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Amen. Now Isaiah 28 is a pretty interesting chapter of the Bible. It has a lot of great doctrines and different things to talk about. But the verse I want to look at was verse 29 where it says, This also cometh forth from the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. Now the sermon actually has nothing to do with Isaiah 28, but I really like this verse and the title of my sermons night is be excellent, be excellent. But we notice here when it's giving quality or attributes to God. It says that his working is excellent. Now I want to look at several other places go if you would to Job chapter number 40, Job chapter number 40, and when God's rebuking man or trying to teach man, we see God is the one who's actually excellent in his work. God is the one who everything he does excellent. What is excellence? You know, you say God is excellent. He's excellent is working excellent. If you look up in the dictionary means extremely good or outstanding extremely good or outstanding. And when we compare man to God, you know, he's above us so so beyond that we can't really compare ourselves. I mean he alone is excellent. He's the one who's truly excellent, but we want to first understand how he's excellent and then we still want to look at other places in the Bible, but I want to first just look at how the Bible talks about God himself and says that he's excellent. It says in Job chapter 40 verse 9 has now an arm like God or can't thou Thunder with a voice like him deck thyself. Now with majesty and excellency and array thyself with glory and beauty now again, we're just kind of taking some things out of context. We're not going to really go through the context of these chapters, but we're just seeing when God's talking about himself and he's talking to job and job chapter number 40. He's saying to Joe, why don't you deck yourself with some Excellency? Why don't you show me how great you are? The reality is he can't in comparison to God. God's the one that is decked and clothed with majesty. He's the one that's clothed with excellency. I mean, he's the one that's truly clothed with glory and beauty go go into Psalms 148 Psalms 148. The Bible says in Deuteronomy 33 verse 26. There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun who writeth upon the heaven in thy help and in his Excellency on the sky. So again, God's excellent. Everything that he does is excellent. It's outstanding. It's above and beyond if you're going to say you're going to Excel at something. It's going above and beyond that which is good being excellent excelling at something. Now Psalms 148 it says about the Lord in verse 13. Let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is excellent. His glory is above the earth and heaven God is above us. He's excelled above us for all of sin and come short of the glory of God. Why because he's excellent above us. All his works are more excellent than ours than anything that we could do. Go to chapter number 8 Psalms chapter number 8. I'll read for you in Hebrews chapter 1 talking about Jesus Christ. It says being made so much better than the Angels as he hath by inheritance obtained a more. Excellent name than they the name of Jesus Christ is a more excellent name than any other name. It's the name above all names. So when we compare ourselves to God, there is no comparison. Whereas filthy rags were you know abominable in his sight. There's none that do with good. No, not one. There's one that do with good. Hey, that's God. Okay, so comparing ourselves and into God. It's just we always lose. Okay, he's excellent. He's far above anything that we can you know, imagine to ever be. It says in Psalms chapter 8 verse 1. Oh Lord our Lord. How excellent is thy name in all the earth who has set thy glory above the heavens. It says in verse 9. Oh Lord our Lord. How excellent is thy name and all the earth. It excels all the other names. God is above all the other gods. Now, obviously we understand that there is no other gods, but the Bible talk about God being above other gods or the Lord of you know of Lords in these sense. There's many to be called gods, but we know that there's only one God all the false gods. They're just rocks and stones and devils and demons and our God is excellent. He's excelled above all of them. Go to 2nd Peter chapter 1 last place. I want to look at so this is just helping us understand what excelling is like. What does it look like? What does it mean to excel? It's to be above and beyond. It's to be better. It's to do the best. God is the greatest. God is the wisest. God is the most merciful. God in every single way excels us. His name excels us. His works excel us. His wisdom excels us. Everything about him excels us. That's why he is excellent. Now it says in 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse number 17. For he received from God the Father honor and glory when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. So again, I'm not looking at a lot of these in context, but we see whenever it's describing God it's telling us that he's excellent. But there's also other places in the Bible where men are described as being excellent. And I want to at least differentiate the excellence of God from the excellence of man. The most excellent man on the earth is still nothing in comparison to God. God has excelled him. But that does not mean that we as humans, as mankind, should not strive for excellence in our lives. Go if you would to 1 Kings chapter number 4, 1 Kings chapter number 4. So we're just kind of setting a foundation. God is excellent. And we ought to strive to be like him in the sense of we should strive for excellence as well in everything that we do. Now, I believe when we look at the Bible, there's three stories, there's three areas where the Bible describes someone as being excellent. And we can take these three instances and gain three different ways in which you can be excellent. Now, we're going to look at this first story of someone who's described as excelling. It says in 1 Kings chapter 4, look at verse 29. And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the seashore. And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men than Ethan the Ezerhite, and Heman and Chalkal, and Darda, the sons of Mahal. And his fame was in all nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs, and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall. He spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom. So in the Bible, we have it describing Solomon as excelling the wisdom of other men. And when we look at this story, we see why is it that Solomon was better than the other people? Because he had more wisdom. Because he