The Greatest Chapter - Romans 8:26-28

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

I'm glad he kind of gave an intro because I didn't know how

to introduce myself to those of you who don't know me.

But I have been a part of this church for, I don't know, 15 or

16 years at this point. So I feel very blessed and

honored to get to preach here for my first time.

I want to start off by saying thank you to other women and

also some of the men. Yesterday we had we had our

women's conference and I got to be a part of the worship team

for that. So we, we came up and played

some songs and, but it was great getting to see all the women

gathered here, just spending time in God's word and spending

time together in community. And the men that stepped up and

took care of the kids or took care of things at home so that

your wives or people in your family could come and, and spend

time in that moment. We appreciate you and we're so

thankful to have a community where we can host things like

this. I think we had upwards of 70

women here yesterday. So that was amazing to, to get

to see. So today I get to walk us

through Romans 8 verses 26 and 28.

Romans 8:26

It's only three verses, but there's a lot here to unpack so

we're just going to dive right into it.

The you have the Bibles in front of you underneath the seats.

I believe it's on page 940-4945. You can join me there.

It'll the words will be up on the screen or if you have the

Bible app on your phone, that's great too.

Just follow along reading in Jesus name.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know

what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself

intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.

And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit,

because the Spirit intercedes for the Saints according to the

will of God. And we know that for those who

love God, all things work together for good, for those who

are called according to His purpose.

Here ends the reading of God's word.

So church, we just got done singing a song that only makes

sense and can only be true if Romans 8 is true.

We saying for that His glory is our good, that there is hope in

every trial, and that what looks like weakness, even the cross,

is victory. That whatever comes, He is

working. That's not just shallow

optimism. That is resurrection theology.

And if we're being honest, those lyrics are are so easy and so

simple and powerful to sing when we're in the good moments, when

things are going right, when we feel God in our presence.

But what happens when, like what what we just sang, the road is

not understood, when the trial doesn't end, and when that thorn

doesn't leave church? What trials do you have in your

life right now? What things don't you

understand? Maybe it's a diagnosis.

Maybe it's a loss, family conflict, or working life

changes that just don't make sense to you.

What about your sin? Romans 8 is speaking directly

into this tension for us. Paul is not writing to people

who have it figured out. He's writing to those who are

groaning like you and like me. And just like those lyrics say

there is hope in every trial, Romans 8 shows us and tells us

why we get to have hope in every trial.

Because when we don't know what to pray, when we don't

understand the road, and when the suffering feels heavier than

your faith, the Spirit himself intercedes.

Now, this text shows us three things.

This text shows us many things, but these are the three we're

going to focus on together this morning.

Number one, it shows us that we are weak.

We are a weak people on our own. But #2 shows us that we are not

alone. The Spirit is interceding for us

and #3 God is working in all things are working together for

good. In this passage, Paul writes.

Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Notice what Paul is not saying here.

Paul's not saying that the Spirit helps us in our strength

or in our clarity. He's not saying that the Spirit

helps us when we pray perfectly. He says the strength of the

Spirit helps us in our weakness. Now, that doesn't mean that the

Spirit isn't helping us in our strength when we are strong.

When we do have clarity, the Spirit is still there walking

with us. But who are we turning to when

we are weak? Church, where do you feel weak

in your life right now? We may need to, we may think we

need to pick ourselves up by the bootstraps and just keep going

and life's going to get better. But guys, we have a God who

loves us so much that he wants to be a part of all of the

little things and all of the big things.

He wants us to, to bring our weaknesses to him.

He wants us to find our strength in Him.

So church, I want to encourage you to bring even the smallest

things to God's feet and see what beautiful things he has in

store for them. Next, Paul brings us to

something even more honest. We do not know what to pray for

as we ought. Paul is including himself here,

the the apostle, the theologian, the missionary.

We do not know now this this means that confusion is not

disqualifying and when you don't have the words, silence is not

failure and tears are not faithlessness.

