboat go fastest? 00:16:01.080 --> 00:16:03.400 It's actually to have both winds at the same time. 00:16:03.400 --> 00:16:08.000 You have to have an opposing wind from the side and a supporting wind from behind, and 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:12.639 this creates the effect of lift for a sailboat and it will go faster than if it had no opposition 00:16:12.639 --> 00:16:13.759 at all. 00:16:13.759 --> 00:16:19.280 So John Owen said that this is what adverse circumstances, the worst of all times, does 00:16:19.280 --> 00:16:25.520 to us when we have the secure living relationship to God that the gospel gives us. 00:16:25.520 --> 00:16:30.680 It actually gives you lift, so to speak, and it drives you towards God to realize that 00:16:30.679 --> 00:16:36.279 however real your terrible circumstances are, the security that you have in God is more 00:16:36.279 --> 00:16:40.679 real still, and you'll appreciate it more than you did if you'd never been in those 00:16:40.679 --> 00:16:43.959 terrible circumstances. 00:16:43.959 --> 00:16:50.000 That kind of lift that pushes you faster to God is the same thing that Paul talks about 00:16:50.000 --> 00:16:51.359 in the New Testament. 00:16:51.359 --> 00:16:57.039 In the book of Romans, when he's talking about rejoicing and sufferings, because suffering 00:16:57.039 --> 00:17:03.719 produces endurance and endurance produces character and character produces hope. 00:17:03.719 --> 00:17:09.119 In that way, because this all starts with suffering, your suffering is what teaches 00:17:09.119 --> 00:17:12.680 you that God's love has been poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit. 00:17:12.680 --> 00:17:15.599 It's Paul's way of putting it, but he's talking about the same kind of thing. 00:17:15.599 --> 00:17:18.119 He's talking about what it's like to sing a Shigionoth. 00:17:18.119 --> 00:17:21.839 As unusual as that word is, you've probably never heard it before, but I hope you never 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:24.720 forget it. 00:17:24.720 --> 00:17:30.559 This song that he sings is a really distinct kind of song, this Shigionoth. 00:17:30.559 --> 00:17:34.559 You could say that it's the song that means that it was the worst of times and it was 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:38.519 the best of times, but through the lens of the gospel. 00:17:38.519 --> 00:17:47.400 The song itself, down to verse 15, is really a song that's all about the God of heaven 00:17:47.400 --> 00:17:52.960 coming down to earth, and Habakkuk's picture of what it is like when the God of heaven 00:17:52.960 --> 00:17:55.720 comes down to earth. 00:17:55.720 --> 00:18:00.240 The ways that Habakkuk thinks of that are all drawn from earlier in the Bible. 00:18:00.240 --> 00:18:04.240 It's the story of what happened when the God of heaven came down to earth to rescue the 00:18:04.240 --> 00:18:08.799 Israelites when they were slaves in Egypt, how God protected them in the desert when 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:11.720 they wandered for 40 years. 00:18:11.720 --> 00:18:13.880 The song does this. 00:18:13.880 --> 00:18:15.880 That's really the central focus. 00:18:15.880 --> 00:18:22.000 In the midst of the terrible times, there is a God in heaven who's not indifferent to 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:27.119 what happens to his people on earth. 00:18:27.119 --> 00:18:34.039 There's an effect of that on the way that Habakkuk is experiencing his circumstances, 00:18:34.039 --> 00:18:36.640 very specifically. 00:18:36.640 --> 00:18:43.119 Your worst nightmare in your life, if it were to unfold, is probably not going to be ancient 00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:49.279 Babylonians appearing on the outskirts of Edinburgh. 00:18:49.279 --> 00:18:54.200 Habakkuk's life is the worst thing that you could imagine. 00:18:54.200 --> 00:19:01.879 In the midst of all this, God gives Habakkuk very specific ways to put that together with 00:19:01.879 --> 00:19:09.079 a reminder of how secure Habakkuk is, even in his worst nightmare happening. 