God, the Three in One - Joel Schrock

Good morning. Also want to greet you in Jesus' name,

and since Dan is one of the ones returning from

Bible School, I'll go ahead and give a welcome Dan's

and Leland's not sure if everybody made it back. Mindy,

you were there right, don't see some of the others yet,

so probably missed some welcome back. Between the sunny days,

we've been having the turn of the calendar, and I

guess it's announced spring break. Feels like like the calendar's

kind of moving along, so we might get to spring

here sooner or later. This morning, I would like to

talk about God and so more specifically the focus. I

guess the title pretty simple one but God the three

and one. So it was impressive to me that we

sang number one in the church hymnal today, which the

four verses there come Thou Almighty King, Come Thou Incarnate Word,

Come Holy comforter, and then to the great three and one.

So that fit really nicely. And through the service I

couldn't help thinking in Romans this morning with the devotions

there all three parts of God well represented, and some

of what Dan just covered, we'll be talking a little

bit about about to Jesus the Creator'll back up a

little bit. I guess this is maybe more of a

let's just say, doctrinal or theological message than maybe an

inspirational one. About a year ago, not not quite uh.

In Bible studies with when we were in Greece with

the refugees there, our focus was the Book of Acts,

so that was a that's that's a really interesting study.

And of course early on an Acts, one of the

really impressive things that happens is the coming of the

Holy Spirit, and uh, Pentecost we think of the day

of Pentecost and that that happening. It's very impressive happening.

But one thing that really stood out to me this

time I don't know that I really had before in

looking at back to the end of Luke. Luke. Luke

wrote the Book of Luke and of Acts he has

It's only two books, but it's a high volume of words,

both the end of Luke and the beginning of Acts.

The coming of the Holy Spirit Jesus talking about that

is given as as the promise of the Father, which

which is I don't For for some reason, that sort

of struck me this time going through that. The Holy Spirit,

the coming. It's a it's a promise of the Father.

And so that's been kind of rolling around in my

head for a while, and I thought maybe i'd have

a message on the Holy Spirit. But as I thought

of this, and I looked at this, thought, this is

a really good picture here of God as three persons,

and so that sort of led me back to God

as the Trinity and talking about that maybe as at

least an introductory message. If the Lord wills might follow

up with a message on the Holy Spirit, that does

feel like a real undertaking, So all your prayers and

insights would be welcome. So thinking about maybe, first of all,

before we get specifically to to the three persons of

God that we talk about, who is God? If someone

were to ask you who is God? What would you say?

Any but you want to volunteer an answer? Who is God?

The creator of heaven and earth? Anyone else? Savior? We

could go around and we could list off a lot

of different things and not repeat all right, So I

thought we'd look just for a few minutes at some

of some of the names of God. And I think

I could be wrong. This is not an exhaustive list.

I believe that Dad did you have one time a

message just on the names of God for the moment

Scott Scott agrees with me, So I dance. I think

so so this could go. You know, you could spend

a lot of time on this. Like I said, this

is not an exhaustive list. And but I think about

the names of God a little bit like Jesus describing

the Kingdom of Heaven to us, what is the Kingdom

of Heaven? Like, Well, it's like this, and it's like this,

and it's like this, and each one of those things

is true, but it's a pit. It's a a small

picture for our finite minds to kind of try to

wrap around something infinite. So that that's a bit what

I think of when I look at all these names

and descriptions. So I have a list here. I'm not

going to expound on all of them. I'm not going

to try to read all of the Hebrew names. A

few of them that are more familiar. I guess John

Coulp's not here to correct me if I got them wrong,

so I probably could try it. But a lot of

the English maybe translations of those names, and we'll touch

on just a few of maybe more the definitions and

a few verses to go with some of them. And

this is, I guess, in alphabetical order of the Hebrew names.

So the first one I have is Abbo. And this

one's not used very often, I believe three times in

the in the New Testament, if I got that right.

This this name is more of an intimate name. I

think you're a few years back we had maybe Joe

Bowman had a had a had a message on just

this that hm, that picture of of our daddy like

a a child. This mhmm is someone that that we

in childlike faith can lean on for protection. He knows

what's best and he'll take care of us. An example

of this is Jesus praying to the Father. I'm going

to be reading quite a few verses, a lot of times,

single verses, maybe a couple. You can try to keep

up and turn to him if you want, but you

don't have to. So Mark fourteen thirty six, and this

is Jesus in the garden, and he said, abba Father,

all things are possible unto THEE take away this cup

from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what thou wilt.

And so I get the picture there of Jesus putting

his rest in the Father's will because he knows what's best.

