1 Timothy 2:1-7

Well, good morning, everyone.

Happy New Year.

Happy New Year indeed.

It is the first Sunday of the New Year.

We are 34, maybe 35 hours into the new year, something like this.

Very exciting time for everybody.

I did want to ask, um, just as a way to get us thinking about it here, anybody have any New Year's resolutions they want to share with us this morning?

All right.

Well, mine, I have three.

I have three.

Um, first, I want to be more active, more physically active in the new year.

I think I sat around far too much, especially in the past uh couple of months here.

Um, I want to be more intentional in prioritizing relationship.

I can get very sucked into tasks and getting things done and not be proactive in that.

And so I'd like to do that.

And thirdly, I just want to do more things that are not scrolling on my phone, right?

I want to do things that are, you know, maybe creative, maybe, you know, growing the mind and that sort of thing.

So more reading, more writing, those kind of things.

So as we think about the new year, it is always good to see what God's Word has for us.

Because we could look at we could look at a lot of the books in the New Testament, and towards the end of all of the all of Paul's letters, he tends to go into very practical steps for us, very practical ideas for the Christian life there.

Um, if you look at uh Ephesians, for example, Ephesians has six chapters in it.

If you look at the fifth chapter, it talks about, you know, be imitators of God and live a life of love like Jesus and be filled with the Spirit.

See, these are great practical ideas there.

If we look at the book of Colossians, it has four chapters.

Chapter three talks about, you know, setting our minds on the things above and not on the things below.

Romans has 16 chapters.

If you look at chapter 12, it talks about not being conformed to the world, but being transformed by the renewing of our mind that God brings.

So all of these things would have been would have been decent to look at this morning, but um our passage this morning is towards the beginning of a book.

It's the beginning of a long set of instructions that the Apostle Paul has for Timothy.

And so because it begins with, first of all, it seemed like it was a good one to start our year with.

It seemed appropriate.

So let's uh let's open with a word of prayer, if we might.

Heavenly Father, we do thank you for your word.

We thank you that we can come together here on a Sunday morning smaller group and just dive into what you have for us.

Lord, I pray that as we as we do explore this and as we do see this, that your spirit will be at work among us, and that in all of it you would be glorified as you transform us.

Pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So, just by a little bit of background, this is a standalone message here.

We're not going to be moving into a series on 1 Timothy by any stretch.

But just to give you a little background on 1 Timothy, this is the Apostle Paul writing to Timothy, who was the leader of the Ephesian Church.

Paul had left him in charge of the Ephesian Church.

Timothy had previously been walking around with Paul, going to different places, traveling to different cities, planting churches, meeting people, sharing the gospel.

And now they've kind of come to this point in Paul's life where he's ready to leave him behind and look after this church here.

So it's a different kind of letter in a lot of ways than a lot of the other letters in the New Testament.

Because a lot of the other letters that Paul wrote, he wrote as the leader of the church.

He says, Here, church, listen to me, I'm telling you how to live.

And instead, this one is Paul writing to the leader of the church, writing to the pastor who he left in charge.

And so it still has instructions for the church.

It still has a lot of things to say about who Jesus is and all of these things.

But it's just a different, uh, a different frame, different idea there.

So after Paul sets the stage in chapter one, he talks about avoiding false teachers and he encourages Timothy to press forward and to fight the good fight, uh, we get into our passage this morning.

And it's it's kind of the kickoff of a long set of instructions for worship and for the life of the local church.

So that's why we get the first of all to kick us off.

And what does he start with?

What's he giving us for his first point here?

Well, we might look at the points like New Year's resolutions, right?

So our first New Year's resolution from the Apostle Paul in the book of 1 Timothy here is pray.

Now, let's take a look at verse 1.

If you've got the passage open in front of you there, you can take a look at it with me.

But it says, first of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.

Now, maybe, maybe you come here this morning and you look at this and you say, the first thing, the thing of first importance is just to pray.

What is the story here?

We might look at prayer as something that, you know, we do when we can't think of what else to do or when we don't want to do something else.

It's just praying.

It's just, you know, something that the Christian answer.

