1 Timothy 2:1-7
PROP: Since God desires all people to be saved, we must seek to reach all people with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
- We must pray for all people.
“Let your heart yearn for your ungodly neighbors. Alas, there is but a step between them and death and hell. Many hundred diseases are waiting, ready to seize on them, and if they die unregenerate, they will be lost forever. Have you hearts of rock that cannot pity men in such a case as this? Do you not care as long as you are saved? If so, you have sufficient cause to pity yourselves, for it is a frame of spirit utterly inconsistent with grace. . . . If their houses were on fire you would run and help them. Will you not help them when their souls are almost at the fire of hell?” —Richard Baxter
- We must understand that God desires to save all people.
- We must proclaim the gospel to all people.
“It is because there is one God and one mediator that all people must be included in the church’s prayers and proclamation. It is the unity of God and the uniqueness of Christ which demand the universality of the gospel. God’s desire and Christ’s death concern all people; therefore, the church’s duty concerns all people too, reaching out to them both in earnest prayer and in urgent witness.” —John Stott