had more knowledge. And your first step to excellence is to be more knowledgeable. To have knowledge. If you truly want to be excellent in anything and everything that you do, it comes with having the knowledge. It comes with having the wisdom and the understanding. If you want to be good at anything, it's going to be coming from knowledge. And whenever you're knowledgeable, whenever you're wise, you're going to be put to use. What is God going to use with Solomon here? Oh yeah, to build the temple. That's a pretty cool job. He's put to work. Why? Because he's so wise. Because he's so knowledgeable. You know, if you show up at the job, and you know everything about it, and you're the wisest guy there, they're going to put you to work. They're going to put you to use. They're going to say, this guy really knows what he's doing. He really knows what's going on here. I'm going to put this guy to work. So you're going to excel above your peers. You're going to excel over other people, because you have the knowledge, because you have the wisdom. Go to Psalms 119, Psalms 119. Now think of it this way. Why would you come to a church like Stepfast Baptist Church over, let's say, the church across the street? Or another church? Why would you go anywhere for a church? Wouldn't you want to go to the church where the guy is going to excel in wisdom and knowledge? Or do you want to go to the church where the guy is the dumbest person? This guy is the dumbest pastor. This guy has no knowledge of the Bible, no understanding, no wisdom. I don't want to go to a church like that. You want to go to the place where the guy is excelling in wisdom, excelling in knowledge, excelling in understanding. That just makes logical sense. So if you want to actually excel, you want to be put to work, you need to have knowledge, you need to have wisdom. Whenever we decide someone that should be up here preaching, should we pick the guy that has the least amount of knowledge or the most amount of knowledge? It would make more sense to find people that have the most knowledge, the most wisdom, the most understanding, and allow them to teach the people. The same with Solomon. Why is God giving Solomon so much wisdom? Well, he's supposed to lead the children of Israel. He's supposed to build the temple. He's supposed to do all these great things. He needs to have great wisdom. What if he's a fool? He's not going to do the same works that he did. Whenever you have great understanding, you're going to be an excellent spirit. The Bible says in Hebrews 11, by faith, Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts, and by it being dead, yet speaking. The Bible says that Abel offered a more excellent sacrifice. Now, why was it more excellent? Well, first of all, it's by faith. He had the knowledge and the wisdom to understand, hey, it's not by works, it's by the sacrifice. He offers the lamb, and it's a more excellent sacrifice. It excelled the other one. Why would anything be better? Because it's more knowledgeable. It has more wisdom. It has more understanding. Why would you pick one book over another? Well, this one has more knowledge. This one has more wisdom. And anything that we make a decision on, we realize that excellence comes from knowledge. It comes from wisdom. So if you want to excel, you must gain wisdom and knowledge and understanding. If you don't gain those things, you will not be excellent. You will not excel. It says in Psalms, chapter 119, verse 97, oh, how I love thy law, it is my meditation all the day. Thou through thy commandments has made me wiser than mine enemies, for they are ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers, for thy testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the ancients because I keep thy precepts. I have refrained my feet from every evil way that I might keep thy word. Now, this is a very interesting verse in verse number 99, because the Psalmist is saying, I'm smarter than all of my instructors. Why? Because he sought to God's word. Because he had more knowledge of God's word. Because he's meditating upon God's word more. He got more wisdom, more knowledge, more understanding, and he's going to excel all of them. You can excel your earthly teachers today by gaining more knowledge and more instruction. By reading more. By memorizing the Bible more. By meditating upon God's word more, you will become more wise than them. You will excel them. The only person that limits you is yourself. That's the person that limits you. If you really want to succeed, it comes down to how much are you going to meditate upon these words? That's how you're going to excel. Go to Colossians chapter number three, Colossians chapter number three. The Bible says in Proverbs 12, a man shall be commended according to his wisdom. That he that is of a perverse heart shall be despised. The Bible says you will be commended based on how smart you are. When you go to the job, whenever you do any kind of work, they're going to commend you. They're going to say, this, I like this guy. He knows what to do. He always does a great job. He's very wise. He always has answers. Whenever you come to him, it's not a bunch of questions, it's a bunch of answers. Whenever people came and they sought out Solomon, the queen of Sheba, it said she came to prove him with hard questions. You know what? He answered all of them. That's why they liked going to Solomon. You think it's a coincidence that everybody just wanted to go hear Solomon? They wanted to pay him money. They just came and just offered him gifts and presents just to be able to be in his presence. Look, if you know the Bible so well, if you're just filled with the wisdom of God, people will want to come hear you speak. People will want to listen to what the words are coming out of your mouth, and we should all be striving for that. We should all be striving to have more knowledge and more wisdom and to excel in Bible knowledge. The Bible says in Colossians chapter 3 verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. The Bible says that we need to have the words of Christ dwelling in us richly in all wisdom. That's the person that should be teaching and admonishing one another, the guy that's filled with wisdom. You can have a lot of people listen to you one of two ways, have a lot of wisdom or preach a lot of lies. If you preach lots of lies, yeah, a lot of people want to fill in, a lot of vain, light, treacherous persons will want to come and hear you speak. You know, if you fill yourself with wisdom, a lot of people will want to hear you speak or want to hear you preach. Go, if you would, to Matthew chapter number 12, Matthew chapter 12. It says in Luke chapter 5 verse 1, and it came to pass that