Hope in the Waiting (More Than - Week 6)

Have you ever felt so overwhelmed that words fail and only sighs remain? 

In a powerful exploration of Romans 8, Shawn reveals how even our wordless groans become profound prayers through the Holy Spirit's divine translation. Drawing from the imagery of creation's birth pains, he illuminates the tension Christians experience between present suffering and future glory. Whether facing global conflicts or personal pain, this message offers hope: our sighs aren't wasted—they're sacred conversations with God. Watch now to discover how to stand in prayer where the world hurts, finding purpose in the waiting.

Transcript

Romans chapter 8, starting at verse 22, 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. For who hopes what they are, who hopes for what they already have?

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, 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. Jesus, these are your words. These are your truth.

God, would you bring them to life this morning? Would you speak to us as Sean opens this word and as he speaks, as we pray, as we listen to your spirit, God, would you just enlighten us and challenge us to live more fully for you? When we walk out of these walls, let it not just be words on a page, things that we hear and knowledge that we stick in our brains, but may it be inspiring living words that put us into action when we live our lives in Jesus name. Everybody said amen. Amen.

Thank you, Quinn. Okay. Appreciate that. Good morning, everybody. Thank you.

What are you doing, man? Get off the stage. All right. Oh, hey. It is so good to see you here this morning.

Thank you for braving some rainy weather. Darker mornings, kind of gloomy, but IU football rocks. And so we've got that that we can celebrate this morning. And like, I've seen so many new babies at church this morning. It's like so cool to see our church take God's command to be fruitful and multiply.

Seriously, like, that is one way to grow a church. Right there is, like, through babies. And so it's just so sweet to see that. So yesterday I hit a 425 day streak of doing at least one Spanish lesson in duolingo each day. Thank you.

Thank you. If you're on Duolingo at sgreen1403, friend me, I'd love to get on a streak with you, but I have wanted to learn Spanish for a long time. I mean, like, as long as I can remember. And it just hit me last year. This brain is not getting any sharper.

And so I should probably start if I want to do this. And so I just picked it up. I downloaded the app, and I've been working through it, and my goal is not to be fluent. My goal is just to have a conversation, even if it's just a simple conversation. And I have a little bit of an advantage that I've worked with some native Spanish speakers here at Sherwood Oaks, our Iglesia Spana team.

I've asked them to speak to me in Spanish, but, like, I'm a toddler, and then maybe even tone it down from that just a little bit. And so they speak to me, and I try to speak back to them, and it does come out like I'm a toddler. I mix up my words. I'm slow trying to find it. I get my tenses all garbled up.

And I imagine that there are times when they look at me and they're so patient and they're so kind, but. But I imagine that they were thinking to themselves, ay, pobrecito. Which loosely translates into, bless his heart. He's trying. He's trying.

And I imagine that there are times in faith, as I'm trying to, like, follow Jesus, that God looks at me and he's like, I pobrecito. He's trying. God bless him. I'm trying to be faithful. There are times when I feel like, man, I know exactly what the word wants me to do, and I follow it.

And there are times where I know exactly what the word wants me to do and I don't follow it. And I feel this way sometimes when it comes to prayer. Like, there are some times in prayer where I'm feeling something so deeply and, like, I know what I want to say, but I can't find the words to say it. Have you ever been in that place? It's like, where something hits you so hard in a moment that you know that you ought to pray about this.

But. But when you start to pray, you're like, I don't even know what words to use to pray over this situation. I don't know how to. To verbalize what I am feeling in my soul. If you've been there, I want you to know I feel like you're in good company.

There are times when I'm praying and I'm stumbling and I'm. And I'm stammering, and I can't find those words to capture what's in my heart. But the good news for us in our text today is that if you've ever found yourself in that place, what Paul wants us to know is that the Holy Spirit prays for us when we can't find the right words to say, when the only thing that can come out of us is just a deep moan or sigh. Sigh. The Holy Spirit takes that and he prays on our behalf.

And God our Father perfectly understands what we are praying for even in those moments, even when we can't find the right words. He perfectly understands when. When the only thing that comes out of us is just.

Can we just do that? Because sometimes I feel like a collective sigh might be what we all need. Just take a deep breath and just.

We're in week six of our series that we're doing through Romans chapter eight, going verse by verse through what is one of, if not the most important and profound chapters in all of Scripture. And before we get to where we are going today, I want to take just a moment to look back at where we've been. If you have joined us, you've probably received or gotten one of these cards. We encourage everyone to just take some time to memorize part of Romans chapter 8. Maybe it's all of it.

