It’s good to have you all out. We’re in the middle of about a five-month study through 1 and 2 Timothy. We’ve been growing. We’re probably 2,000 people today. I know it’s hard to get seats and parking, so in an effort to thin things out, I’m gonna preach from the Bible and when you come back next week, then you’ll have plenty of room to lay down and bring friends. So, next week, we’re talking about women in ministry and this week, we’re talking about Mars Hill Girls Gone Wild. That’s what we’re doing. So, oh boy. I’m gonna have so much fun at the end of this. You won’t, but I will. It’ll be great. And send all the emails you want, because I could delete quicker than anybody. So, that’s totally fine. I’ll pray and we’ll do 1 Timothy 2, do the first ten verses this week and we’ll finish the rest of the chapter next week.

Father God, we love you. We thank you for this place to gather. We thank you that we’re able to gather here as people who you love. Some of us know you. Some of us don’t but God, you know us all and you are actively loving and seeking and pursuing a relationship with each of us. God, as we come to the Scriptures tonight, it is our prayer, as always, that we would see the Lord Jesus, that we would love him. That our hearts would be inclined toward him. That we would hate sin but we would love him. And God I pray, as well, that out of that, there would be a practical application for both the men and the women who are gathered here tonight, God that you would have something specific for each of us to take with us. A word of admonition, a word of encouragement, a word of instruction, a word of rebuke – whatever it is that you know exactly that we need. We love you, God. I thank you for the great job that I have – to be a teacher of the Bible. I pray that you would give me words to speak and people ears to hear. In Jesus’ good name, amen.

As we get into 1 Timothy 2, there’s an older pastor here, Paul, writing to a younger pastor, Timothy, and he’s giving him instructions on how to organize and how to lead the church, so it’s directly applicable to us because we’re a church, so we’ll heed Paul’s advice as well and he’s going to tell us that there are really two things that the church is to be about. Two things that the church is to be about – Jesus Christ and people. If you want to boil it all down, that’s what we’re about. Jesus. People. People meeting Jesus because Jesus loves them. And then, you’ll see that the second half of the chapter, he tells us that that great simple mission of people and Jesus often gets clouded by two other variables – one being men, others being women. Other than that, everything at the church seems to go very, very well. Smooth as silk except for the men and the women. So what – will start here. Here’s where he wants us to begin as a church. First things first.

Chapter two, Verse one. Paul says, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for,” whom – “everyone,” everyone. First things first. The church is to be a people of prayer. That’s what we are to be. It’s not that we have to pray to God. It’s that we get to pray to God. It’s that God loves us enough to listen and he cares enough to answer prayer and to involve himself in history and in our lives. And so he tells us that we should be a people of prayer. Before we work, before we preach, before we labor, before we give – first thing we do is pray. We ask that God would change the hearts of people. We ask God how much we should give. We ask God to shape us and mold us. We ask God to teach us. We ask God to lead us. We go to God first, before we do anything else.

And he uses four different words here to talk about prayer. He lists them as “request”. You know, if you have a request, you can bring that to God. If you have a need, you can bring that to God. If you know someone that has a need and they need a request made, you can do that for them. I know a lot of you have a hard time sharing your faith. You don’t like being evangelistic. It feels like door-to-door sales, and you don’t like to shove things on people because love isn’t rude. I tell you what though, most people, even if they’re not Christians, if they have a need and you ask them if it’s okay to pray, most of the time they see that as a good thing. I can still remember, as a non-Christian little boy playing little league, I got hurt, something happened and I remember a woman prayed for me. One of the guys on my team, his mom did. It’s one of those pivotal times in my life when I thought, “Hmm, it seems like she knows God and it seems like she could talk to God, who actually now is paying attention to me because she asked him to.” It was this huge breakthrough for me as a little kid. There’s a lot of people that don’t pray. There’s a lot of people who do pray, don’t know who they’re praying to. You and I, if we are Christians, we have this opportunity to pray for everyone. Anyone. First thing we can ask is request. They have needs. Car breaks down. Kid gets sick. They’re getting married. Something good. Something bad. They have a need.

He says the other thing we can pray is just “prayers”. This is a general word for prayer. Usually, it refers acknowledging something about God. Thanking God that he’s loving. Thanking God that he’s merciful. Thanking God that he’s patient. Thanking God that he’s kind and benevolent. Other prayers can include “intercession”. That there are people that are separated from God or people that are hurting and because of that, they’re distrusting in God and we have the opportunity to come between them and intercede. To plead before God on their behalf.

And lastly, the other type of prayer is “thanksgiving”. It’s not just that we always have needs and people have needs – Christians and non – but that God does show up in our lives and there’s much to be thankful for and so sometimes, we’re not asking God for anything, we’re thanking him for what he’s already provided. And some of you have had God show up in such great ways in your life and provide for you, give good and perfect gifts that James says comes down from above – that there’s a lot of reasons for you just to be thankful. And the first thing that Paul says is that the church needs to be about prayer. Talking to God about anything for anyone. Talking to God about everything for everyone. And sometimes it’s easy, once you’ve been a Christian a little while; just to pray for yourself all the time or maybe your friends and family or those kinds of people that you like – maybe just people that are in this church. But he goes on and he lists another type of person that we need to be in prayer for. He says that’s “kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all Godliness and holiness.” These are leaders, politicians, business leaders, people that are highly influential and they, in many ways, make decisions that implicate all of the rest of us.

Because of that, we need to pray for them. As a Christian, you should vote. You should vote and even if your candidate loses, you should still pray for the winner because the decisions they make affect our lives and have direct implications on how much freedom we have to practice our faith. If we’re being persecuted or if we’re tied up in litigation, then it becomes harder for us to do the work of ministry, to introduce people to Jesus and get back to our main goals, which are people and Jesus. People meeting Jesus because Jesus loves people, and so we pray for those in authority. And in this day, this was – he said for two reasons, Godliness and holiness. This is external peace and internal peace. That there would be peace in the church and there would be peace outside of the church with the government so that the church could be about its business unencumbered, uninterrupted.

