What might inspire a family to move across the world for the sake of the gospel? I live with my wife and two children in Cameroon, where we planted a church and established an extension site for Bethlehem College and Seminary. Before leaving the Western world, we consistently returned to Psalm 22:27–28 as the primary motivation for our relocation:

All the ends of the earth shall remember     and turn to the Lord,and all the families of the nations     shall worship before you.For kingship belongs to the Lord,     and he rules over the nations.

We moved to a challenging place because we believe in the God who owns all the kingdoms of the earth, and who has promised that all the families of the nations will worship before him.

Missionaries, church planters, and all who labor among the nations for the sake of the gospel can find great hope in Psalm 22. You might wonder, How can a psalm of lament be a source of hope? We often remember this psalm on Good Friday, the darkest day in history, but this is not just a Good Friday psalm. The concluding verses of Psalm 22 take us beyond the horrors of Calvary to a glorious hope for world missions, especially in our darker seasons: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.”

The Dark Valley

The first part of Psalm 22 captures David’s confusion. By all appearances, God has forsaken him even though he has prayed tirelessly. Despite his circumstances, however, he confesses what is always true of God: “You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3). He also confesses that Israel’s history is a history of God’s faithfulness (Psalm 22:4–5). So even though he feels confused about why God would forsake him, he says, “You are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts” (Psalm 22:9). Trusting his God, David cries for rescue.

“The hardest heart of the highest earthly king is in the hand of the Most High.”

Then David ushers us deeper into his pain. He is surrounded by deadly enemies who gloat over him. They pierce his hands and feet, and God seems to aggravate his woes: “You lay me in the dust of death” (Psalm 22:15). God appears to have joined the camp of his enemies. But even when he feels God’s hand against him, David cries, “Deliver my soul from the sword. . . . Save me from the mouth of the lion” (Psalm 22:20–21).

Jesus took this psalm on his lips in the deepest darkness. Dying under God’s wrath, Jesus cried to God with David’s words. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” His voice echoed the sound of silence. Did God hear David? Did he hear Jesus, the true Song of Israel?

Remember and Return

Just as God raised David from the “dust of death” (Psalm 22:15), God raised Jesus our Savior from the tomb. And just as David was raised so that he could tell of God’s name to his brothers, Jesus was raised to do the same (Hebrews 2:10–12).

Even as God saved David for Israel’s sake, his purposes extended beyond their borders. David says, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and return to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22:27). What will they remember, and to what or whom will they return? The context of the psalm shows that they will remember that God delivered his servant to his enemies to die an innocent death, that God raised him to lead the congregation of his people in worship, and that the dominion belongs to God alone. They will remember and return to the God who alone is King.

Here we find power for missions. Because kingship belongs to God and he rules over the nations, all the families of the earth will come to him. The tribes among whom you minister the gospel will remember and return. God will draw people to himself for worship. No war, political leader, constitutional amendments, electoral outcome, or regime change can redirect his eternal purpose of reconciling the world to himself. Because he commands the fate of nations, no cultural shift can derail his mission to unite all people in the adoration of his glory.

David groans in the first part of Psalm 22 and glories in the second. The structure of the psalm teaches us that grief, no matter how deep, is temporal; it will give way to glory. After darkness comes light; after pain comes praise. This was true for David and for the new David, Jesus — and it will be true for his body, the church.

Perhaps you are serving on the mission field, and your family is in a season of trial. Do not think that this darkness means God’s words will fail. Do not lose heart. God’s mission cannot fail. Kingship belongs to him. In your darkest days, let the nations see your resurrection hope.

Light for Your Labors

Psalm 22 has significantly shaped my missionary work. Not only did God use the psalm to move our family to the field, but he now uses it to keep us here. In the pains of ministry, God has reminded me repeatedly through Psalm 22 that our darkest moments in ministry are not the end of the story. Just as the sufferings described in the first part of the psalm give way to praise and the promise of global worship, our trials in the mission field can lead to the fulfillment of God’s promise that all nations will worship him.

Swallowed by darkness, the Light of salvation burst forth to bring the nations back to God.

