Spirit - Led Prayer

SERMON: 2008-05-10--sm0851--spirit-led-prayer SOURCE DURATION: 00:40:24.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.90 APPROVED: false REASON: All candidates are clearly musical content (hymn/worship song), indicating that the sermon concluded immediately before candidate 0. Since no preceding sermon material is available in the provided list, and I must select an index, I am selecting the final candidate as a fallback measure, although it represents non-sermon material. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:36:03.180-00:40:21.460 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- So, as we look this morning then at these verses that we've read together from the Book of Romans, allow me to make three observations. Number one, please note the emphasis on all creation groans. Verse 22, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. It goes on then to say in verse 23, "We ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons." We know, he says, the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. So the imagery here is that of a woman giving birth to a child. Now, any woman here that has ever gone through childbirth or any male that has ever watched the process of childbirth will know that it's an incredibly laborious, oftentimes very painful. I'll never forget when our first was born in 1972. This was the first time that hospitals were loosening up this policy about allowing husbands into the delivery room. Up until then, husbands were strictly forbidden. They had nothing to do with this part of the womanly process of giving birth, but somewhere along the line, somebody in his wisdom decided that husbands really ought to be part of the birthing experience. And out in PEI, I was one of the first to be allowed in the room when my wife was giving birth to our eldest son. And I'll tell you, it was indeed a brand new experience. I mean, here she is. Don't tell her I told you this this morning, but here she is. She was in a lot of pain and making a lot of noise. And good, careful, sensitive husband that I was, I was embarrassed by all that noise being made. And I said, be quiet. Don't make so much racket. And very sensitive and very understanding, as you can appreciate. But after a long, hard labor, there was our first child. And I've been privileged, as many of you husbands since then, to be part of that birthing process with each of the children. It's often been said that if wives and husbands were going to take turns having babies, there would be a lot of single child families. It gives you a whole new appreciation of womanhood. And so that's the analogy Paul is talking about here in Romans chapter 8 when he talks about all creation groaning. The groaning of creation, he says, is akin to the birthing of a child. Now think that through with me. Why does the Bible repeatedly use this imagery? Paul uses it in Galatians when he says, I am again in travail with you until Christ is formed in you. Jesus uses it in Matthew 24 when he talks about the signs of the times. And he says, these are but the beginnings of the birth pains. Why that imagery? Well, the imagery is powerful because what it represents is that the old order is giving way to a new order. And that process is typically laborious and painful. All creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And even as a woman, groans to give forth new life. So all of creation groans, including the individual believer, we groan in the process of the old order trying to give birth to a new order. Let me talk about that just briefly and see if I can explain it and make it as clear as I can. The old order is life in a fallen world as we experience it today. You know enough about scripture to know that when God first created Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2, He made it good. There was harmony in creation. Adam and Eve sinned against God. The world fell into sin. From that moment to this, we are loaded down by the guilt and the failure and the collective agony of sin. And the more sin progresses, the more we disobey God individually and collectively, the more we reap the harvest of that and the more life begins to spiral out of control. So that's part of the groaning. The groaning is the old creation, a groaning that is experienced not only by all of creation, but it's also experienced by us individually, even as believers, because part of our being is still the old creation. These bodies are not made for eternity. And we have a groaning. But even as the old creation groans, there are the birth pangs of a new creation, because we know from scripture that God in Christ has entered into our world, and God is repeatedly bringing about a new order. How does He do that? By bringing men and women into a living relationship with Himself, helping them to learn to walk in obedience before His will, empowering them with the Holy Spirit. And so throughout history and throughout the course of God's redemptive purposes, there's new life being birthed. There's new life being birthed in our hearts. There's new life being birthed in the world when new organizations, new institutions, new ways of doing life before God, they emerge. Now, you put these side by side. See, here you've got the old order. There you got the new order. It's being birthed, and the process is a process of agony as the old order gives way to a new order. I was astonished a number of years ago. Watch the television program about Norman Bethune. Don't know if you've ever heard of him, but he was a Canadian who was extremely popular among the Chinese, because he had gone to China and did all kinds of good things for them, and won a lot of good favor from the Chinese for the Canadian people. But I remember some words in the process of watching this production. There was an explanation of the violence that