The Spirit Who Intercedes Series

STRAIGHT FROM ROMANS 8 - The Spirit Who Intercedes

June 5, 2022

Romans 8:26-27

Introduction:

Anyone here ever have to depend on someone else for something? I know that’s almost a rhetorical question, because all of us have!

But think about a time where you were sick…or injured…or had just gone through surgery…(I’ve got a bunch of those memories in my internal filing system.)

The time I remember being physically the weakest was before my back fusion surgery…I’d taken epidural shots for 3 years, they’d helped for a while, and then they stopped helping…I spent a week in the Old Methodist Hospital in Louisville having spasms and intense pain…the only option I had back then was surgery…but I couldn’t walk, couldn’t sit, couldn’t stand…if I wanted to get somewhere I tried to crawl…

If I wanted to eat, someone had to fix it or get it for me…If I wanted coffee, the same thing. If I needed a book across the room, I needed help to retrieve it. It was the one time in my stubborn, self sufficient life that I could not do what I wanted to do without someone helping me…

I think of that time in my life when I consider our text today and the description the Apostle Paul gives of the Holy Spirit…it even starts out…

“In the same way, the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness.”

Last week we talked about suffering...and what it has to do with our glorious inheritance. This world is decaying…it is sinful…our bodies are temporary like “jars of clay”…Because those things are true, life will bring its share of troubles, scars, and trials…Jesus clothed himself with the same temporary flesh, so he truly understands…

And there is also suffering because you are a servant of Christ. You step into the world, you lift up the middle rope and enter the ring as a Spirit-led child of God. By intentionally doing this…it’s not if you get hit…it’s when.

This truth is the inescapable reality…it’s what causes the born again, Spirit-filled follower of Jesus to hope for a future glory. Those of us who seek to live Christ-directed lives long for a face to face meeting…“We wait eagerly for our adoption as sons…the redemption of our bodies for in this hope we were saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has. But if we hope for what we do not have, we wait for it patiently.” (v. 24-25)

And just as I needed Kari to be my helper during the physically weakest time in my life…God’s Word says, “In the same way…”

I. THE HOLY SPIRIT HELPS US IN OUR WEAKNESS

The Apostle Paul creates a bond between believers and God and each other in this scripture…He uses two words very powerfully…“Us” and “our.” It's not just “me,” or “mine,” or “I.” It’s “us”…it’s “our.”

You remember verses 16? 17? “The spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children…Now if we are children then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ…”

And then that suffering thing came up…Even creation itself is groaning like a woman in the pains of childbirth. Hoping…waiting…for redemption. Weakness…it reminds us of our inability. It's humbling because it lets us know you can’t do it all…you need someone else.

[I knew this kid who had feet and legs so crooked he had to wear special shoes attached to braces as he learned to walk. He was cross-eyed and had special glasses to help correct the astigmatism. He constantly had his family in the emergency room…He ate paint one time, got hit in the leg with a shovel in boy scouts, smacked his head on the side of the pool while diving…not once, but twice. He put the handbrake lever through his side while riding a dirt bike…almost 100 stitches…missed his lung by less than an inch. He was burned over 50% of his body with 3rd degree burns. He broke his hip when he was 18. Both knees have been surgically repaired. He had a heart attack when he was 34. After years of epidurals to relieve the back spasms and pain that left him almost an invalid, he had his spine fused. At 42 they discovered he needed another knee surgery, and they discovered that all of the major arteries in his heart were so blocked, they were almost severed, so they put in 3 stints. In the last 4 years I’ve had my back fused, both hips replaced, rotator cuff surgery and another serious heart attack 8 days after that shoulder surgery.]

Folks, there are a lot of things I don’t know, but I know about weakness…at least where this mortal body is concerned.

No one likes to suffer, no one likes to be weak, but its in this place that we discover the power of God…Paul understood that as he begged God 3 times to take away a “thorn” that ravaged his body. God said, “No,” but he said more than no…