Well, I would invite you to turn in your Bibles to Habakkuk chapter three this morning for our Old Testament reading. Habakkuk chapter three. We'll be concluding this three part series in the book of Habakkuk. And as we read, hopefully you'll hear some of the same phrases and ideas that we just sung about in Psalm 77 as Habakkuk gives us this song in chapter three. Habakkuk 3, starting in verse 1. Hear now God's word. A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, according to the Shigia note. Oh Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work, oh 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. God came from Taman. and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His splendor covered the heavens, and the earth was full of His praise. His brightness was like the light. Rays flashed from His hand, and there He veiled His power. Before Him went pestilence, and plague followed at His heels. He stood and measured the earth. He looked and shook the nations. Then the eternal mountains were scattered. The everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways. I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction. The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your wrath against the rivers or your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation? You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountain saw you and writhed. The raging waters swept on. The deep gave forth its voice. It lifted its hands on high. The sun and moon stood still in their place at the light of your arrows as they sped at the flash of your glittering spear. You marched through the earth in fury. You threshed the nations in anger. You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked. laying him bare from thigh to neck. You pierced with his own arrows the heads of his warriors, who came like a whirlwind to scatter me, rejoicing as if to devour the poor in secret. You trampled the sea with your horses, the surging of many waters. 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 the people who invade us. Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail, and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls, 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. to the choir master with stringed instruments. This is the word of the Lord. Now, please turn to well, actually, we will not be reading Colossians. Please turn to Philippians chapter four for our New Testament reading this morning. Philippians four, starting in verse four, Philippians 4 verse 4 says this. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, Whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you. I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I know how to be of being in need, For I have learned in whatever situation I am in to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. This is the word of the Lord. Let us pray. Blessed are You, God of our Lord Jesus Christ, Father of glory. Blessed are You, eternal God, the source of all wisdom and all knowledge. Lord, as Your Word is read and preached this morning, we ask that You would give us a spirit of wisdom and of the revelation of the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Enlighten our eyes, the eyes of our hearts this morning, Lord, that we may know what is the hope to which we have been called. Reveal yourself to us, we ask you by your word and spirit, for we can only know you if you make yourself known. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ, what is your story? What is the story that defines you? I know it sounds maybe a little trite to our ears to be asked this question. What is your story? For most of us, when someone comes to you and says, what's your story? It's just a very polite way or a very maybe trendy way of saying, you know, what's what got you to this point? What is your background? Tell me a little bit about yourself. But I would argue that we do all truly have a story. And I'm not just speaking again of a series of events, a series of things that led you to where you are now, but we all have a story. And by that, I mean we all have an overarching story or an overarching narrative that gives shape to our life, that gives meaning to the individual events of our life. And Habakkuk as well has a story, but as we meet him this morning in chapter 3 as we've considered him over the last few weeks. Habakkuk's story, his narrative, is starting to crumble a little bit. Up until this point, you know, he would define himself as, I'm one of God's people, I live in God's holy land, God has called me out of, you know, from the lands around me, God has saved me, and yet now as he is facing exile and along with the people of God as they are facing exile, they're perhaps wondering if the story that they've told themselves about themselves is true. They're trying to make sense of their past, their history, in light of their present circumstances. So you'll recall in chapter one of Habakkuk, Habakkuk cries out to God. He has this complaint to God. He was asking God to do something about his situation. And then in chapter two, we are given God's very powerful and complete answer to Habakkuk's situation. So now this morning, as we read in chapter three, we now have Habakkuk's response to what God has answered him. And as we hear this response, which is in the form, as you probably saw, in the form of a song, as we hear this this morning, we want to hear it as God giving us a story. So as we consider this text this morning, we want to hear it with this theme that God, through the prophet Habakkuk, gives a song to his people by which they and their story are shaped in the midst of exile. Again, God gives a song to his