Transcription
My message today is we do not know how to pray. We do not know how to pray. That that's not me saying that. That's the Apostle Paul. That comes straight out of the scripture that we're going to look at today. So, let's go ahead and get started.
You know, we'll never forget the COVID pandemic, will we? We'll never forget it. A microscopic virus just kind of shut us down. The COVID-19 crippled the economy. It it parlayed anxiety. It distributed fear and it killed multitudes of people. It was a difficult time. And phrases like shelter in place, social distancing, flatten the curve—we'd never heard those phrases before, and now we pray we never have to use them again. Right. Masks covered our faces, and fear shrouded our hearts and the dread of death. Well, it was everywhere.
We've processed many of the lessons as a society that we learned during those days. But I would like to add one more, and that is this: We do not know how to pray. During that season, our team created a virtual prayer page, and every day, or almost every day, uh, I would release a message of encouragement and invite people: "Post your prayer needs. Post your prayer needs, let us pray for you." And we had a team of people who were willing to pray. And we had prayer requests, hundreds of thousands of them. It came from all over the world, from Cambodia to Connecticut. Many of them were specific prayer needs like, "Pray that I find some work," "Pray that I get along with my family," "Ask God to help me get some sleep," "I'm lonely, please pray for somebody to give me a phone call."
But by far and away, the most common request was a nebulous, uh, vague request. Requests like, "I don't know what to ask for. Just pray for me," or "I'm at a loss for words. Can you just mention my name?" "I try to pray, but I can't. Most of the time, I just weep," "I'd pray, but the needs are just too great for words. All I can do is sigh." The groans of the heart. You've heard them. You've made them. This is the vernacular of pain. There are times in which there are no words. And when prayers won't come, these have to do.
Now, sunnier, happier days can generate poetic, impressive prayers. But those stormy seasons, and some of you are in one right now, they generate mournful sounds of sadness, fear, and dread. We can't even put a sentence together. Yet, my promise to you today is that these raw appeals find their way into the presence of our heavenly Father.
How can we be sure? Because they are entrusted to the care of our helper, the Holy Spirit. Consider these words from the Apostle Paul: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up until this present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 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, look at this, intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God."
Few passages reveal the tender heart of our Holy Spirit as much as this one. We're accustomed to the mighty deeds of the Holy Spirit—and doors opening for the Apostle Paul, or fire falling upon the audience of Peter on the day of Pentecost. Because of the Spirit, the the prophet Ezekiel saw dead bones rise. The patriarch Moses saw the Red Sea open. Yet of equal import is this: The Spirit curates and translates the incoherent prayers of the weak until they are heard in the tribunal of heaven. The Spirit curates, cares for, and translates, makes clear the incoherent prayers of the weak until they are heard in the tribunal of heaven. We, Paul says, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly. Boy, you could amen that, couldn't you? You see the presence of the Spirit does not guarantee the absence of pain. Pain is a part of life. And this pain leads to what the apostle calls weakness. Weakness.
This is an interesting word. It appears several times in his writings, most of the time referring to infirmities, physical weakness. He used it to describe his own affliction in Galatians 4 and verse 13. He also used it to describe the illness of his disciple Timothy in 1 Timothy 5 and verse 23. Infirmity, it seems, was at the forefront of the apostle's mind when he said, "The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness, in our infirmity, when it's difficult." You've been there. It's been 20 years, and I've long since cured from it. Thank you, Lord. But I battled atrial atrial fibrillation in my early 50s, and it was a bit complex. The doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. What I knew is that I felt fatigued all day, and my sky seemed gray. It seemed a form of depression or sadness that followed me. I just couldn't get my energy. And there were many times during the week in which I would leave my office at the church and walk down our hallway in our church in San Antonio, enter our sanctuary where we had wooden altars along the walls. And there in a silent, dark sanctuary, I would go and I would just kneel and I would groan. I would sigh. I I just felt depleted.
