Faith in the Son

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Trinity Sunday morning, the 30th of May, 2021, the Sunday before Memorial Day, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  This was an abbreviated service due to constraints put in place from the COVID-19 pandemic.  Our YouTube streaming channel is:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.  Look for the video of our recorded services on our Vimeo channel:  http://vimeo.com/pilgrimreformedchurch.]

Family, today is the Sunday before our Memorial Day in the US, kind of the middle of Memorial Day weekend, the first holiday of summer.  A lot of folks are on the lake or at the ocean this weekend.  A bunch of picnics will be enjoyed, along with many outdoor activities.  The true purpose of Memorial Day, of course, is to honor and remember all those who gave their lives in the performance of their duty in the service of the Armed Forces of the United States.

But today is also Trinity Sunday, when we remember that God is in three persons, and how important each is to us.  God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  All three are God and each has a role in our lives, both now and eternal.  We honored all three in our affirmation through the Nicene Creed.

The scripture I was led to for this morning also speaks of the Trinity, showing an aspect of each of the three persons of God, and at the same time highlights faith a little, and especially faith in Jesus, faith in the Son.  Please listen and follow along to what the Apostle John wrote in the 5th chapter of his 1st letter to the early church, verses 1 through 8, and I’ll be reading this from the Living Bible…

1 If you believe that Jesus is the Christ — that He is God’s Son and your Savior — then you are a child of God. And all who love the Father love His children too. 2 So you can find out how much you love God’s children — your brothers and sisters in the Lord — by how much you love and obey God. 3 Loving God means doing what He tells us to do, and really, that isn’t hard at all; 4 for every child of God can obey Him, defeating sin and evil pleasure by trusting Christ to help him.

5 But who could possibly fight and win this battle except by believing that Jesus is truly the Son of God? 6-8 And we know He is, because God said so with a voice from heaven when Jesus was baptized, and again as He was facing death — yes, not only at His baptism but also as He faced death. And the Holy Spirit, forever truthful, says it too. So we have these three witnesses: the voice of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, the voice from heaven at Christ’s baptism, and the voice before He died. And they all say the same thing: that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

--1 John 5:1-8 (TLB)

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for adopting us into Your great family and calling us Your own.  In his letter, the Apostle John tells us that our love for You should be reflected in how much we love all Your children, and how much we love them is shown in how well we obey You.  Thank You, Father, for loving us all so much.  Please help us be more loving in return.  Help us be more obedient and better servants to You and to Your Son Jesus.  Help us remain faithful and true to all three of Your persons.  And Father, please protect us from Satan’s traps and snares and from those who do his bidding.  Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and purpose in our love and our service to Jesus.  Please keep us healthy and safe through these extraordinary times.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit and better understand the message You have for us this day.  Show us how each of Your thee persons impacts our lives to our benefit.  This we pray in the blessed name of Christ Jesus, your Son.   Amen.

Pastor and author F. B. Meyer once said:  “Don’t waste your time waiting and longing for large opportunities which may never come.   But faithfully handle the little things that are always claiming your attention.”

Very few of us will ever have one of those large opportunities, where we can have a positive impact on many people.  But most of us will have many small opportunities where we can make a difference in the lives of one or two.  We just need to be faithful in the little things, and leave the rest to God.  God is more than capable of handling the biggest tasks.  He, along with His Son Jesus and His Holy Spirit, created the universe and all that is in it.  He is the Father of all creation.

It’s the little things that often annoy us the most, and if we ignore them too long they begin to fester.  So let’s faithfully take care of them as they arise, trusting in God, keeping our faith in His Son.

At the start I mentioned that our scripture reading would tell us a little more about the three persons of God, and how each impacts our lives.  God is our Father who has adopted into His family those who follow His Son.  There are many children in His family, and we are to love them all, just as we love Him, just as He loves us.  We are loved, by our Father and by all our brothers and sisters through Christ.  If we don’t truly love all of our Father’s family, then how can we say we love Him, our God?

