23 Jun Habakkuk 02: Waiting on God

Habakkuk 1:12-2:5

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?

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. ² And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. ³ For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay. ⁴ “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. ⁵ “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

I don’t like waiting. I mean, I don’t mind waiting as long as the waiting time is planned already, and I have something to do while I wait. But I really don’t like it when I have to wait unexpectedly, and I have nothing to do while I wait. Does anyone know what I am talking about? But God in his providence set me up with a best friend who loved to make me wait. For the sake of friendship, that best friend shall remain unnamed because he does listen to our sermons sometimes. But he had no sense of time. For example, we agreed to meet at 5, only for him to pick me up at 5:30, and looked innocent while doing it. And it did not only happen once or twice. It was a rarity for him to be on time. I was frustrated. But at that time, I did not have a car and he did. So, I had no choice but to wait and not complain. And I still don’t like waiting until today. Today, we are going to talk about waiting on God. If you grew up in church, you should be familiar with the phrase “waiting on God.” It is one of the major themes in the Bible and people say it all the time. “I am just waiting on God… You need to wait on God… We must learn to wait on God…” Everybody in the church says it but nobody really knows what it means except it sounds spiritual. So, what does it mean to wait on God? That’s what we are going to talk about tonight in our second sermon on Habakkuk.

Let’s recap what we learned last week. The book of Habakkuk deals with the questions that we have when life does not work out as we expected. “Is God in control? Does God know what is happening? If he does, then why does it seem like he is not doing a good job? Where is God when I need him?” Habakkuk is about having faith when life is hard. At the beginning of the book, Habakkuk is frustrated at the evil he sees around him. He saw Judah fall into moral depravity and he prayed for God to do something about it. He prayed for revival, but it seemed like God was ignoring him. He asked, “God, where are you? Why did you allow this to happen? How long before you do something about my situation?” And after some time, God answered, “I am always here, and I know everything that happened. I did not go anywhere. Look and see Habakkuk. I am about to do something that you would not believe even if I told you. I am going to use Babylon to discipline Judah.” In other words, God was saying, “I know you want me to make your situation better, but I am not going to do that; I am going to make it worse.” And Habakkuk replied, “Wait. What? That does not make any sense. How could you do that?” Habakkuk was perplexed. Not only he did not get the revival he wanted, but he also now had the further problem of reconciling God’s actions with what he knew about God. He was utterly confused.

So, Habakkuk now has two options. Is he going to trust God? Or is he going to trust his own wisdom? And those two options are the same options we have when life is hard, and nothing makes sense. We must make a choice. Are we going to trust God? Or are we going to trust ourselves? Jesus gives a wonderful parable that makes this point. Two builders build an identical house. From the outside, the house looks exactly the same. A casual observer would not have noticed any difference. It probably has the same layout, room, and furniture. Each house looks secure in good weather. The difference is not in the appearance but in the foundation. One is built on sand and the other is built on rock. The person who built his house on the sand does not realize how fragile his house is. He is enjoying his house by the beach. Until the storm comes. The storm reveals the quality of the works of the two builders. The house that is built on sand falls apart, while the house that is built on the rock remains strong. We know this. It is when life is hard that we know whether we trust God or not. If we trust God, we will wait on God. And Habakkuk will teach us what it means to wait on God.

I have three points for my sermon: the complaint; the waiting; the answer.

The complaint

Habakkuk 1:12-13 – 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?

We looked at these two verses already last week, but I want to look at them again because they are important. Notice what Habakkuk says about God in verse 12. He says, “God, you are from everlasting. You are the Holy One. You are a Rock.” Habakkuk begins with a declaration of God’s character. He knows who God is. He knows that even though the whole world changed, God has not changed. He is confident that God will do what is right. And he also says, “We shall not die.” This is interesting. God had just told him that he was going to use Babylon to destroy Judah. What does Habakkuk mean by we shall not die? Is this just wishful thinking, “I’m sure everything is going to be alright. God isn’t actually going to kill us. We just need to think positively”? I don’t think so. Habakkuk knows that Babylon is coming. He knows that there will be many deaths. But he also knows that God is the God of everlasting covenant. He is saying, “God, I know you are the Holy One and you will enact justice. But ultimately, we can’t be wiped out. You made a promise. You made a promise that we are your people. So, whatever judgment that is coming, surely you won’t completely wipe us out.” Habakkuk knows God is the God of everlasting covenant and he is holding on to that truth. Why is this important? Because when life is hard, it is very easy for us to think that God has changed. It’s very easy for us to think that God has changed his mind about us. But that’s not true. Even when everything has changed, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. God and his purposes have not changed. He is forever a Rock.

