In a sermon about fifty years ago, A.W. Tozer described people in a striking way. He spoke of men and women in these four categories –
Those who are great and good (great as in an influential leader and good as in noble and honorable personally)
Those who are neither great nor good (nobody counts them as famous and nobody counts them as good either)
Those who are great but not good (like a celebrity actor or musician who would be counted as great by the world but who has a terrible personal character)
Fourth, and finally, those who are good but not great. It is this fourth category that most reminds me of Racine Bible Church people. Here is what Tozer says –
… and then there are those who are good but not great. And we may thank God that there are so many of them, being grateful that by the grace of God they managed to acquire just plain goodness.
Every pastor knows this kind – the plain people who have nothing to recommend them but their deep devotion to their Lord and the fruit of the Spirit which they all unconsciously display. Without these, the churches as we know them in city, town, and country could not carry on.
These are the first to come forward when there is work to be done and the last to go home when there is prayer to be made. They are not known beyond the borders of their own parish because there is nothing dramatic in faithfulness or newsworthy in goodness, but their presence is a benediction wherever they go. They have no greatness to draw to them the admiring eyes of carnal men but are content to be good men and women full of the Holy Ghost, waiting in faith for the day their true worth shall be known. When they die they leave behind them a fragrance of Christ that lingers long after the cheap celebrities of the day are forgotten.