All of God: Exploring the Mystery of the Trinity - Sermon #1

If you did not read the last post about the series on the Trinity that our church is conducting this spring, both on Sunday mornings and in our small groups, please go back one post and read the introduction - and, look at the questions for the first small group session before you read this sermon. God bless!

All of God:
Exploring the Mystery of the Trinity
Why Study the Trinity?

Did you recognize the words that David just sang? Maybe, if you have come here from a liturgical church – or, if you are a fan of Rich Mullins, Petra, or Third Day. He sang the words to The Apostles’ Creed. At the end of this message we will recite and then, sing, this creed. It is significant because at least a portion of it constitutes the earliest creed, or statement of belief, of the Christian Church. If you were listening carefully, you heard the earliest thoughts from the church about the Trinity – God in three persons.

What is the big deal about the Trinity, anyway? You might say, “I have grown up my whole life knowing that God is three in one. Explain it? Of course! You see, God is three, but He is one. You want more explanation? Well, you just gotta believe, that’s all!”

And, that’s about the best many of us can do! Hey, we have to acknowledge right up front that even though we know God in varying degrees, depending on where we are in the Christian life, nonetheless He is somewhat mysterious to all of us, and the doctrine of the Trinity is a mystery! I don’t know about you, but I tend to think of God as “one” or as “three.” He is much more, though – He is three-in-one. But just because God is mysterious and there is mystery surrounding the truth of the Trinity doesn’t mean that we cannot know anything about this most important doctrine!

I told you last week that there is a difference, in theological terms, between a secret and a mystery. A secret is something we absolutely cannot know if God doesn’t reveal it to us. Period. A mystery is something that was previously hidden from us but that God has now revealed to us. Even though we now have knowledge and awareness of a particular truth that was hidden before, there is more to the truth that God has shown us than we will ever be able to fully comprehend, and we will never be able to adequately explain this doctrine. A mystery, in theological terms, is not what we typically think of as a mystery today. When you hear the term mystery, you probably think of something that is unknown but is solvable if you can put all the pieces together – like a murder mystery. That is not a biblical mystery, though.

Perhaps a bit of Scripture will help. First, with regard to secrets. Deuteronomy 29:29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” Secrets are something we cannot know. But a mystery, in the NT, is something that was prev – well, you’ll see.

In Romans 16:25-27, the Apostle Paul gives an informative benediction by writing, “Now to Him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings has been made known to all nations, according to the command of the eternal God, to bring about the obedience of faith – to the only wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ! Amen.”

You see it, don’t you? A mystery, in the NT, is something that we didn’t know about but now we do because God let us in on it. But, many of the truths in the New Testament that are called mysteries – such as, the gospel in Romans 16, the idea of Christ in you, in Colossians 1:27, and the mystery of faith in 1 Timothy 3:9 – while, indeed, are truths that are identified and explained to a significant degree, are still, nonetheless, beyond our human ability to fully understand and explain. For instance, try explaining Christ in you, the hope of glory.

You may feel like you are on a see-saw here, but I need to come right back and say that there is much about God that we can know. That we should know. That we will, after this series, know a lot better than we do now – at least that is the goal! BUT, as the see-saw teeters back, we must acknowledge that we will never fully comprehend God – which brings us back to the title of our series: All of God: Exploring the Mystery of the Trinity.

We will talk a lot more about how God is knowable, and yet incomprehensible, in the Home Fellowships this week. Throughout this two and a half month series, with a few breaks built in, we will be learning more and more about God while all the while realizing that there are some things that we can never know about Him in this life, and we cannot say with certainty how fully we will know Him in eternity.

I want to make one more introductory note before we read our text for this morning. When the name God is used in the title of the series, it is not referring to God the Father. It is referring to God the Father, God the Son, Jesus, and God the Holy Spirit. When the Old Testament speaks of God, it is not referring to God the Father, but, rather, to Father, Son, and Spirit. God has always been triune, or, three in one. Remember, it was a secret in the OT, but the mystery has been revealed in the NT. And, we are going to explore that mystery! Let’s get to our text this morning, Romans 11:33-36.
This text is about the mystery of God, who is always triune, remember, and our text reminds us that with all we know about God, His awesomeness is beyond our comprehension, though our awareness of God’s awesomeness expands as we contemplate the truth we are given about who He is! Stand with me, if you would, as we read Romans 11:33-36:

33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and How inscrutable His ways!
34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor?”
35 “Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid?”
36 For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen.

