WILL YOU AGREE WITH GOD?

Habakkuk 3:1-2

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INTRODUCTION:  

§         The first Christian discipline to which I was exposed was prayer because my parents prayed before meals in the parsonages where we lived. 

§         The first religious activity in which I engaged was prayer when, as a child, I laid me down to sleep and asked the Lord my soul to keep.

§         The first public ministry in which I participated was prayer as Sunday School teachers and youth leaders called on my friends and me to pray aloud in class

I’ve been praying nearly all of my 57½ years.  You’d think that by now I’d be pretty good at it.  I am not.  In fact, I believe I am a poorer prayer today than I was when I was 37.  Or 27.  Or 17.  Or 7.

I’ve bought books, attended conference and searched the internet to try to learn to pray more effectively.  But still I feel like I pray poorly.  I was taught that prayer is the key to heaven but what is the key to prayer?

Perhaps there is no one key that unlocks the secret to an effective and fulfilling prayer life.  Rather than a key to unlock prayer’s treasure chest, maybe we should be looking for tools we can use to build a better life of prayer.

I believe that Habakkuk 3:1-2 may give us some tools we can use to build better prayers.

¹ A prayer of Habakkuk the prophet. On shigionoth.

^2 Lord, I have heard of your fame;

I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.

Renew them in our day,

in our time make them known;

in wrath remember mercy.

As we unpack this text, we will discover some very useful tools to build a better house of prayer.

I.                    WE SHOULD PRAY WITH REMEMBRANCE (“Lord, I have heard of your fame.”)

I received an e-mail from a preacher-friend of mine.  He and his wife are enduring a very difficult season in life due to his wife’s advanced terminal illness.  He wrote:

I have been so very tired lately and I have been so discouraged and down. I am not sure why. I think it is because all I read about answered prayer is not coming true in my life. God has forgotten me personally. I am ready to quit praying about my life. I will continue to pray for others and praise God. But I see no sense in continuing to pray about my personal needs.

I know how he feels.  Don’t you?  Sometimes the heavens seem as brass and my prayers seem to echo back with a hollow ring as if Nobody’s home.

In those times, Habakkuk’s example is a great model for prayer.  Habakkuk begins by praying, “Lord, I have heard of Your fame.”  When you feel forsaken and you wonder if God has forgotten you, remember His fame…recall His reputation.  God has a résumé you can read. He has a record of achievements that you can consult.  In fact, that is why all of the Old Testament history has been recorded and preserved for us: so we will remember the Lord’s fame.

When the clouds of crisis obscure the face of the Father, remember His reputation and recall it in your prayers.  Recalling His mighty deeds is not to remind God about what He has done; it is to remind you.

The old hymn advises us to count our many blessings and to name them one by one because it will surprise us what the Lord has done.  Likewise, we ought to count His many mighty deeds and name them one by one so we will be in awe of what the Lord has done.

Not only will we develop an appreciation for the fact that God acts, we will develop an appreciation for the way He acts.  God has said that His ways are not as our ways.  By remembering His fame and recalling His acts, we may gain some sense of perspective on what I call “the indirection of God.”  He does not always use the most obvious and most direct ways to achieve His ends.  Often it is only by looking back that we can see what the Lord has been doing in history. 

So, praying with remembrance can give us an appreciation for the fact that God acts and the ways in which He acts.

II.                  WE SHOULD PRAY WITH REVERENCE (“I stand in awe of your deeds, O Lord.”)

An old song immortalized the attitude and approach of “talking to the man upstairs.”  Heaven is not upstairs and the One to whom we pray is not a man.  We would more nearly pray as we ought if we would pray with reverence.

Habakkuk prayed, “I stand in awe of Your deeds, O Lord.”  When we pray with remembrance, we will pray with reverence because as we recall God’s mighty deeds, we will be in awe of what He has done. 

§         The Creator who spoke the cosmos into existence with His powerful word is the one who hangs on your every faltering word.

§         The God who led His people out of Egypt, who parted the waters to make a way for them, who provided quail for them to eat and who produced water from a rock for them to drink, who presented them with His law on tablets of stone, who preserved them in the presence of their enemies, who prospered them in the land He had promised them…THAT God attends to your feeble petitions.

§         The Lord of heaven who reigns in majestic splendor that defies description and exceeds imagination cares about your cares and hears your prayers.

While it is true that Jesus taught us to pray “Our Father”, we must remember that he taught that in the context of a culture where fathers were revered.  He did, after all, tell us to pray, “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed [holy, honored and revered] be thy name.”  Some of us may have become a bit too casual with our Creator, a bit too trivial and too informal with our King.

We will be less apt to bark orders at God if we remember who He is and who we are.  When we pray, we should pray with reverence.

III.                WE SHOULD PRAY FOR RENEWAL (“Renew them in our day.”)

Having rehearsed God’s mighty acts and having become reverent before His throne, Habakkuk prays for God to renew His works in Habakkuk’s own day.

It is reported that, after having reread the book of Acts, General William Booth of the Salvation Army was once overheard praying, "Do it again Lord; do it again."

That is good praying when addressing the God who changes not.  To view His work in history and to pray for Him to do it again is to pray in harmony with the nature of God.

When I think of the Day of Pentecost and 3000 people being saved in one day, I want to pray, “Do it again, Lord.  Do it again.”

