One Master for the Faithful
Psalm 113 and 1 Timothy 2:1-7
15th Sunday after Pentecost – September 21, 2025
By Pastor Jane Shelton
September is a month for reflection on stewardship. It is an opportunity to revisit our responsibilities as servants of God on how we can grow the Kingdom of God.
Last week we talked about the lost as we reflected upon the model of Jesus Christ as our Savior to find the lost sheep. Not only are we to seek the lost, we witness to them the love of Jesus as we embrace them, nurture them, and bring them back into the flock, and not just any flock, but the flock of Jesus Christ, the truth, the one true light manifested as the Son of God.
Today we will talk about prayer as a responsibility of stewardship.
Timothy clearly speaks to the urgency that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone. Not just a few, not just a special few groups, but we are to pray for everyone. We will dive into this a little further in a moment, but first, I want to talk about the different kinds of prayer.
Timothy mentions supplications. Supplications is often a word that we read in the Bible; however, do we understand its meaning?
Supplication is the action or begging for something earnestly or humbly. It is a serious, humble and earnest request or plea to God for something needed, often for oneself or for others. It implies a passionate and deep level of prayer driven by need.
Examples of such prayers are witnessed by Hannah for a child, and Esther’s prayer of deliverance for her people.
In Ephesians 6:18, Paul said, “Pray in the Spirit at all times in every prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert and always persevere in supplication for all the saints.”
In John 17, Jesus asked for strength and for believers to be united. I find this prayer to be the most heartfelt ever stated as Jesus pleads to the Father God for protection of the people that will be left in the world.
‘I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours.’
Jesus’ prayer of supplication for the people who will be left as servants in the world, those that have come to know the truth, goes on for the entirety of Chapter 17 ending with these words spoken by Jesus, ‘I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.
Next, let’s look at intercessions. Intercession is the action of intervening and saying a prayer on behalf of another. Jesus’ prayer in John 17 is such a prayer as he prayed on behalf of the people. Moses prayed for Israel, and the Holy Spirit intercedes for believers.
When we make a prayer of intercession, we are speaking to God on behalf of another person, a group, a situation, a church or community. Our Prayers for the People that we pray each Sunday is a prayer of intercession.
Last, prayers of thanksgiving express deep gratitude and praise to God, recognizing God as the source of all good. Our first scripture reading, Psalm 113 is a notable example of a prayer of thanksgiving.
A prayer of thanksgiving is one that expresses gratitude for life’s blessings, and we are encouraged to acknowledge the good in our lives as we support those less fortunate and the lost.
Offering our thanks allows us the opportunity to focus on our blessings rather than what we lack, or what we think we lack. In offering thanks, we can praise God and celebrate the love and grace provided that lifts us out of the depths of the ugliness of events in the world.
So often we look at stewardship as how many dollars we can give, and while this is a very important part of stewardship to make this Holy space available to you, to provide for the staff to help with operations of the church and worship, the beautiful music, the technology to reach people beyond these walls, and mission projects like Break Bread Together, I want us to remember the other parts of stewardship as well, like seeking the lost and the importance of prayer.
We talk about divisions in our country and in the world, and yet are we offering the supplications and intercessions and thanksgiving prayers that are needed to keep us focused on what is important, and that is the truth of Jesus Christ. Are we living with the love of God and Jesus Christ in us the way Jesus prayed for us?
A repeated theme in our scripture reading and in the definitions of these prayers is that we include ALL, we include EVERYONE, and we must take ACTION.
Unfortunately, I’m afraid that we have become a world that chooses sides rather than choosing Jesus Christ.
We allow ourselves to be consumed with negativity in the news and social media, and we forget whose we are, we forget that we do not belong to this world or anyone in this world, we belong to God.
How can our world be different if our prayers, rather than our criticism, lead with the same fervor and passion? Imagine if every time we had a criticism of someone, we turned that criticism into a passionate prayer of intercession that ALL would seek the truth of whose we are and to whom we belong.
What if when we see someone in the world in a powerful position that we do not agree with their words and actions, we turned our criticism into a prayer for that person that they might speak the words of love, the word of God, and when we pray on their behalf, we do it with the love in our hearts that Jesus had in his heart. The same love of Jesus that recognized people are not perfect, rather ALL are God’s children, whether lost or standing in the light of God.
Timothy tells us that God desires everyone to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. Timothy also reminds us there is one God and one mediator, Jesus Christ, between God and humankind.
Timothy is reminding the people of his time and still reminding us today of the faith and truth of our One Master to whom we are accountable. It is to this One Master that we offer our prayers of thanksgiving, and to whom we take action to make our prayers of supplications and intercession.
One of the saddest Facebook posts that I have read as I have been following all the recent events was posted on one of our Flint River Presbytery sister church’s page. The Pastor had posted a plea for prayer against violence. The posts had rolled in commenting on many thoughts that I won’t get into today. However, the one that struck me read in part, ‘I feel awful for any person who has lost anyone they cared about but me praying for them has not changed their hurt one single bit.’
It saddens me to think that when we lose faith in prayer to our One Master that is greater than anything in this world, and the God that is capable of making anything happen in this world, then we have lost faith in God.
With AI, news outlets, and social media generating so many articles and videos of untruths, and driving the way we think, how do we find the truth? We turn to the Word of God. The only word that matters, and in our supplications and intersessions and thanksgivings of our prayers, we connect with our One true God. Our One Master is always available for the faithful.
Evil can be very subtle, and it is up to us to remain in faith seeking the true word of God. It is up to us as good stewards and servants to pray passionately and earnestly for those who do not know the One Master of the Faithful so that ALL may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity.
Where do we find ourselves waiting outside the door of the church on the steps? Are we the same on the inside of the church as we are outside in community? Are we spending enough time in prayer as we walk through the gardens, the beautiful nature that God provides that is quiet and peaceful so we can feel our Savior’s touch, so we can hear the word of God softly spoken by the Holy Spirit? I hope so. I pray so. Because without setting aside time to be in the presence of God, without adhering to the prayers that are urgently needed to be spoken with conviction, no change will come. The lost will remain lost, and our opportunity to be good stewards for all that is right and acceptable before God our Savior, who desires EVERYONE…those who are different from us, those who think differently from us, those who bring violence, those who are in high positions… EVERYONE…God desires that they ALL be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth of the Holy Trinity, our One Master for the Faithful.