Four Prayer Practices From 1 Timothy 2

We build a bigger prayer life by taking 1 Timothy 2:1-7 seriously and praying beyond our comfort zone. We break down petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving, then challenge ourselves to pray for everyone, including leaders and people we disagree with, because God’s saving desire is wide. 
• prayer as the priority of the church as a house of prayer 
• why Paul stacks prayer words for emphasis and clarity 
• petitions as specific requests without selfish group dynamics 
• prayers as worshipful communication that starts with God’s nature 
• intercession as carrying another person before God with love 
• thanksgiving as a discipline that reshapes perspective 
• praying for all people including enemies and strangers 
• praying for kings and authorities as responsibility not endorsement 
• peace as a goal so godliness can flourish 
• God’s desire that all people be saved and know the truth 
• Jesus as the one mediator and ransom for humanity 
You may call the line at any time. Partner with God. We’re just facilitating the process. 7474 Prayer, leave your request. We will intercede, leave a prayer. 

Transcript

Welcome And How To Send Prayers

SPEAKER_00 0:00

UncommonChristian Network.com presents for Prayer Radio. I would like to welcome you. Please, two hands on a steering wheel if you are driving. We're going to have a nice fun talk tonight or today, depends on when you are listening. And we again want to encourage you to donate your prayers and your time on the phone line. 747-4 Prayer. Call and leave a prayer. Now we always will take voicemail requests, and it's a voicemail, you don't have to talk to anyone. Call and leave a prayer. And I'm going to encourage you today to do that by what we're going to read. But if you have a prayer request, then please leave that too. And our team will be praying and agreeing with you for that. But tonight's topic is going to come out of 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 1 through 7. Now, don't worry about pulling over to read it. I'll give you a couple of the verses and even a few of the vocabulary. But I want you to understand that a lot of people, especially when you have Bibles and you have a lot of things going for you, but you just don't have that pulpit. You always sometimes you feel stifled. You just don't, you have a lot to share, but no place to share it. Well, we're opening that door for you right now. You have a place to share. But in this case, we want you to share your prayer for those who need it. We want you to share what the God has given you to others. And we're just going to help you do that. We're going to facilitate that. We have some things set up where we can do that for you. So we're going to make it easy. You can call and leave a prayer that we can use on the airwaves. Or you can text it in and we'll read it for you. Or you can use that what they call fan mail. You know, we don't like the name. Or you can just leave a verbal right there. So there's multiple ways to leave a prayer for the people around the world. And hopefully you'll be encouraged to do so as we go through this chapter.

Why Prayer Must Come First

SPEAKER_00 1:48

1 Timothy 2, 1 through 7, that's the verse verses we would like to take a gander at. There's a central message here. Paul is teaching that prayer should not be limited to people we like, agree with, or personally know. The church is called to pray broadly because God's saving concern reaches broadly. Can I encourage you a little bit with that? Well, let's take a look at the verses because that's a general summation, and that could actually be wrong. So we want to test everything we say by the word. So listen to what we just said, but let's test it ourselves and make sure what we said does not need to be corrected. First of all, prayer is a priority. Verse 1, Paul begins, I urge then, first of all, that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people. How interesting. So now we're talking about prayer as the priority. We talked about this verse before. When Yeshua was on earth, he said his house will have a name. His house shall be called a house of prayer. So he has made his house synonymous. It's going to be called a house of prayer, which would mean prayer would be the priority and the emphasis. In other words, if I could be so bold, when you go to church on Sunday, in most places, it's really more like a Sunday school. But if he's to show up on that Tuesday morning prayer service, that's more akin to what a church service would look like. A church service is a prayer service, primarily, and there's going to be a lot of prayer. So it's not a five-minute prayer and let's get to the teaching. It's not a two-minute prayer and let's just sing all day. It's not a one-minute prayer and let's just learn everything we can so we can argue with people who disagree. It is, first of all, prioritize his house shall be called a house of prayer. We transcend into the new timeline post-resurrection, and we see Paul emphasizing the same thing. So we have a synonymous parallel. And he says, I urge then first of all that petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for all people. Paul is doing something unique here, but it's not unique to the New Testament. It's something that we don't always pick up when we read. Paul is piling word upon word upon word. This is for emphasis. We would do it with all caps, we do it with shouting, we do it with screaming, we do it with emotion. But here, a one way to emphasize something in his time and in his language was to use a multiplicity of words, kind of getting at the same thing. You've seen something like this before. You shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Most of you could quote that verbatim. Now, what's interesting is that the emphasis of what he was trying to say there is with everything inside. But when you label it as such, heart, soul, mind, and strength, it stands out a little bit. He starts to tell you everything that is inside. But when you just say everything, people kind of miss the nuance. So it's just a beautiful way of emphasizing a point. Hence the reason if a gospel writer was to leave off the last part. It is still very strong. With all your heart, soul, and mind. Well, it's still hitting all of those phases. It's still ringing into the minds. When you say all your heart, well, that would be everything. Love God with all your heart. You would think that's enough. But then he says, All your soul, well, we have to cling to him. And all of your mind, and now we're almost out of our minds because now we have to love him with our minds too. And then all of your strength, he just keeps adding words. In other words, love him with everything. That is the entire point. Here, Paul is saying, pray every which way you can for all people. Pray. He's giving us words, and we're going to look at the nuances of the words because there's differences in the words, but the list is not exhaustive. There's other ways to pray than these four. But he's just saying, here, if I give you these, then you're going to know we got to pray for all the people with all these different ways. And then he says, I want you to pray with petitions, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving. Now, you know the way we are, we're going to look at every word. Even though we know that this is an emphasis, there still has to be a definition. There's still a distinguishing between these.

