As a child, I grew up with a sports-mad Dad and an aversion to doing sport myself. I went along with my Dad to football and cricket matches and learnt English and world geography through accompanying him to football grounds watching Barnsley F. C. and following England tours abroad. I watched golf, horse-riding, rugby league and rugby union on television and followed the more obscure sports in the Olympics as well as winter sports with him. I loved learning the different rules of sport and loved the camaraderie of being a supporter. Wimbledon was one of my favourite tournaments; I enjoyed watching tennis in the 1980s in particular and was a huge Borg fan.

But as far as participating in sport was concerned, I hated that. My poor eyesight, left-handedness and lack of spatial awareness meant I was never going to be in anyone’s top-11 for team sports, and I was no better at individual sports. At school I had to play hockey, rounders, tennis and take part in gymnastics and athletics, all of which became the most dreaded hour of the week for me. I knew the rules. I knew what I was supposed to do. But actually doing what I was supposed to do just never seemed to happen. And the shame and humiliation of that haunted me for many years. I was gifted academically, but when it came to sport – which I loved to watch, admiring the skill, tactics, physical and mental strength required – I was at the bottom of the class, and my pride was badly dented.

There’s a huge difference between participating in something and being a spectator. It was years before as an adult I took part in any physical activity, finally taking to swimming to help my health, and I still can’t say I enjoy sport or exercise in any shape or form, even though I have got used to the benefits of them and realise the need to participate. But I know full well there’s an involvement from participation which can’t fully be explored through the act of being a spectator, however fanatical a fan you are (and believe me, I have been that fanatical fan…)

Many people, it seems to me, have the same tension between participator and spectator when it comes to ‘Team Church.’ We teach and preach all the time about every individual being a vital team member, but many people would rather be a spectator when it comes to church than a participator. There can be all kinds of reasons behind this, including my familiar feeling that ‘I’m-no-good-at-this-so-I’d-better-not-even-try’ and a sense of shame and humiliation (‘what if I get it wrong?’) I can remember the first time I attended a Church of England service – I had no idea how to follow a service sheet or what was meant by ‘responses’ –  feeling terrified that I would be standing when I was supposed to sit or sitting when I was supposed to stand. All these things make it difficult for us to learn what it means to find our place in the body of Christ.

Online meetings have been a great blessing to us during the pandemic, but they are fuel for the idea that church is a spectator sport. It really isn’t. Church isn’t about passively sitting in a meeting and letting others do everything. Paul tells the Corinthians, ‘When you come together, each of you has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. Everything must be done so that the church may be built up.’ (1 Cor 14:26) To the Ephesians, he said, ‘speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord.’ (Eph 5:19) That sounds to me like involvement, participation, not passive spectating!

So when we gather together in person next week, what will you be? A participator or a spectator? There’ll be opportunities to pray and to tell other people something of what God has been doing in your life over these past four months. There’ll be opportunities to talk to each other and build each other up, perhaps bringing verses of Scripture or hymns and songs which have blessed you recently. The challenge for us all is to move from being people who know the rules, know how to spectate and keep God and other people at arm’s length… and become participators, sharing from our hearts and seeking to bless God and build people up. Which will you choose to be?

In the Message version, Phil 2:14-16 says, ‘Do everything readily and cheerfully—no bickering, no second-guessing allowed! Go out into the world uncorrupted, a breath of fresh air in this squalid and polluted society. Provide people with a glimpse of good living and of the living God. Carry the light-giving Message into the night so I’ll have good cause to be proud of you on the day that Christ returns. You’ll be living proof that I didn’t go to all this work for nothing.’ I think this is a really good way of getting the meaning across to us:

• Do everything readily and cheerfully – a cheerful heart is good medicine, after all! (Prov 15:13) Having this positive attitude really makes a difference to our own lives and the lives of those we meet. We all instinctively feel better when we are around cheerful people, and we feel better when we ourselves determine to be positive. Being cheerful is a choice. It’s determined by where we put our focus and how we choose to be. Grumbling and complaining happen because that’s what we choose to focus on and how we choose to respond. Circumstances don’t have to be the deciding factor in how we live.