The anguish of the Messiah was for the adoration of the nations.
The death of the Messiah was for the dance of the nations.
The pain of the Messiah was for the praise of the nations.
The ruin of the Messiah was for the rejoicing of the nations.
The suffering of the Messiah was for the salvation of the nations.
The woe of the Messiah was for the worship of the nations.

Because of the darkness of the Messiah’s death, God will establish his reign over all nations, who will all come to him for worship and rejoicing. May we long with Charles Wesley,

Oh, for a thousand tongues to singMy great Redeemer’s praise,The glories of my God and King,The triumphs of his grace.

And may we pray with Wesley and the saints of old,

My gracious Master and my God,Assist me to proclaim,To spread through all the earth abroadThe honors of thy name.

Missions Under God’s Kingship

We pray, we long, we suffer, we endure, we labor, we cast off discouragement, we lay aside sin — we work tirelessly and abundantly because we know that our God rules over the nations. He will see to it that our labor is not in vain. He will cause the nations that oppose and hate him to remember and return.

We labor because we know our God holds the hearts of kings in his hands and directs them like streams of water. The hardest heart of the highest earthly king is in the hand of the Most High, and he directs that heart to do whatever he wants whenever he wants. If God did not rule over the kingdom of men, I would not have hope for life and ministry. But because he does, we can labor in the hope of certain success.

One day, “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord.” For King Jesus “rules over the nations.”

Years ago, when I was a new believer in Cameroon, a woman in Nigeria published a testimony about working for the devil. She shared that midnight until 2:00 were the most active hours in the world of darkness. As a result, she encouraged believers to pray warfare prayers during those hours. Unfortunately, her story (and others like it) influenced a generation to have a narrow understanding of both prayer and warfare, restricting it to a couple of hours at night for battling the devil.

While there is nothing wrong with praying from midnight to 2:00 (or any other time of day), to think that those are the most spiritually hostile hours is grossly wrong. Paul teaches to the contrary. Every hour is an hour of war. For believers, war is a way of life. If any Christian is not fighting, that Christian is losing the battle with sin.

We must arm ourselves at all times “in the evil day” (Ephesians 6:13), this present evil age when the god of this world, the devil, constantly raises his claws against the people of God. Every day on earth is a day when evil and the evil one are trying to overcome believers (Ephesians 5:16). Christians are always at war against principalities, rulers, cosmic powers, darkness, and spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. And if all of life is war, we must always be armed and well-clothed for battle. We need armor like the breastplate of righteousness.

What Is the Breastplate?

The breastplate of righteousness is one of several pieces of armor that the church puts on as it engages in spiritual war (Ephesians 6:14). In Isaiah 59, Yahweh presents himself as a warrior King with armor that includes this breastplate:

His own arm brought him salvation, and his righteousness upheld him. He put on righteousness as a breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on his head; he put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped himself in zeal as a cloak. (Isaiah 59:16–17)

Yahweh comes as a warrior King to repay evil so that the nations “fear the name of the Lord from the west, and his glory from the rising of the sun” (Isaiah 59:19). The Old Testament knows only one warrior who clothes himself with the breastplate of righteousness to war against evil for his glory (see also Isaiah 11:5). He fights for his fame.

When Paul draws from this Old Testament imagery of the warrior God and applies it to the church, he shows that the church now represents Yahweh as his army. In Christ, the church has become like her God, waging war against evil with the same armor as her warrior King. In putting on the same attire as Yahweh, Christians not only fight for Yahweh and his fame, but we also fight in the form of our God.

In Ephesians 6, the breastplate of righteousness is an active, Spirit-filled pursuit of righteousness as opposed to imputed righteousness. That Paul commands us to “put on” the breastplate shows it is our responsibility to wear the attire of our warrior King. If it were imputed righteousness, Paul would not have charged us to put it on. Rather, God declares us righteous the moment we believe, and then we grow in Christ by putting on the breastplate of righteousness.

The Christian’s new self was “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24). New creations, like the earth when God created it, bear fruit, the fruit of righteousness (Ephesians 5:9). As God’s new creation, by faith in Christ, we live and grow in righteousness. The breastplate of righteousness, therefore, is a lifestyle fueled by faith in Christ Jesus.

