Reformation Sunday: Lessons from the Life of John Wesley

Our scripture reading this morning is taken from the book of Ephesians, chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

I'll be reading verses 1 through 10.

I'd encourage you to turn there.

And if you don't have a Bible with you, uh right there in front of you on that little shelf, uh there should be a Bible there, and you can find the scripture passage on page 976.

Ephesians chapter 2, beginning in verse 1.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we also once lived, we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

Now today is a very special day in church history.

This Sunday, the Sunday closest to October 31st, churches throughout the world recognize as Reformation Sunday.

It's a day that congregations often will pause to remember and reflect on our history.

I remember reading a few years back a book, and he made a comment about North American culture.

He said, during the Revolutionary War, we had minute men.

He said, but in our country today, we have momentary men because we don't know what happened beyond the moment that we're living in.

And so he talked about the reality that oftentimes uh in our culture we're unaware of our history, of our heritage, of our background.

And so often we uh, as it's attributed to George Santa, uh that uh those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, uh, but oftentimes we fall into the same traps, make the same mistakes, uh, create the same errors that have already been done in the past, and if we were students of history, uh we would be more aware of that and perhaps would avoid some of the common pitfalls uh that often befall God's people.

Uh October 31st, 1517 was the day that a young Catholic monk by the name of Martin Luther tacked 95 theses, 95 statements of dispute on the church door in Wittenberg in Germany.

He was questioning many of the church practices uh that had arisen over the centuries that had crept into the church, and he was calling the church to reform.

Uh, interestingly, Luther did not intend on creating uh a movement or uh a uh uh a reformation outside of the church.

His hope and his and his desire at the time was for the church to reform itself from the inside.

Uh, in spite of what his intentions were, uh, that event inaugurated a reformation of the church and a return to the centrality of the gospel and of the Bible and preaching and teaching.

And we recognize this day not to honor men, but to really recognize the events that God used to bring into focus the clear teachings of Scripture.

Uh the battle cries of the Reformation was uh that it was uh Christ alone, it was grace alone, it was salvation alone, it was scripture alone, and it was to God's glory alone, and that was the intention and the movement that was created through these events in the 16th century with Martin Luther and many other men.

And in very real sense, we stand on the shoulders of giants.

And so it's good for us to pause, and we do this once a year, one Sunday a year, to take an historic figure, uh, to examine his life, to look at the impact that that person had, and to begin to see a glimpse of the heritage and the history that we have as a church.

In 2009, we looked at the life of Martin Luther.

In 2010, we studied the life and influence of John Calvin.

In 2011, we studied a contemporary of Calvin, the Scottish Reformer John Knox.

Last year, we actually went back 1100 years prior to the Reformation and studied fourth-century theologian Athanasius, who was central and instrumental in defending the doctrine of the Trinity when that was being called into question on all quarters of the world.

And today I'd like for us to move a little bit uh ahead in history, uh a few centuries past the time of the Reformation, and examine the life and the ministry of John Wesley.

Um of you may be familiar with John Wesley, some of you may be familiar with his brother Charles Wesley, who was the great hymn writer, and uh hymns that we would find in our hymnal today were uh penned by John's brother Charles Wesley.

Um biographer wrote in 1974 about uh John Wesley, he said, in all sincerity and with all the weight I could muster, I claim that whatever his errors of memory and judgment, intact, throughout his long adult life until his death at the age of 87 in 1791, John Wesley consistently and courageously lived to the glory of God.

There's a verse in Hebrews, uh, Hebrews chapter 13, verse 7.

Hebrews 13:7

And it says this remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God, consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.

And so the scripture admonishes us to study men and women who have lived godly lives, who have been used by God, and to examine their entire life, to consider not just the beginning of their life and the middle of their life, but the entire life, including the end of their lives.

And so what we do this morning is something that's that the Bible challenges us to do.

John Wesley is one of the founders of Methodism, and through his life and legacy, hundreds of thousands came to Christ in England and around the world.

And although we may not agree with every point of theology that he espoused, we can learn much through his life in ministry.

And so let me share a little bit about his life, his early life, his conversion, uh, his uh years in ministry.

And then we'll examine some of the strengths, some of the lessons we can learn from his life, uh, and then some of the weaknesses that we can learn from his life as well.

Uh I love reading biographies.

And one of the main reasons I love reading biographies, because a good biography is going to show you the strengths and the weaknesses of a person.

It's going to show you the abilities and the gifts that they have, but also their flaws and their defects and their mistakes.

