Today, we continue a series of messages entitled Creed: 9 Essentials to the Christian Faith Why This Series? The reason for this series is that beliefs matter. Beliefs fundamentally alter the shape of our lives. This series, Creed, is designed to answer those who wonder what really lies at the heart of Christianity. Creed is intended to identify the “bottom-line” of Christian’s central concerns for both believers and non-believer’s alike.
The Shack was a surprise best seller when it was published privately by two pastors in Los Angeles. The author, William P. Young, was a former office manager and hotel night clerk. Despite having only $300 available for marketing the book, word of mouth has taken this hotel night clerk’s 256-page book into a New York Times bestseller. While I wouldn’t recommend the book because it doesn’t accurately portray God, it’s high sales show the Trinity is relevant to how contemporary Americans think. The book has more than 3,500 Amazon.com reviews and more than 7 million in print, the book represents a tsunami wave in terms of Christian book sales.
Why the Trinity?
The Bible’s teaching on the subject of the Trinity is rarely addressed in sermons yet it hangs around in the background of so much a church does and talks about. You hear the names of each member of the Trinity as we baptize. Just last week, we witnessed four baptisms where the Pastor Steve and Mark said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
So much of what we discuss really hangs on this mysterious doctrine called the Trinity. To those outside the Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity seems to violate logic – “How can God be Three and yet One?” But just because the Trinity is beyond reason does not mean it goes against reason. Here’s the beautiful thing: you don’t need to fully understand the Trinity to worship the Trinity, pray to the Trinity, and enter into the life of the Trinity. They tell me that deep within the core of the sun, the temperature is 27 million degrees. The pressure is 340 billion times what it is here on Earth. And in the sun’s core, that insanely hot temperature and unthinkable pressure combine to create nuclear reactions. In each reaction, 4 protons fuse together to create 1 alpha particle, which is .7 percent less massive than the 4 protons. The difference in mass is expelled as energy, and after one million years, through a process called convection, this energy from the core of the sun finally reaches the surface, where it’s expelled as heat and light. Now that was all kind of interesting, but you know what? I didn't need to know all that in order to get a tan. ? Someone has said, “He that denies this fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion called the Trinity may lose his soul. Yet, he who strives to fully understand it may lose his wits.”
Last week, I asked: Why Do Your Beliefs Matter? And I gave quickly you name four reasons why your beliefs matter.
1. Beliefs Matter to God
2. Beliefs Matter to Your Church Family
3. Beliefs Matter to Your Family
4. Beliefs Matter to You
I explored “Beliefs Matter to Your Family” last week and today I want to briefly explore Why Beliefs Matter to God.
TODAY’S BIG IDEA : How You View God Matters.
I want you to be convinced as I am that the Bible’s teaching on the Trinity is one of the most important things in life. This morning I want to share with you:
1) Why You Should Care about the Trinity;
2) I want to help you get a better grasp of the Bible’s teaching on how God is Three and One;
3) And along the way, we’ll address some of the thoughts in The Shack.
When I speak of the Trinity in the Bible, we may define the Trinity as follows: God eternally exists as three Persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.
The word “Trinity” never appears in the pages of your Bible. Nevertheless, your Bibles are from first to last, thoroughly full of the Trinity. The first time we see the word appear is in 168 A.D. by a bishop in Antioch names Theophilus. The word mean “tri-unity” or “three-in-oneness.”
1. Does The Trinity Matter?
I want you to see at least three reasons why the Trinity matters.
1.1 This Matters Because God Cares that You Know Him.
God reveals Himself as Father, Son, and Spirit in the pages of our Bibles.
