Grace of the Son, Love of the Father, Fellowship of the Spirit - Trinity Sunday

The following text is the raw, unedited transcript from a sermon given on June 4th, 2023 at Christ Our Hope Anglican Church in Olympia, WA. You can also listen to the audio. Better yet, subscribe to the podcast! :-)

Well, it is Trinity Sunday. And uh last week, we spent a little bit of time talking about the Holy Spirit because it was Pentecost Sunday. Um, we're gonna talk a little bit more about the Holy Spirit because he is part of the Trinity. Um And there were a few questions left unanswered. So if I, if it seems disproportionate on who we talk about today, that's why, um, we're gonna also focus on the second Corinthians passage. So if you want to turn your Bible to that part, uh, we will be referring to that later on to be a Christian to follow God to follow Jesus, um, involves accepting mystery. There is some stuff that we are just not going to get that we can't get about God because God is supernatural by definition. If he were a natural being, if he was on our plane of reality and could be contained, well, then he wouldn't be God would he, he is above nature. He is supernatural. He lives in a time and space that we don't yet comprehend. Um, and I'm fine with that. I don't, I don't need to have all the answers. Some people like to have all the answers down to the nth degree and that's, that's fine. I like to talk about it. But in the end, there are some things we just have to accept that we don't know how that worked someday we'll know. But not today. For example, um, when Jesus was here and he talked about how, uh, only the father knows when Jesus is coming back. How does that work? He was right there and isn't he part of the Trinity? And why wouldn't he know if he was God? And I don't know, I don't need to know because he's not something that we made up. He's not something that has to follow our rules. He's God. He makes the rules and when we try to make our own rules, well, that's where we get into trouble, isn't it? Um I'm, I'm fine with some of those contradictions, but it does make people stumble. I mean, we read uh elsewhere in scripture that Jesus on the cross dead and resurrected to the gentile world is foolishness that just sounds stupid to them. Why would, why would you even believe that? And to the Jew, it's a stumbling block. Like how could God die? God can't die? So that doesn't make any sense. So we're not going to follow it. He did. Jesus was crucified in the grave, resurrected, ascended into heaven. I don't know how that works, but it's part of the mystery, isn't it? And some of it just requires that we accept it. And the more I think that we accept it, the more insights into a relationship with God that we get. But a couple of people did bring up some interesting points. Um One of them was that when we look at scripture or even when we look at our own lives and conversation and, and church history, uh the Holy Spirit seems to get the short end of the stick. He's not talked about a whole lot. I've noticed. I said he and not it because the Holy Spirit is not an, it, it's not a force, it's not an energy. He is a person of the Trinity. He has feelings, you can grieve the Holy Spirit. It's he just, he just is and why he gets the short end of the stick sometimes I think has to do with something we touched on last week is that he never draws attention to himself. The purpose of the spirit, what one of his main purposes is to point people to Jesus is to point people to the father. That's what he does. He's, you could say he's as selfless as any other member of the Trinity. Jesus, selflessly giving his life for us. God selflessly sacrificing his son for us. Very selfless, very giving act to not draw attention to yourself. But that doesn't mean there's not room for improvement on our part. Um Another comment had to do with we how we tend to reduce the Holy Spirit to what he, what his, his power is the way we treat him like he's a superpower. Like I'm gonna use the spirit to, to do something. And that's, we don't use the spirit, the spirit uses us. It's a very human centric way of thinking about it that the Holy Spirit is not something that we wield it is someone to whom we yield. I just made that up. Oh, yeah. Um Yeah, so I, and I just threw myself off with that little pat on the back. So Lord I apologize. Um He is someone to whom we yield and uh amazing. It's funny how some things cross, at least in my own brain how, but recently I've been really thinking about the idea how this is really real or it really isn't like all of this here is really real or it is and all of this is really real or it isn't and living it out is really real or it isn't and we not, we, the world tends to treat this among other religious systems like soda pop. Which one do you like? Which one's your favorite? You can change it any time because it doesn't really matter because they're all just pop, right. We, we treat religion is treated especially with uh the, the one bumper sticker that drives me nut nuts, which is the coexistent bumper sticker. And I really wanna make up another stick of this is