Prayer: The Key to Global Missions

Take out your copy of God’s Word. If you don’t have a Bible, there will be one provided for you under a chair in front of you somewhere nearby. Point your Bibles to Colossians chapter 4. Colossians chapter 4.

There are a number of things I quite enjoy in life — the life the Lord has given to me. One, I love being a follower of Jesus Christ. Two, I love being a husband to my wife. I love being a father to my children. And I love being a pastor to you all. It is a great joy that you give to me, to be able to open God’s Word with you week after week, and to pray and preach and seek God’s Word, and to be instructed, counseled, and cared for.

We are finishing up our missions conference this week, and so if you have your Bible open — Colossians chapter 4; if you have one of the church Bibles, that’s page 985 — I’ll read Colossians 4:2–4, and then we’ll pray and get to work.

Colossians chapter 4, verse 2. This is the word of the Lord. Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Let’s pray.

You are our refuge and our glory, and the lifter of our heads. We lay down in sleep and rise, for You have sustained us. O Lord, feed us from Your Word this morning, and I pray that You would put in each of us an appetite for Your Word that is stronger than the appetite to distract us with the food coming later. Feed us. Feed our souls, for we are hungry, desperate people. And the grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. Amen.

Here’s the big idea this morning: because God guarantees His global glory, God’s people pray with persistence, vigilance, and thankfulness for open doors and clear proclamation. We’ll leave that on the screen for a few moments for those of you who are taking notes. That’s where we’re headed.

What Happens to a Soul That Can’t Taste Joy

Let’s start with a question. What happens when a creature whose memory tells him there are many good things in life to enjoy, while his present state is no longer capable of experiencing those joys?

C.S. Lewis, the author behind The Chronicles of Narnia, wrote a book in exploration of that question. It’s called The Great Divorce — some of you may have read it. In this book, those who reject Jesus Christ and His plan for their life, who prefer some lesser good — some grievance, some identity, some desire — over God, become like ghosts. They lose their solidity. They become insubstantial, unable to bear the real pleasure of true joy. Lewis proposes in this book that the rejection of Jesus Christ makes man less man, less human, and that the preference for self-rule suffocates joy.

One of the strange effects of the COVID-19 virus was the loss of taste and smell. Do you remember? Not everyone had this, but some of us did. I remember people saying they could no longer enjoy their morning coffee because it just tasted like hot water. Having your sensory receptors turned off is strangely irritating. Being unable to smell flowers, or yourself after a workout, made people feel insecure and self-conscious.

What COVID did for taste, sin does for your soul.

The Bible teaches that there is one God in three equally divine persons — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — who know and love and glorify and enjoy one another, and have done so forever. The three persons of the Godhead are infinitely glorious and irresistibly beautiful. God is without beginning, without end, without limit or ceiling. He is capable of infinite pleasure, the satisfaction of which is Himself — His own unsurpassed excellencies. And here’s the crazy part: God created man to fold him into the experience of His endless pleasures. True happiness for the creature is the apprehension of, and the experience of, God’s glorious perfections. In other words, God made man to enjoy God, and to share His pleasure in Himself.

But the Bible says that mankind turned from God and sought joy in lesser things. Man sought to make happiness his own way — he broke God’s commandments. The Bible’s word for this is sin. And by making himself his own man, man became less man — less, Lewis would say, substantial. Those God-given pleasure receptors were dulled. Billions of people alive today do not know the glorious, beautiful excellencies of the God who made them to enjoy Him.

Global missions exists to welcome joy-starved sinners into the endless delights of the fellowship of God. Billions of people alive today are blindly grasping for joy and satisfaction in the darkness of their souls. They are thirsty people, lowering buckets into empty wells. And we, who through God’s grace by faith have drunk from the eternal life-giving well, go to show them where they can find satisfaction for their souls, and the meaning of their very lives. That’s missions, and we are all called to participate in this glorious work. Some of us will sacrifice and go, crossing cultures, crossing continents. Some of us will sacrifice and give for those who cross cultures and continents. So in global missions, there are only these two options: you go, or you give to those who do.

Prayer Is the Key

This morning, as we bring our missions conference to an end, I’d like us to consider the exhortations of the Apostle Paul in Colossians 4. This year’s conference has been about prayer — that’s what we’ve been doing all week long, we’ve been praying. Whether you go, whether you give, you pray. Prayer is the key for global missions. And Colossians 4 calls us to pray with perseverance and vigilance for God’s global glory.

But before we go to the exhortation of Paul in Colossians 4 — before we hear the command pray — I want to ground us in the assurance that God gives us that He hears our prayer. I want us to consider first the guarantee we have in prayer.Otherwise, you’re not going to pray.