• Don’t spend all your time bickering and arguing or even second-guessing people’s motives. Be open, honest and forgiving with people. Life is really too short to hold grudges. Bickering, arguing, grumbling and complaining eat us up from the inside and make us miserable, resentful, bitter people. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Learn to see from someone else’s perspective. We serve a God of ‘countless second chances’ (‘Second Chance’, Rend Collective) and need to embrace those for ourselves and offer them to others.

• Understand that when we live as God wants us to, we are like a breath of fresh air in our world, for we live in a squalid and polluted society. We live in a world that is negative and selfish. When we live God’s way, putting each other first, being unselfish, acting out of love, then we give people snapshots of what God is like; we give people ‘a glimpse of good living and of the living God.’ That’s a powerful witness to the world.

• Recognise your God-given identity as ‘light of the world.’ (Matt 5:14) We may not feel like light, but this is what Jesus, Himself the Light of the World, said to His followers. Paul wants us to ‘carry the light-giving Message into the night.’ Again, it’s not about our light per se; it’s about letting God’s light shine from us so that others can see God’s light. The Message version says, ‘By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.’ (Matt 5:14-16) As we work together and live out God’s light, we can be part of God’s winning partnership and see others come to faith in Him.

In this partnership between us, God and ‘Team Church’, each person has a vital role to play.

God’s role is great: without Him, we can’t be saved, and He is the One who both begins and completes the good work in each one of us! (Phil 1:6) The Message version translates Phil 2:13 as ‘that energy is God’s energy, an energy deep within you, God himself willing and working at what will give him the most pleasure.’ (Phil 2:13, The Message) We rely ultimately on God’s love for us and strength in us as the Holy Spirit dwells in us.

Our part as individuals is to understand what God has done and who we are in God (accepted, chosen, and unconditionally loved) and to let these truths influence, shape and affect how we live. Just as footballers and cricketers can’t just rest on their laurels or reputations but have to train and work hard to be good team players, so we have to follow God with passion and effort, making every effort (as Peter says) to ‘add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love.’ (2 Pet 1:5-7) Paul’s advice to individuals spills over into our relationships with others: to ‘do everything without grumbling or arguing.’ (Phil 2:14) Grumbling and arguing were particular problems for the people of Israel in the wilderness wanderings and they are very human characteristics. All of us can easily fall into grumbling or arguing, and most of the time, we don’t even really see these things as a problem. But if a team is to be effective, it has to work together: ‘united we stand, divided we fall.’

God’s plan is that the church acts as a witness to the world, showing people what God is like. No sports fan enjoys watching a team that looks disjointed and at odds with itself. Similarly, Team Church is not much use to our communities if we are disjointed and at odds with each other. Bickering, party strife, holding grudges and arguing for the sake of it are no recommendations for God. There is enough of that in the world. We can’t expect people to believe what we say about God if we are not loving each other and living together in harmony. John said, ‘Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.’ (1 John 2:9-10) Loving each other is the biggest witness we have.

Paul says to the Galatian church, ‘If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other.’ (Gal 5:15) It’s a striking image. We have to let go of disagreements and division and let what we believe shape us and mould us so that we can become blameless and pure, so that we can become who we are called to be: ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation, shining like stars, holding firmly to the world of life.’ (Phil 2:15-16) We have to forgive and learn to bear with each other: ‘Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ (Eph 4:31-32) Again, this is something we have to do. God won’t get rid of these things for us; there has to be a co-operation with Him that this old way of life has to go. But if we are living in Him, we will want to get rid of all bitterness, range and anger, brawling, malice and slander. We will want to forgive.  Forgiveness is the outworking of a forgiven heart.

This morning we looked at Philippians 2:12-18 and saw how God’s plan for each one of us is for us to be part of a winning partnership – a partnership involving each individual, God, and ‘Team Church’! Team sports work best when gifted and talented individuals work together (often under the management of a great coach or manager); it’s not enough to have one virtuoso in any team. We need God; we need to do our bit; we need each other. When all these pieces fit together, then we have a winning partnership, but it’s all too easy to get one part of this puzzle out of proportion, which leads to all kinds of problems.

