The Ministry of the Holy Spirit in Prayer
Romans 8:26-30 · Roger Henderson · Apr 21, 2024
Romans (2022-25), No. 070
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261934556320

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Actually, I had the privilege of doing these two verses. If you were here in 2016, then this will be Somewhat a repeat. I look back at what I did and it was a lot of good stuff back then, but I even found some more interesting things to share. So hopefully this will be interesting. I think this is one of the more practical sections. It's all practical in many ways. Okay, so I've labeled this the Ministry of the Holy Spirit in Prayer. And so let's see, one of the questions, how does this connect? How does this connect with what's gone before and then what's coming up is one of the questions that comes to mind. So Macaulay had a thought about this. And so what, I'm gonna kind of follow his lead here and show you some verses.

So first we saw in Romans 8.18, suffering, for I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed.

Then we had groaning, we had groaning of creation, last week we talked about that, and then groaning of the believer. So basically in Romans 8.23b it says, having the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. Then from last week we had hope, talked about hope. So you could, that if is first class condition, if or since we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly, so we have this eager expectation of what's coming.

And then today we're gonna see support. That's what Macaulay Cullen labels that support, support from the Holy Spirit. And the first part of verse 26 is, in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. So we have suffering, groanings, hope and now we have support.

And I'm just amazed as you go through these verses you're going to see in 26 and 27 the interaction between the Godhead, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and His interaction with believers. It's just amazing. So here's today's verse. I highlighted the place where the Spirit is talked about two times in verse 26 and then two times basically in verse 27. So we'll get into the details of that. Well, let me just read it again.

In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. Notice it's singular, weakness, not weaknesses. Sometimes I'll actually say that and not mean that, so it's singular weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words, and he, referring to God here, God the Father, who searches the hearts, knows the mind of the Spirit, of the mind of the spirit and actually because it isn't the best it could be that he, the spirit, intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So we'll see the details of that as we go through here. Okay, so let's start off.

In the same way. So as with all scripture you should be a questioner, you should think about why is he saying the same way? Okay, and many times, you know, many, many times they'll be there for us in the same ways, buts, ands, they're all connective, you know, connectivity statements, connecting what's gone before, what's coming up. So in the same way, I think it refers to this. If you look back on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, starting back in chapter eight, and you kind of march through, you'll see that ministry after ministry is highlighted of the Holy Spirit. And he gets down to this verse and so he says, well in the same way I told you about all the ministries of the Holy Spirit before, I'm gonna tell you about another ministry of the Holy Spirit in terms of prayer.

So I think that's the connectivity. So next slide, I listed a few of those. This isn't exhaustive. I kind of got after verse 16, there are probably some more after that I didn't look as closely. So let's start off verse two of eight, two eight, eight two rather.

The law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. So the Holy Spirit has set us free. For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. So we have life and peace, we have he set you free, life and peace. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, And he does. He who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

So here it is, it's God the Father. He is the one, God the Father, through the Spirit, gives life. That's kind of the idea here in this one. Then in 14 it says, For all those being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, so we're led by the Spirit of God. And the last one I have here, the Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. So we have these wonderful interactions of the spirit with the believer, setting you free, life and peace, giving life to your mortal bodies, that's a future thing that's gonna happen. Being led by the spirit right now, and then he testifying about us. So now that leads right in to this verse.

Okay, so part two, in the same way, the spirit also helps our weakness, singular. So let's look at that. So basically, it's the spirit also helps, there's a verb here, and that verb is a present tense, continuous action, so the idea is he's continually helping us in our weakness. We have a weakness, which I'm gonna talk about in a second, but we have a weakness, and he's continually helping us in that weakness.

