Sermon and Worship Resources

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1 Corinthians 1:1-9, Isaiah 63:7--64:12, Mark 13:32-37, Mark 13:1-31

Sermon Aid

E. Carver McGriff

Psalm Of The Day Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19 (C); Psalm 80 (E) -- "Lord of hosts, restore us." Psalm 84:8 (RC) -- "Lord God of hosts, hear my prayer." Prayer Of The Day Open our hearts, O God, to the incoming of your Spirit. Sometimes our days are long and we grow tired. Too often, we go for long periods of time with very little attention to your Spirit. Deep within us, though, is a hunger for the richne...

2. Advent 2

Mark 1:1-8, 2 Peter 3:1-18, Isaiah 40:1-31

Sermon Aid

E. Carver McGriff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Isaiah 40:1-11 This poetic oracle begins what is generally thought of as "Trito-Isaiah," apparently addressed to returnees from the country of Babylon. While in exile there, many of the Jews remained firmly faithful to their own culture, having nothing to do with the Babylonians. Many others, though, had allowed themselves to be integrated into the local culture. But the...

3. Advent 3

John 1:1-18, John 1:19-28, Isaiah 61:1-11, Isaiah 65:17-25, 1 Thessalonians 5:12-28

Sermon Aid

E. Carver McGriff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: Isaiah 61:1-11 How dear this passage is to Christian hearts, echoed as it was from the lips of Jesus (Luke 4:17-19). These words are, in many ways, as timely today as they were to those disappointed people returning to Israel from their long exile. Excited, they were filled with high expectations when they began to arrive. But social and political disappointments quickly...

4. Advent 4

Luke 1:26-38, Romans 16:1-27, 2 Samuel 7:1-17

Sermon Aid

E. Carver McGriff

COMMENTARY Old Testament: 2 Samuel 7:1-16 If our purpose here were teaching rather than preaching, we could spin a wonderful tale of the rise of King David, and of his transformation of the Israelites. We could relate how David brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, which was to become known as the city of David, and how David wished to build a splendid tabernacle to house the ark. But mor...

5. All Saints

Isaiah 25:1-12, Revelation 21:1-27, John 11:38-44, John 11:17-37

Sermon Aid

E. Carver McGriff

COMMENTARY Ols Testament · Isaiah 25:6-9 Shades of the New Testament. This is a forecast of paradise, a time when "(The Lord) will swallow up death forever." It is the promise for which we all wait: "Then the Lord God will wipe away the tears from all faces...." As I write, the terrible tsunami wave has killed some 6,000 people in Papua Island, nearly all of them children; a report states that on...

6. Church As Redemptive Community

Acts 4:32-37

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Some people aren't comfortable with this passage because it seems to them to be a forerunner of certain social systems which are unpopular in this country: socialism, communism, communes in general. However, let's remind ourselves that this experiment in communal living pre-dates all those unpopular living styles by many centuries. These were people who were still euphoric from the recent infusion...

7. Come Holy Ghost, Our Hearts Inspire

Acts 10:23b-48

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Charles Wesley began one of the Methodist Church's favorite hymns with this line: "Come Holy Ghost, Our Hearts Inspire." Of course, tradition now uses the alternate term, "Holy Spirit." Wesley called it the "fountain of life and love." And so it is. Once we experience the Holy Spirit, we know it is exactly that: the source of life and love. The giving of that Spirit into the lives of us all is t...

8. Death Shall Be No More

Isaiah 25:1-12

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Someone I love very much goes each year to a cemetery near her home, carrying a small teddy bear. She stands beside a tiny grave, thinking about what-might-have-been, about a terrible grief only partly assuaged by the years -- remembering. Then she places the bear on the grave of a little fellow who never got to hold it and quietly returns to her car. The passage of the years, and the hope of a so...

9. Doing The Right Thing

Acts 1:1-11

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

A well-known businessman in this community was recently asked to do something for the United Methodist Church, something inconvenient and expensive. It would require him to make available for a period of several months some facilities which he used in his business. Frankly, when it was decided to ask this man's help no one was very optimistic about a favorable response. For one thing, the man is a...

10. Jesus: The Only Way To God?

Acts 4:1-22

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

These words attributed to Peter, "There is salvation in no one else," raise a difficult issue. If one misunderstands, it could lead to the idea that the only way to know God is through Christ. This would be offensive to our many friends of other religions throughout the world. True, one can correctly infer from Peter's words that there is something unique about Jesus, something which makes the exp...

11. Kindness In Action: Evangelism

Acts 8:26-40

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Let's play Sherlock Holmes for a bit and see what deductions we can make about the characters in this passage. The "eunuch" was probably either a prisoner of some earlier war, or born as a child into a poverty-stricken family, since those were the people who most usually were subjected to the mutilation he had suffered. However, we see he had risen to a position of high rank in Ethiopia. Obviously...

