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By Andy Johnson | 5.2.2012 What if you spent years faithfully and earnestly praying for revival to come to your community, and then one day, seemingly out of the blue, God dramatically answered your prayers?
All across your city, every day people begin crowding into the church to hear the gospel from God’s Word. On the streets, in their workplaces, in classrooms and homes all over town, previously timid church members are faithfully declaring the gospel and fruit is coming fast. Lives are transformed, marriages are saved, and most of all, one after another God’s enemies are laying down the weapons of their rebellion and are taking refuge in his glorious and merciful Son.
What if all this happened in your own town, right in front of your eyes, in that other guy’s church, just a few blocks down the street from yours?
I suspect we all know what we ought to say in response, but the words of praise and joy are likely to get caught in the backs of our throats.
This has happened before. In 1839 Robert Murray M’Cheyne learned that a great revival had broken out in his church under a guest preacher while he was away on a months-long mission trip. When the Spirit of God seems to bless the ministry of others rather than our own, some pretty important things about the real nature of our loves become glaringly visible.
“DIOTREPHES, WHO LOVES TO BE FIRST”
Of course, this battle between envy and rejoicing is nothing new. The Apostle John writes about the issue in his third letter (3 John). There, in verses five to eleven, he introduces us to two men: Gaius and Diotrephes.
Gaius loves to welcome and support faithful missionaries sent out from other churches because he loves Jesus (vv. 5-8).
Diotrephes, well…not so much. Diotrephes refuses to welcome these workers from other churches for one simple reason: John tells us plainly that Diotrephes “loves to be first” (v. 9). He has no desire to see gospel work done unless he does it. He will rejoice in no fruit unless it’s his fruit. He will tolerate no competition. Diotrephes’ actions and attitudes are, John bluntly says, “evil” (v. 11).
Evil—that’s a strong word. And frankly what frightens me most about Diotrephes is that we’re not told of any lack of doctrinal orthodoxy to justify that label. There is no mention of heresy or inadequate views of Christ. For all we know, Diotrephes’ theology looked just right on paper. But his competitive spirit exposed his supposed love for the gospel as merely love for his own group, his own ministry—ultimately love for himself. Just like any other pagan.
THE NOT-SO-SUBTLE POINT
So here comes the not-so-subtle point of this article: Do not be like Diotrephes! Instead, imitate what is good, meaning the gospel-exalting, non-competitive spirit of Gaius.
But why is this such a big deal? Because not only your heart but the very worth of the gospel in the eyes of the world is at stake.
Listen, you can talk all day about how you praise God for the blessings of gospel prosperity in your church—and you should, to some extent. And yet there will always be a lingering scent of self-interest; it’s your church, after all.
But what if you genuinely praise God for the gospel prosperity in some other church, whether in another country or even (gulp) right across town? What if you demonstrate the same delight to see Jesus’ work held up and delighted in as a result of someone else’s ministry? If you do, that shows that you love Jesus and his gospel and his glory—not just your group, your club, your ministry, your church.
That’s why it’s so important that we cultivate an attitude like Gaius’ in our hearts and in our church members’ hearts. Our love for Jesus and for his glory may never shine brighter than when we rejoice in the progress of the gospel even when there isn’t the slightest chance of us getting any of the credit.
HOW TO CULTIVATE THE SPIRIT OF GAIUS
How can you cultivate this kind of spirit in your church and in your own heart? Here are a few ways.
1. Pray and Read
First, pray and read. Start by reflecting on passages like 3 John that show the unique glory of what we might call a “disinterested delight” in the prosperity of the gospel. And pray that God would grow in you a heart that loves to encourage gospel progress, wherever it happens and whoever it happens through. Why? Because you love to see Jesus glorified.
2. Model and Teach
By the Prayer First team
Dana Olson, Jerry and Dee Sheveland, Bryan Moak, Tannie and Wally Eshenaur, Dennis and Barb Erickson, Carol Madison
As a Prayer First team, we are committed to our simple mission statement: Calling the church to the extraordinary importance of prayer.
We talk often of our desire for all Converge Worldwide churches to be “praying churches.” Although on the one hand that may be a given, the reality is that it takes great effort and intentionality to keep prayer at the forefront of all we do. We all agree on the necessity of prayer, but is there a benchmark to help determine if your church is hitting the mark of being identified as a “praying church”?
The Prayer First team has discussed the definition of a praying church, made lots of revisions, and finally landed on a description we believe is broad enough to be adaptable by any church. You might want to introduce this to your leadership and your prayer ministry as a encouragement to dream and envision a culture of prayer in your church.
A Praying Church
1) A praying church is humble, desperate, and hopeful in prayer – worshipping Jesus Christ and praying Kingdom-minded prayers.
2) A praying church establishes a rhythm of prayer first:
- First thing each day we seek God first.
- First day each week we model meaningful corporate prayer as churches.
- First week each month we set aside a day for prayer and fasting.
- First month each year we emphasize the priority of prevailing prayer.
3) A praying church is led by a praying pastor, who is supported by praying people.
4) A praying church encourages its members to establish personal and family prayer times.
5) A praying church teaches its members Scriptural prayer principles.
