Growing Into What You Can't Yet Carry

Transcript

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[0:00] Let's go now and I invite you to find John chapter 16 verses 12 through 15. It's printed in the bulletin at home if you have it in your Bible or if you have your own Bible that you like. And again, this is Holy Trinity Sunday. It's part of our liturgical year. It's the first Sunday after Pentecost, the beginning of ordinary time, but there's nothing ordinary about it. It's a time of growth. That's very well said by Pastor Victoria. And of course, we probably should talk about the Trinity more than once a year, and I don't think we do. So I have some homework for myself because the Trinity is one of those areas that's just kind of like, oh, this is hard. We don't understand this. So in my mind, it's mystical, misunderstood, and missing. I made that up, by the way. I don't know how that just came to me. So it was the spirit. But it's mystical.

[0:50] It's kind of weird. It's kind of interesting. It's misunderstood. Like there's all sorts of actually there's some there's some descriptions of the Trinity, which are actually wrong theologically, but they're very popular. And so that's kind of misunderstood. And it's missing. We talk about it once a year. That's about it because of the other two reasons, because it's mystical and misunderstood. And so, you know, I'll try to do better. So we'll talk about it today, but we'll try to pepper it in from from time to time going forward.

[1:18] If you there's a history around the Holy Trinity that we're not going to go into right now. But we did say the Nicene Creed this morning. And if you want an idea of a. Of an Orthodox doctrine of the Nicene Creed of the Holy Trinity, the Nicene Creed, which is printed in your bulletin, is a good place to start because it reflects the church's understanding at a certain point in time of how the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit coexist on our interrelated. But but the scholarship has gone far beyond that since that time. But that's the beginning. So my goal today isn't to even go into all that history or to talk about the Nicene Creed. But only to give you one glimpse of how the Trinity works in one passage of scripture. And it's not by far it's not the only passage of scripture, but there are many. But this is just a window into the Trinity in one passage of scripture today. And then there will be other Sundays where we'll be able to look at the Trinity through other passages of scripture. But that, again, is how we would look at this is while the Nicene Creed is a wonderful creed, it is a product of human work, whereas scripture itself. And this is a great covenant question. Scripture says, where is it written?

[2:30] And so we go to scripture to try to understand the Trinity. So our scripture thus is from John chapter 16. This is in the middle of what we call the farewell discourse. This is the night before Jesus is betrayed. He's at the Last Supper with his apostles. And so there's a lot happening in the farewell discourse. There's so much happening, like there's a high priestly prayer over them. There's teaching. There's the bread, the cup, all of that's happening. And as if it weren't enough, there's a brief window into the Holy Trinity in this farewell discourse. And what, pardon me, what Jesus tells them and where we're going to kind of work a lot today is that there are things that they are not yet ready to hear. So I want us to kind of just think about that. There are things that he's talking to them about a lot of things. But he says, you know what? All besides all the things that I'm saying now. There are other things. There are other things that I can't tell you right now because you are not ready to hear them. But the Spirit will listen to me and he will tell you at the right time when you are ready to hear it. So that's kind of how this is working. And then Jesus says, all those things that I'm going to tell the Spirit, they belong to the Father and the Father speaks them through me.

[3:53] And thus, so you see already that we have the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in action in this short passage. That's kind of sort of the preview of our reading. So listen to sort of how the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are interrelated in this reading. And the reading is only four verses. So let's go to the reading now. It's John chapter 16 verses 12 through 15. And it reads like this. Jesus says, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

[4:26] When the Spirit of truth comes. He will guide you into all the truth for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears. And he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me because he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. For this reason, I said to you, he will take what is mine and declare it to you. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this word.

