26 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 with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
I'm just going to let MacArthur explain this one...
when the day of glory comes for God's people, there's gonna be a rejuvenation of the whole earth and the Heavens as well. And so creation is personified as groaning. And believers are groaning. And you experience that in your own life as you long for the fulfillment of that which is promised to you in Christ. You long for the day of glory.
And thirdly, the Holy Spirit groans. In Verse 26 and 27, it says, "The Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings which can't be uttered." The creation groans. The believer groans. And the Holy Spirit groans. And here we find the Holy Spirit who is involved in this groaning process, sighing over the undesirable fallenness of man and the earth and the universe. Longing for the Glorious liberation of the children of God, as Verse 21 calls it. Longing for the manifestation of the Sons of God, as Verse 19 labels it.
And we come, then, to Verses 26 and 27 to finish up our look at the inexpressible groans for glory, the groaning of the Holy Spirit. Now this section is profound. It's so profound that we really don't understand it ultimately. We can sort of play around on the surface. But we don't really understand these groanings. We'll do the best we can. It is a deep passage. It is a profound one. It is a rich one....
The word "likewise" just like creation and believers, just like we groan, the Spirit also. Isn't it amazing? When you become a Christian, it's so wonderful to know God's on your side. He's on your side. I think some Christians sort of go through their Christian life like this, flinching, waiting to get blasted by God for every small thing they do wrong.
Well there is a sense in which God rebukes and chases His own. But keep in mind, too, that our fallenness and our humanness is as much a concern of the Spirit of God as it is our concern. And that when we groan and say, "Oh God, this is a debilitating way to live. I long that my spirit should be set free and that I should ascend to the full capability of the redeemed soul. I want to get rid of this flesh, this humanness that binds me down and trips me up," the Spirit is no less groaning the same groan. That's wonderfully comforting to me.
That's wonderfully comforting. The only time moves in to discipline us is when we get happy with our sin and keep doing it. As long as we groan that we should be delivered, the Spirit of God is eagerly groaning with us. What an amazing thought. What a security that is. He unites with our desire to be free from the flesh and receive full salvation.
So listen, our security is not simply something that was planned sometime and just happens because it was planned. It was planned. And a salvation that is secure was given us by Christ. God planned the secure salvation. Christ gave a secure salvation. And the Holy Spirit works it out.
In other words, you're secure not just because of a plan, and not just because of a gift, but because of a plan, because of a gift, and because the Spirit of God maintains that. If for one moment, the Spirit of God took His hand off my life, I would lose my security no matter what the plan of God was. There is an ongoing work of the Spirit of God that fits in here. And we don't want to miss that.
I don't understand how all of these factors work within God's marvelous plan, but I know that's what the Scripture teaches. It's almost as if now that I'm Christian I know my salvation is forever but I have to be kept saved. I do. I have to be kept saved. Now can I keep myself saved? Can I? No. Who's gonna keep me then? The Spirit of God. That's His unique work. As He intercedes on my behalf along with the Lord Jesus Christ....
God makes the plan and Son and the Spirit carry the plan out. And there is no plan if they don't do their work. You understand that? If for one moment Jesus stopped cleaning you from your sin, you'd go to Hell even though you had made a faith commitment to Christ.
That's why 1 John 1:9 says that we are the ones confessing our sins and He is still faithful to keep on, what? Cleaning us from sin. You see, there has to be a constant cleansing work. There has to be a constant intercession on our behalf. There has to be a constant groaning of the Spirit of God. So we are being kept saved. It isn't just in the plan. It's worked out by the Son and the Spirit.
And that's why Verse 26 says, "Likewise the Spirit also helps our weakness." What does He mean? He means that we can't keep ourselves saved. We're too weak for that. You say, "Well, can't we do it by prayer? Can we just get in our knees, 'Oh, God'? We'll cry out in our prayers and we'll pray like mad." Yeah, we could give it a try. The problem is we don't know what to pray for, right? We don't know what to pray for.
We're going through suffering. We've got struggles with sin and weakness of our flesh. We don't know the future. We can't know what to pray for. "Lord, don't let me do this. Don't let me do that." We don't know. We can't see an hour ahead, a minute ahead. We don't know how to pray. We don't have the right content. It doesn't mean we don't know how to get on our knees or hold our hands. It doesn't mean we don't know how to say, "Dear Lord," and "Amen." It's not talking about form. It's talking about content.
