Romans 8:24-28 For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. nd !od, who searches the heart, knows what is the "ind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of !od. #e know that all things work together for good for those who love !od, who are called according to his purpose. What woud you take wth you f you were stranded on a desert sand Your top ve abums/books Fve toos What woud you chose for your ast mea I have 4 sons-whch one do you ove the most Pear of Great Prze- Romans 8 Wth ts sweepng summery of what God was accompshng n the fe and death of Chrst; ts dscusson of creaton and humantys utmate redempton and the grand nae - Of the power, trumph of the ove of God But for a of Paus rhetorca ourshes There s somethng of a mystery observed n ths passage 2 A back story to our frequent sence towards God and the even more deafenng sence of God on the days we need hm most |esus says n our Gospe readng that the kngdom of God s ke both a mustard seed and eaven God takng sma acts of fath and growng them nto huge reates beyond our wdest magnaton Gods hdden work ke eaven n bread that works ts nvsbe magc Two sences My sence-Sprt prays for me I grew up n an evangeca church so one thng I reay apprecate about the Angcan tradton s turgca prayer The Lturgy s Chrstans who have come before me prayng-as Chesterton once noted "Tradton s the franchse of the dead" It s aso very hepfu on those day for whatever reason I cannot pray-The church prays for me Lturgy s prayer on our best behavor-(except of course when we are prayng the Psams an then a bets are oh) But Persona prayer by ts nature needs to be honest prayer-and there t can often be very raw 3 I remember cmbng the stars to vst a mother whose teenage boys had |ust been murdered by a mentay unstabe and voent neghbor-cursng every step-these woud be the sxth & seventh teens I woud hep bury n ess than a month I was angry at the word-death-and God It was honest prayer-but that was about me-not the stuaton I was about to encounter But what happened n that room wth the grevng mother was heart-breakng and grace-ed at the same tme. The Hoy Sprt-God wthn was prayng To God The Father-and of course ths a works because of |esus -God the Cruced Son And the same thng was happenng wthn the grevng Mother God and her grevng murdered sons My santed grandmother-the person most ke |esus I have ever known a vctm of azhemers-Her personaty ost n the ravaged regons of her bran But maybe the Sprt of God wthn was fathfuy carryng on her prayers to the Lord she oved as she hovered for years somewhere between earth and Heaven. The Comfort and promse s that regardess of your stuaton, fath, or cogntve state- Psam 42:7 Deep speaks to Deep But what about Gods sence n the mdst of the "thngs" When was the ast tme any of you bought a sympathy card? I was morted -No one shoud ever say what was on 90% of the cards I was parayzed-the poor ady at the Hamark store comes up to me and ed me to a dherent secton I bought a bank one-and remans on my desk watng to see f I can do better 4 The French mystc and phosopher Smone We once sad there is not supernatural explanation for sufering, but there is a supernatural use Hope God snt causng a thngs-God snt xng a thngs - But Nether s God dsnterested, poweress and or absent I woud transate the meanng of Romans 8:28 as "God s n a thngs workng towards a good" It heps us not try to mnmze the bad or ev n the "thngs" The same mstake can happen eary n Romans 8 $% & consider that the sufferings of this present ti"e are not worth co"paring with the glory about to be revealed to us. Ths not to mnmze the unspeakabe tragedy of chdren beng run over by a car=arpanes beng shot out of the sky-nocents caught between the cross re of war-broken reatonshps-haughtng cas from the doctors omce suherngs are not to be mnmzed=gory s maxmzed Romans 8:28 s about Gods sent work n the mdst of hstory & tme Our space and our time Standng n a haway-more ke one those nferna passage ways you move from one wng to the other n a hospta wth my frends wfe that n week woud be hs wdow- My frend had amost ded that hour-but raed "We dd not get the mrace we prayed for-but we got a mrace" She was not a partcuary regous person-but the mrace she got was not Hs heang but that God was present to her Ev-Death-Defeat-faure-tragedy-do not get the na word n our fe God does And that na word s ove. 5 For & a" convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to co"e, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us fro" the love of !od in 'hrist (esus our Lord. And that s very, very good