Pastor Timothy Patoka 1 Sunday After Pentecost: Holy Trinity; June 16, 2019 The Holy Spirit Reveals Our Triune God John 16:12-15 st
1) The Holy Spirit Speaks The Triune God’s Truth 2) The Holy Spirit Teaches Us To Glorify Our Triune God I’ve always found it interesting that around this time of year we are always going from one holiday to another. About a month ago we had Mother’s Day which was quickly followed by Memorial Day. Today we’re celebrating another holiday, Father’s Day, when we give thanks for all that our fathers have done. Now I know that not all of us may be blessed to have our fathers still with us, or necessarily have good examples of fathers. We live in a sinful world after all. But if you were blessed with a good father, and if he is still with you, then today is probably a special day. In the Christian Church, we are also at a time of year when there are a lot of special Sundays. First we had Easter and then shortly after our confirmation services at Grace-Vail and Grace-Tucson. We then threw in Good Shepherd Sunday, Ascension, and Pentecost. Today is one of the last special Sundays we’re going to have for a while where we celebrate Holy Trinity Sunday. We have the three persons of God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And while they are all God and persons of the one Godhead, they are still distinct from each other. As we look at our handful of verses from John chapter 16 this morning, we’re going to learn what some of those distinctions are as shown by the Holy Spirit who reveals our Triune God. 1) The Holy Spirit Speaks The Triune God’s Truth When we celebrated Pentecost last week, we saw how God poured out the Holy Spirit on his believers in Jerusalem to equip them to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. The Holy Spirit’s presence on that day wasn’t a one-time action. While we do not expect to speak in unlearned languages or have tongues of fire dancing on our heads, the Holy Spirit is still active in each believer’s heart by teaching us what God’s truth is. Jesus said as such in our verses, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak. He will also declare to you what is to come” (John 16:14). What the Holy Spirit teaches us is not new or original to him. Rather what he teaches us is what God the Father and God the Son have already said and done. We look in the Old Testament and see God the Father all over. On the heels of Adam and Eve’s first sin, he promised to send a Savior. As time progressed, God gave more details about this Savior to help us identify him. When God the Son came to this world in Bethlehem, he received the name Jesus and lived up to every prophecy and promise his Father had said. And not only that, but Jesus also gave further instruction to his disciples which some of them recorded and elaborated 1
Pastor Timothy Patoka 1 Sunday After Pentecost: Holy Trinity; June 16, 2019 on in inspired Scripture. What the Holy Spirit is teaching us in nothing new. But it is the truth, a truth that comes straight from God upon which we can trust with all our hearts. st
And do you know where we find this? Here in the Bible which is God’s Word. Here is the content of the Holy Spirit’s teaching, here is the truth that God wants us to know. That’s a mighty big claim for the Bible. When you compare the Bible to all the other books of the world of all time, it stands alone as God’s Word. But not everyone agrees with that. For some it can be hard to say that the Bible is the source of truth. Rather they view the Bible as a great book among many other great books. While it has much to teach us, it’s not God’s Word or at least not all of it. Others find it difficult to think the Holy Spirit would limit himself to this book alone. After all, if he is God and therefore all-knowing and all-powerful, why wouldn’t the Holy Spirit speak for himself or act in ways the other persons of God don’t? It’s with this thinking that people depart from the truth of God’s Word and look to other sources for truth. And so enter living prophets or organizations that claim to speak on God’s behalf to keep up with the times and end up departing from God’s Word. Others look within their hearts in hopes of finding a direct experience with the divine or mistakenly label thoughts and desires as the Holy Spirit teaching something that’s not found in God’s Word. And when we look to other sources for truth or expect the Holy Spirit to say words not already said by the Father or the Son, we are getting ourselves in trouble. For we are replacing the truth with a straight out lie, or at best, a half-truth. We have no reason to doubt if the Bible is God’s truth. Nor do we expect the Holy Spirit to give new revelations that the Father and Son have not already given. And that’s because of what the Bible says. It is unique from every other historic holy book because it is the only one to tell that we are saved in spite of who we are and what we do. We are born sinful and deserve God’s full wrath and punishment. Yet through faith, that is, trust in what God promises in his Word, we have salvation. By grace, God gives this gift to us simply because he is love and he wants all people to be saved from their sins. And where do we learn this? In Scripture alone, the same tool which the Holy Spirit uses to teach us what God’s truth is. Not only does he teach us with it, but he guides us with it. As we read before, “When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak. He will also declare to you what is to come” (John 16:14). The Holy Spirit guides us with the truth of what has happened so that what the Father and the Son say and do are not mere words, but the substance of our faith and the source of our joy. He guides us with the truth that when Jesus died on the cross, he died for your sins. The Holy Spirit also guides us with what is to come in the future. That when sins afflict us, when we look for sources for truth other than the Bible, or we aren’t satisfied with the tool that the Holy Spirit 2
