Brothers and sisters, the words in which we'll examine tonight come out of Matthew chapter 28, verses 18 through 20. I'm sure many of you are very familiar with this passage. It's part of what we would often refer to as the Great Commission. But then, you'll see the title of the sermon is One God. We will be thinking about the Great Commission, but ultimately tonight we're going to be thinking about the Triune God. As you've heard, the songs we have sung about focus in on the Trinity. And that's because we're starting a new series for our evening worship tonight. It's a new year, new series in both the morning and the evening. There's a freshness happening, right? It's a good thing. While it is a new series and maybe there's a freshness to it, we're talking about one of the oldest theological topics in history. We're talking about the triune God, the very being that always has existed. So let me give you a little bit of an overview of how the series will go over the next few weeks. And then we're going to get right into talking about the One God, the One Being of God. And we're going to unpack this slowly. And Lord willing, we will understand and know our Creator and our Redeemer, our Savior, our Lord, our King, just a little bit better tonight, in a deeper way. So where are we going? Tonight we're going to talk about the oneness of God, the one God that we worship. So this word trinity, we hear the word three in it, right? Tri, tricycle, trinity. But then we talk about one God. We don't worship multiple gods, that would be polytheism, but we worship one God in three persons. So tonight we're going to unpack that. And then, throughout this series, we're going to look at the unity of the three persons, which is part of our sermon tonight. But then we'll also look at the individual persons within the Trinity. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And then the last two sermons, which I'm excited for all of them, but there's something kind of unique about these. It'll be a way that I haven't preached before. We're going to talk about objections to the Trinity. It's going to be fun. We're going to have to talk about some other religions and some other views of God. And then our last sermon is going to be on heresies. Heresies. What has been preached within the church at different times? Incorrectly. Which is some things that are being preached about God in what so-called churches today? That's incorrect. So that's going to be quite a few weeks. I don't want to give you an exact date in case the Spirit leads and one of us talks and preaches a little bit longer and we have to push some dates or snow happens. So for the next few weeks we're going to be talking about the Trinity. Why take multiple weeks to preach on the Trinity? If it's the oldest theological topic in history, then why are we talking about it? What's so important about it? Well, the importance is that it's the God we worship. We want to know who God is. We want to know who He is. We want to know how He functions. who He is by His characters, by His way of actions. We want to worship Him accordingly. We want to follow after Him accordingly. We want to know who our Redeemer is. How are we saved by the triune God? We want to know who our God is so that when the world tries to attack Him, when the world tries to say, no, no, that's not who He is. This is who He is. Or no, He doesn't even exist. Or when other religions are coming in and trying to say, well, this is who our God is, and He's the true God, we can point to Scripture and say, no, this is the true and living triune God that we worship, that He has said this is who He is. So when the Jehovah Witnesses, the Mormons, knock on your door, I don't know if they come out in Hartford County, maybe a little too scary to come out this far, but when they come knocking on your door and they try to start to talk about how Jesus is a descendant of God, that God the Father created Jesus, we can start to say, no, let's go to scripture and let's look at who the true God is. Out of love, not out of hatred, not out of anger, but because we know the true and living God and we can point to his revelation of who he is. And as we study this, as we dive into this topic, our eyes are going to be lifted up into the heavens more and more. Our hope, our confidence, our joy in the Lord will be raised more and more. Our understanding of who God is, both intellectually but more importantly within our hearts, will grow more and more. My desire and our desires as pastors of this church is that as we study the triune God, we start to love the triune God more. We start to seek how can we glorify Him in how we live. What's it mean to worship the triune God? That's why this is so important. And as we journey down this road, let me give a warning as well. While we truly know God, We cannot fully comprehend the uniqueness, the greatness, the grandness of the Trident God. So this journey, picture this, this journey of studying God is kind of like exploring a cave. Have you ever gone into caves and explored? You get in there and you start to see some crystals and some rocks. You start to be in awe of it. And then your flashlight shines down the corridor a