Summer 2025 | All On The Same Team - Romans 16 | July 6

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So we're going to be in the book of Romans today in chapter 16,

pretty much the whole time.

So if you want to open your Bibles up to Romans 16, that's where you can camp

out and you don't have to search around.

If you didn't bring a Bible, or if you don't have your phone or something,

there is a bin of Bibles on the back for you.

And if you'd like, you can keep them. So they're there for whoever needs them.

Before we get into that, I think most people got the memo while we're wearing jerseys.

I borrowed this from Elliot because I don't own any.

But I don't know if Atlanta something, I don't know. Hawks, Atlanta Hawks,

Trey Young, whoever that is.

It is a sports ball game thing.

But this summer we've been talking about the word of God. And so it will be

relevant to our conversation today.

And I was just thinking about this. I was thinking about a commercial.

The first thing I thought of was this commercial. Many of you know that Jenny

and I went to Carolina, UNC.

And I don't know if they have different variations of this commercial based

on the market that you're in. but because since we're in North Carolina, maybe this is why.

But it is, I think it's all state and it has something about being prepared.

And a young man shows up to a house to pick up his date.

And he's wearing a Duke shirt and he opens the door or he knocks and they open

the door and all of the family and all of the house is just decked out in UNC Tar Heel attire.

And I think the mom is

there and like comes and shields her daughter away

and shuts the door and shuts the blind and even the blind that she shuts is

a big UNC logo and of course he kind of walks away in shame or I guess he realizes

that he's never gonna get anywhere within that family so he just kind of like

quietly walks away and this is a funny moment And again,

maybe it plays different schools in different markets, but it highlights a reality

that we experience in this life.

That people tend to take rivalries seriously.

That we, for some reason, divide over things as simple as what college team you support.

And can I just say, I've never understood rivalries at all. I don't get it.

I don't know how you could get upset with someone because they support a different

team. Or I don't know how grown men can be brought to tears when their team

doesn't win. I just, I don't get it.

Perhaps it is an overreaction. A lot of what I, how I've become an adult in

my life is based on overreaction, overcorrecting, if you will.

I know my sister grew up a really strong Duke fan, probably because my dad liked Duke.

And so she was like all in it and took it to the extreme. And of course, she also went to UNC.

And when Duke played, she would lock herself in her dorm room so that,

you know, she could throw chairs in peace or whatever she was doing.

So I just never understood it I've always I've always

just been amazed that we could

let such things as basketball teams divide us

or get in the way or even not like even just in a playful way you know like

take it to a point where it's it ruins our days or it it's something we actually

physically get mad about and I know because of that because this is how I've

kind of made myself to be in this overreaction, overcorrecting.

I know it's easy for me to say that like rivalries and the things that we set

up to divide us are usually pretty petty and aren't worth our time.

So I know that's easy to say, but how is it that we let such small things get

in the way of more important thing?

We do this with sports. We do it with relationships. We do it in church.

We let rivalry we let comparison we let ego we let these things fracture us

we let them infect our heart and like a poison and tear us away from each other

i learned yesterday because i said something about oklahoma state and apparently

that was the wrong thing to say oklahoma university.

Based on this side of the room and all the red that you see so like so like

we let these things fracture us.

Of course, this is a silly example, right? Like in this room,

particularly, I would say, based on my knowledge of each of you,

we don't let sports control our lives so much, but this does happen.

So this is wearing, obviously, an Atlanta jersey that I didn't even know it

was Atlanta because the A doesn't look like an A to me.

It's a silly example, but it brings home the point that we divide ourselves over these.

These teams. And then we have,

it's so strange that we get to a point where we can say we have a room full

of Christians who say that they love each other, but then struggle to speak

with one another based on whatever they've divided up about.

And the reality is that God is calling us to something different.

God's calling us to something deeper. What we've been talking about this summer,

as we've taken our break from Acts, is soaking in the word of God,

being saturated with God's word, that we would replace our thoughts with God's thoughts.

