So I did say that part of the purpose of this blog was sermon storage...
It has been truly amazing, and no coincidence that our current series, which was on decided months ago, has linked in with our current situation at the church. Romans 8 is a very powerful chapter, and yet last week and this, has really spoken to us in our sadness and grief. Last week you will remember Mukhondi speaking about the great hope we have in our future, a comfort in our sufferings and an assurance that this is not all there is. Verse 18 reads…
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
This morning we are picking up from where Mukhondi left off last week so if you’ll turn in your Bibles to Romans 8, its on page …. In your pew Bibles.. and we’re going to read from verse 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. For he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those he predestined, he also called; those he called he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
Amen, and thus ends this reading of God’s holy, inspired and inerrant word. May He write its eternal truth upon our hearts. Let’s pray.
Our Lord, you have given us Your word, not simply to intrigue us, but to instruct us and to comfort us and to equip us for righteousness. We ask then by Your Holy Spirit, we would not only understand this Word, but embrace it, embrace it, for Your glory and our good. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
This is probably the most difficult sermon I’ve written in the short time that I’ve had the privilege of preaching. I find within my own grief a struggle to come to terms with our loss, but at the same time, know that many of you here loved Kingsley deeply and are thus dealing with your own pain and your own questioning. I find at times like these words can often be trite and inappropriate, that sometimes silence and tears will speak far more to our pain than any word can.
A favourite band of mine, wrote a song for a mother who lost her young daughter to cancer. It starts with,
“I was sure by now, God you would have reached down, and wiped our tears away – stepped in and saved the day… but once again, I say amen, and it’s still raining…”
It’s still raining.
And yet I find myself amazed by this passage that has been given for this day, this week, this time. It seems to understand this dilemma, and this situation, it seems to speak to us – right here this morning.
“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. For he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. “
Right now we are confronted with our weakness. It’s not that we are weaker now than we have been before – rather we are faced with the truth of our situation. We are weak, we have always been weak, we will always be weak. We think we know things. We think we are in control of our lives. We think we have the power and the authority. And yet we look at the tragedies in the world around us, and realise we are very small. Realise that there is so little we can do to stop it, to change it. We look at Kingsley’s situation where the doctors get to a stage where there is nothing more they can do. We look at the pain of grief and find there is nothing we can do or say to cure it.
Our weakness is a truth that is hard to swallow – and in a day and age where our culture tells us that it’s all about us – our self-image and self-esteem, that you can find yourself and your inner strength deep within – we don’t like to hear it.
The psalmist puts it well in Psalm 8
“What is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?”
And in the Psalm Mukhondi read on Friday
“As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”
But it is not a weakness that leads to despair or to self-loathing… rather it is one that God knows and uses in us. It is when we can do nothing but throw ourselves on his grace that he is right there able to move in power. We look to the apostle Paul who prays and prays that a thorn, a painful area of his life be taken from him. He pleads with God, who does not grant his request. Instead God says, “My grace is sufficient for you for my strength is made perfect in weakness”. 2 Cor 12:9
Our reading for today clearly tells us we are not alone in this – for the Spirit helps us in our weakness… we aren’t meant to wrestle with these struggles alone. The Spirit, who has been given to all Christians, lives within us to help us, to comfort us – to know our weaknesses and allow God’s strength to be made perfect in them.
It goes on to mention one of these weaknesses specifically – that of prayer. The fact that we do not know how, we do not know what to ask for; we do not have the words.
We experience this keenly during times of loss, times of illness and times of grief. Times where we love people dearly but have no words to pray for them. Times where we may even be angry with God, where we may question his goodness and his sovereignty. Times where we are numb and we walk through the day in a daze wondering how everyone else seems to be so busy about life – while there is turmoil within your own soul.
During these times, what do we say to God that God doesn’t already know? How can express the inexpressible? How can we put pain into words?
And it is during these times that God takes what we offer, and turns it into prayers. The groans of the Spirit within us are meaningful expressions of our longing for God, longing for answers, longing for truth, longing for healing.
