This transcript was generated automatically and may contain minor errors.

Good afternoon. Would you take out your bible, please, and turn to the book of Romans? Romans 8. And if you'll make the effort to turn to Romans 8, that's where we're going to be spending the vast majority of our time this afternoon. Romans 8, and we'll begin reading in verse 18 here in just a moment.

Romans 8:18. We express our feelings without words but through noises all the time. And maybe that's not something that we realize and maybe some of us in here are more expressive about those things than others, but think about that. In fact, as I read this list, I want you to think about the noises that might be associated with these emotions or experiences. Pain, pleasure, surprise, fear, excitement, anticipation, frustration, joy, gratitude, disapproval, relief, effort, anxiety, worry, disgust, and many more are all expressed sometimes through sounds that we make, not words that we say.

I'm amazed. You could have, paid good money probably to see me as I even locked my door before I did this. I made this list and I started making these noises in my office earlier this week. And so I... As I made these noises and a few more in preparing for this lesson, I was amazed about how our thoughts and emotions, not just simple things, but sometimes complex thoughts and emotions can be communicated through sounds without words.

It's not just the wealth of surprise, which is easily identifiable, but the ew of disgust. And we know exactly how someone's feeling when we hear that sound. How about the more complex emotion of the sigh of disapproval from someone compared to just the ah of fear that we would all recognize? And maybe we have the words in those moments. Maybe we could express just what we want to say, but maybe we make the sound because at least for a moment, we don't have the words, at least not right then.

Some things are expressed and maybe better expressed without words. And that's a good start for our consideration of Romans 8 and the spirit and groanings that cannot be uttered, what the ESV calls groanings too deep for words. And this is an answer to a question from our class on the holy spirit, but I think this lesson really stands well alone as a consideration of prayer and providence and how those things work in our lives. And I and I hope that the answer to this question will be helpful to you in your in your prayer life and in your trust in God and his ability and power to answer your prayers. So read with me if you would, beginning in Romans 8:18.

Again, if you're in the class... If you've been in the class on Wednesday nights, you know that spirit is used in a lot of different ways in Romans 8. In fact, it has been kind of our one key passages to show all of the different ways that spirit is being used. And so in verse 18, this is what the apostle Paul says. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.

Even the creation, God's creation, it was not created to be like this. It has been subject to futility because of sin. The creation itself personified here is frustrated because of sin and how it's been impacted in that way. And as wonderful as an eye is, I still go blind, and that's not the way the creation was supposed to be. And so the creation has this groaning, this yearning to be set free from that.

Now that's not really our discussion tonight. He turns then to us as human beings and our groanings starting in verse 23. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body that we put off this perishable body and we put on an imperishable body. Verse 24, for we were saved in this hope. It's not realized yet.

I don't have a spiritual body before you. I just have a physical one, but I was saved and I am saved, and so I have this hope. But hope that is seen is not hope, for why does one still hope for what he sees? I don't see the realization of that. It's not something that I physically can see with my eyes, but I have hope, desire, and expectation that, yes, I will be redeemed wholly and fully on the judgment day.

Verse 25, but if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with... Likewise. And we've read all of this to get to that likewise. In the same way that we're groaning for this glorification that we will receive when our mortal bodies are turned into immortal bodies. Likewise, the spirit also helps in our weaknesses.

For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, at least not all the time. Sometimes we don't know, but the spirit himself or itself makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered, groanings too deep for words. Now he who searches the hearts, our hearts, knows what the mind of the spirit is because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. We're gonna seek to answer two questions this evening.

Number one, who is making intercession with groanings that cannot be uttered? Who is this spirit that we read about here in Romans 8? And then secondly, what does that mean to you and me in our prayer lives? Well, if you remember from our class, we've gone back to this over and over again. What do we know?

What do we think we know? And what do we not know? Well, here are some things that we know in this passage to help us in identifying this idea of the spirit and the spirit making intercession. We know in terms of the spirit interceding in this passage that we are the ones groaning within ourselves in verse 23. We're the ones who are groaning, and those groanings are coming from inside us, in our hearts, what we might call our spirits.

Right? So those groanings are there within us, and that's very clear there in verse 23 that that's us, that we're doing the ones groaning. And that word groan, we find different forms of the same word here. We have the noun form and the verb form. And so when you see groan or groaning these three times, I think you can think about them in synonymous sort of ways.

