Living Hope Church

Pastor Phil Steiger: If you have your Bibles, turn with us please to Romans chapter 8. We're going to read verses 26 through 30 this morning. We're going to get nowhere near verse 30, but we're going to read it.

We're going to read this last section together because this particular section of Scripture here in Romans chapter 8 actually closes one of these first major sections here in this magnificent chapter. When Paul turns the page in verse 31, you can go and read there and he asks the question basically, "So then, because all of this, what shall we say now? What is true now?" It's as if when he moves into that, he then turns his attention to us and says, "These are the consequences. This is what life is like now with God because of all these things that we have said are true."

We remind ourselves of some of these things even since just verse 18: that our suffering cannot be compared with the glory that God is going to reveal. That all of creation and all of humanity are groaning under the weight of our sin, waiting for the fulfillment of God's glory, "waiting for the revealing of the sons of God" is the phrasing inside of that passage of Scripture. Then we talked about how we also still have a hope in God and His promises, our confident assurance that all that God promised is true and will come true, that what God is doing is going to come to pass.

Now in this passage of Scripture, as Paul continues to talk about the work of the Spirit in the lives of God's children, he starts to talk in terms of prayer and of God's sovereign activity inside of our lives. The way His work makes its way out in our lives in the context of the world around us—God's sovereign work. And we're going to talk specifically this morning about prayer. This passage of Scripture about prayer in these couple of verses are just magnificent, absolutely magnificent.

This passage on prayer is an encouragement. This is what I've been praying for and hoping for this week, that this is an encouragement. And yes, we should always be encouraged to pray more, to deepen our prayer lives, to expand it, to be more deliberate about it, more constant in our prayer lives, draw nearer to God. Yes, it's an encouragement to pray more. But as we're going to discover, this passage is also an encouragement about prayer.

What's going on in prayer? How has God structured His relationship with us so that the Spirit is within us, praying? So it's an encouragement to pray, but it's an encouragement also about prayer. What is God up to? Why are we praying? Does God hear? Is God going to do anything about any of this?

In our passage of Scripture, here are a couple of the thoughts that are going to help give us sense of what we're going to do this morning. First of all, we do not always know how to pray. This is actually just a simple truth. If you've been a Christian for any amount of time and you have paid attention to your life in prayer, you just simply know that at some points this is just the case. It's a simple truth.

We might be overwhelmed. We may not know exactly what the right thing is to pray for. We may not even know the things that should be prayed for. But we have this desire to be in relationship with God and praying about the people around us and the world around us. Sometimes these topics just grow so gargantuan, it gets over our vocabulary and our ability to express.

So sometimes we just don't know what to pray for. This passage of Scripture is going to say that the Spirit helps us in our weakness. This is a really interesting phrase. So that leads us to the second thought, that the Spirit of God intercedes for us.

It should humble us, and it should humble us this morning in this again very encouraging fashion, that the third member of the Trinity, the Spirit of God, is right now at work, praying through us and for us. This is a phrase that I want us to become comfortable with this morning as we walk through what Paul says about prayer in this passage of Scripture.

When you become a follower of Jesus Christ, when God saves your soul and the Holy Spirit, the word says, comes and dwells within you, you, Christian, have then been put inside of this interactive relationship between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, you, and what God is doing in the world. You've been put in the middle of that relationship, and God has brought you in, and He's at work. He's speaking, He's listening, He's interceding, He's praying for, He's doing, and He has pulled you into that through the activity of prayer—this incredible interactive relationship that you, Christian, are now a part of. Prayer is a gift that is given by God, and it turns out that prayer is a gift that is empowered by God in our lives as well.

Let's read this passage of Scripture. As we read it through, this is some of the more familiar territory in Romans chapter 8. Some of you have one of these verses hanging on the wall in your house or on your favorite mug, and so you'll see why it's going to take a little while to get through verses 26 through 30. But let's read this so we get a feel for Paul's last section. Friends, this is the Word of the Lord:

"Likewise the 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. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified."

