I Believe: Our Triune God (Deuteronomy 6:4-6; 1 John 4:8-9, 12-13)

Hello, listeners.

This is Pastor Creighton.

Thank you for tuning into Newsung Church's Sermon Podcast.

At Newsung Church, we want to see Jesus lifted high in Port Perry, Ontario, as we worship, grow, and serve.

You can learn more about us and find contact info at newsungportperry.ca.

Today we begin our new sermon series called I Believe the Apostles' Creed in the Christian Life with the sermon Heart from the Ungombed.

Listen to these scriptures from today's readings.

First, from Deuteronomy chapter 6, verses 4 to 6.

Deuteronomy 6:4–6

Hear Israel, the Lord of our God, the Lord is one.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.

And these words that I commend you today shall be on your heart.

And second, from 1 John chapter 4, verses 8 to 9 and 12 to 13.

1 John 4:8–9

God is love.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, and that God sent his only son into the world, so that we might live through him.

If we love one another, God abides in us, and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit.

And now let's listen to the apostles' creed.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.

Amen.

I believe in God, the Father Almighty.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son.

I believe in the Holy Spirit.

Let us pray.

Holy, holy, holy God, perfect us in your triune love.

And may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord our Rock and our Redeemer.

Amen.

What is the loveliest thing about God?

What is the loveliest thing about God?

I wonder if this is a question we spent time thinking about.

What draws our affections to him?

What inspires our devotion and our adoration of him?

What is the loveliest thing about God?

Well, as we take a moment and think, maybe a few things come to mind.

Maybe his creativity comes to mind.

That's hard to deny that God is lovely when we see blazing sunsets and we see hummingbirds at the feeder.

Another person might say, perhaps this person's a Sunday school graduate, that the loveliest thing about God is the cross, where the penalty for our sins has been paid and we're forgiven.

Perhaps yet another might say that the loveliest thing about God is the promise of eternal life for those who put their trust in Jesus.

Now, I suspect we could compile quite a list between us.

But what all of these things that I've listed, and I suspect many more, all have in common, like a single thread that weaves its way through them all, is this the love of God.

God is love.

And the love of God animates all that he does.

His free and eternal self-giving for the sake of the other, the love of God.

Our psalm this morning, Psalm 86, echoes a refrain throughout Scripture.

Which is this wonderful Hebrew word Hesed, which the ESV translates as steadfast love.

Our God abounds in a steadfast love that we can bank on.

There are many lovely things about God.

He's good, he's gracious, but at the center of it all is God's heart, which beats and overflows with an abundant and an abounding love, which we glimpse in creation, we behold at the cross, and we're assured of for all eternity.

God is lovely because God is love.

Only love can draw our affections and inspire devotion and adoration.

But perhaps on this Trinity Sunday morning, we can take this one step further.

We can say that God is love because God is triune.

God is Trinity, three relational persons in one communal being.

And this is what makes God truly lovely.

The doctrine of the Trinity rests on four premises.

According to one study Bible, number one, there is one and only true and living God.

Number two, the one God eternally exists in three persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Number three, these three persons are completely equal in attributes, each with the same divine nature.

And number four, while each person is fully and completely God, the persons are not identical.

So that's clear as mud, right?

Do you find the Trinity a, well, confusing?

Maybe a little opaque?

Maybe the Trinity seems to us more like an academic, you know, kind of mind puzzle that theologians invented to keep themselves looking busy.

Maybe the Trinity seems more like a crazy uncle invited to the family gathering of Christian doctrine.

You know, he belongs to the family, so we're going to pull up a chair, but it's really best to pay little mind to this guy who just keeps babbling on about how 1 plus 1 plus 1 equals 1.

It's going to give you a headache and spoil an otherwise good time, so maybe we best kind of leave them be.

So this is how we might think of the Trinity.

But if we do, I want to suggest to us this morning we will miss out on what makes God truly lovely.

God is love.

Pastor and scholar David Jackman writes at the heart of God there is a dynamic interrelationship of love.

Love flows between the three persons in a constant interaction, so that every activity expresses the love which is the divine nature.

The Father loves the Son.

The Son loves the Father.

The Spirit loves the Son, and so on and so on.

God loves within his own being because his nature is to love.

So there's good news for us this morning, friends.

There's good news for us, I hope, for those who find the Trinity a rather confusing and obscure doctrine.

The good news, I hope, is that we can find some clarity.

No, this isn't a Rubik's Cube we're going to solve, but this is a wonder we can behold afresh.

And I think there's good news for those who desire to know the loveliness and the love of God for themselves in a fresh way.

So today I pray that we would come to a renewed understanding of God's triune love and by grace receive it for ourselves like a deep inhale of rich mountain air.

