Point 1Creation groans under the curse of sin
Today we're going to look at the groaning that seems to be going on in Romans chapter 8. And we'll start today, I'm going to break it up into the three things that groan. We see that creation groans, we see that believers groan, and then we see that the Holy Spirit groans. I want to go down through there. I broke them up into sections, and I understand that when we talk about the creation groaning, we're kind of jumping back on that portion of it. I still think it's pertinent and helpful for us as we explore our particular assignment today, which is, and I kind of passed over the creation groaning part, so I want to loop back, I want to pull that in. I think today we're supposed to be doing Romans 8:24–27, and so we will do that, but I want to jump back to verse 20. So let's go to 8:20–22.
Today, if you want to keep notes, here's the way I broke this down. There are three things that groan: we've got creation, we've got believers, and we have the Holy Spirit. And I want to talk about each of those. Why is it that the apostle Paul talked about these three things groaning, and what can we learn from them? Right? Romans 8:20–22 says this: "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope." A couple things just right there that will help us in reading this is the fact that the creation, which he refers to here, was subjected to futility, but for no cause of its own. In other words, the creation specifically that he's talking about is not the creation that sinned. This is talking specifically about the part of creation that had no part of sin, yet because of Adam's sin was subjected into futility in hope that one day the sons will be revealed and creation would be made new, like men are made new who believe.
"For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it," who's to blame here? God, "who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." Now notice here, if you were to circle in your Bibles, I would circle here, when in my study, I would circle creation and then I would link it to freedom and then also to the glorification of the children of God. Notice here that the creation that he's speaking about is linked directly to obtaining freedom and because of the children of God and then be made new. Notice that the creation he's talking about obtains freedom through the children of God, all right, as they're glorified. That's very important, because now it begins to speak to the specifics of what creation he speaks to. I know he says the whole creation, but there are some parts of creation that he is not referring to here, because we see that it's made new when the sons of God are revealed.
Right, it's also glorified like we will be glorified. It will be made new without the effects of sin or the curse that has been put on creation.
So here's the thing, you can write this down, here's what it's not talking about. When it talks about creation groaning, it is not talking about angels, it is not talking about demons.
We know that angels are not going to obtain freedom in God's glory when the sons of God are revealed. They're already free and in the presence of God in his glory.
Are you with me? So that's not what he's talking about here. This is where properly contextual language, it matters. Now so why are we talking about this?
Why are we trying to apply it to the right thing? Because if you say everyone, this is the kind of language that universalists say: everyone will be saved and everyone eventually will be one. And, are you with me? So we've got to apply it to the right thing. Although it says all of creation, it means not angels. It also does not mean demons. I mean, I don't even know that they're not going to be set free. They're going to be imprisoned in hell for all of eternity. They're not set free by the sons of God, they're imprisoned by the sons of God being revealed. All right, it's not talking about believers.
All right, it is in part, but not in full. Specifically here it's talking about something that's beyond believers, because the second part that groans is the believers.
So to apply this to believers is to miss the point of this particular thing he's talking about. All right, it's not talking about unbelievers. It's certainly not talking about unbelievers, certainly not, because they don't gain freedom when the Son of God is revealed and they don't receive glory. Right? They don't, they don't re-, that's unbelievers, don't do that. They're in prison with the demons for all of eternity. It is talking not about, and this is very important when you do some word study at all in this creation specifically is not talking about rational creation, the creation that can reason.
Literally, it is talking about non-rational creation. That clarifier matters in this text and really helps shape our understanding of what it means. Here's an actual other part. So it's not about rational creation, but non-rational creation, and that is animate and inanimate creation that is not rational. That's specifically what it's talking about. Now that's important. And then verse 22: "For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now."
In other words, it's simply saying creation is personified as if sighing for its glorious future, that is, the removal of the curse of sin and ultimately doing away with this body we got and getting a glorified body. I don't know about you, but after going to camp and arm wrestling Kirk and my arm hurting for a whole week, I need a glorified body, one that doesn't ache from simple things, like dumb things we do when we're old, like arm wrestling. Right? Dumb things that we do. It says the whole creation suffers.
That whole creation, there, nature, suffers. It's the part of creation that did not sin, is the part of creation that was created, and because it's not rational, it was subjected to this thing not by choice but because of the one who subjected it in future hope, which is God.
All right, and I think it's really important that we understand that creation, this creation, this non-rational, it groans.
It's in pain. It is in its form of agony, or, it's weird to give feelings to things that are not rational, it's just weird.
But what of your dogs? What of the plants in your yard? Listen, the curse that came because of sin affected everything.
