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Seven Ways to Pray for Missionaries · Reformed Thinking

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  Welcome to Reform thinking. It is really good to have you
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  with us again. It is.
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  We are back at the table, we have got the coffee poured and
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  we have a stack of books and articles that honestly, I think
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  might change the way you look at your church bulletin this
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  Sunday. It's a heavy stack today, but
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  good heavy. Yeah, good, heavy.
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  We are looking at the machinery of missions and I don't mean the
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  logistics, you know how you get a visa or how you ship a
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  creative Bibles past customs. I mean the actual engine, the
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  thing that keeps the whole enterprise moving.
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  We're looking at a book called Biblical Missions, Principles,
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  Priorities, and Practices. Oh, great resource it is.
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  But we're zooming in like with a microscope on one specific
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  chapter. Seven Ways to Pray for
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  Missionaries by John Glass. That's the one.
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  And look, I know what some of you are probably thinking.
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  Prayer. OK, I know I should pray.
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  Next topic. Right, heard it before.
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  Exactly. But stick with this because this
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  isn't just a list of God bless the missionaries.
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  This is it's a theological teardown of how we view the
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  people we send overseas. It really is.
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  It forces us to confront a bit of an idol we've built.
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  Especially in the West, we have this tendency to look at
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  missionaries as the special forces of Christianity.
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  The Navy Seals of the faith. That's it.
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  We think they're on a different level.
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  We assume they're these spiritual giants who are, I
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  don't know, naturally bulletproof.
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  Yeah, that they don't have feelings.
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  They don't get discouraged. And they certainly don't
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  struggle with sin the way we do. That's a big one.
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  It's the Halo effect, isn't it? We put them on a pedestal, and
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  the problem with pedestals is that they're incredibly lonely
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  places. They are.
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  If you're up there, you can't really ask for help, can you?
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  You're supposed to have it all together you.
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  Can't. And that is the central tension
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  we're going to unpack today. If we think they're the Super
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  Christians, then our default assumption is that they should
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  be praying for us. Oh, absolutely.
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  We think I'm struggling with my job or my kids.
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  I need the missionary to pray for me.
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  But John Glass just flips the table on that entire way.
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  Of thinking he calls them weak sinners.
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  Which is jarring. It is.
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  You don't want to think of the guy you're supporting in the
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  jungle as a weak Sinner. You want him to be Captain
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  America? You want him to be invincible.
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  But the thesis here, and it's so critical, is that because they
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  are weak sinners attempting to fulfill the Great Commission,
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  their most vital need isn't money.
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  It's not a better strategy. It's intercessory prayer.
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  And that is not just a spiritual platitude.
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  It's not just a nice thing to say, Glass argues.
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  That prayer is the actual labor that makes the ministry
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  possible. The engine.
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  It's the engine. Without it, the whole thing
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  grinds to a halt and eventually collapses.
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  And he breaks this down into what he calls the seven PS.
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  It's a framework he derives directly from the Apostle Paul.
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  But before we get to the list, and we will get to the list, we
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  have to talk about the story that sets this whole thing up,
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  right? Because John Glass isn't writing
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  this from, you know, an ivory tower.
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  He's writing this from the trenches.
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  He's writing from a place of real brokenness.
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  So set the scene for us. This goes back to 1995.
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  John and his wife were in France.
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  They had been there for 9 years at this point.
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  Now, in the missionary world, nine years is a long time.
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  Oh yeah, a lot of people watch out in the first term, which is
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  usually four years. So these people are veterans.
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  They're seasoned, but they are hitting a wall, a really big
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  one. And it wasn't just like general
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  burnout from the work. It was a specific crisis.
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  It was a brutal, brutal season. They had planted a church.
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  They loved these people. And then they faced what was
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  effectively A hostile takeover. Imagine that you pour your life
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  into a group of people. You baptize them.
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  You disciple them. You've shared meals in their
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  homes, you know their kids names.
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  And then agitators rise up from within that same congregation to
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  try and push. It got ugly.
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  I mean really ugly. The leadership had to step in
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  and threaten church discipline. It was just a mess.
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  Now, eventually, by God's grace, the agitators repented publicly.
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  The church was saved. The split was avoided.
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  So on paper, it was a win. On paper, yes, technically.
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  But the collateral damage to John and his wife was massive.
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  Glass uses the word wrecked. He says they were wrecked by the
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  conflict. I really appreciate that
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  honesty. He doesn't say we were a little
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  tired or it was a challenging season.
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  He says. They were partly disgusted by
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  the ministry. That is a shocking admission for
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  a pastor to make. Isn't it stunning to say you are
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  disgusted by the very work God called you to do?
