Title: GOD’S ABIDING PRESENCE
Focus: God makes his home with us by revealing himself as triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Function: To move the people to deepen their wonder and awe of God and his abiding presence in our lives.
Text: John 14:15-24
I am not sure that I would want to make our home in the White House. That’s not where God has called us to be and have our being. But I do think that Rosanne and I would be honored to have the president and the first lady as guests at our home for a day or so.
Now I would be shocked to receive a letter from our president requesting that he and the first lady would like to make their home with us in Bloomington. I don’t think that the president and his wife are ready to give up their ranch in Texas and live somewhere else for the rest of their lives. Do you?
Has it ever struck you that God desires to make his home with you and me? Do you ever ponder the mystery of God’s presence in your life? How does God dwell in us? How does he abide with us? How does God make his home in heaven and at the same time with us? I am asking these questions in light of the text found in John 14:23 where Jesus says: “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”
Today, the Christian church—world-wide—reflects upon the way God reveals himself as triune God. The Bible’s teaching of God’s tri-unity or trinity is my focus in this message. Though the essence of God’s being as the triune God will always remain an incomprehensible mystery to us finite human beings, my message is simple: God makes his home with us by revealing himself as triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
In his conversation with his disciples on the night of his betrayal, the Lord Jesus assures his disciples of his abiding presence in their lives. It’s true: soon, Jesus would leave them: he would die, be raised from the dead, and then he would ascend into heaven, assuming his Lordship at the right hand of his heavenly Father. Thus, Jesus would be physically absent from his disciples and from us today as well. Yet, the Lord Jesus declares that he would make his home with us together with God the Father. “My Father will love [you] (as you love me by obeying my teaching) and we will come to you and make our home with [you],” says Jesus.
Note that the Lord Jesus makes reference to his Father in heaven and to himself. But how does the physical (in-the-flesh), the incarnate Jesus or Son of God live in us together with God the Father? The Scripture’s answer to that question is wondrously profound, yet simple: God makes his home with us by revealing himself as triune God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Lots of Christians today do not wish to bother with the fine points of the Bible’s teachings about the triune God. “Doctrines are for the birds. Give me Jesus—only Jesus,” they may say. To them (and to all of us) I say: doctrines are critically important. Doctrines are like the roads and directions in a Randall McNally road atlas. Doctrines show us the way. The territory of the Christian faith, and the way to salvation—are all laid out in the Scriptures with its doctrines that lead us to the triune God. To ignore the Bible’s teachings is a sure way to get lost in the swamps of worldliness, in the pools of heresy, and in the culture of the latest pop psychology.
Since God makes his home with us by revealing himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we do well to welcome and worship him as such in our lives. In fact, there is no other way to approach God but as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we should deny or minimize the tri-unity of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we would have no salvation, no fellowship, and no entrance into God’s presence.
· No Salvation: For Example, the Bible teaches that God is Spirit and that he is the source of all life. God cannot die. God reveals himself as the “Great I Am,” as the One “who is, who was, and who is to come,” the everlasting One.
The Bible teaches that the wages of sin is death. And the Scriptures make clear that since no human being can pay that ultimate price of sin and overcome death, God has done something profound: he sent his eternal, fully divine Son, to take on our flesh, our human nature.
Both the Father and the Son are one in essence—fully divine, fully God. When the eternal Son of God, however, took on our human nature, he could take our place and die in our stead—thus paying the wages of our sins. Though without sin himself, Jesus paid the price.
And God, by means of his
Holy Spirit, raised Jesus from the dead, and exalted him at his right hand. And thus Jesus became for us the “atoning sacrifice,” reconciling us with the triune God.
Thank God for his eternal Son, the Lord Jesus Christ! If we should deny that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human, then we are without a Savior, without salvation; then we are lost. Our salvation is only possible because God reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Also, if we should deny or minimize the tri-unity of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we would have
· No Fellowship with God: For example, the Scripture teaches a wondrous fellowship between the person of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Though in essence one, these three persons are in eternal, perfect fellowship with each other. Jesus, for instance, said (John 14:10ff) “…I am in the Father, and … the Father is in me…Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me….I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth…On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
Here we have a glimpse of that mystery called the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are in eternal fellowship with each other.
This mystery widens and deepens when you realize that believers in Christ are also caught up in the fellowship circle of the triune God. Through faith and through the workings of the Holy Spirit, you and I experience the abiding presence of God in our lives; it’s God’s desire that all believers worship and serve him as we find ourselves in the loving embrace of the fellowship circle of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Such fellowship with God is only possible because God reveals himself as triune, whereby God, by means of his Holy Spirit unites us to himself. Last week, we celebrated the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. That coming supports Jesus’ teaching when he said: “On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you.”
If we deny or ignore God’s revelation as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we deny the possibility of fellowship or communion with God; then we are on our own, lost and void of all fellowship with God. The Father and the Son make their home with us through the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Thank God for such fellowship!
Finally, if we should deny or minimize the tri-unity of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we would have
· No Entrance to God’s Presence: Then our prayers, petitions, praise, songs, and all our worship and service would not be heard and received by God. Why not? Simple: no one can enter the presence of God but by Jesus Christ through the power and workings of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is the way to the Father. The Spirit is the person of God who gives us new life, faith, and energy to live for God, to approach God, and to have fellowship with God. We come to the Father, through Christ, the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
The writer of Hebrews tell us that we enter God’s presence through the blood of Christ. The O.T. sacrifices fade away in light of Christ’s sacrifice. Listen (Hebrews 9:14) “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God.” It’s for that reason that Jesus Christ has become our mediator and great high priest before God. We enter God’s presence through Jesus Christ. That’s only possible because believers—through the work of the Holy Spirit—are united with and found in Christ Jesus. That’s why we pray and offer up all our worship and service in the name of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Thank God for his wondrous, triune, self-revelation. It is the triune God who saves us, who draws us into his fellowship circle, and who makes his home with us by revealing himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
To him be glory, both now and forever. World without end! Amen.