Kent Hughes in his commentary on this passage begins with a hypothetical story about a Coast Guard rescue team who began as people who were committed to the mission of saving people who were lost at sea. Whether they were shipwrecked, had bad navigation, or having some other difficulties, they had become a people who were obstinate to their mission. They became a people who wanted to hand off their responsibilities to others, and at the end of the story, they even want to stop altogether. The team starts out zealous, going out regularly, seeking the needs of those in rescue efforts, bringing in those who are drowning, lost, and struggling to get back to shore. But as time goes on, they grow tired. They start making upgrades to their facilities, and slowly they go out less and less, and even get to a point where they hire a complete other group of people to do their job for them. At the final point in the story, they are so upset that these dirty, dying, and destitute individuals have come into their headquarters that they try and stop their rescue operation altogether. In short, the rescue team had become a country club. The original mission and work that they excited them had become taxing. The Coast Guard, in this story, suffered from mission drift. The work commitments that grounded them early on slipped away, and they allowed for comfort and convenience to direct them. Mission drift is something that all organizations and individuals can face. If a compass on a ship or a plane is just off a few degrees, it will easily miss its destination. The church, like the Coast Guard in this story, can be guilty of such mission drift. We risk becoming a country club if we become a people that commit ourselves to our comfort and convenience over God's mission. The Church of Ephesus, under the leadership of false teachers, ran the risk, and I likely believe that they were committed to this, that they had lost the mission. With their legalism and ethnocentrism, it seems as though they were just caring for and teaching those they had preference for. Paul in this passage corrects this by stating, The desire of God's heart is for all people, for Jews and for Gentiles, for commoners and for governors. God's heart is for all peoples, in all places, in all kinds of locations, so that the church would thrive and that they would live out their mission. And so he tells the Church of Ephesus to pray and preach to this end. And so this will serve as our outline this morning, God's heart is for all people to know him. So pray for all people and preach to all people. So that'll be our outline this morning. Two points. Let's look at our first point. Pray for all people. Look at me at verses 1 to 3. After charging Timothy to correct false doctrine, Paul moves to telling Timothy and the church what this looks like practically. He tells them what this looks like doctrinally, and now he tells them what this looks like practically. Last week we were told that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. That God is doing a work of saving people, not by merit, not by ethnicity, but simply by his glorious grace, his unmerited favor. And if that is the case, you will see that you should pray for all people, even the most unlikely coming to faith. For the church at this time, it likely would have been their emperor and rulers of their day. According to the dating of this letter, Emperor Nero was the emperor at the time, and he was known in history as a hater and persecutor of Christians, just like Paul was. And we see in that instance that Paul is building logically on what he's already written. He now tells Timothy and the church to pray that God works in Nero's heart in all the hearts of the high ranking officials. Paul's urgent call to prayer references three kinds of prayer, supplications, prayers, thanksgivings, and intercessions. These are prayers of request, prayers of gratitude, and prayers on behalf of another. The church is to pray not just for people they prefer, but for all people. The purpose of this prayer is that Paul and the church would experience peace, both internally and externally. And as I say that, that sounds very church-centric. It sounds very ecclesiastical. But this prayer is one that would affect, yes, the Christians in Ephesus, but there is a hope for society at large that would affect the church and those beyond. The peaceful, quiet, godly, and dignified life that Paul hopes for as a result of these prayers is not somehow code for the upper middle class of Ephesus. In this, he is asking for the church to be able to function freely and fully in gospel ministry, to not be persecuted for their faith, to not be mistreated, to be not misunderstood, but given the ability to freely minister among the people. Though the church does grow, and did grow in the midst of persecution, there is a liberty that the persecuted church in China or Iran yearn for. To not live in fear of death, mistreatment, allows for the church to freely proclaim and practice and bless others around them. Instead of being concerned with threats, they can freely gather and serve those in their communities. And this is a hope beyond just having a building and having worship services, though having worship services is essential. It is the work of ministry to one another and neighbors and beyond, and to do this work without the threat of speculation. In Ephesus, before the church is even barely off the ground, there were riots in the street because Paul is sharing the gospel with so many people that were formerly worshipers of Artemis, and these people are repenting and turning to Jesus. And as they're doing that, the men who made statues and idols in Ephesus for Artemis were angry. They're angry as they feared losing their business because people would stop worshiping Artemis and what would they do? How would they make money? Paul was thrown out of Ephesus as a result of this. Later on in church history, we know that Emperor Nero martyrs Paul and the Apostle Peter. And even later than that, there becomes a popular Roman rumor accusing Christians of ritual murder and cannibalism. And in these beliefs, they often believe that they're eating babies and accusing them of incest. These are misconceptions primarily stemming from a distorted understanding of the Lord's Supper or the practice of loving one another as brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ and the adoption of abandoned babies in Roman regions. Given some of these issues, you can see Paul's urgency. He knew hostility firsthand, and so he calls for the church to pray. Though our world is increasingly becoming more hostile to Christianity, we do live actually with many of the liberties that I believe the Apostle Paul prayed for here. We are actually people who live largely at peace. Though we do not fear the raised sword like the Apostle Paul here, we are people who fear the raised eyebrow. We are fearful to pray. We are fearful to proclaim because people might look at us a certain way and think we might be odd or we might risk even our jobs or something else. And despite that, we are still called to pray for greater liberty, greater peace and greater change, not just in our land, but in the world beyond. Paul in this is not asking for just the church to be safe, though that is integral. What he's asking for is so they can freely serve. In this, Paul's path to peace is not just the restraining of evil or the removing of leaders, but it's the conversion of all people. As this is the desire of our God that all people would be saved by him and that they would know him. The holy huddling that was taking place in Ephesus was spurred on by heresy and fear. And though we are not believing maybe blatant lies in our doctrine, we can still be a people who are governed and in our hearts by the same devices and differences. These threats just take different forms. We can think that we are going to be harmed if we speak. We can think that reform is found in policy instead of God's conversion of people. We can think in our hearts that people are too far from God. When man is big in our hearts, God will be small. When you come to prayer for the church, we often think of peace in these two ways. That somehow God may lead people to be Daniels in society and that they might raise their rank in Christian policy and politics. Or that God needs to bring some other way of reform, but what Paul says here is God is to convert the king. Prayers for policy reform are not bad. Asking God to give us favor as Christians in leadership is great. But Paul calls the church to pray bigger prayers, to pray that God would convert politicians, world leaders and decision makers. And would we pray that that would happen? In a few weeks we will see our neighbors in the South have their midterms. And so would we pray that God would work and convert men and women who are in leadership in the South. That they would not just have a moniker of Christianity, but they would actually be marked by Jesus Christ. To have peace on earth and in the church and beyond, it begins and stays with God converting people in all places. Though the first reason we are given here is to pray for high ranking officials is to have a peaceful life. This takes place by individuals coming to faith. The heart of God is for all people to be saved and to come to know Him. And would we be a church that prays to that end that salvation would be known by all people, those in high positions and those in low positions. God is not a preferential God that somehow holds Himself back by ethnicity or status. He is a God who is mighty to save all tribes, tongues and nations and peoples. We read even today in our Gospel reading that Jesus heals the Sarafnesian woman's daughter. Jesus is a savior and redeemer of all people. He didn't have preference. He still graciously saved. God saves a former Pharisee like Paul and a fisherman like Peter. And He goes on through history to even answer this prayer, I believe, in Constantine, a Roman emperor, and bringing him to faith. He shows us that He is a God that calls all people to Himself. And so would we pray for our neighbors, our employers, our government, our municipality, our province, our federal government, and even for our world? God can save these individuals and desires to. That's what we see in this text. So would we pray for men and women to repent and believe? God reminds us here that He is not the God of the holy huddle of Ephesus or Bedford, but He is the God of the world who desires all people to know Him and believe in Him. And so may this take place in our communities, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our hospitals, in our courts, in our government, and would we see God glorified in all of these different stations? For some of you, this comment of God desires to save all people sounds confusing. If God desires it, why doesn't He just do it? In answering this, we must see that there is a paradox at work, that God works by divine sovereignty. At the same time, there is still human responsibility. Human philosophers call this an antimony. I think I might be saying that word wrong, but I'm going to say it again, antimony. It is the word for a paradox where God desires and does accomplish the work of bringing people to faith, but that does not destroy human freedom. So as you read this, we can see that God desires and prays for all people to come to faith and believe in Him. But there is also people who harden their heart and deny God's grace. And this does not diminish His sovereignty or their human responsibility. There is a tension in both. There is other view in this congregation that may be wondering, is this a prayer for somehow to have Christian nationalism or Christian preferentialism? And the answer to that is also no. This is not praying that Christians would have special privileges as the church or that we would see a theocracy. This is having rulers of our world repent and believe in the gospel to promote justice and law that accords with God's moral law for the flourishing of the world and the church. As the moral law is upheld and not infringed upon, there will be peace both for the church and the broader society. As the gospel of Jesus Christ converts sinners in government, it will lead to the promotion of human dignity for the unborn and the marginalized. It will promote truth of identity and decrease confusion. It will protect freedom and decrease conflict. It is because God is changing the hearts of men and women. It is this movement of changing people from the inside out, of conforming them to Christ and giving them a vision for life that is greater than the utopia of philosophical books. It