Secondly, nowhere else in our Bibles is the Holy Spirit explicitly described interceding for me as I communicate with the father. That's not a concept that I find elsewhere in my New Testament. Now we might try and interpret some passages that way based on this passage, but the idea of intercession in prayer is generally not present in those other passages. Now there are three commonly cited examples of this, and I want you to mark your spot here in Romans, and I want you to turn to Ephesians 6. Turn over to Ephesians 6.

Here in having the whole armor of God and that armor being described, I want us to consider Ephesians 6. Now Jude 20 has similar terminology that we're praying in the holy spirit. First Corinthians 14, 15, and 16 is a different kind of passage. I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the understanding also. I think very clearly, first Corinthians 14, 15, and 16 is talking about a divinely inspired prayer.

In other words, I have the holy spirit in the same way the apostles and prophets have the holy spirit. There were some in the church in Corinth who had that, and so the spirit was inspiring them to pray this prayer out loud. That shouldn't surprise us. We have inspired prayers in our bible going back to the old testament, but even in the new, in the book of Ephesians. Twice, we find inspired prayers by the apostle Paul as the spirit is giving him utterance of those things.

But what about Ephesians 6:18? On the screen behind me, I think this is talking about prayer in keeping with the holy spirit's direction, his instruction, his word, his will, that I am praying according to the spirit. But let's read it together. Verse 17 beginning. And take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, praying always with all prayer and supplication.

Supplications are requests of God that I'm begging God. Supplications in the spirit. Being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. And for me, he says, pray for me that utterance may be given to me, that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains that in it, may speak boldly as I ought to speak. So we think about Ephesians 6:18 when Paul says, pray in the spirit or Jude says praying in the holy spirit, there are a number of ways that we might understand that.

It could be talking about a divinely inspired prayer like 1 Corinthians 14. It could be what we're saying here. Pray in keeping with the holy spirit's direction. And I think that fits this idea of the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God just before it. And it fits what Paul is asking after it, that we are praying that Paul would do the will of God, that he would fulfill God's purpose for him.

It could be understood as praying in fellowship with the spirit, in relation with God, or praying from a spiritual standpoint, from our spirit or from our heart. And I would suggest that all of those are more likely than praying with the intercession or help of the holy spirit in that sense. And it's not totally excluded. That's a possibility. But in my judgment, it is the least likely.

So if that's the case, hypothetically, could the holy spirit intercede for us in prayer? Hypothetically, could the Holy Spirit take the things that we're feeling and take them to Jesus, and then Jesus takes them to the father? Well, I assume... It's always dangerous to start assuming, but I assume that the Holy Spirit and god the son hear every prayer that I pray. Why?

Because they're god. Because they know all things and see all things. And I think we have to be careful about being overly confident of assigning an action to one member of the godhead while excluding any other. God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit are present and active and working in perfect oneness and in perfect unity. And there is a sense, I believe, in which God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit all hear my prayers and all can choose to respond in some way to those prayers.

However, having said that, there are sometimes in scriptures a clear difference in roles between members of the godhead. You would agree with that. Right? The role of the father and the role of the son clearly are different. And I wanna give a shout out to Russ Bowman and an email correspondence to help me sharpen some of these thoughts because one of the things that we do know is scripture and through scripture is that the Lord Jesus is described repeatedly as our intercessor, as our mediator.

We see this over and over in the book of Hebrews, lots of places, but 1 Timothy 2:5 is maybe the best encapsulation. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, the man Jesus Christ, if you're reading from the New King James. Now I recognize that these passages address Christ's mediation and salvation, that he's our intercessor by which we might be saved, and not specifically in context talking about communication or prayer. But this consistent language, this pattern that Christ is our intercessor, that Christ is the mediator between us and the father seems to demand to me that taking our prayers to the father is an integral part of what the role of Christ is as our mediator and intercessor. We pray in Jesus' name, amen, not because there's some formula in the New Testament that tells us to pray that way.

Instead, it is it is based on our realization. We are vocalizing the reality that it is only on the basis of my relationship with Jesus Christ that I have any right to come before the throne of God, that he is my intercessor, that he is my mediator. So consider these three questions that make me hesitate to say that the holy spirit would be interceding in prayer. Do we have two intercessors? If Romans 8:26 has God the spirit interceding for us, then do we now have these two mediators?

