11/16/14 Year of Equipping To Serve

A WINNING ATTITUDE

    We have spent this year talking about being equipped to do God’s work.  When a topic like this comes up, it is easy to quickly dismiss it with the thought that “I don’t really have any talents that will make a difference”.  We live in a world of the superstar.  We live in a world where the big show, the overly-talented person is the only one who can get anything done.  “I’m a nobody” thinking impacts the world.  It impacts the church.
    What can we do for God?  How can we do anything for God?  Can we do anything for God?
    Here’s an amazing study that goes against everything our culture seems to promote:  Too Much Talent Hurts Sports Teams
    When it comes to winning games, most pro sports teams go after talented players. Everyone wants a team of stars. But a new research study published in Psychological Science argues that too many talented players can actually hurt the team;s overall performance. The research study is titled “The Too-Much Talent Effect.”
    When the researchers analyzed professional sports, especially basketball and soccer, they discovered that talented players helped teams win—but only up to a point. Teams loaded with star players found that the too-much talent effect actually hurt the team’s chances of winning. Teams with the greatest proportion of elite athletes performed worse than those with more moderate proportions of top level players. Star-studded basketball teams had less assists and rebounds than teams with more average players. The researchers concluded, “When teams need to come together, more talent can tear them apart.”
    An article summarizing the study observed:
    Why is too much talent a bad thing? Think teamwork. In many endeavors, success requires [team effort] towards a goal that is beyond the capability of any one individual … When a team roster is flooded with individual talent, pursuit of personal star-status may prevent the attainment of team goals. The basketball player chasing a point record, for example, may cost the team by taking risky shots instead of passing to a teammate.
Matt Woodley, Editor, Preaching Today.com; sources: Roderick I. Swaab, “The Too-Much Talent Effect,” Psychological Science (6-27-14); Cindi May, “The Surprising Problem of Too Much Talent,” Scientific American (10-14-14)
    That is some amazing information.  Working together gets the job done.
    The Christian life is not about who we are, it is who we are in Christ. The Christian life is about who Jesus makes us to be. The Christian life is about living in and working in God’s power. The victory the church experiences comes only through the power of God working through us. Teamwork, working in a spirit of unity to accomplish God’s plan for us will get the job done much quicker than if we have a few superstars.
Colossians 3:1-17 NLT
1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. 2 Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. 3 For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 And when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory.
5 So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. 6 Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. 7 You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. 8 But now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander, and dirty language. 9 Don’t lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. 10 Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. 11 In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us.
12 Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. 13 Make allowance for each other’s faults, and forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds us all together in perfect harmony.
15 And let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts. For as members of one body you are called to live in peace. And always be thankful. 16 Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives. Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts. 17 And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.
    What are we to do?
Set your mind fully on the things of God.
Let HIM affect your attitudes in life.
Keep the eternal and heavenly perspective as you live the character of Christ.
Remember that as we live in God’s power we will make an impact.
    We are a team for the Lord.  We are a team as HE is the Captain.  We are a team and the world will know Jesus as we live and work in HIS power.
    Lessons learned by Coach Tony Dungy
    When I arrived in Tampa, the talent was there. It was the culture that had to change. The coaches and myself in Minnesota knew that if we could get the Bucs down early, they would give up, and we could win easily. But if they started well, they would be competitive with us to the end. It seemed that the team had cultivated a fragile mind-set that had infected their play for years. They always expected something to go wrong, and it usually did.
    When I arrived in Tampa, I began meeting with players who lived there — trying to understand from them what needed to be fixed. Although all the issues were relatively minor, they contributed to the team’s second class, defeatist, excuse laden mentality. I began to sell the philosophy that we are responsible for what happens to us, not anyone or anything else. No excuses, no explanations. This is how we changed the culture.
    At the same time, I started to address some of the issues the players were bringing to my attention. I realized that, by addressing minor issues, we could bring about a major culture shift. The Bucs’ previous owner had been known for his frugality and, in order to save a few dollars, the team often stayed in inconvenient locations when they were on the road. When I came on board, we began to stay downtown at Marriotts, Wyndhams, and Ritz-Carltons. It was a small change but part of a bigger shift I wanted us to make.
    One of the things I couldn’t change was the location of our training camp at the University of Tampa. The University of Tampa had been founded more than sixty years earlier in a hotel Henry Plant had built in the late 1800s along the banks of the Hillsborough River. Originally intended as a getaway for vacationing northerners, it has since been turned into a very pretty school. As a training camp, however, it had seen too many lousy Bucs teams wander through its halls and grounds. I wanted a new, fresh place to train, someplace without any connection to losing. But we simply didn’t have another feasible option.
    I thought of my dad’s advice to focus on the job, not the surroundings, and decided to embrace the situation rather than try and change it. I told the guys we didn’t want to leave the University of Tampa. We wanted our team to become tough, so we wanted camp to be tough. We wanted the grass on the field to give out during the first thunderstorm. We wanted the dorm rooms to be spartan. It was a mind-set shift, and the guys accepted it. No excuses, no explanations.
    As for One Buc, I knew it needed countless improvements — a team meeting room, offices separate from meeting rooms, a room big enough to house all of the weights so some weren’t out on the patio, a third practice field, and so on. But as I told the guys, the Pittsburgh Steelers practiced every day on a sixty-yard Astroturf field…and had won four Super Bowls. No excuses, no explanations.
    At a team meeting, I ran through a laundry list of excuses our players could easily hang a poor season on if they chose to:
    We have a new coaching staff.
    We have to learn a new system on both offense and defense.
    We have sub-par facilities.
    We have a young quarterback.
    We never get the benefit of the doubt from officials.
    We have distractions over a stadium and we might move cities.
    We never win in the cold.
    Those were all great excuses, and we could have used any and all of them. However, our goal was to win football games, and excuses were not an option. Instead, I told them we expected several things of them:
    Be a pro.
    Act like a champion.
    Respond to adversity; don’t react.
    Be on time. Being late means it’s not important to you or you can’t be relied upon.
    Execute. Do what you’re supposed to do when you’re supposed to do it. Not almost. All the way. Not most of the time. All of the time.
    Take ownership.
    Whatever it takes. No excuses. No explanations. That’s what began to change a losing culture to a winning one.
http://www.allprodad.com/dungy/turning-a-losing-culture-into-a-winning-one/?utm_campaign=LosingCulture&utm_source=EMAIL&utm_medium=11.04.2014&utm_term=Body&utm_content=PlayOfTheDay
    Where did we start today?
A WINNING ATTITUDE
God has not called us to be superstars.  He has called us to be faithful to HIM and work together.
Colossians 3:1 NLT
1 Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand.
NKJV
1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God.
The Message
1 So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides.

DISCUSSION
Review the main points of this message.
What encourages you from what we have talked about?
Are there any attitude changes that are needed?
What should we expect to happen here in Western Wisconsin and here at Cornerstone?

PRAYER
Sing together:
Oh, Lord, Send the Power Just Now