How Missionaries are to Pray
2Corinthians 9:12-15

For the administration of this service not only supplieth the want of the saints, but is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God; Whiles by the experiment of this ministration they glorify God for your professed subjection unto the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men; And by their prayer for you, which long after you for the exceeding grace of God in you. Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.

Paul wrote this to saved people who were sending money to help people in another church.  While this was not written to the people receiving the financial support, it does tell us the responsibilities of churches which receive financial support from other churches.  You see American pastors who come here to help you and all of the expenses are paid by someone other than this church.  If they went to a church in America their expenses would usually be paid by the church that the pastor preached to.  In addition, you know that this church receives financial support from America even if you don't know the names of the specific churches or people.  You may not know their names but our passage tells us that you have a responsibility to pray for those people and it tells us specific things that you are to pray that God would give them.

When our verses say the administration of this service,  it is talking about handling the money that people in these churches gave.  Within this sentence we see how the financial support is to be handled by churches in a godly manner and we see the responsibility of those who receive financial support to pray for the people providing the financial support and for the people administering the money.  There can be a lot of temptation for the administers to steal the money and they need prayers to not do that sin.

Our sentence is divided into three Steps by the semi-colons.  Within the Bible, God gives us Steps to do with the expectation that we do the Steps in the order that God presents them.  Our three Steps Are:

1. 'Prayers for needs are answered and thanks are given to God'
2. 'God is glorified  by the testimony of the givers'
3. 'The giver has people praying for him'

We will look at the Steps within our sentence in the order that God presents them within our sentence.

Notice that our sentence says is abundant also by many thanksgivings unto God  and continues with they glorify God for your professed subjection  and later says And by their prayer for you.  In these phrases we see the responsibility of saved people who receive financial support from other Christians.  They are to:

1. They are to thank God for their supporters as well as thanking God for the financial support.
2. They are to glorify God  for how He moved their supporters to obey the gospel in order to provide the financial support through these other Christians.  ALL people are naturally selfish and self-centered.  Only God can change people and get them to give up their hard-earned money to support other people whom they have never seen face-to-face.  Not only does it take the power of God to get people to start giving but it takes the power of God to get people to continue to give.  One of the main problems that missionaries have is the loss of financial support and the need to return to find new supporters.  So the question is how many missionaries and mission works Glorify God  for His work in providing the financial supporters and for maintaining them?
   
   If the receivers refuse to Glorify God  on a regular basis, why should God provide regular maintenance of their financial support? Can anyone Biblically deny that this failure on the part of those receiving financial support is part of the reason why God does not maintain the financial support of missionaries and those churches receiving financial support?
3. The phrase their prayer for you  means that the people who receive financial support are to regularly pray for the people who provide the financial support.  Our sentence gives us specifics of this prayer, which we will deal with shortly, but the point here is a requirement for the people receiving financial support to pray for those providing it.  Several places in the Bible tell us about this exchange and it is usually preached as church members having a responsibility to provide the physical needs of the pastor who is providing for their spiritual needs.  However, the opposite is also true.  Those who receive physical support have a responsibility to return spiritual support.  When those people who receive financial support neglect to regularly pray for the people providing the support, should they be surprised that God lets the financial providers also neglect their regular support? Within our context, in 2Corinthians 8:13-15, we read For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened: But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality: As it is written, He that had gathered much had nothing over; and he that had gathered little had no lack.  Thus we see that the Bible literally says that the people who receive financial support for their want  have a responsibility to provide equality  by returning spiritual support for the want  of the people who provided the financial support.  When we fail to do our part we have no right to complain about others stopping their doing their part.

With this Biblically required response in mind, we can look at the details of how our sentence tells us to respond.

The first phrase of our sentence talks about the administration of this service,  and there are things which can be said about the administration of this service,  especially when we look at the context. However, that is not what this message is about.  The important thing is that people who receive financial support need to pray for the administration of this service.  They need to pray for the mission board, the pastors and church treasurers and for all of the people who are involved in the administration of this service.  We are in a spiritual war and it is real easy to make heroes of the people on the front lines while we forget the 'support troops'.  The devil tries to get people to do 'little sins' and feel that it doesn't matter.  However, it is easier for 'support people' to think this than it is for people on the 'front lines' because people on the 'front lines' suffer the consequences quicker and more directly.  A truth is that no war can be done without support and it is critical that these support people be protected with prayer.

In our Second Step we see that 'God is glorified by the receivers'.  The word they,  of this Second Step, is referring to the people of the First Step, who are the people receiving the offering.  Please look closely at the wording of this sentence and realize that Paul is saying that the saints in the Jerusalem are going to glorify God  for the professed subjection into the gospel of Christ, and for your liberal distribution unto them, and unto all men.  When Paul says this he is talking about the people sending the financial support.  Here we see that the people receiving support glorify God  for three reasons:

1. The people receiving support glorify God  for your professed subjection into the gospel of Christ.  The gospel of Christ  is 'the good news that God can change you to be like Him after your initial profession'.  The gospel of Christ  puts an emphasis on our spiritual growth after our initial profession.  A newly saved person will not get involved in a liberal  offering which goes beyond the tithe.  People only support missions after they receive the spiritual maturity which comes from the gospel of Christ.  With that in mind, we see that the people receiving support need to pray that more of the people in the supporting churches receive the spiritual maturity which is required for those churches to continue to support missions.  Existing supporters stop for many reasons including death.  Thus there needs to be new people getting involved and those people receiving support need to pray that God will get new people involved within the supporting churches.
2. In addition, our verses tell us that people receiving support need to pray that the people sending support are blessed in 6 specific ways:
1. They are to be bountifully enriched in everything.
2. As a result, the givers are to give thanks...to God.  If they don't thank God for allowing them to be part of God's ministry then they will not continue to receive the blessings and will stop supporting missionaries.  Missionaries are to pray that their supporters learn to thank God for God involving them in God's ministry.
3. Missionaries are to pray that others should see Christ in the lives of their supporters.
4. Their life should provide tangible proof (results of the experiment)  of their subjection unto the gospel of Christ.
5. Their life should give God glory  in a way that shuts the mouths of liars.
6. They should have a liberal distribution  because giving 'just a little' would be taken as a religious show and not something done from the heart.
7. That their main concern would be to help take the gospel unto all men  and not just the people like them.  That is: culture, nationality and other things should not be considered when taking the gospel to the world.
3. The people receiving support are to glorify God  for your liberal distribution unto them.  The word liberal  means they give a lot and willingly.  Beyond thanking God for His moving His people to provide for their needs, they thanked God for the provision itself.  When we have a great physical need, we are most thankful for the relief which comes upon that need being met.  Our sentence tells us that we should be thankful for the giver and for the gift.  Sometimes we can be led into foolishness by thinking we should thank God only for the giver.  However, when we receive the blessings of God, we are to express all of the thanksgiving that we feel.  Don't worry about being 'right' about what we are thankful for, just be sure that you thank God and that you thank God for everything that you can think of to thank Him for.
4. The people receiving support glorify God  for the support sent unto all men.  Thank God for people who will support missionaries sent to people that they have never seen and who are concerned that the gospel is taken everywhere.  Spiritually mature people understand that there is to be no exclusion where salvation and the gospel are concerned.  They go out of their way to make sure that it is taken to all men and if they find a neglected group they try to support someone taking the gospel to that group.  We are to pray that the supporting churches continue to be concerned about all men.
5. We also need to remember that this sentence is talking about the gospel of Christ.  That means that the support is to include the teaching how to spiritually mature after people make their initial profession.  Teaching is a part of The Great Commission.  Part of our prayer for people who provide financial support for teaching the gospel of Christ.  That means pray for the people who pay to send preachers here to teach things beyond basic salvation.  Pray that supporting churches will not just concentrate on the number of professions and churches started but will also be concerned with teaching ministries.  God does not look at just the number of people and the number of churches started but God looks at how many finish serving Him and people making professions will not finish their race  unless they learn how to spiritually mature.

We have covered the first two Steps and must now deal with the Third Step.  In our Third Step we see that 'The giver has people praying for him'.  I tell missionaries whom I support financially that they are required to pray for me.  I tell them that if something happens to me physically, their financial support will probably be affected in a negative way.  I tell them that there is nothing wrong with them praying for God to protect and bless the people who provide their financial support and our Third Step literally tells us this truth.  I understand that many missionaries teach their people this truth but I also have personally experienced people believing that such prayer is somehow sinful, covetous and wrong.  However, our Third Step actually tells us that such a prayer is righteous and Godly.  With that in mind, let's look at the details of this Step.

The first phrase of our Third Step is And by their prayer for you.  The word And  tells us that their prayer for you  is in addition to how they glorify God,  which makes it just as important.  Our second phrase tells us how the recipients of financial support are to pray for the people who support them.  The phrase which long after you  tells us that this is not a casual prayer but that it is deep felt and ongoing.  This type of prayer only happens when missionaries realize that their ongoing financial support is directly dependent upon the supporting person staying in the grace of God.

Look at the phrase for the exceeding grace of God in you,  which describes how these people are to pray.  In every case, within chapters 8 and 9where we find the word grace, our epistle is talking about God using the riches of His people to provide for the needs of His other people.  In addition, we saw in the first couple of sentences of Chapter 8 that after the people in the churches of Macedonia  first gave their own selves to the Lord, and unto us by the will of God.  That tells us that God gave them grace  which went beyond their power.  Thus, when we apply this truth to our current sentence, we see that the phrase: longing after you for the exceeding grace of God in you  includes a prayer that God would continue to provide those people riches  so that they can continue to support the work of God which is done by others.  In addition, it includes a prayer that God's grace  would lead their supporters to give their own selves to the Lord, and unto (the supported missionaries) by the will of God and that the supporters would continue to do so after they first started doing this type of giving.

Not only are the missionaries to pray this way, but our sentence says that they are to pray for the exceeding grace of God in you.  Webster's 1828 defines exceeding  as: Going beyond; surpassing; excelling; outdoing.  1. Great in extent, quantity or duration; very extensive.  Cities were built an exceeding space of time before the flood. This sense is unusual.  2. adv. In a very great degree; unusually; as exceeding rich.  The Genoese were exceeding powerful by sea.  I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great reward. Gen.15.
EXCEE'DING, n. Excess; superfluity.' This means that the missionaries are to pray that God would give so many excessive riches to their supporters that the supporter has no personal-need type of reason to drop their support.  Yet we hear of missionaries leaving the field on a regular basis because they lost so much support that they had to go home and raise more.  I can't help but wonder how many of these missionaries are praying this way for their supporters.

Will you pray that God blesses your supporters exceedingly?  Will you pray that God gives them so much spiritual maturity that they give their life to the Lord  and to supporting missions around the world?  Will you pray that God gives them so much financially that they have no personal needs to distract from their being as funnel that God can use to send financial support to missionaries and mission works?  Please remember that our scripture teaches that this type of prayer is Godly.

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