May 4, 2025 • 20 mins
John Wesley's disciplined approach to faith created a movement that continues to influence millions of Christians worldwide today. His journey from Oxford professor to founder of Methodism reveals how personal faith experience shaped an entire denomination.
• Wesley's "Directions for Singing" reveal his intense, methodical personality and high expectations
• At Oxford, Wesley and his brother Charles formed "holy clubs" focused on prayer, scripture study, and accountability
• During a storm at sea, Wesley observed Moravian Christians remaining calm while he felt fear, prompting spiritual questioning
• Wesley's "heart strangely warmed" experience at Aldersgate marked his personal encounter with grace
• He traveled approximately 250,000 miles in his lifetime, spreading his message throughout England
• Wesley never advocated leaving the Anglican Church; Methodism became separate primarily due to the American Revolution
• From 132,000 Methodists at his death in 1791, the denomination has grown to approximately 10 million today
• Wesley's advice to "preach faith until you have faith" encourages practicing faith even during periods of doubt
• Like other spiritual leaders, Wesley experienced doubt as part of his growth journey
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Pastor Darren (00:00):
I'm going to start, because we're starting
this series about UnitedMethodism with a United
Methodist test.
Are you ready?
May the fourth be with you.
I have exactly one Methodist inthis room and it's Boyd, the
(00:20):
appropriate Methodist response.
May the fourth be with you andalso with you.
Ah see, that's us MethodistsAdopting Star Wars mythology and
not many people know this.
John Wesley, a Jedi.
Well, he had that kind of focus, laser focus.
(00:47):
In fact he might have had toomuch laser focus, I tell you,
last week I came in kind of mean, but this week I'm not going to
be any less mean.
I think I'm going to be toughon you again.
We are doing something wrong.
I'm going to invite you now toopen your hymnal.
(01:09):
I believe yours is red.
It's the Roman numeral, kind ofin the preface to our hymnal,
page seven.
John Wesley himself wanted tomake sure that we were doing
this correctly and I want to saymaybe we aren't All right.
(01:32):
Let's go through theseDirections for singing, written
by John Wesley himself.
Learn these tunes before youlearn any others.
Afterwards, learn as many asyou please.
Okay, that one's all right.
Sing them exactly as they areprinted here, without altering
or mending them at all.
And if you have learned to singthem otherwise, unlearn it as
(01:54):
soon as you can.
Sing all.
See that you join with thecongregation as frequently as
you can.
Let not the slight degree ofweakness or weariness hinder you
.
If it is a cross to you, takeit up and you will find it a
(02:15):
blessing.
Are we living this?
Are we living this truth?
Sing all here.
That's on the Sunday.
I cut out one of the verses andonly the choir was singing.
Sing all right.
All four verses, right, gloria?
I should have told Gloria myfault.
All right.
Now I'm back into our lesson.
(02:37):
Sing lustily, with good courage.
Beware of singing as if youwere half dead or half asleep,
but lift up your voice withstrength.
Be no more afraid of your voicenow, nor more ashamed of its
being heard than when you sangthe songs of Satan.
We saw you the other daycarousing.
(03:01):
Sing modestly, do not baw ballso as to be heard above or
distinct from the rest of thecongregation, that you may
destroy the harmony, but striveto unite your voices together so
(03:21):
as to make one clear, melodioussound.
Sing in time.
Whatever time is sung, be sureto keep with it.
Do not run before nor staybehind it, but attend close to
the leading voices and movetheir width as exactly as you
can, and take care not to singtoo slow.
This drawing way naturallysteals on all who are lazy, and
(03:44):
it is high time to drive it outfrom us and sing all our tunes
just as quick as we did at first.
Take note.
Finally, above all, singspiritually.
Have an eye to God in everyword you sing.
Aim at pleasing Him more thanyourself or any other creature.
In order to do this, attendstrictly to the sense of what
(04:07):
you sing and see that your heartis not carried away with the
sound, but offered to Godcontinually.
