Dennis Tuuri

# Advent and Excellence

Uh, before we turn to the sermon text for today, I have a brief announcement. The Oregon Family Council, of which I’m a board member, has prepared a ballot initiative for next year that would provide religious freedom to people with deeply held religious beliefs so that they would not have to participate by selling cakes, photography services, flowers, etc. to celebrate gay unions or gay marriages. And so, you know, with the trend line of the country being what it is, it seems very important for the church, collectively in the state of Oregon and across the country, to take steps to protect its people so they can engage in commerce in a way that they think is honoring to God. We have—we’re very confident about this measure passing next year, but first we have to get it on the ballot.

First, we have to get a ballot title. That requires 1,000 signatures that we’ll then submit very quickly to get the ballot title process moving. And then later, we’ll be gathering another 100,000 signatures to actually put it on the ballot. So RCC is privileged enough, because I’m a board member, I suppose, that we can participate in this first initial effort of getting a thousand signatures of active registered voters.

Michael L. has volunteered to be the coordinator for us today. At the conclusion of the service, Michael will be in the foyer, and you’ll be able to—if you’re an active registered voter in the state of Oregon—sign that petition, and Michael will have to witness you signing it. So when the service is done, during the Q&A time and during the break, Michael will be out there, and please, every registered voter in Oregon, please sign those petitions that we have available for you.

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Now, today we’re going to continue our Advent series, going through particular characteristics or qualities that the Advent affected. So, Jesus—last week we talked about Jesus coming and being willing, willingly incarnate, becoming incarnate, and then willingly go to the cross for us. So he’s kind of the great volunteer. And our advent into the world, in union with Christ, involves service as well to the body of Christ and then in other things in our life as well.

Today we’re going to talk about excellence. So, having hopefully convinced you of the great privilege it is, in union with Christ, to be a volunteer—and particularly in the context of the local church—we want you, even though most of that work is volunteer, to do things in an excellent way. Because when Jesus came to earth, he came as the embodiment of excellence. Next week we’ll continue in this vein by talking about beauty, and then finally joy.

And so each of these four characteristics are characteristics of the coming—the Advent of Christ—and should, as well, inform us in our advent, so to speak, in the context of the world in which we live in union with Christ. So while it’s a topical sermon, in the middle of the sermon I will be talking about Proverbs 22:29 and the relationship of excellence to wisdom in the wisdom literature. So we’ll start by reading the sermon text of Proverbs 22:29.

So please stand for the reading of God’s word. Proverbs 22:29: “Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before unknown men.”

Let us pray. Father God, we thank you for this truth that we find at the center of your Proverbs. We pray, Lord God, that you would, by your word and by your Spirit, transform us. Give us, Lord God, the characteristics and attributes of our Savior. Thank you that he excelled in his work and did indeed stand before kings, as did his servants after him. Lord God, bless us then with an understanding of your scriptures. More than that, transform us. Make us people who strive for excellence in all that we do. In Christ’s name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated.

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So today’s sermon is on Advent and excellence. The church has not, in times past, been known as a bastion of excellence. Francis Schaeffer, several decades back, was kind of famous for referring to the church as addicted to mediocrity. And so many church ministries seemed, at least at that time, and I think today as well, to be done in somewhat of a mediocre fashion.

Schaeffer, I think, tied this to the notion of cheap grace, easy believism—separation of salvation from lordship—those kind of things. This produces a Christian who is so assured of the grace of God that, you know, he doesn’t feel a need to strive for excellence really in much of anything, or even necessarily to obey.

I was talking to a young man about five or six weeks ago about a particular abiding sin in his life—an obvious one that in days past would have been seen as quite highly scandalous in the church. And he’s actually attending another church. And one of the things he said was that well, myself and my friend do feel sort of guilty at times when we hear sermons about this at church. But on the other hand, every Sunday we’re convinced—we’re told over and over again—that we’re forgiven of our sins. And so that forgiveness becomes kind of an excuse to go on sinning week after week.

So the church has not been known for excellence. But what we’re going to say today is, just like we said last week, excellence is involved in the very character of God. And when Jesus comes in his Advent, he is the Advent of excellence. And God’s word then, by implication, means that if we’re united to him, we should be those who strive for excellence in all that we do.

And then we’ll look at particular scriptures that make it quite clear that this is our calling. For instance, the one we just read. Then we’ll look at the wisdom literature. So we’ll look at the theological basis for excellence—who God is—and then who we are and we’re commanded to excellence, to strive for excellence. We’ll look at this verse from Proverbs and see the significance of that verse in the flow of the book of Proverbs. And then we’ll look at a few—not all of them, by any means—but a few characteristics of excellence from the scriptures. And then finally, we’ll talk about the great motivation for our excellence.

So that’s where we’re going.

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Now, if we’re going to talk about excellence, we have to sort of know what we’re talking about and define it a little bit. I suppose, you know, a culture that doesn’t really strive for excellence can’t really accomplish a whole lot. It’s been said by one author that some people scorn excellence in plumbing because plumbing is such a mundane activity. So what’s the big deal if we strive for excellence there? And at the same time tolerate shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is such an exalted vocation. And it’s been commented upon that a culture that does not strive for excellence will neither have good plumbing nor good philosophy as a result, and neither its pipes or its theories will hold water.

