The Triune God

Remain standing for the reading of God's word.

We're looking at Romans chapter 8 verses

Romans 8:9–11

9 to 11. Again, Romans chapter 8

Romans 8:9–11

verses 9 to 11.

You, however,

are not in the flesh, but in the

spirit if in fact the spirit of God

dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the spirit of

Christ

does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you,

although the body is dead because of sin,

the spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the spirit of him

who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in

you,

he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead

will also give life to your mortal bodies

through his spirit

who dwells in you.

This is the word of the Lord.

Thanks

be

to

God.

Please

be

seated.

Well, one of my favorite stories

about,

Augustine

of Hippo,

is probably fictional,

but it makes a good point.

We're told that one day,

Augustine was walking on the shore of the

Mediterranean

Sea

trying to comprehend the depths

of the Trinity's

essence,

and growing frustrated

at his inability, he noticed a young boy

in the distance

running back and forth from the ocean

to this hole that he had dug up

in the sand, and he was using a

seashell

to pour water from the ocean and into

the hole.

So intrigued by the boy's,

single mindedness in this task, Augustine approached him

and asked him, what are you doing?

And the boy replied, I'm going to pour

all the water in the sea into this

hole that I've dug up.

At that moment,

Augustine realized that it will just as it

was impossible

for the vastness

of the water in the sea to be

contained in the small hole that this boy

had dug up in the sand,

so also was it impossible

for his own finite mind

to comprehend

the infinite mystery

of the Trinity.

Our text this morning in Romans 8, verses

Romans 8:9–11

9 to 11, you'll notice is the same

text that we preached on last week.

1 in particular, last week we looked at

the role of the Holy Spirit

in our salvation.

But as we shall see today,

Romans 8 verses 9 to 11 also teaches

Romans 8:9–11

us

about the triune God,

a subject so profound

that it is worthy of us revisiting the

same text even as we humbly recognize

the the limitations

of our finite

human minds.

So the main point for today's sermon is

this,

our assurance of salvation

rests

in the grip

of the triune God.

Our assurance of salvation

rests in the grip

of the triune God, and we will unfold

this beautiful reality

by dividing the sermon into 4 headings which

come from the Westminster Larger Catechism 11,

which tells us that the scripture

manifests that the Son

and the Holy Spirit are God equal with

the Father

ascribing unto them such names,

attributes,

works,

and worship

as our proper to God only.

Listen to this again.

The scripture manifests

that the Son and the Holy Spirit are

God equal with the father

ascribing unto them such names,

attributes,

works, and worship

as are proper to God only.

In other words, the Bible teaches that the

Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit

are one God

because it ascribes to them the names,

attributes, works, and worship that are proper to

God alone.

So let's consider our sure hope of salvation

in the triune God under these four headings,

the names,

the attributes,

the works,

and the worship. Let's begin by considering the

first heading,

the names.

Consider with me Isaiah 42 verse 8.

Isaiah 42:8

I am the Lord,

that is my name.

My glory

I give to no other

nor my praise to carved idols.

Notice the connection

between God's name

and his glory, a glory that God shares

with no other.

Look also at Psalm 29 verses 12 which

read,

ascribe to the Lord o heavenly beings.

Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his

name.

Worship the Lord in the splendor

of holiness.

These and many other passages in the Bible

make it abundantly clear that God is zealous

for the glory of his name, a glory

which he does not share with others

for it is proper

only

for God.

Now with this in mind, look at me

again at Romans 8 verse 9

Romans 8:9

where we read,

you, however,

are not in the flesh,

but in the spirit

if in fact the spirit of God dwells

in you.

Anyone who does not have the spirit of

Christ

does not belong to him.

Notice that the Holy Spirit

is called the spirit of God and

the spirit of Christ.

That is to say in our text,

scripture assigns a functional equivalence

to the names,

Holy Spirit,

Spirit of God,

and Spirit of Christ.

Do you see that?

We had just read that God does not

share the glory of his name with anyone

and yet in just this one verse

we see an interchangeability,

a sharing as it were

among the three names.

So did God lie

about

his zeal for the glory of his name?

In the Old Testament, did God say that

he does not share his name

only to then change his mind in the

New Testament?

As Paul would say,

by no means.

As numbers 23/19

tells us, God neither lies

nor changes his mind.

