Good morning. Thank you Isaac. Thank you worship team. Appreciate you guys leading us as we gather to continue in our study that we began last week on the connection between knowing God and loving God. One of the keys to loving someone is to know them. You could say all day long, yeah, I love that celebrity. I love that musician. And yet you really don’t know them. You don’t really love them personally in the way that we mean when we talk about love. In fact, I remember back to when I first met my wife, Julie, and within minutes of us talking and getting to know each other, she was talking about her faith. She was talking about her excitement for knowing Christ. She was talking about all that was happening on the college campus and how people were coming to know Christ. She was talking about upcoming mission projects she was excited about. That was awesome. We were having a great conversation right away about our faith. But what if I had said, you know, listen, I’m really enjoying getting to know you. In fact, I think I think you are the woman I have been looking for. And I really want to continue to get to know you, except for all that faith stuff that, you know, I don’t really understand it. I’m not really looking to get to know that part about you, so let’s just set that aside. But I really want to keep getting to know you for who you are and what’s important to you. That’d be ridiculous, because that is so central to who she was and is and is becoming. If you really want to love someone, you’ve got to care about what is most central to them, who they are at their core of their identity. And so that’s why today, as we talk about knowing God and loving God, we’re going to talk about the topic of the Trinity. Because when God reveals himself to us, this is how he reveals himself to us as father, son, Holy Spirit. And I don’t think churches ever avoid talking about the Trinity, but also we don’t necessarily take the time to slow down and look at it in depth. And I think that’s because many of us, when we think about the Trinity, we feel like, hey man, I know the Trinity is important. I know that’s central to who Christ is, but I don’t know that I can explain it. I don’t know that I fully understand it. So I think I’ll just keep a little bit of distance from it and we’ll we’ll be better off that way. I’ll be less likely to spout heresy unintentionally, but we can’t avoid the topic if we really want to know God. It’s how he’s revealed himself to us. And by the way, I think here’s what I think today. I hope our mindset is as we approach this topic. If we know that God has revealed himself to us as he wants us to know him, which we do know that we have His word and we know His Word is enough. That’s the word we looked at last week. It is sufficient. He’s given us what we need to know about him. Then we can come with confidence. We can come to His Word with confidence, knowing we can know what we need to know about how father, son, Holy Spirit are Trinity and work together. And we could come with expectation. We can come not in fear and trepidation and trembling. There’s an appropriate level of that. But we can come with joy, with excitement, with hope that he can be known at the level we need to know him in this life, on this earth. At this time. Of course, there are things we won’t know about him, but he’s given us what we need to know. So we’re going to dive into this topic of Trinity today. Who is the Trinity? How do we know him? It’s at the core of who he is. It’s probably the core doctrine of Christianity. What sets Christianity apart from any other well known faith. And so if you have notes, these will be important today because we have a lot of things written out in there. I’m leaning heavily on the history of the church. I didn’t come to this message going, what do I need to come up on my own with about the Trinity and think of no, no, no, I thought the exact opposite. What if people said for thousands of years about the Trinity, I’m going to that. I want to be as accurate as possible. I want to be as careful to represent what people have thought throughout the history of the church about the Trinity. This is not an area where I want to try to be original today. We’re talking about the Trinity, and so we’re going to start with a very basic definition. I first heard this definition from Wayne Grudem. There are many people who have a very similar definition. It’s not original to him. This leans on the history of the church as well, but I like the simplicity of it. And you’ll notice, by the way, that I structured our notes today in three parts of three, kind of an homage to the fact that we’re talking about the Trinity. And the Trinity definition is in three parts in and of itself. So let’s look at this. If you have your notes, look at this basic definition of the Trinity. Here’s what it says. God eternally exists as three persons father, son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God and there is one God. Real simple basic definition. We’re going to unpack it, but let me just repeat it. God eternally exists as three persons father, son, Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God and there is one God. So let’s unpack that a little bit. We’ll look at each of those statements. Break them down into three parts. The first is God eternally exists as three persons. Let’s look to support this a little bit from Scripture. In fact, go ahead and turn to Matthew 28. That’s where we’re going to start. As you’re turning there, I’ll just repeat something we mentioned last week that when you think about the Old Testament and the New Testament and how they fit