How Do We Put On Righteousness?

Paul calls us to continually and progressively put on the breastplate of righteousness. But how do we do it? We do so by faith. Paul says, “In all, taking the shield of faith” (Ephesians 6:16, my translation). The word “all,” in the immediate context, has the pieces of armor in view. Thus, Paul tells us how we put them all on. We put on the breastplate of righteousness by faith in Christ who is our righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30). The “faith” Paul has in mind in Ephesians 6:16 is our present trusting in Christ and his work of redemption.

“In Christ, the church has become like her God, waging war against evil with the same armor as her warrior King.”

One way we express that faith (and so put on righteousness) is through prayer. Paul tells us to put on the armor, “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication” (Ephesians 6:18). How does praying relate to putting on the breastplate of righteousness? We actively put on the breastplate by asking God, our Righteous Warrior, to grow us in righteousness. When we are tempted to sin, we cry to him. When our faith is weak, we cry to him. In dependence on him, by faith, we become more like him.

Taking up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, is also a means by which we put on the breastplate of righteousness. In the Scriptures, we see God’s glory (1 Samuel 3:21), and in seeing God’s glory, we become progressively like him (2 Corinthians 3:18). So, read to be righteous. If you neglect the word of God, you cannot wear this breastplate.

We also put on this breastplate of righteousness together with the church. The call to clothe ourselves like our warrior King and engage in war against evil is a corporate call. The church is the army of God. You cannot separate yourself from the church and expect to put on the armor and fight. Although our individual pursuit of righteousness is necessary, we are far stronger together. You cannot war alone. You need your local church in order to stand in these evil days.

Give Evil No Opportunity

In this spiritual war, Satan aims to hinder us from glorifying God and imaging him with lives of righteousness. He hinders our pursuit of holiness because he hates the glory of God.

One might ask, How does the breastplate protect us against the rulers, authorities, cosmic powers, and spiritual forces of evil? When believers engage in sinful behavior, they open the door for the devil to have influence. Paul calls the church to “give no opportunity to the devil” (Ephesians 4:27). When we give him an opportunity with our sin, we allow Satan to exert his destructive, God-dishonoring influence in the world. We allow him to hinder our efforts to glorify God in ministry, missions, marriage, and life. Our sins also give the devil the occasion to slander the church and her Messiah (1 Timothy 5:14).

When we actively submit to God, however, trusting God’s power for salvation from sin in the gospel and pursuing righteousness, we resist the devil and drive him away. He cannot devour our faith (James 4:7; 1 Peter 5:8).

When Satan Tempts Us to Despair

When we fail to put on the breastplate (as we all do), the cross of Christ is our hope. Because Jesus died for our sins, because Jesus is our righteousness, we are more than conquerors through Christ who loved us and gave himself up for us (Romans 8:37). So, we can sing in our failures,

When Satan tempts me to despair,And tells me of the guilt within,Upward I look, and see him there,Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died,My sinful soul is counted free;For God, the Just, is satisfiedTo look on him and pardon me.

Turn your eyes upon Jesus, not the satanic condemnation, and see your righteousness and perfection in him. In the strength of what he has accomplished for you, get up, dust off the filth, and put on the breastplate of your increasing righteousness. None of Satan’s arrows will be able to pierce your heart.

Prayer lies at the heart of our relationship with God. Prayer preaches that God is God and we are weak and needy creatures. And yet how many Christians persist in the sin of prayerlessness? We desire to pray, yet prayerlessness lies close at hand. We delight in prayerfulness, in our inner being, but we see in our members prayerlessness waging war against that inner desire, leaving us living like little gods pursuing godliness without depending on the power of God. Although Jesus tells us “always to pray and not lose heart” (Luke 18:1), we get discouraged regularly (perhaps because of our lack of prayer).

In my own struggles to pray, I have found it helpful to think more clearly about why prayerlessness is such a serious sin — and how God puts our prayerlessness to death. My mind goes back to a story in 1 Samuel 12, where Israel rejects God’s rule, and rules out crying to God for themselves, asking Samuel to pray for them (1 Samuel 12:19).

