The Work of the Holy Trinity

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“And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age’” (Matthew 28:17-20).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

You have likely heard these words before, the so-called Great Commission of the Church, where Jesus declares the Church’s mission until He returns. Many sermons have been preached on this text, usually about evangelism and the need to make disciples. We will speak a bit of evangelism today as well. But first, dear friends, we have some even better news from this Gospel lesson: The Holy Trinity is at work. In this text, the Lord Jesus Himself declares the identity of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; and you can’t find a better source for this than He.

So, on this day, we celebrate who God is: The Holy Trinity, one God composed of three persons. We do not worship three gods, but one. We do not worship one God who puts on three different masks to deal with us; we worship three distinct persons of the one God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

It may well strike you as a strange sort of celebration for a couple of reasons. First, we usually celebrate an event in someone’s life, like a birthday or a promotion (or confirmation); however, we rarely celebrate the person of someone—you likely haven’t had a party held for you just because you’re you. Similarly, at Church, it makes sense to celebrate what God has done, as we do with festivals like Christmas and Easter; but it seems a bit odd to celebrate who He is.

Second, we usually celebrate things that we can understand. I, for one, do not celebrate the latest development in quantum physics because I do not understand such things, nor do I realize their significance. It may be important; I just don't know. So also, it is with the Trinity: Today we celebrate what we cannot comprehend—the persons and identity of God. We know He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, for He tells us. But beyond that, His being defies our logic.

And that’s the Festival of the Trinity: We celebrate God for who He is, even though we cannot comprehend Him.

However, there is good reason to celebrate today that we believe in one God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human beings are always tempted to set aside what we cannot fully understand: How terrible it would be if we set aside the very identity of God. You see, if we do not believe in the Trinity, we declare that the Word of God is wrong; and if the Word of God is wrong, we can no longer trust that our salvation is secure.

If we do not believe in the Holy Trinity, then we believe in a false god: God the Father is a god out there somewhere, and Jesus was just some guy; therefore, the price has not been paid for our salvation. If we do not believe in the Trinity, our prayers go unanswered, because there is no other god except God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If we do not believe in the one true God—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—then we are not Christian. The Trinity is a fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith.

However, I do not wish you to misunderstand. The point of the Festival of the Holy Trinity is not a threat; it is not, “Believe that God is three in one or else.” Rather than a festival of ultimatum, there is great cause for joy: Even though we cannot fully comprehend, God tells us who He is. And God tells us who He is because He wants us to know Him, to trust Him, to pray to Him. Especially, God tells us who He is that we might be comforted in His three-person love for us.

The Trinity has many different attributes like “eternal” and “all-powerful.” I ask you to especially consider one attribute today: servanthood. Among the Trinity itself, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are busy at work serving one another. Jesus, the Son of God, submits Himself to the authority of the Father (John 10:30). God the Father gives His Son all authority in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son to fulfill Their will. What do the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do as almighty God? They serve one another.

But They do not serve one another as an example to us before getting back to their more godly duties. They serve one another because that is who They are by Their godly nature. By nature, They are servants!

But even more surprising is this: The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit don’t just serve each other: They serve you! For you, God the Father provides all good things for this body and life, as well as for eternity. Especially, He has sacrificed His Son for your sins, and continues to shower all sorts of blessings upon you. For you, God the Son has gone to the cross and died for your salvation and continues to give you forgiveness by His means of grace. For you, God the Holy Spirit continues to call, gather, enlighten, and sanctify you with the forgiveness of sins, that you might remain a member of the one, holy Christian Church.

Dear friends, there is enough right here to leave us stunned, in awe, for a long, long time. The all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present Holy Trinity is all at work in service to you. Not like a genie in a bottle, to do the bidding of your Old Adam; but to save you from your sin and raise you to everlasting life!

It is therefore not surprising that, when Jesus speaks of the Trinity, He does so as He speaks of forgiveness and evangelism. As He is about to ascend into heaven, He tells the eleven how people will be saved throughout the ages until He comes again. The Church will be His instrument, and they will make disciples by baptizing and teaching.

Make disciples by baptizing: Not just any old washing with water, but “baptizing in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” Behold the miracle when even an infant is brought to the font. God the Father, that child’s Creator, recognizes that one-among-eight-billion as His own. God the Son washes away his sins, declaring, “Now you have died My death with Me, and I will raise you from the dead.” God the Holy Spirit is there, sanctifying and giving faith, to keep that child in the one true faith. In Holy Baptism, the Holy Trinity is at work, personally serving one poor, miserable sinner for the sake of his salvation.

Make disciples by teaching, says Jesus. Not just any teaching, but teaching “all that I have commanded you.” Faith comes by hearing the Word: Christians become Christians by hearing the Lord’s Law and Gospel. In hearing God’s Law, they hear of their sins against Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In hearing the Gospel, they hear that God the Father so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son. Whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life; and whoever believes in Him, believes because the Holy Spirit is at work through the Word to bring about repentance and faith.

Thus, in evangelism, in making disciples, the Holy Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is at work. By Baptism and by the Word of God, the Trinity is at work to forgive your sins and grant you eternal life.

