Transcription
[Music] Romans chapter ii. One of the greatest chapters in all of God's Word begins with this tremendous promise of no condemnation. Romans 8, verse 1: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus."
And then, from that point on, what you have from verse 2 through verse 27 is essentially a recitation, or what you might call a celebration, of the work of the Holy Spirit in our life, the life of a believer, as God is working in us. And we're going to see it later in the next few verses: "Those who may be justified, He also glorified." And along the way, the Holy Spirit's working in our life in an incredible way.
You say, "What is He doing?" Well, let me just give you a few of them. Number one, He gives us a whole new mindset. He changes how we think. "The mind set on the Spirit," Paul says. So, all of the sudden, as a Christian, I'm thinking differently. I'm evaluating things differently. I have different priorities. I have a different purpose.
Second, the Spirit is producing in me what Paul talked about in Romans 6, as they the result is the fruit of sanctification, the fruit of holiness. He starts producing in me life, spiritual life, the abundant life. He's eating producing in me peace. You know, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. He's working that into my life.
Third, we saw that the Spirit of God lives in us. He takes up residence in us. Romans 8, verse 9 says, "If any man does not have the Spirit, he is not of Christ." If you don't have the Spirit of God living in you, it's because you've not been saved. He lives in every believer.
Number four, we saw that He will resurrect us. That the Spirit of God, His power was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead, and He will resurrect us.
We saw number five, that the Spirit of God helps us to overcome sin, as He makes us like Christ, helps us in our battle against sin, which is such a great powering of the Spirit. And He's working all the time, whether you're aware of it or not, He's working in you.
Number six, one of the glorious truths we just looked at a couple of weeks ago, the Spirit of God confirms our adoption. What that's telling us is that God, in eternity, before time began, chose you. He chose every single person. He said, "I want her. I want him. I'll take him. I'll take her." He chose us in love. He predestined us to be adopted.
And we talked about adoption and how, in Paul's day, in Roman times, adoption was something that was a huge honor. You might be adopted as an adult. It was it was a person saying, "Listen, I want this person to carry on my name. I want this person to manage my estate. I want this person because I see a nobility in them. I see a future in them." That's great. God sees a future in you. He adopted you. And the Spirit makes that very real to us.
And now, number seven, another very, very exciting reality of the Holy Spirit's work in us: He prays for us. He intercedes for us. So let's look at it. We're going to look at Romans chapter 8 and verses 26 or 27. "Likewise the Spirit, that's the Holy 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."
Now, as we look at this, what I want to do in it, and I hope you take notes, I want you to see three aspects of the Spirit's praying for us. As we look at verses 26 and 27, essentially, we're going to just simply break it down almost word by word, because the words that are used here are very powerful, they're very meaningful, and they really explain this passage. And my prayer is it'll just explode in your heart and mind, be an encouragement to you, and make a difference in your life going forward.
The first thing I want you to notice is the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. The Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. Let's look at it. Verse 26: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness." Likewise, what? What's Paul talking about there? Well, that's a reference to where we left off last week in verse 25, Romans chapter 8. "But if we hope for what we do not see." What are we hoping for that we do not see? That He was talking about. We're talking about the redemption of our bodies. That it might, my spirit's been saved, I'm trying to renew my mind daily with the Word of God and the Spirit of God working in me, but I'm still living, all of us are living, in that human body that is yet to be redeemed.
But we saw last time that in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, mortality will take on immortality. This body will be transformed. This body will be redeemed. Here's what knowledge of that and an awareness of that does for the believer: it causes us to realize that this life, first of all, is not all there is. And that we're not going to wear that the problems we face are not going to last forever. Paul, you'll remember, we saw in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, in verse 17, says, "These light and momentary afflictions are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."
So when I know what's ahead, I realize that this is just time. This is just temporary. These challenges are just momentary. There's coming a day when I'm going to have a new body, and it will last forever. And that gives me patience as I'm waiting for that hope to take place. So, in the same way that hope helps me to wait patiently, what Paul is saying is the Spirit helps us. You say, "How so?"
