Dr. Rodney Plunket

"A Ransom For All"

I Timothy 2:1-7

Our Scripture reading this morning was from 1 Timothy (1Tm) 2:4-6.  These three verses are a part of a section that begins in verse (v) 1 and ends in v 7.  The key word in that section is the Greek word translated as “all” or “everyone.”  If you have your Bible, please turn to 1Tm 2 and follow along as I read all seven of those verses.  There Paul says,

First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone for kings and all who are in high postions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity. This is right and is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.  For

      there is one God;

          there is also one mediator between God and humankind,

      Christ Jesus, himself human,

          who gave himself a ransom for all

—this was attested at the right time.  For this I was appointed a herald and an apostle (I am telling the truth, I am not lying), a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

Did you hear the “alls” and the “everyones”?  Paul begins v 1 with the phrase, “First of all.”  He goes on in that verse to tell them to pray for “everyone.”  In v 2 he exhorts them to pray for “all who are in high positions.”  Also in v 2 Paul refers to leading “a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.”  In v 4 he tells his readers that God “desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”  In v 6 he says that Christ “gave himself [as] a ransom for all.”

One of the reasons for this concentration of “alls” and “everyones” is that Paul knows that it is going to be difficult to get his readers to pray for political leaders.  Those leaders often made life difficult for the early Christians.  To pray for them was not something that would come easily.  But if Paul can convince his readers that they should pray for everyone, then he can move them into praying even for leaders.

To further motivate his readers to do that, Paul declares a powerful truth.  That truth is that God “desires everyone to be saved” (v 4); and God desires it so much that God sent Jesus Christ, the Son of God, to give Himself “a ransom for all.”  Since God loves everyone that much, Christians should be able to pray even for leaders who persecute and oppress.

What I want to focus upon this morning is the truth that God “desires everyone to be saved” and Christ gave Himself as “a ransom for many.”  Please take that truth in.  The purpose of our service this morning is for all the Christians here to leave with the love of God for the lost flowing through us.  God desires everyone to be saved.  Christ wanted everyone to be saved so badly that he gave His life for it.  Let’s feel that level of sacrificial love, and let’s take it in; let’s embrace it.  May we allow it to flow through us.  May God’s love for the lost flow out of us so powerfully that we overcome our timidity and become bold with the Good News of Christ Jesus our Lord.  May God’s love for the lost flow out of us so powerfully that we passionately extend to the lost the same kind of unconditional love and acceptance that we have received from God.

I know that reaching out to the lost has often been motivated by guilt.  We must move to a higher plane.  Let’s reach out to the lost because the awesome power of God’s love flows, rushes through us.

Next Sunday is Easter Sunday.  On that day our schedule of services will change.  We will have a service in the auditorium at 8:30 AM.  We will have a service in the lower level at 11:00 am.  Our Bible classes will begin at 10:00 AM.  But much more than a scheduling change is taking place.  The kind of sermon I am preaching now will not be the kind of Sunday morning sermons that I will preach starting next Sunday.  This sermon has been intentionally designed for the saved.  I have sought to connect you, my sisters and brothers, with God’s heart of love for the lost.  Beginning next Sunday I will focus primarily on the lost.

Here is how I see the change.  Up until now I have preached to the saved hoping the lost will overhear and be saved.  Next week I will start preaching to the lost knowing the saved will listen and grow.

But that is still not all of the change.  The 8:30 service that meets in the auditorium will be like the worship services we have been having in the auditorium for the last several years.  The type of sermon will change, as I have already noted.  But the way the service is planned, organized, and conducted will not change

The 11:00 service will be different.  It will employ drama and electronic media.  The words of the songs will be projected on a screen.  Video clips will be used.  A group of singers will stand at the front of the congregation to assist in leading our acappella singing, because not very many people know how to do that anymore.  The dress for the 11:00 service will be more casual.

