The Essential Doctrine: Why the Trinity Matters

That's one of my favorite songs that she sings. That's really,

really good. You win your Bibles tonight. I'm going to start

out a little different on the subject. Turn to Matthew 22. Turn

to Matthew 22. Aren't you glad that he held us fast? And I'm so

thankful. It's been a few. It's been actually almost four years

since we preached specifically on the subject of the Trinity. So

tonight we're going to do that. The tri unity of God, the very

important doctrine. It is essential. It's an essential doctrine.

If God was not, if Jesus was not God in the flesh, then we have

no salvation. And so as we think about this, I want to go to

this passage here in Matthew 22:41, where Jesus has just answered

Matthew 22:41

the question of some lawyers and the previous verses. What is

the greatest commandment in the Bible? And Jesus answered them

in verse. Look at, look at verse 36, Master, which is the great

commandment in the law. And Jesus said unto him, thou shalt love

the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with

all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And

the second is like unto it, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. So

all 613 laws in the Old Testament, Jesus summarizes down

to two. But really it's one. You can't have one without the other.

Loving God and loving your fellow man as you love yourself go

hand in hand. You love your fellow man as you love yourself.

Then you have. You do love. You do love God with all your heart,

soul and mind. Because essentially that's the only way that

you can love your fellow man as you love yourself is by loving

the Lord as he ought to be loved by you. And so, and then again

in Matthew 7:12, Jesus does say, whatsoever you would that mentioned

Matthew 7:12

unto you, do ye even also to them. For this is all the law and

the prophets. So he summarizes all the Old Testament laws down to

one. And that's the golden rule. Do unto others as you have

them do unto you. And then he, Paul summarizes it and says, that

is the definition of love. Love is treating someone as you would

want to be treated. It's selflessness. Selflessness. You come

right down to it. Sin in all of its various forms is selfishness.

Selfishness, the next question. And because this great

crowd was assembled and there were Pharisees there, and again,

lawyers and Sadducees, he asked a question of them. Verse 41.

While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,

saying, what think ye of Christ? What think ye of the Messiah?

Whose son is he? And they say unto him, the Son of David. They

know by prophecy that the Messiah would be of the lineage of

David, of King David. They believe that the religious leaders

believe that. Verse 43, he saith unto them, how then doth David

in spirit, in other words, under the inspiration of the Holy

Spirit, call him Lord, saying, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou

on my right hand till I make thine enemies thy footstool. If David,

then call him Lord, how is he his Son? I love this. And no man

was able to answer him a word and notice this. Neither durst any

man from that day forth ask him any more questions. I mean, the

Lord, of course, is all knowing. Jesus was all knowing. He

asked this question and understanding, and knowing that the

Pharisees would not be able to answer it, or at least didn't want

to answer it. And so he shut their mouths, stopped their mouths,

and they didn't ask. It's about a week before Jesus would go

to the cross. So turn, if you would, to Psalm 110. Psalm 110. This

is the verse that Jesus quotes, a psalm of David. Psalm 110.

It is a psalm. We've covered this one before. It's about five

years ago. We need to come back and hit it again too. But we'll

do that at some point. Psalm 110. So the religious leaders acknowledged,

and they in Christ's time did acknowledge and acknowledge that

Psalm 110 is a messianic psalm, that it's talking about the

future Messiah, that David, as he's writing, is prophesying concerning

the Messiah. The religious leaders at that time believed that

Psalm 110 was a messianic psalm. So look at it real quick.

Psalm 110, verse 1 letter. The Lord said unto my Lord. Now who's

Psalms 110:1

writing King David, right? King David's writing this. If this

was him talking about his Son, no king is going to call his son

Lord. So he's not. I mean, this is very easily understood that

this is not David talking about his Son. And again, this was

acknowledged by the religious leaders of Jesus Day, that this was

indeed talking about the future Messiah. And it is. It's a

Masonic psalm. So listen again. The Lord said unto my Lord,

sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.

The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion. Rule thou

in the midst of thine enemies, thy people shall be willingly. And

it doesn't take long till you recognize and know this is talking

about the future Messiah. And so what a verse it is. And Jesus

uses this verse to confound the Pharisees and the religious leaders.

So as we think about the triunity of God, it's important.

