Prayer of the First Order

Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight 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 between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth. I desire therefore that men everywhere pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath or doubting. (1 Timothy 2:1–8)

The Scriptures exhort us continually to be people of prayer—but what does that actually look like, and how should we pray?

A World That Knows It Needs Prayer

I'm sure many of you had the same experience I did this past week. On Monday morning, one of the first things I was greeted with was a long list of text messages: "Did you see what happened in Las Vegas?" I went online to see, and unfortunately I have to admit I wasn't entirely shocked. These things are absolutely horrific—but it's almost more horrific that they've become so normative that we're no longer surprised. We live in a broken and fallen world, and people in our church and community are affected personally—loved ones injured or even killed. The reality of our world's brokenness weighs upon us.

One interesting response that has emerged in the last five or six years is that people change their social media profile pictures in solidarity, almost always attached to a hashtag: "Pray for Nice," "Pray for Paris," "Pray for London," "Pray for Orlando," now "Pray for Vegas." Even people who wouldn't identify as religious—newscasters, politicians—say, "Our hearts and prayers are with the people of Vegas." It's an interesting reaction.

What we have in our passage today is an apostolic exhortation to do that very same thing—to pray. Paul, writing to Timothy, the pastor of the church in Ephesus, calls him to urge those under his care to pray. This passage tells us that God's desire is that we be a people who pray. It tells us the kind of prayer we should pray, that our prayers should be not only for ourselves but for others, not only private but public, and that we should pray certain things for those people.

The Context: From Proper Preaching to Proper Prayer

The context matters. Back in chapter 1, verse 3, Paul said, "As I urged you when I went into Macedonia—remain in Ephesus that you may charge some that they teach no other doctrine." That word "urged" is the same Greek word translated "exhort" here in chapter 2, verse 1. The word parakaleō means to come alongside, to call someone to something.

In chapter 1, Paul tells Timothy to call the church to stand strong in sound doctrine. That was the whole exhortation we spent four weeks studying. But now in chapter 2, he shifts from proper preaching to proper prayer. He says the church should be a place where prayers are offered. "Establish right practices, Timothy—right practices of preaching, but now right practices of prayer."

Public Prayer Should Be of Significant Importance in the Church

Paul says, "I exhort first of all." One of the byproducts of sound doctrine being preached is that the gathering of people—a church is people, not a place—will make prayer a priority. Prayer should hold a prime position and great importance, both individually as followers of Jesus and corporately as a church.

In many ways we do this well at Cross Connection. Every week 80 to 100 of you fill out a prayer card with detailed, specific requests—for healing, salvation, provision, a job—and our staff prays through these on Tuesday, another group on Wednesday, throughout the week. We place a high value on it. Yet when you consider the exhortations of Scripture, we could always do better, both individually and corporately. Prayer can slide by the wayside. There's a high priority internally and intellectually, but it can become a low practice practically.

John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim's Progress, said of prayer, "You can't do more than pray until you have prayed." Yet so many of us do so much before we pray. I confess as a pastor I have to be reminded of this. My wife has reminded me many times, "We should pray about this," and I'll say, "Yeah, we'll get to that"—and never get to it. Paul exhorts that prayer be of the first order, high on our list.

And notice this is about the public life of Christians gathered together. Timothy was left in Ephesus to set things in order because the church was off course. The early church's pattern is described in Acts 2:42: "And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers." Sound doctrine, fellowship, breaking bread, and prayer—these were the foremost values of the early church, and they should not change for us.

Answering Our Objections to Prayer

Before we look at the kinds of prayer Paul exhorts, we have to answer some objections. Maybe you've thought: Why should I pray? God is so far away He can't possibly hear me. Or: God has much bigger issues than my piddly problems. Or: God is more interested in the important people in the church. Or: God doesn't give me what I ask anyway. Or—and I've heard this regularly lately—"Why pray? God is sovereign; He's going to do what He wants. What does it matter?" That doesn't align with the teaching of Scripture.

Maybe your objection isn't on your lips but in your attitude: "I don't need to pray. I have everything I need." That's the danger one of the churches in Revelation fell into—"We are rich and have need of nothing."

Paul doesn't spend any time on these objections. To Paul, God is intimately interested in the daily issues of our lives. And this came from Jesus Himself, who taught us to pray to God as Father—as our Father who knows the things we have need of and desires His children to come and ask for our daily bread.

Supplications, Intercessions, and Thanksgiving

Paul lists supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks—really about three kinds, since "prayers" is an overarching, catch-all term. All supplications are prayers, but not all prayers are supplications; all intercessions are prayers, but not all prayers are intercessions.

