Help in Our Weakness

• The following message by Aleister Beg is made available by Truth for Life. For more information, visit us online at truthforlife.org. I invite you to turn with me to the book of Romans and to chapter 8 and to verse 26. You’ll find this reading on page 800 of the on the in the church Bibles. And I commend to you the exercise of taking one and turning to it if you didn’t bring a Bible of your own and trying to follow along as best as you can. We pick up Paul’s argument.
• He’s told us that the creation is groaning. He tells us that the church is groaning. And now quite remarkably, he tells us that God himself is groaning. In the same way, the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for or alternatively how we ought to pray. But the spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
• And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the spirit because the spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. Amen. Gracious God, we pray now for your help that the Bible might be alive to us that you will conduct that divine dialogue with our spirits by the Holy Spirit so that beyond the voice of a mere and an ordinary man, we might hear from you, the living God. And this is our earnest hope and expectation, our humble cry.
• Here our prayer for Jesus’ sake. Amen. Uh during this past week, I enjoyed the privilege along with a friend of listening as a young man whom I’d never met before told us how it was that he came to believe in Jesus. Told us how it was that he became a Christian. I don’t have time to give you all the details.
• Perhaps one day he’ll be able to do it for himself. But the striking thing that he said was that the Holy Spirit essentially took over his life. He didn’t use the exact phrase, but that was generally the area in which he spoke. I found that very interesting, and I made note of it because it struck me as being in the same category as the response of a young Asian girl when I asked her in Harvard Square how it was that she’d become a Christian.
• And on that occasion she said to me,”I entered through the narrow gate.” And I always remember that because it was such a striking response. And when I asked this young man, “And how did you become a Christian?” He said, “Well, the Holy Spirit invaded my life.” And actually, it was very helpful for him to do so.
• Because although the details of how he arrived at that position were his own, the reality about which he spoke is a reality which he shares with every other true believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. And I want to take just a moment this morning to stand back from verses 26 and 27 uh because it is a month or so since we’ve been in chapter 8.
• and also because there will be some here this morning who have no prior knowledge of chapter 8 or even perhaps a prior knowledge of the Bible at all. So I want you to notice that in verse 9 of chapter 8 the distinguishing mark or one of the distinguishing marks of a Christian is that the spirit of God lives in them. You however he says are not controlled by the sinful nature which is the state of being unconverted which is the normal condition of everyday life.
• Now we may not like the sound of that but what the Bible says is we’re either controlled by the sinful nature or else we’re controlled by the spirit of God. By nature the former is true by grace uh the latter becomes a reality. He says in verse 15 that we’ve been adopted into God’s family. We’re no longer aliens and strays.
• And in verse 16, he says, “The spirit of God within us actually testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.” So this is something very different from an individual who says I have an interest in theology or I like to read about spiritual things or I am an attender at a local congregation. All of which is a matter of interest and maybe some help. But this is something very very different from all of that.