Sermon Transcript
If you have your Bible, or if you want to grab the Bible in front of you there in the pew, we’re looking at 1 Timothy, continuing in our series in the book of 1 Timothy. It’s my pleasure to be with you all this morning. Hope you’ve been encouraged so far today. I wanted to share with you, as you’re turning to 1 Timothy chapter 2, wanted to share with you an update because so many of you ask from time to time about how Shannon is doing. One year ago and a couple months, it was August the 4th when Shannon was diagnosed with breast cancer, and I shared with you all that you all could be praying.
And I can share with you that 2 weeks ago she finished her last chemotherapy session, and I think some of you are aware of that. And so the zero that she’s holding up there is having counted down that she has zero chemotherapy sessions left, and the zero also stands for the fact that she’s completely cancer-free. Praise God for that.
I know many of you here in the first hour don’t have a chance to interact with her all that often. She’s teaching Sunday school in our children’s department with children that have special needs during our first hour, but so many of you love us and are always just asking about how she’s doing, and so we just praise God for what He has done. She has a few more things left to do, but nothing related to chemotherapy. It’s more hormone types of treatment that’s gonna happen for the next couple of years to make sure that she stays cancer-free. And then she’s gonna have a surgery at the end of this calendar year, around December, a reconstructive surgery.
So you all can be praying, and we just appreciate your prayers. There’s a couple takeaways that I, I’ve had through this experience, and just thinking about where we were a year ago when she was starting to lose her hair and going through some of the sickness that comes along with chemotherapy. And many of you have been affected by cancer personally, or you know someone who’s gone through something like this, and maybe you have takeaways yourself. For me, one of the things that stands out is how grateful we are sincerely for the body of Christ, not just the body of Christ here at Bridges Community Church, but the body of Christ around the world. There are people who have let us know that they’ve been praying for Shannon.
We have many, many connections, as many of you know, back in Texas. People back in Texas praying, people here in California praying. There were people in other states who were praying, and then people even in other countries, missionary friends of ours who’ve been praying. Isn’t that amazing that God allows us to come to him in prayer and that we can agree on behalf of things that we desire and hopefully that God desires? And when God hears our prayers, it’s an amazing thing.
We take it for granted what a privilege it is to pray. But I wanna let you know that you all have cared for us well, and we continue to feel cared for. Little kindnesses along the way, meals and encouragement and prayer, goes a long way. And if you’re one of those people who would love to be on the receiving end whenever you go through a difficult time, it’s a reminder that you’re part of the body of Christ, and you need to let others know about what you’re going through. The tendency we have here in this area and in this church and across our world is whenever we’re going through something like this, that we don’t share it with other people.
We don’t wanna be a burden. But the fact is, is people can’t pray unless you ask them to pray. And people can’t rejoice or have anything to rejoice in if you don’t update them along the way. And so we’ve been an open book as much as we can to let you know when we’re doing well and when we’re not doing well and how you all can be praying. And I believe God’s desire is for each and every one of you and every one of us here at this church to be able to be on the receiving end of encouragement.
This is why we have small groups, right? It’s why we have life groups. If you’re not a part of a life group or a small group, group. Come to the ministry expo that we’re doing next Sunday, and you can find about some of the different life groups that we have available to us. But this is why God, I think, wants us in community.
We’re not to go through this alone. Also, another takeaway that we have is how grateful we are for the gift of salvation. Shannon and I became Christians before— long before we met, when we were kids, having both grown up in Christian households and having made a decision as children ourselves that we too wanted to follow Jesus. And having made that decision and then followed that in baptism and being a part of our youth group growing up, we’re so grateful for the gift of salvation because we can’t imagine going through difficulty— and I would imagine some of you can’t imagine going through difficulty— but doing so without the hope of salvation, without the hope of an eternal perspective that is supposed to carry us through the difficult times. And so I’m grateful for that gift.
