Somebody asked me during the session what I mean by the glory of God. That is a very good question because I’ve used it, what, a hundred times and haven’t defined it and I’m really into clarity as far as it’s possible and I’m into definitions. I think most arguments are settled by definitions. So, let me try and I don’t have it in my notes here. I’ll just tell you what I think.

Defining the Glory of God

One of the reasons it’s hard to define the glory of God is because there are realities that can’t be communicated through other mediums than themselves very effectively. Jonathan Edwards, who has worked harder than anybody I know to put indescribable reality into words, has a section in his essay on the Trinity, where you can just see him throwing up his hands and saying, “Words, words, words, how inadequate these instruments are.” Here’s my replacement of one word with another set of ambiguous words called a definition.

The glory of God is the beauty of his manifold perfections. Now, the word “beauty” needs defining and how in the world are we going to do that? Who can define the word “beauty”? What you do when you have a word like beauty is to point to something. I mean if you try to come up with words like “symmetry” and “harmony” and “balance” and “texture,” what’s that? Is that working? Am I getting a sense of what beauty is? You point to it, you say that sky or that baby or that woman, or that canyon is beautiful. It has about it those traits, which correspond to the fact that we’re made to see and savor beautiful things. So it may not help, but it’s at least an effort to say, the glory of God is the beauty of his manifold perfections.

What I mean by manifold perfections is that you could take any particular perfection, say like his power or his wisdom, his goodness, and you say, “That’s glorious.” And that would mean it’s beautiful in all of its contours and all of its relationships. But when I speak of the glory of God in total, I mean, all of that He is coming together in its perfect interaction, so that the totality is glorious or beautiful. Maybe this will help, maybe not.

What’s the relationship between the holiness of God and the glory of God? Can you define the holiness of God? Here’s my effort at that. R.C. Sproul defines the holiness of God as his “transcendent purity.” That’s the shortest definition he has and he’s trying to get at two things: Complete separation from all sin and defilement of any kind, and complete otherness that’s just exalted high and lifted up and different from us. And he puts the two together. Transcendent purity is his holiness. I think that’s right and then I would go a little further, and I would say, and because he’s high, lifted up, and totally other, and because he’s separate from all defiling and impurity — in him is light and there’s no darkness at all — he is infinitely valuable.

The fundamental concept of holiness is separateness unto the Lord. The Lord is separate unto the Lord and when something is really, really, really valuable, you separate it, you put it in a big safe, like the Mona Lisa. You don’t just put the Mona Lisa on the street for everybody to walk by. You put it behind this huge bulletproof glass case and everybody feels because of its separateness, “That must be really valuable,” or there’s this gigantic diamond somewhere in the world. It’s probably worth a billion dollars and you don’t just pass it around. You put it up here and you put a guard on either side. There’s these holy angels, flaming fire, and they have swords. And you put it behind a glass case, you say, “Whoa, that’s really valuable.” So in my mind, the holiness of God is his infinitely valuable self, his God-ness, his transcendence, his purity.

Holiness Gone Public

ow the relationship between that and glory. Isaiah 6:3 says:

And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!”

Why didn’t they say holiness? Why’d they shift? My interpretation of that is, the glory of God is his holiness gone public. Holiness is his intrinsic worth, his intrinsic value, his intrinsic God-ness. It’s his being that’s unique and high and lifted up and separate and valuable beyond all measure. He’s the measure of all value, the measure of all truth, the measure of all things, the origin of all things, and the upholder of all things. He’s infinitely out there separate. He’s God and I’m not and my very existence hangs totally on him, and he has chosen that there be a creation in which his beauty of holiness streams out. And when it streams out, we call it “glory.” Glory is the public display of God’s perfections.

I know all that’s inadequate, but that’s my effort. I think about it a lot, but I can’t get far. I think far better than to break your brain trying to articulate the ideal definition is to immerse yourself in this Book that you’re just in it all the time. You’re in glory and you’re in holiness. You live in it. Very many times, I read a text that I don’t fully understand and do you know what I say to the Lord? Especially if it’s a text that involves some kind of doing on my part or, I say, “Lord, I’m not sure what to do with this, but whatever it means, would you do that in me, so that maybe in the doing it, I discover what it is?” That’s risky, but you have to trust him to do that, but I think that’s exactly what a child does. A father tells him to do something and he doesn’t understand the word. The son says, “I’m not sure what he wanted me to do, but I sure hope I wind up doing it because I’m supposed to do it.”

Prayer in Missions

That unit we just spent a whole lot of time on is what I meant by the supremacy of God in missions to worship. Missions exist because worship doesn’t, that is people falling short of the glory of God all over the world. They’re not loving the glory of God. They’re not exalting the glory of God. They’re not making much of God. They’re belittling God by ignoring him or misunderstanding him, and we want God vindicated in their lives and lifted up and praised. We want them to be glad and praise the Lord. We want it. That’s the fuel of missions and we pursue it as the goal of missions.

Now, secondly, we’ll focus on prayer. We cannot know what prayer is for until we know that life is war. That’s my little slogan for understanding prayer in relation to missions. Life is war. That’s not all it is. But it is always that. Our weakness in prayer may be owing largely to our neglect of this truth. That’s important. If you feel like you might not have the strongest prayer life you’d like — and who doesn’t, because I’ve never met a person who says they are satisfied with their prayer life — one of the reasons may be that you’re not understanding what life is in, namely war morning to night, and what prayer is in relation to that.

