SPIRIT-HELPED PRAYER

Introduction

-{Romans 8}

-I used to think that I was pretty savvy on technology. I knew how to set up things and run things and fix things. There was a time in my life that I was the go-to guy for normal tech questions—I was the one to help.

~I remember when I first moved out of the house and was living on my own as an adult, and my parents would call me, if my mom initiated the call, I knew it was a social call. If my dad initiated the call, I knew that he had some sort of technical question, usually revolving around how do you run that computer or how do you set up the VCR to record something? Dad would call for help.

~Well, my tech-savvy days are long gone. Now, my kids start telling me how to do this or that on my phone, and I’m like HUH? And they try to explain it again, and then I just hand them my phone and am like, I can’t do it, I need help.

-We all need help in life, and it’s no different in the Christian life. I mean, obviously we need help in getting saved because we can’t do that on our own. But we can’t even live the Christian life in its various aspects without help.

-And this is true in the realm of prayer. I mean, we pray in order to receive timely help from God. But I also mean that we need help even to pray. And that is why God sent the Holy Spirit—the Holy Spirit is our helper.

~At least twice in the Gospel of John, Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as the Helper

*But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. (John 15:26 ESV)

*Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. (John 16:7 ESV)

-All believers in Jesus Christ are given this Helper. And this Helper helps us to live by faith in Christ and helps us in every aspect of life—and this includes the area of prayer.

-We are given this great privilege of prayer and yet we have much difficulty with it. We have difficulty in making time to do it. But we also have difficulty in just doing it. We find it hard to do sometimes. But we have the Helper to help us with this.

-In the passage we are looking at today, Paul wrote that the Holy Spirit helps us with our prayers and intercedes for us through our prayers.

~And as we continue our sermon series on prayer, I want us to see that even when our prayers seem weak, the Holy Spirit helps us to pray and joins us in praying to God with our burdens.

READ Romans 8:26-28

Romans 8:26–28 ESV

26 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. 27 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. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

~What do we learn about the Holy Spirit and prayer:

1) The need for the Holy Spirit’s help in prayer

-At a 2011 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, Francis Chan told of many answers to prayer that he has received and said that for those who know the living God, that should be the norm. He said that we should have such frequent answers to prayers that we’re surprised when an occasional one goes unanswered.

~As wonderfully Christian as that sounds, that just does not seem to be the experience of us normal, everyday Christians. Not that we normally keep a count of answered or unanswered prayer, but we have a sense sometimes that God doesn’t even hear, much less answer.

-Of course, the problem might be the lack of prayer itself. It’s hard to answer something that doesn’t happen. At that same Desiring God conference, Paul Miller estimates from surveys that he had taken at his prayer seminars that about 90 percent of evangelicals do not have a meaningful daily prayer life.

-We don’t pray or are discouraged in prayer, and we need help. Why are we this way? Why does prayer come with such difficulty? I see Paul mentioning two reasons:

a) We are weak

-In this chapter, Paul is contrasting the life of the Spirit versus the life of the flesh. When you are saved, you are given life and the Spirit is the one to impart that life. When you live in the flesh, this leads to physical and spiritual death. But the Holy Spirit gives you spiritual and eventually eternal physical life.

~However, there is this time of waiting going on, where we are waiting to get to final glorification. Paul talks about the entirety of creation waiting for the sons and daughters of God to come to a full realization of the life they have in Jesus Christ.

~But until that happens, creation groans that it is still stuck in its futility. And Paul mentions that we groan because we are stuck in having the Spirit of power within us, and yet still being weak in the sinful flesh in which we still have to live.

-There is this tension that we live in—we have power in the Spirit, but we are weak in the flesh. This is problematic in several ways.

~One, we are so spiritually weak and dense that we don’t even realize how weak we are. We think we can handle things, so we don’t pray. So, we need the Spirit to remind us of our need and point us to where we can get our fill.

~Or sometimes things of life and the world are so overwhelming that we just don’t seem to have the strength to do anything. The Spirit lifts us up and leads us to the throne of grace where we can get timely help.

