Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
Salvation For All? The Expanding Mission of Jesus' Followers

  • Hearing God: Listening in a Noisy World

    Last week I asked if you ever had a problem praying to God, knowing what to say, what to think, what or who to pray for. Prayer is our ultimate deep relationship with God, so it is the best way that we can individually and collectively mature and deepen our connection with God. This week we will discuss how to hear God in a very noisy world.
    Hearing God means we are actively listening and in-tune with God’s voice, God’s prompting, God’s encouragement, God’s motivation, and God’s Spirit. Listening is an intentional act of inviting an outside force into your mind that will offer new information, new data, that could possibly change who you are, confirm who you are, and encourage your present day walk.
    Think through your life and how so much has changed, yet one force that has change, and yet remained, is the noise of life. When you are younger, you have the noise of your ever developing body, your parents/guardians, grandparents, siblings, extended family, friends from the neighborhood, friends from school, rules of school, rules of home, rules of the community you live, and the list goes on and on.
    When you get older your noise changes into adult responsibilities. You have the noise of paying bills, the noise of fixing things that are broken, the noise of family, employment, government, neighborhood, other people’s opinions, and the list goes on and on.
    In your retirement the noise changes again but is still present. You now have noises much like when you were younger and your body is doing things that you’ve never experienced before and you may not like it. You also have the noise of hoping you will have enough money to live on, wanting to be available to have fun, desiring to be with family, more medical appointments than you desire, traveling to new places, and the noise of silence as you see more friends start to leave you one by one.

    God speaks in many ways

    In all of noise of life, in every stage of your life, God still speaks. When you’re younger God speaks in a way that is relevant to a youthful age, in your busy adult years God is speaking above, in between, and beneath the cracks of life, in your maturing years of retirement God is speaking in the silence, the mundane, the unwanted, the joy, and the freedom that this life stage provides. God is always speaking but does so in many different ways so that every age and every culture will be able to hear, and hopefully listen.
    So, in the noise of your life, in whatever stage you are in, how does God speak to you? As a United Methodist Christian how does God speak to you? Looking upon our United Methodist heritage, God is said to speak to us through Scripture, Tradition, Reason, and Experience.
    God’s voice is heard through scripture as it is a collection of 66+ books/letters/poems/songs that were constructed to evidence God engaging in relationship with humanity throughout many millennia. Scripture is one of our ultimate guides for reflection of religious interaction with a holy God and humanity on the onward and upward holiness progression of love. Mark Twain said,
    Most people are bothered by those passages in Scripture which they cannot understand; but as for me, I always noticed that the passages in Scripture which trouble me most are those which I do understand.
    Mark Twain
    For non-Christians scripture can still speak to their existence but other religious or humanistic writings may play a larger role, this is to be expected but for us United Methodist Christians, scripture is still essential in our overall understanding of how God can speak through the generations.
    Tradition is another way God can speak to us. Tradition in the USA in 2024 is going to be different than Tradition in Rome in 1200 or Babylon in 300BC. God will speak through the present day culture in a way that is significant, symbolic, while emphasizing God’s holiness and illuminating human understanding through the ever-present and moving Spirit. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said,
    We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
    Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
    Traditions can come and go depending on the nature of what is needed and necessary for the people, at the time. Some Traditions can also last too long where no one understands why we do this specific act anymore. Traditions can also be good and deepen a prayerful relationship with God. God definitely speaks through the ritualistic acts that we, as a people, choose to do.
    Reason proclaims the active and ongoing knowledge that humans gain over time. You may have heard the phrase before, “we don’t check our brains at the door of the church”, this should be true of every church that you enter. If something simply does not make sense and new knowledge or data on a certain topic proves otherwise, especially if it speaks against a traditional interpretation of scripture, then reason should be highly considered as more relevant. Francis Bacon said,
    A little philosophy inclines men’s minds to atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds about to religion.
    —Francis Bacon
    Francis Bacon (Philosopher)
    God speaks through education as we learn more about this world, we do learn more about God and can learn to hear God’s voice in new and exciting ways. Reason is good so don’t easily cast it away when you may not fully understand something new.
    Experience is not new but was an addition from Wesley to the people called Methodists. Wesley added experience to the 3-fold Scripture, Tradition, and Reason from the Church of England. Experience is the active voice of the Holy Spirit in the daily life events, activities, and ever evolving culture of humanity. Humanity must listen to God through experiencing life for the maintenance of old relationships and the establishment of new relationships all consists of new and maturing experiences of life. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin said,
    We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.
    Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
    God definitely speaks through experiences that are new, frightening, uncomfortable, and confirming.
    Tradition, Reason, and Experience all speak to Scripture, as Scripture also speaks to Tradition, Reason, and Experience. God throughout time has spoken when there was no Scripture, no Tradition, and very limited Reason and Experience.

