Exploring My Strange Bible - I am who I am Part 7: The Spirit, Suffering, and Prayer

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

In this message we are going to look at something very personal, very serious... it is the motif of how God’s spirit is particularly present in moments of human pain and suffering. There is something about suffering and pain that brings the whole human experience to this really acute pinpoint type of moment where we are participating in something very deep and very spiritual. We are going to look at a chapter in Roman chapter 8. It is one of the most beautiful depictions of the trinity at work participating in suffering in this work.

Tim Mackey, Jr. utterly amazing and worth following with everything that you have. On this podcast, I'm putting together the last 10 years worth of lectures and sermons where I've been exploring the strange and wonderful story of the Bible and how it invites us into the mission of Jesus and the journey of faith. And I hope this can be helpful for you too. I also help start this thing called The Bible Project. We make animated videos and podcasts about all kinds of topics in Bible and theology. You can find those resources at thebibleproject.com. With all that said, let's dive into the episode for this week. Well, we're continuing in the series called I Am Who I Am. We're exploring different facets of the portrait of God throughout the scriptures. We've looked at Yahweh in the Hebrew scriptures, Jesus in the New Testament, and how they go together very, very closely.

And now we're looking at kind of the third leg of the stool in the portrait of God, of God as spirit, the spirit of God. This has been the longest actually part of this series because I find that it's the most intangible, literally, God as spirit, the spirit of God. This has been the longest actually part of this series because I find that it's the most intangible, literally, God's spirit, intangible. It's the most intangible part of us to experience and get our minds around. And so also I found just personally and in the lives of people that I know, how to relate to God's spirit is one of the most kind of misunderstood or under-understood concept of biblical faith. So in this message, what we're going to look at is actually something very personal, very serious. It's the motif of how God's spirit is particularly present in moments of human pain and suffering.

How that's actually a motif that weaves throughout the whole of the scriptures. There's something about suffering and pain that brings the whole human experience to this really acute pinpoint type of moment where we are participating in something very deep and very spiritual that God himself is participating in by means of his spirit. We're going to look at a passage in Romans chapter 8. It's one of the most beautiful depictions of the Trinity at work participating in suffering in this world because this God loves this world and wants to redeem it. So there you go. This passage blows my mind every

time I study it again and reflect on the deeper things that are going on here, and I hope it's helpful for you. So let's dive in and learn together. I want you to grab your Bibles. I want you. Well, I do want you, but I invite you. I won't force you to do anything. But I invite you, grab a Bible and turn with me to Paul's letter to the Romans, chapter 8, book of Romans, chapter 8. And we're going to see Paul invite us into what I think is something of a paradox in how we process suffering and hardship and think about the Spirit's role in our lives at those times. I want to frame things first, though, give us an image that I think will help us kind of see what Paul's saying in a new light. I'd like to show you a picture,

in fact, a drawing by an artist who's most well-known for his paintings, but he did a lot of drawings too. He was a Dutch painter. He lived in the mid to late 1800s. His name starts with V. His name's on the painting, if you look real close down. It's Vincent, come on now, Vincent van Gogh. Yeah, van Gogh. Now that's the American way of pronouncing it. I had someone of Dutch heritage correct me. It's actually pronounced Vincent van Gogh. But we're Americans, we butcher everybody's names, right? So we say Vincent van Gogh. Van Gogh's a really, he's a really curious figure. I was kind was really interested in him a number of years ago

and learned as much about him as I could. He was an interesting figure. His work became recognized and renowned after he died. He was a pretty lonely, miserable man for most of his life, and nobody really paid attention to what he was doing. But he's the father of numerous movements and kind of modern art, and people have looked to him for inspiration for a long time. What's interesting about his early life, as a young man in his 20s, he was a devout Christian,

and he went into Christian ministry. That was kind of his career track, and he was actually, the first kind of job he was ever given in ministry was he was assigned to become a pastor of a church in a small town in Belgium. And it was a coal mining town, kind of poor, lower income town with coal miners and their families. And if you ever, whatever, Google or Wikipedia or look up a lot of his paintings, the art that he produced in those years of his life is mostly of people that he lived with and worked around,

just simple people. And one of his most famous paintings is actually a bunch of Belgish peasants sitting around a table gnawing on dirty potatoes do you guys know that image just go look it up it's really it's a famous painting for lots of reasons that i don't understand why but anyway it's a cool painting so this drawing is from that same period of his life what's called the early van gogh it's depicting a a man you know, from his community. And this drawing has always been interesting to me because it's really hard to really nail down what is this guy experiencing? Like, what am I supposed

to think about what that guy is feeling right now? You know, it's he, the first, you know, thing that comes to most of us, I think, is that he's grieving. It seems like he's in pain. It could possibly be that he's just tired. I look like that at the end of the day sometimes, I think. And indigestion, I don't know. He lost a Scrabble game or something. I have no idea. But the longer you stare at it, the more you realize,

oh, that could be actually capturing a lot of different moments. What's interesting is that it seems pretty clear that Van Gogh intended to draw this man and depict him in prayer. And if you look at the lower left there, you can see the title that Van Gogh gave to this drawing. And the title of the drawing is At Eternity's Gate. At Eternity's Gate. At Eternity's Gate.

And it's very difficult for me to not see any kind of anguish or grief. It seems to me that this is a depiction of a man in anguished prayer. And this image has stuck with me for a lot of different years it's kind of given a visual image for me to attach to a feeling that i have sometimes and i think most most of us have had at some point and it's it's the experience of of anguished prayer as a Christian. And so he's depicting these moments in life, and especially among, you know, think of the town and the people that he was among. Difficult circumstances, life is hard, what almost all the people, at least the men are doing, because they're going and doing this very difficult work in these mines. Life is challenging, and it's difficult. And yet, he saw precisely that kind

of life setting as the moment where, even in anguish, it's possible for us to stand at eternity's gate. In other words, it's moments of anguished prayer that become the possibility not to feel, where is God, and why has God left me, hung me out to dry or whatever, but actually just the opposite, to have a very profound experience of God's presence instead of his absence, which is the feeling most of us get when we have moments like this. What it makes me think of is just seasons or moments in life where you feel like the train has gone off the tracks. You know, whether it's the moment of a tragedy that's hit your life, or whether it's just kind of a whole season of your life, and you're just, you know, whatever.

You're just disappointed with how everything is going in your life. And you end up in that chair. is going in your life, and you end up in that chair. And if you can pray at all, you know, all you can pray is like, where are you, God? You know, are you listening to me? Like, what's happening? I don't understand why this is happening. Have you been in that chair before? Metaphorically, right? You know what I'm talking about, right? We've all been in that chair before God, and if we can pray, what do you pray, and how do you pray? And where is the Spirit in moments like that, right? Because if the Spirit of God is God's personal life-giving presence in and with the believer, like where is the Spirit when you sit in that chair in anguished prayer?

And that's what Paul is going to invite us to consider. And this is both a very deeply kind of theological and dense exploration of this idea in Romans chapter 8, but it's also an extremely personal and practical one at the same time. Romans chapter 8. We're going to keep the image up there just because I think it's helpful to remind us of the real thing we're talking about here. Romans chapter 8, verse 18. Paul wrote this letter to a church in Rome. He'd never been. He'd never visited this church. He knew lots of people there through connections, but he says at the beginning and at the end

that it was a church he wanted to visit. And Paul knew what was going on in the life of this church, and we know from other places in the New Testament. One, it was a church that stood under the shadow of persecution. It's mentioned both in the book of Acts and also from other things that we know that the Roman emperor actually expelled all of the Jewish people from Rome not long before Paul wrote this letter. Some had begun to turn back, and so the church was kind of fraught with ethnic tensions of Jewish Christians and non-Jewish Christians under the shadow of persecution, very difficult circumstances that Paul's writing to.

And so one of the many themes that weaves throughout Romans is exploring the meaning of suffering as a Christian. And this is one of them. Chapter 8, verse 18. We'll just read the first sentence here. Paul says, totally jumping in out of context here. Sorry, but what can you do? You know, this is not a power lecture on the whole book of Romans. So he's in a flow of thought, but this is a new movement, and he's summarizing a big point here that he's going to dive in to explore. And what he's exploring, this whole paragraph, is what he calls our present suffering, the Christian's experience of suffering and hardship and disappointment. And what's really key in reading any of Paul's letters

is that he's got a story in his mind right here. It's a background story that forms his whole way of thinking about the world, and he got it from reading the Hebrew scriptures. And it's everywhere in the background, and then sometimes it peaks to the surface here. And it's his way of framing how you think about history and the meaning of your life and so on as a Christian. And so it involves two moments, at least we know here. He talks about the present moment, which is characterized by what? What's the present moment? Suffering. It's already off to a bright, happy start here. So suffering. And he says that our suffering is real and should not be ignored, but that it has to be put into the perspective of a bigger storyline of where our lives and where our world is going because of Jesus. And where is the story going? What does he say? say just uses the word glory glory now this is really this is really important so

paul doesn't believe the story begin here however in numerous places uh in his letters this is this whole paragraph as we're going to see is just is generated out of a reflection on on genesis one through three the early stories of genesis and how they help us understand what happened on the cross and who the Spirit is to us. So the story doesn't begin here, however. The story begins with God making a world that he declares to be what? Good. How many times? Yeah, seven times. It's really good. And that this good world was put under the management or the stewardship of these very unique beings, these beings created in the Creator's image

and made to reflect the Creator's image out into the world. And what these beings have done is that they've given in to the temptation to evil and to define good and evil for themselves apart from God. That's what the early stories of Genesis are about. And so because of that human giving in to evil, it's ushered our world into a time of suffering. And he's going to describe this in more as we go forward here.

But does the story end here? No, no. It's on a trajectory towards restoration, and what he's going to say is liberation and healing. Now, this is just the basic shape of a Christian view of the world, and it's key to understanding anything in reading the Bible, and key to understanding this passage too. So let's let Paul unpack the story here. He's going to dive into it a little bit more. Look at verse 19. He says, for creation is waiting in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration. Some of your translations have subjected to what? Futility. Yeah, futility. Not by its own choice,

but by the will of the one who subjected it. In the hope that creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of God. All clear? So it's like, okay, I think maybe probably most of us even are like, I think I see the storyline here, but there's a whole lot of stuff that's weird. So, here he's not just talking about human suffering and future glory or something. He's actually talking about the non-human created realm as well, what we would call nature, something like that. What he's saying is that God's good world, the non-human material world, was also brought into a period of suffering. And he uses all kinds of words to describe the state of the world as you and I experience it. What are some of those words he uses here?

Creation's waiting and eager expectation. What was it subjected to? Creation's waiting and eager expectation. What was it subjected to? Futility or frustration. He says in verse 21, it's like the world is in slavery to decay and to corruption or death. So we're in a part of the story where there's bondage, right? Where there's death and suffering as a result of evil, human evil, and then powers of evil that are greater and more mysterious for us to really understand. And he says that this is the part of the story that we have been in and that creation is in. And he says it's eagerly waiting the move forward into the next part of the story here.

And so you could say this is a whole part of the story of our world. And we know this world. This is part of the world that we live in, but something has happened. Something has happened because this is not is part of the world that we live in, but something has happened. Something has happened because this is not the end of the story. Paul believes deeply, and he says creation itself is even longing to be redeemed. Notice what he says here. He says in verse 20, he says, creation was subjected to this, not by its own choice. So, in other words, he's reflecting back on the story of the snake in the garden and so on. In other words, did the rocks and the trees and the birds rebel against God? No, what did they ever do? They just exist, and they're beautiful, you know. But the rocks and

the trees and the birds and so on have suffered the consequences of someone else's sin and stupid decisions. And that would be us. That would be us, right? And so he's reflecting on the fact that human beings were put in this place of oversight and stewardship and managing God's good world on the Creator's behalf. and managing God's good world on the Creator's behalf, and that when human beings rebelled and became compromised by evil, that had drastic consequences on the created realm as well. It's actually a really fascinating reflection that Paul's making here. So, you know, you ever heard of giraffes, and, you know, they go into the forest, and they eat all the fruit off of that section, and then they move on or something like that, but the fruit grows back. So, you know, they go into the forest and they eat all the fruit off of that section and then they move on or something like that.

