J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“God: Multi-Tasker or Sole Proprietor?”
From the Series "Beliefs that Build Community"
Scripture: 1 Peter 1:1-2
January 6, 2008
There is something about the start of each New Year that has a way of raising our hopes and lifting our spirits. It’s as if someone has given us a new lease on life and we get another chance to make good on old promises and yet to be honored commitments.
As people of faith, we believe that Someone has done just that – that Someone being God. Because He is, as the prophet Isaiah taught us, a God who is always about a “new thing” (Isaiah 42:9), He is always looking for an openness on our part for Him to reveal Himself to us in a way that enables us to experience the fullness of His favor. Indeed, the only reason we are not able to experience His favor is because of our refusal to allow Him to have His way in our lives.
That’s true for us as individuals. It’s also true for us as a church.
For example, here in this church, we stand at the beginning of what may well be the most critical year our church has faced in over fifty years. In the next four months, we’ll have the opportunity to pray about what God might do in our midst as we consider how to position ourselves and our facilities for the next chapter of ministry in the history of this great church. We have been handed a wonderful legacy of life-changing ministry, and as we think about how to build on this legacy and how to strengthen our sense of community, the place to begin is by pondering the beliefs that sustain us and give us life.
That’s what Peter was doing in this first letter that bears his name. Students of the New Testament see 1 Peter as an orientation guide for new Christians. It may be that this Christmas you got a new device or new gadget that offers all kinds of possibilities as far as making you more productive. But the only problem is that you don’t really know how to use it. There’s a learning curve that you’re going to have to negotiate. Let me offer a suggestion. Pick up the owner’s manual or the instructions that go with the device and spend some time with them. I know that the temptation is to go ahead and start using the device, learning as you go. But you will maximize the possibilities much sooner if you spend some time learning everything your new toy will do and learning everything about how to make all of those things happen.
Now you understand a little bit about the purpose of 1 Peter; it was an orientation guide for new Christians. In other words, Peter was writing to believers who had come to faith from a pagan worldview and was helping them understand how to live as followers of Jesus. And Step One in the process was coming to an understanding of who God is and how He relates to us. God has chosen you, Peter told them. In an election year when voting will soon be on everyone’s minds (if it isn’t already), it’s important to remember that God chose us long ago, even when we didn’t know we were running for or from anything. And now, God is sanctifying us; in other words, He is making us clean so that we might live in this world as people who show Jesus.
And how does God do this? He does it by revealing Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God makes us the people He created us to be by showing Himself to us through the persons of the Trinity. The doctrine of the Trinity is the distinctive Christian teaching on God. The one God has revealed Himself in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and yet in so doing, He still remains the One God. To use Peter’s language, we are chosen by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit, and forgiven by the Son. We are made into the people God would have us to be through the work of a Triune God.
Unfortunately, there is not a doctrine that Christians shy away from more than the doctrine of the Trinity, and understandably so. In some ways, it’s easier to comprehend algebraic number theory than it is to understand the Trinity.
Granted, some people would disagree. They would say that understanding the Trinity is as simple as understanding how water can be manifested in three forms. It can be manifested as a liquid, as in water. It can be manifested as matter, as in ice. It can be manifested as a vapor, as in steam. The problem is, the Early Church condemned that analogy as the heresy of modalism, the belief that the three “persons” of the Trinity are mere modes or representations of a fourth reality, which is greater than the other three. Other people would offer other analogies, but the bottom line is that all analogies break down and for good reason – the doctrine of the Trinity says something about God that captures His essence and distinguishes Him from everything else in all creation.
What, then, does the doctrine of the Trinity say about God and how can we understand it? The best answer I can give to that question is that it tells us that our God is a relational God. He is a God who while self-existent (while being without need of anything or anyone to justify His existence or complete His existence), He is nonetheless a God who relates to His creation because relationship is as much a part of His essence as justice, or righteousness, or mercy, or grace. He is a God who relates to us not because He “needs” us. He is a God who relates to us because He “loves” us.