That the voice we would hear most often in our lives would be the voice of God,

not the voice of the enemy, not the voice of lies, but that we would internalize

and live from the truth that God places within us.

That we would believe the reality that exists, even when other voices try to

tell us something different.

And so this is what we've been giving our, devoting our time to this summer,

that soaking in the word of God.

And what we're gonna talk about today specifically is as we soak in the word

of God, we've talked about before how that transforms us.

It forms our minds, it forms our hearts. This is Romans chapter 12.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

But another side effect or another result or another fruit, you might say,

of soaking in the word of God is that it also begins to change the way that

we think about each other.

It changes our posture towards one another, towards the person sitting next

to you even. And we begin to think differently.

And when we center ourselves on the word of God, that result is that it unites

us, that it brings harmony, that it provides a foundation for our relationships.

That's solid and it's firm and it's not easily shaken.

So this changes our posture towards one another and it brings the realization that,

as we're all wearing different jerseys this morning or shirts,

it brings the realization for us that we're all on the same team,

that there actually isn't another team, that there is one team,

one family, and one mission.

And so that's what today is all about. And so if you'll indulge me something

that I don't like to do, participate, would you...

I heard a no-no. Just turn to the person next to you. This is the only one,

I promise. and say we're on the same team.

Yeah, I'm so proud of y'all. I'm so proud of you all.

You've done something that I would begrudgingly do myself, and you really embraced it.

But this is the reality that we are on the same team. We are all together on the same team.

And it's something that if we forget it, we're not just breaking community in

a sense, but we're also essentially taking ourselves out of the game.

If we forget this truth, this one truth that we are together on the same team,

what we end up doing is taking ourself out of the game altogether.

So Romans chapter 16, we're going to end up reading the whole thing in time.

Romans 16 · chapter mention

But for now, let's look at just kind of the first half.

And this is sort of just to set it up for you, a surprising picture of what

God's team looks like, what the church, the family of God looks like,

people from every background, every gift set,

not united by a jersey or a color or a team or whatever, but reunited by Jesus.

And so this is the context for this chapter.

So let me just read these first 16 verses, I think.

I commend to you, our sister Phoebe, a servant of the church at Cancria,

that you may welcome her in the Lord in a way worthy of the saints and help

her in whatever she may need from you.

For she has been a patron of many and of myself as well.

Greet Prissa and Quilla, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus, who risked their

necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also the churches of

Gentiles give thanks as well.

Greet also the church in their house.

Greet my beloved Epenitus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.

Greet Mary, who has worked hard for you. Greet Andronicus and Junia,

my kinsmen and my fellow prisoners. They are well known to the apostles,

and they were in Christ before me.

Greet Ampliatus, my beloved in the Lord. Greet Urbanus, our fellow worker in

Christ, and my beloved Stachys.

Greet Apellas, who is approved in Christ.

Greet those who belong to the family of Aristobulus.

Greet my kinsmen, Herodian. Greet those in the Lord who belong to the family of Narcissus.

Greet those workers in the Lord in Tryphania and Tryphosa. Greet the beloved

Persis, who has worked hard in the Lord.

Greet Rufus, chosen in the Lord. Also his mother, who has been a mother to me as well.

Greet Isencretus, Phlegion, Hermes, Petrobus, Hermas, and the brothers who are with them.

Greet Philologus, Julia, Nerus, and his sister, and Olympus,

and all the saints who are with them. Greet one another with a holy kiss.

All the churches of Christ greet you. It might be apparent why I didn't ask

somebody else to read this. The key is confidence.

Now, somebody else can listen to this later and then analyze and write a mean

comment or send me a message or something.

But for now, we're just going to assume that I got all of those names correct.

This is what God's team looks like.

And so this might seem like this is just like a biblical roll call or like the

book of Numbers has crept into the New Testament.

And so as a result, it's just one of those things that we skip over quickly

to get through, to mark off our list.

But this is actually a snapshot of the real living, breathing church,

the family of God, the team of God.

And it is a diverse and unified spirit formed team. And it's beautiful.

