Fairhaven Sermon 6-29-2025

Good morning. I wanted to start this morning by wishing a very important person a happy birthday. Yesterday was John Wesley's birthday. He was born June 28, 1703 and died in 1791.

He lived to be 88 years old. I was reading an article on the United Methodist website that listed 10 facts about John Wesley. Now, I'm not going to relay all 10 of them to you, but we'll point out a few that caught my attention. The first is, he had doubts about his faith.

I think we can all relate to that one. And just like we all have at different times of our lives. But a man gave him a great piece of advice. He said, John, preach until you have faith so that you find the faith to preach.

Right? Good advice. In other words, keep moving forward to find your faith so that you have the faith to keep moving forward. We learn as we go. Okay.

Point two, he coined the term agree to disagree. I never knew that one. He found himself in a position where he could not win an argument and neither would he give up his position. And so he said, may we agree to disagree, but remain in fellowship.

Oh, if we could all remember that in the world at this time. And this little fact just cracked me up. I think you may find it amusing as well. John counseled people to eat a little less than you desire.

I think if you've heard this advice already this morning, you have... We'll review Paul's letter to the Galatians in a few moments.

But John wasn't providing us with some sort of a diet, but rather a practice to ensure that people were not ruled by their natural desires, but were exercising control over them. He apparently adhered to his advice as he weighed in at only 128 pounds. John was a little guy. But what I found amusing about this is how modern Methodism has evolved into God be with us till we eat again.

I guess John Wesley never attended a Methodist cover dish dinner. laughter And number nine on the list of facts stood out to me. Wesley said that we need to be involved in social holiness. Hmm.

This is not synonymous with social justice. Social holiness means that we can only grow as Christians when we are in community. The preface to the 1739 hymnal, he was adamant that the gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social, and no holiness but social holiness. So we need to be in community with each other to lift each other up and move forward in growing our faith.

So happy birthday, John Wesley. Know that we continue to love you and appreciate all that you have taught us. So we are approaching that celebration of Independence Day in the US. Freedom is what we celebrate.

We believe in freedom. We fought for freedom, not just in the 1770s, but over and over again in the history of this nation. We sacrificed for freedom. Yes.

It's a powerful statement and a patriotic declaration. But it begs the question, freedom for what? Well, of course, our answer is usually something like, Anything we want. I find eight definitions for the word freedom in the dictionary, and one of them is pretty much doing whatever we desire. However, we can hear that our forefathers considered these definitions when putting together our Constitution.

Freedom is the absence of subjection to foreign domination or despotic government. The state of not being imprisoned or enslaved. The state of being unrestricted and able to move easily. The state of not being subjected to or affected by a particular undesirable thing.

The power of self-determination attributed to the will. The quality of being independent of fate or necessity. Unrestricted use of something, such as a dog having freedom of the house. Finally, familiarity or openness in speech or behavior.

Now, doing everything we desire doesn't really work for those of us who have chosen to follow Christ. Of course, you can argue that when our wills are perfectly aligned with Christ, then whatever we want is what He would want us to do. True, I can't argue with that, but then how aligned are we? Let's take another look at Paul's letter to the Galatians and the scripture from today. And I think this first verse is very important.

For what the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit. and what the spirit desires is opposed to the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to prevent you from doing what you want. And here is where John Wesley instructed us to eat a little less.

Have you ever noticed that Paul likes lists? This sermon also has three sets of lists. Paul likes to give us a list of all things to illustrate his point. Look at verse 5:19. Now the works of the flesh are obvious, and here comes the list.

sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, which I had to look up, okay? That's opposed or hostile to something or someone. Strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, infactions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before, those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. And here Paul gives us another little list.

By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. Now, Paul could have shortened that list and stopped at the fruit of the Spirit is love. It encompasses all of the other attributes.

However, he wanted to guide us to the principles that provide a holy life. So now we've got our lists. Our stay away from this pile of divisiveness list and our gathering together and focusing our whole being into one whole self-aware, spirit-filled person list. So now what do we do with these lists? We work.

That's what we do. To put it in a gardener's terms, there's soil to till. We have to break up those cold, hard hearts and get ourselves ready for the spirit. There's seeds to plant.

We work with each other to get ourselves in line with Christ. There's pruning to do. We need to cut off those negative feelings and those hurts and those pains. And weeds to pull.

Yes, get those old things that spring up that we don't want in our lives and get rid of It's not very glamorous work. It's not sinking our teeth right into that ripe, juicy fruit of our salvation. And it's not the mountaintop excitement of breathing the air of the Spirit and knowing without a doubt that we are alive in Christ. There are very spiritual mountaintop experiences.

If any of you have been to Jumanville, you've been to camp, you've been to the Cross of Christ on the top of the mountain, you know that that feeling of the Spirit is with you. However, we do have to come off the mountaintop and back to the real world. That's when the work really begins to keep the spirit in your heart. There is joy when the spirit is with us.

There is enthusiasm. There is passion. But there's work to do. There's the daily choosing to let the Spirit lead.

The monumental effort of surrendering our will again, and again, and again. And there are tools to harvest this fruit of the Spirit. Every gardener needs tools to work on the fertile ground. The tools for this labor of sanctifying grace, letting God work in us and through us, are called the means of grace.

These are spiritual disciplines and practices that bring us back to that decision point again and take us where God would have us go. Now, John Wesley liked his list too, and he identified five instituted means of grace, not as exclusive practices, but as ones that help us understand the process of being shaped in faith. His five were prayer, searching the scriptures, communion, fasting, and gathering in groups to share our faith and hold one another accountable. These disciplines are the means by which we work toward the harvest, through which we cultivate the fruit of the Spirit within us and between us.

They are the means of living the life that Christ came to bring us, the air that we breathe so we can inhale the Spirit that takes up residence within us. They are all signs of God's eternal spring at work in us, and we are called to the freedom that brings forth the harvest of the fruit of the Spirit. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Amen.