C, Holy Trinity - Romans 5:1-5 "Common Unity in 14 Steps"

Walk into just about any Christian bookshop today and it won’t take you long to find a shelf of books titled, “10 steps to do this or do that”, “12 ways to be this or be that”. And if these books are overshadowed, then it is only by books with titles starting, “How to…”.

There is just so much “self-help” advice on how to be happier, more successful, more evangelistic, and more certain of finding your personal life with Jesus. They’re all there on the shelves promoting more and more a religious life, and less and less the Christianity into which we are called, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

However, there’s one book you’ll find in Christian bookshops which has outlasted any of the latest fads or fables written about what one must do to be the all empowered Christian person. This book unlike many others is not there to be popular. In fact, when one avails themselves to listen to what it says, they will quickly find its timeless word is relevant to their situation, despite it being counter-cultural. It’s not popular, because it digs below the surface of what we are, judges us and shows us our fatal weaknesses and utter hopelessness without the outside work of God who wants to save us from our plight. This one book is God’s word, the bible, and we do well to obediently listen to it rather than rebelliously rationalise it and read our ideas into it.

We know the author of the bible is God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God worked through individuals in various ways to write it down, and in the church ever since, continues to preserve it. Unlike the popular empowerment paperbacks which go out of fashion the minute we finish reading them, God’s word is alive and it’s also active. Every time we are brought to it, God speaks though it, and in it, to us.

Through God’s word the Holy Spirit gives us faith, through God’s word we receive grace, which is the good news of Jesus’ death and resurrection for us, and through God’s word we receive peace in knowing Christ personally gives us his life on the cross, exchanging our sin for his righteousness, so we might exist before God completely justified. God’s word is the only true word we have to judge ourselves and all other things, and it’s given to us by God to do so.

Today we celebrate the Holy Trinity, hearing and pondering what God does for us, and with us, through the unity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One God, three persons, doing three things, in common unity with each other; one God living in community, calling us to participate in that community through the gifts given to the church in God’s word.

For us to try to get our heads around the Trinity is impossible. The totality of the Trinity is not for us to know completely or to rationalise into our ideas. God cannot be isolated in time and space and put in a box or a cage like he’s an animal. No! The Triune God is a mystery to us. Nevertheless, the good news for us is that this mystery is not inaccessible, but rather through God’s very word we have access to the almighty mysterious Trinity — the Father who gives us his love, the Son who gives us his grace, and Holy Spirit who unites us in fellowship.

In Romans 5 the “How to” and the “10 Step” self-empowerment paperbacks are shown to be the toothless tigers that they are. In arguably one of the most packed pieces of Scripture in the bible we hear of the complex workings of the Holy Trinity in us. Listen carefully to the workings of our Triune God and listen for what our part is in this Holy community.

1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. 3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. (Romans 5:1-5)

At first glance we might attribute our part as — rejoicing. But in what do we rejoice? At second glance the rejoicing is not due to any self-empowerment at all, rather our rejoicing comes as a result of God and his actions, giving us the ability to stand or remain or be in him. It is God who gives us the ability to be able to rejoice about these blessings in the first place. At third glance this rejoicing is called to be done in our suffering too. Both the good and bad things, the blessings and tribulations, which happen to us, give us a cause to rejoice. At fourth glance this rejoicing is never an individualistic celebration focused on ourselves; rather it’s done in community with others sharing the same experiences before a holy loving God.

So in the positive things and negative things happening to us, what is this rejoicing that we are meant to do? Well in the first instance it’s not necessarily being happy. Unlike our personal happiness, rejoicing requires us to receive something from outside ourselves. In fact, joy is boasting, bragging, or giving glory to that which comes to us from outside ourselves. Our joy or boasting or rejoicing comes from God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our joy remains when we give glory to God alone. Without this Triune community coming to us and enabling us to remain in unity with God, we would have nothing to boast or brag about in our sufferings and there would be no blessings either. Without God’s almighty empowerment over our weakness there is no peace on earth, nor would we know of God’s glory in heaven.

If one sought to simplify the profound work of the Trinity in each of us and the church; or perhaps view it as God’s “How to set aside stubborn sinners as saints” handbook, then Romans 5:1-5 is as good a place as any in Scripture from which to hear a step by step list.

God’s “Fourteen Steps how to…” guide would read something like this: To justify the sinner, or make the sinner holy, before the Father who is holy. Follow these steps…

1. Give faith through the Holy Spirit.

2. Give peace to sinners who receive faith.

3. Give the sinner the strength to Sabbath or rest in the work of Jesus at the cross over against their own self-righteous works.

4. Give access into the Father’s eternal rest allowing the sinner a way to approach the Throne of Grace while living in a sinful world and existence.

5. Renew the sinner’s being in Christ with faith given by the Holy Spirit as they hear the word.

6. Stand the sinner up in the grace of the cross; they will always try to sit back down in their sinfulness.

7. Give them hope by revealing slowly your almighty glory and its power over the bottomless depths of their sin.

8. Put your words of joy in their hearts and mouths so they look out of themselves to you.

9. Allow suffering in their lives.

10. Give the sinner even greater cause to see you and long for the eternal rest and peace of your presence.

11. Administer perseverance and endurance as they are willed to look out of themselves to you.

12. Build their character by allowing suffering and perseverance to turn them in repentance to the cross of salvation.

13. Remove their shame by pouring love into their hearts despite their tribulations.

14. Give them yourself, God the Holy Spirit, to engender faith so they receive and stand in peace before you, God the Father, because of the gracious gifts you, Jesus Christ, God the Son, give.

So there’s God’s guide “How to make a stubborn sinner a saint in Fourteen Steps”, according to Romans chapter five. Notice how much participation is required of us to be in this community! Also notice that for us to receive the gifts of God’s peace we can do so only by standing, or remaining in he who gives us grace, love, and fellowship!

However, this Triune work doesn’t really exist as steps in God’s three person eternal community. These 14 steps cannot be bound in time, and therefore, cannot be set out in an order which could be ticked off a list.

This mysterious work of our Triune God has already worked in us in baptism in an eternal instant. But still your life and being is a work in motion as you undergo the renewal each day of being placed into the unity and community of the Trinity, in our exchange at the cross. Mysteriously though, despite these 14 steps having been finished at the cross, the resurrection, and at Pentecost in time, they will not be complete until we rest in peace with God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, face to face in eternal fellowship.

Such is the almighty and mysterious work of the Holy Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in you and me unto eternity. Amen.

The grace of Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit’s fellowship, be with us all. Amen.