So shall your singing be suchas the Lord will approve here
and reward you when he cometh inthe clouds of heaven.
There endeth the lesson.
The clouds of heaven, thereendeth the lesson.
(04:28):
Friends, we're talking aboutJohn Wesley today, and I could
think of no better introductionthan that list of rules that
John Wesley wrote up for singingin church.
I hope you enjoyed them and Ihope you can see relatively
clearly exactly the type ofpersonality we are dealing with.
(04:51):
This is not a light-hearted,take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy.
He is pretty driven.
He might even be OCD, right.
I kind of wonder if he tickedoff as many people as he brought
to faith as he lived his timewith this intensity.
(05:14):
So today we're going to learn alittle bit about this guy a
little bit more, and I'm goingto start mostly with his
ministry today, because we'lllearn a little bit more about
his theology and what hebelieved in, tried to establish
here in the United MethodistChurch, but a little bit of his
life journey, a part of what weknow him for and what led to
(05:35):
ultimately leading to creating adenomination.
He was at Oxford and he startswhat he calls holy clubs with
his brother, charles.
What he felt was that in thechurch they weren't quite
disciplined enough for him andthat he, along with his brother,
(05:57):
needed to create this otherform of discipline for people
who really wanted to dig intothe faith they were going to dig
in with weekly practice ofprayer, weekly study of
scripture and weeklyaccountability a very big part
of these meetings.
They were so organized, youmight even call them a kind of
(06:22):
method.
See what I did there.
Ah, yes, yeah, that originallyeven was a little bit of a
negative connotation and whatthey called this group of people
, but now we've kind of claimedit and that is obviously a big
part of our name and how weidentify ourselves.
(06:44):
Early in his career John Wesleyheads to the US.
He is going to bring people tofaith in the new country there
in the United States.
And this was a significant timein John Wesley's life.
This is a significant event inhis life.
There's this massive storm onhis way over to the United
(07:06):
States, so much so that peoplewere fearing for their lives and
you can imagine in a ship of300 years ago that a storm would
be quite threatening.
And the water's coming over andeverybody's doing their best to
(07:26):
manage their fear.
And Wesley notices this group offaith called Moravians and for
some reason they don't seem tobe as scared as everybody else.
And this gets Wesley Remember,he's a little OCD.
How do those guys have deeperfaith than I have?
Why am I scared?
(07:48):
And they're not scared.
So this marks him to a certainextent.
He does work ministry in theUnited States for a while.
We can only say he wasn't allthat successful.
He leaves relatively humbledwith his efforts here in the
United States.
(08:08):
But back in England he hasanother experience again with a
Moravian community at a churchin Aldersgate and he is hearing
the reading of the preface tothe epistle to the Romans and he
has his heart strangely warmed.
(08:30):
Now some of you may be thinkinghe had the chili that night,
because you have also had yourheart strangely warmed In this
context.
It was a moment of faith, itwas an epiphany for him.
It was when you might say thatthe things that he had been
(08:52):
preaching for his whole life,preaching intensely and intently
finally started to take kind ofhold inside of him, especially
with this idea, this belief ingrace, god's unconditional love
for us.
Listen to what he says as he'sdescribing this moment, about a
(09:15):
quarter before nine, while hewas describing the change which
God works in the heart throughfaith in Christ, I, wesley, felt
my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ,christ alone for salvation, and
an assurance was given me thathe had taken away my sins, even
(09:37):
mine, and saved me from the lawof sin and death.
For me, the key word is againgrace.
Grace had become real to him.
God's unconditional love hadbecome something he didn't just
preach, but that something hehad experienced in his heart, in
(10:02):
his spirit, and it's possiblywhy grace is such a big part of
our own theologicalunderstanding of United
Methodism or Methodism in itstime.
We will talk a bit more aboutgrace next week.
We will talk a bit more aboutgrace next week, but just know
(10:25):
that it is a significant part ofour understanding of faith as
united methodists.
