If you’ve got a Bible, go ahead, go with me. Let’s get to Romans eight, and want to just bring a reminder. Romans eight, and the theme of the chapter is the assurance of the believer. It’s what it’s there for, and so this message is in its entitlement is its entitlement is not necessarily the best reflection of that, because we’re going to take some things that are given, but we’re going to explore them. Three things that are given, you probably know these things. You don’t need something new. You just need something to deeply understand. So, the title of the message is “The Exclusivity Of The Spirit’s Intercession” (Romans 8:27). Okay, we’re going to see that something that the Holy Spirit does exclusively for an exclusive group of people. Now you say, “Well, why is that so important to know?” Well, because we’re going to come into some passages in Romans eight that everybody likes to quote, and whether they’re Christians or not, whether they’ve believed the gospel or not, whether they’ve ever heard the gospel or not, and they act like you can just somehow claim this and say, “Yeah, God does that with me,” while living in a state of unrepentant lifestyle, headlong unforgiven sin, and therefore, you know, bearing the fruit that you’re not regenerate. Now we still sin, who are Christians, obviously. But what do we do? We repent forward. 1 John 1:9. We’re confessing and we’re repenting. We’re growing. We love God and we love the Scriptures and we love His people, and so we want to make some distinctions in this.
So let me just start the chapter again. Right? Romans eight, just for just verse one. Romans 8:1, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” None. There is no damnatory expulsion from God’s presence. There is no wrath of God that you’re under if you’re in Christ. There isn’t any. It’s been completely exhausted on the Lamb of God who takes away the sin. So, God is not in heaven holding a little, a few of the cards back, remembering some of your transgressions. No, no, no. He’s forgiven you. You say, “Well, what about the things I still do now?” Well, we’ll get to that because there’s intercessors that are going on right now. Jesus is your advocate at the right hand of the Father, still making intercession for you, and the Holy Spirit who dwells inside of you. You have become the temple of God, and He makes intercession for you perfectly, and so let’s take a look at these two verses, 26, and we’re going to focus on 27. Romans 8:26-27, “Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.” What’s our weakness? It’s singular, right? We can do nothing without Jesus. The Spirit helps us in our weakness, “For we do not know what to pray for, as we ought.” Now we know what we want to pray for, but sometimes we’re going to pray, and maybe we think it’s the will of God, or we’re not sure if it’s the will of God, and so we’re actually praying amiss. Your prayer does not bend the will of God. Your prayer demonstrates God bending your will, the transformation of the will and what God’s doing in you, so that your desires begin to align with His. This is the nature of the conversation. The good news is we have the Holy Spirit in us to intercede for us on our behalf. It goes on, “But the Spirit Himself (does what?) intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” So, it’s the picture that we covered last week, He comes along and picks up kind of the other side of the burden of prayer. One theologian that I like said, “What the Holy Spirit does is He fixes our prayers on the way up.” That’s a good way to say it, isn’t it? And I don’t know if you’ve ever prayed a stupid prayer, but I’ve prayed some stupid prayers, really stupid prayers, because I look back now and I’m like, I’m so glad I’m not stupid anymore. Yeah, talk to me in 10 more years, and we’ll see, right? And you’re like, oh, okay. So, who’s actually doing the keeping? It’s God who’s doing the keeping here. And then here’s our main verse: “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.”
So, let’s take this apart in some very what may seem some very obvious questions. Just three questions.
Here’s question 1. Who Searches Hearts?
Who searches hearts? Now you might just say, “Well, God the Father.” That’s what it’s talking about. It absolutely is. You nailed it. But let’s open it up and really, really see it. If we say “heart”, I want to give you a definition of the heart. Okay. Now you know. This is a good definition because I made it up, but you know, it’s factual for sure.
