Themes
Genealogy • Purpose • Intention • Fulfillment • Humanity • Communion • History • Destiny • Participation
God’s plan is unfolding. It always has been. It always will be. And it is right now, in this moment.
Scripture reading
Romans 5:12–21 1 Corinthians 15:20–26 Hebrews 2:14–18 Ephesians 1:4–10 1 Peter 2:9–10
This call to worship1 is about intention—God’s intention with humanity—and His fulfillment of His intention in history, and our participation in it, and our destiny because of it.
Sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned. And death reigned from the time of Adam. If, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and His abundant provision of the gift of righteousness— how much more will they reign in life through the One Man, Jesus Christ! Just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the One Man the many will be made righteous. Just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a Man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. Since we have flesh and blood, He too shared in our humanity so that by His death He might break the power of him who holds the power of death —that is, the devil— and free us, who all our lives were held in slavery by our fear of death. He chose us in Him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will— to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding, He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment— to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Prayer
Father in heaven, You have been purposeful with us, intentional with us, from the moment You breathed life into Adam to this moment here, Beaverdam, March 16, 2025. And this intentionality and involvement, this continuation of reaching down and getting Your hands dirty with us, in every case, and in every way, and in every moment, has been so that Your purpose —Your purpose for us— is fulfilled, not despite the pervasive reality of our sin and death, but through it. You just keep on interacting with humanity, interacting with us, interacting with me. Your plan is unfolding. It always has been. It always will be. And it is right now, in this moment. You have always planned to redeem, to reconcile, to restore in just the right way, the perfect way, such that it all culminates in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ wasn’t Your afterthought, He was, and He was always, Your first-thought. He was the fulfillment of Your forever eternal purpose to unite humanity, to unite us, to unite me with You in Jesus Christ. We each have been created for this communion with You. And You have been faithful. And You have preserved a long line of people throughout history such that we, now, here, in this room are united faithfully with You because of Your steadfast purpose of working through all of history, culminating in Jesus Christ who is the true fulfillment of our own histories and each of our destinies, such that we now get to fully and completely participate in Him. Amen.
1
This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on March 16, 2025.