The Trinity's Protection and Growth

It's Trinity Sunday, and that means that I'm going to try to explain the trinity again.  There are many aspects of the trinity and how it works in our lives.  We know we worship one God, but God is in three personalities: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  We see the trinity plainly at work in creation: the Father is the project manager, he conceives of the universe; the Son is the agent of execution, he carries creation out; and the Holy Spirit is the quality control, the confirms that everything is good.

We model practically everything after this relationship of the trinity.  Think of a business model: we have one who conceives of the project, one who creates it, and one who makes sure it functions and works properly. Think of a sports team: we have a coach who conceives of the plays, the team carries the plays out, and the trainer makes sure the team CAN carry the plays out.  Think of a novelist: he must come up with an idea before writing, then he must write it, then he edits it.

This last one brings up a question.  Why cannot one God be in ONE person?  Why cannot the Father, let's say, conceive of everything, create everything, AND make sure it's all good, all in one person.  That's what it seems to be in Genesis 1, doesn't it?  So why cannot God be a unity instead of a trinity?

Besides the obvious aspect that God is in relationship with himself, and does not need humanity (we were created for his pleasure, not his necessity), each person in the trinity has a function that the other two do not have--and cannot have.  Romans 5:1-5 has an example of these collaborative functions of the trinity.  This passage shows how the trinity protects us and grows us:

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

Let's pretend that there is only one person in the trinity--the Father.  Let's say that the Son and the Holy Spirit don't exist.  Now, here's the question.  Can we have peace with the Father?  No.  Why?  Because we are evil, and the Father is pure goodness.  Evil cannot stand in the face of goodness.  Even Moses, who was righteous, could not look upon God's glory--he had to have his face turned into the cleft of a rock when God's glory passed by.  Peace involves the eradication of evil.  The world thinks of peace in the John Lennon, holding hands, can't we all just get along way.  That way let's evil run rampant.  What does our peacekeeping body of the world, the UN, do to promote peace?  It puts the most violent and destructive nations in charge of the peace committees.

But without the Son, we cannot have peace with the Father.  He is pure goodness, pure holiness.  It's dangerous to pray for God to destroy all evil before we go to bed at night.  If he grants our wish, we WON'T be here in the morning. GK Chesterton wrote a book called What's Wrong With the World.  When asked to summarize his book, he provided two words: "I am."  We are sinful creatures that will burn up in the presence of the Father.  There is no peace between us and the Father except through Jesus Christ, the son.

Why? Because the Son covers us with his righteousness.  We can suddenly be in the same room with the Father.  He cannot see our sin.  We are also given the grace of the Father through the Son.  What does that mean?  Whereas peace means we are counted as "good" with the Father when we were "bad," grace means that we are counted as "alive" with the Father when we were once "dead."  This is because Jesus not only gives us his righteousness but his life, too.  The Father is just.  We must be destroyed, and rightly so.  The Son is like a filter that keeps the just wrath of the Father from destroying us.

Finally, the Son gives us hope.  What is hope?  It is that the peace and grace of God will last forever.  This is everlasting life.  The Son ensures that this is no thirty-day trial.  We have been counted as clean before God forever.  I once had a thirty-day trial for a job.  During that time the firm taught me everything they knew about public relations writing, and I actually got worse.  They were unable to teach me, and the thirty-day trial ended, and I was out of a job.  God comes along side us and teaches us how to be mini Christs. His instruction is perfect, and we are never going to be "fired" from the job.

Well, I think I've given sufficient reason why we need the Son.  But do we really need the Holy Spirit?  Can't we just have a duality?  A duo?  I don't need a Holy Ghost, do I?  Well, look at the rest of the passage above.  Exult in tribulations?  Where are these tribulations coming from?  According to verse 4, they come from the hope we get from Christ.  Being a Christian isn't an easy thing.  We're not suddenly "better off" than anyone else, when it comes to living life on earth.  This is the prosperity gospel that I have been preaching against for months, that if you are not healthy and wealthy then you have no faith and cannot rightly call yourself a Christian. This is false.

Actually the life of a Christian is full of trials and tribulations.  What is different about us is our reaction to the trials.  When I first became a Christian I understood that we evangelized through our behavior.  I translated this to mean that I needed to make sure that no unbeliever saw me with any problems.  Everything was supposed to at least APPEAR PERFECT.  This is wrong.  We have just as many problems as non-Christians, it's just that we are to respond to the trials with JOY.

