We All Believe in One God

Holy Trinity Sunday B

“We all believe in one God”

Text: John 3:1-17

Rev. Jeff Springer

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”(John 3:16-17)

This message really is the bottom line for us today. It was true for Nicodemus and for you also sitting in the pews. God sent his Son to perish so that you will not perish but have eternal life with God.  Therefore Jesus’ purpose is not to condemn the world but to save it. It is still his purpose. A purpose he accomplishes through his church by the office of the Holy Ministry that is preaching of this Gospel and the giving of His sacraments. 

Through these means and these means alone does He assure and clean our consciences of all sin.  Our works do not help us. If we are coming to church with our primary motive to praise God then what will that do for us. How will that help us? Imagine a praise service filled with songs about our love for God. Songs filled with adjectives describing and naming God but no hymns that actually use verbs that make God the subject, no songs that actually tell what God does.

Imagine a service without confession of sins and absolution, where one scripture reading is read. Can you imagine a service without the confession of a creed or the saying of the Lord’s Prayer. How about a service where the Pastor’s sermon is based on five different funny illustrations and gives you seven biblical ways of being a better person? What about a service without the Lord’s Supper?  

Think about it. What have you received from such a service? Did you receive anything from God? Has God served or fed you in any way?  Have you received anything from that He has promised? Was anyone forgiven? Was any one saved?

That last question should be the one that causes us you to ponder. Was any one saved in this service? Well the opportunities in this type of service are quite limited.  The only place given for the Spirit to do his convicting work is in the reading of the one lesson. 

You see it is not “our” worship or work that saves anyone. For one thing we hear that it is God’s vocation to do the saving. Father, Son and Holy Spirit act as one to forgive us and save us from our sins. How is this done? It is through His teaching and preaching and the administration of the sacraments. The Holy Office of the Ministry is His instrument or tool to convert souls, but make no mistake it is God’s doing. He is handling and directing His instrument. The servant of the Word is simply carrying out the orders for the benefit of the Priesthood of Believers gathered.

Even the Divine Service is not so much “our” Worship but God’s service, God’s liturgy to us. The direction of authentic Christian worship is not from us to God but from God to us.

God provides His gifts to everyone in equal measure. All are baptized and all then receive His name, all receive the Holy Spirit, all receive the forgiveness of sins. It does not matter who you are ethnically, it does not matter your station in life, it does not matter your gender, or your age just like little Kaden this morning. You all receive the same gift from God.

You all received the same absolution. You all heard and are hearing the same word of God.  Those of you who have been catechized and examined will receive the same body and blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins at the altar.

You see when it is the Divine Service the direction of action is from God to you.  You are participating, but passively. God is throwing the Word and you are catching it in your ears. You are being fed. You are listening and learning. This is what both justifies and sanctifies you. And this is the place where we gather to receive it.

If you believe worship is primarily your action of praise, that it is something you do for God, then worship can be done anywhere. You can do worship in your home, or on a mountain top, or near a lake. Because each of us is made differently our praise will also be unique. This is why contemporary worship takes on the unique character or idiosyncrasies of the congregation that it is practiced in. This diversity should clue us in that the direction is all wrong, from us to God instead of from God to us. The question is when the direction is from us to God, does this bring anyone to repentance, does it justify or sanctify you. It is using God’s word, but is it using it in the way it was intended? Who is wielding the instrument God or us?    

It is a false worship that assumes we can bring anything to God. Our so-called good works reek with a stench before Him. Isaiah got it right when placed before God, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Holiness of God cuts through the fog of thinking that we can go before God with our own righteousness. Those who are going through life justifying their sins rather than confessing them, affirming themselves and others in their sin will perish before a Holy God when they are raised from the dead on the last day.

But that is not the desire of the Lord, the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. His desire is that you repent! Repent of your passions and desires. Die to self. Drown the old Adam. Stop justifying and confess that you are a beggar, a sinner. And He will not answer with condemnation but forgiveness. 

I believe this is what Jesus was trying to teach Nicodemus. Nicodemus saw Jesus as his equal. Nicodemus considered Jesus a teacher and law keeper like himself, but because of His signs and works, Jesus was doing it much better. So perhaps Nicodemus could learn from Jesus the secret of leading a God pleasing life.

Jesus basically destroys Nicodemus’s thought of ascending to heaven and entering the Kingdom of Heaven on the ladder of works. Jesus says you must be born again or born from above.  How is this done? By the water and the Spirit. Baptism.  God’s work. Just in your physical fleshly birth you are just along for the ride, you are passively receiving. So it is with the spiritual rebirth given by the water, word and command of baptism. 

By the name of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit working together, working as one, differentiated as to persons but not divided in essence. The Holy Trinity do their saving work for Kaden and for you today.

So is there anything for you to do? If it is God’s vocation to save, forgive, justify and sanctify. Well, primarily your vocation as a member of the priesthood in the Divine Service is to listen and secondarily to confess or say back what you heard or lend your Amen to what is said. In this way the Holy Spirit takes your genuine praise back to God. 

You also have a responsibility to support the Pastor that you have called. He is the instrument God uses to deliver to you his gifts. Paul writes to the sinner/saint Corinthians, “In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel.”  (1 Corinthians 9:14) This means the Pastor and his family depend on those whom they serve, the congregation, for their support. Paul says, “the Lord has commanded it.” The Holy Ministry is necessary for you the Priesthood to be able to receive God’s gifts.

Your vocations also direct you to care for your neighbor to show mercy as Christ did. And therefore offerings are gathered to assist fellow Christians in need. But you also serve your neighbor in the seemingly mundane things as preparing meals, doing the laundry, taking out the trash or cleaning a room for the family or doing your work for an employer or as a boss to your employees.

These works are not done to achieve any sort of commendation but they are simply your duty. They are the result of the faith you received passively. These are the things of the active living faith and they cannot be separated. Where this true passive faith is received the active faith will work. Your old Adam will not feel like doing works or will want some promise of reward. The New Creation in you just does what needs to be done. If you are having trouble doing your duty then put the old Adam inside you to death. Remember your baptism and how much Christ has forgiven you and that you are therefore not getting happily what you deserve.

Jesus did not come to condemn but to save. Jesus forgives your sins. Jesus makes you clean.  The Father has put him in charge and the Spirit points to Jesus and causes Him to be present among us changing our hearts to believe His word. God works as one to save you.  Amen