March Madness
Pt 4. Playing on the Road
Introduction:
We have discussed playing with fouls, the triple threat of giving, praying and fasting, and the need to take timeouts and to end timeouts. This morning I want to talk to you about a subject that every coach and player knows is generally the difference between a mediocre season and a great season. That is the ability to play well on the road.
Playing at home is supposed to be easy. You are supposed to guard your home court and not allow anyone to come in and beat you on your home court. You have all the advantages at home. You are familiar with the gym. That is why sportscasters call it the friendly confines. You are familiar with every dead spot on the floor, the action of the ball on the backboard, etc. You also have the advantage because you don’t have to get up early or travel long hours on the bus, van, or plane to get to the gym. You get to sleep in your own bed and follow your familiar routine. You also have the advantage because of the atmosphere of the home gym. Your fans will be there. They will be loud. They will be for you instead of against you. They will be vocal. Playing at home is usually much easier than playing on the road. Did you know that:
The road winning percentage in major men’s college basketball is .340 -- meaning the road team wins roughly one out of every three games.
Somewhere on Earth there may be a sport in which this figure is lower. But it isn’t the NBA, NHL, American or Australian football, English or Argentine soccer, Major League Baseball, Japanese baseball, Dominican winter baseball, or any of two dozen other sports leagues.
There is nothing tougher in team sports than what 42 schools in NCAA’s Division I try, mostly in vain, to do: Put a dozen skinny kids into an opponent’s gym and beat them at basketball.
They’ll have to do it in front of fans spinning pinwheels, wearing gorilla suits, dancing around in Speedos and displaying unflattering photographs of their family members. "It’s always been this way and it always will be," says Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim. "Only the top, top teams in the country can win on the road."
Being able to take the game to the road and still win is what separates the men from the boys. Being able to deal with unfamiliar surroundings, a different routine, long hours on the bus, and the fans. Now you are booed. Now you aren’t celebrated your harassed. Expect to be heckled! Cheers become jeers. It is life on the road.
The reality is that you can’t always play at home. You have to be able to take your game on the road. You are expected to win at home.
Jesus realized this in the life of his disciples and followers. In Matthew 10:5-9, 13 and in Luke 10:1-3, 5, 9, 17-20, Jesus is speaking to his original 12 disciples and then later to seventy others that he has gathered and he gives them traveling orders. It is the road trip pep talk. In this passage, Jesus tells us how to play on the road.
Matthew 10:5-10; 13
5-8Jesus sent his twelve harvest hands out with this charge: "Don’t begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood. Tell them that the kingdom is here. Bring health to the sick. Raise the dead. Touch the untouchables. Kick out the demons. You have been treated generously, so live generously.
9-10"Don’t think you have to put on a fund-raising campaign before you start. You don’t need a lot of equipment. You are the equipment, and all you need to keep that going is three meals a day. Travel light. 13And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you.
Luke 10:1-3, 5, 9
1 After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also,and sent them two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. (Just a thought here – we want him to go before us, but are we willing to go before Him?) 2 Then He said to them, “The harvest truly is great, but the laborers are few; therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest. 3 Go your way; behold, I send you out as lambs among wolves. 5 But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ 9 And heal the sick there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.
II. Travel Instructions
If you haven’t figured it out you are in your home gym right now. You should always win here. The game should always be the easiest here. In here you have a routine, as bad as I hate ruts you still know the routine. You are in familiar surroundings. You have fans here that love you and are constantly cheering for you and believing the best about you. We have home court advantage here. But only the top, top teams can win on the road. I want to challenge you this morning! It isn’t enough to be able to play well in here. I recognize that demons, your addiction, your pain, your issues are subject in here, but what about out there? If you can’t take and transfer what happens in here and get it out there then we are in trouble. I have discovered over the years that the churches that are doing the most, that are considered the best, that are drawing the most people, that are making the most difference in the world are those who have the ability to take the game on the road. They aren’t just winning on home court win every week. They come together, get pumped up and practiced up and then they go on the road and win victories there! We have to be able to play on the road. If all we do is win here then I am going to be disappointed.
If you can only pray here, if you can only shout here, if you can only take authority here, if you can only sing here, if you can only fight off the enemy here, if you can only find peace here then we are missing the point!
Jesus expects his team to be able to play and win on the road!
I could say a lot about what Jesus tells us about playing on the road. Let me summarize some things that I think would help us play better when the lights go off, the sound system is powered down, and the doors are locked!
a. Travel Light
Most of us are so burdened by so many issues (debt, depression, relationship issues that could be fixed if we would just do the work and move on, fear, petty offenses, lack of attention to spiritual things, ego, pains from 20 years ago that should have already been dismissed) until we can’t travel and we can’t win because we can’t move! We are burdened!
Jesus says travel light. Paul said it like this, “let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us.” Paul covers two weights. Some of what slows us down and needs to be put aside is simply weight. Burdens. Pains. Problems. But we are also slowed down by sin! Both keep us out of the game!
Some of you are so burdened down with stuff that you can’t win on the road. Some of you are so caught up in sin that you can’t win on the road! That is why is so important that you take the opportunity in here to get rid of all that stuff so that when you leave you can travel light!
b. Pray about playing on the road.
