Let's turn to 2 Timothy, chapter 4 this morning, talk about passing the mantle. This is, of course, as you know, Paul's last will in testament. This is his last letter to anybody. He writes it to the one he consistently refers to in the New Testament as his son in the faith, Timothy, who probably along with Luke were his closest friends. He says simply the time of my departure has come. Uses the little word in Greek analusus or analusus from which we get the word analysis. It really means in Greek a letting loose, an untying. In fact, he uses two metaphors. He says that he's being poured out as a drink offering. His life is a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord and he's being let loose. To go on what is his final journey and that is this time home to the city of God. Paul would say that that was his desire to be let loose, to depart. For me to live as Christ and to die is gain. If I am to live on in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, yet which shall I choose? I cannot tell. Fry him hard, press between two. My desire is to depart and to be with Christ for that is far the better. To permeate in the flesh is more necessary on your account. My desire is to depart, to be cut loose and sail home to the city of God. Paul had had a long, although not as long as we think, but in the illustrious ministry he had been in pastoral ministry in a missionary work for about 35 years when he writes this particular epistle. He was converted, we think, somewhere between the years of 34 and 35 AD, as you know, he says that he spent three years in Arabia, somewhere around Damascus being taught by the Lord and then seven or eight years we call the silent years back in his hometown of Tarsus where he was making tents and waiting for the Lord to call him. Then around the year 44 AD, a man named Barnabas who was pastoring a church in Antioch, the first church of Gentiles, he called Paul to be his assistant pastor and Paul accepted the call. About four years later, they went on their first missionary journey to Galatia, took about a year where they came back, of course, they met with the Jerusalem Council, explained what they were doing and he says that he was given permission by the whole church to focus purely on taking the gospel to Gentiles and forming Gentile churches around the Mediterranean. He did that for about eight years and then he was arrested, as you know, in 56 AD, spent six frustrating years in Kangaroo courts and in prison and Rome, he wrote some of his marvelous letters from Rome, Ephesians and Colossians and filamon and Philippians and then he was let loose around the year 62. We believe as early historians tell us that he traveled for about three or four more years and then around late 66, early 67, he was arrested again by the Emperor Nero. And without a trial, he was sentenced to death. He's close to that time. He said, the time of my departure is at hand, he's not talking about retirement, he's talking about death. And he said, it's at hand, it's literally nigh unto me. And it was in that context in the Mammarteen prison that he dictates that prison existed today up the ceiling through a hole in the ceiling to Timothy or this case to Luke who would write this thing down and he asked Timothy to come and see him before he died. He was executed, late in 67 or early in 68 AD, we don't know if Timothy ever got there to meet with him the chances are he did not. In his last words, he says this, chapter 4, verse 6. If I'm already being poured out as a drink offering and the time of my departure has come, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge will reward to me on that day and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing. He talks about being let loose about being untied to go on his final journey home to heaven. And what's fascinating I think in this is when he describes his ministry, he describes it in three terms that are identical to the ministry he talks about in this younger man named Timothy. Turned back to chapter 2, it's a fascinating parallelism here. When he writes to Timothy, who was a young man, incidentally Paul was about my age when he was martyred, he was about 68 years old. And the young man Timothy who was to come and replace him in ministry was the age of Kevin de Young, he's about 39. And so here's an older man leaving a younger man coming and when Paul describes to the rest of Christendom forever, what the ministry is about, he uses the same three metaphors. Looking chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, you then my son, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust a faithful man who will be able to teach others also. Now here are three metaphors, share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus, no soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, says his aim is to please the one who enlisted him, secondly. And an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules, and thirdly, it is the hard-working farmer who want to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything. Isn't that interesting? He tells young Timothy, you're going to be a soldier, you're going to be an athlete on a great marathon race of endurance, and