Sometimes for me, the most honest prayers coming to God and

just saying, Father, I don't even know what to say.

And that's exactly where this passage is meeting us next.

We read, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings

too deep for words. That means when you don't have

the language, when you don't have the words, when you don't

know what to pray, the Spirit does.

When all you have is grief, the Spirit is helping you to carry

it. And when all you have to offer

is silence, the Spirit is not silent.

You are never praying alone in church.

I want you to hear that you are never praying alone.

Even when you don't know what the words to say are, you are

never praying alone. Later in this chapter, Paul

writes that Christ Jesus is at the right hand of God

interceding for us. So in this chapter we get to see

something amazing and astonishing.

The Spirit intercedes within us. The Son is interceding for us,

and the Father is searching our hearts and hears.

The enemy wants to isolate, but the Spirit intercedes.

The enemy wants to divide us, but the Spirit draws us near.

This isn't just vague spirituality.

Verse 27 says He intercedes according to the will of God.

That means that even when you don't know what is best, God

does. Even when you don't see what

He's doing, He's working according to His plan in church.

His plan is a plan far greater than anything you or I could

come up with on our own. I have.

I've strayed the path I've I've thought I can make my own way,

as I'm sure many of you have as well.

But every single time it leads to the same place, a dead end

road where I have to turn around and walk back to God with my

head down to say, Father, I'm sorry, thought I knew better.

I've gone through this so many Times Now.

Why can't I just trust you? Father, please walk with me and

guide me down the right path. I want to share something a

little personal, a testimony of sorts that many of you have have

already heard or know about. If you don't know me or you're

newer to the church, you may not have heard this yet, but in

December of 2024, I lost my father.

We lost my father, and many of you knew him well.

He was up on this very stage, on the worship team just about

every single week. He was in the community, he was

in our congregation, and he loved bringing the Word of God

to those who needed to hear it. But to me, he was more just.

He was more than just my father. He was my mentor.

He was my living example of how to lead a family in faith, and

he was one of my best friends. When he passed, the weight of it

was crushing. It wasn't just loss, it wasn't

just grief. It was complete disorientation

of my life. It was waking up and realizing

the person I relied on the most and the person I always called

the most could no longer answer. It was sitting in in silence and

not even knowing the words to say or the words to pray.

And this would become a place where Romans 826 would stop

being a verse that I would preach, but it became a verse

that I still cling to. We do not know what to pray for

as we ought. That was me.

There were times that I I didn't have theology and I didn't have

clarity and I for sure did not have the answers.

All I had to offer was weakness. But it was here in the season

that I learned that weakness is not the absence of God's work.

It's oftentimes the place where His work is running the deepest.

Because in the middle of that, and in the middle of that grief,

God was doing something that I could not see.

That loss that felt like it shattered everything stable in

my life became a key turning point in my life.

For years I have felt God's calling to me in a ministry

bigger or more than just being on worship team on Sundays.

For years I have wrestled with it.

I delayed it any way that I could.

I took dead end jobs. I went to college for things I

knew I didn't want to do. I moved several times.

I tried avoiding it at all costs.

I excused it by thinking, yeah, right, like God's going to

choose to use me. But grief has a way of stripping

away illusions. It reminds you that time is not

yours and comfort is not guaranteed.

But eternity is real. It was in this season that threw

my tears and through my weakness that I finally stopped resisting

and I answered the call to go to seminary.

Now hear me clearly, Church, I'm not saying my father passed so

that I would go to seminary. I'm saying this God did not

waste my grief. He was working in it.

He was not causing it, but He was working.

He was not delighting in my pain, but He was redeeming it.

What I wasn't able to see in December, I can now look back

and see threads of purpose and threads of hope.

That is where Romans 828. Now, my story is not everyone's

going to seminary, becoming a pastor, being a part of worship

team. That's not everybody's calling.

