The Ordination of Tennant Brastow

Our Scripture tonight is from 1 Timothy 6, verse 11 through 16.

“But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness.  Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.  I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in His testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, to keep the commandment unstained and free from reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will display at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.”

This is God’s Word.  Thanks be to God.

Heavenly Father, we thank You for this time as we gather, as we celebrate Tennant and his ordination, but ultimately to give glory to You, to give praise to You, to honor You.  Father, let these words shape, transform, and call us to new obedience and new life, not our own merits or our own strength, but only by the grace You give us through Your Son Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit You make alive in us.  Shape us, Lord.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen. 

Good evening.  My name is Soon Pak.  I’m one of the pastors at StoneBridge.  I just want to clarify that because during the meet & greet time someone congratulated me, that I was Tennant and that I was getting ordained.  Tennant and I do get mixed up a lot for one another, but of course my hair is parted a little bit differently.

No, I am deeply humbled and honored to be here, to preach God’s Word this evening as well as celebrate you, Tennant, and your family, for the many years that it took to get to this point.

It is an honor to be here because I know how hard it can be, or even unnerving to allow someone from the outside to come and preach God’s Word to your flock, to the Christ Covenant family, even though I am from a sister church.  There’s an immense responsibility as you shepherd the people whom God has called you towards, to protect them, to guide them, and lead them to Jesus. 

There’s a heavy weight to it to stand here, and not because of this pulpit, this is a very immense pulpit.  I’m very jealous.  I wonder if we could work out where we could borrow this every other week.  No, there is a weight.  Not because it took a long time to get to this point for you, Tennant, to stand here and preach God’s Word.  No, it’s because of the heavy calling and responsibility that is to be an under-shepherd, an under-shepherd to the great Shepherd of the sheep.

I think that’s exactly what Paul is trying to communicate and challenge Timothy in our text today.  I know through the evenings you’ve been working through 1 Timothy, Christ Covenant, and two weeks ago Pastor Bruce Creswell preached on the verses prior to this, verses 3 to 10, and explained more about these false teachers that had come to Ephesus, to really challenge and lead the flock astray.  Paul sends Timothy, this young pastor, this young minister, to go and bring God’s Word in alignment and sound doctrine to it.  Two weeks ago he talked about the false teachers and their concern, their character, their consequence, and their call.  The impact these false teachers were having in dividing the church, disrupting the church, dis-unifying the church.  Paul’s solution is I’m going to send Timothy, I’m going to send Timothy.  Well, actually I’m going to send Jesus in with Timothy, as we’ll talk about in a minute.

Tonight we’re going to continue the alliteration, because that’s what we learn in seminary.  We’re going to talk about Timothy’s character, Timothy’s call, and Timothy’s confession.

So first is character.  I think it’s important.  Character’s so important these days.  It matters who you are.  Character matters.  Paul speaking to Timothy says that in the midst of these false teachers who are trying to lead these people of God into controversy and quarrels, he says Timothy, you have to be different.  He says but as for you, O man of God, flee these things, pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, and gentleness.

Paul uses this strong language “but you” over and over again through the letter, “but you” to distinguish how important it was for Timothy to be different.  They may go in one direction, but yours is different, Timothy.  Don’t be entangled with the idols and ambitions of this world, but he says flee from it.  He doesn’t say avoid it, flee from it.  When the world tries to buy you into their framework of character, what it means to be valuable, what it means to be worthwhile, what it means to be significant in the ways of the world, he says flee from it, run away, run as fast as you can.

May the metrics of success in your life, in your ministry, in your family, in your work, never mirror the metric of success in this world, especially those who are trying to divide the church.  Paul uses the word “flee” because I think he knows not just the danger of it, how harmful it can be, but how quickly our hearts, our sinful hearts, can actually gravitate towards it.  How quickly our hearts begin to compare ourself to those around us.  How we can quickly go to find security in the things we can grasp.  How quickly we want to really celebrate things we earn on our own rather than what’s been given to us.  Paul says flee.  Timothy, run away.

He says rather than running away in any direction, he says pursue these things – righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.  I think we could spend a long time on each of those words, but I think what a beautiful blueprint for the kind of character that we are called to cultivate as followers of Jesus.  What a beautiful picture when we talk about Timothy, talking about you, Tennant, talking about many of us who follow Jesus, what a blueprint for the kind of person we want to be because that’s exactly who Jesus is.  It’s Jesus.  It’s Jesus that we become more and more and more like.  Flee from these things and become more like a Savior who rescued and loved you.