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  But that is what sin does, both your own sin and the sin of
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  others against you. It grinds you down until you
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  just want to quit. And they were there.
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  They were on the verge of quitting, absolutely.
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  So they come back to their home country for a furlough, but they
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  are limping. They're not coming back for a
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  victory lap. They're running on fumes and
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  they visit a supporting church. And this is where the story
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  pivots. This is the turning point.
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  Glass is asked to attend a prayer meeting with the elders
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  of this church. It's early in the morning.
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  He walks into a room with 16 men.
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  OK, just pause there. Put yourself in his shoes.
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  You are broken. You feel cynical.
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  You feel like a failure because your church almost fell apart.
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  You probably feel like you let everyone down, yeah.
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  And you walk into a room with 16 elders.
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  You don't really know that well what is going through your head.
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  Oh, you're terrified? You were expecting a performance
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  review? You think they were going to ask
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  about the numbers? How is the return on investment?
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  Why aren't there more baptisms? What's your five year plan for
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  growth? Justify the check we send you
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  every month. That's the fear, that's the
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  dread in the pit of your stomach.
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  But that is not what happened, not at all.
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  They sat him down and they just asked him for prayer requests.
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  And because he was so at the end of his rope, Glass didn't give
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  the polite, sanitary answer. The newsletter answer.
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  Exactly. He didn't say pray for the work
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  in France. He told them the truth.
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  He unloaded. He told them everything.
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  The betrayal, the pain, the exhaustion, the fact that he
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  didn't know if he could go back. And what did the elders do?
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  Did they give him a pep talk? Did they offer him a strategy
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  book? Have you tried this new church
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  growth model? No, they went to work, Glass
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  says. And this quote is just
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  incredible. I never prayed.
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  They prayed. He.
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  Calls it a waterfall of intercession.
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  That image, a waterfall, implies something overwhelming,
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  something that just washes over you and you can't stop it.
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  It's not a trickle. And these men, for the next
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  hour, they just prayed. They prayed for his wounded
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  heart. They prayed for his wife's
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  renewal. They prayed for his children by
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  name. They prayed for the church in
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  France that had been so hurt. They prayed for the new pastor
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  he had left behind, a guy Glass himself had led to Christ 10
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  years earlier. They even prayed for the
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  agitator. They did.
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  They prayed for the very people who had caused all this.
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  Pain. That's incredible.
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  I mean, to have strangers interceding for your enemies
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  because you don't have the strength to do it yourself.
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  Yeah, that's the body of Christ. That's exactly what it is, and
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  that is the turning point, Glass says.
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  He just wept uncontrollably. He said he could feel the burden
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  physically lift off his shoulders.
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  A physical reaction to a spiritual.
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  It was, He describes it as if the elders took the weight from
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  him to offer it to the Lord because he was too weak, too
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  broken to carry it to the throne himself.
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  They were his spiritual paramedics.
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  That's a great way to put it. It's just.
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  It's the means of grace in action, isn't?
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  It it is. Let's pause on that term means
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  of grace. We use that a lot in our
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  circles, but let's break it down.
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  What are we actually saying there?
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  We're saying that God, who is sovereign over the ends, in this
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  case the healing of John Glass's heart, is also sovereign over
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  the means to get there. Right, he could have just
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  snapped his fingers and healed John's heart instantly and
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  supernaturally. But he chose not to.
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  He chose to use the specific, agonizing, heartfelt prayers of
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  those 16 men to do it. The prayer wasn't just a request
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  for the healing, it was the instrument of the healing.
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  It's how God decided to deliver that grace.
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  So the elders weren't just well wishers, they weren't just
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  offering moral support. They were active instruments in
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  God's hands. They were holding the rope and
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  Glass walked out of that room healed.
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  Not just encouraged, but healed. He knew their time and missions
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  wasn't over. And history bears that out.
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  They went back and stayed for another 30 years. 30 years after
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  being on the brink of quitting forever.
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  That's the power of intercession.
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  That story really, I mean, it just completely deconstructs the
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  Super missionary myth. If John Glass, a veteran
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  missionary of nine years, needed that kind of help, we have to
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  rethink everything we do. But if that story isn't enough
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  to convince you, the book points us to an even bigger example,
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  the ultimate missionary prototype.
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  The Apostle Paul. Let's just look at his resume
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  for a second, because if anyone ever had the right to say I got
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  this, I don't need your help, it was Paul.
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  Oh absolutely. The man was a powerhouse.
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  Just look at his background. He was bicultural, fully Jewish
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  and a Roman citizen. He could navigate the synagogues
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  and the Roman courts with equal ease.
