Looking Back to Look Forward
26 In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
Romans 8:26-27
I want you to notice those opening words, “in the same way,” because they are words that take us back to what Mark shared last week. As we unpack them today, they are also preparing the way for what is coming next week and the week after. That really means that if you weren’t here last week, you’re at a disadvantage—and I’m going to help you. We’re going to go back, which will enable us to deal with today and prepare the way for going forward.
Our Present Struggle: The “Now” and the “Not Yet”
Last week, in verses 18 to 25, Mark helped us understand that Paul is speaking of a struggle we are all too familiar with. Every one of us struggles with life as it is right now. We struggle with what is happening around us: the increased lawlessness, the ever-increasing prices, the unashamed immorality, and the constant changes. I once read an article that said fifty years ago, you had one major change every three years. Today, you have three major changes every day. I don’t know if that’s accurate, but it illustrates that we live in a world that feels like a pressure cooker. There is stress, pressure, pain, sorrow, and suffering. We are all too familiar with it.
Two statements stand out from the verses Mark unpacked: creation groans, and we groan. Since the fall, creation has been affected. The lion can no longer lie with the lamb; if you put them together, the lion would have lunch. We see this groaning in earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis. We groan because of sickness, sin, death, depression, disease, and terminal illnesses.
Paul was writing to the Romans, an audience experiencing pain and persecution. How do you cope through such a time? Paul says, don’t focus on yourself. Lift your eyes. Look heavenward. A day is coming when all of this pain, sorrow, and struggle will be over. The Lord is going to come back. When He comes, and time as we know it is no more, you will find yourself in eternity. If you belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be with God Himself in a renewed creation where there is no more sin, struggle, suffering, death, disease, or depression. It will be heaven. And when you get there and look back, you will find that everything you suffered was but a moment. That is how you cope with the present.
First Corinthians 13:12 is very meaningful at a time like this: “Now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.” What a day of bliss that will be.
All of this tells us that we live in two time zones: the “now” and the “not yet.” Now we struggle; then we won’t. Now we are in this world with all its limitations; then we will be in a world with no limitations. Now we live without the physical sight of God; then we shall be in heaven and see Him as He is. This becomes the theme of what has gone before. That is our hope. We don’t hope like some people hope tomorrow will be warmer; we hope with a guarantee. That guarantee is written in those former verses: Christ Himself is the first fruits. First fruits of what? Of the resurrection life. If Christ is the first fruits, He is underwriting and guaranteeing that there is such a thing as a resurrection. Our hope is defined, underwritten by God Himself, and guaranteed.
If I could go back a little further, in Romans chapter 7, Paul writes about the struggle with the flesh—how we want to do good but don’t, and we do the bad things we don’t want to do. He’s saying that in the flesh, you will experience this struggle. But as you cross from chapter 7 into chapter 8, there is a change of tone. You move from the flesh to the Spirit of God. In Romans chapter 8, depending on your translation, the Holy Spirit is mentioned around 18 times. When you try to cope in the flesh, you won’t be able to do anything. But when, by the enabling power of the Spirit of God, you lean on God, He will enable you to do what He wants you to do. This tells us we need the Holy Spirit.
As Baptists, we don’t talk much about the Holy Spirit, but we are not ashamed of Him. We simply aren’t like some churches where the Holy Spirit is emphasized in every service to the point of being behind every bush. We believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—equal in essence and yet one. We try to live that out according to the Scripture.
Weakness is Part and Parcel of Life While We Wait
Where does that take us this morning in the two verses we’ve looked at (Romans 8:26-27)? I want to make three points.
First, weakness is part and parcel of life while we wait for the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. I find it heartening that in these verses, Paul identifies with us. Look at verse 26: “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” He’s saying, “I’m in there too. I also struggled.” Even the great apostle Paul struggled to live in the kind of society he was in, living between the “now” and the “not yet.” Weakness is a given on this side of glory. It’s no good pretending it doesn’t exist.
