MISSION WOODS CHURCH
Worship May 22, 2022
      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...

      • Matthew 5–7ESV

      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...
      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...

      • Matthew 5–7ESV

      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...
  • In His Time
  • Have Thine Own Way
  • Change My Heart, O God
  • Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)
  • Grace Like Rain

      • Habakkuk 2.6-7ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.8-9ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.10-12ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.13-15ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.16ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.17ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.18-19ESV

      • Habakkuk 2.20ESV

  • “Uh, Woe!”

    If you joined us last week, you know that we began a three part series on the book of Habakkuk. If you weren’t here, I want to catch you up with a very quick overview:
    The book of Habakkuk was written by the prophet of the same name, it is one of the minor prophets in the Old Testament. When you hear the term minor prophets it is not that they were less important, it means that their books were shorter. Habakkuk was written sometime between 620 and 600 BC. And the author learns that God is going to punish His people using the Babylonians or specifically the Chaldeans.
    Habakkuk was dismayed that God was going to use these people because they are against Israel and have nothing to do with God. In fact they are a pagan and self righteous culture worshiping their own gods, and warring with nations around them taking whatever they desire.
    One of our takeaways last week was that God is sovereign. God is sovereign over those who would seek to give honor and glory to Him, and God is sovereign over those who don’t. God can use anyone and anything to bring about His glory.
    And we spent some time on perhaps the key phrase in Habakkuk,
    Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)
    “... the righteous shall live by his faith.
    Now as you’ve heard, today’s passage focuses on the woes to the Chaldeans.
    Woe is not a word we use much today. In fact just in hearing it spoken you might first think of its homophone, “Whoa!” that we might use to stop the horse we are riding, (at least in the U.S.).
    Here in our text, Woe means “Great sorrow or distress.” God is pronouncing a time of great sorrow or distress upon the Chaldeans. A pronouncement of “Woe” from God declares a penalty for such things and also serves as a command not to do the things that are leading to the pronouncement.
    I sometimes wonder if God’s sovereignty extends to the creation of languages and the fact that here when we read “Woe” unto the Chaldeans we are also see the things we should stop doing - the homophone, Whoa!
    These are penalties for the wickedness of the Chaldeans, beginning at verse 6, we have five of them:
    Woe to him:
    “who heaps up what is not his own...”
    “who gets evil gain for his house...”
    “who builds towns with blood and founds a city on iniquity...”
    “who makes his neighbors drink...”
    “woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise!
    Quickly, let’s go through each of these and recognize how God remains sovereign:
    v. 6-8
    Habakkuk 2:6 (ESV)
    “Woe to him who heaps up what is not his own— for how long?— and loads himself with pledges!”
    The Lord says they will get their due, for in the same way that they took from others, their “debtors will suddenly arise and then you will be spoil for them. The people the Chaldeans have plundered will turn and plunder them.
    It’s sort of what goes around comes around.
    The second woe:
    Habakkuk 2:9 ESV
    “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house, to set his nest on high, to be safe from the reach of harm!
    The Lord says though they may think they’ve insulated themselves from harm it will only bring shame on their home and will forfeit their life.
    The third woe:
    Habakkuk 2:12 ESV
    “Woe to him who builds a town with blood and founds a city on iniquity!
    The Chaldeans have thought they were building this great city, but God says, the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord! (Not the might of the Chaldeans).
    Fourth:
    Habakkuk 2:15 ESV
    “Woe to him who makes his neighbors drink— you pour out your wrath and make them drunk, in order to gaze at their nakedness!
    The Chaldeans are a violent people and they seek to demean those they are against. They seek to bring dishonor to them. And they created idols to worship, their worship leads them nowhere except to themselves.
    Final Woe:
    Habakkuk 2:19 ESV
    Woe to him who says to a wooden thing, Awake; to a silent stone, Arise! Can this teach? Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in it.
    God reminds Habakkuk and the people of Israel that the Lord is the creator and sustainer of life, the living God, there is none “before him.

    “Uh, Woe!”

