Introduction
C.S. Lewis gave us the following insight: “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition, when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”
That is the truth. We get so hung up in the thoughts and cares of this world and fail to see the real desire we should have.
It is this desire that we will look at today in 1 Timothy 2:1-7.
I. Desires: Salvation for All (3-4)
- God wants (wishes) everyone to believe and be saved.
God desires that everyone will be saved and delivered from wrath and condemnation. We see this throughout the Scriptures. In Matt. 18:14 we see Christ say “So it is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.”
In Romans 5 we see that Christ died for His enemies.
It is because of this desire why our prayers for all people are pleasing to our God and Savior.
Our prayers are, because in those prayers we are praying for them to be peaceful, live quietly, and dignified. When we pray this way we are doing it so we can focus on what He desires: all to be saved. We are to be obedient to God regardless how the world governments are ran, but it is so much easier to proclaim the truth when they are peaceful. But these prayers are also for the salvation of all humanity too.
This does not mean that all will believe and be saved. It does mean that God desires this and we should desire this too. That is another aspect of what our prayers are supposed to be for others. Sometimes it is difficult to pray for someone. Sometimes we would rather the person just disappear. For them to not be around anymore at all. That they just are gone.
This, though, is not a healthy or good way to be. Yes, if someone is harmful to be around then we need not be around them. But, we should pray for them. We do not curse or speak in a bad manner about them but in supplications, intercessions, and thanksgiving because they are still alive and can believe in Jesus for eternal life.
- God wants all to come to know the truth.
The same is with God wanting all to come to the knowledge of the truth. Jesus said (John 14:6 ) “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He said again in John 17:17 “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.”
God is truth and when people come to the knowledge of truth they come to a knowledge of God. When one comes to a knowledge of truth and therefore God they will see what God has performed for them.
We see this in…
II. The Desire Made Attainable (5-7)
- There is one God
There is only one God, this is something that we must recognize. He alone is the one true God. It is this one true God who desires all to be saved. Deut. 6:4 tells us that “The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” He is the only God. The world wants to make there be many gods. It wants you to make whatever you want to be, be your God. But God is one and He requires nothing short of perfection to be with Him (Matt. 5:48) “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
He is the one true God who requires perfect obedience and purity of sin to be in His presence. Ever since the fall in Gen. 3 we have been separated from God. As such, we have no method of being reconnected to Him besides Him reaching into time and making a way.
2. The Bridge for the Gulf: The Mediator
We see God doing this with the Israelites in the book of Exodus and even before that in Genesis when God created the nation Israel. God made a way and a promise in Gen. 3:15 when He said, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.””
He has used mediators before who were men. Moses was one. He was nothing more than a shadow of Christ though. All the judges that were used in the book of Judges were types of The mediator. The sacrifices were a type of the sacrifice that was to be done for people.
All of these were important and part of the overall story, but there had to be this perfect mediator to come. This had to be none other than God Himself. So, God the Son took on flesh and entered into human history.
He is the perfect man who lived a perfect and sinless life. He was the one who came and settled the disagreement between man and God. He made a way for man to be united with God once again. It was Him and Him alone who could do this. This again points back to God desiring all to be saved.
It does because…
- The mediator gave all for all (1 John 2:2 )“He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.”
All means all. Christ did not die just for a few select people. He came and died for every single person who has lived and who will live.
This is why Paul says to pray for all. For all kings and people in high positions. It is to lead a peaceful life sure, but it is also for them to believe and be saved. God desires all to be saved, not just a few.
Some will say that if He died for all then all will be saved. This is just false on its head.
If I bake a cake and bring it to this church it is brought for all here. Now, if some of you do not eat it then not all received the cake. I brought it for all, but not all received it as theirs.
This is the same with jesus and His death for all. He died for all, but only those who receive Him and His death receive the ransom payment.
Paul tells us in 1 Tim. 1:15 “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” He goes on and says that he was the foremost sinner and he received mercy from Christ as an example of Christ displaying His perfect patience for all “who were to believe in him for eternal life” (1:16).
This means that Christ died for all but for one to have that gift they must believe. It is their choice. Just as Moses told the Israelites in Deut. 30:15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil.”, but the choice was theirs to make.
