June 18 "Knowing the Way"

 Readings: Exodus 19:2-8, Romans 5:1-8, Matthew 9:35-10:8, Psalm 37:1-6
Preached at Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church, NY, June 18, 2023

While my Father only rarely ventured inside a church, my mother was a faithful Methodist throughout her life. She was a Sunday School Teacher, she used to play piano for numerous youth and ladies meetings. She was a ‘Steward’ (equivalent of an ‘elder’ in our system.) In later years, while she could still drive, she used to have a group of elderly folk she would provide a free taxi service for to and fro from meetings and she rarely missed a Sunday.

As a young child I was nurtured in the Methodist faith. But as a teenager, I strayed into the Presbyterian church (who had a very active youth group,) met a beautiful girl called Yvonne, and that was it. I became a Presbyterian.

It’s not always clear as to how we make decisions or why our life has gone in a particular way. When we do face hard decisions, we need to find a way through them. Scripture offers this advice in Psalm 37:5   " Give yourself to the Lord; Trust in Him, and He will help you"

So that’s where my thoughts are going this morning. How do we know the way of the Lord? How can we find out what God's way is and so do the things He wants us to do? As we seek God’s direction for us as a church, and as we all face that question throughout our lives, it seemed a good moment to visit this topic.

Without faith, of course, not a lot can be said about being guided by God.  The whole thing rests upon our eagerness to listen for God's voice and our willingness to respond to it.  Faith that Jesus is the Son of God He claimed to be, that He died and now He lives, that God has a purpose and can direct our lives through His Holy Spirit.  What I'm asking right now is not “Is that faith is there?” but how, within that faith, God can guide our lives.

In examining this question, I want to reconnect with my Methodist roots and consider with you some of the ideas of John Wesley, the great Methodist Revivalist. Although he lived in the eighteenth Century his ideas on discerning the will of God have guided people of many generations, myself included.

John Wesley proposed four tests for truth, known to many of our Methodist friends as the ‘Wesleyan Quadrilateral’. Scripture, Reason, Tradition and Experience

1. God guides us through Scripture

Through their creeds and confessions, the Reformed churches have always stressed the authority of the scriptures.  Our PC(USA) has a whole volume of Confessions to inform us as to how past generations have interpreted God’s leading in relation to Scripture’s teaching. In the introduction to the confessions, we are reminded that every Confession is not a replacement for Scripture, but a product of its time and that Scripture alone is the final authority.

John Wesley saw the Bible as the fundamental source of guidance for Christian people.  He suggested that we have a responsibility to take every word we hear, any preaching we seek to understand, any advice (however well meaning), that we are given to our study of God's Word and see if what we are being advised is consistent with the truth we find in Scripture.

There is no shortage of people around who will tell us, "The Lord wants me to do this" or "God is saying this."  If what God is supposedly saying is not in accordance with what God has already said in God’s Word, then the speaker may be confusing the voice of God with thoughts from within themselves or from some other source.

I have had people tell me "Jesus told me you should this" or "God wants you to do things this way." I am very suspicious of such statements, particularly if what the Lord has said to them reflects some prejudice or characteristic peculiar to that person. Sometimes people use the phrase, "God has said" as a form of emotional blackmail or to give more credibility to their own personal views. Bible passages like the ‘Temptation of Jesus in the Wilderness’, remind us that even the Devil can quote Scripture!

That being said, I sincerely believe that God can and will guide us in specific ways as we meditate upon and study God’s Word.  It has been my experience that some of the most important decisions in my life have had their roots in prayerful and careful reading of Scripture. Where there is an open bible and an open mind, an expectancy of meeting with God, alongside a desire to do God’s will then people discover the truth the Psalmist spoke of, "Thy word is a light unto my feet" (Psalm 119:105)

John Wesley's first point. God guides us through prayerful consideration of the Bible.  We have a duty to test everything we hear against the revealed truth of Scripture.

2. God guides us through Reason.

When we are considering a certain course of action or thinking about a particular word we have heard, Wesley's second criteria was the test of reason.  Does what we are hearing make sense? Is there any coherence to it? Would this be a reasonable course of action to take?  Is it something understandable or explainable to others?

There is a tale told of a man who was fed up with life.  Nothing seemed to be going his way.  He tried this and that until eventually he shouted out to God, "Lord, what would you have me do?"  His plea was met with a stony silence. He had heard that God spoke through the Bible so in desperation he pulled one of the shelves, blew off the dust and said to God, "Right, Lord this is it. The first thing I read when I open this bible will be your word to me."

He opened it up and read Matthew 27:5 "Judas went off and hanged himself."