And the encouragement that I get is I'm reminded again and again that God uses imperfect, flawed people to accomplish his will.

I was reading a biography on another individual recently, and they were giving an old quote attributed to many people, but it said that God is able to use crooked sticks to draw straight lines.

And that's an encouragement because I'm reminded that God uses each one of us in the midst of our sin and our struggle and our imperfection in this life to draw straight lines and to glorify Him.

And we'll see that in the life of John Wesley.

Wesley was born on June 17, 1703, in Epworth in Lincolnshire, in England.

His father was a rector of a parish church.

His parents, Samuel and Susanna Wesley, had 19 children.

Only 10 of them survived past infancy.

So almost half of their children died before they were toddlers.

Seven girls and three boys.

And John, of course, was closest throughout his life to his brother Charles.

The only other brother that survived was Samuel Jr.

And uh Susanna homeschooled the children until they were old enough to go to boarding school.

John attended Charter House for six years, then went to Christ Church, a university in Oxford.

And the university was particularly designed to prepare people for ministry.

In 1725, he was ordained as a deacon and taught at Oxford for 10 years.

In 1735, there was a sudden turn in John's life, and he decided to become a missionary to the Indians in North America, moving to Savannah, Georgia.

When he was asked why he was going to go to America to be a missionary, he said he hoped he could establish a primitive form of Christianity in keeping with what he believed the early church had.

When you read his diaries and his journals and biographies, you realize that Wesley was really a discontent and dissatisfied man.

Since the time of his ordination, he had hoped to find inward holiness, and it eluded him.

He thought going to Georgia would help.

He thought change of circumstance would change his heart.

He said, My chief motive, this is what his words were in his journal, my chief motive to which all the rest subordinate is the hope of saving my own soul.

I hope to learn the true sense of the gospel of Christ by preaching it to the heathen.

So this was Wesley's motivation.

Wesley found at Oxford the one main hindrance to his spiritual life and holiness was women.

So men, don't even comment there.

He believed that women, this is what he said now, he said women were a distraction for him from his spiritual commitment, and he also believed that the early church mandated uh celibate celibacy for those in ministry.

We'll see later he changed uh his opinion on that, but he decided to go to Georgia to be a missionary because he believed that there would be no attractive women there to divert his attention.

Um, he uh he he uh uh fell for a young woman named Sophie, the niece of a prominent citizen there.

Uh but Wesley was conflicted, so he only half-heartedly pursued uh uh Sophie.

And and so eventually Sophie got fed up of waiting for him and decided to marry another man.

So uh, guys, let this be a life lesson for you.

Um but after that, John was John was conflicted.

So he he he fell for Sophie.

Uh Sophie waited around for a while, eventually another suitor came, she married him, but then John couldn't let go of it.

Uh so he began to follow her life.

This was before the days of Facebook, but he began to follow her life and keep tabs on her behavior.

And uh eventually he found something that he thought was inappropriate, and so he refused in in 1737, refused to allow her to take communion, uh, which was actually the beginning of the end of his ministry there because uh he refused to allow her to take communion uh over these perceived mistakes in her life.

Um but the civil magistrates uh cited him for defaming Sophie's character and brought him up on charges.

And so he decided to leave Georgia before he went to trial uh for defamation of character.

But while he was in Georgia, he met a group of German Christians, Moravians, who impressed him greatly.

In fact, one of the Moravians uh was one of the first ones who initially confronted him about his need for a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.

And of course, after two miserable, unsuccessful years in Georgia, he returned to England.

But on the ship back, uh he ran again into another group of Moravians who impressed him with their cheerfulness and piety and upright living.

Wesley returned to England in February of 1738.

A few months later, he had a life-changing experience.

On May 24th, 1738, he attended a small gathering in Aldersgate Street, London, where someone was reading the preface to Luther's commentary on the epistle to the Romans.

And as he sat there and he heard uh this uh introduction to the book of Romans by the pen of Martin Luther, this is what Wesley said in his own words.

He said, about a quarter before nine, 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 my salvation.

And an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

Uh from this point on, John Wesley was a changed man.

He was 35 years old at this point.

Uh if he had died before this, no one would have ever heard of him.

But he became, as uh as one uh theologian Charles Hodges referred to him as a world changer, a world controller.

He had learned how to write sermons, but now he was able to preach.

The change was immediate and profound.

In fact, the first sermon that he preached following this event was uh taken from the text we read this morning of Ephesians 2, verse 8.

Ephesians 2:8

Uh, By grace are ye saved through faith.