And I hope that you’re grateful for that gift too. One other takeaway that I have through this experience that I’ll share with you, and it leads into what we’re going to talk about today in 1 Timothy 2, is the fact that cancer, as much as we don’t like something like cancer or any trial that we go through, has the potential to change our perspective, to help us realize that the things that we’re worried about and that consume our mind and our emotions each and every day— I don’t know what’s on your mind today, I don’t know what’s on your heart, whatever you came into the building thinking about, whatever you’re thinking about from this past week or in the week to come. I don’t know what you’re burdened with, but as much as we don’t like trials, they have the potential to change our perspective in a positive way and to give us more of an eternal perspective, to help us to realize that the things that we go through that we think are important may be not all that important compared to larger issues. And I was speaking with a friend of mine a couple weeks ago at a school board meeting. I serve on the school board for Los Altos Christian Schools here on campus, and I serve on the school board with a gentleman that many of you know by the name of Nikolai Abkirov.
Nikolai is one of our Russian families here in the church and just an incredible guy. And we were talking in our last school board meeting about an encounter that he had this last summer. Or a couple months ago summer, the summer of 2018. And he and his family went back to Russia like they typically do during the summer months, and they take their, their 4 children, and he and his wife head on to Russia, and they reconnect with old friends and family. And I was talking to Nikolai, and he was sharing with the school board about the fact that when he goes back, he connects with different people that he hasn’t seen in a while.
One of the people that he traditionally has gone to go see is a music teacher who’s been very, very dear to he and to his family and to his children. And he found out on one of his recent trips that this music teacher was diagnosed with cancer. And Nikolai was interested in praying about this and asked her how he could be praying. And Nikolai knew that she is not a Christ follower. He knew that, and he’d had spiritual conversations with her.
Nikolai was sharing that He had shared the gospel with her many, many times in the hopes that she would become a Christ follower. And she had interest in those types of things. They would do service projects together as a family. She would do things with his church community there in Russia. But she, to his knowledge, had never made a personal profession of faith.
And when he went back a couple months ago to Russia, she was not doing well physically at all, and he could tell she didn’t have very long left. To live. And so he just shared the gospel with her once again.
And when he left Russia to come back here to the United States at the end of the summer, they got word that she had passed. And it was a reminder to Nikolai, and really to all of us, about how we don’t know how long we have. And cancer or anything that we go through has the potential to give us an eternal perspective. And that’s really what 1 Timothy 2 is talking about here, is to have an eternal perspective. And to realize that around us each and every day and every week, none of us knows how long we have.
And there are people who die every day, and there are people who die every week, and there are people who die every month eternally separated from God because they’ve never made a profession of faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior. And so these are people who, because they’ve never made that faith profession, will be eternally separated from God and experience everlasting suffering. That’s not God’s desire for anybody. And yet eternity is at stake. And so this should make us feel more urgent.
It should make us feel more burdened to pray. And that’s what 1 Timothy 2 is talking about. Look at 1 Timothy chapter 2. We’re going to look at the first 8 verses today. It’s talking about the impact of prayer.
It’s talking about the urgency of prayer. Paul says this to his young protégé Timothy, saying in chapter 2, verse 1, I urge then, Timothy, first of all, That petitions and prayers and intercession and thanksgiving be made for all people. Let me hear you say, all. All. Because that word’s going to come up several times here.
And that prayers be made for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good, pleases God our Savior, who wants all people To come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people. This has now been witnessed to at the proper time, and for this purpose I, Paul, was appointed a herald and an apostle. I’m telling the truth, I am not lying, and a true and faithful teacher of the Gentiles.
Therefore, I want the men everywhere to pray lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. How is Timothy, this young recipient of this letter, to go about the work that God has called him to? We’ve just seen in the last chapter over the last few weeks that we’ve been studying 1 Timothy that there is a tendency in the church for occasionally false teachers to arise, and that was certainly the case at this church in Ephesus where this young preacher Timothy was serving. And Paul is reminding Timothy in chapter 1 to hold on to faith and to contend for the sake of the good news of the gospel and to not allow false teachers to teach and to not allow people who are spreading superstitions and fables to continue to do so. Paul was telling Timothy, stop that.
There are people who are twisting the law to make it seem like you can do whatever you want without any consequences. There are people who are twisting Christianity, including 2 people by the name of Hymenaeus and Alexander. We see them in just the verses right before the verses that I just read. And these are 2 individuals evidently within the church of Ephesus where Timothy was serving who had, according to Paul, shipwrecked their faith and abandoned their faith. And so Paul is telling Timothy, I want you to hold on to faith.
I want you to fight for the gospel and for the truth. I want you to do the things to which God has called you because you have a divine calling on your life, Timothy. And so then he says, I urge you, Timothy, first of all, to pray.
How do we go about doing the things that God has called us to do? I want you to pray.
How are we to accomplish the mission of the church? I want you to pray.
You want to have influence on people around you that that you love and care about? I want you to pray.
You want to have influence on people around you that you’ll never meet? I want you to pray. You want to have influence on people on the other side of the world in an instant, including kings and emperors and queens and royalty and people in positions of authority? I want you to pray. And in your Bible, if you’re able to write down, you might want to underline that phrase, first of all.
You see that there in verse 1, first of all. He is saying that we are to pray first of all. It is to be of first importance. It is to be of first importance to us. It is to be of first priority.
Of all the things, Timothy, that you could do, of all the things, Christian, that you and I can do, what is to come first is to pray. Well, why would Paul have to tell the church to pray? Something as obvious as prayer. Evidently, they weren’t praying.
Evidently, they weren’t a church of prayer. Maybe they were distracted by other things, programs and ministries and whatever else it was that was consuming their minds and their emotions at the time. And Paul is saying, Timothy, I want you all to pray first of all. That’s of first importance. And so I would simply ask today, first of all, is prayer first of all for you?
Is it first priority to you? In many ways, prayer is the easiest thing we can do. You don’t have to have a seminary degree to pray.
You don’t have to go to a Bible college in order to pray. You don’t have to get out of bed in order to pray. You don’t have to be able to speak another language in order to pray. You don’t have to have money in order to pray. It’s one of the easiest things that we can do, and yet We talk about prayer, and yet we don’t do it as often as we should.
We sang that old hymn I grew up singing, Sweet Hour of Prayer. Sweet hour of prayer? That’s asking a lot. How about sweet 15 minutes of prayer? Sweet 5 minutes of prayer?
We’re reminded that prayer is of first importance, and you want to see God move in a circumstance where you can’t do anything I want you to pray because prayer reminds us how powerless we are and that apart from God we can do nothing. There are certain things that God calls us to do that can only come about through prayer, only through prayer. I want you, Timothy, first of all to pray. Well, who are we to pray for? He says, first of all, I want you to pray for all people.
Well, that’s a pretty small task. Thank you very much for that, Paul. I want you to pray for all. But when he says, I want you to pray for all people, that word there really doesn’t mean every single individual. You can’t do that.
Not even Jesus could do that when he was walking the face of this earth. So all— what it means is every kind of person.
I want you to pray for every kind of person. I want you to pray for Republicans. I want you to pray for Democrats. I want you to pray for Christians. I want you to pray for Hindus and Buddhists and Mormons.
I want you to pray for the Methodist church next door and the Orthodox church up the street. I want you to pray for your neighbor. I want you to pray for your enemy. I want you to pray for those who love you and those who don’t love you. I want you to pray for teachers.
I want you to pray for students. I want you to pray for people of all ages. I want you to pray for for all people. There is no category of person for which you should not pray. There’s no person for which you can say, you know what, that person doesn’t need my prayer.
Paul is saying, Timothy, I want you to pray for all people, Christians. I want you to pray for every kind of person, you name it, I want you to pray for them. And then more specifically he says, I want you to pray for all in authority. I want you to pray for all in authority. We don’t pray for those in authority as often as we should.
We don’t pray for our leaders, let’s just admit it, as often as we should. Why is that? Well, I think a few different reasons. One is, is oftentimes leaders are people that we disagree with. And in the case of when Paul was writing to Timothy there in the Roman Empire, certain leaders were cruel and godless.
Why would you pray for someone who is cruel and godless and anti-Christian? Why would you pray for someone in a position of authority with whom you don’t agree? That doesn’t make sense. So we tend to not pray for leaders and those in authority. We also tend to not pray for people in places of authority because most of us don’t walk in those circles.
