AMA: What is the Trinity? - Pastor David Houck | June 7, 2026

Is the Trinity really taught in the Bible? How can God be one and yet exist as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? In this message, Pastor David explores the biblical foundation for the doctrine of the Trinity and explains why this truth is central to the Christian life. 

Transcript

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So uh we received a request to discuss the Trinity and uh specifically address the great question of how the three persons of the Trinity could be one. Um and so, in order to begin that conversation, we should probably uh be clear about what the Trinity is, what the doctrine of the Trinity is. And so uh normally I have you turn to uh a specific section in your Bibles with me uh this morning. Uh instead, I would like to begin by looking at the Baptist faith and message. Considering we are Southern Baptists here, um, I figured we could find our basic uh premise, our basic truth in that. The Baptist faith and message, written uh updated last in 2000, says the eternal triune God reveals himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, with distinct personal attributes, but without division of nature, essence, or being. Amen. We understand. All right, let's close. Um it's a big, it's a big topic. It's a big subject. And there have been many statements and many creeds made throughout church history that that kind of um try to state in a concise manner what the doctrine of the Trinity is, the triune God. But essentially, it is that there is one God. We worship one God who exists as three persons: God the Father, God the Son, who is Jesus Christ, and God the Holy Spirit. And all three persons are fully God. Fully, completely God. There are no uh there is no difference in their nature, in their essence, or in their being. They are all fully divine, they are all righteous, they are all loving, they are all holy, they are all just. What could be said about the nature and the character of the Father can be equally said about the nature and character of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. But they are different in personal attributes. Uh there is an image, um, I think probably one of the most uh helpful images, Sean, if you could put it up, that kind of helps explain um how the Trinity actually works. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but the Father is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Son, the Son is not the Father, etc., etc. So it's a bit of a mystery. I I see all of a sudden there's smoke burning uh out of some of your ears, and and I get it, that was uh my situation this entire past week. Already some of you are preparing to study the uh back of your eyelids for the remainder of today. This seems like too much, it's too complicated. Uh, just the mention of the word doctrine for some of you has you checking your watch. You say, I don't care about doctrine, just tell me about Jesus, tell me how to survive uh my Monday at work, all right? But the truth is there's no Christianity without doctrine. There's nothing to believe without the truths of who God is and what salvation is. And so, even if we don't typically use the word doctrine, just to let you know, we discuss doctrine every single Sunday. That is what we do, that is what we are supposed to do. And the doctrine of the Trinity is absolutely essential. Every genuine, redeemed, born-again Christian naturally believes in and affirms the doctrine of the Trinity, that there is one God and three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And by way of that statement, the person who rejects the doctrine of the Trinity is not a genuine Christian. You may go to church, you might like Jesus, maybe you prayed a prayer once, maybe uh you might call yourself a Christian, but to reject the reality of the triune God is to reject the entirety of the gospel message. So I want to plead with you this morning. If you begin at any time today, and I completely understand, if you begin to find yourself drifting off into the second stage of anesthesia, just shift in your seat, you know, uh uh kind of shake your head a little bit, grab your pen, jab it into your thigh, do whatever you need to do in order to stay with me. As uh the great Augustine of Hippo once said, there is no subject where error is more dangerous, research more laborious, and discovery more fruitful than the oneness of the Trinity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Now, those who oppose this doctrine do so largely on the basis that the words Trinity or triune are not found in Scripture. It's not there. If you go to your uh Bible's concordance and you look up Trinity, you won't find it. There's no verse that clearly says that God is three in one. We worship the Trinity, we worship a triune God. It's not there. You won't find it in a single specific verse. So that leads some to say, well, it's not biblical, it's not scriptural. That is something that has been added by man centuries later. And the truth is that the the creed, the doctrinal statements about the Trinity were invented later. But they're statements to reflect the reality of what God has already revealed. But it does lead us to a very important question of is it biblical? Is it biblical? After all, if any theological creed or doctrinal statement is not rooted in and supported by scripture, then there is no real basis for it. As we say time and time again, we must not base our spiritual beliefs based upon our own personal opinions or preferences or our experiences or just what we hear someone say. We base it upon the truth of what God has revealed to us through his written word. To do elsewhere is to make up your own religion, to pick and choose what you want to believe. If that's what you want to do, you're free to do so, but don't call it Christianity and don't insult Jesus by incorporating him into that. He didn't leave any room for that. This is what is not true. Jesus