These worship elements are an early draft being shared as a preview for the upcoming service. The final version used in worship may be adapted or revised. Pastors and worship leaders are welcome to use and adapt these for your own context.

Welcome

Welcome to worship at McPherson First United Methodist Church. Whether this is your first Sunday or you are back after a long time away, the door is open and we are glad you are here. School is starting across our communities this week, and on a morning when calendars fill up fast, we stop and gather to remember who holds our days. We are a church learning to keep our love for God at the center, and one of the five promises we make here is prayers, the daily turning of our attention back to God. There is room for you here, exactly as you are. Come and worship.

(8:30 only, transition to the Call to Worship) I invite you to join in our responsive call to worship as you see the words on display.

Call to Worship (8:30 only)

Leader: Out of all the voices calling for our attention,

People: we have come to hear the One who loves us first.

Leader: Out of all the things asking for first place,

People: we give our first love to God.

Leader: “You must have no other gods before me,” says the Lord.

People: So we turn our hearts here, to the God who brought us out and brought us home.

Leader: Lift your voices and worship the One who matters most.

Welcome Your Neighbor

Loving God has never been a solo project. Part of keeping God at the center is making room for the person beside you, the one you know well and the one you have never met. A warm welcome is the kind of thing that makes someone want to come back. This is what witness looks like, ordinary and unhurried, the gospel carried in how we treat one another.

So make room on purpose. Picture the empty chair beside you next Sunday. Whose name goes in it?

If you’re worshiping at home, turn to whoever is in the room with you and greet them too. Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and then remain standing as we join together in song.

Opening Prayer

Our songs have named who God is. Will you pray with me now, using the words on the screen?

All: Holy God, you know where our attention drifts when the day gets loud. Gather our scattered hearts this morning. Quiet the noise, open our ears to your voice, and make us ready to receive what you have for us. Meet us here as we worship. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Scripture Reading: Exodus 20:3-11 (CEB)

(Read by a lay reader, seated. The reader introduces the passage before reading it.)

Today we hear again from Exodus, the book of Israel’s rescue from slavery in Egypt. Last week God opened the covenant with an invitation. This week the first commandments follow.

Listen for what God asks to come first, and notice that every command rests on a love that came before it.

Leader: This is the Word of God for the people of God.

People: Thanks be to God!

Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer

Online and in this room, you are invited to pray. If you have a request for our prayer team, fill out a prayer request card from the pew rack and drop it in the offering plate, or share it in the Church Center app, and someone will pray with you this week.

Faithful God, we bring you the week that just began. Bless the students who walked into new classrooms, nervous and hopeful. Bless the teachers and the bus drivers and the cafeteria workers who carry so much for so many. Bless the parents standing at the door watching their children go. For everyone starting something hard this week, give courage. For everyone who is tired before the week even begins, give rest. For everyone carrying a worry they have not said out loud, we hold it with you now in silence.

(brief pause)

You are the One we love most, and you are the One who first loved us. Teach us to keep you at the center, so that everything else can find its right place. We pray as Jesus taught us, joining our voices in the prayer he gave us:

All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

All: Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

All: Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Blessing of the Backpacks

(Placement in the service is flexible. Educators receive a gift as part of the blessing flow.)

Students, teachers, and everyone who works in a school, this part of the morning is for you. Would you come forward, and bring your backpack or your bag if you brought one. Parents, grandparents, you are welcome to come with them.

(once gathered)

This is the heart of what we mean by loving what matters most. We are putting the people we love, and the work they do, into God’s hands at the start of a new year.

To our educators: this congregation sees you. The hours you give, the kids you carry home in your heart, the difference you make that no one claps for. As a small sign of our love, we have a gift for each of you this morning, given with our thanks.

Will you pray with me?

