The Church at Prayer

Please turn with me in our Bibles tonight to 1 Timothy 2, 1 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 4 is our text tonight.  If you’re visiting with us, we’ve been working our way through this epistle, this letter that the Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, and we’re picking up again tonight here in chapter 2, verses 1 through 4.  1 Timothy 2, verses 1 to 4.  

Let’s read now together God’s Word, His inspired and inerrant Word.

Paul writes:   “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 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.”

Let’s just bow in prayer together and ask for the Lord to bless us as we open this part of His Word.

Father in heaven, as we turn now to think about prayer, our prayer right now, Lord, is that You would teach us, that You would encourage us, inspire us, that You would lay Your Word upon our hearts so that we would be faithful to do what Your Word teaches.  We pray all these things in Christ’s name .  Amen.   

Well, dear people of God, I want to introduce you tonight to Vince and Janet.  Vince and Janet were our neighbors in Byron Center.  They lived about three houses down from where Sheri and I and our family lived.  Vince and Janet were retired.  They were friendly neighbors, always open to a conversation.  They were Italian, Roman Catholics.  Nominal followers of the Lord.  I’m not sure if they were saved at all or not.  They rarely attended church, and not in good health.  Vince had a number of heart issues, had a number of respiratory problems.  And as Sheri and I got to know Vince and Janet, we longed  to know where they stood spiritually.

Eric has done a wonderful job at teaching us about evangelism and I love the question that Eric has taught us to ask people as we get to know them, that question, “What is your spiritual background?”  Well, we didn’t have that question on our minds at the time, and Sheri and I weren’t sure about how to engage Vince and Janet in a spiritual conversation.  So we did the one thing that we knew to do – we prayed for them.  Began to pray that the Lord would open doors to a spiritual conversation.  We began to pray that we would be bold to share the Gospel.  We prayed that the Lord would be stirring in their hearts and doing a movement there so that when the opportunity came time for us to talk to them about spiritual things, it would be clear that the Lord had already been working in their hearts.

It was amazing what the Lord began to do as we prayed.  Vince and Janet invited us into their home.  Those conversations opened the door to talk about faith.  We started talking about their family, their history, their health, but pretty soon the conversations began to turn towards spiritual things.  All of this culminated one day when Janet called me up and said, “Vince is in the hospital and I wonder if you would go visit him there.”  So I went to visit Vince.  It was clear to me that Vince had a very serious health problem and I said to Vince, I said, “Vince, it doesn’t seem that you’re going to live very long.  What’s going to happen to you, Vince, when you die?”

And that opened the door for me to share the hope of Christ with Vince.  I don’t know if Vince died as a saved man or not.  There wasn’t some moment there in the hospital where it was really clear that Vince put his trust in Christ.  But the experience that Sheri and I had is that when we began to pray for Vince and Janet, the Lord began at least to open up barriers to the Gospel and provide opportunities for us to talk with them about Christ. 

It reminds me of an evangelistic program that I knew of that was called Prayer, Care, and Share.  So the object, of course, was to share your faith, to share the Gospel.  But this program said start with prayer, start praying for the people that you want to come to know Christ.  That may lead into opportunities for you to care for them and ultimately to share the Gospel with them.  But you begin with prayer.  You start by asking God to do the things that only God can do, like change a heart.  Then when it comes time to share the Gospel, it’ll be clear that the Lord has been at work in somebody’s life already.

Well, 1 Timothy 2:1-4 is a passage about prayer.  It’s a passage about general prayer, it’s a passage about praying for our leaders, but even more than that, it is a passage about evangelistic prayer.  Prayer for the salvation of souls.

When you take verses 1 to together, you can clearly see that that is the flow, that is the movement that Paul has in this text.  He begins by saying, “I urge prayer for all people,” and then when you get to verse 4, he says, “Why?  Because God desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

This is a call to prayer especially for Gospel advance, to pray for that.

Our outline tonight is simple.  Just two things.  A priority of prayer and the scope of prayer.

