TALK · 2019
Three chapters on the Trinity: two spaces that intersect — an unexpected messiah — and a fundamental upgrade.
There was a time when prayers were read out at services and everything was in the hands of the priests. Now we're at the other extreme — the modern notion that puts me at the centre of everything. That all that matters is what I think, what I feel, and so I can only pray in my own words. Well… I think a bit of humility wouldn't hurt us here…
That's why my own prayer times have lately had a liturgy of their own — because I've found that many of those prayers speak straight from my soul: they describe precisely what I couldn't have put into words myself. That will surely change over time — but for now I always begin with this prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
The Jesus Prayer · 3×
Because what else would you want to begin with when you come before God? And why do I want to repeat it? Well, for my own sake. God doesn't need to hear it more than once.
So the kids have already found God in our sketch, now it's our turn 🙂 The sketch was a kind of trailer for what's coming up now.
You surely noticed it had three chapters of sorts — each one matching one person of the Trinity. And my talk will have the same structure:
In the first chapter I draw heavily on N. T. Wright — a leading contemporary New Testament scholar — many of you have surely heard of him.
“The highest heavens belong to the Lord, but the earth he has given to mankind.”
Psalm 115:16
The Psalm describes two spaces: where God lives and where we live. God lives in a space the Bible calls “the heavens” — as you'll have gathered by now, the word doesn't just mean the sky. It's simply the space where God lives. And we live in a space called earth.
In this picture we need to tweak the proportions a little: the earth is just the earth. In our text the heavens are described as the highest — and given that elsewhere in Scripture God's greatness is described in terms of the earth being his footstool… it's hard to talk about dimensions at all. This comparison was given to us in Matthew by Jesus himself — and he knows what he's talking about: he knows God more than personally. After all, it's his father — and I too know that my dad is 185 cm tall 🙂
But the two spaces are separated by what seems like an invisible veil — we can't see heaven, we can't touch it.
Now it's getting exciting. What interests me is the distance between those two spaces. Is God far away? Is he isolated, with nothing here concerning him? Or rather — do they intersect?
The Bible is full of moments when those two spaces intersected. If you find it hard to picture two spaces intersecting, watch the series Stranger Things, or look into physics — it describes the possibility of different dimensions. And C. S. Lewis says: give us a new sense and we'll discover a new Nature.
So, back to the Bible. Remember the story of the people of Israel being led out of Egypt?
If you want to read more about how the two spaces of heaven and earth intersect, I recommend Simply Christian by Prof. N. T. Wright — you can borrow it from a library or buy it online.
Chapter 1 — video
God saw that the world had gone wrong, and in the Old Testament we see several rescue plans — a hand held out to the world several times over, and a chance to put things right. But let's look at the very centre of the rescue plan for humanity.
God came right down here to earth. Do you realise what that must have been?
“If you were an animal, what would you be?” That's a common kids' game. “God, if you were a human, what would you be like?” Now that's a hugely interesting question. In the birth of Jesus, exactly that happened. God became human.
From the movies we know what it looked like when Superman was born here. But this was much more — this was the Son of God.
Jesus' contemporaries knew the prophecies about the coming of the messiah and had enormous expectations. Everyone was waiting for a saviour who would free them from oppression and from their enemies. They were under Roman rule. So they expected a new king — a military leader who would liberate the people of Israel from Rome's domination, shake up his era and restore to the people of Israel their former freedom and glory. He would restore the kingdom and the temple.
The start was pretty promising. A beautiful entrance — three kings came to pay homage, angels appeared to people, wonders happened in the sky too. A cousin was also miraculously born, who was to prepare the way for Jesus Christ.
“My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
Isaiah 55:8–9
Certainly not like this. Because it looked as if he was doing everything he could to be forgotten for good:
This was supposed to be the long-awaited messiah?
We live in a sceptical age now, and few people are rushing to hear the message about Jesus. Imagine the disciples, living among a people full of hopes for a great messiah, a military leader, a liberator — a new king. This was what all those generations had been waiting for? Do you realise how hard it must have been to accept such a message back then?
And yet the message about Jesus — that he really was the messiah and that he saved us, not from political oppression but from captivity to sin — this unbelievable message spread like wildfire. Even though the followers of this church were harshly persecuted.
If you want to read more about this chapter, I recommend King's Cross by Timothy Keller.
Chapter 2 — video
Do you know what Jesus declared when he was already slowly packing his bags here and clearly wasn't planning a spectacular world tour? Please open John, chapter 16 — Jesus is speaking to his disciples. To the disciples he will leave behind here on earth and give an impossible mission — to keep spreading the message about him. To the disciples many of whom face a martyr's death for following Jesus. Do you know what he told them?
