Why the Trinity Matters (John 16:5-15)

Hello, I'm Pastor Creighton, and thank you for tuning in to New Sun Churches Podcast.

We're a gospel center church in Port Perry, Ontario, proclaiming the true and life-giving word of Jesus as we love and serve our neighbors.

May God bless you today through his life-giving word.

The holy gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, according to John.

Glory to you, Lord Christ.

Guess I need these.

Jesus said, But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asked me, Where are you going?

But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I go I will send him to you, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer.

Concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All that the Father has is mine.

Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

This is the gospel of Christ.

Grace to you, Lord Christ.

Heavenly Father, we now come to hear you speak directly to our hearts and to our minds.

Lord, we all come from different walks of life.

We all come from different weeks.

Some weeks have been good, some weeks have been bad.

Lord, we ask that you would just take these distractions away, that you draw us into yourself, that you would speak directly to our hearts and minds.

Father, help us to see Jesus lifted high.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

I feel like uh the more I come up here, the more things I have I bring up with me.

So just give me one second here.

All right.

So we've um we've now come to, I think it said in the bulletin today that we're coming into the summer, summer Sundays.

And I think uh when Creighton returns from vacation, he'll start the summer series.

And uh the thing that's interesting, we've gone through, now that we're end, we're at the end of the church calendar.

And through the church calendar, we celebrate Advent, we celebrate Easter a couple weeks ago, two weeks ago we celebrated Ascension Sunday, and then last week we celebrated Pentecost Sunday.

And now we enter into this season where there's not much going on.

And the thing that's interesting about it is that it's so easy to be focused on the things that in the book of Acts, because the Ascension and Pentecost Sunday happen in the book of Acts.

It's so easy to be focused on the early church's life and see all the great things that happened after these two moments.

But it's easy to forget that this is just a highlight real.

That through the Christian life, there's many times where things might seem very mundane, very repetitive, that not much happens.

And it would have been the same for the people in Acts, the early church, the apostles.

Because they were they're ordinary people, like you and me.

And now that we enter into this season of ordinary times, what um what can we reflect on in this moment?

Because it's so easy to get caught up in the moments of the great highs of the Christian faith.

I was a part of a movement before that was so focused on just the Pentecost Sunday, the fiery flame, flaming tongues, all the supernatural, and you lose focus of the things that really matter through those times.

People read these moments of the old church and they think they compare their lives to it.

And they think, well, my life doesn't look like that.

I'm not living a Christian life that looks like that.

I struggle, I struggle with the mundane of life.

I struggle with the suffering, with depression, I struggle with feeling isolated.

So why am I saying all these things?

Why am I talking about this stuff?

Well, today in the church calendar, if you don't know if you notice on your bulletin, it says Trinity Sunday.

This is the moment before we enter into the mundane of the church calendar until we get all the way to the begin where it starts over again in the fall.

And the thing that's so profound about the Trinity is that it is the bedrock of Christianity.

And it's also the one of the most confusing things to come up and preach on, the Trinity.

I I admit this this week um I just had such a struggle trying to figure out wrap my head around the Trinity.

And it's also funny that um the curate gets given Trinity Sunday, and the rector's on vacation now.

So it's just kind of I had to throw that joke in there.

Um but it's it's a confusing thing, the Trinity, and we try to think about it, and uh it can be um it can definitely go over our heads.

And the thing that's so wise in Anglicanism is we have a prayer book.

And this the prayer book is something that has um our forms of service, why we do liturgy is we get it from this book, the prayer book.

But at the back of the prayer book, there's these very concise and wise things called the 39 articles.

And the way Anglicanism works, everything that's in this book is interpreted through scripture and is interpreted through the 39 articles.

And then at the beginning in Article 1, it talks about the Trinity and it says this there is but one sorry, there is but one living and true God, everlasting without body, parts, or passions, of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, the maker and preserver of all things, both visible and invisible.

And in unity of this Godhead there be three persons, of one substance, power and eternal eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

I don't know if you notice when we pray the colics every week, um, it always says in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And it's good because we need to remind ourselves of the Trinity constantly, because it's the bedrock.

Now, after reading that, I'm sure we all understand it perfectly, right?

Yeah, yeah, no.

It's a confusing topic, the Trinity.

And what I want to do today is not try to make um figure out a framework how they all work together and how there's only one God and all that.

I want to look at the people of the Trinity.

I want to look at the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

I want to look at them personally, and we're gonna do that.

