A Questioning Faith

There are many questions in life, and many go unanswered, don't they?

Why do evil people prosper while God-honouring people go hungry?

Why do honest workers so often get the promotion, while less honest people climb the ladder in front of them?

Why do so many couples who desperately want kids remain childless?

Why do generous, godly people sometimes go backwards financially, while selfish, seemingly selfish people go get rich?

Why do the poorest nations on earth so often also experience frequently the most brutal weather conditions?

That video we were going to show here, but if you check up, check the newsletter, you will see, and that video is all about exactly that.

Workers in other countries, and they're dealing with the consequences of brutal weather conditions, together with poverty.

These are questions we ask, and maybe the biggest question of them all is simply, why doesn't God seem fair?

Would anyone agree?

This is a question that we do ask, and we have people who are exploring faith around us, and they're asking the same question.

Why doesn't God seem fair?

Well, we're in the book of habakkuk, first chapter expertly read to us by Max, and taking a little break for three weeks, Lord willing, from the book of Romans.

habakkuk is a book which deals with some of these issues.

Let me read from verse 2.

How long, Lord, must I call for help?

habakkuk says.

But you do not listen or cry out to you.

Violence, but you do not save.

Why do you make me look at injustice?

Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?

I think we could say these words in a prayer today, just like these were uttered 2,700 years ago.

The prophet habakkuk is looking all around him as history plays out, and he's thinking about his world view, his belief system.

He's thinking, okay, I believe in a God who is on the throne of the universe, running everything.

He is completely sovereign.

And we, the people of Israel, we are his people.

And he has promised to look after us and bless us.

And yet, things look very much out of control.

The people of Israel are suffering.

Other nations are rising around them.

And so there's this plausibility question that habakkuk is wrestling with.

It's one of the big questions that many of us have come to in our lives, and many of our friends have, who have since walked away from faith.

The plausibility question.

When I look at the reality of my life around me, and what I'm meant to believe, what I think I believe, what I think the Bible says, that and the reality, and the tension becomes too much, and it's like, I'm out.

I can't cope with this anymore.

I'm going to embrace unbelief, not belief.

So this is some of the tension that we're going to explore in this book.

Let me give you a little bit of context of the book of habakkuk.

It's one of the 12 minor prophets.

Some of the other minor prophets are Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.

And guess what?

We know the least about habakkuk, least.

But we do know that he lives somewhere around 600 BC.

If anyone remembers, of course, you've read it without Bible Loop, but some of us did the Bible Loop series 4100.

And we looked at 1 Kings, 2 Kings and 1 Samuel, 2 Samuel.

And on the whole, corrupt and wicked kings of Israel in the north and Judah in the south.

Well, this is the end of the line of the wicked kings of Judah in the south.

habakkuk was a temple musician who became a priest and then a prophet.

And so all around habakkuk, he is witnessing and seeing violence, corruption, fights and godlessness.

And into this environment, the Lord speaks.

Interestingly, the Book of habakkuk doesn't give us any example of habakkuk, the prophet speaking to the people.

He just talks to God and God speaks back to him.

God says to habakkuk, my people are becoming increasingly wicked, and so I am going to use an even more wicked nation to bring judgment upon them.

And habakkuk, as we will read, is really quite incredulous about this.

He's like, that's a bit unfair, isn't it?

And then we watch habakkuk wrestle with God over these issues.

And that's what his name means, wrestle.

The text begins the prophecy or oracle of that habakkuk, the prophet, received.

Oracle means utterance or doom.

It also means a burden.

So habakkuk has been given a burden to carry.

And he says in verse 3, Why do you make me look at injustice?

Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?

Destruction and violence are before me.

There is strife and conflict that abounds.

Therefore, the law is paralyzed and justice never prevails.

The wicked hem in the righteous, so that justice is perverted.

habakkuk doesn't want this message.

He's like, God, I don't want this.

I don't want this task.

Because he's struggling with the perceived fairness or unfairness of God.

Can I ask you a question?

Are you allowed to say comments like this to God?

Do you get punished if you question and talk to God like that?

The answer is yes.

You can bring all the questions you have to God.

And no, I don't think from scripture, we could find an understanding that you get punished for asking them.

Would anyone agree?

It's okay, because God is the only person in the universe truly, that we are totally confident.

We can come and be our complete authentic self.

We can be as raw and honest as we need to be, and be completely safe, because guess what?

He knows our heart anyway.

He knows what's the honest truth, so we might as well be honest with him.

Amen?

Isn't that a good thing to remember?

He knows your heart.

There's no reason to lie about what you feel before the one who sees everything.