But Paul puts it first here for a reason, and I think we can we can take a look at it and figure something out.

Um we think about the example.

I I can think of the example of older Christians, people who have maybe gotten gray in the hair, maybe lost their hair.

I'm not talking about myself.

But um I think of the example of my grandmother.

She didn't lose her hair, by the way.

But um, she as she got older, she continued in prayer.

And the older she got, the more she prayed.

And so I think there might be something to this whole prayer thing that we're missing if we have that um first example that I gave you there.

So here are three reasons that we should all pray more in 2022.

Sounds like the beginning of a clickbait article.

But but it's true.

I think I think there's a lot of reasons for it.

Number one, prayer is an expression of relationship, right?

The Christian life is one lived in relationship with the Most High God.

And prayer is one way that this relationship is expressed, one way that it's lived out.

For example, just as a human example here, I've been married to Doreen.

Raise your hand, Doreen.

There she is, yep.

Doreen and I have been married actually more than half of my life.

So that's very exciting past that uh past that tipping point over the last few weeks here.

But Doreen would still be my wife.

We would still have that legal married relationship even if we never spoke.

But if we never spoke, you would have some serious questions.

You would be wondering what kind of relationship we actually have.

So the same is true with our relationship with God.

If I say I am a disciple, I am a follower of Jesus, and yet I never engage with him in prayer, what would that reveal about my relationship with him?

Jesus is not our insurance agent, he's not our lawyer, our solicitor, he's not our doctor, he's not somebody that we just go to when we need help with something, when we've got a problem.

We're not keeping him on retainer, right?

We're called into fellowship with him.

And so we see that it's not that we only go to him when we need something, it's that we see the more we go to him, the more we see our need of him.

So the second thing is that prayer is a way that we express worship.

When I'm asking God for something, then that means that I'm acknowledging that he's someone who can deal with that.

Think about this in your own life.

You don't go and ask somebody for help if you don't think they can help you.

We don't ask people, just anyone for anything.

Nobody has ever asked me for help with the decor and the aesthetics of City Church.

All right, I'm just gonna put that out there.

But the more we go to God, the more we bring things before him, the more we're acknowledging and recognizing that he is the one who's able to act, that we have that confidence in him.

And as we do that, it helps us to order our concerns, to prioritize our concerns rightly.

Helps us to focus on what's important.

It helps us to release those concerns over to him, over to his care and in trust that he will deal with them.

And finally, third way here, third list article here, um, prayer is one way that God grows us.

There's a there's an old Christian cliche that says, you know, prayer is not how we change God, prayer is how God changes us.

But it's true, it really is.

Prayer is how God grows us, it how it's how he changes us.

The more I'm consistent in prayer, the more I'm learning to live out my dependence on him.

As I've prayed about things over the years, I have seen my attitudes shift and change in ways that I wouldn't have done myself.

I've even seen my attitudes get shifted in real time, and that's kind of fun.

I've seen situations and areas where I've had concerns that God has been able to resolve in ways that I wouldn't have.

And a lot of times it's right after I've started praying about it or right after I've invited other people to pray about it with me.

When we go to our Heavenly Father and ask him to act, it only makes sense that we're going to start to see him act.

And that is a way that we grow in our faith, we grow in our dependence on him, even when he acts in ways that aren't what we would have asked him to do, even when he goes a different way and answers it better than we would have.

The more we pray, the more we see prayer answered.

And that's just one way that prayer grows us.

So that's why this is a this is an important first uh New Year's resolution for us to look at this morning.

But Paul goes on.

He goes on in verse two, and he says, We should pray for kings and for all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Verse 1 says, Pray for all people.

Verse 2, he calls us specifically to pray for our leaders.

Now, you might ask, why is this a specific thing that Paul's talking about here?

Well, one reason is that it lifts our eyes beyond our own circumstances, beyond our own relationships and situations.

It acknowledges that God is able to work things out on kind of those higher level things.

But Paul is specific in the effect that he's looking at here.

Look at that.

He says, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

As we pray for those in power, we can pray for things like peace and justice.

These are things that make spreading the gospel easier.

