Help in Our Weakness

Since it's been a couple of weeks since we've looked together at Romans chapter 8, let
me just briefly review where we have left off in our study of this particular chapter,
Romans chapter 8.
I pointed out a couple of weeks ago that one of the reasons we as Christians sometimes
have a hard time is because Christians are an inherent contradiction, that is to say,
you live in the one hand in a world that is very physical, where synabounds, where Satan
exercises considerable authority, and where we experience a lot of the common limitations
of the human experience.
On the other hand, by faith in Jesus, we have become citizens of God's kingdom.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, we have begun to experience something of the reality of
the liberty of the sons of God.
We have a foretaste of that which is to come that causes tension within our lives.
And the more we see and the more we experience who God is and what it is that God wants
to do, the harder it is to be content with the way things are.
That produces a groaning within us.
That produces a longing that says, "Lord Jesus, move in power.
Destroy the works of darkness, build your kingdom, let your glory flow."
Paul, you'll recall, talked about that groaning in 2 Corinthians 5 when he said, "Indeed,
we grow and long to put on our heavenly dwelling.
For while we are still in this tent that is the tent of this body, we sigh with anxiety
not that we should be unclosed, but that we would be further clothed so that what is mortal
may be swallowed up by life.
The U.S. prepared us for this very thing as God who has given us the spirit as a guarantee.
There is an inherent groaning in being a pilgrim in an alien world.
And the more we grow in Christ and the more we grow in the power of the Holy Spirit,
the more we know the reality of that groaning.
The big question is then, what do we do with that burden?
What do we do with the groanings that arise within our hearts at the apparent inconsistencies
of life?
What was the natural reaction for the human race as to grumble?
Blame God maybe, blame other people, lament our lot, and about all that will do is make
us miserable.
And I believe Paul in this passage, as he goes on, points us in still a different direction.
I believe the biblical remedy for the groaning that lives within our heart is to use the groanings
as a vehicle of an intercessory prayer ministry waiting for God to move in power until
all that which stands against the kingdom of God can be broken, and God's kingdom comes
in power.
I believe that's what Paul now begins to address in these two verses that we have read
together when he says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness.
For we do not know how to pray as we want.
But the spirit himself intercedes for us with size too deep for words.
And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the spirit because the spirit
intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Four or five words in those two verses that are critical for our understanding of the
intercessory prayer ministry of the Holy Spirit.
This is the only verse that I know of in the Bible that talks about the Holy Spirit as
an intercessor.
The Bible talks a lot about Jesus being an intercessor, but also the Holy Spirit is an
intercessor who as we will see helps us in our weakness.
Let's look at the verse in some detail.
First of all, the word likewise, likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness.
Likewise, of course, means in the same way.
That's the way the NIV translated.
The clear implication is that Paul is continuing an argument that he has developed previously.
He is building on a previous argument.
The question is, what argument is he picking up on?
And that's where God's people often have some difference of opinion.
There are those who think verse 26 follows and the argument that Paul presented in verses
18 through 26 or 25.
That is the portion where Paul talks about the groaning of all of creation and the groaning
within the heart of the believer's life.
His argument there is that when we become God's children, then we get to be at odds with
the world and with all the difficulties there are in the world.
And God gives us a foretaste of that which is to come and we groan within our spirit.
According to that argument, just as the Holy Spirit helps us to wait for the final revelation
of God's glory, so now the Holy Spirit helps us to pray in the difficulties of our day.
I have no quarrel with that interpretation.
I think it has a lot of merit that certainly is true.
My own guess is though that in the book of Romans, Paul's likewise goes back much further,
goes back to the paragraph that immediately precedes that last one, the verses 12 through
17.
Paul says, "Brother and we are deaders, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh,
for if you live according to the spirit, flesh you will die.
But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Or all who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.
All who are led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God."
That's Paul's theme in Romans chapter 8.
How do we know that we are the children of God?
How do we know that we're going to arrive in glory?
How do we know that all these sins that are so much a part of our life are not going
to stop us from living obediently before the face of God?
The Bible says the answer is the person of the Holy Spirit.
He's the one who makes real in our lives the experience of the redemption that we have
in Jesus.
That argument that leads him to digress into the role of suffering in the Christian life.
Because in the back of the believers' mind there is the question, "If I'm a child of God
and God is for me, then why is life so difficult?"