people by which they and their story are shaped in the midst of exile. So the first way this morning that we want to look at how this song that is given, you know, through the words of Habakkuk, but ultimately by God, how it tells us a story is that first it restories or reshapes the story of our past. We see as this text starts in chapter three, Habakkuk, just like he did in chapter one, Habakkuk comes to God with a petition. He comes to God in verse two. He says, Oh Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work. Oh Lord, do I fear? And then he goes on to say, in the midst of the years, revive it in the midst of the years, make it known. And essentially what Habakkuk is saying here at first, he's invoking God's history of his past mighty works. He's saying, God, I've heard all the stories about you in the past, the stories that we have recorded for us in the Bible, in the Old Testament. And then he goes on from there to say, God, I've heard what you've done in the past. Now, please, I'm begging you do the same thing now in the midst of the years as another way of saying now in my present age, do the same thing that you have done before. And then he concludes that plea as after he's asking God to work in the same way that he has worked in the past, he says in wrath, remember mercy. This is kind of pointing back to what God has told him in chapter two. You'll recall these woes that God has given to Habakkuk. And basically, God is saying, I am going to bring about judgment on the nation of Babylon. And so Habakkuk is saying, Lord, in the midst of this wrath that you are about to bring on Babylon, please, just as you have done in the past, please remember your mercy. Please remember your mercy and your faithfulness to your covenant people. And then after he recalls or says, God, I know about all the stories that I've heard. I know about all the ways that you've worked in the past. Habakkuk, then in the form of a song, Habakkuk begins to retell the story of God's mighty deeds. Starting in verse three, he begins to tell a story. Basically, he begins to sing a story. In verse three, he says, God came from Taman and the Holy One from Mount Paran, which to our ears, we don't know what these geographical locations are, but these would have been very recognizable to God's people. And essentially here, Habakkuk is introducing the very famous story, the very central story of the Exodus. First of God's delivering his people out of the land of Egypt and then bringing them through the wilderness, in particular, bringing them through this land where they would have seen Mount Sinai, Mount Taman, and then Mount Huron, this land of wilderness. So he's saying, God, you came from the desert, you came towards Egypt to rescue us, and then you brought us into the desert. And yet perhaps as you've heard, and even as we looked at Psalm 77 and this song this morning, Habakkuk is not just giving a bare retelling, a recounting of the events of the Exodus. He's not just saying this happened and this happened and you brought us here and then here as we read in the historical books, but he is actually retelling it with some added significance. He is telling it almost as an epic story, an epic tale of what God has done in the past. We could even say here, as he begins, starting in verse three, moving forward, he is actually mythologizing the story of the Exodus. And we see this in two ways in this text, that he is adding this layer of mythology or epicness to the story. First, we see that he describes God as this divine warrior figure. That God, we see he comes, he doesn't just come in the cloud and the fire, but he comes, he says, in this chariot, that he comes as this mighty warrior coming down from heaven in his chariot. He speaks about him as having these arrows that he's using to shoot down the enemies of God. These arrows which we see elsewhere are allusions to the lightning and the thunder, this mighty theophany, this appearance of God among his people, that God comes as this warrior to defend and to fight against his enemies. Not only is God shown here as this divine warrior figure, but we see that God is fighting not just the Egyptians or not just the different nations that the Israelites were working their way through in the wilderness, but God here is actually battling. He's doing battle as this divine warrior against the various gods of the nations around Israel. the nations that they had to work their way through. In verse five, we see as it's referring to the Exodus event, or as it's actually referring to the plagues against Egypt, it says that before God went pestilence and plague followed at his heel. Pestilence and plague here actually being references to the gods of pestilence and the god of plague, that God is basically subduing them and using them for his purposes. Or going on to verse eight, was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your wrath or indignation against the sea? Again, he's referring to these supposed gods, right? The god of the rivers, or the god Yam, the god of the sea, this mighty, mysterious god that had to be defeated. And Habakkuk is saying, you defeated, you fought against these various gods. And as I said, he's adding this mythological layer, he's retelling this story as a myth that might cause concern, it might cause us to ask questions, because when we hear the word myth, we think fable, right? We think something that is not true. We think of the myths of the Greek gods, Greek mythology. But here, myth doesn't mean untrue, but really it's just a way of retelling the story with these epic visual imagery This way of retelling a story that actually adds meaning to the story. We do this in our own time