We know now what we should pray for. We don't know how to pray to keep ourselves safe. We don't know how to defend ourselves. We don't know how to pray, 'cause we don't know what's coming. And it's the Lord, you see, who sees something coming and like Peter in Luke 22, He says, "Satan desires to have you." Peter didn't know that. Peter woulda walked by and right into Satan's situation and he coulda been overcome by the thing.
And so the Lord has already anticipated that in His sovereignty and prayed and that's already settled before He even gets there. So we have the Savior and the Spirit interceding for us because we don't know how to pray to maintain our own redemption. We can't pray to keep ourselves saved. Why?
The Spirit helps our infirmities. That's a comprehensive word. It simply means our weaknesses, our weaknesses. That's our fallenness. Not just our weak prayers, but our whole weak existence. Our whole human problem of being in this flesh, this mortal body, this sinful state. How can we keep ourselves saved? We can't, because we don't even know what to pray for. That's such an important truth. And I don't know that Christians really understand that. You see, this is the problem.
When we have taught in years past eternal security, we sort of say, "Well, if you're saved here it's in the plan, you're okay forever." And we have a greed that that is, in fact, true. But have missed, somehow, the marvelous corresponding truths that the reason that is so is because of the continual intercessory work of the Son and the Spirit.
And so we should be offering praise to the Son who intercedes on our behalf and prays or us when Satan would have us. And we should also be grateful that the Spirit of God also helps our weakness, for we couldn't keep ourselves saved, lest divine intercessor stood for us before the throne of God. Great truth. Peter was safe because Christ prayed for him...
Here we find that we not only have Christ in Heaven interceding for us, but we have the Holy Spirit in us interceding for us. Oh, marvelous, marvelous.
We have a faithful high priest in Heaven. We have a faithful high priest in our hearts. For the Spirit Himself makes intercession....
Beloved, you could never attain to glory. I could never attain to glory. I could never even pray my way through, because I don't even know how to pray to protect myself in the spiritual conflict. I have to have help.
And so I have help from the Savior in Heaven and the Spirit on earth. It's obvious we don't know what to pray for, isn't it? You ever read 2 Corinthians 12 where Paul prayed three times for the Lord to remove the thorn in his flesh? Three times the Lord did what? Nothing. Didn't remove it.
And Paul finally said, "Well, in whatever state I am, therewith to be content." And he learned what all of us should know. We really don't know what to pray for. When we suffer, we say, "Lord, get rid of it immediately if not sooner. I've learned my lesson." (Laughs)"Now take it away." But we don't know. We don't know what worse fate would befall us if it weren't for the suffering He puts us through. Trust Him.
Humanly, we don't know how to tap divine resources. We don't know how to pray for the things we ought to pray for. We're so weak. How does the Holy Spirit intercede for us? (Laughs)This is tremendous. He makes intercession.
Intercession. What does that mean? Let me see if I can give you just a basic understanding of the Greek term. It's a multiple compound word. It starts with two prepositions and then you have a verb. It basically means -- if I can put it in simple terms -- to rescue someone who finds himself in trouble and has no resources to escape it. It is to rescue someone who finds himself in trouble and has no resource to escape. Now this gives you a whole different understanding of the Heavenly conflict.
This is why Satan continues to work so furiously on believers and to attack so furiously who name the name of Christ. And this is why Satan doesn't just back off and say, "Well, the plan is settled. The person's a Christian. Leave him alone. We can't do a thing about it." But even Satan knows that we are being kept by the power of Christ. We are being kept by the power of the Spirit. And so he wars against the Spirit. And he wars against the living Christ.
Every way he can with all the hosts of Hell that are available so that he may at some point debilitating their keeping work, you see. And so Christ is not just having died on the cross now in Heaven kicking back and watching everything sort of fall into line. He is working to uphold all things, including redemptive things. And the Spirit of God is not finished. He didn't all of a sudden stop doing things when the age of miracles ended at the apostolic era. No, no, no.
