May 31, 2026

“The Trinity”

Message by Rev. Alan Perkins

Good morning! Last week was the last Sunday of the Easter Season, which runs from Resurrection Sunday through Pentecost. And today is Trinity Sunday, a day on which Christian churches in many different traditions, including many American Baptist churches, celebrate the Trinity. So that’s the topic of my sermon this morning, the Trinity. Let’s start with a definition. What is the doctrine of the Trinity? It is the statement that as Christians, we worship one God, who exists eternally in three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. This doctrine is considered a mystery, because the human mind cannot fully grasp it. And this shouldn’t surprise us, because it concerns the nature of God Himself. What use is it, then, you might ask? Well, although we can’t completely understand the Trinity, we can understand as much as God has revealed to us. And what he has revealed is important, because it protects us from some fundamental errors which could threaten the gospel itself. 

In other words, what God chose to reveal about himself isn’t random; it’s intentional; he revealed these things because we need to understand them. One indication of the importance of the doctrine of the Trinity is that it is denied by virtually all the cults and false religions. Why? Because when Satan wants to lead people astray from the truth, he attacks the doctrines that are the pillars of the Christian faith; the doctrines that support the whole system. So if you’re trying to determine whether a contemporary religious movement is a cult, start by asking what they believe about the Trinity. If they deny the Trinity, then the answer is yes, it’s a cult. How can I say that? Because the doctrine of the Trinity is accepted by every branch of the Christian church—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant—and has been, for over sixteen centuries. It is one of the basic teachings that Christians of every kind agree on. And so any religious movement that rejects the Trinity is simply not Christian, whatever they may claim. 

All right. So this doctrine is important; even essential. This morning, I’m going to do two things. First, I’m going to define the doctrine of the Trinity. I’ll try to avoid getting too heavy into theology. My goal is just that we have a basic, shared understanding of the doctrine. So bear with me through the doctrinal part, because based on that, I’m going to select one aspect of the Trinity and explore what it means to us as followers of Christ. There will be a practical application to all of this, I promise.

OK. First of all, the word “Trinity” isn’t in the Bible. Does that matter? No. It’s just a term that we use to describe what the Bible teaches about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, and about their relationship to one another. What matters is what the Bible teaches, not what term we use to describe it. And what are the essential parts of this doctrine? I’m going to start by looking at one of the ancient creeds of the church, the Athanasian Creed. Now American Baptist churches are not creedal, meaning that we don’t accept any creed as binding. Our final authority is the Scriptures. Our Statement of Beliefs, which is posted in the vestibule, states that explicitly. However, we can still refer to them and use them as teaching aids. Because the oldest ones have been around since the early days of the church, and they have been accepted for centuries, by all branches of the church, as being faithful statements of Biblical truth. 

The Athanasian Creed was developed in the fifth century as a response to those who were attacking the doctrine of the Trinity. It’s rather lengthy, but I’ll read you just a brief excerpt. Extra points if you go home and look this up and read the whole thing:

“The Father is one Person, the Son is another, and the Holy Spirit is still another, but there is one Godhead of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, equal in glory and coequal in majesty. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, and yet there are not three Gods but one God.” 

This statement tells us that the Trinity is not a doctrine of three separate gods. There is only one God, who exists in three persons. Those three persons are all equal in glory, and majesty, and power. None of them was created; all of them existed from eternity past. So they are co-equal and co-eternal. And yet, there are not three Gods but one God. Let’s examine that a little more closely, and compare it to Scripture.