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  He was multilingual, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic.
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  Probably Latin too, given his travels and trials.
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  He was biblically brilliant. I mean, the man wrote a huge
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  chunk of the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy
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  Spirit. He was a theologian of the
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  absolute highest order. He was also tough as nails.
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  He endured shipwrecks, beatings, stonings.
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  He was bitten by a Viper and just shook it off into the fire
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  like it was a mosquito. And he was economical.
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  He was single, so he didn't have the logistical challenges of a
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  family on the road. He was a tent maker so he could
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  fund himself if he had to. He was the complete package.
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  If you were drafting A missionary team today, he's your
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  first pick every single time. No question.
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  And yet, what is the one thing he keeps asking for in his
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  letters? He sounds like a broken record.
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  Brothers, pray for us. It's everywhere.
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  You see it in First Thessalonians 5.25.
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  You see it in Romans, Colossians, Ephesians.
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  It's a constant refrain. It's not a suggestion for him,
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  is it? It's not a polite sign off, no.
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  Not at all, and we need to get into the Greek here for just a
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  second because it really highlights the desperation.
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  The main verb he uses is procychemi.
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  Procychemi, OK, what are we looking at there?
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  It's the standard heavy duty word for petition for prayer.
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  He isn't asking for good vibes. He isn't asking for them to just
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  keep him in their thoughts. He is asking them to beg God on
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  his behalf. And the grammar is crucial.
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  It's almost always a present imperative.
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  OK, grammar class time. What does the present imperative
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  tell us? It implies a command for
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  continual habitual action. It's not pray for us once and be
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  done with it. It is keep on praying for us.
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  It's a standing order. Paul is saying I need a
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  continuous stream of prayer support to function.
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  And look who he's asking. He's writing to the
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  Thessalonians. This church was what, 6 months
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  old? Maybe less.
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  These were baby Christians. They were fresh out of paganism.
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  Most of them probably couldn't even find Isaiah in their
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  scrolls. And here's the great Apostle
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  Paul, the spiritual giant. The guy who got the Viper bite.
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  Yeah, and he's asking them to hug him up in prayer.
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  That reverses the hierarchy completely.
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  It just shatters it. It destroys the idea that the
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  leader is self-sufficient. Paul, more than anyone,
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  recognized his total dependence on the body of Christ.
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  He knew that despite his resume, despite his brilliance, he could
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  not function without the spiritual air support of the
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  Church. So if Paul needed it that badly.
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  Then how much more does the guy we sent to Peru last year need
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  it? Infinitely more, Yeah.
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  OK, so we've established the need. the Super missionary is a
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  myth. They are weak sinners who need
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  help. Now we need the structure Glass
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  Pull 7 specific categories from Paul's writings, the seven PS.
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  And this is where it gets really practical because I think for a
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  lot of us, we want to pray, but we don't know what to say.
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  We say Lord be with the missionaries, and then our mind
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  wanders to our grocery list. This gives us a track to run on
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  a framework for a specific, powerful prayer.
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  Let's start with the first P partners.
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  This comes from Romans 15 verses 30 and 31.
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  Paul urges the church in Rome. He says strive together with me
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  and your prayers to God for me. Strive together.
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  That is a very specific choice of words.
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  It sounds active. It sounds like work.
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  It is. The Greek word is synagonism.
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  I you can hear our English word agonize in there.
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  It suggests combat. It suggests wrestling.
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  It's the language of the gym or the battlefield, not the
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  language of the living room recliner.
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  So prayer in this context is not a passive activity.
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  It isn't something you do while you are drifting off to sleep.
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  No, it's labor. It's joining someone in the
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  trenches. Paul is essentially saying I am
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  out here fighting the physical battle, preaching and suffering,
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  but I need you to fight the spiritual battle alongside me.
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  In fact, I can't win my battle unless you're winning yours.
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  It reminds me of that scene in Exodus.
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  Moses is on the hill overlooking the battle and Joshua's in the
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  valley fighting Amalek. Yes, as long as Moses held up
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  his hands to God, Joshua and the Israelites were winning.
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  But the second his hands dropped from exhaustion.
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  The tide of the battle turned. The enemy started winning.
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  That is the perfect picture. Moses wasn't swinging a sword,
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  but his striving on the hill directly determine the outcome
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  in the valley, and he couldn't do it alone.
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  No, he needed Aaron and her to come and physically hold his
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  arms up when he got too tired. Ministry cannot flourish in
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  isolation. Paul knew that.
