Give God Our Best

Introduction

If you are visiting with us this morning, you are our guests of honor, and we are so delighted that you have chosen to be worshiping with us here in spirit and in truth. As was echoed in one of the prayers, I was glad when they said unto me, let us go to the house of the Lord. I’m glad to be here this morning and glad that you are too. And I hope that both member and visitor alike will join with me in our lesson this morning entitled, Give God our Best. A large number of Americans have Friday as their favorite day of the week. It’s just the case.

Thus giving our best in worship is therefore choosing to not settle for the lesser, but to figure out what is the endeavored plan to devote to our worship, the striving for the utmost we can offer. This morning, our lesson has four main points to help us understand how to give God the best. One, to whom shall we give God our free time? How do we give him the best of our free time? Two, how do we consider worship? How do we consider, like what we’re doing now? How do we consider worship in our preparation time? Third, what shall we do in God’s sacred time? And fourth, when shall we discover what is the best respite time? And we’ll explain that by way of encouragement at the fourth point of our lesson this morning.

Worship is described as adoration to a thing, entity, individual or higher power, to the degree that that entity is our minds or hearts’ singularly devoted interest. For the Egyptians, they had divided interests. They worshiped both man, the pharaohs, and the creation, the Nile, the sun, as well as a litany of other false deities. For the Jews, they worshiped the Almighty God, the great I am, Jehovah, Yahweh God, and their Pharisees, they saw Jesus as a blasphemer, because even though Jesus claimed sonship or said that he was the Son of God, that put him in a royal family with Almighty God. And to do that would place him in equality with God, for he who is an heir of the throne, even if on a Prince of Peace mission, is on the throne when he returns to heaven.

So essentially, Jews of the first century were highly monotheistic, knowing factually that there is only one God. Jesus did emphasize there is one God, all the while explaining the ways of God are not the ways of men. And from the beginning, we all were created by a monotheistic triune God, for he said in Genesis 1 27, let us make man in our image. Also, in Christ we see God the Son in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus prayed to God, and the Spirit interceded with groanings unutterable to man. So in the New Testament we see, yes, God is one yet triune. He is God of the ages, the Almighty of Ezekiel 1 and 2. He is God of the sages, the mysterious wisdom giver via the Spirit of 1 Timothy 3, 15 through 17.

And he’s God of the pages, John 1, 1 and 14. Thus we worship God because Acts 17 says he’s not a rock or an idol or something a person crafted, but is the creator in whom we live and move and have our very being.

These he says, O Lord, you will not despise. God loved us.

And if we display our love right, if we would do that, we’re going to sacrifice to him too. And I guess that’s essentially the lesson in a phrase that those who display their love for Christ aright are going to sacrifice for him too. This develops a number of questions. One is, what’s a sacrifice? You know, not all gifts are sacrifices. I can give you a nickel for a birthday gift, but that’s probably not a sacrifice. I do have some wooden nickels that I wouldn’t train you, trade you for a franklin. I’ve got some old wooden nickels. They’re pretty cool. But for all intents and purposes, I think you know what I mean. I can re-gift a gift. People do that, you know, around holidays and birthday times, but that’s not a sacrifice.

It’s just re-gifting. It’s sketchy at the least and tacky at the hub of the matter, but regarding what we do for the Lord, we are both sacrificial and also giving God our very best. The simplest way I know how to say this is for a thing to be a sacrifice, it’s got to have at least three things. Three elements if it’s going to be a sacrifice to God. One, you have to give something up. Two, you have to give something over, and three, you have to give something that takes effort. Can’t we see the cross in this? God gave up his son. He was handed over to death, and he wrote a 66-volume library over a span of 1,400 years, spanning multiple centuries, written by 40 different men.

1. To Whom Do We Give Our Free Time?

The whole book is to explain that his son Jesus saves a wretch like me, and not only to propitiate for me, but also to redeem the whole world, to say God gave the best is the prima fase illustration for our motive to do quite a bit better than sometimes we do. So let’s talk about our first point for our lesson this morning. To whom do we give the best of our free time? A retiree may not have as much free time as a teenager or a preteen. Yet predominantly they have much more time than a 40-year-old or a 20-something. You know, you got work and school, providing housing, maintaining a home. Many things that those in the 18 to 54 demographic have to balance in time brackets are a lot of various things in life.

