Sermon Transcript
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Sun, Aug 25, 2024 10AM • 52:45
Sermon with Gene Simco
SUMMARY KEYWORDSGod, Jesus, trinity, people, father, holy spirit, talked, baptizing, persons, john, lord, heard, word, heresy, basics, read, told, love, Paul, voice
Hi, my name is Gene. I serve here at C3 church as your pastor. So I heard a story about two guys at a bar, because that's an appropriate setting for a church joke. So anyway, these two guys are at a bar across the bar from them, like, down there's this beautiful woman, and one of the guys sees her and starts thinking, like, you know, I want to talk to her, but he doesn't have the courage to do it. So he works on some of the liquid courage, which proves to be a waste of time, no matter which way to throw it. In this case, he wasted time. And the guy, some guy, sits down next to her, so he starts getting, like, a little down on himself, and verbalizing this to his friend, you know. So he's looking for a shoulder to cry. He's like, you know, what is he so beautiful, probably out of my league anyway. It would have been a problem I would have lived my whole life. You know, looking over my shoulder wasn't worth it anyway. Now he expects the friend to do what a good friend does, right? Like no. Man, you know, you're totally if that guy didn't come over, you're all set, right? But he doesn't say that. He goes, you're right -. Like she is totally out of your league. Man, no way. So now it flips on him. He gets a little angry. He's like, No. Well, you know, if that guy didn't come over, you know what that could be? Her brother's like, they're not acting like brother and sister. This is, let you know, I don't know. We're not anyway. So no, she says, You know what? I'm going to prove it to you. I'm going to go ask her, right? So he's like, fine, because it's her brother. So his friend goes and asks this woman, are you married?
She says, I'm his wife.
Okay. So he goes back, little smirk on his face, ready to tell the good news, right to his friend. Did she say she was married? His friend says, no, no, she didn't. She didn't say she was married. I don't know. Now they're starting to hold hands, and I'm getting scared about going over and talking to this woman. Go ask again. And he wants him now,
so he goes over to ask. Is this,
Excuse me, ma'am, it's loud in here, and I just want to make sure, you know, want to be rude.
I heard you right. Are you married?
So now she's getting a little upset.
I am. This is my husband.
Okay, goes back, tells his friend, did
she say she was married?
No, no, she didn't.
So now he's ready, right? So he's going to go ask her if you're going to date or whatever. So he's thinking of some pickup lines and stuff. Before he can do any of that, he gets over to the woman. Immediately. She turns around and slaps him in the face. So she goes back. He goes back to his friend. He said,
I thought
I asked you to ask her if she was married. I did.
She didn't say, I'm married,
So not funny yet, but the slapping part, like you guys laughed at the slapping part, so I know where we're at right now. You'll figure it out later. It always does this most the time. Alright? We find ourselves in our reset series, right? So this is a good basic series for everybody, no matter where you're at, right? So if you've been doing something for a long time, no matter what it is, you know the basics are essential. So this is like basics for everybody, right? So always good to go brush up on the basics. Maybe you've been a Christian for a while and you've stumbled or something went wrong because you didn't have the basics down right. So this is a good reset for you. Just like that reset and everything's fixed. Or you're a beginner, right? And you want to get it right from the beginning, you want to do it right. So great series for everybody really excited about it. So we're in our fourth part, and we've just been looking at the very basics, like, is there a God, you know? So today, what we're going to do is we're going to further identify who that God is, right? So why Christianity? Last week, and I showed you guys the basics of the Gospel, the basics of the gospel, and that was in First Corinthians 15, the basics of the gospel. Now growing out of that, that's what I was calling like primary doctrine, but what grows out of that is a little bit more primary doctrine, if we're being technical about it. So within that basic gospel, you may have noticed that I included a statement that it didn't in First Corinthians 15, I included the fact that Jesus is God. Yeah, so it's not exactly in there, but it's implied in there. And we're going to kind of look at how it's not implied, it's said specifically in the Bible, right? So kind of things grow out of that, and that's what we're going to look at today, right? Because if Jesus isn't God, the gospel is meaningless. Doesn't really mean anything, right? So we're going to look at that, and we're also going to further define who God is in the Trinity. And this is kind of tricky, right? Because this is a basic series, and we're going to the Trinity, which doesn't seem basic to other people, but I'm going to try to make it easy. This is going to be kind of an interesting attempt this morning. So the first thing we want to do, though, is get one thing done. So what I'm going to do here is, as I go through I'm going to weave in typical like heresies, as they call them scary word, don't we're not going to burn anyone alive today, but, but anyway, like just wrong teachings, I'm going to kind of give you some of them to equip you in case you hear them. And it also helps us to kind of like reverse understand the right way to think about this. But the first thing is, Christianity, we are monotheistic, right? So one God, Scriptures tell us that that's it, right? So monotheistic. So a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the Bible and we talked about, like, how important it is to read it a lot. So within that, we got something I want to go back there, Deuteronomy, six, four. Listen, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. It's probably the best translation. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength, and you must commit yourself wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again. Your children talk about them when you're at home and when you're on the road and when you're going to bed and when you're getting up. Alright? So a couple things. So remember that commitment to be committed to the Word of God. The word of God tells us we're to be like any all the time, thinking about it, all the time we saw so basically, this statement of there being one God is the Shema. I talked about it very briefly. Now, one of the things that's important to understand when you're looking especially at like Revelation 13, and what's this? It's the anti Shema. So, right? So put em on your forehead. Put them on your hand, right? So the Shema is something I recited to you guys in Hebrew very poorly. I won't do it again. It's something that, like Jewish children learn, and it would also be to some a deathbed prayer. So this is a very, very important thing. God is one. So God is one. That's it. Now, this can make the idea of the Trinity a little hard to understand, right? So this is where people are like, Huh? How does this work? But we'll see. When we look at Genesis, it was important to understand that. We'll see why. So God is one in essence, but three in persons. So out of that one essence, we get three persons. So that's the Trinity. Essentially. It's a biblical teaching, and it's a central point, as we're going to see, to Jesus's teachings as well. If there's no Trinity, this is a problem, what Jesus is talking about here. So we see it, though, in the Old and the New Testaments, kind of like the joke, right? Although you don't hear see the word trinity, it's set right that there are three persons here. So from the very first words of the Bible, it's just totally obvious that there's a plurality of persons in this one essence, God, Genesis, one, one in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty and darkness covered the deep waters, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water. So here you get right. So okay, so you have this idea, and you know, if you're me, I'm thinking God the Father, and I'm thinking holy spirit there, because it's parsing those two things out. Then we see, on the sixth day, animals are created, humans are created. Genesis, 126, then God said, Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish and the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry on the ground. So you probably noticed that let us make the humans in our images plural. No matter what translation you use, always plural, plural and the original. So there is a plurality of persons in this one God. And also, if you're thinking about it, right? The setup for Jesus, right? God make us and for them in our image, right? So you see kind of a setup there. And we see this picture of like God is in the image of a man in chapter three, Adam and Eve. So you're probably familiar with that account. If you've never read the Bible, you know they get deceived by the serpent, right? And so we get this Genesis three, eight, when the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man, his wife heard, and it says, if you're very careful about the original, the sound or the voice of so that word can be both sound or voice. But anyway, the Lord God walking about in the garden. That's the key word walking about. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees. So now we have something God doing something he was hovering before right now we have him doing something that a human would do. It's interesting. Walking. Around in the garden. That's weird, right?
