I do greet you as well this morning in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and would invite you now to get your Bibles and please open them to the book of Galatians, to the fourth chapter, Galatians chapter four. And our text this morning will be verses four through six. Galatians chapter four, verses four through six. And this morning, we're going to be beginning, and then I'll be continuing these sermons in the evening for a while, but a study and a look and a hearing of the glory of our triune God. I'm rather convicted that we need to be much more self-consciously Trinitarian in our Christian faith that we recognize why it is absolutely essential to our salvation and our life that God is who He is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So this morning we're going to begin to just approach the subject to some degree. It is a little bit different sermon, maybe a little more teaching at the beginning, but I will likely be pretty fired up by the end and But it's a hard The subject I hope we see of who God is is so pervasive You almost want to ask where should we start? We probably should have started in Genesis 1 1 again, but It will be in Galatians 4 verses 4 through 6. Let's give our Careful hearing again this morning to the reading of God's holy an infallible word. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Please bow with me briefly in prayer. Our God and our glorious Lord and Savior, we come now to think and to gaze upon you our thrice holy, glorious God. And we pray that You might come and be among us. You might take joy in us as Your people, and that You would be pleased to reveal even more of Yourself, more of Your glory to us. And so uplift, as has been prayed throughout the service, uplift Christ in our midst, O Father. We pray in his name. Amen. It is a well-known fact that the word Trinity is not in the Bible, but that point is not at all a disproof of the truthfulness of the doctrine and rather what I hope that we will see as we move along this morning, and indeed as we finish this morning, is that that observation, in other words, the observation of the very fact that the word Trinity is not in the Bible, is actually one of the most foundational helps and maybe one of the most helpful pointer to the truthfulness, actually, of the doctrine of the Trinity. Now, as we will begin this morning, I think it is absolutely vital that we're all on the same page as far as what the terminology means when we talk about the Trinity, when we talk about God being triune, when we talk about his triunity, all of these things. And so I want us to very briefly here consider some of the basic stuff of the doctrine or the truth of who God is, and we're going to do this by way of looking at just seven biblical statements, seven statements that are absolutely clear over and over again, repeated in the scriptures. Then from those seven statements, I want us to come down to a summary of two absolutely foundational conclusions. And then we'll get our very simple, one simple definition with which we'll move forward. And so I have these in your bulletin because I think it would be easier to have them in front of you and also I want them to be clear and no misunderstandings or mishearings of them. So let's look first at the seven biblical truths. And you have them there and I'm just going to read them for you. The first and fundamental biblical truth is there is only one living and true God. And then a second statement, the Father is God. A third, the Son is God. A fourth, the Holy Spirit is God. Then a fifth, the Father is not the Son, nor is He the Spirit. A sixth, the Son is not the Father, nor is He the Spirit. And the seventh, the Spirit is not the Father, nor is He the Son. Now, from these seven biblical truths, we can really kind of distill them down to two fundamental foundational conclusions then of what we have in Scripture, and those are, first of all, that very first one of those biblical truths, there is only one living and true God. And secondly, then, kind of bringing all of those other ones together, three distinct and separate persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are identified as God. Now, from those two foundational conclusions, then we get our one simple definition. In other words, we bring all of this together, that there is only one God, but in this one God, there are three distinct, co-equal, co-eternal persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And so simply put, the definition of the Trinity, and again, the most simple definition of the Trinity is God is or there is one God in three persons. Now, before we move into actually the points here, I want us to be very careful to note two often errors that are made when someone hears the beginning talk of the doctrine and the truth of who God is as our glorious triune God. And that is, first of all, we need to make sure what we're hearing and we're not hearing Trinitarianism, what we just laid out there in its most simple form, is not tritheism. Trinitarianism is not tritheism. Tritheism is the idea that there are actually three separate gods. That is not Trinitarianism. There is one god in three persons. There are not three separate gods. A second error that is often fallen into when discussions of the Trinity come up is, and we'd want to make sure that we understand this, Trinitarianism is not what is called modalism. Let me just briefly define that. Modalism is an ancient heresy that said, yeah, there's one God, but that one God manifests himself in three different ways. Or he comes and shows himself in three different modes, sometimes as a father, sometimes as a son, sometimes as a Holy Spirit. Again, just to be clear, and we're going to move forward now, but Trinitarianism is the biblical revealed truth that there is one God in three persons. And in stating it there, I use the term, it is the revealed truth. And so let's move now to consider really the first point