00:19:09.079 --> 00:19:18.799 The way that this works in the song is a way of reminding Habakkuk that however terrible 00:19:18.799 --> 00:19:26.440 the Babylonians might seem, whatever terrible things they can do to you, they are nothing 00:19:26.440 --> 00:19:31.480 compared to the power and the love and the protection of God. 00:19:31.480 --> 00:19:36.519 The way that God communicates this to Habakkuk, and the way Habakkuk realizes this, is also 00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:37.519 to do with mountains. 00:19:37.519 --> 00:19:41.919 I don't know if you noticed that when Corey read through the song, how much of it is about 00:19:41.919 --> 00:19:43.919 mountains. 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:50.039 In verse 5, God scattered the eternal mountains, and I wonder if when he read that, if you 00:19:50.039 --> 00:19:53.960 were really listening and thinking about it, did you think, that's weird that the Bible 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:56.240 says that mountains are eternal? 00:19:56.240 --> 00:19:58.600 I didn't think, I thought God was eternal. 00:19:58.600 --> 00:20:02.840 And then the everlasting hills sank low when God came down from heaven. 00:20:02.840 --> 00:20:07.039 And again, you might think, but why would the Bible say that the hills are everlasting? 00:20:07.039 --> 00:20:10.640 Because the Bible teaches that the world is created and not eternal. 00:20:10.640 --> 00:20:15.759 The mountains, in verse 10, they saw God and writhed. 00:20:15.759 --> 00:20:20.480 And the mountains did this before God, when the God of heaven marched through the earth 00:20:20.480 --> 00:20:23.320 with fury to rescue his people. 00:20:23.320 --> 00:20:25.680 Verse 13. 00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:30.520 But all of this was a way of teaching Habakkuk why he didn't need to catastrophize about 00:20:30.520 --> 00:20:31.520 the Babylonians. 00:20:31.520 --> 00:20:36.920 And the mountains are a really specific thing here, because when the Babylonians arrived 00:20:36.920 --> 00:20:43.240 in your town, if you live in Habakkuk's world, they also brought with them their own stories 00:20:43.240 --> 00:20:49.039 about the worlds, about how it began, about where the gods are, about which things you 00:20:49.039 --> 00:20:53.480 should fear, and how to live as a human being. 00:20:53.480 --> 00:20:59.279 And the mountains played a huge part in how the Babylonians taught people all of these 00:20:59.279 --> 00:21:00.519 things. 00:21:00.519 --> 00:21:07.559 If you were a Babylonian, your belief was something like this, in the beginning, the 00:21:07.559 --> 00:21:08.559 mountains. 00:21:08.559 --> 00:21:16.960 And in the mountains, there were these powerful beings that fought each other, and the victors 00:21:16.960 --> 00:21:21.200 in this terrible, inhospitable place became the gods. 00:21:21.200 --> 00:21:27.359 So the mountains, if you're an ancient Babylonian, are this, I mean, they're an ambiguous place 00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:28.599 because they're really frightening. 00:21:28.599 --> 00:21:35.199 They're inhospitable, it's very hard to live on a mountain top in the ancient Near East. 00:21:35.199 --> 00:21:40.839 But those who in your stories had done that had become gods through that process. 00:21:40.839 --> 00:21:43.799 So it's a place of violence. 00:21:43.799 --> 00:21:47.359 It's a place that dominates your world. 00:21:47.359 --> 00:21:52.000 And it's a place of chaos and power and danger. 00:21:52.000 --> 00:22:01.000 But if you're a pagan Babylonian, the mountains are also the source of life, because they 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:09.200 represent fertility, they represent life, and your highest goddess, if you are a pagan 00:22:09.200 --> 00:22:14.920 Babylonian, was a goddess called Ninhursak, and she is the goddess of fertility, she is 00:22:14.920 --> 00:22:17.279 the mother of the mountains. 