We sang that song, he will hold me fast, and what good news that is, that he holds us fast, though we are so prone to wander, and that's something that you're gonna see in the text that is before us today, and so I'm gonna ask you to please remain standing, take your Bibles, and turn to Romans chapter eight. Romans chapter eight, the scripture reading is gonna be verses 26, and 27. Two verses. Romans chapter 8 verses 26 and 27. I noticed that we are now about halfway through Romans. We've been in this book for over a year and we're now halfway through it, and when we're going about two verses at a time, it looks like we're going to be in it for quite a while still. But I was going to do a larger portion, but these two verses just take us a while to fully understand this. So verses 26 and 27 of Romans chapter 8, God's word says this. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we are so grateful for these verses that are before us today. We're so grateful for the work of the Holy Spirit, which you have given us. We ask, Lord, that your spirit would now bless the preaching of your word. We pray that I would handle this text accurately, and we ask, Lord, that you would give us understanding. For your great praise and glory, we pray in Jesus Christ's name, amen. You may please be seated. And I'm gonna mention a name that I think all of you are familiar with him, at least in one way or another, and that, of course, or not, of course, that is Jonathan Edwards, who again, of course, I think you all know at least a little about him. Jonathan Edwards was born in 1703. He died in 1758. He was just 54 years old when he died. I think he died from smallpox or something like that. He had just become the president of Princeton, or at that time it was called the College of New Jersey, later to become Princeton University. He is considered the greatest intellect this country has ever produced. I certainly think of him that way. He also, for you history buffs, he is the grandfather of Aaron Burr. Aaron Burr was the third vice president of the United States. Well, Jonathan Edwards was his grandfather. And because of his sermon, his famous sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, he is thought by many people to be this hell, fire, and brimstone type preacher, when usually he spoke quietly. He wasn't like that at all. Unlike Spurgeon, unlike George Whitefield and others, his voice wasn't given toward large audiences. He never used loud volume. He never used exaggerated gestures. Instead, he relied on vivid imagery and the logical arguments of his sermons to convict people. Though he was trained to be logical and rational, Edwards insisted that true Christianity is primarily rooted in the affections, not in reason. In other words, genuine love for God is true Christianity, not just head knowledge, not just an understanding of doctrine. Last week, we saw people speak about, people, Paul, speak about the Christian hope. And remember, that hope is a present assurance of a future reality. Well, Edwards also spoke about hope. about assurance. In fact, he spoke often about false hope or false assurance that people had. And for him, one of the key tests for your assurance, whether you're a Christian or not, for him, it was prayer. Prayer was essential to Edwards. And one of his biographers, his name is George Marsden, he says this. He says, quote, he began the day with private prayers, followed by family prayers. Each meal was accompanied by household devotions, and at the end of each day, Sarah joined him in his study for more prayers. Biographer goes on and says prayer for Edwards was both planned and informally scheduled and spontaneous on a daily basis. From the time when his teenage soul first began to experience what he called that sort of inward sweet delight in God and divine things, from that point on it was as though Edwards could not think long of God without speaking or singing to him. Prayer seemed natural to me, he wrote, of the change in his life. as the breath by which the inward burnings of my heart had vent." In other words, he loved God so much that this inward burning, prayer became natural, he had to speak to God. And therefore, people, it was inconceivable. to Jonathan Edwards, that anyone could know God, that anyone could know the love of God and what God has done and not be compelled by the sweetness and the love of God to then go to him often in prayer. In fact, his biographer says this, does it seem contrary to Edwards' understanding of scripture that anyone could be indwelled by the spirit who causes God's children to cry out Abba Father Remember, this is Romans 8. And yet not cry out to the Father in regular, private prayer. Remember, Paul says that. The Holy Spirit causes us to cry out, you know, Abba, Father. Well, if that's true, shouldn't we be people that pray often? Wouldn't that be a good test? Men and women, prayer was so essential for Jonathan Edwards that the