this morning, and that is revelation. something having been revealed to us. I want to begin by talking about it in noting this. We struggle with the truth of the Trinity because it is entirely a revealed truth. We struggle with the truth of the Trinity because it is entirely a revealed truth. That is, you will only find it revealed That truth of God, you will only find that truth of God revealed in the Bible. No matter how long or how hard a person could think about God, they would never, they could never come up with this idea that God is one and three apart from the Bible. And mankind would never have known God to be triune unless he had revealed himself as such to us. And that is why we struggle with it. And that is why many people reject it and even despise that truth. You see, because of our pride, we do not like to think that there are things out there that we don't understand. We do not like things that we can't find on our own. We don't like things that have to be revealed to us rather than things that we can discover with our own intellectual prowess. We feel intimidated. And it is an absolute affront to our egos that the most fundamental truth of all, in other words, that which is absolutely essential for all of life and all of existence, the very person of God Himself. We do not like it that that truth, who God is, is absolutely beyond us, and He must be revealed to us. We do not like it that it is not possible for us to discover Him and what He is. But even though this is the case, we actually still press against that stubborn fact that the truth of who God is has to be revealed against us. And we seek, we go on and we push right past that stubborn fact and we seek to find understandable explanations or comparisons by which to talk about God with others or to help ourselves. And every one of those falls short. Every one of those fails. That is to say, we don't want the source of our knowledge of God to be He Himself speaking to us in the scriptures. And so we try to find God in nature. We try to find something to compare Him to. in nature or we try to do some logical thinking on it or some philosophy and we try to find an analogy that will make it easy for us to actually tell people about him and actually give ourselves something by which we will bring him down to our level to think about him. In fact, what we are always wanting to do and what the impulse of the human heart is We want a God that we can tame. We want a God that we can comprehend. Because we want a God we can control. It can't be, we think, that He is that different than us. We rather like to go around talking about the man upstairs. I'm comfortable with The conception of God is, hey, I'll just work it out with the man upstairs when I get there. That's what we like. We hate the idea of a God who we can hardly and could never fully comprehend. And so throughout the ages, there have been two basic reactions to how God has revealed himself in the scriptures and particularly two reactions to the fact that God, in fact, is a trinity. There have been two reactions. The first reaction is from unbelievers. And that reaction is the doctrine of the trinity is illogical. At the base of your religion, you have an illogical notion of who God is. The second reaction is actually from us. It's from believers. And we try to find a picture, or we try to find a comparison to God's triunity in something in this world, whether it's, again, a philosophical thought or a natural analogy in nature for the Trinity. We always want to find an appealing argument to give to others and to help ourselves. But both of those reactions fail. Both of those reactions are actually faulty reactions, but here's the thing, in their mutual failure, this is the ironic thing, in their mutual failure, there is a hint of the truth of the Trinity. Their failures, those two reactions, the failure of those reactions actually speaks forth and breathes forth the truth of who God is. And so let's consider that very briefly. And let me begin by the first reaction by unbelievers, and let me say it this way. There is a very vast difference between something being illogical and something being mysterious. There is a vast difference between something being illogical and something being mysterious. Man in his arrogance thinks that anything he doesn't understand has to be illogical. It has to be nonsense if I can't understand it. But that's not the case at all. Even in the sciences, there are many things that we know to be true, but we don't understand. We don't understand why it's true, but it is, verifiably. And that is the case with the Trinity. There is absolutely nothing illogical about one God existing in three persons. Again, remember, the teaching of Scripture is not God is one God and three gods. That would be illogical. That would be a contradiction, but that's not the teaching of scripture. There's nothing wrong, although it is very hard to get our minds around and it is very mysterious, but there is nothing illogical about one God dwelling in three persons. And this then brings us to the next matter. You see, there is a problem. There absolutely is a problem with us and how God has revealed himself to us. We do have a problem as humans in thinking about God, but it is not a logical problem. It's an analogy problem. In other words, it's an analogical problem. What I mean by that is that, yes, we have a hard time with one God in three persons because literally there is no analogy. God is beyond all comparison. There is nothing else like him in all of existence and therefore we've never thought in these terms before. Our minds are stretched to the limit because we've never encountered anything else like this God who reveals himself to us. And so we struggle with understanding who he is and how he can be what he is. In other words, in those of you who've been around the church long enough, these will resonate. God is not like an egg. God is not like water. God