together, the Old Testament looks forward to what is more fully revealed in the New Testament. The Old Testament hints at what we see more fully revealed in the New Testament. In fact, in the bonus scenes video I shared this week, I shared a clip or a quote from Bobby Warfield where he talked about how if you think of the old Testament as a dimly lit room and everything we need to know about God is in that room, it’s just not all fully revealed until the light of the New Testament is shown upon it. I thought that was a great picture in a way, to think about the Old Testament and its connection to the New Testament. And of course, we get a hint. We get hints all throughout the Old Testament of the Trinity. The Trinity is not fully revealed in the Old Testament, but we get hints. And so you get things like Genesis 1:26 where he says, let us make man in our own image. Now that’s not a full doctrine of the Trinity. That’s not a full proof of the Trinity. It’s just a hint. Some of it try to explain that in other ways. Now, that’s not talking about Trinity is talking about other things. But I think when you look at the full scope of the Old Testament, that verse is just the first verse that says there’s there’s something else going on here other than just God the Father. There’s something else here. And then by the time we get to the New Testament, we see the Trinity more fully revealed to us. In fact, Matthew 28 and by the way, there’s a number of texts in the Bible that if you have been a Christian for any amount of time, you should be able to find those pretty quickly. This is one of those. In fact, it goes by a nickname Matthew 28:18 through 20. And who could just shout out what that is? What? What is this called, the Great Commission? A number of you said the Great Commission. So if I say to you, where do you find the Great Commission? You should know it’s at the end of the book of Matthew. Even if you can’t remember that it’s Matthew 28. This is the very end of the book of Matthew. And this is important because this is the commission Jesus gives to his followers. Some of the last words he leaves us on this earth. Before he leaves his disciples. He gives them a commission. He gives them a mission. He gives them a job to do. You should be able, if you’re new to the church, don’t worry about it’s okay. You’ll get there eventually. But if you’ve been around for a while, you should be able to locate these and know what they’re called. There’s a number of texts like that. In fact, before we read it, I. I got this yesterday from Rosemary Hatcher. Her father was a pastor. Rosemary and Carroll have been here a long time and she’s been offering Rosemary has been offering her dad’s books to me, and I’m slowly accumulating books from people. Hopefully at some point I don’t know when will rebuild a church library. It could take a long time. Still, I don’t know, but I’m collecting books. But as I was looking through their books and selecting some out, I ran across this old notebook of her, of her father’s, and it says on the front sermon notes. It’s got his name on it, and throughout are just in careful handwriting, detailed writings, some of them are even typed up in print, are just lists of verses on various topics that he kept around with him to be able to refer to whenever he need to. And and I said, Rosemary, do you mind if I take this? I don’t know, she may have wanted to keep it. She said, no, that’s for you, I think. I think my dad would appreciate you having it. I love seeing this living archive of a man who was carefully seeking to capture key verses and have them at hand for use, and I would just encourage you when you hear things like, oh gosh, I need to know about the Great Commission. I didn’t know that I have a notebook, have something like that where you can jot that down, capture that, and be able to refer to it quickly, because I know you can go look it up on Google. I know you can. Google is not always right. By the way, and it may not always be right if it is right now. In fact, there may come a time where they change things intentionally to deceive and mislead you. So you need to know what God’s Word says now. you need to know where to find it on your own. Google is a great help. I use it too. I get that okay, but you also need to know on your own where to go and be studying God’s Word and capturing it. And it doesn’t have to be a little notebook like this. You figure out what works for you, but be hungry to know his word. Be a student of his word. We want to be people who self feed, not just depend on others to tell us what God’s Word says. I mean, if your only source of God’s word is just hearing me, I can deceive you as well. I hope I’m always point you to His Word to show you it’s in His word. This is our authority and we learn from one another. But Matthew 28 is a key passage. Matthew 28, turn there and look at that. What I want you to see. And we’re going to look at three different passages. We’re going to look at them quickly. These are just three. And we could look at dozens and dozens all across the New Testament. The important point is to see that God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, all three are equated with one another. They’re put on the same level playing field. So for God to be in three persons, he has to be spoken of in a similar fashion. So here we have in Matthew 28, Jesus came in verse 18 and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. He’s speaking of his tremendous authority. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. And of course, you’ve already heard this phrase this morning with Colby. Baptizing them– And if you are entering by baptizing someone, entering them into the faith, who is over that is important. And he names in the name of the father, and of the son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. When Jesus speaks about people entering the faith, he speaks of the father, son, and Holy Spirit at the at the same level. We also get a picture over in Matthew chapter three of their division of their differences. Because yes, we know God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are all God, eternally exist as God, but they’re also different. And we see a clear picture of that in Matthew three. If you turn back a few pages, here we have the baptism of Jesus. Jesus is baptized, and when he’s coming out, here’s what happens John or Matthew, chapter three, verse 16. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. We have right here at the same time all three members of the Trinity, but represented differently. And they’re not all together just in one. Here there are three separate persons represented here at Jesus’s baptism, bringing establishing the authority of his baptism. So two more passages to look at, just to show you that this is all over the New Testament. And people will say, well, the Trinity, I don’t know that you can really see it in the New Testament. It’s all over the place. If your eyes are open to it, look here at the next passage list is first Corinthians 12 four through six. Those page numbers are in. The notes should be on the screen. Page 913 for first Corinthians 12. By the way, this is another one of those passages. This is real close to another one of those passages. If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you should know what do you call First Corinthians 13? What is that chapter known for? Love. If you’ve been to a wedding, you’ve heard that that’s the whole love is patient. Love is kind, love does not envy. Love does not boast, does not seek its own desire. So, you know, First Corinthians 13 is about love. That’s another one of those I should be able when someone asks me, where’s that stuff about love in the Bible? First Corinthians 13, you should be able to point them there and now, because, you know, First Corinthians 13 is about love. You know that on other side, either side of that are arguments, right? That’s why he’s got to talk about love. Here’s what love isn’t, here’s what love is. I need to talk about love because y’all ain’t being loving. First Corinthians 12. First Corinthians 14 are both about spiritual gifts. And in the history of the church, there have been some arguments about the importance of gifts. Which ones still exist or do not? Which ones are more important than are others? Which person therefore is more important or not? And Paul has got to address and say, no, no, no, it’s not about that. You don’t understand. And so here in First Corinthians 12, as he talks about gifts, he also talks about the Trinity, First Corinthians 12, verse four. I should probably turn there as well. Give me a second. He says, now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit. There are a variety of service, but the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. Once again, putting father, son, Holy Spirit on the same level. Lord is often used as a synonym for Jesus. God is often used in the New Testament as a cinnamon synonym for father. Put on the same level. One more example, Ephesians chapter four. Go over a few more verses. Chapters, whatever pages in the Bible flip over to Ephesians. Say it that way. Ephesians chapter four. Another example, also written by Paul, a father, son, Holy Spirit spoken of on the same level. There is one body, verse four, one spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is overall and through all and in all. And he’s speaking very clearly here about your faith. Your call. There is one one baptism and over it all spirit, father, son. So here we see that there are three persons of the Trinity. Now I hinted at one objection people will give earlier. Hey, how can you keep talking about the Trinity? That word doesn’t even show up in the Bible. It’s just something made up you’re making up here. How? You can’t really use that word when it doesn’t appear here. Well, we know the word doesn’t appear in the Bible, but you don’t have to use a word that’s in the Bible to describe the Bible. We do that all the time with plenty of other words God is. We’ll talk about his attributes next week. God is omnipresent. God is omniscient, means he’s all knowing. We use a number of different words like that to describe him. They don’t show up in the Bible, but they help summarize who he is. You do this with other things. Kids all the time now are talking about the books I read and they’re talking about every book they read has got this. When you ask him, what kind of book are you reading while I’m reading this, this fiction book, it’s dystopian. That’s the favorite word they use. We love a dystopian novel all everywhere. You hear dystopian dystopian stuff. Well, none of those books say, hey, by the way, my book right here that you’re reading is dystopian. No, it’s a word we use to describe it that doesn’t even appear in the book. And here’s the key idea. Even if the word isn’t there, the idea is there. The idea of the Trinity is in. This is how God reveals himself to us, and we’re just looking to try to describe it, explain it in a way that hopefully helps us remember it, understand it, get our minds around it. So we use that word to summarize a complex idea. So God is three persons first part of the Trinity definition. Now let’s look at the second part here. God has three