Note - audio recording has a significant echo.
[0:00] Good morning everybody. If you could all turn to Romans chapter 8, I'd appreciate that.
[0:20] Romans chapter 8, verses 12 to 27. If someone could shout out a page number, that would be great. 1-1-3-5 in the Red Church Bible. Thanks, Alex.
[0:41] Romans chapter 8, verses 12 to 27. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation.
[0:58] 1-1-3-5 in the Red Church Bible. 2-1-3-5 in the Red Church Bible. 3-1-4 in the Red Church Bible. 4-1-5 in the Red Church Bible. if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the Spirit you receive brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory the children of God.
[2:31] We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all, who hopes for what they already have.
[3:06] But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
[3:16] We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. Amen.
[3:41] Amen. Amen. Well, you know what, if Johnny had asked me a few months ago to preach a sermon on prayer, definitely would have said no.
[3:53] And the reason for it would be that I would have said I'd be the last person in this church who should have preached a sermon on that topic. Really, it's the area in my life that I struggle with the most, actually, in terms of my walk with the Lord.
[4:07] But when Johnny gave us the very broad series title of The Christian Life, and when I started to pray and think about what I might preach on, I just couldn't get away from prayer.
[4:20] God really laid it on my heart as I was preaching this today. And to be honest, that seemed very strange to me. And I asked God, well, why are you asking me to preach on this, seeing as I'm the one who's struggling with it?
[4:34] Seeing as I've got a lot of questions that I still haven't answered on prayer. And then I kind of realized, actually, my weakness is the very reason why God wants me to preach on this.
[4:45] Because that's actually the way he operates, right? God uses the weak people to do amazing things because his strength can be revealed. And in such people.
[4:58] So I'm excited about that. Because if any one of our prayer lives today are impacted for the good, it's not going to be me. It's going to be God doing that work. And that's what I'm praying for today.
[5:10] So what I'm praying before you, really, is just my learning over the past two months or so. As I've taken time to study what God's Word says about prayer, and also to look at the teachings of other Christians.
[5:20] So, yeah, I hope that it's helpful for you today. And homework task number one for you guys.
[5:31] I know I can't help being a teacher even over summer holidays. I want you guys to study the Lord's Prayer this week. I'm not going to be preaching on it today, but you guys need to study it. It's the number one place to go to to learn how to pray.
[5:44] It's such a valuable resource for you. Number two, okay, this is a little bit more optional than number one. I don't usually give optional homework, but there you go. I'm going to give it to you guys.
[5:55] I want to read A Praying Life by Paul Miller. I actually forgot to bring the book with me to show you. But I'll just ask me later if you forget the name of that.
[6:06] I just will try to recommend this book to anyone who struggles to understand how prayer works and why it's so confusing at times. And I'll be quoting that book a little bit today, but really we're turning our attention and our focus to God's Word as found in Romans chapter 8.
[6:26] So let's just pray briefly before we go any further and commit this time to the Lord. Jesus, Father, I thank you for this time that we could come together to sit under your Word.
[6:41] And Lord, you know my weakness, but I thank you that you are strong. And I pray that, Lord, in this week you'd help all of us to apply your Word to our lives and, Lord, to walk closer with you and to build a strong prayer life.
[7:03] In Jesus' name I pray. Amen. Amen. So, just a quick synopsis of where God's Word is taking us today.
[7:14] Firstly, we're going to start with the bedrock prayer, which is knowing who we are in God, before moving on to some of the basics of how we are to pray, which is by the Spirit, helpless and childlike.
[7:30] And then lastly, we're going to learn about the purpose of suffering in prayer and how to pray when we actually have no words left to say.
[7:42] So that's where we're going. Just to set that theme for Romans chapter 8, the context of that, the author and apostle Paul has been teaching the Roman Christians that they are no longer slaves to sin, not to be controlled by it.
[8:02] Rather, they are freed from sin to live according to the Spirit instead. So this is where we pick up in verse 12. So if you guys would follow along with me.
[8:12] Verse 12 and 13. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation, but it is not to the flesh to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
[8:26] But if by the Spirit you put to death the misbead deeds of the body, you will live. So when Paul speaks of the flesh here, he means our natural sinful desires.
[8:41] The sinful desires offer us appealing, temporary pleasures, but in the end just destroy us. He says here that we owe nothing to the flesh.
