Our Father, we come into your presence tonight and we thank you that we can sing, that we know whom we have believed. Father, we thank you for your wonderful and matchless faithfulness to us. Father, we thank you that even though at many times we find ourselves unfaithful to you, you remain faithful to us. Father, even in the midst of our own sin and wandering, you are a faithful Father and Creator and Redeemer, and we thank you for your wonderful patience and long-suffering with us. And Father, we do pray tonight for Mike Parker, and we ask, Father, that you would bring complete healing to Mike. We ask, Father, that you would use the surgeons to remove this cancer completely. We ask for speedy recovery, that Mike might be able to resume his ministry. And we pray that you would uphold him and Stephanie and their children during this difficult time. We pray for Chrissy Jezik tonight as well. We ask, Father, that she will not have spinal meningitis. We pray for a clean bill of health for her. We pray that you would give the doctors wisdom and thoroughness in checking her out. And we pray, Lord, that you would bring her home quickly and safely as well. Father, we have many other prayer requests, many other people in need of prayer, and we thank You that You are conscious of each and every one, and that they are dear to Your heart. And we thank You, Lord, also tonight for Your Word. We pray that You would open our hearts to Your truth, and we pray, Father, that You would enlarge our vision of You and our love for You. In Jesus' name, Amen. Notes are in the back. Tonight we begin a study on the Trinity and we begin tonight with an introduction why study the Trinity. And then we will be digging into a number of passages, I would assume probably for maybe two or three weeks, on the biblical foundations of the Trinity, both Old and New Testaments. I would say that the Trinity is actually in the Old Testament in shadows and in concealed ways. Then we're going to look at false teachings about the Trinity, both ancient and modern. And then we will look at the Trinity at work and then a Trinitarian Christian life. And so we will be doing that for the next number of weeks. J. I. Packer noted, it's often assumed that the doctrine of the Trinity, just because it is mysterious, is a piece of theological lumber that we can get on very happily without. Peter Toon observed, many think Many seem to think that the Holy Trinity is a mathematical problem belonging to the realm of above and therefore has little or no practical importance to us. The holy and blessed and undivided Trinity is certainly a mystery, but I want to, tonight, give you five big reasons why we should study the Trinity. Now, our approach in this series is going to be, first of all, of course, biblical exposition. We'll be expounding, explaining texts. It will also be theological formulation. We will be talking about not only theological process, but we will be making theological formulations based on those biblical expositions, also historical observation and practical application. And throughout our series, there are going to be many quotes, that will be intentional. There are going to be many, many, many texts, and that will be intentional. There's going to be much talk about theology, both systematic and historical, and that is intentional. But I don't want you to think that this is going to be dry doctrinaire academia, because at the end of the day, we're still talking about God. And when we talk about God and look at God and explore God and the persons of the Godhead, it can't be dry. It has to thrill the soul. And so we're going to be digging into this wonderful theme, the Trinity, and our goal or my goal is very, very simple. As a result of our time in God's Word, it'd be my prayer that first we would know God better. Second, that we would understand him as a triunity more clearly. And thus, as a result, worship him more accurately, love him more fervently, and obey him more joyfully. And may the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit grant us these goals. Now tonight, we're just going to begin with this fairly simple, straightforward question, why study the Trinity? And the first reason, which is in a sense, the most comprehensive reason and will entail all of the others is very simple. That is knowing God as He is, is the most important thing in all of life. Knowing God as he is is the most important thing in all of life. The most important thing about any one of us is what we know about God and that we know God. What I hope is that you start to think of yourself in those terms. What is the most important thing about me is what I know about God and that I know God. Because really the bottom line is there's nothing more important about you than those two things. Take your Bibles and turn to Jeremiah chapter 9. Jeremiah chapter 9 verses 23 and 24. Thus says the Lord, let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might. Let not a rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows me. that I am the Lord who exercises loving-kindness, justice, and righteousness on earth, for I delight in these things, declares the Lord." Jeremiah chapter 24, in verse 