May 31st, 2026 - "Methodist Refresh: Ministry in a Whirlwind - John Wesley and the People Called Methodists" - Rev. Dr. T. Ray Wheeler

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today or just want to find

out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please visit us

online at fumcbentonville.org or check us out on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok.

Rev. Dr. T. Ray Wheeler: Thank you choir.

It's great to be here this morning.

I'm so glad you're here.

I'm Ray Wheeler, the associate pastor here.

It's my joy to bring the message this morning.

I hope if you're in this space, you feel welcomed and celebrated and

loved, and if you're joining online, I hope that you also feel welcomed and

celebrated and loved in this space.

We're continuing our Methodist refresh, Methodist 101, if you will,

and I'm gonna focus mostly on the early years of John, up until maybe

into his 40s this morning, to kind of give us a background on John Wesley.

It's called John Wesley and the People Called Methodist.

My scripture lesson this morning is from 1 John 5:1-5.

1 John 5:1–5

Listen for the Word of God contained in this holy scripture.

"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born from God.

Whoever loves someone who is a parent, loves the child born to the parent.

This is how we know that we love the children of God, when we love

God and keep God's commandments.

This is the love of God.

We keep God's commandments.

God's commandments are not difficult because everyone who is born from

God defeats the world, and this is the victory that has defeated the

world, our faith." This is the Word of God for us, the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

I would love it if you'd join me for a prayer this morning, and if

you feel comfortable, let's close our eyes and take some deep breaths

and connect with the Holy Spirit present in the place this morning

Holy God, we're grateful for those who have gone before

us in this Christian walk.

Teach us to listen and learn the lessons they have left for us, that

we might more fully walk in the way of Christ, our Lord and Redeemer.

Amen In our scripture lesson this morning, John tells us that those who are born of

God overcome the world through faith, and that victory is not always neat and tidy.

Sometimes faith is lived out in the middle of struggle or

doubt or controversy or change.

John Wesley knew something about that.

John Wesley practiced ministry in a whirlwind.

For John, it was a whirlwind of controversy and pushing back against

what he saw as the evils and the injustices of the 18th century.

It was also a whirlwind created by what he believed was the apathy

and complacency of the religious leaders of his day, of the church.

But Wesley's greatest whirlwind was not outside of him, it was inside.

John lived in a whirlwind of heart and mind, a struggle with

doubt and self-condemnation that followed him much of his young adult

life up until about thirty-five.

He questioned whether his sins were forgiven.

He questioned whether he was worthy of God's love.

He questioned if he was truly a Christian.

If you're sitting today in this space and you're wrestling with your faith and you

have doubts, you're in the right space.

John Wesley is a good person to know.

We modern-day Methodists are the beneficiaries of Wesley

wrestling with his faiths.

We reap the rewards of a man who faithfully worked out his

salvation with fear and trembling while seeking to follow Christ.

But John did not begin in a whirlwind.

He began as a gifted student, a brilliant intellect, and he had a

remarkable facility with languages.

His first teacher was his mother, Susanna Wesley, a remarkable woman.

She taught all of her children at home.

They were all homeschooled.

And perhaps more than anyone else in John Wesley's life, she helped

shape his faith and character.

And throughout his ministry, John continued to seek her advice and

counsel as long as she lived.

I was part of a group of United Methodist pastors, traveled through England

several years ago, and we visited these historic sites of early Methodism.

And we were very fortunate to have with us a distinguished Methodist scholar and

minister, the Reverend Dr. Tim McQueeban.

And Dr. Tim, as we affectionately called him, was retired, but

he had an amazing career.

He taught at both Oxford and at Cambridge.

He was an ambassador to Rome, to the Pope at one time, a

very, very knowledgeable guy.

So one evening while we're sitting in a pub, I said to Dr. Tim, "I believe Susanna

Wesley had a much greater influence On John and the Methodist movement than

Samuel Wesley, John's father, did. And he replied immediately, "Oh, yes.

If John Wesley is the theological and intellectual father of

Methodism, then Susanna Wesley is the mother of Methodism."

