Well, please do stand with me as we hear the Word of God. First of all, in Prophecy of Ezekiel, in the 36th chapter, verse 22, let us hear and take to heart the Word of the Lord. Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says It is not for your sake, O House of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which you have profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. and the nations will know that I am the Lord, declares the Lord God, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be cleaned from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my judgments. And secondly, in Paul's letter to the Romans, Romans chapter eight, where Paul continues to set before these believers of the church in Rome and the church of God throughout the ages something of the so great salvation that God has provided for us in his son, Jesus Christ. Romans eight and the 18th verse. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption. and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And 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, 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. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we are. 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. So reads the words As we turn, God's word let us bow in prayer for a moment. Our gracious God and our Father in heaven, we come as your children, desperately seeking the help of the Holy Spirit. We pray our eyes, the eyes of our understanding would be enlightened, We pray that you will grant us righteous insight into your truth. We pray that your word, Lord, would dwell richly in our hearts and shape and style our lives to the praise of your glory. We ask you to meet with us, Lord. Lay bare our hearts before you. Come, Holy Spirit, come. Let your bright beams arise. dispel the darkness from our minds and open all our eyes. And we ask it through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Well, if you have Bibles with you, please open them. Romans chapter eight. This evening we'd like to consider verses 26 and 27. in Sunday School Hour, we reflected a little on the leading ministry of the Holy Spirit. We saw in verses 13 and 14 that he leads the people of God to mortify or put to death the sin that yet remains in them. One of the hallmarks of the child of God, is that they wage relentless warfare in dependence on the Holy Spirit against sin. Christians are aware that if they are not killing sin, sin will be killing them. And so the Holy Spirit has come to lead us in the path of righteousness. And then this morning at worship we saw that the Spirit also has a witnessing ministry. He has come not only to lead us and to help us put sin to death, he has come also to witness to us, to assure us of our sonship to God. God wants his children to know that he is their God and that they are his children. God does not want to leave any of his children in any doubt whatsoever that he is theirs and that they are his. He is a father who longs for his children to be unequivocally sure that they belong to him because of Jesus Christ. And now this evening, I want further to consider with you what we might call the helping ministry of the Holy Spirit. We read in verse 26, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. He has come to be our indwelling divine helper. I think it's a truism to say that every Christian stands in the greatest need of help. If you are here tonight and you are not deeply, pervasively, inwardly conscious that you need the help of God simply to stand, never mind to advance in the way of Jesus Christ, then you are in a Every Christian, every moment of their existence stands in desperate need of the help of the Lord in ourselves. We are weak, we are inconstant, we are prone to wander, and we need the help of the God of all grace to enable us to go on. Now, the opening word of the 26th verse casts us back into the preceding context into which Paul has been writing. Likewise, he says, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. In verse 18 through to verse 25, Paul has been setting before us the first great encouragement, if you like, the first great pastoral encouragement to help us go on in the Christian life. And he tells us in verses 18 to 25 that in the midst of the sufferings of this present time, we have this glorious assurance of God, which will be consummated in the redemption of our bodies. He is telling us that the sufferings of this present time, which can be severe and sore, they belong to the reality of the fallenness of this world. That these sufferings, severe and sore though they may be, are but for a time. One day, they will give way to the liberty of the glory of the children unto his glorious body. And so Paul is saying, take this encouragement to heart. Your sufferings may be great and sore and deep and serious, but take this to heart. It will one day give way to something infinitely glorious, unimaginably glorious. The liberty of the glory of the children of God. provides for us a second encouragement. In the midst of our present sufferings, God has given to us, in his grace, the help of the Holy Spirit. He has not left us to struggle on alone. He has not left us to face the conflicts of this life, left us to face these alone. Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. And I want to consider with you a little tonight what precisely the Apostle Paul wants these Christians in Rome and what the Lord wants his people throughout the ages to understand regarding the present helping ministry of the Holy Spirit. Notice, first of all, that the help of the Spirit is a promise and not a conjecture. Paul is not saying, no, I'm hoping and praying that God will give you a helper. I'm hoping that God may hear my cries and intercessions and petitions God will have mercy on you and give you someone to help you. No, he says, likewise, the spirit helps us in our weakness. And Paul is clearly, I think, reflecting, whether consciously or unconsciously, he is reflecting on the great promise of the Lord Jesus Christ in John 14. that he would send to his church a helper, that he would, as he prepared them for his imminent departure, provide for them one who would come and be their support and strength and help. Now, in the Greek language, there are two words for Another, Jesus speaks, I will send you another counselor, another paracletos, one who will come alongside you and who will stand with you. And the particular word that our Lord uses there in John 14 is another of the same, I will send you someone just like me. Martin Luther, very boldly, said that the Holy Spirit is the alter Christus, the other Christ, not confusing the persons of the Godhead, but recognizing that the Holy Spirit has come as the Spirit of Christ. He has come to, as it were, represent Christ and to be Christ in the Spirit to his people. And very remarkably in John 16, Jesus says to the disciples, it will be to your advantage that I go away. Can you imagine these disciples listening to those words and thinking, how could that possibly be? It is inconceivable it could be to our advantage, Lord Jesus Christ, that you should leave us. And yet Jesus says, it will be to your advantage that I go away. How could that possibly be? Well, in his physical and body presence with them, the Lord could only be in one place at one time. His body was not ubiquitous. It was not here, there, and everywhere. His humanity was a true humanity. When He ascended to the glory after the triumph of His cross and resurrection and ascension, He sent with His Father the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit has come as the Spirit of the now risen, regnant, reigning Jesus Christ. And as the Spirit of Jesus Christ, He is not confined to any geographical or spatial locality. And he has come to indwell us as the Spirit of Christ. You see, there is a new covenant dimension to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit always indwelled believers from Adam onwards. God took Adam out of Adam and placed him in Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. There never has been a believer from the dawn of the creation who has not been indwelled by the Holy Spirit, regenerated by the Holy Spirit. But now the Holy Spirit has come in terms of redemptive history as the spirit of the now ascended, regnant, reigning Jesus Christ. That's why John is able to write in his gospel, John chapter seven, verses 37 through 39, that until this moment the Spirit was not yet, literally. And you read that and you think, not yet, but the Spirit hovered over the creation in the beginning. The Spirit was present throughout history, administering the purposes of God, regenerating the people of God. What on earth can John mean in that parenthesis? Until now, the Spirit was not yet. Well, he's speaking in redemptive A new age has dawned and the Spirit has come, not of the Spirit of the Christ yet to come, the Spirit of Christ in promise, the Spirit of Christ in time and in shadow and in sacrifice, but as the Spirit of the now ascended, regnant, reigning, cosmically triumphant Jesus Christ. and he has come to indwell our poor, frail, enthebal, yet sinful bodies with the cosmic glory of Jesus Christ. This is what a Christian is. You will walk through the streets of Greenville and people will not take a second glance at you, but the whole of heaven is looking at you with bewilderment and wonder and admiration. There she goes. The spirit of the glorified Christ indwells her. There he is, there she is. Paul is saying to these Christians, the spirit helps us. God has not left you to struggle on alone. He has given to you, he has sent to you a helper, a paracletos. Very hard to actually translate that. The old versions have helper, comforter, counselor, well it's all of those, all of those. He is the alter Christus, the other Christ. The one who comes to bring to us the blessings, the benefits, and the indwelling presence and person. of Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God made flesh. But what is it that the Holy Spirit has come especially then to do for us? Well, says Paul, it is to help us in our weakness, in our weakness. The strongest of us is weak. We don't know the half of our weakness and the word is a very general word. It's not specific. It refers to the present condition of believers in a yet fallen world. That's the reality. We are weak. Yes, in Christ we are strong, but the truth is that we live out that life of faith in weakness in the midst of a fallen world. We battle with indwelling or remaining sin, as we saw earlier today. We battle against the seductions of the world. We battle with the wires of the devil every day of our lives. And the Spirit has come to help us in our weakness. It's very striking, if you know the Greek language at all, Paul uses a very remarkable, evocative, striking verb here. If I were to ask any of the children, how many letters are there in the word help? Who could tell me that? How many letters in the word help? How many? Four? Well done, four. H-E-L-P. Paul uses a 17-letter Greek double compound. Do we translate help? It's a poor, poor translation, but it's the best we can do. What does Paul mean? Why does he use this 17-letter double Greek compound? Which means this, the Spirit comes alongside us, but stands over against us to help us. You think, that's counterintuitive. Soon, anke lambanitai, soon, together with, Soon together he comes alongside us. But he stands over against us. What is Paul saying? He's saying the Spirit has come to help us, but will never leave us passive in his helping. He will come to help us, but not as our substitute. We have a substitute. He is the only substitute we have, and his name is Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not a substitute. Paul is impressing with this 17-letter Greek double compound that the ministry of the Spirit in us never leaves us passive. Yes, he comes alongside us, but he never always stands over against us. He never ceases to be the Lord of glory himself. We saw that somewhat this morning. Verse 13, if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body. If by the Spirit, but it's