Jesus is the Son of God, whose name was proclaimed loudly from heaven by God Himself, both at His baptism and as He faced death on the cross.  Through our belief in the Son, we are adopted into the family of God and our sins are forgiven.  Through Jesus we become joint heirs with Him of our Father’s heavenly kingdom.  And Jesus will also help us defeat sin and evil pleasure if we only trust in Him.  We could not possibly stand up to Satan, let alone have a chance to win the battle against evil, if Jesus were not with us and if Jesus were not God.

And then John tells us that God’s Holy Spirit also proclaims that Jesus is the Son of God.  The Holy Spirit is forever truthful.  His is the quiet voice we hear from our hearts, although He sometimes shouts in our ear.  He also witnesses to Jesus, shining the light on the Son, encouraging us to keep our faith strong.

Christ Jesus is the Son of God.  Jesus is God.  In Him is all our hope.  In Him we can place all our trust and faith.

If we do have faith in the Son, if we do believe that Jesus is the Christ and our Savior, then we are children of God.  And if we love God, we will obey Him, we will do as He commands and love all His children.

Listen to one of the last things Jesus told His disciples right after their final meal together, just before His arrest.  This comes from chapter 15 of John’s Gospel account, verses 9 through 12 and verses 16 and 17…

9 “I have loved you even as the Father has loved Me. Remain in My love. 10 When you obey My commandments, you remain in My love, just as I obey My Father’s commandments and remain in His love. 11 I have told you these things so that you will be filled with My joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! 12 This is My commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.

16 "You didn’t choose Me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using My name. 17 This is My command: Love each other."

--John 15:9-12, 16-17 (NLT)

Jesus loves us just as much as our Father God loves Him.  While He walked this earth, Jesus did everything God commanded Him to do, and so remained in God’s love.  If we are to remain in Jesus’ love we must do as He commands us.  And what does He command?  Only that we love each other in the same way that He loves us – sacrificially, unconditionally, willing to give our all for each other.

Have you ever heard the expression, “You can choose your friends but not your family”?  That’s usually spoken in regard to a relative we may not particularly care for, one we may not like much.  Do we love them?  Sure – they’re family.  But that doesn’t mean we necessarily like them.

The same goes for the family of God.  We may not personally like all of God’s children, but that must not keep us from loving them, from interacting with them in a loving way, even if we don’t agree with them.  Love without conditions, love that knows no bounds, love that is willing to give all… this is what God gives and this is what God, through Jesus, demands of us.

To keep our faith in the Son strong and true, to remain in our Brother’s love, let us do as Jesus and our Father God command and love one another.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for loving us so much that You sent Your only Son to offer us salvation.  He remained in Your love by obeying You.  Please help us be more obedient so we too can remain in Your love.  Sometimes, Father, obedience does not come easy for us, even those of us who follow Your Son.  Sometimes this life just beats us down so much that we become jaded, filled with frustration and anger, and we forget all about loving one another.  Please remind us of Your commandments.  Help us be better servants, more obedient to Your voice, more loving in all we do.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You from our hearts through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more faithful and true, putting all our trust in You and Jesus, and seeking Your help as we do so…

Lord Jesus, by carrying out the mission our heavenly Father assigned You on this earth, by obeying Him faithfully and completely, You remained constantly in His love.  And that is how we can remain in Your love, by obeying Your commands to love one another, to go into the world telling everyone the Good News of salvation, and to make more followers for You.  This is the mission You have chosen us to perform.  Thank You, Jesus, for choosing us to follow You, to be included in our Father God’s family.  Lord, we ask You to help us be more obedient.  Strengthen our will to do what God wills.  Show us how to share Your love with all we meet.  Give us the courage to be more bold and daring in our service to You.  Help us to be more loving, more understanding, kinder to all we encounter each day.  And please help us as we try to show Your love to a world that so desperately needs it.  All this we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.