Sunday 27 April 2025

Nollamara Church Of Christ Sermons.

Raw transcript of meeting:

Date Of Sermon: 27 April 2025

Speaker: Jamie Boland

Sermon Title: Three Groans And One Glory

Scripture Reading: Romans 8:18-27

 Today's reading is taken from Romans chapter eight, verses 17 to 25. 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, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us for the creation, waiting, eager expectation for the children of God to be reviewed.

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the view of the one who subjected it in. Hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to the care and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. 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, we 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 will save. But hope that is sin is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they have. They already have. But if we hope for what we do, not yet have we wait for it patiently hear the word of gone.

Can I just, can I borrow?

Oh, one second. Sorry. I must have had a seniors moment during the week. I gave slightly. It's, it's my fault. The reading should have been until verse 17 from 18 to 27. I wrote on the sheet from May Fong 17 to 25. So let me just read verses 26 and 27. It says 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. Sorry about that. So this passage is possibly my favorite passage in the whole of the New Testament.

This is my number one favorite passage. What I wanted to do today was just continue this theme of resurrection hope that we explored in part last week. Now, the title of my message is Three Groans and One Glory. Let's commit this time to the Lord. Father, we thank you that we can gather here as your people.

In church, we thank Jesus for the gift of salvation that enables us to be adopted as sons into your family. We're no longer slaves to fear, but we are children of God. Father, we ask and pray for your blessing upon your word today in name. Amen. Now, it was about one month ago that a 7.7 magnitude earthquake struck Myanmar.

Do you remember seeing this on the news? Okay, now this was followed by numerous aftershocks. 3000 people were killed and thousands more were injured. Now tremors were felt as far away as China, India, Vietnam, and Thailand. Now, here's a picture that I found of the epicenter and the affected area. So you can see it's hit and it spreads.

Now as I looked at this, it reminded me of a spate of natural disasters that occurred in the first few months of 2011, one of which was an earthquake in Myanmar. Now listen to this for a catalog of disaster in January, 2011, Queensland experiences worse flooding in over 50 years, 35 people died. 20,000 homes were destroyed.

A few weeks later, cyclone Yai, it hit far North Queensland. Now this was a category five cyclone. They don't get any bigger than this. The damage bill was estimated at $3.5 billion. In February, 2011, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck just south of Christchurch in New Zealand, 182 people were killed. Over 2000 injured.

It left an insurance bill. Get this of 12 billion US dollars the following month. March 11, an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter Scale hit Northeast Japan. Do you remember this one? Okay. It produced tsunamis up to 38 meters high, some of which traveled 10 kilometers inland. More than 10,000 people were killed, and initially more than 15,000 run accounted for.

Tens of thousands were left homeless. The damage bill, this is staggering. 300 billion US dollars. Added to all this was the concern caused by the release of radiation from the Fukushima nuclear plant. Do you remember this? It was terrible. Now, this came one day after an earthquake in China, killed 26 people and injured 313, and as the aftershocks continued in Japan, then Myanmar was hit by six point, a 6.8 magnitude quake on March 24.

Now, this is all a reminder that the earth's tectonic plates, they're yet to resettle. This was then followed by the US experiencing its worst ever tornado season. Then flooding in Brazil that killed 442 people. It was literally one natural disaster after another. You turn the TV news on expecting to see something bad.

Now, as you hear all this, do you get the sense that this world really isn't all that God intended it to be? Yeah. Do you get the sense that creation is not all that God actually intends it to be? We can look at creation and we believe that it's far from what God purposed it to be. Now, I've started big, let me narrow this down.

Let me personalize this. Do you ever get the sense that your life is not all that God intended it to be? Is it just me now, before I came to faith, I had this GNA sense that there must be more to life than just filling it with work and pleasure. That was my existence. You know, I, I, I, I had a good job with a decent enough income.

I had people around me who cared for me. I had everything that I thought I would need to be satisfied, and yet, ultimately, ultimately, all I felt was this sense of emptiness. I had no sense of purpose. Had no sense of hope. Life seemed meaningless. So, you know, I would get up, I went to work. I, I went home, went to bed, got up, went to work.

