Why is the Trinity important?

Last week we marked Pentecost, this week is another special day on the Christian calendar. It is called Trinity Sunday. Each year, we take at least one Sunday to study the doctrine of the Triune God we serve and worship. Some of you might be thinking, “Great, this is my first Sunday back to worship and he decides to talk about something nobody understands. Figures.” I want us to abandon the thinking that the Trinity is an unimportant and pointless study. The goal of the message this morning is for you to understand the significance of the revelation that God exists as Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is a practical doctrine for daily living.

What is the Trinity?

The doctrine of the Trinity means that there is one God who eternally exists as three distinct Persons — the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The earliest Christian confessions contained affirmations of the Trinity to guard against misinterpreting the doctrine. The Apostles’ Creed is structured in a trinitarian way affirming the belief in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Nicene Creed affirmed it. Our Baptist Faith & Message contains it.

We can define it, but it is difficult to fathom how it works. Some have even argued that the Trinity is not a biblical concept. They deny the Trinitarian nature of God. They will tell you that there are no passages of Scripture which teach the Trinity. While it is true that no verse of Scripture contains the word “Trinity”; it is false to say no passages of Scripture affirms the doctrine of the Trinity. The word “trinity” is a Latin compound word and since the Bible was primarily written in Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, it is clear why the word does not appear in the Scriptures.

Some will point to Deuteronomy 6:4 to refute the concept of the Trinity.

Deuteronomy 6:4 CSB

4 “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

However, this objection is easily dealt with when you understand the nature of the progressive revelation of God throughout the Scriptures.

Several passages of Scripture clearly teach us the concept of the Trinity. At Jesus’ baptism, found in Matthew 3, the Trinity was revealed. Jesus talked about going to the Father and sending the Holy Spirit throughout his ministry on earth. The Great Commission commands us to baptize people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit which puts the three distinct persons of God on the same level.

Matthew 28:19–20 CSB

19 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, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

These examples, among others, teach us the Triune nature of Yahweh. This is what I want us to focus on this morning. I don’t want this to be like math class. Do you remember math class? Are there any math teachers here this morning? I think every math teacher has heard this statement. Ready? “Why do we have to learn this when we are never going to use it?” Okay, maybe that was me talking to my math teachers, but I always wondered about it. I am sure there are some professions which make use of algebra and geometry, but I was quite convinced I wasn’t going into one of the fields which needed to know things like that. Anyway, I don’t want us to think of the doctrine of the Trinity like math class. The Trinity is important. The Trinity is significant in practical daily life.

First, the Trinity demonstrates the relational nature of God.

The Trinity demonstrates the relational nature of God.

Before creation, before the world began, before anything was made, God existed in a perfect relationship as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God did not create the universe because He was bored or wanted something to take care of. God did not create the universe because He wanted to talk to someone or have companionship. God already existed in perfect relationship as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God is relational in His very essence and He desires a relationship with you.

God so deeply desires a relationship with you; Jesus came to redeem you and deliver you from your sin, so your relationship with Him can be restored. You see, all of us, have a sin problem. Our sin, the things we do wrong, separates us from God - just like when someone does you wrong, your relationship with the person is broken until you go to the person or the person comes to you to fix the problem. The issue is we can’t get to God. We can’t fix the relationship. Therefore, Jesus came to restore our relationship with God. Jesus is the Way to relationship restoration. Jesus died on the cross and shed His blood because God’s law demanded death for sin. If Jesus’ didn’t die, you would have to die. However, Jesus died for you to restore the relationship God wants with you. He rose from the dead to give you the gift of eternal life.

Our God is involved and present with us. The plan from the beginning was to be with us. Jesus came to make the way for God to be with us. When Jesus returns, he will take you home to be with him.

Just as God is a relational being, we are relational beings. God said in the beginning that it is not good for man to be alone. One thing this pandemic brought to light is that we are relational creatures. We have a natural desire to be physically present with other people. Technology alone can’t fill that need and desire. We need each other.

Second, the Trinity is a model of voluntary submission for us to follow.

The Trinity is a model of voluntary submission for us to follow.

Jesus voluntarily submitted himself to the will of the Father. He knew what was going to happen. He knew he would endure torture, suffering, and death on a Roman cross. He knew the people he came to save would reject him and revile him, yet he submitted to the Father’s will. He struggled with it to some degree because in the Garden of Gethsemane he prayed three times for the cup to pass from him. If you are wondering what cup Jesus was referring to when he asked the Father to have the cup pass from him, it was the cup of God’s wrath.

God is holy. Sin must be punished. Jesus took God’s wrath against sin in his own body when he suffered and died on the cross. The cup of God’s wrath was intended for you and me. We were sinners, objects of God’s wrath, and scheduled for destruction. God’s plan was to avoid all that by having Jesus die in our place on the cross. Jesus voluntarily submitted to the plan of Father to redeem humanity.

The Holy Spirit also models submission.

John 15:26 CSB

26 “When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father—he will testify about me.

