“Trinity – The Initiator”

Scripture: Exodus 3:1-10; Genesis 1:1, 26; Luke 1:26-27; John 14:10

John Wesley described the Trinity in a rather complex and totally unhuman way - that he is “Three-and-One”. And as God is eternal, both before time and after time, there has always been this Three-and-One. We see the Three at work at all times, even though, in general, only one of them is obvious. In this regard, we typically associate The Father with Old Testament times, the Son with the Gospels, and the Holy Spirit with the epistles.

But God is nowhere near as “cut and dried” as we would like him to be. And even while we see and proclaim one God for our lives, we can identify some uniqueness to each of the Persons. Today, we will consider certain attributes of the First Person of the Trinity, the one we call Father, the one who Augustine referred to as “the Initiator”.

The word “initiate” can suggest several concepts, such as an origination or the beginning of an event. It implies an opening or introduction of something new, and can even refer to an instruction or teaching. This is the one who we will be considering today.

Read Exodus 3:1-10

Of course, this isn’t the first time that the Lord “initiated” a new direction in the life of humanity. In Genesis 12:1-7, he tells Abram to leave his home and travel to a land that one day will be home for his descendants. Neither Abram nor Moses had any personal inclination to go, but they would go.

Abram seemed to go willingly – at least there is no indication in scripture that he questioned or objected to the call, but Moses was a different story - he would have quite a litany of concerns. He needed to know the name of the One who was sending him, just in case he was asked, and he received the name of God of Israel – “I AM”; he needed proof that it truly was the Lord who was sending him – he wanted something to show to any unbelievers, in both Israel and the Egyptians, and probably for himself, and he would receive two proofs and a promise for more; he was not eloquent in his speech, and may have been asking, and expecting, God to give him perfect speech, but instead, he was given his brother Aaron who would help him with the oratory.
Moses was understandably nervous about going back to Egypt, as he had been forcibly ejected from the nation, and feared for his life if he should return. But the One who was Initiating this rescue of his people would also see the project to completion.

This First Person of the Trinity not only initiates his call on people, he ensures that they are enabled to complete the task as well. Abram would be sent to a new land - not for his benefit, though, but for his descendants, and with all the twists and turns that we read of in Genesis, God would use each and every turn to his own advantage, and sometimes it would serve as proof for a specific person that the promise was still in effect.
Abram would see the promise at work through the substitution of a ram for his son Isaac’s life (Genesis 22:1-18), and he would be filled with faith. Moses would see the proof each and every time that God would work through him in the giving of 10 plagues (Exodus 8:14-Exodus 11), and his confidence would grow every time. Whatever the Lord begins, he will complete. Whatever God promises, we can rest assured that it will happen. Abram would never see the ultimate promise be carried to fruition, but he was given assurance that it would, one day, be accomplished. Even Moses, who hundreds of years later, would lead the people right up to the boundary of the Land, and would be given a glimpse of it, but would never enter.

Consider the call that God placed on the Gibson Corners church nearly 20 years ago. God spoke through Pastor Gary Bryden, and challenged the people to pray for what the Lord wanted them to do, and yet were unable to do themselves, and this small, faithful congregation believed. They wound up being called to go to Ecuador, not knowing what they would do or even how it would be accomplished. And over a ten year period, a school would be built – not a 2 room school, but a 3 story school; it would be a project that they had nowhere near enough manpower or financial resources, but the Lord would bring other churches, other denominations, and many other people along side to make up the difference; it wouldn’t be a school to teach 20-30 children – it would be a school, at last report, for nearly 250 children, with plans to add a fourth story to accommodate even more.

God’s plans are nothing like ours, but when we follow him into the unknown, we will always discover just how big our God truly is.

Read Luke 1:26-27

We see many instances of God initiating grand events throughout the Old Testament, but the New Testament has its own examples. Consider the coming of God into our world – now that was an initiation unlike any other! It would have been so easy and so much more effective if Jesus had simply arrived, unmistakably, as God in all his glory, power, and authority. People would have believed, without hesitation! But the Divine Plan had characteristics unlike anything that we could ever conceive of.
Salvation would arrive for you and me – not as a mighty and respected Being, but as a humble, insignificant, totally dependent, fleshly baby; he wouldn’t come full of knowledge and hope, able to instill faith and trust with a single flick of his finger, but as one who would have a very limited success (at least by human standards!) and would look to humanity to complete his mission; he came, not as a conqueror, but as one who would surrender to human hatred and would be assassinated by his own creation as a criminal,; he did not come as royalty, but as a commoner; he came not by man’s action with a woman, but by God’s action and the woman’s faith and acceptance.

And the result of this “initiation”, while known and believed, has yet to play out fully. 700 years elapsed between Abram and Moses; over 2,000 years has passed since that miraculous birth; and nearly 20 years have passed since Pastor Gary allowed the Lord to speak though him, and we are all still waiting for the fulfilling of these, and more, promises. But still, we believe that God is exactly who he is, and that the promises he has given, and the glory he has initiated, will be seen through to fruition.

Read John 14:10

Does this First Person, the Father, the Initiator of all good things, work alone? Of course not. The process that created order out of chaos in the first 2 chapters of Genesis was a singular, but unified effort by the Triune God, and when creation was finished, did God sit in command of it all? Not on your life! In Genesis 1:26, after humanity had been created, they were given the responsibility to oversee, to use, and to care for God’s Creation.
Could God have initiated and created a solitary, a special, a unique people to be his example to the ones of earth? He could have, but he chose a single human couple – Abraham and his wife Sarah – to give birth, and by that one descendant Isaac, to give more birth, over and over again, always in a human way, to bring the chosen people into being.
Could God have lead the people, and cared for all of their needs, all the way from Egypt to the Promised Land by himself? Of course he could, and we even read that the Spirit of God led them in the form of Fire and Cloud (Exodus 13:21-22), and provided food (Exodus 16:11-12) and water (Exodus 17:5-7) to sustain them, even while he included Moses, Aaron, and others in all that he did.
Could the Lord have initiated and enacted salvation for the world all on his own? Certainly, but the Initiator would work through Jesus the “Mediator”, and by faith, would spread the Gospel message throughout the world through human involvement, through your and my witness, led by the “Unifying” Spirit.

The Lord comes to us in three distinct ways, but it will never end there. The fourth aspect of God’s great plan includes you, and me, and all who will believe. The Lord is always in need of more human partners, but it always seems to be the faithful who are involved in bringing them to God’s way through the guidance, by the inspiration, by the initiation, of the Lord God Himself.

You and I will never start anything that can bring glory to the Lord; you and I will never be able to carry out the divine tasks that are given on our own; you and I will never accomplish a single “good” thing without God’s involvement. Isn’t it interesting that humanity is the only created thing that God uses to bring people into his glory? Oh, it’s true that other aspects of creation can sometimes inspire us – the beauty of a Spring day, a freshly fallen blanket of snow, a flower, a mighty oak tree, the early morning song of a bird, and other gorgeous visions of creation, but it always comes back to human involvement with our Triune God that becomes a testimony to the Lord’s presence and grace at work in this world.

Father, Son, and Spirit – Initiator, Mediator, and Unifier – and you and me. And the story doesn’t stop there, because the one who began all good works in each of us, will always bring them all to completion within us (Philippians 1:4-6).