December 8, 2024 | Faith that Worships

Opening and Prayer

One of the worst things that could happen when you come to church, when you sit and hear music, when you sit and hear a sermon, when you hear communion presented, I think one of the worst things that could happen is that you would sit , you would sit and observe and not participate. I don’t mean that you wouldn’t sing with your mouth. I mean that you would sit and watch other people do things that, that you should be doing. That you would sit and, and evaluate how it goes and how it sounds and and not come expectantly waiting for God to work through the truth of his word, to meet you where your heart is at this week, to invite you and call you.

We just sang an invitation. We sang multiple invitations actually. Come praise and glorify the God who saved you. Come all you who feel weak and unstable. Come adore on bended knee, Christ the lord the newborn king. We have invitations that are there. God invites you through these truths to come and worship Him.

I think one of the worst things would be that we would come, sit in a church service, and not respond to God’s invitation.

So I had a way I was going to introduce this sermon, and I think we’re going to do it differently. Because I think we need to trust the Spirit of God to introduce the sermon that He’s going to preach today. So I want to ask you one question, and then I want to give you a few moments to be silent and just think about that answer. And let God’s spirit guide your thoughts to what he wants you to contemplate at the beginning of this sermon. Then we’ll jump in.

Here’s the question I want you to ask, what characterizes your faith? If you’d be here and say, I have faith in Jesus, what results come about in your life because of that faith? That’s my question for you. I want you just to take a minute. If you want to bow in prayer, whatever you want to do, take a moment of silence and think about that. Let God’s spirit work in your heart.

Father, our hearts are restless until we find our rest in you. This morning, wherever we each are in our personal lives, in our journeys, in our wrestlings and relationships with you, would you give rest? Not just for rest, but would you give rest by giving us yourself? In Jesus name, amen.

Introduction to Habakkuk 3

We’re going to finish up in the book of Habakkuk today. Habakkuk chapter three.

This is how the book ends. I’ll read beginning in verse 16. Habakkuk says, I hear in 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 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.

This is the way he ends the book. It’s challenging to us because he says, If the circumstances were as bad as you can imagine, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

Is that the fruit of your faith? That kind of peace, that kind of worship, that kind of prayer, that kind of confidence? Is that what flows from your faith?

Well, thankfully God doesn’t just throw that out there and tell us to figure it out. He gives us the pathway that brought Habakkuk to this.

The Nature of Evil

First, really in the end of chapter 2, he tells Habakkuk about evil. He says, there’s evil out there and there’s evil inside you and he tells him a lot of things about the nature of that evil.

He’s told Habakkuk how he’s going to address injustice and cruelty and idolatry. He’ll bring Babylon to judgment. But he says Babylon has within itself the seeds of its own destruction, because Babylon is proud. You can see it in chapter 1 verse 11, the end, it says their own might is their God. They worship their own power.

You can see it in chapter 2, the end of verse 5. Babylon’s greed is as wide a shield like death. He never has enough. Babylon can never be fully satisfied. They’re proud, but they’re also empty. They’re proud, but they can’t ever be full. They can’t ever be satisfied. And this is the root of so much evil.

That’s what they did because they were proud. I have to have my luxury and my safety, and I have to be filled, and they can’t ever be filled. So they keep reaching out for more and more in cruel, unjust ways.

Mark this down in your mind. Every idol that you pursue, everything you look to for ultimate satisfaction, Everything that’s not God that you worship will leave you with shaky and empty pride. And insecure pride creates so much hurt and destruction.

We can have this feeling, right? We try very hard to, to cover ourselves up. We try to cover ourselves with our own glory, with our own honor. We say, I’ve got to feel. Beautiful or loved or significant or valuable. And so we do all these things that hurt others and dishonor God. It might look a little strange from the outside.

There was a famous celebrity who said, "When I achieve a new level of celebrity I feel special… for a little while."

That’s the thing that that person is covering themselves with. I’ve got to feel loved and special, this is how I’ll do it. And that covering feels like it works for a little while and then it doesn’t. There was another, a lady named Chris Evert, who was a former number one tennis player years ago. She said this, “Winning makes me feel like somebody. It made me feel pretty. It was like being hooked on a drug. I needed the wins, the applause, in order to have an identity.”

At the root of the evil that he saw in Jerusalem and in Babylon, at the root of the evil that we can find in our own hearts, we find, I’ve got to be worth something, I have this pride, but I know it’s insecure, it’s shaky, I know it won’t last, and so I keep trying to cover myself up with something else, and in the process, I hurt others, I dishonor God, and I find that my heart is still empty.