It's that relationship. Now it's used for us a couple

of times Glatians four, verse six. And because of your sons,

God hath sent forth the spirit of his son into

your heart's crying, abba Father. So notice here we have

all the three persons of God in this verse, God

sending forth the spirit of his son and that heart cry.

It's that emotion, that connection. It's not just a distant

God up on a mountain. It's also used when talking

about our adoption by the Father. So keep that definition

in mind as we go through the rest of these.

There's Adami, which is Lord Master. There's Alpha and Omega,

which is the beginning in the end. There's Ancient of

Days is the anointed One. And then there's a lot

of ones that in Hebrews start with L, E, L,

and this next list all begin with L and so

it's something God or God something. So there's the Living God,

the God who gave you birth, the God of Knowledge,

the God Most High, the Mighty God, the everlasting God.

And there's el Roy is the God who sees there's

no place on this earth that God cannot see us,

and there's no pain deep or silent enough that we

can hide it from the all seeing eyes of el Roy.

This is the name that Hagar used when she was

kicked out into the desert with her son and God

spared her life. That's the name she used, the one

who sees me. Another familiar l name is El Shadai,

and that's God Almighty, the most High, all powerful. This

is the name God used when he appeared to Abraham

at ninety years of age to tell him I am

God Almighty, I'm the Most High, saw him ninety one.

Verse one uses this he that dwelleth in the secret

place of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow

of the Almighty. In the last of the el's that

I have here on my list is Ilohem. This is

the Creator. It's the name used in Genesis when God

said let there be and it happened just as he spoke.

This is the one and only, true, powerful, all knowing,

wise Creator. His might is supreme, and he holds the

universe in his hands. And no man made God could

ever compare to Elohem, even in our imagination. In the beginning,

Elohem created the heavens in the earth. Another familiar one

is Emmanuel, God with us. It's a beautiful name, comforting name.

Another very familiar one that's used a lot the Old

Testament is Jehovah or probably more correctly Yahweh, and that

is the self existent one I am. When Moses was

talking to God in the wilderness, that burning bush, and

God tells him, you go back to Egypt, and you

take my children, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.

Moses said, But if I go and they asked me

who sent me, what do I tell them? You know,

I always thought, well, God, right, like tell him God

sent you. That would be sort of obvious. You know,

that wouldn't work very That wouldn't go real far with Pharaoh,

for sure. It's like, well, I've got plenty of gods,

you know, plenty to go around. God told Moses I

am that I am. I'm that self existent God always was. Nobody,

Nobody created me, I created everyone. Tell them that I

Am sent you this name, this name of power and

authority and demands respect and reverence. It's interesting to me

that Jesus declared himself with the same name God used

to Moses in the desert in John eight verse fifty eight,

Jesus said, unto them, verily, verily, I sand to you

before Abraham was I am, and they got they were

pretty upset about that he claimed to be self existently

and you know, you look at that, it's like, isn't

that incorrect English? Before Abraham was I am? But no,

there is no name for God that says I was right.

It's an eternal truth that does not change with tenses

of their time. By the way, there is an exception

in English language for eternal truths too. It's like a

lot of exceptions. Okay. Then there's a whole whole kind

of list of names that include Jehovah. Let's start. That

was Jehovah. So this next list we'll be those the Lord.

And so these these were interpreted as are translated as Lord,

the Lord, Creator, the Jehovah, Jirah or Yira. However, you say,

that is the Lord, our provider. The Lord will provide

not necessarily our ones, but our needs. And what's tough

for us to understand is that God knows our needs,

and we have a hard time with thatt. This is

the name that Abraham used when the Lord provided a

lamb to take the place of his son Isaac on

the altar, our provider, the Lord, our provider. There's the

Lord who sanctifies, the Lord our banner, the Lord our Healer,

the Lord our Shepherd, the Lord of hosts. There's Jehovah Shalom,

the Lord is Peace, the Lord is There, the Lord

our Righteousness, the Lord our Rock. Those are all Jehovah names.

And then we have a really familiar one, and that

is Jesus, and that is the Lord Saves. Now there's

a whole list of names that that Jesus, that refer

to Jesus. You know. There's the There's that one Prophecy,

wonderful counselor the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince

of Peace. There's Logos, the Word, the very being of God, Reason,

judgment spoke the world into existence. There's our dwelling place.

There's Messiah, the appointed One. And there's a of course,

the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghoes, many names, many others.

