One day when St. Augustine was at his wits’ end to understand and explain the Trinity, he went out for a walk. He kept turning over in his mind, “One God, but three Persons. Three Persons–not three Gods but one God. What does it mean? How can it be explained? How can my mind take it in?”
And so, he was torturing his mind and beating his brains out, when he saw a little boy on the beach. He approached him to see what he was doing. The child had dug a small hole in the sand. With his hands he was carrying water from the ocean and was dumping it in the little hole. St. Augustine asked, “What are you doing, my child?”
The child replied, “I want to put all of the water of the ocean into this hole.”
St. Augustine asked, “But is it possible for all of the water of this great ocean to be contained in this little hole?”
And then it dawned on Augustine, “If the water of the ocean cannot be contained in this little hole, then how can the Infinite Trinitarian God be contained in our carnal mind?”
The Holy Trinity! It is the core of our faith. Scripture mentions it timelessly, Jesus speaks, prays and teaches of it, and yet, like St. Augustine, we cannot wrap our mortal minds fully around it.
In our journey today, we are going to look further into the Fellowship amongst the Trinity. What it means for us, the world and most importantly those who call Jesus their savior. Don’t think that you will leave today with a full understanding of it all, but as you may remember me saying in my last sermon that we don’t have to understand it all, but we must come to God with faith in Him, as we journey our way into the realms deep in the mysterious mind of God. What we cannot explain, we try to reasonably comprehend, what we try to take on faith, we literally squirm in our boots as it pains us to no end, what we don’t seem to fully know about, we want to control it in our minds. This is where faith comes to life. What we don’t understand, we extend our contentment to Gods supreme authority of our lives! This is exactly what God wants, a zealous servant.
The actual word ‘Trinity’ is nowhere to be found in scripture. In the attempt to satisfy the comprehension of the common man’s understanding, the term itself was not used until around 96AD by Bishop Clement of Rome in accepting His oath, and it wasn’t until about 100 years later where the word ‘Trinity’, in latin meaning three, was used officially in the church.
One of the earliest example of God not being just by himself, we find in the creation of the world in Genesis chapter 1, Then God said, “Let Us make mankind in Our image, according to Our likeness;” Notice Us and Our image, meaning plural! Then we move to chapter 3, Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of Us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out with his hand, and take fruit also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever.” We see the word Us again, also being plural. Then we move to chapter 11 during the building of the tower of Babal, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.” Notice the reference to Us. Then one final example, most assuredly not the last, is when Isaiah was called to be Gods prophet. Then I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for Us?” Then I said, “Here am I. Send me!” I pray this morning you are starting to see the picture friends. Throughout the scriptures, it gives multiple references to God not being alone, God being one, but as being in terms of Us, We, and Ours!
In the name of the Father, and in the Son and in the Holy Spirit! These words are vital to the Christian faith. It serves the full beacon of hope knowing God who cannot look upon sin, gave us His only son, to pay full atonement of all sin, past, present and future, for all who believe in faith and call upon His name. It is His only son, that gave us free salvation by way of what we could not do, but only what He done for us on the Cross in being crucified, dead and buried, and on the third day, He rose again in full Glory and Honor. But why did God the son have to die for us? Why the action to fulfill an atonement for all sin by one of the trinity?
Leviticus tells us For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you on the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement.’ It’s the life force of who we are in the blood, which is what God the Son, Jesus the Christ did for you and me. 1 Peter and He Himself brought our sins in His body up on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live for righteousness; by His wounds you were healed. Hebrews and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all time, having obtained eternal redemption. What a blessed testimony of love and grace friends that God has given to all of us. Amen.
All of this was made possible by God the Sons free will to save us from eternal damnation. But then, we see the Holy Spirit coming fully into focus in a visual spectrum as it was with Jesus Baptism as scripture tells us it came upon Jesus like a dove, yet we don’t necessarily see it visually that way, but it can be imagined. If not for Christ redemption work of our salvation, the Holy Spirit would not have come to us. Listen to the Gospel of John when Jesus is explaining to the disciples about the Holy Spirit.
I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, so that He may be with you forever; 17 the Helper is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him; but you know Him because He remains with you and will be in you.
Notice clearly friends, the world cannot and will not see the Holy Spirit in both physical and spiritual sense, all because the world does not know Him. When we TRUST God as our Lord and Savior, it is ONLY then that we can experience the presence of the promised Spirit of Truth. And Jesus continues, “I will not leave you as orphans; I am coming to you. 19 After a little while, the world no longer is going to see Me, but you are going to see Me; because I live, you also will live. The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.” …. 23 Jesus answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. 24 The one who does not love Me does not follow My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me.
What a wonderful and fulfilling explanation of what the trinity really is! God the father, God the son, God the holy spirit. Three into one by means to give each of us eternal life, all by way of Gods ultimate plan of redemption. Amen.
