First Timothy chapter two. And you can hold your place there
and turn over to chapter three, verse 14. where we kind of get an explanation
of what Paul is doing with these instructions that he gives to
Timothy. Paul wrote this from prison.
So he says, although I hope to come to you soon, I'm writing
you these instructions so that if I am delayed, you will know
how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is
the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of
the truth. As an apostle, he called himself
a wise master builder who laid the foundation and others build
upon that foundation, the foundation of Christ. Timothy was one of those who
would build upon that foundation. So Paul, also being a wise master
builder, not only laid the foundation, he gave Timothy the blueprint
for the building. And these instructions that we
read in chapter two, and there are more later on, but these
in chapter two, they describe how we ought to conduct ourselves
in what is commonly called corporate worship, what we're doing right
now when we gather for worship. Now these are not legalistic
commands. I know that all of us come from
a background of legalism, some harsher than others. We are all
born legalists because that's the natural fleshly way to thinking.
Most religion promotes that legalism. And when we are saved from that
legalism, we sometimes look at instructions such as Paul gives
here and in other places. They sound to us much like the
rulishness of the legalism from which God saved us. But it's not legalism because
none of these things are given to us as rules we must follow
in order to obtain the favor of God. These are instructions
and exhortations given to those who already have the favor of
God. And they concern some very practical
things about how the church is to function when it gathers for
worship. Now in verse eight, he says,
therefore, I want men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands
without anger or disputing. Interestingly, the word translated
men here is not that Greek word that stands for humanity in general. the Greek word Anthropos from
which we get our word anthropology. That just means human being but
that's not what he used here. The word he's used here is the
word for a male human being. And so this is specific instruction
for men in the church. And then he has specific instruction
in verse 9 for the women. the female members of the church. Now, one reason that there are
differing instructions given to the men and to the women is
that the scriptures recognize there is a difference between
the two. And the two are, or each one
of them are prone to different sorts of error and therefore he addresses those
things which in a public group they might be more inclined to
get wrong. Now I told my wife as she set
up for the live stream to call this message just praying or
prayer. And that's what I want to emphasize.
But I don't want to ignore what Paul has to say to the women
here in this, uh, paragraph. We don't speak on these things
very often. Uh, maybe sometimes I think maybe
I have, uh, been lacking in these things, partly out of fear that
it'll sound like I'm trying to impose rules on people, partly
because I didn't know exactly how to address these things,
but here it is in the scriptures. He says, I want women to dress
modestly with decency and propriety. Now, why would he address this
to women and not to men? Well, very simply because in
general, women are more concerned with their appearance than men
are. Now there are some men who quite
obviously think a whole lot about what their appearance is and
are very particular about the way they dress but it's more
commonly found among women. Now he says for them to dress
modestly. Now that's a good word if we
understand what it means but the word modesty in our day has
been confined to mean simply to be dressed or act in such
a way as not to be unduly sexually attractive. We've confined modesty
to that concept. But the word used here is actually
derived from the word most commonly translated, world. It comes from
the word cosmos. Believe it or not, we get our
word cosmetics from it and several others. But while it's most often translated
as world, Its most basic meaning is arrangement. So what he's saying to these
women, when he says, as according to our translation, modestly
with decency and propriety, he is saying dress appropriately
for worship. That's what he's saying. Now,
let me tell you this right up front. God does not personally
care how we dress. God does not have a distinctive
dress code. In fact, in the Bible, when we
find a distinctive dress code, it's the kind of clothes that
we're very reluctant to wear, for it says clothe yourselves
with humility. And we don't like to wear humility,
do we? But here, what he's talking about
is seeing that we have met together for the express purpose of worshiping. Dress in such a way that it is
not a distraction to others. And when you notice what he contrasts
this modest, decent, proper clothing and appearance, he contrasts
that, he says, not with elaborate hairstyles or gold or pearls
or expensive clothes. Now you notice he didn't say
anything about length of dresses or pants. He didn't say anything
about color. He spoke about, primarily here,
people overdressing. Especially those women who were
women of means and wanted everyone to know it. And they could afford
to have someone fix their hair up in very elaborate hairstyles
and they had real gold that they could use as jewelry and expensive
clothing to wear and they would come to church in that and of
course what they're doing they walk into the wherever they're
meeting and immediately they stand out they become the center of attention
meanwhile there are other women there who have worn, and I'm
using the words of modern-day clothing, they've worn the same
dress for years because that's all they got. Or the same pair
of pants and shirt, that's all they can afford. They don't have jewelry, at least
not jewelry made out of truly precious material. They look plain. Now Paul says
That's that the wealthy woman who comes in showing off her
wealth is acting inappropriately. She's coming to a place where
there's a lot of different kind of people and she's dressed in
such a way that she stands out among them. Well, there may be
places suitable for pageantry. But the worship service is not
that place. There may be places, like in high school, when prom
comes around, the girls go out and buy maybe the most expensive
dress they've bought to that day. And the guys will put down
some money and put on a tuxedo. That's appropriate for a prom,
not appropriate for worship. And this also includes those
matters involving female sexuality. Uh, in our day of, uh, I've seen
this and I always, I just can't believe people will say this,
but when girls in schools are called upon not to dress so provocatively,
they count that as though an undue burden has been laid upon
them. They said, the men just need to learn to control themselves.
