Ep. 044 - Radical Generosity: The Inspiring Life of John Wesley

Episode Transcript

Austin
So, Spencer, for the last couple of episodes, we've been looking at some of the heroes of the faith through the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and we come today to John Wesley and Wesley like Studd, and like Mueller really experienced the Lord through prayer, fasting and reading Scripture. And that transformed his heart to be a generous steward.

Austin
So let's go ahead and jump into the life of John Wesley.

Spencer
Welcome to the Second Half Stewardship Podcast. We believe that God owns it all, and our response as Christians is to live generous lives. I'm Spencer Hall, a certified financial planner.

Austin
And I am Austin McLaughlin. As former full time missionaries in the United States and overseas, Spencer and I approach managing our personal finances through the lens of biblical stewardship.

Spencer
Journey with us as we explore how to be generous stewards of our money, time, relationships, gifts, and experiences. So Austin, who was John Wesley?

Austin
Yeah, really simply. John Wesley was born in the central England in the early 1700s. His father was a pastor or he was a rector of the church town where they lived. John was one of a lot of kids. I think he was 15th in line. a lot of them passed away just because of disease, and children just didn't live as long when you don't have as much modern medicine.

Austin
So he was in a long line of children. his parents were not wealthy. the church that they worked at, the salary kind of paid more like a modern, family. And so he grew up in a lot of time and in a place that was really challenging. That was hard. But they trusted the Lord as their provider throughout.

Austin
And so John knew through his life what it was like, like to live in want and to live in poverty. And that's really, I think, going to drive us to see how does John interact with the world around him, because we see him being incredibly generous through his life and taking a really radical stand, kind of as he grows in his faith and as he becomes a preacher and a pastor and an evangelist, how he directs the people that he's leading to be generous, but also to really tighten spending and not feel like you've got to live as if this world is the only world you'll ever live in.

Austin
He takes very seriously that heaven is our eternal home, and we need to live as if that kingdom of God is our eternal destiny, and that this world is simply a temporary resting place before we get there. So let's live in light of that kingdom. And so John and his brother Charles, they are, they both go study at Oxford and while they are, John becomes ordained as an Anglican, a deacon in the Anglican Church.

Austin
He goes on to teach Greek's Greek and philosophy and New Testament at Oxford. And while they're there, once his brother Charles arrives a couple of years later, John and Charles and a couple others, they start diving in to this group of Christians to pray together to read Scripture into fasting. And like we talked about with Studd, like we talked about with Mueller prayer and reading the word together with other believers really is what sparked these massive transformations in their lives.

Austin
And so Wesley and John and Charles, they both are praying. They're seeking the Lord, and God calls them to then minister to those in prison. He calls them to become evangelists, to go to the world. And so they leave England for a time in early 1700s, and they go to Savannah, Georgia, to become missionaries, to become preachers and pastors at this church in Savannah that is a newly launched, newly formed parish.

Austin
As they're going over their storms and not just little storms, they're big storms that are on the seas. And John and Charles are both just terrified. They think they're going to die, and they're on the ship with some Arabian Christians. And these Christians are just holding fast to the Lord. They're a total peace. And it strikes them, John and Charles both.

Austin
What in the world? How do they have this peace? in the midst of this turmoil? And so they start to learn where from these Moravians, like, okay, we need to seek the Lord and just trust in his provision and trust in him no matter the circumstances. So they start wrestling with, okay, what does that actually look like in, in our lives?

Austin
They spent a couple of years in Georgia before they come back to England. When they return to England. They interact with the evangelist George Whitfield. And John really starts from that moment, gathering a heart for prayer or a deeper heart for prayer and for preaching and not just public preaching, but preaching in church. And so Whitfield was an evangelist.

Austin
He would travel around and preach throughout the countryside and England. And so John really started saying, okay, what is my role as an evangelist, as a preacher and in that time he started really devoting a lot of time to serving the poor and serving those around him. And so one of the things that was happening is as he was preaching, he started realizing that he's got a following and so he's wanting to now set up a society.