Loving God, bless these students. Give them curiosity, courage, and kind friends. Bless these teachers, counselors, and staff. Steady them, refresh them, and remind them that their work matters to you. Watch over every backpack, every classroom, every long day. Hold this whole school year in your hands. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Invitation to Give and Check-In

Everything we have is a gift before it is ever ours. We give because God has been generous with us first, and our giving lets this church be generous in return. You saw a piece of that this morning. The gift cards our educators just received come straight out of the regular giving of this congregation, your offering turned into a tangible thank-you for the people who shape our kids. That is what your gifts do, week in and week out.

If you give faithfully, month after month, thank you. Your steady generosity is what makes a morning like this one possible. And if this is the first time you have ever given here, welcome, and thank you for joining in.

There are three simple ways to give. You can place your gift in the offering plate as it passes, give online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, or use the Church Center app, the easiest way to give right from your phone.

However you connect with us, let us know you are here. You can check in on the Church Center app, at mcphersonfirst.org/next, or on the attendance pad as it comes down your row.

Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.

Doxology (8:30 only)

Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow, UMH #94 in E-flat, chorus.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Generous God, receive these gifts and the people who gave them. Take what we have offered and put it to work in the world you love. Send us out to practice service, not because we have to, but because love always looks for somewhere to go. Make us a blessing this week to students and strangers, to the worn out and the worried, in the name of the One who gave everything for us. Amen.

Will you please stand as we sing together?

Benediction

You came in this morning with a hundred things competing for first place. Go out having given your first love to God, and let everything else settle into its right place behind that. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

The God who loved you first goes before you. The Christ who calls you home walks beside you. The Spirit who orders your loves lives within you. Go in peace. And all God’s people said, Amen.

“Do not make an idol for yourself—no form whatsoever—of anything in the sky above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth.” – Exodus 20:4 (CEB)

Almost nobody sets out to build an idol. We don’t bow to statues. But an idol has always been simpler than that. It is a good thing we ask to do God’s job. Money is good, until we ask it to make us safe. Work is good, until we ask it to make us worthy. A child, a relationship, a reputation, all good, until we hand them the weight that only God can carry.

And here is the trouble: a good thing asked to be God will always buckle under the load, and so will we. Today, notice the thing you reach for first when you feel empty or afraid. That reach is honest. It shows you what you are actually trusting to save you.

God, I have handed good things a job they were never meant to do. Take the weight off of them, and let me trust you with what only you can hold. Through Christ I pray. Amen.

I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible, and today we listen to the opening words of the Ten Commandments in Exodus, chapter 20.

We often picture the commandments as a list of rules carved in stone, handed down to keep people in line. But to the people who first heard them, they were something closer to wisdom. These are the words of a God who had just rescued a whole nation out of slavery in Egypt. Before God says a single “you shall” or “you shall not,” God says, “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Everything that follows rests on that rescue. The commandments are not the price of God’s love. They are the shape of life for a people who are already loved and already free.

The first four commandments are all about one relationship: the people and their God. “You must have no other gods before me.” That word “before” carries the sense of “in my presence,” or “in my face.” God is not asking for a spot on a long list. God is asking for first place, the center, the front.

The second commandment goes further: make no idol, no carved image, no statue you can manage and control. Ancient peoples wanted gods they could see and handle. The God of Israel refuses to be reduced to an object. And there is wisdom here that scholars often point out: we tend to become like whatever we worship. Worship something small and controllable, and your own life shrinks to match it. Worship the living God, and you are pulled toward something larger than yourself.

The third commandment warns against using God’s name “as if it were of no significance.” This is about more than swearing. In the ancient world, to carry a name was to represent a household. To bear God’s name carelessly, to claim God while living in a way that misrepresents God, empties the name of its weight.

Then comes the fourth, and it is the longest: remember the Sabbath, and keep it holy. Six days for work, and a seventh for rest. And notice who gets the rest. Not just the head of the household, but sons and daughters, servants, immigrants, even the animals. A people who had been worked without rest as slaves are now commanded to build rest into the structure of their week, and to extend that rest to everyone under their roof. Sabbath is not a restriction on life. It is a weekly declaration that human beings are more than what they produce.

