(Inspired by a series of sermons by Rev. Adam Hamilton, UM Church of the Resurrection).
SLIDE 1
I want to remind you about the 50th Anniversary event tonight—the Ice Cream Social—dinner starts at 6 but come early for fun and social time. You don’t get any ice cream until you eat your dinner.
SLIDE 2
WELCOME, ATTENDANCE PAD, PRAYER
SLIDE 3
Didn’t we have some nice weather this week? It sure made me struggle to get this sermon done. I felt like Rev. Will B. Dunn in this Kudzu in this comic:
http://www.comicspage.com/comicspage/main.jsp?file=20040801cskdz-s-p.jpg&refresh_content=1&component_id=3&custid=69&catid=1128&dir=%2Fkudzu
FRAME 1—He looks out the window of his study and sighs: “It’s a coppertone kinda day!”
FRAME 2—He continues to think: “What a glorious day!”
FRAME 3: He walks over to his desk “What am I thinking? I can’t lie out in the sun...I’ve got to prepare my sermon!”
FRAME 4—Sits staring at the typewriter
FRAME 5—Continues to stare at the typewriter
FRAME 6—Still staring at the typewriter
FRAME 7—He’s lying on a blanket in the yard with his swim trunks and sun tan lotion by his side: “The Spirit is willing, bur the flesh is tanless!”
SLIDE 4
As I begin this series today my is hope is that as many of you as possible will purchase a copy of the book A Longing For Holiness. I will order you one for $6 And if the six dollars is a challenge, I would like to make sure you get a copy. We’ll get it to you for free.
I thought it might be appropriate as we study John Wesley to allow you to actually read excerpts from this man’s journals and diaries and letters and sermons. And that’s what this little book contains, 15 excerpts, five per week. This is one per day, Monday through Friday. It takes about five minutes to read these. It’s one of the Upper Room Spiritual Classics. And it’s selected writings of John Wesley.
SLIDE 5
I want to teach you a little bit about our Methodist heritage as we celebrate our 50th Anniversary as a United Methodist Church here in the Weyers Cave area. Now, some of you would say, “Wait a minute, Don, I’m not a Methodist. I mean, I realize I go to a United Methodist church, but I never was a Methodist before. I really don’t care about the Methodist heritage. It doesn’t interest me at all that John Wesley turned 300 last year, Bethany is 50 years old this year. I have no interest in studying this. I’m not interested in that heritage.”
But listen, you are a part of a Methodist church today. Even if you are not considering yourself a Methodist, you go to a Methodist church. And because of that, this becomes your heritage as well. And what you’re going to find as we study these sermons, is you’re going to find so much in our heritage has shaped who we are today at Bethany Church. And it may just be by understanding your heritage, it might begin to shape the kind of Christian you are tomorrow in a profound way. I guarantee you, you will be blessed.
So in honor of Wesley and our 50th Anniversary, we are going to explore the faith, the heart, and the practices of a Methodist.
SLIDE 6
Now I want to make it clear, when it comes to John Wesley, we don’t consider him a saint in the United Methodist Church. We don’t venerate him. We don’t worship him. You see no pictures or statues of John Wesley here in our sanctuary. He was just a guy. He made plenty of mistakes. And as you study his life, you’ll see all of his weaknesses and warts just out there for display as you read his journals and you read the stories about his life. And that helps me to know that a person of such great influence had these weaknesses but still could be used by God.
But he was a guy who had a way of connecting with God that profoundly changed the world, one of the ten most influential Christians of the last 2,000 years. And the way he did Christianity has a lot to offer us today.
And so in this series, we are going to understand a little more of his life story and how his story and the story of the early Methodists connects with our lives today.
I’m going to talk about 37 years of John Wesley’s life. I’m also going to talk about 200 years of British history. And then I’m going to try to
tease out a few ideas that are important for our lives today. All of that, of course, in the next 10 minutes! Yeah, right, Don—I know what some of you are thinking.
SLIDE 7
I’m going to do Part 1 of this sermon on the faith of a Methodist today. And most of what I will be discussing will be a history lesson. Sorry but is back to school time.
SLIDE 8
I want to review the 200 years of English history that began at 1532. I want to remind you of some things you learned when you were in high school, junior high, or maybe college in your history courses.
As I walk you through this history you are going to notice the pendulum swinging back forth between various views—political and theological. It seems that’s been the story of humankind throughout the centuries.
Even in our own country in these modern times. This is a presidential election year. It will be interesting to see where the pendulum swings this time in the election.
