If you were here this morning, you're aware that we're going to continue our study in the 17th chapter of John. We're going to finish this most holy of prayers together in our study of the text this evening. So turn to John chapter 17 and we'll be looking at verses 20 through 26. John chapter 17. verses 20 through 26. We all think highly of how easy it is to get along with ourselves until we encounter some exchange with somebody else where they don't want what we want. And then the myth of unity is disrupted or is actually shown to us. We all think we have unified marriages. We think we have unified families, workplaces. We think we have a unified church until our desires come in conflict with others' desires. See, unity isn't about what happens when everybody is just as I want them to be. Unity is really seen in the midst of diversity. It really cannot truly and fully and properly be seen apart from that diversity. There's a vast difference between a unified church and a uniform church. If you want your fellow church members to be just like you. In whatever way you you want. Then you will never be properly properly united with them. If you want your fellow church members to be just like you, then you will never be properly united with them. Unless, of course, you're Jesus Christ or something. Unity is only truly expressed out of diversity. And as it turns out, this truth is actually a big portion of the very fabric of the universe. We're not just talking about marriage here. We're not just talking about church membership and the body of Christ here. We are actually talking about the very nature and character of God himself. When we talk about unity being expressed out of diversity. Most of us don't like to think about the Trinity. I know this because every time we talk about the Trinity, we say things sounding like, oh, you know, it's just such a mystery. And it's just this write off statement that we make because we just can't grasp it. And so I'm not even going to try lazily to give any attention to it. I think this is a shame. It's funny how God's love expressed to man is something that we love to talk about, isn't it? But is that any less of a mystery than the Trinity? I cannot explain to you how God, who is so far apart from me, expresses love to me. And yet I'm not going to stop talking about it. It doesn't make me stop talking about it because it's a mystery to me. So let's not stop talking about the Trinity just because it's a mystery to us. And look at this. Here we are in John, chapter 17, and we have to talk about the Trinity because that's what this text talks about. And so we're grateful for the pattern of preaching here at Maranatha that is expositional, that is consecutively walking through the text because we don't we don't choose our topic. The Lord chooses it for us, so to speak. There is some choice in the matter. OK, I admit, I admit. But we are we are hearing from God and he is divinely, providentially guiding us to think about the Trinity this evening. So I invite you for a moment here to think about the difficulty of the Trinity. To begin with, it has been said that unless God were three in one, no great feat would be accomplished by calling him one. That very helpfully summarizes the difficulty of the Trinity, right? It's not a big deal to call God one if he's just one, right? But no, he is three in one. And that is the difficulty. That is the feat of the Trinity. My wife loves math. She knows math well. She even knows about things like imaginary numbers. How can you know about imaginary numbers? Unless you're like five years old or something, right? With a big imagination. But she doesn't know anything about math where three equals one. And that is what makes the Trinity so practical for us. Let's rewind and play that in slow motion. That is what makes the Trinity so practical for us. That might sound like heresy to you. Rather than a piece of useless trivia, the truth of the Trinity is useful for the Christians' everyday life. The Trinity is practical. Let me try and show you this up front before we look at this text. We can't figure out how two equals one in marriage. It takes couples years to grow into their oneness, and they never finally arrive there. I'm not going to ask for a testimony from my wife. But let's just all safely assume that her desires are still not always my desires, even though God says that we are one. Right. The biblical equation in marriage is that two equals one. How does that work? You know what we're going to need to do to see how that works? We're going to need to look to the Trinity where three equals one. And actually, the Bible actually lays out three in one God as as the pattern for two in one marriage. OK, think about this. We can't figure out how three equals one in our pastoral staff. I know it's hard to believe, but Joey and Pastor don't always see it the way I do. Short of my marriage, there has been nothing that has made me work harder for unity and see my sinful selfishness than working on this pastoral staff. I can see some draws dropping out there. Did he really just say that? And you're all thinking pastors, the easiest guy in the world to work with. Right. Exactly. What do you think that means about me? It is a challenge for us to think about how do we three pastors work together as one? How does that work? I don't get it. I come to work on Tuesday