1 Timothy 2:1-7 "Prayer Is Primary

1 Timothy chapter 2.

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

We'll be going through the first seven verses this morning.

We're going to dive right in.

Verse 1.

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

This is good, and it's pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

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.

The heart of a Christian should be to follow Christ.

The heart of a Christian should be to see what Christ says and does and do what he tells us to do.

It's a wonderful thing to know Christ.

Paul's heart is to follow Christ.

He loves God so much that he's compelled to love others to the degree that he writes to encourage them and correct them.

We see a lot of that happening in Paul's writings, encouraging and correcting.

In chapter one of 1 Timothy, he gives lots of correction.

And then in chapter 2, he seeks to give encouragement on what the church should be doing so that the church can be faithful followers of Christ.

And as we examine this passage, as we look at it and see the kind of what's the main emphasis based on what the structure of the passage is.

And the argument that Paul is making is about prayer.

The urge, the call to action is prayer.

He begins with application in mind.

We see this clearly again in verse 1 and 2.

Then Paul gives the reason for prayer in verses 3 through 6.

And then Paul reminds Timothy and everyone who has read this text since then that God has appointed him to be a preacher of the gospel to the Gentiles.

Gentiles means anyone who is not a Jew.

So here are my points as we work through this passage this morning.

We pray and live in a particular way.

That's verse 1 and 2.

Because God desires to save all people.

3 and 4.

And then as a sub point to that, only Jesus can save.

And then the third point, therefore we pray, we send, and we go.

Verse 7.

So we pray and live a particular way because God desires to save all people.

Therefore we pray, we send and we go.

So we live and pray in a particular way.

This is the first urging.

It's interesting.

Paul gets all the way into the book, this book, the letter, excuse me, and then he says, now, first of all, right, you think this would begin kind of earlier in the text, like out the gate, first things first.

But now that he has dealt with the false teaching and said, listen, you are to be faithful to the gospel, to be a healthy, focused church.

Now that you're clear on that, first of all then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Now there is some debate, but not much, about this list of types of prayers.

Most Bible teachers point out that Paul is simply making it clear that we should be praying and praying a lot about everything and everyone.

Supplication is another way of saying petition.

Prayer is used here in the broadest sense of petition or request for intercession to God.

The word intercession used here has in mind a formal petition to God.

Thanksgivings are prayers thanking God.

So another way you can say this is I urge that you pray and pray and pray and thank God through prayer.

We are to be praying people.

We pray for all people, for pastors, for missionaries, for our coworkers, for our neighbors, our family members, classmates, people we meet as we go about life.

But also for kings, for those in positions of authority or influence, like our president, like powerful business leaders like Elon Musk, for Supreme Court justices like Sonia Sotomayor, for even Vladimir Putin, for those who are reigning and leading other nations.

Even closer to home, we should be praying for our own governor.

We should pray for our mayor, Matt Starr, for our sheriff, David Schaefer, for the people who are in positions of authorities in our neighborhoods and our communities, but also around the world.

Why do we pray?

That we may lead peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way.

And this praying for leaders, even though they're not Christians, some of them are not Christian, we see precedence in this in the Old Testament.

In Ezra 6 and Jeremiah 29, different times when those who were taken captive into Babylon, they were encouraged, pray for those who rule over you, that we may lead peaceful and quiet lives, godly and dignified in every way, so that those who are sharing the good news of the gospel, those who are seeking to love their neighbors well, those who are seeking to advocate for life and truth would not be hindered by the government, but would be aided by the government.

But before we go there, I want to just point out two things.

One is that I think we long for this.

As you read this peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

This I think is a desire as Christians of our hearts to live peaceful and quiet lives.

And to kind of prove that point, I just want us to look at human behavior.

Our natural tendency, my tendency, your tendency is to be busy and to keep busy and to stay entertained.

Even when we're not busy, somehow we're all busy.

And when we don't have much to do, we're seeking out other things to entertain us, to kind of take our mind off things.

We don't do well sitting in the quiet, in the stillness.

I don't do this.

I remember as a kid at my grandparents' house, in the afternoons, they would just kind of rest.

Right?

So they were like, house was clean, lunch was done, all put picked away, put away and cleaned up, and they would turn like the lights off and the windows would be open and the light would be in, and they might read the newspaper, or they might take a nap.

