http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/14830404/what-happens-to-desires-without-god

Audio Transcript

When you pray, Jesus said, get by yourself, go into your room, shut the door, “and pray to your Father who is in secret” (Matthew 6:6). Sounds pretty straightforward. So we just pray alone, right? Wrong. We don’t pray only in secret; we pray together — something we see all over the book of Acts, for example (in texts like Acts 2:42; 4:31; 12:12; 13:3; and 20:36, to name a few). So, why do we pray together and not just alone? What’s added when we pray together? And what’s lost when we pray only by ourselves?

In 1981, Pastor John took up this question in a sermon on 2 Corinthians 1:8–11. There, Paul writes this testimony of his agonies:

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again.

And then Paul makes this request in verse 11, which is a little complex, so listen carefully: “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many.” Here’s Pastor John.

That’s a hard verse. I noticed Glen this morning had trouble reading verse 11, just like I did. He had to stop and make sure he had it just right because it’s a very complex sentence. I had to read verse 11 again and again, and I could not get the gist of verse 11 until I drew it on paper.

Line of Prayer

Now, follow with me the line of prayer. Keep one eye on the text, one eye on the line, and both ears on me.

The line of prayer begins with Paul, and he feels a need. That’s where prayer begins. His need was probably, “Oh, how I need to rely on God more. Oh, how I need to trust God for deliverance from all my adversaries more.” So what does he do? He sends out a line of prayer, “Help me,” horizontally to the Corinthians. “Help me by prayer.” And that’s stage one in the line of prayer.

Then the line of prayer curves up through the heart of the Corinthians as they hear the plea, and they look up to God and pray that God will, in fact, answer their prayers for Paul’s deliverance and for his faith. That’s stage two: the prayers of the Corinthians heading up to God.

Then the line of prayer enters the heart of God, who is there listening, waiting for the prayers of his people. And in response to the prayers of the many Corinthians, God sends down a gift — or a “blessing,” as the text says — to Paul. What blessing? Greater faith in God, greater dependence on him alone, and deliverance from his adversaries. That’s stage three in the line of prayer.

Now, just as many people heard the plea of Paul to help through prayer, so many people now see the answer to the prayers as they look. “Look: Paul got out. He got out of the Philippian jail. He got away from Ephesus. He made it all the way through Berea and Thessalonica. He’s coming down here to us. He’s going to make it all the way to Jerusalem with that money. He may make it to Rome, to the ends of the earth, and preach to the emperor. Praise God!” And that’s line four.

They see the answer to prayer, and that curves up through their heart in praises and thanksgiving, through many people, back to God. And that’s stage five in the line of prayer. And that’s where the text stops.

Spiraling Delight

But I think there is something implied in the text that’s not explicit, that is just a choice truth that I don’t want to leave out. Namely, if Paul chose to motivate the Corinthians to pray for him by pointing out that it would abound in many thanksgivings to God, then it must be a great delight to Paul to think about God getting so many thanks. And if it’s a great delight to Paul to see God being thanked, then that little dotted line that comes down from God is joy coming back into the heart of Paul as he sees God being thanked in response to the answer to many prayers. So that’s stage six that I’ve added.

In fact, I could go on adding stage seven, because God gets delight in Paul’s delight, and Paul gets delight in God’s delight in his delight. It’s just a great spiral on up into infinite joy someday, when there’s no more sin to clutter up that spiral. That’s the line of prayer.

Let me sum it up just briefly. Paul has a great need, and he feels it. He knows he’s coming into adversity. He said in Acts 20:23, “The Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonments and afflictions await me.” He needs help. “Help me, Corinthians.”

They hear the word, responding, “God, help Paul.” God looks down, “I hear the prayer. Here’s the help, Paul.” Paul is helped. He’s delivered. He’s free. He’s preaching. He’s full of faith. Who sees it? Lots of people see it. What do they do? Praise God. God has responded to our prayers, and the thanks go back to God, and he’s glorified. That’s the line of prayer. That’s what ought to be happening in this church again and again and again.

Many Prayers, Many Thanks

There are more lessons in this than I can begin to say this morning, but I want to mention two — two lessons from the line of prayer. The first is this. If you’re like me, you’ve probably asked yourself why it is that corporate prayer is important. Why pray in groups? Why pray publicly? Why not just close the door, like Jesus said — we should many times — and pray alone?

Why does Paul not simply pray, “God, save me from the enemies; God, fill me with faith” — and not write letters and tell other people to pray for him? Doesn’t he think God can answer his prayer? Is he lacking in faith? Are we weak in faith when we ask many people to pray for something?

That’s the kind of question I came to this text with, and I think the text gives a tremendous answer to why corporate and public prayer is so important. Why might God be more inclined to answer the prayers of many rather than the prayers of one? That’s my question.

And I think the answer begins like this: according to our text, the thing that’s different when many people pray — notice “the prayers of many” — is that the stage is being set for lots and lots and lots of thanks. The more people that are earnestly praying for some blessing from God, the more thanksgiving will ascend to God when that blessing comes.