Four Ways To Pray

SPEAKER_00 5:48

So what is a petition? A petition is I petition you. It's a very specific need. Father, my back is sore. Would you please heal my lower back in Yeshua's name? Very specific need, right? My big toe hurts. My sister is in need of your help. My friend, Father, is addicted to drugs. Would you please encourage him to break that addiction and get him to help he needs? These are very specific needs. And it's important to pray very specific needs. You're not being, in this case, selfish, especially when you're alone, praying those very specific needs. One thing I would like to just add personally, so now we're removing ourselves from the text. I'm just going to talk to you like I know you. When you're in a prayer group and you have a specific need, be sure, try this. Give your specific need to someone else to pray for you and then receive their specific needs to pray for them. Rather than everybody going around and just praying for themselves, it becomes very selfish. And we run into some warnings in the New Testament about being selfish. Because I've seen this in groups of four, five, six, and nobody's in agreement because everybody's thinking about what they want to say and what they're going to pray. Nobody's really listening to the other person. They're just waiting to get a break so they can say my lower back or my headache or my sister. And nobody's praying for one another. It's quite embarrassing. So I want to encourage you, if you're in a prayer group, to share those requests with somebody else and let somebody carry your burden while you carry theirs. You'd be surprised. With that said, Paul says, with prayers. Well, it's kind of unique that he says, pray and then adds prayers. Well, you would think that's, you know, normal. But he does emphasize prayers here, and it is plural. General communication and worship directed towards God. Father, I appreciate everything that you're doing. Appreciate how you've given us food and clothes, how we can talk and pray in peace. I thank you for technology that allows us to go out on the airways over a hundred countries. As somebody that I've never met and will never see, maybe on earth, we might need in heaven because they can hear my voice. And they can hear and feel the prayers of the saints who have partnered with you to reach them. So now we're praying. Okay, we're talking to God. And one thing I would like to encourage you with now, when you talk to God, please think about God before you talk. That might sound so trivial, but it's so much. With that said, petitions and prayers, and then there's intercession. Intercession is approaching God on someone else's behalf. Now, we already just hinted at that. You're in a prayer group with five people and everybody's praying for themselves. Take time to share your request. Learn from the person so you can love that person. And then give language to the love by praying to God for that person. So learn what everybody wants. Now, I understand there's going to be certain prayer requests that people just don't want to share publicly. And you can say, I have a private request. We understand that. You don't want to embarrass people, you don't want to embarrass yourself. But I would also like to encourage you, if that's the case, find at least one person in which you don't feel embarrassed to share. Don't hold anything so tight that you're so identified with it that you're afraid to give it over. Because if you're willing to pray, then you're no longer identified with it. And you don't have to claim it for yourself. So we're not judging you by your prayer request. We'll let that rest for now. And then he ends with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving for God's people and what he is doing. Now you can see how a lot of these are tied in. So let's just try one where we're going to go a petition, a prayer, an intercession, and a thanksgiving all in one prayer. Father, I have a specific need right now of not knowing what to pray. But I am going to communicate and honor you because I want to communicate and talk to you because you are God and there is none like you. I would like to pray for everybody else who doesn't know what to say when they pray. And I thank you that you will answer these prayers. So what I did there as I just went down the petition, the prayer, the intercession and thanksgiving. It is not a particular order, and in fact, you can start with the thanksgiving. A lot of people will. You can start with the adoration, and I highly recommend it. Our Father, you are in heaven. Hallowed be your name. And now, even then, now we can get into help us to learn what to say when we say we are praying. Teach us to pray by your spirit and your word versus our imagination. And understand here, ladies and gentlemen, that these four prayers types, yes, can be interwoven. We don't have to be so meticulous that we separate them so much. Now we do when we study. And if you ever study with me, you know we're going to dive into every single definition and to the nuances of each word. Be that as it may, when it's time to pray, you put it all back together. So in other words, when I pray coach with people, what I'll do is we're going to pray just the petitions for like 10 minutes. Just the petitions. Just so they can understand what it's like. And then we're going to take other people's petitions and we're going to pray other people's petitions. And that's all we're going to do because it's like a drill. See, when we play basketball, we had to drill. Sometimes all we did was dribble 10 or 15 minutes. That's all we did. But then there's shooting drills, which would be like the prayers. Now we're shooting. That's all we're going to do, though, until we learn the new ones. And then we get into the intercession. That's our passing drill. We're going to pass the ball, pass the ball, pass the ball. And then we get into Thanksgiving. So we drill that. When I do prayer coaching, I drill that. But when it's time to pray, it all comes together and you let it flow. Because I find some people are more prone personality-wise to maybe Thanksgiving, but not needs. And you and I know people who are only going to pray for needs and really nothing else. So they got 40 minutes of needs and four seconds of God, I love you. Nobody believes that. Now, I'm going to talk to you like I know you. You know, people say, man, you're a little bit too hard on people. No, I don't think so. The consequences are too much for me to be too hard on anyone. Now, Paul says pray in this case.

