The Groaning Intercession of the Spirit

Call to Worship - Psalm 95

Introduction

Groaning Not Grumbling, Psalm not a Sin

It was not long after the people of Israel triumphantly left their Egyptian shackles of slavery behind; after they witnessed God part the sea in two and walked between two walls of water on dry ground; after the people of Israel were led by Moses himself in a song of praise to the God of their salvation. It was not long after all of this, that God’s people begin to grumble because they had no water to drink. In Exodus 16 it says that just 6 weeks after leaving Egypt that the people began to grumble saying, Exodus 16:3 “Would that we had died by the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt when we sat by the pots of meat when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”

God cared for His people, and He gave them bread from heaven, and they still grumbled.

And then after walking through the desert to the very edge of the promised land, Israel sent 12 spies into the land, and 10 of those spies gave a bad report that filled the people with fear. And guess what they did - they grumbled, Numbers 14:2 “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!” They would have rather died than go through with conquering the promised land.

And I bring this example before you to set up a contrast. That first generation of Israelites who left Egypt were a people filled with fear and lacking faith. And so, when they encountered suffering and difficult circumstances, they grumbled instead of having faith in the God who had just delivered them from the most powerful empire in the world, separated an entire sea for them to walk through, and caused bread to rain from heaven and rocks to pour forth water.

Now compare that to the words of David in, Psalm 13:1-3 “1 How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? 2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? 3 Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,”

David is not grumbling here. Amid intense suffering, David does not grumble...instead he groans with faith to His God.

It has often been said that complaint about God is a sin, complaint offered to God is a psalm- why? Because it is a groan birthed by faith and hope.

Context

The inevitable reality of the human experience is that there will be times of suffering. Israel went through it. David went through it. Even the Son of God suffered.

But what differentiated David from the Exodus Israelites, and what should differentiate the Saints from the Aints is this, we should not grumble like those without hope. Instead, when we suffer, we should groan with faith and hope as we look to God to bring us into glory.

This is what we learned from last week’s text which Pastor Jeff preached to us. Romans 8:23 “we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.” We children of God groan, but we groan with anticipation, with a hope for the unseen, like the child standing in a long, slow-moving line, straining his neck, standing on his tippy toes to try and see through the gates of Disneyland.

We groan with faith-fueled, Holy Spirit-empowered hope until we are finally and fully redeemed - until we reach glory - a glory that is not worthy of being compared to our present sufferings.

We eagerly endure the trials of this world whether they come in the form of torture or tragedy with groaning in our hearts and with our eyes fixed on our Savior who will make all things gloriously new.

We groan unto glory.

And in our text today, Paul adds one of the most surprising and encouraging and comforting and incredible truths to this teaching on groaning unto glory: and it’s this…

We do not groan alone.

Main Point and Structure

We do not groan alone, for the Holy Spirit groans with us as He sufficiently helps us in our weakness by interceding for us. This is the main point of these two verses before us: The Holy Spirit groans with us as He helps us by interceding for us.

We do not groan alone.

And we see this wonderful argument built with three successive points. In verse 26a we will see the Spirit’s Assistance, in 26b we will learn of our Weakness or our Anemia, and in verses 26c-27 we will study the Spirit’s Advocacy on our behalf.

1. The Spirit's Assistance – 26a

2. Our Anemia – 26b

3. The Spirit’s Advocacy – 26c-27

Transition

Let’s begin by looking to the Spirit’s Assistance, read with me the first part of verse 26.The Spirit’s Assistance - vs 26a

The Spirit’s Assistance - 26a

Romans 8:26 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.

Likewise

Paul begins with this phrase, “Likewise” or “in the same way” which is a way of pointing backward. In verses 23-25 Paul made the point that we are sustained and enabled to persevere our present sufferings through God-given hope. Listen as I read these verses to you, Romans 8:23-25

Romans 8:23–25 ESV

23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

We groan as we eagerly await glory and that groaning is hope-filled. So when Paul says “in the same way” he is pointing back to this hope that sustains us. And he is saying that in the same way that the hope for future glory sustains us amid our present sufferings, the Spirit also comes to our help.