You know, this vicious cycle. All the while I was living for the weekend and the weekend would come, and the weekend would go. And so, you know, I actually found myself asking the question, surely there must be more to life than all this. And can I tell you, this was part of what God used to, to draw me to Jesus.

And so now I'm a Christian. Now, surely all this has changed, okay? Surely now that I'm a Christian, you know, I've got newfound purpose. I have a sense of destiny. I can feel satisfied in my relationships. I can find meaning in who I am and what I do for God. Surely now I should feel complete. Surely newsflash, I may have the spirit of God living inside me, but that doesn't mean I no longer have this sense of longing for something more.

Yeah. Mm. Is that your experience? Yes. God's spirit in dwells you, but we still have this sense of longing for something more. What I find is, you know, the opposite is actually true. Okay? The, the presence of God's spirit, it often magnifies the incompleteness. I feel the spirit of God in dwelling me. You know, it just magnifies how incomplete I feel at times.

I find now I'm more aware of all that's wrong with this world. All that's wrong with me and all that's wrong in my relationship with God. Now I know I'm not just talking about my own experience here. Now, in our reading today, Paul speaks of three groans. He says, creation, groans, we groan, and even God groans.

Let's look at our text. We find our first groan in verse 22. Paul says, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Now in 1775, another massive earthquake it struck, it was the city of Lisbon. In Portugal this time the death toll was around 70,000.

Now when something like this happens, people ask why they want to know why they want answers. One Italian priest, he explained, God has judged Lisbon because its people were sinful. Even though at the time Lisbon was one of the most intensely Catholic cities in the world. Then you had some rebel Catholic groups in France.

They say, we've got the answer, we know why it happened. They said The earthquake is a result of God's displeasure at the Portuguese Inquisition. Now they're saying this because the headquarters have been gutted by fire, the Muslims of Lisbon. They suggested Allah had allowed the earthquake to punish the ungodly even though he had accidentally destroyed the largest mosque in the city.

And yet this doesn't explain why most of Lisbon's brothels went unscathed. Now the Protestants in England, they're saying, look, you know, we, we know the answer. We know God's mind. They said the earthquake, it's occurred on All Saints' Day, thus proving that God hates the Catholic practice of venerating saints and Catholics too.

Now, my point is this, whenever there's a tragedy or disaster in our world, conversations about the judgment of God often emerge. You're familiar with this? Yeah. Each of these groups claimed that this earthquake was a manifestation of divine wrath, and yet they've all come to different conclusions as to why it happened.

And so the question is, who speaks for God? Who proclaims the mind of God in these things? You may have remembered the Black Saturday bushfires in Victoria in 2009. Do you remember that? That was truly horrific. 173 people lost their lives, and as people are mourning, people are hurting. One pastor openly declared that this was God's judgment on the state because of the decriminalization of abortion.

People were so deeply hurting, and this was the voice of God into that situation. Can I say this is a sensitive topic that we need to handle with care? Yeah. We need to be careful not to look for simplistic answers and see every natural disaster as a sign of God's anger. Now, there's this, there's a story in Luke's gospel that speaks into this.

Okay. Pils killed some Galileans. He's mixed their blood with sacrifices. And then you have this tower that collapses and kills a few people. And so what we see here is both human evil Pilate, and we see natural evil. You know, this tower falls down and people naturally, they, they come to Jesus and they say, Hey, Jesus, let's get your mind on this.

What's your take on this Jesus? And, and what he does is he responds without explaining why these things happened, but what he says is insightful. Let me read. He says, do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you no, but unless you repent, you two will all perish.

All those 18 who died when the tower and Sil OAM fell on them, do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you no, but unless you repent, you too will all perish. Jesus makes it clear that when something bad happens, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's because the people affected were sinful or evil.