When I consider that its critics, within a few years of its birth, said that the church had turned the world upside down, I want to plead, “Do it again, Lord.  Do it again.”

When I read of those who were sold out to the Lord, that they were willing to die for their faith, I want to say, “Do it again, Lord.  Do it again.”

When I think of the winds of revival that blew through Europe in the 1700s, I want to plead, “Do it again, Lord.  Do it again.”

When I think of the Great awakening that swept across our land in the late 1700s and early 1800s, I want to ask God to do it again.

Habakkuk’s prayer for renewal should be our prayer for renewal, too.  “Renew Your deeds in our day, O Lord.  Renew Your work in our land, O Lord.  Renew Your Kingdom in our church, O Holy One.  Renew Your Spirit in me, O Father.

To pray with power, pray for renewal.

IV.               WE SHOULD PRAY FOR REVELATION (in our time make them known.)

Habakkuk not only prayed that God would do in his own age the deeds He did in former times, he prayed that He would make those deeds known.

Don’t you sometimes wonder if an event in your life is a direct act of God or if it was just a natural consequence of a previous decision?  Wouldn’t you like to be able to discern the hand of God when He touches your life?  I certainly would.

I recently read an astonishing story about a church that is believed to have been moved by the Hand of God.  I’m not sure I believe the story but I want to share it because, even if it is not true, the story illustrates a point.

The church stands, to this day, in the village of Swan Quarter, North Carolina.  Before it was built in 1874 the congregation eyed with longing a desirable plot of ground but was unable to purchase it because the owner would not sell it.  As a result, the disappointed members erected the structure on an alternate site—but could not help casting longing glances at the original location.

Two years after the building was completed, on September 17, 1876, a storm of great violence struck the countryside.  Pelting rain, a raging wind and roaring tide combined to produce great power.  The church building was lifted up by the elements as if it had been a scrap of paper.  It was airborne a distance of 300 feet, and although its path was not straight, it found its mark with unerring accuracy.

The church building came to rest upon the exact plot of ground that the worshippers had so passionately desired.  The miraculous transfer awed and thrilled the village and even stilled the objections of the owner of the land.  The building still stands on the plot that the members believe was provided by the Hand of God.  The name of the church has been changed from Methodist Protestant to the Church of Providence.

As I said, I’m not sure I buy the story but regardless, if it is true, the church must have  been moved by the hand of God.  Don’t you wish it was always that easy to see the hand of God in the events of your life?

A powerful instrument in the toolbox of prayer is to pray for revelation – to ask for God to make His deeds known in our time.  Will you join with Habakkuk to pray for revelation?

V.                 WE SHOULD PRAY FOR RESTORATION (“In wrath remember mercy.”) 

When we use the four tools I’ve just listed in order that we can build a better life of prayer, one of the results will be an acute awareness of our own sinfulness.  We will be very convicted of our own shortcomings and the ways in which we have violated the will of God for our lives.

In Habakkuk’s praying, he was quite conscious of the sins of his nation so when he prayed for God to do what He had done in the days of the past, he had to face the fact that God, as a God of justice, would not look with favor upon the offenses of the Israelites.  As a result, Habakkuk prayed for pardon for his people: “In wrath, remember mercy.” 

While I have tried to press the point that YHWH is the holy God and that we must approach Him with reverence and a sense of both awe and wonder, I would also remind you that He is the God of all mercies so we need not be afraid to come to Him.  Praying with remembrance will impress that upon you.

§         Abraham and his wife Sarah wavered in their faith but the Lord is the God of all mercies and He restored Abraham and Sarah and used them to establish a nation for Himself.

§         King David was both an adulterer and a murderer but the Lord is the God of all mercies and He restored David and made him to be Israel’s greatest king.

§         In the New Testament, Simon Peter showed himself to be impulsive to the point of being reckless and he denied Jesus three times but the Lord is the God of all mercies and He restored Peter and made him to be a powerful person in the life of the church.

§         Saul, whose name was changed to Paul, had been an enemy of Christ and a persecutor of the church but the Lord is the God of all mercies and he restored Paul to Himself and used him as an evangelist and missionary of the church.

Praying with remembrance will help you to understand that the Lord is both just and merciful.  In mercy, He welcomes sinners who come to Him.  But His justice reminds us that He will not permit unrepentant sinners to escape His righteous verdict forever.

To pray with power, pray for restoration in order that you may draw closer to the One to whom you pray.

CONCLUSION:      

Traditionally, most of us conclude our prayers by saying, “In Jesus’ name.  Amen.”  But do we know what we mean when we say that? 

Prayer in Jesus’ name is taught in John 14:13-14, “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.”  Some mistakenly apply this verse by believing that saying “In Jesus’ name” at the end of a prayer results in God always granting what is asked for.  This is essentially treating the words “in Jesus’ name” as a magic formula.

"In Jesus' name" is ambassador language.  It implies that:

1.      I have a relationship with Jesus;

2.      I am acting as His representative on His behalf, and

3.      That what I am asking for is truly Jesus' desire.

If these things are true, then God will grant the request.

Praying in Jesus' name means the same thing as praying according to the will of God.  To pray “in Jesus’ name” means to pray in agreement with Jesus.  To pray effectively is to pray in harmony with the will of God and the mind of Christ.  Will you agree with God or will you insist that your will be done on earth?

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