June 11, 2017 The Holy Spirit's Intercession by Pastor Josh Sheldon

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June 11, 2017 The Holy Spirit’s Intercession Romans 8:26-27 Pastor Josh Sheldon

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We'll now turn in your Bibles, please, to Romans chapter 8, and we'll set our attention this morning on verses 26 and 27.
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If you're following in the Pew Bible before you, that's page 944. I'll begin reading at verse 25, but 26 and 27 will be our text for this morning's message.
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And once again, I ask you to hear the Word of God. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the
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Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the
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Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
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You notice we've been going through chapter 8 of Romans. You might recall when we started it,
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I pointed out to you that we have a chapter that is virtually all about the work of the
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Holy Spirit in the life of the believer in Jesus Christ. Prior to chapter 8, the
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Spirit is mentioned only a couple of times, and virtually nothing is said about His work in all those preceding chapters.
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And all of a sudden, here we have this plethora of teaching about the work, the person of the
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Holy Spirit Himself, the third person of the Trinity, God the Spirit.
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And it would seem as we continue in chapter 8, you may have noticed that we've really slowed down.
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We're just taking these tiny little chunks, this morning just two verses. Because here in this chapter, we find that the
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Lord is almost irrepressible in His desire to help us along the way, along the way in this life, to help us as we go through in this parched land, as we learned in Psalm 42, this creation in which we exist, in which we with creation groan for the coming redemption, groan to see our adoption finalized, as we do this, groaning in this world, waiting for these things, as we fight and we scratch to find the wherewithal for patience, for endurance, to just keep going, by which
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I mean keep going into the image of Christ, keep going and following the
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Scriptures, continuing to mold ourselves into the men, the women, the children of God that the
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Scripture says we must be, and that the Holy Spirit makes us.
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As we do that, as we fight this great battle, we find in chapter 8 of Romans that it is
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God Himself, through the Spirit Himself, who provides to us what we need in order to accomplish what we must accomplish in this life, not of ourselves, it's of God.
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We do the doing, we do the accomplishing, how do we do it? By the Spirit of God working in and amongst us, so He gets all the credit,
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He gets all the glory, it's all of Him, our reliance is completely upon Him, that's what chapter 8 is about in this book of Romans.
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Patience and endurance are made all the harder to come by when we ponder just what it is we wait for from last week's message, the glory that is to be revealed to us, doesn't that make it harder?
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Doesn't that make it more like the Psalm 42, the deer panting after the water, just dying of thirst is how badly that deer needs the water, and as we look at this world, as we've grown in this world, it's not that this is an awful place, we know sin is everywhere, but God created it,
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God put us here, Acts 17 says that we are here in this place, in this time, within these borders by God's will, and yet the groaning, that desire to be with Him, knowing there's something better, is what makes it so hard.
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The two verses before us this morning answer our flagging strength. These two verses, the
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Spirit helps us in our weakness, we don't know what to pray for as we ought, but He, the Spirit of God, intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
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What is this for? The entire context of chapter 8 of Romans, to keep us going, a propositional truth, if you will, meant to give us endurance, meant to increase our strength, meant to just keep us on the path.
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Paul claims in Philippians 4 .13 that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens Him, as can we.
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All things includes patient endurance so long as the Lord delays His return, and He's pleased to leave us here as His representatives.
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While we are here, the Holy Spirit is interceding for us, while we are here, He is interceding and He is compensating for our weak and our helpless, brethren.
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This promise of God, this propositional truth must give us strength and endurance and determination to continue to mold ourselves into the image of our
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Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, even as we have all the influences of this world, this world which itself is groaning for this final redemption, which it must follow us in.
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Even through all that is the Spirit keeping us going. And this truth, knowing that He is there interceding for us, is for our endurance.
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There are a couple of words in those verses, or the first verse, verse 26, that merits some explanation.
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Likewise and helps. I want to speak about those for just a few minutes so we understand what the scripture is telling us.
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Likewise and helps. In the same way, in just this manner, is what it means.