The reason the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit share names

or titles

is that the Father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit are 1

God

in 3 persons.

In fact, let me zoom out

of this one text to demonstrate how the

Bible describes

the 2 most significant

and consequential

names,

the name God

and the name Lord

to each person

in the Godhead.

Look at 1st Corinthians 8 verse 6,

there Paul says,

for us there is one God, the father

from whom all things and for whom all

all I'm sorry. For whom are all things

and for whom we exist,

and one lord Jesus Christ through whom are

all things and through whom

we exist.

Again, for us, there is one God,

the father.

There's a lot of profound stuff going on

here, but for our purposes, I want you

to remember that. The father here is called

God very clearly.

Now look at Titus chapter 2 verse 13,

Titus 2:13

which calls on us,

as Christians to live godly

lives, quote,

waiting for the blessed hope,

the appearing of the glory of our great

God and savior,

Jesus Christ.

Here Paul describes Jesus to Jesus glory and

the name

the great God

and savior.

Finally, look at Acts chapter 5 verse 4,

Acts 5:4

where Peter having condemned Ananias

for lying to the Holy Spirit,

rebukes Ananias

saying,

why is it that you have contrived this

deed in your heart?

You have not lied to man

but to God.

Notice therefore that the Bible asserts that lying

to the Holy Spirit

is equivalent to lying

to God.

So it is

no small thing

that in the Bible, we see the name

God

shared among the father

and the son

and the Holy Spirit,

But that's not

all, we also see the name Lord

shared among the 3 persons in the Godhead.

For example, in Isaiah 64

Isaiah 64:8

verse 8 we read,

but now, oh, Lord,

you are our father.

We are the clay and you are the

potter.

We are we are all the work of

your hand.

The word Lord in in, in our in

your Bibles, you'll see, is capitalized

because and I mean every letter there is

capitalized

because in the Hebrew text,

the covenant name of God is used.

Sometimes

that name is pronounced Jehovah

or more likely

it was pronounced

Yahweh. So you hear that sometimes you hear

you Jehovah, sometimes you hear Yahweh,

but it is the name, the covenantal name

of God that is used and that when

the Bible, the Hebrew Bible, was translated into

Greek the Greek the name Kurios was substituted,

the name Lord was substituted

so that nobody would accidentally take the name

of God in vain.

Okay? So Kurios

was used instead, Lord. And in the New

Testament, that was preserved because the New Testament

is written in Greek and so you kept

the name, Kurios,

Lord to refer to the covenantal name of

God.

But you'll see it in the Old Testament

in all capitals when it's represents the four

letters in the Hebrew Bible which means

Lord or which was used as Lord. Alright.

So here the father is called Lord in

Isaiah 45 verse 23.

Isaiah 45:23

It's significant that the Lord

says also in,

I'm sorry that was in Isaiah 64 verse

Isaiah 64:8

8. It's significant

that in Isaiah

Isaiah 45:23

45 verse 23,

the same Lord

in all capitals

speaks and he says this, by myself,

says the Lord, by myself I have sworn,

from my mouth has gone out in righteousness

a word that shall not return.

To me,

every knee shall bow

and every tongue shall swear

allegiance.

It's significant that it is the Lord who

says,

to me

every knee shall bow and every tongue confess

or every tongue shall swear allegiance

because in Philippians chapter 2

Philippians 2:9–11

verses 9 to 11, Paul writes the following,

He writes,

therefore God has highly exalted Christ

and bestowed on him the name

that is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus

every knee should bow

in heaven and on earth and under the

earth, and every tongue confess

that Jesus Christ is

lord

to the glory

of God

the father.

You see here in no uncertain terms

that Paul ascribes to Jesus the name Lord,

the covenantal name of the God of Israel,

and he does so by quoting Isaiah 4523

which is about Yahweh, it's about the Lord,

and he ascribes that

text to Jesus

explicitly,

unequivocally,

amazingly.

Finally, look at second Corinthians chapter 3 verse

2 Corinthians 3:17

17

where Paul writes,

now the Lord

is the spirit

and where the spirit of the Lord is

there is freedom.

Here we clearly see the name Lord being

ascribed

to the Holy Spirit.

We have seen therefore that Romans 8:9 uses

Romans 8:9

the name

the names Holy Spirit,

Spirit of God,

and Spirit of Christ interchangeably.

