Rev. Brent L. White

In part 5 of our series, we’ll go on a picnic with Jesus, Philip, Andrew, and about 5,000 of their closest friends.

My favorite part of today’s scripture is verse 6, which says that Jesus asked Philip about feeding the multitudes “in order to test him.” We don’t like having our faith tested, but our Lord has a helpful but very annoying habit of doing it just when we start to get comfortable. Pass or fail, God tests us in order to help us trust in him more and more. Most of us probably have a lot of growing to do when it comes to trust. The good news is that he doesn’t require a great deal of faith on our part to do remarkable things through us.

Sermon Text: John 6:1-15

The following is my original sermon manuscript.

The biggest news this week was, of course, the birth of the royal baby, His Royal Highness Prince George. And I greatly appreciate the lengths to which Prince William and Kate went to show the the world that they’re just like any other first time parents. William brought George out of the hospital to his SUV and told the press, “He’s got a good pair of lungs, that’s for sure.” Of course, we veteran parents know that that little newborn baby cry is positively cute compared to the high-decibel wail of a six-month-old. Talk about a set of lungs!

But I was impressed by how down to earth the royal couple seemed. Like any new father, William had to nervously fumble with the car seat as he set the baby in it for the first time. Kate told the media that William had even changed his first diaper, a rite of passage for any new father. No, William is so much like us. For example, he was going to store and asked Kate if she needed anything. She said, “Buy Pampers.” And so he did. Of course he misunderstood her and bought the company… but that’s an honest mistake!

And Kate is like any new mother. For example, learning to nurse the baby was a bit of a challenge—as it is for any first-time mother. So they called in a lactation consultant. Kate told her, “I can’t get the baby to latch on.” But the consultant said, “You first have to remove the silver spoon from the child’s mouth.”  Read the rest of this entry »

In part 4 of our series, we’ll go camping with the Israelites outside the walls of Jericho.

Last week, the sports world turned its attention to the latest scandal involving performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) in Major League Baseball. Never mind the harmful effects of PEDs on a player’s health: we don’t like that PED-using athletes achieve records that they didn’t earn and don’t deserve.

Fortunately for us, God isn’t nearly as concerned about our getting what we deserve!

This sermon is about God’s grace, as seen through the story of Joshua and the battle of Jericho. We can’t earn God’s love or our salvation, nor should we want to. I also challenge us to imagine ourselves not on “God’s side,” with the Israelites outside the walls of Jericho, but on the other side of the wall—with Rahab, the Gentile convert. Her mission is also our mission.

Sermon Text: Joshua 6:1-5, 15-27

The following is my original sermon manuscript.

Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game was last week. The American League won, unfortunately. But that event was overshadowed by much bigger news in baseball: which is, the most recent scandal involving performance-enhancing drugs, or PEDs. There was a medical clinic down in Miami called Biogenesis, whose doctors, according to one report, are responsible for juicing 20 current Major League players, including one of the highest-paid—Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees.

I heard an interview on sports radio with infamous former Braves closer John Rocker, who said, “Who cares about doping in baseball? Wasn’t the game more exciting back in the ’90s, when PED-using superstars like Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa and Barry Bonds were chasing or breaking homerun records?”

Well, that was exciting back then… before we knew the truth. When we thought, perhaps naively, that these athletes turned into Incredible Hulks by merely sweating it out at the gym. The problem with PEDs is that players like Hank Aaron, Roger Maris, and Babe Ruth earned their records the old-fashioned way, without artificial enhancements. Although Barry Bonds was an amazingly gifted player before drugs, he wouldn’t have achieved his single-season or lifetime homerun record without them. Which is why I support putting an asterisk by his name in the record books. Because he doesn’t deserve it!

Fortunately for us, God isn’t nearly as concerned about our getting what we deserve. Read the rest of this entry »

In part 3 of our series, we’ll get tips on preventing sunburn from three men who should know!

The three friends in today’s scripture exhibited great courage as they faced being thrown into the fiery furnace. Notice that they weren’t completely confident that God would rescue them from their terrible fate: “But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

We all face bad situations over which we have little or no control. What do we do? How can we face those situations with faith? That’s what this sermon is about.

Sermon Text: Daniel 3:8-30

The following is my original sermon manuscript.