Life Is War

So, here’s some texts on life being war.

Second Timothy 4:7 says:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.

Paul at the end of his life saying it’s been a fight. It’s been a fight all the way. I know we all have our favorite metaphors for the Christian walk and Christian relationship and some people don’t like war imagery. They don’t like fighting imagery. They think, “Ew, uh.” I’m sorry, it’s just there. And it’s not the only thing that’s there, so relax. You can have family images. He’s my father, I’m his child, I sit in his lap lots. Okay, that’s not war. So, don’t hear me silencing any other biblical images, just get this one because if you don’t get this one, you may not know how to use the weapon of prayer. First Timothy 6:12 says:

Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

Luke 13:24 says:

Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.

Hebrews 4:11 says:

Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.

Now, there’s a lot of controversy around these things, especially in the blogosphere these days on the doctrine of sanctification. People say, “Oh, strive? That’s not gospel talk. That’s not gospel talk. Strive? Boo. We’re done with striving. Jesus strove, he died, we rest.” Well, read your Bible. It may be that the striving here is the striving to rest. That is, to stop frantically trying to justify yourself by doing your job so that the boss will be pleased, or frantically trying to be the perfect husband, or frantically trying to get God pleased because he’s not pleased. It may be that’s what striving is, but you don’t minimize the fact that Paul used the word strive, or agonize. This is no small battle to rest. Jesus says:

Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30).

Why are you telling us to strive for goodness’ sake? That’s the opposite of striving. Someone might say, “He just told me to come rest. So are you resting?” No, you’re not, so you need to strive. That is, get out your gun and blow the head off of your legalism. Cut the hand off of your lust. Gouge out your eye if you’re going after some idol. I mean get serious about resting in Jesus. Life is war.

A Wartime Walkie Talkie

If you think with the world of the flesh and the devil ready to send you to hell any minute of your life, you can lay down the arms that God has given you, the full armor of God, you’re a sitting duck.

Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified (1 Corinthians 9:25–27).

That’s it. That’s a nice, soft translation here. He says, “I pummel my body.” What is that? I think that’s like Jesus saying, “Cut off your hand, gouge out your eye.” That’s what Jesus said. Get serious about fighting sin. Second Timothy 2:4 says:

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits.

Second Corinthians 10:3–5 says:

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ . . .

These are images you can’t rip out of your Bible. And not to know what life is means you won’t know what prayer is, so here’s what prayer is. Prayer is primarily a wartime walkie-talkie for the mission of the church as it advances against the powers of darkness and unbelief. It’s not surprising that prayer malfunctions when we try to make it a domestic intercom to call upstairs for another pillow in the den. If you’re not on a mission, if you’re not at war, and you try to use prayer, it’s like, “Oh, hello, Jesus, I need another pillow while I’m watching this program down. I’m a little uncomfortable, and bring Coke while you’re at it.” It’s not going to work. It wasn’t made for that.

What’s it made for is this: “Jesus, I’m watching this TV and I need to turn it off right now. I need to turn this off right now and I need help, please because I’m going to be ruined tonight if I don’t turn this off. I won’t pray tonight. I won’t love you tonight. I won’t witness tonight. I’ll have no power tonight. I’ll be sucked into this thing I’m watching right now. Please, Jesus, show up. Shoot your gun. Do what you have to do to help me turn this off.” That’s prayer. That’s what it’s for. It’s for not sinning.

Awake at All Times

Look at this regarding surviving in wartime:

But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap. For it will come upon all who dwell on the face of the whole earth. But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man (Luke 24:34–36).

The function of prayer in that text is what? The Lord is about to come and just before he comes, there are these threats. They are there all through your life and they are about to take you down, so that you won’t be able to stand before the Son of Man. You will have been swept away into unbelief and drunkenness and worldliness. And he speaks of wakefulness, moral and spiritual wakefulness. Your job out there on the edge as the century to protect your buddies back here from the enemies at night is to stay awake because if you go to sleep, they’ll come in here and kill us all with bayonet, so stay awake. That’s how serious it is. Stay awake, praying, “We need firepower in here. We’re at 300 yards out, don’t rain on us because they’re coming and we don’t have any hope against that horde, so we need your firepower from back there.” There are these scenes of Iwo Jima and others where these boats are out there, these huge cannons and these guys say, “Come on now. They’re up there. Just get those bullets over, there’s cannons over our head right there on the enemy.” That’s what prayer is for.

And it’s so that you may be able to escape all these things. Now, don’t jump to some kind of escapist eschatology that says, “We’re going to be taken out of the world before he comes.” That’s not what it says. It says “That we may escape all these things that are going to take place and stand before the Son of Man when he comes.” Escape means not being sucked into the maroon by them. Prayer is central in surviving in wartime. You might say, “What’s this have to do with missions?” It has everything to do with missions. Most of our missionaries are in places where they have access to the internet.

Guess what you can do on the internet? Watch naked women. I mean, how many missionaries are being ruined by the very same kinds of worldliness, men and women, that we are? They’re subjected to exactly the same temptations. They get tired. They get beat up. There’s no place to go out to eat. There are no movies to watch. There’s no innocent downtime, hardly, but they have the internet. Do you think this kind of praying isn’t crucial to their mission, just surviving as Christians being alive in Jesus and keeping themselves pure?

Chosen to Bear Fruit, Chosen to Pray

Here’s an interesting relationship between missions and prayer. Now, the imagery is not warfare here. I know that, but get the analogy:

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit (that’s missions, whether holiness or converts) and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you (John 15:16).

