Called to Excel

Several years ago, I was visiting someone at one of the 55+ community where I hold Bible studies and preach each week. The residents were getting ready for a Bingo game. As I stood in the back of the room, I watched one of our regular attenders slowly make her way toward the folding chairs with her walker. It looked like a slow and tedious process. A moment later she accidently knocked her walker against a chair occupied by one of the other residents. It wasn’t a hard impact. How hard can a walker pushed by an 80-year-old bang into a chair? But the seated woman in the chair – also in her 80s – turned and angrily barked at the poor woman who just stood there – probably embarrassed by the sudden outburst.

To her great credit, the woman with the walker quietly apologized, turned away and shuffled to the other end of the room where she found another seat.

I thought about that experience for several weeks afterward, and when I read through 1 Thessalonians recently, the memory returned. Here is the text:

1 Thessalonians 4:1-11, “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. . . . Now as to the love of the brethren, you have no need for anyone to write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; for indeed you do practice it toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, to excel still more, and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands, just as we commanded you . . ..”

Let’s look a moment at that last clause: “Just as we commanded you.” Who, then was doing the commanding? Paul alone? Or is Someone else involved here?

Christians have taught that the word of God – meaning the Scriptures – was given to us by the Spirit of God, written down and proclaimed by the prophets and apostles of God, so that people might believe and become children of God. That’s how God worked salvation in the past – whether in the OT or the NT eras. And the Holy Spirit still uses the word of God, proclaimed by men and women who believe and live according to the word of God, to help men and women today become children of God.

But the word does no one any good unless, as I said a moment ago, we accept it – we believe it to be the word of God fully and completely without error regarding such things as history, theology, and morality. And if we believe it, then what must follow is obedience to it, for salvation is inextricably linked to obedience to the Savior.

Here are only a few texts: Matthew 7:13 “Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

The Lord Jesus expands on his comments in Luke’s gospel: “Strive to enter through the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. Once the head of the house gets up and shuts the door, and you begin to stand outside and knock on the door, saying, ‘Lord, open up to us!’ then He will answer and say to you, ‘I do not know where you are from.’ Then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets’; and He will say, ‘I tell you, I do not know where you are from; Depart from Me, all you evildoers.’ In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves being thrown out. (13:24-28)

Does that sound suspiciously like the people were reminding the Lord of how often they received Holy Communion – how often they ate and drank ‘in His presence’?

Please do not miss this point. If we are linked to Christ through faith, we must obey Christ. If we are NOT living a life that proclaims aloud, “Lord! I want to do what YOU want me to do," then we should check ourselves to see whether we truly are children of God, or if we've deluded ourselves into thinking our rituals and do-gooding are a sufficient substitute for being born again, an acceptable alternative for making Jesus absolute Lord and Master of our life.

Note this important text in 1 Samuel 15:22-23 “Samuel said [to Saul the first king who had just disobeyed God’s command], “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, As in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

Scripture from one end of the book to the other – and 2000 years of Church teaching -- makes it clear enough with anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear that God is far less concerned with what we SAY than what we DO.

When the Holy Spirit, speaking through the apostle Paul wrote: “Just as we commanded you . . .” we must pay attention, because it was NOT simply Paul who commended them (and us). It was the Holy Spirit.

The text goes on: “Finally then, brethren, we request and exhort you in the Lord Jesus, that as you received from us instruction as to how you ought to walk and please God (just as you actually do walk), that you excel still more. . . .”

Three points here:  First, God tells us over and over how we are to walk before Him and before others.  For example – and this really is not rocket-science, nor does it require a lot of definitions or examples because each of us in this room has an intuitive understanding of how we ought to live. The Holy Spirit who lives within each of our hearts and conscience tells us how to live.

Next thing I want to say about our text in Thessalonians is the phrase Paul adds: “Just as you actually DO walk . . .”  a parenthetical remark that is not just an aside, but integral to Paul’s message – and to God’s message to us in 2020. God knew how they were walking honorably toward the Celestial City. And God knows how honorably you and I are walking – as He knew how the woman with the walker I mentioned earlier.

Which brings us to the next point: That we EXCEL still more.

Listen: We are not to practice MARGINAL Christianity. Just getting by. Living on the periphery, one foot in the Kingdom of God, the other foot in the kingdom of this world. Coasting along the theological buffet what to believe and not believe, how to live and how not to live. No, to excel is to press forward. A pushing through. A not resting until the battle is over and we stand at the Dais of God to receive our reward.

So, keep on doing the right thing until the last moment of your life. Don’t give up. It’s not the one who starts as much as it is the one who finishes the course. 

Years ago, I stood at the bedside of Dan Taub. Some 30 years my senior, Dan modeled for me the Christian walk. But now he was dying. Liver cancer. As I stood there, trying not to notice his yellowed skin and sclera, I asked him, “Dan, how does it feel to know you are dying?”  I was a young Christian at the time – only a few years old in the Lord – and I was curious what this man of God was thinking as he faced eternity.

He lifted his hand from the mattress and placed it over mine on his bedrail. Then he looked into my eyes and quoted from Paul’s letter to Timothy: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith; in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. (2 Timothy 4:7-8)

The Christian walk is a fight. It’s a war. The Holy Spirit reminds us of this battle repeatedly so we might not forget it. For example, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, ⁴ for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. ⁵ We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ . . ..”

Or this one in Ephesians 6: “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

Christian, please listen: Don’t give up. The battle is hard, but don’t give up.  With God’s supernatural help – which He gives to ALL His children who ask Him for it – with His help, do as Paul wrote in Philippians 3: “I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. . . however, let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained.

Did you note that last sentence? Let us keep living by that same standard to which we have attained. In other words, don’t backslide. Don’t say to yourself, “I’ve done enough for God. I want to coast the rest of my life.”  Don’t do that. Keep living by the same standard of service to God as you know to live – and then excel still more.

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