Holy Trinity – 2008. Thank you, President Paul Sieveking for the
inspiration for the sermon.
There is a movie that was in theaters a short time ago and will be on
DVD soon. It’s titled “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” The producer
of the documentary believes in a concept called “Intelligent Design”.
Simply put, ‘every house has a builder’ (Hebrews 3:4). The fantastic
complexity of life and the universe around us without question points to
some sort of being with great cleverness. He does not promote “God”, but he
questions the idea that 4 billion years ago a group of rocks became alive
and transformed into humans. This documentary is a series of interviews of
evolutionists violently opposed to “ID”.
Living rocks is a fundamentalist belief of the religion of evolution.
Many of our schools of higher learning treat evolution as a fact, refusing
to admit ANY idea of higher intelligence or grand design. The dogma is such
that anyone who openly questions the religion of evolution is often expelled
from teaching or denied tenure – as happened at ISU recently. I should also
mention that this film played on the ISU campus to a packed theater and got
a long standing ovation according to the Des Moines Register. Critics
complained since theaters were not packed a week later, it was a terrible
flop. If you get an opportunity, you may want to see it even tho it is not
a Christian film.
I bring this up on Trinity Sunday because the idea of One God in Three
Persons is NOT something human beings are at ease with, by nature. (Romans
8) The Bible says the Old Adam or sinful nature is at war with God. It’s no
surprise some people reject any god but themselves (1st Commandment),
because if the DID believe they would have to be answer for what they have
done wrong and failed to do right. Their fear and hatred causes them to
reject God & blame Him for bad things (Bertrand Russell, Fear – the
Foundation of Religion).
But for you to hate someone for hating God is sinful! Each of us as
descendants of Adam live under the title “expelled”. Because of our
inherited sin and actual sins, we were expelled from God’s presence. We
feel terror in the presence of God’s holiness because ‘we are by nature
sinful & unclean’ as we confessed at the beginning of our service. The many
opportunities you had this past week to do good and help others but did
not - those are sins. The kind words you did NOT say - those are sins, too.
It is not possible for anyone to get around sin. Even now, you and I
must confess with Saint Paul in 1 Timothy 1:15 that we are chief of sinners,
and (Romans 7:24) unable to save ourselves from this body of death.
“But thanks be to God, Who has given us the victory thru our Lord Jesus
Christ” (I Cor 15). The Son of God became flesh, as we confess in the
Creeds, and was the New Adam in our place. He obeyed all the Laws and
commandments perfectly, then suffered the wrath of God on the cross, dying
for all of our failures, wrongs, and sins. He ascended 40 days after rising
from the dead, then sent the Holy Spirit on Pentecost (celebrated last
week). This IS the Gospel: what God did and does for us in Christ, our
Advocate and Defense before the Judgment Throne. This is the heart of Acts
2 & focus of any genuine Christian sermon & service: Christ crucified for
your sin & mine.
Yes, God reveals Himself to us in His creation as an intelligent
designer as a mighty, wise, good, and caring being. That is good, but not
enough for eternal salvation. It is only in His holy Word where we can find
out His true qualities of compassion and desire to save all people, even in
spite of our evils to each other and toward Him.
Even people who have studied this great joy have trouble grasping the
Trinity. That we have One God in Three Persons, we confess in the creeds
but have difficulty explaining. As the Lutheran Hour sermon for this week
says, some of Jesus’ 1st century disciples had problems believing He had
risen from the dead, so of course the Trinity poses a problem today.
Church tradition says a man named Augustine (354-430) was walking on
the seashore thinking about the Holy Trinity. He saw a boy having fun,
digging a hole in the sand. Augustine asked him what he was doing. The boy
told him that he was going to empty the ocean into the hole. Augustine
smiled at that.
But as he walked on, Augustine began to realize THAT is exactly what
people try to do with God! Our tiny intellect can not begin to hold the
smallest bit of the mind of God. ‘Our ways are not God’s ways and our
thoughts are not His thoughts’ Isaiah 55:8 puts it. As we confess the Holy
Trinity, ‘we utter what we do not understand, things too wonderful for us
which we do not know’ as Job chapter 42 says.
And it is only in Holy Scripture that we find that God is One without
confounding the Persons or dividing the substance. I take my catechism
students to Genesis 1:26-27 to show them the Triune God by hearing the
pronouns: Us, Our, Our as God decides, then Him, He, He as God acts. But
the idea is revealed even in Scripture’s first verse. When it is written:
“God created”, the noun God is Elohim which is plural and the verb created
is singular. (ברא אלהים)
We also realize it at the end of Matthew. ‘As you are going, make
disciples of all nations (by) Baptizing them in the Name (singular) of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit {[just as we remember our
Baptism at the start of each service]}, teaching them to obey or observe all
things God commanded us.’ We Christians don’t have 3 gods, but One God in
Three Persons.
Yet even tho we believe in the Trinity and can see our Triune God in
Scripture, we can’t explain Him. In fact, I vividly recall Dr. David Scaer
at Concordia Theological Seminary repeating the well-worn phrase “the
quickest way to be removed from ministry is to try to precisely define /
explain the Holy Trinity.” It can’t be done.
Christians talk about the Father-Creator, but Scripture says the Holy
Spirit worked at creation (Gen. 1:2) and by the Son of God all things were
made (Colossians 1:16, etc.). We use those terms Creator, Redeemer,
Sanctifier much like the boy trying to put all the ocean into a small hole
on the beach, thinking we are clever; God smiles at us. Perhaps it is far
better to simply rejoice and worship the Trinity with a child-like belief.
In SO many articles of faith, ‘we see thru a glass darkly’ as First Cor. 13
says, awaiting the gift of heaven to see ‘face to face’.
Psalm 14 tells us unbelievers refuse to have faith in the Trinity.
They need to be told the Gospel with compassion. By our fallen nature, we
did not believe: it is only by grace thru the work of the Holy Spirit
bringing us to faith that we CAN believe then worship the Triune God – as
far more than an Intelligent Designer. He is the Almighty Saving God
revealed in His Word. He is the One and only true God Whom we worship by
receiving His gifts of pardon and peace thru the cross of Christ.
To paraphrase a Presbyterian minister, most fairytales that talk about
a frog turning into a prince begin with ‘once upon a time’. *Except* the
fairytale that says it took millions of years of evolution for the frog to
become a prince; which is accepted as fact by some and all other ideas are -
Expelled. May God, Who saved us by His grace be praised not only for His
Intelligent Design of creation, but above all be praised for His Salvation;
by all who confess the Triune LORD!
As usual, this fits on two sides of a sheet of paper, 2 columns, 1/2" margin
and 1/2" spacing (4 coumns total!) in Times New Roman 14 point font.
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