Again, I know I make this quote a lot from AW Tozer, but it's

one of my favorite quotes, if not maybe my favorite quote, that

what comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important

thing about you. As I think about Adam Biddle going into surgery

tonight and Chris Biddle and Christy sitting there and as he's

going through this surgery, what they think about God is the

most important thing at that point, at that time. How big is your

God? Do you have a proper view of who God is? Because again, we

have a tendency to have a wrong view of God. It's by nature

we have a tendency to have a wrong view of God. And we won't go

in depth again about that. But understanding that God is not, you

know, white haired, white man, you know, sitting on the porch in

heaven, rocking in a rocking chair, that's not God. That's not

who he is. God of the box that you've made him in and yet that you

put him in is not the God of the Bible. And all of us have. There's

not one of us in the room, including myself, that doesn't have

some obscure or some tendency to think wrongly of who God is. But

what's the most important thing about you is what you think

about God. Because when you do face, whatever it may be, health

problems, when you do face, financial, relational, whatever it

may be, what you think about God is very, very important. An attribute

of God is not part of God. They are the way he is. In other

words, balance. One attribute of God is not important than the

other. This is another quote. It's out of a book called the Pursuit

of God by A.W. tozer. I believe we still have some. I know

we did here recently of the. AW Tober's Tozer. Good night. AW

Tozer's book on the knowledge of the holy is one of the best books

you could ever read. And it's a small paperback. It wouldn't take

you all that long. And it's on the attributes of God. And he's still.

That's still the number one book that I would read when it comes

to the attributes of God. He also wrote a book called in the Pursuit

of God. And in there he just again makes it very clear that we

as Christians are supposed to want to know God. That wanting to

know God is so important. Because if we are going to that our

purpose is to be like him, to follow in the steps of Jesus, to

be conformed to the image of Jesus, then we ought to know him

more. And that's why Paul said, grow in the knowledge the Lord

Jesus Christ. Grow in the grace and in the knowledge of the

Lord Jesus Christ. And so we have received him, we have received

the Lord. But do we hunger and thirst for God? Do you? David said,

as the hart or as the deer panteth after the water brook, after

the water brook the creek, so panteth my soul after Thee, O God.

And I could go on and on of the Old Testament saints who yearned,

who longed to know God more. And we as Christians, and I myself,

need to be reminded that we ought to want to know God more again.

Even Paul said that all things he counted but loss. But to what?

Know Him. To know Him. The power of his resurrection. God is

a person and can be studied. In other words, God desires a relationship

with us. He desires for us to know him. And therefore we can grow

in our relationship with Him. Right. The more you know your spouse,

the more your relationship should grow. And so the more we know

the Lord, our relationship should grow in that. And I did say

should, said should, grow your spouse relationship. Some of y' all

were laughing, so I wanted to. The Bible speaks about Moses hungering

after the Lord. And he said to God, show me thy glory. And God granted

that request and let him see his hinder parts. Just a glimpse

of the glory of God. Because God told him, if any man sees God,

he'll die. There's so much more there. In other words, in the

Christian life, complacency is deadly. And we must desire to know

the Lord more. If we do not desire to know the Lord more, he

will not reveal Himself to us in a greater way. Right? In a greater

way. He wants. A.W. tozer said this, that that is God wants to be

wanted. He wants to be wanted. By the way, all of us have that in

us too. Amen. Guys are quiet. This is consistent with church as

well, but also personally. Just being busy about the programs

and business of the Lord does not constitute longing for the Lord.

In other words, a preacher can simply read his Bible to get sermons

together and to do his job, and yet never grow closer to the

Lord. Growing closer to the Lord and knowing him more is spending

time with the Lord, spending and walking with him day even in

and day out, spending personal time with him, activity and programs

and business does not necessarily constitute longing. God

reveals himself to his children and to Christians who are

humble and simple just, who are contrite, who are humbled, who

are, who bow low, by the way, so many times for us it's God and

that prevents us from knowing Him. It's God and that prevents us

from knowing Him. In other words, it's yeah, God and family

or God and job, or God. No, no priority is God. Everything else

falls under that. My relationship with God is the most

important thing in my life. Should be the most important thing

in my life. Amen. My wife should be second. My kids should

be third. My job should be fourth. Everything else falls down

there somewhere. I'm thankful as a Christian, priorities never

conflict. I was thinking about this today as I was studying something

else. It amazes me again. I'm going to get on the hobby horse for

a second. That we teach our kids that God should be first. And

as we're raising our children, we teach them that God should be

first. He should be first. He's the priority, number one. Amen.

