Text: 2 Timothy 1:3-14, Bottom Line: Make the Right Investments In Our Replacements

It was December 24th, last year, Christmas Eve. I was at Peg’s Glorified Ham and Eggs (our version of Wade’s Dinner back in Reno) and I sat across from perhaps one of my best friends and ministry partners Phil Burdoin. Phil, a couple of years older than me ,had a passion for the gospel like few I’ve ever seen. When I got to The Bridge Church I knew he was the guy I needed to make my biggest investment in. Investment in time, investment in prayer and investment in helping him continue to develop his giftings. It wasn’t as though Phil was immature by any stretch, he was a deeply ground believer in Jesus Christ and had been using his gifts in amazing ways for the kingdom, but there was something about him that made me want to make a deeper investment in him and there was a reason; He was always willing to make hard sacrifices in order to invest time in other people even though his full-time job for almost two decades was as an IT professional. He had a full time job with full time commitments and yet still was willing to invest in others. That was the type of man I wanted to invest in.

We met for Bible study with a group every Monday at my house, Phil and I met Tuesday mornings for coffee, we were together on Wednesday nights leading youth ministry some times on the weekends and of course on Sunday mornings. There were times when I literally saw Phil every day of the week.

This encounter over breakfast on Christmas Eve was particularly important because Phil and I both had a sense, even then three months prior to setting foot here in Oswego, that this is where God was calling my family for the next step in ministry and Phil and I, who share an affinity for planning ahead, were dreaming about how to set up the ministry well for my departure.

After a long talk, about two hours, as we sat and we cast a vision for what a proposal would look like to present to the staff and board at The Bridge we had a well laid plan and a thought for the type of individual the Bridge Church would need, and I realized something, he was sitting right across from me, it was Phil; a man I had instructed students numerous times to address as Pastor Phil because he was that to them.

So I asked him, “Phil, what about you? What would stop you from stepping into full-time vocational ministry”. We talked more, dreamed more, took time over the next several months and through some rather God inspired events, here is Pastor Phil today, Associate Pastor at The Bridge Church.

Phil is built for ministry and I saw that in him. But I wasn’t the only one who saw that, Pastor Bill West the Senior Pastor at The Bridge Church had seen that well before I had seen that, Pastor Josh McCrary my predecessor had seen that in him and countless others. We all saw the same thing, Phil was worth the investment.

And as I sat across from him that morning over breakfast I knew, I just knew I had been investing in my replacement. That really is the essence of discipleship, finding your replacement; the person you can invest time in and energy around the gospel of Jesus in a way that says, I know that time is short, who am I investing in to replace me as the gospel goes forth.

Transition:

As we continue in our series Everyday Leaders, Biblical Leadership Principles for Every Christian I would like for you to consider the investment you are making in the next leader. How we are going to see that unfold in scripture this morning is in the life of a man who is everything I described in Pastor Phil Burdoin, today we are going to be looking at Timothy, The Next Leader. Open your Bibles with me to 2 Timothy 1 starting at verse 3.

At this point in Paul’s life he is preparing to go to be with the Lord, he sits in prison, execution is not too far off in his future, this is in fact the last writing we have from the great apostle Paul and who does he write it to…his young protege Timot