DO EVERYTHING WITH EXCELLENCE!
Malachi 1:6-14
On October 13, 1962, a little boy was born in Starkville, Mississippi.
His name was Jerry, and his father was a bricklayer.
As the young boy grew and matured, he and his brothers would go with their father to the job-site to help out.
As he
continued to grow, Jerry joined his father on the platform while his younger
brothers
would throw bricks up one-by-one for Jerry to stack for his dad.
Jerry never dreamed, that in catching brick after brick he was preparing for one of the most prolific football careers, that any receiver would ever experience.
The Jerry I’m speaking about, is the great Jerry Rice, 19 year veteran of the NFL.
15 years with the San Francisico 49ers and four years with the Oakland Raiders.
Jerry Rice graduated from high and attended tiny Mississippi Valley State on a football scholarship.
Out of college he was drafted in the first round,
as the 16th overall pick of the 1985 draft, by the S.F. 49ers.
He wasn’t even the first receiver chosen.
There were two other receivers drafted before him:
the NY Jets drafted Al Toon
and then the Cincinnati Bengals chose Eddie Brown,
before Jerry was ever given the nod.
Anyone know where those guys are
now?
In his 19 years in professional football, Rice has always been known as the hardest worker in his chosen career.
A good example of his dedication to excellence, is seen while he was still with the S.F. 49ers.
He arrived at training camp five days early – the time when the rookies were to report.
Why would he do something like that?
Jerry Rice is a champion who strives for excellence in what he does.
The S.F. Chronicle reported this phenomenal work ethic.
The 49ers coach was quoted
as saying, “Jerry
Rice was not invited to the rookies and
selected veteran camp. But he shows up anyway. He’s been here since Monday. Is
there any wonder why the guy is the greatest. We’re going to have to tell him,
‘Jerry, get out of here. Let the other guys get some work, please..’”
(S.F. Chronicle, June 6,
1997)
What is excellence?
“Excellent” – outstanding; exceptional, better;
The Scriptures teach us, that excellence is something that honors God.
a. Colossians 3:23 –
“Whatever
you do, work at it with all your heart…”
b. Ecclesiastes 9:10 –
“Whatever
your hand finds to do, do it with all your might.”
Compare
that with
“mediocre”
– of middle quality; not good enough.
Have you ever heard anyone say,
“It’s
just church. What difference does it make?”
That type of
thinking, can certainly be dangerous in a spiritual sense.
Revelation 3:15-16
“I
know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one
or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about
to spit you out of my mouth.”
Mediocrity makes Jesus sick!
God says something about this subject in our text.
Malachi 1:13 And you say, 'What a burden!' and you sniff at it contemptuously," says the LORD Almighty. "When you bring injured, crippled or diseased animals and offer them as sacrifices, should I accept them from your hands?" says the LORD.
God is displeased with mediocre, less than excellent service.
He deserves
the best we have
He is displeased when we try to cheat Him
He despises offerings of inferior quality.
I want to
share with you, four important lessons about
giving God our best from this passage:
Lesson #1: There is always a reason to offer God less than our best!
We need to understand what was happening, when
the events we read in our text occurred.
The approximate date was around 430 BC.
The place is Jerusalem.
Some years
before, the people had returned from exile in Babylon, and found the city in
ruins.
They began to rebuild the temple and to rebuild the city walls.
However, as the people began to settle into their lives,
they forgot the lessons of the exile,
and they began to put their own priorities in front of God’s priorities.
They began
to neglect the proper worship of God.
--Even the priests were guilty.
They were not giving God there best!
Their reasons for doing so, were similar to our own reasons, which generally fall into three categories:
1. Category number one, is usually expedience – doing things cheap and easy.
It’s just a lot cheaper and easier to offer God a defective animal, rather than a perfect one.
Things haven’t changed much.
We think
it’s okay to just “get by” in our Christian lives.
We think leftovers are good
enough for God.
We try to give Him our leftover time, our leftover money, and our leftover
energy.
If we have the time, we will: go to church, to bible study, teach a class...
--Then we wonder why God doesn’t bless our lives.
2. Category number two, is simply possessing a bad attitude.
We really just don’t care, about what we offer, and how we offer it.
That was the problem that Cain had in the very beginning.
God blessed Abel’s sacrifice,
because he gave out of the best he had, and gave it the way God prescribed.
Cain just grabbed whatever was convenient.
His desire was not to honor God, but to get the offering over with,
and move on to something
more important.
3. Category number three, is what is called the “popular argument.”
It’s the thinking that says, “Everyone else is doing it.”
Since everybody else is doing it, why should I hold to a higher standard?
