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Romans 8:18–28 (ESV)
“How are you doing spiritually?”
“How is your walk with the Lord?”
“Is it well with your soul? Tell me more.”
These are questions that I hope you ask one another occasionally. One of the benefits of living out our spiritual life within the local church is that we benefit from others being invested in our spiritual development and the state of our souls. This is why one of our core values at Cornerstone is “intentional relationships.”
Perhaps you would benefit from being asked questions like this more often, or maybe you don’t quite know how to answer them. Maybe you have a more effective question that you ask when you’re attempting to encourage others in their faith in Christ.
If you haven’t been asked a question like this in a long time, consider inviting a friend or spouse or home group leader to check in regarding your spiritual life more frequently.
If you haven’t asked someone else a question like this in a long time (or ever), I would encourage you to risk it. You might end up asking it at a time when the other person doesn’t really have the time or ability to answer it fully, but you might end up having a helpful, significant, love-one-another moment where you deeply connect with another believer.
One way that I answer this question goes directly to spiritual disciplines, particularly Bible-reading and prayer. I end up really answering the invitation to, “Describe your current devotional life.”
Our spiritual condition goes much deeper and broader than these two spiritual disciplines, but we often default to these as a summary of how we think we’re doing spiritually. Our true spiritual condition is impacted by many more dimensions than these two spiritual disciplines, especially since they highlight what we might consider our own spiritual performance.
When I’m grading myself on my own spiritual performance, I usually give my self an okay grade on my Bible-reading, and a less-good grade on my personal prayer-life. Do any of you resonate with that?
I was surprised in my study of this passage at the encouragement it has given me in my prayer-life. I want you to receive this same encouragement.
My goal for this sermon is that we would all go home this afternoon with a greater confidence in prayer—not because of a new level of discipline or because we learned a new strategy—but, because the Holy Spirit helps us.
This passage does not give us instruction about how to pray. It does not admonish us to pray more or chastise us for praying too little. Actually, it assumes that we pray.
Let’s look together to learn what we can from Paul about:
Many of us can identify with some of the difficulties of praying. First, there are the basic realities of our everyday lives: busyness, distraction, short attention spans, lack of silence and solitude. Then, there are the spiritual realities: pride, intellectualism, materialism, secularism, and the American Spirit (pick yourself up by your own bootstraps).
We tend to try to solve these challenges with tools and routines. Prayer lists, prayer journals, prayer apps, books on prayer, conferences about prayer. These things are not bad of themselves, but they may not address our fundamental problems.
We do see Jesus’ own disciples take an interest in prayer strategies. In Luke 11:1, one of Jesus’ disciples says, “Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.” Jesus answered with an example prayer, which was profound, but quite simple. It was profound in that Jesus taught them to address God as their Father in heaven.
In our own day, there are many good resources to help believers learn to pray more and pray better. If I had to pick my favorite, it might be A Praying Life by Paul Miller. I think I liked his book in particular because I didn’t feel like the goal was to make me feel like a worse Christian after reading it—it was helpful and faith-building. I also love Donald Whitney’s, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life.
These books will help you find the time, place, strategy, and discipline to pray more effectively. They teach us that prayer expresses faith and humility before God, that we are dependent creatures before him, and that he loves when his children bring their petitions before him.
Having said all of that, is this the weakness that Paul identifies in our passage? Is our great need to have more commitment, strategies, or discipline in our prayer lives? Let’s look back at the beginning of verse 26.
Romans 8:26 (ESV)
I appreciate that Paul acknowledges that we have a weakness regarding prayer. He includes himself in this, writing “our weakness.” This idea of weakness can carry the idea of a lack of capacity to do something, though here points more to a “lack of confidence” or “feeling of inadequacy” (BDAG).
Though at times we do feel this weakness, I don’t think the verse lets us conceive of this first as a feeling of weakness. Though we may have the experience of weakness or groaning in times of suffering, Paul is saying more than that here. He is simply stating a fact. We innately possess this weakness as creatures.
We should pay attention to the context of where Paul is writing this in chapter 8. He is in the middle of a discussion about suffering and the tension in our already-but-not-yet world.
In verse 18, Paul begins writing about how “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” The whole creation is groaning. We are groaning. We are waiting eagerly for our full adoption as sons.
This is the moment Paul encourages his readers that the Spirit helps in our weakness. Though we feel this weakness in prayer more keenly in the midst of suffering, we actually live in this weakness all the time. Look at what the verse says again.
Romans 8:26 (ESV)
Our weakness is not primarily emotional, it is that we do not know what to pray for as we ought. This is not a statement of our lack of knowledge about how to pray, but specifically that we do not know what to pray for.
Of course we know some things that we should pray for. We have Jesus’ prayer as an example.
We have Paul’s prayers as examples. We have the Psalms as examples. I was reading in 2 Chronicles 5-7 this week in my Bible reading plan. Solomon knelt on his knees in the presence of the entire assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven and prayed at the dedication of the temple.
