Introduction to the Trinitarian Faith Course - Session 8

It's nice to be together. Paul Golson, to his apologies,

he's away preaching somewhere. So he's not here tonight.

That's where that's where he is. Not actually, I'm not sure quite

where he is. So I was going to give a little

intro and then I thought we could work through the content

in the in the notebook. And for me, this sitting around

a table and having food together is also kind of part of this.

I'm reading this book that that Duncan's recommended called The

Other Half of Church and it's talking about how very often we

encounter God and we are transformed in our behaviour and

life, not through just absorbing some academic information, but

in through the way that we feel love and relate to each other.

And and that probably I think right side of the brain type

experience being such a key part of our transformation.

Say, you know, I think as, as we're on this journey together

as church, it's, it's something that we're doing together, isn't

it? And it's a, and it's a, it's an

exploratory journey that we're on and so great that we can do

it around a table in, in closeness and warmth.

And I think for my introduction now I wanted to say a little bit

about about the journey and how we journey this together as a

church and some thoughts that I've got.

So I've got 4 points that I wanted to share.

The first one is I was thinking just this week, how is the

problem with the whole world that for everybody, whether

they're atheist or whatever religion they are or Christian

is, is there can every problem be rooted back to a twisted or

distorted idea of an understanding of who God is?

That's my kind of thought experiment and, and just

thinking that, you know, Jesus, obviously most explicit

revelation of God that we have had, I suppose.

And and he was constantly surprising people, wasn't he

about what God was like and behaving in ways that challenged

perceptions and understandings and existing mindsets.

That was my first thought, something I've just been

pondering. And I was thinking about some

friends of mine who is not a Christian family and I see some,

a lot of pain that they're in. And I'm wondering they wouldn't

say they've got anything to do with God in their life and

they'd describe themselves as atheists.

But I wonder how much of the pain and stuff that they're

experiencing is actually a is, is linked to a reaction to how

they perceive God to be just Again, that's just my thought

experiment, really. That was my first thing.

The second one was that, yeah, I guess in terms of where I'm at

with this, with this journey with the Trinitarian faith

course, there's bits that I love and I think are brilliant.

And then I said this to Paul the other day.

There are bits of it that I don't, I don't really agree

with. I think there's, I think, I

think, I think it's particularly good for people who've had

experiences of evangelical Christianity, which is, which

has been overly heavy. And I guess, you know, that's

Baxter's experience, doesn't it? It's come from an extreme

Calvinist experience and, and Paul from a more extreme

Pentecostal. And there's a, there's A, and

there's a great, I think correction and, or, or

rebalancing of some of those, those things.

I, I, I personally think it swings too far in some ways.

So, so, and I think, and I was saying to Paul the other day,

you know, I find that deeply uncomfortable that I'm not

exactly on the same page with you on, on all of these things.

I want to be just championing you 100% and saying, I'm so for

this, I'm so for you. I really, I do really like you.

Please, can we still be friends even if we come to the end of

this, you know, and we're not like exactly on the same page.

He's like, of course, you know, but I think that's also a

challenge of our time. And, you know, the history of

the Protestant church is people get into their little niche and

they're like, oh, can't be friends with you, can't be in

furnishing with you because you don't have my same view on this.

We'll go and start a new church and you get that continuous

schism. And at the moment we're seeing

this horrible polarisation around the world, aren't we, of,

of people clinging to their tribe and, and you know, it's

just people that think the same as me or see the world the same

as me. And, and I think the beauty of

church in its design is that is that we should be able to

present a a better way, which is that we love each other first.

We love Jesus and and and and and, and, and within.

And so I don't intend, I don't want hope to have a sort of an

official hope line on this is our doctrinal basis.

You need to have to be part of hope.

Of course, there'll be a culture and there'll be sort of like the

theology that Alice and I have as leaders will obviously sort

of have a significant impact. But I don't want us to have to

say you've got to sign up to this exact world view and

mindset in order to feel like a home here.

And I think that will be a prophetic and powerful something

for the world. That was my second point.

What was my third one? Oh, my third one.

I might have shared this before, actually on a Sunday in a talk

maybe a few times. And I think again, a bit of

personal testimony of I think what this teaching has helped me

in is I used to find on Sunday mornings for me, there's always

a dynamic of the sovereignty of God versus the stewardship that

we are called to and entrusted with.

And, and where does this sort of boundary lie?

And I probably sway a bit too closely to it's all on me, the

stewardship side. That's, that's often my my kind

of wrestle. And so the dynamic often for me

on Sunday mornings was that I would actually have quite a lot

of diarrhoea on Sunday mornings. That would be my normal Sunday.

I'd feel this real pressure because I want people to come to

hope, have a powerful encounter with God.

And, and I kind of somehow felt that that was on my shoulders.