00:22:17.279 --> 00:22:22.839 They're in her name, and if you assimilate into the Babylonian empire, what this will 00:22:22.839 --> 00:22:30.639 mean for you is, if you want to have a future at all, it's like the release valve on catastrophizing, 00:22:30.639 --> 00:22:36.039 if you want tomorrow to happen, if you want your animals to give birth, if you want to 00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:41.000 have children, you need to start, you better get down on your knees before Ninhursak, the 00:22:41.000 --> 00:22:44.359 goddess of the mountains, the mother of the mountains, because she is the goddess who 00:22:44.359 --> 00:22:48.119 represents fertility, which represents tomorrow for you. 00:22:48.119 --> 00:22:52.000 This is, your future depends on it. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.919 So when the Babylonians arrive, they will want you to put your faith in the mother of 00:22:56.919 --> 00:23:00.799 the mountains, because if you don't, you don't have a future. 00:23:00.799 --> 00:23:05.959 But Habakkuk's song, in everything that it says about the mountains as eternal, they're 00:23:05.959 --> 00:23:08.919 not eternal, as everlasting, they're not everlasting. 00:23:08.919 --> 00:23:12.559 When God comes, the God of heaven comes to earth, the mountains melt. 00:23:12.559 --> 00:23:15.279 You don't need to fear them. 00:23:15.279 --> 00:23:20.440 Now, maybe again, you listen to this and think, but that is so foreign. 00:23:20.440 --> 00:23:26.399 I live in Scotland, like I go in Monroe climbing, like I don't fear the mountains. 00:23:26.399 --> 00:23:28.000 Let me update it. 00:23:28.000 --> 00:23:37.519 Our culture has its own huge set of idols, idols that tell you that your future depends 00:23:37.519 --> 00:23:43.920 on the outcome of how you interact with me, on you giving me what I want. 00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:49.519 Make this your ultimate, make this the thing you need, the source of life, the source of 00:23:49.519 --> 00:23:54.960 your life's meaning, and if you don't center your life on it, then you are doomed, because 00:23:54.960 --> 00:23:58.160 your future depends on this. 00:23:58.160 --> 00:24:03.160 But the message of Habakkuk is that just can't be true. 00:24:03.160 --> 00:24:08.519 All those things will melt and arrive when the God of heaven comes to earth. 00:24:08.519 --> 00:24:13.040 And that's why in this song, Habakkuk remembers the same kind of thing that you read in the 00:24:13.040 --> 00:24:20.519 New Testament in Romans 8, that whatever stories the Babylonians might come and tell Habakkuk 00:24:20.519 --> 00:24:26.400 about why he's doomed unless he joins in with the way that they see the world. 00:24:26.400 --> 00:24:32.840 The reality is that neither death nor life, angels nor rulers, things present nor things 00:24:32.839 --> 00:24:37.519 to come, height nor depth nor anything else in all creation, nothing can separate us from 00:24:37.519 --> 00:24:42.159 the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 00:24:42.159 --> 00:24:47.679 And that is why Habakkuk's song is this very particular kind of song, the Shigyanoth song. 00:24:47.679 --> 00:24:52.199 Knowing all about this about God doesn't make Habakkuk's life instantly easy. 00:24:52.199 --> 00:24:55.959 It doesn't take all of that suffering away, but he knows that nothing can separate him 00:24:55.959 --> 00:24:56.959 from the love of God. 00:24:56.959 --> 00:25:02.359 Therefore, the song faces catastrophe, but it doesn't catastrophize. 00:25:02.359 --> 00:25:04.519 And look at the way that it leaves him actually, okay? 00:25:04.519 --> 00:25:07.199 This is what a Shigyanoth song might look like in your life. 00:25:07.199 --> 00:25:08.679 Look at verse 16. 00:25:08.679 --> 00:25:14.759 He is trembling, his lips are quaking, his knees are knocking together, and he feels like 00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:22.079 he's about to crumble on the inside, yet I will wait quietly for the day of trouble to 00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:23.919 come upon the people who invade us. 00:25:23.919 --> 00:25:27.439 So for Habakkuk, that is Shigyanoth. 