OPEN: Yesterday was “St. Patrick’s Day. So, in honor of that special day, I thought I’d share this video clip with you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8lEhiHw0Dg&feature=related From 4:04 to 6:17
What you’ve seen were just A FEW of the final minutes of the 1963 championship game between the Celtics (thus the St. Patrick’s day reference) and Lakers. The Celtics barely won 112 to 109 (which was a fairly high score considering the fact that there was no 3 point shots at the time).
That championship was one of 17 championships that the Celtics have won over the years, making them the winningest team in ALL of the NBA. In the 13 yrs. from 1957 til 1969, they won a record 11 of those championships, a 8 of those victories were consecutive - 8 in a row.
ALL this was accomplished under the coaching of Red Auerbach. Coach Auerbach formed the Celtics into team that dominated the sport of the day.
Now what was his secret?
What did his team do better than everyone else’s?
Was it their great players?
Well, yes they had great players, but so did other teams. This was the NBA. You didn’t get into the NBA unless you were a great player.
Was it their drive and ambition?
Yes, but other teams had drive and ambition, too.
There was one thing that stood out about the Boston Celtics of that day.
There was something the Celtics were known for that no other team in the NBA mastered as well as they did. Do you know what that was?
Teamwork.
Red Auerbach once said “everything we’ve done has been the result of PEOPLE WORKING TOGETHER to meet our common goals.”
His objective was to have 5 men out on the floor that worked together. Because he knew if he had 5 good men working together… they could win championships. And Auerbach paid his players more for what they could do to help team win than he did for their own personal accomplishments.
And that’s why they won repeated championships.
They worked together as a team.
Now this has always been God’s pattern for His church.
God has always meant for His people to be involved in a body of believers. To work together as a team. God never meant for Christians to be “grand standers”… to engage in a Lone Ranger kind of faith.
Now, there are people who will try to tell you they can be just as a good a Christian w/o church.
Have you ever heard someone say that?
Of course you have.
But they’re lying to themselves.
You can NOT do much for God if you not part of His church.
That’s just the way God set things up.
Just as a case in point: let’s consider Jesus’ ministry.
Now, who was Jesus?
He was God in the flesh!
He could do anything.
He could heal the sick, raise the dead, feed 1000s with 2 fish and 5 barley loaves.
And when He spoke, huge crowds would gather and be mesmerized by this Rabbi who spoke as no had ever spoke before.
And if things required a little extra power, well all Jesus would have to do is call down myriads of the angels of heaven to help Him.
Jesus could have done anything He wanted ALL by Himself.
But He didn’t.
Jesus spent all night one evening praying about the 12 men who would become His closest followers. And Jesus spent the next 3 years working side by side with those men.
Do you really think that Jesus NEEDED 12 men to help Him get the job done?
No, of course not!
He’s the Son of God!
But - maybe – Jesus did need those 12 men.
Maybe what Jesus wanted done called for teamwork.
And apparently it did… because Jesus NEVER sent His disciples out to do anything alone.
Mark 6:7 tells us that Jesus called “… the Twelve to him, he sent them out TWO BY TWO and gave them authority over evil spirits.”
And Luke 10:1 tells us that later “…. the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them TWO BY TWO ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go.”
Jesus never called for His disciples to do anything all by themselves. Jesus always seemed to send them out in TEAMS.
Ecclesiastes may help us understand WHY Jesus did it that way.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 tells us
“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their work: If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!
Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone? Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Two are better than one!
You know, there’s a scientific term for that Biblical truth: it’s called SYNERGY. Synergy is the scientifically proven idea that that two can do far more than one by themselves.
ILLUS: I heard about a horse-pulling competition, where 1st place horse pulled roughly 5000 lbs. and the 2nd place horse pulled approximately 4,000 lbs.
After the event was over, just out of curiosity, the organizers hooked the two horses together, to see how much weight they could pull as a unit.
Now we would probably expect that they would pull 9,000 lbs, right? What actually happened, though, was that the 2 horses pulled nearly 12,000 lbs!
It’s called “Synergy
And Jesus set up His church to work on “synergy”
In Matthew 18:19-20 Jesus said "I tell you that if TWO OF YOU on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where TWO OR THREE come together in my name, there am I with them."
Jesus tells us – if we want to get anything done - we need each other. Christianity is designed to work best when we WORK and PRAY together.
Now, that brings me to our story today.
In Acts 13, we read about a team of 5 men who changed the world.
Just like any good basketball team… there were 5 of them:
Barnabas
Simeon called Niger
Lucius of Cyrene
Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch)
and Saul. Acts 13:1
These were five good men working together - as a team - for God.
How do I know they were working together?
Acts 13:2 tells us “…they were worshiping the Lord and fasting…”
These men had set aside a specific period of time when they got together as 5 men. And their objective for getting together was to worship God in their small group.
Now we don’t know much about Simeon and Lucius and Manaen.
Saul and Barnabas we do know a lot about.
From Acts 11, we find that Barnabas went to Tarsus to find Saul and together they began teaching large numbers of people at Antioch.
So, we know a lot about Saul and Barnabas. But who were these other 3 men?
Well, they might have been preachers.
Or maybe they were the equivalent of our Sunday School teachers
Or maybe they were Elders at that church in Antioch.
We don’t know – the Bible doesn’t tell us.
All we know is that there 5 men who decided to get together to worship God and fast. This was a deliberate meeting. They had deliberately gathered together for the specific purpose of worshiping and fasting.
You know, fasting is serious business.