The Spirit Helps

And Paul has been highlighting the Spirit’s role as a Helper in the Christian life throughout chapter 8 of Romans. Paul mentions the Spirit 33 times in Romans and out of those 33 instances, the Spirit is mentioned 18 times in Romans chapter 8:1-27.

The Spirit empowers us to fulfill the law of God and kill our sin in verses 4 and 13. In verses 10 and 11 we saw that He subdues our fallen nature by giving life to our spirit and will do the same to our bodies at the resurrection. He actively affirms the reality of our adoption as children of the Father and fellow heirs of Christ in vs 16-17. And as we just read in verse 23, His very prescience acts as a guarantee of our glorious inheritance. And in our passage today, Paul writes that the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

He is our Helper.

And that is exactly who He was promised to be. In John 14, Christ prepared His disciples for His departure and He comforted them with this promise, John 14:16-17, 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

John 14:16–17 ESV

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

He is our helper, given to us as a gift by the Father, who abides with and in us. And Paul says that He helps us in our weakness. Which is our second point today, Our Anemia. Look with me again at verse 26.

Our Anemia - vs 26b

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.

The word for help here carries the idea of co-laboring, of someone coming alongside another to share the weight of a burden. However, the Spirit’s help in this instance is not 50/50. The Spirit helps us...in our weakness.

A few years ago, I moved one of those backyard swing sets from my in-law's backyard. With help of course. I had both of my fathers, my brother, my brother-in-law, and a handful of my most loyal friends help me move this large swing set. Now there are about 8 places to grab on to when you lift this swing-set and when it came time to move it, I was not one of the 8. I held the chains of the three swings so that they didn’t get in the way. It’s not that I am powerless, there were just more qualified individuals present.

In that scenario was I involved? Yes. Was I doing most of the work or at least half of the work? No. My 8 family members and friends were helping me in my weakness. So, it is with the Spirit when he helps us.

We are deficient, He is sufficient.

Our Weakness

It’s easy to think of a thousand ways in which we are weak and in need of the Spirit’s help. But Paul has a specific weakness he wants to highlight. Look back down at verse 26. “we do not know what to pray for as we ought.”

Paul is not pointing out some sin here. He is simply referring to the reality that all of us are not the Spiritual giants we would like to be and sometimes think we are.

See that Paul does not use the word, “how” here. Surely we often struggle with how to pray, but Paul is pointing out that we are not good judges of praying for what we think we need.

We do not know what to pray for as we ought. That term points to a target - there is something we ought to pray for that we don’t always pray for. And as we will see in the next verse, the thing we ought to pray for is God’s will.

We do not always have the right perspective, our minds are finite, our bodies are broken, and our spiritual maturity is minuscule. And because of all these things, we do not always pray in complete accordance with God’s will. We are weak when it comes to discerning the will of the Lord.

And I would argue, based on the context of Romans 8, that what Paul has in mind is not knowing what the Lord’s will is when we are in the midst of suffering and groaning.

Paul’s Illustration

Paul has first-hand experience with this weakness. This is why he uses the pronouns, “us” and “our”. The great Apostle Paul, Apostle to the gentiles, church plantar par-excellence, writer of the majority of our New Testament includes himself as weak. He did not always know what to pray for as He ought. He, like us, needed the Spirit’s assistance because his ability to pray exactly what he should was anemic too.

We see this in 2 Corinthians 12. When Paul had a thorn in his flesh, he did not pray as he ought. He asked for God to remove that thorn in his flesh, that messenger from Satan sent to torment him. Three times he asked God, and what was God’s answer? 2 Cor 12:9, 9“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” In his suffering, he did not pray as he ought, he needed the Spirit’s assistance.

2 Corinthians 12:9 ESV

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

And surely you and I have experienced moments like this in our own lives. Paul needed the Spirit’s Assistance and so often in the moments of brokenness, or tragedy, or difficulty, or distress, we need His assistance too.