And this was this wasn't like a 15-minute power nap.

They were like a couple hours of just calm.

And I just remember as a kid uh thinking, well, one kind of intrigued by this at first.

It's just so still, like quiet.

Clocks ticking, and that's it.

And it wasn't just five minutes, it was like an hour or two of this.

And then I remember uh thinking, I'm really bored by this.

Can we like do something else?

And they did this, I think, most days in their life, as they were older.

They just were calm, peaceful, quiet.

Praise the Lord that they were godly and they were dignified.

But I think there's something in us that kind of longs for that.

You know, even on social media, people are trying to live easy lives or quiet lives or slow mornings and those kinds of things.

There's something in us that desires this.

And here we are commanded to be praying for those in high positions of authority so that we could lead these kinds of lives.

Not for ourselves, but for God's glory.

And I think about people who are trying to figure out what to do with their life.

I think this would be a great job description.

If I could write this, maybe this might be a good one, right?

To live a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

That's God's calling on your life.

It's not easy.

It's not about, again, slow mornings and self-care.

It requires putting to death sin, dying to our desires for selfishness, being intentional with our time and our money and our energy.

So this idea of that, this life that we're we're kind of long for is this what Paul is telling us to pray for.

And I think this is also a glimpse of heaven.

I think in heaven we will be completely at peace.

We will be completely godly, we will be dignified in every way.

What a blessing to acknowledge our heart longs for this, and then in glory it will be satisfied in this.

So we as a church are to be praying for these things, to be seeking the Lord, but we get distracted by just so many things.

And maybe we shouldn't call them distractions because a distraction is something you choose, or something that comes into your life, but we choose to be distracted.

We choose to be busy, we choose to be entertained by things, to have things around us that distract us.

These are choices that we make that keep us from praying, they keep us from seeking the Lord.

I think verse 2 also gives us gives us a framework for the role of government and the role government should play in our lives and society.

Paul would not be telling Timothy to have the church praying, the church at Ephesus praying for these things if this was outside the scope of government.

Now, let me be clear.

I'm not saying the government can give you peace, or can make you godly or can give you quiet lives or help you be dignified in any way.

That's not the role of government, because they cannot do that.

But it is their role, it is their job to foster a society that seeks peace, that seeks to commend godliness and dignity.

And to be clear, a society does not have to be regenerate for people to be virtuous.

Obviously, if you're not born again, you are dead in your sins.

You're without hope.

Yet, by God's grace, called common grace, that he gives to all people, people who are not saved, non-Christians, they can possess virtue and character.

Good character.

An example of this is a society that knows and can acknowledge good and evil.

You don't have to have the Holy Spirit in you to be able to say, I think there's true evil and true good.

And even societies might differ on those things.

But we are to pray for the salvation of all people, but for governments to not stand in the way and hinder the good news of the gospel, but rather to commend the good news of the gospel.

Again, it's not their job to step in and declare the gospel.

They're not the church, but they should aid Christians or not hinder Christians in their promotion of the gospel.

So the ultimate aim of our prayers, the goal of our prayers, is it a hassle-free life that's calm?

Again, I don't think so.

We pray because God desires to save all people.

We pray that the Lord would use his body, the church.

I mean, how important is prayer in your life?

How important has prayer been to you the last, just the last week?

I was feeling convicted about this as I often do as I'm preparing to preach.

Convicted about my own prayer life.

I pray regularly, I think I pray regularly, I pray about many things.

I pray for those who are a part of our church regularly, often.

So quickly, my prayers, they just become routine.

They're roped.

I'm genuine in my prayer.

I do believe I'm genuine, but the issue is that I'm not engaged.

Does that make sense?

Like, I'm genuine.

My heart's genuine.

I'm not just kind of going through the motions, but I'm not really like seeking the Lord as I know I should and I ought.

Now, to those who would say, well, you just shouldn't pray unless your heart's in it, I'd say no.

You're to be obedient to the Lord, even when it feels rote or routine.

But maybe you can relate to this.

Maybe your prayer life isn't is kind of stale.

Maybe you don't realize how stale it has become.

Your desire for the things of the Lord has waned.

See, one of the greatest blessings we have as a church is to pray for one another and pray together.

Praying together, encouraging one another.

Now we know it's good to pray alone.