Look at it. Romans 8, verse 26: "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness." That word "help" is a very interesting word. I want to give you a definition because it's a unique word: to aggressively and personally perform a task with another for the purpose of giving appropriate help. In other words, what that word tells us, because it's only used here and in another place in the Gospels that we'll look at in just a moment, but what it tells us is it's not help as in He's going to do it for us, like we just sit back on our, you know, we sit back on our lounger and sip Arnold Palmer and just, you know, catch a suntan while the Holy Spirit does the work. That's not what He's talking about.
He's saying that the Holy Spirit aggressively and personally performs a task with us for the purpose of giving appropriate help. Here's where you see the word used that interestingly. You find it used in Luke's Gospel, chapter 10, and verse 40, where you have the story of Jesus' earthly ministry, and He's going to some friends' home for a meal. It's Lazarus, the home of Lazarus and his two sisters, Martha and Mary. And you remember Martha, she's trying to get the meal all together, and as she's working, she's like, "I could use some help," and she's wondering where Mary is. And she sees Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus. And over time, I mean, she's getting irritated, she's getting frustrated, maybe the biscuits have burned, who knows what's going down, but now Martha's just about had it. And so she's a picture of how we get when we're doing everything in our own strength. Martha, distracted by the big dinner she's preparing, came to Jesus and said, "Doesn't it seem unfair to you that my sister sits here while I do all the work? Tell her to come and help me. Tell her to aggressively, personally get in here and help me, because we've got a job to do." She's telling Jesus what to do. But that gives you an idea of the work that's being pictured there.
So it's not one person doing the work for another. It's two individuals working together. The Holy Spirit is personally, aggressively working in our lives to give us the appropriate amount of help. Why? So that you and I can do the will of God. She realized the Holy Spirit is that committed. You're not on your own. He's helping. One commentator says it has the idea of two people carrying a big log. Only in this case, it's not like the weight is distributed evenly. What you have is you have an adult male and you have a young boy, and the young boy could never move it on his own, but with the help of his dad, who could probably do it on his own, together they're moving the log. That's a picture of the Holy Spirit. He's helping us. He's not doing it separate from us. He's doing it with us.
Notice this. Romans chapter 8: "Likewise the Spirit helps us aggressively, appropriately, that the will of God might be done together with us, in partnership with us." Helps us in our weakness. The word "weakness" could be understood as in our lack of strength. In other words, we lack strength spiritually, we lack strength physically, we lack strength emotionally, maybe even at times mentally, to do God's will. We want to do God's will, but we're weak. Just like Jesus said to the disciples in the garden, "The Spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." We find ourselves weak. And so the Holy Spirit comes alongside us to help us, not to do it for us, but to do it with us.
Now look at it in Romans chapter 8, verse 26. "Likewise this Spirit helps us in our weakness." How? What specifically are we talking about? We could say it's true of a lot of things, and I think it applies to a lot of things. But if we're going to just simply stick to the context, in other words, what specifically is Paul talking about? Where is it true that the Holy Spirit is coming alongside us aggressively to partner with us in an appropriate way for us to do the will of God? Paul says it's in the area of prayer. She's very interesting. "For we do not know what to pray for as we ought." It's not that we don't know how to pray, because prayer is very, very simple. It's a conversation with God. It's you and I talking to God and letting God speak to us. The issue is not that we don't know how to pray. The issue is we don't know what to pray.
What happens is, at times, our prayers, especially in the context of Romans 8, is suffering, difficulty. I would suggest to you, it's even harder for every single one of us to pray according to the will of God in difficulty or in difficult times, because whenever any one of us are facing difficulty, what's our prayer? "Get me out of here." Right? Our prayers are colored by our suffering, by our desire to get out of the situation. It's easier for us to pray, and in fact, we have a tendency to pray more for God to deliver us out of the problem rather than to demonstrate His power in us through the problem. We would rather God remove the weakness from us than show His grace is sufficient in the weakness. And so we have a tendency to pray in a way that is not necessarily in accordance with the will of God. We're fighting. It's a spiritual battle. "We wrestle not against flesh and blood," Paul says in Ephesians 6, verse 12. "We don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers." We're facing demonic power in a spiritual battle. We're using spiritual weapons. 2 Corinthians 10: "The weapons of our warfare are divinely powerful."