with these guys. We have a staff meeting on Thursday. How do we three work together as one? We say that about our marriage, we say that about our pastoral staff, we say that. About about our deacons and trustees, how do ten equal one? I'm grateful for the unity that I have seen in those meetings, and still it's no surprise Jack Britain's in there. I don't even see Jack, where is he? There he is, there he is. That was the first name that came to mind. I'm sorry, brother. How did ten equal one? It's even harder to figure out how 240 equal one. In our church membership, let's face it, we often resemble 240 individuals more than we do one body. Have any of you ever despaired of truly being one with your church? We might as well try to become one with the universe like Yoda, right? I mean, it seems like a dream, pie in the sky. One with these 240 people? Are you crazy? Do you realize who these people are? The reality is we never did any math in school that prepared us for these mysteries. They don't teach you this in kindergarten, and they don't teach you this in calculus. See, God intended for us to learn these truths from the most elementary school of all. Himself. Some of the most profound and mature lessons of the Christian life really don't get learned fully without serious meditation on the Trinity. So the central question that this sermon asks is, what's the practical use of the doctrine of the Trinity? That's the question that we are going to try our best to answer from this text this evening. I will be honest with you, this text is like standing at the bottom of Mount Everest. And I feel like this has been a puny attempt to capture the meaning of this text. I feel like, well, this is what we've got. So this is what we're going to use this evening. But what's the practical use of our doctrine of the Trinity? So this sermon is going to unfold three practical uses of the doctrine of the Trinity. But before we move into the text, I want to assure you one more time that it is a mistake to dismiss the doctrine of the Trinity as impractical. And I'm going to do that in the most powerful way that I know, too, and that is to to play the Jesus trump card on you. OK, the Jesus trump card. If we could prove that the Trinity was something that Jesus found intensely practical, then we would be well on our way to seeing its practicality, right? Who can argue with Jesus? Well, you can see the setup coming. Look quickly at your Bible's headings for John 18. Quickly look at whatever your Bible puts over the page for John 18, or maybe you have sections broken up for John 18. What does the heading say? It says Judas betrays Jesus or something like that, right? So we are immediately at the end of chapter 17 going into chapter 18, we are going right into excuse me, right into the passion. We're going right into the betrayal of Jesus, the trial of Jesus and the crucifixion of Jesus. And if you look for what Jesus says after this point, his answers are really quick to things. He doesn't give extended teaching anymore. This is. Jesus is dying prayer in chapter 17 that we're reading. And again, I say, I feel like I stand at Mount Everest and have no ability to capture what is expressed and communicated here. Think about this. This is Jesus, the God man speaking to God, the father. He speaks in human language and so we can understand it. But he is not just speaking as Jesus, a man, he is also speaking as the Christ. This is divine communication and we're listening in. That should split your brain for a second or more for a week at least. That is amazing. We are listening into communication within the Trinity. We have a window into their communication. So I'm trying to convince you of the practicality of the Trinity when Jesus comes to this time in his life, his last opportunity to communicate to his disciples and to us. And what does he say with his last prayer before his betrayal? He decides it would be worthwhile to talk to the father in our hearing about their triune relationship. That is exactly what he does. And not only that, but to pray that our relationships within the membership here at Maranatha Baptist Church would resemble the relationship between God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That. Is the best argument I can muster, this has to be of some practical benefit for us, because our Lord in his dying prayer prayed these very things about his relationship with the father, about the Trinity. On our behalf. So let's look at the text together. John 17 and we'll read verse 20 through 26. Jesus says, I do not ask for these only referring to the disciples, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. That they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me. I have given to them that they may be one, even as we are one, I and them and you and me. That they may become perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you. Loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you have given me because you love me before the foundation of the world. Oh, righteous father, even though the world does not know you, I know you and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name and I will continue to make it known that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I Let's just pray and ask for the Lord's help on the rest of our time together this evening. Father, we stand here before