The Triune God
Text: John 16:12-15
Title: The Triune God
Thesis: The inter-relationship of God points out the importance of living in relationship with others.
Time: Sermon Series –The Three-in-One God
Ponder with me for a moment how large and expansive is the universe. Beginning with the solar system –at the speed of light, 186,000 miles a second, sunlight takes eight minutes to reach the planet earth. That same light takes five more hours to reach the farthest planet in our solar system. After leaving the solar system that same sunlight must travel at the speed of light for four years and four months to reach the next star in the universe. That’s a distance of 40 trillion kilometers –but still mere shoutin’ distance in the universe! Our sun resides in the Milky Way Galaxy, which is shaped like a flying saucer, flat with a bulge in the center. Our sun is roughly ¾ of the way to the edge of the galaxy. To get a feel for that distance, if our solar system were one inch across, the distance to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy would be 379 miles. Our galaxy contains hundreds of billions of starts. Yet, the Milky Way is but one of roughly one trillion galaxies in the universe. There are twenty galaxies in what is called our local group. The next sort of grouping in the universe is called a super cluster of galaxies. Within our super cluster, the nearest cluster of galaxies, called Virgo, is 50 million light years away. A light year is the distance light travels in one year. To get a feel for the distance of one light year, if you drove your car at 55 miles per hour, it would take you 12.2 million years to travel one light year. Astronomers estimate that the distance across the universe is roughly 40 billion light years and that there are roughly 100 billion trillion stars. What a universe God has created.
The immense size of the universe can make us feel isolated and lonely on our small planet earth. And yet, according to the Bible, God created all things, especially humans, with the intention that creation would shout out in praise and enjoy living in relationship with God.
Relationship –it’s the reason God created the universe; relationship is the reason why God created us and so relationships are an important part of our makeup as humans. Strangely, ironic even, is that today with instant global communication via e-mail and the internet and cell phones, many people report they feel isolated and cut off from others. There is a need for individuals, for nations, for neighborhoods to go back and practice that most foundational of ideas, relationships.
It’s probably too philosophical a subject for a sermon, but it’s an important subject, “What did God do before the heavens and the earth were created?” If nothing existed, except God, what did God do? According to the Bible, God was not stagnant, doing nothing, rather, the Bible tells us that before creation, God enjoyed inter-relationship. Between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit existed a complete and harmonious relationship. So much so, that God decided to share this relationship with other creatures. We are created to live in relationship with God, to live in relationship with all of creation, to live in relationship with all our brothers and sisters on planet earth.
In John 16 Jesus is explaining to the disciples that he will go to the city of Jerusalem, and that he will not come out alive. Rather, he is going to be crucified. Having traveled around as followers of Jesus for some three years, the lives of the disciples had been radically transformed. In no way do they want Jesus to leave them, Jesus has done so much to reveal to them about who God is, about how to love other people, how can they continue to grow in their understanding and relationship with God and others should Jesus leave them? Jesus’ answer –there is still a lot they need to know, a lot yet to be revealed to them, stepping in to fill Jesus’ place will be the Holy Spirit.
What’s most interesting in this passage from John 16:12-15 is the explanation Jesus gives of the relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and how the three persons of the Godhead work in harmony so that we, too, can grow in our relationships.
For the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking more specifically at the trinity, how is God one, yet three? What does each person of the triune Godhead do, and how do we enjoy relationship with the Father? With the Son? With the Holy Spirit? And from that, better understanding how God enjoys relationship, distinct as separate as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, yet unified and one as God, we can better understand how we can be separate and unique individuals, yet enjoy a common bond and beginning as creatures of God.
If we really want to enjoy life, if we want to be joyous and happy, then one of the primary goals of our lives should be deepening our relationships. The benefits to having good relationships are endless. Even the Journal of the American Medical Association reports health benefits to having good relationships. They write, “Building on a dozen studies correlating friendship and fellowship with health, a new study has found that people with a broad array of social ties are significantly less likely to catch colds than those with sparse social networks.” Another source, the New York Times writes, “The incidence of infection among people who knew many different kinds of people was nearly half that among those who were relatively isolated, the researchers reported. The lack of diverse social contracts was the strongest of the risk factors for colds that were examined, including smoking, low vitamin C intake and stress.” Researchers have found similar health benefits from community for heart disease patients. One study “found that heart disease patients with few social ties are six times as likely to die within six months as those with many relatives, friends and acquaintances.” Reportedly, one of the main beneficiaries of a broadened network of relationships is our immune system. Another study reported that a person’s immune response to vaccines increases with the strength of social support.
Oh, how important are relationships. A man named Chuck Wall worked as a human relations instructor at Bakersfield College in California. He was watching the news one day when a cliché from a broadcaster stuck in his mind: “Another random act of senseless violence.” Wall got an idea. He gave an unusual assignment to his students. They were to do something out of the ordinary to help someone and then write an essay about it. Then Wall dreamed up a bumper sticker that said, “Today, I will commit one random act of senseless kindness . . . Will You?” The students sold the bumper stickers, which a bank and union paid to have printed, for one dollar each, and the profits went to a county Braille center. For his random act of kindness one student paid his mother’s utility bills. Another student bought thirty blankets from the Salvation Army and gave them to homeless people gathered under a bridge. The idea took hold. The bumper sticker was slapped on all 113 county patrol cars. It was trumpeted from pulpits, in schools, and in professional associations. After seeing the success of the idea, Chuck Wall commented, “I had no idea it would erupt like it has. I had no idea our community was in such need of something positive.” In this negative and dark world, we each can do acts of kindness to bring some light.”
Today, how are your relationships? How is your relationship with God? How is your relationship with your family? Your friends? How is your relationship with people radically different than yourself? Today, can you do a random act of kindness to make your relationship with someone else stronger?