And so the issue is, we sometimes, because we can't see the spirit world, because we can't get to where all we see is the suffering we're facing or the problem we're facing, we see in a limited way. We don't have 20/20 vision spiritually speaking. And it's easy for us to not really understand all that's happening, all that's at stake, and what is really the best concerning God's will in this situation. Is everybody with me on that? We think we know. We just don't really know. Paul gives us an idea of that in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. "Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we'll see everything with perfect clarity." When? When? That's when we're in heaven. We'll have 20/20 vision spiritually. "All that I know now is partial and incomplete." You know, we don't, we don't see the big picture. We don't understand why things are happening. "Why did God let this happen? Why doesn't God do that?" Can I just tell you that one second into heaven, when you see, because in that moment, it says, "We will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely." When you get to heaven, you're going to know. Yeah, you're not going to have to ask God, "God, why did you do that?" You're going to know. And let me just tell you this, you're going to look at the action of God, the activity of God, the decisions of God, and here's what you're going to say. You're not going to say, "Why did you do that?" You're going to say, "You do all things well."
But we see imperfectly. Consequently, we pray imperfectly. We don't always understand God's will and what God's wanting to do. Let's personalize it in the life of the Apostle Paul, for example. In 2 Corinthians, which is really one of the most personal books that Paul writes, he talks about some of his struggles. And in one case, chapter 12, verse 7, he's got this demonic attack happening. Look at it. He says, "It was given me a thorn in my flesh." That's painful. It hurt. "A messenger of Satan." We don't know whether it was people energized by the enemy attacking him, or whether it was a demonic full frontal assault on Paul, but it was painful. And Paul said, "Because it tormented him, three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." But He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness." That's not what Paul thought he was going to hear. Paul was praying, "Take it away," and Jesus was saying, "I want to demonstrate my power." So we don't always know how to pray. That's why we need the Spirit to help us in our weakness, because honestly, we do not know what to pray for as we are.
And that leads us to a second thing that I want you to notice: the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings. He intercedes for us with groanings. Look at it. Verse 26: "But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." This word here is very interesting. You'll see the word "intercedes" in verse 27, but this word here is different from it. They're both translated "intercede," but this word is only used here in the entire New Testament. It's an interesting word. It means "exceedingly intercedes." It could mean "abundantly intercedes." And it could be the idea of the Spirit Himself, over and above what you could ever imagine, intercedes. Would be the idea: the Spirit Himself, above and beyond what you could ask, what you could imagine, is interceding for us.
It's interesting as well, this word used in the Old Testament is used of the Spirit of God coming upon people and in so doing, empowering them to wage war, to bring about victory. You see it in the book of Judges, of a man named Othniel. And the Spirit of God came out, I think it's Judges chapter 3, the Spirit of God comes on him in power, and suddenly a snail becomes this mighty man. It's used of Gideon in Judges 6 through 8. The Spirit of God comes on him, and suddenly this guy who's hiding because he's fearful becomes this mighty warrior. It's used of Samson. The Spirit of God comes on him and supernaturally strengthens him for the task at hand. So, "but the Spirit Himself comes on us," or the Spirit of God, over and above, interceding for us with groanings too deep for words.
Now, last time we looked at that word "groanings," with "groanings too deep for words," and we saw that creation groans, and we saw that we groan. And what I want to do is I want to take just a moment, because I would say this verse that a lot of people don't really understand what it's saying. And I would suggest to you that last time I taught Romans, I would have said that it was saying something totally different, but the more I've studied it, I've actually come to a different conclusion. "The Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings." What are we talking about there? There's basically three schools of thought here on the groanings.