    So, what are we to do with this?
    It’s important not to separate verses from their context. We read in 2:4:
    Habakkuk 2:4 ESV
    “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith.
    In our considering these woes spoken against the Chaldeans, we need to consider do they describe us either individually or corporately?
    How might our soul be puffed up?
    I once heard of an elder in the church say, “I go to church to be entertained...”
    Truth is, as a communicator of the Gospel, it is helpful to make it interesting, and even fun. Yet as those who are growing in our faith we don’t want to be like the Corinthians who were only able to take milk. We should be growing in maturity and ready for solid food.
    Hebrews 5:13–14 ESV
    for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.
    As followers of Christ, each one of us is to be developing our skills in the word of righteousness - that is in God’s Word. We are to be growing in our powers of discernment trained by the constant practice of following God’s Word to distinguish good from evil. There is a real danger when we get puffed up in our knowledge. In Proverbs we are reminded:
    Proverbs 18:12 NIV84
    Before his downfall a man’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.
    We become big in our own eyes. The Chaldeans were no different.
    They heaped up what was not their own. They sought to lift themselves up by means not honoring to God. They founded towns with blood and cities on iniquity. They drove their neighbors to drink and then took advantage of them. They lifted up idols instead of God.
    Do you see how the Chaldeans constantly turned to their own power instead of turning to the Creator God?
    It was the Creator God, the God who chose Abraham and his descendents to be the people of God.
    From the beginning, way back in the garden it was about a relationship with the living God, not a god made of wood, stone, or metal.
    Think of the things we might worship. We tend to think of them as idols, perhaps a buddha, an icon, a cross on the wall, but what about an object like a car, a building, a house, or even something in nature?
    In reading the 5 woes to the Chaldeans, an evil people in God’s eyes, it’s easy for us to condemn them and not take an inventory of our own lives.
    Again, we come back to the key verse in Habakkuk, a phrase that is repeated by the apostle Paul and others:
    Habakkuk 2:4 (ESV)
    ... the righteous shall live by his faith.
    Too often we can look at the power and structures of evil in our world and become disheartened and even depressed. Think of the sin we see: evil, crime, greed, oppression, debauchery, and idolatry. In the end they are doomed to destruction, but are we sure? Perhaps we even lose faith, “Is this really God’s world?”
    Does God still have control? The answer we get from Habakkuk is a resounding, “YES!”
    God remains sovereign, and the evil that we see around us, and even within ourselves will face its own destruction.
    The evil of this world ultimately will be dealt with. The evil that we see within ourselves as it is brought into the light brings us to our knees in confession and recognition that we are puffed up (individually and corporately: knowledge, politics, economic, social status), and we are not the people that God would have us be.
    Is this really “My Father’s World?” as the great hymn says?
    “This is my father’s world,
    Oh let me never forget
    That though the wrong seems oft so strong
    God is the ruler yet.”
    Our righteousness is not something that come from our own devices. No, it must be pronounced upon us by our Creator judge who invites us constantly into the relationship that will make us the righteous people God seeks us to be.
    Our faith cannot be in ourselves, it has to be put in the only One worthy of such faith and trust. That being the Creator God, maker of heaven and earth and all things visible and invisible.
    That faith must continually drive us to God. It must drive us to listen to God’s Word, and not merely be hearers of the Word, but doers of the Word. It must lead us to examine ourselves the same way we might examine others and be honest in our own need for God’s cleansing in the blood of Jesus.
    Habakkuk didn’t know of Jesus yet, but clearly points us to the righteousness that is God. Habakkuk clearly calls us to follow God’s Word - Jesus was, as John said, “the Word of God” in the flesh. It is only through God’s Word that we are saved.
    Ultimately, our faith is not about us at all, it is all about God’s glory. Because our Creator God is the only one worthy of worship and the only one worthy of glory.
    To God be the Glory! AMEN!
    ​
    ​
    ​

      • Habakkuk 2:9ESV

      • Habakkuk 2:12ESV

      • Habakkuk 2:15ESV

      • Habakkuk 2:19ESV

      • Habakkuk 2:4ESV

      • Hebrews 5:13–14ESV

      • Proverbs 18:12ESV

  • Freely Freely
  • Jesus Loves Me
      • Bible Trivia
        Loading...
MISSION WOODS CHURCH
info@missionwoodschurch.org
(253) 922-5555
http://www.missionwoodschurch.org
27 members • 4 followers