Gospel With JD GreearSample

Gospel Response

In October 2000 Warner Brothers released the movie Pay It Forward. The film chronicled the spread of the generosity-centered viral movement from its inception as an eleven-year-old boy’s class project to its influence across the country. Assigned the task of finding a way to change the world for the better, the boy devised a charitable pyramid scheme in which the recipient of one favor, instead of simply returning the favor, did one favor each for three separate third parties. The film merited little acclaim, but the concept struck a familiar chord with many people. When we experience the benefit of someone’s generosity toward us, it changes us. It calls for a response. Do we pay them back? Do we thank them and go on with life? Do we pay it forward? The one thing we feel we can’t do, in good conscience, is to ignore the generosity of another person.

When we see the extraordinary generosity given to us in the gospel, we have no choice but to live a life of radical generosity in response. We forgive because we’ve been forgiven. We love because we’ve been loved. 

Extravagant grace has propelled the church for the past two thousand years. Grace motivates more grace. Jesus taught this truth when He told His disciples to love one another as He had loved them (see John 13:34-35; 15:12,17). The New Testament reinforces this teaching throughout with statements like “If God loved us in this way, we also must love one another” (1 John 4:11). The Christian message is grace. The Christian life is simply grace motivating grace.  As God has been to you, so you should be to others.