God is
one. So what?
Good Shepherd Lutheran
Trinity Sunday—May 18, 2008
Deut. 6:4
Rev. Jonathan Werre
All
doctrine is practical. It is one of the
reasons Pastor Seeger, and I, and the
All doctrine is practical. Including this doctrine of the Trinity, that God is three distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet there is just one God. One God. As Moses wrote, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” That's the doctrine, the “what.” But what about the “so what?” God is one. So what? Well, if you are willing, there is an answer. For all doctrine is practical. For life. Yours, as well as mine.
“Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” God is one. Which means he can never be divided up. It is dead wrong to divide God up and say, for example, “The Father is 1/3 God and has 1/3 of the power and love, the Son is 1/3 God and has 1/3 of the power and love, the HS is 1/3 God and has 1/3 of the power and love.” That is wrong. Not kind of wrong--dead wrong, damnably wrong. As it says in the Athanasian Creed, “Whoever wishes to be saved must have this conviction of the Trinity.” If you don't want to be saved, then I suppose you can think whatever you want about God; the devil doesn't much care what you think, as long as it's not the truth. But the truth is this: God is three Persons yet one God. He cannot be divided up. Not his Godness, not his power, not his love. And not his heart. Especially not his heart. Ours is a God who has an undivided heart. For he is one and he cannot be divided.
Ah! if only that could be said of us! For ours are hearts that are divided. We want, and we don't want. We love, and we don't love. We value humility yet struggle with pride. We cherish worship and find it boring. We forgive but we also build walls. Our hearts are divided. Who of us would deny it? And what a poor excuse for Christianity that is! But that's what we are like, you are, so am I. And I say this to our shame. Do you not feel at times like the psalmist, yearning for it to be different, “Enlarge my heart and I will run the way of thy commands!” (Ps. 119) If only I had such a heart! But our hearts are too small, split up into little parts, because our hearts are divided. It's been that way since we were born; even before.
So our Triune God is aiming to do a radical thing in me right now, and in you, too. You do not have to wait until next week for this. He's aiming to perform radical surgery. He aims to take his razor-sharp law and cut the cords that tie us to so many things, the cords that cause us to have divided hearts. And there are many cords in your life, and mine, that must be cut, not just one or two. And that is a kind of death.
And what a messy business that is. It's not fun. But this must be clearly understood—when you come to worship the Lord your God, you come to die. When the cords are cut, that means part of us must die, be killed all over again, by the sword that comes from the mouth of Jesus Christ. The part that must die is that divided heart of yours, and mine. He's aiming to kill our divided hearts.
Do you know what it sounds like, the death of a divided heart, what that sounds like? It sounds like this, “Lord have mercy on us, Christ have mercy on us, Lord have mercy on us.” It sounds like this, “Holy and merciful Father, I confess that I am by nature sinful.” Now some can say that and to them it is just words, no meaning. And so it works nothing beneficial in them. They end up as bad off as they started. But for us who mean what we are saying, you know what it feels like, you know what the death of your divided heart feels like. It feels bad, feels like regret, sometimes feels scary. Because part of you is dying.
And that is how it must be, every Sunday, every day. But not all day. No--that's not where our God wants you to stay! Do not stay there. Move out of that. After all, it's not dead hearts that the Triune God seeks. It's living hearts, hearts filled with life--living, undivided hearts. Like his, for he is Life itself and is one, and cannot be divided. And so this same God who takes aim through the Law to kill our divided hearts is the same God who gives us the kind of heart he is looking for. His own Spirit does this in us as we are given the Father's forgiveness and the Son's righteousness through the Absolution, and Baptism, and Supper. For there are three that testify and the three are in agreement. They say the same beautiful thing. To you, to me. They are one.