And because the Trinity is so easy to um, it's been compared to um symphonies, where there's all the many different instruments in the symphony, but they make one great sound.

It can be also compared to the human body, there's many parts, but it's one body.

It could be compared to a marriage, that there's two people but they make one marriage.

It could be compared to good food, lots of spices, things added together, it makes one good meal.

Or it can be compared to water, H2O, three things that go together, create water.

But the matrinity is mysterious and it's very confusing.

But we need to talk about it because of that, because it's the bedrock.

So in your bulletin, um, we're gonna the main text we're gonna look at, or part of it, is John 16.

We're gonna look at um verses 5 to 15.

It's in your bulletin.

If you have your Bible, it's very helpful.

I'm gonna jump a little bit um into Romans and I'm also gonna jump into Genesis, but you don't have to turn there if you have your Bible, because I'll just uh summarize it.

And we're also gonna jump into Luke, because we need to look around to get to the full scope of what the Trinity is.

And the title of this sermon in your bulletin, it says Why the Trinity Matters.

Why does it matter?

Well, we're gonna have two points for this sermon.

The Trinity matters because it shows us how helpless we are.

That's point one.

Point two, the Trinity matters because it shows us how loved we are.

So point one, the Trinity matters because it shows us how helpless we are.

Now this might sound intense, but this is what the Bible says.

And it opens up this great um redemptive story with how showing how helpless we are.

And we're gonna begin.

I'm gonna read a brief um part of Romans.

And it's Romans chapter 3, uh verses um 22 and 23.

Romans 3 · chapter mention

So I'll just get there and I'll read it.

Paul is writing to uh to the people to a church in Rome.

And what he's trying to do in the book of Romans is that he's trying to build this argument to show a climactic moment which happens in chapter 8.

But in chapter 3, as he's building his argument, he's showing that those who aren't the people of Israel, who don't follow the Jewish law, the pagans, the Gentiles, are completely helpless.

And then he also shows how the Jewish people who try to strive to follow this law of being perfect to make themselves right with God are completely helpless.

And then he says this moment in chapter 3, he says this, for there is no distinction between the Gentile and the Jew.

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

See, what Paul is doing here is that he's he's pulling from Genesis 3 because he's building this argument to show the great love of the Trinity, of Jesus.

He's showing that without Jesus, humanity is lost.

In Genesis 3, we looked at it in Learn's Exchange a couple weeks ago, Genesis 3 of the fall.

And if you can recall it, what happens in the fall is that God creates the world.

And then he gives this command to the man and woman, to humanity, that is to be fruitful, to multiply and fill the earth and cultivate the earth.

And then he also gives a command.

He says, Don't, you can do everything, but don't eat of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, because when you eat of it, you will die.

What he's talking about here is also a physical death, but a spiritual death.

And what happens because of this, because they do eat it, we all know the story, Adam eats, or Adam and Eve eat the apple, and they get cast out of the Garden of Eden.

What this signifies is that humanity is now cut off from God, that they are a fallen race, and it continues on and continues on.

And that's what Paul is pulling from here.

What Paul is trying to show is that humanity has been so helpless.

Genesis 3 in my Bible happens on page 3, conveniently.

And then if you look at it, it's a big book, it's thick.

So a lot happens through it in the redemptive story.

Paul is showing humanity is helpless, and he's building off of Genesis 3.

And this may seem unjust that God does this, but we believe in a perfect God, and a perfect God has to be perfectly just.

He can't go back on his word.

So he has to send humanity out.

It's like in a court setting.

Um, when we think about uh if someone's standing trial and the evidence is stacked against them, they've done a crime, we expect that they would be tried to the law of what the penalty is of that law.

So God, who is the perfect judge, we should expect no differently.

For the fall of humanity, sin entered the world.

Humanity could never get back to God.

They're helpless.

And the Trinity shows this.

And you may be asking, well, how does the Trinity show this?

I thought that's just the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

See, without the help of the Trinity, of the redemptive story, humanity can never become right with God, can never do it on their own.

But the way the Trinity shows us that we are helpless, it shows us this by showing us how loved we are, of why the Son had to come into the world, why God had to send his son.

And we're gonna do it, we've already started to do it with Romans and Genesis 3.

See, scripture interprets scripture.

That's the best way to read it.

You can't just take one part of it and then pull it out.

You need to use scripture to interpret scripture.

But now we're gonna turn to the text that we're looking at today that's in the bulletin.

