08/30 – Romans 8:18-27 – The Holy Spirit Our Intercessor (GGS Series)
August 30, 2020
Grace to you, and peace, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
In this series we have been looking at God’s greater story. The greater story of the presence and work of the one true holy Triune God. We have seen Christ our Deliverer, rescuing us from our sin. We have seen God our heavenly Father, claiming us as His children. Today, we see God, the Holy Spirit our Counselor at work in our lives. To see the Holy Spirit, however, requires a special lens.
In Psalm 139 the question is asked, “Where shall I go from your Spirit?” Then he considers the places he might go. If he goes up to the heights of heaven, God’s Spirit is there. If he goes down to the depths of Sheol, God’s Spirit is there. If he goes to the farthest parts of the sea, even there God’s Spirit guides him and holds him fast. The Spirit of God overwhelms the him. He sees the Spirit every place he goes. It is no different for us today.
Look to the heights of heaven and you can see the Holy Spirit. In Genesis, the Spirit of God hovered or brooded over the face of the waters as time begins and creation takes shape. Look to the farthest reaches of the sea and again you can see the Holy Spirit. The disciples gather together for prayer in a house in Jerusalem and suddenly the Spirit does more than hover over the world; He descends into it in a flash of flame and the wildness of wind. He fills mouths with speech and hearts with wonder, clothing God’s people with power from on high and sending them out in a mission to the ends of the world.
As we explore Paul’s letter to the Romans, I’d like to take you to one more place. Not the highest heavens and not the farthest seas. The place I’d like to take you is a hallway in an art gallery in Florence, Italy, the Galleria dell’ Accademia. The hall is called the Hall of Prisoners. Here voices are hushed. There is little to hear in this place, but there is much to see.
As you stand there, you are surrounded by four unfinished pieces of stone carvings. It is as if time stands still. An artist was working but stopped, leaving four pieces of marble incomplete. The edges are rough. The stone is misshapen. Yet, emerging from these blocks of stone are the beginnings of figures. Some have no faces. Others are missing various appendages, and yet you can clearly see the beginning of four figures. They are slaves. They are a work begun by Michelangelo but never finished. His work has been frozen in time.
What they once were, rough blocks of marble, is gone. What they will be, beautiful sculptures, is not yet there. We stand here in the hallway in the midst of an awkward moment where the past is not fully past and the future has not yet come. We can see the future slowly taking shape, and yet the past is painfully apparent, as figures appear before us trapped in the stone.
Paul’s words in Romans 8 invites us into a similar hallway. He asks us to see how we are caught right now in the middle of God’s greater vision and work. Paul begins by saying,
The sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.1
Suffering and glory held together in the moment. God had originally formed a beautiful creation, which has become a world is filled with suffering. Wherever one looks, one can see God’s fingerprint and was very good. Adam and Eve however, brought suffering into God’s creation. The beauty of creation was subjected to the bondage of decay.
Such punishment was set in stone and only God could free His people. This is the glory that Paul shows us in Jesus Christ. The beginning, just the beginning, of eternal life. Jesus Christ is the promise of a new and never-ending life. God has begun His work. His work will not end, and like this glimpse of figures in stone we are not yet done, but it is only a matter of time before the full glory of God is revealed.
So Paul writes to the Romans to help them stand in that painful moment. His words come to us to help us here today. In Jesus we have been made children of God. This is sure and certain. His death has destroyed the power of sin for you and His resurrection has brought you the promise of a new creation.
Yet what we are is not fully seen2 and experienced in this world. Take a deep close look at God’s people, Paul says, and you will see a people, imprisoned, suffering and groaning.3 We want to be free. So we stand between the sufferings of this present world and the glory yet to come. In this place, the apostle Paul asks us to consider our situation and to trust in the work of the Holy Spirit.
To meditate on our situation is like taking a good close look at these figures of stone. If you look closely you will see that each of the figures Michelangelo carved is different. One is young. Another is older and bearded. One slowly awakens and another is busy working, bearing his burden in the heat of the day. While each of them is different, one thing remains the same. All of them are slaves. Young or old, working or sleeping, all are slaves.
So it is for God’s people too. If we think about our situation, we can see deep suffering among God’s people. In America, Christianity used to be a strong cultural force. Prayer was said in public schools. At graduation, high schools would hold baccalaureate services led by pastors. In December, one could find a nativity prominently displayed in the public square. That connection between Christianity and American culture is dying fast. We find ourselves being push aside. Pushed further and further away, written into a smaller and smaller corner of the public square.
It looks like we are losing, like we won’t survive. Some might even wonder if God has abandoned us. Unfortunately some American Christians have confused the power of God with the powers of this world. To them the strength of God and His Church are directly related to the strength of America as a Christian nation.