And it's important to remember that a third of the Psalms are about questions, hard questions, where the Psalmist is saying, God, what's going on?

Of course, it's the Book of Lamentations, it's the Book of Job, a whole lot of questions.

And isn't it fascinating and encouraging that when our Lord Jesus hung on the cross, at that epicentre, that point where he took the wrath of God, the punishment of God upon him, in the moment of him fulfilling his life's mission, he asks a question, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Isn't that profound?

Are we allowed to ask questions?

Yeah, you bet you are.

The Lord Jesus did hanging on the cross, but he went through with his calling.

This is a helpful little graph, I think, if we could bring it up.

It's about the dip.

Point A represents when a person becomes a Christian, they make a commitment to Christ, their sins are forgiven, they are converted, and life is grand, they repent of their sin, and normally, you will experience a wonderful sense of cleansing and freedom, guilt being taken away, life takes a turn for the better.

It sort of moves up towards B.

And at the point B, there is a sense of victory in a new Christian's life.

They kick this or that habit.

Are you connecting with these thoughts?

And even more than, not more than that, but as well as that, the Bible is alive.

The Spirit of God is doing wonderful things in our lives.

And some of them seem trivial, but you pray for a parking spot at Westfields.

Boom, he's there.

You hop in the car, you turn on the radio.

It's your favourite God worshipping Jesus' honouring song.

It's like, man, this Christianity stuff is cool.

You're just walking with the Lord and just things are going well.

And then, I don't know if this has ever happened to any of you.

Of course, I do know it has.

It heads downwards a little bit.

Not everything is perfect in this following Jesus' life.

Financially, maybe things start going a little haywire.

Relationally, things aren't so good.

Something is going on health-wise with your kids.

And you can't control it.

It's a bit out of your control.

And maybe it's your parents or other loved ones or yourself.

You have an issue with health.

And it's scary.

And at point C, often there's a crisis of belief because it's like, whoa, I thought you were the boss Lord God and I was your person.

And just like habakkuk is asking the question, there's a tension between what you're seeing in life and what you're hoping for and believing for.

And at this crisis of belief, we normally do one of three things.

You can choose in your mind to go back to point B.

That's probably called positive confession.

It's like, I'm not going to listen to anything negative.

I'm just going with the positive.

I'm a new creation and faith.

I'm just going, and more power to you, if that's where you're heading right now.

It's not that Glenn McGraw was a Christian that I'm aware of, but I remember him being interviewed on Enough Rope, Andrew Denton.

Does anyone remember Andrew Denton's Enough Rope?

I'm going to ask that tonight and no hands are going to go up.

Andrew Denton's Enough Rope was an interview show and Enough Rope was a line that meant, I'll give you enough time to tell your story.

And he was interviewing Glenn McGraw, Australian fast bowler, and Glenn's wife Jane, and Jane had cancer.

And they're talking about the process and the fight that they were living through.

And I remember Andrew Denton said to them, because it's this type of interview, he said, do you ever talk about death?

And Glenn, who's a champion Australian fast bowler said, we don't entertain death.

Death is not on the cards for us.

We do not even think about it, let alone talk about it.

And you know why the pink test is the pink test?

Because unfortunately, Jane did die.

Now again, I'm certainly not criticising in any way a robust belief in a positive outcome.

But that's, it doesn't always work out.

But that's one thing you can do, just say, I'm going to be positive no matter what, even though things are heading in a direction that is not real great at all.

Or some people, people, they decide from C, not to go back to B, but they go back to pre-A.

Pre-A, it's like, if God is not going to come through and fix my life, I'm out.

Years ago, I was doing a discovery group.

We were working through the gospel for seekers.

There were three men who were interested in Christianity.

And only one of them ended up becoming a Christian, ultimately.

But one of the men was, he worked for Ansett and then Quantus.

And he was so close.

He was so close to faith.

And then the Bali bombings happened, and he had good friends that were in the Bali bombings, that had lost their lives.

And I remember saying to him, you okay with this?

How are you going with, you know, faith?

And he was very angry.

He just said, if God is like that, I want nothing to do with him.

And he walked away, and he's not the first person to do that or the last.

So you can go back to B, or you can go to A, pre-A, and say, look, I'm out of this.

Or there is another option, and the other option is that you head down to D.

You keep moving.

And you realise something that going to point D is par for life.

It's par for life.

Helen's a new golfer.

She started playing golf next to her son-in-law, Ash, who's a mad king golfer.

They could tell you about what par means in golf.

It means that most people who are okay at golf will hit.

If it's a par four, they'll hit a shot up the fairway.

Then they'll hit a second shot on to the green, and then they always give you two putts.

And they call that par.