And this is what he told his hearers in that sermon: a deliverance from guilt and punishment by the atonement of Christ actually applied to the soul of the sinner now believing on him, and a deliverance from the power of sin through Christ formed in his heart, so that he who is thus justified or saved by faith is indeed born again.

He is born again of the Spirit unto a new life.

And he said, None can trust in the merits of Christ, he told them, until they have renounced their own.

Prior to this time in his life, Christianity primarily meant self-effort, self-denial, and self-discipline in the imitation of Christ.

In fact, before going to Georgia, uh, he and his brother had started what they called a holy club at Oxford for the purpose of encouraging people to practice unto holiness.

In fact, um they wanted to find a method, a formula, if you will, uh to attain to holiness.

And so some of their detractors referred to them as Methodists.

And that's how the name eventually was uh was uh tacked on to this particular movement of this holy club that Wesley and his brother and others uh had joined together to do.

Uh he said this about his experience at Aldersgate.

He said, absolutely renouncing all dependence in whole or in part upon my own works of righteousness, on which I had really grounded my hope of salvation, though I knew it not from my youth up.

And after this, the heart of his message was preaching Christ crucified.

Um, shortly after coming to faith in Christ, uh after this Aldersgate experience, Wesley was no longer permitted to preach in many of the churches, uh, the Church of England pulpits.

Uh this led Wesley, uh, who wanted to reach the lost and to share the gospel, uh, to follow a younger contemporary of his, uh, um, George Whitfield, who was preaching open air.

And so that they would go into a place and they would begin just to preach and to gather a crowd, to gather an audience, going to the mines and preaching to the miners, going into a city and just beginning to declare the gospel and gathering a crowd to hear them.

George Whitfield had begun to do this, and a year and a half or two years later, uh Wesley followed suit.

It was about that same time that Wesley's brother Charles had the same type of conversion experience and began writing hymns reflecting this deep and abiding faith in Christ.

In later years, Wesley began to reevaluate his Aldersgate experience.

Uh, Wesley, as time went on, um 10, 20, 30 years later, he began to reflect on this and began to question if uh this experience in Aldersgate in 1738 was actually his conversion, or if perhaps he had known Christ prior to that, and that this was uh more of a uh a full assurance uh rather than an initial conversion.

And so Wesley began in his writings, in fact, uh when he was reissuing uh some of his own letters, uh put in the margin notes of uh his questioning of this experience and saying perhaps he was a Christian and that uh it was only at this point that the clarity of the gospel came to him.

Um and so historians ask, was Wesley first converted at Aldersgate or was he converted prior to that?

Um one uh author said, we can't say for sure, and Wesley didn't know himself.

Quite possibly it was before 1738, uh, and uh perhaps it wasn't.

Uh but one of the things that I would add, and this is important for us, I think, it isn't essential for us to be able to point to a day and time when we came to Christ.

Especially if we grew up in a Christian church and we grew up with believing parents and we heard the gospel our entire lives.

Uh, for some who come to Christ later in life or perhaps uh remember that moment when they they placed their faith in Christ alone and they passed from darkness into light, from the kingdom of uh of this world and Satan to the kingdom of God's dear son.

And for many of us, we can point to and remember the exact moment.

Uh but the Bible doesn't say that uh that you need to know the day and the hour in order to be saved.

The question is are you trusting in Jesus Christ alone for your eternal life and having turned away from all self-effort, all hopes of earning salvation on your own effort.

And whether you can remember that moment or perhaps it was so young that you look back and you say, I can't even think of a time that I didn't know the gospel, and at some level have faith in Christ isn't the important matter.

The question is, are you trusting Jesus Christ alone for eternal life?

And so whether or not for Wesley it was at Aldersgate or perhaps it was prior to that, clearly God had been working in his life for years prior to that.

But clearly, uh Wesley did trust in Christ alone for his eternal life and is now in the presence of God enjoying the full blessings that he had put his hope in.

Well, what are some of the influences and significance of John Wesley's life?

Well, numbers in themselves don't prove anything.

Uh numbers don't prove a genuine revival.

Uh numbers in themselves don't prove the Holy Spirit's work.

We can gather crowds by the novel and the outrageous and the curious.

And yet we can see that God used Wesley in an unusual way in the preaching of the gospel.

When he began as an itinerant preaching ministry, extensive crowds began to gather.

Crowds of 10,000, 20,000, even 50,000 people came to hear him preach in open air.

His work throughout his life was monumental.

