“C’mon Man!”

ESPN, the sports channel, has an immensely popular segment called “C’mon Man!” It’s so popular and so well known that the phrase is being used in the popular culture in all kinds of different ways.

For example, I was trying to get my computer to do something recently. I kept following the wrong sequence to get my computer to do what I wanted it to do. After about the third attempt, I said to myself “C’mon Man!”

Frankly, there are many times when I want to say “C’mon Man!” Sometimes it’s about myself and other times it’s when we “don’t see the forest for the trees.”

In my ministry as a pastor and teacher, I see so many times when I want to shout “C’mon Man!” to churches and church leaders.

I want to shout “C’mon Man!” when we substitute the trivial and insignificant for the really important. Unfortunately, churches are notorious for doing so. Think of the horror stories you’ve heard where churches split over the color of the carpet or who got to play the piano.

Those stories sound so trivial that surely they can’t be true, but they are.

It’s time for all of us in the church to shout “C’mon Man!” when we and others neglect the weighty and significant and replace it with the insignificant and the trivial.

God told us “You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.” (Exodus 20:7).

We sometimes miss the real significance of that commandment. Anything “vain” is lightweight, insignificant, and trivial. To the contrary, God is weighty and significant. The word  “glory” describes God and means something like “weighty.” Therefore, he is the opposite of “vain” or “vanity” and must be treated in that way. We simply cannot make Him who is everything to us lightweight and insignificant.

It’s time for us to shout “C’mon Man!” to those in the church who take God lightly rather than as the Lord and Master of the universe, the Creator of the world and all that is in it.

“C’mon man!” also seems the proper response to those who live each day as if God doesn’t exist. Many times, those people attend church regularly. They show up on Sunday and participate in the life of the church. Then they go out of the church and live as if God doesn’t exist, ignoring Him on Monday morning and Saturday night and all the time in between.

I want to say “C’mon man!” and ask, “How can you do such a thing?” When you have access by the blood of Christ to the Creator of the universe, why would you ever live without seeking Him and His way? “In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).

“C’mon man!”

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