Paul gives the purpose of this letter in chapter 3 vs 15, “I write so that you will know how one ought to conduct himself in the household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and support of the truth.” And so to that purpose, Paul has written so far about the establishment of the church, specifically, that the apostles were given to be the foundation of the church and to establish the church. Then he wrote about the ministry of the church, and we said there were many different types of ministers, or servants of the church. Not all have the same title, nor the same responsibilities, but all of us have a ministry, all of us are to serve the Lord.

Now as we begin chapter 2, Paul makes the point that one ministry that all of the church are given, the service that we are all tasked with, is the ministry of prayer. And we should notice that this exhortation to pray is given as an addendum to his charge to Timothy at the end of chapter one, vs 18, to fight the good fight. We see that prayer is one of the ways that we are to engage in spiritual battle.

In the famous section in Ephesians 6 on spiritual warfare and the spiritual armor that we are to wear, Paul lists all the pieces of armor, which are defensive, and then he says take up an offensive weapon, the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. And then he adds another weapon in vs18 “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints, and [pray] on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel.”

Now Paul doesn’t use a metaphor of a weapon to describe prayer, but nonetheless it’s clear that it is the second of only two weapons at our disposal. And both are empowered by the Spirit. That’s very interesting the way Paul says that; pray at all times in the Spirit. We need to think about how one prays in the Spirit. I can tell you what it is not; it is not some reference to praying in tongues. But rather it is a reference to spiritual communication in conjunction with the Holy Spirit. In agreement with the Holy Spirit. And the way you do that is by praying in conjunction and agreement with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. That’s how we pray in the Spirit.

Now there is much more that could be said about that, but I want to follow the text, and hopefully in so doing Paul will address all the essential elements of prayer in the process. So to start with, what Paul indicates in vs 1 is the priority of prayer. Notice he says, “First of all, then, I urge that entreaties and prayers, petitions and thanksgivings, be made on behalf of all men.” What he is saying is that this is a priority, of first importance. Prayer is not the last resort, prayer is our first resort. It’s the priority of the church. It’s first in ministry.

When the apostles were forming the first church in Jerusalem, they realized they needed to add the office of deacons to aid in the service of the church. But they said for their part, they wanted to devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the word. They recognized that prayer was of utmost importance and deserved first place in their ministry. Consider even Jesus Himself who many times spent the night in prayer to His Father. Jesus was a man of prayer, though from our perspective, He was one who needed it the least. But He obviously considered it an essential part of His ministry. He needed consistent communion with His Father.

And that prompts the question – what is prayer? We are called to pray, to pray at all times, to pray without ceasing, but do we understand what prayer really is? Prayer is simply communication with God. It is spiritual communication, spiritual conversation. Now I say spiritual conversation because you are talking to a Spirit, and the Spirit does not respond verbally to you. So that is what makes it spiritual conversation. The Lord hears us whether we speak loudly or softly. The Bible says the Father knows what we are going to ask before we even say it. Whatever part of the world you happen to be in, it doesn’t matter, the Lord hears you. That’s spiritual conversation. If you are a Christian, the Holy Spirit indwells you, and He hears you and prays with you, and for you, according to the will of God.

Rom 8:26-27 says, “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for [us] with groanings too deep for words; and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to [the will of] God.” So that is another aspect of praying in the Spirit – the Spirit intercedes for us. But bottom line, prayer is spiritual conversation with God.

Now Paul breaks down our spiritual conversation into four categories. This is not a formula. We all would love to find a formula for prayer that assures us that we will get what we want when we pray. But this is not a formula. A lot of people want to say that in order to pray correctly you have to incorporate all four categories in your prayer. I don’t see that expressed in this verse. But rather Paul is just breaking down prayer into different types of conversation.

So I don’t think we need to make a mountain out of a mole hill here, but nevertheless, let’s consider the four types of conversation we might have. The first type is in the NASB translated entreaties. Other versions says supplications, or petitions. In the Greek it is deēsis, which means needs, or entreating, asking. Most of us are pretty good at that type of prayer. But I don’t want to diminish that type of prayer as juvenile and say we need to get beyond such things. I think Jesus taught us to ask for what we need, what we want, with the confidence that our Heavenly Father wants to give us good things. So as a child of God, entreaties are appropriate prayer, to ask for needs, to come to the Father and lay out petitions.