So John 16, and we're gonna look at 5 to 11.

We're not gonna look at the whole thing here.

So let's look at it.

Verses 5 to 11.

This is John writing, the Apostle John.

He says this.

And it's Jesus talking.

Sorry.

It's John recalling Jesus' words.

Jesus says, But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you ask me, Where are you going?

But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send him to you, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you'll see me no longer, concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world is judged.

So here we see Ascension language, and here we see Pentecost language, that Jesus is talking about he'll leave, he'll be ascended, and we looked at that on Ascension Sunday.

And then Creighton last week looked at the Pentecost Sunday, where the Holy Spirit comes into the world after Jesus ascends.

But Jesus here, before he leaves the world, is talking about that he's gonna send the helper.

The Holy Spirit is called the helper.

He is one who helps.

But then he gives this talk about that this helper is gonna convict the world, that he's gonna show the world of their unbelief.

See, the the Trinity has the Holy Spirit in it, and he is the helper, and he's also the comforter.

He is the helper because he shows that how helpless humanity is without belief in Jesus.

Because that is the ultimate sin of unbelief in Jesus.

And the Spirit is the one who shows it.

See through the ascension, the Spirit comes.

And it's the Spirit that shows humanity where they stand.

It's not humanity trying to find out where they stand, it's the spirit showing.

You already see this idea of how loved you are through the spirit coming into the world and showing you where you stand.

Because it says in Colossians that we were all at one time lost in our trespasses, that we are all lost in it.

And it's only through the spirit's work that it can reveal to you your need for a savior.

It's only through that.

The Spirit does this, no one else does it.

See, the Spirit is kind of like um, it's kind of like an intervention almost.

It almost works like an intervention.

When friends gather to confront their friend of the friend that who has an addiction.

The friends gather to try to show them of what they can't see themselves.

And that's what the spirit does.

The spirit convicts, confronts those who don't know Jesus.

And then after they've put their faith and trust in Jesus, the spirit comforts, shows comfort to the person.

The spirit has two, almost two offices here.

The spirit shows our great need for a Savior.

It helps us before we even know we need help.

See, we can see the love already working.

See, we stand on the other side of the cross, those of us who've put our faith and trust in Jesus.

But this is the starting of the Spirit working in the lives of those who haven't don't know Jesus yet.

It shows us our unbelief in Jesus before the spirit, and the spirit is the only one who does it.

Now the Trinity has the Son also in it.

And the Son is Jesus.

We'll just get that off out of the way.

And this text that we're looking at is taking place in the middle of the upper room discourse, the famous discourse of Jesus with his disciples before he is crucified and betrayed, and then he re betrayed, crucified, and resurrected.

See, Jesus is talking about going away.

He's predicting his death before it even happens.

He's predicting his resurrection before it even happens.

See, this shows the evidence that this is a historical thing, that the cross isn't something that was fabricated.

It isn't something that he could have done on his own, that this happens outside of Jesus' control, that he didn't will it, or he didn't show, he shows that he's not the one in control of this happening.

He predicts his death without being the one who convinces the Romans to do it.

Jesus talks about going away, and what happens after is the crucifixion and resurrection.

See, in John chapter 3, it says this God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

John 3 · chapter mention

Jesus had to come to save us, to be our Savior.

And the Spirit does this by showing us our need for the Savior.

So we already see how the Trinity is starting to build, and we also see how the redemptive story is being fulfilled.

We see the great love of the Trinity.

So far, we haven't had to do anything to be saved.

It's the Spirit working in our hearts.

It's the Son coming into the world to die for our sins, the sins that we deserve, the judgment that we deserve, that the Son takes it on.

See, the only way that the judgment can be fulfilled is through someone taking our place.

And that is Jesus who takes our place.

So we see the Spirit working, we see the Son working.

And then we move on to the next person of the Trinity, the Father.

Now, today's Father's Day, and I'm gonna, I want to acknowledge that not everyone has great fathers.

So it's hard to wrap our heads around, um, if you have if you don't have a great father, to wrap our head around that there is a father within the Trinity.

But if we look at again at verses 8 to 11, it says this.

And when he comes, he will convict the words of the Spirit, he will convict the world concerning sin and unrighteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father, and you'll see me no longer, concerning judgment, because the ruler of the world is judged.

See, he talks about the Father in this.

Jesus is talking about the Father.

Now, who is the Father?

Who is this Father character?

And I think the best way that we can see the Father character is in Luke 15.

