The Science of Knowing God: The Trinity
Pastor Fletcher preaches from Matthew 28:18-20 and 2 Corinthians 13:14 [read for us in Amharic] about the Trinity. Discussion points: There are various heresies that describe the Trinity incorrectly, the Trinity is referenced in both the Old and New Testaments, love and self giving is at the core of who God is because he is triune.
-
Scripture reader: Alright, good morning church. So our scripture reading today comes from two different verses. First one will be from, the Gospel of Matthew chapter 28, verse 18 to 20, and then the second one will be from 2 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 14. So I'll be reading it from the Amharic version and the English version will also be accompanying on the screen, and at the end when I say, I'll say this is the word of the word of the Lord and everybody will say thanks be to God.
[Matthew 28:18-20] And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age."
[2 Corinthians 13:14] The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Amen.
Preacher: I love it when we have scripture reading in other languages. The Bible tells us that heaven's gonna be a place with every tribe and tongue, and we're reminded of that every time we read scripture in another language, we're sing a chorus in a different language that, heaven is not English speaking, so to speak. I mean, English will be spoken there, I hope, for my sake. But it will not just be only English speaking.
Today we're concluding our short study on the doctrine of God as we've been going through this series, on, on theology, and this is going to be the last week in the theology series, at least for now. we will pick the theology series back up at some point in the future, but for today, this is the last week, we're going to be going back into the Psalms and back into some passages of the Bible as we like to do, preaching through passages of the Bible, usually a book at a time as we go.
Have you ever wondered why God, an infinite being, would create a whole universe and then fill that universe with people on, on this earth, on this planet that we have, just to praise him. Doesn't he seem a bit egotistical. To do all of that creating just to bring more praise to him. I mean, how self-absorbed do you have to be to create entire races of people. To bring you praise. Is he on some type of cosmic power trip? Why does he need our acknowledgement, our worship, our love?
The late Christopher Hitchens, one of the colloquially named four horsemen of atheism, throughout the 90s, mainly, he's, he's, he's dead now, but he once said this about God. He's a famous atheist, maybe famous anti-theist, even with Christopher Hitchens. He said this about God. He said, if there is a permanent total round the clock divine supervision and invigilation of everything you did. No, he's not pretentious, is he using a word like that. You would never have a waking or sleeping moment when you weren't being watched and controlled and supervised by some celestial entity from the moment of your conception to the moment of your death. It would be like living in North Korea.
To Christopher Hitchens and to many, I'm sure that you've interacted with, the God that we worship sounds like a megalomaniac, does he not? In fact, I've heard some people describe him as Stalin in the sky. And so how does the Bible describe This God And how is he different than the way that many of those around us perceive who God is? Those of us who are Christians here today, we know that this is not what God is like. Amen. We've experienced him and we know him, but the tragedy is that people don't walk away from Christianity because they've actually tried it. They walk away from Christianity because they've tried some cheap substitute for it and found it rather repulsing.
If you could use one doctrine to explain why God is not like this, why God is not self-consumed, greedy, why he's not selfish, why he's not stingy, controlling. If you could pick one doctrine to describe why God is not like this, it would be the doctrine of the Trinity. It is the most foundational doctrine that we have. In fact, a lot of people in the world believe in God. But only Christians believe in the Trinity. It is what sets us apart from all the other religions first and foremost. You know, many people, the, the Islam, the Islamic religion, Muslims, Jews and Christians all alike believe in one God. And then a lot of people, many people, the Hindus and other religions believe in lots of gods, but only Christianity believes in one God, three persons, divine mystery.
The doctrine of the Trinity says that there is one God who exists eternally in three persons. OK, that is just the most simple definition of the doctrine of the Trinity. And if you hang on with me, I'm gonna go through a few of the common errors that we have about the Trinity, but then I'm gonna get back to how does this doctrine help us understand why God is not self-absorbed? OK. So let's first think about the Trinity. Study what it means, and then we're gonna get back to that, OK? So the Trinity, lots of common errors. I'm, I just gave you the definition one God who the doctrine of Trinity says there's one God who exists eternally in three persons. Let me just say this, it's best just to leave it there, OK? Because the second you start doing illustrations about the Trinity, you're gonna get yourself in trouble.