So wesley continues his ministryin england.
Just a few more facts about whohe is.
There's more to the story thanI'm giving you, but I'm just
kind of giving you an overviewhere.
It is said he traveled 250,000miles in his lifetime enough to
(10:47):
go 10 times around the earth.
So this is pre-planes, pre-cars.
So that amount of travel isimpressive.
And he is known for constantlytraveling, constantly going to
communities, constantlypreaching faith Before passing.
(11:08):
In 1791, there were 132,000Methodists and today there are
about 10 million Methodists.
So he hit into something.
He hit into something back thenthat continues to resonate with
many, many people in this world.
(11:29):
Interestingly enough, wesleynever advocated for leaving the
Anglican church of which he wasa part.
He only really agreed tocreating this new denomination
or putting out some parametersfor what it would be after the
Revolutionary War, because weAmericans, we from the United
(11:50):
States, weren't really going tofollow a church where the king
was in charge anymore.
So you can understand some ofthat revolt.
And so it's that point that hestarts defining what this church
is going to be, and so that'skind of an overview of the story
that leads to United Methodismfrom John Wesley.
(12:13):
And so for today, I was lookingfor a scripture that I felt
like kind of encapsulated insome meaningful way, this person
, this presence that had thecharisma and the vision that has
led to this movement of UnitedMethodism, and I landed on
(12:34):
Ephesians 3.
This was the passage that reallykind of made me think of Wesley
.
This is Paul's letter to thechurch in Ephesus, Probably not
actually written by Paul but byone of his disciples, and it is
a visionary book.
This letter is looking to a newfuture with God, a new future
(13:04):
under Jesus Christ, in which wewould be a society that were
living in faith, living in faithtogether.
The letter starts with doctrine.
The first half is all aboutwhat we might believe and then
the second half is about praxis,our fancy word for how you live
(13:27):
out your faith.
And our passage is a prayerthat ends the first section, and
you heard Candice read itearlier.
Wesley being an intense guy, Icould hear him praying this
prayer.
These phrases to me resonatewith somebody who was so intent
(13:51):
on his faith, so intent onfollowing what God wants him to
do, so intent in opening hisheart to the presence of Christ.
Grant that we're strengthenedin our inner being.
Christ may dwell in our hearts,rooted and grounded in love.
(14:13):
I can hear Wesley praying these, himself comprehending the
length, height and depth ofChrist, filled with the fullness
of Christ.
You can imagine somebody asfocused and as driven as the guy
who would write rules forsinging might zero in on faith,
(14:37):
something that carries that hugesignificance to our lives, to
the life of society, to thefuture of God's kingdom.
Personally, as I read it, maybewhy I land on this scripture is
because I might have a bit oflonging in my own heart for that
(14:59):
deep, deep faith, the kind offaith that Wesley had, the kind
of faith that the writer to thechurch in Ephesus had.
I don't know about you.
Do you ever feel like you areon, kind of feeling like Wesley
on that ship to America when thestorm hits?
(15:21):
Maybe it's not always a massivestorm, maybe it's a smaller
storm, but you are sitting theregoing?
Why am I so anxious?
Where is God here?
Why isn't God more fully in myheart.
Why are other people able tostay centered while I live in my
(15:46):
anxiety?
We forget, I think, that many ofour devout believers, our
devout Christians in our timesthey had times of doubt.
Mother Teresa, martin LutherKing these are not people who
(16:07):
were driving in the fullness offaith all of their lives.
They were asking questions,they were wrestling, trying to
understand if they were beingwho God wanted them to be, doing
what God wanted them to do.
I've come to learn that maybedoubt isn't really this bad
(16:28):
thing that we tend to try toavoid, but maybe doubt is just a
sign that we're growing, thatwe're asking the questions that
we need to ask in order tounderstand how God's working in
a complicated world in which noteverything always adds up as
(16:49):
much as we want it to add up.