He continues in marvelous, miraculous, supernatural ways to carry on the keeping ministry. How does He do it? He makes intercession. He makes intercession. He pleads to power of God. He comes to us with power to rescue us when we would have no resource for rescue. And would you notice there's an emphasis in Verse 26, "The Spirit Himself, outaw. The Spirit Himself. The Spirit Himself." It's His work. Bless the Spirit. Blessed Spirit. The Spirit Himself. That's important in interpreting this....
The Holy Spirit sees and understands our flesh, understands our weakness, that not only do we sin, but we don't even know how to pray to defend ourselves. And the blessed Holy Spirit in your yearns for our glory. He yearns for our being in the image of Christ. This is the heart of God the Father. This is the heart of God the Son. This is the heart of God the Spirit.
You say, "Well do these groanings have content?" You better believe it. They just transcend language. They're groanings which cannot be uttered. They are sighs longing for Glory for the redeemed, but they can't find human words. This is inter-Trinitarian communication. That's why ultimately, we don't know what He's saying. But He's praying for us.
I don't know what Jesus said to the Father when He prayed for Peter that Satan wouldn't be able to get him. But there's a communion within the Trinity. Oh, what a tremendous day. I'll never be lost to God. the only way I could ever be lost to God and not make it from justification to glorification would be if Christ all of a sudden got dethroned and no longer could sit at the right hand of God interceding for me and if the Spirit of God was debilitated and longer could cry out intercessory sighs before God on my behalf. And that can't happen, folks, for God is eternal.
I believe that this presents really the fulfillment of the words of Paul in Philippians 2, where it says as we saw this morning, "Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling and then this." In other words, He's saying, "Keep working out that which is in you. Keep following in obedience. Keep living the life that God would have." And He calls us to do that, but then says in the next verse, "For it is God who works in you both to will and do of His good pleasure." Isn't that wonderful?
The Spirit of God is working in us to bring about the perfect will of God in a sustained, strenuous effort. The Spirit of God works to produce the end result. I believe this is what Paul in Philippians 1:19 calls, "The supply of the Spirit." It is the supply of the Spirit that He's there interceding on our behalf and consequently God is supplying us with all we need to face all we face and make it to glory.
And I believe this defines for us in clear terms the sealing work of the Spirit. How does the Spirit seal us? By this constant groaning intercession on our behalf....
It would be one thing for the Spirit to be interceding for us. It'd be another thing if God wasn't listening. But He is. He hears everything. And then this, "Because the Spirit makes intercession for the saints according to," what? "The will of God." Great thought. You may not know the will of God. He does. You may not know how to pray. He does.(Laughs)Comforting, isn't it?
You ever read in the Bible, "Pray in the Spirit"? You know what that means? That doesn't mean flip out.(Laughter)You what pray in the Spirit means? Learn to pray according to the will of God like the Spirit prays; that's what it means. Pray in the Spirit. The Spirit always prays according to the will of God. God always knows what the Spirit's praying, 'cause He's always praying in accordance with His will. Why? Because in the Trinity there is perfect harmony.
So the Spirit intercedes according to God's will. The Son intercedes according to God's will. And God hears and understands all their intercession; therefore, responds and by their interceding ministries, we are kept....
God hears the Spirit. He always prays according to the will of God. And you know what happens? Verse 28, "And we know." How do we know? Because of what we just read, folks. You can't pull Verse 28 out of space. People go, "And we know that all these (mumbles)." And they make that verse as if it's sort of isolated from everything in the Scripture. No, no, no.
We know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose. And what is His purpose? To ultimately bring us to glory, to conform us to Christ. And everything works for that. Everything works toward that. Everything works toward that. Why? ...
The reason it does is because of the intercessory work of the Spirit of God. Put the glory where it belongs, folks. You can't just yank that verse out of there and stick it in some kind of isolated setting. The only reason all things work together for good is not because we're so wonderful, not because we have in our own humanness the ability to make them work that way. The only reason things work together for good is because God ultimately is leading us to good in glory and the Spirit is keeping us on that track by His marvelous intercession work within our hearts.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Romans 8:28-30
1 comment:
How amazing is that? I think we often forget to a certain extent about the special position of the Spirit in a Christian's life. We talk a lot about God loves us and Jesus died for us, but the Spirit who is actually within us, who does everything described in this post, doesn't get a lot of attention.
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