communism produces as it has taken over, nation after nation, trying to birth this new social order. And I was astonished to hear the biblical language that was being employed. How do they excuse the bloodshed? How do they excuse the millions of people that have died for Stalin, and for Mao, and in all of these countries? Well, here's how they explain it. These are the birth pangs of a new creation. And the messiness in the blood is but the new order trying to emerge. And I shook my head and said, now, isn't that a perversion of the biblical truth of God's kingdom being birthed out of the brokenness and out of the chaos of this world? So what's this groaning about? What's this groaning about in the world? What's this groaning about in your heart and in my heart? It's a dual groaning, a groaning under the weight of sin. You know just as well as I do that even as Christians, we participate in the brokenness of creation, and we share its pain. I'll talk more about that in a little bit. But at the same time, there is this groaning that wants to give birth to new life because the Holy Spirit has come upon us and the Holy Spirit has given us the first fruits of the harvest that is to come. And the more we experience of God's presence, the more we taste the powers of the age to come, the more we have that moment of connection with God, the more we have that prayer answered, the more that we see God at work in our own lives or in the history of the world, the hungrier we become for all of God's kingdom to come in its power. So we've grown on the one hand because the world can be such a cruddy place, but we've grown on the other hand because we have seen the beauty. We have seen the city on the mountain and we cannot wait for it to become reality. Very important to understand this because the temptation is always to think that coming alive in Christ is somehow going to make us feel better and minimize our pain. And I want you to know that coming alive in Christ is a wonderful thing because yes, we meet up with God, we experience the powers of the age to come, we know the reality of sins forgiven, we know the reality that God's presence in our lives and to watch God's hand move powerfully on our behalf, even if it's only once in my lifetime, that makes everything worthwhile because everything pales in comparison. But we are mistaken if we think that coming alive means our pain becomes less because part of coming alive means that our pain increases in some ways. Why? Because now we're sensitive to the corruption that is in the world. Before that it was just normal, didn't bother us at all, didn't even see it. Now you stand aghast at how people treat each other and how much agony, suffering and pain there is. You care for people and your heart breaks, not only that, but you've had a touch of life. You've known the presence of God, you've known the reality of answered prayer, you've known God moving heaven and earth on your behalf and everything inside you says, "I want more of that. I want to live there all the time." Think of it this way. Think of a young teenage girl or a teenage boy. Never been in love before. The principle of life is you don't miss what you haven't had, right? Now you fall in love. You've got this great romance going, feelings, emotions are stirred up you didn't even know you had. Now the relationship falls apart. You're broken up. What happens? You sense a loss unlike anything you've ever known before because having tasted, you want more. I think it's Valerie who tells the story of some American teenagers going to Romania in a Romanian orphanage and if you remember the history of Ceausescu and the chaos that communism had produced in that country and here were all these parentless babies lined up in the foster home one after the other wrapped as tight as tight could be and they're all nice and quiet and wonderfully looked at by the nursing personnel and along come these American girls not knowing anything better. They start picking up these kids and holding them and just loving them and after a while these nurses are just freaking out. You can't do that to these kids, why? Because you are awakening their hearts. Now when you put them back having tasted love and affection they won't lie down and be quiet anymore and we don't have the personnel to look after these kids. Incredibly tragic. But you understand what happens when love is awakened. Understand when God awakens love in your heart doesn't make your life any easier. It just makes you want more of what God has to offer. So all creation groans and we ourselves groan because we have the first fruits of the spirit. Get used to it, it's the way life works for the children of God. Moments of great glory but also moments of pain because the two stand in sharp contrast to each other. Now Paul has a purpose in introducing the subject this way because now he goes on to say not only does all creation groan but now he goes on to say we don't know how to pray. Verse 26, we do not know what we ought to pray for. So here's the question. One minute he's talking about all creation groaning and now all of a sudden he moves into the subject of prayer. Why does he make that switch? Well, not hard to figure out because when you are confronted by the tension of the old order convulsing in pain, giving birth to the new order, the woman having the child if you will, we are driven to prayer. And we're driven to prayer, first of all, for our own needs. As I said a moment or two ago, just as well as I do this morning, but just because you're a Christian does not make you immune to the suffering of this age. Every so often, thank God not lately, but every so often in the news there will be a story of a motor vehicle accident, a bus full of Christian kids. Involved in an accident, many injuries, many deaths. I read a story like that and you know