That's what he explains then in these verses, verses 18 through 25, when he talks about
the first fruits and the groaning that lives within us.
Now he's finished that argument.
And he goes back to his original argument when he says, "In a similar fashion, just as
the Holy Spirit helps me in every area of the Christian life, likewise the Spirit helps
us in our weakness."
The Spirit he says helps us.
Having word in the Greek, that word help.
It is one of these humongous, big, multiple compound words.
It's the Greek word.
Let me see if I can get it right here.
"Soon anti-Labbanomai," quite a mouthful.
"Soon anti-Labanamai," comes from three Greek words.
The word "soon issue n," which means "with," "anti," which we know in English, as being
opposite or over against.
And "Labanomai," which means to grab hold of or to carry.
And the literal meaning of the word is that here is somebody who helps comes over against
you and helps you to carry the load.
The image is that of a person struggling with a big load.
Somebody's trying to carry, let's say, a heavy crate.
I was going to say refrigerator, but they didn't have those back then.
Or a log.
Somebody's dragging a log, and it's too heavy.
And you're straining under the load because you're just not strong enough to carry this
load.
If a person comes along, sees you struggling, takes his position over against you, picks
up the other end of the log or the crate, and helps you carry the load.
That's what he's talking about here.
This spirit takes his place over against us, and with us helps us to carry the load that
is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
He is the helper.
He is the one who comes into your life and into my life to help us to do all of these
impossible things that God is calling us to do that we don't know how to do ourselves.
The spirit, he says, helps us.
He helps us because we are weak.
He helps us in our weakness.
Now that word weakness in the Greek is Estonia.
It's a general word for weakness or for infirmity.
Covers a whole broad range of physically not being strong enough, emotionally not being
strong enough, spiritually not being strong enough.
It's even used in the Bible to talk about our natural limitations, Roman 619, Paul uses
the same verse or the same word.
It's also used to talk about people who are shy, they're just not bold and brave to do
the kinds of things they ought to be doing.
In this particular context, Paul is using it to describe our inability to pray in the
way that we ought.
He says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness and now he goes on to spell out
what our weakness is in this context.
Therefore we do not know how to pray as we want.
We do not know how to pray as we want.
Isn't an interesting thing.
Most of us are full of good ideas.
We have strength and energy in many, many areas of life, but when it comes to laying hold
of God in prayer, particularly when the pressures of life are great and we find ourselves afflicted
and be set and oppressed, prayer is one of the last things that we do and prayer is
one of the hardest things for us to do why is that, well it's because we are weak.
The spirit may be willing, say Jesus, but the flesh is weak.
Now that weakness, as it relates to prayer in your life and in my life, comes to expression
in at least three ways.
Let me quickly run through those with you.
Number one, it comes to expression in our inability to know what it is that we ought
to pray for.
Notice again how Paul puts it, he says, we do not know how to pray as we want.
That implies there is a way that we ought to be praying.
The Bible tells us that if our prayers are to be heard and if our prayers are to be effective,
we need to be made according to the will of God.
And when with boldness and with faith, we know how to lay hold of the will of God, John
and one John chapter 514 says that we obtain from God the requests that we have made of
him.
But our problem is how do you know the will of God?
That's particularly true when your soul and your body and your spirit are in turmoil.
How do you know what it is that God wants to do?
How do you know how you ought to pray?
I mean, here's a, let's say that you have an elderly person and he or she is ill.
Now do you pray for God to take that person by the hand and bring them into glory?
He's going to die sometime.
Or do you pray for God to touch that person's life and grant them additional years of service?
Or here you've got a marriage.
How's it been then, wife or adults with each other?
They've been doing a lot of fighting?
Is it God's will for the marriage to be restored?
Should you be praying, Lord God?
Bring him back, bring her back, restore them, or ought you to be praying, Lord, just help
them to face the impossibility of the situation, put their life together and go on with life.
Those are very real questions.
Now I know how most of us get around that.
We pray what we think we ought to pray and then we add as a little addendum at the end.
Oh Lord, not my will, but yours be done, it's not true.
Now that's not all bad.
But I want you to know that that phrase only occurs once in the scriptures.
It occurs in the context of Jesus struggling in the Garden of Gethsemane, dreading the
awful agony of being identified with human seeing and saying Lord more than anything else
I want to get out of this situation, nevertheless not in my will, but yours be done.