One is, it's a direct groaning that the Spirit Himself is groaning. That He is groaning. Does God groan? I would say no. I would find that hard to believe that God groans. I mean, you know, you say, "Well, I mean, it's not like God looks down at you and says, 'Oh, oh, look, look what she's doing now.'" I mean, God doesn't groan. God's not bothered. He's not worried. He's not, you know, what's going on? I mean, He's not got any of that going on. He is fully confident. He dances over His people. He delights in His inheritance. He is excited because those whom He justifies, those whom He also glorifies, He's faithful in the complete what He began in us. And God's got no worries. There's no time that you and I do something and He's like, "What?" You know, I mean, He's not surprised. He's not as surprised by your disappointments and failures as you are. And and He, so it's hard for me to imagine God groaning. He's got everything under control. Does the Father groan? I don't think so. Does the Son groan? I don't think so. I groaned on earth, but not anymore. Does the Spirit groan? I can't picture it. He's God. So, direct groaning. And there are some, there are some very legitimate scholars who believe that it's a direct groaning. So you could put in that R.C. Sproul. You could put in that pastors like John MacArthur. You could put theologians like Douglas Moo, Charles Hodge. Some of those guys would say, "No, the Spirit of God directly groans."
The second school of thought is, it's an indirect groaning. So, indirect groaning would be, you and I groan, and then the Spirit of God takes that and says, "Huh, let me kind of rearrange that, and I'll pray to the Father on their behalf. I know what you're trying to do, but I'm going to pray and change it, and I'm going to convey to the Father something in accordance with His will." So He really orchestrates, rearranges our prayer to the Father to line up with the Father's will. And there are some very legitimate, again, pastors like David Jeremiah would say that's what it means. Theologians like Wayne Grudem, if you're into theology, a contemporary theologian, a very, very good theologian. People like Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Charles Ryrie, some of those people, Warfield, Haldane, A.W. Pink, all would say it's indirect groaning. So it's a spirit summarizing it.
Then the third one is that the Spirit of God, again, is helping us. So He's coming upon the believer, energizing the believer to pray according to the will of God. And the groans we're talking about is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Now, I would have said up until just, you know, this week, I know that's very comforting for you. If said, "How do you change?" I say this to people, "I reserve the right to get smarter." Okay? So part of it is simply studying and spending the amount of time to really work through Paul's argument, to do word studies, and to think through what are the other people saying, and how does that square with the rest of Pauline theology? I've really come to the conclusion it's the third. Because I would have said before this, if you'd asked me in the hallway, out of sight, or whatever, it's like, "Mel, it's not talking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit." But I would say that I would feel strongly that it is. And I'm going to show you why.
Now, I realized as we start talking about baptism of the Holy Spirit, we start talking about tongues, there are some of you, and like this, your first time here, and you're like, "You know, yeah, that's all they talk about. I knew it. Let's get out of here." And so, let me just say this, your first time here, you're in Joplin. It's not all we talk about, but we do talk about it because it's clearly in the Word of God. And anytime it comes up in scripture, we're going to deal with it squarely. So I want to, I want to just simply talk you through this. Remember, the Holy Spirit is helping us. Doesn't mean He's doing it by himself. And He's interceding for us. He's coming upon us, but we're the ones who make the noise. He does the praying. He comes upon us and prompts our praying, but we are praying. So you could say, "Is that us praying, or is it Him praying?" It's both.
Let me show you something interesting. If you compare Galatians 4 and Romans 8:15, so when we're talking about Romans 8:15 about our adoption, there's a parallel verse in Galatians 4. Paul says this: "And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Father into our hearts, crying, 'Abba, Father.'" In Romans, he says this: "But you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba, Father.'" Now look at this in Galatians 4 and verse 6: "Who's doing the crying?" The Spirit is. And what does the Spirit cry? He's crying out, "Abba, Father," on our behalf. In Romans 8:15, who's doing the crying? We cry. And who's empowering us? The Spirit of adoption. I want to suggest to you that that's exactly what you have happening in Romans chapter 8.
