Trinity Sunday 2007
Sermon: “Is There Room for Three More?”
Grace, peace and mercy to you from God the Father and our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ.
Our text for this morning comes from the Gospel of John, the fourteenth chapter. “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.” Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, “Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us, and not to the world?” Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words. And the word that you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. “These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”
Is There Room For Three More?
Grace, peace and mercy to you from God the Father and our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ.
I chose the text for this morning’s worship because I believe that it gives us a great picture of the Trinity and the blessing that it is in our walk with the Lord. I continued to study the text and as I did, my mind wandered a little bit as it has want to do on occasion. I thought about those good ole’ days in the late 60’s and early 70’s. I was attending college and one of the pastimes that we, as dedicated students, had, was to find out how many people we could get into a 69 VW Beetle or how many students a phone booth could really hold. At these highly educational activities, there was always a person who kept asking the question, “Is there room for more?” I know what you’re thinking! How in the world could this have anything at all to do with the text that we are about to explore. My prayer is that we will find that not only do we have room in our lives for the living Trinity, we may even want to get rid of some of the things that we have clung to far too long.
In this account of St. John we find ourselves on the heels of Jesus’ prophecy about Peter’s denial. This warning is followed by Jesus’ promise of a place set aside in the Father’s heavenly kingdom for every believer. Our Savior, knowing the hearts of His disciples and that they are a reflection of our own hearts also gives them and us the promise of the Holy Spirit. This turns out to be a hard teaching, for it causes us to realize how helpless we really are when it comes to our salvation.
Jesus teaches us that we need a helper. Not one that we can hire or buy, but a helper to keep us in the Way and to guide us to our heavenly home. Therein lies the problem. Jesus promises us that that He will live in us and through us and quite frankly, that is a scary proposition. Most of us are so full of ourselves that it is hard to imagine there is enough room for Him in our lives. After all, didn’t God the Father write His law in our hearts and in our minds so that all would know Him? Now I don’t know about you, but those Ten Commandments crowd my lifestyle just a little. When I want something like what my neighbor has, bam! There the ninth commandment is, staring me right in the face. And I really wish, like many of you at times, I’m sure, that we could vote that pesky eighth commandment off the list. So many times we find it impossible to keep our tongues. It’s so easy to tell a little white lie about someone that will make us look better and the person we are talking about look just a little bit worse. If we could just vote that one off the list we could say anything we want and not worry. Now, that’s just two examples. There are eight more commandments that are just as pesky. Can you see why I think there just isn’t room for three more? There’s hardly room for God here. How do we make room? What can we do?
That brings us to the second part of our text. Jesus tells us that if we only love Him, we will be loved by the Father. In fact, even more! He will make Himself known to the believers and lovers of God. Judas, one of the disciples, not Iscariot, asked the question that the world of non-believers ask every day; “You, Christians! So high and mighty! If your God is so great why do you know Him and we don’t?” Well, I have to admit that isn’t exactly what Judas asked. He wanted to know from Jesus that if He made Himself known to believers, why wouldn’t the world know Him too? The answer Jesus gives probably gives you, as well as myself, great distress. Jesus says, “If you keep my Word, God the Father and I will know that you love us, and guess what? We’ll move in with you and make our home with you.” Normally, having a house guest is fun. But is there room for two more? I imagine my life is much like yours. And Jesus, Himself teaches early in His ministry, that if we keep the Law, we must keep it in its entirety. That if we bear evil thoughts of body or mind, we have already trespassed and offended the heavenly Father in a way that will bring utter destruction to body and soul. And then Jesus says in summary to the Commandments, “And the greatest of these is to love the Lord with all your heart, your mind and your soul. And the second is just as important, love your neighbor as yourself.” If you are like me, I’m not sure I can rub elbows with someone like this 24-7. Can you?
Adding to this confusion is our third houseguest, the Helper that Jesus promises will never leave, The Spirit of Truth. Now this friend of ours seems to be quite the busy body. Comforting, reminding, prompting, motivating and enlightening our lives so that we might live in the Way with confidence and joy. My question is what will the neighbors think? The Spirit of Truth is relentless. He causes us to become aware of the needs of others instead of constantly filling ourselves with our own selfish wants. He makes aware of the knowledge and power of God instead of motivating us to rely on our own wisdom. And last but certainly not least, The Spirit of Truth convicts us of our sin, when all we want to do is to escape or put the blame for our thoughts, words and deeds on someone else. How can we ever survive with these Three in our lives? I guess I just don’t have room for three more!
Brothers and sisters there is an answer to our dilemma and our text today provides it. In the midst of our fear and trepidation of the consequences of receiving the Trinity, Jesus says, “Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.” In addition, when was the last time that a houseguest came to you with the greeting, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.” Have you thought about the great gift the Trinity is in your life. Because of God’s great mercy, the monster of uncertainty that the Commandments bring into our lives is slain. No longer do we have to wonder if we have done enough, are we doing it right, have we given enough, is God noticing the way we are keeping His Law? It is Jesus that stills the angry sea of uncertainty. No longer need we be afraid of the secrets or the guilt and shame of the past that takes up so much room in our spiritual lives. One of our houseguests went to the cross and bore that burden, once for all. It was Jesus who does the house cleaning in our lives. Not only is He able to do this, He is willing to do it out of love for us. It is God’s work in our lives, through His Son Jesus Christ that empties the garbage, the sin that plagues us. It is the Holy Spirit that causes us to take notice of our plight and run to Jesus with a repentant heart to seek relief.
Friends, we are not talking about the things of this world when we ask the question, “Is there room for three more?” We are talking about the way of truth and life, even life everlasting. Not only doe we have room for the Trinity in our lives, we can praise God that He sent His only Son to deliver us from the bondage and mess that we continually make out of our Spiritual houses. Receive the Lord with a humble and repentant heart and He will lighten your load, cleanse you from all unrighteousness and lead you into the joy of life in Christ, even to life everlasting. Amen.