So the priority of prayer is where Paul begins.  In 1 Timothy 2, this is Paul’s first direct instruction to Timothy about how he was to go about pastoring the church in Ephesus.  So in chapter 1, we’ve covered these verses already, Paul’s talked to Timothy about the charge that he received to be a preacher of the Gospel.  Paul opened up for us the context of what was going on in the church at Ephesus, that there was false teaching, there were false teachers that Timothy had to combat through his ministry.  Paul has talked about God’s grace in his own life and how that is to be an encouragement for us that if God is merciful to Paul, He’d also be mercifully left to us.

Then in chapter 2, as we come to chapter 2, he gives instructions about corporate worship.  He’s going to talk about men and women in the Church, qualifications for office bearers.  But the place where Paul starts is not with those things, the place where Paul begins is with prayer.  You can see his priority of prayer in a number of ways.

Verse 1, “first of all.”  Yes, first in order, but I think what Paul is also saying is first in importance, let me talk to you about prayer, Timothy.

Verse 8, a text that we’re going to come to in a  couple of weeks, he returns to prayer:  I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands.

Then back up to verse 1 again.  It’s very clear.  Paul says, ” First of all, then, I urge, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.”

Friends, sometimes in ministry we can get so busy doing ministry that prayer is an afterthought.  Don’t you think sometimes?  We’re busy with our plans.  We’re busy teaching and putting our lessons together.  We’re busy going off to meetings.  We’re busy with all kinds of things in the church, in ministry, and then we come along to prayer and we say, “Lord, here’s all the things that we want to do.  Would You bless them?”  Here’s our plans, here’s our strategies, here’s what we want to accomplish.  God, would You put Your blessing on all of that?

There’s nothing wrong with that, but Paul is urging something else.  Paul is urging that prayer would drive our ministry.  Paul says pray then do ministry, seek the will of God, seek the heart of God, pray for it, and then prioritize prayer when you gather.

This is exactly what the early Church did.  You can see it all throughout the book of Acts, that prayer was a priority in those early days of the Church.  It’s interesting.  If you study Acts sometime, you notice that in the book of Acts a lot of the book of Acts is sermons.  It’s preaching.  So you can read Peter’s preaching on the day of Pentecost, and you have the sermons of Paul.  That shows us that preaching was the catalyst for the advance of the Gospel in the early Church.  If we want to see the Gospel spread, the Word of God needs to be preached, it needs to be central in the life of the Church.

But the other thing that you see in the book of Acts is a great priority in prayer.  Acts 1:14, after the ascension, we read that the early believers, the disciples, they were altogether with one accord  devoting themselves to prayer.  Acts 1:24, the disciples are seeking another disciple to replace Judas.  They prayed and they said, “Lord, You know the hearts of all.”  They went to God in prayer.

Acts 2:42, that great passage that describes what the early Church was devoted to, the priorities of the early Church.  They devoted themselves, the apostles’ teaching, to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayers.

Acts 6:4, when the apostles are raising up deacons to serve the widows of the Church.  They said, “Brothers, you can wait on tables,” meaning having this ministry of mercy to these widows, and the apostles say, “We will devote ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.” 

Isn’t that interesting?  Just two things.  Sometimes as a pastor I’ve got to remember that.  So many things to do, but two things.  We’re going to devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word.

You know, I’m usually eager to get off to a meeting, to a sermon, to a Bible study or something like that, and my prayer life shrivels up.  The apostles said, “No, we’re devoting ourselves to prayer.” 

Don’t ever begrudge it when your pastors pray too much.  It’s what we ought to be doing.

Acts 12, when Peter is released from prison.  He went to the house of Mary, the mother of Mark, and what did he find?  He found the early Church gathered in prayer.

We could keep going on with this.  Do you see how important prayer was to the early Church?  It is prayer that fueled Gospel growth and it’ been that way through the history of the Church.