Put these four together and a pattern emerges. God is after our hearts before God is after our behavior. The question underneath all four is the question of love. What do we put first? What do we trust to give us life? What name do we carry, and do we trust God enough to stop and rest?

Here is where this touches our ordinary days. Most of us never decide to put something other than God at the center. It just happens. A good thing, a job, a relationship, an image of ourselves, slowly grows until it is doing the work only God can do. And when a good thing carries the weight of God, it eventually buckles, and so do we. These ancient commandments invite us to notice what has quietly climbed into first place, and to gently put it back where it belongs.

So as you sit with Exodus 20 this week, you might ask yourself a simple question. Where does my mind go when nothing is steering it? What do I reach for first when I am anxious or empty? That is usually a clue to what I am actually trusting. And the invitation of these old words is not shame, but freedom: to love the God who loved you first, to let everything else find its right place, and to discover that this is where the good life begins.

That is the God these commandments reveal, a God worth loving most. Thanks for connecting with the voices of the Bible.

This is part of the Voices of the Bible series from Andrew Conard. Each week we explore the scripture passage for the upcoming sermon, helping you encounter the text before Sunday morning.

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“You must have no other gods before me.” – Exodus 20:3 (CEB)

Not long ago I walked into a museum exhibit and got pulled away before I finished it. I came back, started again, got pulled away again. The third time through, I finally made it, but I had spent the whole visit half-present, my mind tracking logistics instead of what was right in front of me.

Our attention has a default. Notice where your mind goes in the unguarded moments, at a red light, in line, lying awake. It rarely drifts toward God on its own. It drifts toward what is loudest, what is unfinished, what we are quietly anxious about. That is not a character flaw. It is information. The first commandment isn’t mainly about idols on a shelf. It is about the One who gets first place in our hearts, and most of us have to choose that on purpose.

Loving God, you know where my attention runs when no one is steering it. Gently call it back to you, and become again the One I love most. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

“The good news is that God prepared a seat with your name on it, and it was never yours to earn or yours to lose.”

This is week one of The Good Life, four weeks in the Ten Commandments. Preached August 16, 2026, on Exodus 19:1-6 and 20:1-2, on the last Sunday before school starts and on UM Student Day. The sermon begins before the first commandment is ever spoken, at the foot of Sinai, where a nation of former slaves waits to hear what God will require and hears something else instead. The question underneath the morning is the one nobody outgrows: do I belong here?

In the manuscript below:

• Where the word “if” actually falls in God’s covenant with Israel, and how much the order changes.

• What a teacher moving desk to desk the morning before school, writing name cards, has to do with a doctrine John Wesley built a movement on.

• Why “a kingdom of priests” is a job description rather than a compliment, and who it makes us responsible for.

• The honest reason we guard our own seats, and what widens a welcome.

Read more

A Methodist Way of Making Disciples

Grace Groups recover one of the oldest Methodist practices. Almost three hundred years ago, John Wesley gathered Methodists into small weekly groups that asked one another, “How is it with your soul?” and watched over one another in love. A Grace Group is that same way of making disciples, brought back for today.

The Five Promises

Our five membership promises are also a simple way to talk about our faith journey:

• Prayers: connecting with God through prayer, scripture, and listening

• Presence: showing up for worship and the life of the church

• Gifts: giving to support the church’s mission

• Service: finding where you are called to serve

• Witness: sharing your faith in word and action

Your Hour Together

Everything for your hour together. The times are a guide, not a rule.

Our Covenant (0 min)

Each time we meet, we say yes to these together.

• Show up. Make this a priority. Your presence matters.

• Be honest. You can say the true thing here. No performance needed.

• Keep it private. Hold what you hear with care. Privacy allows honesty.

• Give everyone space. Share, then make room. Listen as much as you talk.

We Begin (2 min)

We’ll begin with a moment of quiet, and then we’ll pray together.

Gracious God, you are nearer than we usually notice. Open our eyes to that nearness, and make this hour a place of honesty. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Getting to Know One Another (5 min)

We’ll go around the circle. Share your name, then pick one of these to answer.

