Meeting Up With the Trinity
June 3, 2007
Trinity Sunday
As has been said - today - this Sunday is Trinity Sunday. The Sunday set aside in the church year to highlight and recognize the Trinity.
The Trinity being
God the Father
Jesus Christ the Son
And the Holy Spirit
Back in the year 325, the first Christian emperor Constantine gathered a group of Christian leaders, to discuss and sort out the various views circulating about Christianity. This meeting was specifically trying to figure out and gain understanding on God. In their experience they worshipped God as they went to the Temple. From their ancestors they heard stories of a man named Jesus who claimed to be God’s son and in their experience they knew of God’s Spirit being within them. So the question surfaced,
How did all of these -Father, Son, and Holy Spirit fit together? Or did they fit together?
The result of this gathering was a creed called the Nicene Creed, that affirms the belief of a Trinitarian God - God having 3 persons - Father/Son/and Holy Spirit.
And just a hundred years later, a second gathering produced the Apostle’s Creed that affirms this same reality.
If you tuned out during that history lesson, come back now. Notice it wasn’t Jesus who taught his disciples about the Trinity. Jesus never sat down with the 12 and did a lesson explaining this. God, the Father never told Moses or anyone else "I am a God of 3 persons." The Holy Spirit didn’t say, "I’m 1/3 of God." This kind of bluntness isn’t in the Bible. In fact the word Trinity doesn’t even appear in the Bible.
This explanation of God came about as people - religious leaders tried to gain understanding and an explanation for what they had experienced as being true.
300 years of living had gone on since Jesus’ death and resurrection and 300 years of life had happened since Pentecost and they were trying to make sense of it. Their answer - God has given himself to us as the Father, Son and Spirit - the Trinity, 3 in 1.
And 2000 years later.
Generation upon generation of people have affirmed the fact that God has revealed himself to us as:
God the Father
Jesus Christ, the Son
And Holy Spirit
3 in One.
Though we might have a hard time explaining how this works out, if you look back over your Christian journey, no doubt you would be able to identify the work of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
There would be places
Circumstances
Feelings
Experiences
Teachings
Answered prayers
Convictions
that all point to distinct aspects of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so today around the world Churches choose to remind ourselves that our God is a Trinity.
Before I go on, I need to state the obvious - this is a harder message to listen to. Last night Deb told me - you better warn them. So I’m warning you and if you are a visitor next week we’ll be back to normal. But for today I want us to dig in a bit, explore a bit. I’ve let this Sunday pass by the past few years but not this year.
So What I want to do is this.
1. Look at 4 texts that reveal and support - give evidence to God being 3 in 1.
2. Then I’d make 3 observations.
3. Tell a little about how I have experienced the Trinity in my own life.
Genesis 1:26, (page 3) is the 6th day of creation.
God has spoken into existence:
Light
Water
Land
Plants
Animals
And to cap it all off in verse 26, he says
Then the Lord said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness and let them rule . . ." Notice the pronouns.
"Let us make man in our image. In our likeness . . ."God doesn’t say "Let me make man in my image." God didn’t say, "Let there me man - mankind" as he did when he created everything else. No - when humanity was formed, God gave/deposited himself a plural himself in humanity. He formed the 1st humans out of who he was and is - a God with 3 natures.
In verse 2 of chapter 1, the author of Genesis tells us that the Holy Spirit was hovering over the waters of creation. God the Father wasn’t acting alone in creation. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of god was present.
And in the book of John, verses 1 and 2, we read:
"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning."
The writer John begins his book much like the book of Genesis, "In the beginning"
John tells us that the Word was in the beginning.
The Word was with God in the beginning
That the Word was God.
Who or what is the Word? v. 14
"The 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."
The Word became flesh and lived among us
Pitched his tent
Took up residence.
The Word then is Jesus.
John tells us that this Jesus who came into the world was with the Father and Spirit at creation. See it? Jesus was part of the "us" - "Let us make man in our image." that Genesis talks about.
(Paul also writes of Jesus’ presence at creation in Colossians 1:15-17) What these scripture passages tell us is that the Trinity was present and involved at the creation of our world.
God the Father
Jesus Christ the Son
And the Holy Spirit were involved mutually in the creation of our world.
We first meet up with the Trinity in the beginning.
This Trinitarian nature of God is evidenced again at Jesus’ baptism, Mark 1:9-11, page 1552:
At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased."
Jesus is beginning his ministry.
Jesus is under the waters.
As he is coming up out of the waters, heaven is torn open, God’s Spirit descends upon him and a voice speaks, "You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased."
God the Father speaks.
Jesus the Son in the waters.
And Holy Spirit descends
3 in One. The Trinity.
When it is time for God’s earthly ministry to begin in the life of Jesus, God reveals himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
What the people experience at the Jordan River that day is not a lesson. They don’t receive handout, a PowerPoint presentation on the Trinity but instead an actual experience of the Trinity.
They see and they hear, they experience God’s 3-fold nature.