If you've ever seen this meme, that's modalism, Patrick, if you've ever seen, if you've ever seen the, the Saint Patrick's Day, Trinity video, you know exactly what it is. And if you haven't seen that, I encourage you, you will understand, this a lot more if you just go Google and watch that three-minute video that I, I throw on slack, OK? You can, you can find it there.
But it goes through all the different illustrations that we use for the Trinity, and the first one is this that God is like water. Have you ever heard this one before? That the Trinity is like water, that God is part liquid, and he's liquid sometimes. He's ice sometimes. He's gas sometimes. No Patrick, that's modalism Patrick. Modalism says that God is one person who appears in three different forms. So this is wrong because it's saying that you have to be one at a time, and God is not one at a time, three persons eternally existing as one God.
Or maybe you've heard the illustration that God is like a man who was a father, he was a husband, and he was an employer. Modalism again, because it's still just one person functioning in three different ways. God is like a three leaf clover. Maybe you've heard this one. These are all things that the church recognized in the first couple of centuries when we were going through the the early church councils, and each of these was condemned in these early church councils, such as the Church council of Nicaea in 325 and Constantinople in 381. These things we've been recognized as heresy for a long time, but you still hear them. OK, God is like a three leaf clover, each, each one making up a part, and then you have the whole, that's partialism. Which says that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are each 1/3 of God combining to make a whole.
Or maybe you've heard this one, that God is like an egg. Like a shell, the whites and the yolk, but each one egg. No, that's also partialism, OK? So don't fall for these straps here. Maybe you've heard the one that God is like the sun and the sky where you have the star, the light, and the heat. That's arianism, OK, as we continue to go through here. Arianism says that Jesus was not God Himself, or is not God Himself, but he was the first and maybe the most exalted among created beings, and this has been rejected for over 1000 years now, almost 2000 years at this point. It's still believed, in particular, Jehovah's Witnesses believe this. And so if you get into a conversation with the Jehovah's Witness, this is going to be the, the sticking point that you get to. You're gonna have a lot of common language until you get to who is Jesus and what is the Trinity.
Maybe you've heard the one that goes like this. God is like three members of a band. One plays guitar, one plays drums, and one plays bass. And besides the point that the bass player is clearly better than the other two. You, you have this heresy known as tritheism, that each one could function independently, but when they come together, they have one purpose, but not in essence. And that is tritheism.
So, which illustration should you use to describe the Trinity? And here's the secret, you shouldn't. You shouldn't use an illustration. God is an infinite being and you are a finite being, and it is beyond your capacity to understand. And isn't that beautiful? I mean, if you could understand everything about God. With that Be a little disappointing. One day you will see in full, though you see in part today. I can give you a picture, the best picture that I can come up with of what. The Trinity, it describes a part of the Trinity at least. OK?
So we have this, where the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Father, but they each are God and God is each of those. And so that's the best that we can do, but it doesn't even describe it completely. At the end of the day, the doctrine of the Trinity is unique and mysterious.
As Tim Keller puts it, he says, the doctrine of the Trinity overloads our mental circuits. Despite its cognitive difficulty, however, this astonishing dynamic conception of the triune God is bristling with profound, wonderful, life shaping, world-changing implications. And the Bible is full of descriptions of the Trinity. Now, we have to remember that the Bible is not a textbook. It's not a theological textbook. So you're not gonna go to the Bible and be like, hmm, what does it say about the Trinity? I think I shall look in the in the index, Trinity. OK. Now, it's going to describe the doctrine of the Trinity. No, that's not the way that the Bible works. The Bible is a story. And so the way you learn things from story is you have to read the thing and learn it.
But look, I brought receipts, OK? Just in case you're doubting me, I brought the receipts from the Bible. Here's a few passages that talk about the Trinity, just in case anyone's skeptical in here. Maybe you grew up in a Jehovah's Witness background. I don't know. maybe you're just skeptical that the Bible teaches us. Here's a few.
Matthew, the verse that we read, just a few moments ago. Matthew 28:19. Go therefore and make all nations. This is Jesus at the end of his ministry, commissioning the people of God to go and make disciples of all nations. And what does he say? Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit. First of all, I want you to notice that he did not say in the names of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, but in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. It is crucial to the mission of God. To move forward. In the triune God's name.