and place. If you've ever seen the portrait of George Washington crossing the Delaware, then you have seen a mythologizing of history, right? This picture of George Washington standing very, you know, proudly on this boat with his eyes facing forward. Everyone's rowing, you know, everyone's working hard and they're crossing this icy river. And, you know, if you were actually there on the scene that day, that's probably not what it looked like. By painting, whoever painted this portrait, they're retelling the American story and adding meaning to it, right? This was, you know, the cusp of this very important battle, this very important turning of the war, and it's showing the bravery, the, you know, the preparedness of these American soldiers as they're about to face this intense battle. We do this. We mythologize our history. We add meaning to our history. We reinterpret it to show what the true meaning actually is. And this is what Habakkuk's doing. He's saying this is what really happened, that God put these false gods to death, that he attacked these false gods, that he came as a divine warrior to conquer these enemies. And then from there, Habakkuk begins to tell more of the story of Israel. He goes on from the Exodus. He talks about the conquest of Canaan in these terms. He references even stories in the book of Judges in verse seven. He references Kushan and Midian, so references to Othniel's judgment or judgeship and Gideon's judgeship. He even goes from there, he mentions the conquest of the time of Joshua. You'll recall in verse 11 that time when God caused the sun and the moon to stand still in the sky. And then he even goes all the way from there to in verse 13, he references the salvation of your anointed one, which is a reference to the kingship, to David himself, that he's basically tracking the history of Israel in these epic terms and saying, God, you have been delivering us. You have been conquering our enemies all the way from the Exodus, all the way through the establishment of your king, your King David. Essentially, he's saying this is all one big story that, you know, this one, these individual events are actually part of one big story of God's conquest of his enemies. So Habakkuk first, he said, I've heard about you. I've heard these stories. And then he begins to recount these stories and tell about their significance. And yet there's a switch that we see in verse seven, something really, he says something very strange in verse seven. Habakkuk says, I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction. The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Well, I don't think you need to know much about Israel's history to figure out that Habakkuk could not have seen these things, that Habakkuk did not see the Exodus. He did not see the time of Joshua. He certainly didn't see the time of the judges, which he is referring to. And yet Habakkuk says, I saw when you did these things. So you might be wondering how can Habakkuk, who lived hundreds of years later, say that he saw all these amazing works of God? Well, actually, this is not an uncommon thing for him to say. This is actually a very common way of speaking in scripture that people can, especially in the book of Psalms, that people will recount events that they were not personally a part of as if they were there personally. Even thinking back to the very beginning, when God brings his people out of Egypt, he's preparing them, he gives them the commandments to celebrate the Passover meal. And we see in chapter 13 of the book of Exodus that it says that later on when you perform this Passover meal, your children will say, what's the significance of this meal? And the answer that the parents were supposed to give is, well, when God redeemed us out of Egypt, this is what he did. when God redeemed us personally out of Egypt. Obviously, the assumption is they weren't there personally, but as God's people, God delivered them out of Egypt. So this is a way that scripture speaks very frequently. And it is a way even we see in the New Testament of speaking about our own experience. And the way that we can say this, the way that Habakkuk can say this is not just because he's really imagining hard that he's putting himself into that time, but he's saying this as a statement of faith. That he is saying by faith he sees these things as if they were actually happening, that he was there by faith. And when we look back at our own past, what do we see? How do we interpret those events? Well, God here is calling us to interpret those events as if we were there, as if God was doing that work for us. So we see as Habakkuk is recounting these stories, he's not simply just saying, you know, this is something that happened a few hundred years ago and here's my situation now. And how does this thing apply to this thing? But Habakkuk is here saying that this is my story, that this is something that God did on my behalf. And in particular, he is saying that we, as God's people, have been drawn in to a much larger story. It's not just about there's this story and then there's our story, but we have been brought into one grand narrative of Scripture. It's very common in our own day to think that the world around us is just this blank canvas, that we ourselves are a blank canvas, and basically our job in this world is to find meaning out there in the world and to apply it to ourselves, that we simply need to find something that's really important and latch onto that thing, and in doing so, we gain meaning for ourself. What this passage tells us and what God's Word tells us is not that we need to go out and find meaning, but that God himself has placed us into a story, that God