The Trinity

0:00Colossians 1:15-20

Amen. All right, Colossians chapter 1, join me in Colossians chapter 1. We’re going to start in verse 15. Let me open it here as well. Colossians chapter 1 in verse 15. It says — just to prove to y’all that I read it from the Bible, and not just my notes — “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by Him all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.

And He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything He might be preeminent. For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.”

1:11What the Trinity is

We’ve been talking this month from a series that I’ve called, We’re Building Everything on Jesus. We’re building everything on Jesus. This is a chief value in our church. Because here at Saraland Church, we are building a Jesus-centered, Spirit-filled church for all people.

Can I get a good amen in the house? And so we’re building everything on Jesus. And today I want to bring this series to a close by talking to you about what is one of the most important doctrines in all of the Christian faith. I want to talk to you this morning about the Trinity. Now to be honest with you, I was worried that this message was going to be a little stale, and a little lectury, and there will be moments where I’m going to lean into education. But I want you to know that there is so much power in this understanding of the Trinity. This is what holds the cosmos in place.

If you want to know something that will transform your life by the end of this morning, I’m going to show you how our one God in three persons will do that very thing. Now I want to warn you, we are getting into some complex subject matter. This isn’t think better and do better. This ain’t one of those messages. This is some heavy stuff. And Paul writes in Romans chapter 6, he says, “I use human terms because of your natural limitations.” We are about to talk about a concept that is so great that you need to understand between my Alabama public school education and your natural limitations, there’s going to be some loss in the air.

On top of that, we know that God — the prophet Isaiah said that God’s thoughts are above our thoughts, His ways are above our ways. It would stand to reason that His nature is above our ability to comprehend. So we’re going to talk about something that is incredibly hard to grasp, and I’m going to have to just do some proclaiming rather than some explaining this morning. In fact, a lot of theologians will tell you that when you try to do an illustration for the Trinity — because if you’ve ever heard someone explain it, they’ll say it’s like water. It’s like steam and ice and water.

None of those work. In fact, most illustrations actually end up in a heresy ditch. So there is no illustration that matches the Trinity. This is a huge doctrine. This is a huge theology, but I’m going to get it down into about 28 minutes this morning. Amen? All right. The Trinity is not a phrase that is found in the Bible. I want to say that to you right now because sometimes that is people’s defense against the Trinity. They’ll say the Trinity is not true. That word ain’t even in the Bible. Well, there’s a lot of theological words that are not in the Bible.

The Trinity is a label that is applied to something that is demonstrated over and over and over in the Scripture. It’s kind of similar to if you went home today and went into your kitchen and opened up the spice drawer. In your spice drawer, you’ll find cinnamon and sugar, and you’ll find lemon pepper, a little Tony Chachere’s. People always say, “What’s Tony Chachere’s?” I say, hey, you only know if you know. You only know if you know. So you’ll find all of these things in your drawer. You know what you won’t find in there? Spice. Nothing in there is called spice.

But spice tells you what’s in the drawer. It’s not spice, but it is spice. That’s kind of how the Trinity is. The Trinity is just a word we apply to things that are demonstrated throughout the whole Scripture that show us our God who is three persons but one God. The cornerstone of Christian orthodoxy is the Trinity. The definition of the Trinity, the best I can give you this morning, is this. God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And each person is fully God, and there is one God, and God is always all three persons at once.

Huh? God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person is fully God, and there is one God, and God is always all three persons at once.

5:40Church history: Nicaea, Constantinople and the creed

Okay, so here’s what I want to do. I want to jump to a little church history for a minute before we get into the Bible. I want to talk to you a little bit about where this word came from, why it came up, why this is even something we’re talking about today. And to do that, I need to take you back to the 4th century, to the year 325 A.D., when an event takes place with about 300 church leaders from across the Christian world called the Council of Nicaea.