So we want to be those that strive for excellence, and we have to understand—well, I’m going to use the Webster’s 1828 dictionary to define it, only because in our day and age, since we’ve moved away from Christ, increasingly words themselves become redefined. Here’s what Webster says: “Excellence—the state of possessing good qualities in an eminent degree; exalted merit; superiority in virtue.” Virtue used to be sort of a synonym for excellence, by the way, and no longer.

Second definition: “An excellent or valuable quality; that by which anyone excels or is eminent of virtue.” And then third: “A title of honor or respect; more common in the form excellency.” So “your excellency.” And when we get back to Paul’s evangelistic work in the book of Acts, we’ll see that he addresses these Roman governors as “Excellency,” and they represent the excellency of God. And in that title, they show that excellence is kind of this obvious thing—you know, it’s doing things really well, it’s doing them in a virtuous way, it’s going about doing things in a way that excels.

Now, it has to be distinguished from perfection. Edwin Bliss said that the pursuit of excellence is gratifying and healthy. The pursuit of perfection, on the other hand, is frustrating, neurotic, and a terrible waste of time. So when I talk about excellence today, I’m not talking about perfection. I’m not saying striving for perfection, which can never be reached. We’re talking about a creaturely excellence—a striving to do things well and eminently.

Brian Harbour says, in distinguishing excellence from success (which it also has to be distinguished from), so we’re not really talking about success. You can do a thing excellently and nobody will know about it necessarily. So we’re not talking about success, although excellence and success are frequently linked. But Harbour said this: “He said success means being the best. Excellence means being your best. He said success to many means being better than everyone else. Excellence means being better tomorrow than you were yesterday. Success means exceeding the achievements of other people. Excellence means matching your practice with your potential.”

So it’s not so much geared at excelling beyond the other fellow. It’s geared at doing better tomorrow than you did today and moving ahead. And it may or may not bring visible success in the sense of acclamation, etc. But either way, it’s a quality that we as Christians and followers of Christ should strive to develop and to do.

So excellence is that sort of striving—that sort of aiming to take all the potential that you have and throw it into whatever particular task that you’ve been called by God to perform. And today, as I said, what we really want to kind of focus on again is doing church ministry—that you do or engage in—an excellent way. And so we’ll talk—we’re focusing on that as our primary focus. Although, you know, the church and the Lord’s day worship sets everything else. So, you know, the idea is that if you do things excellently in the context of the church, then that’ll flow into your life and your vocation.

You should certainly be doing—whether your vocation is mothering or in the workplace, whatever it is—you should be striving for excellence in your vocation. But I guess my point is that if you don’t do it in the worship of God or in the service to God in his local church, I doubt whether you’ll do it necessarily in the workplace or in the home as well. And so we’re stressing that particular kind of excellence.

So pursuing and doing the best that we can with the gifts and abilities that God gives us, giving our best to the glory of God. And that’ll be a theme throughout the sermon today as we’re working to the glory of God.

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All right. So after that introduction, let’s talk about the Advent of excellence. And I’ve got a bunch of scriptures there. And the first one sort of sums up the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is in Mark 7:37, and he’s just done some healing work. And we read that in response to this, they were astonished beyond measure—astonished beyond measure—saying, “He has done all things well.” He has done all things well. Speaking of Jesus, he has done all things excellently. He has done all things well. He makes both the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.

So the work of our Savior in his Advent is summed up in the mouths of those who may even oppose him later in his ministry as saying that he does all things well—all things excellently.

Now, he is the incarnation of the Lord God. And in Deuteronomy chapter 32, we read: “I proclaim the name of the Lord. Ascribe greatness to our God. He is the Rock. His work is perfect. For all his ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice, righteous and upright is he.” So a description of the exceeding excellence of God described in particular ways and connected then to the fact that he is our Rock.

So when our Rock—the Lord Jesus Christ—in his Advent comes as the second person of the Trinity, who is described in various ways in the Old Testament as being a God who excels in all that he does. In 2 Samuel 22:31: “As for God, His way is perfect. The word of the Lord is proven. He is a shield to all who trust in him. His way is perfect.”

He does attain perfection because he is God. We have a creaturely attaining to excellence, but God is certainly described as being the one who is perfect—who excels—excuse me—in everything. This is the God we serve. You remember that we’ve said a number of times in the last six months that in the Psalms, the God you worship is what you become like. And I know that some of this theological foundational stuff—you want to get to your application. But you know, it is so important that we get a grasp of the God that we serve and his excellencies.

And if we serve and worship a God who is excellent, then that will, through the course of our life of serving and worshiping him, that’ll produce excellence in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 8:1, a version of which we just sang: “Oh Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth, who have set your glory above the heavens. Your excellency is so great, it can’t be restricted to the earth or even the heavens. Your glory, your excellency exceeds even that. Lord, our Lord, in all the earth, how excellent your name.” This is the God that we serve—a God of excellence and perfection.

Isaiah 12:4 says: “In that day you will say, ‘Praise the Lord, call upon his name, declare his deeds among the peoples, make mention that his name is exalted. Sing to the Lord, for he has done excellent things. This is known in all the earth.’” So this is speaking of the return from exile, but ultimately it’s prefiguring the Advent of Jesus Christ and salvation accomplished for the elect, and really taking away the sin of the world and bringing in the new creation.