Now that's important for us today in a world of hyper-individualism. We believe that sin is not pervasive and that it remains hidden in the recesses of our lives personally. We see evidence in the Bible repeatedly that your sin affects everything. You just think in terms of it affecting your future. You don't think in terms that
Sin has a way of affecting the trees in your
Pastor Shawn Gray · 9:38
yard. Like sin has been cursed, right? There is a curse because of it, and everywhere in the world it has been affected, not just by Adam and Eve's sin but by man's sin. That's important. I think it's important for us to take ownership of the fact that we play a role in all of this.
Right? Whenever we think of accusation or accusing, or there comes a moment where somebody must be on the horn for some problem that came or has arisen, what we tend to do is we push the merit, or the reason why some calamity has happened, as far away from us as possible. Right? If somebody has to be judged, it certainly is not me, it must be this idiot or that dumb person or some weird person over there. Must be them, must be someone in a different denomination. You're like, that's why we're non-denominational, ladies and gentlemen.
This is a denomination. You're like, which one? I've been wondering for years which one. Every denomination that has been formed has formed around beliefs and the way they interpret the Scripture. Every single person in here interprets the Scripture a certain way, and you have been affected by the way you interpret it.
I would say that his truth always has one meaning, but we tend to take it a thousand different directions. But know this: what you believe, what you do, how you act, the way you think of facts, everything around you, if you're full of sin, that affects your home. I'm just telling you, it affects your kids. You're like, "Well no, it's private sin."
See, what some of us fail to realize, or what some of us fail to hold true to, is we hold less to God's truth and we hold more to our personal truth. Our personal truth is this: our personal truth is I can do whatever I want and it won't affect anything.
God's truth says you can't make sin a slave. Sin always makes you a slave. In other words, you can't control your sin so it doesn't affect anybody else.
All right, we think we can put sin in prison and we can utilize it and make it do for us what we please. The Bible gives no permission for that. The Bible is full of texts that say you're the slave, you don't make sin a slave. Yet for generations in the church we've been trying to make sin a slave, and I'll tell you why we do it: because we don't understand that it doesn't just stay with us. Sin affects everything, even creation that's not rational. That's important that we understand its long-reaching effect. So the whole creation is personified as if waiting for this revealing of the sons of God. This will be, of course, at the return of Jesus Christ, when we are revealed with him in glory, when the whole world will see us in our glorified form. Remember in Revelation 20, Jesus returns and with him all the saints coming out of heaven, it says, riding on white horses, wearing white robes.
It's the magnificent imagery. We are revealed in blazing and full glory at the battle of what is referred to in Revelation as Armageddon. How many of you are excited about that day?
Well, if you're a believer you would be, because it doesn't look good for you if you're not. Here, in which he destroys all the wickedness of the world, preserves the godly who are still alive and takes them into his kingdom, which he establishes on earth for a thousand years. That's what Revelation talks about.
That great unveiling is consummated with the restoring of this earth to its original or nearly original condition. And then I read this in some commentary and I think this is fantastic.
In verse 20 and following, the factors of creation's alteration, that renewal of the earth, that recreation, are indicated.
First of all, we read in verse 20 that the creation presently is subjected to futility. That means it's cursed, not of its own will, not because some senate committed, but by reason of him who subjected it, that is, God. So the whole universe is cursed, not because of any sin it committed, but because animate and inanimate objects, non-rational objects, cannot sin, but because God has subjected the whole created order to the effects of sin. What of our kids? I wonder. I know that's not what the Christian talks about here, but if sin affects creation that way, how much more then does it affect those that live in our house? Right? It's very interesting, it's very interesting. I want to read this real quick, Isaiah 26:6, you can write it down and then maybe look it up later. Isaiah, it's not 26, Isaiah 24:6 says this. I think this kind of speaks to the curse of the earth.
Isaiah 24:6 says, "Therefore a curse devours the earth." That's all-consuming. Jeremiah 12:4 says, "How long will the land mourn and the grass of every field wither? For the wickedness of those who dwell in it the beasts and the birds are swept away."
Sin has a more far-reaching effect than our life in the private
Point 2Believers groan over sin and wait for adoption
Recesses of it. Number two, I think, is very important: believers groan. All right, believers groan. We're going to look at Romans 8:23–25. I want to do this though, I don't want to pass this up. At the end of this whole creation groaning you've got this weird sentence in there that talks about it groans "and suffers the pains of childbirth until now," and then I was asking this question to myself, why in the world? And I've heard a lot of different things in a lot of our small groups and discussion, and there have been great things said regarding the situation. Somebody actually mentioned, now I want, it was good, but I don't, that'll get me off path. But verse 22 says the whole creation groans and suffers like the pain of childbirth. Why does he use this metaphor?