Trusting God when Life is Shaky

And I want to tell you every time you feel this shakiness, every time you look to something to say, this makes me special. This gives my life meaning and value. And you feel that it’s shaky and it doesn’t really work, that’s not a bad thing. That’s God’s grace to you. Because if it felt like you were secure in the thing you’re using to cover your life up, you wouldn’t look to God.

Last week I used an illustration of if you were in an airplane and had a parachute. Well, which one do you trust? Well, I’m going to trust the airplane until I know there’s a reason to jump out. But if that airplane’s jumping all around and I can look out and see the engine’s on fire, it starts to look a lot more appealing to trust the parachute.

Maybe this morning you feel shaky about things in your life. Maybe your attempts to cultivate and shape your reputation, feel like they just haven’t worked right. Maybe you feel like the things you’re looking to for, for your own pleasure and comfort and security to say, yes, I I’m special. I’m loved all of those things. Maybe they feel really shaky today. Good. Because that’s God’s grace to you to show you something you can trust in far more.

Habakkuk: An Unconditionally Faithful Wrestler

That’s what starts Habakkuk down this path. He knows idols are pointless. He knows that he can’t trust in them. He sees that that’s the root of this evil. God has told him about that. So at that point, what does he do? Well, he come to the beginning of chapter three and we’re going to see the, the prayer of an unconditionally faithful wrestler.

Habakkuk says, I’m not going anywhere else. I know all of this is empty, so I’m unconditionally going to stay here. I’m with God, but he’s wrestling with God. He says, God, why, how are you going to bring Babylon up? Why would you do it this way? But here’s the prayer of an unconditionally faithful wrestler beginning in verse two.

Oh Lord, I have heard the report of you and your work. Oh Lord, do I fear in the midst of years, revive it. In the midst of years, make it known. In wrath, remember mercy.

Habakkuk has been bold and raw and honest with God, but he would never leave. Habakkuk is not trying to appease God by pretending like he doesn’t have any questions.

Like, I think sometimes we do this. We come to God and we have all these wrestlings, but we don’t actually talk to God about it, as if God’s going to give us credit for putting on a good face in front of him. No, Habakkuk is boldly coming. He is asking God questions, wrestling with him, but not rejecting God.

He’s in the middle of unconditionally faithful wrestling. Maybe that reminds you of some other people that we’ve just been through some books about. Peter, remember he says, Lord, where else would we go? You have the words of eternal life. He says, I know all these other places won’t help. So God, I’m not going anywhere, Jesus.

Maybe Job says, though, he slay me, yet will I trust him. No matter how awful this circumstance gets. He’s unconditionally faithful. He knows everything else is empty, and he says, I’m not going anywhere, God. But Job wrestles a whole lot. Peter wrestled a whole lot. This is the prayer of an unconditionally faithful wrestler.

Now that’s a big word, but I want to say this. That’s really just what a believer in Jesus Christ is. To use the airplane and the parachute analogy, the way you know the person doesn’t trust the parachute is they just leave it in the corner somewhere and go do something else. The way you know whether you trust the parachute or the plane is which one will you leave if it comes down to one or the other?

When that plane’s going down, you say, all right, I’m trusting the parachute. You have to leave the plane. And if you’d sit here and say, I really trust with my life, I trust this parachute. But I’m going to leave it over there. We’d say, no, I don’t think you trust it really. This is not super Christians who are unconditionally faithful wrestlers.

These are people whose eyes have been opened. They, they love God. They’re followers of Jesus. And they say, you have the words of eternal life. I’m not going anywhere, but they wrestle. I’m so glad these characters are in scripture because I want to wrestle. You want to wrestle.

They’re not there. God isn’t their God because they put on a happy face. God isn’t their God because they have perfect emotional self control. Aren’t you glad that’s not the standard?

God’s not their God because they’re doing everything right. How many days would you feel confident coming to God if that was the standard? Should be zero.

But we see these situations where Habakkuk comes to God and he says, God, your loyal, steadfast love is there for your people. And I know that. So I’m going to keep right on wrestling.

Knowing the Grace of God through Turbulent Times

He knows the grace of God. You know, if you understand the grace of God, you can go ask him questions.