the mountain of this text overwhelmed, before this, the holy of holies, this grand and this mystery-filled prayer, this transmission of the heart of your Son to you, our Father. We pray, we pray for your help. We pray and ask You to unveil, to open our eyes anew to Your glory. We ask You to convince us. We ask You to convict us. We ask You to comfort and to encourage us by Your Word. Above all of these things, God, we ask that You would, as our Lord, as Your Son prayed, that You would unite us. through this text, that you would, by the glory of your own union and for your own glory, would draw our hearts together, uniting our marriages, uniting our families, uniting this body, Maranatha Baptist Church, in the kind of fellowship that only could be attributed to your work in our midst, to the kind of love and affection and unity that would speak of your work to our community. Lord, we are utterly dependent upon your spirit's work in this regard. So we ask for it. We pray that we would not be resistant to that work, that we would give attention to your word, that we would be careful with our speech, that we would be humble before your word. All of these things, God, we pray for your glory. In his name. So we're going to get to the practical lessons of the Trinity. But let's quickly notice that each of these lessons is going to be about unity. OK. Each of these lessons is going to be about unity. And I just need to show you that that's what this should be about because that's what this passage is really about. That really is the first request that Jesus makes in this text. In verses 20 to 26 anyways. In verse 21, see what Jesus says. He says, I don't ask on their behalf. Well, this is verse 20, but on everyone's behalf who will come after them, believing in them. So he's praying for all church saints. And then he says what it is he prays that they may all be one. Right. In verse 21, he says that's what he's praying for. And really, he says that in another way by by comparing that to how he and the father are in union together, how they are one. Right. And and then he goes on and he repeats this request again in verses 22 and in verse 23, that they may be one just as we are one. Verse 22. I and them and you and me that they may be perfected, that they may come to the end of their unity, to its complete fullness. So unity, the lessons we're going to learn about the Trinity are going to be all about unity. OK, so unity lessons, learning unity from the Trinity, a working title for our material tonight. Learning unity, unity from the Trinity. From the Trinity, we learn first that unity arises out of giving glory to someone different from me. Let me say that again, unity arises out of giving glory to someone different from me, and I don't mean from me, Nathan Gearheart, so you pick somebody other than me. No, put your name in that sentence. Unity arises out of giving glory to someone different from me. This is a lesson we learn from the Trinity. We become one in the church when we set aside glory for ourselves and seek it for each other. In the Trinity, the spirit doesn't prefer glory for himself above the father and son, and the son doesn't exalt himself above the father and the father happily confers glory on both. But notice the shocking thing Jesus says in verse 22. It should shock you, shouldn't it? The glory which you gave, which you have given me, I have given to them. God gave Jesus glory. We know this from many texts like Philippians chapter two. But then this text says that he gives the church that glory. And this point is debated, but I think that this is a bit of circular argumentation here on Jesus's part, the glory of God, I think even as pastor defined it really is a summation of all of his character. It is the sum of all of his attributes. That is the glory of God. The fruit of the spirit born in the life of believers. is nothing less than God's nature being manifested in our lives. As fruit-bearing trees, we get the opportunity to wear the glory of God's moral attributes that we reflect. Do you see the argument that I'm making there? In what sense are we given the glory of God through Jesus, the glory that God gave to the Son, the Son gives to us? How does that happen? Well, the very attributes of God can be ours, not his divine attributes, not his incommunicable attributes like omniscience or omnipotence, but instead his attributes of love, his attributes of holiness, of mercy, of even justice. And these kinds of things can be and should be ours as we, by the Spirit, are living the life of the believer. As fruit bearing trees, we get to wear the glory of God's moral attributes that we reflect. This is how it's supposed to be in our church body. We are supposed to be full of glory, given condiment of glory, given commendations for each other. No, we're not supposed to worship each other. But we're supposed to adorn each other with affirmation of God's work. Next time you read through Paul's epistles, Take notice of how many times he commends believers for the work of God in their lives. Think of that. The Apostle Paul, the one chosen by God to to. Be the inspired pen of much of the New Testament, the one chosen by God to write the book of Romans, I mean, talk about a celebrity author, talk about a celebrity missionary, a celebrity theologian, the Apostle Paul. And here he is in letter after letter after letter, not