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SERMON:
Today is
Trinity Sunday, the Sunday which we set aside to meditate on the three-in-one
nature of God.
In the Bible
God describes Himself as a single entity. That is, He describes Himself as a
single spirit being—one God. But God also describes Himself as being composed
of three separate and distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This is a
mystery. We can know and believe that God is three-in-one, but we don’t really
understand how that can be. To date, man hasn’t found anything in creation that
is three-in-one in the same way that God describes Himself. And this makes
sense. We would expect to find that the creator is different in some ways from
His creation.
When we’re
teaching children about the Trinity, we might use an apple to help them get
some idea what God’s triune nature is like. An apple is composed of three
parts: the peel, the flesh and the core. The peel isn’t pear, it’s apple. The
flesh isn’t pumpkin, it’s apple. The core isn’t peach, it’s apple. Peel, flesh,
and core are all apple.
In a similar
way, the peel isn’t flesh, it’s peel. The flesh isn’t core, it’s flesh. The
core isn’t peel, it’s core. But together they are ONE apple.
Others might
use water to describe the Trinity. There is liquid water, solid ice, and water
vapor—but they’re all water.
But, you
know, any visual aids we might use to illustrate what three-in-one means fall
short at some point. God is simply beyond any earthly example we might point
to.
Trying to explain
God’s qualities by using visual aids from the physical world, is a bit like
trying to understand an artist by their art alone. We may learn quite a bit
about an artist through their work, but we’ll understand a lot more about them
if we simply spend time with them. Daily contact helps us to learn what a
person is like more than anything else.
▬
The disciples
of Jesus had that opportunity. They lived with the Son of God. They traveled and
conversed with Him for three solid years during His ministry. They were invited
to have daily contact with Jesus, and through this contact they learned something
about how the persons of God function together.
Jesus gives
us a glimpse into how the persons of the Trinity function in our sermon reading
for today. On the night before Jesus was crucified, He told His followers the
following.
John 16:12-15
(NASB)
12 “I
have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 “But
when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for
He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak;
and He will disclose to you what is to come.
14 “He
will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.
15 “All
things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and
will disclose it to you.
▬
On the night
when Jesus told His disciples these words, He was well aware of the fact that
He would be leaving them soon. He knew that His betrayal and crucifixion were approaching.
He also knew that after His crucifixion and resurrection, the disciples would
still NOT be ready to hear a lot of the things He had to tell to them. But in
time, they would be. And Jesus trusted that at the right time, the Holy Spirit
would take up the work of further educating His disciples.
The first
thing that we learn about the Trinity from Jesus’ words here is that they work
together seamlessly. The things that Jesus couldn’t tell the disciples because they
weren’t ready, the Holy Spirit WOULD tell them. Jesus says,
“…When He,
the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth;” (John 16:13
NASB).
The second
thing that we learn about the Trinity from Jesus’ words is that in their
actions toward each other, they are self-less.
Now, when we
talk about regular people being self-less, we mean that they aren’t putting
themselves first. They consider the needs of others, the plans of others, and
don’t push themselves forward at the wrong time. This is what the members of
the Trinity do towards each other. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit,
“Will not
speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak;” (John
16:13 NASB).
As the Spirit
of Truth, the Holy Spirit has a lot to say. But in the future when the Holy
Spirit would come to the followers of Jesus, He wouldn’t start spouting off
about just any truth. Instead, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit would speak the
things that Jesus gave Him to speak. That is, He would give the disciples the
right information, at the right time, so that Jesus’ followers could serve as
His ambassadors to the world. Earlier, Jesus had told the disciples,
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He
will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John
14:26 NASB).
So, in their
relationship together, the members of the Trinity work together. They are
self-less. And the third thing that we learn here about the Trinity is that
they are humble toward one another.
Now, it may
sound strange to say that the members of the Trinity are HUMBLE towards each
other, but here’s what it means. Look at verse 14 again. Speaking of the
Holy Spirit, Jesus says,
“He will
glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you” (John
16:14 NASB).
The members
of the Trinity glorify each other. The Son glorified the Father by doing what
the Father sent Him to do. He lived a life free from sin, and offered His
perfect soul to redeem sinners like you and me from hell. In response to His
obedience, the Father glorified the Son by raising Him from the dead for all
the world to see. In turn, the Holy Spirit glorified the Son by proclaiming
this truth to the world through the testimony of the disciples.
In Proverbs
27, it says,
“Let another praise you, and not your own
mouth;
a stranger, and not your own lips” (Proverbs
27:2 NASB).
This is what
the Trinity does. They work together, more seamlessly than any human team. They
are selfless in their dealings with one another, and they glorify each other.
