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All right, so if you could open
up your Bibles to Romans 8, please. We'll be looking at, we'll be
pretty much camped out here in 8, verse 26 and 27. I wanna take a close look at this verse
and the role the Holy Spirit plays when it comes to our prayers
as believers. This came about the other while
back. I was in a situation where I
didn't know how to handle it or I didn't know what to say.
I remember putting up a quick prayer for a little bit of wisdom
and the emergency of the situation passed, but as I thought about
the situation and how to continue forward, it occurred to me I
had no idea even what to pray for. And then this verse, the
Holy Spirit brought to remembrance this verse. Romans 8, 26 and
27. Likewise, the spirit also helps
in our weakness 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 heart
knows the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession
for the saints according to the will of God. At the time, I'll
be honest with you, I didn't actually remember the reference,
but I remembered the truth of the verse that came through loud
and clear. But first of all, I want to review some basics
truths about prayer. Prayer is the Greek word prosike,
and it means to speak to or remake quests of God. This is communing or communicating
with God. We can do this with conversational
prayer, and that is speaking or communicating with God in
the same way we would communicate with friends and family. So just
everyday conversation, speaking with God on an everyday conversational
base. Psalms 116, one and two, says, I love the Lord because
he has heard my voice and my supplications, because he has
inclined his ear to me. Therefore, I'll call upon him
as long as I live. First Thessalonians 5.17, a short
verse. Oops, says, pray without ceasing. So if we're gonna pray without
ceasing, a part of that is gonna be conversational. The other type of prayer we see
in the Bible or we can participate is laboring prayer. This is extended
periods of time dedicated to God, to prayer with God. We just had a 20, 30 minute extended
period of time dedicated to prayer with God. We can consider that. The examples I have here is Daniel
in the lion's den. Now, when Daniel knew the writing
was signed, he went home and in his upper room, with his windows
open towards Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times
that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was
his custom since the early days. So this is what something Daniel
did three times a day. The Lord Jesus Christ, when he
walked the earth, When it came to pass in those days, he went
out to the mountain to pray and he continued all night in prayer
to God. So he left the masses, got himself
a little alone time up in the mountain and went up there purposely
to pray and he prayed all night. We have believers, examples of
believers, Epaphras. Apostle Paul talking about Epaphras
says, Epaphras, which is one of you, a bondservant of Christ,
greets you, always laboring fervently for you in prayers. For what
reason that you may stand perfect and complete in all the will
of God. In the Bible, we're instructed
how to pray. Matthew 6, 9 through 13, which
includes the Lord. This is the Lord instructing
disciples how to pray when they ask. He's instructed them to pray
to God the Father. Matthew 6, starting in verse
5. When you pray, you shall not
be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the
synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may
be seen by men. Assuredly, I say to you, they
have the reward. But you, when you pray, go into
your room, and when you have shut the door, pray to your father
who is in the secret place, and your father who sees in the secret
will reward you openly. The other thing we were taught
to pray is then, when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as
the heathens do, for they think they will be heard for their
many words. Therefore, be not like them,
for your father notices things you have need of before you ask. Matthew 6, 6, which I just read.
So when you pray, go to your room, pray to your father. Philippians
4, 6, and 7 says, be anxious for nothing, but in everything
by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests
be known to God. We're instructed to pray in the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 15, 16, you did not choose
me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear
fruit and that your fruit should remain. And whatever you ask
the father in my name, he may give you. John 16, 23 says, and
in that day, you will ask me nothing. Most assuredly I say
to you, whatever you ask the father in my name, he will give
you. We have different forms of prayer
found in the Bible. First one is confession, which
is an omission of sin to God. First John 1.9, if we confess
our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and
cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So confession. The next form
of prayer is praise and exaltation. This is attributing to God the
glory and honor and praise that he deserves. Hebrews 13, 15 says, therefore
by him, let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God
that is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Another form of prayer is giving
thanks. Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1,
16, It says, do not cease to give
thanks for you, make and mention of you in my prayers. Ephesians
5.20, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 4.6 and 7, be anxious
for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with
thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. First Thessalonians
5.18 says, in everything give thanks for this is the will of
God in Christ Jesus for you. Oh, there it is, in everything
give thanks. Intercession for others. Intercession is pleading the
case for another. Acts 12.5 talks about this. The
church was praying for Peter when he was in jail. Peter was
therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered up
to God for him by the church. There's many references in the
