Unafraid…Unashamed…Undeterred

As a very young man, Timothy had joined Paul in the earliest days of his ministry and had spent the better part of fifteen of his most formative years right at the Apostle’ side.  It would be hard to place an estimate on the value of that experience.  There was no one Paul knew better and no one he trusted more.  In his own words, “I have no one else like him” (Phil. 2:20).   And yet, when it came time for Timothy to assume the mantle of pastoral leadership, it is clear that Paul took nothing for granted.  In spite of his overwhelming confidence in Timothy, he knew that the most precarious moment of a race is in the passing of the baton.  That the church is ever only one pastoral change away from the fidelity on which the life changing power of the gospel truly depends.  And that in that, Timothy was no exception.  His passionate and stirring charge begins right out of the gate with his introduction to the letter, as we’ll see this morning in 2 Timothy 1:1-14, in a message entitled, “Unafraid…Unashamed…Undeterred”.