The Spirit Helps Us

Sermon: Rom 8: 26-30 The Spirit Helps Us

Rom 8:26 “Likewise the Spirit also helps (*1) in our weaknesses.(*1a)
For we do not know (*2) what we should pray for as we ought,
but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us (*3) with groanings which cannot be uttered. (*4)
8:27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. (*5)
8:29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
8:30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
Introduction
In the hospital a sad parent looks at their sick child: “What do you think doctor?”
Doctor replies: “He hasn’t got a prayer!”
This is obviously bad news to the waiting parent. Someone who hasn’t got a prayer has less than no chance of recovery in our modern way of speaking! This attitude about prayer is common. Some people suggest you are in a desperate position if you get by on “a wing and a prayer.” Prayer is seen by many as the last measure you can take, an extreme action in a desperate situation. A human way of combating or coming to terms with evils that may come our way. Prayer is also thought by some to be a hopeless and meaningless or useless exercise. Many people think it is only a form of therapy for the distressed person, to relieve their mind and that prayer has no other measurable benefits.
But a person who believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will tell you otherwise. True in their experience is the saying in Hebrews:
“But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” (Heb 11:6)
Those who have no faith in Christ see little benefit in praying while those who trust the Saviour see no other way to get real help.
Those without Christ have never seen the results of prayer. Whereas those in Christ will tell you they cannot live without it.
David Watson, the well know evangelist Anglican priest, tells of the effect of prayer: “When We Pray, Coincidences Happen.”
“The leaders of the Clapham Sect of British social reformers such as William Wilberforce, daily gave themselves to three hours of prayer and organized Christians throughout the country to unite in special prayer before critical debates in Parliament. William Temple replied to his critics who regarded answered prayer as no more than coincidence, 'When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don't, they don't.”
(David Watson, Called & Committed, (Harold Shaw Publishers, Wheaton, IL; 1982), p. 83 Copied from: http://www.crosswalk.com/pastors/illustrations/)
Help!
A person who has experienced these “co-incidences” knows God has helped them or someone they have prayed for.
And so the writer in Romans 8 adds another way in which the Holy Spirit helps the Christian. This time He helps us in a very important way. He supports us and teaches us how to pray.
(26) Help is what we first discover about God. Indeed, Jesus promised to send another Helper: the Holy Spirit and He is here. We soon discover that we need His help. We are sinful and remain weak and dependant on God for every breath. That is why we came to Christ in the first place. We knew that we were in trouble with God and that we could find no way out except His revealed way of salvation through Jesus Christ.
C. H. Spurgeon says: “Prayer is the autograph of the Holy Ghost upon the renewed heart.” (C.H. Spurgeon’s Daily Help, Feb 14, BALTIMORE: R. H. WOODWARD & COMPANY, 1892.)
As Christians learn to pray, we keep on learning.
Who is not still learning? We are disciples or followers and learners aren’t we?
The Shorter Catechism of our church teaches:
Question 98. What is prayer?
Answer. “Prayer is an offering up of our desires unto God, for things agreeable to his will, in the name of Christ, with confession of our sins, and thankful acknowledgment of his mercies.”
As we learn to pray we realise more and more just how weak we are and how much we need God.
Verse 26 reveals that we have more than one weakness, yet He does not count them against us but instead has compassion on us and lifts us up to heaven to help us.

We Do Not Know What To Pray
Most of us would be the first to admit we need help in prayer. It is the Christian’s duty to pray, the believer’s privilege to pray, to have access to the King of Kings!
Paul, arguably the greatest Apostle, you may favour John perhaps, but Paul, this great man of God says that he too had weaknesses. He includes himself in the “weaknesses.” “In our weaknesses” he says (26).
He admits that he too did not know what to pray as he ought.
Now if Paul, and presumably the Apostle John had weaknesses, surely we would have to admit that we are full of weaknesses especially when it comes to prayer. “Then He came to the disciples, (one of whom was the Apostle John) and found them asleep, and said to Peter, ‘What? Could you not watch with Me one hour? Watch and pray, lest you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ ” (Mt 26:40-41) (Cf. I John 1:8 “If we say that we have no sin,” )
We are weak. Sadly, for many Christians they are like Samson that when his hair was cut, he did not know that the Lord had left him and that he was as weak as anyone else. Warned that the Philistines were coming, “he awoke from his sleep, and said, ‘I will go out as before, at other times, and shake myself free!’ But he did not know that the LORD had departed from him.” (Jud 16: 20) It is very sad.

We know we do not pray as much as we should…
Is it not true (?) that lot of what we do is still done in our own strength and wisdom?
That we do not spend much time in prayer asking God for His guidance and power?
We know we do not pray in the way that we should.
Do we know enough about God and what He expects of us to pray as we ought? What does the Bible say about this?
Paul says we do not know what we ought to pray for.
Like me, do you make a list and having gone through it think you have prayed what God wants you to pray about?

Have you remembered to pray for yourself lately?
To pray for your own needs?
Can I suggest the ‘ACTS’ prayer again? A-C-T-S.
A = Adoration of God for who He is,
C = Confession of personal sin.
T = Thanksgiving for His salvation, provision, and for all that Christ has done for you and continues to do for you.
S = Supplication: Prayers for others in need.

