What Gift Would You Give?
If you could give the world a gift to solve its problems, what would it be?
I’m not talking about stopping wars, ending hunger, or preventing natural disasters.
If you could address the root issues of the world, what would you choose?
Would it be…
• Giving every person access to a strong education?
• Getting everyone to agree on a particular ideology?
• Ensuring everyone had a therapeutic path to work through their trauma?
• Requiring every parent to go through training?
• Asking every young adult to give two years to community service?
All of those ideas inspire me. Each has real merit.
But the New Testament apostles dreamed of something deeper.
In our passage this past week (Romans 1:1–17), Paul tells the Romans that he longs to be with them—to share a spiritual gift and to be mutually encouraged.
That gift is the gospel.
In verses 2–4, Paul explains that the arrival of Jesus fulfills what both Jews and Gentiles have been longing for. In verse 17, he declares that the gospel reveals the way God makes people right—and brings them into belonging.
How can the world belong together?
The gospel.
How can the world belong to God again?
The gospel.
Paul proclaims the gospel as the decisive event of God entering the world to defeat sin and death and to form a new kind of community—a Kingdom under the reign of Jesus.
Under that reign, followers of Jesus begin to reflect his character through the Spirit. As we learn his way, we grow in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
This is a gift we get to receive.
What do we ultimately want for every person?
To belong to that kind of Kingdom.
To experience the fruit of Jesus’ life in their own.
Who could want anything more?
Paul will spend the rest of this letter unfolding the layers and depths of this gospel. But he knows something important: the gospel is not only learned—it is caught.
That’s why he longs to be with them—so they can not only understand it, but see it.
Do you know it?
In whom have you seen it?
Do others see it in you?
Who needs to see this gift embodied in your life?
