Trinity - The Father

Good morning, everyone. Happy New Year again.

It is, if you will believe me, still Christmas.

Hell yeah. So even though we turned a new calendar page and it is 2025,

some of us are having a very hard time with that.

Some of us are having a hard time grasping the fact that we are a quarter of the way

into the 2000s when those same sums of us feel like Y2K was like a minute ago.

Time is weird. However, in regard to the church calendar, we are still in

Christmas and so you may remember a few weeks ago as we were wrapping up Advent,

I mentioned that though Christmas Day is the 25th of December, the season of

Christmas is the extending 12 days from that and so the season of Christmas

officially ends on January 6th, which this year falls tomorrow on Monday and

that is Epiphany. And it is the day within the church year that we recognize

that the visit of the Magi or the Wisemen to Jesus was the revelation of

Christ to the Gentiles and not just the Jews but that Christ came for all the

world. And so Advent recognizes that hope and peace and joy and love have come.

Christ has come to be the light for all.

Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word. Grant

that this light and kindle in our hearts may shine forth in our own lives. Through

Jesus Christ our Lord who lives and reigns with you the Father in the unity

of the Holy Spirit, one God now and forever. Amen. So why do we observe the

church year here? It is not scriptural but it carries us through the narrative

of Scripture. Emily Hunter McGowan says in her book about Christmas, so there's

this really great little series called the Fullness of Time series. I just am

about to start on the Epiphany book but I worked through Advent this year, working

through Christmas because it's not over yet, and we'll go, we'll start with

Epiphany tomorrow. There is one for Lent and Easter and Pentecost as well. But in

her book about Christmas she says that despite the sentimentality surrounding

Christmas, its focus and the focus of the whole liturgical calendar is the triune

God. To give ourselves the observance of the church year is to give ourselves an

education, a formative submersion into the Trinity. So each season reveals

something more of God's truth, goodness, and beauty. And so in Advent and then

Christmas we enter the story of Jesus who came to be God among us here on earth

and to reveal the goodness of the Father to us. Further along in the church year

we observe Lent and Easter, a season of sacrifice, and then because of sacrifice

50 days later we celebrate the event of Pentecost when the promised Holy Spirit

was poured out, evidenced as tongues of fire onto those that gathered. The church

year ends the Sunday before Advent, sometime in late November when we

celebrate Christ the King who has reconciled all things and people to

himself and to God. So as I said it's not scriptural, the church year is not

scriptural, but it is the practice of the narrative and the story and immersing

ourselves in the story of Scripture and who the triune God is. It's the narrative

and we are invited to participate in the full oneness of God. So we are starting

a series today on the Trinity, the theological idea that God is not

one-dimensional, that the God of the Old Testament or Hebrew scriptures and

Jesus and that the Holy Spirit are all one. And much like the church calendar

there is no explicit identification of the word Trinity in the Bible. Nowhere

does it say that word, however the evidence that Jesus and God the Father

and the Holy Spirit understood themselves to be one is continual throughout. So

let's pray. Jesus thank you so much for the diversity of who you are and the

fact that you invite us into presence with you in your fullness and in your

oneness as God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Spirit. We are grateful that

invitation is for all and so help us say yes to that into the fullness of who you

are, not just part of you but all of you and help us hear from you today. Amen. So

as I said we are in the year 2025 still having a hard time with that but we are

loosely 2,000 years out from the birth of Christ. Roughly the first quarter of

the time of the church in the last 2,000ish years, so 500 years the first

quarter, was the church wrestling over how to understand what the church was,

what to what it was to be in the world, what it was to teach, how to talk about

it, how to meaningfully standardize the way that the church would equip and

disciple believers. A lot of it was amazing, a lot of it was hard, a lot of it

was a lot of quietly faithful people going into all the earth making disciples

and a lot of it was empirical tactics of oppression. It was all of it and

because only a few people wrote some things about God over down over about

God wrote things down about God over time and then others wrote some other

things down in other places at other times and some people felt some of it

was really valid and others didn't and so there were those that had to travel

long distances to meet and discuss and to study and pray to come up with what

the church was meant to be and what believing in Jesus looked like in a

fraught time. What was non-negotiable and what wasn't? Because Jesus did not just

