WEBVTT 00:00:01.362 --> 00:00:11.194 Let me ask you this morning to open your Bibles to the book of 2 Corinthians, chapter 13,. 00:00:11.194 --> 00:00:17.809 And then we're going to read a verse from 1 John, 2 Corinthians 13. 00:00:17.809 --> 00:00:27.265 Before I read the Scripture, we are engaged for a few weeks in a glorious study of the person of our God. 00:00:27.265 --> 00:00:31.870 We're asking a simple question in this series Who is our God? 00:00:31.870 --> 00:00:39.253 By the way, i know by now I've now been here for about three months and I know there's two groups of people right now. 00:00:39.253 --> 00:00:48.665 There's people that probably are enjoying the teaching and there's some that have a headache, and I understand that, and I'll say two things. 00:00:48.665 --> 00:01:05.662 I'll try to be more sensitive to those with a headache, but I want to challenge you to expand your mind, and I hope that you will, because how many discovered when you use your brain really to think, it hurts, and so I am aware of that. 00:01:05.662 --> 00:01:10.754 But I'm also aware that I need to be sensitive to our hearers. 00:01:10.754 --> 00:01:15.043 So, having said that, theology is for everyone, people say to me I can't understand. 00:01:15.043 --> 00:01:22.953 The book of Ephesians or Romans is too deep, and I tell them the people it was read to were illiterate pagans with no college degree. 00:01:22.953 --> 00:01:30.606 It was written for Christians, so keep that in mind as you read the Bible when you get overwhelmed And there are things in the Bible not easy to understand. 00:01:30.606 --> 00:01:32.364 Don't mistake what I'm saying. 00:01:32.364 --> 00:01:47.668 But if you exercise your mind and pray in the Holy Ghost and ask the Lord to open your eyes to the meaning of Scripture and study, which is part of our responsibility, new worlds open up new vistas of understanding. 00:01:47.668 --> 00:01:57.629 I like to just get things from God and God gives it, but he also requires us to stretch and grow and study and apply ourselves. 00:01:57.629 --> 00:02:06.703 So I know that you can get a headache listening to me, but I would like to challenge you to be expansive. 00:02:06.879 --> 00:02:11.110 Right before Shelley and I left Florida, a man came to pick up something from our house. 00:02:11.110 --> 00:02:17.670 He was the maintenance guy in our church And he said the first six months I came to the church and sat in your Bible study. 00:02:17.670 --> 00:02:20.688 I couldn't understand a word you were saying and you gave me a headache. 00:02:20.688 --> 00:02:26.545 I said, oh boy, thank you Jesus, and I know there's people here saying that. 00:02:26.545 --> 00:02:35.306 But then he said but I started listening and applying myself and felt by the Spirit I needed this and I needed to be there. 00:02:35.306 --> 00:02:39.227 And he said it's changed my life And I don't think that has anything to do with me. 00:02:39.227 --> 00:02:44.109 I think it has to do with the decision he made to grow. 00:02:46.300 --> 00:03:00.532 Now we are studying the person of our God in Scripture And I am not interested in giving you theology so you can become an academic and you can have a fat head and tell people that you know God and others don't. 00:03:00.532 --> 00:03:06.872 I am interested in growing in the knowledge of God so we can have a God encounter. 00:03:06.872 --> 00:03:15.070 And, by the way, just you need to know that every morning this staff, tuesday through Friday, meets at 9 am and prays for Trinity. 00:03:15.070 --> 00:03:21.425 We've instituted that over the last two months And we are praying that Trinity chapel. 00:03:21.425 --> 00:03:28.485 Every person has a God encounter And that may be a different experience for different people. 00:03:28.485 --> 00:03:29.748 That's fine. 00:03:29.748 --> 00:03:37.444 God has a lot of experience, but more than that, it has to do with growing in our understanding, through the Scriptures, of who our God is. 00:03:37.599 --> 00:03:43.543 And this morning, what I will say will be short and sweet, but it is vital to the knowledge of God. 00:03:43.543 --> 00:03:49.532 We were so impressed with this attribute of God that we named our church after it. 00:03:49.532 --> 00:03:51.490 What do you think I'm going to talk about? 00:03:51.490 --> 00:04:00.211 I want to talk about chapels Hey, that's our name. 00:04:00.211 --> 00:04:09.405 I want to talk about the blessed Trinity, the fact that our God is the triune God And there is none like Him. 00:04:09.405 --> 00:04:16.749 I love the songs that Aaron led us in this morning about the uniqueness of God, and there's a mystery here that I will not solve. 00:04:16.749 --> 00:04:19.668 The church for two millennium has not solved it. 00:04:19.668 --> 00:04:21.427 It is unlikely that I will. 00:04:21.721 --> 00:04:40.454 But I have one aim this morning to expand your understanding to the Trinity so you fall on your face and worship each blessed person of the triune God, the fact that our God is one divine essence subsisting in three blessed persons. 00:04:40.454 --> 00:04:44.249 Let's read 2 Corinthians 13, verse 14. 00:04:44.249 --> 00:05:01.869 The grace this is Paul's closing benediction to the letter of 2 Corinthians The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. 00:05:01.869 --> 00:05:08.689 And one other verse quickly, one verse in 1 John, chapter 4, verse 16. 00:05:08.689 --> 00:05:16.430 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. 00:05:16.430 --> 00:05:29.733 God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God and God abides in Him. 00:05:29.733 --> 00:05:46.173 Father, breathe on my meager words this morning and direct your people, by an operation of the power of the Spirit, into the very essence of your triuneness. 