But then as they grow, we teach them, we teach them as they

grow up and all of a sudden they enter that adolescence, they

get around that 10, 11, 12 year old and they began to ask questions

and they began to want to do things independently. And we want

to raise our children to be independent. Amen. But we're seeing,

we're suffering from that today in our society. You know, men

still living in their parents basement when they're 30 years old.

Yeah, there's a problem. But we gotta be careful as we're raising

our kids that as they get older that we begin to lower the

standards in order to just get along with our children. I don't

get, doesn't even compute in my brain. God's number one. And if

you're going to teach your children that God is number one,

he's the priority, then you better live that out too. The first

time they ask you. Well, you know, there's a baseball game on

Saturday morning or Sunday morning and coach needs me. No, you're

not playing on Sunday morning. Don't even have to ask me anymore.

The rest of your life. Well, Sunday night's not as important,

dad. Sunday night? No, never going to happen. Don't have to ask

me ever again. For the rest of your life. Well, it's a rain out

and they want to do a makeup game. Nope, don't have to Ask me

the rest of your life, God is priority, which makes church priority.

Church's priority over your sports, church is priority over your

friends. Church's priority over. Amen. Oh, but Wednesday night,

you know dad, that's not even in the Bible anywhere. Yeah, but

that's when our church meets. Amen. Don't ask me again. Well, can

I go to my friend's house Wednesday night or can I stay home

and do homework on Wednesday night? I don't get that one either.

Is God first or not? All my kids education and oh my goodness,

come on. Well they just give them too much homework. Well phooey,

let them get a zero then they're going to miss Wednesday night

because why? Why? Because God's number should be priority.

But secondly, and what's so important is this is you're teaching

your kids that God is priority. And so if you kept saying

it with your mouth when they were 0 to 1 year old, 2 year old,

3 year old, 4 year old, 5 year old, 6 year old, 7 year old, 8, 10,

11, but then when they become a little confrontational because

now they got a little independence and we want that. I

don't say we want them to be confrontational, but I'm saying we

want them to try to be independent. Amen. All right, so

then we begin to put boundaries. And so your boundaries

ought to match your theology. Your boundaries should match the

priority that's been set. Are your teenagers going to say you're

a fake? And you wonder why they rebel as they continue to go

forward. Man, my hobby horse tonight. But it's an illustration

of how God should be number one, right? God's number one. And

I always use sports as illustration. I've been doing that

now for 30 years. And that's because we confronted it with our

kids growing up. We never let our kids play. Not one time. Revival

meeting, Bible conference. Well that's not regularly scheduled,

dad. And our games are on Monday night. I don't care. Revival

meeting going on. Church. And guess what's going to happen? You're

going to miss your game. I'll give you one story and then I'll

move on, I promise. And I'm gonna brag on my kids a little bit.

He's not here. I'll brag on. The oldest one, Joshua never gets

bragged on, so he always feels left out. He did play in a state

game and one ran like 400 something yards and 9,000 touchdowns.

And all my kids were good at sports. Caleb was especially good

at baseball when he was little and played shortstop and he was a

9 or 10 years old and was on a good team. They were going for a

championship game, but on the lead up to that, they did win the

championship that year. But in the lead up to that, they had a couple

rain outs and the league, which was the HACCP Sports association,

wanted to play a game on Sunday night. And we told the coach

said, well, Kayla won't be there. Well, he's our shortstop,

he's our best player. What are we gonna do? I said, well, talk to

the league. Well, if we had it on Sunday afternoon, would you let

him? I said, yeah, yeah, Sunday afternoon. As long as he don't

miss church and the league moved the game, you know, so he could

play. You know what if every parent stood up, said, my kid's not

playing during church time, all the leagues wouldn't do it, right?

Especially these. Anyway, I do need to move on. What time is it?

7:30. All right. God first. God first. God and is what messes

us up so many times. No, no, it's God first. God. Our all is Christ.

Your all. He should be again. We should teach it to our kids and

then we should practice it with our kids. That God is priority.

The Levi's. The Levites did not receive any inheritance in the

land of Canaan which we've been studying on Sunday morning.

But the Bible says that God told the Levites that I am your inheritance.

And if you look at the context and you look at the whole of is that

the Levites received the best. They received an inheritance that

could not be done away with. Amen. So have we. We mean to remember

that we are priests. All right. God is triune. And I know

again, the verse I just read and Psalm I'm going to get to in

a moment, so just kind of stick with me. A lot of these verses

you already know, but God is triune. Again, Trinity means tri.

Three unity. Tri unity of God. He is three in one, three in one.

