First of all, then, I urge that in treaties and prayers, petitions and thanks-givings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in authority so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. This is good and acceptable in the sights of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, for there is one God and one mediator also between God and men. The man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all 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, as a teacher of the Gentiles and faith and truth. Let's pray. Jesus, I pray simply that you would come and you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf by your spirit, and I pray for myself that you would be in my head and in my thinking and in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking even now. In your name, we pray all these things. Amen. Well, if you're visiting Grace for the first time or if you've been here for a while, basically I've started a series several weeks ago on the book of 1 Timothy and we finally made it out of chapter 1, right, and it will take us a while to get through chapter 2, but before we enter chapter 2, you again have to understand sort of the overarching themes, excuse me, and if you remember, the overarching theme of 1 Timothy is basically like a book of church order, if you will. Paul writes Timothy in chapter 3, he says, I'm writing you these things so that one may know how to conduct themselves in the household of God, right? What does he mean? And basically he'll talk about how to conduct oneself during worship or with regards to mercy ministries or with regards to roles or with regards to prayer, all of these things. He wants to address our conduct morally and theologically, but also bigger than that, the occasion. See, that's sort of a general purpose and a positive purpose, but the specific purpose and negative purpose of this letter and the occasion of it was that the reason he needed to write a book about order in the church and unity in the church is that certain men, if you remember, came teaching things that actually caused this unity in disorder and Paul felt he had to step in and address them. And if you remember the beginning in chapter 1, Paul addresses these men and the problem that these men have, in short, really, if they don't understand the substance of the gospel. Remember if he immediately opens letters, says Timothy, I instruct you to command certain men not to teach strange doctrine. And he said, these guys want to be teachers of the law, but they don't even understand the law. They make confident assertions and yet they don't even know that about which they're talking about. And then Paul immediately follows up and he explains to them the true purpose of the law. And remember, the law is not something you follow in order to be a good moral person, but the law and Paul's opinion in first Timothy is used to diagnose you, right? If you wonder who you are before God will just hold up the law to yourself. It's like a mirror and you see exactly who you are. And if you're honest, you look in the mirror of the law and you, instead of seeing a good moral person, you see an adulterer and a liar and some, you know, an idolater, you see these things. And frankly, Paul thinks and the gospel says, that should brighten you and it should make you wonder, gosh, I'm not worthy. And Paul says, that's exactly the point. At the point you realize that the law has diagnosed you as being unworthy, then Jesus steps in and offers you mercy, right? Paul says, I was shown mercy. Paul says, if you think the law is bad, look at me. I was the worst of sinners. I was the chief of sinners. I was a blasphemer and a persecutor of the church and yet God showed me mercy. I was passive and yet his grace overflowed to me abundantly, right? So the substance of the gospel is basically this, that none of us deserve a relationship with God. In fact, all of us have a broken relationship with God. And yet he initiates by grace in order to show us mercy. That's the substance of the gospel. Now that what these guys taught, remember their teaching led only to speculation, question after question after question, and sort of theological harang, and if you've ever been in a church that's defined by sort of theological speculation, there's one thing that I can guarantee you that will be the case there and that it will be this as if they'll be inwardly faced, right? If you don't understand the substance of the gospel, you tend to look inward. You tend to look only at yourself and we would all sit in this room and we would argue about how many angels could dance on the head of a pen, right? But if you understand the substance of the gospel, it necessarily leads you to consider the scope of the gospel, right? And that's where Paul goes next. He lays out the substance of the gospel for these guys. It's all about the fact that you and I don't deserve anything and God has given us everything by grace. And if that's the case, it should necessarily lead to at least one attitude in every single Christian, and that's this, that you would have an outward face. It's as simple as that. If you really understand the scope of the gospel, it takes you from being inwardly faced and looking at yourself, right, if you're not a Christian, my guess is that's how you live all the time. You're constantly looking at yourself and you're trying to take care of yourself and cover yourself and cover for yourself and all