This is why those that are older can have such a meaningful influence on those of us that are middle-aged or younger. Yet to those of us of all ages, if we’re not careful, even yea, those in my age, our spiritual life can slip away in the pursuit of something we never really attain on earth. And in that drifting, we miss the big joys of life that are only abundantly found in Jesus. Who do you give the best of your discretionary time? One may say, Jared, you don’t get it. I have very little free time. I have very little free time per se at all. Well, doesn’t that mean all the more that you need to focus more on it? Making it all the more important to focus on the spiritual?

Young people, now I know there are a lot of visitors, so you may not know this, but here in Orlando, Florida, my kids here have this. My high schooler has it, my two elementary school age kids have it. But it’s not something I had when I was here when I was growing up in the 90s and early 2000s. You have Wednesday that you get a whole hour out of school earlier. You have an extra hour to do Bible study work, to do work for your Bible classes on Wednesday afternoon. If you’re older to even sit down and read the Bible, if you’re adding to this your free time, you have that hour of discretionary time to do many noble deeds spiritually, and we, your brethren here think you can.

Do you know the average person in the world has not read the Bible? I don’t mean not only has not read from it, I mean they’ve not read it. Bible reading takes diligence. If we’re going to give God our best, it’s going to take diligence. It’s going to take our free time, our discretionary time. He can actually speak to you through the written word. For holy men of God were carried along in the Spirit to write the holy scriptures, for no prophecy ever came by private interpretation, but came from the power of God, 2 Peter 1 and 20, which is on the board. As Kin’s great lesson last week inferred, drawing near to the warmth of God’s presence gets you closer and more comfortable with God.

2. Worship in Our Preparation Time

And if you do what most in the world exclude from their lives, namely listening to the words of God, you shouldn’t be listening to anyone greater, right? So if you do that, you will be listening to the power of God. No podcast rivals the proclamations of the Heavenly Father. No book provides the voice unless it is the holy scriptures of God. Second point. How shall we consider worship in our preparation time? This is a matter of decisions. Are we giving God the best? I’m not here to pick at you guys at all. Yet I have to get ready for church services days in advance. It’s a rarity on Sunday for me to just wake up and pick up a random tie, a random suit jacket, and slacks.

Occasionally I’ve done that. Yeah, there’s times I’ve done that. Yet usually I talk to Rachel over the weekend. I say, does this look okay? Is this gonna match? Is this good? Does this work? Etc. And Rachel will say, yes or no.

Mine’s green today. I’m not getting pinched. When I was a child, I thought of as a child and behaved as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. I no longer am a 10-year-old who opts to wear a t-shirt and board shorts to church. I just don’t do that. When I was 10, didn’t really have any rationale about clothing or anything like that, as far as that’s concerned. It was just a given, though, that on Sunday you dressed up. Back in the day, the older generation would say you had your Sunday going to meet and clothes. I’m not from that era, but I’m sure if I was in high school or middle school, it was either a Saturday night or early Sunday mornings as a teenager that taught me how to prepare for worship early when I was a teenager by using an iron.

I’m fairly certain the only reason I know how to iron is because it was preparatory for worship. I didn’t iron my clothes to school. I know the only way I learned to shine shoes was by watching one who cared to show me how that’s done. It’s funny how the guys I went to college with would get out their irons on Friday night and meticulously iron a nice Oxford shirt or a pair of khakis to go on a date with their Friday night dates with their girlfriends, but would roll out of bed Sunday morning to go hastily to church. I think they may have given their girlfriend more of their best than God. Certainly, some occasions merit more spiffiness than others. I get that. And certainly whatever’s your best may not be another’s best.

And James says that to judge another based on appearances is wrong. So that’s a whole nother point. Yet note some things in the Bible that really make the case that we give our best, even in what we wear to sh services. Hebrews 4 16, we come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need. A common wrongdoer doesn’t even go to the throne of a king in shabby cloth. He goes not to be a distraction, but regularly to go as everybody else would go in a regal attire to obtain the king’s mercy. Is not Christ our King and his grace, is that of not something greater? All gifts and sacrifices and offerings to were to be Israel’s best.