[8:54] All the flesh has ever sought to done is destroy us, and it has always failed to fully satisfy us. So Paul says, don't live by it. Don't live by it and die.
[9:06] Rather, in the Spirit's power, put to death the misdeeds of the body and live. Okay, so Paul continues in verse 14, and these are some of the most glorious, amazing truths known to believers in Christ.
[9:23] Verse 14 and 16. For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again.
[9:36] Rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by Him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children.
[9:53] So, firstly, what is the better off of prayer? Well, we have to know who we are. We are precious and dearly loved children of the God of the universe.
[10:08] And let me say that another way, because that's completely astounding. The maker of the galaxies, the sustainer of the whole universe. He considers you to be his precious child.
[10:21] Now, most scholars agree that this idea of addressing God as Abba, Father, was actually quite outrageous. At the time when Paul was writing this.
[10:32] How could God be that personal and close? Well, the answer is only through what Jesus has done for us. Before we knew Jesus as Savior, our sin and rebellion separated us and actually made us children of wrath, not of God.
[10:50] But in the most beautiful and extravagant act of mercy, Jesus Christ took earth in on Himself. He died for it and in exchange gave us forgiveness of sins, eternal life, and all of His rights as a son of God.
[11:05] And not only that, but those who accept Christ are given the free gift of His Holy Spirit, who, as it says in verse 15, brings about our adoption of sonship.
[11:16] He makes us sons and daughters. When we receive the Spirit, we change from children of wrath to children of God.
[11:27] How incredible is His grace? But in verse 17, you know, it actually goes even further. And in some ways, it's actually more staggering than the first reality.
[11:39] Follow with me, verse 17. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share His sufferings in order that we may also share His glory.
[11:54] So, 2,000 years ago, in Paul's Greco-Roman world, adoption was a common practice.
[12:06] And the adopted son will be given all the rights of the other children in the family, including an equal right to the inheritance of the Father. And the astounding thing is that this is true for believers in Christ as well.
[12:19] The Father takes us in, while we are still His enemies, living in rebellion against Him. And Jesus takes the judgment we deserve to get. And in exchange, He gives us everything that He deserves to get.
[12:35] And this is unprecedented eternal events we share in the Father's inheritance. We get to know Jesus' Father as our Father now.
[12:45] And as it says in verse 17, we are heirs of God. But also, we are co-heirs with Christ. Which means, Christ's kingdom is also ours now.
[12:59] Try and get your head around that. We will rule it together when God makes the new heaven and the new earth. Look at this verse in 2 Timothy 2.12.
[13:09] It says, We will reign with Him. And then in 1 Corinthians 2.21, it's on the screen as well. All things are yours. Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future, all are yours.
[13:27] And you are of Christ. And Christ is of God. You know, these truths are so astonishing that it's actually possible for us in our own strength to understand them.
[13:39] We need the Holy Spirit's help to make them a reality. And I think there's just two questions that arise from this. As you look around today and you see your brothers and sisters in Christ, who do you see?
[13:57] Do you just see parents, students, factory workers, office workers? Because do you know what? Over and above all of those things, the people sitting around you are the sons and daughters of God and the future inheritors of Christ's kingdom.
[14:16] Now I think that changes how we look at one another, how we respect and love one another. Maybe that changes the way we speak to each other, how we talk about each other.
[14:31] You know, the second question I think that this raises is this. What else could define us as people? What else could define us in our lives? I mean, our community culture says that you are defined by the job, money, house, holidays, relationships, and the health that you do or don't have.
[14:52] And you know what God says to that? No. This is what defines you. You are a precious, dearly loved, child of the God of the universe and an heir of all things.
[15:05] So that makes you something incredibly special. You are by no means ordinary, small, or inconsequential. You may never be famous or widely known outside of Pierre Glein, but you're someone extraordinary because you're in Christ today.
[15:25] That changes everything in your life. That also changes everything about your prayer life. this is the bedrock of prayer. Know who you are as you come to pray.
[15:38] But now we want to move on and we want to listen closely to what this passage says about how we are to pray. Away, wasp.
[15:53] No? Go away. No? You want to stay with me? So, yeah, I'll ask you to say that. So, yeah, in no way does this passage encompass everything that could be said about prayer, but there's three huge aspects about prayer that it does touch on and we're just going to focus on those.
