Timothy Week 1 Sermon Starter Timothy My True Son in the Faith (Use Timothy background)

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1 THEME: Timothy Letters to a Young Man Timothy My True Son of the Faith Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 18-19, 2013 at First United Methodist Church - Durango Scripture: 1Timothy 1:1-2 and 4:6-7, This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope. 2 I am writing to Timothy, my true son in the faith. May God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord give you grace, mercy, and peace. 6 If you explain these things to the brothers and sisters, Timothy, you will be a worthy servant of Christ Jesus, one who is nourished by the message of faith and the good teaching you have followed. 7 Do not waste time arguing over godless ideas and old wives tales. Instead, train yourself to be godly. 11 Teach these things and insist that everyone learn them. 12 Don t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. VIDEO Timothy Week 1 Sermon Starter Timothy My True Son in the Faith (Use Timothy background) It has blessed me to hear each of the students read Scripture this weekend. I have been able to watch each of them grow over the past few years and it is clear that God has a calling on each one of their lives in different ways. Part of what we want to talk about today is how God works in the lives of our young people because we are beginning a new three-part sermon series on the two letters that the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy who was his protégé. These letters were written to Timothy when he was in his 20s but Paul began to mentor him when Timothy was nine years old. We are going to learn a little bit more today about the relationship that Paul had with Timothy and we are going to ask a question. What does this mean for our lives today? Next week we will turn our attention to the meat of the message of the first letter to Timothy. The following week we will turn to the content of second Timothy. I would like to invite you to take out of your bulletin your Message

2 Notes and your Meditation Moments. At the top of the Message Notes you will find a Scripture passage listed that we read today and then you will find a place to write things down and I hope you will write anything down that you feel like God might be speaking to you so you can reflect upon it later. I believe that God will speak to you today through this message and our time of worship in some way. Then you will find a chance to read about some of the background between Paul and Timothy. You will read a bit of 1 st Timothy this week and the following week you will read the rest of 1 st Timothy. The final week we will have you read through all of 2 nd Timothy so you will have a chance to read two books of the New Testament during the next few weeks. We talk about these as books of the Bible but Paul didn't think he was writing a book. He was just writing a letter to somebody that he knew who was asked to lead a church. He was writing a personal letter like you would write a personal letter to someone you care about and that you know. In this case Paul was writing to someone who is probably 40 years younger than he was and he was trying to encourage and mentor and guide through these letters. I imagine that Paul had no idea that these letters would be read by churches 2000 years later. Yet we read them because we sense the Holy Spirit inspiration in those letters and that there is something for us in them today. I truly believe that you will find that these letters will speak in your life as you read them over the next few weeks. I want to it acknowledge that when we write letters we sometimes express things that we didn't mean to intend. When Paul writes he is using Greek and if you read the original Greek translations you will find that he will stop in midsentence and change thoughts and then he never comes back and finishes the sentence. Sometimes if you were to read the original Greek you might smile to yourself and wonder if Paul meant to express something in a particular way because it seems rather silly. Yet the Holy Spirit uses all of this imperfection to teach us more about God and the relationship that he longs for in each of our lives. My mother came to visit me a few weeks ago and she brought back three boxes from her garage that she no longer could store because she moved into a smaller condominium. They are my things that I collected all through high school and even into college. There was a shell collection and my old high school yearbooks and this collection of letters from different people that I had saved. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 2

3 Some were from old friends and some were from family. I was especially tickled to read what some people wrote in my yearbooks and I'm pretty sure that if I showed this to them today they would look at them and wish they had phrased something differently. I know that when I have written letters in the past, and even today when I write an , I sometimes wish I had expressed something differently. Some years ago I received an from someone with this list of funny things that people have said in their letters to insurance adjusters after they had been in an accident. I thought you might enjoy some of them and it would highlight how easy it is to misunderstand or misrepresent something in a letter. 1. "Coming home, I drove into the wrong house and collided with a tree I don't have." 2. "To avoid hitting the bumper of the car in front, I struck the pedestrian." 3. "My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle." 4. "When I saw I could not avoid the collision, I stepped on the gas and crashed into the other car." 5. "I was driving my car out of the driveway in the usual manner, when it was struck by the other car in the same manner it had been struck several times before." 6. "The pedestrian had no idea which direction to go, so I ran him over." 7. "The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve several times before I hit him." 8. In an attempt to kill a fly, I drove into a telephone pole." 9. "I pulled away from the side of the road, glanced at my mother-in-law and headed over the embankment." 10. "I had been shopping for plants and was on my way home. As I reached an intersection, a hedge sprang up, obscuring my vision." 11. "I had been driving for 40 years when I fell asleep at the wheel." When we look at the letters from Paul to Timothy there are several things which are helpful for us to know. I have books of letters from people like Dr. Martin Luther King and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Whenever you read someone's letter from the past, it is always helpful to know what the context is that precipitated the writing of the letter. What was the recipient going through that dictated the letter be sent? What was the person who sent it thinking about as they wrote the Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 3