is not like three manifestations of love. God is not like a three-leaf clover. The Trinity is completely other. God is beyond comparison with anything else in all of existence and congregation. That is part of His glory. And we want to take that from Him. We will not let him be who he is. We have to draw him down. We have to somehow contain him because he frightens us. You see, I hope you can begin to see these problems. These problems actually begin to become part of the proof. Christianity is unlike every other religion or conception. of God that there is or that there has ever been. Nobody has ever thought of a God like this. There is nothing even close in all of the world's religions and in all of philosophy that even comes close to the biblical conception and revelation of God in three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and what we are left to do then. The only thing we can do with this God is stand in awe of Him and worship Him. We cannot tame Him. We cannot fully comprehend Him. We cannot compare Him to anything. We can only worship Him. The doctrine, the revealed truth about who God is, rightly puts us in our place, and it leaves Him in His place. He is the glorious. He is the mysterious, the incomprehensible, immortal, eternal, invisible triune God. But though we cannot comprehend Him, we can know Him. We can love Him. and we can worship Him. We can be saved by Him and we can enter into a relationship with Him. And this then brings us really to the main point into our passage this morning. Redemption. Another way of talking about salvation We've said what we've said, we've talked about these things, but sometimes it is as though we jump from the frying pan, as it were, into the fire. When we come to the scriptures to find the Trinity on its pages. In other words, maybe everyone's, or many of you have come along This morning, we were convinced that it's a revealed truth. We're convinced that there's no analogy in nature. But here's the nagging question. But where is it taught in the Bible? In fact, as we noted just a moment ago, the word Trinity is not in the scriptures. And indeed, there is no absolutely clear, definitive verse That one linchpin verse that you can go to that proves the doctrine of the Trinity. And this is absolutely a problem for us. And it's a problem for us because we are predisposed to fall into a very bad type of Bible study and inquiry, which is called proof texting. I want you to hear me write in this. I am not saying that the impulse isn't right. I'm not saying the impulse of proof texting is bad, but rather the methodology is absolutely wrong. In other words, we should go to the Scriptures for all matters of faith and life. This is our standard in all of faith, all of life. But it is simply not the case that all the matters of faith and life can be found in a simple reference to one verse here or one verse there. And that is what proof texting demands, and that is why it is flawed. Now, the passage before us this morning is a text that absolutely teaches us much about the truth of God as Trinity. The passage before us teaches us much about the truth of God as Trinity, both in revealing that truth to us. Did you notice and did you hear as we read it or as you're looking at it even now, we see each member of the Trinity mentioned right there in the passage, but this passage is also helpful to us, and it reveals to us the Trinity in actually teaching us how to rightly look for the revelation of God as triune in the Scriptures. In other words, this is a passage ultimately that will teach us how to see Him everywhere as He is, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And I want us to take these one at a time before we see them coalesce together in the powerful truth that emerges here. I think we could all read the broader context and we would see very clearly here that Paul is not in the midst of teaching on the specific doctrine of the Trinity. If you kind of look around the passage, you can see very clearly that Paul is not engaged right now in an actual a theological lecture on the doctrine of the Trinity. But the truth of it flows effortlessly from the passage. Look at verse 4. Do you notice we have God the Father sending forth His Son, being born of a woman, which by the way would not be something to note If it were not that we are talking here about the eternal divine Son of God, every person is born of a woman who exists. Why is this important that the Son is born of a woman? Well, because He is the eternal Son of God. And what's the big deal about Him being sent forth? Well, that means He was with the Father. The Father sent Him because He was there with Him. Look at verse 6, very similar. We have the Father sending the Holy Spirit. Again, the Father sends the Spirit of Christ, meaning that the Spirit, like the Son, was originally with the Father as well. You see, we have the Father, we have the Son, and we have the Spirit here working together Here's the thing. Each one is in action. Each one is bringing redemption, bringing us into a relationship with God by making us, that's the whole point of the passage, by making us His adopted children. That's the point. Look at each one in action. Look at what they're doing to bring you into relationship with God as His adopted children. Congregation, this is triune salvation. Each member of the Godhead graciously doing their part to draw us into fellowship and communion. And this glorious portrayal of our God at work for us then leads us to see how it is that God reveals his triune nature to us in the scriptures of both the Old and the New Testaments. And in a word, this is it. The way that God reveals His triune nature to us is simply and profoundly by the way that He redeems us. God shows us what He is in the very way that He redeems us. In other words, And this is why you don't find a verse here or there. God does not say, hey, I'm a trinity. I am one God in three persons. He