Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Genesis 1:1-5, Genesis 1:26-2:3, 2 Corinthians 13:11-14, Matthew 28:16-20
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  June 4, 2023

Do you know what the fastest growing US religious affiliation is? Believe it or not, it’s the nuns! …No, sorry, I spelled that wrong, not “nuns” but “nones” as those who have no particular religious affiliation at all. This doesn’t mean they are atheists, but that they choose not to define their faith. Often described as “spiritual but not religious”, this group now makes up about a quarter of the American population. 

On a Sunday like this, as we celebrate the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, there is a striking contrast, because we are here to do precisely what so many are afraid of doing: Defining our faith. Now at first glance, faith without definition may sound attractive, because you can still have faith in a god, but you don’t need to label it or confess it. When you keep your personal religious beliefs undefined, you are able to conform yourself  to fit into any cultural mold you need too. You can support and approve of anyone. You can have your cake and eat it too…or so it seems. The truth is, that when you look past the surface, this logic unravels. Because while many would like to believe that you can still maintain faith without definition, this is not possible, much less practical. Because a faith without definitions, without doctrines or teachings is sort of like a body with no bones. Yeah, it’s flexible alright, but it isn’t strong and it certainly isn’t useful.

Can you imagine a body with no bones? Just some mass of skin and organs lying in a puddle on the ground. (Sorry for that thought!) But that’s what so many people are today, just a spiritual amoeba, a blob of vague assumptions with no intellectual integrity. This lack of doctrine comes at a cost. A faith with no doctrine is a faith that is impossible to exercise because it has no teachings to apply or defend. The faith of a spiritual amoeba, if it actually exists, is weak and impressionable, batted back and forth by the changing currents of popular opinion. It has no bones, and therefore no muscles attached to those bones of faith. It cannot stand up against the pressures of our world.

We need a skeleton both physically and spiritually! We need to have bones in our body to have physical integrity. We need bones on which our muscles can attach and contract. And the same is true of faith. Doctrines, the defined teachings of Christian faith, are like the skeleton within the body of Chrsitian faith, the bones upon which our Spirit-wrought muscles of faith attach and grow strong. Doctrines are important; they are inherently practical. You need them to stand up in faith. You need to know them in order to grow in faith. You need them to exercise your faith. And when it comes to the skeleton of Christian doctrine, the Doctrine of Trinity is really your backbone. That’s what I want to look at today with a survey of all three of our readings from Scripture: The Doctrine of the Trinity is our backbone and it is God’s blessing.

Whether you’ve heard it a hundred times or this is your first time hearing it, let’s take just a moment to define the word “Trinity” or  “Triune”. Kids have tricycles with three wheels, Triceratops has three horns, Triangle you get the idea. Then we say UNO when we have one card left, we talk about the oneness of unity. So put TRI and UNE together and you see that it simply means 3 in 1. Trinity is really just the special word we use to describe how God reveals himself in the Bible. The Lord is one God, but reveals himself in three perfectly united and perfectly distinct persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. He is “Triune—the Three in One” God! And everything we learn about in the body of Scriptural teaching attaches to this backbone. 

Take a look at our First Lesson from Genesis 1 & 2. The famous account of Creation may not seem to have much to do with the Trinity, but take a closer look: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was undeveloped and empty. Darkness covered the surface of the deep,  and the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” Just in the first three verses we read about God the Father as Creator, we see the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters, and then we even hear about Jesus, giving light and life to all creation. Now it doesn’t say Jesus, or the Son specifically, but then you read a passage like John 1 where the apostle says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made…The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” 

The truth is that we find traces of the Trinity’s presence in the Old Testament. It’s the lumbar region of the full trinitarian backbone that is revealed so clearly in the New Testament. If you pay attention as you read the Old Testament, you’ll come across evidence all the time. For instance, again from our first lesson, listen to the conspicuous wording in verse 26, “God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness…” Our image? Our likeness? Who is God talking to? The deeper you get into the Bible, the more and more you marvel at the way it all fits together. 