idea of a Christian who did not pray was to him preposterous. In fact, we oftentimes think of his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, we often think of this as his most convicting sermon. Well, he also preached a sermon called, now get this, called Hypocrites Deficient in the Duty of Prayer. Think of that title, hypocrites deficient in the duty of prayer. In that sermon he says this, I would exhort those who have entertained a hope of their being true converts and who since their supposed conversion have left off the duty of secret prayer and ordinarily allow themselves in the omission of it to throw away their hope. If you have left off calling upon God, it is time for you to leave off hope and flattering yourself with an imagination that you are children of God, end of quote. Ouch. Now, as you can guess, the subject of our message today is prayer. And that's what we see in those verses. But unlike what I just read from Jonathan Edwards, I will assure you up front that Paul's exhortation here is gonna be a little bit more comforting. It's gonna be a little bit more encouraging to you. Because Paul is going to acknowledge our weakness. It's a weakness all of us have. He's gonna acknowledge our weakness and encourage us by telling us what our loving God has done for us. Two things you should notice today. One is our weakness. That will be evident. But the other is the Spirit's work, what God, this loving God does for us. Notice how verse 26 begins. Verse 26, Romans chapter 8, begins with the word likewise. Now your translation, I think King James also begins likewise, your translation may say in the same way. But either way, you know, this word is a connecting word. It's connecting what he's gonna say now about prayer to something that has gone before. And what is that? What's it connecting specifically to? Well, there's two views on that. First view is this, as perhaps the most popular view among commentators, it links his words on prayer to what we just saw last week. Remember the Christian hope, the hope we have in Christ, the idea that, yes, we suffer in this life, but remember, as a Christian, we have this hope, this present assurance of the future, the redemption of our bodies and the heaven that awaits. And so the idea is this, that we can handle suffering really in two ways. One is by hope, by looking forward to the redemption of our bodies, as we saw, but then now, you know, sorry. I thought I had done that. Now, he shows us, the argument would be, now prayer. Here's two ways we can handle suffering. By hope, and then by prayer. Well, there's a second view. And that view does this. It goes back to verses 15 and 17. It says what these verses are doing is connecting with the verses we saw in 15 and 17. And remember, those verses taught us that the Holy Spirit enables us to pray and assures us that we are truly God's children. And therefore, we cry out, Abba, Father. Now, that was verses 15 and 17. Well, then the argument goes like this. Then Paul left that idea about prayer, talked to us about Christian suffering, the hope we have in Christ, and now he's returning back to that theme. Having dealt with suffering now, he goes back to the subject of the Spirit's work in prayer. Specifically, that the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Once again, remember, the theme of this chapter is assurance. The assurance that we can have that we are indeed in Christ. And the point is this. The Holy Spirit's help in prayer is another way we can know that we are God's children. I, however, think both. are true. I think certainly it connects us with prayer from verses 15 and 17. It also connects us with what just went before. All of this is true. You know, it does, obviously it is true that we have hope and we have prayer when we're going through suffering. But it is also true that he will help us in our weakness concerning that. Now there's three words that are key to understanding what Paul is telling us here. First word is weakness. In the very beginning of the verse, Paul says this. Look at verse 26. The spirit helps us in our weakness. Now I find that extremely encouraging, and so should you. Why? Here's why. Because I, like all of you, have often struggled with prayer. I have often struggled in a vibrant, prayer life. I have oftentimes struggled knowing what specifically to pray. In fact, before I moved down here to Southern California, I've told you before, I was being discipled by a missionary. His name is Dr. Dick Hillis. He's the founder of Overseas Crusades. He had been a missionary to mainland China and he was a missionary in Taiwan. He is one of the godliest men I have ever met. He worked tirelessly for the kingdom. He and his wife Margaret had literally lived in a mud hut in China in the 50s. They were almost killed through the communists rising there and so forth. And yet he told me, this is going way back, but he told me that his greatest difficulty in