Let's go back to verse 26 now. "But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." You know, here's the problem with the direct view of the Spirit's interceding. How would you know when He's groaning if He is groaning? Does God really need to groan? And it instantly moves it out of the realm of any praying. And people will say, the direct camp will say this, "Well, man, if the only time the Spirit's interceding for you is when you're groaning, then you're in big trouble." And I would counter with this: in verse 34 of chapter 8, it says Christ is at the right hand of the Father, and He is interceding for us constantly. So you're covered.
The indirect camp, they say, "Well, you know, when you're groaning, the Spirit is translating that." And what they do is invariably, they view it as almost a silent kind of prayer, which is completely foreign to the text. This is this is loud. This is this is vocal. This is this is something that the Spirit and us are doing together. Whereas if you take it as the indirect, it's something the Spirit is almost doing apart from us. "Groanings too deep for words." Again, I would take exception. They would say it's not expressible. It cannot be expressed. That, I would suggest, as a poor translation of this. A better translation would be this: "groanings we cannot understand with our mind." Obviously, it's expressed because it's a groan, but you and I can't understand with our mind. We can hear it. We can't understand it.
Now, the question then becomes, when you're trying to figure this out, is Paul almost mentioning this as an aside in this glorious argument in Romans that he's creating of this Spirit's work? And it's almost like he is assuming that the believers have a familiarity with what he's saying, because he's not giving us, he's leaving a lot of unanswered questions if we have no familiarity. So you have to ask this. You have to say, "Well, is there anywhere else in Pauline theology where you see something similar, where you see noise happening we can't understand with our mind?" And I would suggest to you that there is, and it's found in 1 Corinthians chapter 14. So go there in your Bibles, or on your phone, because you'll want to follow along.
Now, let me just offer a brief explanation. When you get through to 1 Corinthians chapter 14, so we're all on the same page. Paul is dealing with the Corinthian church, and they have every spiritual gift, but they're abusing some of the spiritual gifts. When Paul gets to the discussion in chapter 14, it has to do primarily with three gifts. It has to do with the gift of tongues, the gift of interpretation of tongues, and the gift of prophecy. All three gifts are meant for when the body of Christ gets together. Somebody speaks in a tongue, somebody interprets, or somebody gives a prophecy. It's ministry in the gathering of believers.
What Paul is doing, though, is Paul is helping them understand that there is a difference between the gift of tongues, because he says, "Do all have the gift of tongues?" And the answer's no. But there's a difference between the gift of tongues and what we would call, for the sake of clarification, the prayer language that is given to the believer when they are filled with the Spirit, when the Spirit comes upon them, when they are baptized in the Spirit. You receive a prayer language. It is, it is, Paul says, "If I speak of the tongue, and the tongues of men and angels." So it could be, could be an angelic. It's a supernatural language. Paul says in another place in chapter 14, "My spirit prays." So it's the language of the Spirit.
So Paul is working through this whole understanding of the use of the gift of tongues, but along the way, he is making sure they understand the value of the prayer language. Because here's what will happen: if you don't understand the distinction between the two, then you'll assume that the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the result of a prayer language is only for a select few and not everybody has it. And that's exactly what you see in the contemporary church. People like, "Well, you know, I don't think that's for everybody." Well, you couldn't prove that from the book of Acts, and you couldn't prove it from the writings of Paul. And what I'm suggesting to you is that in 1 Corinthians 14, you find an understanding of the prayer language that really fits in with what we're reading here in 1 Corinthians 14.
We learn several things about the prayer language. Let me give you several. First of all, it strengthens the believer when they pray in it. This is why I would suggest, and let me just say this to those who are maybe new and you've just started coming, this is not something we, you know, some of you have come in now to this church and like, "Is exactly what I feared. All they talk about." This is not all we talk about, but we do teach the Bible, and it is in the Bible, and when it comes along the way, we're going to address it. So what you have here is the prayer language strengthens the believer when they pray in it. This is what Paul says: "A person who speaks in tongues is strengthened personally." I don't know about you, but I'll take all the strength I can get. And it's not the only way God strengthens a believer, but it is one of the ways God strengthens a believer. Here's what I would like you to consider: if God says there's three ways you can become stronger in Him, are you really willing to say, "Well, I'll take two and skip the third"? I mean, I know this, that when I'm walking with the Lord, I want all the strength that God can give me. I want every bit of this strengthening. This is one way. It's not the way, but it is a way that we are strengthened.
