Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] There's no easy way to transition out of that, so I'm not gonna act like there is. Okay.
[00:00:04] But if I can't carry my own table, we definitely can't start a church.
[00:00:08] And some of you guys were hopeful. You're like, this means I don't have to listen to Logan anymore.
[00:00:13] Joke's on you. I'm right now. I'm right here, and I'm still gonna be here. So, no, I'm excited to share with you guys. As we continue in the book of Romans.
[00:00:22] We've been sitting all fall in this chapter eight, which is, I think, Paul in his finest hour. And some would say, and really just Paul, specifically the central character of the Holy Spirit. We've been kind of just using that as our theme throughout this fall of who the Holy Spirit is. And I know, as I've talked to you, many of you, is that some of us have come in maybe jaded or distant about the Holy Spirit or maybe had a negative experience or just. Just unknown. We just didn't know any different. And I pray that this will just help unfold who the Holy Spirit is more this morning, because I think in the few verses that we have, there is a powerful reminder for who he is and how he's active in our lives.
[00:01:07] But before we do that, I just want to ask you to think with me.
[00:01:12] Try to think back. What's the first memory you have, specifically, because this is going to be key for us this morning around prayer. Do you remember, like, the first person who prayed in your life? Like, I don't know if it was like, a dinner or like at the dinner table or.
[00:01:28] I remember, like, you know, the. The sports team. You do the hands and you pray the Lord's Prayer, right? Like, I didn't know my coach prayed. And all of a sudden he just starts praying like, oh, here we go. We're praying. You know, it's like, welcome to varsity basketball is what coach is doing.
[00:01:42] Didn't ask us. He just, like, started, which I was in. I was in for. I was going for it. But who was that person? Was it a person? Or maybe today was the first time you heard prayer just a few minutes ago.
[00:01:55] But I'm grateful. I have a heritage of people who pray in my family. You know, my mom this morning was well before the sunrise. I definitely praying for this and praying for all her kids and her prayer list. And my grandfather in his elderly age is still praying right now for dinner. And it'll probably be the same prayer that he's prayed the same Prayer, and I love him. He means it. It's a heartfelt prayer, but it's the same words every single time.
[00:02:20] And I can remember that vividly.
[00:02:22] Or it's just a countless other people in my life who've been prayer warriors, people who've prayed for me, prayed for other people.
[00:02:29] And I would say out of that, I even remember as a young child growing up in a church where there was lots of prayer, prayer meetings and all that kind of thing.
[00:02:40] I always felt kind of inadequate.
[00:02:42] I remember, like, seeing these people who had all cool words and words I couldn't. Thee's and thous. I'm like, man, I don't know what that means, you know, Or I just didn't feel like I had a lot to say sometimes. And I was like. I remember vividly as a little kid saying, man, I wish I could pray like that someday.
[00:03:00] And I wonder if there's someone in this room today or someone online who maybe feels the same way. You around prayer or maybe even as prayer, you're like, yeah, I wish I could talk to God like that, but I can't. I don't know what to say, or the words don't come out right, or I'm not as polished or whatever. Maybe you're the person when they say, would you pray? You're like, oh, let someone else do it. You know, that kind of thing. Right?
[00:03:22] And if that's you, then this morning, I think is for you.
[00:03:26] Because that's exactly what Paul's gonna talk about. And the central character is the Holy Spirit and how he engages that. And so my prayer this week has been that you be encouraged and you. And you'd feel freedom as you leave here this morning.
[00:03:37] So our passage is gonna be Chapter 8 of Romans, verses 26 and 27. If you have a Bible, you can turn there, it'll be on the screen.
[00:03:45] Paul writes verse 26. In the same way the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
[00:03:51] We don't know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he searches our hearts. He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit.
[00:04:02] Because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.
[00:04:09] This morning, in these two verses, I think there's some. They're powerful verses because there's great comfort and truth about the Holy Spirit's role in our prayer life.
[00:04:19] And my goal is, for us is to walk out of here better people of prayer, right? And that's what I hope for And I think that's what Paul's encouraging this church in Rome. And he's.
[00:04:28] He starts with four different movements. Or what we're going to see is there's four things in this passage of how the Holy Spirit helps. So if you don't remember anything else, I say, if someone were to ask you what was church about today, you could tell them this. The Holy Spirit helps us, right? That's what we're talking about. The Holy Spirit helps us. And we're going to look at four different ways that he helps us this morning. The first is this. It's right there in the beginning. The Spirit helps us in our weakness. That's how Paul kicks us off, helps us in our weakness.
