Marks of True Spiritual Service:
A Willing & Submissive Spirit

Romans 1:10

“…making request if, by some means, now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.”

(Verse 10) - Paul not only prayed for the spiritual well-being of the Roman church but was eager to be used by God as an instrument to help answer that prayer according to His divine will. The church has always been full of people who are quick to criticize, but seems short of those who are willing to be used by God to solve the problems they are concerned about.

Many Christians are much more willing to give money to an outreach ministry than they are to witness themselves. In his book The Gospel Blimp (Elgin, Ill: David C. Cook, 1983), Joe Bayly tells the imagined story of a man who hired a blimp to bombard his neighborhood with gospel tracts. The point of the book, and the popular movie made from it, was that some believers will go to great extremes to avoid personally confronting others with the gospel.

A man once came up to me after a worship service and suggested that the church provide $25,000 to create a sophisticated telephone answering service that would give a gospel message to callers. Like the man in The Gospel Blimp story, this man wanted to use his scheme primarily to reach an unbelieving neighbor. I therefore suggested, “Why don’t you just go over and tell him the gospel yourself?”

It is much easier, and therefore more attractive to the flesh, to pray for others to be used by the Lord than to pray that He use us. But like Isaiah, when Paul heard the Lord’s call for service or saw a spiritual need, he said, “Here am I, Send me” (Isa. 6:8). There is, of course, an important place for praying for others in the Lord’s service. But the true measure of our concern for His work is our willingness for Him to use us.

Paul had been making request to God for a long time that he could visit the church in Rome in order to minister to them and be ministered to by them (vv. 11-12). It was his earnest desire to see them, and he presented the subject before God.  Apparently he hoped to make the journey soon, saying, perhaps now at last by the will of God I may succeed in coming to you.

We should take a moment to note that this earnest desire of Paul’s had not yet been fulfilled, yet he had not given up on it, either personally, or before the Lord!  He was still praying over it, and still actively seeking to get to them!  He had ambitions and he had plans – he wasn’t passive in his walk with God – receiving from God alone, but was putting his own “input” back into the relationship.  This is a mark of healthy relationship with God – one where there is true interaction.  We are not simply typewriters that God uses to write His message to the world.  Our lives and our walk are not simply blank tablets used for God’s graffiti!  God desires and expects us to participate in the process.

If by any means - This shows the earnest desire which he had to see them, and implies that be had designed it, and had been hindered; see Rom. 1:13.  We ought also note that this desire was never truly fulfilled, at least not in the way that Paul had anticipated.  He did get to Rome, but all indications are that he got there as a prisoner only, and not in the full, ministerial sense that he had envisioned.  Not all of our plans and hopes and desires will be fulfilled by God.  There will be times when we will see God exercise His option, as Creator and God, to alter our perception of what needs to happen and direct us in another way.  Another of Paul’s desires was to get to the area that we now refer to as Spain to do ministry – he never got there!  That doesn’t mean that he stopped planning of desiring to go, or that he was bitter and unfilled because he never made it – it simply means that, to the end, Paul was actively participating in the process.  He was a minister of God in all that that implies!

Now at length - He had purposed it a long time, but had been hindered. He doubtless cherished this purpose for years. The expressions in the Greek imply an earnest wish that this long-cherished purpose might be accomplished before long.

A prosperous journey - A safe, pleasant journey. It is right to regard all success in traveling as depending on God, and to pray for success and safety from danger. Yet all such prayers are not answered according to the letter of the petition. The prayer of Paul that be might see the Romans was granted, but in a remarkable way. He was persecuted by the Jews, and arraigned before King Agrippa. He appealed to the Roman emperor, and was taken there in chains as a prisoner. Yet the journey might in this way have a more deep effect on the Romans, than if he had gone in any other way. In so mysterious a manner does God often hear the prayers of his people; and though their prayers are answered, yet it is in his own time and way; see the last chapters of the Acts.

By the will of God - If God shall grant it; if God will by his mercy grant me the great favor of my coming to you. This is a proper model of a prayer; and is in accordance with the direction of the Bible; see James 4:14-15.  This kind of submission is key to effectively ministering for the Lord.