• What is a song you always turn up when it comes on?

• What is a place near here you love to go?

The Three Questions

These three questions are the heart of our time. We’ll move through them in order, and everyone gets a turn. The smaller questions underneath are just to help, and there are no wrong answers.

Soul Tending. How is your faith journey going? (10 min)

• What have you been praying about without much to show for it?

• Where do you feel most yourself with God?

Now we’ll notice where God has been showing up.

God Sightings. Where do you see God at work in your life? (25 min)

• Where has God met you in something ordinary?

• Who has been Christ to you recently?

Now we’ll name what we want to hand to God.

Growing in Grace. What challenge are you giving to God? (40 min)

• What are you afraid to hope for?

• What is one thing you could hand over this week?

Connect Back (optional, only if time allows): anyone may briefly name something they heard today that stayed with them. Keep it short, for connection, not advice.

We Close (55 min)

We’ll keep a few moments of quiet now, space to allow what you shared and heard, and how God has been speaking, to settle in your soul, so you can carry it into the days ahead.

. . . a few moments of silence . . .

Faithful God, thank you for ears that listened and words that were true. Tend what we planted here through the week ahead. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

McPherson First United Methodist Church · mcphersonfirst.org/gracegroups

“Then God spoke all these words: I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” – Exodus 20:1-2 (CEB)

This morning a new series begins, and it opens the way God opens everything: with an invitation. Before any command, God says, I am the one who brought you out. The door is open. You do not have to clean up first or know the protocol. You only have to come.

God, you opened the door before I knocked. Today I want to walk through it. Meet me as I worship, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Mid-morning on a Tuesday I was dragging, so I decided to go get a coffee.

I got my keys, walked out to the lot, and remembered the car was in the shop.

So I stood there a minute. No car, no coffee, nowhere to drive. I laughed at myself, which felt like the only available response.

That is where I will leave it for most of you.

The monthly update goes to sustaining members. Nearly everything else here is free and stays that way: the morning devotional, the Friday reflections, the Grace Group guides, the worship resources.

I will see you tomorrow morning, same as always.

“So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples, since the whole earth belongs to me. You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation.” – Exodus 19:5-6 (CEB)

A kingdom of priests is not a private honor. A priest stands in the doorway and helps other people come in. God treasures this freed people and then, in the same breath, gives them a calling: be the ones who open the door for others.

We were welcomed first. That is the whole order of things. Nobody at that mountain earned their way to the front, and the welcome we received was never meant to stop with us. This week, practice hospitality on purpose. Notice the person standing where you once stood, unsure whether they belong, and hold the door.

Who opened the door for you, and who are you opening it for?

God who welcomed us first, make us a people who hold doors open. Send us to the porch-standers and the unsure, with your welcome in our hands. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

On the first Tuesday in March, I voted before work, with my two kids beside me at the table where you fill in the ballot. Two questions sat on the McPherson USD 418 ballot: one to renovate the high school, one to turn Eisenhower Elementary into a middle school.

By the time the numbers came in that night, both questions had passed. After three earlier bond proposals had failed, this town said yes, twice.

We had lived in McPherson less than two years. My wife and I moved here for the church, not for the schools, and we could have treated the bond as somebody else’s business. Plenty of reasons would have excused us. We were still learning street names. Nobody would have faulted a new pastor for staying out of a local election.

We did not stay out of it. Each of us took the part we were suited for. My wife worked the in-person side, meeting with the group planning the campaign, showing up at events, and talking with neighbors. I took the writing and the posting online, naming why the schools mattered and why this time could be different.

Here is what caught me off guard. Being new turned out to be a strength, not a liability. We carried none of the history of the failed votes. We had no old arguments to relitigate, no grudges to protect, no reputation to guard. We could say plainly that these schools were worth the investment, because we were still choosing McPherson, putting down roots in real time rather than defending a history we did not carry.