We're commanded to do it, and we see Jesus modeling that for us.

But what a blessing to pray with others.

So let's just examine for a moment our own heart, our attitude about prayer.

Your attitude about times of corporate prayer when we're gathered together on the Lord's day.

Your attitude about your own personal prayer times.

It reveals something about your faith.

Are you bored?

Are you checking out during our times of prayer on Sunday mornings?

I know that everyone has busy schedules and lots going on, but are your reasons for not gathering on Sunday evenings for prayer, are they good reasons?

Or are they selfish reasons?

When you neglect your personal prayer time, do you realize, do you even see that that is arrogant?

The arrogance?

And I'm saying this to you and I'm saying it to myself.

When we neglect our own time of personal prayer, that's arrogant.

Because either we're saying, Lord, I don't need you, I can do this without you, or we're just assuming the Lord's going to show up however I want and when I need him to show up.

That we would be humble.

Church, let us repent of our kind of trivial practice of prayer.

God has commanded us to pray.

To pray so that the lost might be found, that those who are found might live godly and dignified lives.

Why?

Because God desires all people to be saved.

That's his desire.

Look at verse 3.

This is good.

Praying and living this way.

This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God, our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

I just, I love it when the Bible is just very succinct and clear.

Live this way.

Do this.

It's just saying, this is good.

It's pleasing to God.

So do these things.

Now there's a lot of theological reasons and underpinnings for why this is good and how it pleases God.

But we don't have to get into that.

It's just, it's pleasing to God.

So why don't we do those things?

And it's God's desire for all people to be saved, and to come to a knowledge of truth.

Now, much time and labor has been spent, as you would imagine, on working out what verse 4 means.

Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

So I will give you my answer up front, what I think, and then explain to you what other people say.

See, I think God desires that none should perish.

That all should be, shall be, that all be saved.

Because mankind, mankind's only hope, excuse me, for salvation is Christ.

At the same time, God has elected some to salvation, not based on their potential obedience or their future behavior, but based solely on His sovereign choice.

Now, if you're listening and you hear these things, you'll realize there is a tension there that I'm not trying to undo.

And I would just say, nor should you.

The ways of God are right and just and beyond us.

What he has revealed to us is sufficient, and we need to trust that.

See, our this is the thing that churches throughout generations wrestle with.

And our church's confession, the New Hampshire Confession, acknowledges both the universal offer of the gospel to all people and God's sovereign election and salvation.

Let me read to you Article 6 of our confession, the freeness of salvation.

And if you ever want to know more, we have all the confessions back there printed out.

If you're don't or you're not familiar with our confession, you're welcome to take one of those and read it.

But Article 6 says, We believe the blessings of salvation are made free to all by the gospel.

It is the immediate duty of all to accept them by a heartfelt, penitent, and obedient faith.

Preventing this salvation is every sinner's inherent depravity and rejection of the gospel.

A rejection that aggravates a sinner's condemnation.

So the gospel clearly goes out, it's on the responsibility for those to respond to the gospel.

But then Article 9 of God's purpose of grace says, we believe election is the eternal purpose of God according to which he graciously regenerates, sanctifies, and saves sinners.

Election is perfectly consistent with human free agency and includes all the means necessary to achieve God's purpose.

It is a most glorious display of God's sovereign goodness, which is infinitely free, wise, holy, and unchangeable.

Election completely rules out boasting and promotes humility, love, prayer, praise, trust in God and the active imitation of his free mercy.

It encourages the greatest possible exercise of human responsibility.

The election of individuals to life may be confirmed by its effects in everyone who truly believes the gospel.

Election is the foundation of Christian assurance, and confirming our election deserves our greatest diligence.

See, we're not seeking to just explain all these things away, kind of lower them or flatten them.

We're willing to hold the tension of God's word, what it says.

So God does desire that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of truth.

Correctly understanding what the word all means here makes a lot of difference as we look at this passage.

If this verse means that all people will be saved, that every single person will be saved, well, that's universalism.

And we know the Bible does not teach that.

Paul will get to that in a couple chapters how the universalism isn't true.

It's not true that all people will be saved.

But this passage also, and we also want to guard against this idea of elitism.

This view that just God has chosen.

These kind of special people for him, and it's based on their goodness or their merit or their lineage, creates this elitist mentality in our heart.