Why should
I give God my best when no one else seems to be?
Lesson #2: Our
service reveals our attitude toward God!
The big issue, is that our choice to give God less than our best, reveals several things:
A. It reveals: the priority that we place on our relationship with God.
It shows that our desire to grow in our relationship with Him, is less than we profess.
We figure that as long as God is there for us if something bad happens,
then that’s about all we need.
Kind of like having a doctor.
We want to know he is there if we need him,
but not really that interested in knowing him on a personal level.
B. It also reveals:
that we treat God in a way, that is dishonorable.
We’re more concerned with ourselves, and the things that please us, than serving God.
Lesson #3: Service is meant to be costly.
It was meant to cost something, when God told His people to give of the best of their flocks and their fields.
Proverbs 3:9
“Honor
the LORD with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops.”
We
forget that God has given us, far more than we deserve.
God has
never cut corners, or taken the short cut, or found a cheaper or easier way.
There is a cost to serving God with excellence:
1. Excellence Takes Hard Work.
There’s a big difference between a “pretty good job” on something and doing it with excellence.
--Excellence takes a lot more time.
I have found that the difference between a “pretty good job” and an “excellent
job” is time and patience.
To do something right, to do something excellent, takes extra time.
I remember that one of my professors in college told us that if you really want to preach great sermons, then you have to spend at least an hour in study for every minute you preach.
To give it that extra time, takes patience, not rushing it, but doing it right.
2. Excellence Is Evidenced in the Details.
A commitment to excellence (or the lack of it) often shows up most clearly
in the way
we do the “little” things.
Painting a room!
It’s the details that make the difference in a pretty good job and a great job!
Jesus taught us, that we have to be faithful in the small things,
before we can receive the bigger blessings.
3. Excellence Takes Daily Diligence.
Suppose you build a new house.
When the house is finished, you plant a flower garden and landscape your yard.
You might do all those things with excellence, then step back and
say, “That’s beautiful.”
But it’s not long before your work begins to deteriorate.
The grass has to be cut,
the weeds have to be pulled from the flower bed.
You can’t relax for long.
If your home is going to maintain that look of excellence, the work must be ongoing.
You can lose the edge really fast.
The same
thing is true in our lives and our churches.
We can get
used to just getting by.
But in reality, serving God with excellence takes real diligence.
4. Our duty, is to live as stewards of what God has blessed us with.
Stewardship should not be
slipshod.
Someone once said, “Mediocrity
is excellence in the mind of the mediocre.”
Jesus taught that unfaithful
stewards, were both wicked and lazy.
To serve God with Excellence is costly.
But God is worth it!!!
Lesson #4: God expects and deserves nothing less than our best.
One church has a slogan that I think sums up this thought:
“If
it bears His name, it deserves our best.”
1 Corinthians 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”
1 Corinthians
15:58b – “Always
give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord…”
Our “best”
doesn’t mean perfection or superiority.
Charles Swindoll: “Excellence is a difficult concept to communicate because it can easily be misread as neurotic perfectionism or snooty sophistication. But it is neither. On the contrary, it is the stuff of which greatness is made. It is the difference between just getting by and soaring – that which sets apart the significant from the superficial, the lasting from the temporary.”
Striving for excellence, simply means making every effort in preparation and execution, to do the very best you can.
Our God is worthy of our best efforts
Psalm 145:3 “Great is the LORD and most worthy of praise; His greatness no one can fathom.”
Revelation 4:11 “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
If you’re
someone who has been cheating God, please stop!
Stop giving God your
last-minute, half-hearted, left-over, and warmed-up efforts.
Don’t slapping something together, and pretend it’s okay.
Stop giving God what you wouldn’t give to your spouse, your boss, or anyone
else.
2 Timothy 2:15 – “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed…”
CONCLUSION:
David Livingstone was one of the greatest missionaries who ever lived.
He moved to Africa, married his wife, Mary, in Africa in 1845.
And never stopped pursuing excellence for the Kingdom of
God during his lifetime.
There was a time, when Dr. Livingstone was approached,
about the possibility of a missionary society sending some more men to help him,
in his efforts to reach the people of Africa.
They wrote
him a letter that read,
“Have
you found a good road to where you
are? If so, we want to know how to send other men to join you.”
Livingstone wrote back, “If
you have men who will come only if they know there is a
good road, I don’t want them. I want men who will come if there is no road at
all.”
Why should we give God our best?
--Because He gave us His best
Romans 8:32
“He
who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how
will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
God gave the best He had, His own Son, Jesus Christ,
to suffer and die in our place for our sins.