Then, Jesus exclaims more on the Holy Spirit friends, of what His spirit will do for each of us who believe. “These things I have spoken to you while remaining with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor fearful. 28 You heard that I said to you, ‘I am going away, and I am coming to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Notice here, Jesus righteously declares himself less than the father, and earlier He mentioned the Holy Spirit will be delivered to us in Christ absence, as the Helper. And it is This delivery of the Holy Spirit which we celebrate on Pentecost Sunday.
I just covered a lot of information to be sure. Lots of wonder, maybe even questions. The prime focus I would like for you to stay upon friends, is where does God’s spirit reside at? Where does God’s spirit call home? We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him. This is NOT a temporary measure, but rather ONLY for those that have God residing in them.
You heard me say this before, believing Christ existed, believing Christ was a prophet, believing Christ because you grew up believing in Christ, is not enough. We must come to Christ with faith! Our personal decision to believe in Him not of Him. This very same principle put the disciples in a contest amongst themselves when Jesus asked them, He [Jesus] *said to them, “But who do you yourselves say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. The only way to know of the trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, is that it can and only will come from our Heavenly Father, period. Scripture tells us And without faith it is impossible to please Him. How do we get faith? Paul’s letter to the romans tells us So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the words of Christ.
In trying to understand more on this Trinity Sunday, how there is Fellowship amongst the Trinity, we learn that one does not exist without the other. Each plays a vital part as a whole in the aspect of God.
In Pauls letter to the Ephesians, he gives a direct account of what it is to serve the God of all creation and how it represents each of us. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you also were called in one hope of your calling; 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.
No where in this passage does it declare an empty barrier between God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Each are the whole part of what it means to be God. Countless times we see in the Gospels God speaking to His son Jesus. Jesus countless times mentions the Holy Spirit in both description and deed. Paul’s letter to the Romans shares in this same path by saying you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. The spirit here meaning the Holy Spirit, Spirit of Christ, Spirit of God. The Spirit of God MUST LIVE WITHIN US PERIOD in order to be called His! Then, when we foolishly look upon God with a declaimer that is not of faith, we hear in Paul’s letter to the people of Corinth, But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. Discerned used here in Greek is an-ak-ree'-no which means to investigate, examine. Faith was not used by these people, but their carnal mind took over. Does this sound familiar?
Friends you and I belong to God. You and I are created by the Trinity to be scripts of the Trinity. We are created, designed and given life to fellowship with the trinity without question. As the spirit lives in us being flesh, we are part of that trinity. God is writing a message to the world upon us at this very moment. Speaking through His creation, through His spirit, and through us, His chosen saints. Amen. As I mentioned earlier, I cannot expect you to walk away today with a full understanding of God, but what I ask you to do is dive into your spirit this morning, and highlight with all your might that God, in all reality, is relational to his creation, which includes each of us. Get the picture out of your head that God sits on a throne in heaven, looking down upon us with a spy glass, not being personal with us, answering our prayers every now and then, allowing pain and suffering to exist just to see us squirm, and then if He feels hospitable, He will reward you with something good, but then only take it away again. Those are FALSE precepts of worldly thinking. God is personal! REPEAT THAT! God is relative! REPEAT THAT! God is relative to our way of being and way of life, which covers all our needs according to His riches and Glory found in Christ Jesus. God is with us! REPEAT THAT! God is and continues to be in us, with us and around us in everything we do! God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are three in one that is complete, mutual and self-giving in the full definition of LOVE! Amen. In this world we live in, the word love to me is used much too loosely. The God of our faith is a God of relationship! He is intimate with us, from our illness’s, our financial troubles, our pains, sufferings, all our troubles. God is Present! REPEAT THAT! God is present! This is what God is love means! This is why there is absolutely no way for us to grow in Christ by being alone! We are not designed to be alone, no more than is God alone! Being alone is NOT BEING IN GOD! The Christian faith can never be a solo experience, its meant to be shared by word and deed because we too are part of the Unity of the Trinity, having the Fellowship amongst the Trinity.
In closing, I urge you to consider Jesus last earthly command given to the disciples as being the pinnacle of the ministry that each of us must follow as it directly relates to a relationship and what it means—what it means for us to share by word and deed. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. 19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
No where does this command say for us to stay at home, be hermits, avoid God and His direction for our lives. It means simply we each must be Godly servants and spread the Good News of Jesus Christ, all the while declaring it in the name of the Holy trinity.
Where do we spread and share the good news? I’ll give you a hint, it’s not JUST in the church! As you leave the church today, look on the door, and you will see a sign stating you are now entering the mission field. That’s where Gods work is to be done.
This is what it means to Fellowship in the Trinity. My brothers and sisters in Christ, let me close and leave you with these words from the Apostle Paul in his second letter to the people of Corinth.
Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice, mend your ways, be comforted, be like-minded, live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you. 12 Greet one another with a holy kiss. 13 All the saints greet you. 14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all.
Join me in our Prayer of confession…