Where do we need help? Romans
8:26-39 (Psalm 121)
Intro—Help. Anybody here ever need help?
We all need it. Maybe we need help with our computers. Maybe we need help with
security. Maybe we need help getting up (I’ve fallen . . . ). Maybe we just
need help getting something off of a tall shelf, or getting groceries to the
care, or taking care of the yard, or with our homework, or with a project.
Songs about “help” are everywhere. The Beatles had two: “Help!” and “With a
little help from my friends”. The Beach Boys wanted help from Rhonda. The Four
Tops couldn’t help themselves. Elvis couldn’t help falling in love. Billy Swan
said, “I can help.” And even Stevie Wonder crooned “Heaven Help Us All.” Where
do we need help?
Help is a very scriptural idea. Adam needed help and received from God a helper
suitable to him named Eve. The Jews cried out to God in their captivity in
Egypt and received help in the form of Moses. God sent Joshua to help the Jews
to conquer the promised land. The Judges helped the people against oppression.
God sent David to help the people defeat their enemies. Job cried out for God’s
help. The Psalms are full of such hope (read 46 and 121). The prophets
encouraged the people to turn to God for help and to avoid relying on the
support of others or horses and chariots or governments etc. Where do we need
help?
Luke
1:54—Mary sees Jesus as the “help” of Israel, and the Holy Spirit is described
as Helper in John 14-16. Our passage today from Paul’s letter to the Romans
offers us some “help” as well. Read Romans 8:26-39.
“Nearly
every sentence is a new way of stating the promise that God has not abandoned ‘us,’
and is in fact working--across the past, present, and future--on our behalf.
(While the first person plural verbs originally referred to Paul and those he
calls "brothers and sisters" in 8:12, succeeding generations of
Christians have of course understood themselves, also, to be directly addressed
by the words.) The text has three units, and any one of them could be the basis
of a sermon. Together, they offer a look into the way God's love bursts forth
into help for us over time.” Commentary on Romans
Here we
see three areas God offers us help: 1) words, 2) witness, and 3) warfare. Where
do we need help?
We Need Help With Words/Prayer vv.
26-27—"In the
same way the Spirit also joins to help in our weakness," Paul begins in
Romans 8:26-27. The language of these first two verses has more in common with the
earlier verses of chapter 8 than those that follow them. As the Spirit had
helped us to cry, "Abba, Father," (Romans 8:16), so also the Spirit
helps us pray when we do not know what to pray.
William Willimon tells the following story about a hospital visit to a man who was diagnosed with cancer:
Willimon admits that he entered the hospital room with apprehension. His friend George had gotten a bad diagnosis the day before. Cancer. Things didn’t look good.
“George, how’s it going?”
“Preacher, I am glad that you are here. I need some help.”
“What kind of help?”
“I can’t figure out what to pray for. I mean, do I pray for healing? Surely God knows that I want to be healed. But why should I be healed, and not everybody else in this hospital? What makes me so special? A lot of people my age get cancer. Why should I think that my cancer is any different from their’s and why should God give me some special dispensation?
“On the other hand, I really do want to be healed. If I am healed, think of all the good things I could do. I could continue the work that I’m doing in the church, the work for others. But maybe I’m just being self-deceptive. Just like a frightened kid, who’ll promise God anything.
"And who am I not to be coming to God asking for all of this? I have a lousy prayer life, don't give God the time of day on most days. So here I've come like a blathering idiot, begging, wheeling and dealing, who am I to be making such prayers?"
Paul
reminds us that we do not know how to pray, and he includes himself in that!
The spiritual giant who wrote 13 of the NT books admits here that he is with us
in not always knowing what to pray. Maybe he is referring to times when we are
overwhelmed beyond words (like the man in the story above).
James Dunn points out that Paul's syntax in verse 26
defines the problem differently than we sometimes think of it. The problem is
not that we know what we need and merely lack the right words for requesting
it. As Dunn puts it, we "do not know what to want," let alone how to
ask for it. In the midst of this confusion, the Spirit intercedes, aligning
prayer on our behalf to the will of God for us. The Spirit intercedes for us
with unspoken groanings or groanings too deep for words. God helps us pray by
praying for and through us with words we just can’t “get out”.
