http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15345601/invincible-joy-confirms-our-election

First, they worshiped him.

Before Jesus gave them any tasks to be done, any commission to fulfill, any directions as to how they might, in some sense, carry on his work once he was gone, first they went to their knees before him. Matthew reports that

the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him . . . . (Matthew 28:16–17)

Before they might imitate aspects of his human life, and echo his teachings in their own words and obedience, they bowed before Jesus — not only as man but God himself.

What’s more, before Jesus uttered the lone imperative of his Great Commission to his men, for his church, he declared his unique authority: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matthew 28:18). The church has one Groom, one Chief Shepherd, one Lord, one risen Son seated at the right hand of the Father, supplying the Spirit. And more than that, when the disciples did receive their charge, it would be strikingly focused on “the Son” — baptizing in his name, with the Father and Spirit, and teaching all nations to observe all that Jesus commanded.

Yet, the other foot would land. Not only would utterly inimitable aspects of the God-man’s life have their clear markings here, at his giving of the Commission, but his disciples would have a call to answer, a part to play, genuine obedience to render. There was actual imitation of their master to own and realize, however qualified it might be.

At the heart of this final, culminating report at the end of Matthew’s Gospel stands a particular directive — work to be done, an imperative to heed, a mission to embrace, and yes, a pronounced dimension of Christ’s life to imitate: make disciples.

He Made Them Fishers

How would this charge — one that encompasses all the other commands of Christ’s teaching — have landed on his own men in that moment, and in the days and years that followed as they reflected on it? After all, this was the particular band who knew him best. These were his disciples. What might his disciples hear when he told his disciples to make disciples?

For Peter and Andrew, James and John, Jesus had first framed his call to disciple them in terms of their native profession. “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matthew 4:19). Having been trained, their whole lives long, to use boats and nets to draw food from the sea, what would have been plain to them then, and all the more plain after three years with Jesus, was that you don’t make fishermen, or disciples, overnight or in an instant.

Making good fishermen is a long, involved process, as they knew all too well. It requires teaching and training over time. Not only hearing, and internalizing, clear words of instruction and direction but also watching a master fisherman at work — and catching the unspoken rhythms and patterns of his craft. Such apprenticing requires, according to pastor Tom Nelson, “the kind of knowing that is difficult to capture in propositional terms or categories, but that emerges in the context of a close relationship and in the imitation of another” (The Flourishing Pastor, 94). Nelson cites philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) who calls it “tacit knowledge”:

By watching the master and emulating his efforts in the presence of his example, the apprentice unconsciously picks up the rules of the art, including those which are not explicitly known to the master himself. (Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, 53)

Such disciple-making, as seen in the life of Christ, involves more than formal, verbal instruction. Disciples not only hear their master talk about his craft, but they watch him at work, and then receive ongoing instruction as he, in turn, watches their early efforts and speaks into their emerging abilities.

Now You Make Fishers

How, then, did this spiritual fisher-making unfold during Jesus’s ministry? In Matthew’s Gospel in particular, from Jesus’s summons in chapter 4, to his commission in chapter 28, it is remarkable to observe his recurring attention to and prioritizing and investment in his disciples.

Again and again, from one chapter to the next, and often one account to the next, Jesus navigates public and private dimensions of life, showing rhythms of welcoming “the crowds” (in public) and then giving undivided attention to “his disciples” (in private). He is willing to receive and bless the masses as they come seeking, yet he himself seeks out his disciples, to invest in the few. (Observe it for yourself by skimming through the Gospel of Matthew and watching for the words crowd and disciples in the first and last lines of various sections.)

“Christ himself showed his disciples the Christian life, inside and out, in pubic teaching and private prayer.”

Jesus, the Master, had called them to follow him, and for more than three years, in setting after setting, in private homes and in the midst of great crowds, walking long journeys between towns and enjoying unhurried meals — one conversation at a time, one day at a time — Jesus had discipled them. Christ himself showed them the Christian life, inside and out, in public teaching and private prayer. Now they too were to make disciples.

In particular, he says, “Disciple all nations” — which must have landed on them with at least a double force.

‘Disciple’ as a Verb

First is the relational context we’ve been observing.

Christians today often talk about “discipleship,” and so it might be helpful to clarify what sort of action and process Jesus’s disciples would have heard when their discipler said to “make disciples.” Disciple-making, in this context, is the process in which a stable, mature believer invests himself, for a particular period of time, in one or a few younger believers, in order to help their growth in the faith — including helping them also to invest in others who will invest in others. (Paul gives such directions to his disciple, in 2 Timothy 2:2, for raising up leaders in the Ephesian church.)

“Disciple-making is both engineered and organic, involving both truth-speaking and life-sharing.”

Such disciple-making requires both structure (particular lessons and topics to work through) as well as margin that allows the discipler to speak into unplanned teachable moments as they arise. Such a process is both engineered and organic, involving both truth-speaking and life-sharing. Quantity time is the soil in which quality time grows.

Formal and Informal

The vast majority of Jesus’s time with his men wasn’t formal. Mark 3:14 says, “He appointed twelve (whom he also named apostles) so that they might be with him . . .” Before he sent them out to preach, they first needed to be with their Master, to hear his instruction, watch his life, and absorb his ways — not with a clock ticking in the background but with the space and time and overlap of everyday life that encourages the kind of effect that Jesus had on his men.

It is nothing short of amazing what three years with Jesus did for this ragtag band of young Galileans. All of them were outsiders to the religious establishment of the time; none of them were rabbi-trained like Paul. And yet, after Christ’s ascension and the pouring out of his Spirit, the religious authorities could see with their own eyes the profound imprints of Christ on his men:

Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13)

Jesus did not despise the crowds. He received them. He taught them. He healed them. But he didn’t pursue them. His days revolved around his disciples. And when it came time to turn to them, and give them his Commission, he didn’t say, “Draw crowds.” He said, “Disciple the nations.”

‘All Nations’ as the Goal

Second is the outward push of all nations.

In his commentary on the Commission, D.A. Carson notes that while “the main imperatival force” and “the main emphasis” is on the verb “make disciples,” we should not downplay or overlook the effect of the participle going (“go and make disciples”). Lingering indefinitely in Jerusalem, or in Galilee, will not fulfill the mission. There is an irreducible “centrifugal force,” we might say, not only in the participle but also in the object of the verb “all nations.”

Jesus commissions both depth and distance. Yes, his disciples seek to “make converts” — nothing less will do. They must be evangelists. But Jesus calls for more. At the heart of his charge is the depth of making disciples. And the inevitable effect, and impulse, is outward, expansive, evangelistic, even global. The Commission directs Christ’s people to both “go deep” and “go out” — locally and to other cities and peoples.

All He Commanded

Now, as we go — across the street, down the hall, to the church building or a coffee shop, into a new relationship or another appointment, or to the other side of town, or to a new state, or across an ocean, or to a new culture or language — we make disciples, offering our words and time and attention for months, even years, and putting forward our own lives as examples.

We exercise patience, speak with grace, answer simple questions with humility, and as disciples of Jesus ourselves, we point our “disciples” not finally to us, but to him. And when our focus is making disciples, rather than the modern fascination with drawing crowds, we find that life and ministry take a whole new tenor, perhaps even that of Christ himself.

And as we seek to live and minister more like him, we own afresh that Jesus is indeed unique. All authority is his. The commission is his. The church is his. The promise of divine presence is his. We worship him, and disciple others to do the same.

Suppose the leaked draft is accurate, and the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two rulings that legally sustain the abortion license in the United States. What then?

While pro-lifers should not declare victory until there is an official decision, this much is true: According to many legal experts, both cases are on life support thanks to a Mississippi case. The question before the Court in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is simple: Does the Constitution prohibit states from restricting abortion before fetal viability — that is, before a baby can survive outside the womb? Herein lies the challenge for the Court: justices cannot reasonably uphold a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks without striking Roe and Casey, which say you can’t ban it until viability, which the Court set at 24 weeks. If the Court strikes those cases, the alleged constitutional right to an abortion is history.

Win for Pro-Lifers?

