Luke: 00:10

We're gonna be talking about the Trinity and all that that kind of entails. And so before we go too much farther, I'm gonna just simply read for us our theological conviction statement. Read the first two sections of it, The nature of God and the nature of scriptures. Says this, we believe in one living and true God, the creator of heaven and earth, who eternally exists in three persons, God the father, God the son, and God the holy spirit. These three are coequal in power, glory, and majesty.

Luke: 00:51

They share the same divine essence while remaining distinct in personhood. And if you're like, what does all that mean? You're in good company. We're gonna talk about it today. Second part is the scriptures.

Luke: 01:04

We believe that the holy scriptures consisting of the old and new testaments are inspired, infallible, and the inerrant word of God. They are the supreme and final authority in all matters of faith, conduct, and doctrine. The Bible is sufficient for life and godliness and is to be diligently studied, faithfully preached, and joyfully obeyed. Now today, if I was here to try and cover both of those topics, we'd be here all day. So we're not going to do that.

Luke: 01:34

I'm just going to talk about the Trinity. But I have two other books that I'm going put up here on the screen that if you're like, Wow, I really want to do some more study, these are the books for you. The first is Delighting in the Trinity by Michael Reeves. This was a very personally impactful book for me. When I read it, it changed the way I saw God and changed the way I do theology from then on.

Luke: 01:58

It's kind of a watershed book for me. It's pretty approachable, but, you know, it does get into it. The second book is How to Read the Bible for It's All It's Worth by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stewart. It's a great introduction that kind of covers some ideas of what is the Bible, but also how can we read the Bible. And so it's a good overview starting place if you're looking for something to kind of like get you started in the Bible.

Luke: 02:27

We also have a ton of resources back there on how to read the Bible and Bible reading plans for the year. So if you're like, you want to start your New Year's resolution to read the Bible in a year, there is a ton of stuff back there to help you do that. So those are there for your own perusement, and you can can do with that what you may. Maybe come back next week with, like, a book report or something. I'm gonna make you get up here and talk about it.

Luke: 02:58

Alright. Now let's talk about the Trinity. That's the thing that we're going to focus on for today. Let's do a little bit of I'm going ask you all a question. Who here has heard some sort of analogy about the Trinity in like Sunday school or somebody at some point tried to tell you or explain the Trinity.

Luke: 03:19

Yeah. Okay. Let's let's let's hear. What are some of those analogies? An egg.

Luke: 03:25

I forgot about the egg. Any others? Water. Well, the Holy Spirit is like is like or no. Like, God the water and then the ice and the vapor.

Luke: 03:36

Any others? Shamrock. Shamrock. Right? Neapolitan ice cream.

Luke: 03:44

That is an interesting one. Which flavor is God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit? I don't know. Any others? Traffic Light was one of my favorites.

Luke: 03:58

Fidget spinner. Right? I know. Some of you just went, woah. Right?

Luke: 04:06

Well, I hate to break it to you, but those are all wrong and you're all heretics. No. I mean that tongue in cheek, but no, you are wrong. No. All of those illustrations, they do an attempt.

Luke: 04:24

They try to explain the idea of the Trinity, and they do it well to a degree. And then there's at a point at which the analogy kind of breaks apart and it can kind of lead to like a heresy about the Trinity. We actually I could probably spend the whole day just talking about heresies concerning the triddle trinity, which would be an interesting way to teach it, but that's not what we're gonna do today. So the question is is you're like, okay. What is the Trinity?

Luke: 04:53

What do we mean when we say, just like it says here on this thing, that we believe in one living true God, the creator of heaven and earth, who eternally exists in three persons. Tri and Trinity. The God the Father, the God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. These are co equal in power, glory and majesty, and share the same divine essence while remaining distinct in personhood. That's a mouthful.

Luke: 05:27

And I think one of the reasons that we don't talk about the Trinity and the Trinity is not taught very often is because of its complexity. People kind of say, Oh, it's just so hard. You're never going to understand it. So, you know, so we don't really teach it very often or we don't teach it very clearly. And I think that leads to a place where we kind of take it for granted or we take it assumptive or we kind of think, does it really even matter?