This brings us to our final point, the Spirits Advocacy - read with me starting in the last part of verse 26.

His Advocacy - vs 26c-27

The Spirit Himself Intercedes

Romans 8:26–27 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.

There are four questions that must be answered as we look at this passage.

Question 1: Who is Praying?

And the first question is this: who is praying here?

Is the Spirit interceding through our prayers, so that our inward groans from verse 23 originate from the Spirit’s groanings? Or is this groaning intercession made solely by the Spirit on our behalf? In other words, is the Spirit praying through our prayers? Or is the Spirit praying on His own?

Many commentators who interpret this as the Spirit praying through our prayers see this passage as an example of praying in tongues. Where the Spirit’s groanings lead to our inward groanings. This interpretation hangs on the meaning of the word - alaletos - which the ESV and NASB translate, as “too deep for words.” The argument is that this word is ambiguous and can refer to those prayers that cannot be uttered in words known to human language. They also point out that the phrase groaning implies an audible expression. Since the Spirit himself does not audibly speak anywhere in Scripture, His groans must prompt our audible groans in the form of tongue-speaking. As an example of this, a connection is made between this verse and Romans 8:16, where our proclamation that God is our Father is produced by the inward prompting and confirmation of the Spirit’s testimony.

Although this interpretation is plausible, there are three flaws in this argument that lead me to conclude that Paul does not have praying or speaking in tongues in mind here.

Speaking in tongues involves audible expression in a language but the word alaletos - or too deep for words, literally means without audible words. Those of you children who received a classical education in Greek and Latin know that the prefix – a – at the beginning of a word means without. We think of English words like “atheist” – without God; or “apathetic” – without feeling; or “amoral” – without morals.

So then, the word that Paul uses implies the absence of any words at all. As Schreiner writes, “without words seems to be the most natural way of translating a word that negates a word for speech.”

What about the reference to the Spirit groaning? Does this not imply an audible expression? Not necessarily. Paul referred to the creation groaning as well in verse 22 and he did so while using the metaphor of a mother in labor pains to paint the picture of creation longing to be set free from the bondage of the corruption of the curse. So we must not just assume that Paul is speaking literally of the Spirit’s groanings here in verse 26 when just a few verses before he spoke of the Creation’s groanings in the context of a metaphor.

The last and more serious objection to the interpretation that verse 26 refers to speaking in tongues is that gift of tongues is reserved for only a few Christians. Not all Christians in the New Testament church received this gift. We can see this when we take Paul at his word when he said, speaking of the especially gifted Church of Corinth in 1 Corinthians 14:5 “5 Now I wish that you all spoke in tongues”.

Therefore, if Paul is referring to speaking in tongues in our passage today, then the Holy Spirit would only be the helper of those with the gift of tongues. If the Spirit’s groaning must lead to praying in tongues, then those other believers who don’t speak in tongues would be excluded from the Spirit’s assistance and advocacy. He doesn’t groan for them. And if some believers are excluded from this aspect of the life in the Spirit, what else in chapter 8 are they excluded from, the ability to fulfill the law, or the ability to kill sin? To say that Paul suddenly makes an exclusionary promise to only a handful of Christians in the church of Rome causes the whole argument of Romans 8 to fall apart.

So then the most sound interpretation of this text is that Paul is talking about the Spirit praying solely on his own here.

And if we just read Paul’s words at face value, we can see this point loud and clear. Paul says that the Spirit himself intercedes for us in verse 26. Who’s praying? The Spirit himself. And in verse 27 he again says that it is the Spirit who intercedes for the saints. This intercession is not made by believers, but for believers by the Spirit. Paul also uses the same sentence construction when speaking about the intercession of Christ in verse 34. Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father, and He is interceding not with us but for us. The Spirit is praying, and He is praying for us.

Question 2: Why is the Spirit Groaning?

This leads us to our next question: why is the Spirit groaning?

The Spirit does not need to groan for Himself, He is God.

He does not need to be filled. Instead, He fills us.

