On Prayer (I Timothy 2:1-7)

Good morning once again. I am overjoyed to be entrusted with the proclamation of God’s Word today. Let me quickly take care of a bit of housekeeping. Today we are in I Timothy 2:1-7. Next week I will be out of the pulpit and we have Ron West from down the street at Bethel EC church who will be here sharing a message with you. The next day, on Monday I will be heading to Trinity International University to take part in the Great Lakes District Conference where we will be officially welcomed into the EFCA network of churches. It’s an exciting time in the life of Hope. Then the following Sunday on October 15, I will be back here to continue our walk through I Timothy by talking about women and the church. It should be a fun couple of weeks for us. Enough housekeeping. Let’s talk about our passage for today which you have just heard read to you.

1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Prayer, Perseverance In

The story is told of a long-ago couple who said farewell to their home church as they were about to leave for an African mission field known as “The White Man’s Grave.” The husband said, “My wife and I have a strange dread in going. We feel much as if we were going down into a pit. We are willing to take the risk and go if you, our home church, will promise to hold the ropes.” One and all promised to do so.

Less than two years had passed when the wife and the little one God had given the couple succumbed to the dreaded fever. Soon the husband realized his days were also numbered. Not waiting to send word of his coming, he started back home at once and arrived at the time of the Wednesday prayer meeting. He slipped in unnoticed, taking a back seat. At the close of the meeting, he went forward. An awe came over the people, for death was written on his face.

He said, “I am your missionary. My wife and child are buried in Africa and I have come home to die. This evening I listened anxiously as you prayed for some mention of your missionary to see if you were keeping your promise, but in vain! You prayed for everything connected with yourselves and your home circle, but you forgot your missionary. I see now why I am a failure as a missionary. It is because you have failed to hold the ropes.”1041

Prayer is key to the life of a Christian and in our passage today we read Paul encouraging Timothy and the church to prayer. Paul begins getting very practical in chapter 2 with his exhortations to the Timothy and the church. You’ll see this. He gives a command, followed by the theological reasoning behind it.

I. We should pray for all sorts of ways for all sorts of people. (v.1-2)

1 Timothy 2:1–2 ESV

1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Prayer is the cornerstone in worship. I was talking with a pastor this week and we were talking about how our churches do worship services. He said, I want us to be known as a church that reads scripture and prays. Yes and amen. If you don’t believe in God enough to talk to Him in clear and coherent speech, then all your other elements of worship are probably not going to be as fruitful. In other words, if prayer isn’t important because you believe God then your praise, confession, reading, and proclamation aren’t going to be as fruitful.

Everyone

Not just for believers

Not just for people just like you. There is a tendency for us to pray for our friends and people like us but not those who are very different than us or those who are difficult for us to deal with.

Those in authority

Those on the other side of the political aisle

Those who make laws against things you love

Those who you think are unfairly taxing you

Those who hate you

Those who work against you

This is consistent with Jesus’s teaching regarding loving our enemies.

Matthew 5:44 ESV

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

also that they may come to faith in Christ

So we can live in peace and quietness

This is not simply so that you can have the government stay out of your business. This is beyond that.

Carry on our godly lives

Free from the threat of persecution?

Paul’s context was a missionary. He wanted them to pray for the rules and authorities so that they could continue in the mission of making disciples and promoting the gospel in the world.

Beyond the simple command to pray for all kinds of people, Paul has a theological reason that this command stands upon.

II. We should pray because Jesus wants people to believe the truth. (v. 3-6)

1 Timothy 2:3–6 ESV

3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

Knowledge of the truth - hearing and understanding the message of the gospel… truth in the pastoral epistles refers to the gospel - highlights a cognitive aspect to salvation… understanding certain core truths of the gospel

We must pray for all people because of the fact right there in verse 4 that God desires all people to be saved. This may mean “all kinds of people.” That is the fact that roots and anchors our evangelistic prayers. When we pray for people to be saved, this is why. This is what it grows out of. The false teachers were exclusive of salvation to the Jews and downplayed the importance of evangelizing the Gentiles. This was Paul, coming against that movement.

Some have made the mistake of reading this verse to say that because God wants men to be saved that all will be saved. It is used by some as a justification for universalism. You cannot read it this way. It’s not suggesting that at all. The rest of I Timothy and the Bible make it clear that some will not be saved. The bottom line is that this passage teaches that there is a free offer of salvation and the fact that God desires it, is a clear expression of God’s good will. He doesn’t have to offer salvation but He did and does because He is good and merciful.

Verses 5 and 6 explain verse 4.

The way the will of God worked this:

1. Mission

- to save people from the clutches of sin

2. Mediator

The man Jesus Christ - His humanity was important to the play.

Jesus was the mediator. Jesus still is the mediator. You don’t need another intermediary between you and Jesus like a priest. Because of Jesus you can go straight to Him. He is the go between. He made a way for us to be reconciled to and in right relationship with the Father.

Jesus serves as the bridge between God who is invisible and people who seek God as He has moved on their hearts.

John 1:18 ESV

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known.

1 Peter 3:18 ESV

For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

Many people today would rather believe in their natural notion or even imagination of a God who is okay with whatever they believe rather than bend their knee and bow to be reconciled to Him through Jesus alone.

It is an exclusive way and an exclusive message.

John 14:6 ESV

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

One way:

The Roman world was this soup of multiple gods and religions. It was much like what we experience today. Most people deny that the Biblical Jesus is the only way to be saved. Here Paul makes a stand on the fact that “there is one God” and “one mediator.”

Our message is exclusive but our witness should not be.

Acts 4:12 ESV

12 And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

3. Method - Ransom

Humanity was in bondage to sin. Because of our sin nature that we have from our birth, which came into the world at the fall in Genesis 3, we are in chains to sin. God gave the law so humanity would see that we don’t measure up to His glorious standard. There had to be a perfect and once for all sacrifice for sin. So Jesus came, all God and all man and lived a perfect life with no sin and gave His life on the cross as the perfect, sufficient sacrifice for the sin of man. This payment of His life was a ransom to get us back from the kidnapper of sin.

God doesn’t play favorites when it comes to sin. He welcomes people from all social classes, nationalities, and personality types. That doesn’t mean that everyone will be saved. It does mean that Jesus has done everything that was needed for all who call on Him to get the new life that He promised to those who love Him.

Paul tells Timothy that this was the reason that he was appointed to this ministry and mission.

III. This is the very reason that Paul was appointed. (v. 7)

1 Timothy 2:7 ESV

7 For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Paul was not self appointed as the false teachers were.

herald - Grk - a person with authority to preach the gospel message. A herald is one who announces. An apostle is one who faithfully passes along that which has been entrusted to him.

Speaking the truth - speaks to the validity of Paul’s statement

He might be addressing a thought from the false teachers that his ministry is bogus.

Believers around Ephesus would have mostly been Gentiles

Conclusion:

The implications of it all...

Pray for all to know Jesus.

Pray specifically for people by name. (Who is that person in your life that you know needs Jesus?) Who just popped into your head?

Expect that God would work.

Pray individually and in corporate worship settings.

Stand on the exclusivity of the gospel message.

Remember your mission/commission that you have from Jesus Christ.

Make disciples.

The gospel came to you because it was on its way to someone else.

Bottom line: Pray in all sorts of ways for all sorts of people that the gospel would go forth and godliness would increase because this is what God wants and why Jesus came.

I know that when you pray and pray and don’t see results, it can be very easy to sort of give up. I want to remind you, not in a cliche’ way, that God doesn’t operate on your time. He operates in His time and in His way.

1500 Illustrations for Biblical Preaching Prayer, Unanswered

George Muller wrote concerning his orphan ministry: “The funds are exhausted. We had been reduced so low as to be at the point of selling those things which could be spared.…” Then a woman arrived who had been traveling four days, bringing with her sufficient funds for the orphanage. Muller and his co-workers had prayed those four days for something God had already answered.

Under these circumstances, Muller made the following observation: “That the money had been so near the orphan house for several days without being given, is a plain proof that it was from the beginning in the heart of God to help us; but because he delights in the prayers of His children, He had allowed us to pray so long; also to try our faith, and to make the answer so much sweeter.” (Cited in George Muller, Autobiography [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1981], p. 110.)1051

So pray for all sorts of people in all sorts of ways.

Let’s Pray.

PRAY

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