Austin
He sets up the Methodist Society of England, he and Charles do, and one of the primary teaching tenants in this is calling centers to repentance. He believes fully in the central authority of the Bible, and he thinks that the church, their doctrine, ought to be aligned with Christian orthodoxy. And so he's reading what he sees in Scripture. He's calling people to repentance.

Austin
He's calling people back to the Word of God and his faith, he believes, really needs to be experienced, lived out within the community of believers around. So it can't just be a proclaimed faith with our mouths. It has to be a lived out faith with our hands. So he develops this Methodist society to be a community of believers that hear the Word of God and actively participate with God for the life of the world.

Spencer
Often as we look at Wesley's life, his work, what can we glean from his approach to stewardship?

Austin
Yeah. Well, I think one of the beautiful things about Wesley in a lot of these early 1700s and 1800s preachers, as we have their sermons and so we can hear what they actually taught on. And in reading through these sermons, there are things that were striking that are really hard to embrace and to hear. But in a sermon titled The Good Steward Wesley gave in May of 1768, in Edinburg, Scotland.

Austin
He really made some challenging and compelling arguments about what our roles as stewards. And he kind of starts off the he shows the difference between being a debtor and being a steward. And he says, we are now indebted to God for all we have. But although a debtor is obliged to return what he's received until the payment comes, he is at liberty to use the funds as he pleases.

Austin
So if we're a debtor, we borrow money. We can use it however we want. God is still giving it to us, but if we see ourselves as debtors, we can use the funds how we want. Then he goes on to say, it is not so with a steward. He is not at liberty to use what is lodged in his hands as he pleases, but as his master pleases.

Austin
And we've talked about this before, but the reality of being a steward is God has given me resources, and I need to use them not as I please, but how the Lord would long for me to use them. And so he continues this argument that we have been entrusted everything we have by God. We are entrusted to be not owners, but stewards of his gift.

Austin
So that means I need to utilize all those resources as God would direct me. And if God has given, we don't have that liberty to use solely at our discretion. He. We must take all of the resources that God has given us and use them to his glory. And Wesley goes on to unpack that he doesn't just mean money.

Austin
He means our time, our treasure, our talents, he says, nor in the land of our pilgrimage is anything properly our own. We shall not receive our own things till we come to our own country. Eternal things are only our own with these, with all these temporal things, we are entrusted by another to the Disposer and the Lord of all.

Austin
So he's saying all of the stuff that we have temporarily, this light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison. And so the reality is, this world is our temporary home. We look to our eternal home, and that's what we are actually inheriting, that those are the things that are ours. It's not the things that are here on earth.

Austin
We simply manage them and sewer them. And so he continues in he argues on that our souls, our bodies, our goods, our talents, everything. It's all the Lord's for us to steward and you know, as he goes on, one of the things that he argues is even our tongues, what we speak is the Lord's, and we have to steward our words well.

Austin
And in a jarring moment for me, as I was reading through the sermon, he calls our memory subject to the Lord, like what do I hold in my brain? Is actually subject to the Lord? And I think it was really convicting for me because I hold in a lot of weird, useless facts in my brain. I'm good at holding a lot of ideas and tension, and I want to be known as someone that knows a little bit about a lot of things and a lot about a lot of things, about very few subjects.

Austin
So I want to be seen as an expert, and I want to know a lot about everything. So I can always engage in conversation. In a lot of ways, it's so that I can be seen as smart, which is really telling for me of what I believe is important. but Wesley calls us and he says, no, our memories must be submitted to the Lord.

Austin
Like, are we filling our minds with what is good and true and beautiful? And are we filling our minds with scripture and prayer and praise, or are we filling it with what minute did Gio Reyna score in last night's US Mexico soccer game? Or how many goals and assists or whatever? I just think is is fun to know in the moment.

Austin
What am I actually filling my mind with? And the reality is that's in subjection to the Lord. Like my memory is in subject. So really he sees our our lives as stewardship really holistically. And I think that's a really challenging thing to be thinking of is what what do I actually put in subjection before Lord? Is it my all?

Austin
Is it legitimately everything, or do I only see sections of my life as under subjection of the Lord in into his his stewardship, not into my allowing to be able to use however I want?

