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I Don't Get It! How Can Three Be One? - Matthew 28:16-20

Taught on | Topic: Trinity | Keywords: trinity, holy, spirit

1+1+1=1. Is this New Math? No, it's the doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. At the very heart of the Judeo-Christian faith is the belief that there is only one God. Yet the Bible clearly teaches the plurality within the Godhead--three persons who are distinct from one another yet perfectly One in essence. What are we to make of all this? And why is it important? Today let's consider two major truth statements.

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1/25/2009
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I Don't Get It! How Can Three Be One?
Matthew 28:16-20
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
1+1+1=1. Is this New Math? No, it's the doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. At the very heart of the Judeo-Christian faith is the belief that there is only one God. Yet the Bible clearly teaches the plurality within the Godhead--three persons who are distinct from one another yet perfectly One in essence. What are we to make of all this? And why is it important? Today let's consider two major truth statements.
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Biography of God, The

Biography of God, The

Thomas Jefferson. Martin Luther King Jr. Winston Churchill. C.S. Lewis. All outstanding men with amazing life stories, but in all of history, one biography stands out above the rest. The Biography of God gives an in depth look at His character and nature, and delves into the theological and personal profile of our Heavenly Father. As this series searches the scriptures to lead the believer to a discovery of who God is and how He is sensitive to the human condition, it will both lift up and humble at the same time.

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Detailed Notes

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The Natural Resists the Supernatural



A. The Ancient Disciples' Struggle



B. The Modern Disciples' Struggle




 


II. The Scriptural Remedies the Natural



  1. What the Scriptural Teaches




  2. What Scriptural Teachers Taught


 


This Could Become More Than Just Another Sermon:



  1. Any teaching that doesn't affirm the Trinity is heresy. Heresy is a strong word--it means false doctrine--heterodoxy--the opposite of the historic Christian faith as affirmed by Scripture and creeds of the church. Find a copy of the Apostles' Creed and study it. What parts do you agree with or disagree with?




