Christ Life In Us Romans 8:26-27 You Are Never Alone

Good morning. It's good to be here this morning. Well, we are carrying on in Romans chapter 8, and it does feel like we're nearing the end that we've got. Till the end of July, we'll be in. It's been wonderful to travel through Romans 6, 7, 8 together here over the last while. I'm really glad that we have, you know, when we finished up Romans, we thought, okay, we could move on or we could take this opportunity to go back and walk through through these critical truths one more time. And not that we'll ever move on from these truths. I mean, I think everywhere you study in the New Testament, you keep coming back to these things. But we've got to know them, or we don't recognize them when we see them.

So let's open with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the opportunity to be gathered here to study your word so that we might know you. And that's our real heart desire this morning, is that as we spend time in the words that you've revealed by your spirit, that you would bring us into a greater knowledge and understanding of yourself and who you are, what you're like, that our fellowship with you would be that much deeper, that much greater. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.

So we've been talking about groaning for the last few weeks now, and we saw in verse 22 that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth. And in verse 23, we saw that we ourselves groan within ourselves. And we're still talking about groaning this morning. Verse 26 says, the Holy Spirit who indwells us intercedes with groanings too deep for words.

So what is this groaning all about? What's Paul talking about? Do you and I, do we groan in this world, in this life? Should we groan? I mean, what about rejoicing in the Lord always? How do we put these things together? How do we rejoice in the Lord always and groan at the same time?

Actually, I thought that was interesting in the one song we sang where we've got the Holly Hills lyrics, right? Instead of, now I am happy all the day, we sing, and now he is with me all the day. And I kind of thought, well, it's interesting because In a sense, both are true. And that's what we're going to talk about this morning, actually.

That's the title of the message. You are never alone. He is with me all the day. But because he is with me, I can be happy, regardless of the circumstance. And so I think both are true. But we won't. Whatever. But how do these things fit together? How is it that we groan?

And I think it's really important to understand that Paul is not encouraging us to be complaining Christians, because there's enough of that within the church already. If we pay careful attention to the context, Paul is talking about this joyful anticipation of what he calls the revealing of the sons of God. in verse 20. Okay, so the focus here is hope. Not, I hope so, but this confident expectation. We have a hope, a sure hope, the revealing of the sons of God. And so there's the whole context is this anticipation, confident, joyful anticipation and expectation.

And what we could say that is, is that someday the Lord Jesus Christ is going to return to this world in all of his glory. He's going to come back and he's going to establish his kingdom on this earth. But we need to begin to understand as Christians that our role is to participate with him in that, to share with him in that. When Jesus comes back in glory, we come with him.

That's what the revealing of the sons of God is all about. That's why it's plural. It's not just the revealing of Jesus, it's the revealing of the sons of God. Colossians 3, 4 says, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also, Christians, will be revealed with him in glory. And whenever I think of this event, this moment, this future moment in history, I think of Revelation 19, and it describes this very thing.

In verses 7 and 8, John writes, let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to him for the marriage of the Lamb has come and his bride has made herself ready, it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean. For the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." So we see there who is clothed in fine linen, it's the bride, it's the church. If we jump down a few verses into verses 11 through 16, now we see the revealing. And I saw heaven open to behold a white horse, and he who sat on it is called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and wages war.

His eyes are a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems, and he has a name written on him which no one knows except himself. And he is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God. This is the Lord Jesus. But he's not alone. And the armies which are in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, were following him on white horses. It's not angels. That's the church.

From his mouth comes a sharp sword, so that with it he may strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. And he treads the winepress of the fierce wrath of God the Almighty. And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written, King of Kings and Lord of Lords." That's a beautiful passage of scripture.

And we won't just see that, we will be in that. That's us returning with our Lord Jesus. And that's the context. That's what Paul has in view here, what he's talking about. This is what you and I, if you've placed your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, this is what you're headed for. This is what we as the sons of God are longing for.