So this word help is this long Greek word, pretty long, right? I'm not gonna try to pronounce it. Lubano is kind of right in the middle of that. Anyway, the word is, literally, is joins in to help. It's the idea to take hold with, at the side of for assistance. And in other places about the Holy Spirit, that's very, very apropos for the Holy Spirit. He comes alongside, he joins in to help. That's kind of the idea. So Vine says, hence to take a share in, helping and bearing, to help in general. Okay, so this particular word, joins in to help, it occurs here, concerning the Holy Spirit and the weakness of the believer, but it also occurs in a very familiar story in the Gospel of Luke.

Luke 10 it's the story of Mary and Martha so I only did kind of bits of it I kind of jammed it in there it's a little bit disconnected maybe but so here goes so we start off with Martha and Mary they're sisters so it starts off a woman named Martha welcomed him this is Christ into her home She had a sister called Mary, but Martha was distracted. And if you know the story well, the Lord's gonna tell her, Martha, you didn't need to be that distracted. You really didn't need to do that.

But she was distracted, and it was a good distraction in her mind anyway. But here's the thing where this word comes into play. With all her preparations, so she came up to him, Christ, and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister, this sounds like our house. Maybe Monty talking, well, Monty talking to me.

Didn't have a sister here, but anyway. Okay, too much information, as Bob tells us sometimes. Okay, I'm getting off track here a little bit, okay. Don't you care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me. And that's our same word. It only occurs, this is the only other time in scripture it occurs. I think it gives a really interesting point here.

Martha is not asking, hey, Lord, I worked my tail off, so to speak. It's Mary's turn, I'm gonna sit down and let her do it. She doesn't ask for that. She doesn't say, I need a five minute break. Doesn't ask for that. She says, you know, all I really want is for Mary to come and join me in this task, to help me out, to do that. That's all she's really asking.

So in that light, when we take that back to our verse, this is pretty amazing. Paul is telling us that the Spirit of God is joining in to help us. He's not gonna take over our prayer life. I've heard people go, oh yeah, I just give it the Holy Spirit and he takes care of it. It doesn't say that.

He joins in to help us. Now how it all works out is the challenge of this message, but that's what I take from that. He joins in to help, just like Martha wanted Mary to join in to help her, not to replace her, not to give her a five minute break, and it's to be continuous. So pretty amazing stuff here. Okay, so let's go on.

So the spirit, I put the translation in there, a better translation, the spirit also helps or joins in to help our weakness. So the question comes up, what about this weakness, our weakness? So what is it in this passage? And I kind of found in studying this that not everyone addresses it directly because the passage kind of talks about our primary weakness. But in the bigger sense, what is our weakness is where I'm kind of headed at. So the weakness here is this anesthia, one of strength, the negative of strength. Vine said it's indicating an inability to produce results. We don't have the ability to produce results, he's saying. So the interlinear really helps us here. And I'd like to kind of go, I'd like to look at the interlinear, look at Wyss translation, New American Standard.

I've even started looking, I know you're gonna probably be aghast. I'm looking at the New American Standard 2020. Whoa, I know. I actually got up to 2020. Wow, you know, most of these guys, their translations are 100 years old. I've actually looked at it. And the 2020 isn't too bad. I'm actually getting excited about the 2020.

You'll see in a second here. So anyway, in the inner linear, it says, and that's a word for word from the Greek, the spirit joins in to help. And here's where this really shines. The weakness of us. So not only, okay, here are a couple points. So it's singular, it's weakness, not plural. It's a particular weakness, but with a definite article in there. So I think, and without any further ado, I think it's, you know, that's why I said last week, this is a no-brainer for people at Holly Hills.

I think that the weakness that we all have is our sin nature. We see that in certainly Romans 6 and 7 throughout scripture. And then just, and it kind of struck me, the verse we often quote in Galatians, you know, what struck me about this verse is our sin nature is contesting with the Holy Spirit. I thought, that's just like man, right? It seems kinda. It says, for the flesh, the sin nature sets its desires against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another. And then it goes on.

So I think the real weakness here of every believer is his sin nature. And I listened to Merrim a little bit, and he had a few things along the same line. So this word, anesthia, is a singular weakness of us. It's characteristic of all believers. There's not one believer who doesn't have this according to the text. So we have a general condition of weakness and I believe it's our sin nature.