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It points us back somewhere. It points us back saying, as this other teaching, in the same way then we have the
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Holy Spirit helping us in our weakness. Likewise. Goes back to really to verse 16.
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Can you look up there please? Chapter 8, verse 16. I think it was about three weeks ago that we were preaching back there.
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The Spirit Himself bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God. The Holy Spirit is actively,
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He is constantly reminding us of something. Our adoption. Our adoption which we have, the deposit, the down payment, the
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Spirit within testifying to this adoption, this act of God, this determination that God made that you would be
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His adopted child, His son or His daughter. And the Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God within actively, constantly reminding us of this.
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Witnessing us. Witnessing to this. And that to keep us going.
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To fortify us. So in that way, likewise tells us the
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Holy Spirit's intercession is as is His witnessing of His testimony of our adoption.
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His intercession for us is constant. And it's personal. He gives us strength to persevere.
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If we wait for what we hope for with patience, then it is He, the Spirit, who enlivens that hope.
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He assures us that it is a hope that is secured by God's Word and that all the effort is worth the effort.
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That what we are destined for, this ultimate adoption, this ultimate redemption of our bodies is worth the effort.
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It's worth the fight. It's worth the strain. Because what God has in store for us is so much greater.
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And the point is that even now, knowing that it's going to be better and knowing that it's by God's Spirit that we will get there, even knowing that, we reach after the prize that is
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Christ Jesus while we are here and we do so by the power of the Spirit. And one of our fortifying factors, one of the things that we can look to, one way we can keep ourselves going, is this likewise, this constant personal knowledge that the
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Holy Spirit is constantly and personally interceding for us now, this very moment.
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All that, in that one word, likewise. Look at the word helps.
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The Spirit helps us. It's in verse 26. This word for helps is found only here in Luke chapter 10 verse 40 in the
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New Testament. Only these two times. And if you look in the Old Testament, it's only used three times and two of those three times relate to the same incident in Exodus and in Numbers.
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We're going to talk about those just briefly because this word for helps is very important. In Luke chapter 10 verse 40, that's probably worth turning to if you would.
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Luke 10 verse 40. We find here the Lord Jesus Christ visiting
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Martha and Mary, the sisters of Lazarus, the one whom he loved, as we learn of in John chapter 11.
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Let's start at verse 38. Now as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named
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Martha welcomed him into her house and she had a sister called Mary who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching.
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But Martha was distracted with much serving and she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone?
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Tell her then to help me. The same word. The only other time it's used in the
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New Testament is right there. Chapter 10 verse 40 of Luke. Tell her then to help me, to come alongside.
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Tell her to assist me in this burden. You see, oftentimes our need for help, our need for assistance cannot be satisfied from a distance.
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There's occasions where prayer over the phone satisfies the need of the moment. It helps the other in the way they need at that time for that particular thing.
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Sometimes just a quick word suffices to encourage a fellow believer. See, other times we need someone to actually come to us.
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We need someone to come to us and help lift the burden, help carry it. Not just cheer us along the way, but to actually put something into the effort with us because we're unable to do it ourselves.
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You know, in the book Les Miserables, there's a scene where Jean Valjean sees a man, and forgive my
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French here, my French is not even close to terrible, Fauchon Lavan. I see a smile, someone
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I know knows French, but I know I spelled it correctly. But this man
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Fauchon Lavan in Jean Valjean's village got trapped under a loaded cart, and the villagers are straining, the city people are straining to lift the cart off of him, and they can't.
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And Jean Valjean sees it, and he doesn't clap and cheer them on. He doesn't say, what a great thing you guys are doing trying to get that cart off that man so he doesn't die under it.
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Jean Valjean, if you read the story, he was a man of enormous strength, incredible strength, sort of a
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Herculean sort, and he takes off his coat and his tunic, and he puts his shoulder to the corner of the cart, and he lifts it off.
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He helps. He does something about it. He lifts it off Fauchon Lavan, and they're able to extract him, and he lives.
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That's the way the Holy Spirit helps us. He leans in, so to speak.