Why should we study the Trinity? There are several reasons, beginning with the plain and simple fact that:

1. God chose to reveal Himself this way to us

He chose to reveal Himself to us in this way because it is who He is – and, He did so for our benefit and comfort. His glory, absolutely! But, also for our benefit and comfort. Our knowledge increases as we learn about God’s true nature and our faith grows as we see the many ways God, in the persons of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, work together to secure our salvation, to shepherd us through this world, and to guard and guarantee our inheritance of eternal life.

When Jesus was at the very end of His time with the disciples on earth, the night before His arrest when you would think He would say only the most important things, Jesus repeatedly spoke about the Trinity. We will see just how much in our Home Fellowships this week.

The second reason we should study the Trinity is that:

2. It connects us with all our brothers and sisters since the church began at Pentecost

The study of God has dominated theological discussions ever since Jesus went back to heaven to be with the Father and the Holy Spirit came to us at Pentecost. Christianity is a historical religion – there is no way to divorce ourselves from the past. Whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, our understanding of Scripture is greatly impacted by the theological work done by saints through all 20 centuries of the church’s existence. In fact, the study of the history of the church is, in many ways, the study of theological formulation. Today, we characterize God as “three in one,” and even though we cannot fully explain that, we do accept it. Not only has that not always been the case, it is not true among all people who claim to be Christians today. Interestingly enough, the heresies about Jesus today are essentially the same heresies that have been around for centuries, even though they may take a bit of a different form from one century to the next.

Next Sunday we will be talking about why it is important to get the doctrine of the Trinity right. We will take a look at some of the main controversies through the centuries and how we came to the conclusions about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that we embrace today. I promise that it will not be simply a history lesson, and I will do my absolute best not to be boring! When we study the Trinity, we inevitably connect ourselves with all those who have gone before us – and, if they had not remained true to the triune God, we would not be here today.

Another reason we study the Trinity is that:

3. This doctrine distinguishes Christianity from all other religions and from “Christian” cults

We should understand this crucial difference because it has eternal implications. It is why that when someone asks, “Don’t we all worship the same God?” it would be appropriate for you to say, “Only if we all worship the triune God – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.” While some other religions acknowledge Jesus as an important teacher, and in some cases, such as Islam, as a prophet, no other religion recognizes Jesus as God. In fact, this is true of cults, as well. If you are wondering whether or not a particular group is a cult, here are three distinguishing marks of a cult:

1) They deny the deity of Jesus. Even if they say they believe that Jesus was God, they are playing with words. When you press them, they do not believe that Jesus was God. More about that next week.
2) They deny salvation by grace. Always, there is some effort on a person’s part that is required for salvation.
3) They have another source of revelation – the book of Mormon, the writings of the current leader, whatever. There is always some source of revelation that is thought to be directly from God that comes from outside the Bible.

It is my desire to spend one Sunday in this series – or, at least a portion of a Sunday – talking about how to witness to someone who denies the deity of Jesus, such as someone involved with Jehovah’s Witnesses. I can promise you, if you are going to convince someone in a cult that his or her beliefs are faulty, you are going to have to understand the Trinity. A good bit of their training is based around how to shake your confidence in the Trinity. It is our defining doctrine and we need to study it so that we can understand all of God. A fourth reason to study the Trinity is:

4. A proper understanding of the interaction between Father, Son, and Spirit and an understanding of their roles in our lives will lead to significant spiritual growth

It is interesting that when I have said to people inside and outside of our church that we will be studying the Trinity, at least a couple of people have said, “That’s great – I always wanted to know more about the Holy Spirit.” Interesting. Maybe that desire is there because unless you are charismatic, you don’t spend nearly as much time thinking about the Holy Spirit as you do thinking about God the Father and Jesus. All three persons of the Trinity are intimately connected with one another and are intimately involved in the lives of Christ-followers. The more we know about the roles the different persons of the Godhead have in our lives, the more potential for spiritual growth.

