Bible passage: Habakkuk 2.1-4
Keeping watch
If you have ever visited somewhere like Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle, you will have seen the guards standing in front of their little huts, stock still. I’ve often wondered what they are thinking about, standing there so still!
But also, I’ve wondered how they can keep watch when their hat things seem to cover their eyes! Maybe they have learned the art of sleeping while standing up…
I suspect the eyes keeping watch over Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle are the other side of CCTV cameras, in a darkened and secret room. When I worked in Tamworth the Churches Together group set up a Street Pastors scheme and as part of it the police showed us the secret CCTV office in the town centre. It was incredible… and terrifying!
In Habakkuk’s day there were no security cameras or rooms filled with screens and monitors. The people guarding the cities had to stand – including all through the night – atop the city walls, on the ramparts (1), and look. There were no streetlights either – so on a cloudy night it would have been really hard to see.
These days visible guards outside our royal palaces are ceremonial, there for the tourists. In Habakkuk’s day they were vital, keeping guard as the city slept; ready at any moment to sound the alarm.
Habakkuk demonstrates three key qualities of a good watchman:
- They had to be attentive. They had to pay attention to what was happening, to recognise any dangers – not falling asleep on the job, or getting distracted.
- They had to be patient. Most of the time, most nights, nothing would happen; staring at the same tree for hours on end, waiting for sunrise, they learned great patience!
- They had to be faithful. When everyone else is asleep, you really need to trust the people with the weapons and the keys to the city gate. A traitor would spell disaster…
At the end of our gospel reading Jesus tells us, ‘Keep watch’ (Matthew 25.13) – this is the sort of thing he’s talking about.
Be Attentive (1)
When I preached on Habakkuk chapter 3 on 24 August I gave a brief introduction to him there – if you’re interested I suggest you look back on our website where we publish all our sermons.
Here in chapter 2 we find Habakkuk after complaining at God – mostly about what God is not doing. Whether it is personal or – like Habakkuk – we have national concerns on our hearts, I suspect we have all been there: crying out, unable to understand why God isn’t doing something we think he ought to do.
There is nothing wrong with praying like that. A vital part of prayer is sharing with God what’s on our heart. He knows, but it’s helpful for us to speak those prayers to our loving Father.
Perhaps you need to hear that encouragement this morning: to pray to God more honestly. Or perhaps we need to notice what Habakkuk does next, after voicing his complaints in chapter 1:
I will stand at my watch
Habakkuk 2.1 (NIV)
and station myself on the ramparts;
I will look to see what [God] will say to me.
The prophet knows the most important thing he can do, more important even than voicing his honest concerns and complaints, is to look for and listen to what God is saying, to be attentive.
And that’s a hard thing to do – because God doesn’t always say what we want him to say. Sometimes the prophets had a message of encouragement for God’s people. But more often than not – because we are not perfect and always wandering off like sheep – they had a message of challenge, calling people back to God.
That’s where it gets tough, for listening to God often requires change: sometimes as individuals, sometimes as a church. Maybe today, right now, you know how God is calling you to change?
And, as I’ve been saying since the summer, I think God’s word to us in this season is ‘shuffle’. He is breaking and remoulding us like the potter in Jeremiah 18 – and that hurts, because what he called us to in the past may – or may not – be what he calls us to tomorrow. I have spent so long over the past six months – so long – praying, looking, listening (to God and to you) – trying to do what Habakkuk did and pay attention to what God is doing among us, now. There is so much change and challenge all happening at once, with so many competing voices and concerns – it’s exhausting. I’m exhausted, and I know some of you are too.
But through all this, through everything that’s happening at Christ Church right now, what matters most is that we stand, watch, and look to see what [God] will say to [us].
Because, however painful it might be as things shuffle, as God breaks us and remoulds us – we will end up in far, far better place if we listen to him, follow him, and go where he is sending us – whatever that looks like, and whatever the cost.
This is my promise today to you: to do what Habakkuk did, to stand at my watch, and look to see what [God] will say to [us]. And I invite you to join me in doing that. God has called me here to do that as the leader of this church family – but Jesus tells all of us to ‘Keep watch’, together.
So perhaps God is prompting you, speaking to you right now – maybe about yourself, about a situation, about this church. Habakkuk encourages us and Jesus commands us: be attentive to God, like a watchman standing guard on the city walls.
Be Patient (2-3)
Can you think of a time when you needed to wait patiently for something or someone? Perhaps Christmas, a baby, a job to start, a broken limb to heal or to get better from being sick?
