So isn't it true that the more we learn about God and His majesty and His attributes and His grandeur, and we taste that relationship, we say, well I want to know Him more.
I want to learn more and experience more. And then we come to the teaching of the Trinity. And if the omnipotence of God and omniscience of God and omnipresence of God isn't enough to drown us out in our own intellect, now we come to the Trinity and we stop short, right? It's like the unscalable mountain.
It's the unattainable truth. How can three be one? Oswald Chambers said, the Spirit is the first power we practically experience, but the last power we come to understand. Are you in tune with the Holy Spirit? Today on Connect with Skip Heitzig, Skip explains how all three persons of the Trinity are at work in your life. But first, we want to share about where you can hear even more uplifting teachings from Skip.
Catch Connect with Skip Heitzig on the Hillsong channel on Saturdays at 4.30 p.m. Mountain, or watch it on TBN on Sundays at 5.30 a.m. Eastern. Don't miss your chance to dive even deeper into God's Word with Skip. Now we want to invite you to get involved in connecting more listeners like you to Scripture. Here's how you can do that. Give a gift today when you call 800-922-1888. Again, that's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate.
Connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Now, we're in John chapter 14 as we dive into the teaching with Skip Heitzig. I'll say right off the bat that my aim this morning is to make you dissatisfied.
And I want to explain that statement. Whatever level that you have right now with the Lord, it's my prayer that you'll never say, that's enough. I don't need any more. I don't need to get any more spiritual, any holier than I am.
What I have is sufficient. I pray that you'll crave more, the more that we learn about Him. Lloyd John Ogilvy, who was one time the chaplain for the United States Senate, wrote, sadly many Christians settle for two-thirds of God. God the Father is way up there somewhere aloof and apart from their daily lives. Christ is out there somewhere between them and the Father.
The Holy Spirit is some kind of vague force or impersonal power that they hear about but do not know intimately. So I pray that you'll have a sanctified discontentment, a holy kind of discontentment, what A.W. Tozer called the pursuit of God. I don't know if you've ever read that little book, The Pursuit of God.
It was a classic that changed my life and I took a copy off the shelf this week and was thumbing through it. And the first couple paragraphs, as Tozer describes these kind of people that have that pursuit of God, he said, these are lives that are marked by a growing hunger after God Himself. They will not be satisfied till they have drunk deep at the fountain of living waters. And so here we are, we've tasted, we have drunk, but we're here to say it's good, it's wonderful, but I want more. I want to go further.
I want to go deeper. Even Paul the Apostle had that very same desire. After 30 years of walking with Christ, Paul said, not that I have already attained or I'm already perfected, but I press on. I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Going forward, healthy, holy, dissatisfaction. Thomas Edison once said, show me a thoroughly satisfied man and I'll show you a failure. So isn't it true that the more we learn about God and His majesty and His attributes and His grandeur and we taste that relationship, we say, well, I want to know Him more.
I want to learn more and experience more. And then we come to the teaching of the Trinity. And if the omnipotence of God and omniscience of God and omnipresence of God isn't enough to drown us out in our own intellect, now we come to the Trinity and we stop short, right? It's like the unscalable mountain.
It's the unattainable truth. How can three be one? Now, when I was a boy going to church, I didn't hear Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I heard Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So the impression that made on this little mind wasn't a good one.
Okay, I would always watch Casper the Friendly Ghost every Saturday. So when I'm hearing Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, it's like the little girl was with her family, they were from India, and they came to visit friends in California on the West Coast. And the host family brought the little 11-year-old girl to church one Sunday. And after church, they said, well, how'd you like it? And she said, how come the West Coast is not included? They said, pardon me? She said, you know, in the name of the Father and the Son and the whole East Coast.
It didn't get much better than that for me when I was growing up. Now, last week we mentioned that some folks, to try to get their minds around the doctrine of the three-in-one, the triune God, will take illustrations like the egg with the yoke and the white and the shell as a symbol of the Trinity, or water existing in three different states, though still being water, whether it's in liquid form or ice, solid form, or in vapor, it's still water, H2O. And all of those are fine, but they certainly don't do justice to it and sort of diminish the majesty of God. Now, the ancient peoples used to have a diagram that I want to show you that I found this week for the Trinity. And they would teach their people, their children, their congregation using this. Notice you have three circles in a triangle, Father on top, Holy Spirit on the bottom left, and the Son on the bottom right. And notice the lines and arrows on the outer part saying the Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Father. These are separate beings, but notice they all point to the center circle, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. I think that was helpful.
Not that they completely grasped it either, but I think it's helpful. Now this morning, more than explaining the Trinity to you or trying to get you to understand it, it's my hope that you will enjoy Him. I want you to enjoy the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Dare I even say explore the relationship with the Father and with the Son and with the Holy Spirit. It's not to me important that you understand how the Trinity works as much as what He, what they, the one God, mean in our daily lives.