00:05:46.173 --> 00:06:01.747 God, help us to understand this morning that this is not a mere concept for academics, but it is essential for us to know, if we're to worship and serve you properly, that you exist as three blessed persons. 00:06:01.747 --> 00:06:09.434 Open our eyes to see you as you are, as the triune God. 00:06:09.434 --> 00:06:15.146 We ask it in Jesus' mighty name and everyone said Amen. 00:06:16.576 --> 00:06:23.108 In the year 325, the absolute unthinkable occurred in the Christian church. 00:06:23.108 --> 00:06:30.185 There was never a Christian that could have anticipated or fathomed what happened. 00:06:30.185 --> 00:06:52.024 In 325 AD, a Roman emperor, after confessing allegiance to the Christian faith, convened a council of Christian church bishops in order to settle theological matters and controversies that were raging among the churches in his day. 00:06:52.024 --> 00:07:06.178 That Constantine, this Roman emperor, did that and is amazing, especially when you consider that the emperor prior to him persecuted the Christian church bitterly. 00:07:06.178 --> 00:07:07.783 His name was Diocletian. 00:07:07.783 --> 00:07:10.048 Now, how did this come about? 00:07:10.048 --> 00:07:22.723 We have to go back about 13 years before this council, when Constantine was facing his dreaded enemy, maxentius, for supremacy in the West. 00:07:22.723 --> 00:07:33.740 I don't want to bore you with all the history, but it's true And as the story goes, while Constantine was marching towards Rome, he either saw or had a dream. 00:07:33.800 --> 00:07:51.949 There's differing counts of the story and some actually say he had a vision And in that vision or dream, whatever it was, he saw the symbol of Christ shining in the sky, above the sun, and he heard the words in this sign conquer. 00:07:51.949 --> 00:07:54.915 And he said. 00:07:54.915 --> 00:08:05.276 He was immediately instructed to paint the symbol that he had seen in the heavens on the shields of his soldiers. 00:08:05.276 --> 00:08:30.709 Well, he did and went out into battle against this enemy, maxentius, and following painting the vision on the symbol on the shields of his soldiers, constantine who, by the way, was outnumbered four to one when he faced Maxentius conquered and defeated his enemy at the Battle of Milvian Bridge. 00:08:30.709 --> 00:08:46.183 And you can imagine how Constantine responded to his victory He concluded completely that his victory was related to the vision he had previously seen the night before. 00:08:46.183 --> 00:09:09.927 So, upon returning to Rome, constantine issued what was called the Edict of Milan, which had removed all penalties from professing Christians, who were under severe penalties prior, and he returned church property to Christians and he ushered in a new period of tolerance for the Christian church. 00:09:10.047 --> 00:09:14.941 Now, we will never know if the vision that Constantine saw was real. 00:09:14.941 --> 00:09:23.445 In fact, we don't really know if he ever was an authentic believer And in fact he wasn't baptized till he was on his deathbed. 00:09:23.445 --> 00:09:36.434 But what we do know is the same Roman emperor convened a Christian Council or conference 13 years later, in the year 325. 00:09:36.434 --> 00:09:38.621 And here's why he convened the conference. 00:09:38.621 --> 00:09:42.917 There was a man in the Christian church who was a bishop in the east. 00:09:42.917 --> 00:09:51.836 His name was Arius, and Arius, his teaching, was spreading like wildfire throughout the Christian church. 00:09:51.836 --> 00:10:09.966 And that was a problem, because here's what Arius was teaching in the churches in the east He was teaching that there was a time before the Son of God appeared on earth, when the Son of God, when only the Father, existed. 00:10:09.966 --> 00:10:24.259 In other words, what Arius was teaching is that the Son of God had a definitive beginning and therefore was not the eternal Son of God, one with the Father from eternity past. 00:10:24.259 --> 00:10:48.009 So Constantine, guided more by motivated more by political ambition than theological purity, convened the conference of Nicene, the Nicene Council, in what is today modern Turkey, and bishops came from all over the Roman world. 00:10:48.215 --> 00:10:51.725 I want you to reflect in this scene on your mind. 00:10:51.725 --> 00:10:52.889 It is fascinating. 00:10:52.889 --> 00:10:54.995 I wish I had a Polaroid to show you. 00:10:54.995 --> 00:11:17.498 Imagine a Roman bishop excuse me, a Roman emperor receiving Christian bishops sitting in his presence, some of whom, some of these bishops, had the wounds in their bodies from previous persecutions And they are now sitting before a Roman emperor who has convened them to discuss Christian theology. 00:11:20.423 --> 00:11:31.328 Now, there were several things in Nicaea that were discussed, but the central controversy remained around the teachings of this man named Arius. 00:11:31.328 --> 00:11:39.238 It all centered around one issue, and I want you to understand that it will segue into our teaching this morning. 00:11:39.238 --> 00:11:53.729 The question that the church came together by Constantine to discuss was simply this What was the exact nature of the relationship of the Son to the Father? 00:11:53.729 --> 00:12:07.884 And this council met for a good period of time and analyzed that question in the light of the Bible, in the light of apostolic teaching, and the council came to this conclusion. 00:12:07.884 --> 00:12:27.654 They affirmed and declared what it believed to be the teaching of the apostles regarding who Jesus Christ, and they came down, thankfully, on the side that Jesus Christ is the one true God in deity with the Father. 