[00:05:00] Don't lose those little words. If you have a Bible you can write in, you can. Or highlight the words us and our.
[00:05:08] Now, that sticks out to me. And I know as believers, we're not meant to, like, compare ourselves and judge our spirituality to others, but there's a little part of me, there's a human part of me that's like, I love that Paul didn't say, the Holy Spirit helps you.
[00:05:23] Now, I don't need the weak. I don't need help. But you definitely need help in your prayer, right? And that's not Paul. That's not what he's saying. He's saying he helps us in our weakness. This is Paul, the greatest missionary of all time, right?
[00:05:35] He admits right there on the page of scripture, I am weak. My prayers are weak, too.
[00:05:42] And I don't know if that's good, but there's some part of me that at least it's human. That's like, man, Paul has walked this life and he can do all this amazing stuff for Jesus, planting tons of churches and carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth, right? He doing, you know, doing so much. Most of the New Testament is written by Paul, and yet he says I'm weak.
[00:05:59] But weakness isn't something we love to celebrate in our culture, do we?
[00:06:03] We try to avoid it at all costs. Myself included, right? I don't want to come up before you and tell you I'm weak or that I don't have it all together, right? Our culture, we celebrate people who do have it all together. When it falls apart, we were like, what? What happened?
[00:06:17] What?
[00:06:18] But we run from weakness, we hide it, we mask it.
[00:06:23] At minimum, we avoid it at all costs, right? Because weakness is uncomfortable.
[00:06:27] But right there in the beginning of this, one of the main ways the Spirit helps us is because we are Weak. And Paul puts it very bluntly that he himself is weak. And what is that weakness? Now Bob has been talking a lot about this last few weeks, but weakness could look like our sin, our struggles with sin.
[00:06:42] It could be some trials that we're going through. It could be just suffering of some sort, whether it be personal in the world, internal, external could just be simply exhaustion, right? All the parents in the house, you know, you know what I'm talking about, right? You're just this sense that maybe even life feels too big for you to carry or heavier than something you can carry. And Paul says that's exactly where the Spirit meets us, right there in our weakness, not in our strength.
[00:07:10] He underlines this in his famous passage, Second Corinthians 12, verses 8 through 10. And Paul writes it this way. He says, Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. What is it? He describes it as a thorn in his flesh. We don't know exactly what it is, but it was something that was he dealt with for a long time, right? Three times I pleaded for the Lord, take it away from me. But he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
[00:07:38] Therefore I will boast all more gladly about my weaknesses so that Christ's power may rest on me. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
[00:07:48] That's so countercultural, isn't it?
[00:07:50] Like we don't think that's true. Like, that's not how our society works. But Paul says, no, somehow when I'm weak, that's actually when God's power is on display.
[00:08:00] And, and it's like this thorn in his flesh that lest he got any kind of big headedness about him, that, oh man, I'm doing pretty good. Look at all this stuff I'm getting done. He's like, no, no, no, no. You're just as reliant on grace as anybody else that you could not do this outside of me. It's almost like God's humbling him a little bit.
[00:08:16] I ran across this commercial recently. I think it was about mental health. But it's like a weight room. And this guy, he unracks the weights and then immediately like bench press falls on him.
[00:08:29] And someone come runs over like, are you okay? Can I help you? And they're like. And this guy's like, no, bro, I'm good, I'm good. He's like, are you sure? Because you look like you're on. He's like, you don't know me. You don't know my story. And he's like, okay, you know, and, like, just leaves him. Right?
[00:08:44] But I think there's like a kind of a spiritual relation or correlation there, right? Like, they're talking about finding mental health. And that's wonderful. But I run into lots of people and there's this temptation that we think we can unrack the weights spiritually for ourselves, right? We start saying, God helps those who helps themselves. Oh, and that doesn't work, right? And that's not in the Bible. Just to clarify, right? Just God helps those who help themselves. That's not scriptural. But we start to believe that of, oh, I can't act like I'm weak. I can't. I gotta act like I have it all together. And I'd better do that when I come into church on a Sunday morning or my small group, lot of amens, all that stuff. God is good all the time, you know, that kind of stuff.