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He places his shoulder to our burden, our burden of trying to maintain ourselves in a
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Christian walk in this world in which we've grown, because it's so corrupted, and what we're looking ahead to is so good.
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It's hard, and we can't do it alone. And so as Jean Valjean put his shoulder to the cart and lifted it for the man, so the
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Holy Spirit comes to us and lifts that burden, that groaning burden, and helps you.
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Now, you, if you are in the Lord Jesus Christ personally, in Exodus 22, in Numbers 11, 17, that word is used in the
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Greek translation of the Old Testament, and these relate to the same incident where we read of men who were ordained and assigned to help
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Moses bear the burden of judging the people, and the same word there is used. They come alongside him.
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They don't simply read the docket and call witnesses for him.
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They don't just give him advice on what to do, though that sometimes is exactly what we need, but in this case, they came alongside.
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They did the work with him. It's a personal, next to you, need of the moment sort of aid that this special word, this rarely used word means, and this is what the
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Spirit does. He helps us in our weakness. Helps us by pointing out our weakness?
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Certainly. The Scripture everywhere points out that we are weak, but God is strong. Helps us by showing how often we fail?
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Sure. The Scripture everywhere shows us how far short we come of the glory of God, but in this case, in Romans 8, 26, that help is not the rebuke.
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That help is not the reminder of our sin. That help is a shoulder lifting the burden and carrying it with us along the way, not just lifting up the cart like Jean Valjean did, which was good enough, but lifting it up and carrying it with us as we proceed.
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All that in that one word. He helps us. Now I understand one advantage of a personal trainer is that they get to know the client.
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They tailor a fitness program just for that one person, and this is analogous to the Spirit's help for us, but His is so much more, so much more than just a personal trainer who gets to know you.
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You see, He doesn't need to interview you. He doesn't need to get to know us in the way a personal trainer does.
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Why? Because the Holy Spirit searches the heart. The Holy Spirit knows you in a way that you can't even know yourself.
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The Holy Spirit, He is God. He's the one who made you. Are you fearfully and wonderfully made?
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Amen. You are. Who put you together that way? It's not
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God the Holy Spirit as much as God the Son as much as it is God the Father. It is.
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It's God the Spirit who here has center stage. He knows your heart because He wove your heart together.
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He's the one who gave your heart. If you're in Jesus Christ having repented of your sin and fled to the cross, you're able to do that because you have a new heart, not the heart you were born with, not the heart you gained from your descent from Adam.
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A new heart. The promise of Ezekiel 36, I will take out your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
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Who did that? Read Ezekiel 36, I will put my spirit upon you. Same spirit in Romans chapter 8.
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He searches that heart because He gave it to you. He knows that heart. What He gives us here, this great aid to maintaining our hope, maintaining our endurance is the assurance of this intercession on behalf, on our behalf before God the
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Father. And not just an intercession like a lawyer who's interviewed you. Not just a personal trainer who knows your habits and knows which exercise you need to do.
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The Holy Spirit of God who gave you the heart that you have that believes in the
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Jesus Christ to whom we proceed. This is the one who's helping you.
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This is the one who knows you. It is God Almighty. And His help is with us.
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His help is alongside of us. You know, if God entered into the human experience in Jesus Christ, which
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He did, here He enters into our experience by indwelling us.
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Not by physically walking on this earth, dwelling among us as Jesus did, but by His spirit within us.
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He has entered into our experience that way. It's more than just a presence. It's not just a force.
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It's a He. It's Him. It's a person.
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It is God the Holy Spirit. We call Him the third person of the Trinity because He seems to proceed in that manner, in that ordinal manner.
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I do sometimes wonder when we see Jesus as He is, if we're going to be asked, what's this first, second, third person you all came up with?
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Because it's God we're talking about. But no blasphemy is meant when we say it that way.
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We're simply talking about the order of procession in the salvation that we have.
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This Holy Spirit who comes to us, who indwells you, who knows your heart, who helps you, who puts a shoulder and carries the burden with us.
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He's the one we speak of here. Paul asks in Romans 8 .31, which we get to next, if God is for us, who can be against us?
