The Worth of Worshipping God

On the average 2.5 million people watch a professional baseball game.  That many people see a player make the sign of the cross after he hits a grand slam. The gesture acknowledges the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

About 2 billion of the world’s population call themselves Christian and know what the sign of the cross means.  How many will gather this Sunday to worship the Triune God is unknown.   All too often worshipping God is seen as an inconvenience pious Christians do so that they can leave and get on with the things they really want to do.

Sadly, we are entering into the off-season of the church year; people go on vacation during this time and opt to do exciting things like attending a professional baseball game where you see a player make the sign of the cross.

During the long Trinity season of the church year we gather Sunday after Sunday to worship the Triune God, our Creator, Redeemer and Comforter.

God the Creator

If for one second God were to withhold His living presence from all that He has created, life would disappear.  Since He created us as He did, He gave us the choice to worship Him or other gods. Since we chose not to worship Him, the life He created in us still lives on in each of us.

God the Redeemer

That is why He sent His Son into the world, to redeem us from our bad choices, the worst choice being making gods of ourselves and all the things we accomplish and acquire. Because of that one bad choice we must be saved from ourselves which we are not able to do on our own. We don’t like having the truth thrown at us. So God loved us so much that He gave Himself for us so that everyone who believes in what He has done for us will be given new lives.

Let me ask you, “Do you ever hold your finger on your wrist to feel your pulse?” Designed into our beings is this desire to live.  Have you ever thought about your eyes? What really is it about them that make them see what they see? Then, these minds that we have been given, do you ever stop to think about what they enable us to do? It really is scary.   We both attended college when the atomic bomb was created. It was freighting to see the destruction. Now we have developed nuclear weapons that have the power to melt large portions of the earth in a matter of seconds.  Have you thought much about why we develop such devastating means of destroying each other?  

God the Comforter

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” John 3:17  That is the rationale for the existence of the Christian church. First God comforts his people so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. 2 Corinthians 1:4  Spiritually wise people become informed by the Word of God in order to accomplish this. Every time we hear the Word of God preached, partake of the Sacrament of Holy Communion, sing great hymns together or pray together, we are being    spiritually comforted by the same spirit which we call the Holy Spirit.

It is a marvelous thing to see a rainbow, or enjoy the intimacy of sex, watch one’s grandchild learn to walk, and yet it is a far greater thing to know for certain that none of these things will last but the Triune God has always been. The mission of the Christian church here on earth becomes that sentinel—the keeper of truth that sustains us as we labor to comfort each other.      

When we accept Jesus as the One who came to earth to die for our sins, a whole new reality is opened up to us. Rather than seeing Sunday worship as an intrusion in our busy lives, it is a glorious opportunity to strengthen each other with the comfort that the Triune God is in the business of sanctifying our lives—making them holy. I like to think of this as God’s symmetry.  It is God who makes things beautiful, ordered, functional and purposeful.

This includes comforting one another in a clearer understanding of the purpose of Biblical doctrine. It also includes sharing together in the comforts that come from reading the Word of God. Most of all, it is sharing in the comforts of talking freely about the reality of heaven. This brings to mind the hymn, “Until Then” by Stuart Hamblen.

“This troubled world is not my final home.”