This last week
Just to be more specific a young black male
Lost their life in an encounter with a police officer in Rock Island and there's been reports about it. You can look up but
Jake Van Damme and I were gonna have a Monday night meeting and we were gonna meet at a different place
but then I saw Sheree who is one of the
part of the family that owns roosters and
Roosters is a black owned business here in town that I like to hang out with and so Sheree just said hey a lot going on
She specifically was talking about that and so if anybody wants to talk come come down. I'll be behind the bar
So I told Jake all right. We're going there like instead of going over here because let's go and listen to her
let's go talk to her see how she is and
There wasn't like a large group of people
but
It's the way it's like we're trying to learn how to be not just people who want to reconcile
but actually be anti-racism
which means you have to decide to put yourself in the position to have those conversations and
To carry yourself with humility where you're listening, you know, just having an opinion right away
But be listening to what is happening. And so I appreciate that Andy
If we've never met my name is Greg. I'm one of the pastors here at the house
I would love to have a coffee with you a drink of your choice with you
Whatever that is and get to know you hear your story
If you want to talk about Jesus, I love to talk about Jesus
And so I would love to do that with you
We are in the second week of a series that we are just calling Trinity
Because it's just about the Trinity this this doctrinal idea that has existed in Christianity for really
1600 solid years, but you know
Shadows of it were floating around for a long time before them before they really kind of completely nailed it down now
Advancements in technology. Did you know there was only 66 years between the first manned flight and
a person setting foot on the moon
66 years
to go from
flying for the first time on earth to
traveling through space and
Putting your feet on a floating hunk of rock
That's out there in space. It's amazing how quickly technology
Can advance the engine in that first plane
Had 12 horsepower
If you have a riding lawnmower, you have more horsepower in your riding lawnmower
I'm not kidding riding lawnmowers have between 12 or 14 and 16
Horsepower that first plane flew 120 glorious feet
for 10 seconds
Hmm for I think it was actually 12 seconds so in 10 feet per second 66 years later the Saturn 5
That left Earth for the moon
Had 160 million horsepower
160 million horsepower for keeping track. That's a little bit more than a lawnmower
The first stage of the Saturn 5 flight traveled 58 miles in 168 seconds
58 miles and that is 1800 feet per second
And it only took 66 years
Humans are curious
We are compelled to understand
To improve to expand to explore
Here's the thing after all the advancements after all the discoveries after all the equations
Scratched out on boards the basic physics of flight are the same
Learning more going further didn't and doesn't change or negate the initial truth that they began with
What the Wright brothers did was not erased by Neil and Buzz yeah
So if a fully formed concept of the Trinity is like reaching the moon
Discovering or deciding on a doctrine of the Trinity didn't destroy the initial physics of faith
That the first Christians began with
Those basics were enough
Those basics were enough for hundreds of years like pastor Jen said last week
It was about 350 years after the resurrection of Jesus that the doctrine of the Trinity was cemented
In the Nicene Creed
350 years
So why did it take so long?
We have to keep in mind what kind of Messiah that the Israelites were waiting for back then
They weren't assuming that a Messiah would claim divinity
They weren't assuming that a Messiah would claim oneness with God
They were waiting for someone sent from God, but not necessarily God from God
Why?
Well primarily because Judaism is famously monotheistic
Meaning a religion of only one God
Of all the central concepts of Judaism God being one is about as central as it gets
One of their most important prayers is called the Shema
They're told in Deuteronomy to teach this to their children all throughout their life to say it every day
It says here oh Israel the Lord is our God the Lord is one
They were surrounded by pantheistic pluralistic cultures that believed in many gods
It was unique
For them to believe there was only one so it wasn't immediately obvious how Jesus could be walking around on earth as a human
And simultaneously be one with the Father without making that multiple gods
Do you see that?