leaves no room to be one of many prophets and figures that you worship, one of many ideas. Well, I can take a little bit of this Bible, and then I can take a little bit of this experience, and then I kind of like this teaching, and so I'll just mix it up together. And yeah, I'm a Christian. It's not how it works. You're either a Christian by Christ's standards, or you're no Christian at all. So we need to understand whether or not the doctrine of the Trinity is biblical. Does the Bible have anything to say about this idea of a triune God, of Father, Son, and Spirit existing as one? Or is this, like the opponents claim, a man-made concept added hundreds of years later? Well, I want to take us through Scripture and examine the truths. And I want to begin with the Old Testament. I want to begin by looking at what the Old Testament tells us, what it reveals to us about God. Now I need to be clear, this is in no way a comprehensive study. This is going to be basic bullet point truths. Uh, there's so much more that could be said, uh, should be said, um, but we're limited in time. But we should start with the Old Testament. We should start with whether or not does the Old Testament, the original scriptures, the original truths revealed to us from God, do they have anything to support this idea of a triune God? So let's look at some of what it has to say. First of all, the Old Testament is very clear that there is only one true God. Very clear. One true God. This is the foundation of the Jewish and the Christian faith. One God. Monotheism. In ancient times, ancient Judaism stood far apart from the pagan religions of the world where they worshiped many gods. There was a God for each um celestial uh item, you know, the sun, the moon, and the stars. There's a god for each of them, there's a god for the water, and your your grandpa has a god, and my grandpa has a god, and there's so many gods that they worshipped. And then God came and he spoke to Abraham and Moses and the prophets and the rulers of Israel, and time and time again, he was so explicitly clear I am God. I am the only God. As Deuteronomy chapter 6, verse 4 says, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. This is known as the Shema in the Jewish faith. It's this ancient declaration of faith. It was a central prayer to the ancient Jews. Jesus Himself quoted it. Even today, practicing Jews recite this twice a day, morning and night. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. One God. God said there are no other gods before him. There are no other gods like him. When we worship God, he demands to be put first. He does not share the stage. He says, I am a jealous God. God is the only being who has the right to be jealous. He created us, he desires us, says, I will not share you. I am the only God. And to be clear, this truth has not changed. We don't believe in something different today. We believe, as Christians, in one true God. Christianity is monotheistic. We do not worship three gods, we worship one. But even in the Old Testament, we see the basis laid for our understanding of the Trinity. We see in the Old Testament that within the one God there are distinct persons. These aren't contradictory. One God but distinct persons. We're confronted with this truth right at the very beginning of our Bibles. Genesis 1, verses 1 through 2. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Alright, so in the beginning, God. There is a God. There is a God. He was there in the beginning. He has always been there. It's capital G God. It's a specific God. It's a person of a God. Since the earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. In the beginning, God and the Spirit of God. Already we see two distinct persons. Later on in Genesis chapter one, verses twenty-six says, then God said, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. Our whose likeness? The likeness of God, the likeness of the distinct persons within the Godhead. Which at this point we know it's been revealed to us is God and the Spirit of God. Now there are some people who take this verse and they said that the word hour, the original plural form of it, is just to demonstrate how magnificent God is. That it's plural language because his majesty and wonder is infinite. And certainly that can make that make sense. I mean, it is, it is infinite, but we know from within the context of the rest of scripture that it's plural because our one God has a plural nature to him. In fact, the ancient Hebrew word Elohim, a term for God, is actually a plural term. It's one, but there's some sort of plurality. And the Old Testament is full of references to both God and as he's called Elohim or Yahweh and the Spirit of God. And it's full of it. You don't have to go far in the Old Testament without finding references to both God and to the Spirit. So already we have the basis for two. What about the Son? Well, as we know, the Old Testament, the entirety of the Old Testament, the ancient Jewish scripture, is about Jesus. It all points to Jesus. It either points to Jesus in direct prophecy, or it just points to our need for a savior. And so it's all there, and it's all about Jesus. But we find many references and prophecies throughout the Old Testament about this coming figure, this Messiah, this savior of God's people, a savior of humanity. We find references about God perhaps having a son. And we find many references and many verses that allude to the idea that the Messiah is not just a regular person, but that he is divine. One prophecy written in Isaiah chapter 48 is actually written from the perspective of the coming Messiah, who we know to be Jesus. And this is incredible. Remember, this is written hundreds and hundreds of years before the birth of Jesus. Isaiah 48, verse 16 says, Come near to me, hear this. I have not spoken in secret from the beginning. From the time that it was, I was there. And now the Lord God and His Spirit have sent me. So let's look at what the author here, the