  2. Memorize Acts 20:28. What does this imply? How unusual was this for a Jewish rabbi (Paul) to say?




  3. What implications does the Trinity have on the way we pray? On the way we treat those closest to us?

Transcript

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Would you open your Bibles to Matthew's gospel this morning. Matthew chapter 28. Matthew 28 and the very last paragraph of this first gospel is what we're going to look at this morning. Let's pray together.
Father it's a delight to approach you as a group and because there's more than a person, there's two or three, there's two or more who have gathered as one solid group in unity expressing our love to you already in worship and now our need for you, our need to hear you speak a word in season to us. Every time the truth is confirmed our hearts rejoice and are adjusted and we're conformed more and more into your image. How thankful we are that you love us in such a way as to keep after us and to change us. In Jesus' name. Amen.
I read about a man who was in prison and he was in solitary confinement and the place where he was at the solitary confinement meant a pitch black cell, there was no light at all. It was the kind of place that would drive anybody nuts. This man had one single object, one thing he owned and that was a marble and brought it into solitary confinement in this dark prison cell. So what he would do to relieve the tension, the boredom is to throw the marble against the wall of the cell, it would hit the ground, roll around, stop, he would find it and then he would do it all over again, day in and day out, to relieve the boredom. Well one day he thought, "I've done this enough, I need to try something new." So he thought in the dark he would throw the marble straight up in the air and then try to catch it in the dark. So he threw it up and he waited and he heard nothing. He didn't catch it, he thought maybe he missed it but he didn't hear it drop. He searched the floor with his hands, didn't find it. And he thought, "How on earth did that thing just disappear?" Well, it drove him nuts. He went into madness and eventually he died. And the guards who came to pull his body out of cell, one of them noticed a light that caught his attention. And he looked up and he saw something really unusual, he saw a marble caught in a spider web. And the prison guard said, "I don't get it, how did that spider manage to take that marble and put it all the way up there?
Well, all of us have marbles in our lives, questions that we can't answer, mysteries that are unsolved and we stumble for answers in the dark. And today we're dealing with the greatest theological marble of all times and that is the Trinity, how can three be one? We've been doing a series as you know on the biography of God. And one maybe overarching truth we've discovered is that it's not that easy to be able to relate to someone who is all-knowing, all-powerful, everywhere present, perfectly holy. He is so unlike us that to relate to him we find it difficult. And the greatest of all conundrums in my view is this three in one. You say, "I don't get it, one plus one plus one equals one? Is this new math?" It's also an issue whenever you try to share your faith with a Jewish person, a Muslim, a Jehovah Witness, a Mormon, a Unitarian. We find it difficult and they have lots of questions about that. And then we in ourselves wonder, questions like, "Well who should I pray to? Do I address my prayer to the Father? Do I address my prayer to Jesus? Or to the Holy Spirit? Or all three at the same time? If I don't give attention to one over the other, will the other be offended?" Or, perhaps some have thought, "When I pray to these three persons, aren't they just really three different names for the same person? Are there really three distinct beings?" And I know that there are all sorts of formulas that have been created to help us with it. I just want to caution any of us to not trivialize the transcendent God into a clever little formula. Whether you say, "God is sort of like an egg where you've got the shell and the white and the yolk but it's one egg." Or, "He's like an apple with the skin and the core and the meat." Or, "He's like water that can exist in three different states of vapor and liquid and solid." Now I know that those are simply finite ways to try to try to reach out and deal with infinite God but they all fall short, they are inadequate. And I will say right up front, I'll get this out on the table, I don't completely understand this, I can't totally explain it. And I don't trust anybody who will tell me they do understand it and they can totally explain it. This is one of those mysteries that we approach with great humility.
This morning what I'd like to do in this text is look at it and paint it with two truth statements, two statements. Statements that are principles that emerge from the text but we're going to hang everything today on these two statements. And the first is this: The natural resists the supernatural. The natural resists the supernatural. And the second truth is: The scriptural remedies the natural. 
Now, let's look at the first: The natural resists the supernatural. Let's look at these verses together and get a sense of what's happening. Verse 16, "Then the eleven disciples went away into Galilee to the mountain which Jesus had appointed for them. When they saw him they worshipped him but some doubted. Jesus came and spoke to them saying, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age." It seems that these disciples had always struggled with supernatural truth, from the moment they met Jesus, all through that three-and-a-half year ministry there are instances in which their natural minds struggled with supernatural truth. For example, when Jesus announced that he was going to Jerusalem and he would be crucified but he would rise the third day, Peter immediately piped up and said, "Farbeit from you Lord, this will not happen to you." He didn't get it, he wasn't connecting the dots. On another occasion Jesus announced that he would ascend into heaven and he would return later. And it was Peter who said, "Well how come I can't follow you now?" Or the time when Jesus announced to his disciples, "Where I'm going you know and the way you know." And it was Thomas who said, "Excuse me but we don't know where you're going, so how can we know the way?" There's so many of these occurrences where they just didn't grasp the supernatural that was happening in the midst of the natural. And by the way this is a biblical principle. In I Corinthians chapter 2 verse 14 Paul says, "The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God." 