as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret. When Jesus Christ was on this earth, people are coming out of the woodwork to hear him preach. Why? Because he's full of wisdom, because he's full of truth, because he's full of knowledge. When they hear him preach, they've never heard preaching like that before. They're just pressing upon one another. They're gathering into houses. You can't even get in because there's so many people coming into houses. I mean, wherever Jesus Christ is going, they want to hear the words of Jesus Christ. Why? Never man spake like this man is what the Bible says. He's excelling. And look, if you want to excel, you must have Bible knowledge. You must have the wisdom of God's word. That is how you're going to excel. It says in Matthew 12 verse 42, the queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it, for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, a greater than Solomon is here. So notice, why is it that she wanted to see Solomon? She wanted to hear the wisdom in which he had. If you want to excel, you need to have wisdom. Go if you went to Luke chapter 21, go to Luke chapter number 21. And look, it applies in all areas of your life. If you want to excel, you must gain knowledge. You must gain wisdom. And the people that have the most knowledge and the most wisdom will be the most highly sought after. They'll be the people that excel. You'll like this guy. I really like coming and asking him how to, you know, build a car because he's just great at it. I like talking to this guy about building chairs or doing woodworking. I like asking this guy questions about audio and video equipment. I wish I knew that person. I had so many problems. I want to know the person that excels at this. He knows exactly what he's doing. He has the wisdom. He can just come straight to the answers. And whenever you have the great answers, people want to seek out and hear what you have to say. Bible says in Luke 21 verse 37, and in the daytime he was teaching in the temple and at night he went out and abode in the mount that is called the Mount of Olives. And all the people came early in the morning to him in the temple for to hear. Everybody wants to hear Jesus Christ. Everybody wants to hear his word. Why? Because he excels above all of us. He is the word of God. So my first point is this. If you want to excel, especially when we're talking about spiritual matters, you must have Bible knowledge and wisdom and understanding. And when you do, you will be put to use. Do you think that if someone in here just knows the Bible perfectly, I'm like, well, I don't want to put that guy to use. No, you know what I want to put to use? People that are filled with Bible knowledge, filled with the wisdom of God, have great understanding of the Bible. Those are the people that God is ready. Hey, I'm going to put this guy to use. Think about Ezra. He was a ready scribe. He had prepared himself. He understood the law. He's ready to do the work of God. And God's like, hey, I'm going to use you. God is going to use people that know the Bible. God is going to use people that have studied and are dedicated and have great knowledge and wisdom of the Bible. You say, hey, I want to be greatly used of God. I want to excel, know the Bible, have great wisdom and understanding of the Bible, memorize the Bible. Look, they'll come from everywhere to hear you. They did for Jesus. They did for Solomon. If you want people to come and hear you know the Bible, and that could apply to any area of life. If you want people to look up to you and see that you're excelling, have the knowledge, have the wisdom. Go to Daniel chapter number six, Daniel chapter number six. Again, my first point, have the knowledge. My second point, we're going to see another story of someone that excelled above others. It says in Daniel chapter six, verse number one, it pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 princes, which would be over the whole kingdom, and over these three presidents of whom Daniel was first, that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage. It says in verse three, then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king thought to set him over the whole realm. Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find none occasion nor fault for as much as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him. Then said these men, we shall not find any occasion against this Daniel except we find it against him concerning the law of his God. So we have the first person that excelled, that was Solomon. Now why did Solomon excel? Because he was so wise, because he was so knowledgeable. But Daniel is another person that is excelling. Why is he excelling? Because he's faithful. He is a faithful person. The Bible says he is excellent in spirit. And look, you love somebody that's faithful. Now what does it mean that he was excellent in spirit that he was faithful? It says there was no fault. That's pretty great testimony. Hey, there's literally nothing that we can accuse this guy of. He has no fault. He is truly faithful. He is truly excellent in spirit. Everything that he's doing is great, because you can be very wise and very knowledgeable, but if you're making lots of mistakes and you have lots of problems and lots of faults, I mean that's like dead flies in the ointment of the apothecary. So is a little folly in him that is known for wisdom. I'm paraphrasing there, but look, you need to have both. And why is Daniel preferred above the other? Because he's faithful. And notice this, he's promoted. Whenever you're wise and knowledgeable, you'll be put to use. Whenever you're faithful, you're going to be promoted. That's even better. Not just are you being put to use, hey, you're being promoted into the position that you've been in. Go to Proverbs chapter number 12, Proverbs chapter number 12. If you want to excel above others, you must be faithful in whatever your hand is going to do, whatever you have found. Whenever you have lots of problems, whenever you're constantly making mistakes, it doesn't matter how smart you are. People are not going to want to use you as much. You're not going to be considered excellent. When I look at someone and say, man, this guy knows a lot and he's really knowledgeable, but he always seems to do it wrong. He's always late. He's not dressed well. He says dumb things sometimes or he makes all these other mistakes. He doesn't seem to, you know, practice what he preaches. You're not going to be as excellent. If you want to be excellent, you need to not only have the wisdom and knowledge, you need to be faithful. You need to be without fault. You need to be excellent in spirit. That's how you're going to be truly