4 letter? I want to give you a little bit of that background today for Paul's letters to Timothy as we begin this sermon series. As I said earlier, Paul first got to know Timothy when he was around nine or 10 years old. Timothy and his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois lived in a little town called Lystra which today would be in east central Turkey. Paul was on his first missionary journey around A.D. 45 and he went to this town along with Barnabas. They were preaching the gospel and God had done an amazing miracle in a particular man's life as a result of their prayers. Many people had come out to hear them, including many from the synagogue. These three Jewish members of the synagogue, Lois, Eunice and Timothy heard Paul preach in that setting. They came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and they were devout Jews who loved God. Shortly after this miracle and they began preaching, Paul and Barnabas were run out of Lystra. But Paul came back through on his way back to Antioch which is in Syria. Five years later Paul came back to Lystra on his second missionary journey. When he came back through he was amazed and astounded to meet young Timothy who at this point was around 14 or 15 years old. He was a devout follower of Jesus Christ and he knew the Scriptures backwards and forwards because he had studied the Hebrew Bible since the time he was a child. He was a leader at the church even as a teenager. Remember that the average lifespan was around 35 or 40 years, although some did live into their 60s or 70s. When you were 14 or 15 as a young man you would begin to apprentice, which is like going to college today. Paul turned to Timothy when he came through Lystra the second time and said to him, "I think you have gifts to be a missionary and a pastor and a leader in the church. Would you come with me and Silas as we travel and start new churches for the next three years?" Timothy said, "Yes," and he became Paul's apprentice. He traveled on the second missionary journey with Paul and they started new churches and visited young churches. They were arrested together and served God in amazing in dramatic ways. In Acts chapter 16 you can read about what happens midway through that journey, where Paul would ask Timothy and Silas to stay for a month or two in a particular community to establish the faith in a deep way and help new converts get off on the right foot. Paul would tell them to join him in the next town when they had finished, but he would literally leave them in charge while he went on to the next community. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 4

5 Paul also begins to write his letters during this time and we read that six of those letters were co-written by Timothy. We don't often recognize this but Paul tells us that on six different occasions Timothy was writing with him the letters. I want you to imagine this great apostle of the faith who is in his 50s or 60s and starting churches all over the world. He is writing letters to the churches to give them advice and encouragement, all the while giving co-authorship to a 14 or 15 or 16 or 17-year-old young man named Timothy. When we come to 1 st Timothy it has been almost 20 years since Paul took Timothy as an apprentice. We re not actually sure on the chronology and it is one of the challenges for scholars as we look at 1 st and 2 nd Timothy because the chronology doesn't line up with the book of Acts. Some think that first and second Timothy were actually written after Paul's death, compiling and editing together letters that Paul did send to Timothy and Titus while he was still alive, which allowed these to speak into the church at a later time. Some scholars believe that in order to reconcile the chronology. What is clear however, is that Paul meant to mentor and encourage Timothy as he grew and he wrote him these letters as Timothy was leading different churches that developed under Paul's leadership. Let me show you on a map how this works and you will find that map in your bulletin so please take it out if you would. This is a map of the second missionary journey of Paul. Paul s Second Missionary Journey (graphic) Paul has assigned Timothy to go to Ephesus to give direction to a church that Paul started on his first missionary journey. On the map you will see Italy on the far left and then the Adriatic Sea and then the region that we know today as Greece which is called Macedonia on your map. You can see Athens on the coast of Greece and then the Aegean Sea which borders modern-day Turkey on the continent of Asia. You see Ephesus on the Western coast of Turkey with the town in which Timothy grew up, Lystra, east of that in the middle of Turkey. Paul sends Timothy to Ephesus because there was a church in this community in which Paul spent the most amount of time on any of his journeys, two years and three months. It was the most time he spent in any one place. He loved the people of Ephesus and it was the leading church in the Christian faith in terms of size at this moment in history. Ephesus was the second-largest city in the Roman Empire and Paul sends Timothy, this 25-year-old young man to try and Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 5