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  And Glass shares a story that illustrates this partnership
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  beautifully. He talks about visiting a home
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  church, sitting in the Pew. Right, he's just sitting there,
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  probably jet lagged and trying to stay awake, and a man he has
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  never met before taps him on the shoulder.
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  There's a random guy in the church.
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  Not an elder. Not a missions committee member.
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  And this man leans in and says every morning at 4 AMI pray for
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  you. I pray for your wife, I pray for
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  your children by name. I pray for your ministry. 4:00
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  AM every single day. Can you imagine hearing that it?
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  Stops you in your tracks. It must have felt like a tidal
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  wave of grace it. Would because you have the
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  missionary on the stage, the one with the photos and the slide
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  deck, the one who gets the applause, but the whole thing is
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  being held up by this guy who gets up before the sun to
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  agonize in prayer. That man was a true partner.
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  He was syneganese on my striving together.
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  He understood that his prayer wasn't just a nice thought, it
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  was actual Kingdom advancing work.
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  That is the invisible infrastructure of the Kingdom
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  and it changes how you view success in ministry.
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  When we get to heaven, I have a feeling the reward ceremony is
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  going to be very surprising. I think so too.
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  The guy at 4:00 AM might have a bigger pile of crowns than the
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  guy on the stage. I suspect you are right.
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  OK. So that's partners and that
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  leads pretty naturally into the second PE possibilities.
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  This one focuses on the sovereignty of God and
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  evangelism. We're looking at texts like 2
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  Thessalonians 3.1 where Paul asks them to pray that the word
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  of the Lord will spread rapidly and be honored, and then
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  Colossians 4 where he asks them to pray that God would open to
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  us a door for the Word. This brings up a critical
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  theological distinction. We often think, especially in
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  the West, if I just say the right words or if I have the
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  perfect apologetic argument, people will believe.
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  We think it's a sales pitch. If the marketing is good enough,
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  the customer will buy. But Paul knew better.
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  He knew that the heart of man is stone.
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  You can yell at a stone all day, but unless God does a
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  supernatural work to soften it, it stays a stone.
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  So when Paul prays for the words to run swiftly, he is
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  acknowledging that he can't make it run.
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  He can preach it, but he can't give it legs.
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  Exactly. Only God can open the door to
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  the heart. Only God can grant repentance.
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  Paul is the master apologist, but he is on his knees pleading
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  for a divine opening. And the context is king here,
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  right? Paul was often asking for these
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  open doors while he was sitting in prison.
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  Which is just so beautifully ironic, isn't it?
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  He is in chains. He is physically restricted.
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  Yet he isn't praying for a jailbreak.
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  He's praying for a ministry break.
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  He wants the Word to be Unchained, even if he isn't.
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  And Glass gives us a modern example of this kind of
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  possibility that I love because it just shows God's sense of
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  humor. This was back in 2003.
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  The start of the second Gulf War.
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  Tensions were incredibly high, especially in Europe.
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  The anti American sentiment was thick.
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  Glass is pastoring in Geneva, and his church is divided on the
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  politics of the. War.
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  It was a powder keg. You've got people from different
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  nations in one congregation and everyone has a strong opinion.
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  So to try and bring a biblical perspective, Glass decides to
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  preach a series on war, a really pastoral move trying to calm
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  things down and focus everyone on the theology of conflict.
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  Just trying to get their eyes off of CNN and onto the
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  scriptures. Right, so a publisher hears
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  about the series and asked them to turn the sermons into a book.
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  OK, that's pretty standard stuff.
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  But then a French Navy officer gets a copy of this book and
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  reads it. And this is where the Impossible
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  Door begins to creak open. This officer is so impacted by
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  the book that he invites Glass, an American pastor in the middle
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  of a deeply unpopular American LED war.
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  To speak to the top brass and soldiers at the Toulon naval
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  base in France, the main naval base for the whole country.
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  I mean, you can't make this stuff up.
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  Think about that chain of events.
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  A war breaks out. A church conflict threatens.
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  A sermon series is written to keep the peace.
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  A book is published, a specific officer reads it, and suddenly
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  John Glass is standing in a packed conference room full of
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  French military personnel. And he didn't just talk about
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  political theory or military ethics.
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  No, he presented the Gospel. He identified Jesus as the
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  Prince of Peace and the only ultimate solution to human
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  conflict, both personal and international.
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  That is a possibility. You cannot strategize.
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  You can't put that in a five year plan.
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  Step one, wait for global conflict.
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  Step 2, write book. Step 3.
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  Infiltrate French Navy. It's ridiculous when you say it
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  like. That it is divine.
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  It's the direct result of God answering prayers for open
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  doors. It emphasizes why we must pray
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  for opportunities for our missionaries.
