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We are in the midst of celebrating the 305th birthday of the founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley. It is in that spirit that I invite you today to hear first a word from the book of Judges and then from the book of Revelation.

Judges 2:8-11 NRSV Joshua, son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of one hundred ten years. So they buried him within the bounds of his inheritance in the hill country of Ephraim, north of Mount Gaash. Moreover, that whole generation was gathered to their ancestors, and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and worshiped the Baals.

Revelation 2:1-5a NRSV To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands: “I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not, and have found them to be false. I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first.”

Let us pray. Come, Holy Spirit, Heavenly Dove; descend on us, reveal your love. Word of God and inward light, wake our spirits; clear our sight. Surround us now with all your glory; speak through me that sacred story. Take my lips and make them bold. Take hearts and minds and make them whole. Stir in us that sacred flame; then send us forth to spread your name. Amen.

Twenty years ago, when Jane and I lived in Jackson, Tennessee, the heating system of our home included this big black cast iron wood-burning stove that sat in the great room. It sat on a brick hearth and it wasn’t a particularly attractive thing; and so, in the summer time, we put all kinds of green flowers and plants around it to cover it up. There was a big, bright window nearby and in the morning, the sun would beam in and help the plants to grow.

But in the winter time, oh, what a gift that stove was! On a cold day, you could start a small fire with dry kindling, load on a couple of oak logs, and within minutes, amazingly, the whole house would be warmed by that stove. It radiated heat all over the house! It was incredibly efficient...so much so, that at times we had to open the windows even on the coldest of days, in order to moderate the temperature in that room. We had fans that would blow the hot air down the hallway.

But a wood fire is high maintenance. After several hours, you would start to feel a chill because the fire had begun to die down. But all it needed was a little attention. I'd take the poker, stir around the coals, toss on another log or two, and watch the fire roar back to life. A few hours later I would notice that my toes were getting cold again. I’d look and sure enough, the fire had died down again. So I’d poke it and stoke it and throw on some more logs. Soon, the fire was roaring. But in the morning, after I had left the fire unattended, there would be nothing but ashes in the stove and the house would be very cold. Fires, you see, require constant maintenance.

This, for me, is a picture, a parable, of what happens to faith and what happens to religious movements over time. If we're not paying attention to our faith, if we’re not stoking the coals and if we’re not adding fuel to the fire, the fires of faith begin to fade. Our faith begins to grow cold; we begin to feel more and more distant from God and sometimes we even start to pursue things that we have no business pursuing.

This is the story of God’s people throughout history. Scripture tells how the Israelites had an incredible experience of God. God calls Moses. Moses goes to the Pharaoh and finally the Pharaoh lets the people go. In an awesome display of God's power, he leads them through the sea and God delivers them from bondage to freedom. They’re given manna in the wilderness; they travel forty years, led by a pillar of smoke by day and a pillar of fire by night. They see the hand of God in their lives.

But then you read in Judges, the second chapter, about what happens to great religious movements over time: “That whole generation was gathered to their ancestors [they died], and another generation grew up after them, who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did what was evil in the sight of the Lord….”

This is the story of God’s people throughout history. God delivers them from some disaster or some enemy and the people say, “Yes! We'll follow you, Lord! We will serve you forever.” But then their children and their children's children -- who didn't live at the time of deliverance -- grow further and further away from God. They begin to go their own way; they stop following God and pretty soon they find themselves in trouble. So they cry out, “Lord, we're sorry! Save us!” And God does, and they say, “O Lord, we've learned our lesson! We'll never fall away again.” But they do. And the cycle goes on and on.

And this is our story. Those first Christians walked and talked with Jesus himself. And there was a fire to their faith. But as the apostles died off, the immediacy of the faith and the power of the faith, like the fire in my stove, began to fade.

We see this in Revelation, chapter 2. It’s the words addressed to the church at Ephesus. You remember Ephesus. Paul was the founding pastor. He was there for three years, longer than he stayed at any other place. And then tradition tells us that Mary, the mother of Jesus, lived and died in Ephesus and the Apostle John was there, too. With those three in Ephesus, you would think that they'd get it right. But here, maybe forty years after Paul and maybe twenty years after the death of Mary and John, this is what God says: “I have this against you: you have abandoned the love you had at first.”

The cycle is repeated! Throughout church history, that’s the way it has been. The church is on fire with the Spirit of God, but time goes by, people forget, the fire fades and the church loses its way. So, God lights a fire in someone's heart to lead the church back to the love and the power it had at first.