My question for us today, as wetalk about Wesley and we're
living into this passage fromEphesians, is that we might ask
ourselves how we can live moredeeply in that faith.
How might we own that prayer ina more meaningful way?
(17:11):
And I do that with some advice,actually, from Wesley.
One of the things that hepreached quite often came from a
professor of his that taught itto him and it's a simple phrase
preach faith until you havefaith.
Now, he didn't writetheological treatises as much as
(17:38):
he preached.
Most of what we have fromWesley are his sermons.
He did journal, but thoseweren't necessarily directed in
the way the theologicalcommunity would own them.
But in that journey, in hispreaching, in his journaling, he
preached this frequently and itreminds me of the series we did
(18:00):
last summer about hope, thatsermon about how hope is
something you hold but, maybemore importantly, something you
live.
And when you live that hope,that hope begins to grow.
We give God a chance toactually respond to that hope,
(18:22):
to actually fill our hearts withsomething meaningful.
Perhaps that is an approachthat we can use when we're
talking about faith, that maybewe too should be preaching faith
until we have faith.
That in those times when youfeel least like preaching, least
(18:44):
like living out our faith,those might be the most critical
times to preach that faith, tolive that faith, to put a snack
bag together for the Thrivecommunity Plug, plug.
Maybe, especially when we arefeeling that lacking in our
(19:08):
faith, that uncertain, is whenwe ought to be more intentional
about living it and when we liveit.
Maybe that's how God gets achance to work within us.
God gets a chance to respond inmeaningful ways that deepen our
own faith and inspire our ownjourney.
(19:31):
In closing, I rewrote the Bible,wrote the Bible, really just
our scripture for today, but Ishaped it into a prayer that we
can pray together as a communityhere, 2025.
Let's close in prayer.
For this reason, god, we bowour knees before you, from whom
(19:56):
every family in heaven and onearth takes its name.
We pray that, according to theriches of his glory he may grant
, that we may be strengthened inour inner being with power
through his spirit, and thatChrist may dwell in our hearts
through faith, as we are beingrooted and grounded in love.
I pray that we may have thepower to comprehend, with all
(20:18):
the saints, what is the breadthand the length, and the height
and the depth, and to know thelove of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, so that we may befilled with all of the fullness
of God that to him, by the powerat work within us, is able to
accomplish abundantly, more thanall we can ask or imagine.
(20:40):
To him be glory in the churchand in Christ Jesus, to all
generations, for now and forever.
Amen.
Amen.
I'm going to start, because we're starting
this series about UnitedMethodism with a United
Methodist test.
Are you ready?
May the fourth be with you.
I have exactly one Methodist inthis room and it's Boyd, the
(00:20):
appropriate Methodist response.
May the fourth be with you andalso with you.
Ah see, that's us MethodistsAdopting Star Wars mythology and
not many people know this.
John Wesley, a Jedi.
Well, he had that kind of focus, laser focus.
(00:47):
In fact he might have had toomuch laser focus, I tell you,
last week I came in kind of mean, but this week I'm not going to
be any less mean.
I think I'm going to be toughon you again.
We are doing something wrong.
I'm going to invite you now toopen your hymnal.
(01:09):
I believe yours is red.
It's the Roman numeral, kind ofin the preface to our hymnal,
page seven.
John Wesley himself wanted tomake sure that we were doing
this correctly and I want to saymaybe we aren't All right.
(01:32):
Let's go through theseDirections for singing, written
by John Wesley himself.
Learn these tunes before youlearn any others.
Afterwards, learn as many asyou please.
Okay, that one's all right.
Sing them exactly as they areprinted here, without altering
or mending them at all.
And if you have learned to singthem otherwise, unlearn it as
(01:54):
soon as you can.
Sing all.
See that you join with thecongregation as frequently as
you can.
Let not the slight degree ofweakness or weariness hinder you
.
If it is a cross to you, takeit up and you will find it a
(02:15):
blessing.