himself, if you will, stories us as his people, that God gives meaning to our lives. It's interesting to note in this story, it's a very easy question to answer, but who is the main character in this story about Israel's history? Well, I mean, Israel's not even mentioned really once here as a character doing something, but the story here that is being retold, it's Israel's story, but it's basically the story of God. God is the only and the primary actor in this story, and yet it is this story, Habakkuk says, that is his story, that is the story of God's people. You might be thinking, yes, it's important, perhaps, to find something bigger than ourselves, some story that is bigger than us that we can latch onto, that we can find our meaning or our value in. And there are certainly a lot of myths, right, in the sense of this big story that gives meaning to our lives. There are a lot of myths that we can attach ourselves to. There's the myth of nationalism, the myth of communism, of environmentalism, of the American dream. You can go on and on of these big stories that we can attach ourselves to and find meaning in them. And it's not just that there's this big story that Habakkuk wants us to connect ourselves to, but it is the type of story itself that is important, that there's a type of story that we need to hear and that we need to be drawn into. As J.R.R. Tolkien says, he has an essay on fairy tales or fairy stories, and Tolkien talks about the different elements of a story, what makes a great story, And Tolkien argues that there is only one true myth in this world, and that is the Christian myth. He's using that term, obviously, a little tongue-in-cheek, that the Christian myth is this one true story that gives shape and gives meaning to our life. And so we want to consider why this story is necessary. What type of story do we need to give us meaning? So that's the second thing we want to consider this morning. First, there is a story that restories us, but it is a particular type of story. Habakkuk even asks this question, he's starting to think or wonder what type of story am I telling? What type of story, what is God doing in this recounting of this narrative? And we see in verse eight, he even asks God rhetorically, was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was your anger against the rivers? Was your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses, on your chariot of salvation? So he's basically asking, what is God up to in this story? What is God's purpose? What is God's driving motivation? Any good story has some sort of internal motivation that moves the story forward. And Habakkuk here is saying, what is God up to? What is he doing in the world? Is it simply that he wants to wipe out these foreign gods, that he wants to be victorious against these foreign gods? And as the story continues, as he continues to tell the events, there is a turn in the story. That the story begins almost to unravel, if you will. That it goes beyond just these mythical elements, these epic elements of the story. And it seems almost to, at least at first reading, it seems to stop making linear sense. That it's not quite clear where the story is going. For example, in verse 12, if you're thinking about this in terms of Israel's history, Habakkuk says, you marched through the earth in your fury. You threshed the nations in your anger. You might be wondering, when did God thresh the nations in his anger? When did God march through the entire earth in his fury? And actually what's happening here is Habakkuk now is not looking back at the previous events of Israel's history. He's actually beginning now to look forward to what God will ultimately do in history. that he's talking here about the final judgment that God is not only just going to conquer these foreign nations, he's not only going to, you know, defeat Egypt, but he is one day going to wipe out all of his enemies. And then he goes on in verse 14, you know, you pierced with his arrow or you pierced with his own arrows, the head of his warriors who came like a whirlwind to scatter me. Again, this reference to himself. More than likely, this is at least an aside reference to what Babylon is doing, that Babylon was talked about as this whirlwind, as this force that just will sweep up the whole world. And yet here, interestingly, Babylon is almost an afterthought. It's almost like a footnote in this story. He goes right past, he tells about the past of Israel, and then he goes right to the end. He basically just mentions Babylon in passing. He goes right to the end when God is going to finally bring about victory. So we see here in this story that there's this bleeding of the present reality of what God's gonna do with Babylon, but ultimately he's saying that this is when God comes in the end. And the point here that we want to see as we're thinking about what type of story is God telling to his people, is that we want to see that this story or this history, and in fact all of history, is redemptive history. That term, redemptive history, is basically a way of saying that, if you flip it around, that's the history of God's redemption, the history of God redeeming His people. And what God wants us to see in this song is that all of history, all of human history, is redemptive history. And the story that God wants to tell is summed up beautifully in one verse in this song in verse 13. If you want to summarize not only the story of this song, but also the story of history, you just look at verse 13. Habakkuk says you went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. So the summary here of all of human history, the summary of all the events, both in our lives, but in the