We had that verse this morning with the kids, right? The team of God,

the family of God is also So beautiful in its entirety and its wholeness as well.

And just these first verses, even if we maybe extend a little bit longer in,

in, in these verses of this chapter.

There are 33 names mentioned that Paul mentions. And it's not just that they're

a person or a name, that there is actually a story there behind that greeting as well.

And it's these stories lived together, fought together that formed the team of God.

If we just look at a couple, Phoebe, he mentions at the beginning.

Phoebe is probably the person carrying the letter.

And she is more than likely a wealthy business woman She's a Gentile.

Her name is usually associated with the worship of Athena or Artemis, I guess, Artemis.

And so it's interesting. There's a lot of Gentile names in here, a lot of Greek names.

It's interesting that none of these people, when they became Christians,

they didn't feel the need to change their name, to get away from this worship of a pagan god.

They embraced their new identity and could care less about their cultural name.

So they didn't let it define and they were defined by a better story by Jesus.

And so Phoebe is carrying the letter to the Romans and Paul entrusts them to

take care of her and all her needs.

He mentions Andronicus and Junia, which are most likely, a lot of these people

were building profiles of who they are based on the apostolic tradition,

based on witness, based on other

things we know about them or other times they're mentioned in the Bible.

So we can say there may be this or probably this, but sometimes we can't say

they're definitely this.

Andronicus and Junia are probably a husband and wife, a team,

as we'll see in Priscilla and Aquila as well.

Although some people think that they could have been two guys,

but that's neither here nor there. They are Jewish believers.

So we met Phoebe, a wealthy businesswoman, a Gentile.

Now we're meeting two Jewish believers. Paul calls them kinsmen.

He also mentions that they were followers of Jesus before him.

This means that they probably became Christians near the time of Pentecost,

maybe even at Pentecost, and then continued in that faith and brought it with

them in their business and their trade as they moved around and found their

way into Rome. And so this is this.

That, and Paul also mentions later with some names about how his kinsmen were

praying for him, that just to think about the fact that there were Jewish believers,

game Christians, that prayed for Paul, and then Paul became a Christian as well.

Like there's this lineage that Paul is laying out here, and it may not be these

two particularly, but he does kind of make that assertion in this.

So that's Andronicus and Junia. He mentions the households of Aristobulus and

Narcissus, which is, this one's really cool because, well, you know,

not necessarily cool because of the subject matter, but what the result is.

So this probably means, because Aristobulus and Narcissus aren't greeted,

that these people are not alive anymore.

And so he's addressing the slaves of these wealthy Greek people's houses,

who, when they're, they became Christians.

And when their masters died because of the position, so it was Aristobulus,

he might've been the grandson of Herod the Great.

So I guess he was kind of Jewish, but probably not so much.

And then Narcissus, there's some history that teaches that probably a wealthy

person, an important person.

And then there's some like stories about how they were executed under Nero,

or at least maybe even forced to commit suicide. And so these are wealthy Roman

people, or kind of Jewish, who had these slaves in their household.

These slaves became Christians, their masters died.

They then now found themselves as a result of their position in the household of Caesar.

So these are slaves for Caesar that are Christians.

Like the gospel has made its way into the household of the highest authority

in Rome by this time already.

Whether that be, I think there is, it's probably a transitioning time where

we're getting into the household of Nero.

So like into the household of these Caesars that Christians are already there and they're slaves.

And we have wealthy business people and we have slaves and we have Jews and we have Gentiles.

We have all of these stories breaking down barriers as the gospel infiltrates

at the lowest and at the highest. It's an amazing thing.

Just think about that, how slaves in the house of Caesar are now followers of

Jesus and Paul is greeting them and he's recognizing their worth,

their value, that they belong and have an important place in the team.

He mentions Erastus. So Erastus is a civic official.

We don't know maybe his exact title, but he's something like a city manager.

We could equate that today.

If it's the same Erastus, there's actually an inscription of his name in some

of the ruins of the city of Corinth.