you who does the work. You see, in the work and process of sanctification, who has come to make the most common of people uncommon. That's what hope is, to be uncommon. And in that work and process of sanctification, we are never passive bystanders. We never let go and let God. In other words, we are summoned to cooperate in his helping ministry in our lives. We have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it is God who works in us, both willing to do of his good purpose. So the Spirit comes to help us in our weakness, which is manifold and multifaceted, but he comes to They said this morning, we never cruise to glory. So what exactly then is this help that the Holy Spirit gives us? Well, in particular, Paul wants, especially because he narrows, and the word weakness is a very general word in Greek, but now he but feels deeply and profoundly in the times overwhelmingly their weakness, our weakness in prayer. As likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what to pray for as we are. Nowhere is our weakness most seen and most felt than in prayer. Maybe you're very different from me, but that's certainly true for me. Nowhere am I most confronted with the poverty of my spirituality, the reality of my weakness, my infeableness as a Christian, as a Christian pastor, than in prayer. There are times I come to pray and I can hardly open my mouth. The heavens are proverbially as brass. There is not a word that I can form. I know a lot of words, I do. I know a lot of words, I know a lot of big words. And there are times I can't even enunciate a single syllabic word. And Paul says that the Spirit comes to help us in prayer. And there are times in your life as there are in mine when we find ourselves We come to pray and we wait upon God and we say, Lord, there's this situation, there's this person, there's this circumstance. I don't know what to say. And in some mysterious way, prayer is the most mysterious of things. In prayer we enter into the divine mystery. And in some unfathomably mysterious way, the Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. Literally, with wordless groans, the Spirit articulates our inarticulate groanings and shapes them according to the will of God. He intercedes for us. for words, and he who searches hearts, that is the heavenly father here, knows what is the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. These are among the sweetest words in the Bible. Those are Moni McChain's words, not mine. Among the sweetest words. Is anything more wonderful than this? That in our faults of uncertainty, in our bewilderments, the Holy Spirit is there to help us in our weakness. It's we who pray. We're not passive. The Holy Spirit doesn't pray for us. He's not our substitute prayer. Within our hearts, He intercedes for us. You see, we have a heavenly intercessor. And he has sent his best friend, if I can put it like that. He has sent his best friend to intercede for us within our hearts. Our Lord Jesus Christ intercedes for us at God's right hand. But we also have an intercessor. who effectively prays to the Father through us, throughout our difficulties, uncertainties, and sadnesses of this present life. There is a presupposition in what Paul writes here, that the life of prayer is not always sweet and straightforward and easy. Prayer is not also always something that we run to and embrace. He's too insightful a pastor to think like that. He understands, perhaps first from his own experience, how prayer can be excruciating. And I don't think there is anything more excruciating in prayer than not knowing what to say, not knowing how to pray, not having the wisdom to discern what is best for the glory of God, what is best for the building of this church, what will most sanctify this person and build the individual himself or herself on. Benjamin Warfield even strikingly, and it was striking for me to read this in Warfield, relates this to the Lord Jesus Christ in the garden. where the Lord Jesus prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not my will, but your will be done in his holy, pristine, perfect, sinless humanity. The Lord Jesus is, if I can daringly say so, in a fog of uncertainty. That's what Morefield has said. Father, if it's possible, Let this cup pass from me. Yet, not my will, but your will be done. And Warfield says, even our blessed Savior, as he was confronted with sinless perplexity, experienced the help. I will put my spirit upon him. How did our Lord Jesus Christ sustain himself in the garden? He didn't. He sustained himself in dependence on the Holy Spirit. I will put my spirit upon him. It is the Holy Spirit who is upholding Jesus Christ in his holy humanity. the people of Christ. What he first helped the Savior to do, he comes to help us to do, to live to the glory of God. The life of faith is full of perplexity. And maybe all we can do at times is offer wordless groans. That's what the phrase means. Groanings too deep for words. Wordless groans. Now here, here is a question to ponder. Who does the groaning? Who does the groaning? Weeper Paul says, 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. What Paul writes here about the Spirit himself interceding for us with groanings too deep for words is explained in the next phrase, and he who searches hearts, it's our hearts. that the Spirit's never perplexed. The Spirit never needs to groan, but he comes into the very midst of our lives as our indwelling helper. And as we groan with uncertainty, hard-earned at times, not just even what to pray, but even how to pray, The spirit comes in mysteriously, unfathomably. Aren't you glad to be a supernaturalist? I love Benjamin Warfield's description of Christianity, unembarrassed supernaturalism. I'm a supernaturalist. And God does not conform to the canons of my paltry, pathetic, limited mind. He works transcendently above and beyond all I could think of, even imagining the Holy Spirit comes and he presents these worthless drones and says, Father, this is what he really needs. If he were perfectly wise, this is what he would really pray. You