Well, hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Paul Feasy and this is episode 412. I haven't got Thomas with me today. He's at the Speak Life Centre. The rest of us are working from home because we've got some filming going on in the centre today. We've transformed our studio into a spaceship because we're beginning the filming for a short film that we will use as part of picture this, which is our 321 uh gospel outline video material that we're going to be getting out soon. We've already done uh the recording for the teaching series, but each episode is gonna have a short film to go with it. And this week we've got the filming for this one in this post ship. So um it's quite hectic in the speedlight centre at the moment. So um those of us who aren't directly involved, all working from home in order to kind of keep out of the way and make room for people there, but please do be praying for that. It's obviously a lot of work, it's a big project for us. We've got people coming in from outside to act parts and uh be involved. Uh so there's a lot to organise there. So please pray for that, pray for that to go well this week, pray for the um filming to go nice and smoothly, and pray that it would be a great resource for the church. Glenn and I, though, have been able to have a conversation this afternoon um over Zoom as we began to think about the Trinity with Trinity Sunday coming up. So I hope that you'll enjoy this discussion, and I'll be back at the end just for a quick roundup. So, um we've kind of been uh well I don't know whether we've been doing it very deliberately, but we've sort of been doing this thing with the speakeasy in the over these last few months where we've been reclaiming church calendar events, haven't we? Liturgical holidays. Absolutely. So we've sort of reclaimed what have we reclaimed so far? Pentecost ascension, yes, um Mothering Sunday, Mothering Sunday, yeah.
SPEAKER_01We're doing the the whole nine yards. It's theological retrieval, Paul, and it's it's very exciting. Because we're uh on the on the screen, for those uh who are listening on the podcast, um I've put up a uh a picture of the liturgical calendar in which you go from Advent at the start of the year, and Advent is leading up to the coming of Christ, whether it's his second coming or his first coming. Then you've got Christmas, which is the incarnation, then the season of Epiphany, which is about the revelation of Christ, moving into Lent and this uh this season of um preparing ourselves for the crucifixion and then resurrection with Easter, and that Easter celebration keeps going for another 40 days until Ascension, which we had the other day, and then 10 days after ascension, it is Pentecost, where Christ pours out the gift of the Spirit on us. We had a great time with Jonathan Black as he explained more about that. But then after we have the Ascension and Pentecost, the very next Sunday is Trinity Sunday. And I love that that's where we put Trinity Sunday, because it's basically saying having tracked with Jesus, his birth, his life, his death, his resurrection, his ascension, his pouring out of the spirit, you then take a Sunday to say, oh, so who is the God that Jesus reveals? Who is the God of the gospel? And that is what the doctrine of the Trinity is. The doctrine of the Trinity is simply a reflection on who is this God who sends his son and sends his spirit. Oh, he's the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so it's a beautiful place to put Trinity Sunday. It's not something that you put at the beginning of your philosophical reflections on the nature of deity. It's actually, once you have seen this incredible kind of blazing of the Jesus movement, when you have seen him live and die and rise and ascend and pour out his spirit and save us all, you then think, oh gosh, what does this mean about who God is? And that's what Trinity Sunday is all about.
SPEAKER_02I hadn't realized until I saw that diagram how much of the year is kind of spec- what do they call it? Special time.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02Ordinary time, which is half the year. And then I didn't realize I assumed most time was ordinary time, but it I'm apparently wrong. Half the time. Half the time.
SPEAKER_01It's God's time. Exactly. I'm coming into my own. After this Sunday, I'm coming into my own. That's my season. Ordinary time. Time to be ordinary. But yeah, it's it's kind of what you you have a look at the story of Jesus, is you know, from Advent through to Trinity Sunday, and then from Trinity Sunday back through to the feast of Christ the King. Um that is then when you um yeah, it's the story of the people of God, not just the story of Jesus. It's sort of over to you, church. Do your ordinary thing. And uh, yeah, so it's it's a nice, it's a nice sense of you breathe in and you breathe out, a sense of the tide coming in, the tide coming out. It's not everything is frenetic all the time.