little bit, and you see something amazing down there. And you take off down the hallway. But before you get there, you run across this little stream, and there's little blind creatures with no pigment in them swimming in there. And you start to study them for a little bit, and you're in awe. But then you remember about that rock you saw. And as you get down there, your flashlight hits a glimpse. And you could continue going down this cave. ultimately forever, being in awe and amazement, just getting to see the glory of this cave more, getting to see its beauty. And then every time you turn, you see something more beautiful and more amazing. That when you get out of that cave, you go, I don't know what's beyond what I've already seen, but I like what I saw up front. And you start to bring your friends into that cave and you start to explore more and more. Well, that's what this journey of studying the triune God's like. Every time we turn a corner, we're going to get a glimpse of God and we're going to, Lord willing, we will be in all of Him. And our flashlight, His word, His revelation, will glimmer something down the corridor that we're going to take running after. And when we get to it, we're going to revel in it. We're going to be in all of it. And then the next week, we're going to see another glimpse. And this is going to be the journey of our lives, brothers and sisters. May we be people that yearn to know God more and more. And while we can't fully comprehend every aspect of Him here on this earth, we want to get closer to Him. We want to know Him more. We want to dive into who He is deeper, because when we get to glory, I think our eyes will be wide open to who He is, and we'll be in awe that we got even a glimpse of Him revealed to us here on this earth, and now we get to live with Him for eternity. So do not leave here tonight saying, Anthony, I don't have the Trinity all figured out. And I will say yes and amen. Join the thousands upon millions of saints that are sitting there with you, not having it all figured out quite yet. It's okay. But may we be in awe of our God. All right, enough introduction. Let's dive in to our study. The one God. I'm going to try to use the notes in the bulletin. This is new for me, so if I miss something, you'll have to ask me afterwards for the fill-in-the-blank. But what do we mean when we say Trinity? What does it mean? By Trinity, we mean that God is one in essence. That's the first blank. One in essence. and yet exist in three co-equal, co-eternal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Let me read that again, because this is our working definition throughout this series. By Trinity, we mean that God is one in essence, and yet exists in three co-equal and co-eternal persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now let us read Matthew 28, verses 18 through 20, and then we'll start to dive into these words and start to see the beauty of who our God is. Matthew 28, verse 18 reads, and Jesus came and said to them, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations. This will be our focal point, all right, this next line. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age." So what does it mean, for God is one in essence? This line here, Roman numeral one, says one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity. I believe this comes from Augustine, that he dedicated much of his life to studying and writing about the Trinity. But he's showing here that the one God, one God in Trinity, and the Trinity in unity. So really, it's one God in Trinity, and then the Trinity's pointing right back to the unity of that one God. When we talk about God being one in essence, the essence of God is who He is. God is Triune. It's vital that we get this as Christians. It's vital that we understand that God is the Trinity. Because the moment we start to break it apart, we start to say, well, God is just Jesus, or God is just the Father, or God is just the Holy Spirit, or any other combination that excludes all three persons of the Trinity, we're now not talking about God. There's a theologian that writes this about the importance of the triune God. It says, God cannot be truly known Alright, so do we want to know who God is, brothers and sisters? Right. So how should we truly know? Unless our faith distinctively conceive of three persons in one essence. distinctively conceive of three persons in one essence, and that the fruit and efficiency of baptism proceed from God the Father, adopting us through his Son, and after having cleansed us from the pollution of the flesh through the Spirit, creating us anew to righteousness. we must recognize that there is one God that we worship in three persons. It's vital. So let us look at what this means. To know that God is in essence, that the essence of God is who He is, that He is triune in three persons. Let's look at the first thing. Letter A, Jesus instructs to baptize. How many names does Jesus instruct to baptize? Three, Father, Son, and Spirit. Now, I'm not an English teacher, but I see here that he says, baptizing them in verse 19, baptizing them in the name. Now, if my education was correct, if there's plural of something with