Okay, but who’s the political leader in authority at this day? Nero. This is not the guy you pray for. All right, you hate this guy. This is the equivalent to asking the Jews, during the Holocaust, to be praying for Adolf Hitler. Nero is that kind of guy. This is not a friend. This is a foe. This is an enemy. Nero was such a bloodthirsty and sick man that he made it his business to murder Christians for sport. The gladiator games? Those were brothers and sisters getting killed. They would take us into the coliseum and throw us before wild animals and crowds would come out and watch us get eaten alive. For his state dinners – this was before electricity a few thousand years ago – to illuminate his state parties and dinners, he would take Christians alive, wrap them in pitch and resin, stick us on a pole, put us up in the air and light us on fire and we’d burn slowly all night, to illuminate the party. In addition, one of his favorite things was to draw and quarter us, take us – he would, for example, take someone like me, tie my legs and my arms to four different horses, whip those horses, sending them in different directions, leaving me there, much alive, slowly bleeding to death, fully dismembered, for sport. Paul’s saying, “Pray for that guy.” Pray what? Pray that he gets hit by a meteor? I’ll do that. I’ll pray for that guy. But the point is this – Paul, who’s writing this, knows that he himself was that same kind of man. He was a murderer of Christians, now he’s a pastor. You never know who God loves. You never know who God might change. You never know who might get saved. You never know whose heart might turn.

Some of you are here tonight and you’re the most astonished. You can’t believe that God actually would put up with you and be long-suffering and patient, all the things you’ve done, and that he loves you. It’s likely because some people were praying for you and God hears and answers prayer and you see this even in the life of Paul. Paul, we get introduced to him back in Acts, Chapter 7. There he’s murdering a deacon in the early church, a man named Stephen. He murders Stephen. Stephen’s death – right before that – is precipitated by a prayer. He prays. And he prays for the salvation of Paul, his murder. Now you think about it – your last words what are they gonna be to your murderer? It’s the same thing that Jesus prayed. This is where he learned it. Jesus, on the cross, prayed for us, his enemies, that we be forgiven. Stephen, at his murder, was doing the same thing as the Lord Jesus, praying for the salvation of his enemy, Paul.

A few chapters later, Paul gets saved. Stephen’s prayer is answered. You never know who you’re praying for; you never know what God might do in their heart, for those people that you pray for. Does prayer work? Of course it works. So who should we pray for? Everyone. Even if they’re enemies, they’re far from God; even if it looks like there’s no hope; no one is beyond the reach of a good and gracious God. There’s hope for everybody as long as there’s breath in their lungs and so we pray.

He says that we pray, we pray for people. We pray that they would meet God. We pray that we would have the kind of relationship with the government whereby we could do our work unencumbered. We’re very blessed in this country to do so. Lot of places today, you can’t gather freely like this. So we need to be praying for those governments as well, that our brothers and sisters could gather unencumbered. He tells us, then in Verse 3, “This is good, and pleases God our Savior,” okay, this is a simple line that distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. Every other religion teaches that you can save yourself. Christianity is the only religion that truly humbles us and teaches us that we desperately need a savior. That we are sinners, separated from God and the distance between us and God is often filled by philosophy, religion, morality, politics, speculation, spirituality, Oprah, whatever. We try and fill the gap, and what the Bible tells us is we’re not going to get enlightenment or good works or spirituality or morality or politics or ethics to reconnect us to God, that God needs to save us – that God needs to save us. That we need God, we’re helpless. And he tells us exactly how God accomplished this. He said, “This is good and pleases God our Savior,” we’re saved by God “who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.”

And some of you are Calvinists. Some of you don’t know what that means. That’s good. That’s fine. But some of you are Calvinists and you read that verse and it bothers you because it says that God wants which men to be saved? “All.” That includes women, too. This is a general term for humankind. Some of you say what about election, predestination, doesn’t God pick some, not pick others? Yes. But here it says, he wants all to be saved. And you know what? He does. Now some of you are saying, “Now Mark, you’re contradicting yourself.” I am but I’m totally consistent with the Bible, so that’s what I’m gonna do. Seriously. Seriously. You’re gonna reach points where you go, “This verse doesn’t seem to fit with this verse. Which one do I chuck?” Don’t chuck any. Keep them both! They’re real good. Actually, very important. And what God is saying here is, he’s telling this church I love the world and I am forgiving sin and I’m pursuing people and you’ve totally forgotten about that. You gonna find over in Verse 8 that the men are sitting around arguing the finer points of theology, forgetting that it’s about God and people, not about arguing.

And it is so important for us to know this. God loves Seattle. God loves everybody in Seattle. Is everybody in Seattle gonna go to Heaven? No. No they won’t. No. Some people are gonna fry like Jimmy Dean pure pork sausage on a grill. That’s the way it’s gonna go for some. That’s the truth. I’m the mailman. I don’t pick the teams, I’m just telling you there’s two teams. One’s going to Heaven. One’s going to Hell. One belongs to Jesus. One belongs to Satan. One’s gonna live forever in the presence of God. The other is not. It’s gonna live in Hell. That’s the way it is. But God loves, God has desire for all men to be saved. And there’s a difference between God’s desire and decree. I don’t think it was God’s desire that we sin but God gave us that freedom. God’s heart is that people would be saved. Rather than arguing about that, we need to follow the admonition of Paul here to the church, saying do I have a heart for Seattle? Do I have a heart for the people here to be saved? Do I care? Does it bother me? Are you at the place where, like, the Lord Jesus – who stood over Jerusalem and shed tears, praying for the salvation of the city – that you’ve shed your tears over Seattle and you care enough that you’ve been interceding and praying for people in the city, that they would come to know the Lord Jesus.