Pray that God will send harvesters to go out. I am not sure why we should even have to do this. We should all realize that this is our calling and our commission and therefore we should all be willing to go out into the harvest. However, Jesus must have realized that we would hesitate to go on the road so He calls us to pray that we will play on the road! In other words, we must get up in the morning and pray that not only will we go on the road, but that our teammates will join us! Prayer is the prerequisite to playing well on the road! Prayer should be a daily part of preparing for the road game!
c. Recognize the road game in your neighborhood!
We think playing on the road means going to Africa or around the world. Jesus said, “Don’t begin by traveling to some far-off place to convert unbelievers. And don’t try to be dramatic by tackling some public enemy. Go to the lost, confused people right here in the neighborhood.”
Start playing on the road next door. Start playing on the road at the softball game. Start playing on the road in your school. You start playing on the road as soon as you walk out that door! When you see lost, confused people you are on the road! The game is on right then!
Quit waiting on a missionary to beat you into selling everything you own to go to some jungle somewhere. It is a jungle out those doors! Get your Tarzan suit and get in the game!
d. Expect hostile fans!
You are lambs going out to play with wolves (NC State). You shouldn’t expect everyone to be excited about you showing up at the game! Wolves do what wolves do! They bite, they intimidate, they snarl, they attack and they run in packs! That is to be expected. You will be taunted, booed, jeered, and ridiculed! If you are going to win any victories out there you should know this and expect it! I thought all my drinking friends would be happy when they see me set free! I thought all my miserable friends would be excited about my new found joy! News flash, misery loves company. Your freedom and your joy reveals their bondage and their lack of hope! They will attack what they don’t understand. You will make them uncomfortable. By the way, we don’t win because we have majority, we will because we have authority!
But if we are sensitive to this we can use their discomfort as an opportunity to take the next step. Which is:
e. Play with peace!
Jesus gives us very clear instructions that everywhere we go should be marked by peace. According to the instructions Jesus gave in Matthew, when we come into contact with folks on the outside our peace should overtake them! Some will accept that peace and others won’t, but that isn’t the point. The point is that when you walk into work peace should walk in with you. When you walk into Burger King, peace ought to step up to the counter with you. When you walk into your neighbor’s garage, peace should cross the threshold at the same time. Peace doesn’t mean lack on conflict! It means that we bring broken pieces, people, and places together.
My question is how many of us are producing peace everywhere we go? Or are we so bogged down with life that when we walk in we bring anger, worry, stress, anxiety in the door too? Jesus was very clear. If we are going to play well on the road we must bring peace with us! What better way to catch people’s attention and cause them to want what we have than for peace to walk into every situation with us?
I want us to live our lives so that when people see us their reactions change from “Oh, God here they come” to “Oh, thank you God here they come!”
d. Play with power!
Jesus emphatically says that when we leave church on Sunday mornings we should walk out and heal everything around us, bring life to where death had reigned, bring the kingdom of heaven to folks, and kick the devil out! It is on the road that the true picture of your team’s strength is revealed.
Can you get any clearer than that? These are our road instructions. Heal, bring life, bring heaven, and get rid of hell!
Stop just a moment and ask yourself a couple of questions:
When was the last time you left the home gym and healed someone?
When was the last time you left the friendly confines of Passion and brought life to a dead place?
When was the last time you walked into a room and it became heaven on earth? He is teaching us that when arrive we bring the kingdom of heaven and all of its attributes with us!
When was the last time you walked into a room and the devil got out as quickly as possible because he recognized the authority and power of God in you?
This is how we are supposed to roll. This is how we are supposed to travel. If we would just travel like Jesus said we couldn’t hide, we couldn’t be overlooked, we wouldn’t be defeated!
Again it isn’t enough to heal the sick in here! It isn’t enough to make demons scared in here! It isn’t enough to bring life in here! This is our home gym that is to be expected. The top, top teams do that out there!
We show what we have inside of us by how we travel!
The story is told that when East and West Berlin were still divided by the wall that the people in East Berlin, who were under Communist control, filled a dump truck full of trash and garbage and dumped it on the West Berlin side of the wall. The people in West Berlin, who were free, filled a dump truck with canned goods and non-perishable items and stacked it neatly on the East Berlin side of the wall and put a sign beside it that read "Each gives what each has to give."
We should be dumping healing, peace, life, authority, and heaven everywhere we go! If all we distribute is what they distribute how will we win? We are to begin to travel with enough authority to turn a sick place into a healthy place, a dead place into a living place, and hell filled place with a heaven filled place!
If we don’t do those things then all we do is blend in. All we do is lose before the game is ever played!
We are going to take the game on the road in the coming weeks. I have had people ask us why we do the Easter Egg hunt the way we do. Why not try to get the kids to come here. I think it is more beneficial to take it to the road. Rather than having them come here we should go to them. We should take it to them with prayer, peace and power!
Prayer:
Some of you are traveling anything but light. You need to drop some things today.
Some need more peace and more power. You can’t give, what you don’t have!