Nor does he say that these people were under the judgment of God. Now, there's one thing we can say with certainty. When we fell, creation fell, and the reality of life in a fallen world is that every day people deal with the effect of sickness, misfortune, and death, including natural disasters. The Apostle Paul says this, the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

Now this word, eager expectation, it's like standing up on your tippy toes, longing and waiting for something to happen. Creation is like this, looking for the children of God to be revealed. Now here's the key for the creation, was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it.

In. Hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. Now, Paul says a lot of important things here. Firstly, he says This creation has been subject to frustration and is in bondage to decay. What it means is creation now is corrupted, it's enslaved, and it needs to be set free.

Now this Greek word for frustration, it means the inability of something to fulfill its intended purpose. Creation is frustrated in that cannot fulfill its divine purpose. God made this world good. He intended it to be a sphere of harmony and blessing. He intended it to be life giving. Paul says the Earth was subjected to frustration by the will of the one who subjected it.

Now that's likely God. As we know the story, when we sinned, a curse was placed upon the earth, paradise was lost. And now because of that, all things exist in a state of frustration. I found this interesting hymn written by the gang from Monty Python. You'll know the tune it goes like this. All things dull and ugly, all creatures short and squat, all things rude and nasty.

The Lord God made the lot. Each little snake that poisons each little wasp, that stings, he made their brutish venom. He made their horrid wings. All things sick and cancerous, all evil, great and small. All things found in dangerous, the Lord God made them all. Now there is another extra verse there. You can read that in your own time.

Can I say, this is not something we can say amen to. Yeah. We can't look at that and say, amen. Yes, God did make the wasp and the snake, but his intention was they would live in harmony with the rest of creation, not that they would poison, sting and kill. As one theologian said in response to this, he said this, their predatory nature, their defense mechanisms, the diseases they inflict, these are all evidence of how far creation has fallen from God's intended purpose.

I. Yeah. When we fell, creation fell. If natural disasters tell us anything, they tell us that this world is not the place God intended it to be. So what's the good news? The good news is this creation will be liberated from its bondage to decay. It is standing on tiptoes, waiting in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.

Why? Human destiny was to rule over this earth. God gave us this world. He said, you guys rule, rule over it. Live in it in a way that glorifies me. But when we fell, creation fell. And so creation's destiny is tied to our destiny. That's what Paul is saying here. When we are fully revealed as God's children, when we are fully and finely redeemed, at that point, creation will will be redeemed.

It'll be set free from its bondage to decay. Now we've already seen verse 22. Let me read it again. The whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth, right up to the present time. Now, I was once discussing this issue with my students in South Sudan, and as we looked at this metaphor of childbirth, I asked them, I said, Hey guys, I want you to tell me what were your experiences of when your child, your, you know, your children were born.

You know, what was it like for you as men to see your, you know, your wives in the agony of labor now, their collective response was this teacher, we men are not allowed in the house. When our wives are giving birth. We've gotta stand outside and wait, and only when the child is born, then we're free to enter.

And so this pricked my curiosity. And so I asked, well, you know, how do you know when your wife has given birth? How do you know when it's time to enter? And they said, that's simple. Teacher. One set of screaming stops and a different set of screaming begins. And there's this saying that I'm thinking, welcome to life.

Do you ever find your life One set of screaming stops and another, another set of screaming begins? Now, many, many husbands have pictures of their wives after they've delivered a, a child, and, you know, and typically, you know, the baby's in their arms and mother and child look radiant. Here's a picture for, from us, from the day, you know, Tomazo was born.

Look how young I was. Now I bet none of us have a picture of our wives in labor. Yeah. When I whip out the wallet and say, Hey, let me show you a picture of my wife groaning in labor isn't the agony? Terrific. Now my point is this. My point is this, the pain of childbirth is not a bad thing, and I bet the ladies here are thinking, yeah, spoken like a true man.

The pain of childbirth is evidence that new life is on the way, and the cries of newborn children reflect that new life has come into the world. That's the whole thrust of this metaphor that Paul is using. What he's saying is that new life is coming for this world that God created. And the groaning in creation is a sign.

