​Welcome to Team Jesus Sunday. If Jesus Christ is your Lord, then you are on Team Jesus! While the word teamwork does not appear in the Bible, the Word of God does contain a lot of information about working together. Teamwork is evident in the societal structures of marriage, family, community, and business. Advice for daily living, conflict management, and related issues is available in Scripture; you just must know where to look and how to apply the Bible’s principles of teamwork to today’s business or ministry model.

​God made each of us for a unique role in life that He intended us to fill, and He prepared each of us in advance for that role. He made no one else like us, giving us the gifts and capabilities to do what He planned for us. But our talents are to benefit others, not ourselves – we cannot serve God unless we serve other people. It is the donation, not the duration, of our life that is important. To know why we are here, we need to look in God’s instruction manual: the Bible. There we find examples Jesus provided for us about how to serve.

​Just before Jesus died on the cross, he said, “I am thirsty” (John 19:28 NIV). That moment shows his humanity, that Jesus was God, living among us as a man. The Bible says that the Roman soldiers soaked a sponge in a jar full of wine vinegar and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. The sour wine was meant to relieve his thirst.

​Like most churches, we have a small group of volunteers. We have members who have volunteered to work in the nursery, to clean our building, to keep the grounds mowed, to operate the sound system, to sing on the Worship team, to teach our classes, to serve on the Leadership Team, to mention but a few. Without these “volunteers,” our church could not conduct its ministry.

​My favorite movie is “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In the beginning of the movie, two angels discuss the condition of a man on earth who is struggling. George Bailey has been through tremendous disappointments, financial collapse, and war; his dreams had been crushed.