Now you notice I've entitled
the lesson to Worship the Lord. And if you read the passages,
I'm only gonna deal with 1 Timothy 2, 8, 9, and 10 today. I decided
to divide this up because the last verses of this passage has
to do with the ordained authority that God has placed within the
church, the visible church, This is God's ordained authority talking
about men and women. What's the man's role? What's
the woman's role? And I wanted to deal with these
last two verses especially in one lesson because it talks
about the woman being saved in childbearing. What does that
mean? And I'm going to get to that next week. Lord willing, I'll
get to that next week. Today, I'm going to start with
verse Verse 8, and really verse 8 goes along with the prior verses. One of the things that I may
not have stressed as much as I should have, is what Paul's
really talking about here is the role of men and women in
our worship service. How we should conduct ourselves,
and even what we should wear, especially with the women, he
does that. You know, when it comes to dealing with the issues
of male and female, Most people, you know, today, you know how
mixed up things are today, all right? I mean, I was watching
on Fox News, this senator was questioning a woman and just
trying to get her to say what a man is and what a woman is,
and she wouldn't answer it. Like there's no such thing as
a man and a woman. You know, and I'm gonna deal
with that in just a moment a little bit, but that's how crazy things
are today. And usually what happens, even
in churches, and I don't believe in gospel churches, but in dealing
with the issues of men and women, we don't wanna offend anybody
now. And especially, you know, with the women's movement going
on today. We just, you know, and so we ignore it, or we make
a joke about it. Don't we? That's how we deal
with it, you know. You know, talking about who wears
the pants in the family, all that stuff, you know. Well, the
man should, you know. I always say what I'm gonna talk
about when we get to the dress part here is that the rule is
a man should look like a man and a woman should look like
a woman. And that's the bottom line. But this verse eight goes
back to the first verses talking about prayer. And mainly, now
this, it's talking about all prayer. We all should pray for
one another. I think I had in the lesson last
week where the prophet Samuel said, God forbid that I should
sin against the Lord in not praying for you. And that hits hard,
doesn't it? If I don't pray for you, and
I know, it's not that we have to mention you by name every
time. I don't do that. I've got our
prayer list here because we've got people who have needs that
are beyond what we normally have, of course, as we get older, they're
not beyond what we normally have, are they? But yeah, it's okay
to mention certain people in prayer who are going through,
but I pray for you. I pray for those on our prayer
list. I hope you pray for me as your pastor and what I'm going
through and all this stuff, all that. We need to pray for one
another. But the main issue here, and
this is why I entitled The Lesson to Worship the Lord, is prayer
in our public worship services. And he says clearly that the
men, believing men, and this is all directed to believers,
believing men should be the ones who lead in public prayer, not
the women, all right? And we'll deal with that a little
bit later here. But he says, look at verse eight. He says, I will therefore that
men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands without wrath and
doubting. Without wrath and dissension,
kind of is what it's talking about. So this is dealing with
public prayer, but all the things that it says about prayer should
apply to our daily lives. In fact, I've got listed in your
lesson, 1 Thessalonians 5, 17 through 18, where Paul wrote
to the church at Thessalonica, he said, pray without ceasing.
In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ
Jesus concerning you. And we know that only true believers
True children of God have the right to pray. Look over at Hebrews. I didn't put this in your lesson,
but look over at Hebrews chapter four. Hebrews chapter four. And it's talking about prayer
there. I didn't mark this verse, and
like I said, I didn't put it in your lesson, but you can pencil
it in if you want, because it shows you what prayer really
is, I believe. There's several verses in Hebrews
that talk about it. And Hebrews chapter four, verse
14. And here's what it says. Seeing
then that we have a great high priest, now who's that? That's
Christ. There's your key. If you don't
have him, if he's not your great high priest, your prayer doesn't
go any higher than the ceiling. And it says, seeing them we have
a great high priest. Christ is our high priest. That
means he accomplished everything that God requires for our salvation
that is passed into the heavens or passed through to the heavens. Now how did he pass into the
heavens? He passed into the heavens as
the one who put away our sins by his death, obedience unto
death, and established righteousness for us. He presented himself
the Lamb of God. So it's his person and his work.