The yes belonged to McPherson, not to us. Teachers who could not campaign for their own buildings. Parents who had already voted three times. Neighbors who decided their children, and their children’s children, deserved better rooms to learn in. We added our voices to a chorus that had been singing for years before we arrived.

We showed up for a community that was not fully ours yet. That is most of what faith in a place looks like. You invest before you fully belong, trusting that what you help build will hold the students who come next, including, as it turned out, our own.

When the polls closed, we drove to the courthouse, where the most invested people gather to hear the count first, and then to the watch party at The Cedars with the group that had refused to quit. The room was loud. People who had worked toward this for years were finally celebrating. We were new enough to be surprised by the win and connected enough to feel it as our own.

Two questions passed. A town said yes to its children. And a family still learning the streets got to be part of it.

Wherever you are new, in a town, a congregation, a season you are still growing into, you may be closer to the center than you think. Sometimes the newcomer is exactly the one free to say yes.

“You will be a kingdom of priests for me and a holy nation. These are the words you should say to the Israelites.” – Exodus 19:6 (CEB)

An open door does not erase awe. Israel camped in front of a mountain that smoked and trembled, and God called them a holy nation. Holy means set apart, charged with weight, not ordinary.

Sometimes we resist God’s welcome because we sense that awe. We feel the holiness and assume it means keep your distance. But notice what God does with the holiness. God does not use it to push the people back. God hands it to them: you will be holy, a kingdom of priests. The reverence is real, and so is the invitation. You do not have to choose between standing in awe and being welcomed in. The God of the mountain is holy enough to be feared and gracious enough to call you near. Bare feet and an open door belong together.

Can reverence and welcome live together in the way you approach God?

Holy God, you are greater than we can grasp and nearer than we dare hope. Teach us to come with reverence and confidence, both at once. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to me.” – Exodus 19:4 (CEB)

Read the end of that sentence again: brought you to me. The exodus was not only an escape from something. It was a journey toward someone. God did not rescue Israel just to set them loose in the desert. The rescue had a destination, and the destination was relationship.

This is what waits on the other side of the open door. Not a building. Not a program. Not a set of rules to keep. A God who says, I brought you here so we could be together. So much of life is spent being needed for what we produce. The mountain offers something different: to be wanted for who you are, brought close by a God who went to great lengths to reach you. The door opens onto belonging.

You have been rescued from plenty. Have you noticed who you have been rescued toward?

God who brings us to yourself, thank you that the journey ends in your presence. Draw us closer still, until belonging feels like home. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

“So now, if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession out of all the peoples, since the whole earth belongs to me.” – Exodus 19:5 (CEB)

There is a difference between being tolerated and being treasured. Tolerated means someone puts up with you and leaves the door open with a sigh. Treasured means someone is glad you came and keeps what matters most close.

When God describes this freed people, the word is not “acceptable.” It is “most precious possession.” The whole earth belongs to God, and out of all of it, these former slaves are the treasure. An open door can feel like a low bar, like maybe they let just anyone in. But the God who opens this door is not lowering a standard. God is delighting in you. You are not the guest who slipped in unnoticed. You are the one the host was hoping would come.

Do you live as if you are tolerated by God, or treasured by God?

God who treasures us, replace the small story we tell about our worth with your delight. Help us live as the treasure you say we are. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

These worship elements are an early draft being shared as a preview for the upcoming service. The final version used in worship may be adapted or revised. Pastors and worship leaders are welcome to use and adapt these for your own context.

Welcome

Welcome to worship at McPherson First United Methodist Church. Today we begin a new series called The Good Life, and we begin it the way God begins everything, with an invitation. Wherever you find yourself on the journey of faith, there is a place for you here. We are a church learning to love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously.

This is also a month when we honor educators, and we give thanks for the teachers and staff stepping into a new school year. One of the five promises we make here is presence, simply showing up and being part of the body. If this is your first time with us, we would love to know you. Stop by the Welcome Center or visit mcphersonfirst.org/next.

