Help Wanted
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Introduction:
It is good to be in the house of the Lord with you all this morning.
Today we are continuing our verse by verse study in the Book of Romans, chapter 8, if you have a Bible please turn to there. It is my desire this morning for us to understand better the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
This chapter starts with the words there is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
And those words are followed by one incredible truth after another. Romans is written by Paul to a church he was never able to visit. It was written to a people he never ministered to personally. So he didn’t know what they knew. This church was off on their own - and he would have reasonably thought they were doing whatever they wanted. So he writes to share with them a complete description of salvation and the Christian life. So we keep seeing these layers of truth stacked one on top of the other as his description builds. It is a wonderful book - and I am really enjoying preaching through it.
Recap:
Last week my message was on suffering - and a reminder that we wait on Glory. We wait, knowing Jesus is coming.
The world isn’t as bright as it used to be.
Floods, earthquakes, tornadoes. wreck havoc on the world that we live in.
We wait, knowing Jesus is coming.
People suffer, people die. We get cancer, we lose loved ones and little ones.
We wait, knowing Jesus is coming. And Creation is waiting with us. Creation waits in futility. Waiting. Unable to be what it was created to be. It waits.
Jesus is coming. We wait. Creation will be freed. We wait. Hope will be fullfilled. We wait.
We wait for glory.
Today - we will see what happens while we wait.
Message:
The title of my message today is help wanted.
In the economic place we are in right now - there are very few places in town that couldn’t benefit from two or three more good employees.
We have an arby’s in town now that has been short staffed literally the entire time they have been open. They built that store during a time of economic chaos.
And so - every where you look there is a sign or a banner hanging in the wind that says “Help Wanted”
Those signs indicate an understanding of the situation that the company is in.
That situation might be that they need to be open for 24 hours a day - and that takes a certain number of people.
That situation might be that they are inefficient because the people that they have are filling roles within the company that they were not trained and are possibly ill suited for.
That situation might be that they are doing everything and everything is right, but there is no rest for anyone who works there currently.
Regardless of the situation, the answer is usually to add help to weakness.
Chapter 8 in the book of Romans has been dealing with, one after another, weaknesses that we have and the response of the Holy spirit in those weaknesses.
The Spirit:
1. Changes our thinking
2. Produces life & peace in us
3. Lives in us
4. Will resurrect us
5. Helps us overcome sin
6. Confirms our adoption
7. The Spirit prays for us
According to verse 2 the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets you free from the law of sin and death.
According to verse 4 the Spirit helps you fulfill the just requirement of the law.
According to verse 6 the Spirit give life and peace.
According to verse 11 God will raise you from the dead by the Spirit who dwells in you.
According to verse 13 the Spirit helps you put to death the deeds of the body.
According to verse 14 the sons of God are led by the Spirit.
According to verses 15-16 the Spirit bears witness in us that we are the children of God and so gives us assurance of our salvation.
According to verse 23 the Holy Spirit is the foretaste and guarantee of our final redemption.
The Holy spirit is very active in our lives, in a variety of roles.
The bible doesn’t - anywhere at all - describe the trinity in the way that we understand it.
We understand that there is only ONE. God. One God. Also, we understand that God is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
Three persons. One God.
And we understand that because of passages like this, where it becomes very critical that God the Holy Spirit is separate from God the Father, because they are interacting with each other.
In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.
And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.
In the same way:
Connecting to the other ways that the Spirit is active in our lives. Taking into account the reality of who we are. Knowing all of that.
The Holy Spirit.
The spirit of God. A member of the trinity. The one that Jesus said he would send, and did.
The part of the trinity that fills us with power. The comforter.
Also
Adding to what Paul has already described for us is the activity of the Holy Spirit
Helps
Provides assistance to something that is being done. To help - together.
1This word is only used one other time in the new testament, and that time is in the book of Luke, chapter ten.
In Luke 10, Jesus is in the home of Mary and Martha…
But Martha was distracted by her many tasks, and she came up and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to serve alone? So tell her to give me a hand.”
This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to go through word for word… because this word is really important to the understanding of this passage.
This isn’t someone working on their own. Martha is indicating that she wants Jesus to tell Mary to get in the kitchen WITH her.
She wants to work together.
For us, it plays out a lot like this meme.
The holy spirit provides help. We are the little dog on the end.
But it isn’t that I am doing it, or the holy spirit is doing it, but that together the thing is done.
In our Weakness
Our weakness - indicates that it is personal.
Our weakness might be because of human nature, sickness, or adversity.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.