First, Samuel encourages God’s people not to fear, even though they have done “all this evil” (1 Samuel 12:20). “The Lord will not forsake his people, for his great name’s sake, because it has pleased the Lord to make you a people for himself” (1 Samuel 12:22). Despite their grievous sin, God will not forsake them, and Samuel resolves to pray for them.

Second, Samuel pledges: “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you, and I will instruct you in the good and the right way” (1 Samuel 12:23). I find Samuel’s words fascinating because, at this point in redemptive history, God has not yet commanded prayer. He has not enshrined into the law, “You must devote yourself to prayer.” Yet Samuel sees prayerlessness as a sin: “Far be it from me that I should sin by ceasing to pray for you.” Why? Consider four compelling reasons for Samuel’s conviction.

God’s Story

According to Samuel, Israel’s history has been a story of God crowning Israel’s cries with deliverance. God saved Israel when they cried to him in slavery, gave them the land (1 Samuel 12:8), and has been their help till date (1 Samuel 7:12). In suffering for sins, Israel has cried to God often, and God has saved them (1 Samuel 12:8, 10–11).

Samuel does not see prayerlessness as sin because the law commands prayer, but because God’s relationship with his redeemed people compels prayer. How can he not depend on God for Israel’s future when Israel’s past has been a story of humiliation and humble dependence on God? God has been her help in ages past, and only God will help her now.

Like Israel, our salvation begins with a cry of faith to God for deliverance. Israel cried out to God in their slavery to Egypt, and we cried out to God in our slavery to sin. We are God’s people today because he heard our cry. If our story has been one of crying to God for help and experiencing his deliverance, what future do we have but one of crying to God for help? Prayerlessness is sin because it ignores God’s story and God’s design for his people. It is God’s design that we depend on him and cry out to him so that he can save us again and again and again. God’s story is one of crowning our cries with salvation, and the future will not be different. God will crown your prayerful cries with salvation. Only be sure to cry.

God’s Promises

Because God has promised, “I will not leave you or forsake you” (Joshua 1:5), Samuel trusts that “the Lord will not forsake his people” (1 Samuel 12:22). This promise motivates Samuel to pray. Indeed, without God’s promises, we would have no basis for prayer. The promises of God powered David’s prayer. David found courage to pray because God promised to work (2 Samuel 7:27). So did Daniel (Daniel 9:1–4), and the early church (Acts 4:23–30), to list a few.

What is prayer, then? Prayer is asking God to do what he has committed himself to do. Prayer is not a human attempt to overcome God’s reluctance to work for the good of his people. Rather, biblical prayers are powered by God’s commitment and promise to work. God’s promises for his people motivate prayer. Prayer voices our confidence in God who has promised to do us good.

So, what is prayerlessness? It is a failure to trust God and his promises. Samuel knew that such prayerlessness would be a gross sin. How can you not trust the promises of the God who has been so faithful, and voice that trust in prayers?

God’s Glory

Samuel knows that God could only preserve Israel after they reject his kingship “for his great name’s sake” (1 Samuel 12:22). So, he seeks God’s glory by praying that God would not forsake Israel. God’s commitment to glorify himself makes prayerlessness sinful. God says he will not abandon his people “for his great name’s sake” (1 Samuel 12:22). Samuel intercedes for Israel because God is passionate about his glory, and so is Samuel.

When we pray, we align our passions, desires, and will with God’s. If God has committed himself to save his people for his glory, then it becomes sinful for his servants to not seek his glory in the salvation of his people through prayer. Prayerlessness, then, is a failure to seek God’s glory. Prayerlessness betrays not only our lack of love for God’s people, but also our lack of love for the God who spreads his fame through the salvation and preservation of his humble and crying people.

God’s Gospel

Unlike Samuel, we have received commandments from God to pray (Romans 12:12; Colossians 4:2; 1 Thessalonians 5:17; James 5:13). When we fail to pray, we are breaking God’s command. But, according to the New Testament, we find the power to keep God’s commandments in the gospel. So, prayerlessness shows that we are not grasping the gospel.

