Excellence is, in fact, a relationship. There is only One is truly and perfectly excellent. He alone is the sum and definition of what excellence is and does. So the one who is excellence, in His grace, came to you when you were in a state of anything but excellence, and by grace offered you the promise of actually becoming a partaker of His divine nature. He then connects you to purposes and goals way higher, way grander and more glorious than you would every have sought for yourself... Your hope of ever being excellent in His eyes and doing what is excellent in His sight is found in your relationship to Him and in His grace that not only forgives and accepts but radically transforms. And He calls and empowers you to display His excellency and the excellency of His grace. It is only this excellency that has the power to free us from the false excellency of human pride and the mediocrity that results when we are okay with ourselves and our world just the way they are.
Paul David Tripp

CXXXI. The Sorrow that arises at the Departure of a Christian Minister.

ACTS xx. 38.
“Sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that
they should see his face no more. And they accompanied him
to the ship.”

THESE words close this farewell scene between the Apostle
Paul and the elders of the Church at Ephesus. It is a
final parting between a minister of Christ and the people
among whom he has laboured, and their feelings and con-
duct are here described.
I. The source of this sorrow. As one element in it
there was—
1. The loss of a true friend. Next to the assurance of
having the best Friend in heaven, is the conviction that we
have a true friend on earth. A Christian minister should
be this: the monitor of some, the comforter of others, the
friend of all his flock.
2. The close of religious privileges.
3. The recollection of numerous changes which the
departure suggests.
II. The comfort of this sorrow.
1. The sorrow for a lost friend has this comfort, that to
him it is immeasurable gain.
2. Sorrow for the close of religious privileges has this
comfort, that results from them may still remain.
3. Sorrow at the recollection of numerous changes has
this comfort, that they are preparing the way for a world
that is immutable. Let every departure become to me
an argument that a higher life is at hand, a portion of
the drift-weed from the farther shore, which assures the
voyager that a new world is near.
III. The improvement of this sorrow.
1. Christian sorrow for the departed should lead us to
seek re-union with the object of our affection.
2. It should lead us to cultivate what they had most
at heart while with us. Empty sorrow for the dead is a
worthless tribute. Let us translate our grief into a warm
appreciation of the excellencies, a sympathy with all that
was great and noble in their heart, and active duty in
carrying forward their Christian plans and purposes.
J. K.