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Sermon Transcript January 8, 2017

Empowered To Serve �e Trinity and the Church

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 and 2 Corinthians 13:14 �is message from the Bible was addressed originally to the people of Wethers*eld Evangelical Free Church on January 8, 2017 at 511 Maple Street, Wethers*eld, CT, 06109 by Dr. Scott W. Solberg. �is is a transcription that bears the strength and weaknesses of oral delivery. It is not meant to be a polished essay. An audio copy of the sermon on CD is available by request at (860) 563-8286. An audio version of this sermon may also be found on the church website at www.wethefc.com.

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Sermon Text

1 Corinthians 12:4-6

4 Now there are varieties of gi8s, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.

2 Corinthians 13:14

14 �e grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

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Introduction

�is morning we begin a new sermon series called “Empowered to Serve.” It is a sermon series on the Holy Spirit and spiritual gi8s. �e title for this series, “Empowered to Serve” is a very practical title. It is a title with application in mind. It is a title that tells us where we want to land by the end of this sermon series. By God’s grace, my prayer is that this sermon series would encourage each one of us to consider where and how we might *nd meaningful and joyful service within the body of Christ, the church. �is is, a8er all, the end to which we are given spiritual gi8s. �ere is a lot of interest and curiosity in this topic of spiritual gi8s and the person of the Holy Spirit. For example, a question I ponder from time to time when it comes to the Holy Spirit is whether or not I am fully embracing all that God has for me. When Paul describes the nature of his ministry in Romans 15:18 he begins by describing his ministry as a ministry of “word and deed.” I get that. I understand the importance of the ministry of the Word of God and I understand the need for my life to be an example to others. �at is what Paul means by “word and deed.” You *nd it in his instructions to Timothy, a young pastor, in 1 Timothy 4:16 where he tells Timothy to “keep a close watch on yourself an on the teaching.” In other words, watch your “word and deed.” Be careful with what you teach and how you live. But when Paul describes the nature of his ministry in Romans 15:19, he adds another element to it. He says that his ministry was also characterized “by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God.” And so when I come to a topic like this, I wonder to myself whether or not my theological construct or my western worldview has boxed God into a corner and if I need to grow in my understanding of what God can do through us. So I too approach this topic with a measure of curiosity. I too want to allow the Word of God to shape my understanding of these things. And yet, while we may need to ponder these things, we don’t enter this conversation simply to satisfy our curiosity. A conversation on spiritual gi8s should lead us to using those gi8s in service towards one another. In 1 Corinthians 12:4, Paul says that “there are varieties of gi�s, but the same Spirit.” And then he adds in verse 7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” In other words, the Holy Spirit gives each of us gi8s. �ese gi8s diFer from each other. And these gi8s are to be used in serving the common good.” Peter puts it rather bluntly in 1 Peter 4:10, “As each has received a gi�, use it to serve one another.” �at is what they are there for. And so, the goal of this series, quite naturally, is to move us into meaningful and joyful service.