events of all human beings, is this, that God went out for the salvation of his people, for the salvation of his anointed. And this is not only the story of this song, but this is the redemptive story of the Bible, starting all the way back in the garden that God, right after the fall, the first thing God says is, I'm going to bring about a redeemer. I'm going to bring about one who will bring salvation to his people. And then you trace that through the story of the Bible, through the Exodus, as God redeems a people out of Egypt. Trace it even through Babylon, as God is saying, now I'm going to deliver you out of the hands of the Babylonians. And then as the story points forward, I'm going to bring about this ultimate and final redemption of you, of the whole world, of all of my chosen people. And when we think about this term, you know, redemptive history, it's, I think it might be a little bit of a misnomer or we might think about it in the wrong way because often we think of it simply as a, you know, an interpretive tool that we use to interpret the things of the Bible that, you know, redemptive history is just a way of seeing the discrete events of the Bible and making sense of them. And yet again, I want to stress that it's not just that this is a filter, that this is a way that we look at the world or the way that we look at Scripture, but Again, all of history is the history of redemption. This is the way of making sense of the world. This is the story of the Bible. This is the story of the world that God is redeeming his people. Say it another way, this is the way that God has always worked in the world, that God's purposes have always been the redemption of his people. So that gives added meaning. As Habakkuk begins this prayer, it gives clarity to what he's saying. He says, God, in your wrath, remember your mercy. Habakkuk is basically saying there, God, I know it seems like you're all about judgment, that your goal is to wipe out your enemies, is to bring about justice in this world, but please, God, in the midst of that, please remember to be merciful to your people. And yet with this story, the song tells us is that God's judgment in the world, God's wrath in the world is always for the sake of his mercy, that the purpose of God doing these things is to bring about the salvation of his people. And we see this, you know, this theme throughout this song, verse eight, was your wrath against the rivers, Lord, was your anger against the rivers, your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses, on your chariot, of salvation. The rhetorical answer, obviously, to that is when you were attacking these enemies, when you were defeating these false gods, the purpose was that you came for the salvation of your people. Even again, verse 13, when you went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed, you crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. that in crushing the head of the wicked, which points back to that promise all the way back in Genesis, that God would crush the head of his enemies, that he would crush the head of the snake. The purpose of that was to bring about the salvation of his people. And it is, you know, as we're thinking about that question, what kind of story do we need? It is truly this type of story, the story of God's redemption that we need because it is this story that can only offer true perspective on our present struggles. As Habakkuk concludes the story, as he wraps up telling basically the story of human history, we see in verse 16, he says, I hear, right? You know, I've heard the story. I see this kind of prophetic view of the future. He says, I hear and my body trembles. My lips quiver at the sound. So Habakkuk, as he hears the story, and yet as he's also facing what's about to happen to him and to God's people, he says, you know, essentially, I'm shaking in my boots right now, God, I'm trembling because of what I've heard and because what's about to happen. My lips quiver at the sound of what I've just heard. In other words, Habakkuk is not ignorant, even as he's hearing this great story, he's not ignorant to his present reality. Sometimes the way that Christianity or the Christian story is often perceived as it's kind of an escape from reality, that it's just a way of, you know, of placating us or making us feel better in the midst of the hardships of this life, that it's a crutch or that it's some sort of medicine to help us feel a little bit better. Habakkuk here is not shying away from the real problems of his life. He's saying, you know, I know it is going to be hard. I'm terrified right now of what's before me. But he says, and at the end of verse 16, Yet I will quietly wait for the day of trouble to come upon the people who invade us. So this shows us that is that we do in this world, we have real sorrow, we have real struggles, we have real fears, real issues that we face. And yet the story that gives these things meaning is that redemption is coming, that God, I know that this is what I'm facing, but I will wait quietly for your salvation. And he goes on in this, perhaps one of the most beautiful prayers in the Bible in verse 17, though the fig tree should not blossom nor fruit be on the vine, the produce of the olive fail, fields yield no fruit, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls. Again, these are true things. These are true statements that Habakkuk is saying, that these things are more than likely going to, or actually historically do happen to the people of God, that they are taken away from their land, produce, that they're goods, that all that they have are stripped away from them. So again, it's not shying away from the truth of this