He is saying, “I’m giving you a mission, so that whatever you ask, he’ll give it to you.” Do you see that? He is saying, “I chose you to go and the purpose is so that you’ll get answers to prayer.” When I saw that, I thought, it’s amazing. God is giving me a mission so that my prayers will be answered, which means prayer is not for domestic intercom, like, “Hello, another pillow, please.” It’s for the mission. That’s what it says. I’m giving you a mission, so that you can have the pleasure and the fulfillment of getting the mission done. The intercom works now. Oh, look, it works. It works on the field. It works when the bullets are flying. It works when I’m engaged with the enemy. It wasn’t working back home, and now it works.

One of the reasons I think we just have a pretty weak prayer life is because we’re not on mission and therefore we’re not desperate. We’re not desperate for him to show up when we talk to an unbeliever or show up when we try to do a good deed for somebody and we don’t want to be sunk in our discouragement when they reject us. Amazing text.

Plentiful Harvest

We are called to pray for workers and converts:

The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest (Matthew 9:37–38).

That has to be one of the most amazing texts on prayer because you gotta be kidding Jesus, aren’t you? You’re kidding. You’re telling the farmhands to go to the expert agriculturalist farmer, who’s got his doctorate in agriculture, to tell him what he needs to do to get a good harvest? I’m going to ask God to send more laborers? Doesn’t he know how many laborers are needed. Isn’t that amazing? What do you make of that? Jesus tells you to tell God who knows everything and is infinitely wise to send reinforcements to Afghanistan? Do you know about Afghanistan? Can I inform God about Afghanistan? No, no, I can’t. This is not an information thing. So, what is it? Pascal put it like this, “Prayer is God’s granting to humans the dignity of causality.” He didn’t have to use prayer at this moment. He can do Afghanistan just fine with nobody asking him to. He can put it in your heart to go wherever he wants you to go and he’ll get it done without us asking him to. He can do that.

He just decides not to. He is saying, “I am going to not only be decisive in getting people where they need to be for my mission, I’m also going to stir in some secondary causes to let you have the dignity of causality in my way of doing it. Your prayer will make a difference in whether I send them. I ordain that it makes a difference, that you can be a partner in this.” That’s what that text implies.

Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved (Romans 10:1).

So we not only pray for workers, we pray for converts. If you ever needed a Bible verse just to encourage you to keep praying for your father, mother, sister, brother, friend, neighbor, cousin, or child who’s not walking with God, there it is in Romans 10:1. Paul prayed over and over for his kinsmen according to the flesh and he grieved deeply that so many Jewish people weren’t embracing his Messiah and their Messiah. That’s prayer for workers and prayer for converts and the dignity of causality.

God’s Decisive Causality

In prayer, God grants us the dignity of causality, but God’s causality is decisive. God is the one who saves sinners and opens their eyes. He says:

And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16).

He is going to get it done. Those are sovereign musts and wills.

All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out (John 6:37).

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day (John 6:44).

”But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father” (John 6:64–65).

This drawing is now called a granting by the Father. So God decisively saved sinners and prayer is one of his instruments.

The Word Does the Work

Here’s another thing. God brings about conversion decisively through the word. I preached at a Missions Conference in 1988 in Denver and they gave me the title, “Prayer: The Work of Missions.” I remember it like it was yesterday. As I was preparing, sitting at my desk, looking at “Prayer: The Work of Missions,” I began my lecture by saying, “Prayer, the Work of Missions,” it’s not the work of missions.” They built the whole conference around prayer as the work of missions. And I said, “It’s just not the work of missions. Preaching is the work of missions, and prayer is the power that wields the word.” So I did wind up making much of prayer, which they were happy with.

But in those days, there was a prayer movement. There was a prayer movement in the Twin Cities. We gathered in both cities for seven years together. Some of you may remember this in the late 1970s. We tried to fill the Metrodome. We got about 10,000 people in the Metronome and we did it for seven years, pulling everybody together from all the denominations in a great prayer movement. Prayer was just in the air in those days. Pastors, I remember, gathered for prayer in all cities around the country because everybody was saying, “Unless you’re unified in prayer, God can’t bring revival.”

I was in it. I was just right at the thick of that. I was the one who helped design the affirmation of faith, which we used the Lausanne statement for everybody and so, I loved it. I thought it was the right thing to do, but I also realized that some people were taking it too far. They were elevating prayer above the word. So here I’m trying to show that it’s the word that saves sinners. Prayer empowers the word. It’s not the other way around. Prayer is not the immediate, effective agent of salvation; the word is.

The Centrality of the Word

So let me show you that and how they relate. Romans 1:16 says:

I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation . . .

First Peter 1:23–25 says:

You have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.

It’s through the living and abiding word, and this word is the gospel. That’s how people get saved. How were you born again? The immediate touching instrument on your dead heart was the word of God and power of the Spirit of God.

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures (James 1:18).

So, word is central. Now, how does prayer relate to that?

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and, as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel . . . (Ephesians 6:10–19).

The Word is the penetrating instrument by which the Holy Spirit saves sinners and prayer goes along with it. I have these several images in my mind. It’s this booster power behind the word, just shoves it in. That is, it calls down the power of the Holy Spirit to shove it into the heart. Or it’s the hand on the sword. The sword of the Spirit is the word of God and the hand that wields it with power is a praying hand. So, when I preached “Prayer: The Work of Missions,” I said, “No, no. It’s not the work of missions. The work of missions is get out there and risk your life to speak saving words, and prayer goes along with it — from home and prayer in your own heart and prayer from your family and prayer from all around you. You are powerfully doing what Paul pleaded that it would do here, “That words may be given me in the opening of my mouth.”