So to the backbone of the Trinity, we attach the creation of all things, including ourselves, including our own souls! This is an important definition of your faith. You are not some random accident that resulted from macroevolution. You are a fearfully and wonderfully made creation of the Holy Trinity! That’s a doctrine worth defending! That changes everything about the way you view yourself and others! 

The Triune God made us to be like him in perfection and to be in relationship with him. And so when we lost that image in Adam’s fall, the Trinity began the working of our redemption and perfection. That’s what we see in our second lesson. Paul ends his second letter to his congregation in Corinth with this blessing, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ: The undeserved, unmerited, unconditional sacrifice which Jesus made is best summarized with the word “grace”. And why did Jesus lay his life down for us? It was the will of his Father who loved us. God’s default position toward you and me, even in our sin, even though we turn from him, is always love. It was the Father’s love that led to grace in Christ. And finally, the fellowship, the partaking, the sharing with, of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who creates our faith and allows us, mere human jars of clay, to have fellowship with the Almighty Triune God. The doctrine of the Trinity is the backbone on which our salvation is attached—the bones on which the Holy Spirit attaches the tendons and muscles of faith. 

And then finally, it is that backbone that allows us to stand and put our faith into action. And that’s what we hear about in the gospel lesson from Matthew 28. Jesus says, “Therefore go and gather disciples from all nations by baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and by teaching them to keep all the instructions I have given you. And surely I am with you always until the end of the age.” The distinction of being his disciple, in Jesus’ own words, is being baptized into the faith of the Trinity. What sets Christianity apart from other faiths? Other religions? We are defined by the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit!  And we are called to gather disciples in this Triune name. To the doctrine of the Trinity we attach our purpose and mission in life, both personally and corporately as a church. 

You know, I very much doubt that learning about the Trinity is brand new to you today. But I ask you right now to consider, how much does the Trinity matter to you? If you were to have your mind erased and tomorrow morning you found out that God is not triune, how would that change your relationship with him? What would be lost?  How would you pray? How would you think about God? How would you see yourself? May the Lord forgive us for forgetting the blessing he gives us in the doctrine of the Trinity.

Yes, it is beyond our little brains that God can exist as perfectly united and yet distinctly three persons at all times and in all places. (And shouldn’t the almighty God’s existence be beyond us?) But there are so many blessings to be found holding this doctrine close to our hearts.

Pause just for a moment and think of the blessing you have in addressing God as your Father in prayer—knowing that the Almighty loves, protects, and provides for you as a father cares for his little child. Consider the unique and intimate knowledge that we have as Christians, because we know God as our very flesh and blood, our dear brother in Jesus Christ! No other religion has a God who we can see walk and talk, and bleed, and even die for the sake of his people! And what blessing is there in knowing that the Counselor, the Comforter, the Holy Spirit who creates and strengthens your faith? God present in you to help you in times of temptation? Who promises to help us grasp the grace of God through Word and Sacrament today! What blessing we have because of the doctrine of the Trinity—because of the mercifully comprehensive way the LORD has loved us and revealed himself to us in three persons.

There is an incredible blessing in knowing as much as we do about our God. People who are spiritual but not religious throw prayers up to a God they do not know. They sense there is a god, but they have nothing definite to hold onto. “God, if you’re out there…God, if you can hear me…God, I don’t know if you care, but…” They go about their lives uncertain of his love, of his power, of his very existence. Perhaps we have Christians so long we have forgotten what that hopelessness feels like… what meaningless feels like… We need to tell them about the Trinity. We need to tell them that they can, to a great extent, know God. We can tell them about a God who has graciously chosen to reveal himself in three persons so that we have three times the ability to know him! Three times the ability to understand his affection for us, his presence for us, his power for us in every facet of our lives.

The Doctrine of the Trinity is not just some dusty teaching. It’s not just something for theologians to discuss. It’s your backbone and it is God’s blessing!  It’s your creation, your salvation, and your mission. Take pride in the grace of God because you are not a “none”, you are a trinitarian. In the name of Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.