In fact, the Council of Nicaea is kind of a dividing point for church history. We look at church history based on this council, things that happened before it, during it, and after it. So the Council of Nicaea joins together, essentially, to clarify the divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ. Not long before this council, religious freedom had been declared in Rome. It wasn’t just for Christians. Sometimes history is portrayed that way. This freedom was not just for Christians, though Christians experienced some restitution in that freedom because of the intense persecution they had been experiencing in the years up to it.

Well, because of the religious freedom, now people aren’t hiding in houses and teaching stuff. All the teaching is kind of getting out and it’s getting exposed. And there’s a teaching that’s going around. The teacher’s name is Arius. Arius was teaching — he was a bishop or an elder from Egypt. He was teaching that Jesus, at some point in time, did not exist, but that God created Him. This is a heresy that we now call Arianism. This is a categorical heresy. And so he had been teaching that Jesus was a created being, and this council came together to affirm what John chapter 1 and verse 1 says when it says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

If you read that chapter down, just about 15 more verses, you’ll see that the Word was made manifest and dwelt among us. The Word here is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So right here it tells us that the Word was with God in the beginning and the Word was God. We’re seeing one God, three persons right there. It’s starting to come together. Now I do want to let you know this. Just a little side note on where most doctrine comes from. Most doctrine does come from responding to some false teaching, because you don’t have to talk about some stuff until you have to talk about it.

Like, for instance, when I was in high school, there was no class explaining sex, gender, or pronouns. We were smart at Thompson High School in Alabaster, Alabama. We all had an intrinsic knowledge about this stuff. But now, 25 years later or however long it’s been, we’re teaching this in school. But why? Because people are asking questions. Nobody had to talk about this until it came up and became an issue. Nobody had to affirm the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ until people started teaching against it. Everybody assumed in the early church that Jesus was God because, like, the Scripture says it.

Amen? Okay. Then if you fast forward another 30 years or so, about 50 years, in 380 A.D., 380-381, there’s another council in Constantinople that is also held with a handful of church leaders from across the Christian world to affirm the deity of the Holy Spirit. Why? Well, because there was a group that raised up that are actually called the Pneumatomachians. The translation of that word literally means spirit fighters. These were people who were fighting that the Holy Spirit was indeed God. They were fighting against that. And so there was a council to affirm that the Holy Spirit is also divine, that the Holy Spirit is God — Father, Son, Holy Spirit.

So between these two councils, there is a formalization of orthodox Christian doctrine that the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are co-equal, of the same divine substance, and co-eternal, not created, but each person of the Godhead is eternal. Y’all with me so far? Let me explain it to you the way that they explained it in a creed that is sometimes called the Apostles’ Creed, though this is a more developed version of it. The Apostles’ Creed had been around for a while. Some of this I’m not explaining to y’all. I’m just trying to head off the people who are going to comment stupid stuff on YouTube.

I know you’re getting ready to type in the comments. I can feel it. I’ve done ministry on the Internet for a while. I know who these people are. I know some of their names. Okay, this is how the council would have explained this to you. This is a creed often known as the Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, but this is the finished version of it. It says this: “We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father.

Through Him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation He came down from heaven and became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. He was made man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. The third day He rose again according to the Scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end. And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke through the prophets.

And the one holy catholic and apostolic church. We confess one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and to life in the world to come. Amen.” Now, if you didn’t know anything else about the Christian faith, if you never cracked your Bible open — which is not something I recommend, by the way. I think you need to be in it every day, some of you twice a day. Amen. But if that’s all you knew about the Christian faith, you’d be doing pretty good. That’s a pretty good starting place.

12:16The New Testament shows the Trinity

But the Trinity is not something that was invented in the 300s.

This is a Bible doctrine. The New Testament clearly portrays the Trinity. I want to show you four Scriptures real quick that show that. Matthew 3, verses 16 and 17 say, “And when Jesus” — the Son — “was baptized, immediately He went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God” — the Holy Spirit — “descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him. And behold, a voice from heaven” — the Father — “said, This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” 2 Corinthians 13 says, “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ” — the Son — “and the love of God” — the Father — “and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit” — the Holy Spirit — “be with you all.”