his Christian life was not courage, not commitment, You know, it's not love of the world. His greatest difficulty was disciplining himself in prayer. Now, here's why this is so encouraging, though. Notice what Paul says. He says the Spirit helps us in our weakness. There's two things here. First of all, we have the promise of the Spirit's help. That alone should encourage you. But what I find so greatly encouraging is the second thing is this. Notice Paul includes himself. Notice he doesn't say, you know, the spirit helps you in your weakness. He says the Spirit helps us in our weakness. He's including himself in this. Even Paul recognized a weakness that we all have in prayer. In other words, the weakness that makes prayer so difficult is not something that just new Christians experience. It's not something that just weak Christians, immature Christians experience. It's something that even our godliest Christians struggle with. In other words, it's part of our human condition. It's part of what it means to be human. This is an area we struggle with. And I'm going to give you two biblical examples. One is Elijah. Elijah was this great prophet. You know, he was a courageous man. And you remember the famous story where, you know, he stood against the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel and all of that. What happened after that? After that great victory at Mount Carmel, What happens? Well, he retreats to the desert, fearing Jezebel. Jezebel wants to kill him, and he prays. What's his prayer? It's this. I have had enough, Lord. Take my life. I'm no better than my ancestors. That's 1 Kings 19. That's Elijah. It's not the best prayer in the world. What about Job? I bring Job up for this reason. God himself said of Job, said that there was no one on earth like him, blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil. And yet, because of the things that happened to him, he was confused. He didn't quite know how to pray, and he prayed this. Why have you made me your target? Why have I become a burden to you? Why do you not pardon my offenses and forgive my sin? People, Elijah teaches us that a person can be courageous and still not know what to pray, Job teaches us that a person can be righteous and still have the same problem, what to pray. When that takes us back to this word weakness, what weakness is Paul referring to? Is it physical weakness? Is it a physical weakness we have regarding prayer? We do have that, don't we? Years ago, and I might have said this before, but years ago, I had this goal that I was gonna spend all night praying for everybody by name in this church. And this was years ago when the church was about twice this size. And I lived in Upland, which was 40 miles away. And I didn't want to drive all the way there and then come back to pray all night. So I just stayed here. I went to dinner, studied. And then, I don't know, I think at 10 or 11 o'clock I said, okay, I'm going to pray all night for everybody in this church. One of the Korean, we had a Korean church here, one of the Korean women, I called her hymonim, that means grandma, she made me actually a kneeling pillow. And she had made this for me, and so I had my kneeling pillow, and I was gonna be on my knees praying for every single person by name in this church. And again, I think I began about 10 o'clock or 11 o'clock or whatever, got on my knees, The phone, you know, church phone book started with the Allens, and I might have made it to the Ds or so, but I have a couch in my office. And the couch was behind me, and as I was getting sleepy, I thought, well, it won't hurt to just lay down a little bit. And I woke up on my couch in the morning. I had good intentions, but I was physically weak. Now, is that what Paul means here by our weakness? Well, what is the weakness he's referring to? Well, he tells you in the next part of verse 26. He tells you, doesn't he? For we do not know what to pray for as we ought. That's our weakness. In other words, the issue Paul is referring to is not how to pray, is not when to pray, is not how long to pray, but it is what you see right there, the issue of what to pray. We don't know what we should ask of God. What is God's will for us and for others? We don't know that. As one man says, in our human limitations we simply do not know how to pray rightly. That's a problem for all of us. But now, we see some tremendous news, don't we? Look at the very end of verse 26. The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Now people, that brings up the second word I want you to notice. That word is groaning or groanings. People, who's doing the groaning here? Is it our groanings or is it the Spirit's groanings? Now, many people consider it our groanings. I think we've all experienced this. In fact, Steve was just telling me about a friend of his who's going through this terrible time in his life. And we've all gone through these terrible times where when we go to pray, we