"The Practices of a Methodist"
(3nd message in a 3-part sermon series)Sermon Transcript for October 24, 2004
Scripture Reading: I Peter 13-16
By Rev. Mike Beck
Let me encourage you to review the materials that are out there on the table so that you can study at home more fully our roots as Methodists. Let me, as we begin this morning, say that this series of sermons and programs on Wednesday evening and Tuesday evening out at the United Methodist Community have not been to say that we as Methodists somehow have a corner on Christianity, that we are somehow better than other denominations. Nothing could be further from the truth of our intent. But our intent has been that we as a church and as individuals might re-learn and understand the rich heritage that we have as Wesleyan Christians—a heritage that has something important to say to the world beginning in the 21st Century. And as we have understood that heritage more fully and the foundational principles that brought us into being that we will know where we are suppose to be going, where we’ve gotten off trace. And an understanding of that heritage can result in our individual lives our church, our denomination, finding renewal and revival in our midst.
You’ve got a place there to write some notes for the sermon today. I want you to write down what Wesley saw as his purpose: that being “to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land”. And as we begin this morning, I want to emphasize each of those two words—scriptural, holiness. In terms of Methodist view of the Scripture, we spoke in the first messages Methodist being the people of the “middle way”. And I want to clarify that a little more fully for it does not mean that we as Methodist just believe anything we want to believe. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Wesley would roll over in his grave today if he knew some of the latest popular theologies and philosophies that were being taught in seminaries across our land. Wesley held firmly to the classical Christian doctrines of Orthodox Christianity that my class, The Christian Believer, is currently seeking to understand more fully. But when we say Methodist are people of the middle way, what we are saying is that Methodist believe you don’t check your mind at the door when you came into church this morning. And although Scriptural is primary, we don’t need to be afraid to explore that faith to allow Scripture to be informed by reasoning, by tradition, by experience. We as Methodists believe that there are some of the issues of our day that we are still wrestling as we seek to discover God’s truth related to those difficult issues. But it certainly does not mean that we just believe anything we want to believe. Nothing could be further from the truth.
I might illustrate this “middle way” with the sacrament of Baptism. If you were to be a part of certain denominations, they would insist that there is only one way to be baptized. When we as Methodists say to our people, baptism is important. If you desire your child to be baptized as an infant, that’s part of our tradition. I’m happy to do that. If you desire your child to wait until the time that they make their own profession of faith in Christ to be baptized, we say, “That’s fine”. In terms of the form of baptism, we practice sprinkling, pouring or baptism by immersion. We do not insist one way is better than the other. And, if you become a part of a United Methodist Church and you have been baptized in another faith and another tradition, we acknowledge that baptism. That’s a beautiful example of what it means when we say people called Methodists are people of the “middle way”. That illustrates that; but it does not mean that we just accept any and every belief that comes down the pipe.
Wesley said his purpose was to spread scriptural holiness. He defined holiness this way. He said, “Holiness is to love God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength and to love your neighbor as you love yourself.” And Wesley taught that although we should be moving on to perfection, to a life of holiness, Wesley acknowledged that we would probably never reach perfection of action, but yet we could reach a point where the intent and desire of our heart had become perfected that above all things we wanted to honor God in all that we said and did.
In today’s scripture were these phrases, “Prepare your minds for action”; “as obedient children of God, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance of the gospel”; and those words of Jesus, “be holy, as God is holy”. Last week we were reminded that Wesley did not observe those things taking place within most Anglican churches of his day. He wanted to see revival come to the church. He wanted to reach irreligious and nominally religious people with the gospel, which is why he resorted to what he first considered as vile. You may have remembered him saying in his journal, “I couldn’t imagine a person being saved outside the walls of the church.” But most of Wesley’s preaching took place outside of church to the common folks who welcomed him gladly for he faced great opposition from those religious leaders of the day. And he preached that religion ought to be more than just going through the motions of “doing church” on Sunday morning. That we ought to do more than just talk the talk; that we ought to be walking the walk as disciples of Jesus Christ.
And so today we want to look at some of the practices of a Methodist that Wesley believed God used to change people’s lives. For again, Wesley wasn’t preaching any new doctrine. He was preaching a particular way of living out the Christian faith. There are four practices of a Methodist I want to lift up today.