We meet up with the Trinity at Jesus’ baptism as he begins his ministry.
One last passage: Acts 1:4,5, page 1690, 1691
"On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: "Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."
Between Jesus’ resurrection and his ascension.
Between Jesus rising from the grave and his return to heaven he gathers his followers who will soon be without him, and he wants to reassure them.
"Yes, I will be returning to my Father, but this won’t mean that you will be abandoned.
You will not be left alone.
My Father - the one who sent me to you.
The one whose will I was following.
The one who raised me up from death?
That Father is going to send you the Holy Spirit. The very Spirit of God will descend upon you and fill you."
And in Acts 2, in an event we call Pentecost the disciples receive God’s Holy Spirit. They experienced for themselves the gift of the Holy Spirit. And once they had, they themselves had been exposed to the 3 persons of the Trinity.
So in Genesis - creation of the world.
Mark - at Jesus’ baptism.
And in Acts we see the work of the Trinity.
Now some observations.
1. When God starts something new, we meet up with the Trinity.
In Genesis at the start of creation.
When Jesus was starting his ministry at his baptism.
When the church was forming after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, we meet up with the Trinity.
When God makes his entrance or when he reveals himself at these 3 beginning points in Scripture, he does so as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
While many may think God is not about the new. That God is more concerned about preserving and safe guarding the past. As I read the Scriptures God seems to be calling, dragging, begging his followers to live fully into their future. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are desiring to get us out of the old and familiar patterns and into where he is wanting to take us.
Our task and challenge is to listen for God’s Spirit and to act obediently when we hear it.
God’s Spirit will lead you and me.
God’s Spirit will guide our church into how we can touch the community in Jesus’ name.
You and I will experience, meet up with the Trinity when we follow God into new things.
2. God’s existence - his Trinitarian existence doesn’t change.
Though the events of Genesis happened long before Jesus came to earth and long before the Holy Spirit descended. God’s nature - his identity didn’t change.
God doesn’t age, "He is the same yesterday, today and forever."
So though God leads us into new things, God Himself doesn’t change.
Who God is remains consistent.
He isn’t one thing today and someone different tomorrow. "As God has been He forever will be." And because he is. Because he has proven himself faithful, we can trust him.
3. God’s three-fold nature allows him to be intimately involved and present in us and his world.
God through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit has a desire to be in and among his people. God wants to enter into his world.
He sends his Son to the World.
He sends his Spirit.
God is not distant or removed.
He desires us to enter into this 3-fold community.
It is the role of the Holy Spirit to convict us in our lives, leading us to acknowledge our need for God.
It was the role of Jesus to become the one in whom a godly life dwelt among us. One who redeemed us from our sinful ways?
God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, intimately involved in our lives and in our world, whether we realize it.
4. Now how have I experienced God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
Last night I’m tucking Luke into bed and he says to me, "Dad are we still in Biblical times?"
Now where does that come from?
What caused my 6 year old son to ask that question?
Just to reassure you, I don’t lead my family in all day Saturday lessons on Biblical times, but somehow Luke asked this question. "Dad are we still in Biblical times?"
To me, from my own experience, I say Luke asked that question because God’s Spirit is leading him into a new thing, a deeper faith.
You take a poll at the mall today of parents asking them to state the questions their kids asked yesterday and more than likely Luke’s question won’t come up. Christian parents, doesn’t it blow you away when your son/daughter, grandson/granddaughter out of the blue brings up a God question?
I believe God’s Spirit is at work seeking to have his little ones pursue him. When Luke asks the question, I experience the work of God in my own home, late at night in a very personal way.
A few minutes later.
While I’m trying to answer Luke’s question, I hear Ben our 4-year-old yell out a star- a star.
So we go into the living room and look out the window. And sure enough there is a star. And it is bright. Really bright. So I say let’s find out if it might be a planet. We get the paper and find the weather page and look at the astronomy section and read that it is Venus. A planet. And so the boys get their binoculars and we talk about how God created our world, all the planets.
We celebrate the work of the Trinity as being the creators of all of creation. This God who formed our world, last night was at work in our house, in our kids.
Now I could go on and tell you how I feel a tingling, a rustling within me when I worship God. I’ve identified that as God’s Spirit present in me.
I could tell you about a peace that resides within me during stress filled times. A gift of the Spirit.
I could tell you how I call out to Jesus for help and assistance and how he answers.
I could tell you how God the Fathers is like a steady foundation for me.
My experience affirms the fact that God is purposefully pursuing me for the intentional reason that I know him fully.
I could read about the Trinity in books and try to draw charts. But as I’ve journeyed in this Christian faith. As I heard your stories and walked with you in faith, our experience attests to a God who is past, present and a future. A God who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
Of God who invites us to experience him a new each day.
The Trinity reminds me that God is for more active in bringing me to become a devoted child of His than I am.
God is at work in me, God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God is at work in you.
God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is at work in this church. And today we recognize this reality. Amen.