6 straighten out this church because they have some serious problems that they are facing. Next week we will look at those problems that this church was facing and what the advice was that Paul gave the Timothy to straighten them out. In today's passage we find two things that Paul is affirming that we want to notice as part of this letter. Paul's love of Timothy and confidence in his ability is central to the beginning of this letter. Here is what we heard earlier from the beginning of 1 st Timothy. 1 This letter is from Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, appointed by the command of God our Savior and Christ Jesus, who gives us hope. 2 I am writing to Timothy, my true son in the faith. Paul never had children but Timothy was his true son in the faith. He had known him since he was nine and mentored and encouraged him through his teenage and young adult years. He had prepared and equipped Timothy and covered him with his authority. Paul sent Timothy out to do the work of God and then he says these words toward the end of the letter in chapter Don t let anyone think less of you because you are young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your love, your faith, and your purity. My guess is that Timothy's confidence was probably shaken as he arrived in Ephesus as people said, "Why did Paul send a boy to do a man's job? You're just a kid! You're just 25 years old! Who are you to come here and tell us how to do church?" Paul is writing to encourage Timothy and tell them not to let anyone look down on him because he is young. Instead, you lead them and you show them by your example and by your faith what it means to be a faithful follower of Jesus Christ. Take authority to be the leader in your church. The first church I served in the Denver area was Smoky Hill United Methodist Church and I was the youth director while I was finishing seminary and training to be a pastor. My first two years at the church the youth ministry grew and the church grew and my mentor for the candidacy process to become a pastor was the senior pastor of that church. I was devastated the day that he called me into his office and told me that he was being removed for misconduct. It turns out he had multiple affairs with women in the church. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 6

7 The Bishop called me the next day as did my District Superintendent and they asked me if I would take a Local Pastor s License which would allow me to do baptisms and communion and weddings and funerals for the next few months until they got a pastor in to help me out. The church had grown from 200 to 600 in worship and I had no clue what I was doing and I look back and realize that it was rather stupid of me to say yes, but I did. One month later, while I was at Annual Conference in Denver, which is the annual gathering of pastors and lay leaders in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, Bishop Roy Sano and several other leaders in the United Methodist Church laid hands on me and prayed over me and gave me a license to be a pastor even though I still had another year remaining before ordination. I was 24 years old and I will never forget these hands pressing down on my head on my shoulders as the Bishop said, "Take thou authority to preach the word of God, order the life of the church and administer the sacraments as you lead God's people." I freaked out as I realized I was in charge of a church with more than 500 people in worship every weekend and they had just lost their senior pastor to a scandal. I wore a robe for those first few weekends at the church just so they would know I was a pastor because I looked like I was about 16 years old. I grew a beard and I hoped that it would help people see me as a pastor more clearly. Now I wish people thought I was 16 years old but that's not going to happen anymore! I think most of the people at the church felt sorry for me at first because I was in charge of the youth group and now all of a sudden I was the one in charge. The truth is that most of the people of the congregation were in shock from the pastor being removed but there were several who stepped up and encouraged me to lead in the best way that I could. I found Pauls in several older members who came alongside of me. Several of them went out of their way to tell me that they believed in me and they were going to stand with me and they knew that God would use me to lead them as a church. They gave me confidence and helped me to believe in myself and they challenged me not to let anyone look down on me because I was young. That's one of the moments in my life that I remember when I look at this passage about Timothy. This relationship between Paul and Timothy is a biblical one that is meant to be reflected in our relationships in today's world. While having someone who is a Paul in our lives is important we also should recognize that every single one of Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 7

8 us as believers is meant to be raising up and investing in the next generation. This is why we have a core value in this church which states this truth. We are to invest in future generations. I think that is part of God's word for us today. The question I want to end this sermon with today will be, "Who is your Timothy?" This is the way that God invests in one generation to the next. We are meant to encourage and bless and stand by those who are young and then we will turn over leadership. Paul could've tried to go back to Ephesus and lead the church but he turned leadership over to Timothy and allowed him to spread his wings and try things. That is precisely what we are called to be doing as a church and has individual believers, is to be in that kind of relationship with our young people. We see that all the way throughout the Scriptures. Moses had Joshua. If you read closely the book of Exodus when Moses goes up to Mount Sinai and received the 10 Commandments you will notice that he doesn't go up alone. You might think that Moses went up alone but if you read the text carefully you will discover that Joshua went up on the mountain with him and they came back down again with the 10 Commandments. Moses invested in Joshua and Joshua at the same time strengthened Moses and helped him to remain young. Together they were a powerful team until Joshua took over for Moses and led the people into the Promised Land when Moses days were finished. We see this kind of relationship in Elijah and Elisha. Elijah was the great prophet of the Old Testament and Elisha was his understudy. Elijah turned over leadership to Elisha over a period of years and he encouraged him. He placed his mantle upon Elisha and when he Elijah was taken up into heaven a double portion of God's prophetic spirit was poured onto Elisha and he continued the work of God after Elijah was gone. In the New Testament we find this kind of relationship between Mary the mother of Jesus and her cousin Elizabeth. Mary was 13 years old when she found out that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. She doesn't tell her parents and she immediately makes her way to Ein Karam which is a nine-day journey from Nazareth. She goes there to find Elizabeth her older cousin and it is with her that she finally finds someone that she can share what is happened in her life. Elizabeth believes in her and encourages her and blesses Mary which enables her to find joy in the middle of that experience. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 8

