Two weeks ago I spoke about Spiritual heroes. This week we are challenged about thinking there is some sort of spiritual elite.

 

Personalities are the meat and drink of the modern celebrity culture. It is not what you believe but who you are associated with. It always has been In the New Testament church in Corinth, Paul, Apollos, Peter and even Jesus had become not heroes of faith but labels to take sides on.

 

So what has this to do with Spiritual Olympics? Well quite simply No one is taking part alone at the Olympics, they are part of a team. There is Team GB and each athlete has a team behind them. Without the team, the individual is isolated, alone, vulnerable.

Being part of a team is deeply significant. But the team has its own tensions. And that is what today’s team talk is about. First the need to be a team player, second the need to work as a team. The central point of this passage is not about who is who but God’s way of working in the church.

So let’s unpick the key issues for us.

. Only servants, through whom you came to believe -- as the Lord has assigned to each his task

There is one leader and he is Jesus. We may be the means of our friends and relations and colleagues coming to believe but that is because each of us is on assignment from heaven. Do you believe that? This mission that the church on is not one developed by the Leadership Team or the Eldership or the Pastor. It is one which Jesus calls us to and he assigns each of us to play our part. This morning there are probably over a dozen designated responsibilities but if you do not have a designated responsibility you are still on assignment. Our worship is not what happens up front, it is what happens in our hearts. And if you hearts are together in the right place, then we are the dream team that God intends.  Then outside of this place you are still on assignment. In our suburban way of life, that means we are part of a wider church of Jesus Christ. You show the love of God by a smile, a friendly word, being known as a Christian, and someone from Ruislip Baptist, shares a little of their faith, someone from another church explains the gospel, you bring your friend to church, they go on our Alpha Course  and  put their faith in Jesus for salvation at an event in a third church. That is teamwork and we must understand that we are not here to build up SRCF we are here to build the Kingdom of God. And we are fellow workers together and with other Christians in the area.

 6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow.

 

Ok its not about athletics, its gardening. And I apologise for speaking about watering in the rain sodden summer! But do you get the point?  We are part of a team.

 

We all fancy ourselves as heroes leading someone to Christ, but that is not what this mission is about. It is about each of us telling the Good News, telling our Story, living such lives as bring honour to Jesus. And God makes the seed grow!

 

No one other that Jesus saves. No one other than the Holy Spirit convinces people of sin and righteousness and judgement. You tell your story, live the life and tell the Good News and God works miracles through you.

 

Billy Graham Crusades appeared to some to be, get them to the Meeting and Billy will get them saved. Not true. Most people saved at Billy Graham Crusades had been witnessed to, before they came. They were there because they were invited. And after the appeal a team of counsellors spoke and encouraged and prayed with them and pastors and church members in their locality followed them up.  But God made the seed grow and only those whom he chose actually were saved.

 

 ⁸ The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour.

The second issue is purpose. What unites people is common purpose and common interest. What divides us is when we are pulling in all directions and going nowhere. The problem we face is that we come to church for a whole variety of reasons and sometimes we fail to catch the vision of what church is about. It is a common problem, the church is seen and paraded as an institution of State,  a part of our culture, a piece of  our history, a social centre and the rest which are not so complimentary.

Any of those may be true, but at heart we are a faith community.  You join the church on confession of faith in Christ Jesus. You, at some point of time turned from your sins and sought and received forgiveness based on the death and resurrection of Jesus. As a result you are born into a new eternal family, the family of God.

So our purpose is to respond to the love of God in Christ Jesus.  Paul, Apollos, Peter all lived and died because they had found forgiveness in Jesus. So those who sort to exploit differences of approach that each had, were ignoring the core purpose and getting into disputes over details and traditions.

 

This is important, what united us is our salvation which we have received in Christ. Everything else may lead to arguments about where the chairs should be, or how and when we do communion or which activities to encourage and which we can’t do. Those are valid debates, but we must not let them get beyond the debate about how to go about our mission and become the big issue.

As our text for the year emphasises, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, major on that and be ready to give up on other debates because grace is the key, not orthodoxy.

 

For we are God's fellow-workers; you are God's field, God's building.

 

If this is not God’s Fellowship then we have lost the plot. If we are not working under the instruction of Jesus, then we are a danger to our church.

 

You do not win a football match by arguing with the manager and coach, you win by going out onto the pitch committed to bring about the best result by a team effort, which means being in the place that the rest of the team needs, passing to the other player rather than trying to score yourself. Spain won because they could pas the ball endlessly and occasionally score goals. They were invincible because they were a team.

 

You are God’s team, play your part as he directs and we will score goals!

 The third issue then is to do with your individual contribution.

 

¹⁰ By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it.

 

Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus, because it is by grace that you are given a part to play and the skills to play that part. So there can be no cause for boasting because you have received your calling and your gifting as a free gifts from God! And there is no reason to think more highly of one person than another because each of us is blessed with different gifts so that the team will work together to achieve its purpose in Christ. While I was thinking about this, someone referred to a church as being a famous leader’s church. Now that sits uncomfortably here. Whatever church was referred to is the combined vision and effort and exercise of gifts of each and every member. So no one person makes a church happen. Each one of us is playing a part and we are to be careful how we play that part.

 

 But each one should be careful how he builds. ¹¹ For no-one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. ¹² If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, ¹³ his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man's work. ¹⁴ If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. ¹⁵ If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

 

The key is that we build on the foundation of Jesus Christ. It is as he is set apart among us, his word is translated into our obedience and faith in action that he builds his Kingdom and is glorified by it.

 

Your obedience to Jesus, your love and joy and peace and faith are eternal stones in this temple to God. What adorns this fellowship is not the architecture or the modern technological aids to worship, it is not the number of people in the building on a Sunday Morning. It is your faith worked out in the struggle for day to day living, resisting temptation, choosing to love and be selfless, thinking of others and the passion of your heart in worship. This is similar to the call of Jesus to invest your treasure in heaven.

 

 I want you to notice one vital point here. Even if your contribution was no good, your salvation is not affected by that. We are often pressed to forget that and start thinking our salvation is dependant on what we do. It is not! Your salvation is safe and secure it you have turned from your sin and trusted Jesus for salvation. Nothing you do or do not do affects that. Our service is a response to the love of God in Christ Jesus never a means to obtain that love.

 

 So the Team talk today is

first that Jesus is our leader and everyone of us in serving him contributes to what makes church.

Second that our purpose to respond to God love in living by faith and love is what unites us in Christ.

Third that we have to be careful to play our part. Our living out the grace that is in Christ Jesus is how the Kingdom of God grows.

 

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