Romans 8:26-27 “Pray-ers?”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²⁶but in the same way also the Spirit helps in our weakness, for we do not know what we should pray for as it is necessary, but the Spirit Himself intercedes on our behalf with groans unspoken, ²⁷but the One searching the heart knows what [is] the mind of the Spirit because He intercedes in accordance with God in behalf of [the] saints.

This is, of course, a wonderful passage of Scripture. It starts with something like, “in the same way,” or “likewise.” The question is asked, “In the same way as what? What is this referring back to?” Many suggestions are offered, but I think it is simply the “hope” which has been being discussed in the previous two verses. In support of this, I like what Charles Simeon (ca.1800) said:

“Hope of eternal happiness is as an anchor to the troubled soul; it enables a person to bear up under the heaviest afflictions; but the mind of a believer would soon faint, if it were not strengthened from above. God therefore communicates his Spirit to His people under their trials. By His Spirit He enables them to go forward in the way of duty. St. Paul has been speaking of sufferings as the Christian’s portion here [Note: ver. 17, 18.]. He has mentioned “hope” as a principal support to the soul under them [Note: ver. 24.]. He now specifies the Holy Spirit’s agency as another means of confirming and establishing the soul.”

I agree with Simeon. Hope is a wonderful thing, but, if that was all we had, we would no doubt fail completely under our troubles. The Lord “knows our frame, that we are but dust,” and “pities His children.” Therefore, the risen Jesus sent to us His Spirit. We probably have no idea just how much of our “successes” are actually His power sustaining us! Simeon adds, “There is no trial so small but it would overcome us, if we were left to ourselves; and they who have endured heavy trials, often faint under small ones.” We need hope, but we also need His Spirit. As the father replied to Jesus, “Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief!”

And so, God sends His Spirit to help the weakness of His people. This is underscored in the next few words, “In the same way, the Spirit helps us with our weakness…” The word translated “helps” is actually what we might call a “together” word. It pictures two people carrying the opposite ends of a heavy log or the wounded soldier being helped by his friend to make it back to camp. The older I get, it seems the more often my mind would tell me, “I can’t do this.” Actually that has always been the case, I just couldn’t see it when I had endless energy, a strong back, and a sharp mind. I suppose, when we’re young, it would take a lot of humility to truly recognize our “weakness.” Take away the strengths of youth, and it seems to become a constant refrain in our heads, “I can’t do this.”

Of course what we all, young or old, need to recognize is that it is true. We can’t. Jesus warned us, “Without Me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5). He wasn’t wasting His breath when He said that. Our hope, though, is that He gave us His Spirit for exactly this reason. I can’t, but if I’ll just try, He picks up “the other end of the log,” so to speak, and suddenly we’re looking back realizing, “But I did!”

Realizing that, my mind goes immediately to prayer! How much more I need to pray over everything I do! Then notice, what is exactly the weakness being addressed in the two verses before us? “We don’t know how to pray for what we ought”! We aren’t even good pray-ers!

Before I think more about that, I want to notice the profound beauty of these simple words, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” The whole world imagines God to be a vindictive, angry bully who sits in heaven disgusted at us all and always ready to throw a lightning bolt at our failures. Yet look again at these simple words, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” He does what? Helps us. Now, it is true that our “weakness” is contemptible. God created us perfect and yet where does He find us? Filthy, dirty, emaciated, rotten remnants of His perfect creation. Yet what does this verse say is His response to our wretchedness and failure? He sends His Spirit to help us in that very weakness! He sent His Son “not to condemn the world, but that world might be saved through Him” (Jn. 3:17). It is an enormous comfort, of which we need constantly to be reminded, that our Father loves us! What about our “weakness”? Rather than being disgusted by it, He helps us in it

Now back to this matter of prayer. How crazy is it that we aren’t even good pray-ers? You would think the simplest undertaking of our existence would be to shoot up prayers to God. Yet what do we find here in Romans 8:26,27? Our prayer is the very weakness being considered! And what does it tell us? “We do not know how to pray for what we ought.” Sometimes we think we do know what we’re praying about, but, on the other hand, it seems the older I get, the more aware I am that I “darken counsel without knowledge.” What I mean is that I am more and more aware that God is running the universe and doing a good job of it! The fact is I don’t know what He's up to, I don’t know why things are happening or how He will make them all work together in His great eternal plan.