9 Who are the young people that you are mentoring? Who are the people in the younger generation that you are encouraging? We do that in lots of ways. Some of you teach children's Sunday school or help with Vacation Bible School. You have been faithful in that and have helped raise up children to know about God. Some of you have been sponsors for our confirmation class or for youth group. How grateful I am for those of you in this congregation who have understood the sacred call of raising up our young people. You are not just filling spots or being a warm body, but you are in a place where you can speak into the lives of young people at some of the most critical parts of their growing up years. This is a calling for you to invest in young people and raise them up and pass on wisdom and care for them. For whom are you a Paul? Who is your Timothy? This is true not just in the church but in life. Each of us are called to be raising up the next generation and investing in them, no matter what our profession. I'm turning 50 this year and I have a very clear realization that I am not going to go on forever. I'm not going to be pastor here forever. I realize that I need to be investing in people who are going to take my place someday. Over the past few years I have become intentional about being available for younger pastors who want a mentor. I now have five different young pastors that I talk with on a regular basis to encourage them. Many of them have felt like giving up within the first few years because they are young and have lots of energy and many of the churches they are serving struggle to accept leadership from someone who is younger and who has new ideas about how to reach new generations. A few years ago we started asking our Confirmation classes who they thought in that class would be a good pastor. We are meant to be asking our young people who among them might have the gifts and graces to be a pastor. Not everybody is called to be a pastor, but some of our young people are and we need to be encouraging them. I want to know which one of our youth is going to be reaching today's kindergartners or children in the infant center. I'm not going to be the pastor for today's three-year-olds when they grow up so who is going to be? Pastors don't just fall out of the sky. It's going to be some of our young people and so we need to be asking them to pray about it and ask if God is calling Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 9

10 them. If God is calling you it is the most awesome and coolest job you could possibly have. You get to stand next to the groom and the bride walks in. You get the hold the newborn baby as they are dedicated or baptized. You have people come in your office and say, "Pastor, I have never told anyone this before, but I have to tell somebody this." You get together with family and offer comfort when they lost a loved one and you get to celebrate their life and help the community and the family remember that this life is not all there is. You get to be part of the most intimate and powerful times in people's lives. You get to be the instrument of Christ healing in people's lives. You have a chance to lead people to know who Jesus Christ is and you get to help dream God dreams for the church. You get to see people come together and discover their purpose and see the church do things that no one of us could do by themselves as they band together and reach out to the Holly House or to an orphanage in Africa or to people in need of medical care in Guatemala or to those who need a meal at the soup kitchen. You get the joy of preaching the gospel every week. If God is calling you into being a pastor and serving in this way then there is nothing like and it is awesome. Part of our role as the church is to help the young people in our community begin to hear that call. So far we have a number of young people in this congregation who are thinking that God may be calling them to be pastors of the church in the future. We need great doctors and lawyers and schoolteachers and nurses and every other kind of profession, but somewhere along the way there has to be some really great leaders for the church in the future or the church will have no future. I want to remind you that the reason we mentor young people is not just for their benefit but because it blesses us as well. Don was a member of my church in the Denver area and he had been a faithful part of that church for 30 years. He had started several businesses and was very successful in the corporate world and when he retired he struggled to find his place. He offered to go back to his company and develop a leadership program for young executives and he began to mentor younger men and women who went on to become great leaders in their company. Several years into retirement his wife of almost 50 years passed away and I wondered how he was going to make it through that. Do you know what began to happen? Those young people that he had mentored and encouraged came alongside of him and said, "We are with you. You are not alone." Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 10

