Last Sunday we challenged our IBC’ers to pray the 9:38 prayer leading up to our Missions Weekend on March 20-22. The 9:38 prayer is simply applying Matthew 9:38, which says: “Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” We encouraged our people to set an alarm at 9:38 AM and 9:38 PM every day (Monday-Saturday) to pray for laborers. Confession: I have only set my alarm at 9:38 AM. As a father with a 3 year old and 9 month old, I didn’t think an alarm going off at 9:38 PM was the best idea!.
Why is it so essential we pray for laborers to be sent into his harvest? The two previous verses explain. In Matthew 9:37 Jesus says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.” I attended Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary which is known as a “Great Commission Seminary”. I’ll never forget the Missions Clock they had on display. You can check it out here. The “clock” updated 4 categories by the second: 1) World population estimate, 2) People hearing and believing the gospel, 3) People hearing and not believing the gospel, and 4) People with no adequate opportunity to hear the gospel. At the time I am writing this, the world population estimate is over 8,245,131,400. And the total estimate of people with no adequate opportunity to hear the gospel is over 4,343,978,600. What a sobering reality check of what it means that “the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”
What’s the spiritual state of this harvest? Matthew 9:36 tells us that, “They are harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” And that’s what must motivate us to pray for laborers and serve as laborers. Compassion for the lost sheep who don’t know Christ as their good shepherd. For a great exposition on this passage, check out Paul Davis’s message from Missions Festival 2025 here.
I encourage you to set your alarm at 9:38 AM every morning, Monday to Saturday, to remind you to pray for the lost and for laborers. The prayer doesn’t need to be long to be effective. What exactly should you pray for? Here are some ideas, following the acrostic HEART:
H = Pray for nonbelievers to have a receptive heart to the truth of the Gospel (Rom. 10:1). Pray for believers to have a compassionate heart for the lost (Matt. 9:36).
E = Pray for the spiritual eyes of nonbelievers to be opened to the truth of the Gospel (2 Cor. 4:3-4). Pray that your eyes will be opened to opportunities to share the gospel with the unsaved (Col. 4:2-3).
A = Pray for nonbelievers to have God’s attitude toward sin (Rom. 3:23). Pray for your attitude to gladly accept the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), and to lovingly reach out to the lost.
R = Pray that nonbelievers will repent and believe (Mark 1:15). Pray that believers, including yourself, would respond to God’s call to go and make disciples of all nations (Matt. 28:18-20).
T = Pray that the lives of nonbelievers would be transformed (Eph. 2:1-10). Pray that your life would be transformed through the Missions Weekend, future short-term mission trips, and other mission experiences.
Another practical way you could pray is that IBC would be able to meet our goal of being a missionary sending church (of our own members) and be able to send 8 by 2028 as career missionaries!
Not everyone is called to serve as a career missionary where you physically relocate to a new country, learn a new language, and serve on a church planting team. However, when I consider a passage like Matthew 9:38, and think about how over 4 billion people have no adequate opportunity to hear the gospel, I can’t help but wonder if there are some Christians who may be resisting God’s call to missions? As the president of my seminary, Dr. Danny Akin, is famous for saying, “Don’t ask: Lord, should I go? Ask: Lord, why should I stay?” Or, as John Piper says, “Put your name on the table, let God put your name on the map.”