So
what you get in the Bible are what are called, like Christophanies. So these are early appearances of Jesus, without saying Jesus, right? So they're just kind of like appearances of God. Somehow, sometimes it's called a man or an angel, or he something like that, right? So you'll see Jacob wrestles with a man. Like, how can God be a man all of a sudden? And sometimes they call him an angel and Lord, whatever it is God, he wrestled with God. So it's called Christophany. So in these early references, we have God, the Spirit of God, and this representative to humanity, if you will. Right now, this continues throughout the Old Testament, God directly asserts his tri unity in Isaiah 48 so the context here, especially if you go back like Isaiah 45 Cyrus is going to help redeem them from their captivity, the Israelites in Babylon. So anyway, just to give you the context, but you don't even need to know that when you're reading Isaiah 48 you'll get to verse 12, and we'll talk about, I am he. I am the First and the Last. Like I created everything with my hand. So you know, it's God, the Creator, God that we just saw in Genesis, speaking his voice. And in that voice, Isaiah, 4816 come closer and listen to this. From the beginning, I told you plainly what would happen. And now the Sovereign Lord and His Spirit have sent me with this message. See 123, he did it right there. We see a similar thing in Zechariah, again, reassurance about the restoration of Jerusalem. God is speaking Zechariah, 1210, then I will pour out the spirit of grace. And some translations capitalize that as there and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem, they will look on me, whom they have pierced, and mourn for him as an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as a firstborn son who's died. So clearly, that's a reference to Jesus, you know, getting crucified, and now you have the different voices, but he's the same me, whom they've pierced him as a son. As you see how it's coming together here they are one and three, and again, like an NASB will probably capitalize the Spirit, because it's saying Holy Spirit, and that's the translation there. New Testament's really easy. You get it right at the beginning of the gospel. So if you're in Matthew the third chapter in Matthew 316 after Jesus's baptism, Jesus came up out of the water. The heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy, Father Son, Holy Spirit descending on Mark is the same, right? So it's basically the same idea here one day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and John baptizing into the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heaven splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, You are my dearly loved son. So Father Son, and you have the Holy Spirit. You bring me great joy. We see it. And we talked about the apostolic Commission, as we were calling it. We tried to, kind of like take that initial verse and kind of understand what Jesus was really saying. But within that, if we pay attention, Matthew 2819 therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, right? So here's the thing just to think about for a second. If there's any confusion, you wouldn't be baptizing them into anyone in their names if they weren't God, right? So Jesus is saying these are all God, alright? So Jesus defines that Trinity for us, weaving in those little heresies here, some will say what we're going to talk about, like a problem that people cause, like Modalism. But I'll get there, they'll say that, like, it's kind of weird, like it's Pentecostal. Usually oneness heresy is what it's called. But they'll say they're all named Jesus, right? So it'll they'll take out the ends, so you're baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's like one, but they all have the same name, and it's Jesus. You heard that the first time I heard that. It was like, What are you saying? But anyway, let's say that in Greek, I assure you. Read it, and, and, and, Jesus is making them three separate persons, right? But all co equal as God baptizing in the name Paul. We talked about Paul, he recognized the Trinity, right? And so an example of this is in second Corinthians, 1314, May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. All right. So there it is. Now, a couple of those wrong teachings. The first, most obvious one is, like, that's why I said we're monotheistic. Is polytheism like multiple gods, right? So they would say, like, Oh, they're three different gods. Wrong. It's incompatible biblical teaching, Modalism. So Modalism is interesting because it's what they're saying is it's three different like modes, right? They're expressed God is expressing himself in three different modes, right? And, no, they're three unique persons. That's a very, very important thing to understand. Otherwise, I kind of like think about it like Jesus prays to the Father, which wouldn't make sense. It's like, why are you praying yourself? Excuse me, so it's not a mode he's putting himself in. Because if you one mode talking to another mode, and they can't do that at the same time, same thing. The spirit was a different mode. It couldn't descend on Jesus, and you couldn't hear the father's voice at the same time. Doesn't work, right? There are three persons. That's what the Bible teaches. Now here's the kind of funny thing I can almost guarantee you, if you've been in church for, you know, I don't know, five years or more, something like that, you've heard a pastor espouse Modalism, or you've said it, you've repeated it, it's really interesting, because it's almost impossible to come up with an illustration without doing that. So maybe you heard about the egg, maybe you heard about H, 2o, maybe, if you especially from a Catholic background, like I was a shamrock, you know, you heard something like that Saint Francis or something. But here's the problem, like the egg, the Shamrock, they can be separated from themselves, right? You can take the yolk from the egg and it can be separated and your egg, it's still, you know, you're eating egg whites, right? If you're on some kind of special diet, no. God cannot be separated from himself. That is called Modalism. It's a heresy, actually, right? So water sounds great, though, right? The ice, the vapor, whatever, the liquid water, no, right? So when it's one thing, it's not the others, right? So when it's ice, it's no longer the vapor, it's no longer the water doesn't work because, again, there are three persons who co equal, coexistent. You can't make two of them disappear to get the one right. Doesn't work. So they're all well intended, but they're just simply not well thought out. Now, before I throw like everybody under the bus here, I've tried it too. I thought was really clever. And actually, if you know, someone's embarrassed about that today, right? Delete that video. Me preaching on it. I've noticed. I've even written about it. I put it in a book, way back, you know, when I first started. And so what I came up with was this. And I thought it was great. I was like, oh, wait a minute, here's it, and it's again, well intended. I can get everyone to understand the Trinity. So I'm like, it's like this, right? So I'm Gene, right? I'm a pastor. But because I'm a pastor right now, and speaking to you, I haven't ceased being a father to my daughter or a husband to my wife, I got it right, wrong, right? So that's not three distinct persons. It's one person, three modes, right? So I did it myself, so that doesn't work either. A lot of people have used a similar type of thing. So the first problem is humans like to think they know everything like, so if you've ever read job like, they spend like, why is job like this? They spend like, 38 chapters, pontificating about it. God shows up. He has no reason. Where were you when I took the measurements for the earth? You know, like framing it correctly, right? Like, like Romans 11, like, we don't have God's thoughts. We can't, we can't do it right. It's impossible. And God's not obligated to get us to figure it out, even if we could. The one kind of illustration I've given which is a little helpful in understanding, not understanding is like if we all went to the kids room, where we should all be anyway, and we did arts and crafts, right? And so sometimes you do arts and crafts and where you do like, you know, construction paper mask, and you put it on a popsicle stick. Well, maybe you made popsicle stick people. I'm just trying to get the creative juices flowing in. And we made popsicle stick people.
That'd be fun, right?
So we made these little but then we got real creative.
We started daydreaming. I like to daydream, and I think about crazy things. And I thought, what if I could, like, jump in the popsicle stick world like Gumby, but not quite, because he was like 3d but anyway, I've been stopping myself from singing the Gumby song, but that's all done anyway. So you could jump in become a popsicle stick person. Okay, two dimensional. You're flat now, so it's like, really funny. I tried. So anyway, you're in there with them, right? And then you're trying to describe this, right? You're trying to describe this world. How can you do it? You have absolutely no frame of reference. There's words you'd be like, you know something, some kids would be like, much like, Minecraft, man, it's like that. And they'd be like, what's Minecraft, right? Because they don't, they can't, don't really have thumbs that work like that. So, so it's not three dimensional. You just couldn't really do it. So you'd have to try to give them, it's like the kind of the prophets, when they see this, like heavenly stuff, they're like, Ah, it's like this. And it's like of that. And it's like they have to kind of equate it to something in their reality, right? So you're going to have to explain it to him, like, so obviously, what I'm getting at here is, just imagine, you know, it's impossible being Jesus, right? He's God existed from the beginning. It's going to be really hard to understand. Like, you know, just different dimensions, if you will, right? We're three dimensional. They're four whatever it is, right? So it's impossible. You really can't accurately articulate it, right? So historically, this is the way to visualize it, this diagram, and this is probably the most I mean correct, like Orthodox, when I say that thing here from the beginning, this is just the oldest way. To understand it. It's just that's simply it, right? So the father is not the son, so it's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the father, right? But God is the Father. God is the son. So they're all God, but they are not each other, three persons, one united essence of God. That's it. That's all I got. We just really have to lay aside the notion we're kind of like stuck that, you know, like a person's a human person, right? They're all they're personages, when you think about it. So it doesn't have to be like a human being or a person. So let's look at God the Father. We'll look at the persons God the Father. Just want to show you from the Old Testament, because the New Testament's all over the place, but the Old Testament, you can catch it in Exodus, you know. So Moses is before you know. He helps lead everybody out so he can go to Exodus 422, then you'll tell him. This is what the Lord says. Israel is my firstborn son. So there you go. I commanded you, let my son go so you can worship me. But since you have refused, now I'll kill your like to Pharaoh their firstborn sons. It's like the last plague they die. Deuteronomy. Moses is recalling all this stuff. Deuteronomy, 131, and you saw how the Lord, your God, cared for you all along the way, as you traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child, and now he's brought you to this place. We see it in the Psalm. Psalms, 103, 13, the Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. The prophets, Isaiah, 6316, surely, who are still our father, directly calling God a father, even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us, Lord, you would still be our father. You are our Redeemer from ages past. So yeah, bless you in the New Testament. It's like, super common, like, even if, again, if you never read the Bible, you probably heard the Our Father, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be the only name. So he's called the father constantly, really, really codified concept there in the New Testament. But the father is a person of the Trinity who's not typically fully seen. This can get very complicated. We hear his voice in Matthew Mark, but here's what Jesus says. So he's giving really hard teachings. He's talking about like eating his flesh and blood. He's talking about being the bread of life. And this will kind of be important, as we keep talking. And he came down from heaven. They're having hard time understanding it. John 643 but Jesus replied, stop complaining about what I said, for no one can come to Me unless the Father said he draws them to me, and at the last day, I'll raise them up as written the scriptures, they will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has ever seen the Father on the eye who was sent from God have seen him. So this brings us to Jesus. We already saw in the Trinity verses that he refers to himself as the son, right? So that's plain. And as such, he is the visible image of the invisible God. So for putting what Jesus just said together with what Paul writes and how he understands it, uh, Colossians, 115 Christ, and he's means Jesus, in case you're new, is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created, and he's supreme over all creation. For through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth, He made the things we can see and the things we can see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through Him. And for him, he existed before anything else, and he holds all Creation together. So this ties in Genesis, I think, very nicely, right? Like he was there at creation. He created. So everything I'm saying about Jesus walking in garden stuff, there it is. So, you know, we're seeing the Word of God verifies that he is the visible image of the invisible God, right? So he is now like we can see him. So he's in popsicle stick land, right, if you will. So I mentioned the number one point that I made from the resurrection account, right? Was that Jesus was God. We talked about witnesses, right? The witnesses believed. Here you can see Paul saying, Jesus is God, right? So. But before Paul, like even in the flesh, we have instances of people acknowledging it, like Thomas, we talk about Doubting Thomas, or like Doubting Thomas. Well, Doubting Thomas called Jesus God, the Lord and my God when he finally realizes who Jesus is. They accepted word. So just before those verses in the apostolic commission, they worship Jesus. So Matthew, 2016 then the 11 disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus has told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted, right, so Jesus would not have accepted worship if he was not God. No way, right? So he is sinless according to that monotheistic right, Judaism, right? So he is acknowledging himself as God. And if you have a keen eye and you're paying attention, you may have noticed in some. Killer television series that I don't watch for good reason. They're called Christian. They're not Jesus denies worship. If you saw that episode, right? No, no, no, right, no. He would. He would never deny worship. He is God, right? So we must not make him less than what he is. Again, Paul said and believed Jesus was God. We've talked about First Corinthians 15. Very significant, because it's like an early creedal saying. They would have these sayings that would get passed down to help people remember correct doctrine and things like that. You find another one in Philippians two. It's my favorite. I love it. Very early hymn going back, you know, very, very, very early in Christianity. And Paul's putting it in the letter to the Philippians here. So it starts out with, make your own attitude, that of Christ, Jesus. Now he continues Philippians two six, though he was God, literally existed in the form of God. He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. There it is right saying Jesus existed in the form of God. And that actually the poem ends with every knee bending in every tongue confessing that Jesus is Lord. So there you go, very strong. I talked about Romans last week being a living sacrifice. I think the topic I was talking about was unity, right? So it's the purpose of writing the letter to the Romans. Paul gets to chapter nine, nine through 11, about Paul's Kinsman, like what happened to people who don't accept Jesus, or didn't the Jewish people his Kinsman, he makes a very hyperbolic statement, right? I I'm willing to be forever cursed, cut off from Christ, to see them saved. No, he loves Jesus more than anything, but he's making a very strong point within that talks about the Israelites. Romans, nine, five, Abraham Isaac and Jacob are their ancestors, and Christ himself was an Israelite as far as his human nature was concerned. And he is God, the one who rules over everything and is worthy of eternal praise. Amen clarifies He is God, right? And even if you're trying to change that somehow, he rules over everything and is worthy of that worship we talked about. You don't worship anybody but God, Titus. A lot of people don't read Titus at all. It's written. So anyway, to Titus, he's going to appoint elders in every town. He's kind of a church planter, but we would see it in Crete. And Paul gives him instructions, and the bulk of the instruction that Titus is the behavior of the people, alright? So Paul is worried about the brand. He wants to make sure that, you know, We're known for our love, right? So it's all these instructions about our behavior within that tells Titus. Titus 212 and we are instructed to turn from godless, living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He's our great God and Savior. Alright, so And remember, in the past, we've talked about this world is evil. There's another place it was clearly Jesus is God, Peter. Just really quickly, we talked about Peter a little bit last week. Second, Peter, two, one. This letter's from Simon Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I'm writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and righteousness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, Peter and Paul agree.