So, on the one hand, Habakkuk is confident in who God is. On the other hand, he doesn’t understand what God is doing. In verse 13, he asks, “Why God? I can understand why you want to discipline us, but why Babylon? You are too pure to tolerate evil and look at wrong. We might be bad, but Babylon is worse. How can you favour the evil Babylon over us?” So, Habakkuk does not come to God saying, “God, you are evil. You must be bad for allowing that to happen.” No. He says, “I know you are good. I know you are strong. I know you are righteous. But I can’t make sense of what I’m seeing and experiencing. Help me.” Habakkuk’s faith is not a weak faith but a confused faith. He doesn’t pull away from God. He affirms who God is and he presses into God seeking understanding. He wrestles with God. Do you see? Mature Christians are not afraid to wrestle with God. Habakkuk then builds his case against God using Babylon as his instrument of justice.

Habakkuk 1:14-17 – 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?

If you love fishing, you would appreciate Habakkuk’s analogy. I’ve only been fishing a handful of times, and I did not enjoy it because I did not get anything. But I remember going fishing in a pool filled with fish when I was a kid. And it was fun because I caught lots of fish. It was very easy because the fish couldn’t go anywhere. They were stuck in the pool. That’s the picture we have here. Habakkuk says the people are like fish in the sea, waiting to be caught by Babylon’s dragnet. They are easy pickings for Babylon. Babylon rejoices and is glad over it. And then to make matters worse, Babylon sacrifices and makes offerings to their dragnet, and they get rich. They are an idolater. Habakkuk is essentially saying to God, “How is this acceptable to you? How are you okay with Babylon worshipping their own success? Is this your plan? How long are you going to allow Babylon to kill nations and show no mercy? How can Babylon’s wickedness bring about your justice?” That’s the complaint. Habakkuk knows surely God has a greater purpose, but he doesn’t understand it. It is too hard for him to comprehend.

Here is what we can learn from Habakkuk. It is one thing to make a complaint and be ready to hear an answer, it is another to make a complaint with a mind already made up on the answer. Do you know what I am talking about? Married couples, it is one thing to come to your spouse with a complaint and stand ready to consider his or her reply. It is another to complain to your spouse, having made up your mind that he or she is a moron. One is a posture of humility, and the other is a posture of arrogance. One seeks understanding, one assumes all understanding. A healthy complaint is where you let the other person have the last word. This is what Habakkuk is doing. He complains to God, but he lets God have the last word. And we see this often in the Psalms. For example, Psalm 73. In that Psalm, Asaph asks God, “Why did you let the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper? Why did you let the wicked get richer and richer, while the righteous live in pain? I don’t understand.” So, for most of the psalm Asaph is complaining to God. But that’s not where he ends. He ends the psalm by saying, “Nevertheless God, you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel. Whom have I in heaven but you? There is nothing on earth I desire but you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” Do you see? It’s not about where he starts but where he ends. A healthy complaint to God leaves the last word to God. So, after Habakkuk complained to God, he now makes space to wait for God to answer. There is time to talk, and there is time to wait and listen.

The waiting

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.

Habakkuk knows only God has the answer he needs, not his own finite wisdom. So, he waits. But what does it mean to wait on God? There are three ways to wait on God that we can see in this verse. First, wait patiently. We do not know how long Habakkuk has to wait for God’s reply. The text does not tell us. But he does put everything else on hold until he hears from God. In other words, Habakkuk needs to be patient. If you are waiting for a bus to go to church and it doesn’t come, and you go home, you are not waiting anymore. You give up. If you are in the doctor’s office and you are waiting and the doctor doesn’t call you and you go home, that’s the end of it. You won’t see the doctor. Or you can wait for it. Wait means don’t give up. Wait means to be patient. So, the most basic thing waiting on God means is when nothing makes sense, when we are confused, when we don’t know what’s going on in our lives, don’t go home. Don’t give up. Be patient. And patience requires humility. Think about it. Do you know why you are not patient? Because you think you know how everything should turn out. You assume you know exactly what must happen. When things go wrong and you are impatient, you assume omniscience. You are upset because you think you know what’s best. But you don’t. You are impatient because you are arrogant. Patience requires humility.

Do you remember Job? He lost everything and he questioned why God allowed him to experience all those pains. But in the middle of the book, he says in Job 23:10 – But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold. Gold is a very precious item. In order to make gold more precious, they would put the gold through fire to burn away all the impure materials that stuck to the gold. So, Job is saying, “I have no idea what God is doing with me, but he does. I don’t have a clue, but he knows exactly what he is doing. He is using all these pains to purify me. And when I come out of this fire, I will be so much better than before. I will come out as gold.” That’s patience. That’s humility. Job knows God is doing something great to him through those pains and he won’t give up. Waiting on God means not giving up, being patient under our circumstances even though we are confused.

