was too much for him and laughed. He was deeply crushed and concluded that all adults were hypocrites. This experience led him to years of religious indifference and doubt. Years later, after much study and thought, he returned to church and said the amazing thing was that as an adult God reached down and touched him again in that worship service and his experience was ignited again by the presence of God. But he said, “Now I was an adult, I would not remain silent. Whenever there was an opportunity I spoke shouting, “Look who is here!”7 Look who is here in this place of worship and many of you have not seen him. He is come that we might experience the power of his presence. Look he is here!
Walter Russell Bowie wrote a book several years ago entitled Men of Fire, which today would have to be retitled Men and Women of Fire. In his book, Bowie traced twenty-six exciting biographies of torchbearers of the Gospel from biblical days to the present. He writes about Jesus’ statement: “1 have come to cast fire upon the earth.” “So, Jesus said to his disciples; and the fire indeed was kindled. It would be a fire of affliction in which their courage would be tested, as gold in the furnace is tried, a fire on the altar of sacrifice where fear and selfishness could be burned away. It would also be like the light of a lamp to illuminate their minds and consciences; and a flame within their hearts to burn there as an unquenchable devotion.”8
Jesus Christ comes into our lives. His presence comes as a flame to make us different. The flame of his presence refines us, cleanses us, directs us, empowers us, and inspires us. It comes and touches us in such a way with the power of is grace and love that other people can see that the torch of His experience has ignited us.
Harry Emerson Fosdick tells about a young man whom he was counseling who was a borderline alcoholic. He worked with that young man for months before he was able to control his drive. When this young man came to Fosdick he was not a believer, but when he left Fosdick after his last counseling session he said: “If you ever find anyone who doesn’t believe in God, send him to me. I know.’’9 He was living proof that God can make a difference in a person’s life.
Your life and my life, when the experience and power of God have ignited it, should be radically different. I hope that the enthusiasm and the power of God’s spirit will permeate your life and mine. I pray that we will be excited about God’s presence in our lives. I hope that you and I will be ignited by God’s flame and excited about our church as the place for us where God is seeking to work in our community.
Jesus said, “I have come to cast fire on the earth.” If you and I are really going to minister and be the kind of church that Christ wants us to be, there has to be that fiery glow within us that comes from the presence of a living Lord who makes all things new within us.
One evening Emily and I were walking down the main street in Edinburgh, Scotland. As darkness began to fall on the city, I remembered a story I had heard years ago. This story was about a stranger who came to Edinburgh around the turn of the century before the city had electric lights and the street lamps were lit with gas. The visitor to the city was standing on the balcony of his hotel when he saw the lamplighter approach. The lamplighter reached up to the lamp with his torch and thrust it into the gas light. The lamp exploded into a flame. The visitor watched the lamplighter as he continued to walk down the street and stop and set his torch to touch another light, and it began to glow. He seemed to be punching holes in the darkness. He watched the lamplighter until he finally disappeared. He could see the lights bursting into flames here and then there. Another lamp burst into flames, and then another, then another, and another, and another.
When you and I leave the church when we worship, we ought to go into the world to let our lives be flames of light for Christ. Jesus said, “I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and I wish it were already kindled.” Through the baptism of his death and sacrifice, he has kindled that fire. You and I have responded. Let that glow of his love so radiate from your life that in all that you do others will see and be drawn to Christ and experience his love and grace.
4 Karl Barth and Eduard Thurneysen, Come Holy Spirit (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, Co., 1978), 112-113
5 Nels F. S. Ferre’, quoted in Elton Trueblood, The Incendiary Fellowship
(New York: Harper & Row, 1967), 108-109
6 Trueblood, Ibid, 11
7 Jerome Ellison, Report to the Creator (New York: Harper & Bros., 1955), 201, 205.
8 Walter Russell Bowie, Men of Fire (New York: Harper & Bros., 1961), ix.
9 Lionel G. Crocker (ed), Harry Emerson Fosdick’s Art of Preaching: An Anthology (Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publishers, 1971), 52.
2
On Building the Church
The late Wallace Hamilton, who for many years was the pastor of the Community Church in Pasadena, Florida, was arriving late for an annual conference where he was scheduled to preach. As he came up the steps, he saw a group of small boys playing on the front steps of the church. They paused in their playing and were peering into the open windows where the sound of music was coming. As he placed his hand on the church door to open it and go in, one of the young boys turned and said to him: “Hey mister, what’s going on in there?” That question needs to be heard by the Church today. What goes on in here? What goes on in the Church? What really is the Church? What is going on in it?
That is the question people have been asking down through the centuries. What is happening in Church? Some have come back rather quickly and forcefully and answered: “Not much!” The tribe of “nones”- non-attenders- has risen drastically. Some have said the last days of the Church are here. Books and speeches have been written about The Noise of Solemn Assembly, The Empty Pulpit, The Comfortable Pew, The Last Days of the Church, Demise of the Church, The Death of the American Church, and The Dying Church. The Newsweek magazine had a cover several years ago with the inscription: “Forget the Church. Follow Jesus.” Some voices say that the Church is coming close to its demise. Its end is near. But I think Carlyle Marney is correct when he observed that “people say that the Church is always dying, but it never does.” Most of the hammers of criticism that have been beaten against the Church have been worn out eventually on the anvil of the Church itself. The Church continues to endure.
Biblical Images of the Church
When we turn to the New Testament, we find some interesting figures for the Church. Images of all kind abound. The Church is depicted as the Bride of Christ, the Body of Christ, the Household of Faith, the Family of Jehovah, the Seat and Shrine of the Eternal, the New Israel, the New Covenant, the Realm of Redemption, salt, light, leaven, and the vine. But I suppose Paul’s favorite metaphor is the Temple or the building as seen in Ephesians 2: 19-22. Jesus himself said, “I will build my Church.” When congregations have a building in the process of being constructed, they need to remember that the constructed building will house the church. A part of what we must always keep before us and in proper focus is that the building is never the Church. It houses the Church. The building has a function to carry on the ministry of the Church which is being built. We are the building. The Church, when it is properly constructed, is a living structure.
The Foundation of the Church
Paul, in the second chapter of the Letter to the Ephesians, writes about building
