Sermon (May 13) - "Three Simple Rules: Staying in Love with God" by Sandra Yerian, Youth Director

Over the past 2 weeks we have been considering John Wesley’s General Rules

First we looked at Rule 1: Do no harm.

Then, rule 2-do good 

So far this sermon series and the general rules seem pretty straight forward. These are definitely attainable and desirable goals for living. It seems easy enough.

This week though we move on to the third of John Wesley’s rules:

Stay in Love with God

It seems that this is a particularly appropriate topic for confirmation Sunday. After all, confirmation is not a graduation.  It is a beginning, a continuation of our journey towards Christian perfection. Through His Prevenient grace, God called to us, beaconing us draw near long before we even knew of Him and His love for humankind. An invitation was issued to enter into the household of God. Through justifying grace, we accepted that invitation and stepped over the threshold. Now the journey continues. While I’m particularly addressing these wonderful seventh graders, who have spent an entire school year preparing for this day, for these vows, the message, the rule is suitable for all of us to consider anew. 

Stay in love with God.

At first glance this rule doesn’t seem to be so complicated either. Or is it? What exactly is love?  How does one stay in love with God?

If I think about modern love, this rule becomes more complex. Love today is a complicated and confusing dance of needs, demands and conditions.  Many of us have experience with falling out of love, and seeing our dreams vanish. We must consider love in its non commercial sense, in the God light in order to understand the rule.

In his letter of encouragement to the young church in Corinth, Paul describes love like this: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful, or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends” 1Cor:4-8

This scripture is very popular at weddings, but the love Paul describes isn’t the romantic kind. He wasn’t writing to starry eyed lovers; he wrote to a community struggling to live together in harmony.

The apostle Paul says this about Love in his letter to the Romans: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation, will be able to separate us- from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”  Rom 8: 38-39

Wow!! Did you get a hold of that?  There is not one thing, not one, that can get in between God’s love and us. Paul knows what he is talking about; he experienced that amazing love first hand.  He had made it his life’s work to persecute those who followed Jesus. He was a MURDERER, and God refused to stop loving him. That’s considerably different than the love we see on TV, where it seems everyone is looking for an excuse to quit loving, isn’t it?

Wouldn’t it be awesome to love like that? Without condition or end? No matter what; the end of love is not an option. Hmm

It is this kind of love Wesley refers to when given this instruction.

Are you ready to love God like this? Forever?

Using the more formal language of the 18^th century, let’s consider how to “stay in Love with God”

It is therefore expected of all who continue therein that they should continue to evidence their desire of salvation by attending upon all the ordinances of God; such are:

The public worship of God

The ministry of the word, either read or expounded

The supper of the Lord

Family and private prayer

Searching the scriptures

Fasting or Abstinence.

Ordinance is a strange word to us, but to John Wesley, it described these disciplines which are essential to nurture our relationship with God, keeping it vital and strong. It is imperative to our mission and ministry that we stay close to God. .  Let’s unpack this list, maybe rethink our plans and commitments

The public worship of God.  Essentially, this means go to church.  But why?

I’ve thought a lot about family lately.  Mine is mostly far away. My immediate family is in Canada, my extended family in Holland.  As much as we love each other, and connect when we gather, it’s easy to let things slide.  Life is just so busy, and like most families, scheduling is complicated. Between jobs, school, sports and so on, its hard to make a 400plus mile trip happen. Long periods of time can go by between meaningful gatherings and conversations. Phone, text and email just don’t fill that space.  This past week we were all together though, gathered together in our home town in support of our parents. We were all amazed and overjoyed with the strength, comfort and security we found in each other’s presence. We held hands and prayed as dad was wheeled into surgery (he’ll be ok, by the way) All 5 of us kids were strengthened and refreshed by the mutual support.  And so it is with this community of faith.  We gather together to worship our God, to receive his love and blessings, to learn from and with each other.

Yes, you can worship alone, as many argue, but by being together we stand on the strength of tradition. We benefit from shared knowledge and experience, and are less likely to be led astray by false information. In difficult times we are gifted with the faithful prayers of our Christian community. 

During Easter morning worship, Jeff & I sat in the parlor.  I looked out at all of you,  our wonderful choir and musicians, and the work of many hands that beautified our sanctuary and I was overwhelmed with feelings of love and belonging. I encourage you to one day change your vantage point and gaze out onto our community. How blessed we are!

Jesus said: “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them” Matt 18:20.

The ministry of the word either read or expounded.  The word expounded includes listening to sermons.  Enough said…

The Supper of the Lord.   Also known as Holy Communion or Eucharist. We were instructed to remember Jesus in the breaking of bread.   Holy Communion is such a special time in worship.  We recall the life, death and resurrection of our savior. His teaching, his servant hood, his example, and the ultimate sacrifice; suffered for us, for our salvation.

The Lord’s Supper connects us to the ancient, to the sacrifice and to the heavenly banquet we await.