11 He told me later that investing in young leaders was the best thing he had ever done with his life. It brought him life and vitality and he was going to do it until the day he died or could not do it anymore. There is something about mentoring and other people that helps bring life back into you. Here is a truth that I have noticed over and over again. As you age, if you are willing to invest in younger generations, you will find that it makes you younger and brings you energy and life. What are you doing to raise up your replacements? We know that in doing this it can bless us and make us younger. When Paul was in prison almost everyone abandoned him. Do you know who didn't abandon Paul when he was in prison? It was Timothy who was there for Paul. He blessed and encouraged Paul in the most difficult of circumstances. That relationship was a two-way street and this is how it's meant to work as we invest in future generations. Who is your Timothy? Who is your Paul? Those of you who are younger, I want to remind you that I have never met anyone who is a successful executive or leader in their field who didn't say that they stood on the shoulders of older people who had mentored them in life. The wisest people I know are all people who are willing to say, "I need to find somebody who is older than I am who can help me to see, learn and understand how to be the best I can be." These relationships work for the benefit of both Paul and Timothy. This idea is important not just for individuals but for churches. Charles Handy is an organizational specialist who talks about life cycles of organizations. He uses what we call the sigmoid curve to describe this. Watch the video screen as we draw this out for you. VIDEO Sigmoid Curve (no audio but Jeff will talk) Most organizations start here at the bottom and they have a period of rapid growth and then a period of stability and then finally they have a period of decline. That is the lifecycle of most organizations. You recognize that in businesses and in life. This is true in churches as well. Handy said that it is possible for an organization not to die as long as they recognize the peak of their lifecycle when they are growing like crazy. The next step in organizations development would be stability or slow decline but they decide at this point, just prior to the top of the curve, to reinvent themselves. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 11

12 They launch another sigmoid curve. Handy said that when you do this and you develop another facet of your business or another product line or you reinvent yourself, you find that you are reinvigorated. Sigmoid Curve Snapshot (graphic) There are 32,000 United Methodist churches in the United States and if you look at those churches as a whole, the reality is that we are on the decline. We were rocking in the 1930s and 40s and 50s. We finally reached that place of stability in the 1960s and we just convinced ourselves that it was okay because we were stabilizing. We recognize that the next phase was decline. We have been declining for 47 straight years as a denomination. Part of what we have failed to do is to reinvent ourselves. We have failed to ask the questions about what it means to reach new generations. A critical part of any organization including the church is to figure out how to connect with each new generation, recognizing that change is not optional but it is inevitable. Let's use this old typewriter is an example. This was the laptop of the 1960s. I didn't have a laptop but my parents had laptops in the 1960s and some of you may have as well. This is a 1960s laptop. If you were to ask a 10-year-old today what to do with this old typewriter they might pound on the keys for a while but they didn't even know what this return lever does on the right side. How do you get the paper out of the printer on this thing? You have to use correcting ink! What is that? But this was how many people communicated years ago because it was our laptop and our way of expressing ourselves. Many of us have had modern-day laptop computer for some time, but for today's 10-year-olds this ipad is the only laptop they are going to know. There is no keyboard. It does everything you could possibly imagine it doing. The way that we think about doing work in the world today is different than even five years ago. The question for us as a church is this. Are we listening and learning from young people? Are we willing to reinvent ourselves? Do we recognize that the gospel doesn't change but the package has to for each generation? Some of you know that we are in the process of hiring a new position at the church which will be the Director of Worship and the Arts. The point of hiring this new position is not just to help lead what we are currently doing when it comes to our contemporary worship on Saturday night or Sunday mornings. We also want Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 12

13 someone who will come in and help us take the next step and look at how we can continue to reach younger generations through music and the arts which include media and writing and painting. We will try to find the right balance between music that many of us have come to love and adding new styles and hopefully will find something that irritates people in equal proportions but also enables us to reach and connect with new generations. I know that change can be disconcerting and challenging for many of us and the truth is that we only like change if it was our idea, but I want to remind you that the reason that we think about these things is because we have reinvented ourselves over the past 15 years but we are coming up on another curve. This church is 132 years old and it has reinvented itself several times. We moved from 3 rd Avenue to our current location in 1970 and there were many people of the time that said no one would ever drive this far out on Florida road to go to church! In 2005 we completed our last renovation of this building and while we have a few more tweaks that we can do we recognize that we are going to need more space and so we have plans for another campus in Grandview that we know God will bless in the years ahead. We don't know exactly what it will look like but we know that we can't stand still or we end up on a plateau and then we die. Sigmoid Curve Top of Curve Snapshot (Graphic) Right now we are doing pretty good as a church and there are lots of great things happening. We have lots of great programs and we are connecting with lots of people and the parking lot is often full and we could simply sit around and say, "Why do we have to change anything?" None of us like to change. I don't like to change and you don't like to change and we especially don't like to change unless it's our idea. It would be easy for us to say, "Let's just keep on doing what we've been doing." The problem is that decline sneaks up on you. You don't really notice it at first and then you make excuses when it starts to be noticeable that you are in decline. One day you can't make excuses anymore and you look back and go, "Oh no! What happened and how did we get here?" It becomes even harder to change once you've begun the process of decline. We have started on this process by bringing in Zack Esgar last year to help lead our ministry with college students called Rooted. But Zach is also here to help with hospitality and evangelism and help us see things with new eyes and Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 13