Spencer
when we think about stewardship and Wesley, what how did he approach generosity and some of the practical elements of stewardship?

Austin
Yeah. So in the biography of John and Charles Wesley called the Wesley's, very creative, super creative, the author tells the story of a time when John was at Oxford and as as the story goes, John had just bought a painting for his room, and one of the chambermaids comes to the door and it's the middle of winter, and he realizes this.

Austin
This woman does not have proper clothing to keep herself warm during the winter, and he is struck and he's like, I'm going to go buy her a coat. And then he realizes he's just spent money on this painting, and so he doesn't have money for a coat to a proper coat to really keep this woman warm. And it struck him that maybe by chance, the Lord is not pleased with him buying the painting so that he didn't have money to give.

Austin
And I think as we look at the life of Wesley, just like we look at the life of Mueller or Studd I think we have to hold these things in tension because in some ways we read Ecclesiastes and God calls us to embrace a beautiful life with him while we're here. But he also calls us to be radically generous.

Austin
And so if we use all of our funds on ourself, we don't have the funds to be able to be generous in the ways that we desire or the ways that God desires us to be. And so I think as we read this, a lot of these things that that Wesley participates in, he's really radical in his beliefs, which is a beautiful thing.

Austin
And so I think we always need to hold stewardship in that tension of how do I participate with God in it, in this life that he has given me? but how do I also not hold everything for myself so that this life is not about myself? Because it's not? If I am a steward of all the resources, the relationships, the time, the gifts and experiences, I have to be radically open handed with the Lord, and I have to hold all of my resources in tension.

Austin
So, there's a period about four years after this where John lived on a diet mostly of potatoes. some of it was for dietary reasons. But he says what I save for my own meat will feed another. That else would have none. And so he's really thinking about this and saying, okay, yes, I can, I can buy meat if I want to, but if I don't buy meat, then I have money to give to other people.

Austin
And so he's always seeing his resources as if I do this, then I can't serve others. If I do this, then I won't have. Then I will not be able to participate with God in this beautiful walk of generosity. And when people around him argue that John was naive with his money because he was so generous, his response was, and and I don't know what these terms are because I don't know, British money at all, much less British money in the 1700s.

Austin
But John says, don't I know that 12 pence makes a shilling and 21 shillings a guinea? Don't I know that if given to God, it's worth heaven through Christ? And don't I know that if hoarded and kept, it's worth damnation to the man who hoards it? And I think this just marks the rest of his his life. It's like he wants to just be radically generous.

Austin
And his friends are like, John, you're giving all your money away. And he's like, I know I'm storing it in heaven. I'm passing it on. and he knows that if he hoards it, it's going to control him. And I think that's one thing that we often don't see as we think internally about funds and resources and money is that if I keep them for myself, I just think, well, I might need it in the future.

Austin
John sees it differently. If I keep it for myself, I'm potentially damning my soul. and not trusting Jesus like we saw with Mueller, is that his trust was wholly in the Lord. Wesley was saying, I need to give it away. I need to practically use my money to give to the poor, to give to the needy, because God will provide and I want to pass it along, that that God may use it.

Austin
And so during his lifetime, Wesley earned more than 30,000 pounds from the sale of his books and publications. He gave most of it away. it's believed that based on his bookkeeping, he kept really good records that he paid himself about 30 pounds per year, which take this for what it's worth, 30 pounds in 1770 was roughly 7,000 pounds in 2024, or roughly $9,000.

Austin
So he's living way below his means, even if we adjust that for inflation. The reality is, even if that's double that, if I think about living on $18,000 as a single person in the United States, that's not a lot of money. Even if you triple it, it's not a lot of money. So Wesley was radically generous. He constantly gave away everything that we would have seen that we often see as our own.

Austin
But he says, no, I'm going to pass it on. I'm going to give it away. And Wesley challenged the rest of the Methodist that in the society that he had created to live a thrifty lifestyle. But when it started to turn in, that thrifty lifestyle grew into a lifestyle where they actually didn't need to save anymore because they had enough resources.