And what it says is the coming of Jesus Christ—he is doing excellent things. He is exalted, and he has done excellent things in the context of the world. And this excellence will be the bulletin board, so to speak—the billboard—the advertising for the person of God as the nations hear of the excellence of what is accomplished by God and the Advent of the Lord Jesus Christ. And by his demonstration of an excellent doing all things well in his life recorded in the Gospels. And then in that excellence, bearing our sins on the cross, being raised up and set at the right hand of the Father, bringing humanity into the throne room of God—he has done all things well. He has done things in an excellent way.

We serve a Savior who does things that are excellent, who is exalted, and who only does excellent things.

Hebrews chapter 1, the first five verses, frequently read in the context of the Christmas season: “God, who at various times and in various ways spoken time past to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. The excellence of the created order comes about through the working of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, being the brightness of the glory and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power.

When He had by Himself purged our sins, sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high, having become so much better than the angels, as He has by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.”

Jesus Christ in his Advent and the recording of who he was in the scriptures, in the word of God—Jesus Christ is the express image of the person of the triune God. He is the brightness of His glory. The bright shining refulgence is an old-fashioned word, but the brightness of the glory of God in His excellencies. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. The express image of the person of the triune God. Jesus Christ is an excellent Savior. He is an excellent head of the church of Jesus Christ. And when we see His excellence reflecting the excellence of the triune God, then what we see is what we increasingly are to become.

And if we don’t move in terms of excellence, do we know him? Do we know His excellence? Does it mean anything to us other than an insurance policy for when we die? No. The scriptures say if you understand this, then you understand the basis of who you are, Christian, right? You’re united to Him, and He is excellent.

Hebrews 8:6: “But now He has obtained a more excellent ministry in as much as He is also mediator of a better covenant which was established on better promises.”

Remember all that stuff we talked about last week about Jesus—you know, in relationship to the old order—and how everything is better. He’s brought us into rest where Joshua couldn’t. He, by one offering, has cleansed our conscience from sin. The way that all the offerings of the Old Testament not only could not take away our sin, but were actually reminders of our sin, right? That in that passage from Hebrews that we looked at last week, he was referring to the day of atonement. And they had sacrifices going on all year, and once a year they do another sacrifice taking away the sins of the people. Why? Because in addition to being a picture of what Jesus is going to do, it was a reminder that He had not come yet, that their sins were not cleansed, that their consciences could not be purged and really made as clean as they would become through the once-for-all offering of the Lord Jesus Christ—the better offering, the better priest in the heavenly temple—giving us rest because, as this text just told us, he is ministering the excellency of the better covenant.

And so Jesus Christ in His Advent is a shining example to us not only of being a willing servant to do the will of the Father—his voluntary service—but he is a bright and shining example of excellence to us. And during this Christmas season, a meditation upon the excellency of Christ should drive us to seek, in the power of the Spirit, to be like Him as Christians.

Daniel, in chapter 5, several references to Daniel are the same way. “In as much then as an excellent spirit, knowledge, understanding, interpreting dreams, solving riddles, and explaining enigmas were found in this Daniel, whom the king named Belshazzar—now let Daniel be called, and he will give the interpretation of the king’s vision.” So Daniel is, several times in the book of Daniel, referred to as the one in whom is an excellent spirit.

The Holy Spirit brings kings—excellence. When the Spirit comes upon the craftsmen who build the temple, they have an excellence and a virtue in how they go about working the physical construction of the temple that Solomon had brought them together to do. And this Spirit—the Holy Spirit—that ministers to us, Jesus ministers to us His excellency. We are to have an excellent spirit in us as Christians. And another way of phrasing this is that it is a spirit of excellence, right? The Holy Spirit is a spirit who produces, who brings to us excellence.

And to not strive for excellence is, in effect, to resist and grieve the Holy Spirit of God who has called us to be manifestations of the person and work and the excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ—the greater Daniel. So Daniel is a great prefigure of the coming of the one in whom the excellent spirit is seen, resting upon Christ and enabling his work.

So our calling to excellence is not something we generate because it’s a cool thing or a good thing or a profitable thing. It’s something we’re to strive for because it is our identity. It is the God we serve, and specifically it’s our Savior to whom we’re united. And we’re to be little Christs in the world, which means we’re to be those who, like Jesus, do things well and excellently.

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So, secondly then, our calling is to a creaturely excellence. And a whole other set of scriptures here that we’ll begin to work through. We are called then—so we could by implication say we’re supposed to be excellent ones—because we’re united to Christ. But there are specific scriptures that remind us of these things.

First of all, in Romans 6:16-18, and I won’t read the text, but the text tells us that we’ve been freed from one sort of slavery and brought into another form of slavery. We’ve been freed from slavery to sin to be slaves to God and to righteousness, right? That’s what Romans 6 is all about. And now, that’s central to understanding who we are because we’re not freed from sin to do whatever dogone thing we want to do. We’re not freed from sin to be servants of ourselves or our wives or our husbands or even the church necessarily or the culture. We’re freed so that we might serve—be slaves to—the Lord Jesus Christ.

And as servants of him, we want to do all things well in the same way that he, as a servant to his Father, did all things well. And so we’re called—first of all—we are to understand that our salvation itself is to enable us to serve Christ. And the clear implication is that service must be done wholeheartedly and in excellence.

This is what’s said explicitly in Colossians 3:23: “Whatever you do, do it heartily as to the Lord and not to men.”