John. So
this well,
just to let you know too, I know there are lots of English translations out there. I and I hope you notice the little brackets that's I look for every one of these messages or these scriptures I have in the past very carefully or very recently, read it in the Greek the original. So to let you know, this is what it says. So it's good, right? It's because a lot of people want it well in the original language, and they don't original language, and they don't know how to read the original language. Verified. I checked it all out, right? So this one's a little strange, because John is using, using, like the logos, like, but when he says word, he means Jesus, another principle, which, if you're new, is, like, what? There's no mystery here. Everybody knows who John's talking about. So anyway, John, the disciple Jesus loved. He's writing the Gospel of John a little later than the others, probably. And it's probably for the reason to dispel one very early heresy, Arianism, that Jesus wasn't God. And so it's really kind of the point of the Gospel of John. Alright, so John one in the beginning, the word Jesus, he's talking about already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through Him. The word gave life to everything that was created. So Jesus gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. He is the Creator, and this goes very well with Colossians, right? So John, Paul, they're writing the same type of things. It's very, very similar here. So he gave light to everyone. Think, let there be light, right? So, Jesus is there? Everything's created through Him, by him, for him, right? He's God. Now we get to a point, people. Say, okay, the disciples believe Jesus was God, but Jesus never said he was God. And so we go back to the reason I told you that stupid joke, right? So, yeah, it's a technicality. He did never use those words. But like the joke, there's a lot of ways to tell someone you're married, right? I'm her husband. She's my wife. Heather's way of telling someone that she's married is slapping them in the face, right? So, and those of you know her are laughing because it's real, right? So there are a lot of ways to say something without saying those exact words, alright? So what you get here is, especially in it's in other places, but in John's gospel, it occurs a lot. You have like these seven I am statements, and then two, they're metaphors, but then two more qualifying statements, yes, I'm the door. I'm THE WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE like the vine. So all these different things, the light of the world, so the metaphorical, but I'll share one with you that isn't one of two, alright? So what he's saying when he says I am is he's actually saying more than just I'm God, where it may be confused, right? Like I'm a God, because remember, polytheism exists back then, right? So all these idol worshippers and all these different things, so that could be actually, in that time frame, very easily confused. Alright, oh, my god, lowercase g. And there's other Scriptures where it actually does get confusing. But here, if you're familiar, if you're speaking like he was mostly Jewish people, he and you got to remember that, so it goes to the Gentiles a little bit later. He does have dealing Syrophoenician women, some a woman, some Gentile people, Centurion, but very few. It's mostly Jewish people. He's preaching and teaching to. And so in their way of thinking of God, he would be using the personal name of God. It's like one step above when you really think about it. So Moses burning bush, right? So he is going to get sent, right, to help the people, the Israelites and so the Hebrews. So what does he say? He says, Well, you know, if they ask me, who sent me, what do I say? I am? Who I Am? Tell them I am sent you. She says, I am. That's the name God assigns to himself. So Jesus is doing better than just saying I'm a god, or I'm God, in a way, it can be misconstrued. He's saying that's my name, like I am. This is very, very important, alright, so, and this is elsewhere as well. I told you last week, this claim to be God is what got Jesus killed. So remember when he's talking to the council. He's talking to Jewish leadership. They know this account. They know what he's saying when he says, I am so. Mark 1460, then the high priest stood up before the others and asked Jesus, well, aren't you going to answer these charges? We have to say for yourself. But Jesus was silent, made no reply. Then the high priest asked him, Are You the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One. Jesus said, I am and you will see the Son of Man Seated in the place of power at God's right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard this blasphemy. What is your verdict? Guilty. They all cried. He deserves to die. He's calling himself God. So he's quoting from Daniel seven. There prophecy about this eternal one coming from the clouds of heaven. It's very strong statement. Here I am. They all knew what that meant. That's why they want they killed him, right? So he's using the personal name. Now, there were other attempts. The strongest one out of the metaphors in John is actually in John eight. So as a frame of reference, even if you've never read the Bible, you probably heard the story about the woman in adultery, right? Everyone's going to try to stone her. Jesus said, whoever's Well, sin, you know, drop cast the first stone. So they all drop their stones. And then, if you keep reading, right? So
they he basically sees denouncing the
Pharisees, calling Him like children of your father, the devil. He's not always very nice, but he says, Before Abraham was, I am, you know, they're like, confused by that at first, because it is a weird sentence, right? You're not even 50 years old. Like, what is he saying here? Because using was and I am in the same, you know, past tense and present. What are you doing? Well, it's clear what he's doing, because they then pick up stones to kill him, because he's saying he's God. So before Abraham existed, I am right. So that's what he's saying there. I'm God. Alright, so they try to kill him in John 10, if You're the Messiah, tell us plainly, right? I've already told you, you don't believe me, right? So he gets to this John, 1030 the Father and I are one. Once again, the people picked up talents to kill him, right? He's saying he's God, right? So even if he doesn't say those words by invoking this name, he's saying very strongly that he's God. And we see a couple of things. In this and just again, a little stop at the heresy stuff. One can be plural, so think about Deuteronomy. Now, right, I am the father. Are One. What is Deuteronomy say? Right, the Lord, Lord is one, but he uses I and the Father. Now, some people will kind of jumble it up, but he's saying, in the Greek, the end of the word, like the suffix there the word is we. So he's saying we are God. So it's, it's very hard to translate in English, but if you look at it in Greek, you're going, Oh, he's saying we, I and the Father wouldn't be necessary in our language, but it just happens in Greek, I and the Father, we are God, would be like a very clumsy, literal translation of what's going on there. Alright, so I goes back to this, though, what I was saying like that, Jesus oneness heresy, where they're all named Jesus. It's, it sounds strange to me. Maybe it doesn't other people, but they're saying, like the father's Jesus the holy. So, against that chart, right? So it's like this weird, moralistic type of God they're coming up with. But what Jesus here, here is doing, he's doing the opposite. He's showing you in Deuteronomy how, oh, we can be one, right? Simple. So just on that note, just really quickly, because you may have heard it, and there may be people watching who have subscribed to this, or have heard this kind of thing where and what they do is this, they baptize people like if you get baptized by someone like that, they'll baptize in Jesus' name. And that's it, right? And it's not good. I'll show you why. So if we go to Acts Philip and Samaria, Acts 814 when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God's message, they sent Peter and John there. As soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new believers to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them. Why? For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on the believers, and they received the Spirit. So I did not receive the Holy Spirit, which is like a key to our salvation, because why they were only baptizing them? So when people, if you see people doing that, it is wrong. So we see here why it is important to follow Jesus's instructions baptize them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and important. So just in case anybody is talking about it. You know what that means now? So that brings us to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. Scriptures tell us this too. The people don't understand that. So you have this account of Ananias, if we go back a couple chapters in Acts five and Sapphira, so they're kind of like selling this piece of property, and they claim and it's the full amount. They're kind of hiding some of the cash for themselves. Uh, Peter calls them out, acts five, three. Then Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit. Who do you lie to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. The properties was yours to sell or not, to sell as you wished, and after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this. You weren't lying to us, but God. Because God is the Holy Spirit. Who did he lie to? So there you go. If we go back to John, we get to the Holy Spirit. But before that, I just want to show you something. Jesus is presenting us with the Trinity. He's talking about going somewhere. He's going to die. So I'm going to leave you and go somewhere. Where are you going? Jesus, 14, six. Jesus told, told him, I'm the Way, the Truth and Life. So there's that metaphorical I am statement, no one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know my father, who my father is. Sorry from now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father, and we'll be satisfied. Jesus replied, have you been with me all this time? Philip, yet you still don't know who I am. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. So why are you asking me to show you to him? So again, he is one with the Father. Then you get this. John, 1415, if you go down a little further, if you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate. Will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him because he's in looking for him, and it doesn't recognize him. But you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you. So here we arrive. We jump ahead a little bit at the role of the Holy Spirit. John, 16 five, but now I'm going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I'm going. Instead, you grieve because of what I told you. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the advocate won't come. If I do go away, then I'll send him to you, and when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin and of God's right, righteousness and the coming judgment. The world sin is that it refuses to believe me. So he's our advocate. We'll get there, and he also convicts of sin. And there's a good apologetics, no, we talked about that like how we share with people gently and respectfully, right? With the fruit of the Spirit, right? So really important, I. We are to present the truth to people in love and then let God do his work. The Holy Spirit is little bit better at convicting people than we are. Some Christians might disagree with me, but anyway, the Bible, I would disagree with that, right? So one quick little thing, too. Another thing, you know, it's, it's kind of confusing for people. A lot of people kind of, like, think or like, claim that, or frame it that the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost like, that's when we get the Holy Spirit right, in Acts, what the beginning of the Bible, verse two of Genesis, right? We can see the Holy Spirit again. We start saying, you're thinking things like that. It's wrong thinking. No, no, God, he cannot be separate. He's one. Holy Spirit is what hovering over the waters at creation. So they're all co equal persons of the Trinity, alright? So just that, even if you look, for example, the gospel of Luke before Pentecost, you'll see, I think it's no less than five people filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary's conceived by the Holy Spirit, right? So important to think about. And so just a very quick way of understanding that what's going on God throughout the Bible, I
think of, like Old Testament, I
think of Saul for some reason, like Saul has his Holy Spirit placed on him and he's prophesying naked, which is, you should read your Bibles. It's crazy stuff. So anyway, is even Saul a prophet? You know, there's this saying, and then he's taken away from of Saul, and then evil spirit, tormenting spirit. So it's like this selective placement of God's choosing for specific purposes. Verses at Pentecost in Acts a waterfall, just like crazy, right? And now through baptism,
and we saw, right?
