Credo: I Believe - preaching on the Trinity this Sunday

As you may know, I have been down since Saturday afternoon with a stomach virus. I am back in the office today but am still feeling weak. My voice is shot from being sick all weekend. I'm sure everyone around me is really happy that I can't talk so much! :) I am especially thankful that Mindy, Mary Grace and the rest of the kids haven't come down with it. I'm praying feverishly that they don't!

I begin this week by picking up a happy burden. This Sunday I have the privilege and, yes, sobering job of preaching a sermon on the great doctrine of the Trinity and what it means for us.

The background to this is also very exciting to me. I am beginning a new sermon series this Sunday on the vision and mission of Trinity Presbyterian Church. It is called "Credo: I Believe". It will be an 11 week series that covers such grand topics as the Trinity, the Gospel, the mission of God, worship, discipleship, community, family and more. I am particularly excited about a sermon handbook that will be given out this Sunday with information about the sermon and a song for private/family worship for each week. A collection of musical accompaniments is also being created today for families to use to help them sing the songs. These will be distributed by CD and/or website. My friend Ben Geist has created some beautiful artwork for these sermon guidebooks as well, so I'm very excited about this resource to put into our church's hands.

Now the first sermon in the series will be on the Trinity. It is the doctrine that teaches that there is only one true God, but that this God exists in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Each of these three persons are the same in substance, equal in power and glory. The doctrine of the Trinity has stood for centuries as a legitimate litmus test of what is orthodox, historic, biblical Christianity. The early church perfected its understanding of this biblical doctrine in its major church councils at Nicea (in 325 AD), Costantinople (381 AD), Ephesus (431 AD), and finally in Chalcedon (451 AD). One theologian has correctly called the doctrine of the Trinity "the most comprehensive and the most nearly all-inclusive formulation of the truth of Christianity." Roughly speaking, the whole Bible is really nothing but the unfolding of the knowledge of the Triune God - in creation (Father), in redemption (Son), and in the church and future (Holy Spirit).

When we speak of the Trinity, we are peering into the most mysterious, most glorious of all realities. And as Cornelius Van Til once famously remarked, "Every truth is nothing but the externaliziation of the personality of the Trinity," which is a very compact, formal way of saying that every truth we come into contact with is related back to the Trinity. The fact that I am an individual but am also so connected with others in deep relationship is itself an expression of the unity, diversity, personality of the Trinity. This doctrine is an expression of the heart and essence of who God really is. It's mind boggling! The Trinity informs us that God is both unity and diversity at the same time. The Trinity informs us that God is both vastly glorious beyond comprehension, but also eternally a very personal God. In fact, if God were not triune, then there could be no salvation for us.

"The verbal expression of the Trinity is the most difficult job man has had to do," said J. I. Packer. I definitely feel the truth of these words this week! But shame on me and shame on the church that we do not preach on the Trinity often enough. (If we all followed the old liturgical calendar, at least there would be one day a year in which all churches would preach on the Trinity. But the modern church has taken away Ascension Sunday, Pentecost Sunday and Trinity Sunday and replaced it with Memorial Day, Independence Day and Mother's Day. What a shame.) Back to the point: I am very excited to launch a new sermon series on the vision and mission of our church by beginning at the core of all reality: the Godhead. We begin at the place from which all else flows. Our redemption and our mission begin here. So, just as Moses had helpers to keep his arms up as he watched over Israel, pray for me (if you are a praying person) this week as I prepare an important sermon. Pray that my full strength would be restored as well as my voice. And more important, pray that the glory of the Triune God would so grip my own heart this week that my preaching would simply be an overflow of that same glory experienced by my own soul.

The effects of a wicked Texas thunderstorm...

Last night, around 4:00a.m., I woke to the sound of wind and rain whipping against my house and thunder crashing and lightning flashing simultaneously. A few minutes later the tornado sirens for our area sounded and I started poking John, who simply rolled over and resumed snoring after a delirious, "Huh?" So I stayed there on my back, wide-eyed at all the lightning and wondered every few minutes, "Does that sound like a train?...Does THAT sound like a train?" and debated getting everyone up and into the middle bathroom's bathtub with a mattress over our heads. Thankfully the storm died down around 5:00a.m.

However, this morning I found the side wall of our backyard fence fallen against our swing set. John also got a call from Tanya about the storm damage to the church - pictures posted below.


Now I have a clear view of my neighbor's back yard.


Christopher has enjoyed telling everyone, including the fence repairmen, "Be careful you don't get poked by the nails!" Sarah kept asking the fence repairmen if they knew how to fix our fence. This was all very exciting to them.


The back wall of our fence didn't fall over, but the base of 2 posts were broken, so you can see the fence leaning backwards in this photo.