Okay, so here in our text, this is after the resurrection. Everybody among the group of the disciples, they were abuzz, "He's alive! He got up again!" And it's been now two to three weeks since the resurrection has happened by the time we get to this story. But did you notice in verse 17 that strange mixture of worship and doubt? They got to this mountain and Jesus came and they worshipped but it says, "some doubted." There it is again, the struggle of the natural with the supernatural. I don't know what was going on in their minds. Maybe they thought, "Is this an imposter? Is this really another person? Did he really rise from the dead? Or, maybe he didn't die?" Whatever it was, some doubted. And there's a principle there, we who are confined to the natural often struggle with the supernatural. So, if you have ever struggled with the concept of three in one, the Trinity, I'll just say you're in good company. You're in great company, in ancient times and in modern times. Modern theologians still have trouble with this one. R. T. Kendall, a theologian said, "The Trinity is the most difficult subject in Christian theology. And by the end of the day in studying this, you will feel like you're still out to sea." Dr. Billy Graham said, "The Bible teaches us that God is one but he's manifested in three persons. Don't ask me to explain it, I can't, it's impossible for me, I accept it by faith." Then years ago Saint Augustin was walking on the beach one day and he was struggling with three in one, three in one, how does this work? And he's trying to explain the Trinity, understand the Trinity that he might explain it. He said he was walking on the beach and he saw little boy with a bucket, a little pail, and he'd got to the water and put water in it and dump it into a hole in the sand that he had on the shore. So he went up to the little boy and said, "What are you doing?" And he said, "I," he announced confidently, "I am putting that ocean in this hole." And Augustin realized, "Well that's what I've been trying to do. I've been trying to take this vast ocean of transcendent truth of God and stuff it in this hole called my brain and it won't fit." There's just a point at which it is mysterious. But true.
Now I'm going to take you back to 1966, I was alive then, some of you were too. In 1966 the Gallup Organization took a poll of Americans and they discovered in 1966 that ninety-two percent of Americans claimed to believe in God, a high amount. Of the 92% that claimed to believe in God, 83% believed that there were three persons in one God, they believed in the Trinity, 83% of those who believed in God. We take this up to the modern era and I would simply announce to you that this whole issue of the Trinity is becoming less important to American Christians. And though I don't have the exact stats of this year, I'll say this, it's not thought about very much, it's hardly ever taught from pulpits. In fact there's one lifelong member of a denominational church, a mainline evangelical church, she grew up in the church. She said, "I never remember hearing even one whole sermon from the pulpit or in Sunday School on the Trinity. Now some churches have what is called Trinity Sunday. And it's sort of a long-standing tradition, in Western denominational churches many of them have it. Trinity Sunday historically is the first Sunday after Pentecost, that's the Sunday that the preacher gets up and says something about the Trinity. Well, one Christian leader was visiting a church, it was an Episcopal church and it was Trinity Sunday and he expected a sermon on the Trinity and he didn't get one and he talked to the rector about it afterwards. And the rector stated, "Well the Trinity is something just for pastors to think about. Ordinary people don't have to bother with it." Let me remind you of something: The truth need only be untaught for one generation for it to get lost. The truth need only be untaught for one generation for it to be lost. We are always just one generation away from losing salient truth. Yet the Trinity is criticized by many, not all believe in it. It is sometimes criticized semantically because the word Trinity isn't in the Bible. It's a very week argument but it goes like this, "Well I don't believe in the Trinity because when I read the Bible I never come across the word Trinity." My answer: "So what!" The term second coming isn't in the Bible but I believe it's going to happen. The word rapture isn't in the New Testament but it's described. The word millennium isn't in the New Testament but the term thousand years is. And the word Bible isn't in the Bible but I own one. So to say that I can't believe in anything unless it has the exact verbal expression of that term in the scripture is a very ludicrous argument. The teaching of the Trinity is throughout. It's a biblical concept, it expresses what the Bible teaches.
Then there is the criticism religiously and it goes like this: "Well you know there's a lot of religious groups that have attacked the Trinity." Well that's sort of my whole point. And the reason they have attacked the Trinity is whenever you turn on the porch light, bugs come. Whenever you turn on any light of any truth from the Bible, expect there to be attacks. 