14 young eyes and fresh eyes. We must always be asking the question, "How are we connecting with the next generation?" It's not that we are disregarding what we do for my generation or older because the reality is that most of what we do is for us. We do need to be more intentional about how we connect with that next-generation or it won't happen. I have served at this church for 11 years and the pastor before me served here for six years. 17 years ago when that pastor arrived there were a total of two children in our children's ministry and that was Katie Dudley, who graduates in two weeks and that pastor's son. This church had gone through one of those lifecycles and it was on the decline and he worked very hard and then passed the baton off to me and we have reinvented ourselves in many ways over the last 17 years. That is not to say that the ministry before that was not important or not valuable, it was just that we forgot to be intentional about reaching future generations. The last 17 years we have started this Christian School and we began to live out a core value that children and youth should be of utmost importance so we moved intentionally to hire a full-time youth director and a full-time director of children and family ministries. Living out that core value and keeping that idea of investing in future generations in front of us I believe has been critical in this church connecting with more children and youth and families and now young adults and college students. If we want a church that is vibrant within 100 years and not on the downside of that curve that we have to be intentional to see ourselves as Paul who are willing to invest in the lives of Timothy. I recognize that as our church grows I need to turn moreover and we need to turn more of it over the younger people and allow them to make decisions. This is why Zack is here to preach 6 to 8 times during the year so you can hear that younger perspective and that next-generation share. Some of you are getting a bit nervous I can tell and wondering if I'm going to announce some big change in the next few minutes. No, I'm not going to do that and I'm not announcing today that I'm quitting or moving because I'm too old to be your pastor! We do need to think strategically together about what it means to be Paul and what it means to be Timothy in today's world. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 14

15 Paul knew that he was going to be put to death someday after he was imprisoned by the Romans. If there wasn't a Timothy then there was going to be no more church. Who's your Paul? Who's your Timothy? Let me give you an example from someone else's life about how important it is for someone to stand with you when you are a Timothy and you need a Paul. Donna Claycomb Sokol was assigned 8 years ago to pastor the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church in Washington DC. When she arrived they had an average attendance of nine people with 35 members. The church is surrounded by community with young people living in it and the building was old and historic and pretty rundown. They sent her there as a young woman to revitalize this church because the United Methodist Church believed it still had potential. Here is what Donna writes about her first year in that church. When I arrived the average age was 82. The lay leader was 90 years old. The finance committee chairperson was 93 years old and the staff parish relations committee chairperson was 97 years old and her name was Mabel. I arrived with so much anticipation and excitement. I had a list of ideas to be implemented and I could see how God was about to transform this church. It didn't take long however for my joy to be robbed. The moment that I started to make some changes is the very moment the criticism started. Perhaps it proceeded my arrival as they heard about my gender and my age, but it got louder after my arrival. So many people questioned why I was here. So many people wanted nothing to do with the changes that I was proposing our church would go through in order for it to grow again and reach new people. There was a woman in the church however who stood with me when everybody else was criticizing. (Think about what it would be like to only have nine people and most of them are criticizing you!) The one woman who stood with me was the staff parish relations chairperson, 97-year-old Mabel. Donna and Mabel (picture) Mabel went to the congregation and stood in front of her friends who had gone to church with her for 50 or 60 years and she said, "I am with our pastor. It's hard for me to experience change but I want our church to have a future with hope. So I'm standing by Donna and I'm going to help her make these changes." Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 15

16 When 97-year-old Mabel said that, people listened. It didn't really matter what Donna said, but when Mabel spoke people got the picture. Donna wrote to Mabel just before Mabel s death and shared these words. Mabel, you kept looking me straight in the eyes. You kept saying to me in the midst of the criticism, "You have the best job in Washington Donna. Mount Vernon Place is in the center of the city. Our city needs Mount Vernon Pl., United Methodist Church and I believe in you. You are just what is needed. Keep up the good work." And that made all the difference. Eight years later now none of those nine people are alive anymore. They have all entered God's kingdom eternal. But in the last eight years Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church has grown by 2000%. They have gone from nine people in worship to more than 200 and worship, and those 200 people are mostly new to faith in Christ. They are young people who live in that community and they are excited and jazzed about starting new ministries and new programs. They have partnered with all sorts of ministries in the heart of the city and their goal is to have 300 and worship within three years. That is the story of resurrection and new life not only because there was a Timothy but because there was a Paul. Who is your Timothy? Who is your Paul? The last thing I want to do is end by reminding us how important it is to invest in young people who will become the leaders of our church in the years ahead. I have a little chart I thought I would share with you. United Methodist Clergy Chart (graphic) There are 16,000 United Methodist clergy in United States today. 950 of them are under age 35. The average age of our clergy is 59 years old and what this tells us is that if we don't raise up young leaders and young pastors then we don't have a future. It tells us that we are doing a terrible job of reaching Timothys. That's why in the next year we want to be intentional about raising up outstanding young people. God has to call them but we have to encourage them to think about it and pray about leading a church. Most churches never even think about asking children or young people to think about ordained ministry. This is Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 16