There are other names for God. Certainly, lots of definitions

and verses that could be given. I wanted to hit

a few of them. So now I believe that each

one of these names gives us a glimpse of who

God is. They're all accurate, and it gives us a

picture of who God is. Now back to or more

of who God is? So who is the trinity? And

how can three gods be one God? And does the

Bible really teach us well? I heard someone say recently

when they got asked a tough theological question. He said,

once you realize that you aren't God, then all of

your theological problems disappear. And we try to wrap our

minds around all of this stuff, and it's it's not

all in vain, but we do have to remember that

we are not God. God, I believe, is in a

different dimension. One reason we know that is he lives

in eternity and we live in time. And you know,

we can understand, we can with our brains know that

God's in eternity is no beginning, no end. But I

don't think any of us can truly comprehend that, like,

especially no beginning, because we all had a beginning, right,

we don't know how the end is. So maybe we

can sort of imagine, but no beginning, no end. We

cannot really wrap our minds around that. You know, it

can be helpful to think about about God sometimes at

least for me, as being in maybe a fourth dimension.

You know, I've heard it explain this way before. You know,

if I'm a bad enough artist, I'm not even gonna

draw stick figures up there. But if you could see some,

you know, if we'd have some stick figures two dimensional

length width, right, and if all they could see, let's

say they'd be alive and all they could see is

two dimensions, all right, would look out over this audience

and it would just look like there's really big people

in the here and really little people because there's no

third dimension, there's no depth perception, just look like this

is kind of funny. We got big people, little people,

no perception of depth. And I think that's a little

bit how it is when we, with our finite minds

try to understand fully an infinite god, now with the trinity,

you know, how can three be one? And we've tried

with our finite minds to come up with examples, like

an egg. You know, I could have brought an egg,

but they're pretty valuable right now and didn't want to

get robbed on the land. But if you cut open

a hard boiled egg and you can see there's three parts.

We've got the shell, white, and the yolk. It's one

egg turns into one chicken. There's three different functions. Now

again these analogies break down because this is not three

eggs and one egg. This is not the shell is

not an egg all bit in and of itself. Right,

But it begins to give us a mind picture. This

I might hazard the chalkboard, whiteboard. So this I think

this is accurate. Feel free to say if you believe differently.

It ran across this diagram that I think helps explain

a little back the Trinity. So we're going to say

we have the Father and I suppose this could be

in whatever order, but the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Yeah m hm, and we'll connect these here and God. Okay, okay,

I'm not going to write down in each line. Basically,

what this is saying is the Father is God, the

Holy Spirit is God, the Son is God. God is

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father is not

the Son or the Holy Spirit. They are there three persons.

The Holy Spirit's not the Father or the Son, and

the Son's not the Father of the Holy Spirit. All God,

God is all those that might be about as good

as we can come up with So is the trinity

really taught in the scripture. Now, it's true the Bible

doesn't specifically spell it out like an equation in the Bible.

But I believe we have much more than just clues

given in the Bible. And I believe we see the

three persons of God working so seamlessly we can miss

which person of God is. And that's probably by design,

because it's one God. But let's look at Genesis and

you can turn to Genesis one, and this verse was

used before Genesis one, verse one. But I'm going to

read it again, and I'll read it again later. But

in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now we already established that this creator the name is Eloheim.

Now Elohem is a plural noun, and this could be

for various reasons. Sometimes, you know, wise and powerful man

might say something like, you know, look at this tower

we built, right, but it certainly leaves the room. It

certainly leaves room for a plural godhead. And we see

the same thing if you look down at verse twenty six,

and God said, let us make man in our image

after our likeness. And he wasn't speaking to the angels

the angels were created. This was God like us. Now

let's back up to verse two. I found this interesting.

And the earth was without form and void, and darkness

was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit

of God moved upon the face of the waters. Who

moved on the face of the waters? It was the

spirit of God moving. And we see that, I believe

today the way the spirit moves. Don't see it, can

see the effects. And then verse three, and God said,

let there be light, And there was light. And here's

a pattern that is used for most of the rest

of creation until he gets to man and forms and breaths.

But we see a pattern here that God spoke the

world into existence by the word of God. The world

came into existence. But who is the word of God?

So let's turn to John one. I'm going to first

of all, read read the first three verses of John one,

starting with verse one. In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God. All things

were made by him, and without him was not anything

made that was made. And Dan talked had some verses

this morning to show Jesus as a creator. Well, we

have to. We still haven't really defined who the Word

is yet. So let's jump down to verse fourteen. And

the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, and

we beheld as glory, the glory as of the only

begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. So

the word was in the beginning was with God. Was

God made all things, And that word became flesh and

dwelt among us. That word is the Son of God, Jesus.

