Lesson 36a

All righty, we, am I on? Yeah. So we are in Romans class, lesson 36, and this is chapter 8 we're going over through. We're doing verses 27 and 28 and I'm gonna read verse 26 just so we can get the context of it because it will kind of address that as we go into the end of the lesson so Romans 8 and 26 through 28 in the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness when we do not know how to pray as we should but the Spirit himself intercedes for us and with groanings too deep for words.

And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good, to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purposes. Beginning question one Why does God search our hearts? And so we see that in in verse 27 And he who searches our hearts knows what the mind and spirit is because he intercedes for the Saints according to the will of God So first of all whose hearts are being searched.

I Believers. Believers? Okay. So, God is searching believers' hearts. So, who is doing the searching? That should be easy. The Holy Spirit. What does the verse say? God the Father is. God the Father is. God the Father is searching the hearts of believers. So, my question when I was putting this together and looking at it, does that concern you that God is searching your heart? back there. Does that bug you? Or does that concern you? That God is searching your heart? Is it just 8 to 5 on Monday through Friday and the weekend you're free? When is it? All the time. All the time. Does that concern you? No. He cares. Otherwise he wouldn't bother. Okay. So it doesn't bother you? No. Okay.

I gotta believe that it does. I think sometimes it does. That's why the question is. Because if you sin or you're not, you know, whatever, you're just not... I don't know, you're on the highway and somebody cuts you off. And you want to give them the business. Do you want him searching your heart for that? Or whenever you get in an argument with somebody and you say something. I think there are those times. And I think when we sin, a lot of times, I don't want the Lord looking at my heart right now. But he does. Newell says, Here God is searching hearts to know what is the mind of the indwelling spirit.

You're getting ahead. I guess you have to ask, what is the reason he's searching? Yeah, that's what we're getting to. And that's what I'm kind of getting at. First of all, he's searching your heart. We're going to get to the reasons why in future. And then next question. I think if you look at Genesis three, When Adam and Eve sinned, what did they do? They hid. And they covered themselves because they knew that they were naked. And it was God who sought them out and they weren't real happy that He found them.

And that's the question. I think when I first read this, I thought, you know, you're searching your heart 24-7. And there are times it's like, man, am I thinking right? We'll get to the reasons why he's doing it now, which is in a different purpose. So I guess my question also was from this passage, you think you can hide anything from God? I guess that was he's searching your heart continually. And so that thing I did yesterday, there was a little questionable.

I think he doesn't know about that. But I think he does know about that. Oh, he does. That's what my point is. He knows everything about it. And the other thing is, which I always, I think it blows people away. Does he allow you to sin? Yes. Yeah. Yeah, he does. He knows why you did it. Yeah.

You know, and that's the whole thing when I talk, you know, with the, I'm down at camp and a lot of people, keeping Satan from attacking us and all that kind of stuff. Even if it was, even if it was your day that Satan's attacking you, Did God allow that? Absolutely.

You know, He's allowed that. And that's a hard thing sometimes to understand, but He allows it. He's in control, which we'll get to in later parts of these verses. He's sovereignly in control, and He allows all this, and He uses all things. All things.

But why did Adam hide? Because he had a sinful nature at that point. I thought it was because he came into consciousness. Well, he sinned, and now he knew he was naked. That's consciousness. Well, he was ashamed of himself. Yeah, he was ashamed, and he, hey, I'm naked. I've got to cover myself up. There's a couple of points there.

The only reason I know is because we're doing Genesis on a Wednesday night. The nakedness that he refers to We look at it as physical nakedness, but it was also emotional and psychological nakedness. Those two people, Adam and Eve, had no secrets with each other. They were totally transparent, so there was no reason to hide anything. We are, well, I'm going to couch what I say. And a marriage actually is the breaking down of a lot of that over the years.

And so that's one issue. The second issue is, When God went looking for Adam and Eve, the questions that he asked them, where are you, who told you you were naked, they were really gracious questions because what he wanted them to do was to say, we ate from the tree, we have sinned and we confess it to you.

But that isn't what they did. You know what they did? They went into the blame game right away. And that's what, I mean, we think that our sin nature got all, cleaned up when we got saved. Nonsense. We're just like that. Yeah, that's the one nature people. You know that it's not we don't have one. And it's patently obvious in life. I must admit there are times that I'm convicted of sin. I say to the Lord, no, I don't want to do that now. Not yet. I want to either enjoy this for a little longer, or I really don't want to. I'm planning a retaliation here.