So the groaning here in Romans 8 is not griping about circumstances and difficulties, okay? Paul's not encouraging complaining, he's describing the reality of the suffering that we experience as we wait for that day. And Paul calls this the pains of childbirth. Why does he compare this to childbirth? Well, many of you women know firsthand what this is like. You groaned quite literally, right? You were waiting for the revealing of your child, for the arrival or the coming of your child.

So it's not a griping or complaining, it's a suffering that is full of expectation and hope. And it's a suffering that's all worthwhile. I've never ever met a mother who did not feel that the suffering was worthwhile. It was all worth it. Every bit of it.

And that's what verse 18 said, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. So, as Christians, we're like a mother in labor pain. We are expecting something glorious. But we've got to go through some things first. Right? Just as a baby growing in the womb, there's some growing that's got to happen. There's some development that has to happen before the birth.

And that is a major theme throughout the New Testament. It's actually one of the things that sets the church apart as very distinct from both Old Testament Israel and all believers throughout pre-church history. At Holly Hills, we hold to dispensationalism, and now a lot of people are kind of, you've got different offshoots and so forth, and so you might say we're classic dispensationalists or whatever, but one of the key distinctives of dispensationalism is the recognition that the church is distinct. The Church is not the same thing as Israel. The Church is not the same thing as believers throughout history, though there are similarities, right? But dispensational theologians or whatever didn't just arbitrarily come up with that distinction, right? There are a number of key differences between what God has done with believers throughout history and what he is doing now, what he began to do in the church beginning in Acts 2. And this is one of the real significant ones. You can really see this if you pay attention. Because when you look at the Old Testament, you look at the way God spoke to believers there.

He never talked to them about being united to the coming Messiah. They talked about the coming Messiah a lot, but they never had any concept of actually being united to him, being joined to the Messiah, and certainly not of sharing in his glory. But the church is told exactly that. And connected to that, Old Testament believers were never told that they were going to be taken through trials in preparation for sharing in that glory. Whereas the church is told exactly that, right?

When you look at the trials or the sufferings, the discipline and so forth that Israel was promised, they were promised that because of their disobedience to the law. God said, you know, if you break my law, you're going to suffer. But that's not what he's telling you as a Christian in the church. He says, you're going to suffer. regardless, because of what I'm doing, what I'm carrying out in your life, and it's very important and it's very purposeful. And so there's a real distinction, a real contrast. We gotta see that or we'll get confused and we won't understand really what we're studying here.

But everywhere that Paul established a church, he informed them that they could expect trials and difficulties. In Acts chapter 14, Paul and Barnabas had traveled through the Galatian region and they'd They'd shared the gospel, and people had received the Lord, and they'd kind of established these churches, just baby churches. And then they were in Derby, and then they traveled back through. and they are encouraging these new churches and they're helping them to establish leadership and so forth. But in Acts 14, 21 through 22, it says, after they had preached the gospel to that city, which was Derbe, and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith and saying, this is the key here, Through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom of God."

And Paul had to teach this because this was new. This was a new revelation specifically for the church. You weren't gonna get this just through your Old Testament scriptures that some of them had access to because some of them were, you know, these were Jews who had come to the Lord. Some were Jews, some were Gentiles.

But this was a new piece of revelation that as the church, you are going to suffer and it's through sufferings that you are going to enter the kingdom. That Revelation 19, coming back with the Lord Jesus when he establishes his kingdom. And so the church is united to Christ, and we will share his glory. Yes, absolutely, but part and parcel of that is that we must also share in his sufferings. And if you were in the First Peter class this morning, we saw it there, right in verse 11, as Andrew was teaching this.

And we were talking about how the prophets, who were writing Old Testament scripture, they were writing all these things down. And they didn't understand or couldn't see who it was talking, who and when, right? Who and when? Who is the Messiah and when is he coming? And it says here in 1 Peter 1, 11, that they were seeking to know what person or time the spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted, and then he just encapsulates everything about the Lord Jesus Christ in this phrase, the sufferings of Christ and his glories to follow.