persons, each person fully God. And I’ll spend more time on this with each, especially Jesus on the defining divinity of Christ, some on the Holy Spirit, because we’re going to spend time on each of them as we go through this series. But just quickly, a couple of verses, each of those blanks in your notes, Father Jesus, Holy Spirit, and look at each of those. Of course, I don’t know that I need to spend time talking about how God the Father is God. That’s the basic assumption of all of Scripture. Genesis one one in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That’s the starting point. And as we pray, in fact, as Jesus taught us to pray, you’ve been praying the Lord’s Prayer all last month. Matthew six nine. Our Father who art in heaven. That’s the essential assumption of Scripture that there is God. He is our father. That’s the starting place. Jesus’s divinity. We look in other verses. John one one is a great starting place. I’m just going to give you a couple of verses on this. Obviously we can we will spend a lot more time on it. But John one one begins and John one one, many see it as a parallel to Genesis one one. In the Greek translation they have very similar wording. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. We get that first hint that Jesus is put on the same level he was there at creation, creating with God in the very beginning. Another great verse on that is Colossians two nine. If you want to flip over there, that’s on page 936 in the church Bible. And if you don’t have a church Bible, those are out in the lobby. You can grab one any time. We’re going to be flipping around a lot today. If you haven’t figured that out, it’s a great Bible to have to be able to look through and read on your own. You can get a Bible reading plan, be reading through the New Testament, Psalms, and Proverbs this year. Colossians chapter two says this verse nine, for in him Christ. In fact, that’s the last word of verse eight. We know it’s referring to Christ, for in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. The whole fullness of deity dwells. So Jesus is God, the father is God, Jesus is God. Now the Holy Spirit. Just one verse on that turn to Acts chapter three. Acts chapter three is famous for the situation between Ananias and Sapphira. And this was the setting where they sold some property and they decided between each other, we’re going to give some of this money to the church. We’re going to keep some back for ourselves. But the inference here is that they made it sound like they were giving it all to the church, so they wanted the glory of being very generous, but while still keeping some back for themselves. And notice the interaction here. Acts chapter three. Or chapter five, whichever you prefer. You pick verse three. Peter said, oh, and let’s just start at verse two. Since I summarize the story, you’ll see it here. With his wife’s knowledge, he kept back for himself some of the proceeds, and brought only a part of it, and laid it at the apostles feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? Take note of that phrase. He’s saying you’re lying to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land. And someone pointed this out to me early on. By the way, the sin wasn’t that he kept back some money for himself. The sin was that he wanted to make it seem like he gave it all. You’ll see this the. This is inferred in what follows while it remained unsold, did it not remain your own, meaning you didn’t have to sell it and give it to the church to begin with. No one was making you do that. You could have just kept it also, after it was sold, was it not at your disposal even after you sold it, you could have done what you wanted with it, but you chose to do something deceptive. And in fact, look at how he says it here. First he said you lied to the Holy Spirit. Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God. You’ve lied to the Holy Spirit, and by the Holy Spirit you’ve lied to God. Holy Spirit God put on the same level. All three are God. All three are fully God, not a little bit. One is God the Father. Maybe more God than the Holy Spirit who came later and got the leftovers? No, no, no, they’re all fully God. And then lastly, there is one God. So God is three persons eternally exist father, son, Holy Spirit, and there is one God. Let’s look at a couple of verses on that. Probably the most famous one is Deuteronomy six four that’s known as the Shema: Hear O Israel – shema is the Hebrew word for hear- Hear O Israel, the Lord your God is one. So that’s the base understanding of the Jewish faith. God is one. But then you might think, okay, but now we’ve moved on to the Trinity. So we wouldn’t really say that now, would we? Because we see that there God is three persons, but that is repeated. It’s repeated in the New Testament. I’ve listed two verses. Just turn to the let’s let’s look at James 2:19. You can also look at Galatians 3:20. James is further in the Scripture. In fact, let me look to see which one I gave you. Page number four. Neither you can find James. It’s after Hebrews, which is a larger book in the New Testament. James chapter two. Verse 19. You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. He’s talking to them about the fact that many people would be double minded and what they believe, but he is emphasizing that God is one. You do well to believe that it’s re-emphasized. It’s restated in the New Testament, old and new, both. So now this leaves us with some challenges. In fact, I’m going to talk about three challenges we’ve walked, by the way. Thank you. You were very patient as we walked through the definition