We say this every single week, but friends, that's an incredible passage of Scripture here in the middle of Romans chapter 8. Here we are in verse 26. Likewise, he says, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We continue, as Paul has been telling us in this passage of Scripture, to recognize that we are groaning under the weight of our sin and we are still hoping for the fulfillment of the promises of God.

While we as sons and daughters of God have been brought into His kingdom and we're learning what that is like, we're learning what that new life is like. There's language in Scripture that you've been given a brand new life. You're dead to the old, you're alive to the new. The old life was darkness, this one is light. We no longer belong to this world, we belong to God's kingdom. All of this is true, but we are still inside of this broken world.

We're still inside of this decaying shell, so we're still caught inside of this tension between the Kingdom of God as it is at work within us now and what we know to be the case about the fulfillment and the completion of the Kingdom of God that is still yet to come. So it is also the case—it's interesting to me—that Paul in that kind of context then introduces the topic of prayer. So it is also the case in our prayer lives that we're also caught in that tension and we are caught in this weakness.

Now when he uses this word weakness here, he's not talking about our sin. He's talked a lot so far in the book of Romans about how sin works in the human life and what justification is and how Christ handles that and the Spirit's role. This weakness is not our sin. This weakness is not our suffering. Paul has talked about suffering compared to the glory of God and all these other things he's talked about suffering. It's not our sin, it's not our suffering. It's our human limitations.

We simply don't know. We don't know all of the things that we want to know. Even when we're praying for someone, at some point we are left to go, "And God, you just know what needs to happen here. You know what's happening inside of that life." When we pray for things that are gargantuan, we pray for our nation, we pray for our culture, we pray for these things that are literally beyond our power, we don't know the details.

So this is our weakness, our human limitation. Friends, you should know that if we take the Word of God seriously, what you and I see in this world—I mean literally see—is the tip of the iceberg of reality. This is just the tip of the iceberg of reality. We tend to think that what we see is the vast majority of reality. But then you've got God, so much bigger than anything that you and I see, and all of His created divine realm.

Even the things about creation on the microscopic and the macroscopic level that we just don't yet know, and often we know we don't yet know. We just have these limitations. Yet there is this work of prayer inside of us between the Spirit of God and God the Father and God the Son. The Spirit is helping us in our weaknesses so that we should pray in the way that we ought. This is really incredible language.

So Paul says, "For we do not know what to pray for as we ought." We need to make sure that when we're talking about prayer here on a Sunday morning, we cannot overemphasize the need for an active prayer life in the life of every single individual Christian and every single Christian home and every single Christian church. We cannot overemphasize the need for our prayer lives.

Scripture is full of information about how to pray, why to pray, what prayer is like. The Scriptures are full about admonitions to pray to God and what this is like. You see, the Christian has been given the Spirit of God. We've been told in Romans so far that the Spirit now dwells within us, which means now that we have access to the Father. We now have direct lines of communication, of interaction with the Heavenly Father, and that's what we call prayer—this interaction with the God who created us, saved us, loved us, is bringing us into Himself. This is what we call prayer.

The Apostle Paul, a couple of times in other epistles, is going to say things like, "You should be praying continually. Pray constantly." At some point in the life of the Christian—and we're all human beings, we know how this comes and goes—and yet the Apostle Paul says, "Learn how to pray continually." There should be something inside of the backs of our heads a little bit like a running soundtrack. It's a matter of prayer, it's an inclination of prayer, it's a priority of prayer, it's a knee-jerk response of prayer to the things that are going on in our lives and the lives of people around us.

We should be praying continually. When you read Paul's epistles, at the beginning of his epistles he says, "You know what? Every time I think of you, I thank God for you and I pray for you. And here's how I pray for you. Here's what I'm praying for you." What a phenomenal thing every now and then to write a note, send an email or a text to a brother or sister in Christ and just say, "God has put you on my heart. I'm thankful for you and this is what I'm praying for you today."

