Message Notes

We Create Excellence

Culture's excellence is the pursuit of perfection.

Culture's Excellence:

1. Celebration of High Achievers

2. Continuous Self-Improvement

3. The "Hustle" Culture

4. Concerns of Burnout

True Excellence:

I. The foundation of Kingdom excellence is love.

1 Corinthians 12:27-31 ESV

27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

True Excellence:

I. The foundation of Kingdom excellence is love.

II. Excellence has nothing to do with looking good; it has everything to do with loving well.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 ESV

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

True Excellence:

I. The foundation of Kingdom excellence is love.

II. Excellence has nothing to do with looking good; it has everything to do with loving well.

III. Excellence isn't the pursuit of perfection; it's the pursuit of people.

Colossians 3:23 ESV

23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,

The measure of a Christian is not in the height of his grasp but in the depth of his love.

Clarence Jordan, Habitat for Humanity

1 John 4:19 ESV

19 We love because he first loved us.

Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.

Francis Chan