June 22nd: Jason & Joshua Co Preach: The Spirit Within Interceding in Our Weakness

The Spirit Within: Interceding in Our Weakness

Sermon Thesis: The Holy Spirit intercedes for us as we pray.  

Sermon Texts: Romans 8:26-27

Jason: 

Today is the conclusion of our series on the Holy Spirit. This has been such a rewarding study for me and I hope it’s given you some fresh insight into the way God’s Holy Spirit is at work in your life. 

Today, Joshua and I will wrap up our series by talking about how the Holy Spirit helps us whenever we are weak – and in particular, how the Spirit helps us in our prayers. 

Joshua: 

This morning we will be looking at Romans 8:26-27. 

Romans 8:26-27

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. 

Jason: 

Do you feel strong or weak in your prayer life? 

• It’s kind of a trick question. Nobody ever raises their hand and says, “Yeah, I’m really crushing it when it comes to prayer.” Each person here today could say, “I probably don’t pray as much as I should.” As I talk to people about their spiritual lives, it seems that prayer can be a struggle for everyone from time to time.
• I don’t think any of us ever fully “arrive” when it comes to prayer. I love what Richard Foster says: “Who can ever master something in which the main objective is to be mastered?” 
• I think it’s easy for us to feel weak in our prayer lives. 

Joshua: 

Even Paul, an apostle – can relate to this feeling of weakness in prayer. He says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” He doesn’t say, “The Spirit helps you all in your weakness.” No, it’s the language of “us” and “our.” Paul admits that he is right there with us in this feeling of weakness. And then he immediately starts talking about prayer. “We do not know what we ought to pray for…” It blows my mind to think that prayer was a struggle for someone like Paul from time to time. So if you feel a bit weak in your prayer life – like you don’t really know what you’re doing sometimes – don’t worry, you’re in good company. 

Jason: 

What are some of those weak places in our prayer lives? Where do we struggle when it comes to prayer? Here are a few that came to mind for us: 

1. Demanding our way in prayer
   1. This might be the most common weakness we have when it comes to prayer. 
   2. Some people think of prayer as a way to make demands of God. Their prayers amount to little more than giving God a “To Do” list. “Here are the things I need you to do and the people I need you to bless. Thanks!” 
   3. This is almost like treating God like he’s the genie in the bottle who just shows up to grant your every wish. Or thinking that God is like an ATM machine: push the button, get what you want in return.
   4. It’s true that Jesus says, “Ask and it shall be given to you.” But there’s a huge difference between asking and demanding. Asking is done in humility. Demanding is entirely different. 
   5. Joshua: Sometimes, whenever we make demands, it’s because we think we deserve something. And that can be a huge problem in our prayer lives. This is very ME-centered. This is “us” doing the talking, rather than the Spirit doing the talking. 
   6. This is a weakness in our prayers. This is not the purpose of prayer at all. 

Joshua: 

2. Disappointment in prayer
   1. Sometimes we can be disappointed in prayer – especially when we don’t receive the answer we were expecting. 
   2. Has that ever happened to you? 
   3. I was dating this girl for a little while and it was getting to the point where we were trying to figure out if the relationship was going to continue or not. I didn’t know what to do, so I prayed; I thought that was what was best to do in this situation. So I said, “God, I trust you. If this is a relationship you want to keep in my life, make it clear; if not, then make that clear, too.” The very next day, she broke up with me. 
   4. This is a time when I learned that sometimes there are disappointments in prayer. Sometimes we don’t get the answer we’re looking for in prayer. Maybe you can think of a time when your prayer wasn’t answered the way you hoped. Maybe it was a job promotion or a relationship or a major life decision you needed to make, but you didn’t get the answer you were expecting. We tend to feel the disappointments in prayer more than we feel the highs (success) in prayer. 
   5. And when that happens, that can be disappointing. Satan wants to turn that disappointment into fear or doubt or something that will keep us from praying. And Satan wants to use that disappointment to keep us from trusting God in prayer. 