can't even find the words. We're in such pain, so struggling, and we just groan. Well, the idea, you know, we're praying, but all we can do is groan. The idea is, well, the Holy Spirit comes along and then he prays for us. We can only groan, but he then brings the words to the Lord. Well, others say, well, this is tongues. This is glossalia, that's what my mother-in-law would say. No, clearly this is tongues, and we don't know what we're saying, but the Holy Spirit, we're praying this special prayer language from God. We can eliminate that one. It's not tongues. And here's why. Because Paul says that the groanings, whatever they are, they're too deep for words. Well, tongues is words. It's real words. We might not know what they are, but they're real words. So it can't be that. We can rule out tongues. But if we look at the context, it becomes much clearer, much easier to see what this is. The word grown is used three times in verses 22 through 26. First it's used in verse 22 referring to nature, referring to an inanimate object. Nature, look at verse 22, it says, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. Nature, creation groans. Well, then it's used in verse 23, referring to redeemed people. Look at verse 23. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly, as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. So you have nature groans, then you have people groan, and now you have the Holy Spirit. groans. You see the progression there? But still, what does it mean? What is this groaning that he's referring to? Does it mean the Holy Spirit can't find the right words? You know, that even the Holy Spirit can't find that? No, that's not at all what it means. I will confess to you that I have for a long time struggled with understanding this text. In fact, I was among the first group that I described. For years and years, I taught that what this is, is you're going through some terrible thing, and you're just groaning, you don't have the right words, but God has given us the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit takes that groaning for us, puts it in words. But there's a third word I want you to notice that will help us to understand this. That word is in the beginning of verse 26. The word is helps. In fact, I looked at different translations, they all translated, all the ones I looked at translated helps. And that's one of those cases where there just isn't a good enough English word to communicate what the Greek word is saying here. We translate it helps. That's really not good enough. That's the best English word we have for it. The Greek word is sunantillambenetai. Big, long Greek word. But that big, long Greek word is actually several smaller Greek words put together. Now, I know some of you have Greek Bibles, and some of you are looking at Suna until Embenetai, right now. Let me tell you, here's what it is. You have the first part of it, sune. Sune means with, along with, together with, then anti, and anti can mean against, but it can also mean for, or in place of. Then you have the main part of the word, lambano, which means to take, to take hold of, to remove, to bear, and you put it all together. You put all that together in this Greek word, and it basically means this. A person coming alongside another to take part of a heavy load to help him bear it. That's what it means. It's a great word. Let me illustrate it for you. On the 4th of July, Yobi and Anika were moving out of their apartment. Josh helped them move. Now we would say it that way, Josh helped Yobi move. Really what Josh did was sunantilamanitai. What he did, that would be a much better word. What he did was he came alongside Yobi, to take part of the heavy load to help him to bear it. That's what this is saying. That's what this verse is speaking of. We have a heavy load. We have a burden. Well, what is it? It's our ignorance of what to pray for. And we struggle under that burden. But God, the Holy Spirit comes along and helps us shoulder that load. So put it all together, people. Obviously the groanings here does not mean that the Holy Spirit is unable to put his concerns into words. Well, what's in view? What's in view is the idea of bearing a heavy burden for someone. And a groan is appropriate to burden bearing, isn't it? In fact, just ask Obi and Josh, they'll tell you. Groans are very appropriate to burden bearing. Like I said, I have often struggled with this verse. Just what is Paul teaching us? And I have looked, especially this week, I looked at John MacArthur, D. Martin Lloyd-Jones, Douglas Moo, who else? R.C. Sproul, and others trying to get a grasp on what is this teaching us? And I think that James Boyce has nailed it. I am indebted to him for this explanation. I want you to listen to what he says. Now remember, a groan is an appropriate response for burden bearing. Remember, that's what the Holy Spirit does. He bears this burden that we have in prayer for us. And now