Leave me alone. But you know, there's also, and this is way off track, but it's not as much, I don't think it's, I guess for many years I kept thinking that God is there with a big stick. And the minute I sin, he's going to just beat the tar out of me. What he wants me to do is confess it and realize I'm not doing that. And he's allowed me to do that. Why? So I know my dependency on him. I'm straying from that dependency. I'm straying from focusing on him. I'm straying from this. And he's allowed me to do that to go, yeah, my focus should be on Christ. And my dependency is on him.

When I don't, and it is not, there can be logical, I've said this many times, logical consequences for what you do. You shoot somebody, you go to prison. But if you're a believer and you did that, is that still covered? Did he pay for that sin? Yeah, he did. You're going to pay the consequence. You're going to spend the rest of your life in prison and you may get executed. But that sin is paid for.

And so, again, it's just, I think, and that's why I kind of asked the question about the searching of the heart. I think many, many believers are constantly nagged by the fact that they're hiding something or trying to hide something from God, and it's just weighing them down, because I don't want to confess that.

I don't want to deal with that today. I don't want to deal with it. Well, God already knows about it. He's searching your hearts every moment of every day. And so it doesn't matter. So just confess it and go on. Realize the lesson he wants you to learn or what he's teaching you and move on.

So maybe that's why he searches our hearts. So we will expose our sin. And we can confess it. Well, and now this is a little different in this searching. So now why is he searching our hearts? Is he searching it to see what we need? No, it's so we understand what our problem is and confess it. Well, in this, it's a different thing he's talking about.

There's other verses that say about searching your heart, searching basically your heart. This one does search your heart, but it's for a different purpose. Is it to say what we need? He's searching your heart to say, you know, Courtney, you really need that vacation. Is that what he's searching for? Courtney, you need to really get into the Bible today. Is that what this verse says he's searching?

If you read Noah, you'll get it. Because when you read the... It says to know the mind of the spirit. Yeah, if you look in the verse, it says, and he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the spirit is. So what's he searching for? What's the verse say? The Spirit. The mind of the Spirit. So the Spirit's indwelling us. God is searching our hearts, our inner being basically, to see what the mind of the Spirit is. So why would God do that instead of searching our hearts for our needs? He already knows that. Okay. God already knows our needs. He wants us to know what our needs are.

So if he's searching for our needs, for what we want, how's that going to pan out? We're all driving Porsches and we live in mansions and, you know, just what we were talking about before class. All the world, we'd take everything the world has to offer and where would we be? in jail and drugs and all those things we just discussed before class. Do we know what's best for our spiritual growth? I know myself. I know what I need, right? I know what's best for me spiritually.

That's why it's very interesting when you look at this verse. He searches our hearts to find the mind of the spirit. Newell has it really well, and this is where I get jumping ahead there a little bit, is what, primarily because, from Newell, this is why, primarily because we do not know how and what to pray for as we should. For he himself intercedes to us with unutterable groanings, yet according to God. It is God the Father here that is searching the hearts. He who searches the hearts, God, knows what is the mind, intent or bent, as hidden in those sides, of the Spirit. That is, God the Father, who searches the hearts of His saints, understands the intent or bent of our unutterable prayers.

Unutterable because we do not know the particular things we should pray for in connection with a certain circumstance. For He knows the mind of the Holy Spirit praying for us. And in our stead, in our prayers, in the case of the above-mentioned items of prayer, the Holy Spirit praying according to the plan of God for our lives.

So again, it's, you know, we don't know, and we ended the class, I think, last week kind of discussing that. How do you pray for something? How do you pray for? In the back of the class last week, we were laughing. This is why we never, you know, for years, we'd never offer a prayer request when Mike asked if there were any prayer requests. Because we're all fearful of what, why are you praying for that? You should be still in that state. Whatever your example was last week, she should still have leukemia or whatever.

It's like, you know. Go to Big Denomination and write that one up on the prayer request board. Yeah, she should still have that. That broken leg, that was a good thing. So, it again is one of those things where You know, we don't know how to pray for things. We know, and it'll get into this, we know the generalities, but with the specifics of it.

And that's why a lot of the times, you know, at least when I pray, it's, you know, whatever your will is. This is, you know, this is on my heart. I'm praying for it. and let your will be done in this. And, you know, if your will, you know, it's just like with Lem, you know, it'd be great if he removed everything. That's what we want. I know, and that's our prayer, but it's still, his will may be that it doesn't happen.