I tell you what can happen in this church. This is my greatest fear. My greatest fear is that at some point, we’ll think we’ve done something. That’s my greatest fear. We think, “well hey we’ve grown, we filled a building twice. We’re 2,000. We’ve grown 60 percent a year. Things are great. We’re one of the biggest churches in the state. Only 2 percent of churches in the country are 800 or more. That’s in our rear-view mirror a few years ago. We’re doing great.” And you know what, we still have work to do because God has a plan for all men. So we still have work to do. I mean until we have, you know, seven services in Seahawk Stadium, we’re still working. That’s what we’re doing. Some of you say, “How big we gonna get?” I hope, I hope we see that God love so many people, that we need more services in more places. People need God. People need Jesus. They desperately do. Which people? All people. Does it matter race, class, male, female, young, doesn’t matter – everybody needs Jesus. Everybody’s a sinner. Everybody’s headed to Hell. Everybody needs Jesus. They need a savior.

And Paul’s telling this church that they have gotten off track. They have lost their heart for all people. They have lost their desire to see people become Christians and Paul’s calling them back to love what God loves and that’s the people that he made. So he goes on. “This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” What’s the truth? Here’s the truth. “For there is,” how many Gods?

Response: One.

- one God. “one God,” first things first. The big E on the Christian eye chart. One God. We start there. That’s – you gotta get that one nailed down first. One God. There’s one God. There’s not different names for God. There’s not different kinds of gods, there’s not other gods, there’s one God. And then he says, that there’s “one mediator between” people and God. There’s God, there’s us. There’s separation between us and God because of sin. We gave God the finger, we did whatever we wanted. We each went our own direction, Isaiah says, we’re far from God. There’s distance. Now, here’s what we need. A mediator. You ever had a dispute with someone? Right? You’re married, right? You need a referee. That’s what you need. You need to call somebody in, right? That’s why, when you have sports, we have a referee. When there’s a confrontation, that’s why we have a police officer. That’s why, when we have a bad confrontation, we get a judge. There’s a mediator. Somebody comes in and mediates the conflict. There’s God, who’s holy and good and there’s us who are unholy and sinful. We had disobeyed God. We have violated God’s demands and decrees. There is separation now. So we need a mediator. We need somebody to work this relationship out and bring it back together.

And so we need that mediator desperately, and people try to put religion in there, the denominations in there, and theology in there, spiritual leaders in there, philosophy in there, psychology in there, sociology in there, self-esteem in there. There is no Buddha. There is no Krishna. There is no Muhammad. There’s one God and how many mediators? One mediator. Simple. His name’s not Muhammad; his name’s not Buddha; his name’s not Krishna; his name’s not Freud; her name’s not Oprah. There’s one mediator between us and God, Jesus. It’s all about Jesus. If you wanna nail it down, Mars Hill’s about people and Jesus. That’s what we’re about. The Bible is about people and Jesus. History is about people and Jesus. Christianity is about people and Jesus. That’s what it’s about. Now you and I, because of sin, are separated from God. All of our speculation and our attempts to get closer to God are in vain. The good news is, though, that we have a mediator. We have a mediator who’s willing to broker this relationship back into existence between us and God. That’s Jesus.

Now Jesus – is he man or God? Yes. He’s the perfect mediator because no human being has the right to go into the presence of God and mediate a deal but God mediating with us, it’s really not representing us because he’s not a man. What God has done, God became a man. Jesus Christ, fully God, fully man, he is able to mediate between human beings and God because he’s God who became a human being. Jesus is tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin. He lives a perfect life in our place. He goes to the cross and upon his crucifixion, my sins, the sins of all of God’s people are put on Jesus. Jesus is punished and dies as a substitute in our place. Three days later, as he promised, the Lord Jesus Christ rose from death. And here’s what he accomplished for us. “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom,” that’s why he died, “for all men—the testimony given in its proper time.” Jesus Christ came to rescue us. To ransom us. When you were born, you were born sinful. That’s why no one had to send you to wicked school, you just got it, right? When you’re a little kid, they don’t – they don’t have “how to hit someone in the head with a truck 101,” “how to throw a fit 102,” “how to mess all over things 103,” they don’t do that. You’re just – you’re just wicked. It’s easy. It’s like water. It’s wet. People are wicked. It just happens. That’s how we come out.

You’re born in sin, you come out wicked, right? And then, because of that, you belong to Satan. You’re hell-bent on death and you’re running right toward an eternity separated from God. You need a savior. Someone to save you from what? A lot of things. Save you from God; you’re fighting him. Save you from Satan, who owns you. Save you from sin, which has mastered you. Save you from death, which is coming shortly. Save you from Hell and, and in addition to save you from yourself because you have messed up everything. Now you think you’re smart but you’re not. Like most crazy people, you’re unaware. That’s what happens. So God needs to save you. He does that by sending Jesus as a mediator who dies paying the penalty for you sin and he ransomed you. Now, you don’t need to belong to Satan, you need to belong to Jesus. You don’t need to belong to Hell, you can belong to Heaven. You don’t need to belong to sin, you can belong to holiness. You don’t need to belong to death, you can belong to eternal life. You’ve been ransomed by Jesus, who is our mediator. It’s all about Jesus.

Some of you say, “Well I’ve heard this before, I know this.” You need to hear it again. You need to hear it again. You need to hear it again. You need to hear it again. Because you know what? Even if you’re a Christian, yesterday you sinned. Today you sin. Tomorrow you’ll sin. And then you’ll think, “Well what do I need to do?” You need to go to Jesus. You need to receive forgiveness. You need to belong to him. And it’s back to the relationship. It’s back to the father, through the son, by the spirit.

