Is The Trinity Practical? - Part 3
Trinitarian Worship
“Keep it practical!” Restoring the Trinity to the core of our faith and worship then is intensely practical because, to quote Packer again, “it requires us to pay equal attention, and give equal honor, to all three persons in the unity of their gracious ministry to us.”4 This isn’t just theory that remains in the abstract, but reality that forms and shapes all true worship. For starters, consider this: it was the Father’s love by which he purposed from all eternity to send the Son as an atonement for our sin. (1 Peter 1:20) It was the Son’s eternal love for the Father that made him willingly submit to become the sacrifice for our sin, his desire being to bring us into the same experience of the Father’s love that he has enjoyed from all eternity. (John 17:22-26) It is through the person of the Holy Spirit that God makes known his love for us, this self-same love that he has for the Son. As Paul says in Romans 5:5:
“...God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
God’s glory is revealed when we give due attention and honour to the three members of the Trinity. After all, the glory of the gospel is not that in the end we are saved, but that in the end it is God in himself, Father, Son and Spirit, who achieves salvation for us. We might do well to revive such attentiveness by writing and singing more hymns like this one:
We give immortal praise To God the Father’s love, For all our comforts here, And better hopes above. He sent his own eternal Son To die for sins that man had done. To God the Son belongs Immortal glory too, Who bought us with his blood From everlasting woe; And now he lives, and now he reigns, And sees the fruit of all his pains. To God the Spirit’s name Immortal worship give, Whose new-creating power Makes the dead sinner live: His work completes the great design, And fills the soul with joy divine.Almighty God, to thee Be endless honours done, The undivided three, And the mysterious one: Where reason fails with all her powers, There faith prevails, and love adores.-Isaac Watts (1674-1748)
Next time we will look at some practical ways that you can help lead your children into “Trinitarian” living…I promise to keep it practical!
For some other helpful posts for teaching the Trinity to kids, check out “Teaching the Trinity to Kids” and “The Trinity for Kids”. Also, the book God Is Three Persons is a great teaching tool for young children.
Notes
4. J. I. Packer, Concise Theology: A Guide to Historic Christian Beliefs, (Carol Stream, Ill, Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), p. 42.
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