And either answer is okay, because he's in control still. And the peace that is known by that is the fact that He is in control. And, you know, you just, we talk, it's really a challenge of our faith that do we believe that? And if we do, that gives us the comfort and the peace that only He can provide. The world can't provide it, but if we know that He's in control and using that, there's at least an inner peace.

You know, it still hurts. I don't want to say that it doesn't hurt, but there's an inner peace that says God's in control. He's using it for His purposes. And that's really, you know, when we pray, I think a lot of it is we don't know all of the purposes or with Rachel and what's being used in Rachel's life now. Why did that happen? Well, it wasn't by accident. It's by God's intent and purpose.

And so, That's why in mine, the Lord's pounding in my head for the last several years is the sovereignty of God and what we're going to get to at the end of Romans 8 here is we can't be separated from His love. If you know He's in control of all things, and we're getting to that in this verse, about using all things, not partially, but all things, trials, blessings, all those things, If you know He's in control and He loves you with a love that you can't be separated from, that's where all the peace, rest, and comfort comes from, is knowing that I think those two facts are what give us the peace. Because if you know that, you can go through any trial or any blessing and know or have that peace knowing that. Anyway, I think these are key verses, and we'll get to, like I said, the second half of what I was talking about. We'll get to some of this in Sovereignty here, and then we'll get to the love in the 832 verses.

So, all right. So, we find out, why does he search our hearts now? We kind of answered a little bit. What does he find there? From the beginning of this passage that we read at the start of the lesson, what is the main object? What is he finding there? From verse 26. Brain cells. What? Brain cells. What? Brain. Brain cells. Oh, brain cells. I thought you said brain cells. That's right. Brain cells. No. I'm not sure.

So, we read at the beginning, what is the main object? So in verse 26 it says, in the same way the spirit also helps our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. So what is the first thing he finds? The mind of the indwelling Holy Spirit concerning a saint. Before that, in the very first, in the same way the spirit also Our weaknesses. Weaknesses, that's the first thing he finds. He finds weakness.

So, what do some of the other translations have for weakness? Is there other? Infirmities. Infirmities, okay. Is that just weakness and infirmity? I kind of looked up, tried to find some of those, the only two I really found in translations. So, what is our weakness or infirmity? He helps our weakness. So what is the weakness?

Our ability to combat sin. Not really combat sin. What's it saying in these verses? We don't know how to pray. That's our weakness. So he's finding the weakness. So from Wiest studies, weakness, the weakness spoken of here is the inability of the saint to know what to pray for. We do not know what the general, we do know what the general objects of prayer are, but we do not know what the specific detailed objects of prayer in any given emergency or situation are.

So, again, he's helping our weakness in that we know, like I said, it brings something to my heart to pray about, but do I know all the specifics and the myriad of things that may come from that situation? I think of Rachel and how that's being used in her, but maybe there's countless people I know at this, this other gentleman, the pump guy that I know that went to it. You know, it really impacted him. And so these are opportunities and what the Lord uses these things for. We don't know all of that.

And so our inability to understand of what he's doing in our life is a weakness. And that's what he's searching for. So the other, which is kind of a greeky geeky stuff, is in the Greek, the weakness is singular. So that means that all we have is infirmity or weakness in our heart with respect to prayer in accordance with God's will and spirit. The weakness. The infirmity. That's all we have, is weakness. So, besides weakness or infirmity, what does God find according to this verse? He finds weakness, but what's the next thing? From that verse,

26. We don't know how to pray. We don't know how to pray. So he's found a weakness in us, and that is that he finds that we don't know how to pray.

So again, going back to the Greek part of it, the definite article is used before the word what, what to pray for. Paul says we do not know the what. we should pray for, that particular what. The words, as we should, are in the Greek text, namely, just what is necessary in the nature of the case to pray for. So, the what. The what are we to pray for? And we don't know the what. And so that's our weakness, is what is the specifics of our prayer? Again, in all these situations that we're talking about, What is your will?

Spirit, let me know. How can I be used in a situation? How can I come to the aid of your friend? How can I be used in that? Give me the opportunities. Tell me how to be used. Tell me what I need to do. Direct me. All those different things I think are asking, I don't understand all what you're doing, but how can I be used? And that's where I think our inability to understand all that he's doing.