It leaves me feeling like Job, wanting to simply say, “I put my hand over my mouth … Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.” And yet, He is the very One who calls me to prayer: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God” (Phil. 4:6). He tells us that “the prayers of the upright are His delight” (Prov. 15:8). The ministry of the Holy Spirit is the key to all of this. Our passage tells us “the Spirit Himself intercedes for us.” I am a lousy pray-er, but I have Someone who picks up the other end and lifts my feeble, ignorant prayers to God!

What a tremendous encouragement it is to know that, even as I pray deeply aware of my foolishness, those prayers do make it to the Father and, in fact, they are His delight! I guess I just want to appreciate more that this is possible only because of the Holy Spirit in me.

 

Romans 8:23-25 “More Hope”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³but not only [them], but we ourselves, [the] very ones having the firstfruits of the Spirit, also are groaning in ourselves, ones waiting eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴For we were saved in this hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who is hoping for what he is seeing? ²⁵But, if we are hoping for what we are not seeing, we are waiting eagerly through patience.

There are still more thoughts I’d like to record from this passage. First, it’s not surprising that a discussion of hope ends with waiting. Interestingly enough, in Hebrew, their word for hope is the same word for waiting. Anytime you read a passage that says anything about waiting for the Lord, just realize it could have been translated hoping in the Lord, or vice versa. Of course, the original language here in Romans is Greek, not Hebrew, but I would suggest that in any language, you really can’t separate the two logically. If you truly hope for something, you must be waiting for it, and, again, vice versa.

Then, speaking of hope and waiting, one ends up discussing patience. In the New Testament, there are two words which might be translated “patience.” One would be literally our idea of simple “patience,” while the other leans more toward “endurance,” although the two obviously differ little. Here in Rom. 8:25 is the one that leans more to endurance. The last phrase of the verse could be translated, “… we are waiting/hoping eagerly through endurance.” Life in this world certainly calls for a lot of endurance!

Then I was reading the thoughts of a fellow named W.M. Metcalfe regarding that two-sided coin of faith and hope. Based on his thoughts, it occurred to me that faith is, in a sense, what points our boat in the right direction, but it is hope that fills our sails and carries us on. That is the dynamic which was working in David’s life when he wrote, “I would have fainted, except I believed I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord” (Ps. 27:13,14). In those two little verses, you see it all – faith, hope, waiting, patience, endurance – but note it was hope that was carrying David forward. Someone has said that faith is the mother of hope, yet, I would add that hope is, in fact, the engine that keeps us going.

I also like to think how true it is that “where we’re going” comes down to love, so there you have the blessed triumvirate of “faith, hope, and love.” That also explains why “the greatest of these is love.” Love is the destination, the port for which we sail. Once we arrive there, we leave the ship behind.

Then, as I’ve studied, there were several verses I found encouraging:

I John 3:1-3 – “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! …  Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” Here is that same “You will, but not yet” dynamic. Children of God “is what we are,” yet “when we see Him,” only then “we shall be like Him.” And what does that hope do for us? “All who have this hope in Him purify themselves, just as He is pure.” Our hope of heaven doesn’t make us lethargic but rather stirs in us that desire to be more like Christ

Rom. 15:13 – “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” Notice that He is “the God of hope.” The rest of the world can go on believing He is a mean, vindictive God throwing His lightning bolts at everyone, but you and I know the truth. He is “the God of hope.” If hope is what fills our sails, then our God is our dreams come true! And He doesn’t just want you to have hope, He wants you to overflow with it!

And what was John the Baptist’s cry? “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (Jn. 1:29). What was John seeing in Jesus? Hope. Hope that this horrific disaster of sin will not last forever, that Jesus is the Messiah who will conquer it all and give us again the wonderful world God created us to enjoy!

Then consider how people without the Lord are described in Eph. 2:12: “Remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, … without hope and without God in the world.” “Without hope and without God.” That’s not who we are anymore. We do have God and we do have hope. Even as we groan in this broken world, God help us to remember we get to know You and we get to be people of hope!

Last of all, consider Jesus’ words in John 14:1-3: “Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” What is Jesus doing in these verses? He’s giving us hope. What He is giving us is a promise. To believe that promise is faith. And what does that faith do for us? It gives us hope. That in turn enables us to be patient, to endure the miseries of this world. And what does that free us to do? It frees us to actually love, to rise above our natural compulsion to be driven by our fears, and instead to simply invest love in the people around us – quite confident our good and gracious God has already secured a glorious future for us!

Hope is a wonderful thing. How great is it to know the God of hope, who wants us to overflow with hope, whose Gospel is “good news,” and would make us people of hope, even as we live out our lives in this broken world!