It’s not easy when things take longer to arrive than we want! I read something this week which made me go ‘ouch’…
We do not find it easy to watch or to wait. We are much better at talking and doing.
David Prior, The Message of Joel, Micah & Habakkuk, 228
If you felt the ‘ouch’ – that wasn’t written about me, you or Christ Church – it was written 40 years ago… People don’t change!
The thing is… that’s no excuse. The second characteristic of cultivating watchfulness is being patient.
The thing is, when we are impatient with God, it is a sign that we aren’t really listening, that we think our agenda and timing is more important than his, that we know better than him. There is no room for pride in a patient person – which means there’s little room for patience in a proud person. God said to Habakkuk:
‘The revelation awaits an appointed time;
Habakkuk 2.3 (NIV)
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it will certainly come and will not delay.’
Though it linger, wait for it – this is one of those phrases I wish the Bible didn’t say! I don’t want God’s word to linger, and I don’t want to wait for it… I want it now! Can you relate to that??
But God says: wait. Patience might be one of the least popular virtues, one of the ones we skip over in Paul’s list of the fruit of the Spirit… but the thing about waiting patiently is: it helps us to be humble before the Almighty God. It helps us to put him first, front and centre, before our own desires and dreams.
Sometimes we don’t understand. Why does this happen, but not that? How does this bit of the Bible fit with that bit – if it is all trustworthy and true (which it is, by the way)? Why is this thing going on in my life right now? Why won’t this person I love so deeply respond to the good news about Jesus?
Sometimes we don’t understand – but God does, and he calls us to trust him, to wait patiently with humility.
When we are in that place, God tells us through Habakkuk: do not give up; he says, ‘revelation awaits an appointed time… it will certainly come’ – and ‘[it] will not prove false’. I encourage you not to give up on God; in humility keep praying, waiting, and listening. It is so hard sometimes, but let’s be patient.
Cultivating watchfulness means being attentive, patient…
Faithful (4)
…and faithful.
Habakkuk 2.4 is one of the most famous verses in the Bible, because Paul quotes it in Romans as a summary of the gospel:
The righteous person will live by his faithfulness.
For in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed – a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: ‘The righteous will live by faith.’
Habakkuk 2.4 & Romans 1.17 (NIV)
Are there any fans of the BBC TV show The Traitors here today? I confess I’ve never watched it, but for some reason I followed the news about the recent Celebrity Traitors avidly!
Which helped me understand when the Health Secretary Wes Streeting spent an entire day being interviewed claiming to be a faithful, rather than a traitor…
That’s the sort of ‘faithful’ God is talking about to Habakkuk. It’s not about believing certain things – though that does matter – it’s about character, honesty, integrity.
Ultimately that is how God’s people are called to wait. Not doing our own thing. Not giving in to frustration. Not turning away from God – but living faithfully, as his children, growing more like Jesus, seeking his kingdom, sharing his gospel.
Because actually the verse in Romans 1.17 is ambiguous. On the one hand, like Habakkuk, it is talking about how God’s people are called to live – not as autonomous independent beings but as free and faithful children of our loving heavenly Father.
But also Paul is talking about the faithfulness of God in Jesus. We – God’s children – we live not because we are somehow special or extra faithful or believe the right things; no: we live because Jesus was faithful until the end. We live because Jesus was perfect, obedient, honest – the only person ever to live a life of total integrity and faithfulness.
That is the gift of the gospel. You don’t have to ‘find yourself’ because Jesus has come looking for you, he has done it all for you. We live because of his faithfulness. We have life because he was faithful – and the way God calls us to live that life is by being faithful ourselves. Faithful to him, to his kingdom, to the gospel, to one another as sisters and brothers in his family.
How to pray
So, watchfulness means being attentive, patient and faithful.
But I’d like to sum up everything we’ve been thinking about this morning with some words from a Church of England reflection from a few days ago, entitled ‘Changing Seasons’. I think it captures something of the attitude of watchfulness we see in Habakkuk, where we are as a church right now, and perhaps something we all – including me – need to hear ourselves, today.
Whatever season of life we’re in, whatever we have going on, we need to trust and obey our loving and promise-keeping God. God promises to bless the work of our hands – whatever he has put in our hands to do, and we are to be faithful to him as we do so. Don’t just pray that God blesses what we do; pray that we would do what God blesses.
Do you see the difference? Don’t just pray that God blesses what we do; pray that we would do what God blesses. That’s my prayer for you today, my encouragement to all of us as we pray – and it starts with joining Habakkuk on the spiritual walls, keeping watch, listening for what God is saying to us.
Will you join me in that – for yourself, and for us as a church?