Let me start out this way. When my kids were small, when Rachel and Joshua were little, we had this game that we would play with them. It was not very complicated, but at least at a certain age they found it absolutely uproarious. You know, you'd start out making this big circle and then you get closer and closer and the circle would get smaller and smaller until you land right on their nose. Okay, you ever play that with your kids? Yeah, every parent did that at some time or other. Well, that's kind of what I'm going to do in the message this evening. Instead of having like three points in a poem or something like that, I'm going to start out sort of talking around a circle. And then as we talk, the circle is going to get tighter and tighter until, OK, I'm not going to land on your nose. I hope maybe I can land on your heart and trust the Lord to do some work there. We're going to be in Romans chapter eight this evening. You can be turning there. And the thrust of my message is that praying is a lot harder than you'd think. I mean, when you think about it, just praying, that doesn't seem like it ought to be very hard, right? How hard can it be to just talk to God? If it were that easy, wouldn't everybody be doing it? Wouldn't everybody be doing it all the time? Wouldn't everybody be doing it a lot? In one way, prayer is easy. You say grace before your meals. That's not hard to do. You say your morning prayers. You say your evening prayers. It's not hard to do those things. And yet, the more serious you become about the prayer life, the more it seems that you really struggle to do it effectively until finally you reach a point at which you feel like, I just need help. Now the good news is, help is available. But before we start to talk about the help, and before we start to talk about why we should take hope in the prayer life, I want to talk a little bit about some of what makes it so hard. And this is where we're kind of going around the big circle on the outside, okay? Why is it so hard to pray? Well, because the condition that we live in right now is really perplexing, even for us as believers. In fact, especially for us as believers. Because as we look at the world from a spiritual perspective, There are things that we have to try to put together that worldly people don't have to try to put together. They're just living at the level of the ordinary, the mundane. And yeah, sometimes that gets complicated, just like it does for us. But how tough can it be? On the other hand, when we're trying to put together the heavenly perspective and the earthly perspective, it seems sometimes that those two things don't want to go together. And Romans 8 talks about some of that. For example, Early in the chapter, the Apostle Paul is talking about the fact that the created order is still broken. Pick it up, let's see, where do I want to jump in here? In verse about 18. For I consider that the suffering, says Paul, of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. So right there you've got the crux of the dynamic. Glory is going to be revealed in us, but at the present time we are suffering for, he says, the earnest expectation of the creation. And the word creation here means the whole created order. Of the created order, eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the created order, the creation, was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself, the created order itself, also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole created order groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Paul is pointing out here that the whole created order is in pain. Creation is in agony. Now why is that? Why is creation groaning and laboring even until the present moment? The answer is all of that began When sin entered the world through one man, and through sin, death came into the world. Up to that point, the world had been a paradise. There was no sin. There was no death. There was no hardship. Animals didn't kill other animals. It was a perfect world. But when sin came in, death came in with it, and all the things that caused death came in with it. So, beginning with the fall, we begin to open up the possibility of things like pestilences, epidemics, fires, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis. All of those things come into the created order as the result of sin. And animals, which were created to live in harmony not only with humanity but with one another, begin to turn upon each other and animals begin to kill other animals. Can you imagine what it must have been like before the flood when Tyrannosaurus Rex was still wandering around the earth? How'd you like to meet up with that guy? Okay. The world is in pain because of sin. Here's the thing, if you ask the question, what has to be done in order to reverse the pain of the world, the answer is, it's already been done. What had to be done was the sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the cross and his resurrection from the dead, because that's what deals with sin. You understand, at the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ permanently and decisively defeated sin, and he defeated death, and he defeated the devil. All of those are now conquered enemies. And that's where the puzzling part comes in. It's not puzzling that there ever was death in the world. It's not puzzling that the world was a place of pain. What's puzzling is that it still is a place of pain. Because the decisive battle has been fought, it has been won, and yet we don't see the victory. We're not going to see the victory until Jesus comes again and actually institutes the redemption of the created order. He's paid for it, the work has been done, but He hasn't yet implemented us. So here we are between these two events. The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, from our perspective, that's a long time ago. The redemption of the created order when Jesus comes again and heals everything, that's still in the future. And we're caught in between, we're in the middle between those two. And that can be very puzzling for us. Because of sin and death in the world, we know that sin and death are not God's will in general. And yet God has not yet acted to