Pastor Timothy Patoka 1 Sunday After Pentecost: Holy Trinity; June 16, 2019 uses, he has us washed clean with the forgiveness that Jesus won on the cross. He renews us in the peace we now have with God. And the Holy Spirit continues to guide us with the do’s and don’ts of God’s law to show how we might live for God and give our thanks back to him for all that he’s done for us. st
2) The Holy Spirit Has Us Glorify Our Triune God Because today is Holy Trinity Sunday, I also want to share with you a little bit more about who our Triune God is. Because once we realize who each person of the Trinity is, we can see how it’s not just the Holy Spirit who glorifies Jesus as is mentioned in our verses, but we who also glorify all 3 persons of the Godhead. As we’ll read in one of the prayers shortly before we receive Holy Communion, each of the persons of God has a specific description. God the Father is called the Creator, God the Son is called the Redeemer, and God the Holy Spirit is called the Sanctifier. When we call God the Father the Creator, not only are we recognizing that he created everything in 6 24-hour days, but that he continues to use his almighty power to protect and preserve us to this very day. When we call God the Son the Redeemer, we are saying that Jesus has redeemed us from our sins, that is, he paid the price to free us from them. And not only did he redeem us on the cross, but he renews our redemption, that is, our forgiveness. When we call God the Holy Spirit the Sanctifier, we are saying that it’s he who makes us holy, that is, pure from sin and set apart as God’s children. All three persons are truly God and yet all three have different ways that they reveal to us our Triune God’s love. I find that when I talk about the Trinity, there’s sometimes can be a danger for us to relegate this teaching to the area of theological academia. When we do that, it’s hard for us to find comfort in such an incomprehensible mystery. I’ll admit, the teaching of the Trinity one of the Bible’s mysteries that we will never fully understand. We have no comparison in this world how 3 separate persons can all be 1 God while retaining their unique distinctions. But as we look at each of the persons of God with the eyes of faith that are made possible only by the Holy Spirit, we can see how we have all the more reasons to glorify our Triune God. We give glory to God the Father for being our Creator. He did not have to use false methods like evolution in order to make this world the way it is. He has all the power in the world who used that same power to make everything that’s in the world. He provides for everything living thing with the proper weather patterns to raise up crops and feed the world no matter what weather pattern they’re in or how the climate might be changing. He protects us from accidents we never knew would have happened, lessens the damage of those that do, and gives us that way out or through temptation when we ask for it.
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Pastor Timothy Patoka 1 Sunday After Pentecost: Holy Trinity; June 16, 2019 We give glory to God the Son for being our Redeemer. It’s because of Jesus and his life, death, and resurrection that we have something to look forward to in this life besides good food and good times. He did what we never could and freely gives it to us so that we can be right with God. We have an eternal life waiting for us. There’s much more we can say about Jesus, but since we regularly talk about him in our worship services I’ll leave it there for now. st
We give glory to God the Holy Spirit for being our Sanctifier. If it wasn’t for him and his faith-giving work, the words of the Bible would only be that – words. There would be no trust in these words or appreciation for what they mean. Jesus’ death would have been for nothing since we would otherwise remain in our innate sin and reject his gift of forgiveness. We also give the Holy Spirit glory for strengthening our faith. As we progress through the seasons of life and continually go back to God’s Word, the Holy Spirit is the one who makes us understand with the head and the heart all the more what our God promises us. There’s a lot going on at this time of year between our country’s calendar and the Christian calendar. On this Holy Trinity Sunday, we review who our God is as the Holy Spirit reveals it to us. He is three persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – all making up one Godhead. The Father and the Son are in tight unity who do and say what the truth is. It the Holy Spirit who gives this already proclaimed truth to us through the words of the Bible. With this knowledge that the Holy Spirit alone can give, we in turn give glory to our Triune God for the unique ways that each person of God blesses us: the Father for being our Creator, the Son for being our Redeemer, and the Holy Spirit for being our Sanctifier. While such truths can easily become head knowledge and lost in the world of theological academia, let us instead cling to the blessed truth of who our Triune God is as revealed by the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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