Trinity Sunday<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nToday in the church calendar is Trinity Sunday when we look at God in Three Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In so many of the Gospels, Jesus is presented as a teacher who patiently and creatively ministers to our misunderstandings and confusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From our text this morning, Jesus says that he has so much to teach us that he cannot possibly teach it all to us now. We can only take the truth in small doses. It\u2019s like our granddaughter Sage who will continue to master math only in small dosages. \u201cYeh, Yeh, we haven\u2019t learned that yet!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On this Trinity Sunday, when we celebrate the complex and wonderful ways of God, let\u2019s focus on our belief in God as a gift of God who cares enough about us to teach us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we even consider the Three in One God, the question for us this morning is: Does God exist? If God exists, is God good or evil?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a prominent philosopher who teaches at the University of London named Stephen Law. He focuses upon evil, and says, like a number of people, that he has trouble believing in God because of the prevalence of evil in the world. Law notes that the belief in God is sometimes presented as a reasonable proposition. A favorite argument about the existence of God is the argument from design.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
People who push this argument ask, \u201cWhat are the chances of our complex, living universe evolving without any designer?\u201d The implication is that it is therefore reasonable to believe there is some sort of higher intelligence or intelligent design behind the construction of the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But philosopher Law says this really isn\u2019t much of an argument for God. It is an argument for some sort of great intelligence, but it really doesn\u2019t tell us anything about the characteristics of this great intelligence. After all, maybe this greater intelligence is a demon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are lots of tragedies and bad things happening in the world. We don\u2019t have to look too hard when a monster tornado destroyed over 13,000 homes in Oklahoma last week. So maybe the greater intelligence that set up the world also set up these bad things happening in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another argument for the existence of God that Law dismisses is so called \u201cfirst-cause.\u201d These people argue again with a question, \u201cWhy is there anything at all?\u201d There has got to be some creator who brought everything into existence. Again, Law notes how it is very difficult to move from the creation as we have it to an affirmation that God is loving or that God cares about us. And the foundation of the Christian faith is that God loves us and cares for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Law goes on to say that the world can\u2019t be created by only a bad God because how would we explain why there is good in the world. Where did genuine kindness and amazing selflessness come from? Where did that goodness come from? Just as it is difficult to move from the messy mix of good and evil in the world to an affirmation that this was created by a good God, so it is difficult to move from a messy world to an affirmation that this was created by a bad God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the end, this British philosopher Stephen Law says we just can\u2019t find reliable evidence that enables you to move to an assertion, \u201cThere is an all-loving good God\u201d or even the converse, \u201cThere is an all-hating and evil God.\u201d Law advises, \u201cProbably it is better to just get along with no Gods at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From philosopher Law\u2019s arguments, they will not lead us to answer the question, \u201cDoes God exist?\u201d We won\u2019t be able to prove the existence of God from the observations we make of the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Revelation<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nFrom what I\u2019ve seen, perhaps we ought to admit that most of our ideas about God come, not from rational observation of the world, but rather from revelation. What we know about God is not the result of human philosophical reasoning but rather as a gift\u2014God gives us our ideas about God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most of you are here this morning not because you have done an exhaustive, careful consideration of the nature of the world and said to yourself, \u201cWow! God made that beautiful flower! I now believe that there is a loving God somewhere out there who cares for me and loves me.\u201d Most of you are here, not because you have moved from observation of the world toward belief in God, but rather because a loving and caring God has moved into the world and toward you!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A pastor was telling a story of someone who was anguished by doubts about the existence of God. She thought God existed and lots of people who she respected had told her that they believed that God existed, but she just couldn\u2019t say for sure. She read the books of famous theologians, earnestly seeking some kind of irrefutable evidence that God really did exist. But she remained frustrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then on one Sunday, the woman emerged from church beaming, saying, \u201cI believe! I believe!\u201d The pastor was tempted to ask her, \u201cWas it my sermon? I hope. I hope. Was it the music? What were you thinking?\u201d But the pastor knew from experience that that was probably the wrong set of questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t so much that she had been clearly thinking about God, but rather that in worship she discovered that God was clearly thinking about her. God was somehow reaching out to her, probably in a way that was bigger than reason, bigger than words can say. She had been the recipient of revelation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only \u201cevidence\u201d Christians have for the existence of God is the presence of God\u2014the undeniable, sometimes infrequent experience that God is with us, that Jesus Christ is not merely a personality from the past but God in the present.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As Christians, we believe that this can be a wonderful and beautiful world. We also honestly know that this world can be, for many people, a very tragic place. We don\u2019t base our faith in God upon any of that. We don\u2019t decide whether there\u2019s a God or not by any philosophical arguments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We base our faith in God upon what God has told us about God, about what God has revealed to us about God in Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. God has revealed to us the truth that God is \u201cThree in One and One in Three\u201d\u2014the Holy Trinity. In Scriptures, through quiet inspiration of the Holy Spirit, through our often-difficult-to-describe but nevertheless very real experiences of God right here in worship in our church, these are the means by which we, who couldn\u2019t climb up to God by reason, had a loving God climb down to us through God\u2019s revelation in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spirit of Truth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\nNow that I have this honorary doctorate, I promise that I won\u2019t begin to over intellectualize the faith. That\u2019s the last thing you want. But at the same time, there\u2019s much to be lost in dumbing down Jesus Christ. You come to church asking and seeking bigger and bolder questions than I pose in my sermons: \u201cWhy am I unhappy? Is death the last word? Why can\u2019t I keep my promises? Is this all there is? If Jesus is the Redeemer, why doesn\u2019t the world look more redeemed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There are religious hucksters who will pronounce that they have the \u201cFive simple steps to\u2026\u201d or \u201cThe secret of happiness is\u2026\u201d The church need not prove the lie behind these simple claims; life does. All around us is the sad wreckage of those who believed the simple answers to life\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
