Day 2 of 6 — Glow in the Dark. About 3 minutes.
Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.
Matthew 9:38
In 1836 a pastor in Bristol opened a house for orphans with thirty girls in it, and he opened it to settle a question. George Muller wanted to show that God answers prayer, so he made himself a rule and kept it for the rest of his life. He would never ask anyone for money. Not in a letter, not from a pulpit, not in conversation. He would tell God what the children needed and tell nobody else. The work grew to five large houses on Ashley Down. By the time he died in 1898 more than ten thousand children had been fed, clothed and schooled, and the buildings alone had cost over a hundred thousand pounds. He never once asked a person for a penny of it, and he kept the books open so that anybody could check.
Jesus handed His disciples a request to make, and it is worth noticing what He did not hand them. He did not say organise the harvest, or discuss the harvest, or feel badly about the size of the harvest. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest. The field is His. The labourers are His to send. The one piece of it He puts into our hands is the asking.
That is what Antioch was doing when God spoke. They fasted and prayed, twice over in two verses, and somewhere in the middle of it the Holy Ghost named two men. God directed that church while that church was praying. Nobody in the room had drawn up a short list, and nobody had to be talked into anything afterwards.
So the question for a church that wants to send is not whether it has a plan. It is whether anybody is actually asking. Missionaries do not turn up because a church decides it would like some. They turn up because somebody prayed for them by name before they existed, the way that pastor in Bristol prayed for bread before there was any in the house. Pray Matthew 9:38 this week, out loud, in those words. Then pray the harder half of it. Ask God to send labourers, and then ask Him whether He means somebody under your own roof. It is not a safe prayer. It was never meant to be one.
Growth principle: The labourers are God’s to send, so the one part He puts in our hands is the asking.
Take it with you: Pray Matthew 9:38 out loud this week, then ask God whether He means someone in your own house.
Pause and pray: Lord of the harvest, send forth labourers. I have prayed that carelessly before. Today I mean it, even if the labourer You send comes out of my own family. Amen.
From Sunday’s message: A Church That Sends (Acts 13 and Philippians 4) · Sunday, October 11, 2026
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