Sometime back I had a call from a lady upset with a motto that we used at the conclusion of our weekly newspaper column, “Our Church is the Church where everybody is nobody and Christ is All.” It is not the purpose of this pastor, or our congregation to deliberately offend anyone, but it is our purpose to be honest with the souls of men and true to God’s Word. If you put together Romans 3:10-19 with Colossians 3:11 you will see that it is a very scriptural motto. It is very popular among men who have taken up the ministry as a profession to create self-esteem, to make men feel good about themselves. They advocate the notion that men need a “good self image.” That may be true in secular occupations and as one seeks a career, but not so in spiritual matters as one seeks a relationship with God. A fellow pastor had the following article in his church bulletin. “Churches and religious leaders like to flatter human flesh and make proud sinners, men and women whose hearts are full of hatred toward God (Rom.8:7), feel important. One example of this flattery is in the following cliché that often appears on church signs, in bulletins, and religious papers. “U” are important! We can’t spell … Church without ”U” … Sunday without “U” … Budget without “U” …Success without “U” … We need “U”! “I don’t know anything about budgets and success; but I suspect you would not be nearly so important were it not for the budgets and ambition of men for success. This I do know, God spelled CHURCH for 2000 years without YOU; and a whole lot of SUNDAYS have been spelled without YOU! The cause of God (His work, His will, His glory, and Church) does not depend on you. You’re not that important. Neither am I. What kind of god depends on puny man? The fact is you are nothing! You have nothing that God needs; you can do nothing that God will accept. If you come to nothing, nothing will be lost. “God’s preachers are not to flatter human flesh; they are to expose it. God will never allow the flesh to glory in His presence. “That no flesh should glory in His presence…that according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” When God makes Himself known to sinners in Christ, He causes them to glory in His blood, and His righteousness and His grace. “For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.” Only when you are nothing will Christ be everything.” The Reformer John Calvin speaking on the doctrine of man said, “What are they? What can they do? What is their power? Of what can they boast? They are only vermin and rottenness; still will they wish to justify themselves thereupon. To know who they are let us come to God. For man never will recognize himself as long as he looks only at himself, or as long as he compares himself with his neighbor; but it is when we raise our eyes on high, and we reckon that we must come before the Judgment Seat of Him who knows everyone, who is not like mortal men who are satisfied with bits of trash, and before Whom we cannot commend our outward shells which are all those good for nothing things that we prize so much here. When we shall know that all vanishes before God, then we shall learn to put ourselves in our place, and no longer to be elevated with such pride.”
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