Help to Endure Suffering
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 1 April 2012
Last week we discussed the reasons for suffering and we went all the way back to cause of it, namely the sin of Adam and Eve. And we discussed the work of the Holy Spirit in securing and sanctifying us in suffering. And we believe that our suffering is not comparable to the glories in the future where we will forever be with God.
When we worship God, we worship the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And somehow the Holy Spirit has not been emphasized much in general, when in reality the Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity most personally intimately involved in the life of a believer. So let us focus on that in tonight’s text from Romans 8: 26-30,
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”
29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
We are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, and that means we go from being predestined to being called to being justified, to being glorified and nobody falls through the cracks. No doctrine of Scripture is more comforting and more strengthening and encouraging than that. And that is why we live with hope. Not a wish, but a hope that is a fixed certainty based on the promises of God.
We have the promise of future glory; we are protected by the power of God through faith to that glory. That means we have been given by God a faith that will not fail, a faith that will not die, and that faith is secured by the power of the Holy Spirit Himself. Oh how great is God’s love!
In John 6:37 Jesus essentially says the same thing when He said, “All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me, and whoever comes to Me, I will not turn away.” All that the Father gives to Me will come to Me and I will lose none of them, but raise them at the last day. He said, “This is the will of the Father.”
We groan for the reality of our glorification, right? We live in a cursed world. We ourselves though regenerate on the inside are still incarcerated in unredeemed flesh and we groan in our humanity. The things we want to do, we don’t do. The things we do, we don’t want to do. We have a body of death attached to us, as Paul says in Romans.
We understand the decay and the inevitability of death that stalks us all. We groan, creation groans. As I said last week, the whole creation is groaning, waiting for the glorious manifestation of the sons of God, that’s us believers. Everything in this universe created by God will go out of existence, the elements will melt with fire and in its place will come a new heaven and a new earth and no curse.
Creation is personified as feeling the birthing pains, waiting, and we genuinely long for that day. As I look at heaven, it’s not about golden streets, although I’m happy to live there. It’s about the absence of sin; it’s about the absence of temptation, and the absence of ignorance that is appealing about heaven. We all groan for glory.
But there’s a third groaning in this passage that is quite remarkable. And it is the groaning of the Holy Spirit Himself. The Holy Spirit with whom we enjoy fellowship is also groaning, waiting for our glorification. Creation is pained by the curse. We are pained by the curse. And even the Holy Spirit suffers the unfulfillment of the believer in whom He dwells until the curse is removed.
We have learned that the Holy Spirit is responsible for three marvelous ministries in our lives. First, the ministry of regeneration, He gave us spiritual life. We are born of the Spirit. He gave us life when we were dead. Second, the ministry of sanctification, it is He who increasingly conforms us to the image of Christ. The Spirit changes us increasingly into His image from one level of glory to the next.
And thirdly, the ministry of eternal security, He secures us until that final ministry of glorification when as the Spirit raised Christ from the dead, He will also raise us to be in His very likeness. So let’s focus on verse 26. “In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weakness for we don’t know to pray as we should. But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.”
This text has to be one of the great biblical treasures. It describes the means by which the Holy Spirit supports and secures us in our grace journey to final glory. In the same way that creation groans, waiting for the glorious manifestation of the sons of God, in the same way that we ourselves groan waiting for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our everlasting body, so the Holy Spirit groans.
The Holy Spirit is intimately involved in the reality of the burden and the weight of sin in the lives of those in whom He lives. He unites with our desire to be free from the flesh, our unredeemed humanity and to receive full salvation, full sons of God, full righteous perfection. Our eternal glory is secured then by this groaning intercession of the Holy Spirit.
This is necessary. Verse 26 says that the Spirit helps our weakness. We have already identified our weakness. We groan within ourselves under the weakness of our remaining sin. The whole scope of our sinfulness is a weight to us and it is such an overwhelming burden that we don’t even know how to pray as we should.
If you could lose your salvation, you would. In fact, if I had to do anything to keep it, I couldn’t keep it at all. I don’t have the power. I’m way too weak. I’m not kept by my own power or my own prayers. Yes, watch and pray lest you enter into temptation, but on my own, unaided by the power of God, I will surely fail.
The reason that we are going to make it to glory, the reason that we stay saved, that we are secure is because we have a High Priest in heaven continuing to intercede for us. And you also have a second intercessory priest living in you, namely the Holy Spirit. Just how much power does it take to get a believer from grace to glory?
It involves the continual, unending intercession of the Son and the Spirit. Do you think that you can hang on by yourself? We could never attain to the resurrection of glory by the strength of our own flesh. We could never overcome our own sinfulness. We could never protect ourselves from failure unless we had been given by God a faith that would not fail and it is sustained by Christ and sustained by the Holy Spirit.
In this case, verse 26, how does the Holy Spirit help our weakness in the fact that we don’t know how to defend ourselves even through prayer, even tapping into the divine power? The Spirit Himself intercedes.
We need somebody beyond us and above us with far-greater insight, far-greater power than we have. And it is the Spirit Himself. It’s His work. This is His work. It was He who gave us spiritual life. It is He who conforms us increasingly to the image of Christ. It is He who secures us.