And we'll get to that, too, about if God's a sovereign God, what that means, and the sphere of that sovereignty and just in the engineer brain controlling all of that together at one time. I think there's Denny, I don't know who's Denny. Yeah, Dan says, broadly speaking, we do not know what to pray for, the perfecting of salvation, but we, broadly speaking, we do know what we are to pray for, the perfecting of salvation, but we do not know what we are to pray for according to what is necessary, according as the need is at the moment. We know the end, which is common to all prayers, but not what is necessary at each crisis of need in order to enable us to attain the end. So again, it's that we don't know the specifics. And again, I go back to also just the basic of this.

Does God want us praying to him all the time? You know, in the John 17, I just go back to that. He wants that relationship. You think he and Christ, in their relationship every day, we're in communication, and then, yeah, he wants that same for us. So he wants us always before him, all the time. You know, and I think that's where we get Paul saying, you know, I pray without ceasing. He's always talking to the Lord, all the time. You know, it's not big, elaborate prayers. I think it's just that, Consciousness of your relationship with Christ and just always seeking his will and his desire to God God's desire in these things.

So So I have a question. Do you think that if I adhere to these principles and he'll tell me Or other times that I go to him and I know and the answer is well Thank you for coming. I like hanging out with you, but I'm not going to take anything further than this. I think both. I think there's times when there's I mean, I prayed so many times and stuff.

And there's no clue. You know, there are times where Lord, write it on the wall. You've done that in the past. In the Old Testament, there's some writing on the wall. Just do that. I want it clear. I don't want any mistake about where I'm going with this. And I've yet to see the writing on the wall.

But there are other times where I think clearly. There's that inner peace that knowing I'm doing, at least I have a peace about what I'm doing. And I think that's the indwelling spirit giving me the understanding that that's where I should be at that time and what I should be doing. So I think it's both.

You know, there's times where, and I pray and I don't know. Yeah, that's the point. I think that if you go to them and you don't get the specificity of the issue, well, you can continue to pray for that person and that it will be done and that, you know, if I can be used in any way, great. But I also recognize that In most circumstances, I've got to be prepared to be used, because I just can't walk in and say, here's the solution. But I will say, and this is, I don't know, there's times like, Lord, give me a clear direction.

Yeah. And there's a clear direction. I mean, you know, I'm thinking about something and it's like, Lord, and the phone rings and there it is. Well, that's pretty good. It's almost as good as writing on a wall. But, you know, there's some things where I've asked and it's like, just give me a clear direction. instantly, some things happen that it's like, well, yeah, okay. You know, so I don't discount the fact that he can, and he's in control of all things. So, you know, there are sometimes he gives clear direction, I think, you know, both physically and in the inner.

So I was just gonna say, I just think, you know, you're talking about this guy gonna tell me what you know what to do in specificity. And it's not it's not the fact that he's not telling you something, He's just maybe not telling you what you want to hear at that point. He's not just like, no, get back to me later. He's still teaching you, even though it's maybe not something that you want to be taught. Answers, yes, no, maybe.

And it's like, well, again, the inner peace, knowing that's where my two things the Lord's beating into me is the sovereignty. He's in control. If there is not what I want, He's still in control of doing what He wants and exercising His will. And I rest in that fact. You know, when a no is a no or a no answer, I don't get clear guidance. I'm still at peace about that.

You're learning about that. Yeah. And that's kind of an interesting... Yeah, and it's really... the Lord's using that to have my dependency upon Him. I don't know what to do, and I'm depending on you to... you know, help direct me, whatever, you know, or bring the circumstances that, oh, I can be used here, or, and it's not what I wanted. You know, I want to go, I want to go right, and you pointed me left, you know. So, yeah, it's just that awareness that he's in control.

I think that's the key. And the answers may be very clear sometimes, and may be unclear, and that's what I think, you know, the searching of the heart, I think, is God working with the Holy Spirit to the indwelling to say, okay, This is what's best for me. Yeah, Wiest says something similar to Denny's in his expanded translation. He says in verse 26, the Spirit lends us a helping hand with reference to our weakness for the particular thing that we should pray for according to what is necessary in the nature of the case. Yeah. I like that. Yeah, in the nature of it. Yeah.