[16:13] And they're actually all found in this one small phrase. By him, we cry, Abba Father. So you can see my nice graphics there I did up. We're going to split it into three, take them one at a time.
[16:27] We're going to see what we can get out of this and what we can learn about prayer. Firstly, by him, we cry, Abba Father. which means we pray by the Spirit.
[16:39] That's what Paul talked about there. Paul says in Ephesians 2.18, Pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.
[16:54] And back in verse 14, he said that those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. So we learn that close communion with the Spirit is absolutely essential to constant communication with the Father.
[17:08] The Spirit is the one who enables us to pray. And as it says later in verse 26, the Spirit is helping us in our weakness. He's actually interceding with the Father on our behalf. And we're going to talk about that more later, but we learn that close intimacy with the Spirit is incredibly important.
[17:26] And we need to be clear here, the Spirit is never drawing attention to himself. He's always pointing us to the Father and to the Son for all of our joy, all of our love, all of our day-to-day needs.
[17:40] But we can push away the Spirit when he prompts us towards Christ. We so often ignore him. I don't know if you're like me, but I find incredible ways of squeezing him out and filling up my day with all these other noises and voices and never having the times of quiet to hear him speak.
[18:03] Or maybe in the busyness. We try to do life all in our own strength. Ignoring God's health, in fact. You know what? We need to be sensitive to the Spirit leading and drawing.
[18:16] Which means being open to him. Giving him space in our day-to-day lives. And allowing him to move us towards Jesus and towards the Father.
[18:27] And I don't know what this means for you, but for me, if I didn't keep checking myself, every spare moment of my day would be spent on my phone checking sports or Instagram or whatever.
[18:39] whatever. I think I'm actually addicted to sports news. RTE can only produce so many sports articles in a day. They're not producing enough for me.
[18:50] Anyway, and God has really convinced me recently of how there's so many times in the day where I could just be drawn near to him when I just have spare moments and I said, what's the first thing I do?
[19:02] Flick out the phone. RTE, whatever. And God has really convicted me about that. So, and actually, another way, I always used to listen to the radio on my way to work in the morning.
[19:18] I got a half an hour commute to band. And what Lurk convinced me about that, actually, this was a valuable time that I could use, actually, have a structured prayer time, which has been really fruitful.
[19:33] On my way back, you know, I'm calling people doing different jobs, but on my way to school, I have that time every morning, structured prayer, where everything else is switched off, no music, no noise, just an uninterrupted time of closeness and prayer with God.
[19:49] And I just done wonders for my prayer life. It changes how I go about my day. So basically, look, the Father is waiting for us to come. And in what way do you need to make more space for the Spirit in your normal day?
[20:05] And what unnecessary noities do you need to cut out? Think about that for yourselves. So firstly, we pray by the Spirit. And secondly, it's by Him that we cry at the Father.
[20:19] So we're just going to focus on that word, cry. Why is it used there? I mean, that's a word that I often actually associate with weakness and helplessness. God's telling us something important here about how we are to pray.
[20:34] to come to God in prayer, we must come knowing our weakness and our helplessness without Him. And now that's all very well and good, you say, but that flies in the face of everything that our culture tells us we should be, which is independent, strong, self-confident, believing in yourself that you can do life in your own strength.
[20:58] And you only look for health when you really need it, if it's really necessary. But the rest of life, 90% of it, you've got that covered. You can do that on your own. You know what?
[21:12] Jesus, He turns those assumptions upside down. He modeled a life of total dependence upon His Father. Have a look at this verse on the screen. John 5, 19.
[21:23] Jesus speaking. He says, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He can only do what He sees His Father doing because whatever the Father does, the Son also does. And you know what?
[21:34] After Jesus modeled this kind of life of dependence, He later tells His disciples in John 15, verse 5, I am the vine. You are the branches.
[21:46] If you remain in Me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. But listen to this. Apart from Me, you can do nothing.
[21:57] Now, our proud heart, we don't like to hear that. We don't want to hear that without Jesus, we could do nothing of any good or substance for God's kingdom. We like to kick over this first because we don't like being helpless.
[22:11] We can help ourselves. Thank you very much. And that is our nature. Our Father, however, wants us to come to Him weary, empty-handed, helpless.
[22:26] And if you're like me, actually, deep down in your heart, you know that's a good thing because you know deep down you are a weary, helpless, broken person. It's okay to be weak.