If Roe and Casey are struck, it will be a truly historical moment, and pro-lifers should indeed celebrate. Nine unelected judges on the Supreme Court will no longer have sole legal authority to determine abortion policy. Rather, the legislative and executive branches of the federal government, along with those in the individual states, will now decide how the practice is governed. Put simply, the American people — your friends, your classmates, your coworkers, and your family members — will now determine if unborn humans enjoy the same legal protections as you and I, or get relegated to the dumpster.

“Overturning these cases is just the beginning of the fight to save unborn lives, not the end.”

However, if you think overturning Roe and Casey ends the abortion debate, you are misinformed. Overturning these cases is just the beginning of the fight to save unborn lives, not the end. True, we can finally join the battle without being handcuffed by the federal courts, but are we prepared to fight and win? Before we answer, we need a sobering gut check.

Political Realities

If Roe and Casey go, abortion remains legal in a majority of states. The best estimates conclude that roughly 22 states will move to restrict abortion access while 24 states will retain abortion access or strengthen it by codifying abortion rights into their state constitutions. Four other states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and North Carolina) are considered battlegrounds, with the outcome uncertain. Of the 22 states poised to restrict abortion, 12 have trigger laws that, once Roe and Casey are overturned, ban most abortions. The remaining 10 will likely restrict many, but not all, abortions. For the 24 states committed to abortion advocacy, preparation for Roe and Casey’s demise is already underway. For example, deep blue states like California, Colorado, New York, Maryland, and New Mexico have already passed radical pro-abortion bills, some of which withdraw protections from unborn humans who survive abortion procedures.

Meanwhile, reversing Roe and Casey does not guarantee that abortion remains a state-by-state issue. A pro-abortion president working with a pro-abortion congress can still pass a federal abortion license similar to the provisions of both cases (or worse), and that legislation would supersede state laws protecting the unborn. In short, even if pro-lifers win at the Supreme Court, the political realities confronting them in many states are formidable.

Cultural Landscape

Should Roe and Casey go, the good news (and it is good news indeed) is that pro-life advocates — working through their elected representatives — can legally protect unborn humans in ways Roe and Casey do not allow. The bad news is that the worldview assumptions that make abortion plausible to millions of our fellow citizens are deeply entrenched in American culture, and they won’t go away without a fight.

Reversing Roe and Casey, though necessary, is insufficient to fix that problem. Moreover, the situation on the ground is much different than it was in 1973, the year Roe became law. For starters, the country is far less religious than it was then. Prior to Roe, large numbers of Catholics could be mobilized to oppose abortion at the state level. Their efforts paid off. Despite heavy nationwide lobbying from pro-abortion activists, only 19 states liberalized their abortion laws. Thirty-one others did not. As noted above, that is not the political reality we face today, when a majority of states now favor abortion.

Popular culture has changed as well. Students, in particular, often learn about abortion from media that promote the practice as normal and desirable. For example, a 2021 TikTok video clip of students walking out on a pro-life speaker at a Catholic high school secured two million views within a week. As for public opinion, it’s a hot mess. A strong majority favors Roe, yet supports restrictions that Roe disallows! If you gut Roe, which impulse wins?

Many Americans are in no-man’s-land: they’re uncomfortable with abortion, but want it to remain legal, especially in the first trimester.

Steps to Pro-Life Influence

Put simply, pro-lifers in 2022 have problems beyond activist judges. We have idea problems. Large numbers of Americans either disagree with us or have muddled thinking on abortion. A bigger March for Life is not going to fix that problem. Rather, the situation calls for reengaging the public with a convincing case for life that addresses abortion at the worldview level. Here are five essential steps for doing that.

1. Challenge phony dismissals.

With distortions and lies flying about, clarity is essential. Pro-life advocates argue that it’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent human beings. Abortion does that. Therefore, abortion is wrong. Pro-lifers defend that argument with science and philosophy. We argue from science that the unborn are distinct, living, and whole human beings. You didn’t come from an embryo; you once were an embryo. We argue from philosophy that there is no relevant difference between the embryo you once were and the adult you now are that justifies killing you at that earlier stage of development. Differences of size, development, environment, and degree of dependency are not good reasons for saying you could be killed then but not now.

Instead of refuting that argument, critics dismiss it with phony appeals to tolerance and the differing experiences of men and women. For example, we’re told that only a woman’s perspective counts, that men lack the standpoint to speak on the issue. The troubling question is, Which women get to speak? As Christopher Kaczor points out, there is no such thing as a “woman’s perspective” on abortion — any more than there is a male perspective or a brown-eyed person’s perspective.

Indeed, even feminists, let alone women in general, do not share a single perspective on the issue. This is true even for feminists who support abortion. For example, in her article “Our Bodies, Our Souls,” feminist Naomi Wolf calls abortion “a real death,” while feminist Katha Pollitt’s book Pro describes abortion as no different from vacuuming out your house (5). While female perspectives on abortion help us understand personal experience, they are no substitute for rational inquiry. Rather, arguments must be advanced and defended, and those arguments will stand or fall on their merits, not on the sex of those espousing them. Fallaciously attacking pro-life men, rather than the arguments they advance, just won’t do. After all, pro-life women make the same arguments as pro-life men.

You’ll also hear that the pro-life argument is religious and therefore not valid. Reject this intellectually lazy dismissal. As Frank Beckwith points out, arguments are sound or unsound, valid or invalid. Calling an argument “religious” is a category error like asking, “How tall is the number three?” It’s a dodge, not a refutation.

Finally, you’ll hear the state should be neutral on abortion. That’s impossible. The state either recognizes the humanity of the unborn and thus protects them, or it doesn’t and thus permits killing them. Suppose it’s 1860, and the Supreme Court takes no position on the humanity of slaves, but affirms the legal right to own them. Would this be neutral?

“Who counts as one of us? Either you believe that each and every human being has an equal right to life, or you don’t.”

The abortion debate is not about choice, privacy, trusting women, or empowering women. It’s about a serious foundational question: Who counts as one of us? Either you believe that each and every human being has an equal right to life, or you don’t.

2. Puncture misconceptions.

Some Americans act as if Roe and Casey go, society will unravel, and our fundamental rights will be trashed. They’ve bought one or more of the following myths.

Myth: The federal government shouldn’t be involved in abortion.

Ask, “Do you mean the federal courts?” Indeed, the federal government is already involved in abortion. With Roe, one branch of the federal government, the courts, co-opted the abortion issue from the other two branches (the executive and legislative), leaving the people no voice on the issue. Reversing Roe gives the people back their voice.

Myth: Roe is “settled law.”

So was Plessy v. Ferguson, the Supreme Court case that affirmed racial segregation. So were laws permitting slavery. If “settled law” can never be challenged, Roe itself is wrongly decided. After all, it overturned the settled laws of all fifty states.

Myth: Reversing Roe and Casey is unfair to poor women, who can’t afford to travel from states that restrict abortion to others that allow it.

Notice the argument makes two question-begging assumptions — that is, it assumes the very conclusions it is trying to prove.

First, it assumes that abortion is a moral good that poor women will be denied. Yet the morality of abortion — that is, whether it’s moral or immoral — is precisely what’s at issue in the abortion debate. Second, it assumes the unborn are not human. Equal opportunity to intentionally kill an innocent human being is never a moral good. Should we legalize hiring hit men so the poor can afford them? As Beckwith points out, “The vices of the wealthy are not virtues simply because the poor are denied them” (Defending Life, 96).

Myth: Roe restricts abortion at viability.

No, it doesn’t. Roe says that states may protect “potential life” at viability (24 weeks), but if and only if those protections do not interfere with the mother’s “health.” Roe’s companion case, Doe v. Bolton, defines “health” so broadly that you can drive a Mack Truck through it, which, in practice, legalizes abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.

Myth: Instead of restricting abortion, pro-lifers should work to reduce abortion by addressing its underlying causes.

I find this an odd claim for several reasons. First, why should we worry about reducing abortion in the first place? If the unborn aren’t human, who cares how many abortions there are? But if abortion unjustly takes the life of an innocent human being, that’s an excellent reason to legislate against it.