No matter
how we read this section, we have to see it in the context of the rest of
Romans 8. Paul reminds us in verses 21-23 that creation “groans” in
anticipation of God revealing his work in his people. Creation groans in the
pain of childbirth until God gives it freedom by finally and decisively making
his children the free heirs of all his promises. In the meantime, the church
remains puzzled about how to pray, thus the need for the Spirit's assistance.
Paul challenges us to enter into deeper wrestling with the pain of the world.
From the environmental to rundown communities to the devastation of humankind,
all of God's creation groans in pain. We need help in our words, we need help
praying. We need God’s help to groan with creation over its present state of
decay. We need the Spirit’s help to groan with God over the present state of
fallen humanity. We need Jesus’ help to groan with the church as it longs for
God's ultimate redemption. We need help to pray as we ought.
Just think
of it. According to Paul, God’s Spirit is praying through us! Prayer is one
vehicle for spiritual maturity, yet prayer as a spiritual discipline remains
grossly underused even though we have access to the greatest prayer teacher,
the Holy Spirit. Interestingly, the best prayer instruction generally occurs in
the midst of severe hardship and suffering that can leave us floundering and
overwhelmed. It is then that the Spirit prays in and through us with groans
that are too deep for words. We need the Spirit’s help to learn to
pray—especially when words fail us. Where do we need the Spirit’s help with
words today? Where are we incapable of finding the right words to even ask for
God’s help? That is where we need help!
But prayer
is usually a private thing, and we need help not only privately but publicly.
Here Paul reminds us that God provides help with our witness.
We Need Help With Our Witness/Being
Like Jesus vv. 28-30—this
section contains a favorite verse for many people, but it also contains some
theologically charged words that cause tons of discussion and controversy.
Reading some of the discussions of these verses may make us cry out for help
from theologians!
At any rate, I want to focus on one main aspect here tucked
away in these verses— In
verses 28-30, Paul continues his discussion of salvation and our need for help.
It is not just that we need the Spirit to help us by interceding for us in the
present. The past tells the same story of God's intention for Christ to be
"firstborn within a large family" (8:29), a family that includes us. God’s
desire is to include a variety of people (not only Jews) in this plan. It is
not an ethnic plan, it is a spiritual plan addressing a very spiritual need.
Adam
and Eve were created in God’s image, but their sin resulting in their fall
created a problem for all humans. We still bear something of God’s image, but
it is marred, blurred, or in some sense unclear. What Adam and Eve were
supposed to be was damaged by their disobedience, and every human is affected
by that fall. We need God’s help to be the people he intended us to be. We need
Jesus to be the image of God as God originally intended. We need help!
Paul here
points to God always having had something beyond wrath in mind for sinners and
the decaying creation of which we are all a part. With Jesus’ help, we are
brought into a family with brothers and sisters and obligations: we're to love
one another and serve one another. Romans 8:29 seems to echo the creation story
again when it speaks of recipients of God's call being "conformed to the
image of his Son."
Humans had been made "in the image of God"
(Genesis 1:27), so now God is working out the plan by which humans are
recreated in that image which has been perfectly reflected in God's Son, Jesus.
All the doctrinal words here may be summed up in the work of redemption brought
about by the blood of Jesus. The goal towards which “all things work together”
for God’s people is to make them like Jesus. Where do we need to be like Jesus?
Do we need help in living a holy life? How are we doing in obeying God’s
command? Do we need help to represent Jesus properly to the world around us?
Paul reminds us that we have the Spirit’s help to be all that God intended. We
have the help we need to be conformed to the image of Christ—we can serve in
humility, we can live sacrificially, and we can be a help to point others to
the One who can help them! And we need help to do it!
But
witness is only one aspect of public life for Christ. As we pursue
Christ-likeness we will find ourselves sometime facing hard times. When we face
hardship, Paul reminds us that God provides help in our warfare.