That's what the message was. As they foretold and predicted the coming Messiah, that's how you could summarize everything about his whole ministry, is that he would suffer and he would be glorified. Two parts, but two very distinct parts. And Andrew talked about that this morning, how hard it was to see that these things could combine in one person, right? And so the Old Testament prophets and the Jewish people in general had difficulty with that.

But when we know the Lord Jesus and we really study and begin to understand who He is and what His ministry is, we see that that's exactly what He is all about, the suffering Savior who will be glorified. And we share in that. That's what we have to understand. Because we're united to Him, we participate in that. We must suffer with Him in order to be glorified with Him. And Paul knew that Christians needed to be aware of this. We need to know the purpose behind the things that the Lord is walking us through.

You know, think about, going back to the pregnancy analogy that Paul gave us here, think about a woman who is pregnant and doesn't realize it. Maybe a strange concept, but I have heard it does happen. She's going to assume that something is really wrong. Is she not? The pains and the suffering that she's experiencing won't make any sense to her. It's going to be really hard to handle. Why? Because there's no purpose in view. There's no point to it. What's wrong with me, essentially? Right?

But when we understand the purpose behind the pain, then we're able to settle down a little bit. It doesn't mean that it won't be hard, right? There wouldn't be trials if they weren't hard. But we're able to have assurance that in the midst of the trial, we can trust the Lord with it. He is good. And He is at work. He's doing something. And that's the reason that Paul is going into all of this in chapter 8. He's explaining the purpose for our suffering.

Right? And you know what's really interesting, and I pulled out a whole bunch of pages from my notes, you can praise the Lord, but I pulled out a whole bunch of pages from my notes about how Paul in chapter five introduces everything that he's talking about here in chapter eight, six through eight. But if you, we'll just see it now and put them all back in so you see it, oh. Too bad.

Back in chapter five, Right at the beginning, this is where Paul is introducing this whole section, and he says, "...therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we exalt in hope of the glory of God, And then this weird verse, it seems out of place.

And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing what? The tribulation, the purpose. He's giving us the purpose. The tribulation leads to something, right? The tribulation brings about perseverance, and perseverance, proven character, proven character, hope. hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us and that's exactly what Paul has returned to now at the end of these chapters is that in trials and persecution and sufferings and difficulties we rejoice because we know that the Lord is working out something good and it's all related to the Holy Spirit who was given to us and so that's That's what we're talking about here now as Paul gets to the end of this section, he's now returned to this theme of what about these trials and difficulties?

Why are these things going on? And we're gonna talk in the coming few weeks a lot more about the purpose of these trials and what they're actually accomplishing, because that's in the following verses, but just hold in your mind this. that in order to share in the glory of the Lord Jesus, we must first share in his sufferings.

You can't separate those two. And if we don't understand that, then the Christian life is going to be very, very hard and very, very confusing. But when we understand that the trials that God takes us through are very purposeful, then we won't lose heart.

In 2 Corinthians 4, verses 16 and 17, Paul says this again, this is a common theme for him. Therefore we do not lose heart, but though the outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day for, look at this, for momentary light affliction.

Does it ever feel like that? Right? No, but that's what we can call it in light of what is coming. In light of what this is accomplishing, we can see all of our sufferings as momentary light affliction, because it's producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison. And we don't maybe have that perspective yet, but we will one day.

That everything that we are taking through, and you know, like the pregnancy thing, I said that women aren't griping and complaining. Well, it's maybe not entirely true because either you've been pregnant or you've been around someone who's pregnant. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes we do complain because it's just hard. It's really difficult. But in light of that future glory, you look back and you say, that was nothing. That was light and momentary.

But before Paul can get to explaining the purpose, he wants to give us a very critical piece of encouragement, a very critical piece of information. Because we need this encouragement. Even though we should expect trials as Christians, and even though we know that they serve an important purpose, They're hard, and we need encouragement in them. And Paul here in verses 26 and 27 gives us what is probably, at least in my mind, one of the most important things that we can know as believers in our day-to-day walk. And we could sum it up this way, just the title of the message today.