Matthew 3:16-17. This is when Jesus got baptized. This is one of my favorite passages in the entire Bible, cause it's amazing. What he says, and when Jesus was baptized, immediately, he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him. And he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him, and behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Right there you see all three members of the Trinity functioning together.
In 2 Corinthians 13:14. This happens a lot. I just picked one or two of the different places where the, the writers of the New Testament epistles, these letters to churches, emphasize the Trinity in a blessing or an introduction, and he says, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Peter does something very similar. First Peter 1:2, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, and the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. And in case any of you are accountants, I brought more receipts, OK? Let's keep going.
Maybe you're saying, what about the Old Testament? OK, all these are New Testament passages. What about the Old Testament? Trinity is in the Old Testament also. Let me just point out a couple of different places that there are more, we can have more of a conversation about this. Very first passage of the Bible, Genesis 1, it starts there. If you wanna understand who God is. Now, I don't think that Old Testament, the, the, the Jewish people of the Old Testament actually understood this in full. I think some of it was kept mysterious until the coming of Christ, and then we understood better. But still, I think it was there from the beginning, like Easter eggs. Whenever they finally saw the last episode, they're like, oh, you remember what happened at the beginning? So here we go.
Genesis 1:1 through 3. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, and God said, And John 1:1, what does it say? And the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God. That Jesus is what he said, the word, the acting agent that created and shapes the form that the the world that is formless and without void. And so here you have the spirit hovering, you have God speaking and creating, and you have the son moving out as the word of God.
Genesis 3, then the Lord God said, behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. Well, who is us? God is speaking in the plural, though. He is also speaking in the singular. Genesis, he does that many other times. Genesis 11, come, let us go down, and they are confused their language, so they might not understand one another's speech. Let us go down. You know you have them speaking like this again in Isaiah chapter 6, he says, and I heard that Isaiah says, and I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? And then I said, Here I am, send me. The Trinity has been baked in from the beginning. It is not something that we iced on the top of this cake.
Without the Trinity, you are left with a shell of Christianity. A shell of Christianity. Without the Trinity, you have a God who is all powerful, who is sovereign. But who cannot be loving? At his most core, he cannot be loving because love requires another person. But we have a God who is loving. Without the Trinity, this accusations of self-absorption, they make sense. But because we know God as triune God. We know that those are off base.
Have you ever been, for those of you who share your faith, have you ever been, all right, the rest of us can, you know, have you ever been knee deep in a conversation with someone about God when you realize that you just have two very different ideas of who God is. It's like when I first got married, OK, I, I married cross culturally in many ways. My, my wife is, is better than me in a lot of different things. She, I also just grew up in the deep South and my wife did not. She grew up a military kid and so and her extended family's from around here and so it's just really different when we got married, we had several compromises to make 15 years ago. I had to compromise and start eating vegetables. Because when you're from the deep South, the only vegetables you have are butter beans and fried okra. Borderline vegetable, OK?
Megan, on the other hand, had to compromise and start eating bacon. Because up until the point that we got married, my wife, she grew up in a very health conscious home. Had never had bacon. Oh man, so when I recommended that we eat some bacon one morning, we had probably only been married for a couple of weeks. She's like, I don't like bacon that much. And I'm like, what? You don't like bacon she's like, yeah, it's just not that good and I was like, I, I don't know what's happening so I just went and bought, I went and bought some bacon and I made some bacon and she, you should have seen her face when she put that delectable piece of fatty pork in her mouth. It was just she was questioning her entire childhood in that moment.
You see, we had two very different ideas of what bacon was. To me, There was no denying the goodness of bacon. But she had only had some turkey bacon substitute garbage. And that is what many of our friends have experienced with God. They've only had. The artificial Substitute God. They have not tasted of the real thing. Brothers and sisters, your friends have not rejected God. We often feel like we need to defend God. But what would have happened if instead of going and making the bacon, I'd sat there and given my wife a three part sermon, as I'm tempted to do often, a three part sermon on the goodness of bacon. That wouldn't have worked because she's like, look, I've had bacon, it's not that good.