00:25:27.440 --> 00:25:33.279 That's the lift that the ship gets when however much there's a sidewind opposing it, the wind 00:25:33.279 --> 00:25:37.240 behind it is just stronger. 00:25:37.240 --> 00:25:39.640 So how does that kind of song change you? 00:25:39.640 --> 00:25:41.360 How did it change Habakkuk? 00:25:41.360 --> 00:25:42.360 Okay? 00:25:42.360 --> 00:25:46.519 Second point, the joy that he has because of the song. 00:25:46.519 --> 00:25:53.440 So look at verse 17, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit beyond the vines. 00:25:53.440 --> 00:26:01.720 These verses are a picture of the local economy in Judah, in Habakkuk's day. 00:26:01.720 --> 00:26:06.360 And what he's imagining here is there are no grapes. 00:26:06.360 --> 00:26:08.200 There is no wine to drink. 00:26:08.200 --> 00:26:09.200 That industry is gone. 00:26:09.200 --> 00:26:12.519 There are no olives for oil. 00:26:12.519 --> 00:26:15.160 And the sheep have been eaten by wolves. 00:26:15.160 --> 00:26:16.759 There are no cows to give us milk. 00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:20.920 So it's a picture of societal collapse. 00:26:20.920 --> 00:26:28.480 And it begins with a very specific symbol that says this isn't anywhere else. 00:26:28.480 --> 00:26:31.320 This is where you live, Habakkuk. 00:26:31.320 --> 00:26:37.120 Because the fig tree is like the national symbol of his people. 00:26:37.120 --> 00:26:42.720 Even if the worst possible things happen to me where I live, this is not hypothetical 00:26:42.720 --> 00:26:45.560 for Habakkuk. 00:26:45.560 --> 00:26:47.000 Even if total devastation happens. 00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:49.279 I mean, you could update this for Edinburgh. 00:26:49.279 --> 00:26:58.079 If every supermarket shelf is empty, if the taps run dry, if the markets crash, if I lose 00:26:58.079 --> 00:27:07.680 my job, if my overdraft is maxed out, if I lose all of my possessions, yet I will rejoice 00:27:07.680 --> 00:27:09.440 in the Lord. 00:27:09.440 --> 00:27:13.480 I will take joy in the God of my salvation. 00:27:13.480 --> 00:27:19.240 This is facing catastrophe without catastrophizing. 00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:25.200 This is what it looks like to prepare yourself with the knowledge that nothing can separate 00:27:25.200 --> 00:27:28.079 you from the love of God. 00:27:28.079 --> 00:27:31.799 No catastrophe, however bad, can do that to you. 00:27:31.799 --> 00:27:37.920 There are no caveats in Romans 8 there. 00:27:37.920 --> 00:27:40.960 Here's why that can be the case. 00:27:40.960 --> 00:27:48.039 And why believing this actually means that Habakkuk himself can't be the end of the story. 00:27:48.039 --> 00:27:54.079 We need someone like Habakkuk but better. 00:27:54.079 --> 00:27:58.680 Look at what Habakkuk expects to happen in verse 19, when the worst of times arrives 00:27:58.680 --> 00:27:59.680 for him. 00:27:59.680 --> 00:28:02.559 God, the Lord is my strength. 00:28:02.559 --> 00:28:05.399 He makes my feet like the deers. 00:28:05.399 --> 00:28:10.079 He makes me tread on my high places. 00:28:10.079 --> 00:28:16.039 What Habakkuk believes is, and he knows that God is his strength, and he believes that 00:28:16.039 --> 00:28:24.960 in the strength God will give him, somehow when the Babylonians come, Habakkuk will survive. 00:28:24.960 --> 00:28:31.839 And the picture here is that he'll always be one step ahead of the unrighteous Babylonians. 00:28:31.839 --> 00:28:34.720 So look at the picture that he imagines himself into. 00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:41.200 It's that he imagines himself as being like a deer, a deer, a really agile animal who 00:28:41.200 --> 00:28:45.039 escapes to the mountain tops. 00:28:45.039 --> 00:28:48.079 Have you ever tried to chase a deer on a mountain top? 00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:51.519 I haven't, but I can imagine that wouldn't be good at it. 00:28:51.519 --> 00:28:53.279 They're so agile there. 