You are never alone. You are never, never, never alone. And we need to know this because this is what we could call mission-critical information. We are on a mission. The Lord is on a mission in you. And he's on a mission through you. And in order to walk through that, to walk in that by faith, you need to know that you're never alone. Jesus knew how important this was.

Because in his final words that we're just studying through now in our John study on Wednesdays, You know what's interesting? John, in his gospel, devotes somewhere between 20 and 25% of his gospel to one conversation that Jesus had with his disciples. And it's the conversation that he has with them on the night before he's crucified in the upper room. Just do a chapter count. It's over 20% of the gospel is this one conversation. And contained in it is just all these amazing truths about what the church is gonna be and what what the disciples need to know about what Jesus is gonna do. And this really stands out in connection with what we're talking about today.

In John 14, verses 18 through 20, he says, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. And sometimes I've read that and thought, oh yeah, someday, 2,000 plus years, he's gonna come back. That's not what he's saying. He says, I will not leave you as orphans. Right? I'm not leaving you alone. I will come to you. After a little while, the world will no longer see me. That's those outside. Those are the unbelievers. They will not see me because they're only seeing with physical eyes, but you will see me because I live.

You will also live in that day, which was soon, 40 days from now. In that day, you will know that I am in my father and you in me and I in you. And if you study out that passage, Jesus is predicting the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell believers in the church. And the indwelling of the Holy Spirit means that the Lord Jesus is with you. And after his resurrection, right before he ascended to heaven, what did he tell the disciples?

He said, lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. When's the end of the age? Has that come yet? No. So that promise is still in effect. I am with you always, even to the end of the age. That promise is true for you. So remember that when Paul brings up the work of the Holy Spirit here in 826, he's already reminded us back in verse 11 that the Holy Spirit dwells in us.

So we're talking about the Spirit of God who dwells within us. And so in every trial we face, we need to be reminded that we are never alone. Everyone else may have abandoned us, but the Lord never does. And again, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is something that shows us the uniqueness of the church. No other believers in all of history up until Acts 2 had this indwelling.

And what that shows us is that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is very closely related to the specific work that God is carrying out in the church. Very closely connected, and that's what we're about to see. And that permanent, personal indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a huge encouragement, a much-needed encouragement in our trials. As I was preparing this, I thought of the fiery furnace in Daniel chapter 3.

Now, this is Old Testament. These guys didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit, and yet, in a very parallel way, the Lord was with them. You guys know the story, right? If you've ever been to Sunday school, you know the story. Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, right? Do we have a song for that?

Okay, so Nebuchadnezzar, he puts up this big statue, however, 90 cubits or whatever it was, tall, massive thing, and it's all gold, and everybody, you gotta bow down to the statue, or you're going in the fiery furnace. And of course, these three men, they know the Lord. They won't bow down to an idol. They refuse. And it's interesting, they're so calm about it. I love to read their response. You know, if the Lord wants to deliver us, he will, and if he doesn't, that's okay, too.

And I think that just added to the king's fury, and he cranks up the furnace seven times hotter, and then he casts them in, and then he's watching, and what does he say? He says, was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire? Look, I see four men loosed and walking around in the midst of the fire without harm. And then he says this, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. He was a pagan, he didn't know the Lord at this point, but he recognized that there's something about that one, this one man who is godlike, and he's in the midst of the fire with them, walking with them in the fire.

And in the same way, The Lord is with us in all of our fiery trials, all of our difficulties. The Lord is no less with you. In fact, he's with you in a much more intimate and personal way. He's within you. And he's carrying out a ministry in you that we're gonna talk about here.

Verse 26 says, in the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness. And that's one of the things that trials do, right? They show us how weak and helpless we really are. And that's a good thing. It doesn't feel good, right? But it's a good thing. Because how often are we going along in our Christian life just confident in our ability, and then something seemingly out of nowhere just hits us, and we walk right into some trial, some difficulty.

And all of a sudden, we are very, very aware of our weakness, our frailty, our inability. And we don't find in us the ability to respond with joy, or with peace, or with patience, or with kindness. And what does that tell us? What does this verse tell us?

