Good morning. Thank you for the invitation to come and share this morning. As Randy said, I'll just give a brief introduction for those who don't know. Bert Visser, grew up in this church. Went off to law school, practiced law here in P.E.I. for 11 years. And then God called my wife Wilma and I and our children to join Wycliffe Bible Translators. We served in Cameroon, Africa for 19 years. Returned to Canada 8 years ago and live in Halifax. And retired officially. Wilma continues as a volunteer to do the same HR work for the work in Africa. And I volunteer a small time to join some of the prayer ministry, praying for the work of Wycliffe Canada in the different language projects that we're involved in.
Talking to Jerry Hamming this morning, and he said, "Oh, you've come to share a piece of your mind this morning, have you?" I said, "Can I quote that?" Said, "Sure." So, as I said, it is a privilege to come and share. Maybe not all of my mind, but what God has laid on me.
Let's pray. Thank you, Father, for your presence through your Spirit here in each of us. And I pray that as we read your word, as we reflect on it, reflect on the work of the Holy Spirit in us and among us, that you would open our eyes and our hearts and our minds and our consciences so that we would listen and respond to what you want to do among us, each one of us individually and collectively. In Christ's name we pray. Amen.
So, looking at Romans 8:22-30 from the NIV. "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. 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. And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called. Those he called, he also justified. Those he justified, he also glorified."
So, looking at our weakness first. In 2003, we were living in Cameroon working with an organization there called SIL Cameroon. And I was nominated to be general director. And there there's a process of being nominated and then an election. There were five people nominated and I was not elected, not chosen. Again in 2005, I was again nominated to be the general director with two candidates, and not elected. In 2009, I was nominated to be president of Wycliffe Canada. I flew from Cameroon to Calgary to interview with the board, but there was two people nominated, and the board didn't like the process, so they said, "We're not going to choose either one of you. We're going to appoint a 2-year interim president."
For the next year, I did not read anything about leadership, and I really struggled with God. God, what are you doing? I sense you have given me some leadership skills, but I just feel rejected. I feel emotionally drained each time we go through this process and I'm not chosen. What were my motivations for agreeing to let my name stand? Were they selfish? Were they pure and holy? I don't know all of that. I have a sense there was a mixture. There was some of, I wanted to serve God and use the gifts and talents he had given me for him. But I also wanted some recognition and affirmation. And as my sister-in-law recently posted on Facebook, the value of failure is that you learn from it. So, through these three processes, I at least learned some about humility. And through time, I really discovered that that's a key lesson that God was wanting to teach me and work in me.
In 2012, I was again nominated for the position of general director of SIL Cameroon. Should I let my name stand? What was my motivation if I say yes? And what was my motivation if I say no? Am I fearful of further rejection? Am I looking for recognition? I spent a week in prayer and fasting. Sense God saying, "Yes, let your name stand." How do I pray then? I didn't have a sense that yes, you will be chosen. And so my heart's desire was for God's will to be done. For him to either clearly open the door or close the door, to do what he wanted to do in my life. Was that easy? No. But in my weakness, I also knew that the Holy Spirit was interceding in me and for me.
But how was he interceding? And that's where, as I recently have read a book about the power of the names of the Holy Spirit by Tony Evans, a pastor in Texas, that it really clicked much more of the Romans 8:28 and the context of that verse. So, let's go through this passage. First, in Romans 8:22, it talks about the whole creation being in groaning. And as we listen to the news, as we observe everything going on, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, drought, extreme heat, forest fires, we see lots of groaning in the earth. Verse 23 says, "We too groan inwardly." And I think many of us can also say, "Well, inwardly we're groaning too," as our bodies age and have our challenges. And at all ages we have physical challenges as well.
But looking internally especially, what do we have and what do we not have from God? We have, it says here, the first fruits of the Spirit. So, what does that mean, to have the first fruits of the Spirit? Well, on Pentecost, the Holy Spirit came upon and into the people in a new way. The presence of the Holy Spirit in every Christian since Pentecost, about 2,000 years ago, is there. And with the Holy Spirit in us, Galatians 5 tells us that there's fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Is that fruit complete in you? Are you producing that fruit all of the time, 100%? And I think all of us can say, "No, we're not," unfortunately. We don't live it out 100%.
The Bible also tells us that we're sons and daughters of God by adoption through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We have that in its fullness, but we don't live it out in its completeness. And our bodies are redeemed, but again, we don't live in that redemption in its fullness. The completeness of all of this will happen when Jesus Christ returns. So, yes, we have our identity in Christ. We know that the power is there in Christ and with the Holy Spirit in us, but we struggle with this incompleteness, this yes and not yet that we are living in.
And this incompleteness leaves us weak. We do not fully live in the way we would like to, in victory over temptation and sin, with loving God and loving our neighbors in completeness, in following the example of Jesus and how to love others. This means we don't always know how to pray. Don't always know what the will of God is in a given situation. Yes, in the Lord's Prayer, we can easily pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." But do we know what that will is? Do we know what God's will is for my life today and this week and this year? What it is for our family, for the earth, for our city and province, for each people group? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Sometimes partially and sometimes wrongly. And we have a gracious God in all of those circumstances.
We need to be aware of our weakness, that sometimes we do not know how to pray. We do not know what to decide. We need to share that with God, being honest and humble both with ourselves and with God, to be self-aware. What we can have is hope. Hope that one day we will be complete in our adoption and for the redemption of our bodies. Verse 25 says, "If we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Patience for the complete redemption of our bodies, persevering in our walk with God while we patiently wait.