So his name is like literally carved into the pavement of Corinth.

So he holds a very important position in the Roman empire.

And he's there again, just like a very wealthy, a very important,

a very privileged person standing next to rubbing arms with dining with slaves

in the house of Caesar, dining with Jews,

dining with each with Greek Greeks.

And this is the big picture of this chapter.

It's that the family of God, the church, this team that God has built is not

just diverse, but it is radically so.

It is radically multi-class, multi-gender, multilingual, men and women,

Jews and Gentiles, slaves and civic leaders, all worshiping side by side and

the equal value and worth that God has placed in our life.

This is when we read verses that Paul writes in his letters,

such as there is now no male or female slave or free barbarian,

whatever, those verses, this is what he's communicating.

And this is the picture that he's painting and as he greets these believers,

that he is writing to in Rome, that the gospel has broken down every barrier that exists.

Every social barrier, every cultural barrier, every political and economic barrier,

it has broken it down and it's formed one new humanity in Christ.

One new family, one new team. And it's not a team that is united on anything

else except for the grace that Jesus brings.

I've mentioned this before, how it's so important for us to be in a church,

in small groups, like that we don't group up based on our preferences,

based on the things that we enjoy, based on our common interests.

It's so important that what unites us most is Jesus.

And this is what the picture we have here in Romans 16 is all about.

That they are connected by something stronger than a preference or an opinion.

They're connected by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And that's what this chapter is about. So you can't read this chapter,

you can't read Romans 16 and come away believing or thinking that Christianity

is just something you do or something you are as an individual.

That is, it's not a solo sport. It's not a journey that you are on alone.

It's not something where the result of what we can say is, oh,

I'm spiritual, but I don't go to church.

I'm religious, but you know, those church people, I can't be around them.

Like it is something, what we've talked about before is that we are not just saved from our sins.

We're not just saved from our past. We're not just saved in from the bondage

of slavery, but we are also saved to lots of things.

We are saved to freedom and we are saved to a family.

We are saved to belong to one another.

It's not a spiritual me journey. It's a family, a team, a deeply connected,

spirit-filled community that is bound together in love and suffering and in shared mission.

So Paul isn't just listing names here, as I mentioned.

He's telling these very brief stories or at least hinting at the story that

exists behind the names.

He mentions a few other people. He mentions Priscilla and Aquila.

He uses their formal name here, not their more like familiar name, diminutive name.

I don't, we don't really, well, I guess we do that. We give each other nicknames.

There's other languages where like you add an ending to the end and it means

like, oh, like you know each other a little better, right? So diminutive.

So he mentions Priscilla and Aquila. He calls them my fellow workers in Christ

who risked their necks for my life. Your translation might not say that. That sounds weird to me.

They risked their life for Paul.

Like these are people who suffered next to him and with him.

There's loyalty there. There's sacrifice.

He mentions this woman, Mary. There's lots of Marys in the Bible.

We don't know who this one is, but he says that she has worked very hard for

you, that she wasn't just another face, but she poured herself out for the believers

in Rome, for the church of God.

He says to greet those workers in the Lord, Tryphena and Tryphosa.

So these are maybe sisters, probably sisters, maybe even twins.

And they are clearly united in the labors of the gospel.

And they have labored hard for the others as well.

It says, greet the beloved Persis in verse 12, who has worked hard in the Lord,

beloved, tireless. He's a true teammate.

And then this one's even great. I love this one.

He says, Rufus's mother, who has been a mother to me as well. And so this is not an.

Names are escaping me. I just read a thousand of them, but the guy who carried

Jesus's cross. Thank you. Yeah.

So historically speaking, he had a son named Rufus.

So this is potentially even that Rufus that Paul is writing to and saying that

his mother has been a mother to me, that Paul didn't just find coworkers, co-laborers.

He didn't just find teammates. Although we were using that metaphor this morning. He found true family.

And Paul is honoring those who have worked hard, who have suffered deeply,

and who have loved well in the name of Jesus, beside him and for him and with him.

