Text: Matthew 28:19-20

Theme: “The Work of the Trinity”

Date: may 17/18. 2008; Trinity Sunday

Place: Immanuel, Altamont, IL

            I would like to begin by asking our children to come forward for a brief message. (Wait for the children to come forward.)

            Good morning. It is wonderful to be with you this morning. Some of you had the pleasure of going to a movie yesterday. How many of you went to see the movie “Prince Caspian”? Wasn’t that a good movie? There were many lessons in that movie. The greatest lesson was that God always has a plan for our lives. He is working in us and through us in so many different ways. We just need to believe in Him and trust Him. God is always with us. He is watching over us. He is always there for us.

            Today is a special Sunday. In the church we call today “Trinity Sunday.” What that means is that we talk about who God is. We talk about God being the “Trinity.” What that means is that there is one God. He is the God who watches over us, takes care of us, saves us and is always there for us. But He is such big God, that for us to try to understand a little bit about Him, He has shown Himself to us in a special way. We call that special way “the Trinity.”

            Jesus talks about this in our Gospel lesson for today. There, just before He ascended into heaven, Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. God therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:18b-19 ESV) It is in those words that we find the beginning of the teaching of the Trinity. Jesus tells us that God can be understood as the Trinity – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Trinity is God showing Himself as 3 persons although He is only one God.

            To help us understand the three persons of the Trinity, we come up with some pictures or symbols. Here in the church, we have several that help us to remember the Trinity. Let’s take a look at the banner at the back of the church. This green banner has several things on it. First there is a triangle. A triangle is not quite a square because it has only three sides. But we use it to show us the Trinity, three persons, three sides. See how that works. So that is the first thing that shows us our God. The triangle shows us the Trinity.

            On that banner, we also have three different pictures. The first is a hand. That hand is shows us God the Father. The second is the lamb. That shows us God the Son. And the third is the dove. That shows us the Holy Spirit. We worship one God, shown us in the triangle. He shows Himself to us, to help us understand a little about Himself, as the Father (the hand), the Son (the lamb) and the Holy Spirit (the dove).

            That is our God. We don’t really understand all there is to know about Him, but we do believe in Him. We accept Him as our God, the One who takes care of us, saves us and is with us every day. During the rest of this sermon, we will be talking more about the Trinity. Listen to what is said and it might help you just a little bit more.

            Let’s have a word of prayer. Dear God, thank You for loving us. Thank You also for showing Yourself to us as the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You have helped us to know a little bit more about You as we hold onto You in faith. Be with us this week. We ask this in Your name. Amen.

            Thanks for coming up boys and girls. God bless you. (Wait for the children to return to their seats.)

            Trinity Sunday is that day when we spend a little bit of time talking about God as the Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is also the only day that use the Athanasian Creed. It is that long thing that confirmation classes never want to have to memorize. There is some history to that Creed. Open your hymnbooks to the page where you find the Creed. I want to read you the introduction to the Athanasian Creed. (Read this from LSB.)

            Sometimes we are reluctant to hold firmly to the doctrine of the Trinity. We think to ourselves that it doesn’t matter if you believe in the Trinity or not. As long as you hold to some sort of a God, we shouldn’t be so tight on what is believed. The problem with that is that it is like saying, “It doesn’t matter if you believe in Jesus as your Savior or not. As long as you believe in something that makes you feel good about your life, it is close enough.” There is no basis for that statement. You are either saved by faith in Jesus Christ or you aren’t. You can’t have it both ways. We know from God’s Word that there is only one way to salvation – through Jesus Christ.

            In the same way, we know from Scripture that there is only one God. We worship Him in truth and purity. This infinite God is hard for us to grasp. In fact, He seems too big and great for us to understand. He knew that as well. So He has tried to help us to understand Him a little bit better by showing Himself in a special way. As we said with the children, He shows Himself as the Trinity. Jesus tells us that God is truly the Trinity – the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. To say that you don’t need to believe in how God has revealed Himself to us is wrong. It does matter. God has said, “This is who I am.” To refuse to accept that, as it says in the Athanasian Creed, that person should be condemned. You can’t be saved without believing in the Trinity.

            That doesn’t mean that we have to understand the Trinity. We can’t We can only hold onto what we are shown and leave the rest to faith. God has said it. He has shown Himself in this way. We believe it. And we move on in our lives.

            We are going to take just a short bit of time to talk about the Trinity. (I know, too late. It has been a long while already.) The first person of the Trinity is the Father. God the Father is shown as we said, by the hand. He is the One that we often say is involved in creation and preservation. (All three persons of the Trinity were there at creation as we see in Genesis 1-1.) The hand symbolizes the creating power of the Father. He made the world and all the universe. He made the sun, moon and stars. He made all the plants and animals. He made the dry land and the water. He made the birds of the air and farm animals that walk the ground. He also made humans beings – Adam and Eve. All of that was done by the creating God. He did it in 6 days and on the 7^th day He rested. Not because He was tired but in order to show us that we should work 6 days and rest on the 7^th. To continue to work without rest will only harm a person.

            He made all things absolutely perfect. There was no sin, corruption or problems in the world. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect relationship with God. They spoke with Him. The loved as He loved. They didn’t have to fear sickness or death. That wasn’t a part of their lives. Creation was perfect.