promoted. It says in Proverbs chapter 12 verse 26, the righteous is more excellent than his neighbor, but the way of the wicked seduces them. So he's saying, hey, if you're a righteous, if you're doing that which is right, you will excel your neighbor. You're going to be better. You say, hey, I want to excel, Pastor Shelley. Well, be righteous. Be holy. Be faithful. Be someone that's always consistently doing the right thing. Go to Luke chapter 16 now, Luke chapter number 16. Let's see a guy that's the opposite of this. What's the opposite of faithful? Unfaithful, right? Someone that's not good, that's not doing a good job. And we as God's people ought to take the jobs and the responsibilities that we have and try to excel in them by gaining more knowledge, by gaining more wisdom about the things that we're doing. By being faithful with the jobs that we have. Being faithful in everything that you've been given. And God, everything that I have has been given to me by God. My life, my breath, my family, my children, my, you know, anything and everything I have is all just gifts. And God is constantly measuring me and looking at me and saying, hey, is this guy doing a good job with what I've already given him? And that's for everybody in this room. That's not just me. That's all of us. But he gives a parable in Luke chapter number 16 verse 1, and he said also unto his disciples, there was a certain rich man which had a steward and the same was accused on him that he had wasted his goods. This guy was not excellent because he wasn't faithful. He wasted the goods of his master. The master has entrusted him with certain things. He's the steward and he's wasting things. He's not being faithful. He has lots of faults. He has lots of problems. It says in verse 2, and he called him and said to him, how is it that I hear this of thee? Give an account of thy stewardship, for thou mayest be no longer steward. He loses his job. And you know, the interesting thing about this parable, because we're not, for sake of time, we're not going to go through the whole parable, but God commends the unjust steward for being wiser than the children of God, than the children of Israel. So it's not like the unjust steward wasn't wise. He was wise, but he wasn't faithful and he lost his job. He wasn't excellent. If you want to be excellent, you can't just only be wise. You also need to be faithful. And when you're not faithful, you're going to lose your job. You're going to lose the stewardship that you already have. Some people think, oh, I've got, I've got all these things going. Well, if you're not faithful and they're always looking for more, they're ready for the next step, but they're not even faithful what they have. Pretty soon they might even lose the things that they already have. I don't want to lose any of the things I have. I need to just make sure I'm content and faithful with the things that I do have rather than constantly looking for more. I need to just be faithful what's already given unto me. Says in verse number nine, and I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when you fail, you may receive unto, receive you into everlasting habitations. Now the point of the parable is essentially noticing that this guy is wise. Why is he wise? Because he makes friends with people through money, through financial means, and that's going to help assist him in the future, and the Bible is saying, hey, we also should try to do that. You should make friends of the unrighteous mammon, and then whenever, you know, you have going hard times, they might help you out. They might do things for you. So while you have things to bless other people, you know, constantly bless other people and help other people and give money and do good unto other people and make friends with people that have money. And then that way, hey, if something bad happens to me, I can lean on their shoulder. They can come help me out. It doesn't make sense to just constantly burn people and constantly turn people aside and not make any friends. Don't believe the NIV that says a man that have companions is going to come to ruin. No, have lots of friends. It's great to have lots of friends and even friends that, you know, have lots of ability to do things. There's nothing wrong with having great friends. You know, it sounds great. The Bible is telling me to do that. That's the point of the parable. But we can learn other things because he says in verse 10, he that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much. If therefore you have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to you your trust, the true riches? He's saying, hey, if you can't even handle the things that you're doing right now, how are you going to handle more? Verse 12, and if you have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? If you can't even handle the stuff right now that somebody else is, how are you going to do good when it's yours? How are you going to do when you're the one that's in control? Whenever you're the master, whenever you're employing different people, you ought to be faithful in another man's to prove that you'll be faithful with yours, that you'll do good unto yours. Go to Titus chapter number one, Titus chapter number one. So we're learning lots of things here. We've learned that we need to have knowledge, we need to have wisdom. Not only that, we need to be faithful with the things that we have. And it's really interesting to me how, and look, this happens from lots of people, okay? Lots of people come up to me and they'll say, hey, I want to be a pastor one day. Now look, this is lots of people, okay? Lots of people come up to me and say, I want to be a pastor. They come to church once a week, maybe. They're not involved in any of the preaching. They don't even do anything in the church, really. They just kind of show up every once in a while and it's like, I want to be a pastor. And I'm like sitting here thinking like, okay. They're like, what do I do? Do I start enrolling in the pastor program? Yeah, the pastor program is called show up at church three times a week and get involved in the program. How about reading the Bible? Well, that's not really fancy and cool, you know. How about just come to preaching class? How about just be faithful and now it's his least? Hey, you already have all these things before you that you could be doing. Why aren't you just doing those right now? You're just wasting all the good that's already provided for you. Hey, I'm already preaching three sermons a week. Like, will you teach me more? Well, you're not even coming for that. Why would I want to teach somebody more of the Bible when they're not even coming three times a week? It's like, hey, the unjust