They're just saying, that's what you should expect.

Most of us golfers don't experience that.

But apparently, par is what you should expect in golf.

What I'm suggesting is the dip is par for life.

The dip is what we just should expect.

In 2 Corinthians chapter 1, Paul writes, God has allowed you, he's talking to the people at Corinth, God has allowed you to go through really challenging things in life.

But it's so that in the midst of the challenge, you will find God and he will give you comfort, the God of all comfort.

And when the God of all comfort comes to you in your need and gives you the comfort you desire and seek, you will then out of that place of finding God be able to comfort others with the same comfort you received.

What 2 Corinthians chapter 1 tells us is, God will allow us to go through very challenging seasons of life that will look like that dip.

But he's at work in us in a way that he could never be at work in us without the dip.

Amen.

He's doing something.

And as we find by trusting God and looking for the grace that is available in the dip, we find we have more resilience with God than we thought.

And we find a capacity to keep believing and keep serving and keep testifying and keep telling other people to look to Jesus as well.

So I wonder where you are at at the moment.

I wonder, A, B, C or D.

On April the 4th this year, I was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, which was a pretty yucky thing to hear.

And it came from a shake in my hand, a mild tremor, and we were watching that for about six months and hoping that it wasn't Parkinson's, because you know, you sort of think this could be it.

Anyway, so we went and I discovered that there were diminishing rates of production of dopamine in my brain.

That's how they worked it out.

They said, you take Leverdoper, a drug that adds dopamine, takes away the shake, you've got Parkinson's.

So we, as you could imagine, we have done some grief about that.

The doctor said it was early stage and very mild.

But it doesn't change the fact that you're on a course that's scary.

It produces in us fear.

And so we are reminded in this season that we walk through at the moment, that we're not in control, but God is.

And the neurologist tells me that it should be, it should be, from everything he sees, a very long runway of progression.

So it shouldn't affect our lives too much for some time, many years.

And certainly my hope and prayer is it doesn't affect ministry at church here.

So we are in the dip at the moment.

And so are you, many of you.

We find ourselves in the dip.

Well, habakkuk is at point C.

He's at point C, and he is wondering what his options are.

God says to habakkuk in verse five, Look at the nations, and watch and be utterly amazed, for I'm going to do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.

Remember, the context is, habakkuk is confused because he's part of the people of God, and Genesis 12, one to three said that God would bless Abraham's descendants.

They would be God's unique people.

And yet in the midst of this blessing, there's just not a whole lot of victory going on.

And so he's again, he's reflecting.

I don't see it, habakkuk cries.

And then God says, well, let me give you something to think about.

This is what Max read for us, verse six.

habakkuk, I'm raising up the Babylonians, that ruthless and impetuous people who sweep across the whole earth to see his dwellings, not their own.

They are feared and they're a dreaded people.

They're a law to themselves, and they promote their own honor.

Their horses are swifter than leopards, fiercer than wolves at dusk.

Their cavalry gallops headlong.

Their horsemen come from afar.

They fly like an eagle swooping to devour.

They all come intent on violence.

These are not good people.

Their hoards advance like a desert wind and gather prisoners like sand.

They mock kings and scoff at rulers.

They laugh at all fortified cities, but by building earthen ramps that they use to capture them.

Then they sweep past like the wind and go on.

Guilty people whose own strength is their god.

God is up to something which is a mystery.

He is sovereignly working in ways that no one expects.

He has a strategy.

He says, I'm going to use the Babylonians to bring judgement on my people.

habakkuk is astonished.

habakkuk is doing his best to hold on to faith in the midst of questions.

And that's the tension we live in, isn't it?

God, I have questions, but I want to be faithful.

And this is the story of habakkuk.

It's the tension we found in Mark chapter 9 when we were wandering through at different times the Gospel of Mark.

I wonder if you remember the story where Jesus meets a father who has a son who has been affected by an evil spirit.

And it's been affecting this young boy for a long time, and the father comes to Jesus, and he says something like, if you can, could you do something?

And do you remember what Jesus says back?

It's like, if I can, if I can, where's your faith?

Anything is possible for someone who believes.

And you can imagine the father going, oh.

And his response is very much like, well, he says, could you help my belief?

I'm just struggling.

And I think if you read into that story a bit, I think it's fair to say, he's like, I've been believing for a miracle for a while.

We've tried everything.

I'm just worn out.

I'm worn out, Lord.

Can you help me have more faith?

Help me believe.

Well, the Bible says that God won't tempt us beyond what we can bear, and many of us hold on to that and are encouraged.

I wonder if sometimes we just need to say to the Lord, I think I'm beyond what I can cope with.

I think I'm beyond.