What is the point of that? What is it? It's weird, right? Why all of a sudden are we talking about creation groaning and we're talking about all these other things groaning and we talk about creation groaning with childbirth? What is the point? And I began to think about that a little bit, actually a lot, and I was thinking a lot of things groan because of the pain of the curse, and their groaning doesn't produce anything but more death. But this is a groaning, and it is a pain with purpose. That's important, because really what the apostle Paul is speaking of here is that you're not aimlessly floating through life without somebody, God namely, sovereignly at work instilling his purpose into the life he created. That's encouraging. So why childbirth?
Because it is not a pain without purpose. It is not a pain that simply pushes out more death.
Childbirth is a pain that produces greater life.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 18:55
How does that then apply to not only creation, but how does that apply to us as believers, who are one, we now have purpose for our pain, right? Only believers have purpose for their pain, and the reality is one day this pain and suffering that we have because of the curse of sin, although we are made new, although we are righteous, we're still in this world, although we will one day have a new body, we don't. So what is this pain and groaning of believers produce? One day it produces life. It's pushing out something. All right, and the pain that we have has purpose, and the purpose is life. Right? Life. All right, believers groan. Romans 8:23 says this: "And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
So where does patience come from? Well, I'm glad you asked. He just told us: by not hoping in what you see. You thought, you're like, no, I thought patience was, I prayed for patience and it was "don't punch somebody." Don't punch somebody. I thought patience was don't say anything you're thinking in your head, don't say it, don't say it, don't say it out loud. I thought patience was literally being able to sit in the car and wait for somebody who's late without ever having a problem with it. That was patience.
It's just, you just choose to be better. No.
Patience is the direction of your hope.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 21:22
Hope, patience comes from proper hope, proper direction of our hope, what we hope in. For us, it's real groaning. This is not some silent internal groaning, this is actually real groaning.
It's a real groaning because we feel personally the impact of sin. Show me somebody who claims to be a believer but sin doesn't bother them much and I'll show you somebody who's not a believer. That's just the facts. Like, "Not like, Shawn, nothing," well, you have to be so candid, because then the facts, that's the facts. You're not a believer if you make little of sin. You're just not. It breaks your heart, it repulses you. It isn't that you won't ever do it. The Bible promises that you're still going to have problems and you're still going to sin. Those that say they don't have sin, they're not believers either. That's what John says, and John's the lovey-dovey guy, you know. But the reality is that this is a real groaning because of the sin. David is a good illustration. Here's what David said. David groaned that his iniquities were too heavy for him. He groaned under the weight of it and he groaned and said, "I can no longer carry the weight of my sin. They were just too much for me to bear."
He said in Psalm 38:9, he says this: "O Lord, all my longing is before you." In other words, you know my heart, and that's what scares me the most, because no matter how much I try to hide it, all of my desires, you see them, even when I try to hide them from you. And that just wigged him out, man. He's like, "I can't imagine living in a world where God knows everything. I can't imagine living in a world where the God that I worship doesn't know everything." He said, "All my longings are before you, and my groaning is not hidden from you." David groaned under the weight of his sin, as any sensitive believer does. We resent sin for what it's done to us to such a degree that it causes groaning, real groaning. Not that made-up stuff you do in church to look like you care about sin and the gravity of it, but the kind of groaning that you can't stop from coming out of your mouth, because it's such a deep turning of angst that what is internal must come out in a real way. When was the last time you were so moved to groaning over the sin in your life? The reality is, I don't know about you, but I want to shed this thing. Somebody said to me, "Well, Lord's coming back in a month." I heard that recently. I'm like, I said, "Good. Well, prepare." I don't need, I don't need to. Jesus already prepared. I don't need to prepare, I am prepared. I'm a believer, I'm not somebody pretending to be a believer who needs to prepare.
I'm prepared and I'm watching and I'm waiting. And I did tell her the song that I'm going to sing if somehow or another, when God, like, I don't know how he does this, we meet him in the sky and he redeems his people and he does that. I don't know if I'm allowed to say anything or if there's certain praise, like "hallelujah" or "glory, glory," "holy," like we're all singing the same song in unison. Maybe we're not seeing it all, maybe we have to be quiet, because maybe this is quiet time because he's overwhelmed by all the people that are, yeah, I don't know what kind of personality God has. I don't know what's going to happen, but if I can sing a song of my choosing, I'm going to be singing as I'm raptured: "Hey, goodbye!" I mean, that's what I'm, I'm so i'm ready. I'm ready. I actually started singing that at a dinner table yesterday as we were talking about all the things that are kind of going on, and we're near the end times, and I'm like, good, here's my theme song as I go up into the sky. Everybody laughed, but I was not joking. I meant it with everything within my power, if my power is not usurped by God's sovereignty. I will be singing that, and we can sing it in unison if you please.