Second, what’s wrong with a law that says you can’t intentionally kill innocent human beings? The goal of the pro-life movement is not merely to reduce abortion, but to legally protect unborn humans from being butchered. A society that reduced slavery, but still left it legal to own slaves, would remain a deeply immoral society. Suppose I said the “underlying cause” of spousal abuse is psychological, so instead of making it illegal for husbands to beat their wives, the solution is to provide counseling for men. There are “underlying causes” for rape, murder, theft, and so on, but that in no way makes it misguided to pass laws against evil behavior. Why should it be any different with laws protecting the unborn? Answer: it’s only different if you assume the victims in question are not human, an assumption no pro-lifer should let stand.

Myth: If Roe and Casey go, women will die from illegal abortions.

Note how the objection assumes, again, that the unborn are not human. Otherwise, the argument is saying that because some people die attempting to kill others, the state should make such killing safe and legal.

But why should the law be faulted for making it riskier for one human to intentionally take the life of another completely innocent one? True, laws can’t stop all illegal behaviors, but they do stop most. For example, laws against rape don’t stop all rape, but we still legislate to protect women. Meanwhile, in my book The Case for Life, I refute the myth that thousands of women died annually from illegal abortion prior to Roe. But even now, the myth can be exposed as false. In Texas, abortion has been all but illegal for nearly six months, and yet there are no press stories about women dying in droves. That’s because most women are following the law.

Myth: Laws don’t work.

Yes, they do. In Texas, the abortion rate fell 60 percent one month after passage of the state’s heartbeat bill. Meanwhile, we now know that even if abortion is legal in neighboring states, longer driving distances cut abortion rates in states where it’s illegal. In short, the law can have a positive influence on public morals. Prior to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a majority of southerners opposed equal rights for blacks. Two years after passage, Hadley Arkes shows, a majority favored the legislation (First Things, 27).

3. Teach pro-life apologetics to those predisposed to accept our view.

Here’s a challenge: name one major Christian conference that equips our students to make a convincing case for life so they can convey that case to non-Christian friends. Now ask if your church does. If you think the abortion debate has been heated before, just wait till Roe and Casey are gutted. Pro-abortionists in the media are about to unleash a relentless barrage of misinformation and intimidation tactics on students, including those in our churches. Our kids need intellectual toughness, and they need it now.

4. Establish pro-life churches that carry out four essential tasks.

Pastors don’t have to choose between pushing moral behaviors or lifting up Christ. They can preach truthfully on abortion and do so within the context of a biblical worldview.

First, pro-life churches teach a biblical view of human value — namely, that although we differ greatly in terms of gifting and abilities, we share a human nature that bears the image of our Maker.

Second, churches can preach, teach, and counsel that abortion is a sin. The biblical case is clear to the point: all humans have intrinsic value because they are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:27; James 3:9). Therefore, the shedding of innocent blood (the intentional killing of an innocent human being) is forbidden (Exodus 23:7; Proverbs 6:16–19; Matthew 5:21). Abortion is the shedding of innocent blood, the intentional killing of an innocent human being. Therefore, the commands against shedding innocent blood apply to the unborn as they do to everyone else.

Third, churches can minister to those wounded by abortion and need healing. When churches ignore abortion, they don’t spare post-abortion men and women guilt; they spare them healing. Unconfessed sin has them out of full fellowship with Christ.

Fourth, churches can equip the faithful to engage critics with a compelling case for life that can compete in the marketplace of ideas.

5. Engage professionally and politically.

Christians aim to apply biblical truth in all areas of our lives, including the voting booth. Why would we be in the habit of sitting out elections? True, politics is messy and involves sinful human beings who typically do not line up with biblical truth. But Christians can seek to act with wisdom to promote the good and limit the evil insofar as possible given current political realities.

Progressive voices within Christian circles are intentionally muddying the waters with tales about the perils of voting pro-life. Every election cycle, these “concerned Christians” treat us to a series of op-eds with the same warnings: if we advocate for the unborn, we’ll harm our Christian witness and do little to stop abortion. We would do well to ignore them.

Finally, in a post-Roe world, we need more Christians pursuing pro-life work as a vocation. I’ve heard Gregg Cunningham put it well:

There are more people working full-time to kill babies than there are working full-time to save them. That’s because killing babies is very profitable while saving them is very costly. So costly, that large numbers of Americans who say they oppose abortion are not lifting a finger to stop it. And those that do lift a finger to stop it do just enough to salve the conscience but not enough to stop the killing.

The post-Roe world may get ugly. The hour calls for pro-life Christians to move from attitudinal opposition to behavioral opposition to abortion. We will be hated for it. We may even lose friends and jobs. But apathy in the face of child sacrifice is not an option for biblically grounded Christians. Let’s roll up our sleeves and get to work.

Throughout church history, we often find prayer, awakening, and missions movements clustered together. God seems pleased to use concerted efforts of prayer to spur and maintain spiritual awakenings, and then to use those awakenings to send his people across cultures with the gospel. Few stories, however, demonstrate these connections as clearly as a story from the early eighteenth century, when a group of Christians called the Moravians began a prayer meeting that just wouldn’t stop.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia ended the Thirty-Years War, when Catholic and Lutheran states warred against each other for control of what remained of the Holy Roman Empire. With the war’s end, most of the small states in the region defaulted to the religion of their respective nobility. Catholic nobles ruled Catholic lands, while Lutheran nobles controlled Lutheran lands. It was said that the religion of the prince was the religion of the people. This was true everywhere except in Silesia, which included parts of present-day Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic. In Silesia, the Catholic Hapsburg dynasty ruled over both Catholics and Lutherans.

For a couple of generations, the Hapsburgs extended some religious freedom to Lutheran subjects, but that began to change around 1700. In a response to Hapsburgs’ efforts to demand conformity to Catholicism, many Silesian Lutherans resisted. They had been influenced by the Pietist movement, which emphasized biblical authority, the new birth, discipleship, and faith-based activism. In 1708, children in southern Silesia began holding large outdoor meetings that included prayer and singing. They called these events camp meetings, a term that was adopted by American Methodists about a century later.

Revival soon broke out, centered in the town of Teschen. There, a camp meeting led to the founding of Jesus Church, which eventually attracted as many as ten thousand worshipers every week and conducted services in German, Polish, and Czech. Under the leadership of a Pietist minister named Johann Adam Steinmetz (1689–1762), Jesus Church became a center for spreading Pietist spirituality all over Europe. Historians often point to the Teschen Revival as the beginning of the eighteenth-century transatlantic awakenings that soon spread from Continental Europe to the English-speaking world.

Steinmetz’s admirers included Jonathan Edwards (1703–1758) and the Wesley brothers, each of whom corresponded with him as similar revivals broke out in their respective contexts. Another Steinmetz admirer was Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700–1760).

Rich Young Ruler

Count Zinzendorf was a Pietist who was also a member of the German Lutheran nobility. He was a protégé of August Hermann Francke (1663–1727), the leading Pietist theologian in Europe. Francke taught at the University of Halle and served as a pastor in that city. Drawing upon the insights of earlier Pietists, especially Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705), Francke believed the key to local church renewal was to establish small groups that focused on Bible study, prayer, and accountability. He was also an entrepreneurial leader who founded several institutions, including an orphanage, a hospital, a newspaper, and a religious printing press.

Like Francke, Zinzendorf was deeply committed to Pietism and building institutions. He was also an eccentric figure who had some significant flaws: Zinzendorf could be heavy-handed in his leadership style, there is evidence that he was not an attentive husband, and he embraced some mystical tendencies that some other Protestants considered to be too Catholic in flavor. But Zinzendorf was deeply committed to personal evangelism, spiritual formation, and global missions. These three priorities became part of the DNA of the movement he led.

Zinzendorf owned a large estate in Saxony called Herrnhut, which he opened to Protestant refugees from all over Europe beginning in 1722. Herrnhut attracted believers from Silesia, Bohemia, and Moravia, many of whom had been influenced by the Teschen Revival. The largest group of refugees were Moravian Pietists, who fled their homeland after efforts to forcibly convert them to Catholicism. Five years later, around three hundred Moravians were living at Herrnhut, with Zinzendorf as the de facto leader of the community. Increasingly, the term Moravian referred less to the ethnicity of the refugees and more to Zinzendorf’s emerging denomination.

