You’re Responsible for the Message, Not the Response
Ever have a service or an outreach fall flat? When that happens, the devil may try to get you to engage in endless introspection, hunting for how you missed God. Given that no one this side of heaven gets everything right every time, you can probably find something you could have done better. But that’s true even if the outreach saw a lot of results! A flat response doesn’t mean that you missed God.
I remember getting discouraged some days when I tried to hand out gospel tracts and it just seemed that the fish weren’t biting. I equated “success” with how many tracts I was able to give out – until the Lord corrected me. He let me know that heaven was crediting me every time I TRIED to give someone a tract. I was responsible for doing what I could to get the message out, but I was NOT responsible for the people’s responses.
Jesus was not a failure in heaven’s eyes when His ministry “flopped” at Nazareth. God didn’t hold Him responsible for the lack of notable miracles, because He COULD NOT do them in the midst of their unbelief.
Mark 6:5-6:
And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.
And he marvelled because of their unbelief. And he went round about the villages, teaching.
Jesus was still a success in Nazareth in God’s eyes because He offered what heaven had to the people there.
If Jesus could not do miracles in the midst of unbelief, you can’t either! Jesus didn’t blame Himself and you should not blame yourself in that kind of situation. If you’re doing something wrong, God will let you know it. A lack of response doesn’t prove you’re doing anything wrong.
Jesus knew that some people would be more receptive than others. He told His disciples that if they were not received in one place, they should go somewhere else, not beat themselves up over it or keep banging their heads against a brick wall where people were unreceptive.
Matthew 10:14:
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.
It is clear in the book of Acts that Paul got a variety of reactions in different places. He was received in Corinth but mostly ignored in Athens. Some people received him while others threatened his life. Here is what happened in Rome:
Acts 28:24:
And some believed the things which were spoken, and some believed not.
Paul was a success because he spoke the Word. He was not accountable for some people believing and others “believing not.”
Jeremiah was tremendously unpopular during his lifetime, but today everyone knows who he was. He was successful because he obeyed God, not because he had a large following. You are a success if you obey God, even if you are made to feel like you’re on the bottom of the ministry ladder when people ask you, “How many people do you have in your church?” (Small-town pastors greatly dislike that question when they’re around big-city pastors, even though they might have a bigger percentage of the area’s population going to their small-town churches!) Ministry is not a numbers game – if you’re in God’s will doing what He said to do, that’s all that matters.
Jesus talked about a sower who sowed seed (the Word) that fell on four types of ground, only one of which was truly fruitful. People are responsible for what kind of ground they are. You cannot make someone be “good ground.” Someone can hear your message and have a changed life while a person a few feet away just daydreams or sneakily does things on his cell phone while you’re talking and walks out of the service with nothing. It was the same message to both people, so you weren’t responsible for the lack of results in the second person.
It's helpful to remember that God holds you responsible for the message, not the results! Knowing this can keep you out of despondency if you get a lukewarm response. If you sowed the seed (God’s Word), you did your job, so don’t beat yourself up over it.