We Need Help With Warfare/Persevering
in trials vv. 31-39—Our
passage ends with a divine hymn that boasts of God's incredible and invincible
love. Nothing can separate us from the love of God found in Christ Jesus our
Lord.
Paul begins this section with some questions about the situation of Christians. In verses 31-34, Paul essentially claims that the people who put their faith in Christ have found their need for acceptance met. The need for belonging is met in the body of Christ. In fact, the answer to the questions Paul asks is “No one but Jesus!” Paul seems to be saying that what we need is found in the redeeming love of Christ, in his death and resurrection. By giving us Jesus, God has provided all we need, and Jesus (like the Spirit) even helps us in prayer. Paul reminds us that the world may be a scary place, but God has us in his hand and has provided a place of refuge and rest. We need help, and that help is found in Christ.
In
biblical times, people feared many apparent "powers," including
angels and astrology. Paul addresses some of these things in this hymn, but the
specifics aren’t as important as the conclusion—we need help to win in
spiritual warfare. God has provided us that help in Jesus. Jesus’ death on the
cross and resurrection from the dead is the means by which we overcome the
stuff the world throws at us. In fact, Paul says that nothing the world throws
at us can separate us from God’s great grace. Paul says that we are "more
than conquerors."
Suffering is not something to be feared. Rather, as Gorman
reminds us, "Believers do not ignore suffering because it has no effect on
the true self, but rather they see in the suffering of Christ the full
involvement of the self of God and of Christ in and for the world"
(Cruciformity, 329). In other words, God and Christ are fully involved in
suffering and involved in it "in and for the world."
What's
more, because of God's faithfulness in raising Jesus from the dead, both the
present experience of suffering and what we can expect of the future are
transformed. We not only know God's solidarity with us now but also anticipate
a time when even the worst that the powers of Sin and Death have to offer will
be shown to be a "slight momentary affliction" (cf. 2 Corinthians
4:17) when compared with the "glory about to be revealed to us"
(Romans 8:18). What do we need? Why are we afraid?
What
stands in the way of us enjoying God's love? Paul offers a laundry list of
challenges resident in his time. What challenges do we face in which we need
God’s help? Are we allowing something to separate us from God's love today? If
so, what is it? Fear of sex offenders in the neighborhood? Concern over violent
crimes? Alarm over terrorism? The inability to control one's life and
circumstances? Fear of the future? What might happen if we fully commit? What
do we need?
We need God’s help to recognize that NONE of these things can
separate us from his great love. Many distractions attempt to sever our
attention from God. Each distraction claims to be more powerful, important, or
influential than God. But God’s love and God’s grace are ours in Christ. There
is one word that describes the relationship between God's love for God's
redeemed: inseparable. We need that kind of relationship!
Conclusion—Now what?
How do we
respond to this word?
Pray—even
when we don’t have words—pray. This week identify specific areas where we need
the Spirit’s help, and then let him help. Groan before him. Groan for the state
of the world. Groan for the lost who do not know the love of Christ. Groan for
the state of the church and its lack of love. Groan for those areas where we
are not yet free but long for liberty. Spend at least 5 minutes a day in God’s
presence this week, and just groan for the needs around you.
Witness—seek
opportunities to share and to discuss the great kindness that God has shown us.
Look for broken people and help them. Look for lost people and share the good
news with them. Look for places where there is a need, and ask God to help you
meet that need. Seek opportunity to be conformed to the image of Jesus!
Warfare—recognize
that Satan wants to distract us from the goal of being like Jesus. Focus most
importantly on the fact that no matter how hard Satan tries, he CANNOT separate
us from God’s love. If we are God’s children, then we have God’s grace. Look
for places that distract or that try to keep us from the focus on God’s
invincible love. Address those issues specifically. Bring them into proper
focus to see how small they are compared to Jesus.
Where do
we need help? Do we need a little help from your friends? Do we need someone
to help? This week, remember that God doesn’t help those who help themselves,
rather God helps those who are broken and who ask for help. We need to humble
ourselves and receive help.
Thank you for reading!
