Why Bother With Details? Series

Hebrews 8-10

Introduction: I took a graduate class on church leadership, and in that class we all took a Performax® Personal Profile system test to help us better understand our leadership styles. Basically, the purpose of tests like this is to teach you why you’re so annoying to your spouse and co-workers!

It rates you in 4 categories: DISC – dominance, influencing, compliance, steadiness. From those, you learn which one is your dominant trait, and then you’re supposed to gain some insights about yourself. Ultimately, it confirms what your wife has been telling you all along - It’s just that now, it’s certified! Whatever you score, it means you have certain strengths, and certain weaknesses.

I scored high in the “C” category. That means I’m the kind of person who reads the directions before I start trying to put the widget together. It means that I’m analytical, that I tend to like a plan, and that I work best in a structured environment. It means I don’t usually adapt well to change, and that I want things to be thoroughly thought through before acting. Sure enough, that described me. Some people call it a borderline perfectionist. More honest people just go ahead and call it neurotic!

Now, that can really get on the nerves of a person who doesn’t like to be bound by a schedule, doesn’t want to bother reading directions, gets bored with sameness, and wants to act quickly. Which ever of those 2 people you are, your spouse is the other one!

It also means I’m a person who gets caught up with details. I guess I already knew that. I suspected it would happen to me. Really, I don’t think I had a lot of choice! My dad and his sister were both a lot like that .

So, in our closet, when I explain to my wife, “I select my pants from the right to left, so make sure that clean pants get put on the right,” I’m innocent!

This attention to detail sometimes bothered me about my dad and aunt, and then about myself, until – until I learned that God has that same high-C quality. Then I realized that High-C-ness is next to godliness! God is really into details!

-Ill - Take your skin, for instance. God gave a lot of attention to the details of your skin. In some parts, it fits you tightly, like on your scalp. On others, like your knuckles, it’s pleated. Then there’s places where it fits fairly loosely, like around your waist, so that you can bend over. It takes ultraviolet light and uses it to change molecules already there into vitamin D. It has over 1300 nerve endings per square inch. It releases enzymes that kill bacteria and that can convert dangerous chemicals into harmless materials. It lubricates itself through sebaceous glands. It can cool your whole body. When the outside temperature gets too cold, your skin reduces the blood flow to itself to reduce heat loss. I probably wouldn’t have thought of all those details, but God sure did!

Ill – And when it comes to worship, God is into details again! In fact, the account of the creation of everything takes up about 40 verses, but when it comes to the details of how to worship God just in the book of Exodus, it takes over 230 verses!

Exodus 25:9-22 Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you. Have them make a chest of acacia wood--two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide, and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, with two rings on one side and two rings on the other. Then make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the chest to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings of this ark; they are not to be removed. Then put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you. Make an atonement cover of pure gold--two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Make one cherub on one end and the second cherub on the other; make the cherubim of one piece with the cover, at the two ends. The cherubim are to have their wings spread upward, overshadowing the cover with them. The cherubim are to face each other, looking toward the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites.