Introducing The "1st Team"
Pastor Jim Luthy
Football season has broken out all over our television sets this weekend. For as long as I can remember, football games on T.V. always began with the introduction of the starting lineups.
It used to be that each player would get to introduce themselves through a previously taped introduction: "Bubba Joe Bixley, LB, #44, Tuscaloosa, Alabama." Now they just show pictures of each player on the first team, saving precious time to slip in that extra beer commercial.
So, in the spirit of the season, I would like to introduce the 1st team. The REAL 1st team – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Now before anyone blows a gasket, let me explain that I use the term 1st team as an analogy, not as a substitute title for the triune God. I have to, because in many ways, the term "team" does not reflect the relationship of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
To begin with, we think of a team as a collection of individuals who came together. For example, when the starting lineups were introduced in today’s Oregon Ducks football game, they showed young men from several different states. These guys came together to become a team. Unless, of course, you are talking about the Trail Blazers, who are a bunch of individuals who come together to be a bunch of overpaid, underachieving individuals.
We cannot say that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit came together to be a team. God is self-existent. He is "I am," without beginning or end. And each member of the Trinity existed forever in the same relationship to one another as one God.
The second shortcoming with the analogy of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as a team relates to its purpose. When we think of team, we think of sports teams or maybe even work teams. To reduce the purposes of God to such a trivial level is indeed a frightening notion. Yet God has purposes which are perfectly fulfilled in the work of each member of the Trinity. Those purposes relate to creation and redemption, matters that are far too lofty to be equated with a sporting event.
However, the analogy of team can help us identify and understand the Trinity in a couple of critical ways:
"Team" helps us understand the concept of one God
How many of you know who I am talking about when I mention the names Julie Foudy, Brianna Scurry, and Tiffany Milbrett? You might not remember them, but you might remember their team—the 1998 U.S. Women’s Soccer Team that won the World Cup. During play, they were not known as Julie, Brianna, Tiffany, Mia, Michelle, Shannon, Brandi, and so on. They were the U.S. Women’s Soccer TEAM. Try as we did to make heroes out of the individuals, the trophy they won and the World Cup annals will ever credit the TEAM.
Likewise, as Deuteronomy 6:4 explains, our God is one God. "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Historically, this verse is very significant. It is the beginning of what the Jews refer to as the Shema. This was as basic to the children of Israel as John 3:16 might be to our children today.
The value of the Shema is best understood by looking at two words in the original Hebrew that clarify its meaning. The first is the word translated "God." The original word is Elohim, which is the plural of the word Elowahh, which is the word for deity. The word literally means "gods." Our "gods" are one God.
The second word that helps is the word translated "one," which is echad. Echad "means not one in isolation, but one in unity. In fact, the word is never used in the Hebrew Bible of a singular entity. It is the word used in speaking of one bunch of grapes, for example, or in saying that the people of Israel responded as one people." So we understand that God exists in a plural form in unity as one God, just as a plurality of women soccer players become one team.
"Team" helps us understand the three unique persons that are the one God
In Genesis 1:26, God said, "Let US make man in OUR likeness." In Genesis 3:22, after the man had eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, God said, "The man has now become like one of US." When the people tried to build a tower to reach heaven, God responded with, "Come, let US go down and confuse their language…" And when Isaiah had his majestic vision of the Lord seated on his throne, with the train of his robe filling the temple, he heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send? And who will go for US?"
It is clear that since the Lord was referencing a common likeness and common character and common purpose, he was not referring to someone who was simply on his side when he referred to "us." To say God was referring to angels, for example, when he said, "Let us make man in our likeness," would be like me saying to a dog, "let’s make a sculpture of a being in our image!"
Although the term "Trinity" is never mentioned in Scripture, each of the three persons who form one God are revealed throughout the Bible’s pages. At Jesus’ baptism, as the Son came up out of the water, the Holy Spirit lighted on him like a dove. Then the voice of the Father came from heaven, "You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased." Peter’s first letter is addressed to God’s elect, "who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ (the Son) and sprinkling by his blood." In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul talks about God as the builder of his temple, the church. The foundation for that temple on which he builds is the person and work Jesus Christ. The purpose of that temple is to become a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit. God himself builds for himself a home that is built upon himself.
One God consisting of three persons. Three who are different in form and function perfectly alike in divine essence and redemptive purpose. God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit -- the 1st team that is our God.
So why am I telling you this? Why now?
The first, most obvious reason is that this mystery that cannot be fully understood is elementary to the Christian faith. Knowing the Trinity helps us to know God. Building a foundation of understanding about God helps us avoid falling into false teaching. A certain amount of head knowledge is required to keep us on course.
But I am talking about the Trinity today to lay a foundation for a series I am beginning on community. I believe God wants us to see that the value of relationships and living in community did not begin with us, but with God. Furthermore, community is not just an idea spoken into being by God, but came out of the very nature of God as he exists in three persons in perfect community with one another. The origin of community is found in the triune nature of God.
So, as we explore the intricacies of community life over the next several weeks, let us keep in mind that community begins and ends and finds its purpose in God alone. God wants us to live in community because he is a God of community. While there are many things of great value that we will find in community—love, encouragement, help, accountability, protection, and so on—God has two primary purposes that demand that we live in community with one another.
Purpose #1: God wants us to be taken into the community of God
C.S. Lewis, in his classic book, Mere Christianity, said, "The whole purpose for which we exist is to be taken into the life of God." When we live together in community, we experience the joy that has always existed in the community of God. When we come together in a common place, sharing common possessions, and pursuing a common purpose, we are taken up into the life of community that has always existed in God. We get to know what God already knows is good. When we have community, we have God. That is why Jesus was so right and in keeping with his nature when he said, "For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them." (Matthew 18:20) God wants us to live together in community so we can know him and understand him as a God of community.
Purpose #2: God wants us reflect the community of God
In his humanity, Jesus glorified God. He did this by residing in perfect submission to the triune nature of God. He was always in perfect submission to the authoritative sovereignty of the Father. Of course, he was himself the Son "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." And we also know that Jesus found his power and his peace in the Holy Spirit, who came upon him at his baptism, who led him into the desert, and whom he promised he would send upon his return to glory. Jesus is our example of glorifying the whole 3-person community of God.
And, as Paul said, "you are the body of Christ." We are to glorify the community of God by living in community with one another. If we are not in community, the community of God is not brought into view. The glory of God is kept asunder if we live in isolation of one another. But when we come together to bear one another’s burdens and with one purpose share in the ministry of reconciliation that is God’s first passion, God is glorified!
We must live in community. It is in community that we are taken into the very life of God. And it is in community that we make God known.
If you are not in a TLC Group, I urge you to find one right away. Once you find one, and for those of you who already have a TLC Group, I urge you to submit yourselves to the fellowship and community of that group. Then you will gain a fuller understanding of God. Then you will have a part of making God known. Until then, your understanding of God will be incomplete. And, until then, your place in God’s redemptive plan will remain unfilled.
As you gather in communities this week, "May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Corinthians 13:14)
