Rule 3: STAY IN LOVE WITH GOD

Deuteronomy 6: 4-9
Matthew 22: 34-40
Revelation 2: 2-5a

      This morning we bring to a close our three-week series on John Wesley’s General Rules for the early Methodists. Two weeks ago, we looked at the first Rule—Do No Harm; by our words/deeds or silence/inaction causing no harm or injury to anyone/thing. From the second Rule—Do Good—we receive the encouragement to take a step out and seek to build up one another and those around us. If we take these two together, we see they are all about the way in which we relate to and interact with one another.

      The third Rule shifts the focus. This Rule exhorts (I like that word!) us to “attend to all the ordinances of God”. To put that in slightly more modern language, “stay in love with God”. Quite simply, this means that we are to develop or maintain a vital, healthy, growing relationship with God.

      When we say the word “relationship”, it is possible for each one of us to attach a different meaning to that word. For our purposes, I am going to define relationship as “a passionate attachment”. In short, then, the thrust of this Rule is for us to anchor ourselves in God and become or remain passionately attached to God.

      If we take a moment and reflect on that, it is easy to say this is important. After all, who among us wants to say that a relationship with God is unimportant? The question, though, (and perhaps the tougher part) is “how do we do this?” How do we develop or maintain a relationship with God? When we think about it, we have all sorts of devices we use to maintain relationships with one another—we use telephones, some of us use computers, in days past we wrote letters, we spend time together, etc. Although these are great ways to cultivate relationships with one another, they are slightly impractical when it comes to relating to God. It can be difficult to be in relationship with a Being that we cannot behold with our physical senses of sight, hearing, touching, etc. We must rely on our spiritual senses in order to see, hear, our touch God. God understands this issue, I believe, and through God’s grace humans were given certain practices—things we can do—to tap into our spiritual senses and allow us to cultivate that relationship with God.

      Collectively, we call these practices “spiritual disciplines”. They include things such as prayer, searching the Scriptures, private and corporate worship, celebrating the Sacraments, fasting, and just about anything that could fall under the category of doing good. Incidentally, those first five that I mentioned—prayer, Scripture, worship, Sacraments (specifically Communion) and fasting—are going to be topics we examine over the next five weeks, beginning next weekend. These practices allow us to live in harmony with God as we create and maintain our relationship with God. Through these practices, we can learn a few things as well. For the first part, let's change it to: We learn several things. First, God passionately attached to each one of us. Just as a parent is attached to a child from the moment of that child’s birth, so too is God attached to us. Secondly, we learn to trust God as revealed in Jesus Christ, even when trusting God doesn’t seem to make sense and flies in the face of all we think or have been taught. Thirdly, we learn to hear and respond to God’s direction in and for our lives. None of this comes easily though. Just like human relationships take time, effort, and energy to cultivate and preserve, so too does a relationship with God. If we desire to be in relationship with God, we also must be willing to invest what is required in order for that relationship to blossom.

      That last statement is also precisely why, for some, a relationship with God becomes difficult. There are times when life becomes so hectic that there is little room or time for a relationship with God to come into being. This is exactly what Jesus is talking about to the church in Ephesus in our passage from Revelation. The people were faithful, but they had gotten so busy with life that they forgot, or didn’t have time, to stay passionately attached to God! Their life had become so consumed with other things that God was given what little leftovers they had. Does this ring a familiar tune for anyone? Take just a moment and think about what a normal day for you looks like. Do you find there are more things to do than you have time to do them? We have more stuff “to do” now than ever before—we have places to go, things to do, people to see. Yet, despite all the busy-ness and chaos of life, we are invited to be in a relationship with God and give God the time necessary for that relationship to flourish.

      Perhaps the message Jesus gave to the church in Ephesus is the same message for us today. Those Ephesians were encouraged to “return to their first love”. What Jesus meant by this was for those early Christians to return to the practices and things they did when their faith was new and fresh. I learned in a seminary class a few years ago that marriage counselors, as they are working with couples whose relationship has become fractured or even dented, will often encourage those couples to redo the things they did when they first began their relationship; not just their marriage relationship, but when they first started “dating” or “courting”. What they find is that redoing these practices often reminds couples of why they fell in love with each other in the first place. What if we did this in our relationship with God? Is it possible that those things we did when we were new to faith in Christ could remind us why we received God’s love and fell in love with God in the first place? Perhaps some of us need that spark—a re-ignition in our relationship with God. Perhaps some of us haven’t really ever committed to the time and effort needed to develop this relationship with God. I firmly believe that one of God’s greatest desires, and God has lots of desires for this world and the people of this world, is to have a relationship with each and every person in this world. Not just those of us who are already in the church, but also those who are beyond these walls and doors. The question is, then, do we desire this relationship as well?

      Jesus said there were two commandments that could sum up all the Law and the prophets. First, we were to love God with all that we are. Second, we were to love our neighbor. Through his General Rules, Wesley helped to spell that out a bit for the early Methodists and give them a tangible way for them to live out their faith. It was a challenge to and for them; it is a challenge to and for us. It is a challenge that comes not from John Wesley but from Jesus Christ. We are challenged and encouraged to live in this world in such a way so as to Do No Harm, to Do Good, and to Stay in Love with God. As we seek to live into this challenge and way of life, may the Holy Spirit lead us and guide us in all our ways..in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, AMEN.

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