One pastor likened prayer to a wartime walkie-talkie. You’re in the trenches, in the battle, and you key up the walkie-talkie and call in the air strike. And the only way a soldier is going to key that mic is if he knows there’s someone on the other end who’ll send in the air strike. So before we hear the Apostle Paul say “pray constantly,” we need to be reminded: there’s someone on the other end.

To make that case, let’s begin at the end. If you have your Bibles open, turn with me to Revelation chapter 7. If you’re new to the Bible, Revelation is toward the back; in the church Bible, that’s around page 1,032. Revelation chapter 7, verse 9 — God guarantees His global glory. The Apostle John, reporting from heaven, writes:

After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”

Heaven is a loud place.

Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

How do you know that when you came here last Sunday night, all the way through Monday evening, and you prayed for the unreached peoples in these persecuted countries — how do you know God heard you? Here’s how: Revelation 7:9. Every tribe, every people, every nation is before the throne of Jesus Christ, clothed in white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb, crying out, “Salvation belongs to our God.” That’s how you know. That’s why you pray. You pray because God hears. You pray because God always hears.

God guarantees His global glory. The nations will come. The peoples will praise Him. Sinners will find salvation in the Son of God. It is more certain than the sunrise. Those you prayed for in Algeria, Azerbaijan, Eritrea, Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen will come. And the Bible says not just Algerians in general — every people group, every language group in Algeria will be at the throne, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God.” God guarantees His global glory.

It may feel, on a Sunday night with just a couple of people at a prayer meeting, like it doesn’t really matter. It may feel like you’re just one person — one little old you, on your knees at your bedside in prayer. But on the other end of that walkie-talkie is the God of all glory and grace, who is sovereign over all people and all things. So do not concern yourself with how little you are. Remember who is on the other end.

The Lord guarantees answers to your prayer by the cross and by the empty tomb. You understand that the cross of Jesus Christ was not a chance at victory — God was not rolling the dice. The cross of Jesus Christ secured the victory forever. So when you pray, know that this God will act on your behalf for His global glory — that your Father will gather His elect from the four corners of the earth, that God the Father has guaranteed the Son’s global glory and the salvation of His elect.

So Sunday night, all through Monday, when we prayed for God’s elect in Libya, Nigeria, North Korea, Azerbaijan — God used our prayers to fulfill verse 15, that “he who sits on the throne will shelter them.” He’s using our prayers to fulfill verse 16. In these countries, hungry people are coming and being fed. Thirsty people are coming and drinking of the wells of eternal life. Christ is being their shepherd. He is guiding them to springs of living water. He’s wiping away every tear from their eyes, and they are praising Him. God’s glory is guaranteed. You called in the air strikes against the enemy, and God heard, and He sent forth His Spirit to soften hearts and open deaf ears and open blind eyes.

Christian, do you know that by your prayers, your God sent an air strike against the demon god of Islam in Pakistan? By your prayers, men and women in Pakistan are seeing the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. They are turning from their sin. They are being reconciled to their Savior. They are experiencing everlasting joy. By your prayers, abusive husbands in Sudan are raising their hands in worship to Yahweh, and no longer raising those hands in wrath against their wives. Young girls in Syria are finding God as their provider, rather than selling their bodies for provision. Pleasure receptors long dormant are being flipped on, and men and women are following those pleasure sensors to find joy for the first time in Jesus Christ. That is happening because you prayed.

Do you believe that? When you pray, is that what you see? If you find yourself thinking, “Pastor, how can you possibly know that?” — well, now you know the reason you have a problem praying.

We pray because we know who’s on the other end of the walkie-talkie. We pray because we know God hears us. We pray because we know what God said in Isaiah 14: “As I have planned, so shall it be.” We pray because God has not only ordained the end — Revelation 7 — He has ordained the means to the end: prayer. Let me revise that. Your prayer, brother and sister — you are the means to God’s global glory. You, on your knees at your bedside, calling in air strikes against the kingdom of darkness. You.

Colossians 4: Three Things We Pray With, Two Things We Pray For

With that in our minds, here now are the commands of Almighty God through the Apostle Paul.

Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving. At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

There are at least five things about prayer in general, and praying for missions in particular, in these few verses — five things. Three things we pray with. Two things we pray for.

1. Pray with Persistence

We’ll consider the three things we pray with. First, Paul says, pray with persistence. Continue steadfastly — it’s one word in the original. Some of your translations will say “devote yourselves to prayer.” It means: be strong, be enduring, be diligent, persist obstinately. Now, I’ve been your pastor long enough to know that some of you are capable of amazing feats of obstinance. Let us be obstinate in praying for God’s global glory. Let us be like Jacob wrestling with the angel through the night, taking hold of our God and saying, “I won’t let go until You bless me.” Be constant in prayer. Every encounter you have with sin, with evil, with the effects of sin — call in the air strike. Make it an occasion for prayer.

