Pastor’s Thoughts – 10/25/2026

When I was in school years ago, I had to learn about the Greek gods. Fallen man naturally desires a god more like himself. This is why man has had such a tendency to be so foolish as to carve from a tree a god to worship; “He will cut cedars for himself, and he takes an oak and lets it grow strong for himself among the trees of the forest. He plants a laurel tree, and the rain makes it grow. Then it becomes something for a person to burn, so he takes one of them and gets warm; he also makes a fire and bakes bread. He also makes a god and worships it; he makes it a carved image and bows down before it” (Isaiah 44:14-15). Today, men rarely carve trees into idols, but instead place many temporary idols in God’s place. Such a foolish reality demonstrates man’s natural blindness. On the one hand he knows there is a God, and yet he fumbles around making that which is not God, a god.

The true God is not only infinite, and therefore unlike all the natural things we would put in His place, but He also takes away our self-centeredness, our self-governing, and what we think is our self-determined destiny. The true God is a sovereign God. Not only is He sovereign in relation to the destiny of man, but He is impossible to exhaustively define in any of His attributes. We can name them but can only go so far in our finite intellect in understanding them. This is evident as well when we realize that the true God is a Triune God. No person could make up a Trinitarian God. We cannot understand or define Him. It is only the Bible that discloses who He is. He is one God who exists eternally as three distinct persons who are the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each is fully God, yet united in one divine essence as one God in three distinct persons.

We know the Bible is a supernatural progressive revelation. We mean by that, that God has revealed Himself progressively through various inspired men through time and circumstance in giving us His Holy Word. His Word is self-defining and convicting. There is no other writing like it. We know that He is one, monotheistic God, but found in three persons defined in Scripture. Each Person is an individual in perfect harmony with the other members of the Godhead. We read majestically at the beginning of God’s Word, “Let us make man in our image” (Gen. 1:26). Moving through the Bible we find the Triune God revealed variously. “Come near to Me, listen to this: From the beginning I have not spoken in secret, From the time it took place, I was there. And now the Lord God has sent Me, and His Spirit” (Isaiah 48:16). The, “Me,” refers to Christ the Son, and the, “Lord God,” refers to the Father. We are also told that the Son, who is the Messiah, is also God; “For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us; And the government will rest on His shoulders; And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6).

When we come to the New Testament, we see displayed at the baptism of Jesus the three persons of the Godhead all present and acting independently. “After He was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, and behold, a voice from the heavens said, ‘This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16-17). The greatest value expressed by the three persons of the Godhead is the incomparable event of the Son of God dying for sinners. John 3:16 tells us, “God (the Father) so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” John the Baptist witnessed of Christ, “For He whom God sent speaks the words of God; for He does not give the Spirit sparingly” (John 3:34). Jesus as the God / Man had an endowment of the enabling Spirit of God. God the Father sends the Son. The Son obeys and dies for sinners, and the Spirit empowers and applies His perfect atonement. Together, the glorious Godhead performs a perfect unified act of love and redemption, making the cross the ultimate revelation of the Trinity’s nature and wonderful mission.

The glorious harmony of our Triune God actively engaged in the work of Christ is also reflected in the High Priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus. His prayer manifests the glory of the love of all the persons of the Godhead. We are made privy to the prayer between the Son and the Father, which also includes the Holy Spirit. This prayer reveals the nature of our God. Jesus prays, “I am not asking on behalf of these alone, but also for those who believe in Me through their word, that they may all be one; just as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. The glory which You have given Me I also have given to them, so that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and You loved them, just as You loved Me” (John 17:20-23). This prayer reaches the pinnacle of the amazing love of God for His creatures. Christ is calling for a love relationship in the same manner and same degree as the relation among the Godhead.

What do we do with the Trinity, our God in three persons? We believe, we rejoice, we give thanks, and we worship Him as the only true God. Today, we who are in Christ have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit Himself (Rom. 8:9). We are commanded to: “Go therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to follow all that I commanded you; and behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Matt. 28:19-20). We pray to the Father through the Son and wait for the Son’s coming to establish His kingdom. Our God is not a make-believe god, nor is He inept. He is glorious and real! We will dwell with Him eternally. Praise His name!