The apostle here says when that happens, and it has happened to you, I'm confident that that the that the weakness of our bodies does not create a weakness of our prayer. That God hears us. The Holy Spirit hears us. What I was going through is nothing compared to what some of you are going through. Cancer has robbed the vigor of your youth. Multiple sclerosis is siphoning the breath of your life. A rheumatoid arthritis is stiffening your joints. Or someone you love, someone you cherish is in a hospital or is in the final stages of life. In times like these, our prayers become groans. Groans. Or maybe your weakness comes from a different source. Maybe you're weak from a crumbling marriage or an erratic economy, weak from the rejection of a loved one or unemployment. In such times, it is difficult to get our minds to formulate and articulate a prayer, isn't it? And we can relate to Hezekiah who said, "I moaned like a dove. My eyes became tired as I looked into the heavens." The psalmist wrote, "I am feeble and utterly crushed, and I groan in anguish of heart. All my longings lie open before you, Lord, and my sighing is not hidden from you." So there is a gap between what we want from life and what we get in life. And when we find ourselves in that gap during a time of weakness, the apostle says we do not know what to pray for as we ought. It's hard to know what to say, how to pray. Thank you, Apostle Paul, for this honest admission. If you, the apostle, the author of many epistles, had times in which even you didn't know how to pray, there are times we don't either. We take heart.
For what should the cancer patient pray? Healing or entrance into heaven? And for what should the father of the prodigal son pray? God's patience for his son or another pigpen experience for his son? For what should the persecuted prisoner ask? Release from captivity or endurance in captivity? We don't know how to pray as we ought. And what if our prayers are so feeble? We read about prayer warriors. We read about prayers that opened the doors for Peter, that healed the sick for Paul. We've heard people described as a person who can pray the paint off the walls. But sometimes we feel so weak. And what if our prayers are not very poetic, not very passionate? I mean, it's just all we can do to bow ahead and maybe bend a knee and say, "Our Father." Does heaven hear the infeebled prayer of a weary soul? I'm so happy, according to scripture, to tell you that the resounding answer is yes. Yes. That the power of prayer resides not with the one who makes the prayer but the one who hears the prayer.
And in our discussions of prayer, please let's resist the temptation to make prayer yet another work that we do, hoping God will hear us. Let's let prayer reside under the umbrella of grace. Not only are we saved by grace, but we pray in grace. And God does not hear our prayers based on our brilliance or our intelligence, because there are so many times we are neither of the two. But God hears our prayers because he loves us. And he has even provided the Holy Spirit to help us. Note clearly Romans 8:26: "The Spirit himself intercedes for us." He intercedes for us. What does it mean to intercede? Well, to intercede is to place yourself between a person who needs something and a person who has something. If you're an advocate, you speak up on behalf of someone who is needy, and you represent that person to someone who has an abundance, right? You intercede. You place yourself in between.
My wife and I learned about the power of intercession back in 1983—and we were married in 1981—and within two years I took my bride to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where we were uh, planning and did spend many years of our life. We were the greenest of greeningos. We barely spoke Portuguese. We had never lived outside of the country. We had read books on cross-cultural adaptation. But those of you who have moved out of your homeland to another place know nothing prepares you for that moment in which you get off a plane without a return ticket. Our problems were confounded because we could not get our possessions out of customs. Now, we didn't have much. Again, still early in our marriage. Our kids were not born yet, but we did have some pieces of furniture that we liked. We had a lot of pictures, maybe some scrapbooks and and clothing. All we had was in our suitcase, and we had our furniture and possessions in a crate in customs, and we could not get it out. It was stuck. It was stuck in the port, and all we needed was the customs official to release it. So for several weeks, I made regular trips to the customs office. And in my oh-so-broken Portuguese, I would beg for help. I would ask what we needed to do. I would ask if my crate could be released. And every time the answer was the same: "No, Senor. No." I didn't understand everything he said, but I came to learn words like delayed, needs approval, return tomorrow. We were at an impasse. We were stuck. Imagine the dread I felt as I would come home day after day to see my young wife in our empty apartment, and she would say, "Did you get it?" And I would have to say, "No, we're sleeping on the floor again tonight."
Enter Cano, our next-door neighbor. His real name is Joel King, but everybody called him Cano. And he literally entered our apartment one day. He and his wife came over to meet us. They were neighbors. We didn't have a place for them to sit, so we had to drink our coffee standing up. And I explained our plight. I told him that all of our stuff was stuck in a crate in customs, and he quickly said, "Oh, I can take care of that." I said, "No, no, no. You don't understand. I mean, it's stuck, and I've been trying for weeks." He said, "I'll take care of it." Well, turns out he was a lawyer. And it turns out, of course, he understood the Brazilian way. And so, he invited me to go with him to the customs office the next day. He told me to stand in one particular place, and he walked over to the customs official, the very same customs official who had rebuffed me time and time again. And within just a matter of moments, the two were laughing about something. And after a moment or two, he pointed at me and then he waved or motioned for me to come over, and he put his arm around me and he explained to the customs official that I was his neighbor. I was a good guy. He he told him that all of my stuff was stuck in customs. There may have been an exchange of some dollars or two. We're not talking about that. All I know is it worked. The crate was released. I went home, and my wife was very, very happy.