Luke: 05:55

Why does the Trinity matter? And I hope to answer that question very definitively for you today. So let's break the Trinity down. That's a funny way to say it. Let's break the Trinity down into kind of four kind of propositions, four things that we must believe and hold intention even though they provide some level of conflict with one another.

Luke: 06:18

The first thing that we must believe to hold the Trinity well is to say that there is one God. This is most famously said in Deuteronomy chapter six, verse four. This is the Shema. This is where the Israelite people would have said this every day. This would have been part of the the confession that they said over and over again.

Luke: 06:43

Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. There is one true God. This is said again in Isaiah 45 verse five says, I am the Lord and there is no other. Apart from me, there is no God. I will strengthen you, though you have not acknowledged me.

Luke: 07:08

And then even you're like, okay, well, is this in the New Testament? And well, it is. It's in Ephesians. We've got it up there, and it says that there is one body and one spirit, just as you were called the one hope when you were called. One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Luke: 07:37

That verse say one enough. Right? The consistent testament of the Scripture is this. There is one true God. The whole Old Testament can read as like a whole story of God proving and showing over and over again that he is the one true God.

Luke: 07:59

When we covered the whole book of Exodus last year, we got to the part where the plagues happened. Right? And each of those plagues kind of tore down and destroyed the Egyptian sense of who they thought their gods were. They had a whole pantheon, hundreds and hundreds of gods. And that's not an exaggeration.

Luke: 08:21

Literally hundreds of gods that they believed in. And they thought these gods were mighty and powerful, and they were in control of the crops and the weather and their prosperity. And then there, all of a sudden, this God of the slave people just absolutely decimates them. And one loud, giant triumph, God said, Pharaoh and his gods are no gods at all, but I am God. And so over and over again is this testament that there is one God who is supreme about all other spiritual beings across all of the earth and all the world and the universe.

Luke: 09:03

That is what we must hold, that there is one God. Okay. So that's number one. What's number two? Number two is that God exists in three persons.

Luke: 09:16

That God exists in three persons. You might be like, okay, Luke, you just said there's one God. What does that mean? Right? But like, we have to say, okay, the Bible has clearly said there is one God.

Luke: 09:28

But then we have to say, well, what do we do then with these other passages? What is God saying in Genesis chapter one verse 26? He says, then God said, let us let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals and over all the creatures that move along the ground. Did you notice that? God referred to himself as us.

Luke: 10:03

Right? What about Matthew chapter 28, verse 19 through 20? This is Jesus. He's just declared that he has authority over all heaven and earth, and he's giving a commission. And then what does he tell them to do?

Luke: 10:18

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Oh, why is he? Why is he including everybody in that? Right? Well, let's look at one more passage.

Luke: 10:34

Titus three, verse four through six says this, says When the kindness and love of God, our savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done. Amen. But because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out generously on us through Jesus Christ, our Savior. There, it's it's referring to and involving all of these three different persons of the Trinity.

Luke: 11:12

Saying like God is, yes, one, but he exists in three distinct persons. Now what's the third thing? The third thing we must believe is that these three persons are coequal. And what do you mean by what's coequal mean? It just means that they're all worthy of the same honor, same worship.

Luke: 11:41

They are of the same essence. Right? When we say that, that's a really important word in this confession. At the at the end, these three co equal in power, glory, and majesty and share the same divine essence. We just got through Christmas, and everybody talks about Saint Nick, Santa Claus.

Luke: 12:04

Saint Nick was a real person, Saint Nicholas. And he actually, in real life, was famous for defending the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ. And he was very adamant about this word essence. Same essence. There were people going around saying, Well, Jesus is like a lesser God.

Luke: 12:25

He's like, not really God. And Saint Nicholas was like, No, no. Jesus was homoousios. Same essence. And so that was the thing that Saint Nicholas was all about.

Luke: 12:39

So every Christmas I go around saying, Homoousios. Thank you for laughing at that very lame joke. But you're gonna get a lot of theological jokes like that. But anyways, that's that's the real story of Saint Nick. Don't pay attention to anything you see on TV.

Luke: 13:04

But this idea of same essence, meanings of the same substance, Jesus, God the Father, and the Holy Spirit are co equal. We see this in John chapter one. This is probably one of the best Trinity passages in the whole Bible. It says, in the beginning was the word. Where else did we see in the beginning in the Bible?