17 why we talk to our confirmation classes about this and why we will begin talking about this with our second graders when they get their Bibles where we need to say, "Maybe some of you God might be calling to be a pastor and to preach from this book." We need to encourage our young people to pray about whether God is leading them to lead the church in the future. Those young people then will go out to be reformers and be modern-day Timothy in the world. They can then influence the next generation and be the Paul to another generation of Timothys. Do you see how this works and how change happens? I want to end by reminding you of something I shared with you a few weeks ago about how I heard my call to serve as a pastor. I was 17 years old when I helped lead a youth Sunday worship service. I was living in a home with an alcoholic stepfather and there was abuse and trauma and I was heading down a not so good path. 85-year-old Verma Berry came up to me and told me that she thought I should be a pastor and I told her she was stupid. Thank you very much but I'm planning on becoming an engineer because they make lots of money. Another woman told me a few months later about how she remembered my sermon still and I should think about becoming a pastor. My youth director Wayne told me he saw something in me and thought I should think about becoming a pastor. My pastor Gil took me to lunch every summer that I was home and talked to me about becoming a pastor. But just to show you how challenging this is for all of us, he recently wrote me and told me how excited he was for me to be a pastor but he hoped that I wasn't like some of those new pastors who wore loafers and a sports coat but instead wore a robe because that was more appropriate for worship! I haven't had the heart to encourage them to go watch one of my sermons on the web because I'm afraid he'll see me dressed like this, without my shirt tucked in! I now know that God made me for this, to be your pastor, and Gil was my Paul. He's retired now and I have made sure to let him know the difference he has made in my life and I think in many of the lives of the people that I have had the privilege to serve. It was my Paul tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Jeff, I think God has a calling on your life." Your job today is to tap the young people in this church on the shoulder and encourage them and help them hear God's call. Mel Winger is in his mid-80s Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 17

18 and he attends a small United Methodist Church in the Midwest with 100 people in worship the weekend. He has decided that at this point in life the most important thing he can do is raise up the next generation of pastors who will lead the kingdom of God in the future. Out of his little United Methodist Church Mel Winger has helped 10 people hear a call to ministry and go to seminary. He has helped pay for their seminary so that he is creating a future with hope for churches. I want to ask you one last time. Who is your Paul? Who is your Timothy? Let's pray. Prayer God, I pray that you would well up in the hearts of every person sitting in this room today a deep desire to invest in young people, to encourage them, to bless them, to teach them, to mentor them, to learn from them, to be blessed by them. Lord, help us to church to be a place that is constantly willing to change, to evolve, to look at new ways of doing ministry that we might reach new people for you that we might be a church that is always welcoming, always thinking about future generations and investing in them and their lives. I know that this weekend there are at least a handful of people who haven't yet understood you call them to be full time pastors that might reform and renew other congregations. I have a hunch that right now you are speaking to some of them and I pray thee would help them to have a deep desire to listen for your voice and to answer your call and say, "Here am Lord, send me." We offer our life to you in Your Holy name. Amen. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 18

19 Timothy: My True Son in the Faith Theme: Timothy Letters to a Young Man Scripture: 1 Timothy 1:1-2 and 4:6-7, Things I d like to remember from today s sermon: Meditation Moments MONDAY, May 20 - Read Acts 16:1-5 - Today s brief story came at a time of change for Paul. He and his long-time partner Barnabas had just parted company, due to a conflict over a younger man named John Mark (Acts 15:37-40). Paul probably won Timothy and his mother to Christ during his earlier time in the city of Lystra (Acts 14:6-20). Now Paul asked Timothy to join his traveling missionary team. Have more experienced Christians ever taken you under their wings to encourage you, to share their wisdom as you have grown in the faith, as Paul did with Timothy? In what ways has that kind of trust, caring and friendship helped you to grow? What person or persons help to guide and encourage you in your faith today? Are you allowing God to work through your gifts and talents to mentor a family member, a friend, a person younger in the faith? How can you help to guide and support a newer Christian without becoming controlling or overbearing? In what ways can God use you to encourage someone else to hear God s call on that person s life? TUESDAY, May 21 - Read 1 Thessalonians 2:18-3:10 - Timothy quickly won Paul s full respect. In 1 Thessalonians, maybe his earliest letter, Paul said he was blocked from going himself to visit the Christians in Thessalonica. He sent Timothy, his brother and co-worker in God s service, instead, and was thrilled by Timothy s report. (Luke also told about these events in Acts ) Paul served God by preaching the gospel and planting new churches. At the time Paul wrote this letter, Timothy served God by checking on the churches, nurturing them and helping to relieve Paul s concerns. Is your heart willing to serve in God s kingdom, where the last shall be first and God values every member of the body equally? Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 19