Lately I’ve also been thinking to about it from a different angle: God loving us so incredibly much that he would endure the agony of watching his only some tortured in order to bring us all home.

Eucharist can be defined as the giving of thanks.  Words are inadequate to express my gratitude when I contemplate all of this, but when I partake in Holy Communion, The Holy Eucharist, I connect intimately with our father.

Family and Private Prayer:

Jesus never neglected prayer. He models for us the importance of this practice. It was His time of connection and communication with His Father.  We see several places in scripture where Jesus withdraws from his companions in order to pray. 

In Matthew 6, Jesus gives us these easy to follow instructions. Do make a spectacle of yourself.  Go into your room, and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your Father, who sees in secret will reward you…don’t heap up empty phrases.  It doesn’t need to be all fancy and holy sounding, it needs to be sincere and honest. I love it when my friend Alicia leads our youth in prayer. She says things like “hey God…I’m mad..” I’ve even heard her say: “Yo! God!”  She models for us all just how approachable God is.

God knows our heart’s hurts and desires.  He just wants to talk with us about it, just conversation.

Life is so hectic. Alarms ring, the dog barks, someone can’t find their shoes, we feel like we have to race out the door every day, it’s a challenge to us all to go to our room and shut the door. Even when we do, “white” noise can distract us. The computer fan, or fridge compressor sometimes seem to fill the house with racket. Recently many of us participated in Unbinding Your Heart. How did you feel about the weekly question about your prayer life?  Some of us struggled for the very reasons I just mentioned.  Our lives are filled with distraction .One blessing we’ve received as we journeyed together through the study is a focus on prayer and plenty of conversation about how we pray. I think it was during our first or second session that our group was gifted by one person’s prayer practice.  She has a frequent long commute, and so on the advice of another friend, began the practice of turning off the radio and praying for the people in her life as she drove to work. Almost all of us adopted this model for our commutes. As we continued to struggle to grow in our prayer practices, we kept coming back to this wonderful opportunity to pray. Soon we were praying for struggling persons we saw on the way, rude drivers etc, we all grew…

There are so many postures and practices when it comes to praying. Standing sitting kneeling, prostrate , forehead on the floor, head in hands, hands folded, hands lifted high, palms open…it doesn’t matter…the conversation matters…

And we don’t have to dream up anything new. Jesus gave us the words. In the awkward scary moments before my dad’s operation, no other words we come except the Lord’s Prayer. No other words were needed, these were more than adequate.  God knows our hearts.

Are you familiar with the Wesleyan Quadrilateral? As a confirmation class, we spend time exploring this tool. In a nutshell, it is a tool for evaluating Information and situations, and arriving at sound God pleasing conclusions. We use scripture, reason, tradition and experience to figure out the truth.  Scripture is the foundation of it all.

That is one reason why the ordinance of searching the scriptures is so important.

We know the bible to be Gods word delivered to us. Through searching the scriptures, meditating on it, and just increasing our familiarity with its stories and characters, we can know and love god more.  Receiving direction, guidance, inspiration and comfort. It is a plan for living well.

The final ordinance to mention is fasting or abstinence.

This one is tough! As a child and through my teens, we practiced fasting at certain times.  We always fasted on Sunday mornings until we’d received Holy Communion.  And we fasted on Good Friday. The Sunday fast was to emphasize being nourished by Christ first. The Good Friday fast was to honor and participate in Jesus’ suffering.

Food is obvious, but there are other ways to fast. One could fast from TV or internet for a period of time. I’m trying to fast from radio in an effort to create more space for god to enter in. Likewise for abstinence. We think immediately of things like sexual activity or consumption of alcohol, but could also abstain from gossip, or complaining.

These ordinances are all offered to us for the purpose of helping us to draw closer to our God who longs for a close and loving relationship with us.

Love was so incredibly important to Jesus. Three times he asked peter “do you love me?” Each time Peter affirmed his Love Jesus replied “feed my lambs tend my sheep”

As we grow in Love of God, we too will be compelled to share the good news, to reach out to the lost lambs, the hungry and hurt. Gods amazing, unconditional love will pour out through us into a world in need.

One final thought on the importance of staying in Love with God. It’s a quote of a quote from this wonderful little book (Three Simple Rules) by Rueben Job emphasizing to importance of love to Jesus.  These are the words of Henri Nouwen:

“Look at Jesus. The world did not pay any attention to Him. He was crucified and put away. His message of love was rejected by a world in search of power, efficiency, and control.  But there he was, appearing with wounds in his glorified body to a few friends who had eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to understand.  This rejected, unknown wounded Jesus simply asked, “Do you love me?  Do you really love me?” He whose only concern had been to announce the unconditional love of God, had only one question to ask, “Do you love me?” (In the name of Jesus, by Henri Nouwen (Crossroad 1989); pages 36- 37)

Stay in love with God!!