How does He do it? “With groanings too deep for words.” This is not speaking in tongues; this isn’t anybody saying anything that can be heard. This is the Holy Spirit saying things that can’t be heard that are too deep for words. Groanings, not of men, but groanings of the Spirit.
The beauty of this is that the Holy Spirit aches for the glorification of every believer. And that longing for the glorious manifestation of the children of God causes the Holy Spirit to speak silently to the Father in inter-Trinitarian conversation about the well-being of believers.
The Holy Spirit understands our flesh, understands our weakness, understands temptation, and would never, ever lead us into some situation we couldn’t handle, right? 1 Corinthian 10:13, “No temptation is taken you but such is as common to man. God will always make a way of escape.” It is a securing that is a constant work by the intercession of the Son and the Spirit.
These groanings have content and they have purpose. They are individually expressed, inter-Trinitarian, wordless communications that transcend language that secure your place in heaven. And who is the Holy Spirit speaking to? Go back to verse 27, “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is.”
Who is He that searches the hearts? Well 1 Samuel 16:7 says, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” First Kings 8:39 says, “You alone know the hearts of all the sons of men.” Psalm 139, “Lord, You have searched me and known Me. You know when I sit down, You know when I rise up.” So the answer: “I, the Lord search the mind.”
Acts 1:24, “Lord, You know every man’s heart.” There’s no creature, says the writer of Hebrews, hidden from God’s sight. All things are open to Him. So the Holy Spirit is interceding for us in this wordless communication from His own eternal, holy mind to the Father and His mind.
The Father planned it. The Son provided for it. And the Holy Spirit preserves it, protects it. So the Spirit is praying for our glory in consistency with the Father’s will. This is just an astonishing verse.
As you go through your life, you think about a lot of things around you and outside of you. Do you ever think about anything inside of you? Do you ever think about the on- going intercessory work of the Holy Spirit who never sleeps because God never slumbers or sleeps?
And that you even have an advocate against every accusation brought against you, namely Jesus Christ who stands at the Father’s right hand in your defense as the one who paid in full the price for all your sins? That’s why you get to glory. That’s why no one can condemn you.
Now, all of that produces the truth of verse 28. It is because of the Spirit’s intercessory work and because of God’s divine purpose that God Himself in answer to the Spirit’s pleas causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
The good being referred to here is eternal glory, because it is eternal glory that is the goal of everything, as verse 30 indicates, glorified; verse 19, the revealing of the sons of God; verse 21, the glory of the children of God. That’s the theme, verses 24 and 25, our hope. The good being spoken of here is our eternal glory.
The good that dominates this passage is that ultimate, final good that is the glorification of true believers. We are secured to that final good, that which is the best. God causes all things in response to the intercessory work of the Holy Spirit to work together for good. There it is, the extent of security…all things.
What does that mean? Nothing can change the ultimate good. That’s the positive way of saying we’re in a no-condemnation status. All things, whatever the nature, whatever the number, whatever may come in a fallen, corrupt world to people who still have the curse in their humanness, all of it. Everything that comes is woven together by God for our final good.
Works together is from which we get synergy. We could say that’s what God’s providence is. All things are not necessarily good in themselves, all things don’t necessarily combine to produce good in this life. Some of you are living with that. Life is full of illness, loss of jobs, loss of houses in natural disasters, loss of friends, etc.
But in the end, there is the ultimate good, eternal glory that will come to pass. How could we ever lose our salvation if everything that happens to us works together for our eternal good? There’s no other option.
Who are the recipients of this security, this promise? Verse 27 tells us that the Spirit is interceding for the saints who have been covered with the righteousness of Christ and thus before God are holy. But then in verse 28 it further defines them this way, “To those who love God.” They’re the recipients of all this.
Have you ever kind of ask yourself the question, how do you know if somebody is a Christian? Here’s the answer. They love God. That’s an effectual call. That is an absolute call, verse 30, “Whom He called He justified.” This is the call to life from spiritual death. All those who have been called in that way, called into salvation by the power of the Holy Spirit are then described as those who love God.
All through Scripture true believers are described as those who love God. We love not the world, neither the things in that are in the world, if you love the world the love of the Father is not in you. We love God and Jesus Christ.
It is a love that meditates on His majestic glory. It is a love that longs to worship, to sing His praises. It is a love that seeks the fellowship of others who love Him. It is a love that loves those who love Him and are loved by Him. It is a love that seeks communion with God, intimate communion.
It is a love that seeks the knowledge of God in the Word of God, to know Him more. It is a love that is sensitive to God’s honor and God’s dishonor. It is a love that hates what God hates and loves what God loves. It is a love that grieves over sin and rejoices over righteousness. It is a love that longs for the coming of Jesus Christ. But mostly, it is a love that obeys Scripture.
For all who love the Lord, the promise is that the Holy Spirit is interceding in perfect harmony with the will of God so that He is causing everything that happens in the life of those who love Him to come together in the end for their eternal good and eternal glory because that was His purpose from the very beginning.