Many times we feel like we need to defend God, and yes, sometimes we do need to defend our faith. But most of the time, we just need to invite people to experience his goodness. Invite our friends to meet the real God. An introduction is so much more powerful than a defense, is it not? Power hungry self-absorption is the exact antithesis of who God is. In fact, when I hear many people describe who God is, they are describing more what Satan sounds like, than what they are describing what God sounds like. That he is self-consumed, self-obsessed. That He's greedy, selfish, trigger happy. And totally devoid of love and kindness. This is what many people see God as, but we know different.
We know that our God, he's the exact opposite of this. He's self-giving. From eternity past into eternity future. Our God has been and will be pouring himself out in love, the Father for the Son, the Son for the Spirit, the Son for the Father, the Father for the Spirit, the Spirit to both the Father and the Son. Throughout eternity past, God has been pouring himself out in love. You know, God created the heavens and the earth and all of us in here. But there's one thing that God did not create in its love. Because love has always existed, because God is love in and of himself. He did not need to create it. He's been exemplifying it throughout eternity past. And so our God is a God who loves. It is inherent to his nature. It is at the core of his essence. Self-absorption is what hell feels like. For you to just be given over to your own obsession on yourself over and over and over again.
But God is the exact opposite of that. God created all of us, not simply thirsty for more praise, but because he wanted to share with us the love that he has had from the beginning. I love how Pastor Tim Keller says this also. You get 2 Tim Keller quotes. I dropped a CS Lewis quote this week and gave you two quotes. God did not create us to get the cosmic infinite joy of mutual love and glorification, but to share it. We are made to join in the dance if we will center our lives on him, serving him not out of self-interest, but just for the sake of who he is, for the sake of his beauty and his glory, we will enter the dance and share in the joy and love he lives.
I don't know about you guys, but when I consider the doctrine of the Trinity. It adds so much spice, so much flavor, so much goodness to the gospel. Which is this message that at an appointed time, 2000 years ago, that God Came and made his home among us. That the son was with us. And this man who lived on the earth, it's not just that he died for us 2000 years ago, but he himself is God. It just it just hits different when you consider what he had been enjoying throughout eternity past, and then he made himself manifest among us.
And Jesus, when he walked to this earth, he was absolutely obsessed with one thing, OK? And that one thing, it wasn't sex, that one thing, it wasn't money, that one thing, it wasn't morality in the 10 Commandments. That one thing was his father. He was the guy that just wouldn't shut up about his dad, his entire life. In fact, I counted one time, the book of John, the Gospel of John, has at least 117 times where Jesus references his father. He's constantly talking about his father. Here's just a few samples. Jesus says, whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he is doing. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. If you knew me, you would know my father also. For this reason, the Father loves me because I lay down my life that I might take it up again. I and the and the Father are one. Now that's when the Jews start picking up their stones to throw at Jesus, when he starts claiming that he is one with the Father in heaven. I am the way, the truth and the life Jesus says. No one comes to the Father except through me. Philip said to him, Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us. And Jesus said to Philip, have I been with you so long and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, show us the Father?
Do you see what Jesus is claiming? I came from the Father and have come into the world and now I'm leaving the world and going to the Father. Jesus lived in perfect harmony with God, the Father, throughout eternity past, and he will into eternity future except on one dark Friday afternoon. When darkness came upon the earth. And nails pierced his hands, and a spear into his side, and the father turned his face away. And he who knew no sin became sin for us. Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And Jesus experienced the penalty of sin on our behalf. That we might experience the fullness of his relationship with God, that we might be invited into this sacred dance that he has enjoyed.
My friends, as we wrap up here. If God gave up his own son for you. What else will he do for you? If he loves you that much. And gave up his one son, his only son for you. What else won't he do? Romans 8:32 says this, He who did not spare his son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? I've used this illustration before, so bear with me if you're familiar with it, OK?