here's what Boyce says. I think this is marvelous. He says, suppose you are helping someone carry a very heavy load. Again, ask Josh what that's like. What is more expressive, a groan as you stagger along beneath it, or a great deal of articulate chatter? Now think about this, you guys. You're carrying this load. What do you want to hear from the other person who's bearing this burden with you? You want to hear all this articulate chatter, or you just want to hear them groaning? Here's what he says. He says, suppose your helper is saying, my, this piano is heavy. They certainly do make pianos heavy and awkward too. Probably we should have spent the money and gone ahead and hired professional piano movers. I don't think I want to do this very often. Have you ever moved a piano before? And then he says this, he says, if you were struggling with the heavy load too, that is probably the last thing you want to hear. If someone is chattering away like that, you would probably just want to tell this so-called helper to shut up and lift the piano. A real burden bearer groans with you. I suggest, I'm still quoting, I suggest that this is the image Paul is using. The bearing of our prayer burden does not have to be in words. Why does it not have to be in words? Because as the passage goes on to say in verse 27, God who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit and answers accordingly. Men and women, again, this should be a great encouragement to you. It's true. We do not know what to pray. That is part of our human weakness that we all struggle with, the great saints alike. But the spirit does, and he has been given to us by God to assist us in this area. And so men and women, how do we apply this? Well, the application should be simple, shouldn't it? First of all, don't expect prayer to be easy. And why should it be easy? Nothing else in the Christian life is easy. Why should prayer be easy? But second, look again at the beginning of verse 26. It says, likewise, the Spirit helps us. The verse is not saying that we do nothing and let the Holy Spirit pray for us. It says He helps us. It assumes that you are praying. And if you are not, if you don't pray, men and women, then maybe Jonathan Edwards is correct. When he said, if you have left off calling upon God, it is time for you to leave off hoping and flattering yourselves with an imagination that you are children of God. Men and women, this verse is meant to be a comfort to you. But if you do not pray, then maybe what is meant to comfort you should in fact convict you, convict you of your need to come to Christ and to confess this sin, but to remember that Christ welcomes us to come to himself, to come to him repenting of our sins and come to him and find forgiveness because there is good news, isn't there? We just saw in verse 26, that we have a Holy Spirit who comes alongside of us and helps us bear the burden that we have in prayer. What good news that is. What a comfort. Remember when Jesus said that he would send the Holy Spirit? He referred to the Holy Spirit as a paraclete. What's a paraclete? Well, it's what we just saw. It's one who comes alongside of another. But that same word is also used by John to refer to Jesus. We need a paraclete. We need someone who will come alongside of us, not just in prayer, but we need someone who comes alongside of us because of our sins. And whether it's a delinquency in prayer or whatever our sins are, we need someone who comes alongside of us that comforts us, someone who comes alongside and takes that burden from us, who bears that burden for us. And John tells us that's Jesus Christ. He is our paraclete. He is the one who comes alongside of us, and he has taken that burden for us. Men and women, do you pray? Is it a part of your life? Is it a fervent prayer that you desire? If not, Jonathan Edwards would say, maybe you don't really know Christ. Maybe you don't really know God, and you don't have a fond affection for him. But the good news is, again, whatever our sins are, God tells us to come to him to confess those sins, and he's ready and able to forgive us through the paraclete we have, the comforter we have, Jesus Christ, who has taken those sins upon himself. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we do indeed thank you for your grace and for your mercy. Oh Lord, what amazing grace this is indeed. that though we are sinners, though we have failed in so many ways, Lord, you have supplied a comforter for us. You have supplied one to take that sin away, your own son, Jesus Christ. And we thank you, Lord, that even in the matter of prayer, where we are so weak and so deficient, we thank you that you have given us the Holy Spirit, who likewise comes alongside and bears this burden for us. O Lord, how grateful we are for you. May this great love, may your great compassion for us cause us to flee to you and to indeed be men and women of prayer. We pray in Jesus Christ's name, amen.