It seems so far removed from us. We don’t know who these leaders are. We don’t typically run in those circles. We don’t walk the halls of Congress or the halls of the Supreme Court. We don’t know who these leaders are.
Sure, we may vote for them, but we don’t really know them. And so we tend to not pray for people that we don’t even think about. And then we also tend to not pray because we’re not even sure it would do any good. What good would my praying for this person in authority do? And yet Paul is saying, nevertheless, I want you, Christian, to pray for all, and I want you to pray for all in authority, every kind of authority.
I want you to pray for emperors and kings and queens and judges and city council members and mayors and governors, anyone in a position of authority, because God is the one who through his authority has allowed that person to govern. No authority exists except that which God has given to another person. And we need to pray for all in authority, whether they’re good or they’re bad. We need to pray for all in authority, whether they’re full of integrity or they’re corrupt. You need to pray for all in authority, whether you voted for them or you didn’t.
I want you to pray, Christian, for all, and I want you to pray for all in authority. Okay, well, how are we to pray? Again, we talk so much about prayer, but it’s embarrassing to admit, how do I pray for the president? How do I pray for the Congress? How do I pray for somebody I don’t know?
How do I pray for somebody on the other side of the world? How do I— how do I prayer? Or how do I pray? Well, he says one of the things that we can pray for is for conditions that would be favorable for the spread of the gospel, because you see that there in verse 2. So that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.
We’re not to stir up dissension, we’re to be people of peace. And so instead of singling out leaders and authority people that you don’t agree with, what if we took all of that energy and all that vitriol of all the things that make us mad whenever we turn on the channel and we say, I don’t like what’s happening in Washington, D.C. right now, what if we took all of that and we channeled it towards prayer? And we prayed that we could live peaceful and godly lives, or peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. But we can also learn something from verse 1 when he says 4 different synonyms really of prayer. He mentions petitions, prayers, and intercession, and then he also mentions thanksgiving.
And while these may seem like the same word, they’re all a little different from one another, and I just want to share these because they can help us to know how to pray for all and how to pray for all in authority. When it mentions the word petitions there, it specifically comes from a Greek word that describes great need, being in lack of something or being deprived of something that you need or of something that someone else needs. And so this reminds us that when you’re praying for something, don’t just pray for what you want, but pray for what that person needs. And in the context of this passage, as we’re going to see, this is a message that is telling us about the message of salvation. This is a— these verses are helping us to see that every person needs to have a saving relationship with, with God through Jesus Christ.
I don’t know how to pray. Pray that all would come to a saving knowledge of God through Jesus Christ. Pray that all in authority would realize that there is one God and that he is authority over all. We’re to offer prayers based on people’s need, and people are in dire need because if they die apart from making a profession of faith and coming to salvation, they will be eternally separated from God. So pray according to what people need.
And in that word prayers, that second word prayer, it’s a word that is only ever used in the Greek New Testament for prayer specifically addressed to God. And it’s a reminder that when you and I pray, we’re We’re not to pray mindless prayers. We’re to be praying with our mind and to intentionally realize who we’re praying to. We’re talking to the God of the universe who can do something about this situation that you and I feel like is hopeless. Whether you’re praying for someone with cancer or you’re praying for someone in authority or someone else that you don’t know because you’re standing next to them at the checkout line at the grocery store, or it’s the waiter or the person who takes your order at the restaurant or whatever that is, Pray that this person would come to a saving knowledge of God, and pray recognizing that when you offer these prayers, you’re doing so to God.
And then that word intercession there is describing specifically praying from the heart, praying with compassion and sympathy, because when it comes to intercession, you can’t do so from a distance. You can’t intercede for somebody being cold and uncaring about how you feel about this person. This describes prayer that is up close and personal. You’re wrestling in prayer for this person. You’re interceding on their behalf according to what they need.
And so as you pray and wonder how to pray, you do so wrestling, and you do so with love, saying, God, turn my heart towards compassion to pray with love for this person. And in that word thanksgiving, many of us don’t give thanks when we pray. But we’re to pray with a spirit of thanksgiving. So these things can help us to know how to pray, and we pray that conditions would be favorable so that we can live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. But we’re also to pray recognizing some of the other things that Paul brings out here in verses 3 through the rest of this passage here, 3 through 8, here that I want to point out.