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  We cannot kick the doors down. God has to unlock them, and
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  often He unlocks them in ways we never, ever see coming.
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  So we pray for partners and we pray for possibilities.
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  The third P is power. This one is based on Ephesians
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  6, verses 18 to 20. Paul asks for prayer that words
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  may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the
• 18:27
  mystery of the gospel. Again, this just stops me in my
• 18:30
  tracks. Paul, the guy who stood on Mars
• 18:32
  Hill and debated the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers.
• 18:35
  The guy who stared down angry mobs and hostile governors.
• 18:38
  He needed prayer for boldness. It's a surprising admission, but
• 18:42
  I think it validates the human struggle of evangelism for all
• 18:45
  of us. The Greek word he uses for
• 18:47
  boldness here is Parisia. It means plainness, frankness,
• 18:51
  or outspokenness. It's the opposite of being timid
• 18:55
  or vague or beating around the Bush.
• 18:57
  So why is that so hard, even for an apostle?
• 18:59
  Because it is never natural to confront sinners with their sin.
• 19:03
  It's socially awkward. It breaks the social contract of
• 19:06
  you. Be you and I'll be me.
• 19:08
  And in Paul's day, it was downright dangerous.
• 19:12
  We have a biblical precedent for the danger.
• 19:13
  I mean, look at John the Baptist.
• 19:15
  He confronts Herod about his adultery.
• 19:17
  And he lost his head for it. Literally.
• 19:19
  Paul knew that history. He knew that speaking the truth
• 19:22
  without compromise carries a cost.
• 19:24
  He wasn't a robot. He felt the fear.
• 19:26
  He felt the temptation to just smooth out the rough edges of
• 19:29
  the message, to stay safe, to not offend anyone.
• 19:32
  That's why he wrote in Romans 1.16 that he was not ashamed of
• 19:35
  the gospel. He had to remind himself and
• 19:37
  declare it. Absolutely.
• 19:39
  We often assume missionaries are fearless.
• 19:41
  We think, oh, they're in in the field, so they must love sharing
• 19:43
  their faith all the time. But they are battling the fear
• 19:46
  of man every single day. They are navigating cultures
• 19:49
  where the gospel is seen as offensive or foolish or even
• 19:52
  dangerous. So when we pray for power, we're
• 19:55
  praying that the fear of God in their hearts would outweigh the
• 19:59
  fear of man. We are praying that when the
• 20:01
  moment comes when God opens that door of possibility, they don't
• 20:05
  shrink back. We are praying that they open
• 20:07
  their mouths when everything in their survival instinct is
• 20:09
  screaming at them to keep them shut.
• 20:12
  And that leads directly into the 4th P because if you do open
• 20:16
  your mouth and speak the truth with power, you attract
• 20:19
  attention and not always the good kind.
• 20:22
  The 4th P is protection. That from Thessalonians 3, verse
• 20:25
  2 And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked
• 20:28
  men, for not all have faith. Now we are talking about
• 20:32
  spiritual warfare. We are, and we need to define
• 20:34
  that carefully. We don't want to get weird and
• 20:36
  see a demon hiding in every flat tire, but we also don't want to
• 20:40
  be functional materialists who think the spiritual realm isn't
• 20:42
  real or active. Glass points out that the world
• 20:46
  according to Scripture, is under Satan's influence.
• 20:49
  Ephesians 2 talks about the Prince of the power of the air.
• 20:52
  So evangelism is essentially a rescue operation behind enemy
• 20:56
  lines. You are raiding the enemy's camp
• 20:58
  to liberate captives. Do you think the enemy is just
• 21:01
  going to sit back and watch that happen?
• 21:03
  No, he is going to fight back first.
• 21:05
  Peter describes the adversary as a roaring lion walking about,
• 21:10
  seeking someone to devour. And lions are strategic hunters.
• 21:14
  They don't just randomly attack. They target the stragglers.
• 21:17
  They target the weak, but they also target the leaders.
• 21:20
  Satan specifically targets pastors and missionaries because
• 21:22
  of their strategic value. If you strike the shepherd, you
• 21:25
  scatter the sheep. Exactly.
• 21:27
  If a missionary falls, it doesn't just affect him or her.
• 21:29
  It can destroy the local church they planted.
• 21:32
  It discourages the supporters back home.
• 21:34
  It brings shame on the name of Christ in that region.
• 21:36
  The blast radius from a fallen leader is is huge.
• 21:40
  Glass lists the forms this attack can take, and it's
• 21:43
  interesting. It isn't always overt
• 21:45
  persecution like arrests or beatings.