these things, and if you are a Christian, you probably do that most of the time, but at least you have some glimpses of hope, right? And Paul says, if you understand the scope of the gospel, it makes you look out. And that's where he begins. He begins with the scope of the gospel. He says, first of all, and he doesn't mean chronologically. He means a first importance, and what he's going to do is tell us to look out. And so what I'm going to look at this morning really is the purpose of our prayers and the purpose of our existence is the first thing. And then the broadness of God's desire, but then the narrowness of his plan. So let's look at the purpose of our prayers and even the purpose of our existence in verses one and two. Paul says, first of all, then, I urge that in treaties and prayers and petitions and thanks given be made on behalf of all men for kings and all who are in authority so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all Godliness and dignity. He begins with the topic of prayer, right? He says, first of all, I urge that in treaties and petitions and everything be offered on behalf of all men. Now, why would he have to do that? Because if you're like me, what do you tend to pray for? If you pray, you tend to pray for yourself, right? God, I'm in a jam. I need help. God. I'm struggling with this. I need help. And then if you rarely ever get past that, I can only speak for myself. And Paul says, first of all, I urge that prayers and petitions be made on behalf of all men. The other problem, of course, is that we tend to believe that God can't really change people. We tend to give up on them, right? And that's what the Jews right there, here they are, a church in the middle of one of the most secular cities, maybe the most secular city ever to have existed in Ephesus, staring in the face of the great temple of Diana, and they will believe that maybe God couldn't change anybody. And so when they pray, they didn't necessarily pray for all of the pagans that surrounded their church. They just pray for themselves. Why bother? If God can't change anybody. And Paul says the reason you pray for those outside of yourself is you're showing that you believe God can change anybody, right? To the extent that you believe God can change any person, any human being, any people group, pride, tongue, or nation, you will pray for them. And if you don't believe that, you won't. Right? And so Paul says, first of all, we pray. Our prayers are focused outward. But not only that, our life must be focused outward. Right? That's how you ought to read the next verse. He says, I urge you, in treaties, prayer, traditions, thanksgiving to be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all those who are in authority so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity. Now let me tell you what Paul is not doing here. He's not saying, let's pray for the salvation of the king or the authority or the president. Because if we get a good Christian president, then the world is going to be a better place. Right? He's not saying that at all. In fact, Paul is urging people to pray for the king and all those in authority while he is in prison under Nero who will probably ultimately behead him and who will feed Christians to the lions and put their head up on stakes and cover them with tar and light them on fire. And Paul is saying, pray for this guy and all who are in authority. Why? Paul's a pragmatist. Paul's not saying pray for Nero because Nero becomes a Christian. Everything will be good for us. What he's saying is pray for those in authority and the king, why? Because they're in charge of the common life. They're in charge of the government, if you will. They're in charge of everything around. And he says, since our job is to be outwardly faced, we're to live outwardly facing lives. It'll be much easier to live them outwardly facing life in a society where there is a good government. And where the government is restraining evil and where the government is sort of allowing us the freedom of worship. You see, that's the irony of living in America, right? We have a government that allows freedom of worship and yet we're one of the most self-centered countries in the world, if not the most self-centered country in the world. And Paul says that you should pray for stable government because that should free you up to be selfless. You don't have to worry if the government is going to come and persecute you and kill you and since you don't have to worry about that, you can give everything away. Right? So he says you ought to be praying for those outside yourself, but also you ought to be living this life that exists outside of yourself. And this language, don't be confused by the language. He says that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life and all godliness in dignity. Some people read this to mean we should go sort of buy a church in the mountains and live there in the sort of fortress and we'll live in quietness and dignity and we'll be a fortress on top of a hill. This language is the Greek language of good citizenship, right? He's taken this right out of sort of a Greek constitution of a city state, if you will, that we would be the best of all citizens. So why would Paul want a stable government and Christians to be seen as the best of all citizens? Christians have the best reputation in the city. Christians to be the most known for showing mercy and being outwardly faced. Why would he