Sermon Brief
Date Written: May 10, 2012
Date Preached: May 20, 2012
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Title: Power & Guidance of Holy Spirit!!
Sermon Text: Romans 8:26-30 [NLT]
Introduction:
26And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will. 28And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. 29For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
Now to set the stage for those of you who may not have been here to hear all what we have learned so far in this letter to the Roman churches… Paul shares a lot about WHO WE ARE as humans!
How we ALL are sinners and we have NO excuse before God!
How we are hopeless against our sinful nature and sinful desires!
How there is NO amount of work we can do to gain forgiveness from God!
But Paul’s message focuses on what Christ did on the Cross!
Paul tells us that when we accept Christ- He forgives us...
Paul shares with us that when Christ forgives… He wipes our slate clean!
The Bible calls that… justification… ‘In Christ’ we are justified before God! We are blameless of the guilt and penalty of our sin!
Several weeks ago we learned that ‘in Christ’ meant that there is NO condemnation held by God against us! This is because Christ has done all that needs to be done and we stand NOT GUILTY before God!
3 weeks ago we learned how Paul taught about what it meant for those who had rec’d Christ in their lives…
We looked at what it meant to be forgiven?
We looked at what it meant to be redeemed?
We looked at what it meant to be justified?
We looked at what it meant to be stand blameless before God?
And we began to grasp an understanding about what our freedom in Christ really MEANS for us…
But 2 weeks ago we looked at something that is NOT a strong suit for many people… and that is WAITING! We learned how we are ‘waiting on the glory of God to be revealed’ and how sin has stained ALL of creation and it is not just US that waits, but all of creation is waiting in agony for God to complete things!
We learned that our waiting will not be in vain because as Paul described it… what God has waiting for us makes all the stuff we have to deal with here in this world while we are waiting… meaningless! It doesn’t matter what that stuff is… you may have a wonderful life, but it pales in comparison to what God has in store for you!
You may be suffering terribly at the hand of another or by the world crashing in on top of you… but it is nothing compared to the glory God has for you!
Are you willing to trust in God and wait on Him… he has great things in store for us, but waiting is a very difficult thing for anyone to do… some do it better than others, but we all hate to wait!
Many of us struggle with waiting so much that is causes a problem in our spiritual walk as well and God understands this about us and that is why we have the Holy Spirit!
In this next section we see Paul sharing about how the Holy Spirit can be such a comfort and helper during our time waiting on God… during this life when things seem terrible and all seems lost… during those times when we are so hurt, confused and scared that we don’t even know how to talk to God… the Holy Spirit is HERE for us! Isn’t that great news?
Let’s turn to Romans 8:26-30 and let’s look at what God has promised to those who are ‘in Christ’…those He has saved… when we struggle in this world, God has a plan for us! Let’s begin in v.26-27
[show verses now]
26And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. 27And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God’s own will.
[show verse now]
28And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
[show verse now]
29For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. 30And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory.
