I had a unique experience last Friday: I left a "Leadership Summit processing lunch" a very troubled man. I’m not at all used to that because typically I'm flying high after our team discusses what we learned! So why was I so troubled? First, because I didn’t effectively manage that particular meeting. Poor execution really bugs me and there was nobody to blame but myself. Second, because of a theme that emerged from a conversation we had about inviting others to our corporate worship gathering. We as a group of leaders seemed to flounder, even to the point of (apparent) division, over the issue of whether or not every one of us should invite the unchurched to our corporate worship gathering. As I left the meeting this observation came to mind (an observation that I hold to tentatively and then only to help me think): Many, maybe most, Columbia Ridgers experience little or no impulse to invite the unchurched to weekend worship; some, maybe many, may actually have an impulse not to invite thinking that it isn't their role or that it may be detrimental because it sends the wrong message. [NOTE: I don't believe that this is because Columbia Ridgers just don't care... I think there are other reasons for this that I'll explore here and in an additional post.] Others will have to assess for themselves the validity of the observation. I won’t argue with any who disagree because I’m only raising it to show how this particular ball got rolling in my mind. True or not, I’m glad I had the thought because it caused me to think more deeply about the entire issue. As Pastor of this exceptional church family, I am called to pay careful attention to the theology that shapes my own life and our local church, a church I have been called to nurture toward maturity (Acts 20:28; 1 Timothy 4:16; Ephesians 4:11-13). Thus, I reflected... and in reflection this question came to mind: Have I left us with an inadequate theology of worship? Just having to ask the question gave me a sinking feeling. I’m not sure that we understand that authentic worship in a healthy church is simultaneously an act of grace for those in Christ and a witness to those who are not. Paul dealt with an issue in the Corinthian church that points to this fact.

²³If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? ²⁴But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, ²⁵the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you. ²⁶What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up. 1 Corinthians 14:23-26 (ESV)

Notice several important things here:

1. Paul expects that unbelievers (those opposed the gospel) and outsiders (the uninitiated, not opposed to the gospel, yet not accepting it to that point) will be in attendance at the regular worship gathering of this local church (v23).
2. Paul claims that an unbelievers/outsiders will be drawn toward God if the believers gathered together enter into authentic worship in an orderly, understandable, and orderly manner (v25: “…he will worship God and declare that God is really among you”).
3. Each believer of the body will have a special role in the worship gathering as they share the light that God has given to them (v26). This doesn’t happen exclusively on the platform, it happens as we move with each other in fabric of community before, during and after the ‘service’.
4. The end result of this will satisfy Paul’s command: “Let all things be done for building up” (v26).

Bottom line: We must understand that we are missing out on something remarkable if we rely solely on ourselves to witness to unbelievers: the power of the Holy Spirit moving in the gathered local church. The healthy church, gathering for corporate worship, is perhaps the strongest witness we could offer to someone. Because of this, it may actually be unkind not to do everything we can to bring our unbelieving friends to our weekly gathering (and once there, we can let God be God and do what he will with his word and the fellowship and worship he empowers). While I can always identify things that I wish we had done with greater excellence during a corporate gathering, I cannot think of any service that I didn’t wish that all of my unbelieving friends were in attendance. I can’t think of a single one because I have seen how God works in and through our congregation when we gather. I can’t think of a single one because the Christian life is a hollow shell apart from the local church, at least for me. I can’t think of one because I believe God’s word doesn’t return void (Isaiah 55:11). I can’t think of a single one because apart from the gift I’ve received in being part of our worship gathering week in and week out I most likely wouldn’t have a living faith at all today. Together we are, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9 “…a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light.” With regard to worship is he recalling passages in the Psalms that called believing Israel to gather in worship as a witness to unbelieving nations (e.g., Psalm 105:1-2)? Whether he is or not, we must remember that we have been given an incredible gift in being the Lord’s gathered and gathering people. It is a gift to receive his word and to proclaim his praises in such a way that it glorifies him, builds us up in the faith, and witnesses to the unbeliever. I'll have more thoughts that I’ll post soon. Until then I look forward to your comments.

²⁰Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, ²¹to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Ephesians 3:20-21

You might be wondering why in the world we would be engaging in a series on the Trinity at Columbia Ridge, let alone spending time studying it. C.S. Lewis in his very popular Mere Christianity provides us with one perspective on why the Trinity is so important:

A good many people nowadays say, "I believe in a God, but not in a personal God." They feel that the mysterious something which is behind all other things must be more than a person. Now the Christians quite agree. But the Christians are the only people who offer any idea of what a being that is beyond personality could be like. All the other people, though they say that God is beyond personality, really think of Him as something impersonal: that is, as something less than personal. If you are looking for something super-personal, something more than a person, then it is not a question of choosing between the Christian idea and the other ideas. The Christian idea is the only one on the market. Again, some people think that after this life, or perhaps after several lives, human souls will be "absorbed" into God. But when they try to explain what they mean, they seem to be thinking of our being absorbed into God as one material thing is absorbed into another. They say it is like a drop of water slipping into the sea. But of course that is the end of the drop. If that is what happens to us, then being absorbed is the same as ceasing to exist. It is only the Christians who have any idea of how human souls can be taken into the life of God and yet remain themselves—in fact, be very much more themselves than they were before.