Are we living this?
Are we living this truth?
Sing all here.
That's on the Sunday.
I cut out one of the verses andonly the choir was singing.
Sing all right.
All four verses, right, gloria?
I should have told Gloria myfault.
All right.
Now I'm back into our lesson.
(02:37):
Sing lustily, with good courage.
Beware of singing as if youwere half dead or half asleep,
but lift up your voice withstrength.
Be no more afraid of your voicenow, nor more ashamed of its
being heard than when you sangthe songs of Satan.
We saw you the other daycarousing.
(03:01):
Sing modestly, do not baw ballso as to be heard above or
distinct from the rest of thecongregation, that you may
destroy the harmony, but striveto unite your voices together so
(03:21):
as to make one clear, melodioussound.
Sing in time.
Whatever time is sung, be sureto keep with it.
Do not run before nor staybehind it, but attend close to
the leading voices and movetheir width as exactly as you
can, and take care not to singtoo slow.
This drawing way naturallysteals on all who are lazy, and
(03:44):
it is high time to drive it outfrom us and sing all our tunes
just as quick as we did at first.
Take note.
Finally, above all, singspiritually.
Have an eye to God in everyword you sing.
Aim at pleasing Him more thanyourself or any other creature.
In order to do this, attendstrictly to the sense of what
(04:07):
you sing and see that your heartis not carried away with the
sound, but offered to Godcontinually.
So shall your singing be suchas the Lord will approve here
and reward you when he cometh inthe clouds of heaven.
There endeth the lesson.
The clouds of heaven, thereendeth the lesson.
(04:28):
Friends, we're talking aboutJohn Wesley today, and I could
think of no better introductionthan that list of rules that
John Wesley wrote up for singingin church.
I hope you enjoyed them and Ihope you can see relatively
clearly exactly the type ofpersonality we are dealing with.
(04:51):
This is not a light-hearted,take-it-as-it-comes kind of guy.
He is pretty driven.
He might even be OCD, right.
I kind of wonder if he tickedoff as many people as he brought
to faith as he lived his timewith this intensity.
(05:14):
So today we're going to learn alittle bit about this guy a
little bit more, and I'm goingto start mostly with his
ministry today, because we'lllearn a little bit more about
his theology and what hebelieved in, tried to establish
here in the United MethodistChurch, but a little bit of his
life journey, a part of what weknow him for and what led to
(05:35):
ultimately leading to creating adenomination.
He was at Oxford and he startswhat he calls holy clubs with
his brother, charles.
What he felt was that in thechurch they weren't quite
disciplined enough for him andthat he, along with his brother,
(05:57):
needed to create this otherform of discipline for people
who really wanted to dig intothe faith they were going to dig
in with weekly practice ofprayer, weekly study of
scripture and weeklyaccountability a very big part
of these meetings.
They were so organized, youmight even call them a kind of
(06:22):
method.
See what I did there.
Ah, yes, yeah, that originallyeven was a little bit of a
negative connotation and whatthey called this group of people
, but now we've kind of claimedit and that is obviously a big
part of our name and how weidentify ourselves.
(06:44):
Early in his career John Wesleyheads to the US.
He is going to bring people tofaith in the new country there
in the United States.
And this was a significant timein John Wesley's life.
This is a significant event inhis life.
There's this massive storm onhis way over to the United
(07:06):
States, so much so that peoplewere fearing for their lives and
you can imagine in a ship of300 years ago that a storm would
be quite threatening.
And the water's coming over andeverybody's doing their best to
(07:26):
manage their fear.
And Wesley notices this group offaith called Moravians and for
some reason they don't seem tobe as scared as everybody else.
And this gets Wesley Remember,he's a little OCD.
How do those guys have deeperfaith than I have?
Why am I scared?
(07:48):
And they're not scared.
So this marks him to a certainextent.
He does work ministry in theUnited States for a while.
We can only say he wasn't allthat successful.
