Tuesday, April 15, 2014
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I meet a lot of single people in their twenties and thirties, and of course, a lot of them would like to be married. Either they haven't found the right person yet, or they found someone with like commitment phobia who hears wedding bells and runs the other way. Our mate selection process, as you may know very personally, is a little uncertain and sometimes messed up, actually.
Maybe we should consider the Yenta idea. Yenta is the Hebrew matchmaker. She brings people together. It works! I mean, it was popularized in Fiddler on the Roof in that song that goes, "Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match" which I will not sing for you. That old Hebrew culture left nothing to chance when it came to getting people together. Yenta got in the middle and made sure it happened. Have I got a Yenta job for you!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Golden Street's Matchmakers."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from 2 Corinthians 5. I'm reading verses 19 and 20. We're told, "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ...not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation." Well, what's reconciliation but bringing two people together, right? "We are therefore (it says) Christ's ambassadors as though God were making His appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God." I describe this as the golden street's matchmakers; making sure that you get the message out so that someone you know can go to heaven with you.
I had the privilege at a major national youth convention to ask young people to stand to their feet; young people who were willing to claim one friend for Christ. Not the whole world, just to say, "This one friend, I will do whatever it takes to reach that person and to stand and pray aloud by name for that person." And across that auditorium in our nation's capitol, thousands of kids stood with the name God had laid on their heart.
If I asked you to do that - to say, "I will live my life to take this one person to heaven with me" who would yours be? There's no way that person can get to heaven unless he or she gets to Jesus, and there's probably no way he or she can get to Jesus unless they have a matchmaker.
And God says that's you and me; someone who holds Jesus in one hand and that person that you care about in the other and brings them together. This is not some laid back, "Well, I hope it works" process. No, notice the words in this passage as though God were asking you to. I'm going to ask you on God's behalf, He couldn't be here, so I'm going to ask you intensely, I implore you, I beg you be reconciled to God. Nothing passive about this.
Not long ago we were jolted in our community by three sudden deaths; a couple of them teenagers. Someone called it a wakeup call, and it was. That kind of thing reminds you that time is very short; heaven and hell are very eternal. And nothing, nothing is more important than letting the people you know hear about your Jesus. It's more than living your life in front of them. It's more than even loving them. You've got to tell them, pray daily for them, make a commitment to live your life to redeem theirs. Who do you want to take to heaven with you?
Will you step up to being God's matchmaker? A matchmaker makes sure that people get together, and God is asking you to do whatever it takes, whatever it costs, to bring two people together forever - a person you care about and the Christ who died for that person.