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So ask ourselves, how much is God on your side? How much is
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God your helper, your rock, your strength? All these metaphors we give of Him.
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Completely, thoroughly, so much so that the Holy Spirit of God, God Himself, searching and knowing the heart, comparing our heart to the mind of God, assessing our prayers in light of His full and total knowledge of God's will, knowing all these things, knowing
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God because He is God, knowing our hearts because He gave us that heart, and comparing the two, what does
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He do? Intercedes for us. Lists the burden with us.
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Knowing He intercedes for us is that lifting, that knowledge we have has to make our feet move lighter on the path.
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Our path, our pace easier to maintain and keep because He's there with you.
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He's there for you. And He has the burden with you.
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Why do you need this help? Scripture does not equivocate at all. No one of us can set ourselves apart from the rest and say, we don't need this help and we don't need as much of it as you do.
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We can't say, I need less of it than this poor guy over here because he seems to need a lot more help from the
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Spirit than I do. We can't go the other way. We all need. Paul says, we. He helps us in our weakness.
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That includes Paul. That includes you, me, every human being who ever lived, save Jesus Christ.
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Even as I said that, what Jesus did, He did in the power of the Spirit, did He not? Was it not the
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Spirit who drove Him into the wilderness? And did not Jesus say over and over, it is the power of the
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Spirit in Him? I only meant there, just to be clear before we move on, that Jesus is not weak.
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He was not weak as we are. Our ESV for some reason translates the word weakness as a singular.
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But the word is actually a plural. And the old King James gets it better in our weaknesses.
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Add an ES to that. It's our weaknesses. We must all admit to a great multitude of weaknesses, of things necessary that we're unable ourselves to attain to.
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And the context here is of course spiritual matters. We are weak in our recognition of sin.
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We are weak in our willingness to repent. We are weak in staying on the narrow road. We are weak in our love for God.
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So we're weak in our love for each other. We are weak. And we don't have just one.
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Now you might suggest it's best to work on one at a time, and I would agree with that. I would say amen. I think the
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Scripture would agree with that. But we don't have just one. You don't have just two or three or a dozen.
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We have weaknesses. How weak are we? We are so weak that we don't even know what to pray for as we ought to pray.
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That's the middle of verse 26. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.
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And then goes on with the Spirit interceding for us. The last three words there, as we ought, are a single word in the
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Greek, which is dei, D -E -I if you transliterate it. It means what is necessary.
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We don't know what to pray for as we ought. We don't know what to pray for as is necessary for us to pray. There is a prayer that is necessary.
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There is a prayer that is needful. And we must have this prayer. It's a prayer that is for our good.
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As not that we fail to pray it, if that were the case, Paul would have said, hey, weakling, pray this.
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Don't forget again to do this. I've given you the prayer, and now you know what you need to pray, so pray this.
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Why do you keep forgetting? That's not what he says. He says we don't even know. We don't even know what to pray for as we ought.
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And this is why we need the Spirit to intercede for us. This ignorance we have of the things that must be brought is necessary to be brought to the throne of grace.
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What does an intercessor do? An intercessor stands good for another.
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We go right to Christ here. Christ intercedes even now for us before the Father. What does He intercede?
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He intercedes for our sins. And at its simplest, this means that He interposes
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Himself between us and the Father constantly. In a manner of speaking, when we sin and He sees that sin and the
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Father sees that sin, it's as if Jesus again presents His wound. He doesn't get sacrificed again because His sacrifice was once for all time.
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I'm just drawing kind of a poetic picture here. Jesus intercedes for us with His sacrifice,
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His atonement for your sins. That's what He does now as He sits at the right hand of God the
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Father. He reminds that that sin was paid for.
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The wrath for that iniquity has been poured out already on Him on the cross.
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Well, the Spirit here, the Holy Spirit of God is doing much the same. He's searching out our hearts and finding the needed prayers lacking in our hearts.