Well, I kind of beg your pardon. Yes, they do need to learn to
control what they do. It doesn't matter how a woman
dresses. You don't act upon whatever that may stir up in you. But a woman has no business purposefully
stirring up the sexual attractions of a man. God has designed that those attractions
have a proper place. It's within the context of marriage. And let every woman be as provocative
to their husband as she wants to be, but not to anybody else. And especially when we come to
church, it's difficult enough to keep our mind on spiritual
things. And men do not need the extra distraction of a woman
who is not presenting herself in an appropriate way. And, you
know, over the years I've thought about this, tried to come up
with a way how to instruct it and or describe what it would mean to dress inappropriately. And I finally came up with this. You take every difference between
a little girl and a grown woman in the way they appear. Now that
has been designed by God as a means to indicate their sexual maturity
and their readiness for marriage, and it is designed to attract
the attention of men. However, if you dress in such
a way that it accents those differences, makes them unavoidable to notice,
then you're creating a problem for others. And we don't want
to create problems for others. You see, when we come here to
worship, we're not dressing and we're not deporting ourselves
in order to please God. We're doing it for one another.
I should not, nor should anybody else, come here looking or acting
in any way that is going to prove to be a stumbling block or a
hindrance to others who have come to worship. And I urge you parents to teach
your young girls these principles and it can be done so without, you know, treating them as though
they're bad or evil. You know how particularly teenagers
are, they always want to dress in fashion. The thing about the
fashion world is it is of this world and the fashion world is
always finding a way to present women in the way the world wants
to view them. And so girls, they want to look
like their classmates. But they need to be taught And
the parents are the ones that need to teach them. They need
to be taught that the bodies that God gave them are precious
and private. That there is nothing bad about them with regard to
their bodies. We're not acting as though They
are sinful and there are churches that do this. One of my family
members, one of my sisters went to a church and they treated
women like they were the cause of all evil. And they acted like
if a woman didn't dress herself essentially in some kind of burlap
sack or something, it was their fault that men sin. We're not
teaching our young women that there's
something wrong with being a woman. But parents should teach their
children because they understand, should teach their daughters
because they understand the principles going on. And the young daughters
don't. At least I hope they don't. Because
some of the young girls I've seen, going to school and walking
around town I wonder do they have any idea what thoughts this
works in the minds of men. On the one hand they say I want
to be appreciated for my mind. Men don't appreciate you for
your mind if what you're displaying for them is your body. It's that simple. But in worship
We don't want that distraction, do we? Not for anybody. And so it should be that as young
women grow up, that their parents take careful note of how they're
presenting themselves. There's nothing wrong with dads
who know the situation, looking at their daughters and looking
at them as though they're someone else's daughter. I know that
we men, by nature, do not look at our daughters the same way
we might perceive other women. Once in a while you need to notice
how they're presenting themselves. So they need to be taught, and
some grown women need to be taught. But they should everyone, this
applies to everyone, but again it was a problem more among the
women. They should be taught to dress appropriately. What
does that mean? In the common clothes that the
people in the congregation are wearing. There are some churches, churches
in our circle of churches, who believe that women should wear
a dress to church. They think that somehow or another
That's more honoring and respectful. I don't agree with them, but
when Bonnie and I attend a church like that, Bonnie wears a dress. Why? Because if she didn't, that
would stand out. That would be what people were
noticing. I go from place to place to preach.
