THE TRINITY I
Where Do I Begin…
09/23/12
How many of you are familiar with that old Andy Williams song, “Love Story”. The first line of the song goes, “Where do I begin, to tell the story of how great a love can be…” That my friends is my quandary, where do I begin to tell the story how great the greatest love ever, can be? But that is the task I will betaking on.
The task? Preaching a series of sermons on the doctrine of the Trinity. When I say Trinity what I mean is the Biblical teaching that God has revealed himself as, to quote James White, “Within the one being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” I do recognize that this is a monumental task. In fact it is in some respect an impossible task. In his work “Lectures in Systematic Theology” 19th century theologian R.L. Dabney stated this to his students regarding the Trinity, “We cannot disprove here, by our own reasoning, any more than we can prove: for the subject is beyond our cognition. I pray the student to bear in mind, that I am not here attempting to explain the Trinity, but just the contrary: I am endeavoring to convince him that it cannot be explained.”
Dabney’s point was that God is unfathomable, He cannot be comprehended, He will not fit inside our small brains. He is God! He will not fit inside whatever theological or humanistic box we would like to mold Him in. While we can not grasp God in all His glory, we can learn and may I say love, what He has revealed about Himself to us.
To quote another famous theologian Emil Brunner, “Even the revealed God remains a hidden God, and He wills to be worshipped as the one who is hidden and unfathomable”. Its is this hidden and unfathomable God that I want us to learn about throughout this series, because the WAY in which God has revealed Himself, is the WAY He desires to be worshipped and loved.
As we go through this series I first must begin with some basic truths before we get into the meat of the doctrine. The first basic truth we must see is that the doctrine of the Trinity is important. This is something we will flesh out even further in future sermons.
But let me begin with this, to me this is the most important series of sermons I have preached, because it is the most important topic I have preached upon. What could be more important then talking about Who and What God is? Because of its importance, we will be taking our time in covering this topic.
I will say this, I have spend more time studying the topic of the Trinity than any other topic since I have been a Christian. I have read several books on the Trinity, I have read papers, articles, outlines. I have listen to sermons by other preachers on this topic. All over the course of months. I did so because this is such an important topic to me and I want to get it right. As a side note, rather then list all of the research material that was used, if you want to know what it is, it is posted on our website. www.mccbchurch.org
My prayer is that I can communicate to each of you, how important this topic is, how important it is to your faith, to your worship, to your walk with Christ, because if you get this wrong, you may find yourself hearing the words of Jesus in Matthew 7:21-23 ““Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’” It is vitally important as we see in that passage, that we KNOW Jesus, and Jesus KNOWS us.
To do the will of Father, you MUST have an understanding of who the Father is, who the Son is, who the Holy Spirit is. This topic of the Triune nature of God, has eternal ramifications. I am fully aware that some of what we will be discussing, some of you may not follow, some of may simply not care. I will try to make things as simple as possible. But I would plea, in fact I am begging with you to seek to gain understanding, and again realize how important of a topic this is.
I want to share with you how it came about that I began to study the Trinity, how it came about that I felt that God was leading me to preach on the Trinity.
You see as a pastor sometime I believe I take things for granted and I think a lot of pastor do. We just assume that the people whom we preach to, or the people we know who call themselves Christians and go to a Christian church understand the importance of a doctrine such as the Trinity. Being a basic tenet of our faith, being at the very core of Biblical Orthodox Christianity, I just figured everyone who calls themselves a Christian and attends a mainstream evangelical church would know how important the Trinity to our faith. I was wrong.
My discovery of how wrong I was occurred a couple of years ago now. I was in my office with a young man I have known for several years. I have no reason to believe that he is not a Christian. I know his parents who are I believe are Christians, this young man attends a Bible preaching church, and I would confidently say that he is a brother in Christ.
He had come to see me regarding a ministry that several churches in the area were getting involved with. As we talked I shared with him my concern that one of the church involved was the Spirit and Truth Christian Assembly in West Oneonta. I voiced to this young man that this was not a Biblical Orthodox Christian church, that they denied the Trinity and were what is know as Sabellinists or modalists, (we will talk about that believe at another time), so I voiced my concern.
This young man stated that he had indeed talked the pastor, but that the difference in their doctrine of the God, and the Trinity was insignificant and that we both worship the same God. He said he couldn’t explain what they believed but it was in essence, “close enough” to what Biblical Christianity teaches. Well, I was a little stunned.
Fast forward in time to about a year ago. I will not go into details because they are of a somewhat personal nature. But I was again shocked to hear a man, who I have no reason to doubt was a Christian, again in reference to Spirit and Truth Christian Assembly, say that the Trinity was not that important. I was floored by this statement.