OK, this is what our church looked like BEFORE the storm (picture below taken at the Fall Festival in October)...


This is what our church looks like AFTER last night's storm. Our poor steeple fell into the front yard and broke.



If you look closely, you'll see the cross on the ground at the left and the base of the steeple is cracked.

Several trees on the property were also uprooted. THANKFULLY, the steeple didn't fall on anyone or anything besides the ground!


The wind gusts also ripped some of the siding off of the back wall of the church. John said that several of the iron-rimmed trash cans were missing from the playground, but amazingly enough, the little pavilion which is made of tarp and offers a little shade on the playground area wasn't damaged at all.

J. I. Packer on Charles Simeon

Here is quote I came upon that I thought blog-worthy. At least, it's a good reminder for myself of what is most important. Here is J.I. Packer on Charles Simeon:

The quality of his preaching was but a reflection of the quality of the man himself. And there can be little doubt that the man himself was largely made in the early morning hours which he devoted to private prayer and devotional study of the Scriptures. … Such costly self-discipline made the preacher. That was primary. The making of the sermon was secondary and derivative. (Preach the Word, 152)

Trinity PC Mission Conference

John here. I blogged Friday night's missions conference talk with Dr. Richard Pratt here. Check it out. I plan on using www.trinitythisweek.blogspot.com to blog on news, prayer items and thoughts concerning the life of our church, Trinity.

Richard Pratt, Missions Conference Speaker, on KCBI 90.9 today at 5:30

Listen to KCBI radio today for an interview with Dr. Richard Pratt, founder and president of Third Millennium Ministries (thirdmill.org). Dr. Pratt will be interviewed by our good friend Penna Dexter and will discuss both his international ministry as well as the upcoming conference here at Trinity Plano this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It should be fun!

The Missional Kingdom

I highly recommend this new blog by my friend John Armstrong. I have been showing our men on Friday morning here at Trinity how the Kingdom of God emerges from the very first pages of Genesis to be the main theme of the Bible. I think John puts it all very well here. I also think this is very good reading in preparation for our upcoming missions conference this Friday, Saturday and Sunday, which too will focus on the ever important issue of the Kingdom of God. God's Kingdom has a mission: to bring people in. It is therefore a missional Kingdom - and it is our high privilege to partner with God and each other in this mission. Add this new blog to your RSS reader!

Is the vision for personal evangelism starting to grow at Trinity?

On Wednesday night, I came up to the church to meet with our three WTS Texas seminary students for ministry training. There was a baby shower and choir rehearsal down the hall. Two women stopped me to say how wonderful and worshipful they thought Jeff's memorial service was on Tuesday. One said that there were lots of non-Christians there that she and her husband know from other walks of life. Then she said something that sent a jolt of pure joy through my heart! She said, "My husband and I are going to start following up with those people we know and put out some feelers with them to see if there is any interest in the gospel." Wow! This is exactly what I've been trying to encourage the congregation to do!!! Two weeks ago I preached on Jonah 1 and spoke about how the Lord had more compassion for the lost than did his prophet. Then the next Sunday Jim Bland, Coordinator to the PCA's Mission to North America, came and gave us two sermons on reaching the lost. Last Sunday we studied Romans 8:28 together in light of all the deaths recently in the church. But this Sunday I'll return again to Jonah 2 and continue the theme of turning our compassion for the lost into passion for evangelism. Evangelism cannot be done by a church program. It must be done in the every-day lives of ALL the members of a church. It must be in the DNA of the church. In the culture of the church. The feeling must be that "either we go find the lost and bring them in or else we die". Somehow we have to all gain the sense that reaching the lost with the good news is not a luxury ministry or a side effort or something only for the professional minister or the uniquely gifted. It must become an every member ministry. It must be richly personal. When that woman said that to me, I thought to myself, "Maybe it's really starting to catch on." I hope so. No, I pray so. And Lord give me the mercy and courage to lead by example in my own personal life.

Friendship is a means of grace

Jonathan Leeman, whom I have great respect for, introduces us to some thoughts on a topic that is often under-appreciated and, in fact, crucial to the life of a healthy, godly church: Christian friendships. Jonathan quotes Mark Dever as saying,

"If you don’t have friends in the church, you deprive us pastors of some of our best tools for reaching out to you, especially when you’re hurt or beginning to stray."

Jonathan then goes on to say,

"Friendship is one of the primary means of grace the Lord uses to keep church members growing in grace and bound to one another—like the sinews between muscles. Friendship helps church members to fight sin, disciple younger Christians, and spur one another on to love and good deeds."

(In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that Jonathan's father is the director of music/worship at our church and is a very fine musician with a pastor's heart.)