Beloved in the Lord,
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Tomorrow is Holy Trinity Sunday. This is the Sunday of the Church Year when we take the time to emphasis and confess with deliberate clarity who our God is: one God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. (Deut. 6:4; Matt. 28:19)
This is how God reveals Himself to us, this is how He makes Himself known to us. It’s a revelation that transcends human understanding and defies earthly wisdom.
And as we recognize that, we come to grasp something that is both essential and eternal: if we do not know the Trinity, we do not know God. And if we do not know God, we cannot worship Him rightly. We can’t, in fact, worship Him at all. Yes, we may sing, we may kneel, we may even speak His name, but if the God we call on is not Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons, one essence, then we are not standing before the true and living God.
Why? For the simple fact that Right worship is not built on sincerity nor is it built on emotion or sentimentality. It is built on truth. That truth has a name and a voice. As Jesus says, “This is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (Jn. 17:3)
True worship begins with an understanding of what the truth is and right worship begins with right confession of faith. It begins with receiving God as He has made Himself known, not as we feel, assume, or somehow, someway imagine Him to be. That, right there, means the doctrine of the Trinity is not some kind of puzzle for theologians to debate or some small detail we can afford to dismiss. It is the very heart of who God is.
Now, even as I say this, I understand that some reject the Trinity not out of rebellion, but out of confusion, tradition, or even a desire to more fully know and understand God and, in that, defend His honor as they understand it. They’re sincere, people, devout people, they are even sacrificial in their religious lives. But what we have to recognize is that sincerity does not sanctify error. As Paul writes, many have “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge.” (Rom. 10:2).
This reminds us of something crucial. That is, namely zeal, apart from the truth, still leads astray.
Why? Because at the root of all false worship is this: a “god” who fashioned by human thought, shaped by human instinct, and reduced to human terms, refashioned in ways that we can understand and manage “him”. Whether this “god” is born from personal preference or theological misdirection, the result is the same. We trade the glory of the eternal Trinity for something less, for something safer, smaller, for something easier to swallow. (Rom. 1:23) As the pastor who baptized and confirmed me used to say, “God created man in His image; man has been trying to return the favor ever since.”
And the danger is this: a “god” who can be reshaped by us is no God at all. He may look religious, he may sound moral, he may even inspire devotion, but, ultimately, “he” cannot save. Only the true and living God, the has that power. Only the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, can truly redeem us. This is the God who calls sinners to repentance, speaks peace to the guilty, and raises the dead to life.
No other “god” can save.
But, what we have to remember is that this Triune God we meet in Scripture is not manageable. The Father speaks the universe into being; the Son takes on flesh and bears our sins; the Spirit breathes life where there was only death. He is holy, sovereign, and utterly free, and precisely because He is, His grace is real and His promises unbreakable.
Right worship, then, is our response to the God who has revealed Himself. Isaiah teaches us the posture: awe before holiness (“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts”, Is. 6:3), confession of sin (“Woe is me! … for I am a man of unclean lips”, Is. 6:5), and reception of mercy (the coal that purges guilt, Is. 6:6–7). And as you consider the example of the prophet one of the things you notice is that Isaiah does nothing, absolutely nothing, to manufacture the encounter. It is God who initiates. It is God who speaks. It is God who cleanses. True worship is always God-centered, Word-driven, and grace-filled.
Wrong worship reverses the flow. It asks first, “What do I want to experience?” rather than, “What has God promised to give?” It treats the sanctuary like a stage and the congregation like an audience. It confuses emotional intensity with spiritual depth and novelty with faithfulness. It places human wisdom where there should be divine truth. In the end, it leaves us chasing the next rush, spiritually hungry and doctrinally thin.
Right worship is anchored in the Triune Name placed on you in baptism, (Matt. 28:19) shaped by the Word that judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart, (Heb. 4:12) and fed by the body and blood of Christ given and shed for the forgiveness of sins. (1 Cor. 11:23-26) It directs our eyes, our gaze upward in adoration, inward in repentance, and outward in mission. It is what the apostle Paul calls our “spiritual worship.” It is presenting our bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God. (Rom. 12:1)
And here’s the beauty that our age misses: the more God-centered our worship becomes, the more life-giving it is for us. When the Father’s majesty humbles us, the Son’s cross lifts us, and the Spirit’s presence comforts us, we leave not entertained, we are transformed. We are not chasing a feeling, we are reoriented toward love of God and neighbor.
So let’s challenge ourselves to come to church this Holy Trinity Sunday with expectation, not of what we will offer to God, but of what the Triune God will give to us. Come ready to receive. And before you do, take time to examine your heart. Ask honestly: Have I let my assumptions, my desires, or the pressures of our age distort my view of God? Have I traded the mystery and majesty of the Triune God for something more manageable, more familiar, more like me?
If so, then lay it down in confession. He stands ready to forgive, to correct, and to restore (1 John 1:9).
Then listen, listen activity and attentively, to the Word read and preached. The same Spirit who inspired the Scriptures is present, there to convict, comfort, and conform us to Christ. Receive the Lord’s Supper with reverence and joy, knowing that the crucified and risen Son gives Himself for the strengthening of your faith and the unity of His body. And when we leave the sanctuary, let’s leave with intentionality, to live the doxology we have sung, so that in every thought, word, and deed, the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit may be magnified.
In a world eager to blur every distinction, Trinity Sunday draws a bright line: there is a difference between the Creator and the created, between worship that exalts God and worship that glorifies self, between truth that saves and half-truths that soothe. Let’s stand on the right side of that line, not with pride, but with gratitude, confessing with the Church of every age, “We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity.”
Lord, grant this unto us all.
Now may the peace of the Lord that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus, even unto life everlasting.
In Him,
Pastor Wyatt