2 Chronicles 7:1–3 (ESV) — As soon as Solomon finished his prayer, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the LORD filled the temple. And the priests could not enter the house of the LORD, because the glory of the LORD filled the LORD’s house. When all the people of Israel saw the fire come down and the glory of the LORD on the temple, they bowed down with their faces to the ground on the pavement and worshiped and gave thanks to the LORD, saying, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
Wow, what a prayer!
There are many things that we know we should pray for through the instruction and example of scripture.
Why, then, does Paul tell us that our weakness is that we don’t know what to pray for as we ought?
There are many things revealed by God that we should pray for. However, when it comes to God’s Providence and his will, we do not always know what to pray for.
In the specific circumstances of our lives we do not always know what God wants or plans to happen. If we were omniscient, we would always know what to ask for in prayer. However, we are limited. We don’t see the whole picture. We see through a mirror dimly.
We know that sometimes God ordains for his beloved children to suffer for his mysterious purposes. Should we pray for the suffering to end or to continue? Practically, how to we pray within specific situations for “your kingdom come, your will be done?”
James gives us an example…
James 4:14–15 (ESV) — yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
Proverbs gives us a clue as well.
Proverbs 19:21 (ESV) — Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.
We even know in Paul’s own life that he prayed for relief from suffering, but the Lord had other plans. This is a very helpful example for us to consider.
2 Corinthians 12:7–9 (ESV) — So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
We don’t know exactly what Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” was. We know he desired deliverance from it, but God’s answer was, “no.” But this was a “no” with a God-glorifying purpose. One of the purposes was to keep Paul from becoming conceited—it was for his own personal spiritual good. The other purpose was that the power of Christ would rest on him.
Paul was not wrong to pray for relief, yet that was not the Lord’s will in that particular case.
We need help in prayer because we are limited. We do not know what to pray for as we ought.
Do you have circumstances in your own life in which God’s answers to your prayers seem to be “no” or “wait?”
We must remember that we are praying from a position of weakness. We don’t know what to pray for as we ought. This would be a very discouraging reality if it were not for the rest of our passage. Now let’s turn to point 2, “Our Help in Prayer.”
Romans 8:26–27 (ESV)
This is good news! The Holy Spirit helps us. This is a fulfillment of the promise of Jesus to his disciples.
John 14:16 (ESV) — And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
The solution to our weakness is not more knowledge, greater wisdom, or consistent discipline. It is that we have a helper, the Holy Spirit, who prays to the Father for us.
Paul connects this paragraph to what came before it with “likewise” or “in the same way.” He could be pointing back to the verse right before this. In the same way that hope helps us wait patiently in suffering, now the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. But, Paul might be connecting this blessing of the Holy Spirit to the entire series of blessings he has been expounding upon.
If we back up a little more in Chapter 8, we see more of the breadth of the riches of the Spirit’s work in believers’ lives.
In the same way that the Spirit helps us in all these ways, the Spirit now helps us in our weakness by interceding for us.
Paul also connects this ministry of the Holy Spirit to what he said earlier with one more literary reference. And, it is stunning.
The ongoing effects of the Fall are all around us—sin, death, suffering, toil, sickness, pain. We have no difficulties imagining how we groan in the midst of these things. It stretches our imagination to realize that creation itself is groaning alongside us, awaiting the restoration of all things. Even more stunning, perhaps, is the truth in our passage that even the Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, groans with us in prayer.
I titled this sermon, “Do you have the right prayer partner?” It is an acknowledgement that we benefit from praying with others. Some of you meet together regularly with another believer to pray together and for one another. I meet two mornings per month with other pastors in the area to share burdens together and pray for one another. Our elders meet twice per month and one of the things we do together is to pray for all of us at Cornerstone. We also pray for one another.
Intercessory prayer is the activity of praying to God on behalf of others. Paul asks the churches to pray for him, that he would have doors of opportunity for the Word, and that he would open his mouth boldly as he ought to. James encourages the church to call for the elders to pray for the sick that they might be healed. Even Jesus invited his disciples to pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane.
When we experientially feel the need for prayer, we often look for someone to pray for us that we really think God will listen to. We think, “maybe God isn’t really hearing me, but I bet he will listen to so-and-so.” This is where the Roman Catholic church can really get off the tracks, thinking that what we really need are dead saints, or even Mary, the mother of Jesus to pray for us. Maybe if they prayed for our needs, if they interceded for us, then God would really hear. Since they lived a life of faithfulness; since they are closer to God now, perhaps God will hear them.
God gives us something so much better. The Spirit himself intercedes for us. The same Spirit that dwells in us, that leads us, that bears witness with us that we are children of God, that has eternally existed as the third person of the Trinity—this Holy Spirit intercedes on our behalf to the Father.
Have you ever desired prayer for something that no one else knows about? Have you ever wanted prayer but couldn’t even articulate in words exactly what you needed? The Holy Spirit who dwells in you knows, and takes your need to God the Father.