Number two, the prayer language is mysterious. At times, have people, and they receive the prayer language, and what they'll do is they'll say, "You know, I just, it just doesn't sound like a language to me." Well, of course not. It's mysterious. "Well, it doesn't sound like it sounds like I'm saying the same thing over and over again." So what? It's mysterious. "Well, I just think..." Well, it doesn't matter what you think, because you're not the one who is energizing that, right? "For if you have the ability to speak in tongues, you'll be talking only to God, since people won't be able to understand you. You will be speaking by the power of the Spirit." But it'll all be mysterious. What's empowering it? The Spirit. Who's empowering it? The Spirit. But do you understand it? No. It's mysterious. Like, "I don't know what's happening there, but something's happening." Exactly. Why? Shine you? Well, probably in heaven you will. But until then, I mean, listen, I don't have to understand how electricity to turn on the switch and derive benefit from it, right? I don't need to figure out the mystery of it in order to benefit from the power of it. In the NIV, it puts it this way: "He utters mysteries with his Spirit." So it means you and I can't understand what it is we're saying. You say, "Well, some of you that pray have a prayer language, say, 'Well, there's been times I really felt on you what I was saying.'" That maybe you did, maybe you didn't. I mean, how do you know? Can you prove that you said? "Well, I felt it." Don't go there. Maybe your feelings are right, maybe they're not. Who knows? There's there's a place where, listen, when we're when we're talking about walking with the Lord, and we're talking about a supernatural lifestyle, when when you are dealing with the supernatural God who is so great, we can't begin to fathom Him. And for all eternity, we will be in awe of the constant revelation of His greatness and who He is. Are you telling me that you're going to figure everything out? Impossible. We rest in faith. We leave those things in faith.
Number three, you cannot understand it with your mind. "For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don't I don't understand what I'm saying." Paul says, "When I'm when I'm praying in the prayer language, he says, 'I I don't my spirit is praying. I know my spirit is praying, but my mind does not understand what I am saying.'"
Number four, it is vocal. "For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying, but I don't understand what I'm saying." In other words, it's out loud. You can hear your voice saying it. Your mind doesn't understand what your voice is saying. "Well, then what shall I do?" Paul says, "I'll pray in the Spirit. I'll also pray in words he says, words I understand. I will sing in the Spirit, and I will also sing in words I understand."
Number five, the Spirit prays, but my spirit prays. "For if you have the ability to speak in tongues, you will be talking only to God." So when you're praying in your prayer language, you're going, you're going to God in a unique way. You're talking only to Him. "Since people won't be able to understand you, you will be speaking by the power of the Spirit." So who's praying? You are praying, and the Spirit is empowering you to pray, which certainly fits the context of what we talked about: the Spirit helps us in our weakness. He intercedes for us. In other words, He's not doing it all by himself. He's empowering us. He's coming alongside us. He's helping us, empowering us to talk to God.
Now, listen to this. Number six, this is critical. Paul says, "Everyone can do it." Here's what happens to a lot of people. A lot of people will say, "Well, you know, I just don't think it's for everybody." "Do all speak in tongues?" Paul says, Paul's talking about the gift of tongues. And does everybody have the gift of tongues? In other words, that is used like the gift of prophecy or the gift of words of knowledge, words of wisdom, discernment of spirits. Does everybody have the same gift? No. But does everybody have a prayer language? Yes. Paul distinguishes between the gift of tongues and the prayer language in chapter 14. But he says this: "I thank God that I speak in tongues more than any of you." Now, if it's not available to everybody, then Paul's saying, "Ha ha, I got it, you don't." Pulsing? Instead, this is really worthwhile. "I pray with my understanding. I pray with my spirit." And I thank God. He says, "I do it so much, but I'm confident I do it more than anybody else I know." Now, very few people could make that kind of statement. But if Paul's making it, and the Holy Spirit lets it stand, you have to believe to always forever send you that's true. That's true. Very interesting. I've met, I've met people who have, you know, a markedly greater prayer life than my own. I think of one pastor, he pastors, I think his church, five runs a hundred thousand a day in India. And we were riding in a car, and he said, "Brothers, let me ask you a question." We're like, "Sure, go ahead." And he said, "I pray three hours a day with my mind, but then I pray two hours a day with my spirit." Do you think that's enough? It's like, "Well, I think you're doing really good there. That's a good sign." He has fifty thousand or a hundred thousand people. It's a power to his life.