This passage tells us the Holy Spirit helps us by interceding in accordance with the will of God. Verses 26 and 27: "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." So, how do you know if the Holy Spirit is interceding for you? We know because the Bible tells us. This is written to the Christians in Rome, but it's also written for Christians in every generation. And so, if we are a Christian, we know that in our weakness, the Holy Spirit will be interceding for us. Unless, of course, you have no weakness. I do, and I suspect all of us are aware that yes, we do have weakness. We have times we don't know the will of God, when we're struggling with obedience.
So, how does this work? We may have some opportunity or challenge arising in our life: a job opportunity, a ministry opportunity, an accident, a financial setback, physical injury or sickness or discomfort. How do we pray? In our human thinking, it is, what do I want? What will bring relief for me? What will bring a solution? If it's a job opportunity that offers more pay, well, I probably want it. If it's healing, yes, I want it. I don't want to suffer. But is that always God's will? As a Christian, our starting question should be, God, what is your will in this? What is best for your kingdom and my life in your kingdom?
We live in a society that says to us, you want to search for comfort, you want to search for pleasure, you want to avoid pain and suffering. But that's not what God says. His word tells us, seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. If we look at the example of Christ Jesus, in Matthew 26:39, he says, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will." And this was the time when he was entering his greatest suffering. Can we pray like Jesus prayed? Not as I will, but Father God, as you will. Are we open to embrace the line in the Lord's Prayer, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"?
If we truly and fully desire and commit to seek and do the will of God, we will be very excited and thankful that the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, because he intercedes in accordance with the will of God. If we do not truly desire and commit to seek and do the will of God, then we'll have tension and turmoil in our lives. The healthiest step, if we're at that place, is to deal with that tension, with that thinking and our desires of pleasing ourselves. It doesn't help to be like Jonah, who ran away from the will of God when he didn't like God's plan, when he was concerned that God would not destroy the people of Nineveh. But if we don't deal with this tension, we will not live in the joy and peace that Jesus offers, the abundant life that he promised in John 10:10.
So what is God's will for us? In verse 29, it says, "For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son." So we know that God's will is always to be conformed to the image of his Son, Christ Jesus. For us to grow in following Jesus, being like Jesus, imitating him. For example, in my life, not being chosen to be leader three times helped me to grow in humility, which helped me to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus. Philippians 2:5-8 tells us about Jesus and humility. "In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage. Rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, and being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross."
And so, I've often heard Romans 8:28 quoted by itself. And as I shared, in reading this book by Tony Evans, The Power of the Holy Spirit's Names, it opened my eyes a little bit more about the context of this promise of God working out all things for the good of those who love him. What is the good things that God will work out? It is his will. And who knows best what is good for us? God or us? And I know intellectually, we know, well, yes, God knows best. But we struggle with our flesh that says, "No, but I want to feed my desires as well." And so, that's an area we need to come before and allow the Holy Spirit to work in us, to convict us, to help us to repent, and to help us in the process of change, to walk in a path that leads us more and more to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus.
How does this apply to you and I? What causes us to groan? Does the sin around us, does the sin in us cause us to groan? The pain and suffering and needs around us, those who do not know Christ Jesus or do not follow him, our own pain and suffering and needs, what is happening to the earth near and far, all of these, I believe, does cause God to groan. And so, we can bring all of this to God. He cares even more than you or I. But as we bring it to God, God can use that then to be speaking to us what to do about it. Not to live in fear, not to live in feeling overwhelmed, but knowing that God is there and working in his way and his time.
Secondly, am I aware of my own weakness? Not in a self-pity kind of way, but in a self-aware kind of way. When I'm aware of my weakness in an appropriate way, healthy way, then I'm more open to receive the right kind of help. Help from God through his Spirit, help through the intercession of the Holy Spirit, and help from others as God works through them.
Third, do I believe that the Holy Spirit is interceding for me in my weakness? Does this make any difference in my life? I would suggest it does. Number one, we can thank the Holy Spirit for interceding for us, even if we don't understand all of what that does, because our understanding of the spiritual realm is limited. Knowing it, we can say thank you. Thank you, Holy Spirit, for interceding for me. We can ask him, "How are you interceding for me?" We can ask, "What is the will of God? How can I be more conformed to the image of Christ Jesus?" And if we ask that with sincerity, God, in his time and in his way, he will open your eyes. He will open your ears. He will open your mind to see a step and help you to embrace that.
We can embrace this, the kingdom of God and God's ways, and not the values of the world. We can have the help of the Holy Spirit to say no to selfishness, to seeking pleasure all the time, to avoiding pain and suffering at all cost. I'm not saying that we need to avoid all of these at all times. None of us seek pain and suffering. But God uses those to mold us into the image of Christ Jesus. In difficult situations, we can ask, "What do you want to teach me, Lord God? How do you want to use this to conform me into the image of Christ?" And this is true at whatever age, young or old we are. We all have room to grow in becoming more like Christ. And I would encourage us to ask one another, ask one person today, "What is God doing in your life to conform you more to the image of His Son?"
Let's close with James 4:6 and 7. "But God gives us more grace. That is why scripture says, 'God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.' Submit yourselves then to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you."
Let's pray. We thank you, Father God, for your word. Thank you that you sent your Son Jesus to die on the cross, but also to show us how to live. And that your will is for us to grow more and more into the image of your Son, Christ Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you intercede for us. Help us to embrace all that you are doing in us and through us. And help us to share this with others around us. We pray this in the precious name of Christ Jesus, our Lord and Savior. Amen.