00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:58.079 That is, there's a safe place for them. 00:28:58.079 --> 00:29:02.599 And that's how he imagines his future, even when things fall apart around him, that the 00:29:02.599 --> 00:29:08.519 Babylonians won't catch up with him, but through the strength that God will give. 00:29:08.519 --> 00:29:13.720 Now there's a really subtle thing that happens here, but when you see it, it will blow your 00:29:13.720 --> 00:29:17.160 mind, I hope, because Scripture does that. 00:29:17.160 --> 00:29:24.559 And again, you have to think about mountains, because the Babylonians are afraid of mountain 00:29:24.559 --> 00:29:29.440 tops in their religion, because the mountains are these dangerous places where the gods 00:29:29.440 --> 00:29:31.000 fight each other. 00:29:31.000 --> 00:29:32.000 You can't live there. 00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.360 They're inhospitable. 00:29:34.360 --> 00:29:42.200 And God already in the song has humbled the Babylonians by bringing the mountain tops 00:29:42.200 --> 00:29:43.200 down low. 00:29:43.200 --> 00:29:44.200 He makes them melt. 00:29:44.200 --> 00:29:45.200 He makes them crumble. 00:29:45.200 --> 00:29:46.200 Okay? 00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:48.920 The mountain top sinks low. 00:29:48.920 --> 00:29:54.519 But at the end of the song, what Habakkuk says in effect is, I don't fear the mountains. 00:29:54.519 --> 00:29:56.319 And Habakkuk is lifted up high. 00:29:56.319 --> 00:29:57.319 Okay? 00:29:57.319 --> 00:30:04.799 So he goes to the place that they fear, because the thing that he fears is the living God. 00:30:04.799 --> 00:30:10.360 Habakkuk doesn't fear gods who fight each other in the mountain tops. 00:30:10.360 --> 00:30:12.480 Habakkuk will take to the mountains. 00:30:12.480 --> 00:30:16.839 Can you imagine Habakkuk here saying, I to the hills will lift my eyes. 00:30:16.839 --> 00:30:18.720 From whence stuff come my name? 00:30:18.720 --> 00:30:24.440 He knows that it's safety comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth. 00:30:24.440 --> 00:30:29.279 And whereas the Babylonians, the people who fear the mountains and worship the mother of 00:30:29.279 --> 00:30:33.720 the mountains are brought low, Habakkuk is saved. 00:30:33.720 --> 00:30:37.839 That's what he expects by his life being lifted up to a high place. 00:30:37.839 --> 00:30:44.319 Now, the thing with the book of Habakkuk is that the New Testament is full of references 00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:45.319 to it. 00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:47.839 And we've seen that a fair bit in this series. 00:30:47.839 --> 00:30:51.519 Full of references to how the salvation that God promised Habakkuk would ultimately come 00:30:51.519 --> 00:30:53.879 long after Habakkuk's own time. 00:30:53.879 --> 00:30:55.599 Habakkuk was a prophet. 00:30:55.599 --> 00:31:01.919 He's a signpost who points forward to things that would happen after his own day. 00:31:01.919 --> 00:31:07.159 And in the New Testament, in lots of different places, it presents the fulfillment of everything 00:31:07.160 --> 00:31:11.560 God promised to do in the book of Habakkuk as coming through Jesus Christ. 00:31:11.560 --> 00:31:15.920 And I've already said a lot about that in the sermons so far. 00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:24.600 But I want to end this series by showing you how to think about Habakkuk, not simply as 00:31:24.600 --> 00:31:31.040 someone that Habakkuk prophesied about, saying that someone will come. 00:31:31.040 --> 00:31:33.080 Someone will end all of this. 00:31:33.079 --> 00:31:37.679 And actually, as someone, Habakkuk himself, as someone whose own life in a very strange 00:31:37.679 --> 00:31:43.639 way is a revelation of what Jesus himself would be like. 00:31:43.639 --> 00:31:50.079 So in theology, we call this a type, that Habakkuk is a type of Jesus. 