Scripture referenced
The passage this message was preached from, in full, with every other passage it reached for.
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Philippians 3:7-8 read aloud during worship as a prayer that the congregation would count all things as loss compared to knowing Christ
7 However, I consider those things that were gain to me as a loss for Christ.
8 Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ
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Keep this verse
James 4:8
referenced during communion prayer as the promise that if we draw close to God he will draw close to us
8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
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Revelation 19:6-8
read aloud to describe the coming wedding feast of the Lamb
6 I heard something like the voice of a great multitude, and like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of mighty thunders, saying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!
7 Let us rejoice and be exceedingly glad, and let us give the glory to him. For the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his wife has made herself ready.”
8 It was given to her that she would array herself in bright, pure, fine linen: for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.
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Isaiah 35
read and discussed as a prophetic picture of Jesus returning through the wilderness to rescue Israel, with deserts blooming and the blind seeing
1 The wilderness and the dry land will be glad. The desert will rejoice and blossom like a rose.
2 It will blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing. Lebanon’s glory will be given to it, the excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They will see Yahweh’s glory, the excellence of our God.
3 Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees.
4 Tell those who have a fearful heart, “Be strong. Don’t be afraid. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, God’s retribution. He will come and save you.
5 Then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped.
6 Then the lame man will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will sing; for waters will break out in the wilderness, and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool, and the thirsty ground springs of water. Grass with reeds and rushes will be in the habitation of jackals, where they lay.
8 A highway will be there, a road, and it will be called The Holy Way. The unclean shall not pass over it, but it will be for those who walk in the Way. Wicked fools will not go there.
9 No lion will be there, nor will any ravenous animal go up on it. They will not be found there; but the redeemed will walk there.
10 The Yahweh’s ransomed ones will return, and come with singing to Zion; and everlasting joy will be on their heads. They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”
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Luke 21
briefly referenced as Jesus warning that when you see the abomination of desolation in Jerusalem, flee to the wilderness
1 He looked up, and saw the rich people who were putting their gifts into the treasury.
2 He saw a certain poor widow casting in two small brass coins.
3 He said, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow put in more than all of them,
4 for all these put in gifts for God from their abundance, but she, out of her poverty, put in all that she had to live on.”
5 As some were talking about the temple and how it was decorated with beautiful stones and gifts, he said,
6 “As for these things which you see, the days will come, in which there will not be left here one stone on another that will not be thrown down.”
7 They asked him, “Teacher, so when will these things be? What is the sign that these things are about to happen?”
8 He said, “Watch out that you don’t get led astray, for many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he,’ and, ‘The time is at hand.’ Therefore don’t follow them.
9 When you hear of wars and disturbances, don’t be terrified, for these things must happen first, but the end won’t come immediately.”
10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
11 There will be great earthquakes, famines, and plagues in various places. There will be terrors and great signs from heaven.
12 But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.
13 It will turn out as a testimony for you.
14 Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,
15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.
16 You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.
17 You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.
18 And not a hair of your head will perish.
19 “By your endurance you will win your lives.
20 “But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then know that its desolation is at hand.
21 Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let those who are in the middle of her depart. Let those who are in the country not enter therein.
22 For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.
23 Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who nurse infants in those days! For there will be great distress in the land, and wrath to this people.
24 They will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive into all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled down by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled.
25 There will be signs in the sun, moon, and stars; and on the earth anxiety of nations, in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the waves;
26 men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world: for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
27 Then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.
28 But when these things begin to happen, look up, and lift up your heads, because your redemption is near.”
29 He told them a parable. “See the fig tree, and all the trees.
30 When they are already budding, you see it and know by your own selves that the summer is already near.
31 Even so you also, when you see these things happening, know that God’s Kingdom is near.
32 Most certainly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things are accomplished.
33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will by no means pass away.
34 “So be careful, or your hearts will be loaded down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that day will come on you suddenly.
35 For it will come like a snare on all those who dwell on the surface of all the earth.
36 Therefore be watchful all the time, praying that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will happen, and to stand before the Son of Man.”
37 Every day Jesus was teaching in the temple, and every night he would go out and spend the night on the mountain that is called Olivet.