Like theologian Michael Reeves writes, the triune being of God is the vital oxygen of Christian life and joy.

Could we use a fresh breath of oxygen this morning?

I hope so.

This is the first stop in our summer-long sermon series on the Apostles' Creed.

The Apostles' Creed is a little bit like a transit map of the faith.

See, if someone came to you and asked you, I hear you're a Christian, what is it that Christians believe?

You might, like me, have to pause and think about that for a second.

You might be inclined to say, well, Christians believe the Bible.

And that's true.

Because the Bible is God's inspired word, we hold it to be trustworthy and true in whole and in part in everything that it affirms.

But in case you haven't noticed, the Bible is a pretty big book, isn't it?

And the message of salvation that the Bible gives us is very clear, but it has many different facets, many different parts.

How is it that we're supposed to make sense of everything that it communicates to us?

Well, the creed is a wonderful gift that we've inherited from the early church.

It's a second-century transit map of the faith.

Now, when I was living in Chicago, I took the L train just about every day.

And if you've been to places like London or places like New York, you've taken similar trains.

We've looked at transit maps.

I suspect Toronto has something similar.

I've never taken the train there.

But we look at a transit map and we don't see a three-dimensional detailed map of the city, do we?

We see the stations that represent different neighborhoods.

It gives us just enough information to know where we are and where it is that this transit line is going.

So too, the Apostles' Creed gives us those neighborhoods of Christian doctrine and true belief that represent, for us, biblical truth.

This is for us a journey through the transit map of our Christian faith.

And the Trinity is our first stop because the Trinity is the very DNA of this creed.

You won't find the word Trinity in the creed.

You won't find the word Trinity in the Bible.

And yet this word Trinity represents a biblical understanding of who God is as he reveals himself to us in Scripture.

Our Christian faith is unavoidably, undeniably Trinitarian.

And this is a wondrous thing because God is love.

And God is love because he is triune.

Trinity means God is three relational persons in one communal being.

So let's talk about the threeness and the oneness.

Let's begin with the oneness.

Let's look at Deuteronomy chapter six together.

At this early point in Scripture, God has led his covenant people Israel out of slavery in Egypt and through forty years of desert wandering.

God's people stand at the border of this rich and fruitful land of Canaan that God has promised for their inheritance.

But this land is full of people who worship brutal gods, and will tempt God's people to stray from covenant faithfulness to him.

So through Israel's leader, Moses, God speaks his word to his people.

Deuteronomy 6 4.

Hear, O Israel, Shema in Hebrew, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.

Now this is an easy verse, maybe even a familiar verse to us.

It's easy to glaze over it.

This is quite a sledgehammer.

It's got weight to it, and it's got two particular thrusts to it.

It thrusts against any kind of polytheism we might be inclined to.

It thrusts us towards exclusive fidelity to this covenant God.

Let's talk about polytheism for a second.

Israel was called to be a kingdom of priestly blessing to the world around it.

It meant it was going to be distinct.

This nation, Israel, was going to be distinct from the nations around it, which, like Egypt, where they came from, characteristically worshipped a whole gaggle of different gods, a whole parade of different gods.

They're polytheistic, which means they worship many gods.

Each god, it was understood, had their own domain of supervision, their own interests, and their own agendas.

These polytheistic gods competed for worship and loyalty among their subjects, vying for worship and influence.

And often they were represented and symbolized by idols, which gave expression to the people's affection and devotion for these particular gods.

But God's word, however, makes it clear.

He is unrivaled.

Again, Psalm 86 bears witness, among the gods there is none like you, O Lord.

And as Exodus 3 bears witness, God reveals himself as the I am, the great I am, the self-sufficient, utterly unique one.

The Lord is not simply one especially powerful God among many others.

Rather, as the prophet Isaiah records, I am the Lord.

There is no other.

Besides me, there is no God.

One commentator writes that the Lord in Deuteronomy chapter 6 reminds Israel of his uniqueness.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

There are no rivals.

To love other gods is to pursue nothing.

They do not exist.

He is the one and only Lord.

So whatever else this might mean for our doctrine of the Trinity, we can safely rule out tritheism, which is to say we can rule out an understanding that our God is in fact three little gods who've decided at some point to cooperate with one another out of their own best interest.

Because what polytheism shows us is gods, different gods, can just as easily decide to compete with one another as cooperate with one another.

No, this God reveals himself to his people as the one true eternal God.

But Deuteronomy chapter 6 is more than just a philosophical statement about monotheism, the belief in one God.

Deuteronomy 6 · chapter mention

Rather, it's a call to fidelity, to exclusive loyalty and trust for God's people towards the Lord.

It's a call to stay faithful to the one true God above all else.

