Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Astronauts.
Astronauts who?
Astronauts in the playoffs anymore.
While preparing for this Sunday’s sermon on prayer, I’ve been reading through several essays on the topic written by the ancient Church fathers and other preachers and Christian authors from more recent history in the United States. I’m particularly inspired by the works of E.M. Bounds, a preacher and attorney from the U.S. Midwest during the middle to late1800s. I’m going to quote a portion of this essay, written by Bounds in 1895, at GCR this Sunday:
“The more praying there is in the world the better the world will be. God shapes the world by prayer. The prayers of God’s saints are the capital stock in heaven by which Christ carries on his great work upon earth. The great throes and mighty convulsions on earth are the results of those prayers. Earth is changed, revolutionized, angels move on more powerful, more rapid wings, and God’s policy is shaped as the prayers are more numerous…
It is true that the mightiest successes that come to God’s cause are created and carried on by prayer. The days of God’s activity and power are when God’s Church comes into its mightiest inheritance of mightiest faith and mightiest prayer. God’s conquering days are when the saints have given themselves to mightiest prayer. When God’s house on earth is a house of prayer, then God’s house in heaven is busy and all potent in its plans and movements, then his saints are clothed with his triumphs and his enemies defeated on every hand.”
Do you hear the passion and the power in this piece? E.M. Bounds understands the power of prayer to transform lives and to change the whole world.
I hear people say things like, “Let’s open this meeting with a little prayer” or “Let me lead a little prayer.” Hey, there are no little prayers! Prayer, as individuals and as a group, is maybe the most important thing we do. Prayer brings us into direct communion with the true and living God. It brings us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit. Prayer is life-creating and life-changing. It’s not little! It’s huge!
Oswald Chambers wrote, “Prayer does not equip us for greater works; it is the greater work.”
Think about both the power and the passion of prayer. Abraham pleading for Sodom. Jacob wrestling at midnight. Moses fasting and praying for God’s people in the wilderness. Hannah intoxicated with sorrow. David heartbroken with grief and remorse. Huge passionate prayers. Jesus overcome with loud cries and tears in the garden. Elijah exploding with courage and confidence at Mount Carmel. Paul passionately petitioning on behalf of the new churches.
When we understand the God of our Scriptures, when we see things the way he sees things, when we couple the sinfulness of creation with the greatness of our God–when we really understand both of those truths–then we really understand what God really wants and what he’s doing, and we very boldly and passionately pray for it.
A note I saw on Jim Martin’s refrigerator door in Waco in 2008 sticks with me: “If God answered every one of your prayers, would the whole world change? Or just your world?”
Peace,
Allan
In Acts 4, the early Church is facing cultural opposition and political oppression in Jerusalem. Peter and John have been jailed, interrogated, and ordered to cease speaking and teaching about the resurrected Jesus. So they go “back to their own people,” they gather with the Church, and they pray for God to give them even more boldness to continue speaking about Jesus and they ask God to stretch out his hand to heal and perform even more miracles and wonders to glorify Jesus.
Our God responds to the prayer immediately by shaking the building and filling them all with Holy Spirit courage.
It’s called a theophany. it’s a visible appearance of God. God revealing his presence in a real, physical way you can see or feel.
God did this for Moses at the burning bush. The fire and the smoke got Moses’ attention and our Lord told him, “I am with you.” God said, “I will be with you,” and he gave Moses the boldness he needed to speak to Pharaoh.
God revealed himself this way to his people on Mount Sinai. There’s thunder and lightning, smoke and fire and noise, and the whole mountain is shaking. “I am with you,” God says. “You are my people and I am your God.” His presence gives them the increased courage and faith they need to obey the commands he gives them on the mountain.
Isaiah experiences the same thing. He goes into the Temple and sees our holy God on his eternal throne. There is smoke and noise and the whole Temple begins to shake. God asks, “Who will go for us?” And Isaiah goes from “Woe is me; I am ruined,” to “Here I am! Send me!”
Go and tell the people. I am with you. Go and speak. I’m right here. Go and live. I am with you. Go and proclaim.
It happens to the first Church on the Day of Pentecost. Those 120 disciples of Jesus praying in the upper room are blown away by the noise, the wind, and the fire. God is here with us! All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit, Scripture says, both the men and the women, and they began to speak.
I suggest to you that these kinds of things are still happening today if we’ll pay attention and notice. Our spiritual God is still making himself known in physical ways in order to assure us of his presence and fill us with Holy Spirit boldness. We get these theophanies here at Golf Course Road all the time.