He leaves relatively humbledwith his efforts here in the
United States.
(08:08):
But back in England he hasanother experience again with a
Moravian community at a churchin Aldersgate and he is hearing
the reading of the preface tothe epistle to the Romans and he
has his heart strangely warmed.
(08:30):
Now some of you may be thinkinghe had the chili that night,
because you have also had yourheart strangely warmed In this
context.
It was a moment of faith, itwas an epiphany for him.
It was when you might say thatthe things that he had been
(08:52):
preaching for his whole life,preaching intensely and intently
finally started to take kind ofhold inside of him, especially
with this idea, this belief ingrace, god's unconditional love
for us.
Listen to what he says as he'sdescribing this moment, about a
(09:15):
quarter before nine, while hewas describing the change which
God works in the heart throughfaith in Christ, I, wesley, felt
my heart strangely warmed.
I felt I did trust in Christ,christ alone for salvation, and
an assurance was given me thathe had taken away my sins, even
(09:37):
mine, and saved me from the lawof sin and death.
For me, the key word is againgrace.
Grace had become real to him.
God's unconditional love hadbecome something he didn't just
preach, but that something hehad experienced in his heart, in
(10:02):
his spirit, and it's possiblywhy grace is such a big part of
our own theologicalunderstanding of United
Methodism or Methodism in itstime.
We will talk a bit more aboutgrace next week.
We will talk a bit more aboutgrace next week, but just know
(10:25):
that it is a significant part ofour understanding of faith as
united methodists.
So wesley continues his ministryin england.
Just a few more facts about whohe is.
There's more to the story thanI'm giving you, but I'm just
kind of giving you an overviewhere.
It is said he traveled 250,000miles in his lifetime enough to
(10:47):
go 10 times around the earth.
So this is pre-planes, pre-cars.
So that amount of travel isimpressive.
And he is known for constantlytraveling, constantly going to
communities, constantlypreaching faith Before passing.
(11:08):
In 1791, there were 132,000Methodists and today there are
about 10 million Methodists.
So he hit into something.
He hit into something back thenthat continues to resonate with
many, many people in this world.
(11:29):
Interestingly enough, wesleynever advocated for leaving the
Anglican church of which he wasa part.
He only really agreed tocreating this new denomination
or putting out some parametersfor what it would be after the
Revolutionary War, because weAmericans, we from the United
(11:50):
States, weren't really going tofollow a church where the king
was in charge anymore.
So you can understand some ofthat revolt.
And so it's that point that hestarts defining what this church
is going to be, and so that'skind of an overview of the story
that leads to United Methodismfrom John Wesley.
(12:13):
And so for today, I was lookingfor a scripture that I felt
like kind of encapsulated insome meaningful way, this person
, this presence that had thecharisma and the vision that has
led to this movement of UnitedMethodism, and I landed on
(12:34):
Ephesians 3.
This was the passage that reallykind of made me think of Wesley
.
This is Paul's letter to thechurch in Ephesus, Probably not
actually written by Paul but byone of his disciples, and it is
a visionary book.
This letter is looking to a newfuture with God, a new future
(13:04):
under Jesus Christ, in which wewould be a society that were
living in faith, living in faithtogether.
The letter starts with doctrine.
The first half is all aboutwhat we might believe and then
the second half is about praxis,our fancy word for how you live
(13:27):
out your faith.
And our passage is a prayerthat ends the first section, and
you heard Candice read itearlier.
Wesley being an intense guy, Icould hear him praying this
prayer.
These phrases to me resonatewith somebody who was so intent
(13:51):
on his faith, so intent onfollowing what God wants him to
do, so intent in opening hisheart to the presence of Christ.
Grant that we're strengthenedin our inner being.
Christ may dwell in our hearts,rooted and grounded in love.
(14:13):
I can hear Wesley praying these, himself comprehending the
length, height and depth ofChrist, filled with the fullness
of Christ.