In Numbers 18 29 it says of the Israelite sacrifices, of all your gifts you shall offer up every heave offering due to the Lord from all the best of them, the consecrated part of them. Surely the sentiment was echoed in the tyre. The priests themselves, they had a specific law about what they could and could not wear to worship services to God. There’s whole chapters about that. Future bride preparing her attire is, of course, going to care about her clothes too. Ruth sure did. She is considered one of the holy women of old. Is not the church the bride of Christ? Ruth 3:3 said, Therefore, wash yourselves, anoint yourself, put on your best garment, and go down to the threshing floor. Who’s our high priest today?

It’s Jesus. The book of Ezekiel stated in Ezekiel 44 30 the best of all the fruits, first fruits of any kind, the best, and every sacrifice of any kind from your sacrifices shall be the priest, and you shall give the priest the first year ground meal to cause a blessing to rest in your house. To give God our best is not just about clothing. It’s not just about only the time we take to prepare to come to worship God. It’s about how we give our best to the high priest. As the gospel writer would tell us, Jesus is our high priest. There’s a song I like, it says, We’re standing on holy ground. We’re standing on holy ground, for the Lord is present, and where he is is holy.

3. In Sacred Time, It Should Always Be Our Best

And so our third point is really significant. In sacred time, it should always be our best. What’s sacred time? The foundational principles of the Lord’s church should be our clarion call. When we gather together like this, at a time when he’s appointed, when he said, This is the time we are to gather together. We are not to gather together to offer it haphazardly. Don’t ever concede one inch in doctrine. When people ask you, how are church funds to be distributed? The mature should all not only know, but be able to explain 2 Corinthians 8 and Galatians 6. When evolutionists ask our teens about intelligent design contrast, we the Christian need to be able to traverse the Psalms that speak of the circle of the earth, Job that speaks of the enduring constellations, and have memorized Genesis 1.

When school associations taught an LGBTQ platitude with tender love and care, the Christian young person and their beloved moms and dads, raising them in the nurture of the Lord, should be able to teach those in those circles. Some in the Bible we’re told, and such were some of you. But you were washed, you were cleansed and sanctified and transformed by a fresh, clean mind. First Corinthians 1 and 4 and continuing. Our young people here, they have a command of much of what the Bible is to say by way of interpretation. I was discussing this with one of our high school students in the Bible classes, and he said, he and another student, I’m not picking on your names here, because you know who you are, said, We’re gonna go before the class and tell the class of high schoolers what’s a direct command, what’s an applied example, what’s a necessary inference, what are the implications of silence and authority?

I’m thinking, great, that’s good. We need that. We need to have our young people be able to have a command of the Bible, and they need to be able to give God their best at sacred time, if we can call it that. Much of our religion today, and I say religion in the sense of those that worship, it’s diluted. It’s melted. Its fuel is sapped, and the people that fall out of touch with religion, they’re the objective observers, they’re looking around at religion, and they’re meandering through life thinking, what a hyperized, funny lot of creatures. And really, why should the unchurched be blamed for this? After driving around a while, I think the average unchurched doesn’t go to church individual that’s in the world. I think they’ve got some validity.

I really do. Let me present exhibit A. I was driving about two years ago to a funeral. I was honored to preach in West Texas. And if you’re like me, when you drive on a long journey, what do you do? You look around and see what’s the sights to see. And we saw church billboards. There’s a lot of unique church billboards, and some of you and I have seen them before. CH. CH. What is missing from this sign? You are. Okay, that’s creative. Church, what’s missing your? Okay, that’s creative. He who throws dirt loses ground. That’s a good one. That’s a good sign. What’s it saying? Don’t gossip. Don’t throw dirt, you lose ground. But my wife and I are driving, and we look to the left, and there’s a sign on what I thought was a church building that said coffee shop.

No, not the Baptist church, not the Presbyterians, not the Assemblies of God, not a church of Christ. It just said coffee shop. I am fully convinced there is lesser, better, least, and greatest, and essentially levels or degrees of some things. Yet calling a church coffee shop, like is it that’s just what you’re gonna call it? Is something that sounds nearing sacrilegious to me, not sacred. And our world gets it. Many of our beloved denominational friends who are near and dear to me, and many in the churches of Christ are on the side of just, well, we’ll just turn a blind eye to that, not really talk about that. We’ll not talk about the desecration or decredation of the sacred. It sounds like we’re trying to be holier than thou.