But the fruit grows back. So, you know, humans, we move into an area and we, like, remove the forest and make a skyscraper or something like that. You know, it's just humans are unique. We have a unique capacity to remake creation in a way that other species don't. that other species don't. And if human beings are humbly submitting to God's definition of good and evil and in right relationship with Him, then we'll be wisely guided as we go about doing that. But the moment you break that relationship and sever the connection between each other because of sin and selfishness, well, there you go. We live in that world. That's the world we're living in. I don't have to explain that to you. And so Paul says creation itself, it's groaning. Excuse me. No, he didn't say that. Darn it.

Jumped again. Stole my thunder right there. He says it's waiting. He says it's waiting. It's waiting to be liberated when? When human beings are liberated, right? When human beings are brought into the freedom and the glory of the children of God. This is the story he's getting at here, is that in Jesus, and the moment of the cross is about God entering into humanity in the person of the Son and actually taking into himself all of the sin and the evil and the consequences of that evil in the form of death into himself on the cross, and he carried that burden for us. And in Jesus' resurrection from the dead, it actually opened up a whole new chapter in world history, that the end game is not suffering and bondage and death.

The end game is God's permanent commitment to the goodness of His world, to rescue it and to redeem it. That's what he's saying here. Creation will be liberated from its bondage into decay and brought into the glory of the new creation. Paul's conviction is that what happened to Jesus when He rose from the dead is a preview of what God has planned for the whole of creation and for those human beings who reach out in faith to Jesus and allow his death to be for us. And so that's the story that he's trying to summarize right here. And he says, if you're a Christian, where are we located in the story right here? So does anybody feel like they inhabit the new creation when they woke up this morning? Yeah, not so much. Although it is a really glorious world, isn't it? And there are really

incredible, beautiful moments that we have with each other, but it's also one that's deeply marred and marked by bondage and death and sin and evil. And so, essentially, Paul's saying we're located, like, right here in the story. We have a foot in the world of suffering, and we're after the cross, which is God's ultimate statement of binding himself to a tragic, sin-compromised world and bending it back into right relationship with himself and making that potential for human beings who will place their faith in Jesus. And so we're after the cross, but we're before Jesus' return to bring final justice and to set everything right. And so it's like we're in this in-between time. I draw these circles a lot, don't I? Maybe I draw

them too much, but they're so stinking helpful for me. And actually, someone asked me the other day, where did you get the circles? And I actually can't remember. I actually don't know if I thought of them or if I read them in a book somewhere. And if you, and I've looked in the books on my shelf, I'm like, I don't see it anywhere. I don't think I'm smart enough to think up this circle. So I'm sure somebody did. If you know who used it first, please come and remind me. Anyway, so he says we live at this overlap period where we have a conviction that the end of the story is not in question. But at the same time, we live in a world and in bodies and in relationships that are still broken and screwed up. And so, what does it mean to live in this time period after the rescue but before the completion of God's redemption of this world? And where is the Spirit in our lives when we have

moments of being so affected and overwhelmed by the evil and the tragedy that's in our world and by the messed up stuff that happens in our lives? And that's what he's going to go on to explore. How you guys doing? That's kind of dense. I know it's kind of dense, but Paul is dense. How you guys doing? That's kind of dense. I know it's kind of dense, but Paul is dense. So look at verse 22. He says, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Talk about a loaded metaphor, right? Labor pain. And he's not talking about humans here. He's going to talk about humans in a second. He's saying, I mean, just close your eyes and think of an image that brings this to your mind of a world shuddering in pain like a woman in labor. shuddering in pain like a woman in labor. I've only had personal experience of being with a woman in labor and it was my wife and what made it even more intense of an experience of course

is that I was like the partial cause of it and so it's's like, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I did this to you, I'm so sorry. So, I mean, it's an unparalleled experience. And I should not be the one up here talking about this. You know what I'm saying? I'm a dude. So it's an unparalleled experience of emotion and physical and psychological pain and anguish. Ladies in the room, who've given birth? Ladies in the room, I don't know who gave birth. I don't know.

