Text: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-24
OPEN:
As we've already learned during this "Summer with the Wesleys," John Wesley surrendered his life to Christ in Aldersgate Chapel on May 24, 1738. On New Year’s Eve, 1738, Wesley went to another society meeting. It was an all-night prayer vigil to bring in the new year of 1739. In the early hours of January 1, 1739, something dramatic happened to Wesley. He received a sanctifying experience where God re-oriented his heart and life. Listen to Wesley’s own words:
“On Monday morning, January 1, 1739, Mr. Hall and my brother Charles
were present in Fetters Lane, with about sixty of our brethren. At about
three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power
of God came mightily upon us insomuch that many cried out for exceeding
joy and many fell down to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little
from that awe and amazement at the presence of His majesty, we broke out with one voice, ‘We praise Thee, O God, we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.’”
Wesley had been exposed to teaching about this full surrender for a number of years previous to his conversion:
"In the year 1725, being in the twenty-third year of my age, I came across Bishop Taylor's 'Rule and Exercises of Holy Living and Dying.' In reading several parts of this book, I was exceedingly affected, that part in particular which relates to purity of intention. I instantly resolved to dedicate all of my life to God: all of my thoughts and words and actions, being thoroughly convinced there was no middle way; but that every part of my life (not some only) must either be a sacrifice to God or myself; that is, in effect, to the devil."
- Strongly influenced in the year 1726 by Thomas a Kempis' The Imitation of Christ.
- Introduced the next year to William Law's, Christian Perfection and A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life.
- "In the year 1729, I began not only to read but to study the Bible as the one, the only standard of truth, and the only model of pure religion. From this I saw in clearer and clearer light the indispensable necessity of having the mind which was in Christ and of walking as Christ also walked. Even of having not some part only but all the. Ind that was in Him, and of walking as He walked not only in most respects but in all things."
What changed everything for Wesley is that he went from attempting to obtain holiness by his own strength of determination, to receiving holiness from Christ as a gift and then living in the reflection of that gift.
I. Wesley Lived and Preached a Message of Grace.
1. Prevenient Grace
- Wesley understood grace as God's active presence in our lives. God's grace stirs within us a desire to know God and empowers us to respond to God's invitation to be in relationship with God. Prevenient grace is the prodigal son in Luke's gospel became aware that he had abandoned his father. "Longing for home, awareness of betrayal, prompting to repent-- these are manifestations of grace preparing us for the future" (Bishop Kenneth L. Carder).
2. Justifying Grace
- God's justifying grace points to reconciliation, pardon and restoration. Through God's work in Christ, our sins are forgiven, and our relationship with the Father is restored.
- According to Wesley, the image of God, which sin distorts, is renewed within us through Christ's death.
- In justifying grace, the Christian acknowledges his or her lost condition, makes a conscious decision to turn toward Christ, and takes appropriate responsibility in shaping the life of discipleship. This process of salvation involves repentance (turning away from sin), and a change in us that we call "conversion." Conversion may be sudden and dramatic, or gradual and cumulative. In any case it marks a new beginning. Wesley called this process "justification."
3. Sanctifying Grace
- Salvation is not a static, one-time event in our lives. It is an ongoing process of God's presence transforming us into whom God wants us to be. Wesley described this dimension of God's grace as "sanctification" or "holiness."
II. Wesley Understood Sanctification as Intentional Holiness.
"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely." (verse 23)
Lenski commenting on 1 Thess 5:23, "Paul says, may he finish his work by sanctifying you each in totality, i. e., set you apart for himself in toto. Some think the adjective denotes quality, but the thought is evidently one of extent: sanctify your complete being. No nook or corner of your life is to be left where the peace of God does not penetrate; it is to reign undisturbed in every province of your being. Many are satisfied with a partial Christianity, some parts of their life are still worldly. The apostolic admonitions constantly prod into all corners of our nature so that none may escape purification. Here sanctification refers to the whole work of God, which follows the kindling of faith in our hearts."
1. Wesley came to call this Christian Perfectionism, patterned after the term used by Anglican William Law. It was a concept not always well understood, but it came to form the essence of Methodism in Wesley's understanding:
"A Methodist is one who loves the Lord his God with all his heart, with all his soul, with all his mind, and with all his strength. God is the joy of his heart and the desire of his soul, which is continually crying, 'Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You' (Ps 73:25).... He is therefore happy in God; yes, always happy, as having in him a well of water springing up to everlasting life and overflowing his soul with peace and joy. Perfect love having now cast out fear, he rejoices evermore."
Wesley on Christian Perfection:
1) In what sense they are not. They are not perfect in knowledge. They are not free from ignorance, nor from mistake. We are no more to expect any living man to be infallible than to be omniscient.... Neither can we expect them to be wholly freed from temptation, for the servant is not above his Master. But neither in this sense is there any absolute perfection on earth. There is no perfection of degrees, none which does not admit of a continual increase.
2) In what sense then are they perfect? This great gift of God, the salvation of our souls, is no other than the image of God fresh stamped on our hearts. It is a renewal of believers in the spirit of their minds, after the likeness of Him that created them.... Having this hope, that they will see God as He is, they purify themselves even as He is pure and are holy as He that called them is holy, in all manner of conversation and behavior. Not that they have already obtained all that they will attain, either are already in this sense perfect. But that daily they go on from strength to strength--beholding now, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, they are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.
2. Methodists build on the Reformers’ understanding of “imputed or alien righteousness” by declaring that we must not only be declared righteous, we must increasingly live righteous lives. Luther famously declared that Christians are “dung hills covered in snow.” Wesley would not disagree, but would assert that salvation is about more than justification. Righteousness for Wesley is more than God just looking at us through a different set of glasses, i.e., we are filthy rags, but God sees us through the blood of Christ and, thereby, sees the alien righteousness of Christ imputed to us. Wesley argued that alien, imputed righteousness must increasingly become native, actualized righteousness; wrought in us not by our own strength but through the power of the living God. We are marked, oriented, and re-oriented by love.
- We are justified by faith in Jesus Christ, but we are sanctified by faith as we enter into full relationship with the Triune God.
- Wesley taught that we are justified by faith and we are sanctified by faith. - As a relational term, entire sanctification means that your whole life, your body, and your spirit have been re-oriented. Entire sanctification means that our entire heart has been re-oriented towards the joyful company of the Triune God. It was, for Wesley, not the end of some long, drudge out of the life of sin, but joining the joyful assembly of those who have truly found joy. For Wesley, holiness is the crown of true happiness.
"To be sanctified is to receive a gift from God which changes our hearts and reorients our relationship with the Triune God and with others, giving us the capacity to love God and neighbor in new and profound ways. The language of “entire sanctification” in Methodism uses the word entire in reference to Greek, not Latin. In Greek entire or complete can still be improved upon. It is a new orientation which no longer looks back on the old life of sin, but is always looking forward to the New Creation. It is a life which has been engulfed by new realities." (Timothy Tennent)
CLOSE:
Are you moving forward intentionally unto holiness in light of that which God accomplished in you in salvation?
(Dr. Dane Fowlkes)
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