Not only that, this world is not all that God intended it to be, but that one day new life will emerge from all the convulsions and contractions we currently see now to press the birthing metaphor. Creation is, is screaming out to be delivered, delivered. Paul says, into the glorious freedom of the children of God and when we are fully redeemed, creation itself will be redeemed.

You may remember I said last week, what happens to Jesus? His resurrection will one day happen to us. Let me extend that. What happens to Jesus will happen to us. It will happen to all things. Okay? This is the pattern of resurrection hope in the New Testament. You probably remember Jesus spoke with his disciples about the renewal of all things, and in Acts chapter three, Peter spoke about the restoration of all things.

God is taking that which is broken and he will restore it to new glory. Jesus, us all things. Now, that's the first gro. The second groans found in verse 23. Paul says, not only so, but we ourselves. So creation is groaning, but not only just creation, but we ourselves, I. Who have the first fruits of the spirit groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship the redemption of our bodies.

So creation is waiting eagerly on tiptoes, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. We too are waiting for our adoption to sonship the redemption of our bodies. So creation groans, we groan. And just as creation waits so too, do we. We wait for this redemption of our bodies. Now here's the thing. When we look at this world, we can clearly see that it's not the place God intended it to be.

And the same is true of our lives. When we meet Christ, what do we do? We come into the light. And in the light we can see ourselves for who we truly are. Yeah, it becomes plainly evident when I stand in the light that my life is not all that God intends it to be. Okay. News flash times, guys, I, I, I, I ain't that flash.

Okay. I ain't that impressive and I'm sure we'd all say the same. We stand in the light of God's glory and we see ourselves for who we truly are and we realize woe is me. Now Robert Putnam, he's a professor at Harvard University. He's also an atheist now. What he did is he did some extensive research. He had large sample of data.

He concluded and I quote that religious Americans are better neighbors than secular Americans, more generous with their time and treasure, even for secular causes. He then came to Australia. He was doing a a public lecture in Sydney, and he remarked that religious people are frankly nicer. Now, obviously he's not met you and me, so we need to take this with a pinch of salt.

Professor Putnam as a non-believer, was surprised when John Dixon an Australian, you know, theologian historian. He actually refused to endorse the comment John Dixon preferred instead to quote CS Lewis who said that while Christians may not be better than non-Christians, they're certainly better than they would be without their Christian faith.

Now to this we can say amen. I am better than who I was. Before I met Jesus, okay, who I am now, I'm better than I used to be. In fact, there are times, you know, I seem to be the best that I can be and it's wonderful. I'm like so excited about how good I can be at times. Yet at other times, I seem to be the worst I can be.

You know, I know my heart and my heart scares me. My Christian walk is characterized by groans. I groan because I can sense the way in which sin has ravaged my life. I've groan as I think about all the God-given opportunities I've failed to capture. I've groan when I think about my inability to love as I should.

Who doesn't wanna love more? Completely. We all wanna love God more completely. We wanna love others more completely. And because we don't. Because we can't, we groan. Paul says that we who have the first fruits of the spirit groan. What he means is this, the life of the spirit in us helps us see the ways in which we fall short of the glory of God.

The life of the spirit in us helps us see the ways in which we're incomplete. The spirit helps us see our brokenness. We see it, we feel it. We groan. Now, if this is your experience, can I please ask you? Don't beat yourself up. This is what it means to walk in the light. When you walk in the light, you will feel the sting of your fallenness and the sting of that fallenness points to your ongoing need for a savior.

You didn't just need Jesus the first day. You, you took him as Lord and Savior. You need him every single day as your savior, and the sting of our fallenness reminds us of that fact. We're not perfect. We're just forgiven. That's it.

You know this groaning we experience in light of all this, it's evidence that new life is on the way. Listen to what Paul says in Romans chapter seven, right at the end he says this. He says, what a wretched man I am. Amen. Who will rescue me from this body of death? And the rescue here is like a, an eschatological rescue.