Praying Beyond Your Circle

SPEAKER_00 11:52

He's talking to Timothy and he says, pray for all people. That means prayer must cross boundaries. Can I encourage you one more time? Send in your prayers. I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that right now. 7474 Prayer. You can send in your prayer request. Yes, it's a voicemail. No one's going to answer. It's a voicemail. Be comfortable. Be confident. But you can also send in your prayers and say, hey, this is for the shortwave. When it's done, say that was for shortwave radio or that's for the radio. You can use this publicly. Let us know. And I'm giving you that opportunity. Now, most of you have prayer groups and things of that nature. Wonderful. But would you mind praying with us as well? We're going to try and go places, not many people are willing to go. 100 countries, that's amazing to me. There's people right now. I was listening to the station that we're going to be on from Iraq. Let that sink in. I'm listening online from Iraq to the station we're going to be on. That means there's going to be people who could hear your prayer, who are now dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder and fear. Drama. Trauma. Not knowing. And sometimes you get so wired with worry that it takes years to unravel. They need prayer. And we want to pray for them. That's the intercession coming in. That's that intercession coming in. There's people praying for you right now that you've never even seen or met. Let us sew that back. 7474 Prayer. You can go on to UncommonChristian Network.com really soon. But you can leave a text. We'll read it for you. This is when he says his house shall be called a house of prayer, we're going to hold him to what he says. And when you come to my house, as for me and my house, we meet together, let it be said that we're going to pray. Now, when he says for all people, that does include your friends. It includes the people you know, it includes the people you see, for sure, for sure. But I know that you know it also includes your enemies. It includes the people you haven't met, the stranger, the neighbor, believers and unbelievers alike here. The righteous and the difficult. People nearby and people across the world. Those we understand and those we strongly disagree with. We do not have to approve of someone's behavior to pray for their soul, protection, repentance, wisdom, or salvation. And don't start praying. Can I talk to you like I know you? Don't start praying for their salvation just because they disagree and you think they're going to hell because they disagree with you. We're going to pray for you if that's your attitude. The