I also want to say that our manner of conversation does not need to be stilted and so formal that it is not natural. I don’t think that God relates to our prayers better when we say thee and thou rather than you. We don’t need to speak in stilted, formal language in order to pray effectively. Imagine if your child or grandchild came in to your living room and said, “O blessed Father, who sitteth upon the couch, please grant the requests I make to thee.” If your son or daughter said that, you would think he was setting you up for something big. He wants to take your vintage sports car out on a date or something. God doesn’t need us to speak in Elizabethan English in order to be sympathetic to our prayers.

Jesus said in Mat 6:5-8 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full. But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees [what is done] in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”

All right then, entreaties, supplications or petitions. That’s one type. The second type is prayer. That’s a little redundant, isn’t it Paul? Well, I confess I don’t know exactly why Paul uses this here, except perhaps that it is a more general, broader entreaty or supplication than the previous type. All of these words are meant to describe prayer. So there is a sense in which they are all expanding on the previous type. Entreaties may be specific needs, prayers may be general needs.

I find it interesting that the first time the word pray is used in the Bible, it is in Genesis 20, and it is used by God. He says to Abimelech, who had taken Abraham’s wife thinking she was his sister, and God said to Abimelech in a dream, “Now therefore, restore the man’s wife, for he is a prophet, and he will pray for you and you will live. But if you do not restore her, know that you shall surely die, you and all who are yours.” So in that case, prayer was for someone else’s good. Abraham was praying for someone else’s needs, not his own.

But that reference in Genesis also speaks to the next type of prayer Paul lists, which is intercessions or petitions. And intercessions is perhaps the best translation, which has the idea of speaking to God about someone else’s need. Pleading on behalf of others. That’s what Abraham did for Abimalech. Praying that he would not die. And what’s really interesting in that example is that Abimalech is a king, and Paul says in vs 2 that we are to pray for kings. It’s interesting that the first recorded example of prayer is a prayer of intercession for a non believing king.

So obviously there is some overlap in these types of prayer. As I said, I don’t think it is so much meant to be separate categories as it is to be an expansive description of prayer. The last type of prayer Paul gives is thanksgivings. Now in the original Greek I am told that there were no punctuation marks. The NASB has a comma after thanksgiving, followed by the phrase, “be made on behalf of all men.” And I think that is correct, in that “be made for all men” applies to all the categories or types of prayer. Some translations have no comma there, so that thanksgiving for all men is the meaning. I don’t think Paul is saying we should give thanks for all men. That doesn’t make sense. While Paul may say pray for kings and those in authority, he does not say give thanks for Nero who was killing Christians on a massive scale. That just doesn’t make sense. Where you place a comma makes a big difference. It’s like the texted the a group text at Thanksgiving that said, “let’s eat Grandma” and forgot to put a comma between eat and Grandma. Grandma got a little concerned. So we can’t be dogmatic about the comma, but I think it makes more sense that the phrase “be made on behalf of all men” applies to all categories, and not just thanksgiving.

Thanksgivings are to be made to God for what God has done. Thanksgivings are an important aspect of our prayer. They are not some part of a secret formula by which you can get God to do what you want. Some people seem to teach this narcissistic view of God that just wants to hear us praise Him and thank Him all the time. He doesn’t care too much about anything else as long as we praise Him. I don’t think that is a true characterization of God at all. But we should be cognizant of all that God has done for us, and continues to do for us on a daily basis and we should express our thanks to Him. In other words, our conversation with God should not be just one sided, as in what we want God to do for us. If we have a mature relationship with Him, then it should be evident in our conversation with Him.

Now as I said, I believe Paul says we should pray on behalf of all men. That is our service to God and to one another. We are given the ministry of prayer for all men. We pray for all men, all people, all that we come into contact with. We are to pray for our church, pray for our families, pray for our neighbors, and even pray for our enemies. We pray according to the will of God, according to the word of God, in conjunction with the Spirit of God, in agreement with the Spirit of God. God wants to work with us, and our service of prayer is the means by which He does that. We are to pray for all men, for what they need, for God to work in their hearts and to save them.

