Tony Evans - The Intercessor
I want to challenge you to ask a question, to make a request: «Lord, whatever you do, make me more like Jesus». So God allows circumstances external to conform us in order that he might transform us internally. So if he’s pressing you, stretching you, it’s because he wants to now change something or develop something in you.
In Romans chapter 8, we discover another ministry of the Holy Spirit, and this is the ministry of intercession. He is by name an intercessor. An intercessor is someone who appeals to someone else on behalf of a situation or another person. They are a go-between. They’re like a lawyer who represents a client as he pleads their case before a judge or a jury. They are interceding in a situation because there’s trouble, there’s difficulty. Romans chapter 8 says that we have an intercessor when life causes us to grow. He speaks, beginning in verse 18, about suffering.
Suffering is the pain of negative circumstances hitting you and overwhelming you, the trials of life that are oppressing you and causing you to be afflicted and inflicted with negative realities and circumstances. He says, «I consider that the suffering of this present time,» the things that we go through in this life and in this world. He starts off by telling us that suffering, pain, in fact, groaning, is part of the created order. Look at verse 22: «For we know the whole creation groans and suffers the pain of childbirth together until now».
So you see he relates the groaning of childbirth to the groaning of creation. We’ve all seen creation groan. This is a theological way and a spiritual way to understand earthquakes and tsunamis and hurricanes and medical pandemics and viruses that seem to come out of nowhere, wreaking havoc in our lives and in the natural world order. He says those are not merely just events; that’s the groaning of creation. Creation is in pain. So we are part of something much bigger. He’s going to talk to you and me personally, but he wants you to know that to live in this world is to live in a world that groans. But he says the groaning that you see in creation is like a woman groaning in childbirth. And a woman only groans in childbirth because something is coming down the pike, something is being birthed.
If you only see the suffering and you miss spiritually and theologically looking at the birth, then you will only see the pain and you may miss the purpose. He says creation is in an upheaval and this leads him to verse 23: «And not only this, but also we ourselves having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body,» okay? You see the word «groan»? He goes from creation groan to personal groan. We know what it is to groan at financial calamity, to groan at our own sickness or personal losses, to groan at disappointments with people or with ourselves, with our careers, with dreams that are dashed and they cause us to ache within ourselves.
You might call this a soul ache, because when you ache within yourself that means it’s getting down to your bosom or, as I like to say, it’s getting down to your gizzard. It’s collapsing your inside and you are groaning. In the midst of this groaning, he says there is the Holy Spirit, the third member of the Trinity, who has a responsibility when you are collapsing in your soul. So if you are collapsing at the circumstances that you’ve seen all around us or the situations you are feeling right now, Romans 8 is for you. Because if you are a believer, you have somebody who loves you enough and cares enough about you to intervene on your behalf with your soul ache.
It may have been external circumstances causing it but it’s ripping at the very fiber of your being and you’re having an internal hurricane, an internal pandemic, an internal tsunami, because it’s ripping at the core of your being. He says in the midst of this, in the midst of your groaning, «We are waiting eagerly,» verse 23 says, «for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies». He says, «Creation groans like a woman giving birth. We groan for the redemption of our bodies». In other words, groaning caused by the pains of life that produce the soul aches within us is designed to prompt us and promote us and refocus us to an eternal spiritual perspective.
Let me say that again. When you are groaning within the depths of your soul, like a woman who is groaning because it’s time for deliverance, it is to shift your focus. Groans are designed to produce a spiritual shift. If you don’t make that shift, you don’t ignore the groaning because it hurts. A woman in childbirth doesn’t ignore the pain because it hurts, but she is able to deal with it, handle it, and work with it because she knows it’s groaning for a reason. It’s purposeful groaning, not purposeless groaning. He says, «For the redemption of your body». In other words, he wants you to understand that this life is not all that there is. If you fail, if I fail, if we fail, to allow the groanings to recalibrate our perspective, then we will not experience the benefit of the intercessor, we’ll talk about that in a moment, the work of the Holy Spirit, joining us in our pain, in our problem, and in our groans.
For example, in Romans 8, verse 6: «For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace». God will allow groaning to force us to look at things at another level, from a different perspective. He says, «But the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace». Your mindset is of the Spirit. That is, you are looking at things spiritually. You now have divine help as you work yourself through the groan, like the mother working herself through the pushing of labor to get the baby out. And so he goes on, and he goes on in verse 26: «In the same way, the Spirit also helps our weaknesses, for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes».