Pray For Leaders Without Endorsing

SPEAKER_00 14:24

Bible also says, pray for kings and authorities. Interesting. For kings and all those in authority, the Roman government was not Christian. Please understand that. Or especially even friendly all the time towards the church. Paul was not telling believers to pray only when their preferred leader was in power. Nor is he saying when it's not your preferred leader to talk bad about them. Now notice here, there's going to be, yeah, there's some some debate, not much, there's some debate, but there's a good chance that there was a leader in opposition in the first century that was not always very friendly toward the Christian group. But he says, pray for kings and those in authority, all those in authority. Do you think Paul's ever come across any leaders in authority that didn't like him? You can read about it in the book of Acts. But when we pray for our leaders, presidents, governors, mayors, tribal leaders in different countries, uh leaders of families, okay? Well what are we going to pray? Father, we just pray for wisdom, justice, restraint from evil, protection from corruption, peaceful decisions, openness to truth and salvation. We pray that for every single leader around the world in Yeshua's name. Now you might say, Man, I prayed that and I haven't seen anything change. You're changing. Don't forget that. You're praying what he's asked us to pray through the pen of Paul who met Christ face to face on multiple occasions. This man is not making this stuff up. So when he is telling us that this is how we should be praying, it's a good idea to do so. Prayer for a leader is not an endorsement for that leader, it is an acknowledgement that the leader remained under God's authority. Please take note of that. The goal:

Why Peace Is A Prayer Goal

SPEAKER_00 16:16

a peaceful environment for godly living. Now, notice the goal. So we have something here that we can elaborate on, but we won't do it too much. But Paul says that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. So again, any war-torn nation, we pray for peace. Because we want all of us to live peaceful, godly lives. Sometimes when we're in a place of peace, we forget that people are not so peaceful. And we could be so nestled in our peace that not only are we not thankful, we forget to intercede for others that are not experiencing that peace. So if you're in a peaceful time right now, if you're going to bed and you haven't heard a gunshot and you're waking up and you haven't heard any bombs drop, pray for peace for others. One way to do that is to acknowledge the God of peace. Father, you are the God of peace. So in the name of the Prince of Peace, Yeshua Sar Shalom, we pray for peace. So the God of peace in the name of the Son, who is the Prince of Peace, may bring peace to the entire world in his time and in his way. So right now we're just partnering with the Scripture to pray that prayer. This kind of prayer pleases God. Well, isn't that interesting? This kind of prayer, verse 3, pleases God. This is good. So people say, I don't know what to pray. Well, he just told us what makes God happy. And pleases God our Savior. Pray for others, reflecting God's own character. It's good because it moves us beyond selfishness, tribalism, bitterness, and political hostility. Do our prayers sound like the heart of God? Or do they merely repeat our personal loyalties and frustrations?

God’s Desire For Salvation

SPEAKER_00 17:56

God desires all people to be saved. Now this is strange. We're gonna have to talk about this for a second. Let me glance at my notes to make sure of something here, but I have to just talk to you off my heart. Verse 4, who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth? That is so fascinating. I just want to know if you can see it before I say it. Who wants all people? Who wants all people to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth? It sounds like God. God desires people to be saved. This explained why Paul began by saying, pray for everyone. We pray broadly because the gospel invitation goes broadly. 7474 prayer. The verse does not teach that everyone is automatically saved or anything, but Paul connects salvation with the coming to the knowledge of the truth. There's a key distinction here. God's desire for salvation does not eliminate the need for repentance, faith, truth, and response. Hold on to that. But let's just talk about this for a second. God desires all people to be saved. How unique. So, in other words, we can say this. God's not going to get everything he wants. If he wants all people to be saved, and it's clear by the passages that prod is the way to destruction, and many will find it. That's not pleasing to God, number one. And number two, we're partnering him, we're partnering with him and saying we're going to pray that he gets what he wants because he wants all people to be saved. I'm going to allow the responsibility to rest without causing worry, but I just want you to think about what we just said. God wants all people to be saved, so he's asking us to pray for all people to be saved. So one second here. Father, in the name of Yeshua, our salvation, we pray for everyone who can hear us now to be saved, and everyone who cannot hear us now to be saved. Pray that with me, because we want to make God happy. But isn't it interesting that this is a desire of God, and yet all people won't be saved? Now I've heard some people talking about that recently, and if you we might have to put that on our Faith Fringe episode, that there's a universal salvation. I just don't see it in the scripture. Anywhere, by any means, by any parallel. There's way too many parallels. People are eliminating certain words, but you cannot eliminate the principles too many places. But I digress. Christians