And but a few weeks after that, another couple I know decided to attend there, and once more, knew that they deny the Triune nature of God, they deny the very essence of who and what God is, yet it did not matter.
It was in between that last two episodes that that I began to study and read about the doctrine of the Trinity. God convinced me that as a pastor, and an under Shepherd of the God’s sheep I had a call to feed those sheep and protect those sheep. Feed them the truth from God’s word, and protect them against error that will lead them away from the true God of the Scriptures.
I pray that every person who hears these messages will understand just how important the doctrine of the Trinity is to their faith.
This brings me to the second basic truth I want us to see and that the Trinity is all about love. Thus the title of this sermon. It’s a love story. Love, as we will see is at the core of the doctrine of the Trinity. It is about love for God, and it is about God’s love for us.
You see God loves us in a certain way, the way He loves us is unlike any love you or I could ever give. God also has revealed that love in a certain way. What we will see from God’s Word is that the Trinity is essential in our understanding of how God has revealed that love.
The point that will be made is in order of us to truly love God as God desires to be loved, we must love Him in the way and manner and form which He has revealed that love to us, how in fact He has loved us.
What I am saying is that we must love the Trinity, because that is how God has revealed His love to us. Its all about love.
I can say that in my own study of the Triune nature of God, I have come to realize even more than I did before, the magnitude, the enormity of the gulf that exists between me and God.
You see the more I realize the expanse, that is the difference between my nature and God’s nature, the more I understand how a far greater being He is. The more I grasp how small I am compared to Him, the closer I have grown to Him and the more I love Him. Because it helps me to see how far God had to stoop to pick me up. The more distance I guess we can say, I have come to see between my nature and His nature, of what I am and what He is, the greater that distance, the closer I have come to Him, the deeper my love has grown toward Him. My study of the triune nature of God as done that for me, and I pray that it will do for you.
As we continue with this second basic truth that the Trinity is a love story, I want to present to you the following illustration. I believe this illustration will help us to understand not only the importance of the Trinity, but I believe it will help us to develop in way you can clearly see, that the Trinity is about love. Listen to this, because we will be referring to it in future messages as well.
I want you to just imagine with me that one day you decide to go out for dinner. You decide to go to Brooks. I think pretty much every one here has gone to Brooks at some point. So you go to Brooks, the hostess seats you, and you begin to look over the menu. Now one thing about Brooks is usually when you go there you will see somebody you know.
As you glance over the menu you spot me, Pastor Steve. There I am in the corner booth, but you notice I am with somebody. It is a young women, she is about 5’8” tall, she has long blond hair and blue eyes. To your shock it appears that we are having a romantic evening. There I am, holding this women’s hand, we are snuggling, giggling, giving little kisses to each other. So there you sit stunned by you are seeing.
So how you feeling about now? Maybe that empty feeling in the pit of stomach. Perhaps and I would think this would be the case for all of you, you are angry at what you are witnessing. There is your pastor, committing adultery in front of your very eyes.
After watching for a couple of moments you decided that you can’t take it any longer, so you get up and walk over to where I am sitting. You demand to know what is going on.
Well I look up at you calmly and ask you what the problems is? You state you have been watching me and are disgusted by my behavior with this women. So I look at you and say, “It’s my wife, what’s the problem?” You protest, you say, “I know your wife, and that is not your wife! Your wife is Darleen, she is a middle aged women, she is about 5 foot tall, she has short brown hair, and brown eyes”.
I counter your protest and say, “Listen, I don’t know what your problem is, but this is Darleen my wife. So maybe you need to leave.” You are now at a lose as what to say, so you walk out of Brook, finding it unbearable to see me act that way with another women.
I ask you, think about this? Think of the emotion that you would have toward me. Toward Darleen, that is the real Darleen. Why would you have those emotions? I say it is because of love. You love me, or used to, and you love Darleen. Emotional attachment.
Now think of the same scenario. But now instead of you coming in and seeing that, it is one of my daughters. Say it was Brooke. What do you suppose her reaction would be? What if she were to approach me and say, “Dad what you doing?” and I said to her “What I am dinner with your mother.” But you see Brooke knows that is not her mother. She knows Darleen at a higher level than any of you would. She knows her as a loving mom, and a loving wife. Brooke has a far deeper love for Darleen then most of you. So again, think of the emotion that would going through Brooke’s mind in that circumstance. Again, the emotions she feels would be directly related to love.
On more time. Same scenario, me in the corner table at Brooks with a blond haired women, etc. etc. Now Darleen come in. Of course she would immediately come over to the table. She says “What is going on!” Again I answer the same way, “This is my wife Darleen and I am having a nice dinner with her.”