[4:58] And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Well, I want to tell you just a little bit about this word in verse 13. And it says you cannot bear it now. You kind of put some emphasis on that. And that word there is an idiom in Greek. And it works exactly the same as the idiom would in English. Now, it actually means to be able to carry something like a heavy load. Like, can you lift a 50 pound weight? Then you can bear it along. You know, you can bear it. You can hold it. You have the capacity to lift it and do something with it. And that's exactly how this works. So this is a word about a physical load. But it also is a word about sort of an intellectual load or a capacity to hear, understand, and act on something. So it all works together. It's kind of cool. The reason the idioms both work in the same language is because, most likely, because Greek and English are both, you know, from the same language families. And so a lot of idioms translate from one language to another.

[6:04] When I was a child, I was very interested in what I could and could not lift. Do you remember this from your childhood? You know, you see other people picking things up. And you're like, I want to try picking that up. And so I would see my dad pick up bricks in the backyard. He liked to do work in the backyard. And I would try to pick up bricks or a hammer. And then I'd say, Papa, show me your muscles. And, you know, he would go like. And in actuality, they weren't that big because he was not like a bodybuilder or anything. But he was a big, strong man, you know. And they weren't that impressive. But to me, they were like, wow, look at all that he can do. And he could pick me up. You know, he could lift up heavy rocks. He could move branches, things like that. And I would say, when can I pick up as much as you? You know, when can I bear? I wasn't saying it this way. But when will I be able to bear what you can bear? And he would say, well, someday. And then, of course, there is a sort of obligatory, you know what we would say, right?

[7:02] Who knows what he would say? You have to eat your vegetables, of course. You know, if you eat your vegetables, I was like, I hate vegetables. He's like, well, then you won't ever be able to pick up what I can pick up.

[7:14] I guess I ate my vegetables because I did become as big as him or bigger than him. A little bit more about that later. So what I want you to do, though, now is imagine yourself in that room. With the disciples and with Jesus. This is a very intimate moment. Here he is at the Last Supper. They set aside a space. The meal is there. The cup is there. The bread is there. It's broken. It's given to them. And Jesus is saying one thing after the other. Beautiful things. If you want to look for a lot of the quotable parts of John, you go to the Farewell Discourse. It's kind of cheating, though, too, because that whole section about the Last Supper is like almost a third of the entire gospel. It's a huge section. So there's a lot in there. But what is he doing here? He's praying over them. This high priestly prayer. And I don't think, I mean, you think if we just prayed for Caleb and somebody has prayed for you, hopefully, in your life. Your parents prayed for you when they put you to bed. I pray for my son, Asher, when we put him to bed every night. He wants a parachute, which is when you lift the sheets high in the air and you let them kind of, an air bubble sort of forms underneath and it flows out. He loves that.

[8:26] And I have to do about that like five times. Before bedtime can actually happen. And then we say a prayer and we sing a Norwegian lullaby, you know. And, but this, imagine how intimate. I don't think anyone has ever felt such a prayer prayed over them as the apostles did that night. Because it was Jesus himself praying for them, asking God to bless them, asking God to sustain them, asking God, probably asking God to help them learn what they need to do. Ask for his blessing. Ask for his blessing. Ask for his blessing. Ask for his blessing. second. This is a delayed gratification that we didn't sign up for this. Will you please tell us now so that we don't have to wait to find out what it is? But he doesn't. The answer is no, you are not ready. You cannot bear it right now. You don't have the capacity to carry it. You don't have the capacity to act on it or understand it. And I can just imagine the disciples saying, well, what else could there be? He's been talking for an hour. You know, what else could he have to tell us? Well, it turns out there's quite a bit, right? How many more mysteries are there yet to unlock? And they would say, just tell us now. We can take it. And he's like, no, you can't. But,

[10:06] he said, the Spirit will guide you into this truth when I am God. And he will say to you the things that he hears. So in effect, I will still be speaking to you, which is kind of cool. He's saying almost... And the Spirit is wonderful in all of itself. But in this sense, when Jesus is describing the Spirit, the Spirit is almost like a telephone. Now, in other places, the Spirit has great other roles as an advocate and as a comforter and as a friend. But in this case, the Spirit is relaying, will relay to them what Jesus has to say. The Spirit doesn't speak on his own in this case. Now, there are other cases where the Spirit does have volition and acts on his own. So we're beginning to see that the concept of the Trinity is complex. And one scripture alone will never describe it. That's why we have to go to all the different scriptures to kind of build sort of a cohesive theology of the Holy Trinity.