00:31:50.079 --> 00:31:54.039 He was someone whose own life prefigured the life of Jesus. 00:31:54.039 --> 00:31:56.559 Now think about this. 00:31:56.559 --> 00:32:01.679 How did Habakkuk learn to flourish in his own evil times? 00:32:01.680 --> 00:32:07.799 Well, he learned to flourish there by knowing that God would never abandon him. 00:32:07.799 --> 00:32:12.640 By knowing that come what may, God would always be with him. 00:32:12.640 --> 00:32:16.680 By knowing that nothing could separate him from the love of God. 00:32:16.680 --> 00:32:21.039 And even the Babylonians couldn't do that. 00:32:21.039 --> 00:32:31.080 But think about verses 17, 18, and 19, alongside a very specific part of the life of Jesus, 00:32:31.079 --> 00:32:36.480 which is his passion, his suffering, this intense period of suffering as he makes his 00:32:36.480 --> 00:32:40.759 way towards his crucifixion. 00:32:40.759 --> 00:32:49.599 As his suffering is about to begin, as Jesus knows that his own most evil times are now 00:32:49.599 --> 00:32:57.000 upon him, like the Babylonians are on the horizon, Jesus knows that this is in motion. 00:32:57.000 --> 00:33:04.599 And he was hungry, and he found a fig tree, and the fig tree was bare, so he cursed it. 00:33:04.599 --> 00:33:10.720 And he knew that he was about to be struck, and he says that another Old Testament prophecy 00:33:10.720 --> 00:33:13.279 is about to be fulfilled. 00:33:13.279 --> 00:33:20.240 Strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. 00:33:20.240 --> 00:33:25.759 We have verse 17 there, the flock cut off from the field. 00:33:25.759 --> 00:33:31.519 But at that point, we're thinking about these two lives together, the life of Habakkuk and 00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:38.279 the life of Jesus going starkly different directions from here on. 00:33:38.279 --> 00:33:45.720 Because for Habakkuk, when the fig tree was bare and when the flock was scattered, Habakkuk 00:33:45.720 --> 00:33:50.279 was saved by being raised to a high place. 00:33:50.279 --> 00:33:54.960 And there he knew more than anywhere else he had ever been. 00:33:54.960 --> 00:33:55.960 This is the lift, right? 00:33:55.960 --> 00:34:00.720 He knew that God was with him. 00:34:00.720 --> 00:34:05.160 But for Jesus, everything was different. 00:34:05.160 --> 00:34:11.840 When the fig tree was bare, when his flock was scattered, Jesus was, he was also led 00:34:11.840 --> 00:34:19.240 to a hill like an animal, but not a free deer, you know, jumping with agility, all was one 00:34:19.240 --> 00:34:20.800 step ahead. 00:34:20.800 --> 00:34:30.640 Jesus is bound like a lamb, like a goat, a sacrificial animal led to a hill. 00:34:30.640 --> 00:34:35.200 And his mountain was Golgotha, the place of the skull. 00:34:35.200 --> 00:34:40.640 And he was raised up, but by being nailed to a cross. 00:34:40.640 --> 00:34:49.240 And there, when darkness descended on him, when his own worst times had reached their 00:34:49.239 --> 00:35:00.359 worst point, for the first time in his eternal existence, Jesus looked for God, the Father, 00:35:00.359 --> 00:35:01.759 and he couldn't find him. 00:35:01.759 --> 00:35:04.679 He felt like God was not there. 00:35:04.679 --> 00:35:12.559 He felt utterly forsaken and abandoned by God. 00:35:12.559 --> 00:35:18.839 Because perfect Jesus in that moment had been made sin. 00:35:18.840 --> 00:35:22.640 All of our guilt was transferred onto him. 00:35:22.640 --> 00:35:28.440 And that's the New Testament's way of putting it, that on the cross he became sin. 00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:32.960 And God the Father, I think of Habakkuk's words, a chapter back, he praised the God 00:35:32.960 --> 00:35:37.320 saying, you are of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. 