We have Jesus Christ, and we also have the Holy Spirit. Let me suppose again. I suppose that we could have two mediators. 1 Timothy 2:5 would have to be understood in a different way in order to come to that conclusion. Certainly, if the holy spirit wants to intercede for me, I'm not gonna turn that down.

You know, I'd be happy for the holy spirit to intercede for me in this way through prayer. But if the spirit interceding is my spirit here in Romans 8, the spirit itself, my heart, my will, my inner man, then I think it fits contextually the idea that I might struggle in my mind trying to pray for and say things in just the right way, the most needful way for me to pray to God. And sometimes the reality is that we're a mess emotionally, and prayer is hard, and we can't find the right words. I'm just gonna ask by a show of hands. It's a long question.

Bear with me. Have you ever sat down or laid down or gone on your knees or maybe you're driving in the car and you want to start praying for something, and there are no words? I don't know what to say. I don't even know what to ask for. Raise your hand if you've ever had an experience like that.

I think probably every single person who's ever tried to pray has had an experience like that. There have been times in my life there have been times in my life where I want to do what's right. I want the right thing to happen. I want the outcome to be something that is good and godly, not just for myself and others, but that is so far away. It's so hidden from my sight.

I'm not scared, but I am hesitant to even ask for certain things because I don't know how that's all going to turn out. And so here I am with every right through Jesus Christ to come before the throne of God that I have the power of the God of the universe on my side, and he is there listening saying, okay. Make your desires and your supplications known to me, and I will answer. And I am hesitant to even say something because I don't know what to ask for. I think that's exactly what this is talking about.

But you know what? In those moments, my spirit, my heart, my mind, my inner man, whatever you wanna call it, is desiring the right outcome, is desiring God's help, is desiring God's working. And so I think what happens, and I think what Romans 8 is saying is that spirit, that heart that is within me, Jesus sees that, and I don't have to have the words. Sometimes those desires, those groanings are too deep for the right words, and Christ can take that to the father, and the father can do something about it. I want you to go back there to Romans 8, and I want you to read these verses from that perspective, if you would.

Romans chapter eight verses... We'll just read verses 26 and twenty seven, but read it from that perspective. Likewise, the spirit also helps in our weaknesses. Being a spiritually minded person, having a heart that is set on God, that that helps even in times when we are weak, when we have weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought sometimes, but the spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

In other words, my heart is the thing that is going to Jesus Christ and saying, take this. Now he who searches the heart knows the mind... What the mind of the spirit is. That's Jesus Christ, our intercessor. He searches the heart.

He knows the heart. He knows what's in our spirit, what we're feeling, what we're desiring, what we're groaning for because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. This is God's will that Christ be in this position as mediator and intercessor, and Jesus takes that seriously. And so he sees what's in our hearts. He knows what the mind of our spirit is, and he takes that to God the father on our behalf.

If he who searches the heart is Jesus Christ, the true mediator, then he understands my mind and my spirit, and he can intercede for me with the father. Now the second question I would ask is, well, do we have two intercessors, the holy spirit and Christ? And if this is true that it's the holy spirit, do we have two intercessions then? If the spirit in these verses is god the spirit, then you have god the spirit interceding for me with groanings which cannot be uttered to the lord Jesus Christ who then makes intercession again. And it's not just two intercessors, but two intercessions.

One between me and Jesus by the Holy Spirit and another between the Holy Spirit and God by Jesus Christ. And all of that seems to me unnecessarily complex in comparison to what we see elsewhere in the scriptures. And then this third thing is something that I've wrestled with, especially as I've gone through this class on the holy spirit and the holy spirit's role as the revealer of the words of God. When you think about the greatest communicator in existence, I would suggest it's probably the holy spirit. And I'm not gonna say greater greater than the son, but in terms of role, the role of the spirit is to communicate.

So my third question would be, is the holy spirit unable to utter our needs? Is the holy spirit unable to communicate with the right words and verbalize what it is that's in our heart. If there is any being that has the right words to communicate, it's the holy spirit. Right? Now perhaps that's exactly how it works.

Perhaps there are two intercessors. Perhaps there are two intercessions. And perhaps the holy spirit doesn't have the right words. He just communicates without words to Jesus Christ who then communicates to the father. Perhaps that's how all of that works.

There's a lot that we don't know. And good, faithful bible students have come to that conclusion. This is not a matter of faith in the sense of you get this wrong. Well, you're you're no longer part of the true doctrine or anything like that. But to me, it...