[00:09:19] But no, that's not where God meets us. It's actually in our brokenness. And that's what we are celebrating. That's what every song we've sung is our desperate need for God, that his grace is sufficient for us. Not my own doing, right? We're all for maturing and growing the faith, but that's all by the grace of God.
[00:09:37] So we are weak. We are a weak people. And that is just like Marcus even mentioned. Like, we don't love to admit that, especially as men in the room, right? We don't want to act like we don't have all together, but yet our faith has a starting point of saying, I am in need of a savior. I cannot save myself.
[00:09:52] That's the kickoff, right? We have to say, I am in desperate need, that my way is not working.
[00:09:58] I will not get this bench press of life off by myself. There's no way.
[00:10:02] But we have a spirit, the spirit of God right there in that space when we admit our weakness. So it's a good place to start. Secondly, Paul says this. The spirit helps us in our ignorance.
[00:10:17] Now, that word ignorance means, like, to not know much better, right? I'm not calling you ignorant. Don't get defended, okay? But it says right there in the second part of verse 26, it says, we don't know what we ought to pray for.
[00:10:29] Again, Paul says we not. Y' all don't know what to pray for. He says we.
[00:10:34] We do not know what to pray for. Let's be honest. I think that is extremely humbling. Like what? What humility for Paul to say that he says the Paul greatest missionary wrote a bunch of the Bible, I would assume as a master prayer, right? Like, I mean, at least in my mind, I'm like, yeah, if anybody had it all together, probably Paul did, right? And yet he says, I don't always know what to pray for.
[00:10:57] We don't know what to pray for. We don't pray perfectly.
[00:11:01] That's not failure. I think that's a sign of humility, right? And have you, have you ever been there before? Have you ever been in a place where you didn't know what to pray for?
[00:11:09] Has life, you know, kicked you enough where you're like, I don't know if I should be happy, sad in between, should I get some ice cream? You don't know. You don't know what. You're so hurt or confused or overwhelmed that it's even hard to get words out to pray.
[00:11:27] Maybe you found yourself just sitting there, just with a sigh or a single tear or just like a.
[00:11:36] Like that's it.
[00:11:38] And Paul says, because of the Holy Spirit, that's enough.
[00:11:45] That it says he is interceding for us, right? With groans, wordless groans. And that's a theme if you look earlier in the passage of Paul, right? He says the earth is groaning for restoration. He says we in our human body, we groan for it. And it says somehow the Holy Spirit is groaning for us and with us, right? That we don't have to know all the perfect things to pray because that's where the Spirit of God does his finest work, right? He takes those prayers that we don't have all the perfect words or perfect theology for, or the right amount of these and thou's. And somehow he just says, that's enough. And he takes them to the Father.
[00:12:24] That's such a gift. That's such a gift of following Jesus that we don't have to come to him with the right words or some algorithm or we treat prayer like that, like we don't have to have a PhD in prayer to be heard.
[00:12:36] It's just because of his grace and his mercy and the Holy Spirit in us working through that. And no one has taught me this more than my own children and listening to their prayers.
[00:12:57] Jesus.
[00:13:03] Amen. Amen. Amen.
[00:13:08] Buzz smile on my face. You can tell I'm a proud dad. My boys, I have two little boys and I have a little girl. She's three months, so she's off the hook. She doesn't have to pray quite yet.
[00:13:17] She probably is, even though I just don't know.
[00:13:20] But my boys Love to pray. We pray all the time, right? Pray for meals, pray before we go to bed, pray for each other, pray for. Pray before they go to school.
[00:13:27] And, man, that is like music to my ears to hear my kids pray.
[00:13:32] But I'm very aware that for most people in this room, you had no idea what they were saying, right?
[00:13:38] Like, you're sitting there like, I think I heard a food and an amen. That's about it, right?
[00:13:44] But as their father, I know them a little bit better, right? I know what they're trying to pray. I can almost see their faces as they're praying. Huck is the one. He's my middle child. He prays fast. He's quick. He probably wants to get to eating. You know, Forrest is a little bit longer with words like his father.
[00:13:59] And he takes after me in that sense. And I can see his little smile and his eyes squint, and he's praying really hard.
[00:14:06] And he probably prayed for his sister Winnie. He always prays for his sister. I heard a little Winnie in there.