First of all, the Bible tells us that we worship one God, not three gods. In other words, Christianity is mono-theistic, like the Judaism that it came from. And by the way, this idea—that there is only one God—was unique to the Jewish religion in the ancient near east. The other religions of that day, such as the Canaanite and Egyptian religions, were all poly-theistic; they had many gods, pantheons full of gods and goddesses. Judaism was the only one which claimed to worship one God. Here is one of the Old Testament scriptures which expresses this. It comes from the book of Isaiah:

I am the Lord, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. (Isaiah 45:5)

And so God is unique. He is not merely the most powerful God among many, like Zeus or Jupiter in Greek or Roman mythology. He is the only true God. All of the other so-called gods and goddesses that people have worshipped throughout human history are just idols, lifeless objects made of stone, or wood or metal. Several passages in the Old Testament point out the foolishness and absurdity of worshipping idols. I’ll give you one:

3 Our God is in heaven; he does whatever pleases him.

4 But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands.

5 They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see.

6 They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell.

7 They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk,

nor can they utter a sound with their throats. (Psalm 115:3-7)

Similarly, in Isaiah 44, the prophet mocks those who cut down a tree, and then burn part of it to cook a meal, while out of the other half they carve an idol. And then they bow down and worship the idol that they just made. It’s really quite humorous to read. So the Bible is clear that there is only one God. 

The difficulty comes with the other half of the equation. Christianity worships a single God, yes, but in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, how does that work? How can there be one God, but three persons? And this gets into the “mystery” part of the doctrine. We can’t really understand how the three persons of the Godhead comprise one God. Our language and our minds are inadequate to fully grasp that. So the best we can do is to affirm what the Bible says and stop there. Let’s briefly look at a few verses which tell us that all three persons of the Trinity are God.

First, the easiest one—a verse which speaks of the Father as God. After his resurrection, when Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, he told her this:

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” (John 20:17)

So Jesus acknowledges that the Father is God. All right, what about Jesus Christ? Where do the Scriptures teach that he is God? In the first chapter of his gospel, John writes this:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. . . . 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1, 14)

And so Jesus, who is the Word of God, and who is the Son of God, was with God in the beginning. In other words, he wasn’t created; he is eternal, just as God the Father is eternal. And he was both with God and he was God. 

How about the Holy Spirit? In Acts, we have the unfortunate tale of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold a piece of property and brought some of the proceeds to the apostles as an offering. But they decided to lie, and claim that what they brought was the entire amount they had gained from the sale. That was a bad idea. Here is Peter’s response:

3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit . . . What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” (Acts 5:3-4)

And you probably know the rest of the story, Ananias promptly fell over dead. Lying to the Holy Spirit was lying to God, because the Holy Spirit is God. He is just as much God as God the Father, and Jesus, God the Son. They are all co-equal as God.

I could cite many other verses, because the doctrine of the Trinity is found all throughout the Bible. But for our purposes this morning, these will be sufficient. Now, at this point, I’d like to give you an illustration or an analogy to help make this a bit easier to understand. For example, the Trinity is sometimes compared to water, because water can be a liquid, or it can be a solid—ice, or it can be a gas—water vapor. And if you remember your high school physics, there is actually one combination of temperature and pressure at which water is all three of these things at the same time. It’s called the “triple point”. So as far as analogies go, it’s a pretty good one. 

But since nothing in Creation is exactly like God, any analogy, if taken too far, eventually leads to error. For example, comparing the Trinity to water, and ice, and steam can lead to the false teaching of modalism. Modalism is the idea that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are not really three distinct persons, but that all of them are just different ways for God to express himself. Sometimes he appears as Father, sometimes as Son, and sometimes as Holy Spirit. But this is false, because that would mean that whenever Jesus prayed to the Father, he was just talking to himself. And so analogies can be useful, but they will only take you so far before they veer off into heresy. So you have to be careful. 

All right. Thank you for sticking with me so far. Now, how can we apply this? In many ways. For example, the doctrine of the Trinity has implications for salvation. It tells us that Jesus, as both God and man, has the ability to serve as our mediator with God the Father. And the Bible tells us that when we pray, the Holy Spirit, as God also intercedes for us with God the Father. But what I would like you to consider this morning is something else; something that has to do with the very nature of who God is.  And that is the fact that a relationship is central to God’s identity. That the relationship between the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit is essential to who God is. And that has always been the case. It isn’t as if there were three divine persons who decided to come together to form one unified God. No, from the very beginning, from eternity past, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were in relationship with one another; they have always been in relationship with one another. There was never a time when they were alone or separate. That relationship is essential to who God is, and it always has been. 