The Spirit is within us precisely because of our weakness. The Lord knows our inability. And when we are weak, and we know it, then there's an opportunity for the power of Christ to be manifest through us. That's why trials are so important, because when we're weak and we realize it, and we can turn to the Lord in dependence on him for what only he can do, there's this opportunity for Christ to be put on display.

As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 verse 9, and this is Paul talking about his trial, and this was not a short-term thing, this was a lifelong trial that Paul had to walk through. And he prayed about this, and this is the Lord's response. And he has said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness. And then Paul responds, most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. This is why he could write to the Romans, you know, about rejoicing in our trials and our sufferings, because of this. It's an opportunity for the life of Christ to be put on display.

And he continues on, so the spirit also helps in our weakness, for we do not know how to pray as we should. And the word for is that word gar, that explanatory gar, or we could maybe just translate it because. And so we could read this, the spirit helps in our weakness because we don't even know what to pray for. And this is beginning to show us how the Spirit is helping us, in what way the Spirit is helping us. We don't know what to pray for, but the Holy Spirit does. And a direct translation of the Greek here would be like this, for what we should pray, as is necessary, we do not know.

The idea is that in our trial there are specific things, maybe a specific thing, that we need to be asking God for. But we don't even know what it is. Why is that, right? There's a lot in this statement. We find ourselves in some difficulty, some trial, and sometimes we think we know how to pray about it. Well, we need to get out of the trial. So we start to pray along those lines. But what this says is that we really don't. We really don't know what we need. And this doesn't mean that we shouldn't pray. We should. We should always be in prayer. And especially in trials.

But what this tells us is that our understanding of things and the things that are going on in a spiritual level is just way too limited. We only see on a very surface level, and we can only really pray according to what we see. We can see on a spiritual level to some degree through the Word of God, understanding what he says about what's going on. But our sight is so limited. We're so limited in our sight. And so we don't know how to pray. We don't know what to pray for exactly. We pray. But we don't really know specifically what we should be asking for. And then we have one of those wonderful conjunctions, the word but.

But the Spirit himself, this is in contrast to our lack of knowledge, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit himself intercedes for us. The Holy Spirit knows exactly how to pray for us. The Holy Spirit sees everything that is going on, at every level of the whole situation, right? And he knows exactly what's needed to accomplish the Father's will in our lives.

And notice here this singular pronoun attached to the word spirit, the spirit himself. This is really interesting because we see the individuality of the spirit. He is a person. He is a he. The Lord, the Lord Jesus, is the same way, right? He could say, on the one hand, I and the Father are one, and then he could turn around and pray to the Father as an individual son to an individual father. And it's no different with the Holy Spirit. He is equal with God the Father. He is one. But he can also pray to God the Father on our behalf. And it says that he intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

Now, this is a really interesting phrase, and it's puzzled a lot of people. And one of the difficulties is that this word that's translated too deep for words, that's the N-E-S-B, is just one word in the Greek, and this is the only place that it's used in the New Testament.

So you can see why it would be difficult to translate because we have nothing to compare it to. No other kind of contextual clues. You might have the King James or New King James, which says, which cannot be uttered. NIV says wordless. The CSB and the NET say inexpressible. And that's kind of the etymology of the word. It's got the alpha prefix alilatos, alilatos, without words. And so, you know, we can kind of speculate a little bit on what this means, but it's a little bit hard to fully understand, and that's okay. But we could ask a few questions.

You know, does this mean that the Holy Spirit is praying in groans that aren't really words? Well, I tend to think, based on scriptures, that the Holy Spirit communicates in words. He communicates in words with meaning. That's why we have the Word of God, not the feeling of God. He's given us a written Word. I think that the Holy Spirit is communicating with the Father in intelligible language, not a human language.