Austin
Wesley observes this, and he challenged the his followers that they don't need to retain this wealth, right? Just because you live a thrifty lifestyle, you don't need to hold on to it. And he was saying that, okay, now they have resources and they're trying to pass it on. But he he says he suggests to his followers not to leave wealth, tremendous amounts of wealth to their children, he says, not in idleness and luxury, but by honest industry.

Austin
So he's saying, what you need to leave to your children should not produce them a life of idleness or a life of luxury, but leave them enough to allow them to continue to make a standard of living for themselves. And so I think he even is wrestling with this question 300 years ago of how much is enough? Not just for myself, but how much is enough for my heirs.

Austin
And he's doing it in such a way. He's challenging this ideal that I have to amass wealth, and then I have to pass my amassed wealth on to the next generation. He's saying, no, that's never the case, because that can produce an idleness that can produce this luxury, where then I don't see myself as needy before the Lord because I have everything that I want.

Spencer
Well, and it's interesting, you know, he's grappling with these things. He doesn't have any children that he's passing funds on to. And one other part of his life, he says something to the effect of, if I have more than 10 pounds to my name at my death that I pass on, I won't be a believer, you know, I won't.

Spencer
I will be outside of the faith that I'm choosing because he he said, why would I need any of those funds? I want to pass them on as much as I can. And, you know, he has interesting circumstances in that, he has, significant amount of revenue coming in every year from, his book royalties and such.

Spencer
And he has people contributing. So there's there's not a lack of God's provision that could be anywhere on the horizon, but he doesn't want to hold on to any of it. Yeah. Basically. Yeah.

Austin
Well, I think that's one thing that we come back to often when we talk with folks about, okay, what are we doing with the resources that you've saved is do you want to just pass them on when you die, or do you want to pass them on through life? Like you can accelerate your living in giving so that you don't die with this stockpile of resources?

Austin
What does it look like to live with that same zeal and fervor that God is providing? He has always provided, he always will provide and trust in the Lord and not trust in our wealth and our resources. But what does it look like to to be open handed and trust that God will still give us our daily bread, even if we give an extravagant level?

Austin
Like Wesley's friends were saying, don't you know the value of money? It's like I do, and if I pass it on by, allow Christ to be formed in me. I allow my trust not to be in my money, and I can. I can still do that while I'm alive.

Spencer
Right? Well, another thing that we see instead is life in Wesley's life and Mueller’s life. Is that actually making this move is counterintuitive, but it reduces financial anxiety. Each of these men had much more financial anxiety. If you look at their writings and what they talk about before making the decision that they are going to surrender everything to the Lord and see this clearly in each of their lives, that they had far more worries prior to that level of surrender, and even that even if they needed to pray, even if they were called to pray every day for their daily bread, far less anxiety because they had seen the Lord provide day by day

Spencer
through the course of decades.

Austin
You know, Spencer, even as you were saying that, I think the question that keeps coming back to my head is how much is enough? And really, what does it look like to set finish lines? Both finish lines of how much do I save for my future? How much do I save for my present? But also where does my income stop?

Austin
And the reality is that you see from Wesley the he capped how much is enough? And he gave and he gave and he gave. We saw with Mueller and with Studd that they they may not have said that same question, but they knew I don't need to hold on to these resources. I need to pass them along. Started giving away his entirety of his inheritance because he wanted to trust in the Lord.

Austin
I think it comes back to what are those finish lines? What are those places where I say I have enough, my family has enough, and I think it's challenging to us as we think about our role as stewards, if these resources are actually God's. If I believe that all that I have is his, and I am simply managing it on his behalf as he would desire it to be managed, not as I would desire it, but as he would desire.

Austin
I really have to wrestle with where is that finish line? And if I don't set it, then the finish line keeps moving, and if I know anything about myself, I will move that finish line to the place of my comfort. And I don't want to live in a place where comfort is my finish line. I want to live in a place where dependance is that finish line, where I'm trusting the Lord fully and utilizing everything to his glory and for the Kingdom of God.

Austin
So with that, we will put a couple of notes in books in the show notes for you guys if you want to read more about Wesley, but in the coming episodes, we look forward to seeing you again soon. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.