What makes God, God? Trinity Sunday 2023

Good morning and welcome to Oldfield Free Church!

I’m Ian and it’s great to see you here. We will spend some time in song and contemplation

...before the message: What makes God, God?

If you’re new here welcome. Please do fill in our welcome card so we know how best to serve you and please take one of the leaflets on the table at the back and stay for a cuppa after the service and introduce yourself.

We’d appreciate it if you switch your mobiles to silence so we are not unnecessarily distracted during the service.

Let’s pray:

Lord Jehovah, Self-Existent One, we thank you that you created us, you know us and you love us. We are fully known and completely loved by you. Though we fail you, you have never turned your back on us, you remain faithful forever. Lord Jesus Christ, we praise you for your sacrificial love. You lived the perfect life we could never live and died the death that we deserved so that we can be forgiven and live for eternity with you. Holy Spirit, we thank you that you convict us of our sin, assure us of your forgiveness and empower us for our lives. Triune God, we glorify you today. Amen

Let me read Psalm 8

Psalm 8 (ESV)

1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? 5 Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, ...O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Holy, holy, holy

King of kings

Kids

I like detective mystery TV programmes, especially detective type ones like Sherlock, or Morse, or the more recent Vera, and you try and work it out before the end, and most times you fail or get it really early on. Of course, if you watched Colombo, there was no mystery to it except how did he catch them.

Well, there is a mystery that is hard to understand but let’s start with what I think is an easy question:

How many Gods are there? (One!)

The Bible says there is "One God and Father of all," but God is made up of three persons:

Do you know who they are?

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

That is what we call the Trinity. The Trinity is one God in three persons.

There are many illustrations, none of which are great but not one of them can explain perfectly but I do have something with me today that I hope you will remember

How many eggs do you see? One!

The first part is the shell

The next part you see is the egg white

Next, I am going to cut the egg in half and what do you see? The yellow yolk.

The egg has three parts — the shell, the white, and the yolk — but only ONE egg.

It is a very simple way to explain that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three persons but only ONE God! Mystery solved!

Chorus: Our God is a great big God

Notices & Offering & Prayer

All creatures of our God and king

Today is Trinity Sunday, as you would be aware if you have read the newsletter. And the short article there is helpful. Last year I did a sermon explaining the doctrine and I recommend rehearing that to grasp it more clearly. But I will do an overview today.

Whilst the word ‘Trinity’ does not appear in the bible it is very clearly taught throughout the Bible starting from the very first verse and chapter of the Bible…just for review, it says in

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

The name God there is Elohim which is plural but God is in the singular. In the next verse we meet another member of the Godhead:

Genesis 1:2 ESV

2 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 then we are told in

Genesis 1:26–27 ESV

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Let us. The Godhead, Three in One, right there. And in what way are we made in His image? My conclusion, in very brief terms, is that, unlike animals, we can commune with God, that God has given us many of the characteristics of God, in our ways of intelligence, creativity, appreciation of art and so much more. This image was damaged through sin but is being restored to us through the fact that those who are in Christ are new creations, and we are becoming more and more like His Son, and we shall truly be like Him when we meet Him, we shall be a restored image of God.

And, just in case you noticed that a particular member of the Godhead was not mentioned in creation, we are told in

John 1:1–3 ESV

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.

So, we see the Godhead at work in Three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Following on from the June newsletter article where it appears that the Godhead separates in the sense that God the Son was sent to earth to become Man, and the Holy Spirit, as we saw last week, was poured out upon believers at Pentecost. And by the way, to my Macedonian and Eastern Friends - Have a blessed Pentecost today, for they follow a slightly different calendar to us.

Whilst it is true that the Son came to become a man He was still fully Divine as well as fully Man. When Jesus was just a baby, and when He was asleep and weary in His travellings, Jesus was still, as God, sustaining the Universe by the Word of His power. We saw recently that Jesus could be tempted because He is a Man, but He could never sin because He is God. In fact, He is the One who can forgive sin which, of course, no one but God can do.