Yeah. a very young Christian, I was designing a circuit, and I had the whole thing laid out, it was all built, and I was testing it, and it wasn't doing what it was supposed to do. And I worked and worked, like three days, trying to figure out, why won't this thing work? And so I prayed. And about 30 seconds later, this old engineer walks in, real old guy, always wore a big bow tie. And he walked up to me and says, how are you doing there? I said, well, you know, Will, I'm trying to design this circuit and I just can't get the rise time to work right. And he looked at me and said, well, you know, that outfit needs a higher resistor.

Just get 100 or put 1000 should fix it. Nothing. Oh, man. So I struggled for another four hours and I went and got a thousand resistances. I have a similar one that during my master's Yeah, it's the issue in the old days, we had cards, you know, it was horrid. You know, and I was struggling, I could not figure this thing out in my program. I box this program, and I was tearing my hair out. And I mean, I would spend I don't know how many days just doing that.

And finally, came to this Lord, help me. 15 minutes later, like yeah you know on my own for two days just beating myself and said Lord you know I need you. Bingo. How about this thought that he puts you in a circumstance like that so you spend four days with him and you never get the answer and you know what you find out he just liked me being there for four It'll create situations where you have to go to them, but you don't get the answer real quick because you know once you get it, you're leaving. Yeah, you're back down here also. Now, you know, it works, you know, and that's we don't know all the time. But, you know, usually our solution is not the solution. You know, that's the funny part.

So so we found weakness. We determined we don't know what to pray. What else does God find or what in his searching? And this is kind of what we discussed in question one. What else does he find? Weakness we can't pray and then what's the last thing he did he determines or finds? What does he find out about? The mind of the spirit So he searches the hearts and knows what the mind of the spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

That is the key. Not that God finds weakness in our heart, but he searches the Holy Spirit to find out what is best for us to be conformed to his image. It's not that God goes, look at this weak turkey. That's not the purpose. He knows that we're weak. So he's searching.

The whole purpose of this is to search the mind of the indwelling spirit to see what the real needs are. And so that's the cool part of this is that It's not about weakness of our heart. It's just a realization for us as believers that we do have a weakness. But the important part is he's searching the heart or the mind of the Spirit for what is best for us.

That, I think, is a tremendous thing. Rather than, Lord, I want that Ferrari. You know, that's the extent of my my prayers. You know, his his is just a little better than that, you know, so from Newell is God the Father here that is searching the hearts, how he used to shrink from the thought of such divine searching. But here God is searching hearts to know what the mind of the indwelling Holy Spirit concerning a saint to know what the Spirit groans for, for that saint, in order that he may supply it.

I thought that was tremendous. Think about that. God is always searching the heart to find the mind of the spirit for what's best for us. 24-7. That's why I started off the question, do you mind God searching your heart? In this instance, Go for it. I'm weak, I know it, and search the mind of the Holy Spirit. That's awesome. So he may find what's best for me. Okay, question three.

What does make intercession according to God mean? That's in verse 27. He who searches the minds and hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. So what does intercession according to God or the will of God mean?

I answered that last bit. Stop the silence. What does it mean? He makes intercession according to God. What does intercession mean? Pray. If I'm going to intercede between you two, what am I doing? Mediating? Yeah. I'm coming between what you want and what the indwelling Holy Spirit wants.

He's making intercession here. And what's he doing? I want the will of God. Does the Holy Spirit know what the will of God is? Yes. So he's making intercession in us between our heart and what we want and what the mind of the Holy Spirit is, which is what the will of God is. And the Holy Spirit is saying for this Saint, this is what we need. This is what we need. And what is the purpose of all that? Just to do good? What's he doing?

Conforming us to the image of Christ. That's exactly it. So we can manifest Christ. So, I like from Newell, he had a pretty good section on this too. Because he makes intercession for saints according to God, we feel that the introduction, in other words, the will of, before the word God merely obscures the meaning. Kind of an interesting thing.

So instead of the will of God, according to God. What an all-inclusive, blessed expression, unwrapping us as to our salvation and blessing, holy and divine love and power. We know not how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit makes intercession in us according to God. So what is that according to God? What does that mean? Or what does that entail?

God's wishes for our lives. God's wishes, God's direction. to the attribute of sovereignty. What's being said here is not limited to that attribute. It's all of the attributes of God. All of it. Which makes it a much bigger phrase than to focus on just the sovereignty. Yeah. What about his love? I mean, and I think that's why Newell kind of says that is in what you're saying is separating that will out of it, according to God.

