BE091502
PLAYING ON GOD’S TEAM
2. How To Be A Team Player
(OPENING SLIDE) Today I want to talk about how to be a team player from 1 Corinthians 12:12-27. Paul begins by painting the picture of Christian Teamwork and Community in these words.
(SLIDE) TEAM DEFINED
1 Cor 12:12-14
12 The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ.
13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many.
I want to you note how diverse is the group of people Paul is speaking to. Their diversity comes from their race (Jew or Non-Jew) and their social-economic position (slave or free). Add on top of that gender differences, different citizenships, different spiritual gifts and what it adds up to is one ugly mess. Or at least it should have.
Name a situation in modern life where people from all over those different continuums can get together in harmony and oneness? Little league? Not really? Public Schools? Definitely not, we cloister according to our socio-economic position. Politics? Well, there’s some diversity there by the nature of representative government, but let’s talk harmony and oneness? Not there.
We’re hard pressed to see a community of oneness anywhere we turn, no matter what the diversity manuals are saying these days. You know why? Because humans need a reason to live in oneness. If you don’t give them a reason, then they will naturally cluster according to their kinds and their traditions and live like the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s.
Let me ask you this… what does your hand and your foot have in common? What about your hand and your liver? What does your spleen have in common with your kneecap? What does your head have in common with your back? Besides hair? What all these body parts have in common is, YOU.
Friend, if we could stand every true Christ follower in the world on this stage, and we could unpack their lives and cultures and gifts and perspectives, we would be overwhelmed with the differences. And we would wonder what could possible link them all together. What links them is Christ. What links us is nothing more or less than Jesus Christ. He is our common ground. He is our bond, he is our tie, and our unity.
I want you to look at verse 12… after Paul says, though all the bodies parts are many, they form one body. So it is with… with what? What’s his point? So it is with the church, right? But notice he ends the sentence unexpectedly… so it is with Christ. Friends that’s how closely we the church are identified with Jesus Christ himself.
We are not Jesus himself, but we are his hands and his feet, his living presence on earth. When on earth he inhabited and did his work through a human body, and now in a sense he still does, only it’s millions of human bodies that he inhabits and does his work through. We are Christ to the world…
So in this local expression of the Body of the Christ, friends, we better get in touch with the basis of our unity. It is Jesus Christ. Unity in diversity. This is team, this is community. God is just such a community of oneness… the diversity of the three persons of the Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit forming a unity of purpose and mind and loving servanthood! That should be us! A diverse collection of parts brought together by a powerful unifying agent that leads to oneness of purpose and mind and mutual concern.
What can get in the way of that vision of the church as body? That’s Paul’s next topic:
(SLIDE) TEAM BUSTER: INDEPENDENCE
Now interesting that Paul notes that independence can kill team and community in two ways. One is independence brought by inferiority and by superiority. First inferiority:
1 Cor 12:15-17
15 If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
16 And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
(SLIDE) 17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
That’s quite the picture… the whole body just ONE BIG EAR! Paul says that’s what you’re asking for if you allow the enemy to tell you you’re not needed. Imagine if the people who say, “I’m not like someone else, I’m not needed, I need to have someone else’s gift to be valuable… Imagine those folks got their way.
That’s what you’re asking for when you get jealous of someone else’s gifts or ministry, when you think you’re not needed. You’re asking for the Body to be one big ear or one big eye. Not only is that ugly, it’s non-functional.
We look at people who are up front in the church, and we want to be like them or in their orbit. If we were all like them the world would come to a grinding halt. Can you imagine the world made up of 6 billion leaders? 6 billion movie stars? 6 billion presidents? Or God forbid, 6 billion preachers?
Imagine you’re on a flight and the pilot turns on the intercom:
"This is your captain speaking. The reason your ticket was so much cheaper is that we have done away with the people you never see - the maintenance men who service the airplane, the navigator and the air-traffic controller up in the tower. We also didn’t think it was necessary to have those security people checking for weapons. Have a nice flight."
The most visible people you see are standing on the shoulders of dozens and hundreds and sometimes thousands of men and women who allow that person to serve in that way. Take away the support staff, and not only does that out front person come crashing down, the whole organization comes crashing down.
Friends the inferiority complex I’m talking about stems from a false humility. I’ve seen it, and I’ve done it myself: “I’m not needed, what good am I, I should be someone else.” This is not humility, this is pride, this is a feeling of entitlement: I deserve to be in a better position, I deserve that person’s position, and if I don’t get it I’m going to sulk and I’m going to withdraw and I’m going to hide myself and I’m going to console myself by telling myself the team is exclusive because it only seems to need star quarterbacks and I’m not a quarterback.”