But there's a specific that's in play here and I'm going to hopefully show you that. The weakness is of ignorance of how to glorify God in a sense. and to meet our immediate needs. And I think the best example of that is Paul's thorn in the flesh. We're going to look at that in just a second here.

But Macaulay had a good point that kind of amplified this too. Because of our sin nature, our prayers can be self-focused rather than God-focused. And I think we see that, and the Lord have our prayers be focused on Him. So here's the account, I think that's very, very helpful. And here's the Apostle Paul with us in nature, and it's interesting how it goes here.

You're familiar with this story, I'm sure. In 2 Corinthians 12, seven through 10, It starts off, because of the surpassing greatness of the revelation, revelations, plural, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh. So he tells us there's a thorn in the flesh. It seems like he, and of course he wrote this after the fact, so to speak, so he explains part of the dialogue, and we don't have the advantage of having the Lord talking to us, you know, as he did. It's not clear. I was kind of wondering, when did this thorn in the flesh occur?

Maybe some of you good Bible students can figure that out, but I'm not sure I know exactly. Anyway, he goes on to say, so he's given a thorn in the flesh, so we know that was God's will for Paul to have a thorn in the flesh. But what was Paul's first reaction? Did he react spiritually? Well, thank you, Lord, for those thorns in the flesh. That's just wonderful. Did he say that? No, he didn't say that.

Concerning this, I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. So his first reaction is probably our reaction, right? When something bad comes along, some heartache, some physical malady, we most often ask for it to be removed. That's our first thought.

But Paul's gonna be convinced, and the Lord's gonna talk to him here, which we don't have that, but in a way, we listen to the Lord through his words, so we can learn from this. And he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. So we can be the same as Paul. We can say, well Lord, this thorn in the flesh, whatever it might be, you know, you told Paul that your grace was sufficient for him. Why, it should be sufficient for me too, right? And he says this principle, for power is perfected in weakness. And Paul kind of picks up on that thought and carries it on.

He says, most gladly, therefore, why rather boast about my weakness, yeah, okay, weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, and this amazed me, this last part, I thought to myself, am I well content with all these things? So this is Paul's, therefore I'm well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties. For Christ's sake, when I am weak, then I am strong. So he, Paul came to the place in his life where he at first asked for it to be removed, but then the Lord convinced him, if you will, that that weakness can be for my glory, and that can be my will, and once he understood that, he was okay with it. Maybe more challenging for us, but anyway, that's the concept. Okay, so let's go ahead. So now to the third section here. For we do not know how to pray as we should. I'll highlight the do not.

So this is oida in the Greek. It's perfect tense and it has, Vine says it has a present tense meaning. It means to have seen or perceived. And it's a negative of that, so we have not perceived, we have not seen, the negative of to know or to have known. And so you can look at this.

We do not know, and it's perfect tense, so we are in a perfect state of ignorance. I'm sorry, in a permanent state of ignorance. So the idea is that we don't know as we should or we don't know as necessary. And that's gonna be kind of key. We don't know as we should or don't know as necessary.

So we're gonna see as we go through this to develop this a little bit more that we don't really have all the information to judge properly when we start to pray. You know, and we always, I mean, we always pray the same way. And I'm not putting, I'm putting myself down in the same category. I mean, when somebody is sick, I pray for they get well. If they have a car accident, I pray that things, the car didn't have to withstand. You know, you pray typically from your heart what you believe.

But what he's telling us here is we don't, we're in ignorance. We don't have all the information. We don't know it. So back to the inner linear here, and this will help out a little bit, hopefully not confuse the issue. So you notice up in the verse it says, we do not know how to pray. Boy, that's not, and this is where the 2020 New American Standard shined here, I thought. They kind of changed that, and I thought, boy, that's really good, because the inner linear says, we do not know the what we should pray for as is necessary.

