It's a Team Sport

Facing their first elimination game of this postseason, the San Antonio Spurs pieced together a dominant performance on their way to a 118-91 win over Oklahoma City, sending the Western Conference Finals to a winner-take-all Game 7.

Leading the charge for the Spurs was superstar big man Victor Wembanyama, who finished with a game-high 28 points after coming out much more assertively on offense than he did in Game 5. 

Understandably, much of the attention from last night’s contest is focusing on Wembanyama’s dominance, as well as OKC’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having arguably his worst performance of his MVP-winning campaign (a season-low 15 points).

More so than probably any other sport, superstars in the NBA almost always receive an outsized portion of the focus. As Charles Barkley has famously pointed out numerous times during his broadcasting career, being an NBA superstar means you get credit when your team wins and take the blame when it loses.

Fair or unfair, that’s just the way the cookie crumbles. But Thursday night’s game also reminds us that even the superstars need quite a bit of help to successfully achieve their goal of winning.

While Wembanyama was the Spurs' unquestioned leader, he wasn't the only reason they coasted to victory. In fact, San Antonio was still able to outscore the Thunder while Wembanayama was on the bench, thanks in large part to young guards Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and Devin Vassell combining for 47 points on nearly 58% shooting. Everyone was hitting shots!

On the other side of the equation, Gilgeous-Alexander’s teammates did very little to pick up the slack when he was having a rare off-night. The Thunder as a whole shot a paltry 37% from the floor, with the team’s second-leading scorer managing to produce just 13 points. 

At the end of the day, we shouldn't forget that basketball is a team sport. Superstars undoubtedly have a significant impact on results, but they aren't the sole determining factor in how events unfold. All of the pieces of a roster must work together for the team to find ultimate success.

In our lives as followers of Jesus, we need to realize that Christianity is also a “team sport.” 

Though there are certainly individualistic components of our faith journey, we must recognize that the decisions we make impact our fellow brothers and sisters. When we're faithful in making good and wise choices in our personal walk with the Lord, the collective body of Christ benefits. Likewise, when we fail to do what we should, everyone suffers.

This concept is perhaps most evident in the context of spiritual gifts. Scripture makes it clear that God has distributed various gifts to individual believers, meaning that we are all interdependent on one another for the body of Christ as a whole to function properly.

1 Corinthians 12:14-19 (ESV) says, “For the body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body."If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.”

A little bit further in the same passage, the Apostle Paul comments, “If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together” (1 Corinthians 12:26; ESV).

We can easily underestimate how our own faithfulness (or lack thereof) affects the people around us. Here are just a few examples which highlight this point:

• When a person with the gift of encouragement fails to steward it faithfully, others in the body become discouraged and fail to steward their own gifts properly.

• When a person with the gift of administration is unfaithful in using that gift, the result is disorganization, which leads to a lack of production.

• When a person with the gift of teaching doesn't put that gift to use, the rest of the body misses out on being thoroughly equipped to respond faithfully to life's situations.

  
  

But we must also realize that this principle isn’t limited to spiritual gifts alone.

One of the great blessings of being part of the body of Christ is that we can counsel and teach one another. We have the tremendous blessing of being able to pour into the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters as God conforms them into the image of His Son. 

But how are we going to be able to faithfully and obediently counsel our fellow believers if we're not intimately familiar with Biblical wisdom? Or how can we teach and encourage others in the words of Scripture if we haven't first taken the time to learn them for ourselves?

Colossians 3:16 (NASB) commands us, “Let the Word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”

Before we can properly admonish or teach others, we must first let the Word of Christ dwell deeply within ourselves. 

When I fail to engage in regular Bible reading, I'm not only depriving myself of the means God has given me for growth, but I'm also becoming increasingly ill-equipped to help my fellow brothers and sisters when they need spiritual wisdom. 

There are numerous other ways for applying this principle, but the point is pretty simple: the individual spiritual decisions we make greatly impact the people around us.

Today, if we need extra motivation in our personal walk with the Lord, we can find encouragement in the fact that our brothers and sisters are counting on us. We need to excel in our personal walk with the Lord so we can help others.

Together we can all “hit shots” and contribute to winning!

I’m Matt Osborne, and you can UNPACK that!

PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for making me a part of the body of Christ. Please help me be faithful in my spiritual disciplines and in stewarding my spiritual gifts so that I might be a great encouragement and assistance to my fellow believers. Help me also to be sanctified as other believers faithfully pour into my own life. In Jesus' name, I pray, Amen.