Luke: 13:29

The beginning. Genesis, right? So this is calling to creation. That passage we read earlier. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Luke: 13:40

Verse two. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. And in him was the life, that life that was the light of all mankind.

Luke: 13:59

Saying, you've got Jesus, the word, the logos. He was with God and he was God. He was involved and active in every part of creation. This was he is of the same essence. And then if we look at First Corinthians chapter two verses 10 through 11, we'll see this.

Luke: 14:20

These are the things that God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except for the Spirit of God. How much more clear does it have to be to say that the Holy Spirit is God?

Luke: 14:45

How can someone's spirit know anything except for its own spirit? And so the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, and God the Father are all co equal, all equally God. And then the very last thing, the last thing that we have to believe in order to hold the Trinity well is this belief that they are there is one God. God exists in three persons. The three persons are coequal.

Luke: 15:11

And number four, they are still yet distinct. They are separate somehow. Look at this in Luke three twenty one-twenty two. It says this. This is the point.

Luke: 15:28

Jesus is being baptized by John the Baptist. When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And he was praying, and heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven saying, You are my son, whom I love, and I am well pleased with you. All of a sudden, right here, all three.

Luke: 15:52

All three in the same moment doing different things in community with one another. It's not like this is why the water analogy of the Trinity breaks down. Right? Well, water can't it can't all at the same time, the same portion of water be liquid, ice, and vapor at the same time. It's not like God's running around and putting on different hats and pretending to be a spirit and sun, you know.

Luke: 16:18

No, they're all three here at the same time. Co equal, yet one God. I want to show you kind of a an illustration. This is again, it's a flawed illustration, but it's probably it's one of the oldest illustrations, and it it illustrates this point in visual format for those of you who are visual learners. So we have one singular God.

Luke: 16:45

One. Who exists in three persons. Now we've got up here, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is those three persons. Okay?

Luke: 16:58

So we've got them. They're of the same essence. They're connected. They're co equal, but they are not to be confused. God the Father is not the Son.

Luke: 17:09

God the Son is not the Spirit, and God the Spirit is not the Father. Right? They are not to be confused. They they have different roles. They do different things.

Luke: 17:20

They interact with one another. They are separate, but together of the same essence in one. Now, all of that is absolutely confusing. It's absolutely just bewildering. And I think the fact of the fact is, is that we have to come to a realization that God is above and beyond our comprehension.

Luke: 17:46

That to accept God as He is, is to begin to accept a God we didn't create, but a God who has revealed himself and said, this is true about me. I'm not sure you're going to understand it, but this is who I am. Now, there's so much more we could talk about, but I want to get to the main point here. Why does this matter? You might be, okay, Nick.

Luke: 18:13

That's that's cool. We learned some Greek words. We talked about, like, these competing things. But what does the Trinity matter? Why is it important that we believe it?

Luke: 18:23

Why is it so important that we confess it? Why is this a thing that Christians have made so certain that we believe for so long? And I think that, unfortunately, because of its complexity, we've we've neglected to teach it well. And what I want to make very abundantly clear here is that without the Trinity, God is no longer a God of love. You may be like, what?

Luke: 18:54

Let's think about this for a moment. What the one of the shortest verses in the Bible is God is love. It's this defining characteristic about Him. It's not that love is God, but God is the fullest embodiment of true love. He love comes from him.

Luke: 19:18

It emanates from him. It is a descriptor that is so apt of him that we can just simply say God is love, and it's true. We don't have to add qualifiers or adjectives to it. It just simply is. But here's the question.

Luke: 19:35

What does love require? Love has a prerequisite for it to exist, for it to be expressed. There has to be someone to love. Love can't exist in a vacuum. If it's just if I was the only person on Earth, just magically, no one else was here.

Luke: 19:56

Who could I love? Could I have love? If I never knew, if there was no one else that ever even had existed, I had no memory or knowledge of someone. Who could I love? No one.

Luke: 20:09

There is nowhere for that love to go. I would need someone else to exist in order to express that characteristic. And so if we believe in a God who isn't Trinity, it's just Him by Himself, well then love would be dependent upon creation. Meaning he wouldn't be able to exist in eternity past and have the true and embodied characteristic of love because there would be no one for him to love. I know this is getting kind of philosophical, but like this is important because if God needed creation in order to have someone to love, then love is not His truest, most eminent part of His characteristic.