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He brings what is necessary to be prayed for us to the Father. That's the intercession. This is what
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He is doing. I think, again, you know how much
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I love literature. I think again of Billy Budd's Sailor. And that scene where Billy Budd, this pure, innocent, good young man, is accused, falsely accused by the quartermaster, a harsh, wicked, evil man named
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Claggart. Claggart accuses him before Captain Veer of fomenting mutiny.
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And Billy Budd can't speak. He is so roiled up about this thing that all he can do is grimace and this moan comes out of him.
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What does he need? He needs an intercessor. And in the movie, which is a terrific movie with Peter Ustinov, a little black and white, the captain comes up to him, kindly tries to get him to calm down.
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And Billy Budd, say what you have to say, but he can't. And Captain Veer can only try on the outside to calm him because he doesn't know the heart.
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He doesn't know the words that Billy Budd cannot blurt out to defend himself with.
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Was he having what in that day was simply called a fit? Or was it the anguish that now he's been caught and didn't know what to say?
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Captain Veer couldn't tell. The Spirit does what the good captain could not.
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The Spirit of God knows the heart, the heart that He gave you. He knows what we have need of before we ask as the
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Lord Jesus Christ assures us. And He knows God's will. The Spirit knows
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God's will. Why is that? And the whole class should blurt out because He's God.
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He knows the will of God because He is God. Captain Veer could only see Budd's agony.
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He couldn't read the heart behind it. The Holy Spirit knows fully.
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He knows what we've done wrong. He knows what we wish to do right. He knows what causes our agony.
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He knows what causes our rejoicing. He knows the heart. This is the one interceding for us even now.
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You see, we pray for our needs, real and felt needs. We pray. And if they're in Jesus' name, your prayers are holy and acceptable to God.
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They are a sweet smelling aroma to Him. A soothing aroma. We read all over the scripture what the prayers are when they come to God.
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A memorial before Him. Our prayers come to His altar as the angel said to Cornelius in Acts chapter 10.
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But the Spirit takes what we pray for. And what does He do in His intercession? It's as if He takes what we pray for because we don't pray for what we ought to pray for because we don't know what it is we ought to pray for.
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And He takes our weak prayers, our incomplete prayers, and He matches them to the great and complete and perfect will of God.
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Because He knows the will of God because He is God. He takes your heart. He takes
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God's will. And He breaches, as it were, or bridges,
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I should say, He bridges that chasm. This is His intercession. If you know this, if you believe this, if by faith you've truly apprehended this, is not this world just a little bit easier to continue to groan in with endurance and keep moving towards the image of Christ?
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You know, when we pray for healing or salvation or safe travels, anything like that, what are we praying?
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We're praying, as Deuteronomy 29 .29 says, the secret things of God. When I went to Ohio a month ago for the pastor's conference,
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I prayed for safe travels. What's God's will? Well, it turns out that God's will was to have me land safely at 9 30
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Wednesday morning, two and a half days after the conference. But I didn't know that when
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I prayed. So I prayed, God, give me God's speed and watch over my home. I have no idea what
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God's will actually is. It's a secret will. And then when my plane lands at 9 30 and I come home and my wife has a nice dinner ready for me and the house is safe and she's fine, then
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I know what God's secret will was. It's the
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Holy Spirit who's bridging this gap because he knows the will of God. He doesn't come and sell me.
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He didn't say in my prayers, well, Josh, you prayed for safe travels and you're going to land at 7 30
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Wednesday. That's not the way it works. But he takes my prayer, because I don't know what to pray, because I don't know the will of God as he knows the will of God, because he is
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God. He just matches them up. And then after the event, when
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I see the answer, then I know what God's secret will was, but it's not secret anymore. And it's this difference between my heart and God's will that the
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Holy Spirit is interceding for me, for you, if you're in Jesus Christ, for the purpose of giving us endurance and strength as we walk in this world.
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Paul says our problem is that we don't pray for what we ought to pray for. Take careful note here, brethren, men and women, boys and girls, all who are in Jesus, take careful note.
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It's not the length of our prayers. It's not the eloquence of our prayers. It's not the number of Bible citations in our prayers.
