Bow In Worship (2)

Well I can honestly say that this is a first. And looking out at so many empty pews reminds me of how much I really miss all of you and how important morning worship is. Livestreaming is what a compromise, but I think that it is important to know that this is not a long term substitute for the real thing.

*I heard a good analogy this week. Let’s say that you were use to coming to my house and eating a steak dinner every week. But, one week I said there’s been a change of plans. You can’t come, but you can watch me eat mine on video livestream.

This is good for now, but it is certainly missing something. I miss being with you and I pray that you miss being together, singing together, praying together and sitting under the teaching of the Word together. But, for now, we will make due the best that we can.

When I started this two part message called “Bow in Worship”, I could have never realized what we were about to begin facing. But, this threat with COVID-19 Virus underscore the important of Christians praying.

Just as a reminder, we talked about the first important function of prayer in public worship and in daily life.

I. Intentional prayer expresses daily dependence. (v.1)

Oh how we are reminded of our daily need. We noted how out of the 6 different Greek nouns for prayer, 4 of them occur right here.

Supplications- We have a lot to ask God for right how. Continued health. Our health care workers. Our economy. That we have a job when this is over with.

Prayers- This is general talking about in this context public prayer in worship. We need to make prayer a part of worship because prayer is communion and reliance on God. As God’s children that should mark our lives always.

Intercessions- Not only do we pray for our needs, but our concerns reach out to others. We are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Praying for them is one of the greatest expressions of love that we can show people.

Thanksgivings- One of the greatest ways to secure our faith in turbulent times is to remind ourselves all the ways God has been in the past. That’s what Thanksgiving does. Gratitude reminds of that we have been receives of massive amounts of grace. It fills our heart with joy and peace. And reminds us that the God who has care for his children in the past hasn’t stopped when we need him the most.

II. Effective prayer is a means to desirable lives. (v.2)

We pray for all people, but especially for leaders.

1 Timothy 2:1–2 ESV

1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

1 Tim. 2:

Our leaders have never needed our prayers as much as they do now. Maybe this pandemic really highlights the reality of this verse. That the decisions of leaders affect the quality of our lives. During the midst of this pandemic, their decisions is going to affect how many people are infected, the number of serious illness and death, the state of the economy, the education system in America, the state of medicine in America, etc.

The quality of leadership of our leaders affect our lives whether we are in a pandemic or not. If they lead well and govern as God has designed, if leaders everywhere lead as God has designed, that will mean Christians can live as God desires for us, “a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” (v. 2b) That sounds ideal to me.

III. Effective prayer brings about God’s desire for the world. (vv.3-7)

1 Timothy 2:3 ESV

3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,

This is good. This type of prayer is good. This type of leadership is good. This type of life is good. It is pleasing to God.

This is God’s desire for the whole world. Listen how v.4 describes God:

God loves the whole world. God’s

1 Timothy 2:3 ESV

3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior,

1 Timothy 2:4 ESV

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

The mistake that we make sometimes is to try to make this passage about election. Then you get into discussions like this, “If God wants all people (as in every single person on the face of the earth) to be saved, then why didn’t he work in such a way that all people on earth would be saved. Another person would say because of freewill. Then another person would say, “Then God desires to preserve freewill more than he desires to save all people.” Then the Calvinist would say, “We have a will, but the will is not free. It is constrained by our evil desires that God’s Spirit has to overcome to save us.”

That whole discussion misses the whole point of the goodness of God in the gospel that Paul is writing about.

You have to understand the people to which Paul is writing and time that he is writing. Paul is writing in a culture that Yahweh was seen as the God of the Jews. A Gentile could follow Yahweh but he had to become a God -fearer, a Gentile who revered the Jewish God. But we are about to see that God doesn’t want to be seen as simply the “Jewish God.”

God wants to be known and revered as the God of all nations. That’s important because Timothy is serving a church filled with both Jews and Gentiles.

Paul says, that this desire of God to see all peoples, no matter Jew or Gentiles, to be restored to him.