of the Trinity. As we waded through some of that, I’m going to unpack it a little more here in a second. But first, I think we often encounter three challenges to this definition. Some are to the definition, some are just for us. The first one is, is that we do legitimately have limitations in our understanding. Or we don’t understand this perfectly. There are limitations in our understanding of everything we just talked through. There are challenges in trying to fit this together. And part of it is, is that we are limited in how we’re created. God put limits on us. For instance, we’re limited by a body. Try to imagine existence apart from a body that I don’t know that you can do that. Maybe someone can. It would be very difficult to try to imagine existing apart from a body. Try to imagine existing. We’re bound by time. You can’t even comprehend what existence would be like apart from time. All of life is a succession of events. Time is at the center of of living. So we have things that limit our understanding of. In fact, someone has said to me, I mean, you think about John in the book of Revelation trying to describe what heaven is like. And so everything you read, there’s just crazy. You’re trying to understand it going, this makes no sense to me. I mean, you imagine how he felt trying to describe it. Someone said, someone shared this analogy me with me. Imagine if someone from the Bible Times came forward to our day, saw a helicopter, tried to go back in time to describe it. I mean, the words they would try to use. It was like a giant bird of a but you know, it was a lot bigger, but harder. And it had a wheel on top that spun, but it wasn’t a wheel and it could move in all kinds of different. I mean, you just have to make up all kinds of words. People could go in and out of it and you just leave so confused. What are you talking about? I haven’t I, I can’t even I don’t even have a category for this. We have limitations in our understanding. But here’s here’s again what I want to come back to. We can still know God as Trinity. And I really want to encourage you not to put demands on God that you don’t put in other realms of life. I mean, some people feel very uncomfortable about the fact that they they don’t know every single thing about God. God, what are you trying to do, keep stuff from me? Why haven’t you made me to be able to understand the Trinity fully? Why is it that it seems confusing? What are you trying to do to me? I don’t know that I can believe in a God. Who would do that. There’s a couple of things to consider. First is, if you knew everything about God, what would that make you? It may not make you God, but it surely put you on the same equal playing field with him. If you knew everything about God. And is that fair to think that you would be equal with God and your knowledge of God? No. In fact, you don’t apply that demand to people in your life. You didn’t say to your future spouse, I have to know every single thing about you from ever and always. Exactly, perfectly. If I’m going to marry you know, now you thought you knew them going into it. Oh, they are just the sweetest and kindest and they probably were. But also, you learned a little more about them after they married you. They changed, right? No. Not anyway. We’ll have a marriage seminar next year. Don’t worry. We’ll get there. Going. Put it on your calendar. March 27th. It’s going to be amazing. You don’t put that demand on them. You don’t put that demand even on a boss. I’ve got to know everything about you so that I can trust you perfectly before I work for you. Now, a lot of times you barely know them. You don’t do that in your normal life, and we’re striving to know all we can about God. But also we got to be realistic. We’re not going to know everything about him. There are going to be limitations. So that’s one challenge. Now here’s a second one. And this is a big one. Because the reality is I think many people stumble over this. They see the Trinity as a contradiction. How can you say he’s three in one? Nothing can be three in one. That’s not a god. That’s a shampoo. I stole that joke. I didn’t come up with that. I stole it from a guy named Nabeel Qureshi. He, in fact, passed away at age 34. Young guy. He was a muslim who became a Christian and started to teach on his faith, started especially to evangelize to Muslims. He wrote a number of great books. Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus is the name of his book. It’s fantastic. It’s a great story. And in fact, Chad Greathouse, one of our members here at the church, he sent me a video of him talking about the Trinity. And I think some of what he had to say was very helpful because the main objection he would hear from Muslims is who? What are you talking about? You say you’re monotheistic, you say there’s only one God, but yet you really worship three gods. You can’t have it both ways. It’s a contradiction. Here’s how you and I’m going to try to do justice to how he explained it. I found it very helpful. He said the key idea and as we unpacked the definition, hopefully this stood out a little bit, he said. The key idea is the fact that we talk about God as being one in being or essence, but three in persons. And he says being is what you are. I’m a human being. Person is who you are. I’m a human being. I’m John Majors. So God is we as humans are one in being, one in person, but God is one in being or essence. But three in person. Now, that doesn’t completely explain it all perfectly, but you can start to see how this isn’t a contradiction. One in being and three and being would be a contradiction, but one in being or