He goes on. Tells this church they need to be about prayer and people and Jesus. That’s what they’re about. He says, “And for this purpose I was appointed a herald and an apostle—I am telling the truth, and I am not lying—and a teacher of the true faith to the Gentiles.”

First, he says, “I’m a herald.” His name’s not Harold. He is a herald. That’s his job. Here’s what a herald is. In that day, there were no newspapers or televisions. You couldn’t just sit there and watch the news, so if you had something wonderful or something catastrophic happen and you wanted to get the word out to all the people, you’d send a runner out in the street, telling the news. Paul says, “You know what? That’s what I am. I run through the streets telling people the good news. Jesus is God. The tomb is empty. Sin is forgiven. God is real. He loves us. We can belong to him. I have great news for everybody. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Paul goes out and beats the Jesus drum for the rest of his days. As you go from here, you need to know in this city, you are heralds. If you are a Christian, you are a herald. You’re going to go out to work and to school and to neighborhoods, into places where people do not know Jesus. Before you get there, you should pray. Pray for their hearts and your life and your words. So that you’re kind and loving and gracious and patient. That you are like Christ when you go there, and that their heart is receptive. But then you need to speak. A herald is worthless unless they speak. Speak about Christ and if nothing else, ask them what you can be praying for them about. It’s amazing to me. I have found huge opportunities open up just asking people, “How can I pray for you?” And I tell you what, it’s amazing what people will tell you.

They’re not sure that God hears their prayers. They’re not sure how to talk to God. They’re not sure if they got a right to talk to God. But you, as a child of God, you do and you can make your request known to your father on behalf of these people. And you’re a herald, you go out there, talking about the Lord. What he’s done in your life. What he can do in their life. He also says, though, that he’s an apostle. That’s a church planter. It’s not enough just to go out and do evangelism, you gotta start a church and people need to go there and they need to grow in their faith, they need to be encouraged and they need to be taught, as he says here, the true faith that he is a teacher of to the gentiles. Go out, tell people about Jesus. Have a church that they could come to whereby they get discipled; meaning they learn their Bible and they grow and mature in their understanding of God. That’s what Paul’s all about. And he says, “I’m not lying.” And you need to know that. Some of you are sitting there right now and you’re not Christians and you’re thinking, “Is this a lie?” It’s not a lie. It’s the truth. It’s the most important thing in all of history. Who is Jesus. He said he was God. Was he? He said he was sinless. Was he? He said he would rise from death. Did he? He said he was the way, the truth and the life and no one would get to the father but through him. Is that a lie or is that truth? And you need to decide that for yourself. You need to come to your own conclusion on that matter. Paul says, “I am not lying,” and I would submit this to you, we can take Paul’s word and his testimony as valid because he started off as a man who hated Jesus Christ as brutally and as commitedly as anyone in the history of the world. He murdered Christians for a living. He hated us so dearly. And then he becomes a pastor who dies a brutal death for the cause of Jesus Christ. His life was spent in poverty and homelessness. He was imprisoned and beaten. He was in obscurity. He was hated and despised and everyone thought that he had lost his mind and was destined for the flames of Hell.

The thing you’ve gotta look at with Paul is why would he go from a hater of Jesus Christ to a worshiper of Jesus Christ and there’s really only one verdict you can come to – that it is in fact true. It’s the truth. That’s what Paul’s saying. Paul is saying for you skeptics and you doubters, “Don’t think I don’t see your perspective. Don’t think I haven’t sat in your seat. Don’t think I haven’t raised your questions. Don’t think I haven’t had your mental obstacles. I have but I saw Jesus risen from death, conquered sin and death as he said. He’s God. It’s the truth.” God wants all men everywhere to be saved. If you’re here tonight and you’re not a Christian, you’re here for one reason. You’re here to be saved. You’re here to be saved. From Satan, sin, death, Hell and your own silliness. God loves you enough to, as a parent with a child, not give you what you want but give you what you need. To involve himself in your life to correct your course of action because you were running, foolishly, away from him and you’re gonna die and you’re gonna suffer and it’s not gonna go well for you and God’s heart inclination. His desire is that you would be saved. Rather than arguing about all of this, I want you to do this. I want you to be saved.

Jesus Christ has gotten off of his throne. He has walked in your place on the earth. He has died for all your sins. He has risen to prove it. It’s the truth. He loves you. He loves you dearly and he has done all that needs to be done so that you can be ransomed and reconciled. Your mediator has accomplished his work and what he said on the cross that was finished, he was talking about your life. It is glorious and good. We have been praying, for those of you that are not Christians, that you would be here tonight. We have been making prayers and requests and intercession and thanksgiving. We have been praying that God would put you in that seat so that you would hear about Jesus. That you would not try and fill in spirituality, morality, religion, philosophy or theology as your mediating relationship between you and God, but that it would be Jesus. That you would love him as he loves you and that you would respond to him by owning your sin, confessing it as a transgression, an offense, a wrong against him. Thanking him for dying in your place, receiving from him grace, love, mercy, forgiveness, new life as a new creation. That you would be ransomed.

God wants all men everywhere to be saved and he wants you to be saved and that’s why he’s brought you here tonight.