Remember all the first Christians were Jewish
All of them
None of them were looking to leave Judaism
Because they believed in Jesus
None of them were trying to stop being Jewish
And so for hundreds of years those early Christians into the next generations
They held the mystery of Jesus's divinity in tension
So for hundreds of years
They moved
From 120 to 120
From 120 seconds of flight
To the moon
Beginning this was enough they believed that God was Father
That Jesus was somehow divinely sent by the Father to forgive our sins to reconcile us to the Father
Romans 10 9 if you declare with your mouth that Jesus is Lord
And believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved that was enough
That is what made you a Christian
You didn't have to understand the hypostatic union or the eternal interpersonal dwelling of the triune god
But we're human
We are compelled to understand
To improve
To expand
To explore
Trouble with that
Said if we're not careful sometimes the more we learn the more divided we become
One of the frustrations that Jesus had was how religion had stacked rules upon rules
They learned things they discovered things they decided things and things got stacked on top of each other
The development of Christian theology over the years is very similar
We have systemized the divine
We have turned the loving relationship of Jesus into a factory floor pushing packages from point A to point B
What was the most personal act in history the birth life death and resurrection of Jesus
Son of God has been depersonalized and fragmented into a system of beliefs
That you have to believe a certain way
Theology is good
We need it but sometimes people that have been to the moon treat people in planes like they're not flying
Paul one of the New Testament authors wants us to think about it differently
In first Corinthians 8 he's talking about this divide between people that eat certain foods and those that did it
He says the problem might not be the food guys
It's about our knowledge
Or what we think about this food that divides us he says
Now about food sacrifice to idols we know that we all possess knowledge
But knowledge puffs up
Maybe you've heard that phrase you've heard that phrase knowledge puffs up
He's talking about how spiritual insight causes us to be prideful towards one another
Oh well I know this about God and you don't
I know this about God and you don't oh I'm closer to the Lord now
He continues
But love builds up
Where knowledge puffs up he says that love builds up
Those who think they know something do not yet know as they ought to know
And then he gets to the point he gives us the main point verse 3
But whoever loves God is known by God
He doesn't all the things that you think you understand all the things you're trying to know
If you will just know love then you will be known by God
I feel like it is more important to the writers of the scripture that we be known
Than to be sure of all the things that we know does that make sense?
Paul's warning that what we think we know gets in the way of the most basic things that we all need to understand
Verse 6 and that is for us that there is but one God the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live
And there is but one Lord Jesus Christ through whom all things came and through whom we live
That is the base one God the Father one Lord Jesus Christ and that is what he wants us to agree about
That is the base that is the first flight
Because having the right information does not always get you closer to God
Sometimes it pushes you further from each other
And I think I would rather be flying barely off the surface of the earth with a community of faith
Than to feel the chasm between the earth and the moon
Some of us in this room have masters degrees in theological subjects
Some of us have pastoral leadership degrees in education
There are people in our church that actually have PhDs in Bible related subjects
Some of us have never read the Bible from cover to cover
Some of us have never read all four gospels
But you do not need to know it all to be known by God
Because knowledge puffs up
Love builds up
Now I could end my sermon right there like kind of in the name of avoiding puffing up by giving you more knowledge
I should do that every week
I would talk about Jesus for a few minutes and I would not want anyone to get prideful so we will end it there
But we do happen to live on the other side of the Council of Nicaea
And it may be helpful to have some idea of how they got there
And how they landed on the doctrine of the Trinity
So let's go
Remember the roots of Christianity are in what?
Judaism
And Judaism was and had always been what?
Monotheistic
And the Christians in those first hundreds of years had to wrestle with the concept of how to understand Jesus as God
If there was only one God
What did it mean that Jesus said I and the Father are one?
What did it mean that John said Jesus was at the beginning?
That he was with God and was God
What did it mean that Paul said all things were created through him and are held together by him?
If there is only one God
How did Jesus fit?
Because I think that if I told you
If you knew me
And then someone else walked into the room and said oh I'm also Greg
You would probably be like yeah you're not
To reconcile the idea that they believed in God
But then they could see God
200 years into Christianity one of the first ideas that tried to sort it out was called subordination
Subordination is where the Father is God
And Jesus and the Holy Spirit are also distinct beings so there's a triune
Nature to it but in subordination the Father is God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit are like servants
There's a triune nature and there's only one God and these two are kind of like their vassals
They would do different things that the Father was asking them to do so they weren't equal
This preserved the concept of monotheism but it demoted Jesus and the Spirit
And so eventually this was labeled a heresy because the scriptures seem to have a lot to say about Jesus being more than God's errand boy
Another idea was called modalism
This one's a little easier to understand because it's like water
H2O
It can be water, fluid, it can also be ice, a solid, it can also be steam, a vapor
So people would try to describe how God is like water
It can be any one of these three things
The problem with that concept is that it can only be one of those things at a time
It can't be all three at the same time
So the concept of modalism would be the idea that maybe God is just putting on a mask and pretending to be a different personality
Or that God is just extending his arm as Jesus to do certain things
The trouble is that if Jesus is on the cross talking to the Father, who's he talking to?
He's just the hand, he's talking to the other part
And if a puppet dies on the cross, what does that really accomplish?