You might be on the, you know, on the other part of Pleasant Hill, I might get raptured out of Harrisonville, but we can sing it going up into the sky together. We'll know where each other's at, it'll be beautiful, right? Another Scripture, 2 Corinthians 5:4, and it says this, Paul speaks on behalf of all of us when he says, "For while we are still in this tent," notice it is not a dwelling of permanence, it is something that is for a season, he's preparing for us mansions in glory. You know what that is? I mean, this is my opinion, you do what you want. You think it's like a million-dollar house, castle, you're picking your color, your paint for your siding or your brick or your stucco or whatever in the world, or I mean, I'm going for diamonds and gold if we're actually getting one of those, you know. But he's talking about dwelling places. These mansions are your glorified body.
That's where you dwell, in the house of the Lord. So you dwell in your new body, and in case you didn't know, we're all the body of Christ. So who can make sense of that? Try to just understand that one. So am I God's finger? What does all this mean? The point is not what mansion. The point is not, you know, what's the difference between a tent and the body we're going to get one day. The point is this is temporary, and this body is being done away with, and it makes us groan. This body makes me groan. I think I have plantar fasciitis because I feel like an 80-year-old wrapped up in a 45-year-old body. My foot is going out, my elbow's going out, I've had multiple surgeries, I broke my ankle, and then J.R.'s like, "Just don't be physical," and I'm like, if I don't be physical, then I'll get rigor mortis while I'm living, you know. I can't, I can't just, I get stiffer and stiffer by the day, so I keep playing and keep hurting myself and I'm just done with this body. I need a new one. Right? How many of you get your car and the moment it starts breaking down you go sell it and get a new one? Why? Why do you do that? Because you don't want to put up with the pain of the broken stuff of the car. I have two of them, right? I have two broken stuff in my car, you know. It's like we don't want to put up with the pain of that.
That's what our bodies should feel like to us, honestly.
It's okay for your body to hurt. Makes you long for one that doesn't.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 29:47
The Bible says you're going to suffer. What is that suffering producing? Hope for a new body, hope to be out of this mess. How many of you had a just a wonderful, peachy week?
How many of you have had a hard week this week? All right, how many of you are like, "Yeah, it's a pain, I'm good, I'm ready, I'm ready to see the Lord"? That's forward-looking to the hope we have when one day we don't have to deal with bad weeks and one day we don't have to deal with broken bodies and one day we don't have to keep trimming the hair in our ears and nose. It'll be wonderful. It'd be wonderful. It'll be wonderful. And even, anyway, I'm just, I need to move on. Romans 8, go back to Romans 8. That's the kind of attitude believers have about the sin that is in them. That's what the Bible promises for believers: they groan over it. And we feel this pain having the firstfruits of the Spirit, "even we ourselves groan within ourselves." Yes, we have the firstfruits of the Spirit, we have the guarantee of the Spirit, we have the presence of the Spirit, and I think that's what makes us groan. We have the firstfruits of the Spirit.
What's that? That's the down payment on our eternal salvation, right? The Holy Spirit resides in us, taking up residence in our life in this tent. He is the one with us. "He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." Say that: he that is joined to the Lord is what?
Let me just blow your mind. He that is joined, that word is the same word used in men and women being joined together in holy matrimony. He that is joined to the Spirit is what? One with what?
He that is joined to the Lord is one with the Spirit. Joined to the Lord, who's he referring to? We are the bride of Christ. And you can't be one with Christ, you can't claim Jesus as your Lord and not be one with the Spirit.
Why? Because the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one, which means you don't get to select the part of the Trinity you like and reject the rest, which also means that it should be very important to us not just to be one with Christ and have right theology when we talk about Christ, but it also is important that we have right theology when it talks about the Spirit. It's just as important.
Some of us have put so much emphasis on Jesus Christ and what we believe in him that we have neglected caring about right understanding when it comes to his Spirit. Just know you're one with him if you're a believer, and it's important that we understand what the Holy Spirit is accomplishing in this oneness of being joined together. What does God say about a marriage? Because it's using all the same language. A marriage, it's important that what God put together, what God joined, same word, joined together, let no man. Okay, that's just marriage, right? That's not being one with the Holy Spirit. So we can decide to disengage and uncouple ourselves and not be one with him anymore?
That's not the wording here. The wording is trying to encourage you unto security, that what God has started he finishes.