This is a good reminder that the Holy Spirit is a person. The Bible does not present the Spirit merely as a force, but as a person. Look at the language in our verses again.
Romans 8:26–27 (ESV)
Though not part of our sermon text this morning, we could also explore that Jesus himself intercedes for us as well.
Remember my goal for the sermon this morning: that we would have a greater confidence in prayer—not because of a new level of discipline or because we learned a new strategy—but, because the Holy Spirit helps us.
I want us to see three reasons why the Holy Spirit is an ideal prayer partner for us.
Romans 8:26 (ESV)
We already said that the Spirit himself groans. The ESV describes them as “too deep for words.” The NKJV translates this as “groanings which cannot be uttered.” The Christian Standard Bible, “inexpressible groanings.” The basic meaning of the Greek word is that these groans are unexpressed or wordless.
It is preferable to understand these “groans” as the Spirit’s own “language of prayer,” a ministry of intercession that takes place in our hearts (v. 27) in a manner imperceptible to us.
- Douglas J. Moo, NICNT, 547.
If these groanings are not expressed, how then are they understood? Verse 27 gives us a clue.
Romans 8:27 (ESV)
We understand the concept of the one who searches hearts. This is familiar territory.
Psalm 139:1 (ESV) — O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
Hebrews 4:13 (ESV) — And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
These are sobering truths. God looks in our innermost being. Nothing is hidden from him. He does not merely look on our outward appearance, but looks at the heart.
But, for the believer, what does he find in our innermost being? Yes, he finds our own innermost thoughts, mixed with various amounts of faith, but he also finds the Holy Spirit interceding for us! What an amazing reality!
And, he knows the mind of the Spirit, even when the intercessions are through unspoken groans.
Reason number one why the Holy Spirit is a great prayer partner: God the Father knows and understands the mind of the Spirit.
We know that we should pray according to God’s will. “Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
1 John 5:14 (ESV) — And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.
Though John is writing this to encourage believers, it comes with a certain amount of pressure. If you ask according to God’s will, he hears you. What if you don’t know what to pray for? Does he hear you then?
This is where verse 27 in our text is so helpful.
Romans 8:27 (ESV)
Not only does the Father know the mind of the Spirit, but the Holy Spirit also perfectly knows the will of God.
1 Corinthians 2:10–11 (ESV) — … For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
We don’t always know God’s will for ourselves, or how to pray with confidence. But, the Spirit knows, and the Spirit intercedes for us according to God’s will. This is the second reason that the Holy Spirit is such a great prayer partner.
We just looked at 1 John 5:14 … “if we ask anything according to his will he hears us.” And, we see that “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” The combination of these two truths is astounding. The result of this is that the Father always hears the groans and intercessions of the Spirit of God. (We should be amazed at the interplay of the persons of the Trinity! It is beyond our comprehension.)
The encouragement in 1 John goes further, though.
1 John 5:15 (ESV) — And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
Whoah! Not only does God hear us when we pray according to his will, John says we “have the requests we have asked of him.” These prayers are answered in the affirmative.
To declare our third reason more clearly, God the Father always answers the prayers of the Holy Spirit with a “Yes!”
Are you beginning to grasp why we should rejoice that the Holy Spirit dwells in us and intercedes for us?
These three reasons should strengthen our faith and give us confidence that God will do what is right!
There is so much more I want to know and explore about how this ministry of the Holy Spirit works—mainly, how do we experience this ministry of the Holy Spirit?
The main passage regarding praying in tonuges:
1 Corinthians 14:14–15 (ESV) — For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.
Gruden does not think these are directly connected:
Paul does not mention speaking in tongues explicitly here, and the statement is a general one concerning the life of all Christians, so it does not seem correct to say that Paul here is referring to speaking in tongues. He is referring to a more general experience that occurs in the prayer life of every Christian.
- Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology. (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Academic, 2020), 1331.
My goal for this sermon is that we would all go home this afternoon with a greater confidence in prayer—not because of a new level of discipline or because we learned a new strategy—but, because the Holy Spirit helps us.
I want us to be able to put Ephesians 6:18 into practice.
Ephesians 6:18 (ESV) — praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,
This is a special invitation to pray with one another or with the prayer team this morning.
What do I mean by greater confidence?
Finally…
I hope that this meditation on verses 26-27 prepares us for next Sunday when Brad Hodges will be preaching to us from verse 28. You know the verse well:
Romans 8:28 (ESV) — And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
I hope that you see the connections.
I hope that you now have some new material to answer the questions we began with today.
“How are you doing spiritually?”
“How is your walk with the Lord?”
“Is it well with your soul? Tell me more.”
Here are some other recent messages.
We are a church built on the Bible, guided and empowered by the Spirit, striving to make disciples, and pursuing holiness in the context of robust biblical relationships.
© 2026 Cornerstone Fellowship Church of Apex