simply go up to heaven and sweep the floor of the place that he said he was

gonna go to prepare for you when he ascended into heaven as I go and prepare

a place for you. He did not just go and make sure that there were clean sheets

on the bed and turn around and decent as the early church expected him to. He as

far as we know has not come back yet and so after a period of time those early

church believers they had to talk about some things. They had to figure some things

out and the idea of the Trinity was key among them. What do we do with these

things? The earliest Christians had to cope with the implications of the

return of Jesus when it was happening or was it for them in their lifetime and of

the presumed presence and power of God among them. The Holy Spirit whose coming

was connected with a celebration of Pentecost, the Father, the Son, and the

Holy Spirit became an interconnected team with Jesus and the community of the

Apostles associated in such New Testament passages as the Great

Commission. Matthew 28 19, go therefore and make disciples of all nations

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

and that is the practice we have preserved today. In what we call the

apostolic benediction, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and

the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Second Corinthians 13 13. Thus

the New Testament established the basis for the doctrine of the Trinity. It

wasn't something that they could just ignore and be like, oh no, decide what you

want, whatever's good. Because the questions were, was Jesus lesser than the

Father? Was the Holy Spirit lesser than Jesus? Or because the Holy Spirit was

powerful, does it mean that the Holy Spirit is better or carries more weight?

Or I've got the Spirit but you don't have the Spirit so I'm better. Like what

do we do with this? What do we do with God, Yahweh, of the Hebrew Scriptures?

Because now that not just Jews who studied those scriptures and had that

history, but now Gentiles who had the words of Jesus that they were clinging

to and the letters of the Apostles and the addition of the Holy Spirit. They all

had to ask questions. Is one greater than the other or what do we do with all of

this? God said we must worship no other gods but Jesus is God now? Or he said I

am and the Father are one? What a time. So the church was also being widely

dispersed in the early years. The message was going far and it was being absorbed

by an incredibly and wonderfully diverse and truly universal population. It was

like playing a giant game of telephone though. What, how do we keep the true

things true? How do we keep the core things core? How do we keep the stories

faithful and develop a central Orthodox understanding? Do you see why it was so

important for the church to spend so much time wrestling through this? And so

it was not until later in the fourth century that the distinctness of the

three and their unity were brought together in a single Orthodox aligned

doctrine of one essence and three persons. The Council of Nicaea met over

the course of a number of months in what is modern-day Isnik Turkey in the year

325. It developed a creed, a doctrinal statement of Orthodox or aligned belief

among Christians that stated the crucial formula for that doctrine in its

confession that the Son is of the same substance as the Father. Over the next

half century St. Athanasius defended and refined the Nicaean

formula and by the end of the fourth century under the leadership of St.

Basil of Caesarea, I know these names don't feel important but it's good to

hear them every now and then because these were people who committed

themselves. They committed themselves to the trueness of the story that we now

have. And so the doctrine of the Trinity substantially took the form it has

maintained ever since and it is what we say together here every fifth Sunday. We

say this together now. Has anyone ever read the book The Shack before? It is

beautiful and after my dear friend Matt Pottwhite read it he noted that it is a

book about God's relationship with himself. I loved that. That was a great

insight. In Genesis 1 we see an illustration of how to think about this

verse 26 and one says then God said let us make mankind in our image, in our

likeness. The translation choice of us coming from a plural reference as if in

partnership John 1 1 echoes the sentiment of this in the beginning was

the word and the word was with God and the word was God. The creation story of

Genesis 1 shows God creating a world of intricate interdependence. Light

and water are needed to enable plants, birds, fish, and animals to flourish and

all of those are necessary for the existence of human beings. The strata of

existence are related to each other intimately needing each other. But I

would go on to say that the Trinity, in the Trinity God shows that even

themselves aren't outside of that call either. God 3 and 1 shows that even

itself is interdependent. Unlike the gods that have been listed throughout

history, come before in which one supreme God acts as a solitary deity,

angry with others that are trying to vie for its position and often stands at

odds with the others, this is not that. God is in oneness with itself on purpose.