How this happens, how God as one being/three persons, can lead us to love, salvation, and worship will be the focus of the next three messages in this series. If Lewis is right, then we must get serious about our study of the Trinity. And of course, to study the Trinity you'll need to learn about God. How does this knowledge of God as super-personal, as triune, come into human awareness; even more, how did it come to be a central doctrine of the Christian faith? It was received through the content of the revelation that the Church has held dear for nearly 2000 years. It wasn't thought up, but accepted as truth revealed to us in the pages of Scripture. Remember, we know what we know about God in his essence because he reveals it to us (link). What we observe in the biblical record is that God has revealed a little more of himself to us at the threshold of every major covenant or promise that he made to humankind. At his covenant with Abraham, he revealed himself not as God-Almighty (Genesis 17:1). At the covenant with the people of Israel, he names himself “I am” or YHWH (Exodus 3:14; Exodus 6:3). When the Christ comes to this earth to initiate God’s promise of salvation for all, his very name reveals God as the “The Lord Who Saves” (Matthew 1:21). And then, at the apex of God’s work of redemption in the world, at the very peak of his faithful promise-giving, the pattern remains consistent. God reveals himself to us further as the new covenant is offered to us, and he reveals to us his name: ¹⁸Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. ¹⁹Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Matthew 28:18-19 (NIV)[1]

The… “phrasing is…remarkable. It does not say, “In the names (plural) of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost”; nor yet (what might be taken to be equivalent to that), “In the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost,” as if we had to deal with three separate Beings. Nor, on the other hand does it say, “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost,” as if “the Father, Son and Holy Ghost” might be taken as merely three designations of a single person. With stately impressiveness it asserts the unity of the three by combining them all within the bounds of the single Name; and then throws up into emphasis the distinctness of each by introducing them in turn with the repeated article: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost (the King James Version). These three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, each stand in some clear sense over against the others in distinct personality: these three, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, all unite in some profound sense in the common participation of the one Name.[2]

Outside of the manner in which God names himself, the Lord has also revealed several other truths about his essence:

• First, God has revealed himself as One and only One God. Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Deuteronomy 6:4 (NIV) This verse is the beginning of one of the most important prayers in the Jewish faith, the Shema, which grounds them, and us, in the belief that the they have a special relationship with their God, YHWH, and that he is One, rather than many gods, as the nations around them believed. Essentially, both Jews and Christians look to this verse, among many, and find in it the declaration that God is One. Interestingly, the word echad in Hebrew can imply a unity in diversity (the word for one and only one, i.e., unique, is more often rendered as yachid).^[1] Then in Isaiah 43:10, the Lord says this of himself (and his people): ¹⁰“You are my witnesses,” declares the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. ¹¹I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior. And finally, consider again in Isaiah what he says: ⁵I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me, Isaiah 45:5 (NIV) So what does this mean? What do these verses, which are simply a few examples from Scripture, say? This: To believe in God as he has revealed himself to the world through his word is to be a monotheist, believing in one God, not two or three or thousands. There is one God and only one God. Anything else goes against God’s self-revelation, the sharing of his knowledge of himself with us.
• Second, the One God, who is One Being, has revealed himself as Three Persons who are all co-equally and co-eternally God.That God has revealed himself as the Father, is evident throughout the new testament. In fact, the phrase, God the Father, occurs in the New Testament 18 times. For example, Jesus himself calls God the Father in ²⁷Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” John 6:27 (NIV) But the Father isn’t the only one who is called God. Jesus is also. You see this in Thomas’ confession in John 20 where he falls before Jesus and calls him “my Lord and my God.” But perhaps most clearly we see that Jesus is God in John 1:1,14, where he is referred to as the Word in the passage: ¹In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… ¹⁴The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:1,14 (NIV) So we see so far from just a few verses that God is revealing something to us. He is revealing that he is one God and that he is God the Father and God the Son. And beyond that, God reveals to us that the Holy Spirit is God as well.  See if you can pick up the implication here in this account from Acts where someone lied: ³Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? ⁴Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing?” Now where does that say that the Holy Spirit is God? So far, it doesn’t. But I stopped short, didn’t I? Because Peter continues: You have not lied to men but to God.” Acts 5:3-4 (NIV) Taken together, these passages reveal to us a God who says he is one being, indivisible, eternal and that there are no other gods, and that this one God, this one being above all, is three persons, Father, Son and Spirit. Not one or the other, but all three.
• Finally, we see that these three persons are distinct, not just different appearances or manifestations of the same God changing costumes. We can see this in Jesus’ call for us to be baptized into the Name of the true God: Father, Son and Spirit (Matthew 28:18-19). It would be silly to do so if they were simply masks that the real God behind the name wore. It would also be silly for Paul to write what he does in 2 Corinthians 13:14 if God was simply changing masks instead of one real being and three real persons: ¹⁴May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. One more example is from Matthew 3:16-17 where we can see all three working in harmony in the baptism of God the Son: ¹⁶As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. ¹⁷And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
• The Doctrine of the Trinity When taken altogether, these (and many other biblical) observations have led the Church across the ages to the doctrine of the Trinity and the proclamation that God has revealed himself as the Holy Trinity: one Being who eternally exists as three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Spirit—who are each eternally, fully and equally God. This, as we'll come to see in the rest of the series, is the very foundation of love, salvation, the Christian life, and worship.

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Footnotes: [1] Letham, Robert. (2004). The Holy Trinity in Scripture, History, Theology, and Worship, p. 411. [2] Orr, J., M.A., D.D. (1999). The International standard Bible encyclopedia (J. Orr, Ed.). Albany, OR: Ages Software. ^[3]In the famous Shema of Deut 6:4, “Hear, O Israel … the LORD is one,” the question of diversity within unity has theological implications. Some scholars have felt that, though “one” is singular, the usage of the word allows for the doctrine of the Trinity.  Harris, R. L., Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., & Waltke, B. K. (1999, c1980). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed.) (030). Chicago: Moody Press.

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