1.2 This Matters Because of Your Salvation
If you believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, then you believe in the Trinity. If you accept the Bible’s teaching that Jesus Christ is God, then you have already acknowledge that there is more than one Person in the Godhead. If you deny the Bible teaches the Trinity, then you deny the entire life of Jesus Christ. You deny His death can save anyone for you deny that Jesus Christ is God. Our salvation depends on the truth that God is One and Three. The One God saves us, but His salvation of sinners only happens through the specific work and roles of the Father, and the Son, and the Spirit. Each One has His role to play, and each role is essential in accomplishing and securing our salvation. The Father ordains our salvation, sends the Son to accomplish our redemption, and judges our sin in His Son. The Son must come to take on our human nature and offer Himself a substitute sacrifice on the cross, in obedience to the Father, bearing both our sin and the Father’s just wrath against our sin. The Spirit must apply this work to our lives, opening our blind eyes and causing us to behold the beauty of Christ so as to embrace Christ’s saving work for us. Only because God is Triune is salvation accomplished and made real for us.
Christians have not always been apathetic and indifferent to our views of the Trinity. Take the case of “Farid,” originally a nominal Muslim who came to the United States in 1993 to study. He fell under the spell of the MSA [Muslim Student Association] and soon joined their ranks, evangelizing. One of the chief obstacles to a Muslim becoming a Christian is the doctrine of the Trinity. Muslims deny that Jesus Christ is divine, or God They also think that the angel Gabriel forms the third person of the Trinity. Muslims believe there is only one God—Allah—and that Christians practice polytheism (the worship of many gods). In debates with Christians, he contended that the Trinity was idolatry, or, as the Muslims call it, “shirk.” But in those same debates, he found his own positions weak when he was forced to argue that Jesus didn’t die on the cross, only appeared to, as Muslims believe. His position was weak not only because the Bible tells us that Jesus died on the cross but so does other ancient Roman scrolls of history. Although he was warned against investigating the topic of Jesus death, Farid began to study and Farid soon gave up his evangelizing on behalf of the MSA, continuing his search more deeply into Christian theology. He came to see that far from rejecting the Trinity, it “was the only logical explanation of what is reported in the New Testament, and [it] was logical and non-contradictory…” Eventually, Farid’s search brought him to the point of exhaustion, where, in his imagination, he lay outside the gates of the City of God. At this point he cried out to God to rescue him, if God would. “I felt a strange feeling of God’s love, as if he was telling me that I am His, and that He will love me and take care of me for the rest of my life and after.” This experience led to Farid committing himself to a new life as a Christian.
1.3 This Matters Because You Pray
Our prayer and worship is deeply affected by the Trinity. Clearly the norm in Scripture is to pray to the Father, in the name of the Son, and in the power of the Spirit. Remember how Jesus told us to pray in His Model Prayer? “Our Father in heaven…” (Matthew 6:7). Only a few prayers in the Bible are addressed to Jesus. Jesus instructed us to pray to God the Father through Jesus, the Son. The Bible is crystal clear that Jesus Christ is the mediator between humanity and God, the Father. Our prayer is empowered and prompted by the Spirit.
2. What Does the Bible Say about the Trinity?
Today’s text represents the last question in a series of four questions in a dialogue between Jesus and the religious leaders of His day. The first three questions were posed to Jesus in verses 15-40. And they were sticky, politically loaded questions designed to trap Jesus. The Pharisees and Sadducees had calculated their questions in order for the crowds to turn against Jesus. There was only one reason why the religious leaders were gathered in the Temple Courts posing their questions to Jesus on this day. They were attempting to discredit Jesus Christ in the minds of the people. Many in the crowds wondered if Jesus was the Messiah. They aimed to dissuade all that Jesus was just an ordinary character. Jesus turned the tables and went on the offensive in this last question. Jesus’ question is the lynchpin of the four questions for His question is the question behind all the others. There was one reason for Jesus’ question – Was He the Messiah? Whose Son was He? Is Jesus both the Son of David and God at the same time?
We live in age of anonymous sex where people have many sex partners. Often, paternity tests are often needed. Paternity tests are used to determine who is the father of a child. Your salvation comes down to a far different paternity test. Is Jesus both the Son of David and God at the same time?
“Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, 42 saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” 43 He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,
44 “‘The Lord said to my Lord,?Sit at my right hand,?until I put your enemies under your feet’?
