A Team Effort

After sports championships, World Series, Super Bowl, etc., a Most Valuable Player (MVP) is chosen. During the inevitable post-game interview it’s usually the case that the MVP will say how humbled he is to be so chosen and then go on to say how it was everyone’s effort that allowed his team to win. Such expressions of humility are becoming — and true. Though one player can be acknowledged for the significant contribution he made in obtaining the prize, team sports are just that, team sports. It takes a lot of different people to bring off a World Series win or a Super Bowl championship. But this is true for even non-team sports, such as golf and tennis. Athletes competing at a professional level in those arenas are supported by an entourage. Golfer Brooks Koepka has won four “majors,” and he has had a lot of help doing it. His swing coach, putting coach, strength trainer, caddy — the list could go on — all played a part in Koepka’s victories, even though he's the one who got to lift the trophies.

As we Christians seek to obtain the reward, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” we need as much help as the Series MVP or the reigning PGA champ. This is suggested when the writer of Hebrews exhorts, “let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” (Hebrews 10:24) Our mutual goal, as members of the body of Christ, is to “attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) To that end Jesus has given gifts that are to be exercised in a manner that enables the saints to “do the work of ministry,” which in turn brings pleasure to God, who will then express his pleasure in his children on the Day when we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. In other words, Christianity is a team sport. We need one another to obtain the prize, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” To go it alone, or to be concerned only with ourselves, is not the way God has designed it.

To be a help to our brothers and sisters, however, we must take seriously the exhortation to “consider” one another. Throwing out a lot of general directives to someone without considering who he is in the particular challenge he is facing, will not provide the needed support. We must know the other in order to help him. This is why the writer follows the previous exhortation with, “not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” Its in our times of worship, fellowship, and working together, that we gain the kind of insight we need so that we can better know how to lovingly and productively “stir up . . . love and good works” in our fellow believer.