Jason: 

3. Dryness in prayer
   1. Sometimes you pray and you pray and it seems like nothing is happening. Prayer becomes dry, routine. You’re just kind of going through the motions. 
   2. If you’re experiencing this right now, I would want you to know that this is a common experience. In talking with people about their spiritual lives, I’ve learned that every believer goes through times of spiritual dryness in prayer. 
   3. Example: Mother Theresa was known for her lifetime of care for some of the poorest people on the earth. Even if she believed some things that don’t quite square with all of your beliefs, nobody can deny her devotion to God and her love for others. And yet, privately, she wrestled with feeling empty and abandoned by God for nearly 50 years. And yet, she continued to pray. 
   4. So I want to be clear: dryness in prayer isn’t the weakness. It’s how we respond to that dryness. But still, this can become one of these weak points for us in our prayer lives. 

Joshua: 

4. Distractions in prayer
   1. Giving our attention to God in prayer can be difficult at times. It’s so easy to be distracted in life, but also whenever we go to pray. 
   2. How often has this happened to you? For people my age, I think this is such a common struggle in prayer. You try to make time for prayer, and as soon as you bow your head, you get a notification on your phone. Or somebody walks into the room. Or maybe you try to pray at night, and you end up falling asleep. Has that ever happened to you? 
   3. Sometimes we have the best of intentions – somebody says, “Hey, will you pray for me?” And we intend to do it, but we simply forget. We’re distracted by other things going on in our lives. Fixing dinner, putting kids to bed – there are so many distractions to our prayer lives. 
   4. One of my professors talks about “taming the monkey mind.” Sometimes our mind is like a monkey, racing from thought to thought, jumping around from here to there. Our own thoughts can get in the way of our true intentions sometimes. Sometimes we ourselves are the greatest distraction in our prayer lives! 

Jason: 

5. Discouragement in prayer
   1. Sometimes the weakness is simply this: we are too discouraged to pray. The desire isn’t there anymore. We tell ourselves, “What’s the point? It won’t change anything anyway.”
   2. Of all the things on this list, this one might be the most dangerous of all.

Maybe you’ve experienced some of these things in your prayer life. Or maybe you’re experiencing something like this RIGHT NOW in your prayer life. 

Joshua:

But there’s good news in our passage from Romans 8. God is letting us in on a HUGE secret. He has given us a superpower to help us in our prayers. Or, to put it more precisely, God has given us a super-presence to help us: the Holy Spirit. 

One of the reasons God gives us the Holy Spirit is to help us in our prayers. Paul says two things that are important here: 

1. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us in wordless groans. 
2. God the Father knows the mind of the Spirit as He searches our hearts. 

Has there ever been a time in your life when you didn’t know what you ought to ask for in prayer? Maybe you were confused about something. Maybe you tried to pray and you thought, “I don’t even know what to ask for here.” 

This is the situation Paul has in mind here – when we feel weak like this in prayer. But in this moment of weakness, the Spirit within rises up to intercede for us. The word “intercede” means “to plead” or “to appeal.” The Spirit intervenes for us, pleading to God on our behalf in prayer. 

Jason:

And the Spirit does this through “wordless groaning.” Maybe your translation says something like “groanings too deep for words.” This idea of groaning is important in Romans 8. This is the third time Paul has used this word in this chapter. 

1. V22, Paul says that the whole creation is groaning in the pains of childbirth. Creation is waiting for a new birth – the redemption. 
2. V23, He says that we are also groaning. The word “groaning” can also mean “sighing.” We’re sighing as we wait for what comes next – as we wait for God’s redemption. Even the least religious person you know looks out at the world and knows that something’s not right. We’re groaning inwardly as we wait for God to destroy evil once and for all. 
3. And now in V26, the Spirit groans for us when we don’t know how to pray. The picture here is that the Spirit cries out to God the Father, groaning and sighing when we don’t have the words to express ourselves.

There is a way of praying that is deeper than saying. 

• We usually think of prayer as something that we do. Bow your head, close your eyes, say your prayers. 
• But according to this passage, there is a kind of praying that runs far deeper than words. There is the Holy Spirit interceding on our behalf, talking to God the Father for us. 
• The Spirit takes what is in our hearts and He communicates this back to God the Father in groanings and sighing that transcends human language. This is the eternal language of the Father and the Son and the Spirit. 

Think about it this way: the communion between the Father and the Son and the Spirit is so rich that the Holy Spirit living within you is able to communicate with God the Father in heaven. The two of them share in the deepest kind of communion possible – eternal communion – and the Spirit within us is able to share our hearts with God the Father in this eternal language. This is amazing!