essence in godness and three in persons. Father, son, Holy Spirit is not inherently a contradiction. So that’s the second challenge we often face. Is this a contradiction? No. Hard for us to understand. Yes. Our minds are limited in our ability to fully get our mind around it, but not a contradiction. Then there’s a third challenge we often encounter. And it’s a big word. It’s the word heresies. Heresies come from distortions of the Trinity. And I think. I think this usually starts in a good place. Most people are wanting to just try to make the the Trinity easier to understand. And fair enough. Don’t we all want to understand it? Then we want things to be easier to understand. Some things are just going to be hard to understand, even if we want them to be easier. And heresies often come from us changing the definition to make us feel better about who God is. I think two prominent examples of that are Jehovah’s Witness. Jehovah’s witness would say, Jehovah God the Father is the only true God, and Jesus is not God. Holy spirit is not God. And so we only worship God the Father. That’s a heresy. That’s a distortion of the definition of Trinity. Father, son, Holy Spirit are all three God, all three equally God eternally exist as God. Another distortion, another heresy comes across. It’s called Oneness Pentecostalism. Okay, now Pentecostals, most Pentecostals are Trinitarian, believe in the Trinity. But there’s one branch called Oneness Pentecostalism or Jesus Only Pentecostals who would say no, Jesus is the only one who’s God. Okay, and here’s how they say it. First, he was God. The father appeared that way. Then he appeared as Jesus on earth. Then comes and also appears to us when he needs to His Holy Spirit, then back to Jesus. He kind of slips back and forth between these different modes. And that’s an ancient heresy called modal ism. This is a crazy thing about heresies that they’re not suddenly new. Most of we’re condemned, like in 300 A.D. they all popped up right away. In fact, the probably a well known proponent of this is T.D. Jakes. If you’ve heard of him, he’s a wealth and health prosperity gospel preacher. I don’t know if he still holds to this in the same way, but I saw an interview with him. You can still look it up on YouTube where he was asked. He he grew up in the Oneness Pentecostalism. It he even said on his website that he held to that Jesus only view. He was asked, do you believe in the Trinity or not? And he said, yes, I do. I’m Trinitarian. I just use different words to describe it. That’s always a red flag. Yeah, I believe the same thing as you. I just use different words. Well, look, different words often mean something different. I was reading something this morning and I thought it was talking about scurvy. You know that, disease that sailors would get when they didn’t get enough vitamin C? And I thought, this is weird. This doesn’t seem like it should be about scurvy. And I look back and it was the word survey. Okay, that makes a little more sense. Now there’s a big difference as one letter, but there’s a big difference between a survey and scurvy. I don’t mind being a part of a survey. I don’t really want scurvy. You can see a big difference you when you use different words oftentimes. And as he explained his view on Trinity, I don’t believe there are three persons. We just call it manifestations, which by that he means he manifests Himself as God the Father, as Jesus Holy Spirit. Look, I don’t know T.D. Jakes personally. Maybe his view is shaped or form, but you start to see no, no, no, you’re not describing the same thing. We are. So people do this all the time. I believe in Jesus. I believe he was a good dude. That’s way different than believing that he was the Son of God who died for your sins on your behalf. We’re not talking about the same thing when we do that. So heresies come from distortions of the Trinity. And if you know this definition of the Trinity, those will start to stand out to you. And by the way, we we’ve got to be gracious with one another on this, because you can stumble into heresy around the Trinity without realizing it. Sometimes if you’ve heard people try to use analogies, that’s why I haven’t used any today. They all fall short. I mean, I remember hearing people talk about, you know, the Trinity is kind of like water. It can be solid, it can be liquid, it can be gas. Look, I’ve done it. I thought that sounded amazing. That makes sense. Others have done it. But that’s the same thing as modal ism, because no molecule of water is ever all three at the same time, even at the triple point. I know all about that. You chemists out there, I know you’re going. Wait a second. No, no, no, I know about that. They’re still moving in between all three states at the same time. No single molecule is all three at the exact same moment, so that’s a misrepresentation. Saint Patrick tried to explain the Trinity by using a shamrock. That’s why we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day, I think. Does anybody know why we celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day? In theory, that’s why we celebrate it. He brought the gospel to Ireland, and he was known for using a shamrock with three lobes to talk about. Look, there’s three parts to this, but it’s all one. But then again, they’re not really separate like three persons are. It? Doesn’t. It gets to the unity but not the diversity. So every one of them falls short. All right. Look. So that’s a lot about the Trinity. Those are challenges. Three part definition three challenges. Here’s one I want to end with three reasons why this matters to you today. Because we all