Everything Jesus Christ does, he does in solidarity with us.
A call to worship.
Themes
Incarnation • The face of Jesus • Friendship with God • Human nature • Jesus Christ our Mediator • Reconciliation • Every spiritual blessing • Power • Purity • Gentleness • Redemption • Forgiveness • Resurrection • Salvation
Jesus Christ puts to rest the puny notions we harbor about God… and the grand delusions we cherish about ourselves. In the incarnation, God shattered both, once and for all.
Scripture Reading
Philippians 2:12-13. 1 Timothy 2:5 Hebrews 2:17
This call to worship1 gets to the heart of the incarnation of God — of God born human. It comes from something Paul wrote to his dear friend Timothy and to his friends in Philippi. It also includes something from the author of the Book of Hebrews.
My beloved, as you have always followed my instructions, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. Because God’s children are human beings — made of flesh and blood — the Son also became flesh and blood. He came to help people like us. Therefore, it was necessary for Him to be made in every respect like us — He entered into every detail of human life — so that He could be our merciful and faithful High Priest before God, and that He might make atonement for our sins. And because He Himself suffered — all the pain, all the testing — He is able to help us where help is needed. For there is one God and one mediator between God and us, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all.
Prayer
God in heaven, you pursued us — and you overtook us — even while we were in open rebellion against you. It wasn’t as though we needed to breakthrough some unapproachable light on Your side. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. Instead, You penetrated the unsearchable darkness on our side. You stormed space and time, and confronted us, face to face, literally, in the face of Jesus. Any harmony between us… has been accomplished, only and ever, from the efforts You made from your side. You did the impossible in Jesus. And now that that’s accomplished we can see just how impossible it really was for us to achieve any harmony from our side. Jesus Christ has put to rest the puny notions we harbored about You… and the grand delusions we cherished about ourselves. In the incarnation, You’ve shattered both, once and for all. And in ironic and astonishing and marvelous fashion, God, you restored friendship between us, not by repudiating our sinful humanity — but by actually assuming it in the womb of Mary. And from that very moment, your infinite and eternal Son would live out the rest of His divine life forevermore in our human nature. He who was identical with You — He did not become similar to us — He became identical with us. When He came in the flesh, You took our humanity into Your own divine life. And now… He mediates all of Your life to us. Through every single aspect of His own embodied existence, we are now completely and entirely reconciled to You. Every. Part. Of our. Existence. And through His human life, God, anything and everything we need… is now ours. He was born and wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger, and so His gentleness is ours. You anointed Him with your Spirit, and so every spiritual blessing is now ours. He lived without sin, and so His purity and His perfection and His sinlessness are ours. He endured the passion, and so redemption is ours. He was condemned, and so acquittal is ours. He bore the cross, and so forgiveness is ours. He was laid in a tomb, as dead as dead could be, and so any desires we have, they, too, can be put to death. He rose again, so new resurrected life is ours. He has dominion and power, and so all strength is ours. He has been given the power to judge, and so untroubled expectation of judgment is ours He has been given an abundant supply of all things in the kingdom, so protection, security, and freedom from fear — all and every kind of fear — really any blessings at all — are ours. Everything and anything that You share with us, God, results from the humanity we now share with Him. Your Son, Jesus Christ, lived and acted — and lives and acts still — in our place and on our behalf. Everything He is and anything He does as our incarnate Savior, He is and does for us — in solidarity with us, as one of us. In the name of Jesus, who works out our salvation within His own humanity. Who lives and acts for us. Who assumed our humanity and made it His own in order to be for us whom we could not and would not be, and to do for us what we could not and would not do. In His name, Amen
Inspiring resources
A call to worship creates wonderment, amazement, curiosity, yearning, captivation, provocation, hopefulness, thankfulness, affection, rapture, delight. As these mix together, the response is worship.
If this call to worship leaves you wondering or curious or provoked or hopeful, consider diving into this awesome book which inspired me to write this call to worship.
This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2021.