Thursday, August 9, 2018

Taking One for the Team

Thursday, August 9, 2018
We who are strong must be considerate of those who are sensitive about things like this.  We must not just please ourselves.  We should help others do what is right and build them up in the Lord.  For even Christ didn’t live to please himself.  As the Scriptures say, “The insults of those who insult you, O God, have fallen on me.”  Such things were written in the Scriptures long ago to teach us.  And the Scriptures give us hope and encouragement as we wait patiently for God’s promises to be fulfilled.  May God, who gives this patience and encouragement, help you live in complete harmony with each other, as is fitting for followers of Christ Jesus.  Then all of you can join together with one voice, giving praise and glory to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Romans 15:1-6 (NLT)
Paul believed in taking one for the team.  The first time I heard this expression was in high school.  Our football coach was showing us a film of Tommy Gandly taking one for the team.  Tommy wasn’t the biggest guy on the team, but he had football sense; he knew how to get the job done.  Coach Weitz focused on that quality by showing one play from the video of last Saturday’s game over and over.  The play was Tommy playing defense; the other team came at Tommy’s side with what looked like a wall of red…huge guys running at top speed, ready to knock any resistance out of the universe.  Tommy knew he couldn’t make the tackle, but just as the “wall” reached him, he dropped low, like a snow plow and took out three of the biggest guys.  They went down like bowling pins, and that cleared the way for our team’s players to tackle the ball carrier!  Tommy gave up the glory of making a tackle to others.  But, without laying himself out for the team, they might have bulldozed through us for a touchdown.  His sacrifice made the team’s success a possibility.
I talked with Coach Weitz a few years ago before he passed and told him how that one scene has stayed in my mind all these decades.  It indelibly printed a picture for me of how unselfish sacrifice can mean the difference between winning and losing.
It’s that way in football, and it’s that way in life.  Church, business, family, school, community relationships all depend on getting the job done.  And sometimes that means you lay yourself down for the good of others.
That’s quite a bit different from the kind of entitlement mentality that seems to pervade our culture these days.  Somehow Jack Kennedy’s famous speech on Inauguration Day 1961 makes a good sound bite, but fades quickly when it comes to rubber touching the road.  Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country has morphed to the lower level of get out of my way, give me this, and that, and bring it now!
In Paul’s letter to the Roman believers he reminded them that caring for others is the stark difference between selfishness and Christlikeness.  It is only in putting the needs of others above the preferences we may hold that we find the true character of Jesus present.
For You Today
If you need a witness statement to support that idea, try this one:
He went on a little farther and bowed with his face to the ground, praying, “My Father! If it is possible, let this cup of suffering be taken away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.  Matthew 26:39(NLT)
If going to the cross wasn’t taking one for the team, such a concept doesn’t exist!
You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day. 

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[1] Title Image:  Courtesy of Sarah Walsh, Hauppauge High School Homecoming

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