V26 b while we do not know: “For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought,” v. 27 says only God knows what the mind of the Spirit is. The Spirit is always ‘in tune’ with the will of God. He prays for us according to the will of God 27b.
We have the weakness that we do not know what we should pray for as we ought. Notice, it’s not just that we do not know what we should pray for but that we have an obligation to pray for what we ought to pray for. We ought to be praying for what interests God. For something of content, something important and significant to God, but we don’t know what that is.
Let me say here it is not enough to use our imagination. There is nowhere in Scripture, which is the mind of the Holy Spirit, the teaching of the Holy Spirit, that we are instructed to use our imagination to pray.
God’s word says the imagination is a dangerous place:
“I will never again curse the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every living thing as I have done.” (Gen 8:21)
Lk 1:51 “He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.”
We need to get into the word of God and see what God wants us to pray about. What did Jesus pray about? What’s on God’s heart?
Enabling
V 26 c. “the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us…”
God’s Spirit does not pray for us, instead of us, so that we do nothing, but,
the meaning is that as we open ourselves up completely to God’s will and let His Holy Spirit into our lives we are enabled to pray.
It is then and there that the Holy Spirit helps us spiritually. It’s a wonderful communication system and uses very little physical energy on our part. Even the weak and dying can pray and receive the Spirit’s help and deliverance.
V 26 d. On the mention of ‘groanings,’ the commentaries are not very satisfying on this verse. The plain meaning is that the Spirit groans on our behalf, for it says: “the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” In the Book of Jude we read: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God.” (Jude 1:20-21)
Paul writes in Eph 6:18 “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit…”
Groaning, whether on our part or the Spirit’s part, shows an intensity and effort which is not usually associated with prayer in the common or popular understanding. But Paul is one who learned to see prayer as an important and intense work. A work in which the person praying co-operates with God and, like Jesus, works at not only bringing the right things into His prayers, but gets to know the God who hears and answers prayer. It’s a dialogue and not a one way monologue. That’s where the effort comes in and maybe why we need so much help from the Holy Spirit.
Could it be that unless you have prayed with such intensity, groaning, at least spiritually, knowing in your own experience your great need of the Spirit’s help, that you have hardly prayed at all?
The Purpose is God’s
8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
V 28. MH says: It might be objected that, notwithstanding all these privileges, we see believers compassed about with manifold (many) afflictions; though the Spirit makes intercession for them, yet their troubles are continued. It is very true; but in this the Spirit’s intercession is always effectual, that, however it goes with them, all this is working together for their good.” (MH Com on Rom 8:28 See:
http://bible.crosswalk.com/Commentaries/MatthewHenryComplete/mhc-com.cgi?book=ro&chapter=008
Further: “All this we know — know it for a certainty, from the word of God, from our own experience, and from the experience of all the saints.”
There is a whole series of sermons in the phrase that begins this verse: “And we know…” since it has been God’s intention from the very beginning that we should know. He has always been determined to reveal His will and He revealed Himself and His purposes to all of us. Oh yes, we know alright.
We know about God, first from seeing creation, the natural world, telling us as Paul has already said in Ch.1: 20 “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse…”
From what is visible, i.e. the creation, what we can see of it shows us God’s invisible attributes. The created order points toward the God who made it and shows us two things about Him:
1. God’s eternal power.
2. God’s divine nature.
So we know things about God that some continue to deny at their peril. Paul says they suppress this knowledge so they can go on sinning. (Rom 1: 18) Because they are living in spiritual darkness, Paul goes so far as to say that while they profess to be wise they have become fools to deny God His proper place in their lives. (Ch.1 21-22)
God exists and is divine, no mere human, and shows everyone that He has eternal power. The hymn writer Isaac Watts says it well:
“Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame
From everlasting Thou art God
To endless years the same.”
(C.H. 601 and WOV 46 by Isaac Watts, from Ps 100)

What is not revealed by creation is Christ the Way of salvation. That is where the word of God comes in and it is in the Bible where the Spirit always points to Him as the Way, the Truth and the Life.
So we are in the position as Christians, of not only knowing that there is a Divine Person, God, who made everything and that this Person has eternal and stupendous power, but also that what happens to us is for a greater purpose that will do us good.
28 “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”
Often Christians are asked why their faith and prayers do not stop bad things happening to them and “the prince of preachers,” C.H. Spurgeon says:
“God often takes away our comforts and our privileges in order to make us better Christians. He trains His soldiers, not in tents of ease and luxury, but by turning them out and using them to forced marches and hard service. He makes them ford through streams, and swim through rivers, and climb mountains, and walk many a long mile with heavy knapsacks of sorrow on their backs. Well, Christian, may not this account for the troubles through which thou art passing? Is not the Lord bringing out your graces, and making them grow? Is not this the reason why he is contending with you?
‘Trials make the promise sweet;
Trials give new life to prayer;
Trials bring me to His feet,
Lay me low, and keep me there.’ ”
(C.H. Spurgeon: Morning; 18 Feb; "Morning and Evening.")

So what will you choose?
The belief that the Living God can hear and answer prayer? or that prayer is but a human invention for extreme situations merely to calm the troubled mind?
Your answer reveals one of two general attitudes to God.
Matthew Henry says this about this passage: “To a hypocrite, all whose religion lies in his tongue, (he can talk it but not walk it) nothing is more dreadful than that God searches the heart and sees through all his disguises. To a sincere Christian, who makes heart-work of his duty, nothing is more comfortable than that God searches the heart, for then he will hear and answer those desires which we want words to express.”
The unbeliever may say:

One of our planes was missing
Two hours overdue
One of our planes was missing
With all its gallant crew
The radio sets were humming
We waited for a word
Then a noise broke
Through the humming and this is what we heard

Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
Though there's one motor gone
We can still carry on
Comin' in on a wing and a prayer
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/on-a-wing-and-a-prayer.html

Or:
“the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Amen.