You don't have to turn to it, but I'll turn to it and I'll summarize it.

See, Luke 15 is the famous story of the prodigal son.

Famous story.

And we looked at this story way back, I think in the over a year ago now, of the prodigal son.

And what happens in the prodigal son is that there's this son and there's a father.

And the son comes to the father and says, Father, I want my inheritance.

Give me my inheritance now.

And in a sense, what the son is asking the father, he's asking him to almost die because he wants the inheritance, which only would have happened after the fact the father passes.

So the son is demanding his inheritance and the father gives it to him.

And then the son goes off and squanders it in another land.

He blows it all, he blows the inheritance.

He makes his family destitute, and then he goes off and blows it, blows it all.

Then as the son is out of money, he starts to work for people in the land, and he realizes just how bad it is.

And he decides he's gonna go back to his father and work for him.

So he goes back, he prepares this big speech, he goes back to the father, but as he's going, as he goes back, I'm gonna read a part of it, and it's um 15 verses 20 to 24, he says this, or it shows this.

And the son arose and he came to his father.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

And the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to the servants, Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet, and bring the fattened calf and kill it.

And let us eat and celebrate.

For this my son was dead, and is alive again.

He was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate.

See, in this we see a couple things.

We see the heart of the father in this.

And the way we see it is that we see the father was looking for the son, looking for his son to return.

And when he sees his son, he doesn't walk to him, he runs to him.

And in that culture, for a father to run, for a patriarch to run, is a sign of weakness, it's a sign of shame.

But he runs to his son.

The son who asked him to die.

He runs to him.

And the father cuts off the speech because the speech is longer than he prepared.

And then we see that the father cuts it off and he showers them in love, gives them a robe, gives them shoes, gives them jewelry to wear, a sign of royalty, a sign of being welcomed back freely into the family.

And then we see they celebrate.

See, this is the father of the Trinity.

This is the father who rejoices for those who put their faith and trust in Jesus through the working of the Spirit.

He rejoices in seeing his children come back to him.

And it's freely given.

It's not through our working, as John says in chapter 3, that for God so loved the world, that he gave his son.

The Father gives his son so that those who believe in him shall not perish.

Through that, the the curse that happened in Genesis 3 that Paul brings up in Romans.

This is the way that God saves his people, that God saves us.

And it's through the working of the Trinity of Him, of the three persons of the Trinity.

It's nothing that we can do.

See, the Trinity matters because it shows us how helpless we are.

And the way the Trinity matters, and how it shows us how helpless we are, because it shows us how much we're loved by the Father, by the Son, and by the Spirit, by God.

That's how the Trinity matters.

That's why it's so important we celebrate the Trinity and we sing songs about the Trinity.

Because that shows us a God, not a distant, far-off God, a God on their own, but a God who is made up of three people.

That's our God.

That is the God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So it's easy to get caught up in the hype and also feel dismayed when we read about the early church.

We feel the hype because we want to have those things, and it's good to pray for those things that happen.

But at the same time, we feel dismayed by it because we see in our lives that it doesn't seem to happen.

Our lives may feel mundane.

But we see here that we are so loved by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And they work in our lives and they bring us closer to them.

And that's how we are saved.

It's through the Son and the Spirit drawing us to the Son, and the Son is given by the Father.

And then John writes in one of his letters in 1 John, he says this, because there's times where we feel like we mess up.

There's times we feel like we don't measure up to God and to what he's asked us to follow.

But John says in one of his epistles, but if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

See, the ascension shows us that when Jesus goes and he ascended, he sits at the right hand of the Father.

He is the one sitting beside the Father, and He is the one who intercedes for us to the Father, who speaks to the Father, and shows the Father us.

He shows us his people.

We have someone who intercedes directly for us, because we are freely forgiven through the Son, through faith in the Son.

Friends, brothers, and sisters, you are so loved by the Triune God.

You're so loved.

And if you're here and you don't know this love, there's no better time to ask God into your life, into your heart.

The Trinity matters because it shows us how loved we are.

Amen.

We hope that you've been blessed by God's Word today.

If you live in the Port Perry area, we hope that you'll come and worship with us in person on Sunday at 10 a.m.

If you'd like to learn more about Newsong Church, we'd love to connect with you.

Please find our contact information at newsongportperry.ca and reach out to us.

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If you feel called to support our ministry with a financial gift, please go to newsongportperry.ca slash giving to make your contribution.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.