steward, you know. Hey, if you want somebody to entrust you with the church, how about you prove yourself with some other man's church first? Why don't you prove yourself with another man's goods? Why can't you show up to the soul winning time and get involved in the music program and get involved in the Bible reading and get involved with the preaching and be excellent? If you're not excellent, why would somebody want to use you? You're going to lose even that which you have. And in fact, there's a lot of people that have been put to use and I'm thinking, I want to give this person less. And then there's other people that I'm giving work to and I'm like, I want to give this guy more. And you say, why? Because they're faithful or because they're not faithful or because, hey, they're very knowledgeable or because they're not very knowledgeable. But you know what you should strive for is excellence. Look, when you notice somebody that's doing excellent in the things that they're doing, you want to give them more work. You want to put them more to use. You want to use them more. But the question is, how are you doing with what you already have? All the opportunities, all the things that the church is offering, and look, this could be applied to everything. Maybe your job is constantly saying, hey, we need some extra work over here and you're not doing it. And then you come to your boss, can I get promoted? It's like, well, why don't you do the extra side work that we have or why aren't you putting in a little extra over here? You never do any overtime. It's like, yeah, but I want to be promoted to manager, you know. He's like, he's not going to promote you to manager. Look, why can't you be faithful with the job you have? Hey, I'm ready to be promoted to manager. Well, you're not even doing your own job right. You're not even filling out the reports right. You're not even showing up on time. You keep making all these problems with the policy. You took 20 days of vacation. You're only allowed 10. Like, you want to be promoted? Look, why don't you just be faithful at what you already have and look, your manager is going to find you and be like, this guy, everything I give him, it's done. He always has the answers. He's doing great. We're going to promote him and put him in charge and give him everything. Think of all the guys that are promoted in the Bible, Joseph. Why is he promoted? Oh, yeah. He has all the answers. Oh, yeah. He's super hardworking. Let's just put this guy in charge of the jail, of Potiphar's house, of the entire country, just whatever it is. Why? Because he's excellent. And if you truly want to succeed, be excellent and be excellent in everything that you do. I had you go to Titus chapter 1, look at verse 7. For a bishop must be blameless, notice this, as the steward of God, not self-willed, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given a filthy lucre. The Bible says the pastor is a steward. And we already read the importance of being a good steward, not being an unjust steward. What is an unjust steward? Someone who wastes his goods. Something makes me, well, there's probably something. One of the things that makes me really angry is crappy pastors, is bad pastors. There's so many Baptist churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area that they're just wasting God's goods today. There's people going there that would go soul-winning, that would preach the Bible, that would do good works for God, but because they have a garbage pastor that's so lazy and such a jerk and has no knowledge of the Bible, he's just wasting his goods. And what did God, God would punish these guys and chastise them. You know what, they're going to lose their church because eventually people don't want to hear the garbage in, garbage out. That's why the young people are just leaving those churches by the droves. And look, God is not going to bless a church that's just wasting his goods day in and day out. And there's so many churches, I went to a church where there would have been hundreds of people going soul-winning every week, but they had zero, because the pastor is wasting the resources of that church. You literally had the congregants asking questions like, hey, when are we going to go soul-winning, and like, what's the soul-winning program, and it's like nothing, and nobody would go. You know what, but they had friend day, they had like 200 people go out and put door hangers on. Nobody preached the gospel, and look, we don't need any more of those pastors. We got plenty of them, okay. What we really need are some people that are going to be faithful with their own church. But if you can't even be faithful here to three times a week, how are you going to be faithful with an entire church? Look, you need to figure out how to be excellent in what you already have so that you can be excellent with more, so you can actually be promoted to do more. That's really important. I don't want more people going out there wasting goods and wasting church resources. I mean, just think of every saved person in this area came to our church, the works that we could get done for God, the amount of people that we could go send out soul-winning, the things that we could do. But there's so many good people that are trapped in a bad church with a bad steward wasting God's resources, and they're going to stand in judgment before God. What if God, these pastors, would either just quit or get on fire, but the lukewarm is just making everybody mad? Quit being so lukewarm, why can't you just be excellent? Go to Ecclesiastes chapter 9, Ecclesiastes chapter 9. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 4 verse 1, let a man so account of us as the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful. The Bible says it's a requirement of a steward to be found faithful. God wants you to be faithful. You will not be considered excellent if you're not faithful. What is faithful? Again, no fault. No fault. Hey, we're not looking at this guy, he's doing a bad job. He's just phoning it in, showing up lazy, just doing whatever. No, this guy is just excellent. This guy is always on time, he's doing it right, he's putting in great effort. You can tell the difference between someone who's faithful and someone who's not. Ecclesiastes chapter number 9, let's see what the Bible instructs us as far as the kind of work that we should do. It says in Ecclesiastes 9 verse 10, whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest. The Bible says whatever job you have, do it with all your strength. Do it with all your might. Look, when you die, it's done. He's saying there's no more after the grave. Why wouldn't you want to put all the effort into what you have now? I