In the apostolic era, the era of the apostles and the post-apostolic era, it was never an issue. They believed and held to and taught three persons in one God. But later on it became challenged. Later on, and because it got challenged, the church had to respond to the challenge by issuing a creed from time to time of what we believe the Bible teaches about thus and such. But it is true. In the second century, something known as Monarchianism arose. And Monarchianism is a teaching that says, well there's not really three distinct persons but you have three names for the same person. And another name for that is called Modalism, where God exists in three different modes. Sometimes he's the Father, sometimes he's the Son, sometimes he's the Holy Spirit. But it's not three distinct persons, but it's the same person with three different names. Then, in the fourth century, a guy named Arias, I've told you about him before, he came and denied the deity of Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit saying the Holy Spirit's an impersonal force and Jesus was just a man and thus there is no Trinity. During the Reformation a group known as the Sicinians attacked what was going on in the Protestant Reformation saying that any teaching of a triune God is simply polytheism, the worship of many gods. Well, all those ancient voices somehow get recycled. And they get recycled and they become the modern voice rehashed of the cults. And one of the hallmarks of any cult is this, the denial of the triune nature of God. You'll find that cults deny the deity of Christ, the deity and personality of the Holy Spirit and the idea of a Trinity. And this is what they say and I've heard it dozens of times: "Well, the Trinity was actually developed around the fourth century, up til that point it was never believed in, but suddenly it emerged in the fourth century because of the influence of pagan philosophy, etcetera." That simply is not true. It is not true historically. It was developed in Bible times and later on in the fourth century it was attacked. And because it was attacked, then the church articulated a position in what is called the Nicene Creed. But Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, The Way International, Unitarians, all are anti-Trinity, they're all anti-Trinitarian. In fact, the Mormons will say that all of Christendom was wrong for 1800 years until they arrived. And that they have come to be the gatekeepers of all truth. The Muslims have problems with the Trinity. According to the Muslims the Trinity is not only illogical but it is the major sin that can be committed, it is the ultimate infidelity to the Muslim. According to their teaching and I quote, "Infidels are now they who say ‘God is the Messiah, the Son of Mary.'" According to their teaching God will be merciful or may be merciful if he chooses to adulterers and liars but never to Trinitarians. In the Surah, the Koran Surah Five, it says, "Whoever shall join other gods with God, God shall forbid him the garden and his abode shall be the fire." And it continues, "The Messiah, the son of Mary is but an apostle."
Now shy am I bringing all that up? Simply to say this, cults are making inroads into historic Christian groups at record speeds today. They'll find the disenfranchised, they'll find the people who were burned out in church, they'll knock on your door and be right there. And they're growing in numbers and Islam is one of the world's fastest growing religions today. And no wonder, if people can say, "I've never once heard just one sermon on the Trinity ever preached." One veteran Jehovah Witness even said, "I have never before met a Trinitarian who actually seemed to believe the doctrine." I can only imagine he met the Christian and then another Christian and he said, "Okay, the Trinity, explain it to me." "Uhhh…" "Okay, don't explain it to me but at least give me scripture about why I should believe it." "Uhhhh…" So it's an interesting statement for someone to actually say, "I've never actually met someone who actually believed it." So it's pretty obvious, the natural resists the supernatural. The natural resists the supernatural in any area. And were it not for God's gracious revelation in scripture, there would be no hope for truth.
But that takes us to our second true statement. While the natural resists the supernatural, it's also true that the scriptural remedies the natural. Now let me explain myself: Once scripture becomes the source of truth, it corrects a natural worldview into a supernatural worldview. Once it's this book that we appeal to, once it's this book we look up and everything goes back to, ‘What sayeth scripture?' Then that correction can take place, from the natural into the supernatural, it remedies that.
So I want you to notice something in verse 18, in the midst of their doubt about the supernatural, it's just an interesting mix, "They worshipped, some doubted," in the midst of all that Jesus shows up to speak to them. Verse 18, "Jesus came and spoke to them saying, ‘All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.'" And I just suggest that we do this with the Trinity doctrine. We go, "Man, I don't know, this Trinity thing. I don't know, what do I do?" You let God come to you and speak to you through the scripture if you're doubting and let his word be the final authority. Notice something else in verse 19 that Jesus gives the marching orders but in the marching orders he includes a statement about the nature of the triune God, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Do you know that when you and I go out to preach the gospel, the triune God is a partner with you. You enter into a sacred partnership that all three members of the Trinity are very interested in, it's what they're all about. 
Now this one verse, verse 19 is pregnant with truth. It teaches that the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are all on the same level as God. You can't add another name to those three names. You can't say ‘The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and Frank.' Or, ‘The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and this denomination.' This is an exclusive club and only the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are a part of that same level, exclusive group. Also, this teaches us that the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit all enjoy a unity together that they want to share with us. "When you out and I have all authority," Jesus said, "in heaven and in earth to say this, when you go out and you preach the gospel and you win people and you make disciples of nations, you baptize them in the name of the godhead, the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