Here is the intercessor. «He intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words». Ah! You know when you’re hurting and you’re really hurting because you can’t even get it out. You’re making sounds. Maybe you’re just going, «Mm, mmm, mm,» and you are groaning and it is so deep, you have become weak. He says, «The Holy Spirit helps us in our weaknesses». How deep is the weakness? You don’t even know how to pray. Have you ever been that bad off, where you didn’t know what to say to God, how to say it? When life crashes in and you are repressed from every side, you want to quit, you want to throw in the towel, you want to run away. Well, the apostle Paul knew what that was like because the most spiritual person in the New Testament went through this. He despaired of life, but it forced him to a spiritual perspective.
I wish I could tell you life won’t collapse. I can tell you personally, as you can tell me personally, life does collapse. And that must cause you, me and us, because God is allowing it, to force us to engage with our intercessor, the Holy Spirit. And you know it’s time for engaging at that level because you’re groaning. Inarticulate expressions of anguish. That’s what we mean by groaning. Inarticulate expressions of anguish. You can’t even get the words together to express the depth of the pain that you feel. And so he says in Romans chapter 8: «The groanings that are too deep for words,» verse 26, and then verse 27: «And he who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is because he intercedes,» the intercessor intercedes, «for the saints according to the will of God».
Oh, this is rich theology that’s practical. When you are hurting, because it’s practical when you’re in pain, but you don’t know how to pray. It’s not that you don’t want to pray. It’s not that you’re not trying to pray. You just don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to say it. You can’t put the words together. God seems too far away for even for you to make contact. I’ve got good news. You have somebody praying with you and for you when you can’t even pray for yourself. Isn’t that good news? That the Holy Spirit groans with your groaning. When you go, «Uh, uh, uh,» he puts heavenly communication to it in order to deliver it to the Father. Notice what he says: «He,» God, verse 27, «who searches the hearts knows the mind of what the Spirit is».
So, wait a minute. The Spirit is listening to your groan and God is listening to the Spirit communicating with him about your groan. I don’t know if you caught that. All you can say is, «Mm, mmm, mm». All you can do is hurt. You want to make contact with God. It’s not that you’re not praying at all. It’s that you don’t know how to pray. You don’t know, all you can say is «Help,» because you don’t even know how to put together your feelings. He says you have an intercessor. Now this is interesting because Hebrews 7:25 says Jesus lives to make intercession for us. Oh, we got the whole Trinity up in here. The Father is searching the Spirit, the Spirit intercedes, but Jesus is the intercessor.
Let me put it this way. When you are groaning because life hurts and creation has caught up with you, what this Holy Spirit does is he creates a vocabulary that fits the environment that needs to hear it that you can’t articulate. You have somebody who understands you but also understands heaven. And when you are groaning, he puts it in heavenly language. Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us, Hebrews 7:25, then can take it and deliver it to the Father who searches the mind of the Spirit. I want you to read in detail. We don’t have time to go over it now, but 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 10 to 16. It talks about how the Spirit and God know each other so well because the Holy Spirit takes the heart and creates a heavenly vocabulary to deliver it to a foreign country, heavenly places, the spiritual realm. So God has clear understanding of what you meant by, «Mm, mmm, mm». Lord, have mercy.
Now why must the Spirit be engaged in your groaning? Because you’re trying to reach God. In other words, you’re trying to connect with the spiritual because the groaning has forced you. See, when things get bad enough, you pray like you don’t normally pray. You see God like you don’t normally see God. You talk about heaven like that’s why when people are transitioning from earth to heaven in death, God will make their bodies not function properly or hurt worse so that they long for heaven more. Because that’s the final focus he wants them to have. We have interim focuses on our way there where God wants to drive us to a new spiritual orientation through the work or the intercession of the intercessor, the Holy Spirit. But he says he does this according to the will of God.
Why must he do it according to the will of God? Because when you’re groaning, you might be asking for the wrong thing. You may be putting in a wrong request because you’re in pain and all you want is get rid of it. Paul says when he put us through pain, God wanted me to learn to trust him at another level. So you may miss that altogether because you want to get rid of the pain. So the Holy Spirit takes the groaning and he surrounds it with the right request. 1 John 5:14 says that «God always answers prayer according to his will». In other words, in a prayer is in the will of God, you’re gonna get an answer. It’s gonna be answered. Now we pray for what we want, but God guarantees what he wills.
So the idea is to make sure what you want is what he wills so he’ll answer your prayer. But you and I don’t always know what his will is, outside of his Word. That is the application of his Word in a specific situation. And even if we know his will, we may not know his timing. So we need somebody else who can get a little bit more into what God is thinking than we may be aware of, living in the physical realm. He says, «You have the Holy Spirit,» and he is going to clarify the request so that the request is manipulated, so to speak, into the will of God so that you wind up even in the groan experiencing God’s will in your life.