speaker here, how he refers to himself. He says, I was there from the beginning. I was present at the beginning. Well, who do we know is present at the beginning? God. God in the Spirit. So the speaker here is saying, I was there from the beginning. So we know the speaker there is claiming to be God, that he is infinite, he is uncreated. But then he says, I was sent by the Lord God and by His Spirit. So he's saying, I am God. I was there from the beginning. I was sent by God. I was sent by the Spirit. So he's saying is I am God, but I am not the Lord God, the Father God that we think of, and I am also not the Holy Spirit. So we get a distinct third person, the Son. And there's plenty of other examples. I had to trim out and clip out so many verses just for the sake of time. But just even from these verses, while there might not be an explicit statement about the Trinity in the Old Testament, the whole of the Old Testament scripture lays out the foundation for this doctrine. And this reality of a triune God only becomes much clearer through Jesus, through the life, the ministry, the words, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. So let's look at what Jesus demonstrated. First of all, there is this incredible, beautiful story that takes place right at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. And in this story, we see that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit coexist. If you want to try to force yourself or force me to just find one single verse, one single section in our scripture that points to the Trinity, then perhaps this would be one of the greatest uh examples. At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus went to his cousin John the Baptist. As you might know, John the Baptist, his his whole life, his whole ministry was just preparing the way for Jesus. He went throughout the region and he declared to people the Messiah we've been waiting for, he's coming and he's coming soon. Prepare your hearts for him. And he baptized people. He baptized people in a similar way that we do, but rather than actually demonstrating a new changed life in Christ, his baptism was for the purpose of just people acknowledging the fact that they are sinners, that they are not redeemed, that they need a cleansing. So he would immerse them in water. And then Jesus comes to him and says, Hey, me next. As you might understand, John's like, whoa, no, you should be baptized by me. And Jesus says, No, you don't understand this needs to happen. We need to do this to fulfill all righteousness. And then at this moment, when this happens, we get a declaration from the Father as to who Jesus is. Matthew chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were open to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. And behold, a voice from heaven said, This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. And this one single moment in time we see Father declare Jesus to be his son, and the Holy Spirit descend upon him. Father, Son, Spirit, present together, one place and one time. They coexist. This um we'll look at later some some um heresies about the Trinity, but but this already right here confronts the idea that God is not father, son, and spirit all at once, that he takes different forms. But from this we see father, son, spirit all together in the same room. You know, there's there's there's the meme, and I it it finds its true meaning in me. No one's seen me and Batman in the same room together, right? So I mean, you know, you you can imagine well. Well, we do see the Holy Spirit, Jesus, and the Father in the same room together. But now what did Jesus say? Did Jesus have anything to say about this idea of a triune God? Well, first of all, Jesus is very clear that he is the Son of God. There's this uh idea that you'll people write books about, and college professors will talk about this idea that Jesus never claimed. To be God. There's this idea that that's something that we came up with, Christians came up with, we turned him into this God figure. But if you look at Jesus, he never actually claimed to be God. He never claimed to be the Son of God. He was just a great moral teacher. He was just a great philosopher. But that idea is baseless and uh uh stupid because we see the exact opposite. Jesus was very clear about who he is, time and time again. That's actually the entire reason, as we'll see in a moment, that the corrupt religious leaders had him killed. Because Jesus was so clear about who he was, or who he at least to them thought that he was. John chapter 5, verses 17 through 19 says, but Jesus answered them, My Father is working until now, and I am working. Now, this happened in a moment when Jesus had performed a miracle on the Sabbath, which to these corrupt Jewish uh religious leaders who had taken this idea of a day of rest and completely abused it to the point that it was no longer for the good of people, but it was for the detriment of people. Well, now Jesus performs a miracle and they're like, uh-oh, that's not rest, that's work. Jesus points out, well, God's always at work. My father is always at work. I'm always at work too. And then John continues, this is why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own father, making himself equal with God. So Jesus said to them, Truly, truly, I say to you, the son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. Jesus is clear. Jesus is clear to his enemies. Who am I? I am the Son of God. And John points out to us that when we think of the title of Son of God, we might be tempted to think as some sort of lesser being. Or we get the idea of Jesus' uh humanity and his deity as though Jesus is some sort of half God. You know, half God, half man. He's 50% God, he's 50% man. So he's kind of God, but he's not as God as the Father is. But John points out that they knew what he was saying here. They wanted to kill him because he was calling himself the Son of God, making himself equal with God. Jesus is