-But weakness isn’t our only prayer problem:

b) We don’t know what to pray

-Paul says, WE DO NOT KNOW WHAT TO PRAY FOR AS WE OUGHT. Sometimes, in weakness, we don’t direct our prayers rightly or we might be at a loss for what to even pray for.

~Many times I pray for someone, and I say LORD, I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY NEED, BUT YOU DO, SO GIVE IT TO THEM. And the Spirit is able to sort it out.

-Paul knows this full well because he himself dealt with this issue. We get a glimpse of this in 2 Corinthians 12. Paul was caught up into Paradise where he heard inexpressible words that he was not able to speak or record. To keep Paul from exalting himself, God gave him a thorn in the flesh. It says that Paul implored the Lord three times to take away the affliction. But instead, he got a lesson about God when he learned that God’s grace is sufficient, and God’s power is perfected in human weakness.

~Paul prayed, but didn’t really know what to pray, so he prayed wrongly. But the Spirit interceded as was necessary and sorted it out.

-The great church father, Augustine, was not always a pillar of faith and holiness. He was a hedonistic pagan in his early life, but he had a mother (Monica) who prayed for him quite often.

~Augustine was going to travel from their home in North Africa to Italy. Monica went to a seaside chapel along the coast and pleaded all night with God to keep her son from sailing to Italy. She wanted her son to be a Christian, and she could not endure the thought of him going to licentious Italy with its manifold and alluring temptations.

~Even as the ship set sail, she pleaded with God, “Please don’t let him go.” But the ship sailed on and he went to Italy. Had God ignored her? No, He had not. While in Italy, Augustine heard the great preacher Ambrose, and was persuaded to become a Christian in the very spot from which his mother’s prayers would have kept him.

-I find it interesting—God answered the primary prayer by not answering the secondary prayer. Monica prayed as she did because she didn’t know what to pray. And the Holy Spirit, thankfully, knows this weakness of ours and is able to sort the prayer out, and intercede on our behalf with that which is most important.

-We need the Holy Spirit to help in our prayers, because we are weak, frail human beings who don’t even know what to pray as we ought. But thankfully, the Holy Spirit does give help, so we want to quickly talk about:

2) The work of the Holy Spirit in prayer

-Thankfully, Paul tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes—He works on our behalf, giving us help in this very important area of prayer. But what are ways that He does this?

a) He prays for us when we can’t

-Paul tells us that THE SPIRIT HIMSELF INTERCEDES FOR US WITH GROANINGS TOO DEEP FOR WORDS (or, as other translations put it, in groanings that cannot be expressed)

-There is some debate about these groanings—are they of the Spirit or from us. I believe it is speaking about the groanings of the Spirit. Earlier in the chapter Paul spoke about creation groaning and then about our own groaning. Now, the Holy Spirit is groaning.

-It speaks of the Holy Spirit expressing to God the Father prayers in ways that are inexpressible for humans. As one pastor explained it:

Paul pictures the Holy Spirit groaning on our behalf to convey that He takes up our needs at the deepest emotional level and conveys our hurts and cares to the Father’s throne.

-While our hearts are groaning within us because of whatever burden lays upon our heart, the Holy Spirit expresses that in a prayer that human words cannot utter, but in a way that the Godhead is able to express and comprehend and act upon.

-As C. H. Dodd defined this prayer:

The Divine One within us appealing to the Divine One above us

-The Holy Spirit is described elsewhere as our Advocate—one who takes up our cause, comes to our defense, and states our case. We are weak, we don’t know what to pray or how to pray, so the Holy Spirit takes over and prays in ways too deep for us to even comprehend.

-And Paul says that the One who searches hearts, which is God the Father, knows what is the mind of the Spirit. God the Father understands these groanings and will answer them according to His will and wisdom.

-Here we are, struggling to even form a sentence, and the Holy Spirit takes up our groaning with groanings of His own that are deep and profound and exactly what we need.