And we have also seen that the Bible

ascribes the name God and the name Lord

to the father,

to the son,

and to the Holy Spirit demonstrating

by ascribing to them the same names,

the divinity of the father,

and of the Son,

and of the Holy Spirit.

Now, it is a profound mystery

that there is only one God

and yet the father is God

and the Son is God

and the Holy Spirit is God, 3 distinct

persons who share the divine name.

But you know what else is amazing

about this,

The fact that Christians are given the right

to share in the name in a way

by virtue of our adoption

into God's family.

Think about that.

In Matthew 28 19,

Jesus commands his followers

to quote, make disciples of all nations

baptizing them

in the name

of the Father

and of the Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Christians are to be marked

by God's

covenantal name.

You see, baptism is a naming ceremony

where men and women,

boys and girls

are ceremoniously

engrafted into God's visible

household

and are given God's singular

family name,

the name

of the father

and of the Son

and of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, since the father

decreed that we should be united to his

son

through the spirit,

through a spirit wrought faith,

we are made partakers

through adoption in Christ

of the divine name

with all the amazing privileges

and awesome responsibilities

that this entails.

This is why we are planting this church

because in God's providence,

we have been tasked with fulfilling the mandate

once given to Adam

to fill the earth and to multiply,

to expand the family of God by making

disciples, to make known his holy name

through gospel proclamation

and holy living,

that the knowledge of the glory of God

may cover the earth as the waters cover

the sea.

That is our call right now

as a church plant, a mere acorn for

the moment,

that through the life giving power of the

Holy Spirit

and the gentle and tender husbandry of the

son,

shall one day grow into a mighty

cross shaped oak tree

that shall yield this fruit in season,

whose leaves shall not wither, and that shall

prosper in everything that the father calls it

to do. That is why the Lord has

called us to plant this church,

so that we can faithfully administer the sacrament

of baptism

here in the woodlands,

so people know that they are not alone,

but can be a part of a family

of sinners who have received mercy and of

beggars who have found bread and of orphans

who have been adopted

away from lowliness

and loved away from despair.

So people that can experience the grace of

a God who loved us before

we loved him.

That's the practical implication of our engrafting into

the family of the triune God and that

is why we are planting this church.

Now having considered the names, let's look at

the second heading, the attributes.

In Romans 8:9,

Romans 8:9

we saw that the Spirit of God dwells

in the Christian.

In Romans 8:10,

Romans 8:10

Paul writes,

but if Christ

is in you,

although the body is dead because of sin,

the spirit is life

because of righteousness.

So from these two verses,

we learn that the Holy Spirit dwells in

the Christian

and that Christ himself

dwells in the Christian.

Furthermore,

again, zooming out of this text once again,

we read Jesus words

in John 1423

for example,

where Jesus says, if anyone loves me he

will keep my word

and my father will love him and we

will come to him

and make our home

with

him.

In other words, the Bible affirms that the

father,

the Son, and the Holy Spirit make their

dwelling place, they make their home

within believers.

Now,

how can God dwell

within different persons

without he himself being divided.

The reason this is possible

is because of God's divine attribute of omnipresence,

meaning that God and only God

can be everywhere

at all times.

Yeah.

In Jeremiah 2324,

we read,

do I not fill heaven and earth declares

the Lord?

In Matthew 2820,

Jesus' last words to his disciples are, and

behold,

I am with you always

even to the end of the age.

And in Psalm 139 verses 7 and 8,

Psalms 139:7

the psalmist declares,

where shall I go from your spirit

or where shall I flee from your presence

if I ascend to heaven you are there

and if I make my bed in shawl

you

are there.

Thus, the divine attribute

of omnipresence is ascribed to the

father and to the Son

and to the Holy Spirit demonstrating that each

person in the Godhead

is God.

Now when our kids were young,

we installed security cameras in our house, and

our kids were still too young to know

what these things did.

So for the 1st month that we had

cameras sometimes I would arrive home and I

would make comments

like, hey, guys, please don't eat ice cream

in the living room anymore, you can stay

in the sofa,

or, Santiago,

if you're going to be kicking the soccer

ball with your cousin, do it outside the

house so you don't accidentally break something,

and the kids will look at each other

astonished

wondering, How does dad know that? How how's

this possible?

One time, Santiago even told Waleska,

I think she had broken a toy or

something he told her to just go ahead

and confess his dad already knows anyway.