Our prayer book service, wedding service, has both the bride and the groom at the very beginning of the service promising that they will be faithful to their spouse, forsaking all others, and be faithful to one another as long as they both shall live.

This, for the people of Israel, God's people, is a forsaking all others moment.

You will not pursue other gods, you won't pursue other agendas and interests.

You will remain exclusive to the Lord.

That's why we read in verses five and six that follow you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might.

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.

Your whole person is dedicated exclusively to God.

God's oneness means that he doesn't share his people's love or affection with other false deities.

Like a loving spouse, God calls his people to exclusive faithfulness.

But this is not restricting his people's freedoms.

In calling his people to an exclusive trust, like a faithful spouse, he's calling his people to receive and reciprocate an unwavering and overflowing life of love that will only grow with fidelity.

It's a beautiful love that God wants to share.

And it will lead to an abundant life, not just for this generation, but for generations to come.

So when he was asked, what is the greatest commandment?

Jesus began answering with a reference to this very passage.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind.

We, God's covenant people in Christ, still understand him to be one.

We are still monotheists, but we must not miss the fact that we're still called to exclusive fidelity to him in Christ.

Being Jesus' disciples means we are called to forsake all others, to abandon all other false deities and objects of worship, and direct our affect the affection of our hearts supremely to Him.

Again, this is far from restrictive for us.

Our capacity to experience God's love grows and overflows with a lifetime of faithfulness and forgiveness when we fall short.

God is one, and this one God loves his people and calls his people to share in his love.

And yet something remarkable emerges over the course of God's own self-disclosure, his revelation in history.

God is one, but he's not a solitary one.

Even the very first verses of the Bible witness to a sort of plurality in unity within the life of God.

God creates the world by his word, and his distinct yet self-same spirit hovers over the untamed waters of creation.

When God decides to create human beings, he speaks in the plural.

Let us create God in our, or pardon me, create man in our image.

So Old Testament scripture is full of this kind of plurality and unity, language and imagery.

It prepares us for a wondrous and mind-blowing event, the incarnation, that is the embodiment of God in Jesus.

God became flesh and dwelt among us, so writes the Apostle John.

God in Jesus has become fully human and moved into the neighborhood of wayward and estranged human beings out of love for us.

Jesus Christ, the Son, is God, yet distinct from God the Father.

More than that, with the Father, he promises to send another helper, the Comforter, God the Holy Spirit, who will indwell the hearts of believers and empower them for mission in God's world.

And that's exactly what we celebrated last Sunday on Pentecost.

God is one being, and God is three persons.

Let's talk about God's threeness.

See, at this point, some might say, um, okay, I get it.

I'm starting to see, Creighton, that there's a sort of plurality and unity, and that's fine.

But I think jumping straight to the Trinity is a little bit of leap in logic.

Perhaps this one deity is really just taking different forms, existing in different modes.

First as the Father, then as the Son, and then as the Holy Spirit, kind of like a single actor might have multiple roles in a play.

Or a kind of like H2O can exist as vapor or liquid or solid as ice.

This is a teaching called modalism.

God takes on different modes.

You'll find this teaching in places like oneness, Pentecostalism.

And yet, what the Bible seems to witness to us is that God is, or Jesus is seen praying to the Father.

Not talking to himself, but praying to a distinct person, even submitting himself to the Father's own will.

And the Spirit is spoken of in personal and divine terms as well.

There's distinction among these divine persons that share unity.

Perhaps you might say Jesus points us to this one deity, but isn't himself God.

He might be an exalted human being, or perhaps even the first and greatest of the created beings.

But there was a time where the Son didn't exist.

So he doesn't share in God's eternity or in his divine attributes.

This is the teaching of someone in the ancient church called Arius.

It exists today in Jehovah's Witness theology.

Yet Jesus makes the claim that the Father has loved him since eternity past.

He shares an eternity with the Father.

But not just that, he shares an eternal love with the Father.

He shares an eternal love with the Father in the union and unity of the Holy Spirit.

So this is the beautiful thing that we ought not to take lightly.

God's triunity means God has spent all eternity, forever in the past, sharing, receiving, reciprocating love amongst divine persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

If God is solitary and not plurality and unity, then love would have to be something that God learned to do.

There would have been a time where God didn't love because there was no one else to love.

This is what brings us to 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

Now I confess I spent a lot of time hunting through different passages in the New Testament for a particularly Trinitarian passage.

There are plenty of them.

I wanted to avoid repetition because we just worked our way through 1 John, didn't we, in the last couple of weeks?

This was our reading just a few short weeks ago.

But friends, there is there are a few passages that bear witness to the awesome loveliness of God's triune love, quite like 1 John chapter 4.

1 John 4 · chapter mention

I didn't want us to miss it.