Bible, such as Ephesians 3, 14 through 21. This is Paul's prayer
for the Ephesian believers. For this reason, I bow my knees
to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family
in heaven and in earth is named, that he would grant you, the
Ephesian believers, according to the riches of his glory, to
be strengthened through the might, through his Spirit, in the inner
man. That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that
you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend
with all the saints what is the width, the length, and the depth,
and the height. to know the love of Christ which
passes knowledge that you may be filled with all the fullness
of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundant above
all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us,
to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations
forever and ever. Amen. James 5.16, which is a
famous verse. Part B is the effective fervent
prayer of the righteous man availeth much. The first part of that
verse is confess your trespasses to one another and pray for one
another that you may be healed. Supplication is asking God for
a personal need or desire. Matthew 21, 22, and whatever
things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. Philippians James 1, 5. If any of you lacks
wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without
reproach, and it will be given to you. Apostle Paul had a thorn
in the flesh, and he asked concerning this thorn in the flesh. He says,
concerning this thing, I pleaded with the Lord three times that
it might depart from me. Now we know the Lord answered
him and said no, but this was a personal need or desire of
the Apostle Paul. Different categories of prayer
are long range results or goals or results. We have another prayer of the
Apostle Paul in Colossians 1, 9 through 12. I would say this is a long range
goal or result for the believer. For this reason, we also, since
the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you and to ask that
you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and
spiritual understanding. that you may walk worthy of the
Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in every good work,
increasing in the knowledge of God, strengthened with all might,
according to his glorious power, for all patience and long-suffering
with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to
be partakers of the inheritance of the saints and the light. Pacific needs or immediate requests. James 1.5 is a great example
of this. If any of you lacks wisdom, specifically
lacking wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally
without reproach and it will be given to him. The Apostle
Paul asked for Pacific and immediate needs many times. Ephesians 6.19 says, and for
me, pray for me and that the utterance
may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make
known the mystery of the gospel. And there's times for prayer.
We have private prayer, which is the individually scheduling
or spontaneously communing with God, which in Matthew 6.6, when
you pray, go to your room, and when you shut your door, pray
to your father in your secret place. And then what we just
had was public prayer, where two or more are gathered together
in prayer to God. Prime example again is Acts 12.5,
Peter was in prison, the church was praying for him. Reasons to pray is God is glorified
by our prayer. John 14.13, and whatever you
ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified
in the Son. John 15, seven and eight. If
you buy to me, my words abide in you. You will ask what you
desire and it shall be done for you. By this, my father is glorified. We are to pray because of the
ongoing spiritual battle. The end of the paragraph of Ephesians
6, 10 through 19, verse Ephesians 6, 18 says, praying always with
all prayer and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to
this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the
saints. We are commanded by God to pray. 1 Samuel 12, 23. Moreover, as for me, far be it
from me that I should sin against the Lord and ceasing to pray
for you. As a final review, an effective prayer includes walking
in fellowship with God. And secondly, we are to play
according to God's will. Now to get to our passage tonight,
the Holy Spirit and prayer, Romans 8, 26. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Romans 8.26, likewise, the Spirit
also helps us in our weakness. 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. So the Holy Spirit
helps with our weakness. Now this word helps is a really
cool word. It means to take up a matter
or to share a task with. So this, the word to us helps
is short, but in the Greek it's three syllables put together.
The S-Y-N or soon. means together with, then we
have the anti, A-N-T-I in the middle, which is over against,
and the lambano, which means to take. So what this word speaks
of is the action of a person coming to another person's aid
by taking hold of the load they're carrying. The person helps with
the load, they don't take over the entire load, but they come
along and they help them. This word is used exactly the
same way in Luke 10.40. And this is the famous story
of Martha and Mary. Martha is distracted with serving.
Mary is sitting at the Lord's feet. And Mary was distracted
with much serving. And she approached him and said,
do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Therefore,
tell me to help me. Same exact word. No, Martha wasn't
going to stop serving. She was going to continue to
serve. She just wanted Mary to come along and help her with
the load, to share the task. This word is a verb and it's
in the present, middle, or passive, which means that the Holy Spirit
is the one that is sending himself to help with our prayers. He's
deeply involved with this. The Holy Spirit continually chooses
to help us as we pray. He continually helps us by sharing
in the workload of praying. Now notice, We're not to stop
praying because the Holy Spirit is gonna do the job for us. We
have a responsibility to pray and the Holy Spirit will come
along and help us. He'll come take up the matter.