would rather just put all of it on right now. Any job that I have, let's do it with my might, let's do it with my strength. Let me be faithful, Lord, because once I die, it's over. Once it's done, it's done. Then I'm going to have all my works judged, you know, put on, tried by fire, and we'll see what's going to remain, the gold, silver, and precious stone. Or did I just lay up a bunch of wood, hay, and stubble? God even says he's going to find out what sort it is. Was it excellent or not? You know, when it comes to gold, there's a lot of varying levels of gold even. What carat is it? Is it 24 carat gold or is it cubic cicornia? What kind of, what kind of metals are you laying on there? I mean, what kind of precious stones? Are you being one that's excellent? Because look, your works will be judged, whatever you do. What kind of opportunities are you wasting? As a church member, you have a lot of opportunities. A lot of times to go soul winning, a lot of times to show up to church, a lot of programs to get involved with, a lot of missions trips. Are you going to look back at God and just say, well, I went to church, you know, once every once in a while. Is that being a faithful steward with what's already been given unto you? What about a soul winner? Whenever you're going out soul winning, are you doing with all your might? Are you an excellent soul winner or do you just kind of get by? Maybe you should memorize some more verses. Maybe you should prepare yourself a little bit more. Maybe you should be ready to give the gospel. You know, I like going gospel, going out and preaching the gospel to someone that's excellent. Do you really want to go out with somebody that's not good, that can't even get through a door, that's just wasting time, that's just talking to a heretic for like 20 minutes, you're like, what are you doing, buddy? An excellent soul winner just already proved this guy wrong twice and left, you know? Be excellent in everything that you do. Go to Ezekiel chapter 34, Ezekiel chapter 34. There's a little bit to the right in your Bible. If someone's going to be a pastor or a deacon or an evangelist, you need to be excellent. You need to be excellent in the church that you're already in. People come to me, they want to be an evangelist, and it's like, you know, I see them in church about as often as I see these other evangelists. Once in a while they put their, you know, PowerPoint presentation up. It's like, look, you really think that I'm going to send somebody out to start planning a church that can't even come to church, that's not even going out soul winning? Look, you need to show up to church and be faithful in church. Look, you think that somebody that's just super knowledgeable, has great understanding and wisdom, and is just perfectly faithful in church, I'm just like, let's put this guy in the closet. We don't want to use him. I'm going to think, man, there's so many opportunities already, let's get this guy, let's bring him in here. But there's so many people that are the opposite. Ezekiel 34 verse 1, And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God unto the shepherds. Whoa! Be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves, should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed, but ye feed not the flock. The diseased have ye not strengthened, neither have ye healed that which was sick, neither have ye bound up that which was broken, neither have ye brought again that which was driven away, neither have ye sought that which was lost, but with force and with cruelty ye have ruled them. We see these are selfish pastors, selfish priests, selfish men of God. They only care about themselves, they're not into ministering for others, they're not in for serving others. Look, the guy that is faithful, he's not worried about himself, he's worried about the flock. He's making sure the flock is taken care of, the flock is drinking good water, the flock is eating good food, the wolves aren't coming in and destroying the flock. That's someone that is faithful. And oftentimes people, they'll come to me and they'll ask for more, and I'm thinking, why haven't you taken care of what you have? You know, this could apply to any church. You know, some people might get upset with their church being really small or only having so many people. You could look at Joel Osteen, well, we don't have 30,000 people. Yeah, but isn't God just looking and saying, well, how are you doing with the flocky God? How are you doing with the one lamb or the two lamb? I mean, let's say you only have five lambs. How are you doing with it? God is ready to promote those that are being faithful with the five, faithful with the 10, faithful with the 30, faithful with the 100, whatever it is that you got, you need to instill love and minister to what you have. What kind of children do you have? How many children do you have? Does it mean God just wants to keep blessing people with more children when they can't even be faithful with the ones they have? I remember some lady called me. She was crying, she was very upset. And she told me that her husband no longer wants to have kids with her. No longer wants to have children with her and look, that's terrible, that's awful. I feel really bad for her. She only has one. And I said, OK, well, you know, what do you and your daughter do? Where do you all go to church? Well, we don't go to church. I'm thinking you have one child and you can't even take that one to church, but you're upset because God won't give you more. What if you start taking your one kid to church and start being a faithful blessing to your husband and to your child? Maybe God could perform a miracle in your life and bless you with more children somehow. Why can't you just be faithful with what you already have? Why are you always looking for more? These guys, hey, I can't get enough food, I can't feed myself. Look, they don't care about anything but themselves. Why are you coming and asking what you can do to have more? Why don't you just be excellent with what you already have? Why don't you be excellent at Bible reading? You'll be used more. Why don't you be excellent at song leading? You'll be used more. Why don't you be excellent at playing an instrument? You'll be used more. Why don't you be excellent at the sermons that you preach and you'll be given more? You know, the preaching class, I only let the guys preach for five minutes. But if you suck at five minutes, why would I want to have you preach an hour? I don't need that much time to see, OK, that was terrible. Why would I want to sit there and suffer through an hour of that? Look, if you can't even be faithful with what you have, why are you asking for more? Be faithful with what you