Now, it doesn’t use the word excellence, but that’s what it means, obviously. Whatever you do—think of the things you’ve done today. How many things did you do? You woke up. You got ready for church. You got dressed. You thought about various things. You thanked God for the day. Maybe you came here, you went to Sunday school, or you went up to the AV meeting we had this morning where we’re trying to produce more excellence in our stream onto the internet of our worship services.

Whatever you did today, Colossians 3:23 is completely comprehensive: “Whatever you do, do it as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do it heartily. Strive for excellence.” And I didn’t say perfection—don’t get me wrong—but strive for excellence in whatever you do.

Colossians 3:24 says: “The reason for this is knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.” Since you’re called out of service to sin so that you might serve Jesus in everything that you do, you’re identified as a servant of Christ, and you’re to do it heartily with excellence unto the Lord.

Ecclesiastes 9:10: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. For there is no work or device or knowledge or wisdom in the grave where you are going.” This is the one opportunity to serve in this particular way. Where we go, I’m sure there’ll be more work, but the whole nature of it will have changed. We won’t live in a time of temptation with the possibility of fallibility in our lives and the decisions we make to either obey or not obey everything. It’ll be by sight then, but now by faith.

So you have this one lifetime—which, as I can tell you, goes by very quickly, right?—you have this one lifetime to strive for excellence in what you do, to do things heartily for the Lord Jesus Christ. You have this time, and whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might. Don’t do a half-hearted thing in whatever you put your hand to do. Do it with all your might.

1 Corinthians 15:58: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, doing better and better in your work and service for the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Somehow, all this labor, by the way, that we do—it continues on, I believe, into eternity. I think that’s the intent of that verse. But the clear application of what we’re talking about today, again, is this idea that we’re to be abounding in the work of the Lord.

Now, throughout this, I want you to be thinking—yes, about your work in the workplace, very important application. Yes, about anything else you do in your life this week. But I want to begin with this focus: whatever ministry or service you do at RCC, you do in the context of the local church. As we said last week, you’re supposed to be doing something. You’re part—you have a particular giftedness. You’re a particular body part in the body of Jesus Christ in the church.

So whatever ministry that is, no matter how mundane it might seem, no matter how invisible it might be to the body of Jesus Christ here—are you doing it? And in your doing of it, are you striving for excellence? Are you abounding in the work of Christ? That’s what we’re called to do.

1 Corinthians 10:31: “Therefore, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

So again, it’s a comprehensive statement. Now, the particular application there is talking about love to other people, right? I mean, he’s talking about not causing others to stumble by what you eat and drink. And then we have the summary statement that we always take out of context. But, you know, it does mean—it does mean what we use it for when we take it out of context. It does mean whatever you do, you know, do all in the service of Christ and do all for the glory of God.

But the specific application means that in the way you love your brothers and sisters in the Lord—including weak ones who will judge you and think badly of you and not like you—even there, in your relationships, you’re to strive for excellence. You’re to do that to the glory of God.

Proverbs 31:29: “Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.” Now, Proverbs 31 is about a wife. It’s about a woman and a household, but I think it’s really about the church of Jesus Christ—the great bride of Christ. And what the text tells us is that the church should be the place that people think automatically: “Oh, those guys do all things well.” Even if they don’t believe in Jesus, they should look at us and what we do and say that, you know, that body, that organism, that club—no matter what they might think of us as—they excel them all.

Now, they won’t be able to have the same standards as God does, but God should help us to understand that our goal is that our excellence would be manifest to the world as well.

So it’s rooted in the person of God. It’s, by implication, so important to our identity as Christians. Rather, the Advent of Christ means the Advent of excellence to His body, to the church. He came to empower that Proverbs 31 bride of Christ to do all things well and excellently, the way that her husband does.

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And wisdom is absolutely related to the idea of excellence. Now, here’s some—you know, I throw these things in, and if you don’t like it, that’s okay. You can just throw those last two pages away when you get home. I think it would be foolish. I don’t think you’d be doing all things well. But, you know, I’ve developed these in the past. You probably already got them, some of you, in your Bibles.

But, you know, the center of the book of Proverbs are these “words of the wise.” And so it begins by saying, “Listen now to the words of the wise.” And that’s in verse 17. We have then the introduction there of the sayings, and this is on your handouts. And there’s an interpretation. Well, let’s see. Okay. So if you look on the handout that says “Excellence and Wisdom,” verse 17: “Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise.”

So this is a section header, and we’ve got here several chapters that are identified as the “words of the wise.” And then there’s more “words of the wise”—a short thing at the end of this section. So these are the “words of the wise,” so characterized. And people refer to them as the “30 sayings” or “words of the wise.”

Why? Well, if you go in that same text down to verse 20: “Have I not written to you excellent things?”—well, that Hebrew there can be interpreted as “three” or “thirty.” And while I can’t get into all the details that would bore you—most modern translations, including the ESV, instead of “excellent things,” it says “30 sayings.”

Now, I know those sound completely different to you, but the likelihood is pretty good at this point in time, in our knowledge of Hebrew and looking at the text, is that it’s actually giving us a list of 30 sayings of the wise. So that’s why people refer to it as the “30 Sayings of the Wise.”