Here the Apostle John wants his divided first century congregation in Ephesus to reckon with one foundational truth of who God is.

God is love.

See, John doesn't say that God loves as a verb.

He certainly does that.

John doesn't say that God is lovely as an adjective, although he certainly is.

Both of these would imply that love is something external to God, something extrinsic to him, something he's associated with or an activity he performs.

But John instead says God is love.

That is his nature, that's his being.

This is something utterly unique to say of our triune God.

I can tell my wife I love you, and that's true.

I can't say I am love.

How is it that John can say that God is love?

Let's zoom in on chapter 4, verse 9.

In this, the love of God was made manifest.

It was put on display among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.

Continuing in verse 12, if we love one another, as the church, God abides in us, and his love is perfected.

That is, it is completed, it is fulfilled in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his spirit.

God is love because God is triune.

We see all three persons of the Trinity at work in love, the Father who sent the Son into the world that we might live through him, and the Spirit who is given to us that we may abide in God and God in us.

So when we look at the cross of Christ, his greatest display of love, and we call to mind his death and his resurrection, we are made to see the triune love of God in full display.

The Father who so loved the world that he sent his only Son, His only Son who bore our sin, his only sin who put our sin in death to death by his death.

And his only son who was raised by the power of the Holy Spirit, and now sends his Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers, so that we too can have this resurrecting, renewing, raising power living within us.

We can be caught up in the very life and love of God through the cross, through the triune love of God in Christ.

See, the cross reminds us that God's love is not stingy, it's abounding, it's abundant.

It's like a fountain with an infinite supply of water that spills over and calls forth life wherever it goes.

God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is triune.

He loves his people and calls his people to share in his triune love.

If we take the cross seriously, then the Trinity cannot be for us a dry and distant doctrine.

It means we are getting caught up in the very life and love of God by the power of the Holy Spirit in the Son and finding the very heart of the Father.

God is lovely because God is love.

Only love can draw our affections and aspire devotion and adoration.

God is love because God is triune.

This is heady stuff, is that fair to say?

I think we want to wrestle with the question: what difference does this make to our everyday life and discipleship?

Let me just make a few quick notes and we'll land here.

Consider this.

We act out our beliefs.

I believe in gravity.

That means I'm extra careful when I'm cleaning out our gutters.

I believe in modern medicine, so I'm going to fill my prescription when it's time.

See, we act out our beliefs, and who we believe God to be will inevitably play itself out in our life as disciples.

If he's a solitary, far-off deity for whom love is an external thing, then we will act that out in our spiritual life as we desperately try and get his attention and desperately try and find some assurance that maybe he kind of likes us, sort of.

But if we take seriously the Bible's witness that God is triune, we'll find ourselves caught up each and every day in the life and love of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

New songs discerned that we're here to worship, grow, and serve.

So let me make a couple of notes about what the Trinity means to worship, grow, and serve.

See, worshiping, ascribing worth, worship, to a solitary God is kind of a currying favor with a way up their deity.

But to worship in the Trinity is to recognize that we're those who abide in God by His Holy Spirit.

We are recipients of the Father's love in Christ through the Holy Spirit.

We rest assured of that in our baptism, where we are immersed in the life and love of God in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Our worship is more than an allegiance to a big and scary solitary God.

We're invited into this community, this family, as it were, of love, Father, Son, and Spirit.

So we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.

This is true every day in our private prayer lives, as it is when we gather together in person or online.

How about growth?

Spiritual growth with a solitary God becomes a quickly kind of slavish work.

It's like a child trying to stretch themselves out to grow taller.

We quickly apply self-help and frenetic spiritual principles to desperately grow and do something we think God will approve of.

But if we live in the life and love of the Trinity, then spiritual growth comes by living in the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit, as Paul says in Galatians chapter 6.

Galatians 6 · chapter mention

We have only to yield ourselves over to that love and life which abides in our hearts and find ourselves led into the way of eternal life.

And finally, what does it mean for how we serve?

See, if God has so loved us that He's given us His only Son and poured His Spirit into our hearts, then we are recipients of an incredible generosity.

What can we do but share that generosity with others?

If we have been so loved, what could we do but love one another in Christ's name?

And love our community and ask our neighbor, how can we help?

Because we ourselves have been truly touched and helped by the triune love of God.

So, friends, what is the loveliest thing about God?

What draws our affections to Him?

What inspires devotion and adoration?

The abounding love of God, his free, eternal, self-giving love for the sake of the other that calls us into a life of faith, trust, and discipleship.

I hope this once seemingly crazy uncle, the Holy Trinity, starts to make us seem crazy for preferring any other conception of God.

Only the triune God is love, and we are invited into his very heart.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty, God in three persons, blessed Trinity.

Amen.