It’s been a couple weeks since I heard a sermon preached by my pastor that especially grabbed my attention. I meant to write about it earlier, but, well, life sort of happens in the midst of our intentions.
Pastor Rod closed his sermon with these words, “Love God well. Love the world well. Let the results be in God’s hands”.
Wow. So how does one go about fulfilling these instructions? The example before us is in Isaiah 53—the Scripture describing how Jesus loved US well. Isaiah starts with, “Who has believed our message?” In today’s world, that is still the place to start. Who believes our message?
The message is that we have a Savior who came to earth as a baby, born into our condition, yet without any sin. After suffering terribly, he died a vile death on a cross. His body lay for three days in a cave and then He rose from the dead. Death and sin defeated for our sakes if only we believe. He is coming back again soon to take us to be where He is forever! He is worthy of our worship!
If we are to love God well, wouldn’t we abandon ourselves to Him in light of what He did for us? If we are to love the world well, wouldn’t we do what He did and freely give our lives to share the Good News?
Yet, if we act on both of these admonishments seriously, are we responsible for getting others to believe our message? What would it take? And what if they don’t? And it’s increasingly difficult to share this Good News in our world today. Many of us fear the results.
We fear that our friends and loved ones will not believe and the eternal consequences will be dire for them. On the other hand, we fear that if we DO share, maybe the immediate results will be dire for us.
So we come to “let the results be in God’s hands”. He never gave us the responsibility for the beliefs of others. We are only responsible to love God well (follow Him), love the world well (tell them) and leave the results up to God.
Isn’t that freeing?
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind … You shall love your neighbor as yourself … On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets” Matthew 22:37-40.
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