38 All the people came early in the morning to him in the temple to hear him.
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John 10
referenced twice, once for Jesus saying he is the good shepherd who leads his sheep, and once for the image of him knowing each sheep by name
1 “Most certainly, I tell you, one who doesn’t enter by the door into the sheep fold, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.
2 But one who enters in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.
3 The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.
4 Whenever he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.
5 They will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him; for they don’t know the voice of strangers.”
6 Jesus spoke this parable to them, but they didn’t understand what he was telling them.
7 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Most certainly, I tell you, I am the sheep’s door.
8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep didn’t listen to them.
9 I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.
10 The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
12 He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them.
13 The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own;
15 even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.
17 Therefore the Father loves me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again.
18 No one takes it away from me, but I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. I received this commandment from my Father.”
19 Therefore a division arose again among the Jews because of these words.
20 Many of them said, “He has a demon, and is insane! Why do you listen to him?”
21 Others said, “These are not the sayings of one possessed by a demon. It isn’t possible for a demon to open the eyes of the blind, is it?”
22 It was the Feast of the Dedication at Jerusalem.
23 It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s porch.
24 The Jews therefore came around him and said to him, “How long will you hold us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly.”
25 Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you don’t believe. The works that I do in my Father’s name, these testify about me.
26 But you don’t believe, because you are not of my sheep, as I told you.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give eternal life to them. They will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
30 I and the Father are one.”
31 Therefore Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from my Father. For which of those works do you stone me?”
33 The Jews answered him, “We don’t stone you for a good work, but for blasphemy: because you, being a man, make yourself God.”
34 Jesus answered them, “Isn’t it written in your law, ‘I said, you are gods?’
35 If he called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture can’t be broken),
36 do you say of him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, ‘You blaspheme,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God?’
37 If I don’t do the works of my Father, don’t believe me.
38 But if I do them, though you don’t believe me, believe the works; that you may know and believe that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.”
39 They sought again to seize him, and he went out of their hand.
40 He went away again beyond the Jordan into the place where John was baptizing at first, and there he stayed.
41 Many came to him. They said, “John indeed did no sign, but everything that John said about this man is true.”
42 Many believed in him there.
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Habakkuk 3:1-6
read aloud as the main text, a prophetic vision of God coming from Teman and Mount Paran with splendor filling the heavens
1 A prayer of Habakkuk, the prophet, set to victorious music.
2 Yahweh, I have heard of your fame. I stand in awe of your deeds, Yahweh. Renew your work in the middle of the years. In the middle of the years make it known. In wrath, you remember mercy.
3 God came from Teman, the Holy One from Mount Paran. Selah. His glory covered the heavens, and his praise filled the earth.
4 His splendor is like the sunrise. Rays shine from his hand, where his power is hidden.
5 Plague went before him, and pestilence followed his feet.
6 He stood, and shook the earth. He looked, and made the nations tremble. The ancient mountains were crumbled. The age-old hills collapsed. His ways are eternal.
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Zephaniah 3:17
read aloud as a companion tile to Habakkuk, describing God rejoicing over his people with singing and calming their fears
17 Yahweh, your God, is among you, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with joy. He will calm you in his love. He will rejoice over you with singing.
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Hosea 2
quoted briefly as God saying he will lead Israel into the desert again and speak tenderly to her there
1 “Say to your brothers, ‘My people!’ and to your sisters, ‘My loved one!’
2 Contend with your mother! Contend, for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband; and let her put away her prostitution from her face, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
3 Lest I strip her naked, and make her bare as in the day that she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and kill her with thirst.
4 Indeed, on her children I will have no mercy; for they are children of unfaithfulness;
5 For their mother has played the prostitute. She who conceived them has done shamefully; for she said, ‘I will go after my lovers, who give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, my oil and my drink.’
6 Therefore behold, I will hedge up your way with thorns, and I will build a wall against her, that she can’t find her way.
7 She will follow after her lovers, but she won’t overtake them; and she will seek them, but won’t find them. Then she will say, ‘I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now.’
8 For she did not know that I gave her the grain, the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied to her silver and gold, which they used for Baal.
9 Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.
10 Now I will uncover her lewdness in the sight of her lovers, and no one will deliver her out of my hand.
11 I will also cause all her celebrations to cease: her feasts, her new moons, her Sabbaths, and all her solemn assemblies.