He'll share the task with us. So we're not to just let the
Holy Spirit take over. We are still to pray and do our
thing and be responsible to pray. It's just that the Holy Spirit's
gonna help us with this task. Weakness. The word weakness here
is the Greek word asthena, or I think we get the word anesthesia
from it, but I'm not sure. But it means incapacity, a limitation,
or infirmities. We have a weakness. Notice the
Apostle Paul here says we. This is the Apostle Paul. He
isn't talking to us as believers saying you have a weakness. The
Apostle Paul includes himself with this. We have a weakness.
We have a limitation. We're incompatible. We have incapacity. This word means It means a want of strength is
another way of saying it. If you have the King James Version,
or if you remember a King James Version, the words infirmities
is used here. Likewise, the Spirit also helps
our infirmities. So what is our weakness? That
is answered in the next part of the verse. For we do not know
what we should pray for as we ought. This word know means we
possess the information about or know how to. So with the word
not in front of it, we, the Apostle Paul, and us as believers do
not know what to pray for. We don't possess the information. This verb, what I found extremely
interesting, is in the perfect tense also. It has something
happened in the past, that is a completed action, and it has
produced the abiding result of we do not know. We, the believers, and the apostle
Paul includes himself here, need the help of the Holy Spirit
because our current state is one of either not knowing the
information or, depending on how you look at the word, oida,
not knowing how. The difference of defining this
word leads to some translation issues, in my opinion. The New King James Version, the
King James, and the ESV all translate this phrase as, for we do not
know what we should pray as we ought. The New American Standard
and the Net Bible translate this phrase, for we do not know how
to pray as we should. As I looked through the commentators,
what they thought about this one, this phrase and this difference
in translations, I tend to agree with the New King James Version.
And the translation should be, for we do not know what we should
pray for. One of the commentators stated,
though more may be involved in the concept of weakness, the
primary reference here is mental ignorance. The contrast offered
by Paul is in this versus between our ability to know and our ability
to know what to pray for. The emphasis indicates the spirit
himself prays for us. It is not the proper matter of
prayer that believers are at so much a loss about, but for
the fullest directions are given to them. But to ask for the right
things as they ought is the difficulty. The word what here is a pronoun
and it refers to the necessary thing to ask for. So what helped me, the reason
I say I believe the word, the translation should be the what,
referring to the what things we ask for, is as a Sunday school
teacher, I'll take prayer requests for the kids, and I teach the
older kids, but how many times have you heard a little kid's
prayer request is that all the unsaved people in the world would
get saved? Or that everybody that's sick would get better?
And so these broad repair requests. get more and more Pacific as
we get older. We don't, today we don't pray
like we just had prayer tonight. We're not praying for everybody
on the green sheet to get saved. The more we know, the more we
can pray for. This past, when Jill was in the
hospital down in Rochester, what was really nice is pastors would
come to us and give us daily, if not weekly updates on Jill.
So we could have Pacific prayer requests that he was asking for
us. whether it was a certain test you would do good on or
a certain test you do bad on. So it's the more we know about a given
situation, the more specific we can get in our prayers. And this is the way I see how
the Holy Spirit, we don't know, sometimes we don't know what's
going on in a person's life, we just know that they need prayer.
And the Holy Spirit is the, he knows the specifics of what is
needed on that person's, in that person's life. And this is the
details that he will fill in. This is one of the commentaries. The weakness
spoken here is the inability of the saint to know what to
pray for. We do know what the general objects of prayer
are, but we do not know what the specific detailed objects
of prayer at any given emergency or situation. The definite article
is used before the word what. Paul says we do not know the
what we should pray for, the particular what. So how does the Holy Spirit help
us? He makes intercession for us. The Holy Spirit helps us
by making intercession for us. This word, the word makes intercession
is the single Greek word hyper, and it's unique because it has
the word hyper in front of the H-Y-P-E-R. And so instead of just the normal
intercession or the normal word for intercede, this means to
intercede on behalf of someone. with the Pacific emphasis upon
the fact that what is being done is for the sake of somebody else.
So there's a Pacific emphasis of the Holy Spirit praying or
interceding for us. Again, this is a verb and it's
in the present, so the Holy Spirit is always praying for us, interceding
for us. The Holy Spirit is interceding
or He pleads our case to and advocates for us right now on
our behalf to God the Father. Okay, that's out of order. This is accomplished by the Holy
Spirit making intercession through groans which cannot be uttered.
This word groans, it means to groan or sigh as the result of
a deep concern or stress. This word shows up in Acts 7.34. This is Stephen before the Jews,
before he gets stoned, and he's talking about the history of
Israel and the fact that the Lord was talking to Moses. And
here's how Stephen put this. This is God talking to Moses
at the burning bush. I have seen the oppression of
my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their groanings
and have come down to deliver them. Now come, I will send you
to Egypt. So that's the very same word.