And I mean, there is a measure in which it is in terms of I'm

involved in leading this church. And so I do have an influence,

but at the same time, I can't make that happen.

And, and what was wonderful and changed my metabolism, I suppose

my bodily functions was sitting in that image of the Trinity and

sitting in that relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit

and, and, and, and just a kind of like a minute or so of sort

of meditating on that is my position and my posture and

changed my bodily functions to be more graphic than I'm

comfortable with being gnarly. But I think it shows, it shows

an it shows an example of, you know, the, the health and life

that can come from a healthy, more healthy adaptation than

understanding of what God's like.

So that was my Third Point. And I think my 4th 1, I think my

4th, my fourth example was I was at AI was at an event, church

leaders event. It was a talk from a kind of big

cheese speaker maybe a month or six weeks ago.

And it was an all day thing. And I was really inspired by

what this guy was saying in the morning.

I thought it was brilliant, really loved it.

And one of the things he was saying was that he could see

he's talking about understanding the timers that we're in.

He was saying that various things are being shaken and

changed and, and sort of fresh perspectives coming and sort of

new wineskins coming. And, and I and he was, he was,

he was, he was, he was being explicit on a few things.

But then I said to him at the lunch break in terms of these

things that are being shaken and sort of reassessed, you know, is

penal substitution one of those things that you, that, that you

see, because I, you know, I've, I've found a sort of, that's one

of the things that I found very helpful.

It's been this sort of questioning of that, of that,

the nature of that penal substitution thing.

And I've come to find that quite liberating and exciting.

And he was like, Oh, no, no, I'm totally fine with penal

substitution. And that's not one of the areas

I'm thinking of. And then I've watched in my

heart my attitude after lunch in the afternoon.

I just basically didn't really have much interest in what he

had to say. He'd like totally gone down in

my estimation. And I thought, ah, just spotting

it in myself, this sort of tribalism.

And it's like, oh, I see that, that thing in my heart, I'm

like, oh, you're not, you're not, you haven't got the

revelation, you know? And so I was like, oh, and, and

I guess that was my, my kind of 4th point was this was this, it

kind of ties in with the second point about tribalism.

I, I don't want, I don't want to be, I don't want us to be a

church. That's, that's tribal, that it

has some people that are in this camp, some that are in that

camp, you know, and we and I, you know, so I just want to

encourage you, if you see that, if you smell that in yourself,

I'm, I'm not convinced that's the, the way of Jesus and I

certainly don't want it in myself.

So they're, they're my 4 little for just reflections on the

journey so far or aspects of it for me.

And I do think it's a privilege that we're doing this and that

we're asking these questions. And I think there's a they say,

as we've said, you know, it's for some people, it's an

unnerving thing to be asking these questions and it's a bit

and it's a bit destabilising. I certainly find it makes me,

you know, question lots of stuff and parts of that are a bit

scary. I'm like, you know what, how can

I, I don't know, I don't think I understand this anymore.

And you know, but, but, but I think this is the right thing to

be doing. And I do feel they, my

perspective is I think there's bits of it that are an overswing

and aren't quite right. I do think there's been some, it

feels like there's a, it's a prophetic thing happening within

the church. I feel there's part that within

part of this. It's partly the maturing of the

bride. It's it's of Christ as the

church there. So it's a, we're privileged in

being part of understanding and sharing God, sharing the world

God in a better and more healthy way.

I feel. So I feel like we're in a

privileged place to be on this journey.

And yeah, can I pray? Can I pray for this evening?

Lord, thank you that we get to be here.

Thank you for the privilege of being part of your church.

And we, we, we come to you in, in humility as much as we can.

And we say, will you lead us Jesus into, into all truth?

Will you reveal Christ to us? Will you take away, make us

aware of and strip away from us lies that we've believed, ways

that we're misunderstanding and not saying clearly and, and and

we're wounding has has distorted our understanding of you and the

world and life and lead us into joy, freedom, fullness overflow

so that we can serve you, love you and live life to the full.

Live life in all its fullness, as you said Jesus, and share

that goodness with the world. Cool.

So the first part of the so we're on Chapter 8.

Help me. It's week 8 and the reflection

and exercise at the beginning was to look at this.

How many points is an 18 point list here of the Trinitarian

vision? And, and then the exercise is,

is choose four or five of the points above and consider which

scriptures speak most directly to them.

So it might be that you want to pick out one or two reading

through that What, what which something there that stands out

to you. Oh, yeah, thanks Olivia.

I would, I would recommend you read through that list of of 18

points and just ask God to highlight one of them to you and

then and then to go into that. So that's the exercise at the

beginning. And so we'll do that for about

15 minutes. Yeah, I think do it individually

to start with and then talk about it as a group.

So maybe just share one, choose one each.