I can't speak to it, but I have been there for all of it on two different occasions. And so it's this, why did Paul choose this metaphor? Like, really think about this. So he could have just seen, like, creation is groaning because it got socked in the stomach or something.

So that would have a totally different meaning because you get socked in the stomach and then it brews and maybe you throw up a little bit and then it just, that was lame that that happened. But child labor is probably one of the most painful experiences a human being

can undergo. But it's also the unique most painful experience as a human being can undergo, but it's also the unique, most painful experience that actually, ideally, tragically not always, but ideally, gives birth to new life. And it's for sure why he picked this metaphor here. He invites us to look out at our world as a world in labor, that God is somehow actually birthing a whole new creation into being out of the womb of this old broken one, and it's going to be a very painful, anguish-filled process. I mean, look at how it was initially redeemed on the cross. And so he says the whole creation, it's groaning as in the pains of childbirth. It's painful, but there's also hope. There's also hope. And the non-human creation is not the only thing groaning. Look at how he develops the thought. Look at verse 23. He says, not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we're groaning inwardly as we

eagerly await our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. This is very dense, but the point he's making is really clear in the story here. So he's saying, so the creation itself is suffering and groaning, and within that broken, groaning creation are broken and groaning Christians, right? And he says, we, we, Christians who have the first fruits of the Spirit. Now again, the metaphors trip over. If you and I ever talked like this, people would make fun of you, you know, of if you like all these metaphors, but it's really profound when he does it. So, he has this image of our experience of the Spirit that we've been talking about in this series. So, Paul's and just the Scripture's depiction,, the Spirit was right here.

Remember, in verse 2 of the Bible that we looked at, the Spirit was right there as the personal presence of the Creator hovering in the midst of the darkness and the chaos and bringing out a good creation. And so right here in this new creation, the Spirit is at work hovering in the midst of the suffering, broken world, helping give birth to the new creation, the Spirit is at work, hovering in the midst of the suffering, broken world, helping give birth to the new creation. And Jesus was raised by the power of the Spirit. Our bodies will be raised like Jesus's according to the power of the Spirit. The Spirit's always

pulling us in the direction of new creation and of life. So a couple weeks ago, we talked about, again, in Paul's letter to the Galatians, about the sinful nature and the flesh and the world of the Spirit and life. It's the same, it's just the same thing in a different topic. And so he says, the Spirit, we have the first fruits of the Spirit. It's like the Spirit who will heal and restore all of God's new world has invaded backwards into the world of suffering and bondage and death in the heart as he dwells in the hearts and minds of Christians, of believers. And so he says, we have the first fruits of the Spirit. It's such an interesting metaphor. If you grew up on a farm, this might resonate with you. I did not, so it doesn't resonate with me. I have to think about Little House on the Prairie. In terms of how my mind got shaped

about the pioneer life and farming and agriculture, I'm not joking, was shaped by Little House on the Prairie. When I would get home from school, it was this battle between my sister and I as to what TV program we could turn on. And so my parents declared these rules that I got to determine the first half hour and I got to determine the first half hour and she got to determine the second half hour after we got home. Anyway, and so on. So she would always turn on Little House on the Prairie. So I was subjected to it. So you have, so let's see, you have a little scene or whatever. It's late summer and Laura comes running in the house and there's paws there or whatever, Pa's there, whatever,

chiseling a wood axe handle or something like that, I don't know. And she has all these stalks of full-grown wheat in her hands, and she comes running in, and she's like, Pa, you know, Pa, the wheat harvest, look, here it is, or something. And Pa's like, yes, Laura, that's great. Look out the windows, oh, there it is, or something, and Paul's like, yes, Laura, that's great. Look out the windows. Oh, there it is, you know, something. That's the idea. What's in her hand? What is it? It's the first fruits. In other words, it's not like you just get a little written notice that