Pray Without Ceasing

In the spring of 1727, during a season of internal turmoil within the community, some of the Moravians began praying for fresh revival in their midst. By the late summer, almost fifty Moravians had committed to pray for one hour a day, one after the other, for 24 consecutive hours, seven days a week. Spiritual awakening soon came to the Moravians, causing their little group to grow and drawing more refugees from all over Europe.

“As amazing as it seems today, the Moravians kept up their round-the-clock prayer ministry for over a century.”

As is so often the case in church history, the onset of revival only deepened the Moravians’ commitment to the power of prayer. As amazing as it seems today, the Moravians kept up their round-the-clock prayer ministry for over a century. In fact, it has become known as the Hundred-Year Prayer Meeting. While no other known group of Christians has replicated the Moravians’ century-long prayer event, countless churches and other ministries, often inspired by the example of the Moravians, have hosted 24-hour prayer meetings for revival, missions, or some other priority.

Missionary Awakening

One important fruit of the prayer revival was a missionary awakening among the Moravians. At the time, virtually no Protestants were involved in cross-cultural missions. Only a very few read Matthew 28:18–20 or Acts 1:8, raised their hand, and answered God’s call to global disciple-making. The Moravians became the tip of the spear for evangelical global missions.

“The Moravians became the tip of the spear for evangelical global missions.”

Beginning in 1732, dozens of Moravian missionaries took the nearly unprecedented step of leaving Europe to spread the gospel to other lands. Early mission fields included the West Indies, Greenland, Turkey, West Africa, South America, and the English colonies of Georgia and Pennsylvania. In the latter two fields, the Moravians evangelized Native Americans. Zinzendorf himself became a missionary in Pennsylvania, where he founded the city of Bethlehem in 1741.

By 1791, around three hundred Moravian missionaries had been sent out from Herrnhut. That number was equivalent in size to the total number of Moravians when the round-the-clock prayer ministry first began in 1727! The Moravian missions awakening, though little known by Christians today, predated the so-called modern missions movement by two generations.

Missionary Legacy

The Moravian missionaries not only spread the good news, but they also spread the Pietist emphasis on the new birth, small accountability groups, and evangelism and missions. Moravian missionaries to Georgia played a key role in John Wesley’s conversion and subsequent revival ministry. After later connecting with Moravians in London, the Wesley brothers and George Whitefield introduced several Pietist emphases into the emerging Methodist movement, including a commitment to praying for global spiritual awakening.

A generation later, a shoe cobber turned Baptist pastor named William Carey (1761–1834) became known as the father of the modern missions movement. In 1792, Carey published a treatise titled An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens. Carey argued that the Great Commission is a binding command on every Christian in every generation. His treatise became a manifesto for global missions among English-speaking evangelicals.

Carey was keenly aware that he was actually standing on the shoulders of earlier missionaries. In his Enquiry, he highlighted a number of missionary pioneers whom he believed his fellow evangelicals should emulate, including the Moravians. When Carey helped found the Baptist Missionary Society in 1793 and left later that year to serve as a missionary to India, he understood he was doing what hundreds of Moravian missionaries had done before.

Prayer, Revival, and Missions

The story of the Moravians and their legacy reminds us that prayer, revival, and missions are often intertwined. The Moravians dedicated themselves to prayer for spiritual awakening, and God was faithful to answer that prayer. They also prayed for global missions, and in God’s providence, he called upon hundreds of Moravians to become the answers to their own prayers! The Moravians spread the gospel to unbelievers, spread evangelical emphases to other believers, and inspired generations of Christians to obey the Great Commission.

It could happen again. God still answers prayers, promising that “the prayer of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect” (James 5:16 CSB). God still visits his people with spiritual awakening, reviving cold hearts and stirring dormant affections. There are still billions of people globally who do not know Jesus Christ as their King and Savior. Join me in praying that God would bring about a new prayer-driven missionary awakening among his people, for his glory and for the sake of global disciple-making.

Audio Transcript

We live in an age of hate. One political party hates the other. One nation hates another. But the polarity of our national and international struggles of 2022 is nothing new, as you can imagine. They’re as old as sin. Forty years ago, Pastor John said in a sermon, “The 1980s are becoming the decade of hate, and oh, how easy it is for Christians to be sucked into one group and start hating the other group.” Same today. We’re tempted to fall in line with the world and hate our human opponents. But what a very different calling God gives to his church.

To understand God’s countercultural calling for us today in 2022, we rewind 41 years to hear a clip from a John Piper sermon. He was preaching on 1 Timothy 2:1–4. It’s one of my favorite sermons, especially when we face geopolitical chaos in the world. It’s an early sermon, preached on January 20, 1981. We heard another clip from this same sermon last Wednesday. There I mentioned that this sermon was preached two days before the Iran hostage crisis came to an end, and the same day Ronald Reagan was inaugurated as the new president of the United States. There was a lot of national and international news in the air when Piper preached on 1 Timothy 2:1–4.

The apostle Paul’s words were very relevant. Paul was eager for Christians to hold to the faith with “a good conscience,” according to 1 Timothy 1:19. That includes, as Paul explains, that Christians take a global worldview to offer

supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings . . . for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. (1 Timothy 2:1–4)

Piper took up this plea from Paul and preached on what it meant to pray for others in the age of global hate. Here’s Pastor John.

It’s a great blessing to have our daily bread. It’s a great blessing to have our trespasses forgiven. It’s a great blessing not to be led into temptation, but to be delivered from evil. But we don’t pray — Jesus didn’t teach us to pray — “Lord, bless us. Amen.” He taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil” (Matthew 6:11–13).

We have not been taught to pray in broad, sweeping generalities. We have been taught to pray for particular kinds of problems. When Paul wanted help for himself, he asked the churches, “Pray for me in particular — don’t just pray for the missionary cause,” for example. Therefore, I do not think that we will satisfy the demand of 1 Timothy 2:1 if we say something like, “God, bless all men everywhere. Amen.” What does it mean? How can we satisfy it?

Prayer for All People

If we give Paul a sympathetic reading here — that’s what you always should try to give anything you read: give it a sympathetic reading; try to put yourself in the shoes of the writer — I think what he’s going to say is something like this: “Timothy, push out the boundaries of your concern. Don’t let your prayers be limited to any group, or any kind of people. Enlarge the circumference of your love, Timothy. Don’t be provincial or sectarian or elitist or nationalistic or racist in your prayers, Timothy. Let your prayers embrace all kinds of people — high and low, white and black, Democrats and Republicans, Soviet premiers and Iranian ayatollahs. Enlarge the heart of your prayers, Timothy. Go to school at Calvary, and learn to hate the bigotry and the racism of the Ku Klux Klan and the neo-Nazis, but to pray with earnest yearning for those men and women.”

“Don’t let your prayers be limited to any group, or any kind of people. Enlarge the circumference of your love.”

Isn’t Paul’s point the same as Jesus’s? “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies” — and do what? — “pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:43–45). Or to put it another way, “Timothy, there is no category of people of whom it can be said, ‘You ought not to pray for those.’” There is none. Here’s a message for our day, isn’t it? The 1980s are becoming the decade of hate, and oh, how easy it is for Christians to be sucked into one group and start hating the other group.

Jesus warned us in Matthew 24:11–12, “Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold.” May it not be said of Bethlehem Baptist Church that we’ve made any contribution to the destruction of the world through icy hate, but let it be said of the Christians at Bethlehem — and oh, of all Christians — “Behold how they love one another. Look how they do good to those who hate them. Look how they bless those who curse them. Look how they pray for those who abuse them. Look at the parameters of their prayer. Why, there’s no boundary.”

Isn’t that the point of 1 Timothy 2:1? And if we pray like that and act like that, won’t people begin to say, “There must be a God of grace in the heavens, and he’s got a peculiar people on earth and in Minneapolis at this corner, people who are not conformed to this age or to this decade”?

Prayer for Kings

Now, after he stressed the wideness of the circumference, for some reason, Paul focuses in on kings and all in high positions. Pray for kings and all in high positions. Why? Why did he narrow in here? It’s clear from 1 Timothy 2:4–7 that Paul wants to emphasize that nobody be excluded from our goodwill, for nobody is beyond the grace of God. Why, then, do kings and people in high positions come in for special mention? I think there are at least two reasons — perhaps more, but I’ll just mention two.