And the way I’ve identified them or put them together is in three sets of 10. And so one of your sheets has all three sets of 10. And it’s interesting—those three sets—because the first set begins with work, and I think an emphasis on the Lord’s day, which is also the Sabbath—which is also a call to work, right? “Six days you shall labor.” And so it deals with that.

I think the middle 10 deal with the home and the family and the household and children and sons. And the last 10 deal with proper rule in the context of a culture. And so right at the heart of Proverbs—this is the fourth or middle section of Proverbs, the way it’s structured—you’ve got this kind of flow from young men and young women looking to vocation. And after vocation is established, young men particularly, then looking to build a home. And then as you progress in life, becoming active in signing petitions, circulating petitions, writing language for petitions, having wisdom to rule.

So there’s a movement at the center of Proverbs that help us understand the whole book. The purpose of the book is to take a young man and make him a king. And what the young man is told is: begin with work, and then establish your home. Now, I know you want to start casting an eye at the ladies when you’re 12, 13, 14, 15, 16. Forget it. Now you might cast an eye, but get your work ready, right? Get your field ready, then build your house.

And that movement—from work to marriage and then to rule in the context of your life as you grow older—and after you’ve managed a family, you can manage a civil state or a county or a city or a church or whatever it is. That movement is the movement of these 30 Sayings of the Wise.

So that’s kind of the big context. This is the heart of Proverbs, and this statement about excellence in work is in the first set of 30. It’s like the beginning—you know—of the heart of Proverbs is excellence in work. Or this set of sayings.

Now, and I know this might be a little confusing, but you can meditate upon it later, right? I believe that these 10 sayings kind of image the first four commandments. There are ten commandments, but you know there are four and then there’s a repeated set of three and three. The first four commandments talk about sin against the Father, sin against the Son, and sin against the Holy Spirit.

And if you honor the Father correctly—you know, in the very first commandment: no other gods and no other mediator between God and men, honor the Son—and not having a false witness, or an empty witness rather, but a spirit-empowered witness, right? Don’t have an empty witness—the third commandment. If you do those things well, if you’re properly related to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, then you enter into the Sabbath rest of the fourth commandment, okay?

So that’s kind of how it works. Then the next three kind of repeat: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The last three: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so really, I think it’s kind of a Trinitarian emphasis on the ten commandments. So the first four are a summary, I guess, is what I’m trying to say, of all the rest of it.

To honor your parents flows out of having no other gods or authorities other than God above, who is reflected in your parents, right? And not stealing is a reflection of being properly related on a horizontal plane to the image-bearer of God in humanity—Jesus, okay? And not committing adultery is to not sin against the Holy Spirit and not to have an empty witness in the world.

So that’s something for you to meditate on. But I think that’s true. And that’s how I’ve structured this handout—the one particularly dealing with the first 10 Sayings.

So the first saying is this one about vertical relationship to the Father. It’s about grace. “Don’t rob the poor because he is poor, nor oppress the afflicted at the gate. For the Lord will plead their cause, and plunder the soul of those who plunder them.” So it’s a proper relationship to the Father by extending grace to people.

And then saying number two concerns friendships—relationship on a horizontal level, right?—and it’s a warning against angry men. Verses 24 and 25: “Make no friendship with an angry man, and with a furious man, do not go, lest you learn his ways and set a snare for your soul.” So, properly related to the Father and grace from him and extending grace to others. Proper relationship to the Son and the image-bearers of the Son—those that are in a horizontal relationship with us.

And then the third saying deals with the Holy Spirit. “Don’t be one of those who shakes hands in a pledge, one of those who is surety for debts. If you have nothing with which to pay, why should he take away your bed from under you?” This has to do with covenants, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes covenants and is the source of doing those things. And so the third saying is about covenants—warning against surety—and properly related to the Holy Spirit.

And that leads us to the fourth saying. And sayings four through 10, I think, are a unit. They have a bracket before and after relative to the landmarks and not moving them. And then they have a series of consecutive bookmarks as we go into the center of those seven sayings—sayings four through 10.

And I think that being focused on the fourth commandment means these sayings are related particularly to work and labor. So it starts by saying: “Don’t steal. Don’t remove the ancient landmark which your fathers have set.” And the match to that is down at the bottom—in the matching section at the conclusion of these first 10 words—and it says: “Don’t remove an ancient landmark.” So we see it picks up the same theme, but it adds: “Nor enter the fields of the fatherless.” So now it talks about grace again.

So, you know, the very first of the 10 sayings is about grace to the poor. The very last is grace to the poor. There’s a unit. All 10 are united. But then the last seven statements—the first is about not removing landmarks—places of, you know, marking off possessions. And the last one is “don’t remove landmarks.” Now it’s focusing on the poor, but it’s the same thing: “Don’t steal.”

So, in order to work correctly, you don’t steal. That’s kind of the big point here, okay? And the middle of this—so that talks about our activities of stealing or not stealing. And the middle sections are about how we go about laboring and what our motivation is. So you don’t want to be greedy. The whole point of work is not money. And you don’t want to be gluttonous. The whole point of work is not to fill your belly. Other things are going on.

And the only positive commandment in all these 10 sayings of the wise dealing with work and vocation and establishing your life as a working man or a working woman—the only positive statement is found in the verse that we read for our sermon text: “Do you see a man who excels in his work? He will stand before kings. He will not stand before unknown men.”

