Finishing well, this is one of the main themes I picked up on in England as we toured the places where Wesley spent the last few years of his life. We ended our tour in London and we worshipped in Wesley’s Chapel where we sang, prayed, learned and celebrated Holy Communion. We also got a tour of his final home and saw where both he and his mother were buried.
Wesley’s Chapel and Leysian Mission is a place of vibrant and diverse worship, they are engaged in justice work in the community, international and evening prayer services, lunchtime recitals, activities for children and of course their robust Museum of Methodism in the basement. The heritage of this church began in 1778 and is still an active church today. John Wesley built his home right next to the Church, which is four stories and was used to house visiting preachers and was the final home of his mother, Suzanna. In the winters, he stayed in London and preached but in the summer and fall, when the weather was compatible, he spent many days out on his horse riding from town to town, county to county preaching the Gospel to whomever would listen. John Wesley died in 1791 at the age of 87 years old, which was an extremely well lived life that he kept living and fighting for until his final breath. And since coming back from this trip last month, I have thought a lot about finishing well. You see, we come from a legacy of finishing well and using all of our available time on this side of heaven to run the race well and completely.
I am drawn to the final verse of Charles Wesley’s hymn, Love Divine, All Loves Excelling which says:
Finish then, Thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see Thy great salvation
perfectly restored in Thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heav’n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before Thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.
As you watch the videos below, I want you to be thinking about what God wants to finish and complete in you. Is there a fight that refuses to let you go, maybe something that frustrates you or keeps you up at night? What does God need to finish in your heart, or relationships, or career, or family, or commitments that would restore God’s salvation in that broken part of life that God has left for uniquely you to do? I can’t answer that for you, but in one of John Wesley’s final letters, he wrote to William Wilberforce, a British politician and follower of Jesus urging him to continue in his fight to abolish the slave trade in Britain, which did end up happening in 1807, but 16 years after Wesley had died. But isn’t this the way things are with lives well lived? We all sit under the shade of the trees we never planted because God is constantly using brothers and sisters who come before us, who are open to a God whose Spirit changes them from glory into glory and finishes in them the work that was already begun. And so I ask you to ponder what kind of tree you will plant, what kind of foundation will you build, and how will you allow the God who began a good work in you long ago to complete it and to finish well?
AMEN