Preaching: The first is preaching. Wesley believed what the Scripture said that something can happen in people’s lives as they heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed in preaching, which is why in Methodist churches, the pulpit is in most churches given a more primary place than the altar. Not that the altar is diminished in its importance, but to me as Methodists, the preaching of the Word is central. Adam Hamilton to which I borrowed much in these messages, talked about being on an airplane and talking to a parishioner in another church who said that their priest had promised them he would never preach a message longer than seven minutes in length. And Adam Hamilton said, “I was kind of offended by that.” Because he normally preaches 35-40 minutes, and he said, “I’m just getting warmed up at seven minutes.” We as Methodists believe the preaching of the Word and applying it in people’s daily lives is critically important. That explains why many good Methodists, even if we’ve had a powerfully, experiential, emotional service of a variety of kinds, if we haven’t had a sermon many good Methodists don’t really feel like they’ve been to church. Wesley preached, get this, 40,000 sermons in his lifetime. 40,000! There are some retired Methodist pastors out there that probably got a couple of thousand in, but I bet there is none of you that approached 40,000.
And here is a sidelight that is very relevant to this congregation with so many retired people in our midst. Wesley felt his most effective years of ministry were after the age of 65! In fact, he wrote in his journal that he thought he was a better preacher at 80 than he was in his late 20’s and early 30’s. And, boy, when you look at Wesley’s schedule, he never did retire. I want you to listen to his journal as he talks about his preaching schedule in April of 1790. And as you hear his word, remember this man is 87 years of age. Listen to what he wrote in his journal:
“On Thursday morning, one of my horses died. I judged it best to leave the other until I could procure another and took the postal carriage to Stockport. A large congregation was ready at 6:00 p.m. in the evening. In the morning on Good Friday, we went on to Olden. The new preaching house would in no ways contain the congregation. But I preached to as many as it would contain. On Sunday, April the 4th, being Easter day, I think we had about 1,600 communicants. I preached both morning and evening without weariness. And in the evening, lay down in peace. On Monday, calling at Effingham, I was desired to speak a few words to the people in the new chapel. But almost as soon as I’d gotten thither, the preaching house was filled! And soon after, more than filled! So I preached on I Peter, Chapter 1, Verse 3. And many praised God with joyful lips. About 12:00 I preached in the chapel at Northridge to a large and very lively congregation. And in the evening met once more with our old, affectionate friends at Chester.”
Listen to those words! Even if you are retired, you are not too old to teach a children’s Sunday School class. There’s a place of ministry for you in every phase of life!
Singing: Secondly, one of the characteristics of a Methodist is singing. Charles Wesley wrote between 6,000 and 9,000 hymns many of which were set to tunes that were much easier to sing than the singing that was going on in Anglican churches of his day. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that Charles Wesley was the Steve Green or the Bill Gaither of the Michael W. Smith of his day. Methodists believed that in singing we would, in the words of the psalmist, “hide the word of God in our heart”. That’s why those of you with children, when you see it is time to begin practice for another of our children’s musical, even if your kid isn’t the world’s greatest singer, they need to be a part of that musical. Because as they practice over a two or three month period that 30-minute musical, I am quite confident that both of my boys got more Christian doctrine that they remember in a half a dozen children’s musicals that they participated in than they did their Dad’s sermons on Sunday morning.
We have to remember in that particular day many people were still illiterate. And so Wesley believed that singing would help them learn Christian doctrine as they sang the hymns. I want you to take out your hymnal and I want you to turn at the very beginning to Roman numeral number vii. It will be only about three pages into your hymnal. The Roman numeral is at the bottom of the page. You see, we Methodist have instructions for everything; that’s why we are called Methodist. If you don’t believe that, I’ll let you borrow my Book of Discipline sometime. It’s wonderful bedtime reading if you are going to have trouble falling to sleep. There are directions for everything we do. And in your hymnal, there are directions for singing which I urge you sometime before the service, not now, there are some there that are rather humorous if you’ve never read them before. But I want you to turn to the next two pages, which is the content of our hymnal. And I want you to follow the order of hymns as I recite to you some familiar words of the Apostle’s Creed. The Apostle’s Creed says, “I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth.” Take a look at films numbered 57 through 144. They speak to that. “And in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord”, look at hymns 153 to 302. They speak of the work of Christ. “I believe in the Holy Spirit…” hymns number 328 to 509. “I believe in the holy catholic church…” (Not the Catholic Church as in the Roman Catholic Church. That’s capital “C”. Small “c” the church universal.) And notice hymns 537 to 694, which talk about the church. And then the Apostle’s Creed concludes, “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.” Notice hymns 700 to 722. See, we Methodists think that singing helps people to learn the basics of our faith.