I mean, maybe not something we could understand, but it's in language. But does this mean that these prayers, you know, if we were to hear them, we couldn't understand them? Maybe. Maybe that's what that means. Does it mean that these prayers that are going on spiritually don't have an audible expression? Certainly. I mean, we don't hear this, right? So it's without words in that sense. We're not audibly praying them. We don't hear them audibly pray to the Father, but it's going on.

And so that's definitely true. So there's a lot of kind of questions about what exactly does that mean to be, you know, for the Holy Spirit to be praying in groanings too deep for words or without words or without expression. But what we do understand is that the Holy Spirit is praying to the Father on our behalf. That's what's clear, very clear. And the fact that Paul uses the word groanings is very interesting, as I said at the beginning, because we groan, and the Holy Spirit intercedes with groanings, and what it indicates is that the Lord sympathizes with us in our difficulties. This is just the noun form, the same word that Paul used for our groanings in verse 23, so we groan, and the Lord groans with us.

So when you're going through some trial, and you feel like no one else can understand, and maybe no one else can understand, right? You need to know that Jesus does. In Hebrews chapter four, verses 14 through 16, the author writes, therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses. but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore, on the basis of the fact that he understands, he sympathizes. Therefore, let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

And I don't think there's any greater encouragement to have as we go through this walk, through this life. Jesus understands personally what you are going through and he has not abandoned you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. He is with you and he understands.

And then in verse 27 here, it says, and he who searches the hearts The Holy Spirit here is being referred to as he who searches the hearts. And this is actually a common description of God. We see that God searches the hearts of men. In 1 Chronicles 28 verse 9, it says, for the Lord searches all hearts and understands every intent of the thoughts. And there's all kinds of verses you could go to that show this same kind of thing. So we know that the Holy Spirit, the Lord, searches the hearts of men, but here's what's interesting is that the Holy Spirit also searches the heart of God. 1 Corinthians 2, 10 and 11, For to us God has revealed him through the Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.

For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of a man which is in him? So that's the human comparison. Only you in your spirit know what's really in your heart. Even so, in the same way, the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of God.

And so the Spirit not only searches our hearts as men, but he also knows the heart of God. And I think that's why Paul uses the plural here, hearts. Your translation actually might have something like our hearts or the hearts of men, but they've actually inserted that. It's just hearts. The Holy Spirit searches the hearts.

And I take that to mean he knows your heart and he knows the heart of God perfectly. And so, he understands. He understands you, and he also understands the Father perfectly. And think about what that means. Why is it so important for the Holy Spirit to know our hearts as well as the heart of the Father? Because it says here that He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

And an intercessor, this may be an over-simplistic definition, but an intercessor is someone who appeals to someone on behalf of another. But it can be used in a positive or a negative sense. We have a couple examples that are sort of in the mundane use of intercessor, where this is not spiritual, but this is just an intercessor. And so you can search for the same. Greek word and see where else it's used.

And in Acts 25 verse 24, we have these Jews making an accusation against Paul. And then Festus sends this message to King Agrippa and he says, all you gentlemen here present, sorry, King Agrippa, and all you gentlemen here present with us, you see this man about whom the people of the Jews appealed. Same word, interceded, intercessors. The Jews appealed to me both at Jerusalem and here, loudly declaring that he ought not to live any longer. So the Jews appealed or interceded against Paul.

So what you have is one person or group of people appealing to a power or authority in the case of another individual, right? So they're coming to Festus and they're saying, hey, we want to talk to you about Paul. We think he should die. And you've got the power to do that, right?

In Romans 11 too, this is interesting because this is referring to an Old Testament event. Okay, and this is Elijah coming before God on Mount Sinai to plead against the nation Israel. So this is another negative instance of the word. And in Romans 11 too, making reference to that event, Paul writes, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew, or do you not know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads, and that's the word there, with God against Israel, that same he interceded. He interceded with God against Israel. So he approached God concerning the nation Israel, and he wanted Israel judged. He said, God, they've broken your covenant.

They are such a mess. Judge them. And we know how God responded. These are both negative examples, but the same basic concept is at play here. We've got one person, the Holy Spirit, approaching another, God the Father, and pleading the case of another, or pleading for another. So why does it matter that the Holy Spirit knows both our hearts and the heart of God? Well, it makes him the perfect intercessor, the perfect intercessor, right?

