SERMON 503
TRINITY SUNDAY, JUNE 10, 11, 2006
ISAIAH 6:1-8, PSALM 29, ROMANS 8:12-17, JOHN 3:1-17
JUST WHO IS THIS GOD WE WORSHIP AND CONFESS?
Beloved in the Lord, grace
and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus
Christ, and from the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life.
Our theme for this second
Sunday in Pentecost, the Sunday known as Trinity Sunday, is JUST WHO IS THIS
GOD WE WORSHIP AND CONFESS?
The atheist would say to us,
“There is no God and those who worship and confess faith in any living god just
have not faced up to the reality that there is no God. They are living in a
dream world.”
The agnostic would say to us,
“There is no way under the sun that we can determine whether there is a God or
not. We cannot know whether there is a God or not.”
Our brothers and sisters of
the Jewish faith would certainly affirm that there is a God. They would name
him, “Jahweh,” and call God by some of the names that we use. They would
identify God as the Creator, and as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the
same God we worship. Some of our Jewish brothers and sisters might even
acknowledge that God raised Jesus from the dead, but none of them would dare to
acknowledge that Jesus was the only begotten son of the Father, God of God’s.
Our neighbors of the Islamic
faith would certainly affirm that there is a God and they would name him,
“Allah.” They would also identify Allah as the Creator, and the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, the same God we worship. But they would say of Jesus that
although he was a great prophet, he could not be God because God could and
would never take upon himself the flesh of human kind.
The women and men of the
Eastern religions would confess that there are many God’s but would not
recognize the God we confess as the Creator and the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, and certainly not the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is
Lord of all.
So in the midst of all of
this diversity of opinion we have the audacity to come out and say that there
is but one God, but that this one God has revealed himself to us as three
persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We also have the audacity to
say that this one God decided to come among us and to actually be born among us
as a human being, one just like us in every respect, with one exception, he was
born without sin. He had all of the frailties of human kind except that he was
without the corruption that we find within ourselves. So we tell the world that
the one who was in the beginning, through whom the world was created, the only
begotten Son of the Father, became like one of us.
We also have the audacity to
say that this God has come among us again, this time in the person of the
Spirit, and that this Spirit actually dwells in our hearts, having led us to
faith in the Son, in the Lord Jesus Christ. We go even further. We say that
through this Spirit we have literally been reborn to be the children of God and
inheritors of eternal life. We say that through this Spirit, the divine life of
God actually dwells in our hearts and souls, and we have been reborn, children
of the heavenly Father.
We also have the audacity to
proclaim that we are loved by God with an everlasting love. God proved this
when he sent his Son into our midst, not only to be born as a human but to die
as a sacrifice for sin, the sin of all of human kind.
We also have the audacity to
tell the world that we can actually call this God, our Father, that he listens
to our prayers, that he forgives all our sins, that he heals us from our infirmities,
that he rescues us from the grave, that he renews our strength so that we can
mount up on wings like eagles.
But the atheist and agnostic
come to us still and say to us that we have no proof that there is such a God.
Our Jewish brothers and sisters and our Islamic neighbors also come to us and
say that it is impossible for any human being to be one with God, as we say of
our Lord Jesus.
So then, how do we really
know that what we proclaim, is really true, God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit?
We know because God has told us in clear, unmistakable language and deeds of
power.
To the atheist and the
agnostic we say, “For pity’s sake, open up your eyes and your ears and listen
to the voice of the almighty God.” You and I know that the very heavens are
telling the glory of God and the firmament, the creation, is showing his
handiwork. Although we do not hear the voice of creation, it speaks
nevertheless of what must be the power, the majesty, the artistry, the wisdom,
and the glory of the living God who made all of this.
But it is not only the whole
creation that speaks about the living God. God has also spoken directly to us,
first through Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Moses and all the prophets. But
God has also now spoken to us through the Son, the one who created all things,
and the one who God raised from the dead and lifted up to be ascended on high.