• It’s kind of like an older married couple who has been together so long that they are able to finish each other’s sentences. They can just look at each other and they instinctively know what the other one is thinking. 
• The ultimate example of this is the inner-communication between God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit. 

Joshua: 

What comes to mind when you hear that the Holy Spirit “groans” on your behalf as you’re praying? 

• This should make us feel special. God wants to hear from us so much that He has given us the Holy Spirit to ensure that He understands our concerns. 

Verse 27 tells us that God searches our hearts and He knows the mind of the Spirit. So Paul’s reasoning is something like this: if the Spirit of God lives in our hearts; and God the Father searches our hearts; then He also knows the mind of the Spirit. 

• The Old Testament is full of passages about how God searches our hearts. You find this in places like 1 Samuel 16:7; Psalm 139:23; and Jeremiah 17:10. 
• And since He searches our hearts, He is able to communicate with the Holy Spirit who lives within us, which we have been talking about throughout this series. 

The upshot of this is that God is able to hear our prayers because the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. 

• We don’t always have to know what to say when we’re praying. 
• We don’t have to beat ourselves up for not having the right words. 
• We don’t have to worry if our prayers are not very eloquent or smart-sounding. 
• We can trust that the Holy Spirit is able to speak a word on our behalf because He intercedes for us. 

And because of this, we can pray with CONFIDENCE. That’s an awesome truth that we can learn from God’s Word. 

Jason:

Does the Spirit of God live within you? If you’ve confessed Jesus as your Lord, then the answer is yes. 

• The Spirit is given to us as a helper, as a comforter. 
• The Spirit of truth is our guide, leading us to see Jesus. 
• Through the Holy Spirit, God wages war against our fleshly desires. 
• The new “holy of holies” is the heart given over to Jesus. You are a temple of the Holy Spirit. 
• God’s Spirit sanctifies us and transforms us, making us more like Jesus. 
• This is God’s gift to you if you’re a follower of Christ. And I hope this series has served to clarify and remind us of these truths. 

And if you’re not following Jesus, my prayer is that this series has planted the seeds of faith in your heart. The Spirit is urging you to see Jesus – the One who died for you, the One who stands ready to receive you in His grace and mercy even today. 

Would you give your life to Jesus and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit living within you? 

Invitation:

In the name of Jesus Christ, the Sovereign Lord who makes all things new, he who has ears, let him hear. 

Communion:

Jason: Communion setup (J&J then move to front row)

Lee: Communion song

Silence (60 seconds)

Joshua Read Colossians 3: “Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.”

Joshua: Prayer for bread: Dear God, I want to thank you for this bread and the sacrifice that this bread represents. Lord, I thank you for Jesus and all that he did for us. Amen. 

Joshua: Prayer for the cup: Dear God, I want to thank you for this juice and the sacrifice that this juice represents. Lord, I thank you for Jesus and all that he did for us. Amen. 

Lee: Christ We Do All Adore Thee

Pat: Closing

Discussion Questions: 

1. Today’s sermon began by suggesting that many people feel weak in their prayer lives. What does it mean to feel “weak” in prayer? What are some common reasons people experience this? 
2. Jason referenced Richard Foster’s line on prayer: “Who can ever master something in which the main objective is to be mastered?” How do you understand this quote? 
3. Read Romans 8:26-27. Do you find any encouragement from the thought that even Paul, an apostle, admitted weakness in prayer? 
4. Jason and Joshua identified several “weak places” in prayer: demanding our way, disappointment, dryness, distractions, and discouragement. Which of these resonates most with your personal experience? Which one is the most difficult for you? 
5. How can we actively combat distractions and discouragement in our prayer lives? 
6. Romans 8:26 tells us that the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with wordless groans. How do you understand this? What does it mean to “intercede?” 
7. Jason and Joshua said, “There is a way of praying that is deeper than saying.” What do you think this means practically in your prayer life? Can you think of times in your life when you’ve experienced this kind of “deeper” prayer? 
8. How does the knowledge that God the Father knows the mind of the Spirit change your approach to prayer when you don’t have the right words? 
9. Romans 8:27 refers to God the Father as the one who searches our hearts, an idea found in the Old Testament as well. Read 1 Samuel 16:7, Psalm 139:23, and Jeremiah 17:10. What stands out to you about these passages? What do these verses teach us about God? 
10. What is one specific, actionable step you can take this week to strengthen your prayer life based on what you learned today?