Three Threes for Trinity Sunday

Three Threes for Trinity Sunday (John 16:12-15) (also Rom 5:1-5)

Truth is mentioned in John’s gospel more than in any other book of the Bible. It is one of the key ideas

Three words describing the attitude we need in order to understand the truth God reveals:

·         Humility – As modelled within the Trinity. Everything the Father has is given to the Son. The Spirit does not do his own thing, he communicates what he has heard from Jesus and glorifies Jesus. The disciples do not know it all yet (16:12) and need to be guided into the truth (16:13).

·         Hunger – Jesus is encouraging disciples to hunger for understanding; the understanding they need in order to continue God’s mission of salvation.

·         Honesty – With ourselves, each other and God. If truth is the goal, we need a truthful approach. Be honest about the fact that we need to be saved from our selves and our sins, and that Jesus is our Saviour and Lord, not just a good example.

Attitudes are not much use unless they are translated consistently into actions which live out those attitudes …

Three actions we need to keep on doing if we want to grow as christian disciples:

·         Listen – The Spirit will speak, but that won’t help us unless we listen. How good are we at listening? How can we create times and places with the silence and concentration to really listen to the Spirit?

·         Love – All the “yous” in the passage are plural. Learning God’s ways is done in community, modelled on the first community which is the Trinity. Love of God and neighbour (including enemy). Love is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit (Rom 5:5) but without being put into action, love dies. No good if it is just an ideal or an empty sentiment.

·         Learn – Learn from what God teaches you (Billie’s catchphrase Learn from this!) That means growing up, not staying infantile or keeping on repeating mistakes or habitual sins.

Three qualities we need:

·         Prayer – You need a structured and disciplined prayer life, of a kind which suits your personality type but also stretches you. Give it time.

·         Practice – Put what the HS is teaching you into practice, with reflection, supported by other christian friends who are on the same journey.

·         Perseverance – (Rom 5:3) Don’t expect it to be easy.

Conclusion

·         The Trinity is Truth and can be defined by three simple truths:

·         1.There is only one God.
2. The Father is fully God, the Son (Jesus) is fully God and the Holy Spirit is fully God.
3. The Father is not the Son, and neither the Father nor the Son are the Holy Spirit.

·         I think the value of this doctrine for the Church is that it affirms along with other monotheistic faiths that there is only one God, all powerful and all loving. But unlike the others Christianity insists that God is not distant and separate from the worls but is also fully and actively involved in it, in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.

·         So the atoning death of Christ is God’s atoning death. And the Spirit living within and inspiring us is the Spirit of God.

·         It actually is not at all difficult to define. But our task as christians is not to define or even to value the Trinity – it is to live and breathe it!

·         The definition is not the point. Truth is not an academic goal. The point is to do all of the above  (HHH, LLL, PPP) in order to be drawn into the Trinity’s workings and participate in the redemption drama, bringing glory to God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

·         Where do you start? That depends on who you are and where you are in your spiritual journey. Which attitude, action and quality would I pick out as those which most need to be worked on? Honesty … Listening … Prayerfulness.

·         Come to our Church Family Retreat (14-15 June) and let’s work on them together.

Pentecost Sermon - don't be confused

Pentecost Sermon 27th May 2012

Readings: Acts 2.1-21 and John 15.26-27, 16.4b-15

Introduction

At Pentecost we celebrate the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, an event which transformed the Apostles from a timid, fearful little group in hiding, into a bold, passionate and rapidly growing missionary movement which changed the world. The Bible clearly teaches that it was the Holy Spirit who made the difference and that this essential gift is freely available to everybody. And yet, many Christians remain confused about who or what ‘the Spirit’ is and sceptical about ‘his’, ‘her’ or ‘its’ relevance to the church and the world today. I don’t believe this is something God wants us to be confused about, so here are some other words beginning with the prefix ‘con’, each of which reveals something important about the Holy Spirit.

Conscience

The first and perhaps the deepest place that the Holy Spirit touches us is in our conscience. We are told in John 16.8 that the Spirit (or Counsellor) will prove the world wrong about sin, justice (or righteousness) and judgement. To put this another way, the world (its people, its rulers and its religions) have completely misunderstood sin and justice and judgement. Current affairs and human history prove this to be true, most clearly of all in the way Jesus himself was treated. The sinless Son of God, God himself in human form, overflowing with love, peace and healing power was betrayed and scourged and crucified, as a result of human deceit and ignorance about sin, justice and judgement.

What human beings need is a change of heart, a change of conscience at the deepest level, through which they will be able to understand God and see the world and its wrongs and its needs from God’s perspective instead of a merely human perspective. This is to be achieved by the pouring out of the Spirit on all flesh, after the return of Jesus to his Father. The prince of this world, and the ways of the world stand condemned. The Holy Spirit comes to enable all people to see sin and justice and judgement as God sees them and to motivate us to join in God’s mission to heal the world of its sinfulness and make it truly just.

Confidence

The second effect of the Holy Spirit is to give the followers of Jesus confidence. Not a brash self confidence, but a calm, holy confidence, built on the strongest possible foundation, which is a solid relationship with God. The transcendant and unknowable God has been shown to be knowable in Jesus Christ, because anyone who has seen Jesus has seen the Father (Jn 14.9). But even as the disciples are mourning the loss of their intimate friendship with ‘God-with-us’,  their companion and teacher, the relationship is renewed in an even more intimate and perfect unity, as the Holy Spirit becomes ‘God-within-us’. All of this had been predicted by Jesus but the disciples couldn’t have known what it would be like until it happened. The powerful life of God which they saw at work in Jesus is now fully alive in them, individually and together. No wonder they are confident. And no wonder their confidence is like that of Jesus (and Daniel and his friends), humble, loving, unselfish, peaceful  and unstoppable. It is a confidence which is unshakable, even in the face of mockery, opposition and danger. It is a confidence the Church needs today.

Connection

Another way of thinking about the Holy Spirit’s role, connected to the ideas of conscience and confidence, is connection. The idea of being well connected (Spanish enchufado?) is familiar in society where people are keen to establish a secure and comfortable position. But the connection which matters more than anything is the connection with God. And the way God maintains that connection, by his own initiative and in the power of his love, is by the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.

As a person yields his life to the control of this indwelling Spirit, so their connection with God and God’s connection to the world are both strengthened. It may seem amazing that God allows his saving purposes for the world to be made available through something as fragile and inconsistent as human will, and yet this is what God does. God believes in us, in the extraordinary power and potential of a growing community of people connected to God and each other by the life of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The question for each of us and for the church is ‘how can we keep that connection strong’ and avoid being pulled in other directions which might stifle the Spirit’s work in us and through us?

Concluding questions

Conscience, Confidence and Connection are three aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work in us. Which are you experiencing most strongly at this stage of your life? How is that manifesting itself in the way you live and the decisions you make? Which of these three aspects of the Holy Spirit’s work do you need to grow in? If you did, what kind of changes might happen in the way you live and the decisions you make? Why not pray for the Holy Spirit to give you more of what you lack? But be careful what you ask for – God has a habit of answering prayers!