Three Simple Rules: Week 5

Thirdly: By attending upon all the ordinances of God;

The United Methodist Book of Discipline (2016), ¶ 104.

Introduction

Greetings church family and friends, I am so glad you have decided to join me for this this Mid-Week Devotion with Bro. Tim on a rainy Wednesday. What better way to shelter from the rain by continuing our Wednesdays With Wesley. We are finishing up the book, Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living by Bishop Reuben P. Job. If you have missed any of these series of messages, you may catch up by going to our website: boonevillefirstumc.org and clicking the menu button “Ministries” and then selecting Midweek Devotionals. I have also included a direct link at the end of this video to the full series.

Before we get started, I would like to extend an invitation to you to join us this Sunday for worship at 10 am. We will have in-person worship which will be live-streamed for those who are unable to be present. We are still practicing a protocol of social distancing while gathering together and as always, I encourage you if you are in the vulnerable category or are experiencing symptoms of being sick to join us from home via technology.

This evening, we continue our study of the book by Bishop Rueben P. Job called Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living as part of a series of devotionals called Wednesday with Wesley. These simple rules came from John Wesley's General Rules of the Methodist Church. Drawing from the Bible and interested in living out the goal of salvation, John Wesley gave us these rules to encourage Christ-followers to become Christ-like.

These three rules, simply expressed are:

Do no harm

Do good

Stay in love with God (by keeping God’s ordinances)

The third rule: stay in love with God

In this week’s devotional, we are looking at the third of our three simple rules: “stay in love with God.” Now, that is how Bishop Job writes the third rule. For a proper quote from the General Rules for the Methodist Church, John Wesley actually said: “Third: By attending all the ordinances of God.” Job’s putting the third rule in more modern language is intended to convey the meaning of Wesley’s rule that we are to attend to the ordinances of God.” Because “ordinances” is a rarely used word today and Wesley had a specific meaning to that he attached to it, let’s understand what Wesley meant by “attending to God’s ordinances”.

Ordinances

To John Wesley, ordinances describe the practices that kept the relationship between God and human beings vital, alive, and growing. He names

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.

as essential practices to a faithful life. If I may expand upon this thinking, rhetorically what would love of God look like? Well, a person committed to worshiping God, reading God’s word, participating in sacraments that remind us of God’s work in our lives, being in conversation with God through prayer, searching God’s scriptures, denying ourselves to be closer to God. And the contrary could be offered, a person that doesn’t love God we would not expect to do these things either.

This is a crude illustration but if I told you that I love my wife butI:

never expressed love for her to her

didn’t want to spend time with her

never wanted to talk or communicate with her

never sought her mind

put my wants before hers

I can’t imagine any of you would conclude that I love my wife if those things were true.

The United Methodist Book of Discipline (2016), ¶ 104.

Now this is a very superficial reason for practicing the ordinances: this is what people who are in a full relationship of love with another person “do”.

But Wesley saw more out of the ordinances. He described them in such a way as “spiritual disciplines”. As Bishop Job points out that “Wesley saw these disciplines as central to any life of faithfulness to God in Christ...the consistent practice of these spiritual disciplines kept those who sought to follow Christ in touch with the presence and power of Christ so they could fulfill their desire to live as faithful disciples.”

Job, Rueben P.. Three Simple Rules (Kindle Locations 378-380). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.

Spiritual Disciplines

The language of spiritual disciplines has fallen by the way side in contemporary Christianity.

Spiritual disciplines teach us to live our lives in harmony with something larger than ourselves and larger than that which the world values as ultimate.

Job, Rueben P.. Three Simple Rules (Kindle Locations 380-381). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition.

A couple of weeks ago, I preached a sermon that was based on the PRO model that was developed for facilitators to help move clients to their desired outcome. If I may appropriate this model again for our conversation, then I would do so in this way.

How do we stay in love with God? (This is our problem). Very often people spend a lot of time struggling with the problem. They know their spiritual lives aren't what only what they should be but even what they desire them to be. And so they cast about for ways in which they can rededicate their lives to God. Often this manifests itself in a series of "bargains" in which they try to negotiate with God.

We need to move from the problem to the remedy. And one of the remedies is to practice the spiritual disciplines, or, to use the language of Wesley, attending to all the ordinances of God. Spiritual disciplines keep us in the presence of God which leads to transformation to our preferred outcome, taking on the image of Christ.

It is important to focus upon the intent of the disciplines. The disciplines are intended to put us in the presence of God, to allow God to do the work of grace in our lives. The power of the disciplines aren’t the disciplines themselves. The disciplines teach us and create opportunities for God’s power to work within us. The key to understanding them is that we must not neglect our relationship with God. We must stay close to God. Only through God do we have the power to be faithful, fruitful, and are able to do good.

Peter, do you love me?

In John 21, Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Three times this question was asked of Peter. And each time he asked the question, he followed it up with a command: “Feed my sheep”. And we see here a connection between loving God and passing that love down to others. Feeding the lambs, tending the sheep, and providing for the needs of others are the signs of love that we exchange with God. So in this way, the third rule: stay in love with God, informs the first two: 1. do no harm and 2. do good. And at the conclusion of this episode, Jesus says in John 21:19: “…Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

John 21:19 NIV

19 Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, “Follow me!”

Bishop Job concludes the chapter in this way:

The question from Jesus continues for each of us, “My daughter, my son, do you love me?” And of course there is only answer we want to give, “Yes Lord, you know everything, you know that I love you.” The next question then becomes are we ready to choose the costly way that involves these three simple rules as our way of living?