Heart: “The seat of man’s motivation”
Now, some of you might know what the word “seat” means here. It’s talking in terms of governance, so to speak. It is the place of the innermost motivation, and if you think about what a county seat is, right? The county seat of Grayson County is where? It’s Sherman. Sherman, Texas is the county seat of Grayson County, and what does that mean? Well, it means the administrative headquarters are here, the government offices, the courts are here. This is the place where all of the decisions are finalized or emanate from, we could say, right? It’s kind of the government, like the federal seat of our government is in Washington D.C. That’s where all of those edicts issue from, as well as the insanity, And so, anyway, the county seat comes from that word. Seat comes from basically the word chair. You say, “Well, why would they call it a chair?” Well, it dates back in antiquity to the throne, right? The throne or the chair was where the leaders sat, and then he would give his edicts, he would give his proclamations, and he would speak, and it would happen. Well, we don’t have a monarchy. We have a we have a constitutional republic, actually, not a democracy. And I’m not being political. I’m just telling you the truth. And so, what we have is we have the seats of government are sitting at places to represent the people and the desires that the people have when they put them into office. So, the seat of man’s motivation, when we say the seat of man’s motivation, we mean not just the thoughts, but what the Bible will say is the intentions of the heart. The real reason why you do what you do, God sees. God is the one that looks to the heart. In fact, it really is what He’s all about, I get it. You mean I dress up a little bit? I put on a sport coat. She likes it, even if you don’t. You know, I have an audience of one when it comes to how I dress. These clothes are wife approved. Get over it, right? Does God really care how I’m dressed? No, He really doesn’t, because God is looking at the inward.
In fact, let’s see this in the text, 1 Samuel 16:7b. This is the second part of the verse, but it says, “…For the Lord sees not as man sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord he looks on the heart.” That’s what He’s obsessed with, if you will. I don’t think that’s too strong a word. That’s really all He cares about. He doesn’t care how tall you are, how smart you are. He doesn’t care how good looking you are or aren’t. He doesn’t care about those things. He’s looking at the heart. He’s looking at the seat of your motivation, and there is a seat inside of every one of us. You’ve probably heard it this way, right? There’s a throne inside of everybody’s heart. There’s some truth to that. There’s some truth to that, and sometimes we switch seats, don’t we? It’s like I’m going to take over from here, and we tell the King, “I have got my motives in this,” and then the Holy Spirit comes and He does some work. He changes our will. He disciplines us. But God is the one. He’s looking at the heart. He’s looking at your heart. He’s looking at it right now. He knows if you worshiped with your mind during worship, or if your mind was thinking, “When I get out of here, I’m going to McDonald’s.” Now you should repent of that on so many levels. Look at 1 Kings 8:39. This is Solomon at the temple dedication, he’s praying. He says, “Then here in heaven, Your dwelling place, and forgive and act and render to each (look, to each) whose heart You know, according to all these ways. For You, You only know the hearts of all the children of mankind.” You say, “How can we know that all of God’s judgment, judgments are just? It’s very simple, because He sees the heart of the matter. We can only see the pretense someone might be doing. They might be performative in nature, but God looks right through to the heart. By the way, Christian, let me let you in on a secret. It’s not a secret, but when you stand before God, when you stand before Christ at the bema seat judgment, not the white throne, but the bema seat for your rewards. He is going to reward you based on motive. Finish this statement, “Well done, good and (famous) servant.” No, faithful. He’s looking at the heart. See, is the heart faithful to the original mandate given to you by the word of God. That’s what He looks at, and He and Solomon knows this. In fact, look at 1 Chronicles 28:9. David’s charging Solomon later on. He says, “And you, Solomon, my son, know the God of your father and serve Him with a whole heart and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches (look at that, He searches) all hearts and understands every plan and thought.” Does that mean God doesn’t know immediately? No, but it’s a picture. It’s an anthropomorphic picture for you and I to have really an illustration in our mind that God is almost scanning constantly, like it says in Chronicles. Right? The eyes of the Lord search to and fro. It doesn’t mean He’s got to go somewhere, but it’s a picture for us to understand. This is what He’s looking at. He’s looking at our heart. Proverbs 15:11 says it this way: “Sheol and Abaddon.” That’s just an Old Testament way of saying the grave and hell. Abaddon meaning destruction. So, both the place of the dead and then the place of the punishment are they what? “They lie open before the Lord.” There’s no darkness He can’t see through. Nothing is hidden, and this