Main Idea: Believers are to come together so they can share life together.

This morning we come to our fifth practice in our series "Spring Training: 7 Practices for a Winning Life." The title of our message is "There’s No ‘I’ in Team" and we are using that very familiar cliché to talk about the practice of believers having fellowship with other believers. We have said that to have a life that effectively pleases God and brings us joy, we are to follow Christ fully, abide in Christ daily, live in God’s word continually and pray in faith. Today we want to explore the need believers have to come together so they can share life together.

In 1991 Jack Morris was pitching for the Minnesota Twins. That year the Twins played the Atlanta Braves in the World Series. Jack Morris pitched three stunning games of that series, which the Twins won. The series went all seven games with Morris’s pitching and Morris’ pitching won him the series MVP. After game seven, in which Morris pitched an extra inning complete shutout, a reporter asked him how "he" had won it. "‘I’ didn’t win it," he said, "There’s no ‘I’ in team." He couldn’t have done it without the rest of the team.

This is true in other sports as well. Peyton Manning, quarterback of the 2007 Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts, has his locker in the middle of the lockers of his offensive line. He knows without them he couldn’t lead the team to victory or even survive. Multiple Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong knew that his victories were really the result of his United States Postal Service cycling team of which he was a part. He was known for doubling their prize money after each of his victories. He said that when he stood on the winner’s platform in Paris wearing the winner’s yellow jersey that he only deserved the zipper. "The rest of it, each sleeve, the front, the back belongs to the guys." Individuals do not win victories for teams. There’s no "I" in team.

I know it is a cliché but the same thing is true for persons who are believers in Jesus Christ. There is no "I" in team. Believers succeed or fail as a team, a unit or a body. Unfortunately, the spirit of isolation and individualism within our culture is just as strong in the church, creating a void of real fellowship among believers. Rick Warren said, "If an organ is somehow severed from its body, it will shrivel and die. It cannot exist on its own, and neither can you. Disconnected and cut off from the lifeblood of a local body, your spiritual life will wither and eventually cease to exist…whenever we become careless about fellowship, everything else begins to slide, too." The Purpose Driven Life, p. 131-132)

Christian’s isolating themselves from each other was something that the church faced in the first century. That’s why the writer of Hebrews 10:24-25 admonished his readers to not neglect coming together as some of them had already begun to do. What I want us to see today is that believers are to come together so they can share life together. It’s the practice of fellowshipping with believers.

What do we mean by the term "fellowship"? The word was a description of the actions of the early church in Acts 2:42 as they "devoted themselves to fellowship." The word to us usually means casual conversation, visiting, food and fun. That’s one level of what fellowship could mean but there is more. The word in the New Testament means to share life together. It is the idea of unselfish love, sharing honestly, practical service, giving sacrificially, and compassionate caring. It is opening up your life to someone else and sharing the journey with them. Actor Hugh Laurie said, "Like I always say, there’s no ‘I’ in team. There is a me, though if you jumble it up." True New Testament fellowship takes the "me" out of team.

I have said that believers are to come together so they can share life together. There are three ways that believers come together in our church for certain levels of fellowship. The first level is what I’ll call "The Crowd." That’s where you are now. It’s what our children call "Big church" or the worship service. This is one place we should make as a priority for our need for coming together in fellowship.

Now the thing about being in the "Crowd" is that it’s not very personal. For many people, being in the "Crowd" for worship is about as personal as some care to be. That’s not bad but there is another level, which I am going to call the "Community." We might call it "little church." The "Community" is typically a Sunday School class. It is a place where people have the chance to get out of the crowd and rub shoulders with other believers. It’s a place where the Bible is taught and needs are shared at least at some level. It is not the deepest level but it is a first and very vital step for you to come together with other believers.

Now if I am honest with you, being in a "community" like Sunday School still doesn’t let you really share life together. Our Sunday School classes for adults have at a minimum twenty-five people in them and it really isn’t easy to get very personal with twenty-five people you probably won’t see until next week. That’s why there is a third level, which I call the "Core." Being in a "Core" group doesn’t mean you are part of a clique or some "inner circle." No, it means that you have chosen to come together with similar-minded people and risk relating to other believers at a more personal level. We have "Core" groups in our church that are intentional small groups who meet for Bible or book study. We have others who gather for coffee, ministry and what I call affinity groups. They may be groups that have a curriculum or the only curriculum is what has happened that week. A "Core" group is a specific group of people who choose to come together for the unique purpose of sharing life together.

Each one of those is important. Everyone who is a believer needs all three. We all need to be in large group worship, Sunday School and some type of small group that let’s you share life together. Believers are to come together in the "Crowd," the "Community" and the "Core" so they can share life together. Yet remember there is only so much life you can share in large groups. The best fulfillment of the word "fellowship" is at that third level. That’s why I’ve called it the "Core." I believe that is the level that we most need to expand at First Baptist and the level that the writer of Hebrews describes for us.

The writer of the book of Hebrews was concerned about the need for fellowship, sharing life together, among the church to which he was writing. He felt that they were drifting into isolation and that the church couldn’t survive if they had a "take it or leave it" mentality with each other. So he explains what the components of true fellowship are and the reasons they are to share life together.

Sharing life together begins with an intentional, creative connection to other believers (v. 24a). The writer says they are to "think of ways to encourage one another…." The word encourage is not a very accurate translation because the Greek word here meant literally "to provoke," stimulate or stir up someone. It calls for stronger action than "encourage." Also, when he uses the words "think of ways…" to stir others up, he is telling them that close connections with other believers is not going to happen naturally or accidentally but that it will happen because you intentionally create the connection with another believer.