and saying, yeah, that's all going to be fine. He's saying these are real things that we're facing. And so we have here, even in our own life, we often have these two seemingly conflicting realities at times, that there's this thing that's before us that seems hard, that seems terrible, that seems insurmountable. And yet the truth here that we need to always have in mind is that God will save his people. And that again, that is what ultimately shapes us. We can be shaped by our failures. We can be shaped by the lack of things that we feel that we ought to have. In modern terms, maybe we don't deal with the lack of blossom on the fig tree, but we may say, Lord, maybe my 401k is not as padded as I would like it to be. Maybe I'm not as financially successful or financially stable as I would hope. Maybe my family or my Living situation is not what I would like, but Lord, despite all these difficulties, despite perhaps health difficulties, Lord, you will save me. You will bring me through this thing. That's what Habakkuk says is, yet, in spite of all of these things, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. So if that's the type of story, that it is a story of redemption or a story of salvation, then the last thing we want to see this morning is not just the story itself, not just the type of story, but the form that the story is given is meant to re-story us, that is meant to shape us in a certain way. Maybe you were struck by this, maybe not. It seems a little bit odd to me, but we've been reading this prophecy and then right in the beginning of chapter three, we are presented with a song, So maybe that's a little bit strange to you that, you know, why does a song show up here in the middle of nowhere, right? Even if you look at the heading of it, you know, a prayer of Habakkuk according to the Shigi note, the concluding line, right, to the choir master with stringed instruments. This is very out of place here. This belongs in the Psalter. And it is. This is a song that is supposed to be sung just like a song from the Book of Psalms. You know, think about it. You're about to go into exile. You're about to face uncertainty. You're about to face, you know, real pain and real suffering. What do you need in that moment? Well, we would probably think we need some sort of, you know, vigorous, you know, encouraging speech, right? We need some sort of theological treatise that's going to explain all of our problems. And yet God, what God decides to give to his people as they're going into exile is he says, the thing that you need right now is a song. You need a song to sing. It seems perhaps strange to us. You can imagine, even as these people are going into exile, as they're on this weeks-long trek through the desert, making their way to Babylon, you can even imagine them singing this song over and over again. So again, what do we need as we struggle with our faith, as we struggle with uncertainty? What is it that God thinks that we need? Well, God says, you need to sing this song. You need to hear these words and you need to sing them as yours. This is called Habakkuk's Prayer or Habakkuk's Song, but again, it is God's song that he gives. And it is not just Habakkuk's song, but it is the song of God's people. This was a song that would have been sung just given the headings, given the instructions to the song. This would have been a corporate song. This was a song that the church, that God's people would have sung together. So again, why a song? Why do we need a song in the midst of faith struggles or in the midst of exile? Well, the principle behind it, I think, at least in part, is this, is that we, as people, as human beings, that we are formed, we are shaped, we are given meaning by what we repeatedly do in this world. That what we repeatedly do, what we habitually do, gives meaning to our life. And this happens on a day-to-day basis, just in our regular, everyday life. The world always is shaping us in a certain way. Perhaps as we live our lives in the world, we are shaped as a consumer, as a worker, that we are defined by what we do on a day-in and day-out basis, what we produce in the world. Perhaps we are shaped by the things that are lacking in our lives, what we don't have, that we see over and over, I'm lacking in this area, and this begins to shape who I am, this is my identity. Our sin, too, can shape us. This is who I am, that I'm defined by these habitual sins in my life. And so we begin to learn that we are, over time, we are what we do in many ways. That we are the narrative that we repeat to ourselves over and over and over. So what do we need in this world as we are shaped in a certain way by the world? We need a counter narrative, a counter story to shape us in a new way. And this is what we do every week. This is what we do on Sundays as we are being re-storied week after week by the same story that we hear from God's word. And this shapes us against what we hear from the world. And yet the story that we hear week after week is not just information, it's not just telling you this is what happened in the past, but this story is recounted, it's read, we hear God's work of redemption throughout history, throughout scripture. This word is proclaimed over us. This is not just a story, but this is our story. This is proclaimed as this is what God has done for you. And then week after week, we respond in praise by singing these words to you together. We sing that these are our words. This is our story week after week. And so as we. Hear this story from Habakkuk this morning. God proclaims to you this day. What is your story? Is this that God has redeemed you, that God has saved you. That is what is most true about