drawing attention to his greatness and bringing glory to his name. But he's saying things to people like the Romans. He's saying he's saying, I commend Phoebe to you because she is a servant worthy of the Lord. Receive her ministry. And that is one example of of hundreds of commendations that might be a slight exaggeration. It might not reach 100. But it's got to be over 50 commendations that Paul gives for individuals in his New Testament letters. There's a ton of them. To be sure, we must guard not to give glory to man apart from God. That would be idolatry, and many a church has fallen into the snare of exalting a man above scripture, exalting their pastor above scripture. And that is not at all what we are talking about here this evening. But in seeking to avoid that snare, that error, let's not be so careful that we fail to do what God himself has modeled to us and what Paul and the New Testament authors model. There's a part of me that would really like to practice this for a moment, this giving glory to the body. I'd like to name names like Paul. I'd like to take the rest of the night making a parade of church members who are models of God's grace in one area of their Christian walk or another. I think that would make some people nervous not not the least of which the individuals that I'd be calling upon who don't want to receive that glory because of their humility as it ought to be. Do you see what I would be doing if I did that. I would be coming to recognize that I don't have everything I need to have by calling out and observing these graces and the glory of God's work in other people's lives. I'm fundamentally I'm necessarily being humble. I see the glory of my wife, particularly clearly in those areas in which we are different. I am far too easily moved emotionally. I get I get rocked by trials and frustrations. And she, on the other hand, is unmoved. And the more I see that, the more I praise it and the more I praise it, the more I become like it. And the opposite is sadly true as well. The more we focus on our strengths. How much how much better I am in this area or that than my spouse or than a fellow church member, the more I do that, the more I focus on how good I am with children's ministry or how wise I am with money or how mechanically inclined I am. You know, I'm not talking about myself here. How good I am at teaching or how whatever I am better at than others. The more glory we seek for ourselves, the less united we are. Indisputably, unquestionably. And so our lesson here from the Trinity is that unity arises out of giving glory to someone different from me. Your homework this week from this point. You're going to need to write this down. I don't see you reaching for a pen. I will. I will wait. Seriously. Your homework this week from this point is to highlight, to revel, to praise, to glory in the grace of God in your spouse, in your child, in your church member, in your fellow church member, your church member. Do we have a my church member? That sounds strange. In your church members, find something God is doing in someone else and point it out to them in praise to the Lord for his work. Be united by glorying in God's work in others. And if you would like to think more about this, I would strongly recommend that you pick up the book Practicing Affirmation by Sam Crabtree. Practicing Affirmation by Sam Crabtree. I wish I had a copy to give away, but I need to read mine again because I really struggle with this. And it's been very helpful for me. And so I'm selfishly not going to give it up yet. But I would strongly encourage you to consider picking up this book Practicing Affirmation by Sam Crabtree. More importantly, do your homework and share glory with someone else in the church family. So there's three lessons. We're going to look at the second one now. Lessons from the Trinity. From the Trinity, we learn that unity arises out of giving glory to someone different from me. Unity also arises out of serving someone different from me. In the text here, multiple times we see reference to Jesus on his mission. The mission of Jesus was to unveil or to make known the character and nature of God. The suffering servant, the humble savior who set aside his heavenly glory, did so in obedience to the father. in service to the father. Let me just highlight those for you here from from the text, so we're seeing those look look there in your in your Bible. To verse 23, you may not see this immediately, but but Jesus is saying, I want you to be united as a church so that the world may know That you, the father, sent me and loved them even as you loved me. So there is something trinitarian there that the world needs to see. Do you see? The father sent the son and the world needs to see this, they need to see that the father sent the son. You see that the Jesus came as a servant of the father, that Jesus came in submission to the will of the father. There's a relationship there within the Trinity that the world needs to see. Unity arises out of serving someone different from me. The world measures servitude. The world observes servitude and marks it off as a matter of low status. to be rejected. The world views humility as a mark of weakness. The world views obedience as a mark of smallness, of no greatness. But this is contrary, contrary, in fact, to the very fabric of the universe. Do you see? God, in