Ephesians 4 says, “There is one body and one Spirit” — the Holy Spirit — “just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord” — the Son — “one faith, one baptism, one God and Father” — the Father — “of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” And then lastly, probably the best concise area of the New Testament that really gives us a picture of the Trinity is Matthew 28, verse 19, that says, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Let’s just say that together.

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah.

13:55The Old Testament shows the Trinity: the Shema

But the Trinity is not just found in the New Testament. The Trinity is actually found in the Old Testament as well. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4 — we actually use this in the 16 Fundamental Truths, because I believe it’s the second of the Fundamental Truths, that we believe in one true God. And Deuteronomy 6:4 is the Scripture that we use for that doctrine in our fellowship. And Deuteronomy 6:4 is much more than just a verse. This is actually the cornerstone of Jewish life. It’s called the Shema. The Shema.

It’s Shema if you’re reading it the way it’s written. That’s how I pronounce it when I’m not up in front of y’all. Amen. It’s how it looks on paper. However it looks on paper is how I’m going to say it most of the time. But the Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6, verse 4. Here’s a couple of things to know. This is the core creed of Judaism. This is the first prayer that most Jewish children learn. It’s also something that Jews recite morning and evening. And this is what it says. Deuteronomy 6, verse 4: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

There’s some interesting things happening in this verse. I’m going to try to explain it to you as quickly and as best as I can. I do wish I had a dry erase board on me right now. But, you know, hey, beggars can’t be choosers. Amen. So the word here for “hear” — how many of you — let me just back up for a second. If you don’t know this, the Bible was not written in English. The Bible is written in Hebrew, the Old Testament, Greek, the New Testament. There’s a little bit of Aramaic tossed in there for a little. That’s the Tony Chachere’s of the biblical languages.

Amen. A little spice in there. And so you have the word here for “hear” — in the Hebrew is the word shema. This is why they call it the Shema. This is the command. Israel, you need to hear this. You need to hear this. You need to hear this. For us, we probably don’t feel it as much as they would have, but being in environments that were polytheistic, and they were in environments, they were in cultures where people were sacrificing babies to gods on altars. When you live in that kind of environment, “hear” is a really good instruction. You need to hear this. You need to hear this over and over and over again.

So, the Shema. And then it says “the Lord.” The word here for “the Lord” — can I actually have Deuteronomy 6:4 up? I’m going to point at it a little bit. It makes me feel better. Deuteronomy 6:4. The word right there for “the Lord” — you see the LORDs in capital letters there? They do that in translations when it is the Hebrew word Yahweh, or Jehovah. We’ll stick with Yahweh for the moment. And so it says here Yahweh. Yahweh is a singular God. Yahweh is the way that God identified Himself amongst any other gods to the Jewish people. This is how He let them know, I’m the God you’re serving.

Yahweh. Yahweh, our God. The word there for “our God” is Elohim. Here’s what’s interesting about Elohim. Elohim is a plural word for God. So it says, “Hear, O Israel, God our Gods.” That’s literally how it translates. God our Gods. God is one. Here’s something else that’s interesting in the text here. You can pull a lot out of six little words on screen. The word “one” here is not a singular one. It’s the word echad. Echad is a collective one. It’s not a singular one. It doesn’t mean like one, two, three. It means a collective one, as in this is one church.

But we’re many people, but we’re one church. It’s the same word that in Genesis chapter 2, to define Adam and Eve’s relationship, the Lord says, “and they will be one flesh.” They’re not one person. Me and Ashleigh are not one person, but we are one, a collective one. It’s the same word that’s used in Genesis chapter 11, talking about the Tower of Babel, when the Lord looks down and looks how much they’re going to accomplish. He says, “Behold, they are one people.” Not a singular one, but a collective one. So in some essence, you could read this to say, the Elohim, Father, Son, Holy Spirit — the Gods, Father, Son, Holy Spirit — is echad, one collective, Yahweh, one God.