SPEAKER_02And I think you said as well that it's like it starts, it's not that you start in ordinary time and you move into these seasons. You start with the seasons of the activity of God and then it moves into ordinary time, so that you um it's not that you kind of think about the being of God, you know, or was God like, and then we go, let's come up with some ideas, and now God does things, and we go, oh no, we don't think he can do that because that's not what he said he's like, what we said he should be like. Actually, it starts with the other way around. We see what God does, and then we go, okay, well, what does that tell us about what God is like?
SPEAKER_01So yes, yes, exactly. And my big thing for today is that Trinity is basic. Trinity is Christianity for dummies. It's you're basic. It is both based and basic. Um that it's the that it's yeah, it's just a reflection on the God of the gospel. And I think my my overwhelming word to everybody listening is you might not think of yourself as a Trinitarian theologian, but if you are any kind of a Christian, you've got Trinity and Trinity's got you. Because if you ever pray to the Father in the name of Jesus, then you're a Trinitarian. Like you just are, you've come to the Father in the name of the Son. That's incredibly Trinitarian. If you have any idea that because you've asked the Spirit into your life, you have Jesus living with you, well, you're you're a Trinitarian because this the presence of the Spirit is the presence of Jesus, and now you're no longer an orphan that you've been adopted into the family. If you know yourself to be a child of God, you're a Trinitarian. It's it's just this it's this basic gospel reality. Trinity is not this rarefied philosophical thing, it's a reflection on the God of the gospel, and anyone who knows the gospel knows the Trinity already.
SPEAKER_02Fair enough. I think that's yeah, I definitely remember that coming out of your um uh the three, two, one stuff. You start with three, you know. We don't we don't do it.
SPEAKER_01Or do I?
SPEAKER_02Or do you?
SPEAKER_01I kind of yeah, I kind of start with Jesus, right? Okay so like like even so in the book, so three two one for those who don't know, it's it's a gospel presentation. There's there's some shorter videos, there are some longer videos, there's a course that we're refilming at the moment, hence the need for the spaceship, um, and there's a book. And interestingly, like the book and even the videos start with Jesus. Um and they start with the idea like who is Jesus? And once we really zero down onto the Jesus of the Gospels, you you check out who this guy is and you come to the conclusion, oh, he's Lord. Well, if he's Lord, what does that mean? Because he's the Son of the Father and He's filled with the Holy Spirit, but he himself is Lord, and when you reflect on that, it gives you your doctrine of the three. Once you understand who Jesus is, he is your way into Trinitarian theol theology. So a lot of people, a lot of people say, you know, Glenn 321 begins with three, and I stop them as I stopped you, and I say, well, kind of, kind of, but it's Jesus is our way into understanding the threeness of God. Because the way the Gospels continually present Jesus is he is the Christ, the Son of God, which means he's the anointed one, anointed with the Holy Spirit, and he's the Son of the Father. And so the way to understand the threeness of God is not to come up again with a theological or philosophical idea of threeness, it's to come to Jesus and figure out, oh, instantly, he claims to be the Son of God, so there's another person involved, and he pours out his Holy Spirit on me. So there's another person, and so that's the way into that's the way into Trinity.
SPEAKER_00Hmm.
unknownHmm.