00:12:29.658 --> 00:12:43.630 And what emerged from Nicaea in the year 325 AD is what could only be called the earliest Trinitarian Creed, a statement from the church that began. 00:12:43.630 --> 00:12:46.379 Now, this wasn't the first time the subject had been discussed. 00:12:46.379 --> 00:13:08.836 There were theologians in the second, third century discussing the Trinity, but Nicaea gave us the first creed, the first attempt at the church to formulate this blessed doctrine that there is one God, but that one God eternally exists as three blessed persons. 00:13:08.836 --> 00:13:10.679 And I love the Nicene Creed. 00:13:10.679 --> 00:13:12.142 This is the creed. 00:13:12.142 --> 00:13:15.649 That summarized the teaching It said. 00:13:16.014 --> 00:13:24.316 We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty Maker of heaven and earth, of all that is seen and unseen. 00:13:24.316 --> 00:13:33.355 We believe in one Lord, jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father. 00:13:33.355 --> 00:13:45.100 I love this God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made of one being with the Father. 00:13:45.100 --> 00:13:50.695 Through him, all things were made for us and for our salvation. 00:13:50.695 --> 00:13:56.796 He came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human. 00:13:56.796 --> 00:14:00.243 For our sake He was crucified under Pontius Pilate. 00:14:00.243 --> 00:14:02.467 He suffered death and was buried. 00:14:02.467 --> 00:14:05.585 On the third day He rose again in accordance with the scriptures. 00:14:05.585 --> 00:14:09.418 He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. 00:14:09.418 --> 00:14:15.999 He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. 00:14:15.999 --> 00:14:31.280 We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who, with the Father and Son, is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. 00:14:31.280 --> 00:14:35.354 We believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. 00:14:35.354 --> 00:14:36.980 Catholic there just means universal. 00:14:36.980 --> 00:14:40.692 We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. 00:14:40.692 --> 00:14:46.294 We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come Amen. 00:14:51.340 --> 00:15:08.393 Now, really to summarize it, Nicene simply said in this creed And in other documents they issued, that God eternally exists as three persons Father, son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God. 00:15:08.393 --> 00:15:12.985 Yet there is one God And there is no doctrine. 00:15:12.985 --> 00:15:30.067 I have to tell you that is more difficult for Jews than the doctrine of the Trinity, because as Jews we grew up knowing that one thing about our religion that we are fiercely monotheistic. 00:15:30.067 --> 00:15:40.595 Monotheistic means we believe there is only one God, and I have talked to my Jewish brethren till I'm blue in the face and they can't get past the Trinity. 00:15:40.595 --> 00:15:55.601 But what is interesting that I tell Jews that really blows their minds is the greatest statement in the Bible about the oneness of God is Trinitarian, like the holiest verse in Judaism. 00:15:55.642 --> 00:16:00.260 If you're a Jew I don't know if you ever go to a Jewish home there's a little thing on the door called the mezuzah. 00:16:00.260 --> 00:16:03.090 You ever seen it? 00:16:03.090 --> 00:16:20.035 It's literally a little container that has Scripture in it and you put it on the doorpost of your house obeying Deuteronomy 6, where God said you shall write these laws on the doorpost of your house And inside the mezuzah is the holiest verse in the Bible for Jews. 00:16:20.035 --> 00:16:23.106 You know what it is Deuteronomy 6,4. 00:16:23.106 --> 00:16:30.119 Shema Yisrael, adonai Eloheinu, adonai Echad, here, oh, israel, the Lord, our God. 00:16:30.119 --> 00:16:34.975 The Lord is one, and Jews say He's one. 00:16:34.975 --> 00:16:37.441 Your Trinity is bankrupt. 00:16:37.441 --> 00:16:38.682 Get it out of my face. 00:16:38.682 --> 00:16:47.600 God is one, but here's the question I want to bring to you this morning What kind of one is God? 00:16:47.600 --> 00:16:50.866 Because the word one. 00:16:51.327 --> 00:16:52.990 It is interesting in Hebrew. 00:16:52.990 --> 00:16:59.990 There's a word in Hebrew for one, that is the word for absolute numerical oneness. 00:16:59.990 --> 00:17:19.457 You're talking about one thing and it's the Hebrew word yachid And it means one, but it really is one, not many becoming one, but just one, like it's used when God said to Abraham take now your son Isaac, your only son, and the word there is yachid. 00:17:19.457 --> 00:17:21.460 There's one, you have no other. 00:17:21.460 --> 00:17:34.310 But in the verse that Judaism is based on Deuteronomy 6,4, the word for one is not yachid, meaning one thing only, it's echad. 00:17:34.310 --> 00:17:37.117 I know I'm really assaulting you with these Hebrew words. 00:17:37.117 --> 00:17:43.733 You don't have to write them down, but what I do want you to know is echad. 00:17:43.753 --> 00:17:48.445 Echad is a composite one. 00:17:48.445 --> 00:17:52.375 It's the word Moses used about marriage. 00:17:52.375 --> 00:18:06.626 You remember how marriage is defined A man shall leave father and mother and cleave to his wife, and the two shall be one echad, bosar, echad, one flesh. 00:18:06.626 --> 00:18:16.134 Here one is echad because God is describing two things that are separate, yet they are one Man and woman come together. 00:18:16.134 --> 00:18:20.788 We learned a little about that in our tech class this morning as Tom was teaching it. 00:18:20.788 --> 00:18:28.539 This word echad is always used for compound unity. 00:18:28.539 --> 00:18:40.957 Moses sent spies to go bring back some fruit from the land, and the Bible says they cut down one cluster of grapes in Hebrew, eskel, echad. 