have, God will give you more. He's going to entrust the two riches, the true riches of those that are already faithful. Look at verse nine. Therefore, oh, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord, thus saith the Lord God, behold, I am against the shepherds and I will require my flock at their hand and cause them to cease from feeding the flock. Neither shall the shepherds feed themselves anymore, for I will deliver my flock from their mouth that they may not be neat for them. God says, hey, when you're not faithful, I'm going to take away what you have. You have the parable of the guys with talents, the one with ten, the one with five, the one with one. The guy just buried the one. And God's like, well, let's take that away from him and give it to the guy with the ten. Look when you're not faithful with what you already have, you're not going to be given more. You're going to be taken away from you. That's reality. That's how God works. We must be faithful with what we have if we want God to give us more. We need to be excellent. Go if you would to Proverbs 31. This is my last point of the evening. How are you going to be excellent? Be excellent by being knowledgeable, by having wisdom. You're going to be put to use. Be excellent by being faithful. And when you're faithful, you're going to be promoted. Let's find one more point. Proverbs chapter 31 verse 29, we see another person who excels. Verse 29, many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excelest them all. We see another person who excels. Why? Because she was hard working. Hard working. And whenever you're hard working, you know you're going to get praise. You're going to get the praise. You're going to be put to use whenever you're knowledgeable and you're wise. Hey, you're going to be promoted when you're faithful, and you know what? Whenever you're hard working, you're going to be praised. When you don't have these things, you're not going to be excellent. Excellence comes from these areas. Look at verse 13. He's a shard working. What do you mean by that, Pastor Shelley? Well, let's just see what this woman's like. Verse 13, she seeketh wool. She says, worketh willingly. Verse 14, she bringeth. Verse 15, she riseth and giveth. Verse 16, she considerth a field and buyeth it. The fruit of her hands. Verse 17, she girdeth and strengtheneth. Verse 18, she perceiveth. Her candle goeth not out by night. Verse 19, she lieth. She layeth. Verse 20, she stretcheth. She reaches. Verse 22, she maketh. Verse 24, she maketh and selleth and delivereth. She's all of those categories. She's the manufacturer and the distributor and the retailer. She's all of it. Verse 26, she openeth. Verse 27, she looketh well and eateth not the bread of idleness. Verse 28, her children rise up and call her blessed. Her husband also, and he praseth her, many daughters are done virtuously, but thou excelest them all. Why? Because she's so hard working. Let me give you some advice, ladies. If you work super hard, you know you're going to get a lot of praise. It's really difficult to not praise someone that's working super hard for you. And I mean, when you look at the list of things she's doing, I mean, when you wake up, perfect breakfast on the table. Hey, and I've got your clothes laid out, and I've got a lunch pack for you. And hey, I'm just going to do everything for you. It's like, you're awesome. Thanks. This is great. I mean, and guess what? I did it all under budget. You don't even need any spoil. Great. I mean, it's just, how can you not praise this woman? I mean, if you think about it, if you haven't helped meet that she's doing constant work for you, every one of your needs is constantly satisfied. She's doing it under budget. On top of that, she's even making money. You think that this woman's great. You say, hey, my husband's never praising me. I don't know your husband. Maybe he's a jerk. But guess what? Even jerks would praise this woman. She's excellent. She's excelling them all. The excellent woman will be praised, period. I don't care. Look, you go, you find the most disgusting, worthless person. Some just drug dealing, gang banger, just horrible person. If his wife was like this, he'd be like, my wife's great. It doesn't matter. Whenever you do hard work, whenever you're hard working, people will praise you. People will like you. That is being excellent. The person that's lazy and slothful and doesn't do anything gets no praise. You know, I think of it this way. Some people, they eat to survive. Others survive to eat. You know? I want to keep surviving because there's lots of good meals out there. You know, it's frustrating when you run into people and they eat to survive and you're just like, they put the plate down and you're just thinking like, man, I don't know if I'm going to survive this meal. You just start eating it. But you know what? The meals that are prepared by her, you can't wait to get the next one. You're excited for dinner. You're excited for every single meal. Why? Because she's excellent at what she's making. You know, I can think of some women in my life, you know, my wife's great at cooking. I love her cooking. There's another woman in my life, my sister. You loved going to my sister's house. She makes excellent meals. Every meal is excellent. There's all kinds of prep and energy. You know what makes a great meal? Time. It's not necessarily anything else. It's just effort, energy and hard work. You say, oh, it takes a lot of money. It doesn't take a lot of money. I mean, I could think you just get some flour, some eggs, some butter, some sugar and some chocolate. Chocolate chip cookies, they can be excellent. Some chocolate chip cookies, you buy it and it's like. What makes the difference? The hard work. The person that takes a lot of effort and energy. Going to the store and just buying some, you know, garbage cookie on the shelf versus making homemade cookies. The homemade cookies will be cheaper. You know, it takes a lot of effort. It takes a lot of energy. You know, the guy that's wife is just constantly making him these great things. He's going to be like, she's great. She's wonderful. He's going to be greatly praised. We can apply this to every area of our life. Look, the guy that every time I ask him to preach for me, just preaches an excellent sermon. I'm going to be like, I want to use that guy again. You know what makes an excellent sermon? Hard work. Actually putting a lot of effort and energy into the sermon. Actually trying to preach a really great sermon. Anything that you do, hey, when you do your work, you know it makes a really good house, a lot of hard work. You know, it makes a really great car, a lot of hard work. You know, it makes a really