So God in God's oneness shows that even Yahweh is bound by the truth of

interdependence. We see this so clearly and strikingly in Jesus's relationship

with the Father during his time on earth. So even though God as Yahweh is not

explicitly male, God is other. There are a number of references in scripture that

use metaphors and similes that identify God with traits and capacities that are

not strictly one or the other. A hen stretching out its wings for its chicks

to gather under them in safety, laboring to bring forth the birth of something,

these are metaphors and similes offered. But we gain further insight on the idea

of the Trinity when we see God as Jesus understands God. And Jesus refers to God

as Abba, as Father, Dad. And so as the New Testament Church understood the multiple

facets of the one true God, they came to understand God as Jesus knew God. We come

to know God through Jesus. So what do we learn about the Father because of the

Father's unity and oneness with both the Son and the Spirit? In the Gospels, the

Son is unwavering in his recognition that nothing is done without the express

approval and partnership with the Father. Never once does Jesus do something

without tying it to the Father. John 14 7 through 10, if you really know me you

will know my Father as well. From now on you do know him and have seen him. Philip

said, Lord show us the Father and that will be enough. And Jesus answered, don't

you know me Philip? Even after I have been among you such a long time, anyone

who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say show us the Father? Don't you

believe that I am in the Father and that the Father is in me? The words I say to

you I do not speak on my own authority rather it is the Father living in me who

is doing his work. The baptism in the testimony of John the Baptist affirmed

God's choice in Jesus through the witness of the Spirit. John 1 32, then

John gave this testimony I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove

and remain on him and I myself did not know him, this is John speaking, but the

one who sent me to baptize with water told me the man on whom you see the

Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit. I

have seen and I testify that this is God's chosen one. Matthew 3 16 and 17 as

soon as Jesus was baptized he went up out of the water and at that moment

heaven was opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and a

lighting on him and a voice from heaven said this is my son whom I love with him

I am well pleased. And for the entirety the full entirety of Jesus's ministry

life on earth he did not move without the direction of the Father. He did not

move without communion with the Father nor did he move without the public

honoring and acknowledgement of the Father. John 5 16 through 17 the

authority of the Son. So because Jesus was doing these things on the Sabbath

people didn't like it the Jewish leaders began to persecute him in his defense

Jesus said to them my father is always at work to this very day and I too am

working. For this reason they tried all the more to kill him not only because he

was he breaking the Sabbath but he was even calling God his own father making

himself equal with God. Jesus gave them this answer very truly I say I tell you

the son can do nothing by himself he can only do what he sees the Father doing

because whatever the Father does the son does also for the father loves the son

and shows him all he does. Jesus's life was lived in a way that reflected that

God the Father not only loves us but has compassion towards us that he wants to

restore us to wholeness that he wants to see the oppressor learn to lift others

up that he wants to see us be generous and good to each other because he is

generous and good to us and that God the Father wants to welcome us home with

open arms and even the stories of condemnation and judgment that had been

built up over time through a community a historic community that knew only a God

that came to them through themselves not through the son were confronted in John

8 when Jesus spoke to the woman who had been publicly stoned for being caught in

adultery and Jesus had addressed her accusers where are your accusers didn't

even one of them condemn you no Lord she said and Jesus said neither do I go and

sin no more. John 3 16 for this is how God loved the world he gave his one and

only son so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal

life God sent his son to the world not to judge the world but to save the world

through him we learn the truth of the father through the son we learn the love

of the father through the son who knew the father we have come to learn about

the father through what Jesus has told us and shown us it is a true vision of

the father and if you are ever ever wondering what the truth of the father

of God is the truth of God the father rather is look to Jesus and Jesus will

tell you who he knows his father to be but we also come to learn about the

father through what the spirit shows and ignites in us in the letters and the

acts that are collected in the New Testament we learn more about God the

father through the spirit John 14 26 says but the advocate the Holy Spirit

whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind

you of everything I have said to you acts 1 5 for John baptized in water but

in a few days you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit and a few days later