want that? And the answer is because of the extent or the breadth of God's desire for the nations, right? It's for God's desire for the nations. Listen to what he says in verses three and four. He says this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, living like this, the prior verses, who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, right? Paul says that we're to be outwardly praying and outwardly living because of the broadness of God's desire. Now what is the broadness of God's desire and it's quite simple? He says this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior and that's very Jewish language, right? God our Savior and they would say, hey man, hey man, right? They would do that. And then he would say something that would actually shock most Jews and even would shock most Presbyterians. Right? He says this God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, right? Now if you're a good Presbyterian, you should be sitting there going, oh no, if God predestined people for the foundation of the world they'd be there and so I don't have to do anything. And that's not what Paul says. Paul says that God's desire is that all would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. Now let me make something clear. He's not saying God's will is that all would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth because whatever God wills happens, right? He wills creation, he wills light, he wills people into being, that happens. So what you have here is God's desire that God's heart and His compassion is that all would be saved. And it's very interesting to me when people argue when you see people who are Presbyterian and reformed in their theology, get an argument with other people because other people would say, you know, God can't be like that, you know, that he would just choose people or that he would only initiate and Presbyterians say, yes, that's the way it is. So what you forget is that if you and I have compassion and a heart to see the people we know and love come to know Jesus, how much more God who has infinitely more compassion and infinitely more mercy than you and I have. God is not mechanical. God has desire and he looks about the world and everyone who he's created and he desires that they all would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. But that last little, that last few words is the kicker that they would be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. And that's what's most important about this passage if you want to understand it. Why? Because there's basically several different worldviews that try and deal with this passage or deal with a relationship with God. And the first one if you think about is pluralism. What is pluralism? pluralism says this that all religions are true. If you're Muslim, that's true. If you're Buddhist, that's true. If you're Hindu, that's true. If you're New Age, that's true. If you're Christian, that's true. Now there's several problems with that. For one, is that they all make mutually exclusive claims. So the only one who can even make the statement that all religions are true is an agnostic who stands on the outside and looks at them all and somehow says that they're all true without having to engage them. But it would be very offensive to a Muslim if you said that everything else was as true as his faith. And it's very offensive to a Jew and it's certainly not offensive. It's just a Christian wouldn't be able to embrace that. Why? Because what does Jesus say? Jesus says, I am the truth. And Jesus would say, Christianity would say that all those religions, Islam and Buddhism and everything else, they might point to the truth. They might have a part of the truth. Most religions share a common moral and ethical basis. And they'll part of the truth and they'll point to the truth. But Jesus says, I am the truth. If you're looking for the truth, you found it. Tell us. He says, I am the truth. You are looking at him now. And so if you're going to maintain a Christian theology, you've got to maintain that only Jesus is the truth and so only the way to have a relationship of God is through Jesus. And so then I guess you could fudge and move from pluralism to inclusivism and what does inclusivism say? Inclusivism says, well, Jesus is the only way, but since God desires everyone to be saved, at the end really how Jesus is going to judge people is simply on the sincerity of their faith. Just whether or not they were sincere. And I think this is where C.S. Lewis blows it in the chronicles of Narnie. He ruins a good series of novels with the last one in the last battle because remember in the last battle there's a character named Emmett who is a warrior who follows the demon god Tash. And at the end of the day, Aslan lets him come into his country, why? Because it wasn't that he was following Aslan that was important that he was sincere in his pursuit of the truth. Now that's a problem, at least Christianity has a problem with that. It has several problems with that. And one of them, of course, is that back to chapter 1, is anyone sincere in their pursuit of the truth? Are they? Can anyone sort of stand before God and say, I've been completely and utterly sincere in my pursuit of the truth about myself and about the world and about other people all the time? Paul would say, and the law would say, no, you dare not stand before God and say that I've been sincere. If you're smart, you'll stand before him