Pastor Scott's Musings

 Sermon for Milledgeville and Centenary UMC... [Title] The Resurrected Life: The Way of Salvation ( Romans 8:28-32 )   [Slide] In 2006, Carrie Underwood had a #1 hit, Jesus, Take The Wheel. The chorus says,   Jesus, take the wheel Take it from my hands 'Cause I can't do this on my own I'm letting go Jesus lives in our hearts. Through grace, He empowers us to live like He lives. We must learn to let go and hand Him the wheel. This is the Way of Salvation. This is how we live the Resurrected Life.   [Slide] The founder of the Methodist movement, John Wesley, didn’t want to create a new denomination. He wanted to reform the Church of England. His band of disciples at Oxford University formed the holy club. They met frequently for prayer, fellowship, and study of the scriptures. They went out among the poor, bringing food, clothing, and the power of Christ. They cared for the sick. They encouraged hearts with the good news about Jesus. They visite...

 Sermon for Milledgeville and Centenary UMC... [Title Slide] The Resurrected Life: Grace ( Ephesians 1:3-14, 18-20 )   Two caterpillars are escaping a spider. They climb up a branch and get to the edge, but realize they are now trapped…   [Slide] "Hold on tight!" says the first caterpillar and he quickly chews through the branch. It snaps and they begin to fall, but he grabs two protruding twigs and uses them to steer the branch through the air with grace and finesse.   "That's amazing!!" says the second caterpillar. "How are you doing that?!"   The first caterpillar scoffs, "Am I the only one in the forest who knows how to drive a stick!?"   There are a lot of ways to think about the word grace. The caterpillar guided their fall with grace and finesse. [Slide] It makes me think of Buzz Lightyear in the first Toy Story film. “This isn’t flying. This is falling with style!” [Slide] People are named Grace, meaning lovel...

 Sermon for Milledgeville and Centenary UMC... Reactions (Matthew 28:1-10)   We live in an age of online personas. Through platforms like YouTube some folks enjoy a career as influencers. Sometimes they create reaction videos. [Slide] They’ll video themselves reacting to a box that they are opening to review a new product. Of course, their reactions are over the top making them seem almost cartoonish. They make reaction videos as they listen to a song for the first time. You can even watch entire movies or television episodes with your favorite YouTuber’s reactions.   [Slide] Wouldn’t it be cool if we had reaction videos for the resurrection? First, a reaction video by the guard at the tomb of Jesus.   Whoa! That rock is so heavy! We had to grab extra men from the population of Jerusalem to roll that massive stone in place to cover the tomb. Nobody’s going to get back in there. We’re watching the grave of some dude the Jews called their deliverer king....