Well, here we are, the very first Sunday of the New Year 2020. And I can't tell you how many pastors are preaching on this this morning. You know, 2020 vision. You know, have your 2020 vision. Well, I've got news for you. If you really want 2020 vision, One of our esteemed elders will gladly give you 2020 vision at a very low cost. But it also starts the week of when students at universities and colleges and high schools and elementary schools and middle schools, where they begin along with their teachers asking the question, will I get through this? Will I be able to make this? Some of you are in the midst of this right now. And some of you may remember those feelings. You know, you've crammed so much into your head Subjects are starting to overlap one another. You can't remember which facts go with what class. And you feel like you're gonna explode because there's always those students around who do no studying, but they get the great grades. They're a little difficult to take. If you're sitting next to one of them right now, shun them. And you know, we look at the calendar and whether it's parents, kids, teachers, whatever, these months to the end of the school year stretch out. The only thing I could think of was if you've ever traveled I-80 from Sacramento through Nevada, there's nothing there. You know, the wonderful Bonneville salt flats. Yeah, the vacation spot of the US. I'll be the first one to admit that that's how I feel when we come to this last message in our series on Habakkuk. We've called it Living in the Tragic Kingdom. Back in November, you remember, in early December, we discovered that Habakkuk had not really received the answers from God that he was looking for. The prophet saw the greed, the injustice, the sinfulness that was rampant in Judah among God's people. And he wanted God to act decisively. He wanted God to do something about it regarding their wayward ways, preferably in a manner that Habakkuk gave the stamp to. And Habakkuk, it almost seems was kind of like sounding off at God. Remember we read it was almost like he was questioning God's integrity. He questioned God's involvement, even his ethics. How could God allow this situation to go on? How come he didn't do anything? How could he keep going with seemingly no resolution? You remember how God responded to Habakkuk? He said, I'm going to take care of this. I'm going to dispense my discipline on Judah by sending the terrifying Babylonians to conquer their land and their people. And remember, we discovered how horrified and terrified Habakkuk became because the cure seemed worse than the disease. Oh, you can't really mean that, God, do you? If you haven't been following us with this series, I encourage you to go back to our website, check out some of the previous messages to try to get the whole flow of what's going on here. And you know, to make matters worse for Habakkuk, God did nothing to allay his fears. He didn't say there, there, Habakkuk, everything will be okay. Habakkuk was stunned by God's plan and began to push back. He begins to grumble about, well, God, you know, you neglect here and then you overreach here. And God's response, remember, in a response that sounded like more like talking with Job than anybody else, God reacquaints Habakkuk with his power, with his glory, and with his sovereignty. Do you know who's handling this situation? He reminds Habakkuk. Yeah, I know it's tough. but do you know who's with you? How many of you ever had to take like a high school or college class that you didn't wanna take? Oh, some people didn't raise their hands. I have some problems with you. Yeah, right. Remember those required classes? You know, the ones you had to take, they were outside of your major, outside of your interest, outside of your expertise, but you had to take them, right? Just so you could graduate. You wondered why you were taking the class, the prof proceeds to overwhelm you with work. You're just trying to get a grade, what they call it, a Death Valley grade, a grade slightly above C level, you know? You can't back out, you can't drop out of the class, you have to go through it. This is what God says to Habakkuk. He says, this is reality. Reality is not New Jersey housewives. Reality is not some survivors on a beach. God says, here's reality. My people have wandered, let me change that. My people have not wandered away from me, he says. They've deliberately turned their backs. They want a more convenient God. So I'm gonna allow the reality of life to bring them to their senses. And more often than not, think about it, that's what God does to us, doesn't he? When we treat God like a convenience rather than our Lord, when we see his commands and his attitudes as options rather than something to be obeyed for our good, he doesn't have to whip something up special to get our attention or rearrange our priorities. What does he do? He allows us to follow the present path to its logical conclusion. He says, okay, fine, have it your way. And then down the way, it's a little bit like, well, how'd that work for you? Well, at this point, people say, okay, Pastor Pat, If that's true, where then is this loyal, loving God who delights in us that you've been talking about for two years? Doesn't