Your Work Matters To GodSample

LIVING FOR A GREATER CAUSE

What does it mean for workplace believers to live for a cause greater than themselves in our day and time? Jeremiah Lanphier was a businessman in New York City who asked God to do this in his life in 1857. In a small darkened room, in the back of one of New York City’s lesser churches, he prayed alone. His request of God was simple, but earth-shattering: “Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?”

He was a man approaching midlife without a wife or family, but he had financial means. He made a decision to reject the “success syndrome” that drove the city’s businessmen and bankers. God used him to turn New York City’s commercial empire on its head. He began a businessmen’s prayer meeting on September 23, 1857. The meetings began slowly, but six months later, 30,000 were meeting daily throughout the city. The New York Tribune and the New York Herald issued articles of revival. It had become the city’s biggest news. Now a full-fledged revival, it moved outside New York. By spring of 1858, 2,000 met daily in Chicago’s Metropolitan Theatre, and in Philadelphia the meetings mushroomed into a four-month long tent meeting. Meetings were held in Baltimore, Washington, Cincinnati, Chicago, New Orleans, and Mobile.

Thousands met to pray because one man stepped out. Annus Mirabilis, the year of national revival, had begun. This was an extraordinary move of God through one man. It was unique because the movement was led by businessmen, a group long considered the least prone to any form of evangelical fervor, and it had started on Wall Street, the most unlikely of all places to begin. Could God do something extraordinary through you? Take a step. Ask God to do mighty things through you.

Questions

Jeremiah Lanphier was a catalyst to bring revival to a nation in 1857. What qualities do you think this man must have had to be used of God in this way?

Fear of failure prevents many people from stepping out in faith to be used by God. What is required to move beyond a fear of failure?

When Jeremiah Lanphier first began to meet for prayer at the noon hour, he had very few people show up. What would have been the consequence if he had called it quits after 30-days?

Workplace Application

Two businessmen believed God wanted them to start a Bible study at their office on Monday mornings.

Monday morning arrived and they were prepared to begin the study. There was only one problem—there were no people in the room. No one had shown up. “I guess we should try next week,” said one of the men. “Oh, no,” said the other, “God told us to begin this study.” The man stood up and began to teach the Bible study to an empty room out of obedience. Soon, people began to file into the room. By the end of the hour, several people had shown up for the study.