• 21:47
  No. In fact, it's often much subtler
• 21:49
  than that. It's the death by 1000 cuts.
• 21:52
  It's the incessant church conflict that never seems to
• 21:54
  resolve. It's the relentless
• 21:56
  discouragement that drains your soul.
• 21:58
  Sickness that just won't go away.
• 22:00
  Bizarre family problems that pop up out of nowhere.
• 22:03
  Children who suddenly start rebelling.
• 22:05
  Depression. That's a big one, that dark
• 22:07
  night of the soul where you feel totally abandoned by God.
• 22:10
  It sounds like life, but amplified, weaponized.
• 22:15
  That's the perfect word for it. It's the weaponization of life's
• 22:18
  difficulties. The enemy uses all these
• 22:20
  ordinary circumstances to wear down the sayings, to make them
• 22:23
  ineffective, to get them to give up and go home.
• 22:26
  So the prayer Deliver us from evil is not just a rote line
• 22:29
  from the Lord's Prayer, it is a daily tactical life or death
• 22:33
  necessity for those on the front lines.
• 22:35
  We are praying for a hedge of protection around them.
• 22:37
  We are praying that God would blind the eyes of the enemy to
• 22:40
  His plans. We are praying that the
• 22:42
  missionary would simply survive the onslaught to minister
• 22:45
  another day. Moving on to the fifth P
• 22:47
  provision, this is the practical side of things.
• 22:50
  We're talking about money. Philippians 4 is the go to text
• 22:53
  here. Paul is thanking the church for
• 22:55
  their financial gifts. He talks about how their gift
• 22:58
  was a fragrant offering, a sacrifice acceptable and
• 23:01
  pleasing to God. The biblical principle is clear.
• 23:04
  Those who proclaim the gospel should get their living from the
• 23:08
  gospel. 1st Corinthians 9.14 It's God's design for funding
• 23:12
  his work, but the practical reality is that most
• 23:15
  missionaries are completely dependent on the generosity of
• 23:18
  other people, and there's a real vulnerability in that position.
• 23:21
  There is often a stigma attached to asking for money, isn't
• 23:25
  there? We feel like we should be above
• 23:26
  that, like it's unspiritual to talk about bank accounts and
• 23:29
  budgets. We do.
• 23:30
  We get awkward about it. But Paul didn't shy away from
• 23:33
  it. He wasn't embarrassed to say
• 23:34
  thank you or to acknowledge his need.
• 23:37
  He realized that the Philippians giving was actually fruit for
• 23:40
  their spiritual account. It was a partnership in every
• 23:43
  sense. So when we pray for provision,
• 23:45
  we are praying for the work to continue.
• 23:47
  You can have the open door, you can have the boldness to walk
• 23:49
  through it, but if you cannot afford to feed your family, you
• 23:53
  eventually have to leave the field.
• 23:54
  It grounds the spiritual mission in physical reality.
• 23:57
  God uses money to keep the lights on, to put gas in the
• 24:00
  Jeep, to print Bibles, to pay for a child's school fees.
• 24:04
  And praying for provision also does something for the
• 24:06
  missionaries heart, doesn't it? It encourages them to trust God
• 24:10
  for their daily bread rather than stressing over fluctuating
• 24:13
  exchange rates or the donor who dropped out last month.
• 24:16
  Yes, it is praying that they would see God as their ultimate
• 24:20
  provider and that they would see the church as the channel He
• 24:23
  uses to provide. The 6th P is one that might be
• 24:27
  the most critical in our current cultural moment, and honestly,
• 24:30
  it's the one we probably forget to pray for the most.
• 24:33
  Purity. Hebrews 13.18 Pray for us, for
• 24:37
  we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act
• 24:40
  honorably in all things. The writer there is being so
• 24:44
  transparent he's admitting a desire to have a clear
• 24:46
  conscience. Which implies there's a constant
• 24:49
  struggle to maintain one. The mission field presents
• 24:52
  specific high stakes moral hazards that aren't always
• 24:55
  present back home. Let's break those down.
• 24:57
  What makes the field so dangerous for moral purity?
• 25:00
  Well, first there's isolation and loneliness.
• 25:02
  You are often cut off from your established support structures.
• 25:06
  Your mentors are thousands of miles away.
• 25:09
  Your old accountability partners are in a completely different
• 25:12
  time zone. You're lonely.
• 25:15
  And loneliness is a breeding ground for sin.
• 25:17
  It's a classic enemy tactic. It is you turn to things for
• 25:20
  comfort that you shouldn't. Food, alcohol, pornography, and
• 25:24
  the Internet has made the mission field much more
• 25:26
  dangerous in that regard. You can access any kind of sin
• 25:29
  from a Hut in the middle of nowhere now.
