“And many nations shall join themselves to the Lord in that day and shall be my people. And I will dwell in your midst, and you shall know that the Lord of hosts has sent me to you.”
– Zechariah 2:11
Here again is a promise that many nations shall join themselves to the Lord. We see this over and over through scripture, and I just want to point it out over and over again through scripture that the global purpose of God is not just confined to Zechariah 2:11 here or there that talk about missions like we kind of try to compartmentalize, missions to kind of … here and there in the Bible. No, no, no. Our God has a global mission that is clear in scripture from cover to cover, on page after page after page. The whole point, the whole purpose of God is to bring many nations to join themselves to God.
We are all called to live for the sake of every people group on the planet, that they may know Christ.
This Verse Wants Us To Pray For Specific Groups
This is why we pray for the spread of the Gospel to the nations. This is why we pray often for specific people, groups, nations, ethnic groups that have not yet been reached with the Gospel, because this is the Word of God. He has promised to bring many nations, he’s purposed to bring all the peoples, languages, tribes to worship him. So we pray for the accomplishment of his purposes. That’s what we do. God has ordained our prayers to be a means by which that’s accomplished and our lives.
Like I think about one of the first times I went to an unreached area where the Gospel had not yet gone. One of the people groups near there was called the Nosu people, and they’d little to no knowledge of the Gospel. And our whole goal in going to this area was to bring the Gospel for the first time. We had literature in the language of those people. Now, it was not legal to share the Gospel with them, so we were creative in how we did this, but we basically took literature in their language that shared the Gospel, and we used creative means to make it known. I’ll just kind of leave it at that.
This Verse Wants All Nations To Know Of His Grace
It was not easy work. It was hard work. Was challenging, difficult. I mean, I wouldn’t put it high on the level of dangerous. But it was definitely more risky than other things that I do in my life. But all this to say, why do that? Because God has purposed for all the nations to hear the good news of his grace. This is the purpose of God in the world. This is the purpose of God through his church. Therefore, this is the purpose of God in our lives.
Now that doesn’t mean we all are called to go to this exact place or that exact place to do this kind of work or that kind of work. God calls us to do all kinds of different things, but what drives all of us, all of us, what we see all over scripture including Zechariah chapter 2:11 is that we are living to see all the nations join themselves to the Lord. All the people groups in the world know the grace and glory of God.
Zechariah 2:11 Prays For The Spread Of His Glory
So God, we pray for this today. We pray right now for the accomplishment of your global purposes. For the spread of your glory among all the nations, among all the peoples, including the Nosu people. God, please, please use Gospel literature that was scattered among the Nosu years ago. Please, oh God, use that to bear fruit today. God, we pray for that. We pray for others to go to the Nosu and other people groups like the Nosu. God, we pray that you would raise up your church to be serious. To be serious about the spread of your Word to all the nations so that all the nations might join themselves to you.
Zechariah 2:11 Prays That God Send Out More Workers
God, we know they can’t join themselves to you if they don’t hear about you, if they don’t hear about Jesus who has made way for a relationship with you. There’s no way they can be joined to you. God, please, please send out more workers. Cause your church in all the world to be serious about this. Every one of us in our lives as followers of Christ to say before you God, “How are you leading me to make the Gospel known among the nations?” And spend us toward that end we pray. Lead us toward that end. Guide us toward that end we pray so that what you promised in Zechariah 2 and what you promised all throughout your Word will come to pass.
Oh God, may all the nations we pray cause all the nations to join themselves to you. We pray this in Jesus’ name, believing that you will answer these prayers. In fact, accomplish your purposes among the Nosu and every people group in the world. We pray this with confidence in Jesus’ name. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
