In the sermon 'Help in Weakness,' Scott Brown explores Romans 8:26-27, emphasizing the role of the Holy Spirit in assisting believers during moments of uncertainty and weakness. Brown describes a 'Romans 8:26 moment' as a time when believers are unsure of what to pray for due to life's complexities. He highlights two main points: the acknowledgment of human weaknesses and the affirmation that God helps through the Holy Spirit. Brown underscores the Holy Spirit's intercession, working in ways unseen by believers, and provides comfort that God is actively at work on their behalf. The sermon also delves into three key doctrines: prayer, the Trinity, and the Holy Spirit, illustrating how the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit intercede for believers. Brown clarifies that the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force, who resides within believers and helps them in their spiritual journey. The sermon concludes by encouraging believers to rely on the Holy Spirit for assurance and sanctification, stressing that the Spirit guarantees their glorification.

Let's please open your Bibles to Romans 8 and find verse 26. Romans 8, 26. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter than honey word of God. Romans 8 26. Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses, for we do not know what we should pray for as we ought.

But the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now, he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this marvelous truth, that you would help us to understand it deep within our own hearts, that you would help us to find all that we need in your word today.

We thank you for your spirit, teach us more about your Holy Spirit. Amen. Please be seated. Again, we come to another section in Romans and we find the same thing that we found many, many times in Romans, and that is that the apostle Paul is full of encouragement, one line after another. He fills the believers' heart with just the great things that God has done for them.

And he shows us who we are. And this passage is no different here in Romans 8.26 and 27. Romans 8.26 is a pivotal verse for the believer. Have you ever had a Romans 826 moment? A Romans 826 moment is that moment when you don't know what to pray for.

There's so many considerations. It's that moment in, or a season, it could be a season, it might even be a long season in your life where you're not sure what to pray for because the landscape is confusing. And you don't know where you should move. You don't know what doctor to consult. You don't know what medicine to take.

You don't know what to do about your back surgery. You don't know what to do about your back surgery. You don't know what to do about your cancer diagnosis. You don't know what to say. And you don't know what to pray.

You don't know whether you should pray for perseverance or for deliverance. This is a Romans 8.26 moment where you just don't know and the Apostle Paul brings us to this moment here. And you have an outline in front of you, you'll see there's really two parts to these two verses. And the first really is just an acknowledgement that we have weaknesses, and then an affirmation that God does help us. So that's really the simplicity of the passage.

What I want us to walk away from today, when you walk out of here, I hope you have a greater sense that God is helping you. But he's helping you in ways that you can't see. You don't know about them. You don't know the words that the Spirit of God is pleading for you. That God is looking out for you.

That God is doing things that you don't know about. He's actively at work in ways that you are not perceiving and that He's going before you, that He's watching over you, that He's walking with you. And in this verse here, He is, God the Spirit is crying out for you. Do you see that? Do you sense that?

I pray that when you walk out of here today, you'll have a greater sense that He is interceding for you. It's such a remarkable passage. But Paul, why Paul? The godliest man, the wisest of the New Testament, the writer of most of the books of the New Testament, does it seem surprising to you that somebody of the spiritual stature and strength of the Apostle Paul would admit such a weakness? And he does.

He admits the weakness that he has in his own life and It just makes it very clear that the Apostle Paul himself he too just like you have been on the ropes And you didn't know how to pray and you didn't even, you didn't know how it should turn out. And I think it's an illustration of what the apostle Paul said in 2 Corinthians 12 when he was explaining the problem that he had with the thorn in the flesh, which we don't even know what it was. He said, when I am weak, then I am strong. So in a way, we're really advocating this morning for a weak church that doesn't know what to pray for. And so The focus here this morning is that the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

And when you walk out of here, I pray that there'll be a greater sense of consolation for God, the Holy Spirit, and what He's done for you. I pray that you have the Holy Spirit. I pray that you have turned to Jesus Christ to wash all your sins away because if you have turned to Jesus Christ and he has washed your sins away this is a treasure that you have in your earthen vessel. But if you don't have him, you don't have this. Now the apostle Paul is of course explaining the great doctrines of the faith.

There are three massive doctrines that he weaves throughout just these two verses. And of course, you have the doctrine of prayer. What's going on in prayer? You learn something about prayer from these two verses. That you learn about the doctrine of the Trinity because you have the three persons of the Trinity actually interacting right here in these two verses and then you have specifically as sort of a laser point the doctrine of the Holy Spirit because that's what Romans 8 so far has been all about anyway.

And so now he just continues to elaborate on the various categories of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just pause on that for a second. On Wednesday night, we're gonna get together and pray. Let's remember this when we get together on Wednesday night. This is what's happening.

So the doctrine of the Trinity. In the doctrine of the Trinity, you have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. In atheism, there's no one there. In agnosticism, you don't know what's happening. But here in scripture, you have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

And then you have, you have the Spirit is interceding Within us. Do you have that the spirit is interceding within us? It's something that's happening with as a result of the presence of God the Holy Spirit Within the life of the believer it happens within but fast forward to verse 34 look at it verse 34 there's something else going on You have the the Lord Jesus Christ himself Interceding outside of us You have the Spirit interceding within and you have Jesus Christ interceding from heaven outside of us for us. This is such a beautiful picture that we have here. I'll read the verse in verse 34.

