Let's Act Like A Team

We are to strive together for the faith of the Gospel.

Philippians 1:27 states,

“Only let your conduct be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your affairs, that you stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel”

That phrase, “striving together,” is one word in Greek. It comes from the word for athlete, athleo, combined with the prefix, sun, which means with or together. It makes us think of competing on a team - like a football team where everyone has a part to play in harmony with each other. The line has to block and keep out the defenders. The receivers have to run their patterns as called for by the play. And the quarterback counts on it all coming together so he has time to get off that pass. And when it all comes together - touchdown!

But, if people don’t follow the plays as they are called, all you get is chaos and failure. No one knows what the other one is doing, and no one can count on the other players. But if we all play our part, if we strive together, we can do it!

This makes sense. We are supposed to be a team working together in the church. We together work for the common prize. And if we don’t work together, if we don’t demonstrate teamwork. we will never achieve the victory. But when we play like a team, Yes! Victory!

Now, Satan knows that a house divided against itself can’t stand. So one of his most common tactics is to get us fighting with each other, and usually over some of the silliest things. Like on a team, someone wants the glory, so he becomes a ball hog, and the others get resentful so they quit doing their part. Or someone skips practice and breaks training, and he lets the rest of the team down. Many great teams with outstanding athletes never win the championships because each player is out for his own glory while less talented teams that pull together win it all.

No! We must “strive together for the faith of the Gospel.” That’s our game plan! We are to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a lost and dying world as our enemy, the devil and his minions, try to stop us. We are on the offense – they are on the defense. We have the ball and we have a game plan. We just need to execute that plan together as a team joined arm in arm and heart to heart.

But now look at this next verse. Philippians 1:28 says, “And not in any way terrified by your adversaries, which is to them a proof of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that from God.” We could paraphrase that as, “Don’t be alarmed by your opponents. Don’t let them get you shaking in your boots.”

I know that that is common in athletics. When I played high school football on a small class B team. We had one game against a big class A team from the big city, and they had on their team the best running back in the state. He was big and fast and powerful and was setting all kinds of rushing records in the state by simply running over tacklers or dragging three or four of them along with him. If you tackled him, it was going to hurt. You knew you would pay a price. And a lot of the guys on the team were shying away from taking the punishment it would take to bring him down. Now we knew this from the scouting reports the week before we played, and a lot of the team, and I think even the coaches, were literally dreading the game.

This is what Paul is talking about here. Sometimes it hurts to spread the gospel. Look at the bruisings Paul had taken while doing it. And I’m sure this is why so few Christians actually proclaim the Gospel. A lot of people that make attempts at witnessing get bloody noses and black eyes, so they start to shy away from doing it again. But Paul says, “Oh, No! Don’t do it! Don’t let them scare you.” We don’t have to be afraid of them. Greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world. So share the Gospel fearlessly.