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Yesterday, we looked at Romans 8 .26, which says that the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as we ought. Today, we're going to look at verse 27, which tells us what the Spirit helps us pray for and that's the will of God, when we understand the text.
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Now here's our host, Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky.
Romans 8, verses 26 -30, again today. We are going to move on to verse 27. So if you missed the explanation of verse 26, I would encourage you to go back and listen to yesterday's devotional. We'll start in verse 26 to keep all of this in context.
Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness for we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.
And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. And those whom He justified, He also glorified. Let's go back to verse 27 and start there, where we have God being described as He who searches hearts.
And we have this description of God come up several times in the Scriptures, the most notable of which is probably 1 Samuel 16, 7. This is where God has commissioned Samuel to go and anoint the next king of Israel, because his favor had fallen out with Saul.
And so Samuel went to the house of Jesse, and Jesse's oldest sons passed before Samuel, who looked at them and said, surely God's anointed is before me, Eliab the firstborn, who was a mighty soldier, just like Saul was before he was anointed king.
So Samuel is looking at Eliab's resume here and thinking, yeah, this has got to be the guy. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature because I have rejected him.
And there, God is not just saying that he's rejected Eliab as being the next king of Israel. He rejected him outright because Eliab's heart was not with God. On the outside to Samuel, he looked like king material, but on the inside, his heart was far from God, which the Lord knew as he goes on, for the Lord sees not as man sees.
Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart. Interesting thing is that when Solomon then received the throne from David, David described God the same way to Solomon. First Chronicles 28 9, the Lord searches all hearts and understands every plan and thought.
This is the way that that David is advising Solomon, probably the verse that I use the most often to describe God as searching hearts and minds is Jeremiah 17 10. I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.
And we read in Revelation 2 23, Jesus saying, I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. Sounds pretty familiar, right? Sounds like what we just read in Jeremiah 17 10.
So we can know specifically we're talking about Christ there as being the one who searches hearts and tests minds. So when we read this here in Romans chapter eight, verse 27, and he, Christ, who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the spirit.
So when we're talking about having the spirit dwelling within us, as we read this earlier in chapter eight and verse nine, Paul says, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you.
So if the spirit of God is dwelling within us, we are thinking with the mind of the spirit. So the Lord knows to intercede for his saints because the spirit is dwelling within us. The spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
The easiest way to understand this is first John 5 14. And this is the confidence that we have toward him. That if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And that verse helps us to understand John 14 14.
If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. And that verse gets so misused. We use passages like that to say, see, if you just ask God anything, then he'll give it to you. And where Jesus says you have not received because you do not ask for it will misuse that passage too.
Well, you don't have what it is that you want because you haven't asked God for it. Well, it's not just anything and everything. All right. You can't just say to God, God, give me a bigger house. The reason why I don't have a bigger house is because I haven't asked God for it.
Well, that's not quite the context, because how we should understand this is we are asking according to the will of God. That's what it says there in Romans 8 27. Our requests and the ways that we pray, the ways that we think are are according to the spirit that dwells within us and according to the will of God.
If we have the spirit that dwells within, we will have the mind of Christ. Philippians 2 5 and the ways that we think and what we ask and request of God will be according to his will and not ours. So let that help your understanding of the Lord's prayer where Jesus taught us to pray our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So what we are asking for when we come to God in prayer is not that our will would be done, but that God's will would be done nowhere in that prayer. As Jesus is teaching us to pray nowhere is is are we asking for our will?
In fact, if our will is being asked at all, it is in submission to God's will. So anything that we ask for in the name of God is done according to his will because we have the mind of Christ. God will do anything that we ask because what we are asking for is his will to be done.
Yesterday when we were looking at verse 26 and it says the spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. I mentioned we don't know what kind of words the spirit is interceding for us in.
Maybe we will know exactly what those words are when we get to heaven. Well, I can tell you, even though we might not know like word for word what is being said, I can tell you that what the spirit is interceding for us in is the will of God.
The words that he is interceding for us with, maybe I should put it that way, is according to the will of God. And that's the way that we should pray. If the spirit is interceding for us in that way, so we should be praying to God with words that are according to his will.
So then we get to verse 28 and we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to his purpose. So once again, the statement here is according to God's purpose, not according to ours.
And we're going to talk more about that tomorrow. We'll expound on 28 even more. That'll be the commitment to tomorrow's devotional lesson. And then on Thursday, we'll lump verses 29 and 30 together. Lord, I pray that as we have studied these things here today, we understand that as we inhabit this flesh, sometimes it's difficult for our mind to wrap itself around these things.
We don't know what to pray for as we ought. So we have the spirit of God that is dwelling within us, that is interceding for us and is teaching us how to pray according to the will of God. So Lord, we ask that you would teach us how to pray in that way.
Teach us how to ask you that your will would be done and not ours. Let our mind, let our thoughts, let our hearts be completely submissive to what you desire so that your will would be done on earth as it is in heaven and that your will is being done through us who are your saints indwelt with the Holy Spirit.
Let everything that we do, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, oh Lord, my rock and my redeemer. As the psalmist wrote in Psalm 1914, search my heart.
If there be any sinful way in me, expose it so that I might repent of it and be purified according to your will and in your spirit by the power of Christ. And it's in his name that we pray, amen.
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