Welcome-Habakkuk Recap

You're listening to the Christ Our Cornerstone

podcast, a ministry of Christ Our Cornerstone

Church in O 'Neill, Nebraska. I'm Pastor Logan

Manrick, and it's our prayer that this message

strengthens your faith and draws you closer to

Christ. Let's dive in. Hey, hi friends, Pastor

Logan here and I'm so excited. This is the first

episode of Christ our cornerstone podcast and

I just wanted to kind of introduce this podcast

and tell you a little bit about it. Plus, let's

just kind of recap a little bit of Habakkuk since

we've gone through the first two chapters thus

far. But this podcast is something now that we

have established a new website and there's things

good things happening. I want to be able to take

something where we're no longer just on Facebook

live, but that we can have a place where you

can listen to sermons, you know, share them with

friends and also where I can. Unpack maybe some

questions that you guys have and do some like

apologetics or just kind of some faith things

faith conversations Bible studies books I'm reading

whatever just kind of like an all -encompassing

kind of thing that it kind of connects us a little

bit more as you guys are in the Combine or on

the ranch or Working at the house or making the

long drive to Norfolk You know wherever but each

week you're gonna hear messages from our worship

From time to time, I also sit down and talk about,

just like I said, everyday topics from faith

in the workplace, discipleship, rural ministry,

or books I'm reading, like I said. But to start

things off today, like I said, I wanted to just

kind of do a little recap of Habakkuk chapters

one and two. And essentially, the entire book

of Habakkuk, which is a short book, as we've

discovered, is Habakkuk making a complaint about

the wickedness going on around him. Now, I want

to remind you when the Charlie Kirk stuff happened,

I felt like we needed to pivot and unpack the

Book of Habakkuk. And so it's a powerful short

book. And a lot of people skip over it because

they feel like maybe it's not relevant or maybe

they don't understand what's going on. But he

starts out with this cry of, oh, Lord, how long

shall I cry out for help? And you will not hear

and. I've been talking about with you guys like

how many times have we been in that space where

something's going on whether whether it's a divorce

or whether it's a Loss of a loved one or it's

a diagnosis or it's a financial thing. It's it

can be a lot of different things It's it essentially

it's just chaos like in our life or we see injustice

like the Charlie Kirk murder or we see genocides

and we see a lot of different things throughout

our lifetime war. If you were a soldier, maybe

like you've seen some injustice happening and

and that is placed in us by God, by the way,

when we see injustice and we see wrongs and they're

not being righted. We it's been placed in us

to know that that's wrong and that there should

be justice happening. And that's because God

is a god of justice. He is justice. And so therefore

we, too, feel that discomfort of injustice and

wanting to see violence come to an end, wanting

to see injustice come to an end, wanting to see

evil vanquished, all of those things. That's

why we love stories of evil being vanquished

and all of those things. But what's beautiful

about the book is that God answers him but he

answers in a way that Habakkuk does not expect

nor does Habakkuk like and he says I am doing

a work in your days that you wouldn't believe

if I told you now that it gets put on a coffee

cup or a t -shirt all the time and and honestly,

it's it's kind of craziness because God is essentially

saying I'm doing a work, but you're not gonna

like it and essentially what he's what he says

and if you've been with us um, these past couple

of weeks is he's like, Hey, I'm going to send

the Babylonians because they had been under,

uh, rule and different things of, uh, as far

as Israel and Habakkuk is in Judah. But Israel

has already gone into exile and and he's seeing

famine and he's seeing people die and he's seeing

a lot of evil happening and he's seeing things

inside you to where Jehoiakim is an evil leader

and he's been placed there by Egypt and and he's

like Lord you need to do something about this

and he's like I am and I'm sending the Babylonians

and he's like the Babylonians like I hear that

there's the you know, they're bad dudes and they

are bad dudes. They're very very evil and He's

like what? Why? You should deal with this, not

send more evil. And if you want to know everything

that happens in that time, you can read the book

of Daniel, you can read Habakkuk, you can read

Jeremiah, you can read Isaiah. Isaiah prophesies

about this coming, and then Jeremiah and Daniel

both talk about those times of exile with the

Babylonians. But what's at the heart of chapters

one and two is God reminding His people that

he is at work, no matter the chaos going on around

us. He's like, you may not even understand how

and why and what I'm doing, but I am at work.

And God says, the righteous shall live by faith.

And that's the important part of what we have

to remember is that that's one of the most important

lines in all of scripture. It's quoted in Romans,

Galatians, and in Hebrews. And it means that

even when things feel upside down, God calls

his people to trust him. Not because we can see

the plan, but because we know his character.

We know what he's about and who he is. And so

Habakkuk teaches us to move from fear to faith

and from complaint to confidence. Because Habakkuk

starts his whole book going, do you see this?

And then he's like, why do you make me look at

this, right? And so with that being said, Habakkuk

reminds us to live by faith. And that's the biggest

thing. So as you're on your journey that we're

all on, as you're walking through life and life

gets messy, learning to trust God in the waiting,

to believe that He's doing something good, even

when you can't see it yet. So that's essentially

the first two chapters. And we're going to get

ready to unpack chapter three this week. And

so I hope this was helpful to you. I'm excited

about unpacking more of Habakkuk, but also having

this podcast. If you've got questions you want

me to dive into or anything like that, please,

please, please let me know. Feel free to email

me. If you're not a part of our church, you live

somewhere else. We're glad that you're listening,

but I hope you are a part of. a local church

and if you're new to the faith or you're still

trying to figure things out and maybe you've

got questions, feel free to reach out to me at

logandmarrick at gmail .com. But so glad that

you're here. Check out more about our church

at christourcornerstonechurch .com. And yeah,

let's continue to walk through things together.

Thanks for listening to the first episode of

Christ Our Cornerstone podcast. I'm Pastor Logan

and we'll see you next time. Thanks a lot. Bye

-bye.