These Jews coming to Festus were like, well, we really think you should kill him, but they didn't know what was in Festus' heart. They couldn't pray perfectly in line with the will of Festus, or they couldn't, sorry, intercede, you know, praying. They couldn't plead perfectly in will with the will of Festus, right? And Elijah, interceding or pleading for Israel to be judged, he actually didn't know the heart of God because God says, no, Elijah, I've reserved 7,000. You don't understand my heart in this issue.

But when the Holy Spirit pleads on our behalf to God the Father, and he's presenting specific requests to God the Father on our behalf, well, we don't have a clue what to ask for. He knows exactly what to ask for because he knows the will of God the Father.

And we might ask for something that's totally out of sync with what God's doing in the situation. The Holy Spirit intercedes for us according to the will of God because he knows the will of God. And so he's always able to make the perfect request that will accomplish the Father's will in our life. And to be able to pray this way requires a perfect understanding of the specific things that God is accomplishing in our lives.

We know from the verses that we'll study in the next couple of weeks, we know the general thing that God is working out. We see in verse 29, conformity to Christ. But we don't understand the specifics about how he's going to do that. And so we're just not able to pray as we should. But because the Holy Spirit is able to perfectly understand, and he's able to perfectly represent our needs before God the Father, and he's able to ask for exactly what is needed to accomplish God's will in our lives.

So, what's the practical benefit of all this? Why does Paul tell us about this fact? It's apparently going on all the time, even though we're not aware of it, right? This is something the Holy Spirit, it's groanings without words. We don't hear this or see this. So why does it matter that we know about this? Why does he reveal to us that this is going on all the time? And I think it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It has to do with encouragement. If we don't know what God is up to, then when the suffering situations come, we're going to fall apart.

And that's not the Lord's intention. The Lord does not bring you through trials and sufferings in order for you to fail. That's not His purpose. He's not that kind of God. The goal is to prove out the life of His Son in and through you. He wants your life to become an opportunity, a platform for Christ's life to be put on display and to be manifested.

And trials give this tremendous opportunity that nothing else can. First, they show us our own inadequacy to live a righteous life pleasing to Him. That's the first thing the trials will show us. And the second thing is that trials provide the opportunity for the life of Christ to be put on display, to prove His ability to live righteously and to honor the Father in every circumstance. And so, while we don't go looking for trials, they are a really good thing. You don't have to go looking for them even though they're good for you.

They are God's tool. They're his tool to accomplish his work, his will. And while we are guaranteed to go through hardships, the Lord wants you to know that he has not abandoned you. You're not alone. He is personally and actively involved in the most intimate way. And the Holy Spirit who is indwelling you is personally praying to the Father on your behalf in the midst of all your trials, all your circumstances.

And I think that is just such a tremendous encouragement, such an encouraging truth that we need to take hold of as we face these things. So let's thank the Lord for that. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your revealed word. We thank you for telling us here about how you've placed your spirit inside of us who knows What we're going through, because of what Christ suffered, there's a personal acquaintance with trials and sufferings and weaknesses.

And you understand that, not just in a theoretical way, but in a personal way, you understand what it's like. And you also know your own heart perfectly. And so, as we go through these trials, and they're so carefully crafted and shaped to accomplish your specific will and purpose, which is ultimately to conform us to the image of your son so that we can share in his glory. You know the specific things that are needed. Maybe we think we need out of the trial and you think, no, you need to be in this a while longer. Maybe we think we need one thing and you know that we need another.

And so we're thankful that you intercede on our behalf, knowing exactly what's needed, exactly what it's going to take to accomplish your will and your purpose in each one of us. And so we pray that we would be encouraged by this as we walk through whatever trials, whatever we're in the middle of right now, whatever is coming tomorrow, that it's not a surprise to you. and that also you are walking with us through it. We're not alone, and we thank you for that. In Jesus' name, amen.