These aren't casual acquaintances that he's missing.

Like I said, there is a story, there is a background, they've got history, right?

They've opened their homes, they've risked their lives.

They've brought meals, they shared tears.

This is the connection that the gospel creates that the word of God forms within

us, brothers and sisters, spiritual mothers.

This is not, this is not, we are not called into isolation to be spiritual, but not religious.

We are called into relationship to be coworkers, co-sufferers, co-laborers.

And so the question to kind of ask ourselves is, who are we going into battle with in our prayers?

Who do we walk with when the road gets long?

Who knows you well enough to call out your gifts or to call out your blind spots?

And perhaps the bigger question is, if the church is a team,

are you actually in the game?

Sitting or are we sitting in the stands showing

up to watch others to create

this curated casual convenient christianity for ourselves or are we belonging

to each other are we belonging to the family of god the team of god sports are

often compared rightly so with this idea of battle or war.

Probably anthropologists might even say that the men who play basketball are

just like fulfilling their tendency towards war that now that for those of us

who perhaps can't actually fight,

I guess, I don't know. I'm not an anthropologist.

But there is this relatability, there is this similarity between sports and battle.

And it's reflected in quotes and things that are mentioned, Newt Rockne,

which is pretty famous coach from back in the thirties, like, you know, old guy.

He said, like a battlefield, the attitude of the team can determine the outcome.

Romans 16, after celebrating this beautiful team of gospel co-workers,

Paul kind of takes an abrupt turn. It seems like it's out of the blue.

He knows the results, the fact that unity is fragile, that it is easily broken.

And we have an enemy that in fact wants us to not be united.

He wants us to be isolated.

So Paul writes in this letter as well, right after this greeting,

I appeal to you brothers to watch out for those who cause divisions and create

obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught.

Avoid them for such persons do not serve our Lord Christ.

But their own appetites. And by smooth talk and flattery, they deceive the hearts of the naive.

For your obedience is known to all so that I rejoice over you.

But I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent of what is evil.

The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. And then he greets some more.

Timothy, my fellow worker, greets you.

So to Lucius and Jason and Sassipater, my kinsmen, I, Tertius,

who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.

So this is the guy actually writing what Paul is dictating.

Gaius, who is host to me and to the whole church, greets you.

Erastus, the city treasurer and our brother Cordus, greets you.

So Paul goes on this, after celebrating the unity and the body of the church,

he goes on this detour, but not so much, right?

Because unity is fragile. and being members of the same team means that we don't

fight each other, that we're not fighting with each other, but that we fight

alongside each other against the enemy.

We fight against the things that divide us, like that we are actually soldiers,

not just teammates fighting against the things that would divide us against

ego, against comparison, against anything that would divide and break up the

team, false teaching or pride.

He repeats this, not just here, but in his letter to Timbani,

who he just greeted in this as well.

He says, Sharon's suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.

No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits.

He carries this metaphor of Christians as soldiers throughout many of his writings,

because that's the reality, that we're not just teammates.

Or if we want to exchange one metaphor for another, we are even more akin to

soldiers locking arms, fighting against the enemy that would divide us.

Not just Satan, but all of the things, our own pride that would get in the way, linked arm in arm.

And there's probably this metaphor of like a Roman phalanx, pharynx,

or phalanx, that's a throat thing, phalanx. Yeah.

But locked arm in arm, fighting against, with all that we have,

against the things that would divide.

We are a diverse people. It might not always look like it from the outside,

but we are a diverse people of passions, diversity of passion, diversity of giftings.

So easy for us to get caught up in our own lane and what we do well.

There's a story in 2004 about the U.S.

Men's basketball team. and this is probably, might be the only sermon,

I can't guarantee this, but this might be the only sermon I ever preached that

involves so much sports discussion because I'm not one of those guys that's

going to get up and talk about football.

But in 2004, the men's basketball team for the U.S.

In the Olympics, I'm a winter Olympics guy myself, so I probably wasn't watching this.