Paul’s eagerness to serve God was always directed by the will of God. He did not serve in the direction of his own desires and insight but according to the will of the One he served. When the prophet Agabus dramatically predicted the danger that awaited Paul in Jerusalem, the apostle’s friends begged him not to go. But “Paul answered, ‘What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound, but even to die at Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ Upon hearing those words, Luke and the others also submitted to God’s sovereignty saying, ‘The will of the Lord be done!’” (Acts 21:11-14).

Some people ask, “If God is going to sovereignly accomplish what He plans to do anyway what is the purpose of praying?” Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse designed an analogy to illustrate the relationship of a believer’s prayers to God’s sovereignty.

We will suppose the case of a man who loves violin music. He has the means to buy for himself a very fine violin, and he also purchases the very best radio obtainable. He builds up a library of the great musical scores, so that he is able to take any piece that is announced on the radio, put it on his music stand, and play along with the orchestra. The announcer says that Mr. Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra are going to play Beethoven’s seventh symphony. The man in his home puts that symphony on his stand and tunes his violin with what he hears coming from the orchestra. The music that comes from the radio we might call foreordained. Ormandy is going to follow the score just as Beethoven wrote it. The man in his living room starts to scratch away at the first violin part. He misses beats, he loses his place and finds it again, he breaks a string, and stops to fix it. The music goes on and on. He finds his place again and plays on after his fashion to the end of the symphony. The announcer names the next work that is to be played and the fiddler puts that number on his rack. Day after week after month after year, he finds pleasure in scraping his fiddle along with the violins of the great orchestras. Their music is determined in advance. What he must do is to learn to play in their tempo, in their key and to follow the score as it has been written in advance. If he decides that he wants to play Yankee Doodle when the orchestra is in the midst of a Brahm’s number, there’s going to be dissonance and discord in the man’s house but not in the Academy of Music. After some years of this the man may be a rather creditable violin player and may have learned to submit himself utterly to the scores that are written and follow the program as played. Harmony and joy come from the submission and cooperation.

So it is with the plan of God. It is rolling toward us, unfolding day by day as He has planned it before the foundation of the world. There are those who fight against it and who must ultimately be cast into outer darkness because He will not have in His heaven those who proudly resist Him. This cannot be tolerated any more than the authorities would permit a man to bring his own violin into the Academy of Music and start to play Shostakovich when the program called for Bach. The score of God’s plan is set forth in the Bible. In the measure that I learn it, submit myself to it, and seek to live in accordance with all that is therein set forth, I shall find myself in joy and in harmony with God and His plans. If I set myself to fight against it, or disagree with that which comes forth, there can be no peace in my heart and life. If in my heart I seek to play a tune that is not the melody the Lord has for me, there can be nothing but dissonance. Prayer is learning to play the tune that the eternal plan of God calls for and to do that which is in harmony with the will of the Eternal Composer and the Author of all that is true harmony in life and living. (Man’s Ruin: Romans 1:1-32 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952], pp. 122-23. Used by permission.)

The popular practice of demanding things from God and expecting Him to meet those demands is perverted and heretical, an attempt to sway God’s perfect and holy will to one’s own imperfect and sinful will. Paul sought the advancement of God’s kingdom and glory through God’s own will, not his own.

Self-styled messiahs are always megalomaniacs. They have grandiose schemes for winning the world for Christ. They always think big, and their plans seldom show evidence of being limited by God’s plans, which, from a human perspective, sometimes seem small and insignificant. Jesus’ ministry did not focus on converting the great leaders of His day or evangelizing the great cities. He chose twelve ordinary men to train as His apostles, and most of His teaching took place in insignificant, often isolated, parts of Palestine. He did not raise large sums of money or attempt to use the influence of great men to His advantage. His sole purpose was to do His Father’s will in His Father’s way and in His Father’s time. That is the highest goal for us, as well.

I need to be sure that I am both willing to serve the Lord in whatever way possible, as well as submissive to the will of God in the manner in which that serve works itself out in time and space.  He is God and I am not!