When I was a kid, a young boy,
a teen, in the church of my youth, in the religion of my youth,
they were always talking about being strong. And they would point us to supposedly
exemplary people within Christendom and see, oh, what a strong Christian
he is or a strong Christian she is. We were exhorted to go out
and do great things for God. In fact, there is a quote, and
it's a quote by a preacher whose ministry, at least as I recall,
if I've got the right man, we would approve of his ministry.
In general, he did preach the gospel, but I've seen people
have it on their shirts. It says, expect great things
from God. Do great things for God. Really? Are we going to do something
great for God? But that's the attitude of the
natural mind. It's the attitude of our mind
if God lets us have our own mind. It was the attitude that I had
as a young man when I was a senior in high school and given up on
music as a career. I'd be poor if I'd have pursued
that one. I'd be out on the street with
a little change pot there. Then I pursued, thought I would
go into a career in science. I loved science and I was thinking
chemistry. And in the spring of my senior
year, 1973, I got it in my mind. to go into what our church called
full-time service for the Lord. In other words, enter the ministry.
I remember telling my father about it. He says, you have any
idea what you're getting into? I didn't. I didn't even know
what the ministry was. I'm still learning what it is. But I thought I was gonna do
something, I thought that was something to aspire to instead
of some secular job. I was going to be among the elevated. Now, most people that knew me
back then would have said that I was not a proud person. I was easy to get along with.
Didn't think over much of myself. But I know what went on in my
heart. I didn't know it then, but I know it now. I see the
pride that was there. I thought I was going to be a
champion for Jesus. I was going to be a pastor or
a traveling evangelist unlike the world had ever seen. I was
going to preach and people were going to get saved. I'd be the
pastor of the church and it would grow. Those of you who've been
here from the beginning, that one didn't exactly work out,
did it? Oh, I had visions of what I was
going to do for God. And it took me a long time to
realize I wasn't ever going to do anything for him. To find out that he was going
to allow me, allow me, to do some things while he accomplished
his will. When I was a little fellow, five
or six years old, my dad was of this attitude that kids ought
to be taught chores to do as soon as it's possible for them
to do them. And then the responsibility handed to him. And so when I
was five or six years old, he fired up the mower and he said,
let me show you how to mow. And you know, it was a walk behind
mower, not self-propelled. Well, I propelled it myself.
Maybe that was self-propelled, but you know how they make the
handles there in two parts. And so he stood there. at the
top of the handle, and I was in front of him, and I had that
lower crossbar. And off we went. Was I mowing
the grass? Hmm. Kind of. I was walking along as Dad mowed
the grass. Now, you that have been here
from the beginning, it's been over 34 years, and you've seen
me stand up here and preach. And I haven't accomplished a
thing. What you don't see is God behind
me with his hands on the big handle, and I'm just walking
along. The Bible, so far as I know,
you know, I always say it that way because someone's going to
come up with a verse that I didn't think of, but I cannot recall
a place where the Bible addresses us in terms of strength. It never says, oh ye strong.
Now it says, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his
might. That's a different thing. But it never addresses us as
strong. Our text this morning, we'll
go ahead and read that and then a few other places. Verse 26,
Romans 8, 26. Now we're all familiar with Romans
8, 28. But it's a wonderful scripture. It's no wonder we're all, everybody's
familiar with it. But the greatness of Romans 8,
28 is founded upon what's written all around it. Verse 26, in the same way, the
Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought
to pray for. But the Spirit himself intercedes
for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches
our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit
intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will. The Bible always addresses us
in terms of our weakness, not our strength. Why? First, because we're weak. We're
not strong. In our youth, when we have the
vigor of youth in our bodies, we might think we're strong, but if we don't get run down
by a vehicle, we're gonna get run down by the passing years
one way or the other. And in time, you will find out
you're not strong. Even the strength associated
with youth is something of a fantasy because it's nothing compared
to what humans were made to be. And I'm not just talking about
physical strength, I'm talking about all the faculties of humanity. We don't realize how bad off
we are because we've never seen what it is to be truly human
as God created us to be and as he will make us to be in his
grace. I think probably Now this is
a bit of speculation, but I think that it's at least plausible. On the Mount of Transfiguration,
when Moses and Elijah and our Lord appeared in glory, such
glorious aspect that it terrified the disciples. That's what a
human is, as God created them. So we look around and we think,
we look at the young, we say, well, the young are strong. Well,
yes, compared to those of us toward the other end of our lifespan. But none of us are anything compared
to what humans were made to be, what we shall be, and what Christ
is. So the Bible, inasmuch as it's
addressed to believers on earth. It addresses them as they are. You remember how Jacob, he has
two names. By birth and nature, his name
is Jacob. And that name, it's actually
associated with a word for the heel. But the idea, he's somebody
that would hide in the bushes He'd reach out and grab you by
the heel and trip you up and take what you got. And so such
things as deceiver, scoundrel, ne'er do well. That's what his name means. Can
you imagine being named that? You go up to your friends, what's
your name? Jacob. Oh, your parents gave you that name? Don't they
like you? that's what he was. You couldn't
trust that man. If you got into a business deal
with him you would come out on the short end of the stick. But there came a day when God
wrestled with him, actually it was a night, and God toyed with him all night
long. It's not like Jacob was so strong the Lord was having
a hard time overcoming him. He was like a cat playing with
a mouse, you know, just waiting. And when it was time, he allowed Jacob to think he
was getting the better of him. It looked like Jacob was in the
winning position. And then God reached up and grabbed
him, it says, in the hollow of his thigh. And I'd say God's
probably got a pretty good grip. And God said, let me go. I was
testing Jacob. For all his scoundrelliness,
Jacob had grace. God loved him. And this was a proving trial,
that there was spiritual life that had been given to Jacob.