It seems to me a lot of Christians don’t really know what to do with the imprecatory psalms. Do you know what I mean by imprecatory? The imprecatory psalms are the psalms that call for God’s judgment — they call down curses from God upon His enemies. We read these passages of Scripture and don’t really know what to do with them, and often find ourselves wondering, “Why is this in the songbook God has given to His people?” Are we supposed to call down curses against the abortionist, and the pornographer, and human traffickers? No — we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. But we do wrestle. Ours is a spiritual war.

So, PBC, take those imprecatory psalms in your hand at your bedside and call in air strikes against the forces of darkness, against the spiritual powers, against the demonic lies behind abortion and pornography and human trafficking. Call in air strikes against the demon god of Islam, and secularism, and Hinduism, and New Age spirituality.

Do you have a family member or a loved one you’ve been praying for — someone you’ve shared the gospel with who still won’t believe? The Bible says this is because the god of this world has blinded the mind of the unbeliever, to keep them from seeing the light of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Pray that God would overcome the enemy and open the sinner’s eyes.

Pray with persistence. Don’t lose heart. Read the parable of the persistent widow in Luke 18, and pray like her. The prophet Daniel was told, “When you prayed, we heard, and an answer was sent” — but that answer was withstood by the enemy for twenty-one days, and then the angel Michael came and broke through, and the answer came. Now, I don’t know how all that works. But what I do know is that when you pray, God hears — and if there is a delay in the answer, keep praying.

2. Pray with Vigilance

Second thing: pray with vigilance. Paul goes on — “pray steadfastly, being watchful in it” — means stay awake, remain alert. This is why we call it a prayer vigil. The word “watchful” here appears in the present tense, because, Christian, we are to be ready to pray anywhere, at any time, for any need. It’s the same word Jesus used in the garden: “Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation.”

Let us pray with our eyes open, aware. Open your eyes to what the Lord is doing locally and globally. Pray because the Lord is at work locally and globally. He is on the move. There are a number of ways you can stir up your heart in prayer: sign up for missionary newsletters, sign up for Voice of the Martyrs, sign up for those websites that track missions news, and when an email comes through, pray for that thing. Share those prayer requests with your discipleship groups. The point is: stay awake, pray aware.

3. Pray with Thanksgiving

Third thing Paul says: pray with thanksgiving. Now, that might feel out of place — shouldn’t thanksgiving come afterGod answers the prayer? Yes. And thanksgiving should come before God answers the prayer too. We know that God hears us. We know that as God planned it, so shall it be. And so we thank God before the answer, and we thank God after the answer.

This is not the only time the Apostle Paul told us to thank God before we get the answer. Philippians 4:6 — a lot of you have this memorized: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.” So — I’m worried about something. I pray. I thank God. Well, why would I thank God if He hasn’t answered? What am I thanking Him for? You thank God for the circumstance that drove you to pray.

A lot of us are — how do I put this — predicament-averse. We’ll do almost anything we can to avoid finding ourselves in a place, some kind of dilemma, where we have no other option except to trust in the Lord. In some ways, that’s just normal — that’s just being human. But what if, from the perspective of eternity, there is a greater blessing reserved for faith exercised in the predicament than the blessing of having the Lord prevent you from the predicament? Let me say that again: what if there’s a greater blessing that comes from faith exercised in the predicament than the blessing of being withdrawn, exempted, from that predicament? And by the way, it’s not a “what if” — it’s an “is.” It has to be an “is,” because we serve a sovereign God. It cannot be otherwise. Otherwise, God would either be powerless, or capricious and malicious — just making us go through things because He’s like a little kid with a magnifying glass on ants.

When you find yourself in some kind of dilemma, some kind of affliction, some occasion to pray — it is because God intends a greater blessing for you. That’s why we pray with thanksgiving. The blessing is not just the answer — it’s the wrestling through the night for the answer. So let us not lean away from the occasion that would cause us to trust in the Lord. This is where our Lord shows Himself strong. Friends, in your weakness is where your God does His best work.

And we look out on the world and see 7,000 unreached people groups — 3.2 billion people who have no access to the gospel. That’s not like your unbelieving neighbor. That’s not like your unbelieving family member this morning — they could have woken up, hopped in their air-conditioned car, and found a gospel-preaching church quite easily with just a couple of Googles. But that is not true for half of the people alive on this planet today. They have no access to the gospel of Jesus Christ. They don’t know a Christian, and they don’t know anyone who does. And so we look over that and think, “Mountain — insurmountable.” But let us not forget what we learned last week: our God moves mountains, and God has ordained the way those mountains would be moved — prayer, the prayer of faith.

Two Things We Pray For

And that brings us to verses 3 and 4. Prayer is the key for global missions.

