Worshiping the Triune God in community, as a community, for the community. 

Worshiping the Triune God

“Worship has always been and will always be the ultimate purpose of God in the universe” (John Piper). Worship is our proper response to the God who created us, sustains us, and has redeemed us. It is a response of adoration, submission, trust, and joy to who God is and what He has done. 

It is also important to understand that we offer this worship to the Triune God—not some generic deity. It is the Triune God who deserves our worship: the Father creating and sustaining, the Son redeeming, the Holy Spirit guiding and empowering. We are not to offer worship to any other gods—which aren’t gods at all. 

This worship works itself out in our daily lives. God calls us to offer our lives as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to Him, which is our spiritual worship (Ro 12:1). This means every aspect of our lives, when properly oriented toward the Triune God, should be an act of worship. Even the mundane aspects of life—like eating and drinking—should be worship to God (1 Co 10:31). The work we perform in the world should be worship to God (Col 3:23). All of life is worship. All of life should be oriented around adoration, submission, trust and joy to who God is and what He has done. 

In order to deepen and grow in our worship, we must come to a fuller knowledge of who God is and what He has done. This means that we need to spend regular time in God’s Word—the place where He reveals who He is and what He has done. As we more deeply understand God’s character and actions, our hearts should overflow in worship. “Our mind cannot conceive of God without rendering some worship to him” (John Calvin). This also means we need to spend regular time in prayer. As we hear God speak to us in His Word, we naturally respond by speaking to Him. In prayer, we naturally come to God with our adoration, submission, trust, and joy for who God is and what He has done—worship. 

These acts of worship are deeply connected with faith. In the same way that God calls us to offer our lives as a living sacrifice, He also calls to “walk in the footsteps of the faith” (Ro 4:12). A life of worship is a life of faith. We cannot have true worship apart from faith. We cannot have true faith without worship. 

Worshiping the Triune God IN Community

God calls us to live lives of worship and faith in the midst of community. We are not to attempt living solitary lives of worship and faith, but are joined to the Body of Christ (Ro 12:5; 1 Co 12:27) and adopted into the family of God (Gal 3:26-29; Ro 8:14-17). We are not to neglect meeting together, as is the habit of some, but to be in regular fellowship with one another, stirring one another up to love and good works (Heb 10:24-25)—stirring one another up to worship. These meetings should happen regularly on the Lord’s Day (Acts 20:7; 1 Co 16:2) but also organically throughout the week (Acts 2:42-47). 

It is also important to remember that this community “identity extends not only to other believers here and now with whom we happen to be identified but also to believers from all times and places” (DA Carson). Through faith in Christ we are joined to a community of witnesses, who lived lives of faith and worship before us (Heb 12:1) and a community worshiping throughout the world (Gal 3:26-29). It is important for us to acknowledge the deep, historical roots of our faith and the various cultural expressions of our faith throughout the world, while also acknowledging our current cultural context. Let us worship in a community that honors those that have gone before us, those who worship around the world, and those in our community.

Worshiping the Triune God AS a Community 

God calls us to live lives of faith and worship by using the gifts He has given us.  Christ has poured out gifts on His people (Eph 4:7-8), giving them differing gifts that complement each other (1 Cor 12:4-11), requiring the use of our gifts for the proper functioning of the Body of Christ (Ro 12:4-8). In using the gifts God has given us our lives become living sacrifices to God, which is our spiritual worship (Ro 12:1).

God has given these gifts to His people “so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature” (Eph 4:12-13). As each part of the Body does its work, the Body “grows and builds itself up in love” (Eph 4:16). This “growing” and “building up” result in a deeper knowledge of who God is and what He has done, which results in deeper acts of worship to the Triune God.

Worshiping the Triune God FOR the Community

Our worship of the Triune God will naturally overflow beyond the walls of our church and the walls of our lives into the surrounding community. “[Worship] has always been the fire that fuels our passion to reach peoples who do not worship the true God through Jesus Christ” (John Piper). Because we know the beauty of who God is and what He has done, we want the community to know, to believe, and to respond to God in worship.

However, this community is much larger than the city in which we live, or even the county or state. In our current cultural context, our concept of community has expanded exponentially. The world has become our community. Not only are we able to more effectively communicate with the nations, but the nations are coming to us. Our worship should fuel our passion to reach this broader concept of community—the nations near and far. 

This is why Jesus told the disciples, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt 28:18–20). Because Jesus has been given all authority in heaven and on earth, being King of Kings and Lord of Lords, He is worthy of all worship. We are to worship Him by discipling the nations—offering our lives as living sacrifices. We are to teach them to live lives of faith and worship—obeying all that God has commanded. We are to be worshipers teaching the nations to rightly worship the Triune God.