12. Meaning of Advent

Sermon Aid

E. Carver McGriff

The word "Advent" comes from the Latin word adventus, meaning arrival. The season begins on the Sunday nearest November 30th (Saint Andrew's Day). Most of us grew up loving this season and, probably, thinking of it as "the Christmas season." Now that we're preachers, we're more sophisticated than that, but it's good to remember that all of our people, especially the children, are starting to build...

13. Ministry to People in Need

Matthew 9:35-38

Illustration

E. Carver McGriff

There's a wonderful legend about Saint Francis, the kindly thirteenth century monk, who one day informed his brethren that he planned to go into the nearby village on a preaching mission. He invited a novice to go along. On their way, they passed an injured man and Francis promptly stopped, saw to the poor fellow's needs and arranged medical care for him. They went on and soon passed a homeless ma...

14. On Not Being First

Acts 1:12-26

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

We Americans have long had a love affair with winners. Successful undertakings of nearly every sort quickly receive the admiration of those around us. As a group, we take great delight in banquets and other ceremonies at which honors are distributed. People who come in second are rarely remembered in our culture. The runner-up usually receives a brief word of recognition and then is quickly forgot...

15. Penney's Change

John 3:1-21

Illustration

E. Carver McGriff

A young businessman was rushed to a hospital in serious condition. A doctor predicted that he might die. Not a religious man at the time, he did, however, turn on a radio and heard a Christian song being played: "God Will Take Care of You." He said that he couldn't get that song out of his mind. He began to pray, and as he did, he reported a sense of energy flowing in. It was near Christmas, a Sun...

16. Persevering In The Faith

Numbers 21:4-9

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Many years ago, a friend of mine remarked that several years earlier he and his wife had quit attending church. I asked him why. He explained that his wife had become quite ill and, as they were occasional church attenders, they decided to pray for healing. As part of this effort, they attended worship every Sunday, became otherwise involved in their church, doubled their pledge, and in general ma...

17. Rainbow In The Sky

Genesis 9:1-17

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

"My heart leaps up when I behold a rainbow in the sky: So was it when my life began; so it is now ..." So wrote Wordsworth. Now we know why. God gave the rainbow, our text informs us, as a sign of the unfailing presence and love of God who assures that the darkness shall never overcome us. Most of us have known the exhilaration of a sudden burst of sunlight through prevailing darkness, a splendid ...

18. Repentance: A New Relationship

Joel 2:1-11

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

There's a story about a convention of psychiatrists who had gathered in a large auditorium near Grand Central Station in New York City. Somehow, a pigeon got in the room and was swooping back and forth above the gathered men and women. However, no one mentioned the bird. It seemed no one wanted to be the first to ask if anyone else saw a pigeon. I mention this to remind us that we each have an inw...

19. Rules For A Happy Life

Exodus 20:1-21

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

America's premier Protestant preacher of the early part of this century, Dr. Harry Emerson Fosdick, once told a story from his early days as presiding minister of the great Riverside Church in New York. It seems that Fosdick, liberal by theological standards of the time, was turned off by much contemporary preaching with its emphasis on sin and threat. He vowed he would place his emphasis on the l...

20. Standing Firm

Isaiah 50:1-11

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Some years ago, a Methodist Bishop of national reknown was asked to speak at an annual conference of that church. It so happened he had recently taken a strong stand on a very controversial issue and was being criticized rather widely among some of the brethren, not always with a lot of charity. So the Bishop spoke on the text of Jonah and the Great Fish. After acknowledging that others had a righ...

21. The Sadness Of God

Isaiah 51:17--52:12

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel tells a haunting story from the concentration camps. One day some Nazi guards ordered their Jewish prisoners to leave their barracks and assemble in a courtyard. They informed them that some were now to be executed by hanging. They announced no particular offenses. The guards were apparently drunk and thought this would be entertaining. They had arranged a gallows an...

22. Times Of Refreshing

Acts 3:11-26

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

Our text is part of a sermon preached by Peter following the healing of a crippled man. The witnesses assumed Peter himself had accomplished the healing. Peter, though, was quick to attribute it to Jesus whom God had raised from death. There are a number of ways to explain the ill man's recovery but what's important here is Peter's commentary to the gathered crowd. He first reprimanded them for t...

23. Wonderful Story

Genesis 17:1-27

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

There's a great story being used in business circles to define the buzz-word "paradigm." It seems a battleship was taking part in night maneuvers somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. Ahead, in the dark, a light was to be seen and the admiral on deck told his signalman to radio the distant vessel that the other ship was on a collision course with the battleship. He ordered that the other ship change cou...

24. Written On The Heart

Jeremiah 30:1--31:40

Sermon

E. Carver McGriff

A place to start with this passage is the use of the word "husband" by Jeremiah to describe the message God has given him. But let's jump, for a moment, to the Old Testament book of Hosea. It's a metaphorical story about a man, Hosea, whose wife was unfaithful. Ancient law would have permitted all sorts of dire punishment for that, but Hosea loved his wife too much to think in terms of punishment....

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