The scripture reading comes from Habakkuk chapter 3. Please follow along on the screen.
A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet, according to Shigianoth.
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.
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.
Though the fig trees should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls.
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
God, the Lord, is my strength. He makes my feet like the deer's.
He makes me tread on my high places.
This is the word of God.
Great. Thank you, Jeremy and Judy.
And good morning, Watermark family.
It is great to be with you in a surreal sense.
It's so strange doing this online.
And you've got to know that on behalf of the elders,
we love gathering together as a church family.
We love the fact that every Sunday,
diverse people from different backgrounds and cultures and languages and ethnicities
come together to worship Christ our King,
to encourage one another in the gospel.
And so this online thing feels like a very third-rate, distant experience for now.
But we're grateful for God that we are able to do it,
and we look forward to soon, hopefully very soon,
being able to gather as a church family together.
Now, in this time of fear and confusion,
this time of difficulty,
there's so much going on in our world and in our city.
As a church, we're going to be spending the next couple of weeks
looking at a couple of passages of Scripture
that lift our eyes and our gaze off of the circumstances around us
and remind us of the bigness and the majesty of our God.
We're going to look at some Scriptures that call us to live by faith in His faithfulness.
At times like this, we don't just need words of good advice.
We don't just need a pep talk or a little bit of inspiration.
We need to be reminded of the majesty and the sovereignty and the bigness of our God.
And so over the next couple of weeks,
we're going to be looking at passages of Scripture that help us to do that.
Now, today we're looking at this passage in Habakkuk chapter 3.
If you remember as a church, we actually looked at this passage in about June last year.
But the reason we're coming back to it is because God's Word isn't just there to give us some inspiration.
God's Word isn't just something we come to to learn something new or interesting.
We come to God's Word to encounter the living God, to meet with Him,
and to have our hearts lifted up and encouraged as we encounter Him in His Word.
God's Word is living. It's active.
It means it's constantly fresh.
It's constantly speaking to us.
And as we come to God's Word, even passages that we may know very well,
God's Word has the ability to shape us, to mold us, and to form us into the people that He wants us to be.
And so this passage that we've looked at a year ago, we come back to it again today
because it's one of those passages that challenges us but also is deeply encouraging.
And so the context is this.
Habakkuk is a prophet in the nation of Israel around 600 B.C.
But Habakkuk is not in a very good state.
Things are not going well in Israel.
There is rampant injustice.
There is rampant wickedness and corruption in the nation of Israel.
The people of God that are meant to be following God and trusting Him don't care about God.
They don't care about their relationship with Him.
They're not trusting Him or loving Him or obeying Him.
And so things in Israel are not in a good place as well.
And Habakkuk is crying out to God.
He's saying, God, where are you in all of this?
Don't you see what's going on?
God, have you fallen asleep?
Are you blind and ignorant to what's going on amongst your people?
But just when Habakkuk finishes complaining, things get worse.
Because God comes to him and He speaks to him.
And God says to him that things are going to get worse for Israel before they get better.
God tells Habakkuk that he's about to bring disaster on the nation of Israel and on the people of Judah.
Because what's going to happen is the nation of Babylon, that ruthless and hasty nation from the north,
are going to come down and attack Israel, bring God's judgment on them.
And the people of Israel are going to be taken as slaves into exile back into Babylon.
Well, this just makes no sense to Habakkuk.
He cannot fathom why God would allow this to happen to His coming people.
And so Habakkuk is faced or filled with all the questions that we are filled with in a time like this,
in a time of difficulty.
God, where are you?
Why would you allow this to happen?
God, why don't you stop this?
God, don't you care about what's going on in our nation?
Friends, how many of us have asked questions like this over the last year as our city has faced difficulty after difficulty?
But God doesn't stay silent.
God answers Habakkuk a second time in chapter 2.
And as He answers him, He does two things.
The first thing He does is He gives Habakkuk a vision.
He speaks to him and tells him what's going to happen.
And He says to Habakkuk, write down what you see because it's going to come to pass.
It may take a little while.
It may not happen in the timing that you want.
But the things that are planned, this is what's going to take place.
God has spoken.
But the second thing that God does is He calls Habakkuk to live by faith.
In chapter 2, there's this incredible verse that the New Testament actually quotes three times
to describe this life of faith.
He says,
The ungodly is puffed up with pride and self-sufficiency, but the righteous will live by faith.
And so God calls Habakkuk.
He says, I know things are difficult.
I know you do not understand what's going on.
Trust me.
Will you trust me?
God promises Habakkuk that he's at work in the world, that he knows what he's doing,
that he hasn't abandoned his people.
