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Colin Smith: The church is not a campaigning organization for social or political change. Our calling is gospel ministry that changes human lives, not by the imposition of human laws, but rather by the regeneration of human hearts. There's all the difference in the world between these two things.

Steve Hiller: Welcome to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith. And Colin, I know that is a core conviction of yours. It has been for a long time. It’s just as true today as the day you preached this message, and that will continue as we go forward.

Colin Smith: Yes, and you know, I think that for the church in the New Testament, it was also true. We’re looking at 1 Timothy and chapter two today. And here’s Paul writing in the days of the Roman Empire. I mean, imagine the kinds of social and cultural issues that there were in these days.

And so what does he say to the church? Well, he speaks about two things: give yourselves to the ministry of prayer and give yourselves to the proclamation of the gospel. These were the priorities, and I think as we seek to be guided by the scripture in how we live in our world today, they’re the priorities that we should still embrace.

So I hope that today’s going to be really encouraging. What should the church be doing today? We should be giving ourselves to prayer, and we should be giving ourselves to the proclamation of the gospel, by which human hearts are changed. And as human lives are changed, things in the world around us are increasingly changed as well.

Steve Hiller: Well, let's look at this together. In the book of 1 Timothy, we're in chapter two as we begin a message called "Gospel Ministry". Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: We're pursuing together gospel faith, which means to be rooted in truth and to be growing in love. We want to live in the joy of gospel freedom, which means that we are drawn by grace, not driven by law. And we're rejoicing in gospel salvation, which means that we are sinners who are saved by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is a trustworthy saying, we saw last time, that deserves full acceptance: "Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners," Paul said, "of whom I am the worst." In other words, when we've grasped the gospel, we do not want to be among the self-righteous who are saying, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners like you." No, we want to take our place with Paul and with humility before the cross of Christ and to say, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners like me, sinners like us," and we want others to know what we have found in Jesus Christ.

Now, that launches us right into 1 Timothy and chapter two, our passage for today, which is about gospel ministry in which we share Christ's passion for the world. In other words, the gospel did not come to us in order to end with us. Christ has entrusted it to us, to the church, so that we may bring it to others. Therefore, a gospel-centered church is a missional church—a church that is committed to the advance of the gospel, a church that shares the heart of Jesus Christ and has a passion for all people.

That is why we are committed to glorify God by multiplying God-centered, Christ-exalting, and world-transforming believers through the gospel in the greater Chicago area and around the world. By the way, I spent some time doodling this week on an antithesis to the mission statement. Would you like to hear it? Here's the opposite. Here is the anti-mission statement if you take every phrase and write the opposite.

The anti-mission statement would be something like this: To satisfy each individual by maintaining self-centered, performance-exalting, status-quo preserving agnostics without the gospel in the zip code 60004. Folks, that is not the mission statement. We want to glorify God by multiplying believers through the gospel in the greater Chicago area and around the world, and I want us to see from 1 Timothy and chapter two how that directly arises out of our understanding of the gospel.

Now, it would be very easy, as you’ll quickly work out, to have four or five sermons from this chapter. The danger in doing that, I think, and the reason why I've planned only one, is that there's always the danger of missing the wood for the trees. And so I want us to see what holds this chapter together. Notice what we have here. It begins with a ministry of prayer in the church for all people. "I urge first," verse one, "that prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone."

Then you have in verse seven a ministry of the word which goes to all people. Paul speaks about his own work as an apostle to the Gentiles. What glues these two together—that is, the church's ministry of prayer and the apostolic ministry of the word—is the atoning death of Jesus Christ, which was for all people. Verses three to six: "There is one God; there is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men."

Then you have, if you follow the flow of the chapter, what at first looks like a strange jump, because Paul then speaks particularly to men and then he speaks particularly to women. What I want you to notice is that he speaks to men in relation to prayer, which takes us back to where we started. And then when he comes to speak to women at the end of the chapter, he specifically speaks about women in relation to the teaching ministry of the church.

