Praying for Everyone 1 Timothy 2:1-6 July 2, 2017

Transcription

1 Praying for Everyone 1 Timothy 2:1-6 July 2, 2017 Once upon a time, there was a preacher, who got up one Sunday morning, and decided that he just didn t feel like preaching that day. In fact, he didn t even feel like going to church. So, instead, he decided to go hunting. He threw his gun in the car and headed for the hills. But, when he got out on the trail, way out in the middle of nowhere, he realized that he had forgotten to bring any bullets with him. And this was more than a little inconvenient, because he had no sooner realized that he had no bullets, when a big, hungry-looking bear loped out from behind a tree and started heading straight toward him. Oh, Lord, the preacher began to pray, please help this to be a Christian bear, so that he won t eat me, a preacher. Well, it turns out that the preacher s prayers were answered: This bear was indeed a Christian bear. So, upon seeing the helpless preacher standing there in front of him, the Christian bear got down on his knees and he began to pray, too. Oh, Lord, he prayed. I give you thanks for this food, of which I am about to partake... This morning I would like to talk a little bit with you about prayer. And, in particular, I d like to talk with you about the kind of prayer which our NT lesson from 1 Timothy talks about. 1 Timothy has traditionally been read and understood to be a letter written by the Apostle Paul to one of his proteges -- to a young Christian leader in the early Church named Timothy. And, in the letter, Timothy is given instructions from his mentor in the faith about how he can become a person of God. By the same token, since scripture calls upon all Christians (including you and me) to be people of God as well, I think the first letter to Timothy can give us

2 a lot of good and godly instruction about that. A lot of good instruction about how we, too, can become the kind of people God wants each of us to be. And, in that light, it s interesting and important (I think) to note that one of the first pieces of guidance, one of the first things Timothy is told to do, in order to be a person of God is, in chapter 2, v.1, he s told by his mentor in the faith: I urge you, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone. I urge you, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone That s how Paul begins his instruction to Timothy by telling him (and us) that a truly godly life is a life grounded in prayer -- a life grounded in a relationship (that is), in an on-going conversation, in having living fellowship, with God. But, what s even more interesting to me here, in this particular scripture passage, is who Timothy is told to pray for. Because he is not told to pray, first and foremost, for himself -- Oh Lord, make me a holy person, make me a righteous man, O God, or something like that. No, Timothy is instead told to pray for everyone -- to intercede and to make requests and to give thanks to God for everyone. Which, when you think about it, is a pretty amazing thing to be asked to do - to pray for everyone. Timothy isn t just told to pray for himself. Nor is he told to pray for his own family, or even for his close friends. Timothy is told to pray for everyone, to give thanks to God for everyone. In fact, Timothy s even supposed to pray, as verse 2 says, for the king and all those in authority. To pray for the king and all those in authority Incidentally, this is why we Christians often pray in church on Sunday mornings for our national leaders -- not because God s a Republican or a Democrat, but simply because the Bible tells us

3 to. And this is also why I thought this particular passage of scripture would be a fitting one for us to read and reflect on together, on this Sunday before the Fourth of July. Because it reminds us of how important it is that we be people who pray for those who serve in the government of our nation. That we pray (in the terms used during Timothy s time) for the king and all those in authority. But, now, before I say any more, just think about that for a minute, and let that sink in. Timothy is told that he is supposed to offer prayers of intercession and prayers of thanksgiving for the king. And in Timothy s day here s what that meant. It meant that he was supposed to pray, even for the Emperor. Because that s who the king was back then. Caesar was the king, the Emperor was king. Which I for one find to be amazing because, remember, the Roman emperors were pagans. The Roman emperors who ruled during the first century could hardly be called friends or supporters of early Christians like Timothy. In fact, a list of the Roman emperors of the first century actually reads more like a rogues gallery of arch-enemies of the early Christians. Let me give just you a couple of examples. One of the most notorious of the first-century Roman emperors was the emperor Caligula. Caligula was nuts, plain and simple. Caligula was a psychopath. He had a god complex, and he was the most powerful man in the world -- which is a pretty charming combination, when you stop and think about it. Actually, Caligula is remembered by history as famous (or, rather infamous) for committing some of the most graffic and grotesque atrocities of any Roman emperor -- atrocities which were so unspeakable that if I were to mention them here this morning, this sermon would, literally, have to be R-rated. I ll spare you those sordid details right now, because this is a family-friendly service. But suffice it to say, Caligula was one of the great villains of world history.

4 And then there was Nero, a real loser of an emperor, who was so nutty and so narcissistic that legend tells us he actually played his violin while the city of Rome burned to the ground. What s more, following that calamity, Nero decided to blame the fire on the early Christians. And, in so doing, he became the first Roman emperor to systematically persecute the followers of Jesus Christ in Rome. Tradition, in fact, holds that both the Apostle Paul and the Apostle Peter were martyred in Rome during Nero s reign of terror. These were the kind of people who were the kings in Timothy s day. These were the people Timothy is told to pray for with intercession, with requests, and with thanksgiving -- of all things! Praying for men like that must have taken a whole lot of faith on Timothy s part. But, it s right in keeping with Jesus own teaching to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, isn t it? All of which prompts me to have to ask myself: how good am I at praying, at really praying, deeply and earnestly for the people who currently exercise governing authority in our day and age? As a Christian, I m not asked to like them. I m not asked to agree with all their decisions. I m not asked to be their biggest fan. I m not even asked to vote for them, if I don t want to. But I am instructed to pray for them. And not just for them no, as a Christian, I am instructed to pray for everyone. Everyone. Not just for myself, not just for my friends or my family, not just for people who I like or who like me, but for absolutely everyone. Thinking about that this past week led me to ask myself this question: Ron, when was the last time you really did that? When was the last time you really prayed for all the folks who you cross paths with in life? Ask yourself that question. When was the last time, for example, that you maybe prayed for the nosey neighbor next door? When was the last time you prayed for the unreasonable boss who stresses everyone out every day at work, or