When Paul closes his letter, he's going to say, "And I want the church to pray for me." He's going to say, "In fact, there's a group of people around me who are ministering in this city or I've sent to this city, and this is what they do and these are their names and I want you to pray for them." Paul says, "I want the church praying for the ministry and the spread of the Gospel. I want the church praying for each other as we go to our homes and we go to our jobs and we go to our schools. The body of Christ is praying for each other constantly."

These are some of the things that we see in the Apostle Paul. Then we walk into the life of Jesus Christ, and again there is so much there. We think of the Lord's Prayer. We call it the Lord's Prayer, but Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer in response to the question, "Lord, teach us how to pray." It's a prayer that's been given to the disciples of Jesus Christ.

As Jesus gives that prayer, "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done," and on it goes. Christ is giving us concepts, He's giving us theology, He's giving us vocabulary, He's giving us things to pray about and ways to pray. So we take that as a pattern, as actual vocabulary and then as a pattern of prayer in our lives.

Then we notice in the life of Jesus Christ that He will often disappear. He kind of separates Himself from His disciples and from the crowd and He just walks off to a mountainside to pray. Even the Son of God in flesh needed from time to time to step away out of this life and just disappear and spend time with His Heavenly Father. So the word is full of these admonitions, these encouragements for you and I to pray.

As I think about this, I want to make sure we talk about this for a moment. If prayer is a little foreign to you, if prayer is maybe new to you, if prayer is maybe even difficult for you. Some of us inside of this room, I'm willing to bet, have been followers of Jesus Christ for a while, but we know that our prayer lives have grown a little bit shallow, a little bit dry, maybe a little bit less often than we want it to be.

I want to give us some things to think about in praying with God and reinvigorating our life of prayer with God. The more we move through these two verses of Scripture, I'm hoping that these kinds of things will then just—it's like planting these thoughts inside of fertile soil when we get to verse 27 and we're just excited about what prayer is.

So here are some thoughts, friends. First of all, just start by talking to God. At its foundation, this is just what prayer is. God desires this communication. Tell Him what is on your mind, tell Him what is on your heart. Just start talking to God. It doesn't have to be elaborate. It doesn't have to meet someone's standards. It doesn't have to be full of multi-syllabic words and long, complicated sentences. Just talk to God. Just start saying stuff. Just start asking questions. Just start talking to God.

Let Him know what you need. Now this is one of the glorious mysteries of prayer. So God is omniscient, meaning God already knows all things, which means God knows everything that you need. But God wants to hear it from you. God wants you communicating with Him, so tell Him what you need. Talk to Him about these things: what you need in your life, what you're asking for in the lives of people around you, the things that you read in the news and you're just overwhelmed by. "God, I would like to see something different, something change." Tell Him what you need because He wants you communicating with Him.

Confess and adore. Learn how to confess sins to God. As you can, confess them out loud. If you're a journaler, write them down in a journal as an act of prayer and confession to God. There is power in confessing sin and laying it before God and just kind of wiping the slate and asking Him for forgiveness and strength for repentance. Confess your sins before God. And then learn how to adore Him in prayer as well.

As you read the Word of God and you read some of this vocabulary and the things that Paul says about God, the things that David says about God in the Psalms, just use that language. Use this language of prayer and adoration and glory and magnificence about God. Borrow it, use it. Adore God inside of your prayer life.

And then be thankful. Be thankful. It is very easy for our prayer lives to find themselves in a rut of one of the earlier pieces of advice: "God, I need. God, I need. God, I need. God, I need." God wants to hear all of that and we should pray those things. But if our prayer lives are reduced to nothing but us trying to rub a genie lamp and get God to do things, that prayer life over time is going to grow stale and frustrated.