end sin and death. And so there are a lot of things that come into our lives that aren't God's will ultimately and in general. In the distant future, those things will be abolished permanently. But for the moment, right now, they are at least part of God's permissive will. They are what he allows in his creation in order to accomplish his greater purpose. And of course, we learn something about what that greater purpose is when we look, for instance, into Peter. And he talks about the fact that there are scoffers who say nothing has changed from the beginning. But the reason that's true is because God is long-suffering. He's being patient with people. He's giving them time to repent. If God implemented the eschaton, if God implemented the perfect world right now, he would have to judge all unsafe people this moment. And he's not willing to do that, not yet. And so here we are, we're stuck in between. It's kind of like the people, a few of you in this room are old enough to remember when the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, that was the decisive event that ended the Second World War. The moment that bomb exploded, and I'm not arguing one way or the other on the virtues of deploying nuclear weapons right now. I don't want to get into that mess, okay? I'm simply saying, when that happened, Japan was beaten. Japan was defeated. But that wasn't V-J Day. V-J Day didn't come until some time later on. In between, there was a process of sorting out. And even after V-J Day, not all of the Japanese troops had heard about the end of the war. Some of them went on fighting for decades in little remote islands on the Philippines and places like that. There had to be a lot of work done, even after the decisive battle. Well, for us, the decisive battle has been fought, but the end hasn't come, and we're stuck in the middle somewhere. And so we look at the things, the painful things, the trials that come into our lives, and we say, I want to be rid of these things. And yet part of us knows it is not yet God's will to abolish all of those painful trials. So when we're in the middle of them, how are we supposed to pray? Kind of a tough one, isn't it? But it's even worse than that. Not only is the created order still broken, but we ourselves are still broken. Verse 23, not only that, not only is the created order still broken, but we also, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves, grown within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we are saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope. For why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance. Paul is saying not only is the created order still broken, we ourselves are broken. We have this difference in our lives between what theologians call our standing and our state. Our standing is what we have been made in Christ Jesus. Do you realize, according to the epistle to the Ephesians, We have been accepted in the beloved and we are presently seated in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. As far as God is concerned, positionally, we are already seated with Jesus in the Father's throne. And that's a wonderful, wonderful thing. Not only that, we have been positionally justified. That means that we have been declared righteous. We have been positionally sanctified. That means God has announced to the entire universe that as far as he is concerned, we are holy. That's our standing, that's our position, but what's our state? Well, my life has not been entirely holy today. Has yours? I have not lived entirely righteously today. Did you? I notice nobody's answering that out loud. Not only that, I may in God's mind be seated in the heavenlies with Christ Jesus. I may be a ruler and glorious, but that's sure not how I felt today. That's my state. We have this juxtaposition between standing and state, between the things that have been accomplished for us in Christ versus the things that we actually experience in our day-by-day lives. The battle has been won, but our bodies are still devastated by sin. Every one of us is growing older by the second, and as we grow older, more and more of us begins to fall apart, or at least to fall out. And not only is that true with our bodies, our hearts are still divided. Yes, when we were regenerated, our hearts were reshaped so that we began to love God. That's something we could not do before the Holy Spirit changed us. But that change has not yet been perfected. There is still part of us that loves sin. And that's the struggle that we face every day, this battle between these two loves. God intends to glorify us, but he hasn't done it yet. When he glorifies us, our bodies will be healed, but he hasn't done it yet. When he glorifies us, our hearts will be made one with his own, but he hasn't done it yet. And we know ourselves well enough to know at least that we ought to be suspicious when we begin to pray. Because even though we may pray, Lord not my will but thine, what we mean is Lord not my will but thine as long as thine matches mine. And the result of that of course is that not only is the created order still broken, not only are we ourselves still broken, but our prayers are broken. Because we're caught between the times, because we're caught between the decisive victory and the end of the battle, we sometimes don't know exactly where we stand or exactly what God is doing with us. because God has not yet chosen to restore creation, because God has not yet chosen to glorify us. We know that there are things that we will have to face, and at least it is within God's permissive will that we should face them. And yet, on the other hand, we know that these things are not in themselves good, and ultimately they're going to be defeated, but how should we pray about them in the here and now? So I have a loved one who has cancer, let's say. Is it God's will for me to pray here and now invariably that my loved one should be completely healed of cancer and God will answer that prayer positively? Is that God's direction? No, it isn't. You see, if it were that simple, none of us would ever die, would we? We just pray and God would marvelously prolong our lives until we were ready to go home and be with him. And