How is this most clearly seen? Paul says that this is most clearly seen in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 2:5 ESV

5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

“For” that’s how I know that the “all people” comment is about the gospel. Here’s how we know that God want all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

“For there is one God.” All these Gentile nations have traditionally worship a bunch of little “g” gods. The Egyptians worships Ra. The Canaanites worshiped Baal. The Moabites worshipped Chemosh. The list goes on and on. Regardless of who these little “g” god were, none of them were worthy of worship. None of them were their creator. None of them were worthy of their devotion. Only Yahweh is worthy of that devotion and worship. He goes on to say, not only is there only one big G God. But, also:

“and there is one mediator between the one God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Now that brings up an interesting question? Why do we need a mediator to restore us back to Yahweh? In the gospel, the God of the entire earth, every nation, is addressing the one problem that the whole earth universally has, sin.

*Right now we are living through a pandemic. No matter what nation you live in, everyone is facing the results of COVID 19, the coronovirus. It’s massively contagious and it has the potential to kill you and no one on earth has immunity to it. It is spreading across the nation. No one and no nation is exempt from it’s wrath. COVID 19 is no respectors of person. Nations are completely closing their borders. Most businesses across the world are shutting down. People are staying home and not working. The world’s economy is tanking. The affects of the coronavirus affects everyone and every nation on earth. It is a pandemic.

What Paul wants us to understand is that sin is a pandemic. But it is far worse that the coronavirus. First, it’s so contagious that you don’t even catch it from someone else. You were born with it. It’s a disease that is passed down from parent to child. Not only does it have the potential to kill you, it actually kills you. It’s a spiritual death that leaves you not desiring the things of God and separates from God permenatly and eternally. It is a condition that the whole world has contracted from our first Father, Adam, who became the first sinner and handed it down to all of us.

So, as a sinful people, of a sinful world. Do we have any hope? Where are we to turn? Can the Egyptians find any hope in Ra, or the Cannanites in Baal. Or Americans in the gods of materialism and self sufficiency that we bow to? No.

Oh yes, Yahweh has sent the world a Savior, a mediator, a go between, to bring us back to God.

No, but God wants all people to be saved. Yahweh has sent the world a Savior, a mediator, a go between, to bring us back to God. Who is it? “the man Christ Jesus.”

In light of our situation, I want us to think about the gospel in light of the host. The problem with the coronavirus was the original host. The original host ultimately infected everyone else as it passed from one person to the next and one nation to the next.

The Bible teaches that Adam’s sin is passed down from parent to parent, from generation to generation. So, the gospel is God changing the host of humanity. Jesus becomes a second Adam.

1 Corinthians 15:45 ESV

45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Jesus, the second Adam gives spiritual life where the first Adam gave condemnation and death.

Romans 5:18–19 ESV

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men. 19 For as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous.

In Adam, we are infected with sin and thus we are walking dead separated from God. But, what Paul wants you to know. God has offered you a new Adam. He has changed the host. And this host doesn’t give death. He gives eternal life forever.

That’s what it means for Christ Jesus to be our mediator. He has been our go between. He has done everything needed to bring us to God and God to us.

What has he done. Perfect righteous is need for us to live in relationship with God. He earned all righteousness for us. The penalty for our sin had to be paid for. He gave himself as a ransom for all.

1 Timothy 2:6 ESV

6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

That’s what a ransom

A ransom is a debt paid for a captive or slave that they may be free. Jesus died for our sin. He bore our death, that we might receive his righteousness.

He rose again to prove that all who repent of sin and place faith in him might have eternal life and restored to God forever.

+You need to ask yourself this question? Are you in Adam? Do you have his sin and his death? Or are you in Christ, do you have his righteousness. Look back at .

Romans 5:18 ESV

18 Therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

All in Adam are condemned. But all in Christ have life. That truth is not just for people in the Bible Belt of South Alabama. That message is for those affected with sin and death in China, and Italy, and every people group and every nation.

And Paul says it was,

1 Timothy 2:7 ESV

7 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.

1 Tim.

Paul said he would give his life to get this truth to the world. We must allow our prayers in worship to motivate us to join him on that quest.

Let me close with something Spurgeon told his congregation.

2,200 Quotations from the Writings of Charles H. Spurgeon: Arranged Topically or Textually and Indexed by Subject, Scripture, and People Evangelism

404If then, you will be damned, let me have this one thing as a consolation for your misery, that you are not damned for the lack of calling after; you are not lost for the lack of weeping after, and not lost for the lack of praying after.—4.304

May we reach the world with the life saving Gospel of Jesus Christ!