November 26, 2016 - Church at Worship

Sermon: "In the End, Joy!" (Why? Part 3 of 3) by Randy Roberts

Pastoral Welcome: Gilda Roddy

Scripture Reading: Habakkuk 3: 1-19, TNIV read by Danilo Boskovic, Duncan Henry, Dick Sample, Genie Sample and Lynn Sleeth

Sermon Notes:

Today we come to the third chapter of Habakkuk. It is called, “Habakkuk’s Prayer.” Remember the background of this prayer. Habakkuk has been asking Why? He has had a (fiery!) dialogue with God. And now, once he has been told to Hush! and remember that God is on the throne—that God is in control—he prays. What strikes me most about his prayer is how it ends. It ends in joy! In gratitude! In thanksgiving! Amazing, isn’t it, that Habakkuk is giving thanks despite all that he doesn’t understand about God’s ways? It makes me think of two quotations—two quotations worth remembering. First, the words of Henri Nouwen. “To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections—that requires hard spiritual work. Still, we are only truly grateful people when we can say ‘thank you’ to all that has brought us to the present moment. As long as we keep dividing our lives between events and people we would like to remember and those we would rather forget, we cannot claim the fullness of our beings as a gift of God to be grateful for. Let’s not be afraid to look at everything that has brought us to where we are now and trust that we will soon see in it the guiding hand of a loving God.” And then these words from the pen of H. W. Westermeyer: “The pilgrims made seven times more graves than huts … nevertheless, [they] set aside a day of thanksgiving.” So as we turn to Habakkuk’s prayer, might we do so from thankful hearts.

Randy Roberts, Senior pastor