00:18:40.957 --> 00:18:44.585 One cluster, yes, one cluster, but many grapes. 00:18:44.585 --> 00:18:49.532 Two people, man and woman, one marriage. 00:18:50.453 --> 00:18:58.407 I'm looking at one church this morning, but there are many compounded into this oneness. 00:18:58.407 --> 00:19:17.897 So even back in Moses day, the very verse that Jews are fiercely, or they use fiercely to protect their doctrine of monotheism, the truth is, that very verse indicates that God is not a yahid, he's an echad. 00:19:17.897 --> 00:19:30.928 I'm trying to figure out why. 00:19:30.928 --> 00:19:31.770 You thought that was funny. 00:19:31.770 --> 00:19:33.115 I thought it was profound. 00:19:34.404 --> 00:19:37.330 Okay, now when we come to the New Testament. 00:19:37.330 --> 00:19:43.990 The New Testament makes it clear let me go on record you will not find the word trinity in the Bible. 00:19:43.990 --> 00:19:55.227 It is not a biblical word, but the concept is biblical and true And you will find it throughout the Scriptures, especially in the New Testament. 00:19:55.227 --> 00:20:01.439 But the New Testament goes beyond just simply declaring God is triune. 00:20:01.439 --> 00:20:10.200 It actually gives us a philosophical reason why God must be trinity. 00:20:10.200 --> 00:20:16.772 It's one thing to say God is a trinity, but I'm asking you this question this morning why is he triune? 00:20:16.772 --> 00:20:20.729 Why must God be more than one person? 00:20:20.729 --> 00:20:25.984 The Bible actually answers that in the text we looked at this morning. 00:20:26.965 --> 00:20:33.236 John 1, john 4, 16 told us God is love. 00:20:33.236 --> 00:20:40.626 Now it doesn't say God has love, which is true, but it didn't say that. 00:20:40.626 --> 00:20:45.017 It didn't say God has love for people or God is loving to people. 00:20:45.017 --> 00:20:46.928 It said God is love. 00:20:46.928 --> 00:20:49.973 Now I want to blow your mind and ask you a question. 00:20:50.394 --> 00:21:02.590 Before God created you and I, before man lived on this earth, in Genesis 1, before there was human beings, how could God be love if there were no human beings to love? 00:21:02.590 --> 00:21:09.846 Because love, by its very definition, demands an object. 00:21:09.846 --> 00:21:11.008 How many know what love is? 00:21:11.008 --> 00:21:13.512 Love is the ability or love is. 00:21:13.512 --> 00:21:25.928 When I place someone above myself, when I say I love my wife, i'm placing her above myself, i am saying she is worthy of affection beyond me. 00:21:25.928 --> 00:21:32.147 So when you say God is love, you are not merely saying that started when he created. 00:21:32.147 --> 00:21:38.067 You are saying that even an eternity passed before there were human beings to be the object of his love. 00:21:38.067 --> 00:21:41.037 God is love even then. 00:21:41.037 --> 00:21:43.001 But the question is, who did he love? 00:21:43.001 --> 00:21:47.854 Because you can't have love unless you have an object to place your love on. 00:21:47.854 --> 00:21:49.397 Have I lost you completely? 00:21:49.397 --> 00:22:07.785 So the question I want to ask you and maybe CS Lewis stated it best in one of his books when he said quote the words God is love have no real meaning unless God contains at least two persons. 00:22:08.467 --> 00:22:12.538 Love is something that one person has for another person. 00:22:12.538 --> 00:22:17.730 If God was a single person before the world was, then he was not love. 00:22:17.730 --> 00:22:37.109 That is why, if you know nothing else about the Godhead, you know from the Old Testament that the object of Father's love, affection, intimacy, before before he created, was the Son. 00:22:37.109 --> 00:22:42.798 The Son is not just the one who redeems men. 00:22:42.798 --> 00:22:52.159 He existed before creation and God was head over heels in love with his Son before human beings were on the planet. 00:22:52.159 --> 00:22:55.749 We can see this all through the Scriptures. 00:22:55.749 --> 00:22:57.972 Read sometime Proverbs 8. 00:22:57.972 --> 00:23:00.519 It's amazing how God is. 00:23:00.519 --> 00:23:03.151 The Father is there and delighting in the Son. 00:23:03.151 --> 00:23:09.068 Now how does the Holy Spirit come on this, this kind of where's he fit in? 00:23:09.068 --> 00:23:25.396 Because God is not only Father loving Son and Son loving Father, but there's someone else called the Holy Spirit, and the New Testament says the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. 00:23:25.396 --> 00:23:30.769 Now if you want to understand who the Spirit is everybody watch with me. 00:23:30.769 --> 00:23:31.672 This is amazing. 00:23:31.672 --> 00:23:36.990 You have to understand the love that Father and Son have for each other. 00:23:37.460 --> 00:23:49.247 One of the greatest theologians ever to live in America perhaps the best the English world has ever produced was a man named Jonathan Edwards, who was at the height or the center of the first great awakening in the 1700s. 00:23:49.247 --> 00:24:00.006 He made the statement that the Father and Son loving and delighting each other creates a society. 00:24:00.006 --> 00:24:07.074 He said wherever you have individuals loving each other, a society exists. 00:24:07.074 --> 00:24:10.869 In other words, love produces a society. 00:24:10.869 --> 00:24:20.065 And then he said in all societies there's an atmosphere, a spirit that exists, a pulsality that vibrates. 00:24:20.065 --> 00:24:25.922 How many of you guys felt it yesterday as you were with your fellow men rooting on the voles. 00:24:25.922 --> 00:24:35.270 There was a spirit in that room And I was sick in bed, but I was with you in spirit, saying crash Florida. 00:24:35.270 --> 00:24:36.642 Believe me, that was my prayer. 