Our character is not defined by what we achieve but rather who we are becoming.  I think it’s important to say how foundational that is, not just for you, but for all of us who say we follow Jesus. 

Our church had a very simple goal this year that we said at the beginning of the year that we wanted to fall that much more in love with Jesus by the end of the year.  We knew it was going to be a chaotic year and all the controversy and all the things of the world that want to pull us away, and we said every day, every sermon, every study, by the end of the year that we would be drawn that much closer to Jesus, no matter what happens.  I think what a beautiful place to start our character is Jesus, that we become more and more and more like Him.

But then He does call Timothy to something.  There’s a calling on Timothy.  See, Paul does give Timothy a call to action, a command and directive.  It’s a clear command.  He says he’s not called apart from the people who are being led astray, to walk away from them, to abandon them, but rather to confront them at the sake of the rest of the flock.  He says in verse 12 fight the good fight of the faith.  Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

I wonder if you’ve ever thought this way.  I know I felt it when I was in the middle of seminary and so many other things in my life and I think a lot of us can relate that if I can just get to this point, life will get easier.  If I can just make it this far, if I can get through this point, if I can get to the next promotion, if I can pass the next exam, if I can just make it through the holidays, I think life will get easier.

I think there’s something in all of us that gravitate towards that.  There’s something in all of us that needs something ahead of us to deal with some of the struggle we sometimes feel in our lives in the now.  Because here’s the universal and scriptural truth that is true no matter what walk of faith or lack of faith you walk, that life is a struggle, that life is hard.  There are battles that are fought out there but there’s also battles fought in here, and there’s battels fought in here as well.

Our family served as missionaries before taking a call.  We were overseas in a country and in those places it feels like every day you wake up and you realize how real the battle is.  Every moment you wake up and you feel like you’re praying and you’re digging deep because you know there’s an enemy out there just trying to lead people astray.  It feels like every Gospel conversation you’re praying for and you’re pushing back the darkness.  We understand that in the Christian faith that that feels right when we feel like we’re pushing against the world out there, but sometimes it’s harder to see the battles that happen inside the church, inside each one of us.

That’s what Paul’s talking about with Timothy.  It’s not just fight the good fight out there, it’s fight the good fight in here, the one of faith.  It’s not just enough for you, Timothy, to be a man of character, a man of God, that you also have to have sound doctrine, you have to hold onto the very words of God.  You have to live it.  You have to preach it.  You have to proclaim it.  You have to put it into action.

In verse 3 it says sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Paul refers back to for Timothy, the very words of Jesus that shape us.  Take hold of it and its promises as you prepare for battle.  It’s not fighting against flesh and blood as much as want to make it about people.  It’s about the darkness, the sin, the false doctrines, the evil one who’s trying to lead people astray. 

How do we hold onto it?  To take hold of the Gospel and its promises, the eternal life that God promises us through His grace and which we are called.

One of my favorite stories is about a long-distance swimmer Florence Chadwick.  She was a long-distance swimmer.  In 1952 she decided to swim the 26 miles from the Catalina Island to the California coastline.  She began to swim and as she swam there was a boat next to her with her mother and rifleman that were pushing away and scaring away the sharks as she swam the 26 miles.  Fifteen hours in she was still swimming and a deep fog came down upon her.  She swam for another hour but as she was disoriented and confused, she finally asked to be pulled into the boat.  As she was waiting the fog began to lift and she saw that she was only about a half a mile away from the shoreline.  She talks about that story in an interview later.  She said, “I’m not excusing myself, but if I could have seen land, I know I could have made it.” 

Two months later she got back in the water.  She took on the same journey and the exact same thing happened.  The fog hit and she kept pushing through and she finally reached the coastline.  She did that many more times, swam the English Channel.  She shared later that at the time that she accomplished it that she said was able to make it because she had a mental image of the shoreline in her mind and she pushed herself along no matter what she saw with her own eyes.

What is the mental image that you are taking hold of to carry you through right now?  I can confess to you, it’s easy to say, but sometimes what carries me through is the relief or the accomplishment of temporal things in my life.  I confess sometimes it’s like I just need to get through this meeting, or I just need to get through this thing.  It’s not the eternity that God calls us to.  We gravitate, if I can just get through this, I’ll make.

Paul says take hold of the eternal life that you have been called to, Timothy.  The mental image is eternity and we don’t have to wait for it to live it now.  That’s what fuels our fight for God’s truth and grace.  Our eyes are always fixed on the eternal promise that God will make all things the way it was meant to be.