Now back to Romans. "But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." He prays with us. He empowers us to pray. He prays for us. And that's that's the value of the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Periodically, on Wednesday nights, we'll give people an opportunity to receive. Let me, let me just tell you something very, very interesting. And our Wednesday nights, it's been, it's been very, very unusual. A few weeks ago, we pretty much, it was spontaneous, because I had experienced a significant healing in the prayer meeting at the start of the fast when Kurt Parsley came up and led the church to pray for me. And I mean, it has been dramatic, the healing that I have had. I mean, honestly, I was, thank you, my heart. I had, you know, SVT and POTS, two things that were causing me to have to go down, hit the floor multiple times a week because of the racing of my heart. And I was just kind of telling the people, "Hey, if this happens on a Sunday morning and I have to lay down, don't call the paramedics. I will preach laying down. I can still talk, and then we'll keep going." But I was, it had gotten that bad. I was afraid. I need to let people know just how bad it was, followed by debilitating weakness.
But the congregation prayed. And I experienced from that day on, and I mean, I've had it now for over a year, from that day on, I've not had it one time. So I mean, I'm, you know, it's amazing. And I'll praise to the Lord for that. But so we decided to have this, we decided to have a healing service a couple weeks later, just to encourage people, because people are going to receive. So there's a couple that comes forward, and as they've come forward, a couple's praying for them. And and they happen to have a prayer language. And so they're praying for them in their prayer language. And as they're praying for them, the couple they're praying for automatically receives. They're filled with the Spirit. They start speaking in a language they don't know. That's not why they came. They came because she couldn't conceive children. So while they come down front, they're filled with the Spirit. Then they go and they sit down. And as they sit down, a woman comes up to them and says, "You don't know me, but as I've been said, when I saw you go back to your seat, I didn't know what you went forward to, but forward for. But I've felt like the Lord has a word for both of you." She said to the woman, "The Lord wants you to know He's opened your womb." And she said to the man, she said, "You're in a new season of joy." He had just gotten a new job. Had come down home the night before and said, "It feels like I'm in a new season of joy." They'd come forward to receive prayer for her to conceive, and now it's validated by prophecy. All of this is the gifts of the Spirit. And I would suggest to you that that happens with regularity in the supernatural experience. It's not the end-all be-all. It's just part of being open to the moving of the Spirit in a way that carries us beyond ourselves to a place where we're able to build up the body of Christ and experience the goodness of God in an added dimension.
So all of that simply to say this is how the Spirit works. Third, the Holy Spirit knows God's will for our lives. So He helps us in our weakness, He intercedes for us with groanings, and He knows God's will for our lives. Look at it. Verse 27: "And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit." Who searches hearts? That's God the Father. You know, "the heart is desperately wicked and deceitful above all things. Who can know it?" Jeremiah 17. Very next verse, verse 10, says, "I the Lord know the heart." He knows exactly. The psalmist says in Psalm 139, "He perceives our thoughts from afar." Before it ever comes together in your mind, He saw it coming together. Before a word has ever formed on my lips, Psalm 139 says, "He knows it full well." So He knows our heart. And the one who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit. So the Father knows what's in our heart. He knows what's in the mind of the Spirit. And you and I may not understand what we're praying in the Spirit in our prayer language, but God knows our heart. God knows the mind of the Spirit.