[22:38] He wants us, as it says in His verse, to continually cry out to Him, Abba, Father, I need you. I can't go without you.
[22:51] I have to have you or else everything I do is for nothing. I can't be patient with my kids without you. I don't know what to say to my only family members without your help.
[23:06] I can't delight without you. That's the kind of prayer God's looking for. Listen to what Paul says in 2 Corinthians about what Jesus said to him during a crippling trial in his life.
[23:23] It's on the screen there. But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me.
[23:42] That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecution and difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
[23:56] Do you delight in your weaknesses? Your weakness and your suffering is actually the door to God's great strength. Your weakness is the door to prayer.
[24:10] It's the door to dependence on your almighty universe-creating Father. Father. I love how Paul Miller, the guy I mentioned earlier, how he applies this verse.
[24:23] Read this quote. He says, If we think that we can do life on our own, we will not take care seriously. That really hit me two months ago when I read that.
[24:37] He continues. He says, We tell ourselves, Strong Christians pray a lot. If I were a stronger Christian, I'd pray more. How many of you thought that like me?
[24:48] I've definitely thought that. Well, Paul says, Strong Christians do pray more, but they pray more because they realize how weak they are. They don't try to hide it from themselves.
[25:01] Weakness is a channel that allows them to access grace. I can't tell you the impact that all of this has had on my own prayer life in the past two months.
[25:13] I've had to repent of a lot of self-dependence to be honest. There was an awful lot of things in my life that I never asked God help for. I just assumed that I had it covered.
[25:26] But when those things started to crumble and break, I'd find myself on my knees crying out to God for his help and his mercy. And I realized, actually, do you know what? I wasn't. I was in control all along. I was actually very, very fragile and weak all along.
[25:42] I actually struggled myself into thinking that I was able and I didn't need any help. So more recently, I've come a little wiser and I started each day by confessing my utter helplessness to God.
[25:56] By confessing my weakness and my need of Him. And I encourage you guys to do the same. So get on your knees each morning and start like that. And ask Him for His help. John Pike says it this way.
[26:10] The Spirit has worked a childishness in you. A little, desperate, helpless. I need help. I can't save myself. I've got to have a daddy.
[26:22] I can't live without that help. It's the Holy Spirit's real, childlike, happy, cry to the Father. Father. So how do we pray?
[26:34] Well, firstly, we pray by the Spirit. And secondly, we cry out to our Father, continually embracing our weakness and helplessness and inviting our Father to be strong for us.
[26:46] But the third part of this little phrase here is just the words, Abba, Father. Let's just briefly look at this.
[26:57] I reckon that children maybe are the best example we have in life of someone who is health and weak. Elodie, who is my 11-week-old daughter.
[27:11] She's back there with her auntie right now. She's just a picture of defendants. She cries very loudly at her parents until her parents give her what she needs.
[27:24] She knows that she can't do life without us. She longs for our cuddles, our attention, our soothing words. It's actually the cutest thing. In the morning, when she's starting to wake up, and when we lift our heads over her so that she can see us, her face instantly just lights up with ear-to-ear smile.
[27:48] She just longs to be with us. She longs for our closeness and our attention. You know what? We wonder what her first words are going to be.
[27:59] It's going to be dada. It's going to be mama. Well, God says, call me Abba. Call me Abba, Father. It's like God saying, come like a child in your helplessness, in your simple longing for your daddy and his closeness.
[28:22] Come like a child. Just as you are. No errors are graces. Any parents here will know that your children don't have to be clean, perfectly behaved, or in a good mood for you to whisk them up onto your knee and listen to their stories.
[28:37] Look what Jesus says in Matthew 18, verse 3. Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
[28:48] God calls us to cry out to him, Abba, Father. It's simple. There's nothing complicated. If you're worried about knowing the right things to say to God, and that's stopping you from praying, well, just leave those worries at his feet.
[29:05] Because you know what? Children don't worry about what they're going to say to their parents, do they? No, they just blurt it out. And oftentimes when you're in public that can be quite embarrassing what they do blurt out. You know, a lot of people as well, including me, can struggle to focus in prayer.
[29:27] But just as any loving parent makes time to sit and listen to their child's meandering, so your Abba Father loves to hear from you also, even when you go off on tangents and start thinking about the rugby.
