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John Wesley
John Wesley (1703 - 1791). English Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and co-founder of Methodism, born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, to a rector’s family. Educated at Oxford, where he earned an M.A. in 1727, he was ordained in 1728 and led the Holy Club with brother Charles, emphasizing disciplined faith. After a failed mission to Georgia (1735-1737), he experienced a transformative conversion in 1738 at Aldersgate, London, feeling his “heart strangely warmed.” Wesley preached over 40,000 sermons, often outdoors, sparking the 18th-century Evangelical Revival, and traveled 250,000 miles on horseback across Britain and Ireland. He authored 400 works, including A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777), and edited The Christian’s Pattern. Founding Methodist societies, he trained 650 preachers and ordained ministers for America, influencing millions. Married to Mary Vazeille in 1751, their childless union strained, but his brother’s hymns enriched worship. A tireless advocate for the poor, he opened dispensaries and schools, and his 1787 sermon against slavery stirred abolitionism. Despite tensions with the Church of England, he never left it, shaping global Protestantism. His maxim, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can,” inspired generations to active faith. Wesley’s journals and letters, still widely read, reveal a legacy of practical holiness and social reform
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John Wesley emphasizes that the path back to God is through a broken spirit and a contrite heart, as illustrated in Psalm 51:17. He explains that God values our heartfelt sorrow for sin more than ritual sacrifices, highlighting that brokenness allows God to enter our lives. Wesley draws parallels between physical brokenness and spiritual renewal, noting that it is through our vulnerabilities that we can experience God's grace and mercy. He encourages believers to approach God with honest repentance and a commitment to change, reflecting on the importance of sincere mourning for our sins. Ultimately, Wesley calls for a humble heart that seeks restoration through God's love.
The Way Back to God
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. Psalm 51:17 The way back to God has always been and still is, through sacrifice. What can we bring as a sacrifice to our God who in Christ sacrificed Himself for us? In the context of the times when David wrote this Psalm, he was making the discovery that God is happier with a heart that mourns for sin than with a sinner’s perfect bull bleeding under the priest’s knife. Wesley says of this verse: “a broken spirit is of more value than many sacrifices.” God seems to use broken things. Someone has pointed out that it takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to produce rain, broken grain to give bread and broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is the broken Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns with greater power than ever. But not only is our broken heart the way back to God, it is God’s way into us; God says through the prophet Isaiah: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.”(57:15) Our brokenness is the crack, the opening through which Jesus can enter into our situation. While this applies in all the areas and ways in which we can be broken in this life (draw comfort from this truth) our context is spiritual poverty and holy mourning. Psalm 51 is a model of holy mourning in a spiritually poor heart that seeks to return to the Lord. Verses 1-6 model honest and heartfelt sorrow for our sins, throwing ourselves at God’s loving and compassionate mercy. Verses 7-12 model pleading for forgiveness, as opposed to just asking for it. Verses 13-19 reflect a commitment to walking in God’s way in the future. The key to honest turning back is our text verse. O that I could repent! With all my idols part, And to thy gracious eye present An humble, contrite heart! An heart with grief oppressed For having grieved my God; A troubled heart, that cannot rest Till sprinkled with thy blood! (99)
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John Wesley (1703 - 1791). English Anglican clergyman, evangelist, and co-founder of Methodism, born in Epworth, Lincolnshire, to a rector’s family. Educated at Oxford, where he earned an M.A. in 1727, he was ordained in 1728 and led the Holy Club with brother Charles, emphasizing disciplined faith. After a failed mission to Georgia (1735-1737), he experienced a transformative conversion in 1738 at Aldersgate, London, feeling his “heart strangely warmed.” Wesley preached over 40,000 sermons, often outdoors, sparking the 18th-century Evangelical Revival, and traveled 250,000 miles on horseback across Britain and Ireland. He authored 400 works, including A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1777), and edited The Christian’s Pattern. Founding Methodist societies, he trained 650 preachers and ordained ministers for America, influencing millions. Married to Mary Vazeille in 1751, their childless union strained, but his brother’s hymns enriched worship. A tireless advocate for the poor, he opened dispensaries and schools, and his 1787 sermon against slavery stirred abolitionism. Despite tensions with the Church of England, he never left it, shaping global Protestantism. His maxim, “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can,” inspired generations to active faith. Wesley’s journals and letters, still widely read, reveal a legacy of practical holiness and social reform