‘Groans and Glory’ - Daniel Montgomery from Sojourn Community Church on Vimeo. Although Pastor Daniel preached this sermon a few months ago at Sojourn’s home in the Germantown neighborhood of Louisville, this is a perfect sermon for Advent. It’s all about how all of creation groans, awaiting the glory of God and the redemption that will be revealed in Christ. And the Holy Spirit groans in our behalf, until these present troubles give way to the blessedness of our savior at His second coming.
The text is from Romans 8:18-27:
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. 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.
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 firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, 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 he already has? 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 with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
