He Deserves Our Best

To be “excellent” means to be outstanding; exceptional, better. The Scriptures teach us that excellence is something that honors God:

Colossians 3:23 “And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men…”

Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.”

Compare that with the word “mediocre,” which means of middle quality or 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. Mediocrity makes Jesus sick!

God is displeased with mediocre, less than excellent service.
Malachi 1:7, 8 “Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. And if ye offer the blind for sacrifice, is it not evil? and if ye offer the lame and sick, is it not evil? offer it now unto thy governor; will he be pleased with thee, or accept thy person? saith the Lord of hosts."

a. He deserves the best we have.

b. He is displeased when we try to cheat Him.
c. He despises offerings of inferior quality.

There is always a reason to offer God less than our best.

Malachi 1:10 “Who is there even among you that would shut the doors for nought? neither do ye kindle fire on mine altar for nought. I have no pleasure in you, saith the Lord of hosts, neither will I accept an offering at your hand.”

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 of doing this just to appease the people.

Their reasons for doing so were problem similar to our own reasons.
Verses 12, 13 “But ye have profaned it, in that ye say, The table of the Lord is polluted; and the fruit thereof, even his meat, is contemptible. Ye said also, Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the Lord of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the Lord.

According to Malachi they wanted to do things the cheap and easy way. 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 that it’s okay to just “get by” in our Christian lives, that leftovers are good enough for God, and then we wonder why God doesn’t bless our lives. We really just don’t care about what we offer or how we offer it. 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. The “popular argument” is the thinking that says, “Everyone else is doing it.” Since everybody else is doing it, why should I hold to a higher standard?

Our service reveals our attitude toward God. The big issue is that our choice to give God less than our best reveals several things about us. 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. It also shows that we are more interested in things other than what please God. It reveals that we treat God in a way that is dishonorable. We show God less honor and respect than we give our parents or governmental leaders and that we’re more concerned with ourselves and the things that please us.

True service to God 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. Jesus taught us that we have to be faithful in the small things before we can receive the bigger blessings.

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 walls need repainting, 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. 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.” Yet, Jesus taught that unfaithful stewards were both wicked and lazy.

God expects and deserves nothing less than our best. If it bears His name, it deserves our best.

1 Corinthians 10:31 “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.”

1 Corinthians 15:58 “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Our “best” doesn’t mean perfection or superiority. Chuck Swindoll wrote this in one of his books: “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.

Psalm 145:3 “Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; and his greatness is unsearchable.”

Revelation 4:11 “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.”

If you’re someone who has been cheating God, please stop.
-Stop offering God contemptuous sacrifices.
-Stop giving God your last-minute, half-hearted, left-over, and warmed-up efforts.
-Don’t slap 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 “Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”