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Trinity Sunday Over the past six months, in our Sunday Services, we have celebrated some of the great acts of God. At Christmas we celebrated God’s coming amongst us in Jesus Christ. On Good Friday our focus was the death of Jesus on the Cross on our behalf; On Easter Day, his rising from the dead, and then just last week the outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit upon the world. Today, Trinity Sunday, is a day when we try to take the wider panoramic view of God. We don’t just focus on one particular aspect of the nature of God, but we try to grasp something of the fullness and vastness and completeness and unity of God. In a word, on this Trinity Sunday we focus on how we can come to know God, in the fullest sense of the word, and how to know and relate to God and experience God better. The Bible speaks of God, as a “person”. Never as a force or an impersonal power. And if God is a person, then the only possible way of knowing and understanding God is through a personal encounter with Him. It is important to note that the Bible encourages us and exhorts us to “know” God. And I think, deep down in our own hearts we know that we want to experience MORE in our relationship with God. We want to know God on a personal level, not just as an academic theory or philosophical hypothesis. In fact, you may be surprised - or even shocked to know that in the Bible, the word used for “to know”, in respect of “knowing God” - is the very same word which is used for “sexual intercourse”. In the book in the bible called the Song of Songs (which not many people have read!) the powerful sexual imagery is used as a metaphor for the close personal relationship that God desires to have with us. Our relationship with, and experience of God, is not meant to be something dry and dusty, but exciting, enjoyable, personal, pleasurable and energising. And if your relationship with God is NOT like that – then it is NOT what it ought to be! After all, when we talk about knowing God we are talking about a daily walking with the Living God – not with a set of legal or moral principles. So what I would like to share with you this morning is a fairly simple way of showing how we can come to know Him or experience Him more fully through three different avenues, that is, through the Holy Trinity. Perhaps it is best illustrated through this diagram [ A graphic of three colour segments, one each of red, Green and blue, with pure white light at the centre (God) ] Just as pure light passing through a prism fans out into a wide spectrum of various colours, so we human beings perceive God in various ways. God, at the centre, (in this diagram) is white light. And we may perceive or experience God in various ways. And if we take this diagram as an example – some would come to know or see God through the green colour – others would come to know or see God through the red colour, and yet others through the blue colour, but it is the same God who is being revealed and experienced. Now each of the “colours “ can be likened to the ways in which God reveals Himself to the world. So, in the Green colour we perceive, or come to know or meet God the Creator, through his Creation. You don’t have to be a Christian to meet with God in this way, do you? When I turn to creation I can sense the fingerprints of God. In Romans 1:19, Paul says “what can be known about God is plain for all to see. Ever since God created the world, his invisible qualities, both his eternal power and his divine nature, have been clearly seen.” But this revelation alone, in creation, is just the beginning of God making himself known to us. God has revealed himself and his plan of salvation for us, through Jesus Christ. So this is the Red colour, where we perceive God at work through His Son Jesus Christ, and His work of salvation through the cross. Jesus is the one who reconciles us to God; he is the one in whom the fullness of God lives in bodily form (Col 2:9). So when we come to know more about Jesus at a personal level, - there too we are growing in our understanding and experience of God. Then there is the Blue segment. The blue colour stands for the person and work of the Holy Spirit - depicted here as a Dove. Through the Holy Spirit, what Christ did “for” us , now becomes effective “in” us. So although we don’t find the term - the “Trinity” mentioned anywhere in the New Testament, we do find the concept there. For example Jesus’ Great Commandment involves a reference to the Trinity – which was to Go – Make disciples – “and baptise them in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.” God desires us to experience a full relationship with Himself - through the Father in Creation, through the Son, Jesus, in Salvation and through the Holy Spirit in personal revelation. – and our Christian life becomes unbalanced if we don’t develop our relationship with God in all of these three areas. We may be awe struck by the beauty of God’s Creation, but if we don’t receive and experience first hand His saving grace through what Jesus did for us on the Cross,- and if we don’t experience the power of the Holy Spirit day by day – then we are missing out on the fullness of our experience of God. So how DO we draw nearer to God in both our understanding and in our experience? The answer, I think, is found in the same way that we begin, or develop any relationship. It begins with a desire to meet with the other, to encounter them, to know them personally. Perhaps we have begun our awareness of, and relationship with, God through our reflection on the world and creation around us, but we move into a deeper understanding and relationship with God as we move out from the green to include the -- red segment and invite Jesus, the Saviour to come closer to us. And the amazing thing is that as we seek, in all honesty, to know God, he responds, and makes Himself known to us. God says – “You will seek for me, and you will find me, when you search for me with all your heart.” (Jer). So the risen Jesus, through whom God reveals Himself, becomes more real in our experience. And then as we move further around -- --and include the blue segment and invite God’s Holy Spirit to be within us, we deepen even further our personal relationship with God. So, all three are vital to experiencing God in fullness. Which, of course, raises the practical question - “In which area are you lacking, or where are you stuck, in your understanding and experience of God? If you are in the Creation segment – but don’t seem to know God’s personal presence in your life - then take the step of faith into the “blue” direction -- today and invite God the Holy Spirit to reveal Himself at work within you. Or if your understanding of Jesus, and what he has done for you on the cross is somewhat sketchy or vague, then invite Him to reveal that aspect of His nature to you, and so extend and deepen your relationship with Him. As all three colours – red green and blue, are required to make white light, so -- a threefold experience of God in Trinity - is essential if we are to fully appreciate the greatness and the oneness of God. Let us give thanks to God for the threefold experience we have of his self-revelation. |