I'm afraid sometimes we use it as an excuse for intelligent praying.
Remember God is raising up a family of people, sons and daughters who can rule the universe
with him who can manage his kingdom, part of growing up is that we are to grow up in knowing
the will of God, the Bible, as full of admonitions to get to learn the heart of God.
How do you do that?
We're weak.
We don't know the what we ought to pray for, that's the literal translation of that phrase.
We don't know the what to pray for.
So we have a hard time praying because we don't know how to pray, that's the first problem
we have, second problem we have is we don't know how to put our prayers in our words.
Again, have you ever noticed in your own life an experience?
Well when it comes to talking about the things of life and the things of the world, even
the shyest and the most hesitant person of us, we have remarkable motor mouths.
We just spout off the drop of a hat and we've got opinions on this and we've got opinions
on that, we've got opinions on everything else.
Then when it comes to prayer, not only do we not know what it is that we ought to pray
for, we find ourselves often times driven into a corner and the words aren't there.
Often say to people the best way to fall asleep is to try to pray because all of a sudden
you discover in the process of prayer your mind goes blank, it wanders all over creation
and you have a hard time sticking to what it is that we need to stick to and to pray what
it is that we need to pray.
Does anybody here who doesn't have that problem, I'd like to talk to you and learn from it?
I like the story that Howard Hendricks tells, Howard Hendricks used to be and probably
still is a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and he had this one student who failed
to hand in I think an assignment and I suppose theological school fashion, Hendricks thought
that one of the ways to show him his lack of responsibility was to assign him a designated
period of prayer just to underscore the importance of discipline in his life and he said I want
you to go home and I want you to go down in your knees and he says I want you to pray
for half an hour, student you know he decided relief he had figured he'd flunk or something
else and he said that's a sin she went home, go down in his knees and he told the professor
later he prayed all around the world and back and forth for you know missionaries and
foreign in the mesques fields and all this kind of stuff, looked at his watch two minutes
had gone by, applied himself again, prayed for another whole storm, looked at his watch
again five minutes had gone by, came back later to the professor and he said I never knew
that half an hour could be as long as it is, we don't know what to pray for, we don't
know how to put our prayers into words and number three we haven't got the strength to
see it through, real prayer in the Bible isn't just a quick word bless everybody everywhere,
real prayer is an earnest intercession that is described in the Bible as travailing as
in childbirth, it is hard work, it's hard work to get to know the mind of God, it is hard
work to find the words to express the mind of God, it's hard work to have the faith to
continue to persist no matter how impossible all of life situation seem and it is tough
to just discipline yourself to the fact that you're going to pray until God shows you
what it is that he's going to do, we haven't got what it takes, we are weak, we don't know
how to pray as we want and if this is true in life's general situations it is multiplied
infinitely when we find ourselves on a sick bed, when we find ourselves depressed or discouraged
or overcome by despair fatigue and doubt even the very capability of reaching out in prayer
we have lost it under the pressures of life, now since Paul the good news is the spirit
helps us in our weakness, the Holy Spirit sees a struggle with this big heavy load, this
log, this crate, you make it what you want and he comes over against me, grabs hold of
the other end of the log and he says together we're going to carry this load and we're going
to pray in a way that is pleasing to the Father, we don't know how to pray as we ought to
he says but the Holy Spirit himself intercedes for us according to the will of God, now that
word intercede is an interesting word too because it literally means that you happen upon
somebody who was in trouble with somebody who was over him and you plead his case and
so the picture is you're walking along this road and there you come on this man or woman
doesn't matter who and they're having a controversy with let's say they're boss, the boss
is angry with them, the boss has power over them, they're trying to defend themselves
but they're overpowered by the accusations, they're overpowered by their culpability, they
don't know how to defend themselves, they're in big trouble, you come along, you hear
out their case and you sighed with the accused and you begin to plead his case, you become
the advocate, you become the comforter, you become that other counselor of which Jesus speaks
in John chapter 14 and you help that person to be set free from the trouble in which he
finds himself, the Holy Spirit helps us by interceding for the saints according to the will
of God, now when you read that you get the impression that the Holy Spirit is maybe
out in heaven and he is interceding some place far away from us but that's not the context
of Romans chapter 8, the context of Romans chapter 8 is that this Holy Spirit lives in
the heart of believers, the Spirit of God bears witness with my Spirit that I am a child
of God and so the picture that emerges here is this, here is the Christian, he's a child
of God, shares in the power in the life of the Holy Spirit, he's an heir of things to
come, God is grooming him for glory or her and life has gotten tough that devil the world
to flesh their all on his or her team, Christian says I don't know if I can keep going, I don't
know if I'm going to make it to glory, I don't know if God is going to be able to carry
his purposes through my life, he's all ready to give up in despair, Paul says I want you
to remember the Spirit helps us in our weakness, he intercedes for us according to the will
of God and he does that deep within our heart by giving voice often with size and with groanings
to that which lives deep within my heart and he does it according to the will of God.
