Our Triune God

From the archives. Sermon originally preached on Trinity Sunday 2011.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is Trinity Sunday. From the late 12th century onward, the church has chosen the Sunday after Pentecost to celebrate the nature of our triune God, a term that simply refers to God in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. True Christian worship is always Trinitarian and this morning I want to look briefly at why it is important for us as Christians to celebrate and worship this triune God of ours. To do that, we will need to do a quick survey of the story of God’s plan of redemption found in Scripture.

In our OT lesson from Genesis this morning, we are told that God created all things good, both creation and creatures, humans included. If God created everything good, why then is there so much brokenness, suffering, and deformity in the world? For example, were this spring’s batch of deadly tornadoes a good thing? How about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan? What about children born with birth defects or the host of diseases and maladies that afflict us? Are we to look at them as good and God-intended?

Of course not! Because Scripture also tells us that God’s good creation was despoiled by human sin. When humans decided to try and elevate ourselves to God’s level and take his place, it was a game changer for us and for all of God’s creation, and we have been living with the consequences of our sin ever since. It is a heartbreaking story but it is a story that is going to turn out well.

Why is that? Because Scripture, both old and new testaments, is the story of how God intends to use his people (cf. Genesis 12.2-3) climaxing ultimately in Jesus to put to right his fallen and broken creation and creatures. Scripture will likely not make much sense to you if you do not read its stories in the context of this grand, overarching narrative. Neither will you likely begin to comprehend the triune nature of God—at least as best as we humans are able—until you try to understand it in the context of seeing God at work restoring his broken and fallen creatures and creation. Only then can we begin to make sense of how God has made himself known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

When we worship God the Father, we worship our Creator, the Source and Author of all life. God created us in his Image to be stewards of his creation and to have relationship with him, and we must never forget that. Genesis 1:31 poignantly reminds us of this when it says that after God created humans he looked at his creation and saw it was very good, not just “good” as God had declared his other creative work to be. But then the Fall came and human sin was a disaster for both humans and God’s good creation. Genesis 3 tells us that our sin brought about God’s curse to both his creatures and creation, and we wince and lose hope over that. If God is against us, how can we possibly survive?

But it is precisely at this moment of despair that we see God pursuing his sinful and fallen creatures in the garden, wondering where they are because they are hiding from him (Genesis 3:8-9). As we watch this lonely God of ours searching for his beloved but rebellious human creatures and wondering where they have gone, we begin to realize the pain our sin and separation has caused him. And we begin to see the very heart of God, the heart of a Father, not the heart of a merciless judge who relentlessly pursues us in order to destroy us.

In Isaiah and the other books of the prophets we hear God’s continuing anguish over his sinful and rebellious people expressed through his prophets (there’s that human agency thingy again) as they warn Judah that their idolatrous ways can lead only to death, and plead with them to repent of their sins before it is too late. This is especially heartbreaking because we remember again God’s intent to redeem his fallen world through Abraham and his descendants. However, Israel had become part of the problem instead of God’s intended solution. But then in Isaiah 53-55 we read about God’s remarkable grand plan, a plan he had from all eternity, to overcome our human weaknesses, to redeem both humans and creation from the bondage of sin and death, and to free us to become the humans he created us to be.

Isaiah 53 speaks of the Suffering Servant who will bear the punishment for our sins so that God’s justice may be fully satisfied. In Isaiah 54 we read about the new covenant God will make with his people because the work of his Servant has been fulfilled. Then in Isaiah 55, we read of God’s plan to redeem his fallen creation in a mighty act of restoration, not unlike that which we read about in Revelation 21-22. God is not only going to redeem us, he is going to reverse the curse in Genesis 3:17-18 and set all of his creation aright. In each of these stories we see a God who loves us and all of his creation passionately, and has compassion for his sinful creatures beyond our ability to completely comprehend it all.