No, we’re not. If someone comes into your assembly in shabby clothes and not wearing what I’m wearing here, and they want to sit up here, come on in. Sit right here. We’re glad you’re here. You want to tie? Here, take mine. I mean, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about those of us that are here that are making a point to do our best to worship the Lord. I did plenty of research on the rural churches and regulations of Arkansas as contrasted with the other states of 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. At one point, I had data on all 50 states as governments’ EOs. I did it mainly at first to ensure I was complying with the law of Arkansas as well as the law of God, which I do believe I did back there when I lived in Arkansas.

However, there was a lot to be said that was quite true coming from the mouths of others. The number one takeaway from non-Christians in most writings in the world regarding executive orders or EOs about how churches should worship in different states during COVID’s COVID-19 pandemic for a year in that era. The number one takeaway we found from non-Christians was social gatherings where people mingled to sip beverages and eat donuts and meals and such, and occasionally give a few five to ten minutes about Jesus talk were the way most interpreted church. That’s how most Americans, at least nearly all EO writers, observed how Christians worship God. To many of the COVID executive order writers, church really was that, a coffee shop. And to their credit, many are.

My wife and I even saw one billboarded out as to that’s what they placed on their sign. Guys, Jesus rose from the grave on a Sunday. I don’t really think the two guys on the road to Emmaus were sipping Starbucks or a flavored seltzer water from a Stanley when they caught sight of my beloved Savior. And if they heard him preach, I think they ran full chisel back so they could tell the world about their observation of the resurrection. And if I’m doctrinally right, the scriptures say Cleopus and his friend couldn’t even stay with Jesus longer than an hour at the Emmaus breaking a bread table so they could run and tell Jesus’ apostles in the other direction of Jesus’ resurrection out of the tableland and into the and into the world where he could be manifested to show his power.

Food and beverage are there incidental, not focal points. Everyone has to have water, but the resurrection Sunday wasn’t watered down. The first gospel sermon, very first one, preached on a Sunday. It comprised a textual passage from Joel chapter 2. And amid implications about the risen Christ being seated on the throne of David from the Psalms, and the spiritual power being given from on high, to the apostles only as prophesied by Jesus in Acts chapter 1’s final words surrounding the ascension. The apostles gave God their best. The disciples followed their delegated teachings and gave God their best. The same, my brothers and sisters, needs together upon every first day of the week because it was sacred time. Not just about stomachs, but about their solemn charge to keep the faith sacred.

The dictionary doesn’t do it justice, but we’ll use the dot com definition, followed by a little illustration I have. Sacred, as defined by dictionary.com definition two, entitled to veneration or religious respect by association with divinity or divine things. Essentially, the synonym closest in association is a time that is holy time. We need to give God our holy time. Now here’s the illustration I have, and ironically, it’s from a literal illustration from a painting. I have a piece of art given to me by a friend, and it has a portion of the word heaven cut out from a dictionary in the letter H’s, and it’s highlighted with some of the most beautiful art surrounding it. It stands as a tribute to all things holy, and I find it so appropriate that the word heaven in this ancient dictionary, this piece of art, is found squarely between the words heavenly and heave hove.

Once we all get to heaven, everything will be heavenly. But before that, it’s going to take a lot of heave hove to prepare for that day.

Give God your best, sister. Give God your best, brother. Give God your best, friend. All things that are successful took effort on the successful one’s behalf. When we say give God the best of our free time, and we give God the best of our preparation time, and we give God the best of our sacred time. We know it takes work. Many work long hours and take many pains to get here. Many long to be here but cannot because they’re convalescing at home and they’re sick and they can’t be here, but they want to be. But are you giving God your best? How will God judge my discretionary time? After all, it’s free time He gave. How will God judge my decision time? After all, he gave me a mind able to prepare.

4. Giving God Our Best With Our Respite Time

How God, how is he going to judge my devoting time? After all, he made this concept of what we’re doing right now, this sacredness. And for our fourth point, a point to consider intensively. How is my dialoguing with the disciples this time? We often talk about the activities we do in worship, such as sing and partake of the Lord’s Supper and give and pray and preach and teach. And doing those in an authorized way, and that’s good. I already mentioned that. Yet what of edifying and endorsing and encouraging the truth. These things are also commands, yet they’re what I’ve titled in this lesson our final point as giving God our best with our respite time, with our peace time, with our comfort time, with the time he’s given us.

Although God has given us us to help.