One of the reasons why we are to pray— what is the motivation? We’re to pray because God desires The salvation of all. God desires the salvation of all. I don’t know if you agree with that or not, but this here says that God desires the salvation of all. There’s no one that God desires to be separated from Him for eternity.
There’s no one that God desires to be separated from Him. You don’t have to twist God’s arm to pray, God, would You save this person? Would you cause this person to become a Christ follower? Would you do, Lord, whatever it takes to break through into this person’s heart? You don’t have to twist God’s arm.
You’re praying God’s will anytime you pray for that. God says yes and amen to that. And so we pray with confidence, and we pray with expectation, and we pray knowing that salvation is so important. It’s eternally important, and to be saved means to be rescued from hell. That’s what we’re praying God would do, is that He would rescue someone from an eternal sentence in hell, from being separated from, from God.
God desires the salvation of all, so we pray with that in mind. God desires all people to be saved. He desires all leaders and all in authority to be saved. But we also pray Because we see this here in verse 5, that God deserves the worship of all. God deserves the worship of all.
We see God desires the salvation of all. It’s good and it’s pleasing to God our Savior. He’s a Savior and He wants to save. But we also see in verse 5 that God deserves the worship of all. There is one God.
There is one God. And again, I don’t know if you agree with this or not. But we’re to think biblically, and that’s why we’re going through this series in 1 Timothy. Evidently, there were people within the church of Ephesus that didn’t believe there was one God. There was a god over here for this group and a god over here for that group.
We have that today. Isn’t the God that we worship the same God of this group or that group over there or these gods over here? As long as you’re sincere, what does it matter? It matters a great deal because there is one God.
There’s one God, and that means He’s the ultimate source of all things. You can’t have 2 ultimate sources of all things. There’s only one. We sing a song that says, our God is greater, our God is higher, our God is stronger than any other.
No authority exists except that which comes from God Himself. And so, when you believe that, you’ll pray like that. You’ll say, God, make Your name name known to this individual, to this group, to these people over here. Make your name known. Let it be known to these individuals that there is salvation in no one else and that you desire them to come to a saving knowledge of you.
And God, we pray that they would bow their knee to you because you deserve the worship of all.
You deserve the worship of all. There is one God and And then we pray because Christ died for all. Christ died for all. We see that in verses 6 and 7. Jesus is the one mediator who gave himself as a ransom for all people.
2 words there that I want to bring out. The word mediator. What does that mean? Well, a mediator is somebody who has to intercede to bring about peace between 2 or more warring parties. A lot of people don’t think in these terms, but God has a dispute with us.
Our sins separate us from him. We do what God tells us not to do, and we’ve done that from the womb. We’ve done that since the very, very beginning.
A few weeks ago, Dan was sharing even just from chapter 1 and verses 8 and 9. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that the law is made not for the righteous, but for lawbreakers and rebels. The ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious. That’s us, and that’s all people, and that’s all in authority.
God has a dispute with us, so we need someone to make peace. And so Jesus has come. He came to be the peacemaker, to bring us back to God, to make it possible for us to be— to have peace mediated between us and God. So provision has been made. He’s one mediator.
There’s not multiple mediators. There’s one mediator, and there’s one ransom. That word ransom— if you watch movies, you’ll often get this idea of ransom as being the kind of thing that somebody is taken hostage or kidnapped, and you pay some sort of a fee in order to get the person back. But this particular word of ransom means even more than that. It’s a substitutionary exchange.
What that means is Jesus is our ransom. That means he paid what needed to be paid by substituting himself in our place. He didn’t just pay the fee and then leave it there. He paid the fee by taking our place. He took our sins upon himself.
He became a slave so that we might be made free. He became a victim so that we could have life. And so we need to pray that all would know this fact, that they don’t have to work towards salvation. There’s nothing you or I can do that would make us more righteous except through what Jesus has done. It’s his righteousness and his rightness with God that can make us right, and that’s it, period.