know studying the Trinity is important. We know it’s essential to the doctrine. But I think a lot of times we go, okay, well, what does it mean for me today? How’s this going to change my life today? Three ways I want to highlight this year. First, we can know true love because of the Trinity. The Trinity is the basis for all loving relationships. And here’s why. For all eternity, the father, the son, the Holy Spirit eternally exists in perfect loving relationship. They don’t have to go outside of themselves to find love, and they never are at odds with one another. There’s never been a moment where Jesus said, you know, I really don’t want to talk to the Holy Spirit today or God the Father. I’m kind of upset by what you asked me to do. There’s never been a moment where they’ve been divided. Perfect unity, perfect love for all eternity. And it’s because they don’t need love outside of themselves that they didn’t create us. God didn’t create us because he needed us. We talked about that word long ago, aseity, God is independent from us. He is self-existent. He doesn’t need anything else. He’s perfect. He didn’t create us because he needed us. In fact, there’s a great quote on this. Jonathan Edwards very early theologian in the history of the American church. He says that this way God didn’t create us to get the cosmic love and joy of relationship. This is in your notes. He didn’t do that because he already had that. He didn’t create us. Because, man, I hope these people will finally love me if I create followers. Just like children, you have children and now they perfectly love you. What you always wanted and longed for. You’re supposed to laugh at that right? There is joy. There is love. God didn’t create us so that maybe finally they’ll fill up something that was missing in me. No, no no, he did it because he already had that and he wanted to share it. He wanted to share his love for us, with us. And by the way, I think that is displayed when we have children, when a couple who’s in love wants to share that love, a natural reaction is to want to have children. I think that’s a natural creating act that even mimics the love of the Trinity. This is so important because this is why you know you can love other Christians. This is why you know you can love the unloving person in your life who claims to know Christ because God has done it for all eternity. And he’s set that pattern for us. And we love because he first loved us. And if he loves you and you love him. You’re called to love others. And so we know we can love. We can walk confident in the fact that we can love. Because the Trinity model is perfect love for all eternity. Second, we can know true love because of the Trinity. And the Trinity is the basis for unity and diversity. The Trinity becomes the basis for unity and diversity. I think the first way we see that modeled is when God made man in his own image. He made them male and female. We see a picture right of way of unity and being diversity and persons, human beings, male and female. This doesn’t describe the Trinity, but I think it hints at the unity in diversity of the Trinity, male and female. And he made us different on purpose, and we can value that. We can delight in that. We can have unity in the midst of diversity. You know, this is why he did first Corinthians 13 when they were arguing about different gifts. I don’t have to look down on someone else’s gift to feel good about mine. Well, mine is really I’m more valuable than them to the church. No, no, no. We can have unity and diversity, delight and love in one another. And then lastly, the Trinity is based in unity and diversity. And then number three, the knowledge of the Trinity should bring great comfort. Even within the Trinity there are different roles. This is the unity and diversity. God the father, son, Holy Spirit. But when Jesus at the end of his life. In fact, this quote in your notes sums it up some well. This quote from Sinclair Ferguson. I’ve often reflected on the rather obvious thought that when his disciples were about to have the world collapse in on them, and this is the upper room discourse in John 13, 14, 15, 16, 17- he washes the disciples feet. He sends out Judas, and the disciples don’t know the world is about to collapse on him. I’ve often considered our Lord spent so much time in the upper room, speaking to them about the mystery of the Trinity. If anything else could underline the necessity of Trinitarianism for practical Christianity, that must surely be it. Meditating on the Trinity, meditating on his love for us will bring you comfort. Over. I’d say the last couple of months I feel like I’ve experienced the love of Christ in my life like never before, and it’s come simply from meditating on God the Father in the mornings, God the son, God the Holy Spirit, and his eternal love within himself and his love for me. We love because he first loved us. Let’s pray. God, we thank you that you reveal yourself to us as father, son, Holy Spirit. And I know that I’ve probably created more questions than answers today and trying to talk about who you are, but we don’t shy away from it. We know you reveal yourself to us that way in Scripture, and we want to know you. We prayed this morning, Holy spirit, you are welcome here. You are. Help us to be filled up with who you are. Would you purify our understanding of who you are? And where there is confusion and misunderstanding would we dive into your word, Seek clarity into your word? And my prayer today would be that each of us would sense your presence in our life. We would be filled up with your love. Thank you Jesus. We love you. Amen.