Believer's New Prayer Helper Series

Believer’s New Prayer Helper

His Identity and Indispensability

His Intensity

NCBC, 5/23/04, Romans 8:26-27

Knowing that intercessory prayer is our mightiest weapon and the supreme call for all Christians today, I pleadingly urge our people everywhere to pray. Believing that prayer is the greatest contribution that our people can make in this critical hour, I humbly urge that we take time to pray--to really pray. Let there be prayer at sunup, at noonday, at sundown, at midnight--all through the day. Let us all pray for our children, our youth, our aged, our pastors, our homes. Let us pray for our churches. Let us pray for ourselves, that we may not lose the word ’concern’ out of our Christian vocabulary. Let us pray for our nation. Let us pray for those who have never known Jesus Christ and redeeming love, for moral forces everywhere, for our national leaders. Let prayer be our passion. Let prayer be our practice.

Robert E. Lee.

When we pray, remember:

1. The love of God that wants the best for us.

2. The wisdom of God that knows what is best for us.

3. The power of God that can accomplish it.

William Barclay, Prodigals and Those Who Love.

His Identity and Indispensability

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered [Rom. 8:26].

It is the fervent prayer of saints, God’s word and the Holy Spirit that delivers and saves a man.

As the you and I face the certain trials of this life we has the greatest resource imaginable: prayer.

Do you see this as the great resource it truly is?

We are given the right to approach God whenever needed, and to ask God for the strength to walk through and to conquer the suffering. That is what prayer is all about.

Significant things can be said about prayer.

Believers do not know what we should pray for as we should. You see Paul includes himself in this, which is to say no believer knows how to pray because we do not know the perfect will of God for us. By our very nature we are weak, lacking the power...

• for prolonged concentration.

• to avoid distractions.

• to stop all wandering thoughts.

• to prevent emotional changes.

• to govern varying affections.

• to know what lies in the future, even one hour from now.

• to know what is really best for us and our growth in any given situation.

The Holy Spirit helps our infirmities as we pray. Christian you are expected to pray. This passage assumes that we are praying.

The Spirit is not going to force us to pray. It is our responsibility to pray: to take the time to get alone and pray. When we do this the Spirit begins to act both upon and for us.

Are you praying in the manner you should?

The Spirit “helpeth our infirmities.” Whatever our particular weakness is, it is that weakness which HE helps.

HE helps us control concentration, distractions, wandering thoughts, emotional changes, and affections. How? As we struggle to pray by controlling our flesh and its weakness, the Holy Spirit takes our mind and emotions and...

• quiets and silences them in the things of the world.

• stirs and excites them in the things of God.

• draws and pulls them.

• directs and guides them.

HE leads us to pray as we should, controlling and subjecting the flesh and concentrating upon the prayer.

The Holy Spirit makes “intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” Sometimes the struggles and sufferings of life become so heavy we just cannot bear them. At other times, matters of such importance grip our hearts to such an extent that words are impossible. Emotions become too much for words. We become lost in the presence of God. Every genuine believer knows what it is to be speechless before God and left groaning in the Spirit. Every believer has experienced...

 God’s unspeakable gift.

“Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift” (2 Cor. 9:15).

 joy unspeakable.

“Whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

 words which are unspeakable.

“How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter” (2 Cor. 12:4).

The Holy Spirit takes these great moments of prayer and helps us in our “groanings” before the Lord. We are not able to utter words; therefore, the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. alaletos, al-al’-ay-tos; from Greek (as a negative particle) a derivative of Greek (laleo); unspeakable :- unutterable, which cannot be uttered.