the word name, you should have an S at it, making it pluralized, right? But that's not what Jesus does. Jesus didn't make a mistake here. He didn't just have a slip of the tongue, and he didn't know his grammar very well. This is the God that created language. I think he's quite aware of what he is saying. But he says to them, baptize them in the name, singular, And then he names the triune God. So in the name of God, of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Recognize here that Jesus himself is pointing to the Trinity. Baptize them in the name, and then he gives the three persons of the Trinity. I encourage you to go ahead and read John 1. I encourage you to read all of your Bible all the time, but start in John 1 if you're looking for something to be reading, and see how John refers to Jesus as God, back and forth, back and forth. And if you don't think John 1's sufficient for you, read the rest of the Gospel of John, and you're gonna see him constantly pointing at how Jesus is God. And he's constantly talking about the Father is God, and he's constantly talking about how the Spirit is God. John is well aware. Jesus, obviously, as the second person of the Trinity, is well aware that God is one in essence, that the three persons of the Trinity make up the one God that we worship. All right, letter B, this is important for us to understand, is that there is only one will of God. Only one will of God. This one will probably get fleshed out more in other sermons, especially as we start to talk about the Son and His earthly ministry. But we must recognize that the three persons of the Trinity do not have opposing wills. They do not have opposing wills. They are in full agreement. We'll look at this in John 6. So if you want to turn there to John 6, we'll see this. But recognize that the Father doesn't have one view and one desire and one goal. And the Son's over here doing his own thing. And then the Spirit's over here doing something real crazy. And they're all butting heads. And there's competition. No, no, no. The three persons of the Trinity are God, and God has one will. Looking at John 6, verse 35, We're gonna see something that is often used to be an argument that there's multiple wills within the Trinity. But what we'll actually see here, and as we logically think through it, no one actually will question that there's multiple wills. So let's look at John 6, verse 35. Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. that the Father gives me will come to me and whoever comes to me I will never cast out." All right, so we start to see the will of God that he sends those, he calls those to Christ and whoever comes to Christ he won't cast out. Verse 38, for I have come down from heaven not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. Uh-oh. Maybe, maybe Anthony's wrong. Let's see, verse 39. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day. Does anyone want to argue here that this was not Jesus's will? Verse 40. For this is the will of my Father. Does anyone want to say that this is not Jesus's will? That everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life and I will raise Him up on the last day? Logically, we can think through that and say, well, no, that's Jesus's will as well. But then we get this line here that says, for I've come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. So what do we do with this? Is the triune God in competition? No. Let's take a pause and recognize the point of history of which we're examining the triune God in John. This is the 33 years that Christ took on flesh and came and dwelt among the people. So 33 years out of all of history that this is a unique time in history that Jesus took on flesh. The second person of the Trinity took on flesh and dwelt among us. And we see many times that, especially in the garden, when Jesus is crying out and we think, well, oh man, did Jesus not want to go to the cross? Did he not want to do this? Is he being forced? Is Jesus just enslaved? No, we recognize that Jesus is fully or truly God and fully or truly man. You can use either word there. But if he's truly God and truly man at the exact same time, he's not 200% anything. He's 100% and 100% in unity as man and God. And we start to see that in the flesh, there's this flesh that He does not desire pain and agony, but He knows the will of the Father that has sent Him, the God that He is unified with, the triune God that He is a part of. He knows that will. So when he says he's not here to do his will, he's talking about his earthly perspective. The humanness of him is not here to do whatever will he wants to do. It is to do the will of the Father. And the God nature of him, the full deity that Jesus is, is in full alignment with the Father because they are one God. He's giving us the example of how we are to live our lives. We are to give up our will to follow the Father. As truly man and truly God, he's demonstrating to us men on how we can be obedient to God. So we must understand that there is only one will of God. This will be important as we study and examine the person of Jesus. The letter C here, the third point is, this one's easy, there's only one God. No shocker there, but