Pray for More Laborers
In Matthew 9:37-38, Jesus tells his disciples,
“The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.”
Why did he tell them to do that? Why didn’t he just instruct them to pray that all those souls would be saved?
On this Global Missions Sunday, we are reflecting on God’s mission to make disciples of all nations. We remind ourselves of this mission every Sunday at the end of service — but how will it happen, practically speaking?
In The Master Plan of Evangelism, author Robert Coleman says,
“There is no use to pray for the world. What good would it do? God already loves them and has given his Son to save them... The world is lost and blind in sin. The only hope for the world is for laborers to go to them with the gospel of salvation.”
So you see, the way God intends to save the nations is through people like you and me and the missionaries we support as we follow Jesus and disciple others who, in turn, disciple others.
My exhortation to us this morning is this: Pray for more laborers to answer the call to global missions and live your life now as a faithful laborer in the field where God has placed you, ready to go wherever and to whomever he may send you.
And this reminds us of our need to confess our sins.
Prayer of Confession
Heavenly Father, we confess to you that we do not see as you do. We see the lostness and the brokenness that surrounds us, and we feel the weight of our own sin. Yet we so often fail to notice that the fields are white for harvest!
We know who the Savior of the world is, and we’ve been called to proclaim the good news of His Kingdom to all peoples. You have invited us into the greatest adventure of history. Yet we are too often content to live distracted lives, disconnected from our true calling. You have promised to be with us and to empower our witness by your Holy Spirit who dwells within us. Yet we often trust in our own abilities and ingenuity.
We pray for blessings for ourselves, but do we pray for more laborers to be sent out into the fields? Do we ourselves labor to sow seeds of the gospel? Sadly, no, we too often fail to do this. We confess to you that this is incongruent with the infinite worth and saving power of King Jesus. We ask you to search our hearts now as we confess these and other sins to you in this moment of silent confession...
