In his sermon "The Causes of Inefficacy of Christianity," John Wesley wrestled with the question, Why has Christianity done so little good in the world? For many of us today who have been shaped by the vitality of the Methodist movement, that is an odd question for Wesley to ask. We see Methodists as making significant contributions in the realms of spiritual and social renewal. So, what did Wesley see during his time that led him to question the Church's witness to the world? He was not questioning the church's accomplishments. He was making a judgment on its spiritual condition.
Wesley offers three responses. He observed an ignorance of correct doctrine, the neglect of Christian discipline, and a loss of discipleship rooted in self-denial. We could spend time on all three of his answers and relate them to our modern context. Today, though, let's focus on Wesley's third observation. He writes of the church's discipleship: "Plainly, because we have forgot, or at least not duly attended to, those solemn words of our Lord, 'If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.'" Wesley saw that the call to discipleship, to follow Jesus, had waned. It was either forgotten as a mandate or not given the attention it rightly requires. In either case, the result was a failure to answer the “intention" God set for the church. 
This forgetting was not just a moral decline. It was a letting go of God's "gracious dispensation," something Wesley would describe in another sermon. The call to follow Jesus, which we understand as discipleship, is not sustained by our own resolve or actions. Instead, God's power works within us. When we forget this, discipleship becomes optional, and we become less of what God desires us to be. The world doesn't need a church full of itself. It needs the witness of a church that has surrendered itself to the call to follow Christ.
Stay blessed...john | 
No comments:
Post a Comment