Essential Truths: The Triune God - The Holy Spirit In The World And In The Church

Essential Truths: The Triune God - The Holy Spirit: Trinity in the World and in the Church

This past Thursday. 4 days ago. New Zealand. Christchurch. A peaceful city in a peaceful country. A 28 years old man walks up to another man and is greeted: “Welcome brother”.

The first man shoots the second man dead, walks into the mosque behind the second man and shoots to kill. He murders 50 people. Injures another 50 people.

Panic, terror, flee for your life.

Grief. Shock. Anger. The world reels. Another ugly example of the ugliest that humanity has to offer.

The first man abandoned love, abandoned God; he embraced the idiocy of white nationalism, racism.

By his actions he spit in the face of God, destroying God’s beloved creation.

In 15 or so minutes the gunman acted out an evil that the rest of the world has to grapple with.

All that is good in the world - love, hope, faith, fairness, equity - all those things disappeared for those 15 minutes for the gunman and the victims of his slaughter.

And some people unfortunately grapple with such evil with very poor and racist thinking. Australian senator Sen. Fraser Anning had the gall to blame Muslim immigration for racist attacks on two New Zealand mosques that claimed at least 50 lives.

We need to call out that sort of evil thinking.

I want to suggest that the New Zealand mass murderer acted out an ancient evil - a hate-fueled contempt for God and His God’s creation.

What are we to do with such events? They’ve happened here in Canada, in Quebec in recent years. And many feel that there is an underlying evil creeping into society in the form of tolerance for racism and bigotry.

We are not left alone with such thoughts. We are given the Word of God to help us understand and sort through these things. (Pause)

Today we are continuing in our series, Essential Truths: The Triune God.

Over the past number of months we’ve gone into some depth on what the Scriptures reveal about the One we worship, the nature of the Trinity, the Godhead.

We’re doing this so that we can grow to know more about Who God Is.

And our focus today is on the work of God, the Trinity, The Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in the world and in the church.

And I thought it might be interesting to start by imagining with me, if you would, for just a few moments, what the world would be like without God, without Jesus, without the Christian faith and without followers of the way of Jesus.

Let’s start by going back. Way back to before Jesus was born, what was life like before the will of God and the ways of God we’re made known to the gentiles?

The Hebrew people had the Torah and the OT, but they were a tiny minority of the people trust existed back then.

What was it like in broad terms for most people to live before Christ.

Health and Welfare of People

Well, a fourth of the population was sick at any given time; a quarter of the population were slaves and sold naked like animals in markets.

Life expectancy was very low, in many places only 20 years of age, due to war, savage religious rituals and disease.

Perfectly healthy infant girls, and then also babies born with abnormalities were routinely “exposed” to the elements and wild animals to their deaths, as normal practice.

“By today’s standards, it was hell on earth. Poverty, sickness, premature death, domestic violence, economic injustice, slavery, and political corruption were the given of life”.

Human Dignity: (Pause)

You may have heard the phrase: Imago Dei. It’s a deep Judeo-Christian

Understanding that humans are made in the image of God and because of that we deserve great dignity and respect.

Before Christianity, the ideas of human dignity and value were arguably non-existent.

Again, one in four people in the Roman Empire was a slave.

And the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle, otherwise generally considered a pretty smart fella, wrote: “The slave is a living tool and the tool a lifeless slave.”

Slaves were property and therefore owners could sexually exploit female, male and child slaves without punishment or consequences for their actions.

Also Roman Law commanded fathers to put to death their child if he/she is deformed, with a one law in particular reading: “A notably deformed child shall be killed immediately.”

For women, every point in her life during the Greco-Roman era was filled with danger. A girl baby was more likely to be abandoned or killed, young girls or teenagers were likely to face sexual abuse or forced prostitution.

In ancient cultures, a wife was the property of her husband.