just as promised acts 2 1 through 4 when the day of Pentecost came they were all

together in one place and suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind

came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting they saw

what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of

them all of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other

tongues as the spirit enabled them and so what do we learn about the father

because of the spirit well we continue to grow in God's under in the

understanding of God's love for us Romans 5 5 and this hope will not lead to

disappointment for we know how dearly God loves us because he has given us the

Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with love we also learn that God does not leave us

you may not feel it it may not be evident in your daily life or in moments

that you feel like you need it but you can know you can know you can know the

spirit has come so that we may know that God desires us to never be desires that

we would never be alone whether we are walking through the valley of the shadow

or death or we are experiencing the most fulfilling depth of joy this world can

offer God is with you because the spirit is always with us and that is evidence

that God wants us to know that he does not want us to be alone John 14 16 and

17 I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you

and to be with you forever the spirit of truth quite beautifully the infilling of

the spirit in us will show evidence through fruit as outlined in Galatians

522 but the fruit of the spirit is many of you know this love joy peace patience

kindness goodness faithfulness gentleness and self-control against such

things there is no law those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh

with its passions and desires since we live by the spirit let us keep in step

with the spirit what does this all up us about the father what does the spirit

tell us about the father we recognize that these gifts are endowed to us

because it is the father extending these things of himself to us that we might

share in them we learn how the father gives us good things because God is

generous to us we get to experience love because God is love and so the spirit

gives us love and helps us act and serve and provide that for others we get to

because of the spirit in us that tells us that God is a God of joy because God's

joy is being shared with us God's kindness is being shared with us and as

goodness is being shared with us because of the spirit we learn about the father

because of what we have heard from the spirit and have been filled with by the

spirit and we learn from the spirit that God is not silent but speaks to us there

are so many accounts of the spirit speaking to those in the early church

giving direction guidance affirmation where they needed it because they needed

it the church was new they were just practicing these things that they were

learning they were trying to understand how what what do we do where do we go

from here and the spirit was with them the Holy Spirit said the Holy Spirit

told me to go the spirit confirmed the Holy Spirit told me and what does this

tell me what is the Holy Spirit tell me about God the Father is that he wants to

speak to me and that he will when I need the guidance when I need direction it

will be there and so when the spirit came it came to be a sustaining power

for us for you more broadly the church the spirit came to show and do and be

many things for us and in us but they all came from the Father and so if the

spirit does it the Father is it the spirit came to comfort to teach to lead

to correct to be a conduit of God's supernatural power when needed to empower

the believers with certain gifts to regenerate our minds to convict our

hearts and redirect them when we find that they are out of alignment with the

love of God in this world we learn about the Father through the spirit and I I

have focused on the Father but it's a little hard to figure that out because

when you talk about the Trinity you can't just talk about one can you if

they are in fact three and one you talk about the others but what I want to

really focus on and have us remember today is that as you are walking through

scripture as you are reading it I'm gonna say specifically right now for

this sermon's purpose the New Testament and the the age of the church now that

when you experience the spirit when you experience Jesus when you experience the

spirit in the in scripture and when you read about Jesus in scripture and

experience in your life what is it telling you about the Father because I

think it's the things about the Father that we have gotten the most convoluted

in our minds because we have heard we've believed stories that God is not for us

but he's against us we've heard stories that God is here to judge you and not to

love you that God is not here to welcome you that God is not here to like you

we've believed these stories these stories have been built up over time

haven't they and so if we listen to the words of Jesus and watch the life of

Jesus what does Jesus tell you about the Father it's very different than those

things isn't it what does the Spirit tell you about the Father what is the

evidence of the what is the proof of the Father through the Spirit that's the

true story because the Holy Spirit and Jesus commune with God they always have

they always will you have been invited into that communion so that you may know

the love of the Father the truth of the Father so that you may know the depth of

the love that the Father has for you that he has not condemned you but he is

he's asking you to come home he has brought you home the door is open

there's a place prepared for you that is what we learn about the Father through

the otherness of the Father and so when we look at Jesus when we look at the

Spirit we do not look at them separately we do not think Jesus acts on his own we