Abraham Lincoln once said
“I have been driven many times to my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”
For he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
What’s more is that we do not know the answer to the question of “What now? Where to from here?” Our minds start asking questions that seem too painful and too soon to be asked – but yet we find ourselves worrying about them anyway. How do we pray for what’s best for our church when we don’t know what that is? But God knows… He has not abandoned us – and where we in our weakness don’t have these answers and are ashamed by the questions – the Spirit takes that confusion and turns it into meaningful prayer to God. The Bible tells us here that the Spirit intercedes for us. Later – in this same chapter of Romans, it tells us that Jesus, seated with God, lives to intercede for us.
People of St Mungo’s, Jesus is praying for you. The Holy Spirit is praying for you. You are that important to God. He knows where we are, he knows our struggle – and he intercedes for us.
The Spirit helps us to pray, and prays for us.
Verse 28 in our reading today is so well known. “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
It is a verse that gets quoted over and over in situations like this – so much that I think it sometimes becomes trite, clichéd. Sometimes in the midst of loss and pain, it simply throws more questions than answers…
How can this be good? How can the ending of a life be what God wants? How can pain and separation and loss be perpetrated at the hands of a loving God?
We maybe need to readjust how we see this verse – nowhere in this verse does it tell us that all things are good. Not all things are… we live in a sinful broken world where there are bad things, painful things, things that are supremely wrong and evil.
Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha and Lazarus? Lazarus is a dear friend of Jesus and he dies. We read that Jesus arrives at the tomb and then in one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible, it reads “Jesus wept.” Jesus wept. Which begs the question of why? Why did Jesus weep if he knows Lazarus is in a better place? Why does he weep knowing that he will raise him from the dead again? It is generally accepted that Jesus weeps over seeing the devastation of death; he saw the pain of the separation, the loss and the grief. Death was never part of the original plan! If death was good, Christ would never have defeated it.
A minister friend of mine explained to me that we are living in an age where although the war has been won, the battles continue. For a number of years after the Germans had surrendered in World War two, there were still battles fought in places where occupation had taken place. Lives were still lost in a war that had already been won.
This is the time we live in. Christ has died, Christ has risen… and now we wait, for Christ will come again. What a glorious hope that the time will come as we are told in Isaiah, when “he will swallow up death forever and the sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.”
And in Revelation 21
“Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
This is what we look forward to.
But while we are here, there is death, and mourning and crying and pain. And yet we do not see a God who is distant, but rather Jesus weeps alongside us.
Our verse then is not saying that Death is good. It is not saying that we need to smile and pretend like everything is ok, in order that to be faithful Christians. Rather it is a promise… somewhere, somehow in a way that we cannot perhaps see now, and maybe will never see, God will take this tragedy, this pain, and use it. It is not meaningless.
In Ecclesiastes, a book where Solomon questions the meaning and purpose of life, he writes a passage which says;
There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven; a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance… He has made everything beautiful in its time.
We do not know how or why or when… but in its time God will take all this that’s happening around us, and he will make it into something beautiful. That is the promise. That is what we can cling to when it seems meaningless – your pain is never without purpose or meaning.
There is a time for mourning, a time for us to weep, a time for us to question and wrestle with the big questions of life. For many of us here at St Mungo’s this is where we may be. It is a season. It is ok to ask questions and get angry, we see it throughout the Bible and especially in Psalms where David writes,
“My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me all day long, ‘Where is your God?’”
In fact there is an entire book of Lament in the Bible, aptly named Lamentations. God is not afraid or surprised by our questions, our grief or our anger.
My appeal to you this morning is that you do not do it alone. Take it to God, whether you have the words or not, whether you feel it’s appropriate to be angry or not, take it to God. Trust that the gift of the Holy Spirit within you will take your weak, wordless prayers, and groan them to God. Trust that he will be praying for you. Trust that you are not alone, that God weeps with you.
And take courage and hope knowing that God will make this into something beautiful, and that we can look forward to a time where it will be no more. A time when there will be no death, no sorrow, no pain.
I was listening to an intercessory prayer prayed by Kingsley after one of his sermons on a cd yesterday. In his words,
“We pray for those who mourn the death of those they have loved and served, that they may know your joy again – deeper than sorrow, stronger than death, certain of resurrection.”
Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes with the morning.
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