It is imperative and now incumbent upon you that if you do not know Jesus Christ, if you are not a Christian, that before you leave, you do business with God. It’s the most important thing. Paul says, “I am not lying.” And I’ll tell you what, anyone who teaches anything different is. They’re lying. Because for them, it gets them a book deal. It gives them power. It makes them money. It gives them fame. It provides for them something. For Paul? Nothing. He goes from power to powerlessness. He goes from wealth to poverty. He goes from esteemed to despised. He goes from sleeping in his own bed to sitting in jail. This man has no reason to declare that Jesus is God except for the fact that it’s true. This is God’s plan. God’s plan is to save people. God’s plan is for Seattle. I don’t know if you know this, Seattle is on God’s calendar. God has plans for this city. It is the least-churched city in the United States of America. It is the least likely place that a young man would go to church. It has been a burial ground for church planting. We do not have a fully-functioning seminary or Bible College in the city to train pastors. We do not have the great Christian witness. Some of you come here and you’re amazed there’s this many Christians in the whole city because in your neighborhood or at your school or at your work, you can’t find another Christian. Even if you meet one who’s half nuts and a full-on whack job, you feel pretty good because at least, maybe, they’re really a brother or a sister. You can’t find anybody. You know, and God’s desire is to change that. And I pray that we keep loving, serving, following, and lifting up Jesus to the point where we don’t have to argue about whether or not God wants all men to be saved, that we would just see them all get saved and know what the verse means. That’s what I pray for.

Now here’s God’s plan. Jesus and people. That’s what God’s up to. It’s not cutting edge. Not all that hip, probably not gonna get a book deal out of that one, but it’s very effective and true. God is a great God. People need him, Jesus is their only hope. That’s what we do. Now, there’s something that gets in the way and encumbers this males and females. Everything’s great ‘til you put us in the equation. The first problem is the men. The men. Oftentimes, it’s the men that are the problem and the men, especially the young men. They’re the problem. Okay, you ready guys? Put your cup on. Game day, here we go. For the young men. God made young men strong. In 1 John, he says, “I write to you young men because you’re strong.” It’s good to be strong, providing you know what you’re doing. God made men strong and men have a propensity to take their strength and use it for ill instead of good. Even God’s men. That’s where he says, Verse 8, “I want men everywhere,” here, home, car, work, school, wherever, “to lift up holy hands in prayer, without anger or disputing.”

Here’s one of the big problems in the church. Men like to argue. I know some of you are thinking, “No I don’t.” There you go. Men like, I’m sorry, say young men. Now some of you young men, you like the Bible because it’s like bullets. You go there, finding ammunition to go shoot fellow brothers. You like that. You think that because you can win an argument that you’re holy. As if Bible trivia equals Christ’s likeness. Some of you guys love the Bible, except for the parts where it tells you to do things, like be nice, or pray, or raise your hands and some of you guys are so theological; your faith lives in your head. God is a concept and not a person. You know, we read these verses and I tell you what, Mars Hill, just kinda stinks at this, by the way. We’re not a really a hand-raising church. You know what, “raise holy hands in prayer” means in Greek? Raise holy hands in prayer. It totally does. It means that. Now, some of you guys say, “Well, I don’t wanna raise my hands.” Well you should. You should raise your hands in prayer. Men, when we raise our hands in prayer, who are we pointing to? The mediator. That’s all we’re saying. Our hope, our faith, our trust, our past, our present, our future, it’s all riding on Jesus. He’s our mediator. We’re pointing to the mediator. We’re like sons reaching out for a father. We’re like soldiers that are surrendering. We’re pointing to the mediator. That’s what we do. That’s why the Bible tells us men, when it’s time to pray, raise your hands. When it’s time to sing and worship, raise your hands. God commands a lot of things in the Bible and some of these verses only the Pentecostals really take seriously.

I mean, like, “Raise your hands.” “Okay. Okay. Don’t shoot. Whatever, you know?” Some people are like, “We’re from Bible-believing churches. We don’t raise our hands.” What kind of Bible-believing church doesn’t raise its hands? I want men – look at your anatomy, “I have the plumbing. Okay, check.” Everywhere, “I’m somewhere. Okay, check.” To lift, “How high? Here or here? He doesn’t care, just get ‘em up, get ‘em up, get ‘em up, right?” It’s like a Ludacris concert. Just get ‘em up. Hands up, right? So lift up holy hands in prayer. Holy hands. Now, men are your hands holy? Oh, got all quiet. Doh! They are holy. The Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross for sin. He rose to forgive sin. You, you because of him, have holy hands. Jesus Christ has washed your hands. He’s made them clean so you can lift them up. You say, “But I sinned yesterday,” or “I sinned today.” Well, then repent and then get ‘em back up. Keep your hands up.

Let me ask you this, men. When you get frustrated, you get agitated and you get annoyed, is your first instinct to pray or argue, fight and dispute? Our most – all the wives are saying, “Argue, fight, dispute.” In addition, men, do you – do you use more words arguing, debating, yelling, getting angry, or praying? If you had to inventory your words, which pile would they go in? Someone frustrates you, is your first instinct to rise in anger or to drop in prayer? That’s what he’s asking. Men have a propensity to argue and fight, all kinds of trivia and stuff but they forget to pray. Some of you guys are that way. You’re all about action, puffed chests, hot head, no prayer. Paul says, “I want men to pray.” Want men to raise holy hands in prayer. I’ll tell you what, too, guys. You got kids? Pray like this. One hand on the kid, one hand to the mediator. That’s what you want. Prayers, intercession, requests. It’s what you want. You want your kids to know dad lifts holy hands in prayer to the mediator and he blesses the children. That’s what you want.

I don’t know what we got here tonight, maybe 900, 1,000 people. I think we went through 2,000 today, our biggest Sunday this year in the church. Probably 500, 600 are men. For all of you men that are Christians, do me one favor. Raise your hands. Both of them. Guys, look around this room. Look around this room. Can you imagine what it would look like? Imagine what it would look like if these hands embraced only their wife and not another man’s wife. You can put your hands down. And imagine then, if these hands raised children who love Jesus Christ, embraced them, prayed for them, held them. Imagine if those hands, those 1,000, 1,200 hands that just went in the air worked their job, diligently, on behalf of Christ, made millions of dollars and spent it wisely. Imagine if those hands held the Bible instead of a Playboy. Imagine if those hands were raised in prayer, not clenched in anger. Imagine what would happen if God’s men just took the hands that God gave them and used them for the purposes of God. That’s exactly what Paul’s getting at. The Lord Jesus Christ had 24 hands. Two of them were dirty and weren’t ever lifted holy.