There's your first keys to prayer. And he says that as passed into
the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession. For we have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities,
but was in all points tempted as like as we are yet without
sin. Let us therefore, now listen
to this, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace
that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of
need. Now that applies to prayer. And
it also applies to worship. And so, That's one of the reasons
that I decided to title this lesson, To Worship the Lord,
because here's what I want us to understand here. What are
we here for today? In our worship service, why do
we come here? We come here to worship the Lord. We don't come
here to draw attention to ourselves. And if we do, that's terrible. We're not here to put on a show. All right? So go on with that. Now, he says, I will therefore
that men pray everywhere. And that shows us that we're
to pray for one another, we're to pray for all kinds of people,
we're to pray for our enemies, to pray for the lost, Christ
said, you've heard it said, you know, you can pray for your friends
and loved ones. Well, even the heathen do that. Pray for those
who despitefully use you. Pray for your enemies. And what
do we pray for them? Number one, God save their souls.
Bring them to a saving knowledge of Christ. So when he says, like,
for example, in 1 Thessalonians 5, 17, when he says pray without
ceasing, that doesn't mean that we're always to be on our knees
in the exercise of prayer. And that we should, you know,
take that posture. The posture of prayer doesn't
mean anything. But it means that we should continually have an
attitude of prayer. That ought to be our attitude.
James talks about this in the book of James, when people, you
know, we make our plans. And we say, well, I'm going here
tomorrow, you know, I do this too. And James says, what we
ought to say is if the Lord wills. We'll go there tomorrow. And
I try to remember that in my writings for the bulletin. If
I'm going up north, I say the Lord willing, we'll do that. So that's the attitude of prayer. And it's an attitude of knowing
at all times that our lives are in the hands of a sovereign God
who saved us by his grace through the blood and righteousness of
Christ, and who says that all things work together for good
to them that love God, to them that are called according to
His purpose. Need to keep that in mind. So
when we come to the service, we're coming here to worship
the Lord. And so when I pray, I'm not trying to impress you.
I used to know a guy that would pray and take him 30 minutes.
And here's my attitude to him, I wish he'd sit down and shut
up. Of course, I was lost then, and he was too, but we didn't
know the gospel. But we're not here to impress
each other. Good and acceptable prayer, that
was last week's lesson. It's always the prayer from a
sinner saved by grace, from a sincere heart. It's always based, there's
no merit in our prayer, there's no power in our prayer, there's
power in the one to whom we pray. And so we pray through Christ,
our great high priest, based upon his righteousness alone,
and we pray thy will be done. Now there's the three keys of
prayer, right there, good and acceptable prayer. And that's,
you women, you should be prayer, you know, we talk about being
prayer warriors, you know, that kind of thing. You should be
prayers just like the men, even though you're not given a position
of authority in the church to publicly lead the congregation
in prayer. Because that's for the men. And
that's God-ordained, and there's a reason for it. We'll get into
it in just a minute. All right, so he says, Lead in
prayer, the men, and pray for one another, and pray in thanksgiving,
that's another thing about prayer. Listen, I know we go through
times of trial and all that, but we also have, think about
how much we have to give thanks for. I mean, it's awesome. That old song, I don't know the
words to the song, but, I know the title of it is a good thing. Count your blessings. Count your
blessings. Well, we can't count them. They're
numberless. And every blessing. And to think
about it, we didn't earn or deserve the least of them. But we complain. I do too now. I'm not preaching
down to you. I'm not saying that I'm above
all this. When I get up and that pain shoots
through my back, I'd say, ugh. I say, why me, Lord? And the Lord says, go get an
Advil. Whatever helps. So anyway, that's
the key right there. So now listen to this here in
verse eight of 1 Timothy 2. He says, lifting up holy hands
without wrath and doubting. Now that does not mean when you
pray, do that. First of all, there's nothing
holy about these hands. I heard one preacher talking
about this. He said, if you had a big curtain and you had 50
hands popping through that curtain, how would you tell which one
is holy and which one isn't? You wouldn't know. This is metaphorical. And so it doesn't mean praying
with our hands in the air. Just like a lot of people think
you can't pray without kneeling. You can pray without kneeling.
And listen, I'll put it to you this way. You don't have to bow
your head and close your eyes to pray. We do that in the congregation,
and that's okay. I mean, there's nothing wrong
with it. I'm just saying your posture
in prayer doesn't matter. What matters is your heart. Where's
your heart at? It's not kind of like somebody
said, you know, holiness has to do with the inside out. It's
not physical in that way, all right? But there's nothing holy
about our physical hands. Holy hands indicates sincerity
and purity of attitude and motives before God as believing sinners. And you know, the hands in the
scripture always represent our activity. You remember it talks
about the mark of the beast. Where does it go? It goes on
your forehead. Well, it's not talking about your physical forehead.