And in the midst of all that pain that God caused in Jacob,
Jacob said this, I won't let you go till you bless me. I'll endure any pain, any suffering. What he was saying is your blessing
is worth more than anything else. It's worth more than my present
comfort. And you know what the Lord did?
He didn't say, okay, Yet, right answer, you're blessed. He said, what's your name? What's your name? That had to be hard to answer. When God said to Jacob, what's
your name, what he was saying is, I already know who you are. I'm just waiting for you to fess
up. And I got a feeling, Jacob, kind
of through gritted teeth, Jacob. And the Lord said, no longer
will you be called Jacob. Your name is Israel, which means
one who prevails with God. And how did he prevail? Did he
prevail by outwrestling the Lord? He prevailed with the Lord because
when it was obvious the Lord could easily overcome him, he cried out for his blessing. And throughout the Old Testament,
you find the prophets, they're speaking to the people the descendants
of Jacob. He would say, hear O Jacob, hear
O Israel. Why did he call them by both
names? Because despite the fact that
God had granted to that lineage the name of Israel, an exalted
name, they knew that in heart and mind they were Jacob. So
he'd start by naming them, calling them, addressing them by the
name they understood within their hearts. And then he addressed them by
the name of grace, what he'd made them to be, what he called
them. And you see, that's a blessed
truth. It's a hard thing to get in our minds and keep in our
minds, but it's a truth nonetheless that while we see Jacob, God
sees Israel. Our minds, if we're believers,
our minds are well aware of our Jacobness, well aware of our
deceitfulness, well aware of our sinfulness, our weakness.
Like Paul would say, in me, that is in my flesh, in my natural
self, there's nothing good. I know that. And I look at me and I see Jacob
through and through. And God looks at me and sees
Israel through and through. But he always addressed them
by the name Jacob. because generally he was addressing them in times
of trouble and it was their Jacobness got them in trouble. And so he
would address them by that name so that they could be certain
that the blessing he was about to pronounce was applicable to
them. They were Jacob in heart and
mind. I used to think, and I'd hear
religious people, I mean, I say religious people, I was among
them. You know, we'd say, well, you know, the right way to do
it is the Jews of old would do things this way. You don't want
to do things the way the Jews of old did them or the Jews of
modern day any more than you want to do things the way anybody's
doing them. We get this idea that the Jewish
nation was for the most part a godly nation with these occasional
failures. No. They were a rebellious, stiff-necked,
idolatrous people with brief periods of revival. Most of the
time, they fit the name Jacob. And so that's why God called
them. He didn't call them Jacob to put them down. He called them
Jacob to lift them up. What good? Now ask yourself this
question. What good is a promise from God
that only applies to the good? If the Lord said, you know, all
ye good listen to me, I'm going to give you heaven. Well, that
would be a useless pronouncement by God for me. All ye obedient. Blessing shall flow for you.