And his work ethic was unparalleled.

We'll talk a little bit more about that in a few minutes.

But let me explain a little bit about what his work ethic was.

We read this of his life.

This is what he wrote.

On Friday, he spent in the Midlands of England when he rode to Wenysbury and preached at about four in the afternoon.

He then got back on his horse after preaching, and he said, with some difficulty, reached Meriden, still in the Midlands at about 9 o'clock that night.

The next day was Saturday, but he needed to be in London for Sunday.

So he woke up and he was on his horse at 4 a.m.

to begin traveling to London.

He traveled 78 miles on Saturday.

This still left him well short of London.

So on Sunday, he was in the saddle at 4 a.m.

again in order to reach Foundery, his London headquarters, between 7 and 8 in the morning.

He proceeded then to preach that morning, and then later in the open air in Mooresfield at 5 p.m.

to a larger congregation, he said, than I have seen there for some years.

At the time, Wesley was my age, 45.

That was very typical and indicative of his traveling ministry on horseback.

Twenty years later, at 65, he was still following that same circuit preaching.

He changed from horse to chase, but his schedule continued like this, unabated, well into his 80s.

For instance, when he was 83 years old, he preached twice in Hull, and then the next day journeyed 76 miles to Sweinfleet and route to Swinefleet.

He preached two sermons and a third in the open air when he arrived at Swinefleet that evening.

At 83.

That was uh John Wesley.

At 86 years old, he wrote, I travel, he still traveled, he says, I travel three or four thousand miles a year.

At 86.

Uh his major influence came in his organizational skills.

He organized societies outside of the Church of England.

It wasn't his intention to compete with the Church of England, nor was it his desire to start a new denomination.

Eventually, that is what happened.

Um, but that wasn't his intention.

Uh the the preachers were not considered pastors, they were itinerant ministers, itinerant preachers that traveled these circuits.

Um, but he organized like-minded groups everywhere he went to meet.

Um, they didn't meet during the church services, they would meet in the afternoon so that people uh could go to their church during the morning hours.

Um, and yet, in spite of this, his structures continued to conflict with the Church of England, and uh and uh his movement continued to grow well after his death, and the number and influence uh grew throughout the the 18th and the 19th century.

Uh Wesley's prayer was this Lord, let me never live to be useless.

Lord, never let me live to be useless.

That was Wesley's prayer.

When Wesley was at death's door at the age of 87, he said shortly before he died, there is no way into the holiest but by the blood of Jesus.

Well, what were some of Wesley's strengths and what were some of his weaknesses?

And let me just list a few in these uh closing minutes.

What were some of Wesley's strengths?

Uh, first of all, he was passionate for God's glory.

Above all else, that's what motivated him.

He was passionate for God's glory, and the love of God motivated him.

Historian Ian Murray writes this: love is the key to Wesley, and the key also to the tenderness of his preaching.

The record of his life and labors leads us to see him as a man largely prompted by a different motivation.

Love to God was his chief source of action, the consequence of God's love to him.

So, Wesley, in realizing the gospel, realized how much God loved him.

Realized how much he was loved in Christ, and it was the love of Christ that compelled him, that motivated him to do what he did.

And his response to God's love was to love God in return.

And that was the fuel that fired the passion for his ministry for 87 years.

Was the love of God poured out in his life and his desire to love God and live for him.

One of the other strengths of Wesley was he was willing to put all else aside for the sake of the gospel.

Um he turned away from salvation by good works and trusted in Christ alone for eternal life.

Wesley was very clear on the gospel in his preaching.

Um this is one thing that Wesley wrote.

Wesley wrote, there was no merit at all in good works.

More true, no, nor in faith neither.

Uh in other words, he said, it's not just faith alone that saves, it's faith in Christ that saves.

Christ is the object of our faith.

Faith is the instrumental means by which we come into a relationship with Christ.

But just having faith, not having it in the right object, is not uh saving faith.

He said, so just having faith doesn't save, just having works doesn't save, and both together don't save.

We are not pardoned and accepted uh with God for the merit of either or both, but only by the grace or free love of God that alone merits of his Son, Jesus Christ.

Uh Wesley was willing to sacrifice all comfort and pleasure and enjoyment for the sake of the gospel.

And I would put this both under one of his greatest strengths and one of his greatest weaknesses.

Uh I put it under one of his greatest strengths because Wesley uh desired to um to live for God's glory.

And in our age of comfort and leisure, we can be challenged by Wesley's commitment to uh to sacrifice for the sake of the gospel.