So we do not know the what to make our prayers specific. We don't know, well Lord, should I have taken that job or not taken that job? Should I have done this? You can go back and forth, all these what ifs, if I did that. We don't know the right, which one of those to do. So the translation that I like here is, we do not know what to pray for, in contrast to know how to pray.

We know how to pray, right? In fact, we have, this is kind of just a little highlight, if you will, and I had in a previous presentation, if you look at the, Chafer's major Bible themes, he has a chapter on prayer, and it's quite good, and I've used that in the past. And so we know how to pray, from the New Testament, we know how to pray. You pray in the name of the Father, you pray to the Father in the name of the Son, and the power of the Holy Spirit. We know that kind of thing, we know other things under grace, how we pray, we know all about that. But this is talking, we know the details, the specifics.

And Paul's not talking about the manner of prayer or the time or place or position. We should only pray when we're at church. He's not addressing that. He's talking about we don't know the real details of what we should pray about. So a few more thoughts on here of our ignorance. This is from Wiest. And he looks at part of that little phrase there, as we ought. We do not know how to pray as we should or as we ought. So it's the idea, We don't know how to pray just what is necessary in this case, in the nature of the case. So the idea is that what, we do not know the what as should, as should, so that God's purpose can be realized in our lives.

If we knew that, well for one area, at least one area, many, many areas, think about in terms of salvation. And we know from verses like, he's not willing that any should perish, that all should come to repentance. So I can pray that verse, I can pray for the salvation of my neighbors, my relatives, whoever. I know it's God's will for them to be saved. I don't have to question whether that's a valid prayer. But in terms of whether a particular suffering I have or whatever choice I have, I don't know. Maybe that suffering will result in something that he had for me, like with Paul. Okay, so we also see the following that's gonna come up here.

God the Holy Spirit lifts the burden of our ignorance because he joins in to help us. He doesn't take over our prayer life, but he joins in to help us. The Holy Spirit is so identified with us that he helps us. The Holy Spirit knows what to pray for, in any situation.

So that's pretty amazing. So now we kind of have that section. We don't know the what to pray for. Now he's gonna move to kind of the mechanics of the Holy Spirit's ministry. How does he accomplish that? And this is another mysterious thing. This verses has many interesting and mysterious things in a way. Okay, so the next part of the verse.

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Pretty interesting, okay. So it's but or Allah in strong contrast. And I didn't really put anything on the chart here, but this is the spirit himself. Kind of a special emphasis on the being this is personally the Holy Spirit of God by saying the spirit himself.

So the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. So intercedes here is this long Greek word. To make a petition, intercede on behalf of another. The idea to intercede on behalf of or plead on behalf of. So he is, he joins in to help us and he's pleading on behalf of us. He is, if you will, strengthening or validating our prayer, if you will. And we have a couple of verses here, so look carefully. These also talk about interceding, but just look carefully at the player in this one. Okay, let's look carefully. And then I'll tell you, you probably realize who it is in just a second here. Romans 8, 34.

Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is he who died, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. And then the Hebrews passage, therefore he is able to save forever to those who draw near to God through him since he always lives to make intercession for us.

So what I found interesting was that, is that the Holy Spirit here is interceding for us within ourselves in our prayer life and then we have God the Son in heaven making intercession for us as well. So we have, I had not realized, we have two aspects of that. We have two aspects of God concerned about us. One is in heaven praying for us, if you will, and one is with us, interceding for us in our prayer.

Hopefully I said that right. Alrighty, so let's go on. So let's talk about groanings. And we talked about groanings last week a little bit. But this is gonna be a little bit different. The groanings that the Holy Spirit's about are a little bit different than what we talked about last week. So it's a, in this case, it's an inward, unexpressed feeling of sorrow. So this is gonna be an inward groaning.

And we saw last week that creation, creation groans, 822 it says, for we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth up until, together until now. And then we saw that we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons. So we have the creation groaning, and we have we ourselves groaning. And both those, I mentioned last week, you look at them, how people have kind of identified how creation groans, you know, they hear different, the wind, the sound of the wind, the waves, and different things. So we can hear creation groaning in a sense.