So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
The holy spirit knows my weaknesses. He knows the personal things that I fail at. He knows the chinks in my armor, he knows the muscles that have been exhausted. it is in those places where He becomes even more involved.
We do not know how to pray
We know how to pray - but not necessarily how to pray.
Praying is a conversation between ourselves and God, we may know how to speak to God, but not what to say.
When we are suffering, when things are hard - the things that we pray for are relief.
Our response to weakness is to petition the lord for relief.
We pray for God to fix the problem. We pray for God to get involved in the situation so that we can be healed.
And yet there are times when the answer to that question is “No.”
Paul dealt with that in his own life. He described that in 2 Cor 12.
For if I want to boast, I wouldn’t be a fool, because I would be telling the truth. But I will spare you, so that no one can credit me with something beyond what he sees in me or hears from me,
especially because of the extraordinary revelations. Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so that I would not exalt myself.
Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me.
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me.
So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Paul says - I asked God THREE TIMES.
Three times I pleaded with the Lord.
And God said no.
He said my Grace is sufficient for you.
My power is perfected in weakness.
What an answer from God.
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
The Spirit Himself intercedes for us
This is the work of the Holy Spirit. To be involved in our prayer lives. Helping us to pray.
The spirit knows the will of God. And prays for us.
So how does this work out:
We groan.
Out of our frustration, in our weakness, in just living our lives, we don’t know what to say to the creator of the universe in all of those situations.
We are groaning at the prompting and the direction of the Holy Spirit, and in his prompting and direction, our groaning has meaning. And God searches that meaning out and he knows that meaning. Our understanding of our own groaning is I just want to die well or live well and I don’t know what the outcome is. I’d like to be under this needle or this radiation well, or I’d like to deal with the death of my child here well, and I’m not sure what that looks like, and it gets to a point where all you can do is groan. You’ve lost all ability to put into words any specific longings. It’s just an ache in your heart.
I think what he means when he says the Spirit intercedes with groanings is that we are groaning and the Holy Spirit is prompting the groaning and guiding the groaning and giving meaning in God’s ears to the groaning. And here’s why I think that. The Holy Spirit has no communication problems with the Father. Therefore, to speak of him to groaning because he doesn’t know what to say, I think would be blasphemous. The Holy Spirit is groaning to the Father because he doesn’t know what to say to the Father. That doesn’t make sense to me. That’s not the way the Holy Spirit is. He’s omniscient. He knows everything. He doesn’t need to groan to the Father out of any ignorance or uncertainty.
We are pentecostal; We believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit are still active today. And with that understanding, I cannot help but to look back at 1 Cor 14 and see correlations to what Paul describes here as speaking in Tongues
For the person who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to people but to God, since no one understands him; he speaks mysteries in the Spirit.
For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my understanding is unfruitful.
What then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with my understanding. I will sing praise with the spirit, and I will also sing praise with my understanding.
I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you;
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.
In preparation for this message - I listened to several theologens teach on this passage. As a pentecostal it was humorous to hear ceasationalists dance around the issue, and while their points were well made and articulated, it seems obvious that the prayer language that Paul describes in 1 Cor 14 is obviously a part of the conversation.
Encouragements.
1. Be encouraged that you are not expected to know the will of God in everything. And this text says it's OK not to know. There is one who knows. And he is praying the way one ought to pray who knows. Don't add to your burdens the worry that you don't know all the will of God.
2. Be encouraged that in your perplexity and groaning you are not being watched, you are being understood. God is searching your heart, and he is finding in your holy groanings a meaning deeper than words – the meaning of the Spirit himself. More on that next week.
3. Be encouraged that God's work for you is not limited to what you can understand and express with words. Be glad that God is able to do exceedingly above all that you ask or think (Ephesians 3:20). Your thinking, especially in times of stress and groaning, is not the limit of God's acting. And be glad that there is a peace that passes all human understanding (Philippians 4:7). God is not limited by your limited mind.
4. Be encouraged that in your weakness and sickness and loss and hardship and danger the Spirit of God is praying for you and not against you. In verse 31 we will hear Paul exult: "If God is for us, who is against us?" And here we see part of that great "for us" in verse 26. The Spirit intercedes FOR us, not against us. Be encouraged that as you cling to Christ and groan for his exaltation in your uncertainty and pain, the Spirit is for you and not against you.
5. Finally, be encouraged that God the Father hears the prayer of the Spirit. This prayer is for you. And it is always heard! Always answered, God does not reject the prayers of God.