what rises up in me? As I say, God, that's not fair. These are your people about the business of your kingdom. Pick somebody else, but not your own. Not very spiritual maybe, but just being honest with you. The Bible says the rain falls on the just and on the unjust. Christians get sick just as readily as non-Christians get sick, Christians die. Christians experience difficulty. Not because God doesn't love them, but because we're all part of a world that is convulsed by the powers of sin. And God in his own wisdom has his own purposes for allowing things sometimes into our lives. Don't misunderstand me as if God's not interested in our wellbeing and won't protect us. But later on, Paul goes into all things work together for the good of those who love God and who are called according to his purpose. And good does not always mean that we don't go through difficult times. So here we are. We experience the groaning of this present creation. And then as I said earlier, we've also got this foretaste of glory that lives in our hearts. And the more we experience that tension, the more we are driven to our knees. God, meet me in my place of pain. Fulfill your word. Give me a future. Give me a hope. And so prayer happens out of the groaning, the crying out that says, God, let your kingdom come and let it come in my life. Help me to overcome my sin. Help me to overcome these broken relationships. Help me to overcome all these obstacles that come against me. I want to see your name honored in my life. So we pray for our own needs. And of course, we're led to pray for the needs of other people around us. Because the more we have seen God's presence in our own lives, the more we know the reality of his power, and the more alive we become in Christ, the more sensitive we become to the needs of people all around us. And so we begin to cry out to God for them. And we say, God, whatever it takes, just let them experience your salvation and your life. I remember in the early days of my own Christian life and Christian experience, when Jesus had become real, I'd be driving down the road. I'd look at the car next to me and I'd say to myself, in prayer to the Lord, I wonder if that man or that woman knows Jesus. Jesus, show yourself. Give us a passion for the lost. That's known as intercession. And intercessory prayer is one of the mandates that God gives to the church. Because, see, he could save the whole world. He doesn't need you and me to do it. I mean, his angels are probably a lot better at it than you and I. But we're his kids. And it's all about growing up his kids. It's all about letting his kids share his heart, his mission, and his passion. And so he uses you and me to hear his heart so that we can echo back his heart. And in echoing back his heart, pray the prayer of faith that releases God's power and God's glory here on Earth. We pray for ourselves, we pray for the needs of others. And if you've ever been in those situations where you're groaning because of the world's pain and you're groaning for more of God's kingdom to come and for more of God's heart to be revealed, then you will have discovered, as I surely have, that when it comes to this kind of prayer, we don't know what to pray for. We are remarkably weak. We're remarkably weak for a couple of reasons. We're remarkably weak because we don't know the mind of the Lord. Who has known the mind of the Lord, says scripture, or who has been his counselor? How many of us have not been asked to pray for somebody and we are just befuddled about what is the will of God? Love the story of the ladies who got together to pray for this very sick woman who was at death's door. And they were so successful in their prayer, they prayed her right through the door, if you get the picture. Do I pray for healing? Do I pray for God to take me home? Do I pray for my marriage to be restored? Or do I pray for grace to accept the fact that it's irretrievably broken and I need to get on with my life? Do I pray for God to empower me to step out into the new job? Or do I pray for God to give me the grace to recognize that I can no longer follow that path? Lord, what is your will? Because you see, scripture says if you pray according to the will of God, he hears you. So knowing the will of God is fairly important. Now, we get all spiritual about this, of course, and I've talked about this before. We get around testing the limits of our faith by saying, well, Lord, not my will, but yours be done. And we forget that only occurs once in scripture when Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. And that part of growing up as a child of God is that we fight it out, we struggle with God, we ask God to reveal what his will is in as much as we can know it. And that's where our weakness lies, who has known the mind of the Lord. And then, of course, we struggle with confusion. If you've ever groaned with a world's pain or come up against one of these walls that you cannot go through, or if you've ever tasted the glory of the kingdom that is to come and you try to connect with God out of those deep places, then you will know that one of the biggest things we all struggle with in that place is confusion. Ever experience confusion when you pray? You know, the deeper you push into prayer, the more confused you become. You don't even know what you feel, you don't know what you think, you don't know what God wants. It's just like you're up against a wall. Even the good words that you thought you had before you got into prayer, you couldn't get into anymore, and all you can do is wander in your mind and you say, "Well, this is not going anywhere, so forget this." You know what I'm talking about? And then, of course, we get weary. Our flesh is not made for that level of prayer. Remember Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane? Remember how he sweat