What’s Darleen’s reaction? I’m Darleen and I’m your wife.” And I say, “No, this Darleen and she’s my wife.”
How does Darleen feel at this point? Very hurt I’m sure. Catching her husband in the act of adultery but also denying it, and calling some else his wife. And why is the hurt so great, because the love is great. She loves me like no one else.
I like this illustration because each person in each scenario can illustrate something for us in a way that helps us to better understand the point I am trying to make. We are going to get into these thoughts in greater way next week but I want to touch on them this morning.
First, in each scenario I illustrate those who would worship and love a false God. Those who are committing spiritual adultery. Those who worship not the God as He has revealed himself in the Word of God, but a god of their own creation. A god that looks good to them, a god that fits into their box.
The other women, she obviously illustrates for us any false god. She illustrates anything that is worshipped instead of God. And let me point this out and we will flesh this out further next week. Just because I called this women Darleen, that does not make her Darleen, that we can all understand. But what is harder for some folks to understand is that just because you call something God, that does not make it the truth God revealed to us in Scripture. Just because you call something Jesus, does not make it the Jesus of the Bible.
If someone says to you, “I believe in God.” Does not mean that they believe in the God of the Bible, anymore then me saying that that women was Darleen my wife, makes that women the Darleen who really is my wife and mother of my children.
In my illustration, you represent what I would call immature Christians, or Christians who do understand or know the basic tenets of the Christian faith. Christians who have not grown in the faith as they should have.
You see after a while you will get over seeing me at Brooks. You may not speak to me anymore, you probably are not going to be going to the church I pastor, least I would hope not. But in the end you will get over it, it will not have a great lasting impact on your life.
For some Christian that is how it is with these folks who worship other gods. It really doesn’t matter to them. It has no impact in their lives. That see someone worshipping false gods and it may bother them if it is someone they know, but hey, in the end what’s the big deal. But what they fail to realize is that just as you would feel for Darleen because I was with another women, we must feel for God, when we see Him dishonored by someone worshipping someone or something other then Him. Again, it is about love.
In the illustration my daughter Brook represents at mature Christian. A Christian who understands that to worship anything but the triune God of the Holy Scriptures is idolatry. This is the Christian who strives to love God with all their heart, with all their soul and with all their mind. They have an intimate relationship with God, just as child ought to have with their parents. They know that God is a loving God, a Holy God, a God whose has been so good them in demonstrating His love toward through His Son Jesus Christ, and through the gift of His Holy Spirit.
It break this persons heart to see worship being given to another God. And what is particularly offensive to them is when they call their false God, Father, or Jesus, or Lord. Just as Brooke would be offended by me calling that other women, Darleen, the mature believer in Christ is offended when something is called Almighty God, other then the rightful owner of that name. And that is the God that is revealed in the Bible as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Again we see that it is about love.
Finally we see the Darleen illustrates for us in this scenario, God Himself. God is a jealous God. Think about that. How do think God reacts when He sees worship and praise being given to something other then Himself. Just as it would fill Darleen with wrath, with anger, with jealousy at the sight of me being with another women, so it is with God.
Obviously this is not a perfect illustration, God’s wrath and anger and jealousy is perfect and holy. Let me say this as well. There is only one thing that prevents God from immediately pouring out His wrath and anger and vengeance upon those who worship false gods, and that is His mercy, which flows through His grace.
What I believe we fail to realize that God has every right, He would be absolutely and totally justified if He were to pour out His wrath on anyone the very second they bowed their knee in worship to anything other then Himself. We sometimes forget that. We forget because God is merciful and gracious towards us, and toward those who would worship false gods.
While Darleen may act very swiftly in reacting to what she saw, God is merciful and patient, but understand that idolatry will not be ignored. It makes no difference how sincere a person is in the worship of a false god, they will be held accountable, they will come under the righteous and holy wrath of God.
We are going to wrap things up at this point. Next week we will looking more about how this is a love story, and we will be reference back to our illustration of today.
I closing may I just ask you who is the God you are worshipping? Who is the Jesus you have your faith in? You see the Bible states that the “Gospel is the power of God unto Salvation”. That is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the Jesus Christ revealed in the Bible. The Jesus Christ who is the eternal Son of God, the Jesus who as John 1:1 states was “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” That is the Jesus you must have your faith. That is the Jesus who lived a perfect life, who died a perfect death, and rose again three days later. That is the Jesus who sits at the right hand of the Father as our Mediator. That is the Jesus you must have your faith in.
LET US PRAY
