Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

C.S. Lewis gave us the following insight: “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.

We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We are far too easily pleased.”

That is the truth.

We get so hung up in the thoughts and cares of this world and fail to see the real desire we should have.

It is this desire that we will look at today in 1 Timothy 2:1-7.

I. Desires: Salvation for All (3-4)

God wants (wishes) everyone to believe and be saved.

God desires that everyone will be saved and delivered from wrath and condemnation.

We see this throughout the Scriptures.

In Matt.

18:14 we see Christ say “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”

In Romans 5 we see that Christ died for His enemies.

It is because of this desire why our prayers for all people are pleasing to our God and Savior.

Our prayers are, because in those prayers we are praying for them to be peaceful, live quietly, and dignified.

When we pray this way we are doing it so we can focus on what He desires: all to be saved.

We are to be obedient to God regardless how the world governments are ran, but it is so much easier to proclaim the truth when they are peaceful.

But these prayers are also for the salvation of all humanity too.

This does not mean that all will believe and be saved.

It does mean that God desires this and we should desire this too.

That is another aspect of what our prayers are supposed to be for others.

Sometimes it is difficult to pray for someone.

Sometimes we would rather the person just disappear.

For them to not be around anymore at all.

That they just are gone.

This, though, is not a healthy or good way to be.

Yes, if someone is harmful to be around then we need not be around them.

But, we should pray for them.

We do not curse or speak in a bad manner about them but in supplications, intercessions, and thanksgiving because they are still alive and can believe in Jesus for eternal life.

God wants all to come to know the truth.

The same is with God wanting all to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Jesus said (John 14:6 ) “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me.”

He said again in John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”

God is truth and when people come to the knowledge of truth they come to a knowledge of God.

When one comes to a knowledge of truth and therefore God they will see what God has performed for them.

We see this in...

II.

The Desire Made Attainable (5-7)

There is one God

There is only one God, this is something that we must recognize.

He alone is the one true God.

It is this one true God who desires all to be saved.

Deut.

6:4 tells us that “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

He is the only God.

The world wants to make there be many gods.

It wants you to make whatever you want to be, be your God.

But God is one and He requires nothing short of perfection to be with Him (Matt.

5:48) “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

He is the one true God who requires perfect obedience and purity of sin to be in His presence.

Ever since the fall in Gen. 3 we have been separated from God.

As such, we have no method of being reconnected to Him besides Him reaching into time and making a way.

The Bridge for the Gulf: The Mediator

We see God doing this with the Israelites in the book of Exodus and even before that in Genesis when God created the nation Israel.

God made a way and a promise in Gen. 3:15 when He said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””

He has used mediators before who were men.

Moses was one.

He was nothing more than a shadow of Christ though.

All the judges that were used in the book of Judges were types of The mediator.

The sacrifices were a type of the sacrifice that was to be done for people.

All of these were important and part of the overall story, but there had to be this perfect mediator to come.

This had to be none other than God Himself.

So, God the Son took on flesh and entered into human history.

He is the perfect man who lived a perfect and sinless life.

He was the one who came and settled the disagreement between man and God.

He made a way for man to be united with God once again.

It was Him and Him alone who could do this.

This again points back to God desiring all to be saved.

It does because...

The mediator gave all for all (1 John 2:2 )“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”

All means all.

Christ did not die just for a few select people.

He came and died for every single person who has lived and who will live.

This is why Paul says to pray for all.

For all kings and people in high positions.

It is to lead a peaceful life sure, but it is also for them to believe and be saved.

God desires all to be saved, not just a few.

Some will say that if He died for all then all will be saved.

This is just false on its head.

If I bake a cake and bring it to this church it is brought for all here.

Now, if some of you do not eat it then not all received the cake.

I brought it for all, but not all received it as theirs.

This is the same with jesus and His death for all.

He died for all, but only those who receive Him and His death receive the ransom payment.

Paul tells us in 1 Tim.

1:15 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.”

He goes on and says that he was the foremost sinner and he received mercy from Christ as an example of Christ displaying His perfect patience for all “who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1:16).

This means that Christ died for all but for one to have that gift they must believe.

It is their choice.

Just as Moses told the Israelites in Deut.

30:15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.”,

but the choice was theirs to make.

This is the same.

Christ died for all, so the Divine Desire of all to be saved could happen.

This makes it possible for the desire to be attainable, but for it to be made ones own, they must hear this truth and receive it or not.

That is why we must proclaim the news to them.

This is…

3. The Divine Desire Proclaimed