A Sermon on Romans 8:26–27 preached by Ps Phil Hunt

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Introduction

There have been a number of times in my ministry where I felt the weight and the burden of living and serving in a broken and deeply flawed world. There have been times when tears flowed from my eyes, and in that moment, I had no words. I did not even know what to pray or what to ask God for. Perhaps there was not even the strength to bring myself to speak to him.

Have you ever faced a situation or a circumstance that so overwhelmed your capacity for understanding and your capacity to respond—that filled you with so much grief, so much longing for intervention—that all you could do was cry, “God, please. God, please”?

Romans 8:26–27 tells us that in those moments, we are not alone. And we are not unheard.

The Text: Romans 8:26–27

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.

Now, there are some who wrongly assume at this point that the writer is speaking about some foray into tongues speaking or tongues praying. But I want you to notice that the text says nothing about that. If you go down that road in your mind as we read the text, you are not going to understand the beauty and the glory of what God is communicating to your heart this morning. This is not some out-of-body experience or a language that nobody knows—not even you. This is not about praying in Babel. That is a different discussion for a different day from a different text—but not this text.

Notice again verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” And 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.”

From this text, I want you to see that when you are at your most helpless moment and do not know how to pray, the Holy Spirit of God intercedes to the Father on your behalf.

Opening Prayer

Father, we pray that the same Holy Spirit we are talking about and studying in this text would be the Spirit of God who now quiets our minds and focuses our attention upon the Scripture, upon the truth, and upon what You have for us this morning as Your children. Fill us with understanding, fill us with comfort, fill us with encouragement. Strengthen us and help us carry on in this spiritual warfare in which we are engaged, and press forward to victory, we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

I. Three Truths About Prayer

I want us to look at this text in two ways. First, I want you to see three truths about prayer. Then I want us to see from this same text the work of the Holy Spirit in prayer.

Prayer is based on relationship through adoption

Look at verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought.” You and I as the children of God have learned in recent weeks that because of our adoption—look at verse 15—we have received something glorious. “For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”

You see, through the glorious work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a sinner, to redeem that sinner, he adopts that sinner into the family of God as a saint and makes us sons and daughters of God. Thus, through that relationship, we are given the right and access to approach him as our Abba. Remember, that is the Aramaic word of deep intimacy—the idea of Daddy. Can you imagine? To approach the Creator of the universe from the standpoint of a little child who can say to their father, “Daddy! Daddy, help me!”

Prayer through which we approach the Father is always through this path of relationship brought about by the Spirit of God. Prayer has been defined simply as speaking to God. Prayer is the cry of the soul to God. It is the acknowledging of our dependence, our awe, and our needs. R. C. Sproul says prayer is an act of communion with God, and it is based on relationship. J. I. Packer wrote, “If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God’s child.”

You see, the only reason you and I have unfettered access to the very presence of our heavenly Father is because through the work of the Holy Spirit, we have been brought into a permanent relationship with him through the Spirit’s adoption.

Three expressions of prayer

For our purposes today, note especially three expressions of prayer. There are many expressions—I counted twelve to fourteen in Scripture—but especially notice these.

First, God invites his children to come to him on behalf of others. In fact, we see the word in our text: intercedes, or intercession. God wants us to come to him on behalf of others, to cry out on their behalf. First Timothy 2:1–2 says:

“First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”

Second, God also wants you to tell him about your pain and bring him your questions. This is called, in Scripture, the prayer of lament—a complaint that brings our pain, confusion, and questions to God. You see a lament in Psalm 13:1–2:

“How long, O Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?”

Can you hear it? Do you hear the pain and torture of this psalmist as he is coming to his Father and saying, “God, I do not get it. How much longer? How long are these people going to be allowed to continue to abuse me?” That is a cry of lament.

Or Hannah in the temple, after years and years of marriage to Elkanah, longing to have a baby and unable to get pregnant. It had gone to the point where that was all she could think about. She cried day and night. She was going to God in the temple, and it says she was crying out to God, but she was in such anguish of spirit that words could not come out of her throat. When the priest looked over and saw her, all he saw was some woman walking back and forth with her mouth moving, but she was not saying anything—and he actually thought she was drunk. First Samuel 1:10 says, “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.” Have you ever been there?

