Telephones are useful, but they do have a drawback: you can’t see who you’re talking to. This can create problems.

A few weeks ago, I took a call from a man who introduced himself as Brad. I thought it was the chairman of our committee of management. I started chatting about some committee business, but wondered if I had lost the connection. There was just silence at the other end of the line!

Of course, the Brad I was talking to was not the Brad I thought he was. My raving was futile — and very embarrassing.

But it did prove something. When you want to connect with someone you can’t see, it’s best to check who it is. That’s true on the phone, but it’s also true as we try to connect with God.

My definition of worship is “connect­ing with God”. It’s at the heart of the Christian life. Yet because we haven’t understood that it’s the Triune God we are talking to, a lot of Christian worship does­n’t connect. And I’m not just referring to what we do for an hour or so on Sunday.

We know that worship involves the whole of a Christian’s life. Our “connect­ing” goes way beyond a weekly church service. It’s a life of obedient trust. But what we do on Sunday is important: it’s the theological heart of our connecting. Through modelling and teaching, it sets the tone for the rest of the week. So I want to explore how we connect with God when we gather with other Christians on the Lord’s Day.

If we wish to connect with God as he really is, then we need to engage in “Trinitarian worship”. This means connect­ing with the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit. There is a huge difference between this kind of worship, and our many futile non-Trinitarian attempts to connect with God.

Let me explain. If I were to ask the average member of a Presbyterian Church what he or she did in Sunday worship, I suspect that I would probably get a response like this: “Well, I sing hymns to God, I pray for others, I listen to the ser­mon, I give some of my money to the Lord and I confess my faith.” In one sense there’s nothing untrue about any of these statements. But, notice where the empha­sis lies. Worship is essentially a human activity. It is something that I do.

If I asked why they did this, I would probably get a reply something like: “Well Jesus went to church, didn’t he? He read the Bible, He sang the Psalms, He gave to the poor. I’m just following His example.” In other words, worship is what I do to connect with God.

Now if we pause here to analyse what’s going on in the mind of the worshipper, we may be surprised to discover that this is not distinctively Christian worship. Why not? If the only worship that Christians offer is their own it falls short of what God requires. This sort of worship is really Unitarian worship, not Trinitarian.

One of the main features of Israelite worship was that the nation could only connect with God as the High Priest offered a sacrifice of blood for them. This High Priest represented the whole nation. All the names of the tribes were written on his breast-plate and shoulders. Israel learned an important lesson here. You can only connect with God in worship when you approach Him through the High Priest’s blood sacrifice.

Similarly, the New Testament teaches that Christians can only connect with God as they consciously approach Him through their great High Priest, Jesus. We draw near to our holy God through the perfect sacrifice and priestly intercession of Jesus, our “worship leader” (Hebrews 8:2).

The problem we face in churches today is that many so-called Christian worship­pers are trying to connect with God directly. We’ve forgotten that we can only come near to God in the person of our High Priest. To come in any other way is to offend God and arouse His anger.

The good news of the Gospel is that Jesus has come to be the priest we need. He does what we have failed to do — offer God a life of worship and praise, of love and obe­dience, and a blood sacrifice that washes away our sins. He comes to stand in for us before the Father, to intercede on our behalf so that when we are confused and lost for words, we are still properly repre­sented before God.

Martin Luther once likened our rela­tionship with Christ to that of a beggar maid who is invited to marry a glorious prince. When we are united to our prince by faith, we become married to Him. Suddenly, a wonderful exchange takes place in which Christ’s wealth and entitlements become ours, and ours (which are worth­less and corrupt) become His. One of the implications of this truth is that Christians are able to draw near and connect with God as they participate in their High Priest’s perfect worship. We dare not offer our own.

But how often are we consciously think­ing of this as we take part in the worship of our Sunday services? If we come thinking only of what we have to offer God, we are nothing more than Unitarians. There is nothing essentially Christian about such worship. Christ plays no part in our think­ing.

There is a further aspect of this problem we need to consider as we try to under­stand how we connect with God. How is it possible for us to take part in Christ’s mer­its, and to enter into communion with Him? Paul gives us a clue when he tells us that “we worship by the Spirit of God” (Phil. 3:3).

The Spirit is the one who actually con­nects us to Jesus. He works within us, to generate our trust and love for God’s Son. To use Martin Luther’s prince and beggar maid illustration, the Spirit leads us into the marriage, and continues to nourish the bond that’s between us.

The Spirit connects us with Christ. He in turn continues to share with us the ben­efits of his own connection with the Father. Trinitarian worship brings great benefits!

It is helpful to compare the goals of Trinitarian and Unitarian worshippers. The Unitarian worshipper tries to work hard at enjoying connection with God. Unitarian worship is about inspiring people to greater human effort — but in the end our own efforts are so graceless and uninspiring! But the goal of the Trinitarian worshipper will be simply to learn to understand and enjoy the perfect connection that Father, Son and Holy Spirit have among themselves. Trinitarian worship is all about God and His grace — and that really is inspiring.

But the importance of Trinitarian wor­ship goes beyond this. For in the end it is only Trinitarian worship that connects us with God.

With apologies to republicans, consider our relationship with Queen Elizabeth. As Australian citizens we enjoy the benefits of the Queen’s government, justice and pro­tection. But these benefits don’t come directly. Elizabeth cares for us — and we ful­fil our responsibilities to her — through rep­resentatives: the Australian Government, the Prime Minister and other ministers, and our local MP.

But imagine if I thought I could do bet­ter if I bypassed all that. I send off a lot of chatty letters to Elizabeth. I think I will be best served by a cozy friendship as her pen pal. You can imagine what would happen. My letters would achieve nothing. Not one of the benefits of citizens can come direct­ly, but only through the Queen’s represen­tatives. So it is with our connection with God.

Let me finish with two examples of the difference Trinitarian worship makes. The first I have already mentioned. It’s about what we do in Sunday church. Instead of working harder to connect better, Trinitarian worshippers are learning how to enjoy the connection the Triune God has achieved.

The second is when we struggle in prayer. James Torrance tells the story of a trip to America. He came across an elderly man whose wife was dying. The man was walking the beach and told him, “I have been trying to pray, but I don’t seem to be able.”

Torrance did not say what many of us might have said. He didn’t say, “try harder”. He said: “Jesus and the Spirit are already praying on your behalf”. This gave the man confidence to relax and rely on their perfect prayers. It was actually this that helped this fearful man to pray. He had begun to enjoy a Trinitarian connection with God.

And so the question remains. Whose worship are you enjoying? Are you trying to pursue your own (imperfect and ulti­mately futile) connection? Or, brought to Christ by the Spirit, are you enjoying Jesus’ connection with His Heavenly Father? It is only in the second case, that you really are connecting with God. Because it is only in Trinitarian worship that you have taken account of the kind of God who is at the other end of the line.