So pray that all would know that. Pray that all who are pursuing good works would stop and realize that what makes us right with God is one mediator and one ransom for all. And this is why Paul says, I was appointed as a herald and a messenger. God gave me this great purpose, verse 7. Back then, obviously, we didn’t have TV and internet and podcasts to get your message out, so if you wanted a message to go viral, you went from town to town, you stood in the city square, and you let an announcement be made.
That’s what it means to be a herald and a messenger. And so Paul is saying, I want you, Timothy, along with me, to be a herald and a messenger. The implication being, As you pray, be ready for opportunities that come your way to open up your mouth and to share about this opportunity.
Don’t just pray, be ready to share, because you too, if you’re a Christ follower, are a herald and a messenger. Pray for open doors for all of this. And let me make this point, because this is important here. This often comes up, and again, if we’re gonna think biblically, just because God desires the salvation of all doesn’t mean that all will have salvation. You get that?
The Bible here does not teach universalism. You can go to different churches around in this area that will teach you that God loves all, which he does, and that all will eventually be in heaven one day as long as you’re sincere. That is not the truth of the Bible. There’s one God and one mediator, one ransom for all. And while God desires the salvation of all, we need to be clear, not all will be saved.
Not all will be saved.
And so, well, if God wants it to happen, why doesn’t He allow it to happen? Because God allows us to have free will. But anytime a person is eternally separated from God, it’s because that person has knowingly and willingly rejected the offer of salvation. They’ve gone their own way. And so God Romans 1 tells us, gives us over to those desires.
He allows us to pursue the path that we want.
But nevertheless, God has made provision for all to be saved. And that’s what we need to pray for all to know, that provision has been made through Jesus. One ransom, one mediator. So how do we wrap this up? Well, Paul wraps it up in verse 8.
He says, therefore. That word therefore is a transitional word that helps summarize this last section. Therefore, I want, he says, the men everywhere to pray. Does that mean women are not supposed to pray? No, he told us in verse 1, I urge first of all the petition.
He’s saying, I want all to pray for all. I want everyone to pray for all in authority. But this is interesting, this word men. Some people say, well, it’s probably meaning mankind. No, that’s not the Greek word that is used here.
He’s calling specifically males to pray. To lead out in prayer in the church. This is interesting. I want to just go down this road if I could, because he’s about to get into a section, and you’re going to want to be here next week to hear what Pastor Dave has to share, because Paul’s going to get into some of the things that were happening among women within the church. And he’s going to— Pastor Dave’s going to be talking about God’s plan for women from what Scripture tells us here.
But here in verse 8, he’s saying, I want the men everywhere to pray. Evidently, we don’t know exactly what’s happening, but the men in the church of Ephesus weren’t praying. And if they were praying, it says, I want you lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. Evidently, there were people who, while they were praying in the church, men, they were also angry and disputing with one another.
And Paul’s saying, I want that to stop because unity is essential to prayer and purity Holy hands are essential to prayer. Holy hands is indicative and an indication of a pure heart before God. We don’t just pray with a casual attitude. We’re saying God looks at our heart. Our motives matter to God.
And so I want the men everywhere to pray. I don’t know about you, but any church that I’ve been a part of, and I’ve been a part of several churches, really throughout my life, I’ve never once had to see the pastor or anyone call the women to pray. Women have always prayed. I don’t mean that as some sweeping generalization, but that’s been my experience. You need prayer, you share with the women of the church and they will pray.
But evidently men need to be reminded to lead out in prayer and to not abdicate abdicate their responsibility to pray and to be spiritual leaders. So I want the men everywhere to pray, and don’t just do so cavalierly. I want you to do so lifting up holy hands, putting aside your wrath and your anger and your disputing. I want everyone to pray. Men, I specifically want you to lead out in prayer.
And so what we see here is how important, obviously, prayer is. And it’s a reminder of, to me, a verse in another book that is just fascinating to me, in James. The book of James in the New Testament, chapter 4, verse 2 says this. It says, you do not have— why? Because you do not ask.
You don’t have because you don’t ask. Some of us are uncomfortable with that, as if just because I pray something that I’ll get whatever I want. No, because then the very next phrase says, You don’t have because you ask with wrong motives. So our motives matter. But you don’t have because you don’t ask.