Then more specifically, Paul says pray for kings and for those in authority. And perhaps that is the extension of praying for your enemies. Look at Vs 2, “for kings and all who are in authority, so that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and dignity.” Now as I said earlier, I don’t think Paul was saying that he should give thanks for Nero. Nero was a blood thirsty, insane tyrant. He was an enemy of the church. He had a young man about 14 years old castrated and he married him in a public ceremony. He tarred and burned Christians upon stakes to light up his garden. He set fire to Jerusalem and then blamed it on the Christians so as to justify persecuting the church. I don’t think Paul was saying we should give thanks for a demonic tyrant.

But I do think he is saying pray for tyrants, pray for those in authority whether they be good or evil, that they would leave us alone so that we might live a tranquil and quite life of dignity that we may live godly without persecution and have the freedom to proclaim the gospel. That is an appropriate type of prayer for those particular type of people. There was no recourse in Paul’s day to go to the polls and vote and hopefully get a new emperor in four years. You were saddled with a king for life in most cases. So the only recourse you had was to pray for them, that God would somehow prevail over the inherent evil that these tyrants brought to bear upon the church.

Romans 13 tells us that we are not to overthrow the government. We are to submit to the government as long as they are not forcing us to do something contrary to the command of God. So the only other recourse for us as Christians is to pray for the governing authorities. God is able to change the king’s mind as in the case of Abimelech.. God is able to make it possible for even an evil king to find other things to occupy his mind and leave the church alone.

So we should pray for all men, even our enemies, and the enemies of God, because Paul says in vs 3, “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.” So we pray because that is the means by which we partner with God, we collaborate with God to bring about salvation for all men. Now of course, he is not indicating that all men will be saved. Peter said, God is not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance. But the Bible tells us that not all will be saved. The scripture makes that very clear. Jesus made that very clear saying the way is narrow that leads to life, and few there be that find it. Not everyone finds it. But we are to pray for all to find it.

Now that’s an interesting dilemma isn’t it? That God’s will is that no one perishes, yet they perish. That reveals to me that God’s will is not intractable. But God has a perfect will, and a passive will. And man has a part to play in the execution of God’s will. Jesus when he taught the disciples to pray said, “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Our prayers facilitate the will of God on earth. But if God’s will was completely foreordained and intractable, then why are we told to pray for His will to be done?

Now the scriptures say that salvation is of the Lord, but we are tasked with participating in bringing salvation to men. I don’t pretend to know how all of this works. But I know that God works through prayer. God desires our prayer. And God wants all men to be saved. And so God sends us to proclaim the gospel to all men, everywhere. And He wants us to pray for all men to that end. So at the very least, we know that our ministry which we are given to perform is to pray for the salvation of all men. That is the service we are to give to men and to God.

I can tell you this. From what I have read in biographies of great preachers, and stories about great revivals, the success of both were preceded by a period of extensive prayer. Prayer is the essential sharpening of the axe before the first swing is ever laid against the tree. Abraham Lincoln was supposed to have said, “if you have 8 hours to cut wood, spend 7 of them sharpening your axe.” I think that can be applied to prayer in regards to evangelism as well. That is why we do the Jericho March before we enter every summer season on the beach. That season of prayer is necessary if we are to have a successful season on the beach.

The next part of prayer that Paul addresses here is the principle of through whom we pray. We are very much accustomed to end our prayers by saying “in Jesus name we pray, Amen.” We do that without thinking, for the most part. But what does it mean to pray in Jesus name? Why does that matter? Well for one, Jesus told us to pray in His name. In John 14:13-14 Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do [it.]”

And Paul addresses that same principle here in vs 5 “For there is one God, [and] one mediator also between God and men, [the] man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony [given] at the proper time. For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying) as a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”

The One to whom we pray is God the Father, but we pray through the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. The scriptures teach that Jesus is both fully God and fully Man. In theological terms it is called the hypostatic union. But in layman’s terms it means that He is God in the flesh. And He was our Mediator in salvation by becoming our substitute, taking the wrath of God upon Himself that we might be given life and sonship in the family of God. But now, having risen from the dead and ascended to the Father’s right hand, He lives forever to make intercession for us. Rom 8:34 says “Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.”

Now He intercedes for us according to the Father’s will. He intercedes for us by application of His blood for our sins so that we might be counted as righteous as sons of God. But He also intercedes for us as we pray in His name. God seeing His righteousness applied to our account hears our prayers as being sanctified by Jesus Christ.

