Rev. David Holwick Y Romans series #9
First Baptist Church
Ledgewood, New Jersey
August 7, 2005
Romans 8:22-27
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I. One of those kind of days.
This is what happened to a Texas minister who was scheduled to
speak at an all-day conference.
He was running late because his alarm clock had failed to ring.
In his haste to make up for lost time, he cut himself while
shaving.
Then he found his shirt was not ironed.
To make matters worse, running to his car he noticed a tire
was flat.
Disgusted, and by this time thoroughly distraught, the minister
finally got underway with a sudden burst of speed.
Racing through town he failed to notice a stop sign and rushed
through it.
As luck would have it, there was a policeman nearby, and in the
next instant he heard the scream of a siren.
Jumping out of his car, the agitated minister said sharply,
"Well, go ahead and give me a ticket.
Everything else has gone wrong today!"
The policeman walked up and said quietly, "Sir, I used to have
days like that before I became a Christian."
Needless to say, the embarrassed minister was shamed by the
policeman's rebuke.
He not only asked for forgiveness but prayed for strength to
straighten out his attitude.
We all have days when things just don't seem to go right.
Even Christians are not free from the tensions of life that
tear at our nerves.
#8814
A. Frustration is a part of the natural order of things.
1) Romans 8:20 says creation itself is frustrated.
a) Decay (and death) are signs of this. 8:21
b) He even says creation groans.
1> Anthropomorphism, but earthquakes and tsunamis
certainly fit the description.
2) This world is not what it should be. And it is not
what it WILL be.
B. We are also frustrated.
1) Not just people, but born again Christians.
a) That police officer may have been a little too glib.
b) Few if any Christians get perfect patience or lose
all frustration when they become born again.
2) The fullness of salvation is a long way off.
a) Seeing God face to face, having glorified bodies and
a perfect existence hasn't happened yet.
b) If anything, our present existence can seem
extremely un-glorified.
1> Our bodies, personalities, and minds are all
warped by the present circumstances.
In a "Calvin and Hobbs" cartoon a while back, a frazzled
Calvin quips:
"God put me on earth to accomplish a certain number
of things.
Right now I'm so far behind I'll never die." #6786
3) Frustration is real, but it is not God's last word.
II. We have something to look forward to.
A. We wait, but with eagerness. 8:23
B. Christians have a hope.
1) We have a hope that God's promises about the future will
come true someday.
2) By definition, hope is for something you don't have yet.
3) While we wait, we discover the discipline of patience.
III. We don't wait empty-handed.
A. We have the Holy Spirit.
1) At least, a taste of it. 8:23
2) "Firstfruits" is a technical term from farming.
A special ceremony was held for the earliest produce.
Partly, it was a showing of thanks.
Even more, it was a sign that more good stuff was coming.
B. The Spirit helps us even in our limitations.
1) Sometimes we don't know what to pray for. 8:26
a) Times of stress and tragedy.
Judy Woodward Bates is a Christian writer.
During a trip to Scotland to cover the Gospel Music Convention,
she conducted interviews with some of the artists offstage.
During one of her interviews, she was talking with the wife of
a musician.
As the woman talked about their life and family, tears began to
fill her eyes.
She said, "We had two more daughters, but one died shortly after
birth; another died at age 15."
As Judy silently prayed for the Lord to give her words of wisdom
and comfort, she listened as the woman continued:
"The music today really touched me.
This is the first time I've been able to cry for my children.
Ever since I lost them, I've been in pain.
So has my husband.
This is the one area where we can't even pray.
We try, but the words won't come.
The relief won't come."
And then the woman began to sob openly.
Judy had never lost a child, but she had experienced something
that helped her relate to the woman's pain.
For a period of three years, the Bates' only son chose to be
estranged from the family.
Judy and her husband agonized during this time, striving for peace,
trying to pray.
They could not find words to express the depth of their grief.
Maybe she could share this with this woman.
In the Bates' case, God mercifully returned their son to them.
But this woman would not see her children again until she was
reunited with them in heaven.
Her pain was beyond anything Judy could imagine.
So what could Judy do?
Listen.
Share her own experience.
Care.
Pray with the woman.
This is what Bates did, and it seemed to comfort the woman to know
that in some way Judy understood what it was like to feel a wall
between her prayers and God's throne.
The woman seemed relieved to know that her inability to express her
prayers to the Lord was understandable -- that even God
understood.
The verse Judy shared with her was Romans 8:26:
"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself
intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express."
Sometimes a hurt is too deep to express in words.
God knows this, and He gives us His Holy Spirit to plead on our
behalf, to express what we cannot.
All around us people are hurting.
They need to know that we care.
They need to know that -- however imperfectly -- we understand.
Above all, we need to assure them that God cares.
#29737
b) The clouding of our own desires and attitudes.
William Barclay wrote that there are two very obvious reasons why
we cannot pray as we ought.
First, we cannot pray aright because we cannot foresee the future.
We cannot see a year or even an hour ahead.
Second, we cannot pray the right way because in any given
situation we do not know what is best for us.
God is often in the position of a parent who has to refuse his
child's request or make him do something he doesn't want to do,
because he knows what is to the child's good far better
than the child himself.
As Paul saw it, prayer, like everything else, is of God.
He knew that by no possible human effort can a man justify
himself.
And he also knew that by no possible effort of the human
intelligence can a man know what to pray for.
In the last analysis the perfect prayer is simply,
"Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.
Not my will, but yours be done." [1]
c) Charles Brent, who died in 1929, once said:
"Prayer is not so much the means whereby God's will
is bent to man's desires,
as it is that whereby man's will is bent to God's
desires.
The real end of prayer is not so much to get this or
that single desire granted,
as to put human life into full and joyful conformity
with the will of God." #4286
2) The Spirit prays for us.
a) He is perfectly in tune with God the Father.
IV. What is God's prayer for you? (...expanded...)
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SOURCES FOR ILLUSTRATIONS USED IN THIS SERMON:
[1] William Barclay, Commentary on Romans.
# 4286 "Whose Will Is Bent?" by Charles Brent (1862-1929),
"Correct Quotes" computer program.
# 6786 "Not Enough Time," Calvin & Hobbes cartoon by Bill Watterson,
Roddy Chestnut illustration collection.
# 8814 "I Used To Have Days Like This," author unknown, Fredericksburg
illustration collection.
#29737 "You Can Relate," by Judy Woodward Bates, Baptist Press,
http://www.baptistpress.org/; August 1, 2005.
These and 25,000 others are part of a database that can be downloaded,
absolutely free, at http://www.holwick.com/database.html
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