(8:30 only, transition to the Call to Worship) I invite you to join in our responsive call to worship as you see the words on display.

Call to Worship (8:30 only)

Leader: God spoke to a people freed from slavery and said, I brought you to myself.

People: We come because God first carried us here.

Leader: You will be my treasured people, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation.

People: We come not because we qualified, but because we are invited.

Leader: The door is open and the covenant is offered.

People: We worship the God who brought us out and brought us in. Amen.

Welcome Your Neighbor

One of the five promises we make here is witness, living our faith out loud and inviting others in. Showing up for one another, and making room for someone new, is what witness looks like.

The best invitations are personal ones. As you greet the people around you, picture one person you could invite to worship during this series.

If you’re worshiping online, the distance changes the view and nothing else. Please stand, welcome your neighbor, and then remain standing as we join together in song.

Opening Prayer

As the music settles, pray with me using the words on the screen.

All: Faithful God, you brought us out and you brought us here. Before we offer anything, you have already offered everything. Open our hands, open our hearts, and open us to your voice this morning, so that we receive what you long to give. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Scripture Reading: Exodus 19:1-6; 20:1-2 (CEB)

(Read by a lay reader, seated.)

Leader: This is the word of God for the people of God.

People: Thanks be to God!

Pastoral and Lord’s Prayer

Will you pray with me.

Gracious and faithful God, we bring you the people and the worries we carry this morning. We pray for those who are sick, those who grieve, and those who feel alone even in a full room.

(pause)

This week our community heads back to school. We lift up the students starting classes, the teachers and staff returning to their classrooms, the bus drivers and cooks and counselors, and every family adjusting to a new rhythm. Go with our children. Steady the anxious, encourage the weary, and surround each school with your peace. Make us a people who notice our neighbors and hold the door open for them.

Hear now the prayers we offer to you in silence.

(pause)

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, joining our voices in the prayer he gave us:

All: Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

All: Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.

All: Lead us, not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

Invitation to Give and Check-In

This morning our giving carries a special invitation. Today is UM Student Day, one of the special offerings of our denomination. Your gift helps open doors for the next generation through United Methodist scholarships and the Student Loan Fund. It fits this morning so well: a God who opens doors, and a people who open them for others. You can give to UM Student Day with the special envelopes in the pew or by choosing UM Student Day in the Church Center app.

Alongside that, we continue the regular giving that sustains the ministry of this church week by week. Through our gifts we say yes to what God is doing here. To those of you who give faithfully month after month, thank you, and to anyone giving for the first time today, welcome. You can give in the offering plate, online at mcphersonfirst.org/give, or through the Church Center app.

Giving is also one of the ways we practice presence, so as the plate passes, please sign and pass the attendance pad next to the center aisle. You can also check in through the Church Center app or at mcphersonfirst.org/next.

Ushers, please come forward to receive this morning’s offering.

Doxology (8:30 only)

Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow, UMH #94 in E-flat, chorus.

Prayer of Thanksgiving

Generous God, thank you for every gift offered this morning, and for the people whose faithfulness makes ministry possible. Take what we have given and multiply it for the sake of your kingdom. Send us out to practice service, carrying your welcome into our homes, our schools, and our neighborhoods this week. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Will you please stand as we sing together?

Benediction

You came through an open door this morning, carried here by a God who brought you out and brought you near. Now go, and hold that door open for someone else. Love boldly, serve joyfully, lead courageously.

The God who set you free goes before you. The Christ who calls you treasured walks beside you. The Spirit who has made a home in you will never leave. Go in peace. And all God’s people said, Amen.

“They traveled from Rephidim, came into the Sinai desert, and set up camp there. Israel camped there in front of the mountain.” – Exodus 19:2 (CEB)

Picture the camp at the foot of the mountain. Not a select few who qualified. Not the strong ones who survived the wilderness on merit. All of them. The doubters and the complainers, the ones who had grumbled about the food and the ones who had danced at the sea, families and stragglers and the mixed crowd that left Egypt with them.

