TRINITARIAN WORSHIP IN A LIVING CHURCH

Did you hear what you just said?
You made a very trinitarian doctrinal statement. Didn't know that, did you!
But that's what it was. You made statements of faith in the context of God the Father. And God the Son. And God the Holy Spirit.
That's trinitarian.
Trinity - a word that has been heard by many, and understood by very few. Oh, the basic idea is taught in most Sunday school classes - that we worship the one and only living Divine Being - Jahweh God. But He is a three-fold oneness, three persons: Father, Son and Spirit.
The Catechism touches briefly on this truth, and so will we tonight; considering what is meant by "Trinity" and what sort of practical impact it might have, if any, on our lives.
Ready to try?
Then take your hymn books and open them to:

God has revealed Himself in His Word as three distinct persons yet one, true, eternal God.
If someone came to you asking about that, say a Jehovah's Witness or Mormon or Islamic colleague at work, could you find verses to support these teachings:
- the teaching of One God.
- the teaching of Three divine persons within that Oneness Could you do it?
First off, where do we hear that God is one?
"Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one!" (Deut. 6)
"I am the first, and I am the last; beside me there is no god."(Is 44.6)
"You believe that God is one; you do well" (James 2.19)
Pretty straight forward right? God is One. There is no other. There's no world wide web of various divine addresses that we have to dial up, possibly giving us the right connection, but also possibly being off target.
There is only ONE source for divine aid; there is only ONE to whom we all stand finally accountable; there is only ONE who created us and has power to guide and direct us:
That's one of the streams of biblical teaching.
I said there were two. Woven through the stories, poetry, letters, proverbs and prophecy of the Bible is another teaching -- about this One God being made of Three Persons.
The bulk of this teaching is indirect. It is found in three groups of passages which refer to God the Father as divine; God the Son as Divine; and God the Holy Spirit as Divine.

Passages about God as Father being divine are all over the place.
Let me, though list some passages that speak about the divinity of Jesus: Jesus in 8.58 says "Before Abraham was I AM" calling himself the divine name reserved for God alone.
John 10.30 "I and the Father are One." The monotheist Jews pick up rocks to stone him to death. "We are stoning you..." they said, "for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God." And Jesus never denied or protested that assertion.
John 20.28: Thomas falls down and worships Jesus, "My Lord and my God!" and Jesus accepts his worship without protest, something no sane Jew would ever permit; something that even the angel of God in Revelations 1 refused to allow. If Jesus, as a true Jew, had any moral fibre in His body He, too, would have refused to allow it....... unless....... unless He was God.
The Bible also gives textual evidence for the divinity of the Holy Spirit. If you look at Acts 5.3,4 you'll read of Peter saying to Annanias, "Why did you lie to the Holy Spirit..... you did not lie to men but to God!" The Spirit is spoken of as divine, and he is spoken of as a person, rather than simply an impersonal "IT".
Have a look also at Ephesians 4.30 & John chapters 14-16 for more.
Not only do we have passages speaking of the divinity of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, respectively; we also find passages that link the Father, the Son, and the Spirit together. When Jesus is baptized (Mt 3.16,17) the Father's voice is heard, the Son is baptized, and the Spirit is present in the form of a dove.
Jesus commands the church to baptize believers "in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 28.18).
The parting blessing at the end of 2 Corinthians says "the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." (2 Cor 13.14). Peter begins his first letter to the Church: "you have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood."
It's brush strokes and touchstones like this that lead us to a One God, Three person doctrine: God - Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
One.... and Three..... at the same time.

They are three as three distinct persons. And as three distinct persons they are seen to carry distinct roles throughout the pages of the scripture. As the Catechism teaches: The Father is Creator. He made and continues to uphold the Cosmos. The Son is Deliverer. He is God made man, snatching us from Satan's clutches. The Spirit is the Purifier, the Sanctifier. He is God residing with us, within us, comforting, guiding, directing.
And so as individual believers, and as a church community we strive to keep a balance and a full focus in our work and worship.
We want to avoid the one temptation to become very focussed on the general, over arching Fatherhood of God in a vague, unitarian sort of way.

We also want to avoid the tendency to become totally preoccupied with the Son, constantly rehashing our sin, past and present, and forgiveness --- to become stuck in the moment of forgiveness, in the divine act of justification, and never moving on to the next step that Calvin emphatically taught as a great theme of scripture -- Sanctification, the lifelong journey of growing in holiness and Christ-likeness under the guidance of the Spirit.

And, finally, we want to avoid the possible tendency to fixate on certain experiences of the Holy Spirit and basing their spiritual standing on that, to the neglect of sin & forgiveness in Christ, or the reign and preeminence of the Father.