just says like, oh, the wheat harvest is arriving in a week. It's actually holding in your hand a small bit of the real thing itself. And Paul says that's what the gift of the Spirit is right now in the life of the believer. It's right here in the midst of this suffering, groaning world. It's the Spirit who actually begins to work and shape and grow fruit in our lives and so on. And so, you know, you have these moments as a Christian where you actually, like, did the right thing for the right reason because you love Jesus, and you were like, that just happened. That just happened. I just, like, said a loving thing, and I could have said the horrible thing

or something. You're like, holy cow. And Paul would say, yeah, dude, like, put your thumb on that. That's a little bit of new creation right there. Like celebrate that. That's the Spirit making you into a new human being. And so we have these tastes, the first fruits of the Spirit. And so Paul will often talk about how in the Spirit we can have peace and joy no matter what the circumstances, and we can live the victorious Christian life, and that's awesome, right? But at the same time, never forget that this is the victorious Christian life written by a man who was shipwrecked and beaten and imprisoned, and so on, right? And so, like,

Paul's no stranger to anguish and suffering. And so, he knows that you and I are going to spend a lot of time in that chair in the time that you're a Christian. And so he wants to give us a category for that, like the victorious spirit-filled Christian life does not mean that you don't spend a lot of time sitting in that chair groaning along with creation over the tragedy of our world and the tragedies that happen in our lives and in the lives of people that we love. And so it raises the question then, well, where is the Spirit in those moments?

Then what is the Spirit doing when I don't feel the victorious new creation in my life? And Paul's response to that is that being a Christian is learning to live in hope. Live in hope. Look what he goes on to say. Look at verse 24. He says, it's in this hope that we were all saved, in the hope of the resurrection and the new creation because of what Jesus did for us. And so he says, in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen, it's no hope at all. I mean, who hopes for what they already have?

It seems rather silly that he has to say it, but I think it's kind of important to say it, right? So I hope I have a piece of chalk in my hand. Oh, nope, there it is, like I have it. So obviously we get that. Hope, by its very nature, means that you don't possess in full reality the thing that you're setting your hope on. And what it is to be a Christian is to be a person who is hoping, full of hope. Hope, which doesn't mean you ignore tragedy and suffering and bondage and death, but it does mean this firm commitment that this is not the end of the story. It's living in hope. And so it's what he says here. He says, but if we hope for something we don't have yet, where do we sit?

Where do we sit? We sit there waiting patiently, which means we sit in the chair of anguished prayer over the groaning world as we ourselves groan. And this is a normal, actually really important part of what it means to live the Spirit-filled life, is pain-filled prayer. Because the Spirit has a key role to play. When we're sitting in that chair, we don't even know what to pray. And whether it's just, again, it's the cloud of disappointment over your life, it's these moments of tragedy,

you know, that hit your life or the life of people that you love, and you're just there, and you're going like, why? And what's happening? And where are you, God? Paul says those are crucial moments, crucial moments for you and for the world because of the Spirit's role. Look at what he goes on to say. We've got the whole world groaning, creation. we've got believers groaning. Verse 26, in the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. I mean, we don't know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us through what? What does it say? More groaning. Through groans that words cannot express. Or some of your translations might have through wordless groans. Now, this is really a dense passage, and I tried to think about 10 different ways to draw it, but I can't. I'm just not even

going to try. So I just really encourage you, this is theologically very profound, but intensely personal and practical. He's saying in the midst of a groaning and suffering world, these human beings who are being made new, and so we have hope, but at the same time, we are still in this world of suffering and death, And so we, within that groaning world, are also groaning ourselves. And as we sit in that chair of anguished prayer, Paul invites us to consider the fact that right when you feel like God is most absent, because it seems like the train has got off the tracks, and right when you feel like things are going so horribly, horribly wrong, Paul invites you to see that moment of feeling God's absence as actually one of the most profound experiences of God's presence you might ever have. Because the Spirit is actually not a million miles away, and that's why you're suffering, right?