In the past 22 months since we launched our vision of transformation and mission–just a little less than two years ago–we’ve had 174 people place membership at GCR. That’s 174 men, women, and children who are jumping in with our church family. And we don’t know how they’re getting here or why they’re coming. With a lot of our new members, there’s no real connection, no personal invitation, or particular event. They’re just showing up and forming relationships and embracing the mission and becoming important parts of what God is doing in us and through us here. It’s a physical reminder that our God is the one who gathers his people and brings them together for his holy purposes. We’re seeing it here. It’s real.
In that same time frame, in a little less than two years, we’ve had 61 baptisms here at GCR. That reminds us that, yes, God is still saving people. God is still at work in people’s lives. God is still rescuing people and snatching souls from hell! We’re seeing it all the time.
Last May, there were about 30 kids at Emerson Elementary who had lunch debt in the school cafeteria and were about to be cut off. They were going to be served inferior lunches in special bags for the last month of the school year. It would mark these students as different. It would make them stick out. So we paid off their debt. We didn’t ask any questions, we didn’t ask anybody to fill out a form. Did you know you were in debt? How much debt do you owe? Are you trying to pay off the debt? Would you meet us halfway with your debt? No! We didn’t do any of that, we just paid it all off. Just like Jesus. Just like our God in Christ who forgives our debt and pays off our sin and rescues us from bondage. These students and their parents got a physical, tangible, living parable or proof of God’s grace that sets us free.
Those one hundred Mission Agape boxes we provide every Thanksgiving. Our people buy the food and pack the boxes, and we distribute them to families in need in Midland County. That’s physical proof that our God is still providing what people need through our community of faith.
The “4 Midland” worship services with First Methodist, First Presbyterian, and First Baptist. There are always 800-1,000 of us in each other’s buildings, singing with our combined choirs, praying together in our different traditions, loving and accepting one another in the name of Jesus, putting aside our denominational differences to unite for the sake of our city.
That takes Holy Spirit courage! That’s Holy Spirit community! That’s proof that our God is determined to bring all things and all people together in Christ, and he’s doing it in us and through us at GCR! Yes, our God is still stretching out his hand to heal, he is still performing miracles and wonders through the name of his holy servant Jesus! And we’re experiencing it here all the time!
Our spiritual God is constantly making himself known to us in physical ways. We know our God lives inside us and we know his Son is our Lord. So we are not defined by the times. The government does not control how we live our lives. Technology does not define our existence. Postmodernism does not determine how we think. News and entertainment does not account for who we are. We must break the faithless and ignorant habit of letting the journalists tell us what’s doing on. We need to at least give the Holy Spirit equal time!
Peace,
Allan
It is good for God’s people to be together on Sundays. It is good for us to be reminded. To remember together. To affirm together as one people that, yes, this world is being saved. This whole world is being redeemed and restored. Everything that’s broken is being fixed and everything’s that’s gone wrong is being made right.
Not by politicians or platforms or parties. Not by power or force or money or threat. This world is not being saved by democracy or elections or the media or your favorite website.
Salvation is being won by God’s love and mercy grace. Reconciliation is happening through forgiveness and service and sacrifice. Our salvation and the salvation of the entire planet belongs only to our God through our risen and coming Lord Jesus!
“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.
The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.
Give thanks to the Lord; call on his name!
Make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted!
Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things!
Let this be known to all the world!
Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion!
For great is the Holy One of Israel among us!”
~Isaiah 12
It’s good to be reminded.
Peace,
Allan
“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. And 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… Those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.” ~Romans 8:26-30
All of creation is groaning. We ourselves are groaning. And God’s Holy Spirit, seeing all this, watching all this, experiencing all this with his creation and with his people–now the Spirit’s groaning with groans that words cannot express. God’s Holy Spirit lives and works in that shared pain.
“He who searches our hearts” is God. He knows what’s inside our hearts. And I know God comes across things in our hearts we’d like to keep hidden. But God is looking for the sound of his Spirit’s groaning. When we are sharing the world’s pain, when we’ve decided to embrace the world’s pain and sit with it and live with it and groan with it, we realize we don’t have any answers. We don’t know what to do. We don’t even know what to pray for! And that’s where God’s Spirit comes in very obviously. God the Creator, our Father, is always in constant communion with his Spirit who lives in the hearts of his people. God totally understands what his Spirit inside us is saying, even when we don’t. Our God hears and answers the prayers of our heart, even when they don’t feel like prayers, even when it just feels like heartache or hopelessness or inadequacy. When the pains and the groanings of the world weigh heavy on your heart, you become one with the loving and groaning and redeeming working relationship and conversation between the Father and the Holy Spirit.