In the 1700’s in England, it was a young pastor by the name of John Wesley. He looked around and saw that the church was in trouble. It had lost its vitality, its spiritual passion, its credibility, and its moral touch on society.

But things were no better for John himself. As we learned last week, in spite of the fact that he had been to seminary, he felt as if he was little more than what he called an “almost Christian” or a “sort of Christian.”

So, he did the “Avis thing” and tried harder; he got up at 4:00 in the morning to pray and read Scripture. He served among the poor and needy. He even came to Georgia as a missionary. He did all these very good things, yet he had no assurance or peace, no sense of God's loving presence. So after his failure in Georgia, he returned to England, broken and searching.

Last Sunday I told you how on May 24, 1738, he went reluctantly (to meet with a group of Christians) on Aldersgate Street. And while he was there, while someone was reading from Luther's preface to the Epistle to the Romans, John felt his heart “strangely warmed.” He sensed the depth of God’s love, that God loved him personally and completely.

It was immediately clear to Wesley that there’s more to being a Christian than being baptized, joining the church, and believing the right things and doing the right stuff. There is power to our faith and a love that’s tender and amazing…a love that’s divine, all excelling. He sought to lead the people to that kind of love…and to a faith that goes deep in the riches of God’s grace and then goes out to others expressing itself in a life of service. And the Wesleyan revival began.

Now, as John Wesley went around preaching and challenging others to new life, to be constantly growing in their faith and serving in the world, you’d think people would be glad to see him and welcome him.

But in the Church of England, most pastors weren't at all happy with John’s passion and his preaching, even out in the streets. Preachers preached sermons against him, and wrote articles in the newspaper maligning him. They hired drummers to drum during his outdoor sermons to try to drown him out. Sometimes they’d tell the police, “Wesley is inciting a riot,” and so the police would haul him off to jail. People were paid to hurl rotten tomatoes and eggs at Wesley and sometimes even throw stones.

Wesley tells about how once as he was preaching, a man picked up a large stone, threw it, and hit him in the forehead as he was preaching. It stunned him but he said, “The Holy Spirit gave me strength as though I didn't even feel the pain; I wiped the blood away and continued to preach.” Wesley carried the scar from that stone for the rest of his life.

What would you do if people were pelting you with rocks and rotten eggs, writing terrible things about you in the paper and attacking your character from the pulpits? Most of us would be so discouraged that we would throw in the towel. But Wesley didn't give up.

He eventually wore out his opponents and outlived the rest! By the end of his life he was a hero in the British Isles because the movement he began transformed the British Isles. Historians claim that the violent revolutions that plagued the rest of Europe didn't happen in England because England had the Methodist Revolution that had transformed the nation. But we’ll talk more about that next week!

At a Methodist gathering, John asked the group: “What may we reasonably believe is God's design in raising up the people called Methodist?” In one sentence, he answered: “The Methodists are to be reforming the nation and in particular the church; and spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land.”

In this one sentence, Wesley laid out the church’s three highest priorities. First of all, we’re to be spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land…which means we are to reach people who aren't going to church and who don't have a relationship with Christ and offer them the greatest gift in the world and help them grow in Christ so that they love God and love their neighbor as themselves.

The second priority is reformation of the culture, community and nation, by being salt and light in the world.

And then third, John Wesley saw the church in need of constantly being renewed and reformed.

These are our priorities as well. (Next week, in the final sermon of this series, as we talk about the practices of a Methodist, part of our focus will be on being salt and light in the world…and see how the world can be reshaped.) But today, we focus on the renewal in the church and in ourselves.

The first thing that I want you to remember about the heart of a Methodist is that we know that the church is always in need of reformation. The Protestant Reformers used a Latin phrase to describe this: Ecclesia Semper Reformanda! The Church is ever reforming! We must never become too comfortable with the way things are. For the seven last words of a dying church are: We’ve never done it that way before.

We need to wrestle with that…because after more than 200 years, the Methodist Revival is itself in need of reviving! The United Methodist Church, across America, has been in decline for nearly 50 years. There are lots of reasons for that, but mainly it is because of what happens to religious movements over time: we forget our soul; we forget our story; grow too comfortable and we abandon the love we had at first. And the church grows as cold as the ashes in the stove. In fact, Wesley said, “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist, but I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power.” Ecclesia Semper Reformanda. The church must always be changing and growing and reforming and being renewed. (The primary source for this message to this point is Adam Hamilton’s, “The Character of a Methodist”)

But second, and most important: As individuals, we are also always in need of that renewal. The cry of the Methodist Church is not just ecclesia semper reformanda, but humanus semper reformanda. Each human being, each Christian, is in need of ongoing renewal and reformation. And the word reformation…at its root, means re-formation, the ongoing reshaping of our lives after the way of Christ.