5 for the rude telephone salesman who calls you right in the middle of supper, or for the obnoxious driver who just cut you off on the highway? They fall under that everyone category, after all, which we (like Timothy) are called upon, as Christians, to pray for. So ask yourself, when was the last time you prayed out of compassion and concern for someone who was difficult or hard to be around, someone who rubbed you the wrong way, or displeased you in some way? Please understand, I know this is not an easy teaching. At least, it s not always easy for me to do. And it must have been unbelievably hard for Timothy too. It must have been hard for him to pray for the Roman emperors, many of whom were the pagan persecutors of Timothy s own friends. So, why would God want him to pray for people like that? For that matter, why would God want you and me to, here and now, as well? Well, one obvious answer to that question is, because people with problems are often the people who most need our prayers, for one thing. Yet, there s more to it even than that. I think the reason why Timothy is told to pray for everyone, even the likes of the emperor, is that that kind of prayer opens up the heart. It opens our hearts up to the point that we are more fully able to experience the wondrous gift which is God s love -- God s love for us ourselves and God s love, too, for the person for whom we are praying. Mother Teresa once put it like this: Prayer, she said, enlarges the heart until it is capable of containing God s gift of himself. We are called upon by 1 Timothy, in other words, to pray for everyone because that kind of prayer enlarges our hearts with the gift of God s love for everyone. In fact, the beauty and the mystery and the grace of prayer is that, the more we come to pray for someone from the heart, the more our hearts are enlarged by the love which God has for all people. And, in the process, we come to appreciate ever more fully how much

6 God really loves us all. All of which leads me to believe that the true stature of a person of God is not measured by their years or by their experience or by their learning, or even by how many passages of scripture they can recite from memory, but by the size of their heart -- a heart which prayer has made as big as God s love -- a heart which loves and prays, with intercession and thanksgiving, for all God s children, even the prodigal ones who may still, spiritually-speaking, be away far from home. So just think for a second just think how each of our own lives might be changed, if we could truly come to see everyone we meet, everyone on earth (for that matter), as worthy of our heart-felt prayers, and more importantly, as people whose precious fellowship our God longs for, as people whose precious lives Christ came to redeem? Speaking for myself, I think it d have to mean that I d have to learn to love a lot more people, a lot more completely, a lot more of the time. And I d have to do that because I d have to recognize that God s redeeming love, God s great mercy, is not just meant for me and my friends (it s not my private reserve to dole out only to the people who I happen to like or enjoy or agree with), but in the unfathomable goodness of God it s meant for all people, as verse 3 of today s scripture lesson says. And recognizing all that this past week, prompted me to remember on old parable an old peasant story, originally from somewhere in Eastern Europe. Once upon a time, the story says, there lived a cranky old woman. And when she died, the devils got hold of her and tossed her into the lake of fire. But even there, she was not forgotten. Her guardian angel remembered her, and decided to mention her to one of heaven s greatest archangels. I ve been this woman s guardian angel her whole life long, he said to the archangel. And despite all that s disagreeable in her, I can tell you she is not all

7 bad. For example, I remember there was a time in her life when there was a large beanstalk growing in her garden. And anytime a hungry beggar knocked at her door, she would give a sack full of green beans to eat. So the archangel said, Very well. Take that beanstalk and lower it down to her in the flames. Let her hold onto it, and pull her out. But, the archangel added, if the beanstalk breaks, she will have to stay where she is. So the guardian angel hurried to the woman, lowered the beanstalk down to to her, and told her to take hold and to hold on tight. Then he himself began to pull her up very carefully. Slowly, she rose up out of the flames, until she was almost in the clear. But it was at that moment that the other sinners saw that she was being pulled out, and desperately they grabbed onto the beanstalk too, so that they too might be saved. But when the woman saw what they were doing, she started kicking them off of the beanstalk, yelling, I m the one who s being saved, not you! It s my beanstalk, not yours! As soon as she said that, though, the beanstalk snapped in two, and the woman fell back into the fire, where sadly she remains to this day. Old fairytales from Eastern Europe (needless to say) don t always have happy endings, the way Disney fairytales do. But the sobering point of the story is this: there is a lifeline which is extended down from heaven to you and me. It s not a beanstalk of course, nor is it anything else which you or I might have grown or made or done. As Christians, the NT tells us that our lifeline from heaven is the saving grace of God, freely offered to us in Jesus Christ. But the thing is, that grace isn t our private reserve. It s not ours and ours alone. It s meant for everyone, because all people need saving. Every single person. And that s why 1 Timothy tells us to pray for everyone. Because on God s

8 lifeline of grace, there is a spot for everyone; and in God s heart, there is love for everyone. And so, we too, as people of God, are called to pray. To pray, with intercession and thanksgiving and love, for everyone whom God loves -- for everyone, in other words, for absolutely everyone. Because, as the scripture says this is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. And today and every day, friends, may that be our prayer too for everyone. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.