the beginning, God, All of the universe comes out of that. And so if service, humility, and obedience exist in God, then that's what life is made of. That's what the world and the universe is made of, not what our world tells us. We're talking about worldview issues here, right now. Our world says humility is folly. And the one who made the world, who gets to decide what this world is made of, Says, no, it's actually part of me. It's part of my relationship within the Trinity. Within the Trinity, there is both full exaltation. And full obedience. Full glory and full submission. Humility. and glory at the same time. So the cross is not simply a manifestation of God's love to man. It is actually a window into the heavenly relationship between God, the father and the son. Without any division in their being, God, the son, willingly received the mission of a father. Now, how would you have liked those arrangements? Do you see the tension? We can't handle that. That's why we struggle with two equals one. That's why we struggle with three equals one. That's why we struggle with 240 equals one, because we can't handle those tensions. But there's no tension in God's being in this regard. We could not have known God apart from the cross, which simultaneously shows God's just character and his love. If his wrath was poured out on us without Jesus, without the Christ, we would have never seen his love. But if he never punished our sin, we would have never seen his justice and his holiness and his wrath on evil. The triune work of God on the cross, complete with the humble service of Christ, is the full display of his character. And you take the Trinity away from that. You just have one equals one and you lose the picture and you don't really see who God is. Jesus did the will of the father, he made known the father who sent him, and as he calls us to be united together in him, he calls us to follow his example of service, of obedience, of humility. Being in Christ. Is the most important thing about us. Having that in common is more important to us as a church family than our national allegiance, than our vocation, even than our family ties. Our union in Christ calls us to a unity that images, that reflects the Trinity. And that image that we must reflect involves active and intentional pursuit of service for one another. Unity arises It arises out of serving someone else, someone different from me. So then our homework, our homework again, where are your pens? Write it on your hand if you have to. Our homework is to identify someone in our church family this week who is very different from you. Maybe they're married and you're not. Maybe they're young and you are not as young. Find someone who's different from you and find a way to serve them. Share a meal. Provide a service. Just have a conversation. Have coffee. Whatever the case reflects the image of our triune God by serving one another. I really I really seriously invite you to do this. Set a target. This is the invitation. OK. All of you come forward now. In your mind and your heart set a target. Set a target. Who am I going to pursue to serve in this church body as an expression of the Trinity? That's what Jesus is calling us to here in this text. It's amazing. It's mysterious. And then I think it is very freeing. Set a target, make a plan and go and execute it this week. And if you need help along the way, I would encourage you to pick up C.J. Mahaney's book, Humility. C.J. Mahaney's book, Humility, would be a very helpful book for you to think about serving within the body. I'm a little concerned. I'm kind of excited about the practical implications of the Trinity here. I'm not sure how excited you all are yet. So let's try one more. Number three, practical lessons from the Trinity. From the Trinity, we learn that unity arises out of loving someone who is different from me. Scripture defines love by nothing less than the cross itself. That is the ultimate expression of God's love for man. But notice in this text over and over again, that that love for man is directly connected to the love that the father has for the son. You can't disconnect these things in this passage. They're in indisputably connected. Look in verse 23. In verse 23. He wants the world to know that God the father sent him the son and loved them the church even as God, the father loves the son. Jesus wants the world to know that God loves the church, the father loves the church in the same way as he loves the son. Do you see? So the affection of the father serves as a model. In a sense, there of love. Verse 24 says essentially the same thing. Well, not essentially, it says you loved me before the foundation of the world. That is, God, the father loved God, the son before anything else. And then in verse 26 again. So that the love with which you, God, the father, have loved me, God, the son may be in them, the church. God's love for the God, the father's love for the son is directly connected to God, the father's love for the church. It's a love that existed before the world began. It is the love that holds the Trinity together. This love. Unifies the community of three in one, making them complete and in harmony, take away the Trinity, and you remove the love of the father for the son. Do you see that if you have one equals one, then what's the object upon which the father sets his affections? Nothing. The