is an extreme example. “How much more the hearts of the children of man?” In other words, they’re open. You’re like an open book to the Lord. He can see you. He can see every nuance about who you are. No amount of religious kind of fakery will fake God. It won’t fake Him out. You can’t. You won’t impress Him. You can’t act spiritual enough. You can’t act right standing enough. You can’t act dignified enough. Now, people might get impressed by you. God is not going to be impressed by you. How many of you noticed that the song didn’t say, “Great is my faithfulness”? Be a great Arminian hymn, though, wouldn’t it? “Look at me keep it.” No, His faithfulness, even though He sees your heart and you still struggle with internal sin in your members, but He’s looking at who you really are-the internal person. That’s what He’s obsessed with in that sense. Even in the New Testament, Acts 1:24. Remember, the apostles are going to basically pray and then elect, based upon God’s guidance, an apostle to take Judas’s place, and they prayed and said, “‘You Lord, who knows the hearts of all, (You know the hearts of all) show which one of these you have chosen.’” There’s God doing choosing again, by the way. I know that aggravates some people. That’s why I always like to highlight it because that’s good for us to be pressed on that when God’s making choices, right? But what is the point here? The point here is this: we don’t know all the hearts. God, You know the hearts, and what we’re looking to do, the apostles, in essence, are demonstrating is they want to put leaders in places who have hearts for God and for God’s people. See, that’s the deal. And so, God knows the heart. That’s why they’re asking Him this.
How about this? You probably knew I was coming here. Jeremiah 17:9-10a. “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick. (Who?) Who can understand it?” Well, we know who can understand it, don’t we? Look at the next verse. Usually we don’t read this, and it says, “I, the Lord, I, the Lord, search the heart and test the mind,…” I do it. I know the heart. You say, who can understand the human heart and the complexities of that? Here’s the answer: God does, because He looks at it and He understands it. Okay, that’s a very simple statement we made. God’s not learning it, but He is. He is actually, as He’s showing it to us, we can start to see our heart. Now, an unbeliever will never know their own heart. They’ll never know their own heart because the conviction is what happens first. You have to come under conviction of the Holy Spirit when you hear the gospel that you are a sinner, in fact, and that you need a Savior from the wrath of a holy God who sees your heart. You see? And when you believe that, it’s because you’ve been raised from the dead by grace through faith, you see your sin and repent. You love your Savior and you trust Him. That’s salvation. That’s how the heart is actually dealt with. But then Christians can start to see pieces of their heart throughout your life, throughout your words, throughout your priorities, and you can say things like this, “eww.” Or as Paul said, “Wretched.” Right? You start going, “Ah ah!” And what do you do? Do you vow and strengthen yourself? No, you humble yourself, Hebrews 4:16, and you approach the throne of grace to find mercy and grace to help in time of need. You see, this ties together; all of it meets together. And when God shows us the heart as Christians, how does He do it? Well, it is through circumstances, but it’s the Holy Spirit that brings the correction and brings to our mind a comparison: what we see in us versus what we see in His Word. It’s something very concrete. See, when the devil wants to condemn you, what will he do? He’ll just tell you you’re horrible, you’re terrible person, you’re a failure at this, blah blah blah. When the Holy Spirit wants to convict you, Ye’ll tell you exactly. He’ll show you exactly what the problem is. How does Ye do it? He does it through the Word. Look at Hebrews 4:12-13, “For the Word of God (so, there’s context, the Word of God) is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the.” Dive vision, watch, the Word of God is going to come, and it’s going to cut. Think of a fileting, opening up one thing from the other. The division of soul and spirit. Yes, there is a difference. In other words, the inner man from the innermost man. So, the Word of God comes, and it’s like dividing spirit and soul. In other words, you can see what’s of your mind, and you start to understand what is of the Spirit when the Word of God cuts you. Here’s the second place. We understand this, right? “Of joints (that’s deep) but marrow (is deeper, isn’t it?).” It’s an illustration. And here’s the point, the second or the last one. It says, “And discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.” What’s the difference? Well, one is the thought, the other is the motive, and the Word of God comes in and opens it up. And then you, you and I were able to go, “Oh no.” Because see, I think my thoughts are noble, and then I see my motive because the Word of God opens it up. Now God’s seeing it, if you will. He already knew it because He’s omni everything. That’s question number one. Again, I taught. I warned you. Very simple, but very needed foundationally for the verses that we’re going to be coming into later. You’ll understand as we go through. Just decided to slow down here.