This is the same. Christ died for all, so the Divine Desire of all to be saved could happen. This makes it possible for the desire to be attainable, but for it to be made ones own, they must hear this truth and receive it or not.
That is why we must proclaim the news to them. This is…
3. The Divine Desire Proclaimed
- We must Proclaim the truth.
Paul tells us why In Rom. 10:13-17. We see Paul lay out what is to be done for people to receive this Divine Desire of God. He says, “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”
Faith comes from Hearing the Truth. God is Truth. His Word is Truth. But people must hear the truth.
If they do not hear they cannot believe and attain this desire of God. If they do not hear they cannot change. They will only act as they have been because it is what they know to do.
Like this story from the Civil War.
There was a battle fought in the Civil War that was really not a Civil War battle. It is the battle of Palmito Ranch or Palmito Hill. This was in South Texas May 12-13, 1865. The reason why it was not really a Civil War battle is because the war had ended on April, 9 1865.
These men clashed and several died in this conflict. A conflict that did not need to happen. Now some claim the men fought anyway as an attempt to keep the war going. Some say they never heard the war had ended.
Maybe they were told and maybe not. What we get from this is that the only way people can change and do different is to hear that they need to.
Here is where the rub comes in for us.
IS THIS DESIRE YOUR DESIRE? DO YOU DESIRE FOR ALL TO BE SAVED? WILL YOU SACRIFICE TIME AND EFFORT TO SHARE THE GOOD NEWS OF SALVATION IN CHRIST ALONE?
Those are the questions we must ask ourselves. Do we desire the same thing as God? Are we willing to go and do what is necessary for all to hear?
We need to be like Paul who said in Rom. 9:1-3 “I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
His heart yearned for the lost to believe. He wanted to see them saved and part of the body of believers. His passion was for this.
This is why in 1 Tim. 2:7 he says “For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”
His desire was in line with God’s desire. His desire was in line with the purpose of Christ being sent as recorded in Romans 5:6-11 “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Someone may die for a righteous person, a good person, a nice and decent person. This could also say take the gospel to a good person. Will you take the gospel to an evil person? A molester? A murderer? An anything that you see as absolutely despicable person?
Christ died for His enemies. People who hate Him. Not people who love Him and cherished Him, but enemies. This is the reason we need to pray for all people everywhere regardless who they are. We need to pray for their salvation.
To see any real change in this world, people are going to need to receive salvation. Jesus is the only one who can change the world. He is the only one who can bring people around from foolish ignorance to wisdom. It is Christ alone.
But as Paul wrote above we need the zeal he had to take this message to the people. We need to have the desire of God inside us. We need to want to see people changed and walking with the Lord more than we want to see our desires come to fruition.
The rest of this series is aimed at changing our hearts and minds into seeking and desiring God’s desires above all our own. We must know His will and seek to perform His will. When we know His will and live in His will, then our desires will be His desires. We will want the things He wants. We will be like Paul and proclaim that we were appointed to proclaim the truth to all.
Will you take that charge today and take this message to all. The message of everlasting life is yours when you believe in Christ for your eternal salvation. That He did all the work necessary. This is what we must desire if we truly want to see change in the world.
Conclusion
I end with this story from Charles Swindoll. He told of a doctor friend he had who had become interested in his ministry and work. Swindoll spent quite a lot of time with the man. They became good friends and Swindoll figured that one day at lunch was as good a time as any to share the gospel with him.
He did it by drawing a simple drawing on a napkin. The drawing was a circle on the left and one on the right. The left was God, the right was the world.
He then drew a cross as a bridge and wrote Christ down the center.
He slid it over all full of joy just knowing the man would see this simple and perfect message of salvation and believe.
The man studied it for a bit and looked at Swindoll and said “I could never believe this in a thousand years.”
I share this because not all will believe. Oh how great it would be if they did, but they won’t. But this happened to Swindoll back in the 70’s I believe. He has had an amazingly fruitful ministry for years before and after this incident.
So, I told this because we will have rejection but that must not stop us from sharing the truth with a lost and dying world.