• 25:32
  And there is the cultural immersion aspect.
• 25:34
  Right. You might be living in a culture
• 25:35
  that has completely different sexual ethics, or no ethics at
• 25:39
  all. You are bombarded day in and day
• 25:42
  out with images and practices and worldviews that can slowly
• 25:45
  desensitize you if you're not vigilant.
• 25:47
  Glass makes a very strong point here.
• 25:49
  He says nothing, absolutely nothing, discredits a ministry
• 25:52
  faster than moral failure. It's the nuclear option for the
• 25:55
  enemy. We talked about protection from
• 25:57
  external attacks. This is the internal side of
• 26:00
  that same battle. If a missionary falls into
• 26:02
  sexual sin or financial impropriety, the credibility of
• 26:06
  the message is shattered in that community.
• 26:09
  The locals look at that and say why should I listen to your
• 26:11
  Jesus if you live just like everyone else or worse.
• 26:14
  It gives the enemies of God a reason to blasphemy.
• 26:17
  So how do we pray for this? Because we can't be there to
• 26:20
  check up. On them it feels invasive, but
• 26:23
  it's vital. We pray for a sensitive
• 26:25
  conscience, Glass uses this amazing phrase, he says.
• 26:28
  We need to pray that their conscience reacts violently to
• 26:30
  sin. Violently.
• 26:32
  That is a vivid word choice. It's not just reacts negatively.
• 26:36
  It means a visceral recoil, like touching a hot stove.
• 26:39
  We pray that they never get used to the darkness around them.
• 26:42
  We pray that they remain, as Philippians says, blameless and
• 26:45
  innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a
• 26:49
  crooked and twisted generation. We really should care more about
• 26:52
  their holiness than we care about their strategy.
• 26:55
  Because if they lose their holiness, the strategy doesn't
• 26:57
  matter one bit. They have disqualified
• 27:00
  themselves from the race. This brings us to the final P,
• 27:04
  the 7th 1, and I think this one is often the most neglected, not
• 27:08
  just by missionaries themselves, but by the church back home.
• 27:11
  The final P is pauses. Rest.
• 27:15
  It sounds counterintuitive, doesn't it?
• 27:17
  We have the Great Commission. The harvest is plentiful.
• 27:19
  The laborers are few. The logic seems to be work
• 27:23
  harder, faster, longer sleep when you're dead.
• 27:27
  That is the logic of the burnout factory.
• 27:29
  It's not the logic of the Kingdom.
• 27:31
  Just look at Paul in Romans 15. After asking them to strive in
• 27:34
  prayer, he says he's praying that he may come to you in joy
• 27:37
  and be refreshed in your company.
• 27:39
  The word for refreshed there is interesting.
• 27:41
  It is. It's sananapomi.
• 27:43
  That is a mouthful. It is, but it means to rest in
• 27:45
  company with others. Paul wasn't just asking for a
• 27:48
  nap or a solo vacation. He was asking for refreshment
• 27:51
  with friends, with fellow believers.
• 27:53
  Paul was exhausted. He was human.
• 27:55
  We forget that. He had been battling spiritual
• 27:57
  rebels, navigating hostile cultures, traveling by foot,
• 28:00
  getting shipwrecked. He needed to stop.
• 28:03
  We see this in Acts 14 as well. After his first missionary
• 28:07
  journey, he returns to Antioch and the text says he spent no
• 28:11
  little time there with the disciples.
• 28:12
  No little time. That wasn't a long weekend.
• 28:15
  No, it was likely a year or more, a full season of recovery.
• 28:18
  He had to debrief, to heal, to refill the tank before he could
• 28:21
  go back out again. But there is a trap for the
• 28:24
  modern missionary, isn't there? The workaholic missionary.
• 28:27
  It is a massive problem, especially for those sent from
• 28:30
  the West. We are a result oriented
• 28:32
  society. We are obsessed with
• 28:34
  productivity, with metrics, with ROI.
• 28:36
  If I support you for $100 a month, I want to see $100 worth
• 28:40
  of salvations in the next newsletter.
• 28:42
  That is the unspoken and sometimes spoken contract.
• 28:45
  So the missionary feels this immense pressure to produce
• 28:48
  quantifiable results to justify their existence.
• 28:51
  They feel guilty if they take a nap.
• 28:53
  They feel guilty if they go on a vacation.
• 28:55
  And they're letters end up being highlight reels.
• 28:58
  They're afraid if they show weakness or a season of
• 29:00
  inactivity, the checks will stop coming.
