Bottom of the Ninth #90 - Out-Team

by Keith Wahl

As the time read 0:00 at the Rose Bowl last week, the head coach of the Oregon Ducks, Mark Helfrich, told the world how his team defeated the previously undefeated Florida State Seminoles: “We tried to OUT-TEAM them.” Nothing about the pace of play, flawless execution, or all of the Xs and Os commentators discuss during most Oregon football contests. He immediately spoke to the heart. He spoke to his team’s intentional effort to be unified in their biggest game of the year.

To OUT-TEAM someone means to show unity, to show love to teammates and coaches. It means to accomplish much together, and forge a brotherhood when things have the potential to go very well or very poorly.

Before his betrayal in John 17:22-23, Jesus prays that his followers would show the same level of unity:

John 17:22-23 - “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

This is the prayer of every coach as well. That their team would unite, that they would accomplish much together. To be made “perfectly one” is the thing that brings people together after years gone by for a reunion. It keeps people in touch in spite of miles and miles in between them. To be united as individual human beings is to model the Trinity - the Father, the Son as Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit. It is a target to which Christ pointed as He was expressing His desires for believers for generations to come. May all of our teams experience that level of team and brotherhood in 2015.