Praying for the Word to Work

So when we gather down in the prayer room for 30 minutes before I preach, and we worship, I love those minutes. It’s funny, I’ll just throw in a little parenthesis. I go to speak in a lot of places. It’s amazing to me how many places I go where they don’t pray, or if they do, it’s just a little last minute, “Can I pray for you before you go up?” I think, “Well, yeah, please. I mean, I’ve got the devil, the world, and everything is against me here. It would be helpful.” And 30 seconds before, they say a little prayer. That makes me think, “There’s something’s wrong here.” We give at least 30 minutes to soak me down there before I come up here to preach. I’m sitting there thinking that upstairs in that room there are going to be 500 or 600 people and I’m expected to save sinners, open the eyes of the blind, defeat the devil, shut the mouth of lions, heal the sick, and reconcile the alienated? None of which I can do. I can’t do any of it. So, how’s it going to happen? Well, has God at all appointed that he might respond to prayer? Yes. Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Missions advances by the word and the word is empowered by prayer. Look at Acts 4:29–31. It says:

“And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

What happens when you’re filled with the Holy Spirit? You speak the word of God with boldness. That’s how prayer works in the advance of the mission. Bringing in whatever miracles God is pleased to use by way of confirming evidence, signs, and wonders is fine. But nothing replaces this word. Other things are there. They’re subordinate. They’re important, but they’re not saving.

Maybe this would be a good place to stick this sentence in. When I spoke in Lausanne, at the big Missions Conference last October, I went there with one main goal: for that 4,000-person group to be encouraged to collectively say, “We, evangelicals, from all the countries of the world, say people are lost without Christ and without the gospel,” because that’s not being said clearly in a lot of places today. I had a 28-minute message to give and the most important sentence I felt I had was this: Can we all agree to say this? Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering? We care about AIDS. We care about human trafficking. We care about poverty. We care about injustices, and we especially care about eternal suffering. Can we just say that?

Then they broke up into table groups of eight or so and it was a very controversial sentence. That was just the buzz for a long time, because a lot of people didn’t like it. They didn’t like it and there are reasons. A lot of people don’t believe in eternal suffering, that’s one reason, even evangelicals. The very term is abhorrent. Eternal suffering. Hell is what we’re talking about and they don’t believe it. Others feel, “Oh, that’s going to minimize justice issues. It’s going to minimize relieving the hurts of the suffering.” I said, “Why would it do that?” There’s just deep, underlying unbelief in eternal loss-ness all over the world in Christians. There is a deep, underlying doubt that people are lost, because if they’re lost, and they will suffer forever, that causes all their suffering here to be relative to that.

Suffering is suffering. If you hurt, you hurt, but that’s going to be extended forever. I mean, if you think human trafficking is bad, because of this woman being taken at 11 years old and used like a slave for 10 years, what if she’s treated like that forever by men in hell? Does that matter to you? If you don’t think it matters to you, then you don’t love her. You’re just into a politically correct justice game. That’s what you’re doing. It’s politically correct to be in favor of human trafficking, I mean, to fight human trafficking right now. It’s the thing to do and you’re into it because it fits in your church. You don’t love her. Of course, they get really mad if you say that, but they just don’t believe it.

I’m saying that here, because this word of God saves her, we should want to get her out of that, and I’m thankful that that’s an issue today. I’m thankful that contemporary slavery, understood as human trafficking, is a burden on the church. I’m thankful for that, but if those involved in it don’t care about her eternal salvation more than they care about her release, they don’t love her. You just have to reject hell if you don’t believe that. Missions really, really, really matters.

May the Word Speed Ahead

Second Thessalonians 3:1 says:

Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may speed ahead and be honored, as happened among you . . .

Charles Spurgeon was asked one time, “How do you account for your success in the ministry of people coming to Christ?” He said, “My people pray for me.” Colossians 4:3 says:

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word . . .

Do you pray that for your missionaries every day? You can’t pray for thousands. You got one, two, three, or four, or the calendar that we have at Bethlehem once a day? Take one missionary a day and pray that: “God, open a door for them today. They want it more than anything. They’re frustrated that they’ve gone so long and they’ve seen so little fruit. Would you have mercy upon them and on the people they meet? Would you open the door for them and just blow the hinges off? Do something unusual today, Lord. They’re going to speak the word with boldness so that they may make it clear, which is how they ought to speak.”

Prayer shows the supremacy of God in missions because God gets glory when he gets depended on in prayer. He says:

Call upon me in the day of trouble;
     I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me (Psalm 50:15).

That’s called Robinson Crusoe’s text. Spurgeon has a sermon called “Robinson Crusoe’s Text,” because if you read the novel Robinson Crusoe, this is the text that’s in the book: “Call upon me in the day of trouble.” I’m calling on him and he will deliver me, and I will glorify him.” It has this circle going: I’m calling you, you’re answering me, I’m glorifying you. Now, I think God has chosen to do missions through prayer so that he gets more glory. In other words, the endpoint of missions is worship and all along the way, zeal for his glory is shaping the way it gets done and one of the ways it gets done is prayer, and the other is suffering.

The word and the mission will succeed. Jesus says:

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me (Matthew 28:18).