tears of blood and how he said to his disciples, "Please watch with me," and how their spirit was willing, but their flesh was weak? Have you ever discovered that when you most need to pray, it is sometimes the hardest to pray? Ever try to pray when you're depressed? Ever try to pray when you're really sick? Ever try to pray when your life is really coming down around your ears? And yes, I know I ought to be praying, yes, I know I ought to be talking to God in this, but I don't have what it takes, I don't have the power, I don't have the energy, I don't have the strength, and frankly, I don't even care, because right now I'm just hurting and I can't even pray. Paul calls that weakness, interesting word. Weakness is different from sin, and it's very comforting to me that when I have those moments in my life to discover from scripture that being in those places doesn't always mean that I've wiped out spiritually, doesn't always mean that God is not there or that he doesn't care, it's just that I'm confronted by the frailty of the human condition. I can't figure out God, my mind gets confused, my spirit gets burdened, my body gets weary, and I just don't have what it takes to cry out to God for myself or for others in that place. Even Jesus, now listen to this, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, when he sweats those drops of blood, when he is totally caught up in the agony of what it is that faces him in the cross, here is what he says, "Now my heart is troubled, "and what shall I say? "Father, save me from this hour." No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour. You don't think of Jesus second-guessing himself, but there Jesus says, "Father, what shall I say? "I don't even know how to pray. "Shall I pray for this cup to pass away from me? "No, not my will, but yours be done." Why do I belabor this? Because it's very easy for us to berate ourselves and beat ourselves up for not being mature enough, spiritual enough, and strong enough. Most of us have no trouble flying on the wings of a dove when life is good and God is close by, and we overestimate our own spirituality. Our frailty is exposed in the valley. And you know, in those places, it's okay to acknowledge our weakness, because we're not made in the groaning of this creation and the groaning of the new creation that is coming. What is required of us in those places is more than what is humanly possible. Which, of course, is Paul's whole point in this passage, because not only does all creation groan, not only do we not know how to pray because we are so miserably weak, but guess what, good news. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Verse 26, in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. That phrase, in the same way, goes back earlier in the passage where Paul says, if you live according to the sinful nature, this is verse 13 of Romans 8, if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. What's the function of the Holy Spirit? He's the comforter, he's the encourager. Next in the morning is Pentecost, Lord willing. Celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Why was the Holy Spirit given? Given for a number of reasons, but one of the reasons he was given was to come alongside you and me and make real in my life and in my experience what in Christ is already mine. And so he's the one who comes alongside me when my journey in life is too hard, and he says, lean on me and we'll walk this out together. He's the one who gives me the desire, the wisdom, and the energy to fight the sin in my life, to try to rise above that sin. He is the one who fills my heart with a passion to love God and to love my neighbor. Now Paul says, in the same way, he helps us in our weakness. How does he help us in our weakness? The first goes on to explain. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Wonder how many of us know that we have really two intercessors. There's Jesus, who in his high priestly office at the right hand of God the Father is the great intercessor for all of God's people. And when stuff comes up in your life, stuff comes up in my life, and there is a danger that we're gonna wipe out, or God wants to accomplish his purposes, there is Jesus at the right hand of the Father, and he says, Father, we got a little thing to talk about here. I died for that dude, or that dude S. I gave my life so that he or she could experience all the fullness of God and your protection from Satan's power. So Father, I ask you to bless and to anoint and to provide care. Only eternity is going to reveal how many times angels have been sent to your side and to my side to keep us out of trouble and on the straight and narrow. You know that? And that's all in response to the intercessory prayer of Jesus at the Father's right hand. But I wonder how many of us know the Holy Spirit is also an intercessor, except he doesn't intercede in heaven because Jesus is busy doing that. Now, in the context of this passage, he intercedes here on Earth in your heart and in my heart. That is to say, in those places of weakness where we don't have what it takes to push through birthing forth a new creation, whether that's a new believer, a transformed church, a transformed society, in all those places where the old is dying and the new is coming and we just ain't got what it takes to do that. Along comes the Holy Spirit. And he says, I'm coming alongside you to help you in your weakness. And I'm going to work in you to intercede for the saints. According to the will of God. What does that look like? Well, it looks like this. It means he gives us a desire to pray. And typically what will happen is you and I, we live our lives, carry on, and all of a sudden there will be a certain event, a certain episode, a certain person that we meet. Maybe it's in prayer, maybe it's in driving a car, maybe it's