Let us pray: O blessed Trinity, how we long to look into Your hidden ways and discern more clearly Your infinite heart! How we exercise our minds trying to see the multitude of things You’ve ordained not to disclose to us instead of dwelling on the many truths that You have revealed in Your wisdom. Today, focus our thoughts and our faith on those aspects of Yourself that are most beneficial to us: faith, hope, grace, goodness, truth, and life. For then our fears will be calmed and our joy will be enlarged. Amen
GRACE MERCY AND PEACE ARE YOURS FROM THE BLESSED, HOLY TRINITY!
TEXT: Romans 11: 33-36
Fellow Redeemed In The Glorious Trinity!
I don’t have blood pressure problems. However, when I read atheistic attacks on Christianity, or come across the agnostic drivel that “intelligent” humans foist off on college students today; well, I can feel my blood pressure rising. Atheism, “there is no god, period” is so silly and such a vacuous concept that I just shake my head and don’t give its proponents any time. The orderly nature of the world and of the universe—planets revolving in space, plants responding to the seasons, birds that fly, fish that swim, plankton that feeds huge whales—well, it’s illogical that all that is a product of blind chance. There must be a God. And if there isn’t, why do they run their personal lives based on some semblance of logic? Where does logic come from? Why not live by blind chance if that’s the core principle behind existence? Why not ignore paying all bills, ignore treating any disease, and ignore eating? After all, according to their thinking you have just as much of a “chance” that things will just magically iron themselves out as not?
Then comes the agnostic, the “we cannot know anything specific about god” crowd. They are much more numerous than true atheists and much more insidious when it comes to our faith. I suppose the agnostic creed is best represented by those who lump all religions together and say: “All faiths lead to the same god.” They say that because if you cannot truly know anything specific about God, than any and all views on God are equally valid. To me such thinking is the height of arrogance. Ultimately, it leads to human beings defining their “god” according to their own terms.—Is He a She? Is He black or white, tall or short, young or old, kind or vindictive, loving or hateful? If you look at various religions you will see how humans have engaged in defining their “god” in such terms. But because all of those human definitions of “god” conflict with one another, how can such divergent faiths all lead to the same place, that is, in honoring of the same “god”? Lumping together the Christian God with Allah, Shiva, or the Great Spirit of the American Indians is silly. It is dishonest. It is the mark of a lazy mind. And to us as Christians, it is evil because it dishonors God Almighty and destroys human souls.
If you as a human being are the arbiter of God; if your mind is what defines and identifies Him, than He is no bigger, stronger, wiser, or more powerful than you are. In fact, that’s the point of the 1st commandment: “Don’t make God into an idol,” whether it be a shiny gold one or a mental one that “happens” to conform to your lifestyle. In short, don’t put God in a box! A box that you’ve constructed according to your own specifications. For if you do, all you’ll end up worshiping is yourself—the ultimate in idolatry.
Well, today is Trinity Sunday. The one day out of the church year where we talk specifically about the one and only God there is: The Holy Trinity. And as we meditate upon St. Paul’s words, inspired by God Himself, I want you to know this:
THE HOLY TRINITY TRANSPORTS US TO THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX
I
When I’m teaching adult class to new people, the first section we cover is: the natural knowledge of God. That is, general insights into God that all people are born with. In my introduction today I laid out some of those insights. Then I go on to talk about Who God really is: the Triune God, three distinct persons who comprise one distinct God. Each person of the Trinity is 100% God. Each person exists eternally at the same time as the other two. And yet, together they don’t comprise a 300% God or separately a 33 1/3% of God, but each is fully God! In my classes I then go on and tell people this: “If you set out on your own to define and dream up a “God” who would ever come up with such an other-worldly definition of God? The very fact that the doctrine of the Trinity is incomprehensible to human logic and beyond human thinking tells me that no human dreamed it up. No, it comes from a Source far beyond our small minds. The teaching of the Trinity can only come from God!” Moreover, we know about the Trinity only from the Bible. Natural knowledge, general knowledge that “there is a god” doesn’t tell us anything about the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit. It doesn’t tell us anything about God’s undeserved love in Christ. It doesn’t tell us anything about God’s huge heart seen in His saving our souls by the sacrifice of His Son on a cross for us. Yes, only the bible transports us outside the box of our finiteness and reveals to us some of God’s infiniteness! And St. Paul touches on those very truths in our lesson: “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or what has been his counselor” Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?’ For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
II
You can always tell the difference between a common person and an expert when you get down to specifics. Anyone can talk in a general sense about the weather. But when someone talks about isobars and cumulonimbus cloud formation, well, that helps identify an expert. This goes for discussions about cars, heating systems, economic theory, physics, and God talk as well.
As you’ve read Scripture and heard lessons and sermons over the years, have you observed how specific God’s Word really is? Only the bible talks specifically about the how’s and why’s of creation. Only the Bible specifically deals with where evil came from. Only the bible speaks specifically about how God deals with evil and how He has overcome it in order to save human souls. Yes, I’ll grant you that some questions we might have about such things are not answered, or at least not as we’d like them to be. But, only in the bible are we told how God the Father created the world and still cares for it. Only in the bible are we told how God’s eternal Son, Jesus, was sent to buy back human souls from sin and death with His death on a cross. Only in the bible are we told how the Holy Spirit imparts faith in Christ’s sacrifice, faith which links us with God eternally. Yes, only the bible informs us how to live a blessed life and die a blessed death into God’s loving arms.
In Paul’s words: these things are “riches of wisdom.” They are pathways “beyond human tracing.” They are far above our mind’s ability to dream up. They are outside human ability to “repay God.” And yet, the fathomless Trinity, the only God there is, hands out these gifts to us freely and lovingly. And right there is the greatest kernel of all when it comes to Godly truth—freely and lovingly. That’s our God! His eternal love is a free gift given to us in Christ! So, yes, The Holy Trinity really does transport us to think outside the box, when it comes to God talk! Yes, “For from him, and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”