The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one collective God. This is millennia before Jesus Christ even comes on the scene. God’s been painting this picture for forever. In fact, when you read in the New Testament about how Jesus created all things and He upholds the universe by the word of His power — did you know if you go back to Genesis chapter 1 — I’m off the notes, by the way, so I don’t know how long this is going to get. Genesis chapter 1, if you go back to Genesis chapter 1, it says, “In the beginning, Elohim” — Gods — “in the beginning, Elohim created the heavens and the earth.”

In Job, it tells us that the Holy Spirit created the world. In John chapter 1, Colossians, and Hebrews chapter 1, it tells us that Jesus created the world. And then right there in Genesis chapter 1, it tells us that God the Father created the world. The Trinity is right there. Here’s the other thing — and I might get this wrong, the Hebrew — but if you were to look at that in the Hebrew, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” the first three Hebrew words — man, I’m going to mess this up — but it is bereshit, bara, Elohim. Bereshit, bara, Elohim.

I think it’s interesting. I don’t know if I’d build theology on it, but I got excited about it all of a sudden. I think it’s interesting that the third word in the Bible that’s talking about our God, who is three persons in one, is Elohim. Hallelujah! God has been showing us this since the creation of time, that He has revealed Himself to us as one God in three persons. Somebody ought to shout even if you don’t get it. Amen. This is power. I’m going to tell you how it’s going to change your life here in a minute.

20:38The Trinity protects us from heresy

The Trinity is a cornerstone in Christian orthodoxy, and because of that, it also protects us from heretical teaching.

The doctrine of the Trinity protects us from heresy. The doctrine of the Trinity protects us from heresy. Now, I could go long on this. I’ve even thought about maybe recording a video and just putting it up on our brand-new YouTube channel, where you can go back and review this message as well as the rest of the series. Yeah, all right. You get $100 after service because you clapped first. Bo, you get five because you waited. And the rest of you get nothing because you left me hanging. Now we’re getting some claps. Yeah, I see. Now people are catching on.

But I do want to mention two groups to you, because these two groups of people are coming to your house. So I just want to tell you about these. There are two groups that the Trinity will protect you against heresy. The first group is Mormons. Mormons are — we’re talking damnable heresy on these two groups. I just want to let you know that. Mormons, they have some crazy beliefs about God. They believe the Father was once a man who became God. They believe Jesus is divine, but He was born to God the Father and one of God’s wives. By the way, He’s got a lot of them according to their doctrine.

And they also believe that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all separate gods amongst countless gods. But the good news for you is you too can become a god according to the Mormons. Some crazy stuff. This is all because they’re unhitched from the Trinity. The Trinity would solve a lot of this false doctrine. Also, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that only the Father is God. That’s called a Unitarian theology. And so they believe that God is Father, but then they don’t believe that Jesus is divine. So Jesus is not God. He’s actually, according to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, He is the Archangel Michael, reincarnate.

They do not believe the Holy Spirit is God. In fact, they don’t believe the Holy Spirit is a person. They just believe He’s a force that operates in the world. And this is very similar actually to Arianism that we talked about earlier, that the Council of Nicaea in 325 dealt with. They have some very similar doctrine that lines up with Arianism. I just want to be clear, though, and I want to say this as a protection for you, but I also want to say this in love to the camera, that neither Mormons nor Jehovah’s Witnesses are Christians. Do not buy into this nonsense.

And Jehovah’s Witnesses haven’t gotten a pass so much, and I’m just going to rip the Band-Aid off here. I feel like ever since Mitt Romney ran for president, the Mormons have been getting a pass as Christians. They’re not. This is a damnable heresy. They are not one of us. They are not part of the fellowship of faith. They are not part of the household of faith. They profess a false Christ, and what they believe is so egregiously wrong. Let me say it again. It is damnable heresy. If you belong to a Mormon or Jehovah’s Witness church and you are in the Mobile County area, I want to invite you.

