Whatever the Weather

"I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field." - John Wesley.
    
“Whether the weather, whatever the weather, whether you like it or not.” It’s a pithy way to express the futility of complaining about the weather and other things over which you have no control. Of course, it just feels good to get things off your chest sometimes, and it helps to have a sympathizing comrade. We’ve all had plenty of opportunities to feel powerless over circumstances and it just gets old after a while. Sometimes you can change environmental conditions - like a person who suffers in cold weather moving south to places like Florida. It won’t mean an end to circumstances beyond your control, but it relieves an unhealthy, overarching dynamic. For example, when you move from Minnesota to Florida, you exchange long, cold winters for the persistent threat of hurricanes. So, “Whether the weather, whatever the weather, whether you like it or not.”

The people I live with in the world of our circumstances are anxious because of a lot of talk they hear about our parent denomination imposing unreasonable demands upon our local church and the potential for us to disaffiliate with “them.” We’ve lost a lot of credibility in our best efforts to “weather the weather” because we live in a generally conservative community and the lack of clear vision and effective leadership from our denominational head is apparent. We find ourselves confronted with a tough decision because it feels like a time for moving from one climate to another. There are tradeoffs, of course, and moving from a familiar environment to a new, unknown one is accordingly frightening. We may leave long, cold, dark nights and aching joints for warm sunny days and the occasional terrifying storm. On the eve of my 60th birthday, I’m grieving the relative shortness of southern Indiana summers more and more, and am thankful I no longer live in the north, so the reference is somewhat personal. 

I hear you asking, “Are you talking about the weather or what?” Fair question; I am not talking about weather as much as using it as an analogy to our current plight. For many of us in the local church family, it feels like a time for a major move from one prevailing atmosphere to another. There are plenty of questions and doubts about the decision, but our discomfort compels us to consider the costs and step out in faith, anyway. We hope to be better off because of it, but who can say for sure until we settle into our new world? Are we fed up enough with trust clauses, disreputable leadership, disunity, and increasingly secularized religion? If so, then it is worth the risk of moving in a new direction and facing the unknown. If not, then how much weather can you weather before regret sets in? 

I’d like to leave you with words I hope will give you some peace. Like John Wesley, quoted above, “I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.” I only desire to serve my Lord, Jesus the Son of God, not a religious institution governed by whatever sort of women and men. The “whole Christ” is a lifelong pursuit that is only bogged down by dogmatic devotion to personal comfort and social acceptance. While the Word of God, that is the heart and mind of God, is not only present in Scripture, I believe the Bible suffices to inform my soul and plumbing its depths is a lifelong pursuit. The Kingdom of Christ hosts citizens and seekers across the globe, and they crave an authentic Christian community, like I do. Therefore, uniting with those family members locally and abroad is a lifelong pursuit, too. As long as I remain as your pastor, I will keep working toward these things “whatever the weather.”

I wish I could say the coming months of discernment and cost-counting will be easy, but it seems doubtful. Patient, compassionate, disciplined care for one another will be essential. We must remember what each of us is feeling and struggling to understand. We must urge each other along the way, so faith replaces that fear. Endeavor to question rumors, criticisms, and violence wherever they arise. Focus less on what we are moving away from and more on what we are moving toward. Most of all, make prayer and kind encouragement hallmarks of your Christian character as you keep your eyes on personal holiness of heart and mind.

Biblical Discipleship

 “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples.”

“In all cases, the Church is to be judged by the Scripture, not the Scripture by the Church.” 

– John Wesley

In his second letter to young Pastor Timothy the Apostle Paul said, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, (2 Timothy 3:16) One cannot overstate the fact of Paul’s scriptural scholarship. He was the quintessential rabbi. His comprehension of Jesus Christ as the long-sought Messiah informed his interpretation of the bible (this was our Old Testament). Modern Christians will not readily see it, but Paul wrote mainly for the benefit of the Jews. His goal was the salvation of Israel’s seed, even as he preached to the Gentiles. (Read Romans) The bible was essential to Paul’s interpretation of his life and times, and the future. He understood and taught that God’s Word provides the standard by which we measure our relationship with God and our Christian character. As John Wesley said, it is not our place to change the Word but to allow it to change us.

Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20) He also said, “Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” (Luke 14:27) The implications are clear. Jesus expects us to learn his system and live by it.

“What may we reasonably believe to be God’s design in raising up the Preachers called Methodist,” the answer was, “To reform the nation, particularly the church, and to spread scriptural holiness over the land” (““To Spread Scriptural Holiness over the Land” | Catalyst Resources Catalyst Resources” 2007) Wesley charged Methodist preachers/pastors in the same way Paul guided Timothy. Wesley’s charge revealed holiness of heart and mind in love for God and neighbor as the priority. Conversion isn’t about indoctrination into a religious system. Rather, it is about breathing Spirit-filled life into the system for the sake of movement. The disciplines, classes and small groups, itinerant preachers, connection, and conference were all designed to enable the movement to fulfill its purpose of renewing lives, the church, and the nation. Wesley believed God had called the Methodists to proclaim the promise of a new life before death - it is called sanctification. 

The people called Methodists aren’t really members of another denomination; they are the Body of Christ. They embrace a methodical approach to scriptural holiness so that they can live the gospel promise here and now, as well as after death. They possess corrupted bodies indwelt by resurrected souls. Christian Believers in pursuit of perfect love look forward to paradise and resurrection because they just can’t contain their excitement about Christ’s Kingdom. They are disciples because they study tenets of citizenship and faithfully follow their Lord. Therefore, it seems absurd to them to subject themselves to the carnal nature and those who would rule according to it. 

Resurrection Faith

By salvation I mean not barely according to the vulgar notion deliverance from hell or going to heaven but a present deliverance from sin a restoration of the soul to its primitive health its original purity a recovery of the divine nature the renewal of our souls after the image of God in righteousness and true holiness in justice mercy and truth. – John Wesley

John Wesley’s use of the word “vulgar” may be offensive to you if you think like a modern American, but it meant more about the level of refinement than anything else. Put another way, he might say, “the notion that salvation is simply deliverance from hell and certainty of heaven is severely underdeveloped. With that clarification in mind, let us proceed to flesh out the true purpose of the death and resurrection of our Lord. 

He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. (Romans 4:25) Without God’s intervention through His Son, we have no justification for His acceptance. All is lost without justification. Without God the Father’s acceptance, there is only one way and it leads to hell. “O death where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?’” The sting of death is the consequence of sin. The Law of God is absolute and irrefutable and it demands condemnation. Disloyalty to God is an outward sign of an inward fatal sickness. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! (1 Corinthians 15:55-57)

Belief in Christ unites you with Him through faith (2 Corinthians 4:14). In this case, belief is not so, dare I say, vulgar as simple assent. Rather, it is a matter of refined faith; believing as if your life depends upon it, because it really does. Therefore, we are blessed by God’s grace so that when the Father looks at us, He does not see our transgressions, but the righteousness of His Son. It means that we have died with Christ and will also live with Him (Romans 6:8).

His resurrection was unique in that Jesus Christ reinabitted, restored, and perfected His human flesh in and of His own volition and power as the Son of God. Death and hell could not hold Him. (Romans 1:4) It was a crushing defeat for the Enemy; a demonstration of absolute authority and power, and transcendent declaration that Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the “I Am.” (John 10:30; Revelation 22:13)

Therefore, His victory over sin and death; over the Enemy and his servants, combined with your faith in Christ Jesus means that you are children of God, “for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:26-29)

As if that were not enough! Jesus imparts the heart and mind of God, the logos, to God’s children so that they will know extraordinary peace and experience sanctification. Justification and faith are followed by new birth in the Spirit and opens the way to perfect love for God and His family.  “He breaks the power of canceled sin, he sets the prisoner free; his blood can make the foulest clean; his blood availed for me.” (O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing, verse 4, Charles Wesley (1739)) 

A refined expression of one’s understanding of Easter’s true meaning casts off simple thoughts of insurance against hell and guaranteed reservations in heaven. Oh no! It means so much more. You have the power and peace that causes abundant life in every circumstance. The heart and mind of the LORD causes your thoughts to change and your interpretation of worldly affairs to change so that what once seemed important matters very little, and the previously insignificant things bloom into beautiful flowers that act as signs of the Lord’s love and attending grace. 