So keep in mind the context of this letter.

All of chapter one, what was he working through?

He was working through this idea with the Judaizers who were appealing to the law.

They were appealing to the law for salvation, they were appealing to the law for good works to do good works that they might be saved.

This elitist mentality.

And here, Paul is writing saying, you cannot have this idea that only Jews, or only those who have the right lineage, or only those who come from the right family can be saved.

Because it's God's desire to save all people.

Now, what does all people mean?

Well, we know in Acts 22, when Jesus was speaking about Paul and commissioning Paul, he said, You'll be my witnesses to all people.

Now, Paul could not be a witness to every person on the planet.

It's just not possible.

I think a helpful understanding here is that all means all kinds of people, from all places, tribes, positions of authority.

God desires to save people from all over the earth, from all different tongues and nations and people groups.

It's not lineage, it's not ranking.

It's not the family you grew up in or the church that you attended.

It's that God will save and redeem people from all over the world.

I believe the doctrine of election is clear in Scripture.

But there still does remain a tension.

I believe it's a good tension.

It keeps us humble and focused on Christ.

There's this tension between the universal offer to all people, and yet the gospel that God is going to, the message that God's purpose of election will stand.

But this doesn't come out, and some people say this is Paul, this is Paul's writings.

Paul gets this wrong.

This doesn't come out with just Paul.

This is Jesus' teachings as well.

In Matthew 11 and John 12, Jesus invites all to come to him, on the one hand, and then in John 17, that his ministry will be limited to those whom the Father has given him, out of the world.

And yet Jesus says in John 5 that you refuse to come to me.

And then he says later that no one comes unless the Father draws them.

It's the tension that we see in the scriptures, we feel.

A brilliant Christian theologian, John Stott, wrote about this, and this is what he says.

It's a paragraph from him.

We see the tension wherever we look in the scriptures.

Divine sovereignty and human responsibility.

Universal offer and electing purpose.

The all and the sum, the cannot and the will not.

The right response to this phenomenon is neither to seek a superficial harmonization of the scriptures, nor to declare that Jesus and Paul contradicted themselves, but to affirm both perspectives to be true while humbly confessing that at present our little minds are unable to resolve the tension.

This doesn't mean that we kick the can.

This doesn't mean we say, well, who can know?

Why even bother?

I would say that we should press in.

We should seek to understand and to come to a conclusion of what we believe about these things.

But we're to hold the tension that we see in Scripture.

That Jesus Christ has come to save sinners.

That he uses the church to do that.

I don't mean a building, I mean the people, the group of Christians who are committed to following Christ together.

He uses us to share the good news with one another, to those around us.

It is not our job, brothers and sisters, not our job to go around and say, well, who's elect?

Who's the chosen ones?

Let's figure this out.

That is not our job at all, because we don't know who that is.

And we will never know until we arrive at glory.

And we should be seeking humbly to confirm that God is in us through our obedience.

Rather, it is our job to go forth and share the good news of Christ with others.

Knowing that people's salvation, it's not up to just my words and me articulating things just right, or convincing them, or having the right argument, or having read enough philosophers to understand their argument.

Those are all good and right things, but people's salvation does not hang on that.

It's our job to declare Christ and Him crucified, that they need to repent, turn from sin, and follow Christ.

It's his work to bring life.

It's his work to regenerate, to open up hearts that were closed.

It's not our job to pat ourselves on the back.

Glad you made it.

You must be in.

As the confession says, it's our duty to be diligent in seeking to be obedient to the word of God, to follow after God, that our election might be made sure.

But it requires the church to go.

It requires the church to pray and to go, that we might go and send others to declare Christ, to proclaim Christ.

Romans 10, 14 and 15.

How then will they call on him whom they have not believed?

And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?

And how are they to hear without someone preaching?

And how are they to preach unless they are sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news.

We are to be a people going to preach the good news.

The economy of God is to spread the gospel to all nations, all people, through the preaching of his word, the declaration, the proclamation that Christ is King and He is the Savior, and He alone can save, pay the price.

How will they know unless we go?

And this I mean to the nations, and I also mean to your neighbor.

How will your neighbors know unless you go and share Christ with them?

Do you just assume that someone else is going to tell them about Jesus?

You just assume that they've probably heard it before.