can't and like, put it in front every, every time I see it, but that would be bad. Um, because it's like, well, pick one. Why can't the, all, why can't all of these systems really just live together because either one of them is true or none of them are true. And if none of them are true, then this is just pick, pick your own pop, whichever soda pop you wanna drink, whichever God you wanna follow, whichever set of rules you want to follow one day and not the next go for it. What's the difference? This is either really real or it isn't. And in this particular reading of Second Corinthians, it really stuck out to me. He says in verse five, examine yourselves to see whether you are in the face. That sounds pretty harsh. That sounds pretty deliberate, test yourselves or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? That's either true or it's not? I was like, you, you guys get this, do you not see, do you not understand? Do you not recognize that Jesus is right? Is in you? I hope he's in you unless indeed you fail to meet the test. Paul tells them to examine themselves. And this was interesting to me that this first word for examine is something we've talked about in the past. We've talked about how there is a word that can mean either to tempt to failure or test to success. And that the same word is used of both what God does to us and what our enemy does to us. God tests us so that we will succeed. That's what He wants to see. Our enemy tempts us to see that we will fail. So Paul tells us, examine yourselves. Where are you at? Take a look at yourself. It's like a pass fail test, examine yourselves to see whether you're in the faith, test yourselves as a different word. It means to prove to demonstrate it, the desire is a positive outcome. He, he's, I think he's trying to maybe be more specific. Examine yourselves could go either way. No, really test yourself, prove yourself, put yourself under pressure, see how much you can handle to reveal what you really are. Do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? Well, not only is Jesus in us, so is the Holy Spirit. Paul also talks about Paul had a lot of trouble with the church in Corinth. He, some people believe that first Corinthians is actually second Corinthians because there was another letter and that second Corinthians is probably Fourth Corinthians because there was a number of back and forth and he's just had a hard time with them. In fact, at the top of this chapter, he says, this is the third time I am coming to you. Don't make me come up there. That's kind of where what Paul's doing with these Corinthians. He just had a lot of struggles, a lot of tension amongst themselves. A lot of tension with the culture around them. But he tells them that Jesus Christ is in you, the Holy Spirit is in you. He tells them, he tells them, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit that this is a place in which God's Holy Spirit dwells. He's making a reference to the temple that was in Jerusalem. But also to probably just as a point of reference to the temples that existed uh in, throughout Greece and Rome, that these temples were where spirits live, God's lived and your body is a temple for the Holy Spirit. And if you've read anything about the temple in Jerusalem, you know that it was supposed to be at least treated in a very holy way, a very set apart way, lots of rules, not for the sake of rules, but lots of guidelines to keep it as representational of God as possible. This is where God has chosen to make his presence known. He's not limited to that little box of stone in Jerusalem, but this is where the place he chose to make himself manifest. And we can, they would go there and offer sacrifices. But that's where he lived. And the fact there was a time when there was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night over the temple and you knew there's, that's where God's hanging out right now. He's everywhere. But that's the one special place. And Paul says, your, your bodies are that, that's where you, the Holy Spirit lives in you. And his point was to point them out, how, what do you do with your body to them specifically, they would go to temples and have sex with temple, prostitutes as an act of worship to the God of that temple. So he says, you can't take God's temple and join it to the temple of Zeus, for example, that's just not how this works because the spirit lives in you. God's spirit is resident in you. What are you gonna do with this thing? What you should and what you should not do? We know that God, the father is in us. Jesus spent a fair amount of time praying in John chapter 17 to his father about how the father was in him and he was in the Father and now that he is in his followers, that means God is in his followers and the followers are in God and there's just a lot of in happening there that is a lot of in happening or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you? The holy spirit is in you, the father is in you. And just as a, I don't know, maybe a point of clarification. I, I think it's fair to say that when Paul uses the term God, uh He's usually referring