Thankfulness in prayer—I think, I consider it to be a kind of superpower in the soul. Take a day off of asking God for stuff and just be thankful. Be thankful for everything you can think of. And what happens in your soul is astounding. The lightness that seems to appear, the new avenue of communication that seems to show up, the softness that comes over our hearts and minds when we're just deliberately thankful for a period of time. Be thankful.

And then pray through Scripture. As we read the Word of God, ask the Holy Spirit to explain it to you. Ask God to be at work inside of it, that what you read would not just be recognized as true but would be recognized as personal and real for you also. Because this is the voice of God. This is the will of God. He has preserved this for us so that we would know who He is, what His will is for our lives and for all of creation and humanity. Pray through Scripture. All of these things will just give us kind of that extra thing that we need, something else to do in our prayer lives. Whether you've been praying for a hundred years or ten days, just keep going to God in prayer.

But as the Apostle Paul says here, when he's talking about the work of the Spirit within us, we know that we're human. We know that our knowledge is limited, our vocabulary is limited. We don't always know what the right thing is to pray for. We don't always know how to pray for someone or for something. So Paul says, "So the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses." And He is interceding for us.

I love this reality. Prayer in the life of the Christian is prompted by the Spirit and it is empowered by the Spirit of God. God so much wants you and me in communication with Him that He has put the third member of the Trinity inside of your life in order to prompt that communication, in order to keep those lines open, to be at work inside of our prayer lives. It is prompted by the Spirit and it is empowered by the Spirit of God. Now this makes prayer something that is distinctly part of the Christian life.

Now the Spirit of God does really powerful things because from time to time—and some of you have exactly this kind of story, exactly this kind of testimony—"I wasn't walking with Christ. I had walked away from Christ. I wasn't paying attention to God at all. Didn't make any sense to me or I was running away from it. But just for some reason I just started praying, and here I am."

You see, this is the Spirit of God pulling us to Himself. This is a gift that God gives. The Spirit begins that work inside of us and we draw nearer and nearer to our Heavenly Father and our Savior, Jesus Christ.

But there are a lot of people who talk about prayer in other contexts as well. And understand this, without the work of the Spirit, outside of the context of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, prayer is meaningless. You're just throwing words out there into the ether into absolute nothingness. Or even worse, you might actually be communicating with demons. And friends, that happens. Trust me, demons want to communicate with you as well. This is why this kind of topic is so important for us.

And we see very clearly that prayer then becomes part of our spiritual warfare. What God is at work doing in things that we don't see and we cannot completely understand, God has ordained it so that the Spirit of God inside of me is at work praying to God the Father and Jesus Christ, and it's part of our spiritual warfare. This is astounding.

This passage about spiritual warfare in Ephesians chapter 6, verse 18, this is the Apostle Paul kind of wrapping up this thought there in that section of Scripture. He says this: "Praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication"—or prayer—"for all the saints."

So he wraps up this talk about the belt of truth, the helmet and the shield and all these things, and powers and principalities and all of this. And he says, "So Christian, here's what I need you to do. Pray, and then keep praying, and then pray for your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ." Because something else is going on that we don't see, but God is at work in it and He wants you playing your role. And here's part of your role: Pray. Pray.

We see this as well in this passage of Scripture and in some others as well, that God is at work in our prayer and at work in the world because of our prayer. This is one of those things in our prayer lives that I know from time to time grows frustrating for the follower of Jesus Christ. "I've prayed, I've prayed, I've prayed and I'm not even exactly sure that I've seen an answer."

The answers are up to the sovereign grace and goodness and will and power of God. And there are times in our lives when we will pray and we will be fervent in prayer and we will see the answers to our prayers, and friends, those are glorious and powerful moments inside of our lives. And there are times when we are praying because we're being prompted by the Spirit of God to pray because God is at work doing something that you and I may not know and you may not see, you and I may not see the resolution to.

God is not the genie in the sky who if we pray enough with the right formula He does what we tell Him to do. We are praying because the Spirit of God is praying through us and in us and for us. So God is at work in our prayer and at work in the world because of our prayer.