Every one of them camped in front of the mountain, and God spoke to all of them. We tend to imagine God’s invitation is for the people who have their act together. The camp says otherwise. The whole community is brought to the mountain, exactly as they are, before anyone is told to change a thing. If you have been waiting to qualify, look around. The camp is already full of people like you.

Who do you assume isn’t welcome that God has already seated at the mountain?

Gracious God, you gather the whole camp, not the worthy few. Help us trust that your welcome includes us, and widen that welcome through us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I invite you to connect with the voices of the Bible. Today we are listening to one of the most famous moments in all of Scripture, the arrival of a freed people at the foot of a mountain called Sinai, in the book of Exodus. We often jump straight to the Ten Commandments that come next. But before God gives a single command, something happens that changes how we read everything that follows. Slow down with me and notice it.

Exodus tells the story of the Israelites, a people enslaved in Egypt for generations, and how God rescued them. By chapter 19, they have crossed the sea, survived the wilderness, and arrived at Mount Sinai about three months after leaving Egypt. This is the hinge of the whole book. Everything before Sinai is rescue. Everything after is covenant, the relationship God forms with this people. Picture the scene. A nation of former slaves, people who have only ever known forced labor, now camped in the open desert in front of a smoking mountain. They have no land, no temple, no constitution. They are being formed from scratch. And the first word spoken over them is not a rule but a memory.

Listen to it. “You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to me.” Before any expectation, God recounts a rescue already accomplished. The image of eagles’ wings is tender. It pictures God not driving the people forward but carrying them, the way an eagle bears its young. Then God says, “if you faithfully obey me and stay true to my covenant, you will be my most precious possession.” Notice that the identity comes first, and it comes as a gift: treasured possession, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation. A kingdom of priests is a striking phrase. In the ancient world a priest stood between the people and God. Here the whole nation is given that role, set apart to represent God to the world.

And when the commandments finally begin in chapter 20, look at the very first line. “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” The commandments do not open with a demand. They open with a reminder of grace. God says, in effect, here is the one who rescued you, and now here is how free people live.

This order matters for how we hear God’s commands today. Many of us grew up imagining the Ten Commandments as a test, a list to pass before God will accept us. But Sinai puts rescue first and instruction second. God does not say, keep these rules and then I will free you. God says, I have already freed you, and this is the shape of a good life now that you are mine. Think about the difference that order makes in any relationship. A child who obeys out of fear of being thrown out lives very differently from a child who already knows they belong. The commandments assume the relationship is already real. They are not the price of admission. They are the furniture of a home we have already been welcomed into.

So as you return to Exodus 19 and 20, read it in order. Start with the rescue. Hear God say, I brought you to me. Let that settle before you reach the commandments, and notice how different they sound once you know they are spoken by the God who carried you here. God opened the door before giving a single rule. You are invited in. Thanks for connecting with the voices of the Bible.

This is part of the Voices of the Bible series from Andrew Conard. Each week we explore the scripture passage for the upcoming sermon, helping you encounter the text before Sunday morning.

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“You saw what I did to the Egyptians, and how I lifted you up on eagles’ wings and brought you to me.” – Exodus 19:4 (CEB)

A delivery once took me to a building I had never entered. I went to the visitor’s door, but the sign-in screen wouldn’t take my name, and the door stayed locked. So I stood there, on the wrong side, waiting, wondering who would let me in.

A lot of us carry that feeling toward God. We assume the door is locked, the system won’t accept us, we don’t know the protocol. But listen to what God tells Israel at the mountain, before a single command, before they prove anything: I carried you here. I brought you to me. The door was never the test. God opened it and lifted them through. You are not standing outside hoping to be noticed. You have already been carried in.

Where are you standing outside a door you assumed was shut to you?

God who opens what we cannot, quiet the fear that we don’t belong. Carry us through the doors we are afraid to knock on. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.

“You do not have to keep this fire burning on your own. God lit it. God keeps it lit. Your part is to pass it on.”