[29:43] Guilty. You know what? If you get distracted, don't give up. Keep going back to the Father in prayer. And while we talk a lot about prayer moment by moment throughout the day, it's also important to set a time in the day for structured, purposeful prayer, where we're undistracted.
[30:06] And there's some very helpful things that we can do. There's lots of helpful things we can do to aid our focus, such as writing reminders and prayer cards to help us just to focus and to pray for the specifics of life.
[30:23] But we are always to come as a child, knowing that our Abba Father longs for us to run into his arms even when we are at his worst, even when we are at our worst.
[30:35] to pray. So we've learned three things from this small phrase. Number one, we've learned that we pray with the Spirit's help.
[30:46] Two, that we need to acknowledge our weakness and our helplessness as we come to pray. Thirdly, to come as a child. Lastly, in the rest of this passage, Paul addresses what to do when we can't even find the words to pray.
[31:01] He talks about how suffering is actually the door to prayer. So we're just going to look at that. Paul speaks at length about the suffering that we as Jesus followers will endure in this life.
[31:17] In verse 17, we learn that we are co-heirs with Christ if indeed we share in his suffering that we may also share in his glory. So suffering is inevitable for the believer, right?
[31:30] It's all part of being in Christ. But then in the next verse, verse 18, you can read it with me, Paul encourages us that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
[31:48] Now having that perspective in suffering is an absolute gift from God. Just to know that this suffering, though it is painful, is totally outweighed by millions upon millions of years in God's perfect presence without any pain or tears.
[32:09] But Paul continues in verse 20 and he explains that all of God's creation has been subjected to frustration and to decay since the fall of the Garden of Eden.
[32:21] And follow with me in verse 22 and we're going to pick it up there. He says, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit groan inwardly as we wait for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.
[32:45] So we see, firstly, that God's creation itself is groaning, yearning to be made new. And secondly, we as believers, Paul says, are groaning.
[32:57] Why? Because we're not in heaven yet. We haven't fully realized our adoption as sons and daughters. We haven't apart now, but not in full just yet.
[33:12] And in all of this he's saying that, look, our suffering is real. The broken world that we live in has yet to be restored. And because of that question, you were right. I mean, is God ignorant of all our groaning?
[33:27] Why did he just put a stop to it right now? Would that not be the loving thing to do? I mean, what's the reason for all this suffering? But thank God that there are verses 26 and 27. Read it with me.
[33:41] 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 through wordless groans.
[33:54] And he who searches our hearts knows the mind and the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God. Okay? So the creation is groaning.
[34:08] We are groaning. Look who else is groaning. God is also groaning. You know what? Far from being distant in our suffering, can you not see here that he's actually a God who's feeling everything that we're feeling?
[34:25] He's a God who groans for us and with us. It says here that the Holy Spirit is helping us in our weakness.
[34:35] He's advocating to the Father for us. When we are left speechless in suffering, the Holy Spirit prays for us so we can actually rest even in the most bitter of trials.
[34:51] It even goes so far at the end of verse 27 to say that the Spirit's prayers are always in accordance with God's will. He knows the right things to pray for us. So the pressure is off there.
[35:04] He's praying for us. And that means that in the deepest suffering, all that we have to do is this. Cry Abba and rest in Him.
[35:16] Just cry Abba and rest in Him. We just have to open our hearts up again and again to our Abba Father drawing near to Him.
[35:27] Not running from Him. Even when you don't understand what He's doing, don't run. Give the Spirit the space to lead you back to the cross.
[35:39] And when you can't pray, the Spirit is filling in that gap and He's groaning for you on your behalf. I hope that you can see that there is overwhelming hope in suffering.
[35:55] And often, we can't understand why when we ask God to take the suffering away and He doesn't. We ask God for something that we honestly think is good, but in return we get something that we think is worse.
[36:13] Prayers like, God, please heal this illness. God, please protect them from hurt. Lord, I pray that justice would be done.
[36:26] Those were actually all prayers that I've prayed this year and God didn't answer them the way I thought was best. But you know what? Jesus has promised that the Father can actually only give us what is good for us and we actually need to hold on to this promise.
[36:46] He says it here in Matthew 7 verses 9 to 11. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
[36:58] Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, well how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?
[37:16] You know what? If this verse is true, if what he's saying here is true, then that means that when God doesn't take away our pain, it's because he's working something incredible in us.
