Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Romans 8:26-27
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  August 2, 2020

Paul Miller wrote the book A Praying Life. He estimates from surveys he has taken that 9 out of 10 Christians do not have a meaningful daily prayer life. It reminds me of something that stuck with me from Seminary. A professor said, If you want to make a group of Christians feel guilty, ask them about how much they pray.  Almost inevitably there is tension in many hearts when we think about the repeated invitations to pray in God’s Word and the often neglected practice of prayer in our lives. 

But God didn’t give us the privilege of prayer so we would feel guilty. He wants us to be comforted in prayer and encouraged in his love. Case in point, is Romans 8:26-27. In these words the apostle Paul’s intent is clear: He wants to encourage us, especially when we feel our own weakness, because the Holy Spirit is praying for us. Even when we do not know what to say, the Holy Spirit intercedes with perfect petitions that match the will of God.

Paul starts out by saying, “In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” Notice he doesn’t say that Spirit will help people in their weakness, he doesn’t say that the Spirit helps the 9 of 10 Christians who don’t have a meaningful prayer life. No, he says, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. Pay attention to pronouns in the Bible, because they can make a big difference. Paul talks about a universal weakness which affects our ability to pray. He includes himself! He includes all Christians of all time! A main reason we do not pray as often as we should is because we do not recognize this weakness.

We like to look at the spiritual giants of the Bible and think, man they were so strong! I want to pray like Moses who spoke to God face to face. I want to be able to pray to God and bring water from a rock. I want to be like Moses, as whose word, the ground opened up and swallowed all those who opposed his leadership! I want to be like Moses, whose face literally shown with light having been so close to God in the Tent of Meeting. Moses wasn’t weak, he was strong in prayer, right? But have you ever read Psalm 90? Psalm 90 was written by Moses and it highlights the frailty and shortness of human life. The psalm ends with a repeated plea in verse 17: “Establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands.” Moses needed God to establish his labors. He knew that it was not by his own strength that anything would be established or accomplished. Moses was well aware of his weakness! The truth is that all of the Bible’s giants were weak people who trusted in God’s strength. The reason they did great things is because they trusted in God’s power. So often we think that we can establish our work all by ourselves. We think that we can handle everything. If things get really hard we may ask God to help, but for the most part we feel self sufficient. We fail to pray because we do not recognize our weakness. 

Imagine a farmer trying to till his fields with a hoe, when right beside him is a huge tractor. He struggles with the hard ground and becomes frustrated, while all along this incredibly strong and capable machine sits waiting and ready. Someone comes up and asks him “Why don’t you use the tractor?” And he says, “What are you saying I’m weak?” The person would probably just walk away shaking their head because of how foolish that farmer is! And yet that’s us so many times, isn’t it? We have an almighty God who asks us to call on him, but out of ignorance, foolishness, or pride we are determined to struggle on our own. We don’t pray because we recognize our universal weakness as sinful humans. 

Part of this weakness, to which Paul refers, specifically, is the content of our prayers. In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we should pray for …  Again, I’m glad he said we and not  you. Paul didn’t know what to pray for at times. I think about 2 Corinthians chapter 12 where Paul talks about his “thorn in the flesh”. “Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 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 about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” Do not be ashamed of being called weak, give thanks that your weakness drives you to God, that is sets the stage for his strength!

Now, Paul didn’t know what he should pray for in that specific trial. And that’s the sense here in Romans 8. He isn’t talking about the exact words or technique of prayer, but the content. You see our real weakness in prayer is that we don’t perfectly know what the will of God is for us in a particular situation and thus can’t pray according to it.  Is the difficulty I am suffering something that is part of God’s plan for my life or is it something evil that God allowed to enter it? One understanding would mean my prayers would ask to learn the intended lesson of my suffering, the other would ask God to take it away.  But I don’t want him to take it away, if he intends it as a blessing in disguise.  But I wouldn’t want to pray for insight in a trial, if his heart grieves because of my affliction and would take it away if only I had asked. It’s hard to pray specifically, when you don’t even know what to ask for. It is hard to find motivation to pray if you feel foolish for asking. It can be hard to talk to the Lord passionately if you’re unsure if he’s going to agree with you! This is our weakness in prayer: we don’t know what to pray for. 