The first is this: there are characteristics, aren’t there, about leaders that make it hard to pray for them — at least hard for those early Christians to pray for them, and I think still for us in many ways. One, for example, of those characteristics is that they are so distant and so remote — if not visually, or in miles, then in accessibility, anyway. They’re so remote.

It’s hard to pray for somebody earnestly, with heart yearning, that you don’t even know or don’t ever see. and yet Paul says, “That difficulty must be overcome. We must pray for the emperor, Nero. We must pray for the governor, Gallio. We must pray for proconsuls, and we must pray for Pilate and Herod and the like.” Those people must be prayed for, if you don’t ever see them. They may seem remote to you. They are not remote to God, and you can get as close to them through prayer as any of their closest advisors.

Here’s another example of a characteristic that makes them hard to pray for. They are often godless people, insensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit. That was almost universally true in Paul’s day. I think in our day, if you take all the countries of the world — and let’s not just limit this command to America — it’s probably still true today. It doesn’t matter where or when we have lived. If we are going to pray for those who are kings and all in high positions, we are going to wind up praying mostly for people who are hostile to or indifferent to our faith. That seems to be a stumbling block for many people.

Stream of Water in God’s Hand

What do I pray for them? Well, Paul says, “Don’t hesitate to pray.” First of all, God can save. God can change kings and those in high positions. And second, he uses unbelievers in high positions to accomplish his purposes anyway, whether they believe or not. A couple of examples. In Isaiah 10 in the Old Testament, God takes the wicked king of Assyria and turns him into a rod of his wrath when he wants to punish his people, Israel, and then he casts him aside because of his arrogance when he’s through with him.

Once Nebuchadnezzar, the great, proud king of Babylon said this: “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence for the glory of my majesty?” (Daniel 4:30). You know what God did? He took away his reason and made him eat grass like an ox until he learned this lesson. In Daniel 4:34, Nebuchadnezzar says,

[The dominion of the Most High] is an everlasting dominion,     and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing,     and he does according to his will among the host of heaven     and among the inhabitants of the earth;and none can stay his hand     or say to him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:34–35)

No king, no president, no Soviet premier or Iranian ayatollah can stay his hand when he has purposed to do a thing. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). The wise man said, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man [and a king], but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand” (Proverbs 19:21). Therefore, we have strong encouragement to pray because God rules over men, whether they believe him or not. God reigns, and none can stay his hand.

Working Through Wicked Kings

Now, one implication of that is that our prayers for these kings and these people in high positions will not only be for their conversion, or even their sanctification — that we must pray for, or we disobey our Lord Jesus. But we will go beyond that, and we will pray that God’s good saving purposes would be accomplished through them anyway, even if they are impenitent. That’s the second reason why I think Paul mentions the need to pray for kings and those in high positions — namely, because God is able to do so much good in the world through people in high positions.

Even a bad king, Paul thinks, is better than anarchy. Paul is in a Roman prison or is under house arrest in Rome when he writes 1 Timothy. The emperor is Nero. In a couple of years, he’s going to put Paul to death. Probably, he died in the lions’ arena. Now, Paul is saying what he says under those conditions. Therefore, he is not naive when he says, “Make thanksgivings for all men, for kings and all in high positions.” Thank God for Nero? Why? How can he say that?

At least for this reason: Paul’s perspective on the world is so good. It’s so big. It goes above and beyond his own little life, or even his own little (great) ministry. The emperor who puts Paul to death in Rome keeps peace in the provinces where the gospel is spreading like wildfire, and for that, Paul is very thankful. So, our prayers for kings and for leaders and for all men should be seasoned with thanksgiving.

Peace for the Gospel’s Sake

But the main thing Paul says to pray for is this: “that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way” (1 Timothy 2:2). Now, taken by itself, that might seem to fly right in the face of everything I’ve said. Is it really the case that in the last analysis, the only reason we pray for leaders is so that we might have the good life, so that we might have peace and tranquility and build our estates?

“May we never forget it, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we are exiles here in America.”

Many professing Christians seem to think so. But that would be a terrible misunderstanding of this text, wouldn’t it, because 1 Timothy 2:3–4 sharpens the focus of what Paul is really after. Why pray that we have peace and tranquility? Answer: “This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” God approves of peace and tranquility because he approves of the advance of the gospel. Peace is not the main thing; salvation is the main thing. Tranquility is not the main goal; the knowledge of the gospel of truth is the main goal.

May we never forget it, brothers and sisters in Christ, that we are exiles here in America. And I would say the same thing if I were talking to the Russians, the Iranians, the Mexicans, the Brazilians. We are exiles here in this land. We are not at home in America, Russia, Iran, Egypt, Israel, or anywhere on this earth. Our commonwealth is in heaven. We do not pray, I do not pray, simply for the prosperity of any land. I pray for the magnificent spread of the saving purposes of God in every land and for whatever conditions it takes to achieve that.

http://rss.desiringgod.org/link/10732/15339952/do-not-diminish-gods-love-for-you

When a wolf looks at sheep, what does he see? Food. His motivation for getting close to sheep is not to care for their needs or protect them from danger; it’s to feed on them. But in order to get close to sheep, a wolf employs deceptive tactics to keep the sheep from discerning his dangerous presence before he can achieve his aims.

That’s why Paul called false teachers in the church “fierce wolves” who don’t spare the flock (Acts 20:29), a metaphor he likely adapted from Jesus, who described false prophets as leaders “who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves” (Matthew 7:15). What makes these leaders false is not merely that they teach false doctrines, but that they have false aims. Their aim is not “love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Timothy 1:5) but something else. It’s an aim they hide from the sheep, an aim that causes them to view the sheep as a means of satisfying some ungodly appetite.

Jesus, switching to a tree metaphor, said, “You will recognize them by their fruits” (Matthew 7:16). And Paul labored to help sheep spot the “fruits” of disguised “wolves” infiltrating the flock. Let’s look at three of these fruits as described by Paul in 2 Timothy 3, where Paul offers a description of the “opponents” Timothy can expect to meet in his ministry (2 Timothy 2:24–26).

Pious Disguise

The first characteristic of a wolfish leader Paul describes is someone who “[has] the appearance of godliness, but [denies] its power” (2 Timothy 3:5). It’s worth looking at his full description:

Understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Timothy 3:1–5)

We can summarize such leaders this way:

Their Wolfish Aim: self-indulgence
Their Sheeplike Clothing: “the appearance of godliness”
Their Recognizable Fruit: a lack of personal holiness (“denying its power”)

“Wolves can be very good at concealing their motives from sheep.”

Now, just by reading Paul’s list of these leaders’ selfish pursuits, you’d think they’d be easy to spot. But frequently they’re not, because wolves can be very good at concealing their motives from sheep. They move into positions of leadership because their guise of “godliness” is convincing, at first. But then their influence begins to cause a decline in the spiritual health of a church.

One such leader I worked with a few decades ago was in a pastoral position for years before he was discovered. I remember feeling a growing intuitive uneasiness around him before I saw any clear evidence. It was hard to put a finger on what was wrong, but something seemed off, and not only to me. There was a deficit of spiritual authenticity. His teaching and example seemed to lack power. Then the disguise began to slip, and other discerning leaders pressed until his secret, selfish, immoral pursuits were exposed.

I’m not suggesting that our every uneasy intuition is accurate. Fruit becomes apparent over time, so watch for patterns. Watch for a permissive application of “grace” and an orientation toward worldliness and self-indulgence. Watch the way a leader handles money. Watch for subtle signs of laxness regarding sexual ethics. Note other spiritually discerning people’s uneasiness regarding the leader. Watch for a leader’s defensiveness, condescension, and lack of transparency when challenged. And if a culture of manipulation and fear develops around a Christian leader, that’s cause for concern, since a wolf tends to appear godly but loves badly.