You and I sit here today as part of the legacy of 11 men, 22 hands. We sit here today, in this church there was over 2,000 hands raised. Seattle will change as God’s men use their hands to point to the mediator and to serve on his behalf. That’s what Paul’s getting at. It is not about being able to out-argue and out-fight your brothers. It’s not about getting sidetracked onto secondary things that take us away from Jesus and people. I love you men. My heart is for the men. There is no secret in that. I want our men to be men who heed the admonition from last weeks’ verses to fight the good fight and to do it with holy hands in prayer. That’s how we fight. That’s where we get strength. That’s where we get holy hands. It’s all from the mediator. It’s from Jesus.

That’s the word for the men. Here’s the ladies. Mars Hill girls gone wild. This – I probably won’t get fired but this is my best shot. Verse 9 and 10. “I also want women,” ladies, you’re here, too, saying, “He’s not even talking about us.” In a minute, you’ll wish I hadn’t. “I also want women to dress,” okay, we’ll just stop right there. Okay? Right? Another great word, “modestly,” now I’m not saying we should start being a neo-Amish muumuu cult. That’s not what I’m saying. I’m not saying, “Go home, get your bedspread, cut an 18-inch circumference out of the top, put it over your head, take a doily off your nightstand, put it on your head and walk around looking like you just drank milk past the pull date.” That’s not what I’m saying. But modestly will be nice. Mod- you say, “What is modestly?” Right. There’s a difference between a neckline and a hemline. If they meet, that’s not modestly. That’s what I’m talking about. “[W]ith decency,” some women dress indecently, “and propriety,” some women dress inappropriately.

We’re talking about your wardrobe. Some of you ladies are sitting there with your skirt going, “I shouldn’t have worn this skirt.” You shouldn’t have worn that skirt. “Not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” In Paul’s day, there was a big transition. Traditionally, women had worn their hair conservatively. It was very long. Okay? You can have short hair, it’s not a sin. I think long hair’s nice. I have verses, too. 1 Corinthians 11, a woman’s long hair is her glory. I like long hair. So women would have long hair and they would cover it and they would put their hair up and then the only time that a man would see a grown woman with her hair down was her husband at home. It was a little special. Then what happened was the hairstyles got real flamboyant. Women started putting gold and jewels in their hair and taking their head coverings off and letting their hair flow around because they loved the attention.

Can you imagine that? In the olden days, women liked attention. It’s a good thing we’ve evolved as a society. And the average woman would only have two to three dresses because they were so expensive. Didn’t have a lot of dresses. Now, the very wealthy women, they would have designer J-Lo gowns. That’s what they would have and the gowns would cost upwards of 7,000 hours of a common laborer’s wage. What that means is, for the really nice dresses it would take the average working stiff three and-a-half years just to make enough money to buy one of those sweet dresses. The emperor’s wife had the over-the-top dress that was worth, literally, a couple hundred thousand dollars. Now what would happen is, everybody would get together for church and these common women would walk in and then these bling women would walk in. Major bling on these ladies and they would walk in all dressed up, big gown, hair up, pearls, gold, jewelry. All of a sudden, nobody’s paying attention to the mediator. Nobody’s paying attention to the people. Everybody’s paying attention to that lady. All the guys are thinking, “Wish my wife looked like that.” All the women are thinking, “I’m gonna kill her.” Because that’s what women think. And so the woman walks in, she’s got the hips and the everything’s moving, it’s like her own private earthquake. Everything’s just action and all of a sudden, everybody’s watching her. “Woo. Look at that.” And nobody’s paying attention to the mediator. And the women love it because all of a sudden, it’s not communion, it’s runway. Right? It’s Victoria’s Secret.

We’ll talk about your wardrobe, ladies. Not because I want to, but because it’s in the Bible. I really don’t want to. God made everything that is. What was made last? The woman. The best for last. Are women glorious, beautiful, the apex of creation? Yes. Ladies, you’re beautiful. Okay, congratulations. I’ve been told that Mars Hill, in particular, has the most attractive women. By guys who came here that weren’t Christians but did like the women. Some of you are like, “Oh, yeah, I’m here.” We have men come here just because of the women. Now we try to point them to Jesus or we try and point them to the door. We give them Plan A, Plan B, that’s what we’re trying to do. We have – I had a – talked to a guy recently. Very affluent, wealthy, successful, non-Christian guy. He said, “I came to your church,” he said, “I have never seen so many beautiful women in one place in the City of Seattle. You can’t go to a club, a bar, a restaurant, a show. You’ve got,” he said, “It’s amazing. I’ve never seen that many beautiful women in my life.” It’s true. Congratulations. Congratulations. Being beautiful is not bad, or probably some of you saying, “I’m not that beautiful.” You are. Women are unbelievable. That’s why – if you go to a men’s magazine section at a bookstore, every magazine has a half-naked or a naked woman on the cover. Automotive, car stereo, home improvement, tools, monster trucks, anything, they put a naked woman on the cover. We’re not logical. They don’t have to go together, like naked women and power tools, they don’t have to go together, it’s just a guy’s all of a sudden like, “I vote yes! I vote naked woman and anything else. Just naked woman, plus, and I vote yes. That’s fine.” Men love women. Women are glorious. Men are visual. They just are.