do not think that the Spirit acts on its own they act in oneness with the Father

and so what do we learn about the Father what things need to be renewed in our

minds about the Father we look to Jesus and the Spirit and we welcome or rather

we accept the invitation of welcome into communion with them what a joy that we

have that invitation we don't have to wonder we don't even have to look from

the outside we get to be brought in we get to be brought into that when you ask

a child how to describe their parent after the parent has disciplined them

the version of the parent you're gonna get will be a bit fractured you might

hear about the account somewhat correctly as far as the events go but

you won't hear about the motivation of the parent quite properly and I say

this cautiously hear me in the spirit of this message the Old Testament is a lot

of accounting of how a people were experiencing and learning to be

identified with the God that called them out what does it mean to be called gods

they they wouldn't just know it right that's not intuitive it was new when God

made his covenant with Abraham there was going to be a lot of growing pains a lot

of toddling happening by a toddler that's learning that we don't just hit

someone when we have big feelings right was learning the child is gonna tell

perhaps a sincere but a skewed story of the account my wise friend Micah Pollock

an outside viewer of Christianity while watching me learn about and know Jesus

in our freshman year of high school said to me the words kind of mellowed out

once Jesus came on the scene I've never forgot that phrasing I always loved it

Jesus was introducing us to the father he knew and this and that the spirit

knew the spirit was introducing to us to the father that they knew and that was

gonna tell us a more complete story and give it context Jesus helped give some

of that context to me and indeed they did and there has been some growth for

the church and in the people of God and in the fullness of time that Kairos

moment the matured and ready moment that Jesus came he came to tell us more about

the father followed by the spirit who will lead us in all truth of the father

and I will cry about this but I am overwhelmed with how cared for we are in

this display how thoughtfully and lovingly we have brought been brought

into the care and knowledge of the true father that we are not told to figure it

out but that we have been led by loved love and equipped to also enter into

oneness with God and also with each other which then allows me understand

the father through you I understand the father through God's actions in you and

through you through Jesus alive in you and through the spirit alive in you I

learn about the father by how Jesus loves you and how the spirit works in

your life I learn about the father and the truth of who he is because of oneness

with community now because of Jesus that is an amazing amazing thing to be

brought into and this is the hope that we have to share it's not to be hoarded

as we learn and understand the depth of the father we offer it to others in full

truth that is always the point so how do we understand the Trinity I don't know

I'm not so sure we're supposed to it's mysterious God is other as I said God is

other Western thinkers don't have an easy time not trying to nail something

down I I welcome you to just enjoy the mystery of the of the fact that God is

one with itself and has invited you into that and will do good work in you because

of it and will do beautiful work in the world because of it the mystery is okay

you don't have to figure it out to experience it but I will trust the

invitation I've been given to enjoy the communion of it with the triune God and

as it lives it's out itself out in us there are things about God I will not

understand in this life however I am grateful for the words and life of Jesus

and the leading and the wisdom and the empowering of the Holy Spirit to help me

move forward in faithfulness believing that God not only loves me but invites

me into wholeness with him and with others the hope is that it is possible

that Jesus has taken care of everything that needed to be taken care of that the

Holy Spirit will lead me and empower me as it needs to happen and that is the

same for you that is an amazing thing let's pray

Jesus help us hear the truth of the Father through you and specifically if

there are things that have become skewed and even untruthful stories about God the

Father in our minds in our hearts in our bodies would you help us see the truth

of the Father through you by way of the Holy Spirit leading us in wisdom leading

us in truth as we read your words and look at your life the way you lived it

help us observe the absolute truth of the Father through you as you knew him

let us do the same with the Spirit lead us into a better way a better way in the

fullness of truth through oneness with the unity you have with yourself you are

not divided within you are eternally one thank you for the invitation into

experiencing that in you and with you and then as a church thank you for that

that we can be one here as well because of your model of unity we look to you

for all things and we thank you for your truth amen