Let me be clear: The Father is God. Jesus, the Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. All are exactly Divine. God is God and is God together as 3 Persons. They all have the exact eternal presence, power, understanding and so on. Each Person is Fully God and at no point in history or out of history has this not been true.

Let me ask you: Who raised Jesus from the dead? Father, Son or Holy Spirit?

When One of the Trinity acts in the Bible they all do so as Three in One, in unity and purpose.

Let me show you Who raised Jesus from the dead:

The Father: Acts 2 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

The Son: John 10:17-8 For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.

The Holy Spirit: Rom 8:11 the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you

And how amazing is that. The One who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us!

What I want to show is that the whole Bible is the Godhead at work as One.

Then we also need to be clear on another important issue:

They are not each other.

The Father is NOT the Son or the Holy Spirit

The Son is NOT the Father of the Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is NOT the Father or the Son.

To speak of the one God of the Bible is to speak of the Father, Son and Spirit - they are each God, but they are not each other. Brandon D. Smith

God is never divided or separated. Again this means that even though the Holy Spirit is here and even though Jesus came in the flesh, at no point were they not in Heaven. God is God remember. He is everywhere at once. It is one of the characteristics of God, Omnipresent - always everywhere, Omniscient - all knowing, Omnipotent - all powerful. And as Jesus is fully God then these attributes must also belong to Him. Now our minds are boggling!

And is that not what makes God God?

I read at the beginning:

Genesis 1:1 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

And do you see what is here? In the beginning - Time, He created Heavens - Space, He created earth - matter. Space, time and matter are all creations of the Godhead. Which means that He is not contained by these three things of Time, Space and Matter.

God is eternal. He is outside of time. This is hard for us to understand. Because we are used to time having a past, present and future but not God. He can see all of time in one go because He is not part of time. This is why when God says something is going to happen He knows with absolute certainty. Yet, He entered our timeline, our history by His Son. And when in Heaven we shall not experience time for time itself will have an end, or will it? We’ll find out. We have been given eternal life - never ending…so will time exist I still do not know with certainty.

He is also outside of space. The universe is finite. It has a beginning and will have an end. It may seem the universe has no start point or end point but it does. And one day it will roll up like a scroll. He can see all the universe in one go because He is not part of this universe. He knows all the stars names. All trillion trillion trillion of them and much more besides. And He knows all of us by name and He knows who are His.

He is also outside of matter because, we are told, God is Spirit. Yet He came in the flesh in Jesus Christ.

The overwhelming love of God towards us knows no bounds. He truly has done everything to bring us back to Him.

The God who is above all and therefore transcendent and should be beyond our reach has become immanent, that is, near to us, so that we can reach out to Him. And this was possible only because Jesus died for our sins and rose again.

As was said in the film yesterday: Who do you say I am? Is He God? Is He your Saviour?

I have heard it said that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross is child-abuse, and I suppose it would be if we have a badly mistaken understanding of the Godhead. It was not the Father imposing His will on His Son, in the way we would understand from a human perspective, but it was Father, Son and Holy Spirit agreeing together in unity the course of action needed to redeem humankind.

When we think of our Triune God then we must know that there is nothing that He cannot do short of going against His own character.

Then we must also know He is worthy of our worship, our awe, our never ending gratitude.

And we have been invited into this unity to share in the fellowship that they have had for eternity, and this was demonstrated in sending His Son, and then His Spirit into our lives, and concluding the Bible with the ultimate desire of God:

Revelation 21:3–4 ESV

3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

God is seeking those who will worship in spirit and in truth. Are you such a person?

And again in

Revelation 22:17 ESV

17 The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.

Revelation 22:20 ESV

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!

Song Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Benediction

Let us end with that Trinitarian Benediction that we all know...

2 Corinthians 13:14 ESV

14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.