Don't Stand On The Sidelines Series

[Don’t stand on the Sidelines]

If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve - and do it today … As for me and my family, we’ll worship God. (Joshua 24:15 MSG)

This material was originally presented in PowerPoint format to a student ministry audience. If you have questions or would like a copy of the original PowerPoint (less audio and video clips – which are too large for email), drop me a note at Robert.fox@alltel.com

[Don’t Stand on the Sidelines]

Slide Graphics – football players standing on the sidelines

Slide Text –

If you decide that it’s a bad thing to worship God, then choose a god you’d rather serve - and do it today … As for me and my family, we’ll worship God. (Joshua 24:15 MSG)

This Sunday we’re starting a series of 4 discussions on “How to be a Christian.” To try to skip past the usual church-speak and paint a picture we can all understand, we’re going to be comparing being a Christian to being part of a football team. Between now and the Super Bowl on February 4th, every time you turn on the TV, you’re going to be seeing football and football commercials. They’re going to be talking about which side you support. They’re going to be talking about what it takes to make the team, about how each player has a different job on the team, and about what it takes to be a champion. My goal is that every time you hear someone talking about football in the next month, it will remind you of what it is to be a follower of Christ, how you need to support the people who have decided to serve Christ’s mission on earth, how each of those people has a different role to play, and what it takes to be a champion in God’s eyes.

I’m not saying God’s purpose on earth is football, just that football is something we understand – something that isn’t made unnecessarily mysterious.

Imagine if Sunday morning worship were treated like the Super Bowl! All the excitement – the interviews, the player lineup, the pre-game show, halftime commercials, color commentators with statistics. Wouldn’t that be different? Well, we’re not going quite that far.

(play video clip – “SportsCasters” from www.BlueFishTV.com. This is a great resource, with hundreds of high-quality video clips, including this one, for less than a couple of bucks! What it Sunday morning worship were treated like the Super Bowl?)

[Come Together]

Slide graphics – pictures of football players praying in locker room or on field. Picture of players from both teams taking a knee when a player is injured.

Slide Text –

If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)

What we want to talk about today is how being a Christ-Follower is like being part of a team. How when God’s people come together as his church, it’s like when a football team comes together.

A football team has a purpose. There are lots of things that they could probably do well, like crowd control or loading UPS truck, but they have one purpose – to compete at football and win. Same with the church. The church might be able to do a great job singing songs or keeping kids busy for a few hours. But the Church has one purpose – to serve Christ’s mission on earth, to restore the dead to life.

I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly (John 10:10)

When a football team takes the field, there are two teams, and every players takes the field already part of one or the other. No player walks onto the field undecided. In the battle for this world, there are two teams, and everyone is part of one or the other. There’s no such thing as being a spiritually undecided spectator.

I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life (Deuteronomy 30:19)

When football teams compete for the prize, each player plays his position as part of the team effort. It is the team that wins, not any one player. In the real battle, the battle for the hearts and minds of this world,

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 3:14)

Everyone wants to be part of a great team. Not just a good team, but a great one.

“It’s a sin to be good if God has called us to be great. Christians refer to Matthew 28:18-20 as the Great Commission not the Good Commission.” (Thom Rainer, author of “Break out Churches”)