The Bible is a book of stories. It is the story of God’s redemption of His creation. It is a compilation of the stories of all sorts of people who encountered the living God and whose lives were changed for time and eternity. The writer of Hebrews recounts for his readers a brief overview of some of the names of people who followed God faithfully in spite of tremendous hardships. These are the heroes of the faith, the saints of God as it were. In Hebrews 12:1-2, the author sums this all up with this challenge, “Therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith….”

If these men and women of the Old Testament could endure, then these verses serve as a kind of pep talk, encouraging these early Christians to never quit, but to keep on keeping on and not giving up. The Bible here is saying that if they did it, you can to. It is a timely message for each of us as well, and since the writing of the New Testament, there are many other stories of people who have kept the faith and kept going in spite of adversity, difficulty and temptation “to lay aside the Cross of Christ.”

Today is Heritage Sunday across Christendom when we stop to realize that you and I are here today because of those Christians who have gone before us, the vast majority of them being ‘no names’ who kept the faith, who persevered, who passed on the message that was at once delivered to the apostles.

The key in these verses to our finishing strong in this ‘race marked out for us’ is two-fold: throwing off and fixing our eyes. How can we run a race loaded down with back packs, heavy winter clothing, clunky old boots, and a ball and chain attached to our ankles? We can’t. Yet many of us are trying to run the Christian race with all sorts of stuff weighing us down—unconfessed sin, animosity, jealousy, bitterness, destructive habits, attitudes, duplicitous hearts, divided loves and loyalties, unimportant and distracting activities, etc. No wonder we crash and burn in our Christian experience. The key to running the race with Jesus is to get rid of all that stuff that hinders us so that we are free to give it our all and race to win.

But, that is not quite enough because we could simply run well all over the place like an ant scurrying around your kitchen counter. Ever watch an ant? Scurrying around, zipping here and there, going all over the place and not going anywhere fast nor directly. That is like us in our Christian race, unless we fix and fasten our eyes on Jesus and keep Him the focal point of our lives. If we throw off the baggage and keep our eyes on Jesus, we will run well and we will win the race.

Today we not only have the saints of the Old and New Testaments, we have the stories of many of the saints for the past 2 centuries. One such person is Charles Wesley. This year we celebrate his 300th anniversary (a mere child compared with Methuselah!)

Charles was the younger brother of John Wesley and together they are the fathers of the Methodist movement in England. Born in 1707 he was the 18th child of Samuel and Susannah Wesley and the 9th child to survive infancy. John became the preacher and teacher while Charles became the poet and hymn writer. In their early days both served briefly in the colonies of America, John as a missionary and Charles as secretary to General Oglethorpe, who founded Georgia. Both experienced God’s transforming touch on the hearts and lives in May of 1738.

As Methodism’s poet Charles wrote some 9,000 hymns following his conversion. Doing the math reveals that he wrote about 12 verses of hymnody every day until his death 50 years later. Wesley’s hymns encapsulated Biblical theology and teachings like God’s grace, man’s sinful nature, living in holiness, loving God and loving our neighbor, and they are clearly Christ-centered. Every verse in Charles Wesley’s hymns is based on a Bible verse. In fact, only 4 Old Testament books and 1 New Testament book is not referenced through his hymns. Charles Wesley’s hymns were written not only to lead us in praise to our God, but to teach us God’s truths as well as the story of Jesus.

In some of Wesley’s hymns we begin with the birth of Jesus and the Old Testament prophecy of the coming Messiah as we see in “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.” (p 196) Here Wesley embodies the promise of God’s salvation for the world and for each person. It is this Messiah who delivers us, sets us free, and releases us from our fears and sins. His most famous Christmas Carol/hymn that everyone knows is “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”(p 240) This hymn teaches us that through this baby king, God and sinners are reconciled. Born of a virgin, God is veiled in human flesh and in Him is healing.

Besides Jesus’ birth the greatest event is His death as an offering of His life for us. “’Tis finished! the Messiah Dies” (p282) teaches us the truths of Calvary’s cross: redemption, the removal of sin and guilt, and justification by faith, the defeat of Satan’s power, and freedom for the believer over sin. This is the gospel clearly and succinctly stated.

Wesley’s second most famous hymn talks about the pinnacle of Jesus’ earthly life, His resurrection in the great hymn, “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.” (p 302) One of my frustrations with our UM hymnal is that some of Wesley’s words have been changed by the ‘p.c. crowd’ to the detriment of the hymn. In spite of that this hymn of joy sings forth the truths of Jesus’ victory over the grave and love’s redeeming work being finished for our sakes.