[11:02] Now, I have a choice for us now. And I want you to think about this, maybe even vote. Okay? We have two choices. I'll lay them out for you. One is that we don't know what these other things are that Jesus wants to say. And we won't know them either. And we don't know them. Okay? Like, these are mysteries that were only spoken to the disciples at some other time. And they're going to go down as a mystery of all the ages. It's like the Da Vinci Code, right? If you could somehow find them, you could sell a million books. Like, these are this secret knowledge that Jesus says, you're not ready for it, but you'll get it. And the first choice is they got it and they didn't tell anybody about it. They didn't write it down. It was just for them. Okay? That's choice one. Choice two is that we do know what these things are, that they couldn't bear yet. Because they did decide to share them with us. So let's go. Who thinks choice one is right? Who think. Let me do it. I'll do it backwards. Who thinks choice two is right? Okay. Almost everybody. Who thinks choice one is right? Nobody. Who doesn't know. Who doesn't want to answer. Okay. That's good. All right. Good. Good. Good. We don't know. Right. So here's the answer. I mean. Some of you who didn't want to choose.

[12:16] I think you're the wisest of the bunch. But I think. Okay. who chose number two are like the second wisest of the month. Sorry to rank you like that. It's okay. You'll live. You'll live, I think. We don't know because nowhere does it record in John, oh, by the way, these are the things that we couldn't bear yet, but now we can bear them. Nowhere does it say that, right? Nowhere does they call, sort of call back to this story and say, by the way, these are the things that were left out because we weren't ready for them. But I think, I think, and this is just an opinion, so my first response is, I don't know. I can't choose between one and two. But if you were to force me to choose, I would choose two. And the reason is, I think it has to do with, let me kind of go back a second.

[13:05] I think it's two. I think we know what it is, and the clue is because it has to do with the ministry of the Holy Spirit, right? I think since it's the Spirit, that is going to tell them what they're not ready to hear yet, then we probably would want to link it to Pentecost, right? We would probably want to link it to later parts of the Acts of the Apostles. After they were ready to hear it, then the Spirit starts speaking to them a lot. If you read Acts, the Spirit is often speaking to them, particularly at Pentecost, right? And so what I want us to do is ask ourselves, what is it that, increases their ability to bear, to carry this truth that they're not ready for yet? And this isn't just an intellectual exercise, because this has to do with us. The question I want us to be thinking about even now is, what is it that we are not yet ready to bear, and what do we need to experience so that we can begin to bear it? What truth are we not yet ready for, and how will we be prepared so that we can hear the Spirit speak the things that we need to hear? And so, what is it that we then are ready for? Because those things that we're ready for, we need to know, because they'll enable us to do things that God has yet to call us to do, okay? So this is not

[14:23] trivial in my mind. There are, you know, there are, even now, I think there are many times that we cannot bear to hear something, even if it's true, right? So people in denial, this is especially true of them, but all of us are kind of live this way. Like, there are some things we just don't want to hear yet. And for an example, parents have more to say than their children. And so, if they're ready to say something today to their young children, then their children can bear, because they're not ready, right? They're not ready. So you're waiting. I'm waiting for the right time to have some conversations with each of my three children, and it depends on how old they are, and not even how old they are, how sort of how developed they are. And I want to pick the right time to tell them the next thing. So they're not ready to hear everything. The funny thing is that teenagers, I'm talking about teenagers now, have more things to say than parents can bear to hear. Amen? Like, you don't have to be a parent to hear everything. You don't have to be a parent to hear. Okay. No. No. Okay. No. No. Don't want to hear. Don't want to hear it. And, you know. And that's also denial. Like, I, you're just still my little baby. I don't want to hear this. Yeah. So,

[15:23] but, but when you're older, when you're older, and you're, and your teenager's older, not a teenager, then you can hear those stories. You'll be able to hear it, you know. I told my dad about how I burned down a neighbor's fence six years after it happened. And he's like, I'm glad you told me. That was wrong. I'm glad you told me. And I forgive you. You know. But if I had told him in the moment. Oh man, it would have been, we could just laugh about it. Fire department came and everything.