It’s a mystery, for sure–I don’t understand it. But the Bible says God works through that for glory. For our glory. And ultimately for his.
The present pains and sufferings are not even worth comparing with that coming glory (Romans 8:18). Paul can’t find the words, he can’t describe the difference between where we are right now and the glory that’s coming. Everything he might say falls short. He doesn’t even try.
God has called us and justified us and will glorify us (Romans 8:30).
We know that in all things–even in the sharing of so much pain–maybe especially in the sharing of pain–we know that in all things, God works for our good! For ultimate glory! (Romans 8:28)
We share in the sufferings in order to share in God’s glory (Romans 8:17).
The devil means all of this mess for evil; God our Father is working through it for good. By the life, death, resurrection of Jesus Christ and by the power of his Holy Spirit, it’s going to be good. As Christians, we don’t shake our heads and wring our hands and say look what’s happening to the world. We open our eyes and lift our hands and say look who came into the world!
All of God’s plans for the restoration of the world, all of God’s promises for glory for us and for all creation–all of what God is bringing about for our good–it’s all “Yes” in Christ Jesus. It’s not sometimes “Yes” and sometimes “No.” In him, in Christ Jesus, it is always “Yes!”
“No matter how many promises God has made, they are ‘Yes’ in Christ. And so through him, the ‘Amen’ is spoken by us to the glory of God. Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.” ~2 Corinthians 1:20-21
Sin’s dominion over us and over this world is being broken. Our bondage to corruption and decay is coming to an end. And the Church speaks the ‘Amen.’ We say it! ‘Amen!’ We believe it! ‘Amen!’ And we live it! ‘Amen!’
The Holy Spirit guarantees the glory that’s coming because of Jesus. When the politicians say ‘No,’ God says ‘Yes’ in Christ. When the culture says ‘No,’ God says ‘Yes’ in Christ. When your friends say, ‘No,’ when the peer pressure says ‘No,’ when your family says ‘No,’ when your favorite network or website or app says ‘No,’ when your gut says ‘No,’ when all the experts say ‘No,’ our God says ‘Yes’ in Christ every time! Every time! All the time! Yes, yes, yes in our risen and coming Lord Jesus!
Hey, we’ve got a vaccine for COVID and measles and polio. We’ve got flu shots. Pneumonia shots and shingles vaccines. But not for the sin that has plunged God’s world into so much. There’s no shot, there’s no pill, there’s no medicine for this pain that has us and all creation groaning. The only prescription for the pain is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel is the only cure.
Romans 8:18-28 are about the prescription. This is God’s plan, this is his purpose, to redeem us and shower us with the heavenly glory of his Son and our undying hope in his plan. It’s a divine plan that provides fully for your eternal future. A loving and gracious plan that leads to ultimate glory for all God’s children. And Paul wants us to come away from this passage, not with a bunch of theological questions, but with an increased assurance and confidence that the God who began a good work in us will indeed bring it to completion on the day of Christ Jesus. That’s the promise. That’s the hope.
Everything you do and say, everything people do to you or say about you, every experience you will ever have, it’s all lovingly used by our God for our good. You don’t always understand. You don’t always enjoy it. But we know our groanings are not in vain. They serve an eternal purpose that’s being worked out by the Creator of Heaven and Earth who groans right along with us to make it happen.
We do see sin and the sorry state of our world, but we also see our God’s redeeming love and power. So life for us is not a dreary waiting for some inevitable end to the death and decay, it’s an eager anticipation of the liberation, it’s an exciting hope and joy for the restoration and re-creation that’s already here and is still coming. It’s not a weary defeated kind of waiting. It’s a pulsing, active, vivid expectation and hope.
Hey, the pain and the groaning is real. But so is the glory! We’re not finished yet! God’s not done! He has a plan for you and for the whole world and it is glorious! He has established his risen Son on his eternal throne and the whole world that’s been plunged into pain by the ravages of our sin is being redeemed. The renovation is coming. The new heavens and new earth is coming. This is our Father’s world and he will do whatever he sees fit. And he sees fit to appoint it and us to groaning right now and glory forever.
