God’s Championship Team Is Assembled For Success
Word-Of-The-Day: ‘(8) The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor. (9) For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.’ (1 Corinthians 3:8-9)
Congratulations to the Philadelphia Eagles winning Super Bowl LIX (59) last night! The two things that stood out to me after the game was over, in the immediate interviews with the winning coach and players they were praising God (which I pray was sincere, and to me it sounded like it) and they all said it was a team effort to win the game. The Eagles’ defense stopped Kansas City’s outstanding offense, the Eagles’ offense moved the football to either score touchdowns or get in position to allow their special teams’ unit to score field goals. Special teams also had to ensure to cover the several on-side kicks the Chiefs attempted to prevent the Chiefs from getting the football back quickly.
It is very rare for a player be on both offense and defense these days; usually a player has to have focus on one position to become proficient at it. Though this year’s college Heisman Trophy winner (given to the consensus best player of the year) played both offense and defense (and excelled in both), a two-way player (one playing on both offense and defense) has pretty much gone the way of the dodo bird.
A football team needs a quarterback to lead the offense, and a middle linebacker to lead the defense. There has to be wide receivers who can make difficult catches, and cornerbacks who can deflect and defend those throws. Offensive linemen have to give the quarterback protection to throw and open running lanes for the halfbacks to run the ball through, while defensive linemen must be able to thwart the offensive schemes by sacking the quarterback and stuffing the run at the line of scrimmage.
To win championships in any level of football requires each member of the team to play their position, to know their roles, and to do those roles to the best of their abilities. If any individual on the team fails, it can cost the team, all the members of the team, the victory. How many times in the last second of a game have we seen the defense get a stop, the offense drive the football down the field to get into field goal position, only to have the poor lonely kicker pull the ball wide right and miss the opportunity to win the game for his team?
One player’s failure becomes a team failure. If the kicker makes the field goal, however, his success becomes the team’s success. The individual players share the burden of the team together, who must perform their roles as planned. Such is the case in God’s ‘Championship Team’…
God made a Championship team even before a football was thrown during a crisp autumn day in the late 1800s. In the beginning, God’s Triune nature gave Him a team to create the universe – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God also created His Heavenly Hosts (the angels, the cherubim and seraphim). Later He made man, in His own image, to take care of His Creation on Earth. God delegated roles to members of His Team to ensure proper management of His Creation.
Later, we see this at work with men, one example being Jethro giving Moses the Godly advice to delegate his authority to ‘judges’ to handle smaller disputes and allow both Moses’ and the people’s time to be freed up and have a quicker justice system. Fast forward to Jesus’ earthly ministry where he formed the team of the 12 Apostles to carry out the task of sharing the Gospel to the Jews and, after Jesus’ Ascension to the entire world. Jesus also implored the Apostles, and us, to go make disciples to make sharing the Gospel more manageable and easier on each person.
Jesus, while He could have certainly done this by Himself as God Manifested, also knew we humans should have an investment, or an interest, in His work. For many of us, we neither plant or water the food we eat, we just go to Wal-Mart and buy the produce off the shelf, or the ground chuck from the meat & poultry aisle in the back.
In doing this, however, many lose the knowledge of or take for granted the efforts necessary to grow a tomato or nurture a cow to make the food. Some folks make statements like ‘stop slaughtering chickens and cows, since it’s already pre-packaged in the grocery store’, as if stores somehow manufacture chicken wings in a factory. In the same way, Jesus wants us to not take Salvation for granted, but to have that passion in it to go do the Great Commission, to make an investment by providing the Gospel to others.
Not all on a football team can be quarterbacks, and Jesus also knows not all can be Billy Graham evangelists. We must understand, just like a football team, Billy Graham could not set up his sound system or meet with every person in a 60,000-seat stadium; our pastor cannot teach every Bible Study, or run the videos, or play all the musical instruments, or visit all the hospital patients. The Church needs to be a team to be victorious in bring the Word of God to people. There has to be a Children’s and Student’s Ministry to teach the children in a way that they can understand the Lord while the adults can hear the Word preached in a Christ-believing, Biblically-centered message.
A cleaning crew ensures the bathrooms are sanitary, and the financial team ensures the counting and security of tithes and offerings and ensure the payment of bills to keep the lights on. We need a Faithful pastor to lead the flock, but we also need a Faithful team working with the Pastor to make us an effective church. If the cleaning crew fails, people won’t come due to the filth; if the financial team fails, the tithes will go somewhere else in waste and the lights get turned off.
Churches fail because the people take these things for granted. To paraphrase President John F. Kennedy, ‘Ask not what your church can do for you, but ask what can you do for your church.’ It doesn’t have to be much, it just has to be you willing to do it – after all, you’re part of the Championship Team of God!