And I was also, you know, probably not interested in the Olympics as much back

then as a high school senior or whatever it was.

But this was like the team to win. It had all the stars on it.

It had LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson,

Carmelo Anthony, like the stars of the NBA that have come up in more modern times, right?

It had all of the best. And yet this year, they lost three games,

which is the most games the US team has ever lost in the Olympics.

And it had the best players that have ever been, well, you know,

maybe not some of the guys we have today, but they were not in the NBA at this time, right?

But it had the superstars of basketball and they ended up getting bronze,

which, you know, many teams would settle for, but with a team with the best

players, you would expect them to get goals, right?

So what got in the way, it wasn't lack of ability, it wasn't lack of talent.

And I'm sure there are people who have written dissertations about what it is

that prevented them from being successful and winning the gold.

We can probably imagine that it was perhaps ego and pride, that they were always

so used to being the stars on their own teams that when they came together,

they didn't know how to function together as a team.

We can imagine that it was selfishness, lack of chemistry, you might say, I don't know.

Isolation, you know, they're just going down the court by themselves,

not looking for openings.

Everyone was doing their own thing. That's probably what it was.

So the people that you would expect to have it all together ended

up performing poorly because they couldn't be a team they didn't know how to

be a team it's not so different in the church as i said we've got different

passions we've got different giftings we got different abilities but without

unity without love without a shared vision rooted in christ then we just end up being,

these solo players on our own, trying to do whatever it is that we find valuable

or whatever we feel God has called us to.

But when we can't work together, we're not going to end up in the place that

we look at all of these stars and think, oh, they should have gotten gold.

We're going to end up in the same spot if we can't work together.

And this is not just us in this room.

This is a global team, a global spiritual team.

There's this strange thing that this strange reality that exists...

The church, within Christianity, that because we are saved to be a family,

the thing that unites us is stronger than any familial bond.

Jesus, in case that wasn't obvious. And as a result, we are more connected to

people that we've never met halfway around the world.

We are more connected to those brothers and sisters in Christ than we will ever

be with people in our own family, our own biological family who aren't believers.

This thing connects us. This Jesus connects us, not to call Jesus a thing,

but Jesus connects us more deeply than any bond we can have with our biological

family who don't know him.

It's just a strange tribal experience that exists as a result.

In Christ, we share this tribal bond.

We belong to the same king. We have the same bloodline. We speak the same language.

We carry this same message with us. It's just a strange thing that happens as

a result of this wonderful king that we have.

But I guess the question for us as

we kind of get to the end of our time together is how do we stay united?

We have so much going against us

that there's an enemy literally trying to divide us. How do we stay alert?

And it's the call of this summer. We stay centered in, anchored in the word of truth.

We stay centered around the foundation of God's word that unites us together.

We immerse ourselves in God's word individually, and we come together corporately

as the team and as the family, and we center on his word.

And that's what brings us together.

And it is essential for us as a community. So Romans 16 has this picture of

what God's team looks like, radically diverse, radically humble,

radically others focused,

all of these things united under one name, Jesus,

and not fighting against one another, but fighting alongside one another against

everything that would divide them.

This is the picture we have in Romans 16. and if we turn just to the last couple

of verses that we haven't read yet, this is Paul's benediction.

It says, Now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and

the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that

was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic

writings has been made known to all nations,

according to the command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of

faith to the only wise God to be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. Amen.

That there is, there's only one name above every name. There's only one name that unites us.

Paul just listed 30 or more people, co-laborers, co-sufferers,

friends, family, servants, leaders.

He mentioned all of these people, but in the end of the letter,

he doesn't celebrate them because no matter how gifted the team is,

no, how many, how many superstars you pack onto it,

there is only one hero in this story.

Francis Schaeffer said that not, no one plays the hero in the church, but Christ.

So Paul ends his letter with his core truth that the center of our unity is

not on each other, but it's on Christ.

And the reason that we fight for harmony, the reason that we serve one another,

the reason that we died to preference and we lived transformed lives is because

we've been rescued and redeemed by Jesus.