But here's where so many get it so desperately wrong—do you? They imagine that God is speaking to a whole bunch of people here. Is that what you think? What the Triune God is trying to get you and me to understand can be illustrated by a story I once read. The story is about a Christian who had a dream that he went to heaven. As he walked along, he found in his pocket a note. It read, “Remember that the Lord God is one and cannot be divided. It may help.” He found the note kind of odd, but he did not give it much thought, because all around him was such beauty. It was kind of like the earth, except everything was more vivid, more alive, more exciting, more restful. As he walked along, though, he noticed that he did not see any other people. The longer he walked, the more the question burned in his mind, “Where is everyone else?” And then suddenly as he came over a hill, he saw the throne of God, bright and glorious, and he saw his Saviour. He noticed that he was looking at the planet earth, deep in thought. But suddenly he turned to the man and threw his arms open and said, “I've been expecting you!” After a bit, that nagging question found its way to the man's tongue, and he said, “O Lord, it is a greater thing to be here than I ever imagined. But where are all the others?” And God looked puzzled and asked, “What do you mean, the others?” And the man said, “The other people. All the other believers who died before me. Where are they?” And again God looked puzzled, but in a way that speaks of love, and he said, “The others?”, that word seemed to hold special significance for him. He paused for the longest time, and then he said slowly, “ Didn't you understand when you were on earth that there was only you and me?” And then the man woke up. And he understood. Do you?
Our God is one God. “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” He cannot be divided. Not his attention. Not his love. Not when it comes to his law or the gospel. As one of my college professors put it--It isn't as though the Father were strict and the Son lenient and the Holy Spirit indifferent. No, each person is totally devoted to the law and its demands on you. He proves it in disasters and in death. But God is One in the gospel too. The Father shows it by loving the world and sending his Son. The Son shows it by living and dying for us. The Holy Spirit shows it by working in us to trust in this Saviour, always pointing us to him in the Word and Sacraments. Three distinct person, one united eternal devotion to your salvation. Three distinct persons. Each totally free. Each totally, sublimely happy as is. Each needing nothing. Each needing no one. Yet nevertheless each yearning, longing to have an indispensable role in bringing you to his eternal home that you might share in his total, sublime happiness.
Our God does not have a divided heart. Then it must be that you who are his sons and daughters by faith in Christ do not have divided hearts either. For the children are like their Father, they have his image. For that is the kind of heart the HS gives as he works the gift of faith, an undivided heart. A heart that is aiming at one thing all the time—to bring glory to God, as it says in I Cor. 10, “Whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.” So we might ask ourselves, in the middle of our irritation that she left the milk out of the frig overnight and now I have to eat my cereal dry, “How can I bring glory to God by how I deal this?” So we might ask ourselves, in the middle of my sadness that is on the verge of depression, “ “How can I bring glory to God by how I deal with this?” So that we might ask ourselves, in the middle of falling in love with that beautiful girl or in love with that beautiful cottage on that fish-filled lake, “How can I bring glory to God in how I deal with this?” For that is the kind of question an undivided heart asks.
It is Satan and the world that want us to approach each day as if we have many separate things to do. But that is a lie. A lie designed to confuse us about our priorities, make us stressed and irritable, and then when we choose to skip worship or snap at our loved ones, to make us feel kind of justified about what we did. But how does that bring glory to God? And if Satan has been able to use the stress of your busyness to set you up, and later you think, “Ugh, what is wrong with me! How come I yelled at my children like that?”, then remember how to bring glory to God when you sin—by finding comfort in his forgiveness in Christ. To keep feeling bad about what you have done brings no glory to God. For our God's great glory is that he forgives sin and remembers our wickedness no more.
I warned you, all doctrine is practical. Why it is so important to get every single teaching of the Scriptures right. Get the doctrine wrong, you're going to get life wrong. And nothing good comes from that.
All doctrine is practical. Including this doctrine of the Trinity, that God is three distinct persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet there is just one God. One God. As Moses wrote, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.” That's the doctrine, the “what.” God is one. So what? So you have his undivided love, undivided forgiveness, undivided salvation, undivided attention. All day long. And all night long. That we, too, might be people of an undivided heart towards him. All day long. And all night long. Undivided.
Amen.