And so what it looks like to me Genesis one one,

one of the words for God generally referred to as

the Father, but elohem, it's a plural. So the Father,

or we could say the Godhead creating. Verse two we

see the spirit moving, and verse three and beyond we

see the Word or the Son of God bringing a

creation into existence. That's what it looks like to me,

at least in the first three verses of Genesis. Now,

one thing, I don't know that there's a lot of

theological value in this, but it was of interest to me.

Has been of interest to me that the number of

unspoken tries I suppose you could say trinity here in

the first verse of Genesis is interesting. Looks like a

pattern of creation. So I'll read Genesis one one again.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

So if you look at that in the beginning, that

started something new. That's time. Time has three basic tenses, past, present,

in future. In the beginning, God, who has identified himself

in three persons, father, son, and Holy Spirit, created the heavens.

He created space for everything to be in three dimensional

length with and height, and the earth matter matter comes

to us in three basic forms solid, liquid, and gas.

So in essence, in the very first verse of the Bible,

you have the Trinity. You have Illohem creating a trinity

of trinities. Now, there are a lot of places in

the Bible that talk about the Son of God the

Spirit of God. Can't hit them all. Like I said,

this is not at all exhaustive, but we will look

at a couple examples. Now in the New Testament of

where I believe all three persons of the Godhead are.

They're all mentioned and fully engaged. So let's look next

at Jesus baptism. So I want to read it from

John one first, John one, verses twenty nine through thirty four,

and I want to read this for the detail of

John the Baptist recording of this John Bare record, I

guess this is John the Baptist that was active at

least in this in these verses, and then I want

to look at the account in Luke. It's a lot shorter,

less detailed, but there's a verse that I want to

look at. Let's read from verse twenty nine in John

chapter one. The next day, John seeth Jesus coming unto

him and saith, behold the lamb of God which taketh

away the sin of the world. This is he of

whom I said, after me cometh a man which is

preferred before me, for he was before me. John was

born first. Right, He's saying, this man was before me

is a self existent I am, and I knew him not,

but that he should be made manifested Israel. Therefore am

I come baptizing with water? And John bear record saying

I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove,

and it abode upon him. And I knew him not,

but he that sent me to baptize with water. The

same said unto me, unto whom thou shalt see the

spirit descending and remaining on him. The same as he

which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and

bare record that this is the son of God. Now

let's look at the account in Lukes two verses Luke three,

verses twenty one and twenty two, and we'll be focusing

on verse twenty two, but I'll read verse twenty one

of Luke three first. Now, when all the people were baptized,

came to pass that Jesus also being baptized and praying.

The heaven was open verse twenty two. Really, pay attention

to verse twenty two here, and the Holy Ghost descended

in a bodily shape like a dove upon him from heaven,

which said, thou art my beloved son. Now somebody's saying

thou art my son. That must be the Father speaking

right in THEE. I am well pleased. So we have

here in this verse, this one verse, the Holy Ghost

descending on Jesus, and the Father from heaven speaking saying

you're my son. And in THEE am I well pleased.

And I think this is a beautiful picture of the

three parts of God, who are all God interacting in

one place. And in time. The next two examples are

going to be Jesus some of Jesus's last words to

his disciples before his ascension. So Matthew twenty eight, verse

nineteen one verse here go ye there for really familiar

verse go ye there in tear each all nations, baptizing them.

Now notice this in the name of the Father and

of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. So not

to be baptizing in the name of anything created, not

baptizing in the name of an angel or an apostle,

or any person or any anything but God, the names

of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

Another verse in Luke. I'll just read this Luke twenty four,

verse forty nine. And behold, in this is these are

the last I refer to this earlier. These are the

last words of Jesus in recorded in Luke. And behold,

I send the promise of my Father upon you, but

terry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until you be

endued with the power from on high. So Jesus is

assuring his disciples that he, the Son of God, will

send the promise of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit,

from the Father to them. And the beginning of acts

we could look at, we won't hear for the sake

of time, but it talks again about the promise of

the Father and defines that promise as the Holy Ghost specifically.

So again, all three parts of God beautifully represented in

Jesus's last communications to his disciples on earth. So here

are some things, some more things. I believe the Bible

teaches us about the trinity, the three persons of God,

and gonna just hit there's lots of examples. We're just

gonna take a couple of each. There is one God.