7, This is one of the new covenant promises in Jeremiah and notice the very heart of this promise. Jeremiah 24, seven, I will give them a heart to know me for I am the Lord and they will be my people and I will be their God for they will return to me with their whole heart. Notice very clearly, God says, I will give them a heart to know me. Jeremiah chapter 31, Jeremiah chapter 31 and verse 34. Another new covenant promise. They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, know the Lord, for they will all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them, declares the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sins I will remember no more. One last text in the book of Proverbs, Proverbs chapter nine, Proverbs chapter nine and verse 10. We read the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Why should we study the Trinity? Because knowing God as He is, is the most important thing in all of life. A.W. Tozer put it like this in his book, The Knowledge of the Holy, what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter how much strength you have, how much money you have, how much wisdom you think you have. At the end of the day, the most important thing is that you know God. And you're not going to know God unless you know about God. That is one of the blessings of the New Covenant. It's what God promises to do for us, to bring us into a saving knowledge and relationship of Himself so that Tozer's right, the most important thing about us is what comes into our minds when we think of God. Knowing God also and who He is, is the very foundation for life and faith and worship and obedience. What does Jesus say eternal life is in John chapter 17 and verse three? This is eternal life, that they know you. The Father and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Jesus actually equates knowing God with eternal life. And so when we say knowing God and who he is is the foundation for life and faith, we get that right from the very words of the Lord Jesus himself. To know God is to have eternal life. One of my favorite passages in the Psalms is Psalm 9 and verse 10, where David says, those who know thy name will put their trust in thee. And of course, to know God's name is to know God's character, to know who he is. Even as we saw this morning, who he is, what he does is wrapped up in the idea of the name of God. And so those who know thy name, that is those who know God, what He is like and what He does, those are the ones who put their trust in Him. In other words, there's a direct correlation between the strength and the amount of your faith in relationship to your own knowledge of God. The more knowledge of God you have, the stronger your faith is. Daniel could say in Daniel chapter 11 verse 32, those who know their God. will be strong and perform mighty deeds. And so the Bible is very, very clear that knowing God and who He is is the foundation for all of life and faith and worship and obedience. Arthur W. Pink in his little book, The Attributes of God, says, the foundation of all true knowledge of God must be a clear mental apprehension of His perfections as revealed in Holy Scripture An unknown God can neither be trusted, served, nor worshipped. The Puritan Stephen Charnock said it is impossible to honor God as we ought unless we know Him as He is. Now, that brings us to the next point, and that is God is incomprehensible. God is incomprehensible. What that means, of course, is that God is so far beyond us that there is no way for the finite to comprehend the infinite. Pastor John read Psalm 139 tonight, and actually incomprehensibility is right at the beginning of Psalm 139. Oh Lord, you've searched me and known me. You know when I sit down, when I rise up. You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, intimately acquainted with all of my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, behold, oh Lord, you know it all. You've enclosed me behind and before you've laid your hand upon me. And so here's David expounding all of these wonderful attributes of God and what he does. And then he says in verse six, such knowledge is too wonderful for me, it is too high, I cannot attain to it. Then even within that same Psalm, verses 17 and 18. How precious also are your thoughts to me, O God, how vast is the sum of them. If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with you. The bottom line ends up being that no matter how how much we are occupied with thoughts of God. The fact is those thoughts are so far beyond us. Those thoughts are so great and magnificent that they go beyond anything that we can comprehend. In fact, just the sheer number of them would wear out our own finitude. The Bible also tells us that God's thoughts are not our thoughts. And His ways are not our ways. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God's thoughts higher than our thoughts, and God's ways higher than our ways. And so this shouldn't come as any big surprise to us. But the fact is that God Himself is incomprehensible. This infinite, eternal, majestic God who inhabits eternity is incomprehensible. Now this means a number of different things. It doesn't just mean that we can't figure God out. It means that there are many things about God that are simply not revealed to us. You understand, God has not revealed to us everything there is to reveal. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. The things revealed belong to us and to our children's children. And so the fact is, is that there is, who knows how much God has not revealed. Stop and consider it. I like to think of it in terms of an iceberg. And you see this enormous iceberg emerging from the icy ocean. And what you don't realize is that as enormous as that looks, what is underneath the surface is even more vast and more immense. And so if we think of God's revelation as that which he has revealed, that which is above the surface, what we know about that is still just scratching the surface. And so here is this God who is so much bigger than we can ever, ever imagine. I think when we get to heaven, we are going to be so utterly surprised. And indeed, it will take all of eternity and even eternity itself will not exhaust the marvels of God. And so here we have this idea that God's incomprehensible. One, because He hasn't revealed everything there is to reveal about Him. And secondly, even if He had revealed everything, there's still no way for us to soak it in because even that which He has revealed, we can't soak in. The Bible tells us He dwells in inapproachable light. John Frame says, in a sense, there is too much revelation for humans to bear. But not only that, but God's also incomparable. And this is important in understanding incomprehensibility because when God says, who will you then compare me to? For instance, Isaiah 40 verse 18, what he's saying is, there is no frame of reference in this world for you to compare me to. And this is important because how do we learn things? We learn things by comparison. We are consistently identifying things and learning of things by noting what they are like. God's incomparable. Who can you compare God to? Even the comparisons we have in Scripture pale into virtual insignificance when you consider that God is not compared to anything because God is not like anything. God is absolutely, totally, and completely unique. He's absolutely, completely, and totally incomparable. Therefore, it's not as if we can say, well, I think that God must be like this, and this, and this. Some of the Greek theologians in the Orthodox Church actually affirm it. I don't go this far, but the only way to actually describe God is by simply telling us what he is not like. Incomparable. There's another problem in understanding God and that is that we're sinful and finite. And God is holy and he's infinite. And between those realities, there is a sizable gap called incomprehensibility. And so here's this God that says, what you know about me and the fact that you know me is the most important thing in life. This God is also the incomprehensible God. But incomprehensible does not mean unknowable. Incomprehensible does not mean unknowable. In fact, God is indeed knowable because God has revealed quite a bit about himself, quite a bit from our standards, and therefore we can know God. The secret things indeed belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us. for us to search them out and to know them. The Lord Jesus prays in Matthew chapter 11. He says, I thank Thee, O Father of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and revealed them to babes. And who is it in Jesus' prayer who knows God? Those whom the Son desires to reveal Him to. And who knows the Son? Those whom the Father desires to reveal Him to. And so in the midst of a God who is incomprehensible, He has still revealed enough about Himself so that we can know Him in a meaningful way. And so the Spirit through the Word does not close the gap of incomprehensibility, but does take that which God has revealed to us and then reveals God to us through those means so we can come to have a saving knowledge and relationship with the infinite, eternal God. I hope that your Christianity consistently blows you out of the water. One of our problems is that we don't marvel enough at the greatness and the glory of God. Do you realize what we're saying is that this infinite, eternally majestic God who the heavens cannot contain Him, it is this God who has revealed Himself to us so that through that revelation we can actually know the incomprehensible God of heaven and earth. That's what Christianity is about, is the revelation of God and His own Son to people who would not know Him otherwise. Hermann Bavink says, according to scripture, God is incomprehensible yet knowable, absolute yet personal. Mystery is the vital element of theology, and the believer can never fully comprehend revealed truth. And although it's true the believer can never fully comprehend revealed truth, the believer can certainly come to know God through revealed truth. And so why study the Trinity? Because knowing God as He is, is the most important thing in all of life because God is the most important person in all of life. J. I. Packer writes, disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life blindfolded, as it were, with no sense of direction and no understanding of what surrounds you, this is