From all this, it is clear: The Church is the Lord’s. It is He who has created her, redeemed her, sanctifies her, keeps her. Evangelism is the Holy Trinity at work; and we are unworthily honored to be used as His instruments to baptize and to teach. It is here that we must warn of sinful dangers and dangerous sins. Throughout history, those within the Church have gotten the idea that the Church is the result of their efforts, their works, their strategies, and their plans.

Consider, for instance, the Church at the time of the Reformation. Baptism and the Word were still somewhat present, though terribly obscured by the schemes of man. The bishops of the Church had gotten the idea that the Church was the result of their muscle-flexing. Rather than point people to the means of grace for forgiveness, they created things to do. Go to a pilgrimage here, send a contribution there, don’t eat meat on that day, etc. When Christians objected, the bishops would take action against them, sometimes resulting in exile, imprisonment, or death. Far too many churchmen had apparently concluded that disciples became disciples by following their rules. Or else.

Martin Luther responded with our Gospel lesson today. He reminded such church leaders that Jesus did not tell them to make disciples by pilgrimages, contributions, and eating fish instead of meat. The Lord told His disciples to make disciples by baptizing and teaching His Word. The bishops were therefore wrong on a number of counts. They were claiming that Jesus had given them authority to enact these ceremonies and punish dissenters with the sword. Jesus had done no such thing (cf. Tractate:31). Furthermore, in creating their own methods of making disciples apart from the means of grace, the bishops were rejecting the means of grace that Jesus had given. We might add as well that, by rejecting the means of grace, the bishops were effectively pushing the Holy Trinity aside and saying, “We don’t need Your help. We’ll do it our way instead.”

We must beware today of the same sinful temptation to set aside the Trinity and trust in our methods and strategies instead.

Today, many approach evangelism as a business proposition. In business, the customer is always right, and you must package your product so that it “grabs” the customer right away and doesn’t turn them off. Too often, this principle is applied to church: The visitor is always right. Therefore, the worship service must grab them right away. The Gospel must be packaged in a way that doesn’t offend, perhaps rearranged into a message of “things to do,” rather than sin and grace.

But there is a great problem in applying these manmade business principles to the Church. Businesses survive by changing to meet the customers’ needs or desires; the Church lives on by not changing—by remaining faithful to the Lord’s Word. The Church declares eternal truth to those who do not know it; and, as one not familiar with Christianity, the visitor is not the best one to determine what is right and wrong in Christian worship.

Furthermore, far from proclaiming it attractive to the world, Scripture declares that the Gospel is an offense (Romans 9:33) to those without faith. By the time one “re-packages” the Gospel so that it no longer offends the non-Christian, it is no longer the Gospel. A “church” that follows a business philosophy and adapts everything to draw people in may well be packed on a Sunday morning. But if it no longer proclaims the saving Gospel, it has shouldered aside the Holy Trinity in favor of manmade efforts; and man cannot save.

Now, let us be clear: If we offend visitors with rudeness or unfriendliness, we repent of such sins. If the visitor is offended by the preaching of sin and grace, however, we continue to preach sin and grace in hopes that they hear and believe.

Some approach the Church as a therapy group. The task of the Church is to meet the “felt needs” that the people, what they perceive their deficiencies to be. If it is depression, then work to cure depression. If it is loneliness, work to overcome loneliness. If it is poverty, then work to end poverty. Furthermore, the real work of the Church takes place in the sharing at facilitated small group meetings, not unlike group therapy sessions.

Again, we must be careful. We do not deny the benefits of therapy and counseling. There is a need to help those who are poor and lonely, and Christians are set free to do so by the forgiveness of sins. Nor do we deny the benefits of Christians talking to one another. But once again, there are problems. If a church follows a therapy model, it relies on affirmation, positive thinking, and human activities for making disciples. When these manmade efforts replace the Word and the Sacraments, the Holy Trinity has been set aside. Such a church may well help people out of depression, loneliness, or poverty, but if it does not declare Christ’s death and the forgiveness of sins, it leaves them lost in their sins.

Am I being a bit nit-picky today? Consider this: how many church bodies today still acknowledge the Bible to be the Word of God, where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are at work for your salvation? Sadly, very few. How many teach that Baptism is a means of grace by which the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit bring sinners to salvation? Even fewer. And if one sets aside the means of grace by which the Holy Trinity works, he sets aside the work of the Holy Trinity. He has exchanged the service of the one true God in favor of the futility of something else.

So, we rejoice this day in the Holy Trinity, and we gratefully acknowledge that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are still at work to make disciples through Baptism and the Word of God. We confess those times when we are tempted to push the Trinity aside and trust in our own efforts instead. We give thanks that the Lord has made us His through our Baptism, and that He continues to strengthen us by His Word and Supper. If we are criticized for being a bit old-fashioned, we respond with a cheerful, “Thank you! By the grace of God, we do indeed try to stay true to our Lord’s command to make disciples His Way.”

This, dear friends, is your cause for rejoicing: The all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have made you Their disciple. They have washed away your sins and declare your salvation. The works of man cannot save you, but the work of the Holy Trinity can; and this is why I rejoice to announce to you this work of the Holy Trinity: You are forgiven for all your sins.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.