Maybe there's somebody else. He's not talking about me. God addresses us as we are, addresses
believers. Now, unbelievers have to be taught
about their weakness, about their sinfulness, because they're full
of self-righteousness, and that's got to be broken down. Believers,
you don't have to teach them. that they're nothing, they already
know. Now sometimes we make a pretense
of being something special, but in our hearts we know what we
are. My greatest joy is when I read
scriptures that speak to me as I am, not as I should be. Let's look at a few other scriptures,
and you can hold your place there in Romans 8, because we're going
to look at that scripture. The Bible always addresses us
in terms of our weakness, because that's what we are, and we know
it. And we could not find any comfort in the promises of God
were they not addressed to us as the weak. Now turn to Psalm
103. Psalm 103. Now, it's one of my... hate to say favorite Psalms as
though you're going to say, well, Lord, that Psalm wasn't quite
as good as the other one. I really liked this. But you know what
I mean? There's these Psalms that they, and maybe this isn't
the one for you, but this one reaches out and grabs me really
good. Because right there at the beginning, you know, it says,
praise the Lord, O my soul, O my inmost being, praise His holy
name. Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits,
who forgives all your sins. Now, if the Psalm stopped right
there, it would be to me one of the most blessed things ever
written, who forgives all your sins. But let's move down here to verse
13, towards the middle. As a father, Psalm 103, 13, as
a father has compassion on his children, and good fathers do,
Now, there are many men that are overly severe, and they expect
their children to act like adults. And some of them get downright
abusive, and the children grow up in fear, because they can
never meet the standard, because they're children, they're not
adults. But God's not that kind of father. As a father, a good
father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion
on those who fear him, For he knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust. I heard a story of a little kid
who was in Sunday school and heard the story that, you know,
God made man from the dust of the ground and then warned him
that if he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil, that he would die, and he said, from dust you came,
and to dust you shall return. So the little kid went home,
looked under his bed, and he said, Mom, come quick. Somebody's either
coming or going. Now, if you wanted to compare
me to something to build me up, you probably wouldn't choose
dust. I don't know anybody that likes dust. Have you ever heard
anyone say something, well, that's just the best dust I ever saw? Every time you talk about dust,
it's in a negative light. The best, the best thing the
Bible says about dust is when it speaks, I believe it's speaking
of the nations of the earth, and it says they're like dust
on the scales. What do you mean by that? Well, back then to weigh
things out, you know, they had the scale. And they were supposedly
carrying out, or the guys, you know, that would merchandise
in gold, they had some official weights. And so they would put,
you know, like, I don't know what their weights were back
then, you know, a one ounce weight over here, and then you'd put
enough gold on to make it balance. There'd be dust on those scales.
But nobody bothered to wipe it off. Why? Because it was of no
significance whatsoever. And that's what God is saying
about the nations. They're like dust. They just don't matter.
He sets them up. He takes them down. But that's
the best that dust gets in the Bible. And he knows that's what we are. I know that's what I am. And I'm glad that he knows it
and says he'll bless me anyway. You ever worry about getting
found out? I imagine all of us have at least some of this attitude
is I'm glad people don't know what I really am. I'm glad they
don't know everything I've ever done. Cause if they did, they wouldn't
be my friends anymore. And that's why we hide. And it's
probably a good idea. It's good you don't know everything about
me, and it's good I don't know everything about you. But here's the blessing. God
does know everything about you. You say, that sounds terrifying.
Well, it sounds terrifying if you're in unbelief. But what that means is he knows
everything about me. and blesses me anyway. And when
I leave this world and stand before Him, and as the Bible
put it, the books are opened, God's not going to get any surprises.
He's not going to find out something about me He didn't already know
and say, wait a minute, I was going to let you in, but then
I read this. Then I read this. I'm sorry. No. He knew you were dust when you
came into this world. He knows you're dusty all through
your life. And at the end, that's all you'll be. And he calls us dusty so that we'll listen. He calls
us dusty so that we'll quit trying to form ourself into something
so that we can be blessed. He knows we are dust. Now turn over to Hebrews chapter
4. It deals there in Psalm, we saw
God looking at us as that which is so weak and useless and insignificant
as to be called dust. That's pretty weak. Now look over at Hebrews chapter
four. I've done so much of my Bible
study electronically here, I almost forgot how to work around a Bible,
an actual in-your-hands Bible. Takes me longer to get to a text
of Scripture. Verse 15, Hebrews 4. For we do not have a high priest
who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. There it even pluralizes it.
