Grace, Love And Fellowship Series

Our theme for the sermon is “grace, love and fellowship”. Since today is Trinity Sunday, it is also a day to reflect on, affirm and celebrate the Triune God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Trinity is a revelation of Scripture seen throughout its pages. The Triune God is revealed in the first verses of Scripture. In Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”. In Gen. 1:2 “The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters”. In Gen. 1:3 God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.” John explains this light to be the Word who was in the beginning with God saying “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.” (John 1:4) The Trinity is also revealed in Jesus’ own words in His great commission to believers to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. (Matt. 28:19) A finite person who denies this truth is claiming to know and understand everything about God and therefore does not need Him. John Wesley in trying to offer an explanation about the Triune God said, “Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the triune God.”

We all need the grace love and fellowship of the Triune God. The Lord Jesus Christ took our place on the cross to pay the penalty for sin so that we might be forgiven and be delivered from the dominion of sin and Satan. Christ bore our shame and rejection that we might be accepted as God’s beloved children. The gospel is the good news of the grace of God. (Acts 20:24) It is good news because all that needed to be done was accomplished by Christ alone. No one could do anything to deserve it for “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God”. (Rom 3:23) It could only be accessed by faith in what Christ had done. Jesus Christ, born of a virgin and without a sin nature, was the only one whose death could meet God’s just requirements for the forgiveness of sin. “By grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God”. (Eph. 2:8)

God is love and created man in His image and likeness and crowned him with glory and honour, and gave him authority and dominion over all His creation. Satan knew how much God loved man and thought that by deceiving man to sin God would compromise His righteousness and justice. The Psalmist declares “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of your throne”. (Psalm 89:14) But God saved man without compromising His righteousness and justice by giving us His Son. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life”. (John 3:16) The Father’s love sent His Son to die for us. The Son’s love made Him willingly lay down His life for our sins on the cross. And the Holy Spirit’s love made Him willing to live in us and be our helper.

Christ’s death brought reconciliation between God and man. When Christ had endured the full judgement of God on sin, He cried out “It is finished”. At that moment the veil in the Temple, separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies, was torn from top to bottom removing the barrier to God’s presence. After Christ’s ascension to God’s right hand in heaven, the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit to live in us to reconcile us to one another and keep us in fellowship. We all need the grace, love and fellowship of God. This is the only way we can live peacefully and deal with all the evil that is around us. We can no longer deny or ignore the evil destroying humanity. We have all been witnesses of an unimaginable evil that led to the murder of George Floyd in America. A video capturing the event brought the suffering inflicted on many families of colour to homes around the world. There is nothing that is hidden that will not be revealed. What many denied or ignored has been powerfully revealed in vivid pictures that cannot be denied. Now no one can deny that people of colour were systematically murdered in the land that professed itself to be a place where human rights were upheld and not abused. How can any normal human being kneel on the neck of another human being for almost nine minutes and watch him die crying out “I cannot breathe”? How can a police officer, paid by the taxpayer to protect life take a person’s life because of the colour of his skin while other police officer’s look on and do nothing? Hitler may be dead but apparently there are many more Hitler’s among us, men who are simply evil and become devils because they have not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and rejected the grace, love and fellowship of God?