Everything that we do, every act of love, every work towards unity and harmony,

all of it comes to this reality that encompasses all of us is that we are not alone.

We are not isolated. We are not forgotten. That we are part of something much bigger than ourselves.

We're part of a spirit-filled, Jesus-centered team that stretches across continents.

It stretches across cultures.

It unites us together beyond anything else. So what if Romans 16,

this chapter that perhaps we skip over so much, what if it's not just a list of names?

What if it's a preview of what our church could be?

As we love deeply, as we serve each other sacrificially,

as we pray for one another, as we give thanks daily for each other,

as we belong to one another, to this team,

a community where the diversity of our stories becomes the strength of our testimony.

And so, you know, the implication, the exhortation, the encouragement here is

to stay on the team, be part of the team.

As I was writing all this, I was in the living room, and I came into the bedroom,

and Jenny's watching TV.

And Jenny started watching, for some reason, again, Naked and Afraid.

I don't know if you've seen this show.

Somebody has to edit those. I just want to throw that out there.

Somebody has to film them, but also somebody has to watch hours of footage.

The episode she was watching, this might be the first time anybody's ever used

naked and afraid as a sermon. I doubt it though.

The premise of the show is that two people, usually a guy and a girl are dropped

off into the wilderness naked and they're given one item and they're supposed to survive 21 days.

If you have never heard of it, the height of idiocy in our culture,

but it's very entertaining.

And so this, this, this woman and man were dropped off in Belize.

They've never met each other. They meet each other in the jungle.

And what I noticed was he ended up like almost dying in four days.

And it wasn't necessarily his fault. It was because they couldn't work together

and they couldn't agree.

And he ended up working much too hard in the middle of the sun,

right? So that's what sent him home.

But the dialogue that happened and resulted you,

That was kind of the mantra of this entire episode was the woman just,

every time she did something was like, and I did it alone.

And it's like, this is what she was talking about. Even when she was with the

guy, it's like, are you like prophesying what you want to happen?

You want him to leave so you can do these things and accomplish these things

alone. And she finished like great for her.

But like, if that's what we pride ourselves most in and that,

that, that we can do it alone, maybe we're not the ones that we're sacrificing.

Sacrificing maybe we're sacrificing our teammates and it's

just like you know maybe I don't say that maybe

I say it because naked and afraid you know it's kind of a toss-up but I think

it just drives home that point so clearly all of us have past hurt all of us

have past experiences all of us have history that as we take it with us,

what we end up doing is sort of reverting back to what we find comfortable.

And because she was comfortable being alone and she felt, I don't know,

Jenny could tell you her story. I wasn't there for that part of it.

But because she grew up thinking that she had to do things alone and that she

had to escape from this situation in her family and go and survive in the woods alone.

Like she brought that attitude into her teamwork.

And so what she did was create the environment where she ended up alone.

And we do that when we bring our past, like our past need to be transformed by the gospel.

Like they are part of us. It's not that they just like stop being a part of

who we are, but they have to be redefined so that we don't sacrifice each other

in the pursuit of our own stuff.

The gospel unites us, the word of God unites us. And that's what this chapter

is all about, that we all have these stories.

We all have past hurt. We all have great success, but our call is to stay rooted,

stay on the team, to be a part of a team.

This gospel formed, spirit centered team that God has brought together,

both locally here and this amalgamation of people.

And it's going to feel so full when we all are actually together.

It's going to be like double.

But it was beyond this group of 50 people or whatever it is and extends to this

global community, this global team.

So what if we lived like this? What if we lived like Romans 16 is real and it's not just a list of names?

What if we lived like we weren't just these spiritual free agents to go continue

on with the sports metaphor that maybe 10% of you are getting,

and I don't even understand it completely.

But what if we were a part of a team? And what if people saw something different

as a result of, in a culture where we divide over everything,

what if people saw something different about the unity that we hold?

One team, one family, one mission.

So may we live as one for the glory of God.

Music.