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In Our Way of Life, we begin by acknowledging who we are in Christ. We are sons and daughters, deeply loved by God in Christ. We are servants, called to put the needs of others above ourselves. And, we are stewards, doing all we do for the glory of God. A “steward” is someone who manages or looks a8er something that belongs to someone else. �e church belongs to Christ, the head of the church. As “stewards” we are given gi8s to serve the body of Christ. �ere is a measure of accountability with what we have been given. In fact Peter completes his thought in 1 Peter 4:10 with this very reminder, “As each has received a gi�, use it serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace.” �ese gi8s that are entrusted to us are to be used in serving each other. Perhaps knowing that this is where we want to land, you are bracing yourself for the full court press to get you to serve. We would love for you to *nd a way to serve, but we are not going to guilt you into serving. In my devotional reading this past Monday, I was struck by two verses I read. �e *rst one is Psalm 100:2, “Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.” �e activity of this verse is singing joyful songs. But what fueled these songs of joy was a glad heart. If I am *lled with gladness, I don’t have to be instructed to sing joyful songs. �ey are songs that How from the heart. �e same can be said of what I read in Psalm 1:2. “Blessed is the man who . . . His delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.” Again, the activity here is meditating on the law of the LORD day and night. But if God and his Word are my delight, then it is not a chore to meditate on God’s Word. And so it is with serving. Yes, this is where we want to land in a few weeks. Yes, we would love for you to take a “next step” where you step into meaningful and joyful service. But I would love for that “next step” to be something joyfully entered into because of your increased vision of God. �is morning, I am hardly going to mention spiritual gi8s. Rather, we are going to talk about God. �is morning we are going to start our conversation about spiritual gi8s by talking about the Trinity. Fred Sanders wrote a book called +e Deep +ings of God. In it he says, “It may seem counterintuitive to start so far back in the divine mystery of God’s own being, if the goal is to change lives.”1 In other words, if our goal is to see you move into meaningful service, why spend time contemplating “heady things” like the Trinity? Sander writes, “�e cry of our day always seems to be for a practical doctrine of the Trinity, for relevance, application, and experiential payoF. . . When it comes to the diFerence that the doctrine of the Trinity can make in our lives, it is crucially important that we begin with the recognition of God in himself before moving on to God for us.”2 And so that is where we will begin this sermon series. �is morning we want to take a peek into the wonderful doctrine of the Trinity.

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�e “What” of the Trinity

Just to make sure we are all on the same page, I want to begin with the “what” of the Trinity. What are we talking about when we talk about God being Triune? Some will be quick to point out that the word “Trinity” is not even found in the Bible. And yet, it is a word used to describe what we discover about God through the Bible. Here is what we discover about God in the Bible. �ere is one God. God is made up of three persons; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Each person of the Trinity is eternal, fully divine. �ere never was a time when there was no God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. �is is who God is. Even in our passage this morning, 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, the Triune God shows up. Perhaps that may surprise you because when we think of the topic of spiritual gi8s we tend to relegate that to the realm of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And yet here, in the dispensing of gi8s and empowering us for service, the entire God-head, the “three-in-one” is involved. Paul writes, “Now there are varieties of gi�s, but the same Spirit.” �en he says, “and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord.” �at is a reference to Jesus, who throughout the New Testament, because of his resurrection from the dead, is declared to be “the Lord.” In fact, in the Old Testament, that is the sacred name for God, the self-existing God who has no beginning and no ending, the LORD. So that title alone recognizes that Jesus is indeed the Son of God, he is fully God. And then Paul says in verse 6, “but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” God the Father is o8en referred to in the New Testament simply as “God.” �e same picture of the Trinity is picked up in the benediction at the end of Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Here Paul pronounces the blessing of the Triune God on this church. A benediction is the pronouncement of God’s blessing. I am not “blessing” you at the end of the service when I announce the benediction. Rather, I am conferring God’s blessing upon you. And who is this God who freely pours out his blessings upon us? He is the Triune God, for Paul pronounces, “+e grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” �is is who God is. �is is the “what” of the Trinity. And yet, for many Christians, when it comes to the Trinity, it feels somewhat odd and awkward as we try to explain who God is. Is it one God or three Gods? How can there be one God and three persons? And so we come up with these illustrations that never really capture the meaning of the Trinity. Michael Reeves describes the awkwardness of our attempts to describe the Trinity when he writes, “�ink, for example, of all those desperate-sounding