But church, How's God calling you to minister to those around

you where you are right now? Where is he calling you to

minister to those in your life, your family, this congregation,

this community? Where is God calling you right

now? Later, Paul says.

And we know that for those who love God, all things work

together for good. It does not say that all things

are good. Death is not good, loss is not

good, cancer is not good, Our sin is not good.

But God works all things together for good.

That means he refuses to waste anything.

Now for those of you who know my mother, she's not here, but she

was at the first service. I didn't tell her I was going to

tell the story, but for those of you who know her, she's owned

and ran her cleaning business for many, many years now.

And over those years, my sister and I have had plenty of chances

to go and help her, whether that's she just needed some

extra hands, I needed some extra cash.

It was a win, win for everybody. But she carries around this big

tote with everything in it, all her rags, mop heads, buckets,

liquids that I'm not always sure exactly what they are, But when

I'm cleaning something, I'm cleaning a mirror, I'm wiping

down the counter, I just reach into the toe.

And I swear that every single time I pull a rag out, it's full

of holes, it's torn up. It looks like it's been through

war. And in my head I just think, how

could this be used to clean anything?

But then I realized those things still fit her purpose.

I learned that all you have to do is fold it over a couple

times and now it it wipes everything down.

It cleans things and makes things look beautiful again.

Just like my mother and her rags.

God refuses to. Sorry, crazy analogy, but just

like my mother, in her eyes God refuses to let anything go to

waste. No matter how battered or torn

or damaged that it may look to us, it still fits his purpose

and he uses those things in those moments for good.

You're in Christ. If you love Him, then your story

doesn't end in randomness. You were called according to His

purpose, and His purpose is always His glory for your

ultimate good. These are not competing goals

because your good is becoming more like Christ.

Your greatest good is eternal joy, eternal security, and

eternal life. The cross proves this.

On Friday it looked like defeat and on Saturday there was

silence. But on Sunday there was

resurrection. What looked like weakness was

power. What looked like loss was our

salvation. If God can turn even the cross

into redemption, then He can take your suffering and weave

glory all throughout it. So here's my question for you

church. Do you believe that He is able?

Do you believe that He's able to sustain you, able to carry you,

able to redeem the things at which you don't even understand?

Because Romans 8 says when you don't know what to pray, the

Spirit helps. When you feel weak, God is

working, and when you cannot see the outcome, He already holds

it. We are weak and we don't know,

but we are not alone. The cross teaches us anything.

It's that what looks like weakness may be the very place

where God is accomplishing His greatest glory.

Jesus would have been able to call upon a legion of angels to

save him at any moment, but he didn't, and that looked like

weakness. Jesus could have fought back and

freed himself in any other way, but he didn't, and it looked

like weakness. But in that very weakness, he

defeated death. He defeated the very thing that

we had to fear the most. In that weakness, we were

completely set free from death and the fear that it held over

us. So as we close and sing more

than able, I encourage you to not just sing it casually.

If you're grieving, then sing it through tears.

If you feel lost or confused, then sing it in trust.

And if you're weak like me, sing it as surrender.

Because the same God who raised Jesus from the dead is more than

able to work things out for His glory and our good.

So let's pray and declare this song together.

Father God, we're so thankful for this space that You give us

to come and study Your Word. We're so thankful for the words

that You give us when we have none.

We're told the Spirit is interceding for us in our

prayers with groanings too deep for words.

Father, we thank You for the encouragement that even when we

don't know what to say, even when we don't know the right

words to pray, we can sit with you and Your Spirit will be

praying for us. Lord, You know the burdens in

this room, the grief, the fear and the unanswered questions,

the trials that feel heavier than our faith, the struggle we

have with sin. And yet Your Word promises us

that You are working all things together for good for those who

love you. Help us to trust You when the

road is not understood, and help us to believe that You do not

waste anything in our weakness. Help us to rest in the trust

that You are more than able. We pray these things in your

name, Father, Amen. Thanks for listening to the ERC

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Church. Visit

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