And we ourselves groan, And that usually is audible, you know, if we're suffering, we're groaning, but this is actually more focused on our redemption, groaning for that. But this groaning differs in the fact that it's a groaning that says, too deep for words. So let's look at that. With groaning, too deep for words. So what's that all about? So, Wiest has it.

But the Spirit himself comes to our rescue, I really like it, comes to our rescue, comes alongside, joins in to help by interceding with unutterable groanings. So it's unexpressed or unutterable. And unutterable, if I can say it right, is a negative of to speak or to utter. So the New American Standard 2020 brings it across, wordless groanings, and I really like that, wordless groanings.

So the Holy Spirit is not making a, he's doing this in silence, if you will, but he is with us and joins with us in prayer with wordless groanings, which I thought was really neat. I think God's grace is shown here, that He intercedes for us. We didn't ask the Holy Spirit to be part of our prayer. We didn't beseech God by long. God has just done that in His grace. And the same way with Christ interceding for us before the Father. So both those ministries are done without, as part of our grace gift as believers. This intercession is similar to our groanings within ourselves, but no word or sound is heard. It's just really un-audible groanings, wordless groanings.

Okay, so that's actually 26. Okay, I didn't do as long on 27, you'll be thankful, let's see. Okay, good, good. Okay, 27. And, so it connects it with the previous verse, and he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the spirit is. So we're gonna see here, this is gonna be a wonderful testimony to the, and we're talking about this in Sunday school a little bit, about the mind of God or the thoughts of God. They're in conjunction. God doesn't act, he acts consistently within himself, which is really interesting. It says he who searches the hearts. So who is the he here? So actually I diagrammed this here.

So the subject here is he who searches the heart is the subject, knows is a verb, it's actually a verb for this entire sentence, knows what is the mind of the spirit. So he who searches the heart is the subject, knows what is the mind of the spirit. and knows here is Oida again, and it's a perfect tense, so it's a permanent knowledge, he permanently knows, he who searches the heart permanently knows what the mind of the spirit is. Talking about the connection between the father and the spirit. So, I actually told you already. Who is the he who searches the hearts? Well, if you go back to the Old Testament, we'll see in a second. Actually, Merriman kind of says something about this already.

God the Father is characterized in his omniscience as entirely adequate with all desires of your mind and heart. So, a couple verses that kind of back this up. In Psalm 139, verse one, it says, O Lord, you have searched me and known me, and then it goes on to really wonderful parts beyond that. You have searched me and known me. And then in Chronicles, for the Lord searches all hearts. This is just astounding. For the Lord searches all hearts, understands every intent of the thoughts. Wow, wow, okay.

So when he says here in this verse, he who searches the hearts, boy, that sounds like God the Father to me. We are told that he also knows the mind of the spirit. He who searches the heart knows, perfectly knows what is the mind of the spirit. And we say this actually in Philippians, this word for neo is the word for mind, thinking the same.

So God in his, the Godhead or the God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, they think the same thing. They think in together. They're not disconnected in their thoughts. And since God is one, There's no surprise here. But it just, it's kind of astounding to me, this oneness of God is concerned about us. They're concerned about us.

And that last half of the verse is gonna tell us about that. So it has, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So a little bit of, actually Merriman got me onto this a little bit. If you look carefully, Well, first of all, this statement modifies the verb knows. It describes how the ministry of the Holy Spirit here interceding for the saints.

That's step one. Step two, the word because is hati in the Greek. And it can be translated that. In fact, if you look up in your little helps there, you'll see that Hati is translated many times that and only a few times because. And I don't think there's really a causal relationship going on here. And this is from Merriman. There's more information to be passed.