If you ever find yourself in a situation where life's pressing in on you or you've been
watching the news, you see those horrible pictures that come out of Bosnia, little
kids all shot up, you look at all the groaning that takes place in all of creation and deep
within the pit of your stomach there is a burden and a crying out to God and you say
God something needs to happen but you don't know how to put it into words, you don't know
how to get rid of it and you just walk around with it for days on ends that is the intercessory
ministry of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer he helps us in our weakness which
means every area where we can prayer the Holy Spirit is there to help us to carry that load.
Means number one that he helps me to understand the heart and the mind of God.
The Holy Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
The Holy Spirit knows exactly where it is that God is going, what it is that God wants
to do in every concrete situation and the Holy Spirit can impart to you into me a knowledge
of that will sometimes supernaturally more often just in the regular walks of life and
we know how it is that we ought to pray.
I remember very clearly a number of years ago one morning I woke up very early about
430 or 5 o'clock and I had this incredible burden to pray.
I said Lord what is it you want me to pray for because I hate not being able to sleep
and in my less than spiritual moments I want to get this over with so I can go back to sleep.
I said Lord what is it you want me to pray for and of all places in the world the place
that came to my mind was the nation of Afghanistan and I said Lord what about Afghanistan do you
want me to pray for and it was just it didn't come as a revelation it was just sort of there
but the occupation of the Soviet troops will end that's what I prayed and I turned over
and went back to sleep three days later I was amazed to hear in the news that Gorbachev
had just announced the withdrawal of all Russian military troops from the soil of Afghanistan
and I'm not so naive this morning as to assume that it was just my prayer that did it.
I'm sure the Lord was raising up intercession all over the world from his people for that
particular nation my point is the job of the Holy Spirit is to help us to understand
God's agenda so that like children with our father we can lay hold of his work and
of his ministry and we can pray according to the will of God that's when prayer has
power number two he helps us to express the burden that lives deep within our hearts the
problem oftentimes that I have in prayer and I'm sure you do too as you know you ought
to pray for something but but you don't know how to pray you don't know what to say and
Lord I'm tongue tied I'm twisted the words just aren't really there well the Holy Spirit
helps us to give voice to that which lives within us and most of the time when we think
of prayer we think of prayer as we commonly do in spoken words and that is indeed one
of the most common forms of prayer and certainly one of the ways in which the Holy Spirit
helps you and me in our prayer lives is that he will give us words to pray for I've often
been with people in counseling sessions or in small prayer meetings and people say I
don't know what to pray the words aren't there most of the time that's because we are
worried about looking foolish or sounding foolish and we are afraid to step out and we
want it all formulated in our minds before we start talking the biblical principle is
you take what you got and you go with it and God will give you more you learn that by
trial and error but praying in words is only one level of prayer in scripture there are
at least two other levels in prayer that I know up one is praying with the Spirit we don't
have time to go into that extensively this morning other than to say that is praying
in unknown tongues a gift of the Holy Spirit that he gives to the church purpose of that
is to help us to to utter things that we don't know how to express that we don't know
how to give over to God and the Holy Spirit motivating our spirit praise through us according
to the will of God but there's still a third level of prayer and that is with size and
with groans that cannot be uttered I don't know much about that kind of prayer maybe
you do but there is a place in the Holy Spirit where the Holy Spirit is at work in your
life read my life and he puts within our hearts a burden and you begin to pray and you
begin to intercede and the Holy Spirit perhaps will give you some idea of what it is that
you're praying for there are no words there is only a siding and a groaning and a crying
out from deep inside you that says God you've got to do something God I am desperate for
your help either for myself for my family for my business for the church community for
other people for the whole world there is a groaning day with the Him that is the intercession
of the Holy Spirit not rational not logical super rational exceeds our own level of understand
ending and what you and I need to do in moments like that is seek the face of God make
ourselves available as his servants and allow the Holy Spirit to intercede for us according
to the will of God because the Holy Spirit knows what he's doing the Holy Spirit knows
the agenda of God the Holy Spirit knows the purposes of God for each individual that