And He promises that he's working all things for his glory, but also for the good of his people.
But He also tells Habakkuk, it won't happen in the form or the manner in which you expect it,
and it also won't happen in the timing which you want.
And yet still, will you trust me?
Will you trust me?
How should Habakkuk respond?
Friends, how should we respond?
When God comes and says, trust me, how should we respond?
Well, Habakkuk chapter 3, which is the passage we're looking at today,
records Habakkuk's response.
And the way that Habakkuk responds is he turns to God in prayer.
Habakkuk chapter 3 really is the record of his prayer.
But it's an unusual prayer.
It's a very different prayer to the kind of prayers that we normally pray,
especially in difficulties,
because Habakkuk gives us an amazing picture of what prayer looks like
and where it ought to lead us.
Rather than coming out with a list of things that he wants
or a bunch of things that he desires God to do,
almost nowhere in this prayer does he ask for anything.
Rather than this prayer, we see a mixture of Habakkuk,
on the one hand, calling out to God,
but also preaching the gospel to his own heart.
He is both crying out to God, but he's doing more than that.
He's reminding himself in this prayer of God's incredible faithfulness
to his people throughout the ages.
And that, friend, actually is what the power and the significance of prayer is.
Prayer, on the one hand, is the means by which God accomplishes his purposes in the world.
That's true.
But it's also his means by which he aligns our own hearts to him.
Prayer does move God.
That's true.
But prayer most powerfully actually changes us.
Prayer is not just telling God what we need.
He's sovereign.
He's our Father.
He knows what we need.
Prayer is actually the means by which we get a heavenly perspective on the world,
by which we see what's going on in the world from heaven's perspective.
And, friends, that's why in times like this, when things are so uncertain,
when the world all around us is going in a direction we don't understand,
when the stock market is falling and the economy is under difficulty,
when jobs are on the line and there's this worldwide health crisis,
friends, one of the most important things we can do
is to come before our Father in prayer.
And so that's what Habakkuk does in chapter 3.
Friends, maybe I can ask us,
what's your prayer life like recently?
Look at where this prayer ends.
Habakkuk knows the situation in Israel is not good.
God is sending the Babylonians to bring his judgment on his covenant people.
Israel is going to be taken as captives, exiles, back to Babylon.
And that may mean that some loved ones are going to pass away.
It may mean that some, in the heat of battle, lose their lives.
It will almost certainly mean that hunger and famine is going to come to Jerusalem
as the Babylonians lay siege to the city of Jerusalem.
It means for most people, their security, their financial savings are going to be eaten away.
For everyone, it means the future is uncertain and things are unknown.
And yet, having wrestled with God in prayer,
Habakkuk gets to the place where he ends off his prayer with these incredible verses.
And so look at verse 17 with me.
He says,
It says,
What an incredible prayer.
Maybe a modernized version would be something like,
Though the food stalls and shelves are empty,
Though the cash flow of our business runs out,
Though the economy should falter and the stock market should crash,
Though my job is on the line and I'm not sure how I'm going to pay next month's rent,
Yet I will rejoice in the Lord.
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
Now, when Habakkuk says that he will rejoice in God or take joy in who the Lord is,
He's not just talking about a frivolous kind of a happy-go-lucky joy.
He's not talking about a light-heartedness,
As if, you know, the circumstances around us don't really matter.
Let's just trust Jesus and carry on.
Keep calm and carry on because we're Christians, right?
That's not what he's talking about.
In the Psalms, whenever the psalmist talks about rejoicing in God or taking joy in who God is,
In the same breath, he talks about trusting God.
He talks about putting his hope and his confidence.
He talks about a deep-seated contentment in who God is despite the circumstances around him.
150 years ago, there was a pastor in England who wrote a prayer for his own heart,
As well as for his congregation.
And he writes this.
He says,
Remember, O my soul, that he who is the ground of your faith is also the substance of your joy.
Therefore be happy in him, O my heart, and in nothing else.
Rejoice in the giver and in his goodness.
For whatever a man hopes in and trusts in, from that too he expects his happiness.
And that's what Habakkuk is doing.
He's praying, but he's also preaching to himself.
He's reminding himself that his circumstances are limited in their ability to provide contentment,
deep-rooted joy, to maintain the peace and the security that he longs for.
It's the same thing that the psalmist says in Psalm 42.
He says,
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why such turmoil within you?
Hope in God.
Trust in the risen Lord.
Habakkuk is not being stoic.
He's not being unrealistic.
He's not just closing his eyes and grimming at the facts.
He's facing the facts.
He's aware that very soon difficulty is coming his way.
Economic hardship.