The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father. His role is to further reveal the truth about Jesus to us through illuminating the Scriptures.

John 16:13 CSB

13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come.

Submission is not about capability or capacity. Submission is about being yielded. We need to have a spirit of yieldedness. Wives are to submit to their husbands. Husbands are to love their wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for us. We are to submit to one another as we talked about a few weeks ago. If the Almighty God can practice submission, then we need to do so as well.

Third, the Trinity is a model of unity.

The Trinity is a model of unity.

There is a passage in John 17 which is a source of constant amazement to me. Jesus, at the end of his earthly ministry, takes time to pray for us. Look at what he prays.

John 17:20–23 CSB

20 “I pray not only for these, but also for those who believe in me through their word. 21 May they all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us, so that the world may believe you sent me. 22 I have given them the glory you have given me, so that they may be one as we are one. 23 I am in them and you are in me, so that they may be made completely one, that the world may know you have sent me and have loved them as you have loved me.

May they all be one as we are one. May their unity reflect our unity. Isn’t that incredible? The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are one. Through Christ, we are made one and we need to live in that reality. The implications of unity are profound. It means race, sex, socio-economic factors, nationality, and culture are not defining factors for God’s people. In Christ, these barriers are erased. We are to be one as God is one.

It doesn’t mean we lose our distinctives. God the Father is different from the Son and the Holy Spirit. God the Son is different from the Father and the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit is different from the Father and the Son. We too have our distinctives, but our unity is found in what we believe and what we do. Dissension, strife, slander, and attitudes which bring harm to the church are not glorifying to God. They are sin.

The relational nature of the Trinity teaches us the importance of the relationships in our lives. The voluntary submission of the Trinity reminds us of our need to have an attitude of submission. The unity of the Trinity models for us the spirit of unity we are to have. Finally, the Trinity reminds us to be humble.

The Trinity reminds us to be humble.

We must confess that the doctrine of the Trinity is something we cannot fully understand or explain. God has given us minds to think and reason. He has given us curiosity and a desire to explain what we experience. We feel a quest for knowledge and exploring the unexplored. We must remember and be conscious of our limits. We can only go so far in our understandings because we are limited beings. Also, we shouldn’t be tempted to think that one day we will understand the mysteries of universe.

I hear people say, “One day, when we get to heaven, we will understand it all.” I say, “Probably not.” We weren’t designed to know it all. We were designed to be dependent on God. He is limitless. We are and will always be limited. We are not little gods and will not become little gods. We are God’s creation and he made us for his glory. We must always remain humble. There are things we don’t understand and that’s okay. We do our best to explore God’s world and understand what he is doing, but we must never allow ourselves to become proud. Humility is an important life lesson.

James 4:6 CSB

6 But he gives greater grace. Therefore he says: God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

Let’s pray together.

Father God, we thank you for making us, sustaining us, and providing for us. We thank you for modeling for us unity and submission in the Holy Trinity. We thank you for the relationships we have in our lives and with you. May we never take them for granted. As explore your nature and character, may we be continually humbled by your greatness, majesty, and splendor. You are holy, Almighty God. In Jesus’ name I pray, Amen.

With your heads bowed and eyes closed in this time of reflection, earlier in this message I spoke about Jesus’ mission to come into this world to save sinners. When I spoke about that, you realize that you have never actually made the decision personally to accept Jesus as your Savior and Lord. You are not in a relationship with God. Let me tell you about who God is and the problem that we have. Our problem is our sin nature. We sin. We rebel against God’s ways. We do wrong things. Our sin separates us from God. This is amazing. God loved the world and he didn’t want us to remain dead in our sins. Sin leads to death. God doesn’t want anyone to die because he wants to be with us. The good news is that Jesus, who is God, came to earth and took on flesh. The Bible says that Jesus’ name would be Emmanuel, meaning God with us. Jesus who is perfect in every way became the sacrifice for the forgiveness of our sins. Jesus died in our place and rose from the grave to prove that everything he claimed is true. The Bible says that anyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. The Lord is Jesus. Anyone who calls on Jesus’ name will be saved. You will be forgiven of your sins and you will be transformed.

I believe there are people here today who need Jesus. You can’t work your way to him. You can’t be religious enough for him. You receive the free gift of eternal life through the grace of Jesus Christ. You call on his name and when you do, he will hear your prayer, forgive your sin, and make you clean. Your old life will be gone and your new life will begin. Come to Jesus this morning.

Pray with me, “Heavenly Father, forgive me of my sins, make me clean. I ask Jesus to be my Savior and to be the Lord of my life, first in every way. My life is not my own, I give it to you. Thank you for new life. In Jesus’ name, I pray.”

If you just prayed that prayer for the first time, would you raise your hand?

If you are listening online and you just prayed that prayer for the first time, please contact me through email.

Dr. Benjamin Karner - [e-mail]

Also, if you need prayer or have another need, please get in contact me. The church exists to reach the lost and minister in love to those in need. Close in Prayer.