Third, God wants us to come to him when we experience injustice and revolt over evil. These are called imprecatory prayers. These prayers appeal to God as judge and ask him to judge evil, to vindicate the oppressed, and uphold justice. Revelation 6:10 is one of those. These are the souls of the saints who were martyred for the cause of Jesus, and it says their souls under the altar are crying out day and night. Listen to what they are saying: “How long, Sovereign Lord, holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth and avenge our blood?”

Prayer comes from a place of helplessness

But I want you to notice the prayer happening in verse 26. Our prayer comes from a place of helplessness. Do you see that? Look at verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” That word weakness means our helplessness. Think of a newborn baby lying on the changing table. He cannot change his own nappy. He cannot put food in his own stomach. That newborn baby lying on the changing table can literally do nothing for himself. That is the word. It says, “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our helplessness—helps us in our weakness.”

Prayer comes from a place of helplessness. Prayer is dependence, not performance. Did you hear me? God does not come to you because you performed well in your prayer session or because you yelled really loudly at God when you were praying. You know the only people who yelled at God in prayer were the 450 false prophets of Baal. They are the only ones yelling at God in prayer in the Scripture—and they all got killed.

Prayer is not performance, people. Prayer is dependence. We pray from a position of weakness, knowing that he is strong.

We have many poor examples of prayer around us, do we not? We should beware of pontificating in prayer, using fancy language so that men will be impressed—like the Pharisees who loved to stand and use big words on the street corner so that everybody passing by would think they were very spiritual. Look, if you do not talk to me in King James English, why do you stand and use King James English to pray to God? What is that? I mean, you do not walk up and say, “How art thou, Pastor?” But we stand in church and pray, “Thou, God of…” I am not mocking the prayer if it is coming from a sincere place in your heart, but I am saying: take a step back and think. Let us really think about what it is we have been influenced with. This is Abba Father. We come on the basis of our relationship with him. We come from a place of helplessness.

Beware of making arrogant demands of God. I was watching little snippets of some of these services just so I can know what is going on. Somebody was praying, ordering God to do this and that. “We claim! We demand in the name of Jesus!” I heard someone say once that because of this or that, we have the right to come and we have the right to say whatever we say, and that our words of prayer have creative power. Whatever we say will happen. Well, if that is true, who has the power? You do. “Powerful man of God. Powerful prayer. Powerful.” We hear this stuff. Not so. We come to God from a spirit of absolute dependence and helplessness.

We pray from a position of weakness, but we pray with faith. James 1:6: “Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering.” We pray from a position of weakness, but we pray with persistence. Remember the story in Luke 18:1–8 of the widow woman. She went back to the judge and persisted: “Avenge me! Avenge me of my adversary!” Day after day after day, she was persistent. And finally the unjust judge avenged her because he was sick and tired of her coming and bothering him. And then the writer says: how much more your heavenly Father, who loves you—when you come to him helpless and hopeless and just cry out to him, does he not come to your aid?

We pray from a position of weakness, but with submission to God’s wisdom and sovereign plan. In fact, verse 28—which we will get to next time—says, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

In 2 Corinthians 12:7–9, Paul was praying to be delivered from a thorn in the flesh. We do not know what the physical ailment was, but it was something very troubling. He says:

“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

Listen to Paul’s response: “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

But there are times when we recognize our helplessness and we do not know what to pray for. That is the helplessness Paul is pointing to in our text this morning. Look again at verse 26: “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.”

We wait for the full redemption

Our adoption as sons was completed by the Holy Spirit at conversion. When you turned from your sins in faith and believed in Jesus—when you repented of your sins and believed in the finished work of Jesus on the cross—the Spirit of God adopted you into God’s family. A once-and-for-all permanent relationship was established. We are sons and daughters of God.