the way you can waste your life and lose your soul. To know God. That is the greatest thing in this life. So, the second reason why we should study the Trinity is this. You cannot know God unless you understand the Trinity. Now what I just said was this, you cannot know God unless you understand God. That's what I just said, by the way, but I just said it differently. You cannot know God unless you understand the Trinity. Why do I say that? Because God is the Trinity, and the Trinity is God. We shouldn't think of the Trinity as just some sort of strange mathematical thing that has to do with God. God is triune. God is the Trinity. And so if you're going to know this God and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent, then you need to know the Trinity. You need to understand the Trinity. And we need to understand this, the Trinity is much more than a doctrine. There is a doctrine about the Trinity, but we need to realize that when we say Trinity, we're saying the true God. Now, all that I went over in point one is predicated on the fact that God is three in one and one in three. He is a triunity. And just as you cannot really know the Lord Jesus Christ unless you have some basic understanding of his two natures as both God and man, you cannot know God unless you understand the Trinity. Now, I thought about that statement a lot this week and it sounded so absolutely presumptuous to me. You can't know God unless you understand the Trinity. Well, who in the world can't understand the Trinity? I don't mean comprehensively understand the Trinity, by the way. That's impossible. I think that if we took a timeline from right now and we stretched it out for 10 billion ages and took ourselves out 10 billion years, we still won't understand the Trinity. Completely, comprehensively. So when I talk about that we can't know God unless we understand the Trinity, I'm not talking about some sort of comprehensive understanding or knowledge, but what I do mean is that we cannot know God unless we possess a biblical and experiential knowledge of God as one and as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so when we think of God, we should be thinking of Him as a triune God and the God that we're seeking to know. We should be seeking to know Him as He is, as three in one and one in three. Next, you cannot understand the gospel unless you understand the Trinity. That too sounds absolutely presumptuous to me. But think about it. The gospel is a Trinitarian gospel. It is the gospel of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, I would suggest to you that in many ways our knowledge of the Trinity is more experiential at first than theological. But stop and consider even your own experience of salvation. Are not the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit clearly delineated even in our own experiential knowledge of salvation? Stop and consider the fact that all throughout scripture, as Paul expounds the gospel, he always expounds it in Trinitarian terms. Go back to the passage that we spent months in, Ephesians 1, verses 3-14. You understand that this is one of the most glorious expositions of the gospel, and of course it's fully Trinitarian. It's the Father who chose us, it's the Son who redeems us, it's the Spirit who seals us. All throughout Paul's writings, all throughout the New Testament, every time the gospel is explained, you can find either explicitly or implicitly some Trinitarian structure somewhere. Turn over to Galatians chapter 4. If you keep your eyes open for this, you start seeing it everywhere. It's like buying a Toyota and then thinking that everybody actually has one now. You see them everywhere. If you start to think in Trinitarian terms, you start to see it everywhere in the Word of God. Galatians chapter 4 is an example, starting in verse 4. But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that He might redeem those who are under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father." You realize that in those three short verses, what you have is each member of the Holy Trinity. Right there! And this is just one example of many. Another favorite of mine is Titus chapter three. Titus chapter three. Starting verse four. But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and the renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by His grace, we would be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." What do you have in those verses? You have the Father, you have the Son, and you have the Holy Spirit. Every time the Apostle begins to unfold the Gospel one way or another, either directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, there is Trinitarian structure in his expositions of the Gospel. Listen to old Charles Spurgeon. He says, a Gospel without a Trinity? It's like a pyramid built on its apex. A gospel without the Trinity? It's like a rope of sand that cannot hold together. A gospel without the Trinity? Then Satan can overturn it. But give me a gospel with the Trinity and the might of hell cannot prevail against it. No man can anymore overthrow it than a bubble could split a rock or a feather break in half a mountain. Get the thought of the three persons, and you have the marrow of all theology. Only know the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost to be one, and all things will appear clear." You cannot understand the gospel unless you understand the Trinity. Number four, you cannot live a healthy Christian life unless you understand the Trinity. Just as the gospel is woven throughout with Trinitarian language, I would submit to you that the Trinity underlies such things in the New Testament as sanctification and prayer and worship and the very life of the church. The Bible teaches us so clearly that every part of the Christian life is fully and robustly Trinitarian. Just consider these examples, Ephesians chapter two. Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 18. For through Him, that is the Lord Jesus, we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father. The Christian life in a very real sense is seen in terms of access. That's the same as in Romans chapter 5. And notice right here, the Christian life is pictured as having access to the Father through the Son by the Spirit. We already know Ephesians chapter four, right? Verses four through six, hopefully. Here's Christian unity and what is it based on? One spirit, one Lord, one God and Father overall. Jude chapter or verse 20. Another example, Jude verse 20. But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life. It's a great synopsis on the Christian life, isn't it? Basically, that's the very heartbeat of the Christian life. And what does it revolve around? The Trinity. Praying in the Holy Spirit, keeping yourselves in the love of God, and anxiously awaiting the return of the Lord Jesus Christ. This week I was reading in Sinclair Ferguson's little book, A Heart for God, and he makes this wonderful observation. He says, here's Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed in the upper room discourse, right? John chapters 13 through 17. And he says, here he is about to die. And what does he teach his disciples about? He teaches them about the Trinity. John chapters 13 through 17 ends up being one of the most fully Trinitarian sections of Holy Scripture. It is the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit working together so that the Lord Jesus is instructing His disciples that once He goes away they don't need to be afraid because the Father is going to take care of them. He's going to send the Spirit from both the Father and the Son, and the Son will be preparing a place for them, and so that the whole of the Christian life is expounded for us, and the Upper Room Discourse is fully and robustly Trinitarian in its description. If we're not fully Trinitarian in our thinking, we will be deficient in our practice of prayer, and worship, and sanctification, and in the life of the Church. Let's face it, we're people that get off balance fairly easy, aren't we? And there are certain quarters within the church of the Lord Jesus where one member of the Trinity is exalted over the others in such a way that he ends up becoming the sole focus. And my friends, our faith, our Christian faith, is the Trinitarian faith. And if we are to have a healthy, growing Christian life, we need to be increasingly Trinitarian in our thinking. Let me just say one quick thing. We're going to talk a lot about a Trinitarian Christian life, talk about prayer and so forth, but one of the things that we often do that shows that we don't think clearly in Trinitarian terms is what happens when we pray. Oftentimes, we will thank the Father for coming and dying for us. Biblically speaking, that's not true. The Father didn't come and die for us. The Father didn't come and take on flesh. The Father wasn't crucified for us. It was the second person of the Trinity whom the first person, the Father, sent forth. It is incumbent upon us to allow Trinitarianism to pervade every part of our life so that as we live life, whether it's prayer or worship or our church life together or our prayer life, it doesn't make any difference that every part of it is seen and structured and revolved around a proper view of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And then fifth, The Trinity is the supreme distinguishing doctrine of the Christian faith. What is it that distinguishes Christians from all other faiths? When it comes right down to it, the supreme distinguishing distinctive of Christianity is the belief in one God who exists in three persons. That's it. That's it. We are bombarded today, of course, with New Age pantheism, that God is everywhere, God's in everything, you're God, the tree's God, all of that. Do you understand that Christian Trinitarianism is radically monotheistic and is radically distinct from all forms of polytheism, pantheism, and panentheism? In a real sense, we need to understand the Trinity because this is what distinguishes us from so much of paganism and pagan culture today. But we're also bombarded with Islam, which is monotheistic, as is Judaism, right? My friends, listen to me very carefully. Christian Trinitarianism is absolutely and completely distinct from either Islam or Judaism because it affirms that in God's unity, there is a plurality. When Islam or Judaism speaks of one