    The Role of Discernment

    This bring us to discernment. We all have the ability to perceive or recognize differences to judge what is right and wrong, good and evil, the voice of God and the will of humanity. Unfortunately, we’ve all come across people who who have very little discernment. There is a quote from an unknown author that says:
    ​
    Little [people] with little minds and little imaginations go through life in little ruts, smugly resisting all changes which would jar their little worlds.
    Unknown
    In other words, there are some people who simply do not have any common sense to see life with another person’s vision or walk through this world in another person’s shoes. In our 1Kings scripture reading , we have the story of Elijah running for his life after the prophets of Baal were killed. Elijah proclaimed God’s word, held to his cultural traditions, reasoned with his real life circumstances, and experienced God anew in a relational conversation. The bookend of this experience was God questioning Elijah, “Why are you here?” God spoke with Elijah to confirm who he was, confirm his prophetic action, confirm that throughout all the noise around him that God is not in the noise of the world. God is ultimately received and heard in the thin, quiet moments of reflection, discernment, and interpretation while journeying in all the noise of this crazy world. Catherine of Siena said,
    The core of pride is impatience and its offshoot is the lack of any discernment.
    Saint Catherine of Siena
    Discerning God’s voice, while in the noisy moments of life, help us to do what the Psalmist invites the readers on multiple occasions-SELAH, to pause, to sit, to reflect, and then act. When one has a prayer life whose foundation is built upon divine discernment then you will have a pray-er who intentionally seeks God’s will as God’s ambassador not the world’s warrior. When we take time to discern we then will be able to hear the voice of God. John 10.27 says
    John 10:27 CEB
    My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me.
    In the stillness of life we are able to be attentive to the voice of our Savior, to hear, to listen, and then to follow.

    God desires genuine relationships

    The busyness of life can be so noisy that we, at times, choose to deny God the relationship of his desire. That relationship is to give and receive love with you. The God/human relationship is one of intimacy in prayer, intimacy in action, intimacy in private, and intimacy in public. God never stops pursuing you for there is not an end point to a relationship. In prayer we continue to communicate with God and time with God is needed especially when the world’s noise can be too distracting. Thomas Schreiner says,
    Love for God cannot be sustained without a relationship with him, and such a relationship is nurtured by prayer.
    Thomas Schreiner
    A deeply held prayer life does not have to be one that is outlandish where you are always the person asked to pray in public settings; don’ worry that is always reserved for the pastor, even if the pastor don’t want to do it. A deeply held prayer life can also be very subtle. A deeply held prayer life can be very private. A deeply held prayer life is true prayer. R.T. France says,
    True prayer is not a technique nor a performance, but a relationship.
    R. T. France
    A true relationship with God must have true prayer from the believer or the seeker of the divine. Prayer enters one into the presence of God. Prayer strengthens the relationship with God. Prayer emboldens the faith of the believer in a noisy world. When you are soaked in prayer then you are transformed into your prayers. Warren Wiersbe says,
    Prayer is not something that I do; prayer is something that I am.
    Warren W. Wiersbe
    As we continue to develop our prayerful skills, we develop our listening skills, which develop our divine loving skills. A prayerful heart that listens to and connects with God is an act of love. Saint Augustine said,
    What you love you worship; true prayer, real prayer, is nothing but loving: what you love, that you pray to.
    Saint Augustine of Hippo
    As we pray to that which we love, our words and our actions will unite together as one. Our relationship with God will grow, the deafening noise of the world will extinguish, the words from our tongue will be praise, and people will see a prayerful life of love in action. So whether we are asleep or awake a life of prayer will guide us and help us to hear God more. John Wesley said,
    The moment I awaked, ‘Jesus, Master,’ was in my heart and in my mouth; and I found all my strength lay in keeping my eye fixed upon Him, and my soul waiting on Him continually.
    John Wesley (Founder of the Methodist Movement)