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illustrations. ‘�e Trinity,’ some helpful soul explains, ‘it is a bit like an egg, where there is the shell, the yoke and the white, and yet it is one egg!’ ‘No,’ says another, ‘the Trinity is more like a shamrock leaf; that is one leaf, but it’s got three bits sticking out. Just like the Father, Son and Spirit.’” To which Reeves concludes, “And one wonders why the world laughs. For whether the Trinity is compared to shrubbery, streaked bacon, the three states of water or a three-headed giant, it begins to sound, well, bizarre.”3 As a result, the Trinity becomes something we have to believe, but it runs the risk of becoming irrelevant to how we live. One way we tend to deal with the Trinity is we simply shrug our shoulders and we say, “it is a mystery.” In fact, we can sound rather pious when we “defer to punt” in our explanation. And yet, when Paul refers to something being “a mystery” he is referring to something that had not been revealed by God in the past, but is now made known to us. So technically, the Trinity is not a mystery because God has revealed himself to us as being Triune. And so Michael Reeves says, “�us the Trinity is not some piece of inexplicable apparent nonsense, like a square circle. Rather, because the triune God has revealed himself, we can understand the Trinity.”4 Can I put it this way? “We must understand the Trinity.” I am not saying we can exhaust our understanding of the Trinity. But we need to gain some understanding of the Triune God we worship. Wayne Grudem suggests that the Trinity is one of the most important doctrines of the Christian faith. �e reason is “because it gives us great insight into the question that is at the center of all of our seeking a8er God: What is God like in himself?”5 Or as Michael Reeves puts it, “Christianity is not primarily about lifestyle change; it is about knowing God.”6 So we must come to understand the Trinity, for this is what it means to know God. Everything else, including joyfully serving God, Hows from knowing God. Over the Christmas break I read the fascinating story of Nabeel Qureshi. It is the story of a devout Muslim who became a Christian. No doubt, one of the great obstacles he had to work through in coming to faith in Jesus was this notion of the Trinity. In fact, he used to love engaging Christians over this matter and watching them squirm because o8en Christians didn’t really know how to respond to his questions about the Trinity. He had a series of questions he would present to Christians that would go like this, “Is the Trinity important to you?” Of course. “How important?” It would be heretical to deny the Trinity. �en he said, the third question completed the setup. “So what is the Trinity?” Listen to what he said, “I usually got blank stares. Sometimes people would start talking about eggs or water, but no one was able to explain what the doctrine of the Trinity actually meant . . . �at meant every Christian I encountered bolstered what the

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Quran had taught me about the Trinity: it was a ridiculous doctrine the merited divine retribution.”7 But, it doesn’t need to be that way. I want to invite you to consider the wonder of the Trinity.

�e “Wonder” of the Trinity

Do you know what the Trinity tells us about God? It tells us that at the heart of who God is, God is love. John even makes this simple statement in 1 John, “God is love.” Here is the point. It is because God is the Triune God, God is love. I wonder, if you were to choose a word that best captures God’s identity and who he is, what word you might use to de*ne God. Perhaps you would be tempted to say that God is the Creator. Most de*nitely, God is the Creator of all things. But this is not what most de*nes God. If this was the central attribute of God’s character, God would be dependent upon creation to be who he is. He would need what is created in order to be who he is. �e same thing could be said if you were to say that ultimately God is �e Ruler. Indeed, God is “�e Ruler” by virtue of being the Creator. But if this ultimately de*nes who God is, he would need someone to rule in order to be complete. �at actually makes for a weak God because he becomes dependent, he would need someone or something to rule. Yes, God is the Creator and the Ruler, but that is not what ultimately de*nes God. I would submit to you that the *rst word that ought to come to your mind when you think about God and who God is in the very core of his being, is that God is love. �is truth is securely anchored in the fact that God has eternally existed as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. In other words, there was never a time when God was not in perfect loving community. I love the way Fred Sanders refers to God. In speaking of the Triune God, he refers to “the Happy Land of the Trinity.”8 God is and has always been completely content in himself. If there ever was a time when God did not exist as three persons, then God would have had to learn love. But instead, because God is eternally three in one, God is eternal love. �ere is an eternal unity in the Trinity. It begs the question, “what did God do for eternity past prior to creating the world?” Eternity past is a long time! Was he bored? Is that why he created the world? Was he feeling somewhat unful*lled and so he needed something to do? Was he lonely and needing companionship? No, to all of these thoughts! God has always existed in relationship and perfect love and joy. God is not frustrated in the least. �e stanza of an old hymn says it well, “When Heaven and Earth were yet unmade, When time was yet

