Giving the Greatest Gift of the Gospel

Gift-giving season is upon us yet again!  I am greatly helped by remembering that the gospel of Jesus Christ continues to be the greatest gift I can give to anyone and everyone in my life.  The Apostle Paul described both his great joy and his great zeal to give this greatest gift to all.  He said,

“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”  ~Acts 20:24 (ESV)

“For if I preach the gospel, that gives me no ground for boasting. For necessity is laid upon me. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” ~ 1 Corinthians 9:16

“… preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; ” ~ 2 Timothy 4:2

4 Facts which Grounded Paul’s Missionary Motivation

Where did Paul get such joy and zeal to proclaim the gospel as he did, and can we find it for ourselves as well?  Francis James Grimke (1850-1937) was, under God, a remarkable minister of the gospel at 15th Street Presbyterian Church in Washington D.C.(1)  He explained the Apostle Paul’s missionary motivation as follows:

“The seriousness of the work in which he was engaged the Apostle Paul fully realized.  It was the work of saving men, of turning them from darkness to light, and from sin and Satan to God.

1. He realized the awfulness of sin, its deadly character; the end to which it inevitably leads.

2.  He realized that all men were sinners, hopelessly in the grip of sin, left to themselves.

3.  He realized that there was but one way by which they could be saved, through repentance and faith — repentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

4.  He realized, fully realized, that to him had been committed the mission of telling men how they must be saved, if they ever are saved.”  (2)

Grimke continues, “With these great facts ever pressing in upon him, we can understand why he was so tremendously in earnest, and why he was, as he himself tells us, ‘instant in season and out of season,’ and why in the face of persecution and suffering, he went everywhere proclaiming the truth as it is in Jesus.” (3)  

We cannot miss that Paul’s zeal to preach the gospel to all men came from Paul’s belief about man’s need for that gospel.

Moving from evangelistic drift to evangelistic devotion

Turning from past to the present, Grimke wrote, “The reason why so little is being done, why so little zeal is shown in trying to reach men with the gospel message, is because the great facts underlying the church’s mission are so little understood or believed in.” (4)  When we lose our grip on the urgent need that each and every person in our lives has for the gospel of Jesus, sharing this gospel becomes something we easily leave undone in our day to day living.

In other words, it is not that we as Christians chiefly need another church growth campaign, another high-attendance Sunday, or the newest practical strategy in evangelism.  As needed and helpful as these things are, they do not ultimately deal with our evangelistic drift at heart.  Rather, let us learn from Paul.  If and when we devote ourselves to believing what God says about people’s need for the gospel, we will recover the joy and eagerness to give the greatest gift of the gospel to everyone we know. 

So, this season, may we examine ourselves to see how well we are holding to “these things” which convinced Paul and can still convince us to devotedly give the greatest gift of the gospel to all people everywhere.