He cannot fail. He has all authority. He says:

This gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come (Matthew 24:14). It’s going to happen. The word cannot come back empty. Job 42 says:

I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted (Job 42:2).

God is going to get the mission done. That’s the end of my prayer section. I am arguing that it is not the work of missions, because the word is the work of missions and prayer is the hand that grips the sword and wields it in the power of God, or it’s the booster behind it that drives the sword of the Word into the heart. It’s the power that opens doors in front of the word. But the word is what saves people by the power of the Holy Spirit. The gospel is what saves people. You were born again, not with perishable seed but imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God, and that door was opened by prayer. Secondly, I argued that since prayer calls upon God admitting, “I’m weak, I’m foolish, I’m bankrupt, and you’re rich, and you’re smart, and you’re strong, so come on, and make it happen,” he just looks great. Prayer gets you on your face and gets God on his throne and makes him look like God.

If you just say, “I’m going to do the mission. I don’t need to pray. I’m going to do it,” you’ll get the glory and God will be sunk in obscurity behind your justice issues, which won’t do anybody any good in the long run.

Question and Answers

How do you recalibrate how churches pray? For example, when we pray for our leaders, sometimes we pray for things that make for our security and not for the advance of the gospel.

That’s a very good question. Listening to some groups pray for their leaders does sound a little bit too partisan, doesn’t it? I’m looking for a text here that’s going to be a part of my answer. First Timothy 2:1–4 says:

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions (like mayors or governors), that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Now, if you follow the train of argument there, it goes something like this: Pray for kings, so that life in this country can be of such a nature that salvation would come to more and more people. I’ll read again, so you can see if that’s an accurate paraphrase: “Pray for kings, so that we may lead a peaceable and quiet life.” Now, what I think that means is, if there’s anarchy in a country, if there’s mob rule, evangelism becomes extremely difficult. If the streets are on fire and all the institutions are crumbling and coming down and the whole fabric is unraveling in a culture, the spread of the gospel and the worshiping of God is difficult but not impossible. I mean, God is still alive and well in those situations, but he’s saying, “I don’t want that to happen. I don’t want that to happen anywhere,” because he says it’s so that there will be a peaceable and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. He says, “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God.” Why? It’s because he desires all people to be saved. There’s a correlation between effective evangelism and stability and peace in culture.

Here’s the general point: Let the prayers for leaders be governed by kingdom purposes, gospel purposes, saving purposes, and not primarily political purposes. Now, admittedly, political people are going to see it overlap there. They’re going to say, “This policy is going to make for more stability or more prosperity than this.” I mean, if you are totally, deeply, powerfully persuaded in your heart that a certain economic policy will do more good to more people, how can you not pray for it? For me in this pulpit, I’m not going to pray that way. Even if I believe it, I’m not. And I’ll tell you why.

I am jealous that the place of the preaching of the word of God be protected, even from right political partisanship because as soon as the Word of God begins to be co-opted by any particular political side, even a good side, it starts to feel like that instead of a prophetic, incisive word spoken out of heaven to humanity, Republican and Democrat. God is not a Republican and he’s not a Democrat. He is God. And I want the word of God to land on all factions in all groups with an independence and a power that calls everybody into question and offers gospel to everybody.

I think that’s the way generally we should pray. We should pray as if we are citizens of heaven and we await a Savior, Jesus, who will transform our lowly bodies to be like his glorious body (Philippians 3:21). So I’m a citizen first of heaven. I’m not an American first. I’m a Christian first. And so, I’m praying Christian causes and for the advance of the gospel of King Jesus. I’m going to pray. If I pray for Obama, I will pray, “Help him to submit to the King Jesus and live under the Lordship of Jesus,” and I’ll leave open how that looks. I mean, I know some clear things from the Bible about how it looks. He’s not going to cheat on his wife and he’s not going to lie. But mainly, I’m saying, bring him under submission to Jesus, bring the Supreme Court under the Lordship of Jesus, that kind of big kingdom praying.

The Supremacy of God in Missions Through Suffering

This is the last unit and maybe the most important thing in our day. We’ll see what you think. The Great Commission won’t be finished without suffering. Why? The highest reason is that God’s purpose is to be most glorified through the gladness of a redeemed people is accomplished best this way, both the redeemed missionaries and the people God wins through them. I’m going to argue that there is something about suffering that gets more glory for God than if he chose to do it without his missionaries ever having to suffer. So, let’s see if that’s biblical or not.

The glory of God shines most brightly on Earth in the gladness of his people through suffering. That’s a huge statement. That’s a risky statement. I mean, who am I? You’re suffering and I’m telling you this and that. The glory of God shines most brightly on Earth in the gladness of his people when they’re suffering. It’s easy to be glad when you’re not suffering and it’s easy to be angry when you’re suffering, but to be glad when you’re suffering is strange. God himself is our supreme treasure. His steadfast love is better than life. And therefore, the greatness of his worth is seen most clearly when we are willing to suffer, even give up our lives, to have a fuller knowledge and enjoyment of him. We measure the worth of a treasure by what we gladly give up in order to have it.

There’s more of God to be known as you lay your life down for the unreached than there is at home probably, at least for those who are called in that direction.