I believe that's really important. So we've already seen that

there are three parts, three persons of God. So does

that mean that we serve more than one God? Deuteronomy six,

verse four, and again I'm just going to go through

individual verses. You don't need to turn to all these. Here,

Oh Israel, the Lord, our God is one Lord. And

Jesus himself, who declared himself as I Am quoted this

verse in the New Testament. There's one Lord, John seventeen,

verse three. And this is life eternal, that they might

know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ of nascent,

only true God. There's one true God. And there are

many verses like this through the Old Testament. And the

New Testament that you could look at now this one.

I hope I'm not overstating. Feel free to correct me

if I feel this is incorrect. But it does seem

like the will. This is part of our kind of

feeble understanding of God. But it does seem that the

Bible would indicate that the will of the son is

in some way subordinate to the will of the Father,

even though their will is one. So if we look again,

and this is now we read from Mark before we'll

read from Luke. We read from Mark when Jesus was

in the garden of Eden, and it records him saying, ahbye, Father,

and Luke here, Father, if thou be willing remove this

cup from me, Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done.

So he subordinated his will to that of the fathers.

And in John twenty, verse twenty one, Jesus is saying,

Jesus said to them again, peace be unto you. As

my father hath sent me, even so send I you.

So while Jesus will is that the fathers, he was

sent by the Father. And I believe the Bible also

indicates that the Holy Spirit, the will of the Holy

Spirit is in some way subordinate to that of the

Son and the Father John sixteen, Verses thirteen and fourteen. Howbeit,

when he the Spirit of Truth is come, he will

guide you into all truth. For he shall not speak

of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,

and he will show you things to come. He shall

glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall

show it unto you. Notice here that the Holy Spirit

will speak what he hears and will glorify the Son.

So the will of the Son seems to be subordinate

to the will of the Father, and the Holy Spirit

to that of the Son and the Father. And yet

the Holy Spirit is fully God's. Look at Peter's and

you can turn to Ax five if you want to.

I'm going to just read two verses from there. This

is Peter's words to Anonius after he and Sapphire tried

to deceive people into thinking they were more generous and

sacrificial than they really were Verses three and four of

Acts five. But Peter said, Anonius, why hath Satan filled

thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost and to

keep back part of the price of the land whilst

it remained? Was it not thine own and after it

was sold, was it not in thine own power? Why

hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? Thou hast

not lied unto men, but unto God. Peter says, here

he lied the Holy Ghost. This is a lie to

God one Corinthians another on another verse, I believe shows

us that the Holy Spirit is God fully God one

Corinthians three, verse sixteen. Know ye not that ye are

the temple of God? Right, So you're the temple of God.

So who dwells in the Temple of God says, and

that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. And the

Bible also teaches that the Son of God is fully God.

We already read John one, verse one, but I will

again because we the Word is defined as the flesh

that came and dwelt among us, the Son of God.

We know that's Jesus. In the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

So that's a pretty clear one. Also first John five,

verse twenty. And we know that the Son of God

is come, and hath given us an understanding that we

may know him. That is true, and we are in him,

that is true even in his son Jesus Christ. This

is the true God, an eternal life. So the son

Jesus Christ is the true God. And it's hard to

stay at much clearer than that, I think. So who

is this wonderful God that is three parts yet all

fully God, three parts, all fully God, yet one God

whose will is subordinate to each other, yet each fully God,

the God who is almighty eternal. Now I'm gonna say

three words. I'd like somebody to tell me a little

bit what these mean here? Omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. All right?

How many school children? How many school children know what

obniscient means? All right? It's a good thing we didn't

just run over these words, huh. Anybody else? Anybody want

to help us out here? What does omniscient mean? All knowing? So,

and I didn't look this up this time, But omni,

as far as I can tell, means all so, mnicient,

omni It's basically all science. Science means knowledge, all knowledge, omnipotent,

all power, omnipresent, all present, everywhere, all at once. All right,

So this God that's almighty, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He's

the beginning and end, yet he lives in eternity. He's

all seeing. And yet our loving Father, who, if you

look at the Abba Father, is a lot like our Daddy.

All right, this amazing God that we cannot fully understand,

yet we can know, love and be as child. It's

a lot of a lot of things. So I'd like

to close here with some verses in Romans eleven, with

these all these things in our mind Romans eleven, verses

thirty three through thirty six. Oh notice how this starts.

Oh we've got an interjection here, all right, there's some

feeling in this statement. Oh, the depth of the riches

both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable

are his judgments and his ways past finding out? For

who has known the mind of the Lord, or who

hath been his counselor or who hath first given to him?

And it shall be recompensed son to him again? For

of him and through him and to him are all

things to whom be glory forever. Amen. So I hope

that this can be one more step of faith building

encouragement in your journey to knowing God. Thank you,