You have a place here. And what we’ll do is, right here at Saraland Church, we’ll begin to work with you and help you shake off some of this false teaching that is not going to do you any good. And one day you will stand before the throne of God where all men will be judged. And if your name is not written in the Lamb’s book of life, you will be thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. And I just want to say something to you, my friend, if you’re listening today. If you believe that Jesus is not God, you believe in a Jesus who cannot save you. He will be no less than who He is, the creator of all things, co-equal, co-eternal with the Father, begotten but not made.

We’re praying for you and we’re believing God’s best for you. Clap your hands and let them know we’re praying for them. See, whether you realize this or not, the Trinity is actually the glue that holds the Christian faith together. This is kind of where I want to close.

24:59The Trinity makes salvation certain: Abraham

The Trinity is what makes salvation possible. It is what makes salvation possible. We know that we have a righteousness by faith that is modeled after Abraham, the forefather of our faith. If you were to read Romans 4, Galatians 3, James 2, you would see that Abraham believed God. It was counted to him as righteousness.

This is the exact same way that we become born again. We place our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross and we are saved. And the theologian Stevie Wonder said it best: you are signed, sealed, delivered. Amen. I made a joke like that in a church one time and somebody lost their mind. I’m going to make a lot more just so y’all know. If they sang from Motown, I’ll move them into apostleship for jokes. Amen. So we know that we have a righteousness that’s by faith. We know that we have a righteousness that comes by faith similar to Abraham.

So I want to take you back to Abraham for a moment. I’m not going to put any Scriptures on the screen, but I’m going to talk you through the story arc of Abraham starting in Genesis chapter 12. We actually meet Abraham in Genesis chapter 11, but in chapter 12, he has an encounter with God the Father, and God the Father makes a promise to him, because Abraham has an issue. Abraham worships the Lord. He believes God. He serves Yahweh, but him and his wife cannot have children. They cannot have children, and Abraham is amassing a great wealth, and it’s a very practical concern he has.

He’s worried that he’s going to have to leave everything that he has to his nephews and his servants. He’s worried that he has no one to pass on the inheritance to. And the Lord comes to Abraham and He makes him a promise, and He says, “I’m going to make you a great nation. And through you, the nations will be blessed.” And He makes him a promise that he is going to have a son. That’s Genesis chapter 12. God the Father makes a promise to Abraham that you, Abraham, are going to be a father. Genesis chapter 15, probably about 10, 15 years later, Abraham has another encounter with the Lord where the Lord speaks to him and says, “I’m going to fulfill this thing.

I’m going to do it. You are going to be a father. This is going to happen.” And this is where the Bible says that Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. So I’m going to be honest, I can’t preach, but I just feel like the Holy Ghost just spoke something to me. Thank you, Lord. And so right there, he believes God. It’s counted to him as righteousness. And then the Lord says, we need to make a covenant between us. Because Abraham asked, he says, “How am I going to know that this is going to happen? How can I be certain that I’m going to be a father?

Because I’ve been sitting on this 10, 15 years. How do I know it’s going to actually come to pass?” And the Lord says, we need to make a covenant. Now a covenant was a ritual process from back then. I’m going to say it — I want to be clear, it’s weird to me. It ought to be weird to you and our sensibilities today. But basically what they would do when people would come into agreement with one another, they’d take an animal, they’d cut him in half, like straight down in half. And they’d put one side over here and one side over here.

And then they’d walk between it in agreement. This is just an ancient ritual. Don’t do this tomorrow at Labor Day. Cut a hot dog in half and, you know, good grief. But it was an ancient ritual that they did. It was basically to say, if we do not fulfill our promise to one another, let this happen to us. Okay. That was basically what the covenant was. And so God says to Abraham, He says, well, if you want to know how it’s going to happen, we need to get in covenant. And so Abraham prepares the covenant ritual. He takes the animals, he prepares them, puts them out.