20 Timothy s mission to check on the well-being of the Christians in Thessalonica blessed not only them, but also the apostle Paul. Timothy s report, Paul said, brought him peace of mind, courage, joy and a focus for gratitude (3:6-9). Who could you bless this week by doing something to lighten their load and bring them encouragement and joy? WEDNESDAY, May 22 - Read Philippians 2: Paul wrote the letter to the Philippians several years after he wrote to the Thessalonians. By this time, he was in prison. The letter shows that during those years, his relationship with Timothy had grown even closer. He told the Philippians, I have no one else like him, and said Timothy had ministered with him, as a son with his father. Paul began Philippians 2 by quoting an early Christian hymn in praise of Jesus, Have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant (Philippians 2:5-7). Paul said that Timothy was living into that call. I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. But you know that Timothy has proved himself. What does it mean in your life to look out for the interests of Jesus Christ more than your own in a healthy, sustainable way? THURSDAY, May 23 - Read 1 Timothy 1:1-7 - It s very likely that the Apostle Paul s last two letters ever were his letters to Timothy. In them, we hear the voice of the veteran servant of Christ, who knows that the time left to him on this earth is growing short. He counseled his dear friend, his true son in the faith, about how to carry on the work of ministry after Paul was gone. Paul warned of persons who promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God s work. Pastor Jeff says if four things in a Bible passage puzzle him, and one thing speaks clearly, then he focuses on the one that speaks clearly. What makes it better to teach love (see verse 5) rather than focusing on controversial speculations? After hearing a famous teacher, Pastor Gary Demarest said, I really didn t understand what he said. You re not supposed to, came the reply. That s what makes him a great theologian! Have you ever seen the church s credibility hurt by people who use meaningless talk? What do you think Paul would tell young (or older) pastors today? FRIDAY, May 24 - Read 1 Timothy 4: Timothy was younger than many other teachers. But God had called him to use his particular set of gifts to preach and teach. The elders of the church and his mentor, Paul, had affirmed Timothy s call. As Timothy accepted his calling, and developed and honed his gifts, he would find purpose and satisfaction in filling the place God equipped him to fill. Verse 8 says, For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things. Our society is quite right to focus on improving health through exercise and diet, but that s only one part of life. In what ways (including, perhaps, by guarding your physical health) are you preparing yourself to live a healthier spiritual life? Timothy s youth might have held him back. What factors do you fear might keep you from serving God? Fill in the blank: don t let anyone look down on you because you are, but set an example With whatever failings you may have, how can you live into advancing God s mission as you are today and as God will grow you in the future? SATURDAY, May 25 - Read 1 Timothy 6: Paul had spent his lifetime answering God s call to ministry. He didn t say faithfulness to the call would bring Timothy great wealth or public acclaim. The rewards Paul was counting on, and that Timothy could count on, were better and longer-lasting than that. Compete in the good Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 20

21 fight of faith, he wrote. Grab hold of eternal life. (1 Timothy 6:12, Common English Bible) What a privilege fighting the good fight, and spending eternity with God! In verse 11, Paul used two strong, dramatic verbs. Flee all this, he wrote. All what? It s earlier, in verses 4-5: envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. In what ways can you actively flee from those things in your life? Then, Paul wrote, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. In what ways can God empower you to actively pursue (not just wait for) those beautiful qualities in your daily life? Family Activity: Paul and Timothy ministered together to share God s love with others. How does your family work together to share God s love? Choose a way to serve others together. Ask an older child or youth to research some volunteer opportunities in your area. He or she could explore the church website ( for mission ministries your family can take part in. Brainstorm some less-structured ways you could serve others with God s love, such as helping others in your neighborhood or at school. Have your researcher present these opportunities to the rest of the family. Pray and ask God to guide as you discuss the options. Choose one or two ways for your family to share God s love with others and do them. You might also plan to be part of our church s annual Love Out Loud weekend and choose a project to do together on June 8 and 9. Jeff Huber s Sermon May 18-19, 2013 Page 21