you're going to be a hard-working farmer sowing and reaping the word of God until harvest comes. As a soldier, you must fight the good fight of faith. As a marathon runner, you must finish the race. As a hard-working farmer, you must tend to or keep the faith. Doesn't matter whether you're 68, 39, the job is the same. And I want to look just briefly, just a little bit this morning at these three things, and to elicit your help in preparing ourselves and this church for Kevin's coming. Three things that this soldier, this marathon runner and this hard-working farmer will need from you and me. First of all, he will have to fight the fight of faith. Paul mentions that repeatedly in his epistles. In 1 Timothy, chapter 1, he says, this charge I entrust you, Timothy, my child, in accordance with the prophecies previously made that you by them may wage the good warfare. He says in chapter 6, fight the good fight of faith. Here in chapter 2, he says, share in the sufferings of the good soldiers. He's indicating that what Timothy will be involved in, what Kevin will be involved in, is a great spiritual warfare. We're not involved in a spiritual business. We're not running a small enterprise. Kevin is a lieutenant under the captain Jesus Christ of a fighting unit that is here to bring the kingdom of God, to invade for in territory, and to claim it once again for God the king, under the leadership of Jesus, the crown prince. Now you know as well as I do that, that's Paul's paradigm for the Christian life, that we are always under some spiritual assault. He says that we need to take up the full armor of God and fight the good fight of faith. Because there's a lot of things happening around the pastor that are discouraging to him. Look at verse 9 and following in this passage. Where Paul begins to describe all of his friends and co-workers. He says to Timothy, do your best to come to me soon. For demons in love with this present world has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescans has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me. Get Mark and bring him with me. He is very useful to me for ministry. Ticacus I have sent to Ephesus. When he come bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troah, has also the books and above all the parchedments, the parchedments were the scriptures. Alexander the coppersmith did me great harm. The Lord will be paying him according to his deeds. We wear of him yourself for he strongly opposed our message. At my first events no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me, may it not be charged against them, but the Lord stood by me and strengthened me so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear of it. So I was rescued from the lion's mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his eternal kingdom to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. He talks about people that he's poured his life into and some of them deserted. Demas deserted him, he said. He loved this present world and gave up being a pastor and a Christian. He walked away from it. Others have not deserted Paul, but they were out doing ministry, Titus, and others that he was close to. He lacked food, he lacked books and clothing in his scriptures. Trophemus, who was his usual traveling mate, he left sick in my latest ticacus, who was a scribe, was involved in ministry in Troas and other places, and there was Alexander the coppersmith and others who he said did meet great harm. And then there was neglect. When Paul was perhaps brought before a summary court, he says no one came to stand by me and defend me, but just the Lord. The Lord stood with me. And listen to these magnificent words, he will rescue me and take me to his heavenly kingdom. And Paul saw his martyrdom as a rescue, a release, a gift from Jesus Christ. The gospel ministry, my friends, is not for cowards, it's not for those who quit easily or for the distracted. No soldier gets entangled in the affairs of everyday life, Paul says, so that he can fulfill the calling he has from the one who had listed him. We had time this morning we could go through second Corinthians and read Paul's litany of woes, all the things he suffered for the gospel's sake, but that's what Jesus Christ said when he called him. I will show him he must suffer by my say. And indeed he did. And that's true for all Christians. Christian life is a life of conflict with the devil and we get banged up sometimes. Sometimes it feels like we're losing, but we're not, we're really winning all the time. But it's painful. And in the Christian life in general there's also some people who drop out their casualties in this great cause, they quit, they desert, they're not found on duty. It increases with the importance of the spiritual mission, the larger the church, the greater the venture, the more pioneering the venue that you're expressing into. Paul says, you know, there's a wide door of the effect of service of Nabi, but there are many, many enemies. And of course there's just the general suffering that belongs to Christ that we share in. Paul said, I fill up in my own flesh what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Not to bring people to Christ, not