Now, women know this so they work it to their attention. They choose clothes that attract attention. The wrong kind of attention. Some of you ladies say, “I don’t know why I always attract the wrong guy.” Well, it’s because you got the wrong wardrobe. You say, “Well, how’d I get the wrong wardrobe?” You had the wrong father. Think about that. All these teenage girls, dad isn’t there, doesn’t give them loving affection and attention. All of a sudden, they hit their teen years, they become women, boys give them attention. They say, “Well, if I show more skin and less brains, I get more attention. I’ve figured out this math equation.” Woman gets the wrong attention because she has the wrong wardrobe. She has the wrong wardrobe because she has the wrong father. From Eve forward, there’s been a real decline. Any of you been down to The Old Curiosity Shop? It’s downtown. It’s a fun place. They have this wind-up porno. You put a coin in and you gotta wind this old turn-of-the-century black and white movie, it’s a porno. You know what it is? It’s a woman in a one piece bathing suit. Goes from her neck to the top of her knees to her elbows and it’s a porno because you see her elbows and her knees.

Yeah, guys are laughing, like “What the?” Do you know in the 1950s there was no such thing as soft-core pornography in the United States of America? The first porno magazine was in the 1960s, it was Playboy. And it wasn’t out on the shelves, it was under the counter. You had to ask for it. In the 1970s, Playboy and Penthouse made it to the shelf. Now? Multi-billion dollar a year industry. Naked women. Today, it’s deteriorated so far that this getting dressed and being modest and being decent and proper is gone. Totally gone. Abercrombie & Fitch has got a new line of thong underwear for seven-year-old girls. Seven. My daughter’s six, almost seven. That’s first grade. First grade. Rear-less, thong underwear, seven-year-old girls. On the front, they have two options. They can get it to say “Wink, Wink” or “Eye Candy.” Say, what kind of pedophile dreamt that up? Seven-year-old girl. Seven-year-old girl. I was thinking about it this week and so I picked up a teen magazine because I just wanted to know what Justin Timberlake is doing. And what I found was they have all these different women that they put forward for young girls to be role models. And so I was gonna share a few articles that I found particularly insightful.

The first is “What does your belly button reveal about you.” The first thing I will say is there are no outies, so I sense discrimination. It’s all innies. The first one is Beyoncé Knowles. And it says that “her belly button has a very long flat ridge across the top, which means she can handle a lot of responsibility.” So I’m thinking if you own a company, you work in human resources, you do a lot of hiring, you have a position that is open that requires a lot of responsibility, like air traffic controller, nuclear power plant, open heart surgeon, what you need to be looking for is someone with a long, flat ridge across the top of their belly button. Obviously, they can handle it. It’s obvious. You say, “What,” but every girl has her belly button showing, so now we have to develop a whole cultural understanding of belly button astrology, basically, is where we’re at.

Now, Beyoncé Knowles is interesting, too. The first time I heard her sing, it was on the radio, and she was talking about how she’s not gonna deny her Christianity. I thought, “Howdy ho. That sounds great. There’s my sister. That’s wonderful. And then her next album was “Bootylicious,” which was not what I was expecting. I have seen Baptist believers. I have seen Presbyterian believers. I have seen Lutheran believers. I have never seen bootylicious believers. Whole new denomination.

Here’s Pink. “Pink has a hutch-shaped belly button with two sides and a roof.” I don’t even know what that means. It sounds like she had some industrial accident. “It shows that she is who she is and she doesn’t care what anyone thinks about it.” Well, there you go.

Christina Aguilera. Nice role model. Went from, you know, the Mousketeers to, I won’t say that because I don’t wanna go to the unemployment line. Anyways, “her navel has a consistent and even oval shape, which indicates that this dirty diva isn’t afraid to speak her mind.” Well, praise the Lord.

And Gwen Stephani from No Doubt. “Her round belly button has a slight ridge on top, which shows she has savvy business sense.” Isn’t that what you’re thinking guys? You’re thinking, woman’s got short pants and a high shirt and you see her belly button, you say, “Oh my gosh, her 401K must just be crazy. Crazy. Look at that belly button.”

This one, too Ashanti, the soul singer. “Her teardrop shaped navel shows the compassion she has for everyone in life, including her many fans.” Okay, so you could look at her belly button, say, “Oh, she’s a very empathetic, compassionate, loving, gracious woman.” Now what is the name of her crew? Murder, Inc.

In addition, I was flipping to the back. It’s interesting that it’s on the back because there’s a photo of Avril Lavigne. The great Canadian pop star. She’s a little punk rock, pop diva, princess. She’s the one who hooked up with a skater boy and they rock each other’s world, whatever that means. And it has a shot of her crack. Now this is the newest thing. Women showing their crack. I would say if you are a union plumber and, and you can get a good attorney, I think you have a copyright case. I think you do. You’ve been stolen from. It’s a whole new trend. You go to the mall and you see a woman’s rear. Interesting. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Mark, what do you think about sports bras?” I’m glad you asked. Sports bras. First time I saw a sports bra – first thing I’ll say about sports bras. There are two categories you need to keep separated. Write this down. Underwear. Outerwear. They’re totally different. Okay, underwear goes under. It seems, it seems fairly obvious, but not everybody gets that. Underwear shouldn’t be outerwear. A sports bra is underwear. I’m all for it as underwear. First time I saw a sports bra, I was not a Christian. I was in high school. I was on the baseball team. It was track season. All the girls were running in sports bras. I was talking with the guys. We thought this was brilliant, really. We thought some teenage guy dreamt this up. This is brilliant, is what this is. Girls running around in their underwear. When you’re 16, you go to bed every night raising holy hands in prayer, “Lord Jesus, tomorrow, I would like to see lots of women running around in their underwear.” That’s what guys hope for. So I’m thinking, “You know, some 15, 16-year-old genius dreamt that up. Well they won’t just run around in their underwear. Put “sports” in front of it. “Okay! Look at that.”” Women are running around in their underwear. I asked one of the gals – I was afraid I was gonna blow it. I was thinking maybe they’d all go put sweatshirts on but I gotta ask – I said, “So why do you wear sports bras?” and she said, “It makes us fast.” And I’m thinking, “So if I wanna steal 40 bases, I gotta put a sports bra on. I gotta be fast.