Supplication is asking God for provision for your own needs and cares. If we're honest, that probably occupies 80 percent of our prayers. Sometimes our prayers become like ordering from a barista—"I want this, and this, and hold the whipped cream." Supplication is not bad; we're instructed to bring our petitions to God. But it can dominate our entire prayer life.

Intercession is prayer for the needs of others. That's what we do with the prayer cards. We're exhorted as Christians and as a church to pray for the needs of others.

Giving of thanks is the one we must be careful not to neglect. What do you do when you receive what you prayed for? Do you come before God with honest praise, adoration, and thanksgiving? It's vital to acknowledge that it was by God's hand that He dealt with the issue.

The Church Should Pray for All Without Distinction

Let's get a stumbling block out of the way: the gender-specific language. Some object that Paul says "all men." But this is speaking about humanity. "I exhort that prayers be made for all humanity." (If you have an issue with biblical positions on gender, you'll have a harder time with next week's passage—but this isn't that issue.)

There are 7.5 billion people on this planet. When Paul says to pray for all, he means without distinction. No one is beyond the scope of our prayers. Our prayers are not to be ethnocentric, monocultural, or demographically divided so that we pray only for those like us. One commentator said our prayers should be "without distinction of race, nationality, or social position."

Prayer for others is a demonstration of devotion and love—unless we're praying imprecatory prayers, prayers of judgment. You've done that: someone cuts you off on the freeway and you go, "Oh God, blank them." That's a prayer; didn't think you'd done that, did you? But Jesus said, "If you love those who love you, what reward is there? Do not even the sinners do the same?" We're called to pray for all humanity.

Paul says specifically to pray for "kings and all who are in authority." Whether those civil authorities are godly or perverted, they are subjects of our prayer. One commentator said Christian citizens may in this way influence the course of national affairs. Many of us feel helpless about where our nation is going. People say, "Vote"—but many feel their vote isn't worthwhile, especially in California. We can affect the national affairs of our nation by prayer.

The Prayer Warrior Should Seek to Be a Peacemaker

Notice the goal: "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence." He doesn't say our prayer is that the rulers change their actions, but that it would change us and our experience in the nation. Jesus said, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God." The prayer warrior should seek to be a peacemaker.

This was written around AD 63–64. Paul's hope was that the church might lead a quiet and peaceable life in the very pluralistic Roman Empire. But it was a hope that would not be realized. About ten years before, a new emperor had come to Rome—a seventeen-year-old named Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus. Nero ruled from AD 54 to AD 68.

In the summer of AD 64, a great fire devastated Rome; of the city's fourteen districts, only four were untouched. Suspicions zeroed in on Nero himself, who had ambitions to remake Rome after his own image. With a publicity problem on his hands—and unhappy people in Rome didn't live long—he needed a diversion. He made the Jews and the Christians his scapegoats, because they were outsiders, a minority who didn't go to the temples, the theaters, or the gladiators. They lived separate lives, an easy target.

From AD 64 to 68 there was massive persecution. The Roman historian Tacitus tells us Christians were covered with the skins of beasts and torn by dogs, nailed to crosses, doomed to flames, and burned to serve as nightly illumination when daylight expired. Nero would take Christians alive, dip them in pitch, fix them on stakes, and set them on fire to light the night. It gives the words "let your light so shine" a whole new meaning.

How the Christian Wages War

So Paul's hope for a peaceable life would not be realized, and just months before this began, he calls the church to wage war—to fight the good fight of faith. But how does the Christian wage war? With God in prayer. In 2 Corinthians 10:3, Paul says, "We do not war according to the flesh. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for the tearing down of strongholds." Prayer is a weapon. In Ephesians 6, after listing the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, shield of faith, and sword of the Spirit, he says, "praying always with all prayer and supplication." Prayer is a weapon that tears down strongholds.

We have a hard time with this because there is resident within every one of us—more so in men generally—an inclination to take up actual weapons. Virtually every time I give a message like this, someone comes up and asks, "What should we do when the government turns on us? Should we rise up and fight?" Jesus spoke to this. When He was arrested, Peter pulled out a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's servant—notice he didn't go for the trained Roman garrison; this Galilean fisherman was wiser than that. But Jesus told him to put away the sword. The next morning, before Pilate, Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight." His servants were not called to rise up that way. That grates against our nature—I see it in my sons, especially Eliot; it's a good thing he only weighs forty pounds, because he has a solid right hook. The Christian soldier wages war in the spirit, by prayer.

Acceptable Prayer Aligns My Desires with God's Desire

"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Acceptable prayer aligns my desires with God's desire for the salvation of all.