And then Dr. Tim reflected on Samuel Wesley's contribution,

and I really can't repeat what he said from the pulpit exactly.

Uh, let's just say he was much more enthusiastic about Susanna

than he was about Samuel.

It's remarkable because women at this time, they could not attend university.

Universities were all-male student bodies.

She was self-educated.

She taught herself.

Very keen intellect.

She insisted that her daughters learn to read before they learned household chores.

She didn't go along with conventions that women shouldn't be educated, of course.

And looking back, it's not difficult to see where some of Methodism's

deepest values originated.

The discipline, the commitment to prayer, the expectation that faith

shapes our daily life, all of these were present in John's household

long before he preached a sermon.

Often, Susanna was left by herself to manage the household.

Samuel Wesley, John's father, was a frustrated academic and poet, and

he frequently spent months away in London pursuing other interests.

So Susanna would be there by herself, and after teaching the children all

day, she would set aside time for her private prayer and devotion.

Finding a quiet place in a room full of children, in a parsonage full

of children, she had nine children who lived, uh, beyond, uh, infancy,

was always, uh, a, a challenge.

But sh- here's what she would do.

She would sit in a chair in the kitchen and take her apron

and pull it up over her head.

And so when the children saw the apron over Susanna's head, they

knew she was communing with God, and she was not to be disturbed.

So John excelled academically.

By the age of 11, he could read both Greek and Hebrew.

He entered Oxford at 17 and graduated at 20, and he was immediately asked

to be a fellow at the college, to be a don or a professor at Oxford.

However, at that time, all of the teachers at Oxford, all the

professors, they had to be ordained ministers in the Anglican Church.

So he had to be ordained if he was going to teach at Oxford,

and he did that very reluctantly.

He was pretty sure a parish ministry was not his calling, but he wanted to

continue to teach, so he was ordained.

He began with education and talent and opportunity.

He did not begin in a whirlwind John could have lived a very comfortable

life teaching at Oxford and preaching occasionally in nearby churches.

But his younger brother Charles complicated things for him.

Charles had come to Oxford, and Charles had been involved with a group

of students committed to prayer and Bible study and mutual accountability.

They became known as the Holy Club.

And Charles persuaded John to come and attend Holy Club meetings, and within

a year, John was leading the Holy Club.

So what begins as a student Bible study became a laboratory

for Christian discipleship.

From the very beginning, Wesley believed that faith must

be both inward and outward.

Some practices deepen our relationship with God, and others express

God's love to those around us.

The first type Wesley called works of piety, prayer, Bible study, worship, Holy

Communion, small group accountability.

Those were works of piety.

The second he called works of mercy, feeding the hungry, visiting

prisoners, caring for the sick, serving the poor, works of mercy.

For John, Charles, and the members of the Holy Club, it was never enough to

simply cultivate your own salvation.

You're called to express gratitude for God's grace through the

acts of mercy toward others.

What later generations, and us particularly, would call social holiness.

So it was interesting as I studied this, John was influenced

by a lot of people around him.

He didn't just spring up having all of these ideas.

And a lot of people in the Holy Club influenced him as well.

And there was a man, very important influencer named William Morgan.

And Morgan challenged John to minister among the poor and to teach

orphan children and to care for the elderly and visit prisoners.

And he had a special heart for the Castle Prison, which was Oxford's notorious

prison, very terrible circumstances there.

And he really wanted John to minister to those prisoners.

And John was a little reluctant at first.

But once he went out and saw what the need was, he really took a

turn and he really wanted to help.

He really wanted to be part of that ministry.

So we find Wesley living both with works of piety and works of mercy at this time.

He taught at Oxford.

He preached regularly.

But he visited prisons and he cared for the poor and he gave away a

lot of his income that he made from teaching to support these ministries.

So he's doing a lot of good things.

And yet, in spite of all that, he still does not feel the assurance of God's love.

It's kind of interesting.

A lot of his friends would say, "Hey, just relax.

You can have a nice parish.