He does not need to be led. Instead, He leads us.

He does not need to persevere and endure. Instead, He causes us to persevere to the end and acts as the seal of our redemption.

So then, when He groans, He does not groan for Himself, but for us.

And this is an astounding thought. God’s creation and God’s children groan out of the pain of suffering in this present state of imperfection. Our bodies and this world are marred by the curse of sin. Our bodies are dying and decaying, and the forests just a few hours north of us are being turned to ash and smoke. And we are groaning as we long for Christ to make all things new. We groan as we long for the day when He will wipe every tear from our eyes, for the day when there will be no more mourning, no more crying, no more death, no more pain.

While we wait for the day when He will make all things new, He has sent us a Helper so that we can endure the old.

And this Helper, the Holy Spirit doesn’t, help us from afar, He is groaning with us. He identifies with our groans, with our pain, and shares in our longing for the final freedom for the glory. This is truly amazing that not only would God see our pain and our longing but that He would empathize with us in that pain and in that longing.

And it is difficult and challenging for us to comprehend how and why the Spirit, who is all-knowing, who is eternal, would stoop down to groan with us in our present sufferings. But this is exactly what we saw from Christ. Think of how He wept with his beloved friend Mary as she grieved the loss of her brother Lazarus, knowing full well that He would raise Lazarus from the dead the next moment. These emotions of deep longing for wrong to be made right, for the curse on this world to be fully lifted, for the ultimate accomplishment of God’s plan of redemption are longings that the heart of God shares with us.

And His groanings are not mere examples of His empathy, they characterize His action on our behalf. He intercedes for us with groaning. This word for interceding carries the idea of advocating on our behalf, pleading for our favor. And so, in our pain, in our agony, in our distress, in our bewilderment when we don’t know what to pray for or can’t even bring ourselves to pray beyond pleading for God’s help and mercy, the Spirit is there interceding on our behalf to the Father with groanings of His own.

Question 3: What is the Spirit Praying for?

Which brings us to our third question: What is the Spirit praying when He intercedes on our behalf? Let’s read verse 27 again, “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.”

Remember that the weakness of our prayers is that we do not know or have an adequate grasp of God’s will. But the Spirit does. He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. We are inadequate, but his advocacy is perfectly adequate because He is God, and He and the Father exist in perfect harmony and unity.

We see this in the first half of verse 27. The Father is the one who searches the hearts of men. He is the one who, as He said to the prophet Samuel when he was led by God to anoint David the son of Jesse, 1 Samuel 16:7 “For God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.

7 But Yahweh said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but Yahweh looks at the heart.”

When the disciples set out to replace Judas with Mathias as the 12th Disciple, they prayed Acts 1:24 “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two You have chosen”

Acts 1:24 ESV

24 And they prayed and said, “You, Lord, who know the hearts of all, show which one of these two you have chosen

And this is Paul’s point: if the Father knows the hearts of men how much more does He then know the mind of the Spirit who dwells in the hearts of the saints.

It is for this reason that the Spirit’s intercession is too deep for words. Words are not necessary for inter-trinitarian communication. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 2:11 “no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” So the Spirit knows perfectly the mind of the Father and the Father knows perfectly the mind of the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:11 ESV

11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

And this point almost seems unnecessary to make. Of course, the Spirit and the Father have perfect and intimate knowledge of each other. They exist in perfect harmony both in mind and in will. But Paul is emphasizing a fundamental point here: Since the Holy Spirit perfectly prays for us according to the Father’s will, and since the Father perfectly comprehends the mind of the Spirit as He prays for us, then the Spirit’s prayers on our behalf will always be answered with a yes. Because of our weakness, our prayers are answered sometimes with a no, sometimes with a wait, and sometimes with a yes. But without a doubt, with 100% certainty, the Spirit’s prayers on our behalf or always granted. ‘

And here’s the amazing thing. The Spirit intercedes for us to the Father, and He doesn’t do this work of intercession alone. I’ve already made again quickly look down at verse 34 of Romans 8 and see that Christ is at the right hand of the Father interceding for us. The author of Hebrews rights in Hebrews 7:25 that Christ always lives to make intercession for us. As Scottish theologian John Murray observed we have an intercessor in the court of heaven as well as an intercessor in the theater of our hearts. The depth of the intimate love and tender care that God has for you and me is unfathomable. The love and support of our dearest companions looks like neglect and hate compared to the love and care of the triune God for us at this very moment.

