This call to worship1 rouses us awake to the reality we’re actually in—namely, that the Triune God has moved toward us in Jesus Christ, has taken our humanity into His own life, has reconciled us to the Father, and now, through the Holy Spirit, draws us into participation in this finished work.
Grace originates in the heart of the Father, becomes flesh in Christ, is made truly present to us by the Spirit, gathers our response into Christ’s own worship of the Father, and then takes visible form through the church as reconciliation, mercy, and love toward the world.
Worship and ministry aren’t really separable things. They belong to one movement: our participation in the life and ministry of the risen Jesus. Worship is our participation in Christ’s movement toward the Father; ministry is our participation in Christ’s movement toward the world.
When we gather as a church, our hands are open; it’s a posture of receptive participation. We don’t need to establish the conditions of our acceptance. We don’t need to manufacture communion with God. We don’t need to complete something that was somehow left unfinished in Christ. Our hands are open because God’s reconciling action has already happened. It preceded us. And it’s complete. In the incarnation, life, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus, God acted decisively from His own side—and also from within our humanity in Christ—to bring us into communion with Himself.
God took decisive action; therefore, we are free to simply receive. And our open hands are a visible sign of that freedom. Such grace doesn’t make our human response unnecessary. It liberates our response from all of our anxiety, self-justification, and religious performance so that our response can finally become free and grateful participation.
We don’t approach God as though doing so depends on what we produce or on how we perform. Holding our hands open is the only appropriate posture in the presence of His grace. We receive what has already been given. We live in what has already been accomplished. And we participate in the communion Christ has already established for us.
Because God has already acted decisively for us in Jesus Christ, our human situation before God has been fundamentally altered; the deepest truth about our human existence has changed. We are received by Him. We are reconciled to Him. We are brought home in Him.
And if that truth were to truly sink in, it would take a very visible shape and form among us: our living obediently would just be gratitude, our community of believers would become a laboratory of grace, our neighbors would be persons whose names we know and whose wounds would matter to us, our daily lives would be places where the reconciling love of God could be unmistakably seen and touched by others.
Be awakened to what is actually true in Christ. Be alive to the Spirit’s presence in your life. Be turned toward the Father in worship. And with eyes to see what Jesus is already doing in the world He loves and in the circumstances around you, join in.
Themes
Divine initiative • Reconciliation in Christ • Incarnation • Finished work of Christ • The vicarious humanity of Christ • Gratitude • Communion with God • Ministry of reconciliation • Participation • Embodied grace • Worship • Mission
He hasn’t given us ministry as an upgrade option.
Scripture reading
Psalm 67:1–2 2 Corinthians 5:18–20 John 20:21
Let’s remember what is already and actually true: God has moved toward us in Jesus Christ, and He has drawn us into His life. Grace moves from God to us, back to God in worship, and outward through us toward the world.
The psalmist tells us that the blessing of God is never meant to end with us. May God be gracious to us and bless us and make His face shine on us— so that Your ways may be known on earth, Your salvation among all nations. The Apostle Paul explains how the reconciliation we receive in Christ becomes a ministry we are to share. All this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation… We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us. And finally, John records Jesus' words about how He draws us into the same movement in which He Himself was sent. Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent Me, I am sending you.’
Prayer
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we’re here again this morning with open hands, not because there’s something in them— like our needs or our sincerity. We know that our worship isn’t what we bring. It is in what You, Father, have already given to us in Christ. Everything begins with You. Your grace flows in an irreversible direction. There is no scheme where You provide a part and then wait for us to supply some remainder. Before we loved You, You loved us. Before we sought You, You came looking for us. Before we could offer You anything, You gave Yourself to us in Jesus Christ. Your grace isn’t generic divine generosity toward us. It isn’t a package of spiritual commodities— like pardon, peace, heaven, purpose. Your grace is very specific; Your grace is very particular: You gave Yourself to us in Jesus Christ. So this morning, we receive again Your grace, Your mercy, Your peace, Your love. Not because they expired yesterday and we need more. But because we need to be reminded of the truth— of the objective reality— of what You have accomplished in Christ— that is: our reconciliation with You! The reality that Your Son assumed our humanity, our flesh and blood, our human nature; that His obedient life, and death, and resurrection, and ascension were for us and in our place; that He brought us back into right relation with You. Holy Spirit, enable us again to know that truth, to inhabit it, and to enjoy it, and to live from it. Turn whatever we think obedience is into a liberated overflow of gratitude and praise. Keep us from our anxious attempts to complete Christ’s work. Father, receive our worship. Jesus, gather our imperfect prayers into Your perfect prayer. Holy Spirit, turn our attention again toward the goodness and the faithfulness of God. And Lord, do not allow Your blessing to stop with us. You have reconciled us so that we might become people of reconciliation. You have comforted us so that we might comfort others. You have shown us mercy so that we might become merciful. You have welcomed us so that, through us, the lonely, and the wounded, and the forgotten, and the burdened might encounter Your welcome. You haven’t given us ministry as an upgrade option. Because we are in Christ, we find ourselves facing in the same direction He is— toward You, Father, in worship and toward the world in reconciling love. So we ask that You move us beyond our own private religious experiences. Open our eyes to those around us. Give us presence in another person’s life— not “the lost,” “the difficult,” “the needy”, but an actual person who has a name, whom Jesus knows and loves, who is lonely, suffering, alienated. Teach us to speak about Your love, and to make that love visible. Give reconciliation a visible form here in this church. Turn this place into a laboratory of grace where reconciliation is bodily, and relational, and observable Make it obvious that we are people who have received Your grace, who return Your praise, who reflect Your love. As we worship now, prepare us to be sent again into the world— where we join the risen Jesus who is already at work among the people He loves. In the name of Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to the glory of the Father. Amen.
A call to worship given to the small assembly of Christians that gathered in Pathway Church, Beaverdam, Michigan, on Sunday, September 13, 2026