By the way, just I know you really care what we did on our vacation, but while we were in Arizona, staying in Flagstaff, you guys were 40 degrees hotter than we were, by the way. Kelly and I we went to Bearazona. Anybody ever been to Bearazona? Good, don’t. It’s a place where you pay a lot of money to drive your vehicle through these wildlife things, and you see things like goats sleeping, wolves sleeping, brown bears sleeping, black bears sleeping. There’s a lot of stuff you can watch sleeping. And as we went through Beararizona, I’m going somewhere. Calm down. There was one bear who slept right by the road. So, guess what? Traffic jam at the one bear, because everybody’s got to stop. And we did it, and we videoed the one bear, and like he yawned, and we’re like, “Oh my gosh!” Like we’re having a nature encounter. It’s like, what does this have to do with the Bible? Listen, here’s a bear. We’re coming to the centerpiece quite soon of Romans eight, the capstone statement possibly in the entire Bible. When we, especially next week when we get it, and you’re going to understand it. But listen, if you slow down, you can take in the details.
Here’s question 2, that was way too much time. I am not going to do that again. Here’s 2. Who Does The Holy Spirit Intercede For?
Who does the Holy Spirit intercede for? Well, let’s look at the text, verse 27, “And He who searches hearts (this is He, this is God the Father) He knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes (for who?) for the saints, according to the will of God.” Now you may not think of yourself as a saint. I have a Catholic background, and in the Catholic Church, they would make people saints, and then they’d build a statue to them, and then you could pray to them. And then I got saved, and I found out that was necromancy. We were talking to the dead, and I repented, and I haven’t prayed to a statue since. Okay, but if you’re in Christ, you’re actually a saint. This basically is a simple thing. It means holy and set apart. That’s what that means. That’s what a saint means. In other words, the Spirit intercedes. Think of this. Listen to me. Exclusively, exclusively, for the saints. Now, what’s the root word of “exclusively”? It’s to exclude others are excluded. The prayer is only for the saints. That’s it. And if you say, “Well, how can that be fair?” Please, I’m going to stop you. You need to first drown in the text, know what it says, what it means by what it says, and how it applies to your life based upon the finished work of Jesus, and let the let the questions come later, but first, what we have to do is we have to say, “Yes. That’s right, Lord.” The Holy Spirit is not inside an unregenerate person interceding for them, and therefore, all things do not work together for good. You see where I’m going with this? Well, because you see where the Holy Spirit’s going with it. This is exclusive language. Exclusivity. So, the question then comes how is a saint made not very simple this is very simple it is it is someone who is holy and set apart it looks like this great place to find the way that a saint is made 1 Corinthian 6:9-11 because we need to recognize this. You are not a saint because you’re a special breed of person. You are not a saint because you do saintly things. You are certainly not a saint because a guy in a funny hat said you were. Some, you know, a pontiff. We’re going to make him a saint, right? No, this is how a saint is made. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?” Sounds like bad news, doesn’t it? It is, right? And then there’s this statement: “Do not be deceived.” Now, let me help you with what’s called your hermeneutic. That’s the lens by which you interpret Scripture. Any time you read this statement in your Bible, do not be deceived. You’re about to hear something that you could easily be deceived by. “Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral. (Listen to this list. And by the way, if you’re not tagged by this list, I’ve never met anybody that’s not tagged somewhere in this list) Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Let me remind you that Jesus said, “If you do it in your heart, you did it.” And the good news is the next verse, “And such were some of you (but you, this is believers).” “You were washed.” Washed how? Washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. “You were sanctified.” What does that mean? That means set apart. How were you sanctified? Because the Holy Spirit took up residence in you, and you became other than this world. “You were justified.” What does that mean? That means God declares you absolutely just in His sight. Legal definition: all the wrath is gone, and your account has been credited with Jesus’ own righteousness. 