We're in a world of suffering because of human evil and spiritual evil, and we live in a broken and fallen world. That's why it's happening. And so the Spirit is actually not far away. The Spirit is right there present within us. And what is the Spirit doing? As the world groans and as we groan, what's the Spirit within us doing? What does he say? It's groaning too. It's groaning too. It's doing some other things. But first, it's repeated. Why does he repeat this word groaning? As in the doing some other things, but first, why does he repeat this word, groaning, as in the pains of childbirth all the time? The world creation's groaning, we're groaning, the Spirit's groaning. So he wants us to see that when we're sitting in that chair, the Spirit is, as it were, pulling up a chair alongside us and full of anguish with us. Now, some people have

wondered if Paul here is alluding to the practice of some kind of prayer or spirit-filled prayer that's connected to what he talks about in Corinthians, about speaking in tongues or languages that you don't know or something. I don't think that's the case. It seems to me he's depicting this right here. It's moments where because of the tragedy of God's good world being ruined and the screwed up stuff that happens inside of us and in our lives, you end up with emotions of disappointment and pain that you cannot put words to.

Anybody? Any of you? And if you actually haven't had these emotions I would highly encourage you to go talk to a professional because those emotions are really an important part of you being a human being you're just constantly stuffing them that you're actually cutting off the whole part of you that God made and that's good that's my little tangent on why you should go see a therapist

and become a healthy human being so what he's saying is those emotions what do you do with those? And he invites us to see that in the midst of our wordless groaning, as it were, of pain and anguish and grief, that the Spirit is in that. Actually, the Spirit is the one animating and energizing that. And as he says right here, I don't know what to pray for. You're sitting there in your spot of weakness, and I don't know how to pray or what to pray, and we're groaning. And Paul says, the Spirit is right there groaning within you and alongside you. And here's the thing about the

Spirit is that the Spirit actually knows what to pray. You don't. All you do is you watch the news and you see a tsunami or an earthquake, or you have friends, and there's some tragedy in their family, or there's some situation, and you don't know. All you know is the pain and the anguish and the longing for God to somehow make it right. And it's like the Spirit is within you going, okay, I can work with that, because here's a human being who actually cares and who actually has hope that God can do something and birth hope and new creation out of the tragedy of this world. And so the Spirit can translate our not knowing what to say and our own groanings into effective intercessory prayer to the Father. Isn't this a strange passage?

I mean, strange in that I think it's surprising. I would have never thought up this idea about prayer. And look at what he says here. He says, the Spirit's within us interceding. And look at verse 27, how he closes the thought. He says, and the one who searches our hearts. This is Paul's way of referring to God the Father, right? Who's depicted in this place of kind of sovereign knowledge

and can discern and know our heart motivations and what's going on in our hearts and our minds. And so he says, here's an anguished Christian who's looking out as a part of something in the world, and he or she is, they're groaning, and they're praying, and they don't know what to pray, and the Spirit can animate that longing and that hope and translate it into an effective prayer to God the Father. And the only language you could use to describe this is the word that Christians later came to use, is Trinity, right? And it's just a word that we're using to describe this is the word that Christians later came to use is Trinity, right? And it's

just a word that we're using to describe what we see going on here in the New Testament. It's like there's one God. It's the God who is Father, but it's the God who is Spirit within us, sent by the Son, both to enter into and to begin to redeem his broken world. I was just talking with a woman after the last service, and it was really cool. She was saying that this morning she texted her kids and was just saying, I don't know what I need to pray for you guys this morning, but I'm praying for you, and I trust that that will have the effect it's supposed to have. And she came up to me and we're talking about that that's what's going on here. It's this care and longing for others, for the well-being of the world or something. And we just trust that just, we're

just supposed to take that emotion that arises within us and to not like stuff it and to not ignore it, but to actually do something with that anguish. And to use that as an invitation to go and pray, even if you don't know what to pray. It doesn't matter. One of the roles of the Spirit is to translate our own groaning into effective prayer to the Father. And the Father who knows our motivations and our hearts, will translate that into effective intercessory prayer. Isn't this a fantastic passage? This is so, and this, again, is very dense theology, but it's so personal because who has not been there?