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None of this is being criticized. The way you pray is not what
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Paul's talking about. What is he talking about? What is in the Scripture to us? Content.
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And he's not telling us that you must now pray for what you ought, because you need to pray the will of God. We don't know the will of God.
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Go back to Deuteronomy 29 .29. He's saying that the Spirit intercedes the difference for us and brings our prayers to God.
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That's why things turn out the way they do. We do know we are to pray for certain things.
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There is a content to prayer, is there not? The Lord's prayer is very specific in the things we're to ask for.
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The Psalms are chock full of very specific prayers. Paul specifically prayed for enlightened hearts and spirit of wisdom in the church.
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Nehemiah prayed for favor in the eyes of Cyrus, king of Persia. Moses prayed God to forgive Israel for the golden calf.
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Peter tells us to cast all our cares upon God because he cares for us, which is nothing but praying to God with all our anxieties.
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We're left ignorant though of what that secret will of God is. We're only told that it is the
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Holy Spirit who intercedes for us because of that difference. We're left ignorant.
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Remember as we go through this, even though we don't know God's secret rule, God loves to hear and answer prayer in everything by prayer and supplication.
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Philippians 4 .6, with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. His intercession, verse 26 says, is with groanings too deep for words.
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8 .22, creation groans. Chapter 8, verse 23, we groan. Now the Holy Spirit groans.
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This is Him. This is the third person of the Trinity joining in this deep, this unutterable desire for things to be made finally right.
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For all creation, man, animal, even rocks and trees to be redeemed and to once again properly reflect the glory of their maker.
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It is He, the Holy Spirit, engaged in triune communication between Himself and the Father and the
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Son. This is what the groaning is. It's His groaning. It's not us. It's His groaning.
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This triune communication is unutterable. I don't believe between them in heaven it's with words.
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It's certainly not anything for us because Paul says it is without the sound. Unutterable.
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We don't go there. He's not translating our prayers. He's not giving us a holy tongue that somehow communicates more clearly than our human speech.
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Remember God doesn't need that. He knows the heart already. We're passive recipients of this grace of God just as we are in all else.
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Salvation, adoption, redemption. So in chapter 8, verse 26 of Romans, what do we see?
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Well it's the Spirit working to enable the faithful, the believer in Jesus Christ, to hear and respond to Christ's living and personal presence.
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The Spirit making effectual the work of the Son in ways beyond our understanding at a depth that cannot be uttered and not always merely with words.
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With demonstration the Spirit empowers 1 Corinthians 2 .4 says, God is pleased with this interpretation of our weak efforts.
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More than pleased, He hears the unspeakable groanings of His own most Holy Spirit as His own, which in fact they are.
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There's a difference between God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, but only as regards their personage.
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There's no conflict between or amongst them. Father, Son, Spirit all work together in perfect harmony as they in their individual roles as distinct persons together act as the one true and living
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God. Does this make it easier to endure your groanings in the here and now as we pant after God the way a deer pants after water?
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Does this not make us able to keep up our flagging strength, to keep moving along the narrow path that Jesus Christ lays out for us, to constantly be reaching after that prize?
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God is pleased with our prayers. As weak and faltering and stumbling as they are, as ineloquent as many
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Bible citations as we cite, and of course God knows what the Bible says, does He not? He's pleased to hear us.
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He's pleased with our weak prayers. And this should be nothing new to us.
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As weak as we are, as faulty as we are, God is pleased to hear from us.
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Ask yourself this, why is it that God is pleased with my righteousness? Think of your morning this morning.
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What was the third thought you had? Was it as pure and good and righteous and holy as what
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Jesus Christ would have thought in whatever situation you were? Of course not. And yet God is pleased with my righteousness.
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Why is that? Philippians 3 and 9 would say we are found in Christ, not having a righteousness of our own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.
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Romans 1 16 tells us that the gospel is the revelation of the righteousness of God, the power of God to salvation.
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The whole of Romans 4 teaches that righteousness is a grant from God conferred by Him upon us apprehended by faith.