33 years of perfect law keeping, and it happened in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. This is called regeneration. That’s what this is. This is called being born again. That’s how a saint is made. A saint is not made when you go through a class. If that was the case, we would have saint school. I just made that up. Some of y’all are Baptist background. You’re like, “That’s what Sunday school is.” No, regeneration. That that those are discipleship classes, perhaps depending on what they’re teaching. But the regeneration is where the sainthood comes from. Your identity changes when you get born again. When did your normal identity begin? When you were born, or when you got older? No, it’s when you were born. Hopefully, your parents named you. There’s a birth certificate. It’s got your name on it, right? That’s what happens. You’ve been given a new name. You come into a new family. You’ve been given a new spirit, and yes, you’ve been given a new heart. Is it at war, spirit and soul? Yep, there’s the battle between flesh and spirit, inside and out. Yep, we get it. But you are a new creation nonetheless, and this is how God sees you. This is how a saint is actually made. So, thus, the Spirit’s intercession is exclusively for God’s chosen people. Yes, it is. chosen people. Now I get it. There’s going to be a lot of people here this weekend, right? You’re the first of three services. They get progressively bigger, right? And here’s the thing: you hear that God does choosing, and it makes you feel small. Good. Go with that. You don’t need a church that makes you feel big. You need a church that shows Him to be big. That’s what you want. We want to see God as He really is. And by comparison, you say, “Well, I feel so small when God does choices.” Good. That’s great. Humble yourself under His mighty hand. He’ll raise you up in due time. He’s always been doing this.
This is an Old Testament and a New Testament doctrine. What about Deuteronomy 7:6? He says to Israel, “For you are a people holy to the Lord.” Basically, He’s calling them saints in that sense, not salvific, but it’s the same kind of language. “The Lord your God (has what? He) has chosen (He’s chosen) you to be a people for His treasured possession out of all the people who are on the face of the earth.” In other words, it’s you and it’s not them. It’s exclusive to Israel. And by the way, we could go all the way back, couldn’t we? Didn’t He choose to create Adam? Why didn’t He make Bob? You’re like, “Who’s Bob?” I don’t know. He didn’t make him. I’m talking about the first man, right? Bless you. What about Abraham? He just chose Abraham, didn’t He? Yeah. Out of all the people on the earth, He says, “You, I choose you.” Why did he choose? Why? I don’t know. I know why He didn’t choose Israel. It wasn’t because they were awesome. He drove that point home many times. I mean, they weren’t even nice to Him, right? Constantly disobedient, but He put His love upon them. Yes, God is a choosing God. Psalm 147:19-20. Look at the exclusive language. “He declares His word to Jacob, His statutes and rules to Israel. He has not dealt thus with any other nation. They do not know His rules well. Praise the Lord.” Why would you praise the Lord? Because if you say, “Well, I’m one of His people, praise the Lord. But there’s others He hasn’t dealt with that way. Praise the Lord.” I mean, rather than debating the Master’s gift, we should be joyfully praising His magnanimous saving of savages. None of us deserve this. When you catch that, you’ll stop questioning the Almighty.