Maybe you had this experience growing up. Maybe there were times that you knew you could go to one parent or the other and ask a question, and maybe you didn’t feel like you could go ask the other one. Why? Well, you thought they’d understand. You thought they might give you what you want. There’s all kinds of reasons that might actually be the reason. But what it comes down to is, do I trust that this person is for me enough to go ask them a question? Are they going to mock me for being dumb? Are they going to attack me over something? Or do I know their grace enough to go ask questions?

That’s why we can wrestle with God. And if you feel like it’s hard for you to go and ask God hard questions, maybe you don’t know the grace of God as well as you think.

Habakkuk knew. He knew he could go and say, God, what on earth are you doing bringing up Babylon? Because he knew the grace of God and he knew his steadfast love endures forever for his people. So if you know the grace of God, you can wrestle. But if you really know the grace of God, you also won’t go anywhere else.

That’s why it’s the prayer of an unconditionally faithful wrestler. That’s how you deal with. The times in your life when it seems like injustice or cruelty or suffering or difficulty are there and you say I don’t think it’s going to get any better The only way to deal with that is to go to God. You can’t pretend it doesn’t exist.

That’ll never work You don’t have the emotional self control to put it together every day day after day after day after day. But you go and say God, I trust your grace and I want to wrestle with you, and I want to, I’m here, I’m never leaving. But God, I don’t understand, help me to see, and help me to trust where I don’t see.

Habakkuk’s Prayer

And his prayer, if we were going to summarize it in the simplest form, Habakkuk has three steps of his prayer. If you find yourself unconditionally faithful but wrestling, I’m following you no matter what, here’s three things you can pray.

1. Ask for God to Bring Justice and Preserve Life

He tells God that he knows God’s work, and then he says in the middle of the verse, in the midst of the years. Revive it.

Keep doing your work. Well, throughout the book, his work has been bringing justice and preserving life, saving God’s people. So you say, in the middle of this difficulty, God, here’s what I’m asking for. You keep bringing work, bringing righteousness, bringing justice, and you preserve life. When you find difficulties, you’re wrestling.

Start there. When it says this phrase, by the way, in the midst of years, It’s a Hebrew idiom that it means, like, in my time. His point is, I know at the beginning God was righteous. He made things and it was good. I know at the end God’s gonna make all things right. And sometimes we can sit in that middle and say, I know the beginning and the end.

I guess I just have to deal with it right here. No, he’s asking for more than that of God. He’s saying, God, bring justice and preserve life right now in my lifetime. That’s what he’s saying. God, you, you worked back in the great awakening, and God, you’re going to work when we go to heaven, so God, work right now.

That’s his prayer. In the midst of the years, bring justice and preserve life.

2. Help Me Understand, Help Me See

Second thing, in the midst of the years, make it known. God, help me understand. Help me see. When you find yourself wrestling, God, I don’t understand how this can be good. This seems like a terrible situation. I don’t know how this can possibly work out for good.

Take that feeling to God and wrestle with him and then say, God, do your work, bring justice. Do it now. God, I know I may understand in heaven, but pray that God will help you understand now. That’s what Habakkuk does. Make it known. Help me to see.

3. God, In Wrath, Remember Mercy

And then the third request in wrath, remember mercy. Habakkuk says, I know I deserve worse.

Some of you are fond of responding and I love it. You say, hey, how are you doing? Better than I deserve.

I need mercy. And I’ve received mercy. In wrath, remember mercy. When you wrestle with God, you can take these, these three things. God, do your work, bring justice, but preserve life. God, help me understand.

And God, in your wrath, remember mercy. Lord, be merciful to me, for I’m a sinner, like the tax collector prays. This is a good prayer for the unconditionally faithful wrestler. Whether you’re wrestling with evil you see outside of you, or evil you see inside of you, come to God this way. I’m not going anywhere, God. You have the words of eternal life. So, do your work, give me understanding, and remember mercy.

Does that solve all your problems? No, you’re still going to be wrestling. But that’s the prayer of the person who says I trust in this parachute of Jesus Christ more than anything else And I won’t go anywhere else.

Habakkuk’s Vision

So Habakkuk continues He starts with his prayer then from there God gives him this vision Say it’s a vision you have to pick up.

Is it a vision? Is he just thinking about what happened? What happened exactly? I think because you have some language, like in verse 7, I saw the tents of Cushon and affliction. It seems like God has given him some kind of vision, but if it’s not an actual vision, he’s reminded him of these truths. So either way, God reminds him of some truths.