Room to Grow
Obviously within this definition there is opportunity for much creativity and direction to take your prayer ministry. This is a great place to put that prayer into practice by taking time to seek the Lord as to the specifics of how you can encourage your congregation to grow.
Prayer is so extraordinarily important, and our hope is for a movement of churches that practices the simple principle of prayer first.
Why would Jonathan Edwards, a key leader in the First Great Awakening and arguably the greatest philosopher-theologian in American history, spend the last ten years of his life advancing the vision for a unified church covering the earth with prayer for revival?
In 1746, Edwards began to sense that the extraordinary power and momentum of the First Great Awakening was beginning to wane. He knew that Christians needed to urgently pray. So he took it on himself to write a call to united prayer, now known as the Humble Attempt.
Edwards’ argument in this treatise was simple: Since “the whole world should finally be given to Christ as one whose right it is to reign,” Christians should never pray for less than this as the ultimate goal of their intercession. As Edwards puts it, “That which God abundantly makes the subject of his promises, God’s people should abundantly make the subject of their prayers.”
Edwards was right. United prayer for revival and the outpouring of the Spirit to glorify Jesus is the highest prayer agenda Christians can adopt. This kind of united, Christ-exalting prayer is God’s primary means to rapidly advance His kingdom throughout the world.
“Up in a little town in Maine,things were pretty dead some years ago. The churches were not accomplishing anything. There were a few Godly men in the churches, and they said: ‘Here we are, only uneducated laymen; but something must be done in this town. Let us form a praying band. We will all center our prayers on one man. Who shall it be?’ They picked out one of the hardest men in town, a hopeless drunkard, and centered all their prayers upon him. In a week, he was converted. They centered their prayers upon the next hardest man in town, and soon he was converted. Then they took up another and another, until within a year, two or three hundred were brought to God, and the fire spread out into all the surrounding country. Definite prayer for those in the prison house of sin is the need of the hour.”
~ Dr. R.A. Torrey
We’ve got a lot of ministries going on in my church. Preaching, worship team, children’s ministry, small group ministry, men’s ministry, women’s ministry, sound ministry, projection ministry, and, perhaps most importantly, the coffee ministry. We do a boat load of planning in all these ministries. All the different people involved work hard to figure out what songs to sing, what food to eat at the men’s breakfast, what music to play at the women’s breakfast, what new equipment is needed in the sound room, and what roast of coffee is the most tasty and the most cost effective.
And I’m all for planning. You can usually tell when something has just been thrown together. The first sign that things haven’t been planned well is when someone gets up on stage and says, “Well, I don’t really know what we’re going to do today, but we’re trusting the Spirit to guide us.” Planning is a good and necessary thing.
But sometimes we can be tempted to put way too much trust in our planning, at the expense of relying on the Holy Spirit. E.M. Bounds said:
What the Church needs today is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but men [and women, of course] whom the Holy Ghost can use – men of prayer, men mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through men. He does not come on machinery, but on men. He does not anoint plans, but men – men of prayer.
Yes, we need to plan. Worship leaders, you need to plan. Small group leaders, plan your butts off. Preachers, map out those sermon series. But what we need the most – what I need the most – is the Holy Spirit. I need the Holy Spirit to move when I preach. I may have the best sermon, with the greatest points and illustrations, yet without the Spirit, it’s a big, fat nothing.
By T.M. Moore
Revival
“Wait for the LORD; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!”
Psalm 27:14
Ministers of Scotland: Lectures on Revival VI
The Rev. Alexander Cumming, Minister of Dunbarney Parish
“When we persist in the exercise of prayer, notwithstanding all discouragement, we do honour that loving kindness which will not frustrate the anticipations that are formed upon the basis of his written declarations; and the longer the perseverance is maintained, the more unpromising the symptoms against which it is upheld, the greater is the lustre reflected upon his character. Hence blessings of great magnitude are associated with ardour and perseverance in prayer; for the more splendidly these qualities shine, the greater is the attestation borne to his fidelity and love.”
If we wish to see revival we must pray earnestly and persist in it. Revival will not come because we sometimes to remember to include it in our petitions, or we have a special prayer meeting to seek it. God will know that we’re serious in tapping into His great love, that He might pour out His Spirit for revival, when we persist, like nagging children, in pleading with Him to grant us what He wants us to have and has promised we may. How long are we willing to persist in prayer for revival? How serious are we in entering upon such a season of prayer? God will know.
What would it look like if your church were characterize by ardor and perseverance in praying for revival?
To learn more about revival, order the book, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir, by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, from our online store.
Pastor to Pastor brings the insights of great servants of God from the past to pastors in our own day, to link our ministries with theirs in the grand tradition of building the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ
To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing!
~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Our praying, however, needs to be pressed and pursued with an energy that never tires, a persistency which will not be denied, and a courage which never fails.”
Charles Spurgeon said…
Your other engagements will run smoothly if you do not forget your engagement with God!
(Steve Miller, C. H. Spurgeon on Spiritual Leadership, 27)
Failing to pray reflects idolatry–a trust in substitutes for God.
~The Arena of Prayer, Ben Jennings
May 2012 be a great year of prayer and REVIVAL!
bryanaloha
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