The Means of Grace

Salvation by grace through faith is a relationship with the living God who is revealed and known in Jesus Christ. Our relationship with God is very much like that which we share with a spouse or a friend. Like your relation with your spouse or a friend, it must be nurtured. Our relationships are a lot like plants. If we neglect them by failing to water, feed, and weed them they dry up and, eventually, die and are discarded. In order to grow and thrive, they require regular attention and care. Our relationships require attention and participation. We need to give attention to the person; to his or her identity and character. We need to know our beloved: their likes and dislikes, hopes and dreams, gifts and graces. We also need to spend time with the beloved, participating in each other’s lives.

We need to attend our relationship with God in much the same way. We know from the witness of Scripture and in the Baptismal covenant that god is faithful and patient. God knows us better than we know ourselves. Because God is Spirit he is always available. We, however, are not always faithful, patient, or available to god. This is why god has provided for us a set of basic practices where god promises to always meet us. These basic practices, known as the means of grace, are gifts form god given to help us make time and space for God in our lives. They are where we can regularly make ourselves available to God and to the healing, liberating power of grace.

The means of grace are practices in which we learn the mind of Christ by attending to all of his teachings, summarized in the Great Commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all of your strength… You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30 – 31). John Wesley describes theses basic Christian practices in his sermon “The Means of Grace:”

“By means of grace I understand outward signs, words, or actions ordained by God, and appointed for this end—to be the ordinary channels whereby [God] might convey to men [and women] preventing [prevenient], justifying, or sanctifying grace.”

He believed practicing the means of grace was essential to the life of Christian discipleship because they lead us to Christ and keep us with him. These basic practices are how Christians open themselves to grace and allow the Holy Spirit to “form the Savior in the soul.” This is beautifully summarized by Charles Wesley in a hymn written for the Love Feast:

Plead we thus for faith alone,

Faith which by our works is shown;

God it is who justifies,

Only faith the grace applies,

Active faith that lives within,

Conquers earth, and hell, and sin,

Sanctifies, and makes us whole,

In other words, the means of grace are how disciples of Jesus Christ live out "active faith that lives within." When Christians practice their faith they make themselves available to God and the power of grace to “conquer … sin, sanctify, and make them whole.” As these practices and grace become integrated into life, Christians are then free to love God with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to love their neighbors as themselves. The more they open themselves to grace, the more free they become to love those whom God loves as God loves.

Attending to our relationship with God through practicing the means of grace does not, however, come naturally. We need to learn how to do these basic practices of discipleship in the same way that a newly married couple must learn how to live together and love one another over many years. In other words, loving is a discipline that must be learned. It is learned over time through discipline and practice with experienced practitioners.

Learning the practice of loving God and loving as God loves is very much like learning to play baseball. First you cannot do it alone. Baseball is a game that cannot be played alone. It can only be played with a team. Even if all you want to do is play catch you need at least one other person to play. Because grace is relational, we learn how to love as God loves in the presence of others who have known and loved God longer than we. Second, like all games, there is a set of basic skills that must be learned and practiced in order to begin to play the game. This set of basic skills is universal. All players must learn them: throwing, catching, hitting, running, knowing and thinking baseball. The basic practices of Christian discipleship are known as the means of grace. They are foundational to Christian faith and live. Third, discipline is essential to growth in grace and love. An athlete who engages in the discipline of baseball (catching, throwing, hitting, running and knowing and thinking the game) becomes a baseball player. Likewise, a person who engages in the discipline of following Jesus in the world (attending to all of his teachings through works of piety and works of mercy) becomes a Christian disciple.

Learning and practicing the means of grace as part of daily life is how Christians attend to their relationship with God and with those whom God loves (neighbors, other Christians, and selves). They are how god’s grace flows through a human life for the world. In the process, when persons open themselves to grace they open themselves to becoming fully the human being God created themselves to be, in Christ.

John Wesley describes this process of “becoming” or Christian character formation in this sermon “On Zeal.” Here he succinctly describes the work of love that forms “holy tempers” in the heart through the means of grace:

In a Christian believer love sits upon the throne, which is erected in the inmost soul; namely, love of God and man, which fills the whole heart, and reigns without a rival. In a circle near the throne are all holy tempers: long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, goodness, fidelity, temperance (see Galatians 5:22-23) – and if any other in comprised in the mind which was in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 2:5). In as exterior circle are all the works of mercy, whether to the souls or bodies of men. By these we exercise all holy tempers; by these we continually improve them, so that all these are real means of grace, although this is not commonly adverted to. Next to these are those that are usually termed works of piety; reading and hearing the Word, public, family, private prayer, receiving the Lord’s Supper, fasting or abstinence. Lastly, that his followers may the more effectively provoke one another to love, holy tempers, and good works, our blessed Lord has united them together in one – the church, dispersed all over the earth; a little emblem of which, of the church universal, we have in every particular Christian congregation (Sermon 92: On Zeal)

These basic Christian practices and watching over one another in love are how congregations live out the promise to “do all in your power to increase their faith, confirm their hope, and perfect them in love.”