Holy Trinity June 16, 2019 The Sunday of the Holy Trinity
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Holy Trinity
John 3:1-17
June
16, 2019
“Down-to-Earth God”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sports today can be so unbelievably precise. You watch an NBA basketball game and these guys are breaking down every play, every shift, every switch, every pick-and-roll, every move and counter-move. It’s like this chess match of precision. It’s like this in all the sports now. But for the average one of us, we just want a fun game. If my brothers-in-law and I play a game of basketball against our boys, we’re just throwing the ball around without any real plans at all. There’s no precision. We just want to have fun.
You could say something similar about music. Music, for those who are good at it, is absolutely about precision and technicalities. They see the rhythms, the harmonies, the moods, the dynamics. And that’s awesome. But for the average one of us, we just sing. We know music is an incredible gift, but don’t ask us to be too precise about it.
Or you’ve heard of precision farming? Satellites and GPS and soil testing and precision seeds. Most of us just pull the dirt back in our garden and plunk a seed in there. Maybe a little Miracle-Gro to help things along.
There’s something similar about God also. There’s a time and place to be very precise about God. We just did some of that in our confession of the Athanasian Creed, “we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance…”. That’s precise language and it’s good and helpful.
There’s a time and place to ask precise questions like, “What does God look like? What is His essence and attributes? What are the relationships within the Trinity? How does God foreknow all things and yet doesn’t determine all things? Can God make a rock big enough that He can’t move it? How is Jesus both fully God and fully man at the same time?” These are good questions. Important questions.
But for most of us, they’re not questions for daily life. We just need to play, to sing, to plant. Holy Trinity Sunday is a day to consider our Triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. But that doesn’t mean it has to be an academic and technical pursuit. God is simply how we live every single day. God is how we live and move and have our very being (Acts 17:28).
It’s not nearly as important that we are mindful of God and consider His essence precisely and technically—as it is important that HE is mindful of us. And He is. Psalm 8, “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor. You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.”
The point is—God is mindful of you. He precisely and technically knows you. He fearfully and wonderfully made you. He fully and graciously forgives you. And He fills you with His Holy Spirit to work in you the good works prepared specifically for you. He takes care of all the precise stuff. You—you just live in Him. Every day.
This was the genius of Martin Luther when he put together the Small Catechism. It really was genius. When he got to the Apostles’ Creed, He didn’t go into all kinds of technicalities about God’s essence and attributes and unity and so forth. He just simply said, “Here’s what God does for you—what the Father does, what the Son does, and what the Spirit does. God is mindful of you. And here’s what He does for you every single day.”
And then Luther said every one of us should start and end the day like this:
- Make the sign of the cross.
- Say, “In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”
- Say the Creed.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer.
- Then say our prayers and go to work (morning) or go to bed (evening).
Your life every day from start to finish is lived in the Holy Trinity whether you’re mindful of it or not. God isn’t some academic exercise. He’s your life.
When you get up in the morning and you’re breathing and thinking and reasoning and moving muscles—that’s God the Father. I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. I believe that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, all my members. I’m here because God gives me life. Every day.
When you get up and go to the coffee maker and open those coffee beans, when you pull out the cereal or crack the eggs, when you drink a big glass of water or milk, you say, “He also gives me food and drink.” You put on your clothes, look at your phone, drive your car…all of it comes from the gracious hand of your loving Father.
“In the name of the Father…” Yes, that’s how you’re sitting right there in the pew now with heart beating and lungs breathing and mind thinking. You’re living in the name of the Father. God the Father isn’t some word in a textbook or hymnal—He’s your very life. Your Creator.
“And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord.” Jesus is, again, how you get up every morning and how you lay your head down every night. If it weren’t for the Son of God every morning, you wouldn’t even dare to get out of bed. You know you’re going to sin today. It’s no secret. You know you’ll think bad thoughts about other people, you’ll get angry, you’ll be greedy and selfish, you say things you shouldn’t say, you’ll be ungrateful, you won’t appreciate all you have, etc.
And at the end of the day, there’s no way you’d ever get to sleep when you thought about all the no-good, disgraceful sins that you committed today. But you live in Jesus. In the Son of God. You live in forgiveness and grace.
“In the name of the Son….” Yes, that’s how you’re sitting right there in that pew tonight. You wouldn’t dare be here in God’s presence if it weren’t for the Son. You know He’s mediating for you. You know He’s your righteousness and peace. The way Luther says this is, “Jesus is my Lord.” God the Son isn’t some word in a textbook or hymnal—He’s your very life. Your Redeemer.
“I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Because, otherwise, I wouldn’t believe at all. The Holy Spirit is the whole reason that I know any of this at all. “He’s called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the one true faith.”
When we get up in the morning, our only hope that today we will be good and kind and loving people is, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” He’s the only reason we try every day to live more and more like Christ our Savior. We know He’s our helper. That He lives in us. And that He works in us to do God’s will.
When Jesus talks to Nicodemus that one night in Jerusalem, this is what He wants Nicodemus to understand. That God isn’t something he’s going to wrap his mind around and dissect Him and precisely understand Him. No, but unless one is born again of water and the Spirit. Unless one is born into a new life—into the life that you and I have born into—you will never see nor understand.
You live in a new life. Every day. In the life of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He’s your life. He makes you and takes care of you, He forgives you and reigns over you, and He makes you holy and prepares you for eternity.
One last way to think of this. Our favorite verse—John 3:16—that so clearly tells us what our life is, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him will not die but will have everlasting life.” That verse is the Holy Trinity. It’s a crystal clear picture of the Holy Trinity. For God so loved the world—that’s the Father. He made the world. He loves the world. He loves you. That’s why He takes care of you every morning and gives you life and body and soul and food and drink and all of it.
But He loved you in such a specific way that He gave His only Son. There’s the Son. And you live in Him. And finally, whoever believes—that’s the Holy Spirit because you don’t believe without the Holy Spirit—will not die but will have eternal life.
We love that verse because it’s a summary of our life. It’s how we live every day. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.