It's not a rescue from a time of trial. It's a final, ultimate deliverance rescue Who's gonna do it? Thanks be to God who delivers me through Jesus Christ, our Lord like creation. We to are longing to be delivered and set free into the fullness of all that God has for us. Now let me flip this. Do you ever get moments where you feel, you know, everything seems good and right?

You're at peace with God, you're at peace with the world. Do you ever get these moments? I. Moments of breakthrough, I call them God moments. Moments where you're feeling so deeply connected to God. Moments where you're experiencing this tangible sense of his peace, this tangible sense of his presence, along with this sense of who you can be and who you will be.

This too is the life of the spirit in us. It's the spirit giving us a foretaste of what's to come. Now here's the thing. We experience these moments and we love these moments. Yeah. We love having these moments where everything seems right, you know, between me and God, me and the world. Everything seems wonderful.

It's like a, an experience of God. We love those experiences, but the problem is those moments are just that they're moments, okay. They're fleeting and they can, you know, they can feel sometimes to be few and far between. And because of that, we groan. We groan because we get these glimpses of what life will be like and we get these glimpses of what the fullness of our relationship will go with God will be.

And then when we come crashing back down to earth, we groan. Are you with me? Do you have these moments, these moments where you encounter God in a powerful way and they're that they are, they're not always there. They're few and far between. And then we feel the sting, we feel the groan because we want that to be our all time experience.

And so just as this earth is screaming for deliverance, so too when, when this happens, when this is my experience, I feel like crying out, God, fix me. God, change my life. Make me all God that you want me to be God. I want this fullness of what you have for me. God, do it in me now. And what does Paul say?

Verse 24. 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. Who likes waiting? We know what's on offer. We get a foretaste of it now, and God says, I want you to wait. Wait patiently.

I want all that God's got for me. And when do I want it? I wanted it yesterday. I want to be set free from this body of death. And because of that, I groan. Creation, groans, we groan. And so the question is, as this world groans and as we groan, where is God? What's God doing? Where is God while we suffer through all this groaning?

Verse 26 of our text in the same way, in the same way, US creation in the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the spirit intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. Can I tell you, God doesn't merely groan with us. God groans in us. Now, have you ever found yourself in a situation where you know, you just didn't quite have the words to express what's on your heart?

Okay, you want to, you want to say something, you wanna share something, you don't have the words, and so you get this sense of frustration. First time I went to Italy was four months before our wedding, and we actually celebrated 20 years this week. Well done to my wife, of course, now. Four months before our wedding we're in Italy for the first time, or I was now my, my Italian father-in-law, he spoke very little English.

Okay. And he seemed more confident speaking English to those who are not mother tongue. So here we are. It's the first time we meet. We've barely spoken a word for five days. Then on the last night of our visit, Claudia's outside, she's parking the car and it's just me and him. Okay? We're alone in his house.

He stares at me. He's locked eyes with me and I'm thinking, okay. And he says, now, and as he said, this time stood still. Okay. All these thoughts are going through my mind. And I'm thinking, man, what have I done? Have I been culturally insensitive in some way? Does he not want me as his future son-in-law? And now he's about to tell me, he's about to let me have it now.

This word now, it just seemed to drag on for an eternity. He then proceeded to tell me in weak, broken English, that since I'd finally met the whole family, now I was part of the family. Whew. Breathe, a sigh of relief. My Italian father-in-law is not the mafia. I'm not getting a new pair of concrete boots, but at that moment, I could sense this release of frustration.

Okay. He had overcome this frustration of not being able to share with me what was on his heart. Now, let me ask you, have you ever had a moment where you've had this deep sense in your heart of something you know you need to pray for? Okay. And at that time, it's sent, you know, you've seen this, you've got this sense of urgency and intensity welling up inside of you.

You know what I'm talking about? It's, it's just welling up there. It's spiritually intense, but when you try to give voice to it, it's like you just find you can't, you can't do it. You don't have the words. It is like what you want to do is capture, recapture that spiritual intensity, put it into words because you know you ought to pray what you feel in your heart, but what you find is that you don't have the words to express that groan that's inside you, and so naturally you feel weak and you feel you've missed this opportunity to pray something that God's laying on your heart.