see, our prayers are often like a tangled tapestry. There's no pattern, no overall design, just a tangled mess, and our indwelling helper unravels the tangled skein of thread, presents a coherent, God-glorifying prayer to the Father. Lord, this is what they really mean. That's why the most Christian of all prayers, the most truly Christian of all prayers, is this, not my will, but thy will be done. I remember years ago, I can't remember whether I heard it or read it. I think I heard it when we first came to the USA. We were entranced by the religious TV that you have. We don't have any of that back in the UK. Well, it's now starting in the UK, sadly. But I was quite amazed. I'd tune into these stations. I'd hear all kinds of bewildering nonsense. And people would be sending money to these charlatans. But him, he was preaching. Enough of that, but he said, no, we don't want any of this, thy will be done praying tonight. We want to pray in faith. And as I switched it off, I thought, my blessed Redeemer praying, not my will, but thy will be done. How dare you? How dare you blaspheme the Son of God? The most truly Christian prayer We gather up all our prayers, even when we have been sure that what we've been praying is according to the will of God. There should be either spoken or unspoken, but certainly spiritually resonating and reverberating through us. Lord, not my will, but your will be done. The Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Well, we know what the will of God is. This is the will of God, 1 Thessalonians 5, even your sacrifices. God's will is to conform you to the likeness of his Son. So what is it the Holy Spirit does, as it were, is he takes our inarticulate groans and moans and sighs and tears Our tears can be our prayers. What does he do? Well, I think simply he is saying, Father, glorify your Son, and through the glorifying of your Son, in them bring glory to yourself. The last thing I want to say, I've lost all track of time, How does the Spirit actually do that? What I mean is, in the progressive work of sanctification as he seeks helping us in our weakness, not least in our prayers, how does the Spirit actually operate in our lives? Well, he does so almost always on all of us in tandem with the Holy Scripture as we inspire. God has revealed his will to us, not his secret will, but his revealed will. God has revealed that plainly, clearly in Holy Scripture, he who runs may lead. And the Holy Spirit takes the Holy Scripture and he works in tandem with the Holy Scripture and seeks through the Holy Scripture to bring strength and comfort and hope and help into our lives as he ministers I was tempted earlier to read you a lengthy, lengthy section from John Owen that Ryan will know well and nobody else would probably understand. But let me give you the gist of what Owen said. It's a fabulous passage if you want to look at it. Volume 11 of his works, page 347. He says, often we go to the scriptures and we read and we read. And he says their taste, that comforts you. Maybe you're someone who always goes to the scripture and every moment you turn to the word it will be blessed with life and blessing and truth and you think this is wonderful. It's not really. Often he says we go to scripture and the And he brings in his own divine way the remembrance, the truth, grace and power embedded in the Holy Scripture. And word and spirit come together and no longer do the Scriptures taste like the white of an egg, but says only are full of life and power. You see, That's why, that's why when we come to prayer, and come to read the word of God, and come to hear the word of God, we need to be praying, Lord, let me not know tastelessness. Let me discover a new spirit wrought relish. Let the word of God, its promises, its commands, to me, embed themselves in you in me and inform me afresh so that I might pray to the praise of your glory. The Holy Spirit has a commission from the risen Lord to bring glory to heaven. And that commission he pursues relentlessly as he seeks to shape and style our lives And so he intercedes for us and says, Father, deep, deep down, deeper than they can know themselves, deep, deep down, this is really what they're asking. Make me like Jesus to the praise of your glory. Make the people I pray for like Jesus to the praise of your glory. Make my church like Jesus to the praise of your glory. Would it not be appropriate for Christians every day to pray, gracious almighty Holy Spirit, so work in me, sanctify me through the truth you infallibly inspired, that I might more and more be conformed to the likeness of my Savior. Bring him glory in this world. May the word of God ever rather may it always be to me the bread of life that nourishes and matures my life to the praise and glory of God. The Holy Spirit comes to help us, and ordinarily he does so through the Word. That's why you should, you should make every effort, every effort under heaven to be found under the ministry of the Word of God. Wouldn't it be a great thing if next Sunday afternoon at five o'clock your president knocked on your door and my queen knocked on my door and said, I've come to pay you a visit. And you say, you know, I'm honored that such an office should deign to come to me. But you know, I'm on my way to public worship. and I'd love you to come with me, but if you can't, bye-bye. Bye-bye. I'm going to hear the living word of the living God. I wonder if you put a notice in the local press next Sunday night, the God of Heaven I wonder how many people might come, wondering what kind of people you are. Peter will stand and say, let us hear the word of God. The Holy Spirit has come to help us. That's why we need to be men and women of the word. And allow that word to dwell richly in us, to inform our praying, The Holy Spirit will take our, maybe it's our ramblings, or maybe it's simply our sighs and our tears. Father, let me interpret their prayers according to your will, because I know your will perfectly. The Holy Spirit, the helper, the leader, the witness, and the indwelling privileged preserver of every