Second, wait perspectively. Look at what Habakkuk does. He stations himself on the tower. Why did cities build towers? They built towers so they could see what was coming. On the ground, their perspective was very limited. There were many things they could not see. But up on the tower, they had a better perspective. The higher the tower, the more they can see what’s coming. They could see enemies coming from a distance, whereas on the ground they could not see till it was too late. What does it mean then for us to station ourselves on the tower? It means we can’t just simply look at our pains, but we have to see our pains in the bigger perspective the Bible teaches us. For example, Apostle Paul. I don’t think there is anyone other than Jesus who experienced more pain than Paul. Paul’s life was filled with suffering. He was persecuted. He had a physical illness. He was beaten. He experienced many shipwrecks. I don’t know about you but if I get into a plane and that plane almost crashes, I am not flying again. I swim.

If we want to compare our sufferings to Paul’s, it looks like a kindergarten to his PHD. But do you know what Paul said about all his sufferings? “For I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” He was saying, “When I put everything I am going through in a bigger perspective, when I do the math and I calculate it, my suffering looks really small in comparison to the glory that is coming for me.” Do you know what Paul did? Paul got into the tower. He was looking at the big picture. Suddenly his sufferings looked small. Listen. I don’t care what we are going through. I don’t care how painful it is. If we can see the glory that is coming for us, if we can see the true riches that are waiting for us, we will be able to withstand whatever is in front of us. That’s what it means to wait perspectively.

Third, wait diligently. Habakkuk says, “I will take my stands at my watchpost.” It means he refuses to do nothing. If you are a guard on duty, to take your stand on your watchpost means, it doesn’t matter if you don’t feel like it, it doesn’t matter if you are sleepy, it doesn’t matter if you are bored, you are not going leave your post. You are going to keep watch over the horizon. Because if you don’t and the enemy attacks, the whole city will be destroyed. This is Habakkuk’s way of saying, “I know I am in pain. I know I am confused. I know I am disappointed. But I am going to keep wrestling with God. I am not going anywhere. I am going to continue to do what I must do. I am not going to quit.” What does that mean for us? It’s simple. When life hurts, the number one temptation is for us to throw the towel. We give up. We quit coming to church. We quit going to MC. We quit praying. We quit serving. Why? Because we feel like we are getting nothing out of it. Why should we continue to do something that doesn’t feel like benefitting to us?

One time, someone said to John Newton, the writer of the hymn Amazing Grace, “I’m getting nothing out of praying so I am going to stop praying.” And John Newtown replied, “I can’t say with certainty that you will get what you want if you keep praying, but I am absolutely sure you will get nothing if you stop praying. You are going to get nothing out of not praying. So, keep praying.” Waiting on God means that even when we don’t feel like it, we still do what we need to do. In other words, if we were praying before, keep praying. If we were reading the Bible before, keep reading the Bible. If we were serving before, keep serving. If we were obeying God before, keep obeying. If we were going to MC before, keep going to MC. No matter how bad things are, we keep doing what we are supposed to do. Do the next thing. Put one foot in front of the next.

And I know what some of you are thinking right now. “For how long? How long should I wait before God answer my prayer? I’ve been wrestling with God for so long and I still don’t see any result. I am tired. I am weary. I just want to give up.” Waiting is extremely hard. But not knowing how long you have to wait makes it even harder. But listen to what Tim Keller said about waiting on God. “Waiting on God means to love him for who he is in himself. That means to be faithful to him even when you are getting nothing out of it at all. It’s only in times of trouble that you have an opportunity to turn your self-interested, exploitative relationship with God into real love. It’s only when loving him gives you no benefit at all.” Here is what I know about all of us. We don’t really know whether we truly love God until he is all we have, and he is enough. Let me speak from my own experience. I don’t really learn to trust God until I am drowning. I don’t really know God is all I need until God is all I have. I don’t really love God until I get to the lowest point in my life and am absolutely sure that God has forsaken me, only to see his hand holding me up at the bottom. It is not until I face hard times that I get to know God and love him for who he is. It is through hard times that I change from a consumer to a lover. Hard times reveal whether we are in a relationship with God because we love him or because we want him to serve us. And if we stick with God and learn how to love him no matter what, if we learn to be faithful even though we are getting nothing out of it, when we get to the other side, we will find the hard times have turned our hearts into gold.