Trinity is. Is a unified community in some kind of sense. We were created in the image of God to reflect that. And so we are made for community. So our community reflects the community of heaven. So the love the father has for the son is a model for us of love for one another. You take that away and the whole universe becomes unraveled. It really does. We can't do it, but it really would. We would all just disappear. Nothing would exist. It'd be a great void of emptiness. The love of the father is linked to the son's obedient love to the father. God lavished glory upon the son in love for his son's cross work. Of course the point of all of this is that without the love of God we would be nowhere. The unity of the Trinity. is built on the love of the Trinity. And so Jesus prays that we would be an image of the Trinity. That's exactly what he prays as we are one. Let them be one. We can't do that without the same purpose self giving of the father for the well-being of the son. That is love. We cannot we cannot image the Trinity without the love that the Trinity displays. So your homework this week for this point is more intangible, tangible. If you do those other two assignments. To find a way to serve someone and to find a way to glory in someone else's God's work in somebody else's life, if you do those other two, I hope you do them out of expressions of love. But those acts will not necessarily generate love and they could be done out of self-love. So your homework in this regard. Take it or leave it, please write it down. Please do it. Your homework this week is to journal. Journal your activities this week. Just capture five things that you did each day, and then identify who those activities were an expression of love to in your heart. It's a simple assignment. You do more than five things in a day, so you should be able to think of at least that many, right? And then just ask yourself, who was I expressing love to when I did these things? And think about this. Think about what God's journal would look like. Think about what God the Father's journal would look like. Think about what God the Son's journal would look like. It would look an awful lot like this. And the motive within this is always the Father's expression of his love to the Son and the Son's reciprocation of that love. For further reading, I'm in a classroom mode here. For further reading, I invite you to pick up Relationships A Mess Worth Making by Tim Lane and Paul Tripp. Absolutely helpful, helpful book. It actually helped me understand the significance of the Trinity in this way. So in conclusion, we observe the commitment that Jesus expresses in verse 26. Look there at verse 26 with me. Jesus begins by looking to the past, he says, I have made known your I have made your name known to them. It's an expression in the past tense. He observes that he has effectively done what John described earlier in the chapter in the chapter in the book, right in chapter one. The son has come in order to make the father known. That is, the son, in verse 14 of chapter one, has had this intimate relationship with God that no one else has had. And because of that, he is uniquely qualified to make God known to us. This unveiling, this making known includes the life that Jesus lived, it includes the teaching that he taught, it includes the death that he was about to die, it includes the The death that he was about to conquer. But Jesus doesn't just speak of this in the past tense here in this verse, does he? I have made you known, but he goes on. He says that he will continue to make God's name known. At this point. The cross and the resurrection haven't happened yet. And so he's looking forward to that. But he's even looking beyond and through that toward us here as a church body today. Jesus looks forward to the to the continuing ongoing work that he is going to do, revealing or making God's name known. Displaying God for all that he is and he is thinking about seeing that happen, As we are in union with him and in union with each other. The future tense here will continue to make known promises us that God's character will continue to be displayed through the unity of the church. It's Jesus's commitment. I am going to do this. I'm going to accomplish this. So Jesus's prayer here serves both as a call and as a comfort to us. Our unity. will be how we make God known to the world. And that's clearly one of Jesus's points, isn't it? And John picks up on this later in his letters. And so our closing question for us tonight is how well can the world see the wonder of our triune God in our marriages and in our church? We should shudder at that question. We should be overwhelmed at that question. And yet we should rejoice and delight in the reality that Jesus Christ himself prayed and promised that this would be true. What a calling. Let me repeat the closing question. How well can the world see the wonder of our trying God in our marriages and in our church? I hope this evening that perhaps you're thinking about the significance, the practical value of the Trinity has been altered at least slightly. Unity arises out of the very example of the glory that is shared in the Trinity, the service that is rendered within the Trinity and this the love that is expressed within it in the Trinity and these all we are called to be one in as a church body as a church family.