These are things that make it easier for us to just live out our faith from day to from day to day.

So as we as we pray for our leaders, that's what we're that's what we're looking for there.

Anya led us in prayer this morning.

She prayed for our leaders.

And I think it's just a good rhythm, a good habit for us as Christians to be in prayer for those who are responsible for overseeing our societies.

It's an easy thing to overlook, but it's a key part of this uh of this resolution.

So, yeah, let's be in prayer in 2022.

Let's be a church that is known for praying.

And I was trying to think of ways that maybe we could each, we could all grow in this together.

We could think individually, right?

What are what are ways that I might be able to set aside a few minutes more every day?

Maybe you already pray every day.

Maybe you want to pray more every day, maybe you want to be more focused in what you're praying for every day.

We can think corporately.

We can think as a church body.

We have periodic all-church prayer meetings.

We have uh ongoing prayer meetings with our community groups, ways that we can pray together in those contexts as well.

So this is these are ways that we can do it as well.

But I think the one that I would point us towards is interpersonally.

I know a lot of people over the past year have maybe started praying in groups of two or three with just other people, maybe from their community groups, but uh but just getting together on an informal basis and uh lifting one another up in prayer.

That's a great way to encourage one another.

And it's a great way that we can grow and live out this resolution.

So that's our first one.

First New Year's resolution, pray.

Got it.

All right, second New Year's resolution is get a right view of God.

Because we can really get a wrong picture of God as we look around us.

If we're not careful, if we're not rooted in scripture, we can we can fall into traps.

You hear people talking about not believing in God because he's cruel or he's distant or he's arbitrary.

You know, there's that famous quote by Stephen Fry where he talks about God being capricious and mean-spirited and stupid.

And he based this all on looking at the world around us and saying, there's so much injustice, there's so much pain.

Well, that's not the God of the Bible, though, right?

And so I don't I don't believe in that God either, if I'm honest.

But we can understand where where Stephen Fry gets these ideas because you look at the world around us, you you build your idea of God based on your world, based on your experiences.

But as Christians, we have the we have the luxury, we have the freedom of being able to look at what God says in his word.

Because he's revealed himself to us.

And rather than letting our experience explain God, we can let God speak into our experience, we can let God put context to all of these things.

So let's take a look at verse 3, because it says that a peaceful and quiet life lived out with dignity is pleasing to God.

Now you think about the Roman Empire and the Roman mythology and all the gods that they had, they're all petty and they're all meddling and toying with people.

That's a very different uh idea than what Paul is talking about in verse 3.

Verse 4, he talks about that God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So this is not a vengeful, condemning kind of sky tyrant.

If you're not a Christian, if you're not yet trusting Jesus as Lord of your life, this might be a very different God than the one you've uh conceived of.

Even we as Christians can kind of fall into wrong thinking about God.

We can think that, okay, well, there's Jesus, and he's the kind and loving one.

You know, he's all right.

But that that God the Father, he's up there, he's waiting with all that condemnation.

Or we might think, Jesus, he's the savior, he's the kind, forgiving, you know, he's kind of sneaking all of this forgiveness behind his dad's back there.

But that's not what this says.

Paul calls the Father God our Savior.

We see in other parts of the New Testament that the Father has purposed the plan of salvation before the foundation of the world.

So before there was even a human race to save, God had a plan to save them.

So maybe, maybe you think of God as this very exclusive God, not accepting people who aren't good enough.

But this verse paints a picture of God wanting people to be set free from sin and deception, to see truth and to be saved.

Now, maybe you've picked up on a nagging question here, and I'm just going to touch on it briefly here.

How does the idea that God wants all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth work within our understanding of salvation?

On one hand, if God wants everyone to be saved, but not everyone is saved, does that mean God isn't actually sovereign when it comes to salvation?

Or from the other side, if he's in charge of who gets saved and he wants everyone to be saved, does this mean everyone will be saved?

Well, neither one of these conclusions is consistent with Scripture.

So how does this work?

How does it work?

Um there's different ways that people have tried to fit this into one box or one system or another.