This passage being about our spirit makes the most sense both biblically and in the common experience we've all had of groaning for something that we can't put into words. I mean, we just sang a moment ago. How do we explain? How do we describe? And it's talking about something different, but that idea of, hey.

Listen to our hearts, Lord. I don't know what to say in this moment, but listen to our hearts. That's an experience that we all have had, and I think we will continue to have. And so this passage says to you and me, this is what it profits us. When we don't know what to pray, this passage says, it's alright.

God knows what we need even if we do not. Direct that righteous desire toward him, and he will work it out for your spiritual good. Robert Turner says of this passage, and he takes this position that it's talking about our spirit that is groaning. He says, because God sees deep into our spirit, he understands our innermost groanings. He reads our hearts and hears our prayers we do not even know how to utter.

In fact, the knowledge and planning and calling and justifying and glorifying in God's eternal purposes are all mustered on our behalf on behalf of those who love and trust him. And so we see this concept, and I've explained what I believe it is. But I would add one more thing that we know with certainty. Even if this is the holy spirit making intercession in this passage, the spirit is doing something for us by taking our pleas to God and making intercession. He is not doing something to us by changing our hearts or changing our will in some way.

It's not something that he's doing to us. It's something that he's doing for us. And I think this all becomes even a little more clear if not... If even there is still some questions if we continue reading. Now we read verse 28, but I want us to go ahead and read verses 28-30 as we continue in Romans 8.

Maybe you didn't get all that. I'll leave it up on the screen for a second. But read with me Romans 8:28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Moreover, whom he predestined, these he also called whom he called, these he also justified, and whom he justified, these he also glorified. Romans 8:28 tells us that all things work together for good, and there are many who restrict the all things here to just what we see appearing in the context. I think it is probably more broad than that, that all things do indeed work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. This would be what we call providence. Providence refers to the working of God in everyday life, and providence does not require the miraculous or the setting aside of natural law.

Instead, God is an all powerful, all knowing, all seeing being works through people and events and times to bring about his purposes. Now how he does that, I do not know. But I believe that he does it and that he works. I do know that there are lots of influencers on why things happen to us. Our free will influences that.

The free will of other people influences that. The devil influences that. Time and chance. And, of course, God himself has influence on the things that happens to us. But providence refers to God working through and massaging all of those things to bring about his ultimate purposes.

A phrase that brings only temporary comfort and yet one that you've probably heard. Everything happens for a reason. May I suggest that's not really biblical? Everything doesn't happen for a reason. Time and chance happen to us all.

But I will say this, God can use anything to accomplish his purposes in our lives. Notice three things that are often missed about this verse. Number one in Romans 8:28, this promise is only for those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose. If you're not right with God, if you don't love him, if you haven't accepted his call, all of these people that he's talking about, the ones that were foreknown and predestined and conformed, all of these people who were called and justified and glorified, these people can be summed up in this way. God says, I'm gonna do that for this kind of person, the kind of person that loves me.

And if you're the kind of person who loves God, if you're the kind of person who answers the call of God, then this promise is for you. But if you're the kind of person who has other allegiances greater than God, if you're the kind of person who has not answered the call to submit your life to him, you don't have this promise because you don't have the intercessor, Jesus Christ, who makes it possible to begin with. Secondly, notice that he says all things work together for good. Not that it is good, and I hope we're not parsing words too much here, but I think there's a difference between something being good and working out for our good. In other words, sin is still sin.

Evil is still evil. And I think that's the problem with this idea of everything happens for a reason. Yes. Sometimes the reason is somebody was sinful. Sometimes the reason is there's free will in this world, and somebody made a bad choice that impacted my life through no fault of my own.

And evil is still evil in those moments. But god is great enough to use something that is wrong for our good, and it is good. Not that it is what is absolutely the best, but it can still be what is good. I know of a family where... I know the sister in this family and the brother in this particular family was just broken in so many ways.

His life was broken. He turned to drugs and alcohol. He had mental health issues. He wouldn't take his medication, and we probably all have someone in our family like that. What would be best in that situation?

What would be absolute best is for this brother to be healthy, to come to the lord and become a faithful Christian and be headed to heaven. But that's not what happened. But god... Can god still use that for good? Well, he has through this one, this sister in the lord.