Think about revivals that have happened in the life of the Church.  Many of them, where’d they begin?  They began with the Church praying.  Spurgeon talked about the power of his preaching.  What was the power of his preaching due to?  He said it’s due to the boiler room, took them into the basement of the church and there’s a whole bunch of people praying for God’s blessing upon the preaching of the Word.

Matthew Henry said when God intends great mercy for His people, He first sets them praying.

Friends, I am so thankful for how prayer is prioritized in the life of our body here.  A monthly day of prayer.  Do you know that every Tuesday night there’s a prayer meeting here at the church?  More of us ought to come out for that.  But every Tuesday night people are gathering for prayer.  There are weekly prayer groups.  I was walking in the back hallway going over to the prayer room and went past a sign right behind me here.  It says, “There’s a prayer meeting here every Sunday from 4:45 to 5:45.  Folks gathering for prayer.

We have prayers for our nation happening once a month.  Our worship services are filled with prayer.  Prayers of adoration, prayers of illumination, pastoral prayers.  There’s a monthly prayer guide.  There’s a bi-monthly supported workers prayer and praise guide.  All kinds of opportunities for us to pray.  And that’s good. 

The second thing that Paul teaches us here is not just about the priority of prayer, but the scope of prayer.  That’s really the rest of these verses.  Paul teaches us here that we ought to pray with all sorts of prayer for all sorts of people.  All sorts of prayer for all sorts of people.

You see the “all sorts of prayer” in verse 1 – I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made.

Four words here that show the richness of prayer.  Words that don’t always have clear distinctions between them but they do have some unique nuances.

Supplications.  When author described it this way.  Paul is just simply talking here about requests for concrete, specific needs.  So here’s a specific need, someone has a need, some ministry has a need, and we pray for that particular need.  That’s supplications.

Prayers, requests for needs that are always present.  So we pray for wisdom, we pray for more holiness.  Things that aren’t just there on one day or another, but are constant prayer needs in our life. 

Intercessions.  Appealing boldly on behalf of someone else, so we’re praying for others and going to the Lord for somebody else’s need.

Then thanksgiving, simply expressed gratitude to God. 

People of God, when you take these words together, I think what they remind us of is that our prayers ought to be well-balanced.  There should be a balance to our prayers.  So if we find ourselves praying a lot of “give me” prayers, “help me” prayers, “do this for me” prayers, lots of supplications for ourselves, well, then we ought to add thanksgiving to our prayers.  Not only asking God to do things, but thanking God for things. 

If we find ourselves praying for ourselves a lot, well, then we need to be reminded that we also need to be praying for others.  We need to add intercessions to our prayer life.  Want to have a prayer life that is well-balanced.

So all sorts of prayers.

Then Paul says, “for all sorts of people.” 

We kind of have a cascading list of folks in the rest of these verses that Paul reminds us that we ought to pray for.  He says in verse 1, first of all we ought to pray for all people.  I don’t think we understand that the word “all” doesn’t mean every single individual.  I mean, imagine your prayer life.  All people.  Yeah, I have the next four months, I’m going to get some kind of a list from the United Nations or something, right?  Every person that lives and I’m going to all people, every single one, right on down the list.  Of course, that’s not what Paul is talking about.

When Paul says “all” he’s talking about all kinds, all categories of people.  When the church gathers in worship, we ought to pray for singles and marrieds, for the elders and the deacons, at the same time for those who are elderly and discouraged, for those who are tasked with vision in the church and those who volunteer in the church, for staff and for those who suffer.

But friends, if Paul is really driving us ultimately toward evangelistic prayers we see at the very end of our passage, then all people also means that we need to pray with a global perspective, for the nations of the world and the issues of the day.

I was encouraged as I was sitting back here as Eric was praying for things that are happening in our country and things around the world, just as it ought to be.  We need to be praying for renewal, revival, for reformation.  We need to pray for the persecuted Church, for missionaries, for church planters, and campus ministries, for local outreach and world missions, for the cities of the world, for the 10/40 Window and the least reached peoples, for governments, for leaders, to be charitable toward the Church and the Gospel. 