We still wait. We still long for the full redemption of our bodies. You see, Christ at our salvation redeemed us from the penalty of sin. I will never have to give an account for any of my sins—past, present, and future. Why? Because Jesus took all of my sins and paid the penalty for all of my sins upon the cross. And when I put my faith in Jesus, that forgiveness, that payment, was credited to me. Not guilty. My sins and their punishment and guilt were removed as far as the east is from the west. The Bible says they are never to be remembered against me anymore.

And yet I still live in this body of sin, just like you do. So we were redeemed from the penalty of sin, but we still endure the presence of sin. We live in a sinful world. We battle with sinful flesh and deal with the realities of a sinful, fallen world.

We saw that in verse 23: “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” And sometimes, in the midst of this battle with our own sinful flesh and the realities of a sinful, fallen world, there are times when all we can do is cry, “Please, God, please.”

We are saved in hope, and we wait for that redemption. Look at verse 24: “For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.” We are saved in hope, and we wait in patience for that final redemption of our body, when Jesus will come and deliver us from this body of death.

If you know Jesus, there are many times you long for the age to come. And yet while we long for that age to come, we live in the present, fallen age. And in that moment, words fail us, and all we can pray is, “God, please. Please.” Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 5:2–4:

“For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.”

This is not abstract theology, friends. Paul himself has felt this groaning. Look back at chapter 7, verse 14:

“For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

Do you hear Paul? He is saying, “I, as a redeemed son of God, long to do what is right. I want to do what is right with my children. I want to do what is right on my job. I want to do what is right with my wife or with my husband. I long to do what is right. But I find myself doing the very thing I hate. I find myself doing the very things I do not want to do.”

That is the cry of a redeemed man who longs for full deliverance. And this prayer we are looking at in verses 26 and 27 flows from that source. “Oh God, please help.” And here is where the mercy of God takes over. When our longing is too deep to put into words, the Spirit of God takes over and prays on our behalf.

II. The Work of the Holy Spirit in Prayer

The Holy Spirit comes alongside us in our helplessness

Go back to verse 26: “Likewise the Spirit—” You see how that word Spirit is capitalized? That is speaking of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit helps us. The Holy Spirit comes alongside us in our time of helplessness. Our weakness is God’s opportunity. We are never out of sight, out of mind with God. There are friends of mine who live in faraway places that I think of only occasionally. Not so with God. He knows. He cares.

Listen to how David describes God’s attention toward us in Psalm 139:17: “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!” Do you know, child of God, that you as a child of God are always on God’s mind? He is always thinking about you.

Our weakness as children of God does not disqualify us from God’s help. It is the very reason why we are invited to approach him boldly. Christ sympathizes with our weakness, and the Spirit intercedes through it.

In times of spiritual barrenness and drought: “God, please. I am so dry. And I am the pastor. I am supposed to get up there next Sunday and tell these people something, and I am so dry. Please, God.”

In times of anguishing failure and sin: And all our heart can do is say, “God, please. I do not even know what to ask you. But I am so sick of this, and I have done it again and again and again, and here it is again, and I have failed. I do not even know what to say. God, God, please.”

In times of overwhelming circumstances: I remember praying this without words as I was in ICU and my daughter was intubated and in a coma, and the doctors were telling us 50-50, 50-50. And if she does come out of this, her brain might be a vegetable. I remember sitting there next to what looked like her lifeless body, machines everywhere, saying, “God, please.”

In times of unmet expectations: “God, I did not think marriage was supposed to be like this. I did not know being an adult would have this much pain.” And you do not even know how to pray. You do not even know what to ask God for. And all you can say is, “God, please, please.”

Maybe this morning you are like the psalmist in Psalm 22 who said, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd.” Or the psalmist in Psalm 6:2–3, who cried, “Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am languishing; heal me, O Lord, for my bones are troubled. My soul also is greatly troubled.”