The groan or sigh may be the result of quite different circumstances. There's a clear distinction between
groaning and sighing, depending on the reason or basis for it.
In Mark 7.34, Jesus sighs as he is about to heal the man that
could not hear. The sigh or the groan here seems
to be an expression of sympathy for the death mute that Jesus
is about to heal. The groans that we talk about
in Acts 7.34 are caused by severe misery and oppression. Mark 7.34, and this is Jesus,
and he looking up to heaven, he sighed. So the phrase which cannot be
uttered, the groans which cannot be uttered is one word in the
Greek, and it means pertaining to what cannot be uttered or
expressed in words, too deep for words. The New American Standard in
the ESV translate this phrase this way, the groanings too deep for words. This means it cannot be expressed
in an articulate language, sublime and effecting ideas for which
we are the holy... The Holy Spirit of God dwelling
in us knows our wants better than we. He pleads in our prayers,
raising us to higher and holier desires than we can express in
words, which can be found in utterance and sighing and aspirations. There's no language, no language
is in view here, only the inner groanings of the Spirit. So there's
no actual language. Now how can this be? How can this work if there's
nothing being said? And that is because God the Father
knows the mindset of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8.27, now he who searches
the heart knows the mind of the Spirit. So the word, what I found
interesting here is the word hearts. In Romans 8.27, the Greek
word cardio, and in the Bible that could literally mean the
heart, and oftentimes it means the mind. The heart or the mind. But the word here for mind in
Romans 8.27 is phronema, which means the mindset. It's not the
mind, but what is the person thinking. So the God the Father
knows what the Holy Spirit has on his mind, his thoughts, and
his purposes. Now, he who searches the hearts,
this is an expression of the omissions of God. Acts 1.24 says,
and they prayed and said, you, O Lord, you know the hearts of
all. Show us which of these two you have chosen. Acts 15.8, for God who knows
the hearts, acknowledge them by giving them the Holy Spirit
just as he did us. So we can see that God the Father
knows the minds of the Holy Spirit. Last thing, Holy Spirit intercedes
for us according to the will of God. As we said before, the effective
prayer, one of the aspects of effective prayer is praying according
to the will of God. So we may not know what the will
of God is in someone who we're praying for or what we're praying
about, but the Holy Spirit intercedes for us according, he knows what
the perfect will of God is and he asks or prays for us according
to the will of God. Now the words, the will of God,
the will are not in the Greek, therefore the literal translation Oops. The literal translation
reads, and he who is searching the hearts
hath known what is the mind of the spirit, and because according
to God he doth intercede for saints. Every other translation,
other than Young's literal translation, puts the words the will of God
in. So the New King James, King James,
ESV, and New American Standard, the net, they all put the will
of God in there. I found this study of these two verses to
be very encouraging. And if you're ever in this situation
where I was, we're at a point where you don't know what to
pray for. You just honestly don't know what to pray for. Know that
we are to pray, and the fact that we are praying will allow
us the Holy Spirit to help us. come along and help us, and he's
going to intercede for us directly to God the Father, and he's going
to pray according to God's will. So our
prayers can be effective. Even though we may not know the
exact details or what exactly to pray for, we should pray. We are told multiple times throughout
the New Testament that we are to pray. and that's what we should do.
Often we pray for people in situations not knowing all the facts or
what the Pacific will is for that person. We hear it all the
time. Please, Lord, pray for so-and-so.
Give them what they stand in need of, because we don't know
what they stand in need of, but the Holy Spirit does, and he
knows the Lord's will, and he's gonna pray for that person. Holy Spirit knows the wills of
God and helps with these details. And we see that the intercessory
prayer of the Holy Spirit are done according to God's will.
So if you don't know what to pray for, pray anyways. The Holy Spirit will come along,
help us, and pray according to God's will. And I'm so thankful
for the ministry of the Holy Spirit when it comes to our prayers. With that, let's have a word
of prayer. Heavenly Father, just thank you for these two verses
where you, we can know specifically in how you help us and what you
do to help us. And just thank you for the ministry
of the Holy Spirit to each and every one of us that often we
don't know everything, but we do know that if we pray that
you will, you continually help us. And then we also know that
what we don't know about your will in our life or anybody else's
life, the Holy Spirit does, and he prays in your will, which
is a way to be effective in prayer. In Jesus' name, amen.
The Holy Spirit and Our Prayers
Series Misc Message - Johnson
| Sermon ID | 9424232423788 |
| Duration | 37:04 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Romans 8:26-27 |
| Language | English |
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