he places within our hearts as we learn to to give voice to that power comes loose in
heavenly places things begin to happen because intercession is taking place according to
the will of God so the Holy Spirit helps us to know how to pray the Holy Spirit gives
us an ability to express it even if it is only with size and with groanings that same groaning
that Paul talked about earlier in Romans chapter 8 and of course he gives us the strength
and the ability to persevere I said earlier real prayers hard work it's hard to keep on believing
when nothing seems to be happening it's hard to keep believing that that God will do what
God said he would do when everything inside me wants to just give up and say what's to
use it's hard to discipline myself and to say Lord I'm going to see this through until
your kingdom comes and your purposes are established spirit is willing flushes weak the
Holy Spirit helps me in my weakness and what happens when we allow the Holy Spirit to
help us in our weakness. Prayer is made according to the will of God God in heaven takes note
of the difficulties in which I find myself or somebody else finds themselves and he sends
forth his word of command he sends out his angels the power of the Holy Spirit begins
to move all hell begins to shake and the covenant promises of God are fulfilled and we
reign with him in prayer the humblest Christian on his or her knees has more control in some
ways over the affairs of mankind than do some of the richest potentates in the rulers
of the world because we reign with Christ in heavenly places even now. My personal conviction
been pondering over this for a number of months that if we as a church community are going
to move forward into those things that I believe God has for us one of the priorities needs
to be that kind of ministry I know many of us here pray we pray consistently for our
own lives businesses children church family the kingdom of God that's wonderful we need
a lot more of that ladies coffee break has a prayer chain ministry it's used almost several
times a week to be sure tremendous ministry would be involved in that sea Christine Decker
we're also busy believing that the Lord is raising up a broader ministry of intercession
of a smaller group of people who are going to be prayer warriors on behalf of the variety
of ministries and leaderships that God has given to this church that's headed up by Debra
Spulstra they've already begun to gather together before evening services to pray for God's
blessing on those services they're going to be focusing more prayer more specifically
on specific issues and specific people and specific needs as time goes on we need about
two dozen people who are willing to commit themselves and say I believe the Lord is calling
me to an intercessory prayer ministry if you've not already volunteered by means of the
surveys and some of you have I know if you think that ought to be a caller talk to Debra
God is at work in our lives God is at work in our community the obstacles that we come
up against are incredibly humongous because Satan roars like a lion wanting to keep all
of us out of the grace of God wanting to keep the rest of the world out of God's kingdom
you and I we look at ourselves and we say oh my I am so weak I am so tired believe me
I know what it's like to be tired I have never needed invocation so much in my life
as these past three weeks and I thank God for the measure of replenishing that I was able
to experience Paul says remember the spirit helps us in our weakness we don't know how
to pray as we ought but the spirit makes intercession for the saints of God what size to
deep for words and he who searches the hearts and the minds of men knows what is the mind
of the spirit because of the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God
if we will be but faithful God will do far more abundantly but all that we ask or think
to him be the glory forever and ever let's pray we shrink back Lord from the really
tough battles we're fond of saying here I am Lord but send somebody else and Lord we
know that you're not asking more of us than what you're also going to equip us to do
so that with gladness and with joy we can run the race that is said before us and we
pray together this morning Lord that you will continue to raise up in our midst men and
women boys and girls who by the power of your Holy Spirit are mighty intercessors people
to look around them at the hurts and the pains and the confusions of life and who by the
power of your Holy Spirit know your heart and your mind they aren't willing just to let
things be in business as usual because they sense the ache that is in your heart men
and women who with words or without words can cry out to you from the depths of their
being inspired by the power of your Spirit men and women boys and girls who can stand
in the strength of your Spirit until that which you have promised comes to pass oh God
we thank you for your kingdom we thank you for your amazing love for your determination
to uproot all the power of hell gather in all the elective God from one end of the heavens
to the other to build your church to bring it to maturity to cause it to reflect the glory
of our God Lord we love you we commit ourselves a new to you that out of our weakness you
will bring forth your strength thank you for hearing us in Jesus name Amen.