sound like he's in the room. Well, Habakkuk had gotten a glimpse down that path that Judah was traveling. He began to understand what was happening. But before we go anywhere, I want you to take your Bibles and turn to the last verse of Habakkuk chapter two, okay? Habakkuk chapter two, verse 20. I want us to savor it together. I've got it up on the screen here. And I'd like us just to say it together aloud. Ready? Here we go. Begin. But the Lord is in his holy temple. Let all the earth be silent before him. See, this is where God both begins and ends with Habakkuk. Habakkuk, God says, everything is as it should be. Don't panic. Your sovereign God is on the throne. Now, remember we said the word that silent meant? Shh, shh, be quiet. Just listen. Just listen. I watched some of you parents and I'm reminded of my own children. They were with us for Christmas. We were very excited, except they're much bigger than they were. We used to be able to get all four of us on the couch. I sat on the floor during Christmas. But your kids, they'd run up. They'd be so excited that you couldn't tell them something. And so what would you say? You'd go, shh, shh, shh. I want you to listen. I want you to listen to something. And that's what God says in Habakkuk, because it's after the hush that God's response. And God's response is not what most people imagine, because all through this process of lament and responding and reframing, Habakkuk has begun to see things differently. Let me ask you, and don't raise your hand, do you see things differently now than when you first became a Christian? Has it become clearer? Has it come into focus a little bit better? That was what was happening with Habakkuk. Because for us whose life is more navigating the tragic kingdom rather than the magic kingdom, Habakkuk's response to God at this point is gonna be a great template for our own responses when we wonder, when I wonder if I will get through this. Look at chapter three, verse one. He begins this way, just kind of gives it a title. A Prayer of Habakkuk the Prophet on Shigayon. When you wonder if you're gonna get through this part of the seasons of life, you begin with a prayer for mercy. Habakkuk says, I begin with a prayer. Here's my prayer. Now at first glance, it may seem a little strange place to start, but remember what, Paula read, look down at the very end of verse 19, like below verse 19. It says, for the choir director on my stringed instruments. See, this was not only a prayer, it was a prayer that was set to music. The word shigayon there is somewhat obscure. We find it in the Psalms also quite a bit. And the word itself comes from a verb that means to reel to and fro, to kind of move back, back and forth. It seems like this was a song of enthusiastic irregularity, or for you who are musicians, how about this word, syncopation, right? It was just this bouncing back and forth, this enjoying. They used it for songs of triumph, songs of victory. And again, with a repeated term in there, there's another term there, the term sila, which means to contemplate or stop or rest for a moment. It seems that this prayer may have become a song that was used in worship. People would actually sing this. Now, it's also a strange place to begin when you wonder if you'll get through things because we're much more comfortable rather than praying, telling God how to get us out of the predicament. See, we're much more comfortable, rather than listening to God, kind of telling God, saying, God, you know, if you only do this, this, and this, then everything will be okay. And there'll be no problem. We don't care how we got there. We don't care what God's trying to do. We just want an escape hatch. But what we need is mercy. Now what is mercy? Mercy, here's a simple definition for you, ready? Mercy is not getting all that you deserve. Okay? What is mercy? Mercy is a 35 minute sermon and not a 55 minute sermon. Okay? Some of you just looked at your watch, didn't you? I can't believe you did that. Mercy is not getting all that we deserve. See, mercy presupposes that you and I understand where we've messed up and the consequences of our sin. When we cry for mercy, we're saying, I get it, God, I understand. See, Habakkuk is beginning to see that need. See, we evangelical Christians, we tend to be very sloppy with our prayers. We think prayer is a private concern except for those anointed few like Jonathan who we ask to come up and pray. We're so enamored with spontaneity that we wind up ignoring content. We don't focus on what we're saying. We're more focused on the feelings that are aroused or what we're going to get. I want you to look at the content of Habakkuk's prayer. It begins in verse two there. Verse two, we read, Lord, I have heard the report about you and I fear. Here's the first aspect of it, is that there's a recognition of God's person and work with an appropriate response. Habakkuk begins there. He doesn't begin with, God, please bless the Pygmies and the Los Angeles Lakers and my cousin. He begins there. The New International Version reads this way, Lord, I've heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds. So just like Jesus in Matthew 6, in his model prayer, he starts with God. See, it's easy