good garment, a lot of hard work. Anything and everything that is worth it takes effort and energy and hard work. And those that work hard will be praised in every area of their life. That's how you're going to excel. You must excel by being a hard worker. Go to Proverbs chapter 18, Proverbs chapter 18. It's hard not to want to praise my sister's cooking, no matter what she's like. No matter if I have a great relationship or a bad relationship, she's a great cook. It's fun to go and eat meals with her. She makes great kinds of Parmesan. Thanksgiving dinner is always excellent. And she makes all, she brings out all the side, like every side you can imagine and all the food, I mean, even just tacos. You know, you wouldn't think tacos is like the most extravagant meal, but she just makes excellent tacos. And it's just a lot of fun to go and be around her because she's so hard working. You know, she puts a lot of effort, energy in the meals. She's thinking about the meal. And if you look at the Proverbs 31 woman, she's preparing her meal in the night before. Effort, energy, she's putting in time. These is how you're going to be excellent. Look, women, you ought to be excellent. Why not? Why wouldn't you want to be an excellent wife? Why wouldn't you want to be an excellent mother? And everything that you do, why would you not want to excel? You only have so much time on this earth. And God is going to reward you according to your works. Did you do good with the things that he gave you? Look at Proverbs 18 verse 9. He also that is slothful in his work is brother to him that is a great waster. The slothful guy is brother to the unjust steward. They're brothers. Look, the opposite of him is the hard worker, the one that's faithful, the one that's knowledgeable, that has great wisdom. Look, teaching your children is an important task. You want to do it with excellence. I don't want my kids to be dumb. And you know, we don't want to be a model of why you shouldn't homeschool. I don't want our church, you know, all the kids are just dumb and they're foolish and they have no social skills. We ought as parents to instill a lot of time, effort, and energy into our children. And you know what? There's going to be exceptions that prove the homeschooling rule or whatever. They're the weirdos and they're unschooled and they don't have any knowledge. You know what? The majority ought not be like that. We ought to put a lot of hard work and effort and energy into our children and make sure they're wise, make sure they love the Lord, make sure that they're going to be great. I don't want my kids to, you know, my kids, you only have so much time. And after a certain point, you can't really do much anymore. They're who they are. You got to do it now. You got to do it with times. You got to do it while they're young and while they're impressionable because there comes a point in time where your kids won't hearken as well as they did. Whenever they're five, they believe everything. I mean, you just tell your kid whatever, they just believe it. They trust you. They have a lot of confidence in you. But as they get older and they become a teenager, now all of a sudden everything you say is wrong. Everything you do is wrong and they just want to fight and rebel and they're stubborn. So you might as well get as many good things as you can in now while you have time. Look at Proverbs 20, you're really close, Proverbs 20, Proverbs 20 verse 11, even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure and whether it be right. Children, you have an opportunity to be excellent. And the Bible says you can already be determined by your work if you're an excellent child. What's an excellent child? It's one that's more knowledgeable than all the other children. It's one that's more faithful to his parents, that obeys his parents better. Not only that, it's a child that likes to work. It's a child that's hard working. That is how you're going to excel above all the other children. Read Daniel again. Daniel was excellent above all the other children. They chose him to go and to serve the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. Why? Because he had understanding, because he was knowledgeable. And then he became 10 times better than all the others. Why? Because he wanted to serve God, not the world. Go to 1 Peter 4, the last place I'm going to have you turn. We need to be excellent today. We need to strive for excellence in every area that we have. We're going to do this by having knowledge. We're going to be put to use. We're going to do this by being faithful so that we're promoted. And we're going to be hard working so that we can be praised. The Bible says in 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 10, as every man hath received the gift, even so minister the same one to another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. We ought to strive to be good stewards. What is manifold? Manifold means various or several. God has a lot of different graces that he gives unto us. The apostle Paul, great grace was given unto him to get saved and to be able to be put into the ministry. But he says, hey, it wasn't in vain. I labored more abundantly than they all, is what he said. He was so hard working. That's why he was excellent. Paul, when you look at Paul, why was he so excellent? Oh, yeah, because he was more knowledgeable because he had more wisdom. Oh, yeah, because he was faithful. Oh, yeah, because he was the hardest working. Look, you take those three attributes, you apply them to any Bible character. It's always the same. It always works out the same. And you lose things when you start failing one of these areas like Solomon. Oh, yeah, failing in the faithfulness category. What happened? Oh, yeah, he gets the kingdom rent from his son. What happens when David stops being hard working? Oh, yeah, Bathsheba. Any one of these areas that you have in your life, you need to be diligent in working and employing them. That way you can excel so that we can be excellent. Let's close in prayer. Thank you, Father, so much for your word. Thank you for the great examples that you've given unto us. I pray that whatever work that you give us to do, that we'd actually strive for excellence. That it would be somebody that wants to have more knowledge and wisdom, somebody that wants to be faithful, and somebody that wants to work hard. And I pray that those that are excellent, those that are faithful, those that are hard working, those that have the knowledge and wisdom, that you would just make them manifest, that you would just promote them, that you would just bless them, and that we could use them for more service to you. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.