[15:51] Anyway, yeah, we blamed it on some other kids. I don't know what the deal was. I was a bad kid. I wasn't ready to bear the truth and neither was my dad, you know. And it's interesting because my friend's dad was there and he couldn't bear the truth. Because he said, have you guys been playing with matches, right? And we're like, no, it was these big kids playing with matches. We tried to stop them, but they were too big for us. And it was so unbelievable.

[16:18] And he went, uh-huh. But you know what? He acted like he believed us because he didn't want to discipline his own son. He wanted to believe. You know, it's very interesting, right? So that was a truth he couldn't bear at that moment. He should have called my parents up, you know, that afternoon and said, guess what? You know, we have a lot of punishment to pass out right now. But, you know, the courage wasn't there. And I get that as a parent.

[16:46] So I want to start with what it is that increases the ability of the disciples, right? And I think in this Last Supper, in this sort of farewell discourse, the disciples are still being prepared. But they're not ready. It's clear that they're not ready for a lot, right? They don't pass. They don't pass hardly. They don't pass hardly any tests this night. Now think about this, right?

[17:17] Judas follows through on betraying Jesus, right? That's a failure. The rest of them show themselves to be completely lacking in courage, except for John, perhaps, right? They all run away when things get dangerous, right? They're always forgetting that Jesus said he was going to be raised from the dead. Like some of them, if they had truly been listening the whole time, they should have been said, okay, this is all playing out like Jesus said. I don't really need to worry right now. Because it's all going to work out like he said three times. But they don't remember. So they're not ready, right? But I think them failing was important. Now hear me out. The failure they had to experience. They had to experience their own failure. They had to be disappointed in themselves. They had to lose hope, actually. They had to lose hope in themselves, and they had to lose hope in Jesus. So the crucifixion, I would say, got them halfway. The preparation for what they couldn't bear was halfway done with the crucifixion. And the other half was the resurrection, okay? So the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus was what then prepared them to start hearing what they weren't able to hear. Jesus forgave them. He appeared to them afterwards.

[18:34] He forgave them for running. He forgave them for doubting. He forgave them for losing hope. And they had to be. This is the important thing. They had to be completely broken down before they could be built up again into the people that Jesus needed them to be so that they could do the things that the Spirit enabled them to do at Pentecost and beyond. Brick by brick, they had to be rebuilt the right way. This metaphor is from Jesus. Remember what he said about himself? He said, tear down this temple and it will be rebuilt in three days. The disciples had to be torn down. The disciples had. They had to be built up again. They needed to experience the crucifixion and resurrection to be ready to hear the next thing. They needed to be die. They need. Pardon me. They needed to die and be raised themselves.

[19:25] So I want us to finish now. I want us to get close to finishing. The Spirit will tell them, and I think at Pentecost, what they cannot now hear. So this is how the Trinity is beginning to work together. And it will cause them to bear what they cannot. They cannot now carry. Right? They will be the ones. This is interesting. They will be the ones imprisoned and beaten and tortured. They weren't ready for that. But once they start speaking by the power of the Holy Spirit, all sorts of terrible things start happening to them. They end up getting thrown in prison. They end up getting tortured. They end up getting beaten. All of them, it seems, end up getting martyred. Right? If we. Not all of them as recorded, but true tradition has almost all of them being martyred. Except for John, probably.

