Let us pray: Dear Savior, You came to save us in love because Your Father sent You. You sent us the comforting gift of the Holy Spirit to nurture faith within our hearts because You want each of us to inherit the gift of heaven. Today we honor You, our Holy God, the blessed Trinity! Today we thank You, the Holy Trinity, for saving us. And today we ask You, the blessed Trinity, to refocus each of us on the only news that truly counts, Your good news of our salvation and deliverance! Amen
GRACE, MERCY, AND PEACE ARE YOURS FROM OUR BLESSED GOD, THE HOLY TRINITY!
TEXT: Sections from Genesis 1: 1-2:3
Fellow Redeemed Sinners Uplifted By God Almighty!
For me, it started with the assassination of Pres. Kennedy. I had just gotten home from school. My mother looked a bit shaken. I asked her what had happened and she told me the Pres. had been killed. Our old black and white TV along with the daily paper and radio broadcasts were filled, simply filled with that news over the next few months. Even today that news sells quite a few books, doesn’t it?
Then came Vietnam and the war. It, too, dominated the “Evening News” on CBS. Walter Cronkite was the anchor and Dan Rather was the chief correspondent. For years Vietnam and its attendant issues were the lead story that gripped the nation every single night. And it still grips people today albeit without headlining the mass media.
Since then we’ve had recessions, inflation, political corruption, the Gulf War, and a host of other issues that dominated our culture. Rather, Brokaw, and Jennings-along with CNN and others have become the modern prophets, proclaiming man’s inhumanity to man. We suck up their insights like sponges. When 9-11 occurred, our entire nation was glued to the TV once again. To us Americans it was the only news that counted.
Although the modern prophets of gloom and doom would disagree, there is only one news story that is actually important for you to focus on. It is overlooked, older than humanity, and will outlast the universe. It is the story of God and how He made us, saved us, and loves us. Today on Trinity Sunday, I want to briefly report to you:
THE ONLY NEWS THAT COUNTS….
I
Let me ask you this question: Is the painting more newsworthy than the painter? Obviously not. For if you’re really taken by a painting, the painter has more insights and more masterpieces inside, just waiting to get out. One masterpiece is but a snapshot of the universe of color, form, and style that such an artist has within his or her head. If the news media focused entirely on but one painting and totally ignored the painter, its creator, we’d shake our heads and turn off the TV. We’d say: “What fools!” Yet, that is exactly what has occurred when it comes to God. We humans become so fixated on a tiny slice of His creativity and depth that we end up ignoring and overlooking His genius! “Ah, what fools these mortals be!”
By definition God is far beyond our comprehension. He is all powerful, eternal, and all-knowing. He is the artist and we are His canvas. Yet, because He made us with a brain, rationality, emotions, and the ability to think we are all paintings that can and should give satisfaction back to our Creator. We do that by focusing on Him, by trying to better grasp His genius, and by trusting Him with all our hearts.
II
From Genesis it is clear that God the Father created the universe out of nothing. He simply said: “Let there be, and there was.” By using His Word of truth and power to create the world, we see that God the Son, Jesus Christ, was also operative at the beginning of time. For as John tells us: “Christ is the Word made flesh.” Likewise, God the Holy Spirit had a hand in painting this masterpiece. “And the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” All three members of the Trinity, God Almighty, made the universe. He made it in complexity, simplicity, and gloriousness. He made time, created space and form, made colors, gave diversity. Yes, the account of creation clearly teaches us volumes and volumes about our God.
When it came to creating human beings, something unique occurs. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”
The entire Trinity discussed, held a conference, and talked over the making of human beings. God is male. He is masculine in His identity. He begins by creating a sin-free, perfect human being, a man, who had His perfect nature. Then God goes even farther and creates women, a female, to corrrespond to man. A female who has various qualities that the man does not have. Yes, in creating women God showed us another side of Himself. He showed that He can think and act outside the box of mere gender. Adam was a masterpiece. Eve was another masterpiece. And side by side they comprised the pinnacle of our God’s creative genius.
After creation was completed, we’re told: “He rested from all His work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.”
Does God get tired like we do? No. God doesn’t tire from anything because weariness comes from work. Creation wasn’t work for God. It was an expression of His essential nature. It simply flowed from His kind and loving heart. And by making that 7th day holy, God was trying to compel us to focus even more on His fullness and glory.
III
Just as the entire Trinity labored together to create this masterpiece that we inhabit, so too, the entire Trinity labored to repaint the canvas after human sin, human pride, had desecrated it. Since creating humans was His crowning achievement in which He invested His heart, redeeming them, repainting and restoring His masterpiece would take His heart. So, in love God the Father sent us Christ His Son. He sent Christ to die for our desecration. Christ’s blood, shed for you and me, painted over our sin. It made us pure and clean and holy in God’s sight. Once more because of Christ’s sacrifice He could look upon us and “Behold, it was very good!” And in order to apply that blood red paint to our lives, He sent the Holy Spirit to personalize it all. He sent the Spirit to work faith and love and trust within our very souls.
The Only News That Counts is how the Blessed Trinity created us, loves us, redeems us, and preserves us. The only news that counts is His good news of salvation in Christ! That news is eternal. It is everlasting. It is always fresh, alive, interesting, and uplifting because it reflects the Artist’s, our Creator’s, essential nature. And in view of all this: “God we praise You, God we bless You, God we name You, Sovereign Lord!” Amen