Weaverlations

SERMON INTRODUCTION – “A GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES”

So I was fertilizing my lawn a couple of weeks ago, using a rotary spreader, and when I reached the other side of the lawn, I turned around only to realize I could not see where I had been.  You are instructed to slightly overlap swaths to assure uniform coverage; otherwise you will end up with a striped lawn like I had the last time I fertilized my lawn.  Learning from my past mistake, this time I placed a marker where I ended on one side and proceeded to cross back to the other side, where I placed another marker.  I am hoping by navigating by these markers I will have a nice even green lawn.  Is this not a fact of life?  Navigating into the future is much more difficult and stressful when you can’t see or forget where you have been.  You might feel disoriented and at some point you may stop and ask yourself, how did I get here?  What direction am I heading?  Am I heading in the right direction?  In Scripture we read how God time and time again exhorted His people to look back, to remember how they got where they were, to remember how He kept His promises and to remember those who went before them who remained faithful to His call.  I believe recently you celebrated communion.  This is an act of remembrance our Lord Jesus commanded us to partake in as a reminder of His sacrifice for the atoning of our sins.  So it is not only good and helpful that we remember, it is commanded throughout all of Scripture.

ALDERSGATE DAY

Methodists take this Sunday in May to remember the founder of Methodism, John Wesley.  It was on May 24, 1738,  that he experienced assurance of his salvation.  Wesley had reluctantly attended a group meeting that evening on Aldersgate Street in London.  As he heard a reading from Martin Luther's Preface to the Epistle to the Romans, he felt his "heart strangely warmed."   Listen to what Wesley wrote in his journal

"while he was describing the change 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."

Long before this life changing experience, Wesley had been known for his methodical spiritual discipline.  He prayed, he fasted, he gave food to the poor, cared for the sick and even started a school in which he, with the help of a few other seminary classmates, paid the teacher’s salary out of his own pocket.  He was an ordained Anglican priest as was his father.  He sailed across the ocean to the new world on a mission trip.  But despite all his work, the peace and love of God eluded him.  It was upon his return to England that he received consolation from a friend

named Peter Bohler.  It was this friend that invited him to attend that infamous group meeting on Aldersgate Street.  

THE ROMAN ROAD TO GOOD NEWS

What was it about the message he heard that night that was so liberating you might ask?  John, along with his brother Charles Wesley were raised in a family of 19 children.  Their mother and father were responsible for their early instruction and it was here where he developed his methodical approach to discipleship.  Obedience to God’s law was essential to his salvation.  This was the message he learned and reinforced at church and later in his seminary training, but yet he could not feel God’s love.  He was tormented with the question, how good is good enough.  If he were to die in the tempests of a raging storm, such as he experienced in his crossing of the Atlantic, would he be saved from eternal separation from God?  No peace, no security…..but then he heard these words from Epistle of Romans:

“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” –Rms 3:23

“For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” –Rms 6:23

“if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.”  Rms 10:9,10

“13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”  Rms. 10:13

His understanding of these passages revolutionized his preaching.  The Good News that salvation comes by faith in Christ alone, became the focal point of his preaching.  He preached with so much enthusiasm he was removed from the pulpits of the Anglican Church where services were to be conducted with order and with reverence.  So he preached the word outdoors in the open for which many, who could not afford the pew rental fees or for clothes of the correct attire for church attendance, enthusiastically received.  Thousands upon thousands were being converted.  John Wesley used his methodical approach to spiritual discipline to shepherd the new converts.  He trained lay preachers to go out and spread the word on horseback and to organize flocks over which they were to disciple.   Wesley would later send trained men to the new world to do the same.  Methodism played a great part in the development of our nation.  Other nations had tried forms of democracy, but nowhere did it flourish and have the success as it did in America.  A political thinker and historian, Alexis Tocqueville, from France was sent to America to discover the secret formula.  This was his conclusion.  He wrote:

“America is great because America is good.”  

“Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power.  America is good and if it ever ceases to be good she will cease to be great.”

APPLICATION

So what are the markers we see as we look back to our founder this day?  Do you see the church heading in the right direction?  Are we on the right course?  Are you heading in the right direction? I see three markers:

1. If we want to experience the peace and love of God, we must confess with our mouths and believe in our hearts Jesus paid the debt of our sins and it is a gift of God.  Have you asked for and received this gift?  
2. Our acceptance of God is not based on our service.  We were created to serve others but His love is unconditional.  We show our love toward him and demonstrate our faith by serving others.
3. We should be deliberate in our spiritual growth and help disciple others.

John Wesley’s message and his work can be summed up in these verses from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

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 a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. –Ephesians 2:8-10

A GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES (Conclusion)

Now, having shared the realism of God’s grace, I must also share with you God’s truth.  Having the peace of God does not guarantee you a life without conflict or turmoil.  In fact, the apostle Peter warns us that we can expect trials and persecution.  However, we can endure or overcome them with confidence when we look back on the faith of those who went before us.  In Hebrews chapter 11 we are given quite of list of heroes of faith.  And in chapter 12 we are encouraged to run the race that is set before us because we are told we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.  That word “cloud” is the Greek word, nephos, which carries the meaning of the highest bleacher seats in a stadium; the cloud seats.  Imagine yourself on the field in Ohio Stadium.  You are surrounded by a 100,000 cheering fans.  All eyes are on you. The fight of faith is on! But if you’ll look up into the bleachers of Heaven for just a moment, you’ll see that they are stacked all the way to the “clouds” with people just like you!