not saying, no, no, no, I'm part God, or hey, I'm a child of God like we all are. He's saying, no, I am the Son of God, meaning I am God. I am equal with God. Next, he says that he is distinct from the Father, but one with him in divine nature. We'll break this down. Another incredibly offensive statement to many. Jesus said in John chapter 10, verse 30, I and the Father are one. He said to his disciples, one of his disciples said, Jesus, can you just show us the Father? And he's like, Don't you know me? If you've seen me, you've seen the Father. I and the Father are one. What does that mean? Well, it's what we talked about. They share the same divinity and they share the same nature. So to see God or to see Jesus is to see the Father, because there's nothing true about the divinity and the character and the nature of God, of Jesus, that isn't the same as the Father. But he's not saying that we are the same person, because Jesus refers to God the Father again as a father, as a separate figure. We see him pray to the Father. He's not praying to himself, he's praying to a different person. So he's saying, if you've seen me, you've seen the Father, but don't be misunderstood, we're still two separate persons. We're what we're one, we're one in divinity, we're one, we are one person in God, but we are distinct persons. It's kind of interesting that the more that we try to explain it, you know, the more confusing it kind of gets. But thankfully, Scripture has um more to say. Because he also alludes to the fact that he is distinct from the Holy Spirit, but one with him in divine nature. So just as he is equally God as the Father, he is also equally God as the Spirit, or the Spirit is equally God as He is. In John chapter 16, verse 7, we see so many times Jesus is trying to prepare his disciples for what's gonna happen. He's trying to prepare them for the fact that he's gonna die, he's gonna be resurrected, and then he's gonna go uh straight to heaven, and they just don't get it. And we can't blame him because I don't think we would be able to either. But in John chapter 16, verse 7, he says, Nev, never, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And from other scripture, we know the helper or the advocate, these are just other names for the Holy Spirit. That person that we read about in Genesis, the Spirit of God hovering over the waters. God, Jesus refers to him as a helper, as an advocate. And he says that it would be it's to your advantage that I go away, it's to your advantage that I will go to heaven and leave you here, because if I don't go, the spirit won't come. Now, how could it be to their advantage if the Holy Spirit, this helper, were lesser than Jesus? Would it not? The only way this statement could be true is if the Holy Spirit were equal to Jesus. That the Holy Spirit is as equally God as Christ Himself. A lot's been said about the Holy Spirit and just about the fact that he is definitely the most neglected, the most um misunderstood, the most ridiculed and insulted member of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is not some power. The Holy Spirit is not some influence, the Holy Spirit is a person, it's not an it, it is a he. The Holy Spirit is God. As much God is God the Father, as much God as Christ the Son. And so many people in the church treat the Holy Spirit as if it's just some power that we have to use for our own personal benefit and our own gain, so that we can do all these crazy things, so that we can feel more spiritual about ourselves, that it's something, hey, you have the spirit in you, so you know, use it, use it to get what you want. And then you get people who are the name it and claim it. You got the Holy Spirit that makes you God, use that power, name it and claim it. Blasphemy. You don't have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit has you. That's God Himself living within you. Don't ever take that lightly. Jesus said, It's to your benefit that I go away, because if I don't, the Spirit won't come, and the Spirit is as much God as I am. And Jesus was clear that this equal divinity of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit leads to action. That Christians are to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We worship one God, we worship the three persons within that God, because the three persons within God are equal. Matthew 28, verses 19 through 20. Just before ascending into heaven, Jesus gave his disciples what we call the Great Commission, the marching orders not just for them, but for every believer. The words to live by. He said, Though go get go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you, and behold, I am with you always to the end of the age. Who do we baptize in the name of? The name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Meaning we live our work as Christians, our life as Christians is to bring honor and glory to all three persons of the Trinity. And I love the fact that it says, in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit, not in the names. Just as another reminder, it's not three gods, it's one God who presents himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And all we do as Christians should not just be to bring glory to God the Father, to not just be in the name of Jesus Christ the Son, but to bring equal glory to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are all equally due our worship and our reverence and our awe and our wonder. That's what Jesus said. And of course, I have to say, Jesus also believed in all of the above as well. Everything the Old Testament said, we know those are the words of Jesus. Those are the words of God. So he believed those and then he kind of cleared things up some more. He made it more clear to us. What about the apostles? What did the apostles believe? First of all, they believe that Jesus is fully God. And again, they believed all the above. They believed everything the Old Testament says, they believed everything Jesus says, and they confirm and affirm the fact that Jesus is fully God. The apostle John started out his gospel by saying, in the beginning was the word. This is a name that he gives for God. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. So he gives Jesus this title. Jesus is the word of God. Jesus is the truth of God, the message of God. And as we saw Jesus himself say in Isaiah 48, he says, I was there in the beginning with God the Father and with the Spirit. And John confirms Jesus was there in the beginning. And then he became flesh. He became flesh as the only Son from the Father. He became flesh as the Son of God, God in flesh. And as Paul said in Colossians chapter 2, verse 9, for in him, referring to Jesus, the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily. So again, we have to understand the Christian belief in Jesus Christ as the Son of God is not half God, half man. It's 100% God, 100% man. No, I cannot explain that any better. But we believe he is fully God, he is fully man, they do not contradict, they do not cancel each other out. In fact, he is more human than you and I will ever be, because he is the humanity that God intended, unadulterated, uncorrupted by sin. And he is God. The apostles also believe that the Holy Spirit is fully God. There are many places in Scripture that uh point to this, but one of the greatest, most powerful examples is found in Acts chapter 5, verses 3 through 4. Pastor Mike mentioned this story last week. It's not really a pretty story. It's the one literal example in the Bible of someone being slain in the spirit. It's when two early uh people who claimed to call themselves Christians, they they lied about um how much money they made and were giving to the church. And Peter confronted him, confronted Ananias, and he said, But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? And then he says, You have not lied to man, but to God. So you've lied to the Holy Spirit, meaning you have lied to God. Holy Spirit is God. We also know that they say the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have distinct roles in salvation. There's a lot we could say about the distinct personal attributes of the Father, Son, and Spirit. It's kind of too much to get into today. But as a part of their personal attributes is specific purposes and roles that they have in the role of salvation, and then the role that they have in the lives of believers. And if you remember, um, back in Titus chapter 3, Paul laid this out pretty clearly. God saved us, the Father saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. So we get three different roles, three different distinct roles in salvation. Uh to kind of oversimplify it, the Father is the architect of our salvation. Jesus acquired our salvation through the work on the cross, and the Holy Spirit applies our salvation to us. He seals our salvation, he sanctifies us, he gives us gifts. They have different distinct roles. So we can say, in general, God saved us, God sanctifies us, God gave himself up for us on the cross. We can say that about God as the Godhead, but to break it apart, you can't say the Father gave his life for us on the cross. No, the Father planned it all. The Father sent his son. You can't say Jesus sanctifies us. No, the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sent us, sanctifies us. So we are saved by one God. But the three persons within the one God had distinct roles and continues to play distinct roles in our lives. So we return to the question, having all that been said, how can this be understood? Well, a lot of theologians throughout church history have tried to come up with different analogies to help us explain. And to some degree, they are a little helpful to just kind of give us a beginning understanding. The problem is, is if you take those analogies literally, you actually just wander off into heresy. And so we need to address that. First of all, if you want to try to understand this, you need to know that he is not one God divided into thirds. So God isn't a pie, all right? Split into three slices. That's not how it works. Because a slice of pie is not the whole pie. You might have also heard of the egg analogy. People often say, well, the Trinity is like an egg. An egg has the shell, then there's the egg white, and then there's the yolk. It's three different parts, but it's all in the egg. But that's also saying that God is split apart into three parts. I mean, if you just take i i if if Tim were to ask me for an egg, and I hand him just a yolk, he's gonna say, What is this? I asked for an egg. So if you go to the diner and you order eggs for breakfast, and they come out and they give you the shell on a plate, you're gonna be pretty upset. Because when you break that analogy down, it's actually saying that it's one God wearing uh divided into three parts, into thirds, and and that's not true. Secondly, he is not one God wearing different masks. Some people uh use and I get it, people use the analogy of of water. You know, H2O can be in the form of liquid water, it can be in the form of ice, and it can be in the form of steam. Say, oh well that that kind of makes sense. The problem is, is a specific grouping of H2O cannot be water, ice, and steam all at the same time. God is spirit, father, and son all at the same time, as we saw with Jesus' baptism. Some people have also said, well, I mean, you know, think about me, for example. I'm a husband, I'm also a father, I'm also a son, but I'm one person. Yes, but I am not those are not three distinct beings. The father, son, and spirit are three distinct persons existing within one God. I've heard this described as the Clark Kent um heresy, you know, that that God, there some people have claimed throughout Christian history that God is kind of like Clark Kent. He appears as the Father, then he runs into a phone booth and he changes and he comes out as the Son. Then he goes back in and he changes and he comes out as the spirit, but that's not