The issue is not can we reject what we have once received, because we are reading all the way through Romans, this has nothing to do with you choosing but it has everything to do with him choosing. The Bible actually says, "You did not choose me, I chose you." If we put it on us, the start of our justification, the start of our redemption, the start of our repentance, the start of our salvation, if we put it all on us, then that means we then are responsible to uphold it by sanctified, holy living. So instead of turning away from works to be justified, we turn towards works to be justified, and we are no better than the Jews who reject him even today. Are you with me? This is very important, because it's therapeutic to put all the hope of your faith on you. Listen, if I had to keep my faith,
If we had to keep our faith, none of us in here would keep our faith. None of us.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 35:28
He is the keeping force. We are made so one with him that you can never even rip us. You're trying to say you're going to win that wrestling match? The Bible says he puts you in his hand, closes his hand, and then seals you with his Spirit so you can't get out. The language here is the same way that he'd used marriage, as not wanting man to tear us asunder. Your salvation, you are man and you can't tear it asunder. He's trying to help you move into this encouragement and into this idea of having hope that
What God started in you, he will finish in you, no matter how dumb you are right now, no matter what mistakes you've made this week.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 36:23
Now he starts it and he finishes.
How many are encouraged by that? Amen. He finishes what he starts. He's not a halfway God. We wonder if he's a procrastinator, and some of us try to live in his image because we think he is, but he is not a procrastinator. Everything has a time, amen. He knows what he is doing. Sometimes I've guilted him or blamed him for being a little bit of a procrastinator, because we like to transpose our personal issues onto an eternal God so that we can be comfortable in his presence and worship him with comfort rather than holiness and reverence. It's a problem. Then it says that we possess the Holy Spirit. We're the temple of God, we're the temple of the Holy Spirit. He's taken up residence in us. We're new creations, and we're groaning. What are we groaning for? We're groaning because we're waiting eagerly for adoption as sons. Know that what he's begun he will finish, but the adoption is not complete because he has not presented you to the creation that groans. The sons of God will be revealed and everything will be freed.
This declaration is like the declaration that God made for Jesus. When we go, we get our new bodies. We get our new bodies first and then he presents us as the sons of God. That presenting us as the sons of God, once we've received the new body and it is fulfilled and the adoption is completely sealed and complete, then what he does is he presents us as his sons. This is like God saying, "This is my Son, in whom I am well pleased."
So it is the glorification of the new body that positions us for the declaration from God that we are his sons, in whom he is well pleased.
It's beautiful, right? It's beautiful. Maybe just for me, I'm really excited about it, and maybe this is really boring coming out, but in my heart I'm going
Point 3The Holy Spirit himself groans for us
Fireworks and stuff. So I don't know, I'm just really excited about it. Now let's move on. Holy Spirit groans, it's the last one, it's the last one.
"Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we ought." Notice, you're weak, you don't know how to pray. It doesn't say notice how some of you are weak, some of you don't know how to pray. So good, it's not what it says. "The Spirit helps us in our weakness." All of us are weak. "For we do not know what to pray for as we ought." All of us don't know what to pray as we ought. You're like, "Well, but actually I do." Well, but actually you don't. "Well, but I feel," I don't care what you feel, that's what the Bible says. "Well, but my mama told me," I don't care what your mama told you, this is what the Bible says. In case you didn't know, you got issues. We got issues, but God's Spirit helps us.
It says, "but the Spirit," listen to this word, underline it, highlight it, star it, do something with it. I mean, just, I don't know, put some confetti in there, put glitter on that thing: "the Spirit himself intercedes."
Not the Spirit intercedes through you, not the Spirit intercedes through you in a private and secretive prayer language.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 39:59
It's not in there. "Why are you talking about this, Shawn?"
Because, not to be offensive to some that are in here that have a specific position when it comes to tongues. Why am I talking about that? Because that's not what this Bible verse is saying, and that's how many people use this Bible verse. It's actually saying the opposite. Don't make the creation about you groaning. That's, it's not about you. Don't make what the Holy Spirit does groan about you. It's not about you. You're in there, it talks about you, keep you in the section that talks about you.
Believers groan. Believers groan, that was about you. We're not talking about you now, we're talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit himself groans. Why do you want to take the groan away from the Holy Spirit and make you have a double groan? It's dumb. It don't make no sense. You know why we do that? Because we don't care about what the Bible says, we care about what we wanted it to say. We don't care about what the Bible says, we care about what we've been told in sermons. I don't care about what the Bible says, I Googled something and read an article, this man seemed like he was a great guy, he had a doctorate. Who cares?
Guess what, the person with the doctorate's prayer life is like, he prays and he does it wrong. Are you with me today? "Shawn, why are you yelling?" I don't know.