Many of Wesley’s hymns also speak to the Christian life and how God’s truth is applied to our lives. The hymn “Spirit of Faith Come Down” (p 332) is about regeneration and the work of God’s Spirit in the human heart and life. One of the great emphases of the Wesleyan/Methodist movement was the emphasis on the work of God’s Holy Spirit in a believer’s life bringing believers to the place of Christian perfection. We see in this hymn that is the Holy Spirit who reveals to us the things of God and gives us spiritual eyes to see our own wretchedness and the truth that Jesus died for each of us. It is the Spirit of God who enables us to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and gives us joy unspeakable.

Following on the heels of a believer’s experience of new life in Christ is probably the 3rd most famous of Wesley’s hymns, “O For a Thousand Tongues to Sing” (p 57). This is a powerful hymn telling of the work that God does in a person’s life: the triumphs of God’s grace, how the name of Jesus charms our fears, and bids our sorrows to cease. How Jesus is life, health and peace. Jesus breaks the power of sin, sets prisoners to that sin free, and his blood neutralizes the foulest of sin in our lives. This hymn is filled with how Jesus changes our lives and totally transforms us. Turn the page and we see all the verses that he wrote for this hymn.

One of my favorite hymns is “And Can It Be” (p 363) Can it be? Is it possible that I could have some connection to Jesus’ death? Did Jesus die for me who cause his pain? Could God love me that much? Verse 5 sums up this new relationship with Christ, “No condemnation now I dread, Jesus and all in him is mine, alive in him, my living Head, and clothed in righteousness divine, bold I approach the eternal throne, and claim the crown, through Christ my own.”

Another emphasis of Methodist teaching is that of assurance of salvation that we can know that we are saved from our sins, that we are in right standing with a Holy God, and that our names are written in the Lambs Book of Life and when we die we go to heaven. “How Can We Sinners Know” (p 372) is a hymn that speaks to this certainty.

One of the more well known of Charles Wesley’s hymns is “Love Divine, All Loves Excelling.” (p 384) This hymn encapsulates the gamut of Christian experience from the incarnation of Jesus, to his dwelling in us, to descriptors of Jesus’ nature of compassion, pure love, who sends God’s Spirit into each heart. The words in verse 2 “take away our bent to sinning” speaks of the sin nature in us, the root of sin that causes sinful action and attitudes so that as God works in us “pure and spotless let us be.”

The hymn “O For a Heart to Praise my God” (p 417) speaks to personal piety and holy living where the center and hub of our lives is Jesus and we are totally sold out to the Kingdom of God. At the same time Wesley reminds us that there is a battle going on between good and evil, between the Kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world, between right and wrong, morality and immorality in the hymn entitled “Soldiers of Christ, Arise.”(p 513) We are reminded in this hymn that the battle is God’s, not ours.

This battle cannot be waged alone for we need each other as Wesley reminds us in the hymn “Jesus, United by Thy Grace” (p 561). This hymn embodies the Biblical standard of how we relate to and treat each other as part of the family of God.

All the while we live on earth, we are reminded that our ultimate goal is heaven as described in the hymn, “Come, Let Us Join Our Friends Above” (p 709). And finally the ultimate destination wedding when the Bride who is the Church and the Bridegroom, Jesus Himself are united as one for time and eternity in the new heavens and the new earth when Jesus returns to earth. The hymn “Lo, He Comes with Clouds Descending” (p 718) describes the final victory that is ours who put our trust in Jesus, who know Him and have been transformed by God’s Holy Spirit.

Wesley’s hymns speak to the totality of God’s nature, God’s truth, salvation, Christian living, and the promise of heaven and Jesus’ return.

What is the key to all of this? Throwing off the stuff that so easily entangles us and that hinders the race that God has set before us, and fixing our eyes on Jesus who is the author and finisher and perfecter of our faith. What are those things in your life that are hindering your relationship with Jesus? What sins are entangling you and tripping you up? Are you fixing your eyes on Jesus in all matters of life? What are you going to do about it?

“Since we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses….” Charles Wesley is just one of the millions in God’s great cloud of witnesses whose life and witness for Jesus encourage us to keep on and never quit.

Thank You for Taking The Time to Read This Message.
May God Use These Words to Help You and Strengthen You.