Sunday Sermon: Treading on the Heights

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Text: Habakkuk 3:17-19
Series: Certain Truths for Uncertain Times

Child psychologists tell us that every child is born into this world with two innate fears: the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. As the years go by, most people grow out of those two fears, though not entirely, and even then, life layers on all manner of other fears that we may or may not be able to outgrow. 

The question, “What, then, are you afraid of?” is a too easy question to ask. It may make us a little uncomfortable to have to answer such a question, but I don’t know that having to do so would keep any of us up at night. No, the question that really is difficult to think about but one most definitely worth pondering is this question: “What do you fear would test your faith in God the most?” “What would cause you to question God’s providence and protection?” “What in this world would lead you to doubt God’s ability to see you through it?” 

The reason those questions are so hard for us to think about is because each of them pushes us to our limits, and we don’t like to think about our limits. We prefer for life to go smoothly and in a carefree manner, even though that’s rarely the reality for any of us. Consequently, the place where our faith could be most tested, though we would never welcome going there, is in fact the very place where faith is best forged and God is most intimately experienced.

We see that truth most vividly in this passage before us from the prophet Habakkuk.  Habakkuk, whose name means “one who embraces,” was a contemporary of the prophet Jeremiah, and joined Jeremiah in proclaiming God’s message for a people who, in the face of the kinds of threats that would test one’s faith in God the most, were on the verge of failing such a test, which put them in danger of having God’s protection removed from them for a season.

None of this, of course, made any sense to Habakkuk. He was the first person in the Bible to take up the question of theodicy, which simply put means, “How could a gracious and merciful God allow bad things to happen to His chosen people?” “Where is the justice in anything like that?”

And for the first two chapters in his prophecy, Habakkuk stays with that question, even though he doesn’t receive a satisfactory answer, until it becomes apparent to him that “the just must live by faith” (2:4). And when Habakkuk makes that choice, which essentially calms his fears and settles his anxieties, he then spends the rest of his prophecy inviting God’s people to join with him in worshipping a God who is greater than our adversity and waiting on the sure salvation that only such a God can bring about. 

And this passage before us this morning depicts the attitude of such a believer who in fact “embraces” (“Habakkuk’s”) God’s gracious and merciful presence in a way that turns our burdens and blessing and our sighing to singing. Notice, if you will, the cadence of the text and the manner in which it strikes one note of conviction after another leading to a grand crescendo of praise to a God who will lift His people above their adversity and despair to a higher plane of life:

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
Though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
Yet I will rejoice in the LORD (literally, “I will jump for joy),
I will be joyful in God my Savior (literally, “I will spin around in the God of my salvation”).
For the Sovereign LORD is my strength; He makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
He enables me to on the heights. 

What Habakkuk is inviting us to see is that God alone has the power to lift us above our direst circumstances. Though we may find ourselves in a place where all hope seems lost and we have nothing to live for, if we can somehow catch a glimpse of how God is with us in the adversity, we can live above the dark shadows of our fears and we can bask in the sunlight of saving faith.

It’s like the story of the man who was so very discouraged because of the many problems in his life. His health was deteriorating. His finances were a mess. His family was out of sorts. As he was walking down the street one day, he came across his pastor, who knew a good bit about the man’s situation and took the opportunity to ask how things were going. “Oh, not too bad,” the man answered the pastor. "At least not under the circumstances.” And then the pastor, in what I think must have been a flash of divine inspiration, characteristic of a prophet like Habakkuk himself, looked at the man squarely in the eyes and said, as compassionately but as directly as he could say it, “Well, Tom, then you need to get above the circumstances. Because above the circumstances is where God ultimately is.”

As a pastor, I know that to be true. We most definitely need to get above our circumstances. But as a fellow pilgrim, I know how hard it is to do so. In fact, in our own power it is impossible. But that is why God came down from above our circumstances in the person of Jesus to take our pain and suffering upon Himself and to redeem it and to rid it of its power over us so that by trusting in Jesus we might allow God’s mercy and grace to form us and shape us so that, even as Habakkuk envisioned, God might “make our feet like the feet of a deer, enabling us to tread with Him on the heights," above our dire circumstances, so that even now we might jump for joy and spin around in the God of our salvation.

Can you do that this morning? Can you trust in God to lift you above your difficult circumstances? Can you make the same choice that Habakkuk made so that even though you don’t fully understand what’s going on around you and what doesn’t seem to be working out for you, yet, yet, “I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in the God of my salvation.”

Somewhere I came across the story of the African impala, a medium-sized antelope whose primary habitat is in eastern and southern Africa. As I understand, the impala can jump to a height over ten feet and when doing so can cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. And yet these magnificent creatures can be contained in an enclosure in any zoo with just a three-foot wall. That’s because an impala will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will land.

Some of us are like that, which is why we are so easily constrained by our fears. We want to see where will land and what our future will hold. But that’s not how faith works. Faith is the ability to trust what we cannot see and to believe what we cannot comprehend. Faith is the choice to commit our circumstances to God, convinced that when we make such a leap, it’s not just that God will give us some safe place to land but that He will lift us to a higher place, where our feet will not slip and our futures will be made secure. 

Isn’t that what God did with Jesus? When Jesus placed his faith in God in Gethsemane’s Garden and made the choice to do God’s will instead of his own, didn’t God turn that tragedy into good and open wide the doors of salvation to everyone by raising Jesus from the dead? At Calvary God showed that He can take the very worst situation and work for the best. At Calvary God showed that He can bring good out of what we think is tragic and horrible. 

I don’t get it and I’ll never understand it. And neither will you, not in your own power. But that’s where faith comes in. That’s where the just will trust and God will show up to save the day and our joy will go sky high, even to where Jesus abides at the right hand of God the Father, high, high above our dire circumstances.

So, there’s no need for any maturing believer to be fearful over the loud noises that are swirling around today, because God is in control and He is in the process of turning all the wailing into praise. And neither is there any reason to worry about falling from whatever lofty perch to which His saving grace in Christ Jesus might lift us, because His sovereign power is our strength and He will give us what we need to dwell on that higher ground. 

The just will always live by faith. They will live by faith now and they will surely live by faith forevermore.