Now, think about Kingu for just a second. You see, he had everything I did not. He had an understanding of the culture. He had absolute command of the language. He was a lawyer. He understood not just he understood not just the rules or laws, but he understood the nuances of the laws. And fortunately for us, he chose to speak on our behalf. He was our advocate. He was our intercessor. This is the role of the Holy Spirit. We do not know how to pray as we ought, but that's okay, because he does. And in those moments when you have nothing going for you, please be assured you have God's Spirit as your advocate. Jorgen Moltman wrote, "Even if people can do nothing more than sigh for redemption and then fall silent, even as they sigh, God's Spirit already sighs with them and intercedes for them." Yes, we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit does. And unlike the customs official, your heavenly Father is not reluctant to release and open the crate of blessings in your life. You do not have to negotiate with him. You don't have to bribe him. You don't have to twist his arm. You don't have to beg him. He is waiting on you, urging for you, crying out to you to cry out to him.
I believe in my heart I'm speaking to somebody who feels so marginalized and no one has ever heeded your call. You think certain people have clout—you can't even get the plumber to call you back, and you feel like nobody hears your voice. Oh, dear child of God, you have a voice that is heard in heaven because you have said yes to Jesus, and he has placed his precious presence within you in the form of the Holy Spirit. Open your mouth, and the Holy Spirit will intercede for you. This teaching in some ways flips the common understanding of prayer on its head—that the true prayer warriors are those who feel like prayer whims because the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. And the greatest victors on this pathway of prayer might be the weakest ones in our eyes: the the convicted criminal in jail, the immigrant at the border, the forgotten child in the orphanage. The prayer shawl of depression is every bit as holy as the one made of linen.
I think about my mother who, for the last months of her life, could did not even recognize her son. Her dementia was so severe. And many times I would go and visit her, and she would just be sitting in a chair rocking back and forth just groaning, groaning. Maybe she was praying. And if she was, even in her state, her mental state, I believe that prayer made its way into the throne room of heaven. Again, because the power of prayer resides not with the one who makes it, but the one who hears it. Right now, as I say these words and you hear these words, the Spirit of the living God is talking to the Trinity about you. Would you receive that? The eternal, unending, ever-creating Spirit is speaking on your behalf. There's hope. There's hope because there's prayer. And there's prayer because we have the Holy Spirit. And he is, according to this passage, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. Another translation: He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. He pleads with God for us in groans that words cannot express. Help is here. Help is here. And the greatest force, truly the only true force in the universe, is your ally, your friend, your spokesperson, your helper, your advocate. Paul goes on to write, "He keeps us present before God." In other words, he keeps speaking to God on our behalf. That's why we can be so sure that every detail of our lives, of love for God, is worked into something good. So what you pray in the night is heard in the light of God's throne. You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle, and you have recorded each one in your book. Your Father is not reluctant to hear your prayers. Oh, just the opposite. He has commissioned the Holy Spirit to help you in your prayers. After all, what father does not want to hear the prayers of his children?
I recall learning a lesson about prayer many years ago. I have three daughters. We have three daughters. When they were elementary school age, uh, we decided to buy them small desks to go in their bedroom so that they could uh, have a place to do homework. Our oldest daughter already had a desk, but there was Andrea, aged 10, and Sarah, aged seven, who wanted desks. Sarah, especially. Sarah would come home from elementary school and play school. I thought something was wrong with her. I told my wife, I said, "When I came home from school, I tried to forget school." But she came home and she said, "It's just one of those attention span things—differences between men and women," is what she would say. So, we said, "We'll get them desks 'cause she wanted a place where she could, and I needed a desk, too." So, off we went. Now, Dan, my wife, when she looks for furniture, she either gets the kind that's so antique it's fragile or so new it's unpainted. I did not know there are stores that sell unpainted furniture. Did you know this? Do you have those in the metroplex? Maybe we're I don't know underdeveloped in San Antonio, but there's several places where you can buy furniture that's unpainted. One of them is was called Furniture in the Raw. Yeah, raw. Who wants raw furniture? Anyway, off we went to buy three pieces of unpainted furniture. So Sarah and Andrea on that Saturday, I recall they made their decisions very quickly. And so that left me to make my decision. And I was looking at the options when Sarah came up to me again. She's the seven-year-old. And I turned and looked, and she was very sad. She said, "Daddy, I just found out we're not taking the desk home today." I said, "No, we're not. We're going to leave it here. They're going to paint it for us, and in four weeks they will deliver it." I might as well have said for a millennia. She said, "Oh, daddy, can we not take the desk home today?" Now, much to her credit, she didn't throw a fit. She did cry, but she didn't stomp her feet and demand her way. But she did set out to change her father's mind. She made earnest appeals. Every time I turned, there she was: "Daddy, please. Will you please, can we take the desk home? I'll I'll help you unload it. I'll help." And then later, she said, "If you'll paint it, I'll help you paint it. Please, can we take it?" Then she disappeared and came back a few moments later, and her arms were like this. And she said, "Daddy, I went to the car, and I measured. It fits." Now, you and I know a seven-year-old has no clue what will or won't fit in a vehicle, but the fact that she went to all that trouble, well, the Leo family took a desk home that day, and she changed her father's heart.
In prayer, we come to our Father, and we are agreeing with him in his overall will. I had declared the will of our family that Saturday. I had declared we're going to buy a desk. Sarah agreed with that. When we come to our heavenly Father in prayer, we're agreeing with his will: "Thy kingdom come." But we're just asking him to come faster, right? Or with more intensity or in more power. That honors God when we agree with his will. It is his will that his children be protected and cared for. Now, we do not always know his will. For that reason, we behave like Sarah, who came reverently. She didn't make demands; uh, she didn't strut her stuff. We do, as scripture says, come boldly into the throne room of God. We come boldly, but we do not come with a swagger. We come reverently. Even our Savior, when he prayed in the garden of Gethsemane, said, "Not my will, but yours be done." He made his will clear. That's what we do in prayer: "Lord, here's my will. Here's what I desire: Heal my child. Grant me a job. Grant me more patience." And then it's okay to say, "And do it now, please." Why? Well, because the scripture gives us so many promises like this one from James 5:16: "The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." So let us be righteous in the sense that we're reverent, and let our prayers be earnest. Yes. Powerful. But most of all, I was moved to take a desk home that day because Sarah called me Daddy. Daddy, because she's my child, I heard her request.
Because we are his children, God hears ours. The king of creation gives special heed to the voices of his children. For that reason, we can say that the future of history is being directed by the prayers of the church. The direction of history is being directed by the prayers of the church. I know the news says it's being directed by decisions in Washington or the leaders in the capitals. Overall, it is the prayer of the church that changes the world. For that reason, we must pray.
For that reason, we must not be discouraged when we do not know how to pray as we ought, because we have the Holy Spirit to intercede for us.
In June of 2018, 12 boys made a decision that nearly cost them their lives. They descended into a cave in Thailand. The plan was simple: Just poke around for an hour or two and then emerge with some memories and go home. That was it. No one expected the water. A sudden storm flooded the passageways and trapped the boys inside. They had no food. They had no light. It was utter darkness. They had no communication with the outside world. They were trapped.
The boys had no way of knowing it, but people around the world were praying for them. Do you remember this? I would imagine many of you did pray for them, and we saw our prayers answered. A network of nations cooperated, and the effort involved more than 10,000 people. 10,000 people rallying to the help of those nine little guys. Divers, rescue workers, soldiers, helicopter pilots, ambulance drivers. They brought diving cylinders, sniffer dogs, drones, and robots. It was a world of know-how and can-do all brought to bear on behalf of those little fellas.
It took the workers nine days. But eventually, the divers found the boys huddled on a muddy ledge. The rescuer, the first one to arrive, removed his mask. And here's what he told the boys: "I'm just the first. Others are coming. Your heavenly father wants you to hear. Help is coming. Help is coming because of the power of the Holy Spirit. Help is coming. Please do not despair. Please do not give up. Please do not throw in the towel. Please do not walk away. Your heavenly father hears you."
You aren't trapped beneath a kilometer of earth, but you may feel stuck in a dark place with no visible exit. If so, hear this: When in times of weakness, it is all hands on deck in heaven, as the Holy Spirit speaks to the Trinity on your behalf. And our triune God activates angels and strength and servants and resources from all around the world who will rally to help you. Do not despair. We do not know how to pray, but that's okay. The Holy Spirit does, and he will speak up on our behalf.
Yes, we praise you Lord for this great news. Another display, another layer of grace that comes from you. Thank you, Father. Now, do your work as we offer our prayers.