So I've asked you to turn with me to John chapter 14. And what I want to do is give you three, and only three, there's many more principles, but three because of time, three great truths about the Triune God. Three great truths about the Triune God and all of these truths matter on a daily basis. First of all, that all three do work.
All three work together and they have work to do and it's distinct but in concert with each other. So I take you now to John chapter 14 beginning in verse 10. And how many of you have red letter Bibles this morning?
Okay, have you noticed that like everything's in red, right? In chapter 14, 15, 16, 17, that means Jesus is doing all or most all of the talking. This is the longest recorded sermon Jesus ever preached in the New Testament. It's to His 12 disciples.
It's in the upper room. It's the night before His arrest and then His crucifixion. So look with me in John 14 beginning in verse 10, Jesus speaking. Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does the works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father in me or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. Most assuredly I say to you, He who believes in me, the works that I do, He will do also. And greater works than these He will do because I go to my Father. And whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
If you ask anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him. For He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans.
I will come to you. Now there's one noticeable thing, trait, about this whole message that Jesus gives in the upper room. As He goes through it, 14, 15, 16, all of it, He freely speaks of the Father and the Son Himself and the Holy Spirit as three distinct persons working in harmony together.
He assigns personality to them. When He speaks of the Holy Spirit, for instance, He doesn't say when it comes, when that impersonal force shows up, He gives a personal pronoun, He, Him, His. And He does that with all three members of the Trinity. And then He speaks of we. So He speaks of three individuals who are doing work all working in concert together. Now here's a question. Do you really think that these disciples fully understood at this moment that the one being of God was shared by three co-equal, co-eternal persons?
No. They grew up Jewish. They knew there was one God. They were hammered that in their hearts and minds there's one God. The whole concept of three in one, even the concept of Jesus being God, though they came to that conclusion, all of this was new to them and it was difficult to them.
And if it was difficult to them, it's certainly difficult to us. However, the same guys wrote it down as such. They recorded what Jesus said and they came to believe in this three in one. But like we said last week, we can never expect to take infinite God and have Him comprehended by our finite minds.
Because it just seems to not make sense. Now I was reading something that I wanted to share with you this morning. I was reading something this week in a little thin book by J.I. Packer called Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God. And he has a beautiful illustration of how truths can seem to be contradictory, but they're not.
They're both true. And he pulled out this word called an antinomy. I don't know if you've heard of the word antinomy.
A-N-T-I-N-O-M-Y. It's an actual word in the dictionary. An antinomy is an apparent contradiction, a seeming contradiction that is not a contradiction at all.
Here's the dictionary definition. An antinomy is a contradiction between conclusions which seem equally logical, reasonable, or necessary. I like to call it truths held in tension. It's an apparent contradiction, a seeming contradiction of two undeniable truths.
Now he gives an example in that little book. He says, take the realm of truth and the realm of thought. He says, take the realm of physics. In physics there are a few different antinomies. One is light.
Light. And he says there's evidence that light consists of waves. But also there's evidence that light is made up of particles. But it is not readily apparent that light can exist both as wave and as particle, but it does.
That, he says, is an antinomy. There's evidence that both are true. So it is in the realm of biblical truth. You have apparent contradictions, but the conclusions are equally true and valid. Now having said that, the Trinity is way more than a theological truth to be grasped or looked at by a scientific analogy.
It's something that I believe is personal and it's very practical. And here Jesus speaks about the Father and the Spirit and the Son all doing work. Let's go back and see a couple examples of that. First of all, creation. What does the Bible say? Genesis 1, 1. In the beginning God, Elohim, created the heavens and the earth.
That's the introductory statement. But throughout the rest of the Bible we understand that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all took an active part. It was the Father who planned and thought of and decreed creation. I like to think of the Father as the sovereign architect of creation. But God the Son, Jesus Christ, he's the builder. He's the builder.
One's the architect, one is the builder. Listen carefully to 1 Corinthians chapter 8 verse 6. There's only one God, the Father, of whom are all things. And one Lord Jesus Christ through whom are all things. It's of him, but it's through Jesus. And John would agree with that. Remember what we read a few weeks back in the first chapter of the Gospel of John concerning Jesus Christ, the Word, the Logos? All things were made through him, and without him nothing was made that has been made. Paul affirms that.
Colossians chapter 1 verse 16. All things were created by Jesus Christ and for him. So the Father is the architect, the Son is the builder. I look at the Holy Spirit as the project manager.
He's the one that ensured the security of it all as it was being carried out. Because the second verse of the first chapter of the Bible, Genesis 1-2 says, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Brooding is the word. It's a term used in Deuteronomy of a mother eagle brooding over and ensuring the safety over her young in the nest. That's creation.
They all work together. Fast forward now to the incarnation, Bethlehem, when Jesus came into the world. Now we know that God is Spirit, right? God is Spirit. Jesus even declared God is Spirit, which means God has no physical outward form. But the Word became flesh. So in Christ sent by the Father, God stepped into our world and hung out here for 33 years. That's the incarnation. John chapter 1 verse 18.