SPEAKER_02Cool, okay. Well, that's interesting. And I think even even though obviously I'm clearly wrong that uh I mean, I think the point I was gonna make before you interrupt me, Glenn, was uh, you know, it's not like the advanced level mathematics of Christianity. This is the home ground of the Christian, or it should be the home territory of uh of Christian belief, is being comfortable with the Trinity. Yeah. I think maybe people think it is the advanced mathematics level Christianity, probably because we feel we need to come up with some kind of nifty analogy to help us understand how the Trinity works. That's probably the case. People find it tricky, but uh no, you're right though, about being Trinitarian if we've ever prayed a prayer in the name of the Son, you know, and all those things.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, it comes to the Father. Yeah. So in the in the lectionary readings that um churches all around the world kind of have for Trinity Sunday, um, this year it is what is it? It's a focus on John 16. John 16 was the yeah, is the main, yeah, is the reading. Yeah. Is the main reading. Um, but yeah, all that kind of upper room discourse is what they sort of call it. The the time from, you know, I guess Jesus washes the disciples' feet in John 13, um, but and then he just does this incredibly long teaching from John 14, well, starting from 13, but then 14, all the way through to the end of chapter 17. And it's such a rich passage uh of of scripture, and again, going back to this this theme of Trinity is basic, Jesus has one night on earth left, like before his ascent, you know. Obviously, he teaches them in the resurrection, but you know, before his crucifixion, he's it he's about to like endure godforsaken execution, and there might be all sorts of other things on his mind, but what does he teach them? What do they need to know? What does the church need uh when Jesus is about to be glorified and taken out of the world? They need to know Trinity. Um, so Paul, help us in in these chapters from chapter 14 to chapter 17, this upper room discourse. Yeah, what is it that Jesus teaches us about the Trinity?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, loads of things. I mean, I had a bit of a scan through earlier on. I just noted down as many things as I could that came out of it, um, and there's lots of bits there. So, I mean, we see um that the way to reach the father is through the son. So obviously we're seeing that kind of closeness connection there. Um, Jesus says to Philip, doesn't he, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Um, we also read how the Son is in the Father and the Father is in the Son, and then in a sort of similar way, we're in Christ and Christ is in us. So we're seeing this not only have you got Trinity there, you kind of get how we relate to that uh a little bit. Uh Jesus talks about how his words are not just his own words, um, but they come from the Father, um, and actually the Father is living in the Son, doing the work. Um when the Son, Jesus talks about when the Son answers their prayers, it brings glory to the Father. Um, but then we see as well when we start talking about the Spirits, the Father will send the counsellor, will send the Spirit, but yet Jesus, you know, Jesus is talking about going away, but yet when he talks of the spirit, he says, I will come to you, which is interesting. So even though Jesus is saying, I have to go away and the counselor will come, he then says, I will come to you.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Um there.
SPEAKER_01Is that where he says, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you? Yeah, I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Which is frillient, isn't it? Like in one sentence, because I will not leave you as orphans. Ah, so you're children of the father, because of the presence of Jesus by the Spirit. Like, like in a single sentence, he gets all three persons in there. It's pretty.
SPEAKER_02He says as well that when you love those people who love Christ are loved by the Father. So that's one of the sort of uh criteria there. Um the Father and the Son come and make their home in the believer. Um, the spirits, the role of the spirit is to point people to Jesus, so he reminds them of the words of Christ. We see that. Um Jesus uses an analogy of the when he talks of the being the vine and the branches, and of course, the father is the gardener and the son is the vine. So we see getting a sense of some of the relationship there. Um Jesus then again points to how he loves us in the same way the father loves him. Wow. So John 15, 9.
SPEAKER_01Yep, around, yep, in there. As the father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. Like, whoa. Yeah. Like as the father has loved the son, so has he loved us.
SPEAKER_02Wow. And then I suppose on the flip side of that, we see that if you hate those who hate Jesus hate the Father. Um, so we're seeing that kind of connection there. But we see this where Jesus says that the spirit goes out from the Father. Yes. Um and the Spirit is to testify about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_02Uh the Father is the one who sends the Son, but the Spirit then is we have the role of the Spirit to convict people in regarding to sin and righteousness and judgment. Um there. Yes. Uh we see similar to how the son speaks what he hears from the father, the spirit speaks what he hears from Christ. Yes. Um and the father glorifies the son so that the son can glorify the father. Um there. Uh it's the father who grants the son authority over all people. Um and then it's the son who then reveals the father. Uh, what belongs to the son, you know, what is the son's is the father's, and vice versa. Yes. Um, Jesus very clearly says the father, you know, my father and I are one. Yes. Um we see Jesus as praying to the father, though.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02Um, and that we know the father, yeah, as we kind of talked about right at the beginning, you know the father through the son, and the son wants believers to come and share in his position that he has with the father. I want you to be with me where I am.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02So there's a gold mine in there, there's a treasure trove. There's probably more bits I missed as well as I, you know, as I went through, but uh, you know, it's very dense in terms of all that kind of Trinitarian language and the relationships between the persons and who's doing what and and why and how we relate to that as well.