Heb 10:19-23 says, “Therefore, brethren, since we have confidence to enter the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, His flesh, and since [we have] a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled [clean] from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” We come into the holy place to speak to God by the blood of Jesus Christ which cleanses us from all sin.

So what Paul says here to Timothy is that there is One Mediator between God and man, and only One Mediator is needed. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, through the sanctifying power of His sacrifice, so that we may have full acceptance at the throne of God. There is no need for any other mediator. In fact, I would go so far as to say that if you attempt to go through another mediator, you are in effect blaspheming Christ. If you attempt to go to God through Mary, then you are taking the honor and glory that belong only to Christ and giving it to a person, and a person who is dead at that. If you pray to a so called saint, you are praying to a person, and taking away from what is Christ’s alone. Christ, who alone was holy and righteous, died and shed His blood so that He might be our Mediator, and we dare not take away that which He shed His blood to procure. You do not need to go to God through a priest, or Mary, or a saint, but you can only go through Jesus Christ. In Him alone we have the right to enter into the throne of God.

Paul began this passage about the ministry of prayer by urging prayers to be made for every man. And he bookends this section with a similar statement in vs 8, “Therefore I want the men in every place to pray, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and dissension.” And I think he is being in this case, deliberately redundant. He is emphasizing the importance and need for prayer by saying it twice.

Now some think that this reference to “every place” is a reference to the church. And so Paul is saying we should pray in the church. To that, I would agree without argument, that we should pray in the church. Jesus said “My house is to be a house of prayer.” Prayer, we have already said, is to be a priority in the church, and especially in corporate assemblies. Corporate prayer is powerful prayer. Remember how the church prayed for Peter to be delivered from prison and God sent an angel to release him.

But I think what Paul is saying is not limited to the church assembly. He wants men to pray in every place. You go back to Eph 6:18 and read that again, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” You can’t pray at all times and not pray in all places. Just be in a constant state of prayer. If we are walking in the Spirit, and living by the Spirit, then we must have constant spiritual communication irregardless of where we are or what we are doing. That doesn’t mean we have to fall on our knees at the bank and at the grocery store and at work, but it does mean we are in constant communication with God at all times, in all places, in all circumstances.

And as a reference back to the idea of praying for our enemies, or our persecutors, we pray without wrath and dissension. We don’t take our own revenge. We leave room for God to avenge us. James 1:20 says “the anger of man does not achieve the righteousness of God.”

Our goal in prayer is to see others saved. If we give way to our anger we are not going to achieve that. We want to work with God, not against God. So let’s pray, lifting up holy hands. That is not speaking of a posture of prayer. Some people seem to think that holding up your hands has something intrinsically holy about it. Most of the time in the Bible when you see someone come in the presence of God they are flat on their face. They aren’t holding up their hands and dancing around. Holy hands is a reference to consecrated hands. Hands refers to the work of our hands, to our deeds. As we are holy in our deeds, consecrated to live righteous, godly lives for Christ, then we can win the lost to Christ by our example and not give cause for the gospel to be slandered.

Our prayer life is affected by our sin or the lack of sin. David said if I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me. So we make sure that we have repented of any sin, that we are living godly lives, and we pray in every place at all times, joining with God in accomplishing His will on earth. That is our service of prayer, our ministry of prayer which we render unto God and men.

God’s will is that none should perish, but that all should come to repentance. He desires all men to be saved. I trust that if you have not accepted His free gift of salvation, then today would be the day that you surrender to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior and receive new life in Him.

We are all probably very familiar with the word ministry. It’s often used as a synonym for the church. It’s derived from the root word minister, which often is used as a title or job description for a pastor. But ministry is really just another word for service. Depending upon the translation you use, you will see either ministry or service used in vs twelve.

Vs12 “I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He considered me faithful, putting me into service, or ministry.” I think I prefer the translation as service. Because ministry is a word that has connotations of something pious, perhaps a little lofty, sort of out of the realm of mundane day to day things, and indicating something religious and spiritual. And of course, ministry should be religious and spiritual, but that can sometimes lead us to think of it as detached from the realm of day to day life.

But when you say service, that has an altogether different connotation. That is something that borders on the mundane, the practical, even, God forbid, duty. We sometimes speak of our men and women in uniform that they are in the service. And we know what we mean by that, don’t we? It means they are in one of the armed services of our country. They are in the service of our country. They are under the authority of the Commander in Chief.