Small Groups: The third characteristic of Methodists is small groups. Wesley was not the best preacher of his day. George Whitfield was far more inspiring to listen to than Wesley. But John Wesley was an organizational genius. He organized people in ways that would help them to grow in their faith, to become as we talked about in the first sermon, “all-together Christians”. Within the Anglican Church were Methodist societies. In total they were called, “The United Societies of the People Called Methodists”. Here is what Wesley expected they would do. He expected they would go to the Anglican Church on Sunday to receive the sacrament of communion. He believed they ought to join together in one of the Methodist preaching houses sometime during the week to hear the word proclaimed, to sing, and to pray. But then he also expected that they would come together one other time each week in small groups so they could hold each other accountable to how they were living out their faith.
Time will not allow me to go into detail as to how these groups were organized. But let me read you three brief statements that are in our Philosophy of Ministry here at Grace and see how they are so distinctly Wesleyan. “Acceptance of Christ as Savior must be followed by involvement in discipleship ministries where persons learn to honor Jesus as Lord in all areas of their lives.” This statement, “Lives are best transformed in small groups.” And then a third statement, “Care-giving is the responsibility of the entire church and is best accomplished through networks of loving, caring relationships.” And, friends, as important as this hour is, those networks aren’t created here. They are created when you become a part of a small group.
There are so many ways in which, if you want to see the way forward as a church, watch what our youth are currently doing. I received this e-mail from Steve Wakefield this week. I want to read a part of it to you. He said, “Mike, this Wednesday is our first House Church meetings of our youth. The following leaders are hosting the youth: I’ll be hosting the 6th grade guys. My wife, Brenda, the 6th, 7th, and 8th grade girls. Mike Taylor the 7th and 8th grade guys. Sara Warwick the freshman girls. Richard Clark the freshman guys. Scott Mann and Kolin Brown (who is a new Christian) the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade boys. Michelle Mann, Kristine Sweet, and Cari Klotzsche the 10th, 11th, and 12th grade girls. Our hope is to have two volunteers for each of these groups. That will require a total of fourteen leaders. Pray for that to happen over the next six months. That’s one of our characteristics as Methodists. Steve has realized when you put a 6th grade guy in with an 8th grade girl; it’s not going to work. If you want real spiritual growth to take place and you put freshmen girls in with senior guys, they are never going to get past the hormones that are waging! And Steve is organizing house churches for his youth. And you see, house churches let the youth group get larger and are not dependant totally on him.
One of the best days of our renewal leave was on the evening we went to Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London, which is where the ALPHA course originated. We got there early and it was a good thing we did because by 5:00 p.m. in the evening it was packed to overflowing. But the gentleman that was seated next to me was a couple of years older probably than I was. We had a chance to talk before the service began. And he said, “I am a lay leader here at the church.” He said, “I have ten small group leaders under me. Each of those ten small group leaders have eight to ten people that meet with them once a week for the first three weeks of each month. And then on the fourth week, we all come together in one big group under my leadership.” And I thought to myself, Brother Wesley is looking down from heaven and saying, “That’s just exactly what I had in mind.” Small groups are a characteristic and practice of Methodists.
The Ministry of the Laity: And then fourthly is the ministry of the laity. There were some ordained Anglican clergy in the early Methodist movement but it was predominantly lay preachers, lay leaders. And one thing we as Methodists can be proud of, is we paved the way in terms of the involvement of women in ministry from the earliest days of Methodism. Listen to another statement in our Philosophy of Ministry here at Grace: “Church leaders are to train, enable, empower, and motivate people to be in ministry that utilizes their spiritual gifts.” But every one of our paid staff persons are not paid to do the ministry. They are paid to equip the laity to do their ministry and to use their spiritual gifts.
And so you want God to transform your life? Be faithful in these three practices as a Methodist:
1) Be regular in worship
2) Get involved in a small group, and
3) Find a place of ministry that matches your spiritual gifts.