-As one author stated it:

The Spirit comes to the aid of believers baffled by the perplexity of prayer and takes their concerns to God with an intensity far greater than we could ever imagine. Our groans become His and He intercedes on our behalf.

b) He guides prayers according to God’s will

-Paul says that THE SPIRIT INTERCEDES FOR THE SAINTS ACCORDING TO THE WILL OF GOD

~James gave us this warning:

You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. (James 4:2–3 ESV)

-Now, this is not necessarily limited to selfishness in prayer, but it does speak to us praying in ways according to our will and desire and wisdom rather than God’s. Instead, we are directed to pray according to God’s will, or pray recognizing that God’s will is ultimately what we want to happen. James again:

Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” (James 4:15 ESV)

-Even Christ Himself said NOT MY WILL BUT YOUR WILL BE DONE. And we are given this promise by the apostle John:

And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5:14 ESV)

-But how does the Spirit guide our prayers toward God’s will:

-First, the Spirit can take our prayers and reform them—He will take our misdirected prayers and intercede for us according to what it is that God the Father wants, which is always what we need. Sometimes what we want isn’t what we need, so our prayers are reinterpreted to what is needed.

~I again think of Augustine and his mother. She wanted him saved but didn’t want him to go to Italy. But God’s will was that he go to Italy in order to be saved, so that is they way the Spirit prayed.

~And so, right when we think that God didn’t answer our prayer, He actually is answering our prayer but just according to His will and purpose and way of doing things.

-Second, the Spirit will speak with our spirit and direct us to pray according to God’s will. If we are humble enough to join Christ’s prayer that God’s will be done, the Spirit will lead us in that direction. If we listen in prayer as much as we like to speak in prayer, that still quiet voice will move us in the direction that is needed.

-Third, we need to know that the Spirit will never work or help or intercede in a way that is contrary to Scripture. God’s will never contradicts Scripture, so the Spirit will not help our prayers go that way either.

-There are things that we might say don’t need to be prayed about because Scripture is clear about the issue. We don’t need to pray if we should marry this unbeliever, because the Bible says not to be unequally yoked. We don’t need to pray about stealing to meet our financial needs because the Bible is quite clear about that.

~But where Scripture isn’t so clear, the Spirit will apply the appropriate Scriptural principles and lead our prayers in that direction.

-A third and final help:

c) He gives faith to continue in prayer

-It’s interesting that these verses then lead to that ever-famous verse: AND WE KNOW THAT FOR THOSE WHO LOVE GOD ALL THINGS WORK TOGETHER FOR GOOD, FOR THOSE WHO ARE CALLED ACCORDING TO HIS PURPOSE

-The Holy Spirit helps us with our prayers, and we can have faith that with His intercession to the Father on our behalf, through our Spirit-helped prayers God will work things together for our good. But again, it is according to His purpose and His will.

-What a peace this gives us to know that we pray with the Spirit’s help, and God will work things toward our good. Not that all things will be good, but through answered prayer things will work for ultimate good.

-This gives us faith to know that God will fulfill His promises to us in Scripture because that is for our good and is according to His purpose. We can pray with fervency and perseverance, knowing that the Spirit-helped prayers will move us and move the heart of God toward bringing those promises to fruition.

-The Spirit helps us pray for a family member to persevere in the faith, and then He reminds us that for the good of that person Christ will continue that good work of salvation that He began in them until it is finished on that day (according to Phil. 1:6). So, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we pray in faith that they persevere and overcome.

~A friend is going through a rough time, so with the Spirit’s help we pray that the Lord be a refuge in their time of trouble because He cares for those who trust in Him (according to Nahum 1:7)—we know that is for their good, so we offer that Spirit-helped prayer

-We pray and we believe—God will work together for good all things, and our prayers can be an integral part in that.

Conclusion

-So often, as Baptists, we set the Holy Spirit to the side so that we don’t come across as charismatic, and yet without the Spirit we will never pray rightly. And so, lean on the Spirit within you to help in your weakness and guide you in your prayers so that you are in accord with God’s holy, perfect will.

-Christian, maybe you want to come to the altar and lift up a burden with the help of the Holy Spirit—maybe all you can do is groan, but the Holy Spirit will help you out.

~Maybe you’ve been praying for something, but you haven’t truly given it up to the will of God. Maybe you want to come to the altar and declare that God’s will would be done and that He would guide your prayers in that way.

-But there may be some here who do not have the Holy Spirit within them to help with prayers. Without the Holy Spirit, you don’t belong to God. The only way to receive the Spirit is by accepting Christ…