You can have a nice life.

Why are you pushing all this?" But he couldn't.

He couldn't leave it alone.

He couldn't take the easy way.

And yet, with all this, he still felt empty.

And we know the story about Aldersgate.

You know what happened there.

He went to Aldersgate, and he finally had an experience that connected the

intellectual part of his brain, the, the way he studied scripture and studied

theology, and it connected it to his heart, and he felt strangely warmed, and

that faith had finally reached into him.

But it wasn't the end of the whirlwind.

He still, even after Aldersgate, he still struggled with doubts.

We know this from his diaries.

He kept copious diaries.

And we know that he was still struggled, but he had a marker.

He had a place.

"I can remember how I felt when I was at Aldersgate," and that kept him grounded.

It kept him moving in a good direction.

His works of mercy then are not just driven as they were before.

They're not driven by primary obligation or trying to be

good enough to be accepted.

They're driven by gratitude.

But not everyone appreciated his enthusiasm or the

enthusiasm of the Holy Club.

The Holy Club's passion for holy living and ministry among the poor created

a lot of tension with the faculty at Oxford and the fellow students.

The Church of England officially taught acts of personal

holiness and social holiness.

They were just a little uncomfortable with the intensity of John and the Holy Club.

So Kristen related to us how he had decided to be more vile and preach in

Bristol to the coal miners on the field.

So after that, he was invited.

If you were a teacher at Oxford, you had to preach one Sunday a year at St.

Mary's, the church on Oxford campus.

So after he'd been to Bristol and preached and done a lot of these

things, in seventeen forty-four he preached a very famous sermon,

Scriptural Christianity, and basically he just challenged everyone there.

It was a very confrontive sermon.

He challenged them to believe that their spirit… He said, "You're spiritually

apathetic. You're not really doing what you need to be doing." And you can

imagine this did not go over really well.

The dean of the college said, "I need to see your notes, Master

Wesley, your sermon notes."

And from that, he was barred from preaching in the pulpits

of the Anglican churches.

So he'd come to a crossroads.

He could have preached a really nice sermon on that Sunday.

He could have stayed in his comfortable position, and he could have continued

to preach and to teach and to do his good works, but he couldn't do that.

He couldn't do that.

He chose the gospel over convention, over doing the right

thing, going along to get along.

Eventually, all of the Methodists were barred from preaching

in the Anglican pulpits.

So from that point on, Wesley traveled, he traveled about 144,000 miles in his

life, and he traveled all over England, and he preached outside, sometimes

in fields, sometimes in town squares.

We would often see… We'd drive to a town where he had been, and there'd be a little

marker in the center of the town square, "John Wesley preached here on certain

date." He preached in marketplaces.

He preached in coal mining communities, and he often preached in graveyards

or cemeteries outside of the churches.

At his home church in Epworth, the local pastor refused to allow

him to preach from the pulpit.

So the Wesley family owned their plot in the cemetery, so John stood on his

father's grave and preached to a large crowd in the cemetery at Epworth,

where his father had been a pastor.

So you remember that Kristen pointed out that Wesley said, "I'm gonna submit

to be more vile by preaching outdoors."

And the truth is, John was a little paradoxical.

He felt that outdoor preaching was improper and undignified,

and it broke convention.

But the Gospel mattered more to him than convention.

Wesley loved the Anglican Church.

He respected the tradition.

He respected the order.

But whenever the rules became barriers to grace, Wesley chose grace.

Pastor Michelle has said before that we Methodists always follow the rules until

we don't And usually we don't because the gospel requires something more.

As United Methodists, we're at our best when we follow Wesley's example.

If old assumptions, traditions, or attitudes prevent us from

reaching people with the love of Christ, then we must be willing to

adapt for the sake of the gospel.

After several months of ministry in Bristol to the field of coal miners

and workers and poor, Wesley recognized there's a need for people to gather

around the Methodist revival, and they need more than just a sermon

every now and then in the field.

So for the very first Methodist meeting house was built in

Bristol in seventeen thirty-nine, and it quickly became overrun.