Well, what does the Bible say about the Trinity? What does scripture say? Well, the scripture calls the Father God, the Bible calls Jesus the Son God, and the Bible calls the Holy Spirit God. It's interesting to me that every now and then I'll meet a person who will say, "Well you know Jesus never claimed to be God. And the New Testament never says that he did." And I can only think this, "What Bible do you read? It's all over the place." Jesus accepted the worship of Thomas who after the resurrection saw him and said, "My Lord and my God." And Jesus didn't say, "No you can't say that Thomas, that's wrong. No. Don't do that. Don't go there." He accepted it, he received it. Or the time when Jesus saw the paralytic that was brought before him through the roof and he claimed to be as God to forgive sins, he said, "Son be of good cheer, your sins are forgiven." And the leaders of the time were right when they thought, "Hey, nobody can forgive sins except God." That's the whole point, he was exercising his authority. Or the time in John chapter 8 when Jesus made this statement, "Before Abraham was I am." I existed before Abraham ever was. Or in John chapter 10 when even his enemies knew who he was claiming to be, they took up stones to kill him and Jesus said, "I've done many works, what work are you stoning me for?" They said, "Not for a good work but because you being a mere man," they said, "are always making yourself out to be God."
Then the Bible declares that the Holy Spirit is God. The most famous of these texts is Acts chapter 5, remember the story of Ananias and Saphira? And Peter sort of gets in their face and says, "Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit, for you have not lied to man, you have lied to God," equating the Holy Spirit with God.
But you still say, "I don't get it, how can three be one? How can there be unity and yet diversity?" It seems illogical, doesn't make sense. Because in reading the Old Testament, you observed something: Israel was fiercely monotheistic, saying "There's one God," in contrast to the polytheistic cultures around them. And you remember that great anthem of theirs in Deuteronomy chapter 6 verse 4 called the Shamah, Shamah Israel adonai ichad, adonai elohenuh, "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one." He is ichad, one God, one. So what do we do that, he's one? Well when it says he is ichad or one, that doesn't mean one with a isolation of one are stark singularity of one, it can be one in unity. How do I know this? Well, remember the first wedding that was performed I guess by God? Adam and Eve. And I was reminded of this yesterday, I went to the wedding of I'd say a kid, now he's a man but I watched him grow up, and I was reminded of this passage where God said to Adam and Eve, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh," ichad, they become one. What does that mean? Does that mean they morph into one human being? No. It is odd however that the older couples get sometimes, they sometimes even look like each other. It's a phenomenon I've noticed. And sometimes they'll even buy pets that look like them. Don't ask me to explain that, it's another mystery, but when it says they become one flesh, it doesn't mean that they lose their individuality or their personhood, but they become one unit, one family, one couple, one in spirit. That's how the word is used often. So when it says, "God is one," it can still include the Trinity, the three in one as one unit.
Here's another example: The tabernacle. God spoke to Moses in Exodus 26 and he said, "You shall make fifty clasps of gold and you shall couple the curtains of the tabernacle together with clasps so that it may be one tabernacle, ichad, one unit. Fifty clasps, lots of curtains, an altar, a laver; all these different articles that are in there but it's one. One. Also, Israel was called to be one people even though there was a multiplicity of them. So, there is multiplicity in unity when it says ‘one God.'
Now, the Trinity I believe is hinted at throughout the Bible, even in the Old Testament, even in the very first verse of the Bible, listen to it, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." The word is elohim, that's masculine plural. In fact literally it could read in a very literal wooden way, ‘In the beginning gods created the heavens and the earth.' Elohim. And then if you read down a little bit, down to verse 26 and 27, it says, "Then God said (elohim said), ‘Let us make man in our image, so in the image of God he created them.'" It's an interesting mix of pronouns. Now who's God speaking to, ‘let us make man in our image?' He wasn't speaking to angels, if that's the answer it's wrong. No angel ever helped God in creation, we learn from the New Testament that God created the heavens and the earth and it was Jesus who was given the authority and through his agency the worlds were created. This is the Godhead speaking, the Trinity speaking, "Let us make man in our image." We see this again in the prophets, Isaiah chapter 6, "Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying (remember we covered this last week) ‘Whom shall I send and who will go for us?'" And then Isaiah predicted the coming Messiah, "Unto us a child is born, a son is given." This child that will be born, said Isaiah, will be called the Everlasting Father, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace. And now we have this, "Go in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." We have the benediction of Paul in II Corinthians 13 he writes, "May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all." He uses that formula of the triune God in that benediction, that little wish, that hope, that prayer.
You know I grew up with a Bible in my home, it was there, we never read it, in fact to open our Bible you'd first have go (blow of the dust) and then (creak) probably break the spine. We didn't really read it that much. All the truths were in there but we just never saw them because we never read them. In fact somebody once said, "If all who professed to be Christians ever decided to read their Bibles at the same time, we would experienced the worst dust storm in history." Sad isn't it?