Nearly everywhere I go, it expects that the preacher be in a suit
and tie. Now, you've probably noticed of late, I've just kind
of gotten in the habit of dressing a little more casual. I went
whole hog today. I got the whole holy suit on. But you know something? God's
not concerned about what I wear in the pulpit, provided it not
be distracting. But when I go to a church where
it's expected that a preacher Wear a suit and tie? I wear a
suit and tie. Why? So that the people who are
listening to me aren't sitting there saying, why haven't you
got a tie on? Instead of listening to our word.
So you see the principle that's being taught there. Dress so
that you fit in and don't stand out. Appropriately. for the purpose for which we've
met. All right. Now to what he has
to say to men in verse 8, therefore I want men everywhere to pray,
lifting up holy hands without anger or disputing. Now why would
he address this specifically to the men? Well, because of
a principle in God's church that most of the world doesn't care
for, and that is that the business of leading worship is confined
to the men. When they gather, it's men do
the preaching, teaching, and it's men that do the public praying.
He's not saying that women shouldn't pray. But within the context of how
to conduct ourselves here in the household of God, the church
of Christ, it's men that do the speaking. So he says, I want
men everywhere to pray. Now, not every man is called
upon to preach, but every man in the church of the Lord Jesus
is called upon to pray. Maybe not publicly, maybe not
out loud, but he is called on to pray. He says, I want them to pray,
lifting up holy hands. Now, in our day, it's become
fashionable in many religious circles, and this has probably
been going on, well, at least since as far back as the 70s. During worship services, people
put their hands up and during singing, they'll sway back and
forth and this sort of thing. I'm not going to tell you that's
wrong. I do notice this. It seems rather automatic. Uh,
you know, I guess my opinion would be you're allowed to sing
with your hands up if you're perfectly satisfied to sing with
your hands down. But if that's just one of those
reactions you have, oh, we're singing, put your hands up. No,
we don't do anything because it's what's expected. But he's not talking about that
here. When he says lifting up holy
hands, it was Traditional back then, you know,
we pray, we teach our children, okay, put your hands together. And some of them, we put our
hands together like that. And then some of them, we put
our hands together like that. Whatever we teach our children
when they're learning about prayer and bow your head and close your
eyes. And that's how we pray. Back then, public prayer. Back when Paul was writing public
prayer, it was often like this. And the reason it was like this,
or so I have read, is we're holding our hands up to God to receive. We are asking things from someone
above us. And it's just like our little
children, when they come up to us, they might say, Pick me up. Don't just stand there and go,
pick me up, you know, or give me some of that. That's what
that posture meant. It had significance. But he said,
do it lifting up holy hands. Now I've heard this said that
one of the reasons that we don't get our prayers answered is we're
not holy enough. We're lifting up sinful hands.