    Silent Reflection and Mindfulness

    As we enter into a new week, I encourage you to take time in silent reflection and mindfully focus upon God in prayer. Last week I invited you to pray the open-hearted disciples prayer. This week I invite you to say a prayer that has been said for many generations, The Jesus Prayer.
    Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
    Amen.
  • We've A Story To Tell To The Nations
  • Forward Through the Ages

      • Matthew 28:16–20CEB

      • Acts 10:34–36CEB

      • Acts 10:44–45CEB

  • It’s easy to think of faith as something static, something sealed off from change. But if we pay attention to the story of Jesus’ early followers, we see that faith is far more dynamic. Faith is an unfolding journey filled with wrestling, tension, and surprising movement toward greater love. The earliest church was no different. Even after the resurrection, even after the Great Commission to make disciples of all nations, it took time for Jesus’ followers to truly grasp how wide God’s salvation stretched. It wasn’t just for Israel, as they had thought. It wasn’t just for the righteous, as they had thought. It was for all, especially those they least expected, you know, the one they had not thought.
    We begin today with the scene on the mountain where Jesus commissions his disciples. They meet him, worship him, yet some doubt. It’s crucial to notice this: even amid worship, there is uncertainty. Faith is rarely about having all the answers. It’s about trusting enough to move forward despite our questions. Jesus doesn’t wait for perfect belief. Instead, he gives them a task: “Go.” Go to all nations, teach, baptize, remind people of what I’ve taught you. It’s not just a mission to maintain what they already knew. It’s a mission to embody an ever-widening vision of God’s love.*
    The Tension of Tradition
    Yet, moving from a deeply ingrained identity to a larger vision was no small thing. For the earliest disciples, Jewish men and women shaped by centuries of covenantal tradition, the idea of welcoming Gentiles into the full life of God was not obvious; in fact, it really wasn’t even considered, even though the Temple did provide a space, called the Court of the Gentiles, where Jews and Gentiles mingled. The Jews were raised within a framework of holiness that often emphasized separation from what was considered unclean or outside the covenant. To imagine the Spirit of God moving beyond those boundaries required a deep inner shift, or something even more dramatic like dying to your old self and being born again from above.
    Acts 10 captures this beautifully in the story of Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius is a Gentile, a Roman centurion, a representative of empire and oppression. By every religious and cultural measure, Peter should have kept his distance, at least this is how Peter strongly believed, probably more so than other Jews. Yet, God gives Peter a vision that shatters his personal categories: a sheet descending from heaven filled with animals considered unclean, accompanied by the voice of God commanding him to eat. Three times Peter resists. This resisting was not a simple light and fluffy, “Oh no, I simply couldn’t eat any more”. This resisting was an utter disgust, “How could you even ask me to do such deplorable things?” Three times God challenges him: “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” The disgust was personal and very individual, exactly like people’s preferences today. Example- I love sardines and Cindy is 100% disgusted by them. 
    When Peter meets Cornelius, he ultimately realizes the vision wasn’t just about food, it was about people. It was about an expansive vision of God’s acceptance, one that included those Peter had been taught to exclude. The love and acceptance of God finally broke through Peter’s thick skull; friends we need to remember that this was after years with walking with Jesus, hearing his teachings, seeing hearts and lives transformed by his acts of kindness and love. Even after all of that one on one Jesus experience, Peter didn’t get it until this vision broke through. “I truly understand,” Peter says, “that God shows no partiality.” It’s a profound moment of theological evolution, one that would reverberate through the early church and beyond.*
    Wrestling with Change
    Peter’s realization didn’t instantly solve everything for the church, heck, it didn’t even solve everything for Peter as he still had work to do. The early Christian movement spent years debating how to handle the inclusion of Gentiles. Should they be circumcised? Should they follow the dietary laws? Could they truly belong without adopting Jewish customs? Acts 15 describes a council held in Jerusalem to address these tensions. Inclusion was messy. It required dialogue, risk, disagreement, debate, tempers elevated and cooled, and ultimately, this council trusted that the Spirit was bigger than human categories, even the ones specific in the Law of Moses.
    This historical reality should remind us that wrestling with inclusion is part of Christian faithfulness, it is not a sign of faithlessness or disobedience. From the very beginning, being followers of Jesus meant struggling to interpret how God’s expansive love meets the real, complicated lives of people beyond our current understanding. We could have, let’s say, 2,000 years of Christian thought development and still get it wrong today.
