Sermon Title: WHEN THERE ARE MISSING PIECES
Sermon Text: HABAKKUK 1:12-2:1 (NIV)
Sermon Series: HABAKKUK: FAITH IN THE MIDST OF LIFE’S FRUSTRATIONS
By: PTR NESTOR SY
Sermon Notes:
HABAKKUK 1:12-17 NIV
12 O LORD, are you not from everlasting? My God, my Holy One, we will not die. O LORD, you have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, you have ordained them to punish.
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
14 You have made men like fish in the sea, like sea creatures that have no ruler.
15 The wicked foe pulls all of them up with hooks, he catches them in his net, he gathers them up in his dragnet; and so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net and burns incense to his dragnet, for by his net he lives in luxury and enjoys the choicest food.
17 Is he to keep on emptying his net, destroying nations without mercy?
HABAKKUK 2:1 NIV
1 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
Live long enough and you’ll discover that God’s plan and yours often are not the same.
I. REMEMBER WHO GOD IS
The question is not, “Do I believe in God?” but rather
“What sort of God do I believe in?”
God is good . . . all the time.
And all the time . . . God is good.
I am a witness!
II. TALK TO GOD
“Our lives are not puzzles to be figured out. Rather, we come to God, who knows us and reveals to us the truth of our lives. The fundamental mistake is to begin with ourselves and not God. God is the center from which all life develops. If we use our ego as the center from which to plot the geo metry of our lives, we will live eccentrically.” “Run with the Horses”, Eugene H. Peterson
We all end up with God, eventually.
III. HE WAITS ON GOD
HABAKKUK 2:1 NIV
1 I will stand at my watch and station myself on the ramparts; I will look to see what he will say to me, and what answer I am to give to this complaint.
“People say that God does not speak to men as he did long ago. The truer statement is that men do not listen today as they did long ago.”
– J. Sidlow Baxter –
Don’t miss God’s answer because you are impatient.
Waiting is the hardest work of hope.
PSALMS 37:7 NIV
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him; do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes.
We’re all in the waiting business. How we wait on God makes all the difference.
Turn your eyes upon Jesus.
Look full in his wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim
In the light of his glory and grace.
“I’m fine in the things that count.”
Helen Howarth Lemmel
(1863-1961)