45 If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” 46 And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. (Matthew 22:41-46)
2.1 God is Three Persons
In verse 42 Jesus asks two questions: “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” The first question covers a very wide field, but Jesus narrows His first question immediately: “Whose Son is He?” When Jesus used the word “son” He means more than who was Jesus’ immediate father. For the Jews in Jesus’ day, son could mean more. Perhaps I could reword Jesus’ statement to make it easier for everyone to understand. “The Messiah descends from what great man?” This was an easy question fro the Pharisees. Notice the end of verse 42: “They said to him, ‘The son of David.’”
For hundreds of years the rabbis of Israel during Jesus’ day, had taught the people of God in Israel that the Messiah was to be the son of David. They went to passage after passage out of the Old Testament showing and demonstrating that God had predicted in His holy word, what we call the Old Testament, that the Messiah would come from the line of David. He would be the coming Savior of God's people, Israel. He would be a righteous ruler, appointed by God, who would foil the enemies of God’s people and He would establish justice throughout the land. He would drive the oppressors of Israel out. Righteousness would flourish in the land. Injustice would be banished. He would be the ruler of rulers, this descendent of David - this Messiah. This was all common knowledge to Jews in Jesus’ day.
Jesus keeps the conversation lively in verse 43-46: “He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?’”
Jesus points back to Psalm 110 in Matthew 22:44. The Lord says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool” (Psalm 110:1). This one chapter in Psalms is the most quoted OT Scripture in your NT. This one verse is cited or alluded to around 27 times in your New Testament. During the first sermon ever recorded, the Apostle Peters points to this passage in Acts 2:34-36 where he concludes: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Jesus draws attention to the fact that David calls the Messiah, Lord. David calls him both his Son and Lord. Because the Scripture said this (Psalm 110:1) and both the Pharisees and Jesus accepted every word of the Old Testament as breathed out of the larynx of God Himself. There could be no mistakes here. Jesus is asking how David’s son could be called Lord? The Pharisees were silenced but they were not convinced. They were convinced that God could be One and Three at Once. They were not convinced for several reasons but they weren’t convinced because they thought that the Messiah would be just like David. Like David, the Messiah would be one who sat on David’s throne, making warlike conquests as David did and generally extend the sovereignty and borders of Israel, just like David did. Jesus should the people and Pharisees that they had a defect in their thinking. He wanted them to think again about what the Messiah means.
Here are some common mistakes many people make. The Trinity is not Three individuals who together make one God. The Trinity is not Three Gods joined together. The Trinity is not Three properties of God.
If you believe in the deity of Jesus Christ, then you believe in the Trinity. If you accept the Bible’s teaching that Jesus Christ is God, then you have already acknowledge that there is more than one Person in the Godhead. If you deny the Bible teaches the Trinity, then you deny the entire life of Jesus Christ.
2.2 Each Person is Fully God
Back to Psalm 110:1 and Matthew 22:44. David uses two names for God and both are common to your Old Testament. The first name he uses is Yahweh. The second name he uses is Adonai. Throughout the Old Testament, both words are used exclusively for God and no one else. It is important to affirm that each Person is completely and fully God. That is, that each Member of the Trinity has the whole fullness of God in Himself. Jesus is not partly God or just one-third God. Instead, Jesus is wholly and fully God. So is the Father and so is the Holy Spirit.
But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God” (Acts 5:3-4).
2.3 There is One God
Scripture is clear that there is one and only one God. The three different persons of the Trinity are one not only in purpose and agreement in what they think, but they are one in essence. They are one in their essential nature. “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deuteronomy 6:4). There are not three gods to worship. The Bible doesn’t say “There is one God and there is not one God.” It doesn’t say “God is three person and one person” It says “God is three persons and one God. This is a mystery and a paradox but it is not a contradiction. I cannot remove the real difficulty where we may ask, “How does the three Persons in the Godhead relate to the one essence?” The Bible has never tried to explain this. It doesn’t even give us an analogy of how to put this together.
TODAY’S BIG IDEA: How You View God Matters.