You just assume this is common knowledge.

This is God's means for saving the lost, that we would go and proclaim the gospel.

That as we sing, in one of the hymns we sang that they might sing, what gift of grace is Jesus my Redeemer?

There is no more for heaven now to give.

He is my joy, my righteousness, my freedom, my steadfast love, my deep and boundless peace.

To this I hold my hope is only Jesus.

For my life is wholly bound to his.

Oh, how strange and divine I can sing, all is mine, yet not I, but through Christ in me.

How will they know?

How will they hear?

Unless we go, unless we're praying to go, unless we're praying to be sent.

Unless we're praying to be obedient.

Because only Christ can save people.

Only Christ can do this work.

Look at verses five and six.

For there is one God and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

See, verse five and six makes verse four urgent, all the more urgent.

It must be something that pours through us.

If there were some other means, if there was another avenue for salvation, if there was, this would create less urgency, less seriousness to live in a particular way and to be praying that we might proclaim Christ freely to the nations.

For a moment, church, ponder with me the ramifications of verse 5 and 6.

One God, one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom.

There is no other hope.

There is simply no other hope.

There's no other means for salvation.

There's no one else to intervene on your behalf to God or anyone else's behalf.

Only Christ.

So we must proclaim Christ.

He came to be a ransom, to serve as the atoning sacrifice.

Mark 10, 45 says, For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.

The person and work of Christ is sufficient.

It's perfect for us.

Christian, be serious about your faith.

Forsake the world and its empty pleasures and seek after the things of God.

Delight your heart in God who loves you and has adopted you into his family.

Christian, be serious about your faith.

Non-Christian, where else will you go?

To whom will you make your appeal and make your case for salvation?

Maybe you disagree and you think this whole thing is silly and it's ridiculous.

But ask yourself, doesn't the creation, the moon and the stars and the earth, trees and birds and all creation, doesn't it say something?

Doesn't it reveal that there's more here than our simple minds understand on their own?

Doesn't creation reveal something?

Good and evil?

Are these human constructs that we attribute to we attribute value and meaning to?

But at the end of the day, they're nothing?

They're just empty?

There's no such thing as good or bad or evil.

Maybe you see creation.

Maybe you see creation and you believe there's a creator.

Maybe you believe that there is good and evil.

Maybe you believe Jesus really lived and died.

But you just aren't that interested in him.

You simply enjoy sitting on the throne of your own heart and worshiping whatever you decide to worship.

Listen, if you hear nothing else, hear this: that God made you, that he desires that you forsake your sin and follow him, because in him and in him alone you will find life.

Truth and abundant life.

Now and forevermore.

Today, this very day, you can leave all the empty, pitiful life of sin and begin to follow Christ, your creator, and enjoy him forever.

So if you're a Christian, be serious about your faith.

If you think this is all rubbish and silly, how do you explain the world around you?

How do you explain good?

How do you explain evil?

And if you believe in these things, but your heart is callous or careless towards the things of God, just I want you to feel the weight of the emptiness of your life, the selfishness and the reality of what Christ has called you to, that you may walk in newness of life with Him.

Because this is why He came.

And this is why Paul is sharing the good news.

He's telling the Gentiles the good news that Christ came to save sinners because there is no other hope, church.

There is simply no other hope.

Therefore, we pray, we send, and we go.

This is what Paul does.

He's reminding them of his own obedience.

For this, verse 7, I was appointed a preacher and an apostle.

I'm telling the truth, I am not lying.

A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Paul's making a clear declaration of why God has called him, and that God has called him.

So there might be in people's minds false teachers or people arousing, or still questionable about Paul's authority.

He's reminding them, I'm pouring out my life to reach the Gentiles.

Why?

Because Christ is their only hope.

Church, therefore, pray that Christ may be proclaimed openly.

So we go.

So Paul, he goes to the lost.

And there's a theme all over Scripture.

People taking the good news to those who are lost and without hope.

We see it in the very beginning in Genesis.

Adam and Eve sinned.

God sought them out after they sinned.

Noah preached that mankind needed to be to repent to be saved.

Moses preached that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob alone could save, and that he was sovereign and worthy of praise and obedience.

The prophets declared that God was the way, the truth, and the light.

This theme again and again.

People going to share the good news.

That Jesus condescended.