00:24:36.642 --> 00:24:52.707 I am very depressed, but you know, when men or women get together and they have, they have, you know, they're bound together in affection, for some pause or reason, there's a spirit, there's an atmosphere. 00:24:53.099 --> 00:25:03.587 A society produces a spirit and the stronger the ties that bind that society, the stronger is the spirit characterizing that society. 00:25:03.587 --> 00:25:34.353 Now, when we realize listen to this statement when we realize the relationship between the ultimate society, father and son, and that each has an unlimited ability to appreciate fully the perfection of the other and the other's glory and render adoration to the other, we can see why the scriptures speak of that society having a spirit. 00:25:34.353 --> 00:25:52.654 But the spirit of that society is so strong that it produces a third person, the blessed Holy Spirit, which, by the way, is why, in Christian theology, the spirit is not an impersonal energy force. 00:25:52.654 --> 00:25:56.390 I still get that feeling when I hear people talk about the Holy Spirit. 00:25:56.390 --> 00:26:06.692 He's sort of like the force in Star Wars Woo, you know, and he's admitted from your hand, you know, put your hand. 00:26:06.692 --> 00:26:11.411 But the reality is he, like the father and son, is a person. 00:26:11.411 --> 00:26:16.645 Here's my favorite quote in all the world about the Godhead Best thing ever written about the Godhead. 00:26:16.645 --> 00:26:19.320 If you can figure this out, you've got it Again. 00:26:19.320 --> 00:26:21.568 It's CS Lewis and he said this quote. 00:26:21.849 --> 00:26:42.969 The most, perhaps the most important difference between Christianity and all other religions is that in Christianity, god is not a static thing, or even a person, but a dynamic, pulsating activity, a life, almost a kind of drama If you won't think me a reverent a kind of dance. 00:26:42.969 --> 00:26:52.863 The union between the father and son is such a living, concrete thing that this union itself is a person. 00:26:52.863 --> 00:26:56.489 I know that's inconceivable, but look at it this way. 00:26:56.489 --> 00:27:05.731 You know that among human beings, when they get together in a family or a club or a trade union, people talk about the spirit of that family and club and union. 00:27:05.731 --> 00:27:16.691 They talk about its spirit because the individual members, when they're together, do really develop particular ways of talking and behaving which they wouldn't if they were a part. 00:27:16.691 --> 00:27:21.431 It's as if sort of a communal personality came into existence. 00:27:21.431 --> 00:27:23.263 Of course it isn't real. 00:27:23.263 --> 00:27:26.671 It isn't a real person, it's only like a person. 00:27:26.671 --> 00:27:30.048 But that's the difference between God and us. 00:27:30.048 --> 00:27:42.851 What grows out of the joint relationship of the father and son is a real person, in fact the third of the three persons who are God. 00:27:42.851 --> 00:27:46.741 Wow, did you get that? 00:27:46.741 --> 00:27:51.045 No, i don't think anybody could in one reading. 00:27:51.045 --> 00:28:03.046 That's why the father and son loving each other from eternity past before creation creates a third person. 00:28:03.046 --> 00:28:05.327 If we can call create, we can't use the word create. 00:28:05.327 --> 00:28:16.011 It's really not true, because a third person didn't appear later, but somehow the spirit is a person who expresses the love between father and son. 00:28:16.339 --> 00:28:21.811 Now here's where you come in, and I'm not leaving you out, because this isn't a theology lesson. 00:28:21.811 --> 00:28:27.329 The entire Godhead was involved in your salvation. 00:28:27.329 --> 00:28:34.632 The entire Godhead was involved in your salvation. 00:28:34.632 --> 00:28:37.969 That's what 2 Corinthians 13-14 says. 00:28:37.969 --> 00:28:48.332 Putting it succinctly, you're saved this way The father proposes, the son disposes and the spirit applies. 00:28:48.332 --> 00:28:56.252 Or, if you like, the father ordains, the son accomplishes and the spirit makes real. 00:28:56.252 --> 00:29:04.645 And 2 Corinthians 13 said this three things about each member of the Godhead's contribution to your salvation in mind. 00:29:04.645 --> 00:29:07.247 I want to invert it, the order, a little bit. 00:29:08.099 --> 00:29:20.969 The love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit are all involved in your salvation in mind. 00:29:20.969 --> 00:29:28.962 Love was the motive, grace was the means, fellowship was the goal. 00:29:28.962 --> 00:29:34.445 Now here's how salvation starts. 00:29:34.445 --> 00:29:38.509 It starts with God setting His love on you. 00:29:38.509 --> 00:29:39.785 But let me ask you this question. 00:29:39.785 --> 00:29:40.580 Don't answer. 00:29:40.580 --> 00:29:41.284 It's rhetorical. 00:29:41.284 --> 00:29:43.184 When did He first set His love on you? 00:29:43.184 --> 00:29:50.262 Most Christians I know would say well, the moment I decided to start loving Him, he responded and loved on me. 00:29:50.262 --> 00:29:59.153 But that's not biblical, because John said we love because He first loved us. 00:29:59.153 --> 00:30:08.549 In fact, the answer to the question when did Father first set His love on you is not when you were conscious of it, but in eternity past. 00:30:08.960 --> 00:30:38.852 Listen to Paul in his opening remarks in the letter to the Ephesians Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him In love, he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ. 00:30:38.852 --> 00:30:51.069 If you don't understand that, one version says it this way, a newer version In love He picked us out as sons to His Father before time began. 