Why the Trinity?

God is Father, Son, Holy Spirit...three persons, one God.  Just like this handy illustration.  Doesn't that make it all make sense?  No?  Well...

All this year, I have been preaching about the attributes of God. We’ve talked about how God is holy, He is incarnate in the person of Jesus, He is jealous, and He is loving. But I can’t avoid talking about a part of God’s nature that most of us have real trouble understanding: God is three persons in one.  We call that the Trinity, although the Bible never uses that term.  It’s a controversial concept.  Muslims teach that Christians are polytheists because we believe in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Jehovah’s Witnesses reject the idea of a Trinitarian God, too.  Mormons believe Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all divine, but are three separate gods.  Many Christians I know seem to have no opinion one way or another.  They’d rather not think about it.  As the theologian JI Packer wrote, “It is often assumed that the Trinity, just because it is mysterious, is a piece of theological lumber that we can get on very happily without.”  So this Sunday, I want to show you why we believe in the Trinity of the godhead.  

But it’s not enough to give you information.  Gaining knowledge can be good, but if it’s not useful knowledge, you haven’t really gained anything.  For example, did you know that you can sing “Amazing Grace” to the tune of the theme song from Gilligan’s Island?  Try it!  Now, does that benefit your life in any way?  Don’t you wish you had the last minute of your life back?  I am not only going to tell you today why we believe in the Trinity, I am going to tell you what difference it makes.

Preaching on the Trinity is sort of like the homiletical version of juggling chainsaws.  Please pray that I speak clearly and biblically, and that those who hear can better understand this difficult but important doctrine!