Friends, sinful hands is the only kind of hands I got. Is
it the same for you? If I lift up my hands, I'm lifting
up sinful hands because I'm a sinful man. And if God is not going
to answer my prayers because I'm sinful, then there's simply
no use in me praying. Holiness rarely has anything
to do with righteousness or goodness. It has to do with being set apart. So when he says holy hands, what
does he mean? Hands who reach up to no one
but God. You got to realize that believing
that there is only one God is rare. Even among some Christian denominations,
the Roman Church prays to Mary and other saints. They don't
have holy hands when they lift them up because their hands are
not set apart to God and to God alone. Their prayers are not
addressed to Him and Him alone. Their hopes do not rely upon
Him and Him alone. They have unholy hands. They have, really the opposite
of holy is not corrupt, the opposite of holy is common. And so they got a lot that they'll
raise their hands to. Paul says, you lift up holy hands. Hands that reach out for the
blessing of no one other than God. When Abraham rescued his
nephew lot from some of the kings that had captured him and his
family and all his goods along with a lot of other people but
Abraham got his household men together and some other allies
and they went and defeated the kings and when they won they
were going to divide the spoil That's common, you know, back
then when you beat someone, you took everything they had and
your reward for being victorious was to divide up all that stuff
among the people that fought. And they came to Abraham and
said, what do you want? And he says, I have lifted my hands
to God most high and I have sworn I will not take so much as a
shoelace. And it was shortly after that
that the Lord said to Abraham, I am your shield and your exceeding
great reward. What did Abraham want with spoils
from a war? He had God. And he had sworn that he would
lift up his hands to no one but God. And that's what Paul means
here, I believe. Lifting up holy hands. Hands set apart to praying to
God and God alone. And he says to do so without
anger or disputing. Now, I get the impression that
in the worship services, common in the first generation of churches,
there was a whole lot more praying went on than what we do. They didn't just have, you know,
one or two prayers. Of course, often when they met,
worship lasted for hours. It was much more informal. But
various men might pray. And you know what some people
do with praying? They use it as an opportunity to express their dissatisfaction. It's kind of like, I got the
floor. And so I'm going to pretend like I'm praying. But what I'm
really doing is telling everybody what I don't like about how things
are going on around here. I remember when I was a young
kid, you know, and we'd have prayer meeting and they'd have
us kids after the regular service, everybody would divide up into
groups for prayer and we would be divided according to our ages
and it would usually be me and several other boys and say, all
right, any prayer requests? And they were doing the same
thing among the adults. You know what asking for prayer requests
often turns into? A big gossip session. Because people will make their
prayer requests as merely a means. to tell on other people. So you do this, you pray without
any of this anger or disputing. You don't use prayers in a public
situation like that to try to deal with the problems in the
church and the disagreements among the people. You don't use
prayers as a way to express your suspicions about others. Nor, and again, this would apply
in those churches that are more informal and several may pray
and pray extemporaneously, and you're not supposed to pray,
and as someone else is praying, you're suspicious, well, what's
he praying that for? Doesn't he think he's something
else? You see, none of this is according to grace. We pray as sinners in need. And if the person next to us
prays, he's the same thing. And we're the same thing as him. And we may have our differences
in the flesh, but we are joined together in And we dare not use this wonderful
privilege of prayer as a means to talk about what upsets us, to cast aspersions on others. We lift up our hands because
we're in need and we lift them up to God. because he is the
only one who can supply our need. He says, I want all men everywhere,
or want the men everywhere to pray. This was to be in all the
churches. Prayer is not some duty we fulfill. I'll tell you this, and I'll
just be honest with you, because honesty is a good thing. Of all the spiritual exercises
there are, the most difficult for me is prayer. And some of
the difficulties arise from my particular personality and psychology. Prayer requires focus of mind. And I'm no good at that. That's why it's difficult for
me to study, for the same reason. If I get alone with my thoughts,
my thoughts will go in a thousand directions. And I'll begin to pray. And I'll ask God about something. And then that'll bring a verse
of scripture to mind. And suddenly my mind is thinking
of that scripture how you could lay that out into a sermon, and
then that might be something there that reminds me about a
responsibility I have to fulfill, and oh, I gotta get this done
before long. I'm not praying anymore. That's difficult for me to pray
in the way we normally think of prayer. I have this difficulty in prayer.
It requires that we stop doing other things. Now, it doesn't mean you can't
pray some as you do other things, but I'm saying this focused prayer,
this exercise of the soul, you've got to lay aside other things.
And that's very hard for me to do because I've got Way too many
irons in the fire. And if I think I should spend
some time in prayer, but wait a minute, I need to get these
bills written. So I'll get it after that. And
by the time you get the bills written, well, yeah, here's some
email I have to answer. And by the time you're done with
that, you know, I need to get that little project out on the
back garage finish. So I'll run out and do that.
Then I'll pray. And then it becomes late in the evening time to go
to bed. and you've never spent time for
prayer, and by then you're probably too tired to do any. That's me. I say you. That's me. What I've come to accept is that
God is not particularly concerned with whether we do all our praying
at one time. At least, I certainly hope he
isn't, because my prayers are just little pieces at a time
as things come to mind. It's rare that I can enter in
to a time of focused prayer for any significant duration. I find it difficult to preach
on prayer because I consider myself so bad at it. There are
spiritual reasons, I say spiritual reasons, there are really fleshly
problems about spiritual things. Do you ever find it hard to pray? Because you feel that you have
sinned too much for God to listen to your prayer. Oh, I've done
this. How can I go and talk to my father
now? It's real easy. You go and talk
to your father. Because no matter what you've
done, he's your father. And he loves you, and no matter
what you've done, that sin's already been put away by the
blood of Christ. And the throne of grace, God
didn't slam the door shut because you did something particularly
naughty. That's just that old legal spirit in us. What right
do I have to approach God? Well, you have no right in yourself,
but you have full rights. by reason of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who went into that most holy place, not made with hands. And that's the throne of grace.