Luke: 20:55

But if God existed in Trinity into eternity past, in divine community with Himself, there's the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, separate, distinct, one essence, all sharing and giving love with one another, perfectly loving himself. If God was just simply one, he'd be a true narcissist in the most truest form. But because he's in Trinity, he's in community, that love can be expressed and given and received. And out of that love comes all of creation. Let us make mankind in our image.

Luke: 21:41

Exactly. And so God is love because he is Trinity. And this this flows downward. You're like, Luke, okay, that's kind of cool. But like, what does that impact mean?

Luke: 21:55

And I got to tell you that when we don't get the Trinity right, we really start to go crazy. We really start to go into a place where the Gospel is no longer good. Some of you might have encountered this, maybe or maybe not. But there is a growing number of people out there who like to say, I could never believe in Christianity. I could never believe in that kind of gospel.

Luke: 22:20

A God where there's divine child abuse. What's this mean God up there who had to punish his son and put him on a cross? That's the type of talk that some people are going into. And the issue with that is that what are they doing? They're pitting God the Son against God the Father.

Luke: 22:42

But if we believe in Trinity, we can understand that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit were all three involved in the salvation of humanity. It wasn't God it wasn't like God the Father is the angry God, and God Jesus the Son is like the nice God two point o who got in the way. Like, like, that is a legitimate difficulty that I know that some of you have experienced. Some of you have probably come from churches where God the Father was so emphasized. That part of the Trinity was so emphasized that you had this conception of God being angry, vengeful and just ready to strike you down at a moment's notice.

Luke: 23:31

And this is one of the difficulties, the things that we as a church must strive at, is to try and hold the Trinity, all three parts of the Trinity in balance. Trying to say we cannot neglect God the Father, we cannot neglect God the Holy Spirit. We cannot neglect Jesus Christ, the Son, our Lord and Savior. We cannot neglect those. We must hold them in balance, strive as best as we can to not forget about one.

Luke: 24:00

Because if we do, we begin to run into strange errors. Places where we begin to begin to make God, we kind of pit him against one another. We begin to believe and think things that are wonky. We begin to go out into left field. It is so important that Christ be God.

Luke: 24:22

I can't I can't overemphasize this. Because if Jesus is somehow lesser God, if he's somehow not fully God, then something less than perfection died for our sins. If Jesus Christ is part of the Trinity, if he's of the same essence, that means all of God was involved in our salvation. It means that I can say with confidence and no theological error that God died on a cross for you. That sounds kind of weird to our ears because we don't normally say it that way, but it's true.

Luke: 25:02

This is so important because it's a matter of demonstrating and holding true the Gospel, saying that God has loved us so much that he gave his son for us. He gave part of himself for us, that he took on flesh. If Jesus Christ isn't fully God, then he we don't have a God who knows what it's like to be hungry. We don't have a God who knows what it's like to cry or to have a body or to be tired. But if Jesus Christ is fully God, fully that, fully divine and fully human, that's a whole other topic.

Luke: 25:49

But then humanity has been redeemed. There's no part of our human experience that has not been touched by God's love. And then very finally is to say this. When we accept God as He has revealed Himself, we are filled with awe and worship. When we come up and we watch a beautiful sunset, when we look up and we see the skies, when we see the Aurora Borealis, when we see the Grand Canyon, when we are put in awe of our smallness, we are filled with a sense of awe.

Luke: 26:24

And today, my prayer for you is that as we've talked about this, you've not just been filled up with knowledge, but you've been filled up with awe and worship for our God. That this inspires us and brings us to a greater sense of awe for our Lord, of recognizing we are small. We cannot comprehend the entirety of God. If God is Trinity, then his love for us is magnified by three into affinity. This is the good news.

Luke: 26:58

This is why we must hold this doctrine so surely. It has been one that has been contentious throughout all of history, but it's also been one that the church has been very vocal about through all of history as well. As you go from here, it is my prayer that you would know the heights, depths, widths of God's love for you. Go in peace in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. You are loved.