Paul says, ‘continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.’ (Phil 2:12-13) This is not the ‘working out’ of maths lessons or the ‘work out’ at the gym, but an outworking of what God says is true and a re-alignment of our lives according to His principles. It does involve effort and hard work (see 1 Cor 9:25-27, Eph 4:3, Rom 14:19), but God is also very present doing His part as well! Salvation is all from Him (Eph 2:8-9). Life is meant to be a partnership in the gospel where we can be confident, not in our own strength, but in God’s. God has begun a good work in us, and God will carry on that good work to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. We can have hope and confidence because of God’s character. He’s not a quitter; He never gives up on us.

Paul reminds us, however, that we need each other as well. Living and working together is not easy. It’s not easy for sports people to learn to fit into a team and it’s not easy for us to be part of a team either. But Paul talks about the importance of getting along together in just about every letter he wrote, because he knows this is part of our witness, part of the thing that will show others the reality of God. He has already outlined the way of humility and the way of servanthood in the opening verses of this chapter, and now he reminds us to ‘do everything without grumbling or arguing.’ (Phil 2:14) That way, God’s purpose for His people as a witnessing community may be fulfilled: ‘so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” (Phil 2:15)

Dame Vera Lynn sang the song ‘We’ll meet again’ during the Second World War as an encouragement to all that the suffering and separation wouldn’t last for ever. We too are glad that we’ll be meeting again from Sunday 2nd August. Online services have been a great way of keeping in touch (and we will continue to livestream Sunday services on Facebook Live even when meetings in Market Street resume), but we can’t wait to meet again in person!

Services throughout August will be at 10:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. on Sundays, and we will also hold alternate prayer meetings and Bible studies on Thursday evenings at 7:30 p.m.

We are also holding our ‘Take Back The Streets’ prayer meeting on Saturday 8th August between 10:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. Join us to pray either in the building or walk and pray for Goldthorpe throughout this team. Let’s continue to pray for our community and for God to move in power, in healing and in salvation as we seek God’s face together at last.

Propaganda and rhetoric are powerful tools, especially in the hands of skilled orators. Language can be a powerfully emotive weapon which can be used to persuade, argue and propose all kinds of views. It can be very difficult to sift fact from emotion in speeches and it can be hard not to be swayed by these tools in the hands of skilled debaters. Throughout history we have seen how politicians in particular can use oratory to persuade us to do things which normally we would not even consider or can motivate us to do things we would normally be reluctant to do. As with most things, this can be used both positively and negatively, to inspire or to condemn. We have all seen a little of this in recent times with government announcements about the coronavirus pandemic, many of which seem to have little solid factual foundation but which use emotive language in many ways to persuade us to an agreed point of view which may or may not be the correct one.  The use of statistics can easily be manipulated; as so many have commented, interpretation of these can reach apparently mutually exclusive conclusions, and it’s easy to feel bewildered by the agenda of those making the speeches.

In Acts 16:16-40, we see how Paul and Silas end up being thrown into prison for relatively little: the exorcism of a slave girl means her owners lose access to their means of income (since she is no longer able to earn money by telling fortunes), but they soon resort to emotive language to get their own way. Instead of admitting that they are motivated primarily by the loss of profit, they say, “These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice.” (Acts 16:20-21) They appealed to people’s sense of national identity, made people feel afraid of sedition and fuelled anti-Semitism. Their charges had little basis in law (hence Paul’s comments about being a Roman citizen who had been treated illegally at the end of the chapter, which threw the magistrates into a blue funk.) Nonetheless, they seemed to be getting their own way, with the magistrates not even bothering to check out the accusations before handing out a beating and imprisonment.

We need to be careful about our use of language. Eugene Peterson comments that “we cannot be too careful about the words we use; we start out using them and they end up using us.” (‘Christ Plays In Ten Thousand Places’) Words matter, as the Bible makes plain; Jesus is Himself known as the Word (John 1:1-3). We don’t need a veneer of respectability to our words (something Eugene Peterson describes as ‘religious lace’); we need solid truth and we also need our hearts to be in line with our words. Above all, we need to be soaked in the truth of God’s words, for then we will be guided into all truth. It’s far too easy to be led astray by words, but we need ‘words of insight’ to guide us and lead us (Prov 5:1), gracious words to provide instruction and help (Prov 16:21, 24) and the wisdom to discern between deceptive words and truth.