And that’s why this section is so comforting to me, so encouraging to me in prayer. There are quite a few details that are just on the fringe of our ability to comprehend here, but I’ll do my best to break it down. The Spirit helps us in our weaknesss… First, who is the Spirit? The Spirit is not an impersonal force of spirituality. No, he is the third person of the Trinity. He is the Holy Spirit, one with the Father and the Son. He is our God and through faith the Bible states that he dwells in our hearts to guide and strengthen us in love of Christ. His ministry is personal and intimate. And he helps us in our weakness. The word for “help”  occurs here and only one other place in the New Testament. The picture is that of someone who comes to another’s aid to carry a burden. Imagine you are trying to carry and couch and someone comes and grabs the other end. And I think that is important, because it doesn’t imply that we are merely spectators. It isn’t like the Holy Spirit does everything and we just mumble some words in prayer. No, we and the Spirit are both active in prayer.

Now what is this help? Well it has to do with groaning, as odd as that may sound at first. In this section Paul has talked about waiting patiently on earth while we long for heavenly glory. And now he says, “In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” He has talked about the groaning of all Creation as it awaits the freedom of God’s children. He has talked about our own groaning as we await the glory that will come in eternity. And now, he says: We do not know what we should pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that are not expressed in words. What does it mean that the Spirit groans? Well, I’m not sure I can ever quite understand, but it is not, as some assume, talking about speaking in tongues. I’m not even going to go into that. This groaning seems to be used somewhat metaphorically just like the groaning of Creation and humans earlier in the chapter. It seems that Paul uses these wordless groans to express a real pleading and passionate desire which the Spirit communicates to God on our behalf. He takes our deepest needs and hurts and conveys them to the Father all in accordance with his will. And these beautiful intercessions are more intimate than human words are able to express or comprehend.

In the midst of our weaknesses, despite the vain bent of our motives in prayer, despite our inability to discern the perfect will of God in so many situations, despite the fact that all our praying is conditioned by weakness, despite all this, in love God sends his Spirit to intercede on our behalf. And this comfort is only made more certain with verse 27: And he who searches our hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints, according to God’s will. God is always described as the one who does not judge by outward appearance, but by the heart. And here we see this beautiful logic employed by Paul. If God is able to search human hearts, how much more, then, does he know the mind of his own Spirit, who pleads on our behalf! There will be no miscommunication!

This is why the Spirit’s intercessions, his perfect groans on our behalf, are so comforting. Because even though we don’t know what to pray for in accordance with God’s will, the Spirit most surely does. His intercession isn’t just in accordance with God’s will, but it is God himself expressing a desire for our eternal good which he finds in his own heart. The good news is that God will always understand us according to his good and gracious will, even if that’s not what we had intended to ask him…And in this way, you can be sure that not one moment spent in prayer is ever wasted.

An example would be the  mother of Augustine of Hippo, known as St. Augustine. Her name was Monica and she prayed for years for the salvation of her wayward son. He told her that he was going to Italy and she prayed that he wouldn’t go, fearing that he would be led further away from God. But while in Italy he began to listen to the sermons of Aurelius Ambrosius, the bishop of Milan. He began to read the Bible and the Holy Spirit created faith in his heart. The Spirit took her deepest desire to God in accordance with his will and granted her request. Not in the way she might have guessed, but Augustine became a Christian, one of the most notable theologians in history. Even though she seemed to be praying for the wrong thing, the Spirit was communicating her desired perfectly to God. Not one of her prayers was wasted.

Another example would be when people pray for a husband or wife. I know this is a common prayer for so many young Christians, especially. But the Holy Spirit may know that what they really seek is someone to give them worth and love. And he may decide that the best answer to their prayer for a while is the same answer given to the Apostle Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you.” And while  there will be loneliness and sadness at times, as they learn to trust in God as their source of worth and love, their prayer is answered in accordance with God’s will. And he may someday choose to bless them with a spouse as well, or bless them with contentment in being single. Now, I’m not saying that this is exactly how God handles these requests. It is just an example of how our prayers may be brought before God’s throne by the Spirit and answered according to his will. The point is that you can pray with confidence knowing that your prayers are not thrown out or discarded by God.

Be confident that even when you do not know what to say, the Spirit does. Be confident that even if you are unsure of God’s purpose, he is. Be confident that there will be no miscommunication, your desire will be perfectly presented before God. Be certain that in Christ your prayers are God-pleasing, even your stuttering and pausing, even your silent confusion, even your frustrated sighs. Because of the Holy Spirit, your prayers are perfect even if they don’t sound like it! They are effective, even if you aren’t sure what you’re doing. They are powerful prayers, even though spoken in weakness. So be encouraged to pray. Don’t leave the tractor in the shed when there is so much good work to be done in God’s kingdom. Pray!

Amen.