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2 Corinthians 5 21 tells us that faith gains us this, the very righteousness of God. Why is
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He pleased with my righteousness? Because it's not mine. It's Jesus Christ's.
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Why is He pleased with your weak prayers? Because our intercessor, just as I was speaking a moment ago, the intercessor is
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Jesus Christ. Our intercessor when we pray is God the Spirit. Our righteousness is not our own, so also the groanings which perfect our prayers are not our own, but they emanate from God Himself.
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He fills in the gaps, as it were. So now we know why
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God's answers to our prayers are so often unexpected, and gloriously so. When we prayed for strength for a little girl to go through a terrible surgery,
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God granted not just survival, but healing and renewed hope. Did we know that when we prayed?
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No, we hoped for it, and we said, God, act, and the
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Holy Spirit said at this time the surgeon will perform this process, and the little girl will wake up at this exact moment from the surgery, and will be healed, and the healing continued.
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Did we know that? No, it was this Holy Spirit that when we say, God, act, and He says
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God's will is to act in exactly this way, which in retrospect we can see what it was.
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This is why God's answers are so wonderfully surprising to us, when
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He does so much more than we can think or ask, because our prayer is just God. As Nehemiah, before he turned to Cyrus, king of Persia, he says,
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I prayed to God, and I said to this man, he had that much time to pray. Did he know what
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God would do? No. What did Cyrus do? He approved the return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the wall.
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Our prayers know nothing of the hidden will of God. Spirit searches our hearts.
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He makes perfect our petitions, and He does that on our behalf. He groans that which is His decree, that which the
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Scriptures leave out, because they're God's affair and His alone, and we know them by their fulfillment, and we can look back and say, yes, that's the
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Holy Spirit who took my prayer. And perfected it to God's will.
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This is His intercession for us. Prayers for us are necessary. God the
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Father requires that He hears our prayers. His will is to hear prayers on our behalf that perfectly match
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His will, His person, and His nature, and we are too weak for this. We're just too weak to do this.
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That which is necessary to be prayed, we just don't know, but who does know? God knows.
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The searcher of your heart, the knower of your heart, the giver of your heart, the creator of your heart,
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He's the one bringing your heart to the will of God, interceding.
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You see, God hears our prayers, and more than just hears them, He perfects them, and then, hallelujah,
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He answers our prayers. The Spirit of God knows all things.
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The Spirit of God causes us to groan. The Spirit of God groans for us, the deep sigh that we have of a troubled soul.
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In a similar way, the Holy Spirit, as it were, troubled that our prayers don't match the will of God, and bringing them to Him.
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Groaning is not a complaint or lament. It's the communication between them,
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Father, Son, Spirit. So how do we then take Romans 8 26 and 27, the
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Spirit's groans of intercession? The context is endurance. I've said it so many times, the context is strengthening endurance.
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So let us be strengthened in our suffering as we await the redemption of our bodies. Let us be patient as we serve our
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Lord here on earth, knowing that the Holy Spirit is right now, this moment, from deep within Himself, groaning to the
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Father for us, and matching our weak prayers, our short prayers, our ineloquent prayers, our prayers to Him in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, taking them and matching them to the will of God to whom we pray.
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We don't have to know what He says. We can wait patiently to look back and say, now we know what the will of God was.
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We don't get to know all things, but we know the Spirit is with us. We know the Spirit is with God.
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We know that the Spirit is doing this for us this moment, interceding on our behalf.
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So be satisfied, Christian. Be satisfied, adopted children of God. Be satisfied, you who by faith believe that the redemption is yet to come, and you will see
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Jesus as He is. You be satisfied just by the fact of knowing of His constant work on our behalf.
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Amen. Heavenly Father, we do give you thanks again for the day. We give you thanks,
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Father, for your Spirit who makes this great intercession for us, who perfects our prayers before you,
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Father, and you answer them in perfect accord with your will. And knowing, Father, that you yourself by your
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Spirit make this intercession for us, we, Lord, are given what we need to continue in this world, to have great endurance and strength as we continue to seek after the prize which is