is seeing the kingdom of God on earth. Jesus Christ is the Lord of all. And in praying and asking to make people aware of this. In praying, we are asking God to make people aware of this and respond in faith. Thus changing them, our cities, our province, our country and our nation. May we be a people who pray in line with God's desire as we see it here. As this is pleasing in his height, asking him to save many as he only can. In being instructed to pray for all people, we are reminded that we do not convert people. God does. However, God uses men and women like you and I to witness, to proclaim the gospel to those who are lost and far off. He is a work of God alone, but he uses people like you and I to participate in the process. Which leads us to our second point, to preach to all people. Look at me at verses four to seven. Paul now moves to telling us the truth that people must know and explains how people are saved. The proclamation begins with the clarity that there is one God and that there is one mediator between God and man. This truth does away with the confusion of two things of universalism and pluralism. Universalism teaches that people, regardless of their faith, will somehow be saved. And that is simply not true. We see to come to God, the one true God, they must believe in Jesus. It also does away with pluralism that teaches that there are many gods and the Christian God is just one of them. As we see Paul's testimony here, that is simply not true. There is one God. And you can only come to that one God through Jesus Christ. Jesus says this himself in the Gospel of John chapter 14 verse 6. He says, I am the way, the truth in life, and no one comes to the Father except through me. The way of salvation, the way of truth, the way of relationship with the one true God comes to the only mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. The man Christ Jesus. And so with this, he does away with universalism, pluralism, and even how other, quote unquote, Christian sects think that we need to go to a priest or a pastor or a saint to somehow go and have a relationship with God. That is just simply not true. It is through Christ alone and Christ alone, the man Christ Jesus. Paul in these verses, as he emphasizes the man Christ Jesus, he is not diminishing Jesus as God. He is emphasizing his humanity as it relates to his sacrifice and ransom. The words he says here, he gave himself highlights that this was a voluntary action done by Christ to give himself as a sacrifice for sin. That no one took his life. Instead, he gave it as a ransom for many. Jesus says this in Mark 10 verse 45. That he came to give his life for as a ransom for many. Ransom is a concept that we are familiar with from books or the news, where there is a hijacker of some kind that is holding people captive as a ransom asking for payment. They'll ask for some typical sum of money as an exchange for those who are held captive. All people that are held captive need that exchange price. And what we see here is that we are a people, all humans are held captive by the bondage of sin and judgment. And the price to set those free or set us free is the death of Jesus Christ for all who believe, who paid the price for sin by his death on the cross. Jesus had to truly be human to die the price to Jesus had to truly be human to pay the price for humanity's sin. But he also had to be truly God to be sinless to pay the price in full. Paul in these words reminds us of the work of salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. That Jesus put on flesh being fully man, that he died on the cross for our sins as a ransom for our lives, that he is the only mediator between God and man. That he sits now at the right hand of the Father. That we in this that we are not just a forgiven people by God, but we are now people in relationship with God. The mediation of Christ is why at the end of our prayers will say in Jesus name is because of Christ that we have a right relationship with the Father. This chasm that exists between God and man is something that God can only bridge. And Jesus has done that by his work on the cross. And is only those who believe in Jesus who will be forgiven and be in right relationship with God. This is the message or testimony that was given at the right time for the Apostle Paul to proclaim to all people both Jew and Gentile. The false teachers of the day doubted Paul's ministry and his message. Because they believe that it was exclusively Jewish. And what Paul has done over the last few chapters is correct this misconception. Making clear that Jesus Christ is the savior of all people who believe. Christianity is not a Jewish renewal movement. It includes believing Jews but is God's accomplishment of saving the world all tribes tongues and nations. This is what the Apostle Paul was appointed to preach and so are we. Not only praying that all people come to saving faith but proclaiming it to all people when given the opportunity. When you and I speak of Jesus Christ in whatever platform you have. This is what we need to be saying we need to be speaking of Jesus Christ giving his life as a ransom for many. When I say the word preach and even in this this point I'm not talking about being up here on Sunday. I'm speaking about the platform of your homes of your schools of your neighborhoods of your workplaces. Preach of him wherever you are placed to whom whoever to whoever will listen to you. And it is because of this incremental increase does the kingdom of God grow in Bedford and beyond. So that all people would know that there is one mediator between God and man the man Christ Jesus who gave himself as a ransom for many. In this would we see our mission as a church to pray and preach to all people because this is the desire of our God to save all people. We as a church don't exactly know who these individuals are that God will save. But by faith we commit ourselves to praying that God would work and accomplish much in and through us using our witness to call many to faith in him. The temptation to be a country club looms over every church. But the mission of Christ that he has given to his church is greater than our comforts and our preferences. So may we not drift but instead be active as he has called us to be in prayer and preaching. May God work in our midst. Let us pray.