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unknown, �ou, in �y bliss and majesty, Didst live, and love, alone.”9 For all of eternity God the Father loves God the Son in the love of God the Holy Spirit. And so before God was the Creator, God was and has always been the loving Father, for there has always been an eternal Son to love. When I began to grasp this truth, the doctrine of the Trinity came to life for me. I no longer saw the doctrine of the Trinity as a conundrum that can’t be explained to something that is central to understanding God, the gospel, the church, the world . . . myself! It connected a lot of dots for me. Here we are, created in the image of God. What is it that we all crave? We crave love. In fact, the absence of love is damaging. �e *rst problem encountered in the book of Genesis was not the fall of man in Genesis 3. Rather, it was the declaration of God that “it is not good for man to be alone.” Why is that? God has never been alone and we were created in God’s image. With an early hint of the Trinity at the creation of man, we hear God say, “Let US create man in OUR image.” I like the way Tom Johnston puts it, “If God is an ‘Us’, then we must be an ‘us’ as well.”10 Because God is Triune, God is a God of relationship. We are made to have relationship with God and with each other. Aren’t the commandments summarized with the word “love?” We are to love God and to love others. �e Fruit of the Spirit that is produced in us is love. In fact, right in the middle of Paul’s teaching on spiritual gi8s in 1 Corinthians 12-14 is 1 Corinthians 13, known as “the love chapter.” It is here where we are told that the greatest of the virtues is love. Is not the evidence that we belong to God found in our love? “Beloved, let us love one another. For love is of God and he that loves not, knows not God, because God is love.” In fact, I believe the reason God created us and redeemed us was to share that love with us. �at is what love is, it is self-giving. God freely gave of himself by creating us and redeeming us. Susanna Wesley was the mother to the great churchmen, the brothers John and Charles Wesley. She said this, “God is necessarily in*nitely happy in the glorious perfections of his nature from everlasting to everlasting; and as he did not create, so neither did he redeem because he needed us; but he loved us because he loved us.”11 John says in 1 John 1:3 that he proclaims the risen Jesus, the gospel, to others so that you can have fellowship with us and our fellowship is with the Father and the Son. �rough Jesus we are brought into the love that exists in the Triune God. Sanders concludes, “�e good news of the gospel is that God has opened the dynamics of his triune life and gives us a share in that fellowship.”12 Anytime you talk about the love of God, you are delving in the realm of the Trinity. �is is the sheer “wonder” of the Trinity. At the core of who God is, God is love. And out

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who God is, the Triune God has brought us into the love that has existed in all of eternity between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So the next time you are asked to explain the Trinity, don’t give a blank stare, rather begin talking about how the Trinity gives us the security that God is love.

�e “Work” of the Trinity

Finally, I want to make a comment about the “work” of the Trinity. Because God is a God of love, it is natural to be self-giving. So what you notice about the activity of God is that when the Triune God gives outward expression of their love through the acts of creation and redemption, all three persons are involved in bringing the will of God to fruition. And what is both fascinating and instructive is that each person of the Trinity takes on a diFerent role in bringing about the purposes of God. You can see this in the two passages I already alluded to this morning. In 1 Corinthians 12:4-6 there are “varieties of gi�s . . . varieties of service . . . varieties of activities.” And each person of the Trinity has a part to play in the support it brings to the people of God. You see the same thing in the benediction at the end of 2 Corinthians. It is the grace of Jesus, the love of the Father and the fellowship of the Spirit that constitutes the blessing of God upon us. �ese diFering roles in God’s work of redemption are spelled out clearly in Ephesians 1 where we are told that “in love God the Father predestined us” and in Jesus “we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses” and then it is the Holy Spirit in whom “we are sealed” and kept. �ese varying roles within the Godhead is called “the economy” of God. God the Father planned redemption and sent the Son. Jesus, God the Son, accomplished redemption by submitting himself to the Father in obedience and dying on the cross. �e Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son to complete the work of God in this world. What is fascinating about the work of God in this world is that there is a voluntary subordination within the Trinity. Each person is equally God. And yet, we *nd Jesus living in obedience to the Father and the Spirit pointing us to Jesus, the Son of God. We get a glimpse of how the Trinity serves one another in the prayer of Jesus in John 17:4-5. Jesus prays, “I glori2ed you on earth, having accomplished the work you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.” Isn’t that fascinating? �e unity of the love within the Godhead is expressed in the diversity of their roles and in submitting to each other. Each person of the Trinity is no less God than the other, and yet, out of love there is a submitting to each other in order that the love and purpose of God in this world can be made known.

