Is This My Father's World?

03/08/20 • 42 min

Christ Redeemer Church >> Sunday Sermons

REFLECTION QUOTES
“You must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave.”
~George MacDonald, “The Day Boy and the Night Girl”
“No doubt pain as God’s megaphone is a terrible instrument; it may lead to final and unrepented rebellion. But it gives the only opportunity the bad man can have for amendment. it removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of the rebel soul.”
~C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
“Physicians, though they put their patients to much pain, will not destroy their nature, but will raise it up by degrees. Surgeons will pierce and cut but not mutilate. A mother who has a sick and self-willed child will not cast it away for this reason. And shall there be more mercy in the stream than there is in the spring? Shall we think there is more mercy in ourselves than in God, who plants the feeling of mercy in us?”
~Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
“God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform;
He plants His footsteps in the sea, and rides upon the storm.
Deep in unfathomable mines of never-failing skill,
He treasures up His bright designs, and works His sovereign will.
Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take, the clouds ye so much dread,
Are big with mercy, and shall break in blessings on your head.
Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, but trust Him for His grace;
Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face.
His purposes will ripen fast, unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste, but sweet will be the flower.
Blind unbelief is sure to err, and scan his work in vain;
God is His own interpreter, and He will make it plain.”
~William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way”
“God also cheers when we come to him with our wobbling, unsteady prayers. Jesus does not say, ‘Come to me, all you who have learned how to concentrate in prayer, whose minds no longer wander, and I will give you rest.’”
~Paul Miller, A Praying Life
SERMON PASSAGE
Habakkuk 1:1-2:1 (ESV)
Habakkuk 1
1 The oracle that Habakkuk the prophet saw.
2 O LORD, how long shall I cry for help,
and you will not hear?
Or cry to you “Violence!”
and you will not save?
3 Why do you make me see iniquity,
and why do you idly look at wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
strife and contention arise.
4 So the law is paralyzed,
and justice never goes forth.
For the wicked surround the righteous;
so justice goes forth perverted.
5 “Look among the nations, and see;
wonder and be astounded.
For I am doing a work in your days
that you would not believe if told.
6 For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans,
that bitter and hasty nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth,
to seize dwellings not their own.
7 They are dreaded and fearsome;
their justice and dignity go forth from themselves.
8 Their horses are swifter than leopards,
more fierce than the evening wolves;
their horsemen press proudly on.
Their horsemen come from afar;
they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
9 They all come for violence,
all their faces forward.
They gather captives like sand.
10 At kings they scoff,
and at rulers they laugh.
They laugh at every fortress,
for they pile up earth and take it.
11 Then they sweep by like the wind and go on,
guilty men, whose own might is their god!”
12 Are you not from everlasting,
O LORD my God, my Holy One?
We shall not die.
O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment,
and you, O Rock, have established them for
reproof.
13 You who are of purer eyes than to see evil
and cannot look at wrong,
why do you idly look at traitors
and remain silent when the wicked swallows up
the man more righteous than he?
14 You make mankind like the fish of the sea,
like crawling things that have no ruler.
15 He brings all of them up with a hook;
he drags them out with his net;
he gathers them in his dragnet;
so he rejoices and is glad.
16 Therefore he sacrifices to his net
and makes offerings to his dragnet;
for by them he lives in luxury,
and his food is rich.
17 Is he then to keep on emptying his net
and mercilessly killing nations forever?
Habakkuk 2
1 I will take my stand at my watchpost
and station myself on the tower,
and look out to see what he will say to me,
and what I will answer concerning my complaint.

Previous Episode

A Faith that Works in Taming the Tongue

REFLECTION QUOTES
“Ultimately, words have power.”
~Toni Morrison (1931-2019) in “The Pieces I Am”
“Be careful with your words. Once they are said, they can be only forgiven, not forgotten.”
~Unknown
“Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.”
~Pearl Strachan Hurd, 20th century writer and poet
“All I need is a sheet of paper and something to write with, and then I can turn the world upside down.”
~Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), German philosopher and cultural critic
“Words are seeds that do more than blow around. They land in our hearts and not the ground. Be careful what you plant and careful what you say. You might have to eat what you planted one day.”
~Unknown
“Kind words are a creative force, a power that concurs in the building up of all that is good, and energy that showers blessings upon the world.”
~Lawrence G. Lovasik (1913-1986), priest and author
“Speech has power. Words do not fade. What starts out as a sound, ends in a deed.”
~Abraham Joshua Herschel (1907-1972), famed rabbi and theologian
“The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.”
~Proverbs 15:28 (ESV)
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue...”
~Proverbs 18:21 (ESV)
SERMON PASSAGE
James 3:1-18 (ESV)
1 Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body. 3 If we put bits into the mouths of horses so that they obey us, we guide their whole bodies as well. 4 Look at the ships also: though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. 5 So also the tongue is a small member, yet it boasts of great things.
How great a forest is set ablaze by such a small fire! 6 And the tongue is a fire, a world of unrighteousness. The tongue is set among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell. 7 For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by mankind, 8 but no human being can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. 9 With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. 10 From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so. 11 Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and salt water? 12 Can a fig tree, my brothers, bear olives, or a grapevine produce figs? Neither can a salt pond yield fresh water.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.