            The work of the Father is not over. It continues on even today. He doesn’t continue in creation but He does continue to preserve the world. He takes care of it. All that is in creation – all the world and its resources, all that we are and have – was given to us by God Himself. That is preservation. It all is from God. It all belongs to God. It is all just a gift to us to use while we are here and then we leave it to the next person that God gives it to. 

            That teaches us something very important. The things that we have, the things that we hold so dear in our lives, don’t truly belong to us. We are but caretakers of what God has given to us. The clothes we wear, the houses we live in, the cars we drive and the toys we play with all belong to our heavenly Father, gifts to us to use and enjoy and then to leave to the next person. That means that we really should be good caretakers of all that He gives us. We should be good stewards of God’s creation. In a word, Christians were the original “green” people. If we truly follow God with all our hearts and lives, we are being eco-friendly and good stewards. That is something for us to think about the next time we feel as though we can do what we want with our resources. We should actually ask ourselves, “Is this what God would have me do with these resources?” And then live that life as He would have us live it. God the Father – the creator and preserver of our lives.

            God made the world perfect. But it didn’t stay that way. Adam and Eve lived in a perfect world Unfortunately, they were tempted by Satan. We know that one day, they fell for that temptation and when they did, the goodness of God’s creation changed. It is no longer the perfect, wonderful place that it once was. People hurt people. People hurt themselves. People no longer follow the will of the Father in their lives. They prefer to sin and do what is wrong. All creation is ruined because of that fall into sin. Suffering came into the world. Sin brought about the one consequence that no one is able to stop – death. We might be able to postpone it for a while, but death gets each and every person, because all have sinned.

            After that death came something far worse than physical death (as if that wasn’t bad enough!). Damnation followed. When a person dies, they will be damned to hell because of their sin. There was no hope for saving oneself. It was a plague upon all people. We feared death first because it is an unknown factor but then it became even worse. We feared death because we knew (or felt) that we would be damned. We would not have any hope of salvation. We would not be with God. We would be separated from Him forever. That is the worst consequence of that sin that we have in our lives.

            God knew this. Her knew we couldn’t save ourselves. So He did something about it. He sent His Son into the world. This is where we come in contact with God revealing Himself as God the Son, the second person of the Trinity. The Son was born into this world, born of a woman, born of Mary. He was a human being in all ways with the exception of one – He was sinless. He wasn’t born with sin like you and me. More than that, He never committed a single sin. He was a perfect human. He lived the perfect life He was true man and yet at the same time He was true God.

            The reason was so that He could be our Savior. The Son of God came to sacrifice for us, for our sin, for our salvation. Therefore we use the symbol of the Lamb. He is that perfect Lamb of God that is the sacrifice for the sin of all mankind. As we see the symbol of the Lamb, we are reminded of that which He does. He takes our sin and carries it upon Himself. He is sacrificed, not on the altar like a lamb but upon the cross, like a human. He is raised on the cross for us, for our sin in order to take our place. There on the cross, the Son of God suffers and dies, shedding His blood, in order to give to all of mankind complete and total salvation.

            God the Son reveals Himself in a very special way for us. He shows Himself as true man and true God. He gives up His life that all that believe in Him might have salvation. Through faith in Him, forgiveness of sins, life and salvation are given. What a powerful thing the Trinity does for us. He gives us all we need in our lives and then saves us from damnation.

            But how do we receive that salvation? As sinners, we cannot bring ourselves into that saving relationship with Him. By nature, we are spiritually blind, dead and enemies of God. We cannot bring ourselves to faith, nor do we want to. We would prefer to stay in our sin and live that way – without the Trinity in our lives.

            So God takes care of that for us as well. God shows Himself again to be the God who cares for His creation. He reveals Himself as God the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. We use the symbol of dove to show the third person of the Trinity. We use that because that is how the Holy Spirit showed Himself at the baptism of God the Son. The Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove. Therefore we use the symbol of the dove to show the Holy Spirit.

            The work of the Holy Spirit is to being us to that saving faith in the Son. He works within our hearts through both Word and Sacrament. Through Holy Baptism, He brings us to faith. He makes us children of the living God. Through the Word, spoken or read, He works that faith in our hearts to bring us to salvation. Either way, through Baptism or through the Word, He brings us to faith. He opens our hearts to that wonderful gift of salvation. He works to make it possible for us to have that forgiveness in our lives. God the Spirit brings us to faith in our lives.

            He also keeps us in that faith. We would stray away from Christ if given the chance. We would wander off for something we think is more important or more interesting – some morsel that Satan, the world or our sinful nature offers to us to distract us from the Trinity – and we would be lost once again. So the Holy Spirit continue to work in our hearts and lives to keep us in that faith. He works through the Means of Grace – Word and Sacrament. He keeps us in that saving relationship with the Son. He is the One that empowers us to live this life of faith, to be good stewards of creation, to reach out with the gospel of life and hope.

            The Trinity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are always at work in this world, in our lives. God reveals Himself to us as the Trinity in order to help us get a handle of who He is and what He does for us. We would do well to hold firmly to this faith.

Amen.