Can We Worship Him?

I came across a sermon clip on social media the other day. I was very surprised to hear what the pastor said. It was something new for me. The pastor was Mike Cameneti, he is the pastor at Faith Family Church in Canton, Ohio. He states, “So there is only one we worship. We don't worship a person ever. We worship a God whose name is Yahweh. His name is Jehovah. We worship one God, no one else, period.” So far, so good. Yet, he continues, “We’re not worshiping anyone else. The only one that’s worthy of worship is our God in heaven, Jesus. They’re the only ones. We don’t worship the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is involved in our worship. We don’t worship Him. But we worship God, our Father.” That was certainly unexpected. I have heard a lot of people saying they will worship other gods or they will not worship our God. But this is the first time I heard someone specifically say they will not worship the Holy Spirit.

Hearing this brought about more questions than answers. Is the pastor saying the Holy Spirit is not God? Is he saying the Holy Spirit is God, but we don’t worship Him because He is just involved in our worship? Is he saying that the Holy Spirit is a different kind of God? From here I went all over the internet to try and find the full sermon. I wanted to hear the sermon in its context to give the pastor the benefit of the doubt. But I could not locate it anywhere. I actually was starting to wonder if the church scrubbed it off the internet because of what the pastor said.

I felt like I was missing something here. I wanted to know this pastor’s position on the Trinity. So I did the next best thing and went to the church’s website to see what they believed. I found a place where they said one of their core values was, “The Holy Spirit lives in every believer. He is our Comforter, Counselor, Helper, and Guide. We invite His direction in all we do.” Ok. Nothing super crazy about that. It doesn’t say either way if they believe the Holy Spirit is God Himself, though. Then I located another spot that stated their beliefs on God and the Trinity. It said, “We believe in one eternal God who is the Creator of all things. He exists in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” Nothing wrong with that statement there. Yet, it appears to contradict what the pastor preached. So for the sake of argument. I am going to take his words at face value in that he doesn’t believe we should be worshiping the Holy Spirit. Is this pastor right? Does the Holy Spirit just get “involved” in our worship and we are just supposed to worship God the Father?

Because I do not know exactly where this pastor makes his theological lines in the sand, I am going to take a step back and first show from scripture that the Holy Spirit is indeed God. First, think about the great commission. Jesus commands us to make disciples and to baptize them in the name of the “Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit”. Would we baptize anyone in any other name other than God? Or let us look at 2 Peter where we are told that prophets spoke for God because they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21). Also the Holy Spirit was there and active at creation (Genesis 1:2). When scripture refers to God making the world, this includes His Spirit. And then, when man was made in the image of God, the bible uses a plural word “us” referring to the Trinity (Genesis 1:26-27). So when we are told that we are made in His image, that means the Trinity. Then we are told when we are born of God we must be born of the Spirit (John 3:5). And we know that salvation is only by God Himself. In scripture, a lot of times the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are used interchangeably when speaking of God because they are all God. For instance, the best scripture to show the Holy Spirit is God is in Acts chapter 5. When Ananias was caught in his sin of lying, Peter says that he lied to the Holy Spirit. Then a couple of verses later he says he lied to God. Peter refers to both equally, as if to say it is they are the same. So yes the Holy Spirit is God Himself.

Next let me say a few words about the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity simply stated is that there is only one God in three distinct persons. We do not believe in multiple Gods, nor is God (singular) just one person. Some people believe incorrectly that the Trinity means one God and He wears three different hats, depending on the job He has to do. That is not what scripture teaches. Scripture shows that they are three distinct persons. The best example of this is looking at Jesus’ baptism. The bible tells us that all three beings were separately present at the event: Jesus in human form being baptized, God the Father calling down from heaven that He is pleased with Jesus, and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus like a dove. Yet, there is just one God, not three. Pretty much what was said on Pastor Mike’s church’s website. So when he is saying from the sermon clip we only worship Yaweh, he is right. We only worship the God of the bible and the God of the bible alone. Yet what he fails to realize is that, that would include the Holy Spirit!

I will say that Chrisitnas in general subconsciously overlook the Holy Spirit. When you hear others pray, you hear them address the Father and the Son. Then they close their prayer by saying “in Jesus’ name…”. But how often do we hear prayer or praise to the Holy Spirit? Directly talking to Him? Or singing to Him? This is because he doesn’t have a name that would give Him a person type feel when we read about Him. We read “the” Holy Spirit. But we don’t say that when talking about people. No one calls me “the Clint”, just “Clint”. Then in the KJV of the bible, there are times when referring to the Holy Spirit it says “it” instead of “Him”. This again gives the feeling of not being a person to be addressed. But this could not be further from the truth! When we pray, we pray to God and that includes the Holy Spirit. When we worship, we worship God and that consists of the Father, the Son AND THE HOLY SPIRIT! Thomas Watson, in his book called Body of Divinity, says, “IF there be one God in three persons, then let us give equal reverence to all the persons in the Trinity. There is not more or less in the Trinity; the Father is not more God  than the Son and the Holy Ghost. There is an order in the Godhead, but no degrees; one person has not a majority or supereminence above another, therefore we must give equal worship to all  the persons…Adore Unity in Trinity.” Let us make sure we are in consistent and constant practice of lifting up all of God in our prayers, praises and worship. Including the Holy Spirit. Anything else and you are not worshiping the true God.