Habakkuk Chapter 3 verse 16 to

Sermon Notes. Habakkuk Chapter 3 verse 16 to 19

If God should take everything in life away from you, would you still love Him and trust Him? Habakkuk 3:16-19

It’s easy to trust God when the sun is shining – your job or business is going well, your health is good, your family is fine, you have food in your fridge, enough money in your pocket to cover the basics.

BUT – what happens when the Babylonians come? What happens when you have prayed your best prayers and believed God in some dark and difficult time for a breakthrough, and He doesn’t answer your prayers, or at least He doesn’t answer the way you had hoped He would?

It’s so easy for faith and trust to give way to doubt, despair, anger and unbelief.

Someone has said this: ‘You will never know that GOD is all you NEED until GOD is all you’ve got.’

Habakkuk knows the Babylonians are coming and when they invade the land they will destroy all the crops, steal all the livestock, strip Jerusalem and the Temple bare of all its treasure and leave nothing behind. So what does Habakkuk say in these last three verses that will speak strength – faith – hope – conviction into your heart and soul? Three words to sum up the last three verses of Habakkuk Chapter 3:

                     REST – REJOICE – RELY

1: REST, v16 ‘Yet I will patiently wait for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.’ Waiting patiently is the opposite of fretting anxiously! Waiting patiently is about resting in God, trusting that He is fully in charge, totally in control of the events of our lives, and that He is working out His loving purposes in those very hardships that we face and go through.

Do you believe that? Will you still believe that when the Babylonians come – when disappointments come, when sickness comes – when your prayers aren’t answered the way you thought they should be answered?

Will you patiently rest in GOD – trust His loving purposes for your life, your future, your whatever?

2: Rejoice v17-18. Basically what Habakkuk is saying to GOD, whatever happens in my life, whatever the future brings, whatever troubles and disasters we will have, no matter what we lose in life – I will rejoice in You LORD.

Happiness depends on what is happening to you, your circumstances. Joy is what flows and overflows from your relationship with the Lord. When everything in life is stripped down and taken away, we want to find Joy in God Himself and NOT in the blessings, the gifts, the good things that He gave us to enjoy.

Even in great suffering and loss, Habakkuk declares that his trust in God and with that trust in God, comes great joy. His JOY is NOT in his circumstances and surroundings – but in GOD Himself.

3: RELY v19

Habakkuk says that GOD will be His strength. GOD will make him confident so that his feet won’t slip and his faith won’t fail, V19. God will enable me to stand on heights and go up to the most dangerous parts of the mountains and NOT be afraid of falling.

Question: Is JESUS Enough for YOU?

Whatever you faced in the past

Whatever you are facing in the present

Whatever you will face in the coming months of this year:

       LOVE HIM – TRUST HIM – OBEY HIM.

Do whatever He tells you to do in His Word and see and receive the Blessings of that in the days ahead.