And before we move on, I want us to see one more thing. I want you to highlight, or underline Paul’s repeated use of the word know in verses 26, 27, and 28. We do not know what to pray for because we do not know the will of God in verse 26. But the Spirit does know the will of God and prays for us accordingly. And the Father knows the mind of the Spirit in verse 27. So then, watch this, verse 28, “and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God,” How do we know all things will work together for our good? Because we know the Spirit is praying for us in those broken, tragic, difficult, and devastating moments and His prayers are in perfect accordance with the Father’s will which perfectly aligns with our good.

God’s will and our good are perfectly as unified as the mind of the Spirit and the Father.

All the Spirit’s prayers on our behalf are answered yes so that all things work together for our good.

Be encouraged, dear Saint that God’s will and our good are always being fulfilled in our lives despite our weakness and despite our inability to know what to pray for. Our weakness as little children will never frustrate the will of our Almighty Father. Why? Because the Spirit is our Helper and our Advocate.

Now an objection may be arising in your mind by now. Why should I pray if the Spirit is praying perfectly for me according to God’s will? Why not just leave it all up to Him?

Remember the analogy of the swing-set. We’ve established that the intercession is made by the Spirit alone. But the Spirit is interceding for us in conjunction with our own prayers. We pray not knowing God’s will and He prays alongside us according to God’s will. He intercedes for us when we pray so that he fills in what we lack and corrects what we get wrong.

The next reason why we should pray is that we are commanded all over scripture to pray. Again Paul is assuming in this passage that we are praying too. Elsewhere we are called to cast all our cares upon God because He cares for us.

And ultimately, we pray because it brings God glory. In God’s infinite wisdom He has designed a universe where He carries out His sovereign will in response to the prayers of His finite children. And He has designed it to be this way because prayer brings Him ultimate glory for it displays our dependence on Him and faith in Him.

Just as the Holy Spirits' prayer for us is an expression of His care, our prayers to God are expressions of faith and dependence on God and this brings glory to God. So don’t stop praying. And don’t be discouraged when you rightly feel like you pray imperfectly. The Spirit is Helping you with perfect prayers of His own.

Question 4: Whom is the Spirit Interceding for?

We have one last question to answer, and it is this: Whom is the Spirit interceding for? And the answer is clear as day, right there at the end of verse 27, the Spirit is interceding for the saints.

And I asked this simple question so that I can ask another: For those of you here today who do not yet know God as Father, who have not come to Jesus as Savior and Lord, who have not received the gift of the Holy Spirit, why don’t you want to be loved and cared for like this by the God of the Universe? Why don’t you want to be in this amazing relationship where you are cared for by the Good Shepherd who so tenderly watches over His sheep? When everything around you is falling apart, does alcohol provide you with this type of comfort? When is your life filled with brokenness does sexual pleasure give you this amount of relief? When things keep going wrong does a shopping spree provide you with hope that lasts? Do your friends and loved ones care for you this well when you go through a tragedy? The honest answer that you know in your heart is no. So then come to Christ, come to Him all who are heavy laden, which is all of us. Leave your sins and your idols behind and come to Christ and He will give you rest. He will give you life everlasting. He will give you Himself.

This is how amazing the love of God is for the saints. God perfectly cares for us. God knows and provides for our every need. God heals our wounds and binds up our broken hearts. God pours out blessings and pleasures that bring perfect satisfaction and joy. And God intercedes for us within the triune Godhead for our good and His glory.