[20:09] And so when we read Acts. We see story after story of people who look almost nothing like their former selves. Like you could be forgiven if you read Luke and then you read Acts. And all the same people are in both books. But you would say these don't seem like the same people. These are different people. They act really differently. Like Peter has so much more courage in Acts than he has in Luke. Right? A lot more. All of them are better versions of themselves. In the Gospels, they're always saying dumb things.

[20:39] Like, Lord, do you want us to call down fire? And burn this town? Because they rejected. And he's like, no. And they pull out a sword. And he says, put your sword away. I mean, all this idea. Like, let's be violent. Let's get ahead with violence. Let's do that. And Jesus is like, no. No. But they don't say that in Acts. They don't say things like that. They're healing people. They're preaching the Gospel. They have power of the Spirit. It's amazing. They're not. So the actual reality is they're not the same people. They've been deconstructed and reconstructed into people who are ready to bear what the Spirit. Has to say to them. Right?

[21:13] So Jesus tells them that they're going to change. And the Spirit will take whatever he hears from the Son. And the Son has everything that the Father has. And so God is. He's pouring his power into the disciples. And it takes the Trinity to do it. So like I said, this is just one window into the Trinity. And it's an incomplete window. But it's our window for today. Right? So if we want to describe the Trinity here, it would be like this. And if you're taking. You know, you can write this down. And I'll say it twice so you can write it down. If we want to describe the Trinity based on this passage, it would be like this.

[21:49] The Spirit enables us to bear all that the Father wants to give us through the Son. That's the Trinity in this passage. Right? I'm going to say that again in case you want to write it down. The Spirit enables us to bear, to carry, all that the Father wants to give us through. The Son. Okay? That's just the Trinity in a nutshell based on John chapter 16, 12 through 15. So now what about us? And I said we want to come back to us. Right? In time, it takes time. It takes a lot of things. In time, we can bear more. Right? I wasn't able to lift all the things that my father could. Right? One day I thought I would surprise him when I got bigger by trying to pick him up. Who here has picked up their mom or dad? Yeah. Yes. And I, yes, this is awesome. Yeah. Once they get big enough, they're like, I think I can pick up my dad. Right? So I picked up my dad. And it wasn't that hard. It was pretty easy, you know. And he was so surprised. He was like, what?

[22:58] And the day my children pick me up, I will probably be the same way. You know? And I was surprised. I was surprised. And I'll tell you this. This is on a different vein. I was able to carry my mother as well. But I never actually picked up my mother physically. But I'll tell you this. Later in life, and some of you remember this, as she became ill, we would take turns visiting her in hospice and taking care of her. And I would sit by her bedside and I would sing hymns to her in Norwegian, which is her native language. Right? And at some point, you take care of the people who took care of you. This is part of your transition into later adulthood is you take care of them. The person who used to take care of you. Not everybody has the blessing to do this, though, obviously. Right? But at some point, you take care of the people who took care of you. And you know what? I'll be honest. I was only just barely able to bear my mother. I'm the youngest. I'm the baby. I'm the one who didn't want to send her to hospice. I'm the one that said, let's try more medical things. Let's keep her alive. Even though she had said, you know, I'm ready. I just want to go and be with your father. You know? I want to go and be with the mother.

[24:09] The Lord. And so I was only barely able to actually carry my mother in those last days, those last weeks. Right? And so I think that there's things like that God prepared me for, and I was just barely able to do it. And I think even that got me to the next stage where there's something that I have yet to learn and do. Now I can bear more. And there might be some. But I think there's other tasks besides taking care of my mother. So we've had a child go through surgery. We've had other. I've gone through surgery. I think God keeps giving us bigger tasks and he gives us the one we need in the moment that we can just barely do. So he's always preparing us. And I think the Spirit is part of this. Okay? So for us, think about, think about you. What challenges have you had? What's next? What are the next exciting things that God is preparing you even now that you can't do yet, but you will be able to do when it comes? Okay?