But God continues to speak so
forcefully and so clearly. When we turn to Holy Scripture we hear God speak
again. That Word of God was inspired by the very Spirit of God. That word
becomes alive to us by the power of that very same Spirit.
So with confidence we
continue to proclaim to the world that God has revealed himself to us as
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can not explain how this can be, one God and
three distinct persons. Indeed, over the centuries we have faced many heresies
in the church as people have tried to explain the Holy Trinity. In their
explanations some have said that Jesus was not God like the Father is God.
Others have tried to explain it by saying that Jesus could not have been fully
human like we are, or that the divine and human natures could not completely
exist in one person. But we have fended off those teachings and continue to
worship God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, One God.
JUST WHO IS THIS GOD WE
WORSHIP AND CONFESS?
A wife had invited several
people to dinner at her home. At the table, she turned to her six year old
daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?”
“I would not know what to
say,” the little girl replied.
“You say what you hear your
mommy say,” the wife answered her daughter,
So the little girl bowed her
head and prayed these words, “Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people
to dinner?”
Difficult and impossible as
it may be to fully explain the whole being and nature of God, God has made the
important things abundantly clear. Never will we ever find God asking why he
has invited all his children to his dinner, indeed why he has invited you and
me to dinner. We will never find God saying, “I wish I had not invited that
woman and that man.”
O yes, it is true that God is
holy and will and cannot allow sin and evil into his presence. When Isaiah had
that vision so long ago, he cried out, “Woe is me,” when he experienced that
glory and holiness of the living God. “I am lost,” he said, “for I am a man of
unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips.”
But gracious as God was and
is, God cleansed Isaiah right then and there and blotted out his sin. And
gracious as God was and is, God has continued to do that to this very day. We
will never find a more beautiful passage than the one from the Gospel of John,
where Jesus tells us that he did not come into the world to condemn the world
but to save it. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that
everyone who believes in him may not perish, but may have eternal life.”
But God is even more gracious
than that. It is God’s intention that at the end we ourselves should actually
be like God. Nicodemus discovered that in Jesus Christ, by the power of the
Spirit we were to be reborn in and of the Spirit, “..born from above,” as Jesus
told us. We who have come to faith do not see the end of our rebirth in Christ
and in the Spirit. We will see it only at the end of time when we put on the
divine nature as the very children of God, holy and righteous in his sight, and
incorruptible,
We see the very depths of the
graciousness of our God in the lesson from Paul. Jesus had the audacity to call
God his Father. And when Jesus prayed his prayers on earth, he prayed to the
Father. Before he left he taught us to pray to the Father as well and gave us
the very “Lord’s prayer.” Paul tells us that we have been adopted by God and
God is truly our Father through adoption. We have no reason to fear the glory
and holiness of our God. We are not slaves any more to sin. We are the very
children of God, set free from the power of sin, with a Father by adoption, who
will never ever let us go. We are to cry out with confidence, “Father, Father,
Father, Father!
JUST WHO IS THIS GOD WE
WORSHIP AND CONFESS? It is God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy
Spirit. And just how do we respond in his presence?
We begin our every day in the
presence of his glory and majesty repeating at least three times, “Lord Jesus
Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me a sinner.”
We begin every day
acknowledging with thanksgiving the glory and might and majesty and love of our
God and saying with Isaiah, “Here am I, send me, send me,” ready to meet and
greet and serve all who the Lord will send to us that day.
We begin every day with
petitions for those who need our prayers, with petitions for our Jewish sisters
and brothers, and our Islamic neighbors that they might see Jesus as he really
is, the Son of the living God, and Lord of all.
We begin every day ready to
confess before every agnostic and atheist, every fallen and wayward child of
God, that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God the Father and that the Holy Spirit
is calling them to rebirth into the
We begin every day ready to
renounce all sin and ready to follow the one commandment that our Lord left us,
that we love one another.
O Yes, we have the audacity
to confess before the world that we believe and follow God the Father, God the
Son and God the Holy Spirit.