Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
It is in this Name that we assemble – the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And it is by that Name that we are adopted into God's kingdom, in the Name and authority of the triune God we confess. We've seen this idea of the Trinity at various times throughout today's worship.
What are we, in fact, doing when we assemble in this way? Are we saying that we believe in three gods? We are not saying this at all. We confess there is one God in three persons. We boldly proclaim that we are trinitarian. We believe and confess that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one Lord, one God, one and only one. Yet, as we will celebrate in more depth next week, this one God works as a Trinity to create, redeem and sustain the world. So I greet you in the Name (singular) of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Am I the only person who finds this difficult? How can I rightly view what one God is doing when he exists in three persons? Do I need to be concerned about which member of the Trinity does what? Maybe I should be more careful about these matters. After all, there have been countless books, large and intelligent books, written about the particular works of the different members of the Godhead. And I'm quite frankly afraid of falling into one of two errors if I go too far here. What if I divide the work of the persons of God wrongly, thus becoming a tritheist? Or I might simply refer to "God." Is there anything wrong with that? Probably not, but again I might cause some sort of confusion. The average person in our society, I dare say, does not have an adequate view of who God is. Wait. Strike that. None of us has an adequate view of who God is. So we want to take the time and effort to be plain about who God is when we talk about Him.
So I am not alone. This is a difficult issue, but it is one our Lord has given us. We see, therefore, that Philip is speaking reasonably in John 14.8. Jesus is showing himself to us, but he is talking about going away, coming back, and all manner of things which boggle our minds. Philip speaks for us all when he asks Jesus to show the Father. Won't that be enough for us?
Jesus says it isn't enough to show the Fahter. The problem is that we can't walk around with the Father. We can't approach him. God the Father has hidden himself from us. We aren't able to sustain his presence. We can't withstand his glory. He has had to reveal himself in these last days through the Son. Even though the Father and the Son are equal in glory, majesty, and divine character, we see that in Jesus we have Emmanuel, God with us. We have seen him. We can have fellowship with him, because he has made himself like us in the fullness of humanity.
So in the Name we see the Father and the Son. Jesus goes on to tell his disciples that he is, in fact, doing the Father's works. He is acting in the Father's authority. There is great comfort in this. Do we want to see God? Look to Jesus. What would the Father do? All that the Son does is the work of the Father. What does God say? He says whatever Jesus says, for Jesus speaks with the full authority of the Father. Jesus does the works of the Father, all those works which the Father wishes him to do. Jesus himself reveals the will of the Father, his good and kind will, reconciling the world to God.
At this point the story gets better. Look what Jesus tells Philip and his other disciples. Those who believe will be doing the Father's works and the Son's works. Yes, believers will be going around doing what their Lord, the God of the Universe, in whose Name they assemble, wishes to do. If we thought Jesus' talk about going ahead of us where we can't go and then coming back to take us with him was mind-boggling, now we should be completely astonished. Do God's works? Me? You? Really? What in the world could Jesus be thinking?
Again we've come to a little bit of a crisis point here. I wonderif I count this statement of Jesus, that I will be doing his works, as a blessing or a curse? Does this exalt me? Does it humble me? And what about when I think about other people, people I know, being told they are doing God's works? I know in some circles there are believers who use a passage like this to deny that they enter into sin. They use it to proclaim their victorious life right here on earth. They use a passage like this, in short, to proclaim what we call a "theology of man's glory."
Briefly, here's how that theology of man's glory works. I've been redeemed by Christ. My life is no longer mine. Jesus is living in me. He has bought me for a price. He will use me in his kingdom as he wishes. And his desire for me is good. All things work together for good, especially for me. I'm a chosen generation. I'm blessed. I am a joint heir with Jesus. These are biblical descriptions. And they are wonderful! If I have the opportunity to live in those promises I am blessed indeed. There's a problem, though, with this theology of man's glory. Here's the heart of the problem. My life, my experience, does not bear out the truthfulness of God's description of me. I may be one of the immortal redeemed. But I don't feel or look like it. I may be cleansed from all sin, but it doesn't take me a long time or even a whole lot of honesty to see that I'm really good at entering into sin. If I take a good look at God's holiness then I look at myself I can see that my life doesn't really seem to match the new creation the Scripture says I am. Any doubt about it? Ask your wife, your husband, your teenager, your parents. There's plenty of sin to show me that I can't depend on this theology of man's glory. I just don't have experience that makes me think I'm doing the works of the Father and the Son, and certainly not with the attitude they have.
