Seek Knowledge and Intimacy with God

(2:29) Good morning, church. Before I get into the sermon, I just want to say how proud I am once again of this church (2:39) and how you've responded to the needs of our community around us.

(2:43) It's been a challenging week. And once again, you stepped up and met that need. (2:47) We had so many people that responded by providing food or going to stay at the warming shelter sponsored by the Wilson Emergency Management and Volunteer Network (2:56) to help meet the needs of those who are without power or didn't have heat or just need a warm, dry place to stay in a hot meal.

(3:04) You stepped up. We had people who stepped up with compassionate hands to help with that. In fact, Pastor Steve stayed Friday night with the men, and Pastor Rebecca stayed Saturday night, last night with the women.

(3:15) So we're going to give her a pass if she falls asleep during my sermon today. On Thursday, we partnered with Lebanon Special School District, and we gave away so much food, I think 120 bags of food in conjunction with what Lebanon Special School District was giving away on top of that. And the covers were empty.

(3:36) And then I've just seen so many people bringing food in again today, so we have food to give out, a demart of folks in need. I'm just... There's so many people who've stepped up in so many different ways throughout our community, and I'm so thankful for you and how you continue to love and serve Lebanon. Today, as we talk about our sermon as we continue on and our Practicing Present sermon series, I want to talk about how people approach their faith differently.

(4:02) And specifically, I want to talk about two different perspectives on how people approach their faith in Jesus Christ. Now, it's a spectrum. I want to talk about the two extremes of it, and oftentimes there's a lot in between those things, but what we know is that a lot of people, they approach their faith from a heart place, from an emotional place.

(4:28) They want their worship of God to be expressive. They want to be able to connect with God at a deep emotional level. They want it to be demonstrative and be able to use, you know, physical expressions of being able to show God their love for Him.

(4:44) We see expressions of Christianity that are more known for this kind of worship. What comes to mind would be Pentecostalism and how they kind of express themselves in worship. Then on the other extreme of this, other side of the spectrum, we have those who approach their faith from a head perspective. They want knowledge. They want to be able to understand Scripture, analyze it, see how it applies to their life. Now, I'll tell you, interestingly, there was a period of time when the people called Methodists were known as shouting Methodists because they were very expressive in worship. You would have walked into a Methodist house of worship 150 years ago, and it would have looked like modern-day Pentecostalism. Now, us Methodists are more known as the frozen chosen. We expect our worship to be very methodical and that it will stimulate the worshipper's intellectual capacities during worship all while we stand or set motionless.

(5:54) Can I get an amen? Oh, wait, never mind, wrong place. What happens, though, is that we also see the same spectrum of people living out their faith in the world from those same different perspectives. Some see a situation going on, and they look at it from a heart perspective. They see something that any number of things that we may be seeing going on in our world today or going on in the news today, and we see people who want to reach out, (6:25) they feel compassion and empathy for that person. They want to go and help that person. They want to advocate for that person or for those people.

(6:34) And then we see on the other side of that spectrum (6:36) others who they look at a situation intellectually. They look at it because they say, well, obviously, this is right and this is wrong, and they look at it and they make decisions about how people should respond to it and what should be done and whether it's legal or illegal, whether it's right or wrong. And so we have these two extremes, and I don't think it's hard for us to see how this is being lived out in our world today.

(7:08) And here's what I've learned in my time in ministry and in my time in life, really, that those who approach things from an intellectual perspective and those who approach things from an emotional perspective can really get on each other's nerves. And oftentimes, these two extremes don't like each other. They don't care for each other.

(7:28) And so there's a division that happens, and we see it being lived out in our world today. And, of course, how the perspective that we come from, the perspective that we normally view things through, whichever one of these we may more likely fall to, we obviously think we're right and the other person is wrong. But here's the thing, and I think this is the perfect place for us to talk about this because there's something peculiar about us, those of us who call ourselves Methodists. And you may not even realize it. You may not have a history of Methodism. You may not have known this, but it's been ingrained in us for over 250 years as the people called Methodists.