So, the natural resists the supernatural. But it's the scriptural that redirects or corrects or remedies the natural. That's what the Bible teaches. Not only that, not only does the Bible tech that but Bible teachers throughout history have taught what the Bible teaches. That's historical. And I just quickly want to address that. And first of all, let me just say as I'm bringing that to a close by the way, so thank you for listening so carefully today, I know we're covering lots of ground and pushing it all into a little time and I appreciate that. But this whole notion that it wasn't til the fourth century that the church started believing in the Trinity is just nonsense historically. You can go back to 96 AD when Clement of Rome formulated an oath using all three members of the Trinity. He said, "As God lives and as the Lord Jesus Christ lives and as the Holy Spirit lives." That's 96 AD. 107 AD, Ignatius used the formula Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the second century, Hermos spoke of God existing as one God in three distinct personalities. Second century Justin Marter defended veneration and worship given to all three members: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Then in the second century Ironaus, one of the greatest theologians ever of church history who fought against the Gnostics and articulated the Trinity said, "God the Father, the Word Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made among us men visible and tangible, the Holy Spirit who at the end of the age was poured out in a new way." And then at the end of the second century, beginning of the third century, was a guy named Tertulian who first coined the term trinitos in Latin or Trinity. Although some believe the word goes all the way back to 180AD, a guy by the name of Theophilus of Antioch. Not the Theophilus in the Bible but another church leader. So it has longstanding roots. In fact, if you have a New King James version, perhaps not the most recent edition but one a few years older, it's in my Bible right up front, it used to be right on the spines, but there's a symbol and I know it's too far away for you to see but it's a little three-cornered symbol that they explain in my version, it's called the triquitra. And the triquitra is an ancient symbol of the Trinity that they used for the New King James version. It's three interwoven arcs, distinct yet inseparable, that always historically symbolized the triune God.
So, so to deny the Trinity is to deny the revelation found in both the Old and in the New Testament. And to deny the Trinity is to take the arrogant position of ‘Everybody throughout church history has been wrong, except you and your group.'
Now all of that aside, all of that aside, I want to ask this question: How does the Trinity matter to me, on a daily basis? I mean, what is the practical big deal? I understand this is all fine to discuss, a theological concept. But when I go to work tomorrow and I live during the week, how can I relate to the Trinity personally? How could I enjoy the presence of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Could the Trinity make a difference in my prayer life? Could the Trinity become a model for me being successful in interpersonal relationships? And the answer to that is: Yes, yes, yes. And that's what we will show you next week when we continue this, so stay tuned. I just wanted to lay the foundation before we show you the real application of this in our personal lives as believers.
But can I end with an encouragement? I know there's tension when it comes to the Trinity. I know we enter the discussion and we go, "Oh man, okay, here goes, I'm going to really try to understand this." And then we leave the discussion and we go, "I don't get it. It happens every time." And so there's this tension. Let the tension remain. There's a mystery to God. We don't get it, we'll never get it. Anybody who says, "I got it," don't trust them. It's like a suspension bridge. A suspension bridge stands by tension moving in two different directions. They pull opposite each other. Try to remove that tension and that bridge will collapse. Allow this important truth of one God and three persons have all of the tension that it has so that you and I never lose the mystery of it.
There was a girl who failed her anatomy test, a little schoolgirl. She took the test, she failed, she was the only one in class by the way who failed the test. And when I read you her answer, you'll understand why. Here's what she said on her test. "The human body is composed of three parts. The branium, the borax (instead of the thorax), and the abominable cavity (instead of the abdominal cavity). The branium," she continues, "contains the brain. The borax contains the lungs, the liver, and living things. The abominable cavity contains the bowels, of which there are five: A, E, I, O and U." Can I just tell you that I don't feel a whole lot different when it comes to the subject of God. I feel that no matter how much I read and study and compare scripture to scripture I just get a tiny little shade of understanding. This is a marvel and we wonder, "Where is it? Explain it, it's a mystery." We see through a glass darkly, one day we will see face to face. Until then we worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And next week we'll discover how that makes a personal difference. 
Let's pray. Our Father in heaven, we have a relationship with you because your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, God the second person, came to this earth, to make a way, to secure hope through a cross. And then it was the Holy Spirit who opened our eyes and showed us the need for a Savior, which brought us into relationship with you. And all three working so beautifully in harmony together. And we're the better for it. And so we worship you: Father, Son and Holy Ghost (Holy Spirit). And I pray Father that as we continually are corrected and our worldview remedied through the scriptural, that we would embrace though not totally understand the supernatural. Thank you for this time together. And we want to close in the most fitting way and that is to render the Godhead due praise. In the name of Jesus we pray.