Paul’s argument is very simply this: “You must help me by prayer so that many will give thanks when the prayers of many are answered.” The reason for praying at all is so God might be thanked when blessings come, and God loves to be thanked. God loves to be thanked. That’s the basic premise here for why this prayer becomes so effective. He loves to be acknowledged and praised as the giver of all good gifts.

Therefore, when we urge, when I urge you to pray for some need — four hundred people, say — I’m creating a situation in which the provision of that need will result in many, many, many thanksgivings, more than if each of us was praying privately.

“God loves to be thanked by many, and therefore, there is a power in church-wide prayer.”

And therefore, we tap into a tremendous incentive on God’s part, because God loves to glorify himself by doing what he must do to get as many thanks as possible, and that means answering the prayers of many people. God loves to be thanked by many, and therefore, there is a power in church-wide prayer because the more people there are praying for the spiritual life of our church, the more thanksgiving will ascend when God gives it.

Seeking Blessing Together

Now, the same reasoning that comes straight out of 2 Corinthians 1:11 also shows that we should not only pray in large numbers, but that we should get together in groups to pray. I’ll try to show you how that follows.

Picture two possibilities. One would be a dozen people, privately in their homes, praying for the release of Paul, say, from jail in Philippi. They pray. God answers and delivers Paul. They get word of it. They give thanks. God is honored. Great!

But suppose that those dozen or so people met together in a group, in a room, in a living room there in Philippi, just like the saints did in Acts 12 to pray for Peter’s release when he was in jail. Suppose they got together and prayed, and the fervor of each other’s prayer kindled each other’s fervor up to God. God released Paul miraculously through this earthquake, and they hear about it.

“When you and I experience a blessing that we’ve asked for together, your thanksgiving deepens and heightens mine.”

Then what would happen? The praises and the thanks would ascend, and is it not human nature — see if this isn’t true to your own experience — to feel gratitude more intensely when somebody you love is sharing the experience with you? Is that not human nature to feel the joy of gratitude more intensely when someone you love is feeling it together with you?

When you and I experience a blessing that we’ve asked for together, your thanksgiving deepens and heightens my thanksgiving, because it works like this: When the answer comes, I see the blessing coming from God. I see it, and I’m glad. I rejoice. But then I look down, and I see it reflected and magnified in all your faces, and my joy, therefore, is compounded, and my thanksgiving is greater. And God loves heightened and deepened thanksgiving, and therefore, he wants us to meet in groups to pray.

Therefore, we are setting ourselves up for tremendous spiritual blessing in this church when we gather in groups to seek God’s blessing on our church.

“When did you feel called to missions?”

This question often gets posed to current and former missionaries. For me, a particular ministry opportunity quickly turned into a call. I was studying and training for ministry and had an interest in cross-cultural work, but it only hit home when a professor said, “I have a friend in Ukraine who could use someone to teach the things we are learning in this class. Are any of you interested?” That need fit me, and my heart quickly grew toward God’s work there.

Are You Called?

A lot of people, however, feel confused about the term “called.” One person may believe his call places him outside the reach of evaluation — as if my sense of divine call obligates other people to treat me in a special way. A call to missions can sometimes seem to validate someone’s Christian faith, as if I am incomplete as a Christian unless God gives me the significance of cross-cultural ministry. Or we may say we are called when what we mean is that we feel drawn toward the spiritual and physical needs of people in a certain place. These interpretations tend to make the call an internal experience more interested in how I feel than with God’s purposes in the world.

The missionary call can also be expanded so widely that it stirs up improper guilt. The passionate singer-songwriter Keith Green gave this missions exhortation in 1982:

[Jesus] commands you to go. . . . “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15 KJV). That’s right. . . . YOU ARE CALLED! In fact, if you don’t go, you need a specific calling from God to stay home.

And by “go,” Green did not mean just to a next-door neighbor. This was a call to cross-cultural evangelism in light of the overwhelming number of people who have never heard the gospel. Green wanted his listeners to feel guilty for not crossing cultures as missionaries. Such an exhortation cuts through the process of discernment about whether someone is called to missions and simply concludes that we are all called.

All Are Sent, Some Are Called

Green’s words remind us that the whole church is sent. Jesus sends the apostles in John 20:21 and tells them they will be his “witnesses” all over the world (Acts 1:8). The Great Commission addresses all of Jesus’s disciples with its charge to make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18–20). Peter makes clear that this sense of mission applies to everyone in the church when he calls his readers “a holy nation.” You were chosen, he says, “that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9).

But the whole church fulfills that mission by setting apart particular people to bring the saving gospel to new groups in different cultures. Instead of saying, “You are all called to cross-cultural missions,” we can announce to the church, “You are sent!” without specifying exactly where and how each person participates in that mission.

To help clarify how the church uses these terms, I propose that we reserve a missionary “calling” to people who have both an internal desire to be involved in this ministry and also the affirmation of the church, the institution that Jesus Christ has authorized and sent. A “call” to missions announces that a particular person will join the church’s mission in this particular task — crossing cultures in order to proclaim the gospel and establish the church.