More importantly, Jesus defies simplistic, effortless, and undemanding explanations. To be sure, Jesus often communicated his truth in simple, homely, direct ways, but his truth was anything but undemanding in our living. Common people heard Jesus gladly\u2014not all of them, but enough to keep the government nervous, only to find that the simple truth Jesus taught, the life he lived, and the death he died complicated their settled and secure ideas about reality. The Gospels are full of people who confidently knew what was what\u2014until they met Jesus. Jesus provoked an intellectual crisis in just about everybody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No wonder the Trinity is hard to understand\u2014we have a Venn Diagram God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s a Gator-Aid basketball commercial on the air when a player going for a dunk is blocked by another. Suddenly we see that the play was a player\u2019s nightmare. He then goes to the gym and exercises and work out harder and of course, drinking Gator-Aid so that he won\u2019t have to relive that nightmare again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s like how Matthew describes Joseph having a dream that his fianc\u00e9 was pregnant and not by him. Joseph bolted upright and broke into a cold sweat. Having his world rocked required Joseph to rethink everything he once knew. Joseph warned us that when we are thinking about the incarnation, it can be difficult to understand. The Trinity is a Venn Diagram God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s get back to what our text in John 16<\/a> says. In this final discourse with his disciples before his crucifixion, Jesus sets out a process of revelation that is both progressive and unified. \u201cTruth\u201d that the Father has is completely shared with the Son that Jesus is bold enough to refer to truth as his own. The Son, however, does not hold truth as his exclusive possession, but just like the Father shared truth with the Son, so the Son will share truth with the Spirit and through the Spirit with all of God\u2019s people. Because neither the Son nor the Spirit adds to the truth received from the Father, but simply shares and declares it, there is unity to what is revealed. Thus God is Three in One and One in Three.<\/p>\n\n\n\nYet Jesus recognized that there were still \u201cmany things\u201d he wished to share with his disciples that they could not yet bear. We will never have the intellectual abilities or the philosophical reasoning to come to understand the Trinity or if God really exists. But the important thing is that \u201cthe Spirit of truth\u201d would continue to guide us even in Jesus\u2019 absence. The history of the church demonstrates as well that the work of the Spirit continues from that first generation to our own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I returned to FCBC 15 years ago, I may have developed skills in church administration and staff supervision from my former work in Valley Forge, but I was nothing close to the biblical student that I am today. My preaching skills and delivery were at best sub-par like a first-year out of seminary preacher. But because of this privilege given to me to preach almost every Sunday, I have had to pour over the Scriptures, review how other scholars understood the meaning of the text, but ultimately at the end, open myself up to the revelation of God as Creator, Redeemer, and Comforter that I have been able to stand behind this august pulpit and proclaim to you, \u201cHere is the word of God!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I may have a BA in psychology, a M. Div. from seminary and now an honorary DD degree, but none of these alphabets give me any more abilities to know who God is. God is revealed to me as Christ on Calvary when I was at a summer camp as a child and I made a cross out of two twigs and set it in a base of plaster of Paris in a paper milk carton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God is revealed to me as Christ praying in Gethsemane when I received this relief plaque of the Praying Hand by Albrecht Durer at FBC in Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God is revealed to me as the Creator when I take our granddaughters to Yosemite and skip stones in the face of El Capitan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God is revealed to me as the Holy Spirit comforts those who are completing their lives in this world and eagerly waiting to enter into Paradise or when a newborn fills the emptiness of loving parents\u2019 heart to love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
God is revealed to us as the Great Physician when we require healing and to be made whole once again and you come back to church to testify that this is truly what has happened to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus says that he will send us the \u201cSpirit of truth\u201d who will explain to us the whole truth about God. And we have affirmed that this is true on Pentecost. God will not leave us to fend for ourselves, to dig up the truth about God on our own. God will teach us about God, will love us enough to reveal Godself to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You don\u2019t have to believe in God on your own. God has revealed himself to us as the Venn Diagram God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let us pray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Lord Jesus, we give you thanks that even though in our limitations and sin we could not come to you, you loved us enough to come to us. You did not leave us in ignorance but revealed the way to eternal life. For your revelation to us and your presence among us, we give praise and thanks. Amen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May 26, 2013 John 16:12-15 Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco. In my Inquirers Class, I cover the beliefs of aContinue readingVenn Diagram God<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,13],"class_list":["post-1560","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-ng-sermons","tag-fcbc","tag-john"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1560"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2275,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1560\/revisions\/2275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1560"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1560"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.followgreg.com\/revdonaldng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1560"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}