Ever climb a tree when you were a kid? Tree Climbers International would like to help you regain the joy of inner child by helping you to reclaim your childhood tree-climbing adventures. This leads us naturally to our text where we encounter the patron saint of tree-climbers and tree-huggers, St. Zacchaeus.

Even in the midst of the pandemic, Americans moved about. Much of this movement is job-related. When companies ask an employee to relocate, they often make the relocation package very attractive. So, when God leads us to new challenges and opportunities, what benefits does God throw into the offer? Anything? Nothing? A lot?

We prefer answers that are quick and easy. The crisis facing many of the ancient Jews demanded a solution. The prophet Jeremiah had a fast, but not necessarily easy answer to their questions: Should we stay, or should we go? Should we accept our new life, or resist it? Should we live in an RV, or build a house?

The disciples called upon Jesus to increase their faith. It was a moment in which they were slowly beginning to understand their need for Jesus. Once they realized they had to receive the Spirit and his teaching and then take that message and birth Christ in others, Is Christ born enough in us that we can take that message to birth Christ in others and the world? 

A recent report of deathbed regrets reveals some surprising data. No one reported missing an important business meeting, or failing to take a bungee plunge off the Royal Gorge bridge in Colorado. The top five regrets of dying people might shock you. But then, consider the case in the Bible of the rich man who ignored Lazarus, the beggar at his door.

Jesus wants all of you and all of everyone who wishes to follow him. Doesn’t that seem like a high price to pay? When we decide to follow Jesus, he expects us to dedicate our whole selves to him. But he’s offering us plenty in return.

Isaiah 2:2-4

John Wesley was on his way to the new world to carry the gospel to any and all when he wrote in his journal the words that we have remembered as the “world is my parish.” He had a heart for the church and worked to shore up the faith of the believers with his system of classes and bands in the Methodist movement. But he knew from the outset that this faith was not one of being cloistered from the world but engaged in it. From the beginnings of our denomination, we have been engaged in world-changing. This isn’t a new thing or a progressive versus a traditional thing. It is the very essence of who we are as United Methodists.

 1 John 5:1-4

John Wesley wanted the people called Methodist to stay in love with God, but he was concerned about the means for doing so. The ordinances of God were those things that Wesley identified as being required of God’s people. He categorized them into works of piety and works of mercy. We have come to call them the inward and outward spiritual disciplines. The inward disciplines were those things that we would do within the body of Christ, sometimes alone, but more often in small groups. These disciplines would include things like worship and Bible study, prayer, and fasting. The outward disciples were things that were done in the wider community, visiting the sick or imprisoned, giving to charity, and caring for others in a variety of ways. These together were called the means of grace.

In the second sermon of the series on BeUMC we look at Wesley's second rule: Do Good

This begins a four part series on the UMC based on John Wesley's Three Simple Rules. In the gifts installment we look at the first rule: Do No Harm.