The answer

Habakkuk 2:2-3 – ² And the Lord answered me: “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so he may run who reads it. ³ For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.

We don’t know how long Habakkuk waited for God’s answer, but he waited, and God answered him. And here is what’s amazing about God’s answer. Habakkuk just complained to God about God. We would think that God would reply by striking Habakkuk with a thunderbolt from the sky. But he doesn’t. Instead, God replies with a vision of hope. God says, “Habakkuk, I want you to get tablets and write down what I am about to tell you.” In other words, God wants his people to know what he is about to say. He wants it posted on Instagram, Facebook, X, church website, etc. He wants everyone to get this message. Why? Because God knows his people will need it. When they read what Habakkuk has written down, they will have hope amid their suffering. For the vision God gives will come true at its appointed time.

Note, God does not say my time, your time, or Habakkuk’s time. He says its appointed time. I mean, that’s what makes it hard to wait on God, isn’t it? We want God to act on our time, when we want it. Life would have been a lot easier if that was the case. But that’s not how God operates. God does not operate on anyone’s timetable; God operates based on his own timetable. But one thing is for sure, whatever God says will come to pass. God says to Habakkuk, “I want you to write it down. And I want you to wait for it because it will happen. I cannot lie. It doesn’t matter what you experience, it doesn’t matter what it looks like, my words will come true. It may look like a delay in your eyes, but it is not. It will surely come at its appointed time.” God knows that from humans’ perspective, it can look as though history is going around and around and around, but it’s not. God has set an appointed time. God’s people will have to wait patiently for God’s word to come true. Yes, it requires waiting, but they are not waiting without hope. They are waiting, knowing that everything God says will come to pass at the right time.

Let me tell you why this is important. There is an experiment conducted at Johns Hopkins University in which a researcher was trying to determine how long a rat could swim. If he just threw the rats in the water, they could last about 10 minutes before they lose strength and die. But if he took them out two to three times during those first 10 minutes and then back in the water, the rats could swim for more than 60 hours. Isn’t that interesting? The only difference between the rats who survived for 10 minutes and 60 hours is hope. Hope gives the rats the ability to swim more than 100 times longer than without hope. God knows his people need hope while they wait. That’s why God tells Habakkuk to write down the vision so that God’s people can wait in the hope that God will make everything right in its appointed time. God does not promise a quick fix to the situation. Waiting is necessary. Pain is unavoidable. But God will not lie. Salvation will surely come. So, how should God’s people wait for the appointed time? Listen to what God says next. And this is the main content of the vision.

Habakkuk 2:4-5 – ⁴ “Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him, but the righteous shall live by his faith. ⁵ “Moreover, wine is a traitor, an arrogant man who is never at rest. His greed is as wide as Sheol; like death he has never enough. He gathers for himself all nations and collects as his own all peoples.”

God is essentially saying that there are two ways to live: the way of the unrighteous and the way of the righteous. The way of the unrighteous is the way of pride. It is the way of no self-control. You put your trust in yourself, and you devour everything in your path. It is the way of Babylon, as we will see next week. But the way of the righteous is the opposite. The way of the righteous is the way of faith. It is to trust God no matter what happens. So, God is saying to Habakkuk, “I am still going to judge Judah. You cannot stop the Babylonians from coming. But there is a way for you and everyone who listens to your message to not be found guilty of what the Babylonians are guilty of. Here is how you can live: the righteous shall live by faith.” But what does it mean to live by faith? In this context, this is not faith in a set of theological truths. Because the Babylonians are coming. Things are going to get worse. They will experience more suffering. But amid a world crumbling around them, God wants them to believe God and his promises. He wants them to be faithful to him even when life hurts. They cannot avoid the collateral damage that will come when the Babylonians sweep over Judah, but they can be righteous if they live by faith.

Habakkuk 2:4 is one the most important verses in the Old Testament because it is one of the most important verses in the New Testament. It is quoted three times in the New Testament. Let me show you all three.

Romans 1:17 – For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Galatians 3:11 – Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.”
Hebrews 10:37-38 – For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; ³⁸ but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.”