At the same time, pray also for us, that God may open to us a door for the word, to declare the mystery of Christ, on account of which I am in prison—that I may make it clear, which is how I ought to speak.

Three things to pray with, and now here we have two things to pray for.

1. Pray for an Open Door for the Word

The Apostle Paul, who wrote this letter under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is writing it from prison. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that he doesn’t ask the Colossians to pray for his release — rather, he asks them to pray for an open door for God’s Word and for clarity in preaching. That gives you a sense of the Apostle Paul’s priorities. Pray for the success of global missions. And this is how you pray: pray that God would open doors for His Word; pray that God would send missionaries through those doors to share the good news with those who’ve never heard.

If you’re not a Christian, I’m glad you came to church today. Can I tell you how you came to church today? You decided this week, or perhaps even this morning, that you would get up and go to church, and you picked Piqua Baptist as the church you’d go to today. That was your decision — I’m glad you made it. But can I tell you how you actually got here? The people you see sitting around you — they prayed for you. It felt like your decision to come to Piqua Baptist this morning — and it was your decision — but who put that idea in your head? These people prayed that you would be here this morning, so that you would hear this.

Dear friend, if you continue on this path of your life — doing things your own way, rejecting God’s plan for your life, not obeying God’s commandments — it will not lead to your flourishing; it will lead to your floundering. And that’s the least of your worries, because when this life ends, you’ll be under the judgment of God eternally. But God loves you, and so He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die for the sins of those who would turn to Him in faith. So when you turn to Jesus Christ today and repent of your sins, God forgives you of your sins and unites you to His Son, where you can find pleasure evermore in the very purpose of your life. That’s why we prayed. That’s why you’re here.

Friend, don’t leave this place today without learning more about this man, Jesus Christ, and forgiveness for your sins. In fact, I’d invite you to stick around for the banquet afterwards, even though you didn’t sign up — it’s free food, what can you lose? Talk to somebody who’s a Christian. Ask them more about this man, Jesus Christ.

PBC, the doors won’t open unless God opens them, and the means God has chosen for doors to open is for you and me to pray. So we pray — we pray the doors would open, and the people who have no access to the gospel would be granted access. 7,000 people groups, 3.2 billion people — it does feel like a mountain, doesn’t it? But that’s not how Jesus saw the world He lived in. Do you remember what He told His disciples? “Fellas, look — the fields are white unto harvest. Pray that God would send laborers.”

In 1885, there were zero known Protestant Christians in South Korea. Zero. By 1985, nearly 20% of the entire country was calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. In less than a hundred years, South Korea went from being a mission field to being one of the largest missionary-sending countries in the world. One generation. You look at that mountain, and you pray, “Move” — and God will move the mountain.

2. Pray for Clarity in Preaching

Second thing: pray for clarity in preaching. It’s kind of an astonishing thing, just as a pastor, to read this. The Apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is asking the Colossian church to pray that he might speak clearly — that tells you the Apostle Paul understands himself to be dependent on the Lord keeping his message clear in response to the prayers of his churches. It’s astonishing.

But that’s not the main thing. The main thing is: we pray for clarity in preaching because the Lord may open doors for His Word, but if that word is not clearly preached, the open door doesn’t mean anything. If those walking through that door are not preaching the gospel clearly, the door might as well not have been opened. And those of you who have served on missions teams, or who know a little about missions, you know that global missions can be a mixed bag. Not everything that people call missions is missions. If there’s no proclamation of the gospel, it’s not gospel mission.

So we must pray that those we support, and those we send, would be equipped to preach a clear gospel. And in order for the gospel to be clearly proclaimed, it must be clearly understood — so pray for theological institutions, pray for theological clarity, pray for those working among the unreached, that they would have an understanding of God’s Word. And when we have opportunity to send, let us make sure we are sending those who know the Bible, who have a clear grasp of theology, who are humble, who are prayerful, who are deeply committed to seeing Christ formed in others over the long haul, and who are uncompromisingly church-centered.

Conclusion

Prayer is the key for global missions. The COVID virus dulled pleasure receptors, and sin has dulled the pleasure receptors for billions of people alive today. There are thirsty people lowering empty buckets into empty wells. We pray, we give, we go, because the gospel is the means God uses to open blind eyes and raise spiritually dead people, to bring them into the fellowship and the all-satisfying enjoyment of Himself.

Our missions conference comes to an end, but our prayers must never come to an end. We must continue to pray with persistence, with vigilance, with thanksgiving, that God would open a door and give grace that His Word would be preached clearly and boldly. And so let’s pray for that now.

Lord, open doors, and make it so that Your Word is clearly and faithfully proclaimed among the unreached. May global missions never be far from our minds. May we pray for it often — the prayer of faith, expecting You will answer, knowing You hear us. You always hear us. Amen.