Then in the NT, we see God’s plan for the redemption of humanity and all creation continue to unfold in history and reach its climax in Jesus of Nazareth. That is why we worship God the Son. For the NT tells the story of how God in Christ intends to redeem his wayward and rebellious creatures. God loves us so much that he took on our flesh, lived among us, allowed himself to be tortured and hung on a cross to die a horrible death for us. In doing so, he bore the punishment for our sins and made it possible for us to live with him, now and forever. As we read the story of Christ’s passion and death, we are suddenly struck with the awesome realization that the Suffering Servant in Isaiah 53 was God himself! Incredible! But it had to be this way because only a human can fully bear the punishment for humanity’s sin and rebellion and that is one of the main reasons why God became human for us.

However, the Good News doesn’t stop there, does it, because the cross is not the end of the story. Had it been, there would be no Christian faith today. No, on the third day God raised Jesus from the dead and gave him a new resurrection body. In doing so, God validated who Jesus is and confirmed to us that his promises to redeem his broken and fallen creation are true. The resurrection is God’s powerful testimony and promise to us that he has begun the final phase of his plan to restore us and all of his creation to what he intended it originally to be. I cannot quite imagine what this new creation will look like. None of us can. But I do know that there will be no more tears or sorrow or sickness or death or infirmity or deformity or suffering. How do I know that? Because the death and resurrection of Christ proves that God is true to his word.

But what about the interim or end times? The time between Jesus’ resurrection and the fulfillment of God’s plan of redemption? This is where God the Holy Spirit comes in. The wonderful thing about the Gospel is that it is no self-help remedy. God does for us what we cannot do ourselves and he promises never to leave or abandon us. As we saw last week, he does this primarily through his Holy Spirit until God in Jesus comes again to complete the restorative work he began at the resurrection. The Holy Spirit is God himself working in us, helping us in our infirmity, helping us grow in grace and faith, and guiding us to do the redemptive work he calls us to do in this world (there’s that human agency thingy again). And it is important that we do God’s work in this world because in the resurrection of Christ, we are reminded that God plans to restore his broken creation, that this world is important to him, and so it must be for us as well.

So what difference does worshiping a triune God make? What does it really matter in our daily lives? Just this. Worshiping our triune God reminds us that we have a God big enough to handle all the problems of his world. This gives us hope, even in the face of suffering and evil. We no longer have to ask what God is doing about all that is wrong with this world as it currently exists because we already know that in the death and resurrection of Christ he has taken on evil himself and defeated it, even if it is not yet fully realized or apparent to our senses and reason. That is where faith comes in, not a blind faith, but rather a faith based on the evidence from the biblical story of creation and salvation. Yes we must live with ambiguity and questions, especially the mystery of suffering and evil. But the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ are God’s mighty promises to us that we and all of creation are in the process of being restored to his original intention.

And as today’s creation narrative and Psalm remind us, since God in his infinite wisdom has given humans a major role in bringing his healing love and redemption to God’s broken creation, that means we have work to do right here and now as we await our final redemption. But we cannot be God’s Kingdom workers on our own because we are too profoundly broken. That is why God has given us the Holy Spirit to live in us and equip us to do the work he calls each of us to do. When we really believe this we can be confident that our efforts here on earth are not in vain because it is God himself working through us to accomplish his good will and purposes, both for us and for his creation.

This is why it is important for each of us to know God’s plan and story of redemption thoroughly. This, in turn, compels us to read our Bible on a regular basis so that we don’t lose our Christian hope and are reminded of God’s grand plan and our respective roles in it. For you see, if our work as Jesus’ agents of New Creation is not thoroughly grounded in our faith in him and driven by his Spirit living in us, our efforts end up being just another form of human activism that is doomed to fail. In short, we cannot change the world unless we allow God to first change us. Knowing the story of God’s eternal rescue plan is a critical part of that process.

We worship a triune God because this is how God has chosen to manifest himself in our history and rescue us from all the wrong our sin has caused. When you understand this and really believe it, you will know that your eternal future is ensured. You will also find that you have the Power you need for the living of your days in any and every condition. And that, folks, is a complete package for living life with meaning and purpose, which is Good News, now and for all eternity.

In the name of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.