Rev’d Mark B. Stirdivant, Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Yucaipa, California
✝ sdg ✝

The prophet Habakkuk admitted that he was a complainer. He didn’t care about that label being put on him. Once there was a group that called themselves the complaint-free church, and they gave out purple bracelets to everyone who promised to live a complaint-free life. Habakkuk wouldn’t have worn that purple bracelet! Everyone else around this prophet had caved in to pressure to reject the true God and worship idols, but he did not. In his lifetime the officials who had been set in office to render just decisions and ensure the honest rule of law were actually paralyzing the law and making justice go forth perverted. But Habakkuk was not going to be shamed into silence. He was no politically-correct talking head. You could see him out getting involved and making his message heard, not to puff himself up, but to call attention to the truth. He said, as plainly as he could, the nation was headed for ruin, and as it turned out, that ruin came for Judah within 10 or 20 years when the Babylonian army conquered them. You see, even though he always complained, Habakkuk really did care about something. What God’s prophet cared about in these trying times was faith. And he’s going to bring that concern bald-faced and lay it out before the only one he knew who would listen to him. Habakkuk minced no words when he dumped his complaint out into the lap of God the Lord of heaven and earth.

For God Himself gave the assuring promise: My answer will come, “it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” It’s exactly like what is written in another place of Scripture: Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, I will repay. And whether it’s 600 BC or 2019 AD, the Lord requires patience. Are you frustrated with God’s slowness? That’s the way it looks, doesn’t it? That God’s going to take His own sweet time in fulfilling what He has promised for you. That everyone else can have a better or easier time, but not you. You catch yourself saying, I’m tired of this life I lead. I have to suffer. I’m the one everybody ridicules or walks over. I have to go through some experience that other people think they can understand, but they don’t. When all is said and done, I’m alone on this one, and I just have to accept that. You end up focusing so much on what is troubling you that it becomes for you a twisted form of meditation. It occupies your every thought. It grows and grows within you like a nasty spiritual tumor that puffs up and you start getting a clue in some way or another that things are not right.

Now, at this critical point you could go one of two ways: you could cut everything off and say I’d rather do without God, or anyone else, thank you very much. I’m only going to listen to myself, and my wants and desires are going to take first place. I’m tired of this guilt trip that God’s Law seems to place on me. I do my best and it never seems to be good enough, so I’m through with it! I’ve got many more things to do with my time than to bother to pray or worship or wait around for Him to do anything for me. You could even feel this way as you’re sitting here, in church, looking like you’re doing the right thing, but your heart is far from heeding the words of your Lord that are being spoken to you from His Word and handed out in the Lord’s Supper. Perhaps you had felt this way in the past or you know someone who has cut ties with anything to do with church. You lift them up in prayer, like you’re supposed to do, but in the back of your mind you are anxious that this person might never come around. I have to tell you something: this is not faith! This anxiety is cutting yourself off from God and it is serious trouble! This is putting yourself in Christ’s place and Satan would love nothing more than for that spiritual cancer to keep growing and spreading within you, until he has completely taken over and you are left truly alone in your despair.

But that does not have to happen! Whether it’s for you or for your loved one, the assurance came straight from the Lord through the prophet Habakkuk: the just shall live by faith. That’s a word of life-giving Gospel truth. Only God your creator can make life, and He has offered that life freely to you, no strings attached. The crushing condemnation of the Law, that word of God that rightly condemned you, now it is completely removed. The gates of heaven are opened, and you can be assured that you have a place prepared for you there.

Wait a minute, what just happened? What happened to all my problems that I was complaining about? What of this spiritual danger that I’m facing? Doesn’t this Gospel sound just a bit too easy? And for another thing, don’t you have to be just to live by faith? Yes, and it is also true that your heavenly Father justifies the wicked. That’s how you are going to live- not by your efforts, not by your trusting in yourself, not in your anxious nights of fretting, either. The just shall live by faith!

But to settle the complaining mind and heart and for you to draw true comfort and peace from that verse that’s tucked away in an obscure prophet’s writings, you know, in one of those lesser known books of the Bible, you’re going to need to know a little bit more about faith. The word faith in “The just shall live by faith” comes from the Hebrew word Amen. When you think about Amen, you probably consider it only as the ending of a prayer. It’s the first Hebrew word you’ve ever learned, and you’ve probably never learned that it means “faith.” You may remember that the Catechism teaches that Amen, amen means “Yes, yes, it shall be so,” but that in fact is what faith is: faith believes that what God says is and ever shall be so. You have received that gift.

In some places of the Old Testament, the response “Amen” is an essential part of a binding contract or covenant. When certain curses were laid out before the people as consequences of breaking the covenant, [as in Deuteronomy 27,] the people responded by saying “Amen.” This meant that they were now on the hook. They had no way to back out of their end of the deal. They had to remain true to their word, or else they would be disowned as the chosen people of God. Although they and we have sinned against the Lord and spurned His love toward us, our holy and righteous God Himself made an Amen promise toward us. The Father vowed to send His own dear Son into our flesh, so that the Amen curse would not fall on you but on Him instead. When God says Amen, He lets you know that He bound Himself to His promise to rescue you. Your Savior is the one on the hook, and He willingly fulfilled His promise out of His great love for you. Jesus, who is even known as “The Amen,” [Revelation 3:14] was faithful and true in all that He did, all the way to the point of suffering for your sin, dying your death, and achieving your everlasting forgiveness and eternal life. The just shall live, and it’s because of the Amen faithfulness of Jesus who took your place, and now you have all the blessings of heaven that are yours by faith.

Your Amen response not only agrees with God that His Law assessment of your sins is accurate, not only does it admit that you know the information that is contained in the Gospel message, but most especially your Amen says that you believe it for yourself. It means that you have come to the realization, by the power of the Holy Spirit working in you, that you have nowhere else to go than to Jesus your Savior and Lord. You confess with all seriousness that this is no game. Pay attention to yourselves, Jesus warns. Eternity is on the line and in Christ’s name that gift of eternal life is yours. As it is with the Lord’s Supper, so it is with all matters of faith: the words of the Gospel “for you” require all hearts to believe. When you say Amen, that means that the Holy Spirit has done His mighty work of creating faith in your heart. Your prayer echoes that of those disciples who pleaded with Jesus, “Increase our faith!” and your prayer is answered.

Do you have a complaint? Do not be ashamed, for your loving, heavenly Father will hear your complaint, just like He heard the complaint of Habakkuk. Be sure that you don’t meditate on it, however, so that the complaint sits inside you and grows into self-pity or worry, for those things can kill your faith. Instead, lay all your complaint out before the Lord in prayer; with meditation on the Bible bring it to Him like the prophets and many psalms do right there in the Scripture that you read. Trust in the Lord’s answer in His own perfect timing, for it will surely not delay for your deliverance. Though the world and all other enemies you may face might seem like they are winning, take heart, because you are not alone. Entrust your loved ones to Him as well; even commend to the Lord those whom you see as your enemies, those who have not come to you and asked for forgiveness yet, and ask that He may lead them to repentance also. You have your Amen, the true and faithful God, your Savior Jesus Christ, who bound Himself with love to the cross for you, and He will strengthen and keep you steadfast in your Amen confession of the truth in the face of all lies and attacks of the Evil One. Because of Christ, God has declared you just. Therefore, you shall live by faith!

In the Name of the Father and of the ✝ Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Green Altar Parament

Readings:
Hab. 1:1–4; 2:1–4 Write the vision And make it plain on tablets
Psalm 62 Truly my soul silently waits for God
2 Tim. 1:1–14 Stir up the gift that is in you
Luke 17:1–10 faith as a mustard seed