september 18 2022
September 18th 2022
Old Testament: Amos 8:4-7
Psalm: Psalm 113
Epistle: 1st Timothy 2:1-15 (1st Timothy 1:18-20)
Gospel: Luke 16:1-15
Sermon Text: 1st Timothy 1:18-2:15
Sermon Title: “All People”
Grace to you and peace, from God the Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
“Wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience”. (1st Timothy 1:18b-19a) “God our Savior, (who) desires all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus”. (1st Timothy 2:3b-5) “For this I was appointed a preacher and an apostle … a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth”. (1st Timothy 2:7) “Men should pray … without anger or quarreling; likewise, women should adorn themselves with … modesty and self-control”. (1st Timothy 2:8-9a) These are a few of the many themes in our sermon text.
The Apostle Paul speaks of proper worship in our Epistle for this morning. At the end of chapter 1, he charged/ordered Timothy to stick with the Word of God against everything else the false prophets might try to teach. “In accordance with the prophecies (which are the Word of God, the Gospel) you may wage the good warfare, holding faith and a good conscience”. (1st Timothy 1:18b-19a)
As Christians, we are at war with our sinful nature, the world, and temptations of the devil; and we need to hear the Gospel proclaimed and receive the gifts in the sacrament for the strengthening of our faith. The Word of God is powerful and by the Word of God, Paul said, “we have divine power to destroy strongholds”. (2nd Corinthians 10:4) Also, as we talked about last Sunday, Christians need the law of God; “which urges us to bear good fruit, lest we lose the Holy Spirit”. (Apology IV, par. 220)
The sad fact is that the false teachers had already caused some who had “rejected this (Word) to make shipwreck of their faith … (these, Paul says) I have handed over to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme”. (1st Timothy 1:19b-20) By “handing them over to Satan”; Paul is clearly talking of church discipline or excommunication for those who have blasphemed by speaking/teaching or acting against God’s Word and refusing to repent.
Notice here (and elsewhere is Scripture) the purpose of discipline is to bring the person to repentance and faith; “that they may learn not to blaspheme”. According to the Small Catechism, such discipline “is intended to show people who refuse to repent the seriousness of their sin and ultimately to rescue such persons from eternal condemnation”. (Question # 341, 2017 Catechism)
But this “doesn’t work” I hear people say all the time. If you confront people with their sin they will just get mad and leave (or stay mad and stay away). So, many suggest, we shouldn’t even try it; but to say that this doesn’t work is to call God a liar, for His Word tells us it does. There is the example of the man in 1st and 2nd Corinthians, where Paul tells the church to excommunicate him for unrepentant sexual sin saying “purge the evil person from among you”. (1st Corinthians 5:13b) Sometime later, after the excommunication was carried out, the man repented and Paul urged those in the church to “forgive and comfort him, lest he be overwhelmed with excessive sorrow”. (2nd Corinthians 2:7) In this case, the man repented and was fully restored to membership in the church of Corinth.
But, even when it doesn’t “work” in this way or in the time we think it should; church discipline is always designed as a loving act, meant to bring the person to repentance and faith; therefore, to refuse to discipline an unrepentant sinner is to refuse to love that person; by doing what is best for them. To refuse to practice this is also to set a bad example for the rest of the flock that certain sins (or the sins of certain people) are to be tolerated; and cause others to partake in them.
Next, Paul speaks of prayer and its’ purpose in four different ways. “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”. (1st Timothy 2:1-2) So, we pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, through the power of the Holy Spirit. But what are these distinctions Paul uses in referring to prayer?
Supplications are simply requests made of God for our specific needs or desires. Intercessions are appeals to God for the needs of other people. Thanksgiving is simply expressing your gratitude to God for the undeserved mercies and gifts you have received from His hand. The word prayer covers these and other petitions we make to our gracious God and Savior. Paul says we are to pray for all people, for the sake of the Gospel; for the mission of the church; that we would be able to practice our faith and preach the Gospel freely, without hindrance from the government or others in powerful positions. We pray for all that many would come to believe in Christ Jesus and be saved.
I would add, that whenever the government orders the church to do something contrary to the churches call, the government has overstepped its rightful vocation and “we must obey God rather than man”. (Acts 5:29) In the same way, there is no sense in which individual Christians are free to attack and subvert the Creed/faith they confess on Sunday, by their political actions during the week. (Kurt Marquart)
These prayers are “good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth”. (1st Timothy 2:3-4) Jesus, our Lord, came to this earth to die and rise from the dead for the forgiveness of sins of all people. So, we pray, not because “prayer is powerful” or because “prayer changes things”; but because in praying, we are putting all of our needs and wants in the hands of Almighty God, who has promised to care for us.