All people, you see, wide ranging prayers as we think about the world and the people who live in it.

Then Paul takes us down to pray for kings and all who are in high positions, verse 2.  This is a remarkable exhortation by Paul, considering the times in which he lived and those who were reigning and ruling in his day – Nero, the Roman Emperor, notorious for his persecution of believers, known for feeding Christians to the lions and using Christians as wicks to light up the great lights in his gardens.  Nero was no friend to Christians.  What does Paul say to the Ephesian church?  Pray for him.  Pray for kings.  Pray for all those who are in authority or in high positions.

David Platte puts it really simply.  He says pray for the king you suffer under, pray for the leader you don’t agree with, pray for the ruler you don’t approve of, pray for the President regardless of what you think of his politics and policies, love him and pray for him.

That’s not always easy to do, is it?  I mean, if we’re honest of where our hearts are at sometimes with those who rule over us, it probably isn’t prayer that comes to our mind, it’s how perturbed we are by what they’re doing and how they’re leading.

Yet, friends, consistently, this is what the Bible says, that we need to pray.  Do you remember what the Israelites were called to do, who were exiles in Babylon?  They spent those 70 years in exile.  Jeremiah 29:7 – the Israelites were to pray for the peace and prosperity of Babylon, pray for its welfare.  Not pray against it, pray for it, God says to them.

Romans 13, verse 1.  We’re reminded that there’s no authority except from God and those that exist have been instituted by God, that those who rule over us have been placed in their positions by the Lord Himself.  They are servants of God.  And because of that, we need to pray, we ought to pray for them.  So we pray for kings, we pray for all people, for kings and those who are in high positions.

Then Paul brings it down to praying for ourselves.  He explains, why do we pray for kings and those who are in high positions?  That we may lead a peaceful and quiet life.  Godly and dignified in every way.  We pray for our leaders, you see, with the purpose of or to the end that we may lead ordinary, godly lives and that we might enjoy peace.

Could think about this as a twofold purpose to our prayer, that we might live with all godliness and respectability or dignity for the leaders who serve over us, so this is a prayer for our leaders, kind of flows down into our own lives.  Part of praying for this comes when we pray for them. 

Friends, you cannot genuinely pray for leaders and their welfare and at the same time live a lawless life.  It’s very difficult to do, to genuinely pray for those who are in authority over you and then to push back and then to resist them and to balk at how they end up leading.  It doesn’t mean that we always agree with them, of course, but we’re called to live a dignified life.

Friends, if you feel twinges in your heart of dishonor towards those who rule over us, I think Paul would simply say, pray, start praying for them.

Then this is also a prayer that our leaders would lead in such a way that there is freedom from civil strife, persecution, and mistreatment of believers, that they would lead in ways that create peace for us.  A peaceful society is a good society.  A peaceful society establishes fertile soil for Gospel advancement.  The godly lives of Christians and the peaceful reign of leaders is essential to the witness of the Church.

John Stott reminds us in his commentary on this passage, reminds us of the duty of government towards its people and the duty of people toward the government.  He says it’s the duty of the state to keep the peace, to protect its citizens whatever would disturb it, to preserve law and order, to punish evil and promote good so that within such a stable society the Church may be free to worship God, obey His laws, and spread His Gospel.

Conversely, it is the duty of the Church to pray for the state so that its leaders may administer justice and pursue peace and to add to its intercession thanksgiving, especially for the blessings of good government as a gift of God’s common grace.

I remember on one of the trips that I took to China years ago to teach house church pastors, talking to them about their relationship to their leaders, so living in a communist country, and one of the things that the people said there is pray that there would be no unrest, because they said when there’s unrest, there’s restriction, and when there’s restriction, that does not help the Church to operate freely.  Pray there’s no unrest.  Why?  So that the Gospel can keep going out.  The Church can continue to worship God. 