Opposing Truth

Another characteristic of a wolfish leader is someone who “oppose[s] the truth” (2 Timothy 3:8). This is what we expect from a wolf, since they’re false teachers. And again, we might assume they’d be easy to spot right away. But often they’re not. Their influence, at least at first, is usually more insidious and ambiguous than we expect. Paul describes them like this:

Among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men. (2 Timothy 3:6–9)

One way to summarize such leaders is this:

Their Wolfish Aim: self-promotion (selfish ambition)
Their Sheeplike Clothing: an image of spiritual power and/or theological erudition
Their Recognizable Fruit: manipulation of susceptible people, impressive appearance of spiritual power accompanied by advocacy for doctrines that undermine the gospel, opposition to godly leaders

Though Paul isn’t necessarily describing wolfish leaders’ strategic progression in these verses, it’s often the case that such leaders are sneaky to begin with, and only later become more openly oppositional, when they’ve consolidated a critical mass of influence.

‘Creepy’ Leaders

False teachers tend to creep in. When Paul says they “capture weak women,” we might be tempted to interpret this through a #MeToo grid, but he’s not referring to their preying on women sexually (though some, no doubt, did). He means these wolves single out those who, for various reasons, are particularly susceptible to deception, and convince them that they can be part of something new God is doing, something more powerful and spiritually important than whatever the church’s faithful, humble, godly leaders are teaching.

What makes these false teachers compelling is that they are able to demonstrate an appearance of whatever spiritual power impresses the Christian community they’ve crept into. In a continuationist context, they may appear to possess impressive gifts of the Holy Spirit, while in a cessationist context, they may appear to possess impressive theological and spiritual knowledge. These gifts or knowledge can confuse even godly leaders at first, since the sheeplike clothing can appear legitimate even if something seems off.

Showing Their Teeth

But eventually, wolves begin to show their teeth. That’s why Paul says such teachers in the church are like “Jannes and Jambres,” the names Hebrew tradition gave to the Egyptian sorcerers who wielded impressive magical power in their opposition to Moses (Exodus 7:10–12). Paul calls them “corrupt,” because their wrong teaching isn’t coming from a mere and sincere misunderstanding of the Scriptures, but from an intent to use the Scriptures to advance or protect their personal image of power and importance. When true gospel doctrine, either publicly taught or personally applied, threatens or thwarts the social (and usually financial) capital they covet, they aggressively and ruthlessly “oppose the truth,” and their folly becomes plain.

Watch for a pattern of pursuing church leadership positions that seems unhealthy. Watch for a charming charismatic personality that in the past has left a disproportionate number of disillusioned and wounded people in its wake. Watch for claims to and apparent demonstrations of the kinds of spiritual power valued in the church, but which encourage a troubling dependency on and loyalty to the leader(s). Watch for a group forming around a leader, noticeably comprised of susceptible, spiritually weak members, that begins to manifest distrust in godly church leaders. Watch for a pattern of conflicts with godly leaders and resistance to submit to leaders in general.

Adversity Avoidance

The third characteristic of a wolfish leader is someone who avoids “persecutions and sufferings” for the sake of Christ and his gospel (2 Timothy 3:11). This characteristic is implicit when Paul writes to Timothy,

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra — which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. (2 Timothy 3:10–13)

Here’s how I would summarize such leaders:

Their Wolfish Aim: self-preservation
Their Sheeplike Clothing: “confident assertions” (1 Timothy 1:7) and controlling leadership that give the appearance of courage
Their Recognizable Fruit: avoidance of personal sacrifice and public persecution for the sake of preserving reputation, status, wealth, and comfort

A wolflike leader might project a very confident image, he might rationalize domineering and manipulative behaviors as characteristics of a “strong leader,” and he might point to numerous strenuous performances that he asserts are “sacrifices.” But his confidence, his leadership, and his “sacrifices,” when examined carefully and honestly, tend to benefit him more than those he “serves.”

That’s why here, as elsewhere, Paul refers to his persecutions and sufferings as a fruit of a true Christlike leader. Paul isn’t pointing out his personal greatness when he speaks of enduring “far greater labors, far more imprisonments [than the false teachers], with countless beatings, and often near death” (2 Corinthians 11:23). He’s contrasting the fruits.

“True Christlike leaders bear fruits that evidence a willingness to sacrifice for Christ and his people.”

In the United States in particular, Christians suffer few of the kinds of persecutions and sufferings that Paul and the Christians of his day endured. So a wolflike leader can meld in much easier. But still, true Christlike leaders bear fruits that evidence a willingness to sacrifice reputation, status, wealth, and comfort for Christ and his people that stands in contrast to the self-promoting, self-enriching, self-indulgent aims of wolflike leaders. Pay careful attention, and you’ll see them.

Pay Careful Attention

That’s exactly what Paul said to the Ephesian elders in his parting words to them before heading to certain imprisonment and probable death for the sake of Jesus:

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:28–30)

Careful attention would have to be paid because those “fierce wolves” would be wearing sheeplike clothing. Their emergence would be subtle — they would even infiltrate the team of elders (like Judas among the disciples). They’d have an appearance of godliness, seem to possess impressive spiritual power, and exude an image of confidence and courage. Many of the sheep would find themselves swayed. The elders would need to remind themselves and their flock of what Jesus had said: “You will recognize them by their fruits.”

And if they paid careful attention, the fruits would point to this: a wolflike leader preying on the sheep to satisfy his own ungodly appetites.

I was the healthiest sick person you could’ve met. From my grade school years, I mastered perfect attendance, never missing a minute of school unless I was truly too sick to be in the classroom. Once we moved up to letter grades, the only letter I was satisfied with was “A.” Anything less brought deep disappointment and a strong will to push harder.

In track and field, I studied the technique of the world’s greatest triple jumpers and ferociously hunted down the state records, even with a torn quadriceps muscle. I was also the “good” church boy who went to youth group — though mainly to play basketball, eat pizza, and meet girls. I can even remember our basketball team warming up to one of my rap songs before home games. I had it all together.

Yet my soul was desperately sick. And I had no idea.

‘Why Don’t You Rap About Jesus?’

As a 17-year-old track star with multiple Division I track-and-field offers, and everything going for me in the classroom, God used a new friend to change my eternity. Just after “the merge” of my senior year — when the two local school districts in my county became one single district — I started eating lunch with a kid named Josh. He was a pastor’s kid who had such a deep love for Christian hip-hop that he would preorder nearly every major release at our local Christian bookstore. He heard some of my music and asked a simple question: “If you’re a Christian, why don’t you rap about Jesus?”

“I was the healthiest sick person you could’ve met.”

I was floored. What kind of question was that? I was too cool for Christian rap. I listened to it a little bit during middle school, but it just wasn’t my taste. I responded with a very common response: “Christian rap is corny, and the beats are wack.” The next day, he gave me some CDs from Lecrae, Trip Lee, and Tedashii. As soon as school let out, I slid Lecrae’s After the Music Stops into my car stereo and heard “Jesus Muzik” for the first time. As I listened to this album, I couldn’t help but notice the love Lecrae and the other Reach artists had for Jesus. They had a joy in him that I desperately needed.

Diagnosed — and Healed

One question reverberated in my mind during this season: “Why don’t you know Christ like these guys do?” For years, I had prayed a rapid-fire prayer every night before bed that went something like, “Dear God, thank you for this day. Please forgive me for all my sins. In Jesus’s name, Amen.” Yet my formal, shallow version of Christianity was no match for the real faith I was hearing in these albums.

I realized that I didn’t know God, and if I wanted eternal life, something drastic needed to happen. I didn’t know what else to do besides open my Bible to the red letters and see exactly what Jesus said and how Jesus lived. During that season of life, Jesus spoke these words to me: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Matthew 9:12–13). At the moment that Jesus showed me that I was terminally sick, his healing touch brought me eternal life.

As a 17-year-old boy, I came to abide in the true vine and know true union with Christ (John 15:1–11). As the years progress, I continue to learn what Jesus meant when he said, “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full’ (John 15:11).

Ruined Dreams and a Present God

From the outside, my life may have still looked picture-perfect, but the Shepherd of my soul carried me through some trials and taught me how to be joyful in both the day of prosperity and the day of adversity (Ecclesiastes 7:14).