The elders made this change to provide us more ways to connect people to God’s love.  Use these doors.  Allow God’s love to draw people in through those doors.

All of these changes are being made because God has awakened within us love for the unchurched.  God has awakened within us the desire to be used by God as a tool to draw people to God’s heart.  Let’s keep that flow of God’s Spirit dynamically alive.  May Broadway shine like a bright and radiant city set upon a hill that cannot be hidden.

Many of us have been praying since Kingdom Builders for people that we believe God is calling upon us to reach out to.  I want to let you know how that experience is working in the life of just one of our members.  I am changing all of the names involved, because it is appropriate to do so.  But let me read from a few e-mail messages that this person sent me.  I will call the Broadway member Jonathon.

Jonathon wrote on March the 26^th,

I sometimes consider keeping my Suburban clean a lost cause.  I just don’t spend time on it very often.  The other day, a young man was in my office parking lot washing a car.  He has a little business doing mobile car washes.  I went out and met him and his helper.  I let them wash my Suburban.  This fellow was very friendly in the first few moments he shared some fairly personal information with me.  I don’t know much more about these fellows than their names.  But they are on my prayer list.  And they will be the folks washing my Suburban from here on out.  I know the Spirit will open the doors and create the opportunities for me to get to know these guys better and for me to show Christ for them.

This next message is from this past Thursday, April the 5^th.

Remember Jake, the car wash kid?  I have been praying that God open up a door there.  Obviously when someone washes your car out on the parking lot, the opportunities to visit are not abundant.  I have been praying for a door to open that would allow us to talk about something more than just my Suburban and his fees.  Yesterday it happened.  Jake was scheduled to come wash my Suburban yesterday.  He did not show up at the time he had promised.  About a half-hour later, he pulled up in the parking lot and came in to talk to me.

As it turns out, his mom had a mild heart attack yesterday morning and Jake had spent the day with his younger siblings.  But he came by to tell me that he could not wash my car because he could not find my [phone] number.  I invited him to sit down, and he told me the details about his mom. . . .

. . . .  I was able to be a listening ear for him.  I told him to let me know if there is anything I can do. . . .

It’s just the beginning, but the seed has been planted.

Also yesterday, a friend that I have not seen in years dropped in to see me.  I had recently added this guy to my prayer list, too.  I managed to track him down through e-mail the other day and so he came by.  As it turns out, he just went through a really tough time with the breakup of a four-year relationship with a girlfriend.  His spiritual life is also a little confused right now.  We made plans to talk again soon.

I’m learning again that all we have to be is faithful.  God takes care of the success.  God has the ability to seen an infinitely broader picture than we can.  He puts together pieces that I don’t even know exist.

Anyway, I thought it might be encouraging to you to know that God is blessing my prayer list every day and opening up doors that I could not begin to open with my own power.

Hallelujah.

Jonathon.

This next message came yesterday.

I had lunch with some people yesterday, three of whom are on my prayer list.  One in particular is a guy from Tanzania, near Kenya.  He was one that I had written a letter to after the second Kingdom Builders meeting.  Yesterday he expressed a willingness to study with me and may come to Easter service with me.

So the Lord continues to work in the lives of the people on my list.

Praise the Lord!

I want to close with a story that I have received several times via e-mail.  It is powerful.  Please listen and be energized.

Every Sunday morning, after the morning service at their church, the pastor and his eleven year old son would go out into the their town and hand out Gospel Tracts.  This particular Sunday afternoon, as it came time for the Pastor and his son to go to the streets with their tracts, it was very cold outside as well as pouring down rain.  The boy bundled up on his warmest and driest clothes and said––“OK Dad, I’m ready.”

His Pastor dad asked––“Ready for what?”  “Dad, it’s time we gather our tracts together and go out.”  Dad responds, “Son, it’s very cold outside and it’s pouring down rain.”  The boy gives his dad a surprised look, asking, “But Dad, aren’t people still going to Hell, even though it’s raining?”