He is three distinct persons. But he is one in essence or one in

nature. He is not schizophrenic sometimes. Well, Jesus

must have been schizophrenic at three. No, no. Tri unity of God.

That which makes something what it is. In other words, his essence

or that is his nature. And we'll describe it here in a moment.

But there is no good illustration of the triunity of God.

Everyone you use does not fit perfectly. Whether you use an egg,

the shell, the white and the yolk still doesn't capture it. You

can use H2O. H2O comes in three forms, but yet it's still H2O.

You can use a football, which is a great illustration. No, it's

not. Still not. You have the leather, the bladder and the air

again. All of those maybe help us to try to conceive in our finite

brains what God really is in his tri unity. But none of it comes

close to really capturing the tri unity of God. He is one, in essence,

all three persons of the Godhead, all the summation of the

divine attributes of God. In other words, all three of the tri

unity of God contain all the attributes of God. Sometimes we kind

of think, well, the Holy Spirit is this and the God is that,

and Jesus is this. Well, again, they're. And I'll cover that

in a moment. What they do for us is different, but the attributes

are the same. In other words, God is undivided. It is important

that we think of God as Trinity, as in unity, neither confounding

the person nor dividing the substance. He is truly three in one.

And that incomprehensible. It's incomprehensible. It is absolutely

the first doctrine that the cults attack. Mormons do not believe

in the triunity of God and therefore they preach a false gospel.

Jehovah Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity, therefore

they preach a false gospel. If you rely upon the Mormons or the

Jehovah Witnesses and, and what they preach to get you to heaven

is not going to get you there because they don't believe in the

same Jesus we believe in, by the way. Let me say that in a different

way, they don't believe in the same Jesus. The Bible teaches they

preach a different Jesus, they teach a different Jesus. Lot of good

people in the Mormon Church, they are pulled there. The magnetism

of the Mormon Church is basically based upon their teaching

on the family. They are good at teaching on the family and they

draw people that way. But their gospel is a false gospel. They

are a cult. Our sincerest effort to grasp the incomprehensible

mystery of the Trinity must remain forever futile. AW Tozer said,

just get over it. You're never going to truly comprehend it. It's

just not going to happen. Human reason cannot fathom the Trinity,

nor can logic explain it. We are finite. God is infinite. So faith

plays an important role. You say preacher, why do you believe

in the Trinity? I believe in it because the Bible teaches it and

well, you can't explain it. Doesn't matter. The Bible teaches

it and therefore I accept it by faith. Even though I can't completely

explain it or understand it. Amen. God made this universe. And

yet we have lost the awe of the complexity and the enormity of

the universe. I'll never forget the first time going to the

Grand Canyon. I had seen pictures of the Grand Canyon. I had

witnessed, you know, video of the Grand Canyon even in school or

some there, some sometime thereafter. We went to the. Oh, the

museum where they have the. What is it? The movie where you feel

like you're inside of it. Yeah, I'm at whatever Omni theater

back in the day and they did one that was the Grand Canyon with

the airplane, you know, it's pretty cool. And I had seen all movies

and documentaries of the Grand Canyon. Y' all know where I'm going.

When I got there, the pictures did not do it justice. The movies

did not do it justice, the documentaries didn't do it justice.

I honestly felt it was fake. Standing there on the precipice,

you know, looking out at the Grand Canyon, I said that is not

real. Doesn't look real. And you have to go see it. It's the same

thing with sequoia tree. I just blows me away that there is

a tree that looks like it came out of Jurassic park. That truly

exists. It's amazing. It looks fake, doesn't look real. God's creation

is amazing. So many times we. We lose the grandeur of it, the amazement.

We no longer amazed at it. And we do the same with God. We're not

careful. Familiarity is tough. Preachers especially, we become too

familiar. Lots of illustrations I give for that one.

God is amazing. And yes, it's hard to believe some, some things

or to at least to understand them. But man, we accept them by

faith because the Bible teaches them. Bible doctrine is again

fundamental to the Christian faith. The triunity of God. God is

our heavenly Father. Christ is our elder brother, the Holy Spirit

there as comforter and guide and teacher again benefiting us.

All have the same attributes, but all three play a different role.

If you would all equal. A little boy by the ocean was pouring

water into a little hole. A man asked him the question, what

are you doing? And the little boy said, I'm trying to put the ocean

into this little hole. We can appreciate the ocean if you've been

there. Man, you talk about immense and just vast. Get on a cruise

ship, just get out in the middle of nowhere, our airplane and

see it from the sky. We can appreciate the immenseness of the

ocean. We can be awed by it, we can enjoy it. But we can't even

come close to exhausting the immenseness or the mystery of it.

Most of the ocean still hasn't been explored by human beings. There

may very well be a mechelodon there. Who knows. What a mighty God

we serve. In Psalm 110 that we just read again, Jesus asked the

question to the religious leaders and he's doing so to honestly

to shut their mouths. It wasn't that they didn't know the

information. It was they rejected the Messiah on purpose.

They were jealous of him. They wanted him killed and they rejected

him again. As we look at Psalm 110, it says, the Lord said unto

my Lord. Again, the word here, the Hebrew word is Jehovah, said

unto Adonai, it's a father speaking to the Son. But here it's

God speaking to his son. Again, Jesus alludes to this verse.

David was king again. He would not address his son as Lord. This

is a Masonic song. Because of the context, we know that is the

case, we're not going to read it. The primary point that Christ

was making was that David's son must have been also God for David

to have addressed him as his Lord God. And as Jesus expresses

this to the Pharisees, they would have understood what he said

because unlike us, they knew the Hebrew words and what they meant

and that he was claiming the Messiah is God. David is saying that

the Messiah is God. And so Jesus confronts him with that. It's

one thing for me to go through and quote all the normal scriptures

we quote concerning Jesus Christ being God in the beginning,

you know, 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, right?

All things were made by him. John, chapter one, verse one through

three makes it very clear that the word capital W O R D is God.

So John the Apostle taught that Jesus Christ was God in the

flesh. Jesus said himself, if you've seen me, you've seen God.

And you could go on and on and on. Again we quote Timothy that says,

great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the

flesh. In the same chapter, John chapter one in verse 14, again

being the expression of his glory, God in the flesh. Hebrews

Hebrews 1:1–3

chapter 1, verses 1 through 3 again refers to Jesus as God in the

flesh. And on and on and on. As we come to the Christmas season,

we need to be reminded that Jesus Christ was indeed God in the

flesh. That when he was born that it was again Mary, who was the

receiver of the Holy Spirit, who placed the that part into her

womb. God in the flesh. Why did he have to be God in order not

to have a sinful nature? Because if he was born of Joseph,

he would have been born with a sinful nature, born of the Holy Spirit

with life from above. Right? Jesus Christ did not lay aside his

Deity when he was here on earth. And we've given you there.

And It's John chapter 3 and verse 13 where he refers to Himself

John 3 · chapter mention

here on earth and in heaven at the same time. Jesus Christ refers

to himself here and there. In other words, he was still omnipresent

even as he had a body. He was God in the flesh. Somebody said it

this way. Let's not let what we can't know keep us from what we

can know. Be careful not to stumble over the teachings of the

Trinity. Be careful when you're talking to someone you know,

Unitarian, again, a Mormon, a Jehovah Witness, and realize that

again they deny the Trinity and so denying the Trinity, they

deny that again that Jesus Christ was God in the flesh. And

therefore they preach a false gospel. Godhead is active in unity,

in creation. In other words, it was the Godhood who was active

in creation, creating what we have here today. The universe, the

sun, the moon, the stars. Jesus Christ being the one out front,

who I believe it was Christ's voice who said, let there be light.

I believe it was the incarnation of Jesus Christ. In prayer,

we must not just. We are not just coming to God, but we're coming

to our Heavenly Father. We're coming to our Heavenly Father by

way of adoption. We've been born again. Amen. We're coming to

our Heavenly Father when we pray by way of our elder brother

Jesus who's the mediator. And we're doing so in the power of the

Holy Spirit. Aren't you thankful for the Holy Spirit that

enables us gives us words we cannot utter. God the Father is not

God the Son and God the Son is not God the Spirit. However, all

are fully equal, equally God and exist in a unity of being, subordinate

in roles, but not in essence, all equal. Somebody said it this

way. Try to explain the Trinity fully and you will lose your

mind. But try to deny it and you'll lose your soul. Amen. Amen.

Let's all stand. We have a verse invitation tonight. The application

Again we think about God as God in the flesh. The tri unity of

God, God our Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ our elder brother and

the Holy Spirit who is our comforter, guide and strength. What

a blessing and what a mighty God we serve. Heavenly Father. Lord,

we do thank you for your love, your grace and your mercy that's

been given to us. Lord, may you continue to work in our hearts.

And Lord, help us to long for you. God, help us to want to know

you more. And Lord, help us to walk with you daily. In Jesus name,

amen.