Too many people wanted to meet in the meeting house.

It was too small.

So a larger building was completed in seventeen forty-eight, and it

became known simply as the New Room.

It's still called the New Room even though it was built in seventeen forty-eight.

The New Room was not a church as such.

In many ways, it looks like a community mission center.

Wesley offered healthcare there.

He wrote one of his best-selling books was a book on home remedies.

So he offered these home remedies to people who would come, the

poor people who would come.

He taught children and their parents to read if the parents couldn't read.

He distributed food and clothing.

People gathered in small groups for prayer and accountability.

It was a place where people experienced both the love of God and

the practical care of God's people.

And we visited that, and it's still actually used for that purpose today.

All of this probably sounds familiar to us.

It sounds like the ministries we strive to do today So John did not

see this meeting house as a church.

He expected people to use that as a community center and then go attend

Anglican churches so they could hear the message and receive communion.

But he quickly ran into a problem because the pews in a lot of

those Anglican churches were sold.

This family would pay a sum of money to sit in this pew, and

poor people couldn't afford that.

So that barred them from being able to come to the church.

And, um, many of the people in the Methodist movement had come to it from

non-conforming traditions, so they were never welcome in the Anglican Church.

So again, Wesley sees a need, and he decides to stretch the rules.

He filled the new room with simple, plain benches so that rich and

poor people would sit together.

He had some wealthy people who were pursuing the Methodist revival movement,

so there'd be a wealthy person, a landowner, sitting next to a coal miner.

Everyone was welcome, and it was ecumenical group or an egalitarian group.

Um, he held worship services, which he really had not planned to do, and he

celebrated Holy Communion in the meeting house, which he again did not plan to do.

So once again, he's becoming more vile for the sake of reaching more people.

Wesley's commitment to works of mercy did not stop with feeding

the poor and caring for the hungry.

It also led him to confront one of the greatest moral evils of his day, slavery.

Wesley was a passionate abolitionist.

He believed deeply in the Imago Dei, that every person bears the

image of God and no human can rightfully be sold by another human.

The problem was that Bristol was deeply connected to the slave trade.

So there were many wealthy citizens who benefited from the slave trade.

And Wesley did not pull any punches in his opposition.

And so often when he preached, he would get angry slave traders coming

in, wealthy slave traders coming in, in, in the meeting house and shouting

him down and shouting at him, and he would just continue to preach.

He wasn't cowed by these powerful people.

He refused to accept a social evil simply because it was accepted

culturally Beloved, the Methodist Church has not always stood on the

right side of some of these issues.

Sometimes we have sounded more like slave traders than like Wesley.

This congregation, uh, was aligned with the Southern Methodist Church during

the Civil War, supported slavery.

Our history is complicated, but we're at our best as Christians and

as United Methodists when we learn from the best parts of our history.

We're best when we embrace both works of piety and works of mercy,

and we're best when we recognize the image of God in every person.

We're at our best when we refuse to let fear and comfort, tradition,

or habit prevent us from welcoming others in the love of Christ.

Our scripture today tells us that those born of God overcome

the world through faith.

Wesley's life reminds us that overcoming the world is not a passive act.

It means loving boldly, serving courageously, and welcoming generously,

and sometimes, like John Wesley, being willing to be a little more

vile for the sake of the Gospel.

May God grant us that courage.

Amen.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you would like to let us know you were here, follow the link below to connect.

To participate in worship through giving, you can give

online at fumcbentonville.org.

FUMC Bentonville welcomes all.

Because we believe the communion table is God's table, we invite

everyone into our church family.

We welcome and celebrate every race, gender, gender identity, sexual

orientation, marital status, age, physical and mental ability, national origin,

economic station, and political ideology.

We come together in action and outreach, aspiring to follow Jesus' example of

radical hospitality, love, and grace as a transformative movement in our community.

Please join us for worship on Sunday mornings at 9:00 AM, 10:10 AM, and 11:00

AM, live and on our YouTube channel.

Grace and peace.