So the uses of that, which follows, would describe the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He's describing what the Holy Spirit's gonna do. based upon the fact that the Father knows the mind of the Spirit. The Father knows the mind of the Spirit. Now He's gonna tell us, well, how does that relate to what the Spirit's gonna do for you? That He, the Spirit, makes intercession for the saints according to God. So that's the better rendering using that over because. That He, the Spirit, makes intercession for the saints according to God.

Intercession, we saw this before. Same word as we saw earlier. pleading on behalf of another. So he's a spirit and continually makes intercession since it is, okay, I way stated that I can confuse myself. So basically it's the present tense verb, so he's continuous action, he's continually making intercession for us.

And it's according to God, not according to the believer. And it's for or on behalf of the saints. So you can summarize that. So the Holy Spirit's groanings are on behalf of and according to the will of God. So we begin to see, here's the details of this Holy Spirit who's come alongside. His prayer is gonna be in total agreement with the Father. So you could say the Holy Spirit's intercessions, groanings, must be consistent with God's mind and plan for each believer. And that's where this idea of the Godhead being all on the same page, they're not disconnected, it's not like the son says, oh, oh, by the way, here's something you missed, you missed, Father. That never happens, you know? It just never happens.

That's the whole intent here. And then lastly, So God takes this intercession, this groaning, as adequate and responsible prayer which he can grant. So this is actually the main section I'm gonna cover today. And all this interaction is pretty amazing. So let me just summarize and see if you hope you have a better picture of this. So here's a summary.

The Holy Spirit's ministry is that of joining in to help our weakness, our singular weakness. The singular weakness of the believer is our sin nature. And I had to cover this. We were taught that the, and this is from major Bible themes, that prayer offered in the name of the Father, I'm sorry, prayer offered to the Father in the name of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit. But it said, but we do not know, more correctly, we do not know the what we should pray for as is necessary in our case. The Spirit comes to our rescue since we are ignorant by interceding with utterings, with wordless groanings. God the Father is consistently, I'm sorry, is constantly searching our hearts and knows the mind of the Spirit.

I said they're thinking the same thing. The Holy Spirit continually makes intercession for us in accordance with the will of God. And this one, this is mostly, the rest of this is mostly me. This kind of occurred to me that God wants to answer our prayers.

He's given us the Holy Spirit to do that. So he wants to answer our prayers. But the prayers, to be acceptable, have to be in accordance with his will. The only way that can happen is the Holy Spirit has to come to our aid in that respect, come to our side in that respect. But he wants to answer our prayers. The Holy Spirit comes alongside to make our prayers answerable by God.

God wants us to trust Him for the answers in His time. God has provided all that is needed in our prayer life. Pretty astounding, these two are pretty astounding testimony of what God has done. The depths that He's gone to to make sure that He can answer our prayers are pretty amazing.

So I thought I would just end here. I have one more part. Our part is to trust His provision in our prayer life. Okay, so to close out here, I thought I'd just read, you know, Weiss does an incredible job sometimes, and this is one of the outstanding cases, so let's just read from his translation these two verses.

And in like manner, also the Spirit lends us a helping hand with reference to our weakness, singular, for the particular thing that we should pray for according to what is necessary in the nature of the case. Boy, that's really, for the particular thing we should pray for according to what is necessary in the nature of the case.

Boy, we don't have a clue many times. We do not know with absolute knowledge, but the spirit himself comes to our rescue by interceding with unutterable groanings. Moreover, he who constantly searching our hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit, because according to God, he continually makes intercession on our behalf.

Hopefully that was helpful. I know it's just a fabulous lesson. Think about it, pray about it, and don't forget the Holy Spirit, you know, it's not like, I've heard some people kind of do it, you know, it's like a yes, no gate, you know, Holy Spirit, yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, you know, I don't, it's nothing like, I don't think it's like that. He cares, He's with us, He loves us. God is our life, Christ is our life, and the Holy Spirit is God, and he's with us in our prayers, which I think is kind of the big takeaway. He's with us in our prayers. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this time. Thank you for the blessings we have in the Lord Jesus. We ask it in his name, amen.