The Light of the World and the Joyful Suffering of God’s People

Let me take a few minutes on Matthew 5. I want to show you something here that I had not seen before just a few years ago. I want to know what is the light of the world and what is the salt of the earth because as those who care about lost people around us here and for the nations if he says that the people of God are the light of the world, that means people can see God, they can see the glory of God. What would that be? What would the light be? And they’re salt, so when the world tastes them, they want more. I really do believe it. It means tasty, not just preservative or fertilizer. I think salt meant “Ah, that’s good.” Meat tastes better when you have salt on it. You think, “More of this.” So the people of God are salty in the sense that when you bump into them, people will say, “Well, I need to know more about this. I want to figure you out.” Let’s read this:

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you . . . (Matthew 5:11).

How can you possibly rejoice when it’s just infuriating to be treated like that? The answer follows:

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven . . . (Matthew 5:12).

I said to the staff the other day, I think my main issue in life is to fall more in love with my future. I had this text in mind. My main issue in life is just to do that because I’m an angry man lots of times instead of a glad man. It’s just plain sin. The anger of man does not work the righteousness of God. Ninety-nine times out of 100, the anger of man is not working the righteousness of God. There is righteous anger but it’s about one percent of the time. Most of our anger is sinful. Most of our anger hurts people. Most of our anger is pride and selfishness and the failure to love that reward and to be so blown away by the gracious goodness of God that promised you to own the world and be infinitely happy, full and lasting in his right hand. We should be so happy in him and that promise that right now the reviling coming our way can’t shake our inner core of contentment. Boy, do I want to be there. I’m 65 years old and I so want to be there. You young guys and gals, get there sooner. Just get there sooner.

Salt and Light

Now, here come these images:

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people’s feet. You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven (Matthew 5:13–16).

I think we’re almost there when we say that, but we just aren’t all there yet because how do you do good works so that you don’t get the glory? I mean, most people, if they see you do good works, say, “You’re a nice person.” They don’t say, “God is great.” Why don’t they say “God is great” when we do a nice deed, like stop and help somebody change his tire or have somebody shovel their driveway in the snow or whatever? A lot of drunk people are in my neighborhood. It’s really, really, really sad. So, if where you live, you saw a guy, half his legs in the street and half his legs on the sidewalk and he’s just totally unconscious, what would you do? Well, probably, the first thing you do is just call 911.

Well in my neighborhood, the first thing I do is go and talk to him. I don’t call 911 right away, because I know 99 percent of the time this guy doesn’t want 911. He doesn’t want me to call 911. He wants me to help him on his feet and down the road so that 911 won’t haul him into the detox. So, I’m out there saying, “Are you okay? Come here. Are you okay?” Why would he ever say to me, “You’re God is really great for not calling 911. Help me on my feet.” Why would he ever do that? I will just shorten this down and give you my bottom line conviction. I think that the salt and the light that makes the good deeds taste so different are that people’s hearts go towards God when you do good to them in the context of suffering and you’re very happy all along the way.

He says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your award is great in heaven.” And in that context, you won’t be so embittered that when you see somebody in need that you say, “I have enough problems of my own, I don’t have any time for you.” You still, out of the overflow of your gladness, are moving into another person’s life and while you’re being lied about, and you’re being persecuted with gladness, you are caring for that other person. That will cause them to say, “You know you’re strange, because if I were you I’d be furious right now at what they said. I wouldn’t be spending any time with me. What gives with you?” That’s 1 Peter 3:15, remember? Be ready to give an answer for the hope that is in you. It’s for the hope that is in you.

Joyful Sacrifice in a World of Grudges

Where does this behavior come from? Where does this gladness in the midst of suffering that spills over to do good for another, where does that hope come from? It comes from God and it is so unusual, so salty, so bright, that people say “That’s really strange, really rare.” That’s my take. That’s my take on this text. So the salt of the earth and the light of the world are good deeds, but it’s good deeds done in the context of an embattled situation where you are maintaining your contentment and you’re loving people with gladness. You’re not bitter and resentful and angry. It makes me feel so inadequate because I do get ticked off in my neighborhood. I just get so ticked off at being taken advantage of, over and over again. And that’s not Jesus.

The extent of our sacrifice is coupled with the depth of our joy. Do you see that connection now? It’s easy to be happy when the sun is shining. It’s hard to be happy if your house has gotten struck by lightning or somebody threw a rock through the window. The extent of our sacrifice coupled with the depth of our joy displays the worth we put on the reward of God. So, how are you doing with “great is your reward in heaven, so rejoice in the midst of being slandered”? Therefore, God ordains that the mission of his church move forward not only by the fuel of worship, and not only by the power of prayer, but also by the price of suffering, which is where we are right now. This is why he does it through suffering.

Reasons Suffering Is Necessary for the Great Commission

Remember what prayer is in relation to suffering. We don’t call prayer a wartime walkie-talkie because we’re in war games. The war is more real than any humans have ever fought because the stakes are so much higher and battles are so relentless, and the hatred and opposition is so great. So there’s the link between the suffering that we may have to endure and the prayer that we’re sending up for help. The Great Commission won’t be finished without suffering and I have 10 reasons. I don’t know that we’ll look at all of these, but let’s look at some of them anyway.

Jesus Suffered and Promised We Would

Jesus said:

Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours (John 15:20).

This is the promise: We will suffer. That’s why Jesus said when you’re converting, when you’re leading people in, teach them to count the cost. Someone said, “I will follow you wherever you go.” He said, “Foxes have holes, birds have their nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay head. Do you still want to follow me?” (Matthew 8:19–20). That’s the way he talked. He doesn’t say, “Health, wealth, and prosperity are on the way.” It’s not what he said.