You know the guy with the 1 talent in Jesus story who hides his masters money instead of investing it? Did he do that because he was so humble? No, he did it because he was proud, and maybe resentful of the other stewards who were called to manage more than he. If he had just invested his gift well, it didn’t matter that it was smaller than the others, the Master would have given him the same reward: well done.
When you fight against who you are in the body of Christ, and hide in inferiority, do you see what you’re fighting against? You’re fighting against God:
(SLIDE) 1 Cor 12:18-19
18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be.
19 If they were all one part, where would the body be?
God, who arranged the parts just as HE wanted them to be. It was his sovereign choice to make you a teacher or a pray-er or a helper or a mercy giver or a shepherd or a leader. And he gave your unique personality to go along with it… As long as you stay in inferiority, you’re fighting God’s design and you are impeding the Body from full effectiveness.
But now there’s also independence brought by superiority or pride: READ
(SLIDE) 1 Cor 12:20-22
20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don’t need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don’t need you!"
22 On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable,
The day you figure out that God wants to use YOU, the day you uncover the divine abilities he’s graced your life with could be the beginning of PRIDE for you. For me, it was when I realized, I might be a teacher. I found out I was a hand and I slowly, I took pride in the things I could grasp, the tools I could use. How awesome to be hand. What would the body do without it’s hands?
So I went to Bible college which is where useful hands go, and the first mark in my preaching class was a "D". Ok, not a very well manicured hand, apparently. And then, as I mentioned last week, God led me to areas of service that taught me to think more about the Body and less about being a hand.
I began leading a hospital chaplainry team that visited patients and put on services for them. I was very frustrated – visiting those patients was the hardest thing in the world for me. I mean, here I am, pastor in training. A super class, right? So why was it that whenever I entered a room I would sweat, I’d get nervous and develop rocks in my gut? I would stammer and say something like,
so... you’re sick... I imagine that’s a bummer, huh?
People would look at me like,
Who sent this punk up here?
And then, one day, a new woman came on my team. And I was going to take her up to the patients and you know, show her the ropes! So we get in there and what do I do? Well I default to my gift, teaching. That’s my M.O. when in doubt, teach. Someone comes in for counseling, I teach, I run a staff meeting, I start to teach, my kids ask for bubblegum, I teach.
And hey, you know people who are sick in the hospital and kind of mad at God and tired of answers? Let me give you a hot tip… they love teaching. Oh yeah, lot’s and lot’s of pat answers, can’t get enough of that.
So this is me, right, I’m showing her how it’s done. As I’m fumbling through some disjointed treatise on God’s sovereignty and man’s free will, here’s the newbee and she takes one of the gaps in my monologue and pipes up, “can I just ask a question?” And I go,
“well, I guess if you think you have something to add!”
And I shut up just long enough to observe. And what I observed changed my view of the Body of Christ forever. This humble rookie, drew this patient out with questions, she showered genuine concern and mercy on them. And she shared tears and prayed and read Scripture. She oozed love and care.
And after, I said,
How’d you do that? You were MADE show God’s mercy on hurting people!
Suddenly I had an image of the church. And it was a more biblical one than I had ever had before. It was an image of a body, where every member serves a vital function. I would have been lost without her that day. Superiority kills just as badly as inferiority. Superiority means people without the right gifts are pushing out other people better suited…
The net result is still the same: ineffectiveness.
Now I want to go one layer deeper. Remember Paul noted the diversity of the Body goes deeper than spiritual gifts? Paul mentions ethnicity, religious background, social standing etc. The incredible uniqueness that is you, goes deeper than your spiritual gift to your background, your experiences, your interests and your temperament and personality.
So part of saying, OK, I’m an eye, is to also say, “oh, and I’m a LEFT eye, or a RIGHT eye.” See, some of you already know what special, divine enablements the Holy Spirit put into your life the day he took up residence there:
- helps,
- faith,
- intercession,
- giving,
- hospitality,
- encouragement,
- administration,
- evangelism,
- service,
- mercy,
- discernment,
- shepherding
You KNOW this is in there… but then when you’re using that gift you’ll find your energy flags or there’s frustration, or there’s no fruit. Why not? It could be you’re functioning as a left eye and you’re made to be a right eye.
