Category: Trinity

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Exhortation to Worship: The Trinity and Meaning

We have come a long way from those early centuries of the Church. Our society no doubt has fallen for the pluralistic trap. Those things which the Church fought so hard to maintain are things that the churches fear to talk about today. This is Trinity Sunday, so we are discussing a subject that is rarely talked about in churches across this country, unless it is in the context of arguing against a cultist at your front door. Even then, most people, to quote Flannery O’Connor find the Trinity so incomprehensible that it is not worth their time. But in a few moments when I call you to rise and worship God in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit, you will realize that the Trinity extends to you an invitation that is not incomprehensible to you. It is actually the only thing that makes sense.

The right question is not only what is the Trinity, but who is the Trinity. The Trinity is not just something to be explained, but someone to be adored. And when this Tri-unity calls us into worship, we are not being called by an abstract Being, but by a Personal God who reveals Himself in Father, Son, and Spirit.

On this Trinity Sunday, we are considering what it means to move, live, and have our Being in God himself. We are Trinitarians, and everything about being a Trinitarian matters to us this morning.

No matter what direction our society might take us, no matter how many gods they may offer us, we know that there is no other God, but the God revealed in the Scriptures: Father, Son, and Spirit. Apart from this God, our existence and our worship are meaningless. The Trinity is the only way the world contains any meaning, because the Trinity created the world with meaning, and to deny the Godhead is to deny meaning.

This is the God we worship; the God who gave our lives meaning, and the One who calls us into His presence on this Lord’s Day.

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The Trinity and Social Theory

Karen Kilby sees some dangers in using the Trinity as an analogy or model for social theory. She is concerned that the dominance of one particular model over others can actually prove harmful. She opines that once we view the Trinity as framework  community, we end up believing that we have a special grasp of the Trinity. She goes on to assert that it is not erroneous to employ the Trinity as the foundation for different ideas and practices–even community–but that we cannot define the Trinity simply as community, since it limits the Triune expression. As Augustine observed, “once we think we have the Trinity figured out, you know you got it wrong.”

The danger of limiting the Trinity to community, she observes, is the danger of tri-theism: believing that the Trinity is composed of three Gods. She sounds the alarm, but also affirms that there is some validity to the Trinity as a social model. Another danger of using the Trinitarian model as social models for everyday relationships is that we end forgetting that the goal is not in the social theorizing, but in the worshiping of the God who is Three and One. The entire conversation is quite helpful.

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Trinitarian Hospitality, A Parishioner’s Reflections

On reflecting on my sermon on Biblical Hospitality, one of my parishioners, Gracie Scott, offered some thoughts and applications based on her study of the issue framed by a Trinitarian model:

God, the three in one, is hospitably life giving, so how are we to be also?

Triune God – Father, Christ, Holy Spirit

FATHER: Breaths life into man (6th day)

Man: Gen. 1:28 Christians are to be fathers as well (parenting as a type of hospitality)

CHRIST: Justification, He awakens the soul through His blood

Man: Welcome the lost into our homes that they may see and hear the Good News (eating with the tax collectors who are in need a Physician, Mark 2:17)

HOLY SPIRIT: Sanctification – aids and speaks throughout our life after justification

Man: Fellowship with fellow believers. “Iron sharpening iron” (Prov. 27:17) throughout sanctification.

Another parishioner, Kandace Trotter, summarized in her senior thesis the contrast between selfishness and the God who delights in hosting:

The selfishness pervasive today does not take into account that God is hospitable, and each person of the Trinity acts selflessly toward the other, always serving one another in love (Smith 22, 41). Just as the Trinity is serving one another in love, so we should be serving with hearts overflowing with love. Hospitality is an act of physical and spiritual selflessness, so let us take this virtue and apply it in our daily lives, seeing that selflessness and hospitality flow out of love and respect for the Triune nature of God (Peterson 17).

Well done, ladies!

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Trinity Sunday Sermon: Heavenly Worship That Changes the World, Isaiah 6:1-7

Sermon Audio

People of God, this is Trinity Sunday. Of course, every Sunday is Trinity Sunday, since we worship the God who is One and Three. But today, rather than assume the Trinity in everything, we are going to consider the Trinity; particularly in how God relates to worship in Isaiah 6.

It is not enough to ride around with our “God bless America” stickers, because virtually, the “God” of Americans is becoming less and less the God of the Bible. You do not have to peruse too long the popular level discussions on religion to discover that there is a new aggressive atheism in our society. I say aggressive, because the modern atheist is no longer hiding in a suit in small secular universities. Now, they are the superstars of major universities. Students flock all over the world to study under them. Christians are usually marginalized in their classes.[1] Christopher Hitchens—who died recently—was known for his winsome rhetoric; Richard Dawkins makes dogmatic assertions about the progress of science as if it were the gospel; Sam Harris possesses a youthful and persuasive appeal; and, of course, the ever insufferable comedian Bill Maher. These are only a few names that are part of this “New Atheism.” They are a passionate group of people with an open agenda to the world, and their agenda is “to make the Christian God look as imaginary as Zeus or the pink unicorn.” In light of their constant media appearances, they may actually be making a few converts on the way. But, of course, we in the evangelical world have nothing to fear. After all, over 80% of Americans believe in God. They fight vehemently to get God back in the government schools; they fight so that prayer will once again be re-instituted in these schools. They fight for the God-agenda. So, what have we to fear? The answer is everything, for if we fight in the name of an unnamed God, we are no better than the atheist. We may make a few converts on the way, but these converts will be like seeds which fall into the ground and are swallowed up. Continue reading “Trinity Sunday Sermon: Heavenly Worship That Changes the World, Isaiah 6:1-7”

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Exhortation: What is the Trinity?