He's used it for good because of her influence, because of the example that she has shown and the advice that she's given to others in similar situations. And good has come of it even though it is not what is absolutely best. So we consider these groanings that cannot be uttered, and maybe I was a little misleading in my introduction, this idea of the sounds that we make. We know that there's no literal sound being made in Romans 8 when we're talking about groanings. Now maybe in our prayers, we're so in the moment that we do actually make noise, and we go to our God in prayer and something comes out, but it's not words.

But the point that's really being made by Paul is groanings groanings just means desires. It's what we want. It's what's important to us. And even though we don't know exactly how things ought to turn out, we know what we want for God to be glorified and for others to be brought to him. It's talking about desire.

And when our desire, our groanings, the deepest, most powerful desires of our hearts are aligned with God, I believe that he hears those groanings for those who love him even though we cannot put those into words. We could end the lesson here, and, hopefully, it would be beneficial to you. But may I give you two admonitions as we finish our lesson? The first admonition is one that I knew I was gonna say for weeks and weeks as I've been preparing and looking for the right time to preach this lesson. And it's very simply this, in those moments when you don't know what to pray, when you don't have the words, go to God in prayer anyway.

Go to God in prayer even if you don't have the words. Because whatever Romans 8 means, whether it's our spirit or the holy spirit, the end result... And I think it's important to know which it is, but the end result is ultimately the same. I don't know what to say, but god knows what's in my heart. And so if you don't have the words, go to god in prayer.

Make a conscious effort to express your heart to him if you can, but at the very least, focus your mind and will and emotions and groanings on God, and then ask him to work it out according to his answer. But the second thing, the second admonition snuck up on me. I wasn't expecting this in this lesson, and maybe it's... We can throw out everything else I've just said, and this is the answer. Maybe.

I took to heart some things that Preston said in his lesson a couple of weeks ago about praying the Psalms, and Steph and I talked about that. We decided we're gonna do that through the end of the year. We're gonna go, and we're gonna pray these Psalms, and we're gonna use the words of the Psalmist in order for our prayers to be made to him. And so so my second admonition has come about because I've been doing that for a couple of weeks now. May I admonish you if you don't have the words to borrow the holy spirit's words and make them your own.

That lesson, if you've not listened to it, 10 of 10 would recommend. But even more, going through the exercise of actually praying the Psalms, 10 of 10 would recommend. I ordered this little Psalms and Proverbs. You know, the picture on Amazon was not this pink. But here it is that arrived, and it is this pink.

And yet, the reason why I did it is because I'm going through the Psalms, and then I'm actually writing these prayers out. I know we've got a new camera, so hopefully, it's not good enough to actually see what I've written here. But I'm actually writing these prayers out. And something that happened to me as I'm preparing for this lesson and I'm going through that, there was one particular thing. It's not a huge thing, but it's something that's been on my mind and heart.

I don't know how to fix it. I don't know how to make it right. I don't know what the solution is. And I was reading through the Psalms and trying to put those Psalms into my own words, and I realized the words that I needed to go to God with in prayer for this thing that I've been struggling with that I didn't have the words for were right there in the Psalm. And so I wrote them down, and I prayed those words to my father in heaven.

I found just the right words for something that was on my heart by the words of the psalmist. And so in the end, did the holy spirit make intercession after all through his word? I don't know. But I know god hears that he heard that prayer, and I believe that he answers because he promises that he does. But this promise of God hearing and answering is only for those who love God who will answer his call.

What a blessing to know that we have a mediator, an intercessor, and is on the basis of that intercessor, that mediator, Jesus Christ, that you can come and be made right with God. You can come and God won't smite you down. He will accept you into his family. But you have to submit yourself totally to Christ. You have to put off the old man of sin and say, now I'm gonna live my life after Christ.

And you have to obey what it is that you're commanded to do to become one of Christ's children, to be in Christ, and that is being baptized into Christ for the remission of your sins. If you're here and you are not yet a Christian, you are missing out on so many blessings. And one of those blessings is this avenue of prayer where even when we don't have the words, God will be working on our behalf. But if you're already a Christian and you realize that there is sin in your life and maybe you have groanings about that and wanna make it right and you don't have the words, God knows and God hears and God answers, but maybe your brothers and sisters in Christ, maybe we can help you to find the right words of confession and repentance that God will answer and heal you through. We can help you in any way tonight once you come, while together we stand and while we sing.