Now look at it in verse 27: "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." So all of the sudden, what happens is, as I'm praying in my prayer language, are there times? Let me say this: are there times that in my regular language, in my mind, I know the will of God in a certain situation? Yes. There's just times you do. You're praying for somebody to be saved. That's the will of God, right? You can pray confidently, "God, I know it's Your will for them to be saved." Yes, it is. God is not willing that any should perish, but all should come to eternal life. "I mean, God, help my son or my daughter or my friend live a holy life." That's God's will. It's God's will that you be holy. 1 Thessalonians 4. So there's some things we automatically know God's is God's will. There are times when we're with somebody and we sense that it's the will of the Lord to do something. You just, how do you know? You just know. I can't explain how you know. You just know. For example, I'm in the hallway last Sunday, as I'm standing there, and I realize this is a little unique message, but when you're talking about the working of the Spirit and the life of the believer, does the equipment for salvation? Absolutely. Is He strengthening us and doing all the things we talked about? Yes. But He's also the Spirit of God who works in us to minister and empower us to minister to other people. So I'm in the hallway, as I'm sitting there, I go up to greet somebody, I say, "How you doing?" He said, "I'm not doing good. My back's killing me." "Really? What's going on?" He says, "It's just been bad." And his wife says, "Yes, it's been terrible." And back pain, the bad pain. Instantly, as I'm sitting there, I felt like the Lord says, "Pray for him to be healed." So, "Hey, that's God's will." So I say, "Hey, well, let me pray for you right now." You know, that's always a good thing to do, even if you don't feel that witness. A little easier to do it with the confidence of faith when you do, right? So we, you know, lay hands on, pray for him. Two days then I get a text. He's had that that pain for months. He's just totally free of pain. God has healed him. Listen, I'm just simply saying God heals people. I know He does. And the Spirit helps us pray according to the will of God.
So there are times when I don't know the will of God. There's times that I'm just praying. And the idea is not just praying for other people, though it could apply to that. I think the idea is praying as we're talking to God, the Spirit is interceding through us as we're talking to God for the strengthening of our lives, the things we need that we may not even know we need to pray. In the Spirit is a very, very powerful, powerful thing. And when a person's praying in the Spirit, using their prayer language, they're praying according to the will of God. That prayer is free of personal agenda. That prayer is free of shortsightedness. That prayer is free of the selfishness that at times colors or tints our prayer life. That prayer is free of the lack of knowledge that we have concerning what we really need and what is happening. And we know that when we're praying according to the Spirit, when we're praying by the Spirit, we're praying according to the will of God. That's what He's saying.
And here's what we know about praying according to the will of God. First John, and I'll close with this. This is the confidence. Musicians, you can come. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: "that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have what we have asked of Him." If we have, if we ask anything according to His will, we know we have it. The key to answered prayer is praying according to the will of God. So the Spirit of God comes along, and He is praying for us, in us, through us, with us, empowering us, that you and I might pray on a whole different level relative to the will of God and His working, not only in our life, but ultimately in the lives of other people. And that's a very, very powerful ministry of the Spirit.
You say, "Well, I've always heard it taught that the Spirit of God is interceding for us, and where would we be if He weren't interceding for us?" Hey, don't worry about that. He's interceding as we're praying, and that's one aspect of God's ministry. But when we get to Romans 8:34, the Son, Jesus, is at the right hand of the Father, and He is interceding for us. So you're covered on the intercession front. But we're talking about the Holy Spirit. We're talking about the power of the Spirit. And you see great similarity between 1 Corinthians 14, Romans chapter 8. And I would encourage you to do this: Wednesday night, come out, see what God will do. In fact, I would say, why wait till Wednesday? Just as you're in the presence of the Lord, just say, "God, if whatever You have for me, I want. If there's a gift I haven't received, I want it. If there's something You want to do in my life, I want it. God, I want all of You." In the words of one man, "I want to be so full of You, I don't have room for anything else." And I'm just simply saying that God wants to work in your life in that dimension to empower you. Amen.