What does that mean to us? It tells us something important about ourselves. Remember that when God created Adam and Eve, he created them in his own image. 

So God created mankind in his own image,
    in the image of God he created them;
    male and female he created them. (Genesis 1:27)

Recall also that the process of sanctification, the process of growing in godliness and Christian maturity, is the process of becoming more like Christ, God the Son, and being conformed to his image. And so just as relationship is essential to who God is, relationship is also essential to who we are, both as men and women created by God in his image, and also as followers of Christ who are in the process of being remade in his image. We are not just individuals who sometimes choose to enter into relationships. We are fundamentally relational creatures; we are individuals, distinct persons, but only in relationship with others can we be fully be ourselves. As God said in Genesis when he created Adam, “It is not good for the man to be alone”. God made us to be in relationship, and we cannot be who he created us to be, nor can we be what he is making us to be in Christ, apart from relationships. From God’s point of view, loners—people who choose not to relate to others—are missing out on something that is core to their identity, as human beings and as Christians.

What kind of relationships am I talking about? I think that all kinds of relationships matter: friendships, family relationships. But as Christians, the most important relationships we have are those within the body of Christ. And that’s because of what that term means, “the body of Christ”. Let’s look at how Paul describes it in 1 Corinthians 12:

12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. . . . 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it. (1 Corinthians 12:12-14, 27)

Now, we usually interpret Paul’s analogy of a human body as being similar to the body of Christ, the church, in two ways. First, we say that the body needs each of its members to contribute in order for the body to be healthy. The body needs hands, and feet, and ears, and a mouth. Just as the church needs everyone to be using their gifts in ministry. And second, we say that each of us needs all the others. And both of those things are true. 

But what I want you to consider is a third implication of the body analogy. Which is that each member of the body needs to be functioning in the body, in relationship to others, in order to truly be itself. An eye, or an ear, or any other organ, if not connected to the body, and actively functioning as part of the body, is useless. It is not what it was made to be. And so if you do not have vital, ongoing relationships with the other members of Christ’s body, the church, you are not only diminishing the body as a whole, you are diminishing yourself. Because God made you to be in relationship. That’s an essential part of who you are, just like the relationships within the Trinity are an essential part of who God is. 

And I’m going to be honest: that’s the opposite of what many people  think when it comes to the church. They think that they have to be something less than themselves; that they have to put on a mask, or pretend to be something other than they are. They think that they need to diminish themselves somehow in order to fit into the church; that they need to conform and smooth out the rough edges. They think that engaging with other Christians in a local church will make them less unique, and more like everyone else, with everyone expected to think alike, and act alike, and hold the same opinions. But the opposite is actually true. If you are a Christian, then you need to be in relationship with others in the church, the body of Christ, in order to be fully yourself. If you are not in fellowship, then you are less than God intended you to be. Because God made you to be in relationship. 

So if someone has told you, or if you have told yourself, that you need to be less of what you are in order to fit in and relate to the other members of Christ’s body, then I am telling you right now, that is not the case. And if you’re choosing to hold back from engaging with God’s people because you fear being judged or criticized for who you are, then the sin is on the part of those who are doing the judging or criticizing. Because there is not a single person in this room who could stand before God, based on their own righteousness. Not one. Apart from Christ, every one of us would be condemned. None of us has any standing to judge anyone else. So just be yourself. Now, in being yourself, we would like you to observe some basic decorum. I have lunch at the Villa on Thursdays, which is fried chicken day—highly recommended—and on the wall they have posted a sign that I like. It says something like this, “Calm down. We’re all crazy. It’s not a competition”. So there’s no need for us to try to out-crazy one another. It’s not a competition. But there’s also no need to pretend to be something or someone different than we are. Because we’re all equal at the foot of the cross.