And when love is sown, joy is cultivated. I know midweek evenings are busy times. I have three kids too, you know. One’s in high school and two is elementary, as was mentioned. I know also how difficult a work church balance is. Talk time. My work situation once had me out every Wednesday night for the first half of the midweek service. I knew I’d be coming in late, and I felt so awkward just walking in late to a class that I really longed to be there. But I couldn’t miss my work obligation because I had to pay bills and meet my family obligation to work. I did come on Sundays, but I had a night job shift to Amazon, to which I guess I could have just justified missing, right?

But I simply could not if I knew I could at least be to some of the service. One deacon in Texas encouraged me so much, he said, you know, just come to all the services you can. That’s what I’m trying to tell everybody else, and I’ll tell the same to you. I had a coat kept in my car, and when I got out of my factory work job, I put on this old roughly two-button firefighters coat and went to worship with my family. When my kids and the brethren ran to me calling out to me, it made all the stresses of work and the debased speech of the workers and the worldliness of those I work with, all that was counterbalanced. Church was my respite. Midweek Bible study can be our respite.

I know for a fact, midweek Bible study has saved a number of marriages. Midweek Bible study has made a number of children saved. Midweek Bible study has edified so many here that there’s no way to know how many lives have been saved, dispositions lifted, and worldliness quelled for one small hour to get a glimpse of heaven’s citizenry. We talk about that we long to go to heaven where we’re part of a heavenly kingdom, but this is the saints of that kingdom here. Let’s bond as much as we can. I’m so encouraged here as I begin the work here alongside Kin and the elders here. I’ve noticed little by little our Wednesday attendance has been getting greater. That’s good, guys. Keep that up. Keep coming to those midweek services as best you can.

That’s very important. To help your kids grow, it’ll help you grow. In Acts 11 26, I just got one scripture for this fourth point. Just one. The disciples were first called Christians at Antioch. Where’d they get that? That’s not in the Old Testament. I know some people talk about Hespala, the uh uh you shall be called in that passage of the Old Testament prophets. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about the word Christian. Where’d they come up with that? It’s not in the Bible. Either, either the disciples were first called Christians because it was a derogatory term, derogatory, where worldly people were making a mockery of the way, or else it was designed. Either way, the Antioch church deliberately accepted it. Ask yourselves honestly, brethren, how they get that name.

They’d not looked it up in the Bible, but it fit and they went by it. They were Christians because they had Christ living in them, and they wanted the world to know where they went, Christ went. Where Christ went, they went. They offered their best. From their recognition that fellow saints gave them encouragement to get through the dregs of society, they made the journey to worship not only each first day of the work week, but in their condition daily, brethren. God doesn’t mandate we worship him formally like this, as we are right now, every day of the week. But I would venture to guess, and I think it’s a biblical conclusion that the reason Christians of the first century met each day of the week was because the disciples’ dialoguing time lifted them up.

That’s not much different from us today. They may have had a different socioeconomic standard, they may have had a different style of persecution, they may have had a different woe of the world. They may have had a lot different jobs, they may have predominantly worshiped at night instead of daytime. They may have had all sorts of differences, but when it came to being one with the brethren, they’re like me. They’re smiling, they’re glad to be with their brethren, they’re encouraged to be with them, just as I am with you, and I hope you are with me. This time we have together is time to lift one another up. And my dearly beloved brethren, when I’m together with you in worship to our Lord, I feel the same way.

Conclusion

As we dialogue as disciples, as we speak together as a church, as we make time to linger long, visit after and visit before, we all long to be within the walls of one another’s presence. For when we worship God, it’s not to offer up a meager, half-hearted whimper of worship, but a confident, bold, extremely potent filled portion that says, I’m going to look at my life and give something up, then give something over to God, and then do my best with the sacrifices of praise and wherewithal of honor unto my beloved God, who gave his son on Calvary’s tree to do my best, so that I might approach his throne of grace on bended knee and say, Thank you, holy God, for making a place for even me in thy kingdom.

If we can help you become a Christian, have faith that Jesus saves. Believe he is risen to rescue you, confess his name, saying you believe that he shall save. Renounce a life of sin. Say, Get out, sin, and get in, Jesus. And now, why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord. Acts 22, 16. Give God your best, and he will grant you your freedom from sin and entrance into an everlasting kingdom. If we can help you in your walk with the Lord, to either draw closer to him for the first time, or once again, please come forward and sit on a front row as we stand and sing.