[25:11] So this is for us. This is all for each of us. The Trinity, and we don't hear it this way often, is one way that God prepares us for ever increasing challenges in life. The Trinity is one way that God prepares us for ever increasing challenges in life. The Spirit enables us to bear all that the Father wants to give us through the Son. And it takes one thing, just like it did the disciples, right? We really aren't ready. We really aren't ready. We really aren't ready for this until we've experienced, just like the disciples, the crucifixion and the resurrection.

[25:47] We have to experience crucifixion and resurrection, not just of Jesus, but of ourselves. But of ourselves, right? Jesus says, Whoever would be my disciple must take up their cross and follow me. We are not ready for the great things that God has for us through the Son communicated by the Spirit until we die to ourselves. We are not ready for the great things that God has for us through the Son communicated by the Spirit until we die to ourselves. And we're raised again until the temple is torn down brick by solitary brick and then painstakingly put back together again the right way. If you want to pray a prayer that God will always answer, like right away, is God break me and put me back together again. And I think that if every time I've prayed that and I've meant it, God obliged it right away. Like that's, you know, he says, anything that you ask of in my will, I will grant it. That's always in God's will. To be deconstructed and built up again.

[26:41] And until we do that, then we're not ready for the next thing. God wants to do great things through you. God wants to do great things through us. I think this is the answer to what's going on in the world even right now. Like the world is so broken and it seems like it's more broken than it's ever been. But I know that's not true because it's still humans in the world. But it just feels that way to me. But what is the antidote to that? One is to ignore the world and run from the world and make an enclave away from it all. And just ignore it. But the other is to create a community here of people who have been broken and rebuilt and transformed. Who can bear more and more and more things. And these people in communities like ours go out into the world. And change the world. Actually, I'm sounding a little pie in the sky right now. But I really mean it. Like to be an influence for God and the world with this incredible carrying capacity that we don't even have yet. That the Trinity puts into us. So the Trinity is very missional too. And if you want to, is that right Wendy? Like people talk about world missions and they'll always talk about the Trinity as like a super missional driving force of Christian ministry and mission in the world.

[27:54] It's amazing. And that's a topic for another time. So the Trinity wants to prepare you for something that you cannot yet do so that you can go out into the world and be salt and light in this brokenness. Alright? And some of you are ready to do that now. And some of you aren't ready to do that now. Some of you need to be broken. Some of you haven't asked to be broken. Some of you haven't been rebuilt yet. And some of you have been rebuilt.

[28:22] And it's in your bulletin I want to offer this now. After the service right up here. One or two deacons will be here. If you want to pray. If you want to talk. If you want to just tell them about that. I want to be broken but I don't know what to ask for. I feel like God has something big in my life that I need to be ready for but I don't know what to do. We'll pray with you. Come on up here after the worship service. After everybody else. Get a piece of cake and then come back in here. One of the deacons will talk to you. They'll pray with you. Because not all of us are in the same place. Not all of us are ready to bear what the Spirit has to give us and tell us. But for those who are, you can't sit around anymore. And I'm not saying that you are. In a few weeks you're going to Liberia. In a few months you'll be back where you need to be. And all of us are going to be going out into this world. So I'm not accusing anybody of not following through on this. But I want to remind you that you've been given the capacity to carry this Word that you couldn't bear earlier in your life. And that is preparing you for a big challenge that God is going to put in your way. And you need to rise to that challenge with the power of the Spirit.

[29:31] That's what all this preparation is for. And so the Trinity in this life. In just this little four verses is telling you to increase your capacity to carry what God will do through you and to take it out into the world. That's all you need to remember for today. Increase your capacity to carry what God wants to give you to take out into the world. Let's pray. Father, thank you again for your Word. Thank you for the Holy Trinity. Teach us about it more in the future. Help it guide us in what we do. Send us out into the world. As people who can bear and carry what you have for it. In Jesus' name, Amen.