[37:27] Which is what we would have wanted if we could only have seen things from his perspective. And when you think about it, actually, suffering is really a gift from God to show us our helplessness and weakness, which then causes us to cry out to him.
[37:49] You know what? when all is calm in life, we can fool ourselves into thinking that we don't need Jesus. But in suffering, we're under no illusions. We need God.
[38:01] We need our Father. So suffering, it's an open door to prayer and reliance on our Father. God bless you.
[38:11] I'm actually going to leave you today with a story from Paul Miller's book about this very topic. And he speaks about a spiritual desert time in his life when he and his wife discovered that their fourth child had acquired brain surgery, not brain surgery, brain damage, due to medical negligence at birth.
[38:40] Now, the interesting thing was that Paul's wife, Jill, had actually prayed through the whole pregnancy that God would protect the baby from her. But after the incident, their daughter grew up with increasingly challenging behaviours and very complicated health problems.
[39:00] And as you can imagine, that led to a huge amount of questions in Paul and Jill's life. Why did God love this? I mean, we prayed for protection from her, but he didn't.
[39:14] How can he still be loving and good? Is he still in control? And this is what Paul had to say looking back on his life. Just listen. I'm going to put a little bit of it on the screen, but for the most part I'm just going to read it out.
[39:29] This is what he says. God takes everyone he loves through the desert. The still dry air of the desert brings a sense of helplessness that is so crucial to the spirit of prayer.
[39:42] You come face to face with your inability to live, have joy, or do anything of lasting worth. The desert becomes a window to the heart of God. He finally gets your attention because he's the only game in town.
[39:57] You cry out to God so long and so often that a channel begins to open up between you and God. When driving, you turn off the radio just to be with God.
[40:09] At night, you drift in and out prayer when you're sleeping. Without realizing, you've learned how to pray continuously. very early on, Jill and I were aware that because of our daughter Kim, God was humbling us and making us more like his son.
[40:31] It took us 20 years to realize that God used Kim to save our family. God had kept us from all harm.
[40:42] Kim brought Jesus into our home. Jill and I could no longer do life on our own. We needed Jesus to get from one end of the day to the other.
[40:54] We'd ask for a loaf of bread and instead of giving us a stone, our Father had to spread a feast for us in the wilderness. And Paul finishes like this, he says, when we don't receive what we pray for or desire, it doesn't mean that God isn't acting on our behalf.
[41:14] Rather, he's weaving his story. Watch out for the story that God is weaving in your life and don't leave the desert. So just to summarize what we've done today, brothers and sisters, as you come to pray, know who you are.
[41:38] You are precious, dearly loved sons and daughters of God, heirs of everything with Christ. Secondly, as you pray, don't push away the spirit. Walk with him.
[41:50] Come help us and weep, crying out to your Father. Come as a child. Don't worry about what to say. And thirdly, in your suffering, when you don't have the words to pray, know that the Holy Spirit is groaning on your behalf.
[42:06] Your suffering is an open door to prayer and an open door to God. let's pray. Let's pray. Spirit, you're the only one who can take the truths of your word and plant them deep in our hearts so that they change us.
[42:35] So I pray that you do that now. change our prayer lives. Let us walk closer with you. Let us yearn for our heavenly Father and cry out and continually let us acknowledge and realize our moment by moment weakness and our need for you.
[42:57] God, help us in our suffering not to despair but to use it as an opportunity to turn to you. We commit ourselves to you.
[43:10] In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Sam.
[43:35] As we finish our time together we're going to sing one more song. Classic song. What a friend we have in Jesus which I think helps us to respond in an appropriate way to what we've heard this morning.
[43:49] So again, please feel free to stand as we sing. Amen. Peace.
[44:02] Appreciate it. Jesus. Thanks. Peace. Peace. Peace. Peace.
[44:18] Peace. Peace. Peace. All the magic has been healed All the magic has been healed All the magic has been healed gelewing the крас菩�� All the magic has been healed Gauxhallalty Eve As him did the maker Hail to breathe cafe Gauxhallalty Eve Gauxhallalty
[45:19] And everything to God is blessed God, we call your salvation We will never trouble anywhere We shall never be as good 열� печ eich in the님's name Yeah, we find a friend so faithful Who will know I shall share That he is on the island Thank you.
[46:40] Thank you.
[47:10] Thank you.
[47:40] Thank you.