and say, I'm a sinner and I'm wicked and I throw myself at your mercy. And so the first problem is, is are you willing to stand before Jesus just on the basis of your own sincerity? In one level, one way to judge whether or not you're sincere is just to do this, I'd ask you to maybe keep a journal this week and just put a notch at the top of the journal every time you tell a lie. Just during the course of one week and you can be an average moral juror, every time you tell a lie, spend the trip, just put a notch and then don't think about it and if you don't have a page full, you are a dishonest person, I think. That will be a lie. So what does the gospel say? Paul doesn't preach pluralism, certainly, but nor does he preach inclusivism. Paul does something else. He says the broadness of God's desire means one thing. It means that our mission better have a broad scope because there is only one way to have a relationship with this God. One way, it's not your sincerity, it's not anything else but there's one way to have a relationship with God. You see the broadness of God's desire is sort of tempered by the narrowness of his plan or it's actually worked out with the narrowness of his plan. Look at the narrowness of God's plan which actually ends up being quite broad. In verse 5, Paul says in verse 4 he says he wants all men to come to a knowledge of the truth and then he says the truth in his opinion inspired. He says for there is one God and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for all the testimony given at the proper time. This I was appointed a preacher and an apostle. I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying as a teacher of the Gentiles and in faith. What is the truth that Paul wants to communicate to people? He says on one hand God desires that all people be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth. This is why you have to live an outwardly facing life because God desires everyone but the reason you have to live an outwardly facing life is because there's only one way so everyone must be told. He says there's one God. He sort of repeats the shame off from Deuteronomy, right? The hero is real. There's one, the larger God is one and all of the Jews would shout amen and Paul takes it a step further. There's one God but also there's one mediator between man and God. And the Greek is interesting because there's one mediator also between men and God. The Greek you can translate. There is one mediator also who is a man and God. The man Christ Jesus, what does a mediator do? A mediator has to represent both parties equally, right? So if there's going to be a mediator between man and God, he'd better be 100% man. And if he's going to mediate between man and God, he'd better be 100% God. Now the only person who ever made that claim and in fact evidenced that claim by raising from the dead is Jesus himself. Jesus was the mediator between man and God. That's what Paul says. There's one mediator between man and God. And his name is Jesus. Now how did he mediate? How did he make peace between man and God? And that's verse six. He says who gave himself as a ransom for all. Excuse me. He gave himself as a ransom for all the testimony given at the proper time. The way Jesus mediates between God and man is this. He removes the barrier, right? This word ransom, to ransom somebody in ancient Near East was to rescue hostages or it was to free captives. And I said in the first verse, right, when Jesus rescues hostages, the same way rangers rescue hostages. And that thing is you destroy that thing which is holding the hostages captive, right? The way he rescues us out of our bondage and oppression is by killing that thing that holds us in bondage and oppression. And that's our sin and brokenness. Now the interesting thing is the only way he can kill our sin and brokenness is by taking it on to himself and dying. He does that on the cross. And on the cross all of our sin and guiltiness and wickedness and brokenness is poured out upon Jesus. And then when he raises from the dead, he says, whoever believes in me will have everlasting life, right? That the captives have been free, the ransom has been paid and now everyone is to hear this message, right? The way is narrow, but the message is universal. It is to be preached to everyone that whosoever believes in Jesus will be saved. There's no way about it. He doesn't say if you're Jewish and believe you'll be saved. He doesn't say if you're Asian or you're white, you're black. He says whosoever, all, anyone who believes, remember Paul said, I'm not ashamed of the power of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes. But there's no person that is beyond being forgiven and saved by Jesus. And Paul says what's so beautiful about this. He says that he gave himself as a ransom for all the testimony given at the proper time. But it was no coincidence that Jesus came when he did, right? If you think about it, Jesus came at a time right in the point in history when Rome had finally put roads and passageways through all of the known world. Jesus comes, lives the perfect life, dies, raises from the dead, 500, 600 people see him. And right after that, what do you know there's panic cost where all the people in the known world come to Jerusalem? They hear about Jesus, they believe in Jesus and then they go out into the known world. And in Paul's opinion and Colossians, he says that the job's been finished. The whole world has heard