So where are we to go? What are we to do? Maybe this is the point in the sermon where I start haranguing us all. Maybe if I smack my fist down on the pulpit a few times and act really threatening and scary it'll help? Maybe I should come up with a list of the rules we need to follow so as to show true godly character. If we post it on our refrigerator maybe we'll live by it? How do you think that will work? No, that's not where we're going to go. God has given us plenty of rules. He's given us his Law in the Scripture. And we've already seen that we can't live up to it. We're to be holy as our Lord is holy. Are we doing that? If we are, why do we doubt God's provision? If we are, why are we pleased at how well we are doing? If we are, why are we comparing ourselves to other people and despising them? No, ultimately when we proclaim God's Law as that by which we become holy, we always lose. We always show ourselves arrogant, hopeless, or, more likely, both. This is not our answer.
So how are we going to deal with this? Our Lord has said that those who believe will do the works of the Father and of the Son. So how are we going to do this? We're back to the place where we started. How did I greet you? In the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. It is in this authority, the authority implicit in God's Name, that we live as Christians. It is under the protection of the Name of our Lord that we find immortality. It is in the power of the Name of the Lord that we have the hope to live as his people in this world. It is in the power of the Name of God that we live and work in our society. It is in the Name of the Lord that we love and serve our neighbors. It is not in our own name and authority. Those are bankrupt, they are invalid, they are non-starters. It is in the Name and authority of the triune God that we live, that we move, that we have our being.
There's still something missing in this equation. God the Father is unapproachable. God the Son is going away. So what are we going to do? Our Lord promises the gift of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. This helper, sent from the Father at the request of the Son, comes to his people and indwells the believers. The Holy Spriit does not depart from believers. Remember, after all, this Trinity is ONE GOD in THREE PERSONS. As Jesus is the fullness of the godhead, so also is the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit is not departing from his people. By the Holy Spirit the promise of Jesus in Matthew 28, "I will be with you always," is fulfilled. He will never leave us or forsake us. It is he who is working in and through us in all we do and say.
We're still left with a credibility gap. Remember what you said this morning when your alarm clock went off? Remember what you did when you were cut off in traffic? Remember what you said when... Well, we won't go there. We've already remembered the depth of our sin, at least some of it. So what in the world is the Holy Spirit doing in us? Some of the features of my life would seem to indicate the Holy Spirit is pretty ineffective. The other features of my life would seem to indicate the Holy Spirit is entirely absent.
We see the work of the Holy Spriit in our passage today though. He teaches his people. He reminds his people. He delivers the peace of the Lord. He delivers us from all reason for fear. He is active in his people. Has he not done this today? Did the Holy Spirit speak through me or through other people and circumstances to remind us all of God's greatness, his righteous demands, and his merciful care for his people? This is the work of the Holy Spirit. Did the Holy Spirit speak to remind us that it is by Jesus' death on our behalf that we live? Did the Holy Spirit remind us of the depth of our sin? Did the Holy Spirit move us to repentance, to express our sorrow at our sin? Has the Holy Spirit spoken through the Scripture and through other words people have said and deeds people have done to proclaim the peace of God? Has the Holy Spirit told us that in Babel we are scattered due to our own exalted self-opinion and that in Pentecost we are gathered by one spirit as one people for forgiveness of sins in one Lord Jesus Christ?
Truly, our Lord, one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has delivered us from every reason to fear. He has purchased our life by his death, burial, and resurrection. He has shown that the resurrection and ascension are complete by sending the Holy Spirit to indwell us and to work in and through us. He has delivered us from death into life. We have no reason for fear. We have no reason for doubt. We can see the depth of his forgiveness in the broken body and shed blood of Christ, applied to us by faith. We have this life, in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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Dave Spotts
blogging at http://capnsaltyslongvoyage.blogspot.com and http://alex-kirk.blogspot.com
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