But that word service can have an even lowlier connotation. It is very much associated with the word servant. To be a servant is to be someone who is in service to someone else. He is at their command. Sometimes in old houses, you would see a sign around the back indicating “service entrance.” That could mean the servants entrance, or it could mean those that serviced the house for whatever mechanical needs there might be.

So in the original language, the word translated ministry does not indicate some high, pious position, but it simply refers to working for and serving someone. And to that extent, we are all called to serve Christ. In this new life, we have been given a ministry, we have been called to be servants to the kingdom of God. Not all have the same position in service, but all are called to serve, even as soldiers in spiritual warfare. Not all soldiers are given the same rank, the same responsibility, yet they all serve the same King.

Paul said he was grateful for this ministry which he had been given. I would say that gratefulness was his primary motivation in ministry. And that was because God had saved him from a person dedicated to destroying the church, and by God’s grace and mercy had made him someone who would establish the church.

So how are we put into the service of Christ? The answer is, the same way as Paul was entered into service. Now what follows in vs 12-15, is a sort of resume by Paul. And as is typical of most resumes, the job title you are presently in is listed first, and the order that follows goes backwards in your career. So most resumes usually read from the greatest to the least. You list that at present you are working as a graphic designer for some big design firm, and then the job you had before that, and so forth until way down at the bottom of the page, the first job you had, which was a French fry cook at McDonald’s.

Paul’s resume sort of follows that pattern. But I would like to look at it in reverse. Let’s start with vs15, because this is where we all start as well. This is one area that we all have in common. Paul says in vs 15, “It is a trustworthy statement, deserving full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost [of all.]”.

This is all of our condition prior to salvation. There is none righteous, no not one. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. All of us were enemies of God. All of our righteousness was as filthy rags before God. None of us were any better than any one else, or more deserving of heaven than anyone else. Paul said he was the chief of sinners. I said last week, that was until I came along. But the fact is, there really isn’t any difference between you and me or Paul, for that matter when it comes to the matter of sin. We all were enemies of God under the condemnation of death.

Paul said he was a former blasphemer and persecutor and violent aggressor of the church. In Acts 26:9 Paul said of himself and these activities against Christ and against His church, “So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.”

So Paul was indeed the chief of sinners, in that he not only persecuted the church, but he tried to get them to blaspheme Christ and deny Christ. But as great as his sin was, God’s grace was greater. He says, “Yet I was shown mercy because I acted ignorantly in unbelief; and the grace of our Lord was more than abundant, with the faith and love which are found in Christ Jesus.” That phrase ‘more than abundant” is the idea of super abundant. As Romans 5:20 says, “Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound.”

But what I like about Paul’s confession here is that he says he was “formally a blasphemer and so forth.” When Paul was converted on the road to Damascus, he was changed, converted. What he was formerly, he was no longer practicing. What he was ignorant of, he now knew. What was done in unbelief, now he by faith believed the truth. The point is salvation is conversion. It’s like the line in Amazing Grace, “I once was lost but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” A change in belief results in a change of behavior.

When I was a kid growing up in church, we used to have an evangelist named Billy Kelly who would come do a series of nightly meetings every couple of years or so. Billy Kelly probably weighed 400 pounds, and was a freckled face red haired giant of a man from the hills of West Virginia. And as a preacher’s kid I had to sit through many a long night of preaching as I was growing up, but when Billy Kelly came to our church he was one preacher I looked forward to hearing. He played the piano as well, and he was known for singing one song in particular, which is called “Thanks to Calvary.” He always sang it after giving his personal testimony of being the town drunk and how some men dragged him to a revival meeting one night after sobering him up with coffee and he was saved after listening to the message. He used to sing that song with tears rolling down his face, which told the story of his little boy hiding behind the door when he would come home drunk, but now that he was saved, he said, “Son, have no fear, you’ve got a brand new daddy now. Thanks to Calvary I’m not the man I used to be. Thanks to Calvary things are different than before.” After he got done singing that song, he had the whole church in tears.

But the truth is that when God saves you, he changes you. And in Paul’s case, he who was the foremost persecutor of the church, was made the foremost establisher of the church, as a testimony to the super abundant grace of God. And so Paul explains in vs 16, “Yet for this reason I found mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Jesus Christ might demonstrate His perfect patience as an example for those who would believe in Him for eternal life.”