Now you’re gonna learn a great truth here in a minute that’s gonna blow your mind. When you are hurting, you know we have with all this computer stuff and everything, a help desk. Guess what it is? It’s designed to help. It’s designed to guide you in the right way, direct you in the right place. He says you and I have a help desk, verse 26, «the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness». So you’re weak. You want to quit. You want to give up because this is labor pain we’re talking about. The Spirit of God joins you in the weakness, leading you to God’s will. You see, when we pray, we want to put in an Amazon order. You know, we want Amazon to deliver this thing and I want it here quick. We want Amazon Express, okay? What God wants is his will.
Now, how in my weakness, which you’re gonna have if you live long enough, you don’t even have to live that long to be a groaner. When this happens and you are struggling so deeply you can’t even articulate it, but your heart is Godward. «And», here it is, here it is, the verse we love. We love verse 28, but we don’t always connect it with 26 and 27. «And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose». He says that the Spirit is helping to conform you to the will of God. He shows you now how that happens. It happens because God, watch this now, providentially arranges things.
This is the doctrine of providence, but a miracle is when God trumps his own laws. Providence is when he works within his laws to stitch things together to accomplish his sovereign goal. Sovereignty is his goal. Providence is the way he connects things in order to reach that goal. Now, in order for you to see his providential work in your life and my life, particularly during a time, because he says «and,» he’s connecting, verse 28, in order to see this working out, he says, «To those who love God and are called according to his purpose». So he says there must be heart affection for God. What does it mean to love God? To love God means to passionately pursue his glory.
Now, he says what the Holy Spirit does is he takes your groans, puts them together in heavenly language for the purpose of God’s providential work when you say, «God Almighty, my groans are coming up to you. I am running to you. Though you slay me, yet will I trust you». Oh, I love this. Not, «And we guess». Not, «And we think». No, «And we know». Confidence. You can be confident of this promise of God that if you are Godward because you want him to be glorified even with the groan, you’re Godward, that he is stitching things together that don’t look like much now. But when he finishes cooking, or as Job says in Job 23, «I looked for God but I couldn’t find him. But when I come forth I’ll be pure as gold».
When he finishes baking me in the oven of my affliction, I’m gonna come forth, mmm, mmm good. At the end of life as a believer, you’re gonna come forth, mmm, mmm heaven. That’s good. In life as a believer, as he takes you through the groanings of life, you’re gonna come through, mmm, mmm good because you’re called according to his purpose. You know what God wants to happen when he finishes cooking? When you come out of the oven? Conformity to his Son. You know one of the big purposes of groans? Is to make you more like Jesus. And when you see God providentially, that’s what you want to look for in your life every day, but especially during groans, you want to look for how the intercessor is making his case.
You know, a lawyer is an intercessor in the courtroom and what does the lawyer do? He makes his case because he’s trying to sway a situation. When you see the intercessor, and that’s why you should be thanking God for the Holy Spirit. Thank you, Holy Spirit, that you are gonna plead my case along with Jesus Christ before the Father so that all things are gonna be stitched together. I can’t see it now. I don’t understand it now, I don’t know how all this is gonna work out, but you said, therefore I know, «All things are gonna work together for good,» and I will come out of this thing.
Now, you know what this means? Providence means there’s no such thing as luck, chance, happenstance, or fate. So you can leave those words out of your vocabulary. They don’t even, I know sometimes we just say it to say it, but you never use those words and mean it. There’s no such thing as luck. There’s providence. God’s stitching things together. It looks like luck. It feels like luck. I happened to be here at the right time when this person showed up, or I happened to go there, or I happened to take this road.
See, all that is God stitching things together when you love him. If you don’t love him, then you’re not experiencing, and he’ll even use your bad to accomplish his purpose, but you’ll have to pay consequences. But if you love him, if you’re pursuing him, especially during the groans. So I want you now by faith to thank God. To thank God not for the pain of the groan, but for the purpose of the groan. God, I trust you. You’ve got it all in your hands. You’ve got it all worked out. I don’t understand it. I got bumps and bruises. I don’t even like it, but I trust you in it.
And I thank you that the Holy Spirit is gonna make sense of this. I don’t even know what to say but in my confusion, Holy Spirit, explain this to God because I can’t and tell him I love him, I need him, I trust him, I want him. And all things with confidence are being stirred up so that he is glorified, so that I’m gonna be better off, work together for good. And then I’m gonna be more like Jesus in my attitudes and actions, in my character, and in my conduct. Because God wants to make us like Jesus, whatever it costs. Whatever inconvenience he has to give us to make us like Jesus, he’s gonna do that, because Jesus is the firstborn of many brethren. God wants Jesus to have lookalikes, you and me. Jesus was born of a virgin, lived a perfect life, died a substitutionary death on the cross, rose from the dead on the third day, and offers salvation free of charge for all who come to him alone for it. Will you come to him now?