Shoot For Excellence (Part 2)

The final 4 blog entries this week are a transcript of the remarks that I gave at the Inaugural Induction Service of the Lititz Christian School Chapter of the National Honor Society – April 6, 2006. If you have not read part 1 of this series, it would be best for you to go back and read this before continuing with this blog entry.

Why is excellence so important? The direct answer to that is influence. What is life all about? I believe that for the believer, life is all about bringing honor and glory to our Heavenly Father and influencing others to know, love, honor and serve Jesus Christ. Perhaps there is no greater example of this in the entire Bible then in the closing verses that describe the life of my favorite Bible character, Joshua. In the last chapter of Joshua, chapter 24, we have the final words describing this great leader of Old Testament Israel. In these verses we see two very important aspects of his legacy.

First, we see his spiritual identity. It says in verse 29 that, “Joshua, the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died, being one hundred and ten years old.” How was Joshua identified? Physically, he was identified as the “son of Nun.” Nun is a proper name, the name of Joshua’s father. That is how people were identified back then. They didn’t have last names as we do today. They were identified with the name of their father. But notice that Joshua also had a spiritual influence. He would forever be remembered as “the servant of the Lord.” This was a very special title. The only other person up until that time who had ever been called by this title was the great leader himself, Moses. Now it has been passed on to Joshua. Other men in the Bible are identified with a spiritual legacy as well. Today we still remember King David as a “man after God’s own heart.” We speak of Abraham as “a man who believed God.” The Apostle John is known as “the disciple that Jesus loved.”

Let me ask you, what do you want your spiritual identity to be? Long after you have lived and died, when people look back to the first inductees in this prestigious chapter of the National Honor Society of Lititz Christian School, how do you want people to remember your spiritual legacy?

My Grandpa had a spiritual identity. He had been a preacher for nearly 50 years and was always very proper. He would only be called, “pastor.” Even my own grandma called him “pastor.” He was very disappointed that I called him “Grandpa” instead of “Grandfather.” But the final few years of his life, he was the superintendent of a rescue mission out in California. There, he dealt daily with alcoholics and addicts. Grandpa was tough with these men but it was the type of toughness that they knew came from a genuine heart of love. These men called my grandpa by a term that he never would have allowed in his years of pastoring. But he knew that these men used it as a term of endearment. They simply called him “Rev.” In fact, when he was buried, he was buried wearing a big brass belt buckle with those three letters on it… “R-E-V.” Those three letters would forever be his spiritual identity.