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�e Trinity and the Church

So what does the Trinity have to do with the church and how does contemplating the Trinity move me to joyful service in the body of Christ? Well for starters, I hope you have a better illustration of the Trinity than perhaps you had before this sermon started. For example, I think that marriage is an illustration of the Trinity. In marriage, you have two persons who become one Hesh. Each person brings diFerent roles to the marriage and each must submit to the other in order for the unity of the marriage to give expression of the love that is to How to the next generation and to the wellbeing of society. �e church is an illustration of the Trinity. �e church is made up of many members, but is one body. �rough the gi8s God has given to us, we each have our role to play in giving expression to God’s love to each other and the world. And so when we call you to serve, it is not a call for you to simply *ll a hole or perform some function in the church. Instead, it is the natural outworking of the love and the unity that comes from being in relationship with the Triune God. It is how we reHect the kind of love we have come to know in God. I want you to picture it this way. Jesus says in John 15:9, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.” Michael Reeves pictures the love of God as a “gracious cascade, like a waterfall of love.”13 In other words, as the love of the Father spills to the Son, Jesus spills that love out upon the church. Reeves says, “�at means that Christ loves the church *rst and foremost: his love is not a response, given only when the church loves him; his love comes *rst, and we only love him because he *rst loved us.”14 �en that love spills out from us as we serve one another and submit to one another, it spills out into our church and to this world that needs to know God. �at is why we look to serve one another. It is the spilling of the love of the Triune God, the love of Christ, that moves us towards one another. In other words, knowing the love of God is what makes us loving. �is is what moves us towards community. �is is what moves us towards service. �is is what moves us towards a broken world that needs to know the touch of God’s love as expressed through Jesus Christ. It all starts with knowing the Triune God. �is is the oxygen to Christian life and joy.15 May you be captured with the wonder of the Trinity and the love of God and may God’s love shine through us as we submit to each other and serve one another in community and through the gi8s God has given us. �is is how we made the love of God known and this is how we grow and mature in Christ.

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__________________________ 1Fred Sanders +e Deep +ings of God (Wheaton: Crossway, 2010) 94 2Ibid., 94 3Michael Reeves Delighting in the Trinity (Downers Grove: IVP, 2012) 10 4Ibid., 11 5Wayne Grudem Systematic +eology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994) 226 6Reeves, 10 7Nabeel Quereshi Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016) 192 8Sanders, 61 9Hymns Ancient and Modern (New York: Pott and Amery, 1870) no. 154 10Tom Johnston and Mike Perkins A New Testament Trilogy (Manchester, NH: Praxis, 2005) 30 11Sanders, 61 12Ibid., 61 13Reeves, 28 14Ibid., 28

© by Dr. Scott Solberg - All rights reserved

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Sermon Title: �e Trinity and the Church Sermon Text: 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14 Sermon Date: January 8, 2017

1. What was a highlight of the Christmas season for you? 2. As you begin a new ten week segment in your Community Group, what do you hope to get out of

your time together as a group? What would you like to contribute to the group? 3. What commitments do you want to make to each other as you begin a new segment?

4. Read 1 John 4:7-14. Is “love” the *rst thing you think of when you think of God? Why or why not?

What do you learn about God’s love from this passage? Can you *nd each person of the Trinity in this passage?

5. Read John 3:35 and 17:25-26. What do you learn about the relationship between God the Father and

God the Son in these verses? What comfort and encouragement do you *nd in knowing that God is “the Eternal Father”?

6. Read Titus 3:4-7. What do you learn about the role of each member of the Trinity in this passage?

How does the Trinity expand your understanding of God? 7. Read 1 Corinthians 12:12-13. How is the church a reHection of the Trinity?

8. �e Trinity is an expression of both “unity” and “diversity.” What can you do to promote both “unity” and “diversity” within the body of Christ? 9. How has your discussion on the Trinity broadened your understanding of the church?

Getting To Know Me Questions

Diving Into The Word

Taking It Home