If we do it, right, we receive the Holy Spirit. Right? If we do it wrong, we don't right. So very, very important. We talked about Christianity versus other worldviews last week, and the Trinity, when you think about it, is one of the things that makes Christianity unique, not in the theology of it, but in the experience of it, when we think about it, right? He's an active, living God. A lot of people think of, you know, God. I mean, you think about other religion, God's like this aloof, you know, they just, that's it. So, just God, you know, maybe the way you might think of like the God of the Old Testament, but he does use prophets and stuff. But once we see the Trinity, right? So Jesus comes in the flesh, and that's where we see it, right? So not that it didn't exist before. I'm not saying that, but once he comes to us in the flesh, now you have like the visible image of the invisible God, and we can experience God in a way that people from other worldviews can't, because it's not real, but couldn't, they just couldn't anyway, right? So God is making himself available to us. It's really interesting, right? So, yeah, we know we pray to the Father, but we do so in Jesus's name, a mediator, right? For us. Jesus gives us this living example. And this is just so amazing to me. If I go back to that Philippians two thing there, which is amazing to me, and it's just this really crazy thing that we shouldn't take for granted, that God would come and be like us, while still being God. We experience him that way, he gives us the example, right? So if we go back to Philippians two, he's letting him know, like, make your attitude. It's like this example that of Christ, Jesus, who existing in the form of God, didn't regard equality with God as something to be taken advantage of. Instead, he emptied himself, assumed the form of a slave, took on the likeness of man, and when he comes a man in his external form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name. So at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue should confess of those who are in heaven and earth and below the earth. Right that Jesus Christ as Lord, the glory of God, the Father, beautiful,
that's our God.
Jesus, as God, did that for us. I
mean, it's a lot to meditate on,
a lot to meditate on,
but he gave us this example of humility, an example of obedience. So we serve this God who's not like just do as I say. He
wouldn't ask us to do anything. He wouldn't do himself.
He gives us the ultimate example of obedience, the ultimate example we can never be this humble, to be like God and then just like us, it's impossible. Gives us. He leads us with this example, not just do what I say, he does it, and through that sacrifice, we are saved. So he uses that experience to save us.
You see how important this is, how. It comes together.
Understanding the Trinity in this way. No,
the Holy Spirit helps us to live out that example. It's amazing, because we just can't do it on our own. Right? He knows that, so he leads us with this advocate, this helper. Some translations will say we looked at the fruit of the Spirit. So it should be fresh in your minds, right? So, like even when it's impossible for us to love, He gives us the power to love. He gives us joy, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, faithfulness. It's a key to us having faith. Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit, right? So he empowers us and guides us. It's a way of experiencing God. He's an active and living God.
So through this trinity,
we're never alone
again. He's not aloof and far away, right? He's in us, and it's just an amazing concept that so many need to hear. But it's basic when we think about it, very appropriate to think about it this way, because maybe if we were doing a different series, I would start, you know, getting a little more technical, right? Maybe using some H 2o examples for you guys, right? But it's kind of nice to look at the basics this way, because it leads us to just the beautiful simplicity of the Trinity. God is love. There's three equal persons who loved one another. This is said in scriptures, right? They love each other. And so love is born at the creation of the Trinity, right? There's no creation. He's not created. But anyway, at the occasion when he creates us, right? So fix some big theological errors right there, right?
He's not created,
but you get what I'm saying, right? So in Him, we have love from the beginning. That's the best way to say that. And so through the Trinity that love is shared with us. It's amazing. He loved us so much that He died for us. And so I realized something as I close, you know, there are a lot of people who feel alone. I've caught myself in this. So it's not just a head knowledge thing. It's something we need to be reminded of sometimes, where you feel alone, you know, and it's like, God reminds me You're being silly. You're never alone. You have me. It's impossible. Why are you trying to find company in anyone else but me, who's better than me? And we do this, right? And so a lot of people feel alone. Sometimes you feel unloved, right? So we go through that. Sometimes, you know, we feel we're not loved. Nobody loves me. You know, I feel alone. You know, I just, even if I'm with people, I feel alone. I hear this kind of thing and some of the stuff we went through, you know, in our country or whatever, in the world, you know, where people got isolated, right? It's just they, whatever your stance is on what happened. It's just a fact, right? A lot of us just got isolated. We got left alone. And it's not normal, right? And a lot of those people didn't have God. Some of us fared a little bit better because we were a little bit more conscious of that. Well, you know, I just talked to God, you know, read my Bible. I'm good, but at the same time, right? Why was Eve created? Adam was alone, and so he made a helper. I know the animals are soup. He made a helper for him, right? So there's also a sense in which God wants us to be with one another. And so we get the church. And so we see a picture of the Trinity in the church itself, when we think about it, right? So by being united in what the Holy Spirit we are, the body of Christ. And so you see those two things operative in pieces of the Trinity here, not that it can be separated, but you guys like persons of the Trinity. I mean, very technical, right? So we see that, and something, I think we've forgotten, maybe, and it's gotten easier to forget. So even before what was going on. People were leaving the church, right? People were saying, we don't need to be the body of Christ where, you know, it's like this was happening to our society. And then our society said, Oh, yeah. And, you know, it's kind of cool to be totally alone and on an island and isolated. As a pastor, I saw like divorce rates went through the roof, addiction. It was unreal. It was terrible. And so it just, it's really, you know, it shows you how important the church is. It's really important, you know, just very, very quickly, it's one of the reasons I shut down streaming. We streamed, right? So, but then I was like, No, you know, this is people are just, yeah, pastor, I'm watching it in bed, you know, where I'm like, No, it's not no. That doesn't work. That's not church, churches in Greek assembly. It's bodies, people assembling together. Alright? So anyway, maybe you need to hear that, right? And maybe you need to know that. So I'm just going to invite you guys, like, if you're someone who hasn't been. Baptized before, if you're not able to get yourself centered, you know, in that peace, that love, that joy from the Holy Spirit, if that's something you desire, you want to feel that love and have it living inside you, I invite you. You're going to be told how to connect with us. Connect with us. Talk to me about baptism. That's something you know, I'd be happy to honor to talk to anybody about, alright? The other thing you're going to be told how to connect, if you haven't gotten plugged in yet to the community here, you're going to be told about some of the things that we do. We have a heart for everybody, especially if you're new or you're struggling with something that's fine, alright? I'm going to encourage you get plugged in, right? And experience this active and living God Amen. We pray for you, Lord, I thank you for everyone in the sound of my voice, even those who are watching online too, and everybody who's here is able to come. Lord, I pray for everyone who couldn't come for whatever reason. I encourage them to come to church and be a part of what's going on here. Be a part of your body. And as we go out this week, I just, I'm just reminded of the vehicles that we were made to be in your image. Lord, those are vehicles of Your Mercy, your kindness, your love, your peace, your grace. So Lord, just fill us with your spirit and help remind us who we really are in your image, I ask these things In Jesus's Name. Amen.