to start with our circumstances. Why? They're just pounding on us. They're just hurting us all the time. But progress is made when we start with God. Now I realize that, quite frankly, if something's pounding on you, What's your first thought? Get that hammer away from whoever's pounding on you, right? But one of the marks of maturity is when we say, listen, more than this thing that's pounding on me, that's hammering me, is God. If I start with him, he reframes everything. It shows that we're beginning to understand our life from his perspective. Verse two continues this way. Oh Lord, revive your work in the midst of the years. In the midst of the years, make it known. Not only is there a recognition of God's person, but he prays for a revival of God's work in his time. The NIV says, Lord, repeat what you've done. Repeat them what you've done in our day. in our day, make it known. Now this may seem like a bit of a foul ball at first. You know, if God is always at work around us, then why do we have to pray for revival, okay? I mean, if he's always doing that, why do we pray for it? Is it kind of like God took a lunch break and, you know, we're hurrying him back from his union mandated lunch break and come on, God get back with it? I want you to circle a phrase here, okay? Circle the phrase, make it known. He says, God, I want you to make it known what's happening. See, that's how you revive something, is you become aware of it. One of the bad habits of humanity is we have a tendency to forget, right? We have a tendency to consign some important events, some important ideas, some biblical concepts to a time long, long ago and in a galaxy far, far away. It may still be going on, in the present or have present implications, but our awareness of God's work has waned. We don't see it, we don't talk about it anymore. Now when I was a kid growing up, we used to have, being in a small Baptist church, we used to have an evening service. And that's because we Baptists were twice as sinful as everybody else and we had to have two services. But the evening service would always be the testimony service. And it was supposed to be the idea of give a testimony of what God has done. It was amazing as a kid, because you tune into these things, how the same things were just said over and over and over again. The old guy over there was gonna talk about how, ask God please clean up the cobwebs in my life. And we kept thinking, Lord, don't worry about the cobwebs, kill the spider. You know? And what got lost, and what's kind of even lost today, is a sense of, hey, what is God doing in your life? How's he working? What's happened new? If his mercies are new every morning, as Jeremiah wrote, hey, God, help us to be aware of this. See, what we do is, I know I do this, I become more focused on my needs, my future, my priorities, my issues, my plans. I forget that when I acknowledge Jesus as Savior and Lord, when I say He's the forgiver of my life, He's the leader of my life, I've made a switch in priorities. I no longer call the shots. And when that happens, that causes anxiety in a lot of people. Because we suppose that God is not really capable of looking out for our best interests. It's more like this. Yes, I trust God in the big things. Like our national policy toward China. Like, you know, the senatorial elections, but actually trusting him with my life, that's getting a little personal. That's why some Christians feel like they have to help God out. They have to kind of give God a little boost, or at least come up with some plan when God doesn't follow through, and we wind up living literally as practical agnostics. Yeah, we think God is there, but we just don't live like it. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew 6.33? Remember that? Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness. When your feet hit the ground in the morning, the first thing we think is, God, what is your righteousness today? How's it gonna be displayed? What's about your kingdom? And then notice the promise. All these things will be added to you. Everything else falls into place. We get it all mixed up. Every morning when I get into the church office, I do a little schedule. I do a schedule on what I'm gonna do for the day. On the right-hand side, I have all my appointments that I have. On the left-hand side, I have some things that let's say I always do on Monday. And then I add some things that are supposed to be taken care of. And I'm fascinated with how I can choose the most unimportant thing to do, you know? because I can get it done and it's fun. And I leave the real important stuff and I don't get it done. God says, if you put me first, I'll order that for you. And then Habakkuk finishes with these words in verse three, in wrath, remember mercy. The content of Habakkuk's prayer contains a recognition of God's person, It includes a call to revival of God's work in our time, and it contains a remembrance of our real need, our need for mercy. Our concept of wrath is kind of like this, right? I know, some of you are looking up there going, I have no idea who that is. Ask your kids or your grandkids, that's the Incredible Hulk. And what happens when the Incredible Hulk, whose alter ego is Dr. David