Well, that's pretty much impossible, so count me out!  That is our natural reaction to this.  We would rather march straight to hell than live another day in pain here.  As Billy Joel intoned: "I'd rather laugh with the sinners than die with the saints; the sinners are much more fun."  This is what we all want, and when we see trials and tribulations coming, we react by running away.  Only the Holy Spirit keeps us on the path, facing the trials as they come and giving us the joy in response.

So the Father, a vast, righteous mind, who would incinerate us in a heartbeat, is filtered through the Son, so we can have peace, grace, and hope in His presence.  The filtered wrath of God comes to us as trials and tribulations (not candy canes and ice cream), and so the Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts, so that we face the oncoming tribulations and respond with joy.  Yet one more aspect of the trinity made clear, or at least clearer.

The Order of Salvation

Here are some great words from the Rev. L David Green that I want to share with everyone.  It's essentially an expansion of the regeneration part of the sermon titled "A Great Commission."

Here is what is often called the order of salvation, ordo salutis in Latin, that was rediscovered from Scripture during the Reformation:

1. Election - God's sovereign work from eternity - part of his decree -  which establishes the number of those taken, as it were, by the Father and given to the Son to be freed by him as our Lord Jesus Christ from Satan's dominion and eventually be brought to glory.

2. Regeneration or the new birth - the sovereign work of God the Spirit in bringing life to those who were dead in trespasses and sins and therefore wholly unable to do anything pleasing to God or savingly to believe and repent. Regeneration is not the exercise of faith or repentance; nor is it justification, adoption or sanctification.  These are all fruits of regeneration.  In regeneration the sinner is wholly passive, no more cooperative than a baby is when born of its mother.   Usually what then immediately happens to the regenerated person are the following (as in the case of the baby: it cries, urinates, eats, i.e. functions):

3. Effectual calling - the Holy Spirit's saving call, usually through the Scriptures read or preached, whereby a person is convicted of their sin and terrible condition before God, enlightened in mind about who Christ is and what he has freely done for sinners and the sinner's will is enabled to agree with God and put faith in Christ alone for complete salvation.  At that moment the person has been united to Christ indissolubly and forever.  From this union all Christ's other benefits flow to him, the following being exceedingly prominent:

4. Justification - whereby the regenerated, believing person is declared by the Father as perfectly righteous in God's sight as Christ is.  This is because all the sinner's sins - past, present and future - have been imputed to Christ, who at Calvary paid their infinite penalty under God's wrath and curse (2Cor.5:21), and all Christ's righteousness, earned as man throughout his life, is imputed to the sinner. This is a legal transaction effected by the Holy Spirit when the sinner savingly trusts Christ.

5. Adoption -  at the moment of exercising saving faith, the sinner is enrolled among and has a right to all the privileges of the sons of God. He is now an heir of God and joint heir of Christ, and is enabled to call God "Father" with all the rights and privileges of such an exalted position.

NOTE:  Neither justification nor adoption makes any change in the sinner's personal holiness, without which no one will see the Lord (Heb.12:14).  This is the work of

6. Sanctification, which has two principal aspects: 1) the believer is declared holy by position, by his union with Christ. That is why the most common word for believers in the NT is "saints" or holy ones. This they are by POSITION in Christ.  2) the process and progress of becoming more like Christ, of being conformed to Christ's image by the indwelling Holy Spirit all our life long, until

7. Glorification - Beloved, now we are the sons of God and it doth not appear what we shall be but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him [perfectly, eternally!], for we shall see him as he is.  And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure. 1Jn.3:2-3.

It is as Jonah said from the whale's belly, Salvation is of the Lord ... from first to last!

Residents of Babel

Today is the Day of Pentecost, and I want to connect it to Genesis 11, because we have heard (or maybe not) that Pentecost in Acts 2 is a reversal of Babel in Genesis 11.  Is it?  Let's hear some of Acts 2:


When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? (Acts 2:1-8)

Now, let's see what Babel is about.  Here is some of Genesis 11:

Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as they migrated from the east, they came upon a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, "Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly." And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves; otherwise we shall be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." The LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which mortals had built. And the LORD said, "Look, they are one people, and they have all one language; and this is only the beginning of what they will do; nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down, and confuse their language there, so that they will not understand one another's speech." So the LORD scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore it was called Babel, because there the LORD confused the language of all the earth; and from there the LORD scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth. (Genesis 11:1-9)

So, we have three things happening here.  The first is that the people of earth, the whole world, speak the same language.  They have a very strong community.  They not only speak the same physical language, but also the same spiritual language, and that language is WITHOUT GOD.  They are all on the same sheet of music, and it is a melody that God is not included in.  Furthermore, they don't NEED God.  They are fully in the original sin of Adam and Eve: not needing God.