to atone for their sins, but to perfect them, to grow them up. Now young Kevin's going to step into this. This will be a bigger challenge than anything he's had before and a greater opportunity. But I also had the privilege telling him that he couldn't find a better fighting unit to serve with if he looked all through the PCA. You are a great church. You're a great, great group of people and you've been a great blessing to Jane and me. So let me just give you this exhortation. When Kevin comes, here's what I want you to write these things down, please. I want you number one already to begin to undergird him with prayer and purpose to become his prayer warrior. You know the more you're praying for him, the less you'll get irritated with him. It's an amazing thing. It's hard to get frustrated with people you're praying for. When you pray for somebody, you're bound to them in your heart. So begin right now to pray for him. Begin, listen to me thinking today that my pastor is Kevin D. Young, no longer my cross. Number two, grant to Kevin D. Young a honeymoon of at least one year. I didn't have a honeymoon. We were kind of in crisis mode when I got here. But pastor needs a honeymoon. And what I mean by that is he needs a year to have to not make any major decision. There's no big crisis waiting for Kevin to solve. There's been nothing swept under the rug. He enters at a time of great unity and peace and harmony here. And it's time for you to get to know him and Trisha and the family and for him to get to know you. Grant him that honeymoon. Honeymoon will land. I want you to try to extend it as long as you can. Number three, see yourself not as a consumer or as a customer. But as a soldier, under Kevin's direction, you're fighting for the same cause, a divine one against the same enemy, a demonic one, Paul would write in another place about Timothy he said, so receive him in the Lord with all joy and honor such a man as he. I want you to receive Kevin and to honor him. I want him to come here feeling like you really want him to be here. And that you're excited to follow him in the good fight of faith. Why? Well, you're going to have him for a long time. He's young. Okay? I was dying while I got here but he's going to be here a long time because he has to meet. This isn't a sprint that he's involved in. It's a marathon. Look at the next thing that he says, an athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. What Paul has in mind, here's not sprints or dashes, but a marathon. Paul loves to use, as you know, athletic metaphors for the Christian life he talks about, wrestling with demonic forces and not boxing the air and finishing the race. And he's not the only one. The author of Hebrews tells us that we are to run with endurance, not with speed, but with endurance, the race that set before us. Things that happen easily and quickly in the church usually don't mean a whole lot. You can grow a pumpkin in 90 days. It's big and shiny and hollow on the inside. It takes 100 years to grow an oak tree. And so what we're in for is this marathon for the long term. You know what's interesting is Kevin's triathlete. That's when you ride a bike for a certain length of time and then you swim for a mile and then you run for a mile. I couldn't drive a car a mile without taking a break. But he knows what it is to endure. That's why he's so lean and mean. He's an athlete. But he doesn't face the time pressures that I did. I didn't have a whole lot of time on a God here. I was 57. We had some major things to work through. And so God always intended for my tenure to be relatively short. Not so with this young man. He's going to be with you a long time and if you treat him well and encourage him and let him set the pace, let him find his own stride, determine his own rhythms, this young man will take you all the way to the finish line when Jesus comes. To when he can hand it off to another young man who takes your grandchildren down through the cord or this marathon. Paul says he has to compete according to the rules. And there were three rules for every marathon runner in the Olympic Games. You have to be born in a Greek, you have to endure and go through 10 months of training and certified before a judge and swear before the statue of Zeus that he'd done that. And of course he had to compete in his particular event according to the rules. Kevin has all those qualifications. He's a born again Christian. Became a Christian as a child. He's born to Christian parents who were involved in Christian radio, raised in a debout, Dutch reformed Christian home. He's walked with God since childhood. He's never had the wayward years your pastors had. He's walked with the Lord all his life. He's been trained well at a Christian college, hope college, and then Gordon Cornel Theological Seminary. He's about to complete his PhD from Leicester University in church history in London. He's passed into church in Iowa. And now in Michigan and he's well developed in his spiritual gifts. And he has a track record. He's competed according to the rules. He's devoted husband of one beloved wife, Trisha. He has seven children who worshiped the ground. He walks on. He's been involved in the