00:30:51.069 --> 00:30:58.375 Or, if you would, a chapter later when Paul's talking about our salvation. 00:30:58.375 --> 00:31:15.340 After talking about how we were dead in trespasses under the Prince of the power of the air, he says now in Ephesians 2, it's the great transition, but, god, if you want to know how you got out of your jam as being a son or daughter of Adam. 00:31:15.340 --> 00:31:30.828 It didn't start with you, it started with God, but God, being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. 00:31:30.828 --> 00:31:32.840 By grace, you have been saved. 00:31:32.840 --> 00:31:58.651 This verse, and others, in fact a whole new testament, makes it clear that it is Father's love that is the progenitor, the basis of our salvation, and that love which He had for us began before time began. 00:31:58.819 --> 00:32:01.208 Here's one of my favorite verses 2 Timothy 1.9. 00:32:01.208 --> 00:32:16.732 He saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works, but because of His own purpose and grace, which He gave us in Christ before time began. 00:32:16.732 --> 00:32:53.005 Now, if you take that wow, god's love was set on me in eternity past and you join it to what I said about what existed in eternity past, before creation the Father and the Son in this loving society It should blow your minds, because the love that God has for you in eternity past is an extension of the love He has had from eternity for His Son, because here's what happened in eternity past. 00:32:53.005 --> 00:33:05.886 Follow this The Father purposed to give His Son a gift, an incredible gift, which later is known as the bride. 00:33:05.886 --> 00:33:12.116 See, the father's Jewish and Jewish dads are really sticklers about the bride their sons end up with. 00:33:13.115 --> 00:33:19.027 So the father, in his eternal plan, gave the son a wedding gift from eternity past. 00:33:19.027 --> 00:33:43.095 Redeemed humanity would be the unique gift that father would give to son, and this humanity would be redeemed by every member of the Godhead, so that all the glory and praise for their redemption went not to them but to the God, the triune God, who redeemed them. 00:33:43.095 --> 00:33:54.759 Not only would the son receive this unique gift, he himself would come to earth to accomplish the work that was necessary. 00:33:54.759 --> 00:34:08.797 For the gift to be given, the son had to consent to come from the trinity, incarnate in human flesh, and sleep the sleep of death. 00:34:08.797 --> 00:34:15.487 Jesus came from the Godhead and slept the sleep of death to redeem us. 00:34:15.934 --> 00:34:20.681 Sound familiar, adam, and we heard this in our tech class this morning. 00:34:20.681 --> 00:34:24.795 It's not good for you to be alone, how many know. 00:34:24.795 --> 00:34:35.983 Later in Scripture, jesus is called the second Adam, or the last man, and God looks at Adam and the garden says not good for you to be alone. 00:34:35.983 --> 00:34:41.184 Oh, really Well, maybe you're going to scoop some dirt up and create another being for me. 00:34:41.184 --> 00:34:49.259 No, no, this time you have to sleep and while you sleep I will reach into you and take out of you your bride. 00:34:49.259 --> 00:35:02.123 And the Bible reveals that when the second Adam, or the last man, christ, came, he did the same thing the first Adam did He fell asleep. 00:35:02.123 --> 00:35:04.661 How many know what sleep represents, in Scripture, death? 00:35:04.661 --> 00:35:15.920 Jesus slept and while he slept, father reached in and took out a bride, later to be brought to him in marriage. 00:35:15.920 --> 00:35:16.581 How many know? 00:35:16.581 --> 00:35:26.563 right now we're in the preparation for the wedding and we're getting our garments on our white garments, because one day we're going to be reunited to the lover. 00:35:26.563 --> 00:35:30.525 We're in the bride, but she came out of him through death. 00:35:30.914 --> 00:35:48.181 This is why salvation cannot be attributed to you or I, but to the love of God and the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, his willingness to come and leave eternity and die in obedience to the Father so that through him we would be saved. 00:35:48.181 --> 00:35:50.159 Grace is never owed. 00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:54.523 You're not saved this morning because God owed you it. 00:35:54.523 --> 00:36:01.576 You're saved by sheer grace of what God did in Christ, and that's to the praise of His glory. 00:36:01.576 --> 00:36:14.728 Grace is the Bible word describing God's attitude towards sinners because of the work of His Son. 00:36:14.728 --> 00:36:19.063 The work of Jesus makes it possible for God to be gracious to us. 00:36:19.063 --> 00:36:23.641 I heard someone say it not long ago. 00:36:23.641 --> 00:36:25.340 I think God owes everybody. 00:36:25.340 --> 00:36:32.059 Once you say oh, when you smuggle the idea of oh into something, guess what you're out of the grace realm. 00:36:32.059 --> 00:36:37.804 Grace means you get what you don't deserve, not what you do deserve. 00:36:37.804 --> 00:36:53.802 That's why Paul sandwiched in that statement but God being rich in mercy, because it was great love with which he loved us even when we were dead and our trespasses and sin made us alive, together with Christ. 00:36:53.802 --> 00:36:54.576 Ps. 00:36:54.576 --> 00:36:56.561 By grace you have been saved. 00:36:56.561 --> 00:37:11.219 And finally, paul says the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be yours. 00:37:14.054 --> 00:37:17.282 What role does the Holy Spirit play in our salvation? 00:37:17.282 --> 00:37:27.829 The Father proposes, the Son disposes and the Spirit applies, makes real. 00:37:27.829 --> 00:37:32.565 But the text says the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. 