This relationship, this intimate love, dear saints is just a foretaste of heaven. The Spirit of God dwelling with us is the first fruit of the harvest season, meaning that this reality of God dwelling with us will only get better and better when we reach the glories of eternity. In fact, the reason for eternity is that it will take an eternity for us to experience to infinite joy and pleasure of God’s intimate love. This is the reason why we have been justified. We have no condemnation so that now we can have peace and experience God’s presence. We are saints made holy so that we can live with the holy God and enjoy His love forever. And guess what, and this is exactly where Paul’s final destination in Romans 8, nothing can separate us from this amazing love.

Conclusion

Last February, in one of our eldership newsletters, I wrote a devotion for you from a verse from the Psalms that served as an incredible source of comfort, encouragement, and strength to keep going during the most difficult and darkest of times.

That verse was Psalm 56:8 “8 You have kept count of my tossings; put my tears in your bottle. Are they not in your book?” With every toss and turn that we have at night; God counts everyone. He keeps a record of all our restlessness in His book. And then the Psalmist says that our Father tenderly adds up every single tear that drops from our grieving eyes and keeps them in His bottle. He cares for us this much. All of our suffering and all of our distress does not go unnoticed. He sees it all. Each sleepless night is noteworthy, each tear shed is precious.

But that care, that tender attention that we see in the Psalms is just a glimpse of God’s compassion and His intimate comfort in light of what we just saw in Romans.

When you groan because a relationship falls apart, where there was once love and fellowship but now there is coldness and rejection, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

When you groan another door on your career path gets closed, and you get passed up for a promotion, you fail a class or you get fired, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

When the bills come due and there's not enough money in the bank account and you are already working overtime at two different jobs, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

When you groan after being mocked, ridiculed, or even harmed because you were unashamed of Christ, because you proclaimed His gospel, because your holiness and righteousness offended the sinful world around you, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

When you groan because the child whom you faithfully raised in the ways of God continues to stray from that way deeper and deeper into rebellion, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

When you groan after sitting in the cold, sterile white doctor's office, after the doctor came in and told you that you have months to live because you have cancer, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

When your groan because your mother stops recognizing who you are and needs help to complete the most basic of daily tasks, and then one day takes a turn for the worst that she never recovers from, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

As you groan in the moments after yet another pregnancy that started with so much joy and anticipation ends with so much mourning and agony, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

As you groan in the moments after your spouse or even your dear child is laid in a box of wood and placed in the ground, leaving a hole in your home and your heart, leaving you not knowing how you will move forward from this moment, not knowing how much more pain and grief you can take. leaving you unable to even find the words to pray, know the Spirit is there with you interceding with groans of His own for you.

In all these moments, when we are groaning with tears in our eyes, hanging on to the shred of hope and faith in God’s sovereignty and love…in these moments Paul doesn’t instruct us to get over our weakness and inability. No in these moments with pastoral care he points us to the Spirit of God who helps us with His intercession, groaning with us with His groanings.

Dear saints, we do not go through these present sufferings alone. We aren’t left out in the storm on our own.

God doesn’t just look down upon our suffering from afar. All three persons of the Triune God are... intimately caring for us, protecting us, strengthening us, and supplying our every need, the Spirit and the Son praying for us. As we walk through the valley of the shadow of death where is He? He is with us.

So then dear saints, when you suffer do not fear and do not grumble. Instead, groan with hope as you endure until that day when you will see glory. And as we groan, know this, we do not groan alone. The Holy Spirit groans with us as He sufficiently helps us in our weakness by interceding for us.

Let’s Pray

Praise Him

Thank Him

Long for Him

Benediction

Dear friends, I hope that you have been amazed by the love of God today. I hope that you have tasted and seen that He is good. So many of you are struggling and suffering and I pray that God’s Word to you today has filled you with hope and comfort.

Know this, you do not groan alone for the Spirit groans along with you with prayers for you as you eagerly await your future glory in the midst of your present suffering.

After the service, us Elders will stand here ready to talk with you, and to pray with you if you so need.

Allow me to dismiss you with this benediction

“24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.” And God’s people said, Amen.