Some people struggle with showing weakness, thinking things like, “You shouldn’t cry; you’re a man.” That’s rubbish. When you don’t cry, you build up emotions, and one day they will explode like a tsunami. It’s a good thing to cry. It’s not a bad thing to show weakness. Paul said, “When I am weak, then I am strong.” When you are weak, the Lord gives you the grace to carry on.
I remember coming home one day after my wife, Pat, had been diagnosed with cancer. As I walked in the door, I could sense something was different. She asked me to sit down. She had phoned someone in another church who was terminal with cancer, while Pat had been given nine to twelve years. We were in year one. She said to me, “Today I met with the Lord, and the best thing that’s ever happened to me is this cancer.” How do you get there? You get there when you are weak, because when you are weak, you cry out, and God becomes your sufficiency and your strength.
But weak people can become desperate people, especially when the struggle is prolonged. Whether it’s an illness, a financial crisis, or an emotional struggle, the longer it goes on, the weaker they feel. They feel alone, as if God has forsaken them. Weak people can become people who opt out of life, resorting to alcohol, drugs, or in the worst cases, becoming suicidal. This underlines the fact that we need something bigger than ourselves. We need to hope in God, lift our eyes off the present, and fix them on that future—the “not yet”—drawing strength from the promises of the life to come.
Finally, weak people struggle to pray. We don’t know what to pray. Do we pray, “Lord, take this cancer away,” or “Lord, give me grace to go through it”? Do we pray, “Lord, end it”? I’ve heard that many times in a hospital. My standard answer is, “It is not mine to pray that God will deliver you from death, for God alone holds the key of life and death.” We struggle to pray, and Paul picks up on that.
God Has Made Provision for Our Weakness
This brings us to our second point: God has made provision for our weakness. Verse 26 says, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us.”
Our faith is weak at times, and our prayers can be weak. We pray for parking spaces and to be on time. It’s not that the Lord can’t answer those things, but in the realm of eternity, how big is a parking spot? John Newton got it right: “Come, my soul, thy suit prepare: Jesus loves to answer prayer… Thou art coming to a King, large petitions with thee bring; for His grace and power are such, none can ever ask too much.”
We pray small prayers, but consider a large prayer like John Knox’s: “Lord, give me Scotland or I die.” How many of us pray that kind of prayer? We struggle because we don’t have the words, and sometimes we’re not on the same track as the Lord. And here is the comforting promise: the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
If you run through chapter 8, you see what the Spirit does: He sets us free from the law of sin and death (v.2), helps us fulfill the law (v.4), gives life and peace (v.6), will raise us from the dead (v.11), helps us put to death the deeds of the body (v.13), leads us as sons of God (v.14), bears witness that we are children of God (v.16), and is the guarantee of our final redemption (v.23). Every believer is given the Holy Spirit at the moment of salvation. You could not come to faith without Him. It is the Spirit who convicts you of sin, enables you to express faith in Christ, and progressively makes you more Christlike—what we call progressive sanctification.
Now Paul says in verses 26 and 27 that He also helps you with your prayers. There are two aspects to God’s will. First, there is His **revealed will**: “Be holy as I am holy,” and the commandments—these are clearly spelt out in Scripture. Second, there is His **secret will**. Think of Job. Satan challenged God about Job’s faithfulness, and Job, unaware of this heavenly dialogue, lost his children, his wealth, and his health. That was the secret will of God. But we learn in Job that when God has tried us, we shall come forth as gold.
So you pray, “Lord, I want to pray for holiness, but I don’t know what you’re doing in this trial. I don’t know if you’re allowing this illness to deliver me through it, rather than from it.” The Spirit helps us pray like that. When you pray, you are mouthing the words, but the Holy Spirit is anointing you. He takes your feeble words and expressions, tunes them, and presents them before the throne of God as they ought to be. He presents them so that God’s will is being prayed for in your life. This is an encouragement to pray. Don’t be afraid of it. These verses aren’t saying you must resist this; they’re saying that when you don’t know, the Spirit is helping you.
