Pastor Scott's Musings

 Sermon for Milledgeville and Whitestown UMC... Elizabeth & Zechariah ( Luke 1:5-25 )   Elizabeth will bear you a son; you will name him John Luke 1:13b After waiting over 90 minutes for her date, the young lady decided she'd been stood up. She changed from her dinner dress into pajamas, and resigned herself to an evening of TV.   No sooner had she sat down in front of the TV… her doorbell rang. There stood her date. He took one look at her and said "I'm two hours late, and you're still not ready?"   Happy Advent! This is the season of waiting and preparation. We prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ. We wait faithfully for His second coming. We hang the greens and ornaments. We sing carols. We send cards. We dream of a manger under as shining star with shepherds and wise men worshipping the newborn king of the Jews. And we renew our hope in Christ and His eternal kingdom.   Zechariah was an elderly priest. He had served God faithfully hi...

  Thankful People ( Philippians 4:4-8 )   Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.  (Psalm 136:1) A guy walks into a bar and orders a beer. "How did Thanksgiving go at your place?" the bartender asks. "Oh, it went fine. Had a lot of family over and the wife prepared the meal. I helped out, though. She got a little stressed out and told me she needed some peace and quiet in the kitchen so she could finish cooking," the guy says. "So I took the batteries out of the smoke detector."   Thanksgiving is this week! Families will gather to eat themselves into a coma. There will be games played and watched. The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade will be on television. This year is Macy’s 99 th parade! I always look for SpongeBob and Baby Yoda (Grogu)! There may be important conversations in the kitchen or garage. There will be laughter, heartfelt affection for one another, and maybe even tears.   Here’s a little history on Th...

  Living With Hope ( Revelation 21:1-22:21 )   And I saw the holy city—the new Jerusalem— descending out of heaven from God Revelation 21:2 When J.J. Abrams was called in to direct the last Star Wars film episode 9, he commented on the gravity of his responsibility. Not only was he making a sequel to episodes 7 and 8 of the Disney era sequel trilogy, he was making a film that was intended to sum up all Star Wars films since 1977. It was a huge undertaking.   That’s sort of what John had to do with his epic letter to the seven churches of Asia Minor. He had to sum up all that God had done in the past and all that God had promised to do. God is the one who was, who is and who is to come. And today, I have similar responsibility to sum up Revelation. This is our 11 th week in the Apocalypse of John. Apocalypse means revealing or unveiling. The Lord lifted the curtain to show us what’s really going on in the world, an ancient battle between God and Satan, good and e...

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC... Living With Justice ( Revelation 19:1-20:15 )   Justice is the establishment of right relationships The supreme court changed dramatically after the death of Justice Ginsberg. Some say it’s become Ruth-less.   I gave up my seat on the bus to a blind person. And I lost my job. I guess there’s no justice in this world for a kind-hearted bus driver.   Judgment and justice go hand in hand. Justice is the state of righteousness, behaving in the way acceptable to God. Justice is the establishment of right relationships. To judge is to select the right instead of the wrong. The Greeks thought of judgment as separation. Jesus taught his parable of the sheep and the goats.   “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  32  All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a...

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC Living With Idols ( Revelation 17:1-18:24 )   Billy Idol’s wife gets very upset when he’s behind on yardwork. In the midnight hour, she yells: mow! mow! mow!   Why did the little cloud idolize the big cloud? Because its the raining champion.   What exactly is an idol? Why is idolatry so offensive to God?   In the Bible an idol is a statute made of wood or stone, or gold or silver, which depicts a god or goddess. Many foreign gods were popular in the nations near Israel. Haddad was depicted as a Bull, a god of the Akkadians, Assyrians and Arameans. Baal was a Canaanite god also depicted as a bull. Dagon, worshipped by the Philistines, resembled a fish. Anubis, the Egyptian god of the underworld, had the head of a jackal. Diana was depicted as a woman with a crescent moon crown.   Israel was influenced by cultural and political forces that led them into the worship of pagan deities. Solom...