And it says, seeing that He has gone in there as the forerunner,
we come in by the blood of Christ. The blood of Christ gives us
access to that wonderful place at any and all times. And never should we let our sense
of guilt keep us away from our Heavenly Father. I wonder how long it was before
that prodigal son was able to get over the reception he thought
he would get from his father and go home. I bet you he suffered
a lot longer than he needed to. I know he did. What he didn't realize, and I'm
speculating, but it seems plausible according to the story, every
day that father was looking down the road, hoping, expecting to see his
son come back. Not so he could chew him out.
Not so he could give him a place in the servants' quarters. It
is written that while he was a long way off, the father saw
him. And you know, you look down the
road, it doesn't have to be that far. Generally speaking, you're
not sure just who it is. The father knew who it was. And your father knows you. And
no matter how much a prodigal you've been, he's looking for
you to come down the road. Don't ever let your sin keep
you from your father. He's already forgiven it. He's already got the new robe,
the new shoes, and the family ring, and a feast ready for your
return. Don't let anything get in the
way of prayer. Spurgeon was once asked, what do you think is more
important, praying or preaching? And he said, they're both vitally
important, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd say praying. Because if I can get a bunch
of people praying, it won't be long, we'll have all the preachers
we need. Because he'd immediately start praying for preachers. I would that all men. He is speaking
here of conduct within the assembly as they gather for worship. And
that's why he addresses the males. But women, the principle is true
with you as well. In your own private prayers or
as you pray within yourself, as one of the men in the congregation
prays out loud. No matter what posture you take,
You make sure that God's the only one you pray to. And do
not entertain useless arguments and suspicions and anger in your
heart while you're praying. No place for that. Pray. Pray as you can, when you
can. And if you find that you're not
praying, in an amount that you think is suitable, find something
to give up, and you carve out time and pray. And that little exhortation is
as much for me as it is for anybody else here. Let us pray. Now why should everyone
pray? lifting up holy hands at his
hands only to God. Look up at verse five. For there
is one God. There's no use praying anywhere
else. There are no other gods to pray to. Yes, men invent them. And they invent false versions
of the true God. By the Muslim men, and I don't,
was it five times a day? I can't remember, but I think
it's five times a day. They stop and they recite prayers,
you know, they get on their prayer mat and they bow and they say
these prayers. They're praying to the wrong
God. And for all the effort and discipline
they put into it, their prayers mean nothing. There's only one
God. So pray to Him. Here's another
reason to pray. There's one mediator. We do have
a mediator. You say, oh, my prayers are a
mess. Yeah, they are. But we got a mediator that's
good at fixing messes. We pray to God through our Lord
Jesus Christ and our prayers get to the Lord Jesus Christ
And they're full of things we shouldn't have asked for. And
there's a lot of things we should have asked for we didn't even
think of. And the Lord Jesus Christ, who intercedes for us,
clears out the things we shouldn't have asked for, adds the thing
we should have. And he, as our intercessory prayer
priest, offers our prayers to God perfectly. Don't fail to pray because you
think you're bad at it. You're praying to God through
Christ and he's really good at it. He'll fix it. And pray to God only through
Christ. Don't try to use any of the saints
or even so-called Mother Mary herself. Because there's only
one mediator between God and man. No one else in all creation
can speak to God in your behalf. Address your prayers to God through
him and him alone. Well, there's much more could
be said, but I think that'll be enough for today. If we can
grasp that, not only as information for our minds, but actually put
it into practice, we will have done ourselves much good. We have a bloodstained path into
the very presence of God. And though, in regard to ourselves,
We are covered up and filled up with sin. That blood has opened
for us a way into the very presence of God. Let's use it.