SLIDE 9
Speaking of election year and politics its like Kudzu’s comic in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago, with Rev. Will B. Dunn at the pulpit:
http://www.comicspage.com/comicspage/main.jsp?file=20040807cskdz-a-p.jpg&refresh_content=1&component_id=3&custid=69&catid=1128&dir=%2Fkudzu
FRAME 1—Rev. Will B. Dunn is standing at the pulpit reading from the Bible: “What doth it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
FRAME 2—He gets a response from several people in the congregation: “About 653 trillion American, before capital gains.”
FRAME 3: He looks away from the Bible and thinks: “That verse always goes over the head of Republicans!”
Okay—I’ll give equal time to the other side—someday!
SLIDE 10
Let’s take these 200 years of British history.
Beginning with 1532 and King Henry VIII -- you’ll remember he was the king who was struggling to find a wife who could produce for him an offspring who could inherit the throne. Since the Pope wouldn’t give him permission to divorce his wives he declared he was the head of the church in England and stuck his nose up at the Pope. So this separation from the Pope began 200 years of religious conflict in England.
SLIDE 11
Henry VIII’s successor, his son, was Edward VI. Edward VI was very influenced by the Calvinists from Geneva, Switzerland, and began to be moved in this direction in terms of the Protestant Reformation and moved the Church of England even further down the track of reform. This then created even more conflict between the Roman Catholics and now the Calvinists and the Church of England.
SLIDE 12
Following Edward’s death, there was queen Mary who was a strong Roman Catholic. Now, you can imagine the challenges here. There was a a new Church of England and yet now she is trying to pull it back, back into the old days where the Roman Catholics were in charge, and she sought to bring the church back underneath the headship of the Pope. One of the ways she did that was by arresting 300 of the top clerics, the bishops throughout the country.
3 of the most prominent Protestant bishops were burned at the stake under Mary’s rule. For this reason, those 300 clerics that were put to death, she became known as Bloody Mary.
SLIDE 13
At the end of her five-year reign, after her death, Elizabeth ascended to the throne. She proposed a settlement, a compromise that valued in some ways the Roman Catholic heritage and the new Calvinist Protestantism, and she forged a middle way. This was called the Elizabethan Settlement.
SLIDE 14
James the first ascends to the throne and he’s hopeful of pulling the church back to the center a little bit further away from the Protestants and little more towards the traditional views of the Church of England that were rooted and grounded in Catholicism. In order to do that, it would be helpful to get a new Bible in the hands of the people.
SLIDE 15
Thus, he authorized the new translation of the Bible called the King James Bible. Ever heard of that?
SLIDE 16
This pendulum is swinging back and forth, you see. It was Roman Catholics and Protestants. And then once Protestantism was firmly established in the British Isles, there began to be a new conflict. The conflict was no longer between Roman Catholics and Protestants.
SLIDE 17
Calvinism was the way for the church in England now. But then something called Arminianism comes along. Arminianism.
Calvin’s doctrine of unconditional election (predestination) contends that God has predestined some people to be saved and some people to be lost. This doctrine maintains that man does not have a free will.
SLIDE 18
John Calvin, theologian from Geneva, taught that God did not elect (predestine) people by just looking into the future to see who would and would not obey. Calvin taught that God literally elected some people to be saved and allows everyone else to be lost. You have no choice in the matter. You have been predestined for heaven. This is just one piece of Calvinism. You see he was rebelling against Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholics he believed were teaching that we are saved by our works.
SLIDE 19
Dutch Theologian Jacob Arminius came along and he said, no, it can’t be that way. No, the gospel is for everyone. God wants everyone to be saved. People have to have free will. They have free will to choose whether they will accept the grace of God or not. And, of course, they are not saved by their works, but they can accept God. And so salvation is open to everyone.
SLIDE 20
Pretty soon the pendulum is swinging back and forth between these folks. The Church of the England began to embrace Arminianism.
It also embraced sort of a Roman Catholic form of worship we call high church worship. The Puritans tended to focus on a lower church worship where there was more singing and more preaching and more pietism.
So the pendulum is swinging back and forth as the various kings are in control.
SLIDE 21
And there’s another group, the Puritans--they didn’t feel like they had religious freedom and so one entire congregation left England, went to the Netherlands and then finally booked passage on a ship called the Mayflower to come to America to form a New England where there would be religious freedom and toleration. These folks were, of course, called the Pilgrims. All right. This is good. You remember this.