No Other Way Home

Because Paul said there is no other way home:

When they had preached the gospel to that city and had made many disciples, they returned to Lystra and to Iconium and to Antioch, strengthening the souls of the disciples, encouraging them to continue in the faith, and saying that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God (Acts 14:20–21).

Now picture this. I think he’s been away just a matter of weeks here. He’s planting churches, he’s moving from town to town, he’s leaving behind some leaders, and he’s pointing elders. As he comes back through some weeks or maybe months later, what’s his Discipleship 101? Answer: “Through many tribulations, you must enter the kingdom.” Tell the baby Christians, “Through many tribulations, you must enter the kingdom.” If you give illusions to new Christians around the world in your missions that all goes better, then you are misleading them. Things go worse when you become a Christian, though not everything goes worse. Many relationships improve. Some get worse, some get better. But this is a warning that through many tribulations, we must enter the kingdom. And there are other texts, of course.

The Path of Blessing

Third, Peter said it’s the normal path of blessing. First Peter 4:12–14 says:

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.

I’d love to talk about that for 10 minutes. Let me say two things. First, if you ask, “Does this include getting sick on the mission field, like malaria?” Because it’s talking about being insulted for Jesus’s sake. Does that include malaria? My answer is yes, for this reason: Any hardship that comes your way on the road of obedience is suffering for Jesus. I don’t care if it comes from your stomach or your enemy. Any hardship on the road of obedience, in other words, it’s making the path of obedience harder.

That can come from outside of you or inside of you and the test is the same. Will you quit the road or stay on the road? It’s the same test, whether the enemy or the cancer. How you handle that is the same. Can you handle malaria with, “God, I don’t understand, I’m trying to serve you, but I submit. I pray that you heal me and keep me. Don’t let me become bitter or angry or depressed by this. I’m going to bear this in the power of the Holy Spirit.” That’s the same way you pray if you were getting hit on from outside. So, that’s the first thing to comment.

The other thing is this. He says, “If you were insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you.” I’m going to generalize from that and say there is an arrival of God’s Spirit and of God’s glory for every peculiar suffering you endure. Here, it happens to be an insult. If you are insulted the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Well, what if you were thrown in jail? Then the Spirit of glory and of God would be a grace for the jail. Well, what if they tortured you? There’d be a Spirit of glory and of God resting upon you for enduring torture. What if they took your kids away and they kidnapped your kids? There’d be a Spirit of glory and of God resting upon you.

I’m generalizing from this right here, and I’ll tell you, and the reason I do is just because I get really scared sometimes when I think of the ways I could be persecuted. I mean, I’ve got a pretty vivid and bad imagination. If you watch certain movies and you see horrible things, like Braveheart. I couldn’t sleep for weeks after Braveheart. I’m just not playing games when I think of that kind of rack. They put Christians on the rack and they didn’t turn it off till they pulled their arms off. What would I do? All they want you to do is say, “Jesus is not Lord,” just a few words and this excruciating, intolerable pain, stops. What would I do?

This is my only hope. This right here is my only hope. There will be a grace for that. I don’t have it right now. His mercies are new every morning. There will be a dying grace, a tortured grace, a kidnapped grace, and a cancer grace. There would be a grace for whatever. You’re all going to go through it. Most of you won’t be on the rack, but you’ll be on some rack. And as I would like you to rest in this, right now, I wonder, “Lord, how would I endure? Please help me to walk with you so that when we get there, your grace would be sufficient.” It shows up. It’s called future grace. He gives it when it’s needed. That’s what missionaries have to count on because the Great Commission won’t be finished without suffering.

The Normal Consequence of Godliness

Fourth, Paul said it’s the normal consequence of godliness. Second Timothy 3:12 says:

Indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ will be persecuted.

I think one of the reasons that doesn’t seem to be true about us in America may be because we’ve domesticated godliness. We think godliness means don’t watch dirty videos and don’t cheat on your wife. Who’s going to persecute you for that? But maybe godliness means being aggressively God-advancing in all your relationships. Advance God, put God more on the agenda, speak of God more, intrude God into more conversations, make God the issue more often. The more often you do, the more this will come true.

Faith Refined

Fifth, in suffering, God is refining our faith. Second Corinthians 1:8–9 says:

For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

So what’s he saying? God gave us up, or led us in, or permitted us to be so persecuted that we felt, “I’m dead. I’m gone. I will die. I’m going to die here.” Why did he bring Paul to the brink of life like that? That was to make him rely not on himself, but on God who raises the dead. God who raises the dead. There was nothing else to rely on, he was dead. I mean, two more seconds and I’ll be dead, so either you get angry and depressed and discouraged and hopeless, or you believe God raises the dead. And God wanted Paul to believe he raises the dead, so brought him right up to the edge. He had to believe or not. He pushed him right to the edge. Ever been there? You will. You will be there. That’s what we’re getting ready for. God does that sort of thing in order to make our faith stronger.

The Gift of Endurance

Sixth, in suffering, God is giving us endurance. This is like working out in the gym, and making yourself hurt:

Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing (James 1:2–4).

But what God wants you to do is just have a strong steadfast faith. So, he tests your faith. When I say working out, I mean that your faith is the power that can lift your arm up and down. A test of obedience comes and you can either compromise and be an unbeliever, or you can say, “No. I will obey. I will follow through. I will trust you.” And what does that do here? It produces steadfastness. It makes this thing just a little cramped in there.

You see, it’s almost like a paradox. God makes faith hard to have. By some kind of trial, it threatens your faith. It’s hard to have faith in this situation. That’s what hardship is and yet your faith in resisting the hardship, not giving up, not just laying down and playing dead, and in resisting, it’s building, it’s growing, so that next time it will be stronger. God has his ways, doesn’t he?

Strengthening Others

Seventh, because in our suffering, others are made strong to endure. Look at this. This is remarkable. Don’t waste your cancer, don’t waste your suffering, don’t waste anything, because this is one of the effects:

I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear (Philippians 1:12–14).

Who would have thought? I mean, what a strategy. Get yourself arrested. What a strategy for ministering to the pretorium and emboldening the brothers. Now, I don’t know which of you will have to pay like that, but God will decide which of you gets sick and which of you loses your mom or your dad or your child. And in every one of those sufferings, whether it’s from outside or inside, whether it’s disease or persecution, how you respond, others are watching, and it’s going to have an effect on them.

There’s another article in “World Magazine.” I read you one-page last night from Mindy Belz. Only a few of you are going to remember this. In 1994, on I-94 in Wisconsin, a van of the Willis family was driving and the truck in front of them lost something, a big metal anvil type thing off the back. Their van charged at it over 60 miles an hour, and the van exploded in fire. Mom and dad were in the front seat. Six kids were in the van. They were all dead, except for mom and dad. The children burned alive in front of their parents. And the parents were burned in the face and they burned their hands from trying to get at their kids. They were taken away in separate ambulances and Mr. Willis called out Psalm 34.

I remember because I was preaching on that Sunday in this pulpit right here because of what they have said in public. And now 17 years later, Andre Sue just met them and she wrote this article, and she said, “If I’ve ever complain again, if I ever fail to praise God again, I should be ashamed” because of the effect of this mom and dad saying, “I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall continually be in my mouth.” And you just want to go down and revere God for such a work. Six children die in front of your eyes, and you don’t cease to praise God. Seventeen years later, it’s bearing fruit in my life. Those kids did not die in vain. I’m convicted.

Suffering Gets Us Moving

Eighth, suffering sometimes gets us moving in missions:

Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word (Acts 8:1–4).

They hadn’t spread out. You remember he said, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria and to the ends of the earth,” and they weren’t doing it. So what does he do? Persecution, and they’re gone. What a great way to mobilize missions. If he has to, he will. And he’ll do it in America if he has to.

Christ Magnified

Ninth, the value of Christ is magnified in our suffering with joy:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

This is just radical and wild. He is saying, “I have a deep inner contentment with weaknesses and or things like tsunamis that take your whole family away.” That is Christ’s strength.

And this is another answer to your question, brother, of why would Satan want to hide the Supreme value of Christ from us? Because if Paul didn’t believe that Christ was the supreme value in all-satisfying, he wouldn’t be content in insults, he’d be furious at insults. He’d be striking back, returning evil for evil, and nobody would get saved and nobody would be moved by the power of Jesus. But Jesus was so satisfying and his grace was so sufficient for Paul that he could say, “Okay, I’m content to be insulted and to be weak and have hardships and persecutions and calamities.”

Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ

Finally, tenth, suffering is God’s strategy for presenting the sufferings of Christ to the nations. I don’t think sufferings are just the consequence of missions, I think they’re the means of missions as well:

Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church (Colossians 1:29).

What does he mean that I am filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions? It means, not that Christ’s afflictions are defective in their atoning work, but what they lack is a personal presentation to those for whom he died. And in his sufferings, Paul is that personal presentation. One of the means that God uses to confront the world with the preciousness of Christ is to embody Christ in the suffering missionary. Americans are wealthy people. We have a hard time going around the world and being seen as anything but rich, so God often sees to it that we suffer, so that people can see, “Okay, Americans are vulnerable, too. Now, how will they take that?” At home, they’ve got every possible resource — 911, hospital, antibiotics, you name it — and they don’t ever suffer. But here they are taking a risk 50 miles from the nearest doctor, and how are they going to manage that in their heart? And then Christ can be seen in that. They say, “I’m here for you, like Christ died for me, and I’m here willing to die for you.” And that’s what people see.

God’s Ultimate Goal

Conclusion: God’s ultimate goal in creation and redemption, therefore, is to uphold and display his glory for the enjoyment of his redeemed people from every tribe, language, people, and nation. That is, God’s ultimate goal is joyful worship among the nations. Therefore, the thesis of this seminar, once more, is that missions is not the ultimate goal of the church. Worship is. Missions exists because worship doesn’t. Worship is ultimate, not missions, because God is ultimate, not man.

And since worship is the goal of missions, God ordains that the mission of the church be moved forward by the fuel of worship, the power of prayer, and the price of suffering, because these make his supremacy shine most brightly. In other words, the goal is his supremacy and he chooses means like worship and prayer and suffering, which in their very nature, call attention to his sufficiency, not to mine.

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:18–20).

We’ll close with this, the Word of God is so precious to missionaries and to all of us. Isaiah 41:10 would be the closest thing we have to a family verse. My dad gave it to me in 1971 as I got on the plane to go to Germany, and I’ve given it to all my boys as they’ve headed off to camp when they’re six or have headed off to missions when they’re 15 on a missions trip, or as they headed off to college. We just gather around as a family, put our arms around everybody, and we say:

fear not, for I am with you;
     be not dismayed, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you, I will help you,
     I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

That’s Jesus’s promise here: “I will be with you to the end of the age.” And he has very, very special intimacy and special help for those who give themselves to his mission.