I know that some people are doing that. Maybe it's just the main verses, the key verses that we're looking at each week. And so we've been handing out these cards to help you with that memorization. I just want to. I want to do a bit of a recap of where we've been based on these key verses that we have looked at.

And so we started with Romans, chapter 8, verse 1. And Paul starts this chapter by saying, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Meaning that we are more than our past mistakes, we are more than our guilt. We are more than our shame. Through Jesus, we can have new life and a fresh start.

And we do not have to live underneath the condemnation of our sin anymore. And then we looked at Romans, chapter 8, verse 6. The mind that is governed by the flesh is death, meaning that when our mind is moved and led by the things of this world, it leads to death. In our souls, it leads to death. In our relationships, it leads to brokenness and pain.

And so the mind governed by the flesh is death. But the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. And so we are more, we are more than who we used to be. The Holy Spirit renews our hearts and our minds. And as the Spirit renews us, we find life and peace in the midst of what we go through.

And we looked at Romans chapter 8, verse 14. And in this passage, Beth taught us that for those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. And what I love about this passage is that it reminds us that we are more than just loved by God. Yes, we are loved by God, but not in an acquaintance kind of way, like, oh, I love that guy, or I love that person. No, we are loved by God.

And that he has adopted us into his family. We are children of God. We belong to his family. And then Romans 8:18, we looked at last week. Paul makes this somewhat audacious claim that I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.

Meaning that we are more than just our earthly temporary bodies. That what we experience in this world is not the only thing. We were made for eternity. And so what awaits us? What is going to be revealed in us and for us through Jesus, when.

When God fully and finally redeems and restores and renew all things and there's no more weeping and no more tears and no more pain. That in light of what is to come, when we think about our current sufferings, man, it doesn't even compare to what we will experience for all of eternity. But we are not there yet. So in the meantime, Paul tells us in our text Today, Romans chapter 8, verse 26, our key verse for 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 through wordless groans.

Say this passage together. 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. Put another way, you could say it like this, that the Holy Spirit translates our sighs into the language of heaven. The Holy Spirit translates our sighs, our groaning into the language of heaven. So when we are confronted with the painful reality of this world that we live in, when we come face to face with our inability to fix it.

Oftentimes what comes out of me, and maybe what comes out of you is just this deep sigh. It is like all of the weight of the pain and of this world, it comes on our shoulders and it just squeezes and pushes out this Come. Lord Jesus.

Lord, where are you? What are you doing? Why. Why does it seem like you're not answering this prayer? Why does it seem like you are so distant when we can't find the words to pray through the pain that we feel and it just comes out as a sigh?

What Paul wants us to know in Our text is that those sighs are not wasted. Those sighs are sometimes the most faithful prayer that we can pray. And the Holy Spirit gathers up our sighs, gathers up our tears, and he takes them before the throne of our good and loving Heavenly Father, and he lays it down before him. And he translates that pain to the Father, who knows what it is like to experience the brokenness and pain in this world. Jesus entered into this.

He can relate to what we go through. And those prayers are interpreted to the Father who moves on your behalf. The world is crying out for God to finish the redemption work that he started. And even when we can't find the words, God knows what we are feeling. And in our text today, Paul says that all of this pain, all of this brokenness, all of these relapses, all of things that we go through in life, it is leading to something far better than what we can imagine, even when it's hard right now.

So Paul writes these words in Romans 8, starting in verse 22. We know that the whole creation has been groaning, as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Just push, pause right here for a moment and take in what he is saying here. It's a continuation of the theme that we looked at last week, that one day God is going to redeem and restore and make this world new. And creation is waiting for our redemption so that it will experience the fullness of its redemption.

But in the meantime, it is groaning. It is waiting. It is saying, when, Lord, how much longer? And these pains and these groanings are not because creation is dying. Paul says that these groanings are because creation is giving birth to new life.

These are birthing pains waiting for something new to be born. And so this world is aching for redemption and renewal. But Paul says, it's not just this world, we are aching for it too. Verse 23. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as well as we wait eagerly for our adoptions to sonship.

That word wait eagerly. So if you were here last week, that same word that means to kind of stretch out your neck to see what is coming, the creation is doing that, but we are doing that too. When, Lord, how much longer? When are you going to fully and finally remove all of the pain and all of the tears? He goes and he says, we wait for it.

And it's in this hope that one day this will come that we are saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have. But if we Hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. So for those of us who are in Christ, like Beth talked about a couple of weeks ago, we have been adopted into God's family.