[00:14:10] And he kind of adds some flavor, right? Last night, I kid you not, he said this at dinner. He says, jesus, help us. Thank you for helping us be kind to each other. And I pray we go to the beach.
[00:14:22] And I was like, why couldn't I have got that one on tape? You know? And I was like, the Lord hears that prayer, son. That's a good prayer.
[00:14:31] But it was honest. It was great. It was beautiful. And, you know, he prays for slides, and he prays for his friends, and he prays to go to the Dino Museum and all the fun stuff.
[00:14:41] But I'd be hard pressed to find a person's room that's like.
[00:14:44] Like, is that not heartfelt or is that not real?
[00:14:48] Like, I don't think if he's gonna walk up and be like, that's not a real prayer, you know? Like, how dare you?
[00:14:52] No, but my kids, there's something about that. That innocence and that ignorance to not know any better. They just bring what they got to God. Cause they have this belief that God really cares about all that stuff.
[00:15:06] And as a dad, I care about that stuff, right?
[00:15:09] I deeply care about my kids they're praying about and thinking about and what brings them joy. And here's what I just want to say.
[00:15:16] I'm not a perfect dad, but we do have a perfect heavenly father. And that's really hard for some of us to imagine, but God describes himself as a heavenly father. And if me and a broken human father that loves his kids but how much more would our Heavenly Father love to hear the prayers of his kids?
[00:15:32] And he's not looking for elegance or perfect theology, but he's looking for honesty.
[00:15:39] Like he wants to not hear what he thinks you should hear, or he wants to hear and all that. It's not an algorithm like that. Like, just. So here's my encouragement to you, just keep praying if it's a.
[00:15:50] Or it's a tear, or you're angry, or you don't know what to say, you know, cut out the these and thou's. You don't have to do all that. It's not a.
[00:15:59] You don't have to have an algorithm to get to him. Pray whatever is in your heart like he wants to hear it. Because again, prayer is not about just communicating information. We say this a lot, but it's about a. It's a sign of relationship, right?
[00:16:11] And trust that you have a helper and an advocate who's somehow decoding that and taking that to the Father for us on our behalf.
[00:16:21] And he's not just a helper and advocate, but he's also an intercessor, which is our third thing that we see here in the. In the passage with Paul, the Spirit helps us by interceding for us.
[00:16:31] Now, that word comes up twice in this verse, and I'm very aware that that's a very churchy word for some of us that intercede. You're like, what does that mean? Right? There's some of us in here who grew up like intercessory prayer, and you're an intercessor and like, you kind of have an idea of that. But let me just kind of peel back the layer of that. Intercessor just means simply, it means to go before someone on someone else's behalf, right? It's someone who can't speak for themselves.
[00:16:55] It's the idea of an advocate is where we get that. Right? But there's an intercessory happening here. And let me just again, pull it back just a little bit more. What. When you look at verse 27, it's really easy for us to put ourselves in the Bible and say, this is about me. But verse 27 makes it very clear, like, we are not the main characters of what's going on when we pray.
[00:17:13] This actually is really comforting for me because I look at this and I say, man, God in three persons. The Trinity is at work right here.
[00:17:21] It says that the Holy Spirit is interceding for us with these groans, wordless groans. And it says, the Father, he who Searches the heart.
[00:17:31] So God the Father is somehow searching our hearts. And he says, but he knows the mind of the Holy Spirit. Do you see that relationship? It's almost like a. Almost like that you make eye contact with somebody and you know what they're saying without saying it, right? Like you and your spouse at the Christmas party, and you're like, it's time to go, but it's time to go, you know, like that kind of thing.
[00:17:49] And you don't have to say it. You know, it's time to go.
[00:17:53] You'll be. You can use that one here in a few weeks to say, the Holy Spirit led me to leave.
[00:17:57] But this passage gives us a glimpse, I think, on a spiritual realm. Honestly, what is happening? It's. They know what is being said without even having to say it. They know the heart, they know the intention, and there's a freedom of that. And in this passage, it gets even better because we don't just have one intercessor, we actually have two. Paul talks about two intercessors.
[00:18:18] Just a few verses later, we get this beautiful verse. In verse 34, it says, Christ, Jesus, who died.
[00:18:24] And you can almost tell, like, Paul's adding to it more than that, who was raised to life. Not just Jesus died, but he was raised to life, is at the right hand of the Father. And what's he doing? He's interceding for us.