You
Hi, my name is Gene. I serve here at C3 church as your pastor. So I heard a story about two guys at a bar, because that's an appropriate setting for a church joke. So anyway, these two guys are at a bar across the bar from them, like, down there's this beautiful woman, and one of the guys sees her and starts thinking, like, you know, I want to talk to her, but he doesn't have the courage to do it. So he works on some of the liquid courage, which proves to be a waste of time, no matter which way to throw it. In this case, he wasted time. And the guy, some guy, sits down next to her, so he starts getting, like, a little down on himself, and verbalizing this to his friend, you know. So he's looking for a shoulder to cry. He's like, you know, what is he so beautiful, probably out of my league anyway. It would have been a problem I would have lived my whole life. You know, looking over my shoulder wasn't worth it anyway. Now he expects the friend to do what a good friend does, right? Like no. Man, you know, you're totally if that guy didn't come over, you're all set, right? But he doesn't say that. He goes, you're right -. Like she is totally out of your league. Man, no way. So now it flips on him. He gets a little angry. He's like, No. Well, you know, if that guy didn't come over, you know what that could be? Her brother's like, they're not acting like brother and sister. This is, let you know, I don't know. We're not anyway. So no, she says, You know what? I'm going to prove it to you. I'm going to go ask her, right? So he's like, fine, because it's her brother. So his friend goes and asks this woman, are you married?
She says, I'm his wife.
Okay. So he goes back, little smirk on his face, ready to tell the good news, right to his friend. Did she say she was married? His friend says, no, no, she didn't. She didn't say she was married. I don't know. Now they're starting to hold hands, and I'm getting scared about going over and talking to this woman. Go ask again. And he wants him now,
so he goes over to ask. Is this,
Excuse me, ma'am, it's loud in here, and I just want to make sure, you know, want to be rude.
I heard you right. Are you married?
So now she's getting a little upset.
I am. This is my husband.
Okay, goes back, tells his friend, did
she say she was married?
No, no, she didn't.
So now he's ready, right? So he's going to go ask her if you're going to date or whatever. So he's thinking of some pickup lines and stuff. Before he can do any of that, he gets over to the woman. Immediately. She turns around and slaps him in the face. So she goes back. He goes back to his friend. He said,
I thought
I asked you to ask her if she was married. I did.
She didn't say, I'm married,
So not funny yet, but the slapping part, like you guys laughed at the slapping part, so I know where we're at right now. You'll figure it out later. It always does this most the time. Alright? We find ourselves in our reset series, right? So this is a good basic series for everybody, no matter where you're at, right? So if you've been doing something for a long time, no matter what it is, you know the basics are essential. So this is like basics for everybody, right? So always good to go brush up on the basics. Maybe you've been a Christian for a while and you've stumbled or something went wrong because you didn't have the basics down right. So this is a good reset for you. Just like that reset and everything's fixed. Or you're a beginner, right? And you want to get it right from the beginning, you want to do it right. So great series for everybody really excited about it. So we're in our fourth part, and we've just been looking at the very basics, like, is there a God, you know? So today, what we're going to do is we're going to further identify who that God is, right? So why Christianity? Last week, and I showed you guys the basics of the Gospel, the basics of the gospel, and that was in First Corinthians 15, the basics of the gospel. Now growing out of that, that's what I was calling like primary doctrine, but what grows out of that is a little bit more primary doctrine, if we're being technical about it. So within that basic gospel, you may have noticed that I included a statement that it didn't in First Corinthians 15, I included the fact that Jesus is God. Yeah, so it's not exactly in there, but it's implied in there. And we're going to kind of look at how it's not implied, it's said specifically in the Bible, right? So kind of things grow out of that, and that's what we're going to look at today, right? Because if Jesus isn't God, the gospel is meaningless. Doesn't really mean anything, right? So we're going to look at that, and we're also going to further define who God is in the Trinity. And this is kind of tricky, right? Because this is a basic series, and we're going to the Trinity, which doesn't seem basic to other people, but I'm going to try to make it easy. This is going to be kind of an interesting attempt this morning. So the first thing we want to do, though, is get one thing done. So what I'm going to do here is, as I go through I'm going to weave in typical like heresies, as they call them scary word, don't we're not going to burn anyone alive today, but, but anyway, like just wrong teachings, I'm going to kind of give you some of them to equip you in case you hear them. And it also helps us to kind of like reverse understand the right way to think about this. But the first thing is, Christianity, we are monotheistic, right? So one God, Scriptures tell us that that's it, right? So monotheistic. So a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the Bible and we talked about, like, how important it is to read it a lot. So within that, we got something I want to go back there, Deuteronomy, six, four. Listen, oh, Israel, the Lord is our God. The Lord is one. It's probably the best translation. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your strength, and you must commit yourself wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again. Your children talk about them when you're at home and when you're on the road and when you're going to bed and when you're getting up. Alright? So a couple things. So remember that commitment to be committed to the Word of God. The word of God tells us we're to be like any all the time, thinking about it, all the time we saw so basically, this statement of there being one God is the Shema. I talked about it very briefly. Now, one of the things that's important to understand when you're looking especially at like Revelation 13, and what's this? It's the anti Shema. So, right? So put em on your forehead. Put them on your hand, right? So the Shema is something I recited to you guys in Hebrew very poorly. I won't do it again. It's something that, like Jewish children learn, and it would also be to some a deathbed prayer. So this is a very, very important thing. God is one. So God is one. That's it. Now, this can make the idea of the Trinity a little hard to understand, right? So this is where people are like, Huh? How does this work? But we'll see. When we look at Genesis, it was important to understand that. We'll see why. So God is one in essence, but three in persons. So out of that one essence, we get three persons. So that's the Trinity. Essentially. It's a biblical teaching, and it's a central point, as we're going to see, to Jesus's teachings as well. If there's no Trinity, this is a problem, what Jesus is talking about here. So we see it, though, in the Old and the New Testaments, kind of like the joke, right? Although you don't hear see the word trinity, it's set right that there are three persons here. So from the very first words of the Bible, it's just totally obvious that there's a plurality of persons in this one essence, God, Genesis, one, one in the beginning. God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty and darkness covered the deep waters, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the water. So here you get right. So okay, so you have this idea, and you know, if you're me, I'm thinking God the Father, and I'm thinking holy spirit there, because it's parsing those two things out. Then we see, on the sixth day, animals are created, humans are created. Genesis, 126, then God said, Let us make human beings in our image to be like us. They will reign over the fish and the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry on the ground. So you probably noticed that let us make the humans in our images plural. No matter what translation you use, always plural, plural and the original. So there is a plurality of persons in this one God. And also, if you're thinking about it, right? The setup for Jesus, right? God make us and for them in our image, right? So you see kind of a setup there. And we see this picture of like God is in the image of a man in chapter three, Adam and Eve. So you're probably familiar with that account. If you've never read the Bible, you know they get deceived by the serpent, right? And so we get this Genesis three, eight, when the cool evening breezes were blowing, the man, his wife heard, and it says, if you're very careful about the original, the sound or the voice of so that word can be both sound or voice. But anyway, the Lord God walking about in the garden. That's the key word walking about. So they hid from the LORD God among the trees. So now we have something God doing something he was hovering before right now we have him doing something that a human would do. It's interesting. Walking. Around in the garden. That's weird, right?
So
what you get in the Bible are what are called, like Christophanies. So these are early appearances of Jesus, without saying Jesus, right? So they're just kind of like appearances of God. Somehow, sometimes it's called a man or an angel, or he something like that, right? So you'll see Jacob wrestles with a man. Like, how can God be a man all of a sudden? And sometimes they call him an angel and Lord, whatever it is God, he wrestled with God. So it's called Christophany. So in these early references, we have God, the Spirit of God, and this representative to humanity, if you will. Right now, this continues throughout the Old Testament, God directly asserts his tri unity in Isaiah 48 so the context here, especially if you go back like Isaiah 45 Cyrus is going to help redeem them from their captivity, the Israelites in Babylon. So anyway, just to give you the context, but you don't even need to know that when you're reading Isaiah 48 you'll get to verse 12, and we'll talk about, I am he. I am the First and the Last. Like I created everything with my hand. So you know, it's God, the Creator, God that we just saw in Genesis, speaking his voice. And in that voice, Isaiah, 4816 come closer and listen to this. From the beginning, I told you plainly what would happen. And now the Sovereign Lord and His Spirit have sent me with this message. See 123, he did it right there. We see a similar thing in Zechariah, again, reassurance about the restoration of Jerusalem. God is speaking Zechariah, 1210, then I will pour out the spirit of grace. And some translations capitalize that as there and prayer on the family of David and on the people of Jerusalem, they will look on me, whom they have pierced, and mourn for him as an only son. They will grieve bitterly for him as a firstborn son who's died. So clearly, that's a reference to Jesus, you know, getting crucified, and now you have the different voices, but he's the same me, whom they've pierced him as a son. As you see how it's coming together here they are one and three, and again, like an NASB will probably capitalize the Spirit, because it's saying Holy Spirit, and that's the translation there. New Testament's really easy. You get it right at the beginning of the gospel. So if you're in Matthew the third chapter in Matthew 316 after Jesus's baptism, Jesus came up out of the water. The heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my dearly loved son who brings me great joy, Father Son, Holy Spirit descending on Mark is the same, right? So it's basically the same idea here one day Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and John baptizing into the Jordan River. As Jesus came up out of the water, he saw the heaven splitting apart and the Holy Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice from heaven said, You are my dearly loved son. So Father Son, and you have the Holy Spirit. You bring me great joy. We see it. And we talked about the apostolic Commission, as we were calling it. We tried to, kind of like take that initial verse and kind of understand what Jesus was really saying. But within that, if we pay attention, Matthew 2819 therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, right? So here's the thing just to think about for a second. If there's any confusion, you wouldn't be baptizing them into anyone in their names if they weren't God, right? So Jesus is saying these are all God, alright? So Jesus defines that Trinity for us, weaving in those little heresies here, some will say what we're going to talk about, like a problem that people cause, like Modalism. But I'll get there, they'll say that, like, it's kind of weird, like it's Pentecostal. Usually oneness heresy is what it's called. But they'll say they're all named Jesus, right? So it'll they'll take out the ends, so you're baptized in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. It's like one, but they all have the same name, and it's Jesus. You heard that the first time I heard that. It was like, What are you saying? But anyway, let's say that in Greek, I assure you. Read it, and, and, and, Jesus is making them three separate persons, right? But all co equal as God baptizing in the name Paul. We talked about Paul, he recognized the Trinity, right? And so an example of this is in second Corinthians, 1314, May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you. All right. So there it is. Now, a couple of those wrong teachings. The first, most obvious one is, like, that's why I said we're monotheistic. Is polytheism like multiple gods, right? So they would say, like, Oh, they're three different gods. Wrong. It's incompatible biblical teaching, Modalism. So Modalism is