Rev. Brent L. White

Scripture: Luke 21:5-19

A couple of weeks ago I was at my gym, running on a treadmill. And you know how gyms have an array of TV sets in front of you, tuned to various channels. They always have the major cable news networks on. I’ve never in my life tried to listen to the sound of any of these TVs at the gym—don’t even know how to do that… I just listen to music or whatever. But as I was running, I was looking at the TV screens—without the sound—and I was struck by a headline that I saw on one of the news networks. It was something like this: “Asteroid the size of eight football fields heading toward earth. Are we in danger?”

Scripture: Luke 20:27-38

In this All Saints Sunday sermon, I’m going to talk a lot about heaven. And when I say “heaven,” I’m referring to what the Bible describes as a two-stage kind of afterlife: When we die, the Bible says we go to be with the Lord immediately. Remember the criminal on the cross? Jesus tells him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.” Paul refers to Paradise when he says, “To live is Christ and to die is gain,” that life in Paradise is “better by far” than continuing to live in this world, and when he says that “to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ.” ¹

Scripture: Luke 19:1-10

Friends, I think I’m getting a reputation. Not in a bad way. But I think I’m getting a reputation around town as the “skateboarding pastor.” Technically, my skateboard is called a “longboard,” because it’s built for riding, not for jumping and doing stunts… But as far as I can tell I’m the only skateboarder in town, and more than a few people know that I’m also a pastor at Toccoa First Methodist. If it promotes the church around town, I’m all for it. But it’s a scary reminder to me to be on my best behavior when I’m on my skateboard—since people are beginning to associate me with our church… So, for instance, if someone driving a car veers too close to me, or someone runs a stop sign in front of me, or someone pulls out in front of me without giving me ample room to maneuver, causing me to swerve—I need to be careful not to give the driver a dirty look, or yell at them, or gesture at them in a rude way! Not that I would ever do that! 

Scripture: Luke 18:9-17

Have you heard of the phenomenon of humble-bragging? Humble-bragging is when you say something that sounds “humble”—because we all want to sound humble—but you also want—at the same time—to send a signal to others that says, “Look at me! I’m really something special.” That’s humble-bragging. In case you still don’t know what I’m talking about, one website has collected some real-life examples of humble-bragging on Twitter, mostly tweeted by famous people. I won’t identify them. But they authentic tweets.