You know what I'm saying? Who has not sat in that chair and wondered where God is? And Paul says God's right there in the heart of it. He's not a million miles away. He's right there with you. In fact, we're invited, the Christian conception of God is so strange in that way, because it's not like the aloof, stoic, you know, wound up the world and then just let it go. It's the wise, generous creator who wants to share, and he gives the dignity of real freedom of choice to these creatures. Things

go horribly wrong, and instead of being aloof, he actually enters into it and binds himself to it personally in Jesus. And not only that, he begins to redeem other human beings who put their arms around Jesus in faith, and he sends his own personal presence within them so that they, in their longing and in their ang anguish can actually become the place where the Spirit prays for the world on their behalf through them. How do I draw that? I need a three-dimensional chalkboard where I can be like the Father and the Spirit and the Son, something like that. So I'm doing my best to explain it, but I'm not even sure I really still understand it. But are you guys with me, at least? Because I can only bring you so far, so here we are.

me, at least, because I can only bring you so far, so here we are. So what does this mean? What does this mean for us? What it means for us is it's about disciplining our minds as Christians, that precisely those moments where we're tempted to actually create distance because of this thing that's gone horribly wrong in our lives, or we see something in the world and we're like, where's God? Why would God allow this? And we're invited to consider the good news about the suffering God, whose response to that tragedy is to actually bind himself to it in the person of Jesus and to absorb its most powerful weapon into himself, death, and overcoming it with his love so that all those who look to him in faith and have his spirit within them have this hopeful longing for new creation. And it transforms

your experience of sitting in that chair. All of a sudden, you used to sit in that chair and feel like God's a million miles away, and Paul invites you to see that actually the fact that you're feeling that anguish is the sign of the Spirit agitating you, drawing you towards prayer. I used to, the best experience I could think of as an analogy to this would be, I really hated school. I was actually quite terrible at school, right up until through my first year of college, and then Jesus turned my brain on. And I still remember in my sixth grade classroom, there was a clock. I could totally see the clock all day long, right, in the room above the door. And somehow, like the first six, seven hours of the day were never as terrible as that last 15 minutes before you have freedom. Do you guys know what I'm talking about? Somehow, those last 15 minutes before freedom of, you know, skateboarding and watching Transformers or whatever with my friends after school, somehow that last

15 minutes is full of much more turmoil and agitation and anxiety than like the six hours that came before it. There's something about knowing what's right ahead that makes the present suffering even worse. The suffering of the sixth grade classroom. But I think that's what Paul is describing here. If you have the first fruits of the Spirit, you know that the way the world is isn't the way it's always going to be. And so the more you steep yourself in that truth, the more how screwed up things are in our world and in our hearts and our minds will bother you. And it'll really agitate you. And it's this longing. I think it's what Jesus calls this hungering for righteousness, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. And so we need to recognize that these are moments actually where the Spirit is most closely present within us, interceding on our behalf through our prayers

that we don't know what to pray, but the Spirit takes that longing and that anguish and turns it into effective prayer on our behalf. It seems to me this is a very important work of the Spirit in our lives because we spend a lot of time in that chair. It's a way that the gospel redeems our moments of anguished prayer and turns them into hopeful prayer because of the work of the Spirit. So here's what I'd like us to do. Let's just practice right now. Let's practice right now. We're all growing as disciples of Jesus. We're at different places, but we have a gathering here, and we always have a time where we can sing and pray and be quiet and reflect and take the bread and the cup together.

And so let's just practice. Maybe you came. Maybe you were sitting in the chair this morning before you came. Maybe you've been sitting in that chair for a long time now. I just invite you to consider whatever part of your life where you're feeling like God is distant or absent, or there's something painful, there's some tragedy that's a result of just living in a screwed up world.

And I just invite you to take that emotion and that anguish and allow this spirit to transform it into effective intercessory prayer on behalf of the people that you're feeling that for and on behalf of God's broken world. You guys, thanks for listening to the Strange Bible Podcast. I hope this was helpful for you. If you find yourself in one of these dark moments of solitude or pain, I trust that these images of God's suffering personal presence will speak to you in exactly the way that they're supposed to. So thanks for listening, you guys, and we'll see you next time.