God, listen, they're not speaking about the same God. The God of the Bible is the triune God who exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. W.G.T. Shedd says, the unity of God is unique. It's the only unity of the kind. God is one God and the only God. The notion of the unique must be associated with that of unity in the instance of the Supreme Being. God is not a unit, but a unity. A unit like a stick or a stone is marked by mere singleness. It admits no interior distinctions and is incapable of that inherent trinality which is necessary to self-knowledge and self-consciousness. Mere singleness is incompatible with society, and therefore incompatible with divine communion and blessedness. God is blessed only as He is self-knowing and self-communing. A subject without an object could not experience either love or joy. Love and joy are social, and they imply more than a single person. The God of Judaism, and the God of Islam for that matter, are single solitary units that don't exist within a triune society. And therefore, what are we to make of a single unit God and His ability to love? We can say from a Christian perspective, and listen to me carefully, we are the only ones who can say this, God has eternally loved and been loved. because he's three in one. Augustine, trying to convey this very truth, said, the father is the lover, the son is the beloved, and the spirit is the love that exists between them. Joy, love, communion, interaction, all of those things abound only within Christian Trinitarianism. My friends, we're not talking about the same God as the Jews or the Muslims. We're also bombarded today with the cults, which if you look at the cults across the board, one of the single most predominant common denominators is the consistent denial of the Trinity. Now I'm going to go so far next week or the week after to argue that if you've proved the deity of Christ, you have in essence proved the triune Godhead. You'll have to wait and see how I do that. But we are bombarded with cults that consistently deny the Trinity. And the Trinity stands, therefore, as the most distinguishing reality of Christian faith and orthodoxy. Whether it's Mormonism or the Jehovah's Witnesses or the Jesus-only cults, the fact is that we stand firmly in distinction from those heresies ancient and modern. If it is true that the Trinity is the supreme distinguishing doctrine of the Christian faith, it is also, and sad to say true, that far too many Christians think unbiblically, and I don't know if this is a word or not, but we'll try it, unorthodoxly about the Trinity. I remember the first time I taught the doctrine of God class up in Reno, I gave a quiz. Three quarters of the class failed the quiz on the Trinity and embraced some ancient heresy. I gave various definitions of the Trinity. Three quarters of the class failed and would have been branded and burned at the stake in other times. In both the light of history and our contemporary situations, we need to be grounded in the Trinity and understand what the Bible means when it talks about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Augustine said, in no other subject is error more dangerous, or inquiry more laborious, or discovery of truth more profitable. So why study the holy, blessed, and undivided Trinity? Because we were created to know God and to worship God. And in studying our triune God, we grow in knowing Him, we grow in knowing His ways. Our worship should become more fervent and more clear and more beautifully Trinitarian. Studying the Trinity should cause us to worship. Peter Tune in Anglican says, what greater joy can a theologian, you can just insert Christian there, what greater joy can a theologian have than to contemplate the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ his son by the illumination and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What greater privilege can a theologian have than to seek to expound the doctrine of the mystery of the blessed, holy, and undivided Trinity, God-blessed forever and unto the ages. Is not the chief end of man to enjoy and glorify God forever?" Why study the Trinity? Because our purpose and aim in this life and the life to come is to know and to enjoy and to glorify God as He is. And He is the blessed three-in-one and one-in-three. Let's pray. Our Father, we stand in utter and complete awe of You. You are so great and so awesome and so far beyond anything we can imagine. Father, we bow in humility, but Father, we also bow in repentance, acknowledging that we have not known you as we ought. We have not sought out your face as we ought. Father, we have neglected truth about you. We have neglected you. We have neglected good biblical thinking about you, oftentimes in favor of our own sloppy thoughts and useless opinions. Father, we pray that you would take this series and use it to infuse in us a greater knowledge of you, and may out of that greater knowledge flow greater love, greater worship, and greater obedience on our parts. Father, be honored and glorified. We praise you tonight. We acknowledge that from you all blessings flow, and we praise you tonight, O God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.