This is the way it is sometimes put in Bible college and seminary: God ordains the ends as well as the means. So in other words, God is at work managing all of the outcomes and how we get there. So God ordains the ends as well as the means, and God has ordained it that His children pray. That we are attentive to the Word of God and we are attentive to the Spirit of God and we are inside of this interactive relationship between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and the son and daughter of God and what God is doing inside of this world.

God has ordained it this way. It is true that God could just do stuff. He could just do stuff. Sometimes He does. But He has decided to include you and me in this process, in this relationship, in this work of prayer and His hand in the world.

Again, the Apostle Paul when he writes to a couple of other churches, he'll talk about these kinds of things. Philippians chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, the Apostle Paul says this: "Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure."

Keep striving in your salvation. Keep pressing yourself closer and closer to your Savior Jesus Christ and deeper into your word. Why? Because God is at work, both willing these things and working these things for His good pleasure and you're a part of it. You're a part of God's divine order and plan when we pray, when we deepen this relationship, press ourselves further into the Word and further into prayer.

And Paul firmly believed that our prayers have real-world consequences. Second Corinthians chapter 1, verses 10 through 11. If you don't know Second Corinthians 1, verses 1 through 11, you should get to know that passage of Scripture. And as he closes that little section here in Second Corinthians 1, verse 10 and 11, he says this—he's been talking about all that they have suffered and all the comfort that God has given them.

And he wraps it up like this: "He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and He will deliver us. On Him we have set our hope that He will deliver us again. You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted to us through the prayers of many. We need you to continue to pray for us. You've seen some of the things that me and my team have suffered for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I've seen many of the things that you have suffered in this life, both as a Christian and because we're groaning under the weight of our sin.

So here is what I want: We need the prayers of many. And I know," Paul says, "that because of that, many more will give thanks because of the grace, the gift that is given to us. We will continue to do our work and your prayers will have an effect. And other people will hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and God will be at work inside of this family, inside of this situation. Why? Because you prayed for us, because you prayed for them."

Paul does not consider this to be just something simple we do in the morning and the evening just to make sure we kind of fit in those couple of needs that I want to make sure God hears this. He firmly believes that the prayers of the saints have real-world consequences. So God's at work in our prayer and He's at work in the world because of our prayer.

He says in this passage of Scripture that the Spirit who's helping us in our weaknesses—and we don't know how to pray, even pray as we ought—but the Spirit will pray for us in groanings that just cannot be uttered. The Greek word for this is cool. It's pretty straightforward, and here I'm going to give a shot at it: stenagmos. Stenagmos is how the word, I think, is pronounced. And it just literally means to sigh or groan inwardly.

Similar words are used in verses 22 and 23 when Paul says that creation is groaning under the weight of our sin, we are groaning under the weight of our sin. And now the Spirit is praying through us. And sometimes He prays through us in groanings that we just don't know what this means. It's just a groaning that cannot be uttered or words that we just don't know.

These are inarticulate groans sometimes that cannot be uttered. Another translation just says they are inexpressible groans. This kind of praying belongs to at least two different kinds of categories inside of the life of the follower of Jesus Christ.

And the first is just really straightforward. We groan because we just don't know what else to say anymore. We've prayed for that situation, we've gone through every iteration we can possibly think of. We've said everything we can think of, we've prayed every passage of Scripture that we can think of. We've had other people that we trust and love pray with us about this particular situation.

And friends, you know there just come times when there is nothing left but just groaning and sighing. And guess what? The Spirit of God is still praying, even in ways that we just cannot express. God knows what is needed, and God knows the heart of the Christian who wants to pray and wants to see God at work, wants the right thing to happen. The Spirit of the Lord knows that, and so the Spirit of the Lord continues to pray.

Then it also refers to something else that the Apostle Paul talks about a couple of times in Scripture. And this is from time to time we pray in a personal spiritual prayer language. Things that we don't know, a language we don't know, but the Spirit knows and the Spirit speaks it through us and in us. And we pray this to our Heavenly Father because the Spirit is at work interceding about something, interceding about something. He's at work doing something.