Speaking of roles, I suppose the most frequently asked question so far about the Trinity involves prayer. To whom do we pray? I am going to let you in on a secret, and in so doing, it will reveal how complex this topic is – I don’t have that answer, yet. I used to think I had it, but I am not as sure as I was. If you pressed me for an answer, I would say that it is clear that we pray to God the Father. No one questions that. Do we pray to Jesus? Well, there is evidence that the Apostle Paul communed with the Savior, but we are not commanded to pray to Jesus. We will get deeper into that topic in two or three weeks. How about the Holy Spirit? If there is command or example to pray to the Spirit, I do not currently know where it is. I can tell you, though, when you understand the Spirit’s role in prayer, your confidence in prayer will take off like a rocket! We are going to get there – just be patient.

The last reason I will give to study the Trinity is that:

5. It will increase our awareness of God’s awesomeness!

God is knowable. God is incomprehensible. Let me say that again: God is knowable; God is incomprehensible. If those seem like mutually exclusive ideas, trust me, they are not. The harmony of these two truths will be thoroughly explored at Home Fellowships this week. Are you getting the hint, yet, about how important the small groups are to what we are learning this semester? See KJ or me if you are not connected with one yet. Hey, why don’t you plan to go to Home Fellowships for just this semester while we are studying the Trinity? If you do not find it that helpful to your spiritual life, you don’t have to come back in the fall. I am not being sarcastic when I say that – I mean it. Just come for this spring, if you want to, while this church-wide study is being conducted. One of the reasons it is so important to be in those groups is that there will be much more opportunity for exploring Scripture in small groups than Sunday morning allows, especially with a topic like ours today.

God is awesome beyond our comprehension. Our text told us that, but we already knew it. The more we learn about the Trinity, the more amazed we will become at just who God is! But, it is not just an ontological or theological understanding we will gain – we will find Him all the more real and all the more awesome in our lives. I hope you are excited about this study. Please let me encourage you to hang in there, even if the waters seem to be a little deep for you at times. I pledge, as do the Home Fellowship leaders, to keep this as attainable as possible. But, if your knowledge and understanding of the Trinity is not challenged, we fail on this last point. Our goal is to find, at the end of this study, that God is far more awesome and wonderful and terrifying and gracious and mysterious than we ever knew Him to be.

As I have already stated, next week we will spend a little time learning how we came to the belief about God that we have today. You may have heard about the Council of Nicaea and the Council of Constantinople, both occurring in the 4th century – or, maybe you haven’t heard about those councils! Perhaps you have heard of the Nicene Creed or the Apostles’ Creed. I can tell you that almost all of the major councils and creeds in church history were a reaction to bad theology and involved the understanding of the triune God.

David sang the Apostle’s Creed as the special this morning. In just a moment, we are going to stand and quote this creed, and then David is going to lead us as we sing it. How many of you know the Apostles’ Creed by heart?

The Apostle’s Creed is the earliest known creed of the church. Well, actually the old Roman Creed is the oldest creed – and, it was eventually expanded and became known as the Apostle’s Creed. The version of the Apostle’s Creed that is recited today was not in its final form until the beginning of the 10th century. The Roman Creed, on the other hand, was established no later than the end of the second century. The earliest form is very abbreviated. The oldest document we have states this, and this only:

“I believe in God the Father Almighty, and in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord. And in the Holy Spirit, the holy Church, the resurrection of the flesh.”

Do you see anything significant in this creed? Just about the only thing it states is the truth of the three persons of the Godhead, though we could not derive the full doctrine of the Trinity from this brief creed. The same is true of the Apostle’s Creed, but it is significant, nonetheless, as a statement of belief of the early church. So, let’s affirm the Apostles’ Creed together. By the way, when this creed speaks of the “catholic” church, it means the universal church – it is not referring to the Roman Catholic Church, but rather to all true Christ-followers, those who have been saved by grace through repentance of sin and faith in Jesus’ death on the cross. So, having clarified that, let’s stand and quote this creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;
He descended into hell.
The third day He arose again from the dead;
He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Ghost; the holy catholic church; the communion of saints; the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; and the life everlasting.
Amen.