So it seems to me that there is a coherent theme that runs all the way through this chapter, and it's very important to grasp it. It is about the global impact of the church's ministry through the word and through prayer. And that's what I want us to see in the big picture together today. We are called, as God's people, to a ministry of gospel praying and gospel proclaiming to all people.

And that mission of praying and the mission of proclaiming flows out of the death of Jesus Christ, which was for all people. And this is a sacred trust that has been given to us, and it must not be hindered by arguing, verse eight, or by disputing. And that is why I've chosen the title here, "Gospel Ministry: We Share Christ's Passion for All People." Now, let's dive into it. There is so much here. Let's begin then with a church that is praying for all people. That is verse one to three.

"I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone." Now, Paul is speaking very simply about the place of prayer in public worship. When the congregation gathers together, he's saying, here is something very important that is to happen. We as God's people are to bring requests and prayers and intercession and thanksgiving.

And one of the things you need to know is that as a church, we are committed to intercessory prayer in public worship. And one of the reasons for that is precisely this passage of the scripture. I have to tell you what you may already know, that intercessory prayer in public worship is going out of fashion in many churches. But God has given it right here as a ministry to the church.

If we as Christians don't pray for the world, who will? The world will not pray for itself. And if we have not found the value of praying for the world when we gather together in the presence of God, we are not yet reflecting the heart of God in his passion for the world. So a gospel-centered church, in other words, is a church that is not about ourselves. It is a church that is about the gospel.

It is a church that has grasped in verse three that God wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth, so that when we gather, our worship is to reflect God's heart for the world. Now, specifically, what does that look like? Well, Paul says, verse one, that there is to be prayer for everyone. Clearly, this does not mean that we have to get a directory of the names of 6.8 million people who inhabit the world and go through them from A to Z in whatever language the names may be pronounced. That would be impossible.

When Paul says that we are to pray for all, he means all kinds of people, that we are to have a global perspective. He's not saying we're to pray for every single person. Let me quote to you from Philip Ryken, who is so helpful here in his description. He says, "The public prayers of the church should have a global perspective. That should happen when we gather here for any of our services. They should include the great issues of the day, the vast nations of the world."

"Intercession should be made for the renewal, revival, and reformation of the church. Prayer should be offered for missionaries, evangelists, and church planters. The sufferings of the persecuted church and the desperation of unsaved humanity should be brought weekly before the throne of grace." Now, I'll tell you honestly, when that gets dropped, as is increasingly happening in evangelical churches in our day, intercessory prayer in public worship—when it gets dropped, it's for one of two reasons.

Either, number one, the pastors have given up, or number two, the people don't care. And I want you to know that it is a value that we are utterly committed to sustaining. Our campus pastors are committed in all of our services at The Orchard to the ministry of intercessory prayer. And so what I want to do today is to call us as a congregation to an engagement in that because intercessory prayer, the prayer in which a pastor leads in public worship, is the prayer of all God's people together.

It involves your engagement. It involves your faith. It involves you being stretched so that in the very place of worship here, week by week, your heart is expanded to reflect more of the heart of God for the world. That is something that should be happening every week in every place where God's people are gathering together for public worship and folks, on the basis of 1 Timothy chapter two, we are committed to it, and I hope that you therefore are encouraged by it.

Steve Hiller: You're listening to Open the Bible with Pastor Colin Smith and a message called "Gospel Ministry". It's part of a series, "10 Distinctives of a Gospel-Centered Church". And if you ever miss a broadcast in our series, come and listen online. Our website is openthebible.org. There you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. You can also listen if you have the Open the Bible app, which you'll find for free at your App Store.

Well, if you joined us late, we're in the book of 1 Timothy, we're in chapter two as we get back to the message. Here is Pastor Colin.