No one has ever seen God, but God the one and only who is at the Father's side has made Him known. So the Father sent, the Son went, and you might say the Holy Spirit lent His power and His presence to that whole event. That's what the angel told Joseph when he was freaked out that his fiance Mary was pregnant. And the angel came and said, fear not for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And then you remember the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan.
What happened? The heavens opened and the Holy Spirit descended like a dove and a voice came from heaven. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.
All three active in the incarnation. Now fast forward to another event in your life, your salvation or my salvation. You know, salvation is a whole lot more than just I accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and my Savior. I remember the day or the night when I did this.
It's way more than you. It happened way before you and I were even around. In fact, the Bible says God the Father chose you before the foundation of the world chose you. So the Father chose you. The Son Jesus Christ came to the earth and redeemed you. And it was the Holy Spirit who drew you to Christ.
And once you come to Jesus Christ, sanctifies you. Let's put it in a fishing analogy. Not that I know anything about fishing. I'm really not a good fisherman.
My dad was though. But let's use it in biblical terms, fishers of men. God the Father sent Jesus Christ His Son fishing. The Holy Spirit baited the hook, lured you to Christ. Jesus caught you and once He caught you, it's the Holy Spirit who cleans you. And every fish Jesus catches, He cleans through His Holy Spirit.
That's sanctification. 1 Peter 1 verse 2. God the Father knew you and chose you long ago and His Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you've obeyed Him and you have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ.
In fact, you couldn't have come to Jesus Christ and accepted Christ unless it was the Holy Spirit who grabbed a hold of you, was with you, made you feel empty, made you feel like you needed Christ. And He says that in John chapter 16 verses 7 through 11. He speaks here about the Holy Spirit. He says, when the Holy Spirit has come, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they believe not on Me.
That's His job. The Holy Spirit points you to Jesus. You receive Him as Savior.
Jesus points you to God as your Father in heaven. Let's take a fourth example and that is revelation. Revelation. Scriptural truth.
Where does it come from? All three are involved in this work. Now here's the introductory statement. 2 Timothy 3 16. All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
Or a better translation. All scripture is God-breathed. It's one Greek word.
Theanustas. God-breathed. But we understand that God is the source. God the Father is the source of revelation. God the Son, Jesus, is the subject of revelation. From Genesis all the way through all 66 books they're always pointing to Jesus Christ. In fact you remember that great conversation that our Lord had with the religious leaders of His day and they said well Moses this and Moses that and we believe Moses and we trust Moses and Jesus said hey if you believed Moses you would have believed me because Moses wrote about me. He's the subject of it. Jesus said that after His resurrection. Remember the day He was walking with those two disciples on the road to Emmaus and it says beginning at Moses and all the prophets He expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself.
That's Luke chapter 24. He is the subject. So the Father is the source. God the Son Jesus Christ is the subject of revelation. What's the Holy Spirit? He's the supervisor. He's the supervisor. It's not like Isaiah took out a pen one day and thought what what are some cool thoughts I could write about God? Oh here's one. Nor was it God saying Isaiah.
Oh you couldn't hear me there. Isaiah this is God. Write this exactly. And He took dictation.
Not at all. But the Holy Spirit enabled these men through their own personalities and styles of writing to write down exactly what God wanted to have written. I get that from second Peter chapter 1. For prophecy did not come in old times by the will of men, but holy men spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
All three were involved in that work. That's Skip Heising with a message from the series The Biography of God. Now we want to share about an exciting resource that will answer your questions about who God is and how you can know Him more intimately.
Hey I want to let you know about my latest book. It's called The Biography of God. Now the very subject matter of God is the loftiest of all topics and the pinnacle of all human pursuits. As we discover who God is and how aware He is of the human condition, we will be inspired to know Him more each day. But we cannot stop with just gathering information about God. To truly know Him we must believe and act in the light of that information. I'll share how you can do just that in my newest book The Biography of God. Here's how to get your copy. The Biography of God is our way to say thank you when you give $35 or more today to help expand this Bible teaching outreach to more people. Request your copy when you give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Every day listeners are growing closer to God through this radio ministry and you're making it possible.
Listen to what one person sent in. My wife and I found your teachings to be just what we needed to enhance our walk with God and to help satisfy our hunger to learn more about the Bible. You make stories like this one possible when you give to connect more people to God's truths. And we invite you to help reach even more people by giving a gift today at connectwithskip.com slash donate and help reach more people with God's word. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate or call 800-922-1888. Again, that's 800-922-1888.
Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heisig looks closely at each person of the Trinity showing you how they also demonstrate unity and why it matters to you. The idea of in Jesus name is in Jesus reputation or by his merit. In other words, you're not standing before God in your name. God, it's me. You know me. I'm coming to you in my own name. Don't do that. And if you think you can say I'm coming to you God in Skip's name, unless you want to give God a good laugh, I suggest you don't do that. You come in Jesus name. Connect with Skip Heisig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-02-02 20:28:32 / 2024-02-02 20:37:42 / 9