Dad answers, “Son, I am not going out in this weather.”  Despondently the boy asks, “Dad, can I go?  Please?”  His father for a moment then said, “Son you can go.  Here’s the tracts; be careful Son.”  “Thanks Dad!!!”  And with that, he was off and out into the rain.

This eleven-year-old boy walked the streets of the town going door to door and handing everybody he met in the street a Gospel Tract.  After two hours of walking in the rain, he was soaking, bone-chilled wet and down to his very last tract.  He stopped on a corner and looked for someone to hand a tract to, but the streets were totally deserted.  Then he turned toward the first home he saw and started up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the doorbell.  Nobody answered.  He rang it again and again, but still no one answered.  He waited, but still no answer.  Finally, this eleven-year-old trooper turned to leave, but something stopped him.  Again, he turned to the door and rang the bell and knocked loudly on the door with his fist.  He waited, something holding him there on the front porch.  He rang again, and this time the door slowly opened.

Standing in the doorway was a very sad-looking elderly lady.  She softly asked, “What can I do for you son?”  “With radiant eyes and a smile that lit up her world, this little boy said, “Ma’am, I’m sorry if I disturbed you, but I just want to tell you that Jesus really loves you, and I came to give you my very last Gospel Tract which will tell you all about Jesus and His great love.”  With that, he handed her his last tract, and turned to leave.

She called to him as he departed, “Thank you Son!  And God Bless You!”

Well, the following Sunday morning in church, Pastor was in the pulpit.  As the service began, he asked, “Does anybody have a testimony or want to say anything?”  Slowly, in the back row of the church, and elderly woman stood to her feet.

As she began to speak, a look of glorious radiance came from her face as she said, “No one in this church knows me.  I’ve never been here before.  You see, before last Sunday I was not a Christian.  My husband passed on some time ago, leaving me totally alone in this world.

Last Sunday, being a particularly cold and rainy day, it was even more so in my heart that I came to the end of the line where I no longer had hope or will to live.  So I took a rope and a chair and ascended the stairway into the attic of my home.  I fastened the rope securely to a rafter in the roof, then stood on the chair and fastened the other end of the rope around my neck.

Standing on that chair, so lonely and brokenhearted, I was about to leap off, when suddenly the loud ringing of my doorbell startled me.  I thought, “I’ll wait a minute, and whoever it is will go away.”  I waited and waited, but the ringing doorbell seemed to get louder and more insistent, and then the person ringing also started knocking loudly.  I thought to myself, “Who on earth could this be?!  Nobody ever rings my bell or comes to see me.”  I loosened the rope from my neck and started for the front door, all the while the bell rang louder and louder.

When I opened the door and looked, I could hardly believe my eyes, for there on my front porch was the most radiant and angelic little boy I had ever seen in my life.  His smile, oh, I could never describe it to you!!  And the words that came from his mouth caused my heart, that had long been dead, to leap to life, as he exclaimed with a cherub-like voice, “Ma’am, I just came to tell you that Jesus really does love you.”  Then he gave me this Gospel Tract that I now hold in my hand.

As the little angel disappeared back out into the cold and rain, I closed my door and read slowly every word of this Gospel Tract.  Then I went up to my attic to get my rope and chair.  I wouldn’t be needing them any more.

You see, I am now a Happy Child of The King, and since the address of your church was on the back of this Gospel Tract, I have come here to personally say thank you to God’s little angel who came just in the nick of time and, by so doing, spared my soul from an eternity in hell.”

There were now no dry eyes in the church.  And as shouts of praise and honor to The King resounded off the very rafters of the building, Pastor Dad descended from the pulpit to the front pew where the little angel was seated.  He took his son in his arms and sobbed uncontrollably.

Please experience the joy of sharing your faith.  Feel the wonder of being used by God to reach the lost.  Let’s all allow God’s love for the lost to flow through us.  Let’s open up to God’s love.

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