This vision particularly recalls God’s past power and majesty. When he protected Israel from famine, delivered them from Egypt, and then when he delivered them across the wilderness. So let’s read, and I’ll make a few comments as we read. Verse 3, God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran.

Those are both areas south of Israel. The area through which Israel would have come into Canaan. The area where Sinai was. All those, those events. God’s splendor covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.

You know when there’s a sunset, and the orange hues just stretch across the whole sky? That’s the way God’s splendor covers the heavens. It stretches out in a way that it seems like everywhere you look, it’s just a beautiful new shade. That’s God’s splendor, stretched out and displayed.

His brightness was like the light. Rays flashed from His hand, and there He veiled His power. Think of Mount Sinai. When Israel is, is camped around the mountain, and there’s, there’s clouds on it, and there’s lightning flashing, and there’s a veil that keeps the fullness of that power from being seen, but it’s so powerful they’re just terrified of it. That’s the picture.

Before him went pestilence, and plague followed at his heels. We could think of the plagues in Egypt, but we could think more recently in their history of when Assyria comes up and besieges Jerusalem. Before Babylon comes up, And there was no human way that Jerusalem would not be captured, but a plague strikes and Assyria flees. God’s power is displayed for his people over and over.

Verse six, 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.

Think about that contrast. Like we talk about something being old as the hills, Or, or maybe we could, we could take John Denver’s Country Roads. Life was old there. Older than the trees, but younger than the mountains.

Right? We do this. We have this picture that says, okay, this way of life is old. It’s even older than the trees, but it’s not older than the mountains. That’s because there’s nothing older than the mountains in the way we typically think about it.

But this picture is saying something different. This picture is saying, however everlasting you think the mountains are, however eternal you think of them as being, God’s ways are actually everlasting. They make the mountains look like dandelions that grow up and blow away.

So he continues, he says, I saw the tents of Kushan in affliction. The curtains of the land of Midian did tremble. Those people watching from the outside are afraid God might turn his wrath on them. Well, when God parted the Red Sea in the Jordan River, was it because God was angry at the water? That’s the next question.

Was your wrath against the rivers, O Lord? Was that the point? Was your anger against the rivers or your indignation against the sea when you rode on your horses on your chariot of salvation? Now, poetically, he describes the forces of nature are God’s tools to defeat his enemies and save his people.

That’s what he continues with. You stripped the sheath from your bow, calling for many arrows. You split the earth with rivers. The mountains 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. That reminds us of another Old Testament story.

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.

So this vision or memory or both is pointing back to say, I know Babylon’s coming, but I can remember God, you have defeated enemy after enemy after enemy after enemy in miraculous, amazing ways.

He continues, 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 mighty waters.

The Peace of an Unconditionally Faithful Worshipper

Habakkuk starts this chapter with a prayer, and then he sees who God is, and that’s what transforms him to go from the prayer of an unconditionally faithful wrestler to this last section, which is the peace of an unconditionally faithful worshiper.

That’s where I want to ask you, is that where your faith lands? Is that the fruit of your faith? Does your faith bring you to wrestle with God and does it as you see him as he reveals himself to you, does it bring you all the way to this kind of peace, of one who worships God?

Peace through Personal Grief

Well, let’s look at this peace. We read it at the beginning, but what’s the circumstances?

To start with it’s in personal grief. Verse 16, I hear my body trembles. You ever had news so bad that you felt like you were just shaking?

My lips quiver at the sound. We know what it means. We know the serious side. When you’re in the hospital and you hear the wrong news, the wrong report, and your lip starts to shake.

We know the, maybe a little sillier example. My two year old Shiloh when something is really sad and she starts to go, and it’s not really sad, right? From the grand scheme of life.

But we know what that looks like. That’s what he’s saying. He’s saying, I hear this news and it’s so sad and the grief is here. That yes, there’s wonder, but there’s grief. Rottenness enters my bone. I feel weak. My legs tremble beneath me. I’ve got to sit down.

There’s fear. There’s grief. Yes, there’s wonder, but he’s not just like putting on a stiff upper lip. I can take it. I can handle all of this emotional challenge and baggage. I can deal with it. That’s usually the best counterfeit of peace we can muster without God.

You know, I’ve had worse. I can take it is not peace. Maybe it’s strength. At least it seems like it. Maybe it helps you cope. That’s not peace.