Of course,

God's attribute of divine omnipresence

is nothing

like parental surveillance

neither in his potential creepiness

nor in his superficiality,

God's divine omnipresence

means that he is actually

with his people.

As Romans 8 verses 9 to 11 makes

Romans 8:9–11

clear, if you are a Christian,

God dwells within you.

That is an expression of the intimacy

of God's love for us and of God's

commitment to work good in us.

This intimacy that we enjoy

with God

as Christians

can make our prayer life rich

and effective

because God is with us, he hears our

prayers.

Because Christ is with us,

he knows our needs.

Because the spirit

is with us, he comforts us

in all circumstances.

Listen, God isn't simply

okay with you.

He doesn't merely

accept you.

He loves you.

He calls you and welcomes you into his

presence.

He has a place for you at his

table.

He delights in enjoying fellowship

with you.

In fact, the ultimate expression

of this glorious fellowship takes place

when we enjoy communion

at the Lord's table.

A sacrament that communicates God's presence in Christ

with his people

through the work of the Holy Spirit.

That is why we are planting this church

because when we administer the sacrament of the

Lord's supper, we proclaim peace with God through

the sacrificial and atoning death of our Passover

lamb.

Because at the Lord's table, we are reminded

that the wall of hostility that used to

separate us

sinful human beings

from the Holy God has now been torn

asunder

through the cross of Christ

because the Lord's supper is a sermon

that can be

heard and seen and touched and smelled and

tasted

inviting sinners to taste and see that the

Lord is good, to know that in Christ

there really is forgiveness of sins that through

his spirit we are enabled to walk in

newness of life.

In a society which in which communication is

easier than ever

and yet people are more disconnected

and lonelier than ever before,

communion with God

at his son's table

in the fellowship of the spirit is a

gift of life,

of hope,

of joy,

and of peace that needs to be witnessed,

tasted, and experienced

by us, and by our families,

and by our friends, and by our neighbors,

and by our co workers, and by our

peers. This is why we are planting this

church

because by God's grace when we partake of

the supper

and when we fellowship

with God's people, the Holy Spirit lifts us

into the very presence of Christ, the very

presence of the one who nourishes our faith

and makes us whole.

So that we can say

with the prophet Isaiah,

when Isaiah 25 says, on this mountain,

the Lord of hosts will make for all

peoples a feast of rich food,

a feast of well aged wine,

of rich food full of marrow, of aged

wine well refined,

and he will swallow up on this mountain

the covering that is cast over all peoples,

the veil that is spread over all nations.

He will swallow up death

forever.

And the Lord God will wipe away tears

from all faces.

And the reproach of His people, He will

take away from all the earth

for the Lord

has spoken.

It will be said on that day,

behold, this is our God.

We have waited

for him that he might save us. This

is the Lord. We have waited for him.

Let us be glad and rejoice in his

salvation.

This is why

we are planting this church.

Having considered the names

and the attributes, let's look at the third

reasoning

the works.

In Romans 8:10, we read that the spirit

Romans 8:10

is life

because of righteousness.

And in Romans 8:11, we read that if

Romans 8:11

the spirit of him who raised Jesus from

the dead dwells in you,

then he who raised Christ Jesus from the

dead will also give life to your mortal

bodies

through his spirit

who dwells in you.

Therefore,

from these two verses,

we notice that the resurrection of Jesus

was the work of the Holy Spirit who

is life,

but also of the father that is to

say of he who raised Christ Jesus

from the dead.

Furthermore,

if we zoom out from this text once

again

and we read in John 2 chapter,

chapter 2 verses 19 to 22,

we read what Jesus there told Jewish authorities

authorities.

He said this,

destroy this temple

and in 3 days I will raise it

up.

And John tells us that when he said

this he was talking about his own

body. He was talking about the resurrection

of his body.

I will raise it up, Jesus said.

In John 10 verses 17 18, Jesus said

John 10:17

that he has the authority to lay down

his life and he has the authority to

take it back up again.

What we have here therefore

is the Bible's teaching that the divine work

of bringing things to life

and resurrection life in particular

belongs to the father

and to the son

and to the Holy Spirit.

This unequivocally

manifests the divinity of the 3 persons in

the Godhead.

Now,

as we shall see,

the practical implications of this profound truth are

of monumental

importance to us

because you see this means

that our resurrection on the last day

is not in our hands.

