So we are now into this letter which is part of God’s word to us. Are you getting the feel of it? Peter last week rightly centred our thinking on grace. The week before we had seen that the Law, of which the Ten commandments is key, is there to direct us to the glorious gospel of grace. That is why we sang ‘Amazing Grace’. But we now move on to the main substance of the letter. It was written by Paul to Timothy to give guidance on Church practice and we need to sit up and take notice. Enjoying grace is right and proper but living it out is what God calls us to.

 READ 1Timothy 2:1-15

First of all. Paul is talking about communal, public worship. You can read all sorts of books today about worship but few start as Paul does, first of all. Music, Bible readings, sermons, drama, dance, testimony, use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, are all good in worship but God’s word on the subject is first of all PRAYER.

 Paul uses four words to describe prayer. They are translated by the NIV as Requests, Prayers, Intercessions and thanksgivings. The problem is the first three sound much the same. The underlying idea in the Greek word translated here as ‘requests’ is

 Begging, a petition offering to bind oneself in asking a superior for an answer.  Have we lost sight of the fact that our petitioning Almighty God for his help is worship. So Paul start off First of all, BEG. Petition seek God’s help for others and ourselves. In doing so you recognise that he is the one who makes the difference. He is the one who created you, sustained you and saved you. He is the one who is able to do more than you can ever ask for or think. So your very asking is an act of worship.

 

Prayer The second word , translated prayer is reserved for praying to God . This is in a sense more formal but it is about your relationship with God. It is the conversation part of prayer, where you recognise his greatness and his love and enter into fellowship with him, telling him how you love him and asking him to pour out his Holy Spirit on you.

 The third word translated ‘intersession’ actually means Intervening, to interfere, Interview, conversation, negotiation, approach to God in free and familiar prayer. Thus in Romans.8:26, it is not that the Spirit pleads in our behalf, but that he throws himself into our case; takes part in it. So Hebrews 7:25 : not that Jesus is ever interceding for us, but that he is eternally meeting us at every point, and intervening in all our affairs for our benefit. Do you believe God intervenes in human affairs? Does prayer actually change things. Abraham thought so, he had a long negotiation on behalf of Sodom and Gomorrah. Read about it in Genesis 18.  Now we all like to interfere in each others lives but here we are encouraged in our worship to pray that God changes what is happening. The Holy Spirit , Jesus said, will convince the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. Do you believe that? Do you believe it for your family, your friends, your neighbours? Then pray for the Holy Spirit to interfere in their lives for good! You have a priestly function, to stand before God and intervene on behalf of the people around you for their salvation and that God will withhold his judgement. So when we come to worship we are to petition him, to pray to him, to intervene on behalf of others and the forth word is Thanksgiving. The old hymn says: ‘Count your blessings, name them one by one’. When we come to worship we come to give thanks. This word is still there in modern Greek and it is used by the church to describe Communion – the word is ‘eucharistinas’ or Eucharist. Communion is a thanksgiving for what God has done and is doing in our lives and has promised he will do in eternity. That is worship and we will worship at the end of our lunch today by breaking bread and drinking wine in remembrance that Christ died for our sins and was raised to life to triumph over death.

 The next question is whom are we to pray for? Paul’s order here is important.

 

·        Everyone. All people regardless of sex, race, theology, personality, whether they have upset you or been nice to you, atheists, Muslims, Hindus, new age, whatever. If God draws your attention to them, pray for them. If you are doing something and their name comes to mind, pray for them. If you meet them in the street, or they phone you up, pray for them.

 

·         Kings and prominent people. Paul picks these out because they were the bad guys of his day. We are talking about people like Herod, Nero, and the like. So pray for Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, Jack Straw and the rest of the cabinet especially if you are a conservative! Pray for the Hillingdon council, not just David Routledge but Puddifoot as well. Pray for Barak Obama while you are at it. What he says and does affects many people’s lives and you can interfere in that by prayer!

and like a good political rallyist, what are we to pray for?

·        Peaceful and sedentary lives, well I know it says peaceful and quiet but God is saying it is OK to ask for a normal, safe and secure life free from persecution, crime and poverty. It is not wrong to ask, but faith trusts God when all that is swept away. I read that Haiti is alive with worship services and prayer, that in the ruins of their city they are not complaining God has not answer this prayer but that they are alive and able to face the uphill struggle to stay alive.

·         Godliness and honourableness. We are also to ask that we can continue to live out our lives in godliness and decently. So praying against persecution is good. Praying that we may be able to tell the Good news, have time to worship and read God’s word. In other words we are to pray that we may live the lives that please and serve God, not to pray for selfish ends.

 

 This is Good (like the Law is Good) and pleases God. A this point Paul explains what is acceptable begging, prayer, intervening and thanksgiving by reflecting on the person and character of Jesus.

 

 Jesus is

 Saviour so he is into rescuing people from sin and death

God so he is able to act.

 Wishes all men to be saved and have full knowledge of the truth. So you are to pray that those who God lays on your heart are saved and more than that , they are to come to a full knowledge of the truth. Pray for them to become spiritual members of the body, maybe leaders, teachers, prayer warriors, and having a deep personal walk with Jesus Christ.

 

 One God and

One mediator the man Christ Jesus – remember Hebrews – our man in heaven. Prayer is not lobbing requests at God. God understands because Jesus has been here!

 

Ransom for many

This is all about prayer. The key point here is that unlike any other religion, Jesus has both dealt with our sin and entered heaven to speak on our behalf. That is why prayer is not a waste of breath. So when you doubt the point of prayer, you doubt Jesus.

 

Moving on, Paul notes that the evidence given  at the proper time 2010 years ago was the right time!

 Paul then describes himself as

 I am a herald – like John the Baptist, telling about the coming Jesus.

 and an apostle  - he is a sent one. He is commanded to tell the good news throughout the Western gentile world.

 and a teacher of the true faith. As opposed to the false teachers who appoint themselves to flatter their own egos.

 

 And this herald, apostle  and teacher of the true faith say to all the church PRAY!

 

So how does this affect church conduct. Let’s be clear, if our conduct does not match our intentions then we are hypocrites and false teachers.  Paul has observed some problems in the Ephesus church, which he notes, are sexist.

But he only raises the issue because of the wrong behaviour in the church. So what was wrong with the men?

 Well, they clearly were either not praying in church or they were praying hypocritically.

Men are good at being competitive and argumentative. And when they argue tempers flare up. They are happier moving chairs and leaving the ladies to talk and pray. It is not exclusive to men but they are rather prone to it. And Paul , wisely, does not go into the wrong behaviour, he encourages correct behaviour.  First, men should lift up holy hands in prayer. It is not a job to be left to the women, how sexist!

So talking to the men only:

What are you doing on a Thursday night during POWERHOUSE? Lounging in the chair, watching TV, playing on the computer. Then this word is to you this morning. What about 9:30am on a Sunday Morning? What is more important to you, your beauty sleep or the blessing of God on this church?

 

The men are to lift up holy hands. Psalm 24 is very relevant here.

 

¹ The earth is the LORD's, and everything in it,
       the world, and all who live in it;

 ² for he founded it upon the seas
       and established it upon the waters.

 ³ Who may ascend the hill of the LORD ?
       Who may stand in his holy place?

 ⁴ He who has clean hands and a pure heart,
       who does not lift up his soul to an idol
       or swear by what is false.

 ⁵ He will receive blessing from the LORD
       and vindication from God his Saviour.

 ⁶ Such is the generation of those who seek him,
       who seek your face, O God of Jacob.
       Selah

 ⁷ Lift up your heads, O you gates;
       be lifted up, you ancient doors,
       that the King of glory may come in.

 ⁸ Who is this King of glory?
       The LORD strong and mighty,
       the LORD mighty in battle.

 ⁹ Lift up your heads, O you gates;
       lift them up, you ancient doors,
       that the King of glory may come in.

 ¹⁰ Who is he, this King of glory?
       The LORD Almighty—
       he is the King of glory.

 Second, what are you here to do? It is so easy to get into debate and disputes and the like, whether we are man or woman. But the men need to be aware that if we have something against our brother we are to deal with it and resolve it. If we are angry with each other at POWERHOUSE, then we are wasting our time pretending because one of our responses to the love of God is to love one another, even as Jesus has loved us.