It's talking about your mind there. And that's false gospels. And then it talks about the mark
on the hand. Well, that has to do with what you're reaching
for, what you're working for. We work with our hands. And holy
hands has to do with, what it's saying here is this, that the
man who leads in prayer in our worship services must have holy
hands. Well, what does that mean? That
means that the hand, which is a symbol of the activities of
life, ought to be the kind of person who's living a holy life,
not that he's perfect now. If the qualification for prayer
is that we had to be a perfect man, nobody would pray, or should
pray. But not that he's perfect, but
that he is a sinner saved by grace, he believes the gospel,
he's following Christ. And that's what the holy hands
is. It comes from the heart. And so, I know people will disagree
with me, shoot your hands up in the air if you want, okay,
doesn't matter to me. But that's not what, you see
these congregations, they'll do this and they'll sway. I'm
not just making fun of them, don't get me wrong, I don't wanna
do that. I'll tell you where people go
wrong on that stuff, is when they judge the presence and power
of the Holy Spirit based on things like that. In other words, what
I'm telling you, if I stood up here and hold my hands up, that
would not indicate any more than if I just looked at you and prayed
that there's this presence of the Holy Spirit and the power
of the Spirit. You understand that? And so I
always tell people, you know, when you go into a worship service
where people are claiming to worship the Lord, listen to what
the preacher preaches. Is he preaching the true gospel?
There's your key for all things. If he's not preaching the true
gospel, that's a false church. It's what the Bible calls a tear.
So understand that, you know, and there are a lot of false
gospels going around. So this hand, this holy hand,
is a man who knows Christ, who's saved by the grace of God, who's
submitted to the righteousness of Christ, imputed, leading the
people of God in prayer. expressing our desires, resting
in and following Christ. So who are the men who are to
lead in the public worship, leading prayer in the public worship?
Those who have clean hands. And clean hands are those that
are washed in the blood of Christ and living a life of faith by
him. That's what it is. Who shall,
you remember Psalm 24? You know, who shall approach
unto the hill of the Lord, the he who has clean hands? Well,
you know and I know, we don't have clean hands because of any
ceremony. You know, Pilate, he washed his
hands, and his physical hands were probably clean, but his
heart was dirty, and his mind, inside. And so, without, and
then when he says, without wrath, in verse eight, without wrath
and doubting. That means without anger and
dissension. That refers to our inner attitude,
not dissenting against God or men, but in agreement. And that is pure hearted with
a loving heart. Excuse me. Okay, now we come to verse nine.
It says, in like manner also that the women adorn themselves
in modest apparel with shamefacedness and sobriety, not with broided
or braided hair or gold or pearls or costly array, but which becometh
women professing godliness with good works. Now why is that an
issue? And why did he say men? Today,
good night, you might see anything today. I've seen some men who dress,
I wonder what in the heck, have you got half a brain or what?
And of course, the androgynous thing, there's no difference. Well, you know that. Well, let
me give you some things to think about first. And incidentally,
I've got a cross-reference here, 1 Corinthians 11, 1 through 16,
that's about covering the head, the woman and all that. Covering,
there's your hair. And again, the rule is, you can
have short hair, you can have long hair, but you need to, you
women, you need to look like women. You don't need to trot
in here looking like a man, trying to be a man. And you men, you
need to look like men. You don't need to try it in here
looking like a woman or trying to. That's basically what it's
about. But here's one thing we need
to see. Turn to Galatians chapter three. You can see why I divided this
lesson into two. Galatians chapter three. But what I wanna make the point
here is this, we need to understand that when it comes to salvation, by God's grace in Christ, there
is no difference between men and women as we stand in Christ.
You women who believe, you're just as saved, just as forgiven,
just as righteous, just as sure for heaven as if you were already
there based upon the righteousness of Christ. The men do not outdo
you in that area. There's no difference. And this is what he's saying
here in Galatians chapter three. Look at verse 26. He says, for
you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And
you know that faith is the gift of God. For as many of you as
have been baptized into Christ, that means that you are united
to Christ, you've put on Christ, that means you believed in Him
and rested in Him. There is neither Jew nor Greek,
there's neither bond nor free, there's neither male nor female.
You see that? There's neither male nor female.
In other words, just because you're a woman doesn't make you
any more saved than a man. And men, just because you're
a man doesn't make you any more safe because you're a man. That
old poem about, you know, what are little girls made of? Sugar
and spice and everything nice. What are little boys made of?
What is it? Scissors and snails and puppy
dog tails. So, I told my wife, I said, you
know, when we've had our first child and a boy, I said, now
Debbie, you need to understand that boys are nasty creatures.
And they are. But girls can be nasty too sometimes. All right. Neither male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus, saved by the grace of
God. And if you belong to Christ,
that's what verse 29 is saying, then are you Abraham's seed and
heirs according to the promise. So understand that. First off,
being a man or a woman does not make a person any more or less
a sinner or any more or less saved by the grace of God, or
any more or less godly or more godly. So in salvation by God's
grace, our differences, physical differences, earthly differences,
do not matter at all. Again, equally saved, equally
righteous, forgiven, all based on Christ's righteousness imputed.