I myself was just watching yesterday a video debate between two highly respected Bible scholars.

It's just over an hour long if you guys have no.

No.

Um there's a lot of different things, and and I don't mean to be dismissive of anyone trying to understand these things because there's a lot of good in trying to dig into these things, but the reality is God doesn't fit into our boxes.

He's not a God that can be constrained by our systems.

God is infinite, we're limited.

God is creator, we're creaturely.

His view of cause and effect and sovereignty and free will and purpose and desire and all of those things is very different than what we would think of.

It's all above our pay grade.

So rather than try to shoehorn this verse into a structure that makes sense to our human understanding, let's just accept it.

Let's take it on faith.

That in ways that we might even not even fully understand, God desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

This isn't the only place we see this idea.

We see it in the Old Testament, in Ezekiel, it says that God takes no pleasure at all in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn and live.

We see it in in 2 Peter where it says that God is patient, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

So, how does this help us get a right view of God?

If God is our Savior, if He wants all to be saved, this points us to God's heart for the world.

There are no distinctions of race or class or behavior or experience.

Anyone who's not a follower of Jesus yet should sit up and take notice.

God wants you to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So, yeah, let's get a right a right view of God.

How do we do this?

Well, we have to be in his word.

I think that's I think that's the first thing.

God's character is shown so clearly in scripture.

And if we're not in scripture, then we'll we'll miss it.

We can study, we can read it together with others.

This is another way that we can express community.

Read the word together, study together, pray God's word back to him.

You know, maybe you've maybe you've heard of the model of prayer if we just step back to our previous resolution there.

The the model of prayer, the ACTS, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication.

If we start with that A, that adoration, our prayers become much more rich and much better informed as we have a better view of God from His Word.

So Augustine from the fifth century put forward this model of Christian meditation where we focus on the truths of Scripture, where we look at God through the lens of this truth, and we respond by delighting in him.

So, first resolution, pray.

Second resolution, get a right view of God.

Third one is our response, and our and I'm gonna put it out here.

It says, our third resolution is to share the good news of Jesus.

Paul starts in verse five by summing up this good news.

He says, For there's one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.

If you haven't noticed, there's been a theme of all going through this uh passage here.

Pray all kinds of prayers for all people, especially for all in authority.

For God wants all to be saved.

So this is this is wide open, big scope.

But then it gets really narrow and it says there is one God.

One God.

Not the not the dozens of gods that would have been in the mind of the Roman.

And it says there is one way to this God, not like our society would tell us that there's many ways to get to God.

One God, one way to get to Him.

But don't worry, verse 6, it opens up again because this mediator gave himself as a ransom for all.

So let's take a moment and unpack that.

What is a mediator?

So a mediator is someone who decides in an arbitration case.

So if you brought a lawsuit, if you brought a suit against a company, you could bring them to arbitration, and the arbitrator would listen to both sides and make a decision as to what was the fair outcome.

Now, of course, if you walked into the arbitration chamber and you see that the arbitrator that's been selected for this case is also a director with the company that you've brought the case against, you'd say, no, that's not fair.

That's not right.

We don't want an arbitrator who's going to be siding with the other team.

And I think that might be why Paul is very specific calling Jesus the man of Christ Jesus.

We can look at Jesus with relief and call him one of us.

But truth be told, as as as we know, even though Jesus is one of us, even though he's not going to be biased against us in that way, the facts of the case they don't uh they don't stack up very well for us.

We're all guilty.

And that's why verse six is so important.

Jesus doesn't just Arbitrate between God and humanity.

He gives himself to reconcile humanity to God.

This is mediation none of us could do for ourselves because we all stand guilty.

And yet, this Jesus, this sinless God-made flesh, took our judgment that we might be saved.

That's the good news.

That's the gospel.

We have incarnation.

God-made flesh becomes one of us.

We have crucifixion.

Jesus atoning sacrifice pays our ransom.

And now the risen, glorified Jesus is the only one who could be our mediator.

If you look in the book of Hebrews, uh chapter seven, it says Jesus is able to save to the uttermost.

That means like forever or completely.