This matter of a personal spiritual prayer language, we see this topic show up first in Acts chapter 2 when the church is born. The disciples of Christ are there in an upper room. Christ has ascended into heaven. He's promised the gift of the Spirit, the promise of the Father. And there in those first four verses of Acts chapter 2, they're all together in one place, there's 120 of them, and they're in one accord and they're praying.

And as they're praying on the Day of Pentecost, this wind, this mighty rushing wind shows up, blows through the room. These tongues of fire begin to light on their heads and they begin to speak in other languages that they just don't know. And what happens there in Acts chapter 2 is the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ—the presence and the empowerment of the Spirit of God that is still at work inside of the church today. And we see that gift show up several more times in the book of Acts.

And then when Paul writes the Corinthians, he has to correct their use of spiritual gifts. They loved them so much they just went crazy. And so in First Corinthians 12 and 13 and 14, Paul is giving direction and correction about what happens in those chapters, it's about a private prayer language and then one that is expressed publicly. He's talking about those two different things and he's giving order and direction to it.

And there is a matter of a private prayer language that Paul says, "I desire that all of you would have this because it's been meaningful to me." Here's part of what he says in First Corinthians chapter 14, verse 2, when he's talking about this private prayer language. He says, "For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God, for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit." You see, the Spirit is uttering prayer within us.

And I can tell you based on personal experience, there are just times, there are just periods of time inside of my life where I just find myself in this place. This is all I know how to pray. And it's just this gift that God has given. It's available to all believers. And I pray in this private prayer language, and I don't know—sometimes I feel like maybe I know what's going on, sometimes I don't—but God is at work praying.

The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We don't even always know how we ought to be praying. So the Spirit is praying, even sometimes in ways that we just don't understand.

And then in this passage, twice in this passage, it says that the Spirit Himself intercedes for us. Here's where I, this week, have just been—and I mean this in a positive way—I've just been stuck on this. This thought, the way this works to me, is just astounding. Verse 27 says that the Spirit is interceding according to the will of God.

The Greek word for intercession or to make intercession is too complicated for me to even try to pronounce. But here's what the verb "to intercede" just means: Literally, it means to go and find someone in order to have a conversation with them. And in the context of prayer, it means that the Spirit has gone and found God to have a conversation with Him about you.

When we intercede for one another, we go and we find God so that we can have a conversation with Him about each other. We're interceding on behalf of, we're having conversations with God on behalf of another. So the Spirit is interceding for us according to the will of God. This can be one of the most encouraging things that a believer can learn.

The Spirit of God—and it turns out, friends, that the Son of God are both right now interceding for you, interceding for you. Verses 26 and 27 here in chapter 8 both say the Spirit is interceding for us. We go a little bit further and next year we'll get to chapter 8, verse 34. Hey, Advent's between here and there, so that's literal!

Verse 34 says that Christ is constantly interceding for us. Hebrews chapter 7, speaking of the priestly work of our great High Priest Jesus Christ, says this in Hebrews chapter 7, verse 25: "Consequently, He"—Christ—"is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them." He's always going and finding God and talking to Him about you. Me? Yeah. It's incredible! God is not silent. God is not distant. God not only knows, He prays for us. It's stunning.

I want to read verse 27 again. "And He"—being God—"who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." What did we say earlier about you, Christian, being pulled by God into this interactive dynamic relationship in the triune Godhead: God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and there you are right in the middle of it. It's incredible.

In the mystery of the Trinity and in the mystery of prayer, God immediately hears and God immediately knows every groaning that comes from our hearts. The Spirit, who is God and who knows the mind of the Father, also knows our lives and our needs. So Christian, your needs are perfectly known, perfectly articulated to God the Father by God the Spirit and God the Son. And God's perfect will and power are known by the Spirit that dwells in you.