00:37:32.565 --> 00:37:37.364 Everybody listen to me really carefully in this remaining hour and a half. 00:37:37.364 --> 00:37:40.501 Okay, i got your attention. 00:37:40.501 --> 00:37:52.097 The Spirit comes to the heirs of salvation and applies redemption to those heirs of salvation. 00:37:52.097 --> 00:37:56.327 Allowing us this blows my mind, but listen. 00:37:56.327 --> 00:38:08.159 The Spirit comes and indwells the believer so that by the Spirit, we are able to fellowship or participate in the life of the Godhead. 00:38:08.159 --> 00:38:13.047 If you don't believe that, listen to John's letter. 00:38:13.047 --> 00:38:21.045 That which we've seen and heard, we proclaim also to you so that you too may have fellowship with us. 00:38:21.045 --> 00:38:29.003 And indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, jesus Christ. 00:38:31.775 --> 00:38:39.568 The Holy Spirit is God active on earth, applying the love of God and the work of Jesus to our lives. 00:38:39.568 --> 00:38:43.224 His first work is called regeneration. 00:38:43.224 --> 00:38:44.217 You were dead. 00:38:44.217 --> 00:38:45.300 You were dead. 00:38:45.300 --> 00:38:46.824 You weren't sick, you were dead. 00:38:46.824 --> 00:38:50.164 And the Holy Spirit comes and He makes you alive. 00:38:50.164 --> 00:38:52.643 How many remember that moment you were regenerated. 00:38:53.014 --> 00:39:06.666 I used to tell people I went in a room having never thought about God in Christ at all, and I've left that room and I haven't thought of anything else for 40 years, not because I'm smart, but because I was regenerated. 00:39:06.666 --> 00:39:29.186 The life of God made me alive, the Spirit made me alive, and then the Spirit indwells us, and when He indwells us, he does so permanently, so we can enter a life of fellowship with the Godhead, the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. 00:39:29.186 --> 00:39:35.646 It is fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Spirit. 00:39:35.646 --> 00:39:38.181 Think about this, beloved, as we close. 00:39:38.181 --> 00:39:58.358 You have been invited by the Spirit into the fellowship of the Godhead, because God set His love on you in eternity past and His grace, through Jesus, is available and He redeemed you and quickened you and indwells you by the Spirit so you might have actual fellowship with God and His Son. 00:39:58.358 --> 00:40:03.159 Is that what's happening in your life right now? 00:40:03.159 --> 00:40:05.836 It should be. 00:40:05.836 --> 00:40:10.704 Are you experiencing the fellowship of the Father and the Son? 00:40:10.704 --> 00:40:21.204 I mean, there are people in this room right now who've never heard the word fellowship used, apart from what we're about to do at the coffee bar, which is legitimate. 00:40:24.355 --> 00:40:31.068 But our fellowship, john says, is not only with us, but with the Father and the Son. 00:40:31.068 --> 00:40:34.704 How's your fellowship with the Father and Son? 00:40:34.704 --> 00:40:39.152 You know, if you're in Christ, it's your inheritance. 00:40:39.152 --> 00:40:43.063 It's more than relationship. 00:40:43.063 --> 00:40:50.628 You know, being a dad, i've discovered something that I have a relationship with my sons. 00:40:50.628 --> 00:40:51.318 I'm their dad. 00:40:51.318 --> 00:40:53.878 They didn't get to vote on that. 00:40:53.878 --> 00:40:59.121 I'm dad And that relationship will never change. 00:40:59.121 --> 00:41:00.920 I will always be dad. 00:41:00.920 --> 00:41:01.938 It cannot change. 00:41:01.938 --> 00:41:08.067 But I've discovered that relationship is one thing but fellowship is another. 00:41:08.067 --> 00:41:12.827 How many dads have learned you can have a relationship father to son with your dads. 00:41:12.827 --> 00:41:14.920 It doesn't mean you're having fellowship. 00:41:14.920 --> 00:41:31.668 Something occurs, something offends, something makes you pull back and you discover and there are people in this room, maybe that have had that problem with others besides your kids and you discover you have a relationship where brothers and sisters, but there's no fellowship. 00:41:31.954 --> 00:41:33.257 And what, john, i'm sorry? 00:41:33.257 --> 00:41:47.146 what the text in Corinthians is telling us is that our fellowship is with the father and the son, and every believer who's regenerated and indwelt by the spirit has fellowship with the father or son. 00:41:47.146 --> 00:41:50.860 You may not be living in it, in its reality, you may not be cultivating it. 00:41:50.860 --> 00:42:14.686 You may be, you know, more interested in TV than you are God and the son, but the thing that will change your Christian life is when, in the spirit, you begin to be stirred up to recognize wait a minute, i'm called to intimate fellowship with father and son, and I'm letting the pursuits of this world seduce me rather than father and son. 00:42:14.686 --> 00:42:26.278 May you come alive this morning to the incredible potential of fellowship with God and his son available to you. 00:42:26.278 --> 00:42:29.684 It's more than emotion, although emotions are part of it. 00:42:29.684 --> 00:42:34.246 I'm glad for emotions, but it's the reality and it's activated by faith. 00:42:34.594 --> 00:42:39.025 If you're a Christian, you don't enter this by cultivating an emotion. 00:42:39.025 --> 00:42:42.442 First You enter it by faith and say wait a minute. 00:42:42.442 --> 00:42:44.146 Fellowship is my heritage. 00:42:44.146 --> 00:42:51.239 It's the result of being saved and the Holy Spirit starts stirring you to begin to pursue fellowship with God. 00:42:51.239 --> 00:42:55.324 It becomes the most important thing in your life. 00:42:55.324 --> 00:43:12.181 So you're sitting here this morning because of the love of God and because of the grace of the Lord, jesus Christ, and if you're born again, you've had fellowship with the father and son, even if it's that initial experience of regeneration. 