“Because God Wants All To Be
Saved” I
Timothy 2:1-15
Intro.: Recently a friend told me about an experience
he had with a homeless man. On a cold,
rainy night he came across the man clutching his plastic bag containing all his
worldly possessions. The stench and
filth of the man would have sent most people running the opposite direction,
but my friend offered to take him to a shelter in a neighboring town where he
could have a hot meal and warm, dry place to sleep. On the ride there the man confessed that he
had lived a horrible life, done many bad things, and that there was no way that
anyone could care about him. My friend
told the man about God’s love in Christ and assured him that no matter what he
might have done the Lord always cared.
The man broke down in tears and my friend explained to him that at the
shelter he could learn more about God’s love and forgiveness because of what
Jesus had done for him. As my friend
dropped him off at the shelter the man whose appearance and smell made him
absolutely unapproachable embraced him and wept.
A few days later my friend called the
shelter and asked about the man. The
director of the shelter said that the night he dropped the man off he heard and
received the Gospel. He went to bed
clean, warm, well-fed, and with joy in his heart knowing that he was loved by
God – and that night he died in his sleep.
To look at that man hours before his death, many, perhaps even some of
us, might have concluded that he was beyond help and unworthy of our efforts,
but God had other plans. Because….
I.
God Wants All To Be Saved By Knowing Christ.
A. Sadly, our faith and religion tends to
revolve more around ourselves and our wants than around God and the needs of
others. This was the religion practiced
by the people condemned in our Old Testament reading. They thought only of buying, selling and
being “blessed” by God, with little regard for the poor and needy. Such faith was also the way of the shrewd
manager in our Gospel who had no consideration for his master, but merely used him
to gain security for himself. Such
faith, if we can call it that, focuses on what God has
done and what we want him to do for us, rather than on what He has done and
wants to do for all people.
1. Most Christians and congregations with this
kind of faith fail to grasp the greatness of God’s plan for the world and their
part in it. They become self-absorbed;
seeking more intense religious experiences, being consumed by their own circumstances,
and focusing on their own wants and needs.
They are content with God’s kingdom as they understand it and with the
inner circle of believers they see in worship every week.
2. With this kind of egocentric religion some of
us will filter out what we don’t like, cannot understand, or do not believe is
important for our own walk of faith.
Someone once revealed this to me when we were
talking about a biblical teaching that he had difficulty understanding and
refused to accept. He told me, “If the
Bible teaches something I don’t understand and can’t agree with, I would rather
not deal with it than let it get in the way of my my
personal relationship with Jesus”
Perhaps this is the way that some of you feel
about what our epistle says regarding the different roles God has established
for men and women in worship that: “men
should pray, lifting up holy hands” and “women [should] learn in quietness and
full submission…” and are not permitted “to teach or to exercise
authority…”
Maybe, like the people of our Old
Testament lesson you find that some of the things that God says about love and
charity, justice and righteousness get in the way of your personal or business
goals, so you would rather ignore them, and concentrate instead on God’s
promise to prepare a table before you in the presence of your enemies and make
your cup run over. This approach may
seem beneficial on the surface, but it actually blinds us to the will and work
of God for all people. Ask yourself: Do I concern myself with all of God’s Word, or
only those parts that agree with my own opinion? Do I have the desire to do God’s will no
mater what the consequences, or am I wanting God to make me comfortable? Am I willing to lay down my life in service
to God, or do I just want God to make me healthy, wealthy and wise?
3. At times, this is made evident in a prayer
life that seeks to bend God’s will to our own, instead of seeking His greater
will for us and for all people.
There is a story about a young boy who was
observed by a minister in church fervently praying. The preacher was surprised to hear the boy repeating
the word “
Think about your own prayer life? Is it consumed with your needs, wants and
desires? Are your prayers offered only
for those people you know by name? How
often do you pray for the welfare of your enemies, and for the needs of all
people? Do you find yourself praying for
God’s will or for your own?
Transition: How tragic it is that our vision of God
often stops at the end of our noses? We
fail to see the magnitude of His love, the proverbial forest of His blessings
because of the trees of our own lives. The
truth is that God’s love and His will to save extends far beyond us.
