Sunday 15th June – Holy Trinity – Pastor Adrian Kitson

I wonder what do people around you really believe when it comes to God?

Christians around the world have long marvelled at the beauty, the mystery, the astounding reality revealed in God’s Word that God is One but Three; one substance and yet three ‘persons’; God is holy and three – Holy Trinity.

In other words, our God is a holy community; a perfect loving relationship who freely includes forgiven sinners in the holy circle.

Our God is a perfect unity, and he speaks. The Father speaks through the Son by the wind of the Spirit into our heads and hearts transforming both and making us one within himself.

But does anyone ever think about this, know this or believe this? Do we ever marvel at this or know why you would marvel at this?

Maybe not! I came across some research done among around 3000 young adult Americans that said that my generation and their kids living in wealthy Western counties like America and Australia, seem to have “faith” – of sorts….

The researchers concluded that the vast majority of their respondents have arrived at what they named “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”.

They mean that young people and probably a lot of adults believe these kinds of things.

1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” (Deist – There is some kind of “Deity” or “God”)
2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” (Moralist: whatever this Deity is, it wants us to be moral)
3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about one’s self.”
4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” (Therapist – God is like a Divine Butler who tends to my every need and gets me out of trouble to make sure I am always happy)
5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.” (Moral again – what qualifies anyone for anything is being good).

What do you think? Sound like people around you? Yes, for me – both for so many people around me and sometimes within me.

Someone said that God has become “something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he is always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process”. (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2014/08/american-christianity-moralistic-therapeutic-deism.html )

Along comes God saying – That’s not me”!

How did we get so far off track? By the usual means. We are so good at replacing “the sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of the self“.

But God, the Holy Trinity, keeps speaking via his crucified and risen Son by the power of his Spirit and we can know him – personally, together and freely.

God shows us who he is, and he is way more than a divine butler or cosmic therapist. He is the only One who has the power and authority to condemn us all but doesn’t. Instead he speaks himself to us as loving Creator, Life-giver, final judge and committed Saviour of all our lostness, aloneness and self-made belief.

People might believe that;

1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.”

But we hear and confess that God indeed did create and order this world and does indeed keep this show going, but never from a distance.

So closely associated and interested in his creation is God that when it broke and the relationship as severed between he and his beautiful creation, he moved to fix it; first through a people and then through a Person.

The Person, Jesus of Nazareth, is the one who claimed to be God himself with us: Up to his armpits in the muck and brokenness of a broken world – in fact, arms spread eagled on a cross for the life of the world and then raised in never ending blessing as he rose to rule in forgiveness and grace.

2. People might think that “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.”

But we hear and confess that God’s expressed intention is not that we be good, nice and fair to each other but that we be resurrected to new life with him and all creation because he is good and fair and just.

Our life as church and families and people does not have the goal of being nice or good and fair but about of being made new by the God of all justice and love. As a result we do our best to work for peace, act justly and live in God’s holiness.

This new life within us is all grace. By his grace through simple faith in this Jesus his Son who has poured out love and forgiveness into us so that we live in him and his Word results in not being nice but being loving – tough love, kind love, self-sacrificing love, love with action and integrity.

3. People may believe that “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about one’s self.”

We hear and confess that feeling happy is like all feelings – fleeting! The acceptance and love of the Holy Trinity given in Baptism and by holy meal in the holy community is real and long and beyond separation (Romans 8).

God’s expressed goal for all of us is not being happy, but simply being in him – to enjoy a loving living relationship with him.

As we do, we serve, we give, we love, and gladly so.

4. People may believe that “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.”

But try telling God this! He will not be relegated to the bench. God refuses to be subbed out of our lives and his world.

¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

He has got it all and continues to give it all for all. This Holy Trinity is our loyal, loving advocate, defending us, guiding us, shaping us, fighting for us, challenging us when needed, enabling us to live fully and freely in the good news that he is all grace when it comes to sinners.

Everything the Father has is the Sons’ and everything the Son’s is ours by the power of the Spirit.

5. People may believe that “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

But we know that this belief is so convenient and yet so deflating. Convenient: because all responsibility for faith and actually following and obeying and trusting God in the suffering of life is removed. Deflating: because how would anyone know whether they have been good enough?

“Good people” don’t go to heaven. People made new by turning away from self and sin and trusting in God’s grace live in it – “now in part, one day in full”.

People don’t receive heaven now and later in full because of their goodness. Sinners are placed in God’s everlasting community because HE is good and they have been made new by his relentless grace.

Friends our God has got more to say around here and around you.

¹² “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. 

He says he will guide us in the truth of who he is and use our words to make himself known.

This is our gift and our calling as members of this Holy Trinity of life.

Our only hope for living in this great love and freedom and joy is the words of the Spirit because, as John tells us.

“…the Spirit will receive from me (Jesus) what he will make known to you (the church).”

PRAYER

Spirit of God, keep speaking Jesus’ life and the Father’s love into us.

Amen

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