SLIDE 22
So Charles I comes along. He is king after Elizabeth and James I. And we come to Charles I. Now, Charles I is holding fast to this Arminian view and he is holding fast to the higher church view and the Church of England. And the Puritans began to try to seize power and control.
SLIDE 23
They ended up seizing parliament. They disbanded one house of parliament and they had the king executed. All over the issue of Arminianism and Calvinism, high church and low church.
They formed the commonwealth where there was no king. And then after the commonwealth was a disaster, the high church folks took over once again and the Arminians, and then we had Charles II.
I’m almost finished with the history lesson. Towards the end of the 1600s, here’s what happens.
There is Arminian high church, Anglicanism, and the Church of England. This is the age of reason. It’s the enlightenment. It’s the belief that salvation doesn’t come through religion at all. It comes through reason. It comes through the intellect. Christianity essentially becomes a cultural religion, accompanied by a decline in morality.
People were tired of people fighting over religion. They were tired of people being killed over religion. They were tired of the pendulum swinging back and forth over tiny matters of theology. (Boy doesn’t this sound like modern days!) And all of a sudden it seemed as though reason would triumph over religion.
SLIDE 24
That takes us up to 1700. 1703, John Wesley was born. He was the 15th child. He was the 15th of 19 children born to Samuel and Susanna Wesley, born June 17th, 1703. Back and forth the pendulum has swung, back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
John Wesley is born into this kind of world. His parents are strong Christians, pietistic Christians.
The pendulum will begin to swing again.
SLIDE 25
Out of Germany there arose a movement called Pietism and those German Pietists made their way to England. And they began to propose to people that salvation wasn’t found in the intellect. Salvation was found in the heart and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It wasn’t about reason. It was about the heart.
Samuel and Susanna Wesley were influenced by these people. And they had all of these children, John the 15th of them -- nine of those children died in their infancy -- and Charles, his younger brother, the great hymn writer.
And it was at this time as John was growing up in the home of the Wesleys, his father, a priest in the Church of England, heavily influenced by Pietism, his mother a deeply devoted woman, that he began to understand or began to come to faith.
SLIDE 26
When John was five, their home caught fire. John’s bed was in the attic and no one was able to reach him. John leaned out of the window and was able to be rescued. From that time until his death, he believed that he had been saved for a special task in life and that he should work diligently to fulfill this promise to God. He called himself a brand plucked from the fire referring to Zechariah 3:2.
SLIDE 27
Well, I want to fast forward to his teen years where as a teenager John began to decide that God was calling him to follow in his father’s footsteps to be a pastor. He went to study at Oxford, Christ Church Oxford, where he became a scholar as a young man. He went on to go to Lincoln College where he got his Master of Divinity degree, and he was ordained as a pastor in the Church of England, a parish priest. He was also set aside to be a teacher at Oxford, a fellow who would come back and tutor students.
It was about this time in the mid 1720s that John Wesley had this keen awareness that there was something missing in his Christian life. At this point, he said, you know, I go to church once in awhile. I read the Bible some of the time. I pray once in awhile. And I feel like I have no Christianity.
SLIDE 28
In fact, he wrote: "I have come to realize I’m just a nominal Christian." That was his word. "I’m a nominal Christian." And so he began to look for more of God, to want to experience more of God. He began to get up in the mornings at four in the morning to pray. He made sure he was at communion every day to receive the sacrament. He was busy studying the Bible daily.
He got involved in meeting with other Christians to encourage one another in the faith. He began doing good deeds in order to serve God with his life. He
wanted to be a real Christian. Not an almost Christian or a sort of Christian, but an altogether Christian. This was his heart’s desire.
SLIDE 29
And then his brother Charles, now a student at Oxford, called him back and said -- wrote to him and said, "John, we need you back here. We want you to lead. There is a group of us students who are hungry for more of God, just like you are. Would you come and be our leader?"
This small group of college students began to meet together three times a
week, twice a week to study the classics, once a week to study the scripture. They began to meet daily for holy communion. They would pray. They would serve the poor. They would go to worship together.
SLIDE 30
And the folks who watched them in the community at Oxford, where religious zeal was looked down upon, began to make fun of these young men. And they called him Bible bigots because they carried their Bibles around with them studying. And they called them the holy club. And sometimes they just called them Methodists.
That’s where the term Methodists originates. It was not a term of flattery but a term of derision or mockery.
I want you to listen in John’s own words taken from his journal, the story of the beginning of that first Methodist group.
