Prayer when the going gets tough.
Sermon preached at Grace Church Ryde 29 August 2017
NB. Sermon preached at Grace Church Ryde August 2017
-
The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship (daughtership). And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. 18 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 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.
-
Prayer
Setting the Scene
In my work as hospital chaplain I have noticed three things about prayer when the going gets tough! Three things that are almost instinctive when the way ahead is so hard that you can’t even think to pray. Three things that are revealed to us without us even realising it when we are in pain or in trauma or such distress. In these three words: ‘cry Abba father’ we learn three instinctive things about prayer when the going gets tough.
A Brief Testimony: Thirty-eight years ago when I was at the bottom of a ravine, off Honister Pass, face down in a river and pinned underneath a car I experienced this instinctive primal prayer crying out (more like a groan) to my Abba Father to preserve my life, to hold me safe.
From that ravine the Lord spoke words from Matthew 28:20 ‘I am with you always.’ That promise kept me alive from the site of the accident to ICU at Whitehaven General Hospital. Perhaps today, that experience helps me minister to people in our hospitals and hospice in their trauma, hopefully, there is empathy assuring people, Abba Father is with you ‘always’, helping others reach out to him, be safe in him, find forgiveness in him.
From these three words, we find truths that give us a deeper understanding of prayer when the going gets tough. We (1) Cry (2) Abba (3) Father
We cry
The first is we cry.
This passage mentions cries and groans. Some people think prayer is when we present our list of wants to God. Please Lord I want this for the children and grandchildren, a blessing to Auntie Joan, a mountain to be moved and good health for all the people I know and love.
But the message in Romans 8 is we CRY Abba father.
Not a prayer, not a praise but a Cry, a word of emotion. The word Paul uses here is a word usually used by people in distress. No fancy words, no deep meaningful thoughts; a cry of emotion.
Romans 8 mentions groaning three times and that’s the cry without words CRIES & GROANS are one of the things I see when the going gets tough.
I encourage you tonight, the Holy Spirit intercedes for us in our hour of need with groans (not words). It doesn’t say he takes away our crisis or airlifts us just before our accident. He is with us, yes even to the extent that He groans for us and instinctively helps us cry out in prayer. Looking to the Father even without words. That’s’ why we give out holding crosses when we visit some people in the hospital. It is a symbol of holding on when the words dry up and all we can do is cry out, I often reassure people of faith and even those seeking that that cry or groan is a prayer and it is enough. Perhaps that will help some people tonight to cry out even groan with yearning for Abba father. It’s one of the 3 things I have learnt about prayer when the going gets tough, cries and groans are enough! And when you cry, all creation groans, the HS groans and it is enough. When you come to the Lord and cry or groan or any sound or longing will do, you will be with the father and that longing will bring peace and comfort, strength and courage to endure
ABBA
The second thing is that we cry ABBA. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you will know that this word is Aramaic (the language that Jesus spoke) and that it means ‘daddy’ not Father. [Illustration] My dad was quite a prominent businessman in Northern Ireland and my wife used to say it sounded weird that I called my Father ‘daddy’ right up to the day he died. It was odd to hear a 50-year-old man call a prominent businessman daddy. But I never grew out of it!
At the time when Paul wrote this letter to the Romans, it was outrageous, sacrilege even to call Yahweh - ‘Abba’, it would have shocked the listeners way back then far more than my wife’s embarrassment that her husband called her father-in-law ‘daddy!’
But I believe Paul was getting at something much deeper because Abba was not a word children of those days used for daddy it is more primal than that. Abba is like the first words of a child like Da or Da Da or Ab Ba. It is primal, like the first words from a baby’s mouth
Illustration: a baby crawls up to dad and cries Da] its instinctive, primal. It’s not the word of a 5 year who could wrap dad around her fingers, jumps on my lap smiles sweetly and says ‘Daddy what are you getting me for my birthday?’ That’s a cute kid who knows how to manipulate Dad. round her fingers. No, Abba is not like that, the primal prayer - the first utterance that says Da, reaches out, she just wants Da, his presence, his touch, comfort, wants to be safe, to be held. To climb up and grab Da’s neck.
In this letter, Paul is saying when you receive the spirit of being a son or daughter of Yahweh, Abba, you get a primal language that you didn’t have before you invited Christ into your life. Before you became a Christian you could of course pray, and read the bible, go to church, and give in the collection… but that’s the language of duty - like my five-year-old trying to maximise her birthday prezzie - we try to wrangle a miracle out of God. Something new happens when you become a child of God, a family member, a Christian, you get an instinctive primal prayer which I see when I am visiting in Hospital a primal prayer like Abba simply wanting nearness, touch, and safety from our loving heavenly Father.
Father
The third thing is that it is also kinship, we cry Abba Father. When Jesus taught us to pray ‘Our Father…’ he gave us a language of intimacy because we are God’s children ... Both Kith and Kinship, friends and relations of Jesus, sons and daughter of our Father.
Romans 8:15 says we have received a Spirit of sonship/daughter when we cry Abba Father it is that very Spirit bearing witness with ours that we are children of God. So when the going gets tough we have prayer language of intimacy Abba Father, not of Fear. You have a position in the family of God of being known, loved precious, your name is in that book of life (Revelation 21:27). It’s not just a place where we can cry and groan in pain or trauma, it’s also a place of peace & healing and forgiveness.
If you have messed up your life hear this, we are not Christian apprentices who can be called into God’s boardroom & fired. You are his own family and you have a language of intimacy that can enter his presence and Cry Abba father, I am sorry for the mess I’ve made. What he says to any prodigal is never, ‘where have you been?’ It’s always ‘welcome back’ & a heavenly embrace.
When the going gets tough these are three things that I have learnt about prayer. Cries and groans and wordless yearnings are enough, it is primal prayer, instinctive, like an infant reaching out to an almighty father saying pick me up, hold me, I am safe in you (clinging around your neck). And that place of safety is also a place of forgiveness and healing
Abba Father, let me be
Yours and Yours alone
May my will forever be
Ever more Your own
Never let my heart grow cold
Never let me go
Abba Father, let me be
Yours and Yours alone
Dave Bilbrough