One Mediator And A Ransom

SPEAKER_00 20:20

are to pray for one another, but only Yeshua stands as a saving mediator. Because of verse 5. There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man, Christ Yeshua. Ooh, I love it when Paul does stuff like that. Oof. The man. Ooh, strong. There is one God, and there's one mediator between God and mankind. The man. Christas Yeshua. Preach, Paul, preach. A mediator stands between two separated parties and brings reconciliation. You've had it on earth before. Maybe you're the mediator, maybe you're the peacemaker. That's why you enjoy conversations like this, where you've you could hear two people and you could hear the disagreement, and you would just think, man, if they would just listen, or they would just understand this, and you mediate between two parties. Yeshua is uniquely qualified because he represents God to humanity and humanity before God. Paul emphasizes the man. Oh yes, he does. He emphasizes the man, Christ Yeshua, pointing to Yeshua's genuine humanity. The mediator is not an angel, a deceased saint, a political ruler, a religious personality, or spiritual guide. Christians may pray for one another, but only Yeshua stands as a saving mediator between humanity and God. Preach, Paul preach. Verse 6. And Yeshua, who gave himself as a ransom for all people, a ransom is the price paid to release someone from bondage. A ransom. You know it in old TV, they leave a ransom though. This is how much we want for your kidnapped cousin. Well, how much? 500,000. By cousin, that's what a lot of people would do, but Yeshua didn't. He gave himself as a ransom. Because of all the people that God wanted saved, Yeshua died for all people so that all people could be saved. A ransom is the price paid to release someone from bondage. Yeshua did not merely teach the way of salvation, he gave himself to accomplish it. The language for all matches the opening command to pray for all. No class, no nationality, no ethnicity, no social rank, or past sin places someone beyond the reach of the gospel invitation. I don't care what you've done, I don't care where you've been. If somebody's holding your sin against you, don't hold that against them. Forgive them. Don't fall into the same trap. Paul was appointed to announce this. Paul himself identifies himself as a herald, apostle, a teacher to the Gentiles. The gospel was never intended to remain inside one ethnic or cultural community, and so we have a parallel. There's a parallel between the ethnic, historical community and the church. But we don't have time for that right now. So, in other words, there is a global connection, and a global prayer program fits the movement of this passage: prayer for all people, truth for all people, and the message of Yeshua carried to all nations. Father, in the name of Yeshua who died for all people. And because you desire for all people to be saved, we ask that you bless the phone lines and the airwaves and the internet so that all people can hear your invitation and be saved. First Timothy 2, 1 through 7 moves through a clear progression. Pray for everyone, which includes authorities, but then he emphasizes, brings it back, pray for authorities. And he has to bring it back. But we don't have time. Yes, we do. He brings it back because most people wouldn't have at the time. Just like most people wouldn't today. Peradventure. I've heard people who would proclaim themselves to be Christian, but won't pray for certain political parties because it's not their political party. And in fact, they vilify them and even demonize them because they voted different. Now, does that sound like Christian to you? Pray for everyone and pray for authorities, not just the Christian authorities, not just the authorities we agree with. Because here we're not endorsing, we're praying. Seek conditions where godliness can flourish. Remember that God desires people to be saved. Proclaim Yeshua as the one mediator and ransom for humanity. We pray beyond our circle because Yeshua gave himself beyond our circle.

Who Have You Not Prayed For

SPEAKER_00 24:28

So I'd like to ask you this question: Who have you not prayed for? If the Father desires all people to be saved and Yeshua died as a ransom for all, who are you praying for when you pray? Is it a select group? Is it just a few people? Father, teach us to pray for all people, not only those we understand or approve of. Give us wisdom and give wisdom to those in authority. Bring peace where there is turmoil and open hearts to the truth. Thank you for Yeshua the Messiah, the one mediator between you and us. For he gave himself for us. Help us carry the needs of others before you faithfully and not just our own. Based on the mediator, the man, Christos Yeshua, Christ the Lord. Amen. You may call the line at any time. Partner with God. We're just facilitating the process. 7474 Prayer, leave your request. We will intercede, leave a prayer. And we hope that we can just utilize that to bless all those that God desires to be saved. Until next time, my name is Mark John for Prayer Radio, sponsored by the Uncommon Christian Network.com.