[00:18:35] So let me paint this picture one more time. We have Jesus, our intercessor, the one who died on the cross for you and I, the one who took the payment that none of us can. That bench press of us trying to get our way out of this, he took that on himself and easily lifted it out for us, just because he wanted to, because he loves us, because of his goodness and grace. He drinks that cup of wrath to its last drop and says it is finished.
[00:19:01] It says that he is at the right hand of the Father now interceding for all of his children, those who put their faith and trust in him.
[00:19:08] And so when we pray to God, somehow, somehow this works. That Jesus is saying, that's my boy. That's my girl. They're with me. They're mine. They're on my team.
[00:19:19] And so it's like he's whispering in the Father's ear, they're with us.
[00:19:23] They're on our team.
[00:19:25] Like, hear that cry. And not only is that Jesus doing that, but the Holy Spirit is doing that from within us, right? Because the Holy Spirit resides in all the hearts of the believers. So he's Interceding from the inside out. That's incredible. We have two intercessors going at the same time. No matter if you got no words in your prayers, you got just a teardrop. Maybe you even doubt prayer, or maybe you've gone through struggles or trials. And yet this is happening even when we got lots of words, no words. In the midst of chaos or busyness or even the mundane. This is happening simultaneously for everybody in this room who's put their faith in Jesus.
[00:20:01] Some of us in this room might be like, no one's praying for me. Yes, you do.
[00:20:05] It's called Jesus.
[00:20:07] It's called the Holy Spirit praying for you right now, before you even woke up this morning, they both were interceding for you already, before you even put your mind towards them.
[00:20:18] That's what Paul's trying to get through to the Romans, man. This is happening for us when we've been in need of Jesus, put our faith in him. This is just a benefit we get from following him. That's happening all the time. The Son's pleading to the Father in heaven and the Spirit pleads from within our hearts. That's the heaven and hearts are both covered, right?
[00:20:36] But it gets a little bit better.
[00:20:39] Wait, there's more, right? It's that kind of thing. There's more. Intercession is not just something that's happening kind of just in this divine world or just spiritual realm in a sense that we don't get. It's actually something we get to participate in as a church, Right?
[00:20:56] It's something that we embody, that we're meant to actually live out flesh and blood. Like we get to be intercessors.
[00:21:03] Just a few weeks ago, I mentioned Huck. He's the short prayer in that.
[00:21:07] We found out the hard way that he has sickness induced asthma.
[00:21:11] And so I was at Youth a few Sundays ago and I get a call he was kind of not feeling good. My wife called me and says, huck's not breathing.
[00:21:18] I can't keep him awake. I don't know if I'll make it to the hospital in time.
[00:21:22] Which is never the call you want to get as a parent, right? And so. And just to take away all the. He's okay, he's fine. We just found out he's got asthma. He's got little inhalers and stuff like that. But it was really a scary way to find out your kid's having an asthma attack and he can't breathe. And it was really scary. And they had to hospitalize him and And I had to stay with him overnight. Cause we got a three month old. And so I'm with him and I'm just watching his belly overnight, watching as it's starting to slowly calm down, but just trying to make sure there's also a breath in his lungs. I'm feeling so helpless.
[00:21:51] Like I can't give him breath, right? I can't do that for him. I wish I could.
[00:21:56] What I'm so grateful is the church. Man was the church.
[00:22:00] And before I even had to ask, there was a prayer chain happening. There was people praying for my son. There was people. People brought up a meal to my house, like at the same time that I arrived to the house, you know, with our son. Like, I was like, man, we had a meal, you know, I came back in the office, someone had just written on my whiteboard, like, lord, please be with Huck. Like, there was people going before my family, my son, me, who are weak and didn't know. We didn't know. I knew what I wanted. I was like, lord, give my son breath.
[00:22:29] But I didn't know how to do it. I didn't know what that looked like. And there was people who were interceding, going before my family, praying for my son.
[00:22:37] And that's not just a one time thing. That's something that we're meant to be about. It's a mark of our faith that we would be people who go before others in prayer. And so journey, I have a question for you. Would you be willing to be an intercessor for someone else?
[00:22:51] And I don't just mean hearing your head or saying, yes, but I want us to actually practice right now. So does that sound good?
[00:22:57] Let's pray real quick.