Two years after being saved, Jesus carried me through a torn hamstring that ultimately shattered my track-and-field dreams, a broken engagement after three years of dating, and a shift in my college from premed to sociology. All of this happened within a twelve-month span. So much of my identity suddenly came to a crashing halt. Once again, God was showing me sickness so he could bring deeper healing.

In the years that followed, depression was a stubborn darkness that put my life in grayscale on most days. Anxiety tinged every negative experience and brought an edginess in the few moments when the darkness seemed to lift a bit. Yet God never left me. In fact, he felt nearer to me in those tear-filled nights than I had ever experienced. In the valley of the shadow of death, I felt the gentle rod of correction as God was uprooting my idols (Psalm 23:4), but I also felt the healing balm of the gentle and lowly Savior who wouldn’t break the bruised reed or quench the smoking wick (Matthew 12:20).

In that adversity, I finally understood what Lecrae meant in his song “Grateful” when he rapped,

Lord, I’m lowlyYou chose meTo witness Your glory by being made holyYou know me, my ins and outsYou calm all of my anxieties and end my doubts

For the first time, I felt those lyrics in my soul, and they resonated so deeply.

Desiring Him in Every Season

It was also during that season of adversity that I discovered John Piper’s vision for deep Christ-centered joy. I devoured his teaching and preaching through the sermons, podcasts, and articles at Desiring God, but the depression often consumed me so much that there seemed to be no joy at the end of the tether. I wondered if I was truly saved. I didn’t know if my gnawing stomach pain and aching heart would ever dissipate so I could be enraptured by the joy of Christ. I was fearful that I’d always desire relief from my pain more than joy in God himself.

But God never let me down. Through the books When I Don’t Desire God, Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ, and The Dangerous Duty of Delight, I was given a fresh vision of God-centered joy that would fuel my spiritual life. Rather than merely desiring an escape from the cage of depression and anxiety, I was captured by a more beautiful view of God than I had ever seen. I was captivated by the glory of Christ and the pursuit of infinite joy in him for my complete satisfaction.

I began to see that God could be glorified in my lifelong pursuit to glorify him by enjoying him forever — even in the place of pain and adversity. This isn’t something I’ve arrived at; it’s something that I’m learning day in and day out.

Weakness Is Where I Meet Him

After more than a decade of battling seasons of depression and anxiety, the God-centered God is still giving me joy both on the mountaintop and in the valley. Whether it’s a rough night of sleep, fears about the pandemic, anxiety about impending global war, or the daily struggles of marriage and parenting, I am faced with my weaknesses. And yet, God is teaching me to say with Paul, “I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

“Rather than resisting my weakness, I am learning to commune with God in that weakness.”

No matter the circumstance, I can’t rely on my intellect, athletic ability, skill with words, or any other natural talent I could try to muster up. I’m faced with the joyful reality that God uses me despite the gifts he gave me so that my life can be a true testament to the power of Christ resting upon me. It terrifies me to say this, but I need to be weak. I need to be confronted with my utter helplessness apart from Christ lest I forget the God who brought me out of darkness and into marvelous light. I need it lest I forget to find my confidence and joy in him. A branch cannot bear fruit in itself unless it abides in the vine.

Rather than resisting my weakness, I am learning to commune with God in that weakness. Rather than clinging to self-help strategies to fix me up, I am learning that God is my rock. Rather than living in fear of what may happen tomorrow, I am learning that God gave me a spirit of love, power, and self-control (2 Timothy 1:7). He is teaching me these lessons through the ordinary means of grace. As I exercise the spiritual disciplines, attend corporate worship, receive the Lord’s Supper, and pursue discipleship in the local church, God is teaching me to draw near to him as he draws near to me.

God continues to draw me to himself for true joy. For me, this often requires humbling me in the areas that seem like my strengths. But by tearing them away, he enables me to receive what he is offering to me. For God opposes the proud, but gives grace — and joy — to the humble.

Audio Transcript

How will I find my ministry calling? Will I find it internally, like some impulse that will lead me to start a new thing? Or will my ministry calling come from the outside? Will it come from others telling me where I’m needed? This is a great question, and it comes in today from a listener named Caleb.

Caleb references a conference you preached at years back, Pastor John. Here’s his email: “Hello, Pastor John! At a conference, now many years ago, you went to Colossians 4:17 to argue that God gives ministries to his children. We don’t stumble upon our ministry; instead, he decisively ‘throws’ us into them, so to speak. Any chance you’d be willing to expand on how this works, and how it has worked for you in church and parachurch contexts? Thank you!”

First, let me share several passages of Scripture that caused me to say that we are not the decisive cause of being in any particular ministry — God is. And then I’ll step back and ask how that divine work is experienced in our minds and in our hearts so that we can make it more practical for people as they find their way into ministry and church or parachurch.

God Grants the Ministry

First, Paul says to the elders who are gathered in Acts 20:28, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you [literally, “set you” or “put you” — etheto in Greek] overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.” God put those elders there as elders. They did not put themselves there — God did, decisively.

“We are not the decisive cause of being in any particular ministry — God is.”

Second, Ephesians 4:11–12. Paul says that Christ “gave [to the church] the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” These ministers of the church are the gift of the risen Christ to his body. They are where they are as a gift of Christ.

Third, in Matthew 9:37–38, Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” And the word for “send out” is ekballō, “throw out.” He threw them into ministry. “Send out, throw, the laborers into the harvest.” So when the Lord answers this prayer, he does the decisive work and makes sure that the workers are where he wants them to be.

Fourth, Romans 10:13–15:

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Now, it’s possible for a rogue preacher to preach without being sent by a church or a mission agency. I don’t think that’s what Paul is talking about here. I think Paul is saying that nobody can preach authentically, nobody can preach with integrity for God, with God’s authority, unless he is sent by God. If anyone is preaching the gospel the way he ought as a faithful spokesman of God, he has been sent by God, not by himself. God is the decisive actor in putting them in that gospel-preaching ministry.

Fifth, Luke 12:41. Jesus had just told a parable about being ready for the second coming, and Peter says, “Lord, are you telling this parable for us or for all?” And Jesus answers like this: “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom his master will set [or appoint] over his household, to give them their portion of food at the proper time?” So when Jesus thinks of pastors and teachers of his people, he thinks of them as stewards put over a household. He has appointed them. They are not there randomly. He has set them there, and they are to feed and take care of his house.

Sixth (and this is the last that I’m going to mention), there’s the text that Caleb referred to — namely, Colossians 4:17: “And say to Archippus, ‘See that you fulfill the ministry that you received in the Lord.’” So Archippus did not put himself in his ministry. He received the ministry from the Lord.

How We Experience God’s Calling

Now, those six passages are the reason that Caleb is right when he quotes me as saying, “We don’t stumble upon our ministries; instead, God decisively throws us into them.” But now, in practice — in the church, in parachurch ministries, wherever — we have to ask the question, How does God work inside of us, inside of people (in their mind, in their heart), so that they find themselves in the ministry where he’s putting them?

What’s the conscious experience of God’s work of guidance, of leading, in getting us to where he wants us to be? And I’ll mention just four things briefly that are typically the way God does it. And I say typically because he’s God and he can make exceptions to these.

Rising Desire in the Heart

First, there is ordinarily the rising in our hearts of a relentless and abiding desire for the work. Paul says in 1 Timothy 3:1, “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.” That certainly was true for me. Wow. In the two stages of my calling into the ministry, God exploded in the fall of 1966 when I was 20 years old with a relentless and abiding desire for the ministry of the word. And then he did the same thing in 1979, the fall of ’79, with a relentless and abiding desire for the proclamation of the word in the pastoral role. These desires were not flashes in the pan; they were deep and unshakable, and they overcame significant obstacles.

Fitness for the Ministry

Second, there is ordinarily a God-given fitness or giftedness for the ministry, which is shown both in a cluster of abilities that we have and in the fruit of people actually being helped spiritually by the use of those abilities — and all of that confirmed, not just by our own individual selves, but rather by the community of believers, and especially the most mature and discerning believers.

“There is ordinarily the rising in our hearts of a relentless and abiding desire for the work.”