SLIDE 31
JOHN WESLEY: In November, 1729, four young gentlemen of Oxford began to spend some evenings in a week together in reading chiefly the Greek testament. The exact regularity of our lives as well as studies occasioned a young gentleman of Christ Church to say, here is a new set of Methodists sprung up. The name was new and quaint so it took immediately. And the Methodists were known all over the University. It being our one desire and design to be downright Bible Christians, taking the Bible as interpreted by the primitive church and our own, for our whole and soul rule.
They continued to meet in this way for a number of years.
By the mid 1730s, this group of Methodists had spread and they began to spread around the countryside.
SLIDE 32
In 1735, John and a group of two or three other Methodists decided to board a ship for the New World in the midst of the wintertime and to follow this dream to be a missionary to the colony at Georgia. When he arrived there, he had great ambitions and dreams, but I will tell you that his ministry in Georgia during the two years he was there was a total failure. He tried to convert the Indians and it was a disaster.
SLIDE 33
I’m going to end the story here for today. I want to urge you to come back for the rest of the story next week. The story of Wesley’s trip to Georgia is filled with intrigue, danger, romance and scandal. Sounds like it could make a good reality TV show. Wesley could have made the first Survivor episode or one of those shows like the British City Guy in the Rural American Backlands or something like that had there been TV in his day.
SLIDE 34
Well, Don, you’re thinking all this British history and biography about John Wesley is fine and dandy but what’s the relevance of this to my life today?
Well if you get nothing else today—get this.
Fortunately for us Wesley’s life’s story does not end in total failure. God took the failure of Wesley’s life and brought good out of it. So I hope you’ll come back and see how that played in Wesley’s life. And from seeing how the hand of God guided Wesley in his darkest moments I hope that you will begin to realize how that can happen in your life. That’s the promise of God’s word to us in the Bible: (Read this out loud with me)
SLIDE 35
Romans 8:28, 30 (NLT)
28And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them….30And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And he gave them right standing with himself, and he promised them his glory.
Get it?
I said earlier that Wesley wanted to be a real Christian—that’s what he was struggling with in his life. Is that not true of you and me so many times in our lives? Not an almost Christian or a sort of Christian, but an altogether Christian.
SLIDE 36
WHAT IS AN ALMOST CHRISTIAN?
Here is a summary and a paraphrase of how Wesley defined an almost Christian:
…Almost Christians have some sense of right and wrong, truth and justice, a set of common virtues.
…Almost Christians often look like altogether Christians by practicing the fruits of the Spirit. Wesley words again, “the almost Christian does nothing that the gospel forbids.”
…Almost Christians abstain from wine… and from carousing and gluttony.
…Almost Christians avoid strife and altercations, always seeking to live peaceable with everyone.
…Almost Christians do not willingly harm, hurt, or grieve anyone. In every situation almost Christians act and speak by the golden rule.
…Almost Christians help friend and foe, assisting evil folk and good folk, whenever they have the opportunity they work for the good of all.
…Almost Christians correct evil people, instruct uninformed people, and comfort those in distress.
…Almost Christians faithfully attend worship, giving attention to every part of worship, not asleep or in a comfortable posture, as though they assumed God were asleep,
…Almost Christians , by sincerity, feel an intense need to serve God, and also desire to do His will.
TO SUM IT UP
…Almost Christians are almost “altogether Christians.”
On the face of it, it looks almost impossible to be even a decent "almost Christian" doesn’t it? What greater standard then could there be for the altogether Christian?
SLIDE 37
WHAT IS AN ALTOGETHER CHRISTIAN?
Wesley laid out three characteristics…
SLIDE 38
1. The Altogether Christian has a love for God.
Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Matthew 22:37)
Those who abide in love, find that God abides in them. A love for God is at the core of the Altogether Christrian.
SLIDE 39
2. The Altogether Christian has a love for others.
Jesus also said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
SLIDE 40
Wesley said, “If anyone should ask, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ we reply plainly. Your neighbor is every person in the world, every human being created by God, the maker of us all.” In short, we are to live lives of love for others, just as Christ lived and loved for us.
SLIDE 41
3. The Altogether Christian is grounded in faith.
Scripture speaks an abundance of good things about this spiritual virtue. Here is but one example:
John 1:12 “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”
I challenge you to consider this question in this upcoming week:
SLIDE 42
WHERE WOULD I PUT MYSELF...ALMOST OR ALTOGETHER?
SLIDE 43
Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them ‘I never knew you, depart from Me…”
SLIDE 44
Come back next week for the rest of the story. I promise it’ll be more exciting than today’s history lesson.