Colin Smith: Paul says, verse one, that there is to be prayer for everyone. Now, that's what Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter two and in verse one: "I urge then, first of all, that prayers, requests, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone." Then he goes further: "for kings and for all those in authority." Now, this is very striking, because, of course, all of the rulers in Paul's time were pagans.

There were no Christian rulers in those days. Yet Paul says that Christians should pray for, and in his time they were all pagan rulers. And will you notice something else? He says that this prayer should be with thanksgiving. I mean, this kind of stretches the mind. How in the world do you pray for Nero with thanksgiving? But that's what Paul is talking about. He says, "I'm urging Christian people that we pray for our rulers, and whenever we do it, make sure the spirit is right."

You must pray for those who are in authority over you in the secular sphere, and you must do it, Paul says to Timothy, with thanksgiving. Now, what this means for us is very clear. It means that we must pray as a congregation for our President, our senators, our representatives. We must pray for those who hold public office, whether we voted for them or not, and we are to do this with thanksgiving.

And will you notice what we are to pray for those in government? This is a very important question. What should we be praying for those in government? It's answered right here: "that we may live"—what?—"peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness." Now folks, if we understand that, it's telling us something of massive importance. Our objective is not that politicians will change society. It is that we should live in peace so that the gospel will change society. That is always the hope of the New Testament.

The Bible never encourages us to put high hopes in human government. We do not pray that the government will lead us into godliness. The New Testament never suggests that, because they can't do it. Only the gospel can lead people into godliness, and the gospel is not entrusted to the government; the gospel is entrusted to who? To the church. God's purpose for the government, quite clearly stated here, is that they have a role in maintaining stability and peace so that the gospel may go forward and the gospel may change people's lives.

It's very important to work that out and be clear about it. What is the role of the government? What is the role of the church? Confuse them, and you end up a long way from the New Testament. So I thank God from the bottom of my heart for every person in our congregation who serves in public life. We need more Christians in politics. It is a high calling for our most able people, but it is not the calling of the church.

The church is not a campaigning organization for social or political change. Our calling is gospel ministry that changes human lives, not by the imposition of human laws, but rather by the regeneration of human hearts. There's all the difference in the world between these two things. Politicians can write laws that will restrain evil, but folks, that's all that laws can do. We saw that last time. What is the law for? It's for rebels and sinners. Laws can restrain evil.

But look at what Jesus Christ does. He pours grace and love and faith into empty human hearts, bringing transformation of life. And that happens through the gospel, and that is why our hope lies not in human government, but it lies in the power of Jesus Christ to change a human life in the worst of all circumstances by the gospel. But we are to pray for government. We are to pray for those in authority over us.

We are to pray particularly that God would grant them wisdom in maintaining peace and stability for the very purpose that the gospel may advance, bringing transformation to human lives. Let me quote one more time from Philip Ryken here today, and again, I found what he said here convicting and helpful. He said, "Christians who do not pray for their political leaders tend to disturb the peace." That's worth thinking about. If you do not pray for political leaders, you may very well become a fractious person in society.

"Christians who do not pray for their political leaders tend to disturb the peace. They become cynical about their political opponents and they rejoice when they fall into disgrace. Since cynicism about the government is so prevalent in the evangelical church today," Ryken says, "we may well conclude that Christians are not always diligent in prayer for people in authority." In other words, the way that we speak about our political leaders will clearly display whether we pray for them or not.

And if we speak of those with whom we disagree with a harshness and a cynicism, we betray the reality that we simply are not praying for them. And we are not doing what Paul is telling us here in 1 Timothy and chapter one. Now, this is of huge importance for us. It is of huge importance for the church to understand this clearly. Ryken quotes so helpfully the words of John Chrysostom: "No one can feel hatred towards the one for whom he prays."

So I want to encourage you in this in private as well as our responsibility in public. If we pray for the leaders of our nation, whether we agree or disagree with particular courses of action, whether we have voted in one way or another—when we pray, we pray for God's blessing to be upon those who have been placed in office, the New Testament makes clear, under the sovereign hand of God. And we will rejoice in any success that God gives to them. You can disagree with the people for whom you pray.