never says that in some kind of an abstract and philosophical way, which frankly would bink off of our skulls and be pointless. Oh, what? There is no single statement that you can go to and find it clearly written. Because God doesn't say this to us. He shows this to us. He doesn't tell us in so many words that He is triune. Here's the thing. He is And his triune nature, his triune nature, the revelation of his triune nature awaited, as Paul says here, it awaited the fullness of time. The fullness of time had come. God sent forth his son. God poured out his spirit. Why is the truth of God's triunity clearer in the New Testament than it is in the Old Testament? Because it is. But why is it? Why is it clearer in the New Testament than it is in the Old Testament? Because the fullness of time had not yet come. This revelation of who God is was absolutely dependent upon the sending of His Son in redemption and justification and the pouring out of His Spirit of adoption for our sanctification. Not until the Son was manifested in the flesh. Not until Jesus took on our humanity and He lived and He died in our place and He rose again from the dead. And not until the Spirit was given in full measure, being sent into the hearts of believers to bear witness that we are the children of the Father. Not until all of that happened could the truth of the nature of God be fully and finally known. And that is because the Trinity has never been, is never supposed to be an abstract truth. The Trinity is an existential truth. It is a real truth. It is something that we experience, not merely hear about. We are not to just know God in a philosophical or intellectual way. We are to know God in a relational way. He wants us to actually be in communion and fellowship with Him and experience Him as His people. That's how we know that He is triune. It's when the heart of a believer can say, I know that my Father loves me because He sent His Son for me and His Spirit has revealed that truth to me. I know that the Father loves me by way of the Son who He sent. And I know of the Son by way of the Spirit who revealed, by whom now I cry out, Abba, Father. The revelation of the Trinity is to be found in the redemption that centers in Christ Jesus, or the unfolding The unfolding of God's plan of salvation is the revelation of the Trinity. That is how God reveals Himself. He is, and He does, and then His Word captures that action. He is, and He does, and the Scriptures record it for us and tell us about it. Thus, God's triunity is no abstract truth. It is a reality that cannot be known apart from the reality and experience of God's actual salvation. To be saved by Him is to know Him and to know Him in who He is. And unless you have been, you will never. Without Christ and His Spirit, we would not know God as the glorious triune God that He is. There are simply no shortcuts. There's absolutely no other way to understand this truth because there is but one way to God, and that is through Jesus Christ in the Spirit. So even though the word Trinity is not in the Bible, the truth of the Trinity is so clear that it literally overtakes and undergirds all other matters therein. In other words, it is simply too big to see. The whole Bible is Trinitarian because the whole Bible is a history of the unfolding of God's salvation of his people. There are, and we will look at some of these in the upcoming series, there's sparks and illusions of the doctrine throughout the Bible. But the words of Scripture are focused on explaining the real actions of God as He works to save us as people. In fact, because God is so glorious and incomparable and without analogy, words literally fall short. It is because who he is and how incomprehensible he is that we're left to make up a word. How do we describe what we see in the word and what we have experienced in our lives? What do we call that? There's nothing, there is no word for it because there's no comparison to him. in all of human experience. And so the word Trinity is simply the church's attempt to capture what we see being revealed in the scriptures concerning our relationship with our glorious and incomparable God. And therefore, ironically, the absence of the word Trinity from scripture may actually be the most striking verification of its use of all. So at every turn, this truth gets clearer and more beautiful and more glorious. God is incomparable and words fall short of being really able to do Him justice. He must be experienced, not merely described. To be saved by Him is to know Him as He is. If He is anything else or anything less, we would be able to compare Him and confine Him and define Him. But He is who He is. This is why He revealed Himself in His name, I AM. Who are you? Who should we say sent you? You tell them, I AM sent you. He is the mysterious three in one. He is that one in three, known only by those who He has known and loved and redeemed. Known as He is in His triune nature because in the fullness of time, God sent forth the Son and poured out the Holy Spirit. So, glory be to our God, eternal, immortal, invisible, incomparable, gloriously active and saving and triune. Glory be to the Trinity. Amen. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, We are so grateful and we are so thankful that you would love us and that you would save us and that you would care for us and comfort us. Lord, we glory in being your people and we long to see you be glorified in yourself Father, bring us to a place of greater awe and adoration for who you are. And may we see your Son in relation to who you are and our great need. And may we always praise and glorify the Spirit who has been poured out into our hearts by which we are even praying now, crying out to you, Abba, Father. O Lord, bring us into a deeper love, for you are God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We lift up this prayer to you, and this is the plea of our hearts. Make it so for the sake of Christ. Amen.