You see, that’s where Paul leads us at the end of this text.  So we pray for all people, for kings and those who are in authority over us, that leads us to think about our own life and prayer, and ultimately all of this leads us to pray for the lost, that we would have a peaceful, dignified life.  This is good, Paul says, and pleases God because He desires all to be saved.  A quiet, godly life pleases God because it leads to Gospel spread, which is at the heart of God.

You see, we pray for all, Paul says, because we desire the salvation of all.  We pray for all because there is a free offer of the Gospel to all.

Now this passage, of course, raises some theological questions and challenges in our mind.  Don’t we believe in election?  God has chosen to save some?  Not all are going to be saved, how can we say that God desires all to be saved?  We come to a knowledge of the truth.  It either seems that God desires all or He doesn’t and elects some, so how do we work with this tension?  Which is it?  The answer, friends, it’s both.

It’s one of those hard tensions that we find in the Bible.  The Bible on the one hand teaches that God clearly elects some, and on the other hand the Bible clearly teaches that God desires all to be saved.  Perhaps the key to help us understand this tension is simply in that word “all.”  Four times in verses 1 to 7 Paul talks about all, all, all.  We’ve already noticed in verse 1 that “all” cannot mean every single individual but all kinds, all categories of.  We cannot pray for all.

Just as “all” means all kinds in verse 1, I think that Paul intends for it to mean the same thing in verse 4.  In other words, we let Paul interpret Paul.  What he’s saying is that God desires all kinds, all categories of people to be saved.  No exclusion.  No kind of person that is outside the sweep of God’s Gospel aims.  The implication is that the Gospel needs to be proclaimed to all indiscriminately.  There is a genuine free offer of the Gospel that we must make to all kinds of people, to black, white, and brown, to Asians and Africans, to rich and poor, to the reached and the unreached, to those who live in the mountain peaks of the world and those who live on the islands of the sea.

God will save some, but we also know that His desire is for all to come to a knowledge of the truth and so our call is to freely and broadly share the truth.  We must support, we must send, we must preach, and we’re called to pray for the truth to reach all.

This is what we’re going to sing about in just a few moments.  It’s a hymn, but it’s a prayer.  It ought to be our earnest prayer.  Pity the nations, O, our God, constrain the earth to come.  It seems that there’s some passion in that prayer, isn’t it?  Constrain, O God, constrain the earth to come.  Send thy victorious Word abroad and bring the strangers home.

Let me end with a story about Joanne Shetler.  Joanne Shetler spent 20 years doing Bible translation among the Balangao tribesmen of the Philippine mountains.  When she came back for her first sabbatical, her first furlough, she was deeply discouraged.  She said, ” I was frustrated.  When I came home on my first furlough after five solid years, only 20 people had believed.  Not a very good showing, is it?  I didn’t know what to do.  I dumped a whole load on my home church and found something out.”  She said, “I found out that you cannot do the job by yourself.  You have got to have people praying for you.” 

Well, Shetler went on to describe what happened when her supporters accepted the responsibility to pray for her ministry.  She said, “My church no longer prayed, Dear God, please bless Jo wherever she’s at, whatever she’s doing.  They took up the burden, and when I went back after furlough, things started to happen.  The Balangao began to respond to the Gospel.  This started with the biblical genealogies, which impressed them because they wanted to know more about their ancestors.  They began to ask how they could become God’s children.  When a few of them received Christ, they asked if it would be all right to tell everyone else about Him.  Eventually the Balangao came by the hundreds to put their faith in Christ.” 

The author says here God’s plan is to build His Church by the prayers of His people.

Missionaries all over the world stand and wait for the Holy Spirit to bless their labor in the Gospel and the spirit waits only for the Church to pray.  Even now, He is urging that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people.                          

Let’s pray.  So Father in heaven, this is our heart’s cry tonight.  Pity the nations, O our God, constrain the earth to come, send Thy victorious Word abroad and bring the strangers home.  In Jesus name.  Amen.