So the beginning of wisdom—as you’re building your career—is a bunch of don’ts. But there’s one “do” when you start working. And the “do” is: excel at your work. Strive for excellence in your labors. That’s the one thing.

Now, we’ve got the heart of Proverbs here, laying out a path of what life in God is—starting with a son becoming a vocational person, then building his home, and then getting into civil arena stuff. You don’t get there at first. You get there by a vocation. And the one thing—in addition to all the things you’re not supposed to do—the one thing you’re supposed to do explicitly is to strive for excellence in your work.

Now, I think that’s very significant, men and women, boys and girls. That means that when we train our kids for vocation, it’s a lot more than teaching them a particular craft. The most important way to train up kids for vocation and calling—whether it’s in the workplace or in the home, wherever it is—the one thing that these texts at least point us to is to get our kids to strive for excellence.

And if you’ve raised kids, you know it’s probably the most difficult thing. They want to get things done quick. They want to get to whatever else they’re going to do. But don’t, you know, don’t miss the fact that at the heart of Proverbs is the setting up of vocation under God by a striving for excellence.

And then we’re promised that if we strive for excellence, we will have significance and influence in the world. Do we want to change the world? Well, we evangelize, but you know, if we just evangelize—you know, there’s a lot of Christians in our country, but it’s not doing too well—because there are not a lot of Christians who strive for excellence. And so we’re the tail again, and not the head. We don’t work well.

So, yeah, we certainly want to evangelize our neighbors out of love for them, etc. But this is so significant for determining who’s going to run the world. The people that show up and who strive for excellence when they show up—they run things. And God tells us that here: strive for excellence in your work, attain it, and you’ll run things. You’ll stand before kings. That’s Jesus, right? That’s Joseph. That’s a number of people. That’s Abraham. People that strive for excellence end up having relationships with ruling authorities.

So the Proverbs are quite insistent that excellence is one of those fundamental callings of who we are as followers of Yahweh or disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ. I mean, this is not some ancillary little thing off to the side. This should occupy one of the centers of our lives—a calling to get up in the morning and say: “Whatever I do today, Lord God, empower me to strive for excellence in that particular thing.”

And as I said, focusing first on work here in the church—you know, it’s easy to say here, well, it’s just church. Nobody’s getting paid. We’re volunteers. They should be happy I’m doing it, right? So, you know, who cares if it’s done really well or not? The Lord cares. And the Lord cares because he loves you more than you love yourself. And he knows that if you develop patterns of striving for excellence in the voluntary service that seems to have so little impact in the context of the local church, if you do that, your character will be transformed, and you’ll do more excellent work when you go to the workplace tomorrow morning or you’ll be a more excellent wife when you go and work with your kids tomorrow during the day.

So, so, you know, it’s so important that we see this relationship of excellence to who we are in the Lord Jesus Christ.

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Okay. So, quickly now, just some characteristics of excellence. And there’s a bunch, and there’s a lot of books written about this stuff that you can read. Probably some of you have read. I just want to mention a few. And these are not on your outline. There’s blank space for you to write them down.

One is discernment. We don’t normally think about this in terms of excellence, but the scriptures do. Romans 2:18 says: “Know this, know his will rather, approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law.” So we’re to discern the things that are excellent.

There’s lots of things you can do today. There’s lots of opportunities for you tomorrow. The question—striving for excellence begins by determining which things you should take on and which you shouldn’t. You got to discern the proper task that God would have you to do, the things you have time for, the things you have gifting and ability for. The beginning of excellence is choosing the things that God would have you excel at—discerning things that are excellent, that are the excellent things that you’re called to do.

And that discernment is tied in the text we just read to the scriptures being instructed out of God’s law. So you take your understanding of God’s word, you look at your world the way it is when you get up tomorrow morning. And striving for excellence begins by making decisions about what you put your hand to do and what you don’t.

It doesn’t say “do everything with all your might” with the things you could put your hand to do in Ecclesiastes. No, it says: “Whatever you put your hand to do, do it with all your might.” Right? “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.” And if your love for God is motivating whatever you do, that means whatever you put your hand to do, do it well and excellently. But it’s what you put your hand to do that begins the process.

So excellence begins by making decisions about what you should do.

Philippians 1:9 and 10: “And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent.” The text goes on to say: “That you may approve the things that are excellent. That you might be able to discern things that you should be doing and should be doing excellently.”

So discernment is a leading characteristic.

A second characteristic that you wouldn’t normally think about in terms of excellence is being open to correction. Soon as I say it, you know: “Oh, that’s right, yeah.” If you’re going to do things excellently, you should be able to have people tell you that “ain’t so excellent” and listen to them, you know, and hear about it and listen to correction and try to improve and try to excel and get better and better at what you’re doing.

Proverbs 13:18: “Poverty and shame will come to him who disdains correction, but he who regards a rebuke will be honored.” He’ll be standing before kings. He’ll do things well because he hears a rebuke and corrects. Because he doesn’t get offended that the correction is coming from a woman if he’s a man, or a man if you’re a woman, or even a younger person if the younger person is respectfully talking to you, right? You don’t get your, you know, back of your hairs and your neck all worked up and get angry at people for bringing you news that it wasn’t that great a job.

How about this? If you’re going to exceed, it means having eyes outside of your own to help evaluate your work. I mean, everything I do looks pretty good to me, right? But it doesn’t look so good to other people. And I need to hear corrections in order to really strive for excellence.