At the cross of Christ, God makes a people for himself at the cost of his only Son’s life. At the cross, God displays his commitment to never forsake his people. At the cross, God works to save and preserve a people for his name’s sake. In the cross, we find God’s Yes to all his covenant promises (2 Corinthians 1:20). His covenant love, his faithfulness, and his commitment to save for his own glory revealed at the cross make prayer possible and render prayerlessness sinful.

Putting Prayerlessness to Death

Knowing that something is a sin does not give us the power to kill it. We need gospel power. The cure for our prayerless hearts is not more commands to pray but the healing balm of the gospel. The cross exposes our sinful pride, our lack of dependence on God. At the cross, we know that we could never pray enough to earn God’s favor. At the cross, we know that we could never merit God’s mercy. At the cross, we know that no good work is good enough for our good God. We are humbled at the cross, and that humility is the fuel for prayer.

Humbled by the God who saved us when we could not possibly save ourselves, we prayerfully depend on him. And the God who saved us from condemnation is the same God we need to save us from sin’s power day after day. The cross that saved us is the same cross we need to cling to day after day. Understanding the gospel destroys the pride of prayerlessness.

Jesus died for our prayerlessness, and he also sets the example for how to pray. Jesus prayed without ceasing on earth, and he continues to intercede for us in heaven (Hebrews 7:25). Far be it from Jesus, the new and better Samuel, to sin against his Father by failing to intercede for the church, the new-covenant people of God. As Charles Wesley sang,

Five bleeding wounds he bears,Received on Calvary;They pour effectual prayers;They strongly plead for me:“Forgive him, O, forgive,” they cry,“Forgive him, O, forgive,” they cry,“Nor let that ransomed sinner die!”

The scars from the cross plead for us right now before the throne of God. When we pray, we join the crucified, risen, and ascended Lord in his passion to see God keep the people he made at the cross for his name’s sake. There are few privileges on earth so great as being able to pray with our Savior. In the power of the gospel, we follow Jesus’s example.

When Prayerfulness Goes Wrong

As we labor to join Jesus in prayer, however, we should beware of a type of prayerfulness that is still sin against God. After Jesus uses the parable of the persistent widow to teach us to pray without losing heart (Luke 18:1), he tells another parable about a tax collector and a Pharisee who both go up to the temple to pray.

The tax collector prays and confesses his neediness, simply pleading, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13). At the same time, a prayerful “saint” — who has done far more good works than the tax collector — stands confidently before God and recounts his qualifications for acceptance: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11–12). This Pharisee is not prayerless like other sinners. He is so prayerful, in fact, he intensifies his prayers with fasting. But his prayers are corrupt for two reasons.

First, in his mind, his prayers are the grounds for God’s acceptance of him. He lists all that he has done for God, but he asks nothing of God. He prays as though God needs his good works but he does not need God’s gracious work at the cross.

Second, his prayers also become the grounds for competition with others. He compares his faithful and intensified prayers with others and sees that others fall far short. His prayerfulness becomes his own condemnation because it is the ground for condemning others. He leaves his place of prayer feeling good, but not because he enjoyed God, received mercy from God, or rested in God’s work of salvation. Rather, he feels good because he prayed longer, more regularly, and more passionately than others. The perceived prayerlessness of others boosts his pride before God, but God rejects him and his intense prayers (Luke 18:14).

God designed prayer not for self-justification or competition, but for humiliation. Genuine prayer kills our pride and promotes his praise. Pray regularly, earnestly, and faithfully, but never put your confidence in your prayerfulness or compete with others through them.

Far Be It from Us

Far be it from us that we should sin against God by prayerlessness, and far be it from us that we should sin against God by trusting in our prayerfulness. The cross makes humble, dependent prayer possible and necessary, and the cross is our only merit before God.

Let the cross of Christ kill your prayerlessness and prideful prayerfulness. Let the cross kindle prayer that trusts in Christ’s sufficiency and pleads for God’s mercy. When you struggle to pray, do not look to yourself. Do not expect guilt or better planning or stronger resolve to ultimately transform the way you pray. Look to Jesus. The gospel is the cure for our prayerlessness. The gospel purges our guilt of prayerlessness, proves our need for God’s grace, grounds our hope for answered prayers, powers our resolves to pray, promotes our dependence on God in prayer, and protects us from boasting in our prayers.