it's important that we hear this and be reminded of this. There's only one God. Matthew 28, verse 19, we see once again that he's using in the name, singular, and then names the three persons of the Trinity. It's important that we see this. John 1, 1. Can anyone quote John 1, 1? was God. We see this. There's only one God. Deuteronomy 6. Let's turn there quickly. Deuteronomy 6. This is an important passage to see that there is only one God because Jesus actually quotes this in his earthly ministry. Deuteronomy 6 verse 4. Deuteronomy 6 verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God The Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Sound familiar from the New Testament? When Jesus was confronted and said, what's the greatest commandment? He quotes this passage of scripture. Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and your might. And then he gives the second commandment, love your neighbor as yourself. So is Jesus lying when he says there's one God? No. He recognized. He knows that there's only one God. He is the second person of the Trinity. So if we see in John, John's affirming that Jesus is God, and yet in John, we see that he talks about the Father and the Son and the Spirit, and then we see that Jesus refers to the law and back to Moses' writing, where it says there's only one God, we must then understand that Jesus is proclaiming, John's proclaiming, the whole, all of scripture's proclaiming that there's only one God in three persons. Brothers and sisters, may we rejoice in this truth. May we recognize there's only one God and three Persons. It's important for us to understand this. If we start to separate this understanding, if we start to think about God and the Persons not being unified, we're not going to know who God is. And let me be honest, I think we are quite tempted to separate the three Persons of the Trinity. Let's talk about salvation. If I say salvation, which person of the Trinity comes to mind first? Jesus. I'm going to be honest, that's what comes to mind first for me. But we read from an old theologian, and we see in scripture, especially in Ephesians, examine Ephesians, we see that all three persons of the Trinity are active and functioning within our salvation. What about this one? We think God is just or he's the judge what's the person of the Trinity do we think of first father right well what happens if we just strictly think that that the father is the judge well we start to think that he's just a big meanie and it took his son Jesus to come and and correct what his mean father was doing how disgusting it is that we would view God in such a manner. No, no, no. We must recognize that when we worship God, we are thinking and worshiping the three persons of the Trinity. It's going to take effort from us. We need to start to function and work this into our form of worship. We need to start functioning. And as we think and as we sing songs about God, we must be thinking about all three persons of the Trinity as best we can. It's a challenge. We naturally are going to be drawn to one or two persons of the Trinity. And there are times where in scripture, in our singing, in our conversations, we are talking about one specific person of the Trinity. But when we're talking about the worship of God, we're talking about worshiping the triune God. Complete, unified, the one being, one essence of God. We cannot separate it. All right, let's get to point number two. They're co-equal. What does it mean to be co-equal? All three persons of the Trinity share all the attributes of God. I listed just a glimpse of attributes. There's so many more we could look at. But we need to work through this, and we're going to see some rebuttal to this in later sermons. But what happens is that we struggle to understand that all three persons of the Trinity have all the characteristics of God because we see individual persons functioning and doing different things at different times. Has anyone ever seen the Spirit walking on this earth? No. Has anyone ever seen the Father walking on this earth? Possibly in the garden. We can make an argument, but I don't think we need to. Who do we think about walking on this earth? The Son. And when we read about the Son walking on this earth, do we think about Him being omnipresent everywhere, all the time? It's hard for us to fathom that. Well, it's because we're getting a glimpse of only 33 years of history. the 33 years that he took on flesh and dwelt among us. But is anyone not saying that Jesus was all-knowing and omnipresent before he came to earth? I don't think we would say that. And are we saying that he's not all-knowing and all-present now, as he dwells, having all authority in heaven and on earth? Or, let's read what Jesus says. Let's get back in Matthew 28. Verse 20, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Now Jesus is about to ascend to his heavenly throne, just a mere 40 days after this, plus or minus a few days. So did he lie? No, of course not. You know, we recognize that in those 33 years, Jesus gave up certain things to come and be among the people, to take on flesh. But it does not mean that he doesn't have all the attributes and all the characteristics of God. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit are all holy. They're all sovereign. They're all love. They're all mercy, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. And the characteristics, we can lay out the multitude of characteristics that all three persons of the Trinity share the attributes of God. This is what it means to be co-equal. This is another important doctrine that we need to grasp. Because if we start to separate and say, no, only one person of the Trinity is holy, well then that means what? Does the Spirit sin? No. No one's making that argument. So OK, they're all holy. Well, only the father's sovereign, and the other two persons of the Trinity aren't sovereign. Wait, wait, wait. So they have no clue what's going on? They're just functioning randomly? No, we see that the three persons of the Trinity are co-equal. Now, we will study how the son now sits on the right hand of the father, having all authority in heaven and on earth. I don't know if that's really a demotion to sit at the right hand of the Father and have all authority in heaven and earth. I don't see quite an unequalness there, but there could be an argument that because he's sitting at the right hand of the Father, but then we see in Revelation that he's actually bringing his bride before the Father, and then the people dwell, and we're gonna read this in Revelation, then the people dwell with the Father and the Son and the Spirit into eternity. So I don't think we have a hierarchy into the eternalness of the Trinity. They're co-equal, but we do see submission according to the will of God. We see the Son submitting to the Father at different times in His earthly ministry, and we'll see that in other sermons. But we must recognize that they're co-equal. If we don't allow them to be co-equal, if we don't understand them, that was dumb of me to say, we don't allow them to do anything. They're God. But if we don't understand them, that they're co-equal, we will then start to misplace the persons of the Trinity and actually make them start butting heads against one another. If the father isn't love, then the son's not love. If only the son's love and the father is not, then we're going to have this weird dynamic when we start to understand. who God is. And don't we hear this kind of language in the world? Unfortunately, we hear this within churches today. The God of the Old Testament was mean. He was, he's just killing all the time. But then it took Jesus. Jesus got here and things got... No! Stop! We're talking about the triune God. The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament. The God of yesterday is the God of today. One in essence, three in unity. It's important that we get that they're co-equal. And then the last point here, point number three, is that they're co-eternal. This will be vital for us to understand when we get to some of our heresies. They're co-eternal. All three persons of the Trinity have and always will exist, meaning All three persons of the Trinity, the One God, the Triune God, has existed before time and will exist into eternity, into glory. Letter A, the Trinity existed before creation. John 1, as we already quoted, 1-1 in the beginning was the word, right? Genesis 1-26, if you want to look there quickly, Genesis 1-26, we're going to see how there's a glimpse of the Trinity in the creation story. Genesis 1-26 says, then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. Once again, a little study of the English language here. This is the plural pronoun, I believe is the correct term. Let us, that's plural. Our image and our likeness. Did God make a mistake? Did he mean to say, him, let me make man in my image? No, he's showing the triuneness, the uniqueness of the Trinity here. that this is showing that the triune God has existed before time began. It always has existed. God in Trinity has always existed. It wasn't the Father and then he created the other two persons. No. They've always existed in unity. What's this important to us? You and I and all of humanity is made in the image of the triune God. Now, we could unravel the beauty of what that means for ages, but let us understand that we are made in the image of God, not just one person or not just one vision or understanding that we have, but in the triune God, the glorious God. That's who you and I are created in the image of, in the likeness of. So when we start to talk about the value of life, when we start to talk about loving one another, we start to see each other in the image of the triune God. The Father, who we can't fully comprehend, but we see throughout Scripture. The Son, who we read about and we see His sacrifice. And the Spirit, who we see convicting and giving power. And then all three of them working together in and out of history. And we see all of them in unity. That's who you're created in the image, in the likeness of. It's important that we see this, brothers and sisters. This is why Jesus, in Matthew 28, says to baptize in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. So not only has the Trinity existed before creation, The Trinity also existed during Jesus' earthly ministry. You'll hear in some later