The second thing is that they are building something without God.  Not only that, but this structure is coming from the ground up to heaven, and it is to REACH heaven, and possibly invade heaven.  Residents of Babel are prepared to take over heaven and wage war against heaven.  They will take the throne room of God.

The third thing, and the final nail on God's coffin, is these people are intending to make a NAME for themselves.  This is a full-scale rejection of God and everything he stands for.  They are now placing themselves as God.  All three of these things are a three-pronged attack and rejection of God.  The residents of Babel are a unified force that is going to overthrow heaven and place themselves on the throne as God.  Man will be the name above all names.

So, God disrupts everything, and with one fell swoop, breaks apart the unity of the community by confusing their language.  This leads to them not being able to build together, and they will never be able to establish a name for themselves.  Everyone becomes scattered.  So, is Pentecost an actual reversal of all that?  Yes and No.

Let's look at Romans 8, first:

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. (Romans 8:14-17)

Pentecost only reverses Babel for the Children of God, for the ones who have been adopted, for the elect.  Whereas the unified Babel community consisted of all human beings alive on the earth at the time.  The Holy Spirit at Pentecost only reverses Babel for those whom God has chosen.  Likewise, all three of the elements--community, creation, and a name--are reestablished for the believer, but there are some differences from the original Babel:

First, we are not unified in community against God, but we are now a community OF God.  We are the church, and it is a very unified community (despite what it appears to be from the standpoint of the world) that cannot be destroyed.  Every place Christianity is stamped out in the world, it springs up anew elsewhere.  Christianity is thriving underground.  This community, unlike Babel, centers around God.

Second, because we are made in the image of God, we create, whether it is a work of art or a business, we like to build.  The community of Babel were building to overthrow God; we now build to represent God.  Everything we build, as children of God, is to point to God, emulate God, promote God, praise Him and glorify Him.

Third, we are able to build a name, but this time it is not for ourselves but for God.  We have moved from the sin of self to the glorification of the holy name of God.  We represent him on earth, and our behavior is to reflect the purity and goodness of the creator, the holy one.  So, the three elements of Babel are reversed, but only for the elect, and we are no longer orbiting ourselves but God.

I want to tell a story from my life.  Think of your own story.  Before I was quickened, before I came to Christ, I was a science fiction writer.  I was doing three things.  I was creating fiction that was to glorify myself, to build a name for myself, and in order to succeed, I needed to be a part of the science fiction community, a community that did not exactly emulate God.  Let's say it was pretty godless and even anti-God.  I was a member of the community of Babel.  I was trying to overthrow God in my heart.

What did God do in response?  He gave me writer's block.  He confused my language and he scattered me.  After four unsuccessful novels, I wasn't able to type a word. This went on for a few years.  When he called me for ministry, I was able to write again, but this time it was sermons and they all revolved around HIM.  Now I'm preaching his NAME, and the community I am part of is a godly community, full of encouragement and stimulation (Hebrews 10:24-25) and all about glorifying the King of Kings.

Think of your own story.  Are you creating AGAINST or FOR God? Are you trying to elevate YOUR name or GOD'S?  What sort of primary community are you a part of?  Is it anti-God or pro-God?  Pray that Jesus will pour out his spirit upon you, so that you may glorify God in your time, and be a child of God, not a resident of Babel.  

A Great Commission

It's Ascension Day, so let's look at the last words Jesus spoke to his disciples before he ascended.  Here is the end of Luke:


Then he said to them, "These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you--that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, "Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy; and they were continually in the temple blessing God. (Luke 24:44-53)

This is a great commission.  It is not THE great commission from Matthew 28 that we like to quote and try to follow, but if we look at Matthew's version, we find something needed:

But the eleven disciples proceeded to Galilee, to the mountain which Jesus had designated. When they saw Him, they worshiped Him; but some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:16-20)

So our job is to make disciples.  How?  Well, we have to know this Bible inside and out.  That's tough work, and it may seem daunting.  We get scared, and we back off, because we think that everything is up to us.

