Entrusted with the Gospel?
Living and Proclaiming the Gospel
We have all been entrusted with certain things in life. I still remember being given my first Dodger hat. It was 1984, and the Dodgers were in the middle of slug fest with the San Diego Padres. A long-time friend of my father yelled at me from across the living room, and said to me, “See this hat? It is my favorite hat. I have owned this hat for 15 years. I am giving it to you, and trusting that you will take care of it, and use it.” I was excited beyond what I could express. The next time I saw him, however, I forgot to wear the hat. He said to me, “I thought I told you to take care of my hat, and use it!” Needless to say, I never forgot to wear that hat again. That hat was not just for “safe-keeping” but to be used, and for others to take notice.
Paul had been “entrusted” with something infinitely greater than any material possession, the Gospel itself, “in the proclamation with which I had been entrusted, according to the commandment of God our Savior” (Titus 1:3). He was a man called out of darkness and into God’s marvelous light, and the very message that had saved him was now the message he was to spend the rest of his life proclaiming. He said “woe is me, if I do not preach the Gospel.” “I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first and also to the Greek…” (Rom 1:16). He knew that God’s entrusting of the Gospel to him was not just for “safe-keeping” but was to be proclaimed to a lost world that desperately needs hope.
But it is not only Paul who was entrusted with the proclamation of the Gospel. It is “all” Christians who are to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Great commission is given to “each” of us, individually, and to “all” of us, collectively, as the church of God. Especially in a world where God and His truth are more and more ridiculed and dismissed, it is crucial for God’s people to be bold and courageous with the proclamation entrusted to us. God does not desire that we “hide” the treasure of His Gospel, or that we grow content and complacent with having done our work at some point in our Christian life, but that we “shine forth” the light of the glory of Christ, and endure in all things, including the proclamation of the Gospel. Like Paul, may we have an attitude of “slaves” and “servants” of the King of the universe, committed to living and proclaiming the saving message of the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to be faithful with that which my loving Heavenly Father has entrusted to me. Don’t you?
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