sermons an argument that God is only functioning in one person at a time. We won't unravel that tonight, but that when Jesus was on this earth, that was the sole existence of Jesus. And when he ascended and the Holy Spirit came, that's the only existence of God. We do not believe that. We believe that all three persons are existing at all times. They're co-eternal. And we read this in Mark 9, verse 11. Mark 9, you don't have to turn there because I'm gonna, Mark 1, excuse me, 1, 9 through 11 is the baptism of Jesus. And so reading quickly, it reads, in those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And when he came up out of the water, immediately he saw the heavens being torn open, and the Spirit descending on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven, You are my beloved Son, with you I am well pleased." We see the existence of the triune God during Jesus's earthly ministry. John 6, I encourage you to read those verses as well. That's a beautiful picture of how salvation is worked out with all three persons of the Trinity. And Jesus is the one talking about that in John 6, pointing that the triune God is at work throughout all of history. But let us see that the Trinity will go and will exist into glory or eternity. I'll refer to it as glory here. There's an argument that can be made, and we'll study this, that when we get into glory, and once Christ returns, and the new heavens and the new earth collide, and he has made everything new, all of creation new, that somehow the Trinity will dissolve. But it's not what we read in Scripture. Turn to Revelation 22. Revelation 22 is this beautiful picture of the triune God dwelling with his people into glory. Not just tomorrow, not just for a couple hundred years, but for eternity. Whoever's the oldest person in here, think about how old you are and multiply that by a number you can't count to, and that's how long the eternal God will dwell with his people. Revelation 22, verses three through five, read, no longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it. All right, let's just take a pause because we see language here of God and the Lamb. In Revelation, often when we read God, it's John referring to the Father, and the Lamb, it's referring to the Son. Revelation 5 would clear that all up. So we see both persons of the Trinity active and dwelling here. So, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. There's a singularness there in that language, recognize that. Verse four, they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. Where have we just read of the term name, singular? Matthew 28, good, making sure we're paying attention. Matthew 28, we saw that Jesus says to baptize in the name, and then what is the name that he tells them to baptize in? In the Son, excuse me, of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit. So now when we see that the name is written on their foreheads, are we not just pointing to the baptism? Are we not just looking back? What happens when we're baptized? You're getting dunked into that water and you're getting pulled back out. The symbolism, the marking of the covenant that God has with you. That in your baptism you go down and when you come back out, you're not just a little wet, you're soaked. And if we were logs, we would be waterlogged. We'd hold you down to make sure you got it all soaked in there. Just kidding. But we know that this is the mark of the new covenant. And what happens is the mark is applied to us, that the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are applied to us. And here we see that we are dwelling in glory with God and the Lamb, and then the singular use of the Lord, and we are worshiping the Lord forever. So who are we worshiping into eternity? The triune God. So, brothers and sisters, as we go through this study, as we think about worshiping God, as we worship Him, let us fight the temptation to picture just one person of the Trinity. Let us fight the temptation to only worship God and thank Him for our salvation and only think of Jesus. Because if it was not for the Father, we would not be saved. If it was not for the Son, we would not be saved. If it was not for the Spirit, we would not be saved. The one God in essence redeemed us. Now we think, we place our faith in Christ, and we understand that the three persons of the Trinity are there, but we must think and worship the one triune God. Let's pray. Lord, I thank you for the deep truth of who you are, the depth that you are one God in three persons, the complexity of that, and even the mystery that we recognize it is. Lord, we see that you've revealed yourself in your word. I ask that you continue to reveal yourself, that we continue to know you more. May our worship of you be true. Mold us, shape in our hearts to worship you. mold us and shape in our hearts to seek to glorify you in all that we do. May we know you and love you more. May this change who we are. May we love our neighbors more. May we recognize and confess our sins before you, knowing that you are forgiving. Not just one person, but all three persons of the Trinity are at work there. We thank you for this. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.