Additional Messages in this Series

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10/12/2008
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Can God Be Known?
Hebrews 11:6
Skip Heitzig
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Today we start a brand new series of messages I'm calling, "The Biography of God". The very subject matter of "God" is the loftiest of all subjects and the pinnacle of all pursuits. As we discover who God is and how He is perceptible to the human condition, we will be both lifted up and humbled all at the same time. The great transition that must be made, however, is to not stop with gathering information about God but by believing and acting in the light of that information, thus truly knowing Him.
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10/19/2008
completed
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Is Anyone Up There? Looking For Clues
Romans 1:18-22;Psalms 19:1-6
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We all remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her three friends come to approach the "Great Oz". Out of the corner of their eye, they notice a man pulling levers behind a curtain-working the mechanical, smoke-breathing Oz. The man then reacts by announcing, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" But how can they not? The man is the explanation for everything to them. They discovered that Oz didn't really exist! So how do we know that God exists and isn't a fabrication or projection of our own imaginations?
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10/26/2008
completed
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"Now Hear This!" How Does God Speak?
Psalms 19
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This is the age of communication. Cell phones, email, text-messaging, i-chatting and YouTube broadcasting are as common as coffee. (Some people are even talking the old-fashioned way—face to face with the person.) So how does God communicate? How does His message, His biography get out to the world? And more importantly, perhaps, who’s listening?
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11/9/2008
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I'm God...and You're Not!
Exodus 33-34
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The only way to know someone is for that someone to reveal himself/herself to us. We discover who that person is as he tells us about himself. Moses wanted to know God better and God tells Moses about Himself. This is the only place in scripture where God lists His own characteristics and qualities there are four phases to this touching story:
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11/23/2008
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God: A Short Autobiography
Exodus 34:5-7
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In studying the Biography of God, there's no better source than God Himself. This is one of the primary passages in all of Scripture about who God is; it is His own autobiography. This is God telling us about Himself. As God reveals to Moses who He is, he begins by declaring His name and then listing several of His primary character traits. It's not unlike meeting anyone for the first time. We get their name and then learn some things about them. As we relate to God, then, these experiences are what we can expect to find.