Jesus says it this way: John 10:11; John 10:14-15. “‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for’” who? Can we get that next slide on here? Did it really? Oh. Oh. Well, that’s my fault. I’ll just read it to you. Sorry about that, Olivia. Jesus, trust me, He said it. He says, “‘I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.’” It doesn’t say the goats. You say, “Wait a minute, but goats become sheep.” No, no, they don’t. Lost sheep become found sheep. You go down to 14 or 15, same chapter. John 10:14-15, He says, “‘I am the good shepherd. I know My own, and My own know Me, just as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father, and I lay down My life for the sheep.’” Go over to John 17:5-9. Good job. Jesus is praying for His church, right? In the future. This is His high priestly prayer, the entire chapter. “‘And now, Father, glorify Me in Your presence with the glory that I had with You before the world existed. (Look what He says next) I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world.’” Do you see that? They were in the world. And “‘You gave them to Me out of the world.’” You took them out of there, and You put them into Me. You took them over there, and You chose them, and You gave them to Me. This is a gift. Do you know if you’re in Christ, you are a love gift. You are a love gift from the Father to the Son. Maybe you’re here, and you go, “I don’t feel much like a love gift.” Well, give it time. Eventually, you’ll see Jesus, and you won’t be worried about it anymore. But for right now, it’s a process, right? But this is the point. This is exclusive language out of the world. “‘Yours they were, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word.’” Why? Why did they keep His Word? Because they were given to Him. Now they know. This is verse seven. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you, for I have given them the words. Let’s keep up. It’s verse eight. Thank you. “For I have given them the words, so we’re given to Him, and He gives us the words that You gave Me, and they have received them and come to know in truth that I came from You, and that they have believed that You sent Me.’” Watch verse nine, “‘I am praying for them (you see what’s next? This is in your Bible) I am not praying for the world.’” Now, maybe you’re going to be probably not first service, right? Somebody’s going to be here this weekend. They’re going to say this at least in their heart. And by the way, you’re going to say in your heart, God sees it, and the heart’s going to say this. “Well, my God prays for everybody.” Well, then your God is not the God of the Bible, and that’s problematic because Jesus is God, and you only come to the Father through Him, and this is what He says. He says, “I’m praying for them. I’m not praying for the world, but for those whom You have given Me (You have given Me) for they are Yours.’” Do you see it? You see the exclusivity. This is who the Spirit intercedes for. So, rather than worrying as to the which and the why of why something else didn’t happen, can’t we at least sit under it and say, “Thank You, Lord, thank You, Lord. I don’t understand all of it, Lord. I’m wrestling with it, but I’m going to wrestle. I’m going to endure sound doctrine and let You work on Me instead of Me standing over the Bible telling it what it can’t say.” Many, many pastors won’t teach the whole of Scripture because they recognize that it will cause people to leave. But my question is this: Without the whole counsel of God, what good is it if you stay? You’re not going to know Him as you’re supposed to. You’re not going to be equipped as you’re supposed to. He’s not going to be glorified by your life as you’re supposed to, and we’re not going to reach the world as we’re supposed to.
Here’s 3. How Does This Give Us Assurance?
How does it give us assurance? Well, I’ll tell you this: It’s God is the one establishing and sustaining our faith. That means if He is the one that started it, and He is the one who finishes it, who continues it, that means He is the one who gets the glory, and we are the ones that get the joy. And part of joy is what? It’s the assurance of your salvation. It’s the assurance of knowing both in heaven Jesus is interceding for you, and inside of your very heart, in your spirit man, the Holy Spirit is interceding for you perfectly, perfectly. Your prayers might go all like this: His prayers are perfect, direct to the mind of God. He prays the perfect will of God for us. That is how we’re growing, not glory to us, therefore, as you see yourself bear more fruit, you tend to not look down on somebody who maybe still struggles somewhere. Now you can have compassion, and you can bring correction, and you can be merciful. But what are you actually doing? “You’re not saying I got here and why aren’t you?” You’re saying, “God has worked this in me. I want to love to see Him work this in you.” It’s very easy. This is the way He operates. Hebrews 12:2a, “Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfector of our faith…” Now, if it were us, we’d have to change this word to our name. Looking to insert name here because you started it, and you got to keep it. That’s a terrible, terrible yoke. Listen, guys, if you could lose your salvation, you would. You would. If I could lose it, I’d lose it. How can I keep what I did not start? Now I can walk with Him. I can yield to Him. I can abide in Him. I can seek Him. I can fear Him. I can love Him. All those things are in a growth pattern. But leave Him. How can I leave Him when I belong to the Spirit? You say, well, people walk away from the faith. 1 John 2:19 is very clear. Those that go away were never in. They went out from among us because they were never of us. If they’d been of us, they would have remained with us. But because they are not of us, they’ve gone out. Then it might become clear that they were never one of us. I just combined four translations. I speak the New King, New American Standard ESV LSB Bible. Luke 22:31. This is right when Peter is getting warned about what’s going to happen, “‘Simon, Simon (so, it’s Simon Peter, Jesus says this to him, this is before the crucifixion, this is before his arrest, before Jesus gets arrested) Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you that he might sift you like wheat.’” Satan’s coming after you. Now there was another guy that Satan came after too. One of the apostles, wasn’t he? Remember Judas, right? Well, there’s a distinction between what happened for Peter and what didn’t happen for Judas, and here it is in the next verse. “‘But (look) I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.’” What? “Peter? He’s coming, and I’m not denying him access, but what I am going to do is I’m going to pray for you. I’m going to intercede for you that your faith will not fail.” Christian, He does the same for you. The Holy Spirit does the exact same thing for you that your faith does not fail. The righteous man stumbles seven times, but he does not fall headlong because the Lord upholds him with His strong right arm. He picks you back up, and you find yourself repenting, and you find yourself believing, and then you are walking in that. Are you choosing that? Yes, you are. But it’s God is the one that’s holding you up.