gospel coalition together for the gospel. The reformed church in America now, the PCA, he has high character and high morals. He's a humble man and earnest life. He comes with amazing recommendations and he has not cut corners. For recommending to you a man who is able to run this race, if you will just run alongside him and encourage him, you will finish well. Here's the third thing he is. He's a hard-working farmer who has to keep the faith. Keeping the faith is keeping what Paul tells Timothy is the good deposit. He says that over and over and he calls it the good deposit, the good conscience, the pattern of sound words, the words of faith, the good confession, sometimes just the faith, or that which has been entrusted to you. This body of sacred scripture that Jude calls the faith once for all delivered to the saints and he is to keep it. That is to guard it as a sacred investment or trust so he can pass it on to others while he makes a return on the investment. It's a banking term. But it's also a farming term. The word is used to farmers who tilled the ground and kept the land and passed it on to their descendants. This trust of this field that would be theirs and their families for generations. And that's of course another imagery that Paul often uses. He follows Jesus Christ talking about sores and seeds and weed and tears and lands and goats and harvest fields. He talks about sowing and reaping. He says that one man plants, another man waters, God gives a harvest. And here he's talking about Timothy doing the hard work, the day in a day out grind of sowing and reaping, long hours, tedious duty, day in a day out laying out the truth, watering with prayer and sometimes with your own tears, the relentless cycles of sowing and reaping times of drought, seasons of joy, rhythms from Sunday to Sunday, as steady as spring turns to fall, fall to winter, winter to spring again. What do farmers need? They need co-workers. There's no one man that can farm a field this large. These all of us to roll up our sleeves and they've come part of the ministry team. We're not consumers or customers. For what Jesus calls his fellow workers, secondly, he needs rain. Where does rain come from? And in spiritual sense, the prophets tell us that the early and latter rains come from prayer. That we would pray God's blessings upon this young man and he needs seasons of refreshment from the Lord. I'm going to ask you to keep an eye on Kevin D. Young because he's the kind young man that will work himself to death. He'll be preaching twice on Sunday, be teaching an RTS seminary, blogging for the gospel coalition, mentoring his staff, counseling with members, meeting with officers, writing books, traveling on teaching, preaching missions, going to conferences, loving his wife, rearing his seven children, he will wear himself out. If you don't lend him your hand, pray for him daily and make him take time off. He needs that. This is not a time to be sad or apprehensive or reserved. This is a time to be excited about the future. People say, well, what's going to happen to you, Pastor Ross? Well, I'm not done yet. I'm not contending to get on that boat that's sailing to heaven tomorrow. But the time of my departure has come. The Lord has for Jane and me something else to do. If God doesn't have a plan for my life, Jane does. Because Jane's not going to let any moss grow underneath me, Jane's proactive and she's excited about the future and so we're praying and thinking through things. The elders have been very gracious to take care of us and make sure that when we retire early, we are not financially hurt by this, that they will make us equal to when we would have retired in April of 2019 and so we're able to move ahead into what's up right future and we're just seeing what the Lord has in store for us. But I want you to know this one more thing here. Paul says that his great reward is the crown of righteousness. A lot of people think that's a special crown given to pastors, but it's not. Paul says this is not for me only, but for all who have loved his appearing. For all the people that wanted Jesus Christ to appear, Patricia is the word here, a theological word we use today of the second coming. For all who long for Jesus Christ to come back again and receive the glory and the honor and the crowns, for all people who look forward to that great day, God has a crown of righteousness. Part of the righteousness of Jesus Christ given to them in glory so that they can take that crown and lay it at the feet of Jesus Christ. Let me tell you something and I want you to remember this more than anything else this morning. This is not about my legacy. You understand that? I don't have a legacy. I just work here. I just want to God's voice. That's all I am. This is about Harry's legacy or Tom's legacy. It won't be about Kevin's legacy. It's about one legacy written over the balcony as you come in here so that in all things he might have the preeminence. That's the only legacy we're concerned about that someday. Every evil bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is the hero of it all to the glory of God. It's all about Jesus Christ what he's doing. When we lose track of that, we