interesting because it's what they're saying is it's three different like modes, right? They're expressed God is expressing himself in three different modes, right? And, no, they're three unique persons. That's a very, very important thing to understand. Otherwise, I kind of like think about it like Jesus prays to the Father, which wouldn't make sense. It's like, why are you praying yourself? Excuse me, so it's not a mode he's putting himself in. Because if you one mode talking to another mode, and they can't do that at the same time, same thing. The spirit was a different mode. It couldn't descend on Jesus, and you couldn't hear the father's voice at the same time. Doesn't work, right? There are three persons. That's what the Bible teaches. Now here's the kind of funny thing I can almost guarantee you, if you've been in church for, you know, I don't know, five years or more, something like that, you've heard a pastor espouse Modalism, or you've said it, you've repeated it, it's really interesting, because it's almost impossible to come up with an illustration without doing that. So maybe you heard about the egg, maybe you heard about H, 2o, maybe, if you especially from a Catholic background, like I was a shamrock, you know, you heard something like that Saint Francis or something. But here's the problem, like the egg, the Shamrock, they can be separated from themselves, right? You can take the yolk from the egg and it can be separated and your egg, it's still, you know, you're eating egg whites, right? If you're on some kind of special diet, no. God cannot be separated from himself. That is called Modalism. It's a heresy, actually, right? So water sounds great, though, right? The ice, the vapor, whatever, the liquid water, no, right? So when it's one thing, it's not the others, right? So when it's ice, it's no longer the vapor, it's no longer the water doesn't work because, again, there are three persons who co equal, coexistent. You can't make two of them disappear to get the one right. Doesn't work. So they're all well intended, but they're just simply not well thought out. Now, before I throw like everybody under the bus here, I've tried it too. I thought was really clever. And actually, if you know, someone's embarrassed about that today, right? Delete that video. Me preaching on it. I've noticed. I've even written about it. I put it in a book, way back, you know, when I first started. And so what I came up with was this. And I thought it was great. I was like, oh, wait a minute, here's it, and it's again, well intended. I can get everyone to understand the Trinity. So I'm like, it's like this, right? So I'm Gene, right? I'm a pastor. But because I'm a pastor right now, and speaking to you, I haven't ceased being a father to my daughter or a husband to my wife, I got it right, wrong, right? So that's not three distinct persons. It's one person, three modes, right? So I did it myself, so that doesn't work either. A lot of people have used a similar type of thing. So the first problem is humans like to think they know everything like, so if you've ever read job like, they spend like, why is job like this? They spend like, 38 chapters, pontificating about it. God shows up. He has no reason. Where were you when I took the measurements for the earth? You know, like framing it correctly, right? Like, like Romans 11, like, we don't have God's thoughts. We can't, we can't do it right. It's impossible. And God's not obligated to get us to figure it out, even if we could. The one kind of illustration I've given which is a little helpful in understanding, not understanding is like if we all went to the kids room, where we should all be anyway, and we did arts and crafts, right? And so sometimes you do arts and crafts and where you do like, you know, construction paper mask, and you put it on a popsicle stick. Well, maybe you made popsicle stick people. I'm just trying to get the creative juices flowing in. And we made popsicle stick people.
That'd be fun, right?
So we made these little but then we got real creative.
We started daydreaming. I like to daydream, and I think about crazy things. And I thought, what if I could, like, jump in the popsicle stick world like Gumby, but not quite, because he was like 3d but anyway, I've been stopping myself from singing the Gumby song, but that's all done anyway. So you could jump in become a popsicle stick person. Okay, two dimensional. You're flat now, so it's like, really funny. I tried. So anyway, you're in there with them, right? And then you're trying to describe this, right? You're trying to describe this world. How can you do it? You have absolutely no frame of reference. There's words you'd be like, you know something, some kids would be like, much like, Minecraft, man, it's like that. And they'd be like, what's Minecraft, right? Because they don't, they can't, don't really have thumbs that work like that. So, so it's not three dimensional. You just couldn't really do it. So you'd have to try to give them, it's like the kind of the prophets, when they see this, like heavenly stuff, they're like, Ah, it's like this. And it's like of that. And it's like they have to kind of equate it to something in their reality, right? So you're going to have to explain it to him, like, so obviously, what I'm getting at here is, just imagine, you know, it's impossible being Jesus, right? He's God existed from the beginning. It's going to be really hard to understand. Like, you know, just different dimensions, if you will, right? We're three dimensional. They're four whatever it is, right? So it's impossible. You really can't accurately articulate it, right? So historically, this is the way to visualize it, this diagram, and this is probably the most I mean correct, like Orthodox, when I say that thing here from the beginning, this is just the oldest way. To understand it. It's just that's simply it, right? So the father is not the son, so it's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not the father, right? But God is the Father. God is the son. So they're all God, but they are not each other, three persons, one united essence of God. That's it. That's all I got. We just really have to lay aside the notion we're kind of like stuck that, you know, like a person's a human person, right? They're all they're personages, when you think about it. So it doesn't have to be like a human being or a person. So let's look at God the Father. We'll look at the persons God the Father. Just want to show you from the Old Testament, because the New Testament's all over the place, but the Old Testament, you can catch it in Exodus, you know. So Moses is before you know. He helps lead everybody out so he can go to Exodus 422, then you'll tell him. This is what the Lord says. Israel is my firstborn son. So there you go. I commanded you, let my son go so you can worship me. But since you have refused, now I'll kill your like to Pharaoh their firstborn sons. It's like the last plague they die. Deuteronomy. Moses is recalling all this stuff. Deuteronomy, 131, and you saw how the Lord, your God, cared for you all along the way, as you traveled through the wilderness, just as a father cares for his child, and now he's brought you to this place. We see it in the Psalm. Psalms, 103, 13, the Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. The prophets, Isaiah, 6316, surely, who are still our father, directly calling God a father, even if Abraham and Jacob would disown us, Lord, you would still be our father. You are our Redeemer from ages past. So yeah, bless you in the New Testament. It's like, super common, like, even if, again, if you never read the Bible, you probably heard the Our Father, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be the only name. So he's called the father constantly, really, really codified concept there in the New Testament. But the father is a person of the Trinity who's not typically fully seen. This can get very complicated. We hear his voice in Matthew Mark, but here's what Jesus says. So he's giving really hard teachings. He's talking about like eating his flesh and blood. He's talking about being the bread of life. And this will kind of be important, as we keep talking. And he came down from heaven. They're having hard time understanding it. John 643 but Jesus replied, stop complaining about what I said, for no one can come to Me unless the Father said he draws them to me, and at the last day, I'll raise them up as written the scriptures, they will all be taught by God. Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me. Not that anyone has ever seen the Father on the eye who was sent from God have seen him. So this brings us to Jesus. We already saw in the Trinity verses that he refers to himself as the son, right? So that's plain. And as such, he is the visible image of the invisible God. So for putting what Jesus just said together with what Paul writes and how he understands it, uh, Colossians, 115 Christ, and he's means Jesus, in case you're new, is the visible image of the invisible God. He existed before anything was created, and he's supreme over all creation. For through him, God created everything in the heavenly realms and on earth, He made the things we can see and the things we can see, such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers and authorities in the unseen world. Everything was created through Him. And for him, he existed before anything else, and he holds all Creation together. So this ties in Genesis, I think, very nicely, right? Like he was there at creation. He created. So everything I'm saying about Jesus walking in garden stuff, there it is. So, you know, we're seeing the Word of God verifies that he is the visible image of the invisible God, right? So he is now like we can see him. So he's in popsicle stick land, right, if you will. So I mentioned the number one point that I made from the resurrection account, right? Was that Jesus was God. We talked about witnesses, right? The witnesses believed. Here you can see Paul saying, Jesus is God, right? So. But before Paul, like even in the flesh, we have instances of people acknowledging it, like Thomas, we talk about Doubting Thomas, or like Doubting Thomas. Well, Doubting Thomas called Jesus God, the Lord and my God when he finally realizes who Jesus is. They accepted word. So just before those verses in the apostolic commission, they worship Jesus. So Matthew, 2016 then the 11 disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus has told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him. But some doubted, right, so Jesus would not have accepted worship if he was not God. No way, right? So he is sinless according to that monotheistic right, Judaism, right? So he is acknowledging himself as God. And if you have a keen eye and you're paying attention, you may have noticed in some. Killer television series that I don't watch for good reason. They're called Christian. They're not Jesus denies worship. If you saw that episode, right? No, no, no, right, no. He would. He would never deny worship. He is God, right? So we must not make him less than what he is. Again, Paul said and believed Jesus was God. We've talked about First Corinthians 15. Very significant, because it's like an early creedal saying. They would have these sayings that would get passed down to help people remember correct doctrine and things like that. You find another one in Philippians two. It's my favorite. I love it. Very early hymn going back, you know, very, very, very early in Christianity. And Paul's putting it in the letter to the Philippians here. So it starts out with, make your own attitude, that of Christ, Jesus. Now he continues Philippians two six, though he was God, literally existed in the form of God. He did not think of equality with God as something to cling to. There it is right saying Jesus existed in the form of God. And that actually the poem ends with every knee bending in every tongue confessing that Jesus is Lord. So there you go, very strong. I talked about Romans last week being a living sacrifice. I think the topic I was talking about was unity, right? So it's the purpose of writing the letter to the Romans. Paul gets to chapter nine, nine through 11, about Paul's Kinsman, like what happened to people who don't accept Jesus, or didn't the Jewish people his Kinsman, he makes a very hyperbolic statement, right? I I'm willing to be forever cursed, cut off from Christ, to see them saved. No, he loves Jesus more than anything, but he's making a very strong point within that talks about the Israelites. Romans, nine, five, Abraham Isaac and Jacob are their ancestors, and Christ himself was an Israelite as far as his human nature was concerned. And he is God, the one who rules over everything and is worthy of eternal praise. Amen clarifies He is God, right? And even if you're trying to change that somehow, he rules over everything and is worthy of that worship we talked about. You don't worship anybody but God, Titus. A lot of people don't read Titus at all. It's written. So anyway, to Titus, he's going to appoint elders in every town. He's kind of a church planter, but we would see it in Crete. And Paul gives him instructions, and the bulk of the instruction that Titus is the behavior of the people, alright? So Paul is worried about the brand. He wants to make sure that, you know, We're known for our love, right? So it's all these instructions about our behavior within that tells Titus. Titus 212 and we are instructed to turn from godless, living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness and devotion to God, while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed. He's our great God and Savior. Alright, so And remember, in the past, we've talked about this world is evil. There's another place it was clearly Jesus is God, Peter. Just really quickly, we talked about Peter a little bit last week. Second, Peter, two, one. This letter's from Simon Peter, a slave and an apostle of Jesus Christ. I'm writing to you who share the same precious faith we have. This faith was given to you because of the justice and righteousness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior, Peter and Paul agree.