Instead, for Habakkuk and for you, sorrow and grief can drive you into God. To show you resources that you never knew that you had. The joy of the Lord enables you to actually feel your grief without it crushing you. That’s emotional health. It’s not to pretend like I don’t have grief. It’s to be able to feel grief, but it doesn’t crush me, because I know my God.

Peace through Economic Disaster

So he has personal grief and it’s well founded. His example in verse 17, he describes complete and total economic disaster. Worse than the great depression, worse than the housing crisis of the 2000s, worse than the the economy of Argentina recently where inflation just dipped below 200 percent per year for the first time in a whole year. Imagine that. We get freaked out at, you know, inflation that’s way less than that.

This is far worse. What he’s describing, he starts with, though the fig tree should not blossom. Figs were delicacies. These are Christmas cookies. These are Crumble Cookies, or Ham and Goodies, or Heidi’s Bakery’s cupcakes, or, like, they’re things you go, these are wonderful, they’re great, but I can really survive without them.

Maybe some of those you feel like you can’t survive without, but you probably can, right? These are luxuries, though I don’t have the luxuries.

Or, fruit on the vine. So any fruit, this is about convenience. It’s on the vine. I can pick it and I can get it and I have it. It’s about health. It’s about enjoyment.

The produce of the olive fail. Alright, so they used olive trees, olive oil, for cooking, like we may, also for lighting. So let’s put it in modern terms, if my utilities no longer work. I don’t have electricity, I can’t cook in my house, and I don’t have light.

And the fields yield no food. The fields are where you grow your barley and your wheat, your staples.

So I’ve got no Christmas cookies, I’ve got no fruit for convenience, health. My utilities don’t work. Now I go to the grocery store, and I can’t buy flour, and I can’t buy eggs, and I can’t buy milk, and I can’t buy bread, because those are the staples.

Fifth one. The flock is cut off from the fold. The flock was one of the ways they kept wealth. And it was goods that you could trade. I’m going to trade this sheep for this. Like, it was your means of barter. Like, your currency system. So now he says, not only are all these things gone, I don’t have wealth and I don’t have goods.

Last one. And there’d be no herd in the stalls. They didn’t often eat cattle. Cattle were used for plowing the field. So even if Babylon goes away, now I don’t have the means of production to be able to make more food.

He’s describing total economic collapse. Where he says, I don’t have the delicacies. I don’t have the convenience of food. I don’t have utilities. I don’t have staples. I don’t have goods to trade, and I don’t have any means to get any more.

You don’t rejoice in circumstances because there are no good circumstances to rejoice in. That’s his picture. So what’s his response? Yet I will rejoice.

Stand in God’s Safety Amidst Danger

Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. Not only is he going to rejoice, it might seem out of place, but it shouldn’t. The last section of verse 19, he makes my feet like the deer’s. He makes me tread on my high places. He, he says, I am going to walk sure footedly on the mountains. Have you ever seen pictures of a, of a mountain side where you have the mountain goat? That’s like way up on this tiny little ledge. And it’s standing on a ledge that looks like it’s like this. And it’s just standing there. If I could even stay up there, I’d be like, you know, hugging the side of the mountain, trying not to fall. And it’s just standing there chewing. It’s fine. You know, I don’t think he has to worry about many predators when he’s up there.

Say it’s really dangerous. Yeah, but it’s also really safe. The high ground was always that way in especially ancient combat. If you had the high ground, you were pretty safe. They had to do something to come get you. That was certainly the area you wanted to defend. Because it’s hard to attack going uphill, and from a hill you can see what’s coming for miles. They weren’t worried about, you know, missiles. It was ground troops.

So what Habakkuk does is he says this, In this kind of total disaster, personal grief that says, I have no hope for this getting any better, and I’m going to starve. Even in that case, I’m He says, I am in the most dangerous place I can imagine, but in the hands of the God whose glory will cover the earth, I’m in the safest place.

And just like the mountain goat, it’s the same place. You’re going to face suffering no matter what, and it always affects you, but how will it affect you? Are you going to be full of fear and anxiety because you are trying to fill up your emptiness and cover yourself with your own glory? The only result there is insecure, shaky pride.

Or, will you walk with confidence because God’s glory will cover the earth like the waters cover the seas, and you can know Him and love Him and be loved by Him.

God’s grace brought Habakkuk from unconditionally faithful wrestling, and as he saw who God was, he had the peace of unconditionally faithful worship. And he said this may seem like the most dangerous thing I could ever be in but to be in God’s hand is the safest place.

How Do I Do That?