It’s when you don’t eat for one or more meals.
And Isaiah 58:6-7 teaches us that the purpose of fasting
“Is… to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter— when you see the naked, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?”
In other words, you take the money you’d have spent on food and you give that to the poor and needy.
Most of us DON’T fast.
Why?
Because it’s not a lot of fun.
One man once commented: “Why is the practice called "fasting" when time passes so slowly when you’re doing it?”
Nobody I know “enjoys” fasting. So, when a person DOES fast, it’s because they have a serious prayer they’re lifting up.
Isaiah 58:10-11 says – if you fast the way you should…“and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday. The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”
So these 5 men had gathered together because they had some serious praying to do. Something seems to have been bothering them… but we’re not told what. I personally believe these men KNEW there was something else they weren’t involved with yet. Something MORE that God wanted them to do.
AND when these Leaders got down on their knees and prayed and fasted - when they opened themselves up to being used by God anyway He desired - God responded in a BIG WAY.
As I said earlier - These were five good men working together as a team for God. When they got down on the floor together and asked for God’s will in their lives, God’s Spirit led them set apart Barnabas and Paul as missionaries. And when that happened. The world literally was turned upside down
1. Nearly a dozen new congregations were established thru out Asia
2. Hundreds of people were baptized into Christ
3. Paul began a ministry of writing letters that resulted in the composition of 1/2 of our New Testament.
4. And Antioch was established as one of the central hubs of Christianity in the ancient world.
And that was all because these 5 team players got on the floor together – as a team – for God.
I want to be like those Christians.
I want change the world like that church at Antioch changed the world.
I want us to be as powerful a church for Jesus like they were.
Now, we’re a pretty good church, and we’re getting better all the time.
And part of the reason we’ve been so blessed as a church, is because your Elders understand the importance of our church working together as a team. We try really hard to emphasize that we’re ALL ministers for Christ.
We’ve been good at teamwork.
And God has allowed us to do many things for the Kingdom because we do value that
But every team needs to revisit the fundamentals so they can stay focused. And I’ve noticed 4 foundational truthes of teamwork in this text that we need to be reminded of.
Foundational truth # 1 is probably the most fundamental: Make Worship a priority!
“And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Hebrews 10:24-25
Those 5 men in Acts 13 made it a priority to be in worship together.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Unless there is a reason they can’t be here, people who love Jesus will be in church. Those who don’t - won’t.
Let me repeat that:
Unless there is a reason they can’t be here, people who love Jesus will be in church. Those who don’t - won’t.
These 5 men (in Acts 13) loved Jesus and wanted to be together in worship.
Truth #2 - We need to realize that playing as a team means more than just sitting on the bench.
A team that sits the bench isn’t going to be of much value. And a player who does nothing but sit the bench is worthless to their team.
I’m deeply appreciative of an audience who sits in the seats every Sunday – but if that’s all you do, you aren’t doing your part for God’s team
Hebrews 10 tells us we need to consider how to spur one another on towards love and good deeds. And it also says that we need to encourage one another.
That’s The Foundation Of A Great Team!
ILLUS: UCLA coach John Wooden was considered THE best college basketball coach of all time
He used to encourage his players to acknowledge the assists of their teammates.
If one player received a pass that allowed him to score, Wooden wanted him to give the other man a wink or point to him as they moved down to the opposite end of the court.
A new player once asked Wooden
“But what if the other player isn’t looking when you point him out?”
Wooden just smiled, “Oh don’t worry. He’ll be looking.”
Truth #3 – We need to deliberately seek God’s Will together.
Acts 13 tells us that these 5 men deliberately got together to worship and fast and pray. The intensity of their action indicated they were seeking God’s will in a powerful way. And they were deliberately doing that.
And we do things like that with our Sunday School, Bible studies, Men’s Prayer Breakfasts. We have a leadership meeting each month where the leaders ask themselves how we can be a better church for Jesus. But even in those groups, it’s possible to just “show up” and sit the bench.
We’ve got to deliberately seek God’s will for our lives and our churches when we gather in those groups.
Truth #4 is that we need to be open to big ideas.
Those 5 men at Antioch were looking for God to lead them.
Carl Bates once wrote: “There came a time in my life when I earnestly prayed: “God, I want your power!” Time wore on and the power did not come.
One day the burden was more than I could bear. I asked “God, why haven’t you answered that prayer?” God seemed to whisper back this simple reply: “With plans no bigger than yours, you don’t need my power.”
We need to be open to a BIG God who has BIG plans for our church.
And in Antioch that BIG Plan began with laying hands on two men and sending them to do mission work.
CLOSE:
Stan has come today to be ordained by our congregation.
He wants us to be part of his team as he goes to Haiti.
We have supported him financially in the past… but now we are supporting he and Diane by putting our official endorsement on their ministry there. From this point on, they go there as part of our Church. They go promoting the truths we see in Scripture and standing for the principles we believe in as a body of Christ.
In this ordination service we are declaring they have our approval… and they have our prayers.
But I’m going to challenge you to one thing more for them.
I’m going to ask you to fast.
Maybe fast one meal. Maybe fast for a day, or a week.
You don’t have to tell me if you’re doing it… this is all between you and God.
But if you care enough for their ministry to fast for them and to take the money you’d have spent on food and give it to the poor, so that God will give an extra measure of power to our prayers.
I am calling you to come together as a team for God.
But you aren’t really a part of that team until you belong to Jesus.
And you aren’t really a part of this team until you make this congregation your home.
That’s why we offer an invitation at the end of every service…