SPEAKER_01Right, yeah. Like we are in Christ, and Christ is in us, and Christ is in the Father, and the Father is in the Son, and yeah. And then, yeah, so you get to you get to John 17. I l I love in uh in verse one, Father, the hours come, glorify your son that your son may glorify you. For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you've given him. Now, this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I brought you glory on earth by finishing 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 began. It's you know often called the high priestly prayer. So we've been thinking for the last two weeks about Christ our high priest. So at ascension, he, as our great high priest, goes to the throne room of heaven, and then at Pentecost pours out the Spirit, and here, just before he does all this, he's kind of praying, praying his high priestly prayer, and you can see the headings. He first prays for you know his disciples. Um well, first he prays for himself, is the is is the first prayer, and then he prays for his disciples, and then he prays for all believers, including us, and so you know, this this spiritual thing kind of cascades from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit, and then I just love verse 24. Father, I want those you've given me to be with me where I am and to see my glory, the glory you've given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. So it's not a maths problem, the Trinity. It's not like, how can three be one? It's it's the most glorious truth that the Son of the Father, full of the Spirit, comes to us, takes on our humanity, takes on our sin, puts to death everything that is anti-God, rises up again, and carries us back to where he began as one of us, as our brother, as our high priest. And now he brings us back into the Niagara Falls of Love that He has shared with His Father from before the world began. John 15, 9, as the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. That's like he kind of grabs humanity and brings them, you know, into the triune love to share in the glory that Christ has been given because he was loved before the creation of the world.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you I mean you get that kind of idea in sort of Ephesians as well, don't you? Um I'm just scanning now to see where where it is, but it talks about being sort of seated in the heavenly realms, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_02God raised us up with Christ, seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus. Um yeah, so that's in chapter two, but in chapter one, when Paul's talking about Christ himself and what God has done. Uh here, God raised him from the dead, seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, and we see that what God, what the Father does for the Son, he does for us. Yes. Because, you know, we're we're we're children of God, you know, we're wow. We're in that to share that position, aren't we? And you get it at the end of the Bible, don't you, in Revelation, you know, to the one who is victorious, you know, I'll give the uh right to come sit on my throne, you know, um just as I was victorious, and share in that rule, which is again this idea of being with Christ where he is. Um which I'm not sure, yeah. I don't know if it's a huge um I don't know. I think it always catches people by surprise the being with Christ where he is, kind of God sees you as you know, the Father sees you as the Son in the Son. Um the idea of sharing in his rule, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Being sharing in his anointing, as uh as Jonathan told us last week. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I think it's just a theme I don't know, I don't as much uh maybe in different circles it's majored on more, but I don't know if it is so much in in our circles. Um we tend to think of much more Jesus is there to just move us out of the way of Roth. Um and that and that's kind of his function.
SPEAKER_01And our gospel presentations end with get off the throne.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And the Bible ends with get on the throne. Just saying. Just saying, you know. And our gospel presentations begin with, you know, God is king. Interestingly, you know, I think Genesis begins with man is king. Which, you know, have dominion. What kind of language is that? Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Because if if Adam if Christ is like the second Adam, then there will be parallels between what Adam was before he fell and the role of Christ, I guess. Um but it's interesting is that we start, like you say, we start with we st we finish with get off the throne, but there's an assumption at the beginning that people are on their own thrones. Um, which I think is whilst I understand that, I think the Bible doesn't really talk in that language that much. You know, tend to be kind of captives in the strongman's house and you know, thirsty people who need water and lost people, lost, you know, whores besotted by terrible lovers and all those kind of things. Yeah. So, you know, it's not um yes, it's funny that we've gone down that road. Probably because our circles are so influenced by um slightly academic culture of kind of where people think they're quite intelligent and in charge of their own lives, and so we've jumped on that. But um I wonder if the way to do that is not to say not to say, you know, you you are in charge of your own life, but stop it. But as you go, you're deluded, you're not in charge of your own life. Yeah. Was it Luther? So we're beasts either ridden by the devil or by Christ.
