Sermon: The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 - Trinity Within Me (John 14:15-17)

The Holy Trinity Pt. 1 – Trinity Within Me Sunday, June 1st, 2025 Christ Covenant Church – Centralia, WA John 14:15–17

Prayer

O God, we thank you for fashioning us in your image, and that through reflection upon your image within us, we may come to understand in some very partial and imperfect way who you are as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so as we undertake this task now, of faith seeking understanding, give us light and life and grace, for we ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Introduction

When you first became a Christian and received the washing of baptism for the forgiveness of your sins, whether you knew it or not, you were born again into the very life of the Trinity. Ever since that day, when the name of God was spoken over you, in accord with what Jesus says in Matthew 28:19, “baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” from that day onward the Trinity of Persons came into you and made you their own.

• The Apostle Paul says to those naughty Corinthians who were baptized and yet committing grievous sins, “Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Cor. 6:19).
• Jesus says here in John 14:17 that the Spirit, “dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.”
• He says later in John 17, “I do not pray for these alone [referring to his disciples], but also for those who will believe in Me through their word [that’s us!]; that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me…I in them, and You in Me” (John 17:20-21, 23).
• Have you wondered, what in the world does that mean? What does it mean for the One God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and then for that Trinity of persons to indwell our soul? Christ in us, the Spirit in us, the Father who is in the Son within us. How does all this work?
• This is a little bit like asking, How does breathing keep you alive?
  • We are all breathing. We all know how to breathe, but very few of us could draw an accurate diagram of the lungs, or explain how oxygen and carbon dioxide get exchanged, or how the autonomic nervous system makes us to inhale and exhale even when we are asleep.
  • Explaining how breathing keeps us alive can be done, but it requires some work, some study and exploration of the human body, it requires you to learn a specialized vocabulary so you can identify different organs, and muscles, and chemical compounds. This is similar to becoming personally acquainted with the Holy Trinity.
  • If there are unbelieving scientists who have dedicated their whole life to studying the human body, how much more should believing Christians give at least a little portion of their life, to knowing the God in whom we live and move and have our being? Even the very Trinity with us.
  • It is a good and wonderful thing to study God’s creation, especially the human person. We are complex and fascinating creatures! But it is far greater and more glorious task to know the Creator and Maker Himself. If human beings are as intricate and glorious and mysterious as we are, how much more the one who designed it all?
    • It says in Jeremiah 9:23-24, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, Let not the mighty man glory in his might, Nor let the rich man glory in his riches; But let him who glories glory in this, That he understands and knows Me.”
    • Jesus says similarly in John 17:3, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.”
    • Understanding and knowing God is the highest of all human pursuits. So much so that Jesus says it is eternal life to know Him.
• And so if God is the supreme source and object of all human happiness, the very end for which we were created, and if He has revealed Himself in Christ and His Word, how can we not count all things as loss for the surpassing worth/value of knowing Jesus Christ our Lord? (Phil. 3:8).
  • This is the reason and the motivation for the hard work of our faith seeking understanding. Of believing the Word of God and