Here is the version of the great commission from Mark:

And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. (Mark 16:15-16)

Discipling in Matthew, preaching the Gospel in Mark, both amount to doing a lot of homework, and we stress out, because we feel the pressure of others' salvation upon us.  This is not right to feel this way.  Now, Luke's version of the great commission does not contradict the other two, but it does enhance and give details as to what the others seem to hint at.

Luke's great commission informs us of three things.  The first is REVELATION.  Jesus opens their minds to understand the scriptures, you know, that thing that we were finding a daunting task, when we thought it was all up to us after reading the other two versions of the great commission.  Jesus is telling us here that the Holy Spirit will open our minds to the scriptures.  The Holy Spirit will make us understand the Bible.  The Holy Spirit will give us the words to say.  Don't stress out, because God is in control.

Second, Jesus tells us not to generally preach the Gospel, but to specifically preach REPENTANCE, which leads to the forgiveness of sins.  We live in a world where we don't think we are going wrong.  Preaching the good news of the Gospel begins with preaching the bad news of sin.  Repentance is the removal of the blockage, allowing the Holy Spirit in, but in case you were beginning to worry about this being the hard work you thought it would be, remember that only the Holy Spirit can bring someone to repentance.  This is another supernatural action.  Our natural state is to stay as far from repentance as possible.  We don't need it.  We don't want it.  Once the scriptures have been revealed to us by the Lord, we can aim the Gospel toward repentance, and the Lord brings that person to repentance.

Finally, I'm going on the R theme: the third thing the Holy Spirit provides is REGENERATION.  Only the Holy Spirit can do this.  Once Jesus has been revealed through the scriptures and we have repented, the Holy Spirit begins to regenerate us.  This is a life-long process that turns us into little Christs.  From Luke's point of view, the Great Commission is not so daunting, because Christ reveals here that the Holy Spirit is in control of everything.  God is sovereign.

Now, it's very important that we realize that these are the last words Christ spoke before ascending.  The words need to be connected to the ascension, and here is why.  Let's look at the beginning of Acts, also penned by Luke:


While staying with them, he ordered them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait there for the promise of the Father. "This," he said, "is what you have heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?" He replied, "It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." When he had said this, as they were watching, he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. (Acts 1:4-9)

Jesus has finished telling them about the three roles of the Holy Spirit, pertaining to the great commission, and still they are asking him about ushering in the kingdom to earth.  Do you see that?  This kind of thing is all through the Gospels.  Jesus performs a miracle and the witnesses attempt to take him by force and make him king.  Why? Well, what does an earthly king look like?  An earthly king is going to solve all our problems, while we . . . continue living our lives the way we always had before.  No spiritual or regenerational change in any of us.

Look at John 6.  Jesus feeds the 5,000, and the people converge on him in order to make him king by force.  Why?  Because magic Jesus will feed us for free every night, and we won't have to work for it!  We can go on living our lives the way we always have, which is continuing in SIN.  Jesus will feed us magically by making food out of thin air.

When the disciples ask Jesus if he is going to bring the kingdom to earth, he responds, essentially, this stuff is not for you to know.  Wait for the spirit.  ASCEND.  Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this earth, and that is essentially what he is saying at this point: Great Commission, Holy Spirit, ASCEND.  The kingdom isn't a genie Jesus doling out food.  The food for Christians is the Holy Spirit from above, revealing to us, bringing us to repentance, and regenerating us.  THAT is the kingdom.

When we are speaking to someone about Jesus, we must remember that this is not about bringing someone into an earthly kingdom of Christ.  This is not about getting members into a church.  This is preparing someone for the heavenly kingdom, and Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit, who ushers in this kingdom now. This is food from above, and the food has been given to us for revelation, repentance, and regeneration.

Lydia

John 14:26 reads, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit,whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you."

Some translations have "Advocate" instead of "Helper."  Helper sounds like the Holy Spirit is aiding us when we are in trouble, but overall, we are in charge of our own salvation.  Let's see the Helper in action. Turn to Acts 16.

Starting at verse 6: They passed through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been FORBIDDEN by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia.  Sounds like the Holy Spirit is helping?  Actually, it sounds like the Holy Spirit is LEADING.

