Sermon manuscript:
In many situations in life we are able to disassociate
ourselves if we really want to. We can leave. It might be hard to leave, but if
things get bad enough we can do it. If our work gets bad enough, we can quit.
If our church does things we don’t like, we can quit going. If our marriage
gets dysfunctional enough, we can get divorced. If our own children get unruly
enough, we can cut them off from our lives. These are terribly dreadful things,
and hopefully we never have to do it. But the option is there if we ever really
need it.
Having the option of getting out of a situation gives us a
lot of peace and comfort. There are some situations, though, where we are no
longer in control. These are the most frightening situations for us. Not being
able to get out of a life-threatening situation is very scary. Not being able
to get out of a terminal illness is very scary. These things can be so scary
that people will deny the reality of the situation right up until the end. They
will hold out hope that somehow, someway, they will regain control of their
lives and leave behind whatever it is that is threatening them.
What about our relationship with God? Is God someone we can
leave behind? Is God someone we have the freedom to disassociate ourselves
from? The way that we all think by nature is that we can. Ideally our lives
will be such that we can just be glad that God is who he is and we are who we
are so that we can peacefully coexist. This is how we are with our other
relationships in life. Hopefully they go how we want them to go, then we won’t
have any problems.
But sometimes there are problems. Then what? We’re not
unreasonable people. We’re willing to negotiate. And so we might negotiate with
God. “I’ll do this, God, if you’ll do that. I really don’t like the situation
I’m in, so please get me out of it, then we’ll go back to our happy
relationship.” With this understanding of the situation we still have our
rights. We have our say. We hope that God will come around to our way of
thinking.
We can take this one step further. We still believe that we
are in control when we essentially tell God to take a hike. If God does or says
something that we really don’t like, we can say, “Well, if God is like that,
then I don’t really want to believe in someone like that.” There is a belief
that God is kind of on the hook. We can threaten to leave him if he doesn’t do
what we think. We act as though he were just another one of the relationships
that we have otherwise. We don’t want to have to disassociate ourselves from
our work, church, or family, but if it gets bad enough we will. Then God will
be sorry.
Well, not really. That’s not how it works. If it did work
this way, then God would not be God. You would be God. You would be the one in
control. You would get to decide whether God’s words and actions are
acceptable. You set the tone, and it’s up to God to decide whether he has the
good sense to agree with you.
The fact is that you aren’t in control. You can’t
disassociate yourself from him. You can’t leave the situation. This is always a
very uncomfortable position for us human beings to be in, as I’ve already
mentioned. We don’t like being in a situation where we can’t get out.
We can see this with Isaiah’s experience in the temple in
our Old Testament reading. God revealed his glory to Isaiah. He was high, and
lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the immense building. Strange
creatures appeared to him, angels, called seraphim. The word “seraph” means “to
burn.” These burning ones had six wings. With two they covered their face. With
two they covered their feet. With two they flew. One called to the other and
said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of Saboath! Heaven and earth are fully of
his glory!” Their voice was such that it shook the doorframes. The building
was full of smoke.
Imagine that you are seeing all of this. It would be one
thing if you were sitting there with a bowl of popcorn and watching it on the
screen. Here’s the thing about watching movies: You can leave the theater. You
can turn off the TV. You know that you can put a stop to it. It’s another thing
when these things are happening before your eyes. There’s no place to go.
There’s nothing that can be done. God is forcefully thrusting himself upon
Isaiah, and there is nothing that he can do to change that.
So he responds: “I am doomed! I am ruined, because I am a
man with unclean lips, and I dwell among a people with unclean lips, and
because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Sabaoth!” Isaiah’s
emotional state is like a person who found himself on the 110th
floor of the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. There is
burning. There is smoke. There is nothing that can be done. He is doomed.
Maybe you are thinking, “Ew, yuck! If that’s how God is,
then maybe I need to think about cancelling my subscription. I’m not sure if I
want a God like that!” But you saying this to yourself does not alter the
situation one bit. I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the World Trade Center on
September 11, a lot of folks retreated into some kind of a fantasy. It really
doesn’t matter what fantasy they distracted themselves with. No fantasy was
changing the reality of the situation. The building was coming down.
So also, God is how he is. He is holy. He is utterly
incompatible with sinners. As we will sing in our closing hymn today: “Holy,
holy, holy! Though the darkness hide Thee, though the eye of sinful man thy
glory may not see.” You can entertain all kinds of fantasies, but fantasies
come to an end. The building came down. You will see this God sooner or later.
You won’t be able to turn it off or change the channel.
Now perhaps some honest fellow out there is thinking to
himself, “What are you about preacher man? If you’re trying to get people to
believe in God, you’re doing a terrible job. You won’t get a lot of people to
sign up the way that you’re talking.”
I am aware of this reaction, and it doesn’t change the
message I have to give. In fact, it is the main point of what I have to say
today. Nowhere in the Scriptures will you find God telling his disciples to go
make his message sound better. Those who make God’s message sound better are
liars and false prophets. They make a good living, and you can find them in
king’s houses wearing soft clothing. God’s prophets are like John the Baptist.