As trinitarian worshippers in a living church we seek to live a life of balanced Christian service and growing maturity before the face of our Triune God.

A three-fold personal God. And yet one.
Without taking a lot of time to explore various possibilities that all seem to have merit on the surface, but turn out to be dead-ends- something we could do in an adult-education unit sometime, perhaps -let me quickly summarize what the Oneness of Father, Son and Spirit means.

Father, Son & Holy Spirit: They are not simply like each other; they are, in a real way, part of each other - the Father and the Son, for example, are spoken of in the gospel of John as being "IN" each other; the son is, so to speak, the Father all over again - an inseparable parent-child relationship, members of the same divine family.
So, too, the Spirit is referred to as being the Spirit of Jesus, the Spirit of God, intimately tied to both. They are distinct but never separate; always connected -- ONE.
As one they share the same infinite knowledge, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. They work together or co-operate with such perfect harmony and unity that we are justified in saying that the Triune God works with one mind and one will. What the one knows, the others know; what the one desires, the others desire; and what the one wills, the others will." [Boettner, Studies in Theology]
The clamour that is often raised in our society about individual rights and self-expression and looking out for #1 is silent in heaven.
- No isolation, insulation, secretiveness, fear of exposure.
- Complete knowledge of each other.
- Overflowing love for each other.
- One in word, work and will.

Father, Son & Spirit bound so closely together that we speak of their united threeness as One God.
So... do we care about that?
Should bother trying to absorb that fact?
Could it possibly impact us?
Yes, yes, and yes!
Why? Well, listen to this snatch from a prayer of Jesus: "May they be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you." John17.21
As God is three, unique discrete persons, different in function, yet joined together in will and desire and purpose and love; ONE.
So the Church of Christ is many unique discrete persons, different in life's function, in background and personality, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, in age and sex, in life experience -- oh, how vast the difference; how great the variety!
YET - With all that variety, created and granted to us by God
Jesus prays, "May they be one... just as we are one."
Sacred divine words!
NOT
Take-it or leave-it words!

Unity here within this group of people called church: Trinity unity.
- No isolation, insulation, secretiveness, fear of exposure.
- Complete openness with each other.
- Overflowing love for each other.
- One in word, work and will.
"May they be one... just as we are one."

Here is where the rubber of trinity doctrine really hits the road for all of us.
Here is where vague theoretical discussions come to a screeching halt. Because, quite frankly brothers and sisters, we have a real problem making this doctrine real; putting it into practice.

One reason we have a problem rolling it out is because we confuse UNITY with UNIFORMITY. The Bible demands the former of us. Not the latter.Unity: where different folk remain joined, supportive, caring, loving. Uniformity: where all like the same, think the same, behave the same.
In a church that has people who are still very much immigrants, aging; as well as younger folks who are through-and-through Canadian;
which has folks who prefer a traditional, structured worship services, doctrinal sermons and older-style men's & women's societies; and those who crave informality, contemporary music, topical sermons that are life-oriented, and multi-media to boot.
In that kind of a church we cannot afford to confuse the two.
We may, as a church, have had uniformity in the early '50's. But it is gone now.
That does NOT mean, however, that unity is gone.
Challenge is, and the question for us all to discuss is --How can we remain united in the midst of ever-growing diversity?
How we can support each other, and encourage each other, and enfold each other -- young and old, lovers of electric guitar and organ music, doctrinal purists and the pragmatic sorts, Canadian and Dutch, exuberant and restrained:
- "May they be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you."

That's the challenge facing us, brothers and sisters. And only a powerful, ongoing move of the Holy Spirit will ever allow that challenge to be met. As Psalm 127 says, "Unless the Lord builds the house.... or we can say "House of The Lord"..... those who build it labour in vain."
We'll need the power of the Lord to withstand the incredible consumerism that affects folks so deeply today - an attitude that says: I want my way to come first. My interests. What makes me comfortable. What challenges me least. If I don't get what I want... well.... I'm out of here. I don't need to make any compromises. I'll just role my eyes a little further down the ecclesiastical menu and find a church that can cater to my needs and whims better. Let me tell you, I've seen Satan use this cancerous value to weaken churches significantly. The Christian Reformed Church is not immune from it.
Neither is Calvin CRC.

Somehow the Evil One has managed to get us to be very sensitive to the peculiar little things that make us different from each other; and in that has distracted us from the divine super glue that bonds us to each other -- the Contact Cement of Salvation in Jesus Christ, restoration to the home of a Loving Heavenly Father, and the daily guidance of His Holy Spirit.

Which sends us from here with a real challenge. A challenge to submit to the Will of God, to confess where we have fallen short, to see that great unity which binds us, and building on that unity to harness our diversity in the most effective manner possible for the glory of our Triune God and the service of His Kingdom.