The Spirit's intercession for you is at the intersection of your life and your needs and God's perfect will and power. This is the Spirit's intercession on your behalf. Listen to that again and then we're going to read verse 27 again. The Spirit's intercession for you is at the intersection of your life and your needs and God's perfect will and power. "And He who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will"—of the one who knows my heart. Is God at work or not? God communicates. God knows. God loves. God works.

Working through this passage of Scripture, I began thinking more about some of the other actual prayers in Scripture and some of what Jesus Himself taught us in the Gospel of John about the coming of the Holy Spirit, who the Holy Spirit is and what He is going to do, why He is here. And then in that same large chunk in the Gospel of John, Jesus then prays for His disciples, meaning those who are physically around Him and you and me as well.

So we take a look at what Jesus says about this same thing, what we just read in verses 26 and 27, that doesn't come from nowhere, that comes from the mouth of Jesus Christ and Paul is re-teaching it to us this way. So here's some of what Jesus teaches us about the role of the Spirit and prayer and intercession and what the Spirit is at work doing inside of our lives in this context.

Friends, in our weakness, the Spirit prays for us and leads us to Christ. Listen to some of what Jesus says in John 14 and then we'll read some of John 16. In John 14, Jesus says this: "And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. You know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you."

But the Helper—later in verse 26 Jesus says this—but the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. You know Him because He dwells in you and He is with you and you will be with Him. And He's the Spirit of truth, He's our Helper, He's our Comforter, He's our Advocate, and He will lead you closer and closer to Me. The Spirit's interceding according to the will of the one who knows our hearts and the mind of the Spirit. Friends, it's incredible.

A little bit later in John chapter 16, Jesus teaches again about the Spirit of God. He says this: "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you." He who knows the hearts also knows what is in the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit is ever interceding according to the will of God. Look at this. You've been pulled into this interactive relationship, this dynamic work that God has pulled His children into.

Then we notice this, that in our weakness, Jesus prays that He will be glorified. We read from John 14 and John 16. When we turn the page into John 17, Jesus now begins to pray for His followers, for His disciples, both then and now. And friends, there's a lot in John 17, but I've just grabbed a couple of things.

In our weakness, Jesus prays that He will be glorified. So He says this in John 17, verses 9 and 10: "I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them." We've been pulled in that relationship of love and glory and grace between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. What if this life of prayer somehow led to more of the glory of God? Yes, we pray for God to do things, but what if God is just more glorified because of our lives of prayer?

A little bit further in John chapter 17: In our groaning, Jesus prays that we will become more like Him. As we groan, as we suffer while we are still in between, Jesus prays that we will just become more like Him. This is astonishing. John 17, verses 14 through 17 say this: "I have given them Your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that You take them out of the world, but that You keep them from the evil one. They are not of this world, just as I am not of this world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth."

To be sanctified is to become more and more like Christ and less and less like my sin. I'm praying for them because I've given them Your word and the world is going to hate them. They aren't part of this world anymore and the world's going to recognize that. And Jesus says something incredible: "I'm not asking that You would just pull them out of that, but You would be with them in it and that You would actually sanctify them through it." In our groaning, Jesus prays that we would become more and more like Him.

And then closer to the end of that chapter, I want to finish on this note: In our weakness, Jesus prays that we will know His love. Think again about this relationship that we've been pulled into. How God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit interact with each other. And you and I have been pulled into that. If there is one word that can be used to describe that part of this interactive relationship, it is the word "love."

John 17:25 and 26: "O righteous Father, even though the world does not know You, I know You, and these know that You have sent Me. I have made known to them Your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which You have loved Me may be in them, and I in them."

The Son of God knows the love of the Heavenly Father to its perfect, infinite, glorious degree. Jesus said, "These people are Mine because they're Yours and You've given them to Me. And what I want is for them to know the kind of love that I know, to receive the kind of love that only You are able to give them." Let's pray.