It's a problem, because at the end of the day we don't want to know what the Bible says. It's very clear, the Spirit is groaning. This isn't about you. "He intercedes with us for groanings too deep for words." It's not words, it's a groan. Well, it starts as a groan and then it becomes words. No, it's not words, it's a groan. It's a groan that starts from an inward turmoil that turns into an outward moan. How many of you have lived your whole life without ever groaning at your kids? How many of you have lived your whole, your kids, you need to live your kids' life. Some of you try to live your kids' life, actually, you try to get them to live your life again because you didn't like the one you lived. But the reality is, I don't even know why I said that was mean. None of you in here, it's other people, it's other pagans out in the street. What's that talking about? Yeah, how many of you have your kids have lived in your home all this time and have never groaned at you? How many of you, how many of your parents here today know the difference between an outward groaning and then an inward groan? Here's an inward groan: That's pretty good, wasn't it? You're like, "You're good at imitating." Actually, I'm good at doing that sometimes.
How many of you can testify that you have done that occasionally? You're like, "I'm not in front of my kids." Still counts if you're in the closet, still counts, right?
Right, that's an inward groan. Here's an outward groan, and it normally is followed up or it's normally initiated by the eye rolling, but such despair inside, the eyes cannot tell the whole story, so then your mouth joins in perfect harmony to your eyes: That becomes the outward. That's what it's talking about. It's not words, it's an inward turning that cannot stay inward any longer, kind of like the Spirit and the newness of your heart. What is inward eventually gets outward, and if all you see outward is sin, you're probably not groaning. Oh, you can groan for the results that sin produces, but there's a difference between groaning because of the results sin produces and groaning because of sin itself. He's speaking of a specific type of groaning here.
Are you with me? It's the groaning that sin produces. The Holy Spirit groans because we pray stuff and he knows our heart, because God knows our hearts.
God knows our heart, and the Spirit knows our heart and knows the mind of God and prays on our behalf. "And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." I know for years we talked about intercessory prayer in the church, let me, without making people prickly, listen, we should pray for our neighbors, amen. The Bible commands us that if someone's ill, bring it before the elders, pray for that person. We should pray for people who are in need. We should pray for other people, family members who are far from Christ. We no, don't just need to pray for them, we need to make sure that their life is peppered with a little bit of seed of his word, because that's how people's hearts are turned to him in repentance by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Are you with me? So you can pray for people all day, but if they don't get the word they're not going to get saved, because salvation comes by hearing, and hearing his word. So your prayers don't do it. The obedience of fulfilling the Great Commission does it.
So maybe your prayers have become an excuse to not do what God commanded, because prayer insulates you from rejection. Prayer insulates you. That person is not rejecting you, they're rejecting the God you serve and you love. Listen, and if you're too scared to talk to somebody about God and share the gospel with them, if you're too scared to do that, you need to evaluate just how much you love God, because you might love that person and care more about what they think than God and what he thinks, because every decision to either obey him or not obey him is dependent on what you worship the most. Is this hard? The Holy Spirit intercedes for us, and you can have an intercessory prayer ministry in the church, whatever, fine, to make sure they're Holy Spirit-filled believers, because we need the Holy Spirit to intervene and fix everything that prayer ministry messes up when they try to pray. Oh, think about it, think about it. That's getting personal, like that's going to make somebody mad. Like, I'm not trying to make you mad. It seems like I'm happy you're making people mad, but that's not it. Listen, we need to begin to think, why has prayer ministry become such a place of elitism? "I'm special and I can be used for God, I can pray like no other, I'm a prayer warrior."
Actually, you're weak. You're weak. You can't pray as you ought.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 48:30
How do we turn prayer and make it about us being great? Because the gospel for many of us is about us. It's not about him. It's never been about him. So we convert everything when it's talking about the effects of sin on everything, on creation, on believers, on the Holy Spirit as he tries to help you in your silliness.
Point 4The Spirit's four ministries are all his work
There's a third groaning and it's the Holy Spirit. Now listen to this, and I'm going to close. As we've gone through this chapter we're essentially learning this: the Holy Spirit is responsible for four marvelous ministries in our lives. Everybody say four. Good. Write these down. Here's what the Holy Spirit's responsible for. This is it, this is what we've been learning in Romans. I told you he's breaking it down, the work of the Holy Spirit. The ministry of regeneration: he gives us life, amen.
We are born of the Spirit, born of the Spirit. He gives us life when we are dead. He regenerates us from a dead thing to a living thing.
That's what he's been talking about in the first portion of Romans 8. The second ministry is sanctification. Everybody say sanctification. It is he who increasingly conforms us into the image of Christ. It is not us who do a bunch of good things to keep our salvation. It is the Holy Spirit who continues to conform. This is the process of sanctification, that's Holy Spirit-driven, Holy Spirit-led, Holy Spirit-initiated, Holy Spirit runs across the finish line.