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One.

When God satisfies a soul, that soul does not stop seeking the Source of satisfaction. Once an empty, longing soul has tasted true pleasure, it can never go back to the empty cisterns and stay there. In this way, Christians are both restless and satisfied. They hunger and thirst no more, as Jesus promised (John 6:35), and they always hunger and thirst for more of God.

In God’s word, those satisfied with God spend a lifetime seeking satisfaction in God. Those filled with God search for fullness in God. Those who have found God never stop searching after God. An unrelenting pursuit of God defines believers. That is why they keep reading the same Scriptures again and again — to find more of God. They pray for more of God. They memorize passages for more of God.

Our longing is not to re-experience the joy we had when we first beheld him, but to experience new joy through a greater knowledge of him. We are not addicts, chasing the first high because the same dose does not give as much pleasure. Rather, we are climbers, ascending a mountain to see more of its beauty.

Pursuing God with Tozer

A.W. Tozer, who died in 1963, came back to life to disciple me in 2002, the year I began my journey in theological education. Growing up, I never read for fun, and I studied only when I was forced to. However, when God converted me, I began reading the Bible extensively. My first NIV black hardcover Bible was completely marked up, underlined, highlighted, and starred. In all my reading, I was on a journey to know God better, especially to know him as my Father. Having grown up without a father, this was the first time I could ever call someone my Father, love someone as my Father, and relate to someone as my Father.

In 2002, I was not reading many books besides my Bible, but I stumbled upon A.W. Tozer’s The Pursuit of God. I was not far in when the following passage greeted me:

The modern scientist has lost God amid the wonders of his world; we Christians are in real danger of losing God amid the wonders of his Word. We have almost forgotten that God is a Person and . . . full knowledge of one personality by another cannot be achieved in one encounter. It is only after long and loving mental intercourse that the full possibilities of both can be explored. (23)

“It was not enough that I had found God; I must keep finding him.”

I realized that life was to be an active pursuit of God. It was not enough that I had found God; I must keep finding him. And God alone is enough to satisfy all my longings.

Pursuing God in Theological Education

Because of Tozer, I made it my goal to not miss God in my theological studies. I wanted not only to study about God, but also to be satisfied in God; not only to study God, but also to enjoy God; not only to think logical thoughts about God, but also to be logically on fire for God.

As I studied the Scriptures, it became clear that Tozer’s sentiment was true of the saints from the Old Testament to the New Testament. While the world presents an abundance of sources of joy, pleasure, satisfaction, and delight, the saints herald that God and God alone is the source.

Like Moses, those who have found favor with God constantly cry out, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). Like David, those who have found him seek just “one thing”: “that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4). Like Paul, those who know God make it their life’s work to know God more (Philippians 3:10). Eternal life is defined not by its length but by its content: “This is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3).

Augustine made the same observation when he wrote, “Christ is not valued at all unless he is valued above all.” If Christ is not our greatest pursuit in life, then we do not yet value him, which means we have not yet found him. If our souls are not hungry for him, then we have not yet tasted of the bread of life.

Pursuing God in Missions

When God moved me to Minnesota from Cameroon to study, I felt keenly aware of the temptations a more affluent country might bring. So I recorded this prayer in my journal:

Help me, Lord, by your Spirit to truly appreciate the beauty of this city and America only to the degree that it helps me see you. May I not be won by its beauty and miss out on the beauty of the glory of God on the face of Christ. Take my eyes and let them be fully consecrated to you. . . . May Jesus mean everything to me! Spare me, Lord, from becoming more American than becoming more Christlike in my stay here in the US. May the US be the US and Jesus be the all-satisfying Jesus still and more.

God answered my prayer. Through my studies in America, by God’s grace, I delighted in God and became more satisfied in him than ever before. Since then, God moved me to Cameroon for church planting and theological training so that others can have the same experience — not in America, but in Christ. By God’s grace, no American treasures could hold me back from spreading the joy of Christ to others. Because God had satisfied me with God and was satisfying me with himself, God freed me to let the pleasures of America go.