What we can learn from Paul’s salvation, is that no matter how great your sin, God’s mercy is greater. There is no degree of sin that you can sink to that God cannot save you from. There is no depravity that God cannot redeem you from. As much as you have descended into depravity, God is able to raise you up to greater heights than you can imagine. He is able to make the lost, found. The blind to see. The lame to walk. The dead to live. There is no sin that is beyond His ability to save you from.

But there is just one caveat to His mercy and grace. And that is, you must recognize and repent of your sin. When Paul was confronted with the truth, when he saw his sin, he repented of it and was forgiven of it. He didn’t try to excuse it, or to cover it up, or to say that it wasn’t really sin. No, he said my sin is worse than anyone else’s. I am the worst of sinners! And that is the key. There is no sin which is confessed and repented of, that cannot be forgiven. Christ came to save sinners. That is a trustworthy statement. You can bet your life on that statement. But you better recognize you are a sinner if you want Christ to save you. Because He came to save sinners, not the self righteous.

That realization brings Paul to express a confession of faith in Christ and praise Him for His mercy towards sinners. He says in vs 17, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, [be] honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” Paul said in Romans 10:9, “that if you confess with your mouth Jesus [as] Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

That confession is what Paul states in vs 17, “the King” is Jesus Christ the King, the Lord, our Sovereign. To confess Jesus as Lord is to confess Him as your King, as the One to whom we owe our lives, to whom we honor and serve and obey. We lay down our lives in service to our Lord and King. And this King is eternal, immortal, He was raised from the dead and now stands at the Father’s right hand. To Him deserves all honor, all glory, as we give our lives in service to Him forever.

That comprehension on Paul’s part was the impetus for his ministry, his service. And God would use him and enable him and strengthen him and equip him to do what he called him to do. So that all the praise and glory go to God, and not Paul. But Paul’s gratitude for what God had done for him, was the motivation for his service to the church.

Now there were other ministers in the church. Paul’s office as a minister was an apostle. These were other offices or positions. As I said, in the service not everyone has the same office or position or area of duty. The next one mentioned in Paul’s letter is Timothy. Timothy is a minister, a servant of the gospel. I suppose we might call him the pastor of the church in Ephesus. I think he was perhaps more like a regional pastor, but we can’t be dogmatic about such things. But my understanding is that there were more than one church in Ephesus. They were house churches, each with their pastors/teachers. And Timothy was acting as an agent of the apostle Paul, as overseeing the churches in Ephesus. I can’t say that for sure, but that’s what I pick up from reading between the lines.

But nevertheless, we do know that Timothy was in service to the church at Ephesus, and he had a position like a senior pastor over the church or churches there. So Paul says to him in vs 18 “This command I entrust to you, Timothy, [my] son, in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you, that by them you fight the good fight, keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith.”

So what is this command, or this charge to Timothy that Paul refers to? It is the charge given in vs 3-11 of this chapter, the command to stay on at Ephesus, and to instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines, nor to pay attention to myths or endless genealogies that give rise to speculation rather than faith, to instruct them not to teach a twisted version of the law, about which they make confident assertions, but which they don’t know what they are talking about. So in short, Timothy’s ministry to the church is to teach the teachers, to correct them, to rebuke them.

Paul gives a similar command or charge to Timothy at a later date in 2 Timothy 4:1-5 “I solemnly charge [you] in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season [and] out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

Now one more thing to note about this command to ministry that Paul gives to Timothy, is he says it’s in accordance with the prophecies previously made concerning you. What exactly Paul is talking about we’re not sure, but he speaks of it again in chapter 4 vs 14 “Do not neglect the spiritual gift within you, which was bestowed on you through prophetic utterance with the laying on of hands by the presbytery.” He goes on to say, persevere in your teaching, pay attention to it, take pains with it, for as you do this you will ensure salvation both for yourself and for those who hear you.” So we can surmise that preaching and teaching is the spiritual gift that was given to Timothy by the Lord, and was confirmed by the laying on of hands by the elders, presumably the elders of the church in Jerusalem, which is a reference to the apostles. He was commissioned as an evangelist, a preacher of the gospel, by the Lord and confirmed by the apostles. So that was Timothy’s ministry.