We're not just weakness, we're weaknesses. We have one who has been tempted
in every way just as we are, yet was without sin. Our Savior, our High Priest,
the one who represents our cause, our souls, represents us in the
sight of God. He is able to not only know our
weaknesses, to sympathize with them. We think of our weaknesses and
the trouble it's going to get us into. And there are many,
their weaknesses are going to get them in a lot of trouble
with God. But now you hold on and think
about this for a moment. In a state of grace, if we have
been saved by the grace of God, our high priest sees us in all
our weaknesses, no matter what form they take, and rather than anger, rather than wrath, he sympathizes. He looks And he says he's getting
himself in a mess. I'm going to have to rescue him. It's going to hurt, but it'll do him good. To think that the judge of all
the earth looks at me in all my wretchedness And His mercy pours out because
of it. He's not like Ebenezer Scrooge
who sees the poor. Ah, aren't our workhouses enough
for the poor? Rather, when our Lord God goes
by the poor, He takes notice. And for lack of a better way
to put it, His heart breaks for them. We're so busy trying to be strong,
so busy trying to be something that God would look at and be
enamored of, that we miss the blessing held
out to the weak. Look over now at 1 John chapter
2. Verse one. My dear children, this is 1 John
2, verse one. My dear children, I write this
to you so that you will not sin. And that'd be great. And if we're believers in our
Lord Jesus Christ, there will come a day when we don't sin. Notice the next line. But if
anybody does sin, We have one who speaks to the Father in our
defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. Notice what this scripture does
not say. John did not say, I'm writing this to you so that you
won't sin. And if you can avoid sin, you'll
have someone in heaven that speaks for you, Jesus. He didn't say if any man obeys.
He didn't say if any man does the best he can. He doesn't say
if any man shows himself strong against temptation. He didn't say if any man prays.
He said if any man sins, we have an advocate. The word means someone who's
called alongside as your helper. And you see it in courtroom situations. There's the accused. And they got a lot of evidence.
Sitting next to him is an attorney, his advocate. Now, the thing
is, you hire an attorney in this world, it's going to cost you
a lot of money. This advocate never loses, and he doesn't cost
a dime. And he's not for the innocent,
he's for the guilty. If any man sins, we have an advocate. People are so busy not sinning,
they don't see that there's an advocate for sinners. You can never find comfort. I
tell you, well, God help you if you ever do find comfort in
your own obedience. If your assurance of acceptance
with God is based upon Maybe not perfection on your part,
but you're really doing the best you can. If it's based on that,
you're going to be sorely disappointed. God's blessings are given to
the weak and the failing and the sinning, not the strong,
successful, and righteous. What are we weak in? Well, if we go back to Psalm
103, you can turn back there if you want, or just listen,
whatever suits you best. How are we weak? We're weak in
our frame. That's why the King James Version
says, he knows our frame. Our version says he knows how
we're formed. But he's talking about just our existence. He
knows what we are. He knows we're sinful flesh. He knows that we have these bodies
that they start out looking reasonable, but they don't stay that way
and they fall apart. And it doesn't take that long. He knows all the natural weaknesses
of just being a human being. He knows our weakness in matters
pertaining to righteousness. As David is reciting all the
benefits of God, In verse three, he says, who forgives all your
sins, right off the bat. He doesn't say, you know, don't
forget any of his benefits, that nice house she got, you know,
and your business is doing good, and you got your health. You
know, people say, well, if you got your health, you know, that's
good. Well, you're gonna lose your health someday. He starts
out with the one thing that is absolutely necessary that we
have, the forgiveness of sin. And God doesn't just forgive
the big ones. God doesn't just forgive the little ones. He says,
who forgives all your sins. And then skip down here. Verse
eight, the Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger,
abounding in love. I'm glad he's slow to anger.
Because if he was hotheaded, I wouldn't be here today. He will not always accuse. Now
there's times even fathers, good fathers, they must point out
the faults to the children to teach them and discipline them. But it's never a matter of wrath.
He will not harbor his anger forever. And then David says,
he does not treat us as our sins deserve. I remember one of the sitcoms
back, I think it was the 80s. But one of the main characters,
if you did something that she didn't like, she said, God's
going to get you for that. You think God's going to get
you for something? Well, if you're outside of Christ,
he's going to get you for everything. But right now, if you're breathing
air, You are not getting what you deserve, what your sins deserve.