I have often sat quietly as I heard people begin a sentence with these dreadful words: “The Trinity is like…” I have heard the Trinity being compared to eggs, ice, ancient three-headed gods, and to the “C” note on the piano. But these illustrations break down at some point, and when they break, great is the break. Let me exhort you to be cautious with trying to explain the Trinity by comparing it to your favorite snacks, or something like it.

Use the language God has given us. What is the Trinity? The Trinity is Father, Son, and Spirit. These three are one. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God. The Trinity is perfect and loving. The Trinity is the pattern for all of life.

The Trinity met at the baptism of Jesus when the Father affirmed the Son, and when the Spirit descended like a dove. The Trinity was at creation as the Father speaking, the Spirit hovering, and the Son bringing light. The Trinity is and always be the center of everything. As the hymn-writer says:

On Thee, at the creation, the light first had its birth;
On Thee, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth;
On Thee, our Lord, victorious, the Spirit sent from heaven,
And thus on Thee, most glorious, a triple light was given.

Let us worship this great and Triune God.

Prayer: Let us Pray
[to the one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit
that our lives may bear witness to our faith]
Father,
you sent your Word
to bring us truth
and your Spirit to make us holy.
Through them we come to know
the mystery of your life.
Help us to worship you,
one God in three Persons,
by proclaiming and living our faith in you.
We ask you this, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
one God, true and living, for ever and ever.

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Communion Meditation: The One and the Many

This Trinitarian life is given for us in many ways. The God who is Three and One gives us Bread and Wine in the midst of the congregation. The Oneness of this body is joined with the Many bodies worldwide forming the glorious body of Christ.

As we eat and drink, remember our oneness in Christ, but also remember our diversity. We are not robots made the same way with the same personalities, rather we are image-bearers, or better, worshiping humanity, made differently, but exalting as One the One who is One and Three.

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The God who is Three and One

In preparing my sermon on Isaiah 6, Phil Walters pointed me to this great quote from St. Pope Gregory the Great:

When Isaiah also praising the unity of the Trinity, he says that the voices of the seraphim cried out: Holy, holy, holy. However, lest he should appear to sever the unity of the divine nature, he added, Lord God of hosts. He did not say “Lords” or “Gods” but Lord God. In that way he indicated that the one who was three times called Holy was one God.

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What is Trinity Sunday?

The Church celebrates this Sunday the blessed, Holy Trinity. God is Three and One. In the calendar, Trinity Sunday follows Pentecost. Pentecost was the pouring of the Spirit (The Third Person of the Holy Trinity) upon an infant Church. Pentecost enabled the Bride of Christ to be the instrument of change in the world. She has become the fiery sword that conquers evil and puts foreign armies to flight. Pentecost was the undoing of Babel. The unclean lips of Babel have become–by the Spirit– the clean lips of the messengers of Yahweh going to all the ends of the earth.

The Trinity seals this mission with divine approval. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have covenanted together to see that the divine promises are fulfilled. Trinity Sunday is the renewed call to go into the world not in the name of some unknown God, but in the Name of the True God who reveals Himself in Three Persons.

Furthermore, Trinity Sunday is the Church’s Catholic response to disunity. To believe in an apostolic and catholic Church is to affirm the Trinity. There can be no true unity without this affirmation. The Trinity shapes our catholicity. We are bound by it, and anything else is a cosmic betrayal. But beyond that, it is also the Church’s response to cults who thrive on denying the sacred Trinity. The Trinity is the Church’s proclamation that the Christian faith is not just any other faith, but a unique faith centered on the divine covenant made from eternity.  The Father sends the Son, the Father and the Son send the Spirit. The Father loves the Son, the Spirit loves the Son and the Father. There is love forever within the relationship of the Trinity. In fact, love is Trinitarian. There can be no love in a God who is only One. This God has no equal love to share. But in the Trinity, the Father loves the Son equally, and the Son and the Father love the Spirit equally. Therefore, a denial of the Trinity–as the cults do–is a denial of true love.

Trinity Sunday also exhorts us to trust in God alone. This God who is love loves us and incorporates us into this Trinitarian love. Because He is love, we too are called to model this divine love in our communities.

We celebrate the Trinity because we are shaped as a Trinitarian people: to love one another and to enter into this eternal feast with God as head, and we as body.

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The Trinity and the Explicit Statement Fallacy

The Dispensational rush to explicit statements, in order to prove one point or another fails miserably. This is particularly striking when it comes to the doctrine of the Trinity, and by implication, when it comes to the eternal covenant of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Ralph Smith argues that “some dispensationalists forsake the theological methodology of implications, which gave them the doctrine of the Trinity, and  flee to the demand for explicit statements? Is this not a counsel of despair (41).”