The future has already begun.
A call to worship.
The future God has promised is not waiting quietly on the horizon. It is already breaking in.
The resurrection life of Jesus Christ is not some distant hope or private comfort tucked away for another day. It is the bold, world-shattering revelation of what it means to be truly human. Salvation is not an escape from the world, not a flight from our bodies or our lives, but the transformation of all that we are. God does not cast aside the human body. He takes it up, fills it with his own life, and raises it in glory by the very Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. What happened in Jesus is not just a story from the past or a promise for the future. It is the blueprint and the guarantee of what will happen in us. Even now, that same Spirit is at work, shaping us, conforming us to the image of Christ.
The age to come has already begun. The future is pressing in on the present. And worship is the only fitting response to learning to live in the light of the world that is already dawning, the world we are destined to inherit.
Themes
Resurrection hope • Resurrected bodies • Imperishable life • Power • Weakness • Fully human • New creation • Christ as prototype • Promise in Christ • Transformation• From glory to glory • Already and not yet • Down payment • Foretaste of the future
What happened to Him will happen to us.
Scripture reading
1 Corinthians 15:35–49 2 Corinthians 3:17–18 Romans 8:9–11
This call to worship1 puts Christian hope right in front of us. Because Jesus was raised, our future is not empty or uncertain. Our humanity is not disappearing; it is being brought to glory. We are called to worship as people whose promised future has already broken in, whose lives are already being changed by the Spirit into the image of Christ.
Paul used a lot of ink helping new believers understand the resurrection. It was a central theme in all his preaching. And so it makes sense that he’d write about it often in his letters. In his letters to the Corinthians, he wrote this: Someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Now, the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. And in his book to the Romans, Paul wrote: You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Prayer
Father in heaven, we so look forward to a future when we will have resurrected bodies! When these bodies, weighed down by the curse of sin, will be sown like seeds in the ground and buried. But they will not stay buried. They will be raised. Not as copies of our old bodies. And not as ghosts. But as bodies so completely transformed by Your Spirit, so thoroughly filled with Your Spirit, so made new by Your Spirit that they will shine with incorruptible life. Your Spirit will make them imperishable. They will radiate glory instead of dishonor. They will pulse with power instead of weakness. You will renew our bodies so completely; they will become perfectly suited to a whole new and flawless kind of physical existence. Not vague. Not ghostly. But living. Breathing. Fully human. And You will surround us with a world beautifully and perfectly crafted for these new bodies— a world where we will finally truly live. This story is far from finished. But it will reach its climax in a place of perfection. There, we will fully bear the image of the Heavenly One— Jesus Christ— in our very bodies. He is the first instance of this Spiritual body. He is the first to have this upgrade. The first to be transformed. What happened to Him in resurrection— what He became, what He experienced, the unprecedented possession of the Spirit, the unprecedented transformation by the Spirit… so complete, so profound in His own humanity— what happened to Him will happen to us. His story is our promise. He is the life-giving Spirit. That same Spirit that is among us now. Even now, transforming us into His own image. Moving us from one degree of glory to the next. The age to come has already begun. The new creation we so look forward to has started with the resurrection of Your Son, Jesus Christ. The future You have promised has broken into the present. Your Spirit’s work in us is joined to what began when You sent Your Son. And You will finish it when He returns. All that Your Spirit is doing in us now is the down payment on our future inheritance, and we are blessed to taste that future even now. In the name of Jesus Christ, the Second Man, the Man of Heaven, the life-giving Spirit, Amen
A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gather in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, November 12, 2023