Paul's Prayers, #1

Beloved, it is a faithful thing you do in all your efforts for these brothers, strangers as they are, who testified to your love before the church. You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (3 John 5-8, ESV)

I love to pray Scripture. I love it even more when Scripture tells us what to pray!

One of the passions of my life is to become like Gaius - a good sender. I want to learn how to send out kingdom workers "in a manner worthy of God". Part of that is learning how to pray for you, and how to pray for the churches that support you.

Thankfully, we have the perfect teacher. The Apostle Paul - groundbreaking missionary that he was - recorded many of his prayers for the churches and requests he made for the churches to pray for him and his team. Over the next few days, as God wills, I plan to post here some thoughts on Paul's prayers for the churches and his requests from the churches - and how they relate to being good "senders".

1. "I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is proclaimed in all the world." (Rom. 1:8)

There is probably no ingredient more important for a church that wishes to be missions-minded than this one. Faith is the starting point for missions involvement - a firm conviction that the message is true and must be shared. Paul's thankfulness for the church at Rome goes beyond their personal faith - he is thankful that they extend that faith to proclamation through "all the world". They were convinced that the message was not just for those in Rome. They didn't focus just on attracting people to come to their church. They went into all the world - and Paul was grateful.

There's another type of faith wrapped up in Paul's comments here. The word used for faith, pistis, can equally mean "faithfulness". The church at Rome was faithful - and word gets around. Really, faithfulness cannot be separated from evangelism. A church with a message, but no faithfulness, will ultimately have no message. Because the church was faithful to God, they were faithful to Paul. His love for the church permeates his letter. He longed to visit them - a church he had not established - and seems to know he can count on them to pray for his specific requests.

How does this relate to becoming world Christians? Our churches need to first and foremost be filled with faith in the message of the Gospel and the need to proclaim it to the world. Then, we need to develop deep faithfulness to God - faithfulness that extends to His servants. When we are faithful - when faith in Him permeates our existence - we will dig deep and rethink priorities. Our budgets will reflect commitment to missions and our people will learn to make hard choices - a well in Africa over a new pipe organ; a new work in Southeast Asia over a new building. People will take care of practical needs for those on the field and those preparing to go. Sunday School classes and individuals will write letters and send boxes and remind them they are loved. Emails will be circulated and maps will display pictures. Pastors will teach the word from the perspective of God's worldwide purposes - and people will open their hearts and homes to the missionaries that come through the church's doors. Eventually, missionaries will go out from the church. But the new works won't be exalted over the old ones. Faithfulness will continue to characterize the church's interactions. All decisions will be prayed over and discernment will be important, of course. But in general, the church will see itself as part of a team along with missionaries that it supports.

Prayer: Lord, help our churches develop a faith that is proclaimed in the world. Help us to be churches that our missionaries can be thankful for. Increase our faith in You and our faithfulness to You and to Your servants. For those kingdom workers reading this, please bless them with at least one supporting church that is faithful to them as the church in Rome was to Paul.