It is estimated that John Wesley traveled around 250,000 miles and preached over 40,000 sermons in a span of 66 years. This series by Mark K. Olson, taken from his website Wesleyscholar.com, includes summaries and links to some of Wesley’s most famous and important sermons. This second installment is on Wesley’s sermon “The Means of Grace” from 1746.
The Means of Grace
Text: Malachi 3:7
Ye are gone away from mine ordinances, and have not kept them.
It is common knowledge that the Wesleys were high church Anglicans and considered various practices of the faith as means or channels by which divine grace is conveyed to responsive believers. They derived their high churchmanship from their parents, Samuel and Susanna, who were committed high churchmen.
Albert Outler reminds us that the context for this sermon was John Wesley’s early conflicts with the Moravians over the role of the ordinances, especially the Lord’s Supper, in receiving saving faith and the new birth.
The Moravians were Lutheran pietists and considered the Anglicans reliance on the means as a sign of authentic Christianity as misguided and a slippery slope toward salvation by works. They also held that saving faith brings a strong sense of assurance that removes all doubts. Therefore, if any new convert expressed doubts, then they were still unconverted and remained a seeker of salvation. The Moravian leadership took the next step and began counseling seekers to stop practicing the means of grace until they first received the gift of saving faith. Their reasoning was that Anglicans were too prone to trust in these religious practices (especially Communion) and this would get in the way of trusting in Christ alone.
John Wesley strongly disagreed with the Moravian position on scriptural and practical grounds. After his own bout with doubts following his Aldersgate conversion, largely due to Moravian teaching, Wesley argued in several writings that the Moravians were simply wrong on these points. Like himself, he considered new converts who experienced some doubts after their conversion to have a degree of saving faith. This became Wesley’s position from his debates with the Moravians: there are degrees of saving faith in the new birth experience. This allowed Wesley to maintain his Anglican viewpoint on the ordinances as means of grace and hold to his evangelical beliefs about salvation by faith in Christ.
What is the Means of Grace?
Wesley begins the sermon by explaining that the means of grace refer to Christian practices and ordinances that serve as the “channels” by which divine grace is imparted or conveyed to believers. Since grace refers to God’s presence and saving activity in people’s lives, the means were understood by Wesley and early Methodists to be the normal ways by which God is present and savingly active in people’s lives. This is how Wesley defines the means of grace in the sermon:
“By ‘means of grace’ I understand outward signs, words, or actions ordained by God, and appointed for this end—to be the ordinary channels whereby he might convey to men preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace” (II.1).
Throughout his writings Wesley lists many of the means of grace. But in the sermon the focus is on three: prayer (private and corporate), searching the scriptures, and Holy Communion. From this short list we could add others, like fasting, worship, Christian fellowship, ministry, service, etc.
The Importance of the Means
In the sermon Wesley engages a Moravian interlocutor who asserts that we are saved by faith alone. To this statement Wesley replies, “‘True, but how shall I believe?’ You reply, ‘Wait on God.’ ‘Well. But how am I to wait? In the means of grace, or out of them? Am I to wait for the grace of God which bringeth salvation by using these means, or by laying them aside?’” (II.7).
Wesley’s insight is point on. If we desire for God to be present and active in our lives, we must seek him through the channels by which he is found — prayer, ‘searching the scriptures’, worship, fasting, fellowship, the Lord’s Supper, and the other means by which we draw near to God. This point was made by Jeremiah:
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” (29:11-13)
Note that it is through prayer and calling on God that the Israelites were to find God. Wesley therefore concludes there is an “absolute necessity” to use the means of grace for us to receive “any gift from God” (III.3).
Now, in asserting the importance of the means of grace for our salvation Wesley warns his readers that there is no power or efficacy in the means themselves. Apart from God the means are a “poor, dead, empty thing.” They become merely a “dry leaf,” or a “shadow” of the real thing (V.4). Only God can save and redeem. However, the Lord has chosen to work through various means to impart his salvation into our lives. Therefore, believers must use the means of grace, but not trust in them for our salvation. We are to use them as means and not ends.
Lessons for Today
There are many lessons in this sermon for believers today. First, it is common for many Christians to think that the means play no role in their relationship with God. This is why so many Christians ignore the means of grace. And to their detriment they suffer the consequences to the degree that they ignore prayer, worship, searching the scriptures, Holy Communion, and the other means of grace.
Second, there are believers who rely too much on the means, the form of religion, and lack its transforming power in their lives (2 Tim. 3:5). They judge themselves as spiritually fit because they keep certain practices when their faith does not transform their lives. Like the other group, they are deceived and often don’t realize their spiritual bankruptcy.
In this sermon Wesley calls to believers to faithfully practice the means of grace as the normal channels by which to have a vibrant, life changing relationship with God through Christ.
The reader is encouraged to read the sermon for themselves. Here are the first and Jackson editions:
The Means of Grace 1746
The Means of Grace (Works 1872)