[00:23:02] Holy Spirit, we admit that we're weak and we don't know everything, Lord, but we know you do. And we trust you.
[00:23:11] And so, Lord, I pray right now, in this moment, with everybody that can hear my voice.
[00:23:16] Would you put someone on our heart and mind? Someone who you love, who you created, who you have given dignity to?
[00:23:29] Lord, wherever they're at, in this room, across the world, wherever they're at, Lord, we don't know what they're going through. But Lord, we know you do. And, Lord, we pray for them right now in the name of Jesus. Lord, would you move mightily in their life?
[00:23:44] Lord, I can't fix these people. I can't fix their issues. I can't take away their pain, Lord. But I know that you promised to be an intercessor. So we're just going before you and saying, lord, would you be the helper and the advocate and all the things that you promised to be for these people?
[00:24:00] Would you move in their lives? Would more people come to know Jesus through this? In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:24:06] Thanks for praying with me.
[00:24:09] Can I. I hate to do this, but can I turn up the heat just a little bit more?
[00:24:13] If you prayed that, would you just take out your phone? You're never gonna hear me say this. Take out your phone.
[00:24:19] And would you just text them right now? Just say, praying for you. I bring my phone. I'll do it with you.
[00:24:26] You don't have to be weird. Just pray. Say, I prayed for you, praying for you.
[00:24:30] Just take a few moments real quick.
[00:24:33] What's happening right now is there's hundreds of people who are interceding right now across this room.
[00:24:49] Maybe this is scary, but right now it's awesome seeing people who are doing this. Heads down.
[00:24:58] All right, mine's sent, too.
[00:25:00] Hundreds of people interceding for people on someone else's behalf.
[00:25:04] Admitting that we're weak, that we don't know everything, but we're trusting that God does.
[00:25:13] That's a taste of intercession right there.
[00:25:16] And can you imagine that that is happening for us who've put her faith and trust in Jesus all the time, constantly.
[00:25:23] That there's someone always interceding for us?
[00:25:27] It's beautiful.
[00:25:29] That's the spirit of God flowing not just in our minds and our hearts, but actually out. And we're being an expression of that in our community. Thanks for joining me with that fourth thing that the spirit helps us with, says he helps us pray according to God's will.
[00:25:44] And that's huge. Cause I know that phrase will of God, that can get really big and broad. Right? It's a question I get asked a lot, like, what's God's will for my life? And what does that mean? And does that mean a certain vocation or job or this big decision I need to make? And I think Bob has done a great job the last few weeks talking about what does it mean for God's kingdom coming here to earth and our participation in that in the midst of suffering and this groaning and redemption. So I would encourage you, just for time's sake, please listen to what Bob said last few weeks, go back and listen to those. And it talks a lot about that.
[00:26:21] The will of God means lots of things, but I would say it also might reveal a little bit about our hearts when we think about, is it just the will for my life? Because prayer, I think Even I can be tempted to think is about getting God to do what I want him to do, right? Like God, I just need this information. You just do my thing, right? Would you align with my will? And if prayer is relationship, then it's really more saying, God, I want to get on your page. What are you about?
[00:26:47] And I take that because that's what Jesus says, right? This is what he describes it in John 6. He says it this way. He says, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who, who has sent me, that everyone who looks on the Son believes in him should have eternal life. And then he doubles down on this by when he teaches us how to pray. In Matthew 6:10, he says this. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as is in heaven. See, even Jesus is humbled to the point of just saying, God, I only want to do what you want me to do. I only say and do what you tell me to do. And so, Lord, I pray that your kingdom come here on earth as is in heaven, right? So we pray. So he taught us to pray. And so at some level, when we say, God, I want to do your will, I want to say, God, I want to see your kingdom come on here on earth as is in heaven. And whatever part, I get to play in that in a small way, right? Because that's what the Spirit is praying for you and I right now. And it's not just what we want necessarily, but it's also what we need. It's not my will, it's his will.
[00:27:48] And here's the beautiful part about that, is the Spirit's prayers. He.
[00:27:52] His prayers never miss, right? He's never off base. He doesn't, you know, it says that we see dimly, we just see partially in this world. I don't know all the factors of things that are going on, but the Holy Spirit, his prayers are always on target.
[00:28:05] He prays powerfully, perfectly and personally right from within side every believer in this room.