Interestingly, this morning was a bit of a dog's breakfast in the practice.

Not because of the band's fault, but just because of the audio.

From the wedding, things have been in different places, and we're trying to...

And even Chris came down and said, it's not streaming.

And I think it was my fault.

Maybe I was meant to make sure it was on, so we're running out there while we're singing worship, and there's no streaming, and I'm in my office up there trying to find...

I think Ben from his honeymoon must have done it because I didn't get it solved, but it came.

So thank you, Ben, if you're watching.

Sometimes we get to the point where we are beyond our capacity.

Often, often we do.

And God turns up in that space.

Wasn't it wonderful worship?

God's here.

Questions and faith, and we come to the end of what we can understand, what we can do in our own strength.

Can I encourage you if you're a Christian, and the Bible says that's a good place to be?

Because we don't rely on our own strength, but the grace of God, which is all sufficient.

habakkuk in verse 12 says, Lord, are you not from everlasting?

My God, the Holy One, you will never die.

You, Lord, have appointed them to execute judgment.

You, my rock, have ordained them to punish.

Your eyes are too pure to look on evil.

You cannot tolerate wrongdoing.

habakkuk's slowly getting the idea that God is doing something.

He's executing judgment.

He's both judging the people of Israel, and he is judging, excuse me, he is judging Babylon for their sin.

It's not that he is not up to something.

He is certainly working.

And I look at this and I think, you know, habakkuk's confused, but God's not.

That's just the reality.

habakkuk is anxious, but God is not anxious.

He's not biting his fingernails.

Over what's going on, he's in control.

habakkuk is scared, but God is not, because God is working at bringing about his plans and purposes moving towards Jesus turning up.

And he's at work in our lives, moving towards Jesus returning in glory, amen.

He's working all things together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purposes.

He is at work in our lives.

In this first chapter, I think we see habakkuk wondering.

He's at point C.

He's wondering what he's got up to.

We're going to see in the second chapter where he goes into the dip, and he's in an experience of waiting.

And then the third chapter is an awesome chapter.

It's all about worship.

In the midst of not having all the answers, habakkuk learns how to worship anyway.

Some of us are in the dip.

Can I suggest that you're either heading to the dip, in the dip, or coming out of the dip?

Is that fair to say?

Does that sound negative?

It's par for the course, remember.

You're either moving towards a dip at some stage, or you're in it, maybe for the tenth time.

You're like, yeah, I've been here before.

Or you're coming out of it.

But we still want to ask, excuse me, we still want to ask this question, God, are you fair?

Is it fair that you allow me to go into the dip?

That you don't answer my prayers just as soon as I ask them?

And it reminds me of being upset once that I thought some people had said lies about me.

Has anyone had that?

Just so I don't miss me.

So sometimes people say things and it feels like, I think you're lying.

And so then often we look for someone that we can talk to that's safe, we could vent.

So can I just tell you something?

This is really unfair.

And maybe God's a bit unfair because he's not stopping it happening.

They're saying stuff that's not true.

And I was telling this mate of mine years ago.

And he said, Oh, you know, I loved David Paulson, a British preacher.

He said, David Paulson had this situation once where people were lying about him, too.

And he took it to the Lord and he was like, this is unfair, Lord.

And he felt like the Holy Spirit said to him, David, do you want me to tell them all the stuff that we've dealt with privately by ourselves?

Do you just me and you, David, the spirit of God, do you want to tell them what's truly fair?

What you've been forgiven of?

Do you want, let's tell them who you really are outside the grace and blood of Christ.

And he said, thank you.

And I said the same thing in a highish voice as well.

I went, oh, good point.

Because I need the grace of God and God has not treated me fairly like my sins deserved.

But he's been incredibly good.

And ultimately fair, because our God is fair.

He does, he always treats us in the best way that anyone could ever dream of someone to be treated.

Because he's good and he's fair.

Maybe this can be our prayer.

And maybe you might like to close your eyes.

God, you are sovereign.

I may not know what you are doing, but I know what you've done.

I know you are good.

And I know that I will not always know why things have happened in my life or around me in the world.

Help me God, in the name of Jesus, find peace in the dip, in the knowledge that I cannot know all things, but you are executing your good judgment on this earth and in my life.

As Job said, will not the judge of all the earth do right?

Lord, I want to agree with that.

We want to agree with that Lord.

That you are God, no one else is.

You are God, and you are in control, and you are good through and through, and you always do right.

Help us see that and understand that.

Help us hold the tension of faith and the questions together by your grace.

Why is a really good question?

Let it lead us to worship the one who has the answer.

Whether he chooses to share it with us or not, amen.

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