The same applies on a Sunday morning. And at House group. Makes you wonder whether God can ever hear our prayers. This is not an excuse to stay away but to be here and spend time before God and putting ourselves right before him. When we argue we face each other, when we pray we stand side by side before God.

 

 So that’s the message for the men, what about the ladies?

Paul strikes at cultural issues. The matter of appearance. Today our society has the same issue. Men tend to wear boring uninteresting, same gear as everyone else. The ladies have to look good! And you do! But it can be an obsession. Now to be honest, I don’t think it a severe problem in this church, but do a stock check. What portion of your time do you spend on making yourself look good; and what portion of your expenditure is on making you look good? Is that a sign of sensible spending or extravagance? Don’t ask me, I’m a man and I have never liked dressing up much. The key matter here is the same as with the blokes. Ladies, your best spiritual expression is love and good works. The men need to mind their behaviour; the ladies need to improve on their looks by good deeds. So do the stock check, set a budget of time and money and get a plan for good deeds and relax, you are looking good!

 The second issue with the ladies was to do with their newfound freedom. The church allowed women to be equal to men. They were throwing off thousands of years of second-class citizen status. The good news is about grace, unmerited free gift of salvation. To be received by faith. Being man or woman makes no difference. That revolution was causing problems for the church and Paul was reigning in on excess.

The question of how to interpret the statement: I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent has been interpreted differently throughout history. In my lifetime we have had ‘woman may teach other women and children but not men’ unless they are missionaries abroad, which seemed an odd logic and actually racist. We have still reservations as to whether a woman should be seen as a teacher on a Sunday morning in adult church, although in the context of House group we are happy for the ladies to lead a study. It is open to interpretation but I do not want to spend too much time on the subject this morning. Lets look at what the Word of God says about this.

 Paul’s argument might seem strange to us, partly because it is minimalist.  He says that Man was created first, which is true.  But woman is second and she was flesh of my flesh.  Secondly Eve was deceived. This is the context of his concern. The false teachers were deceiving the church. The women were more likely to be deceived and repeat the false teachers.  But what he does not mention is that Adam sinned with his eyes wide open, although he blames Eve. Blaming Eve being the first argument and dispute, which in the absence of other men, was directed at God. He sees the problems in Ephesus reflecting the relational problems of Adam and Eve.

 

Our current Political Correctness does not allow us to imply that men and women are different. And much of that I agree with, grace is offered freely regardless of sex, race, ethnicity or status. But we also live in a culture that has gone the other way, exalting women above men, mothers above fathers and we need to recognise that weakness in our society and not be deceived by it.

His final point here is not at all clear. He is thinking about the fall in Genesis 3 and this entrance comes from the fact that the curse of sin specifically mentions pain in child-bearing. His mind is on Genesis 3:16

¹⁶ To the woman he said,
       "I will greatly increase your pains in childbearing;
       with pain you will give birth to children.
       Your desire will be for your husband,
       and he will rule over you."

Jesus came to undo the effect of sin so that will logically bring a release from the pain of child-bearing and the male domination. Clearly being a Christian does not mean you don’t have labour pains. I guess if it did, there would be large scale conversion in the maternity hospitals!  The word ‘BUT’ is not significant in the Greek text and could be ‘and’ or left out. The word ‘Save’ can mean healing or saving. It cannot mean that having a baby makes you a Christian or saved as that contradicts the rest of scripture. So leaving out an opinion of what the child bearing bit means, what is significant is that phrase ‘remaining in faith and love and holy living with propriety’ is the evidence of the presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer, male or female whether you are a mother or not.

 

To summarize:

 The church is under attack. And the attack is from within. Satan is seeking to destroy the church by breaking it up.

 The number one defence is PRAYER. Not debate but prayer. It is to the church Timothy was pasturing that Paul wrote about putting on the armour of God for the battle, but the battle is a pray battle. Are you engaged in spiritual warfare or are you AWOL – Absent Without Leave? Are you so engaged with God that you are begging him to bless, praying to him in all circumstances, prayer for him to interfere and thanking him for his faithfulness and his grace?  And remember this is not about personal activity, this is about our communal, collective service together. So be at the healing Service ready to pray for healing, start believing that God can, does and will save and therefore worship him by seeking his blessing. Men, get praying! Ladies, don’t be pushing for domination! All of us, PRAY.

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