12 I will lay waste her vines and her fig trees, about which she has said, ‘These are my wages that my lovers have given me; and I will make them a forest,’ and the animals of the field shall eat them.
13 I will visit on her the days of the Baals, to which she burned incense, when she decked herself with her earrings and her jewels, and went after her lovers, and forgot me,” says Yahweh.
14 “Therefore behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.
15 I will give her vineyards from there, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope; and she will respond there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt.
16 It will be in that day,” says Yahweh, “that you will call me ‘my husband,’ and no longer call me ‘my master.’
17 For I will take away the names of the Baals out of her mouth, and they will no longer be mentioned by name.
18 In that day I will make a covenant for them with the animals of the field, and with the birds of the sky, and with the creeping things of the ground. I will break the bow, the sword, and the battle out of the land, and will make them lie down safely.
19 I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness, in justice, in loving kindness, and in compassion.
20 I will even betroth you to me in faithfulness; and you shall know Yahweh.
21 It will happen in that day, I will respond,” says Yahweh, “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth;
22 and the earth will respond to the grain, and the new wine, and the oil; and they will respond to Jezreel.
23 I will sow her to me in the earth; and I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy; and I will tell those who were not my people, ‘You are my people;’ and they will say, ‘My God!’”
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1 Peter 1:6
read aloud as encouragement that trials test and purify faith and will bring praise and glory when Jesus is revealed
6 Wherein you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been put to grief in various trials,
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Romans 1:20
referenced in passing as the basis for seeing aspects of God's character revealed in creation
20 For the invisible things of him since the creation of the world are clearly seen, being perceived through the things that are made, even his everlasting power and divinity; that they may be without excuse.
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Proverbs
briefly referenced with the idea that a wicked man falls into the pit he digs for someone else, applied to Pharaoh's decree against Israelite firstborns
Keep this verseRecap
The message in order, in a few minutes of reading.
Brian walked the congregation through a mosaic of prophetic passages about the return of Jesus, using Habakkuk 3 as the main tile, and framed the whole conversation around the idea that God answers cries for help not by fixing present circumstances but by giving a picture of what is coming. Communion opened the morning as a remembrance that points both backward to the Passover and forward to the wedding supper of the Lamb. The thread running through everything was hope, specifically the kind of hope that overflows onto people around us who have none.
What was said
Before the sermon began, several people shared words and scripture over the congregation. One word connected back to something spoken in June, that the frontline of spiritual warfare for Tribe is the sphere of influence each person already occupies, whether at work or at the grocery store, and that speaking hope out loud, even in a whisper, carries authority to break chains people are living under. Another person read from Philippians 3, where Paul counts everything as loss compared to knowing Christ, and that became a thread Brian returned to throughout the morning.
Communion was framed between two fixed points. Looking backward, Brian traced the Passover as a foreshadowing of Jesus as the ultimate Passover lamb. Looking forward, he read from Revelation 19 and the wedding supper of the Lamb, noting that Jesus said he would not drink of the fruit of the vine again until that day. Communion sits between those two moments, a remembrance and an anticipation at the same time.
Brian opened Habakkuk by asking Lanisha why it is one of her favorite Old Testament books. She described the shape of the three chapters as a pattern she has lived: pouring out her situation before God in the first chapter, receiving a vision and a word in the second, and then watching it come to pass in the third. That framing set up the main point, that God's answer to Habakkuk's distress was not immediate relief but a prophetic picture far in the future.
Habakkuk 3 was read aloud, with Brian pausing on the word Selah to explain it as an old musical instruction to stop and let what was just said sink in. The passage describes God moving up from the desert regions of Teman and Mount Paran, his splendor filling the atmosphere, his coming as brilliant as the sunrise, rays flashing from his hands. Brian connected the geography, roughly the Sinai Peninsula and Edom south of Israel, to a future scenario where Jewish refugees are encamped in the wilderness during the tribulation, and Jesus is returning from that direction to rescue them.