And what that is telling me is prayer causes things. That’s mind-blowing. Prayer causes things. And let me say this, prayer causes things to happen that would not happen if you didn’t pray. Let me repeat that.
Prayer causes things to happen That would not happen if you and I didn’t pray. Did you get that?
Friends, we gotta pray. I came across a quote a couple weeks ago that I think is a great summary of this passage. It’s by a pastor by the name of David Platt, who’s in charge of the International Mission Board. He serves at a church in Washington, D.C., and he said this: The progress of the gospel in the world is dependent on the prayers of God’s people in the church. The progress of the gospel in the world is dependent on the prayers of God’s people in the church.
Isn’t that a great reminder? So what do we need to do? We’re going to pray. I want to lead us here for just a few moments here, and then we’ll take communion after a bit. But I want to close our message time together in a time of directed prayer.
So I’m going to ask you to simply Bow your head, close your eyes, and I’m going to share some things that I think we ought to pray for corporately and individually.
Would you just, right where you are, just thank God for a moment for the privilege of prayer?
Would you just, in your own words, just say, thank you, God, that I can come directly to you. About matters that are important.
How awesome it is that we can come before God, we can come before His throne boldly in our time of need.
Just tell Him thanks for that.
Now, I want you to, as you pray, I want you to confess if you need to that prayer has not been a importance to you. It has not had the priority in your life that it ought to have had. Just take a moment to confess that to God.
Tell Him to give you a burden for prayer.
Ask Him to draw your mind to prayer first of all, before anything else.
Before you set your hand to do anything, before you make your plans, pray. Just tell God that you want to do that.
Scripture tells us to pray for all people. How do we do that? Well, we pray for all kinds of people. I wonder if somebody comes to your mind for whom to pray. Would you just pray for that person right now?
Maybe there’s a group of people that God has brought to your mind as I was sharing today.
Would you just pray for that group?
Would you pray for our young people who are just on the other side of that wall over there who are meeting right now? Would you pray for them right now? Pray that they would— all of these young people would come to a saving knowledge of God and would be a light on their school campuses?
Would you pray for the children who are in Sunday school right now, that they would become Christians and would hear the gospel and would know that we’re saved by grace through faith?
Would you pray for anyone else that God has laid on your heart? Maybe you pray for the staff of the church here.
Pray for your grandkids. You pray for your family. Pray for your physician.
Pray for the people you’re gonna see this week at the grocery store, at the restaurant, or as you go outside your home. Pray.
Would you pray for all in authority?
All in authority need our prayers. Would you pray for President Trump?
Would you pray for his cabinet?
Would you pray for our Congress?
Would you pray for our Supreme Court?
Would you pray for the upcoming vote here in a couple weeks? So many things for which we can pray. Would you pray for our local government, our state government?
God, there’s so many things for which we can give thanks and so many things for which we can pray. If nothing else, I pray, Lord, that this would be a house of prayer. Prayer, that this would be, Lord, a time when we commit once again to be people of prayer, recognizing that you’ve called us to pray because you’ve called us to be different. We’re not better than anyone else, but you’ve called us to be different and to not walk according to the pattern of this world. And so you gave us the vehicle of prayer to remind us that we are finite and we can’t do anything apart from you.
So, God, remind us of that.
And we pray, God, that you would bring all kinds of people to a saving knowledge of you today. I pray, God, that in churches all around the world, including, Lord, in places where people are under duress and Christianity is under persecution, Lord, I pray that today would be the day of salvation. That many would call upon your name and be saved. Do whatever it takes to create a conducive environment for the message of the gospel to be heard and received. God, and we pray for all in authority, that you would bring all in authority to a place where they see that there is only one God and that they are not it.
They are not him.
I pray that they would humble themselves before your mighty hand. We see you do that in the Bible, even with a king like Nebuchadnezzar, whom you humbled. Lord, if you can humble Nebuchadnezzar, then you can humble anyone, and I pray that you would do that.
Lord, we pray these things not for our glory, but for your name’s sake.
And we pray in recognition that you sent your Son Jesus to be our substitute. What a gift. Thank you. We pray all these things in his name. Amen.