All Satisfaction, All Pleasure, All Delight

Tozer had tasted the freedom I found in Christ. He writes,

The man who has God for his treasure has all things in One. Many ordinary treasures may be denied him, or if he is allowed to have them, the enjoyment of them will be so tempered that they will never be necessary to his happiness. Or if he must see them go, one after one, he will scarcely feel a sense of loss, for having the Source of all things he has in One all satisfaction, all pleasure, all delight. Whatever he may lose he has actually lost nothing, for he now has it all in One, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever. (28)

“Make God your greatest treasure, and you will be empowered to let anything go to gain Christ.”

Do you not desire this freedom? Do you not long for that satisfaction? If you are not experiencing God as a treasure so great that no circumstance can steal your joy, then keep seeking him.

Suppose you are not hungry for God, is there hope? Yes, there’s always hope. Love for God is a gift of God. Passion for God comes from God. You could pray verses like these:

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. (Psalm 90:14)

Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? (Psalm 85:6)

And you can pray with assurance because God promises to revive us:

Thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” (Isaiah 57:15)

Make God your greatest treasure, and you will never ultimately suffer loss. Make God your greatest treasure, and you will be empowered to let anything go to gain Christ. Possessions will no longer be chains but channels to enjoy your one Treasure. The loss of dreams and loved ones, though painful, will no longer be the loss of hope. God will be all you need. You will have all your pleasures, all your satisfaction, all your desires in One.

Family dysfunction is often more spiritual than relational, despite how regular tension and conflict might make it feel. Satan rejoices when homes are ruined. He fights to make families feeble. The weaker the family, the stronger his rule and the more his course advances.

Satan uses instruments, human means, in the battle. He often works through flesh and blood. Nevertheless, we do not fight against flesh and blood (Ephesians 6:12). Instead, we rely on flesh-and-blood relationships as we fight against him in our homes.

Corporate Worship and Warfare

Which relationships do we need to rely on? What alliances will help us defeat Satan as he attacks our homes? Our great alliance is with our brothers and sisters in the church. They are our fellow soldiers fighting the same war — and unity is key. We work together and depend on each other for lasting triumph.

“Satan rejoices when homes are ruined. He fights to make families feeble.”

The church is the army in the great spiritual war. While every family faces its individual battles, warfare is also a corporate endeavor. We wrestle together against a common enemy, Satan. We can see this reality especially in Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, where the apostle envelops instructions about family relationships (Ephesians 5:22–6:9) between corporate worship (Ephesians 5:18–21) and corporate warfare (Ephesians 6:10–20). This structure shows that family relationships flow from, and depend on, the corporate worship and warfare of God’s family.

God’s family, the church, provides the source of power, the pattern, and the means of protection for our individual families. If we want to guard our families from the attacks of the devil, we will find our shield in the church.

Walking Home in the Spirit

Prior to his instructions on the family, Paul explains how we are to live and worship corporately (Ephesians 5:15–21). Walking in wisdom, he writes, entails being filled with the Spirit by speaking and singing truth to Christ and one another in corporate worship. In this way, the Spirit fills God’s gathered family and empowers them to live out the gospel, claiming victory in their homes. When God’s people are filled with the Spirit through corporate worship, wives submit to their husbands, husbands love their wives, children obey their parents, fathers tenderly train their children, servants obey their masters, and masters do good to their servants.

“If we despise the family of God, we will not survive in the effort to establish ours.”

The connection between the sections on corporate worship and the home is even clearer in the Greek. Ephesians 5:22 does not have the word submit; we only understand the implied verb by looking back at verse 21, where Paul uses the participle submitting. Paul uses unusual grammar to tie the two sections together, thus linking the family relationships in Ephesians 5:22–6:9 to the gathered family of God, the church, as the source of families’ strength. In other words, our individual family lives are an overflow of the life in the gathered family of God.