“But I tell you the truth: it is for your good that I am going away. If I don't go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”
John 16:7–8
And so, while in the first chapter we talked mainly about God the Father and in the second about Jesus, now we come to the third person of the Trinity. To the story of the Holy Spirit — as we know it from Pentecost.
“It is for your good that I am going away…” That's a scandalous statement. Can you imagine what it would be like here if Jesus were still here on earth with us? On Sundays his sermons would be broadcast in every church and on every home TV around the world, and all those miracles…
But Jesus says: it's better for you that I go. I am only one, I can't be everywhere — but the Holy Spirit can. He takes up residence in whoever believes the message about Jesus. He builds his temple in them. Wooow. That is without doubt a fundamental upgrade.
“Anyone who loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love them; we will come to them and make our home with them.”
John 14:23
You see — at this moment we've found all three. God the Father, as we talked about him in chapter one, Jesus, as we talked about him in chapter two, and the Holy Spirit. And because they are one, in the Holy Spirit they now dwell in us.
My message is drawing to a close. The last thing I want to share with you is when the second coming of Jesus Christ and the end times will happen. Quite a lot of people are interested in that — and this is exactly the question a disciple put straight to Jesus. And don't pretend you're not interested 🙂
“Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority; but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the very ends of the earth.”
Acts 1:6–8
The timing of the second coming is none of our business. The crucial thing is: you will receive the power of the Holy Spirit. And what will it be good for? You will be my witnesses to the very ends of the earth.
And indeed — the message about Jesus, which sounded offensive to people of that time, spread through the world to such an extent that even we now count the years from Jesus' birth, and our main holidays are based on the milestones of his life. In Acts we read: “They were filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly…” “And the word of God spread and flourished.” (Acts 4:31; 6:7; 12:24; 19:20)
So that's the turnaround of the previously confused disciples. It seems to me that before Pentecost the disciples were fairly incompetent 🙂
Do you sometimes feel incompetent for this task too? Then think about the following passage:
…because our gospel came to you not simply with words [logos], but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction [pathos]. You know how we lived among you for your sake [ethos].
1 Thessalonians 1:5
You might say that the maxim that we shouldn't do things in our own strength but in God's is a cliché that's hard to put into practice. Either way, in the end you have to get off your backside and do something — so why not just get on with it, and why waste time on prayer?
But through observation — after studying this third chapter a bit more — I've definitely come to the conclusion that, for purely practical reasons, it's considerably wiser and more effective to pray more than merely to be active. Even though at Klub UP I'm pretty much at the centre of things and I am active, I pray more — and it seems to me that the main task is to not get in the Holy Spirit's way 🙂
Because otherwise you'll find yourself planting a single seed in clay on one side of the hill, while on the other side of the hill there's a tractor and fertile soil. That the crucial things happen outside of you — that teaches you humility. Suddenly you know it's far more important to pray than to slog away.
A year on, two students have now come to Klub UP one after the other, saying that a year ago, when Christy was here, God touched them — and they can't let it go, so they're coming to find out more about him. Not to mention those who came to Christy straight away last year.
Let's face the truth: the overall level of spirituality among us is low. We've measured ourselves by ourselves for so long that the desire to seek a higher level in the things of the Spirit has completely vanished… We've imitated the world, sought people's favour, manufactured pleasure to replace the joy of God, and produced a cheap, synthetic power as a substitute for the power of the Holy Spirit.
A. W. Tozer
“Through the Spirit, God offers us the gift of finally becoming what we were meant to be and what, deep down, we always knew we were: beings who live in both realms of his created order. We now know that the search for spirituality is the search for the joining of heaven and earth. It asks a great deal of us, but it is genuinely on offer to those who believe.”
N. T. Wright
“If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
Luke 11:13
We're often afraid of the topic of the Holy Spirit — because there are denominations that probably rather overdo it. They crave spiritual experiences, and the Holy Spirit seems the ideal route to them.
The Holy Spirit may not be Red Bull, but it really does seem to me that he was and is one of the keys to a ministry that isn't merely mechanical and merely entertaining, but bears fruit. Because you'll struggle to touch someone else's heart. Only he can do that. That's as much as my research so far has shown 🙂
Let's pray Augustine's prayer — twice in a row, please:
Breathe in me, Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy!
Act in me, Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy!
Draw my heart, Holy Spirit, that I may love only what is holy.
Strengthen me, Holy Spirit, to defend all that is holy!
Guard me, Holy Spirit, that I may never lose what is holy!
Augustine's prayer to the Holy Spirit
Chapter 3 — video
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