So get that in our minds and keep it there. But Paul here
had a specific word to believing women, especially at the church
of Ephesus, because there was a problem there. If there was a problem here,
which there's not, thank God, I'd have to deal with it. And
what it is, you think about the culture back then, and I'm not
saying this is just a cultural thing, you know, okay, because
a lot of people say, well, that's just Paul being a male chauvinist
pig or something, you know, like that, and that's not the case.
But they had a problem in this church, and it was probably common
to most churches back then, where, you know, a lot of times you
had a congregation of believers, and some of the men and women
were just poor, And some of them were rich. And what happened
here is the rich ones were flaunting their riches by their clothing. And they wanted to draw attention
to themselves. Well, that's not what we're here
for. And none of this, as you look at, one of the guiding rules of how
we dress for worship, and really all occasions for the most part,
As I said, a man is to look like a man, a woman to look like a
woman. There is no transgender. Put that out of your mind. You're
either male or female as God made you. And to say otherwise
is to rebel against God. There's XX and XY, that's it.
Now you might, there's men who do not want to be with women,
they want to be with men. They're homosexuals, but they're
still men. And same way with women, all of that. And that's
a sin too. But what are we here for? We're
here to worship the Lord, not to draw attention to ourselves.
And these women, under the pretense of coming to worship God, were
flaunting themselves and decorating, not decorating, but desecrating
the worship by their dress and their demeanor. Really, really
showing what we call an evil heart. If you're dressing elaborately,
trying to draw attention to yourself, don't come here. That's not what
this is for. We're here to worship God. We
want to draw attention to the Lord. That's what we're here
for. And so that's what he says. Women,
you know, dress, he says, adorn, look at it, women adorn themselves.
The word adorn means be prepared. Prepare yourself for worship.
when you come to the church service. And be prepared from the inside
out. Modest, that means not with excess,
but with reserve. Shamefacedness means, that's
a word for humility. I don't want the men or the women
to dress in a way that makes them ashamed, but dress humbly. And he says, sobriety that speaks
of clear thinking meaning that you know what you're here for.
You have that clear in mind. You're here to worship the Lord.
And therefore, it shouldn't be excessive. He talks about the
arrangement of the hair. Back then, a lot of the women,
they piled their hair up and they put jewels in it to show
people that they were rich, you know, look at me, you know, that
kind of thing. And yeah, it went on. So how
we dress is important. Now, that's not to say that you
ladies and you men can't take care of your appearance. You
should. You should be clean. You should
take care of your appearance. You should realize, think about
it this way. Somebody said, well, what if
Christ were here? How would you dress? Well, Christ
is here. He said, where two or three are
gathered in my name, there I'll be also. So I don't want the
ladies of this church to walk in in rags and all of that. I want you to dress nicely as
you do, and appropriately as you do, and men too. But it seemed
to be a problem here in Ephesus with the women more than the
men. So there's no way that both men and women should not take
care of their appearance with cleanliness, nice clothes, but
what we wear should be appropriate for the occasion. We're here
to worship the Lord. And so he says here. But with,
think about this. He's talking about, again, dressing
from the inside out. He says, but, verse 10, that
which becometh women professing godliness. Now what is it to
profess godliness? You claim to be a sinner saved
by grace who follows the Lord. That's godliness. And he says
with good works. Now, let me say this and I'll
close. This good works, good works are not the cause or the
ground of our salvation, you know that. Good works, we're
not saved by our good works, but only by the work of Christ.
His death, his obedience unto death, his righteousness alone. But good works are important,
even necessary, as they are the work of Christ in us, the fruit
and evidence of his grace, and the testimony of our love to
him. and his people. Ephesians 2,
8 through 10. For by grace are you saved, through
faith, that not of yourselves. It's the gift of God, not of
works, lest any man should boast. But we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them. So they are important. They're
fruit unto God. I've got scriptures on this.
They're to the praise of the glory of Christ, and fruits of
his righteousness, they're meant to be a testimony to the glory
of God in Christ. Let your light so shine before
men that they may see your good works, and do what? Glorify your
Father which is in heaven. So the point of all, and that
which becometh, fitting and appropriate for women professing godliness.
So the point of all this is that the church, it could be, I've
got written here, it could be a place where worship happens,
or a church can be a place devoted wholeheartedly to putting on
a show. Well, we don't know that, do we? We want it to be a place
of worship. Worship in spirit and in truth. Okay.