It's his work, not your work.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 50:14
Don't make this about you. Justification wasn't about you, and sanctification isn't about you, and prayer isn't about you, and all of this stuff isn't about you, and even when you bear the fruits of the Spirit, it's still not about you. It's about him getting glory, because how can a messed-up, broken, sinful, broke-down, cursed person ever bear something that's contrary to his nature unless God intervenes and makes what is unholy holy on his own right and strength? It's a God work, not a you work.
The way you see this affects how you interpret his word. The third thing, the ministry of security. He secures us, he joins us, he bonds us, he makes us one with him, and no man will separate that. No man will separate him. That's God's work. The fourth thing, the ministry of glorification. As the Spirit raised Christ from the dead, he will also raise us in his very likeness. Listen to me.
When I think about the work of the Holy Spirit in my life, when I think about regeneration, when I think about sanctification, when I think about him securing me for eternity, when I think about receiving a glorified new body that isn't broken and all tears will be removed, what a blessed ministry this is of the Holy Spirit. What a blessing this is.
And all the while I'm thinking about this ministry that we read about in Romans 8, I'm grieved over this irony, that it is these very verses of the Holy Spirit, which are so precious to me and I believe precious to many of you, and so clearly revealed in Scripture, that are denied by many churches today who claim to be moving in the fullness of the Spirit, not in the partners of the Spirit. They claim to have some kind of corner market on the Holy Spirit. I've heard that in theology classes. And they claim to have an experience with the Spirit that we don't have or your neighbor can't have.
It's a problem, because the Holy Spirit, or the work thereof, has become Gnostic in nature, where only a few of the elite of God can function at this level. We have taken that the Holy, that God gives gifts to whom he pleases and not everybody has the gifts. So we can talk about that and talk about the gifts of the Spirit and that it is he that gives, and we turned it into, if you live holy enough you can do whatever gift you please, and the holier you are the more you can do for his glory. But actually it ends up being for your glory, for man's glory, and we have spit in the face of Romans 8 and the work of the Holy Spirit, and we have made it about temporal things that please our flesh. It's a problem. "Shawn, why are you talking about this? Shawn, why do you have to get so up in everybody's business and get so personal?" Because when it comes to God's word, taking his word and using it to not edify the self but to pleasure the self is unacceptable behavior.
Point 5Test every movement against Scripture alone
It's unacceptable behavior in the church. I'm going to say this and then I'm going to close, because you need to hear this. This is strange to me, and I'm going to say this with a caveat, because every time I talk about this stuff, I, you know what, today wokism, what wokeism has done in the life of the church and then outside the church is it makes you feel like you're divisive if you have an opinion about anything and voice it. The church is more woke than anyone, and I don't know how that happens, because the church has made people feel guilty if they disagree with somebody else in the church.
Try to say that's not okay to Paul. I don't think it's important to call names, and I don't think it's important to do that, but we've got to talk about there is a particular movement that's happening today that's creating some of this theology. We're going to talk about it here. Here's the facts, it's just facts. You know, I did a little bit of reading and discovered something interesting. I've been talking to my wife about it in passing, but I got actual numbers. If I asked you what is the fastest-growing form of religion in the world, you would probably never give me the right answer, and here's the right answer: Pentecostalism and charismatic. That's the fastest. Let me give you a timeline.
This didn't even exist, this didn't even exist for hundreds and hundreds of years, from the first-century church until 1901.
None of this existed. None of it. It wasn't even around. People didn't even think like that.
Now you have to ask yourself a question: how come the first and second and third century church did not view things this way? All of a sudden, I guess you're like, "today we're more enlightened, and a bunch of those idiots back in the past, they didn't know nothing," especially the ones closer to the apostles. Are you with me today?
No one believed this stuff. "Why are you saying this, Shawn? Are you coming against Pentecostalism and charismatic?" No, I'm not, but I am saying be very careful, because this is so influential in our society that it makes up 49.8 percent of all Protestantism in 200 years.
In 200 years it has gathered almost 50 percent of people who call themselves Christians. They're Pentecostals and charismatic, and that has infiltrated our bookstores, our songs. "Are you saying you're against Pentecostalism, charismatic?" No, I'm saying it has a shaping force in our society, that it fills our bookstores, fills our sermons we listen to on podcasts, and affects how we interpret his word, and a lot of the stuff that happens in the movie I saw. "Are you villainizing every part of the movement?" No, a lot of things that happen in the movement though are feelings-based and make it about you. It's very New Agey. Matter of fact, there is this thing called Word of Faith, because they believe that if you profess it a lot you will get what you profess. So do pagans in Hollywood. There is this idea of the law of attraction, which is a pagan notion that has come into the charismatic church, the Pentecostal movement, and it is that if you believe something and you think on something long enough, what you think will be attracted to you. That's where vision boards come from. I see no difference between a vision board and a Ouija board. You need to understand that you professing something doesn't attract it to you. It only comes to you because God sovereignly willed for it to.