Banner, you know, what does he do? When he gets angry, what happens? He turns into this big green monster, this out of control monster that just, you know, smash everything. And we tend to think God's that way. When we read about the wrath of God, that God just comes like barging into a room, just knocking things over and he doesn't care who he hurts. But let me give you a different picture of God's wrath. Ready? Here it comes. It's God's holy and loving response to sin. Get that again, some of you missed it. It's his holy and his loving response to sin. See, God knows that sin deals us a bad hand. It takes us down a path that we don't wanna go. But we're so habituated by it, we kinda think we can get away with it. God comes along and says, no. No, I'm gonna deal with that. It's his consistent, his just response to sin. It's as much an activity as it is an emotion. All throughout the book of Habakkuk, the recurring theme is that God doesn't trifle with sin. He doesn't mess with it. We play with it. One of my favorite stories, and I can't remember the punchline, so I can only go so far. But as the mother who lived with three kids in kind of a backwoods situation, and she was out working, and she came back in, and the mom kind of came into the room, and it was kind of dark, and the kids, they said, mom, look at the new kitties we got. You got it, they weren't kitties, they were skunks. And the mom's scream set them off. Okay? I just have no idea where I was going with that. Skunk. Nope, okay. What happens is kids are petting and playing with the skunks and all of a sudden it lets loose. And we do that with sin, don't we? We think we can cuddle and coddle it. Oh, I don't need to be as holy as deacon or elder so-and-so because I've got it wired. until the sin skunk lets loose. For Judah, sin brought discipline through the Babylonians. For the Babylonians, sin brought ruin. Historically, Babylon just crashed. The request for mercy acknowledges that Habakkuk finally understood his precarious position. He was no longer the arbitrator of justice. He was no longer the one who decided things in the world and in his life. Instead, he saw himself as he really was. He was the defendant. He was the one who needed saving. He was the one that said, Lord, have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. When we don't, when we wonder where we're gonna get through this, we begin with that prayer of mercy. Lord, how do I get with this? How do I get through this? Then we follow it with this. We follow it with a focus on the presence of God. I pray for mercy and then I begin to focus on the presence of God. Look at verse three. It kinda shifts gears here, so hang on here. God comes from Timon and the Holy One from Mount Paran, Sila. always cracks me up, you see what I mean, stop and think. And the only thing that I can stop and think at this point is, I have no idea where Timan and Mount Paran is. But what this is is Habakkuk has requested revival and awareness of God's presence. And so what he's gonna do is he's gonna take people back to how God has worked in the past. And he begins with God's appearance in Israel's history. And the names Teman and Paran, Teman was a desert oasis in the area of Edom. If you can kind of think of a map of the Holy Land, Paran lies kind of between the region just south of the Dead Sea, okay? And that was Teman. Paran lies west of there, between the Sinai Peninsula to the south and what's called Kadesh Barnea to the north. And this was the area where God had performed many of his wonders as he led his people into the Promised Land of Egypt, out of Egypt, into the Promised Land. He says, this is where God showed up. Now see, remember, and please get this in kind of in your head, that all through Israel's journey in the Exodus, they were getting to know God more and more. See, we tend to think that what happened is that, you know, Moses, Charlton Heston, you know, and people went through, yeah, we know everything there is to know about God. But if you remember, they were always falling back into sin, they were always messing up. And their understanding of who this God was had to grow and mature and kind of stumble forward. And look how Habakkuk summarizes God's appearance in these times. These are very poetic words in Hebrew at the end of verse three. God's splendor, his splendor covers the heavens and the earth is full of his praise. His radiance is like the sunlight, his eyes flashing from his hand and there is the hiding of his power. Before him goes pestilence, plague comes after him. In other words, he controls those things. He stood and surveyed the earth. He looked and startled the nations. Yes, the perpetual mountains were shattered. The ancient hills collapsed. His ways are everlasting. Habakkuk said, I saw the tents of Cushon under distress. I saw the tent curtains of the land of Midian were trembling. It's kind of like some great tidal wave coming, or you who play music, a crescendo, right? It starts very softly. and then it builds. It doesn't just jump, it builds and builds and builds and builds into something magnificent. That was God's revelation of himself as it grows. Now, most of you know I'm not much into poetry, but I do love some of