As American culture turns against Christianity, Christians can begin to wonder about the love and blessing of God. How can we be God’s people, the Church, in a non-Christian nation? To such a situation, Paul’s words offer hope. Listen to the apostle Paul.
Paul knew the suffering status of Christians in Rome. Christianity was not a legal religion. They were confronted with many barriers against expression of faith. Christians desired to worship one God in a city that had many gods. Christians confessed “Jesus is Lord” in a city that confessed “Caesar is lord.” Christians worshiped a person who had been associated with insurrection, was publicly tried, condemned and crucified. Christians were pushed off to the side, and often executed.
They were meeting in small homes rather than large beautiful churches. The Church was populated by slaves, societies rejects and refuse. They would carry their dead into caves and tunnels carved under ground, and hold worship services there in the dark, in the place of the dead.
“If I make my bed in Sheol,You are there.4” we heard in the Psalm. When life shoves you into the darkness of death, into that place where you open your eyes and cannot see God, know that God is there. That is Paul’s message. The Spirit of God is there, even in the darkest places of death. Open your ears and you will hear Him. You will hear the Spirit of God crying out in that place with you. Crying out for you.
This is what Paul is revealing to the Church in this letter. The Spirit of God cries out for God’s people. The world is groaning.5 God’s people are groaning as they are locked in a place of slavery and rejection by this world. Yet Paul reveals one more thing. He opens our ears so we hear one more groan. The groaning of the Holy Spirit, who is interceding for you.
Paul writes:
The Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. He who searches hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.6
In these words Paul joins groans with glory. The Spirit intercedes for us with groans too deep for words. There are times when no words smithed by man can convey your hearts pain. At moments like this Paul asks us to listen. To hear the groaning. The Spirit takes our suffering and puts it into prayer. The groans of the Spirit, however, are joined to glory. The glorious desires of God for His people.
You know, one of the interesting things about Michelangelo’s unfinished sculptures is how he approached carving figures into stone. Michelangelo believed that his work as an artist was to liberate figures from the stone. Rather than carving figures into stone, he saw himself as freeing these figures from the marble. Though his work is unfinished, we can catch glimpses of his larger vision, his master plan. The larger glorious vision of these figures was there in the mind of the artist and, only through time and effort and the removal of stone, piece by piece, did that vision slowly come into being.
In a similar way, Paul talks about the glorious vision of God seen by the Holy Spirit. Paul says that “the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.7” The Spirit knows not only the deep mysteries of our suffering. The Spirit also knows the deep mysteries of God. You have been joined through Holy Baptism to God’s new creation. God is at work in you.
He is shaping your life, forming your faith, working in small and sometimes painful ways as He continues His promise to make His Kingdom come. We cannot see the full plan of God. We cannot see His full design. Sometimes, we can’t even see the smallest carvings, as He leads this world toward His plan, but the Holy Spirit through it all is our Comforter and Counselor.
The Spirit knows the mind of God and the Spirit knows the suffering of God’s people. The Spirit joins these two together in prayer. Groans and glory are brought together by the Spirit for us in prayer. When we stand before God, living in this world and yet sure of another; when we experience suffering and find ourselves not sure how to put all of this into words, the Spirit Himself speaks for us. He brings our petitions to the throne of the Father. Our suffering touches God’s glory in the words of the Spirit, and we trust His work because of God’s love, made certain for us in the death and resurrection of His Son.
Look one more time into the hallway of the Galleria dell’ Accademia. Note that these sculptures are displayed in a hallway, not a closed room. This space is a corridor where people pass from one place to another and, at the end of the hallway, stands a work of remarkable beauty, Michelangelo’s ‘David.’ This figure is no longer a slave encased in stone. He stands in glorious freedom. The freedom of a man of God.
How much greater is that glory of David’s Son and David’s Lord. Our Lord, Jesus Christ, the Ruler of a new creation. In Him God the Father will bring all things to completion. He is the one who stands there, ruling over all at the end of this world and the beginning of the new creation. Paul can barely see it, but he knows it is there and so he offers hope. Hope that lives and breathes through the prayers of the Spirit.
We may suffer in this world, but we live in the confidence that we are heirs of the next. Christianity may be losing cultural status in America, but it is not losing spiritual strength. God rules over all creation. He sees your life, He knows your suffering, and He has sent His Spirit to be here for you. He listens to your groans, He sees God’s greater story, and He puts your life into prayer, according to God’s will.
So, wherever you go in this world, know you are never far from the Spirit. At home, at work, sleeping or rising, the Spirit sees and intercedes for you according to the will of God.
Praise be to God, in Jesus’ name.
Amen.
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