Jesus is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

So this transition from mediator to intercessor, to intermediary, to bringing us to God.

Paul goes on in verse 6, and he calls it the testimony given at the proper time.

And that's where the resolution takes on action.

See, this this truth about Jesus and about our salvation, it's not just doctrine for us to hold on to and really, really understand well.

It's testimony.

Paul writes in verse 7, he says, 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.

Now, of course, none of us is Paul, none of us have his specific calling and appointment, but we are all, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, we are all partakers of this grace, of this gospel.

We can all give testimony about Jesus.

Jesus says at the beginning of Acts to his disciples, he says, You will be my witnesses.

What does a witness do, friends?

A witness is one who gives testimony.

So that's our final resolution to share the news.

The good news of Jesus.

Now, some of you in this room are probably better at this than I am, probably better at this.

Statistically speaking, however, most Christians will rarely, if ever, share their faith.

So it would be easy to sit here this morning and say, okay, pray more.

I could do that.

Get a right view of God.

That's great.

Got that.

But share the gospel.

Maybe that's too much.

And really, I mean, if we think about our New Year's resolutions, isn't this why they burn out?

Isn't this why, you know, we we we have this really high and grand resolution?

And we get discouraged, we break our resolutions, usually before the calendar flips to February, if we're honest.

So why should we even attempt this third one?

If this is if this is scary and overwhelming, if it's just going to end in failure, why would we do this?

Why would we make this resolution?

But let's wait a minute.

It is true.

I could stand here before you.

Now, I've not run more than a mile or two in the last 20 years.

If I were to stand up here this morning and say, My New Year's resolution, friends, I'm going to run 20 miles every week this year.

You might be doubtful about that.

And that's that's right.

But it doesn't mean that I couldn't get started on it.

Where could I start?

If I was if that was my resolution, if that was my my goal for the year, I could start with one mile, right?

Maybe two miles, get on get on the road to uh meeting that resolution there.

We as a people, we like to see big things happen.

But sometimes that means that we miss the significance of small changes over time.

So if the thought of sharing your faith is overwhelming to you, why not start small?

Why not start with coming up with a list of people in your life who need to hear the gospel?

We've got a first resolution, which is pray.

So why don't we start by praying for them?

Pray that God will do a work in their hearts and in their minds.

Pray that He'll open up opportunities to speak with them about these things.

Pray that, you know, you'll have boldness.

Pray that we will have boldness.

Pray that we will have the right words to speak.

Since our second resolution is to get a right view of God, let's put some time and study into the character of God, the resources that He offers, and His love for the world.

And let's let that help to sort out those priorities, like we were talking about.

Is a bit of discomfort worth the opportunity to point someone toward the one way, the one mediator?

So last year I had an assignment where I had to have gospel conversations with non-Christians every week for like 10 weeks.

And it was overwhelming.

It was a bit uh scary, but I remember just going through that process, asking God to help me, show me people, give me boldness, give me opportunities.

And one by one, those conversations happened.

And I'm here to tell you, if I can do it, you can do it.

And if we all are doing it, if we're all sharing the gospel, if we're all telling people in our lives this good news of Jesus, imagine the impact.

Not for our own glory, not for the glory of city church, not that we can build our uh roster here, but for the glory of Jesus.

Those of you who are already good at this, come find me after the service.

I'd love to buy you a cup of coffee and you can tell me your secrets.

I'd love to learn from it.

Because remember, Paul is not writing this letter to individuals, he's writing it in the context of the local church.

So these are not New Year's resolutions for each of us to take on individually.

These are ways that we can encourage one another.

These are church-wide resolutions.

So let's let's encourage each other with all of these as we get into 2022.

And of course, just to be clear, these are not written in the book of 1 Timothy to be New Year's resolutions.

They're just resolutions.

So these are not something that we say we're gonna do in January and abandon by the time we get to February and then just move on with them.

This is an ongoing thing that we're gonna be working on.

We're gonna be growing in.

All right.

So let's be encouraging one another.

Let's be seeing ways that we can just help each other along this way here so that we can get a right view of God as we pray and share the good news of Jesus.