March 3, 2024
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Habakkuk 3:16-19
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exposition
What are you facing today? It seems easy to keep the faith when life is good, when all your prayers are being answered, and everything is coming up roses. But how do we keep trusting God when life gets hard? When our prayers seem to go unanswered? When our worst fears seem to be coming true? How can we keep trusting the Lord anyway?
In Habakkuk 3:16-19, after hearing the Lord’s plan to use Babylon to discipline Judah, the prophet concluded his little book of lament with a strong resolve to trust the Lord anyway. We can resolve to trust the Lord anyway.
February 25, 2024
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Habakkuk 3:1-15
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exposition
Even when life doesn’t make sense and God seems far away, we can lament, crying out our questions and complaints to God, believing that He is good and that He will cause all things to come together for good in the end.
Are you hurting today? Are you dealing with grief from a broken relationship? From a lost loved one? Are struggling with a situation that makes you question whether God cares? And if He does, why doesn’t He act? Or maybe the life you always dreamed of and the life you’re actually living are a hundred miles apart and you wonder why God doesn’t intervene? Like, “God, I see all those miracles and great and mighty works You did in the Bible. Would You do it again, Lord in my life? In the book of Habakkuk, when the prophet lifted his cry to the Lord by faith, it turned his lament into praise. We can cry out to the Lord by faith to see our lament turned into praise.
February 18, 2024
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Habakkuk 2:6-20
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exposition
This week, in part three of our God Questions series, we see Habakkuk asking, “Where are you, Lord? What are you doing? I’m confused. I don’t see You at work in this. Where are you, Lord?”
How are we to stay faithful when it seems like God is absent? Even when life doesn’t make sense and God seems far away, we can lament, crying out our questions and complaints to God, believing that He is good and that He will cause all things to come together for good in the end. In the book of Habakkuk, when the prophet struggled with understanding how a holy God could use an evil nation like Babylon, God answered him, declaring five woes of judgement on Babylon. Within these five woes, God encouraged Habakkuk’s faith by helping him understand where God was at work. We can be encouraged in our faith by understanding where God is at work.
February 11, 2024
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Habakkuk 1:12-2:5
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exposition
What do you do when you’ve prayed to God and you don’t like the answer you’ve received? What do we do when God’s answer doesn’t seem to be “yes,” but “wait,” or even more difficult, “no?” That’s Habakkuk. He doesn’t like God’s answer. It doesn’t fit his understanding of God and the world. So now, he has more questions for God.
He even lifts up his “why” questions. “Why Lord? Why would you let this happen?” And “why” questions are the hardest of all. In the book of Habakkuk, when the prophet struggled with why a holy God would allow an evil nation like Babylon to prevail over Judah, the Lord called Habakkuk to trust that His plans would be better in the end. We can trust that God’s plans for us will be better in the end.
February 4, 2024
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Habakkuk 1:1-11
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exposition
Do you have questions for God today? Are you asking, “Lord, how long?” How long before You answer my cry for help? I’m going through a divorce, my wife left me, I’m trying to raise these kids alone… Lord, how long before you send help? I’m hurting. I’m grieving. I’m lonely. Help! Maybe you’re facing a health scare. You’re asking, “Lord, why aren’t you healing me? Or why aren’t you healing my loved one? Or you’ve lost someone. “Lord, I don’t understand why? How long will this sorrow last? How long will this grief linger? Or maybe the violence and strife of this world is filling you with fear, you’re crying, “Lord, how long must we wait for Your return? How long, Lord?”
That’s why the little Habakkuk is so timely today. It teaches us how to cry out in lament to God. In the book of Habakkuk, the prophet cried out his questions and complaints to God believing that He would answer. We can cry out our questions and complaints to God believing that He will answer.
December 18, 2022
SUREFOOTED STRENGTH Even though trials and suffering may come our way, we can depend on the “surefooted strength” of our God. After a long list of “even though” situations, Habakkuk declared his trust and dependence on God to help him not only take the next step, but to “tread upon the heights!” Surefooted strength is
December 18, 2018
SUREFOOTED STRENGTH
Even though trials and suffering may come our way, we can depend on the “surefooted strength” of our God. After a long list of “even though” situations, Habakkuk declared his trust and dependence on God to help him not only take the next step, but to “tread upon the heights!”
Surefooted strength is power with wisdom. It gives us not only the strength to step, but leads us in the path to step. Since the next step is often steeper and more precarious, surefooted strength is also the courage to take it. For the depths are only one false step from the heights and faithful courage is required to move.
Lord, give us surefooted strength today!
December 18, 2017
When I was around ten years of age, I asked my grandmother, “Where did God come from?” And she responded, “Teman.” I remember she got out her big, black KJV and turned to Habakkuk and pointed out the verse to me. Of course, my next question to her was, “Where’s Teman?”
As I grew older, I came to understand from studying the Scriptures that God is eternal and self-existent. As Moses declared, “From everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Psa. 90:2). God has no beginning and no end. He is not “from” anywhere because He is everywhere. He is omnipresent.
Yet, as the prophet Habakkuk praised the Lord, he remembered how God had come to Moses and the Israelites in the land to the Southeast of Israel. This was where God had met with Moses on the Mountain of God, also known by the various names of Mt. Sinai, Mt. Horeb, or “Mount Paran.” Habakkuk was calling for God to come and reveal Himself to Israel just as He had to Moses.
Are you looking for God? Don’t worry. He’ll find you. As the apostle Paul wrote, “He is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:27).
December 18, 2014
Even though trials and suffering may come our way, we can depend on the strength of our God. After a long list of “even though” situations, Habakkuk declared his trust and dependence on God. This is not a response of barely hanging on, endurance. This is not “woe is me,” please feel sorry for me as I scrape by. No. This is things are hard, but we’re overcomers, persevering in Christ’s power. The mountain may be high and the valley low, but we’re leaping from peak to peak with joy and power in Jesus’ Name.
December 18, 2013
The prophet Habakkuk lived in a day when God’s judgment on Judah was about to be carried out via Babylon. In this day when there was no “fruit” or outward reason to be happy, Habakkuk determined to rejoice in God and in His salvation. Happiness is based on a desirable happening, but joy is an unshakeable state found by faith in God alone. The prophet chose joy over happiness. He said, “I will rejoice,” and “I will take joy.” These are the actions of faith.