And so I’ve, I’ve sorta worked under that for years, thinking “Sports bra makes you fast.” But then yesterday, I was at the gym, putting in my couple miles on the treadmill, look over, and there’s a young woman wearing a sports bra. But she’s not going anywhere. She’s on a treadmill. She doesn’t need to be fast. So there has to be another reason. So I was meditating on this all week. Here’s what I think. Men don’t like to watch women’s sports. All the women are like, “That’s insulting.” All the men are like, “That’s gospel truth.” For like in the 1970s, tennis with Billie Jean King, guys like, “Bleh. I don’t wanna watch that. I wanna take a roofing hammer to my frontal lobe. I don’t wanna watch that.” But now you take Venus and Serena Williams, put them in a sports bra. All of a sudden, guys are like, “Women’s tennis. I like women’s tennis. Half-naked women running around in their underwear. I vote yes.” That’s what guys are thinking. I mean, I keep waiting for the WNBA to go shirts and skins just to get attendance up. So what we do is we take women’s sports, that guys wouldn’t otherwise watch and we get the women as naked as possible and then the guys will watch and then revenue goes up. Because guys love half-naked women.

So what I’m saying is this. If you are a female athlete and you love the Lord Jesus Christ, be slow. Go slow for Christ. Go slow. Put on sweats and go slow for the Lord and what you should do, rather than your name on the back of your jersey, you should put, “I run slow for Jesus Christ and put 1 Timothy 2:9-10” and that way you’ll be in the back, nobody will encumber the view and then you could make all the papers and you could make the TV, you could be an advertisement for the Gospel. Go slow for Jesus. Now, I know some of you are thinking, “This just sounds terrible.” Here’s what women should do. They should, Verse 10, seek out, instead of, you know, stuff hanging out and all kinds of silliness, they should have “good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.” You say you love Jesus? His Lordship should extend to all of your life, including your wardrobe. Ladies, I want you to have good deeds. God wants you to have good deeds.

Let me bring it all around. Am I against thong underwear? Clear heels? Push-up bras? No. I’m not. Here’s what I would suggest. Get married. Pull the blinds in your house. When your husband comes home, have on clear heels, thong underwear, push-up bra. Cook steak. He will walk in, good deeds. Raise his holy hands in prayer, “Thank you Jesus! Thank you!” I’m not against it. At all. See, we’re about redemption, not abstention. We’re not against sex, we’re for marriage. We’re not against thong underwear, we’re for putting it on wives. We’re not against clear heels and push-up bras. We’re for them on wives, at home. Awesome. Good deeds. See, all you ladies were thinking, I’ll go door-to-door and share my faith. No, I’m telling you, just hear me out. From your husband’s vantage point, good deeds are probably different than your list. They’re probably considerably different. Now, prayer, Bible – we’re for it. But I’m telling you, the best defense is a good offense and the thing that happens here – these ladies in Verse 9, you’re saying, “I don’t want my husband to look at,” well, you know what? He should be praying to God for holy hands and holy eyes and his wife should be the object of his affection. He should chase her around the house in Jesus’ name. We are pro sex. We are pro marriage. We are pro love. We are pro fun. We are pro good. We’re pro Christ. That’s what we are. But God just ransomed us from pornography and fornication and adultery and perversion and sickness, so that we can be married, love each other, have fun, have a great time. I’m gonna close this in prayer. Some of you are convicted. Some of you ladies have to go home and you have to repent of your wardrobe, right? You’re gonna have to change a little bit of your clothing, modestly. Some of you men have got to get your attitudes under control. Your hotheaded temperamental-ness. It’s a good time to repent of sin, bring it to the Lord Jesus. He died for you. He’ll make your hands clean. As well, if you’re not a Christian, God’s brought you here tonight to be saved. You may have a completely misappropriated view of Jesus. I tell you what, Jesus is about redemption, not abstention. He’s about giving you life that is connected to him, not keeping you from fun and humor and sex in marriage and joy. But it’s about redeeming those things so that they honor God. Don’t dishonor him. I want all the men’s hands up while I close you in prayer. You can come forward, give your offering, partake of communion, remembering Jesus’ body and blood. We’re supposed to spend time in prayer, so we’re gonna give you some time in prayer, here.

Lord Jesus, I thank you for my brothers and sisters. I thank you that my sisters are lovely; that you have made them glorious. I thank you, Lord God that you have enabled them to have the capacity to do good deeds. The kind of women that we boast and brag about, and this room is filled with them. God, I thank you for my brothers. I thank you for the hands that you have given us, God. The 1,000 hands strong that are in the air right now. I pray, God, that we would lift these holy hands in prayer, not in anger or disputing. I pray that with these hands, the work of the Gospel would continue; that wives would be embraced; that children would be reared; that jobs would be worked; that Bibles would be opened; that lives would be changed; and that Lord God, we would be about the business of seeing people connect it to you through our great mediator, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom we point right now. God, we laugh at ourselves, we have at our sin, because sometimes we’re just silly, but God, we don’t laugh at you, we take you so incredibly seriously. We thank you that you have ransomed us. We thank you that you have sent the Lord Jesus to mediate between us and you. Lord God, it’s my prayer that you would pour out your grace upon us as a people and that through us, that grace would extend to the city and that the city would know who you are. That they would know the truth, that there is only one God. That there is only one mediator between man and God. The man, Christ Jesus and there really only is one problem and that is sin and there really only is one hope, and that is the empty tomb. Lord Jesus, we love you with all we got. We thank you for loving us with all you’ve got. I pray for my brothers. I pray, Lord God, for their holy hands, in Jesus’ good name, amen.