true. They all equal or they all exist at once. So how do we make sense of it? Well, the answer is that the doctrine of the Trinity rests not upon human understanding, but upon divine revelation. In other words, if you're exp hoping and expecting me to wrap it all up in a tight, needy bow for you this morning, I cannot do that. No human being can do that. Because the doctrine of the Trinity, as some people claim, is not something that human minds came up with. If human minds came up with the doctrine of the Trinity, then we would be able to fully explain it. The doctrine of the Trinity is not the byproduct of our own logic and reasoning, it's the product of divine revelation. It's this is how God has revealed to Himself through Scripture and through the life of Jesus. Can we explain it? Can we fully understand it? Not at all. But we're not expected to. Isaiah chapter 55 says, For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than your ways, or for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. We cannot comprehend this truth fully. We cannot perfectly explain the truths of God. It's like a two-dimensional shape, trying to explain to a two-dimensional shape a 3D cube. It wouldn't be able to understand it. It's outside of its reality, outside of everything it knows and understands. It's like us trying to imagine a fourth dimension. We really can't explain it. It is beyond our capacity. To quote from our friend again, if you understand it is not God. Why would you want to follow a God? Believe in a God, give yourself over to a God that humans could perfectly understand. What kind of a God is that? We worship and follow and believe in a God that is far beyond our understanding. And that gives us hope. That gives us hope that when I'm in a situation in life and I don't understand what's happening and nothing makes sense to me, and you wonder why or why, God, is this happening to me? You know that even if you don't understand, God does. God has not revealed Himself so that we can understand Him perfectly, but so that we may know Him personally. God has not revealed the truth of the eternal, three distinct persons within one God, so that we could understand it and explain it perfectly to our friends and family. He does not expect us to understand him perfectly, certainly not on this side of eternity. He's revealed himself to us so that we may know him personally. What he wants is an intimate relationship with you and with me. That Yahweh may be like a father, that the son might be a friend, that the spirit might dwell within us. The great beautiful news is that we're not handed a theological quiz when we get to the gates of heaven. If you explain this right, you get to come in. Because none of us would be there. I certainly would not be there. You get in by whether or not you know the owner, whether or not you have an intimate relationship with him. And not just whether or not you know him, but whether or not he knows you, whether or not the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you, living within you. Whether or not the speech Jesus calls you friend, calls you follower, whether or not God calls you an adopted son or daughter. Paul, again, this is one of the other great verses that point to the Trinity. 2 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 14. Paul closes his letter to the church in Corinth with this beautiful benediction that involves the entire Trinity. He said, The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. It's not whether or not you understand this that gets you into heaven. It's whether or not this is your reality, whether or not the grace of the Lord Jesus is with you, whether or not you have been forgiven by Christ. Whether or not the love of God is over you, whether or not he has called you, whether or not he has called you to the Son, he has plucked you out of sinful humanity and chosen to give you new life. And whether or not the Holy Spirit is with you. This is my prayer for you too, just as it was Paul's prayer to them, that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. I probably did not answer questions you might have had. You're probably going to leave with more questions, and that's okay, because the question that matters is whether or not you can understand it and explain it personally, perfectly, but whether or not you know God personally. If you don't, don't leave today. Don't leave today without making that decision. To know the God who desperately wants to know you. It's simple. You declare your faith in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, you acknowledge the fact that you're a sinner, that you do not deserve God's love and forgiveness, but that Christ bought it for you on the cross and you decide to give your life over to him. It's as simple as that. And if you want to know how to do that, if you want to talk about that, if you have questions about that, I encourage you to come see me or come see Pastor Mike, uh, and we'd be happy to talk to you. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you are so good. You are holy and righteous and beautiful beyond words. And I the best I can do is just stumble through um things you have revealed to us, and um Lord, even if I were more eloquent, even if I had greater words to say, we still would not be able to fully comprehend this truth. But you don't expect that. All you want is for us to know you as you have revealed yourself and to be in an intimate relationship with you. So, Father, we thank you for being the great architect of salvation. We thank you for sending the Son to acquire our salvation, and for sending the Spirit to apply that salvation to our lives. If there's anyone here who doesn't know you like that, doesn't know you in that way, doesn't know the beautiful Trinity, then I pray that you would soften their hearts through the Holy Spirit that they might go towards the Son and that through him they might have a relationship with you. Jesus' name we pray. Amen.