You probably heard about the Korean airliner that crashed while attempting to land in San Francisco last week. Mercifully, so far, out of 307 people onboard, only three were killed. Not that it isn’t horrible when this sort of thing happens, but the crash obviously could have been much worse. I used to fly frequently when I was an engineer, and I never paid much attention to the flight attendants’ instructions about what to do in the event of an emergency landing. It never really mattered to me that the seat cushion could be used as a flotation device. I figured that unless the seat cushion could also be used as a spare airplane, then I was pretty much toast. Right?

Then you occasionally hear about successful crash landings like last week and think, “Well, maybe there’s a small chance I’d survive a crash.” Who knows? My point is, pay attention to the flight attendants, kids! 

Sometimes in life we face situations at least a little bit like last week’s plane crash: It’s as if we’re strapped in a plane that’s going to crash, and we’re powerless to do anything about it. We have no control over the situation. We didn’t choose this for this to happen—any more than the passengers onboard that airliner chose to crash. They chose to go to San Francisco. They assumed the negligibly small risk that doing so might lead to a crash. So… here we are. Stuck. This bad thing is happening. What do we do now? Read the rest of this entry »

In part 2 of our series, we’re going on a cruise with Jonah.

The prophet Jonah doesn’t get a lot of respect from most of us. But why? If you simply look at what he accomplished, he might be the most successful prophet in the Bible—however reluctant he might have been at first. In this sermon, I talk about the surprisingly good news of God’s wrath toward Jonah’s disobedience and what that means for us today. Curious? Watch the sermon!

Sermon Text: Jonah 1

Ed. note: I’m aware that it looks like my head is floating above the altar in the video! We’ll fix that next time!

The following is my original sermon manuscript.

Like many of you, I was inspired last week by the examples of those 19 firefighters of the Granite Mountain Hotshots who gave their lives fighting a dangerous wildfire in Arizona. As President Obama rightly said, “They were heroes… who, as so many across our country do every day, selflessly put themselves in harm’s way to protect… fellow citizens they would never meet.”^{[1] Read the rest of this entry »}

Vinebranch constantly challenged me to step outside of my small and safe comfort zone.

I preached the following farewell sermon in Vinebranch last Sunday using Paul’s words from Philippians about “pressing on to win the prize.” As I told the congregation, “I know I’m a better pastor and a better person now than I was six years ago. And the truth is, it’s mostly because I was trying to keep up with you.”

Sermon Text: Philippians 3:4-14

The following is my original sermon text with footnotes.

Some of you, I’m sure, will be running the Peachtree Road Race in a couple of weeks. I’ve run it several times in the past, and I’m struck by the “party atmosphere” of it: It’s a big celebration more than anything. It doesn’t really matter how fast we run it—or even whether we run it at all. The only thing that matters is that we cross the finish line—whether running, walking, crawling, sliding, skipping, rolling, or somersaulting—so that we can get the big prize: the T-shirt.

I know that in front of the 50 thousand or so who are running for the T-shirt there is a group of elite, world-class runners—probably some of Bill and Chat’s friends from Kenya—who are running for more than the T-shirt. But most of us, let’s face it, are in it for the T-shirt. Read the rest of this entry »

In Part 1 of this sermon, I talked about the skepticism we usually have about Satan’s literal existence. In this sermon, I talk about the ways that Satan and the other “principalities and powers” often attack us. This sermon is both a warning and an encouragement for Christians: a warning because we need to take seriously the deadly Enemy that we face and an encouragement because we have all the power necessary to defeat this Enemy.

Sermon Text: Ephesians 6:10-17

The following is my original sermon text with footnotes.

I met a man recently named Bob, who goes to Hampton UMC, the church that I will soon be pastoring. Bob retired from Delta Airlines. But before that, he was in the Air Force. He flew U-2 spy planes 70,000 feet up in the air, at the edge of outer space, over enemy territory, at the height of the Cold War—probably while being fired upon by enemy missiles! I didn’t ask him where he flew U-2s, but I know U-2s routinely flew top secret missions over the Soviet Union, and China, and Cuba, and North Korea. They were used for surveillance, reconnaissance, intelligence-gathering.

Today, in Part 2 of our sermon “Devil in the Details,” I want us to fly over enemy territory ourselves and gather intelligence on our Enemy, which we identified last week as Satan and the “principalities and powers” that Paul talks about in today’s text. I talked about the challenge we modern people often face in believing in a literal Satan—even though Jesus himself certainly did. I also said that if Satan did exist—and he does—he would undoubtedly want us not to believe in him—then he could do so much of his work unimpeded.

Read the rest of this entry »