Once, after I uncovered the thrill of teaching God’s Word, I jumped at the opportunity to teach a class of 5 year olds. Why not? I was gifted to teach, right? Big mistake. Every week blank faces staring at me. I brought in a lifelike stuffed bird once to liven up a discussion and a kid almost wet his pants he was so scared.
I asked myself, what’s wrong? Why does this service suck me dry? Don’t I have the gift of teaching? The answer I found out years later was that I did have a gift to teach but I had little passion for teaching children. The same principle applies to personality discoveries. And this is the just part of the fun stuff you’ll unpack in Network on Sept 28th.
Now finally Paul talks about
(SLIDE) COMMUNITY PAYOFFS
1 Cor 12:23-27
23 and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty,
24 while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it,
(SLIDE) 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.
Two kinds of payoffs Paul mentions.
(SLIDE) MUTUAL CARE
Again, there’s no better illustration of God’s design than the human body. The unpresentable parts of the human body are on the inside. They are delicate and they are unseen. Exposed to outside, how long would the heart, the lungs, the stomach last? Not long. So God sees to it that ribs and skin protects them. In turn, the heart and lungs and stomach feed and nurture the ribs and skin.
This mutual care works itself out in the Body of Christ on more than one level.
- those with upfront gifts must continually acknowledge and give honor to the truth: that the church falls flat without the myriads of behind the scenes gifts. And I’d be remiss if I didn’t do that now: behind every piece of fruit that comes from my life and ministry which is more on display than any other at AC3 comes back to another person’s service. A wife. A small group leader. A cleaning team member. A child care worker.
- Mutual care also plays itself out in terms of practically caring for those with physical needs in our congregation and in our community. Did you know 1/5 of all your giving at AC3 goes in that direction? We’ve tripled our efforts this year because a fully functioning church honors the weak, feeds the poor… it protects those that can’t protect themselves.
- Mutual Care plays itself out mostly in love. This goes far beyond merely working together to truly caring for each other. “concern for each other…”
Vince Lombardi was asked what it takes to have a winning team. He said:
There are a lot of coaches with good ball clubs who know the fundamentals and have plenty of discipline but still don’t win the game. Then you come to the third ingredient: if you’re going to play together as a team, you’ve got to care for one another. You’ve got to love each other. Each player has to be thinking about the next guy and saying to himself "If I don’t block that man, Al is going to get his legs broken. I have to do my job well in order that he can do his."
The difference between mediocrity and greatness, Lombardi said is the feeling these guys have for each other. In a healthy church, it’s more than just working together, it’s about caring for each other. That’s part of our work, one of our pillars as a church.
Next: now we get to something that I hope perks your interest.
(BULLET) MUTUAL NEED MEETING
In verse 27 the phrase “Each of you” puts an emphasis on the individual’s uniqueness. The NLT puts it like this: “each of you is a separate and necessary part…” You are still an individual in this body, with spiritual needs that need to be met. Notice, this passage has defined our needs versus our wants.
- we may want to have someone else’s gifts,
- we may want life our Christian life independently,
- we may want the special position, the special relationships.
Friend, those are wants, not needs. This passage says our legitimate needs are:
- I need care
- I need identity
- I need security
- I need responsibility
Tell me something friends, when are those needs going to be met? Answer: When every one of us gets that it’s not about our needs first but about meeting others needs. The human body does not exist to meet the needs of the hand. The hand exists to meet the needs of the body - BUT, in doing so gets its own needs met!
The Body of Christ does not exist to meet your needs. You exist to carry out the work of the Body BUT in doing so, your needs will be met. For only in engaging interdependently in the Body of Christ is…
- is our need for care met as we give equal concern; as we say to another, I need you, I feel with you, I rejoice with you.
- is our need for security met as we realize that we belong to others
- is our need for identity met as we realize we are important to the whole and have a distinct contribution to make
- is our need for responsibility met as I assume responsibility for honoring you and protecting you and serving you.
I know that all of you were saddened to learn this week of the death of one of our church’s most valuable members -- Someone Else. Someone’s passing created a vacancy that will be difficult to fill. Mr. Else has been with us since the beginning, and for every one of those years, Someone Else did far more than their share of the work. Whenever a need was to be met, this wonderful person was on everyone’s lips:
Someone else will do it! YES! We know Someone Else can!
Now AC3, Mr. Else is gone. Who is going to do the things Someone was supposed to do? I guess we can’t depend on Someone Else anymore.
PRAY