This intentional, creative connection with other believers is the responsibility of the individual members of a church as well as the leadership of the church. It means that you should take ownership personally of the need to share life with another believer and find a creative way to intentionally connect with them. It also means that as the leadership of this church we are to look for ways not to keep you busy but to help you connect with other believers in creative ways. You can’t expect meaningful fellowship to just happen without taking the initiative to open that door. Don’t get discouraged or imagine no one will like the idea. Shake it up! Get out of the box and try intentional, creative ways to connect with other believers.

Sharing life together puts love into action (v. 24b). The writer says that the goal of this connection is for "outbursts of love and good deeds." The result of your connection is not just that you find someone who really understands you and cares about your problems and you theirs. No, the result is that your relationship with another believer is to show love and good deeds toward others. This is the difference in a clique and a connection. The clique is all about an inward focus while a connection of fellowship is about outward service.

The love that he describes here is love that is self-sacrificing, self-giving love. While our translations don’t pick it up, there is a strong, strong admonition to do this. It is an emotion that shows itself in action. An early Christian leader named Chrysostom said, "As iron sharpens iron so also fellowship increases love; for if a stone rubbed against a stone send forth fire, how much more person in contact with person." The life that is shared in the ways you fellowship with others is to cause the fire of God’s love to spread farther by your actions. My challenge for your "community" or Sunday School class and your "core" group is to take what you have within to another level of serving outwardly to others. Sharing life together will put the love you have for each other into action.

Sharing life together requires paying a significant price to make it a priority (v. 25a). He says, "And let us not neglect our meeting together as some people do…." What he was addressing was the real problem that some believers had stopped coming together for the church service. Whether through fear, laziness or feelings of superiority, some had come to believe that they could omit the larger gathering of the church. His point was that gathering wasn’t optional for disciples. Underlying this is the idea that this was a commitment that called for a significant price to be paid to keep it a priority. If their gathering was a priority, then it was going to cost them somewhere else.

That is true for this church as well. I am amazed at the level of devotion and commitment that so many of you have made to this church. Many of you have been devoted to gathering for decades. Many of you who are part of adult groups in our church are involved in worship, Sunday School, a small group and other ways of sharing life together. You have kids, homes, busy lives, and jobs and still you have made "gathering," sharing life together, a very costly priority. On the other hand, our church has persons who, for whatever reason, have become MIA’s—Missing in Action or AWOL—Away Without Leave. They are not here for the fellowship at any level. Why are they not here? It boils down to two reasons: either they feel they have been neglected by the fellowship or they have chosen to neglect the fellowship themselves. The point is that sharing life together is something that you pay a significant price to accomplish.

Sharing life together creates accountability between believers (v. 25b). The safeguard against neglecting fellowship between believers is desire for accountability. That’s why he continues by saying, "But encourage and warn each other." The word he uses here for encourage is the same word Jesus used in John for the Holy Spirit. It means, "to come beside someone else to help them." It is a picture word describing a believer getting close to another believer’s life and telling them to keep going and not give up. That isn’t possible without an understanding that the larger group or person that you are connected to is accountable to you and you are accountable to them.

Accountability isn’t easy to do in relationships because we fear acting like we are in charge of someone else’s life. Yet if I know that someone cares if I am not there or if I am not following through on my commitments, then I understand something of accountability. Holding one another accountable is hard because it takes fellowship to another level. Yet without accountability there is no real substance to the fellowship. You won’t share your life with someone else if neither of you care that it happens.

Sharing life together always has a spiritual urgency (v. 25c). The writer defines this spiritual urgency when he says, "Especially now that the day of his coming back again is drawing near." Of course what he is speaking of is the Second Coming of Jesus. These believers were challenged to see the events of life around them as evidence that the return of Christ was imminent. For this reason, they were to be urgent about their need to share life together because they needed to be ready for Christ’s return.

Our sharing life together is to have a sense of spiritual urgency about it. That spiritual urgency is to have at its center that Jesus Christ could return anytime. You and I see that the generation that this writer wrote to didn’t experience Christ’s return and that neither have the other generations. Yet the truth is each generation is to be a "second coming generation." It is that sense of spiritual urgency that shapes the generation itself. In other words, the sense of urgency we have about sharing life together defines the quality of the spirituality of that generation. Phillip Hughes said, "Each successive Christian generation is called upon to live as the generation of the end-time, if it is to live as a Christian generation." Because the return of Jesus could come any moment, sharing life together is an urgent spiritual necessity!

All that we have said today has been focused on this one truth: Believers are to come together so they can share life together. We share life together on three levels, the "Crowd," the "Community" and the "Core." Each one of those levels is vital to you and vital to this church. Today some of you need to get out of the "Crowd" and get plugged into a "Community." You need to come not only to worship but also go to a Sunday School class. Others of you need to move from the "Community" to the "Core." You need to connect with persons who you can open up with and share life with at a level you can’t in the "Community." Can you imagine the spirit of renewal and life that could happen as more and more of us come together and share life together? Can you imagine the energy that will come as a result of believers connecting, bursting out in loving actions, making the sacrifices to be together, caring about what happens in each other’s lives and doing all of that with a spiritual urgency.

Dallas Willard says, "Personalities that unite can contain more of God and sustain the force of greater presence much better than scattered individuals. The fire of God kindles higher as the coals are heaped together and each is warmed by another’s flame." Believers are to come together so they can share life together. "There’s no ‘I’ in team…There is a ‘me’, though, if you jumble it up." The practice of fellowshipping with believers takes the "me" out of team.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Dr. Bruce Tippit, Pastor

First Baptist Church

Jonesboro, Arkansas

btippit@fbcjonesboro.org