take a rise off of Christ and we get in trouble. Our legacy is simply this that we fight hard to the end, that we finish, that we keep what was entrusted to us so we can pass it on to the next person. You know, that's not really that hard if you keep Jesus in the driver's seat. One of the books that I have enjoyed reading over the last couple of years as a book actually recommend to me by my friend Mark Davis called The Road to Character written by David Brooks. You're for me with him from PBS and Face the Nation and New York Times and Washington Post. He's a writer and a journalist. He's a Jewish person who's in the process of becoming a Christian. He's actually attending now and then Tim Keller's church in New York. And when he gets to the end of the book, he says that he wants to set before his readers what he calls a humility code he has 15 principles in their rich. I'd like to read you just in closing, Principle number 10 and Principle number 14. Principle number 10 he calls grace and here's what he says. We are all ultimately saved by grace. The struggle against weakness often takes the shape of a you. You are living your life and then you get knocked off course either by your overwhelming love or something or failure or illness or loss of employment or a twist of fate. The shape is advance, retreat and then advance again. In retreat, you admit your need and surrender your crown. You open up space for others to fill grace floods in. Become in the form of a love from a friend or family or in the assistance of an unexpected stranger or maybe from God, but the message is the same. You are accepted. You don't flail about in desperation because hands are holding you up. You don't have to struggle for a place because you are embraced and have a place where you are accepted. You just have to accept the fact that you are loved, gratitude fills a soul and with it the desire to serve and to give back to the very people who gave to you. I'm here to tell you that God has saved Jane and me from our sins. You have loved us well and the Jane and I have received far more from you than we have given. This has been for us a place of grace and we will always remember it that way. I believe that grace is here waiting for Kevin D. Young as well. Principle number 14 he calls success. The best leader tries to lead along the grain of human nature rather than go against it. He realizes that he, like the people, he leads is likely to be sometimes selfish, narrow-minded and self-deceiving. Therefore, he prefers arrangements that are low and steady to those that are lofty and heroic. As long as the foundations of an institution are sound, he prefers change that is constant and gradual and incremental to change that is radical and sudden. He understands that public life is a contest between partial truths and legitimate contesting interests. And the goal of a leader is to find a just balance between the competing values and competing goals. He seeks to be a trimmer to shift weight one way or another as circumstances demand in order to keep the boat moving steadily forward on an even keel. Understands that in politics and business, the lows are lower than the highs or high and therefore the downside risk caused by bad decisions is always greater than the upside benefits that accrue from good ones. Therefore, the wise leader is a steward for his organization and simply tries to pass it along to the next man in better condition than he found it. You have been very gracious to put up with my sinful and eccentric ways you have been kind to me. And you have been more than delightful because when we needed to trim this way or that way, you always shifted with me so that we kept on keel. And now I'm going to pass on this organization to Kim D. Young and I hope it's in better shape than when I received it, but if it's not, it doesn't matter because there are weights for you and me and for Kevin, the crown of righteousness that Jesus Christ has earned for us so that in the end, all the glory, all of it goes to him.
Father, how we love Jesus Christ, it's almost too much for us to say in human words, but we owe to him everything. Our life is a human being. Our new life is a born again creature of his heavenly kingdom, our place in this church, our past, our present, our future. One of the rewards we received for the things we did in a partial and inconsistent manner, those rewards are from Christ, graciously shared with us. We do love our church because it is the wife of Jesus, your beloved bride, as we come now to the Lord's table to celebrate our union with Christ and our communion with one another. We're asking you to fill us with your Holy Spirit for a new season, season of joy and anticipation and good things, knowing that our best days lie before us and that someday everyone in this church who's ever been a member of this church will bow their knees and bow their heads and confess that it was Jesus Christ who did it all and all for your glory. Give us, we pray in this new season, encourage us and prepare our souls and this soil here for Mr. Kevin D. Young so that you might be pleased in what we do and your son be honored for it's in his name that we pray these things. Amen.