Verse seven: and after they came to Mysia, they were trying to go into Bythinia, and the Spirit of Jesus DID NOT PERMIT THEM.  Once again, the Holy Spirit takes control of the situation.  The disciples are just followers.

Paul and Silas come to Troas, and after this incident, the pronoun changes from "they" to "we."  Yes, Troas is where the group picked up Luke.  The Holy Spirit did not want Paul and Silas to go into Asia.  They were not allowed to go into Bythinia.  God needed Luke at this point.

It doesn't end here!  Now, Paul gets a dream: a vision in the night of a man in Macedonia, pleading for help.  So, the crew heads to Macedonia, and ends up in Philippi.  They stayed in that city for some days, and then on the Sabbath they went outside the gate to the riveside, where they found a group of women.  Hmm.  None of these resemble the man from the vision, so why doesn't Paul throw up his hands and move on?

He doesn't.  He teaches the women, and one, only ONE, named Lydia, was really listening.  The Lord opened her heart to respond to the things spoken by Paul.  Here is our helper, once again, opening the heart of a solitary woman.  Paul baptizes her whole household and the church of Philippi is started.  Yes, the same church we have a letter to in our canon.

Paul gets arrested in Philippi in the next scene, and put in jail, where he converts the jailer, and baptizes the jailer's household.  Is the jailer the man in the vision, seeking help?  Probably not.  After Paul and Silas are released and asked to the leave town, but before they leave, they go to Lydia's house to check on the church that had been planted there.

Now, they pass through a couple of towns and end up in Thessalonica.  Preaching at the synagogue, Paul successfully persuades some Jews, a whole mess of Greeks, and a number of leading women.  Next we get the Jews stirring up a mob and attacking the house of . . . Jason.  Who is Jason?  He apparently is the one who welcomed Paul and Silas in Thessalonica.  If we look at the end of Romans 16, we see Jason's name as a prominent Christian on Paul's team.  This is probably the man that Paul saw in the vision.

So, why did the Holy Spirit steer Paul all over creation to get to Jason?  Because, although Jason was the goal, God has many milestones along the way that are just as important to him as the final destination.  First Luke, then Lydia, then the jailer, then Jason.  The first three are just as important to God as the last, and because God is sovereign, all of this was planned.

Paul and Silas didn't just happen upon Luke.  God didn't just get them to Macedonia and say, "It's up to you, now."  Paul didn't just think, "well, while we're trying to find the guy in my dream, we may as well teach this batch of women sitting here."  Paul knew how to listen to the Holy Spirit's promptings.  The Holy Spirit is Leader AND Helper.  He leads Paul to where he wants him to go, and then he helps him listen.  God wanted Luke, and he wanted Lydia, and he wanted the jailer, and he used the vision of Jason to get Paul there.  Everything went according to God's plan.

When we think of Acts, we tend to think that it is the story of Peter and then Paul, or the church as a whole. But there are many stories in the book of Acts, and each story is just as important to God as Peter or Paul's story.  Chapter 16 has Lydia's story, and the jailer's story.  They were two important individuals to God.  They are members of the elect, and we should not think of them as detours.

Think of the people we encounter each day.  Who are the Lydias and jailers?  Who are the people that God is steering us toward, and are we listening to the Holy Spirit pointing them out to us?  Are we passing by the group of women outside the city gates because the man from our vision is not among them?

The big story, of course, is about Jesus Christ.  Lydia's story is not just about Lydia but Lydia's encounter with Jesus.  The jailer's story is actually about the jailer's encounter with Jesus.  These stories are about the Good Shepherd finding his lost sheep  Not only are these not Paul and Silas' stories.  Paul and Silas are mere tools.  They are already part of God's kingdom.  They are already Christians.  In the words of John the Baptist: they must decrease so that Lydia and the jailer can increase.

Evangelizing seems to be a difficult thing, because we are constantly thinking of it as part of our story.  I hope I do it right.  I'm scared.  What if the person rejects me?  I think this chapter in Acts demonstrates that this is not about us.  This is about God finding his lost sheep.  He's using us to do it, but like a shepherd's crook or a sheepdog, we are to minimize our roles and allow God to lead us where he wishes.

I hope it increases our thirst for evangelism to know that God is not trying to put us through another trial.  Stop thinking of it that way.  God is reaching his next Lydia through you.  Let him do it.  Let Jesus find his Lydia.  It's about her right now.