Hope is a wonderful thing!

 

Romans 8:23-25 “Patiently”

Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

²³but not only [them], but we ourselves, [the] very ones having the firstfruits of the Spirit, also are groaning in ourselves, ones waiting eagerly for adoption, the redemption of our body. ²⁴For we were saved in this hope, but hope being seen is not hope, for who is hoping for what he is seeing? ²⁵But, if we are hoping for what we are not seeing, we are waiting eagerly through patience.

We should all take note, reading this passage, one of the things the Lord wants to give us is hope. To know Jesus, to have a real relationship with the Most High God, is to be a person of hope. Listen to what He will say later in Romans: “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (15:13). That is certainly a glorious privilege our salvation has given us and something we should deliberately appreciate and thank the Lord for.

It is even extremely important to Him in that our hope is a major tool He would use to draw others to Himself, as we read in I Peter: “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (3:15). I rather suspect we don’t even realize how much hope shines out of our lives. I fear we take it for granted and we are certainly all prone to letting ourselves get discouraged, yet I would suggest we probably don’t realize how different we seem to people around us who frankly have no real hope – only hope-so’s. Perhaps that is something we should all pray for occasionally – that the Lord would help us to sincerely live our hope and that, whether we know it or not, He would use our hope in someone else’s life?

However, one more twist I’d like to suggest is that we should all ask ourselves, when we interact with others, are we people who infuse hope? Jesus does. To know Him is to feel real hope for maybe the first time. What about each of us? Do we infuse hope to others we deal with? It seems to me that rather, what most people hear all day every day is criticism, sarcasm, put-downs, mocking, belittling, and just downright discouragement. Just to say something encouraging to them is probably a far greater kindness than we even realize. I wonder, when we do, if we don’t sometimes make their day, perhaps their month! – just because it’s so different. God help us – here we are, enjoying this hope Jesus has given us so abundantly that we take it for granted. Wouldn’t it be right for us to in turn be people who deliberately try to give hope to others? As the old saying goes, “What if everybody did?”

Then here’s another crazy thought and I’m feeling like this is something really deep I’ve never quite pondered before. Here we are. The entire Creation is groaning under the curse of sin. We’re groaning ourselves. The Creation simply suffers. They don’t really know why. Back in v.20, it was even specifically said that Creation’s suffering is “not by its own choice.” Even as Creation suffers, still it is true that “the heavens declare the glory of God.” Creation is still glorifying God, but only because it simply does. Angels glorify God, but they’re already in heaven. They don’t have to suffer at all. Then, out of all Creation, both in heaven and on earth, we are the only ones granted the privilege of suffering willingly. It says in our passage that, because we have hope, we wait for our redemption patiently. The word literally means “with endurance.”

What I’m suggesting is that, to suffer with hope, to suffer, yet to take it patiently, is one of the ways we believers get to uniquely glorify God. Creation suffers but doesn’t know why. Angels apparently don’t suffer at all. They all glorify God in their way. However, out of them all, we are afforded the unfathomable privilege of declaring to the universe that God is so great we can trust Him and love Him and serve Him even while we suffer. Even while we are groaning in this world of death, we look up to Him and cry, “Abba, Father!” Even wallowing in the squalor of this world’s morass of evil and heartache, we look up to Jesus with our dirty emaciated faces and say to Him, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created!” And note we do it willingly. Like our Savior, we say to the Father, “If it be Thy will, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not my will but Thine be done.” When He says to us, “My grace is sufficient for thee,” we respond, “Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me!”

I don’t want to suffer. I don’t like to suffer. I’m certainly not asking for suffering. However, this truth seems deeply comforting, to realize that, out of all Creation, we believers uniquely get to glorify God precisely because we choose to trust Him and believe His promises and be people of hope – even while we suffer along with the entire rest of this material Creation. Angels in the glory of heaven can swarm around the throne and sing, “Holy, holy, holy”, but only we can glorify Him in suffering.

Hope, real hope, is a wonderful thing. How much more wonderful to realize that very hope, as we live it, actually uniquely glorifies God! That is one more reason why He leaves us here on earth, one more reason why we’re still here, one more reason to say to Him, “Lord, I’m ready to be done here. I want to come and be with You. I want You to make me holy and let me be done with sin forever. However, yes, I’ll stay here for You. If I can yet glorify You, even here, then, not my will, but Thine be done” – and do it willingly.

Patiently

O for grace, to trust Him more!