    We often assume that welcoming others should be easy. But if the earliest church had to wrestle, we shouldn’t be surprised when we are also stretched. Faithfulness doesn’t mean comfort. It means openness to where the Spirit might be leading next, even when it challenges our traditionally held assumptions.*
    The Evolution of Salvation
    Salvation, in the earliest days, was understood through a primarily Jewish lens: restoration of Israel, fulfillment of covenant, hope for national renewal. Jesus himself spoke first to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.” Yet, through his life, death, and resurrection, and through the Spirit’s ongoing movement, salvation began to be understood not as a promise for one elect people, tribe, or nation, but as an invitation to the whole world.
    This expansion didn’t erase the Jewish roots of the gospel. Instead, it revealed the depth of those roots—rooted in a God who always intended to bless “all the families of the earth” through Abraham’s descendants. Who does the story of Abraham tell us descended from him? Yep, both Gentile (as Abraham was a Gentile) and the Jewish line, which really started through Jacob (renamed Israel), who is the father of the twelve tribes. What evolved was not God’s love but humanity’s understanding of how vast that love truly is.
    Today, we still live into this evolving understanding. Salvation is not a static formula we hand out; no matter how many romans road cards are handed out or evangelism explosion is propounded, salvation is a living relationship offered to all people. It’s restoration, healing, and wholeness made available across boundaries of race, nationality, gender, and status. It is as expansive as the imagination of God and as intimate as the beating heart of every person. And, in this pastor’s opinion, was fully revealed in the teachings, actions, and person of Jesus the Christ.*
    Continuing the Mission
    You see, the Great Commission did not end on the mountain in Galilee. It is not merely a historic moment to admire. It is a living call still unfolding in us. Jesus’ command to “go” wasn’t a call to colonize or control, but to embody a way of life shaped by grace, hospitality, teaching, and transformation.
    Expanding the mission of Jesus means learning how to speak the gospel in new languages, not just literal languages, but new cultural expressions, new relational modes, new acts of justice and mercy that embody the character of Christ. It means seeing where people are hurting, isolated, dismissed and moving toward them with humility and love.
    It means asking: Who are the Corneliuses among us today? Who are the people we have unconsciously deemed outside the scope of God’s concern? Who are those that we considered separated from God because they don’t believe like we do? Where are we being called to expand our vision of salvation? Oh, this expansion is not by abandoning faithfulness to Jesus, but by living more deeply into the boundless love Jesus reveals. This revealing may just show us our firmly held view of salvation may not be as “biblical” as we once thought.*
    Practical Expansion
    Expanding Jesus’ mission also invites us into practices of deep listening. Peter had to listen, not only to the Spirit but also to Cornelius. He had to be willing to cross boundaries, enter unfamiliar spaces, and be changed by the encounter.
    In our communities today, we are called to similar practices:
    Listening to the stories of those we often overlook.
    Building relationships that stretch our comfort zones.
    Allowing the Spirit to dismantle the walls we have built around our faith. &
    Trusting that salvation is not about defending purity but embodying grace.
    This may mean engaging with neighbors who practice different faiths, working for justice among the marginalized, or welcoming those who have been hurt or excluded by the church. It means living the gospel not as a set of rigid rules, but as a dynamic, relational invitation into healing and hope.*
    Faithful and Expanding
    The early church’s struggle to understand salvation for all reminds us that true faithfulness is never about clinging to comfort. It’s about continually being opened, stretched, and transformed by the Spirit of God. Jesus’ call to “make disciples of all nations” wasn’t just geographical, it was spiritual, emotional, and relational.
    It asked his followers to abandon narrow visions and believe that God’s love can truly embrace everyone, that God will continue offering love to everyone, and that hopefully, and eventually, everyone will choose to embrace God’s love. That mission is still ours today.
    May we have the courage to let our faith evolve, not away from Christ, but deeper into the heart of Christ, who is always moving toward greater inclusion, greater healing, and greater hope for all creation. Amen.
Mount Sterling First United Methodist Church
sterlingfirstumc@yahoo.com
(740) 869-3577
http://www.sterlingfumc.com
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