A third obvious characteristic is faithfulness. And this is what we’ve got to teach kids, in particular. Be faithful in whatever task you’re called to do. Do it with excellence. Strive for excellence. Be faithful. If you’re not faithful in the small things, you won’t stand before kings. If you don’t strive for excellence by being faithful, no dice.

Luke 16:10: “He who is faithful in what is least is faithful also in much. And he who is unjust in what is least is unjust also in much.”

We want to tell ourselves we can step up when the right job comes along and it’s really important. God says: “No, you can’t. If you’re not faithful and step up in the small things, you won’t really be equipped to step up in the big things. And number two, he won’t give you the big things. It’s required in a steward that you be found faithful.”

I mean, if our kids—right, I don’t know—one of the Adams boys comes up here, and what is he doing? He’s helping with these glasses and stuff, right? Isn’t that what he does? Some little kid comes up here, some little boy. And I mean, you know, I think he’s been trained since he was, you know, knee-high to a grasshopper. And he’s not that much taller now. But he does things excellently because his parents are working with him to be faithful in small things.

And I fully expect that lad that’s been faithful in the small things of a ministry here at the church, and your kids can take advantage of lots of ministries here—I fully expect that those kids will be ones who have pretty important responsibilities in their adult life. That’s the way God works.

Daniel 6: “Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him, a spirit of excellence. And the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm.” So he’s going to set Daniel over the whole realm. Why? Well, the verse goes on to say: “So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could not find a charge or fault, because he was faithful.”

Because Daniel was faithful, the king was going to appoint him over a bigger position. And because he was faithful, somebody couldn’t bring these bad charges against him that he wasn’t excellent in everything that he did. So being faithful is key to striving for excellence.

Now, we could talk about other characteristics than that. But here’s another one: perseverance, right? Not only this—we read in Romans 5: “But we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulations produces perseverance, and perseverance, character, and character hope.” There’s a progression, and perseverance in a task is required if you’re going to strive to do things in an excellent fashion.

2 Corinthians 8:11: “But now you also must complete the doing of it, so that as there was a readiness to desire it, so there also may be a completion out of what you have.”

So, you know, you, in order to strive for excellence, you pray about a thing. You plan for a thing, right? You prepare for the thing, but you got to perform the thing. And that requires perseverance because there’s always going to be challenges. And it requires faithfulness in accomplishing that. So, yeah, you make a commitment, but then you’ve got to follow through on the commitment. You know, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. They persevere because they’re striving for excellence, and they will do it.

John Gardner, in a book on faithfulness or excellence rather, says: “Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly by doing what comes naturally, and they don’t stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.”

Discipline and tenacity of purpose. What task do you do at RCC? Is it being done in an excellent way? Do you think it’s just supposed to be natural somehow because you’ve got the spirit of excellence? No, it’s hard work, and you apply yourself to that work, and excellence is the result.

Dawson Trotman started the Navigators. He was always real big on excellence. And he had this guy—one of their missionaries—paint the two doors of their office. And so he came back at the end of the day, and Trotman says: “Well, that front door looks great. Guy sanded it, painted it, cleaned it all up, really worked hard on it. Said, ‘Well, that front door—great work.’ What’s going on with the back door?” He had hung the door—the guy did—but he didn’t sand it, didn’t paint it, didn’t clean it up. He just made sure it worked functionally.

He says: “Well, that one just opens out onto the alley. The front door is what represents us to people.” And Trotman says: “No, no, no, no. That is not excellence. Excellence means taking care of the things that nobody might even see and doing it for God, doing it with all your heart to the glory of God. And if it’s a back door that opens onto an alley, it should be a good-looking back door. You should do that thing with excellence.”

And there are many tasks that we’re called to do that nobody sees. Nobody’s going to give you a grade on a lot of the things that you’re called to do. But God does. He sees it all. His eye is upon us, and he wants us to strive for excellence in all that we do.

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This is the characteristic of faithfulness. Now the final thing is the motivation, of course, obviously—is the glory of God. This is another quote from another guy on excellence. “What you feel the most deeply about you will try to do to the best of your ability. If you don’t feel deeply about the glory and honor of God, you’re not going to necessarily try to do excellent things when people can’t see what you’re doing.”

We have to have at the base of our motivation a desire for the glory and honor of God. And to the extent that the church has lost that—and Christianity just becomes a consumer sort of thing that gives us a little better this, a little better that, a little insurance, a little better, you know, fun in life or whatever it is—instead of Christianity being marked by an obsession with the glory and honor of God—then we’ve moved away from excellence.

And that church has become, as Francis Schaeffer said, addicted to mediocrity.

Our excellence communicates to others that we care deeply about God’s honor. Here’s another quote: “If people drive up to our building and notice that the grass has not been cut and that there are weeds”—now, I found this in a book. I’m not—I didn’t make this up about this church, so I’m not complaining about the grass. But he says: “If people show up, we’ve had good people cutting the grass, but if they show up, grass isn’t cut, weeds growing alongside the building—what do they think about God, the God that’s worshiped there? The God who’s the focal point of what that church does, particularly on the Lord’s day when they convocate at that place?