However, when one examines Wesley's life uh of a strict regiment of sleep and diet and exercise and travel and ministry, and his unwillingness uh to enjoy anything in life, we see an excess uh in his life uh that was really uh what would be called asceticism or self-denial, um, uh severe self-denial.

And so one of Wesley's strengths, I would also say, is one of his greatest weaknesses.

Uh Wesley had theological issues, and uh some of his points of theology I would strongly disagree with.

Um I tend to be reformed in my theology.

Wesley followed the theology of Arminius.

In fact, uh the theology today bears his name of Wesley and Arminianism.

Wesley believed it was possible for a genuine believer to lose his salvation.

Also, throughout his ministry, uh, at different points he was confused over the issue of justification.

And at points he moved away from uh the doctrine of imputed righteousness.

In fact, Wesley would write, and then somebody would challenge on him, and then he would retract what he wrote, and this happened uh numerous times throughout his life.

Wesley was afraid that if a person believed that Christ's sacrifice was once for all, uh that that would result in careless living.

And so he began to question the doctrine for fear that it would lead people, if they were truly forgiven for all of their sins, by placing their faith in Christ that would lead them to a lifestyle of sin.

And so he began to wrestle with that.

Wesley also believed that a Christian could be perfect in this life.

And this is perhaps his most controversial and questionable belief.

He had come to believe that in the Christian life it was possible for a Christian to reach a place of sinless perfection.

He also believed that this state could be reached immediately through a crisis of faith, which went when God would impart complete or entire sanctification to that individual.

That that person then would be above willful sin.

In order to accomplish this belief, he relied more on experience of others than on the interpretation of Scripture, and he also had to redefine sin.

He thus argued that speaking of the end of inbred sin, he did not mean that a person was free of ignorance, mistakes, infirmities, and a thousand nameless defects.

From such infirmities, none are perfectly freed, but still their spirits return to God.

Uh until their spirits return to God.

So Wesley believed that you could reach sinless perfection in this life, but he had to redefine what sin was.

But he also never believed that he reached it, uh, nor did others that he knew.

Two final points from Wesley.

Um Wesley was that he had a disastrous marriage.

Um, this was something that I pointed out that he thought it was better to remain single.

At several points in his life, Wesley lapsed from this rev uh resolution and almost entered into marriage.

Um, but his brother intervened by encouraging the girl that he was interested in to marry someone else.

Suddenly in 1751, uh, in an impulsive move, uh he married this woman, a widow, uh, Molly Vazil, who was a banker's widow.

Wesley believed, this is what Wesley wrote, Wesley believed that marrying for happiness was beneath being a Christian.

So this is Wesley's comment.

He said, I married because I needed a home, he tells a correspondent, in order to recover my health, and I did recover it.

But I did not seek happiness thereby, and I did not find it.

Um could be surprised.

He did not hear of his wife's death until several days after her funeral.

Um Wesley also was very argumentative.

Um he would attack not just the issue, but the people.

And uh Wesley, when he when he decided he understood what somebody believed, it didn't matter if that's what they actually believed or not.

Uh that was what he was going to argue.

So he didn't listen or talk to the people he was debating against.

Um if he found a point of disagreement, uh, he would attack them based on his own understandings rather than finding out what the people actually believed, and then he would enter into long, especially in his written form, long arguments.

Well, Wesley was a man, an imperfect man that God used.

He had zeal and passion.

He accomplished much through his perseverance and sacrifice, and yet we can see flaws and errors and inconsistencies in his life, and it encourages me, studying men like Wesley, uh, to know that there's hope for me and there's hope for you, that God uses imperfect people to accomplish his purpose.

Wesley summarized his life this way, and I'll close with this.

Um, this is what he said towards the end of his life.

I have been wandering up and down between 50 and 60 years, endeavoring in my own poor way to do a little good to my fellow creatures.

I can see nothing which I have done or suffered that will bear looking at.

I have no other plea than this.

I am the chief of sinners, but Jesus died for me.

Let's pray.

Father, as we study the life of this man in history, uh John Wesley, we see your hand of grace and goodness in his life.

That you, as he said, reached down as a brand and plucked from the fire and pulled him from the flames that he surely would have been consumed by, and cleaned him up and used him for your glory.

Father, may we look at the life of men and women who live for you, see the outcome of their faith, and imitate uh their faith.

And Lord, we pray that in this glimpse of this man you might use it in some way uh in our lives that we might live for your glory.

We pray in Christ's name.

Amen.