These are problematic, and these ideas have affected our Instagram posts, our Twitter posts, our Facebook posts, or whatever else posts that you young people do, because I'm old, it's official, i've transferred over and I only use paper still, and I only use probably social media apps that you don't use anymore. But in 200 years, 644 million people claim to be a charismatic or Pentecostal. In 1901 it started in Topeka, Kansas, that's close to home.
That's where this started. It followed up in Los Angeles in 1906, and by this time from 1900, 644 million people, over a half a billion people, fall into these forms: traditional Pentecostalism, neo-Pentecostalism, and the charismatic movement. The charismatic movement broke out of the Pentecostal for some theological differences, but most of the things they believe regarding the gifts. But charismatic started in 1960 and it's exploded even more than Pentecostalism.
1960, people. My house was built in 1880, when they didn't think like this. Almost 50 percent of Christians are now charismatic Pentecostals, and that is affecting how we interpret Scripture. What happened in this movement is the center of interest was shifted from the gospel, it's my opinion, to the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I'm not going to talk about the specifics of all that. The center then was not the gospel, it was not people being saved, but it was people being baptized with the Holy Spirit. That was the emphasis, and there were people inside the movement, and even the movement today, who longed to be baptized with the Spirit, I believe today, to the jeopardy of ever being saved. It is a longing, and they chase things that are problematic. Worship then was radically recast, away from what was worshiping in spirit and truth to what it was simply an inducing of emotional highs. We started our church that way, i'm reading this is great. People became, because I didn't write it, people became bored with the Bible, bored with preaching, and so preaching faded away.
Sound doctrine was eliminated because the movement couldn't survive under the scrutiny of sound doctrine, so they made it about emotions. Generally speaking, this is a very general statement. Are there good, godly people in the charismatic movement? Absolutely. Would even the most charismatic and Pentecostal of all charismatic Pentecostals, would they say that there's a problem with people being flesh-based and not truth-based? Yes, they would. I'm not saying anything that movement wouldn't say about itself.
So let's pick up the context in the same way. The Spirit, now notice this movement has shaped how we think. So then we go, "Oh, to help us pray in tongues," because it's about us, right? It's about us praying at another level, right? It's about his empowering us to do that. No, the Holy Spirit himself does it. It doesn't empower you to do it. But if you are raised up in, or in fact impacted by this reading, by this movement that's grown so big, that's how you interpret it, unless somebody sits here and tells you otherwise. I was reading, and I'll close with this, I was reading one popular charismatic theologian who said this: "I believe the Spirit is very strong, but his seal can be broken if a person with his own free will has chosen to live life on the darker side. Sin can keep Christians out of heaven, so a person who continues to sin won't make it there." What do you do with all the First and Second John? Exactly. "If you can't stay loyal to your spouse, you can't stay loyal to your Lord and will not be able to stay loyal to him even after you're in heaven. Like Satan and the angels, you will be thrown out." That's crazy. Where is that in the Bible? "Shawn, why are you talking about this? Why are you talking about other denominations? Why are you talking about certain movements?" I want you to know what has a shaping force in your interpretation. I want you to begin to look for and identify the mythologies that are out there and then begin to realize those mythologies you have believed and begin to have right theology.
And I'll just say it simply, and this is the hope that we have in Christ: if you could lose your salvation, you would.
This is not a story about your strength. This is a story about God's.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:04:42
This is not a story about your holiness. And I was a part of a holiness movement who said they had the corner market on the holiness of God.
It's not about your holiness. This is about his holiness being revealed in you.
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:04:54
This is not about your spirit, this is about his Spirit. Be careful, little ears, what you hear.
Be careful, little eyes, what you see. What you see, what are you listening to?
Do you find yourself listening more to professionals in fields out there in the church, and have you substituted podcasts for words from God? If so, you are at great risk of being influenced by movements who have made people God and have forsaken the one true God.
You know why you're told to seek out your salvation with fear and trembling?
Pastor Shawn Gray · 1:05:58
Because it's serious, and it's your job to seek it out, not your job to be spoon-fed by somebody with a doctorate who you think knows a lot about prayer, so you go with his one-on-one class, and then you realize in the Bible it says no matter how many doctorates you have you're still going to pray wrong, you still need the Holy Spirit to intercede, and you end up turning your hope to men, and you form opinions and theological positions based on men's opinions, and then when somebody asks you why do you believe what you believe, because they believe something different, you cannot grab one Scripture to back your belief, because your belief has been formed by a podcaster who doesn't know Jesus himself but declares he does. It's serious.
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