Consider Paul’s thorn in the flesh in 2 Corinthians 12. He prayed three times for the Lord to take it away. The Lord’s answer was, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” The Lord allowed the thorn to humble Paul, to keep him dependent on God. The Spirit was praying for Paul, even when Paul couldn’t see it.
Prayer is One of Those Provisions
This brings us to the third point: prayer is one of those provisions. The Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
“Inexpressible” doesn’t need much definition. You don’t know what to say. You mumble and jumble in prayer, but the Spirit comes to help you. This is not speaking about the gift of tongues. If it were, you would need the gift of tongues and an interpreter as described in 1 Corinthians 12, which isn’t mentioned here. This is heartfelt prayer. It’s when you’re on your knees, struggling, and you say, “Oh Lord, help me articulate what you want me to say.” The Holy Spirit then petitions God on your behalf, doing what you can’t do, enabling your prayer to be underwritten with the guarantee of God.
Think of Paul in Philippians 1:22-24, torn between wanting to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, and staying on for the sake of others. He didn’t know what to pray for himself, so he left it to the Spirit of God to make real what God wanted in his life.
When it comes to prayer, we think in terms of what can be seen and felt—immediate deliverance and ease. But God thinks in terms of product, of character. He asks, “If I allow this to continue, what will it do for you? It will test you, shape you, make you more sensitive and compassionate. It will also prove that my promises are sufficient.”
Think of Hannah in 1 Samuel 1. Deeply hurt by her rival, she prayed to the Lord with many tears. We don’t have her exact words; this account is given by the Spirit after the fact. She made a vow, crying out from her heart for a son, whom she promised to dedicate to the Lord. That cry from the heart is what the Spirit takes and presents before the throne of God. And God heard and answered.
Conclusion: Encouragement for the Journey
So, what does all this mean for us? It means:
1. **You are not expected to know the will of God in every situation.** You can’t. God is God, but you can trust Him. When you come to prayer, trust that God knows everything and will do what He wants. Be willing to accept that. Anchor yourself in God.
2. **Know that God knows your heart.** I remember standing at a bedside, asked to pray for a man’s healing. I felt the Lord say to me, “Don’t pray.” So I left. When I visited him next, he was lying prostrate with a broken neck, looking at me in a mirror, and asked, “Why didn’t you pray?” I told him, “Because God told me not to.” That strange behavior led that man to eventually cry out to God and come to faith in Jesus Christ.
3. **Be encouraged.** No matter how feeble your prayer, God will hear it, accomplish His purpose, aid you, assist you, and answer you.
Don’t be afraid to pray. Come, God knows your heart. The Spirit will help you. I remember a young boy, Andrew, whose fireman father died after a surgery. The following Sunday, during a time of open prayer, this twelve-year-old got up and prayed, “O God, you are God, and you have taken my father. Give me grace.” And God did. Today, he serves the Lord in a church.
When you do not know what to pray, when you can’t pray because of those inexpressible groanings, the Spirit prays for you. Hallelujah. What a God.
Our Father, you have brought us to these verses this morning to confront a reality in each of our hearts and lives. Prayer is the Achilles heel of every Christian. None of us can stand and say our prayer life is perfect. We would have to admit with shame and sorrow that while we pray, there are many lows. But you are patient and kind and loving. You have come this morning and said, “My child, you may be weak, and the tension between the now and the not yet is very real. But I am with you. I want to take your feeble mumblings. Just express your heart, and I will do the rest, for my Spirit will help you.”
What grace there is in that. Lord, set us free from fear and from worrying what others might think. Set us free to pray like Jesus in Gethsemane: “Father, if this cup can pass, but not my will, yours be done.” Through His suffering came glory, salvation, and the hope of the resurrection. Keep us steadfast and strong as we live by the power of your Spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.