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12/14/2008
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The God Who Knows-It-All!
Psalms 139:1-6
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A little boy climbed his neighbor's apple tree when he saw their car leave. He didn't realize while he was stuffing his pockets full of apples that another neighbor was watching through a pair of binoculars and saw the whole thing! God isn't spying on people, trying to catch them doing something wrong; but God is aware of everything. Such a truth has a profound effect on us: it can either be very comforting or else extremely unsettling. As we continue with the biography of God, let's consider what God knows.
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1/4/2009
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Godisnowhere
Psalms 139:7-12
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1/11/2009
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My God is Bigger than Your God!
Psalms 139:13-18
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There are so many different belief systems out there! Some people have a god that isn't very big and can't do very much. He smiles a lot but is weak and helpless to act. It's not a whole lot different from ancient times, really. The Syrians once said that Israel's God was "a god of the hills and not of the plains" (1 Kings 20:28). Their view of God was limited and powerless. So what's your view? Does it match the Bible's description of our Awesome God?
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1/18/2009
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God's Most Unpopular Attribute
Isaiah 6
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Ask most people to tell you the first word that comes to mind when they think of God and it will be "love" or "grace" or "forgiveness." All of these are wonderfully comforting attributes of God, but another key attribute that is seldom considered is His holiness. Today we observe one man's encounter with God, and we learn some lessons about what it means to have a personal relationship with a holy God.
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2/1/2009
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Two Thirds is Not Enough
John 14-17
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"The mind of man cannot fully understand the mystery of the Trinity. He who would try to understand the mystery fully will lose his mind. But he who would deny the Trinity will lose his soul" (Harold Lindsey and Charles J. Woodbridge, A Handbook of Christian Truth). Last week we discovered that Scripture reveals One God in three distinct Persons. Today we consider the personality of all three Persons in the One God and Their role in our lives. Further, how can we relate to the Triune God in practical terms?
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2/15/2009
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The Dark Side of God
John 9:1-7
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"If God is in charge and loves us, then whatever is given is subject to His control and is meant ultimately for our joy" -Elizabeth Elliot. That perspective (which is the biblical one) is far from the typical sentiment about pain. Most ask, "If God really loved me, how could there be evil and suffering in this world--especially for me?!" To study God at all, this issue must be dealt with: Why is God’s world so messy? Where is the evidence of His power and love in such a suffering world?
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2/22/2009
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GPS: God's Positioning System
Acts 21:1-15
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Part of a relationship with anyone is knowing what that person expects. We wonder, "What does that person want from me in this relationship?" Relating to God is no different. So how can we know what God's will is for our lives? What kind of guidance can we expect? A notable example from Paul's life furnishes an excellent template for exploring this question. It was a confusing time, and many people didn’t agree with Paul's decision - but he felt it was God's will for him.
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3/1/2009
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How to Be God's Friend
Genesis 18:1-15
Skip Heitzig
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For the last fourteen weeks we've looked at "The Biography of God." In this loftiest of all subjects and the pinnacle of all pursuits, we've discovered Who He is, what He is like, and how to relate to Him. We must always remember not to stop with just gathering information about God--we need to truly know Him in a personal way. Abraham provided a model for us in how to do that as a friend. Four qualities form the template for being God's friend.
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There are 13 additional messages in this series.
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