God keeps His promise. Absolutely. Without fail.

A call to worship.

Themes

Abraham • Inclusion • Blessing • History • Impossibility • Hope • Gift • Inheritance • Holy Spirit • Reality • Humanity • Incarnation • God’s action • Schemes • Conflict • Tension • Generosity • Calling

God keeps His promise, not in spite of our human impossibilities, but actually through our repeated human impossibilities.

God has taken up all of our disordered and broken and deceived and conniving agency… and He has re-formed it, re-shaped it, re-made it, and redeemed it to be the very will and act of Christ.

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Scripture reading

Genesis 25
Galations 3

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This call to worship¹ invites us to trust a God who keeps promises in real life, right in the mess, limits, and history we actually inhabit.

In his letter to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul writes this about the promise God gave to Abraham:

God gave the promises 
to Abraham 
and his child. 

And then Paul points out something very specific, he says this to his readers—he says:

Notice that the Scripture doesn’t say “to his children,” 
as if it meant many descendants. 
Rather, it says 
“to his child.”

And then Paul really drives this point home. He writes, 

And that, of course, 
means Christ.

And now that you belong to Christ, 
you are the true children of Abraham. 
You are his heirs, 
and God’s promise 
to Abraham 
belongs to you.

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Prayer

Father in heaven, 
we worship You, 
the God who keeps His promise. 

You keep Your promise 
even as patriarchs 
and promise-bearers 
and leaders 
come and go. 

You keep Your promise, 
not through some favoritism of some and not others 
or through some worth of ours.
Instead, You keep Your promises 
by choosing a way,
a path, 
a promise-bearer
through whom all could be blessed 
and all included. 

You keep Your promise, 
not in spite of our human impossibilities, 
but actually 
through our repeated human impossibilities. 
You keep Your promise 
even when there is 
no human possibility of keeping it, 
or saving it, 
or holding it. 

You keep Your promise 
even when everything we do, 
over and over again, 
threatens the very future 
You’ve promised to us— 
even when we misread all that You’re doing, 
even when our hearts 
and our schemes 
and our choices 
are against it. 

You keep Your promise 
even when we grasp it 
and clench it 
and consume it 
as though you haven’t freely 
and generously 
given it. 

You keep Your promise 
even when there seems to be 
nothing but conflict and tension, 
and even when we have reached our limits.

You keep Your promise in reality, 
not in our minds 
or in sentiment 
or in our feelings 
or in an idea 
or in some abstract, out-there sort of way. 
You keep Your promise in soil, 
and in boundaries,
and in seed, 
and in events, 
and in public.

You have lodged our hope in history.
You have fixed our hope in human physicality. 

You have taken up all of our disordered 
and broken 
and deceived 
and conniving agency—
taken it all into Your redemptive order, 
and You have re-formed it, 
re-shaped it, 
re-made it, 
and redeemed it 
to be the very will and act of Christ, 
to be the very place 
where Your promise 
and Your purpose 
are clarified. 

You have bound Yourself to our humanity 
and have taken it into Yourself 
in the person of Jesus Christ.

Thank you for 4000 years of Your patience, 
4000 years of history —

history that has trained us to see 
and to receive 
Christ’s death and resurrection 
as Your decisive act; 

history that has trained us to see 
Jesus as Your One Seed 
through whom all are blessed;

history that has trained us to know 
that salvation
—and really all holy things—
are gifts, 
truly gifts;

history that has trained us to recognize 
the True Firstborn 
who serves 
and who gives 
His inheritance to the many;

history that has trained us to expect 
Christ’s reconciling reach 
to extend way beyond the covenant core—
in fact, to extend even to us, 
and way beyond us 
to the very least of these; 

history that has trained us to trust the Event
—the Event of Jesus Christ—
interpreted by the word,
the apostolic word we hold now in our hands; 

history that has trained us to see 
the Living One 
in whom Your promise is indistructible. 


Holy Spirit,
steady our trust 
when the way ahead is hidden.
Remind us that our life moves forward 
only by Your giving, 
not by our control.
Anchor us in the cross 
and in the empty tomb 
and in the ascension.
And let our worship this morning 
be our hearts lifted to the God who calls us, 
lifted to the God who acts toward us 
and for us 
and through us, 
lifted to the God who keeps His promise.

We pray in the name of Jesus Christ,
our Firstborn, 
our Resurrection, 
our Inheritance, 
our Promise, 
our Hope,
Amen.

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1. This call to worship was given to the small assembly of Christians who gathered at Pathway Church in Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, November 16, 2025.