But I just want you to imagine that you just married a billionaire. Cha-ching, OK, or that your spouse just hit the lottery and it's a big one, OK? And that this billionaire spouse of yours gave you a yacht and you're just cruising around in the Gulf of America somewhere. Enjoying the water. Would you be ashamed? To ask for a cup of coffee in the morning. Would you say, you know, I'm really pushing my luck. This whole coffee thing, you know, I know you just gave me a yacht. But maybe I could have a cup of coffee also. No, you wouldn't be worried about that. This person loves you obviously so much more than that. They've given you a yacht. Of course you can have a cup of coffee, whatever you want. It brings your spouse delight to give you what you desire.
This is how the Bible describes our relationship with Jesus. That God did not withhold his only son, the thing most precious to him that he's enjoyed throughout eternity past, but gave him up for each of us. And if he did not spare his only son, what else would he be willing to give to you? You see, I think that we have such a hard time coming to God because we view him as stingy, we view him as self-absorbed. But in the reality, he is completely and totally loving, and he always has been and he always will be. But here's the problem most of the time with our prayers. The problem isn't that God is self-absorbed, but we are. And when we ask God for something, it's just something for me. You see, God's not gonna answer a prayer that's gonna make you miserable. He knows that self-absorption is the complete antithesis of who he is. In fact, if you live in self-absorption long enough, you're gonna understand what it means to walk around in hell. Because all you have to do is be self-absorbed and you're gonna get miserable. You're gonna become miserable.
And so here's your challenge this morning. How can you pray prayers that are not self-absorbed? Our God is not a self-absorbed God. He doesn't want you. To walk in self absorption. Satan doesn't have to get you to murder kittens if he can just get you to live self-absorbed. How can you pray? Less self-absorbed prayers. What can you ask God for this morning? What can you ask him for this morning? I'll give you a few ideas, OK? And just let your mind go wild. I'm serious, let it go wild. He, he's the one giving you a yacht, OK? Let it go wild. Whatever you want. But here's a few ideas to get it started. Maybe you can ask for courage to speak the truth to someone who needs to hear it. Maybe you could ask God to give you patience with that family member who is destroying your peace of mind. Maybe you could ask God for freedom from a sin that you continually return to time after time, though it is destroying you. Maybe you could ask God for the ability to love your co-worker or your spouse, or someone else without thinking of yourself. Maybe you could ask God to help you to be generous over just spending or saving for yourself. Maybe it's radically reorganizing how you spend your time. Maybe you can look at your life and say, man. If you looked at my calendar, it would look pretty self-consumed. You can ask God to help you to focus more on the things of God, and less than on the things of this world.
Friends, if you want to enjoy the good life, you have to pray some prayers like that. Because the good life is not the life where you get everything you want in self-absorption. The good life is where you give up everything you have. And you enjoy her. The call to follow Jesus is to deny yourself, take up your cross and follow after him. Look at how he lived, look at how he died. Look at how he calls you, look at the spirit giving himself to you. Just look to God, and there you will find not a being of self-absorption, but a being of utter and complete self-giving.
I'm gonna give us a moment to pray and to respond. During this time of communion we take communion each week here. During this time of communion, you're given an opportunity to reflect on what Christ has done for you, that his body was broken for you and his blood was shed for you as we take these elements, we're reminded of the broken body of Christ and the blood that was shed on our behalf. And this is an opportunity for you to pray, for you to think, for you to contemplate, to confess your sins before the Lord, before coming and receiving this meal. It's also a time we have prayer counselors in the back. If you would like to pray with someone today, they would be more than willing to pray with you, whether that's trusting Jesus for the first time or the 100th time, coming back to him and self-giving. And so, we would encourage you, if you're a believer this morning, to come and receive this meal. So, I'm gonna ask that we stand, we prepare ourselves to respond to God. And if you'd like to sit during this time, you're welcome to sit also, OK? No pressure to stand. I just want you to, to focus on what God wants you to focus on, less of me, more of Him. As we invite the band to come forward. We sing a few more songs.
God, we pray that our hearts would be totally and completely lifted to you. That we would know you in full, that we would enjoy you, that you would bless us here. God, we pray that our church would be full of people that are self-giving, giving of themselves at all times that are enjoying your presence and not just the presence of themselves and self absorption. Would you free us from self-absorption and grant us self-forgetfulness. And help us to be a church that loves sacrificially as you have loved us. And Christ's name we pray, Amen.