(8:21) And I dare say that if you're here, there's something about this that draws you here. Our spiritual father of this part of Christianity, John Wesley, he felt like that we needed to combine our head knowledge and our heart knowledge and our faith in order to more fully understand who God is and how God calls us to live out our faith in the world. You may or may not have heard about John Wesley's Aldersgate experience. If you haven't heard about it, really what it was was one night when John Wesley went, when he was in England, to a gathering, like a revival kind of gathering on Aldersgate Street. And he said while he was at this revival-type meeting, he felt his heart strangely warmed. And he knew for the first time that he did trust in God, in Christ alone for his salvation, that he had an assurance of that which all of his head knowledge combined could not give him. And that's a huge statement for John Wesley of all people to say and understand. Because you see, John Wesley was one of the most learned men of his days. He had one of the biggest personal libraries of anyone living in that time. And he read all of them. He was a voracious reader. He would read anything he could get his mind around, anything he could get a hold of, he read it. In fact, he was a self-taught medical doctor, even practiced medicine some, wrote a book about medicine because he learned so much about it. And so he would fall definitely on this intellectual scale of that spectrum. That is until his Aldersgate experience.

(10:24) And from that point on, he began espousing one of our uniquely Wesleyan understandings that our head and our heart are inseparable pieces of our faith and how we approach life, that we need to use them both, that we're only using one of them, then we're missing out on so much of what God wants to offer us. When we're only using our head knowledge or we're only using our heart knowledge, then we're missing out on the full power at our disposal to change the world. He began speaking a lot about having a holiness of our heart and our life.

(11:05) He espoused the theology of how we need to work (11:08) on works of piety, which is an understanding and upholding of right thinking and right practice of our faith, while also living out works of mercy, how we give our lives in service of others, showing compassion for the least. He believed that when we can bring these two forces together, it was powerful that it became unstoppable for the work of the kingdom of God. For instance, this week's been a challenging week. It's been a hard week for so many. I think ultimately we, for the most part, in Lebanon, we're fortunate. When we go west to Davidson County and Williamson County and even farther south and west towards Memphis, we see there's a lot of devastation from this ice storm. Last I heard, there's 25 that have died from this storm. We know that there are tens of thousands still without power nine days after this event happened. We just saw yesterday that many are not sure they'll get their power back on for another week. Devastating, especially in the bitter cold that we're experiencing. I was at a doctor's appointment with a family member this week, and while we were in the waiting room, I got a phone call and I looked down and it was Pastor Rebecca. Now, I shouldn't have answered it.

(12:36) That was my first mistake, but I did. And the first thing she said to me when I answered is, I'm going to have to ask for forgiveness. And I knew at that point I was in trouble. And what she began to tell me is that, she said, you know how we put out a call if anybody in our church needs help that they should let us know. I said, yeah. And she said, well, a church member called and they needed some help. We've got some people who are willing to help them. We've got a family who's willing to go and help them, but they're frozen in their driveway and she has to get to work, and so they need to shovel it out. And we're out of salt all over Wilson County. There's nowhere we can buy salt. Now, what you should know is that this week, David Burton, our maintenance person, and Pastor Steve had worked hard. We got everything salted, all of our parking lot and drive salted before the snow came and ice came.

(13:41) But Pastor Steve and David had been working hard all week to make sure that our entryways were clear and that we were ready to resume normal operations and that we were ready for Sunday worship. And as part of that, what they had done was save two bags of ice melt so that on Saturday they could come out and touch up slick areas to make sure that everyone was safe getting here for worship. And Pastor Rebecca said, I'm going to give them these two bags of ice melt to help get them out.