B. St. Paul writes in our epistle: “God our Savior..
desires all people to be saved and to come to
the knowledge of the truth. For there is
one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
who gave himself as a ransom for all…” (vv.4-6)
1. This universal will of God to save all
people is good news for each of you gathered here today, because when He says
that He wants “all people” to be saved and that Christ is the mediator and
ransom for “all people” there is no escape clause. You are included. When you look at your own life, your sin,
your hurts, your burdens, you cannot say, “God doesn’t care about me. He can’t love me. He may want to save others but not me.” You are part of the “whole world” God loved
so much that He sent His Son so that by believing in Him you would not perish
but have eternal life. You are among the
“all people” he wants to save and for whom Christ died and intercedes.
2. But God’s universal will to save does not end
with you it includes all people. Our
heavenly Father does not just love us, or those like us. Christ did not lay down His life only for
church-going Christians and well groomed saints; He died and rose again for people like that
smelly homeless man, the pitiful drug addict, and the diseased prostitute; God’s
love extends to all people. He
sent His Son to pay the ransom for all people. And He wants all people to come to
faith in Jesus Christ and be saved from sin, death and hell.
3. God reveals the strength of His universal
love and His will to save all people by sending His only begotten Son to be
born of the Virgin Mary, to offer His life as a ransom for sin, to rise again
in victory, and to ascend into heaven where He serves as the One Mediator
between God and men. There, on the
cross, Jesus paid the price for the sins of everyone, whether they believe it
and receive it or not. The rift between
God and His fallen creation has been mended because there on that cross Jesus
begged for our forgiveness as He continues to do for us in heaven. The proof that God wants all people to be
saved is in Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life who has become the only, yet
all accessible, way to the Father.
God wants us to know that He loves all
people, from the greatest to the least, from the most pious Christian to the
most wretched scoundrel. And He wants
all to be saved. This is where we come
in, and where our faith and religion is transformed by the Holy Spirit. We learn from Christ our Savior, that it’s
not just about us – it’s about God and His will to save all people. In today’s epistle He shows us that we are His
instruments for the carrying out of His gracious will. Because He wants all people
to be saved…
II. God Calls Us To Be People Of Prayer And
Proclamation.
A. Through the apostle He urges us to pray for
all people, saying: “First of
all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings
be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we
may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (vv. 1-2)
1. Transformed by God’s grace in Christ and led
by the Holy Spirit to know and desire the good and pleasing will of God our
faith and religion are no longer self-seeking and short-sighted. We know that our prayers offered in faith are
powerful and effective, so we are not content to reserve them only for our own
needs or those of the people we know.
2. The
world and all people stand in need of the prayers we offer. We have an opportunity and privilege that
many do not. We alone, through faith in
Christ, have a way opened for us to approach God’s throne of grace with
confidence, and with the full assurance that He will hear and answer our
prayers. As His beloved children and
royal priesthood He has called upon us to be the voice of the world to offer
the sacrifice of prayer, praise and thanksgiving on behalf of all people, and
especially for all who are in authority.
And so we offer our supplications for the salvation of people
everywhere, our prayers that the blessings of body and soul would be extended
to everyone, our intercession for all those who suffer in this fallen world,
and our thanksgiving for the gracious gifts God showers upon the wicked and the
righteous, alike. We pray for our
leaders and all the leaders of the world so that we may enjoy peaceful and
quiet lives in all godliness.
3. Such prayer is pleasing to God and serves His
purpose for the spread of the Gospel, so that more an
more people may come to know Christ and be saved.
B. In addition to being people of prayer we are
to be people of proclamation. God calls us all to be heralds of the Gospel.
1. In his letter to the Romans Paul writes, “ ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be
saved.’ But how are they to call on him
in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they
have never heard?” (Rom.
2. For this reason God has given us the Office of
the Ministry. Our Lutheran Confessions
put it this way: “To obtain such faith God instituted the office of the ministry, that is, provided the Gospel and the
sacraments. Through these, as through
means, he gives the Holy Spirit, who works faith, when and where he pleases, in
those who hear the Gospel…” (AC.V)
3. God has appointed all of us to share the Good
News by declaring the glorious praises of Him who called us out of darkness
into His marvelous light. (Nt. I Pet. 2:9) We are God’s servants
sent out into the highways and byways to extend the Gospel call to all
people. We can proclaim in our daily
lives the wonders of what God has done for us in Christ. We can faithfully transmit the truth that has
set us free to be the people of God – the truth of salvation through God’s Son,
Jesus Christ.
The Lord grant us from this day forward to
make His desire that all people be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth
to be our own, so that redeemed and sanctified by His grace may lift up holy
hands in prayer and be heralds of the Good News that “there is one
mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a
ransom for all…”. Amen.