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Introduction: We all have goals in our lives.
Sometimes those goal involve winning a game like basketball.
More often than not, our goals are self-centered.
I don’t mean that in an immediately negative way.
We set goals around January which we forget by February.
But we want to lose weight, get a promotion, get out of debt, get married, save for our children’s college.
I my case save for 3 weddings.
How often do our goals involve God.
How often do our goals involve the church?
Sure we might set person goals for spending time in prayer and in God’s Word.
Maybe we want to read the Bible in a year.
But how often to our Goals involve the all of us.
How often do your goals include the goals of the church.
Right now, North Hills ministries are in the process of planning for next year.
Our ministries will make plans and goals.
And then the budget will come out of those goals.
However, the achievement of those goals will require all of us.
To pray for the church.
To give generously.
To attend faithfully.
To serve humbly.
But also: Setting goals to invite people to church.
Setting goals for how often you will serve.
Setting goals for sharing your faith.
God has goals for His people and this world and we ought to do whatever it takes to play our part in achieving those goals.
Transition to the Text: Turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 2:1-4.
Paul’s words to Timothy were as a mentor to a young pastor.
Timothy was charged with continuing Paul’s work in Ephesus.
Timothy was young.
He was probably around 40 years old.
And he was tasked with leading the church to accomplish the goals of God.
As a pastor there are so many things on which Timothy could focus His time.
But Paul wanted him to focus on the main thing: the goal of the Christian life, regardless of if you are in full-time ministry or if you are in another role that God has called you to.
Our goal is to lead people to Jesus.
So...
Introduce:
Authentic Principle: Let us Put our Energy into Leading People to Jesus.
Read:
Authentic Principle: Let us Put our energy into Leading People to Jesus.
Transition: We all know that we need to share our faith.
But I think we’ll be surprised where this starts.
It doesn’t start with “just do it.”
It starts with prayer.
1. Pray that Leaders don’t get in the way.
(1 Timothy 2:1-2a)
Explanation: Paul tells Timothy that in the interest of the mission of the church, that he should begin with prayer.
Now Paul admits that we should pray for all people, but he singles out an unlikely group of people.
Paul specifically instructions Timothy (and us by extension) to pray for political and governmental leaders.
There are four aspects to prayer:
(1) “Supplications” is a general word meaning a request or a petition and was used of petitions addressed both to men and God.
Coming from a verb meaning “to lack,” it signifies prayer which springs from a sense of need.
A conscious sense of need is essential to all effective praying.
(2) “Prayers” is distinctly a religious term in that it was used only of prayer to God.
Although unrestricted as to its contents, it carries the thought of reverence in prayer.
In public prayer irreverence in manner or content is inexcusable.
Heartfelt reverence in public prayer is often sadly lacking.
(3) “Intercessions,” occurring only here and in 4:5 in the New Testament, suggests the thought of confidence in prayer.
It does not have the limitation of being for others, as implied in our English term.
It was used for a petition of any kind to a superior.
It speaks of personal and confiding intercourse with God on the part of one qualified to approach Him.
A life lived in fellowship with God gives confidence in prayer.
(4) The three previous words indicate the character of the praying while the word “thanksgivings” points out the spirit in which our prayers are to be offered.
It is the spirit of gratitude for blessings already received and those yet to be received.
It is the complement of all true prayer.
(Hiebert, 1 Timothy, 50)
Illustration: Now in our lives, we often do pray for our leaders.
We pray that the people we like will win the election and the ones we don’t like will lose.
When our candidate is in office, we pray that they would stand strong and make decisions we agree with.
When our candidate is not in office, we pray that that they would be defeated, indicted or maybe fall down the stairs.
But let’s think about the nature of what Paul was saying to Timothy.
As hard as it is for Christians around the world today, it’s hard to imagine a harder time to be a Christian than in the time of Paul.
The dominant empire in the world was distinctly anti-Christian to the point of rounding them up and killing them.
A few years after this letter, Paul would be executed for preaching Christ.
Yet, still he called for prayers to be made on behalf those very bad leaders.
Even for thanksgivings.
For some of you, the idea of being thankful for some of our political leader makes you throw up in your mouth a little.
But we are called to pray for leaders even if we don’t particularly like them.
Application: Paul gives the why here as well?
Why should we pray for our leaders?
So that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
When the government is evil, Christians have to make a lot of noise standing firm for our responsibilities to God.
A lot of it has to do with our rights.
But not always.
Part of leading a quiet life means that we allow ourselves to be subject to governing authorities.
Now we know this isn’t absolute as Paul refused to submit to them when they said “Don’t preach about Jesus?”
Or even the words of Peter when told not to preach about Jesus:
Paul recognizes that the government will be a big obstacle to the Gospel if there is constant strife.
So pray for them so that they don’t get in the way.
2. Be dignified in your own conduct.
(1 Timothy 2:2b)
Explanation: Now what’s interesting is that the primary reason for praying for kings and for those in high positions is not immediately for their salvation (though that will be part of verse 3).
But the governments can make it difficult for the church to do the job God has called it to.
So we pray that our leaders would stay out of the church.
Because it is true that the good of the nation will be the good of the church and vice versa.
And within 300 years, you might say that the churched, prayed the roman empire to become a Christian nation.
But the goal of every Christian, the goal of every church that prays is “that we may lead a quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.”
We don’t want the government to get in the way.
We also don’t want to get in the way ourselves.
So we must be dignified in our own conduct.
The desired life of every believer can be characterized by:
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