Christ who died and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. So you have the intercession within, this is what we're talking about here in Romans 8 26 and 27, and then you have the intercession without, outside of us in the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Here in the doctrine of the Trinity in this passage you have three omnipotent persons interceding for God's children. And it's a passage where you are instructed by illustration of the doctrine of the Trinity. The Bible never says God is a Trinity, but all over the Bible you see these three persons interacting and it's very very clear here and you have the Holy Spirit who is a person who's interacting with another person, God the Father, and they are interacting in behalf of God's people.

And you find the Holy Spirit is a person. We've talked about this before, the Holy Spirit is not a force. It's not some eeby-jeeby thing that's floating around. The Holy Spirit is God, the Holy Spirit. And he is not a force.

He teaches, he guides, he commands, he convicts, he commissions, and he restrains, and he can be grieved, he's a person that can be grieved. So Again, the Spirit is not some force floating around the room that you call upon. He is a person who lives inside of you. And so this is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Now, let's pick up the context here before we dive into the text.

We've been working with two key words so far, groan and hope. And what we saw in verse 22 is that the whole creation groans and then we find in verse 23, we ourselves groan, we long, we long for heaven. And then in 26, the Holy Spirit groaned. So you have three times in the previous verses, the word groan, and now it's here for the final time. And then six times hope, we groan in hope.

So that's where we've been here. And this is true Christianity. We recognize our frailty, we recognize the troubles in this world, the problems with our bodies, the problems in politics, the problems with our neighbors, the problems everywhere around us, and we groan because we know there's something better. And that's just reality. And so here you find now this doctrine of the Holy Spirit to help us understand.

Now, just maybe as a sideline, and this should be obvious throughout Romans eight, one through 25, and that is this, and this is really important. The Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the main tool that God gives us for our sanctification, And it really defines the blessings that are in Jesus Christ to have the Holy Spirit. And so the first word in our section is in verse 26, is the word likewise. Do you see that? Likewise.

Likewise, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness. So likewise, in other words, he's saying, in the same way that I've been communicating this about the Spirit, now that about the Spirit. So likewise, he's not changed the subject at all. He's talking about the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. And he's actually Continuing the theme of assurance and security that those who've been given the Holy Spirit will be glorified, that's in verse 17, it's very, very clear what's being communicated here.

If you have the Holy Spirit, you'll be glorified. This is the assurance of salvation, and the Apostle Paul cannot get over speaking of assurance of salvation to his people. And now he continues this. The Spirit is guaranteeing our glorification. That's what Martin Lloyd-Jones said.

The Spirit is guaranteeing our glorification. Now there's so many distorted views about the Holy Spirit, but we should look at what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. And Romans eight is so full of it. When you read this word likewise, he's really pulling from what has come before in verse two in Romans eight. He says it's the Spirit that makes you free from condemnation, the greatest gift you'll ever have.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. And then in verse four, he says that it's the spirit that causes the believer to want to walk in obedience to God. And then in verse five, he talks about the difference between the believer and the unbeliever. The spirit of God causes the believer to walk in the Spirit and the unbeliever to walk in the flesh. So you can see this theme that he's continuing to build out.

In verse 9, To have the Spirit is to have Christ. In verses 10 and 11, the Spirit gives life to your mortal bodies. In verse 13, he talks about life in the flesh is death, but life in the Spirit is life and peace. In verse 14, he says, if you're led by the Spirit, you are a son of God. And in verses 15 and 16, he says, if you're a Christian, you have the spirit of adoption as sons and and there's something going on in your heart And it's crying out Abba father You know you have a father and you cry out to God the father So now He says likewise likewise in the same in the same way that the Spirit works in all these other ways, all the way up to verse 26, in the same way the Spirit helps us in our weaknesses.

Notice it's plural, there are weaknesses, not just one weakness, but we have weaknesses, and they have to do with the way that we relate to God and the way that we even understand what's going on around us. We have weaknesses. And it's actually, the word is translated in other places, sicknesses. We have sicknesses. We have these various limitations.

Count your many limitations, name them one by one. We have mental limitations. We have spiritual limitations. We have limitations in our discernment. We have limitations regarding our maturity.

We're always growing in maturity. We always have limitations in our maturity. We have limitations of energy. We have emotional limitations and weaknesses. The disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, you remember the Lord Jesus told them to watch and pray, and they went to sleep.

They had limitations. We don't know whether to pray for healing or perseverance through the trial. We don't know what to pray for a wayward child. Parents are often tempted to pray for their wayward child. Please put so much pressure on this child that they see how foolish all of this is and abandon it forever.

We don't know, well the problem is we don't really know what's happening. We don't know often whether this is an obstacle to overcome or not. Whether we should back off or we should press in. We don't know if what's happening to us might be God's Hand of discipline of chastisement as Hebrews talks about God Disciplines his sons if you're a son you'll be disciplined We don't know if it's God's discipline or is it Satan attacking us. There are just so many things that we're not sure of about what's happening.