to the father aspect of God. It's not, he doesn't use a different word, the word for father. He just says, he says God. But another place is, is like greetings to you in the name of God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So it's not just God in his totality though. Sometimes it is, sometimes it, it's for reference to God, the father that was a little rabbit trail there for you. Enjoy. Um He goes on at the end of his letter to say, finally, brothers rejoice aim for restoration. That means that there was division. He's calling for unity. What is the Holy Spirit? Unity? We prayed it this morning and in the power of your divine majesty to worship the unity, oneness. Believers are supposed to be one together, not divided, not fighting, not selfish, but one comfort, one another, agree with one another that is hard to do today. Sometimes you drive down, I drive down the freeway up here every day. And there are some crazy signs that encourage us not to agree with one another as believers live in peace and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with the holy kiss, all the saints greet you. And I love this Lazarus. I get really stuck on this verse in terms of thinking about the Trinity, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all Trinity. And not only Trinity a way to look at the different aspects of the different parts of the Trinity, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, be with you all God. Jesus is graciousness, the fact that we live in His grace, both as a thing and as in something we are in, we are in his grace, His his another picture for it might be in the Old Testament when the the priestly blessing was make his countenance shine upon you. That God's Jesus's grace shines upon us. We are in it because of Him, not because of us, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all and the love of God be with you all. Well, we know that Jesus is an expression of that love. He is the expression of that love for God. So loved the world that He gave his only begotten son again, God, the father, right? That's a reference to God being both God and God, the Father, the love of God. And this is that fun word agape, um which there are a lot of fun discussions about the word agape out there. And uh some of them really restrict it to. It's, this is only means God's love and that's just not true because Jesus himself uses the word agape of something else. And I think that something else gives us a stronger insight into what this love looks like in John. Three sort of the classic, you know, section on this is where the most famous Bible verse is for God's soul of the world. In that same passage in John 3 19. Come on a little pages, I believe it's 19. Uh nope, it's in there somewhere. It's right around there. Yeah, 19. And this is the judgment. The light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. People agape darkness rather than light. And yes, it's sad but true. We can agape things of darkness the way that God apes us and the way that I equate those two is, it's a love that is completely given over to right. God's love is completely given over to us. And this is demonstrated in Jesus on the cross. I grew up with parents who were into drugs and they loved, they had got paid their drugs because they were completely given over to these substances they gave to them. What maybe they should have given to their Children, they love them. And if you ask a true addict, they were like I will give anything for this just in the same way that God gave, not just anything but his son for us. So love is very, this agape word. It is very powerful both in terms of light and darkness. But when you think about it in terms of love that is completely given over to you. I give myself over to you. This is how we are supposed to love one another by the way that the world will know that we are Christians by our love or a one for another. And we don't, I don't know that we do a horrible job, but we don't always go out of our way to do it. Either do we, whether it's in a local assembly or whether it's the, the church global. Um There's always room for improvement there, but the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God. So it's through Jesus that we have grace. It's through the father that this love is shown and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Good old church. Word fellowship, huh? Ever been to a fellowship hall? Pretty much every church. We have one here and it's the, it's not just the, the coffee and cookies hall. It's the idea is, it's, it's the word. Maybe you've heard that word thrown around too. Um Ancient Greek, the Greek that was around the time the Bible was written was called Coin Greek because it was the common Greek. It's not the Greek they speak today, but it was the, the same version of Greek was spoken throughout those lands. It's not as much so today, but at one point, English was very much like that because England had, you know, colonized a large part of the world. So the common tongue that at least everybody pretty much spoke English, plus whatever native language that land had. But