00:43:12.181 --> 00:43:16.177 But oh, oh, oh. 00:43:16.177 --> 00:43:17.360 There's so much more. 00:43:23.394 --> 00:43:29.266 I was reading an account yesterday of a man powerfully used in evangelism. 00:43:29.266 --> 00:43:45.965 This man had an anointing of the spirit on his life in the 18th century, but he was describing the fellowship he enjoyed with the father and the son And God was using him to save thousands in the 1700s. 00:43:45.965 --> 00:43:57.947 But the thing that he talked about whenever he wrote letters in his journal was the incredible fellowship he was experiencing with the father and the son in this new anointing that God gave him. 00:43:57.947 --> 00:44:01.141 The Holy Spirit is more than your makeup man. 00:44:01.141 --> 00:44:05.643 He's not the one that just makes you up so you look good in church. 00:44:05.643 --> 00:44:16.824 He is the one who connects you to God so that you're living at the throne, so that the person of God and the son are becoming more real to you than any human being on earth. 00:44:16.824 --> 00:44:41.699 Join with me If you hear this morning maybe all these words are far into you and you've never heard anything like this But this the love of God, the grace of our Lord Jesus, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is what being a Christian is about. 00:44:43.355 --> 00:44:58.722 And if your heart's stirring you this morning and you feel an awakening as I've shared this and maybe there's something in you that says I would like to know God like that I didn't know that was, i thought religion was about going to church and being religious, but I want a relationship with God. 00:44:58.722 --> 00:45:06.445 If you feel a drawing towards that, i'm going to have you come in a minute and talk to one of these prayer partners as we close the service. 00:45:06.445 --> 00:45:16.382 There are people here and we are training them and they are trained already and they can talk to you about what's involved in knowing God in this capacity. 00:45:16.382 --> 00:45:29.023 We all in this room who are Christians had a moment where we became conscious that we were being drawn to the Christian gospel. 00:45:29.023 --> 00:45:31.762 This is a moment you will never have. 00:45:31.914 --> 00:45:33.701 Can I ask the prayer team to come up quickly? 00:45:33.701 --> 00:45:35.239 please Just come. 00:45:35.239 --> 00:45:37.277 Those of you on the team that are here. 00:45:37.277 --> 00:45:39.804 We're going to close this meeting. 00:45:39.804 --> 00:45:41.860 I'm going to release you to God. 00:45:41.860 --> 00:45:44.523 But listen, two things are happening in this room. 00:45:44.523 --> 00:45:52.125 Number one I just spoke to when the service ends, and if you're here with friends and you want prayer or you feel that's stirring, don't worry about it. 00:45:52.125 --> 00:45:56.932 Tell your friends I need to talk to somebody and you can talk to people. 00:45:56.932 --> 00:45:57.755 That maybe brought you. 00:45:57.755 --> 00:45:58.940 But this is an opportunity. 00:45:58.940 --> 00:46:06.101 These people will pray with you, they will counsel you, as well as other prayer needs that you might have this morning Prayers for healing, for things. 00:46:06.101 --> 00:46:11.788 We're going to see the Lord move here and we're going to open the altar in a minute. 00:46:12.155 --> 00:46:20.163 But the other thing is, if you're a Christian here this morning, i really want to ask you is fellowship with God the priority of your life? 00:46:20.163 --> 00:46:23.782 Is that really where you're living? 00:46:23.782 --> 00:46:35.847 If not, repent this morning, maybe you need to come up and get prayer for and just say I need to make some decisions about my Christian life because I'm not living out what I need to. 00:46:35.847 --> 00:46:37.742 I don't spend time in God's Word. 00:46:37.742 --> 00:46:39.018 It's not precious to me. 00:46:39.018 --> 00:46:42.501 I don't pray, i don't have a desire to read Christian books. 00:46:42.501 --> 00:46:52.458 Maybe you've become worldly and you're seduced by the filth of this world which has robbed you of your inheritance. 00:46:52.458 --> 00:46:53.342 Come up as well. 00:46:53.715 --> 00:46:58.318 We're going to pray and end the service and I'd like to say that I'll meet all the guests at our coffee bar. 00:46:58.318 --> 00:47:01.682 If you're going to come back, we want to meet with you and give you a free gift. 00:47:01.682 --> 00:47:02.476 Let's pray. 00:47:02.476 --> 00:47:16.356 Father, in the name of Jesus, i thank you for the privilege to speak these holy things, and I pray for two things this morning Draw people to Emmanuel this morning, spirit of God. 00:47:16.476 --> 00:47:25.525 Draw men and women to Emmanuel's side, to the Father's love, to the grace of the Lord Jesus and to the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. 00:47:25.525 --> 00:47:34.146 I pray for those in the room this morning that have not been converted, who've never been transformed by the regenerating power of the Spirit. 00:47:34.146 --> 00:47:42.744 I pray this morning that they will talk to us and, if not us, the people who brought them and say I want this relationship with God. 00:47:42.744 --> 00:47:49.518 I just pray that the miracle of regeneration happen all through this building, by a work of your Spirit. 00:47:49.518 --> 00:47:57.847 And I pray for Christians this morning, lord, who've sold out, whose fellowship has been soiled by the filth of this world. 00:47:57.847 --> 00:48:10.077 I pray that this morning they would repent and turn to you and change in this moment by the power of the Spirit, and everyone said Amen.