He Is I AM (Trinity Sunday)

Well friends, grace to you and peace from God our Father, and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

So today we are celebrating Trinity Sunday. It's one of those only church Sundays that we actually focus on a specific doctrine of our faith and a teaching of our faith; where we want to make sure that we rightly confess or rightly have faith in or rightly have a good idea of the Trinity: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So it's kind of a high-falootin' Sunday. And we could spend the next three or four hours talking about the doctrine of the Trinity and making sure that we get every "t" crossed and "i" dotted, making sure we get it right. But we won't do that today—so you can thank me! No, I'm joking, but it is important to know who our God is. And you might ask, "Well, why is it important that we spend so much time and we spend so much energy trying to get this thing straight when we can't really even begin to understand who God is? Why is it so important to care about the doctrine of the Trinity?" It kind of sounds like it belongs in old, dusty theology books, right? Well to know who God is is to know yourself. And you know yourself by who you believe God is because you live according to who you think God is. That's true of every single person on the face of the earth. And that's why we celebrate Trinity Sunday. And that's why it matters because it helps us to know who we are. And so as Christians, we know who our God is.

Now, if you don't know who God is or who your God is, then that's when the idea of God can be really scary, really uncomfortable. Have you ever been scared of God? I know I have been. And it's okay to raise your hand! Or maybe you do something and you wonder what God thinks of you. You wonder if God is angry with you. You wonder if he's going to punish you. You wonder if he's going to do something to you. When you don't know what God is or what God is up to or what he thinks of you that can be pretty downright scary. It can be terrifying. It's driven people mad—which might explain some of you! That's why knowing who God is is so important.

There's a scene from the book (and it was made into a movie) by C. S. Lewis: *The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe*—has anybody ever read that or watched it? If you have not, you got a homework assignment now 'cause it is gold! And you could probably read it in an afternoon. It's a kid's book, but it's marvelous, and chock-full of imagery. But the whole concept is where these kids walk into a wardrobe and they get through all the clothes and they find this magical land called Narnia. And in Narnia, it's God's world, but God is a little bit different in that world. He's the same kind of Christian God but he presents himself differently. But there's talking animals and there's all these mythical creatures. And so they get to know God through this place called Narnia. And there's a scene where these kids, they go and visit Mr. and Mrs. Beaver, all right? And they have not met God yet in this world but they go and meet Mr. and Mrs. Beaver and here's a conversation that takes place: Mr. Beaver says, "Aslan," (Aslan is Jesus in that land), "Aslan is a lion. The lion. A great lion." "Oh!" said Susan, "I thought he was a man! Is he quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion." "Safe?" said Mr. Beaver, "Who said anything about safe? Of course he isn't safe! But he is good."

That's why we celebrate Trinity Sunday. It's to know God. Is God safe? Can he do whatever he wants? Could he with his little pinky finger wipe you off the face of the earth? Of course he could! He isn't safe! But the reason why we celebrate Trinity Sunday is because it's how we know our God; that he may not be safe, but he is good. The almighty, fearsome God is knowable and even friendly in Jesus.

So dear Christian if you want to know what kind of God God is, who do you look to? Jesus. I love this line from the gospel reading, right? John 8:58: Jesus is having this showdown with the Jewish leaders, right? He gets into an argument. Jesus is being pretty hostile to them at this point because they're being a bunch of knuckleheads. But Jesus gives the punchline right at the end. Did you hear it? He says this: "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was"—what does he say?—"I am." Boy, if they were looking for a reason to kill Jesus, they just found it. Because who does Jesus claim to be? God. The great I am. For many of those Jews in that day if you even uttered the name "I am" you were committing blasphemy because instead of saying that "God is" you were saying that "I am." But Jesus was not only saying the name, he was claiming to be the I am. You could almost say that they were justified in killing Jesus because either he had to be telling the truth and he actually was the great I am or he was committing blasphemy and he was claiming to be God when he was not. But Jesus is the great I am.

That name comes from when Moses encountered God in the burning bush and Moses wanted to know the name of God and God told him I am, which is a really interesting name isn't it? Because I am is a way of God claiming that he is fundamental to all things. If you think about it in terms of past, present, and future tense—go back to English class for a second, right?—to say "I am" is kind of to say that you've never had a beginning and you never have an end; you just always are. So to say "I am" is to say that you are the most fundamental in the universe and maybe even the most powerful in the universe. There's nothing without the one who says, "I am." Because the I am is the I am, everything else can be as well. To say "I am" is to say that you are the top dog. You are God. And Jesus says "I am."

Which, dear Christian, should be beautifully comforting to you. Because you know Jesus. You know who he is for you. You don't have to be scared of what God might be or what he might think of you or what he might do to you because you know the great I am in Jesus. If you know Jesus, you know the I am, which is also to say that you can't know who God is apart from or without Christ. If you are trying to understand who God is or what he is or what he might be up to without Jesus, you have the wrong God. You will never get God right. And you can see people in our world trying to do just that. They might think that Jesus is a nice guy. They might even think that he was a prophet. They might think that he's a good example. But if they don't get Jesus right, they don't get God right. And they can find that terrifying.