Missionary Calling in the New Testament

God certainly directs his people into specific ministry assignments, but the New Testament does not emphasize the internal sense of calling to the degree that we often do. The apostles received distinctive divine calls — whether through the incarnate Lord saying, “Follow me” (Matthew 4:18–22), or, as with Paul, through an appearance of the risen Christ speaking directly to him (Acts 9:1–19). But these were extraordinary callings for extraordinary tasks. When we look at how the other missionaries were chosen in the book of Acts, we find a variety of means.

“Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision.”

In the examples of Silas, Timothy, and John Mark, they each seem to have joined a missionary team through a combination of desire, need, and opportunity. Paul needed a partner and so looked to Silas (Acts 15:40). Barnabas needed a partner and recruited John Mark back onto the team (Acts 15:37–39). Timothy “was well spoken of,” and Paul recruited him (Acts 16:1–3). These examples show us that while the whole church is sent to make disciples, individuals join particular branches of that task through a combination of factors.

That is not to say that the idea of a calling or vocation is without biblical evidence. “Calling” in the New Testament Epistles always refers in some way back to one’s conversion, the time God called one into his family (1 Corinthians 1:26). But in at least one text, 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul also views our life circumstances as part of our calling. He writes, “Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him” (1 Corinthians 7:17). Paul means that when God calls you into his family, he calls you specifically, with all the relationships, positions, and history that you have. Were you married when he called you (that is, when you were converted)? Then God means to make you his child in that state of marriage.

It is from this text that Christians have developed the idea of one’s “calling” or “vocation” in life. Since God is sovereign over the events in our life, whatever he gives us to do can be a part of our particular path of discipleship. God means to make us Christians in whatever circumstances he gives us. That call may include caring for an elderly parent, or raising a child with special needs, or — if you happen to be born as the eldest son of a monarch — serving as a prince and king.

It makes sense, then, to refer to the task of cross-cultural missions as a calling, just as pastoral ministry, motherhood, running a farm, and simply living as the persons we are in the place God has given us are callings from God.

Learning from the Pastoral Call

That said, a pastoral calling works in a special way that would be helpful for missionaries to learn from. Protestant churches have long recognized that a man does not possess the authority of a pastor unless a church recognizes the God-given gifts that accompany that position. Many churches and denominations require that ordination be “to a definite work” (as the PCA’s Book of Church Order puts it). This is a “call,” a specific affirmation of someone’s gifts and of his fit for a particular task with recognized status and responsibility in the church. A man may feel called to preach the gospel, but he is only truly called to pastoral ministry when the church affirms that desire and gives him some responsibility.

In his handbook for future pastors, Bobby Jamieson prefers to say that a man “aspires” to become a pastor rather than “is called.” “Calling asks you to picture yourself at the end of the trail. Aspiration points out the path and tells you to take a step” (The Path to Being a Pastor, 30). An aspiring pastor asks the church to help him take the next step toward affirmation and responsibility.

Because pastoral ministry includes a specific authority to preach God’s word to God’s assembled people and to participate in the oversight of a local church, it requires definite and fairly high qualifications. But because missions can represent a variety of ministries, some of which are only tangentially related to spiritual authority in the church, we can easily dilute the calling. A person’s desire alone can be mistaken for a calling to a particular work.

If we adopted the careful language of a pastoral call for missionaries, we would clarify where someone is on the path to becoming a missionary. A subjective calling to cross-cultural ministry will be confirmed if and when God arranges it so that this person is actually engaged in that definite work.

Rather than speaking confidently of our calling to missions (and may the Lord call out many more!), we might be wise to say, “I desire to be a missionary,” or “I am preparing to be a missionary,” or “I aspire to be a missionary.” Since our knowledge of God’s call is tentative and aspirational, we can have a missionary burden, a desire for missions, an exploration of a call, or a sense that we might be called.

Opening Ourselves to God’s Leading

Aspiration announces that we are on a path. It says to the church around us, “Please help me discern the next step God would have me take.” It opens us up to evaluation and input, and places our desire for ministry within the appropriate context of the church’s mission. Saying that we aspire to a missionary calling also saves us from the twin dangers of overconfidence and indecision. If we aspire, then we do not announce confidently that we already have the call. And if we aspire, we are asking for the church’s affirmation rather than for a unique divine sign.

“Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus, but Paul chose Silas and departed” (Acts 15:39–40). Did Silas receive a missionary call? Silas was certainly a well-respected church leader. He had been chosen, along with Paul and Barnabas, to bring the letter from the Jerusalem council back to Antioch (Acts 15:22). But Paul’s invitation here was enough to have him join the missionary team. God may have moved in a hundred ways before that day to prepare him for this call. But the crucial moment came when Paul said, “Why don’t you join me?” and Silas heard and accepted that call.

Instead of waiting for a miraculous sign, Christians can seek opportunities for ministry and use discernment to ask, “Would this ministry fit how God has made me?” Instead of boldly announcing that one is “called” to missions, Christians can ask for input from other mature believers. “I would like to be called as a cross-cultural missionary. How could I prepare for and pursue that calling?”

A call to missions is confirmed when the church sends someone who is willing, capable, and tested to proclaim the gospel and establish the church in another culture. When that happens, a missionary can be confident in God’s direction not only because of his subjective desire, but also because of the affirmation of God’s people in the church.