Listen to how John Wesley described a Methodist: “The distinguishing marks of a Methodist are not his/her ‘opinions’ of any sort or assenting to this or that scheme of religion or embracing any particular set of notions….” (Rather) “a Methodist is one who has God's love poured into his heart through the Holy Spirit…, one who loves the Lord…with all his heart…all his soul…all his mind and all his strength. God (and the things of God) are the joy of their heart and the desire of their soul.” Wesley said that Methodism wasn't defined by some new set of beliefs or some new creed. No! It is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. It is as simple and as profound and as challenging as that!

But John Wesley also understood that faith, like the fire in my wood stove, is always high maintenance. It needs constant attention. Without it, the flame flickers and the fire of faith will fade.

And while we cannot manufacture or manipulate the presence or experience of God, like Wesley, we can be open; we can live spiritually hungry; we can be honest about our own spiritual poverty; we can always be stoking the fire and kindling the flame of faith.

The truth is, you and I can have a lukewarm, mediocre spiritual life, if we choose to. If a lukewarm spiritual life is the kind of life you want, you can pursue it. All you have to do is just be sporadic about your spiritual input. Come to church sometimes, when you feel like it; read the Bible once in awhile, but without clarity about how you want it to shape your mind. Pray sporadically, mostly when you’re in trouble. Then mostly fill your mind with the things everybody else in our culture fills their minds with. Just keep channel surfing.

But there is an alternative. Seek to make your mind the dwelling place of God.

John Ortberg says, “Seek to have a mind that is set on the glories of the Father of Jesus which are always present, and gradually crowd out every distorted belief, every destructive feeling, every misguided intention.”

We can make our minds a home for God by deliberately filling our minds with the kinds of things Jesus says are important: “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, pure, lovely and admirable…if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.”

Make it your heart’s desire to know and love God, to be receptive to the smallest whisper of God and to love those that God puts in your path with the same love God has given to you.

My hunch is that there are some of you here today whose faith has grown cold. The flame has begun to flicker; the fire has started to fade. It used to be different, but over time, there’s been a slow drift away from God. And this worship service and this message might be your reminder that it’s time for you to come back to your first love.

Maybe you might take a cue from Larry and Janet. In 1982, when Larry was 28, he left the Chicago Rehab hospital after a year-long stay. He went home to a wife he couldn’t remember marrying, but to a woman who cared so deeply for him that he fell in love with her all over again.

Larry suffers from amnesia, the aftermath of a head injury that he suffered when his car crashed into a tree. He was so badly injured that the priest gave him last rites. But his wife, Janet, then age 25, refused to believe that he would die. She didn’t leave his side for the ten days he was in a coma. When he opened his eyes, she was the first person he saw, but he didn’t recognize her.

He remembered the rest of his family (his mom, dad, brothers and sisters) because he could recall times when he was a kid. But he couldn’t remember his first true love…his first date with Janet, or their wedding or their years of marriage. Janet tells it like this: “He didn’t remember me. But he seemed to like me.” Then one day, after she’d again told him she loved him, he told her that he loved her too. He still had amnesia…he still couldn’t remember the time together before the accident.

But after months of faithful visits, this woman who he’d once loved but forgotten, was his fresh, new love. She was his first love and he fell in love with her all over again. (Loughry)

Maybe you’ve been forgetful toward God; the fire of faith has faded and your mind has ceased to be the dwelling place of God. Well, I have good news for you: God still loves you and He is ready to help you fall in love all over again.

Let us pray. O Lord, we give you our thanks for your faithfulness in spite of our unfaithfulness; for your love, in spite of our forgetfulness. But you call us by name and you invite us to love you with all that we are. Help us to hear your call. For we pray in your name. Amen.

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Endnotes: This sermon is based, in part, upon material from the following sources:

1. Adam Hamilton, “The Character of a Methodist”
2. Janet Loughry, “How are We Leaking?” Moorpark Presbyterian Church
3. John Ortberg, God is Closer Than You Think
4. James and Molly Scott, Restoring Methodism