Next Episode

The Surprising Comfort of God's Justice

REFLECTION QUOTES
“God’s vengeance did not fall on the sinners, but on the only sinless one, the Son of God, who stood in the place of sinners, Jesus Christ bore the vengeance of God...That was the end of all false thoughts about the love of a God who does not take sin very seriously. God hates and judges [his enemies] in the only righteous one, the one who prays for forgiveness for God’s enemies. Only in the cross of Jesus Christ is the love of God to be found.”
~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945), German theologian and pastor, executed for his opposition to the Hitler
“My thesis that the practice of nonviolence requires a belief in divine vengeance will be unpopular with many Christians...in the West...Violence thrives today, secretly nourished by the belief that God refuses to take the sword...It takes the quiet of a suburb for the birth of the thesis that human nonviolence is a result of a God who refuses to judge. In a scorched land – soaked in the blood of the innocent, the idea will invariably die...if God were NOT angry at injustice and deception and did NOT make a final end of violence, that God would not be worthy of our worship.”
~Miroslav Volf (1956-present), Professor at Yale University
“Justice is what love looks like in public.”
~Cornel West, contemporary academic and activist
“Some observers predicted that this new secularism [in America] would ease cultural conflict.... That was naïve. ...[I]t’s...making America’s partisan clashes more brutal.... As Americans have left organized religion, they haven’t stopped viewing politics as a struggle between ‘us’ and ‘them.’ Many have come to define us and them in even more primal and irreconcilable ways.”
~Peter Beinart in “Breaking Faith” in The Atlantic (April 2017)
“A God who could pardon without justice might one of these days condemn without reason.”
~C.H. Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London preacher
SERMON PASSAGE
Habakkuk 2:1-20 (NASB)
1 I will stand on my guard post
And station myself on the rampart;
And I will keep watch to see what He will speak to me,
And how I may reply when I am reproved.
2 Then the Lord answered me and said,
“Record the vision
And inscribe it on tablets,
That the one who reads it may run.
3 “For the vision is yet for the appointed time;
It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail.
Though it tarries, wait for it;
For it will certainly come, it will not delay.
4 “Behold, as for the proud one,
His soul is not right within him;
But the righteous will live by his faith.
5 “Furthermore, wine betrays the haughty man,
So that he does not stay at home.
He enlarges his appetite like Sheol,
And he is like death, never satisfied.
He also gathers to himself all nations
And collects to himself all peoples.
6 “Will not all of these take up a taunt-song against him,
Even mockery and insinuations against him
And say, ‘Woe to him who increases what is not his—
For how long—
And makes himself rich with loans?’
7 “Will not your creditors rise up suddenly,
And those who collect from you awaken?
Indeed, you will become plunder for them.
8 “Because you have looted many nations,
All the remainder of the peoples will loot you—
Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,
To the town and all its inhabitants.
9 “Woe to him who gets evil gain for his house
To put his nest on high,
To be delivered from the hand of calamity!
10 “You have devised a shameful thing for your house
By cutting off many peoples;
So you are sinning against yourself.
11 “Surely the stone will cry out from the wall,
And the rafter will answer it from the framework.
12 “Woe to him who builds a city with bloodshed
And founds a town with violence!
13 “Is it not indeed from the Lord of hosts
That peoples toil for fire,
And nations grow weary for nothing?
14 “For the earth will be filled
With the knowledge of the glory of the Lord,
As the waters cover the sea.
15 “Woe to you who make your neighbors drink,
Who mix in your venom even to make them drunk
So as to look on their nakedness!
16 “You will be filled with disgrace rather than honor.
Now you yourself drink and expose your own nakedness.
The cup in the Lord’s right hand will come around to you,
And utter disgrace will come upon your glory.
17 “For the violence done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
And the devastation of its beasts by which you terrified them,
Because of human bloodshed and violence done to the land,
To the town and all its inhabitants.
18 “What profit is the idol when its maker has carved it,
Or an image, a teacher of falsehood?
For its maker trusts in his own handiwork
When he fashions speechless idols.
19 “Woe to him who says to a piece of wood, ‘Awake!’
To a mute stone, ‘Arise!’
And that is your teacher?
Behold, it is overlaid with gold and silver,
A...