And the fear becomes that, you know, I've got an unvoiced prayer here that God's not gonna answer because I'm too weak to pray. What was welling up in my heart? Okay, we were created to walk and talk with God, but even this part of our relationship with God is not all that God intends it to be. And so what God does is he gives us His spirit, who helps us in our weakness.

I want us to get this, that spiritual intensity we feel, which we try to put into words, but actually can't. That's the Holy Spirit interceding for us. Those groans, we feel with the spirit preying on our behalf. Okay. This is, this is good news. That brings great comfort. Yeah. Look at verse 27. He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

So think of these groans that we feel. Think of the intensity that we feel, okay. We try to capture these groans, express them in words. This is actually the spirit interceding for us in accordance with God's will. Are you following? Now, here's something interesting in verse 34, we're told that Jesus is interceding for us at the right hand of God.

Now, here's the Greek word for the intercession of Jesus. Okay? Now this is the word that's used of the Holy Spirit's intercession for us in, in relation to these groans, in accordance with God's will. That's in verse 26. Can you see the difference between those two words? The difference is the prefix hyper, or in Greek hooper.

It's an intensifier. Now, the best way to explain it is to consider the difference between active and hyperactive. You know the difference. You've got an active child, you've got a hyperactive child, okay? There's this difference of intensity. Jesus intercedes for us, but the Holy Spirit hyper intercedes for us.

He intercedes for us in a way that's even more intense than the way that Jesus intercedes for us. Now that is saying something are, are you following? Jesus lives to intercede for us, but the Holy Spirit lives in us hyper interceding for us. What Paul is saying is this, the Holy Spirit is so much a part of us that he can take these deep, heartfelt desires and pray them for us.

Are you getting this? This is profound. God. You know, he, he, he searches our hearts and he can take those heartfelt desires and he can understand them because he knows the mind of the spirit. There's this welling up of intensity, something we know we need to pray. We can't give voice to it. That's the spirit groaning on our behalf.

And God who searches our hearts, knows the mind of the spirit, and so he can hear that prayer and answer it because it's in accordance with God's well. This is great news. I used to often think, God, I wish, I wish I could give voice to these, these things that are welling up inside me that I know I need to pray for, and I'd feel defeated.

God, I can't pray those prayers, and this is telling me, don't worry, son, that's the spirit groaning on your behalf and the father searches your hearts, knows the mind of the spirit, and those prayers are being answered. Amen. Amen. This is good news. You know, we don't have to have everything perfect when we pray.

Do you believe that what the spirit does is he reshapes reinterprets our feeble, sometimes pathetic attempts at prayer, and he prays on our behalf in accordance with God's will. This is the hyper intercession of the Spirit on our behalf. Let me personalize this, the pain you feel as you grieve over the brokenness in your life.

Over the brokenness in this world, the despair you feel as you agonize over loved ones, what that does inside you. Understand God searches our hearts and the spirit gives voice to these cries in groans that words cannot express. Can I encourage you the pain from the groaning? It may not feel like a good thing, but it is a God thing.

God is doing that in US Creation groans. We groan, God groans. Let me close by bringing us to the verse that opened our reading, verse 18. Paul says, I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. Just meditate on those words. I can't say too much more, you know, to add to that.

Except to say the groaning we now see and experience guys, it won't have the final say. We have hope. Yes, we have resurrection hope, and hope is a word that's used six times in these verses. What's our hope? What happened to Jesus? His resurrection. Will one day happen to us? Will one day happen to all things and all the groaning we now see and experience and feel?

It's not even worth comparing to the glory that awaits. Let's pray.

Father, we thank you. The resurrection of Jesus gives us hope. Death does not have the final say, the death that's outworking itself in creation in our own lives. It doesn't have the final word. We have hope. Father, we thank you for this hope that we have. As we wait, as we groan, may our faith be strengthened.

May we look to you, the author and perfecter of our faith, that we would live in a way that glorifies you for for the praise of your glorious grace. In Jesus name, amen.