John. So
this well,
just to let you know too, I know there are lots of English translations out there. I and I hope you notice the little brackets that's I look for every one of these messages or these scriptures I have in the past very carefully or very recently, read it in the Greek the original. So to let you know, this is what it says. So it's good, right? It's because a lot of people want it well in the original language, and they don't original language, and they don't know how to read the original language. Verified. I checked it all out, right? So this one's a little strange, because John is using, using, like the logos, like, but when he says word, he means Jesus, another principle, which, if you're new, is, like, what? There's no mystery here. Everybody knows who John's talking about. So anyway, John, the disciple Jesus loved. He's writing the Gospel of John a little later than the others, probably. And it's probably for the reason to dispel one very early heresy, Arianism, that Jesus wasn't God. And so it's really kind of the point of the Gospel of John. Alright, so John one in the beginning, the word Jesus, he's talking about already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. Jesus was God. He existed in the beginning with God. God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through Him. The word gave life to everything that was created. So Jesus gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. He is the Creator, and this goes very well with Colossians, right? So John, Paul, they're writing the same type of things. It's very, very similar here. So he gave light to everyone. Think, let there be light, right? So, Jesus is there? Everything's created through Him, by him, for him, right? He's God. Now we get to a point, people. Say, okay, the disciples believe Jesus was God, but Jesus never said he was God. And so we go back to the reason I told you that stupid joke, right? So, yeah, it's a technicality. He did never use those words. But like the joke, there's a lot of ways to tell someone you're married, right? I'm her husband. She's my wife. Heather's way of telling someone that she's married is slapping them in the face, right? So, and those of you know her are laughing because it's real, right? So there are a lot of ways to say something without saying those exact words, alright? So what you get here is, especially in it's in other places, but in John's gospel, it occurs a lot. You have like these seven I am statements, and then two, they're metaphors, but then two more qualifying statements, yes, I'm the door. I'm THE WAY, the TRUTH and the LIFE like the vine. So all these different things, the light of the world, so the metaphorical, but I'll share one with you that isn't one of two, alright? So what he's saying when he says I am is he's actually saying more than just I'm God, where it may be confused, right? Like I'm a God, because remember, polytheism exists back then, right? So all these idol worshippers and all these different things, so that could be actually, in that time frame, very easily confused. Alright, oh, my god, lowercase g. And there's other Scriptures where it actually does get confusing. But here, if you're familiar, if you're speaking like he was mostly Jewish people, he and you got to remember that, so it goes to the Gentiles a little bit later. He does have dealing Syrophoenician women, some a woman, some Gentile people, Centurion, but very few. It's mostly Jewish people. He's preaching and teaching to. And so in their way of thinking of God, he would be using the personal name of God. It's like one step above when you really think about it. So Moses burning bush, right? So he is going to get sent, right, to help the people, the Israelites and so the Hebrews. So what does he say? He says, Well, you know, if they ask me, who sent me, what do I say? I am? Who I Am? Tell them I am sent you. She says, I am. That's the name God assigns to himself. So Jesus is doing better than just saying I'm a god, or I'm God, in a way, it can be misconstrued. He's saying that's my name, like I am. This is very, very important, alright, so, and this is elsewhere as well. I told you last week, this claim to be God is what got Jesus killed. So remember when he's talking to the council. He's talking to Jewish leadership. They know this account. They know what he's saying when he says, I am so. Mark 1460, then the high priest stood up before the others and asked Jesus, well, aren't you going to answer these charges? We have to say for yourself. But Jesus was silent, made no reply. Then the high priest asked him, Are You the Messiah, the Son of the Blessed One. Jesus said, I am and you will see the Son of Man Seated in the place of power at God's right hand and coming on the clouds of heaven. Then the high priest tore his clothing to show his horror and said, Why do we need other witnesses? You have all heard this blasphemy. What is your verdict? Guilty. They all cried. He deserves to die. He's calling himself God. So he's quoting from Daniel seven. There prophecy about this eternal one coming from the clouds of heaven. It's very strong statement. Here I am. They all knew what that meant. That's why they want they killed him, right? So he's using the personal name. Now, there were other attempts. The strongest one out of the metaphors in John is actually in John eight. So as a frame of reference, even if you've never read the Bible, you probably heard the story about the woman in adultery, right? Everyone's going to try to stone her. Jesus said, whoever's Well, sin, you know, drop cast the first stone. So they all drop their stones. And then, if you keep reading, right? So
they he basically sees denouncing the
Pharisees, calling Him like children of your father, the devil. He's not always very nice, but he says, Before Abraham was, I am, you know, they're like, confused by that at first, because it is a weird sentence, right? You're not even 50 years old. Like, what is he saying here? Because using was and I am in the same, you know, past tense and present. What are you doing? Well, it's clear what he's doing, because they then pick up stones to kill him, because he's saying he's God. So before Abraham existed, I am right. So that's what he's saying there. I'm God. Alright, so they try to kill him in John 10, if You're the Messiah, tell us plainly, right? I've already told you, you don't believe me, right? So he gets to this John, 1030 the Father and I are one. Once again, the people picked up talents to kill him, right? He's saying he's God, right? So even if he doesn't say those words by invoking this name, he's saying very strongly that he's God. And we see a couple of things. In this and just again, a little stop at the heresy stuff. One can be plural, so think about Deuteronomy. Now, right, I am the father. Are One. What is Deuteronomy say? Right, the Lord, Lord is one, but he uses I and the Father. Now, some people will kind of jumble it up, but he's saying, in the Greek, the end of the word, like the suffix there the word is we. So he's saying we are God. So it's, it's very hard to translate in English, but if you look at it in Greek, you're going, Oh, he's saying we, I and the Father wouldn't be necessary in our language, but it just happens in Greek, I and the Father, we are God, would be like a very clumsy, literal translation of what's going on there. Alright, so I goes back to this, though, what I was saying like that, Jesus oneness heresy, where they're all named Jesus. It's, it sounds strange to me. Maybe it doesn't other people, but they're saying, like the father's Jesus the holy. So, against that chart, right? So it's like this weird, moralistic type of God they're coming up with. But what Jesus here, here is doing, he's doing the opposite. He's showing you in Deuteronomy how, oh, we can be one, right? Simple. So just on that note, just really quickly, because you may have heard it, and there may be people watching who have subscribed to this, or have heard this kind of thing where and what they do is this, they baptize people like if you get baptized by someone like that, they'll baptize in Jesus' name. And that's it, right? And it's not good. I'll show you why. So if we go to Acts Philip and Samaria, Acts 814 when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that the people of Samaria had accepted God's message, they sent Peter and John there. As soon as they arrived, they prayed for these new believers to receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them. Why? For they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John laid their hands on the believers, and they received the Spirit. So I did not receive the Holy Spirit, which is like a key to our salvation, because why they were only baptizing them? So when people, if you see people doing that, it is wrong. So we see here why it is important to follow Jesus's instructions baptize them in the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and important. So just in case anybody is talking about it. You know what that means now? So that brings us to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God. Scriptures tell us this too. The people don't understand that. So you have this account of Ananias, if we go back a couple chapters in Acts five and Sapphira, so they're kind of like selling this piece of property, and they claim and it's the full amount. They're kind of hiding some of the cash for themselves. Uh, Peter calls them out, acts five, three. Then Peter said, Ananias, why have you let Satan fill your heart? You lied to the Holy Spirit. Who do you lie to the Holy Spirit, and you kept some of the money for yourself. The properties was yours to sell or not, to sell as you wished, and after selling it, the money was also yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this. You weren't lying to us, but God. Because God is the Holy Spirit. Who did he lie to? So there you go. If we go back to John, we get to the Holy Spirit. But before that, I just want to show you something. Jesus is presenting us with the Trinity. He's talking about going somewhere. He's going to die. So I'm going to leave you and go somewhere. Where are you going? Jesus, 14, six. Jesus told, told him, I'm the Way, the Truth and Life. So there's that metaphorical I am statement, no one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know my father, who my father is. Sorry from now on, you do know him and have seen him. Philip said, Lord, show us the Father, and we'll be satisfied. Jesus replied, have you been with me all this time? Philip, yet you still don't know who I am. Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. So why are you asking me to show you to him? So again, he is one with the Father. Then you get this. John, 1415, if you go down a little further, if you love me, obey my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate. Will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him because he's in looking for him, and it doesn't recognize him. But you know him because he lives with you now and later will be in you. So here we arrive. We jump ahead a little bit at the role of the Holy Spirit. John, 16 five, but now I'm going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I'm going. Instead, you grieve because of what I told you. But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don't, the advocate won't come. If I do go away, then I'll send him to you, and when He comes, He will convict the world of its sin and of God's right, righteousness and the coming judgment. The world sin is that it refuses to believe me. So he's our advocate. We'll get there, and he also convicts of sin. And there's a good apologetics, no, we talked about that like how we share with people gently and respectfully, right? With the fruit of the Spirit, right? So really important, I. We are to present the truth to people in love and then let God do his work. The Holy Spirit is little bit better at convicting people than we are. Some Christians might disagree with me, but anyway, the Bible, I would disagree with that, right? So one quick little thing, too. Another thing, you know, it's, it's kind of confusing for people. A lot of people kind of, like, think or like, claim that, or frame it that the Holy Spirit arrives at Pentecost like, that's when we get the Holy Spirit right, in Acts, what the beginning of the Bible, verse two of Genesis, right? We can see the Holy Spirit again. We start saying, you're thinking things like that. It's wrong thinking. No, no, God, he cannot be separate. He's one. Holy Spirit is what hovering over the waters at creation. So they're all co equal persons of the Trinity, alright? So just that, even if you look, for example, the gospel of Luke before Pentecost, you'll see, I think it's no less than five people filled with the Holy Spirit. Mary's conceived by the Holy Spirit, right? So important to think about. And so just a very quick way of understanding that what's going on God throughout the Bible, I
think of, like Old Testament, I
think of Saul for some reason, like Saul has his Holy Spirit placed on him and he's prophesying naked, which is, you should read your Bibles. It's crazy stuff. So anyway, is even Saul a prophet? You know, there's this saying, and then he's taken away from of Saul, and then evil spirit, tormenting spirit. So it's like this selective placement of God's choosing for specific purposes. Verses at Pentecost in Acts a waterfall, just like crazy, right? And now through baptism,
and we saw, right?