then I suppose we could simply utter the prayer that he would catch us up into his presence in a, I don't know, fiery whirlwind or something. He's done it before. Couldn't he do it for us? We're caught between the times. And so knowing what to pray for can be a difficult thing. And we know the dividedness of our own hearts. And we know that our hearts are still deceitful and they will trick us into asking God for things that really, if we confronted ourselves seriously, we would know aren't the best for us. This is what makes praying such hard business. And this is why we often become frustrated in our prayer lives, because we don't know what to ask for. And if we do know what to ask for, sometimes we don't know how to ask for it. Sometimes we simply don't know how to frame the request to God. What are we supposed to do? We need help. It's like we're trying to carry this big, heavy piece of furniture by ourselves, and what we really need is somebody to pick up the other end of it. Actually, we need somebody to pick it up about three feet from the other end, while we just sort of hang on to this little corner here. Dr. Zempel used to say, it's like the mouse that was riding the elephant when they went over the bridge, and the mouse said to the elephant, we sure shook that one, didn't we? We're the mouse. We need somebody to give us serious help. And now, here's where we've been going around the circle now. We're starting to come in for a landing. God has provided serious help. Verse 26, Likewise, 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. Now, he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. What we are being told here is that the Holy Spirit is our helper. You need to remember this isn't the first time the Holy Spirit has shown up in this chapter. In fact, in a certain sense, this chapter is all about the Holy Spirit. Beginning in verse 1, There is therefore no condemnation to them who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. We have the first mention of the Spirit there, and there's some question about the text at that point as to whether the reference to the Spirit should be there, but at the latest, the beginning of verse 2, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. And from that point onwards, we have mention after mention after mention of the Holy Spirit. Let me just review some of what the Spirit does. In verses 8 and 9, we are told that those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but we're not in the flesh. But in the Spirit, we are in the Spirit. You ever hear a Christian say, well, I did that because I just got in the flesh? If you're from the South, you've heard that expression. No, if you're a Christian, you cannot get in the flesh. If you are a Christian, you are not in the flesh. You are in the Spirit if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. If the Spirit lives in you, you are in the Spirit now. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. In other words, if the Spirit doesn't live in you, you don't belong to Jesus Christ at all. Or to reverse that, if you belong to Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit of God definitely lives in you. That's why He can be your helper. In verses 14 and 15, excuse me, in verse 11, but if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, remember the indwelling Holy Spirit, if the Spirit lives in us, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you. In other words, because the Holy Spirit lives in us, we have the guarantee of a glorious resurrection. The Spirit is going to raise us from the dead. The Spirit is going to glorify us just as He raised Jesus from the dead. In verses 14 and 15, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by which we cry out, Abba, Father. The Spirit who lives in us leads us. Not maybe. He does lead us. If we are children of God, the Spirit of God does lead us. And He teaches us to cry out to our Father. In other words, already in verses 14 and 15, we are beginning to discover the connection of the Holy Spirit to our prayer life. Much of our prayer life is prompted by the Holy Spirit as He leads us. In verses 16 and 17, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and of children and heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. In other words, this indwelling Holy Spirit creates in us the assurance that we really are God's children. And along with the knowledge, the awareness that we are God's children, comes the really joyful looking forward to of the fact that we are going to be glorified together with Christ. How do we know that? Because the Spirit is already in us. He assures us of our standing. He assures us of our destiny. In verse 23, He's called the first fruits. If you remember what the first fruits was in the Old Testament, If you were a farmer and you had a crop that was coming to ripeness, you would take the very first things that became ripe, whatever kind of a crop you were growing. If it was wheat, you would take the first few stalks of ripe wheat. If it was fruit, if it was, let's say, olives, you would take the first few ripe olives and you would take them as an offering and present them to the priests in the tabernacle or the temple. It was the firstfruits offering, and the idea was that these firstfruits are representative of everything that's going to come. Well, here it's the reverse. The Holy Spirit has been given to us by God as His firstfruits offering to us, and the Holy Spirit functions as a foretaste of all of the glory that's going to come. You know, we talk about going to heaven someday, but in fact, because we're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, a part of heaven lives in us already. This all provides the background. All of this work of the Holy Spirit that Paul is writing about in chapter 8 provides the background for what he says in verse 26. Now that we know all of that, he says, here's something else the Holy Spirit does. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. You know, here we are and we're trying to move the piano and we're not doing it so well. By the way, I had to move a piano all by myself one time when Debbie and I moved to Texas to go to Dallas Seminary. We got to the house and there were supposed to be some people there to help us unload and they never showed up. And so I went and rented a furniture dolly and unloaded the whole truck, including the piano, all by myself. It was a really interesting day. And I really wished that I had somebody who was able to get on the other end of that thing and manage it for me. Ever feel that way about life? I just wish there was somebody who could get on the other end of this thing and manage it for me. Well, there is. The Holy Spirit helps our weakness. Why? How does He help us? We don't know what we should pray for as we ought. That's our problem. It's one thing not to be able to manage all the details ourselves. It's an even bigger problem if we want God's help and we don't even know what to ask Him for in managing the details of our lives. But the Holy Spirit intercedes with us, or intercedes for us, with unutterable groanings. I take that to mean that the things we can't figure out how to say, either because we don't know what to ask for or because we don't know how to ask for it, those are the very things that the Holy Spirit takes over and says for us. Now, I don't think he's doing this, by the way, while we're sitting and watching the Vikes lose. And I know he doesn't do it while we're watching the Vikes win, because that just doesn't happen. I think this is all about prayer. We're praying and we don't know how to pray, and yet our hearts are crying out to God. I think it's at that moment that the Holy Spirit is taking over and interceding for us. He is framing the prayer we wish we could pray The prayer that we would pray if we knew how to pray it, but we don't. He's taking over for us. He's interceding. And God, you know, God is able to look at our hearts. God knows what's going on in our hearts. He doesn't need to hear us speak to know what we're thinking, to know what we're feeling. God is able to see the inner person in that same way, the way that we are perfectly transparent to God, in that same way the Holy Spirit is perfectly transparent to God. And so as the Holy Spirit is framing these unutterable words in His thoughts, God is perceiving what is going on in the mind of the Spirit. Now, He who searches the hearts, that's God, knows what the mind of the Spirit is. That's the Holy Spirit as He is interceding for us. God knows what the Spirit is praying because He, the Holy Spirit, makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. We need a helper. We've got a helper. It doesn't matter how perplexing the circumstances are. It doesn't matter how uncertain we are. of our own hearts and motives. We have a person living in us to whom we can go and who we can trust to take over for us when our own thoughts are too small and our own capacity to frame language fails. And we can trust him to pray the things that we don't know how to pray. What does this mean to us practically? It means that when you're praying and you're trying to talk to God, and all of a sudden you are just stopped, you're blocked. You just don't know what to say. Or you've got a general idea of what you want to talk to God about, but you just don't know how to say it to Him. You ever have that experience? You just stopped. You just blocked. What this means is that when that happens, you don't just close your Bible, set it down, stand up, walk away and do the dishes or go off to work. It means you just remain there in an attitude of prayer. Even if you can't think of the things you want to say to God, just keep your heart open to God. Keep your mind open to God and let the Holy Spirit say for you what needs to be said. And He will. And that is still praying on your part because you're trusting the Holy Spirit to do it. In fact, you might even address the Holy Spirit and just say, Holy Spirit of God, I don't know how to do this right now. Would you please do it for me as I try to pray? And by the way, don't be surprised when you do that. If all of a sudden things that you would never have thought to say begin to show up in your mind. And no, I'm not claiming that the Holy Spirit is revealing anything to you at that point. What I am saying is that sometimes the Holy Spirit gets the mental blocks out of the way and he takes the debris out of our hearts and he allows us to think clearly and to pray clearly the things that we would want to pray. But even if he doesn't, he's doing it for us. When we get really proficient at prayer as a church, there are even times as a congregation or we may pray this way. Have you ever noticed in church that silence is embarrassing? Have you ever got that sense? Here the pastor is praying and all of a sudden in the middle of his prayer he stops and doesn't say anything for maybe five or six seconds in a row. Or he's preaching a sermon and He stops and he doesn't say anything for 10 or 15 seconds. And you wonder, did he lose his place in his notes? Did he forget where he was at? God uses silence. And sometimes we need just patiently to wait upon God during the silence, and especially if it's a time of prayer. You just trust the Holy Spirit. Whatever the cause of that silence is, and we may not know. Whatever the cause of that silence is, the Holy Spirit is praying. He is interceding for the people of God. We have help. Can we pray? Father, we do live in a perplexing world. We rejoice in the decisive victory which was won by the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. And we look forward with yearning to the day when he will return and implement that victory upon earth. In the meanwhile, we confess that we are often puzzled and perplexed. We simply don't know how we ought to pray sometime or even what we ought to pray for. But we thank you for giving us this inner helper, this wonderful third person of the Godhead who is co-equal and co-eternal and consubstantial with yourself. This person who knows us in intimate detail because he lives in us. This person who knows you in intimate detail because he is your spirit. This person whose mind is open and transparent before you and who can represent us so faithfully and so perfectly in all the things that we wish that we could say. We give you thanks and praise for this kind of help. In Jesus' name, Amen.