Don't Stop at the Beginning of the Race!

This week, Donald Haynes has a column in the United Methodist Reporter. You can read the entire article here.

The article is titled, Reclaiming the experience of 'being saved.' It begins with a look at the growth of the early Methodist church. The growth was because Methodist focused on being saved! As Haynes writes, they learned that Christ was their savior from sins and were discipled in the ordering of their lives by following Jesus.

This pattern was important to John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement. Wesley believed that all people could come to know God. A Calvanistic view point would be that only the elect are able to be saved. On the other end of the spectrum is Arminianism which states that all people can be saved. All people sin and are in need of a savior. However, because of our state, we cannot come to God. However, as we were yet sinners, Christ died for us and God's grace is freely given to us. In Methodist theology, this is called prevenient grace, sometimes described as the hound of heaven, from a poem of the same name. John Wesley was big on all being able to come to God and began his ministry preaching to the lowest of the low, the miners in England.

Another element of Methodistism is what happens after you are "saved." Salvation is a process, not just a moment of conversion. The moment of conversion would be when we find we have faith. Paul called this being justified. Arminius and Wesley called it prevenient grace. But that isn't the end, just the beginning! We must persevere and not let our faith be in vain.

This is where a lot of debate in Christianity occurs, the relationship between faith and works. I do not think it should be. I think first and foremost, we must agree that it isn't humans who have to judge who gets into heaven and who doesn't. The Bible is quite clear that we are saved by faith. Reading Romans 4 or Hebrews 11 will show you this. However, we will also see that the story of salvation doesn't end there. We see in Romans 5 & 6 and Hebrews 11 that action follows. By faith, Abraham left his home. By faith, Abraham offered up his only son to God. By faith, Moses led the Israelites across the Red Sea. By faith, the walls of Jericho fell. By faith, the prostitute in Jericho protected the spies and was not killed. By faith, Peter walked on the water. By faith, Paul was able to see again. By faith, he was delivered from those who sought to kill him and lowered by basket. James tells us that works shows us our faith is genuine. God's gift to us is so great, it requires us to give it away.

There can be no set number of "works" that must be required in order to "earn" salvation. Salvation is not earned. It is a gift of God. But if we have received God's grace, we will respond and act. The adulterous woman is told by Jesus to go and sin no more. He tells another to sell his belongings and follow him. We will respond when we have received God's grace.

I have often told people that the bible talks about two things, how to become a Christian, and what to do once you become one. I think a better description would be: 1) God loves you. 2)How to love. We love because God loved us first.

Another portion of Arminianism and Methodism (though most pry don't know it) is that salvation can be lost. I do not believe this to be true. I think it is more an issue of just saying you believe and then not changing anything is a sign that your faith was not true.

Arminius and Wesley believed that if we do not act on our faith, we could lose it. An example of this would be found in a parable of Jesus.
Matthew 12: 43-45:

"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.

If we purify ourselves of sin but do not fill it with anything, sin will fall right back in and we will be worse off than before.

In my life, I have been in dozens of United Methodist churches and heard dozens of United Methodist pastors preach. I have been actively involved in 3 UM churches, the others were just a Sunday service. Rarely have I seen both of these issues addressed by the church.

The first UM church I was actively involved in had these elements, but not in the Sunday service. I had these two elements in the youth group. It was there I learned about God, faith, how to study the bible, and how to live it out. Rarely in the Sunday service did I hear about these things.

The second UM church I was involved in had these elements. They were in the Sunday service and in small groups, bible studies, etc...

The third UM church I was involved in did not have these elements. I rarely heard them in the Sunday service and haven't found small group or bible study. I helped to start a small bible study group, but we were disbanded by the church because we were "too small."

In the majority of other UM churches that I have attended services in, I have rarely heard these elements. I rarely hear the gospel. I rarely hear the need of continuing in our faith. I often leave not really sure what I heard. When was the last time that I heard sin was bad? In the third UM church I was involved in, I heard it once. And the pastor even said he didn't like talking about sin. Those who are not sick are not in need of a physician!

God changes lives. God rescues of from the bottom of the pit we have thrown ourselves into and dusts of off and gives us a new chance. This new chance comes with his help and his guidance. How will we know we are even in the pit if noone tells us? As John wrote in chapter 1 of his gospel, the Light shined in the world but the dark did not recognize it. God has decided to allow us to play a roll in spreading the Gospel. When Phillip, as described in the 8th chapter of Acts, came across the eunuch reading from the prophets, the eunuch said that he couldn't understand unless someone helped him. We all play a roll in this, the church plays a huge roll as well.

When I leave church and have not heard the gospel, what did I attend it for? When I can sit in a church for years and never hear how to be saved or what I should do once I am saved, why am I in the church? Is it any wonder why the population of the United Methodist Church is shrinking?

We must return to our roots. We must return to talking about sin and that it is bad! We must return to talking about Jesus and his love for us! We must return to talking about salvation and accepting the free gift of God. We must return to to talking about how to live as a Christian, and not letting the evil spirits return and find an empty house.

Don't stop at the beginning. Having faith is just the beginning of living by faith.