Trinity For Me
Notes
Transcript
There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things both visible and invisible. And in the unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one substance, power, and eternity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
A seasonal fad. Not much good but for bringing out as a distraction.
Is this any better? Any more important to life?
Yes. A thousand times.
So I’ll ask a question. Does it matter if you know true things about me?
(what if you’ve been here a while, what if you’re my friend, my child?)
The more you love someone, the more you should be listening, learning, caring and remembering what they’ve revealed about themselves...
We say we love God...
So today:
God the Holy Trinity FOR YOU
God the Holy Trinity FOR YOU
We’ll remember better if there’s something in it for us. We’re going to be seeing what is true.
// my son running down the aisle mid sermon - he doesn’t need a booking
Gets us to our first of 3 points:
Because the Father is God - we’re his children
Because the Father is God - we’re his children
1 See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
the majestic creator is not distant, unknowable - but Father
When we talk about God being 3 persons, we need to understabd God is a union of 3 persons working together.
So at each of our3 points, we’ll also see how God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are involved:
Mt 11:27 - My Father.. no one knows… closed loop - opened
27 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.
– Rom 8:15-16 - Spirit enables adoption, and calling out to God ‘Abba’ - are God’s children
15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
Because the Father is God - we’re his children.
14th cventury anonymous Christian text.
From a humble place. We’re humans. How could we know God?
Because the Son is God … God is knowable
Because the Son is God … God is knowable
Sounds humble - but what if an expert gives us insider knowledge:
18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
Notice 2 things.
The one and only son is himself God.
And has made God known.
Suddenly the cloud of unknowing just sounds stupid. That’s like wilfully closing your ears and eyes off to try to pretend humility.
Jesus has made God knowable. Not all of God. But everything is true about God.
As we already saw from Matthew’s gospel - Jesus has made God the Father available to us.
God is Three Persons Working Together so:
5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”
God the Father wants us to listen to Jesus who is God the Son.
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—
17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
God the Son, Jesus, will ask God the Father, and he will give God the Holy Spirit.
26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.
God the Father sends God the Holy Spirit in God the Son’s name - to teach us. God is at work revealing God to you and me.
Because the Father is God … we’re God’s children,
Because the Son is God … God is knowable
What benefit of the Spirit being God?
// That feeling of being utterly alone…
18 For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.
The Spirit gives us free access to God the Father. God the Holy Spirit - united always with God the Father and God the Son.
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you.
15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
Anybody who trusts Jesus receives God the Holy Spirit - the personal presence of God joins you.
But God is not made up of 3 parts, but three inseperable persons. Whre the Spirit is the Son and Father are too.
Listen to Jesus:
23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.
We will come.
No Christian is alone. You are not alone.
Not an orphan. Not in the dark.
Because the Father is God .. we can be his children.
Because the Son is God … God is knowable.
Because the Spirit is God … we are not alone.
‘Everytime I think of the ONE [God], my mind is drawn to the Three [Persons]. Every thing I think of the Three [persons] my mind is drawn to the ONE [God]’ - Gregory Nazianzen
Knowing God like this is good for us. And should lead to worship.
