Prayer First

Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.”
-Matthew 9:37

Why is prayer important?

In a world where more than 4.5 billion people are without Christ and more than a billion are on the edge of starvation, we have to begin somewhere. So where? Jesus answers that question for us. In Matthew 9 we see him surrounded by the multitudes and moved with compassion because they were “harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” So he turned to his disciples and said, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Do these words surprise you? They do me… for two reasons. First, in light of all the sick, poor, and needy around Jesus I would have expected him to immediately start giving marching orders to his disciples. “Peter, you go to that person. John, you care for that guy. Andrew, you help her over there.” But that’s not what he said. Before he told them to do anything else, Jesus told them to pray. What is even more surprising, though, is what Jesus told them to pray for. I would have expected Jesus to say, “You guys see the need. The harvest is plentiful. So pray for these people who are harassed and helpless. Pray for them .” But that isn’t what he said. Jesus didn’t say to pray for those who were lost. Instead, he told the disciples to pray for the church.

Why do you think Jesus would look at the crowds around him, with all their deep needs, and then turn to his disciples and tell them to pray for themselves? The answer is humbling. When Jesus looked at the harassed and helpless multitudes, apparently his concern was not that the lost would not come to the Father. Instead, his concern was that his followers would not go to the lost. Now think about it. What happens when you and I take these words from Jesus and put them in a world where more than a billion people have still not heard the gospel? A fundamental reality snaps into focus: we as a whole Body of Christ are not praying. This is the only possible explanation for how there can be such great need yet so few workers. The multitudes are waiting to hear, and our most urgent need is to pray for the Lord of the harvest to send out Christians into the harvest field. This is the step that you and I are most likely to overlook and yet the one that is most dangerous for us to ignore. In the gospel we have seen the depth of our inadequacy and the extent of our inability to accomplish anything of eternal value apart from the power of God. We are a planning, strategizing, and implementing people, yet radical obedience to Christ requires that we be a praying people first.

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