Go back to the text and notice the relational references to our Triune God. He has chosen us. The God who knows everything knows everything about us, and chooses us anyway! He is sanctifying us. We are a people in process, and we are not yet all that we will be, because God is not finished with us yet! That’s a message of hope not just for the start of a New Year; that’s a message that can lift our spirits any moment of any day! God forgives us of our sins, and in Jesus has wiped the slate clean in terms of all that we’ve done to disappoint Him. God gives us not just another year; God gives us another chance to live faithfully and obediently!
And the doctrine of the Trinity tells us that He is doing it all at the same time. He always has been, and He always will be. If we must have an analogy, might it be that God is the consummate Multi-Tasker, who pours Himself out in every way possible to make us a people who are fit for His glory? Might it be that understanding the One God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit helps us to see that God has always been giving of Himself to us and to this world in order to make up for where we fall short and will continue to do so until we become everything He wants us to be?
You cannot omit any “person” of the Trinity and still have as vibrant of a faith as the faith God enables us to have. You cannot omit the Father, or you will be left with a detached and distant God who couldn’t care less about what goes on in our everyday life. You can’t omit the Son, or you will be left trying to earn your way into God’s Presence, making up for all the wrongs you have done over the course of your life. You can’t omit the Holy Spirit, or you will be left trying to live faithfully in your own power. The doctrine of the Trinity isn’t an irrelevant and unimportant doctrine that really has no connection to our everyday experience. On the contrary, the doctrine of the Trinity helps us to see God as a Personal God, who calls us to pursue Him in all His myriad expressions. It is a doctrine that challenges us to resolve to know Him more fully, even as He seeks to show Himself in all His majesty and in all His glory to us.
And yet, for some inexplicable reason, knowing that God is never very high on the list of the resolutions we make at this time of the year.
Harry Emerson Fosdick was one of the great preachers of the early twentieth century. He was also author of one of the great hymns of our faith, “God of Grace and God of Glory.” Fosdick once made the observation that some people have just enough religion to make them miserable. You’ve known people like that, haven’t you? They attend church occasionally. They drop a few dollars in the offering plate every once in a while. They call on the Church for weddings, funerals, and baptisms, but they live on the edge of Christian life. Their religion is, as someone once called it, a religion of the “holy spurt” and not the Holy Spirit.
There is another group of people who live more closely to God, but not closely enough. They are essentially good people, but their religion has little joy or little power. They go through the motions, but there is something missing – something they would love to possess, but they don’t have a clue as to how to do it.
Then, there is a third group, not as large as the other groups; in fact, this group is much smaller. It is made up of people for whom religion is a reality and not a ritual – for whom religion is personal and not mechanical. These people are in touch with the deep resources of Christian faith. They have a relationship with God in Christ through the means of the Holy Spirit. Their faith informs every action they take and every decision they make. Their faith enables them to have meaning and purpose in life and to live hopefully even in the face of the most challenging circumstances because they are ever mindful of God’s Presence and they welcome Him gladly.
Into which group do you fall? And just as important, into which group do you wish to fall? For the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that God raises no barriers to keep people away from Him. The God who has revealed Himself to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit stands with outstretched arms to welcome everyone who would relate to Him. That’s the kind of God that He is; He is a relational God, and if anyone fails to know Him, it’s because of their own choosing. That, in a nutshell, is what the doctrine of the Trinity is all about.
You may not understand it completely, but then, there’s so much in life you probably don’t understand completely, but you embrace it and you pursue it nonetheless. Why then can you not resolve this year to pursue God?
As the story goes, someone once asked Mrs. Albert Einstein if she understood her husband’s theory of relativity. Now, I don’t know anything about Mrs. Einstein, but I would guess that if her husband committed himself to her in marriage, she wasn’t a lightweight by any stretch of the imagination. Regardless, in answer to the question, Mrs. Einstein answered that she didn’t understand relativity theory, but that she did know her husband, and that was enough.
You and I cannot begin to understand the fullness of God. But that doesn’t mean that we can’t know Him or that we can’t relate to Him. For God has chosen to make Himself known to us. As Father, He has come to us in Jesus Christ to say, “I am with you.” And as Holy Spirit, He abides with us so that we will never be alone or powerless.
That may be all that you can explain about your relationship with God. But if relationship is what defines your belief, then that will be enough.
You are chosen. You are being sanctified. You are forgiven. You are always in God’s Presence, and His loving Presence is always enough.