you. That once and for all, God has saved you. And we know this not just because of what God has done even up to this point in Israel's history, not just that he has defeated the enemies of Egypt and the enemies of the nations, But most of all, God has shown us our story, shown us his salvation by sending his son to die for us, to save us, to redeem us. Again, read the summary of God's work in the world. In verse 13, Habakkuk says, You went out for the salvation of your people, for the salvation of your anointed. You crushed the head of the house of the wicked, laying him bare from thigh to neck. Couple of things there. One, you know, that promise there or that that echo of the promise from Genesis, that someone would come to crush the head of the wicked, that is accomplished by Christ, that Christ is the one who comes to crush the head of God's enemies. And even here where it says that God comes for the salvation of his anointed, or you could read it as through his anointed one. that he comes for salvation through the one whom he has anointed, of course, speaking at least in shadow to David, that he is the king that God has established to bring salvation to his people. But again, ultimately, that the anointed one, that the one that God had has called to accomplish the work Christ himself has come, that he has delivered us from our enemies. so congregation of the Lord God this morning and every week as we come to worship God gives us a new story which is funny because it's just it's the same old story week after week but for us it's a new story every week it's a way of remembering this is who you are and often as we hear this story especially as we hear it week after week as it becomes kind of familiar to us we often can think like Habakkuk thought, that, you know, Lord, I've heard about these things that you did. I heard about what happened 2,000 years ago on a cross. I know that that's true. And yet in worship, as we rehearse these things, we don't just say, I've heard about these things, but we have seen these things. Every week we get to see God's mighty works of redemption. We see them, if you will, by the hearing of faith, and we see them with the eyes of faith, which is Weirdly, it's through our ears, but we hear the story every week and by faith we grasp that this is our story. We see it not this morning, but regularly we see it in the broken body and blood of Christ as we partake of the elements of the Lord's Supper. We see this is what God has done for you. God has given you a new story. Again, so often we think that, you know, there's this thing that happened to Jesus a few thousand, 2,000 years ago. And sometimes we wonder, how does that thing that happened in history affect me? What's the connection there? And yet it's more than that. It's more than just a thing that happened in the past that we ought to believe. But again, this is our story. I'm going to read Romans 6 to us. Paul says this. In verse three, do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried, therefore, with him by baptism into death. in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. So it's not just that there's this event that we look back on and that we remember, but Christ's story has become our story, that we have died with Christ, we have risen with Christ, that we are united to his story, to his very person. And that is what ultimately defines us. It's a story that I love. A pastor told me once about a college campus, a Christian college, and they had a series of chapels. And during those chapels, basically, instead of teaching on a certain passage or going through a book of the Bible or something, they decided that for the semester, that each of the professors would go up and share their testimony. That that would be the chapel message, was them sharing their story of how they came to faith. So week after week, people would say, you know, this is how I became a Christian. This is what God did in my life, which is great. Testimonies can be a wonderful thing. And yet one of the professors was a little bit, you know, a little bit bothered by the assignment. So he decided to do something a little bit differently. So this professor went up and when it was time for him to share his testimony, he said, I was born 2000 years ago. And then after I was born, I lived a completely sinless life. I completely kept God's law. I was blameless in every way. And then I died on a Roman cross. And then after I died, I was buried. And then three days later, I rose from the dead and I'm seated at the right hand of the Father. And then he went off stage. Maybe a little bit cheeky, maybe a little bit inappropriate, but you get the point that his story, his point was that his story is Christ's story, that he is hidden. His life is hidden in Christ. And so if our story, right, the grand narrative is what gives meaning to our life, then this is your story, Christian. Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again. What is most true about you is what is proclaimed over you every Lord's Day, that Christ has died for you. So let us believe that this morning, let us sing that by faith, that God has redeemed you and that God will preserve you to the end. Let's pray. Our gracious Heavenly Father, we give you thanks, Lord, that you have brought us out of ourselves, out of the meaninglessness of our own stories, Lord, and you have brought us into the perfect and complete work of Christ. Lord, you have accomplished all that was necessary for our salvation, and we thank you that even now in the midst of difficulties and struggles, we can look forward to the day when you will make all things new. May you bless us and encourage us this day. In Jesus' name, amen.