Called out of self-making.
A call to worship.
Themes
Irrevocable covenant faithfulness • Divine initiative • Identity in Christ • Circumcision of the heart • Embodiment • Openness before God • Fruitfulness • Barrenness • Belonging • Inclusion • Faith • Christ within us • Covenant love • Identity
Not by human power, not by natural strength, but by God’s creative Word, who calls into existence the things that are not.
Scripture reading
Genesis 17 Romans 4:17–18 Galatians 3:29 Romans 2:28–29 Colossians 2:11–12
This call to worship1 is about how God not only secured for us, in Himself, a covenant, starting with Abraham, but also how He began remaking us, recreating us for covenant life—giving new identities, new life, a new way of belonging—so that we could fully enter into and live into the incredible covenant He established.
In Genesis 17 we read this: The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before Me, and be blameless… I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your offspring after you for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” “No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham… …as for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover, I will give you a son by her. and she shall become nations; kings of peoples shall come from her. …and every male among you shall be circumcised. Every male throughout your generations, whether born in your house or bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring… It shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. Then Abraham [did] as God had said to him. And 2000 years later, the Apostle Paul wrote about all this. He wrote: The God in whom Abraham believed gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope, Abraham believed against hope… If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring. You are heirs according to the promise. In Christ, you were circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands… Circumcision is of the heart, by the Spirit. …having been buried with Christ in baptism, raised with Him through your faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead.
Prayer
Father in heaven, You are the God who gives Yourself to us without reserve. So much so that You literally bound Your own being to us— unreservedly, irrevocably, forever!— and in a way that was never contingent or dependent on us or on our faithfulness or on our response, but on only Your own forever unfailing faithfulness. And that wasn’t all. You then set out to remake us, to make Your promise come alive in us. You did not leave us to be unchanged. You marked us. You renamed us. You reshaped us. So that our lives, and our bodies, and our futures all bear witness to You— to the God who has made Himself our God. You said, “Walk before Me and be blameless.” And with those words, You began remaking us. Calling us out of hiding. Calling us out of self-making. Calling us into life lived openly before You. And You taught us that our identity is not secured by our past, or our culture, or our weaknesses, or our illnesses, or our barrenness, or whatever else we think defines us. We are defined only by You — by Your Living Promise, Jesus Christ, who draws us into the future You are bringing. And You have set Your mark upon us — not in our flesh, but in our hearts, by Your Spirit, the Spirit of Christ within us. Your promise is not an abstract theological principle; it is embodied! You have claimed our very bodies, so that we might belong wholly to You. And You promise fruitfulness in the face of barrenness, life where there was no life. You’ve completely redefined our vision of what is possible. Not by human power, not by natural strength, but by Your creative Word who calls into existence the things that are not. And You gather not only us, but all whom we welcome among us, because Your embrace is wider than our households, wider than our families, reaching beyond every border, until all nations find themselves gathered in Christ And You sealed it all when You said: ‘I will be your God.’ Not distant. Not conditional. But forever bound to us in covenant love. You are our God, and we are Your people — remade, renamed, re-marked, to walk before You in the blamelessness of Jesus Christ. Amen.
1
This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on August 17, 2025.