Paul didn’t just say to the elder, “If you desire it, you’ve got it.” He gave a long list of qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1–7). So the person moves into a ministry role (1) because of a perceived set of abilities, and (2) because of some manifest fruit in people that are really being spiritually helped by those abilities, and then (3) through the mature brothers and sisters recognizing and confirming that fruit and giftedness.

Specific Encouragement

Third, there’s often a specific encouragement from other people that you should do this particular ministry. Paul said to Timothy, “I want you to go with me” (see Acts 16:3). That’s pretty direct. This happens very often. Someone says to another person, “I really think you should do this.” And it proves to be a providence from the Lord, an encouragement that gets them over the hump of hesitation.

Confidence in God’s Favor

And then finally, number four, there’s a correlation between our most consecrated, spiritually intense, wholly submitted moments on the one hand, and the sense of God’s favor and guidance for the ministry in those very moments on the other hand. In other words, when we feel most confident in God’s favor and guidance, those are the moments when we are least worldly, least unspiritual, least indifferent.

There’s a correlation between those seasons of life — when God seems to blow the cobwebs of worldliness and selfishness and greed and pride out of our heart — and it’s in those moments when we sense the leading toward this ministry most keenly and surely. God confirms them not in the carnal, selfish moments, but in the humble, brokenhearted, sacrificial, loving moments.

So, in summary, then, there are practical, relational, subjective experiences that move us toward ministry. But in the end, it is the hidden hand of God’s gracious providence that puts us, throws us, where he wants us to be.

Perhaps you’ve had unbelieving friends or neighbors tell you they will believe when they see God writing his message in the clouds. I can tell you firsthand, this is untrue.

The cloudy letters began to appear one by one while we were on a family trip to a crowded theme park. As if scribed ex nihilo, they read,

PRAISE JESUS

And then minutes later,

JESUS GIVES. . . . ASK NOW

Here they were, letters drawn in the sky by an unseen hand, exalting the Son of God and calling us to ask and receive from Christ’s goodness. Yet they incited little more than hurried glances. No one tore his garments in repentance or fell to his knees to worship Christ or cried aloud in gratefulness. Some already toting cross necklaces stopped to take pictures, but the masses continued unmoved, unmindful.

Seeing Is Not Believing

Moses tells us that God wrote the Ten Commandments himself, with his finger (Exodus 31:18). No one believed that these messages in the sky were written the same way. A man in a plane gave immediate causation.

But how did they know? The plane was nearly invisible to the naked eye. If you squinted hard enough, for long enough, you could catch the tiniest flash from the plane as he traced the letters.

Yet the masses did not stand staring at the clouds. The masses — some of whom believed in the existence of aliens and Bigfoot, or that men could become women — knew, without requiring a second glance, that this message could not be from God. Most did not see the plane — most did not need to see the plane. They already knew a human must have done it. If God granted their request and wrote the message himself, they would “know” in the exact same way.

All this to illustrate that seeing is not believing, as C.S. Lewis observes,

I have known only one person in my life who claimed to have seen a ghost. It was a woman; and the interesting thing is that she disbelieved in the immortality of the soul before seeing the ghost and still disbelieves after having seen it. She thinks it was a hallucination. In other words, seeing is not believing. This is the first thing to get clear in talking about miracles. Whatever experiences we may have, we shall not regard them as miraculous if we already hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural. (C.S. Lewis Essay Collection and Other Short Stories, 107)

The crowds could not be bothered to stop at the spectacle because all of life up to that moment told them that God, if God there be, would not do such a thing. He would not trifle in their daily affairs. The “god” of many who check the box is too often the distant god of good morals and clean living, not the God with inescapable actuality, breaking into our world without permission to write on tablets or with clouds.

Christian Naturalist

I thought these things as we continued walking when, like lightning, the realization struck me. Was I all that different? Their unbelief was clear to me — was mine? How had I received this message?

“Praise Jesus.” “Jesus gives. . . . Ask now.”

I knew that my God rules over all things. I knew that “The [the pilot’s] heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). I knew that my God made possible the weather conditions for that day — along with a million other factors that brought my family and me to that exact spot at that exact time to witness that exact message. I knew that in a real sense, God had in fact written in the sky that day — yet there I stood, wondering why other people weren’t getting the message.

Did any of my prayers find their response in this preordained spectacle? What, from a list of pressing needs, should I stop and ask Jesus for? Maybe God had something for me, a word for me, a desire to answer specific prayer and so liberate me from the barren land of “you have not because you ask not.”

Why had I assumed that God orchestrated all of this for the sake of unresponsive masses and not for his blood-bought son? If God scribbled his message in his clouds before my eyes, grinning, why did I reply unmindful, unmoved?

Devil in the Details

How would you have responded? How do you respond?

How many moments, big or small, do we miss given to functional naturalism, secularism, materialism? How often do we rise from our knees in the morning only to enter a world without God? The message written in the clouds, or the word given by a friend, or the “odd” coincidence we interpret as curious and causeless, as an unbeliever would. Do we often see the world as we ought? Can we also say of God, “You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me” (Psalm 139:5)?

“How often do we rise from our knees in the morning only to enter a world without God?”

The devil is busy in the details, providing reasonable explanations for this or that, assuring us there is nothing of our heavenly Father to see here.

And one of the strategies employed to keep us in a world without a personal God is to give us names for his created wonders. If we have a name to explain something, we can demystify it, taking something wonderful and making it dumb.

To illustrate, indulge me in a digression about lightning. A.W. Tozer quotes Thomas Carlyle as saying,

We call that fire of the black thundercloud electricity, and lecture learnedly about it, and grind the like of it out of glass and silk: but what is it? Whence comes it? Whither goes it? Science has done much for us; but it is a poor science that would hide from us the great deep sacred infinitude of Nescience [the state of not knowing], whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims as a mere superficial film. This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think of it. (Knowledge of the Holy, 18)

“We smear the wondrous fingerprints of God all around us by thinking that because we name a thing, we know a thing.”

We smear the wondrous fingerprints of God all around us by thinking that because we name a thing, we know a thing. “Can anyone understand the spreading of the clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion?” asked the ancient world (Job 36:29). “Oh, that blazing, electric fire flung down from the heavens? That’s just lightning,” responds the modern man. “Particles,” the more learned might say, “some negatively charged and others positively charged, separate and meet again in a massive current.” Wonder debunked.

Forgetting to Tremble

What is lightning, beyond the superficial facts and name? The unscientific poets outstrip us in seeing the manifest and untamable majesty.

He loads the thick cloud with moisture;     the clouds scatter his lightning. (Job 37:11)

He covers his hands with the lightning     and commands it to strike the mark.Its crashing declares his presence. (Job 36:32–33)

He it is who makes the clouds rise at the end of the earth,     who makes lightnings for the rain     and brings forth the wind from his storehouses. (Psalm 135:7)

Let a man answer his God if he can:

Can you lift up your voice to the clouds,     that a flood of waters may cover you?Can you send forth lightnings, that they may go     and say to you, “Here we are”? (Job 38:34–35)

As we claim to be wiser than our prescientific ancestors, we miss what is most obvious. We wax eloquent about protons and electrons and miss God; we claim we’ve seen it before and forget to tremble.

Lives Without Lightning

As with naming lightning, we are tempted to miss the daily realities of God for a name. “Oh, that? It’s just some guy in a plane.” “Oh, that? It’s just a random text of encouragement from a friend.” “Oh, that? It’s just a lucky break, a random kindness, a smiling accident.” We even can wonder at answers to prayer: Can I really prove this wasn’t just a coincidence?

When did God leave his world? When did he stop intervening in its affairs and governing its happenings with purpose? In an effort to protect the overindulgence of the imagination that saw God “telling us” to do things irrespective of his word and wisdom, have we sacrificed interpreting our circumstances (even the hard ones) in relationship to our great God? Do we look at lightning as only lightning, setbacks as only setbacks, read the words written in the sky and miss their meaning?

Ours is a supernatural existence under a sovereign God. He uses secondary causes, but it is he who uses them — all of them — for our good. God is acting, today and every day. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28); “in his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10). Let’s see his personal care and personal provision more in our everyday lives, composed for us daily, personally in the clouds.