Food shortages.
That the future is desperately uncertain.
And yet he's reminding himself where his hope lies.
Habakkuk doesn't deny the reality of the circumstances.
But he is denying the circumstances have the final say over his hope and his joy.
And so he looks to God.
He looks to the sovereign God.
Now, friends, the question is, where does Habakkuk find this kind of faith?
When you start off the book of Habakkuk, he doesn't start there.
In chapter 1, he's deeply unsettled.
But how does he get to this place?
What happens between chapter 1 and chapter 3 that Habakkuk finds the deep-seated confidence in who God is?
In this book, we find three things.
Three brief things I'd love to leave us with.
The first one is this.
Habakkuk has come to know God personally.
Last week, Chris spoke to us about the importance of great theology.
As we looked at Jeremiah 32, Jeremiah has this great theology.
He says,
Our Lord God, you who have made the heavens and the earth by your outstretched hand, nothing is too difficult for you.
And A.W. Tozer said,
The most important thing about a person is what he believes about God.
But the important thing is not just what we believe intellectually.
It's not just what we would write on a theology exam.
It's what we actually believe in our hearts.
It's what we actually know about God.
Not just in our heads, but existentially in our hearts.
Look at what Habakkuk says here in verse 18.
He says,
I will rejoice in the Lord.
The word Lord there is the covenant name.
It's the personal name for God.
It's the name that God gave to himself when Moses said,
Who should I say you're sending me?
Which God is sending me?
And he says,
Tell them this God,
Yahweh the Lord,
my personal covenant name.
Habakkuk calls upon the name of the Lord.
And then he says this,
I will rejoice in Yahweh,
my God.
I will take joy in the God of my salvation.
Not just the God of my people.
Not just the God of watermark or Israel.
My salvation.
My God.
For God the Lord,
he is my strength.
In the nation of Israel in the ancient times,
to worship any other God was a capital offense.
It wasn't very good news.
And so everyone in Israel followed God.
Everyone would go to the temple and worship.
Everyone would sing the songs
and look at the scriptures in their family home.
And yet in ancient Israel,
much like in modern culture,
there were many people that would go through the motions.
And yet they didn't know God personally.
And so when difficult times came,
when trouble came their way,
their superficial faith couldn't withstand
the crisis of the day.
But for Habakkuk,
there's something different.
Because his faith isn't just in God in general.
It's not just the God up there.
It's personal.
God literally is his strength.
His comfort in time of need.
Look what he says here.
He says,
Yahweh,
you are my strength.
You're not just the God that I bring offerings to.
You're not just the God that I sing to on a Sunday morning.
You are my strength throughout the day.
You're the one I look to for direction.
You,
when I'm overwhelmed,
you're my first port of call.
God,
you are my strength.
And friends,
great men and women of faith
that have persevered in the face of difficulty,
that have overcome opposition and persecution and difficulty,
were those who weren't just religious.
They were those who knew their Bible,
but they didn't just know their Bible.
They knew the God of their Bible.
They had a deep-seated faith in who God is.
They were those that didn't just know good theology.
They knew the God of their theology.
And that's what we see with Habakkuk.
Okay,
he knows God.
He knows his theology,
but his theology has brought him to a place of deep-seated strength in who God is.
And friends,
in times like this,
we need good theology.
That's true.
But we need to know the God of our theology.
We need to be able to cry out to him,
to lean on him,
to say,
God,
you are my strength in this time.
Habakkuk says,
you are the God of my salvation.
Friends,
it's good that we know God is our savior.
Do you know that he's the God of your salvation?
Friends,
do you know that Jesus didn't just die for the sins of the world?
He died for your sins.
It was your judgment that you were under that led God to send Christ the Son to the cross.
Friends,
do you notice because God loved you that Jesus went to the cross?
It wasn't just for God to love the world.
That's true.
But he loved you.
It's his great love for you that led him to die on the cross and to hang there,
to carry our sin and our shame upon the cross.
Psalm 9 says this,
the Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
Those who know your name put their trust in you.
Friends,
do you know his name?
Do you know his ways?
Do you know this God deeply and personally?
In difficult times and circumstances,
Habakkuk comes to call upon the God that he's known and encountered.
Do we know him by name?
And that leads us to the second thing,
which is that Habakkuk encounters the living God in his word.
We said earlier,
in chapter one,
Habakkuk is all over the place.
Things are not going well,
and he's crying out to God,
where are you God?
Don't you care?
Why is this happening?
And Habakkuk's not in a very good place.
At the end of chapter one,
he says,
I will take my stand.
I'll stand on the watch post
and I'll see what God has to say to me.
