How to Keep Going in the Faith When We Lose a Spiritual Mentor

Today is our last service together with me serving in this role. I am amazed at God’s providence. I am preaching a text that was planned months ago with the Abide series. Yet if I had to choose a text to preach from for my final time with you, this would have been one of the texts. It answers a question that may be relevant to some today with my departure. But it is certainly relevant to all of us at different times in our lives. The question is “How do we keep going in the faith when we lose a spiritual mentor? How do we keep on when a spiritual father or mother passes away or moves away? This reality is inevitable as we live our earthly lives. If your parents or grandparents served as your spiritual mentors, you will one day lose them. Or if you had a camp counselor or youth leader or a pastor that influenced you for Christ, there will come a time when you won’t have them around. So how do we keep going and growing in our faith when we lose a spiritual mentor? That was the situation addressed in the New Testament letter we’re looking at today. It is written by the Apostle Paul to a young pastor named Timothy.