Every generation finds itself replaced by another generation at some point. “A generation goes, and a generation comes,” said the Preacher. God’s people, though, have a responswibility to raise the next generation to know God, to love Him and fear Him and obey Him. Fathers in Israel had this task (Deuteronomy 6:4-7), and so do fathers in the church (Ephesians 6:4).

Thinking about the next generation is more than, though not less, a family task. It is that, yes. Jonathan recently wrote a great post on A Generation with No Last Name for the school website. Fathers and mothers train their kids up with identity, who they are and how they ought to behave. This is a parental calling, and it is inescapable. Even if you think you are doing nothing, that is what you’re passing on: that parents do nothing.

But again, it isn’t only a job for dads. Jesus gave His disciples a similar calling, and theirs was more than domestic. They had an international calling to “make disciples of all nations.” Everywhere the apostles went, first generation Christians were born (again) since there were no “Christians” before Christ came.

Before us there have been many generations of disciples of Christ. If a generation is 25-40 years, the there have been around 50-80 generations. God is building His church, as He promised Peter, and He does so through parents and pastors and teachers and friends proclaiming the gospel and modeling obedience to Christ.

It is our responsibility to think about the future. We’re not to be anxious about it (Matthew 6:34), we’re not to be presumptuous about it (James 4:13-16). But faithfulness today means investing in those who will be here tomorrow, especially since we may not be.

The elders were recently asked about our plan to replace me, not because I have more authority or importance as a pastor, but because the pastoral assignment I have is a particular one. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this story in a corporate setting before, but it illustrates my role. A few Decembers ago, in a week of multiple important-to-the-people-planning-the-event events, I was remarking (okay, it was more grumbling) about the fullness of the schedule one night at dinner. Mo said to me, “Sean, you are not the captain of the ship. You are the mermaid on the front. Your job is to go first and get wet.” I’m sure that such a comparison would cause constipation to many of my former teachers, something about how that analogy demeans the pastoral office, but I find it’s good for humility.

So who would replace me as the mermaid? Dave mentioned in his message a couple Sundays ago that I have lots of problems, and it’s true. Who would replace all of the pastors if the plane to T4G went down? These are not panic induced concerns, though the situations I’ve suggested are of a more dramatic nature. The concern is whether we are obeying/fulfilling Ephesians 4:11-16 and 2 Timothy 2:1-2.

Before we look at 2 Timothy 2, I want to make an observation about us, about our kind of 50 pound leather bound Bible (app) sort of people, that tends to cause problems down the line.

There is a difference between teaching and discipleship. Discipleship includes teaching, even as the Great Commission expresses: “Make disciples…teaching.” The problem comes when teaching is considered to be the fulfillment of discipleship. Teaching is truth illuminated, discipleship is truth incarnated. Jesus didn’t say teach others “to observe” as in look at it all that I have revealed, He said teach others “to observe” as in live out “all that I have commanded you.”

A teacher and a discipler may not necessarily have the same goal. Much of what they do looks similar, certainly at the beginning. But their aims lead in different directions, and I bring it up because one aim tends to miss the target it claims to be shooting toward.

Unless he’s careful, the goal of a teacher can become to be needed more, to always need students who listen, whereas by definition the goal of a discipler is to be needed less and less. A teacher wants to be heard, a discipler wants to be imitated, which includes the disciple making his own disciple, not necessarily bringing more students back to listen to the teacher. A teacher can get satisfied transferring knowledge whereas a discipler cannot be satisfied until he’s transferred responsibility. A teacher looks for students to regurgitate info, a discipler looks for disciples to reproduce disciples. A teacher wants his student to be right, a disciples want his disciple to be ready, which includes being right, but also more. If a teacher works to explain things, a discipler works to entrust the work to another generation.

This is what Paul wrote to Timothy about in 2 Timothy 2. His letter urged Timothy to think about his responsibility to the next generation, not just to find faithful men who can continue to pass along the faith, but to make faithful men. In the paragraph, verses 1-7, there are four imperatives and a variety of illustrations. I want to focus on the first two commands in verses 1-2.

You then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus, and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also. (2 Timothy 2:1–2)

There are two imperatives, so two parts to generational work, a get and a give: get strong in grace and give the work away.

It is imperative to get grace-strong. (verse 1)

Generational work must be done by grace, and grace is a gift of God.

Grace is necessary in light of a number of realities, including discouragement that comes from a massive turning away and minimal loyalty that we often experience. The Then or “therefore” in verse 1 comes after “all who are in Asia turned away from me,” including two guys by name. There was only one man, Onesiphorous, along with his household, on whom Paul could depend. A continent of men opened their umbrellas to the winds and flew away from Paul, only one man dropped anchor with him.

A signal of generational perspective comes as Paul addressed Timothy, You…my child. He called Timothy his “beloved child” in 1:2, so this is more than a teacher/student relationship, it is like father/son. Timothy’s faith “dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice” (1:5). No father is mentioned, who knows where he is, but Paul filled that role to some extent for Timothy, and he wantred sons for his own son.

The first imperative is be strengthened. Because of various clues, it seems that this letter may have been written due to Timothy’s discouragement. He needed “to fan into flame the gift of God” (1:6) perhaps because his experience of faith was cooling. He needed to be reminded that “God gave us a spirit not of fear” (1:7). He may have been fearful, depressed. The work is difficult, passing on a culture of truth and faith and obedience and worship in a culture of lies and doubt and rebellion and idolatry. Paul said, “Get strong.”

The rest of verse 1 explains the command to be strengthened By what? and From whom? The source of that strength is the grace that is in Christ Jesus. The grace-strength is supernatural—it’s His power (see Colossians 1:29), the grace-strength is salvific (1:9), the grace-strength is sufficient—enabling rejoicing in all things (Philippians 4:13), the strength is superlative. Who else has more strengthening grace than Jesus? While it is undeserved, while it is Jesus’ to give or not, it is still a command to go and ask for it. Go get grace-strong.

It is imperative to give away grace-work. (verse 2)

Generational work must be done by grace and also by design. Giving the work away to another generation is how God wants it done.

The second imperative is entrust. It’s not only an investment, it is a handing over. There is content to transfer, the things you have heard from me, which he called “sound words” in 1:13. There is teaching to be done.

But why is the presence of many witnesses important? Truth propositions don’t depend on witnesses. Truth is true whether anyone acknowledges it, agrees with it, or accepts it. Truth stands on its own. So why witnesses? Because Paul was passing on a way of life based on the truth, not just lessons about the truth. The curriculum is written and walked; it has hands and feet. Qualifications for elders require both basic catechesis about Jesus and character like Jesus. That’s the work he’s giving to Timothy. Commit the truth and the way of truth to a new generation.

There are five generations in view: 1) God to 2) Paul and witnesses, to 3) Timothy, to 4) faithful men, to 5) others also.

Timothy needed to identify faithful men, or “steadfast men,” who will be able to or sufficient, to teach others also.

The rest of the paragraph refers to suffering, to the fight of a soldier, to the focus of a soldier, to hard work, and even to the work of thinking. Cultural transition happens by intent.

One reason why grace-strength is so important is to hand over the grace-work. Without knowing this grace in practice some teachers (even those who know grace in principle) get grabby, they have a hard time giving up their control. They talk about others standing on their shoulders, but it’s almost as if they want those standing on their shoulders to keep looking down at their support rather than looking up and out. They want to be thanked, not improved upon. Mo has illustrated it as one generation standing on the shoulders of the previous generation, looking over the wall that needs to be scaled, and seeing that if everyone moved 25 feet to the right it would be way easier to climb over. But the parent-teacher says, “Why don’t you appreciate what I’ve done for you?” But you do appreciate it, you couldn’t see what you see without them. Their attitude shows the need to be needed, not the desire to be needed less. This is not entrusting. It makes it about one generation, like parents always wanting their kid to stay five years-old.

Conclusion

Timothy couldn’t confirm his obedience to the imperatives until the next generation was obeying the imperatives. There is no future for these imperatives, no next generation to obey them, if we don’t obey them properly. While there isn’t a prescribed timeline (“Do this in two months, two years, etc.”), it must be the purposeful trajectory.

We desire for every father to be elder-like, to function as the pastor of his family, getting grace-strong and entrusting his children with a culture of grace in Jesus Christ.

It bothers me that we spend so much effort raising our kids and then send them away for education or employment. That’s not a good strategy. Timothy’s disciples started to raise faithful men, not just find them or import them. What if we had a college? A way to train pastors? Meaningful jobs to offer maturing image bearers? Generations of families? Elder replacements from within the body?

If we love TEC, if we love our neighbors in Marysville, and if we love the commands of the Lord, then we ought to be thinking about how to get strength to give away the work. This will happen in formal and informal ways. This should happen in individual and institutional ways. But it won’t happen if we’re grabby, it won’t happen if we’re unwilling to think about the future, and it won’t happen without the grace that is in Christ Jesus.