Which leads to the final instructions from Paul to Timothy, and it’s his confession.  Paul reminds Timothy of his confession, which was a public display.  There’s debate to which confession Paul’s referring to, whether it’s Timothy’s baptismal confession or his ordination confession, which I hope that’s what it is, because it’d be more applicable for us today.  Nonetheless, it’s not even about Timothy’s confession, because he leads it directly to Jesus’ confession. 

He points to this moment with Pontius Pilate, this moment where all of eternity and all of heaven are looking on this courtroom scene between Pontius and Jesus.  Pilate asks him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  If you remember in the gospel story, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus says, “You say that I am king.  For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into this world, to bear witness to the truth.”

I think what we hear from all the gospel context is this, that Pilate’s trying to ask him, “Hey, are you a king that’s coming to take my power away?”  I think Jesus paraphrases and says, “You have no idea the question you are asking.  You have no idea.  You think I’ve come to take this particular group of people for this particular time?  So much bigger, so much bigger.  I’ve come for all of eternity.”       

Paul says in verse 15 that Jesus, He’s not King over that small group of people, He’s the only sovereign King, He is King of kings, He is Lord of lords.  That’s the very message of the Scriptures.  That’s what we give ourselves to as ministers, as followers of Jesus, that Jesus is Lord.  There is no one else.  He is the sovereign King, King of kings and Lord of lords.  He is the One who reigns.  That’s the message, the confession we carry.

But it’s hard sometimes because life gets in the way and we get confused.  We all tend to have a bias towards ourself sometimes when we live throughout our stories.  What I mean is that we always seen the world through our own eyes and through our own understandings, through our own actions, and through our own line of thinking.  If you’ve ever gotten into an argument with someone, you’re always trying to convince them of your perspective, because if they could just see it your way, they would fully understand.  One writer says that everyone thinks everyone is the hero to their own story, that we’re always the protagonist, and on the positive side I think we need some of that to keep going through our life.

I was talking with a psychologist friend of mine this week and he shared this theory called Depressive Realism.  It was fascinating.  It’s this hypothesis that people that deal with depression don’t necessarily have a negative view of reality but just a more real view of reality.  Here’s what this hypothesis says, that people that are dealing with depression that they just have a more realistic view of how the world works.  They understand that they’re not the hero of the story.  They don’t have a positive outlook.  They just see things as they are, that they’re just a side character amongst a throw of side characters, that they have no purpose to exist but just to carry on through life. 

You become insignificant in the greater story of life.  That feels depressing, doesn’t it?  But the solution isn’t to focus more back on yourself.  We’re not trying to shift the part back.  Paul was saying something very different.  Paul was telling Timothy good fight in staying alignment with God’s truth until the appearing of the true hero of all our stories.  It’s not, Timothy, that you’re good enough, you’re brave enough, and you can do it.  He’s not saying, “Timothy, I chose you, don’t you know you’re a great leader?  You’re a great pastor.  You’ve done so many good things.  I’m going to send you to take care of this problem.  I’m going to send you to Ephesus and take care of everything going on there, because you’re so good at what you do.” 

The reality is that Timothy, you can’t do it.  You are a side character.  We step aside to the sovereign King of kings and the Lord of lords.

I shared this this morning at our church, that one of my professors used to say one of the greatest gifts a minister gets is we get a front row seat to seeing God’s grace work in people’s lives.  He always said it’s a blessing that we get to be right there when God’s grace works in people’s lives.  We get to see it and it’s powerful, it’s transforming.  We get so close to it sometimes I think our sinful hearts can sometimes feel like we’re a bigger part of it than we really are.  That we’re playing a bigger part in what’s happening, when there’s success in ministry, when there’s transformation in someone’s life.

But let me remind you and all of us there’s only one hero, there’s only one sovereign, there’s only one King of kings, one Lord of lords, one Jesus who is immortal, invisible, who is the unapproachable light, and He’s the One we champion, He’s the One we confess, in all that we do that we lift Jesus up.

Your character, your call, and your confession are all Jesus.  It’s He who we are becoming, it’s He how we navigate the battles in our lives, it’s He who shapes our truth, and He’s who we proclaim.  Jesus.  Let that be the song in your ministry, in all our lives who profess Jesus as Lord, that’s what we sing about.     

Let’s pray.  Heavenly Father, thank You for Your goodness, Your grace, Your kindness, and the beautiful news that we did not do anything ourselves but solely by the grace You give us through Your Son Jesus who lived a life we could never live and died a death we so deserve.  By your Holy Spirit that You’ve called us, transformed us into a new life, that we can die to sin and live unto righteousness.  Father, take hold of this mission and vision of proclaiming that confession that You are Lord to the ends of the world.  We pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.