the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning. And I wrote it out for you in your bulletin, your outline, because it really captures the scene. Look at it with me. She writes, earth's crammed with heaven, every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries. I first ran across that poem as a high schooler. I had no idea what it meant. All I knew was that I knew that I better remember it because it would be on the exam. And then I got the imagery here. That often what happens is we come into just the things of the earth and we forget that it is really, as Browning put it, a common bush of fire with God. And those who recognize it, we respond to it. It's important. And the rest, it's just a blackberry bush. It's just simply that. I focus on the presence of God. What is that about God? That excites me. And then Habakkuk's attention is now drawn from the awesome appearance of God to a description of his acts on earth. It starts in verse eight. This section is introduced by a series of questions that served to give life and vitality to the message, provoke the readers to think about its implications. Start with me in verse eight. Did the Lord rage against the rivers, or was your anger against the rivers, or was your wrath against the sea, that you rode on your horses, on your chariots of salvation? Your bow was made bare, the rods of chastisement were sworn, Selah. In other words, what he's saying there is God's motive, his majestic power was seen in his actions in nature, among the nations, against his enemies. You cleaved the earth with rivers. The mountains saw you and quaked. The downpour of water swept by. The deep uttered forth its voice. It lifted high its hand. Sun and moon stood in their places. They went away at the light of your arrows, at the radiance of your gleaming spear. What you did with creation and everything was just, literally Habakkuk was saying, I'm having a hard time describing it. He goes on, verse 12, in indignation you marched through the earth, in anger you trampled the nations. Whenever you see words like indignation and anger or wrath when it comes to God, ask yourself this question, at what? At what? Some of you may have grown up in households where wrath and indignation and anger were a way to manipulate people in the family. We had to be careful around mom or dad because they would just go off. And what did we do? We transfer that to God. And that's not God. In indignation, you marched through the earth. In anger, you trampled the nations. Why? You went forth for the salvation of your people. That's why you were angry. You went to save your people, the salvation of your anointed. You struck the head of the house of the evil to lay him open from thigh to neck, Selah. You pierced with his own spears the head of his throngs. They stormed in to scatter us. Their exaltation was like those who devour the oppressed in secret. You trampled on the sea with your horses on the surge of many waters. If you're a good Hebrew at that point, you think back to the song of Moses in the book of Exodus at the end of the Red Sea experience. God is serious. Now, the reason I stopped there is every time I practiced this this week, and I said, God is serious, my phone went off. And Siri answered me. God is not Siri. God is serious. Okay, good, we got that. God is serious about who he is, what he does, and whom he loves. He's serious in defending his righteousness. In fact, he's much more serious about this life and eternity than we are. He's serious about what happens to us. Hey, you remember driver training? Some of you do. Back in the day before they consigned it to some company, we used to have it in schools. You had a driver education class and you had a driver training class behind the wheel. And some teacher who either needed the really small stipend or who drew the last straw, they would teach it. And you'd get in the car and there'd be three buddies in the back and you and the driver, and you would just rotate through there, right? And that driver training instructor, Mr. Schmickrath, I remember his name, He would, yes, you're right. There'd be this continuous instruction. There'd be the warning and warning. Every time we rotate, he would just go over the same things over and over and over again. What were we thinking? We're driving! Yes! And the world is our oyster. You know, we can do anything now. We're driving, us 15, 16 year olds. Isn't this great? And Mr. Schmickrath is going, okay, my life insurance is, You know. He was a lot more serious about it than we were, probably fearing that we were gonna be on the road in a few weeks. God is the same way. I focus on the presence of God when I wonder if I get through this because he's serious about our lives. Look at Habakkuk's reaction in verse 16. I heard and my inward parts trembled at the sound, my lips quivered. Decay entered my bones and in my place I trembled. That's the realistic response to what he had heard. He didn't minimize, he didn't rationalize about what God had said. He said, because I must wait quietly for the day of distress for the people to arise who invade us. I have to go through this. Write this down, ready? This is worth the price of admission for you this morning. God will make a way. Habakkuk says, I see now that God always takes the long view of life. He's sovereign, he has power. He'll make a way through all this stuff of life. You may not see it at first. You may not see the way through. We may be so consumed with what's happening to us that our sight turns inward, but God will make a way through the issues and circumstances of life. And my focus will determine, do I see that way? So when you wonder if you're gonna get through Begin with a prayer for mercy. Then follow with a focus on the presence of God. And then you continue finally with a trust in the person of God. Look at what Habakkuk declares in verse 17. Ready? I love this passage. Paula, you read it beautifully. Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food. Though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls. In other words, Judah, this is as bad as it gets. This is the worst case scenario. This is the worst thing you can run into. Look at verse 18. yet I will exult in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. Sometimes when I'm working with a person or a couple that they're dealing with overwhelming anxiety or depression, one of the things that I do is I have them imagine the absolute worst that could happen. Because until they imagine that, they don't see the assets. They don't see their asset. They move from depression, they just move down. And once they've gotten down to the bottom, oh, the worst that could happen is my insides could explode all over the place. Okay, great. That might happen. Now what assets do you have? Habakkuk declares, yet in spite of everything I just described, I'm gonna praise the Lord. I'm gonna have joy in the God of my salvation. Years ago, Chuck Swindoll used an illustration. I'm gonna read a quote from him. I don't wanna go into the full illustration, but it had to do with the great violinist Paganini. And you may have heard this. Paganini was quite a showman. He was the Justin Bieber of his day, I think. Something like that. What he did in one concert is that basically as he's playing along, his strings break. Three out of the four strings break. Now some people accused him of filing the strings so they would snap. But Paganini came to the beginning edge of the stage when everybody was laughing at him, held up his violin and said, Paganini, in one string, and proceeded to finish the whole concerto. And Chuck Swindoll, talking about attitude, writes this. Words can never adequately convey the incredible impact of our attitude in life. The longer I live, the more convinced I become that life is 10% what happens to us and 90% of how we respond to it. He goes on to write, this may shock you, but I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It's more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude is that single string that keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there's no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, no challenge too great for me. Yet I will exalt in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. And then verse 19, don't miss that one. The Lord God, literally the sovereign Lord, is my strength. He has made my feet like hinds feet. Your translation may say deer's feet. He makes me walk on the high places. See, deer's feet are really specially constructed so that they're able to walk very, very narrow paths on very high places. And he's saying here, the image here is he's made me all that I need to be to survive this. I want you to underline the phrases here. He is made and he makes me. See, for most of us, when we come to the end of our resources, our strength, our reason, our plans, we fall into despair. I do that way more than I like to. I am trusting God as long as I have plan B, C, D, and the rest of the alphabet. That's not trust. The follower of Jesus realizes far before that time that it's he who gives us strength. It's he who gives us wisdom. It's he who plans our steps. It's he who supplies our needs. When I wonder if I'm gonna get through this, I continue with trust in the person of God. Would you read aloud with me this important and poignant verse that Paul wrote? Ready, begin. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen. When I ask, when we ask, when I get through this situation, this circumstance, this problem, this season of life, I begin with a prayer for mercy. I follow that prayer with a focus on God's presence. And then I put my trust in God alone to make a way through. Father, thank you for this morning and the time in your word. I thank you for these people, these my friends who are such wonderful listeners. And I pray, Father, that you would seal to their hearts this day what you have spoken to them. That, Father, what has been my folly, as I've spoken, would be forgotten, and that your declaration would extend, take root in their lives and grow. Father, we're all traveling those difficult roads. None of us have it easy. And Father, a lot of us, we just allow ourselves to get distracted, get pulled off. Thank you for your grace bringing us back, your Holy Spirit going and chasing us down and putting us on the path of righteousness. We thank you, Father, that when we cannot see well, you become our vision. You become the one who sees for us.