This is the finale of Passing the Flame, four weeks in Paul’s letters to a young pastor named Timothy. Preached August 9, 2026, on Go and Grow Sunday, it was worshiped as one combined service in a lessons-and-carols shape: four short Scripture readings traced the whole series, and each one was answered by a reflection, a song, or the testimony of our own children and youth. So the message did not come as one sermon. It came as four short reflections, and they are gathered here in sequence.

In the reflections below:

• How a relay handoff, not the running, becomes the image for a whole series about receiving faith and handing it on.

• The three-generation chain Paul names, Lois to Eunice to Timothy, and what it says about a faith you did not choose for yourself.

• Why “God’s word cannot be imprisoned” is the line that holds when keeping the flame lit costs something.

• Paul’s closing confession, “the Lord stood by me,” and the resurrection underneath it that means death cannot put the flame out.

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A Methodist Way of Making Disciples

Grace Groups recover one of the oldest Methodist practices. Almost three hundred years ago, John Wesley gathered Methodists into small weekly groups that asked one another, “How is it with your soul?” and watched over one another in love. A Grace Group is that same way of making disciples, brought back for today.

The Five Promises

Our five membership promises are also a simple way to talk about our faith journey:

• Prayers: connecting with God through prayer, scripture, and listening

• Presence: showing up for worship and the life of the church

• Gifts: giving to support the church’s mission

• Service: finding where you are called to serve

• Witness: sharing your faith in word and action

Your Hour Together

Everything for your hour together. The times are a guide, not a rule.

Our Covenant (0 min)

Each time we meet, we say yes to these together.

• Show up. Come each week. The group needs you.

• Be honest. Say what is true for you. You do not need the right answer.

• Keep it private. What is shared between us stays between us.

• Give everyone space. Leave room for every voice. Everyone gets a turn.

We Begin (2 min)

We’ll begin with a moment of quiet, and then we’ll pray together.

God of new mercy, you meet us at the start of this hour without a ledger. Free us from performing, and let us tell the truth kindly. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Getting to Know One Another (5 min)

We’ll go around the circle. Share your name, then pick one of these to answer.

• What is one food you could happily eat every day?

• What is a chore you actually do not mind doing?

The Three Questions

These three questions are the heart of our time. We’ll move through them in order, and everyone gets a turn. The smaller questions underneath are just to help, and there are no wrong answers.

Soul Tending. How is your faith journey going? (10 min)

• What is God teaching you the slow way?

• Where has your faith surprised you recently?

Now we’ll notice where God has been showing up.

God Sightings. Where do you see God at work in your life? (25 min)

• What answered prayer have you forgotten to be glad about?

• Where did you see someone act more generously than they had to?

Now we’ll name what we want to hand to God.

Growing in Grace. What challenge are you giving to God? (40 min)

• What is the thing you keep putting off?

• What would you ask God for if you were not embarrassed to?

Connect Back (optional, only if time allows): anyone may briefly name something they heard today that stayed with them. Keep it short, for connection, not advice.

We Close (55 min)

We’ll keep a few moments of quiet now, space to allow what you shared and heard, and how God has been speaking, to settle in your soul, so you can carry it into the days ahead.

. . . a few moments of silence . . .

Loving God, you have gathered our scattered week into this hour. Keep what we shared, and go with us into what is next. We pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

McPherson First United Methodist Church · mcphersonfirst.org/gracegroups

“No one took my side at my first court hearing. Everyone deserted me. I hope that God doesn’t hold it against them! But the Lord stood by me and gave me strength, so that the entire message would be preached through me and so all the nations could hear it.” – 2 Timothy 4:16-17 (CEB)

Paul’s last word to Timothy is not “I did it.” It is “The Lord stood by me.”

This is the line the whole series has been building toward. Faith is received. Faith is lived. Faith is passed on. And underneath all three, there is a God who does not leave the room.

Standing-by God, thank you for every moment you have stood by us. Stand by the next generation we love. Pass the flame through us until it reaches the ones still coming. Amen.