Then, what deep assurance is this that He has secured this? Philippians 1:6. I know you know these verses. “I am sure of this (Paul says) that He who began (now, who is this? This is Jesus) a good work in you will bring it to what completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” It doesn’t have a question mark. He says, “I’m sure. I’m sure of it. If you are here and you are in Christ, you will be with us, meeting the Lord in the air.” It’s guaranteed. He said, “What if I just choose to become an ax murderer and a Satanist?” Well, then you were never saved. That’s pretty clear, isn’t it? That’s not hard to understand. You don’t get born again and then unborn again. You don’t get regenerated and then unregenerate. Yes, you’re going to struggle with your stuff, but it’s a struggle forward because you have a new heart. That’s what he’s talking about. He’s going to finish this. John 10:27-29. Do we have that one? All right, because this involves sheep. Look, “‘My sheep (My sheep) hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life (it’s a gift) and they will never perish. (In the Greek, the word “never” means never) and no one will snatch them out of My hand.’” What is He doing here? He’s giving us a word picture of how safe we are. Snatch it out of His hand? And then He doubles down. He says, “‘My Father, who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.’” It simply cannot happen. Hebrews 9:11-12, “But when Christ appeared as High Priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent, not made with hands, that is not of this creation. (In other words, when He went on your behalf to the actual holy of holies) He entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of by means of His own blood. Thus, (what?) securing an eternal redemption.” Not temporary. Nobody’s saved for 10 minutes. Nobody’s saved for a year. Nobody’s saved for 10 years. If you are born again, if you’ve been truly redeemed, if you’ve been truly regenerated, you’re saved eternally. You’re saved forever. Because if you’re not secured by God, then you’re the one securing you. And if you think you can do it, you’ve probably never met you? You ever met somebody they’ve never met themselves? They’re just not self-aware, right? Like you haven’t met you. They think they’re awesome. Well, one day maybe by the Holy Spirit’s grace, He’ll open their eyes and they’ll meet themselves, and they’ll go, “Oh, oh, I can’t keep this. I need a Savior still. I need the gospel still.” That’s what Gospel 101 and 201 are one are about. The classes, it’s the understanding most Christians never get from denominational backgrounds. Is that the good news needs to be reiterated consistently in your life as you stumble, struggle, and you are walking with Christ. The good news stays good. Here’s Ephesians 1:13-14, “In Him, you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation (right? This is when someone saved and believed in Him) were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. (The Holy Spirit) who (is the what?) guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory.” It’s an actual guarantee. If He doesn’t guarantee it, you won’t get it. He has guaranteed it; you get it. This is why it’s such assurance. And He’s inside of you praying perfectly to the one that sees your heart. This is assurance, but it’s exclusive to believers.