in sitting in church. It can happen in the middle of the night. And all of a sudden God's there and he drops them in your heart and into your mind. You ever have that? Just all of a sudden they're there. And you wonder where in the world does that come from? Well, that's very often the Holy Spirit placing a burden on our hearts to pray for somebody. A while back I was talking to a woman and she told me the fascinating story of how years earlier she had gone around an apartment building inviting children to I think a child evangelism course or something like this. And she had knocked on this particular door and she had met up with these two little girls. And it was like God put those two little girls in her heart and she knew that she was called to pray for them. Their mother had walked out on their relationship, prayed for them for years and years and years only to discover much later that these girls were the daughters of the man that she would one day marry. Imagine that amazing surprise. And then you ask yourself the question, how much trouble were these kids saved? Because this woman received a burden from God to pray. How many of us here are in the kingdom today? Because somebody somewhere heard from God and they had a desire to pray for you and for me. That's the work of the Holy Spirit, that's how the kingdom comes. And it may happen once in a lifetime, it may never happen in your life or my lifetime, but there will be seasons in the history of the church where God by His Holy Spirit births that kind of desire to pray. Then the Holy Spirit gives us strength to push through. Because you see, when it comes to the new creation, when it comes to the agony of this birthing process whereby the old dies and the new comes forth, the warfare is intense. Every devil in hell parks on your doorstep because he never wants to see coming the kingdom of God. And in those places, you and I, we often just walk away from it because it's too hard, it's too difficult, it's too painful. Lord, here I am, but send somebody else. Well, the Holy Spirit can give us the perseverance in those places where we push through and we struggle it out as Jacob wrestled with God and Jesus wrestled with the Father in Gethsemane until all heaven moves and the old world is pushed back. You get that final big push and the new baby is born because God has called forth a new creation. And then, of course, he gives us the ability to express the cry of our heart. And typically, typically that means he gives us words. All of a sudden, we know what it is that we ought to be praying for. All of a sudden, we have the words and we connect with God and we know that we have connected with God and we know that something is happening in a spiritual realm because God's kingdom is coming. But here in the context of Romans chapter eight, notice you can't even find words because the scripture says with sighs and groanings that cannot be uttered. The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And so there is a place in prayer where we are so caught up in the birth pangs of a new creation, so caught up in the pain of the old dying, so caught up in the pain of the new being birthed. We can't even find the words to express it. We can't even cry it out. It is just turmoil in our souls. Now we get into that kind of place and then again, we beat ourselves up and we say, "Well, what's the matter with me?" You know, that's not prayer. Well, you know, in fact it is. It is praying in the Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit groaning deep inside, allowing us to participate with God in the birth of a new creation. And you know what's so neat and special about it? That kind of prayer is clearly according to the will of God and because it is clearly according to the will of God, God hears that prayer. And so as we groan in travail, as we share in the birth pangs of a new creation, we discover that out of that anguish, out of that pain comes forth new life. And what mother, who after having gone through all the pain of childbirth, doesn't very quickly forget the pain because you see, she holds new life in her arms and that new life has been worth all the suffering and all the pain. The Church is married to Jesus. We are his bride. We are his agent in bringing forth new life. And he invites us to enter into labor pain with him until new life is birthed and the glorious kingdom of God comes in power. And his invitation to you and to me is to say, "Listen, you can't do this on your own, "but the Spirit helps us in our weakness." [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:36:03.180; remove through 00:40:24.000] (upbeat music) ♪ For all that you've done I will thank you ♪ ♪ For all that you're going to do ♪ ♪ For all that you promised and all that you are ♪ ♪ Is all that has carried me through ♪ ♪ Jesus, I thank you ♪ ♪ I thank you, thank you, Lord ♪ ♪ I thank you, thank you, Lord ♪ ♪ Thank you for loving and setting me free ♪ ♪ Thank you for giving your life just for me ♪ ♪ How I thank you ♪ ♪ Jesus, I thank you ♪ ♪ Gratefully thank you ♪ ♪ Thank you ♪ ♪ For all that you've done I will thank you ♪ ♪ For all that you're going to do ♪ ♪ For all that you promised and all that you are ♪ ♪ Is all that has carried me through ♪ ♪ Jesus, I thank you ♪ ♪ I thank you, thank you, Lord ♪ ♪ Thank you, thank you, Lord ♪ ♪ Thank you for loving and setting me free ♪ ♪ Thank you for giving your life just for me ♪ ♪ How I thank you ♪ ♪ Jesus, I thank you ♪ ♪ Gratefully thank you ♪ ♪ Thank you ♪ - Thank you for loving. ♪ Thank you for loving and setting me free ♪ ♪ Thank you for giving your life just for me ♪ ♪ How I thank you ♪ ♪ Jesus, I thank you ♪ ♪ Gratefully thank you ♪ ♪ Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you ♪ [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:40:24.000; resume after this marked segment]