You're getting better from God than what you deserve. That's
everybody here. And then he goes on and says,
verse 12, as far as the East is from the West, so far has
he removed our transgressions from us. Someone pointed out, And I don't know if they had
the science to back it up in these days, but it's true. God
had the science. He knew how to put it. He said,
as far as the East is from the West, rather than North from
the South, because you know, if you start going North and
just keep going, eventually you'll start going South. But you can
head East and you will never be heading West. God has separated us from our
sins. How did he do that? Well, he
put them somewhere else. He put them on Christ. To every believer
here, I'm telling you, your sins are as far away from you as east
is from west. Because he laid them on Christ
and Christ bore them away. And they ain't coming back. And they'll always be going one
direction and you're always going the other one. by His grace. Do you see this? This is something
that we may be reluctant to believe, but in all this sympathy towards
weaknesses and all this addressing us as the weak, the primary matter
is in this matter of righteousness. We're weak in faith. Now, understand what I mean by
that. Believers of two minds and one
mind is completely convinced and the other is not convinced
at all. But I know this, if we were perfect in faith, if we
were even strong in faith, we'd act a whole lot differently than
we do. He knows that. Disciples got all scared in the
boat one time with the Lord when a storm came up, and he calmed
it. He said, oh ye of little faith,
why did you doubt? Of course, the Lord knew why
they doubted, and he also knew that they were of little faith.
You'll notice this. They had little faith, but they
were safe as could be, weren't they? Because it wasn't their faith
that would make them float. It was the one that was in the
boat with them. And a boat can't sink with the Lord in it. They may be trembling, but the
boat's not going down. The storm may be high, the boat
won't go down. And the one who's in the boat
with us commands the waves. And the reason they came up is
because he told them to. And the reason they laid down
is because he told them to. And he'll never call up a wave
that'll swamp the boat he's in. I haven't told a boat story in
a while. There's you one. He'll never call up a wave that
can swamp the boat that he's in. And if you're in his boat,
you're as safe as he is. Now back to Romans 8. for just a couple of minutes.
You're going to be able to identify with this, I am certain. It may
provide you great relief, I hope it does. In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we do not know what we ought
to pray for. weakness in prayer. I hear people, they talk about
prayer warriors. Well, so-and-so is a prayer warrior. Okay. I'll tell you one thing. Well,
we need to quit, you know, saying this one's better at that and
this one's better than the other. If we're in the Lord, there's only
two conditions in humanity. You're either in Christ or you're
out of Christ. That's the only two conditions there are. There are some who spend more
time in prayer. There are those who seem to be
able to pray in a way, and particularly if we hear them pray publicly,
it blesses us to hear it. And we can join with them in
their prayers and all that, but there's no one of the sons of Adam who is strong
in prayer. There is one human, very strong
in prayer, and that's our Lord Jesus. Remember, he didn't descend
from Adam. He's the last Adam. He's a new
Adam. He can pray. Would you like to try to get
to heaven on your prayers? I wouldn't like to cross the
street on my prayers. Such a wandering and distracted mind I have. If I don't have anything to do,
I can still pack my day full of things to do that I think
are important, and I can't just stop. and spend some time communing
with God. And when I do, when I do, I have
no idea if I'm praying for the right thing. I pray for what
I want. I pray for what I think is good.
But notice this, and we'll close. We do not know what we ought
to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans
that words cannot express. This word translated groan, we
get our English word stenosis from it, the medical term. And
if you have stenosis of something, it means it's getting closed
up. The word is also in some translations, it'll be translated
as a sigh. And when you sigh, you don't
just breathe out. You breathe out with your throat closed up. That's what he's talking about.
We grow. We are constricted. That's what he's talking about.
There's something in us that wants out. But in our weakness,
we can't get it out. There's feelings we want to express
and we can't. There's desires we want to lay
before him. But we're constricted in our
prayers. But the Spirit of God, He hears our groans, He hears
our sighs, He hears our constricted prayers, and He pours them out before
God in our behalf concerning things that we can't
find words for. Desires so deep we don't know
how to express them. He can. Longings that we don't know words
to describe. He does. You say my prayers are
awful. Yep, just like everything else
about you. Everything about me, awful. But the Spirit prays for us.
I don't mean he's up there praying for us like we say we pray for
one another. He's doing the praying for us. He's interceding for
us according to the will of God. In our foolishness we pray for
things that are full of selfishness. or just foolishness or whatever,
and the Spirit of God takes these jumbled up, messed up prayers
of ours that are all constricted, and He expresses them to God
in ways that we could never think of, and turns them into prayers
according to the will of God. So you weak, you failures, you
little pieces of dust, don't worry. Your Redeemer is strong. And His strength is made perfect
in your weakness. So pray the best you can. And know that by the time the
Lord hears it, it'll be perfect. Do what you can to do the right
thing and the good thing. But you know you're not gonna
do the right or the good. But take confidence in this.
When the Lord sees you, he sees you robed in the righteousness
of his son. He doesn't see your sin. He separated you from it. In
all your failures, As much as they may grieve you, remember
this, all the promises of God are addressed to failures. Blessed
be His name.