But there is one more category of ministry that is alluded to in vs 19, and then the perpetrators named in vs 20. Let’s pick it up again in vs 19, “keeping faith and a good conscience, which some have rejected and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. Among these are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I have handed over to Satan, so that they will be taught not to blaspheme.”

These are ministers that have suffered shipwreck in regards to their faith. That’s a pretty scary thing to say about teachers in the church. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a shipwreck, or been involved in one. From the little I know about boats, things can go wrong pretty quickly on a boat and yet at the same time seem like they are happening in slow motion. One problem is that the boat is in motion due to the wind or current or even from the motor, and there are no brakes on a boat. So once something is in motion it keeps on going even though it is destroying itself. If you want to have some fun, search for ships hitting the dock on YouTube and you will see what I’m talking about. They can’t stop, and they just destroy more and more until they sink or are absolutely ruined.

Paul had been on a few shipwrecks in his life, real ones. There is a really frightening description of one in particular in Acts where they end up having to grab a plank of wood and try to swim ashore in the middle of a fierce storm while the ship is stuck on a shoal being torn apart by the waves. So Paul knew what a shipwreck looked like and the damage that can happen from losing your bearings.

These men, Hymaneus and Alexander, have suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith. That means that they had abandoned or abused the truth in favor of another gospel, a more speculative gospel, a more dramatic gospel that was not founded on the truth. And the thing that Paul is very concerned about was they were teaching that false doctrine to the church and leading others astray.

Isn’t that what he said about these men in 2Tim. 4:3-4 “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but [wanting] to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths.”

There was another element to their false teaching which was it had become blasphemy. Blasphemy is speaking evil of Christ. I would think that somehow their doctrine had deviated from the truth to the point that they attributed some sin to Jesus. There are people today that teach that Jesus had a wife, usually saying it’s Mary Magdalene. That’s the sort of speculation that these teachers seemed to be guilty of, contriving myths and speculation from some vague reference in scripture. The point of such blasphemy though would be to excuse their own sin.

And so Paul says he is handing these men over to Satan so they will be taught not to blaspheme. I think a lot of people don’t like to consider the reality of what Paul is saying there. But he speaks of the same sort of thing in 1 Cor. 5, about a man who was committing immorality with his father’s wife, and was blatantly unrepentant about it. And so Paul says there in vs “5 [I have decided] to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.”

What that means is for the person that continues in sin, there may be a time when God releases you from His protective care as a child of God, to suffer the consequences of sin. And the devil is free to destroy your flesh through that sin. Because that is what the devil does. He is the destroyer. He goes about as a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. The sin that so easily besets us will eventually destroy us.

Paul indicates these men are saved, but they have returned to their sin like a pig that has been washed returns to the mire. And the key is that they are unrepentant. They claim that God doesn’t care about this little peccadillo. What I’m doing isn’t really bad. God made me this way( there is where the blasphemy comes in) or God made this and so it really can’t be wrong. And so God allows Satan to destroy the flesh, though the spirit is saved in the day of judgment. That’s why in the verses that talk about the sanctify of taking the Lord’s Supper, Paul says many of you are sick and a number sleep. Sleep there refers to the death of the believer.

Listen, if you became a servant of the King through conversion, then you have been set free from the captivity of sin and cleansed from sin. But when you return to it, you trample underfoot the blood of Jesus Christ, you regard it as worthless. And God will discipline those who are His. If you’re not His, then you are already condemned to death, and under the captivity of Satan who will destroy you. But if you are a child of God, and you choose to go back into sin, and are unrepentant of it, then you are given over to the control of Satan by your own free will, and God gives Satan permission to sift you like wheat, with the goal of destroying you. God’s purpose in allowing that is not to destroy you, though if you persist that may happen. But God’s purpose is to restore you, to use suffering in the flesh to bring you to repentance.

We that are saved have been given a ministry, we are servants of the King. Our life is not our own, we are bought with a price. Therefore, we cannot return to our prior captivity without suffering the consequences of that dominion of darkness. But as Paul has pointed out so clearly in this passage, God is merciful and gracious and desires to restore us and make us the polar opposite of what we were by nature, if we will just repent and surrender to the Lord, confessing Him as Lord of our lives.

Let us make this Psalm of David our prayer this morning as we examine our heart before God. David wrote in Psalm 139:23-24 “Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if [there be any] wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”