You can imagine somebody asfocused and as driven as the guy
who would write rules forsinging might zero in on faith,
(14:37):
something that carries that hugesignificance to our lives, to
the life of society, to thefuture of God's kingdom.
Personally, as I read it, maybewhy I land on this scripture is
because I might have a bit oflonging in my own heart for that
(14:59):
deep, deep faith, the kind offaith that Wesley had, the kind
of faith that the writer to thechurch in Ephesus had.
I don't know about you.
Do you ever feel like you areon, kind of feeling like Wesley
on that ship to America when thestorm hits?
(15:21):
Maybe it's not always a massivestorm, maybe it's a smaller
storm, but you are sitting theregoing?
Why am I so anxious?
Where is God here?
Why isn't God more fully in myheart.
Why are other people able tostay centered while I live in my
(15:46):
anxiety?
We forget, I think, that many ofour devout believers, our
devout Christians in our timesthey had times of doubt.
Mother Teresa, martin LutherKing these are not people who
(16:07):
were driving in the fullness offaith all of their lives.
They were asking questions,they were wrestling, trying to
understand if they were beingwho God wanted them to be, doing
what God wanted them to do.
I've come to learn that maybedoubt isn't really this bad
(16:28):
thing that we tend to try toavoid, but maybe doubt is just a
sign that we're growing, thatwe're asking the questions that
we need to ask in order tounderstand how God's working in
a complicated world in which noteverything always adds up as
(16:49):
much as we want it to add up.
My question for us today, as wetalk about Wesley and we're
living into this passage fromEphesians, is that we might ask
ourselves how we can live moredeeply in that faith.
How might we own that prayer ina more meaningful way?
(17:11):
And I do that with some advice,actually, from Wesley.
One of the things that hepreached quite often came from a
professor of his that taught itto him and it's a simple phrase
preach faith until you havefaith.
Now, he didn't writetheological treatises as much as
(17:38):
he preached.
Most of what we have fromWesley are his sermons.
He did journal, but thoseweren't necessarily directed in
the way the theologicalcommunity would own them.
But in that journey, in hispreaching, in his journaling, he
preached this frequently and itreminds me of the series we did
(18:00):
last summer about hope, thatsermon about how hope is
something you hold but, maybemore importantly, something you
live.
And when you live that hope,that hope begins to grow.
We give God a chance toactually respond to that hope,
(18:22):
to actually fill our hearts withsomething meaningful.
Perhaps that is an approachthat we can use when we're
talking about faith, that maybewe too should be preaching faith
until we have faith.
That in those times when youfeel least like preaching, least
(18:44):
like living out our faith,those might be the most critical
times to preach that faith, tolive that faith, to put a snack
bag together for the Thrivecommunity Plug, plug.
Maybe, especially when we arefeeling that lacking in our
(19:08):
faith, that uncertain, is whenwe ought to be more intentional
about living it and when we liveit.
Maybe that's how God gets achance to work within us.
God gets a chance to respond inmeaningful ways that deepen our
own faith and inspire our ownjourney.
(19:31):
In closing, I rewrote the Bible,wrote the Bible, really just
our scripture for today, but Ishaped it into a prayer that we
can pray together as a communityhere, 2025.
Let's close in prayer.
For this reason, god, we bowour knees before you, from whom
(19:56):
every family in heaven and onearth takes its name.
We pray that, according to theriches of his glory he may grant
, that we may be strengthened inour inner being with power
through his spirit, and thatChrist may dwell in our hearts
through faith, as we are beingrooted and grounded in love.
I pray that we may have thepower to comprehend, with all
(20:18):
the saints, what is the breadthand the length, and the height
and the depth, and to know thelove of Christ that surpasses
knowledge, so that we may befilled with all of the fullness
of God that to him, by the powerat work within us, is able to
accomplish abundantly, more thanall we can ask or imagine.
(20:40):
To him be glory in the churchand in Christ Jesus, to all
generations, for now and forever.
Amen.
Amen.
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