"Lord" he said, "The next thing I read in the bible will be your word to me." Having read of Judas's suicide the next thing he read was this:- "Go thou and do likewise.” Thankfully he never took that advice! That is not being reasonable. And suicide is nothing to joke about. However, it underscores an important point.

There is a huge difference between treating Scripture as some sort of spiritual lottery and prayerfully seeking the will of God.  God has created us with a capacity for reason.  We have a mind, and an intellect and we are expected to be responsible in using our God given capacity to reason to think things through and consider the implications.

William Barclay writes, "Do not leave your mind behind when you try to read the Bible, or when you try to discern the direction God is leading your life.  The truth of Christ is for the body, soul, and spirit, for mind, feeling and heart."

We do not have to reason alone.  We have each other.  It is helpful to share our thoughts with our fellow travelers on the spiritual highway. If our thoughts are jumbled or if we are blind to possible consequences of our actions, it often takes someone else to set us straight.  That's why it is important to talk things through.  The more important the decision, the more reason to talk it through. That’s why God brings people together in fellowship and in Church Communities.

But a word of caution.  When it comes to personal things don't just talk to anyone and everyone.  Seek out people you can trust and that you respect.  People you can share with in confidence.  Try and find those on a similar wavelength or at least sympathetic to your needs and feelings.  For there is also a biblical parable about casting pearls before swine!

3. God guides us through Tradition

It has been said that one of the greatest failures of the church of the current day is that her people have forgotten where they came from.  They do not know their roots nor are they aware of their heritage.  We are in danger therefore, in scriptures words, of "Being tossed to and fro with every word of doctrine," (Ephesians 4:14) of being taken in by whatever sounds comfortable, attractive or easy.

It is sad that for some people "Tradition" has become a dead word.  Something to be resisted and fought against, something negative and restraining.  For sure it can become that. I'm reminded of the father in the "Fiddler on the Roof" and that marvelous story of how "Tradition" had to be maintained, yet in the interests of love also be reformed.

What is tradition? It is that experience of others that has proved the way of the Lord in the heat and fire of trial and tragedy. An ancient saint, St. Teresa, when crossing a stream in full rage, told her sisters, "Fear not, I have touched the bottom, and it is sound." Tradition tells us others have stood on the foundation of God's Word and God's Way and found it solid as a rock.

It is those principles, the accumulated experience of over 2000 years of discipleship that we should take notice of.  Whilst the outer world of civilization has changed, the inner world of the soul and the spirit have remained the same.  We are still people who remain restless till their heart finds it home.

We can look back and see how people have made right and wrong choices.  We can see how God has guided people in the past and how differences of opinion have been resolved. Sometimes we must look back before we can go forward.  We need to be reminded that we are not the first, nor shall we be the last to launch out in faith. God guides us through traditions.

4. God guides us through experience.

For most of us, for something to be relevant to us, it must be something we have personally experienced. 

You can look at pictures of a sunset in a book and say, "My, that looks nice."  But to stand on the banks of an ocean shore, watch the sun sink slowly down, see the changing colors, the red and the yellow glow that seems to burn on the water, to gaze undisturbed at the end of a day, is far more than saying, "My, that looks nice".

Such is the difference between giving assent to truth with our mind and knowing truth through our own experience.  The more we experience the touch of God on our lives, the clearer we are able to understand the way God wants us to go.  "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life", Jesus told His disciples. The more we practically apply ourselves to living out the truths of Christianity then the clearer the Way we should go becomes.  

We started out asking "How do we know the way of the Lord?" John Wesley offers us some pointers in the right direction.

1. Scripture. God guides us through prayerful consideration of His Word.
2. Reason. We have a mind and an intellect to guide us. We have each other to reason with.
3. Tradition. The accumulated experience of 2000 years of Christianity needs taking note of. Tradition assures us others have "touched the bottom and found it sound"
4. Experience. The more we experience the touch of Christ on our lives the more we will be able to discern the voice of Jesus amongst all the other voices that call to us.

All four tests are not exclusive but belong together. We are to use all of these to help us discover the ‘Way of the Lord.’

The most important thing of all though is to have surrendered our lives to His love.  Unless we can come to Jesus and say, "Lord, I will do whatever you want me to do" then we shouldn't expect to receive His guidance.  What we would like, what we think is best for us, doesn't come into it. The basic essential is a living faith that places us in the right position to follow.

All of which brings us full circle to the words of the Psalmist with which we started;
Psalm 37:5  " Give yourself to the Lord; Trust in God, and God will help you"

The Reverend Adrian J. Pratt B.D.