Everything, all of his attributes to us. Yeah, you know, love all the all of those attributes to us. Because we are sons, because we are And again, John 17, that relationship, just like the sun, we have that relationship, and that's exciting to see that. And according to God, in some of the breakouts that Newell had, according to his nature, of which we're partakers of, according to our needs, which he discerns through the Holy Spirit, And then according to our dangers, which he foresees, and according to all the desires he has towards us. How's that? That's pretty, I thought that was pretty cool. All of his desires to us, that's according to his, according to God, all of his desires towards us, he's searching for in the Holy Spirit to make that happen.

I just want to add this because I thought it was impactful when I read it. It was just right before that passage you read from Newell. For in the plan of salvation, God the Father is the source, Christ is the channel, and the Spirit is the agent. We'll get that later. I love that one, too. That was a good one, too. I thought that was very good, just how he laid that all out.

That the Holy Spirit is the agent. I guess we can maybe get started on number four. Do all things work together because they just work out that way for believers? No. Otherwise known as just cause. It's a grand complicated plan that will bring us closer to our confirmation. Our confirmation. Our conformity to Christ. Yes.

Okay, and so if you look at verse 28, where this is, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purposes. So what does the verse say? Does it say they work out just because we are believers? Just because we're believers, does it work out? Well, if you put under the heading of believers that, one, they're lovers of God, and two, they're called according to His purpose, you can probably say yes. Others? Just because we're believers?

That's a pretty big reason. It's not just. I mean, it's huge. Okay. And you get all this good stuff, whether you recognize it or not. And the way that he gets to it may be some things that you really hate going through. But it's for your good and your conformity.

I guess the thing is that just because we're believers, and the point is in the verse, God causes these things. Not just because we're believers. God causes these things because we're believers. But it's God causing it, not just because we're believers.

You know, we all wear the same outfit and do the same things. God causes all these things to work. Does it work the same in everybody? No, no individual. Right. So I guess my point being, it's just because you're a believer. If that was just the case, everybody be the same. God causes these things differently in each one of us. He causes it specifically for you, for you, for you, for you, for you. They're all different, but God causes it. He does all those things to work together for his good in you individually. So it's not just a generic blanket. I'm a believer. God causes it. Yeah. I was just thinking, like, we know that there is a Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. And it seems interesting that the Spirit indwells us.

He knows what we need. And he's not, the Holy Spirit isn't the Father, but the Holy Spirit relays to the Father. everything that the Father knows. But they do have different functions. Yeah, I know what you mean. He knows the perfect will of God. Why does he need to search the mind of the Spirit who is in the Trinity? Somehow, yeah, they have a function.

And that's where I think when Newell says in that one that there's God the Father, Christ and the Holy Spirit. They all work differently. They're all part of the Trinity, but they have different functions. You know, Christ went and became a man, died. The Holy Spirit is the one indwelling us. The purpose is to relay those things on to the Father, even though they all know it.

I think it's, I think for our peace, knowing that they're invoking the same. same thing. Yeah. But I did. I understand what you're saying. It's if they they all if they're all part of the journey, why does he need to search the mind of the spirit? Because they all together. So I mean, there is something about that. It's but I think it's just like, he wants us to come before him with prayer. He already knows the answer already knows everything about it. But does he still want us to come to him?

I think it's the same thing with the Spirit. He knows, but it's the communication and the relationship between God the Father and the Spirit that they communicate. So that's the way I kind of equated it, that even though He knows all that, He still wants us, the Spirit, to relate these things on. I kind of have that same thought. The Holy Spirit knows everything about the Father.

Why is He, you know? But I think it's the communication, the relationship that they have within the Trinity. And the most I can compare it to is He wants us to pray. Herod's got the answers. He already knows what's going on, but he wants that communication between us. Did you have something? I did, but I didn't really concentrate on what you were saying. I forgot. All right. We should close with prayer.

Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for each and every day you give to us. We thank you, again, just for what we learned about the relationship between you, Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and just that intimate communication and relationship that you have between each member of the Trinity and how that impacts us as believers, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and again, the fact that you know everything about us and what we need to be conformed to the image of your Son through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who directs us. We just thank you for that plan that you have, and we just thank you again that you are a sovereign God in control of all things, and you have an eternal love for us, and we can't be separated from what joy, peace, comfort we have knowing that. We just thank you now for this time. We pray for Mike in the next meeting just that he'll present the word accurately and we'll receive and prepare our hearts to receive it. We thank you for all these things in Jesus' name. Amen.