It doesn't depend

on our own goodness nor on the merits

of our own godliness.

Instead,

our resurrection on the last day rest

in the power of the triune God.

And

the guarantee

that our bodies will be raised

from the dead

is that our spirits have already

been made alive when the Holy Spirit changed

our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh

and indwelled us.

That is why Paul

writes

that the outer man is wasting away the

last vestiges of our dying fleshly nature

while our inner man,

our regenerated

spiritual nature, is growing in conformity to Christ

through the life giving spirit.

The Holy Spirit,

the Lord and giver of life who proceeds

from the father and the son was sent

by the father and the son so that

those who are spiritually dead can be born

again,

can be made alive by the Spirit who

is life as he works faith in us.

This is why Paul in Ephesians 2 writes,

that though we were dead in our sins,

God has made us alive.

By grace we have been saved

through faith.

This is why we are planting this church

because Paul tells us in Romans 10 that

saving faith comes through the preaching of God's

word

and that through the preaching of the word,

the Holy Spirit renews minds so that they

can discern the truth and transform hearts

persuading them to trust in Christ's resurrection

and moves lips to joyously confess

Christ's lordship

over their lives and to call upon the

name of the Lord trusting in God's unbreakable

promise

that everyone who calls upon the name of

the Lord

will be

saved.

This is why we're planting this church

because as citizens of an eternal city in

a heavenly country,

God has called us to be his ambassadors

here in a transient city in an earthly

country that moth and rust will destroy

to be his heralds of hope,

proclaiming the message of resurrection life and snatching

souls from the flames of hell

by the power of the triune God. That

is why we are planting this church.

Because people dwelling in darkness and liable

to eternal damnation need to hear the gospel

of Jesus Christ, a gospel that will shine

light in their darkness

and their darkness will not be able to

overcome it.

Death is no match

for the resurrection power of the triune God.

This is why we are planting this church.

Having considered the divine names,

attributes, and works ascribed to each person in

the Godhead

and demonstrating their divinity, let's conclude the sermon

by looking at the final heading,

the worship.

Last week, we looked at Romans 8 verses

Romans 8:9–11

9 to 11 and considered the role of

the Holy Spirit in our salvation.

Today, we looked at the same verses

and learned that our resurrection is guaranteed

by the power of the triune God.

But here's the thing,

the reason we were created

and the reason we are saved

and the reason we will be raised

to eternal life

is that we may glorify and enjoy God

as we worship him in all eternity.

That's what we see

when when God rends the heavens for John

and he looks and he records this vision

in the book of Revelation where in chapter

5, we see that there are saints

from every tribe

and language and people and nation together with

myriads of angels

and creatures in heaven and on earth and

under the earth and in the sea,

worshiping God in the presence of the Holy

Spirit crying out with a loud voice,

worthy is the lamb who was slain

to receive power and wealth and wisdom and

might and honor and glory and blessing to

him

who sits on the throne and to the

lamb be blessing and honor and glory and

might for ever and ever.

The father,

the son,

and the Holy Spirit will receive worship unto

the ages of ages.

And we will know no greater joy

than to offer such worship.

And that is why

we are planting this church

because as Peter tells you in 1st Peter

29,

you

are a chosen race,

a royal priesthood,

a holy nation,

a people for God's own possession that you

may proclaim the excellencies

of him who called you out of darkness

and into his marvelous

light.

By God's grace, this royal priesthood

does not have to wait until after the

resurrection to proclaim the excellencies

of the triune God.

Right now,

right here,

in this place,

every week as the word is preached, as

we pray, as we partake of the sacraments,

we have the privilege

of practicing

what we were made to do for all

eternity

because the father

called us to be his.

We have the privilege

of singing his praises

every Sunday.

Because the son tasted death in our place,

we have the privilege

of tasting this of tasting the sweetness

of the gospel

each Lord's day.

Because the spirit changed our hearts,

we have the privilege

of pouring out our hearts in his service

and of rejoicing

in the fellowship of believers

around the Lord's table.

That is why

we are planting this church

because we were naked,

and our father clothed us with his robe,

and we were hungry,

and Christ fed us with his body and

with his word, and we were dead,

and the spirit breathed life into our dead

bodies.

We're planting this church

so that we and others can taste and

see

that the Lord

is

good. Let's pray.