I'll see how God is going to answer my complaint.
But by the end of chapter three,
he's a different man.
Something has happened between chapter one,
where he stands,
seeing what God's going to answer him,
and chapter three,
where he says,
even though chaos abounds,
yet I will rejoice in this God.
What's happened between chapter one and chapter three?
In Habakkuk chapter two,
he encounters the living God in his living word.
In the beginning of chapter two,
God comes to him and he says,
Habakkuk says,
the Lord answered me.
And he says,
write down the vision that I give you.
And then God speaks to him
and he gives him a revelation
of what God is going to do.
Now,
up until this point,
God's dealing with the world
doesn't make much sense to Habakkuk.
It's left him confused and uncertain,
scared and a little shaken.
Until,
until such time as God speaks to him
and gives him his word.
God's word to Habakkuk is challenging,
sometimes uncomfortable,
but God's word is living and active
and it gives him hope.
Friends,
in these days,
we have more access to God's word
on our phones,
on our iPads,
on our computers
than in any other generation
in the history of the world.
We've got more versions,
we've got more translations,
we've got more commentaries
than any generation before us
and yet we are the most illiterate generation
when it comes to knowing God's word.
Friends,
more than anything else,
in times like this,
in times of global crisis,
the temptation is to run to our phones
and to spend time
seeing what's happening
with the global crisis.
The temptation is to run to the news
and to read up the latest report.
The temptation is to go to the stock market
and see what's happening
with the stock price.
And yet,
friends,
the temptation is to go to bed at night
and the last thing we've seen
is to read the report on the virus
or to check the stock price
and to wake up in the morning
and the first thing we do
is to grab our phones
and see what's happened
while we've been asleep.
And yet,
friends,
the most important thing we can do,
the most rock-solid thing we can do
is to come to God's word
and to anchor our hearts
and our souls in this.
Habakkuk is shaken
like a reed in the wind.
He doesn't know which way to go
and by the end,
he's rock-solid.
Why?
Because he's encountered God
in his word.
In the Psalms,
Psalm 19 says,
your word is true
and righteous altogether.
Friends,
Psalm 19 says,
your word has the ability
to revive my soul.
Friends,
building our life
on the news reports,
on the stock market price,
on WhatsApp messages
is like building our lives
on a sandbank,
building our lives on the beach.
But there is a rock-solid foundation
upon which we can bank our hope
in times of crisis and difficulty.
Friends,
come to God's word.
Watermark,
are we reading websites
more than we're reading God's word?
Are we spending time on our phones
more than on our knees?
Is Netflix occupying our time
while we're at home at the moment?
Or are we drinking deep
from the fountain of God's word?
The psalmist said,
my soul melts away for sorrow.
Oh,
strengthen me,
Lord,
according to your word.
You give great peace
to those who love your word.
Nothing can make them stumble.
Friends,
maybe the very best thing
that we can do
in times like this
is to put away our phones
each day,
to wake up in the morning
and to not look at our phones
before we spend time
in God's word,
until we've come to him
and heard him speak to us,
until his living word
has given us
strength for the day.
Habakkuk starts off
incredibly unsettled
by the circumstances
he sees around him,
and yet by the end of the book,
the reality of those circumstances
are still there,
but they've lost their grip
on his heart
because he's encountered
the living God
in his living word.
Thirdly and finally,
Habakkuk remembers
the God of his salvation.
Now,
as we mentioned earlier,
chapter three
is a prayer,
and it's a remarkable prayer
because hardly anywhere
does Habakkuk
ask for a single thing,
but rather what he does do
is he remembers
God's faithfulness
to his people
and he remembers
the various times
that God miraculously
delivered his people
when their backs
were against the war
and it felt
like they had no hope.
In verse three,
he remembers the way
that God called Abraham
and made a covenant
of grace with him.
In verse four,
he remembers God's covenant
with his people at Sinai,
how he came down
with fire and power
and he gave them
the ten commandments.
He said,
I will be your God,
you will be my people.
In verse seven,
he remembers the way
that God delivered
his people
from the Midianites.
In verse 11,
he remembers the way
that God fought
on behalf of the Israelites
as they went
into the promised land.
But throughout this chapter,
the one thing
that keeps coming through
is the way God saved
and delivered his people
from Egypt
through the Exodus
by the blood of the Lamb.
And so throughout chapter three,
he constantly references
God's great salvation
of his people
from slavery and bondage
into freedom
by the blood of the Lamb.
Look at what he says
in verse 13.
He says,
you went out
for the salvation
of your people,
for the salvation
of your anointed ones.