SLIDE 45
To close, I would like to give you an invitation to join me in a prayer. Now, this prayer is the first day’s reading in this little book that I have encouraged you to read.
It’s a prayer of submission that John Wesley collected. He wrote and collected a group of prayers and put them together and printed them in 1733 even before his conversion experience. But this prayer has power. I’m going to invite you to bow your heads with me and close your eyes. And I want you to listen carefully to these words and as I pray them aloud, I want you inside to just simply say amen, amen, amen. Let this be true in me, O God.
"To you, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, my creator, redeemer, and sanctifier, I give up myself entirely. May I no longer serve myself,
but you, all the days of my life."
"I give you my understanding. May it be my only care to know you, your perfections, your work, and your will."
"I give you my will. May I have no will of my own. Whatsoever you will, may I will, and that only."
"I give you my affections. Dispose of them all. Be my love, my fear, my joy; and may nothing have any share in them, but with respect to you and for your sake."
"I give you my body. May I glorify you with it, and preserve it holy fit for you, O God, to dwell in."
"I give you all my worldly goods. May I prize them and use them only for you."
If you are reading the book A Longing for Holiness, I’d encourage you to read and meditate over this Prayer of Submission and some of the other readings this week by Wesley. The appendix about reading spiritual classics at the end of the book is also helpful.
SLIDE 46
Next week I’ll do part 2 of the Faith of Methodist.
How will city slicker Wesley do in the new world with the Native Americans? Why did his mission work to the Indians fail so miserably? And how will Wesley do in love and romance in this foreign land? You may be shocked.
What will you learn from Wesley’s story that will help you in your darkest moments of life? You may be surprised. Be here next week for the Faith of a Methodist, part 2.
SLIDE 47
As we receive your offerings and responses, let’s welcome back our special singing guests. These guys up on the screen look just like them don’t they? Give them a round of applause.
BULLETIN OUTLINE
Sermons About John Wesley
A 50th Anniversary Preaching Series
Pastor Don Hawks—Bethany Church
THE FAITH OF A METHODIST
Part 1
A. THE PENDULUM OF IDEAS – A BRIEF HISTORY OF ENGLAND 1532 – 1700
The great struggles of the 16th – 18th centuries in England:
1. Roman Catholic versus Puritan (Protestant)
2. Enlightenment (Reason) versus Pietism (Experience)
3. Salvation by works versus Salvation by grace through faith
4. Conserving traditions versus Radical reform
Religious Life at Oxford (and throughout England) in the 1720’s:
1. Skepticism toward religious “enthusiasts”
2. A cultural Christianity without personal experience of deep devotion
3. A decline in morality
4. The perceived triumph of reason over religion.
B. INTRODUCING JOHN WESLEY
Wesley’s first 35 years:
1. b. June 17, 1703 – d. March 2, 1791
2. Family – Samuel and Susanna, 19 children, 9 died in infancy, John was
the 15th, Charles b. 1707
3. 1709 – the Epworth fire – a “brand plucked from the burning”
4. Christ Church (College), Oxford University – 1720
5. 1725 – a desire to no longer be a “nominal” Christian but to pursue holiness
6. Beginnings of the “Holy Club” – Oxford Methodists – 1729-1732
7. The failed mission to Georgia – 1736-1738 ----TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK……….
C. WHAT IS AN ALMOST CHRISTIAN?
Almost Christians are almost “_________________.”
D. WHAT IS AN ALTOGETHER CHRISTIAN?
1. The Altogether Christian has a ___________________.
Matthew 22:37 “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind and with all your strength”
2. The Altogether Christian has a ____________________
Matthew 22:38 “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
Wesley -- “If anyone should ask, ‘Who is my neighbor?’ we reply plainly. Your neighbor is every person in the world, every human being created by God, the maker of us all.”
2. The Altogether Christian is __________________.
John 1:12 “To all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God.”
WHERE WOULD I PUT MYSELF...ALMOST OR ALTOGETHER?
Matthew 7:21-23 – “Not everyone who says to Me, “Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, “Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name and done many wonders in Your name? And then I will declare to them ‘I never knew you, depart from Me…”
http://www.biblestudyguide.org/bible-answers/calvin-unconditional-election.htm
http://gbgm-umc.org/UMHistory/Wesley/arminian.stm
http://www.realitytvlinks.com/
http://atheism.about.com/library/FAQs/christian/blchron_xian_reform2.htm
http://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon.asp?SermonID=60055&ContributorID=9280