this is what we have in common. The fellowship is provided by the Holy Spirit. It is as we are in the spirit and the spirit is in us that we have this in common. It has to do with also also participating, we participate in the spirit together and the spirit enables us to participate in one another together. So while the spirit seems to be an unsung hero, he is, as we talked about last week with us, he is in us. And on occasion, as we talked about the gifts of the spirit, he might come upon us for a particular moment in a particular time. Um Jesus referred to him as the helper, which sounds like a really degrading kind of like, oh he's, he's just a helper. Travis is just to help her up here. It's no big deal. He's super important. I love Travis and, and Jim when he's up here. Um It's not a belittling term. It's, it's the one who when you need help, what do you need a helper? It means the one who comes alongside us goes with us, enables us, empowers us. Um God's helper for us and it's, if we treat him less than he is, it's sometimes it's out of ignorance, we can hear the truth. Sometimes, sometimes we've been taught the truth and we can still not follow it. But imagine, imagine if you will that uh God's gonna send you on a trip and he gives you a backpack and in this backpack is a thing of water. Ok. Now you're on your journey and you're walking and you're thirsty and you say, oh God, I am so thirsty. Would you help me? God's like and gave you something? It's in your, I packed it for you. It's in your backpack. You have it. Yeah, but I'm really thirsty. Can you just help make me not thirsty? I gave you something. You have access to it. You just have to open it up and participate. Fellowship. Drink this, let him fill you up and give you the energy that you need to go on the journey that I've given you. Yeah. But oh my gosh. OK. God beating his head again. I think sometimes that's what it's like we forget or we don't know, we get so focused on what's in front of us that we forget. Oh Yeah, God's Holy Spirit is in me. I am the temple of the Holy Spirit and it's not about me. It's not, I'm special. I'm if I am special, it's because he is in me, not because of me myself and i it's this fellowship. It's this communion. That's another word that's translated from this coun this togetherness. It's like when we, when we eat the bread together, uh the idea was that when, when Jesus took the loaf and broke it into pieces and hand it all out, they were all eating from the same one loaf that unified them. The Holy Spirit does the same thing for us. He's in me, he's in you and you, and you, and you, and you, and that connects us. That makes us one the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with some of you. No, no, no, no. The special ones, the one who ties no, be with you all. So sometimes it's when it concerns the spirit and the father and the son, but less so it's, it's, we have to deliberately be like all right, holy spirit. I know you're in me. You can pray to the Holy Spirit and Holy Spirit come. Don't we pray that at certain times we, we can do that. And when we do, we have this totality, we have this unity, God's unity in us. Sometimes we need one more than, than the other. And that's why I'm glad there's three. Sometimes we need God. I just need your grace right now. I'm, I'm pleased. Sometimes I feel alone, I feel abandoned God. I need your love right now or, but it just feels so weak. You need the Holy Spirit, but we really need all three, don't we? And, and that's, again, that's a mystery. I don't know how that works. But um you know, maybe you could say sometimes God takes a divide and conquer, approach, grace. Bam, love, bam, fellowship. Boom. All here we all together. Not only that I'm almost done. I promise it's not just that the Holy Spirit magically does stuff in us. He puts us together in fellowship to minister to one another because if you need grace and maybe I'm feeling full of God's grace and I just want to share it with you or if you have a really strong sense of God's love, and I just feel not that I need that from you. That's part of this fellowship. That's part of this communion. It's a very powerful thing when we walk in the power of the Trinity to build his kingdom, of course, not our own kingdom. So as we go about our day and our week and our month and our year every year, and we think about God and pray to him and listen to him. That's important prayer is not just talking, it's also listening. Um consider these three things, the grace, the love and the fellowship from Jesus and the Father and the Holy Spirit. And as I said earlier, you will experience a fuller understanding of walking in the Lord. And it, you know how long it takes to get all this never or forever, depending on how long you want to look at that. It takes, it's a lifetime process. So, um some people feel like I just, I don't get it and I've been doing this for a long time. It's ok. Let's, let's do this together. Let's walk this together. And, um, here, let me open your backpack and help you get that water. That's a weird way to end a sermon. But that's where we're gonna end.