Peace,
Allan
We’re looking at the middle part of Romans 8 as it answers three fundamental questions for us today: Where are we? What are we called to do? How is it going to go? Yesterday, we noted that the world is in pain. The world is groaning in frustration over the curse of sin and death. Today, I suggest that all Christians are called to share that pain. As children of God and followers of his Son Jesus, we are called to share the world’s pain.
“We ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as children, the redemption of our bodies.” ~Romans 8:23
We are called to share the world’s pain. To join the world’s pain. To bear the world’s pain. Not to ignore it, not to isolate ourselves from it, not to look the other way and pretend it’s not happening. The Church is called to share the world’s pain. We ourselves who have the firstfruits of the Spirit groan inwardly.
Wait. Why us?
Because we know. We know things are not the way they are supposed to be. Because we have the firstfruits. We have seen glimpses of the eternal glory. We’ve tasted the way things are supposed to be. We’ve experienced a little bit of what God is doing.
As a church, when we come together to worship, we get a sense of what’s coming. We join that great throng of heavenly witnesses around the throne of God, we’re united together with all the saints–past, present, and future. There’s another scene, there’s another city, there’s another reality beyond our time and space. And sometimes we see it. Sometimes we feel it, if only for a moment.
When we come together around the table and share the communion meal, we are one with God in Christ and we are one with one another. Perfect fellowship. Perfect unity. Perfect forgiveness and acceptance and love and peace. And it’s not ordinary. It’s Christian.
We don’t groan despite having the firstfruits; we groan because we have them. Because we’ve seen it. We know the glory that’s coming. Baby blessings and baptisms. Mission trip sendoffs. Harvest parties and fistbumps. 4 Midland. Small groups. We see and hear and touch and taste God’s healing and cleansing, his joy and unity and forgiveness, his life-changing power and reconciliation and compassion and love. We all experience up close and personal these firstfruits of the Spirit. And it’s not what you find in the ways of this broken world. It’s uniquely Gospel.
To accomplish what’s coming for us, our Lord Jesus had to get out of his comfort zone and put on our pain. That’s the Gospel truth. Christ Jesus left his home in glory, he sacrificed his position and his power, he gave up his rights and his status, and he joined us in our pain. He came to where we are and he put on our flesh and blood, he suffered in the dirt with us. The Bible says he became familiar with our sufferings. He carried our burdens. He became our sin for us, to rescue us from the corruption and decay.
We all share the common human predicament of pain. Of groaning. So, like our Lord Jesus, we intentionally seek out that pain in others. Where is that pain? You look for it. And you don’t have to look hard–we’re all surrounded by it. And we join the pain. We embrace the pain. We live in it. We share it. We stand for and with those who are in pain. We speak up for and with those who are suffering. The Church is called to share the world’s pain. Who else is going to? And if we don’t do it right now, when will we?
Some of you, I know, the pain is too far away. The problems are just on TV. You’ve never been shot by a police officer. You’ve never been discriminated against at work or school or had opportunities taken from you because of your skin color or your accent or where your parents were born. And maybe you don’t know anybody who has. It’s not something you think about or talk about unless it’s on TV.
For some of you, the pain is very close and very real. You do know someone. You’ve experienced it yourself. You think about it and talk about it all the time.
And, yeah, there’s no doubt, you’re all over the map in your own church. You have lots of different viewpoints and opinions, you probably don’t all agree on what should be done and what ought to work and the steps that need to be taken. You’re not all going to be on the same page.
But here’s what the Bible tells us. The world is in pain. The whole world is broken and suffering because of sin. It’s groaning. And, like our Lord Jesus, his Church is called to share that pain.
And you might say, well, I don’t know anything about racism. I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know anything about homelessness or sexual identity. I can’t relate to people wrapped up in CPS cases or losing their jobs. I’ve never been to a prison. I’ve never even been in a hospital.
Well, you do know how to love people. You do know how to sacrifice and serve people. You know how to just sit with people, to just be present with people in their pain. To just listen. If it were your daughter, you’d do it.
I’ve seen you. I’ve seen you move heaven and earth, I’ve seen you sacrifice and suffer for the sake of being with your son or daughter. I’ve seen you struggle to build bridges, I’ve seen you lay aside your rights and your feelings to reconcile relationships with people you love. I’ve seen you work so hard and give up so much to heal and restore what’s broken in your own families. To just sit and be present and listen. Yes, you do know how to love people and share pain.
The world is in pain right now. That’s where we are. The Church shares the world’s pain. That’s what you and I are called to do.
Tomorrow, how is the sharing of this global pain going to work out?
Peace,
Allan
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