[00:28:14] And so with the time left, I just want to give you one practical piece that you can practice this this week.
[00:28:21] I hope that you've heard this. If we are, it's okay to be weak and ignorant in our prayers, but the Holy Spirit is interceding for us and that he will always pray God's will. This is what I would ask of you this week. Would you pray what we've got?
[00:28:35] So what would it look like if this week, when we leave here this morning, that we would just pray what we got we don't. We don't come with our pretentiousness or do it for show. Like, Jesus talks a lot about that, right? People who pray for show, like God. God's not really.
[00:28:47] He's not really into that, but the person with a humble heart who's saying, God, have mercy on me. Those are the prayers he hears. And so would we this week, with our kids, with our family, with our roommates, with our colleagues, with the. Would we just find moments where we could just pray? Really just pray what we got. Just if it's a few words or just even that. Ugh.
[00:29:07] Or I'm tired, God, I can't make it. God. God, let my kids sleep. Or, Lord, they are so difficult to be around. Help me.
[00:29:18] Or, oh, I hate my boss. God, but you must love them somehow.
[00:29:23] Seriously.
[00:29:24] Seriously.
[00:29:27] The person that drives you up the wall is probably the person that God's going to pray, wants you to pray for. And he's going to do something in youth first.
[00:29:37] It's not just change their heart. It's actually like God changed my heart towards them.
[00:29:41] Pray what you got. He's not hearing you for your.
[00:29:44] He wants the weakness and the messiness and uncertainty. And that's because prayer isn't about performance. It's participation. Right? It's into that relationship that we get to see the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. It's relational. It's like me and my boys getting to hear their prayers, and it's just this cool moment of saying, man, God hears that.
[00:30:02] And ultimately, every time I pray, whether it be I bow my head or a dinner or. Or in the few moments in between a meeting or in the car or before I get home, it's an act of humility and trust, isn't it?
[00:30:15] Because I'm saying, I'm not God. I can't fix all this stuff. I don't know what these people need. I don't know.
[00:30:22] I don't know. I'm weak, I'm frail. But, God, you do and I can trust you. Cause you are good and you are king.
[00:30:29] And hear me out. This is not permission to be lazy.
[00:30:34] We're not like. Well, God just kind of does something with it anyway. So I don't really have to. No, no, no, no, don't. That's being lazy. It's called what it is. That's lazy because it's relationship. It's relationship with God. It's communication with God. Let him speak to us. Like, prayer is just a bunch about, like, listening for his voice and saying, God how would you want me to respond to this person or that person or the colleague or the person in traffic that's just as much involved? So this doesn't mean we don't pray. We actually should pray. But we should have freedom this morning.
[00:31:03] Our weakness and our confusion in our seasons of waiting, that God never leaves us alone.
[00:31:09] And that even when we can't find the words, the Holy Spirit is already praying them. And just trust that, take hope in that.
[00:31:18] So when you sigh this week in frustration, just know that he groans in intercession for you when you don't know what to say. This afternoon, he already does, and he's already saying it.
[00:31:30] And inevitably this week, when something happens that you're gonna be felt, leaving, felt weak and unable to conquer that, that is when Jesus is his strongest.
[00:31:40] That's when the Holy Spirit's power is on full display.
[00:31:44] So I hope that you'll leave here free and encouraged as people who pray, because it's the Holy Spirit who is helping us. Would you pray with me?
[00:31:56] Lord, we get a chance right now to just talk to you, talk to you like we're talking to a friend.
[00:32:06] Even right now, there's people just speaking to you, maybe for the first time honestly in a long time.
[00:32:14] And Lord, we want to hear you.
[00:32:17] We want to hear your voice. We want to do what you've asked us to do. We want to see your kingdom come on earth as is in heaven.
[00:32:24] And God, I don't even know what I need half the time or those around me, and yet you want to partner with me and that don't make any sense to me. But you're good and I can trust that. And Lord, I'm going to put my faith and trust in you. And so, Lord, as we are praying for one another and other people in this room, the people we've interceded for, God, we just trust you with it. We just bring it to you with open hands, saying, God and our weak human self, we just don't know what to do with this. But Holy Spirit, we're so grateful that you do.
[00:32:52] You take that mess and you make it beauty and we don't deserve it. But it's because of your goodness and kindness that we get to participate in Jesus name, Amen.