▬
Now,
sometimes we talk about the different members of the Trinity as having
different jobs. In the Apostles’ Creed we say the Father creates, the Son
redeems, and the Holy Spirit changes those who have been brought to faith so
that they more closely resemble the Son by the things they think, say and do.
But upon further review, the jobs that the members of the Trinity do are really
TEAM JOBS—that is, they do these things together.
For example,
when the Father created the world we’re told that the Holy Spirit was also present.
He was hovering over the waters at the time of the creation. Where life was brought
into existence, the Holy Spirit was working. We’re also told that the Son was
there. Talking about God the Son, John chapter 1 says,
“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has
been made”
(John 1:3 NIV).
So the
Trinity created our universe, together.
We often talk
about how Jesus redeemed sinners from hell by dying for them on the cross. By suffering
hell in our place, the punishment for our sins was erased. And while it is true
that the Son was the only member of the Trinity that became human and died on
the cross, we can’t forget what the Father gave up to redeem us. John 3:16 says,
“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17 NKJV).
Was it
nothing for the Father to give up His only Son? To give over His Son to
infinite suffering so that the world of condemned sinners could be redeemed?
No! This was a big deal. This had never happened before.
The Trinity
redeemed sinners, together.
When we talk
about the Holy Spirit and what He does, we talk about the changes that are
effected in the hearts and lives of people brought to faith in Jesus. But what
message is the Holy Spirit proclaiming through the Gospel? He’s proclaiming the
life, death and resurrection of the Son! Through the Words of the Bible, the
Holy Spirit teaches us to live our lives as people who now serve our Savior,
not our sinful selves.
The Trinity
changes the way we live our lives, and the Trinity works these changes in us, as
a team.
▬
So, what is
it that enables the Trinity to function like this? It is TRUST. They work
seamlessly together because they trust each other completely. They can pass off
tasks from one to the next, having complete confidence that the job will be
done perfectly right. The relationship that exists between the members of the
Trinity is marked most clearly by TRUST.
And this is
what the Triune God invites sinners like you and me to be part of. A
relationship DEFINED by trust.
Having a real
relationship with God doesn’t mean just believing that some divine being must
exist. Having a real relationship with the Divine begins when we TRUST what He
says. That sin really IS that bad. That it WILL sever us from Him forever. But
that God’s Son really DID erase the record of our sins by His suffering and
death. And that through Him we TRULY stand cleansed from all our past mistakes,
evil thoughts, words and actions. A real relationship with God begins when
we trust what God says, that through His Son we stand FORGIVEN.
Through this
message, we are invited by God to be united to Him. To be reborn into His
family through the cross of Christ.
▬
I said
earlier that the relationship that exists between the members of the Trinity is
marked by TRUST. When sinners begin to trust that the God who made them, has
also saved them, then the Holy Spirit begins to educate us further. After faith
takes root in our hearts, the Holy Spirit begins to teach us what we weren’t
ready to learn before.
He teaches us
to work together as one. He teaches us to be self-less, putting the needs of
others ahead of our own. He teaches us to be humble, glorifying each other,
instead of ourselves. In short, after faith takes root, the Holy Spirit
teaches sinners to treat each other the same way that the members of the
Trinity treat each other.
Jesus said,
“All things
that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will
disclose it to you” (John 16:15 NASB).
Through the
message of sins forgiven through Jesus, we are invited in to the sublime
relationship of the Trinity. To be children of the Triune God. To take our
direction from HIM instead of from our own sinful hearts, or from other sinful
beings.
▬
If you wanted
to learn how to strengthen your marriage, what better way could imagine than by
moving in with a couple that already has a strong marriage? And seeing how they
work together.
If you wanted
to learn how to be a truly good friend, what better way could you learn than by
studying the ways of your most loyal and thoughtful friend?
If you want
to learn how to function best in all your relationships, what better way than
to learn from God, who has existed from eternity in the most sublimely perfect
relationship that has ever existed?
That is what
God invites us to experience in Christ. But God doesn’t just say, “Here, let me
show you how it’s supposed to be done”. First He says, “Here, let me forgiven
all your sins by My Son’s precious sacrifice, then I’ll teach you How to live
the way We do.”
▬
Some people
think that the idea of God being three-in-one is just a theological exercise.
You know, just Bible scholars splitting hairs and overanalyzing. But the more
we grasp what the Triune God is like, from His own testimony, the more we will
understand what He intended US to be. For in the beginning, God created Mankind
in HIS OWN IMAGE.
Is the
doctrine of the Trinity worth teaching to our children? To our members? To
ourselves? To our friends? Oh yes. For that perfect, sinless, seamless,
self-less, humble relationship was not only what Mankind was intended to be, it
is what we are invited to reclaim through faith in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
The peace of
God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus.
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