And in Ephesians chapter one, Paul tells us that he is given us the Holy Spirit in us as a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance that was to come. That it is God marking us with his Holy Spirit, saying, this is a taste of what will ultimately be your inheritance, a taste of what will ultimately be fulfilled in the culmination of all things. And so while we wait and while we walk through the pain of this world, we do not walk alone. Yes, we are waiting for what is ahead, but we also have the Holy Spirit that is in us, that is working through us, that is comforting us and challenging us. We have the Holy Spirit in us, yet we still ache for what is yet unfinished.

And this is the tension of the Christian life. We live in this place where we can experience now the new life and hope in Christ. We don't experience it fully. That day is still coming. And so we live in the now.

And yet we also live in the not yet. And so the tension of the Christian life is that it is lived between groaning and glory. The Christian life is lived in this place between groaning and crying out for renewal and for all of the pain to go away. And this hope that we have that glory will one day come for those of us who are in Christ, we have hope for what will be, even as we live in the not yet.

So I was thinking about this this week. It just reminded me of Christmas morning when I was a kid. Maybe you have kids or grandkids. You know what this is like. Kids on Christmas morning are the first ones in the house to wake up.

It's the only morning of the year where they are the first ones to wake up and they will pop up out of bed and they run to where the Christmas tree is set up and they see all of the presents and the lights and all of that. And what do you do when you're a kid? The first thing that you have to do is you have to go and wake up your parents because they're not awake yet. And so you run into the parents room and you wake them up. Mom, dad, mom, dad, wake up.

It's time to open up presents. And mom and dad aren't nearly as awake as the kids are. And so they kind of have to like come to and, and get dressed and have their morning coffee. And that time of waiting when you're A kid. Between seeing the presents that are yours and actually being able to open the presents that are yours, that is the longest period of time in your life, right?

Because they're yours. You know what is coming, but they're not yours yet. And you have to wait. And that's kind of this in between that we are living in between the groaning and the longing and the pain of waiting and the glory of what is to come. That's where we are living.

And here and now, we experience the very painful reality of living in a broken and fallen world. A world that sometimes makes us groan and sigh and cry in agony while we wait for God to redeem and restore and renew all things. And while we wait, we walk through some heavy things that can sometimes leave us speechless. Things that you may even have been carrying with you this morning as you came in. And there are times when we see evil and pain in our world.

There are times where we look at a situation and we think to ourselves, that is not supposed to be that way. How much longer, oh Lord.

There are things in our world that seem so unfair and unjust and we want to step in and we want to do something about it. But we are aware of our own limitations, which is what Paul is saying when he. When he talks about, in the same way, in our weakness. It's, it's. It's.

It. It is, yes, that we are. Are weak, but it's more so because we are weak in our limitations that we have, that we can only do so much to fix what is broken in this world. We can only do so much to care for. The people that we love are struggling.

We can only do so much. And even when we try to pray, there are times where it seems like only sighs and tears come out of us.

In our text, Paul is telling us that that is more than enough. That is more than enough. Because listen, the Holy Spirit is able to take those sighs, to take those groans, to take those tears and translate them into the language of heaven. And God understands what we are feeling and what we are saying, even when we can't find the words. God is working and he is moving in our lives and in our world through those wordless prayers.

Somehow, some way, they actually become a part of what God is doing to redeem and restore this world. So what do we do while we wait for all things to be made new? We stand in. In prayer where the world is in pain, while we are living in this in between. We stand in prayer in those places where the world is in pain, while we wait patiently for God to bring about new creation.

We join in his redemptive work of making right the things that sin has made wrong. In John, chapter 20, Jesus resurrected. Jesus meets his disciples and he sends them out. And he says, as the Father sent me, so I am sending you. And he breathes the Holy Spirit on them.

And if you think about where did the Father send Jesus, he sent him into the heart of pain and brokenness in this world to do something about it. And in the same way Jesus says that the Father sent me, I am sending you. And when we go into this world, we stand in prayer where the world is, is in pain. We join God's redemptive work. And in those moments of brokenness, we pray, lord, your kingdom come, your will be done in this place on earth as it is in heaven.

And God desires for us to partner with him and what he is doing to restore what sin is broken. And somehow he uses these wordless prayers to accomplish the work that he wants to do in us and through us. And so when you pray and you feel like the only thing that comes out is, rest assured that that's all that God needs. And he moves through you in that way. And so our calling as followers of Jesus is not to avoid or escape the world's suffering.