The congregation helped build the picture. One person imagined refugees in FEMA tents, barely holding on, and described the arrival of Jesus as a moment so overwhelming that people would not even be able to stand. Another pictured the northern lights stretching across the entire sky, the way a solar eclipse in 2017 brought a city like San Francisco to a quiet standstill. Someone else noted that those refugees would receive the full force of that glory, while the rest of the earth might only catch the aftermath of it.
Brian described Jesus as redemptively disruptive, a phrase that surfaced in a men's group in Reno and landed in the room as worth sitting with. He connected it to the pestilence and plague that march before and after the Lord in Habakkuk's vision, arguing that Jesus does not tolerate what is contrary to his order, and that his disruptions, even the painful ones, come from love and are aimed at healing. A woman in the congregation added that Habakkuk 3:17-18, where the prophet says he will rejoice even when the fig tree does not blossom and the fields produce nothing, is the takeaway, that trust and rejoicing remain possible no matter how bad circumstances become.
Brian closed by pulling in Isaiah 35 and Zephaniah 3:17, adding them as additional tiles in the same mosaic. The flowers blooming in the desert after his return are possible because of the torrential storms that accompany his coming. The tenderness toward Israel described in Hosea 2, where God says he will lead her into the desert again and speak tenderly to her there, rounds out the picture of a returning shepherd who knows his sheep by name. Lissa then encouraged the congregation that the sweetest times in the word and in worship are often the ones when you least feel like it, and that cultivating that relationship now is what prepares you to hear God's voice when disruption comes.
Touch points
Things you could actually do this week.
- Speak hope out loud over someone this week, even in a whisper, rather than just thinking it silently.
- Set aside time in private to read Scripture or pray, especially on a day when you do not feel like it.
- When something disruptive happens in your life this week, pause and ask the Lord whether he is at work in it.
- If you are watching the Tuesday night service, sign up to drop off a meal for the young adults who gather there.
- Meditate on Philippians 3:7-8 and consider what you are treating as more important than knowing Jesus.
Doing a Bible study?
Here is a guide we have prepared for you: the passages in order, questions for the group, and room to write.
- Lanisha described Habakkuk as a three-chapter picture of crying out, waiting, and watching it come to pass. Has there been a season in your life that followed that same arc? What was it like to wait for God's answer?
- Brian said God answered Habakkuk not by fixing his circumstances but by giving him a prophetic picture of the future. When you have cried out to God for relief, how have you responded when his answer was hope for the future rather than a change in the present?
and 3 more questions in the guide
Resumen en español
El mensaje resumido, en español.
El servicio comenzó con un tiempo de adoración centrado en la fidelidad de Dios y el valor de conocerlo por encima de cualquier otra cosa. Durante la comunión, Brian invitó a la congregación a recordar no solo la muerte de Jesús, sino también lo que esa muerte apunta hacia adelante: la cena de las bodas del Cordero descrita en Apocalipsis. La comunión fue presentada como un puente entre la Pascua del Antiguo Testamento, la cruz, y ese banquete futuro.
El mensaje principal giró en torno al libro de Habacuc, especialmente el capítulo tres. Brian explicó que Habacuc, al igual que muchos de nosotros, clamó a Dios pidiendo que arreglara sus circunstancias difíciles, y Dios respondió no con alivio inmediato sino con una visión profética del futuro. Usando esa visión junto con pasajes de Isaías y Sofonías, Brian fue armando lo que describió como un mosaico de imágenes proféticas sobre el regreso de Jesús: viniendo desde el sur a través del desierto, con un resplandor que llena el cielo, para rescatar a un pueblo judío refugiado y oprimido. La conversación fue abierta y participativa, con miembros de la congregación compartiendo sus propias imágenes mentales de ese momento.
El servicio cerró con una reflexión sobre el diezmo como un acto de confianza y una manera de cultivar esperanza, y con una exhortación a mantenerse cerca de Dios a través de su palabra y la adoración, especialmente en tiempos difíciles. Se mencionó que la propiedad del TMC sigue en proceso de venta y que no hay novedades aún.
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Pasajes bíblicos usados:
- Filipenses 3:7-8
- Apocalipsis 19:6-8
- Isaías 35:1-2, 6-7
- Habacuc 3:1-6, 17-18
- Sofonías 3:17
- 1 Pedro 1:6
- Juan 10
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