Hebrews 4:15–16 says:

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

The Holy Spirit intercedes for us

And that brings us to the second overwhelming truth. In those moments when our heart cries, “God, please,” the Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Do you see it? Look again at our text, the second part of verse 26: “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.” Look at the second part of verse 27: “Because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

In verse 26, that word intercedes, in the way it is used in the original language, is used only here in the New Testament. It is not merely coming alongside, but actively stepping in on someone else’s behalf with earnest, engaged pleading. That is what verse 26 is telling us the Spirit does. Some scholars describe it as super-intercession. The Spirit does not just mention our need—he throws himself into the middle of it as he agonizes before the Father in prayer on our behalf.

The word intercede in verse 27 is a simpler form of the word, used frequently in Scripture, and it means approaching someone on behalf of another to make an appeal or a petition. And this is what the Holy Spirit does for us, child of God. When we cannot articulate words to express the longing of our heart, the Holy Spirit articulates it for us.

The Father knows the mind of the Spirit. Do you see what is happening here? The Trinity is involved in prayer. Biblical prayer is to the Father, through the Son, by the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit intercedes with groanings aligned with God’s will

The Holy Spirit intercedes for us. And notice, thirdly, the Holy Spirit intercedes with groanings that align with God’s will. Again, 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.”

Jesus felt that kind of oppressive, agonizing grief and anguish. Matthew records in chapter 26 that in the garden, Jesus groaned within himself in his humanness as he looked at the shame and the suffering of the cross he was about to endure and the vile, crushing weight of the sins of the entire world that would be poured out upon him in his body. He cries out to his heavenly Father, “Remove this cup from me.” And then Jesus said, “But not my will, but yours be done.”

Paul has been building to this. He tells us that creation groans under that same sin. Verse 22: “For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” And he tells us that we groan as God’s children. Verse 23: “Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” And now, astonishingly, he tells us that the Spirit himself groans. Verse 26: “The Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”

The whole of redeemed reality is crying out together for the age to come, for deliverance from this sinful world, from the very presence of sin that afflicts us in our flesh and in the world we live in. The redeemed soul cries out with longing to be finally delivered to the glories of the Father, where there is no sin, no sickness, no pain, no death.

This groaning prayer of the Spirit is perfectly aligned with the will of the Father. Look again at our text, verse 27: “Because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” As the Spirit takes the groanings we cannot even articulate ourselves—when we are just saying, “God, please!”—the Spirit of God is crafting a prayer and a groan that is brought before the heavenly Father. And the Father, who knows the mind of the Spirit, receives that prayer. And it is perfectly aligned with his will for that situation.

When prayer is according to the will of God, we know that God will answer. First John 5:14–15 says, “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.”

But what about the times when, in our helplessness, we just do not even know what to ask God for? Groaning is Spirit-shaped submission. That cry, “God, please,” is followed by, “Your will be done. Your will be done.” In fact, when Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray in Matthew 6, he said, “When you pray, pray like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Conclusion

So what is the point? Whenever you are overwhelmed by a burden that is so great you cannot find words, that cry, “God, please,” is not a cry that goes unnoticed. It is the language of the Spirit of God within you crying, “Abba, Father.”

What do we do with this? How do we respond to such a glorious truth this morning?

First, do not despair when you do not know what to pray. The God who searches the heart needs no polished words from you.

Second, rest in this assurance: At this very moment, the Holy Spirit is carrying what you cannot carry and presenting before the Father what you cannot express. And he is doing it in perfect alignment with the Father’s will. And those prayers are always answered.

Closing Prayer

What is the heaviest or darkest burden that you have? What is your most perplexing problem that is a source of spiritual agony for you? I want to remind you that you do not have to find the right words. The Spirit already has them. Maybe in this moment, you just need to say, “God, please.” For some here, your prayer may be, “God, please be merciful to me, a sinner.” In that moment, the Spirit of God will respond and adopt you into God’s family and make you God’s child, giving you relationship and access to the Father. Father, You who know our hearts, You who know our minds, see every burden. You have provided forgiveness for every sin. We thank You for the work of the Holy Spirit to adopt us as children. Now we learn the work of the Holy Spirit to pray for us when in our helplessness we do not even know how to pray. Do Your work of grace in us so that You can do Your work of grace through us in this week to come. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.