And these are, we don't know if God is closing a door or he's calling us to rise up and do something that we think that we ought to do. We don't always know what to pray for. And we have weaknesses. You know, the prosperity gospel will tell you that you always know what to do, just tell God what to do. Just tell God what to do.

This is actually quite the opposite kind of teaching that you don't often, you just don't, sometimes don't know. And so you shouldn't be running around telling God. I think here you, you see God's compassion for his children. I want you to see that this morning if you can see it. Psalm 103 talks about this, Psalm 103 verse 13.

As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. For he knows our frame. I love that line, he knows our frame. He remembers that we are but dust. He knows our frame, we have weaknesses.

You know, I know many people right now who are dealing with weaknesses of the mind. Dementia, Alzheimer's. What do you think is happening? You know, some of you are having this kind of experience with family members, and they're not the same person they used to be. And it's really hard, it's hard to watch, but you wonder what's happening in their souls.

Or what about the person who's in a coma? Or the person who gets in a car accident and now their brain is damaged. What do you do? What do you think about those people? Do you think the Spirit is helping those people in their weaknesses?

I believe the Holy Spirit helps. I believe the Holy Spirit helps Alzheimer's patients in their weakness. The word that Paul uses helps. It's actually a very graphic word. It means that He takes, it's like taking hold of our weakness.

He takes hold, He grasps your weakness. It's actually a term of strength. And very strong words. It's actually a combination of three words jammed together in Greek. It's to lay hold, word number one, to do it with, alongside of, and to grasp.

And it's also something that is always happening to the believer. God is always laying hold of the weakness of the believer. This is in the present tense. In other words, it's ongoing. God is always doing this with his children.

A.T. Robertson's great grammar, here's how he describes it, I really liked it. The Spirit lays hold of our weaknesses along with us and carries his part of the burden facing us as if two men were carrying a log. Get that in your mind. One at each end.

And the language that he uses is very much like language that he uses, that the Lord Jesus Christ uses anyway when he talks about the Holy Spirit. Please open your Bibles to John 14. John 14 and find verse 16. John 14, I'll give you a minute to get there. John 14 verse 16.

You know, when I was 25 years old, I preached on these verses in my seminary chapel in California. I preached this text to my classmates and my professors. And this passage has come back to help me so many times. This is the Lord Jesus Christ, and he's talking about the helper, because he helps us in our weaknesses. This first word that we just reviewed is one word.

This is a different word that he uses. It's the word paraclete or par-cletus. Here's what Jesus says. I will pray to the Father and he will give you another helper. Helper, there's the word, another helper.

And it's a word picture that means one called alongside to help. Like someone comes alongside you to help you. I will pray he will give you another helper. But the word another is also instructive because there are different words for helper. There is the word that means another of the same kind, another of a different kind.

This word he uses is another of the same kind. Jesus is saying, I'm going to give you another helper of the same kind as me. He's like me, another helper like the Lord Jesus. And he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him but you know him for he dwells in you and will be in you I will not leave you as orphans I will come to you the whole idea of the helper the Holy Spirit, is that the believer is never left as an orphan. The believer is never alone.

And they, because the believer has another helper like Jesus Christ himself. When I was a young Christian, my pastor, John Tobay, whom I'm so thankful for, for some reason, it seemed to me he would talk about the periclite, the helper. He talked about it a lot and I'm grateful that in my youth I had someone preaching to me that I had a helper. Always. And so the believer is never left in isolation.

The believer is never left to bear their own burden by themselves. It's very interesting that the weakness, this word weakness is also used of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. In Hebrews chapter five verse two, Christ was subject to weakness for our sake. And this is so characteristic of Jesus Christ. He experienced everything we experience in our bodies, in our relationships, in everything.

He experienced everything that we did on our behalf, yet he without sin. He did not sin through any of his trials so that we would have forgiveness when we sin in our trials. But Hebrews 5 2 says it like this, he can have compassion on those who are ignorant and going astray since he himself is also subject to weakness. Same word, weakness. He helps us in our weaknesses.

Now, the Lord Jesus experienced his weakness without sin, but he experienced weakness in his flesh, in his incarnation, in his mortal body that he was given to minister in the world during his earthly ministry. Now the very specific weakness here is that we don't know what to pray for. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit, we know that we ought to pray for things, but we don't know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Because there are things, we need the prayers, the groanings of the Spirit to meet the moment in God's wisdom. I heard somebody give this illustration of John Bunyan.

John Bunyan, he writes Pilgrim's Progress, perhaps one of the most famous books ever written for Christians. But he also wrote a little book called Advice for Sufferers. And you remember John Bunyan was thrown into prison because he wouldn't stop preaching. And he was in prison for 12 years. But he could have got out.

He could have got out at any minute, but he stayed in prison for 12 years, for conscience sake. All he had to do was say, I won't preach anymore. And then he could have got out. And you know, he had At home, he had four small children at home, and one of them was blind. And he languished before God, should I spring myself out of prison or not?

Imagine the conflict. What is the will of God? Do I go home and take care of my family or do I stay in prison?