A 300 Year Debt
Dr. James Mayfield
June 22, 2003
Text: Ephesians 2:8-10 Today, I am going to use the life of John Wesley to help us rediscover the message in the passage we read. When he was 22, Wesley had not yet decided what to do with his life, so his parents decided for him. "You will be a priest." At the time Wesley's faith was rather superficial. He viewed salvation as merely not being as bad as other people, going to church, reading the Bible, and saying his prayers. But being an obedient son, and perhaps not knowing what else to do he began the process toward ordination. From reading his journal, it appears it is at this point he set out to make himself into a person who would be worthy of God, a person whose soul would be in union with God, or as Wesley put it "attain inward holiness." However, the more the tried, the more he was aware of how far he was from being someone worthy of God. "I cried to God for help," Wesley wrote. And he resolved to obey God as he had never done before. By the time he was 27, Wesley was involved in visiting prisons, assisting the poor and sick, and, as he said: "...doing what good I could by my presence or my little (money)...." He was so persistent and intense in his sacrificial service to others, he was made fun of. With rigorous effort and amazing self-discipline, he strived to do God's will in all things. This desire to be worthy of God, doing God's will in all things, is part of what motivated him to accept the offer to go to Georgia, to be the priest in an English settlement and a missionary to the Indians. A significant factor (perhaps the major factor) motivating Wesley in his rigorous religious pursuit of inward holiness was his awareness of death. Facing the reality of death, whether it is the death of a loved one or our own death, often leads us to questions about what happens to us when we die, and that leads us into questions about our relationship with God. While we have only occasional experiences of dealing with the reality of death, in Wesley's day death of was everywhere present. After all, when he lived soap was not in common use; germs had not been identified as causes of disease; simple wounds often became infected and people died just because they had a bad scratch. Infant death, the death of mothers giving birth, and the death of children were common place. Little wonder questions about going to heaven and avoiding hell were live issues in Wesley's day. This issue became a crisis for Wesley on his trip to Georgia. The ship on which he sailed ran into a series of storms. On board the ship was a group of German Moravians who continued in their worship service even when the storm was so violent it split the mainsail. The English on board were screaming; Wesley was frightened, but the German Moravians calmly sang hymns. Afterwards Wesley asked one of them: "Weren't you afraid?" "I thank God, no." he answered. "But were not your women and children afraid?" Mildly the Moravian replied: "No; our women and children are not afraid to die." Years later, Wesley wrote confessing that face to face with the possibility of death, his religious efforts did not give him a sense of peace. "... the image of God, was what I aimed at in all, by doing his will, not my own. Yet when, after continuing some years in this course, I apprehended myself to be near death, I could not find that all this gave me any comfort, nor any assurance of acceptance with God." I am convinced it was this crisis, this time of facing the possibility of his own death and discovering the emptiness of his own soul, that opened Wesley to begin to understand statements such as the one we read today. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not of your own doing; it is a gift of God -- not the result of works...." But as most of us know, more often than not, time and experience are needed to help us digest and fully understand profound, new insights. So it was for Wesley. He continued his striving, preaching faith, not because he had it but because he longed for it. Yet he continued his work laden pursuit toward what he called "inward holiness" or "a union of the soul with God." In Georgia, he was a failure both as a priest and as a missionary. So much so, that he was run out the country. He came home humiliated and humbled. Later he wrote: I went to America to convert the Indians; but Oh! who shall convert me? Who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief? I have a fair summer religion. I can talk well; nay, and believe myself, while no danger is near; but let death look me in the face, and my spirit is troubled. Nor can I say: "To die is gain!" However, because of this crisis Wesley had a new perspective, or at least a new set of questions. He was aware, as never before, that what he needed was to have true faith. But how? By the grace of God, when he returned to England a man by the name of Peter Bohler, helped him see that he needed more than knowledge of the Bible and the routine of church ritual. Salvation, came by God's generous grace through faith. It is in trusting grace, we are made whole, saved. Wesley needed to experience the grace of God, and to do that he needed the gift of faith, the gift of totally trusting God's love that was revealed in Jesus Christ. And so, Wesley began to pray earnestly, renouncing all dependence on his own efforts. He strove to rely only on Christ. Then, on Wednesday, May 24, 1738, the 35 year old John Wesley went to a religious society meeting on Aldersgate Street. And while someone was reading from Martin Luther's preface to the Book Of Romans, about the change God works in human hearts through faith in Christ, Wesley felt his heart strangely warmed. He wrote: "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." Through this experience, Wesley knew as he had never known before what these familiar words mean: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is a gift of God -- not the result of works...." This was not the end of Wesley's faith struggles, but clearly, after this experience, those struggles were not as they had been before. Now let's look at the other part of the passage we read this morning. Its meaning is reflected both in Wesley's life and in the work of the people called Methodists. After proclaiming that we are saved by grace through faith, the passage goes on to declare: For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. From the very beginning, God's grace has provided work, good work for us. We are not merely to love God and neighbor in the abstract. We are given the good gift of being able to express our love in words and deeds. We are what he has made us; each of us has been given gifts, talents for doing the deeds of love, you in your way, me in mine. We have been created, to respond to God's love by investing our God given gifts in the opportunities we have been given to love God and neighbor. This is just what Wesley did in response to God's grace; he invested his God given gifts in opportunities to love of God and neighbor. For example, in his work among the poor throughout England, he used his gifts of speaking and organization to enable them to assist one another in both faith and works; he used his gifts and the opportunities God presented to set up Sunday schools, which in those days were the only schools the children of the poor had to learn to read and write and learn basic math, so that they might escape the bondage of their poverty. He used his gifts of intelligence and writing, to make information about health and medication available to the poor. He used his influence and persuasive gifts trying to correct social injustice. In fact the last letter he wrote before he died was a letter expressing his contempt for the evil of slavery, especially as it was practiced in what he called "the colonies." Even 300 years after his birth, we can learn a lot from John Wesley's life, because as I see it, his life can be viewed as an illustration of the Gospel proclaimed in the passage we read: 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God - 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life. God, may this passage shape our understanding of life and the way we live. Amen. (For those who want to read more about John Wesley, I suggest A Real Christian, The Life Of John Wesley by Kenneth J. Collins, published by Abingdon Press in 1999.) Pastoral prayer: Let us thank God for our blessings. JR. HIGH MISSION TRIP (return today) God, on this day we celebrate the gift of your servant John Wesley, we are reminded of other, amazing ways you have worked with us in the past and in the present. You are beyond our ability to understand. Time and space cannot confine you. You are so far beyond us, and yet you continue to be at work in our fleeting and limited time, in our jealously contested space, astonishing us with the gifts of forgiveness and the offer of hope. You are fiercely free, beyond our imagining, and yet you come among us to warn and to calm us, to disturb us and delight us, bringing us grace and peace. Regardless of our sin, you come to us, overturning the barriers we have constructed between ourselves and you, between ourselves and others -- opening us to your love that is boundless, a love that is offered to us, a love we are given to share with others. As you worked through your servant John Wesley, we pray that you will work through us, so that like him our living will be used in doing your will. Enable us to live the prayer Jesus taught us: "Our Father ...."
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