When filled with the Spirit, God’s family becomes not only the power but the pattern for our own individual families. Wives submit as the church submits to Christ. Husbands love as Christ loved the church. Children obey parents in the Lord, as God’s children also obey him. Fathers take their cue from the heavenly Father in exercising gentleness. Servants obey as they would Christ. Masters treat their servants respectfully because both masters and servants have one Master. Thus, the church’s relationship with her Lord and heavenly Father becomes the pattern for a Spirit-filled family. Sinclair Ferguson rightly says,

My family needs the church family for its own growth and health. No single family possesses all the resources it needs to be a truly and fully Christian family. We need support, friendship, example, wise counsel and much else from the church family. . . . Two Christian parents are not in themselves adequate to rear one child for Christ — they were never meant to be. (Devoted to God’s Church, 7)

Beyond Flesh and Blood

Having called specific members of the church to walk by the Spirit, honoring Christ in their respective callings, Paul draws the church to the armor that will keep its individual families firm in the path before them. Every family member — husbands, wives, parents, children, servants, masters — must be strong in the Lord to “stand against the schemes of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11) and “withstand in the evil day” (Ephesians 6:13), clothed with the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6:14). Throughout this section, Paul uses the second person plural, referring to the entire church. Corporate war is the means by which individual families stand against the schemes of the devil.

One of the devil’s schemes, against which the church must stand, is the temptation to devalue the place of God’s family for our individual families. Many Christians today fail to see corporate worship and warfare as indispensable. The gathering of the church is optional; we easily forsake the gathering for other pursuits, when we should let go of every other pursuit to gather with the church. When the devil separates us from the army of God, he has better chances for victory against our families.

Any military commander would be a fool if he sent his men into battle detached from each other. A commander who separates one man from the team may, in effect, send that soldier to his death, as David did to Uriah (2 Samuel 11:15). If an army is divided among itself, how can it stand? It can be a crime in the military to desert your team or to forsake a wounded member of the team. You fight for your country; you fight with each other; you protect each other. Care for one another is central. When believers forget and forsake the rest of the military, the church, they give an advantage to the devil.

We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but we need flesh and blood for the war against the devil. No family feud is only relational; there is always more going on than meets the eyes. Eve’s disobedience and Adam’s passivity may have appeared as just as a flesh-and-blood issue if Moses had never led us behind the scenes to see the schemes of the devil. The counsel of Job’s wife, as the waves of trials swept over them, may have seemed simply like the words of a troubled soul (Job 2:9). But the author of Job lifts the curtains and shows us that behind those words lay an evil force. Job’s battle was not against flesh and blood; it was spiritual.

Full Armor for the Family

How do we fight these spiritual wars? In part, we do so corporately. We stand in whole armor Christ has won for us, and we fight with the word of God (Ephesians 6:13–18). The pieces of armor Paul lists are not different from the truth we corporately confess and sing to each other in corporate worship. Being strong in the strength of the Lord is similar to being filled with the Spirit, who “strengthens with power” in the inner man (Ephesians 3:16). We put on the whole armor when we address each other with the truth of the gospel, our true righteousness in Christ, and the gospel of peace, strengthening each other’s faith in the gospel, singing of our great salvation, joining in songs that are rich with the word, which is the sword of the Spirit. Corporate worship itself is corporate warfare.

While these pieces of armor can be put on at the individual level, the corporate dimension is vital. For example, as individuals, we may not always have our shields up. But in corporate warfare, when a husband’s shield falls, others can gather around him and protect him with their own shields, praying and encouraging him back to the battle. Victory for individual families comes as we are engaged in God’s local family, where we wage the war with others against the schemes of the devil.

This reality also places a burden of responsibility on local churches, since the health of her families, in large measure, depends on the strength of a church’s worship and warfare. What the gathered family does with the truth determines the health of its individual families.

We Fight Together or Fail

Corporate worship and warfare are indispensable for our marriages and families. If we despise the family of God, we will not survive in the effort to establish ours. Your family needs God’s family. Your marriage needs God’s marriage. Your parenting needs God’s fatherly relationship with his people. We fight together or we fail.

If we isolate ourselves from the community of God’s people, we will inevitably fall in the battle, with none to lift us up. God has not designed us to live that way. The health of your family is the project of God’s family. We worship together, we war together, and by God’s grace, we will win together.