They say things like “The ax is already at the foot of the tree. The
winnowing fork is in his hand. The grain will be gathered into the barn, but
the chaff will be burned in the unquenchable fire.”
They are like the prophet Isaiah. Later in this same chapter
we hear God commissioning Isaiah. God asked, “Whom shall I send?” And
Isaiah said, “Here I am. Send me!” Then God told Isaiah what to do. He
told him that Isaiah was going to preach, but the people wouldn’t understand.
They will hear, but not hear. They will see, but not see. Their heart will grow
calloused. This is the passage that Jesus quotes when his disciples ask him why
he speaks in parables. The Word is to be spoken. Not everyone will believe it,
but it is not to be changed on that account so as to make it more palatable or
believable. God speaks the truth. Those whom he converts by the power of the
Holy Spirit believe that truth. The rest will remain in their fantasies until
they can remain in their fantasies no more.
Here on Trinity Sunday we are dealing with a truth that many
have tried to make more palatable or understandable over the years, and there
are many groups who continue to do this to this day. The teaching of the
Trinity is not at all sophisticated. The teaching of the Trinity is two simple
truths that the Bible is very emphatic about.
The one truth is that God is one. There is only one God.
There are not three Gods. “Behold, the Lord your God is one,” God says.
That’s one truth.
The other truth is that God is the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. Think back on the many Gospel readings we have had from John
these past five weeks. How many times does Jesus speak about the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit? At the end of Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells his
disciples to baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit.
The teaching of the Trinity is nothing other than pointing
out these two facts, these two, obvious, biblical truths: God is one. God is
three. You might wonder: “How can this be?” I don’t know. Over the years there
have been countless people who have responded, “Well, I wouldn’t do it that
way. God has to be one or the other. He can’t be both. Some other way has to
work better.” This is an understandable impulse. We all have it. It’s the way
that our flesh thinks. But it’s not the way that God has revealed himself.
The farthest that we can go in understanding this mystery is
what the Athanasian Creed says, which we confess today: “The Father is
almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Spirit almighty; and yet there are not
three Almighties, but one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the
Holy Spirit is God; and yet there are not three Gods, but one God.”
God gets to define himself. He is not some plaything or
concept that we can do with as we see fit. In that case, we would be god, and
God would be our own creation. It matters very little whether anyone agrees
that God is the way that he is, or whether anyone likes it or not. God is who
he is, and you aren’t going to change that. You can pretend that you can change
it, but eventually your pretending is going to have to come to an end.
It’s the same way that God is holy, holy, holy. The voices
of the angels shake the massive doorframes of the temple—if the angels can do
that, what can God do? You are not in control. God is who he is and does what
he does and says what he says, whether you like it or not. “The fear of the
Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”
The Bible also says that God is kind and merciful to those
who fear him, whereas the proud he sends empty away—lost in the imagination of
their hearts. And so God has mercy on Isaiah, who feared him so greatly. God
sends one of the seraphim with a coal from the altar. He touched Isaiah’s mouth
with the coal and said, “Look, this has touched your lips, so your guilt is
taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”
Here’s the nice thing about taking God at his Word, and not
trying to figure out if you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not:
When God says gracious, saving things, these are just as true as when he reveals
his terrible, awesome glory. The God who frightened Isaiah is the same God who
said to him, “Your guilt is taken away, and your sin is forgiven.”
There is something very frightening about not being in
control, but there is also something very comforting about not being in
control. If you are in control, then how are you going to fix the mess you’ve
put yourself in? Are you going to defeat the devil? Are you going to defeat
death? If you’re the one who is in control, then it’s all up to you.
But God is in control, and this is what he has revealed to
you: He has fulfilled the Law. He has suffered the consequences of your sin. He
has defeated death as the punishment for sin. He has made you a child of God
and has prepared an eternal inheritance for you. These things are no less true
than the God of power and might whose angels shook the temple.
So if something like September 11th comes upon
you, if you or someone you love is stricken with a terrible disease, if you are
stuck in misery with no conceivable way out, then you should know that you are
dealing with the same God who showed up while Isaiah was in the temple. God is
God, not you. Don’t think you get to define God according to your own thoughts
of what you think is best or acceptable. We know from the Bible and from our
own experience that God has put his saints through some painful and frightening
things. You don’t have to pretend that you are not dealing with God in these
situations.
But it is important to also know the invincible and almighty
truths that God has spoken too. God most certainly will save those who believe
in the only begotten Son whom the Father has sent because he loves the world
and does not want it to perish. God most certainly will save you who believe.
We just don’t know when or how. He might save you for a continuation of this
earthly life. He might save you after you have died. He might have you get out
of the burning building. The burning building might come down to the ground and
he will raise you from the dead. We should fear, love, and trust in God above
all things.
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