I'll confess—and you may agree—that many times we come to God trying to swing His will toward ours. We explain all the reasons our plan is good, trying to influence Him like we're lobbying a senator to sway his vote. And if it's not working, we go on a hunger strike: "I'll fast until You do what I want." But that's not what prayer is about. Prayer brings my will into alignment with God's. This is why we pray, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"—and sometimes, "Your will be done in my life as it is in heaven."

Jesus struggled with this in His humanity. In Gethsemane, the night before His death, He prayed three times, "Father, if there is any other way, let this cup pass from Me—nevertheless, not My will but Your will be done." He expressed that He did not desire the suffering of the cross, yet He submitted His will to the Father's.

So what do you pray for when your governing authority is an antichrist like Nero? In the natural, I want to pray for their damnation—"break their teeth in their mouths." But we are directed to pray not for their damnation but their salvation. Look carefully: at the end of verse 3, this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior—that's His nature. And verse 4: "who desires all men to be saved"—that's His will. If I'm going to pray in line with God's nature and will, I must pray for the salvation of all people. And "all" means all—including those in opposition to Christ.

This leads to one of my strong convictions: any teaching that limits the saving power of God to one chosen group is against the Scriptures and against the nature of God.

We Must Work for the Salvation of All

We should not only pray for the salvation of all but work for it. God "desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth." How will they know the truth? Because you and I share it with them. That's why Paul says in verse 7, "for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle, a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth."

And what is the truth we tell them? Verses 5 and 6: "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all." There is one God, one way to that God, and Jesus died for you so you could come to God. That's the gospel. He did this for all—not for some.

Paul has to add parenthetically, "I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying," because in his day there was severe division between groups. Some Jewish Christians did not like Gentiles or believe they could receive the grace of Jesus. Paul insists, "No—God appointed me to take the gospel to the Gentiles." Nearly all of us here are Gentiles; we're thankful God appointed him.

God's Desire for Salvation Compels Our Desire for Prayer

"I desire therefore that men pray everywhere." God desires all men to be saved; Paul says, "I desire therefore that men pray." What's the first step of evangelism? Prayer.

At the beginning of September, we handed out orange "You Connect" cards. Many of you wrote down three names—about 800 names total—and we've been praying for those people. The first step of the evangelist is to pray that God would tear down strongholds of every vain thing that exalts itself against the truth of who He is, that He would move in hearts hardened by sin, suffering, anger, and brokenness. Men love darkness rather than light, so how do we move in the heavenlies? By prayer.

I'm still praying for the right opportunity to share with one of the names I wrote down. It hasn't happened yet, but I keep praying, "God, move in power and give me that opportunity." God's desire for salvation should compel my desire for prayer. Paul says, "I desire that men pray everywhere"—not just quietly at home or gathered in a room, but everywhere, that we would be beacons of prayer for the salvation of all people.

Paul also says to pray "lifting up holy hands." Holy hands are hands sanctified by the washing and regeneration of the blood of Jesus Christ. If you're a Christian today, you've been made holy before God. So lift your hands and pray for the salvation of all people—even those who, like Nero, may be antichrist in your life.

Closing Prayer

Father, we stand in Your presence. Your word says that wherever two or more are gathered in Your name, there You are in their midst, so we trust that You are here. What an amazing opportunity to stand before the King of kings and Lord of lords, holy, holy, holy, separate from sinners, and to lift our hands—and they are holy because of the work You did. Our sin has been purged and cleansed. Thank You, Jesus, for Your salvation.

God, every one of us knows people—friends, coworkers, family, neighbors—who don't know You. They may know something about Jesus, may even have gone to church as children, but they don't know You. Their lives are broken because of sin they have done and sin done to them—hurts, pains, angers, unforgiveness, frustration, all kinds of things that hold them back from You. But You are the Savior; that is Your nature, and You desire their salvation. Jesus, You put it all on the line for them. He who spared not His own Son, how will He not freely give all things?

We pray for those names we wrote down, and others that come to mind now. Move in power in their lives. Do whatever You need to do to bring them to recognize their need for Your saving grace. Help us to be there with boldness to share the truth of who You are at the right moment, with the right word, in the right way, not fearful. Pour out Your Spirit upon us as our hands are lifted high in surrender, accepting and asking for Your grace and boldness.

You have placed every person in this room in a mission field I will never reach—school campuses, office buildings, construction sites, police cars. Use them as lights to a world in chaos and brokenness. We pray for our leaders, those who know You and those opposed to You, because righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach to any people. If we want to see our nation transformed, the only thing that will transform it is Your saving grace and power—not a new tax plan, not a health care bill, not a new president, but Your grace. Help us to remember this. We pray these things in the mighty and precious name of Jesus. Amen.