Of course, praying for and desiring that all would be saved, does not mean that all will be saved, for we already heard of some who had “made shipwreck of their faith”. (1st Timothy 1:19b) Unfortunately, this is quite common, that many in the church reject the Word and free grace of God, resisting the Holy Spirit who desires to bring them to faith and keep them in the one true faith, in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Now, this is the Gospel that Paul, Timothy, and we proclaim, “there is one God (not many) and there is one mediator (not many) between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all; which is the testimony given at the proper time”. (1st Timothy 2:5-6) Jesus Christ; true God (of both Jews and Gentiles) and true man, is the only Savior of the world and those who reject Him, reject the only possible means of their salvation.
This good news (Gospel) is to be proclaimed to the whole world; “baptizing … teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you”. (Matthew 28:19b-20a) “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”. (1st Timothy 2:7) God called Paul to this task of preaching and teaching His Word, all over the known world. So, he is talking here about his (divine) call to be a pastor.
Paul is not lying; affirming his apostleship; despite those in Galatia and Corinth who argued with him, saying he wasn’t called by God. (Check this) In his call, God had promised to work through Paul, no matter his popularity, for He also told Paul that he would suffer much for the sake of the Gospel. Therefore, Paul was not to trust in his own personality, gifts, knowledge or abilities to be persuasive, but rather, he trusted in the Lord, who called him to be “a teacher to the Gentiles in faith and truth”. (1st Timothy 2:7b) As he said elsewhere, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth”. (1st Corinthians 3:6-7a) It is always God alone who gives the growth.
Paul now briefly returns to the topic of public prayer in the church saying, “I desire that in every place, men should pray; lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling”. (1st Timothy 2:8) Notice that the prayer (which in the church is to be led by men) is to be “without anger or quarreling”; meaning having forgiven those who have sinned against you (as Jesus speaks in the Lord’s Prayer) and not holding on to hatred or grudges against them; for Scripture also declares “let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice”. (Ephesians 4:31) Therefore, those who would pray like the Pharisee in Jesus’ parable, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men” (Luke 18:11) (should not expect God to answer their prayers).
Next, the Apostle has a few words for the women in the churches. He said, “women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness; with good works”. (1st Timothy 2:9-10)
Modesty here means not to call undue attention to oneself and their appearance, reflecting too closely the immoral culture of the day (or of our day); but rather to stress holiness of life and good works; which of course, come from God. As the Apostle Peter also wrote, “do not let your adorning be external … but let your adorning be the … imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious”. (1st Peter 3:3-4)
Paul continues; “Let a woman learn quietly, with all submissiveness. I do not permit a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. Rather, she is to remain quiet”. (1st Timothy 2:11-12) He also dealt with this issue before in the Coritnhian churches (1st Corinthians 14:34-35). Now, anytime this text is brought up in our day it is considered controversial, and the church who believes what the Bible teaches here is frequently labeled sexist or misogynistic for not embracing women leaders in the church. Unfortunately, more than a few in our church body, the LCMS, are promoting such things as women pastors; contrary to God’s Word. In fact, almost every so-called Protestant church body in this country have embraced women pastors.
But, in this letter and in his letters to Titus and the Corinthian churches, Paul says that only men can be pastors. Of course, women can be teachers of other women and of children as Titus 2:3-5 makes clear, but according to the revealed will of God in the Holy Scripture; which is Jesus’ own Word and by Jesus’ example; not appointing a single woman as an Apostle/teacher, even though He had many women among His followers and that women were the first to witness His bodily resurrection on Easter morning, it is clear that despite what our corrupt culture teaches, women are not to be ordained as pastors. (Yet in their proper sphere, teaching of children, women have a greater influence on the coming generation than most men, even those who are pastors/teachers)
The reason Paul gives for this teaching is not that men are somehow superior to women, but “for Adam was formed first; then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through child bearing; if they continue in faith and love and holiness and self-control”. (1st Timothy 2:13-15) Adam does not get off the hook here, for Paul says elsewhere, “sin came into the world through one man”; (Romans 5:12-14) meaning Adam. The point here is that Adam was not “deceived” as Eve was, rather he willfully sinned by giving up his God ordained vocation, allowing Eve to take on his role. Both of them abandoned their God given vocation.
Ultimately though, God has called His church into existence through the Gospel and it so it is His church and He can set up whatever guidelines or orders He chooses for the sake of the Gospel; first promised in Genesis 3:15. And that is what the final verse about “being saved through child bearing” is getting at. It is primarily about the Gospel and the mission of the church to make disciples. For it is by the birth of the Christ child to the Virgin Mary that sin, death and the devil were defeated. For Jesus came to this world to atone for the sins of the whole world by His death on the cross.
But it is also about both women and men being called to their various (God given) vocations in this life; but not apart from faith. They are “to continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control”. (1st Timothy 2:15b) For our various duties and responsibilities are pleasing to God, only through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord and His saving work of redemption; through the cross and the bodily resurrection.
So, (dear Christian) rejoice in the Lord Jesus Christ who has forgiven all your sins; rejoice in His Word and sacraments by which He gives you His gifts, and rejoice in your God given vocations, by which we serve our neighbor; believing that in all things, God is “working … for the good of those who love God”. (Romans 8:28) Amen.
And the peace of God …