How many of those three practices can you put a check in? And I’m going to pick on Linda Wirey. Linda you can check all three because you are part of the Friendship Circle and whether you realize it or not, Linda was involved in ministry this morning because when Jane Hughey came to church, Linda was ready and waiting for Jane in the parking lot so that when she made that difficult walk through the church doors that first Sunday after the death of her Mom, she didn’t make that walk alone. Worship, a small group, a place of ministry.
I want to mention just a couple of quick things in closing. We Methodist have rules and regulations for everything. We have what are called the “General Rules”. They are quite lengthy. Some of them are very culturally oriented to Wesley’s day. But in general, the Methodist rules are these. I’m going to give you the short version. There are three.
1. Avoid evil. If somebody, for example, starts gossiping, walk away. If you’ve got it on a TV channel and something suggestive comes on, change the channel. Of course, problem is, there will probably be something suggestive on that channel too. But avoid evil.
2. Do all the good you can. In fact, I think it said, do all the good you can, every place you can, every time you can. But simply do all the good you can.
3. Attend to the Ordinances of God. Things like Scripture, prayer, fasting, being in worship. The things that God laid out and designed for us to grow.
Those are our rules, as Methodists, that Wesley believed would help us make a difference in the world. In fact, Wesley said that this way is the Methodist way of doing Christianity would produce this end result.
1. Passion for God. It would develop in us passion after God. God would be the driving force in our lives.
2. Personal Holiness. That when people looked at our lives they would see a life that was different than other people around them. That’s the doctrine of sanctification that we talked about earlier. But Wesley clearly taught that it was more than a personal walk with the Lord.
3. Social Involvement. Our passion for God should express itself in social involvement. That we get our hands dirty in the business of politics, community affairs. That we get involved in the hands-on mission outreach. You’ve noticed in the bulletin over the last couple of weeks, Mike Taylor, Janet Gorrell and Joella Patterson are going to be at Redbird. That’s the third result that Wesley believed ought to take place in the life of the all-together Christian. That they were making a difference in the society around them for the better.
Wesley preached his final sermon on February 23, 1791 at Leatherhead in the out-of-doors. I saw the table that at age 87 he stood on (it wasn’t very big!) to be seen for that final sermon. He caught a cold; he took a turn for the worse. And he died at the City Road Chapel just a couple of weeks later. In the years that preceded Wesley’s death, unlike earlier in his ministry, the man was now held in high esteem throughout the land. Revival had come to England. Churches were reawakened with the love of God. That revival spread to America in what is called the “Great Awakening”. And his final words on his deathbed have been quoted often. He simply said, “Best of all, God is with us”.
I want you to notice as we close, this picture of the statue there in front of City Road Chapel that was finished in 1778 to replace the foundry that they had been meeting in for forty years. There’s a large statue of Wesley in front of City Road Chapel now called Wesley Chapel. But I want you to notice the direction the statue is facing. The statue is not facing toward the church. The statue is facing outward to the world. John Wesley said, “The world is my parish.”
It was interesting; George Jacobs had come in early this week to make some copies of something. And with great joy, he shared of how the Faith Sharing class was growing. He said, “We have 25 in our Sunday School class last week.” But then we commented to each other and we remarked, “When did that growth begin?” It began at the very same time that the Faith Sharing class came to understand what was happening at the Johnson County Food Pantry. Every week, men in the Faith Sharing Class go up and volunteer at the Food Pantry. And George and I commented, “Isn’t it interesting that the growth of that class occurred in direct correspondence with the class turning out to meet the needs around them.”
Friends, more than ever the world needs Methodist Christians…persons wholly devoted to God, longing to pursue His holiness, loving all of God’s children, and making a difference in the world around us. Would you pray with me, “O God, we give You thanks and praise for the witness and faith of those early Methodists led by John and Charles Wesley. Raise up within Grace Church, raise up in this sleeping giant of a denomination known as the United Methodists Church, a generation of Methodist Christians who are passionate about their faith, longing to know You with their intellect, to love You with their hears, and to serve You with their hands. Give us Wesley’s passion to reach non-religious and nominally religious people with the gospel, to see revival come in our midst in the society around us. As we have sought to remember our roots as Methodist Christians through the same Holy Spirit that brought faith and assurance to John and Charles Wesley there in London in 1738, through that same Holy Spirit may you revive us again! Amen.
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