If we do it, right, we receive the Holy Spirit. Right? If we do it wrong, we don't right. So very, very important. We talked about Christianity versus other worldviews last week, and the Trinity, when you think about it, is one of the things that makes Christianity unique, not in the theology of it, but in the experience of it, when we think about it, right? He's an active, living God. A lot of people think of, you know, God. I mean, you think about other religion, God's like this aloof, you know, they just, that's it. So, just God, you know, maybe the way you might think of like the God of the Old Testament, but he does use prophets and stuff. But once we see the Trinity, right? So Jesus comes in the flesh, and that's where we see it, right? So not that it didn't exist before. I'm not saying that, but once he comes to us in the flesh, now you have like the visible image of the invisible God, and we can experience God in a way that people from other worldviews can't, because it's not real, but couldn't, they just couldn't anyway, right? So God is making himself available to us. It's really interesting, right? So, yeah, we know we pray to the Father, but we do so in Jesus's name, a mediator, right? For us. Jesus gives us this living example. And this is just so amazing to me. If I go back to that Philippians two thing there, which is amazing to me, and it's just this really crazy thing that we shouldn't take for granted, that God would come and be like us, while still being God. We experience him that way, he gives us the example, right? So if we go back to Philippians two, he's letting him know, like, make your attitude. It's like this example that of Christ, Jesus, who existing in the form of God, didn't regard equality with God as something to be taken advantage of. Instead, he emptied himself, assumed the form of a slave, took on the likeness of man, and when he comes a man in his external form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, death on a cross. For this reason, God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name. So at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow, every tongue should confess of those who are in heaven and earth and below the earth. Right that Jesus Christ as Lord, the glory of God, the Father, beautiful,
that's our God.
Jesus, as God, did that for us. I
mean, it's a lot to meditate on,
a lot to meditate on,
but he gave us this example of humility, an example of obedience. So we serve this God who's not like just do as I say. He
wouldn't ask us to do anything. He wouldn't do himself.
He gives us the ultimate example of obedience, the ultimate example we can never be this humble, to be like God and then just like us, it's impossible. Gives us. He leads us with this example, not just do what I say, he does it, and through that sacrifice, we are saved. So he uses that experience to save us.
You see how important this is, how. It comes together.
Understanding the Trinity in this way. No,
the Holy Spirit helps us to live out that example. It's amazing, because we just can't do it on our own. Right? He knows that, so he leads us with this advocate, this helper. Some translations will say we looked at the fruit of the Spirit. So it should be fresh in your minds, right? So, like even when it's impossible for us to love, He gives us the power to love. He gives us joy, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self control, faithfulness. It's a key to us having faith. Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit, right? So he empowers us and guides us. It's a way of experiencing God. He's an active and living God.
So through this trinity,
we're never alone
again. He's not aloof and far away, right? He's in us, and it's just an amazing concept that so many need to hear. But it's basic when we think about it, very appropriate to think about it this way, because maybe if we were doing a different series, I would start, you know, getting a little more technical, right? Maybe using some H 2o examples for you guys, right? But it's kind of nice to look at the basics this way, because it leads us to just the beautiful simplicity of the Trinity. God is love. There's three equal persons who loved one another. This is said in scriptures, right? They love each other. And so love is born at the creation of the Trinity, right? There's no creation. He's not created. But anyway, at the occasion when he creates us, right? So fix some big theological errors right there, right?
He's not created,
but you get what I'm saying, right? So in Him, we have love from the beginning. That's the best way to say that. And so through the Trinity that love is shared with us. It's amazing. He loved us so much that He died for us. And so I realized something as I close, you know, there are a lot of people who feel alone. I've caught myself in this. So it's not just a head knowledge thing. It's something we need to be reminded of sometimes, where you feel alone, you know, and it's like, God reminds me You're being silly. You're never alone. You have me. It's impossible. Why are you trying to find company in anyone else but me, who's better than me? And we do this, right? And so a lot of people feel alone. Sometimes you feel unloved, right? So we go through that. Sometimes, you know, we feel we're not loved. Nobody loves me. You know, I feel alone. You know, I just, even if I'm with people, I feel alone. I hear this kind of thing and some of the stuff we went through, you know, in our country or whatever, in the world, you know, where people got isolated, right? It's just they, whatever your stance is on what happened. It's just a fact, right? A lot of us just got isolated. We got left alone. And it's not normal, right? And a lot of those people didn't have God. Some of us fared a little bit better because we were a little bit more conscious of that. Well, you know, I just talked to God, you know, read my Bible. I'm good, but at the same time, right? Why was Eve created? Adam was alone, and so he made a helper. I know the animals are soup. He made a helper for him, right? So there's also a sense in which God wants us to be with one another. And so we get the church. And so we see a picture of the Trinity in the church itself, when we think about it, right? So by being united in what the Holy Spirit we are, the body of Christ. And so you see those two things operative in pieces of the Trinity here, not that it can be separated, but you guys like persons of the Trinity. I mean, very technical, right? So we see that, and something, I think we've forgotten, maybe, and it's gotten easier to forget. So even before what was going on. People were leaving the church, right? People were saying, we don't need to be the body of Christ where, you know, it's like this was happening to our society. And then our society said, Oh, yeah. And, you know, it's kind of cool to be totally alone and on an island and isolated. As a pastor, I saw like divorce rates went through the roof, addiction. It was unreal. It was terrible. And so it just, it's really, you know, it shows you how important the church is. It's really important, you know, just very, very quickly, it's one of the reasons I shut down streaming. We streamed, right? So, but then I was like, No, you know, this is people are just, yeah, pastor, I'm watching it in bed, you know, where I'm like, No, it's not no. That doesn't work. That's not church, churches in Greek assembly. It's bodies, people assembling together. Alright? So anyway, maybe you need to hear that, right? And maybe you need to know that. So I'm just going to invite you guys, like, if you're someone who hasn't been. Baptized before, if you're not able to get yourself centered, you know, in that peace, that love, that joy from the Holy Spirit, if that's something you desire, you want to feel that love and have it living inside you, I invite you. You're going to be told how to connect with us. Connect with us. Talk to me about baptism. That's something you know, I'd be happy to honor to talk to anybody about, alright? The other thing you're going to be told how to connect, if you haven't gotten plugged in yet to the community here, you're going to be told about some of the things that we do. We have a heart for everybody, especially if you're new or you're struggling with something that's fine, alright? I'm going to encourage you get plugged in, right? And experience this active and living God Amen. We pray for you, Lord, I thank you for everyone in the sound of my voice, even those who are watching online too, and everybody who's here is able to come. Lord, I pray for everyone who couldn't come for whatever reason. I encourage them to come to church and be a part of what's going on here. Be a part of your body. And as we go out this week, I just, I'm just reminded of the vehicles that we were made to be in your image. Lord, those are vehicles of Your Mercy, your kindness, your love, your peace, your grace. So Lord, just fill us with your spirit and help remind us who we really are in your image, I ask these things In Jesus's Name. Amen.
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