Or if people receive our newsletter or some other church publication and the print is faded and the paper is cheap and there are typos, what do they think of our God? Or if people go to use our restrooms and things are unclean, what do they think of our God? What do they think if the music is unrehearsed or if the worship does not flow or if the nursery is unkempt or if there is no parking available? What do they think if the teaching, preaching, communion, and offering thoughts are given off the cuff with very little preparation?

If we did not care about excellence, would anyone care about our God? And the answer is no.

Now, God’s arm is not shortened. He is powerful to bring people to Christ in spite of the church’s mediocrity. But think about those things. Think about your particular ministry here. And please be motivated to strive for excellence in terms of what you do.

Whatever you do, do it heartily. Why? Because you’re doing it unto the Lord and not to men. 1 Corinthians 10:31: “Whether you eat or drink, whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”

We’re to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the measure of whether that’s true or not in our life is whether we use our heart, soul, mind, and strength to accomplish the tasks that we’ve been given to do as servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Solomon said in 2 Chronicles 2: “The temple which I build will be great, for our God is great and greater than all gods.” And Solomon did that. He got the best craftsmen, right? The spirit of excellence was reflected in the craftsmanship that went into the temple because Solomon knew that the temple would be great because it reflects the glory and honor of the God who dwells in the midst of those people.

The church is the temple of God. Do we take the same mindset? Will this temple—will this particular dwelling place of God, the people of God here—will we be marked by the excellence and the beauty and the skillfulness that enters into what God is building at Reformation Covenant Church? I mean, if Solomon said that, it’s because it’s important and it has direct application to the temple, to the body of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Solomon spared no expense to produce excellence in his church. And we should spare no expense in terms of our labors, our activities, our heart, our will, our willingness to achieve excellence in the context of the church of Jesus Christ.

Do you honor God in the particular ministry that you’ve been called to here? And then do you honor God in your life by performing and striving for excellence?

Malachi 1—you can read it later—verses 6 through 11. It’s an indictment for the opposite—for saying the temple of God is not great. “Maybe God dwells there, but we don’t need to bring our best. We’ll bring bad offerings. We won’t even bring the tithe of offerings. We’ll bring, you know, animals that have blemishes that aren’t really any good. We won’t bring our best efforts to serve God.”

And Malachi 1 is a repeated indictment from God. He says: “You wouldn’t do that to the IRS. If the government makes you fill out your tax forms come April 15th and you cheat on those things and you offer your least, and you don’t give up what the state wants, you—what would it do? It would throw you in jail. Well, it’d come after you. It’d attach your wages. Eventually, if you didn’t do it, it’d throw you in jail. What will God do?

Just because God isn’t as obvious as our government is, don’t think for a minute that he doesn’t see whether you’re striving for excellence in your ministry that you bring to the temple of God, to the body of Jesus Christ. He sees. He evaluates. And he told them in Malachi: because you don’t bring your best, because you don’t strive for excellence in approaching me, you’re cursed. You’re cursed with the curse. That’s what he told them. I am at work in the context of you, whether you care to admit it or not. He says: “Where is the honor that is due to me, the Master? Where is the respect that you owe to me?” That’s what God says.

He is our God. He is our Master. And he wants us to respect and honor him by seeking the best and striving for excellence in how we perform the services to his body, to his bride, to the Lord Jesus Christ in the church.

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I’ve got this phrase at the bottom: “I’ve Got a Glory.”

There was a guy named Archibald Rutledge, Archie Rutledge, who was a poet. He died in 1973, something like that. But he was a great poet—poet laureate of South Carolina. And a guy who also loved to go into nature and loved nature and stuff. And he would go on this particular tugboat that would take him off to a place that he liked to be at and commune with God, you know, in nature.

And one day he shows up at this tugboat—this little boat rather—that takes him downstream. And he goes in there, and it’s changed. It doesn’t have the weird smells coming out of the engine room that it used to. Everything is nice and neat and orderly. It doesn’t look like the same boat anymore. So he goes, and he had just been on it not that long before. So he thinks: “How did that happen so quickly?” And so, well, the boat had a new engineer—new master, so to speak, on the boat. And so Archie asked him. He said: “Well, how did you go about changing things so quickly here and getting things cleaned up all around?”

And the guy said to him: “I’ve got a glory.” He loved the boat. He knew it was his task from God. He knew it was his glory. “I’ve got a glory. I love doing this boat.” He loved it. He had a glory.

Now, you know, brothers and sisters, if we can take that approach as we move into the new year—and not just focus on the Advent of Christ and his excellencies, but see our advent into this church, into our communities, into our workplaces—if we can look at the tasks we’ve been given, if you can look at the particular ministry you do here at RCC and say: “I’ve got a glory. I’m going to do it well,” right? Then God is pleased. Then the church is built. Then the nations see the excellencies and glory of God.

And all this relates to personal relationships as well, that we’ve talked about in terms of the unity of the church. But this is such a central aspect of who we are in Jesus. May this season of Advent give us hearts that get up in the morning and say: “I’ve got a glory—that task from God. That’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to do it well. I’m going to do it and love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.”

Let’s pray.

Father, give us a sense of the great privilege that ministry to you and your church is. Make us a people that strive for excellence—who understand that all the things that you give us are things of glory if we carry them out in service to you and for your honor. Give us a sense, Lord God, and a commitment to your honor and glory in the world. Make this temple here at RCC glorious because it reflects you, a glorious God. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Amen.