John Wesley

Sermon – May 22 2011 – Aldersgate Sunday – Romans 1:8-17, Matthew 25:31-46

Charles Allen writes, “The United Methodist Church began with John Wesley. He was born in Epworth England June 17, 1703. He died in London, March 2, 1791. Those 85 years contained a most remarkable life.

Wesley’s first 10 years were spent in the parsonage in Epworth, where his father, the Reverend Samuel Wesley, a minister in the Church of England, was rector. Perhaps no experience affected Wesley’s life more than the one that occurred on February 9, 1709. The family home was on fire. It was thought that all the family were safely out of the house. Then it was discovered that John was trapped in an upstairs room. He was rescued, and his mother dedicated the child to God anew, saying, “a brand plucked out of the burning.”

John Wesley was no self-made man. He attended Charterhouse and Oxford University. His acute mind and sensitive soul were greatly influenced by a formal education. He gained a reputation for scholarships and became an intellectually outstanding man.

For nine year Wesley served as a fellow of Lincoln College, with a brief interim as his father’s assistant. Later he came to Savannah Georgia, as a missionary; and it was at this time we began to see the breakdown of Wesley’s high-church religion. His ministry in Georgia was not successful. He wrote in his journal, “Why, that I, who went to America to convert others, was never myself converted to God?”

In Savannah, Wesley came to know a Moravian pastor by the name of August Spangenberg. On the ship going back to England, Wesley found himself bringing with fear in the midst of a storm, while watching the Moravians face the peril with perfect poise.

Then on Wednesday evening May 24, 1738, John wrote this, “In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change in which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. I began to pray with all my might for those who had in a more especial manner despitefully used and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart.”

During the year after this conversion, Wesley made four momentous decisions. First, he approved field preaching. He found himself shut out of churches because of the content of his preaching, so he took to the open fields. He was an evangelist. Going to the people.

Second, he approved of lay preaching. IT was insane to think about finding enough ordained ministers to carry this new movement. People were being converted and needed biblical teaching. To permit the unordained to preach was scandalous to high-church officials, but John Wesley stood by his decision.

Third, he decided to organize converts, give them supervision, he became a practical churchman.

Fourth, Wesley decided to house his societies. The world’s first Methodist chapel was a Bristol, May 12, 1739. This was the beginning of the housing of Methodism.

John Wesley met the needs of his day and generation, with it masses of people who were defeated. HE declared the availability of God’s grace to all people – that every person is a child of God. To churches he proclaimed a salvation that would make a religion a power instead of a burden, that would lift religion from drudgery to joyful fellowship with God. He was also concerned with the society in which he lived. Not only could you feel God, but you must act upon that feeling.

There was only one condition required of those who desired membership in the Society, a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins. Those who desired to continue in the Society, however, were expected to evidence their desire for salvation:

First, by doing no harm, avoiding evil in every kind, especially that which is most generally practiced. Second, by doing good of every possible sort, and, as far as possible, to all people. Third, be attending upon all the ordinances of God, to stay in love with God through: worship, public and private prayer, study, fasting, and partaking in Holy Communion.

Another major part of United Methodist is our doctrine of grace. Wesley felt that God’s grace was available to all people. That God loves you even before you know it, his grace is there before you are born and at the minute of your first breath. His grace sustains us and carries us all through our lives. Grace.

So, now that I have shared with you about John Wesley and early Methodism, I ask you this morning, are you a Methodist? Are you a Methodist with your heart strangely warmed? Do you feel the Spirit of God within you?

If you answer no, don’t give up. God loves you and his grace is upon you. We all have to be renewed to feel the strange warmth in our hearts many times in our lives. IF you answer yes, don’t give up. It’s something that has to be continually worked on and strengthened.

Earlier this year, we discussed the “Three Simple Rules” of Methodism. Did you recognize them when I read them? They are rules that we should know like the back of our hand. To do no harm, to do good, and stay in love with God. If you follow these rules, you will find your heard strangely warmed as Wesley did.

Now, how? I believe following the rules is both a private and a public demonstration. You have to believe the rules, you have to have faith that God loves you, God believes in you, God’s grace is for you. You have to want to be saved from the sin of this world. After that, you have to be willing and ready for God to use you. You have to be willing to listen, willing to wait, willing to act. Listen and act through the simple rules, through prayer, through study, through discipline, through, Holy Communion, through fellowship, through worship.

Often times I think our problem, our sin, our downfall, is that we forget. We take God for granted. We figure church attendance every now and then, is ok because we are good people. We remember to pray in church, but forget to talk to God the rest of the week. We may open our Bibles when we need something, but forget that the Bible is our roadmap for life, we wander lost when we have the answers right in front of us. We might put a dollar in the offering plate to thank God for a blessings, but our checkbook often shows thanking God as the last thing. We forget. We take God for granted.

My prayer on this Aldersgate Sunday is that we all be open to having our hearts strangely warmed by God. We strive to be a better Christian, a better United Methodist. That we go and follow the rules Wesley gave us 250 years ago, and find that place on peace and contentment in live and in death as Wesley did. AMEN