Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Habakkuk 3:17-18
Pastor: Pastor Berg
Sermon Date:  December 31, 2018

“Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom his world rejoices, who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours today.”

If there’s any time of year that would be appropriate to recount the blessings we have received from our God, it would be on the very last day of the year. This familiar hymn verse certainly does that. When we think of the words again, we must wonder how rich the hymn writer must have been, how blessed to be inspired to write words such as these. I don’t think it would surprise us at all that the author of “Now Thank We All Our God,” Martin Rinkart, was a pastor. However, I think we would be surprised…perhaps better…shocked to find out the circumstances that prompted this hymn. Pastor Rinkart served in the village of Eilenberg, Germany during the 17th century. For those of you who know your history, you remember that in the early to mid 17th century, the Thirty Years War was raging in Germany. And that tiny village of Eilenberg seemed right in the middle of everything. In 1637, the plague visited Eilenberg with extraordinary severity. The town was overcrowded with fugitives from the country districts where the Swedes had been spreading devastation. Due to this overcrowding, the plague spread rapidly. Add in the losses from the war, in this one year 1637, 8000 people died in Eilenberg. Pastor Rinkart buried over 4,000 people himself! As if this were not enough, three different times Eilenberg was overrun by invading armies. With each invasion, the people became more and more impoverished. And when they basically were left with nothing, the Swedish army came in demanding a tribute payment of $30,000. Pastor Rinkart went into the Swedish camp to beg for mercy, but found none. So he said to the crowd following him, “Come, my children, we can find no hearing, no mercy with men, let us take refuge with God.” This town and its pastor had nothing, literally nothing. And yet, in spite of plague and war, Martin Rinkart wrote, “Now Thank We All Our God.”

What if we at Eastside were faced with the same situation? What if we took inventory of our blessings and honestly found out that we didn’t have very much financially, that your health had taken a turn for the worse, that there was no peace in Madison or in our homes? What if you went home tonight to ring in the New Year only to find the cupboards bare, nothing to eat or drink? Would you still believe that your times are in God’s hands? Would you still have a reason to give thanks? Yeah, thanks for nothing!

Welcome to the life and times of the prophet Habakkuk. Habakkuk is somewhat of a mystery simply because he doesn’t tell us very much about himself. What we do know, however, is that he has some musical abilities and that he was most likely an early contemporary of the prophets Nahum, Zephaniah, and Jeremiah. Habakkuk had been given special insight by the Lord about what would happen to the nation of Judah when the Babylonians came. Habakkuk knew that the land would be devastated by the coming army: the fields would be destroyed, the vineyards would be ruined, the cattle would be taken; poverty and destruction would rule this once fertile land. Habakkuk could see all of this clearly, as if it had already happened. Listen to what he says, “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails  and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

Thanks for nothing? Isn’t that what we hear Habakkuk saying? Thanks God for zero blessings? There’s no fruit on the trees, no grapes on the vines, no olives for oil, no food, no animals…essentially no means for survival…thanks God…for nothing. How? How can Habakkuk say what he says? How can he truly be thankful when even the necessities of life seem to be missing? How can he truly be thankful when Israel had been blessed like no other nation before? How could he truly believe that his times were still in God’s hands? He tells us how, doesn’t he? He says, “I will rejoice in the LORD.” Habakkuk realized that the LORD had not forgotten Israel, but rather, Israel had forgotten the LORD. Exactly what Moses had warned them about in Deuteronomy 8 had happened. “Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God…You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If you ever forget the Lord your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. Like the nations the Lord destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the Lord your God.”

Israel had forgotten the One from whom it all came. And because they had forgotten and rejected the LORD, God’s judgment was coming. It was coming in the form of the Babylonians. Yet, Habakkuk also realized that this judgment wasn’t final. It was meant to lead the people to repentance and to return to the LORD. Even though Israel had changed their minds and forgotten the LORD, the LORD had not forgotten them. The promise to deliver them from Babylon had not changed. And even more importantly, the promise to deliver them from their sins had not changed!

Thanks for nothing? It’s relatively easy to give thanks when all is going well. But how easy is it to give thanks when the blessings are removed? We constantly hear reasons why we shouldn’t be thankful. Health care costs continue to rise. The stock market has been plummeting recently. Financial challenges seem to be a constant around here. However, contrary to this message of thanklessness, gloom, and discontent that we hear on almost a daily basis, Habakkuk has words for us today that strike a different chord. We can indeed give thanks when our physical blessings are removed, even if all of them are removed. We can give thanks because we have one blessing that will never be removed. We have the LORD. We have God, our Savior. Circumstances may change; material wealth may fail or be lost, but the author of salvation does not change. The obedience lived by Christ is our righteousness before GOd. The payment of that life is our ongoing comfort that our debt of sin has been cancelled, paid in full. The empty grave is proof of where we stand with God as his people.

God is my Savior, Habakkuk writes. He’s mine and he’s yours! All of these blessings are mine. They are yours. They are yours, you who may be having trouble making ends meet, you who are suffering the loss of a friend or family member. You stand right with God in Christ! Your salvation is secure! And because of this, on this New Year’s Eve, we can know for certain that our times are in God’s hands! We can rejoice and be joyful. We have real and lasting joy in Christ!  Our joy in this life is not dependant on paid off debt, a full belly, or a five-bedroom home. Our joy in this life is based on an eternal victory won by Christ! As we close out 2018, we thank God for giving us this message of encouragement through the prophet Habakkuk. Through the power of this Word of God, we can go forward into 2019 and join the prophet saying “I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior!” Amen.