You know, that's also why after the sermon we're going to be saying together the Athanasian Creed. The Athanasian Creed dates back to about the fifth or sixth century. And the Athanasian Creed was not written by Athanasius, but the Creed was named after him because it goes to great pains to try to get the Trinity right. Of course we can't be comprehensive and have a complete understanding, but it's written against a bunch of errors and heresies of the day which starts to sound like dusty theology book talk again—I get it. But it's important to get the Trinity right because so many people were getting it wrong and that drives people mad. It drives people into terror. And so the Athanasian Creed ends by saying this—and this sounds a little big or a little even threatening, but it's important—the Athanasian Creed ends with this: "Whoever does not believe it" (the Creed) "faithfully and firmly cannot be saved."

What it's saying here is if you're trying to understand who God is apart from how God has made himself known in Christ you're getting God wrong. You are not believing in a God who sent Jesus and joins you to Jesus and his death and resurrection. You're getting God wrong. And not only that, but you start to get yourself wrong. Now I should say this, when we say the Athanasian Creed, when we say that you can't believe something else and be saved, what we're saying is that it doesn't mean understanding the Trinity—uh, who here understands the Trinity completely? Oh I'll put my hand down! It doesn't mean understanding the Trinity but it does mean believing it. And that means that you have faith in who God says he is. You have faith in what God does for you. And you have faith in who he says you are. That's what it means to believe. The Christian faith is not to understand something you can't understand, but to believe what God says about himself and about you.

Now when you start to get the Trinity wrong that's when things go wrong for you too, because if you believe false things about God, you start to believe false things about yourself. And so I've got some fancy \$10 words, all right—that if you pull these out at parties, people will be really impressed with you, okay! And if you don't remember the words, that's okay. You don't have to remember them. But, for instance, in church history there was this thing called Gnosticism. Anybody ever heard of Gnosticism before? Gnosticism believes that God almighty was not the maker of heaven and earth. Gnosticism says that God was only the maker of heaven, and all this earth stuff is bad; that the material world is bad, and that God would never make stuff like this or bodies like us, that all this was made not by a good God but maybe an evil god and at best, it was all here on accident or it's here as a bad thing, and salvation is to try to escape the body. Now if you believe in Gnosticism, then you believe something bad about yourself: well, one, you don't believe in the one true God who we say made both heaven and earth, but you also believe that you are at best a mistake, that you have no purpose for your life, and that you must try to escape this body or this world.

Or how about another \$10 word? Arianism. Anybody ever heard of Arianism? All right, we've got one over here, all right, good, a couple. All right, Arianism believes that Jesus was not God or at least not fully God. That at best maybe he was a divine, super creature, but not God almighty himself. And if you believe in Arianism, that at best Jesus is just a super creature, then what it means is that you must follow his example. You must be a creature like him in order to be saved. Or also, that what he does is not with the full power of the almighty for you but only part of the power of the almighty for you. And so you can't be sure of your salvation only in Christ because he's not God himself, he's only partially God. That's Arianism. And it means that you've got a lot more work to do to be saved.

Or here's another \$10 word for you: Pelagianism. Anybody heard of Pelagianism? This is a really fun one. It's functionally a disbelief in the Holy Spirit; that the Holy Spirit functionally does not exist. Pelagianism says that the Spirit does not create faith in you, that the Spirit does not bring Jesus to you, and the Spirit does not bring you to Jesus. That you are at least in part, if not in full, responsible for getting yourself to God. Does anybody have a really, really, really tall ladder? It may not be that tall, though, right? Pelagianism says that you have to bridge the gap between yourself and God. That even if Jesus died on the cross for you and all your sins, you've got to somehow bridge the gap between the cross 2,000 years ago to yourself; that you've somehow got to attract God or you've somehow got to get faith by your own sinful ways. When we get God wrong we get ourselves wrong.

And that goes the other way around too. Believing false things about yourself means believing false things about God. If you believe that you are not sinful, well, what does that mean that you believe about God? That you're not held accountable or that your sins don't matter. If you believe that you are too sinful, well, what do you believe about God? That he doesn't love you or that he's out to get you. If you believe that you are not important or if you believe that you are not loved or if you believe that you can't ever be changed or won't ever be changed, what does that mean that you believe about God? If Jesus, God himself, dies for you, well, that means, dear Christian, that you are sinful. But it also means this: that your sins are not too big for God. What are you going to say? That your sins are a bigger deal than Jesus? That your sins are bigger than what Jesus was able to do on the cross? What you believe about yourself changes what you believe about God.

Proverbs 8:22-23—we read this this morning—says this: "The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up at the first before the beginning of the earth." This is talking about Jesus. And this verse has actually been taken out of context before by people like the Arians who believe that Jesus was a creation of the Father, that Jesus did not always exist, and that Jesus is not the great I am himself. But they interpret it wrong. One, they don't view it in the rest of the context of the Bible, but two, they also just misunderstand this verse. What this is saying is that God's work in and through Christ was the plan all along. Jesus was the plan all along. The first of his works from of old. If you want to know who God is you must look to Jesus. If you want to know what God does and what God is up to you must look to Jesus. If you want to know what God thinks of you you must look to who? Jesus.

And that is what Trinity Sunday is all about. The fact that the Father loves you so much that he sends his Son for you. The fact that the Holy Spirit draws you to the Son without anything good in you. Yes! You, a sinner, he draws you to himself and he binds you to the cross, to Jesus' cross, and he binds you, dear Christian, to Jesus' holiness and to his life and to his resurrection from the dead. You know who God is and you are known by who God is in and because of Jesus. And dear Christian, we know who God in Jesus is because he is I am.

So, in Jesus' name, Amen.