Now, I think, maybe you still say, sounds great. I would love that But I don’t feel that all the time. How do I do it?

1. Repeat Your Response

We can get some hints from Habakkuk here. First thing: repeat your response.

Notice in verse 18. He says, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will take joy in the God of my salvation. Do you get the impression he’s trying to talk himself into it a little bit?

No, he knows it’s true. But he feels the grief and he feels the pull and he says, no, I will rejoice. I am going to take joy in the God of my salvation. This is what I am going to do. He’s driving this resolve deeper and deeper by repeating it. Something as simple as coming every day and saying, This is the day the Lord has made. I’m going to rejoice and be glad in it.

It’s a good thing to say, I will rejoice in the Lord, even if you feel like, I know myself and I’m probably going to fail. That’s okay. It’s a good thing to resolve that says, This is what I’m going to do. I will rejoice in the Lord. And when I realize I’m not, I’m going to come back to say, I’m going to take joy in the God of my salvation. Repeat over and over. This is the right response. This is where I’m going to stand.

2. Remember God’s Glory

Second, remember God’s glory. That was all of chapter three. He had this whole description of what God had done and what God would do. He was remembering mainly the exodus. When Israel was brought out of slavery and through the wilderness.

This He was remembering mainly those things, but we remember something different. We remember the gospel where God’s glory and grace is most clearly seen.

So our hearts cry out, I have to be loved. I have to be valuable. I have to have significance. And we try to fill it with all of the things, but at the cross, God powerfully and tenderly calls out to you to say you are loved. To say, I displayed my love for you while you were my enemy. I died for you.

Often our wrestling is built around, can God really bring salvation out of injustice? Well, the cross tells us that not only can God, that’s the main way he brought salvation out of the worst injustice.

And we, we still might feel like, but if everything was taken away from me, this doesn’t feel inspiring. It feels crushing. In my head. I know it’s true in my heart. It feels like I, I can’t believe like that.

But when you look to the one who did have everything taken away from him. Jesus on the cross, he had one possession left his robe, and it was taken from him. He didn’t even feel his father’s love. Why have you forsaken me?

But even while having nothing jesus said my God, my God.

This relationship still exists, even though I don’t feel that love. He was there as unconditionally faithful saying, I’m going to follow my Father in heaven, no matter what. All the way to death. And when we see Jesus doing that and we see him rejoicing in his Father on the cross for us, that will change your heart.

When you really see the glory of God revealed in what he did for you at the cross, that will change you so that Jesus is your treasure. And when Jesus is your treasure above everything else, then you can say, if you take it all away, I trust Jesus. If you take it all the way, I will rejoice in him.

3. Rejoice

So you repeat your response, I will take joy. You remember God’s glory. And then, You actually do it. You rejoice. Now, that can sound like, wait, the way to rejoice is to rejoice? That’s not helping me. So, so let’s make that a little more specific. We treasure it. We value it. We choose it. We savor it.

When I was a kid, and I would have a plate full of food, and I knew there was like one thing I was really going to love, personally, I always ate it last. People do it differently. I always ate it last. And the reason I ate it last was because I wanted that taste in my mouth when I finished. I wanted to savor it. I wanted to enjoy it.

Now, if I thought, I may not eat all this food, then I’ve got a decision to make and I’ve got to figure out, well, when do I start eating the one I want last?

But we make choices around a plate of food to savor one. So, savor your God. Rejoice in him, treasure him, express it in praise. We have to fight the pressures to instead savor the things he listed in verse 17: delicacy, luxury, convenience, power, things we take for granted, wealth, goods, productivity. We’re tempted to savor and treasure all of those and we can receive them as good gifts from God, but they’ll never fill the emptiness that’s within.

If you don’t have a right understanding of Christian hope, you will always be freaked out. You won’t have peace. But if you have the right understanding, you can pray like an unconditionally faithful wrestler, and experience the peace of an unconditionally faithful worshiper. Because you know what Jonathan Edwards knew and said in one of his first sermons. Your bad things will turn out for good. Your good things can never be taken away from you. And the best things are yet to come.

You can worship God no matter what if you have that grace. That grace will give you a faith that results in you asking God, that results in you waiting on God, and a faith that worships, which will fill you with peace.

Closing

I want to invite you just to take a moment. Ask God to work these truths in your lives however He has guided you, whatever He’s put His finger on in your heart for this week, for today, ask Him to fill you with this kind of peace and joy.