As Habakkuk looks
at the horrifying situation
around him,
he considers the circumstances
and he faces the fact
of what's going on.
That's true,
but he does more than that.
He also lifts his eyes
above the circumstances
around him
and he remembers
the faithfulness
of his God
towards his people.
And particularly,
he remembers
his great salvation.
He remembers
that when Israel
were slaves in Egypt,
God saved them
by the blood of the Lamb.
He remembers
that when Israel
was without hope,
no way of saving themselves,
God came and did for them
what they could not do
on their own.
He remembers
how God defied
the forces of nature,
rescuing and redeeming
his people,
parting the Red Seas
so that they could be delivered
and brought in
to the new land.
Now,
what does that mean
for you and I today?
What is God's word
to us today?
Friends,
if you're a Christian
this morning,
we find ourselves
in a very similar situation
to Habakkuk.
Things are difficult,
circumstances around us
aren't looking good,
the world is full
of difficulty.
The news feed
and the news cycles
are either filled
with wishful optimism
or dire pessimism.
We face the facts,
we consider the circumstances,
but this morning,
God invites us
to do more than that.
He invites us
to lift our eyes
off of the circumstances
around us
and to remember
the God of our salvation.
He invites us
to remember
that when we were dead
in our sins
and had no way
of saving ourselves,
God did for us
what we could not do
for ourselves
by saving us
from eternal death
by the blood of the Lamb.
Friends,
when we were enemies
of God
and under His just judgment
because of our sin,
God was the one
who went before us
and rescued us
and redeemed us
and brought us
into His family.
In Habakkuk chapter 3
in verse 14,
it says,
you take the arrows
of the warrior
and you destroyed
our enemies
with his own weapons.
Friends,
remember how Jesus
went to the cross
and He took death
and He overcame death
by dying Himself.
Jesus died the death
that we deserve
so that we can have life.
Friends,
when Habakkuk prays
this remarkable prayer
at the end of chapter 3,
it's not because
he's a super believer.
It's not because
he's got everything
worked out
and he knows
how to persevere.
This faith
comes from a man
that has wrestled
with God.
A man who's wrestled
in prayer.
A man who's come
to God's word.
But it comes to a man
who has remembered
the great acts
of salvation
and the faithfulness
of his God.
And that faithfulness
that he looks back
upon God's
unprecedented faithfulness
causes him
to look forward
full of faith
in God's faithfulness
to his people.
Habakkuk comes
to the end
of this wrestle
with God
in uncertain times.
And he says,
though the fig tree
should not blossom,
though there be no fruit
on the vines,
though the produce
of the olive tree
fail,
though the fields
yield no food,
even if there are
no flock
in the fold
and there are no more
animals in the stores,
yet I will rejoice
in the God
of my salvation.
I will rejoice
in the Lord.
Let's pray together.
O sovereign God,
you who made
the heavens
and the earth
by your outstretched hand,
is anything
too difficult
for you?
O Lord God,
we come to you
this morning, God,
and we are deeply
challenged
by Habakkuk.
deeply challenged
by this man
who, like us,
God, starts off
so uncertain,
scared,
afraid of
the circumstances
around him,
not knowing
where you are
and what you're doing
in the world,
and yet, God,
when your word
comes to him
and when he considers
your faithfulness,
God, it's like
you breathed
steel into his bones
and you fortified
his faith.
God, we come to you
in the same position.
We come to you
weak, God.
We come to you
afraid.
We come to you
uncertain, God.
And yet, God,
we ask you
to do to us
watermark
and in Hong Kong
what you did
with Habakkuk.
God, open our eyes
to see you,
we pray.
Give us faith,
Lord.
Father, give us
faith this morning.
God, this week
as we go
back to work,
some of us
from home,
as we homeschool
our kids,
as we maybe
stay at home
in isolation
and we are all
on our own,
God, we pray
that you will
draw near to us.
We pray that you
will draw us
near to yourself.
We pray,
Holy Spirit,
that you will
come and fill
our hearts, God.
Open the eyes
of our hearts
to see you
and to trust you.
Father, right now
in our homes
we bring to you
our fears
and our frustrations.
We bring to you
our anxieties.
Christ, come and
minister to us.
Come and have
your way.
Come and help us
to trust you,
Lord.
God, we pray
that along
with Habakkuk
from two and a
half thousand
years ago,
we too will be
able to rejoice
in you.
We too will be
able to find
a deep-seated
contentment,
a peace,
resting in
who you are,
knowing that
you are our
strength,
you are the
God of our
salvation,
you are the
faithful God
that has led
us, God,
and you will
lead us going
forward.
Come, Lord Jesus,
come.
Thank you.