Each of these verses merits a sermon on their own, but I am not going to do that to you. Otherwise, we will finish church at 7 PM. Let me just give you the gist of it. In Romans, Paul is saying that the gospel is the power of God for salvation because when we believe the gospel, we are counted as righteous, and we are saved. We do not become righteous because of what we do, but because we believe in what Jesus has done. It is our faith in Jesus that makes us righteous before God. That’s Romans. In Galatians, Paul makes it clear that obedience to the law cannot make anyone righteous. The law is good, but the law is powerless to make anyone right before God. The law diagnoses the problem, but it does not cure the problem. It is only faith in Jesus that justifies us. I heard a preacher once say that justifies means “just if I never sin.” That’s what happens when we put our faith in Jesus. God looks at us just if we never sin. And this is not something new in the New Testament. Think about Habakkuk. Habakkuk was complaining to God because God’s people were not obeying the law. It would make sense then for God to say, “The righteous shall live by obeying the law.” But that’s not what God said. Instead, God said, “The righteous shall live by faith.” It doesn’t mean we don’t need to obey the law. But obeying the law is the fruit of righteousness, not the cause of righteousness. That’s Galatians. But in Hebrews, the author quotes Habakkuk for a slightly different purpose. The author quotes Habakkuk to encourage the persecuted Christians to persevere in faith. The context of the book of Hebrews is the Christian Jews were facing opposition because of their faith. They experienced injustice and many of them were tempted to walk away from the Christian faith. And to these people, the author said, “If you live by faith, you will persevere. You are not going to shrink back.”

So, let’s put all these verses together. What does it mean to live by faith? To live by faith is not simply agreeing to a set of truths where we get righteousness and then move on to the rest of our lives. To live by faith is to trust God as long as we are breathing. It is to operate with faith in God as the principle in life 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Do you see? Sometimes it is easier for us to believe the salvation part. “Jesus died for me, and I am going to heaven because of him.” But faith is not just that. Faith is also where God said to Habakkuk, “The Babylonians are coming. They are going to wipe you out. They are going to destroy everything you hold dear. They are going to take over your nation. It is going to be the worst thing ever happen to you, but you must continue to trust in me.” That’s faith. The question is, do we have faith? When life is hard, when life does not make sense, do we have faith that God is with us? Do we believe that sin will not have the last word? Do we have faith that God has a purpose for our excruciating pain? Do we have faith that God will not leave us nor forsake us, even when our world is crumbling down? The righteous shall live by faith. And if we have faith, we will wait patiently on God. Because God is always working for his glory and our good.

But how? How can we wait patiently on God when our world is falling apart? There is only one way. Just like Habakkuk needs to put his faith in the purpose of God rather than the circumstances around him, we need to stop looking at our circumstances and instead look to the purpose of God in Jesus Christ. On the night before the crucifixion, Jesus gathered all the disciples together and he did the unthinkable. He washed his disciples’ feet. Washing someone’s feet was the job of the lowest of servants. And the disciples were shocked. They said, “Rabbi, why are you doing this? You can’t do this to us. You are our teacher. You are the Messiah. You are not a servant. You can’t wash our feet. We are the ones who should serve you.” Do you know what Jesus was doing? Jesus was waiting on them. Jesus was serving them. Jesus was saying, “I am going to serve you by dying on the cross. I’m going to pay for your sins. I am going to absorb God’s judgement that you deserve so that by your faith in me you will live.” And not only that. In one of Jesus’ parables about the future, he said that just like a master who went away on a trip and came back, Jesus would come back for his people. When the master returned, some of the servants were faithful because they were sure their master was coming back, others were unfaithful because they did not think the master was coming back. Through the parable, Jesus was saying, “I want my people to wait for me. I want them to live faithfully, patiently waiting for my return.”

But here is the most shocking part about the parable. Jesus said that when the master returned, he would dress himself to serve, and he would serve the faithful servants. Do you know what it means? It means that when Jesus returns, he will sit us at the table, and he will use all his infinite power, all his infinite authority, all his infinite wisdom to serve us. In other words, if we faithfully wait on Jesus today, if we faithfully wait on God to our last breath, Jesus will literally wait on us, and he will serve us for eternity. And we know we can trust his words because he died for us on the cross. At the cross, Jesus was serving us. He embraced the wrath of God and he persevered. He did not give up on us. He loved us to his very last breath. That’s what Jesus did for us in the past. And that’s what gives us the confidence he will do the same in the future. If we see Jesus laying down all his power aside to serve us in the past and also in the future, if we see him not giving up on us even on the cross, why can’t we wait for him now? If we see Jesus waiting on us in the past and waiting on us in the future, we can wait on him now. And here is God’s promise for those who wait on him.

Isaiah 40:27-31 – ²⁷ Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? ²⁸ Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. ²⁹ He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. ³⁰ Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; ³¹ but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. Based on your experience, why is it hard to wait on God?
3. Look at the three ways to wait on God (patiently, perspectively, diligently). Which one do you tend to neglect on your waiting and why?
4. Explain the meaning of the phrase, “The righteous shall live by his faith”. What does it look like in your daily life?
5. How does the gospel enable you to wait patiently on God?