The Power of Prayer for Missions
Exhortation | Lord's Day—March 30, AD 2025
This morning, I want to contend with you that all Christians should be involved in what we call “foreign missions.” All Christians should be involved in foreign missions.
By this, I do not mean that all Christians are called to leave their homelands and become missionaries. That is not what we see in the Scriptures, nor would that be helpful to the cause. But the Great Commission, the command to make disciples of all nations, was given to the whole church, and it is fulfilled by each member of the Body, according to their gifts and calling.
Now, I do not want to minimize the true call to consider your lives, consider your giftings and desires, and whether you should physically go. There are billions of people across the earth who are perishing without the knowledge of Christ. And the need of the hour, as it has always been, is for more laborers to be sent into the harvest field (Mt. 9:37–38).
But if we acknowledge that it is biblically normative for most to stay, what about the rest of you? What is your role, as members of Christ’s body, in the global Great Commission?
Your role is one of sending and supporting.
All do not go, but all can send. And while all do not have the means to support financially, every believer has access to God the Father in prayer. There is great power in prayer for the missionary task. Samuel Zwemer, a great 20th-century American missionary, once said that “the history of missions is the history of answered prayer."
Throughout his letters, the Apostle Paul—a missionary—frequently requested prayer from his supporters. For example, when he wrote to the Colossians, he requested prayer “that God would open to us a door for the word, to speak the mystery of Christ…” (Col. 4:2–4).
So my encouragement to you this morning is this: at your dinner tables and in family worship, pray for the advancement of the gospel in the earth and pray for the missionaries you know by name.
Consider how glorious it is that from thousands of miles away, you can support the work of the Madsen family in Zambia and the Henriquez family in Papua New Guinea. That you can approach the throne of God and intercede on their behalf. And that by doing so, you and your children become “fellow workers” (3 Jn. 8) with them for the glory of God and the joy of all nations.
Photo from the Henriquez family of a hamlet in the Papua New Guinea jungle where they serve.