SPEAKER_01So Right. Um Right. Right. Yeah, exactly. And and I think the So much of our gospel preaching has been practiced on um privileged young boys who go to Eton and Winchester and Harrow. And you know, the the camps system in the UK cannot be underestimated for its effect on um the way we preach the gospel nowadays. Um I I think it both spawned the Alpha course and and the sort of the the Alpha talks were basically a condensation of of um of the UN talk scheme, which was um a privileged um kind of uh camp camps for the the 30 top public schools in the UK. And it was very, very much very well contextualized to um a young teenager who probably thinks they do rule the world and might end up being in many positions of power, and and such young boys were told to get off the throne of their lives. And that's well contextualized, that kind of makes sense. Um but yeah, get off the throne of your life and be a soldier for Jesus. And what does Trinity Sunday remind us is that we have orphaned ourselves and gotten lost far from the father's house and given ourselves to unworthy lovers and are ruled by all sorts of passions and by Satan himself. And Christ the Son has come to adopt us into the family to fill us with his same spirit and to present us back to that father who just wants his kids back. And the punchline of that isn't get off the throne and be a soldier, it's get on the throne, you're a child, you're a you're a you're a son or a daughter. Um and I I don't think it can be underestimated what cultural impact it has to preach the the soldierly gospel. The soldierly gospel is is is rife and it has consequences, it has culture-making consequences in our churches, where it is about there's a there's a great distance between me and God, and God is not generally defined in any kind of Trinitarian terms. It's not we're not talking about the father, um, we're not talking about getting adopted into the family, that those aren't the terms, we're talking about the king who you've rebelled against. And so there's a distance. And what does Jesus do? Jesus, if you've defined God um without Jesus, it becomes impossible to work Jesus into your definition of God later. So you define who God is, and then three steps on in the gospel presentation, along comes this guy called Jesus. Oh, who's he? Hadn't heard about him. Um and if you begin without Jesus, you can't crowbar him in later. He's got to be less than God, he's got to be other than God if he gets crowbarred in later. And so along Jesus comes, and he is apart from God, and he's apart from me, and he goes over to the cross to get zapped by God while I'm kept safe over here. And then what's the next step in such a gospel presentation? Is it's well, you know, get off the throne of your life and and serve. Be a soldier, not long till glory, just be godly, trudge along towards heaven. And you know, these gospel presentations they have consequences, they have culture-building consequences for our churches. And it begins with a with a non-Trinitarian view of God. You know, it begins with just the king against whom you've rebelled. And and one of the one of the ways it goes wrong is that the cross, therefore, if you're non-Trinitarian or sub-Trinitarian, then the cross is Jesus over there getting zapped for my sin over here. So that God zaps punishment to Jesus and he zaps blessing to me. Um and it's all very distinct. And and no wonder people come along and say, gosh, that looks like cosmic child abuse. You know, because Jesus is apart from God and he's apart from me. And you know, I've heard all sorts of, you know, we talked about bad Trinitarian illustrations, but there are really bad, you know, cross illustrations that are similarly sub-Trinitarian, in which I I I listened to one sermon where the preacher said, Um, I um I often get anxious and stressed, so I go down into the basement and I I work out on the punching bag. And I punch the bag for half an hour, and I feel much better at the end of it. And in the same way, God descended to the cross to punch Jesus, to punish Jesus. Uh-oh. And after three hours of that, he felt a heck of a lot better. And and then, like, what could possibly be be the punchline of that preaching? So come to God. Don't you trust God now? Wow. That's pretty special. It's quite something. And John John Stott in The Cross of Christ said, like, all these horrible models of the cross that that do that that are preached. I mean, that that was preached in our kind of church. It really, you know. And there are lots of things like that, aren't there? You know, like the bus driver, and you know, he's got he'll drive over the cliff, but the only way he could not drive over the cliff and kill everybody on board was to swerve left. But if he swerves left, he's gonna run over his son. So what's he going to do? And God the Father loves you so much that he ran over his son. Don't you want to trust this God? Oh man. And John Stutt said it all comes from being sub-Trinitarian. If we're properly Trinitarian, then we know that the will of the Father is identical to the will of the Son. The being of the Father is identical to the being of the Son. So that you go to 2 Corinthians 5.21. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. You know, it's God in Christ taking to himself all the nonsense, all the sin, all the hell, and absorbing in himself all of that in self-substitution. And it's because Christ is not this third party off to one side. He's not getting zapped over there so you get blessed over here. It all it all begins because you're properly Trinitarian. If you're properly Trinitarian, you can have a proper doctrine of the cross, and then you can have a proper doctrine of the of the Christian life. Because now the Christian life is not, you know, there are good things about the bridge diagram, but here's something that's not good about the bridge diagram. Once you've trusted in Jesus, it's like walking over the cross. Thanks, Jesus. See you later. I'm off to this other thing called God. You know? But it's not that. It's not. It's Christ. God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. I was crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. It's it's all about it's all about union. It's, you know. And therefore, the the Christian life is now not simply to soldier on in obedience to God. Um it is it is to be adopted by the Father, filled by the Spirit, and given the very presence of Jesus, that I that I might have him. And and therefore I have God. You know, to the purpose of the gospel is God. The punchline is God gives himself to me, and I now belong to him. Wonderful. But when you begin in sub-trinitarian ways, it's just like, well, you well, you could never, if God is simply the ruler above you, there's no room for you in that God. There's no there's no place for you. So Trinity is Trinity is just brilliant. I think let me I'll I'll I'll say three more things and then I'll stop ranting. But I think I think the Trinity means um God truly is love and he's truly father. So let's let's go through Father, Son, and Spirit. These are the three things. God is truly Father. There is no other way for God to be Father, right down to his bootstraps than the doctrine of the Trinity. It's this idea that before there was a universe, as Jesus says in John 17, verse 24, he says, You loved me before the foundation of the world, Jesus says, because the Father has always been loving the Son, and you can never hit rewind and get to a point where there is no Jesus, and therefore you can never hit rewind and get to the point where there is just God on his tod. It is always a father loving his son, father loving his son, father loving his son. So Trinity means we have a Father, an eternal father, everlasting arms of love, and you don't get that without Trinity. Secondly, about the Son, the Son is fully God, and it means that everything I see Jesus doing, that is God saving me. What you see with Jesus is what you get with God, and that's just brilliant. It means that I could I could literally open up any passage in the Gospels and I could swap out the word Jesus and I could swap in the word God. So in John 11, God shows up to Lazarus's funeral, and God starts crying, and God comforts Mary, and God comforts Martha, and then God raises Lazarus, and then God gets put on the cross, and then God says this to Mary, and then say God, and then God says this to Thomas. It's what we are reading when we are reading about the Christ, the Son of the Father, this is this is God, this is God given to us, which that's pretty cool. And then like with the Spirit, the Spirit is God Himself. I haven't been just given a power or a force, I haven't just been given electricity, I haven't just been given gifts, I have been given the very presence of God. And when you think about Pentecost, which we've just had, it's the pouring out of the Spirit, and that is a beautiful vision for who God is: God, a fountain of life. And what has he done? He has poured out his son with every drop of his blood on the cross. So at Easter, the Son is poured out for us, and at Pentecost, the Spirit is poured out into us. And what is there left for God to give us? He's given us his son, he's given us his spirit. Romans 8 tells us he'll give us heaven and earth as well. Just throw that in as well. He is the outpoured God. He is the He is the fountain. He is the Niagara Falls of Blessing. And therefore, I I don't just have I don't just have a get out of hell free card. And I don't just have the forgiveness of sins, and I don't just have purpose in my life, and I don't just have feelings of of groovy vibes. I've I've got God. He has poured himself out to me and for me. And that's that's the blessing of the doctrine of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_02Well, pretty good stuff then.
SPEAKER_01It's good stuff, don't you think?
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So why do we default to this anemic thing of, you know, God is king, get off the throne.
SPEAKER_02It's like we've got such better news. It's like you say, it's that tri it's that trickle-down, trickle-down effect, isn't it? That it's obviously something that has worked in a contextual setting, and then so many people have been influenced by that that becomes that that is the gospel. That's how it works. Um it's not really how it works.
SPEAKER_01And have we have we told ourselves that um Trinity is too difficult? I think I think we probably have. We've probably told ourselves that Trinity is too difficult, so we better just stick to God is King, get off the throne. But it's just like, well, God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. That's God. God is what you see when you see the Son of the Father, full of the Spirit, giving himself for you. God is the God of the gospel.