But if you pray for them, you will not be cynical. You will not be harsh. You will not be unkind towards them. Now, this kind of praying, Paul says, "is good," verse three, "and it pleases God our Savior." Now, that's the first thing, and it's a huge thing right here. He's calling Timothy as the leader and calling the congregation to whom he writes that a gospel-centered church should be a praying church for all people.

Second, a gospel-centered church here will not only be praying for all people, but it will be a church concerned that the gospel should be proclaimed to all people. Look at verse seven. "For this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, I am not lying," Paul says, "and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles." Now, that's the big phrase, folks: "to the Gentiles." And you could almost put a triple exclamation mark against the word "Gentiles".

Whenever you see the word "Gentiles" in the New Testament, I've found it helpful simply to replace that with the words "all nations." Because that is really what it means. The word "Gentiles," of course, is a reference to all nations outside of the Jewish nation, outside of Israel. Now, it is incredibly hard for us to grasp just how radical this Gentile mission was in the early church. Remember, God had made a covenant in the Old Testament with who? With Israel.

And to many people, therefore, their mentality was, "Oh, the God of the Old Testament, yes, he's the God of Israel." So when Paul says, "I was appointed as an apostle to the Gentiles," that is such a stunning thing that do you notice in here, he actually has to say, "I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying." Because it was just so staggering to get the idea that the God who had made a covenant with Israel in the Old Testament was actually bringing in Jesus Christ a gospel that was for every culture in the world.

Now folks, it is still difficult for people to grasp that today. Of course, the dynamics have changed. What happens today is that millions of people would say that Christianity is the religion, not of the Jews, but they would put it this way: they'd say Christianity is the religion of, what? The West. The West. And it's not right for Western religion to be imposed on other parts of the world. That's a huge debate today. And where are we in it?

Well, here's where we are. We want to take, as a gospel church, our stand with the apostle Paul and say exactly what he said: that the gospel is the good news for all nations and our calling distinctively from Christ is to herald the true faith to all people. And we want to say we're telling the truth, we're not lying. That is the commission that is given to the church of Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: That is the commission that was given. But how do we advance that gospel ministry? Well, that's what we're going to take a look at next time. I hope you'll make it a point to tune in for the next Open the Bible. If you ever miss a broadcast, come and listen at our website, openthebible.org.

There you can stream the program or download an MP3 for free. You can also listen if you have the Open the Bible app, which you'll find for free at your App Store. Open the Bible is a listener-supported ministry. It's your generous support that keeps Pastor Colin's teaching on this station. And as you give a gift of any amount this month, we want to send you a copy of John Stott's book, *The Incomparable Christ*. But Colin, who is John Stott?

Colin Smith: Oh well, John Stott was one of the most influential Christian leaders of the 20th century, a faithful preacher, a wise pastor, a brilliant scholar who served the church faithfully for over 60 years. He really is one of my heroes of the faith. And you know, I have valued the advice I was given years ago, Steve: choose a book by its author. And so this is a really good author, but it's a really good author on a really great subject.

I mean, this is John Stott on the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who is Jesus? Jesus was the central focus of all of John Stott's work and life, as he should be the central focus of all of our lives. And this wonderful book just opens up the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, as we find him in the New Testament, as he's inspired people throughout history, and as one day we're going to see him when he comes again in power and glory. For anyone who loves Jesus, to read a great book about Jesus Christ is a good thing to do. And I think this is one of the best books you could read about the person of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Steve Hiller: Well, we want to send you a copy as our way of saying thanks for financially supporting Open the Bible this month. You can give online at openthebible.org or when you call 1-877-OPEN-365. That's 1-877-673-6365. Or again, the website is openthebible.org. For Pastor Colin Smith, I'm Steve Hiller. Thanks for listening, and I hope you'll join us next time. This program is a listener-supported production of Open the Bible.

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