about Jesus. I can go home and sleep well now because right at the proper time, how is Christianity so covered the face of the earth? Because Jesus came just at the right time. And Paul says my job is to be a preacher of this. You see the problem with pluralism and inclusivism is this if you're a Christian. If pluralism and inclusivism are true, that people can come to know God just by the sincerity of their faith, then we should never ever tell them about Jesus. You shouldn't do it. Why? In fact, if people can come to know, come to have a relationship with God, some other way than having a relationship with Jesus, and it's based upon their sincerity, that the best thing a Christian could do is hide in their house and never talk to anybody. They would live as hermits. Why? Because God forbid you walk on the street and tell your friend about Jesus and they don't believe, but now they're responsible and they're going to go to hell. Where before, all they had to do was be sincere. And Paul says that's not the case. What the case is is that all men and women need to hear about Jesus. And for that, I was appointed a preacher. And the reason the interesting thing is the word for preacher here in the Greek is Harold. It's not preacher. It's Harold. And what a Harold does, there's really two requirements to be a Harold. One is that you would have a loud voice, right? Judy says I could have been a Harold. Mercy could be a Harold. That's my three year old. The other thing a Harold does is he has a loud voice and all he does is proclaim exactly that which has been told to him. So Paul says, for this, I was made a Harold that my job is to proclaim the good news of Jesus. And whatever you think about the gospel, it's not a philosophy. It is not a worldview. The gospel at the end of the day is news. That's it. It's news that all of us are broken and sinful. And God has come in the person of his son. And he has born our sins and raised in the dead. And now he offers a relationship to everyone who would believe. That's just news. Deal with it. Paul says he says not only that, but I am an apostle. An apostle. What an apostle does is apostle plants churches. They gather people who have believed this news. And he says, I'm a teacher of the Gentiles, which is interesting. You see apostles gathered people and who have believed this news. And then what teachers do is they equip people to take this news to other people. And so what Paul says is that I'm a preacher. I deliver the news. I gather people together. I train them. And then I send them out to take the news to other people. And that's why Paul existed. That's why the church in Ephesus existed. That's why Grace Seattle exists. I remember when I was raising money, when we had the plant, this church, I had to raise money. And whenever you go to raise money, those of you who fund raise, you're always trying to put the best spin on things or you're trying to comp with an angle and all these things. And I remember people in the southeast saying, why should we give you money to plant a church in Seattle? It's a dark place. It's a cold place. There are no churches there. It's a hard place. And I said, you know what's going to be beautiful? I said, you're going to be so encouraged because if you give me money, my guess is that within 10 years, Seattle will be sending church planners back to Atlanta. Seattle will be sending church planners and missionaries back to the southeast. You need to send me to Seattle because you need people in Seattle to come back and tell you the gospel. And they said, I don't know if we don't believe that. And of course it didn't take 10 years and only took two years. We sent our first apprentice back to Atlanta. We sent another guy back to Florida, right? And the beauty of the gospel is that God calls us unto himself in order for us to live for those outside of ourselves. So even in Seattle, we don't plant a church in Seattle and say, we have a church now. Isn't that great? We can all look inward and we can just take care of ourselves even in a place like Seattle and in Ephesus. God calls us together in order to live for those outside of ourselves, whether it's for those right around this building or whether it's for those in the southeast or even in Romania or Ireland or all of these places. And let me just end with this. All of you are here. If you're a Christian, you are here because someone else has decided to live an outwardly facing life to some extent. Either they prayed for you, or they told you about Jesus, or they hung out with you weeks, days, years upon end. And I would just encourage you to take Paul's words, take my words, please consider whether or not your life is outwardly facing or not. Let me pray. Father, we thank you that you have seen fit to draw people from every tribe tongue in nation unto this place, but also in your church throughout the world. And I pray for grace, Seattle, that we would be a church that is defined by having an outward face, that we would not only understand the substance of the gospel, our theology, but we would understand also the outworking of the gospel, which is our mission, that we are to take to every person. We are to pray for them, and we are to take unto them the message of Jesus that there is one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ who gave himself as a ransom for all. And so we pray that you would make that place like that. In your name, we pray all of these things, amen, and amen.