Our calling is to stand in the middle of it with people who are hurting, to stand in the middle of it as an ambassador of Christ in that moment, filled with hope, filled with humility, even in the midst of sorrow. As we live between the groaning and glory, our calling is to stand in prayer where the world is in pain. So I want us to practice that this morning.

Every now and then, we challenge with some applications that you can do when you leave this place, but sometimes we will just kind of pause and say, no, let's apply it now. And I just feel like with everything that's happening in our world and in our lives and in our church, it's just a good morning to put some of this stuff into practice, because maybe you're here today and you feel like the only thing that you can pray is that sigh. So I want to invite you just to get comfortable and relax, put your feet on the floor, take a couple of deep breaths. We're going to spend a few moments in prayer, and maybe this is your first time here this morning. If it is, I'm so glad that you are here.

You might be thinking, I don't know how to pray. And if our text teaches us anything this morning, it's. That's okay, if you can breathe, you can pray. And so maybe you're just kind of breathing and just praying, Lord. So let's take a few moments of silence, invite the Lord into this place, and as we sit in silence together, just pay attention to where your mind is wandering.

Sam There are times when I sit in silence and I'm like, okay, Lord, me and you. I want to pray. And in my mind, it's like herding cats of my thoughts. Maybe you have that. And I sit here and I want to focus, but all I'm thinking about is things that I have coming up, maybe even, sometimes even regrets that slip into my mind.

And I used to be a little ashamed of that. Like, I can't focus my thoughts long enough to pray. And then someone challenged me one time. Maybe that's just the Holy Spirit prompting you on things that you need to pray about. And.

And so if your mind went someplace this morning and a place of pain and brokenness in our world, I want you to think about.

About that. And these are things that we oftentimes try to avoid. But I want. I want your mind and your heart just to go to that place of pain in our world today. And we live in the greatest country in the world, and yet we are so, so divided sometimes to the point where it seems like we're just looking for offense.

There are so many wars and famine, atrocities that are happening all around our world. Our brothers and sisters in Christ who are being martyred for their faith. There's so many different places of pain in our world. As we think about these right now, I just want us to take a couple of deep breaths and exhale. And even if you have no words when you think about these things, the Spirit does.

He prays through those sighs, and so let him translate them into the language of heaven. As we think about these places of pain in our world right now, it.

Let's bring it a little bit closer to home. There are people that we all know right now that are experiencing pain and struggles and difficulties in their life, who are in their last days, who are wrestling with a broken relationship, a circumstance in their life, a diagnosis.

As you pray for people that are in these situations don't feel like you have to have the right words to say sometimes. Sometimes all that I can pray or pray that my friend David prays regularly in these situations is just, come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus.

So let's spend a few moments thinking about the people that we love who are in pain and just breathing that prayer. Come, Lord Jesus. Come, Lord Jesus.

And finally, where are you feeling pain today? A sense of loss, A sense of hopelessness, disillusionment?

Let your prayer just be a breath of Lord Jesus, have mercy. Lord Jesus, have mercy. And let the Spirit take that prayer and interpret it to the Father, who knows what you need. Today I think about the pain and the brokenness that is in this world. I'm reminded, I'm grateful once again that God did not just watch and observe it from a distance.

No, Jesus came down into it. He bore the weight of the pain in this world, and he took it to the cross. The weight of our sin, weight of our pain. Jesus took that to the cross. And now, because of his resurrection, we can experience in part new life and hope as we walk through this world.

If you're here today and you've been carrying the weight by yourself and you are exhausted, I want you to know you do not have to walk alone. God is welcoming you with open arms to come find and follow him. And if you're ready to take that step, we got some people around the room with lanyards that would love to pray with you and lead you in that. We're going to come to a time of communion now as we close. And this is a chance for us to remember that Jesus again did not consider equality with God something to be used to his advantage, but he emptied himself, taking on the very nature of his servant.

He came into this world and became obedient to death, even death on a cross. And it is by his body that was given and his blood that was shed that we can walk with hope in this world. Because we know that what awaits us far outweighs the suffering and pain that we experience now. And so, Jesus, thank you. Thank you for going to the cross for us, Father.

Thank you for the power of the resurrection that not just gave Jesus new life, but it gives us new life as well. And while we long for that day, oh, God, we are groaning, we are waiting for glory. But would you send us into this world to stand in those places of pain and to pray, Lord, here your kingdom come, your will be done, and may it be done through me. So we take time to remember Jesus, how you modeled that for us in your name. Amen.