The face of God.
A call to worship..
This call to worship1 invites us to consider just how surprising God’s grace can be.
We search in the shadows of our fears, guilt, conflicts, and circumstances, hoping to find in them something that resembles God. Then we’d have a reason for our suffering. But in the end, we find God’s face in Jesus Christ. Through Him, the Father has shown us His mercy and turned toward us once and for all.
Jacob’s meeting with Esau is a story that shows this gospel in action. The person Jacob feared most became the one through whom God’s grace reached him. Reconciliation between Jacob and Esau was not automatic or simple. Still, God went before Jacob and exposed all his self-protection, pride, and fear for what they were.
The Father’s face is not hidden behind our life events or circumstances, waiting for us to figure it out. His face is always shown clearly in the Son and made known to us by the Holy Spirit. This is true in every situation.
God’s reconciling presence disarms all our false expectations—especially expectations of judgment from others—and draws us, and all our woundedness with us, into His mercy that always seems to go way out ahead of us.
Jacob’s story shows us a gospel pattern: in the night, God wounds and heals Jacob; in the morning, grace arrives ahead of him; and in the face of his feared brother, Jacob glimpses the face of God.
Themes
Grace • Mercy • Fear • Wounded pride • Broken illusions • Surrendered control • Blessing sinners • Forgiving enemies • Peace • Reconciled embrace • Limping
And there, in that place, in the real conditions of our life, God heals us.
Scripture reading
Genesis 33
This call to worship invites us to come before God with our fear, exhaustion, and unfinished conflicts—and to discover that grace has already gone ahead of us. It reminds us that God’s face is not the face we dread, but the face revealed in Jesus: welcoming, forgiving, and full of mercy.
Jacob looked up and there was Esau, coming with his four hundred men… But Esau ran to meet Jacob and embraced him; he threw his arms around his neck and kissed him. And they wept… Jacob said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, accept this gift from me. For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, now that you have received me favorably.”
Prayer
God of Jacob, You meet us in our night, when we’re alone, and afraid, exhausted; when we have no control over what’s unfolding. And in just such moments, we get to see who we really are. You wound our pride, You break through our illusions that we can somehow secure our own future. And there, in that place, in the real conditions of our life, You heal us. And You bring us into a new day where Your grace has gone way out ahead of us, where Your mercy is just waiting for us, where all of our expectations are blown away. This morning, Father, turn Your face toward us, the only face You have, the one revealed in Jesus Christ. It’s not a face we have to guess at from our circumstances or our emotions or our fears. It’s the face that blesses sinners, and welcomes the weary, and forgives enemies. So enable us now to recognize Your face in the faces of one another. Where we might expect judgment in someone’s face, give us peace. When we are afraid of someone’s face, give us courage. And if we have wounded somebody or have been wounded, turn us into people who can embrace each other again. Help us now, Holy Spirit, as we limp our way forward in hope, to worship the Father expressed perfectly in the face of the Son, Amen.
A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on May 24, 2026.