Therefore, rejoice this week and embrace Him like never before. Welcome the Holy Spirit and pray for sanctifying grace. Courageously invite the LORD to change your priorities, perceptions, and tastes. Invite new disciplines and deeper devotion rather than ending Lenten fasts with excess. Remember how good it felt to follow the Master, wanting only what you needed from Him? Why give it up when it has been such a comfort and such an excellent way of deepening submission and dependence? 

Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him! How I've proved him o'er and o'er! Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus! O for grace to trust him more! (Louisa M. R. Stead (1882))

Almost Christian

 “May we all thus experience what it is to be, not almost only; but altogether Christians.” – The Almost Christian ~ John Wesley, 1703-1791

John Wesley preached the sermon “The Almost Christian” at St. Mary’s, Oxford University as one of the University sermons on July 25, 1741. In this sermon, Wesley contrasted nominal (or almost) and real (or altogether) Christianity. (Kevin M. Watson, https://kevinmwatson.com/)

‘The right and true Christian faith is’ (to go on in the words of our own Church) ‘not only to believe that Holy Scripture and the articles of our faith are true, but also to have a sure trust and confidence to be saved from everlasting damnation by Christ’ – it is a ‘sure trust and confidence’ which a man hath in God ‘that by the merits of Christ his sins are forgiven, and he reconciled to the favour of God’ – ‘whereof doth follow a loving heart to obey his commandments.’ 

Sojourners along the Way of Christ have always struggled through history to balance the things of the flesh against the aspirations of the spirit. Every time a fresh expression of unity around the fundamental aspects of the gospel sparks a Spirit-filled movement, it also starts the inevitable descent from the heights of spiritual ecstasy to stone cold, ivy covered institutions. Wesley foresaw this and said, “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America,” “But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”

Our arrival at the present point of divergence mirrors the beginning of our current denomination and, therefore, should not surprise us, nor should we think it a fearful, awful thing. John Wesley’s beloved Church of England became humanistic, secular, and monolithic. Its leaders were corrupt classists who worshiped their institutions more than the LORD whose Name they claimed to uphold. John and his brother Charles, along with some like-minded friends, sought to initiate reform, but received derision from the establishment who facilitated violence against them. Establishment authorities viewed the Methodist movement as an insurgence bent upon undermining the institution. Their alignment with popular culture gave Anglican officials an antithetical sense of righteousness built from worldliness rather than scriptural holiness. 

Wesley and his fellows quickly realized that people were hungry for authentic spiritual food and structured means of grace and sanctification. It seemed natural for humans to desire an orderly religion that offered clear boundaries, expectations, and perceptible sanctification for the sake of one’s relationship with the Holy Creator, rather than for the sake of rank and possessions. The “Methodists” made personal holiness of heart and mind, “circumcision of the heart,” superior to social righteousness, believing that good works for the sake of holiness stemmed from the work of the Holy Spirit in born-again Christians. (See Romans 2:25-29) The Spirit’s outpouring was irresistible as Methodists broke with convention and generated revival.

Christian Believers who worship under the banner of the United Methodist Church stand at another moment in Christian religious history that inspires anxiety and fear of retribution. The establishment, emboldened by the support of popular culture, roars like an elderly lion standing with its hind legs on the brink of a precipice. Contemporary society will shake its head in consternation and disdain as it observes what they will perceive as bickering and violence among a lot of hypocrites. The outside view of our affairs must not distract us. For now, we are engaged in clarification of our true nature as the Body of Christ and the precepts to which we subscribe. Until each Christian Believer and each fellowship to which he or she belongs resolves this question of circumcision of the heart, we have nothing of value to offer the unbelieving world. We must “be disciples” before we can effectively “seek disciples” and “change the world.”