So, when we get into the next verses, we won’t have people ripping them out, putting them on the refrigerator, and just say, “Yeah, I like God too.” It’s different because we’ll get into what loving God actually is too. I’ll end with this. Do you know what it means when a preacher says that? Nothing. “Blessed.” This is 1 Peter 1:3-5. Watch the progression here. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to His great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. To (in other words, it was from that to this) an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven (by you).” No. It’s kept in heaven “for you”. How is it kept in heaven for you? Because Jesus is praying that your faith won’t fail, and the Holy Spirit’s interceding from within you, perfectly to the will of God, and the answer is always the same thing: “yes,” from the Father. What the Spirit prays, it’s exactly what the mind of God is, because they are one essence. It’s an inner Trinitarian conversation. Look, it goes on in verse five. “Who (this is the person talking about the person, not the inheritance) who, by God’s power (it’s by God’s power) are being guarded through faith.” There it is, and Jesus is praying for you. That’s assurance through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed at the last time. I don’t know how you don’t get from this something that you go, “This is good news. This is really good news.” Show of hands. I never do this. Show of hands: anybody you ever been part of something where you rededicated your life, altar calls? Why’d you laugh? How many times did you have to do it, Jim Bob? Every time you went to youth camp, right? You rededicated your life. Now you can you can you can restate. You know, “God, I’ve sinned,” but that’s called repentance. But rededication of your life seems to have a vow to it. “From now on, I will never-“ rather than humbling yourself before the throne of grace, right? The war of the will. This assurance is that what He started, He’ll finish. It doesn’t matter how you feel. It transcends it. God is not watching your feelings and making His decisions. “Oh, oh, she doesn’t feel it right now. Never mind, she’s out. Hope she feels it later.” You’re like, “Can you play some lame Christian music, and then my heartstrings will be strung, and I’ll have some emotion? Just don’t put any doctrine in it.” You know, right? And then you have that feeling. I’ve known people over the past 40 years who would describe the movement of God by goosebumps. Literally, I had a man, a grown man, sitting at a table across from me, and go, “Look at this goosebumps!” I’m like, “Give me your man card, dude.” Thus, through perfect intercession, the saints are preserved. Were it not for Christ and the Holy Spirit’s continually on guard on our behalf, our inheritance in heaven would be reserved for us in vain, but He does guard it. He does keep it, and there’s intercession. It’s happening right now before the throne of God for you and within you, and the church around you wants to pray for you as well. I don’t care who you are, care where you’re from. You can have people pray for you here, and I’m going to say this again. I’m going to stay on this little soapbox here for a few weeks. That when you see people come up here up to the front, it doesn’t mean that people are coming forward, and it’s because these are the bad people. No, I’ll tell you that these are the humble people that come forward and say this: “Would you pray for me?” And oftentimes, the people who minister at the altar they’ll turn to one another and get prayer too. You need prayer, and yes, you Jesus is Your intercessor. That doesn’t mean you don’t need the church because He tells us to pray for one another. Yes, the Holy Spirit’s interceding within you. That doesn’t mean you don’t need the church because He tells us to pray for one another. Why not have all three? You say, “Two out of three ain’t bad.” Again, I’ll give you a guarantee. If one of these weeks doesn’t have to be today, but one of these weeks, when others are heading that way, you come down here and you find one of the people that are up here ministering at the altar and just say, “Hey, would you pray for me?” You don’t even have to tell them why. Just say, “Would you just pray for me?” I’m giving you a, it’s not money back because it doesn’t cost you anything, but I’m giving you a promise that you’re gonna sense, and I mean this. I mean I’m not trying to draw you by sensual desire, but you will sense the grace of God because you’ve humbled yourself and you’ve let the church minister to you. We want to pray for you. You can also send those requests in. And by the way, if you leave and you’re not encouraged, you can issue a complaint. You can email me directly, jeff@shermanbible.com. Let’s read the text one more time. “And He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints (that’s exclusively) and it’s always according to the will of God.”
KEYWORDS
Exclusivity, Holy Spirit, Romans 8, Holy Spirit, Intercession, Saint, Saints, God’s Will, Heart, Motivation, Seat, Assurance, Salvation, Regeneration, Justified, Jesus Christ, Faith, Sanctification, Justification, Redemption, Texas Church, Bible Church, Non-Denominational Church, Bible Sermons, Grayson County Texas, Gospel
Speaker
Steve LeBlanc