00:35:37.320 --> 00:35:42.760 And on the cross, those pure eyes cannot look at his own son. 00:35:42.760 --> 00:35:49.760 And in that moment, Jesus only had the worst of times. 00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:54.200 There was no Shigianoth song for Jesus on the cross. 00:35:54.200 --> 00:35:56.200 Instead there's only a cry of desolation. 00:35:56.200 --> 00:36:03.560 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:36:03.560 --> 00:36:10.640 Don't you see when we start to put these lives together, how Jesus is the true and the better 00:36:10.640 --> 00:36:12.720 Habakkuk? 00:36:12.719 --> 00:36:18.799 Jesus endured being abandoned by God so that you never would have to. 00:36:18.799 --> 00:36:23.919 He injured a cry of desolation so that like Habakkuk, you have the option of a Shigianoth 00:36:23.919 --> 00:36:25.919 song. 00:36:25.919 --> 00:36:30.639 He was raised on the cross so that you could be raised to new life and to safety. 00:36:30.639 --> 00:36:35.879 He injured the actual worst thing that has ever happened. 00:36:35.880 --> 00:36:43.640 So that however terrible things that happen in your life are, and Shigianoth never belittles 00:36:43.640 --> 00:36:50.280 them, but he endured that for the lift that you can get knowing that however strong a 00:36:50.280 --> 00:36:55.360 sidewind might hit you, that there is a wind behind you through the love of God and that 00:36:55.360 --> 00:37:00.240 is unstoppable and the lift will carry you through. 00:37:00.239 --> 00:37:07.199 And the only way that Habakkuk himself could face the suffering, the final point of this 00:37:07.199 --> 00:37:11.959 whole series, the only way that Habakkuk, facing what he was facing, could do that and 00:37:11.959 --> 00:37:18.199 could flourish and could find joy and peace was that he, so what he knew was, this is 00:37:18.199 --> 00:37:23.919 what the song is all about, that the God of heaven will come to earth to save him. 00:37:23.919 --> 00:37:27.159 And what he's already been told by God is that when the God of heaven comes to earth, 00:37:27.159 --> 00:37:31.239 it's going to be something unimaginable, I think all the way back to chapter one, when 00:37:31.239 --> 00:37:37.920 God starts to talk to him, he begins by saying, you won't believe it even when I tell you. 00:37:37.920 --> 00:37:44.759 And the message of the Bible, Habakkuk lived before the incarnation of Jesus, before the 00:37:44.759 --> 00:37:47.920 cross, before the resurrection, we live after that. 00:37:47.920 --> 00:37:55.079 And the message of Habakkuk for us today is that the God of heaven did come down to earth 00:37:55.079 --> 00:38:04.079 in the most unimaginable way, in Jesus Christ, in a baby, in a manger, in a carpenter who 00:38:04.079 --> 00:38:12.679 became someone who hanged on a cross like a criminal, a lifeless body in a tomb of someone 00:38:12.679 --> 00:38:21.239 who suffered in your place, but whose resurrection changes everything, changes even our own worst 00:38:21.239 --> 00:38:26.719 nightmare is happening, and that is the gospel of the book of Habakkuk. 00:38:26.719 --> 00:38:30.199 Amen, let's pray. 00:38:30.199 --> 00:38:36.000 God of all hope, God of all grace, we thank you for the book of Habakkuk, for time that 00:38:36.000 --> 00:38:40.559 we've been able to spend together thinking about it, seeing it in new ways in order that 00:38:40.559 --> 00:38:48.039 we might see the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ in greater depth, emotionally, 00:38:48.039 --> 00:38:51.360 existentially, historically in so many ways. 00:38:51.360 --> 00:38:55.559 So Lord, through that we pray that you would make us into people who know what it is in 00:38:55.559 --> 00:39:02.360 life in this world, with all of its sins and sorrows, with all of the evil that plagues 00:39:02.360 --> 00:39:08.079 it, that you would help us to be people who know what it is to sing Shigyanoth songs, 00:39:08.079 --> 00:39:12.759 to have the lift that the gospel gives us, shape us to be like your son, we pray. 00:39:12.759 --> 00:39:13.759 Amen. 00:39:13.760 --> 00:39:18.760 Amen.