If Jesus says, I'll send you the Holy Spirit, is he just saying, I'll be back?
I'll be back but I'll have a different coat on
And then there was a, this isn't in my notes, but anyone ever watch a series of unfortunate events on Netflix
And how Count Olaf is always showing up as a different character
But the kids are always like, that's Count Olaf and no one believes him
That's what it made me think of, Jesus would be like, I'm going to send the Holy Spirit, ta-da!
Sorry
And then there was this concept called Arianism and it actually had started pretty early
But it had kind of its heyday around 320 when an Alexandrian Christian named Arius was teaching
That Jesus was a creation of the Father
The concept was that the Father had created Jesus before the foundations of the Earth
So that solved the problem of John saying that Jesus was there, was with God and was with God
But he was still a creation of God which means that Jesus was not co-eternal
That Jesus was not of the same substance
Remember, all of these ideas, they're just trying their best to make sense of the relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit while maintaining monotheism
And that's why we get the Nicene Creed
Which says we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father
God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one being with the Father
The first clause of the Nicene is about the Father, the second clause is about the Son
The third is about the Holy Spirit
The Creed defines a Trinitarian doctrine and maintains monotheism
I could put it this way, the Nicene Creed gives the only answer that fits the question
Because the reality is that there's too much scripture that points to all three while there is also no scripture that explains exactly how
Some people aren't always comfortable when pastors talk about how the Bible doesn't explain something
But the scriptures are very rarely like a recipe book, very rarely
If you open up your Bibles to, not right now, but if you open your Bibles to Exodus 25-31
You're going to get six solid chapters about how God wanted them to build a tabernacle
Down to the length of every pole, the kind of wood that was meant to be used, the kind of silt or fine linen or gold
Down to the amount, number of ounces, it is boom boom boom boom boom
And a lot of us wishes we probably would like for there to be six chapters on exactly how the Trinity works
Exactly how is it that there are three yet one?
Why does the Bible talk so much about all three of them and yet leave us to be confused about how they're of one substance
And there's still just one God but we experience all three
But you will not find anything like that in the Bible
Explaining exactly how God is three in one
But you will find scripture throughout the Bible explaining that all three of the one exist
We believe it to be true but we do not understand how
Remember a friend of mine, Glenn Pacum, I loved that he pointed this out
He said this is the reason that the Nicene Creed doesn't say I know
Every line begins with we believe because it is a matter of faith
And there's something about being a Christian, there's something about being a part of any religion that requires an element of faith
Even if it's just a little bit, you may not be on the moon but that does not mean that you are not flying
Personally, I believe the basics of the Nicene Creed
I believe that Jesus is the Son of God
He was born of a virgin Mary, begotten, not made
That he is of one being with the Father
That he was crucified, dead, buried, and resurrected
That he forgives our sin
I believe that God is Father, that Jesus is Son, and that Holy Spirit
Is worshiping and glorified with the Father and the Son
I believe in the mystery of the Trinity
But I want you to hear me saying that if you do not believe that exactly that way, I want to dissuade your fear
I want to dissuade your concern
Because some of the most influential Christians of all time died knowing less doctrine about Jesus and the Trinity than you've heard in the last 20 minutes
Let that sink in
No Christian from the first multiple hundreds of years of Christianity had written down to read and understand the doctrine of the Trinity the way that we understand it right now
But they believed that Jesus was Lord
They believed that God was Father
They believed that Holy Spirit acted on behalf of the Father and the Son
They believed that Jesus forgave their sins
They believed that Jesus reconciled them to the Father
So if you're unsure exactly where you are in all of the systematic theology, and exactly why I believe this and this and this, am I right about this?
I want to encourage you to not worry so much about whether you're right
And ask yourself, do you love God?
Because love builds up and if you love God then you are what? You are known by God
I want you to know Jesus
My hope is that the people that I come into contact with throughout my life are drawn to believing in Jesus on some level by the work of the Holy Spirit through me
Because God the Father is good
Wherever you are in that journey, wherever you are in that path, wherever you are between getting that plane off the ground and the moon
You are flying
And that's enough
Amen?
Let's pray
Father we thank you for sending your son Jesus
Only begotten
Son of God
Begotten not made of one being with the Father
Thank you for the work he's done
I pray that each of us as we think about where we're flying and how far we might be up off the ground, pray that you comfort us
That you reassure us
That you lead this flight wherever your spirit has for it to go
Let us not be jealous or envious of those on the moon
Let us be grateful and thankful for the wind that has lifted us
In the name of Jesus we pray
Amen