He came down to mankind, taking on flesh, living a perfect life, dying a horrific death.

He's the only person, the only person to walk the face of the earth who did not deserve to die.

But for you and for me and for his people, he died.

A sacrificial death, paying the price for our sin.

Why?

So that we would walk in newness of life.

That we would not die.

Although our flesh will fail, those who hope in Christ, they will not perish.

They shall have eternal life.

Paul's conversion.

It's a crazy story in Acts, his conversion.

It's the same, not the same story.

It's the same thing happened.

Regeneration for Timothy.

Timothy's conversion.

He's born again.

He was going one way, God saved him, he was going another way.

Your conversion.

If you're a Christian, my conversion.

It's only the beginning.

It's where we start, it's where we begin.

The rest of our lives, we're poured out, honoring and serving the Lord and sharing the good news of the gospel with those around us.

We're to be praying for people's salvation.

Sending out people to proclaim the gospel.

And going out ourselves to proclaim the gospel.

We pray, we send, we go.

We're called to do all this.

Now it's going to look different for different people, right?

We know that.

Some are again called to go to foreign lands and faraway places.

But I just want to remind you: if you are a Christian, if God has redeemed your life, you are called.

You are called to pray for the lost.

You're called to support those who evangelize the lost.

I think missionaries or pastors or seminary training situations or pastoral training, we're called to support and do these things.

To go.

We go to our jobs, our homes, our communities, with the intent of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.

If you think about your own job and you think that the primary reason that you have the job you have is for is your paycheck.

You have missed the point.

I encourage you, read the New Testament, and what you should reveal, what should be revealed is that money, your paycheck, is not the main point of your job.

No, it's still important, but it's not primary, it's not even secondary.

Maybe it's fourth or fifth in line.

God has placed you where he has placed you.

I'm serious, he's placed you where he has placed you that you would share Christ.

For some of you, you're in home with your little kids.

That's where he's placed you.

For some, you're you're in retirement and there's that all that has changed for you.

You're just trying, you're trying to figure out what is who are the people around me.

But for some, you're just you're working hard in your jobs.

And some have jobs with lots of Christians around them.

Praise God for that.

Praise God, you're gonna labor with other believers.

But you're still there to encourage them, to bear burdens.

You're there to share the good news of Christ with those who are unbelievers.

We're gonna sing a song a little bit about the love of God, that love that came for us.

It's because of this love that we go and share this love with others.

Church, it begins with prayer.

We must be a people of prayer.

It's not an insurance policy or a safety net.

As Oswald Chambers says, prayer does not prepare us for the greater work.

Prayer is the greater work.

I know as I'm long this morning and I'm kind of going on and on, I want you to sit this morning and feel a burden.

It's my prayer that as Christians we feel the burden of this, the weight of this.

That as we read verses one and two, that you feel the urging, that you feel the pressure weighing on us.

That this is not a suggestion from the Holy Spirit.

This is a command.

If you feel disinterested or bored by these things, as we all can often do, repent, trust the Lord.

Let us encourage one another all the more as we see the day approaching, that we may be fervent in our prayers, trusting Christ for all things.

To those who are here, and Jesus is not your Lord and your Savior.

I just say this again: there is no other hope.

There is no other way.

Salvation is through Christ and Him alone.

Nothing else will satisfy you.

Only God, only the Creator is made to be worshipped.

Sorry, only the Creator is the one you are made to worship.

So come to Him, receive Him.

Understand that life and time is precious.

There's a famous Christian, Charles Thomas Studd, was one of the Cambridge Seven.

Now they're kind of, they were in Cambridge in 1885, and Hudson Taylor, who began the China Inland Mission, he shared what the mission was doing in China, and seven men from Cambridge decided to go to China.

And he, this this brother C.

T.

Studd has a famous poem, but I'm just going to read one line.

I want it to sink in.

Only when life will soon be past.

Only what's done for Christ will last.

Only when life will soon be past.

Only what's done for Christ will last.

So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

If Jesus is the only way to be saved, and if God desires all people to be saved, and if God, God's means for doing this is the local church, then we should pray like we believe it.

And we should live like we believe it.

Because Jesus is the only way to be saved, and God's desire is to save all people, and his means is the church, so we should be obedient to pray and to live.

Church, let us pray.