'Groaning that can't be uttered' defined

Here's an outtake from this past weekend's Bible conference in Chicago:

Paul ends Philippians 1 with,

[27] Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
[28] And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
[29] For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
[30] Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

That issue of striving together, of having some anguish of soul about what’s going on. Those are not terms that you hear much of in our pampered age. The word anguish means extreme pain; distress, emotions that are stirred because of pain. Deep-felt inner pain because of conditions that are around you, says Richard Jordan.

Anguish of heart. All true passion is born out of anguish. We’ve developed out of our doctrine the tendency to make religion out of it and I’ve thought about that. I’ve examined my own heart about that.

We develop it into a system and we become passive because we lose the passion that’s born out of anguish as that doctrine’s designed to produce.

Does it really matter to you—are you able to look at the world around you the way God does? Does your own heart break over the lost people around you? Your next-door neighbors, people you work with?

The confused, deceived, terrified haters? I don’t mean momentary flashes of emotion in a sudden burst of concern that just kind of goes away. I’m talking about, does looking around you just break your heart and drive you to your knees before God about what’s going on around you?

Or is it just a, you know, political slogan? You’re more concerned about your money and your possessions and your advancement, where it causes you to look at the things going on and it just makes you mad instead of breaking your heart?

I’ve told you many times that I started preaching in a rescue mission. Anybody back in the 1960s who was in rescue-mission work knew who Sam Hadley was. He was the superintendent of the Water Street Mission in Manhattan.

There’s an account of a fellow who came through there who was going into the mission field and came to Hadley in the Bowery and said, “I’ve never seen what the world’s like. Just give me a glimpse of what I’m going to encounter in the mission field.”

The account is that Hadley took him from one hell hole to another through the Bowery and he began to see all the wretchedness and the heartache; the human destruction that was there.

The man looked around and saw Sam wasn’t there. He said it scared him because he didn’t know where he was. He began to backtrack and got a little ways and saw Sam up next to a building with his head against the wall, crying.

The man got close to him and heard Hadley say, “Oh, God, the sin of this city is breaking my heart.”

How long has it been since you felt that? How long has it been since what you teach and what you believe isn’t just unfelt truths? How long has it been since you’ve had some anguish of soul? You’ve wept over the kids you teach; you’ve wept over the moms and dads, the sons and the daughters?

I’ve learned in ministry if it isn’t born out of anguish of heart, if it isn’t born out of the Spirit of God working in your heart, when you saw and heard of the ruin and it drove you to your knees . . .

There’s a difference between anguish and concern. Concern is something where it begins to be of interest to you and you take interest and it becomes a cause.

Anguish is something much deeper. It’s something that drives your heart to your knees before God and it’s what produces your prayer life. A true prayer life begins at the place of anguish.

I believe this is why, when I hear grace preachers try to explain Romans 8 this is why they don’t understand it.

Verse 22: [22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

We know why we suffer. There’s a fallen creation.

Verse 26: [26] Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

The answer’s in the Book, but how do you take that information and put it in this life situation?

I’ve heard some really weird explanations of that verse because that’s a weird verse, but let me tell you what a “groaning that can’t be uttered” is.

Have you ever had your heart wrenched with pain that you couldn’t express? That’s a groaning that can’t be uttered. You’ve gotten right down to the depths of real need. That’s a groaning that can’t be uttered.

It’s the Spirit of God working in you through His Word that can take your mind and your heart right down to the lowest depths of human need. That’s what prayer is. Prayer’s not, “Oh, Lord, fix this and thank you for that.”

Prayer is you taking the truth of God’s Word and putting it into life to the place where it gets to where life is. That passion never comes—you keep it at arm’s length—and it’s that doctrine, and that truth, and that situation, and this need . . .

It’s always out there and it’s never in here. The Spirit searcheth the heart. That’s where He  works and He makes intercession in your heart, according to what that verse says. I’m taking His Book, the truth of God’s Word, and I’m applying it . . .

It isn’t just knowing Paul’s your apostle. It’s knowing what Paul your apostle says, what God says, about this situation and how to deal with it.

Ask yourself. When was the last time something burned in your heart so passionately that you would pray as Paul, “Woe be unto me if I preach not the gospel”?

I don’t mean to a soulless microphone or camera; I mean to flesh-and-blood living souls in need of the life-transforming power that that message provides. Too often we’ve lost sight of that real transforming victory, producing liberating power, because we don’t see it working in our own lives.

Think about Paul. Everything in his life changed radically in a moment. He’s on a horse and with warrants to go raid some home Bible classes where they’re teaching about the Messiah and BANG! Christ appears to him and EVERYTHING changed. He said, “I counted ALL things but loss” in that instant. Woah, that’s powerful, and his whole life changed and sped off in an entirely new direction.