• 29:03
  It is a recipe for physical, emotional and spiritual
• 29:06
  collapse. Glass calls it the modern trap.
• 29:10
  So the prayer here is for them to have the wisdom to stop and
• 29:15
  the courage to stop. And for the sending church to
• 29:17
  let them stop, this is a call to action.
• 29:20
  For the supporters. We should pray that our
• 29:22
  missionaries schedule rest, but we should also financially
• 29:25
  enable them to take sabbaticals. We should be the ones telling
• 29:28
  them we support you resting. Please take a break.
• 29:31
  We need to view their rest as part of the work, not as an
• 29:35
  absence of work. Precisely.
• 29:37
  It's maintenance. If you don't change the oil in
• 29:39
  the engine, the car is going to break down on the side of the
• 29:41
  road. It's not optional.
• 29:43
  It is a godly goal to provide restorative retreat.
• 29:47
  If we want them to last 40 years like the glasses did, they
• 29:50
  cannot Sprint the whole way. It's a marathon and you have to
• 29:53
  have water stations along the way.
• 29:54
  The church is supposed to be that water station.
• 29:56
  So let's just recap the mission we've been on.
• 29:58
  Today we have the seven PS of praying for missionaries pulled
• 30:02
  straight from the Apostle Paul's own request.
• 30:04
  Let's run through them one last time.
• 30:06
  Striving together in the trenches of prayer.
• 30:08
  Praying for God to open the doors we cannot open. 3rd Power.
• 30:13
  That's boldness to speak when fear tells you to be silent.
• 30:16
  Deliverance from the spiritual and physical attacks of the
• 30:19
  Enemy 5th. Provision, daily bread and all
• 30:23
  the resources needed for the ministry.
• 30:25
  A conscience that recoils violently at sin.
• 30:27
  And 7th pauses the necessity of rest and refreshment.
• 30:32
  It's a comprehensive list. It is, and it circles right back
• 30:35
  to that central message. If Paul needed this, if the
• 30:39
  greatest missionary in the history of the world needed this
• 30:42
  kind of prayer coverage, our missionaries needed even more.
• 30:45
  We cannot send them out into the battle and then cut the
• 30:47
  communication line. Prayer is the supply line, it's
• 30:50
  the air support. It's everything.
• 30:52
  I want to challenge you, the listener, as we wrap up.
• 30:55
  We all probably have a missionary prayer card on our
• 30:58
  fridge. You know the one.
• 30:59
  It's curling up at the corners. Maybe it's buried under a pizza
• 31:02
  coupon. Or maybe you get a digital
• 31:03
  newsletter that hits your inbox and you just automatically
• 31:06
  archive it without reading. We've all done it.
• 31:08
  We have, but we can do better. The challenge is to move beyond
• 31:12
  the generic. Don't just pray bless the
• 31:15
  missionaries anymore. Use this structure.
• 31:18
  Pick one PA day. Mondays are for partners,
• 31:21
  Tuesdays are for possibilities. Or take one missionary family
• 31:25
  this week and just run them through the whole grid in your
• 31:27
  prayer time. Imagine what could happen if
• 31:29
  every missionary had a waterfall of intercession like John Glass
• 31:33
  experienced. Imagine the weight lifting off
• 31:36
  their shoulders because you, sitting in your living room or
• 31:39
  in your car on the way to work, decided to take that burden and
• 31:42
  offer it to the Lord on their behalf.
• 31:44
  That's the partnership piece in action.
• 31:46
  You might never visit the field, you might never learn the
• 31:49
  language. But you can be the reason the
• 31:52
  door opens. You can be the reason they have
• 31:54
  the boldness to speak at just the right moment.
• 31:57
  You are part of the machinery. Absolutely.
• 32:00
  And maybe consider this final thought.
• 32:02
  If you are not a missionary, you are called to hold the rope for
• 32:05
  one. The question is, are you holding
• 32:08
  it tight? Are your hands slipping?
• 32:10
  Or are you letting them carry a burden they were never ever
• 32:13
  meant to bear alone? The theology of the Westminster
• 32:16
  Confession reminds us that God ordains the ends, but he also
• 32:21
  ordains the memes. Your prayer is the ordained
• 32:24
  means for the success of the gospel in the nations.
• 32:26
  That's not a small thing. That's a weighty, incredible
• 32:29
  privilege. It changes everything.
• 32:31
  It turns prayer from a chore into a critical mission.
• 32:34
  Thank you for joining us on Reformed Thinking.
• 32:36
  We hope this equips you to pray with more purpose starting
• 32:38
  today. Until next time.