(14:14) It's not what I heard. So Pastor Rebecca was giving our ice melt away to help a person in need. Her perspective was from the heart. There's a person who has a need. We've said we want to help people in need. We have the ability to do that. We need to do it. Now, as some of you might suspect, Pastor Rebecca and I are a little bit different. My rational mind thinking was absolutely not. It's my job to make sure we're prepared for the worship of God. It's our job to make sure that this place is open and safe for people to come and give God the worship that God and God alone deserves. No, we can't give our ice melt away.

(15:13) And in that moment, Pastor Rebecca was frustrated with me and I was frustrated with her. She was working with her heart and I was working with my head and we were divided on what the solution was. But here's the thing, church, Pastor Rebecca and I love each other, and we stayed in conversation with each other. We stayed talking about what the solution might be. And Pastor Rebecca said, well, what if I only took half a bag of ice melt to give to them to help get this church member to work? And I started thinking, well, you know, we could probably just ice melt half of the courtyard, which will give one way in and out, even if the other part stays frozen.

(16:04) We can do this. And because we stayed in conversation with each other, (16:09) we came to an understanding and conclusion that met everyone's needs. The solution was better because we talked it out together.

(16:22) When Jesus was approached (16:24) by the religious expert in our text today, religious expert meaning he was a head thinker, an intellectual, a theologian, he came to Jesus trying to trap him thinking that he had a superior mind and could trap Jesus and he asked Jesus, what's the greatest commandment? And ultimately they came to an understanding that the greatest commandment is that you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. And another is just like it, to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus got the guy to say it himself.

(16:54) And Jesus to do that and you're going to be fine. The man chill trying to do battle wits with Jesus says, well, who is my neighbor? And in that moment, Jesus told the parable that we know is the parable of the Good Samaritan. A very heart emotional story talking about two people who didn't get along a Jew and a Samaritan and yet here they were with the Samaritan showing compassion to the Jew.

(17:27) You might say after listening to this parable that Jesus is advocating for those who see the world with their heart, like Pastor Rebecca. And there's no doubt church that every single one of us here needs to sit up and take notice of this parable and what Jesus is telling us and how we live out our life every day showing compassion and mercy to those we come in contact with. But church, I dare say that had it been different, had this person come to Jesus trying to trap him on a heart issue, I bet Jesus would have offered a parable about acts of piety.

(18:09) The importance of head knowledge, of intellect. Because Jesus knew and understood the same thing that John Wesley espoused in his theology that it's not either or, it's both and. We need those who come from a head perspective and we need those who come from a heart perspective.

(18:30) We need each other. I think that's one of the beauties of our Methodist view of faith. We see that.

I need Pastor Rebecca and she needs me and together we can become an unstoppable force. My team, the staff of your church frustrates each other a whole lot because we come at it differently. We have the whole spectrum around the table. We see things differently.But what we're learning is that we're better together. We won't make our best decisions. We won't do our best work. We won't impact the world the greatest for Jesus unless we do it sitting with those who see the world differently than us. We've been talking about Brother Lawrence in his book, The Practice of the Presence of God. And in his 15th letter, he talks about our need to pursue knowledge and intimacy with God. Our head and our heart pursuing God with both. And in this 15th letter, it was actually written on his deathbed and in it he says that knowledge and intimacy are two measures of love.

(19:54) Do you hear that? Knowledge, head, and intimacy, heart, are two different measures of love. And for our love of God to be great, we must seek to know him with our head, to know him in the nature and character of who God is that's contained in the Scripture, but we must also know Godbecause we have a relationship with God that comes from time spent with God, the heart. I wish our world would learn this better.

(20:29) We are so bitterly divided. And there are so many forces that are trying to keep us that way, to keep us divided.And let me be clear, church, any force that's trying to keep us divided is not of God because this is the way God set it up for us to work together, to cross our differences and to find common ground where we can work together.

(20:50) When we're divided, we limit our ability to transform the world. But when we're united, there is great power at our disposal.When we can come together in the name of Jesus, it can be awkward at times, frustrating at times, challenging for sure, but there's power in that church. That's what practicing presence is together.

Thanks be to God.