And as soon as he’s done preparing, the Lord causes a deep sleep to fall on Abraham. And Abraham falls asleep. And the Bible says that a smoking fire pot comes down from heaven and a blazing torch comes down from heaven while Abraham is asleep. And the torch and the pot, they go through the covenant ritual instead of Abraham. Well, my friends, if you look at Revelation chapter 1, it sounds really similar to the description of Jesus Christ in Revelation chapter 1, where it says that His eyes, they burn like fire and His feet are burnished bronze. And so what we see here is, God says we need a covenant, and then He excludes Abraham from it.

Because Romans chapter 8 says that anything that we try to do in the fulfillment of our promise, between what the Lord is going to do on our behalf and its fulfillment, that that is weakened by flesh. In other words, when we get involved, it doesn’t work. So we read this a few weeks ago. So Jesus Christ the Son has done what the law could not do because it was weakened by flesh. Do you hear me this morning? And so what we see in Genesis chapter 15 is something that is so similar. I mean, theologians believe it’s a Christophany. It is so similar to Revelation chapter 1 that this obviously is some kind of incarnation of the Son before His birth in the earth.

So this is not a covenant between God and Abraham. This is a covenant between the Father and the Son. I have a feeling this is exactly what happened, because Romans chapter 4 says this. It says this, talking about Abraham, talking about Abraham’s promise. “This is why it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed.” If you’re involved in it, it’s not guaranteed. But when it’s a covenant between God the Father and God the Son, it’s a guaranteed, sure bet, it’s certain. Hallelujah. And then we jump forward again to Genesis chapter 17.

And in Genesis chapter 17, the Lord visits Abraham again and says to him, He says, “Hey” — I don’t think that’s actually how the Lord addressed him, but that’s what we’re going with today — “Hey, you know, if I’m going to fulfill that covenant, I’m going to need you to do Me a favor. I’m going to need you to walk before Me and be blameless.” And Abraham, as soon as he hears it, he falls on his face. He falls on his face. It’s a sign of, there is no way I can do that. And the Lord says, okay, this is what we’ll do. I’m going to give you a sign, to you and your offspring, that I’m going to fulfill the promise that I’ve given you.

And this is when the Lord institutes a practice known as circumcision. Now, I’m not going to go deep down this rabbit hole, but if you look at circumcision — Hebrews tells us, Colossians also says this — that the Old Testament, the old covenant pattern of doing things, they are types and shadows of that which is to come. There’s a lot of foreshadowing in the Old Testament of what the New Testament church would look like. And circumcision is a foreshadowing because it is a seal of the promise. Circumcision is a sign of what Ephesians chapter 2 says, you shall be sealed by the Holy Spirit.

It’s a sign of the Holy Spirit. Circumcision is a type of the seal of the Holy Spirit.

33:16Father, Son and Spirit: the promise made sure

And here’s what’s crazy. You’ve got the work of the Father in Genesis chapter 12. You’ve got the work of the Son in Genesis chapter 15. And you’ve got the work of the Holy Spirit in Genesis chapter 17. And after years of standing on a promise, after the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost have done their individual unique work in the life of Abraham, from what we can tell from the Scripture, immediately Sarah gets pregnant and within a year, the son that was promised to them was born.

Meaning that when you want to see things come to fruition in your life, if you want to see God do His full work, you can’t just have the work of the Father. You can’t just have the work of the Son. You can’t just have the work of the Holy Ghost. But when God in three persons comes together and does a unique work in your life, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, I’m telling you the promise is made sure. And it will come to pass. Hallelujah! The hymn writer said, God in three persons, blessed Trinity. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit have conspired since eternity past to save you from your sins and bless you.

In fact, one theologian said it this way: the Father planned our salvation, the Son purchased our salvation, and the Spirit preserves our salvation. God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And each person is fully God, and there is one God, and God is always all three persons at once. If you’re thankful that you serve a God who’s a little above your comprehension level, why don’t you give Him a big praise this morning? Amen.