SPEAKER_02God the the word God is just a packed word anyway, isn't it? Like it comes with a lot of connotations, but everyone will have a different connotation as to what that means. So when you start saying, you know, God is on the throne, you need to get off the throne, we may well be thinking in our heads, God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but we might not, and the chances that someone outside the church is going to be thinking that are completely off, you know. So, you know, everyone's bringing their own picture of what God is like. Um, you know, everyone because effectively everyone else is operating the other way around from us. Everyone else is doing, hey, here I am in ordinary time thinking what God is like, and I've come up with some ideas, and uh I'll have you! 20 minutes and let's assemble philosophy. You've thought about it for 25 minutes. Um you know, that's effectively what people are doing, aren't they? Uh when we talk to people who aren't kind of within the church, or even within the church, that's the danger that people are in ordinary time and just thinking, hey, what's God like? Here's my idea of what God's like, here's what I thought here's what God was like on that TV programme I watched. Um you know uh and and then you know, people were saying, Oh, God can't do this or do that when you start looking at, you know, what you know, we see it, I suppose, in a conversation with um a Muslim, you know, God cannot, you know, Allah cannot be amongst the people. Right, you know, he cannot dwell with people, and you're like, Well, God can, because look, here he is doing it. Like, right, you know, you can't bring your own preconception, and then when when God does something else, go, no, God, you're not allowed to do that. That's not what God does. Right. So we have to work the other way around, don't we? Uh you know, to everyone else. We have to say, well, this is what God is like, because we can see what God is like through the person of Jesus and the activity of God in the world. Therefore, now we can we can think about um well when we talk about God, we've got a bit of a better idea of what we mean rather than just pulling it out of the ether.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, we're we're looking at Exodus 3 in our church at the moment, and it's just really interesting, you know, the the sent one of the Lord, who also is the Lord, he's the one in the burning bush. So you've got this pre-incarnate Christ in the burning bush, and Moses says, Well, who shall I say, who shall I say is sending me when I go to Pharaoh? And he says, Oh, I am who I am, which could be translated, I will be who I will be. And and uh just before that, he says, Um, I will be with you, and this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you. Um, when I brought you to the mountain, you will worship God. And it's like, I will be with you, I will save you, I will bring you into true worship. And that's the context for him then saying, I will be who I will be. And I I think lots of ink has been spilt on what it means for the Lord to say, I am who I am. But I think one of the things that it is is I will define who I am, not you. I will be who I will be, not who you say I am, and I will do it by saving you and bringing you to myself. And so no wonder Jesus in the Gospels is just using the I am name again and again. And how does he use it? You know, I am the bread of life, I am the gate, I am the good shepherd, I am the resurrection and the life, I am the true vine. And yeah, he let's let him define himself, and the way he defines himself is in saving activity, which means like he's not defining himself sort of in abstraction from us, and he's not defining he's not defining us out of fellowship with him. He's defining himself as the kind of God who will be with us and will bring us into his own life. So again, again, that's why I love that Trinity Sunday is is at the end of the at the end of the that that time. It's a reflection back on who the God of the gospel is. You know, he's the God who pours himself out at Eastern at Pentecost.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Great. Well, I mean, we've covered quite a lot there. And hopefully, uh as we approach kind of Trinity, uh people will be feeling excited about that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I I loved having a look at John 14 to 17 today, just in preparation for this. Yeah, that would be a great thing for people to do, I think. Just figure out what's going on. How does Jesus relate to the Father? How does Jesus relate to the Spirit? And how does Jesus relate to you? Therefore, how do you relate now to the Father, the Son, and the Spirit? It's like, yeah, it's a beautiful tapestry.
SPEAKER_02Well, there you have it, that was our podcast for this week. We hope that you found that useful and enjoyable. Um, do feel free to write in and let us know how you're finding the podcast. We'd love to get your feedback on things and know where we can do better or any particular topics you might like to hear covered. Um, you can contact us on the email address info at speakinglife.org.uk. And uh we'd love to hear those comments and engage with you a little bit more on the podcast. If you'd like to support the work of Speak Life, you can head over to speaklife.org.uk or give, where there are a number of different ways that you can support our work. And if you become a regular giver, there is actually the opportunity to get a few extra little bonuses and goodies, um, which is quite fun. So uh yes, do do that if you feel you might be able to, or even if just a one-off donation, every little bit counts and helps us continue this work here. I'll be back next week, hopefully, with Thomas, and uh where we'll be able to have a little bit of a discussion together, a bit of a roundup, hopefully. Um, but until then, take care and keep speaking live.