As I’ve said before, big churches and smaller churches both have their strengths. But one of the strengths of a small-to-medium sized church is that it is difficult to be anonymous. It is difficult to fly under the radar, with no one knowing or caring what is going on in your life. In a smaller church like Richwood First Baptist, when you go into the hospital, people know. They pray for you. They come visit you. They care about how you are doing. When you show up at church with a big bandage on your hand, like I did last week, people ask about it. (For those who didn’t hear the story, a dog bit me. I’m fine, thanks for asking. I asked the dog’s owner if I could pet him, and he said “yes”. But the dog disagreed.) Now, some people find that intrusive. They would prefer that other people not know their business. And my response to that is, yes, there can be times when it is uncomfortable. Because when other people know us, they may realize that we don’t really have it all together, and that we’re struggling just as much as they are. But that’s probably better, all things considered. Because we’re all in the same boat. 

So again, is that kind of engagement, that kind of relationship, that kind of knowing and being known—is that a good thing? I believe that every person here this morning could likely give a testimony of how others in this church have ministered to them, or helped them, or encouraged them. I’ll give you a personal testimony just from this last week. I let the deacons know on Wednesday that I wouldn’t be holding office hours due to a viral infection that was making me very tired and achy. And then I got the OneCall, and I saw that this was on there as a prayer request. Now, to be honest, it hadn’t even occurred to me to ask for prayer. My natural response to something like this would just be to deal with it and power through, rather than publicize it. Nevertheless, it meant a lot to me to know that others were praying for me and were concerned for my well-being. And that care and concern is something that I sensed from the first day I walked through the doors of this church. So if you’re missing out on that, because you’re a private person and you like to hold your cards close to the vest, and because you would rather not let anyone else know what you’re dealing with, then all I can say is that you’re missing out.

There’s one more benefit of a small- or medium-sized church over a large church. In a large church, you can more easily find people like yourself to fellowship with. Similar age, similar stage in life, similar background, similar interests, similar political views. And so you can be in relationship without ever leaving your comfort zone. In this church, that’s probably not the case. We’re a diverse group. And so fellowship involves getting to know and appreciate people who are different than you. We don’t require conformity here. We accept and value differences. Usually. At least we aspire to. And I think that’s a good thing. 

All right. Almost done. As an application, I would like all of us to consider whether we are holding back from fully engaging with other members of this body of Christ, whether we are holding back from being in relationship as God intends us to be. For whatever reason, whether it’s a fear of being judged, or whether you’re mainly focused on yourself, or whether you’re just temperamentally a private person. And if so, think of one thing you could do to change that. One thing you could do to lower the barriers and engage. But I’d also like each of us to consider whether we could be hindering others from fully committing to their relationship with other believers. How would we be doing that, you might ask? Well, by judging, or criticizing them when they don’t conform to our idea of what is good and proper. Because that will cause people to withdraw into their shell, rather than connecting. Here what Paul wrote about this:

4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. (Romans 14:4)

I think this passage should give all of us pause, every time we are tempted to criticize someone else or pass judgment on someone else. In essence, the apostle is asking, “Who do you think you are, to judge someone else?” No, really, “Who do you think you are? Are you God?” Because that’s who they answer to, not you. That’s right. Our brothers and sisters in Christ do not answer to us. They are not accountable to us. They are accountable to God. And so we have no business judging them. That’s not our role. Only God has the right to judge them. But we already know that he will forgive any sins they commit, just as he will forgive our sins. God will make them to stand before Him, by grace. Not only that, but if we criticize and judge one another, we could hinder someone from fully committing to fellowship and relationship. Because who wants to let other people know them, if by doing that they’re just opening themselves up to criticism? So let’s not do that. 

I’ll close with this. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity may seem like an arcane discussion for theologians. But it really isn’t. It has real and practical implications for many other important teachings, including those that affect salvation. This morning, we’ve examined just one of those implications, which is that since God is three persons, eternally in relationship with one another, and since God made us in his image, then we also need to be in relationship with one another in order to be fully who God intends us to be. And so let’s commit to doing that, and to making sure that we aren’t making it more difficult for anyone else to do that, by judging or criticizing them. Amen?

The First Baptist Church of Richwood - May 31, 2026